With Mercury Creek behind him, Oslando begins his journey by foot through the nearby mountains. The rough terrain and loose boulders are a challenge, but he has never liked it any other way, and as an additional level of difficulty, a storm is coming up. The sky turns unnaturally dark for this time of day as a pitch black cloud blocks out the sunlight directly above him.
A deep, rumbling thunder echoes throughout the mountains and silences all other sounds nature is making. As he looks up, keeping his blond hair out of his face, everything becomes quiet again.
“This doesn’t look good”, he mumbles, triggering the darkness above to throw down a blue lightning bolt at the earth. The big rock in front of him, visibly rich with copper and iron, crackles as the electricity completely blackens the stone and it temporarily takes away the half-elf’s eyesight.
Back between the trees he knows so well, he sits in front of one of his favourite ones. He has loosened the chain of his belt, moving the wooden burial mask between his fingertips. It’s a simple looking object, nothing too special about it. The details painted red and yellow upon the chestnut face look integrant, as if this mask has recently been made.
He caresses some of his other trinkets: a dark claw of his most recent avian victim, a strange metal bell without its clapper, a small leather bag with bones inside of it, a dragon-like toy soldier and a crystalline monocle with the glass missing.
“Patience and food may be something I’ll ran out of one day”, he says to himself with a smirk, “but luck won’t ever be one of them.”
Momentarily, he couldn’t be more wrong as lightning strikes down and sets the tree across him ablaze with a faint blue fire.
“Well, this looks rather sinister”, Dargothoth says to himself as he soars through the cold sky.
In front of him, a darkness comes his way. The black cloud spreads fast, like ink dropped in a flask of water, lashing out with thin tendrils as everything turns more grim by the second. He dives down towards the earth, trying to have some ground beneath his feet before the storm can strike him down, but he acts too late.
During his descent, before he can hear the discharge of lightning, a blue light travels downwards, taking the sivak down with it. Although the electricity didn’t really hurt him and he didn’t crash too hard onto the barren desert below, his wings took the biggest hit during the fall.
“Blood, shits and ashes!”, he roars as her rolls onto his stomach. “What ooze-sucking half-blood…” The cleric stops halfway during his swearing as he sees what was struck down with him during the lightning strike.
“Oh, Nerull’s boney backside.”
“Show me what you got!” The girl claps her hands rapidly as Mero extends his arm and reaches for a flower a couple feet away from him. A thin, white and blue beam extends towards it and turns the purple colours of the lavender pale and the stem stiffens.
“I like what you got”, she shouts excited, making little jumps of joy in the air. Merodius smiles. He can’t remember the last time he was actually making friends.
“Can you do the lighting thing now? Please, please, please?” He makes some flapping movements with his glove covered hands to diminish some of the high pitched enthusiasm.
“I can’t just throw lightning bolts around. Someone might get hurt.” She shakes her hand and points towards the sky.
“Shoot it to the clouds, shoot it to the clouds!” Without hesitation he unleashes dozens of small purple sparks upwards, crackling its way through the humidity of the swampy area. As the lightning dissolves in the air, the sky answers with a powerful roar and a thick beam of blue energy shoots down into the bog in front of them. The girl goes back inside, running and screaming at the top of her lungs.
“I didn’t do that”, he utters with a nervous voice. “I really didn’t. Did I?”
She jumps off the edge of her ship and lands deep in the yellow sand of the undiscovered island.
“I love the sea, but non-rocking ground beneath your feet is always a pleasure.” Without looking at her crew behind her, she immediately starts walking landinwards, ready to explore.
“It really seems to be uninhabited, mateys”, she shouts in the hope they can hear her. She picks up the pace and reaches an oasis shortly after, a true beautiful sight for sore eyes. Bright coloured butterflies flutter around her and the sweet smell of exotic flowers mixes with the pure, fresh air she breathes in.
“I claim this land”, she says as she jumps onto a rock covered with moss at the edge of the clear water, “and I shall call it The Siren’s Nipple!”
She has merely finished her sentence as a loud beam of energy strikes down from the heavens, vaporizing the water, pushing her of the rock and onto her back.
“Okay, okay, sorry! I won’t call it that. You can name it!”
Right in front of all five of them, in the center of the spot struck by the mysterious lightning, stands a man, radiating with a dark blue light. His naked body looks like it was made by the stars from above.
It could be an illusion, but it would almost seem that his body is an astral space on its own, as if tiny celestial bodies move around inside him. His long, silvery hair is braided and gently kisses the ground this unknown being is standing on.
They feel his eyes fixed upon them, even though they are hidden behind a pale, ragged piece of cloth. His wings are bloody and seem to be broken due to the weight of the heavy chains pulling them down. They radiate with a magical power of their own, different than the astral energy the man has, and they prevent him from flying away. Although he is one of the most beautiful creatures they have ever seen, it is painful to look at him. He suffers.
He walks towards them, pulling the heavy balls on chains behind him, and stretches his trembling arms. He holds a silver envelope with a dark red wax seal with a dramatically written “H” on it. They all take the letter from him and read their name on the front of it.
“Please”, he utters has he represses his painful moans, “don’t let him down.”
He falls on his back, staring at the dark cloud above him watery eyes.
“It is done, masters”, he sobs almost unhearable and he closes his eyes for the last time as he spontaneously combusts in an all-consuming fire.
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