Back in the camp, Lohse was busying herself with patching garments to the best of her ability. The rogue kept her company, enjoying a break from moving weights and tearing nailed wood apart. They talked about menial things, sitting in the shade of a tent that managed to avoid scraping. The late summer did not make the work any easier, and he suspected that, sooner or later, Gareth would commence a laundry day. He shared this presupposition with Lohse, wondering how she managed to keep such things in check traveling with her troupe, but the woman didn't answer. Her head bobbed forward, her posture breaking in two. Vermil sprung to action the very next moment, but he fell victim to the same, unknown influence, barely managing to reach her. He collapsed, his cheek pressed to the bard's knees.
Ifan lost consciousness while carrying a log with two others. Red Prince dozed off during a conversation with another lizard among Seeker's ranks. In the Fort proper, Beast passed out while nailing a scavenged plank back to the ship's starboard. He would have fallen onto sharp rocks below, had it not been for his ever-vigilant elven assistant.
The face of the moon, barely visible in sunlight, appeared from behind passing clouds.
A wisp of light got trapped between a hexagonal labyrinth of pillars that made just about everything in the realm. It zigzagged between the obstacles, raising its flight only to zoom under a silhouette sprawled above, face-planted flat on the stone. A bright glimpse lit up the darkness behind Elane's closed eyelids, waking her up. Her eyes fluttered open, and she propped herself up slowly, taking in the new surroundings.
To the best of her knowledge, she was not on Rivellon anymore. The realm of angular pillars and the sky of an unnatural dark green hue seemed more like a dreamscape than anything else. The ghostly celestial dome above her head was painted with moving streaks of light that followed uneven paths to an orb illuminating the place. It could be compared to a faux sun, but paler and more ethereal in nature, yet still blinding and radiant.
Another wisp flew by, unbothered by the obstacle in the form of Elane's body. The tiny streak of Source-green light ran right through her, leaving a mellow feeling of warmth in its wake.
She was sitting, confused and clueless about what to do until she spotted a fleeting afterimage of spectral, bandage-wrapped legs disappearing down the path. Standing up, she looked around once more, noting that she stood atop a floating isle, among countless others, shifting, changing, and disassembling. All was happening in perfect silence, and the only sound came from below. A distant, spectral hum that seemed to invoke a chill after a moment of listening. Venturing further along the stalagmite corridors, the gaps below her feet flared up with every step. The surroundings became less mundane; onyx was now laced with blue crystal structures, following the same geometrical order. The corridor took a sharp turn into a gate, an irregular arch leading through a colossal pillar that marked the only way forward. Her steps halted, as she spotted a specter beside her. The flickering silhouette of Fane, his true skeletal visage to be precise, was standing in wonder, gazing up at the tower above the passageway. No calls could make him acknowledge her presence, and after a while, he resumed his trek, disappearing whatsoever. As she wavered, growing more and more disoriented, she saw several other ethereal likenesses passing her by. Reluctantly, she followed. The way ended on a semi-circular dais overlooking the significantly bigger islet below with someone standing on it, observing the turmoil unfolding beneath.
As she neared the stranger, his flesh an effulgent gold, she noticed his distinctly elven features. Long and lithe limbs were tell-tale, but a ridiculous headdress made out of meticulously bent and woven living branches crowning his head made it a certainty. Elane cringed, upset by the sight, but decided to approach nonetheless. He spotted her when she was merely two steps away. The light coating him started bending and deforming, and then it burst completely leaving quite a different impression in its place.
He did look elf-like, and his dignified countenance was contorted in surprise, but that was about the end of the similarities Elane could list. His skin wasn't golden and smooth, but dark and bark-like. The garment on his head stopped resembling a crown and now looked more like an actual body part, not to mention at least six limbs, all looking like skeletal branches. Silver markings decorated his flesh, swirls that seemed chiseled into petrified wood. His eyes had the same cold glow, and his forehead was encrusted in an elaborate frame hoisting a teardrop gem.
"You…?" He finally spoke, his voice far more human than the noble expected.
He glanced around, as if her presence was some kind of a bad prank, then the silver beams returned to rest on Elane's silhouette.
"Ah, you're here. Good." He nodded austerely, trying to cover up his earlier startlement.
The noble frowned, ready with questions of her own, but the pompous treant didn't let her get a word.
"You know me, do you not?"
"No, actually not," she was quick to refute, causing the wooden mask that served as a face to once again grimace in a mixture of shock and disdain.
Silver orbs squinted at the question, but Elane only crossed her arms on her chest, awaiting an explanation with growing irritation of her own.
"I am Tir-Cendelius, god of the elves. God of you," he proclaimed pretentiously.
None too impressed elf bent one brow upwards and she nodded along as if something clicked in place in her mind.
"Tell me. What have you done in order to make it this far? How have you failed?"
His voice rang condescendingly by now, multiplying the woman's amusement tenfold. She grinned wryly, holding the silver-tinted gaze without blinking.
"I am sorry, I thought you said you were a god? You should know those things, should you not?" Her tone matched her grin, mocking and confrontational, and none afraid.
She saw his expression fall into one of pure resignation and her sixth sense triggered. In a heartbeat, her mind lapsed decades back, reverting into one of a killer of killers, a prey that becomes a hunter. Tir stepped forward, thin, almost skeletal fingers; a set of eight, reaching for her arm, but she twisted away, lurching her whole body back. A feral growl escaped her throat as she bared her teeth, all eight fangs glistening in the eerie light.
Not expecting such a turn of events, he merely stared her down. His eyes burned with cold flames, his gem twinkled with enraged sparks. Yet he froze as he was, arm outstretched, palm turned down.
"Bow," he spat as if the order was a chain and ball that would break her back. "Bow before me, you insolent scum! I made you, I saved you and you are MY chosen. You dare disobey when the world is in a need of a savior…KNEEL."
His wrath was almost palatable, it tainted the air around, heavy, metallic. Similarly, her body took on weight she couldn't support anymore and her knees slowly bent inwards. It was as if two, red-hot hands were pressing her down by her shoulders. Bent in half, but not yet defeated, she struggled in the invisible hold, her hand lowering, ready to meet the onyx tile below in one last effort to not give in. The pressure increased, her fingertips grazing the cold stone, then receded, vanishing in a blink of an eye. Elane straightened herself, her heart pounding and her legs feeling weak but unyielding. She shot an angry look at the so-called god and saw as his expression changed swiftly, from nonplussed to bitterly tolerating.
"You are my Godwoken and you will ascend."
"No, thank you," feigning a semblance of politeness, the woman stood in opposition still.
A few pants spread her lips open, but she was unrelenting in her stubbornness, earning a sigh of defeat from the deity.
"Some people are not made for power, you make it painfully clear. I'll give you another purpose then. Ensure Sebille ascends, for the sake of the world and your people."
"Would it hurt if you started from the beginning? Ascend? Savior? What are those fairytales about?"
"You should know best we are facing a crisis! The Void grows stronger by the day. The world needs another Divine."
Every word thrown at the mortal felt like a waste of air, her arrival was like a cruel joke from the hands of fate, and so his every following word represented the attitude. Growling. Barbaric. Ultimately vapid. Try as he might, his composure was shattered and his anger with his unruly creation reignited with her every word.
"Naturally," she fought the urge to roll her eyes. "And you had me as a fallback, just in case?"
"You are here for a reason. Here in the Hall of Echoes. Fools cause great wars, and people must follow them into the muck. That is where we find ourselves now. Fighting for a place upon a throne of violence. To fail is to cease to be!"
He pointed his finger downwards, beyond the threshold of the platform that hosted them. She looked down, following his gesture, seeing what she assumed to be the Seven, entangled in a brutal free for all…but there was but one problem. Where there should be six figures fighting there were, well, eight.
"The other gods have sought their champions, too. If they succeed, our very existence as elves in Rivellon may be threatened."
A stifled 'kch' escaped the woman's throat, but it gradually intensified into a full-bodied chuckle, then all-out laughter.
"You ARE clueless," she murmured through the fit. "Me, the savior of elves…"
All mirth left her face in a blink.
"I could not care less. I am no elf, and I would much rather join Rhalic's side in this."
"Are you mad?" He eyed her as if he was the one to see a ghost. "You would turn on your kin? On your very creator?"
"Your 'creations' would see me nailed down to a tree with a dozen arrows before I was tall enough to reach your elbow. They turned on me!" The noble was now one to raise her voice and spew hate, pointing an accusatory finger at the dendroid being. "Damn you and your demon-spawned kin! Your tree-loving degenerates, you-"
She didn't get to finish, pushed over the dais' hexagonal edge. The Hall became a blur of black and green, rushing past.
Suddenly, Elane was back in the treasury, curled up on the gold under the goddess' hooved feet. Something shuffled to her right, followed by a noise of broken glass. Suspicion evolved to alarm when she felt a tingle of Source in the air.
She scrambled back to her feet and came face to face with a demon. It was hunched over a pedestal, chewing something, a Soul Jar in his other arm. The creature was of an appalling physique, naught but muscles strewn over a skeleton that neither belonged to a man, nor lizard, but shared the characteristic of both, monstrous at the same time. It turned its double-jawed face towards the elf, finally noticing movement.
Her gaze began frantically assessing the surroundings and situation. Sebille and Fane were lying unconscious. She was alone with the monster and her sword had disappeared somewhere.
"Who…What are you?" There was no use in hiding, so she could as well try to pry information from the beast since it hasn't attacked her yet.
With the corner of her eye, she spotted the tyrant's crown, rocking back and forth on the uneven ground.
"And here I was thinking I was the only demon Braccus managed to shackle," the demon was speaking coherently, although he sang the vowels strangely, and his tone hollered and faltered with no apparent pattern.
"What…?"
Elane stepped forward but had to lean on the statue for support, her knees trembling.
"Oh, have my senses fooled me? Anyway, would you look at this?"
She realized where her sword was, the fiend was holding it in his clawed, four-digited palm. He presented the jar he was holding with his other hand, turning it around in the torchlight.
"The soul of Braccus' whore, Gratiana." Wheezing similar to a hyena's laughter followed this statement. "She thought she got him, but he got her eventually." Another stomach-curdling gurgle filled the vault.
Without a warning, and before the woman even had a chance to react, the demon threw the vessel up in the air and crushed it between three sets of sharp teeth, feasting on the soul within. She could sense another whiff of Source, but it dissipated as suddenly as it manifested.
The demon squirmed in delight, the sound finally waking the others. Its massive tail swooped over the floor, toppling marble pedestals, and sending gold coins bouncing back off the vault's walls. It breathed out a sulphuric vapor, as its jaw turned towards the three shambling Sourcerers.
"Now, who are you if not an archdemon in a pretty elven coating, hm?"
Sebille was back to her feet, clutching her forearm and cursing in a different language, presumably elvish.
"I asked first," Elane growled, sensing an advantage. "Who in the Void are you?"
The fleshy maw and its secondary bone appendages shook in another unpleasant giggle, but the beast bowed properly, free fist pressed to its chest.
"Who in Nemesis, you mean? Krylr the Kettlegrinder, twenty-two centuries kept in that accursed helm."
Krylr's vicious gaze shifted towards the Sourcerers, who still were gathering their wits.
"My oh my, this will be the feast of millennia, it seems."
Elane's sword twirled and drew small circles in the air, becoming red, then white-hot. The demon charged without further ado, and Elane ducked from the swing, only for the weapon to bury into Amadia's likeness, melting into stone and gold alike, spewing sparks as it did. Using the opportunity, the elf slid under the monster and aimed a kick to disarm him. The blow was more useful than she expected, as the arm bent and broke, bones sticking out of torn muscles. Another kick sent him tumbling backward. She wanted to reach for the blade, but the temperature licked her skin painfully when her hand barely neared the hilt.
"Out of the way!"
The assassin shoved Elane aside and used one of the pedestals as leverage, diving at Krylr with two daggers aimed down. They came into contact, two deep stabs breaking several muscle connections in his back. Sebille was far from done; yanking her weapons free, she fell to her knees and slashed exposed tendrons. Demon's legs began shaking, but the assaulter wasn't waiting for gravity to do its thing, sending the monster to its knees shoving a boot into his poplit. The next second, the elf had the oddly amused abomination at knifepoint.
Elane saw as the blood spilled from his wounds only to some extent, the pool of red, staining the gold below grew only so wide before slowly but surely receding. The sight made her feel as if she was about to collapse.
"He he he, you got me," he commended, making a motion as if he was to clap his hands, just that one was twisted and dislocated and his arm muscles were torn.
The silent whizz of magic made the demon's white scleras focus on the elf before him.
"You really think flames are any good against a resident of hell?" The jab was targeted at Fane, whose palm was precariously enveloped in flame.
He dismissed it, only for his fingers to become a source for a spiraling fume of green miasma. Hollering at the sight, the demon's throat nearly impaled itself at Sebille's blade.
"Eight's curst eye, clueless little wizard, are we?"
"Could anyone enlighten me what this skinless lizard is?" Fane changed the nature of his spell once more, but now no element radiated from his hands.
"I expected to be misinformed, bound two thousand years to a slab of metal as I was, but he is beating me!" The 'skinless lizard' answered, laughing.
Now it was certain, the demon's wounds were mending themselves, and the questioning was just a bid for time in his favor. Fear gripped the elf's heart, the kind that threatened to tip over her whole integrity as a person. Her sight dimmed as if she was delirious. Mindless of the blistering heat, she grasped the sword and pulled it out of the statue. Raising the blade with both of her hands, she plunged it right through the lizard-like skull, and she kept pushing, even when the thing was squirming in agonal twitches on the floor.
"I surmise that was for the best…" Fane eyed the ordeal emotionless, relaxing his grip on magic.
"We could've pestered it for some answers," Sebille snapped all of a sudden.
Elane released her grip on the sword, feeling that she had left some of her skin on the cooling handle. She kept her gaze plastered on the corpse below, seeing the blood trickling from the gash freely.
"You would make deals with a demon?" She asked, without ever averting her gaze.
"Not what I meant-"
Both women stopped their argument, alerted by noise and movement. The tyrant's helm was rolling down the chamber, seemingly out of its own volition. Elane followed, with Sebille close. It clunked and stopped against a far-end wall, next to an archway leading into another part of the treasury. Aside from a few other baubles kept in the smaller extension, it held a decorated apse. The reliefs that filled the angular walls were far from ornamental though, depicting legions of tormented souls, stylised into various grimaces of despair. What stood among that barbarous casing was a mannequin holding, what appeared to be, a set of armor that closely matched the style and brutal practicality of the crown.
Elane sighed, and returned to the main chamber, kicking the helm away on her way. Sebille returned as well, twirling a ruby-coated handle of a golden whip in her hands.
They gathered to rest in a semi-circle, before the destroyed visage of the mother of magic.
"So…" Sebille broke the silence that fell upon them. "You too had a vision?"
The camp was plunged into chaos. First, several sourcerers fainted without any apparent cause, then a worse fate befell Gratiana out of the blue, the tragedy and shock that followed eventually stole the attention of the entire encampment.
Vermil snapped out of the coma, brought to reality by a wet, dripping feeling on his head. He looked up right into Lohse's pitch-black eyes. The color was dissipating from her sclera, but her irises remained dull and black, glistening only through the moisture of tears."Hey…" He reached to squish her hand, pushing away everything of his own concern about the recent unravelings. "Talk to me."
"I-I'm fine," she lied, and it would have been quite a believable attempt, were it not for the initial tremble in her voice. "It's just a-"
"Lohse, I know it's not..." the rogue insisted, yet his tone remained calm. "You're shaking."
"Cold. It got colder," the bard feigned ignorance again, but this attempt was followed by a shaky exhale.
Vermil's hands moved to hold her by the shoulders, delicately at first, but when he hadn't spotted reluctance or discomfort on her face, he allowed the whole weight of his arms to anchor her to reality.
"I want to help. Please, let me," now his voice was the one to tremble, solely out of anxiety for the young woman.
Glimpses of internal fight spilled onto her face. Her eyelids fluttered subtly, the corner of her mouth twitched, and her lips moved in an involuntary tremble. One side had finally won, and her resolve to hide away crumbled, just as she fell from her stool and into the man's embrace. Her face was pressed tightly into his shirt, smelling of sweat and blood that wasn't his, all mixed with dubious hygiene, but the scent was reassuring, homely even. He tucked them both deeper into the tent, not that anyone was paying attention to them now, but Vermil wanted to assure Lohse had this little comfort. They sat, locked in an embrace ravaged by the woman's stifled sobs and loud inhales, during which she recollected the dreadful meeting with something that made her feel utterly powerless.
"It…it wanted to hurt..m- ," the last word became drowned in another outburst of swallowed tears.
"We're getting you outta here, and we'll find help. Okay?" he soothed while his own mind galloped, trying to recall a morsel of information, anything that could be of use in identifying the, seemingly powerful, intruder.
"You two alright?" Ifan came to check in on them, visibly rattled and weak on his legs.
The woman, startled by the intrusion, froze, her hands still clutching the front of Vermil's shirt.
"Far from it," the rogue answered, untethered. "You?"
"Even worse," the mercenary fell silent, massaging his nape in an uneasy manner.
"I take it you had a talk with the father of humanity as well?" the other man stated matter-of-factly.
Ifan was by no means comforted by the solidarity, his sun-kissed skin turning ashen.
"Maxos' beard, this isn't good."
Vermil sighed trying to come to terms with the unprecedented shifts; s relatively simple situation turned unimaginably complex in a spawn of one vision.
"That's not all, though."
Raising his head to the heavens, the Arxian scholar made use of his knowledge, uttering an ancient curse in his mind, very well aware of where the conversation was heading.
"He warned me about Lohse."
"So, if I understand this correctly, you both have been contacted by a lord who bears the same name and resemblance to an Eternal I knew as Tir-Cendelious and he repeatedly abused his power over you AND pitted you against your fellow companions?"
The elves shook their heads in a positive response asynchronously. Fane laced his hands together and let his chin rest on his thumbs.
"Lady Amadia has told me the rest of the Seven become corrupt and lost in their deliriums but this…"
"Wait," Elane jerked in her spot. "So the gods and your lords are one and the same…?"
"Well, I'm not sure what they are. Not quite gods, but not quite Eternals." The scholar's voice rang quieter than usual.
He pushed his thumbs underneath his invisible mask, dislocating it and eventually taking it off, he stared into the empty eyes of the faces depicted on it for a long moment, perfectly still and silent.
"I feel I am missing something here…" Sebille peered curiously at the undead. "You speak of the gods as if you were acquainted-"
"Fane is old enough to remember a time when the 'gods' were not gods," Elane rushed to explain. "Apparently before they ascended, they were little more than some sort of nobility."
"Royalty," the Eternal interrupted, "If we wish to stick to the mortal equivalents. That is one mystery less. After their acquisition of so-called godhood, they fashioned the mortal races in their image."
The assassin appeared shaken by the news for a moment, but then her expression elated, somewhat triumphantly.
"So you're telling me that the Seven are a happy bunch of aristocracy from some long-dead race who only happen to come across godlike powers?"
"They are gods, at least by your standards," he shrugged.
"What of the others? And the King? Did they tell you?" Elane was buzzing with curiosity, invested in the unknotting plot.
Fane's posture slumped, losing its usual cockiness.
"They did. My people are gone, and the King was banished to the Void in a war that predates your existence. The Seven are all that remains."
The noble let out a long exhale, while Sebille tapped her fingertips on her lips, trying to process the new facts.
"I am…I am sorry, Fane."
The sympathies rang without any acknowledgment. The scholar got up, casting a passing glance at the ruined statue of Amadia. He moved to cross the chamber in the approximate direction of the exit, but he stopped in his tracks after three steps.
"You should probably 'bag the loot' as you mortals say, we should not linger."
After giving the orders, he resumed his walk and disappeared into the adjacent chamber. The sound of bone clicking against the stone disappeared after a while, hinting that the corridor indeed led out of the vault system.
Elane wanted to follow along, but she halted, seeing the deathly glare of the other elf piercing holes in her side. She sat back down, cocking an eyebrow at her companion.
"So, what is your opinion on our glorious god-creator, Elane?"
"Honest one?"
"Preferably."
"A dickhead," the other surmised with a perfectly stoic face, and finally got up to her knees.
Sebille stood up as well, stifling a laugh. "How improper, miss."
Rolling her eyes, the noble got to sift through the treasure, pocketing precious stones that had been thrown into the pile. The other cast a fleeting glance on the oils and rich marbles filling every remaining nook and cranny, then back at her companion, filling her canvas bag with whatever that was not golden coins, muttering curses under her breath.
"The gold is not worth it?"
She stuck the golden whip she procured behind her belt.
"Maybe a pouch. If we could peddle it as real, there should be enough to cover necessities for a week or so. Unless you really want to stuff as much as you can carry in the hem of your tunic."
"Fair, fair. A bothersome fate, that."
Elane glanced up from her work, wordlessly pressing the other to elaborate.
"Having to eat?" She finished, kneeling next to the noble.
Undoing all the strips and belts securing her sleeve, she slipped it off of her lean arm, and tied one end in order to create a makeshift sack. Elane shot curious looks at her work, noticing that the cloth tied over her arm was there to hide countless tattoos-inked names etched onto her flesh. Many of them have been crossed with a fresher line, Stingtail among such names, but one remained untouched. Tilting her head discreetly, the noble deciphered the writing. Master. She savored the information as if she was watching the clouds pass by, and returned to her scavenge, while the assassin was filling the sleeve with gold.
"You're staring but you're not asking," Sebille noted in a sour voice, letting the coins fall into the fabric with pleasant clinking.
"Who am I to pry? None of my business who you kill and what you do with your own skin."
"Sometimes I forget you're sane, despite it all."
She tossed the pouch onto the other's lap and moseyed out of the main chamber.
They soon assembled by another opened arch, leading into a corridor, crudely chiseled in solid rock. The slope of the passageway was ascending, and they would climb with it, had it not been for a cruel whim of circumstances. The earth shook from an underground explosion and the tunnel began losing its integrity. The floor crumbled and collapsed, sending the three falling into a large cavern below. Fane managed to catch himself on a ledge created via geomancy. Sebille stepped into the shadows in time, and after a turbulent flight, reappeared in the shade of a woman, surprised just as they were. Elane tumbled onto a pile of carcasses sprouting vile-smelling flowers below, which broke her fall. The smell hit the assassin soon after, making her gag. It was reasonable at the time, to consider the reek of Knile's playground to be the absolute worst smell in existence to torment the senses, yet it paled in the vapourised spite and grief of the necromantic garden. The noble slid off such one flower bed, feeling hazy.
The woman they interrupted smiled sweetly at Sebille, who was trying her best not to spill the contents of her stomach for everyone to see. She held a sickle in one hand, and a particularly ugly bouquet rested in the crook of her other arm. Her outfit was a rave in its own right, leaving virtually nothing to the imagination and still consisting of enough gold ornaments and delicately woven purples that the sheer volume of the fabric would make a dwarven merchant hyperventilate.
"Gods it stinks in here! Wait, I can smell now?" Fane's startled voice from above only made the witch's beautiful mellow in an even more charming grin.
Sebille continued to retch, her usually rosy complexion going from yellow to completely hueless. Elane by no means was faring any better, feeling both intoxicated beyond reason and hungover, her gait staggering as she tried to sort out her inoperative body.
The sickness vanished, at least for the scarred elf, the moment the witch's alabaster fingers rested against her carved cheek. Her eyes were the color of sickly green, like leaves hanging on a tree ravaged by illness but the assassin's own, yellow orbs were transfixed on this image of misery and decay.
"Now who might you be?" The woman's eyes rose and traveled from one unwanted guest to the other, and Sebille's gaze followed their every movement.
"A good question indeed. Would you be so kind and answer it yourself?"
Fane was walking down, protruding rocks to form a staircase, easing his descent. He kept his empty sockets transfixed on the woman the entire walk.
She watched the flaunt not without wonder in her eyes, which were adorned by uneven strokes of purple and gold makeup.
"Ave domore, d'mir galach?" her tone went from subtle and flowy to sharp and growling.
Elane froze in place and her mind snapped back to reality as if she got thrown into an icy ocean. This cluster of sounds struck a chord. Fane, however, showed no recognition of the odd sentence. His feet finally reached the ground, and he was nearing the woman, unfazed by the circumstances.
The woman in purple casually sheathed her tool in a holster on her hip and snapped her fingers. The corpses littering the chamber started to move. Most were covered in fleshy, bulbous growths, oozing poisonous vapors. They lunged at the elves, quickly subduing them with the sheer amount of decaying flesh.
"Nevermind then," she purred, scanning the shabby silhouette before her. "I am Radeka, and you have quite the bad timing, kitten."
"Clearly you are not a prisoner, and not a Magister either. What does a woman singing butchered consonants of a long-forgotten language do in a place like this?"
It could've been a trick of the light, but Radeka seemed to have blushed at the remark, placing her free hand on her hip, and cradling the roses she was holding.
"I knew those bones weren't lying. I haven't seen a skull as pretty as yours in a long while now." Her voice was but a whisper, low, trickling like spiced wine.
She strode up to him and poked him in the gem. He reciprocated the affection by grasping her by her chin and pulling her face close and up, just so she could get a better look at his Eternal smile.
"Who was the last one you saw? Where?"
Holding onto hope should be unreasonable, with his worst fears proven to be true by his own kin. But since this woman was an odd tourist on an island riddled with lost Eternal technology, he assumed it wouldn't hurt to try. No god can be omniscient, or so he firmly believed.
"Tit for tat," she hummed, squirming in his grip in something a sane person could recognize as excitement. "I'll tell..."
Her black eyelashes murmured coquettishly.
"...For a kiss."
His grip on her face changed, cold vices twisting her head backward, at the two writhing masses of flesh holding the two elves captive, and with barely any air to breathe.
"Release them first, this instant,"
As uncomfortable as it was, her whole body shook in a chuckle. "Darling, why wou-"
She quickly learned why it would be a good idea to obey him; a burning palm licking her skin far beyond the feeling of comfort. With another snap, the bodies jumped aside like puppets. She glanced back at the indifferent skull, puppy-eyed, forcibly adjusting her position in the grave-cold hold.
Elane and Sebille were greedily gasping for putrid air below, pale and clearly under influence of some toxin, but otherwise unscathed. Fane stood reluctant, eyeing Radeka.
"My brethren had spent the better part of the century studying your kind, surely there is something useful in that head of mine you want so desperately to twist off…" the witch teased, somehow still visibly enjoying the stratagem.
The Eternal took the bait, fueled by desperation and misery he's been in since the news reached him through Amadia's lips. The kiss felt like…well, plain nothing. Just like nearly everything in life, save for the Source-infused stench of the flowers. The woman seemed to be enjoying the interaction, however strange it was to note, judging by her closed eyes and restless hands. Elane shook off the sickness to catch a glimpse of the display and felt nauseous again. Radeka's eyes fluttered open, her eyes lit by a different glimmer. In a split second, the kiss went from nothing to tearing at his very being, his integrity. He realized with fear that he knew this sinister pulling, he had come to know it right before learning the true extent of his punishment: purging. His time was running out, he was desperate. Clutching the hands holding onto his bones he was determined to finish the woman, knowledgeable or not. It started with a spark that grew into an immolating star. The cavern lit up as if it hosted a miniature sun.
The conjured corpses were sent into a mindless rage with the sudden death of their leader. Without a mind to hold theirs at bay, they began acting on their own, long-defunct urges, roaring, tearing at the flesh, their own, others, it did not matter. Sebille and Elane were thrown into a flurry of shrieks, stench and hooked nails, attacking whatever was near the necromantic abominations. Still, without a call to fuse them together, they were dispatchable via ordinary means. Hacked flesh remained inert and crushed bones stayed crushed. Thanks to that, both women were soon surrounded by chunks of flesh and whatever plant life coated it once. Fane weathered the explosion at the cost of his clothing turning to ash, and his bones ending covered in soot. The witch wasn't as lucky, her lavish outfit was as nonexistent as the flesh on her bones that were facing the explosion. Smoke was coming from them both, but the stench of the charred body was an oddly welcome change in the air.
"What in the…What in the hell?!" Elane blurted out through coughs.
"We're leaving this place or otherwise I'll…choke…damn," Sebille urged. Do you even see where the exit…is?"
The caustic vapor that was slowly filling the room was irritating their eyes, and the flames were more than happy to dance on the corpses and the like, they were in the proximity of the supernova. It barely helped that the ground they were on ended with another treacherous drop, and moving anywhere blindly would've been a bad idea. Trying to put Lohse's teachings into use, Elane attempted to conjure rain to douse the flames. She felt the moisture around, in the air, ground, and even within. She pulled every particle and tried to clump it into one, in order to form a cloud. Her necromantic hunch won, distorting the spell. In the very last second, be it by pure habit or the nature of her surroundings, she called to the blood-rich soil of the gruesome cavern and it did start to rain. A rain of crimson. It quenched the smoke and flames all the same but to more grisly aftermath. The downpour ended only when they were drenched in red, for better or for worse.
"Warn…." Sebille growled, wiping wet fringes glued to her forehead and dripping down.
"This did not go as…intended," the noble was dumbstruck and caught off guard completely.
While Elane tried to mitigate the situation by cleaning them both through an incantation, Fane was wobbling around the cavern, looking for the mask he lost as they fell. It was laying lodged into a pile of bones, that made a sizable slope leading onto the cavern's higher levels.
He acknowledged with a sigh that mortal clothing is as susceptible to fire as their books are, after which he hobbled back to the elves, the shreds of fabric barely holding on intact on his bones, not to mention his bandages, that had been incinerated instantly. Elane greeted their womanizer with a scornful expression, noting the sorry state he was in.
She was about to comment, when the undead pressed an object into her palms, and trotted to the other end of the cave, sporting a big opening. She was holding onto a spent purging wand, but unlike the ones found in Braccus' armoury, this one seemed newer, crafted in a purple and gold aesthetic. A singular ring crowned the wand, and the elf couldn't shake the feeling she saw the iconography somewhere already. She passed to Sebille, less than eager to be a beast of burden for the undead again. They left the clutches of the subterranean onto an unfamiliar beach, blinded by the sun at the zenith. There was only one way out, and the Eternal set off to follow it without a second thought, only to be stopped by Elane. She wiped the mixture of blood and soot from his skull to the best of her ability and pulled her torn tunic that was laying crumbled at the bottom of her bag.
"It might not matter to you, but you look like a walking nightmare."
Sebille eyed them. "I'll go scout ahead, you two do whatever."
Fane's mask dropped onto the sand after the elf coaxed him into washing. His own hands were rather ineffective in transporting water, and he had to rely on the woman. Sea water was not ideal, but it washed off the grime well enough. His new attire of ash seemed to fit with his mood perfectly; laggard movements and slouched posture. This prompted the noble to speak.
"You know, I did not tell the whole story with Tir back there," Elane started, unsure why she even did in the first place.
"Yes, I am all ears."
She was somewhat relieved to know some of his humor, or at least unfortunate choice of wording, remained.
"How do I even start…It was so strange."
The gilded skull finally turned towards her; a sign of caught attention.
Elane wrung the scraps that once served him as clothing, pensively looking into the greenish water.
"I do not know what to make of it, or what it really changes. But when I saw…him…" Elane tried the waters of addressing the god with as little respect as she could. "It was as if his elven costume simply fell off. He looked elvish, but his skin was literal bark, limbs literal branches, and on his forehead…" She sheepishly pointed at Fane's gem, both gold and cerulean glistening in the sunlight.
"You saw him as he once was," the Eternal assessed. "Curious. Do you think it was intentional? Was he aware?"
Elane's shrug was mixed with a shiver, the god's true visage was more monstrous than she cared to admit. Fane did not fail to notice her uneasiness at the recollection.
"I am…not entirely sure. He was surprised to see me at all."
The scholar fell silent, thoughtful and she wiped a few last smears from his ivory, before deeming it good enough. During her work, she noticed that the golden ornaments, the most prominent of which was adorning his forehead, were present on every bone in some way. But she didn't stay to oggle or inquire any further, leaving him with her torn shirt, which was better than wearing nothing, and other wearable rags she pocketed along their escape.
Just as Elane left the skeleton be, Sebille returned from her errands, beaming with emotion.
"Two things," the assassin started listing. "Another odd-looking statue and a dragon stranded on a frozen beach."