Reva and the Expedition - Part II (Patron Reward) (Patreon)

[The following story is a reward for a patron. Thank you so much for your support!

The following is an original story featuring the fantasy setting and characters of the commissioner. The story features two 30-meter tall women with divine abilities; contains themes of growth/growing out of clothes/nudity; implied vore; initially unaware; feet/trampling; handheld; ass/butt crush; rampage/battle.]

Even when she opened her eyes, all that could be seen was the dark, and all that could be felt was the cold. If it were not for drips of snow drumming onto her head, Reva may have assumed she was completely dead. Miraculously, she was still alive – alive enough that the blood rushed to her head, for she was posed upside-down, partially entombed within a bed of snow. The cold seeped right through her, but she found the reserve of stamina to begin twisting into motion, shivering as she gradually worked and slid her way out from the icy trap. After freeing herself, Reva still felt too heavy to move, until she sensed a low tremor, a vibration that ran up the rocky floor and walls of the fissure she had fallen into.

The goddess Sepentria, the witch remembered, connecting the quakes to that towering, stomping queen of the tundras. The shaking was rhythmic like footsteps, heavy enough to crack and cringle the ice built up along the stones, a noise that implied the crushing strength of the giant. Reva flinched and pressed herself against a rocky wall; she found it was too icy to climb, even assuming she could scale such a height while fatigued as she was. The fissure she had fallen into was dauntingly deep, but she was presumably safe from Sepentria’s watch – the others, however, could not be assured of.

Reva’s head slumped forward, dropping a sigh from her mouth. “Damned expedition…” she growled, regretting the choices that brought her into such a dangerous scenario. Though the witch had braved monsters and magicians alike as a mercenary, she had never gone against a goddess before, and unfortunately, the stories of Sepentria’s wickedness were no exaggerated tavern tales. The memories of her companions being devoured by that monster made her fingers curl tight; “I should cut her stomach open,” Reva thought aloud spitefully, “and make her regret ever thinking she could–”

“Aaiiiihhhh!! Hah– No, nooo!!” A faraway shriek, yet its sharpness was carried across that vague distance; a woman’s scream, unquestionably that of an expeditioner. Hauntingly, no noise followed after, except for the continued whipping of the wind. No sounds of struggle, but the absence of any voice was nonetheless deafening.

“R-... Rose…” Reva worried, thinking of the few women within the expedition it could have been, but dreading the possibility that it was the short-haired healer that had fascinated her all on that journey. It was painful to believe it was anyone at all among them that was silenced, another of their own eaten alive, but Reva thought of Rose especially, that brightness and empathy – ingloriously made into a meal. If it was not Rose that had been taken, then it would soon be her time; Reva had to act fast to save her, but that would only be if she could find a path out of the fissure.

Willing a small fire from her palm, Reva produced enough light to see only one path forward. She navigated across the unlevel ground of the fissure’s depths, eventually having to enter a cramped tunnel that continued underground. Though skeptical of where it would take her, she had no other option, and thus explored ahead, ever wary of where Sepentria could be aboveground. As she traveled farther, the turns and corners disoriented her sense of direction; she was left to hope that by proceeding, she would eventually feel a touch of wind that would guide her to an exit.

Though while the air remained as stagnant as it had, the cavern around Reva gradually opened wider. The rocky walls were farther apart and the ceiling stretched higher overhead. She marveled at the location as she continued through it, but was stopped in awe when the light of her fire revealed an unusual development in the cave: a staircase of aged marble, a flight that rose into the ruins of abandoned architecture. Though worn down by time, it was otherwise an entire building designed underground – a hidden temple that was expansive, but empty.

Reva had no words, but a thousand thoughts that bounced without answers. She dared to explore inside, finding other remnants of the rituals that used to play out in some ancient time. The ruinous state suggested the place had collapsed underground, caving into the mountain it was established on some centuries ago with only some of its shape having managed to endure. Reva weaved around obstacles of rubble and toppled columns, gravitating towards the core of the temple – compelled in that direction after sensing the presence of magic.

The path forward was blocked by tall doors of stone that survived the lonely history. Reva shivered towards them and placed her palms flat against the cold surface; certainly unable to push it herself, she then willed force magic with what mana she had restored, generating raw power to open the doors. It took several castings before the doors were dislodged apart enough for the witch to proceed, their weight alone trying to protect the chamber from invaders. Yet Reva staggered inside, slowly coming to realize the importance of that place, and possibly the entire purpose for the temple.

She had entered upon a dome-shaped chamber, spanning wide and high – hollow, except for its most striking feature. It hung from the center of the ceiling, reaching low towards the floor and pointing to an altar beneath it. The silhouette put stillness in Reva’s approach: a woman, an angel perhaps, twisting upside-down from the sky, her arms stretched out in desperation. It was huge enough to be Sepentria – a nightmare scenario if that were the case – but it was actually a statue of obsessive detail, certainly expressing a myth that Reva was in no position to translate.

What did intrigue the witch was what the falling angel painfully reached for, that which was displayed on the altar that was just shy of her fingers. As Reva neared closer with her handheld flame, details of the sculpture were revealed. Age and collapse had weathered some of the edges with chips and cracks, but there was a distinct trail cutting through the stone. It slashed through the angel’s eyes to begin, then coursed around her face, her shoulder, and down her arm – like a shed tear that did not want to be lost. The tear, then, was what Reva found on the altar: a crystal vial that a blackness swirled inside of.

“...A potion?” Reva guessed, so curious that she almost forgot about the freezing temperature. The vial was definitely that which had been sensed as far as outside the underground temple, but what properties it held were unknown. Reva was well versed in potions, but she recalled nothing so black and inky, swirling unnaturally within its container – like a living thing of smoky tendrils, writhing even when nothing moved it. “I-It could be almost anything,” Reva remarked disappointedly. “And how long has it been down here…?”

But there was no doubt in her mind that the liquid was powerful, verily potent with magic strength of some kind. Her adventurer’s instinct had her loot the vial, deciding any boost it could provide would be needed in the fight ahead. She gave the liquid a slow rotation, watching the inky material swish and spin – having it in her fingers imbued an intense feeling of temptation.

Suddenly, a tremor ran through the dome, shivering loose debris and dust from its ancient ceiling. Reva shielded her head with an arm, remembering that Sepentria was still rampaging somewhere and putting the temple at risk. She assumed the goddess must have been stomping broadly overhead, giving chase to the other expeditioners – “I need to find a way out, dammit…!”

But the quakes grew suspiciously stronger, causing more of the chamber to crumble and creak. It was coming closer, Reva realized, a massiveness that sundered through layers of rock and ruins. Clouds of old dust danced through the hollow room, casting the witch into coughs; she stumbled across the rattling floor, knowing not where she was supposed to go, but resolving to keep the vial clutched tightly in her grasp.

A wall of the dome fissured, then collapsed open in a surprising crash of stone. Reva gasped and turned to the noise, her eyes strained to see through the fog at what had breached the core of the temple so urgently. She saw a limb struggling out of the collapse, breaking and widening the walls to be let in – an entrance accompanied by a howl of winter wind that turned the dust into snow mist. A deep cold poured into the chamber, chilling Reva’s feet first as she trembled past the altar and to the opposite side; already did she feel grabbed by Sepentria, the goddess that had arrived and unfurled to her proud height.

Her voice hissed into the chamber like cracking ice: “... It has been taken… Stolen… As I always predicted would happen with outsiders…” Her glacial eyes scanned the width of the room as it all turned blue with cold under her gaze. With nothing to hide behind, Reva was soon found, earning the most piercing of Sepentria’s glares. Fingers softly touched her stomach where she recalled being struck by the witch’s tricky magic; “You will face the guilt of your wrongs… No one will interfere… Nothing can change your fate now…!”

Reva fell pale with fear within Sepentria’s presence. High-heels made of ice clacked hard against the chamber floor as the goddess approached, an anger burning behind a deathly serious calm. The witch fumbled with thoughts to get away, but the scenario she found herself in was unlike any prior escapade. After falling down the fissure and traveling through the temple, Reva was too weak for battle, too exhausted to run; Sepentria had already proven superior in magic and might against the entire expedition, but in the chamber, Reva was alone and empty-handed – except, of course, for that which had lured Sepentria deep underground after her.

The winds began to rage, reflecting Sepentria’s emotions as she prowled closer – but that changed quickly when Reva held the vial out, brandishing the mystery concoction like a threat. The air settled into tense breezes that swirled around the domed chamber; Sepentria’s glare changed, flashed with surprise. Though Reva still backed herself into the corner of a blocked passage, she at least had that one token to play. She studied Sepentria’s reaction carefully, inferring well how important the item must be to her – important enough, she hoped, to make a wager.

“Don’t be coy…” Sepentria growled, her nose furrowing with disgust. “Do you forget that you are in my domain, little one? That arrogance in your eye – you wish to make a trade with a goddess, yet you know nothing of what you wield. I should execute you now–”

Reva unplugged the vial. The contents splashed, nearly spilled.

“You insect…!” Sepentria gasped with anger, but held herself where she was. Reva had her choked, but only in a stalemate. The goddess growled, “...That elixir is of divine significance… It is worth more than any kingdom of mortals…! For it to fall in human hands would spell disaster for your kind. That was the purpose of this temple, to keep the world safe from the horrors it could unleash…!” Reva blinked, but did not waver in how she held the vial loosely in her hand. “That elixir is for the tongues of goddesses – a potion to restore my health and strength, if something dire ever occurred. Such potency is without comparison. A human that were to ingest it would perish under the weight of its own power! They will succumb to corruption and act heartlessly until the magic overwhelms them. Make the wise decision, little one, and return that to me…!”

Reva listened well to Sepentria’s warning, and though she did affirm her grasp on the vial, she was not yet convinced. “Where are the others?” she demanded to know. “The expedition led by Starrberger – if you want your precious elixir back, then you’ll promise us safe passage back to Sophus–”

Sepentria laughed cuttingly; the winds roused with intensity and their temperature sank even lower. “Starrberger, hah! I had no mercy with him nor any of those pathetic souls…! You’re too late, human – you’re fortunate to still have your own life to gamble with!” The harshness of her words struck Reva into stillness; Sepentria took a slow step closer. “While you were trespassing and stealing, I was feasting upon your fellows that were scattered in the snow…! They were devoured, one by one, all of them fighting in vain~ You would be among them yourself, but destiny seems to oddly favor you – your life alone is all I can promise, if you simply return that vial to where it belongs…!”

Reva flinched, her hands curling coldly around the crystal vial. “All of them…?” she quoted the goddess, feeling the depth of those few words. Though many times she had witnessed companions battle and die, moving from one mission to the next without attachment, she had never known conditions where humans were eaten – devoured, that word rang in Reva’s head. She believed Sepentria’s cruelty would extend that far, leaving no survivors the chance to leave her country; it was a list of lives that all deserved better, but one name was too valuable to have been ended so wickedly. Rose, Reva winced, Rose… It shouldn’t have been like this…!

“Don’t risk another mistake, mortal…” Sepentria hissed, her presence looming close over Reva with another step closer. “This is a rare chance to keep your life. Now, the vial…!”

Reva looked down and away from the goddess. From where she kept the vial clutched to her chest, she extended it forward for both her and Sepentria to see. Then, Reva chuckled; “You’ve made a mistake,” she countered, grinning with bitter acceptance. “I’d give this up for my life… but you’ve taken away a very good reason I wanted to make it out of this expedition alive…!”

Unsure of anything – how it would affect her, how Sepentria would respond, how it would even taste – Reva resolved herself to the only fate she had control of. Rather than submit to Sepentria’s will, she decided to drink the goddess’s elixir and challenge its promise of impossible power. The strange blackness was downed in a single gulp, faster than Sepentria could interject. It was flavorless and thin, as if drinking an air rather than a fluid; Reva shivered, but the sensation was soon over, the vial’s contents completely swallowed. There was no evidence, however, that the elixir had changed anything about Reva – until, after a suspenseful moment of stillness, she felt a surge deep within herself, a sickeningly sudden jump of magical energy that dropped her to her knees.

Sepentria sensed that spike from where she stood over Reva, her eyes shot wildly wide over what had transpired. “Y-You fool!!” she spat. “I warned you! I offered mercy! How dare you defy me?!” The goddess knelt to the chamber floor, and with her claw-like hand, she lunged low at the witch to grab her. “Expel that elixir, or face an eternity of my wrath…!”

Though overwhelmed with a force she could not comprehend, Reva was nonetheless rejuvenated from the elixir, given a kickstart to use her magic once again. She had only a second to react as the huge hand came sweeping towards her; still disoriented from the effect, Reva let loose her most instinctive spell of fire, pushing both palms forward in a flustered casting. From her motion appeared nothing, not even smoke, at least at first – time slowed, magic swirled, and then– fwwooooossch!! An inferno manifested into existence, generated in a mighty blast of crimson light that consumed that half of the dome, its heat nullifying the cursed cold that followed Sepentria.

And in that howl of wildfire was a divine scream: “Nnnoooo-ooo-ooo!!” Sepentria flailed backwards as the spell spread all around her, retreating from the witch that she had been so close to capturing. She spun and lashed to try and rid the fires, but the spell was immensely strong and persistent, taking her by such surprise that she could not counteract the flames with her icy winds – she screamed again as she crashed to the floor, falling backwards into the passage she had debuted from. The magical fire began to fade, revealing a twitching, twisting Sepentria, saved from burns only by her innate radiance that resisted all elements.

Reva was agasp; though she certainly meant to launch a powerful spell, what she willed was beyond what she expected. The attack had been amplified by a frightening magnitude, explained only as a result of the elixir. She looked at her hands hesitantly, her knuckles tingling with an electric power that wanted to be pointed and released, an energy that was barely contained behind a queasy condition. Reva shambled along a broken wall for balance, too sick and surprised to celebrate her win over Sepentria. It choked her, mentally and physically, to feel so much magic rushing inside her – Reva worried that it was all too true that the drink was never meant for mortal throats.

A surge pushed within the witch, driving the desire to cast spells and exhale that excess power. Reva breathed rapidly as she conjured flames at her hands, a means to release – but when those fires had to burn bigger, she knew it was not enough to control the overwhelming sensation. She groaned, ending the flames and falling forward on her hands and knees; the eruptive energy had to expand, and so it did, growing its vessel that was Reva’s own body. Her clothes quickly tightened around her as she transformed without them, a restraint that her limbs snapped free from. With each layer of fabric broken, Reva felt that much more relieved and unbound, gradually growing to a scale that could control the overflowing magic of the elixir – a height that rivaled the goddess’s own.

The fires calmed into embers that marked Sepentria’s image where she seethed in her corner of the chamber. Her glare twitched with rage towards what she saw: a mortal woman, imbued with the incredible power of the vial. The witch had proven annoying enough at her normal size, but had since blown into a more obnoxious problem – it was a situation that made even Sepentria quake with uncertainty. Though she often had nightmares of her precious treasure being stolen, she never expected it to fall into the hands of someone so careless and wild. The more she stared at Reva, the more insulted she became, but that anger had to be withheld – long enough, at least, for a different environment.

“That power… is more than you can comprehend…!” Sepentria snarled at her dazed opponent. While doing so, she willed ice to crawl and climb up pillars of the chamber, gradually covering the stone supports. “This is for your own good… You must never be allowed to see the surface…!” Then, with a flick of a wrist, she commanded that ice to shatter, and so too did the pillars break. Without them to hold up the dome, the entire chamber quivered, both the ceiling and floor wanting to collapse into the rest of the underground temple. Cold dirt and debris trickled into the cracking tiles; Sepentria intended to bury Reva, leaving her while making her exit back through the cavern.

“Urh… W-Wait…!” Reva groaned, reaching up at Sepentria, but unable to dash at her like she wanted. Her enlarged size made her heavier and clumsier than she was used to, causing her to stumble forward rather than stand up; with so much sickness swirling inside her, she wanted to just lay there, but the rainfall of rocks against her back urged her to give chase. Reva growled as she lifted back up to her feet, finding plentiful amounts of energy within herself once she began searching for it; “Sepentria…! Get back here…!!”

A snow storm had swept into the night, flurries of winds carrying powdery white across distances, but in the trenches of an icy canyon, the freezing cold was still and dull. It was a wide fissure in the earth, a divide that branched from the mountain that the expedition had fatefully decided to stop at for the night. That old shelter was far behind them – those that had survived thus far, scrambling along the frozen floor of the canyon. They had endured an attack by Sepentria, and had expected her to finish them off when she was upon them again, but they were left alive for the time being – as alive as they could call themselves, staggering about in the deep cold.

Starrberger had not said a word since the efforts to regroup began, but his unbroken posture signaled him still as a leader. He stood with snow piled into his beard and brow, a lengthy stare pointed into the direction Sepentria had taken off to. Recollections of events sprang in his head as he tried to strategize around the goddess’s movements, beginning from when she cast that tornado into his crew. That spell had scattered them far apart into the mountain’s canyon, randomly separated and seeded into hills of snow along the depths. Soon after did they feel the tremors of Sepentria’s arrival and were thus spun into hiding, if they had the chance. When the goddess appeared, her judgment was dealt swiftly when she found a fumbled mage, plucking her out of the snow and swallowing her before a spell could be slung.

Everyone else expected Sepentria to rage on like she had at the mountain, including Starrberger, who took an aggressive stance against her. He drew his weapon and challenged her to a battle he knew he would lose, for the purpose of giving his team more of a chance to survive. But when Sepentria came near one thundering footstep at a time, she suddenly stopped, turned, and hurried elsewhere down the canyon. Starrberger assumed it was a trick and remained on edge, but after several long minutes of holding his ground, he realized she had truly left – and left behind were they, the diminished expedition stranded in the canyon.

In the wake of Sepentria’s disappearance, the remaining expeditioners showed themselves from the snow, gathering around Starrberger so he could commence a depressing headcount. Over the course of that one encounter, their numbers had been cleanly halved; no warriors, no mages, and only one healer left to recover the injured navigators and aids. Some were witnessed being devoured, while others were simply unfound, assumed to have suffered a similar fate or otherwise abandoned in the snow. What few were left of the expedition had an oppressive reality to face, with grim decisions to make; Starrberger was calculating the odds of anything they tried, him and everyone else aware that Sepentria could very well return and foil those plans in an instant.

Within that tension was an effort to make relief, as little of it as could be made. Rose worked diligently to assess wounds and supply remedies to the other expeditioners, preparing them for the next wave of obstacles they would surely face – whatever direction that would be in. She tried to keep spirits up with reassuring thoughts, but neither the aids nor navigators had anything to voice other than their worry, or a retelling of what occurred. All the while, Rose had her own injuries to think about, accrued from having been blown into the canyon and falling down its cliffs like a ragdoll, but she disguised those wounds as best she could, ensuring there was one less concern to plague the expedition with. She looked at Starrberger’s back; though he did not say it, she knew how vital her role as healer was, how hopeless they all would be if she were among those already slain.

But even Rose’s optimism had to admit how stark the situation was, having lost those they already had. The expedition was designed to be small and efficient, and so every person in the group mattered. It was thus especially unfortunate that the most talented among them had been vanquished. Rose tried not to dwell on any names while she performed her medical work, but she nonetheless wished things had happened differently – when she wished for any one of them to come back, she felt safest that it would be that red-haired witch that always had a trick up her sleeve.

A rumbling ran through the rocky terrain, causing lines of snow to shiver down the canyon walls. All faces turned down that path into the mountain, grimly familiar with the cause of those quakes; the nimblest among them instantly fled to the sides of the canyon, but Rose and her patient were too slow to move, left to hide behind Starrberger as he stood firmly where he was. The tremors grew harder and harder, and then a figure was seen ahead in the mist, huge and hurrying in their direction – the goddess Sepentria, whipped into an uncharacteristic frenzy with scar-like embers burning the edges of her image. Starrberger and the others of the expedition soon deduced that she was not charging at them, but that she was running away from something.

All the same, however, were Starrberger and Rose in the path of her storming footfalls. Realizing she was not intending to attack, Starrberger lost poise and ran to the side, trudging through the thick snow as fast as he could. Rose tried to pull her patient aside, but resorted to bunkering over his body for protection when the huge heels were then upon them. Fortunately for all of them, the speedy steps missed crushing anyone, instead causing geysers of snow to shoot up and cascade onto those she ran across. It was like dodging catapult attacks exploding around them, but the expeditioners survived and were rewarded with a spectacular closeness to the goddess, gawking up her tallness as she passed directly overhead.

It was only so many strides past the group that Sepentria slowed to a stop, clutching at her chest and breathing as loud as the winds. Her anger was heard in hisses and seen in her glare over her shoulder, looking back at whatever it was that gave chase. Fingers illuminated with blue light went around her body and caressed the flames that clung to her, stabilizing her condition and recovering from her burns. The ice of her outfit reformed and sharpened, but Sepentria’s emotions were unchanged, her scowl shown to the expedition as she turned around to face the other side of the canyon, and so too did they look that way, detecting a different rhythm of tremors following after the goddess – a second giant, arriving from the cold fog with slow, heavy steps.

Horror initially struck the confused expeditioners, struggling to explain the arrival of another goddess-like titan, but that dread melted as though the morning sun had risen, a warmth shared from survivor to survivor as the picture of their savior became clearer. Though her robes and gear were in tatters that gripped her near-naked body, her crimson hair ascertained that it was Reva that appeared from the far cavern. Her startling size had no explanation, and though there was relief in being able to identify the giant, there was no telling what a witch that big would do, intentionally or not. The tension, however, was undeniable; Reva had chased after Sepentria, and there in the canyon depths would be their showdown.

“Reva?! H-How–?! Y-You survived…!” Rose gasped and spoke over herself, fluttering with reinvigoration where she was knelt low by her patient. Shifting out of the snow that had been swept onto her, she waved for Reva’s attention. “Reva!! Over here! L-Look down!”

It was lost on the little perspectives, however, that while Reva had been enlarged and empowered, she was still sick and unbalanced with that exact power spinning inside her. Her dizziness was too high in the mist to be read, but her head swayed to either side, as did the rest of her weight, nearly slamming into the canyon walls as she followed Sepentria out. The sounds of her allies went unheard in this state, her focus drilling into the foe across from her as she fixed her posture for a second round of combat. Reva’s fingers clenched with fiery effects; another overcharge of magic was pushing to be released.

Sepentria stepped forward and motioned wide with her arm, revealing that her recovery was complete. She lifted her chin before speaking, “I forbid you from taking that power from me…! You shall not leave my domain with it…!” The divinity of her declaration chilled the mortals across the canyon floor, her tone expressing a seriousness that was not as arrogant as when she spoke down upon smaller subjects. Sepentria pointed both palms steady in front of herself, “Surrender it now, witch, or your punishment will be eternal!”

The heads of the expeditioners then spun to the giant Reva, expecting her to respond and fill in the blanks of an incomplete story, but she offered no answers. Her reply was spat, “Even if I knew how to give it up… I’d never surrender to you…” An open palm was aimed back at Sepentria, but that changed into a single-fingered point, choosing a finer shape for which she would channel her spell. “It’s time you pay for what you’ve done…!”

Sensing the battle that was about to commence, Starrberger and the others scrambled to take better shelter, though none were sure what to expect from either fighter. They cleared out of the center of the canyon, but Rose lingered closest, drawn to Reva by a mixture of awe and concern – though impressed with Reva’s new display of power, she also wondered what unseen effects plagued her companion, noticing how she twitched and swayed. Even when she felt the winds rise and spin forebodingly with magic, Rose only watched Reva, far more fascinated by her friend’s titanic size than the spell Sepentria was about to cast.

All at once, the snowy winds were thrust down the canyon, whipping up the layers of frost until the gray-blue crag underneath was revealed; that ice became shrapnel in Sepentria’s spell, splitting off like bullets off the tornado she had thrown. Those crystalline shards pierced through any exposed skin, as was the case for the expeditioners that were caught in the attack, but against Reva’s enchanted body, they merely broke into sparkles despite her being naked. The witch stood her ground even as the winds raged into her, blowing her crimson hair up and back like it was a stubborn flame but unable to make her even blink in submission. Indeed, her glare persisted on Sepentria as she lifted one hand into the air – with a snap of her fingers, the obnoxious storm was silenced and settled, as conducted by her countermagic. The weather instantly returned to its natural snowfall, earning gasped expressions from all, including Reva’s divine opponent.

“The wind…! It listens to no one but me…!” Sepentria hissed, staggered to have seen her elemental affinity be negated by an outsider. A more concentrated spell was required, so she believed, and she waved an open hand outward, commanding a trail of sharp, glacial ice to be summoned and spread from where she stood. It jetted across the rocky ground, the icicle spikes pinning outward like barbs along a zigzag shape, until the head of its movement stopped short of Reva’s position; from that point, a huge icicle erected into existence, its razor-sharp end aiming to impale the other giant through her chest.

Caught in the crossfire of these radical spells, the expeditioners were divided and disconnected. Starrberger barked like a wolf to find the location of others, but as the elements stormed around them, there was no chance of being heard – but he did find Rose, stumbled on a stone slate close to the trail of Sepentria’s ice. She was entranced by the battle, seemingly oblivious to the threats around her; Starrberger dashed across the uneven terrain to get to her and pull her away from the expanding spikes, but even that did not break her starstruck gaze onto Reva, expecting her friend to meet the attack with another dismissive spell.

But the ice was never denied, and when it leaped at Reva, it stabbed true into her– “Ggrhhk!” Reva grunted, punctured in the chest by the spear-shape. Her huge body winced in surprised pain, but from afar, Rose’s reaction was more severe – so sympathetic, the healer wailed about the violence. Sepentria, too, was convinced for a moment, until Reva unshakingly grabbed the ice with both hands, revealing a far deeper pool of health than assumed. With fiery fingers, Reva generated a heat that instantly melted the ice into water and steam, removing the spike that had pinned her; when she then stroked the wound in her center, the embers of her hand magically undid the harm and closed the wound cleanly. She had reset her condition effortlessly, standing confidently in her corner of the canyon with a smirk – “My turn.”

At a speed that betrayed the magnitude of her size, Reva pushed forward into a sprint up the canyon, her hands and feet sparking into mystical flames as she charged towards Sepentria. So tunneled into fighting the goddess, she had yet to realize the expeditioners scattered between them, unaware of how haphazard and dangerous her swiftness was. Every footfall was heavy enough to crater into rock, but they were additionally imbued with fires that evaporated the barbed trail of ice on contact – forgettable consequences for Reva, but devastating effects for Starrberger and Rose, positioned in the giant witch’s path. The two had been tripped by the tremors of those fast-approaching explosions, but Starrberger snapped into action just as a foot came hurtling closeby; he grabbed Rose by the waist and jumped with her to the wayside, just as Reva’s sole crashed through the glacier. Flames first spat out over their heads as it billowed from the impact, but it was then followed by a wave of melted ice, made as warm as a hot spring, washing around the bare foot and then onto the two expeditioners. They were both beached by the water onto the graveled ground, left behind in the aftermath of Reva’s upstart dash – belittled by her casual negligence.

Sepentria did not stand idle while Reva barreled through the canyon at her. Her arms danced fluidly in front of her, gestures that swirled the snow along the cliffsides to slither into serpentine shapes, scaled to giant-size like her opponent. They erupted from the canyon walls seeking to intercept and bind Reva, entangling her limbs with bone-chilling temperatures; the witch blazed through many attempts, but was slowed by the onslaught, cast into a stumble when her ankles were snagged midstep. Reva hobbled on one-foot, tripped onto her knees, then landed on her face – a fall she soon recovered from, but which created a cascade of dangers to the expeditioners beneath her. They earned no acknowledgement from the naked titan as she carved into the earth with her massiveness; the navigators and aids weaved to the sides of her body as it collapsed, narrowly avoiding being crushed beneath her. They were left behind in the dust of Reva’s presence, prone to the momentous clash about to occur.

While Reva was still on the rise, Sepentria prepared to strike her down, summoning into her possession a weapon to ward with: a staff of ice, tipped with an X-shaped blade. She held the polearm with both hands, using its broad handle to meet and deny Reva’s head-on attack. Fiery hands grabbed the staff in an effort to burn through it, but the goddess pushed back just as resolved; their incredible weights crashed into each other, creating a rumble of noise and pressure that was exerted onto their tiny audience. Reva growled as she surged her flames hotter, but the staff refused to melt in divine possession. Sepentria stepped forward with dominance and twisted her weapon, breaking Reva’s balance and forcing her to fall onto her back–

Krr-kooooshhh! The frosted fissure crackled from the shockwaves that resonated from where Reva was thrown to. Stone and ice were smashed apart by her ass cratering into the terrain, followed by a longer road of destruction where the rest of her body unrolled. Her massiveness rocked hard into a cradle of the canyon, a landslide of nudity that threatened to overtake the stragglers of the expedition, so soon after they had already dodged the giant witch once. Snow built up in wall-sized mounds where she bulldozed through, too wide for any of the navigators and aids to run from, and so they were eventually swept into the white waves and disappeared – perhaps dragged along Reva’s body, or plowed beneath her.

Starrberger and Rose had the safest position from the collapse, yet even at the distance they were, Reva’s dramatic fall still quickly caught up to them. They sprinted across tremoring tiles of icy rock as fast as they could, but with that mass roaring faster behind them, they both turned and braced themselves. Rushing towards them was a crimson-colored comet of hair that was swirled with snow; Starrberger dashed to the side, avoiding Reva’s head as it crashed into the ground, but Rose was not as agile, turning stiff with hesitation until it was too late.

“Ouhh… D-Damn…” Reva winced, more dazed by the fall than she was harmed by it – despite the tremendous impact. Her headstrong approach was punished, reminding her to not get careless; it might have been a lesson learned too late, as she sensed Sepentria’s magic creeping over her bare skin. Indeed, the goddess was taking advantage of her fallen, snow-dusted state by willing the ice on her to make a web holding her down. Reva shuddered, gradually breaking out of the spell’s grasp, but all the while, Sepentria was closing the distance.

A burst of fire traveled down Reva’s left arm, sooner freeing the limb than the rest of her – it was all she needed to channel enough magic for a counterattack. After evaporating the ice, those flames gathered at her palm, compressing into a bright light of supercharged energy. Her fingers curled around the sheer, vibrating power; it promised to unleash a furious explosion in all directions, overfilling the canyon with fires that would surely incinerate Sepentria, but that she herself could instantly recover from. Sepentria was unintimidated and continued clacking closer in her icy heels, her staff wielded ready to commence an execution.

Before Reva’s nova could be released, however, a voice reached out to hear; “Reva! Look out!!” Had it not been such an important voice, the witch would have never hesitated. Reva’s glare upwards softened with emotion, recognizing that it was Rose; “The expedition is here!!”

Sepentria stomped sharply between Reva’s legs, her polearm arched high overhead. “Die, outsider…!”

Reva had only a heartbeat to reassess her spell. Though the immense power surging through her wished to detonate, she could never risk the lives of her companions. The ball of fire in her hand faded and sizzled, reduced to a black, smoldering color. As Sepentria’s staff came speeding down, Reva tossed forward her weakened spell – Reva gasped, her shoulder pierced by the bladed tip, while Sepentria broke into a coughing fit, caught up in a cloud of suffocating smoke. The goddess staggered backwards out of its range, leaving her weapon anchored into the witch for the meantime.

“N-No– Reva!” Rose gasped at the violence, once again witnessing her friend suffer a traumatic injury. Her urgent, caring tone was a light of relief for Reva to hear, though she did regret that the healer was so badly terrified; fortified by the vial’s magic, she felt only fractions of the pain she should have, but the imagery was no better. The wound was not so important to Reva as she broke another arm free from the icy web, using it to comb through her hair – the place Rose called to her from, having survived atop her head after she collapsed. Her fingertips soon located the healer and tenderly unthreaded her; Rose squirmed with uncertainty until she was taken before Reva’s gaze, held in the cusp of a reliable hand. She coiled shakingly into the witch’s fingers, speaking while awestruck, “R-Reva…! Ar-Are you… a-a goddess…?!”

Reva’s expression, previously poised with seriousness, thawed into a blushed, bashful smile. She chuckled coyly, “Is that a compliment?” After an unamused response came from Rose, Reva followed her attention to the spear in her shoulder; without Sepentria wielding it, a touch of fire melted the shaft and then the blade, replacing the wound with unharmed skin. In its absence, she could breathe comfortably and shift more easily out of the binding frost. Rose remained in shock, but Reva needed her assistance: “The expedition– where are the others?”

Rose blinked free from fascination. “U-Uhh, they’re all… here,” she answered, leaning out of Reva’s hand and looking down below, across the length of her friend’s body. Reva searched with her, worriedly realizing how careless she had been throughout her fight with Sepentria; for each second someone was not found, her anxiety spiked, and she dared not move while it risked someone’s safety. “... Starrberger, there!” Rose pointed out, spotting the expedition’s leader toppled into snow and rubble beside Reva’s hip. He reached outward from where he was laid, revealing one of the navigators not far from him, equally entrenched. When Reva adjusted her weight away from them, she triggered a sharp cry farther down her body: the yelp of an expedition aid that was pinned beneath the witch’s calf. Another aid had been struggling to pull him free, but after Reva realized their situation, she lifted her leg with an apologetic twinge.

Thus, that was the remaining force of Starrberger’s expedition – all that could be found, anyone left unaccounted for presumed dead. Facing that bitter reality, Rose urged to keep as many of them alive as she could, pushing on Reva’s fingers to be set back down into the snow. She was lowered to her team and allowed to apply her healing wisdom, but she immediately found the situation to be dire even for her skills; compounded by the villainous cold, brutal injuries went bone-deep and were not easy to repair, even with magic – Starrberger among the worst, croaking in pain when he discovered his foot to be broken mid-step. Rose rationed out potions and healing herbs as a quick pick-up for the group, as there was no time to perform any better procedure, not while the goddess still groaned in the valley, concluding the coughing fit that Reva’s smoke spell had cast her in. The blizzard winds went eerily still like a long inhale; Sepentria had recovered enough to engage again.

And so the expedition turned to the giant woman among them, their only hope for warding the goddess. The responsibility was dizzying for Reva, who still struggled to understand the exacts of her new leagues of power, but she understood her crucial importance. Her massiveness rose from its fallen state, a momentous transition that saw snow spilling off her sides as she reclaimed her full height, stabilizing herself with the valley walls. The tips of her fingers sparked with fire, much like Sepentria’s hands glowed with an icy white; from a quarter-mile apart, the two volleyed magic at each other, beams of frost clashing with hurled flames, colliding into bomb-like combustions that rattled the snowy terrain.

Reva stepped forward, creating some distance between her and the party. After deflecting a spell aside into a rocky wall, she learned how the valley’s edges were crumbling inward, unsettled by the arcane blasts popping all over. Heavy stones chipped and rolled down the curved sides, dislodging layers of snow that collapsed heaps at a time. Reva beckoned to the expedition, “In there! Go!” She waved fast towards the other end of the valley, “There are tunnels and ruins – take cover!”

No one needed Starrberger’s approval to follow the command, as even the leader himself was hurrying in that direction, hobbling as quickly as he could on a broken foot. They all dashed in that direction, scrambling to safety while Reva continued to fight. Rose followed last in the group, staggered with concern that had her looking back at Reva, worried if it was safe to leave her. Reva noticed as much while hunching her head away from an explosion of ice; even under pressure, she offered a reassuring wink to the healer, confident that she could evaporate Sepentria as soon as the expedition was cleared out.

But Sepentria was not so reckless as to overlook a point of weakness. Though she knew she was on the backfoot against Reva, she realized then the importance of her allies – the witch’s motivation for fighting. More than enough outsiders had invaded her hidden realm, and she resolved to allow no more; when she heard Reva’s call for them to hide within the temple, an unforgiving anger was provoked, and so Sepentria concentrated her efforts on putting an end to the expedition at any cost.

At the upper reaches of the valley, the air trembled restlessly. Sepentria’s arms were loose at her sides, her head bent backwards as she channeled magic with her mind. Reva was ready to deny another spell, holding still a handful of fire, but she sensed too late that a direct attack was not what was plotted. She nervously looked elsewhere for an ambush, but instead felt the ground rumble – at first a shiver through the earth, then growing into drum-like quakes accented by cracking ice and stone. As gigantic as she was, even Reva was imbalanced by the effect, appropriately magnitudes worse for the expedition – but the worst was on the horizon, peering over the cliff tops in the shape of white clouds piling at the edges.

“... Avalanche!!” someone screamed from the expedition. From the two towering flanks of the valley, walls of snow trickled, spilled, then poured past the edges. It raced down, roaring as it did, with enough weight and power to snap stone ledges; it gathered all the snow along the sides, rolling together to form a denser and wider sheet of white. It was Sepentria’s spell to summon an avalanche onto her enemies, a tactic that might not do much harm to the god-like Reva, but would absolutely drown her precious companions under freezing waves.

“If you refuse to be expelled from my territory,” Sepentria threatened, “then you shall be consumed by it…! Let the cold take you into eternal stillness!!”

Reva growled like steam from a fire. Her right hand, magically ablaze, was redirected from Sepentria to one of the cascading snowdrifts; fire breathed from her palm and disappeared some snow, but the total avalanche was unphased, barreling down into the valley’s bottom regardless if it was ice or water. The escaping expedition funneled into the middle-most path, but the first waves of snow were yet upon them, striking their bodies into slowness and priming them to fall victim under coursing boulders. White-colored mist filled the arena as the harshest of the avalanche stormed onto the expedition; wary of how overwhelming her magic might be, Reva instead threw herself forward in defense of the expedition, rushing through the snow fog to protect the team with her own body.

“Everyone! Get under me!” Reva ordered, but under the crushing noise of the avalanches, her volume only added to the rumbling. She sank to her knees and extended herself above the dot-sized companions, using her arms as a ring to keep them all corralled beneath her bunker-like body. She felt boulders and frost slip past her, urging her to close any gaps around her form as snow and ice pooled all around her; it flushed over her limbs and rocked into her sides, but with a body made impervious to damage, she maintained her shell-shaped posture throughout the storm. Rather than be swamped under snow, the expedition was instead concealed in darkness, blocked off from the dangers that they heard piling outside Reva’s protection. They were thawed by anxious breaths and humid body heat, but it was barely any counter to the seeping cold – just as Sepentria wished, they had been buried by her attack, trapped on the valley floor.

The long grumbling of snow and stone took time to subside. When the collapse was mostly settled, with the rocky walls clean of snow and the ravine painted with a strip of white, Reva allowed herself to move – in doing so, she disturbed her surroundings again, breaking the weight of frost into trickles of powdery clumps. The red of her hair breached through the snow as a flash of color, her head uncurling from its defensive angle so that she could see the cold world that awaited. The length of the valley was made into a sparkling field, both directions empty of anything but a lingering mist – Reva shuddered with concern when she realized that meant Sepentria, too, was absent.

“S-Sepentria…! Wh-Where did–?!” Reva gasped as she launched up out of the debris, casting away a heavy layer of the avalanche. Unbothered by the freezing temperatures, she turned quickly toward where her opponent had been, her arms crossed in case she had to guard an attack. There was no ambush, no goddess; Reva itched anxiously, but even checking the cliffs of the valley, she could not find Sepentria. “Come out…!” she challenged, without a reply – nothing more, at least, than an icy cackle drifting away in a breeze. “Damn it…”

Before Reva could untense, she then heard the moans of her companions as they stirred and rustled from their impromptu shelter. Exposed again to the relentless cold, their pains were compounded as the wicked chill blew over them; the weakest remained laid out flat in the shallow snow, and the healthiest among them still limped and dazed. Starrberger staggered to his feet, his bearded face completely masked in snow – the least of his problems as he struggled on a broken foot. Like his crew, he was sickened with exhaustion, having put every effort in the fight against Sepentria, but there were still obstacles ahead that needed his leadership. No one spoke to Starrberger as he took a stand upon a snowhill, staring down each of the valley’s directions with much to consider.

Reva just as well surveyed the area; though her divine senses did not detect Sepentria’s presence, she remained on alert for her return. If it were indeed true that the goddess was giving them that chance to escape, then they had to make the most of the moment, so Reva thought forwardly. “Th-The ruins,” she said, breathing again after forgetting; “up ahead, w-we can all rest there. Rose can– Rose?” Reva stuttered as she swiped back her snow-dusted hair, frantically looking over the expedition and counting their heads – counting one less than there should have been. “Rose– Where’s Rose?!”

Neither the aids nor navigator knew where their healer had disappeared to, striking them anew with despair. Starrberger sighed heavily as he sat down in the snow, too injured to search and too hopeless to help. Reva itchily looked over her body, fearing yet again that a companion had been nearly-crushed under her giant form, but she confirmed quickly that no one was pressed against her nudity. Every nervous shift of her body created a crunching, disheartening noise, and so Reva filled her lungs with a breath of concentration – no longer in the heat of battle, she focused on the expansive pool of magic within her, that which had transformed her into a goddess, seeking a way to constrain its overflowing power. Her hands clasped together as though praying to herself, shakily determining the means of her gigantic size, and then mentally adjusting that feature – in uneven bursts, slow at first, her size gradually depleted, her height dwindling into the valley’s center. The expeditioners below watched in awe as Reva transitioned from the towering tallness of a goddess to the modest height of a human, returning to a normal, albeit clothesless state.

The witch still hesitated to move, feeling dense and full after shrinking so much, but Reva urged herself to act in finding Rose now that her own massiveness did not threaten to blindly harm her. “She’s here,” she said confidently, though her direction was vague, waving across the rocky field that she had protected with her body. “Check the rocks! Everywhere!”

In their battered condition, however, the expedition stalled to search for Rose. They instead looked to their leader, and when Starrberger did not so much as turn his head, they felt even less reason to help. Reva worked without them, doing more than they all could have possibly done combined: by using earth magic, she could collect the rubble with just a wave of her hand and throw it aside, and with a snap of her fingers, she could make great boulders split in half. A smooth glow surrounded Reva as she performed such feats with absolute ease, herself too absorbed into the endeavor to be paused by her own prowess. Between spells, she called out Rose’s name, refusing to give up on the healer’s life until the valley floor was shoveled.

Minutes of empty results passed until Reva’s pursuit took her to a gravely ditch. At first just glancing down the slope, the witch then double-backed in a flash, her eyes popped wide. Half-buried in the snow was the familiar insignia of Sophus’s Healers Association, just a glimpse of its red cross. “Rose…?” Reva whispered uncertainty, but then dove into the ditch, sliding bare-footed down the rocks. “Rose! Rose!” she shouted, louder and louder. “I found her! Sh-She’s hurt!”

Reva hurried to the tomb of snow and crouched beside it. With ungloved hands, she pushed away the powder and pulled up on the limp body; she revealed not only Rose’s unconscious face, but a stain of blood that had pooled beneath her. Reva grimaced and touched the cold surface of Rose’s cheek, determining almost no lifeforce – she barely breathed, with no warmth of her own. A bloodtrail from her forehead and a wound in her back suggested she was double-struck during the avalanche, knocked-out by jagged blows to the skull and spine. Reva was no doctor, however, and froze under her own panic, afraid anything she might do would hasten Rose’s decline – whether or not she used her goddess-like powers.

The aids soon arrived at the ditch after hearing Reva’s call, and they quickly acted to move Rose out of the snow. Reva instructed them towards the ruins – from where her and Sepentria had appeared from – so that they could set up enough of a camp to reset their situation. Though it was urgent to keep their one remaining healer alive, not all of the expedition believed in the effort; Starrberger limped late behind them into the ruins, burdened by his own unyielding resolve…