Chapter Text
The Nightmare King was gone and in its place stood the massive form of a woman made of twilight. Adaine didn’t fully know what was going on, but she knew that her family had lost. Especially when all of the bad kids and their allies, including her sister, began to rise from the ground, unharmed. It was becoming more and more clear that retreat was the only viable option.
Taking advantage of Ayda being distracted, Adaine reached into her own pouch of spell components and pulled out a thin copper wire. She wrapped it around the tip of each pointer finger and began performing the hand movements for the last spell she had up her sleeve. As she finished muttering the incantation under her breath she began to feel the buzz of arcane energy as the spell took. So Adaine bit the bullet and began composing a message she really hoped she wouldn’t regret.
‘If you can get me and my family safely out of the Nightmare Forest I will cooperate and do my duty as Oracle.’ the message sent.
But as Adaine was waiting for the reply Ayda abruptly swooped downwards and began flying back towards the fallen tree. As Adaine was trying to get the churning in her stomach from the rapid acceleration under control, they landed. Ayda was still grabbing the collar of her jacket, but as Adaine realized where they had landed she could see that Ayda’s attention was fully occupied by Fig who seemed to still be recovering alongside Gorgug.
Adaine needed to get out of here and quick. She twisted around and and slipped out of the jacket in as fluid a motion as she could manage, which succeeded in getting her out of Ayda’s grasp but also succeeded turning Ayda, Fig, and Gorgug’s attention onto her.
Fig spoke first. “Adaine, please, we want to-”
“Stop it!” Adaine cut her off. “Stop saying you want to help. You don’t want to help. You just want me to be your shy little elf who follows you around like a pet cause she doesn’t have anyone else!”
“No, I don’t,” Fig bit back. “The Adaine I knew was anything but shy. She was confident, and she knew who she wanted to be, and it wasn’t this!”
“Well, I’m not your Adaine anymore,” Adaine said. But before any of them could respond, their eyes all went wide at something behind her. She barely had time to wonder what it was before she felt a slender hand grabbing the back of her shirt and pulling her back. The last thing she saw was three of her former friends springing into action to try and stop this and the twilight goddess just barely turning to look her in the eye, before she fell and hit a smooth marble floor under her.
She looked around to see that she was no longer in the Nightmare King’s forest. She was in a practically gleaming building with ornate columns lining the walls of the open hall she now sat in. And if that didn’t tell her where she was, the numerous high elves in traditional Court of Stars robes that surrounded her did. She quickly looked around to see that her mother was here with her, but her father and sister were nowhere to be seen.
She then looked up at the elf that was now approaching her. She recognized this elf. It was Kir, the elven maiden who had kidnapped her in leviathan earlier in the quest, and the one who she had directed her sending to just moments ago.
“I hear you’re ready to cooperate now,” the young elf said with a snide voice as her face twisted into a smirk.
_____________________________________________
Riz sprung to his feet as soon as awareness returned to him. He had vague echoes of memories. Memories that included his dad. He couldn’t remember if they were from a dream he had as he bled out or if he had actually gone back to his dad when he died. At that thought he frantically looked down at his chest where there was still a massive blood stain on his shirt and a hole ripped through it, but the wound itself was nothing more than some lumpy scar tissue in a small circle on his chest.
His attention then turned to the area around him. He was surrounded by a mess of twisted and broken branches. It seemed like the massive tree he was on had fallen. That boded well for them having taken care of the transubstantiations. Actually, now that he thought about it, the fact that he was alive at all was a good sign that they had won.
Riz scrambled out of the twisted branches of the fallen tree. And the first thing he saw nearly caused him to lose his grip and fall back into the tree. A massive woman, made of a starry, indigo sky that kind of looked like Kristen was towering above him. And he realized with a start that the real Kristen was standing in the palm of this woman’s hand.
“Kristen?!” Riz called up to her.
Both Kristen and the woman turned to look at him. “Hey, Riz!” Kristen called back. “This is my new goddess! Her name’s Cassandra!!”
“That’s great!” Riz said, choosing not to get into the thousands of questions he had just yet. “So we won?!”
“Yup!!”
“Where’s Adaine?!”
Kristen and Cassandra both looked down towards another part of the tree and Riz followed their gaze. He looked over just in time to see a pair of high elves teleporting away with Adaine right in front of Fig, Gorgug, and Ayda.
sh*t!
He heard the sound of another teleport nearby and looked around to see that Arianwen was also nowhere to be found. He then heard shouts from another location and saw Aelwyn struggling against two other high elves and Ragh running over to help. With a flick of Cassandra’s wrist the elves disappeared in a banishment spell. But the damage was done. Adaine was gone.
_____________________________________________
Sandra Lynn hadn’t been waiting with Gilear, Tracker, and Zaphriel for very long, but it had felt like an eternity. Gilear and Tracker had been emotional wrecks and Sandra Lynn probably would have been too if she hadn’t locked in to keep the situation under control. Nothing was quite as good for her emotional stability as managing a crisis. And the gods know she’s a complete mess without one.
While Zaphriel was off freeing all the other celestials and dispelling the curse on this place, she had been making sure Tracker and Gilear were ok, reminding them that Kristen and Fig and all the other bad kids were extremely capable adventurers, and keeping watch to make sure no more horrors came crawling from the woods to stop Zaphriel. It was exhausting, but this was what she was good for.
All that being said, she could physically feel the massive weight leaving her shoulders as she saw the kids emerging from the forest, looking, for all intents and purposes, totally fine. She practically sprinted to go hug Fig as she emerged from the twisted underbrush. She was so caught up in her relief that it wasn’t until she pulled away from the hug and saw Fig’s face that she realized something was wrong.
Fig didn’t look distraught, exactly. In fact she looked almost more relieved than Sandra Lynn, but there was something in that relief. Like she was relieved to be able to hug her mom because something bad had happened.
“What happened?” Sandra Lynn asked.
“We… we won,” Fig said. She sounded like she was in shock. “We beat the Nightmare King. But…”
“But?” She didn’t want to rush her daughter but she needed to know what happened.
“Adaine’s gone,” Fig seemed to be coming out of her daze but was now moving towards a frantic hysteria. “These elves showed up and took her. She’s gone! And Cassandra can’t get her back and we can’t get her back and she’s still under that spell and I don’t know what they’ll do to her or what she’ll do to herself and we don’t even know-”
“Hey! Hey. Fig, slow down,” Sandra Lynn interjected. “It’s ok. We’ll figure out how to get her back alright, and we’ll figure out how to undo that spell while we’re at it, ok? We just need to get out of this forest and then we can regroup and get to work on finding Adaine. I promise you, we will get her back.”
Fig just nodded. Sandra Lynn could see that Fig was on the verge of tears but clearly fighting it back. She ultimately decided against trying to convince her daughter to let it out right now, in favor of focusing on the immediate problem of getting out of this forest.
“I think I might be able to help,” said a voice that Sandra Lynn didn’t recognize. She turned to see a sparkling, purple figure that somewhat resembled Kristen floating next to where Kristen and Tracker were holding each other as tight as they possibly could. “With getting out of the forest, that is. I can get you out of the forest.”
“And you are… ?” Sandra Lynn asked.
“Oh. I’m Cassandra,” the figure said. “I’m Kristen’s new goddess. Nice to meet you.”
“Huh,” Sandra Lynn responded. “Nice to meet you too.”
