They had slain the death-worshiper, but Alex was dead.

Horatio sank to his knees next to the fallen hero. The others gathered round too, some kneeling at his side with Horatio and some standing back and shaking their heads in shock.

The man lay utterly still, spread-eagled on his back, the stiffness of death gripping him, unseeing eyes looking up into the blackened sky. The scythe had torn his robe where it had pierced his chest and heart, and the heavy flow of blood had stained most of it deep red, no longer just the sash he wore around his waist.

The other party members sobbed quietly, or stared at Alex in stunned silence like Horatio.

A thought came to him.

He turned to Ceres, kneeling next to him. ‘Heal him!’ he implored the priest. ‘Heal him, Ceres! Use your raise spell!’

Ceres’ face was grim, but she held her hands out over Alex all the same and whispered, ‘Raise.’

[Describe the raise spell more accurately—not sure what it looks like in the game.]

Bright white light shone from Ceres’ hands and onto Alex, making his pale body shine, and a brief melodic noise sounded like the strumming of some otherworldly harp.

Horatio held his breath, and for a moment hope rose within him.

But then the light faded, leaving only the hellish glow of Braxia, and Alex did not stir. He looked just as dead as he had been before.

‘It’s no use!’ lamented Ceres. ‘The raise spell only works on people who are unconscious! But he’s not just been knocked out, he’s…’

She evidently couldn’t bring herself to say it.

[Could also insert a reference to resurrection item, whatever it is, not working. Just make sure it’s something different to a phoenix down!]

‘I don’t understand,’ said Silvia. ‘Didn’t we just defeat “Death”? Shouldn’t that have stopped this from happening?’

‘No,’ said Ursula. ‘That Braxian, whether a man or a demon, was only an embodiment of death, an image of death, not Death itself. Death is a spiritual reality that cannot be defeated by any of us.’

‘That’s right,’ said Ceres, her cheeks wet with tears of grief for Alex. Would she weep like that over me, if I died? Horatio wondered. ‘Death is the Last Enemy. Only Qind himself has the power of life and death, and only Qind can defeat death.’

They were all quiet a moment, apparently all looking at Alex. Horatio gently used his fingers to close the man’s eyelids. With his eyes shut, were it not for the blood that had leaked down his chin and around his chest, you might have been forgiven for thinking that the man was just asleep. Except no breath entered or left his gaping mouth.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

‘I can’t believe it…’ said Tyler. ‘I worked so hard to get here. All that study, all that practice, all that mana used up on the time-travel spell, and I still failed to protect Alex.’

‘Hey,’ said Egea, ‘can’t you just, like, travel back in time again and have another go?’

‘No…’ said Tyler mournfully. ‘It took so much mana, and many of us time mages to perform the spell. I suppose I can try again, but it will take years to train up the mages and prepare to cast the spell again, and in that time the Demon King will overrun the world again… I’m… I’m so confused. This wasn’t supposed to happen.’

It was all for nothing, Horatio thought. We tried so hard and we got so far, but it all came to nothing in the end. We were defeated. I’ll never do anything significant now, or make mother and father proud, or marry Ceres. All that’s going to happen is that I’m just going to die here, a miserable, unfulfilled failure. What a waste of life.

‘Well, damn,’ said Egea. ‘I can’t believe this has happened either… What a disaster…’

‘Oh, what do you care?’ Primus snapped at her all of a sudden. ‘You only care about one thing! All you were along for the ride with us for was to make as much money as you could along the way, trader! I’m sure there will still be buying and selling in Brax’s new regime. You can be a part of it—you might even manage to make even more money than you would have!’

And just like that, an argument ignited.

‘Hey, shut your trap, gramps!’ Egea shot back. ‘You don’t really know me! You don’t know what I really care about!’

‘Please do not speak to my Grandfather that way,’ said Olivia.

‘Be quiet, girl,’ said Wyvera, ‘he was out of order.’

‘Maybe so,’ said Walter, ‘but it was not her place to say so. You should respect your elders.’

‘Don’t take his side!’ said Ursula.

Walter visibly deflated. ‘Oh… sorry…’

‘Gods, man!’ said Ross. ‘Are you tongue-lashed so easily? And by a woman whom it has only been predicted will become your bride, with whom you have no present romantic connection!?’

‘I don’t think you have any business to be weighing in on this, “Rossalento”,’ said Silvia.

‘Yes,’ said Helen, ‘if it were not for your loose tongue, then the Braxians might never have discovered Alexander and the Clarent Sword and we wouldn’t have gotten into this mess in the first place!’

‘Now come on,’ said Ceres, leaping to Ross’s defence, ‘that’s not fair! He didn’t know what he was doing, and he only tried his best with the information he had at the time!’

‘Ouzo is distressed by all this arguing,’ said Ouzo.

Horatio put his head in his hands as the argument continued, trying to let it wash over him, tuning it out. This wasn’t going to do any of them any good.

Beyond the noise of his arguing companions, he heard a faint roar.

He took his hands away from his face, and turned around.

‘Er, everybody,’ he said. ‘You might want to stop arguing and pay attention for a moment. The monsters are still coming for us.’

Battle 1, surrounded formation.