Geela froze. She wasn’t scared of the voice. At least, she wasn’t scared yet. That would remain to be seen. Scary voices were rarely attached to beings actually powerful enough to follow through on their threats. This could be anything. A trick, a trap, an illusion. Besides, who in the Void Realm was so presumptuous to assume they could sentence her to die anyway? What void being was sooo powerful? Short of Noire itself, Geela didn’t really think many beings here could actually pass such a sentence. Last person who tried had been eaten alive by fishes.

Still, Geela was in the void itself now, so she may have to take this a bit more seriously. She had to treat this threat as though it may actually pose a risk. She couldn’t afford to be flippant.

No one had to see that, though.

“Mmm, and who is bold enough to pass such a sentence anyway?” she asked, voice drawn and bored. Thank gods she’d removed all the slime off her, or the look would have been ruined. “Show yourself. I’m sure it’s the way of void things to lurk in shadow but surely if you’ve the constitution to so challenge me, you have the strength to emerge from the darkness and face me.”

“You speak boldly for one not of this realm,” the voice spoke back. “Your essence is lacking in the ways of the unholy. I find only traces on you.” It paused, then, as if contemplating. “Traces, however, that are interestingly familiar to me. I detect on you something that has lingered through our halls for many a decade. What are you, mortal?”

“I am Ja’Eel Scilatia, Mistress of Void and Lightning, Commander of Demonkin, and Slayer of Void Spawn.” Geela couldn’t help but modulate her voice as she spoke, dropping it to her time-tested Ja’Eel pitch. “I trust you know my name well.”

“Geela!” The voice, though still a deep rumble, rose slightly in pitch. “Your name is known well among these halls for you are a mortal most despised.” As it spoke, it moved from where it had originally sounded, in the core of Geela’s chest, up higher. A cold feeling of dread stabbed straight to Geela’s heart and an inky wetness spread upward.

She couldn’t let her heart begin to race in fear. Instead, she took a deep breath. “I see my fame precedes me.”

“You should not have come, petty mortal, for your only fate here is death.” Her skin seemed to burn and a sweat broke out across her chest as the feeling intensified. “And with your death, the use of your very soul to power Noirela to the Mortal Realm and beyond!”

At this, the seeping, oozing feeling reached her throat, and without thinking, she clasped a hand to her neck, as if she could stop whatever magic it was that seized her.

“You will—” The voice immediately grew muffled as Geela’s hands clasped over something small and squishy.

Geela shrieked and threw out whatever had been in her hand, fully not expecting to have actually caught something. It hit the ground with a small splat, and after a moment of calming her racing heart, Geela saw that she had just hurled a small frog to the floor. No, it wasn’t a frog, anymore than Bugsquito was a mosquito. If someone had decided there needed to be a frog version of a centaur, it might look something like this thing. Where its head should have been, there was a torso, another pair of arms—still frog arms—followed by a head that looked something like a skull if a skull could be made of frog skin. In the middle of the skull, a dull black shadow flickered, lighting up when the monster spoke.

“You will pay for that assault with your life,” it said, light glowing a dark red. “For none shall touch one of the Eldest—”

“Did you materialize inside my clothing?” Geela asked, nose wrinkled in displeasure.

The frog thing was quiet for a second, before continuing. “None shall touch one of the Eldest without facing—”

“And of all the places to materialize… There? Really?” Geela let her displeasure show in her voice as she did her best to wipe the still slightly stinging goo off her skin.

“NoneshalltouchoneoftheEldestwithoutfacingdireconsequences,” the frog said in a rush of breath.

“You know, that was really quite rude, appearing inside a lady’s top like that—”

“I didn’t appear in anything, madame!” The frog turned to glare at her, skull flushing a bright red. “You were the one teleporting through our home. I am hardly to blame if someone got caught inside your… garments.”

Geela crouched down next to it. “You really are ugly, aren’t you?” It was pretty tiny, probably only four inches tall, and unexpectedly colorful. This didn’t resemble the kind of muddy frog she’d been eaten by in the Swamp Region. It was a lot closer in hue to the bright, toxic frogs of the jungles, and Geela did a quick internal scan of her facilities, searching for any indication that she’d been poisoned. Honestly, though, she wasn’t sure how poison would even demonstrate in the Void Realm, so after a moment or two, she let her attention focus back on the grotesque frog creature.

“Your insults mean nothing to me. Your end will come soon enough and I will think no more of your words.”

“I hate to offend,” Geela said, her tone as condescendingly offensive as possible, “but I really do feel just fine. When does the death happen?”

“Death is too good a—”

“Sorry, ‘dire consequences.’ Or just, you know, anything unpleasant beyond looking upon you.” She reached out to grab it. The little thing tried to leap away, really it made quite a valiant effort, but it was just too tiny to get much speed and soon Geela had its fleshy skull pinched between her thumb and forefinger. “Why do ugly and evil seem so often to go hand-in-hand? Lord knows I’m not a fan of Hari as a general living being, but he did get at least one thing right. Now…” she held it close to her eyes, slowly spinning it. “How do you react to lightning?”

“You will never get the chance to run your loathsome experiments on me, insignificant mortal.” As the frog spoke, the lights in its skull glowed a sickly green and, after a second, Geela noticed the slime on the frog was getting hot. No, not hot. But it was burning her fingers slightly. She quickly pulled a glove back on her free hand and dropped the sizzling frog into her palm, wiping her stinging fingers.

“Very rude,” she said, her tone still admonishing and not at all frightened. “I’m afraid you may be right, for the immediate future, that is. I’d love to sit around and play scientist all day, but I am in a rush.” With this, she pulled her glove off, turning it inside-out so that the frog was trapped inside. She tied off the wrist, creating a small sack, and fastened it to her belt. “I suppose we’ll have to learn as we go along.”

“You can’t hope to contain me within here!” The low rumble of the frog’s voice was now easily identifiable as a frog’s croak, and Geela simply rolled her eyes as she set off again.

“Um. I think she probably can,” Bugsquito said, speaking up for the first time. “She’s got me pretty well caged.” Its voice sounded particularly deflated, but the frog’s spiked in outrage.

“Is that a monstersquito you’ve apprehended?” Geela could feel the glove at her waist wriggle and squirm. “I would recognize that irritating sound anywhere. Why anyone would have ever willingly spawned such a thing, I will never know.”

“Most noble froggert, please.” Bugsquito eyed Geela nervously as they set off down the path, walking at a leisurely pace. Geela had emotionally recovered from the frog onslaught but she was wiped from blinking so many hundreds of miles, and needed to recover a bit. “Please. The witch is very auditorily observant.”

“Yes, I can, in fact, hear.” Still, Geela didn’t mind the exchange. In fact, she’d love for them to keep on talking. She would certainly learn quite a bit from their ultimate dissections, but in the meantime, she could learn just as much from their conversation. After all, a scientific breakdown of their bodies would teach her wonders about what they were, but only they could reveal why. How.

The two did not get along, that much was obvious. Frogs ate mosquitos back at home, so perhaps their animosity was similar here. Then again, the idea of the little frog being the natural predator of the cat sized Bugsquito was laughable. Stranger things could definitely happen, but it just didn’t seem likely. With the bugs’ ability to fly, it seemed even less likely that a bunch of frogs would be able to take them down, swarm style. Bugsquito had seemed afraid of the frogs, but that fear was closer to the fear of authority than the fear of a predator. Maybe the frogs were the bugs’ bosses. Maybe they were the ones that told the bugs to trap doves.

Maybe Geela could get more out of a little Q and A while she set up rest for the night.

“I feel our momentum has shifted,” the little frog noted. “Will you face me now, madam?”

“Face you? No. I only learned to blink because Bugsquito here told me you all could do it, leading me to think it might be possible for me to as well.” She set the birdcage down and began to set up her enchantments. “I’m not entirely sure why it hasn’t, actually.”

The frog in her pocket chortled at this. “Expecting a monstersquito to have mastered the powers over visual movement. They’re weapons, dear mortal. Weapons to drain, to leech, and nothing more.”

“So if they were made to attack… You were made for movement?” Geela asked, addressing the pouch on her belt. “Scouts or—”

“Scouts? The illustrious froggerts, mere scouts?” Its voice broke for the first time, rising to a pitch that was music to Geela’s ear.

“Ah, my apologies. I meant to say Scout was your name.” She let a smile curl across her lips as she sat down and poured herself a glass of tea. Of course the kettle, mug, and tea were all illusions, but she could at least whip up the smell of something delightfully spicy as she teased out more intel from the monsters. “So, you were saying, dear Scout?”

Scout definitely couldn’t see Geela’s smirk, nor her imaginary cup of tea, but it could smell it and sputtered indignantly in her pocket, too outraged to speak.

Bugsquito squinted its huge, bulging eyes at her. “You oughta be careful. You can get away with bullying me, but the froggert will dissolve you where you stand!”

Geela gently released the quivering pouch from her belt and held it up to eye level. “I’m waiting,” she whispered.

“I simply bide my time!” Scout said, voice still far from its dignified croak.

Geela smirked and reattached it. “It would appear the prowess of the froggerts is overstated. So, are you specifically the Eldest’s froggert? Who is the eldest? Noire?”

“What!” Bugsquito’s voice exploded as it began hopping up and down in its cage. “The Eldest? Noirela? Why whoever came up with such a—”

“I command your silence at once!” Scout said. “For with each word you give this foul creature, she learns more and more about our insidious purpose.”

Geela was pretty sure that was a ‘yes’ to her question. She reclined against the cave wall, enchantments finished.

“Oh what’s it matter?” Bugsquito crossed all of its arms so abruptly it ran out of legs to stand on and fell down hard. “Noirela’s gonna kill her anyway. It’s gonna give her the old one-two-three-four-five-six.” It mimed punching with each number before recrossing its arms. “I’m not scared of her.”

Scout was still well hidden in her pouch, but if Geela could see it, she was almost certain it’d be massaging its mushy little skull with its mushy little arms.

“To think of our noble origins. Reduced to this. Oh that we could be back at the beginning. Alone.”

“It’s okay, Scout.” Bugsquito’s voice dipped to a condescending level of reassurance that made Geela’s skin prickle. “We’ll make it out of this soon, you’ll see. I’ve got a plan.” Now its voice shifted to a far more devious tone. Out of the corner of her vision, Geela could see Bugsquito’s eyes darting about conspiratorially, as if Geela was not right there listening. “I need you to convince the witch to store your bag in my cage. Then, when she isn’t looking, I’ll spring you free! Your acid can burn through her cage and I shall launch myself directly at her and drain her very life’s essence in one, crippling blow!” It punctuated this with a wild little cackle.

It was hard to say whose sigh sounded more exasperated, Geela’s or Scout’s.

“You know she can hear you, you idiot.” The frog’s voice was flat, disappointed being a foregone conclusion.

“What! She’s asleep!” Bugsquito pressed its face against the cage, where it could clearly make out Geela’s open eyes. “I—I don’t understand! She lay down almost a minute ago to sleep! How could she still be awake.”

Scout only answered to sigh once more. “Our once noble origins. Reduced to dust and ash.”

Geela rested her eyes now, chuckling under her breath. She was learning, but it didn’t seem like she was really getting an idea of the status quo of the Void Realm. No, something seemed… off here. Obviously she had no point of reference, no control group or any idea of what the Void Realm was supposed to be like, but the monsters spoke a lot of power for creatures that possessed very little. They spoke of the dangers of the void when the worst Geela had experienced was raining frogs. Terrible to be sure, but more a battle against Geela’s own fear than anything actually harmful. It had made sense back when the theory was that they’d been a custom made trap, but now she was even doubting that. Had the frogs actually been a trial, put in place by Noire or Hari? It seemed less and less likely. Judging by the chatter between Scout and Bugsquito, these two species had history. Judging by Scout’s lament, things had changed since their inceptions. Geela couldn’t put the pieces together just yet, but she had a sneaking suspicion that there may be the key to a weakness of Noire’s in there somewhere.

Was Noire getting weaker? Of course, the whole plan behind killing its children had been to weaken it, but Geela only just now realized what that might look like, its entities losing their power, their potency. Perhaps, once upon a time, this frog monstrosity may have had a true, near deadly coat of acid covering its skin, but now it burned her fingers the way raw soap might have. Nelly had once flung some at her when she was little, not knowing it could still sting. And that’s all this little frog did now. Sting.

Maybe Bugsquito could drain life, maybe not. Maybe it was once fearsome, maybe its intelligence was tied to its strength. Maybe not. Either way, one thing was for sure. They were, both of them, diminished. They were shadows of their original powers.

How diminished was Noire then? Geela rolled onto her back, staring up at the shifting void ceiling. Bugsquito and Scout had gone quiet—napping, maybe. She had to be careful not to squish Scout in her sleep. There was too much left to learn from the fussy little hellspawn. Much to learn about Noire and its weaknesses. Much to learn about what she might be able to do to it as payback for the hell it had and was putting Darkos through.