Author's Note: Not even going to explain what I am doing with this. Good luck figuring it out y'all.

Chapter 1: Theodore

Theodore Evans carved his way through the battlefield as if possessed by the kind of rampaging orc he spent his youth defending his homeland against.

Off in the distance his half-elven eyes could see his daughter, Lily, and her new husband, James, dueling the Dark Lord Voldemort in tandem.

It was supposed to be him. He was the master wizard from another world. A heroic bladesinger for whom magic was as natural as breathing and doling out death to evildoers was like walking.

And yet here he was, on the other side of the battlefield, pinned down by the Lestranges, all three of them, and dodging Killing Curses coming at him from three different angles.

He was exhausted and down to mostly just his cantrips after killing one of Voldemort's oldest lieutenants, Hugh Avery Sr.

That duel had taken many high level spells that drained his energy down to the pathetic levels he was currently operating at.

While a perfectly timed Tenser's Transformation had allowed him to finish the job these upstart young Death Eaters had jumped him almost as soon as the spell had finished, they had obviously been stalking him under disillusionment the entire time he had used the rest of the spell's duration to rampage through lower level minions.

A shimmering shield appeared in front of him with a twist of his wrist causing his Moonblade to weave a pattern that caused the magical energy to blossom forth and deflect the Blood Boiling Curse that was thrown at him.

Either they were weakening or they were going for spells that were quicker and had less obvious paths than the Killing Curse.

"You fight like a foul Muggle, strange man!" One of the two Lestrange brothers called out.

"Eat your words miscreant! For I am the truest of Wizards! From a lineage of Bladesingers going back millennia. You and your ilk are the backwards goblinoids not living up to the magic within you!" Theodore retorted as he took one hand off his blade to send a Fire Bolt hurtling towards them with a hand gesture.

"Which of thee could cast such wandless magic? Which of thee can best me in a true duel? The answer lies...in your deaths!"

With that smallest of warnings the dimensionally displaced half-elf shot forward moving his blade in an elaborate design finishing off with a flourishing arc that sent a wave of force right into the silent Lestrange brother.

The wizard was sent flying backwards fifteen feet, with at least a few broken ribs.

However before Theodore could press his advantage a single went up from Voldemort and all the Death Eaters began to apparate away as their own anti-apparition ward came down to allow escape.

Bellatrix grabbed the downed man and escaped with him.

"Damnation..." Theodore growled, before turning his attention to the other side of the battlefield, where his daughter knelt next to her exhausted, but still alive husband.

It was, to the graying Theodore, a relieving inversion of a memory fifty-odd years past.

The caves deep beneath the Tormor Falls were magical, mystical, and ever shifting. Teo'drine's party had thought all they were dealing with were a few missing people. Something marginally telepathic or empathic the likely perpetrator.

The abeloth had been a surprise, but not an insurmountable one.

It was the mindflayer lich that had torn the party apart.

The roving blood hunter who had recently joined their small party, Bryon, had been the first to go. Having done the most damage to the abeloth with his Blood Maledicts and elemental swords the lich struck with a Disintegrate from the darkness before anyone knew it was there.

The three remaining party members, Teo'drine and his two best friends, were frozen in shock for just a moment.

Bal'rio, Teo'drine's cousin on his father's side and fellow descendant of Warden Celindar, was an accomplished practitioner of arcane archery and recovered first. A glowing arrow shot from his bow followed quickly by a second arrow, this time shrouded in shadow.

A mystical shield of energy popped up around the lich, deflecting the shots, and it was quickly followed by mirror images of the creature splitting off and shuffling until it was impossible to tell which was the original.

Teo's specialty was fighting other mages however, thus he quickly cast a Crown of Stars that circled quickly before shooting out at all the images, forcing the lich on a brief defensive, which allowed their final party member to act.

Lidria was a powerful Light Cleric who followed the Archeart. The beautiful cleric, in her billowing robes was glowing with divine light and energy as she held out the moons and star symbol of her deity in front of her. Bal'rio's betrothed let loose the most powerful Turn Undead of her life.

And the lich simply laughed at her as the divine energy washed over it in a wave.

Suddenly it had dimension doored behind the group and Teo'drine cast two consecutive counterspells, frustrating the creature, as his companions reoriented themselves.

But the third counterspell failed, and the creature had turned its attention upon Teo'drine. Power Word Stun was one of the most powerful spells in existence. And it broke right through Teo's defenses and suddenly he found himself incapable of moving.

Or defending his friends.

The onslaught of spells would have been impressive if he were not seeing it be used against his friends.

Two acid arrows and a blight found their way past Bal'rio's acrobatic dodging, sending him to a knee in pain, however before the undead could finish him off a glowing and angelic winged elf appeared in front to protect him.

Lidria had brought a celestial guardian of the Archeart to bear on the creature. The radiant damage seemed to make the undead mage pause, though it still pressed on with its attack.

It wasted a Finger of Death to banish the celestial guardian, but that gave it the opening to let loose a powerful mind blast.

Teo'drine watched helplessly as Bal'rio, heir to the lineage of Celindar, was psychically traumatized into brain death.

He slumped onto the ground and once Lidria had recovered a moment later she let out a cry of despair and cradled his brain dead body in her arms sobbing.

With a laugh another disintegrate lashed out and before Teo'drine's eyes his two best friends were wiped off of the face of Exandria.

"So this is how I die? The great-grandson of Celindar on one side and Vex'ahlia on the other is killed by a lich. The kind of thing my ancestors would eat for breakfast before taking on ancient dragons for lunch. How...disgraceful," Teo'drine thought to himself.

The mindflayer lich walked closer to him and then cocked its grotesque head to the side in what appeared to be curiosity.

"Oh this is rich," the mental voice of the lich pierced Teo's brain painfully.

"The scion of the man who ended my mortal life is here in front of me."

Now Teo'drine was very confused, but still stunned into place.

"Tell me de Rollo...does Vex'ahlia still live? Has she passed on the stories of Vox Machina to you?"

And there came the dread. A former enemy of his ancestor probably meant torture. Or worse.

"How they accepted the aid of Clarota only to betray him in the end? To end my mortal life with one of the de Rollo's accursed bullets to my magnificent brain?"

And it wasn't even one of their more powerful foes either. Very embarrassing.

"Luckily I had prepared a phylactery, just in case such an event occurred, though I thought it would be at the eyes of the Beholder. In repayment how about I make you part of my little experiment here hmm? I've been throwing people through this portal to try and get a read on where it goes. How about I throw you through next? Maybe you live, maybe you die, maybe whatever is on the other side is worse than death! Either way I get useful data, I have yet to send any through who were as mediocrely talented as you, perhaps this will work better for me. Good riddance de Rollo-spawn."

With a gesture the stunned Teo'drine was sent through the air and through a stone archway...and into and past a plane of death and spirits and out the other end of some strange arcane tunnel.

And the rest as they say...is history.