In the foreboding, empty woods...
Kevin accepts the kind offer of getting to take a look at this Mantra thing, taking the scroll and unfurling it in a businesslike fashion, making his smartest face as he examines the writing on it. It doesn't seem to be in any language he's familiar in, or even that any human being would be familiar with. In addition, it also appears to display the perfectly commonplace magical effect of shifting about as Kevin looks at it, seemingly trying to escape his gaze.
"Man, they made magical artifacts out of EVERYTHING back in the day, eh?" he says.
"They did! Apparently! But yes, the Mantra will grant you powers, and raise you high above the rest, if you would only let me attune it to you with one or two of your personal effects! It works - I myself have used it, and I now know things no girl was ever meant to know!" the woman tells him quickly, poking the Mantra with her finger indicatively.
Outside the ruins of Eckledun...
Scott freely scorns the excitable badger in front of him and goes off to seek more enlightened company within Eckledun, floating up high above the town to watch for wizards, desks or anything else that is likely to lead him to yet another strange conversation about what's been happening here.
From this height, Scott is vaguely aware of a suspiciously large amount of splattered remains littering Eckledun, especially the roofs of the sturdy buildings. Smashed, crushed, twisted and otherwise destroyed human beings appear to be quite the common sight, and among them sometimes walk things that... appear somewhat human, and that is as far as he's about to go with his assessment. Mages, cunning sorts that they are, seem to be nowhere in sight, aside from one fellow who appears to have been inadvertently impaled on a giant pink spike. Scott floats up to him and relates his subterranean heroics, and so amazed is the mage that his mouth slowly opens up.
"<##$!!$%%!!>" an alien voice issues from its mouth in a tone of slightly varying, hissing noise. Doesn't seem like a right helpful person, really. Maybe it's the impalement that's the problem?
In an endless alley...
Most alarmed, Morton descends over to good mage Wilma, hoping to figure out some way out of this utterly inescapable deathtrap.
"Ohdearohdearohdearohdearohdearohdear--Good mage Wilma, assistance is required!"
"Oh dear," Wilma echoes worriedly. "Impending doom, is it?"
"This is not as it appears, not as it presents itself, a play, an act I do believe! The ends go on and on and the buildings are fake, the windows are merely painted the further above I went. There is nothing around us except for below, which has something rising to meet us!" Morton frantically explains, gesturing at Mark to get over here post-haste!
"Something?" Wilma parrots, capturing the ominous tone almost perfectly to the point of shivering at the mention again.
"We must hurry and leave soon before what's down there rises to meet us, there must be some path out of here. Continuing might get us out, but from above I saw no end to either side. Hm... The windows, perhaps? Oh, but the buildings aren't real..." Morton thinks aloud, floating up to a window to see if there's anything that can be seen through the boards. The answer, as it turns out, is yes - Morton can't quite say what, but he does believe he sees something on the other side, just beyond the boards. Though this something, ineffable as it is, appears to be slowly moving away.
Mark, meanwhile, has sprinted on back, an inquiring look on his face. Wilma, who seems to be scratching and knocking at the walls to check for... who knows what, looks at him and starts to explain.
"The alley is fake and infinite! And we're about to be flooded with something!" she says with urgency, then resumes her checking of the wall. Mark notices, oddly enough, that her scratching appears to be dislodging significant chips of what he would have previously thought to be solid brick. "This wall seems... crumbly?" she notes, looking at her two companions, then pokes the wall with two fingers, only for her hand to go right through. "Uh... well?" she starts to say, and suddenly yelps as she is pulled toward the wall, sucked into it up to her armpit, and quickly sinking deeper. "Help!" she screams.
In the plains of the surface...
Relieved at the lack of smiting that has happened, Darren decides to bid the fair femmes of the underground a fond farewell, heading back into town and going down the hatch and the tunnel to find himself in the home of Karina, who greets him fondly.
"Hey, you're back. Have you found what you were looking for?" she asks with a gentle smile, then becomes a little serious. "You... seem different, somehow. You are who you were, right? Please be who you were, okay?"
She appears to become uneasy looking at you.
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Topic: Life Begins At Death - Epilogue: We Live And Live Again (Read 562000 times)