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Arael's glimmering green sword swings down upong the professor:
for . Assuming her poison will finish the job she steps up to the rest of you. MAP UPDATED. Her next target looks like it will be Celes.
Arael speaks to Elai: Do you know what happens to a person who touches the Heart of Volent? Soon you shall. It has happen to both of us. We will bring about a new Cosmos, you and I. Godhood is not beyond our grasp. Sister, the Lashunta will rule the new universe when we bring it forth. Allow me to show you... Arael raises her hand high into the air...
Grey
Vanna
Celes
Professor Quinto
Figit
Victor
Elai
The professor attempts to sweep Arael's legs out from under her as she tries to step away...
"Would you please just for once drop all these theatrics and cease these random outbursts of violence? I can understand the appeal of this sort of poisoning gambit when seeking a captive audience but... one generally uses something a bit slower... acting."
With that the professor lurches forward swinging wild at Arael as he drops to the floor himself, in a lifeless heap.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO" Figit shrieks as the Professor goes down. She killed him. She killed my friend. She killed him and THERE WAS NOTHING I COULD DO. These thought whip through her head and she does something...rash. She rushes around the hell-whore and touches the Heart. If she got powers because it, then surely it could give Figit something to get revenge.
Figit deftly dodges past the shocked Arael and reaches the Heart. She reaches out a hand, presses it against the Heart and...
Arael doesn't want to touch the heart... interesting...
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The foundations of the cosmos wrend and fracture. All beings in this universe - this realm as wide as imagination itself - feel the shudder. As Figit pulls her hands away from the Heart she finds two large spheres hovering over her palms.
The whole universe is a delicate balance of light/dark, good/evil, birth/death. And figit holds in her hands the most harrowing balance of them all: destruction/creation. This terrible weight of responsibility that now rests in her palms will surely be more than her mind can bear...
"Figit, are you still in there?" Elai cries
As Figit touches the Heart, she begins to enlarge. She loses solid form and expands into a swirl of ever moving gasses. Figit turns around to face the mortals. "AREAL STARDUST!" The form does not have a mouth but the voice is loud enough to cause the planetoid to shake. "YOUR FOOLISH ACTIONS HAVE CAUSED MAYHEM ON A SCALE THAT WOULD CAUSE YOUR MORTAL MIND TO IMPLODE TO FULLY REALIZE. YOU HAVE BEEN ACCUSED OF MAKING WAR WITH ANOTHER WORLD, THE EVENTUAL EXTINCTION OF YOUR SPECIES, AND FOR THE DEATH OF A GOOD MAN WHO ONLY WANTED TO HELP YOU. FOR THESE CRIMES, I SENTENCE YOU TO PROVIDE LIFE WHERE THERE ONCE WAS NONE!" Figit raises her left hand and fires the sphere of creation at Stardust.
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As the orb slowly traverses toward her Areal's mouth opens wide in horror. In the wake of the orb instantly grows a mass of Castrovelian jungle, trees, vines, complete with birds, reptiles, and animals of all colors of the rainbow. As the orb passes through Araels body she makes a weak attempt to resist it's power:
FAIL
When the orb dissipates in a flash of white light you all stand in awe of the new Jungle just created in this chamber feeding off the light of the Heart of Volent...
You hear a soft voice coming from within the line of jungle. As you step over the jagged roots and through the vines you find Arael Stardust, barely alive, the very atomic structure of her body now fused with a particularly large ancient tree. She whispers softly: Help me!
"We tried to..." says Elai softly.
"SHE DESERVED THIS HELL." Figit's voice lessens in volume to only reverberate the cavern instead of the whole planetiod. She then floats over to the Professor's body and stoops over his body. Figit stares at it for a few seconds before gently picking up the body. As she straightens her new body she says to everyone remaining, "THIS REALITY IS NOT CORRECT. IT IS MY DUTY TO RECTIFY THE DISTURBANCES IN THIS UNIVERSE. YOU, MY COMPANIONS IN MY OTHER LIFE, HAVE PROVED YOURSELVES WORTHY OF EXISTENCE IN THE CORRECTED UNIVERSE. IF YOU WISH TO CONTINUE TO EXIST, FOLLOW ME AND HOLD ON TO MY FORM. YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO MAKE YOUR CHOICE." Figit floats to the Heart and waits a few seconds for everyone to make their decision.
Stunned, the events of the previous few seconds have left Grey paralyzed in the tumult of emotions. "Why?" Is his only response. Not to Arael, but to Figit. "She committed genocide against her own kind, precipitated the invasion of our world & encouraged the moral & ethical corruption of her own followers, but because she killed your friend, existence as we know it must be 're-made'?!"
"Lady, I know about 'flawed' existences being 're-made'. That's not justice. That's just someone with power lashing out because they can."
Figit cocks her head, looking at the halfling. "GREY, YOU PRESUME THAT ONLY ONE DEATH MEANS CONDEMNING A UNIVERSE TO DEATH? NO. THIS WOMAN HAD NOT ONLY DIRECTLY CAUSED THE FATE OF MULTIPLE WORLDS TO CHANGE COURSE, BUT THIS HEART IS THE TRUE CAUSE OF THE DISTURBANCE. IT MUST BE TORN ASUNDER FOR THE UNIVERSE TO BE CORRECTED. NINE SECONDS LEFT."
"I call horse manure." Grey replies flatly. "Until you touched that thing," pointing to the Heart, "Reality as we know it was going to continue merrily along it's sick, twisted, magnificent way."
"Therefore," he continues, "You are the one deciding to do this, some nebulous, uncaring force. If that was the case, you wouldn't be the...
Aeon handling this. There would have already been one here & Arael would have been begging for our help when we got down here."
"Stop kidding yourself. You're doing this because you're mad & you're sad & because you've suddenly found yourself in a position to do something about it & you can't think of a better, but more complex response than 'tear it all down & start over'."
Figit freezes up as Grey's words cut her. Was this an infantile response or some mandate from a higher power? This had to happen, right? Otherwise, why would the Heart have given her this power at the exact moment she could destroy and rebuild everything? "YOU...YOU MAYBE RIGHT ABOUT SOMETHINGS GREY. I JUST WANT A WORLD WHERE A GOOD PERSON CAN BE WITH THEIR FRIENDS AND NOT BE TAKEN SO SENSELESSLY FROM THEM. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK NOW THAT I HAVE TO POWER TO MAKE IT SO? WOULD ANY OF YOU DO ANY DIFFERENT IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE? EIGHT SECONDS."
Vanna is gawking at the transpiring events. She then comes back to her senses. "I think any of us would like to right every wrong we can think of. But no matter what you change, history will repeat itself in one form or another. Will you re-write the universe every time something doesn't go as planned. There are innocents living peacefully even in this messed up world."
"YOU MAKE SOME SENSE, VANNA. HERE IS WHAT I SHALL DO THEN: LET THE ONE WHO HAS SUFFERED THE MOST OUT OF US ALL CHOOSE!" Figit lays the body of the Professor on the ground and kneels before it. She extends her hands and a bright light surrounds them. The light spreads to the Professor's body and radiates brighter. When the light dies down after a few seconds, the body takes a gasping breath.
After he has gone through the shock of getting back his life, Figit speaks again. "YOU ARE MY FRIEND, PROFESSOR, AND MY MENTOR. I HAVE GAINED GREAT AND TERRIBLE POWERS AFTER TOUCHING THE HEART, ENOUGH TO RESTART THIS UNIVERSE IN ANYWAY I SEE FIT. TELL ME, SHOULD I DO IT? SHOULD I TEAR ABOUT THE ANOMALY THAT IS THE HEART AND BRING ABOUT A BETTER WORLD OR SHOULD THIS FRIGHTENINGLY RANDOM AND MAD UNIVERSE CONTINUE?"
The professor needs a bit to process the various new developments that have come about here, but eventually will offer up some much needed sanity. "I think if there's any lesson to be had from any of the day's events it's that applying excessive power to bring about grand sweeping changes never ends well, which is precisely why I've always been opposed to all this magic business in the first place. I suppose there's something to be said for making the most of it though, so if you're going to go about raising the dead, you may as well restore enough male Lashunta that they aren't facing extinction, hope enough of a lesson was learned on both sides to prevent further sexual strife, and see about returning everyone home.
"Beyond that, ancient artifacts bestowing universe destroying powers frankly seem like the sort of thing that really should not simply be left lying about like this, so I would strongly recommend destroying it in some fashion, or at least moving the whole thing somewhere with a bit more security than a single guard out front asking politely that people not touch it. I mean honestly! Otherwise I'd suggest dispersing all that god-like power as best you can once everything is properly dealt with, or at least concentrating on lowering your voice a tad, and at the very least, sleeping on it before any radical world-altering decisions.
"Oh, and should there ever be any future circumstances where exceptional forces allow you to bring about my return from the dead, do try to hold off a bit longer. It seems I missed a perfect opportunity here to look into the truth of all that 'judgement of Pharasma' nonsense to religious sorts are always taking on blind faith."
"I STILL HAVE MUCH TO LEARN, IT SEEMS. I WILL NOT DESTROY THE HEART. I CAN NOT FIX WHAT HAS HAPPENED WITH THE LASHUNTA BUT PERHAPS YOU CAN." A blue portal opens behind Figit. "I MUST LEAVE THIS PLACE, FOR EVEN NOW I FEEL AN URGE TO DESTROY THE HEART. I SHALL TRAVEL THE STARS AND SEE SIGHTS THAT WOULD ENVY A GOD, BUT KNOW THAT EVERYONE HERE SHALL ALWAYS BE IN MY MIND. GOODBYE, MY FRIENDS." Figit floats backwards into the portal, off to traverse the stars.
Vanna looks at Figit-God leave. Then she looks at the group. "Well, that's good. Guess we get to live. Now then, how do we get back?
"The way we came in is obviously right out." Grey replies, turning about & examining their new surroundings critically before walking up to the Arael-tree. "Hello there. Still cognizant enough to hear me & understand?"
"Whelp, so much for that idea." Sighing, Grey turns back to the others. Brightening, he looks up at Professor Addermire. "That...
Sphere...
thing, you were messing with, it seemed some manner of Planer or translocational artifact. Do you think it's recoverable?"
"Yes, that seems worth looking into, doesn't it," says the professor, still somewhat in dismay. "It also seems I'm in need of a new assistant. Good help is always so hard to find."
With that, he pulls out a journal and pen, writes a long note in Lashuntan as best he can, explaining what has transpired, along with the formulation for extracts of alter self, should that mad scientist from earlier wish to try devise alternate method of repopulation from it, and instructions to pass it along, concluding that he is "dreadfully sorry about how this whole mess turned out."
After ripping out the page and tucking it into Arael's hand, he then mixes up an extract of spider climb, and grabs a rope with which to return to the previous chamber, and begins puzzling out a means to teleport everyone back home, as soon as they're ready.