With quiet pride, he followed his wife through the third door. Coming to her side, he flashed her a grin before seizing the chain she held and pulling with all his might.

---

The path that may ask everything of you, the Visitor says, but Midge is already lunging for the Third Door. Her survival is paramount. But sometimes, the riskiest option is the most direct line to that end. The danger of this door doesn’t mask the likelihood of it being the source of all of this, the year-long crises that had gripped this world that had kidnapped her. The huntress’ paws hit the ground on the other side of the Door, and magic surrounds her. It is so thick here, it is as if she has been plunged deep underwater. Her lungs struggle to fill, her bones feel leaden, her ears fill with cotton.

At the epicenter, a wolf is bound.

His teeth are bared. His eyes clouded with agony beyond words. He has been abandoned to this fate. Given up by his pack to endless silence, endless torture, endless claustrophobic imprisonment. It is the fate that haunts her deep as her marrow, the living death that Midge would commit atrocities to avoid. Once, she was in his place. Caged unwillingly, unfairly, only freed by the compassion and courage others would muster.

It might kill her. It might kill everyone in this world.

The huntress’ paws were already in motion, her instinct spurring her to action long before her mind had determined her conclusion. She surged into action alongside the other gathered wolves, pressing her pelt against theirs to shore them up. They were pack for now. They would move as one. And if the Bound One chose to burn this world to ash when he was free, so be it. She clasped her jaws around a burning chain with a strangled snarl, lifting her gaze to the bound wolf’s. She had broken her chains. She’d break his. He’d feel the sun on his skin, the wind in his fur, the reach of his limbs without limitation.

He was one of her own, now.

| skill

The latest dream is perhaps the most disturbing. Lian watches alongside the Visitor in horrified silence as the Bound One is abandoned to his fate. She listens in habitual elegant repose as the Visitor describes his failures. It is only the training of a lifetime that keeps her from flinching or gaping in horror.

It is a tragedy. Her heart cries out for the wolves involved. To have such terrible things happen to them was bad enough. To be trapped, reliving it, unable to move on or reconcile or find peace, for years upon years? Yes, no wonder this world was plagued. But no more. No longer. The Celestial Dragon, the Heavens themselves, had brought her and the Tianlong here. Just in time to establish their Dynasty, and just in time to finally bring harmony back into the world. It was her duty to step through the Third Door. She gave the Visitor a parting glance. I promise, you will be able to rest soon - and thank you. She hoped she did not see him again, for that would mean that whatever happened through the threshold of this door would, hopefully, mean success.

Lian stepped through to chaos. The Bound One howled and thrashed against his restraints, while a mass of wolves surged to try to free him. Good. She did not see any Tianlong among their numbers yet, but these wolves had good souls. The Lotus’ expression blossomed with sympathy and mercy as she sought the Bound One’s attention. Or at least his ear, for but a moment: We’ve come to free you. There was no other choice in her mind. Her father…Shenlei might have wanted to destroy the threat, she thought. Certainly, older Emperors would have tried without second thought. But Lian hoped for a brighter, kinder future. She did not just hope - she’d take risks to make it happen, even if the world, the abject terror in her heart at this warped creature’s gnashing fangs, demanded she take a different path.

You will have peace. You only have to wait a moment longer. He had held on this long. Only a little longer, she hoped, would be an assurance that would grant some balm to his aching soul. Graceful paws carried her forward. Lian did not trust the Bound One’s snarling visage, no matter how much she wanted to unchain his strangled throat. Instead, she set her attention upon the chains digging into his once-injured leg. She would try to loosen their grasp on the wolf’s limb, with careful movements and trembling paws.

She is well acquainted with the dreams and the Visitor by now. Solulfur bares her teeth at him in lieu of greeting. She has learned it is not his fault entire that this world is so set on her destruction. And yet, too much of the blame lies with the ghost to spare him her ire. Still, these visions are vital. She watches coldly, the empathetic connection trying and failing to convince her heart to flutter with sympathy.

The air itself splits like a wound, revealing three new paths to walk. Solulfur can only choose one. Gold eyes level themselves at the Visitor.

She is not blind to the doomed circumstances that arranged themselves to cause this tragedy. But she is not blind to the lasting consequences it has wrought on her life, her loved ones. She cannot change what happened. Punishing the Visitor changes nothing. The only thing Solulfur can do is step through the Third Door and put an end to this. A slight nod is the only goodbye she offers the Visitor, before she steps through the portal.

The magic is suffocating here. The Bound One wails and snarls, reminding her of the maddened rage that gripped the Reykblindur. But it is the madness of centuries of agony. The magic had formed and reformed him, as the Visitor said; like a warped version of the transcendental passing-on her Afi had experienced. Is the Bound wolf even alive - or a tortured spirit? If he is, will he cause more damage free than if Solulfur simply aims to kill him? She cannot make the wrong decision. If she does, it puts the lives of all those she loves on the line.

The Sun-wolf thinks of her ancestors, the spirits that watch over her and will one day welcome her into their number. She must prove herself worthy of their ranks; live her life with honor, with strength.

But Solulfur knows there are many kinds of strength. Her own strength is only partly rooted in the power of her fangs. A coward only uses their words to fight. A fool only uses their brawn to control. The Black Sun uses both.

There is strength in mercy, especially now, and it is a hard choice for the fra Nordri. She would prefer to stain the blue-hued stone wine-red with the Bound One’s blood. She would prefer to hear the death gurgle to know in her heart with absolute assurance that she is at last safe. That her closest comrades are at last secure. But even if there is no Visitor, no Bound one, no Mythris magic to cause calamity - danger will always find them.

This spirit deserves freedom. Solulfur does not think of what he deserves. She thinks of what marks her as worthy, to her. She thinks of what will give her the best chance of a future without abandoning the values of her heritage, and the values of those she’d come to cherish. It didn’t matter what the Bound One deserved. But Solulfur deemed, with reluctance, that she felt it worthy of her time to risk freedom over bloodshed. She slipped her shoulders beneath one of the chains and began to try to pull it free of the stone.

Skill:

---

MURK ME

---

"We are following the moon for the morning star
Guided by the crow
We are following our Lord, through the evil dark
For the gift of being chosen”

---

The demon had come to Mythris in search of the unknown, he'd found nothing thus far but disappointment and the dreamscapes turned into nightmares. Were they nightmares though? These vivid visions running through his head? These doorways and portals that ripped through the airwaves before him? The spiraling of runes around the wolf before those portals had opened? What he saw through them lead hi to amazement and he decided to step through the third portal.

Once there he saw a wolf chained and shouting, howling and baying, and he saw a white wolf attacking the beast while many others tug at the chains. Astarot would take careful steps towards the white wolf and the dream wolf before debating his movements. He'd never been one to choose freedom over death. This would time not be any different.

Lunging forward with jowls splayed he aimed to destroy the thing that lay shackled before him.

Liss wept for the wolf in chains. How could anyone not ache at their plight — an eternity waiting in pain and fear for a rescue that never came? Hoping to be found by family that had given you up.

It was a sad story. One she never wanted to tell. As a lost daughter herself, the princess spilled her cries to the sky on seeing a tragedy which had come to pass so many generations ago.

Even if it was not the same story. She would find her family, or they would find her, she knew it... Her fate would be different from this.

Adetunji's wrath darkened the sky. But soon Mother Sun would shine again and warm them with her benevolence. This was a test the wolves of Mythris would prove out by acts of mercy and mettle.

A wolf such as the one chained, Liss realized, must be closer to the gods than others. Perhaps snatched from the very heavens. Last survivor of a world beyond her ken, save those scraps of dreams which the Visitor granted them.

Her search for reunion must continue beyond today, by necessity. Here and now, she could reunite others who had been torn apart. In helping them, she might save herself too.

She joined the others tearing at the chains, but not before trying to reach for him with an embrace. Salt stained the glow of ancient fur, They didn't forget you! They were scared, too. But they sent us, now! And we're here to help, please! Just let us help! You can be with them, again.

---

you can kill him if you want i think it would be funny

So many were coming together, to help this man that had been left behind.

He felt a kinship with the bound wolf.

Killing us would only make your thirst stronger he spoke as the man snarled at him, and the seer was sure that he was far past the point of understanding words. What would it give you? Besides the stink of corpses left to rot, would you feel better? Others were tearing at chains, as he stood, recognition in his eyes as he saw his grandmother, that woman that he's fought with twice now, and....Dimitri? No, one of Valeska's other children, an uncle.

Destroying the world would just leave you empty in the end

He had a choice to make.

They both did.

But Vitus went to one of the chains at last.

Warrior

She was just a babe, she shouldn't be here. Not even 4 months old yet, but when she woke to the doors she just felt like she had to do something. So, the moss coated Tyra charged onward, brave and strong (for her age) and good.

But these things around the angry man...were weird, she could hear

But she charged in with some white wolf that reminded her enough about her mother to make her feel braver, Creole, following the man's lead in trying to kill the angry thing with teeth that were still mostly baby teeth.

She's done it with half dead weasels Baal had brought her, it can't be that much harder?

---

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Xiaobo arrived in the frigid place with a thump, his eyes scanning everyone and he had to make a choice. Do or kill... He decided to do. So with a leap he threw himself into the fray and began to yank and hard as he could on one of the chains. His eyes shut tight with determination.

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