Tunnel H is a lot more desolate than he remembered it being—hoarfrost was commonplace here. It crawled up his limbs with little hooked claws. Sharp fangs would bite into marrow and ravage porcelain flash. The corridor would feed the parasitic concept, offering an ever-shifting goblet of winds singing the song of winter. Cryophobia would eagerly accept the gift, gorging itself upon it and filling his veins with primordial ice. Rime clung to his every breath, water coalescing into small droplets in the bitter cold.

Pitifully attempting to dispel the permafrost, he cast forth a small stream of magicka. Any light to scare off the vile winter. Duiker horns crack!ed against a lowhanging spike of ice, sending calamitous pain through his body. Opening eyes he hadn't realized he screwed shut, he found the world in a veil of darkness—quite the opposite as intended. Uninvited, a banshee in the distance began her haunting song. Shadows were rolling, tumultuous, in waves from him, pouring out across the icy floor. Everything felt colder. Ice weighed down his stomach, corrupted his lungs. Mercurius wheezed heavily, blue eyes glowing blindingly white. The banshee approached, hooves clicking softly against the heavy silence. Primordial spires of ice drove their way into his stomach; he heaved dryly and regurgitated what little he had eaten in the past day across the floor.

"Ask not the sun," the banshee echoed in a lilting tone, "why she sets." Blinded eyes glanced up to find her form, sharp against the black. Festering wounds bled cascading darkness, feeding into the world. Perched atop her shoulders was a monstrous white bird. Too many eyes and too many teeth. It echoed her words, corrupted notes of song. "The sun will burn out inevitably," the banshee crooned, falling upon her knees. Black talons mangled her wounds in their emergence. Tearing apart porcelain flesh, the corruption that had seized her and torn her apart crawled closer and closer. Mercurius shook, falling to his elbows in the face of the eldritch amalgamation wearing her pelt as a cape. Feeble, he whined. "Your sun will burn out inevitably." A lingering promise dug deep as wickedly sharp talons tore into every ounce of his being.

And he awoke, cold and alone in the recesses of Tunnel H.