And now I tell a piece of history hitherto lost, buried beneath the sands of time.
It is returned to me by the World's Body, remembered by Her mind, told to me by Her voice.
It's revealed in quiet moments, told in dreams and whispered on the breeze.
History is made clear to those who can see through the veil, which becomes thinner by the day.

This event is the second meeting with the one lost to the dark, Zsuius.
It was deep in the fogged forests east of the Dead Sea, that which was found in a fogged reality.
This was in the midst of the fourth turn of the sun, as flowers flourished and the heat pounded down upon the ground.
All around, the world was blooming in its long autumn, fifteen milleniums hence the first unblooming, at the first knife in our heart.

Little of this blooming was found here in this forest, a damned place populated with lost souls, thick with mist and with a perpetual chill.
It was never given a name, existing as it was in but a fleeting dream.
The four cultists and their companion came to its door, and chose to wander into the dark place.
After but a few days they found a man close in spirit to them, that damned and doomed Zsuius.

Zsuius was a man much further along the path of darkness than our four cultists, who seemed unable to help his own attraction to the dark.
He was a man who could seem alike you if he wished, but who, if you looked inside him, would seem as though he was inhuman for how far he had strayed from the others around him, how much he had changed since his birth.
Even to myself, one who listens incessantly to the heartbeat of the world, his life is covered by a veil outside the scant moments in which it intersects with the story of our Seven Figures.
And so I cannot recount it here, but only speculate as to what could have brought him to such a place.

Were his parents slain, his village burnt, his soul scarred?
Did he simply run away and choose his life, or was it forced upon him?
Indeed, only he could say, and his story is lost to time, now.
Now he had migrated from his home deep in a cave to a home deep in the forest, and went on daily patrols to ensure his safety, when he met again with our four cultists and their companion.

When they all crossed paths for the second time, Zsuius was on one of these daily patrols.
He stepped into an open stretch of the forest and came into view of the cultists' vehicle.
Matt, the vehicle's herder, stopped the vehicle so they could all meet Zsuius, who had stopped walking as well and was waving over to the vehicle.
He recognized their faces through the windows as those people who had attempted to hold him at gunpoint, though he bore no ill will.

With the superior light of the forest, our heroes, the cultists, could get a better impression of Zsuius.
He held a rifle in his right hand and wore thick black clothing, his visage gaunt.
His expression was friendly, but one could tell death followed closely behind him, and looking into his eyes one could not help but be unnerved.
When the cultists looked into them, they could not help but think that they too may look like him once they were done with their horrific tasks.

"Hark, my fellows, we meet once more!" Zsuius said, hailing their arrival.
"Your stealth fails you; were I an enemy, you might stand dead this very moment."
"Yes, but you are not an enemy, so we stand in peace," Maine stated plainly.
"It matters not; it's clear to me that our re-meeting is a sign!" Zsuius exclaimed.

"And what could this meeting be a sign of, I ask?" Sefgh inquired.
"A sign that I must assist you with your incompetence, which rears its head once more," Zsuius responded.
"If you are to slay the foul beast Cardo has become, you must be more careful, for he has struck many an innocent man from this earth."
"But we are not incompetent; you merely took us by surprise!" protested M-Bot.

"Oh? But can you even slay a man, I wonder? You seemed unfit when we last met," Zsuius said.
He put his hand to his chin, imitating a thinking man, projecting a mirth dissonant with his surrounding feel of death.
"Could it be that none of you have even done such a thing before, and that this is why you were such unfit assassins?"
"Your words ring false; I have slain many a beast," responded Maine.

"I find this hard to believe," Zsuius replied, "for how can you claim to have slain many a beast when you fail so severely at the hunt?"
"You don't know what you speak of," Maine began, but Sefgh cut in.
"I have never slain a beast, it's true, and neither has Matt, or M-Bot."
"Then my words ring true after all! I cannot let you novices chase this beast; come, there is much to do." Zsuius spoke.

"I do not desire to come wherever you go; I desire to come free of these woods as soon as can be done!" Maine snapped.
"Speak not! Your words grate against my ears." Zsuius responded, his patience broken and his mirth vanishing.
"I cannot let you march to your deaths, you damned fools, for Cardo stalks men like a lion and eats men like they are deer, nothing but prey," he continued.
"If nothing else, you must let me teach you how to kill; and, indeed, I shall not take no for an answer," he finished, satisfied in his word's finality.

Silence filled the air, and was not the absence of sound but indeed was the sound itself, as blanketing and smothering as the dense heat.
The skies were empty as well, blanketed and smothered by a wall of gray clouds so thick that one could not see where one ended and another began, forming a solid color.
Birds did not fly overhead, and squirrels did not come skittering by.
The trees a few feet ahead began to fade away into the dense fog, and absence defined the landscape.

Zsuius had brought the four cultists hunting, so they could know how it felt to take a life.
Their companion, F.P., was brought out for the occassion, as even if he expected not to see combat, their trainer wished him prepared.
The six stood at various points throughout the woods, rifles trained, looking for the slightest sign of movement.
These signs did not come easily, for little remained in these woods.

The deer is a beautiful animal, no less so for its odd and skittish behavior, for this is only the behavior of something that knows it is too beautiful to survive.
This deer came through the empty woods, cautiously rustling through the grass.
Its shape was divine, and its fur glistened.
Zsuius leaned into Sefgh's ear and whispered, "look at that!"

I cannot recount what turned Zsuius to the man he was, nor even speculate.
I can only recount that Zsuius was a man whose heart was blackened.
Indeed, our heroes would learn this in time, that Zsuius was a man with a void at his center, a black hole that seemed to corrode the surrounding world.
Even in this innocent moment, we cannot let ourselves forget this.

Sefgh took the shot, and the deer was slain, the bullet passing straight through its neck.
It did not have the chance to understand its own mortality before its death, nor would it be able to had it the chance.
They stayed like this for the rest of the day, sneaking through the brush and lying in wait for the hunt.
It went on like this until each of them had slain at least three animals each.

After this, there were still more lessons to learn, and they slept in Zsuius' camp overnight.
There was only so much time they had together, for Zsuius had his own mission, but there was something he considered too important to skip.
It was one thing to slay an animal, he reasoned, but another to slay a human.
And so, the next day, he would make them simulate his slaughter, each firing an unloaded gun at him.

The night hung heavy over the woods.
There were no stars that night, nor would there be the following nights.
It was as if the void was reaching out to swallow them.
Their sleep was dreamless and black.

Maine, Sefgh, Matt, and M-Bot were all lined up for this second lesson, though F.P. was too weak-hearted to participate, already shaken from yesterday's hunt.
Zsuius explained to them, "I must make sure you can kill another human, and so we must carry this out."
He gave each of them an unloaded rifle, though he did not say they were unloaded.
He took them each into a secluded grove, one at a time, to carry out the test.

Maine pointed his rifle at Zsuius, who stared straight into his eyes.
"Slay me, o Maine, so that I will know you may slay your enemy when the time comes!"
Maine pulled on the trigger, and heard the click of an unloaded gun.
"Very good, my apostle; you shall fare well," said Zsuius.

Sefgh pointed his rifle at Zsuius, who stared straight into their eyes.
"Slay me, o Sefgh, so that I will know you may slay your enemy when the time comes!"
Sefgh trembled and hesitated severely, but Zsuius refused to encourage them, for he thought they must do it of their own will.
Finally, they slowly pulled on the trigger, and heard the click of an unloaded gun.

Matt pointed his rifle at Zsuius, who stared straight into his eyes.
"Slay me, o Matt, so that I will know you may slay your enemy when the time comes!"
Matt hesitated before pulling on the trigger, but did so quickly, and heard the click of an unloaded gun.
M-Bot pulled the trigger without hesitation, and it too heard the click of an unloaded gun.

Each of the four was shaken by day's end, Sefgh especially, enthusiastic though they were to slay their enemies.
"You have done well, my apostles. Now, I must bid you farewell, for I have my own matters to attend to seperate from your own," Zsuius said.
"What are these matters, I ask?" questioned M-Bot.
"It matters not, for it is private," responded Zsuius, "and so I must wish you well and leave. Take my weapons, and let them serve you well."

And so, with that, the four cultists left Zsuius, who would go on to take care of his own private matters.
These matters would later cross over with ours, though only at certain points.
Maine, Sefgh, Matt, M-Bot, and F.P. all crowded back into their vehicle, now further armed in body and mind.
They continued to travel on their long path to the Kingdom of Christ, which currently abided Cardo.

This would be a very long path, and they would stop many times along the way before reaching this Kingdom.
For now they moved especially slow, travelling as they were through the dense and fogged woods.
The road itself was little more than a clearing, and they often had to remove fallen branches or even trees.
It was only by the help of past peoples unnamed that there were bridges to cross over rivers and chasms, or else they would have to travel on foot.

One must wonder what they were thinking in these moments, slowly traversing the forest.
They travelled through a place none of them had ever been, towards a destination they did not even know of, for their map was unlabelled.
One must imagine them staring at the numbers in their enchanted book, wondering what they signified.
What lay behind those numbers? Who were these people they knew nothing about?

The pondering must, after a time, have gotten repetitive.
Then they would look out the window; but this, too, would get repetitive.
All there was to see were the same trees, the same fog, and they would then look again into their minds.
What did they hope to get from this? Beyond what was written, they are opaque to us.

Many animals must have lived in those woods.
Many deer, birds, squirrels, and so forth must have lived in them.
It is only us that cannot see them, hidden in the thick trees, grass, and mist as they are.
At times one must wonder what the purpose in living is if all you can do is stay hidden.

As far as you could see the color of the forest was a dense, dark green.
A perpetual fog hung over this, coloring the sky a silver hue and overlaying anything a few feet past your eyes.
At unpredictable times, a faint drizzle of rain would break out, stopping and starting over the course of several minutes.
You could spend a year in this forest and never see the sun but as a faint echo through the clouds.

It is with this that we close this chapter of their travels.
It has been returned to me by the World's Body, remembered by Her mind, told to me by Her voice.
It's revealed in quiet moments, told in dreams and whispered on the breeze.
Any one person who turns their ears to silence and listens intently, I tell you, will discover things never before known.