Yelena
Reach out. Push through. Survive. Survive and -
GLANCE: 0/20
Do nothing…
She floated in a dusty realm of sandy nothing – feeling every grain being absorbed into her skin. Her bones melt into the sea of orange crystals floating down here, in the depths.
M…Marius…
He wouldn’t run. He wouldn’t. She knew it. She had to tell herself she knew it.
Keep telling yourself something…
At this thought she felt her fingers twist into a fist. She focused her energy down into her hands, into the strength she could still feel there. That hadn’t melted away.
You’d really trust a thief? She heard a voice echo in her mind. That ain’t what I taught you, kid.
The head of her old mentor was being moulded before her – each individual grain of sand forming into his expressive face. Every hair, every wrinkle under his old eyes, every gleaming sheen to his teeth – they were all there.
Are these allies really better than what we had? The sand-Di asked her. Are they really a decent replacement for Cynthia and Agathae?
“I’m…” she sputtered, coughing through sand, then feeling another torrent flow back down into her lungs.
Why not rest here? Dimedrious told her, his sand-flaked features coming closer, till she could actually feel the warmth of his fur. The same warmth she’d felt on those rainy days when she’d hidden from lightning piercing the clouds of Averix’s darkened skies. He’d held her like this, and the heat of his embrace and the ticklish sensation of his fur would lull her into calm slumber.
You’ve done enough, Lena, he said. It’s time, now, to rest. Let yourself float away. Let your troubles end.
She smiled, feeling the muscles in her mouth react to his voice on impulse.
“It would be easy to,” she said, swallowing more sand as she did so. “If that’s what you really thought."
The sand-faced dog-man’s frow twisted.
“You think I haven’t heard the calls of Voidspawn before?” she asked the pretender. “I live with them. I fight them. I fight – I survive – because that’s what Di taught me. The real Di.”
The fury of the image before her was palpable, but she did nothing but grin in its face.
“You…you are…”
Yelena’s muscles constricted. She felt her sword in her right hand. Her shield in her left.
“Can you not accept the peace I offer?”
“Save your breath,” she said as she felt her body finally respond to the commands of her mind. “I’ve heard it all before.”
And before the face of the sand-Di, she called out, staking her hope on the one thing she knew was out there, tangible, and real.
And she was about to do something that she knew she should’ve done back when Cynthia was still alive. Something she had to try, even if it meant she had to let go of her own strength, and her own pride.
She was going to trust someone.
“MARIUS!” She shouted before her throat was closed with the dryness of all of Averix’s deserts. “KILL HER!”
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Amara
GLANCE: 0/45
Darkness again.
Here she was, floating amidst a sea of sand, her breathing cut, her eyes seeing nothing but the empty grains she was being submerged by.
Every little speck of sand was a hair on her father’s arm as he choked her, took what he wanted, and then left her in the dark again.
Mom wasn’t here this time.
This time, you are alone.
It was another voice that reached out to her, now. Not mom. She knew her mother’s voice. It belonged to something else. Something that hated her just as much as she used to. Just as much as she did now.
Up there, on Averix, the world was cold, uncaring, and the strength of her fire was all she had to keep her resolve steady. Those who wavered at its sight she could burn with confidence. She could watch them die without a heavy heart.
The slavers, the dumb guards in Milport, Anna…countless others…they deserved it, didn’t they?
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But in the suffocating darkness of the sand prison she floated within, faces began to appear. The eyes of Kimon watched her with solemn, sad pity. Lokar’s mad, red gaze stared accusingly at her from beside him – the heads of both Gnolls conjoined like a mutation of guilt being thrown in her face.
You should join them, the voice of the sands told her. That would be justice, would it not? That would appease them. Their deaths were your fault, after all, weren’t they?
She watched the rest of the sandy ocean form more faces that struck at her heart: the Scorpirex she’d burned to a crisp, the mummified corpses who had risen against her upstairs, and even the legions of tiny scarabs she’d toasted far above this tomb.
They all tried to stop you, the voice told her. But you pushed forward. You pushed forward into more pain, more suffering – suffering for you and everyone around you.
Mendax was watching her from within the bowls of the sands. She felt his life fade away, and as she tried to reach out her arm she felt it burdened by what felt like white-hot pinnacles affixed to her wrists.
He was dying from the poison he’d taken for her already. Now, the sands were finishing him off.
And when he’s gone, the voice seethed. You’ll be all alone, again.
She closed her eyes and her heart to the words of the thing that were dripping inside her, coating the immutable part of her soul that burned even though her Glance was gone.
And when she held on to that flame – the same flame that had helped her escape her father’s clutches, she saw a new face blaze into life in the sands.
The face of the warrior-girl. Blonde hair. Pale faced. Weilding her blade with the confidence of one who knew her cause was righteous.
The words of the dog that had begged her to find this girl – this Yelena – deep in the recesses of the Everloft came to engulf her mind, blocking out the new voice.
“No,” she told the twisting sands all around her. “I’m not alone. I won’t be alone.”
The faces of the slain melted away as power came back into her fingers, and for an instant she saw the ruined face of her real foe.
“For them,” she sputtered through the constantly flowing sand. “For Kimon and for Lokar and for Mendax and for the dog-man and for mom.”
The words tumbled out like a child overcome with excitement, like she was being released from a period of sustained grounding.
“Even if I am Cha’lokk,” she spat. “I’ll stop you – for them!”
The rage-filled face of the one called Frezia roared as it faded, and the sands cascaded towards her again.
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Marius
He felt the sands move beneath his feet, twisting round his ankles as though they had taken on sentience.
He’d watched it swallow them up – all of them – like a calming sea swallowing up all his woes, and then he knew the dying Dominion Lord had spoken true.
He stared into what remained of her face and felt his forefinger twitch ever so slightly towards his fallen bow.
Frezia: Scorpionness of Bhashera
HP: 10/195
Just one more…one more shot.
But that’s exactly what I said above. That’s why I’m here, eh? For one last shot at…
Redemption, Marius? The silky-smooth voice of the Scorpionness said again, licking at the corners of his mind.
Though this time there was a hint of frustration there. The knowing stench of something behind her words: failure.
But he did not dwell on them. Instead, his eyes quivered on the sight of his bow, and as he made to reach it, saw that the sands beside it had arranged themselves to form a face he’d not seen in what felt like eons.
I’m waiting, Marius, she said – her lips rosy, cheeks blooming, full of life, with her little blonde ringlets framing her freckled face. I’m waiting for you.
He knew this shit wasn’t real. Deep inside his gold and pussy-addled mind, he knew. But he didn’t care.
Where are you?
Below, she said in an echo that burrowed deep into his supplicant mind. Please, come get me.
He watched the mimic in the sand stretch out a long, thin arm to him. An arm that was as frail and milky white as her skin really was up there, last time he’d seen her.
He looked at the delicate fingers and felt his whole body twitch. He knew then that he wasn’t ready to see her, like he thought, not now.
“I’m sorry”, he said, stepping towards her outstretched palm. Then again, quieter: “I’m sorry.”
“Shhh,” she told him, her pink-hued lips parting with the soft gentility of some noble’s ghost. “It’s ok.”
“Nah,” he said. “It’s not. And if you were really her, you’d know that.”
He tried to get away. Every muscle in his body compelled him to pick up that fallen bow, look into the eyes of the thirsting beast before him, and end it all.
But he was a man. A simple, stupid man. A human – not a hero. Not a demon slaying knight like the Firvak Argent, and no spell-slinging wizard like the red-haired Lightbringer. He was human. Just a guy with a hobby that made him useful. And humans don’t do the right thing. Humans do what their hearts tell them to.
And his heart beat for no one but her.
His hand twitched as it glided towards hers, ready to interlock his fingers with those of the sand-covered specter. She felt warm. She felt cold. She felt like the raw upsurge of emotion he always tried to suppress in himself.
And then he was on his knees, being dragged towards her.
Come, Marius, she whispered. Come below. Come to me.
And he would have done. With all the old Gods, new Gods, and whatever other made up deities there were out there as his witness, he’d have let her take him, were it not for the swarthy, tattooed hand of another woman who grabbed his other arm and pressed down, hard.
His eyes flew to meet hers – the eyes of the Red-Woman.
“Wha-“ he stammered, seeing that there was no anger within her, but control. Pure, good, and righteous.
Steadily she leveled her gaze at him, and then he saw that she held something in her other hand: his bow and a single arrow.
“Are you being free man,” she said, in a voice that stung him with its pure authority. “Or a slave?”
The irony was palpable. He had to laugh.
“I’m a man,” he said. “Like you said: a simple surfacer. What do you want from me?”
And then he saw something he never thought he’d ever see.
She smiled at him.
And the novelty struck him so much that he felt the hand of the faux-girl melt away under his.
“I am making plan,” the Red-Woman said. “You are being the final piece.”
Now his laughter was unrestrained. He felt himself chuckle more than he actually made any sound: his diaphragm contracted, his lips parted, and he wheezed like an old man taking his last happy breath.
“Welp,” he said. “You know, in a certain light, you’ve actually got a pretty cute smile.”
“Be not flirting with me, thief.”
“Honey,” he replied. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
And as he took the bow from her waiting hands, the sand-being rose to its full height, showing him the girl in all her glory: the ghostly beauty in her face juxtaposed with her thin, almost jaundiced hips.
‘Marius!” she wailed, banshee like against the rushing sands. “Don’t you want me? Don’t…don’t you care?”
He aimed through her chest, closing one eye so he could line up his shot.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t, Emily.”
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Yelena
When at last the sands receded and she managed to swim back up to the surface, she was greeted by the sight of her fellow warriors surrounding her, coughing, sputtering against the ground, but alive.
She looked to the Lightbringer girl – Amara – then to the Gnoll, Mendax, and finally followed their gazes towards the sight of the screaming Scorpionness. She reared up, gave a final shriek of defiance, and then toppled down against the last of her eggs, curling up like the insect she was in death.
A single arrow protruded from between her eyes.
Scorpionness Frezia: Dominion Lord of Bhashera
HP: 0/195
DOMINION LORD: SLAIN
EXP: + 500
Items Aquired: Frezia’s Scimitar, Sting of Bhashera
Raw Materials: Scorpionness Hide
DUNGEON: CATACOMBS OF BHAHSERA
STATUS: *CLEARED*
She looked at the words with the rest of them, her senses dulled, slowly drifting into numbness as the reality of her victory – their victory – washed over her.
When the words cleared, she saw Marius step forward from the shadows, letting his bow fall from his shaking hand before his entire body followed suit. He collapsed into the hot sands below, making one final statement before he drifted away:
“I ain’t just a pretty face…after all…”