Saria sat on the sandy shore, the details of her last fight coming back to her. She felt the familiar insanity, the alien architecture surrounding her, seemingly closing in on her as the brawl went on, and the little girl who transformed herself into a towering, bulbous mass of wretchedly terrible flesh and sinew.  

Who knew that transforming into an even bigger, slower monster was a bad idea? Saria could practically read Cythla’s attacks like a book, and could attack the monster with ease. The only downside was that killing her took upwards of half an hour, slicing at the flesh and dodging attacks, eventually making so many cuts to the thing’s head and eyes that it simply died. 

After killing her, Saria recalled stumbling out of the massive room and back into the alien city, tripping and falling on the non-euclidean stones. She didn’t recall how long she was there, but she remembered her mind starting to turn on her, wanting her to turn the red blade on herself. She resisted these urges, and persevered until she miraculously ended up back at her boat. 

She had never rowed so fast in her life. 

By the time she’d gotten back to shore, her mind was still scrambled; the only thing carrying her along was the drive to get away from that… place. The puzzling part was, however, the fact that once she had gotten back to shore, she turned to look at the city, but it simply wasn’t there. Not even a shimmer.

Expectedly, this whole ordeal only heightened Saria’s fear of the water. 

Now, with the phylactery buzzing to life, Saira heard the familiar voice yapping through its microphone, talking about such things as “explosions”, “echoes”, and “factions”. The voice also mentioned artifacts the other warriors received, but Saria never received any such artifact. 

[i]Most likely landed somewhere in the water, or maybe even the strange city. Oh well, I’ll have to make do without one, I suppose.[/i] 

She also noticed that the beach was now positively flooded, the docks only about a foot above water. She turned towards the city, its massive buildings higher than anything Saria had ever seen back in her time. The roads were flat, not a speck of dust present. Bright colors flashed out at her, various signs and posts advertising pointless things. 

She heard the announcer say something about “linking” phylacteries so that the warriors could talk to each other preemptively. Saria couldn’t pass up on such a tempting opportunity. 

[i]To know an opponent was to take control of them, and using the information gained, the warrior may commence building their battle plan.[/i] 

Saria recited the quote from the Silverlocke War Manual, a book ingrained into the fibers of her very being. It was, in essence, the Silverlocke Bible because they had studied it so much to the point of it being their entire belief system, unable to be shaken from her soul. 

She clicked the Phylactery, hearing another buzz. 

“Link my phylactery to my opponent’s.” 

The word “phylactery” seemed to dance on her tongue, but at the same time twisted it. She waited for an answer, but at this point, there was only one thing to do, and that was to go deeper into the city and explore. Most likely, her opponent walked the streets, the same as her.