RP:And Perdere Followed with Him

Part of the The God of Undeath Arc

This is a Mage's Guild RP.

Summary: Trist’oth has fallen.

Mage Tower

The light of day doesn't make it into Lanlan's office. For elegance, there are a few ethereal jellyfish hovering about the airspace. They shed a soft glow of various colors at different times, but nothing bright. Lanlan is leaning in the ethereal twilight with hands behind on his massive wooden desk, facing a smooth wall that is slowly being covered by a massive luxurious tapestry. Normally he uses his laundromancy for clothes. Even when they were his clothes, which occasionally bordered on tacky for their adornments, the level of patience and care was nothing compared to what this piece took. So far, there was woven Arhnuk glowing red in an indigo sky. A sharp white column just beginning to stretch away from the moon toward the unfinished side of the tapestry. It disintegrates into shreds before the source of the beam is uncovered. A skilled artisan could achieve the same results in half the time. A knock on the door, and Lanlan is abruptly thrust between relief and frustration. He knows once he stops he won't want to commit such energy to this again for some time. Immediately he gestures toward the luxurious wooden double doors with a small nod of his head, and they glide soundlessly open.

"Cynica!" He calls out to the sparkling elf assistant. He's got with him a matrix of packages and bags, arranged just accordingly so they wouldn't all collapse just because of gravity. The elf can't actually be seen behind all the recent purchases. Lanlan twists his fingers up toward the ceiling, and the wobbling tower begins to unmake itself brick by brick. "Did you find everything--" Before he can finish , a sudden gust of wind blows by his face, marking it briefly with astonishment. But the boxes continue to bob through the air closer toward his desk, and Cynica's sparkling eyes and glittering face are revealed. When he sees Lanlan, nothing is wrong. "Don't worry if you didn't find anything," says Lanlan, causing Cynica's face to twist. "I'll come see you later, but right now, I'm busy." The door shuts on him.

From behind it, and no longer blocked by the door, the sudden gust of wind stands stoic. "I'd be embarrassed that I overlooked such a simple weakness in our detection glyphs," Lanlan says to his former lieutenant. The wind becomes shadow, the shadow becomes a cloak. As the hood falls down, the insignia of House Diseldissan shimmers lavender glyphs over plain slate. The Drow comes fully into being a moment later. Ever since Haladavar and his order were destroyed (except for Cynica), security at the guild has been attuned to the individual's magic signature. Using Lanlan's own stored spell allowed his former lieutenant to slip past. "Xundus," Lanlan says neutrally. "Tell me why you're here." Years past since he last thought about his old shadow in the dark. He was as loyal as he could be, Lanlan believed at the time, but when a house is demolished, the survivors disperse as much as the stones. There was no bad blood, but there could be no good news.

"You may remember a cause," says Xundus in a gloomy, strained and raspy voice that was his. The touch of melancholy acceptance that it had was always there. "A cause that made the temporary alliance between ourselves and D'Artes seem necessary. Caluss almost united the houses, for a while." That alliance proved most unfortunate, or so it seemed at the time. Lanlan took a shallow breath in and out, and his stern gaze faltered only for a moment as he became aware of the last thing he wanted to hear. "It was just as necessary as you knew it was, and without it. Without you, without them..." Navigating Lanlan's ego and willingness to dramatize was still as sharp a skill as it was back then, but Lanlan interrupts him. "Tell me what it is Xundus, tell me how bad it is."

"Survivors are scattered..." Lanlan abruptly turns away. Survivors. "It's impossible for me to say what houses survived, what leadership might remain." Did Xundus think he was protecting his former leader by alluding so vaguely to Gevurah? "It's interesting," he makes a noise that sounds like a small cough, but Lanlan recognizes it as a numb chuckle. "But the ones who had the most faith in the god of endings seemed to meet him the fastest. The Arcania seemed like the safest place. Or House Stavret. The ones like us and the vampires and lycans," House Diseldissan, Lanlan knew, "we met them and fought the dead. They're probably still fighting them, but it was suggested that I should come here." He didn't need to say more, and Lanlan knew what this was.

Lanlan, turns back to face him, to measure the affect in the grey elf's countenance. Xundus isn't the fastest, or the strongest, or the bravest. He doesn't have an ounce of magic talent in him. But he was Lanlan's lieutenant, his most trusted. He was only the most likely to get help. Lanlan slid a kaleidoscope from his sleeve and considered Xundus a second longer. "Wait there," he instructed. He paced one way, and then back. In that time the door opened, "I said...!" But Lanlan was his master no longer. Xundus was gone.

"Idiot," Lanlan says as he holds the kaleidoscope up to his eye and turns the chamber. "Where are you," he says, seeing only the brilliant patterns of the beads. He wouldn't find her like that, he knew. He pivots rapidly and flies, speeding an inch off the ground to tall cabinet. It's opened and he finds his knock off crystal skull. The enchantment animating it barely lingers, and it's teeth chatter only slowly, almost boredly. It's his magic that made this one, and his magic that made the one she bought off him. Even if he can't find her magically he might be able to make her hear him. He holds it up to his own mouth as he glides through the archmage's door and starts finding Valrae's. While he walks, he presses his thumbs over the gaudy gemstone eyes, and curls his fingers around the ceramic skull until his fingers meet on the other side.

"Valrae, Caluss is in Tristoth." For a moment that's all he can say. Help them? Why? He takes on a sterner tone. "Valrae if you're at the Mage's Guild, I'm coming to your office. If you're not, then get here please." He says what he believes are the magic words, hoping they haven't yet lost their power. "I need your help."

Cenril

The golden glow of afternoon sunlight slanted lazily over the bedroom of the Mayoral suite. The space was a markedly feminine safe haven, filled with the soft blushes of pink on white and the glimmering tones of jewels in soft silks and crushed velvet. In a robe as soft as clouds, Valrae was perched on the ornate seat of her vanity with her hair as free as a young girls, the pins that had held the waving wheat and honey strands in a modest twist earlier now abandoned amid the womanly clutter of scented oils and skin creams, as she studied the mirror and applied a moisturizing lotion underneath her eyes.

The day had been long, as they often were when spent in the stuffy rooms of politics and heavy legislation, and the witch had granted herself an early retreat. She’d been eager to satisfy the itch of vanity and indulgence with a night in drinking wine, a sweet white that sat chilled and half tasted in a wide long stemmed glass within arms reach, a beauty routine that wasn’t rushed, and a luxuriously hot bath with an indulgent book. The most serious of choices she had to look forward to now were which potions to apply to her hair and what scented soaps to pour into the bath that would soon be drawn. Well, that was before Lanlan.

She’d sensed some unease before, the bond that they shared (no matter how broken and untethered it’s third end may remain) lingered eternally outside of her awareness. It was easily ignored as she crossed the room to her crowded shelves to pluck an embarrassing romance novel from it. That’s when the imitation skull, missing one of its bejeweled eyes, chirped. Lanlan’s voice slipped from between its glittering teeth and the words he spoke sent a fear so raw and primal through her that it left her breathless.

Was he there? Was Lanlan in Tristoth with Caluss alone? She tried to push through her own panic, to pinpoint where the silver cord that connected him to her would lead, but it was impossible as she scrambled across her room to fling open her armoire. His voice cut through her screaming mind again. Mage’s Guild. He was at the Mage’s Guild. Relief nearly took her off of her feet. Pants, tunic, wand, bag, the real crystal skulls. All of them. Boots, a cloak. She dressed in a mad dash, her leggings hardly tucked in her unlaced boots before she summoned her power and the room melted into a storm of whirling cosmos and burning stars.

She was standing before him, hair and eyes wild, before the word ‘help’ had fully left him. Breathlessly, Valrae hitched her bag onto her shoulder and asked, “What can I do?”

Trist’oth

In the dim twilight of those cthonian caverns, only a few fleeting motes of light can still be seen- dull embers amidst freshly ruined edifices, made hazy by strangling serpents of smoke. Even the pale glow of the faerie-fire lanterns have abandoned this place- only a few dying gasps still clinging to the now ruined stonework, enough to allow the crystalline formations in the room to give off a dull, sickly radiance. A timid death, by all accounts. Meaningless. Something to be defied. From within the burgeoning darkness, a gaunt hand reached out- jerked motions meant to inevitably settle lengthy fingers around the gem, nails dragging across the myriad reflections captured roughly within it's facets. Of the insect-like visage which peered into the whole, unblinking. Bit by bit, the unhallowed light contained within the stone began to intensify, lapping over the room and bringing atrocity into clarity. Because the Corpse Lord was not alone. Stretched along the street was legion- bodies exhumed and animated from charnel pits once used to consign fallen gladiators, sacrifices, and slaves alike. The cities destructive decadence laid bare, and turned against it- before it's denizens joined those they'd once stood atop. All that was left, truly- was to collect those dead that had been held sacred- priestesses who'd devoted their life to the gods that had abandoned them. Perhaps those vain house lords which had seen fit to have their bodies lain alongside them.

Lanlan stands wordlessly before Valrae for too long, perplexed. She must not have heard him. "Caluss is in Tristoth." He repeats it, because if she had heard him, she would ask why she, or even he, should care. He was prepared to argue, not that they were people who needed to be saved, but that were potential additions to his army. Maybe she was already there. He sees the resolution in her eye, she didn't need him to convince her.

The question was: What can I do? It was the perfect question, what could anyone do. "We can help the survivors." But first they had to find them. Lanlan knew the place that was described to him by Xundus, but they'd need to get there quick enough. Lanlan might be able to. "Put yourself in their perspective," he said, vaguely. He didn't even bother to close the room to her door, he simply spread a vision out before their eyes. It was of the darkened fortress of House Stavret, long bastion to the under city against all the monsters outside. This time, Lanlan knew, it was stemming the tide from within. Though his vision was only that, a vision. It was a building carved out of stalagmites reaching tall, nearly up to the cavernous ceiling, then connected by bridges and walkways hewn into the stone.

It was on one of those that two lone figures stood. The vision snapped to them, distant, small, vague beings. Right away they should recognize themselves. As the vision honed in on them, they'd come clear into focus. And then the illusion of Lanlan would look into the real one's eyes, and the illusion of Valrae would look into her real eyes. It was like a mirror stretching through dimensions. Then suddenly the vision shatters, and as fast as a crack travels through broken glass, they're flung through space into the bodies of their illusionary selves. But they aren't alone.

Below them, hordes of undead march, as an army marches, against the gates. Another army fights at the gate already, against all manner of Drow fighter and construct. They aren't fighting a battle they hope to win, however. They're fighting only to escape. As the constructs and warriors and wizards fight, the occasional Drow escapes over spire's wall, each navigating their own treacherous path. The luckiest ones ride a lizard along the sheer cliff or even upside down on the caverns ceiling. Others scamper from spire to spire, staying out of each of the horde, for now. The unlucky ones are marching within it.

The sounds echoing in this underground chamber tell of a slaughter, even if it can't be seen. The Drow who live tell as little as possible, their piwafwis and silent stepping boots near ubiquitous. It's in the ones who get caught who free their blood upon the unforgiving stone floor or cry out in pain as an unholy blade pierces their flesh. Allies of convenience who fight below occasionally get dragged from their mounts, or make an error born of exhaustion. They fall and their flesh tears. Then they rise and assimilate into the marching force. Behind them, on the other side of the walls, is the world that House Stavret was meant to protect them from. The rest of a creatures of hell the Underdark was known to bed feared for, and yet this is where many of the survivors fled to. In the face of certain death, reach for an uncertain one.

Lanlan scans the battlements for signs that there is any effort to combat the onslaught, and his magic-attuned senses are attracted to a particular spire, flattened into a plateau. Tracing their focus, he spies their goal. The cavern floor. In great and violent waves it rises against nature and gravity under the floor of the charging swarm of death. It's exactly what they should be doing: creating a wall to halt the onslaught. But their efforts are stymied.

"See there!" Lanlan says pointing to the mages. "Someone's blocking their magic!" His voice could hardly be heard above the chaos, but it would ring clear as day in Valrae's mind. Lanlan slides his kaleidoscope out of his sleeve and bends it toward the army, beginning at the back. It's powerful divination magic is immediately overwhelming, revealing a massive explosion of putrid greens and blacks being used to control the horde. After focusing and refocusing, he's at last able to spot a glimmer of ethereal blue, flickering in the chaos. He targets them with faerie fire, and they light up vibrantly, even here. When he pulls his eye away from the lens, he can tell, even from this distance. A single very well dressed Drow mage. Half their face hangs gruesomely, but they don't mind, they're no longer feeling.

Lanlan reaches each hand into the other's sleeve, vanishing them into the impossible pockets contained under them. He slides them out, and a number of staves and wands come flying out as if attached by magician's ribbons, and extend to either side of him. Mirror images of himself appear to wield them, and cast a spell. Pure force in myriad shapes emerge from them; disks, spheres, darts, daggers, and more. They all fly toward the undead wizard. Even though he sees it coming and has time to react, his focus remains on countering the Drow circle's spell. It is nearly disintegrated when the magic missiles collide into it. Now the cavern floor begins to rise in earnest. But it will be some time until it's high enough to stop the onslaught, even if only for a few precious moments.

He focuses on the next task, the undead that are already scaling the walls. They shamble up grotesquely, lunging their limbs against their joints heedless of the cracking that would mean ruin for a living being. The Lanlans in unison cast a spell into their wands and staffs all vibrating with energy, and then a slick black fluid begins to bleed from the sheer stone. The undead begin to slide into each other as the impossibly slippery substance coats their fingers and claws.

Other parts of the battlements face it in their own way, with weapons or warmagic. But many of them are taking this time to make their escape. A group leads South. With more energy than it should take, Lanlan covers them. A mirror veil falls over them, obscuring their path to the South and creating a false escape party to the North.

The witch hadn’t needed convincing. She hadn’t even needed to do any of the mental calculations that Lanlan managed in the seconds he stood staring at her. Caluss had returned and was in Trist’oth. He’d asked for her help. That was all she needed. Still, knowing what she knew of the God of Undeath, seeing his unfathomable destruction first hand, nothing prepared her for the world the Archmage mirrored before her.

She recognized the feeling of being displaced as she looked into the mirror of her own dark eyes. The sensation of being plucked from one space to the next was familiar to her now. Still, the familiarity didn’t dampen the disorienting side effects of such magic. As the world reformed around her and snapped into reality, Valrae felt her head spin.

By the time she’d recovered, her heart was trembling. The situation was much worse than her darkest dreams could have imagined. The witch felt as if she were watching it in slow motion, removed from it all and somewhere high above as the end arrived. The stench of blood and death was thick and consuming. The wailing song of war was as loud as a thunderclap in her ears, blocking out even the sound of her fast beating heart. Everywhere the witch looked, there was only ruin. Agony. Death that rose again in undeath to bring about more pain, more destruction. Feeding on itself with no end in sight, a testament to Caluss’s horrible and undeniable power. Though Valrae long harbored distrust, and oftentimes dislike, for the drow something inside of her wept.

The march below them had Valrae casting her eyes downward. What she saw there, the countless undead, only further tangled the helplessness that crowded her throat. Overwhelmed and paralyzed by it, it wasn’t until Lanlan’s voice sounded somewhere inside of her mind that she snapped back into herself.

Instinctively, Valrae left the mage to Lanlan. She didn’t wait to see how he handled countering him. Instead, Valrae took to her broom. She rose fast, darting forward between the stalactites and wild missiles of magic as the wind and stench stung at her eyes. As the archmage slams through the circle’s defenses, Valrae focuses on breaking the tide of undeath that swarms over the fallen spire in effort to buy those struggling to hold the line more time. Drawing the ash wand from her belt, the witch calls down her own power.

“Dtái ta’ liathó!” The magic erupts from the wand. The air above was awash with Vaalane’s light as a massive ball of burning power slams into the advancing line of undeath. It washed over the horde like water, the holy magic dripping over the thousands of shambling, crawling dead in a purifying wave of blue-green fire. Their screams of agony rose up like a song as they fell, the putrid flesh peeling back from blackened bones that fell to ash when they met the blood and gore soaked ground. As the cavern floor continues its ascent, the witch flies low to urge those who remain back as Lanlan’s magic works to further thwart Caluss’s army with the mysterious substance that coats the walls.

From her perch, she watched as Lanlan mirrored their retreating lines to the North. Thinking fast, Valrae placed herself between both points and all that remained of the living drow and the unstoppable approach of undeath.

With her feet on the ground again, Valrae pulls the emerald skull from her side. With the dark artifact cupped in either hand and held aloft before her, the witch began to chant. In an answer, the crystal skull devoured. Ravenously, the skull fed upon the vile magic that Caluss had unleashed upon the Underdark, pulling the mana from the very blood soaked air it saturated and drawing it all inside of itself until it seemed to glow like a shining white beacon. It was a beacon to the shambling undead. The call of their master mimicked by the energies of the skull commanded them to run, walk, or crawl, toward the witch as she struggled to contain the power that hummed down to her marrow.

Valrae held on, arms trembling and outstretched as the skull washed the fortress of House Stavret with a pillar of light, and felt sweat beading over her brow as the horde closed in around her. She waited until she could hear the ripping of flesh and the gnashing of teeth, the faltering steps on blood drenched stone. Until the stench of rot and decay threatened to overwhelm all of her senses. Until it was nearly too late and an undead drow was nearly on top of her. Her chanting halted and no sooner did the last word tumble from her parted lips did the spell release.

It left her like a thunderclap. Suddenly it appeared as if the whole of the Underdark was awash with the blinding white of the sun, the horror that has befallen it on stark display for a heartbeat lost to time, burning away all that had fallen for the crystal skull’s siren call. The screaming lasted only a second before they were nothing but ash, those closest to the witch leaving nothing but a shadow over the white now scored into the stone in a circle around her. Further, they fell in waves and dissolved into puddles of putrid flesh and bone.

A puppet's string, cut. Whilst this should hardly be notable in the grand melee that has consumed the subterrean city- as countless half-lives faded like seafoam, only for an innumerable quantity to take their place . . . Yet. this one had been safe. Far from the frontlines. Nestled within 'His' shadow.

Not since the the beginning of the assault had the Undying Lord felt any real compulsion to regard the city, and yet, for the first time- some small twinge of vulgar curiosity is stoked. But then, would there be any other sort where this creature is concerned? Those who had seen the lord would no doubt recognize the familiar insectoid visage- that of a fly, though seemingly in a state of decomposition. And yet, there are things amiss with the guise now- extra arms extended out from a spindly body- one clutching the gem it had once been pondering over, another absently waving in the direction of the battle, like a conductor directing an orchestra- whilst another spurting out from a pussing wound on it's back joins it's natural limbs in beckoning forth figures garbed in ancient, ragged spider silks.

An entourage to join him as his attentions fully settle upon the proceedings- as swathes of unliving lives cease to be- returned to the grave in a blasphemous consecration to the cities patron deity. And yet, there's humour to be found there- the sort that causes a black ichor to leak from it's proboscis with a sickly sort of anticipation. His power was being called upon. Coalesced and concentrated to one particular point. What else was there to do- but to answer the call?

There's a brief moment where his visions of the world seep away into rot and the conflagrated ashes of his followers.

And then he emerges again- one scorched limb emerging out from the eyesocket of Valrae's crystalline skull. An unexpected weight that only grows exponentially as more of the dead gods form spills forth with every passing moment.

A horrific sight, and no doubt harrowing- and yet a small silver lining remains, for the godlings flesh tears beneath the unrelenting surge of power that it's stepped out into, blasting away flesh until only a ragged headless skeleton lay facing her.

A smouldering statue whose hands lay outstretched, poised to grasp at her face.

If only it were so easy. One skeletal limb from the figures back, and one from the midst of it's torso both surge forward to grasp at the witches neck- even as the embered detritus of it's followers stirs into motion, rushing towards their master to provide it a whirling veil- one which threatens to steal the breath from the cenrili mayor, if the sheer heat of it all doesn't burn the life out of her.

Lanlan loses track of Valrae, believing her to be by his side, until his vision is called and then silenced by a bright burning flash. His hand shields his face until the shadows return, and he looks back over the slaughter field, seeing Valrae flying by broom. It was her who caused the bright light, and released the evil grip over the damned. Lanlan is reminded again of the terrible power, but he buries that fear. Though their numbers were so far cut, they still counted innumerous, fresh dead from the city and old skulls from the horde shuffling like a growing mold over the white bones she left in her wake. It was a rallying cry to the survivors, who now have a window. All at once they see their time, and descend in droves, desperate to make their escape. Lanlan can't. He attempts to call her back, when the skull comes to life. Her crystal instrument being taken from her and adopted by the monster before his eyes, as attracted to the source as Lanlan was worried.

"No." Lanlan is up and over the side of the battlements. All of the Lans are, clinging to their foci as they glide toward the regenerating hive and over the cavern floor that was rising to meet the ceiling as a wall. As they approach, energy churns and spins, gathering into the real one's staff. Finally the illusions themselves are drawn in, stretching like taffy and funneling into the staff. A blorple colored bolt shaped like a boomerang arcs out of his staff like a whiplash and swipes down over Valrae, disappearing her. In her place on the broom is Lanlan, wielding nothing but a mocking grin. As the putrid claw sucks sinks into the flesh of his face and neck, fresh red blood begins to seep around Caluss's gnarled talons and then quickly putrefy into dark sludge. His smile withers but doesn't disappear as his flesh rots and sags, and truly, he never seems to die; the transition from life to undeath is seamless.

Lanlan holds tight to Valrae's hand as he watches himself die, designing it with gruesome detail for his godly audience of one. Just when the change seems full and complete, the illusion's annoying grin fades. Like a balloon, it's limbs begin to inflate, seams of energy glow through weaknesses in the membrane that comprised flesh and cloth alike, until the entire being bursts. It bursts into crystalline structures of pure magical force, translucent spikes and branches that perforate Calluss and stick all the way down into the cavern floor below, and the ceiling, and the walls. For a moment, he seems like a fly caught in a massive web of spun pearl. A beautiful creation housing the most hideous blemish.

Seeing their chance at a sudden victory, a number of drow who've delayed their escape emerge to Lanlan and Valrae's side. None dare draw closer than them, but their assault is in earnest. A volley of bolts and arrows soar after a cacophonous twang, a lucky percentage converging on the punctured abomination. Energy hums and thunderous bangs deafen as lightning strikes the pearl structures blemish one after another from the staffs of mages. Darkness darkens in streaks and waves as shadow magic scars their vision, slipping through space to cut gouges out of Caluss. Lanlan can only watch and worry and hope, but he's careful not pray.

Screaming. Someone was screaming. The sound was primal, feminine, raw with what should have been fear but was only rage. As horror and revulsion rose in waves, so too did her fury as the vile Godling emerged from her crystal skull. The emerald grew hot and heavy in her hands, too hot to hold and yet she could not release it as Alithyk Caluss’s ruined and skeletal form was ejected from her borrowed magics. In that moment, Valrae looked upon the grotesque and abhorrent face of her own death and met it unflinchingly, as stubbornly as she’d met the fire that ended her first life, and attempted to call whatever reserves of magic remained. No longer fearing the end, she only desired to cause the beast that brought destruction to Trist’oth pain. And she was still screaming as heat crowded her, as Caluss’s withered hands moved with blinding speed to strike.

And there was that familiar and disorienting magic again. At first, she thought this must be another death. The colors that enveloped her were unlike any she’d known before, and there was no pain. Only the sensation of movement, of being displaced and reformed again. Was it undeath? Why could she still hear herself screaming? A hand in her own fire branded palm?

The vision of Lanlan in her place swam before her eyes as she swayed on her feet. Caluss’s ruin was swift, Lanlan’s fate so horrible she might start screaming again and never stop. Her mouth snapped shut on a whimper as she lurched forward too slow, too slow to stop what happened next. “No!” It wouldn’t have mattered. She was tethered back, fingers locked with another’s, and when she turned to free herself the illusion shattered and sense crept into her wild mind. The false archmage burst into a flurry of beauty and deadly power at her back, she’d turned to face the true Lanlan so that she might not see.

Valrae watched with bleary eyes as the drow rallied. It was incomprehensible to her at first, like watching water run backwards.Time slowed. A storm of arrows rise up and arc down like a dark cloud, descending toward the decaying heart of Lanlan’s shimmering web. The air thickens as magic crowds the air and light burns her eyes. The sound of thunder jolts her from her immobility. Suddenly animated, the witch pulls her hand away from Lanlan.

Hands trembling, the witch grasped at the borrowed time and worked quickly. She dropped the emerald skull at her feet, tainted now but still hungry as mana filled the earth, and pulled the amethyst and bismuth skull from her bag next. Urgently, she placed them in a triangle around herself and began her chant anew. The power took her immediately.

Her eyes snapped shut. The chanting changed, as if there were centuries of witches joined as one in her fervent repetition. As if she were light as a feather, Valrae levitated. The skulls rose around her, orbiting her body slowly at first as a burning ball of light emerged from the center of her forehead like a third eye. As the skulls sped around her, the weave of many magics suddenly shimmered into the sight of the naked eye, like a drop of rain running over a gossamer thread caught in sunlight.

When the witch opened her eyes again, they were filled with white light. She jerked her arms across themselves and on her command the threads of pure mana surrounded what bone and putrid flesh was left of Caluss’s mishapen neck. Like a garrote of wild magic, the witch pulled the threads together. In her effort, she cried out. Blood trickled from her nose and mouth as she allowed the primal magics of the crystal skulls to pull through her, unwilling to relent until she severed the God’s head from its body.

It was a good symbol, no doubt. Threads of magic burst through the air, spreading in fractal patterns to complete the image of a grotesque fly caught within a web. The perfect image for the drow to rally behind- to muster their fleeting courage, to stoke the embers of their pride- granting them an opportunity to reclaim what was not yet lost, and even a chance to -flourish- in the vacancies created by the tragedy.

By all accounts, the survivors would talk of this moment with bitter satisfaction- as gaping punctures form in the cloud of heated corpse dust- revealing the brittle and broken vestige of the godling. A window that neatly affords those present the means to see when the witches weave grows taut and severs through dessicated vertabra with a thunderous clack.

It's hard to detail the stunned silence that would ripple through the air in the aftermath, as the scorching remnants begin to dissipate- and the once looming threat of a deathly legion comes to a grinding halt, left to sway in the wake of the fallen lordling.

And the awkwardness tied to that first uncertain shout- angry, victorious and relieved in equal meaure. A sentiment that burgeoned along the lines, and even hearkened some which had not finished fleeing to come and see the fall.

A grand act of Legerdemain.

Who amongst them would have noticed the manner in which some of the dust had sifted forward on the wind- malignly drifting forward towards the scent of death. The threat had never been contained to their walls- though the quiet grace in which it slithered out from the recesses of the cavern could certainly have lent itself to the deception. Perhaps it had been drowned out by the shouts, the clatter of battle as forces began to slaughter the inanimate dead which swayed back and forth. And yet, what -could- not be mistaken is the deathly cloud which brusquely sweeps out from a side passage, sweeping through the passage like a tide, until it crashes against the very fortress they were defending.

Those unfortunate few who had committed had been caught by indecision are the first to suffer- their flesh and organs soundlessly ceding beneath the toxicity of a deep dragons breath, leaving only the malign rattles of their animated bones to mark their passage. And yet, that gaseous onslaught is far from natural- for instead of pooling, it begins to climb up the edifices walls, gaseous tooth and claw forming within the recesses- fueled by darkly divine magics.

And yet, were an astute observer able to pry themselves away from the site of their peers melting, or drown out the agonized mewls that would fill the air- they would not see a dragon.

The contour might be similar, and yet- the rot-sodden corpse is not -right- by any stretch of the imagination. Vast patches of flesh are missing, vacancies filled with the corpse glow of specters, or sanguine soaked corpse fungi- fractured segments of it's skeleton are replaced with the still wailing bones of recently reanimated mind flayers - and yet, worst was it's visage.

The base of it's knock was a postulant ruin- from which not one, but several trunks emerge. Each a smooth, sinuous mass of writhing flesh that bears more a resemblance to a worm than a reptile- though the deathly divine breath which pours out from it's myriad lamprey-like mouths could be mistaken for little else.

As it's deathly bellow ripples through the cavern, that once stagnant legion comes to unlife- stirred by their conqueror worm- their revitalized Lord of Undeath.

Lanlan watched as the black mark against life was obscured behind a calamity of color and explosion. Valrae delivered the coup de grace with her spinning garrote and triple skulls. The monster fell to pieces and disintegrated. He didn't believe it. But when the dust cleared, their enemy was gone.

Lanlan didn't realize what was wrong until people around him started melting. By that time, it seemed as though it would be too late. The wave of putrefaction would pass through him and Valrae and the Drow wizards and everyone else they were trying to save. Then suddenly he had an insight, an instinct in understanding his own magic in a way that eluded him before. He grasps valrae's hand once more and though there's a rather poignant feeling of breathlessness, it isn't at first frightening. To each other, they seem to become even more real, in color, in smell, in feel. In every way they seem to become exaggerated to their senses. The dead fall around them, or it's really more like a stumble. Then they regain their balance and turn on their temporary allies, and lunge. Lanlan isn't ready. They were standing in a line, a row to be knocked over. The enemy sinks it's abruptly decayed fingers through Lanlan's chest. Amazingly, he feels nothing, and the ghouls momentum is halted by nothing, and he passes straight through Lanlan as if he were only a dream.

He was only a dream, and Valrae too. The ground was as solid as they believed it to be, and so were each other. And seemingly as powerful as they believed themselves to be. Everything they wanted to do seemed easy. His people, or whatever they were, needed them now. So Lanlan needed to get through the wall that grew out of the stone. With his new power, he found it surprisingly easy to force his will into it like a wrecking ball. Debris blasted away from it and Lanlan and Valrae were able to walk through a hole the size of a four horse carriage. His steps were as fast as he needed them to be, as fast as he could imagine them to be, and if they wanted, they could easily catch up to the Drow and Caluss. As he willed himself through the castle, he flew through the dead, seemingly with such speed that a fire burned in his wake, burned *them* in his wake. Each one was wreathed in violently burning flame that smelled exactly like burning Drow.

He reached the top of the castle before he remembered what he was doing, and he saw over the battlements to where he'd just been, to the sheer stone wall that he blasted apart so effortlessly. It was strangely intact. But the Drow. What's left of their mages and their warriors and their families, friends, allies, enemies, all of them, were going to succumb soon. He realized he doesn't need stairs, and he flies over the wall, irrelevant to the ground. He slipped past the corrupting smog, sliding past like dust in a gust of wind. This one particular group of drow, the ones he'd committed to protect, he saved them. He sent himself forward, his invisible self, into the rows of retreating Drow.

The ragged, dark, doomed, and tired group suddenly became alive with the same vibrancy as Lanlan and Valrae. And the smokey poison passes harmlessly through them.Then they vanish. One thing they know, though they can still see some dusty blorple aspect of each other, they know they're gone. They become dreams as well, of the kind that hangs off a person hours after they wake, whether they remember it or not. It's impossible to say what Caluss thinks of then, but he spends hardly any time, or so it seems. Time passes strangely to a dreamer, and moreso to a dream. And at once they see the army of death marching past, a thing that must take hours to occur. They witnessed it entirely in a few seconds. The city is fully populated and none of its citizens remain. Vanishing doesn't stop them from fleeing, and they continue South. South, South, up, and up, until they've forgotten why.

The dream ends. The dreams are people again, and their understanding wanes rapidly. Their needs return, their fears, their breath, all of it. The last thing to return is geography, for not many have been on this side of the mountains. Huddled in a valley between peaks, they begin to remember what was happening when they were awake.

Lanlan comes to understand what happened, perhaps him and Valrae are the only ones. During the most desperate time, when the nightmare was real and inevitable, they all became dismissed from reality into a dream, made of not more than dust and belief. He was the last one to manifest. And it wasn't just as easy as waking up and being as it was for the rest. He had to remember how to do it; remember what it was like to need air, to have aches, and be weary. And he had to choose it. When he does, he feels much more fragile than he remembers. Not even strong enough to hold himself up, and his legs shake with the effort.

If they know who saved them, they don't show it with any applause. For now, they're aimless, leaderless, and tired. Everyone knows they'll need shelter, food, and water. None have the will.