Pandemonium Those Beyond

Eretejva_pandemonium Falwood_pandemonium Blightlands_pandemonium Spine_pandemonium

Valthar was deeply suspicious of magic, particularly from an outsider. He was too tired to protest, but he recoiled in horror as he felt Luna's magic flowing through him.

It wasn't pure relief to have the wounds transferred away. Having his flesh and nerves rebuilt was a very different kind of pain. He could still feel something like an echo of to searing heat even after his skin was in tact once more.

Magic had a price. Everyone knew that.

Valthar had never seen madness, but he imagined it looked very much like the woman who had healed him as she babbled about herself. Madness and dark magic was still better than demons. She was standing over him, fighting them off. He was motionless.

His muscles reluctantly obeyed. His hand found the handle of his axe on its own. They'd kept saying he'd looked like a fighter when he was young. At least those trying to complement his father through him had.

With both arms he swung, catching one of the wounded creatures and putting it down. Valthar wasn't a fighter; he wasn't his father. He turned to follow Luna's arm. She pointed at the monstrous creature just as the shadow of a great boulder flittered past them.

Azget of the Seventh said:

"You will all die for this."

Azget of the Seventh waved her hand, and then the earth began to explode.

No more demons came, but instead the ground itself seemed to began to fight. Rock fell out from those who stood in place, tendrils of flesh bit and lashed.

All of it came from her. All of it to make them pay.

Click to expand...

The world seemed to be ending. Was this even their world? The tusk charged past them, not to fight a new foe but to grab the talking wolf and the witch before they were swallowed up. Shadows moved around the tusk, tendrils rising up from the ground.

"Help them," he growled to Luna. He could barely even run now. Hair matted in sweat and blood, freed from its braid, obscured his view. He dragged it back, plastering it to his own skin with gore. His axe seemed a pitiful weapon here, but he hacked away at the tendrils regardless.

The only other option left seemed to be lying down and waiting to die.

Eretejva_pandemonium

"Giving orders are we?"
She said with a slightly annoyed smirk before she took him by the hand and pulled him towards the tusk, witch ,and wolf with an ungodly strength that was not scaled to her stature.
She cut down the tendrils as well with tendrils of her own seeming to flow from her body even if they seemed skinnier and weaker than they should they entangled the enemy tendrils making them easier to cut down around them as they neared the others.
"Im not leaving unless you come with me. Luna won't have you dying. The soft hearted nature of that stupid girl is going to get her killed. You'd think in a century and a half that one would learn something of self preservation."
She chuckled as she hacked away at any tendrils on her side relying on Valthar to cover her left.

"Hello Sigrith.."
She said with a warm grin like they were all out on a nice Sunday stroll as they arrived next to the group.
She hacked down another tendril snaking from the ground and around her leg.
She noted the witch was covered in gore with a smug chuckle.
"Youve got something right...there.." She said gesturing to her entire face.
"Oh forget it..It'll just get dirty again...So where that giant bottomless hell crack was our path away from..... this charming plain of existence.... so whats the plan Queens dog? My future wolf skin rug? Anyone?" She said looking at Sigrith and the wolf in turn before finally the group at large.
"And please.. for the love... of the void dont tell me... its more nasally.. fart noises..." She snickered between chops as another tendril had snaked around her hand and began to try and pull her away from the group.
"That last one was directed at you tusky." She said pointedly at the tusk among them.

Verys Synsere Mabess

Spine/Falwood/Eretejva/Blight location

Hath was from a tribe who roamed great distances across the savanna. He was tall and rangy, which meant he was barely light enough for Verys to help up. Hath tried to urge his feet to find stability, to avoid falling on top of her and crusher her ribs. Humans were such frail things.

"That thing has other ideas about putting me to sleep," he replied. Hath realised that his feet were not being quite so treacherous, the ground itself was. The determined woman managed to get under his arm and drive him upwards. For a moment he stood firm, a shock of red hair beneath his nose and he allowed himself to imagine he was in another place and another time with another person.

With a pained growl he tried to stand tall on his own. Fear was good. It was natural. It drove an orc on with teeth and claws emerged from the dark of night. This kind of fear wasn't good. Hath had never felt it before. A draining, debilitating sensation.

Why was the slip of a girl immune to it? He thought to himself. Was she a mage of such power that this land didn't faze her?

Thudding footfalls heralded Mabess' arrival. She offered a hand, one that Hath gladly took. The redhead had run off towards the falling monster. He didn't catch sight what she went for.

"We should leave," he growled to Mabess. "Let the undead and demons fight it out."

He'd lost his bow. One of the only items left that had been made by his tribe that he'd carried East. Now there was just his axe. The axe he kept his fingers wrapped tight around with his left arm firmly around Mabess' waist. It wouldn't be the easiest weapon to use from here, but at least he had something left to fight back with. Blood still seeped from the wound in his chest, but there wasn't time to find out if it was worse than it seemed.

Hath had seen portal stones before. They were plain rocks with ancient patterns engraved into the stone. Sometimes there was a glimmer of blue as magic was brought to them. What he could see might have looked like that once. The surface was blacked in patches and fleshy tendrils had wrapped tight around the stone, digging into it in place. He hoped it was a way home, that they weren't just fighting in vain.

Alliria_pandemonium

Lia flopped herself atop Kaska as the massive arm swung over their head. Her body crashed onto her friends, pinning her down for just one moment as she heard the solid thunk of the arm smacking against someone just nearby.

There was a scream, a screech, and then the Ranger looked up.

She cursed half a dozen times, pulling herself up and off of Kaska before looking at the other woman with a deep frown. The Guardsmen that had saved them earlier seemed to be gone, disappeared in the chaos or simply run off to fight yet another creature.

"Come on." Her voice was quiet, almost too quiet to be heard.

"Come on." Lia grabbed Kaska as she began to stand. "That thing has to die."

With a deep breath the Ranger practically hurled her friend forward, grasping her blade tight and then suddenly charging. Within three steps she broke into a sprint. Her armor pressed against her chest, her other hand pulled the sword-breaker from her belt.

She became a flurry of action.

Vine like tentacles snapped and reached for her, grasping, reaching, each time sliced in two before they could ever reach her. Lia ran, hopped, and leaped over whatever came towards her, the Ranger rushing through the battlefield directly towards. Around her others began to do the same.

Giant's wielded their clubs, orcs hefted their axes, men reached for their swords.

Each of them struck. Carving, smashing, biting into the amalgamation of horror that lay before them. They attacked with righteous fury, an army driving itself against their foe.

Alliria_pandemonium
Rosalia Kahl
Kaska
Am'Thet

During the stand off with the snake she heard the voice of Azget of the Seventh. "I dont have time for this.." She said with gritted teeth as she pulled with her new found strength as her arm squelched and squish before she yanked hard enough for her arm to break from her body at the shoulder. She bit her lip until black blood flowed down her chin. Shehad wanted to avoid doing that as she stumbled and her arm began to regrow.
She smelled Lia.

Her eyes cut through the chaos in time to duck as a massive arm swung above her. Her arm was almost regrown as she began running for her. She was protecting someone and occupied by Azget.
She was vulnerable.
She aimed her tail spine at Lia training it on her back taking advantage of the distraction of having to keep someone else safe to calmly take her shot. Before she was able to however an Allirian guardsman that had just saved her from a lowly demon drove his sword into her back and severed her tail. She screeched as the steel burned like fire.

She dove on the man driving her arm spine into his chest cutting through his plate armor and up under his rib cage obliterating his chest cavity before letting him slide off the bone blade and drop to the ground. She scooped a pacing demon up by it head as it flesh began to merge with hers as her tail began to regrow and her wound slowly closed. Another ranger hacking at a tentacle found a spine jammed into his neck from her new tail and another put up a decent fight before losing his left arm and head. She was cutting her way to Lia like and angry predator before firing another spine which sunk into her plate armor but didnt hit hard enough to punch through as she went to tackle the ranger at the knees allowing her scales to flare up and make her invisible as she made her move launching herself with incredible speed.

So it was Kalliana, then, who was responsible for the illusion magic. The spontaneous group that had been formed some time ago was more impromptu than Trajan would have liked, as they had to learn very much on-the-fly what each of the others could do. Still, their foray into the mists had worked out serviceably enough thus far, owing to the swift and decisive actions on all their parts.

And credit where credit was due. Had it not been for Kalliana's illusions, Trajan may very well not have been able to wrestle his warhammer from the fiend's grasp. For this, he owed her. A terrible fate indeed if he had been caught within the fiend's foul sorcery before it was too late to escape.

And now they marched, or so it appeared they marched, with a retinue of an extra dozen men. Good. Anything to delay or deter whatever lurked off the worm-infested path in this godsforsaken hell.

Trajan walked. The mercenaries kept formation.

Trajan coughed. As did one of the mercenaries. And another. The air here was stifling, and only getting worse as they approached the stone ruins. Valkery's boon of youthfulness served him well, yes, but the corrupted air seemed to be sinking invisible claws deeper into his chest.

More of the mercenaries coughed. Dio coughed. Trajan tried to say something, but he coughed so hard he reflexively brought a hand to his mouth.

Mitsy, further ahead than Trajan and the mercenaries and the group at large, called back to them. She seemed to be doing remarkably well. Could it be that in this unholy world inebriation--of all things--somehow guarded against the foulness of the air? If such an absurd thing were so...he had no words. Simply none.

Regardless, he wanted to make time to catch up to her and the plate-clad man. Surely the pale thing would attack or attempt some trickery at any moment. But he and the mercenaries were having enough trouble maintaining their current pace; and they didn't even have to carry a body like Valkery and the black-haired mage. It was all too tempting to just stop and double over and breathe, as if doing so harder and while standing still might bring about some degree of relief. They had to press on.

"Keep going," Trajan said. To the mercenaries. To himself. A big cough. "Home is within reach."

And he saw it then.

Kilo. Simply dropping from flight. Plummeting to the ground far ahead of the group before he had reached the ruins.

Trajan grimaced. Cursed himself for giving the order.

"Kilo!" Dio yelled.

Around her, the inhabitants of Alliria moved as one, tearing at the massive creature and overwhelming it with sheer numbers.

The screams of pain, human and monstrous alike, reverberated through Kaska's skull. Everything felt distant.... far off... The creatures poison ran black even through the veins in her eyes, leaving her stumbling in place. Kaska turned in a slow circle, not joining the bodies that converged once more on the massive creature.

She saw Rebecca make her approach, watched it almost uncomprehendingly. Scales flared... Rebecca came soaring through the air.... projected path .... Lia.

Kaska couldn't access words. Her arm raised on its own volition, the bloody tip of her sword aimed to intercept Rebecca's chest.

Or at least, what her blurred vision thought was the chest. Her arm shook in the air. Her teeth clattered as the massive creature everyone was fighting was brought down.


Rebecca Fourtuna Lia Alliria_pandemonium

Rosalia Kahl
Kaska
Alliria_pandemonium

While succeeding in dropping in on Lia unaware it seemed who she was defending returned the favor even in the weakened state she was in. Rebecca was so focused on Lia she had counted the other out completely. A costly mistake as the rangers steel missed her chest but ran through her right arm.
She screeched as the steel burned her skin like it was molten hot before kicking the offender viciously in the right knee sending her into a kneel as her tail wrapped around her sword hand twisting it away. She was weak already. This would be an easy kill. Rebecca grinned as her tail released the ranger's sword hand raising to strike her through the eye.
Before her legs began to weaken. She gasped and dropped to her knees herself. Now at eye level with Kaska she glanced down at her side. It was gushing black blood.

The blade had driven through her arm and into her side so deeply she hadnt noticed in the heat of battle.
"Lucky.....shot...."
She struggled out as she slumped and spotted another demon falling with a screech to another rangers blade.
She kicked Kaska in the chest viciously hoping Lia would rush to her aid and buy her a moment before beginning a slow crawl towards the fallen hell spawn as a tentacle burst from the ground wrapping around the ranger that killed it and pulling him under as his screams fell silent.
She gritted her teeth as she drug herself with one arm while her wounded arm clutched her bleeding side trying to keep her guts where they belonged as her tail trailed behind her limply...

Am'Thet was dumbfounded as the beast ran away from her, rage beginning to boil within her. This foul beast seemed determined to not finish the fight, seemingly confirming that the she-naga was a superior opponent. Am'Thet wouldn't stand for it though. This cowardly creature escaped from her once before, it'd be hard pressed to do so a second time. After all, there was no foolish orc holding her back this time.

With a fierce war-cry, Am'Thet barreled after the beast, narrowly dodging the strike from the hulking behemoth. She ran down whatever demon dared to interrupt her relentless pursuit. As she charged through the chaos, she soon lost sight of the beast, now relying solely on what she believed was it's scent to find it. Meanwhile, scratches began to accumulate on her scales and armor, as she wandered through the battlefield.

After what seemed like an eternity chasing after the creature, Am'Thet finally caught up to the damn thing. It was dragging itself across the ground towards a demon's corpse, one hand clutching a gaping wound on her side. Am'Thet slithered forward, cutting the pitiful creature off from the corpse. Wasting no time, Am'Thet plunged the spine down onto it's back, digging it into it's mangled flesh. "If only your parents could see you now." Am'Thet chided, looking down at the beast.

Falwood_pandemonium | Spine_pandemonium | Eretejva_pandemonium | Blightlands_pandemonium

The portal stone lay behind her, not entirely blocked off, but close enough to it. Azget stared at those who came towards her, thouh even her sight was not total. A scowl was on her face, the odd 'hair' crowning her head seemed to pulse with rage as she leaned forward.

Her eyes narrowed, watching those attempting to survive.

The earth still here moved, shifting, tendrils reaching out and being born anew even as they were cut and severed. Her gaze fell forward, but it was incomplete. The ascension had made her strong, but not omnipotent, not even her. A rage fell over her, and once again she lashed out.

Like the last time there was no thought to it. Instead she simply did what she could to punish those that had seemingly defied her. Tendrils of flesh grew bone, and those severed melted away.

Spikes of bone shot out from the ground like arrows, attempting to catch, slow, turn those fleeing into nothing but meat for the Mist.

Unbeknownst to Azget, behind her, some magic was being worked upon the portal stone. It began to shift and glow, the runes upon it lighting up as those from Arethil approached.

Alliria_pandemonium

The creature fell.

It seemed to happen in an instant, or perhaps an eon. She wasn't really sure. There was a roar, the sound of bones breaking and flesh rending, but only half of her caught it. Lips thinned, and she glanced around herself to find any of those she had started this adventure with.

Her fellow Rangers were dead, she could not see the Orc, nor the girl that had been lost or Kaska.

Lips thinned.

The battle had broken into utter chaos, and now that the monster had been brought down it seemed celebration...or flight was on everyone's lips. "Kaska!"

She called out among the throng of people, spotting the snake like Naga just a few dozen meters away from her.

Where had she gone? Kaska had been close to her, but now in the chaos Lia couldn't find her. Her step turned into a run, Lia quickly making her way through the throng of people, pushing her way to those who were now rushing towards the Portal Stone.

Am'Thet
Rosilia Khal
Scarlet

Rebecca squeaked as she saw the coils of the snake in front of her cutting her off from her salvation. She slowly looked up into the snakes eyes like a cat being caught doing something wrong.
"uh..hi.."
She gasped with a pained smile..
"I think we got off...on the..wrong foot..."
She struggled out with a pained chuckle trying to crawl around her clutching her side when the spine jammed into her back. It sank into the wound bleeding for a moment before her body reclaimed it. She whimpered softly at the momentary pain until the snake spoke.
"If only your parents could see you now." The she-naga chided her.
Her eyes narrowed with rage as her ears laid back.
"My... p-parents sold.... m-me...as a...SLAVE!"
She screeched before she jumped up removing her hand from her wound and swung with an arm spine trying to slice the snakes throat causing the intestines she was keeping in to push out causing her to halt the swing clutching her wound trying to push her intestine back in as she sank back to the ground at the snake's coils.
"They expected.. me dead.... long before this..."
She spat bitterly. Her wound had torn more and was bleeding worse as she continued to try and crawl around the snake with a stubborn will to survive. She spotted Lia close by and doubled her efforts turning a pitiful crawl into a slightly faster pitiful crawl causing the bleeding to worsen. It was hopeless. But She kept it up unwilling to give in to the pain and embrace death. It would mean her parents won. All the pirates she had fought won.
Everyone that wanted her dead would win and Philip would be disappointed.
She had promised him she would live until the pirates that had killed him were sent to hell. So she drew breath even as it pained her. She had to even if she saw no way out.

The Pale Being stood before the crimson portal stone with its back toward the group. A black robe it wore covered its ridged back. Its head sported not a single strand of hair. Veins pulsed in a consistent rhythm.

Mitsy spoke out. The being turned its head. Black orbs looked at the group. The Pale Being’s nose manifested as two slits. Thin lips formed its mouth.

“I... will talk,” it replied as it turned to square its body toward the Band.

Kilo fell from the sky just after and dropped a few feet from the Pale Being. It looked at Kilo. Tilted its head. Then, turned back to Mitsy.

While this happened, the rumbling from behind the group began to build in volume. Kara looked back to still not see any creature. As they approached the ruins, her breath has grown just as heavy and burdened as the rest of the Band. She turned her view back to the front - her eyes not wandering around to gaze upon the obsidian colored spires towering above.

“I’ll trade,” the Pale Being continued.

Pointing the baton at Mitsy, it told her, “You did a service. Killing him. You gave this."

It then gestured the baton toward the portal stone before bring it back to his chest, "I offer home. Live. No more attacks.”

“But I must convert you,” it continued as it laid out its terms, “The air will kill otherwise.”

The Band grew close enough to see the Pale Being and Mitsy once more. Kara's eyes gazed upon the portal stone for a second. Then, she looked at the Pale Being and the baton it held.

"We'll need to set Achim down," Kara whispered with a low voice as she began to lower the Bookworm's legs.

Elbion_pandemonium

The white-haired woman didn’t loosen her grip on her tonfa, though there was this easy, almost relaxed angle to her shoulders. Deceptive, to anyone with a degree of training, who could see that she was still on the balls of her feet, ready to move at a moment’s notice. Especially if this .. thing in front of her tried to attack.

Though… a moment later she could hear the rapid flutter of wings overhead, and her golden eyes flicked up as the red parrot began to tumble from the sky. Instantly, she dashed forward, carefully catching the fluttering bird just before it hit the ground. Trajan and Dio were further behind, so she cradled the small avian to her chest, unable to check to see if it was okay or not. With the air as slicing and horrible as it was for the humanoids, she could only imagine the toll it’d taken on such a small, delicate creature as the parrot.

Turning her attention back to the Pale Being in front of them, one eyebrow arched. “... excuse me, ‘convert’ us? Yeah, that’s gonna be a hard ‘hell no’ from me. I’ve seen what things look like around here…” she flicked the tip of her tonfa behind them, as if to indicate the warped creature that they’d just fought. “Just send us… back to where we were.”

Oh. Shit. She’d forgotten where they’d been before all this happened. Probably not a great sign. But! She knew it wasn’t here with its weird foggy mist and its hurting air and its messed up demon-children.

As soon as Trajan and the others had joined them, she gently handed the bird over, though not without a sympathetic look to Dio.

Elbion_pandemonium

Elbion_pandemonium

Valkery could feel the air become sharper and harsher to her lungs as they continued. She could hear the others coughing and struggling. Even though she could ignore the pain she still needed to breath to live and the air would eventually kill her like the rest of them. Reaching out with her senses she collected the residues of aura left on the weapons of their party from the last fight. All of the high tensions and the feeling of relief and exhilaration after a kill left a strong residue behind. She collected this and used it to convert the air in her lungs to something a bit more breathable. She regretted that she could not help the others in this way, she wouldn't even be able to keep this up for long, but it would give her a bit more time. Hopefully, enough time to get them all out of there.

The white creature stopped in front of a portal stone and the rest of the party stopped also. She listened to its offer and slowly put Achim's body down. She stepped towards the white creature. As she aproached she tried to get a read on the creature using her senses she tried to gauge its power level. She also observed the batton it carried, what was it? She tried to see if she felt death or magic on the thing, or perhaps it was a portal key.

"Why should we do as you say? The portal is right here, we already killed your leader, though you say it was a favor, and for that, I will accept your gratitude. However, this change you speak of, if we are leaving this place then why would we need to breathe the air here. For all, we know this change would be harmful to us back home. Why should we accept your offer?" She asked.

Kaska would be found not far off-- another body among the fallen. The creature had given her quite the viscous throw. The venom in her body had done the rest. She was unconscious, but breathing. None of the injuries on her body suggest immediate danger to her health.

Those that remained on the battlefield seemed caught up in the frenzy that surrounded the fallen creatures body.


The many amulets that had been on the creature were being carved and ripped from flesh.

Several warriors were seen staring curiously into the distance of this strange land. For the rest-- it was clear the only path to home was the stone. The injured guards of Alliria helped their fallen, starting towards home with the rest.

Kaska stirred, eyelids heavy and drenched with blood from the gash beneath her brow.

Senpai Location

'A portal stone' Eila's voice sounded within their mind as they approached the direction of the voice. 'I was too distracted earlier to be able to properly place what that felt like, but it is without a doubt a portal stone. How curious.' 'I'm betting that's our way out.' Came Magnan's mental reply, to which Eilasandree did not deign to respond. Instead, their fingers twitched and as one the Eternum began to move, guided by the voice in their heads to make their way in the direction of the stone. "Amankh." They said, turning to look at the sand mage. "We must buy time for our people to evacuate. Whatever it is that speaks, it shall know fear." Behind them, the ground trembled and lashed out at the slowly advancing horde of undead, spikes of bone launched out towards them. Any that hit their body were easily deflected by the armour, scraping along the steel in showers of sparks as they made their way towards the portal stone, and the voice that had been talking to them.

It barely took any time at all before the clearing came into view, with the portal stone in the centre, surrounded by those same fleshy tendrils that dominated this land. That was not, however, what captured their attention the most. No, instead that honour belonged to the being before them. It shared the same theme as the monsters they had fought and the writhing world around them, but it looked more... refined. A clear face stood out along the fleshy tendrils, and it looked towards them with something approaching anger in its eyes. This was the one that had attacked them. Looking around, the duo also noticed a variety of others approaching the clearing from different directions. It seems that the Eternum was not the sole visitor to this strange and hellish realm. Their eyes sockets flared one, one a mystical blue, the other a soothing pink as they strode forward, shield and sword in hand.

"YOU!" They shouted, pointing their blade at the monster as they strode forward, the cape of flesh and black flame they had stolen billowing behind them. They said nothing more, instead charging directly at the being, even as the Eternum surged forward towards the portal stone in a wave of bone and flesh. They kept their body between the being and their people, as with minute flashes of light, the undead began to slowly trickle away, back to their homeworld. It would take quite a while, but the duo were confident they could hold the being long enough, as they made to swing at it.

Falwood_pandemonium | Spine_pandemonium | Eretejva_pandemonium | Blightlands_pandemonium
Senpai Location

Just like attempting to move someones arm is more difficult when they are awake and trying to stop you from moving their arm, you could still force their arm to move, or rip it off, but it becomes much easier when they are not alive. So when the giant bone knight died Steve accidentally threw its bones all over the place because of the suddenly lack of resistance. Not letting the bones go to waste he brought them into the form of his murder chicken, who he could now identify as Johanna Wick.

When the ground, itself, began to attack, Steve didn't have time to react with anything, but surprise. This is because before he had time to process this, two things happened: A tentacle struck out, and hit Johanna, and secondly a second tentacle lashed out at the dog on Johanna's shoulder, Johanna luckily sliced it first. Both attacks upset Steve a whole lot. To be honest he was completely done with what had been happening in in this place. Steve had come here to drop off a chimera, see how his friends had been doing on their trip, and catch up as it had been a while since he had last seen them. No sooner had he shown up however and the red mist swallowed them. The mist had messed with him, his magic, and worst of all his friends. He had not reacted well to being cut off from everyone because of the mist. He had had to fight monsters attracted to a drowning man reaching out for comfort. He had sacrificed himself so that he and his friends could face the evils that they had to face. He had been forced to watch his friends lose themselves. He had been unable to protect the unconscious body beside him. And now the ground, or whoever controlling it had the audacity to try and hurt his friends... And why? Why? Because some being was throwing a temper tantrum? No. Just no. Just FR*CKING H*CK NO! If anyone here get to have a FR*CKING temper tantrum it is FR*CKING me!

Johanna was also quite upset about the attempt on the dog, so they both were on the same page about destroying the shit out of whatever thought that this was ok. Steve formed a platform extending from Johanna's chest where he and the unconscious one could sit, quickly strapping her in with bone, this was going to be a wild ride. Steve stuck his hand into Johanna's chest, holding himself there, but also making sure she would not have to feel the pain of anymore of the tentacle lashing out, that was something he would bare. Whenever a spike of bone anywhere within thirty feet of him began to rise up to attack, it would instead be ripped from the ground and pulled into the titan that was Johanna. Steve cared so very little if even now his magic would not obey him, and every ounce of bone he pulled fought as though it were possessed by demons, he was Steve, a man who had given everything to learn the forbidden arts, and would give everything a million times over to protect those he cared about. There was a reason those who followed him never wore flesh. Bone was his domain.

Before Magasandree had finished picking up their new cape, Johanna and Steve were already heading towards the presence that called out, and dared act so childish. Steve with his beak, wings, and body covered in burns, did not look very human at the moment. With all the strong emotions going through him he could hardly be called reasonable either, and his desire to kill when he saw the mass of tentacles that formed the entity he was searching for, could only be described as beastial. It is hard to say how Steve, and Johanna were affecting each other while linked, they were almost as one. They were a beast circling their prey, looking for any sign of weakness. They as an entity had almost doubled in size at this point, becoming a colossal predator. The bones that had been added desperately fought, trying not to be used as weapons against their master. But to the beast, Steveanna, they were merely a part of its body, and its body existed only to kill this entity of tentacles. When the entity turned to look behind it at Magasadree the beast leapt, tearing at what might have been a neck with long claws, ripping through tentacle and flesh. The claws kept up the assault trying desperately to reach only one thing, this creature death.

When a lion kills it is described as ferocious because it is without any mercy, it kills its prey to survive. What words could one then use to describe what this beast did so it might be able to live with itself, where its attempt to kill was just full of spite.

She wasn't long for falling. Becoming lost in the abyss that seemed to harken from below. Sigrith felt her grip loosening beneath the heavy weight of fatigue, near to being claimed and caught in the last moments by Sannoru with a fortuitous moment of magic. With a haggard yelp as the licking flames surrounded her figure, coiling to pull her back to the surface, she thought for a moment it was too great a challenge.

Was that the thunder of death approaching?

Nope, it was Doggrave.

Heaved and flung upwards through the air, the witch landed in a heap next to her furred companion, lungs stinging for air and head spinning. This plane of existence had contorted her mind, bend her perceptions. Gravity, for several spinning moments, kept tidings with all directions. Air was a sieve, her skin a melting shell of black. The winds sang.

"It's almost over children...Keep it together...for just..." Doggrave's words were like the breaking of a mountain in her ears, a pitch whistling through like a lost soul, "...a little."

Singing.

"Hello Sigrith.." a smug chuckle followed, "You've got something right...there.."

Sigrith wasn't paying the strange woman any attention. Eyes of purple and wild blue searched through the boggy mists, a hand lifted to the heady air, "Quiet." She strained to hear the tone.

"Oh forget it..It'll just get dirty again...So where that giant bottomless hell crack was our path away from..... this charming plain of existence.... so whats the plan Queens dog? My future wolf skin rug? Anyone?"

"Be quiet."

"And please.. for the love... of the void dont tell me... its more nasally.. fart noises...That last one was directed at you tusky."

"Will you shut up!" a dual-hued glare blazed upwards from her prone position, words accompanied by a snarl and the raise of a hand. It was no gesture of threat, in fact it was no gesture to Luna at all. Sigrith was feeling the pull of the ether, attempting to find a trace of that song amidst the white noise of the chaos surrounding them.

She found it, the faintest of notes on the stale breeze of decay.

A short breath in as she pushed to her knees, eyes shuttering against the din. A long breath out to match the disembodied pitch. The witch began to sing weirdly, her voice drawing out to a fading echo. Repeated, like ripples on the water after a fallen leaf, until silence again. Waiting a moment, Sigrith reached for her sword and slowly pushed herself to her feet, turned, and continued her path towards the madness erupting at the portal stone in the distance.

They needed to leave now, with luck the echos of the song would guide Signe and Vand to their destination.

Vand Luna Slateforge Valthar

Soundtrack:

Spoiler

A trumpet. A melody, sweet, discordant, and wild. A song, as old the world, as performed by the unique and irreplaceable timbres of the instruments that sang it. So inconsequential, so incredibly important. The earth would provide.

For mother loves them all.

The eyes of Signe the Bog Witch opened wide – each pupil dotting the explanation point expressed by her brows. This was not surprise, per se – She was trying to express to Vand that there was something he needed to be paying attention to without disrupting the harmony of the impromptu Girl Power Jazz Choir. Vand got the message, hearing the song that was unmistakably Sigrith’s, accompanied by the trunk that was more-than-likely Doggrave’s.

The atmosphere occupied a physical space – like painted Hollywood scenery with an army tank behind it, the barrel pushing the mural at his face. Like the air had become a bubble blown in wax.

A gentle wind blew across the tundra, casting light flurries as it did. As it always did. The bloodmist-stains on the ground, however, began to recede inward, against the breeze…revealing dead soil underneath. But not with resistance. The creeping death was like a low tide, continuously having to wash back up and kill the greenery that kept developing in sheer protest of the otherworldly magic at play. It was Lynchian to behold – and Vand felt the difficulty in his brain, despite the absence of sensory nerves. No idiot to the land in which he lived, he had a vague idea as to what was at play, regardless of its difficulty to grasp.

She of Three Songs, Three Notes, All Things had no interest in seeing this land conquered and “understood” by foreign patriarchies and their magical systems, Vand conjectured abstractly. Eretejva shut her legs hard against this unwanted penetration.

Guided by his senses, he traced his hands along where everything but rationality told him the other world would be, reared back…


…and, with a clawed punch, tore the world as he understood it asunder. The atmosphere split like a beaded curtain, and Vand stood there, awed. “…the fuck…?”

In the world beyond the mist, it would appear as though the portal to the Tundra simply opened around the dark barbarian, the casual relationship between his punch and what was already happening a tangle of knots impossible to separate. The passage of Time was not in synch. The Space between each place shared, but only peripherally related.

Vand shut his eyes tight, his brain trying to process the situation. Black flowers opened in his mind. When his eyelids finally peeled back, what he beheld was akin to walking around with your VR goggles half on – The world where he stood with the world just beyond superimposed upon it, like an image reflected off a pane of glass.


The voice that Vand did not quite hear seemed unsure for the first time since the rabble-rouser had begun to hear it.

“Yeah, no shit,” Vand muttered to nobody. Signe’s eyebrow raised, but she continued the song nonetheless.

Vand was startled, suddenly seeing the tawny wolf that was Sanno flung at his direction. The skewed perception delayed his reaction somewhat, and he perceived the totality of Doggrave grabbing Sanno’s scruff and soft-ball pitching the mutt only after the fact. Vand caught Sanno, again by the scruff, and cast the wolf into the snow behind him in a jarring, but still fluid, economy of motion.

Unstrapping the Bastard’s Bite from his back, Vand brandished his weapon and marched into the hellscape.

| Sigrith | Luna Slateforge | Valthar | Azget of the Seventh

Sigrith
Vand

"Touchy."
Luna said with a smirk seemingly more than happy to have caused annoyance under such dire circumstances even though she remained silent allowing Sigrith to sing. She followed with a light skip to her step as The dire wolf seemed to fly through the air before a portal seemed to be punched into existance before them and a man caught the flying wolf tossing him through the portal behind him before unstrapping his sword and stepping through himself.
"Oh hello! Welcome to our small slice of hellish existence! Have fun!"
She said with a chuckle making her way to the portal before it decided to close.

"Queen's Bitch....Sorry..witch. Slip of the tongue. Im sure we'll be seeing each other again sometime. Tusky."
She said nodding to both Sigrith and Doggrave in turn as she brushed past Vand bumping his shoulder as she did so and walked through the portal after the wolf that had been thrown into the snow.

"Ah...The Tundra..What a miserable patch of ground. I missed it. Well Luna. Ill be off before your body completely disintegrates. Of course being in your body so long will have consequences. So your about to hurt. Very, very, very badly. Think of it as penitence for making us rescue that wretched fisherman. Enjoy."

And with that Luna's confident stance and smirk disappeared along with the purple glow in her eyes as they returned to thier normal yellow and her expression and composure replaced by her usual deadpan expression and
"Fly under the radar" posture.
She looked around at the snow around her before the pain struck her like a lightening bolt. She fell to her hands and knees, and began to vomit a large amount of a black tar like bile much like her blood staining the already stained snow black.
She continued to heave three or four more times before finally struggling to rise as the real pain began to set in.
It was as if she had fasted and forgone sleep for days. Her body was thirsty, tired, and hungry. Her head pounded like a hammer was smashing into her forehead.
"Sorry for him. He's quite abrasive."
She said softly over her shoulder. Whether the others heard her or not wasnt her largest concern. She walked a whole step before completely collapsing into the snow like a sack of bricks completely losing consciousness.

Fury literally blazing from the wolf as he would've strangled the raven-haired half-elf if not flung at the cursed rock by the herculean mammothman.Flames trailing behind as they tried to reach to a now unatainable goal, just to be grabbed yet by another set of hands...wait.
As the massive wolf was heaved across the trans-planar portal something caught their eyes.
Doggrave, now Vand?



Before anything could be processed their body tumbled across the snowheaps. The wolf only tumbled, giving themselves fully to the roll before they came down to a full stop, only lying their with flames slowly going down, as if after a wildfire gone wild.

Luna Slateforge said something to Vand; something he would not be able to recall in all its specificity should he be asked about it later, but, in the moment, it made enough sense for him to respond. After all, as a harasser, he was more the type for battlefield banter than his counterparts (Doggrave, so caught up in the more important aspects of the matter at hand that Luna’s racial epithets went completely unheard, only noticing her for the first time as Vand did). Barely giving her a glance, he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “I will, thanks,” and offered nothing more – letting her pass on by to the portal beyond.



Signe continued her mouth-music, the aforementioned Disney Princess-esque characteristics of her melody further emphasized by the sudden, looming presence of animals. First, it was a flock of blackbirds; they swooped down from above and circled the bloodsoaked perimeter at an angle, only to once more take to the sky. Three more witches joined Signe, appearing suddenly from the birds’ path of travel, clad in leaves and talons and hollow bones, lending their own voices, be they beautiful or wretched, to her song of the Tundra and what its landscape would and would not allow.

The portal continued to vomit bodies – the alien-smelling Luna would step out, utter something unheard under all the noise, and collapse face first into the snow. Signe the Bog Witch, naturally, was apathetic to this, leaving her flesh to the frostbite. But then came Sigrith (moved with permission), nonchalantly stepping out onto the fallen Luna and running to Signe – the elder witch’s arms open in a hug. She sang throughout, looking to Sigrith and communicating more with her face than any words could hope to at this moment, and with the slightest gloss of tears in her eyes, Sigrith took a knee beside the old woman, offering whatever strength that foul place had left with to the song of her sisters.

A great roaring was heard, somehow in rhythm, and Signe looked to see a bear – a Svalen – standing on its hind legs, singing with its fellow witches to keep the portal stone from forming.

The tide of blood snow struggled against the bloom, the foreign magic finding itself impotent against the reinforced resolve of Eretejva.



It may as well have been a cloud of toxic gas, the way he was coughing – the energy-sapping nature of the world doing a number on his silicosis. He buckled briefly, covering his mouth out of habit, before giving up and coughing his black phlegm directly onto the ground. Gathering himself, Vand peered out over the chaos, but whatever was happening to Valthar, it was no longer apparent. Doggrave loomed in the portalway, gem in one-hand, boulder under the other arm, waiting for Vand to make a call. The mammoth looked exhausted.

What could be seen, however, was Azget somewhere out ahead – a building force of undead encroaching threateningly, stalled only by the fleshy tendrils and deteriorating walkway. Vand tightened his grip on macuahuitl, a psychopathic grin crossing his face as the fungus inhabiting his body triggered a dosage of Toadstool in response to the spiking of his cortisone.


Perhaps he could kill Azget before the undead could. He would steal her fortunes, and run off with the bounty of high adventure.

And he would use those fortunes to better arm himself against later terrors. And he would kill them dead, loot their remains, and run off with the bounty of high adventure.


And again. And again. And so it goes.


Vand stood for a moment, drowning in thought. His gaze took on cokehead intensity as he retreated within, folding his psychology forward, backward, inside-out – all in the some vain quest to be anyone but himself for five seconds. Shaking his head, he went with the first errant thought that buzzed through his head, black flowers blooming in his brain.

“Doggrave--!”

The Tusk looked up, his breathing labored.

“Your chain!,” Vand shouted, answering an unvoiced question.

Doggrave looked confused for a second. He started to wheeze.

He was laughing.

Standing up, he cast his boulder out of the portal (hopefully not hitting Luna or Sanno), then lobbed the purple gem at Vand (Which Vand promptly caught, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion). “You’re not fucking sane. Not at all.,” Doggrave reflected aloud.

He undid the slaver’s chains from his wrist, affixing it into a sort of lasso as the two men moved closer to Azget.

“But that’s why I’m here.”

Exhausted as he may have been, Doggrave’s aim likely would not have been the issue. If the throw failed for any reason, it would be because of some sort of intervention. All the same, they would try to prevent that. Vand, following, bisected one tendril, then another.


Doggrave readied and flung his lasso at the weird alien-being, and, provided it landed, would rip her back toward the portal. Vand would re-sling his sword and grab the chains, assisting with the pull.

Vand

She screamed.

The lasso caught around her, grasped at her, ripped at her flesh. She felt herself pulled toward the portal, ripped and half torn from her feet before she even had a chance to respond. A screech echoed out from her, from the ground beneath her. One hand twisted and the earth beneath her formed, grasping at her.

Tendrils of melted stone grasped at her, desperately trying to pull her back even as the lasso pulled her towards the stone.


Azget screeched, the voice of a malformed harpy that had brought to a higher plain. One had grasped along the Lasso, tearing at it, the earth around her biting into her flesh in order to prevent from being pulled back into a place where she was nothing. Lips thinned, her eyes flared.


Her voice boomed out, not through the air, but through the mind of those remained.

A piercing shrill screech painful enough to hemorrhage the brain. She screamed, yelled, fought, drilling her desire of death into those that pulled at her.

Then she lost her footing, yanked forward suddenly and torn through the portal.

As she passed through her flesh was stripped clean, her bones gnawed at, and the power she held torn away in near an instant. A corpse landing on the other side, whithered, broken, a husk of what she had become with only the barest hint of her ascension remaining.