Cruciel

Velendo twists his head, but of course in the utter darkness he can't see a thing. "You're a..." His voice trails away. "You're an angel? What do you mean, you're an angel? No, forget that. What do you mean, Imbindarla has fallen? Figuratively fallen, right?"

"No." Cruciel's voice sounds slightly strained from flying while holding Velendo, and she raises it to carry over the shrieks from the watery darkness below. "Truly dead, and truly fallen. Her body has tumbled from heaven and fallen to the earth above."

"What? Where'd it land?"

"I know not."

"Hoo boy. Calphas protect me, I..."

"He is."

"What?"

"He is."

Below them, underwater, Malachite sinks like a stone. His heavy armor draws him downwards like a form-fitting anchor, and his lungs heave with the effort of holding what little breath he has left after falling almost 60 feet. No allies, no mind link, no darkvision, no ring of swimming, no necklace of levitation. No magic at all, and... A disdembodied ghoulish arm brushes against his face as he continues the plunge downwards. ...and I'm going to die.

He considers it, turning the thought over in his mind as a grocer might examine a bruised apple. The paladin sighs, and tiny bubbles trickle out of his mouth. I had thought it would be in battle, but this is as good a place as any. Is there any escape? He compares how long it would take him to shed his armor against how long he can hold his breath, and he decides he doesn't like the odds. Then his armored torso hits bottom, and for a long second he hangs there, far too heavy to float. He runs a hand across his billowing tabard, still feeling the itching pain of the thurn's bite.

And he feels the magic return to the world.

Malachite's gauntleted hand grasps his pendant of levitation, and the familiar enchantment buoys his body with gentle insistence. Like an armored behemoth, he rises steadily upwards through the water. The current tries to twist him sideways, a strong undertow pulling water away and upwards as the magical walls of water reform around the ruined city, but his levitation necklace is more powerful than the current. His head crests the surface, and despite the smell of smoke and rot, that first breath of air is precious.

He feels Mara in his head. "Luminor and I are alive! I've healed his broken legs. I don't see anyone, but the water is receding. There's.. hang on." There is a pause. "I had to kill a ghoul. There are a lot of dead bodies here, but quite a few live ones."

One by one the Defenders check in; thanks to the water and the tangled mat of ghouls breaking their fall, no one was killed. Nolin speaks up. "Fly upwards a hundred feet. We need to regroup." As one, the Defenders of Daybreak soar upwards into the pure and utter darkness. With darkvision working again, though, it is easy to find one another.

Agar looks tired and afraid, still flicking invisible insects from his soaking clothes. "What happened?"

Velendo soars into view. "It's a long story." There's a moment of utter silence, only broken by the wailing of the icy wind and the ghoulish screams from down below. Nolin can swear he hears a ghoul screaming for its mother, but he dismisses it as his imagination.

Finally, someone speaks. "Velendo," ventures Mara, "is that an angel?"

Velendo looks embarrassed. "Yes, it is. Mara, everyone, this is Cruciel, Angel of the Arch. Cruciel, this is everyone."

The angel nods seriously, and brushes back her night-black hair with a faint smile. "I know each of you quite well."

"Angel of the Arch? Do you mean arch-angel?"

Now flying under his own power, Velendo gestures with his shield. "No. She's the one who taught the first mason how to build a keystone. Look, I'll explain Cruciel later, okay? The big problem now is that Imbindarla is dead."

Everyone but Tao looks blank. "Dead?"

"Dead. Kaput. Fallen, and quite literally; Lord knows how big a God is, but I imagine she could have taken out a fair-sized city. That's what that tremor was."

Someone mumbles. "I hope she landed on Eversink."

Nolin lets out a long, low whistle. "My goodness. And the magic loss, and this icy wind?" Velendo shrugs, so Nolin continues. "Probably side effects. Same thing with the utter darkness, unless that's Aeos in mourning. Does anyone know?" Mara and Malachite shake their heads. "Then I think we're on our own. There's not exactly a history of this happening before; even in Sigil, tales are few and far between."

"Crap," swears Velendo, light dawning. "That feeling of falling? It..." He looks sick. "We were picking up thoughts from a dying Goddess."

Tao nods. "And the chest pain? That's where Galanna shot her with an arrow, about..." she does a quick calculation. "Exactly seven days ago. And my sore shoulder must have been an echo from my Goddess when she used her bow." Tao has never looked more serious.

Agar pipes up, even as he picks the invisible insects from his touseled wet hair. "All the beetles! The beetles and the worms! Imbindarla is the Goddess of the things that cower in the darkness. They must have been responding to her distress. Who knows what other kind of omens occurred up on the surface."

"That's right," says Nolin, "and we have some prophecies to look at again." He corrects himself. "Actually, YOU have some prophecies to look at. I hate prophecies, and I'm swearing them off. No more prophecies for me."

Galthia looks amused. "Is that so?"

"It certainly is," announces Nolin stubborningly.

"I suppose we'll see."

Stone Bear, hovering cross-legged in the strong wind, grimaces. His raven nestles in his lap. "Something else is happening."

Everyone turns to him. "What?"

"There are spirits streaming past on the wind. No – that's wrong. They are the wind." Everyone looks around desperately, but no one sees anything odd.

"You sure?"

"Oh, yes." He winces as one of the hundreds of spirits that he's seen in the past minute plunges right through his body. "I'm sure. Even that dwarven spirit that follows you around is having difficulty."

Everyone exchanges glances. "What dwarven spirit?" asks Malachite slowly.

Stone Bear raises his eyebrows, revealing pools of shadow in his empty eye sockets. His voice is surprised. "I thought you knew about him. He's been with you since I first met you. He doesn't seem to like Malachite much; he often is making obscene gestures to him, or loosening his trousers before him, or placing his hands in odd gestures behind his head. I think he knows that I can see him."

Malachite frowns, eyes furious. "Olum," he growls.

Nolin's grin could light up a ballroom. "Gotta be," he confirms.

"Any other mysterious spirits following us around?" Malachite's voice is controlled.

Stone Bear shakes his head. "Not that I've seen."

Splinder grunts. "Yes, it's me." The group rounds on him, weapons half-drawn. Splinder – or rather, Olum Shiverstone – gestures to them to relax. "Don't worry, Splinder let me in. I've been with you. I've stopped one or two enemies you never even knew about, by possessing them and wandering them off in a different direction. And no, I haven't ratted you out to any enemies, thanks for wondering." He sighs.

"But something is happening. I can feel a pull. It feels..." His voice fades away.

"What?" asks Nolin.

Olum speaks slowly, carefully. "It feels like someone is calling me home. After all these hundreds of years, that's what it feels like." He lifts Splinder's head, and his eyes are flashing with unaccustomed hope. "I dunno. Maybe it's Moradin. Maybe it's Boros, calling the spirits of the undead to him. But someone is definitely calling."

Nolin spins to look at Velendo. "You think? Maybe with Imbindarla dead, the souls of all the undead out there are freed!"

Malachite shakes his head. "Maybe. But I doubt all of them want eternal rest." As if blown by the icy gusts of wind, his hand strays unconsciously to his sword hilt.

"I can see below. Souls are slamming into the ghouls. They're still ghouls, but now they're self-aware ghouls with spirits. It's killing a lot of them; their bodies are just keeling over. Looks like some are managing the change physically, but it's driving them insane." He sighs resignedly. "That'll probably happen to me. I'll go crazy, and then I'll just hear that damn paladin sword lecturing me for all eternity. I'll be stuck in limbo, and I'll still be in hell." In Malachite's sheath, Karthos tries to say something, but Malachite doesn't draw the weapon. The metaliic voice is muffled, lost in the wind.

Malachite glares at Olum. "Why don't you go to your reward?" he asks. Whatever it might be, he adds silently to himself. Behind him, the bullywug Burr-Lipp nods his agreement as he cleans out one of his saucer-sized eyes with a glistening tongue.

Olum rolls his – or rather, Splinder's – eyes. "Because you freed me, and asked me to stay with you and help you." His voice is ironic.

"Oh, for crying out loud. Go! You have the chance to be free!" Mara gestures emphatically. "Take it! You've had a hard life, and you deserve it."

Olum pauses, looking for the hidden loophole. "You sure?" he asks suspiciously.

Velendo snorts, and Cruciel places her hand on his shoulder comfortingly. "Yes, we're sure!" says the old cleric. He looks at Malachite, and the Hunter of the Dead nods, as do the rest of the Defenders and the dwarven troops. "Go, and with all of our blessing. Thank you for your help, Olum, even if we weren't aware of it."

Olum's eyes look vacant. "I can hear hammers. I'm going to go, then. Thank you for everything, for freeing me. You've done good things for dwarves. May the Soulforger bless you." He looks at Malachite, and a little petulantly, adds, "Even you."

And with that, Olum is gone. The dwarf blinks, and Splinder's eyes have returned.

"He's gone," confirms Stone Bear.

Nolin cocks his head, and looks ill. "I can hear intelligent screams from down there. People are finding themselves in undead bodies, and they remember everything. One of them is crying 'I ate people, I ate people,' over and over and over again." From his position a hundred feet in the air, Nolin begins to play Veritas, and he begins to sing a requiem of surpassing beauty and sorrow. It echoes above the wind, gaining strength from the echoes in the cavern, and it brings tears and a sense of closure to all who hear it. In the watery darkness below them, the sobbing and screaming from the ghouls begins to still.

"Freeing them to their reward will be a true blessing," concludes Malachite. "Lets go offer them peace."

They do so.