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Boss Battle - The Defeat
Round Two

Loot: x 1

Achievement completed: Danced with the Devil
Link to blessing win(s): Here

Boss Battle - The Friend
Round Two

Loot:
x 1

I serve thee, my Goddess Longing.

Main Blessing obtained: Blessing of the Hopeful
Zone obtained: The Shrine - Day 3
Link to blessing: Here

Achievement completed: Blessing of the Joyful
Link to blessing win(s): Here

Achievement completed: Minor Blessing of Battle Power
Link to blessing win(s): Here

Her head hurt.

Hurt? No. It echoed, feeling empty and scraped dry, the inside drained and damaged. She knew she'd done something for the Goddesses, each of them, and that she'd come back to herself in the Shrine. First, stained by blood and tears. Second, fouled with sweat and shaking. Third... well, that hadn't been as bad, that gentle warmth, but that had been her own Goddess of Longing leading the way. Something had happened to her, and it had been taken away.

Maybe it's better this way, she thought, but really... she didn't think so. She wanted to know what she'd found, to have earned the blood and tears and trembling. She felt... trapped, if she was honest with herself, as if she were being kept exactly as she were, and anything that might truly change her taken away from her by force. So many Blessings she'd gained, and yet... what, truly, had she really gotten from it? More defined form; flashes of barely-remembered voices. A sense of knowledge of herself. But they were so shallow. It was clear that she was meant to be more.

And she was terrified that the Goddesses were keeping that from her.

Naian sighed and slumped; she was curled near one of the shrines in the World's Edge, her back pressed against a statue's shelter. No way to tell which Goddess it was; the figure's features had been worn away by something. Time or deliberate defacement, who knew.

She felt like that, too. She'd been worn away, and all that was left was grey. She didn’t even want to look at the statue right now. The wonder she’d felt previously at the sights of the World’s Edge had dulled. All her emotions had had their edges worn off, leaving her with nothing but a sort of tattered apathy. What use hope when it could be removed at any time? What value did experience had when it could be taken away in an instant, leaving her bereft of what she’d earned by right? No, no… This was better.
Perhaps she would journey. Perhaps she would not. She would defend herself if threatened; she would wander. But there would be no joy in it. There would be only the need to do something for the sake of not rotting in one place. As far as she could tell, the world had always been like this.

The world would always be like this.

And not even throwing herself off the World’s Edge would end it.

[419 words]

Boss Battle - King Arthur?