Epilogue
We Live And Live Again
After a great deal of time and effort...
All stories must end eventually, and it only befits this story that this end be unnaturally extended into the far future, well past its time and appropriate context. In this sense, the story is much like a man who is turned into a zombie butler against his will, and then proceeds to attain his true form, which is that of a colorful writing desk. In the end, you can only begin to wonder how it all could have ended up like this.
Speaking of, how does it end up? Does it end at all? Was all of this for nothing? This, as you might possibly have expected, depends on forces outside the immediate control of the poor undead pressed into the service of a not-quite-demon. Before that, however, let us figure out their odds of short-term survival.
First of all, poor Sigmund, trapped in a battle with a horrible monster hidden inside the tower's improbably tall chimney, its hair like razors made of steel, its size prodigious, its intentions unmistakably malevolent, its tendrils very securely wrapped around Sigmund's phylactery. Can he make it out of this terrible situation? Can he apply his amazing and unique magical skills to overcome his immense adversary?
[Sigmund vs. Boris the Bear: 1 vs. 2]
[Sigmund's survival roll: 1]
Perhaps unsurprisingly he cannot, and much like anyone else within the mage tower within the course of the next day (and, for that matter, the next couple of nearby population centers over the next couple of weeks), Sigmund's first encounter with a bear of the far north also proves to be his last as his magical visceral remains are digested into nothingness over the course of the next century or so. Northern bears waste not, and yet they want always. It is a curious fact of ecology, and one that makes the Northern bear a particularly invasive pest in other continents. Sigmund's remaining unlife experience is marked by several minute-long blind attempts at unraveling the knots of the bear's existence which alternate with the next digestion cycle that brings roughly a week of concentrated, insensible torment, until at last he ceases to feel and know, and his soul is finally released.
[Boris' swath of blood and sheddings roll: 6]
Several dozen hunting parties were organized as Boris went on to look for the North in his own way, each week marked with new adventures and intriguing changes in his physiology that, while strange, ultimately made him better adapted to his perplexing environment as he harnessed the natural forces of pink, hair and many more sinister ones besides to render himself unto paragon beardom, becoming to his own kind what he used to be to a regular ursine specimen. He was pursued for all of his days by the Black Circle of Magic, who were intrigued by the secrets held within his flesh. Their efforts were ultimately in vain, and when Boris the bear left this mortal world, he did it of his own accord, and the place where he is presumed to have finally ripped a hole into reality with nothing but his teeth is a place of interest to this very day to many students of the subtle art of world-breaking.
In no less precarious a position is Kevin, trapped in a land of pink gone wild, occupying a violation of the laws of the universe, his only recourse being yet more violation of the laws of the universe. But will this lead him deeper in, or further out? And what of his unwilling companion, one Evelyn Greene, trapped along with him with only the slimmest of hopes of escape, with death lurking around every impossible fold of this damnable pink atoll?
[Kevin's lucky escape roll: 6]
[Evelyn's lucky escape roll: 5]
As one would expect, the path out is an exponential exercise in distraction, iterative explorations of the pink, a path fraught with inexplicable peril and also cabbage. His path takes him along the peaks of impossibility, the very depths of eldritch depravity, the heads of many a pin, and the rants of many an incongruous gardener encrypted in seemingly pink noise, his only companion a neverending stream of vaguely educational verbal abuse from the distinctly unfriendly mage sharing his fate. How long this carried on, none can truly say, for time is among the first things to fray into impossibility, flimsy thread of causality that it always has been.
The pink is ultimately unknowable by the very principle of its formation, and plainly hostile to all attempts at reason. Thus escape is invariably a matter of blind luck. Unfortunately for the two inadvertent explorers, neither possessed much of that to begin with. To spite fate itself, a different method had to be developed. Kevin had proven himself disturbingly willing and unsettlingly well-attuned to the mass destruction caused by someone misapplying their first experience in magic usage. Seeing no use in trying to teach him differently, Evelyn steered him along the path of ascension through awe, the way of the Red Tower, the harnessing of the power of will to rewrite reality, for what is reality if not a cradle for the soul to flourish in? Weaving together the powers of metamagic and nurtured obsession, a power, however humble, was eventually awakened within the ex-jester, and this power proved to be their ultimate salvation. More so for Evelyn, naturally, if only because of a keen sense for opportunity. Seeing an instant of potential escape, she forced her way out through the very walls of her impossible prison, enforcing momentary order on its all-consuming chaos, a rare instant of non-fatal pink magic. She found herself in the heartlands of the Black Circle, her sense of universal coordinates having guided her entirely correctly.
[Evelyn's future roll: 5]
And as it is with anyone with secrets of worth and value, she found herself in a perfect position to attain her original ambition - to enter the Black Circle, and ascend through its ranks. It was not difficult to get the attention of the Red Tower after her own experiences tutoring people in world-breaking, and in not too long she found herself among the ranks of the Greater Mentors, a teacher in the truest sense of the word, part of the vaunted bleeding edge of magical application. Though not fated to be a rewriter of reality itself, she was made perpetual in the tradition of all indispensable minions, and like most truly indispensable minions eventually outgrew the Mistress of Shapers in relevance to mortal affairs as the latter grew increasingly estranged from the laws of gods and man.
Kevin, following shortly afterward, was less fortunate, the chaos of the dimension making him veer down and down, deep into the earth, in a realm not entirely unlike the one he just left... but unchanging, relatively predictable, and filled with people only slightly less incomprehensible than he was used to at this point. The underground realms of the pink, lost empires of old claimed by great cataclysms of magic, hidden in the deep dark corners of the earth. It was a refreshingly sensible place to be.
[Kevin's future roll: 2]
It is not easy to be perpetually trailed by cabbage as a general rule, but Kevin found a decent enough niche for himself to occupy in time, becoming what he supposed to be either a minor fertility idol among the people of the underground or just a general sort of tourist attraction, accompanied by bursts of pink noise uttered in recognition wherever he dared venture. The buildup of anomalous occurrence was mostly an inconvenience, but one that he could eventually come to terms with and manage by continuing to move at all times, a hobo oddity in these forgotten underground streets, and eventually an unwilling jester of renown as his alien antics went into vogue among humorist circles of the lost cities. In the end, a comfortable enough unlife, and one that he eventually had few regrets leaving behind.
Of the others, Scott was perhaps freer than most. But insanity can become a prison all on its own, as one can surmise from his decision to make his displeasure known to the anomaly that he had nearly escaped.
[Scott's screaming, burning roll: 6]
And known it indeed was, not just to the anomaly, but to roughly fifteen miles of territory around it as well, in terms just as certain as the annihilation that followed them. The area remaining has been described by scholars as a place to behold, silent as death itself, definite as the moon, a place where sensible life fears to tread to this very day, and an occurrence that was claimed as a resounding success by the one member of the contingent of Black Circle representatives who due to pressing business at the Tower of Master Dog happened to avoid both being vaporized and being eaten by a bear. He now oversees the reconstruction of Blynn.
[Scott's future roll: 4]
As for Scott himself, he went on to provide the folkloric basis for the yaleson, a popularly known spirit of misery, revenge and torment blamed for enormous conflagrations and incidents of mass hysteria, usually thought to be mostly shapeless or at least not recognizably human in any sense apart from its voice. Expert investigations into the more overtly supernatural events linked to yaleson activity have turned up intriguingly positive results, and among the most fantastic accounts is that of one necromancer who claims to have spoken to a disfigured, melted apparition that had been terrorizing the townsfolk of Shriekpot for years. It seemed to identify by the name of Tom Yaleson, and in between barely understandable rants on some form of perceived slight the mage says she could identify repeated references to some kind of Father, which to her seemed to imply a strange genealogy of ghosts - an idea that was deemed questionable at the time even if as the legend gained steam reports of oddly formulaic yaleson incidents began to spread through many of the nations near the Sea of Death.
And then there is the matter of the wayward gang in the Realm of Narrow Escapes, noble desk Morton, good surgeon Mark and unfortunate necromancer Wilma Wilkins as they sought their way out of this strange and perplexing place.
[Morton's escape roll: 3]
[Wilma's escape roll: 6]
Both Morton and Wilma, still trapped in the metal-strewn void, soon found themselves recipients of the attention of the colossal salamander as Morton tried resolutely to patch his poor associate up so as to avoid her bleeding to death in a place so very far away from anything she has ever known. As the planet-sized creature swam close to the two travelers and they heard its voice, they could only tremble at first... well, until it turned out this was all something of a misunderstanding.
It turned out the salamander was, in fact, the Demon of Narrow Escapes, the most powerful mulligan in the known universe, and that it apparently had a whole set piece planned here. It was the classic "enslaved by mysterious aliens" bit, that one never fails to impress! But then these two and the other guy trashed the whole thing as well as two of his fish-ship-things. There's a whole planet he had planned they never got to see! Right over there, actually, the demon pointed off into the distance with one webbed claw.
Morton took the time to try and apologize to the beleaguered extraplanar entity, but it seemed to be no use. The creature was resolute in that the whole thing was ruined now. Best to just send these two on their way. So a quick and dirty deal was drafted up and, with some negotiation, Morton was able to secure his release in return for another narrow escape some time in the distant future (he was unsure how this constituted a gain for the demon, but apparently it was a big fan of making up losses through volume), while Wilma got the standard deal of restoration of any injuries suffered as well as unlimited future narrow escapes for the low, low price of her soul. That done, the demon sent the two on their way through an impromptu portal, and Morton and Wilma found themselves walking away from the town of Eckledun at a cool and leisurely pace as the whole thing was suddenly and extremely brightly vaporized, resisting the urge to look back (apparently this was a contract stipulation with the demon) as their shadows grew long and thunder resounded in their auditory organs.
[Morton's future roll: 5]
[Wilma's future roll: 3]
At the end of this adventure, however, good mage Wilma had had quite enough of adventures for one lifetime, instead opting to retire to her family farm and continue to make a modest living as an exorcist, mother of five and local wise woman just as she did before her encounter with one Mark MeatWagon (she decided not to let her family or friends know about the whole Demon of Narrow Escapes bit). Morton, ever the gentleman, saw her off to safety and, after serving up another legendary set of tea for the woman's trouble to both her and her family and sincerely apologizing for all the trouble caused, set off to locate the rest of his associates, wherever they may have wound up, wandering far and wide across the world to get the gang back together. In this he found purpose, and also application for his emerging talents of demonology and enchantment, crossing boundaries many others seldom even conceived in the service of all the friends he had already made, and many more he would make along the years...
[Mark's escape roll: 2]
Mark, meanwhile, did not quite manage to enjoy a narrow escape. Or, rather, it turned out considerably more protracted than expected. The Demon of Narrow Escapes was not at all fibbing about its level of prep, it turns out. There were quite a few planets in here indeed, some half-finished, some more like stages upon which to set great tragedies, some barren yet orbited by a great deal of intriguing satellites. He has the misfortune to get caught in the gravitational well of one, actually, and so his flight was... delayed, shall we say, as he found himself on a primal world of demonic figments who had yet to discover the art of stone tools, let alone fire or anything more complicated than that.
[Mark's future roll: 4]
And admittedly it did take some time to figure out how to leverage his skills at... medicine... to get him out of this mess. But demonflesh proved a rewarding mistress in a few years of practice, and the savage brutality of the jungle-filled world of eternal night he landed on proved very much in line with his own aims as he would go about harpooning the great worms of the black oceans, netting the one thousand and one nectarivorous hummingbirds of the deep jungles and harvesting the sinew of a hundred great beasts, renewing his body to the point where it ceased to resemble anything slightly humanoid, a creature of hands and joints and integral blades and many, many, many useful devices. Lashing together the harvest of a good decade of work, the humming winged worm rose from the planet and took off for the void, Mark nestling in its stomach as he made a beeline for the portal that would lead out of this strange space he found himself in (as his astrological expertise gleaned on the roughly one hour of break time he allowed per week of nonstop work right after the mandatory twelve hours of partying). And with timing that impressed the demon in charge of the realm he found his way out, finding himself in regular, far more airless space above the world he used to know, looking so very new, so full of interesting flesh...
Of course, re-entry is far more of a concern in a world where regular physics hold more sway, as Mark would soon discover as his laboriously built spaceworm started coming apart on hitting atmosphere, wings coming off and flitting through the atmosphere, flesh burning and peeling like impromptu ablative heat shielding, auxiliary layers kicking into gear, new wings emerging as the air grew thick again and the worm struggled to correct course, trying to level out its trajectory, though only to limited success. The impact was a thing he had underestimated, honestly, the forces tearing his mount and himself nearly to shreds, the phenomenon observed by shamans and astronomers alike, dubbed the Black Rain by future generations as pieces of the great Demon of Narrow Escapes embedded themselves into soil, plants and folk alike, leaving blasted heaths, darkened forests of thick and twisting trees infested with much the same form of hummingbird and vicious insect as Mark left in the realm of the demon, and even the occasional hatchling of the great black worm still viable from the remains of the corpse that Mark used for his mount.
In the middle of the falling rain was Mark, home again, yet far from anything he had known, broken by his fall, most of his instruments snapped and burnt, few bones still intact as his will held his soul in his corpse for some time yet. He edged slowly across the shrubland for the better part of an hour, looking for materials to add to himself, when he felt the touch of a familiar tendril on the remains of one of his bladed hands. Here waited Morton, a perfect picture of what he was at the time of their parting, ready to help, willing to serve his old associate once more. He had made certain arrangements, he informed the good surgeon, and they should have him in good shape in no time, no time at all...
[Art's future roll: 4]
[Justine's future roll: 5]
The desk had been hard at work collecting the rest of his associates across the past decade, one of the first among which had been good mage Justine, the ghostly diviner's information having proven extraordinarily useful in locating the others and assessing their best time for retrieval. Morton could recount quite a few adventures to good surgeon Mark as they proceeded through a conveniently made portal (a quick diversion through the realm of the Demon of Fear, ever a helpful chap, far less traceable than mere teleportation and far less dependent on unreliable beacons at that). For one, the recovery of good mage Art from the clutches of the twisted gnomes, one of his earlier exploits - one that did involve traversing a great length of underground tunnels, admittedly - turned out the strange fellows had a whole highway system underneath the Sea of Death, in fact! Including a colony right underneath Horizon Isle, as it turned out. Fortunately poor Art was in quite a good shape when they found him at last (well, not an unrecoverable one, at least). Quite the chilling tales he had, in fact, and you'd best ask the fellow or, well, madam, it's not quite clear so much anymore, you'd best ask them in any case - when Mark visits the Fifty Fiefs next, he might want to visit Art at the Crystal Palace (turns out soulbinding makes for useful, if unwilling associates in rule if applied in a sufficiently clandestine fashion), actually, it's rather a nice place at this time of year. Good mage Justine might be more difficult to find, however. She does like her privacy, to the point where Morton himself needs to put on his A-game in tea preparation to get her to even show herself these days. Diviners can be the squirreliest of mages, Morton would freely confide, but she seemed to have come to terms with deathlessness when last they met a year or so ago, and seems to have undertaken a quest for omniscience in the meantime, to some success if her tendency to fortuitously appear is any indication.
[Craig's future roll: 6]
[Erin's future roll: 6]
[The Captain's future roll: 5]
[The Gub's domination roll: 5]
Come to think of it, a lot of his fine associates have undertaken quests of their own. Morton had, in fact, helped with most of these. For instance, he did bring a few enterprising transmuters back to the Free City of Gub, as had been agreed beforehand, and a few others beside that, and the gub did seem inclined to deal fairly in releasing its favorite mage, Erin, from her servitude as the remaker of its cities, and left her brimming with memories of the wonders she had wrought with the alien mind at its back. It left her feeling strangely... accomplished in her own way. And though she had received a measure of freedom from her release, she did feel rather intrigued by the alternative possibilities. And so she stood before the gub, her mind open, her eyes turning to the moon, the object of her childhood dreams and later fancies alike.
Where some would turn away, she wished to strike a deal. And where a deal was to be struck, one Tailor Craig, displaced by the power of pink and found again, perplexingly enough, having reappeared in the Free City of Gub, was more than willing to assist. There were a multitude of creatures he knew of that could provide, among other things, quite a good deal of reach. But a connection could be forged over a long distance, and a new city would be made high up in the sky, beyond the reach of Circles and Towers, where only gub could rule, and its great architect let her fantasies run wild. Soon the Free City, a test bed envisioned and sponsored by the Black Circle of Magic from its very inception, grew far beyond their expectations, and far from where they expected. Some say there was water on the moon before the gub left the sea of their birth and took to the skies, but none can dispute the fact now, Morton relates to his associate, pointing up at the waxing moon with a tendril, its light side dotted with large lakes and filling volcanic seas, its dark side crisscrossed with mysterious bright lights as the satellite looks down upon the earth, a watchful ever-present eye to accompany the unyielding hand that the former city of Mothdale remains even today, a hundred channels like questing tentacles extending every way from it, carrying exotic goods and magic hardly ever seen before from on high.
Oh! And even the good CAPTAIN was found. The Artiste had obtained him a NEW ship, a talkative if, as Morton found out when it repeated his own backstory as he had related to it some time ago right back at him, entirely unintelligent thing, his LEGION OF GHOSTS and the permission of the gub having proven extraordinarily useful in crossing to Horizon Isle. It was slightly embarrassing, truth be told, to COME UPON the fellow by complete accident while recovering good mage Art, but you do know what they say about happy accidents. The captain seemed overall satisfied with his lot in unlife, truth be told, having never sailed much of the Sea of Death, but he did admit that the HORRIBLE YAMMERING of the ship bothered him a little, at which point Tailor Craig, ALWAYS HELPFUL, offered it a makeover. The ship, accustomed to pleasantries, agreed unthinkingly, and as an enormous portal was drawn up it was sent on a voyage through that MOST FABULOUS of dimensions, and the result was REALLY QUITE SPECTACULAR. The ship, which the captain rechristened SHANK THE THIRD, was a fractal structure of lightning and ice and scintillating color underlaid by steel and silver, and oh how it would SING as the spirits of the dead howled through it! 'Twas a barge to truly behold, and one that would carry them to the City of Dreams itself and back soon enough, and ply the route between earth and moon and many places beyond in the days to come.
But yes, the City of Dreams. The destination of the Artiste - it was a reasonable enough place to look for him when the rest were found (with the exception of Sigmund, who had been unfortunately eaten by a nascent bear god, and Kevin, who they only found the preceding year due to pink interference). And what did they find?
[The Artiste's master plan roll: 2]
Ultimately, the man had disappeared, though they did search far and wide, as had the Lord of Dreams, whose permission was required to leave. The only one remaining and holding the long dream together, paradoxically enough, was none other than Bernie von Glautzenheiser, a soulless, persistent figment dreamed by his now-dead minion Mike Schuler. This Bernie, however, significantly predated the ones that knew anything of Morton or indeed any of his associates, instead wondering about wholly different ghosts and other minions. Another marked difference, as it happens, was that this Bernie had managed to acquire and graft to himself a hand of a dead demon - the Demon of Hate, dramatically destroyed by Velusius some months ago for insubordination. He could say little more (and even that only after a great deal of cajoling, promises and bribery, being even more irritable by nature than the Bernie they recalled) than that the Artiste had woken up the sleeping demon at the core of the dream, and then left all known realms). "Probably for the best we never found out more," Bernie did say to them, "whatever garbage the bastard was interested in, it sounded really goddamn bureaucratic. All 'regulations' this and 'logs' that."
Rather unfortunately, it did seem the Artiste had neglected to set free the souls of his associates in the process, perhaps assuming that they were already either dead or lost forever, or saving them for a different, later purpose. None has thus far materialized, however.
[Figment Bernie's future roll: 4]
The road back was perhaps not terribly perilous, as Bernie seemed more than willing to "blow this fucking dump of a realm already" and return (or, really arrive for the first time) to the world of mortals. And by leveraging the leftover privileges of a demon, the demonology knowledge of both good Tailor Craig and Morton, the helpful insights of Justine, the supernatural ship of the Captain and his crew and even the moral support of Art, who had come along out of a sense of obligation, the crew all managed to return from the City of Dreams, which collapsed in the wake of Bernie's exit, for his power had been the only thing keeping the thing going.
At this point Bernie decided to show absolutely no gratitude for being rescued from the degenerating realm in characteristic fashion, and went "welp, see you fuckers in the next life", seemingly intent on recovering his old minions and catching up on his figment memories as interpreted by his dreamer, sustained by demonic contempt as he made his way throughout the land as well.
[The Aspect of Greed's boundless ambition roll: 2]
Amazingly enough, he wasn't even he only one. The Aspect of Greed had actually taken direct control of the Fifty Fiefs of Farning-Fenton and managed to keep a rather iron grip on the region, its two mortal avatars of the king and his Northern armchair mystic establishing a strange dictatorship over the lands, employing necromancers (such as good mage Art, eventually) to administer the lands and streamline the acquisition of souls. By all accounts life there is... strangely exciting, the optimization of soul enrichment with experience being the highest priority of the reigning magocracy. Oddly enough, the realm seems to have no ambition of expanding outward, despite the way it totally could with two demonic avatars ruling over it. Perhaps it is the warding influence of the gods, or maybe a more sinister agreement? Morton couldn't really say, and Justine maintained that it is best not to inquire too deeply.
[The Black Circle of Magic's good fortune roll: 2]
[Master Dog's prestige roll: 2]
[Whip Man's future roll: 4]
As one can guess from the outbreak of pink havoc, demonic rains, magical kingdoms and the rising power of the gub and other magical incidents Morton decides not to get into, recent history has not been overly kind to the Black Circle of Magic's political ambitions, as it were, and the mages have been slowly turning inward, feeling their power wane with the ascendancy of other magical realms in the world. Their research has become increasingly arcane, and though none know more about the practice and application of magic, their golden age of geometrically increasing power has been clearly at an end, with lesser Towers such as those of Master Dog and his right-hand murderer Colin Burmont, the Whip Man, suffering particularly as their expansion was stifled in its infancy, which eventually led to the Whip Man's dismissal from the Tower's service as the need for both monster-killers and mage-killers lowered and the artifacts the Circle once so freely doled out to its retainers became ever more jealously guarded.
The Whip Man himself, proactive fellow that he is, decided that now would be the time to hone his talents on gnome genocide, and went into the underground. This coincided with the collapse of many gnome colonies, but also the emergence of several gnome champions, subterranean horrors to a one, each possessing a part of the great killer that they personally had lopped off the hunter in cataclysmic battles for survival and grafted to themselves in order to claim a part of his power. A scant few of these are flesh - some are made of spiders, some of strange cubes, some of warped and animate wood, some of living stone, some are congealed pink and many more are almost too horrible to contemplate and all in all by Justine's count there are roughly 247 and a half such limbs in circulation in the modern day among the gnomes of the underground. Rather disturbingly, all of them appear to be completely genuine, and more keep appearing every year while some are reclaimed at an increasing rate - by their original owner, no less.
But he digresses. The good dream mage Bernie did go on a seemingly less purposeful route, apparently to recover what minions he could still recall, and some others beside those.
[Darren's future roll: 3]
Out of curiosity he went into the heart of the Velusian plague that was tearing through a whole other continent on the other side of the world, and found a ghost named Darren, a ghost he did not know but which certainly seemed to know the other him, trailing around the resting place of his newest forbidden love, a ghostly long-dead princess of an empire he accidentally visited on his route. Bernie's soulless nature did help in not being immediately killed by the horrid godlike aura the ghost was projecting. He was slightly disappointed upon discovering the ghost was still apparently entirely bound by proxy to a greater demonic power than he. However, he did offer relief from killing everything he came into contact with, so Darren instead entered a voluntary contract of eternal servitude in return for plentiful opportunities to flirt with undead ladies on the way, work some magic and provide quips for this strange shadow of his old master. Together they traveled the long way back in search of others still.
[Timothy's future roll: 1]
[Timothy's survival roll: 2]
Rather notably among them was Timothy Amscray, or at least what was left of him by that point. The freakish acrobat had gone through a great many adventures in his time, most of them filtered through his own brand of single-minded misunderstanding and good intentions, and one in particular had gotten most of him lost and diluted in Undefined Space after a botched attempt to shift planes. What remained, curiously enough, was a free-floating, stunted branch of a leg, flitting over the Sea of Pleasant Scents on a confused trajectory to... somewhere. It proved shockingly useful in its own way, having the power to give people exactly what they need (but hardly ever what they want), and functioned much like a magical wand, though one with a confusing set of command words - "Hansel", for instance, and also "Bob", and occasionally even "Lenny", as even the most powerful divinations he could muster would scarcely answer to something as vague as one name (as hilarious as it is to make the query 'define: Bob'), and Darren seemed to have never met the owner of the leg in question. Ultimately, the whats and the whys of the artifact remained by the sidelines, and instead Bernie decided to be satisfied with the knowledge that having an eldritch leg of providence in his possession kicked ass on a visceral level and needed no rational explanation.
[Alaric's future roll: 1]
[Alaric's survival roll: 2]
[Bernie's sister's future roll: 5]
That done, Bernie made his way to his sister, Emily van Glautzenheiser, who had been living alone near the Bradford family mausoleum for some time. She had, of course, not been entirely idle. Rather bored with living alone, accompanied only by ghostly con artist Alaric Delthin, she had... changed somewhat in the past few months. She had become an expert backgammon player, for one, after many late-night games with the gents from the basement when the loneliness drove her on several occasions to try and get lost in the tunnels and never be found again. They turned out to know a lot of old secrets, actually. Such as how to extract your own heart, brain, liver and a whole lot of other things you didn't really need and anchor the soul in one's flesh. And they had a lot of cosmetic tips beside that on how to keep oneself looking fresh and clean after all that time. Oh, and she had also mastered cosmetic surgery on herself out of boredom. Did need a few, er, replacement faces before she got that down, but she was sure those girls didn't need them that badly anyway. Oh! And she also figured out how to do surgery on ghosts. Subtle art, that. Took a lot of work, she said as she turned to look at Alaric, who had been... cut down a little, to say the least. She tried to make a few more of him to help with chores... didn't, uh, work out, so to speak.
The reunion was a pleasant one, and Bernie's long-lost sister was more than happy to come along with her brother, the quiet countryside at this point depleted of handsome subjects and the ruins beneath fully explored and their secrets well-studied. She and Darren enjoyed a year-long torrid love affair behind Bernie's back that ultimately resulted in the restoration of Darren's curse and his extremely hurried escape to the ends of an alien earth, on the prowl again in search of a worthy master to tame his dread curse and attain his services.
[Vincent's future roll: 6]
Oddly enough, Bernie himself became very hard to track shortly afterward, disappearing along with his sister and Darren from the face of the earth by unknown means, never to be directly seen again. Questions differently posed would reveal glimpses - a strange and primitive world, a winged skeletal figure with a staff tipped with a bladed torus, strange magics unleashed, great temples of the ancient dead, and skulls, so many, many skulls... one wonders what they might find there, at the edge of the universe, or perhaps a whole other universe entirely? And moreover, what they could possibly bring back.
[Five Gods' roll: 6]
They say that the Five Gods - Almiria, Velusius, Ryssinia, Narcillicus and Pacitarius - work their hardest in uninteresting times. Perhaps this would explain why their temples now lay quiet, and their visions rare beyond measure. The world has changed - is changing, not least of which because of the efforts of a good few people who, for all intents and purposes, died a long time ago. Most of those who rose again died in strange and largely pointless ways, alone and deluded, but for a scant few undeath has presented a new life, be it the undead mercenary ascending to the heavens themselves through amateur surgery, the nobody turned butler turned butlerdesk, the dutiful husband turned murderous howling incarnation of fire, vengeance and hatred, or even the roguish stage magician turned ghost and continuing to do exactly what he did in life on a grander scale. A life begun at death and lived on the fringe, where the strange and random nature of the world is laid bare, and its most unique excesses lived out to the fullest, started inauspiciously and, every now and then, ending in long-awaited triumph.
Author
Topic: Life Begins At Death - Epilogue: We Live And Live Again (Read 563843 times)