Things have been going pretty badly for you this cycle. You got chased very far away from your safe place from a very odd creature. It was like a lizard, but it looked like it fused with a rot cyst...yuck. How was that even possible??? As far as you were sure, the rot absorbed, not infected. That nasty thing was even screeching the entire time it was chasing you! Thankfully, you did end up getting away, but one question remains...what even is this place??? On closer inspection, it seemed to just be a slightly lighter part of Shaded Citadel...oh joyyy. Just wonderful.

Immediately, you begin planning a way back, because Shaded Citadel is known for having way too many hostile things living within it's confines. Eventually after spotting a vent that might lead you out, you start walking over to it, startling a bit of the local lantern mouse population. But just before you make it to the vent...a literal RIFT appeared from the corner of your eye, with only a split second later something emerging out of it and SLAMMING right into you. Owchie.

You look back at whatever the depths just did that, expecting to see some white lizard suddenly snap you up and drag you to it's den (since you are still severely doubting the whole "space time rift just appearing right in front of you" thing), but instead, you lock eyes with a...slugcat? A completely pitch black scug was just standing in front of you, staring at you with white glowing eyes as if YOU were the weird one in this situation. You expected it to suddenly yank up a spear and turn you into a kebab, but it simply just said something in a mumbled voice:

...sorry. I didn't mean to.

...and then it just walked right around and past you. No answers, it just completely ignored talking to you. What gall. Still though, you really just want to leave before your entire perception on reality gets warped into thoughts about portals and whatever that sickly lizard you saw earlier came from (now that you think about it, probably related to that scug). Yeah, you should probably bolt towards the vent. You never really liked scary incomprehensible things.