The Path of Lore and Kings

by PassionQuill

Their World

Chapter 15: Their World

“Loré… LORÉ! Wake up!” yelled Namworth as he waved a hoof in front of Loré’s face.

Namworth watched worriedly as his friend stared with wide horrified green-glowing eyes at the open door, all while sobbing uncontrollably and mumbling what was to him pure nonsense.

“I said, wake up!” Namworth pushed Loré as hard as he could, hoping it would be enough to break the weird trance she was stuck in.

Hitting the cold floor was precisely what she needed. As suddenly as lightning, her world had changed, and the body she was so desperately clinging on to was gone.

“No, no!” cried Loré for a second before she noticed the confused stare of Namworth mere inches from her own face. “Namworth!”

“Are you okay, Loré? It was really weird. The door shot magic back at you when you tried to open it. Your eyes were all green, and then you started crying, and then-“

Namworth didn’t get to say anything more before Loré pounced onto him for a tight embrace, burying her face into the warm feather’s and calming scent which she’d gotten so strangely familiar with.

“I thought I had lost you, Namworth… I saw a horrible vision… I’ve never felt as alone before as I did just then…” mumbled Loré in a hushed tone.

“Whatever you saw wasn’t real, Loré…” said Namworth while his worried expression softened slightly. “I’m just fine, and so are you.”

“I’m not fine…” Her voice cracked with despair. “But I have to get over it…”

“Loré…”

Namworth had to watch in worry as Loré rose from the floor. Time gradually revealed the truth of her condition. For every spell she had used a bit of her had faded away. It was noticeable in the steady trembling that took up her legs, the deep-seeded anger which had rearranged the very structure of her eyes, and the way her coat had somehow gotten even duller, as if that was even possible.

“I see it didn’t work.” She adamantly stared at the diamond shaped crystal above the door. Its dark silhouette mocked the very integrity of all Loré had sacrifice, and with doing so, it needed to go. “How can it have bested me?”

“Maybe you used the wrong kind of spell?” asked Namworth as he slowly approached her.

“Wrong kind of spell…” repeated Loré while glancing over at Namworth.

“That could be it, right?” He smiled at her, and she, in return, gave back the favor tenfold as his random thoughts had triggered a realization in her.

“The wrong kind of magic, that’s it!” Her tired eyes were once more mesmerized by the crystal above the door as it all became so clear to her. “Sombra must have used dark magic to control these things. I think this door can lead to a myriad of places depending on how you open it. But, dark magic was his way to do anything. It will be our key, Namworth.”

“You know how to do dark magic?”

“Well… I’ve read about it… I guess it’s time to figure out if I can actually do it.” Loré gulped nervously before concentrating. Reaching deep within herself she found the necessary sensation and energies to perform her spells, a certain darkness from which she could easily channel through even the darkest of spells.

Bright purple flames burst from her eyes as they overcame with green. Dark spots in conjunction with twisting energies of purple and green rapidly enveloped her horn to then launch at the crystal as Loré whimpered and groaned.

Unlike before, the crystal didn’t turn white. It vibrated with the same erratic colors and patterns as the dark magic filling it. Its glow transferred from the crystal, to the door itself, and behind those fragile-looking wooden boards shone a blue light while frosty air danced and coiled its way into the room.

“I think you did it, Loré,” said Namworth while cautiously pushing the door open to reveal a completely different world than that of the crystal palace and the Sombra-influenced staircase.

A bright room of gigantic proportions awaited them behind the door. An immediate staircase was the first step into the room, though it was far from steep, and took them only a few steps down onto an open area with unrealistically shaped pillars supporting the heavy and spiky roof. An all-encompassing nuance of blue overpowered almost all other colors, except for the small accents of white. Ice made up the bulk of the material used for the room. But it was all so neatly carved into whichever shapes needed, like stonework. Although it was clear that it was ice, the surface was rough and textured to make them as frictionless as gravel road, and something had been done to make the ice virtually indestructible. Though, one thing almost seemed certain, the architecture used to design the gigantic underground room in front of them was not of this world. It had no resemblance of any Equestrian culture that Loré knew of.

“It sure is a lot colder in here, huh, Loré?” said Namworth while blowing out large puffs of condensed air as it formed into thick visible cloud, contrasting to the otherwise horribly dead air filling the room.

“Yeah… it’s like we’re outside again. Though, I’m more curious where the light is coming from.” asked Loré as she walked into the room, hiding the limp of her left hindleg to the best of her abilities. “It’s almost brighter in this room than it is outside where the sun shines...”

“Loré… I think that’s what’s causing it.” Namworth pointed towards the ceiling at a rather peculiar object.

As if frozen in time, a perfectly shaped diamond of ice hung suspended in midair. Within its center was the tiniest flicker of motionless light. And although it was barely visible to the naked eye, and was by far weaker than the lighting in the room, the warmth of light all came from it, like a miniature sun captured in ice.

“You know what, Namworth. I expected a lot of different things for how Sombra’s underground lair could look… but nothing like this. It looks so, alien and illogical,” mumbled Loré while turning her head from left to right as the two of them slowly walked their way into the center of the room.

“What’s that?” asked Namworth, his face firmly fixated on one of the several two-feet tall walls sparsely populating the outer rim of the middle platform in the room.

“What’s what?” Loré deterred from her path as well to investigate Namworth’s curiosity.

“Is that writing?” he asked once more, tracing a hoof along some oddly shaped markings on the wall.

To Loré’s best ability, the markings were for all intents and purposes writing, but not of any kind she had seen. Some of them were of a hieroglyphic nature for sure as they depicted scenery, while other markings appeared in a similar pattern as Equestrian writing.

“I think it is, Namworth… but it’s not like any I’ve seen.”

“What do you mean? Isn’t this some kind of ancient crystal pony writing?” He once again traced one of the symbols on the wall.

“No… the writing crystal ponies use is vastly different from this one.” Loré’s brow furrowed and eyes narrowed as she intensely examined the symbols. “This is third dimensional writing, Namworth… All the symbols go further into the ice. I’ve never even imagined writing like this.”

“What does it mean?” asked Namworth.

“I think it tells us a little bit about the darkness… It must be from another world, Namworth, a world far different from ours. I almost dread finding out what it’s really like.” She tore herself away from the strange symbols and drawings to once again return on their path.

They had already traversed two large platforms of different elevation, one last small flight of stairs and another platform was all there stood between them and the next room in the strangely designed underground facility.

“Don’t you think there’re traps somewhere, Loré?” asked Namworth while carefully taking the exactly same steps as Loré did, not wanting to accidentally step on something that could activate a dreadful contraption.

“There could be traps in anything, Namworth. Though, judging from all these weird walls plastered all over the place… I think what we are in might be some kind of library or at the very least, a document dictating either a historical event or perhaps a plan for something.” Loré couldn’t help herself from pondering over the use of the room. All the nonsensical details, shapes, and materials plagued her logical mind, even if she couldn’t make heads or tails of it. “It’s very likely that this room carries far too great an importance to put any traps in it.”

“Still, we should be careful, Loré! Maybe that’s what the darkness wants you to think!” exclaimed Namworth, worriedly examining the intimidatingly large square empty doorframe.

“I know, and I’m certainly looking out for anything suspicious, Namworth.” She rolled her eyes at him, though it was quickly followed by a remorseful frown. “Either way… we’re through the room.”

Beyond the open frame was a room as similar in architecture as the one preceding it. Though, instead of it being a semi-rectangular shape of three plateaus, it was one singular level of equally sized blocks in a very strict square grid system.

“It’s… him…” mumbled Loré to herself.

From across the room stood the vaguest silhouette of Sombra’s ghost, determinedly locking eyes with Loré as if he was attempting to convey some kind of message with his eyes alone. However, with a single blink of the eye, and he was gone.

“What are you staring at, Loré?” asked Namworth.

“I think I saw Sombra… or his ghost at least. I don’t know what he wanted but, for some reason I have the number three stuck in my head.” Loré groaned and shook while sitting down on her haunches.

“Loré, I’m not even going to ask you, because I can tell you aren’t okay…” He stared worriedly at her heavy eyelids, lifeless pupils, and weak breathing. “Maybe you should hold back on the magic things…”

“I’m fine, Namworth… I just need a little break… I think three is the number of trials before us and the dark crystals,” mumbled Loré through her hooves as she tiredly rubbed her face awake. Not even the chilly air could restore some vigor in her exhausted face.

“Or maybe that thing on your horn is messing with your head… It’s been tiring you out a lot, Loré. Probably a good idea to take it off…” His hoof was instantly slapped away as he attempted to remove the horn-ring.

“NO! I need it to finish this… I’ll try not to use any more magic till we get to the dark crystals… but please, let it stay on, just in case I need it.” Loré groaned once more as she got back up on her hooves, feigning a spike of energy. “Okay, let’s tackle this room!”

Her faking didn’t deceive Namworth, not anymore, and it only increased his worry for her. It was only a matter of time before the next spell she was going to cast was going to be her last one.

“Okay, Loré…” mumbled Namworth, reluctantly.

“I don’t trust this floor… It’s all too neatly set up… all too perfect. We should just teleport across it, cheat whatever traps he got in here for us,” said Loré. Determination oozed from her body as she was just about to prepare the spell, but unfortunately interrupted before being able to cast it.

“NO!” snarled Namworth. “I said no more spells. Not unless you have to, Loré. Why are you even sure we can teleport across this? Don’t you think that he’s put up something that’s going to counter your spell?”

He stepped in front of her, staring her down with daggering eyes as he broke her concentration on the spell. Afterwards, he turned to the open floor, placing a stretched hoof ever so lightly onto the first tile before him. It immediately lowered into the floor by an inch, sending six equally spaced spikes shooting into the air, chipping the tip of his hoof.

“Namworth!” screamed Loré, about to jump into action till she got a full view of what had happened.

“Ow!” whimpered Namworth in return as he quickly retracted his leg, watching the spikes lower back into the tile which made even the holes they came through vanish once it was back to its rightful elevation.

“Well... at least we figured out there’s traps in the floor…” He smiled sheepishly at Loré who stared him down with a mixture of worry and anger.

“Don’t be so careless about it! You could have gotten far more hurt than that if it had been some other kind of trap…” snarled Loré. “My approach can only be safer than yours, step aside and let me do what I can.”

“I SAID NO!”

The look in his eyes was maddening, far more intense than anything Loré had seen before in him. For once in all the time she had spent with him, she couldn’t force herself even utter a syllable to argue against the frustration and annoyance in his voice. All she could do was sit down, and save her strength for when Namworth deemed it necessary.

“Maybe you don’t care what happens to you, Loré. But I do… and I can see using magic hurts you… a lot… I can figure this out, Loré. You just gotta give me a moment… okay?” His voice softened along with his face as his eyes returned to the floor.

“As you wish…” whispered Loré.

“Hhmmm… I got it!” chirped Namworth, running over to where Loré had sat down so he could rummage through her saddle bags.

“What are you doing!?” growled Loré.

“Getting, this!” He held up high the featherweight potion.

“Why are you getting that?..”

“Well, I have two ideas. Maybe the plates won’t know we’re there if we weigh almost nothing. Or, I can break the vial and then hurl chunks at the different plates to find out which ones are safe, and which aren’t.” He smirked proudly at his brilliant idea.

Even Loré had a glimmer of surprise in her eyes as she gawked in amazement of his useful idea. “That… might work, but you barely pressed onto the plate. Do you really think that even with the featherweight potion it won’t go off when we stand on them with our entire weight?”

“Only one way to find out.” He took a large sip of the potion, feeling it immediately take effect as his body felt as light as a feather.

Slowly he approached the plate he had already stepped onto once, this time knowing where the spikes would emerge, which made it the perfect test subject. He first tried to place one hoof onto the plate, holding it firmly planted with his normal weight resting on it.

“So far so good,” mumbled Namworth before attempting a second hoof on another area he knew was safe from spikes.

Like lightning they shot up once half of his weight rest on the plate. It sent Namworth tumbling backwards with surprise and fear written all of his face as his certainty in it working had almost made him lean forward with his head.

“W-well… it did support one fourth of my weight. I say this calls for another experiment.”

“Okay…” Loré held her tongue in check, even if she wanted to stop him from putting himself into danger again.

With one hoof firmly planted on one plate, the other came down on a new square. Slowly, but surely, he inched forward without a hitch. Standing on two plates became three, and then four. Loré in the meanwhile, watched with a tensed frame, ready at any given second to use her magic.

“Be careful,” mumbled Loré, inching her front hooves forward while scooting her plot against the icy floor.

“I think it’s really working, Loré.” He smiled warmly while walking from the four squares he stood on, to the next four in front of him, taking some extra time to make sure he never had two hooves on the same square, and only moved one leg at the time.

Loré followed suit. Although very cautious about making a move onto the deadly floor, she did take her first step once consuming all there was left of the featherweight potion, tossing the vial aside once empty.

“That’s it, Loré. Just, take it one slow step at a time,” shouted Namworth while still being out on ‘thin ice’ with her, though several sections closer to the other open frame at the end of the room.

Every step took an eternity. Even with a body almost as light as the air itself, the steps felt like iron boots were strapped to their legs, potentially damning them to a horrible demise that neither of them wanted to even think about. Steady breathing and eyes carefully wandering between their lethargically slow movements was all they had to keep themselves steady when the sensation of ‘death’ echoed with every hoof placed.

“Almost there…” His words were elongated with the anticipation of entering safe land again.

“Made it!” shouted Namworth triumphantly, almost dancing around on the spot as he turned around to watch Loré’s progress.

Slow was putting it mildly. Whether exhaustion was eating away at her, or fear had consumed her determination, Namworth couldn’t put a hoof on. But, he knew with the pace she went at, the potion would end before she made it over.

“You have to move faster, Loré!” winced Namworth.

“I’m going as fast as I can! Not everypony can be as agile as you!” snarled Loré while slightly picking up the pace.

Even though she had crossed three fourths of the way, a seemingly endless ocean of tiles still awaited her, and with each step Loré could feel herself getting slightly heavier.

CLONK

“uh-oh…” mumbled Loré when the last tile she placed her hoof on went down a bit.

“RUN!” yelled Namworth before Tartarus broke lose.

The tile Loré had pressed down disappeared completely from the floor, revealing a pit filled with volatile green liquid. It was reflexes that saved her from stumbling into the pit as she just barely managed to keep her balance. But this in turn offset the weight on the other three tiles, simultaneously activating them all.

In a sense, she took Namworth’s suggestion to use. Running became, however, substituted with her earlier smoke teleportation so she could race over the floor. The spell allowed her to evade poisonous darts, magical restraints, and a boulder dropping from the ceiling all the while making the remaining floor traps useless. Though, it did stir awake another thing entirely.

From the walls all along the room opened a myriad of slits, revealing hazy blue eyes with narrow pupils. Their collective gaze locked on to Loré. They immediately began to rapidly glowing more brightly with the strange concoction of green, black, and purple as they charged up their devastating beam of magic.

Namworth blasted off the ground due to Loré’s enveloping smoke taking hold of him, narrowly cheating the destruction hitting the the exit of the room as the beams missed her ethereal body by a hair’s length. The two of them clashed onto the floor with Loré materializing into a shaking heap of fear.

“Loré!” Namworth instantly assisted her in getting back up on her hooves. “That was way too close… See, I knew something would go off if we used magic.”

“Yeah yeah… now please, shut up about it,” snarled Loré, not raising her head up as she panted weakly.

“Doesn’t seem like we have a way out now.” Namworth frowned worriedly as he looked at the pile of broken ice blocking the path they came from.

“We don’t need to get out through the way we came in, there is another way. We can take it once we’ve destroyed the crystals.”

The next challenge awaited them. After a short tunnel came another room of great similarity to the previous one. It, like the one before, had a very grid-based floor and rather plain walls in comparison to the very first room they entered. Though, the room was this time a perfect circle with most of its tiles following the same manner of the room. However, a few of them did defy the rest and laid with a ninety degrees difference in their angle.

“Is this also a trap room?” groaned Loré. “Really, how can anypony spend so much time just making rooms dedicated to keeping other ponies out.”

“I don’t know… but it kinda looks like the last room we were in, Loré. Maybe it’s the same traps all over again?” he curiously motioned a hoof onto the first tile, pressing it down with more and more weight.

The tile didn’t budge one little bit. Neither did the next one he tried, or the next one for that matter. And much to his surprise, no matter how hard he tried, they were locked in place.

“Maybe it’s different after all,” he stated out loud in a semi-perplexing way. “I say we just try crossing it and keep ourselves ready for the worst.”

“Or we could just use magic?” asked Loré, actually asking for permission.

“Only if necessary…” sighed Namworth. “Come on.”

He motioned for her to follow while taking the first step out onto the floor, slowly crossing the large room without as much as a notion of a hiccup in their plan. Though the further in they went, the more an eerie sensation came over them. Like cattle being herded into their demise, they couldn’t shake off the feeling they were being allowed to make it this far, only to fall into a trap.

“This can’t be right, Loré. It’s way too easy.” Namworth suspiciously looked around the room for any signs of something being out of order.

“Just be ready…” mumbled Loré in return, doing all she could to keep her focus sharp and pointed at the open frame at the end of the room.

The center of the room brought along change. A mechanical sound surged underneath their hooves in a pulsating manner the second before the entire room rearranged itself. The thousands of tiles shot up to the ceiling, forming walls around them to create a circular labyrinth as their cage.

“Namworth!” cried Loré as a wall between the two kept them separated.

“Don’t worry, Loré. I’m okay.” He gulped and looked around at the multiple paths he could choose from. “I’m sure we can figure this one out, a labyrinth isn’t so bad. I mean, it could be worse, right?”

Almost as if asking for it made it come true, an unnatural clicking roar echoed through the labyrinth. A beast unlike anything they had ever heard had woken amidst the numerous paths they could tread. The only sign of it being near was the many weird sounds coming from it, including sharp claws scraping against the floor with each sluggish step it took. A smell also seemed to follow it, though it was so potent that it could be smelled anywhere in the labyrinth, regardless of how close the beast was.

“It just got worse. I don’t think we’re alone anymore…” said Loré while considering the two options before her. Either she could continue to the right, or go backwards where she had just walked before the walls came up.

“Yeah, I hear it. I think we should try to find each other, but as quietly as possible.” His voice quickly shrank to hushed tones, barely audible through the thick walls.

“Okay…” was all Loré whispered before picking her path, right seemed like the only real choice to her. Backwards would mean getting further away from the door, which was not an option in her mind.

“Erhm, maybe… that one?” mumbled Namworth to himself, getting only more and more confused with every choice he made. All of the paths looked the same, and after having picked a dozen or so, they all just blended into one hazy blur of where he had once been. “No… I think I went backwards this time, maybe if I just go back I’ll find my way-“

He went quieter as the sounds became louder, the slow scraping sound. It was like metal on rock, loud, screeching, and sharp. Each heavy step was followed by a thud, and an occasional muffled clicking roar. Namworth could barely keep his head focused on the direction of the sound, and it was only getting louder.

Terror consumed his very being, freezing him in place as the creature appeared out of the corner of his eye on one of the side paths leading from Namworth. It was large, warped, and twisted. A pair of glowing red dots sat veiled in the twirling shadows hiding the true shape of the beast. Even though its personal mist was thick, some features stuck through like a sore thumb. Its legs were pointing forward in an awkward fashion, and from all that Namworth could see, the beast dragged its mangled lower body against the floor. From above the piercing dots opened a mouth of three sides to reveal rows upon rows of razor teeth.

“Sweet Celestia… wh-what is that!?” whimpered Namworth to himself, slowly taking one after another step backwards.

A painfully loud roar rang through the room, quickly followed by the loud footsteps of the beast, and the less noticeable hoofsteps of Namworth. It didn’t matter which way now, any path was preferable to the one he was on. He zoomed from one row to the next one, using his full speed and agility to make sharp turns in the blink of an eye while the clumsy beast followed his trail. Although it was slower than Namworth, it couldn’t be fooled. There weren’t enough turns, zig-zags, or multiple choices in the world to fool the thing crawling after him. It had itself locked in on something about him, something it could trace through the labyrinth.

“Loré, where are you!?” yelled Namworth. “It’s after me!”

“Namworth, I’m coming for you!” yelled Loré back.

His voice was faint, far into the distance. And with the labyrinth between them he could just as well have been on the other side of the country for that matter. It would take ages for her to figure out the right path to get to her friend, but she had to try.

“Come on, which way is it!?” growled Loré, weakly galloping from one dead end to another.

“Oh no…” mumbled Namworth as he himself ran into a blind end after making a sharp turn. From around the corner leading back to where he came, a shadow weighed the ground before the beast came slugging into his vision.

“Loré! Please hurry!” cried Namworth.

“I’m doing my best here!” her voice had gotten a bit louder, though not enough to wash away the worry of making it in time.

Like a living nightmare it spewed fear and horror in its wake, and yet, Namworth couldn’t take his eye off of it. For some unknown reason, he couldn’t pull his head back from around the corner, he needed to watch it crawl closer and closer to him.

“It’s getting closer!” cried Namworth before pulling away from the corner, pressing his back against the wall to get as far away from the beast as possible while he watched the shadow on the floor growing darker.

“No… no… This isn’t the right way either… I have to do something,” mumbled Loré as panic set in.

“It’s here! Loré!!” Its body drew ever closer from around the corner, being just mere feet from the frightened Namworth.

Loré’s eyes went wide open as the nightmarish image of his demise at the door ran to the forefront of her mind. A numbing cold took up every ounce of feeling she had left in her body when it becoming a reality hit her like a stone wall. It couldn’t be happening again. She wouldn’t let it, not now, not ever.

“Get down Namworth!” screamed Loré as violent charges of purple magic exploded from her body, turning the walls around her to dust within a second. Wave after wave dashed forward in all directions as her body contorted with painful stress. Though, for all her uncomfortable movement, her eyes never stopped searching for Namworth after each wall had disappeared.

The pearly white rows of teeth dawned upon Namworth like the rising sun, a fate he was only willing to meet with closed eyes. One final thought went out to all the things he hadn’t done, the things he hadn’t said, and how he regretted it. Time was up for him, and he knew so from the droplets of saliva tracing his feathers as he lay curled up in a corner, making himself as small as he possibly could be.

The wall, however, came crashing down before the beast could do the same to him. A spine-chilling scream of pain was all he could hear through the wooshing sound the waves of volatile magic made. With his one eye he peeked out to see the monster getting pushed far, far away into the deep dark hole from whence it came in the room.

Loré, still magically blazing with her might, stepped over the small chunk of wall touching Namworth’s back. She stood like an unstoppable force over him, letting her powers clear the room till a path to the door had been made, and nothing else could possibly lurk in the room.

“Loré…” mumbled Namworth as he watched her stand above him like a celestial goddess, his savior.

“arhhh…” whimpered she in return once the glow in her eyes had died down, along with the waves of magic exploding from her body. She crashed onto the floor, paler and weaker than she had ever been before.

“LORÉ!” cried Namworth as he got up to scoop her body into his warm embrace.

Her eyes were barely open, her legs as limp as strings, and from the corner of her mouth trickled blood. A response from her was difficult, as she drifted in and out of consciousness every few seconds, so no matter what Namworth said, she didn’t answer him.

“Don’t fall asleep Loré… It’s not the time for that. Come on now, stay with me,” whispered Namworth as he gently stroked her mane, letting her rest against him for what felt like an eternity, but was in probably an hour.

“Namworth?...” mumbled Loré as her eyes gained back their life and focus.

“Yes, I’m here. Are you okay, Loré?”

She slowly shook her head and used a few tries to get back up on her hooves, constantly quivering as she struggled to keep all four legs tensed.

“You don’t have to get up. Maybe you should rest for a while before we go on.”

He searched through Loré’s saddle bag to get out their last rations of food and water, holding them up to her mouth as an offering. Though, it was only pushed away while she turned towards the open frame.

“You stay here… Namworth,” mumbled Loré as she wobbled away from her companion. “I need to finish this before someone tries to stop us…”

“What? What do you mean, Loré?” He could only stare in confusion as the distance between them grew larger.

“I can’t do it again…” She stopped in her tracks, and with lowered head she continued her mumbled speech. “I lost you once… even if it wasn’t real, it felt real to me. I don’t want to lose my friend again… I want you to stay here, stay safe. If something like this happens again, and I can’t summon up the strength to save you, then… I don’t know what to do.”

“Loré… It won’t happen again. We’ll be more careful next time.” His voice changed pitch from sad, to happy, to worried, all in one go as he ran up to her side. “You don’t have to send me away. A-and what about yourself! Using all that magic is killing you, Loré. If you do it again… maybe there won’t be another time.”

“Even more reason for you to stay behind. Please, Namworth. Let me do this thing… this one thing with my life.” Her head rose from its defeated posture. Behind the disheveled mane and exhausted eyes hit a desire, no, a wish to finish this one quest of theirs. “It’s what I was meant to do, Namworth.”

“No. You weren’t meant to do it like that, Loré. I won’t stay behind, I’m coming with you. I’m…. I’m… coming… with…” His speech slurred rapidly before passing out on the floor, with purple sparks dissipating from the back of his head.

“I’m sorry, Namworth… It’s for the better.”

Comments

[NobleValor]

I hope this ends well for the characters. I really, really do.