Delores sprinted through the sprawling aisles of Bastian's hoard. The towering wooden shelves, laden with centuries of acquired history and magical detritus, felt less like a library and more like a claustrophobic labyrinth. Her boots pounded against the stone floor, the sound echoing hollowly in the vast cavern. Panic, cold and sharp, drove her forward. She rounded a corner, skidding slightly, and finally spotted them in a wide, open clearing amidst the towering shelves. Bastian stood tall and composed, while Barin was adjusting a strap on his armor. Off to the side, standing unnervingly still, was Rael. His eyes were closed, his breathing slow and even, and he gripped his new, gnarled wooden staff tightly in one hand.
Barin was the first to hear her approach. He turned, starting to raise a hand in greeting. "Hey there—"
He stopped short, his jaw dropping slightly as he took her in. The silver armor gleamed in the dim light of the cavern's glowing crystals. It fit her perfectly, accentuating a new, hard-won physical definition that hadn't been there on their arrival.
"Woah," Barin breathed, letting out a low whistle. "Nice armor there, Baroness." He leaned forward, squinting, his scarred brow furrowing. "Shit, you've managed to pack some serious muscle onto that small frame in such a short time, too. You move different. What in the blazes did ye go through in there?"
Delores barely heard him. As she slowed to a halt, her eyes locked onto Barin. Specifically, his right arm. It looked as though he had plunged it elbow-deep into a roaring forge and left it there. The skin was mottled with angry, reddish-black burns, though he didn't seem to be in pain. And strapped to his hip, hanging heavily and almost scraping the stone floor when he shifted his weight, was a new weapon. A massive, jagged falchion, forged from a metal so pitch-black it seemed to drink the ambient light. Before she could even formulate the question to ask him about the horrific burns or the new blade, the sheer terror of her vision rushed back, overriding her curiosity.
"There's no time," she blurted out, her voice cracking with desperation. "The homestead. Oleg's. It's under attack. Or it's going to be, any minute. The Ram is marching with his entire village, and there's an army from Metevarn right behind them. It's a slaughter waiting to happen!"
Barin's casual demeanor vanished instantly. His hand flew to the hilt of his new falchion, his eyes widening. He looked sharply up at Bastian, the two exchanging a deeply worried glance.
"How long?" Barin growled, the soldier in him immediately assessing the tactical disaster.
Delores clenched and unclenched her small fists. "I don't know! Time works strangely in Valerie's temple. I lost track days ago." She turned desperately to Bastian. "Bastian, what time is it here? Out in the real world?"
Bastian winced, a very un-draconic expression of dismay crossing his elegant features. He looked away, consulting some internal, ancient sense of the world's rotation. He hesitated, stammering slightly, "It is roughly midnight, Baroness. Give or take an hour."
Delores felt the blood drain from her face. Her stomach plummeted into a bottomless void. Midnight. The Ram had said they would move when the moon was at its peak, to strike just before dawn. They were already marching.
"We have to go. Now," Delores demanded, spinning towards the tiefling. "Rael! Rael, wake up!"
Rael didn't move. He stood perfectly rigid, his eyes still firmly shut, oblivious to the panic unfolding feet away.
"Rael!" Delores shouted, stepping forward and jabbing him hard in the ribs with two fingers, expecting him to jolt awake with his usual flustered apologies.
Instead, his body felt rigid, almost like stone beneath his robes. He didn't even twitch. Both Bastian and Barin winced in unison.
"Careful, lass," Barin cautioned, stepping up and gently pulling her hand away from the cleric. "It ain't sleep. It's, well, it's some weird magic trance."
"A deep attunement," Bastian clarified, his voice tight with concern. "He is trying to connect with the staff, to allow it to act as a conduit for his overwhelming knowledge of magic. It is working—his capacity has already expanded immensely—but it is a delicate process."
Delores stared at the unresponsive tiefling, her panic rising to a fever pitch. "Well, un-attune him! Wake him up! We need him to teleport us back, right now!"
"We cannot simply wake him up, Baroness," Bastian warned, his tone grave. "He has entered a state of profound magical integration. If that connection is severed abruptly, the resulting backlash of unchanneled energy could shatter his mind. Or worse. It cannot be stopped whenever we please. We must wait for him to surface on his own."
"We don't have time to wait!" Delores growled, the reality of the situation crushing her. Her friends were about to be butchered, and her only way home was locked in a magic
"Baroness, you must keep calm," Bastian said, his voice a soothing, draconic rumble intended to quell her hysteria. "There have been occasions over the past week where he has remained in this specific state for hours at a time. It is a cycle. We must be patient."
Patient. The word tasted like ash. Delores nodded jerkily, but it did little to slow her racing heart. Minutes ticked by, each one stretching into agonizing eternity. Delores began to pace, her new silver boots clicking a frantic rhythm on the stone floor. One hour passed. Then, agonizingly, the start of another. Her mind became a theater of nightmares, playing out endless, gruesome scenarios of what might be happening at the homestead. She saw The Ram's studded mace swinging down; she saw the disciplined steel of Metevarn's army marching relentlessly forward; she saw Oleg's kind face contorted in pain.
Barin tried offering gruff reassurances about Amiri's skill and Oleg's hidden strength. Bastian attempted to distract her with logistical analyses of army marching speeds. Neither worked. The silence of the cavern was suffocating, broken only by the rhythmic pacing of a desperate Baroness.
Finally, just as Delores decided she couldn't wait another second and raised her hand, fully prepared to risk Rael's sanity with a spark of magic to jolt him awake, the tiefling moved. Rael let out a long, shuddering breath, followed instantly by a groan of profound exhaustion. His rigid posture crumbled, and he collapsed forward onto his knees, his staff clattering against the stone. He was drenched in sweat, his chest heaving as if he had just run a marathon.
Delores was there as he hit the ground. She grabbed the front of his robes, her small hands twisting the fabric tight, and shook him.
"Rael! Rael, look at me!" she demanded, her voice shrill with panic.
Rael mumbled a confused "Huh?", his head lolling slightly before he shook it violently, trying to clear the magical daze. His golden eyes, bleary and unfocused, finally locked onto Delores. He blinked, the sheer terror radiating from her small frame cutting through his exhaustion like a knife. He looked past her, taking in Barin's grim, battle-ready stance and Bastian's severe expression.
He scrambled to push himself back up, leaning heavily on his staff for support. "Baroness… what is it? What has happened?"
Delores didn't hesitate. The words poured out of her in a frantic rush—The Ram, the planned attack before dawn, the encroaching army from Metevarn, the impossible timeline.
With every word, Rael's golden eyes widened further. The exhaustion seemed to drain from him, replaced by a cold, rigid horror. When she finished, he was shaking, his knuckles white around the gnarled wood of his staff.
"Not Amiri," he muttered, the words a jagged, breathless whisper. "Not her."
He looked down at his hands, then at the staff, his expression a mix of desperate hope and profound uncertainty. "I… in theory, the spatial matrices are aligned. With the expanded capacity this staff affords me, there is a chance. A very small chance. But after everything; the attunement, the distance, I am unsure if I can hold the anchor point long enough to move all of us."
Before Delores could demand he try anyway, a whisper echoed in her mind. It was cool, elegant, and laced with an uncharacteristic hesitation.
"Delores… you should see this."
In the next instant, her reality fractured.
Delores was still standing in the cavern, her hands gripping Rael's robes, looking up into his fearful face. But simultaneously, superimposed over the physical world, a terrifying scene violently exploded into her mind's eye. She was seeing through Valerie's scrying font, but the connection was raw and utterly chaotic.
"Oh no," Delores whispered aloud, her physical voice trembling.
Rael furrowed his brow, stepping back slightly. "Baroness? Why… why is your left eye glowing?" he asked, his voice tight. "It's swirling green and purple."
Delores ignored him. She was paralyzed, her body shaking violently as the horrific vision played out in her head.
It was madness. A massive, swirling throng of violence. Men in the dark, uniform armor of Metevarn were clashing brutally with ragged bandits wielding crude weapons. They were hacking each other to pieces in the muddy yard of the homestead, the air thick with screams and the clang of steel. It was a slaughter.
The viewpoint panned wildly, as if Valerie herself was struggling to track the chaos.
Delores watched, her heart shattering, as the vision swept past Amiri's beautiful new log cabin. It was entirely engulfed in roaring flames, the roof already collapsing inward. The view jerked again, settling on the north pasture. The meticulously laid foundations of their grand town hall—the symbol of their future—were smashed and broken, trampled beneath hundreds of heavy boots. And beyond that, Oleg's sturdy, familiar home was burning, thick black smoke billowing into the pre-dawn sky.
Where are they? Where is everyone? Delores yelled internally, the panic threatening to consume her.
As if answering her plea, a deafening, unnatural roar shook the vision. The perspective snapped towards the large barn, set slightly away from the burning main house.
There, holding the line before the barn doors, was Ozin.
He was monstrous. The flame leopard was now half the size of a warhorse. He was swiping massive, blazing claws, sending armored soldiers and screaming bandits flying backward, their flesh and armor scorching where he struck. He was covered in soot, and dark, charred streaks marred his golden pelt—the burnt blood and flesh of those he had already destroyed. He was holding the line, but there were so many of them.
Through the chaos, behind Ozin's massive form, Delores caught a fleeting glimpse inside the barn's shadowy interior. She saw Amiri. The warrior woman was standing defensively at the back of the barn, her sword drawn, holding Thorn and Rose behind her. Amiri was covered in small cuts, her face streaked with soot and sweat, but her stance was unyielding.
The vision abruptly shifted, leaving Delores gasping for air in the dim light of Bastian's cavern.
She didn't hesitate. She lunged forward, grabbing Rael by the shoulders of his heavy robes. Using all her newfound strength, she hauled the tall tiefling down until he was forced to bend at the waist, bringing his golden eyes level with her own.
"Rael," she said, her voice dropping to a low, deadly, pleading whisper that left no room for doubt or failure. "Get us home. Now."
Rael looked into Delores's eye—one still swirling with that terrifying, alien light—and saw the absolute desperation there. He gave a single, jerky nod.
"Everyone, grab hold," he croaked, his voice raw.
He straightened up, his movements stiff. Barin, uncharacteristically quiet, immediately clamped a massive, gauntleted hand onto Rael's left shoulder. Bastian, his expression unreadable, placed a slender hand on the right. Delores refused to let go, her fists maintaining their death grip on the thick fabric of Rael's robes near his waist, her knuckles white.
Rael closed his eyes and let out a long, slow breath that seemed to rattle in his chest. He gripped the gnarled staff with both hands, planting its base firmly on the stone floor. Delores didn't blink. The vision, overlaid on the cavern around her, remained terrifyingly sharp. The perspective had shifted slightly, hovering just outside the open barn doors, looking out into the chaos of the yard.
A low, deep thrumming started to vibrate through the cavern floor, traveling up through Delores's boots. It was a physical pressure, the very air beginning to warp and resist as Rael forced an impossible amount of magic through his mortal frame and the wooden conduit. Through the chaotic vision, a figure broke through the throng of fighting men somewhere out in front of the barn. Delores let out a sharp gasp of relief. It was Oleg.
He was a whirlwind of practiced violence, moving with a martial grace that defied his age. His hardened leather armor was slick with blood—some his own, most not—and his sword was a blur as he expertly hacked through a cluster of bandits trying to push their way inside. He looked magnificent, but as the vision lingered, Delores saw the heavy, exhausted slump of his shoulders between swings, the slight tremble in his legs. He was fighting a desperate holding action, and he was fading. He had managed to force Ozin inside the barn to protect the others, but now he was taking the brunt of the assault alone.
Hold on, Oleg. Just hold on, she pleaded silently.
The vibration around them grew louder, shifting from a thrum to a high-pitched, teeth-aching whine. The edges of Barin, Bastian, and Rael began to blur, their forms losing cohesion as the spatial magic strained to encompass them all.
"What's happenin', lass?" Barin demanded, his voice sounding distant and distorted over the mounting magical noise. "What do ye see?"
Delores couldn't answer. Her jaw was clenched so tight her teeth ached. Her vision had smoothly drifted behind Oleg, following him as he fought his way backward towards the barn entrance.
The scene inside made her blood run cold.
Ozin was backed into the middle of the barn holding off a fresh wave of bandits that had managed to slip past Oleg. In the far corner, Amiri was kneeling, her body shielding Rose and Thorn, her sword raised defensively. But what drew Delores's attention was in the center of the barn.
The Ram and Ozin had been circling each other, but as the new bandits engaged the leopard, The Ram backed away. The massive half-giant lowered his brutal, studded mace with a sickeningly wicked grin spreading across his scarred face as Ozin was forced to turn his back to deal with the immediate threat of the bandits' blades.
The Ram took his new opportunity and raised his mace high, stepping forward to deliver a crushing blow to the distracted flame leopard's spine.
"RAEL!" Delores screamed, yanking violently on his robes. "HURRY UP!"
Rael didn't open his eyes, but a thin trail of dark blood began to leak from his left nostril, tracing a line down his lips. His hands trembled violently on the staff. "Almost…" he growled out, the word sounding like it was torn from his throat. Another trickle of blood appeared, this time seeping from his ear.
The magic screaming around them reached a deafening crescendo, the air cracking with erratic sparks of green and gold energy. Delores watched in paralyzed horror as the vision showed The Ram stepping a single leg back for the full force swing onto Ozin. And in the background, she saw Oleg finally dispatch the last bandit in his path, turning towards the barn doors and seeing the exact same thing.
The vision in Delores's mind slowed, every horrific detail etching itself into her consciousness. The Ram's mace arced downward, a brutal blur of iron and wood aimed at Ozin's spine. But then, a blur of motion cut across her vision. Oleg. He moved with a desperate, reckless speed that defied his age and his exhaustion. In the fraction of a second it took for the mace to descend, the old homesteader threw himself between the bandit leader and the oblivious flame leopard.
Delores let out a raw, tearing screech of horror that echoed simultaneously in the cavern and in her own mind.
She watched, paralyzed, as the massive, studded head of the mace slammed down into the crook of Oleg's neck and shoulder. The sound was a sickening, wet crunch that seemed louder than the battle raging around them. The visual link began to destabilize, the edges fraying into static, but the core image remained painfully sharp. Ozin, alerted by the impact, spun around, his fiery pelt flaring. The flame leopard's green eyes widened as he witnessed Oleg spit a horrific amount of blood, the old man's legs instantly giving out as he collapsed to the dirt floor.
A roar of absolute, unbridled fury erupted from Ozin. The leopard's flames turned a blinding, white-hot intensity as he launched himself entirely at The Ram. He descended upon the half-giant like a vengeful star. Delores saw the flash of teeth and claws, the spray of dark blood painting the barn walls. And beneath the carnage, as the connection finally began to fail, the last thing Delores saw was Oleg. He lay crumpled on the ground, but as he looked towards the corner where Amiri shielded the children, a faint, bloody smile touched his lips. The last he would know was their saftey.
The vision snapped to black, leaving Delores gasping, nausea twisting violently in her stomach.
Simultaneously, the magical pressure in Bastian's lair reached a breaking point. Rael threw his head back and let out a sustained, agonized bellow, blood now streaming freely from his nose and ears. The high-pitched whine of the spell stopped instantly.
"What happ—" Barin started to ask, but the words were stolen from his mouth.
Reality tore open.
They were ripped from the cool, ancient air of the dragon's hoard and thrown violently across the continent. There was no sensation of movement, only a brutal, crushing pressure followed by a sudden, jarring impact.
Delores hit the ground hard, rolling uncontrollably before coming to a halt. Her senses were immediately assaulted. The first thing that hit her was the smell—an overwhelming, coppery stench of blood and death, mixed with the acrid, choking smoke of burning wood. She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, coughing. The homestead was unrecognizable.
It was eerily, terrifyingly quiet. The roar of battle had ceased. She looked around, her heart turning to ice. The ground was littered with the bodies of bandits in crude leather and soldiers in the dark armor of Metevarn. They lay twisted and broken in the mud. To her left, Oleg's familiar farmhouse was fully engulfed in flames, the roof already caved in. To her right, the newly built frame of the town hall lay in splintered ruin.
"The barn!" Delores shouted, her voice hoarse, scrambling to her feet. "Go to the barn! NOW!"
She didn't wait to see if they followed. She sprinted toward the only structure still standing, her short legs pumping as she navigated the grotesque obstacle course of the dead. She stumbled over a fallen soldier, nearly losing her footing, her breath coming in ragged sobs. Please, no. Please let it be wrong. But she knew, deep in the core of her being, that the vision hadn't lied. It was beyond too late.
She reached the open barn doors, wiping furiously at the warm tears streaming down her soot-stained cheeks.
The interior was a slaughterhouse. Bodies were piled near the entrance, and the walls were scorched and slick with gore. In the center of the carnage stood Ozin. The flame leopard was a terrifying sight, his golden pelt matted with dark, burned blood. He stood over the mutilated, barely recognizable remains of The Ram.
Ozin looked up as Delores entered. His green eyes met hers, and the primal fury within them instantly melted away, replaced by a profound, unmistakable hurt. The magnificent beast let out a low, mournful whine and quickly looked away, dropping his head in shame.
Delores felt her breath catch. Trembling, she dragged her gaze past the leopard to the crumpled form lying in the dirt near the stalls. It was Oleg. His eyes were still open, glazed and staring sightlessly at the barn's wooden rafters. The faint, bloody smile she had seen in the vision was still etched on his face, frozen in his final moment of relief. He would never blink again.
Behind her, she heard the heavy, stumbling footsteps of the others arriving. Rael limped into the barn, leaning heavily on his staff and clutching the dagger Amiri gave him, panting. "Where… where is the army?" he muttered, scanning the interior before his golden eyes locked onto the corner. He let out a massive, shuddering sigh of relief as his gaze met Amiri's. The warrior was battered, bleeding from a dozen small cuts, but she was alive, her arms wrapped tightly around the terrified forms of Thorn and Rose.
Delores didn't look at them. She moved shakily towards Oleg, her legs feeling like lead. Bastian and Barin trailed behind her, their weapons drawn, eyes scanning the shadows for any lingering threats.
She fell to her knees beside the old farmer. The tears flowed freely now, hot and unstoppable, cutting tracks through the grime on her face. As she looked down at the man who had offered her a warm hearth and a chance at a real home, the harsh reality of her choices set in. Something deep within her chest began to fracture. Whether it was her heart breaking, or her sanity finally cracking under the weight of her failure, she didn't know. And at that moment, she didn't care.
"Baroness..." Barin started, his gruff voice uncharacteristically soft, reaching out a hesitant hand.
Delores cut him off without looking up, raising a single, trembling hand. The gesture was absolute. Barin fell silent.
She reached out, her fingers gently brushing over Oleg's face, and carefully, reverently, closed his eyes.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered into the quiet, blood-soaked barn. "I'm so sorry I did this to you."
The only answer was the distant crackle of the burning farmhouse, and then, the distinct, heavy sound of an armored boot stepping onto the wooden floorboards just outside the barn doors. Someone new had arrived.