We can do it, we’ve made it this far we might actually be able to do this. Even a Runelord cant stop our friends.
Corvi begins tapping into the leylines, channeling the sickly temporally frozen energies into himself as his party continues to talk and talk. The dire tiger sits upon its haunches licking its acidic wounds and staring down at its possible new enemy.
The negotiations always go south why do they bother with paltry diplomacy with power hungry blatantly evil figures… It always ends with an awkward end followed by a crackshot from whoever decides deliberations are over.
I believe its important to at least offer those lost a chance. Don’t you think everyone deserves a chance?
Hypocritically Corvi begins shaping a spell as Telandril is proven correct with negotiations breaking down. A vibrant emerald energy surrounds the bird as he attempts to forge a connection and bring a veritable swarm of dinosaurs raining down upon the Runelord.
Karzoug glances at corvi with disdain and frustration and snaps his finger, “Begone you mild inconvenience.” One second six ankylosaurus were appearing within karzoug’s throne room, surrounded by friends and foes at the height of their adventure. The next second corvi finds himself in a strange astral plane surrounded by countless people.
The bird glances around exploring the new territory he found himself in, stunned into silence for a moment which is a surprising even in of itself.
“Wh. What? Did we get banished? Is this an illusion? No matter, Damirah will dispell whatever arcanery this is.”
Glancing up a strange gaudy skull moon glances hovers above him, the group of people around him shuffles forward leading Corvi to take a half step forward out of instinct.
Telandril the gold haired elf finds himself looking up at the ominous form of Groetus, doubling over he continues laughing harder and harder. Tears streaming from his yellow eyes. Everyone steps forward the small brown haired halfling bumping into him from behind as he refuses to step forward.
“You absolute fool, you’ve got us killed. I JUST got back, I just got out and within the week you got us killed. We’re in the boneyard you stupid birdbrain, Karzoug KILLED us and our friends will follow shortly. How. How could I let you lead us into that, we should have run as far as possible from all of this. How could we hope to fight a RUNELORD with nothing but cats and lizards?”
The elf’s bronze skin erupts into shaggy feathers, his face forming a beak at the end of it after a few painful moments and a voice different from his own pipes up.
“Dead? So what! I believe in our friends, Ikky’s died like a dozen times already a this point it feels like,Whats a little death between friends when we have this much at stake? I have faith they will get us back in no time after putting Karzoug in his place.”
Everyone takes a step back from the feathered elf arguing with himself, the immediate vicinity of specters all stares in horror. His hobbled form an amalgam of about half of their features, fluctuating as they talk.
“No. No nononono NO. This is WRONG. It was never like this before. We never were active at the same time, not really.One then the other. It wasn't ideal but it worked. I can hear every single thought simultaneously. WILL YOU STOP YOUR INANE RAMBLINGS?”
The duo falls to their knees looking at their hands. Talons sprout at the end of the slender copper fingers, Then half transform back to the normal fingers. Feathers sprout and recede into his form. The crowd moves around him, walking past him toward whatever destination they all move to.
The sound of shattering glass breaks the pair from their stupor, climbing to their feet they glance back from where they began just to see the splintering dimension. Corvi extends a hand in dismay as he notices a large portion of his friends standing a distance away. Suddenly Ziranna was gone, taken by whatever glass shattering entity claimed her. Tears stream down his misshapen form as he looks between Drenn and Thea in the distance.
“Did we fail? They’re here. DRENN’S and Thea are both here. They were the sturdiest of us all. Who even is left? The wizards?”
He begins to wipe away the tears as the crystalline fractals appear again surrounding Thea this time. He watches in horror as she disappears into herself as the dimensional rift folds her away.
“What is happening to them? I dont want that to happen to me. I refuse to be trapped again, I refuse to go back to where I was.”
Corvi with a lack of anything better to do wraps his arms around himself squeezing…him? Telandril? As best as he can do for now. “Its fine, I’m here, we’re together now alright? Neither of us will be going back in the tesseract. Everything will be fine, just have faith in our friends.”
Their forms split down the middle, half a bronze skinned elf, half a small bird creature. Their form imbalanced by their most recent transformation as they hobble to the right. A copper arm retreats from the embrace and smacks into the Tengu’s cheek knocking them both to the floor. The crowd steps over him as he interferes with the queue.
“YOU DONT UNDERSTAND. You wernt there, you didnt endure it, you didnt suffer. You dont get it you body stealing cretin. You dont know true darkness, true pain, I have no hope after that , after losing everything and everyone. You disgust me and I cant even be rid of you in death.”
They feel a firm tug from the base of their back, A look of confusion comes over both their faces, both their hands reach hesitantly back behind them and come across something shockingly frozen and hard. Searing pain in their fingers worse than anything either of them has ever felt overwhelm them as they come into contact with it. An image. A flash of a skull somehow… some how impossibly grinning in their mind. You’re still mine little elf. You dont get an afterlife. Laughter echos in their mind as the image fades.
Scrambling to their feet they glance behind themselves, looking back in horror link after link of frozen chain lead into the distance connected to their back leading back from where they came. The crowd continues to move ignoring them.
“It cant be, It cant be like this. We were free. I got away. The spell failed, YOU HAPPENED. He cant have me. Not again, I refuse to be his pawn, I refuse to be his tool. WE WILL NOT BE USED. NOT BY HIM OR THE FACELESS ONE”
Their form begins shifting between bird, elf, various beasts they have the power to transform between, They collapse to the ground rapidly shifting, sobbing and clawing at whatever solidified void he found himself upon. Suddenly massive one moment, minuscule the next. Nothing around him matters except escaping Tar Baphon, Escaping the afterlife.
Eventually the lines move enough for Drenn to find what all the commotion was about. The souls part enough for him to find a mishapen beast at his feet, sobbing and holding a hand up to him. The broken haphazardly feathered form of his ally pleading for help.
