V M [Unmaking] The Haven Hauntings

[Jester Lavorre]

Jester woke up slowly, witnessing the waking light that filtered in through a set of floral curtains. It was early. She could tell by the birdsong eddying about in the air outside the window; she knew the early hours were the time that belonged to the avian deep in her bones, it was an intrinsic knowledge that awoke in her subconscious the same way one’s circadian rhythm knew that it was time to awaken.

She sat up slowly, yawned, stretched, and felt a pleasant series of pops through her joints. Jester rubbed the sleep from her eyes while she swung her legs over the side of her bed, then hopped up. Curiously, she spied a hint of red out of the corner of her eye and smelled something foul for the fleetest of moments, but when she turned to look there was nothing and the smell was no more.

The doorway to the bedroom led out into a tidy hallway decorated with photos. The photos portrayed a trio. They were often hugging, always smiling, and in various states of repose throughout a smattering of gorgeous backdrops: a gigantic tower in the sun tilted slightly against the horizon; a triumph of architecture that reached towards the sky with a criss-crossing lattice of steel beams; a river upon whose surface glided gondolas bearing tall men in pinstripe shirts that held elongated poles for maneuvering.

Beside Jester in these photos was a stunning woman of fearsome proportions, black haired, and frightful to behold. Despite this, she wore an alien smile that looked mismatched against her stony cheekbones and flinty eyes. And in each photo, nestled between Jester and her raven haired sentinel, was a small child. Green of skin, long of ear, and with saucers for eyes, the child’s snaggle-toothed smile stretched wide along his face, a full grin of joy. Picture after picture, the goblin child beamed reverently up at his beloved women who functioned as his caretakers.

Jester smiled, and began to descend the stairs.

Her footsteps echoed hollowly, which wasn’t something she remembered about their staircase. And my, wasn’t it cold? Cold and damp feeling. Was that mildew she was smelling? Jester made a mental note to ask Christine about hiring some kind of cleaner or something.

“Christine! Little squishface!” Jester harkened, cupping strong blue hands over her mouth. “I’ve awooooken!

She stepped off the stairs and swept through the vaulted archway that led into the kitchen. Oh, what a kitchen it was, at that.

The splendid scent of fresh cut grass drifted through an open window. Although, underneath the scent of grass, Jester detected the faintest hint of something foul, like a mixture of fish and decay. She wrinkled her nose at it, but before she could put her finger on the source, Christine turned from the counter and offered up a winsome smile.

“I’ve steeped you a green tea,” Christine said mildly. She offered a rounded cup clutched in a giant hand. The handle was turned towards Jester. “A little cream. Lots of honey.”

“You know exactly how to start my morning,” Jester replied, grinning. She took the tea and offered Christine a companionable kiss on the cheek. The pink ribbon on Jester’s curled ram’s horn tickled Christine’s brow gently before the Tiefling pulled away, looking content. She sing-songed: “Thank yoouuu!” while her pointed blue tail flicked happily behind her.

Slurt sat at the round table in the center of the kitchen, whose top was illuminated by a hooded light garbed in painted glass that hung from the raised ceiling.

Tiny goblin hands were hard at work, fingers clenched over a crayon while the other hand fastidiously maneuvered a sheet of paper around. He was concentrating deeply, his squishy little face screwed up with the very tip of his pink tongue poking out of his tightly drawn lips.

Jester leaned over her little artist’s shoulder to inspect his work.

“It’s you, Miss Jestaw,” Slurt informed her. He lifted his crayon triumphantly and gestured at his handiwork. His big eyes searched Jester’s for approval. “You, and me, and Miss Chwistine!”

Jester had begun to smile a wide smile, but upon closer inspection of the portrait in crayon, her grin turned sour.

“And who is this, little squishface?” asked Jester, pointing. The pointed nail at her finger tip, deep blue, indicated something in the background of the drawing. “I’m pretty sure I don’t recognize this one. Is this some kind of imaginary friend, or something?”

Crayon depictions of Christine, Slurt, and Jester herself stood in a grassy meadow. A smiling sun watched them embrace, surrounded by flowers.

In the background, however, loomed a grinning clown. It was utterly out of place, and yet, It felt as if It were the focal point of the art.

Its grin was like acid, Its eyes a putrid yellow. Jester was filled with a sense that the clown was beckoning to her. Watching her. An icy hand around her heart made her quite certain that she did not want to answer Its call. A shiver ran down her spine and forced a shudder.. With a sudden flash of her hand, Jester swiped the drawing off of the table.

The paper, slightly crumped, glided lazily to the floor while Jester, Christine, and Slurt watched.

Jester spotted something red out of the corner of her eye again through the kitchen window and whipped her head around to look, smelling that foul odor once more, but there was nothing. Both the glimpse of red and the elusive smell had retreated once more.

“Miss Jestaw?” asked Slurt, staring at his art on the tiled floor of their kitchen. “Why did you do that?”

Jester felt a leaden weight on the back of her ribs, heavy and cold, that made her feel uncomfortable. Uneasy. Something was wrong. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing up. The Cleric tried to ignore the feeling.

“You know what?” Jester flicked her pink eyes from the paper she’d swatted away to sweet little Slurt. “I’m not really sure! But I’ll pick it up for you, then I’ll smooth it right out, and it’ll be as good as new, probably. How does that sound? And after we have a little bit of breakfast, maybe we can go outside and play? Does that sound good? It sounds pretty good to me, because I am oh so happy that I found you guys, and that I have the two of you. Aren’t you happy we found each other?”

Jester grinned, but Slurt continued to stare at the paper on the floor. Neither he nor Christine responded. Jester felt a gnawing unease, and began to hear a ringing in her ears that grew louder throughout the pregnant pause.

The light above the table flickered. She looked up at it slowly. It flickered again, then went out. The only light in the room was the natural light that trickled in through the kitchen window.

An overwhelming smell of rot and mildew filled the room.

“But you never found us,” Christine stated.

Jester turned to meet her gaze. Her eyes were frigid, ice blue pools that stood out in the dark.

“You left us, and ran off with him. Don’t you remember?”

McNinja thrust his head through the window, grinning through his mask. The only source of light was behind him, and it made his shape an exaggerated silhouette. Jester could not look away when he spoke.

“That’s right!” he exclaimed, wagging an innocent finger. “You ran off with me and left these two to kick rocks! Pretty rotten, don’t you think?”

“Very rotten,” agreed Christine, acid vitriol drooling from her tone. “You simply forgot about us and moved on. How could you do that to us, Jester?”

The musty stench was overwhelming. Jester’s nose wrinkled automatically. She was rooted to the spot, mouthing wordlessly.

Christine took a step forward, prompting Jester to take a step back. The shivering Tiefling backed into the table and stumbled. When had it gotten so cold? Her skin was clammy, though, she had also begun to sweat.

“Now, wait a minute,” Jester said nervously, a hand on the table behind her. “I didn’t mean to forget about you. I had, like, a traumatic brain injury, or whatever. It wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Donkey brains,” added McNinja helpfully. His voice sounded strange to her ears, as if he were speaking from another room. “You had donkey brains. But it doesn’t forgive the way you crumple up and discard people. That, my dear friend, is a pattern. You have a problematic pattern of behaviors where you gather people up for companionship when it’s convenient for you, and then leave them behind. No amount of donkey brains can make that okay, you know? You’ve got commitment issues.”

Jester gaped at him, then looked to Slurt for back-up.

“You left us behind, Jestaw, just like you left everyone behind,” stated Slurt, sadly. He shook his head. His eyes were glowing. “Why did you do that to us? You were supposed to love us.”

Christine took another step towards her, licking her lips. Jester noted with a stab of dread that Christine’s eyes had turned yellow. Had they turned almost serpentine? The imposing woman continued forward, encroaching on Jester’s space. There was no mistaking the smell of rot, now. It smelled as if something had eaten a barrel of fermented, rotting fish, and was belching the scent back into the Cleric’s face.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” whimpered Jester. “I totally love you guys. You’re, like, crazy important to me!”

A new voice came from the darkness.

“That’s not what yer actions say, Jester. Yer actions say that we’re useless garbage ta ya. That’s why ya threw us away.”

Mollymauk stepped out of the kitchen pantry, and began to walk towards Jester as well. He flashed a fanged grimace that made Jester’s blood run cold.

“Ya left me behind, too, Jester,” Mollymauk added. “Ya just left me ta the Haven an’ carried right on, nary a care in the world fer little ole Molly. An’ ya know what? When I realized ya ne’er cared, I found something new, and I was better off fer it. I found somethin’ special back there, my dear Jester. I found love. An’ when ya wanted me back fer yer little games, ya pulled me back here an’ took it away from me. That’s just the kinda friend ya are, my dear Jester. A lousy one.”

Tears welled in Jester’s eyes as she looked from one to the other.

They had begun to circle her, loping, though she wasn’t sure when they had begun to move. Time felt strange and distorted. Something in their eyes felt predatory. Why were they turning on her like this?

Jester’s stomach churned, while her heart sank into her feet. Hadn’t she always shown them that she cared? It wasn’t her fault that she’d left Christine and Slurt in the Abyss…was it? And Mollymauk, well, he’d simply vanished. Is that something she could’ve stopped?

It was something she didn’t stop, she knew that.

A new voice joined in.

“You left me behind, too.”

Another figure manifested in the prowling circle: a tall, elegant, red Tiefling. Jester’s mother, the Ruby of the Sea. Her eyes were starving and angry.

“Mom?”

Jester tried to back up further but there was nowhere to go. The circle was closing in.

The lights grew dimmer, and Jester’s loved ones ceased their restless march. They began to press in on her, closing off the gaps between them.

Beyond them, through the window, Jester spied a bulbous balloon of the brightest red tied to the parapet that guarded their porch. It drew her in, swaying hypnotically in the breeze.

“We all end up better off without you,” said Christine, smiling. “So it’s alright if you forget us, sweetheart, because we’ve forgotten you, too.

“No,” whispered Jester.

“Oh, yes,” Christine cooed, venom in her smile. She got nose to nose with Jester. “We have. We forgot you, and then we all floated on down…you’ll float down, too. We all float down here.”

Jester’s eyes were drawn again to the balloon. Outside it was dark and stormy. The weather had changed.

A vicious gust of wind whipped the red balloon, buffeting it, and turning it over in its mighty grip. The motion of the balloon enthralled the Cleric. She wanted to look away, but couldn’t. Something had a hold of her.

“This isn’t funny anymore, you guys!” Jester cried out.

Her trembling hands went to her chest, where she clutched something dangling there. She had forgotten about it, in fact. The calloused skin of her desperate blue hands encircled the ornate watch dangling from her neck, clutching it, drawing strength from it. Warmth emanated from within its shell.

She could feel her pulse beating against the surface of the fob watch, bouncing back into her fingertips, distracting her for two rapid heartbeats’ length of time.

The face of the watch suddenly shone; a dazzling blue light flared up from the body of the watch itself, emitting a vibrant glow so bright that Jester had to turn away from it.

From before her there was a pained, choking shriek like a cat being thrust into a cold bucket of water. Jester wrenched her eyes away from the glowing blue fob and felt a throb of horror.

A massive creature with the taut, screaming face of a clown drawn tightly over a yawning maw full of rows and rows of razor sharp spine-like teeth wrenched itself away from the crouching, quivering Tiefling.

Two spider leg appendages shielded its glowering face from the light which shone from Jester’s chameleon fob.

She stared in disbelief, then found the courage to look from side to side.

There was no kitchen, nor was there a house. There was no Christine, no Slurt, no Mollymauk, or her mother, nor was there a window haunting specter of McNinja. There was only a dark, wet underground tunnel, cold and dripping; there was only Jester and the Shapeshifter, she who held the light, and It which recoiled from it.

Jester clasped the fob tighter and rose to her feet. Her blue lips pulled back from her teeth, baring Tiefling fangs, while Jester thrust her hands towards the beast. The light pulsed brighter.

“No one takes them from me!” shrieked Jester, tears streaming from her face. “NO ONE!”

She stepped forward. It stepped back, scrabbling on many legs. The clown’s visage, cracked and wide eyed, shrunk back into the darkness. Its expression was that of disgust. In the dark of the tunnel, lit only by the eerie blue of the chameleon fob, Its face was deep and mutant and horrible. Jester’s face was cherubic but ferocious, angry beyond all reason.

She took another step forward.

“Do you hear me!?” she shrieked at it, crying freely. “NO ONE TAKES THEM FROM ME!”

Letting out a steer-like lowing, then a hiss, It backed up into the darkness. There was fury in Its eyes.

Then there was silence.

Jester sank to her knees on the dark cave floor, let the fob fall from her hands, and began to weep silently. Her shoulders heaved and her tears fell.

She thought of those she’d left behind. She felt cold and unhappy. A drop of water fell from the roof of the cave and landed squarely on her head.

 

[Masahir N'air]

The pale blue orb of light danced above Nalaia's outstretched palm, it wavered in the faint and foul draft that whistled through the claustrophobic recesses she found herself climbing through. Ultimately unwilling to fathom parting from them after all they had been through thus far, she had gone in following Jester and Mollymauk. They had managed to stay close together for a fair while, until they rounded a corner and Nalaia somehow suddenly found herself utterly and entirely alone. A shiver raced up her spine as the unnatural nature of her solitude dawned on her.

The disorientation one experienced while navigating the narrow confines of cavern corridors could easily become immense, and all these tight passageways that seemed the double back on themselves were hardly any exception to the rule, but try as she might Nalaia couldn't even feel that familiar faint pressure of their souls through the stone walls. There was no way she could have possibly gotten so separated from them in the span of a few scant seconds, not naturally at least. Nalaia stepped down into a wider room, the cold light glimmering on the slick putrid green walls and stalactites, and looked around. Where in the nine blazing hells had her allies gone, and how, by Oghma's light, was she supposed to unravel this trickery down here in the dark?

The cleric sighed softly and set to looking around her environment. It was nearly impossible to discern anything beyond the aggressively sewer themed slime dripping off of every vaguely vertical surface. The prickle of something new and surreal tingled across the nape of her neck. So it was time. She was meant to face down the beast that tortured the souls of this poor abbey, here, alone in the dark cramped confines of a cave turned coffin She was strong, forged in the fires of her first adventure, but... was she strong enough to deal with this creature and come out alive? She plucked up her courage and spun on her heels to confront the presence, only to come to a staggering stop when she saw who stood before her.

"Gale?!" She exclaimed in total shock, her heterochromatic eyes darting about as they scanned over him. His long silver-streaked dark chestnut brown hair hung unkempt in his face, smudges of dirt and grime decorated his broad cheekbones, and a thin line of blood lay dark and coagulated across the wrinkles of his forehead.

"Oh, my beloved twilight tempest! You would not believe what I have been through in order to get to you, here." The Wizard of Waterdeep huffed impatiently and made to close the gap between them. Nalaia instantly recoiled from his approach, quickly settling into a defensive posture. Gale scoffed in offense, his expression dejected. "I-!! Excuse me? I go through seven of the nine layers of hell to track you down and this is how I'm treated for it? So much for marital love and warmth-"

"Why are you here? You're supposed to be with-"

"Pandora. Yes, I know, my love." His answer did not satisfy her. Arcane energies leapt to her fingertips. Gale promptly raised his hands and continued, "That's why I'm here. Something terrible has happened-"

"What?!" Nalaia sputtered, her maternal instinct taking ahold of her. "What??! What do you mean 'something terrible'? Is she alright?"

"She- augh..." Gale stumbled, reluctantly bracing himself on one of the grody protrusions from the ground, and pressed a hand to his chest. When he pulled his hand away it was bloodied. He let out a small chuckle. "It was difficult to get here. I couldn't teleport to you, the magics at work here are terribly strong..."

Nalaia closed the gap between them, studying him intently the entire time. "Gale... What happened?"

He patted his chest soothingly, and let out a long, tired groan. "She's going to take me away from you both. I... I couldn't stay at the tower. I left Pandora with Tara, you know how Tara is as well as I do."

"She? M-... Mystra, Gale?" Nalaia spoke that forbidden name between them cautiously. No. No, that couldn't possibly be right. Not after everything they had gone through.

He nodded somberly, his fingers idly tracing the glowing lines of his netherese scar. Purple light peeked from under his skin in the ruts of the scarring and fluttered dangerously. "Yes. Mystra... She has seen fit to revoke her 'forgiveness' from me. The orb no longer slumbers dormant within my breast, instead it roils like a tumultuous sea of chaos locked within the very confines of my body."

The cleric's stalwart composure finally cracked, a tear streaming down from her purple hued eye as she shook her head in denial. It was hard to breathe, let alone think coherently. "No. No, she can't just do that to us... She can't..."

They had removed the orb from his chest years ago, long before even daring to bring Pandora into the world. Mystra had taken it from him in exchange for the crown, a situation that had left her wizarding husband sore and sour for months afterwards. There was no rhyme or reasoning for that cursed orb to be back now, of all times, or ever. This didn't make any sense. There was no way in the nine hells that he could have wizarded his way into reobtaining such a stupid object in the scant week she had been gone. Not enough to cause something like this.

Gale grimaced at her tears and fell to his knees with another groan of agony, barely able to keep his voice level as he clutched at his chest. Ever faithful, Nalaia had caught him, keeping his fine robes free from the grime of the rancid floors. "I... I wanted to tell you, instead of just vanishing and leaving a note with Tara. You... You deserve to know, before it all goes out. Do... Do you remember how we first met, my twilight tempest?"

She nodded, doing her best to cling to her composure. "Yes... I saved you from a malfunctioning netherese portal, and you came shooting out of it and toppled me over. I just remember looking up from the ground and seeing your big beautiful puppy dog eyes. We were close enough to kiss."

"And I very rudely got your nice clothes covered in sand and dust. I wonder where my unseemly self might have ended up, if not for your gracious assistance that day."

Nalaia gave a weak smile. "I'm certain you would have figured it out, my scholar. You always have."

He shouldn't be here, down in these tunnels. Not like this.

"Nalaia Dekarios..." Gale whispered as gently and reverently as a prayer. "Thank you for the life you've given me."

"Gale..." Nalaia's voice wavered, again threatening her countenance.

"Without you, I would have never experienced love or joy again. I would have never felt so free. Without you I would have banished myself away, but you..."

She sniffled. Was this some sort of goodbye? It all felt too real, yet wrong in the same breath. In fact, he spoke the same words he had whispered to her years ago in his vows, verbatim.

"You are the vibrant rays of hope that come with the warm dawn of Lathander's light. Hope, Nalaia Dekarios."

Nalaia scoffed softly, shaking her head before putting on her best smile. "My love, do you remember that night with all the other tieflings gathered around camp?"

"Oh yes..." He chuckled gently. "I remember I got fairly tipsy, too."

"Drunk enough that you spilled your wine down the front of my clothes, and drunk enough to forget that you could prestidigitate it out of my outfit."

Gale nodded, flashing a bit of his teeth in a little smile. His skin was dark and sickly, the spiderweb network of deep purple veins apparent just under the surface. A layer of greasy sweat clung to his face. "Ah, yes. The whole camp got a kick out of that ordeal. I couldn't live it down for an entire tenday after."

"And dear sweet Temperance just wouldn't let you live it down, would she?" Nalaia continued, egging the man on.

"How could she, with a name like that?"

The cleric suddenly dropped her husband, leaving him to scramble for his baring. "Profane liar." Nalaia spat vehemently, holy words leapt to her lips with the guidance of the Lord of Knowledge. "Unholy demonic spawn, I will banish you back to the retched Abyss from whence you came."

Gale's expression shifted from shocked to amused as his body trembled and contorted. Tentacles sprouted from his mouth, tearing away at the flesh of his cheeks as his cranium elongated. "Banish me back to the Abyss?" It laughed, its' hands morphing into long three clawed instruments of cruelty and its' skin going an aberrant dull lavender. Hateful beady orange eyes glared at her as the creature pulled back to its' towering natural height. Tough talk from a pipsqueak like you! It hissed in her mind.

Nalaia smiled, at ease now as radiant light surrounded her. "Haven't you heard, demon? A single grain of faith can move mountains. With the divinity of my god you will be blown asunder like toothpicks before the very tempest of your demise!"​

 

[Arbiter]

CHAPTER XI. THE RITUAL OF CHÜD​

After what seemed like an eternity lost in the desolate twists and turns of the underground labyrinth, the brave investigators finally stumbled out into a hollowed-out chamber. From three shadowy entrances crisscrossing this gloomy cistern they emerged, footsteps sloshing into a massive grey-colored spill of ankle-deep water puddling across the ground.

The chamber, vast and monstrous like a dark, yawning cavity, was a cluttered mess of discarded humanity; a literal trash pile of memories lost and lives crushed, all stained by the repulsive layer of rancid water that relentlessly assaulted the nose with its powerful, rotting stench. Just stepping into the space felt like entering a bottomless pit of despair, sucking in all who dared enter its murky depths.

Its dank walls reeked of sickly sweet decay, the black rock adorned with twisting, writhing shadows—cast in pale blue by a sliver of moonlight that trickled in through a fissure in the high ceiling.

The unaesthetic centerpiece of this room was an oversized heap of discarded garbage and toys, where an antique circus wagon perched precariously several hundreds of feet up, teetering riiiight on the precipice of tumbling down to the ground far below.

A sudden, jarring onslaught of calliope music screeched through the air. The eerie, strangely cheery tune twisted and turned, a haunting lullaby that seemed to only heighten the scene of horror before them. And amidst the tooting, whistling cacophony, a cackling voice joined in—guttural, ghoulish and seething, like stormwater gurgling from a pipe.

The wagon's sides creaked and fell away with a harsh SNAP, a real jack-in-the-box reveal, and from the center of the rickety old circus wagon slithered a twisted and distorted clown, clad all in frilly silvery-blue and painted in vibrant hues of white and red, a merry jingling of silver bells accompanying Its appearance.

Pennywise the Dancing Clown stood above them all, grinning, atop the macabre pile. It glared down at them with Its winking quicksilver eyes, a sneer curving on Its cherry-painted lips, drool trickling from the sides of Its mouth in glistening, odious strings.

Its guttural guffaw reverberated within the darkened chamber, a chilling snarl of amusement that churned the stagnant, foul-smelling air into panicked waves. And then It spoke in a syllable-mutilating shriek, the distorted melody of a coiled nightmare unspooling into a lurid purr—announcing a blood-debt to be paid in final screams and wails.

"You'll FLOAT," It sneered, Its words tumbling out with all the ghastly mirth of a predator toying with its prey. "That's right, you'll float, and gasp your last as you choke on fear! I'll devour you whole—suck the marrow of life from your brittle bones!"

Its fiery gaze shone with black-hearted delight, its repugnant smile spreading unnaturally across its deathly pale, powdery and bulbous countenance, glistening ruby lips splitting hideously to reveal Its razor-sharp fangs.

"And then, my dear little delicacies... then and only then will you join the rest of the flock!" It cackled, the clown's croaking, gravelly voice echoing in the vast grotto, Its gloved hands spreading wide in fiendish glee.

Their eyes were drawn perilously upward as the gravity of Pennywise's proclamation sank in like a lead weight. Above them loomed a macabre display—hundreds of lifeless bodies suspended in mid-air, adults and children and every age under the sun, belonging to every race and walk of life. An aerial graveyard, littered with horrifically mutilated remains floating like frozen marionettes, severed, gore-streaked limbs drifting free in the grim panorama.

The walls of the cavern, too, were alive with a strange, grotesque luminescence—speckled with dozens of flickering orbs of putrid orange and sickly yellow. These orbs pulsed and undulated, mimicking the guttering of fireflies in the night, affixed to the craggy stone with a slick, green and slimy substance that was most assuredly foul.

Eggs.

In an instant, the glowing eggs hatched wildly with a deafening series of sickening CRACKS, birthing a storm of red-eyed, sharp-toothed abominations with wings like silvery razor blades, their locust-like shadows swooping down, down, down, descending upon the gathered heroes with a thundering, cacophonous buzz that seemed to drown out all other sound—save for the high-pitched, insane laughter of the clown.

New rules will be posted shortly [IN THIS THREAD]. All your updated special item features are now active.

You are fighting Pennywise the Dancing Clown, otherwise known as It, and Its Unmade offspring. For this battle, you all have until 5PM CST on Saturday December 9th to post ONE TIME. Be sure to reach out to your peers to collaborate and check characterization. Once everyone has posted, I will review and post the results.

I WILL NOT PROVIDE AN EXTENSION THIS TIME! DO YOUR BEST!

 

[Dr. McNinja]

Dr. McNinja whooped, arms high in the air.

“Finally!” he exclaimed, “The big scary clown. I- damn, he’s actually pretty big, huh? Sparkleloooord!”

The motorcycle appeared next to the good doctor in a puff of pink and purple smoke. The pristine white motorcycle, its paint job interrupted only by a shining rainbow, sparkled in the otherwise desolately dark cave. Its engine roared angrily.

“Why do you summon me in this cursed place?” Sparklelord snarled.

“To fight another eldritch god!” Dr. McNinja chortled, mounting the motorcycle.

“What joy,” Sparklelord grumbled.

Dr. McNinja pulled the motorcycle into a wheelie, drawing his sword high into the air, upon which the motorcycle seemed to… whinny. Then the wheel landed heavily on the ground.

“Peter, get on!” Dr. McNinja said, practically giggling in ecstasy.

Peter, meanwhile, was watching the whole scene with horror. He shook his head violently. “I’m good, actually, Doc.”

Dr. McNinja shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’m gonna go enjoy myself.”

The bike whinnied again before suddenly launching forward. Dr. McNinja giggled violently as the bike shot upward into the crowd of creeps. They snarled and lurched downward, trying to claw at Doc, but he was much too fast. Doc, in turn, was a whirling mass of flashing steel, slicing and dicing through as many Parademons as he could. He wasn’t doing much damage to them, mostly warding them off, but they were certainly starting to notice him.

One of the Parademons lurched forward in the air, its wings buzzing wildly, and started gnawing on Sparklelord’s back tire. Sparklelord reacted by spinning in the air, throwing the Parademon off and knocking another squarely in the jaw with its front wheel. But the maneuver cost momentum, and soon the doctor and the unicorn found themselves falling again.

The pair landed with a heavy thud next to the other investigators. Doc clicked his tongue in irritation.

“Alright, I can’t get close enough. Who wants to back me up and get a ride to the top?”

The question was posed to Peter or any of the tiefling friends, but Sigmund got on wordlessly. Dr. McNinja stared at him, almost offended.

“Uh… sure. You can get on.”

Sigmund gripped the sides of Sparklelord’s seat and cackled. “Trust me, I’m the best chance we got right now.”

“See, that’s the thing, I don’t exactly trust-”

“Just drive, man!” Sigmund snapped, kicking the sides of the motorcycle with the sides of his legs.

“He’s not a horse. He’s not gonna react-”

Sparklelord, seemingly amused by this chance to make Doc bite his tongue, whinnied again. It shot forward, this time impossibly climbing the absolutely deranged pile of decrepit toys. It was a bumpy ride for sure, but neither of the riders cared to question how exactly this motorcycle was riding along this incredibly uneven and, oh yeah, VERTICAL surface.

It was seconds before Parademons were on them again. McNinja drew his sword again as Vrell created an arc out of psionic energy, pulsing with light and energy.

“Your sword is cooler than mine,” Doc bemoaned, cutting down a Parademon and knocking it aside.

“I’ll gloat about it later,” Sigmund said, seizing a Parademon telekinetically and tossing it aside “Gal’skap condemns you all!”

Dr. McNinja and Sigmund soon enough were an unstoppable force. Doc decided to focus mostly on driving, as Sigmund seemed to be perfectly capable of tearing down the Parademons on his own. It was about half a minute before the two reached the top of the spire, where Pennywise was standing. The clown, for his part, was not doing anything to stop the pair’s approach - seemingly, It was mostly entertained that only two would dare approach him. The damn clown cackled in a warbling but accursedly horrifying tone, its razor-sharp teeth flashing in the light.

Doc jumped off the bike and clocked him across the jaw, the clown’s head jerking to the side. The force was calculated to be just enough to snap a normal clown’s neck.

“Circus is over,” Doc said triumphantly.

Pennywise’s head fully revolved around the wrong way, a creepy grin sprawled across his face. The clown cackled and started dancing again.

“You finally got to punch the scary clown!” Pennywise taunted, “Now what, good doctor?”

“Uhhhh Sigmund?”

Dr. McNinja wrapped Pennywise’s neck with the wire from his grappling hook, then leapt off the pillar. Sigmund, who had also launched himself off of the bike, tackled Pennywise off the pillar of toys. The pair dragged him off the pillar with their combined weight, Pennywise cackling the entire time.

“You think your friends can stop me?” the clown gagged, its throat tightly squeezed by the wire, “I’m the doom that waits under your bed! I’m the feeling of dread that awaits you in the dark! I’m the-”

“Shut up,” Sigmund said, drawing a turtle from his pocket.

Dr. McNinja stared at him in disbelief.

“Your plan was to pull out a TURTLE?!”

 

[Sigmund Vrell]

This was it, the end of their long week in hell, and the end of the Abbey’s nightmare. Gazing around at the macabre scene that hung in the air above them, Sigmund’s stomach turned. Not out of fear, but rather out of disgust and contempt. This thing was all wrong, it had no right to consider itself anything more than a worm.

Perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of the Old Gods was that they were not malicious or even ambivalent entities. No, they were sympathetic, helpful deities only limited by their own magnificence, struggling to comprehend the insignificance of the mortal world without the right words. All they asked for was a little faith. Parasites such as It did nothing but sully the name of the elders, and he would not stand for it.

He didn’t appreciate the deaths of its countless victims either.

Clutching the Guardian in his fist, Sigmund felt strength and confidence radiating from it. He knew that It feared the turtle, he just had to get close enough to drive the psychic blade deep. Something that was easier said than done with the swarm enveloping them.

Bullets, magic, and flashing blades filled the air as the investigators-turned-fighters pushed through the carnage, doing their best to make their way towards their prime foe. The cultist’s hand was flailing around madly, sending countless psychic blades slashing through the air. The parademons were tough and fast, each one taking a few attempts to vivisect, and there were far too many for him to take a few attempts each.

Not far away, Sister Josephine cleaved a beast in half before taking another’s head off with her shotgun, fighting back to back with the newly rescued Father Gascoigne. They were holding their ground well right up until the priest caught a scent on the air and, snarling like a beast, barreled through the swarm towards Pennywise, much to the clown’s amusement.

“Oh, there you are.” Pennywise cackled, whistling to the hunter. “C’mere boy!”

Racing to back up his old hunting partner, Sigmund leapt forward, slamming two parademons together with his telekinesis before bisecting them both. Before he could reach Gascoigne, however, he was blindsided by another unmade monstrosity, one that was thankfully dispatched by one of his allies before it could do any further damage.

Hitting the ground hard, the psion practically bounced, skipping like a stone as his precious codex was sent flying from his grip. Letting out a cry of dismay, more at the loss of his beloved book than the hit, the cultist watched it disappear into the carnage with a sinking heart.

In an instant, he felt his connection to Gal’skap grow blurry, like static descending over a radio line. He was still connected, but communication became far too difficult without the booster that was the crystal set into his tome.

“No! Nononono!” Sigmund gasped, scrambling after it. He could still feel the Codex, that subtle, invisible hum that seemed to emanate from it. Slipping beneath the carnage, his slight frame giving him just enough of an edge to slide beneath the notice of the parademons while they were distracted by his more well-armed allies, the priest made his way towards his tome.

Anxiety struck at his core. What if it got damaged in the chaos? What if he lost it? Sigmund thought he was going to be sick. It wasn’t just that he would be defenseless, or the struggle of finding another crystal, it was the book itself that he simply couldn’t risk losing.

Just as he began to lose himself to panic, a calm warmth washed over him, emanating from the Guardian. The cultist had almost forgotten about it in the chaos, surprised that he had managed to keep his grip on the little turtle. A sudden sensation that he was fine, he would find his book washed over him, and as if on cue, he spotted it just a few metres away.

The crystal had been knocked from the cover, its gentle glow visible a few more metres back, but that was besides the point. With a gasp, Sigmund lunged for the book, narrowly ducking beneath the razor wings of a parademon as he dived forward. Clutching the tome to his chest, the high priest let out a sigh of relief. Safe. Still, the situation was as dire as ever. How was he going to cut through the mass to reclaim the crystal and help Gascoigne?

“What’s wrong, my little madness?” Morgan’s voice said in his head. Sigmund froze up for a moment, glancing around before looking down at the book. It was no longer the endless tome of eldritch knowledge, it only took on that existence as long as the crystal sat within its cover. “Would you like to hear a story?”

As if moving on his own, the cultist opened up the old story book, flipping through the pages of old Ranvian folk tales. He was looking for one in particular, one that he knew very well.

“You who are so attached to this false reality should not be so quick to dismiss an illusion.” Sigmund read aloud, beneath him, his shadow, faint in the darkness of the underground, began to stir and grow. “The lies you cling to so desperately are turned against you. This is my illusory champion, my Imaginary Einherjar.”

Four eyes, glowing a vibrant purple, opened beneath Sigmund as his shadow rose from the ground with a whisper. Four spindly arms lifted it from the ground, rising up until it stood five metres tall, towering above its summoner. Clapping two hands together, the right hand pulled at the left one, drawing out a needle-thin length of psionic energy until it held a three-metre long beam of light.

With an almost dismissive swing, the Einherjar swung its psionic blade, Severing Space, and separated an encroaching parademon’s left and right halves. It stooped protectively over Sigmund, it’s four eyes flicking to and fro to clock any incoming threats, while the cultist held his book to his chest with a look of grim determination on his face.

“Thank you, Mother.” he whispered before racing forward, illusionary warrior in tow. The parademons sliced and diced at its shadowy form, undoubtedly doing damage, but not enough to stop themselves from being slashed in half by its unconventional blade. Sigmund quickly scooped up his crystal and, after confirming that it was undamaged, slammed it back into its position on his tomes cover. Feeling the connection clear, the cultist pivoted to rejoin Gascoigne. Even with his full power returned, though, the prospect of approaching and climbing the pile seemed rather daunting.

That’s when he spotted McNinja aboard his… steed? Whatever it was, it looked useful. And so, he hopped on. Their ascent was incredibly fast, even leaving the good hunter and Sigmund’s summoned warrior in the dust.

Once they had reached the top, McNinja’s disappointment at the turtle was… understandable. He hadn’t been there to witness the creature’s fear of the little toy. Sigmund, though, had full faith in the object, faith that was quickly rewarded by Pennywise’s panicked reaction.

“Hey! No! Stop!” Pennywise balked, quickly changing It’s tune at the sight of the turtle. “I’ll tear your mind apart! I’ll eat your soul! You’ll sink, you’ll float! DON’T TRY IT!”

“Gahahaha!” Sigmund cackled as his heard voices in his head once more.

“Gal’skap walks with us, in glory and in sadness.” he heard the voices of the last seven scions whisper in his mind, reciting the familiar rites of induction for the mindbreaker order. “In the cold and dark we swear this oath…”

“Together we’re bound in Madness!” Sigmund finished, feeling his stomach drop as his soul was wrenched from his body.

~~~~~~~~~

At the edge of the universe, It seethed beneath the glow of the Deadlights. It warned that whelp, it really did. And now he was trying to kill It. He really was! And he was going to die for it! Furious, It turned to face the soul of his prey, and found something very different to what it expected.

Rather than the young man it had just been fighting with, It found itself face to face with… something. It was tall and skinny, as if it had been stretched out, and upsettingly uneven in its construction. It had the vague body plan of a human but it was decidedly not human. It’s two legs were far too long and it’s two arms had far too many fingers. Their faceless head bloomed like an anemone, with countless pale grey tendrils snaking through the air, while too many mouths gibbered haphazardly across its body.

“Gahahaha!”

“You’ve fucked up! You’ve fucked up!”

“We’re gonna kill you!”

The mouth shouted jeeringly in the voices of the eight scions of Gal’skap.

“What are you?” it asked, a strange feeling creeping into It’s soul. It wasn’t fear. It didn’t feel free. Of course It didn’t! But there was something… off. Something wrong that it just couldn’t quite place.

“We are fear! We are Madness! We are the child of Gal’skap! We are VRELL!”

“Yes! Gal’skap! Father! We are but a branch on the tree!”

“Hahaha! Father is coming!”

The voices chattered chaotically, each mouth then settling into a grin. Seemingly experiencing a moment of lucidity, Vrell focused their psionic might towards It, clashing against the Glamour’s very existence. Gritting It’s many teeth, It struck back, not about to let some upstart eldritch whelp try to overthrow it. No matter how unexpected the abomination’s presence was, that wouldn’t be enough to save them.

The souls struggled against one another, the crushing, malevolent weight of It’s existence pressing down on the amalgamated faith of Vrell. Though It should have been handily winning against one person, it quickly became apparent that It wasn’t fighting just one soul. Eight souls were bound inseparably to one another, their strength feeding into one another with unity unlike anything It had ever seen.

If that weren’t enough, the constant chattering of the soul’s many mouths further jabbed at It with, frankly, crude threats, but that was enough to cut at Its will.

“You’re gonna die, clown!”

“Cut you out, parasite!”

“Hehe, start dancing again! Maybe we’ll spare you!”

They shouted incessantly at It, quickly wearing out its patience.

“Listen here, you insignificant little speck.” It snarled, looming close to Vrell, It’s overwhelming presence attempting to simply blot them out. “You’re nothing. First I’m going to break you down, tear you apart strip by strip, and slurp them down. Then your friends are next. I’ll boil the dog, flay the doctor, hang th-”

All at once, Vrell’s many voices fell silent. For a moment, It thought that its threat had struck home, but before it could continue, Vrell raised one long, tentacle-like finger to their mouthless face.

“Shh…” they whispered, their eight voices speaking in unison. Moments later, the featureless, alabaster surface that was the face began to split, yet another mouth being sliced into their visage, only stopping once a morbid grin slashed their ‘face’. “He’s here.”

It felt that strange, unsettled sensation fill Its soul once more. For reasons that It could not explain, It glanced downwards and realised that Vrell’s legs didn’t seem to end. Were they always like that? Stretching forever down into the dark of space.

Down.

Down.

Down….

…

No, they weren’t endless. They were connected to something…

...

“What... is that?!” It croaked.

~~~~~~~~~

For the rest of the investigators, Sigmund stood slack-jawed atop the pile while Pennywise convulsed on the ground before him, howling and clawing at its face.

“Well, guess it worked.” McNinja shrugged before kicking Pennywise’s stunned body off the pile. “Order up!”

 

[Mollymauk Tealeaf]

With the explosion of the eggs sacks, and subsequent release of the insect-demons, it became a scene of beautiful and violent chaos as the investigators, unified in their common goal of ‘fuck this clown guy’, fought back with gusto and impeccable skill. Molly was impressed with his fellows as his eyes quickly scanned the scene, dodging a claw from one of the horde, as he cut down a bloated corpse emerging from the shallow water that made its skin look melted on. The pillar of refuse at the center of the cavern holding limp bodies of strangers in its orbit, like a haunted cylindrical planet, held aloft the throne of lies for a false carrot-top-king.

“What an absolutely ugly bastard,” Molly said out loud and like an owl, Pennywise’s head turned impossibly to look at him from the perch before IT’s attention was pulled away to Mcninja and the Cultist sharing a sparkly motorcycle that was defying gravity.

Moonlight found its way to him from the heavens above, and his wedding ring shone as bright as ever. The tiefling spun on his heel, drawing his second curved blade in time to parry another winged creature and he thrust out with the off-hand, not wasting time as he continued on, now getting a better view of the entire scene. With all the craziness and horror that had happened since their arrival at the Haven Abbey, one thing had remained invariable, something that had followed him from the last life lived in the same body: the blood. To say it felt like fire this time was a severe understatement, it was lava in his veins and it screamed to be let out.

Jester slammed into his back with her own, the two young Tieflings who came into this together as best friends, still so, and finding one another like magnets. Jester ducked as Molly arched his back over hers and sliced in opposite directions, gore spilling into the air as the two friends reset and moved together. “Sweet Jester, where is yer big honking gun?” Molly asked firmly, and the Blue hue of her cheeks matched her pink eyes a little as she blushed.

“I…probably forgot to pick it up from the shop, Molly…” She replied, off-handed, throwing a strong blue fist into the skull of one undead that lumbered too close, then making a face, and wiping the pulp away on her skirts. Molly turned to her and stared hard. “Ok, ok, ok, I definitely forgot to pick it back up from the shop…definitely, probably.” Jester added and shrugged. Her purple companion just smiled and hugged her, then kicked something up with a foot and Jester caught the long piece of rebar that had escaped trash mountain. “OOOH. Molly, it's, like, not even my birthday,” She cooed, beaming, and spun it around to catch a flying offspring that had swooped to the only moments ago unarmed Jester. It crash landed nearby.

“Nice hit, Jester, also, have ya seen the Good Cleric Nalaia, by chance?” Molly asked and stole a glance around the arena. His own question answered to the both of them as they saw her strolling confidently, untouched, and a little off their side. The way her posture was perfectly poised and confidently walking in what Molly could only assume was her pristine fighting outfit, he figured she would be just fine. Both Tieflings looked up as the motorcycle roared again and they saw the daring feat of their strange bedfellows start to unfold a second time, producing better results.

“Molly, do you think that Pennywise looks like that giant orangutan we saw at the zoo in Arcadia?” Jester asked, blocking the snapping jaws of an insectoid monster who came hurtling from above with her impromptu melee weapon, and Molly helped out by separating the neck and head of the thing.

“Actually, I think the rat bastard looks more like that giant orangutan’s balls, ta be honest…” Molly said back over his shoulder as they yet again reset their positions.

They both heard a noise over the cacophony of violence and slaughter at the hands of their compatriots against the ground forces and they looked up again to see that the imposter king of lies and fear was struggling to stay atop his trash heap.

“I think this is where you might come in…you should go ‘full Molly’…” Jester chimed, and turned to face him, taking him by the shoulder, eyebrows going up and down for emphasis.

“I would LOVE ta go full Molly…got some rage I think I need ta work out, and this blood is screaming ta be set free…” Molly said excitedly, grinning like a mad man. “Ya gonna be alright by yerself?” Molly asked, seeking permission as he held out two fists. She answered with a smile and a nod, bumping his fists in response, and the Lavender Peacock, Showman, Devil, Hunter, pivoted on his heels and ran towards what he thought was a large boulder, drawing his blades across his chest in deep cuts, and the blood exploded onto the blades, igniting them in response to the ritual and sacrifice of life essence. One blazed with a sun’s inferno, and the other looked like it was made of ice from the bottom of an iceberg as cold frost wafted off it like smoke. He leapt onto the rock which actually turned out to be the massive hunter, Father Gascoigne, who sniffed boots and velvet pant legs in response to being landed upon.

“Ahh, another joins the hunt…” The massive man said in a voice like pouring gravel. Molly’s blood was up like it had never been before, swords at their full power.

“Aye, Good Hunter, I am here. It seems we be havin’ beasts in the shop,” Molly said, susprised only for a moment at his own odd response, but it seemed to placate the goliath with a devil on his shoulder for the moment.

A voice called out from behind, “Molly, make sure to, like, really fuck up that pile of giant orangutan balls!” Jester yelled, and he turned to face her, Crimson eyes shining wild and brighter than any of the abominations attacking them. They looked at each other for only a moment before Molly extended the index and pinky fingers on each hand, stuck out his tongue and backflipped off Gascoigne like a wild man.

It was then that the clown fell from his trash throne, as Mcninja called out to them. Molly looked up to see the Good Doctor lop off the head of one of the horde, then while it was still in midair, smack it with impossible precision and force with the flat of his katana, sending the projectile down at speed enough to take another head off the closest winged offspring to the Hunter in crushed velvet as Molly charged the fallen Pennywise.

“Thank you, Sister Mcninja, “ He called up.

”Not a nun,” Mcninja said from on high, but Molly was already setting a frenetic pace with his blades. Nothing entered his mind except What does a dead man fear?, over and over again as his corybantic and graceful dance of swords butchered a path of carnage. Limbs were either severed and immediately cauterized, leaving abominations of the hatched horde aflame, or appendages and wings flopped to the ground, frozen, as ice spread across where the wound occurred. All the while amidst the slaughter, the same words on repeat in his mind What does a dead man fear?

It was only a few more of the hatchlings between him and the clown, and Pennywise was rising slowly, but with insectoid movements, long limbs unnaturally contorting to regain some composure. Molly slid on his hip in the shallow water and slime, swiping his glowing curved swords at the legs of the bodyguards, then pivoted on his knee to pop up in front of the Glamour as the guardians to their maker all fell over like uneven stools, making terrible noises in their agony.

Molly was absolutely drenched in blood and gore, about half of it his own. Dozens of wounds were visible from the places his wedding suit was in near tatters or completely cut to ribbons. He stared at Pennywise, eyes burning brighter than the flaming sword in his hand. The clown started to smile and speak, spreading his arms and hands out wide and bowing lightly as if that was all he could manage for prostration, but Molly knew the hunger in the entity's eyes, because it matched his own.

Molly cut it off, speaking first, wanting to play with his prey first before the kill. “What does a dead man fear?” Molly hissed, crazily.

“Wha-” Was all Pennywise could manage, wearing the mask of congeniality, trying to hide its hatred, before the Tiefling Hunter ground his heel in and lunged the distance, burying his ice blade into the heart of the thing- but only managed to pierce its shoulder as the speed of the nightmare in silver was near logic-defying. IT still recoiled against the assault, and Molly did not let up, blocking attacks and striking his own, both only getting glancing blows in their savage back and forth.

“WHAT DOES A DEAD MAN FEAR?” Molly roared rhetorically, fangs bared, and growling. Pennywise had been moving slowly backwards against the vicious onslaught, and was now near up against the wall of the arena, far away from his false-throne.

“Stop saying that!” Pennywise yelled back, and there was something in IT’s voice. They lashed out with a claw and Molly slapped it away with the fire blade. “I AM FEAR!” The shape-shifter demanded.

“No,” came Molly’s cold reply, his hunger building as he caught something in Pennywise’s eyes. “A dead man fears nothin’, ya giant orangutan’s balls…”, and Molly kicked the shocked entity square in its pom-pom buttons, as IT slammed against the outer wall. Molly slashed out, scoring his first good blow against its chest, showing he did not think this thing any more than an actual clown. Then as Pennywise hissed, Molly leaned in to it, closing the distance till his purple lips were almost touching his prey’s ear “...and the man who fears nothin’, is the most dangerous thing in the crossroads ta scum like ya! I am YER fear, clown… and I have come to collect,” Molly spat, then taking a step back, he readied both the blades to plunge into IT as the clown gasped and the Hunter feasted off the fear in his prey’s sickly yellow eyes.

Out of nowhere, three of the winged insect-demons were upon Molly, two planting themselves on each of his curved and deadly swords, as the third wrapped around his waist, all three beating their wings, the two that sacrificed themselves for their master, already slowing down. The Tiefling in a tattered suit dropped his shoulder and twisted his hips, sliding the blades free, as he moved to tuck the edges under the third abomination’s arms, twisting the other direction, and planting his heels only for a moment, before leveraging up and slicing the arms off the thing. He looked back to the wall to see his prey had vanished in the distraction, and Molly roared a string of curses that would make even the most hardened sailors on Opelon blush.

He knew his chance had slipped through his fingers, and he sighed. Despite his wounds, he still felt ready and raring to go, other monstrosities awaited in this in surplus and he shrugged and smiled at how crazy he had gotten, giving himself a congratulatory shaking of his head to hear the tinkling of his horns. He languidly swaggered back the way he had come towards Jester, the fire and ice swords resting easy and Devil-may-care on his shoulders, as he left a trail of his own blood behind him, sauntering forward to whatever came at him first.

 

[Shallan Davar]

The room was a battlefield. A cacophony of chaos and violence. As various members of their cadre rushed into the throng with eagerness, Shallan stuck close to the more organized portion of the group, those who were not immediately prepared to engage in conflict at a moment’s notice. They had taken a defensive position between two of the smaller trash heaps to one side of the chamber. The bulk of the Parademon swarm was focused on the ferocious hunters that had plunged into the fray, but they were still in danger of the errant fly-by attack or burst of laser fire.

Shallan felt out of her depth. Without her shardblade and with her stormlight all but depleted, she could do little more than watch as the half-dozen or so warriors did battle with the insectoid menaces. It was impressive, they fought with a ferocity born of several days of torment. A purposeless rage and frustration now finally given a target upon which to unleash.

Perhaps too many targets. She thought as she watched the parademons throng around their best warriors in literal droves. Pennywise’s insane laughter started to echo from the walls of the chamber, bouncing up into the moonlight far above.

“Who’s got eyes on the clown?” She heard Sister Josephine shout but if anyone responded to her query Shallan missed it as she ducked out of the way of a flashing energy beam. She peered back over the edge of the trash pile, scouring the visual mess of the battlefield. All she could see among their attackers were parademons. It had slipped away into the shadows somewhere away from the fighting.

“A luckless number came to find me! They walked their way down here, two by two!” It’s sing-song voice was tinged with an undeniable edge of menace.

Shallan’s desperate search caught a splash of bright red amidst the chaos. A latex balloon was floating to one side of the chamber, tied to a piece of rubble. What was it doing down here?

“They thought they could stop me! If only they knew!” It’s voice bounced around the chamber, but it still felt uncomfortably close by.

“Look out!” Peter pulled Shallan back and away from a swooping parademon, vampiric strength lifting her out of harm’s way as Minala took a swipe at the retreating creature with her melder. Shallan caught her footing, steadying herself on a spire of garbage. She looked around with mounting apprehension. The fighting was thickest near the central spire, but there was another of the red balloons there on the edge of the heap, floating stock-still despite all the tempest of movement and rage that was happening around it. She was fascinated.

Then she saw another one. And another one!

“But I’ll let you in on a sweet little secret! You’ll float too! YOU’LL FLOAT TOO!”

As It’s rhyme broke into deranged giggling, the chamber was now increasingly littered with balloons. Shallan was also growing relatively certain that the red latex orbs were more common around the defensive group than the bulk of the fighters. It made sense to try to isolate its potential prey.

There was an alarmingly loud pop from somewhere near the central spire.

“Yeuch, worms? Why would it be filled with worms! That is like, one of the grossest things to put inside a balloon!” Exclaimed the excitable member of the tiefling group.

“Hey everyone! This is your private practice ninja with a PSA strongly advising NOT to pop these balloons! They’re probably some sort of trap!”

“Agreed. Keep downing the demons, and find the clown!” Sister Josephine shouted commands above the roar of the battle.

Shallan eyed the growing masses of bobbing red latex. It would have plenty of cover to lurk behind if It was moving to attack. How had it been able to create these balloons so fast? There were more of them wherever she turned to look! Shallan fished the Adderstone from her safepouch. It glowed in her hand, almost eagerly.

Of course it was a trick. That was what this monster did, after all. Shallan whirled around, desperately searching for the angle of ambush, adderstone placed to her forehead like a third eye. There It was, creeping up on Minala with a wide-eyed sneer. Shallan cried out a warning, and Minala swung, her melder caving in the side of the clown’s face with a sickening crunch. The intact half of Pennywise’s face gave a look something akin to surprise, then It’s mangled head curled open, rows upon rows of teeth gleaming in the unsettling orange light emanating from within Its core.

Shallan rushed forward, extending her hand to use the last of her stormlight in a desperate gamble. A spidery spiral of a blade, or the image of one at least, appeared. Her stormlight illusion stabbed forwards to intercept the clown’s advance. It looked down at the weapon that seemed to be piercing Its heart. The clown’s face twisted in pain that It clearly wasn’t expecting.

Shallan was herself confused. After all, It hadn’t been hurt by the previous weapon, and it wasn’t as though the blade wasn’t real. Shallan had conjured it from the last of her stormlight. But when she drew in her breath, she found there was yet more power to call upon. She just had to keep this momentum going.

“Witless jester!” She exclaimed, making sure Pennywise’s attention was focused on her, “How do you like the sting of my Storm-Radiant blade? A weapon that brings finality to the Unmaking will now put an end to your schemes!”

The clown’s head cocked at a confused angle.

“No such thing, girlie!” Pennywise sneered, prying himself off of her blade that did not exist with a menacing intensity, “You’ll float with the rest of them!”

“I actually have a habit of sinking.” Shallan focused her gaze over Pennywise’s shoulder forming the illusion of a parademon swooping in to attack her. She swung her illusionary blade up, slashing it across the chest. It writhed in the air, silver-white lines spreading across the illusions form as though the blade’s power had affected it at a deeper level than the mere physical.

“You should know that I chased one of the Unmade from my own world! I have the power to cleanse this place of you as well!” illusory silver flames roiled along the ground towards Pennywise, while Shallan pointed her blade towards the greater battle. Several parademons that had never truly existed erupted with the same silver light.

She advanced on Pennywise now. The unmade clown was still sneering, but it did not seem eager to get closer.

“Too late… too late…” It muttered, “You don’t fool me! You couldn’t stop daddy, you can’t stop me!”

“Oh I think you’re mistaken.” Shallan reached up, extending her sleeved safehand in the direction of the central spire. Several of the room’s combatants looked skyward as the giant heap of debris and stone started to shift and crack.

The key to deception was not to abandon the truth, but to bend it. You had to find the cracks in what was true, and determine where you could twist it without it snapping the whole of the charade. That was how to sell a lie. Could Shallan really bring the whole spire crashing down on Pennywise’s head?

Was he so confident she couldn’t that he would risk finding out?

With a hiss, the clown vanished into the shadows mere instants before illusory stone and twisted metal trash all but buried the place It had been standing seconds before.

Shallan exhaled another breath of stormlight, drawing in more with a gasp of a breath. She wasn’t sure how long she could keep this up. She had It on the defensive now, Had it questioning, had It reeling. But that was only temporary. She needed a lie that had enough truth in it to really be lethal. Pattern hummed in her ears, and the realization clicked into place.

“Are you running away, clown?” She called out, “Are you scared? I suppose spiders really are more scared of us than we are of it!”

“I AM FEAR!” The clown streamed out of the shadows at a frantic speed, blowing right past detective Columbo and Peter before either had time to do more than dodge out of the way. One of It’s clawed hands closed around Shallan sword arm, The other grabbing a claw full of her hair and yanking her head painfully to the side. Her concentration shattered, the illusions started to wink out of existence again, dissipating into wisps of light and mist.

“Back, back, back!” The clown snarled at Nalaia as the Tiefling cleric rushed to Shallan’s aid, “Don’t want me pulling heads off, do we?”

Shallan grit her teeth, There was an agonizing snap as It twisted her arm in an angle it could not naturally bend. She would need to focus, despite the pain

“Foolish girl…” Pennywise cooed, “You should have stayed far away. Far away. I was not bothering you. You came to hunt me, but this was never your fight!”

“No it wasn’t…” She whispered, “...But they were going to put a stop to you even without our help!”

“Hey you troll!” shouted an angry voice. Pennywise’s head turned clear around to see the briefest glance of Sister Anna, before a cast-iron pan smashed into Its face.

“That one was for my brother!”

Pennywise dropped Shallan to the ground, stumbling to the side and holding its head as it moaned. The clown convulsed and then righted Itself with a look of toothy rage.

“I’ll get my own turn in, don’t worry, sis.” Daniel stood next to his sister, a metal poker in his one remaining arm, “We’re done being scared of this faker!”

More of the Haven’s denizens started to form around Pennywise, The Abbess, old Krotgrim the gatekeeper, Even the baroness of the kitchens and some of the children. All of them advanced on Pennywise with grim determination and weapons in hand.

Shallan lay still upon the floor of the chamber, focusing on as many of the details of the illusory Haven dwellers as she could keep track of. This many people created from nothing would be well beyond her normal abilities. Even with the Adderstone she was struggling to remember how each had stood, and looked and acted. But this was her best chance.

It had been hoping to make an easy meal out of these isolated people. The idea that It’s food source was fighting back was the closest thing to a fear she could imagine a monster like it having.

 

[Ben]

The battlefield wasn’t new to me, nor was a collection of eldritch abominations or undead. I’d fought things like this before, ran through some big spooky guys that made the clown look absolutely handsome in comparison.

Watching as the actual heroes all worked together, I questioned why I didn’t join them to myself, even though the answer really came down to the deadness that crept into my legs whenever I considered the idea. I didn’t think it was the fact the clown’d become a big old locust, or that it was apparently capable of breeding, though the thought did almost make me vomit when I realized, or even the fact we were also fighting a giant bunch of mini-Its here. It wasn’t as though I’d been scared to fight in general,, either. The whole battle had been a chaotic melee, but I’d been squishing my share of parademons and undead. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t still be around to question myself.

Except, any time I looked up at it, that cackling demon, a pain swelled in my chest, and my heart seemed to skip. My legs felt like quicksand just trying to move that way. Not fear, but something shook in my brain regardless.

I looked to the opponents in front of me, a tide of misshapen servants of Darkseid, all swarming forward in an effort to defend this ugly excuse for a grasshopper.

I took a deep breath. This was fine. I was never meant to be the hero of this kind of tale - actually, last time I tried that, I failed pretty miserably. The rest of them could handle this kind of giant eldritch being of insanity - or at least, they were pretty confident that they could.

With a swing of a newly enchanted walking stick, I powdered one Zombie’s head, then smacked away a Parademon’s trident, snarling as I held out a hand, and the mold around me reached out with a grey tendril and lashed against the beasts flesh, Rotting off a chunk of it’s chest in seconds, before continuing on into the screaming creature and finding it’s way into the beast’s internal organs. It gave out a haunting scream I made a mental note to block out later as I resisted the urge to sigh in relief at how smoothly that attack landed.


“Yeah, don’t like that, do you?” I taunted, giving a small smile. I was no great hero. I knew my place. But it was still my duty to stop this abomination, and in service to that cause, I would work as the gatekeeper in this battle. Pennywise had tried to tilt the odds in his favor with an army…

But with a smile, I faced the oncoming horde, Hopping back with a magical lift while I pulled out a longbow. I was the druid of Decay, so it makes sense Silvanus wasn’t sending me here to battle in the limelight. My job here wasn’t to conquer - it was to clean up. To take the cycles of death and rot this monster had trapped here, that Darkseid had built in direct rejection of the circle of life, and return them to it.

I loosed an arrow as the horde charged forward, and my smile dropped to a determined glare as a swarm of fungus surged ahead of me.

“Come.” I spoke in a voice not my own - for it was not, at this moment.

I was not Brass belle, but the rock beneath, the air above, the mold and mildew and fragile little organisms that remained growing and rife and pure of his taint here. I was their power, their redemption, and their Wrath. It fell to me to bring the balance back to this place, and I was pretty sure murderizing every one of Darkseid’s pawns in the cave was probably a good step one.

 

[Shinku]

The bow in Brass Belle's hand pulsed with an ethereal glow as each arrow found its mark, piercing through the flesh of parademons and zombies alike. The fungal swarm advanced, decomposing and reclaiming the corrupted remains with voracious hunger. Brass Belle moved with a fluid grace, a vessel of nature's wrath, as the battlefield transformed into a spectacle of decay and renewal.

The parademons, once a formidable force, now found themselves ensnared by the very environment they thought to conquer. Fungal tendrils reached out, decomposing their wings and rendering them flightless. The zombies, animated by dark energies, crumbled into lifeless husks as the touch of decay seeped through their undead forms.

Pennywise, on the other hand, confronted by the collective defiance of Haven's residents, recoiled for a moment. The illusion of the townsfolk, crafted by Shallan's desperate creativity, stood resolute. The clownish entity, its confidence shaken, glared at the determined faces surrounding it.

Sister Josephine stepped forward, her eyes blazing with righteous anger. "You thought you could prey on the weak and the scared. But we're done being your victims. This is our home, and you are not welcome here."

Pennywise, infuriated by the unexpected turn of events, let out a guttural growl that echoed through the cavernous chamber. Its voice, a distorted symphony of menace, reverberated as it declared, "You think you can defy me? I am the eater of worlds, the bringer of fear! You are nothing!"

With a swift and unsettling motion, Pennywise's form began to warp and contort. Its once clownish visage twisted into grotesque shapes, and the air around it thickened with an oppressive malevolence. The very shadows seemed to dance with an unholy glee as the entity tapped into the deepest reservoirs of its dark power.

The surrounding atmosphere grew colder, and a palpable sense of dread settled over the battleground. Pennywise, now a more nightmarish incarnation of terror, extended its clawed hands, each digit adorned with wickedly sharp talons. The very essence of fear emanated from the creature as it prepared to unleash its retaliatory onslaught.

The room itself seemed to respond to Pennywise's malevolence. The walls, adorned with the macabre remnants of the fallen, cast flickering shadows that danced with an eerie life of their own. The parademons, allies to the malevolent clown, responded eagerly to its dark command, their chaotic forms merging seamlessly with the encroaching shadows.

With a sweeping motion of its elongated arm, Pennywise conjured a swarm of nightmarish illusions—twisted reflections of the deepest fears of each individual present. Faces of lost loved ones, phantoms of past traumas, and surreal manifestations of primal terrors manifested around the clown’s challengers.

To Shinku's eyes, the battlefield suddenly warped and twisted, giving birth to a haunting illusion that preyed on Shinku's deepest fears and unresolved traumas.

Burning embers filled the air as the scene transformed into a nightmarish version of Shinku's past – the village he had once called home. Flames danced with malevolence, casting an eerie glow on the twisted figures that emerged from the fiery abyss. The ground cracked and churned as charred and broken bodies clawed their way up, rising from the ashes like vengeful specters.

Shinku's heart pounded, his breath quickened, as the illusions took on the familiar forms of his family and friends. Their faces were distorted by anguish, their eyes hollow and accusing. The air became thick with the acrid scent of burning wood and the haunting echoes of desperate cries.

"No... this can't be..." Shinku muttered, his voice strained with anguish. The weight of his past, the guilt and helplessness, manifested before him in vivid detail. Pennywise reveled in the spectacle, exploiting Shinku's vulnerability with sadistic precision.

The illusionary villagers, devoid of the marauders who had truly brought about the tragedy, approached Shinku with spectral gazes that pleaded for salvation. "Why, Shinku? Why didn't you save us?" their voices echoed in unison, a haunting chorus that reverberated through his mind.

The swordsman's hands trembled as he faced the tormenting apparitions. The illusion forced him to confront the painful truth – the feeling of powerlessness that had haunted him since that fateful night. The flames of the burning village reflected in his eyes, mirroring the inferno of guilt that consumed his soul.

In the midst of this surreal nightmare, Shinku clutched his sword and the soul mirror, tighter than ever. The mirror, infused with a newfound power, resonated with the intensity of his emotions. As the illusions drew nearer, their accusing whispers amplifying, Shinku felt a surge of determination.

Suddenly, the illusionary figures froze, their haunting cries silenced. The air then crackled with energy as the spirits from inside the mirror manifested around Shinku, their ghostly forms taking shape. Faces of men, women, children, and beings of various races materialized, their eyes holding the weight of their untimely demise. Yet, within those spectral gazes, there was an undeniable determination—a shared purpose to aid Shinku in his quest for justice.

"Enough of this farce," Shinku growled, his eyes blazing with resolve. The flames that had engulfed the village now flickered and waned until they became mere wisps of phantom fire, vanishing into the dark recesses of the illusion. As the illusions dissipated, the oppressive heat of the burning village gave way back to the cool, damp air of the cavern.

Shinku blinked, his eyes adjusting to the sudden shift from the vivid nightmare to the reality of the cave.Once again, the true setting of the cavern came back to the assassin’s senses. The clash of steel, the roars of parademons, and the distant echoes of allies facing their own trials filled the air. The cave walls, adorned with grotesque decorations, seemed to pulse with an otherworldly energy.

Shinku, his eyes ablaze with determination, charged forward, wielding his sword with unparalleled skill. The spectral figures followed suit, their transparent weapons materializing as ethereal extensions of Shinku's own blade. The battlefield became a surreal dance of steel and spirit as Shinku and his ghostly allies joined the fray.

The souls, bound by a shared desire for justice, attacked with an otherworldly grace. They overwhelmed most of the Parademons with a barrage of strikes, their spectral forms passing through each monstrous creature like a chilling wind.

The spectral figures not only attacked but also served as guardians for Shinku. They intercepted incoming attacks, their translucent bodies absorbing blows that would have otherwise harmed the determined warrior.

Pennywise was then surrounded by the collective spirits of its victims. They struck the clown with strength that was fueled by their anger and sorrow, seeking retribution for the injustices it committed.

 

[Aster]

"This shit is so far out of my pay grade..." Aster half-whispered to herself, rubbing tiredly at her eyes in the last moments she had before everything in this cave forsaken by all that was good and holy erupted into pure, unadulterated chaos. "Terry give me strength."

Much as she wanted to take the fight straight to the clown directly, there were a few other things at play that really needed to be dealt with first. Like the hordes of zombirific fuck churning up out of the water and the swarms of horrible oversized nightmare incarnate erupting from the eggs all over the cavern walls. She'd seen more than enough horror movies, and seen enough of the unmaking in news reports and the Dante's Abyss recap to know exactly how bad this could get, real quick and in a hurry.

She wasn't exactly a fighter, like some of the others here seemed to be, but she could hold her own against a few mindless zombies. Hopefully. Against a few dozen, though, she was less thrilled with her odds.

But 'normal' had left the chat altogether a long, long time ago, at this point.

Aster's claws raked across the waterlogged, decaying face of one of the many zombies, sending it toppling over to the ground as she awkwardly lunged forward and planted a boot into the chest of another, following through with the momentum to bring it down with a stomp, and a series of soggy cracking and popping noises. Gross. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she fumbled behind her back to grab for her gun, pulling it out to plant two quick rounds into the freak underfoot, then turn around and put a few into the one she'd slapped the shit out of moments before.

She didn't even get a chance to appreciate a very minor job well done before more chaos happened, carrying her right along for the ride with it. It was too much to bear, really.

Every time she turned around to deal with some fresh new threat of rapidly approaching bullshit, she felt her patience fray a little thinner, what little chill she still had rapidly evaporating and giving way to an all-consuming urge to just....just scream, really. The past few days had worn her thin, and she hadn't really had the time or space to just take a minute or forty-five to calm down and get her head in order, or just scream and cry into the void, or punch something that didn't really deserve it, or....

A shrieking gray-skinned locust monstrosity descended out of the not-so-blue. A blur of buzzing scythe-wings, glowing red eyes and slashing claws filled her vision as Aster desperately tried to avoid being eviscerated. One on one, she was sure, she had an actual chance against this thing, even with it taking her by surprise. She was too full of pent-up aggression with no outlet until now, and this fuck-ugly thing had just shoved itself right into the 'outlet' space in her brain.

Unfortunately, it wasn't one on one. It was like, a dozen versus a fucktillion.

Terry give her some serious strength.

Everything devolved from there, quickly and painfully, into a disjointed and blurred mess in Aster's head. Every little sound rang in her ears, things almost seemed to move in painfully slow motion, and every time she blinked it seemed like she had jolted to a completely different place, fresh new aches and pains springing up all over her everything, another one of her allies close at hand, or some fresh new degree of horrible monstrosity about to take her face off. Her head hurt; she felt dizzy, like the world was spinning. Her own heart was hammering in her chest, every beat echoing like a drum inside her skull.

Her gun, she realized, had long since run out of ammunition and been discarded. Somewhere in the fray, she had even lost her trident, leaving it impaled in the skull of a parademon to pin it to another bloated corpse and keep it out of her hair. Her hands ached and trembled, fingers and claws slick with blood and gore and slime and unmake goo and who the fuck knew what else. She didn't even want to think about what the rest of her must look like.

The outlet for all her pent up and misplaced anger was welcome, undeniably. But as it almost always did, such aggression and violence was quickly exhausting her, self-destructively wearing her out and weighing heavily on her, body and mind both. It was exhausting. Adrenaline was one hell of a drug, and could push you way past what you thought you could do, as she was pretty sure anyone who'd ever had one of those "I shouldn't be alive" moments could tell you. But it wasn't a miracle-maker. Even with that pushing you, sooner or later you'd hit your breaking point and everything would just stop working.

As she slowed down for just a moment to breathe, doubling over to put her hands on her knees and weakly take in several quick, gasping and ragged breaths, she could feel that moment quickly approaching for her. Unlike a lot of the others here, she wasn't any kind of real fighter. She'd been in a few little scraps and fistfights before, of course. But nothing at all like this. She was wearing thin, not just from pushing herself physically, but mentally as well; violence wasn't really in her nature, even against such messed up shit as what kept crawling out of the refuse piles down here.

Still...

She glanced wearily around, trying to find some sign of where bozo the clown had gotten off to among the chaos, but it was like trying to find a bike horn in a pile of rubber chickens down here. She couldn't tell which flash of red was that jingling, prancing fuck's ridiculous hair or just some other spike of violence. You'd think something as ridiculous as a fucking clown would be easy to spot out, even among all this, but—

A soft, jingling noise of bells reached her ears, from directly behind her as something loomed alarmingly over her. Almost in slow motion, she turned around, looking up to come face to face with the grinning visage of Penywise, the fucking clown. For a second that seemed to stretch awkwardly and uncomfortably into at least ten, they stared unblinkingly at each other as the clown's mouth slowly split into a needle-toothed grin.

"Pushing yourself awful hard, aren't we, fido?"

"Ever heard of personal space, jingles?!" Aster snarled, throwing a clumsy backhanded punch at him, though infuriatingly he just slunk back out of reach with the infuriating liquidity normally only attributed to cats. "Stop fucking around, already!"

With a ringing noise somewhere between beating glass jars with a hammer and a hyena trying to laugh, Pennywise melted back into the chaos around her, leaving only the painfully shrill noise of hooting circus music ringing in her ears.

"For Terry's sake!" She lifted her hands, covering her ears futilely. "You...! Fucking circus reject, clown-ass looking....ass-clown!" she snarled, carrying on into a withering stream of invectives that would have given even the most foul-mouthed sailor cause to stop and think as she aimlessly staggered forward in a vain attempt to distance herself from the source of the noise.

Every few steps she took brought with it some fresh new hell. The music intensified, then died down. A sharp, acrid smell of burning sugar and oil hit her like a physical slap across the face. The cold, surreal feeling of being alone in an empty carnival at night, that same creeping unease that hit every child after their first visit. The actual smell of this place, the overpowering reek of garbage and sewage and rotting meat and death closing in around her with a suffocating intensity.

Then something hit her. Hard.

She couldn't even tell if it was in her head anymore, or if it was actually physical at this point. She just crumpled like one of those obnoxious flailing tube-men at a car dealership when the fan was turned off, hitting the ground in a pitiful curled-up ball. A low, shuddering groan left her at that, as she tried desperately to catch her breath and ignore the painfully ringing silence in her ears, and the—

....silence?

Blinking away the daze of stars, Aster lifted her head to gaze uneasily around the cavern. Everything around her moved as if in slow motion, the fight still carrying on in stark silence to her battered senses. The tide seemed to have turned, though. The team of investigators was on the back foot, seemingly endless hordes still spilling out of the water and shrieking down from the walls and rings of corpses overhead.

Aster rose up to one knee, first, weakly clutching at her midsection with both arms as something churned within her. Something felt wrong. Very, very wrong.

She willed herself desperately to move, to go do something, to help try and solve this mess...but the slow-motion scene in front of her played out unchanging, seeming to always be just out of reach no matter how quickly or how far she frantically tried to dash in to help. One by one, she watched as the others were overwhelmed, borne down and ripped limb from limb with agonizing slowness. The noises she imagined they must be making, as their faces twisted and contorted into absolute agony and suffering...

As their bodies finally gave out, and the agony dissolved into the blank mask of death, each and every one of them had their lifeless faces turn toward her. Staring with blank, glassy eyes. Their bodies jostled and twisted in death as they were ripped asunder, torn to chunks and chewed on by the zombies and monsters, seemed to make their lips quiver and move, forming silent words.

Blaming her for being beaten so easily. For not being that one extra set of hands that would have let them do their jobs. For not being good enough. For letting them all down at the last second.

Something in Aster's mind broke, as she just sank forward, her arms slipping down to the ground before her, elbows sliding in the muck. Her forehead slumped down to rest on her arms. This was it...this was it...

Exactly what she always knew was coming.

She'd known from the beginning she was going to be the weakest link in all of this. That anyone and probably everyone else here was more capable than she was, and would be more useful at figuring out and solving this mess than she would be. She was just dead weight, taking up space and getting in the way of the others. Maybe if she had just decided to be a little more callous, tell her dad she couldn't make it out here to even take a look around, then maybe...maybe...

"Maybe they wouldn't all be dead," Pennywise's jeering voice cut through her thoughts. "Dead because of you," it gleefully sing-songed onward, as its jingling, prancing shape came looming out of the haze of blood and reek of gore and death around her.

Aster's body just went limp, letting out a shuddering, choking sob. ".....I don't care anymore," she weakly said. "I know it's all my fault. I was a nuisance that let everybody down. So just...get it over with..."

The dancing clown threw back its head and let out a ringing laugh, echoing and bouncing off the cavern walls. "Oh, there we go, that's what I was waiting for! Waiting for you to break." Its laughter finally died down to a mere burbling giggle. "It's no fun if there's still some fight left in you. It makes you taste so...bitter. But when you're this broken...." And ITs body lurched forward, the top of its head craning precariously, ponderously backward as its jaw split open into a yawning, gaping fissure. Yellow-orange light flickered out of the depths of its maw, rows upon rows of teeth glistening and dripping with hunger. "....the meat is salted juuuuust right, for that one...perfect...."

Spreading ITs arms wide, fingers twitching gleefully, the clown stepped forward to loom over Aster's prostrate form...

Something dripped on Aster's face, making her involuntarily blink, and the world came rushing back to her. She sat there awkwardly slumped down onto her knees, staring vacantly up at the swirling rings of detritus at the heights of the cavern. Before her loomed Pennywise, jaws split impossible wide and gaping with teeth beyond counting ready to take her head clean off.

A shriek bubbled up from somewhere within and her leaden limbs jerked, throwing her awkwardly to the side. Not quite the 'jump and roll to safety' she had been trying for, but...it left her alive and in one piece, at the very least. Pennywise gagged in displeasure as IT spat out the mouthful of tattered hair and jacket IT had snagged in its toothy maw.

As the cloth fluttered to the ground, something else clattered to the ground, drawing the gaze of both Aster and the clown simultaneously. Aster's eyes could barely comprehend what she was seeing at first, but Pennywise immediately recoiled and spat, shrieking and shielding its eyes as it turned and fled, loping away into the chaos of the fight elsewhere.

With a shaking hand, Aster reached out to what she was sure had to be a figment of her imagination. Her fingers closed around the hilt of an immense sword, and the feeling of solidarity in her grasp gave her something to focus on. Something to anchor her, hold on to physically as well as metaphorically, and steady her nerves. She pulled it closer, carefully using it as leverage to regain her feet.

She recognized it now, once her mind calmed slightly. It was unmistakable, after she'd bent so much time the past few days trying to find it.

"Go figure....you were right here the whole time," she murmured, taking the immense sword up in both hands. "I couldn't find you no matter where I looked...because I already had you." The blade of the weapon pulsed with a dark green glow, shot through with countless motes and swirling nebulas of light as a bright blue light radiated out from it.

In spite of the blade's massive size...it felt right, somehow. Not exactly easy to wield in her battered and exhausted state, but it just seemed to come naturally to her.

She slowly turned her eyes back in the direction the clown had fled in and set her jaw, leaning forward before bursting into the quickest run she could. She was still exhausted, and probably running on fumes at this point, but something about this sword. The light it gave off, it made her feel like she had a chance. Every swipe of the massive blade cut through and swept aside almost anything in her path, as she honed in on the damnable clown.

IT had made a fatal mistake, in trying to torment and break her. Its fucking drool, still damp on her face, was like a beacon. It could hide and slink around and away, but she quite literally had its scent now. If she could just land one solid hit on that jingling, prancing fuck...

Here we go.

Usin' a Focus here for general 'not be a combat liability' purposes.

That's 1/2 (Thank you, Lucky affinity)

 

[Arbiter]

CHAPTER XII. BEATING THE DEVIL​

From Its lofty perch atop the throne of refuse, Pennywise the Dancing Clown cast a leer down over the dreary chamber, a grin splayed across its grease-painted mug, Its supernaturally luminous eyes ablaze with malignant delight. With a taunting jig and jingle of bells, the fiendish being exuded a twisted symphony of fear and amusement, filling the foul chamber with a palpable sense of dread and wicked glee.

These... these meddling gnats had dared to enter Its lair, where It was unquestionably at Its strongest, Its peak might, to challenge Its dominion over despair! One by one, they barreled into Its dank, dark fun house, stumbling admist Its frightful array of leftover meals where death was palpable, the stench of rot swirling in the air as a dour, entrapping miasma. With each step, Pennywise soaked in their fear, their disgust, their unease—It relished all of these emotions, for these flavors gave a nuance to the meat.

Its cheerily-painted countenance contorted, a sneer of needlepoint teeth curling beneath Its red lips, and with a single flourish of Its goofy Mickey Mouse gloves did the Nightmare of Derry, the Eternal, wield Its mind-bending cosmic power. From the monolithic pile, a luridly ghoulish landscape sprang to ghastly life in vivid color: the eerily still chamber was no more, now a circus of madness where the dead paraded about like jesters and the living were but unwitting puppets in Its grand exposition.

"C'mon down, kiddos," Its gurgling voice crooned in wretched welcome, a guttural, gibbering lullaby woven among the cacophony of squealing calliope music and the orchestra of dripping, fetid water. "Don't be SHY! Skitter and scatter, scoot and skedaddle—but know that it's futile, for down here, you all FLOAT!"

With a showman's gesture, It summoned gloaming illusions to life, a cavalcade of illusions culled from the fears of those below, dancing upon invisible strings, attacking them, harassing them at every turn. Each chimera of Unmade virulence a vile tool to fuel Its hideous whims, skittering forward to snap and nip at Its prey.

And yet the brave souls pushed on, did they not?

Through the darkness, and the dread, some guided by righteousness, others by vengeance, all by the fragile, frayed thread of hope in their chests. With every strike, the yellow shine in Pennywise's ancient eyes dulled just a tad; with each step they advanced upon It, the unsteady ground beneath those big ol' clown shoes seemed to quake, Its large frame more hunched, cowering, Its fiery orange hair and pom-poms the only thing distinguishing Its flamboyant shape from the dark.

"The closer you get, the deeper you'll sink into the muck and the mire!" It threatened, voice dark, foul and writhing with hysteria—and fear. A deep, deep trickle of fear that ran to the very pit of Its infernal belly, the kind of fear a cornered animal might display, snarling and spitting and clawing at Its assailants; the clownish extraterrestrial fought to suppress such disgusting, uncomfortable feelings, to remain as arrogant as It always was, but this time... this time things felt different.

Different. It always started with something different.

The Cultist, the Hunter, and the Doctor ascended Its soaring monument of death—challenged It, struck It down from Its lofty throne.

Then came the Peacock. The Artist. The Druid. The Assassin.

The Hero.

And gradually, slipping into the sinister overture of Its loathsome existence, there came a note of uncertainty—a beat skipped, an off-kilter melody amidst the dark revelry. Pennywise's grin contorted into a scowl, Its quicksilver, ever-shifting eyes clouding with the distant, dancing pinpricks of Its Deadlights, darting to and fro, struggling to comprehend the inescapable predicament It had created for Itself.

"You think you can stand against me? The Eater of Worlds?" the creature's voice boomed louder, hissing into a shrill screech, raw anger seeping through the caricature of joviality. "You stand before the eternal dark, that which writhes beneath, and still cling to your vain truths?"

The invaders were relentless; their unity, quite unexpected. And there, amidst the charade, emerging from the depths of Its being, the clown felt something—as alien to It as a songbird caught in a spider's web—a flicker of doubt.

As the challengers beat It back at every turn, cut down Its offspring with blades of moonlight and sheer determination, the desperation in Its voice sang true. Pennywise fought with increasing frenzy, Its movements unpredictable and disorganized. Like a weakened beast fighting for Its life, pride wounded and feast disrupted.

It hissed, and recoiled, and crawled.

"Come one! Come all!" It cackled, Its fiendish, painted smile contorting into a grimace. "Behold the grand finale, the glowing spectacle at the end of all things! Where we skip and trip and tumble down, down into the mouth of madness!"

But despite all of Its theatrics, Its proclamations of death and suffering, something had... shifted. Irreparably. Incomprehensibly.

The tide of fear was turning, and Pennywise—the Monster, the Eternal, the Spider, the Disease of Derry, the Essence of Consumption—felt something It had hoped to never feel again, not since the Turtle had choked on the cosmos and rotted in his shell:

The encroaching threat of the end of Its own tale.

Pennywise was struck with a searing agony, an unnerving sensation that stirred within It an uncomfortable emotion—dread. The clown's twisted frame stumbled backward as Aster's shimmering, moon-touched blade pierced Its repulsive form, Its sugar-spun skin melting beneath the strike, bubbling like liquid caramel. The strike was precise and true, causing even Its usual mask of menace to crumble.

In that moment, a sound escaped from It unlike any cackle or jeer; instead, it was a pathetic, fear-filled keening, a noise so shrill it threatened to burst the eardrums of all who heard it.

Its pale-skinned body, which had once seemed so solid, so irremovable despite Its illusory tricks, began to ooze and drip like candle wax touched by a burning tongue of flame. The vibrant greasepaint skin that had for so long been the cloak to Its inner darkness now ran in vibrant rivulets of color, dripping grotesquely from the raw, exposed muscle and sinew beneath—which bled thick, brackish blood, wisps of it drifting off into the ether, floating like the balloons It so loved.

Transformation, the creature's only remaining defense, Its instinct when cornered, kicked in violently. In a craven attempt at escape, or perhaps merely a reflex of Its agony, Pennywise contorted, shifting into a monstrous shape—Its ruffle-clad legs buckling and morphing into the skeletal limbs of a gigantic locust.

The gigantic locust's abdomen glowed, a revolting, sickly golden-yellow light emanating from Its innards in steady pulses, like a perverse parody of a heartbeat signaling the peril and seething fury swirling within. But there was no strength left for flight even in this form, no power to seek revenge—half of Its newly-spun locust legs curled up in death, the black chitin shriveled and brittle.

"F-forgive me, my indulgence..." It choked, the voice that had once rang with jubilant malevolence now thin and quavering, taking on a wheedling tune. Terror, genuine and raw, flickered in the depthless wells of Its silvery eyes, which sought the faces of Its prey-turned-slayers. "We can bargain, yessss... I have seen things, known things... I can offer you worlds, desires—"

But the company of beings that pursued it showed no trace of compassion for the shivering creature before them, no willingness to bargain. They were the avatars of vengeance, and each step forward was a denial of Its plea.

Amidst the violence that enveloped the cavern, a low hum—a reverberation of otherworldly disdain—echoed through the damp air. Mounting in strength second by second, building into a tremor that rattled the earthen walls all around them.

The presence of Its dark master, the Fallen Arbiter, could be felt from a distant realm beyond time and space, ringing hollowly inside Its alien skull:

"The price of failure is... eternal."​

 

[Arbiter]

CHAPTER XIII. THE MONSTER AT THE END OF THE BOOK​

Fury morphed into terror as Pennywise felt an insidious, creeping dread claw at the edges of Its sanity, a cadaverous chill pricking like needles into every fiber of Its monstrous being. Slowly, with forced reverence, the clown raised Its sightless gaze heavenward, to the open portal providing a perfect view of the moon looming high above, as if trying to peer beyond the smothering darkness of the chamber to the source of the hum.

A somber, bone-chilling note—a mournful dirge more sensed than heard—filled the vast, decayed cavern, a thunderous bewailing that echoed the grim finality of Darkseid's decree. Pennywise, peering through the gloaming, beheld Its executioner—a colossus whose crimson eyes were as voids, more profound than the stygian, starfire-riddled chasms veined between the cosmos, eyes that regarded It with frigid disinterest.

There was no salvation for the wayward entity, no second chance. A great and terrible scream tore through the void, echoing in the cavern as the aberrant Deadlights at Its core shifted from a glittering orange-yellow to a venomous green. The signature feral glow, once so imbued with the essence of unspeakable terror, now ignited in a searing conflagration of purgation.

The creature's locust-like carapace blistered and cracked, spewing unholy flame. And before their very eyes, Pennywise, the great devourer of worlds and children, began to combust. Its sugar-spun, greasepaint skin, brightly colored with hues of red and blue, slopped off in thick, slippery chunks, its vile raiment peeling away like parchment in a firestorm to reveal the skeletal mockery of a being in torment.

A grotesque bonfire of all-consuming light surged across Its distorted frame, the immolation absolute—a sickening funeral pyre for an existence that was mirth and malice intertwined. The tyrant of Derry, the nightmare that had haunted childhoods and feasted on the succulence of grown imaginative fears for centuries, faced now Its own end—the end of the story that had begun at the dawn of time, before the Turtle and the universe and the light.

As the infernal emerald flames devoured Pennywise entirely, the carnival-sheen horror snuffed out beneath Darkseid's damning glare, silence befell the chamber. The lingering stench of brackish char scorched the cavity embedded deep within the bowels of Erde Nona, and from the ashen husk of the extraterrestrial clown's corpse rose a sinister crackling, a bilious scent like the stink of sulfurous hellfire and brimstone simmering and steaming at the air.

Those present braced for finality, but the saga of horror had not yet drawn to a close. Within the bereft shell that once housed the entity known as It, an abominable renaissance unfurled, dread metamorphosing into a new, nightmarish form.

A single, coldly uttered syllable emerged from the dead creature's maw, contorted in agonized rictus:

"FALL."

In an instant, the room succumbed to a darkness both profound and complete. They fell to the ground, each and every last person standing in the room. Not slain, but shackled by an invisible force that surpassed understanding, unable to rise.

And lo, from the fiery depths of clownish hell, arose the monster at the end of the book.

Skeletal and dreadful, a new skull grew forth from the clown's dead countenance, specks of green flame igniting within the barren cavities of what once were eyes. Writhing like grotesque serpents, spiral horns pierced through the charred flesh with a sharp crack of splintered bone, sprouting from the creature's skull, their helical twists the very antithesis of life's sacred DNA; anti-creation etched upon bone. And each hollow socket bore a balefire that spoke of ruination vast as time itself, spanning worlds—universes—glaring outward at the gathered company.

Where once a clown gloated with savage playfulness, this new terror exuded an icy, regal permanence of death, its head adorned with a battered and tarnished crown. Cloaked in ragged layers of robe and cloak, the figure stood tall, its brown raiment hiding a formidable stature and skeletal arms, its bony hands crackling with an eerie green fire.

Skin stretched tight over a skull lacking a nose, the entity's shredded, flesh-tatter lips pulled back in an eternal and malevolent grin, baring rotten teeth to the world. And from between its grinning teeth hissed a message, spoken with a deep, chilling finality.

"Hearken to me, you fleeting sparks within this void. Witness the hand of the true harbinger of oblivion. Your blades may cut through the flesh of a demon jester, but they are as whispers against the storm that I bring. Your triumph is but a phantasm, a transient flicker in the tapestry woven by the Fallen Arbiter."

With a wave of his skeletal hand, the Lich commanded the stark absence of light as if it were an insolent hound—and the void obeyed, washing over the chamber like a tidal wave of drained hope. Fighters strong and valiant, some seasoned in the gore-spattered dance of battle and others less so, now clutched at their skulls, a chorus of groans fermenting in throats gripped by despair.

"Such petty circuses," the entity stated, lifting one hand, the sickly green flames burning all the brighter around the fleshless joints of his fingers. "Mere child’s play to the grand theatre He commands. Fathom the futility of your valor, as all will crumble, all will wither, all will fall before the will of Darkseid. And as your world decays into the maw of night, remember this moment—you, at the zenith of your hubris, crossing eons to defy me, only to be extinguished by the End incarnate."

Yet despite the entity's chilling words, Aster remained bolstered somewhat upright, the sword of holy moonlight her sole aegis, casting an unassailable blue glow that repelled the encroaching murk, its broad blade simmering with glistening green flecks of spectral light. Her form wavered under the immense pressure exerted by the entity before her, but still she knelt with the great weapon jutting against the damp stone floor, unflagging as a soldier called to arms, a bulwark against the tide of ancient dark.

Her crimson eyes lifted, meeting the keen gaze of Dr. McNinja across the chamber. The other had fought his way to a kneeling position, his pristine white labcoat flagging around him, a strange wooden stake clutched tightly in his hand.

The carved serpent wrapped around the stake rattled, hissing... its eyes glinting with lime green radiance.

NEW RULES HERE

 

[Mollymauk Tealeaf]

FALL.

The word tumbled out from the Lich's decayed and giant presence, and Molly was buried under it like an avalanche. He felt the impossible weight in every inch of his being, and his will gave out under the insurmountable force that pressed down upon him, as the glow of his moonlight wedding band dimmed to almost nothing. Words invaded his mind or ears, there was no telling the difference. The bigger, badder, and newer undefinable horror that replaced the clown seemed to finally wrap up its gloating, and it was all Molly could do to open his eyes, barely able to keep his head out of the slick and stagnant water of this new and same arena.

What a fool he had been, throwing himself as always with abandon to whatever threat was in front of him, and now as the ring felt like all its power was draining, it joined his body as he bled out from countless wounds. Even his breathing felt a bit ragged, and he thought how much easier it would be to just lay his face back down in the sewage and sleep. He was scared now for the first time since he had put on the ring, he realized, and he could have laughed at how absolutely horrified he was in this moment, his self-autonomy gone as he felt the burning blood inside of him seep out into the puddle.

“Dyin’ must be so nice, ole Molly thought he’d try it twice,” He chided himself and turned his head with the greatest effort to see Jester also prostrate next to him. He could not see past her pink eyes, so full of fear, and the way she looked back at him, he could tell she saw the same thing in his. Shit. No, no that would not do to let them go out like this, the showman decided. He pulled his cheeks with all the might his face could muster and grinned, wild and crazily. “Fancy meetin’ ya here,” Molly joked, and gave a small and nervous laugh. It was the only thing he could think of to take them away from this for a moment.

“Do…you come here often?” Jest replied and smiled back with some effort, returning the same laugh and speaking with unusual uncertainty.

“I was asking me’self just now, as I saw ya from across this sewer pit…what’s a place like this doin’ in a girl like ya?” Molly shot back, and the smile came easier, and the laugh was a little more genuine this time.

Jester broke, and for a brief moment the fear was abated by her true giggle, joyfulness in its purest form from his best friend. “Molly, that was like…really bad, especially because I’m pretty sure I swallowed some of this pee water…” Jester said, giving him a thankful look as the fear returned to both of them, but much less so for a moment as they shared some small sense of their humanity.

They both had their necks cranked immediately upward, like invisible hands grabbing them by their hair as they were forced to look upon the Lich. He stared at both of them like a skeletal and demonic teacher, green eyes burning and boring into each of them for their insolence of talking in class. Then, without even a word, it looked away again, as the Teifling’s sighed relief at having survived their warning message…until they heard something emerging from the water behind them. It seemed their lesson in obedience was not quite over as they heard a slogging something splat from the shallow depths. Molly forced his neck to its limit to get a look, but Jester had a better view without having to move as much. “Molly…MOLLY! It’s coming for us, Molly!” She called out, some of her willpower still with her in her voice. Molly felt emboldened, even as the fear crept throughout his weakened form.

“No, sweet sweet Jester. I’m gonna make it come for me,” Molly said, adding more defiance towards this abomination, this second false king of unmaking who had come to call on them. The purple devil was not going to watch the greatest friend he had ever known get eaten and ripped apart by some zombie, unable to defend herself.

“Molly, you are NOT going to do that-”

“OI! Dead man! Come and get some,” He called to the direction of the slow and ominous sucking and SPLAT, that came with the undead and slow footsteps of the Lich’s thrall. Molly could tell his friend was about to speak up and he continued before she could object further. “Jester, love, I am bleedin’ everywhere except out of my arse…it’s fine, really…think of yer mother, Jester. Ya came back once after that killing island game ya entered and it almost broke her heart ta hear about what happened, I’m not gonna be the man who tells the Ruby o' the Sea that I let ya get eaten in a dark fuck-all nether…sewer? It’s just not in me ta-” Molly was cut off by Jester’s eyes going wide as she yelled to him, her visibility of the creature greater than his.

“Uhhh…Molly? Molly, it’s on all fours now!” The blue cleric yelped. “Oh, oh no…I think..."


“What is it ya infernal trickster woman?!” Molly yelled back, suddenly very worried.

“Molly, I think it’s going to eat your butt!” Jester said, and for her part, she sounded absolutely horrified for him.

Molly gasped. Jester looked at him with frantic eyes, and he could now hear the wet dragging of a dead and mobile body, slowly stalking like a cat towards his backside. “No. NOT me arse,” He squeaked, and that was all he could manage.

Mollymauk Tealeaf was an individual who truly loved their own butt, and good for him, he deserved it.

This would not stand. It was not just about him, he thought, a fire starting to grow in his belly like never before, a different fire than he had felt when facing the clown, this was an inferno for justice. To take away his beautiful gift from the billions of eyes all across the crossroads was a sin greater than anything he had ever heard of or seen before. THIS WOULD NOT STAND. The fire grew, and it grew, his blood was boiling again, and he clenched his jaw and his butt-cheeks, as the horrid sound of the simple creature who would commit the most dreadful crime in the cosmos was almost upon him.

“Well. Enough. O’. That. Then,” The peacock hunter barked each word, as he moved his arms around to find his swords. It felt like swimming in the deepest part of Opealon, but he kept straining and groping until his lithe lavender fingers grasped hilts.

The undead eater of flesh was upon him, and as he pushed against the force that bound him flat, he managed to get into a worshiping bow, on all fours. He was sweating and bleeding more and more as he struggled.

“Molly! That is probably, like, the worst position to get into!” Jester hissed, and her friend in dire straits just grunted back. She could feel the willpower radiating off of him and it was contagious, she herself felt the pull to stand and no longer be restrained.

The Tiefling hunter could feel them right at his backside, could hear the unnatural and decaying jaw as cartilage and bones snapped and popped as it went in for the bite. Molly growled and broke the surface of the ocean of immobility, this was not the first time he had woken up clawing himself out of being buried, scratching pitifully against immeasurable weight to find life, and he would do it again.

At the very last moment, he found enough strength to roll on his back, letting his devil’s tail lash out and wrap around the throat of the zombie, keeping it at bay as it unceremoniously tried to crawl on top of him. His swords felt like boulders, but he swung them all the same, and as the head of the single undead creature went flying, he heard Jester sigh relief, then gag as thick, cold blood shot out all over Molly’s face and chest. The smell and taste of it made Molly roll back to his stomach and vomit, before he uneasily put one knee up, then using the hilts of his swords, he stood.

He faced the cloaked, crowned, and horned figure, his crimson eyes meeting the green flames yet again.

“Ya may take my life, ya giant, undead, wizard bastard…but yer never gonna take a piece of this arse,” and Molly spit some of the remaining black blood in his mouth at the Lich.

 

[Dr. McNinja]

“FALL.”

Dr. McNinja coughed violently as he laid on his hands and knees. Despite being a doctor who cured magical conditions, the good physician often hated magic. This was one of those times. There was nothing logically pinning him down, but the air… it felt heavy.

Peter groaned in disdain at the magic. His hands quivered as water warbled around him in little droplets, but there was nothing he could do against the wave of lethargy washing around him.

“Doc…” Peter said, noticing something, “The staff…”

“I don’t… wanna…” Doc said, feeling lethargy wash over him.

That was when Mollymauk sprinted past him, muttering something about eating ass.

And if there was one thing Doc was, he was competitive.

“Alright, stupid snakes on a stick,” Doc mumbled, “You clearly got some beef with the skeleton thing. I’d love to kick some ass now, so-”

The snakes hissed at him. To most onlookers, it would have appeared hostile - but Doc squinted and nodded.

“I understand.”

Still lying down, Doc curled into a fetal position. Flowers started sprouting around him.

“RISE, DEFENDERS OF ERDE NONA!” Doc exclaimed, gripping the staff with all his might, “RISE AND FIGHT THIS TIDE OF EVIL!”

And one by one, the fighters found themselves feeling lighter. Their bodies surged with energy as their feet were surrounded by sprouting flowers. Vegetation of all kinds coursed around them, pulsing like a heartbeat. Birds started flying in from nowhere that people could notice, chirping in harmony to an unheard melody, saying one thing: Rise.

Dr. McNinja was the first to rise to his feet, using the rod - which he knew without explanation was called the Kiss of Life - to lift himself. His white coat flapped in the warm breeze that swept across the cave. There he stood, a god of medicine, a defiant act of life against the oncoming storm of death.

The warriors of the abbey lined up, facing the Lich in this suddenly brightly lit room, green light pulsing in the air defiantly against the darkness.

“Too much?” Doc asked.

Peter shrugged. “Pretty Lord-of-the-Rings-y. Not that that’s a bad thing!”

“Yeah, it came out of me.” Dr. McNinja tossed Peter the staff. “Here, you use it now. I’m gonna go kick that lich in the face.”

“How do I use this?” Peter asked.

“Just point the snakes at things and… feel it. I dunno, you’re the magic one here!”

Peter nodded and closed his eyes. The staff seemed to align with him better, perhaps because Peter was already magical. Peter waved the staff.

Behind the warriors, the ground started shaking. Colossal serpents, each easily the size of a truck, shot out of the ground. They hissed angrily at their enemy - death itself.

Dr. McNinja and the other warriors all began marching towards the Lich.

“I’m gonna go punch a skeleton now,” Dr. McNinja announced.

 

[Shinku]

FALL

Shinku heard the voice, resounding in his mind but this time, it wasn’t Orochi’s. A voice devoid of warmth, resonating like a dirge that heralded the inevitability of decay. Within its bone-chilling tones, there lingered a perverse charisma, a twisted allure that drew attention even as it repelled. And then, an unseen force, potent and insidious, gripped Shinku's very essence. It was as though the Lich's word had woven a sinister spell, compelling the assassin to succumb to the inexorable pull of gravity. Shinku felt his body betray him, and he fell to the cold stone floor against his will. Despite his struggle, the assassin of shadows found powerless against the Lich's dark command, conjuring the power of gravity itself.

The very air around him seemed to thicken, becoming a suffocating mire that clung to his limbs and clouded his thoughts. Each movement became an arduous endeavor, as if the very essence of gravity had conspired against him. His sword, once wielded with grace and precision, now felt like an anchor in his hand. The once nimble and agile warrior struggled against the invisible force that sought to drag him down, his muscles protesting with every attempt to break free. The air, once filled with the scent of battle and determination, now reeked of the ominous decay that the Lich had brought forth.

Then came Dr. Mc Ninja’s call to RISE AND FIGHT. In the wake of Dr. McNinja's powerful invocation, Shinku’s body stirred with newfound vitality. He felt a sudden surge of rejuvenation coursing through his veins. The weight that had bound him to the ground lifted, and he rose with newfound vigor.

Around him, the cave transformed. Flowers burst forth from the cold stone floor, their vibrant petals unfolding in a kaleidoscope of colors. Vines and verdant tendrils wound their way up the cavern walls, as if reclaiming the space from the encroaching darkness. The very air seemed to shimmer with revitalized energy. The once-ominous atmosphere shifted, and an otherworldly chorus of birdsong echoed through the cave, harmonizing with the cadence of the unseen melody that urged them to rise.

Emboldened by the resurgence of life, Shinku grasped his sword with renewed determination. With a swift motion, he moved forward, his every step now buoyed by the symbiotic energy of the revitalized cave. The spectral tendrils that sought to ensnare him recoiled in the face of this newfound vitality, unable to withstand the life-affirming force that emanated from the ninja doctor’s words.

The Lich, observing the transformation with hollow sockets ablaze, found its malevolent presence contested by the burgeoning power of life. The unholy energy that had lingered in the wake of Pennywise's demise now faced a formidable adversary – the combined resilience of warriors who refused to succumb to the encroaching tide of darkness.

In a swift, fluid motion, Shinku raised his sword, tracing a mystic pattern in the air with his black obsidian blade. The shadows responded to his call, coalescing around him like loyal allies. Suddenly, a swirling vortex of inky darkness materialized before him. It pulsed with an otherworldly energy, a gateway to the realm of shadows that bridged the gap between where he stood and the looming figure of the Lich. Time seemed to ripple around the edges of the portal, and the air crackled with a palpable tension as if the very fabric of reality strained against this intrusion.

With unyielding determination, Shinku stepped through the portal, vanishing from his original position in the blink of an eye. The shadows embraced him, and in the next heartbeat, he reappeared directly behind the Lich. The element of surprise was now his ally, a calculated maneuver to turn the tide against the malevolent force that sought to crush his spirit.

Yet, the story was far from over. Just as Shinku prepared to deliver a decisive strike, the Lich raised a skeletal hand and uttered a single command with an eerie resonance, "Stop."

A sudden and potent force seized Shinku, freezing him in his tracks. It was as if the very fabric of time and motion had succumbed to the Lich's command. Shinku, mid-swing, found himself immobilized, his sword held in a suspended arc.
The green flames in the Lich’s eye sockets flickered with a malevolent intelligence. The silence in the chamber was only broken by the subtle hum of the Lich's dark powers at play.

Shinku strained against the invisible force that held him captive, muscles tensed and willpower ablaze. Yet, the Lich's command was a formidable leash, suppressing the swordsman's movements as if he were a mere puppet ensnared by unseen strings.

With a languid motion, the Lich gestured, and from the charred ground emerged spectral tendrils of dark energy. These ethereal appendages slithered toward the immobilized Shinku, their touch threatening to drain the very life force from his stilled form.

The air thickened with the oppressive aura of decay as the Lich spoke again, its voice echoing with an undeniable authority, "Your struggles are futile, mortal. Embrace the inevitability of decay."

 

[Shallan Davar]

FALL

And just as quickly as the adderstone had lent Shallan strength, it had been stolen back away. She splashed to the ground amidst the muck and the dead, wondering if she had ever had the option for something different. She’d made the choices that led here, of course. But had there ever been a better path she had scorned? Was this an end she had chosen for herself by how she lived, or had she simply been thrown from disaster to disaster like a boulder swept up in a highstorm? Now her journey was ended, plummeting into some unsuspecting corner of the world, to rest there until the wind and time eroded all the evidence she had ever even existed.

You know, Pattern, she thought a bit wistfully, sometimes I wish I could leave things well enough alone…

Pattern buzzed, agitated by Shallan’s words just as much as by the gloating monster above them.

Do you wish to forget once more? Is it time for me to die?

Shallan shook her head almost imperceptibly, disturbing the brackish water she was lying in.

I don’t renounce my oath, Pattern. I am one who seeks the truth. In whatever form it takes, wherever it may be.

With a new fit of stubbornness, she raised her head out of the muck, glancing around. Her hair was plastered to her face and would have blocked much of her vision even without the darkness. A few of the Abbey’s defenders still stood defiantly, though it was clear to see that they were struggling to remain on their feet as well.

Letting her head slip down once again, Shallan gripped the adderstone in a white-knuckled hand. It wasn’t an endless well of power after all, and she had spent much of its stores in her fight with the clown. It had a bit of life left in it and she grasped at the guttering embers. She exhaled the cloud of stormlight into the image of Radiant, stood strong and unbowed, shardblade in hand.

There was another unearthly howl and the crackle of arcane power singed at her back as it passed over her prone form. Shallan was too spent to see what was happening as the lich raged its fury against them, so she did not have the image act or respond to the world. A perceptive observer would quickly notice her deception, but maybe she could inspire someone else to push on by making them believe she still stood. Radiant would always stand, would always meet the challenges that Shallan could not.

She clung to the adderstone as she lay amidst the debris, determined to keep the image of her resistance alive, even if she could not herself resist.

 

[Sigmund Vrell]

FALL

“Oh damn.” was all Sigmund managed as he careened forward, losing his footing instantly as he was forced to face plant into the mud. Despite all It’s blustering, Pennywise had ultimately been a pushover, but it didn’t take a savant of the eldritch world to know that the being who bad ended the clown was something far older and far deadlier.

Sigmund’s brain was superficially human, though there were enough minor differences to convince a hypothetical neurosurgeon that someone was playing a joke on them. At the sound of the Lich’s voice, though, that tiny, mutated remnant of a human fear centre was suddenly shocked into life. The eldritch, primal fear emanating from the thing, not redirected unease at what should be considered good but true terror at something completely alien, drew a feeble, wheezing cough of adrenaline from the cultist’s brain.

“By the Gods… we’re going to die here.” Sigmund choked through a mouthful of mud. The priest resigned himself to the end for a moment, deciding to look at the Guardian one last time. It seemed to have gone dormant after the defeat of Pennywise, merely an ember where there was once a roaring blaze of bravery. How was he supposed to stand up to an adversary like this on his own?

After a moment, Sigmund caught himself, wondering what the hell he was thinking. When had he become so dependent on a little toy to keep him moving forward? It had been a reassuring presence, certainly, but his courage was his own. He was a son of Ranvier, the picture of tenacity and fervour. The priest would not kneel to some pretender god, no matter how mighty they seemed.

With all of his indomintable will, he began to force himself to get up, refusing to allow himself to be beaten so easily. It was agonising, as if the sheer exertion would tear the muscle from his bones and the soul from his body, but he persevered.

“Pennywise was of the unmaking. It’s safe to say that this thing is too.” he thought to himself. “If it’s of the unmaking, that implies that it is lower than Darkseid, and if Darkseid is struggling to conquer the crossroads, then he is lower than the Old Aesir…”

Despite the fact that his limbs were trembling and that he was soaked in sweat and mud from the Herculean effort it took just to raise his face from the filth, Sigmund’s face was decorated by a manic ear-to-ear grin.

“So then this thing is nothing to fear after all!”

Grunting and gasping, the high priest continued to force himself upwards, fighting tooth and nail against the supernatural weight that descended upon him. As his vision swam, he swore he saw his ancestors fighting to survive in the bitter cold of Ranvier, and he kept pushing. When a necrotic pall washed over him and he felt his consciousness slipping, he lowered his head just enough to bite into his thumb, tearing it open and letting the pain remind him that he was still alive. As long as he was still alive, Sigmund had no excuse to stop, and so he kept pushing.

With strength belying his slight frame, Sigmund made a final, desperate push to right himself.

In that same moment, McNinja unleashed the Kiss of Life, and the cultist overshot and toppled forwards as the oppressive weight was lifted.

“Couldn’t he have done that sooner?” the scion muttered quietly to himself, though he avoided voicing this out loud. No need to look this gift horse in the mouth. Sigmund wasn’t sure how effective his powers would be against the Lich, but he had something he wanted to try.

“Fighting against death itself, huh? You know, this reminds me of a poem I read once. Not one from back home, one I stumbled across in the crossroads.” the psion mused, mostly to himself. As he stumbled his way towards their collective enemy through the distractions presented by his allies. “That is not dead can eternal lie...”

From within his robes, Sigmund produced the Guardian once more, thrusting it towards the Lich. For a moment, it lay inert, before it seemed to recast to its wielder’s courage in the face of certain death. A wave of positive energy surged from the toy, blasting towards the Lich. This one yielded no astral duel, no damage, but it would suffice to stun the beast for a time.

“And with strange aeons even death may die!”

 

[Izaneus Phortea]

Pandemonium. Silent pandemonium. The emotions of her fellow fighters were so very powerful within the moment. Beyond the simple feeling of empathy, Minala could smell the fear. She felt the terror wash over her as the monstrosity before her commanded her body to obey, and obey it did. Falling in trepidation and hope for survival. Its chilling words reminded her of the first time a blade was held to her. Of the man she killed following her arrival at Haven. The cold steel cared not for her, nor did it care for her enemies. Nor did this being of power beyond her simple comprehension.

Those glowing, soulless eyes pierced her own soul with a force she knew to be impossible. The words that echoed through the darkness in its serenity made her body shiver with a terror unknown to her.

She had known fear. This was more than that.

Within her thoughts spoke a voice as she strained to stand, to do anything she could to escape this fear. This compounded idiocy to follow her mothers orders.

Did she know? Was her mother aware of the danger presented? This was to be a simple matter of proving, yes?? Simple?

In her thoughts spoke a whisper of a voice unknown to her. With such ease and clarity that made her stomach churn and make whatever remnants of food she’d consumed over the last few days want to return through her mouth.

“You are fearful, child.” It spoke, the subtle whispers in her mind. Both familiar and powerful. Elegant and knowing.

“Good.”

Her chest tightened in response. She could feel a cold, skeletal hand coil around her heart, but the... Thing, hadn’t moved an inch, merely standing with its hand outstretched, a curious emerald flame flickering within the palm of its bony hand.

The world fell around her to a darkened silhouette of what she saw previously, the battle with the clown replaying in her mind. Her own minor endeavors echoing outward. Reminding her how little she truly did.

She’d done nothing this entire time.

The majority of her contribution could be attributed to wresting Gascoigne’s consciousness from whatever malediction took control of him. But was that truly useful here? In the face of such power? Where was all her will to prove her ability? What ability did she truly have in front of such might? Where true power lay, in the simple words of the undead staring beyond her. Not even bothering to grace her with its attention.

The void beyond was certainly no place for her. No, this battle was no place for her. She was a farce of a Cleric, Hakor the protector was surely displeased with her. Her mettle could hardly be called as such. Falling so easily, and so frequently? There was little she could do to defend from anything let alone the will displayed.

However, she still felt her hands struggle against the invisible confines of her enemy’s words. In vain, perhaps. But twitch and struggle they did. She needed to get up. But why would she? If only to fall again? What point would yet another failure add? If she laid there, and simply let the darkness take her. What would be the downside truly?

She felt her muscles relax before her body began to feel lighter, she looked forward to see another investigator curled, shouting as signs of life began to sprout around her. The call to battle, to arms. To once more raise in defense of her home world, and inspiration struck her like a raging azure flame, igniting her soul and sending her mind into an adrenaline-fueled flux. There would be no surrender today.

For though there was shame in admitting such an easy defeat, for though there was a prideful pain in how easily she nearly succumbed to the void in front of her, Minala would not give up arms today. Not so long as she were able bodied. Hakor would not be displeased with her, and if he were, may it only be through the trial she refused to attempt for fear of failure.

She felt her legs throw themselves underneath her, her hands planting themselves on the stone she crawled on not moments ago, eyes narrowed, muscles tightened for her newest and most dreadful battle against terror and death incarnate. The lich made no motions, no whispers in the dark of her mind to strike terror once more. No. She would submit eventually. All of them would, after all.

Her melder close at hand, the metal twisted and morphed itself from a solid to a liquid, then back again. Into a shape of a spear as an unmade monstrosity soared towards the Animak, striking at her face with razor-like talons. The like of which struck against her weaponry as she raised her arms to defend herself. The air itself being sliced by the newest attack.

Another soared lower, striking and slicing through her leg with ease.

“The hope you believe you have is but a fleeting notion. I am Eternal.” The lich all but spoke as Minala was worn down after attack and attack, the others also beginning to rise to their feet. The dread rose once more from the pit in Minala’s stomach, but still she refused. She needed to refuse. If she failed in the end so be it. But she needed to try, at the very least. She needed to try.

Her spear raised high, she thrust the pointed blade through the shoulder of another swooping parademon, eliciting a pained screech which struck her ears with sensitivity. Her right eye closing in response, she twisted her melder, and removed it, before thrusting once more.

This was a battle she was not ready for, and yet still fought.

That thought made her smirk a little bit as another parademon began to zip towards her.

 

[Mollymauk Tealeaf]

RISE

Molly went from limping slowly towards what he figured would probably be his ultimate demise to sprinting towards it, as like a switch being flipped, his ring burst with moonlight as the giant celestial body in the sky was visible again. He could feel the shift in the space, his exhaustion had fallen away like a petal from one of the hundreds of flowers that were blossoming around him. The hunter launched himself swords out at the Lich, and was telekinetically thrown to the other side of the cavern, luckily landing on a new patch of soft moss that had already covered…something mushy? Molly bounded right back up to his feet, took a moment to sigh at his own ineffectual attempt at harming the abomination, and continued back the same way. There were more than a few of those insectoid-demons between him and his prey, but with the power of his ring coursing through him, he had no fear, he had no thoughts of stopping or exhaustion, there was only his will and determination and the hunt.

He was about halfway back, having given more than he got, and he got a lot, from the winged bastards with their claws and paltry guns; not bothering to dodge too much as his hunter’s blood burned and urged him on, to destroy these things that simply did not belong on this plane of existence. His grin was as wild as it was mad, white fangs and teeth the only thing visible on him through being covered in whatever substance flowed through the bodies of the snarling swoopers, some zombie’s black coagulated goo, and his own hot blood. He noticed another of his compatriots, and was impressed with the fluidity to which he handled his sword, before the man was caught by some sort of spell and held in place.

“C’mon, man! You can fight it!” Molly called out to him, but was sure he could not be heard over the orchestra of chaotic fighting happening all around the now lush and blooming arena. He brought a blade up to block one of the dive-bombing hordes, turning his blade so the momentum cut into the creatures neck and the hunter dropped to a knee to help slice through whatever resistance was left, as a head fell beside him, still snapping its jaws for a moment before becoming lifeless.

He was getting closer on his fight back to where he had started, now seeing the diminutive and cloaked magic user, complete with what Molly assumed was his grimoire, hold something out to the Lich. He did not know why, but he made a savage push towards closing the distance, closer and closer, thankful for the snake heads that had popped up and seemingly on the side of the investigators as they snapped out towards the wretched and unnatural hatchlings of the dead clown. One of the snake heads snapped right over Molly’s gore-covered head and snatched a flying abomination that was headed for him. The showman looked around with a big grin of thanks and caught the eye of the sexy nurse, Peter, who when Molly winked at him, gave a polite smile and then quickly turned his attention elsewhere.

That is when he saw him, the Good Doctor, climbing the now vine-covered walls of the place with nimble grace, and as the Lich was about to turn to that direction, Molly called out, “So yer just what then, huh? The backup team? The last resort ta try an’ salvage this not lookin’ like the absolute worst invasion? This is the best DORKSIED has ta offer then, aye?” and as the green and flaming eyes landed on him, instead of feeling fear, the Peacock Devil was filled with impossible memories of joy and love from a different reality, and even as he was lifted off his feet and suspended in midair, tendrils like black shadow and oil stabbed into him, he embraced the pain, but gave not an inch into fear. Fear was as dead as he would be when this was all over, and none of that mattered in this moment to the hunter.

Do not speak his name, child, for you are unworthy…I am eternal, and he is endless, infinity incarnate-”

“Sounds a bit lame, eh?! Is the plan just for ya ta be his little pet, then? At the end o’ all eternity, following on his heels like a d-GAHHHH” Molly was cut off by the sharp tendrils trying to pump something into his body, and he might not feel fear, but he sure could still feel pain. He looked down, and saw the steam mixed with the sounds of HSSSS as his blood was rejecting the ooze, and burning it off as it tried to enter him, but clean an Arbiter’s ass with a toothbrush, did it hurt. “Oh, my sweet hunter’s blood, ya fuckin’ beauty, burn that shite!” He screamed out loud to take his mind away, he knew right now with whatever power the ring was imbuing in him, he could stay here for eternity, in his own hellish purgatory of imprisoned torture down beneath the Abbey grounds.

The Lich seemed curious for a moment, and Molly was thankful that the most excruciating pain he had ever felt was worth the few seconds of distraction that this had all taken place in. If the Tiefling now held in the magical grasp of the skeletal monstrosity was any less of showman, he might have given the ruse away, because as he fought against the pain there was still an overwhelming urge to let his mouth hang open like an idiot as he witnessed what happened next.

The Doctor had reached his desired height, then like the divers at the Arcadia city pool that Molly and Jester like to lounge around at during the hotter days, he put out his arms and backflipped in a large arc. Molly could not understand how the Ninja in a white coat seemed to float for a moment alongside thousands of floating flower petals all around him. Molly was grateful he did not have pupils because he would not want to ruin the surprise he knew awaited the big, undead bastard focused on him for this moment in time. Absent-mindely Molly embraced the pain of his hunter’s blood pushing the ooze away, and let his blades ignite with hell-fire and arctic-chill, his own blood leaking on them so much from his countless wounds to be more than enough sacrifice. He heard the Lich give the smallest of laughs at his display, but that was all it was. He knew his end was coming, the moment of playing with the disrespectful purple Tiefling was over. Molly looked up fully at the spectacle above.

Mcninja had tucked, turning his floating flower petal start into a comet, falling at impossible speeds that defied gravity towards the animated sepulcher of itself. The lich was still, unexpecting and unassuming in its own self-assuredness. At the last moment, the doctor-ninja turned himself into the spear, one leg outstretched as the tip and he struck with the sound of thunder, lightning striking an ancient oak of immensity.

The kick had landed right at the other side of the Lich's head, and its remaining horn snapped off, as its rusted crown went flying. The monument of annihilation had been struck, its foundation built on fear of presence shook as it went to one knee. Molly joined many other of the investigators in giving out varied responses of ‘Oh shiiit!’ or ‘Daaamn’, before he sliced through the tendrils holding him with his imbued blades and dropped to the mossy and springy ground below.

In the silence that followed, some of the investigators were galvanized and gathered back up, standing together in groups, Molly being one of them as he teamed back up with his Abbey cohorts. He was not out of this fight yet, not while he still drew breath.

“Ya just got knocked the fuck out!” Molly cried out, and immediately regretted his outburst with a heavy sigh as the Lich stood back at it’s full height, eyes burning even brighter as it looked over the motley heroes.

 

[Shinku]

For what felt like eternity, time seemed to halt for Shinku. His muscles, tensed for the impending attack, turned rigid and unyielding. The determination that had fueled his every movement now betrayed him as an unseen hand clamped down on his will. The sword, poised in mid-air, wavered and then froze, held captive by the command that defied resistance.

A frustrating awareness flickered in Shinku's eyes—a realization that he was powerless to defy the Lich's command. His every instinct screamed to strike, to resist, but his body, bound by the supernatural compulsion, remained suspended in the throes of the halted moment.

Within the temporal snare, Shinku's frustration brewed like a tempest within the confines of his being. It was not merely the physical restraint that chafed against his warrior's spirit; it was the maddening awareness of his impotence in the face of the Lich's command. His eyes, usually sharp and ablaze with determination, now reflected the internal tempest raging within.

His gaze, usually fixed on the horizon of adversaries, now stared into the abyss of helplessness. The frustration etched on his features mirrored the silent scream echoing within his mind. Every sinew, every muscle, strained against the spectral binds, yet the supernatural compulsion held him steadfast in a tableau of suspended defiance.

The battlefield continued its chaotic ballet around Shinku, oblivious to the silent struggle within him. Allies clashed with malevolent forces, and the cavern echoed with the cacophony of battle. Yet, in this frozen pocket of existence, Shinku stood as a statue, a monument to the mastery the Lich exerted over the forces that shaped mortal will.

The clash of steel and the cries of combatants became distant echoes, drowned by the cacophony of Shinku's internal struggle. His spirit, a caged hawk yearning for the open sky, fluttered against the invisible bars of enchantment.

Then, hope came in the form of Doctor McNinja’s attack. As the doctor’s audacious kick struck the Lich's head, the sinister command that held Shinku in stasis was shattered, like chains breaking in the wake of a seismic impact. Time resumed its natural flow for the assassin, and his senses returned in a rush. The world around him, frozen just moments ago, surged back into motion.

Shinku, now released from the temporal stasis, wasted no time. In a fluid and practiced motion, he unsheathed his sword. The brief interlude had not dulled his instincts; in fact, it seemed to have honed them to a razor's edge. Swift as the wind, he dashed forward with remarkable agility, closing the distance to the Lich.

The Lich, still reeling from McNinja's devastating kick, turned its attention to the approaching assassin. Shinku moved with a dancer's grace, seamlessly transitioning through a series of intricate sword forms. Each stroke of his blade left an ethereal trail, a dance of steel that seemed almost poetic in its lethality.

As the Lich recoiled, Shinku retreated with a calculated grace, regrouping with his companions. The dance of blades had left its mark, and the assassin’s actions had contributed to the ongoing struggle against the encroaching darkness. With a stoic expression, Shinku rejoined the collective efforts of his fellow warriors.

But then, just when they thought they had won, the lich rose again to its full height with an unsettling grace. The shattered horn and displaced crown were remnants of the powerful strike it had endured, yet its malevolent eyes now burned even brighter, harboring a renewed intensity. The silence that followed was ominous, each investigator tensely awaiting the next move in this cosmic game.

Shinku, having regrouped with his fellow defenders, couldn't help but shake off the lingering exhilaration of witnessing the audacious attack. His own bravado echoed in the chamber, though he immediately realized the precarious situation they still faced. The Lich, undeterred by the blow, stood as an ancient harbinger of death, and the battle was far from over.

The skeletal figure, its aura steeped in darkness, surveyed the gathered assembly of heroes with an air of disdain. The air crackled with anticipation, and Shinku tightened his grip on his shadow blade. The vine-covered arena, once vibrant with life, now stood as a testament to the clash between forces beyond mortal comprehension.

The Lich's voice, a chilling whisper that seemed to emanate from the depths of the void, cut through the silence. "Foolish mortals," it hissed, its gaze fixating on each defiant soul. "Your feeble attempts mean nothing. I am the harbinger of oblivion, the vessel through which Darkseid's will is manifested. Your resistance is but a fleeting defiance against the inexorable tide of annihilation."

As the Lich spoke, the cavern seemed to shudder with an unseen force, and the air itself hummed with an otherworldly resonance. The fallen horn began to reform, the broken pieces melding together as if drawn by some unseen power. The rusted crown, once discarded, reappeared atop the Lich's skull, now restored to its regal grotesquery.

Shinku exchanged glances with his comrades, a silent acknowledgement passing between them. The battle had reached a critical juncture, and they stood against a force that defied the very fabric of existence. The Lich, an emissary of Darkseid, prepared to unleash its malevolent might once more.

In the charged silence that followed, the investigators readied themselves for the impending clash, their collective resolve unwavering. The fight against the Lich had only just begun, and the fate of Erde Nona hung in the balance.