Shiver descended into the Floors of Trepidation.

  Vale had initially been reluctant to let her wander into the darkness beyond, but she had eventually caved under Shiver’s insistence. Especially when Shiver had mentioned their two alternatives: tackling the second stage, “embracement” immediately and leaving the Brimstone behind, or allowing her to explore which would buy him some time.

  Shiver didn’t know what to make of the man. The son of Berevan Brimstone, so convinced that his father could do no harm. In any case, his presence had helped her persuade Vale to let her explore.

  "What do you think we’ll find in this place, Popsicle? Perhaps we’ll learn about the later stages of Fear? Not to mention… I wonder how I was able to pass through that barrier."

  "Shiver… you still haven’t descended to Trepidation! I don’t know how you were able to pass through, you still haven’t formed your Fearcore!"

  Shiver descended into the darkness of the corridor blocked by the ward, beyond the golden gates. Vale had been reluctant to let her go on ahead, but she had eventually caved under Shiver’s insistence.

  Icey was right. She hadn’t completed the second step of Anhedonia - embracement, which created a Fearshaper’s Fearcore and marked the beginning of their journey into Trepidation, the next stage of Fear.

  She still needed to visit the Rooms of Descension in the Floors of Anhedonia to do so. Those strange rooms filled with countless different objects of Fear.

  She eventually reached a flight of stairs leading down into another corridor. If there was one valid concern that Vale had, it was the prospect of Shiver encountering her brother. Shiver was certain that after her little chat with him, he had wandered off in the direction of the Floors of Trepidation, which he should have been able to access.

  I’ll need to be careful, even with the academy’s restrictions.

  Unsanctioned violence wasn’t permitted, but if the Fearshaper managed to trap her in some way, or find some workaround to the rule, she would be in big trouble - at least until Vale and Caledon descended.

  As Shiver reached the bottom of the flight of stairs, she took in the view before her. She stood at the entrance to a long corridor, filled with doors on either side of it. She caught a glimpse of a vast room at the end of the corridor.

  Each door that lined the hallway was of a different make and material. She halted before one that induced a familiar sensation of frost. The material the door was cast from reminded her of the Verscallian Peaks, seemingly built from the dark grey stone of the landscape that enveloped Brimstone. She saw snow collect at the door’s edges, and her hand grew cold as it hovered over the handle.

  Shiver passed her gaze over other doors. One was wrought from black ash with glowing streaks of ember running through it, radiating heat. Yet another was cast from a material the colour of anthracite that appeared to be sparking.

  Countless other such doors lined the corridor before her.

  Shiver felt her heart thunder in her chest, as her hand closed around the handle of the door of cold. She pushed it open, and walked through the doorway.

  Before her, lay a vast sweeping landscape encased in snow. Her eyes widened as they passed what could have been a section of the Verscallian Peaks, marked by familiar dark grey mountainous terrain and snow.

  This… should be impossible. Then again… so are those Rooms of Descension. Just on a whole other scale.

  How a door could hide such a vast landscape was a mystery to her. Her thoughts returned to the temple in which she had awakened, far larger on the inside than it had been from the exterior.

  The air was still, and unlike when she was out in the Peaks, she was not met with cold wind that brought tears to her eyes. Yet, the bite of frost still reached her, and she thought she could hear the echoes of familiar laughter.

  Her own.

  Casting a glance around her, Shiver’s eyes were like steel. However, her shade was nowhere to be seen. A haunting reminder of her Fear that she had enjoyed brief relief from since entering the academy, hovering at the edges of her consciousness.

  "Are you alright Shiver?"

  She turned to regard her guide perched on her shoulder.

  "Not surprised by the landscape? Who knew the academy had doors that lead to cross-sections of other places."

  "..."

  The ice cube lay silent.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "I’m fine, Icey. Really."

  Shiver smiled slightly, as her gaze returned to the snowy landscape that she had concluded was utterly deserted. She pressed further into the snow, and her careful gaze picked up on not a single living creature, or otherwise.

  "What do you think of this place? It’s empty."

  After a brief moment of silence, she eventually spoke up.

  "Why don’t we check some of the other doorways? Maybe we’ll find something."

  Obliging, Shiver headed towards the hole in reality that glowed from where she had descended the mountain, peaking back into the academy. The next door she tried seemed to have been cast from sandstone. It had a grainy texture, and Shiver could feel the warmth on her hand as she pushed it open.

  She stood in a vast sandstone tomb.

  Idle particles of dust shone in sunlight filtering through from a square opening in the room. Murals and carvings covered the walls of the tomb, extending around its length. She saw the statue of a male elf extending outwards from one of the walls, its hand extended, with shifting black sand floating above his palm.

  Icey broke the silence with a soft whisper.

  "Shiver… I think it’s making a tribute to him."

  "A Fearshaper of sands."

  Shiver felt a jolt like lightning running wash over her as she whispered the words, her hair standing on hand. A sight she never thought she would glimpse in her lifetime.

  How big the world must have been, when Fearshapers roamed it freely. What wonders would they have created… if this academy is anything to go by.

  Then, her gaze fell on the inhabitants of the room. Unlike the cross-section of the winterlands, plenty still remained.

  Skeletons of creatures long passed.

  "Woah."

  As she walked onwards, she crouched to examine the husk of an insect, half her own height. It was a large beetle, with a burnished, shiny exterior. At least, that was what the hints of its husk alluded towards.

  "Avalkin’s nuts. Wouldn’t want to fight something like that. Or maybe I would."

  Then, her breath caught as her eyes fell on what lay in the very centre of the vast tomb. There was a gaping hole in the sand, into which sand gradually fell into like an endless waterfall. There was a skull at least three times her height that rested at the lip of the void, its serpentine body drooping downwards into a vast hole in the snake below. It was the largest creature she had ever seen, a gigantic serpent.

  Like the other creatures around it… dead. Having found their final rest.

  Suddenly, Shiver was overcome with the visceral temptation to tear open as many doors as she could manage, to see what lay beyond them. Reason tempered her temptation, as her mind fell on Lord Semille and Caledon. She couldn’t leave Vale alone for too much longer.

  "Let’s keep going. Just one more."

  Shiver walked through the corridor, which opened up into a vast rectangular room sporting multiple floors and corridors.

  "Avalkin’s nuts."

  She halted before a door that seemed to have been made from the ocean floor. She gently ran her fingers over shells and coral that sunk into the rocky surface.

  "Shiver… I… kind of want to know what’s behind this one. Please?"

  Shiver let out a small smirk at her Popsicle’s words, usually the voice of reason.

  "I just so happen to share that opinion, Popsicle. The last door before we move on."

  Icey gasped.

  "Move on?"

  Shiver’s cerulean eyes glowed with mischief.

  "Of course! You didn’t think I’d stop at the Floors of Trepidation, did you?"

  Her palm was met with moisture as she pushed open the door and emerged into-

  A vast ocean.

  Shiver gazed up at the surface of the water in the distance and the light that filtered gently through the surface. She estimated the distance between between where she floated and the surface of the water being at least the height of one or two of the towers that loomed over the Archcity of Fear.

  She had heard fishermen warn of the crushing depths of the ocean - yet, she was unharmed where she swam. Well… her presence there defied all reason, seeing as she wasn’t currently drowning.

  "S-shiver… I want to go back…"

  Shiver broke her gaze away from the rippling surface of the water, and instead turned it towards its depths, below her, encased in darkness.

  Then her eyes narrowed, as she caught a glance of something that peeked out of the darkness. Ivory, the colour of bone which the sunlight just managed to reach. As she narrowed her eyes, and strained to latch on to what lay there. She traced its entire length.

  A vast tentacle, unadorned by flesh lay exposed on the ocean floor. No doubt accompanied by the corpses of the other creatures that had lived in this strange world.

  Shiver stepped back out of the doorway, grinning when she realised that she wasn’t dripping wet.

  "All of them are dead… strangely, the first door we entered was empty, as far as I could see. Even of corpses."

  Then Shiver’s eyes were drawn to a gate at the end of another corridor beyond her. Similar to the one that marked the entry to the Floors of Trepidation. Crossing the floor, and sparing a passing glance at the levels above her, she came to halt before it, reading the sign displayed by its side.

  Floors of Delirium.

  "Shall we give it a shot, Popsicle?"

  She held her breath as she laid her hand on the glowing ward.

  Feeling no resistance as she slipped right through it, passing through the gate.

  "That’s cheating!"

  "What are you going to do about it hmm? If you rat me out to a teacher, I’ll bully you."

  "B-but! You already bully me!"

  Shiver smirked.

  Breaking the rules had never been so satisfying.

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