Where'd They Go? That's Where

Darkness.

Alexandria has been consumed in it for a hot minute, hasn't it? Not the kind of darkness of night's fall and early winter's days, but the more metaphorical kind: a creeping, slowly spreading chill, a tension building of a coming ending: the moment before the boot drops, so to speak.

You aren't sure what you were doing, or even how long its been, but here you are: painfully aware of that boot, and unsure where you are. There's an expanse of swirling blackness, and you are alone in it.

... until your hear a voice: people calling out.

"Five more minutes!" Skyler grouses, as if the call of the voices were people attempting to wake him up, "Mama, I do not want the pony with the fancy forelock, for he bit me when I fed him sugar cubes."

Beat.

"Oh wait. I'm not asleep."

Another beat. "Gods this is getting *weird* in Alexandria."

Dirk pauses with his brush in mid-stroke, poised over his beard as that darkness overwhelms him. He blinks owlishly, squinting and peering in the gloom. That doesn't seem right. -He- can see in the dark just fine, usually. "What in Dana's flowery green -arse-?" he grumbles. He fumbles his way to the window of his inn room and flings it open. Perhaps if he can see outside, something will make sense. If only it were that easy. "Och, what the hell is this? What the hell is goin' on here?!" he shouts out into the void. Will it help? Maybe not, but it helps to be able to do -something-. It's proof that he's not going deaf as well as blind in his old age.

Aryia is quite used to the dark. Pitch black, or even darker. Perhaps the last gift of Taara. Or maybe she's just built different. So it is *weird* that she can't even see past her own nose.

She catches a voice, then two, turning that way and gives a quiet, two toned whistle as she claps her hands together, trying to light up the dark.

Eztli was left in some state of confusion at the darkness around her. The makari flicked a small flame between two of her fingers, that seemed to do little to actually disperse the darkness. Sound still worked though, right? The sorceress carefully picked her way through the shadows to not trip on anything, trying to find the source of the noise.

Aryia manages to get her hands alight with moonlight, but still, barely able to catch anything before her reach. A tinge of panic crawls of up her neck, but she locks that down.

"What a worthless little cretin. Get rid of it." A distance voice rolled by over her shoulder. A man's. She felt a weight land in her hand. It was dropped like hot iron. "What? Scared? They're useless. You will be too if you don't-"

A whistling streak of moonlight punches the air behind her, her finding herself panting and slowly backing up. What... is that...?

"...Albus?" Magpie says, turning this way and that, trying to pierce the gloom. "...Is it time for another Crimson Pen book? Or... wait... You're *not* a book anyore, right? Didn't we--"

Backing away from the calling voice, Magpie does what comes natural; putting a Light spell on the headdress-coin directly over her forehead, because when you need a light you need it close.

"The.. pony..."

"Pony..." A voice seems to echo around Skyler, making his eyes widen and his skin to visibly pimple up.

"Pony..." Or at least, it would if anyone could see him.

"Pony... would... not bite... if you did... not ride it so harshly..."

"Harshly... little toadstool.." Again the voice echos, and Skyler spins around with fist raised, eyes dilated in utter terror. "No. You're *dead*. You're dead and *he* killed you!"

And he hears the sound of a voice crooning a discordant melody, something about 'heal heal little frog' that's equal parts silly but, judging by how Skyler seems to be covering his ears, equally parts terrifying to him at least.

"Little hunter..." Dirk's face turns white as his beard as the soft, silky-smooth voice reaches him from the darkness. "Let me -in-, little hunter." Dirk swallows hard, his mouth turning dry. "No... it cannae be you..." He slowly backs away from the window, fumbling in the gloom for his thunderbelcher. His flailing palm catches the barrel, making the weapon topple to the floor. The clatter makes Dirk startle back with a squeak. "Yer -dead-, Demontry Kol! Dolan and Andalena put an -end- tae you! Yer dead an' gone -an' ye cannae come back!-" He stoops to snatch up his thunderbelcher and snaps it to his shoulder. He turns this way and that, panting for breath as he fights the panic clawing at his mind. "Yer dead an' gone. Ye cannae come back. Yer dead an' gone. Ye cannae come -back-!" he whispers hoarsely. But the soft, mocking laughter that rings in his ears tell him that no, Dirk, sometimes your worst nightmare really -can- come true.

Eztli squinted in spite of the darkness, listening closely to the voices. She froze in place as the voices turned guttural and violent, clearly humanoid, but not quite. "I'll burn you all where you stand!" The sorceress shouted, charging off in the irection of the noise to get to the source of it, and eliminate it if need be.

With her forehead shining like a beacon, Magpie *ought* to be able to see more than nothing. But the darkness is too close, too heavy, and the voice... shifts, subtly. Menace weights it's barely-understood words, a gurgling sound like an indrawn breath around a mouth full of blood.

The faint crackle of fire.

Timbers falling to crash into floorboards.

The crack of bone.

"Wait... you're not Albus," Magpie whispers... "...You're... oh *hell* no."

And she turns and just bolts, fleeing in any random direction that is Away From That Ever-To-Be-Damned Wendigo.

The voices fade away. Silence.

All of you are alone in the dark for a moment. It's chill settles into your bones.

And then a new voice, achingly familiar but just out of reach, a memory come and gone.

"We are all made of stories, little ones. Seek them out."

Aryia squashes her breathing, forcing it to be an even In and Out as she backs up with glowing hands raised. Focus. Whatever is going on trying to fuck with you. Find your center. That mantra goes through her head again and again until-

She senses others nearby. She whistles again, a two toned low-high. And.. a voice? It was painful how familiar it was, the ache like a heart being pulled taut.

"I saw him..." Skyler whispers staring at nothing as he curls up on the ground, hands wrapped around his legs, "He hurt her. He hurt her and she could not have lived through that. If she did..."

What that would mean remains unknown, as he perks up when he hears the two-toned high-low whistle. Slowly, he surfaces and pulls a small little grey stone out of a small cage braided into his hair. He kisses it softly, hesitantly, and then lets go of it so it's floating around his head like a friendly little moon as he stands up and walks towards the whistles.

Dirk's eyes blink open as he hears voices. Voices he knows. Voices that aren't -Kol's-. "Blessed Lady, keep an' protect me," he whispers softly as he gingerly makes his way forward. "Halloooo! Skyler! Is that you, laddie?"

The voices vanished just as suddenly as they had appeared, leaving Eztli alone again with an ever growing frustration. She sighed, perking up just as the voices picked up again. "Dirk? That you over there? Not something impersonating you or something, hopefully?"

Magpie is... not really paying attention. She is, after all, convinced that there's a people-eating monster in dire -- like Bear -- need of a snack.

Magpie is also a smol bean. This has long been a source of great frustration, because the bulk of Alexandria is not *built* for smol beans.

Both of these together may explain why a circular light bobs rapidly out of the gloom, resolving into a Magpie that crashes into Dirk, rebounding almost immediately and looking up, eyes streaming with fear-filled tears. "...D-Dirk? ...Is that *you,* buddy?!"

The swashbuckling man comes face to face with a scarred-to-the-nines shadow elf with eerie glowing hands and fierce scowl that could cut through rock. She blinks. Her hands move, and understanding follows regardless of knowing the lingua franca. "Who the fuck are you?"

Aryia looks to the side, hearing closer voices, barely seeing them. "Eztli? Dirk?" She waves, doing that two-toned whistle again. Her way of saying 'hey!'. <Handspeech/Tongues>

"Dirk?" Skyler looks *horrid* when the ol' boy finds him, eyes wide and shaking in the dim light of his (not so) happy (anymore) moon. Is he green or is that just the light of the aeon torch? "Wh.. where are we? I wanna go *home*. Jarik was gunna give me a foot rub!"

He then jerks his head towards the others, and clings to the dwarf's arm. "Oh hey, I know the little one. We took on some demon-lord and she ate his nuts while I skunked his face. And is that Eztli and..."

He comes face to face with Aryia, lets out a shriek, and falls backwards on his ass. "I'M TOO YOUNG AND PRETTY TO DIE IS WHO I AM!"

Eztli trudged up over to where everyone else was conversing, the low growl in her throat dying down and out once she actually saw some faces attached to the voices. "Look, no one here is going to die unless there's a reason for that, and I doubt that's the case." The makari grumbled.

"Now, more importantly, yeah, no clue where the hell we are. If I can get us out of here and you aren't all shadow monsters pretending to be people I know, then I can see what I can do, if it comes down to it."

Dirk's eyes get wide as he spies Skyler. He doesn't even comment on the arm-clinging. He's in the mood for some clinging himself. He clutches at Skyler, eyes wide as teacups as he looks around fearfully. "Skyler! Praise the -gods- laddie. Ye won't -believe---" But then there's Aryia, and Eztli, and Magpie too. He staggers a bit as Skyler falls away from him. "Ariya! It's a'right, lassie! Skyler's an adventurer, like us!"

It's about this time that Magpie enters, stage right, and smacks right into him. He sweeps his arm around her to keep her from ass-planting as well. Fortunately, while he is indeed a shortstack, he is no smol bean. He is decidedly more of a thicc bean, and so he does not tumble as easily as some others. "Magpie! It's a'right, lassie, it's me!"

He looks up and around at his friends, his beard bristling. "What the hell is goin' -on-? Is this more o' Heth's bullshit? I thought we blasted that sheepfucker out the sky!"

Aryia relaxes as she runs into others she knows - and more importantly trusts. And then there's this screaming man. Her glowing gaze leers down at him, ears flicking at the high pitched noise. "... sure. Pretty. Get up. My bedtime was interrupted and I'm pissed." She reaches down a hand to help hoist Skyler up - it's more like getting thrown to their feet if he accepts.

She steps closer to Eztli. "Yes. Let's figure this out. I want to get back to bed."

She gives a firm nod to Dirk, relaxing somewhat. "Don't know. Too dark for that. He's more a zombie dragon." <Handspeech/Tongues>

Upon confirmation of Dirk's reality, Magpie simply lunges out of his grip to wrap her arms perhaps a quarter of the way around his middle, consoling herself with a good few seconds of crying.

Once big feelings in smol body are satisfied, she leans back, rubbing eyes and nose. "...Yeah no we need to be *anywhere else,* This is lookin' just a little too Void-y for my liking.

"Evil never dies, Dirk." Skyler says earnestly, as he stares from Dirk to Aryia and then at Eztli and Magpie before accepting the hand to his feet a touch self-consciously as his little moon stalls behind his head. Is it embarrassed to be orbiting the swashbuckler?

Do they even do that?

But then it comes around again and he's schooled his face into a grin of amusement. Sure, he's flung to his feet, but he's *Skyler* and manages to twist midair to land nimbly on his feet, brushing off his best feature.

... His shoulders, duh! "Evil just gets kinda winded and then apparently comes back to throw our deepest trauma at us. Did anyone else see or hear someone or something horrible, or am I just depressed and/or mentally ill?" He scratches his chin consideringly, "Although I think they aren't mutually exclusive. Oh, hey little squirrel!" And he pulls a little lacy bit of fabric out of thin air, and offers it to her, "For your face. You can blow your nose too, 'coz I don't want it back if you use it."

Dirk wraps Magpie up in his arms and gives her a proper Dwarf Sized hug, a (likely very successful) attempt to crush her soul back into her body. Also, he's trembling himself, and it helps to have someone to cling to. "Easy there lassie. Yer a'right. Fer now, at least. Yer among friends," he says, as soothingly as he can. Once Magpie turns loose, he does the same. He looks up and around at the others. "No, lad, it wasnae just you. I heard... -him-." He shudders, gripping the stock of his thunderbelcher until his knuckles turn white. "Demontry Kol. That rat -bastard- of a vampire. Och, of all the villains I ever fought, he was the -worst-."

"Th-th Wendigo," Magpie stammers, accepting the lacy cloth with a watery smile and using it to de-gunkify her face. "Thanks... You're *lots* nicer as a person," she says. "...But you made a *heck* of a skunk. Anyway... That's what I was running from. I couldn't see anything... but it sounded like we were back in that in, and just.... no. Nuh-uh."

"I'm not too confident this is something we can figure out nice and quick, much as I'd like that." Eztli sighed, rubbing the back of her head. "If we're not in Alexandria, teleporting would always work, but I don't know any spells to go cross planes, which is more likely. So, whatever way is out of here, it's on the terms of whatevers got us here."

"I mean he was a little handsy when *I* ran into him, but after I killed him half a dozen times he got the hint." Skyler says reflectively regarding Dirk's terror, reaching over and patting Magpie on the top of her head. "I don't think I can do a handstand and shake my ass at this problem, alas." He tells the smolbean sadly, "But I'm glad to have you here with me, and we're in some pretty fierce company." He puffs his chest, "Not to brag, but I'm a Gentleman Adventurer, Eztli once sat fire to some stuffed animals, Dirk doesn't shoot blanks despite his age, and she looks terrifying." He jerks his thumb at Ariya. "Surely she's done some dope-ass shit in her time. Silent but *deadly*." Ah, the emotional recovery abilities of a dumbass. They should be studied! He beams around at the group, tucking thumbs in his belt. "We got this!"

And then Eztli puts a rain on the parade, and he sags. "Spoilsport."

If Aryia is surprised from the smooth twist and land, she only shows it through a little shrug and a cocked brow. "Yes, I did. Heard my old owner," she answers Skyler. "He should be dead."

The name Kol catches a tinge of recognition, so she gets closer to everyone to close the ranks. The thumb towards her gets her attention, a snort escaping her. "I simply solve problems by going through them. The others can tell the tales. But we seem competent enough to untangle this."

She inhales. Out. "So... did anyone hear that other voice?" <Handspeech/Tongues>

Dirk shakes his head. "He could always get in my head," he says tightly. "I couldnae keep 'im out, nae matter how hard I tried. He could turn me intae his adorin' wee little -slave-. Och." He draws a shaky breath, looking over at Eztli. "Gods, what I wouldnae give tae have Lana or Telamon here. Or Missus Verna, or Master Mikilos. -They'd- know what tae do." He glances back at Aryia, studying the movement of her hands. "Other voice?" he asks, looking back up at her face. "I... I'm nae certain. Could it have been one of us that ye heard, perhaps...?"

"Something about being made of stories," Aryia replies to Dirk in a quick flit. "Might have been my imagination. This place seems fucked." <Handspeech/Tongues>

"Maybe we were kidnapped by fairies. I had that happen once." Skyler says brightly, as he glances around, "Anyone see a mushroom circle? They give you hints if you pee on them, the kinky little things."

There are no mushroom circles.

Alas, there is only a profound, chilling darkness that seems to extend in all directions.

And then...

... there it is.

That voice.

Warm, rich, melodious even. "Find the thread. One will bring you to me. A final corruption."

There, something takes shape. A home rising up out of the dark. Lonely looking, in the sense, but it's a several story manor home from the look of it.

"I'm not useless, you know, I just don't make it a habit of fucking around with other planes of existence, so I never bothered learning more about it. Which clearly, in hindsight, wasn't a good idea." Eztli huffed, trying not to glare at the comments. "Didn't hear too much, maybe someone's trying to mess with me, since I'd recognize those noises anywhere. Maybe they thought they had more of a hold over me still."

The makari watched as the building appeared, and sighed. "Well, that's a trap if I ever saw it, but unless anyone has any better leads, or wants to see what happens if we teleport somewhere else at the moment, Doesn't look like much of a choice, does it?"

Aryia just gives Skyler a /look/. "Okay, fairy pisser. You could just-"

Her hands still as that voice snakes through the air. Hands drop, looking over to- oh. "-h f-ck m- s-d-w-ys," Aryia hisses through clenched teeth, her grey skin paling. "I know that house. Gird yourselves. Last time I was there, I stepped into a fucked up bloody aftermath of a massacre." She goes through a few motions: cracking her neck and rolling her shoulders before taking point. <Handspeech/Tongues>

<OOC> Aryia uses Ki: Barkskin 

Dirk gives Skyler a -look-, his bushy white brows furrowing as he tugs at his beard. "I... I'm nae sure it works -quite- like that, lad," he says. "Although there's plenty out there in the wilds that'll do summat if ye piss on it. I dinnae judge." He looks back to Ariya and snaps his fingers. "Och! Yer so right! I heard that too! Just..." He waves a hand around. "All o' -this- is goin' on..." He looks like he might like to elaborate, but then there's that manor rising up out of the gloom. He looks up (and up and up), his eyes getting wide once again as his jaw drops. "Erh?" That's about all he can manage. Fortunately, Ariya's there to fill in the blanks. At her warning, he lifts his thunderbelcher and racks the slide with a satisfying CHK-CHAK. "Right. Let's finish this up an' get back tae Alex. I have tae finish groomin' me beard."

GAME: Eztli casts Mage Armor. Caster Level: 14 DC: 20

"There's a whore I know that taught me the *best* balm for frizzy hair!" Skyler tells Dirk brightly, "You are looking a little poofy. Works extra well on bristly, curly hair. We can even add some dyes to make it fun colors! I once committed piracy with a guy that had a purple beard. It got all over everything, especially when it rained, but he said it helped immensely with split ends."

As he rattles away, his hand reaches up to draw his wickedly curved blade, tossing it into the air and catching it with a flourish before pausing to check his boots for scuffs. One gets wiped away, before he nods at Aryia, ignoring the look. He once dressed in Verdama drag and flirted with one of Her paladins. It takes more than that to rattle him. "Of course it's a trap. But we know it's a trap, so we're springing it on our terms. Who do we wanna send in first, or do we all want to jump in at once so they can't single anyone out?"

There's warmth in that home, unlike the chill of the place you're in. You can feel it as you get closer. Love, laughter, and light oozing from it at stark odds with the nature of the place.

And ...

...music? You can hear it now. Joyous. Lively.

GAME: Magpie casts Mass Planar Adaptation. Caster Level: 15 DC: 25

Dirk gives Skyler another -look-. "I do not need a purple beard," he grumbles. "Make me look like one o' those nutty oddbeards. Hrumph!" He mutters and grumbles as he lumbers along, his posture tense as a coiled spring. But then, hearing that cheery music, and seeing how warm and inviting the place looks... it slows the burly old snowbeard's step. "Aye-yup. This is -definitely- a trap," he grumbles.

As the others begin to gird up for trouble, Magpie stands there, brow furrowed for a moment. Then, she wets the end of a finger and holds it up to the air, nodding slowly... and begins to chant. The words... don't matter much, sliding off ears and brains as she speaks into her cupped hands. Power gathers there, pooling into a roiling, chaotic mass of liquid light of any and all possible colors. Then, at the apex of her chant, she slams her hands together, and the power sprayes out in all directions, settling over herself and her friends in a shimmering ward that soon fades into only the occasional multicolored glimmer.

"...Been a tour guide out in the Planes for awhile," she says quietly. "Wherever we are, we're plane-lost. I can get us back, but... this feels *important.*

"I agree, we're not on this plane," Aryia nods towards Magpie, taking the magic with appreciation. The stark contrast of how the home feels now versus how she remembered it is deeply unsettling. Last Aryia was here, it looked like people suddenly left mid-party. But here, it looked like the party was still going on.

"I can take it. Prepare for Taaranites," she volunteers, stepping forth towards the manor and... she inhales deeply. Lines of energy flare on her skin in a flash. And she opens the door. <Handspeech/Tongues>

<OOC> Aryia uses Ki: Diamond Soul, Gain Spell Resist 30

"Oh, great, cultists, hiding in a plane of darkness, and something warning about corruption. Suppose that explains why people can sound like they're having so much fun in a place like this." Eztli grumbled, waving one hand over her shimmering robes. "You always sleep with your guns and swords on you? Suppose I would too if I didn't have a way to defend myself these days."

The door opens.

It looks very inviting! Just waiting for you.

That can't be bad, right?

Aryia hesitates at the door, looking back at the others before peering inside. It felt... odd. The carpet wasn't sodden with blood, and music was flowing like the drinks. "Just stay focused." But alas- she enters, eyes darting through the party. On edge.

Dirk grunts softly as he feels Magpie's protective magicks settle on him. "Glad we've got -you- here wi' us, lassie," he says. "Gods, I've lost track o' how many times yer magicks have come in clutch." He squares up with the manor, swinging his thunderbelcher to rest it over his shoulder. As he lumbers forward, he glances at Etzli. "Nae -usually-, no. I like me gun well an' all--I made it meself after all--but hardly enough tae sleep wi' the thing. That's just weird." He trundles forward, heading for the door, and whatever might lie beyond it.

And Aryia bounces Skyler, sword held at the ready as he glances left to right with bright eyes and a grin that suggests he's ready for anything.

Eztli shrugs and doesn't seem too perturbed for the moment by the building before them, and like the others, is quick to enter. "Focused as well as I can be, maybe it'll be easier inside where I can actually see things, hopefully."

"Don't forget," Magpie says, giving Dirk a distracted grin as he talks her up. "Find the thread. It was important enough for nothing to say, it's important enough to *remember.*"

But she's still trying to place the voice as she files on in behind the rest... ready to see what needs a little chaos.

"Welcome, welcome!"

You're greeted almost immediately by a man in in loosely fitting robes. Silk.

"It's been so long since we had guests at the door! Come in! Come in! Enjoy! Wine?" Was he holding a platter moments ago? No?

Does it matter? He is now. Red wine.

"We're so happy to see you! I'm sure we've been expecting you."

The home unfolds into a radcuous, hedonistic party. Everyone is singing along, dancing, drinking. It's -merry-.

Merry everywhere to the heart's desire. Everything is luxurious...

Dirk wasn't at all certain what to expect out of this alien, otherworldly place. Aside from a couple jaunts into Quel'ynos, he's kept his feet firmly planted on Ea's face. But -this-... it's familiar. -Too- familiar. The old snowbeard swan-dives headfirst into the uncanny valley. His cheeks turn bright red, and his beard bristles as he stumbles and stammers. "Uh... uh... I... uh... that is tae say..." He reaches up to doff his tricorne, glancing around furtively before turning a -desperate- look on Skyler. The sky pirate's the charming one--surely -he- knows what to say? All poor Dirk can think to do is fidget from foot to foot. He doesn't want to be -rude-, really, but he -was- kidnapped, and now he's at a party. Normally something he'd quite enjoy, if not for the circumstances. He's fairly certain he didn't receive an RSVP to -this- particular gathering.

Eztli looked even more sour than usual, the sorceress not appreciating the party in the slightest. ""Gods, if anyone asks who your parents are, just tell them that they're too important to bother telling them." She grumbled to no one in particular before stepping inside.

"Oh, hey! Do you guys have oat milk?" Skyler asks brightly as he shoves his way to the front of the crowd, beaming brightly at the party-goers as he glances around, "So glad you knew we were coming, coz we sure as fire didn't!"

He pauses, and adds, "You'll forgive us if we don't give you our names. It's more fun that way, y'know!" And he grins brightly, "So what's all this about? What's going on? Did someone die?"

Aryia is stymied briefly at the entrance, such a party rifled old, bittersweet memories. She lingers at some of the luxuries, but she shakes her head, focusing as Skyler pushes his way to the front. He seems far better suited for this environment, so she's back to watching the party for anything remiss.

Totally just watching.

"Oat Milk?"

A beat.

"Well, I suppose I can check the pantries. They're ... very well stocked? Amazing. It's like a never ending pantry of anything and everything we could want, so perhaps!"

He smiles warmly at them, then turns to lead them further in.

It's ... it's a party. There's people singing, laughing, dancing. They all seem to be having a good time. There's no end to it. Every room you pass by, pass through, is filled to the brim with people locked in some sort of eternal festival and they all look like they're having the time of their life.

And not a knife to be seen anywhere. "There's some space in this room," he says, cheerfully, pointing the way down another hallway. This place is impossible to figure out. The interior makes no sense to the exterior. One gets the impression it doesn't really matter to any of them.

Dirk shuffles along with the others as they're led inward. He's never one to turn down a good party. No dwarf worth his beard would be. But all of -this- seems to be a bit much for the old ranger. A small gathering of friends in a cheerful inn room is much more his speed. He stares all around as they make their way in. The strange geometries and curious angles has the poor old dwarf's eyes crossing. "Beards o' me sweet tapdancin' fathers. What the hell--"

He pauses with one foot poised to take a step before he stops in his tracks. Sloooowly he turns his head and leeeeeans back, peering into a room. His eyes get wide, and his cheeks turn red as beets. He swiftly resumes his pace, harrumphing softly as he fans himself with his tricorne. "So ah... heh... quite the er... -lively- gatherin' ye've got goin' on here," he says to their strange host. "There a special occasion? Or are ye all just a naturally happy lot?"

"Maybe I was too harsh in my judgement. I think they might genuinely just be here to have fun with no ulterior motives. Maybe." Eztli relented as they wandered further into the strange party. "So, what's your name, then? What's the occasion for all of this, anyways?"

"Hey question!" Magpie calls from much closer to the floor; imposible angles and eldritch geometries... Yeah they're weird, but pay attention to your feet and you'll be fine. "Like he said; what *are* y'all celebrating, anyway? I ain't never seen a party this size without *somethin'* kickin' it off!"

The gnome seems more... curious, than suspicious, as she examines passed hallways and chambers. Maybe the thread is a literal one?

This isn't the first or second time that Aryia had been in an otherworldly place where the festivities were eternal. She follows, better to go along with the tide than to fight against it. Especially since they're still trying to sort out what's going on.

The fact that she hasn't spotted the that knife was both relaxing as it was concerning. A thought that is discarded as she peers into the same room as Dirk. Her brows raise as she whistles lowly, before lazily trailing along with the others after a moment.

"Hey! When you find the oat milk, maybe also get us the answers to our questions?" Skyler asks brightly, his tone firm but friendly, cheerful even as he squints at the back of the leading figure. "And space for what? Are we having an orgy? I mean, usually I like a little more prep work before group debauchery. And if you think for a second I'm sharing my oat milk, you really are insane."

He asides to the group, "This is definitely a trap. But, like, is it the kind of fun trap where we all end up naked and covered in cheese, or the kind of trap that ends with us eating someone's flesh? Because I won't do that again. People are kinda gamey." Surely he jests, right?

Dirk flicks his wide-eyed gaze around at his friends. His friends are safe. The old dwarf is hardly a prude, but even he has his limits. And the heedless abandon permeating this place is a -very- long way beyond that line. If there's anything he can't stand, its losing control of himself. He's had enough of that to last a lifetime.

But then Skyler has to go and do Skyler things. The old snowbeard's gaze snaps to the swashbuckler. "Naked an' covered in--" He stops in his tracks again, his jaw working for a moment as his cheeks once again turn red as beets. "How's -that- get fun?!" he finally manages in a strangled tone. He doesn't mention the flesh eating. Erotic cheese dip is -so- much easier on his poor frazzled nerves.

"We are celebrating Taara, of course! How could you not know?" He tilts his head at you, smiling still. "We feast, we sing, we dance, and we tell stories. We lie, we cheat, we manipulte, and we tell stories. All that lives, wants, and all that is dead wants to live. That is why we are here. She has called us to her Side. She is near."

Oh boy.

'Find the thread.'

'Find the thread.We sing, we dance, we tell stories.'

'Find the thread.'

'We lie, we cheat, and we tell stories.'

In a rush, Magpie draws in a breath, and reaches up to take a glass of wine from the tray. "So, she says, with her most engaging smile, "would you do us the favor of telling us a story? About Taara?"

"Very gamey," Aryia concurs with a gesture. Was she joking? Does Aryia joke? She glances to Dirk. Shrugs. "Gouda is pretty fun. I can see it."

Her footfalls stop hard with a stomp. Pales. Gulps. This is Her domain. Magpie comes swooping in with a way forward, grounding the mul'neissa woman that should be completely at ease here. She would have in a different, past life. She is not that woman anymore, and is thankful someone else can fill those shoes. <Handspeech/Tongues>

"If I have to explain it, Dirk..." Skyler shakes his head, and jerks his thumb at the dwarf as he addresses the guide, "If we do go cannibal, he's probably a little tough. Probably best to stew him. Low heat, long cook time in an oven." He then cocks his head at Magpie, nodding.

"Preferably with refreshments. I want oak milk. Warm, maybe, with some honey stirred in? My nanny use to give me a cup every night when she told me stories." He says with a charming, winsome smile, "You'd be surprised at home much I don't know." He says with pride, "I mean, knowing stuff takes so much work. Easier just to vibe! So why don't you get us refreshments and we can listen to your Taaran stories, maybe pull some thread, indulge in pulling Her threads, whatever else we need to do to *party*!"

"I would rather avoid anything involving cheese or eating people myself." Eztli sighed. "Great, she's near. So, that means we should probably get going, right? Sounds like the case to me, if this is some exclusive Taaran gathering."

Dirk's eyes get wider still. "Taara. -Taara-? -The- Taara? The goddess of--" He looks for a moment like he'd like to say something -very- unflattering. But he gets ahold of his tongue and snaps his mouth shut. His beard bristles for a moment. "Er. Uh. I mean tae say. The goddess of... things." He gestures lamely all around. That's nice and neutral, right? Surely -that- won't offend a goddess in Her own realm.

Once again, Skyler gets a -look-. "Och! You lot take it intae yer heads an' cook -me-, I'll go straight tae yer hips, I swear tae fuckin' Dana," he grumbles. It's hardly the first time some nasty beastie or foul fiend has threatened to make a meal of him, but -this- time it feels different. He nods eagerly at Eztli, pointing her way. "-She- gets it!"

"No, Eztli," Magpie says, shaking a finger next to her head, and beginning to pace. "No... I think we're nearly there. It *feels* close, because what *is* a story? It's the lie that outlines a truth. And they have stories... *and I would hear them.* I want to see the common thread."

Oh, no, Magpie seems to be locking into her theory, looking up at the revelers with a sort of hunger in her shimmering eyes.

There's a distinct pause from the young man as the others talk. He tilts his head, adjusting his hood and pulling it down all together. Yep, he's a shadow elf too. Of course he is.

All smiles.

"Of COURSE I'll talk to you about Taara. But I think you're here for a reason -- no one gets in uninvited you see -- so why don't you look around and find who invited you?"

He gestures beyond into the party.

"Let your journey be the story that warms your hearts in the night or failing that, be worth the hangover."

While that milk idea sounds pretty good to Aryia, but the weight of what others point make her even more nervous, especially as Magpie seems to hit the mark. An unsettling thing with the normally stoic pugilist. And then-

She was /invited/ here. Into Taara's domain? Aryia gave up on her over half a century ago. "I tell no more lies, not even to myself anymore," she gestures, looking out to the party proper. "But, fine. Guess we'll have to mingle. Try to not overdo it." <Handspeech/Tongues>

Magpie is just about to say something incredibly clever... when they are put on a scavenger hunt. Words die in her throat, her finger loses it's pointer-y-ness, and she sort of... deflates, just a little. Looking back up at the reveler, she tries on a crooked grin?

"...A clue, perhaps? Cryptic or plain, honest or red herring, it's momentum that matters, is it not?"

She *has* her suspicions... but to be wrong might also be blasphemy, so...

"Wonderful, so we've all got a reason to be here, for something or other. Maybe just the entertainment?" The makari shrugged, not looking to pleased. "So be it, gods I hate mingling at parties,but if that's what we need to do, so be it. Be a bit harder when all I've got to rely on is my winning personality and humility, but we've gotta do something, right?"

"What if my thread is oat milk?" Skyler asks in a tiny, hopeful little voice before he sighs, scrubs his face with one hand, and shakes his head sadly. "Curses. Fate is a fickle bitch once again."

He then squares his shoulders, and glances at his party. "Maybe it has something to do with the traumatic visions we heard?" He pauses, and adds to Eztli, "You also have your fiery wit!" And he mimes flames coming out of his mouth, and flails his hands like he's burning. "Crispy."

Dirk looks up at their host and blinks owlishly. Blink. Blink blink. "Uh..." He looks back towards the room that had just captured his attention moments ago. Of -course- it's still within easy reach, it's fresh in Dirk's mind. "-Taara-? Taara invited -me-? -The- Taara? Och, I'm naebody, why would Taara invite -me-?" He mutters and harrumphs, tugging at his beard as he glances around. Aryia's suggestion has the old ranger boggling slightly. "Mingle? -Me-? Och, but, this is all so... so..." He fumbles for a diplomatic word. "-Lively-," is what he eventually goes with. "I'd just bring the vibe down. You know us dwarves. We're all a bunch o' grounches, us. We'd rather spend our time scowlin' intae a mug o' beer in a gloomy corner. Ayep, that's us, right there." He fidgets with his tricorne, looking around at his friends. Surely they're not suggesting the cardinal sin of splitting the party, are they...?

"Is that so?" remarks the young man to Aryia, curiously, "Truth is funny thing, you know, that exists in the space between one's story and another's." He takes a step back, smiles at Magpie, and then offers her another glass of wine just because.

"She waits for all of you."

And then he disappears into the swirling, dancing crowd.

Aryia flexes her jaw. "That space is where truth lies, and where truth lies," she replies back with a hand. The mute glances to Magpie. "Momentum matters, it seems. And either we spin this tale in an endless inertia of debauchery or we press forward. Probably has to deal with the horrid shit we saw like Skyler said. So..."

She rubs her face. Dirk is right, Taara invited /them/? This has to be a sick joke, or and honest plea, and it was frustrating it could be both at the same time. "... let's get into the party or some shit. Fuck me." Aryia moves past the room they peered at, following into the dancing crowd. <Handspeech/Tongues>

Skyler?

He's already gone, shrugging out of his coat. "WHO HERE HAS EVER DONE VODKA AND OAT MILK SHOTS?!" He's shouting over the crowd, even as he shakes his ass, "It tastes like hell but oh my god the way it *lingers*! WOOOHOOO!"

"Does it?"

"Shit, let's try it!"

"Let's find some oat milk!"

"What the hell is oat milk?"

"WHO KNOWS!"

"...Okay well since no one got smoten saying it, yeah, pretty sure that's who we have to find, Magpie says, absently swirling the wine... then pausing as Skyler sends a group of Taaranites on a wild oats chase. "Hey, guys? I'm reminded of a saying I heard from a Rosalian... 'In vino, veritas.' This is totally a bad idea, but...."

Drawing in a short breath, she takes a long swallow of the wine.

Eztli was left shaking her head awkwardly as some of the others took off. "I was just gonna find a dance floor or pole or something. Seems like the sort of stuff they'd have here." Eztli grumbled. "I don't trust any of the drink here at all, so I'll pass on the oat milk. How do you even milk a plant in the first place? Don't particularly want to know, to be perfectly honest."

Dirk boggles as their host retreats, leaving them alone. "Oh, beards o' me sweet tapdancin' fathers," he whimpers softly. "How are we goin' tae get back home? We -will- be able to, won't we? Och, Thistle an' Lulu must be so worried..." He fidgets and frets, looking around for something, or anything that might resemble what they're looking for. He's certainly -not- in the mood to party. Usually, he's the one who picks what parties he goes to, and none of the debauchery is doing anything to enhance the burly old ranger's calm.

As Magpie goes to drink that wine, he startles, reaching out with a "Aggkk--!" But he's too late. "Och, what if it's like in the fae realm? If ye eat or drink what they give ye, they own yer soul, or some nonsense like that," he says. Aaaaand there Skyler goes, doing Skyler things. You really have nobody to blame but yourself, Dirk. You're the one who decided he should do the talking.

GAME: Aryia rolls perception: (18)+38: 56
GAME: Skyler rolls Perception: (14)+21: 35
GAME: Eztli rolls perception: (14)+5: 19
GAME: Dirk rolls Perception: (19)+22: 41
GAME: Magpie rolls percetion: (20)+percetion: 20
GAME: Magpie rolls perception: (4)+15: 19

It's loud.

It's raucous.

There are people -everywhere-, and talking to them reveals every last one is a Taaran of some kind -- in fact, many of them are actual clergy, or so they say: all too happily.

They also lie.

A -lot-.

It's frustrating. It's annoying. It sends you in circles trying to grasp what's even happenign here, or how you might've goten here. All that is until Aryia in particular hears a voice.

A familiar laugh, up a set of stairs that seems to have no end.

There's a touch of old, old habit Aryia falls back into, and that is dance. One of the few vestiges of her old life that still stuck around after the slow fall to rock bottom. She sways from one group to the next, trying to get some iota of information but- she's done this all before- and it's still just as annoying. It seems like it's going to be far too much to deal with-

A laugh lances through her ears and mind like a shot of old, nostalgic trauma with no ice. A wave of emotions crash against her; fear, rage, apathy, guilty relief. It had been so long to hear that voice, to wield that power. Oh- to taste that once more, the delight of a delivered lie.

She let the wave crash, spread, and recede. In. Out. She didn't need Her anymore.

The others. She flits through the party, tapping her friends on the shoulders and gesturing to follow. "Found the thread," she just signs in explanation, pointing to the set of stairs before heading up herself. <Handspeehc/Tongues>

"... And then I told him that it wasn't a banana, it was ME!" Skyler cheerfully tells a group that he's regaling with a story featuring two drunk goblins, an hobgoblin, and a basket of fruit.

Don't ask.

In all likelihood it's a lie, and he seems to be attempting to top himself with gusto with each new lie he attempts to tell... Although he also keeps half an eye on each of his party, distracting people attempting to interrupt them or draw trhem away from the mission. When a woman with big ol' knockers and a hungry expression begins to approach Dirk, for example, he calls out, "HEY! DID I EVER TELL YOU ABOUT THE TIME I DRESSED IN DRAG AND TRIED TO SEDUCE A PALADIN OF VARDAMA?!" to draw her away.

Eztli had searched and searched, but there was nowhere to dance proper she found, outside of just meandering in between the groups of priests that seemed to treat lying like a competitive sport. By the time she was about to threaten to cut out some of their tongues and shove them down their throats, Aryia seemed to recognize something in particular this time, and the sorceress breathed a sigh of relief before reconvening.

That voice.

Aryia is leading you towards something she recognizes, up a set of stairs. Up another, longer set of stairs.

Through narrow and dark hallway, past rooms full of party-goers and increasing levels of hedonism and debauchery.

Finally, into a lounge, lit by firelight. Shadow Elves in reverent prayer are here -- prayer to Taara. Seated comfortably amongst them is a scarlet-haired shadow elf of, of course, indeterminate age. She rises to her feet, silk robes hanging comfortably on her frame.

"Well, well, well," she begins, "It's so good to see you and your friends, darling."

Aryia knows who that is.

Aryia stops short in the doorframe. Her jaw works, eyes wide at the figure as her throat bobs. "Akorinil," she signs in a blitz of fingerspelling. She clearly is ignoring any pleasantries as the pugilist looks about the room before half looking at the High Priestess. "I take it you invited us here." It wasn't a question. A hand behind her back flashes to the group, "Caution." <Handspeech/Tongues>

"Oh, golly, I never knew a raven could do *that* with a writing desk." Skyler tells whichever poor soul ended up getting stuck at the rear of the line with him. When the party left the main group, Skyler seemingly appeared out of thin air at the rear of the line holding a goblet of something that is vaguely milky but a little too thin to be actual milk from a cow.

Is it the fabled oat milk?!

Despite being by all measures something of a dunderhead, he's not stupid enough to actually drink it, but does seem to be content to carry it with him in the hopes of escaping with it. Oat milk has a longer shelf life than cow's milk, after all. He glances around with bright eyes as they enter the room with the scarlet-haired shadow-elf. He looks prepared to step forward again to take the lead when Aryia begins to wiggle her fingers. He frowns but shrugs, and leans against something after checking it for stickiness. It *is* that kind of place, after all.

Dirk's eyes get wider and wider as they progress up the stairs. Each new display of hedonism and abandon has the old snowbeard's cheeks turning brighter and brighter red. "Och, if they're tryin' tae sell us, they might be goin' a -wee- bit overboard, wouldn't ye say?" he mutters, giving his beard a tug. But then, they're there, in the company of Taaranites. The redheaded shadow elf has Dirk blinking owlishly. And again when it appears that Aryia -knows- this person. His gaze flicks to the sign behind her back. His shaggy white brows furrow as he takes a step forward. One hand reaches up and over his shoulder to grip the stock of his thunderbelcher. "Right. Let's nae be havin' any biscuit-arsed behavior out o' -you-, lassie," he growls. "It seems a -lovey- party yer havin' here. It'd be such a shame fer there tae be an arse-kickin', now wouldn't it?"

Eztli continued along with the rest of the group, with some idea of where to go courtesy of Aryia. The makari certainly did not know what to make of the elf, it was just another of many at the party, but she did at least get an inkling to show some manner of wariness.

Magpie actually giggles at Skyler's commentary; how can one not? he puts such careful work into it, after all, it'd be a shame for his efforts to go unappreciated. She tries not to look into the doors they pass, largely because Dirk is a good enough bellwether, it serves to satisfy her curiosity.

When the group tops the house to find Akorinil, however... the gnome seems confused. "I... hm... it's good to meet you, your Taarishness? Sorry, never learned many polite modes of address but um... I'm... not familiar?"

The fabled oat milk is not in evidence at this time.

But it's not like they aren't looking for it. You can hear them, down below, on the hunt.

The Shadow Elven woman rises to her full not at all impressive height and gives a very, very warm smile. She's entirely happy to see everyone. "There's no need for any of -that-," she tells Dirk, warmly, "Such distrust, such hostility! It's just like old times, wouldn't you say?" she tells Aryia.

"I am Akorinil Belvade, and you are a guest in the house that faith built. It is we, here, who sacrifice so that you may live to fight another day -- or perhaps we should say tell another tale?"

"To be fair, we weren't exactly given the most..." Skyler purses his lips as he considers exactly how to phrase it, "Sanity-preserving wake-up and invitation to the party." His pale eyes drift along the group, taking in Dirk's belligerence, Aryia's discomfort, and Eztli's wariness. "But regardless. You'll have to forgive my little teapot of a friend. His tastes are a little more conservative than you and your followers." He glances over his shoulder, "Although I do have some questions about that one room with the three sea shells myself, to be honest. They certainly looked like they were having fun but..."

He shakes his head, waving a hand dismissively before checking to see if he spilled the oat milk. Nope. Still safe for Verna or Telamon or someone else to de-cursify for him to enjoy later. "Banger of a party though, Akorrie." He holds up one thumb, "Seriously. So what's this about telling tales? I have an appointment at the bath-house to get my toe nails trimmed and I don't want to be late, so if you could tell us how to get home..."

Aryia holds up a hand to Dirk, then pushes her hand down in a calming motion. "While I am confident in my abilities, let's not poke this nest." She glances to Skyler, Dirk, Eztli, and Magpie before taking a deep breath and looking back to the Akorinil. "High Priestess of the Lady of Shade, she fails to mention."

A sigh escapes her. "You can hardly blame us, you know? The distrust. While I appreciate the hospitality, I agree with the fancy man. Can you clear up what the hell's going on here? Because in the material plane this party was... bloody." <Handspeech/Tongues>

Dirk's scowl deepens. "I'm nae Taaranite," he growls. His grip on his thunderbelcher never wavers. "An' -our- tales are -true- ones! Nae those rust-covered lies that -She- spins." Skyler calling him a 'little teapot' has him regarding the swashbuckler with an indignant scowl. "Hrmph! I can cut loose just fine, ye struttin' peacock. But there's a bloody time an' place for it, isn't there?"

He doesn't miss Ariya's admonition, but he old ranger is tense as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. He looks back to Akorinil, fixing her with a hairy eyeball. "Ye -kidnapped- us. Forced us here against our will. What on Ea's great green -arse- would make ye think we'd want -anything- tae do wi' ye? We've nae want fer any yarn or tale ye'd want tae spin fer us. Let us go home!" For now, he keeps his voice to a low, surly growl, but he's ready to spring into action at the drop of a hat.

Eztli sighed, and shook her head a few times. "You've got a real swell way of inviting people to your house of debauchery." Eztli huffed. "Why exactly should we telling you more than we should? It'd be good to know why we should actually tell you anything."

"It really is a lot of trouble to go to, to bring four random people and also Ariya halfway across the planes," Magpie agrees, and by the very sound of her voice, if she wore glasses she'd be pushing them up their nose.

"Also I gotta admit, things have been getting ugly and weird for a while now, so I can only guess we're here because we're uniquely suited to help, somehow? Not you, though..."

Magpie looks down for a moment, then back up, and nods. "So how can we help?"

Bless her little chaos gremlin heart.

Skyler snap-points at Magpie, one chaos gremlin to another.

Clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth -- a tutt of disappointment -- Akorinil shakes her head with such sadness in her eyes.

"I am wounded -- so very wounded -- by the accusations and innuendos. Though I like him --" She points at Skyler. "And you," a point at Magpie.

She smiles at Aryia.

"I would've thought my station so obvious!"

A smile at Dirk.

"Kidnap you? Kidnapping is so gauche. I saved you. The Void consumes all it touches. Do you remember what you were doing before you found yourself here? Do you -really- remember?"

... come to think of it ... you don't. Not really.

What do you do when the High Priestess of Lies compliments you? "Thank you, you're pretty swell too! Speaking of swell how do you keep everything so perky with minimal support!" You believe the freakin' lie, of course. It's gauche to point out someone's lie, and she is trying so hard, after all!

To Dirk, he shakes his head, "Maybe if you calm down, she'll give you some caramel hard candies! Doesn't that sound nice?" And he reaches over to squeeze the dwarf's shoulder warningly, turning to give him a grimace that is as serious as the grave where Akorinil can't see it. And slightly apologetic, as if he's trying to silently apologize for what he's saying.

Turning back to the Lie Priestess (get it?) he grins. "Nope, but to be fair it wouldn't be the first morning that happened. My partner usually finds me, pays any fees or bounty, and then I start the day. And the Void has been a *bitch* lately, so you'll have to be be more specific. What'd the Void do this time?"

"And I'm not either, Dirk, but-" Aryia sighs, rubbing her temples. She drops it, stepping deeper into the room and leaning against a wall. "I know how Taaranites work, and those that don't find it kind of maddening to talk in double speak the entire time." She can't help but half cough at Skyler's comment, a rare silent snicker escaping her.

The pugilist blinks. "The void was... approaching, but we staved it. But before here-..." Aryia stops. Thinks. Frowns. "... alright. Fine. Got me there. Care to elaborate?"

"Sorry if I don't give much of a crap about impressing you, to be very honest. High Taaranite priest isn't really that high on my list of stations that I care about." The makari snorted. "So, you brought us here, for some reason. I'm sure you did it out of the depth of your heart and compassion, since you know so much about how I'd want to be saved from something like that."

Dirk's beard bristles angrily. He tenses at Skyler's hand on his shoulder, and he looks about ready to throw it off, possibly with some proper dwarven profanity to help it along. But he's a canny old bear, and he doesn't miss Skyler's expression. It'd be noteworthy enough -without- them being in the very heart of Taara's house of faith. He pulls deep, snorting, snarling breaths through his big dwarven nose. The leather of his gauntlet creaks as he forces his fingers to unclench with visible effort.

"I'm nae afraid o' the Void," he growls, in a bit more of an even tone.

He turns his attention back to Akorinil. "Lord Gilead an' the Blessed Lady hold me in their keeping. I trust in Their goodness." He draws another deep breath, fighting for calm. Now is not the time for dwarven tempers. He never was the sharpest marble in the deck. Deep thoughts often evade him. But he possesses deep, homespun wisdom of his own. He forces himself to be calm and cool, like the forest's shade on a clear spring morning. The priestess' question, though, has his hackles springing -right- back up. "Of -course- I remember what I was doin'! I--" He cuts off, lifting a hand to his beard. He gives the majestic snowy white whiskers a tug. "I was... I was... brushin' me beard out..." He pauses. Blink blink. "I -was-, wasn't I...?"

Confusion darkens his mood back into a surly scowl. He turns his dour gaze back on Akorinil."All right. Fine. Ye brought us here. If we hear yer tale, -then- can we go home? I was... doin' -somethin'- important. I'm fair certain." He actually -isn't- certain, but he's not letting -her- know that.

"Easy, buddy," Magpie whispers as she rests a hand on Dirk's arm. "I'm not gonna bite the hand that pulls me out of the Void, for certain... But we still need to hear what it is you need from *us.* You can rest assured -- High Priestess? -- we're grateful enough to do what clearly only we could, so... Whaddaya need a tracker, a firelighter, a brawler, and two chaos gremlins for?"

"You've all done very well in facing the Void, it's true. You've killed the 'villains of the void' -- but do you know what those were made of? Not just void stuff, to be sure. What else were they?"

The question Akorinil asks each of you is clearly rhetorical, but she's planting her hands on her hips. She needs to hear something from each of you.

"Pass." Skyler tells the rest of the party, his expression utterly bewildered. "I mean, as far as I know, it's made of nothing because that's what void is, right? Absence of stuff?" He grimaces, "I think I skipped that day with my tutors, or slept through it."

Aryia nods her head along with Dirk; she wasn't afraid either, having faced it several times herself. She stares at the High Priestess. "... really Akorinil? You were there. You helped me and the group. I fought a corrupted version of myself. A reflection of another timeline. Others I've known have fought the same." <Handspeech/Tongues>

Dirk nods his head firmly at Skyler. "Aye, ye have it exact, laddie," he says with a voice full of conviction. "It's -nothing-. My farts after Gobbo Chili Night have more substance." He pauses, and looks thoughtfully. "Actually, those have a -lot- of substance after Gobbo Chili Night. Errf." He gives himself a shake, looking back to Akorinil. "Sun rises. Rains fall. The forest breathes. An' -good triumphs over evil. That's the way the world bloody works." He grips his belt and nods again. Dwarf Law has been spoken.

"You've... not been paying too much attention to me, it seems. Guess I was just dragged along for the hell of it." Eztli huffed again, clearly growing a bit more agitated. "But given my second hand knowledge and keeping up with the times, I dunno. They're memories. Void stuff pretending to be something it isn't, because those folks are supposed to be some of the worst known."

Magpie pauses, then looks over her shoulder at Skyler and Dirk. The others seem to refuse to put much thought into the question, but the Gnome dips her head, beginning to pace.

"...But the Void isn't nothing," she says, tapping her nose. "If it was, there'd be no Heth. It *is* hungry, and corruptive, but we're not *talking* about Voidstuff. We're talking about the villains."

Turning back about, she snap-points at Eztli for a moment. "Memories. That's close, but they weren't the *same.* But if the people involved had fallen *to* the Void..."

She pauses, and looks up at Akorinil. "They're lies. Lies told by the people they were trying to be. 'If only,' 'maybe I could've,' 'if not for that damn skunk...' Memories grasping for ways to remain relevant, come back stronger, get what they deserve."

Is she holding a mug? Why, yes.

Was Akorinil holding that mug moments ago?

No. It's not even clear where she got it -- but she must've gotten it from somewhere. In point of fact, as you each look at her holding it, you begin to -remember- her ssending a servant to fetch it, one bringing it back to her. You're pretty sure that didn't happen... right?

She holds it out to Skyler. Is it... could it be?

IS IT THE LEGENDARY OAT MILK?

In the meantime, she does nod towards Magpie, glancing between each of the others.

"Tell me, friends -- what is another name for a lie? A fiction. What is a fiction but a story?"

Her eyes turn towards Aryia, now, "Do you know? Do you know why we were called to her side? It is the same reason you stand here now."

GAME: Skyler rolls Wisdom: (5)+2: 7

"Evil is subjective, Dirk. Deforestation is a sin to some, but to others it's a necessary part of fueling progress and forwarding civilization." Skyler says earnestly to Dirk, "I'll grant you there are things that are black and white, but for the most part it's all different colors in between."

He looks prepared to wax more philosophy when the mug is held out to him. His eyes widen and he bites his lip like a man facing the worst temptation of his life. He knows it's stupid and unwise to drink something handed to him by the Lie Priestess, but...

"Oat milk." He breathes, and reaches for it, "Gods. It's been so long."

The others' perspectives paint Aryia another picture of what's going on. She wasn't far off, it seemed: memories, false potentials, all that could have been. She quirks a brow at the offered mug, not really certain where it appeared. But, weirdly, she actually trusted it was the true, one and only: oat milk. Honestly, she can't blame the man for jumping for it, and doesn't stop him.

She's heard that mantra before: a lie is just fiction, and a story. But she gets a different question. Her eyes grow downcast. "I was called because I was very good at telling the story of Her and His matrimony," her hands are slow. Her fingers curl into tight fists. Tremor. Then release with a breath Out. "But She left me when I needed her most. And now I need no one aside from my friends."

She glances up to Akorinil, resolved. "But that is not the question you asked. You mean the Mul'neissa. It was..." she tries to remember. "... the original elves. Ancestors. Taara took one, or sheltered them from the other, a long time ago." <Handspeech/Tongues>

Dirk boggles a bit at Skyler as that mug appears out of nowhere. A -fiendish- mug, no less! "-Sky-ler, don't be -thick-!" he can't help exclaiming. "What if it's poison? Ye dinnae have a dwarf belly, poison can -hurt- you!" He grumphs and mutters. "If progress an' civilization comes at the cost of murderin' the forest, then -fuck- 'em both. The Green Word was here long afore anyone put one stone atop another. It'll outlive all of us." He flicks his gaze to Akorinil. "An' -nothin'- can stop -that-."

He pulls another calming breath. Mutter mutter, grumble grumble. "A'right, so they're -stories-. Just like everything else. Like you an' them, an' -us-." He gestures fro Akorinil, to the other Taarenites, to his comrades. "Get tae yer -point-, lassie. I want tae go -home-." He does try his very best not to sound like a petulant child, but he is -so- far out of his element here.

"So, stories are being made into reality, and not anything good. Why can't the void just raid Mikilos' library of crimson pen books and do something more fun with that?" Eztli continued to grumble. "Yarn, tale, epic, not sure what you want us to answer here, there's more names than anyone could reasonably guess, everyone's got their name for a story."

"Dirk," Magpie says, a little more insistently. "C'mon now. I know this is wildly outta your comfort zone, but.. you wouldn't be here if you weren't needed. I believe in you, buddy, okay?"

Though this is a story she *hasn't* heard, and new stories make for very curious gnomes.

"Oh, I do wish that it -would-. Nothing can be so self-annihilating as sex," says Akorinil to Eztli, but with a big old smile. She gives Dirk and Magpie sympathetic looks. She certainly understands -- or so she'd like you to think.

"It's true. You're all here for a reason." She turns her eyes towards Aryia, then, and continues.

"...ah. The Shadow Elves -- you and me both -- once labored in spiritual bondage to her, as you know. AS everyone knows. That bondage was shattered when the right story was told. Without the weight of their souls, however, the wall against the Void within her weakened. The toll her theft of magic for power took grew. The death of Animus haunted her. The Void found purchase within divinity and sought a new story: a fractured one that would end reality. Without narrative, there is no time, not consciousness, no 'self', and without those things, there can be no desires fulfilled."

She glances towards Skyler, "... a world without a hunger for oat milk," she says, for emphasis.

"And so she called her high priests home to her. She called her faithful, so many of us, so that we may rest in the Abyss and support her through it all. She called so many, and we worked until the time was right. We stand on the precipice of the final step. There is but one more villain of the Void to face."

There is a single, momentary beat as she lets the words wash over you.

"The goddess of lies herself."

Beat.

And then...

"Thank you for the oat milk, you're Lying'ness, but I think I need to go home." Skyler says in a remarkably steady voice, "I can give you a couple recommendations. Eztli here is awesome. There's also Telamon, and Cor'Lana-Banana, or possibly Verna! She's scary. I just..." He stares at the others helplessly, "I swing a sword good, end of story. Yeah?"

Dirk listens to Akorinil, beard all a-bristle and his bushy white brows furrowed. It -does- sound like the sort of outlandish, self-aggrandizing tale a creature like the Goddess of Lies would spin about Herself. But then she drops that last bombshell--that they're to face down Taara. His face goes from red to white, and his brows fly towards his hairline as if trying to escape his face altogether. "Heek?!" is about all he can manage to squeak. He looks over at his friends, hopping from foot to foot. "-Me-?! Face down a Goddess? Och! Lassie, I know I'm a right bad-arse but--but--" He fumbles and stammers, trying to think of something, -anything- to say. He snap-points at Skyler with eyes wide as teacups. "Aye, -exactly-! I'm just a simple hunter! I'm nae the sort o' hero who fights -Goddesses-!" he cries in a strangled tone.

Aryia purses her lips as Akorinil explains her point. She was aware of a good chunk of it, though the forthrightness of it has her questioning the authenticity of it. It's true the High Priestess has done nothing /wrong/ in all the time that she's known her, but it something one has a very hard time shaking the nagging feeling she's going to-

The mute audibly gasps "Th- f-ck?", which turns into a hacking fit. She rubs at her throat, stepping off the wall as the others try to reason with such a tall ask. "So let me get this right... you want us to...-" she rolls a hand, thinking while trying not to reel from the suggestion. And the faint, faint tinge of vengeance creeping in. "... what? Expose a truth to her so damming it unravels her position? You cannot defeat an entity such as that." <Handspeech/Tongues>

Eztli blinked once, then twice, breathing in, and letting out the longest Exhale she could manage. "Aren't you a priestess of them? Isn't this some horrible, horrible sacrilege? And wouldn't that piss off literally everyone in this building?"

"...Ah-ha," Magpie say, nodding slowly... for the thirty seconds or so it takes for the magnitude of the ask to sink in. Which poiny the noe-rubbing becomes a long, low whistle. "Oh *wow* you are getting desperate, holy beans..."

Blinking, she looks up and about at her friends. "...So she can't fight the Void in her anymore. But her own people are *too close*, likely as not to follow her into the Void just out of religious ecstasy, right? So Her High Priestessness casts around for folks also lost in the Void -- us -- who have a shot at doing what they can't; Dirk, think of a bird that gets dunked in an airship's oil tank. You don't clean the oil off, what's gonna happen to the bird?"

The reactions to her statement have Akorinil smiling. Then smiling even bigger .She's delighted. She loves it. 'Lying'nesa' tickled her especially. She nods solemnly right along and then addresses first Skyler.

"Oh, I am well aware. But this isn't about power. It's a task that you've been more prepared for than you realize, Skyler." Wait -- where'd she get his name? It's not like he introduced himself to her out the gate.

Dirk earns a tilt of her head, her crimson eyes focused on him.

"We do not get to pick our fights, young one." Only an elf can call a dwarf 'young one' succesfully, right?

"... but you think yourself a hero? Then stay."

Aryia's reaction forces her to cover her mouth with her hand in abject delight.

"Oh, oh. We go back such a long way, don't we? To think we're standing here together at the end of the world, with as much as you've seen and as much as you know, prepared to author something new together."

"What matters is the tale being told," she tells her.

And then to Magpie, she gets a smile. "Creative! Thoughtful. I like this one."

"But it's all so linear. What Animus spoke of when he called out for aid is true. He can be saved. Aspects of the blight -- the so-called 'villains of the void' were called for you to confront. What do you suppose they represent in truth? And how do you suppose their defeat helped Animus?"

Aryia squints at the Highpriestess, growing more weary as Akorinil gets excited. She takes in the information as told to the others, and she pauses. Looks at the crew. Then back to Akorinil. "I guess the villans of the void were aspects that Taara threw out to help weather the weight of the Void? But the way you're talking is making it seem likes we have to make up story that becomes reality, getting Her out of this mess, and... brings Animus to the fore?"

She blinks. "Is /this/ why you wanted the damn shards??" she jabs at a finger at Akorinil, eyes wide. <Handspeech/Tongues>

Dirk's day is certainly taking a turn for the strange. And considering some of the things the old snowbeard has seen in his days, that's saying quite a lot, actually. "Wait," he says, looking over to Aryia. "Wait, wait, wait just one anvil-crackin' minute. -We- have tae come up wi' a story?" He pauses, staring at his friend for a moment. "It... it -cannae- be -that- easy. Can it?"

"They were stories for us to confront and re-tell. Kol and that Snow Bitch weren't defeated brute force; we had to finesse them." Skyler says slowly, a light (however dim and flickery) coming on in the attic, "It's about establishing what reality is strongest. Gods, my head hurts." And he drinks the last of his milk. "More, please?"

"I still have no clue what we're supposed to be doing here, because if you think that we're supposed to confront the corruption of a god on our own, then, well even if I'll give it a try, I don't particularly welcome my chances." The makari sighed. "So, I don't know. I really, really don't know, and I'm not a fan of trying to get a straight answer out of a pathological liar."

"I mean, I wouldn't call it *easy,*" Magpie says, scratching her head. "But if it ain't completely linear, then... Beating the villains didn't just show the lie of them for what they are, but told Animus that was *never* how it happened?"

Magpie is clearly stretching the limits of her comprehension, but trying regardless. "So now we have to... show the lie of the Void to Taara?"

"Closer, closer," says Akorinil to Aryia and Magpie. Eztli gets a sympathetic look before she remarks, with a smile, "The life of the party, aren't you," she says, amused. There's no mockery in her tone, just earnestness this time around. She tilts her head, letting her long, red hair fall over her face and shoulder.

"You're closer, as I say. The Goddess of stories looked down the narrative path, the branching tree of a story, if you would. The possibilities. Each choice she made closed one after another, and yet she persisted. Too stubborn to let go of what is rightfully her's. Each villain of the void, as they were called, embodied a portion of the Void within her, yes yes, and in so returning sought to prove the futility of life and meaning. Here you are, having told the story already, and yet you were called again to do what you had already done. Isn't.."

"It.."

"Pointless?" she asks.

"While a story is linear, a means by which we understand the events of our lives, the choices a Goddess makes extend into the past and the future." Her eyes fix on Aryia.

"Just like the death of Animus."

"And when we have a story and we don't like how it's going..."

"Perhaps we can be shown how to author a better ending."

Her eyes fix on Skyler -- for just a moment.

And then she turns to Magpie.

"So. If we must save Animus, how do we save the Goddess of Want from herself -- for the final collapse of meaning rests in failing to do so."

"Listen, I had a *really* bad trip a while back. Me and a bunch of halflings and goblins took a job babysitting some rich asshole. We got kidnapped by pixies or some shit, shoved through a mushroom ring, and were forced to do some Ye Olde Bullshit Queste and then it became this battle of imagination with the big bad." Skyler scratches his jaw. "It was weird. This seems like the same bullshit: Stories and our perceptions of reality shape what is real or not. We just have to convince the Goddess of Lies and Bullshit that we're telling the truth."

Skyler pauses and adds, "I doubt I can solve this with imagining she has a cloaca, but I'm willing to try."

Dirk listens to this great, tangled yarn. All of it speaks of things so far beyond his experience. Like the beasts of the forest that he protects, in many ways, old Dirk is a creature of habit and instinct. When one measures their life in centuries, it becomes easy to forget Tomorrow, even as one recalls Yesterday. He tugs at his beard, glancing around at his comrades. "I mean... -I- can spin a decent enough tall tale when the mood takes me," he says. "But I'm hardly a bard. I cannae create a tale worthy of a Goddess." He scowls a bit. "Even one like Taara," he grumbles. "Och, She's gone an' stacked the deck against me. What kind o' tale should I tell? -Mine-? Hrumph. As if -that's- a tale worth hearin'. I'm nobody."

Aryia scratches the shaved side of her head. She supposed that makes sense with everything considered. "We make up a tale, Dirk. A bit of collaborative story telling. We make her want something else, I think, instead of clutching so tightly to magic, or something like that," she suggests, thinking she had a serious solution.

She stares at Skyler. Reaches down for a vacant prayer pillow, and throws it at him. <Handspeech/Tongues>

"Because what do the best stories do?" Magpie says, conjuring an illusory copy of Aryia's throw pillow and getting a half dozen tosses in herself. "They take us to a world that's even more wondrous than the one we live in. Make us think that maybe *that* world could stay *here.* So if we've gotten all the silly and skeptical out of our systems... I really want to take a run at this, you guys. After all," she says, looking about and grinning.

"How many people are gonna get to say they told the Goddess of Lies a story so good, she wanted it to be true?"

"Absolutely thrilled to be here, doing this." Eztli shrugged. "Whatever, I'll try to do something. Can't go any worse than last time, and it's not like there's anything left to lose at this point."

Skyler says, “Never." Regarding the silly that is. But he does finish his oat milk again and roll his shoulders...

Until a pillow hits him in the face, and he spills oat milk all over himself. He gives Aryia a wounded look, and then makes an arcane gesture while muttering something equally arcane before passing his hands over himself. The milk disappears. His shoes are shiny. And he smells faintly of mint and sandalwood. His hair even looks smooth and luxurious!

Hisrestidigitation: Better than dry shampoo.

"I'm ready. So we want to discuss parameters? I usually find stories go crazy if we just start spewing details. It's how a door becomes genitalia and weird stuff happens. We gotta keep the narrative neat and follow the proper rules of plot structure." He then snaps and gives finger-guns to Eztli. "That's the spirit! You can keep us grounded so Dirk doesn't give her a poofy beard or something." Aside to Akorinil, "He gets a little obsessive, the old dear.”

Dirk looks at Skyler with an indignant "-Hey!-" He mutters and grumbles, tugging irritably at his beard. "I am -not- obsessive. I'm a -dwarf-. Nae the same thing at all!" Harrumph harrumph. He looks back to his friends. "An' if we fail, here an' now... then that's it? Everything we've done, all the battles we fought, blastin' Heth out the sky wi' the Spell Cannon... it dinnae count fer anything?" He lifts his hand from his beard to rub his face. "Och. I'm gettin' too bloody -old- fer this bullshit," he grumbles softly under his breath. He sucks a deep breath through his big dwarven nose, turning his face skyward. "A'right. A tale, then." He pauses with his mouth hanging open as Skyler gives his warning about the dangers of unstructured narrative. Slooooowly the old ranger turns to regard the swashbuckler. "Dana's sweet flowery -teats-. If a door turnin' intae a ramrod -isn't- weird then what in all the sugary-sweet world -is-?" He pauses. Lifts a finger. "Do -not- answer that. Please, please, -please- do not answer that."

"That is the secret of the Void -- it empties you of hope, of ambition. It buries it beneath the greatest lie of all: that you are already the worst version of you. What happens when a being which contains infinite stories, multitudes of selves, believes that there is only -one-?"

"Everything..."

"...flattens..."

"...out."

There is only darkness.

And then...

"CHRISTOPHER!"

The voice is harsh, shrill, and demanding. The person it belongs to? A young woman of modest appearance in full Myrrish court garb. She is young, but bitterness and a sort of ferret-like leanness to her features makes her quite unpleasant and older than her years. "Your brother, the Duke, has demanded that you attend court on his behalf." She shakes her head and sneers, "It's about all you're good for, isn't it? Being your brother's little toady, nothing but an extension of his will when he, the *actual* important one, deals with the real work."

A pause, and Skyler Skywalker... no, *Christopher Carl von Wayne of the House of Ashewell* starts as if he'd been drifting off to sleep, a bottle rolling out of his hands with a thud. The woman's lip curls. "Gods, you are useless. The only good you ever were was to get your brother *my* dowery to support you, and even then you can't even get me children!"

The abuse continues, as Christopher stares at his hands, eyes full of pain, of disappointment, of utter despair...

Dirk Stormgrip is not a young man. There are few dwarves in Ea who have lived longer than he has. He has watched entire forests rise up from saplings to mighty arbors. He has seen towns spring up from nothing. He has counted himself lucky to be friends to many He even fell in love, and was blissfully married.

And yet....

He has outlived many of his kinsmen. He has watched those mighty forests wither and fade, until naught but sour, barren earth remained. He has buried more friends than he's kept. And in the end, his wife of nearly sixty years went the way all mortals must.

Yet he remains. He comforst himself knowing that, one day, he'll find his own time and place to rest.

But what if he -doesn't-? What if he just... keeps going?

What he he outlives -everything-?

In a dismal cave, many long-forgotten years into the future, Dirk sits at a lonely campfire, surrounded by the skeletal husks of a dead grove. His face, once hearty and cheerful, is gaunt and hollow, awash in misery quiet despair. He's all that remains. There's nothing else left. The bleak, dismal night encroaches ever closer, threatening to snuff out that feeble little flame.

And yet he knows, that even when the fire fades, he'll still be there. He'll never rest. He'll always be there.

-Alone-.

One only truly knows what they have lost once it has been taken from them. Freedom. Self-actualization. Trust. Peace. Usefulness. What if she slipped? What if she fell? What if she consorted with the very things she ripped free of her friends and family? "Wait- Aya, I-I did this all for you!" Aryia /screeches/, audibly, at the back of a mul'neissan woman with a long white braid wearing wrapped in sheets in robes. They don't looks back as they walk into the darkness.

Aryia is... no where near the same. She's bloody, caked in blood but none of it her own, her scars are gone. But a horrid, demonic presence wafts behind her, like a horrid, stretching shadow. "I did this for you, all of you..!"

The figure pauses. "No sister of mine would stoop to such lows, I thought you learned from my mistakes." They continue walking into the darkness. "Live with your regrets."

The corrupted pugilist screams more at the backs of others as they walk away. Many adventurers and kinsmen that had lifted her to new heights: Cor'lana, Telamon, Dirk, Seyardu, Verna, Venom, and so many countless others that her long life had touched.

Her knees hit the floor. The inner rivers have run dry. The sense of self is hollow. And heart beats of glass like her glazed gaze, sharp and staccato as the sound of manacles being clamped and a iron brand searing flesh sizzles into the dark.

The thing about being lost in the Planes is, unless you know exactly what you're doing... being lost *forever* is a very, very easy thing to do. And in some places, time moves strange... almost as if it ran in currents not unlike water, to pool and swirl and fold back upon itself and--

When Magpie made a mistake long ago, and fell into one of the famed planar instabilities of the Vast, she never really.. talked about how she got back. Or how long she truly spent, drifting in formless chaos. Or what she saw and heard, surrounded by the very chaos that so heavily infused her blood.

The truth was, it was a lucky break, that she found a thin place that allowed her to push back into materiality after a scant dozen subjective years.

Random chance.

If she *hadn't* been so lucky, well...

She'd still be there now. She'd still be there when the Void fell over all.

Drifting.

Lonely.

*Untethered.*

Unspooling.

Unraveling.

Unremembered.

Uncreated.

Lost to time, space, matter, and anyone who might have remembered her, Magpie quietly, utterly unzips on any meaningful level of materiality, mentality, and spirituality.

A nobody, gone to nothing.

The teleportation wards around Alexandria had one major flaw, one that had been tested before. What happens when normal access failed?

This time, battered and exhausted, the city reached its breaking point. The undead worms collapsed the walls, the sundered by Heth.

There was still sounds of combat in the city, but every passing hour they died down, while the screams of those beset upon by the dead grew, until they too quieted.

Eztli was at the docks, where those who remained hurriedly packed onto the boats. The sorceress had not bothered, even with a faint sliver of hope remaining. There would be nowhere safe to flee to this time, and she watched as the boats sank one by one, with the dying breaths of the city.

There's no hope.

There's nothing at all. Just an emptiness, bleak and unyielding that feels like it wants to swallow you up.

... but then...

There is something. Perhaps its just a feeling, an inkling that this isn't right. A voice whispering in one ear that you could still be more. That the story isn't over.

And then... there is.

Music plays, as people move slowly in a stately dance that is all mathematic precision and no passion. Empty steps, done by learned rote. It's beautiful, but... cold.

Distant.

Lifeless.

Among them, Christopher moves with one hand clasping that of the ferret in a ball gown that he's married to. Who is scowling at him fiercely as she mutters a count under her breath, as if Christopher isn't even capable of stepping in time.

And then, Christopher takes a left when he should have stepped right.

Gasps! A shocked silence...

And Christopher abruptly grabs the hand of a handsome half-orc that was beside him. He looks wild despite the court garments, with a certain primal allure. He moves stiffly at first, staring at Christopher.

"Skyler."

Beg pardon?

"I'm *Skyler*."

And, okay, *Skyler* gives the half-orc a saucy wink before abruptly dipping him and pressing his lips against the tusked mouth as it falls open in shock. He then twirls him away, and laughs as he stares around. "You people suck!" Skyler declares, shaking his head. And to his 'wife'..? "I'd say I wanted a divorce, but I don't think even Dana recognizes a marriage to a wet fish! C'mon... er... you! Let's boogie!"

And Skyler begins to bump and grind against the half-orc. Who blinks. Shrugs. And then begins to bump and grind against him in turn.

Dirk draws a deep, shaky breath and lets it out in a sigh. His shoulders slump. The tear-tracks on his face have long since dried. Nothing matters. How could it, when he'll just outlast everyone and everything he's ever known and loved?

A shriek for help splits the night. His head snaps up, and he's on his feet, thunderbelcher in hand in an eyeblink. He tears out of the cave, racing and leaping through the underbrush, faster than the most nimble deer. He breaks out into a clearing lit by Eluna's silvery light.

There. A shadow towers over a terrified young maiden. A stinking stain upon the face of Ea, one that has -no- place in the pure, clear wood. The burly old ranger moves on instinct. He hefts his thunderbelcher to his shoulder and immediately cracks off three shots. CHK-BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! They ring out into the night, splitting the darkness and illuminating the night with Dana and Gilead's blessed light. The shadow-demon's malevolent laughter turns to a howl of agony as the blessed bullets rip its substance apart, sending it screaming back to the Iron Hells

Dirk lowers his weapon and steps forward. "Yer all right now, lassie. Yer safe."

The maiden looks up, and his heart freezes. She looks -so- like his beloved Sarah, his beloved wife, whom he buried so long ago. It's -not- her, and yet the resemblance is uncanny. She reaches up to take his outstretched hand, and flings herself at him. "Thank you! You saved my life!" she sobs into his shoulder. "I thought I was all alone out here!"

Color returns to the old snowbeard's face. Strength fills his heavyset frame. He curls his arm around the lass and hugs her close. Over distant mountains, the sun crests the horizon, turning the sky from inky black to glorious rose.

"No, lassie. Yer nae alone. -I'm- here now."

When Magpie was lost in the Planes, only random chance allowed her an opening to find the means to find her own way home.

But the thing about random chance is, the dice never stop being thrown. Every hour, every minute, every second that passes is a new opportunity for something incredibly unlikely to become inevitability. And Magpie is a *much* different person, now, than when she fell into formless Chaos those few short years ago. She *knows* better. She's *learned* more.

And given the sheer strength of Chaos in her blood, and how its mutability works on her mind and being... she *has* to have a stronger sense of self, just to be able to exist normally.

The thinness brushes against her senses, and Magpie responds. Fingers, coherent again, flex. An eye coalesces from yellow-green light, and blinks. A mouth that threatened to drift offon its own, opens and pulls air into lungs.

'Cogito, ergo sum,' goes the saying in Rune's polymorphing schools. 'I think, therefore I am.' In those classes, it's not just pithy words; it's a *lifeline,* a reminder that no matter what form you take, as long as you can use your mind, you will *always* be you.

At her current powers, it's almost trivially easy to take hold of the pocket of thinness within the Planes, and tug it open to look out onto Alexandria's Lower Market, at the height of the lunchtime rush.

Being lost is *hungry* work.

There is anger. There is self-loathing. There is despair. In that shackled cage that shuts with a deafening click. Aryia Zilstrae Aeldius has hit rock bottom again, where all has left her. Inaction and betrayal has got her here. Her misbegotten actions, undercutting her steadfast morals. But then... there is-

Will. A will to live. It's a drop in a stagnant lake. The ripples barely nudging nary a waterfly. But it wavers the illusion of hopelessness, distorts it, just enough. She's been here before. Churn the waters. Feel the river flow, the heart beat the breath In.

Out. "NO CHAIN. WILL /EVER/. BIND ME AGAIN!" she bellows into the empty air, her hands flickering to moonlight once again. Manacled hands bash into iron bars, groaning and shearing with each blow before metal sprays out in a deadly shrapnel, her having thrown herself free of the cage.

Coming to a roll, Aryia pops up, covered in her own blood and wielding an iron bar as she breaks into a dead sprint towards her retreating friends. The pugilist leaps towards a creeping, demonic shadow that looms over them, tackling it to the ground and pinning it there. The only sound that echoes is the satisfying, echoing and repeated clang of metal and a flashes of moonlight chasing the darkness away.

Not every ship had sunk, a few remained, perhaps avoiding the worst of it from their smaller size compared to other, much more enticing targets. Could she just stay there, do nothing, and give up? It was certainly an enticing thought, in it's own twisted way.

The sorceress shook off the feeling, a low growl escaping the makari as her form shifted, longer and larger until a massive brass dragon stood in her place that soared into the sky, crashing through the clouds of undead beasts, drawing their attention away while clawing through as many as they could manage. Hopefully it would take long enough to be taken down to turn a sliver of hope into something greater.

You deserve a better ending.

You've staved off the darkness for another day, it's true, but you deserve something better. All those wars. All those sacrifices. Don't you deserve better? Just...

Comfort?

Warmth?

Surely, you do.

And so the scene changes. There's a disorienting moment. It's all good.

It's always good.

"Boogiee...."

"...e's dead! Duke Austyn is dead." The minor revere Christopher has over the punch bowl, a fantasy of rejecting everything and dancing chaotically with some hunky half-orc wild-man dissolving like the ice in his ridiculously ornate, tiny little glass. And the glass is dropped as his wife grabs his arm, her nails digging in hard enough to tear the fine silk of his doublet.

Christopher stares dully at his wife. "W.. what?"

She lets out a sound of disgust, leaning forward to smell his breath before wrinkling her nose. "Really? Gods, how much did you drink, you useless shit?" She shakes her head, and her scowl turns into a wide grin. "I killed him. Your brother's dead. Now I'm the Duchess Ashewell of Gull's Edge!" She smiles cruelly, "And you, husband, will get your freedom." She guides him off to the side, hand still digging hard enough to hurt. "The freedom of the country estate. You can farm, you can hunt, you can drink and debauch yourself to an early grave if you want." She puts a hand over her stomach. "I have the Duke's heir. He looks enough like you no one will know the difference." She sneers, "You're free, you useless lump! Isn't that what you always wanted? Freedom, to be something? Well now you're the Duke's father! And you'll be free to wither away in the countryside."

It's a happy enough ending, in the cut-throat courts of the Myrrish kingdoms...

Isn't it?

Not many people get a second chance at happiness. Dirk is one of those lucky few. The lass he rescued from the shadow demon--Farah is her name--falls in love with him, and he with her. She fills his days with brilliant sunshine and laughter once again. With her at his side, the forest grows strong and clean. The land thrives. He takes up his mantle as the forest's champion once again. And how could he not? After so long, he has something to fight for.

Weeks pass. Winter blankets the wood in soft, cottony-cold white. Dirk watches the snowfall from his cozy cabin with his arm around Farah's shoulders. He rests a palm atop her belly, made large by new life--the one thing Sarah was never able to give him, all those years ago gone by. Just when he thought his happily-ever-after couldn't -possibly- get any better, his newfound love has made him a father in addition to being a husband.

They name the baby 'Sarah Leigh', and she's as perfect an angel, as all children are in the eyes of their parents. Dirk gently bounces her in his arms, crooning a quiet dwarven lullabye to her as she gazes up at him with wide, golden eyes. He presses a kiss to her forehead and gently lays her in her crib. "Sleep sweetly, me bonny wee lass," he says soothingly.

He blows out the candle by the bedside and burrows under the heavy blankets with his beloved Farah. Gloom shrouds the cabin.

Sarah Leigh's eyes open, now inky black orbs. Her mouth curves into a wicked, too-wide smile. In her baby-babble, the shadow-demon's laughter echos just beyond the range of hearing.

Being lost is hungry work, and damn it all, Magpie will *never* be hungry. Not again. The first thirty years of her life, she was too small to properly defend her food from the bigger kids at the orphanages.

Which might have something to do with the frequency of wild-magic fires that seemed to haunt little Magpie's trail...

...Whatever, it's lunchtime at the Alexandrian markets, and all of her favorites are not just on special, but *free* just for her. Rosemary-pork pocket pies, goblin fireball sweetbreads, candied garlic skewers... Every turn of her head brings new and interesting delicacies into vision. And because it's *her,* because she is so amazing and powerful and respected and adored, she pays for none of it.

Every morsel that passes her lips, bought by the fame she'd always longed for as a child, where justexisting was enough to be celebrated.

And in the middle of the Market square, Magpie slowly begins to be buried under a cacophony of treats and sweets and savories, heaped ever higher by her adoring public.

And so Aryia clawed it all back. Trust. Sense of self. Belonging. Usefulness. Back into the weave with friends. Coaching her team back in the Colosseum. Battling kaiju. Sailing the seas on her boat. Pummeling through mountains through sheer force of tenacity.

So she sits atop that mountain, her apex, having found her center again. The waters have run so fast they look calm in their laminar flow. Breathing In. Out. In. Out.

The days morph into weeks, months, years. Decades. Time drags on, yet for this elf it's barely scraping any more etchings into the scars. Others age, but that comes and goes, just like all do in the story that never ends. But does it matter? The peak has been reached. Her vantage is leagues in all directions.

It is absolute perfection.

Or is it? It hits in a beat of introspection. Somewhere in all that time, a thought worms its way into her mind. 'What is the point of a mountain, if to not look up at its daunting beauty from below? What is the point of highs? Without the lows?'

Eztli didn't normally wake up with the sun, but recent work forced the makari reluctantly out of bed. After some time blinking the tiredness out of her eyes, she eventually managed to get over to her closet, where several costumes were hanging. All of them and their accessories were carefully stowed into a pack at her side, before she left for the lower floors.

"Figured you'd be up before me, rehearsals are going to take most of the day. Say hi to deathless for me, will you, and I'll catch you around dinner, yeah?" She offered to the brown haired hunter who had been in the kitchen. She said nothing, only giving a crooked toothed smile to the sorceress before she was out the door, and not a single word spoken.

It's better, isn't it? Better this way ...

... but then the worms turn. A thought, an idea gnaws. And once it's there, it doesn't stop. Each vision seems to splinter, to crack, to fray. Black lines ripping across like spiderwebs.

And then there's a sense of weightlessness, of being-without-body.

It is cool here. You sense ... other presences. Then, slowly, the curtain draws back. You're ... somewhere.

Akorinil Belvade look at each of you, a smile on her face.

"Do you understand now?" she asks, a cautious yet hopeful tone in her voice.

GAME: Skyler rolls 1d100: (6): 6

SPLASH!

Skyler tosses the cup to the side, expression utterly devoid of emotion as he stares at Akorinil with a hate and fury he's only shown once, in a demi-plane of death while a kyton taunted him on the true meaning of pain and pleasure.

"You bitch." He says flatly, turning away from her and closing his eyes. And his shoulders rise one, fall, and he speaks up to the others. "We have to do this for her. I don't know what you guys saw, but..." He swallows, "We have to do this. And we *can*. The first vision is non-negotiable, and the third isn't enough."

Coming back to herself was a shock, especially as she was close to resigning herself to drowning under an ever-growing pile of things a child would think were deserved.

And not for the first time, does Magpie begin to ask herself how old she was when the world became a certain, predictable thing-- no. No time to unpack that now!

Shaking her head, she takes a moment to focus on Akorinil, and the milk dripping off her nose. "...Yeah," she says, finally. "Skyler's right too... We *need* to do this, cos that last one... Damn, but the Void's insidious..."

The expanse contracts, and all those possibilities of time passing collapses into presence and- Aryia rapidly blinks, and her lips move to say something, but she ends up coughing up a lung before spits a glob of blood off to the side. "Well that was fucked," she signs with a scowl and rubbing her throat. There was a certain satisfaction as Skyler acts on her impulses, but she couldn't help but feel a tad guilty. Akorinil was truly, truly trying, for the best of someone she believed in.

She thought of her found sister, Aya.

The mute pugilist grimaces. Damn it. "Alright. Fuck. Fine. But I'm not doing it for /Her/. I'm doing it because we have a thing we can teach Her. And hopefully it'll knock some sense into Her."

She glances to Akorinil, with the first look of genuine empathy. "Congratulations. You convinced this non-believer that it's worth a shot." <Handspeech/Tongues>

Dirk's eyes are wide as teacups as sight and reason returns. He blinks owlishly, his gaze snapping from side to side hard enough to make his beard whip-whap back and forth. "Wha--ah? Hah? What the... och! What the hell -was- that?!" He looks back to Akorinil. His panic turns to anger as his temper riles right back up. "-That's- our story?! BULLSHIT!! That's nae -my- story, an' never will be!"

He looks back around at his friends, his beard all a-bristle as he scowls and fumes and snorts and snarls. "So what, we -have- tae go through all that? Blessed Dana's flowery -teats-, there -has- tae be another way..."

Eztli was left speechless as she came back to reality, and she stood their for some time, breathing heavily. "Seems... fucked. I'd like to think the difference is obvious,but I'm no god. And either way, none of it was right. Not in the slightest." They grumbled. "So... what?"

All around is darkness, now, but for the presence of yourselves and Akorinil.

She raises a hand and presses the back of it to her forehead, swaying back away from them. She's clearly somewhat used to hate and fury bneing directed at her.

"Forgive me. I can't control what you see or face in the tales you're entering. Those are subject only to you. But the narrative is ... hmmm ... unspooling, I suppose, because narrative itself is threatening to end. Think of it all as dancing on the razor edge of the dagger that slays Animus --."

A hitch.

"...though it's not really a dagger. Godly weapons are something wholely other and beyond comprehension."

She lets out a breath, then. And then, a quiet voice. "You have to save her."

Aryia glances to the side as the raving party seems to have fallen to the wayside and away. Was it ever really there? "Forgiveness is an action given, gained only by further action to warrant it. You don't get that just yet, as I'm quite familiar with Taara's gaslighting," the pugilist gestures before digging in the inside pocket of her jacket. An embroidered black silk handkerchief is pulled free, and is offered to Akorinil, Aryia's eyes downcast. "But, perhaps that is something that can be rectified once this is dealt with."

She nods subtly. "They are not weapons that mere mortals know. I've seen them. But perhaps she just needs to think she's wielding something else other than to slay. In a metaphorical sense." <Handspeech/Tongues>

"We said we'd do it." Skyler says grumpily, "Just, are you going to shove us at her blind or are there any hints that aren't bullshit metaphors. I mean..." He blinks at the rest of the group, "What *is* a metaphor for?" He frowns, glancing down at his fingers. "Um. a Metaeight?"

Dirk glances around at his friends, then back to Akorinil. "I -suppose- that losin' Taara would throw all the worlds in the universe out o' balance, or some other such bullshit," he grumbles. He scowls dourly, leveling a finger at the priestess. "I dinnae trust a word -you- say," he says. He takes a step back, glancing up and around at his comrades. "But I -do- trust my friends. So we'll do what must be done." He glances at Aryia with a firm nod, then up at Skyler. He peers at the swashbuckler, then counts up on his own fingers. "Aye, think ye got it right, laddie. Metaeight," he says, nodding again.

"Close enough," Magpie says. "For the future, there's a point where precisionruins the analogy that made understandingpossible. Even if it's, like, a metaconceptual cinquedea forged of the taste of blue, calling it a dagger still works."

Looking about, she draws in a breath, and claps her hands. "So let's save a goddess!"

"Well, that's all well and good, you keep saying we need to save her, but I feel like we're all not much closer to actually saving her, aside from a bit more emotional scarring to add to the pile." Eztli grumbled loudly. "So, lets go down to this. I'm sure a handful of people can help fix this where every single taaran priest or priestess partying here failed."

The handkerchief is accepted with a gentle smile at Aryia.

Akorinil knows -exactly- how much it must've pained her to give it to her.

"If narrative dies, our ability to understand our own stories dies with it. No art. No history. No ordered conscious thought. Everything comes apart without the thread of consciousness."

Of course, how much of that is true and how much of that is Taara's grandeur talking? Then again, it may not matter. The results of ANimus dying were bad enough."I can not see what happened to you. Those sojourns were for you alone."

She grimces a moment, dabbing her face and she produces a pen from inside her robe. She begins to draw a single red line through the air with it.

"We must merely turn the page, hm? Show her a better ending, as I said..."

And then she gives the line a 'yank' and 'peels' the world like a page in the book and you find yourselves somewhere else.

A sunny glade. A pale sun above. It's warm here And yet, there's a sense of forboding, and its coming from the litle cottage, all quaint and cozy in the distance. Chimney smoke rises from it.

"Do you think it'd tell a fun story if we burn it down?" Skyler suggests as he raises a hand to shade his eyes as he looks over the tableau in front of them, "I mean, I'd get over my ennui if someone set *my* house on fire. Or we could rush in to put it out and save her that way?" He cocks his head, "Make your own heroic rescue!"

As much as it pained her, it wouldn't behoove Taara to change her mind if even an ex-Taaran couldn't show some shred of compassion. Aryia sighs, rubbing her face before flashing a thumbs up. There's a wince as the world practically rips away.

She lowers her hand from the sun, sliding her sunglasses down. "I am not against walking up and knocking before booting the door down," she shrugs. The normally face-first pugilist is hesitant to advance, her staring down the building like it's a warding sign specifically meant for her.

But Aryia gulps, exhales slowly, and starts that way with her hands in her pockets. <Handspeech/Tongues>

Dirk grunts softly. "I know how -my- tale should end," he grumbles quietly. "So if that bullshit I saw earlier is the best -she- can come up with, then aye, I can sure as hell come up wi' a better ending n' -that-." As the new scene unfolds before him, he squints at the cottage. He looks up, down, and all around. "Summat here dinnae sit right," he mutters. "I mean, not as I was expectin' sunshine an' frolickin' bunnies, but... there's summat -off- here." He glances up at Skyler and Aryia with a frown. "Why don't we try bein' polite -first-. -Then- we can start kickin' doors in if we have to."

Eztli squinted as the world was torn away in some metaphysical sense she was still trying to wrap her head around, if it was even possible. "Not a bad idea to force a different story, but I don't know if it will actually help things, unless the new reeality is some fiery hellscape." She grumbled.

"Lets start with checking the house itself for now, even though I can't shake that something is less pleasant in spite of the weather. Hard to explain."

As one gets closer, the overwhelming smell of something ... bready can be detected. Someone is baking.

There's a hint of sweetness to it, too.

Could it be...?

Could someone be baking -pie-?

Not exactly what one would expect here at the end of things, but then, perhaps that's the best time for some pie.

Looking left and right among her comrades, Magpie shrugs and does what everyone is suggesting, but understandably hesitant to do; she toddles up, and knocks on the door. "Auntie Taara?" she calls, figuring hey... even if she robbed her way there, being *a* goddess of magic affords one the respect of the magically-blooded. "Auntie Taara, we've come to visit? Are you all right?"

Aryia slows as she smells baked goods. Damn. When did she eat last? All of this was so ephemeral it was hard to tell. Wait, focus. She gives a quick look to the party, one of 'you all smell that, right?', before she shakes her head and rests against the side of the doorframe. She raises a brow. Auntie Taara?

"I'd love to try your cherry pie!" Skyler adds on the heels of Magpie, "And boy, do I have an *amazing* story to tell you! There was this box and inside it was this kid and he was like an angel but then some dragon ate fish from my hand and now we go get drunk at taverns together!"

He pauses, and adds to the group, "It's actually a really traumatizing story."

Dirk lumbers along with his friends, though his plodding step slows as they approach the house. His big dwarven nose twitches as he sniffs the air. "Oh, beards o' me sweet tapdancin' -fathers-," he groans softly. His hefty middle gives an -infuriated- sounding rumble. How long ago -did- he eat last? Far too long, from the sound of things. He looks towards the cabin with a pained expression. "Och, if that's a fake cherry pie I'm smellin', it's a really really -good- fake," he says. He glances at the others, then lifts up his hand to cup the side of his mouth. "Missus Taara, marm! It's me, Dirk Stormgrip. -I've- got a tale tae tell that -isn't- traumatizing! How does -that- sound, eh?"

"Didn't take her for a baker, assuming that's actually her in there." Eztli shrugged to no one in particular, the makari meandering down to the actual door as others knocked on it. "Don't forget who we're potentially dealing with. Lies and all that, I'm not sure I'd trust anything baking."

"Is someone there?" comes a small voice. "Moggie, can you check?"

"Ugh. Can't you see I'm busy?" comes a rougher male voice before an older man, barrel chested man from years of toil opens the door and squints at the pair.

""The hell are you people supposed to be?" he asks gruffly.

The smell of pie only intensifies. The interior of the cottage appears ... alarmingly quaint. -VERY-.

Disgustingly so.

"Oh wow. I wouldn't mind *his* cherry pie." Skyler mutters to no one in particular, eyes widening before he clasps a hand over his mouth... and discreetly takes several steps back to the rear of the strange party.

Sometimes you have to know when to let someone else take the lead. Such is wisdom, and Skyler is a very wise man, even if he isn't a very intelligent one.

This is very awkward.

You see, when you were a priestess in a different life, devoted to a sect of the unholy matrimony between Maugrim and Taara, you tend to expound on their tales of how they came together and stayed.

So Aryia, now a devout atheist, stares up at the very man who she used to venerate in an adjacent manner. She, uncharacteristically, trembles. And then raises a hand to sign-

"Hello. We're supposed to be your wake up call." Shit. She didn't think this far. His presence threw all her thoughts out the window. <Handspeech/Tongues>

"Moggie? Oh you've gotta be fucking kidding me, we've gotta deal with him too?" Ezti grumbled under her breath before they got to the door. "Hey, good evening, we just happened to be in the area and we were wondering what was going on with all the baking here?" She managed to offer for some manner of explanation.

Dirk looks up--and up, and up, and up--at the imposing figure of Maugrim before him. "Heek." He's suddenly -very- aware of the fact that his beard grooming was interrupted before all this started. He hurriedly smooths his hands down his whiskers, doing his best to get them into some kind of semblance of order, before he steps forward. "Aye, as me comrade here says, Master Maugrim. Sir. As we understand it, ye all need some stories, aye?" His tubby middle snarls angrily again, and he puts both his palms to it, as if -that- would soothe the bottomless pit inside him. "Well, as it just so happens, we need some o' that delicious-smellin' pie. So... perhaps we might work a trade, eh?"

'Moggie,' Magpie mouths, eyes wide. Somehow, it feels like not even Maugrim would *allow* his wife to call him that; it's just too undignified.

Her mouth works open and closed for a moment, as she tries to think of a good answer to that question... and failing one, simply leans over and yells past the man, into the house. "Auntie Taara, we've come to visit, and talk! And perhaps if you'd be so kind... maybe one of your famous stories? The kind that made Ceinara ash herself with jealousy?"

Look, play to your audience. Taara might not be a *nice* person, but this may be the one time a minor blasphemy might be overlooked.

'Moggie' sort of stands there, staring at the lot of you.

"Bloody hell, I didn't know the family was rolling in," he says after a moment, "Come on in, everyone. Have a seat. I'll go break open the keg."

Wait, family? Well,t hat's weird.

The lady of the house is a smiling woman dressed in dark clothing with long, scarlet hair. She seems thrilled to see everyone, moving closer to give them a hug, individually. "Oh, you all made it! I'm so thrilled."

That's weird. A moment ago she had no idea who you were, now she's acting like you were always meant to be here and our family.

Like ...

... like she's an aunt. Your aunt. Isn't she?

"Auntie Taara! Uncle Moggie!" Skyler pushes forward as he feels the narrative shift, not even attempting to keep up with the logic... Shades of the Skyler that rejected the measured, stately dances in favor of booging and enjoying the moment. Although he does give Aryia's shoulder a quick, reassuring squeeze on his way past.

"It's been so damn long! Since..." He pauses, eyes squinting, "Well. It's been a while! Hugs?"

And he holds his arms out hopefully to Maugrum fully prepared to get an armful of the Tyrant and rest his face against the pillowy bosom of his pectorals.

The unspoken agreement that goes through the party gets Aryia to wince, stymied entirely from progressing. But a squeeze on her shoulder gets her to snap to the present. She looks to Skyler with a harried expression, fear in her eyes. But she clasps his forearm, inhales deeply, and settles into the role, reaffirmed. A thankful nod is tossed his way.

She slips into the abode as they're all invited, stepping aside as the others file in. Her attention is all too focused else where before-

The lady of the house hugs Aryia. She freezes up.

Then takes Taara into a tight, hearty embrace. 'I missed you so much,' she mutters near-silently by Her ear.

She lets Her go, again.

The pugilist wipes at her eyes.

Dirk has seen much in his long years upon Ea. He's championed a swanmay princess. He's been blessed by angels. He's heard the voices of the Green Word. -Now-... he's getting a hug from a goddess. Even stranger, he finds himself returning that hug, throwing his burly arms around Taara and giving her a proper Dwarf Hug. "Och, Auntie Taara, it's -so- good tae see ye!" he booms cheerfully. "An' Uncle Maugrim! Lookin' fit as ever, I see! Och, maybe someday soon ye'll be as hefty as -I- am! Hah!"

He turns his attention back to Taara. Hey, if the gods are all like this--friendly, warm, with a cozy home and delicious treats--then maybe they aren't so bad after all. "Auntie, I smelled that pie yer bakin' from nearly a furlong away. Och, I'm -starvin'-! An' boy oh -boy- do we have some stories fer -you-!"

Blink. Blink. Last Eztli could tell, Taara wasn't a gnome. She was half expecting the goddess to shrink down to the size of an aunt until she realized what was going on. "A-ah, yes! Something to drink would be appreciated." She spoke up after a moment to collect herself. The hug certainly wasn't helping. "Did you make a chilled pie for Skyler too? You know how particular he is about his oat milk, after all."

"Of course we made it, Auntie Taara," Magpie laughs, throwing her arms up to give the best hug her stubby little everything is capable of giving. "How could we stand the thought of our Auntie feeling lonely?" 'Uncle Moggie' gets a brief side-eye, as Magpie isn't *quite* sure whether or not he's the actual Tyrant, and not a figment of the Void.

"But how are you *doing,* Auntie?" she presses onward, reaching up to pat Ariya's arm in what she hopes is a comforting way.

There, there.

"Oh!"

Aunty 'Taara', if that is indeed who she is, is more than a little surprised by the embrace. She awkwardly pats Aryia on the back. "I'm so glad to hear that," she tells her, happily. "There's pie! Come in, everyone, come in, please make yourself comfortable. It's weird how accepting she is. Just rolls with it. You're all family. Of course you're family. What's weirder is that you all can kind of feel it's true at the same time -- which might be a little discomfitting in the moment.

'Moggie' grunts. He doesn't -do- hugs, thank you very much. All taciturn. "I'll be right back. I'm going to go check on some things." He disappears out the back door, grumbling the whole while with the sort of grumble that every worker would recognize.

"Curses. Foiled again."

Skyler shakes his head as Uncle Moggie departs but he's all grins as he turns back to Auntie Taara with his grin back in place. He glances at the others as his brow knits when the wave of familial closeness washes over him. Considering what the visions earlier revealed about *his* relationship with his family, it's an unfamiliar sensation.

He swallows, closing his eyes for a moment before shaking his head. "What kind of pie, Auntie Taara? Is it full of secrets, or butterscotch or the void? I hope it's apple. I bet your void pie is awesome, but I'm partial to apple."

Aryia scratches her head at the change in accommodations, but she rolls with it as she's invited in. She takes a seat nearby, all but flopping into a loveseat nearby in a very 'at home' manner. Was that on purpose? Lines were getting a bit blurry on the comfort of things.

Dirk perks up at the mention of pie, and his eyes light up like a Yule tree. "Oh, bless yer kindness, auntie, I'd -love- a slice!" he says happily. He's a canny old bear, and he doesn't miss that strange feeling of familiarity. But such feelings are natural to dwarves, who cherish their communities so. Even a black sheep like ol' Dirk craves the company of his friends and comrades, so he's already hard-wired to accept and recipricate bonds of family. Even if it comes from the Goddess of Lies.

Magpie watches 'Moggie' disappear out the back with evident curiosity; is this part of the setting making way for the change in focus? Or was that truly Maugrim, and if so how many devils are going to be hiding in their pillows from now on? "...They say you eat an average of three devils in your sleep a week," she murmurs softly, so softly. "...Or was that spiders..."

Shaking her head, she puts on her biggest, niece-iest smile for Taara, glancing at Skyler and nodding her approval at his narrative. "How've you been, Auntie Taara? We've been pretty worried about you, we haven't heard much from these parts in a while."

Eztli blinked a few more times at the recognition, and feeling of it, as well. "Oh, thank you, then! I wouldn't mind some pie myself, but I don't know, surely there's something I could do in return for the hospitality? It's only fair, I think."

Indeed. The accomdations -are- changing. Things are unfolding. Was it always like this? You know it wasn't, but it FEELS like it was. Totally natural. There's even a dining room, now, and you're being escorted to the table by 'Taara', though she's never introduced herself that way. She strokes her fingerws through her long hair and then gerstures to the seating.

"Please, please! Sit down. Tell me all about your adventures, darlings!"

The impossibility of being 'related' doesn't seem to have occurred to her at all.

Meanwhile, Moggie is, well... there's a lot of swearing from out back. This is how you know he's cooking.

Aryia leans up, sitting at the table now as she gets herself situated. There's this half lull of staring at a goddess she once venerated, and half just at the dinner table with auntie and family. She's having to root herself in the horrid things they just went through recently to remind herself why they're all here. And boy is it hard to keep the story straight.

Tell about... her adventures? Aryia looks to the others before gesturing in elaboration: "Mine would take way too long, but I learned through my adventures if you're stubborn enough, you can win card games against gods and drop kick kaiju through portals. All it takes is losing everything and finding yourself in the scraps." <Handspeech/Tongues>

Eztli took one of the chairs, spun it around to have a seat at the table comfortably. "Of our adventures? Well, I'm sure that the others have some wonderful stories to tell. I've been on a few, but I imagine theirs are better, or at least they feel up to talking about them."

Skyler's lips thin, and he glances over the crowd for a moment before he says earnestly, softly. "I grew up second son to a minor noble. Heir and the spare, I was the spare. My father wasn't a good man, by any definition. My brother, the heir, use to pour boiling water on puppies out of amusement. Found out they were going to kill me."

He swallows, "So I decided that I'd kill me first. Was on a ship that got attacked by pirates, and when they threatened to ransom me, I instead charmed'm into letting me join. Being a pirate sounded fun. It was, until I realized I hurt people. Badly. Met someone I love." He smiles wryly, "And decided to be something else. Gentleman Adventurer of the Society of Dagger Dames and Gentleman Adventurers. Taught me something important, Auntie Taara." He glances around, "*I* write my story. Other people might throw curveballs at me, things might beat me down and even kill me. But in the end, I wrote the story and never let anyone else control the narrative."

Dirk follows Auntie to the table and plumps his hefty rump down. He gives a wiggle, testing the chair out, and is rather surprised that it supports Dwarf Weight quite well! He reaches up to doff his tricorne and sets it aside. "Pshaw, Eztli. You an' me been on plenty of adventures together!" he says with a rumble of laughter. "Och, d'ye remember when we got sent out by Lady Fionnula tae find 'er sister in the Mythwood? An' we fought off those cold knights? Hell of a scrap, that was!"

He glances over at Skyler, listening to the swashbuckler's tale. Much of it is new to the burly old ranger. His conclusion has the old snowbeard nodding firmly. "True talk, laddie, true talk," he says. "All our lives are a grand tale, an' -we- hold the pen. Even if sometimes folk want tae butt in an' put their own spin on things."

Magpie clambers up into a high-chair, allowing her to regard the table like someone meant to be seated there, and puffs out a breath at the invitation. "Man... where to even *start.*"

As Skyler tells his story, Magpie listens carefully, nodding firmly at the lesson he takes away from the story of his life. And, it seems, she chooses to follow up serious drama with comedy.

"Well, there was that temple that got uncovered in the Felwood, I remember one point we ended up having to deal with a bunch of non-Guild 'adventurers' who were looking for loot to find. Then, after we beat them into submission, we had to take them back to camp... when demons started coming after us. Cos Felwood, right? But we didn't have time to *fight,* we had a job to do, so I threw an illusion over this huge tree! Turned into a big angel statue, two middle fingers up, and a banner; DEMONS CAN KISS THE PEARLIEST PART OF MY GATES!"

Here, Magpie pauses to giggle t her own joke. "And the best part was, it *worked!* Distracted them long enough we could get away!"

"Because if you're willing to be a little silly, you can saves lives with a good lie."

The Lady of the House listens, and smiles, and she proceeds to begin preparing the meal. There are plenty of things to bring in from the kitchen, and yet more from 'Moggie' outside. They're clearly, yes, representative of someone's idea of what Taara and Maugrim might be. Somehow.

Somehow indeed.

'Taara' claps her hands delightedly as the stories come out. She asks questions, seeks details. She wants more. The despair that was sitting heavily on her when you arrived -- perhaps not so visible as it was then as its departure is now -- seems to have lifted, yes, and Moggie very clearly doesn't have a lot to say. He's busy working.

"That all sounds lovely," remarks your 'aunt'.

"But now what will you all do?"

Details are happily divulged, and Magpie seems to be the kind of storyteller who can barely believe the nonsense she herself got up to. So the details are delivered with a combination of self-deprecation and surprise. But then, 'Taara' puts a question to her.

That is a very, very good question.

"Well," she says slowly, "we are kind of on a job right now, in fact. See, there's someone very, very important who needs to be rescued from the Void. And we need to make sure she can shake free of it, because nobody... *nobody.* Deserves for the Void to take them.

"I can think of a few people." Skyler says consideringly, "Captain Cashew, maybe. But it's probably got a nut allergy."

But he makes a gesture, conceding Magpie's point and letting her take the narrative lead on this. "But she deserves a happy ending, this one. She's had a hell of a story so far, and deserves happiness with her beefy hot husband." He considers. "Maybe they just need to spice things up? Find a unicorn?" He means a horse with a horn, right?

Aryia listens to the others, her brows raising at Skyler. She didn't pin him as noble born, and it was quite an amusing twist that'd he manufactured himself. If only she was as slick as him all those decades ago. She nods along in agreement with Dirk, but she can't but help but stare at Magpie. There was not way she could /not/ help but snort in amusement.

Food comes out, and she's already got one of everything. It must have been some crimson pen story, or something, that has these two gods portrayed as such in a cottage-core lifestyle. The mute shares more, about a Unloved King that took a chance to become the Joyful King, and through his efforts, managed to help a party of heroes slay larger-than life fiends and help a celestial dragon fulfill their overdue duties. She's smiling at the memories of it, a mixture of cocky and wan.

Question poised, she nods along with Magpie and Skyler. "Or maybe have something come along, a catalyst? Every story has something that makes things happen." She gives Skyler a side glance before chuffing and shaking her head, amused. <Handspeech/Tongues>

Eztli shrugged, and chuckled quietly. "Kinda sounds like my life, except I ran away from my parents as their only daughter, and I ended up getting eaten by undead and ending up as a giant, small lizard." Eztli snorted. "Which is to say, entirely not like your life at all upon further thought, but, at least I'm mostly okay with it now. But for doing stuff now? I don't know, I guess it doesn't feel right to give up. I'd like to make some more stories, have some more adventures and the like. Probably."

Dirk busily loads up a plate with delicious goodies and wonderful treats. Even piling up proper Dwarf Sized portions, there's still plenty for everyone else. Clearly, -this- version of Taara knows how to cook for dwarves. He munches away at some nibbly things, listening to the others' tales. When Skyler mentions a unicorn, he brightens up. "Och! That reminds me of the time I was trackin' this ugly beastie down in Am'shere!" he says. "I'll tell ye, jungles an' dwarves mix together 'bout as well as some berk rippin' arse in church! Hah!" He recounts the tale of the monster hunt, which led to a unicorn that had been tempted into disgrace by a wish demon. "The poor thing wanted us tae end its sufferin'. But I hadnae the heart tae kill such a noble beast. But fortunately, me mate Dolan's a Corona in Daeus' church, an' we able tae help the poor thing find repentance an' forgiveness!" He gets thoughtful as he munches another bite of tasty things. "Because even the worst villain can be redeemed, in the end," he muses.

Someone important? Rescued from the Void? What?!

Moggie scowls darkly, muttering under his breath about 'dilly-dallying while the world is doomed, he'd never let you get away with that' and so on. It's entirely in character for him,. it seems.

'Auntie' puts her hands together in front of her, eyes wide. "You don't say! What is there to be done, though?!" Obviously, this is just a normal day at dinner, where one talks about rescuing people from THE VOID of all things.

The food is ... a lot. There's -so much of it-. Anything you want is thjere on the table. Somehow. Like she knew. Because, of course, she did.

Eztli gets her hand patted. She understands. Skyler too, really. "Parents can be so dreadful," she mourns.

The comments of redemption has them BOTH eyeing Dirk.

"We have to remind her," Magpie says, trying to pull the couple's attention from Dirk. "That she *has* choices she can make. That any story she could tell could be true, even the lies. *Especially* the lies. Because that's what stories are, right?"

Leaning over the table, she picks up a lovely spiced-pork bun and tears it in half, breathing in the aroma. "Stories are lies about things that never happened, that outline a truth that needs to be known, aren't they?"

Monching on one half for a bit, she swallows, and looks up, eyes wide and begging.

"Tell us a story, Auntie?"

Aryia's inhaling some Am'shere cuisine as she side eyes the others, seeing if they're catching on to the hooks being pulled. With a tlahco in one hand, mouth with another, her free hand gestures out, "It's so simple it's kind of stupid. Don't believe the Void. It's a bad lie. Reflections of reality that have no basis. The instances where I fought myself, my void self, it was such a farce of reality. It couldn't handle the /real/ me. Am I lying to myself? Maybe. But even if I don't believe I'm better, as long as I believe I'm better than the next thing, I'm golden."

Sticking to her guns, it seems, and playing up what Magpie posits with a solid, and true, story. Aryia gestures at Magpie, agreeing with her. Story time! <Handspeech/Tongues>

"Oh, _tell_ me about it." Eztli bemoaned, reaching for a large mug of ale that was incredibly difficult to drink in a proper fashion. "Parents were more concerned about making sure that they would profit off selling my hand off to the richest family they could find, and the worst part? Never even asked if I liked the guy, liked guys in the first place, and he had the audacity to tell me that dance was _boring. Don't think they ever bothered to know me." The makari ranted. "So, found someone that cared, made plans to leave, and then the countries overrun with zombies. Bad luck on that, not to mention being called a reptilian freak next time I saw my partner." She continued, stopping to open her mouth and dump the rest of the alcohol down her throat. "But y'know what? It was worth the try. I'll take a chance of things being better over a guaranteed life of misery any day of the week. And it was my choice to make, too, no one twisting my arm in the process. Surely you've got some stories about your own decisions too, right?"

Dirk wilts a little bit as Auntie Taara and Uncle Moggie stare him down. "Heek?" He instead goes beard-first into his plate of delicious treats, chompfing and monching with a -purpose-. He looks over to Magpie, nodding his head vigorously in agreement. He might actually -say- so, but at the moment his cheeks are puffed out like a squirrel's, and he has enough manners not to talk with his mouth full. Instead, he listens to Ariya and Eztli in turn. The sith's tale has his eyes getting wide. Chompf chomphf mrnch GLLP! "Reptilian freak? Och, I wish I coulda been there! -Please- tell me ye wiped the smirk off 'is dozy gob. Hell, -I- would've put me fist tae 'is nose fer that kind o' cheek!" He mutters and harrumphs, before diving back in to enjoy more of this -superb- home cooking. It's just like his mother used to make--uncannily so, but it came from the hands and hearth of a goddess.

After gulping down another payload of food, he nods his head. "I'll never forget the day I met my darlin' Sarah," he says. "I was out in the Eldwyn huntin' deer, when I heard 'er singin'. I'd never heard such a lovely voice afore. I followed the sound an' there she was. Hair like spun gold, an' a voice like a nightingale's. Eluna was full an' round, an' lit 'er up like water dancin' on silver." He sighs dreamily as he recalls. "She had me entranced, she did. She was busy pickin' flowers, so she dinnae see me at first. But then as she turned, I spied a nasty warg creepin' up on 'er from behind. Well, I leaped up from where I was crouched an' hollered 'Get down, lassie!' Then I put a bullet straight betwixt that nasty beastie's eyes. An' Sarah, gods love 'er, she drew 'er belt knife an' flung it straight at me! Or at least, I -thought- it was straight at me--but it hit the warg's -mate- who was about tae get the drop on -me-!"

He rumbles with laughter, clapping a hand to his knee. "Och, we were both all blushes an' stumbles after that. But it lit a spark that eve. We'd meet up in that verra same clearing each week, an' have us a picnic luncheon. We'd spend all the day just... talkin'. It was so..." He sighs happily again. "...so -nice-." He looks back to Taara with that same dopey, love-struck grin. "What 'bout you, Auntie Taara? How did you an' Uncle Moggie meet, then? Tell us all about it!"

Each story ventured is listened to. Each set of words taken in. 'Moggie' just sort of grumbly returns from out back carrying some platters of freshly cooked meat from the firepit outside. Pork, from the smell of it. He passes through the dining area of the little home and into the kitchen, where more grumbling and swearing can be heard. It's not a cooking event without one of the cooks swearing a lot. This is fact.

'Taara' just seems thrilled with the tales, yes, particularly Dirk's. She loves a good love story, doesn't she? Who doesn't? Of course, that look in her eye already suggests she's envisioning dramas.

A lot of dramas. That's better than the empty, some despairing look one can now recognize even if it was hard to see on arrival.

"You've all had such difficulty," she begins, leaving the thought unfinished.

She's thinking, okay?

"Difficulties are what makes stories spicy." Skyler says with a shrug, "The struggles we've gone through make us appreciate what we have. Without them, there's no lows, but no highs either."

Aryia shrugs. "If it were easy, then what's the point of living?" she signs, nodding towards Skyler's perspective. <Handspeech/Tongues>

Dirk nods his head, reaching over to stab a stack of delicious ham from the platter Moggie brings in without taking his eyes off Taara. He chompfs a big bite of delicious pork, rumbling happily as he savors the flavor. "Mmh! Mrnch! Monch! GLUP! Och, Uncle Moggie, this is -fantastic!-" He grins over at his 'uncle' before he looks back to Taara. He nods his head, his expression softening. "Aye, the fop has it right," he says, nodding at Skyler. "Sarah an' I both knew what it'd mean, if we stayed together. She'd grow old an' die while I lived on. An' sometimes, the thought o' that would keep one--or both--of us up at night." His expression turns quietly wistful. "An' when her time came tae leave this world, I thought... well, fer years after, I thought 'it's nae -fair-, we dinnae get enough time together'. But then I remember what Blessed Dana teaches us. To everything, there is a season. What lives must die, so that it may live again. In the end, we got sixty-five years together. As bitter as her passing was... even -that- cannae take those years from us."

Eztli hesitated for a moment as Maugrim came in with large platters of 'pork', but eventually she relaxed and took some onto a plate for a few bites. "Life's always going to have difficulties to some degree, like everyone else has said. No good comparing to someone else and getting burned, but you're going to have challenges. I'd be happier knowing that others haven't had to deal with the sorts of things I have, anyways."

"Gotta have the bitter," Magpie opines, "If you wanna appreciate the sweet. Thanks, Uncle," she says, as she helps herself to a couple pork chops. "Yeah I spent a lotta my growin up years just miserable, but *oh boy* do I love the dad that *chose* me out of all the other urchins. And it's the same with adventurin'."

Hoisting a half-pint mug of dark stout, she takes a quick drink. "When you're in it, it's boredom and boredom and then ten minutes of life-or-death panic, but like... Couple months later? You're sitting in a tavern, and the story starts out 'so no shit, there I was,' and everything is just *hilarious* in hindsight."

"Hmm," is what she says to Skyler. Then she listens to ARyia, nodding her head. Dirk's words are tkaen in, thne Eztli's, and finally Magpie's. Each has spoken to her in turn>

She's aboutt o say something and then there's a loud set of swear words coming from the kitchen area again. Who knew that he was so full of cussing?

She smiles, after a moment, with a slight strain. It would appear that even in this illusion, the reality of what someone is can not be fully dismissed.

""I suppose that makes sense," she agrees, casually. More food is being prepared, and now it's being rolled out in great heaping dishes. Dinner is served. Roast meat (of some kind) alongside roasted vegetables. Onions, garlic! Spring vegetables, because it's always spring here, clearly.

'Taara' pauses a moment, then pats her husband's hand when he passes her by.

"You all seem to have taken it in stride. But what about when you make a mistake?" She asks, squinting at them. This, she wants to hear. "I never make those," she is hasty to clarify.

Aryia finishes her course of Amshere delights, grabbing a stein of beer and leaning back in her chair. She quirks a brow at the cursing, her grabbing another serving of the dinner that's being served and stacking it high. "You learn from it. Take a nugget of wisdom from it, and do better next time," she suggests. "A perfect story has to have failure within it too, right? Otherwise it's just boring and self serving. Actions speak louder than words. Shit, I've fucked up a lot, and the only way I've rectified those mistakes is by doing something about it." <Handspeech/Tongues>

Skyler is still for a moment, and then glances towards Eztli before answering, speaking as much to the sorceress as the Goddess. "I made a mistake, recently. I was reckless, thinking no one other than myself would pay the price. A killer caught me in a trap, and because of my recklessness a friend, Carver, died." His jaw works, and he finally looks away from Eztli. "She died spitting defiance, laughing with her prey's blood on her lips, but she still died, and left someone that loved her and she loved very much without her." He closes his eyes briefly before opening them again. "But that's how stories go sometimes. You fail. You make mistakes.. And sometimes, even worse: you aren't the one that pays for them. The people you love and care about are." He glances over at Eztli. "You learn from them, so the price wasn't paid in vail, y'know?"

Eztli had a few more bites of food, the sorceress chewing slowly to focus on listening. And listening, until eventually a low growl grew in their throat. She reached to take another tankard of ale, and this one was unceremoniously dumped completely down her throat in a singular motion. That quieted her for some time. "You make a mistake, you own up to it, simple as that." She eventually sighed. "If it's fixable, you fix it, if it's not , you live with it. Not much more to it."

Skyler nods slowly, with an odd sense of solemnity and gives Eztli a brief grin of acknowledgement.

"They're right," Magpie says, lunging over the table to grab a sausage, which is split in half, painted with mustard, and sandwiched between the two pork chops. "Most good stories deal with the protagonist making a mistake. Sometimes it's a little one they can make right, sometimes it's a big one they can't. And the important part is always whether or not they *learn better,* y'know? The way my dad says it, is like... 'As long as you never make the same mistake twice, you're getting somewhere.'"

At which point she takes a relatively huge bite of her meat-sweat sandwich. Which looks like a mistake all its own.

Dirk finishes off his third plate of food, pushing the empty aside and settling back in his seat with a happy sigh. He pats his hefty middle as he picks up a mug of beer for himself. He tips back a healthy swallow, gulping thirstily as he drains the mug dry. He bangs the empty down on the table and thumps his chest a couple times, coaxing out a mighty, rafter-shaking belch. "BraaaaaaAAAAAAAUUUUUFFF! Oh! 'scuse -me-!" He glances around, tugging at his collar as he grins sheepishly. "Sorry. It's easy tae forget tallfolk dinnae value proper belchin' skill."

He looks back at Taara, nodding in agreement with his mates. "We all make mistakes. We're nae a one of us perfect. Nor I ever -want- tae be. Tae be perfect is to never change--because if ye did, then ye'd nae be perfect anymore, would ye? Nothin' would change, nothin' would grow." He hefts his empty mug--which he suddenly finds full again. When did that happen? "Hell, Sarah -would- scold me every time I let loose a belch. An' there was times when I'd tell 'er exactly what I thought o' tallfolk prudishness. We both said things we dinnae really mean. But we always found our way back. We always said we were sorry, an' forgave each other." He smiles wistfully at Taara. "Bein' imperfect... makin' mistakes... it dinnae make us -bad-, Auntie Taara. It just makes us... mortal."

The food is, at least, tasty.

-Really- tasty.

Who knew Taara and 'Moggy' could cook so well? Well, it appears to be the fact here, in any event.

Each speaker is given their moment in turn to answer the question and they listen. Well, 'Taara' listens. 'Moggie' just kind of quietly seethes, especially when he's called 'Moggie' again. Maybe he's not as fond of the name as he appears, but it's not like he's going anywhere.

Aryia gets a nod from her and sghe leans forward, chin on her hands, elbows on the table.

Big eyes.

"What if its too late?" she asks, thoughtfully.

To Skyler, she turns her gaze, asking the same question, "How do you know its fixable? Do you just throw yourself into it until you find out its not?"

Dirk is listened to and there's a big smile. "Mortal!" She cracks.

"Yes, I suppose that we are, she nods. "Forgiveness seems like a difficult thing to earn. I always feel like I've so much red ink on my hands, even just itting here and writing!"

Then to Magpie, there is a smile.

"Well. That's a good saying. I'd like that."

"Look at it this way, ma'am..." 'Ma'am?!' Skyler ducks his head. "If you try, and still fail, then it isn't your fault that it failed. But if you don't try, and we lose everything, then it's all your fault." He spreads his hands. "You might fail half the shots you try, but you fail more if you never take them at all."

Aryia side eyes Skyler and Eztli, grimacing at the tale. She's known of Carver by proxy, and couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness from that. There's a nod towards Dirk, her giving an approving look at the belch before downing her own drink.

And then 'Taara' asks her. Her. For advice. Aryia looks at the bottom of her mug, looking like she is trying to find answers in the leftover froth. She breathes In. And gestures. "If it's too late, then you own the mistake. Acknowledge how badly you fucked up, apologize, and- I cannot stress this enough- /move the fuck on/. If you do not move, do not act, you'll wallow in the darkness, if you even if you don't realize it."

She jabs a thumb to Skyler's point. "A ship is safest in the harbor. But that is not what a ship is built for." <Handspeech/Tongues>

Eztli had reached for another mug of drink, tossed back into her throat. The small makari snorted, flames flickering out the end of her snout. "If it's too late, it's too late. That doesn't change." Eztli shrugged. "Is it too late, or are you just giving up? Big difference there. Real big difference. And like Aryia said, still more you could do. I'd like to say it's never too late to at least do _something_."

"Not to mention," Magpie pipes up, "unless you've just pushed everyone and everything away... there's always folk near you, who care enough to give you a hand." At this, she nods to 'Moggie.' "People like that? They're a treasure beyond price, because there is nothing that makes the darkness lighten up like being able to ask for help, and *get it.*"

Finishing her half-pint, she leans over the table, big eyes locked onto 'Taara,' voice gentle. "Cos it's okay to need help. Nobody's as strong alone as they are with friends. An' I got personal experience of that, with most everyone I came with, Auntie. It might surprise you, what asking for help'll turn up."

Dirk nods his head in agreement with his mates, his smile warm and bright as his eyes twinkle beneath the hang of his shaggy white brows. "Aye, yer all right, all of ye!" He looks back to Taara and Maugrim. "Yesterday we cannae change. Tomorrow we cannae know. But -today-... today is ours, an' we can do -anything-! There's nae sense in worryin' about what's done or what -might- be. That's a sticky bog that'll sink ye under if ye dwell on it overlong. Best tae keep yer feet right here in the now, where yer footin' is firm." He leans forward, regarding Taara with his simple, homespun earnesty. "Auntie Taara... if even a Goddess o' the Dark can show kindness an' share a delicious meal wi' those who would stand against 'er... then doesn't that mean -somethin'- good?" He taps the side of his big dwarven nose. "We -need- ye, lassie. We need you, an' Maugrim, an' Caracoroth, an' all the rest. Without ye... we great an' mighty heroes, we've got nae stories at -all-."

Forgiveness. Permission to forgive one's self. Redemption. Owning up to mistakes.

Narratively, these are heady cocktail of ideas, aren't they? All of them know that, of course, even if they also believe them. Life experience, in all its long roads and difficulty, and troubles that it took them to get here has taught each of them that. Through battle, love, and loss, each person present has in some way endured what life has called on them to deal with, what its author has put in front of them. A narrative which has inextricably led them here, to this moment, where they sit with some kind of ethereal representation of that same shifting narrative.

It may be Taara. It may be Maugrim. It may be representations of them. The latter is probably more likely, but then, the Gods know everything anyway so its not as if it makes a difference, right?

Right.

But what makes a difference, it seems, is the acts taken. There's a sense of well being. Of a loss of tension. Of warmth. Of warm meals, laughter. Of family, found and otherwise. Of friends, new and old, like a journey is coming to a close and also paradoxically looping around once again to its beginning. Where one leaves off, another picks up. That's the nature of roads, too.

Each of them enjoy their meals in turn and the night wears on. More stories are swapped. More tales of regret and more tales of redemption, perhaps, or at least ones that begin. There's even a late addition, another older gentlemen from down the way. You never get his name. You suppose it doesn't matter. At least in the moment, you feel like you've known him all along anyway.

Slowly, the memory fades out. You find yourselves ... somewhere else. In an empty home, just outside Alexandria. The air seems lighter, somehow. A little ways away from you is a dinner table that seems long abandoned. At its foot, is a black robe that seems remarkably similar to the one Akorinil was wearing before you 'left' the manor house you were in for the 'cottage'. A faint black residue lays in a circle around it, along with a few strands of red hair.

Though the word is not whispered aloud, it lingers in your ears anyway.

"Rest easy."

-End Scene-