Storm

As the agony of the Neogi's poisoned fangs piercing your torso fades, you feel an odd sense of disconnection from it all.  At first, shock and your ingrained monastic training account for this.  It is death, after all, and all death is disconnection.

However, as the sensation vanishes entirely, you realize that something is amiss.  Not bad, though.  Bad is dying in the maw of a Neogi and being destroyed by a Warlock of Tharizdun.
Instead, you seem to waft and spill about in the nothingness between the Shadowfell and the Fugue Plane, where all souls eventually travel.  Abruptly, you see a symbol appear in the void between you and the multiverse.

The symbol is a half-sunburst, underlined twice in thick white lines.  You do not recognize it.

The symbols speaks.

"Let me make something abundantly clear, Monk-who-is-Storm," the voice hisses.  "This is a loan, not a gift.  But the terms of my repayment are not so harsh.  There is one who travels with you.  He is Warlock-who-is-Mellicent."

The symbol grows dark and flashes twice.  Perhaps it is angry.

"He is a good soul and in good hands, the hands of my servant.  He is also in the hands of a darker force, a force I do not yet know."

The symbol vanishes.  As your soul floats aimlessly between life and the afterlife's waiting room, the symbol suddenly reappears in the shape of a halo, like the one Mel has.

"He is deceived, but he is not a deceiver, no, not yet.  I have prepared a means of restoring your stolen life, but first, you must act, and so you shall."

The halo vanishes.  You see the face of the half-elf woman who was running this fundraiser before it all went straight to hell.  Director... what was her name?  Erika?  Erica... something with an S in it.

"This woman is important to me also, though not in the same way as Mellicent.  If both survive this battle, I will consider your debt paid.  I know you understand."

The symbol reappears, and you hear the faint cry of a baby.  "Trust is a commodity in this unsettling world, as I well know.  I want you to know that you have been wronged, and that you should extend your trust to one who has likewise been wronged by the foul Warlock of Tharizdun, Warlock-who-is-Kelkos."

The symbol is all you can see.  "Speak ye not, but know this: Tharizdun has less power than you know.  The Warlock-who-is-Kelkos lies by omission.  He has expended his mightiest spells for the day, and he is desperate for you to not notice this.  When you revive, do so knowing that victory is not out of reach.  Be quick!  Strike at him, and let my unwitting ally," the voice says with what sounds like an audible sneer, "slay the foul aberrants that cluster around him like vultures."


You feel yourself rising towards something familiar, although you do not know what it is.  You see a vast oval, or perhaps a plate?  Yes, a plate, in the shape of a discus, with a brilliant light in the middle.  You hurl towards a great ball of crystal embedded in the discus, and then you are within it.  Inside and beyond the crystal, balls of glowing light spin and turn, and there is a brilliant sun, far away.  Now you are falling towards one ball that positively teems with a billion lights, moving lights, dying lights, brilliant lights, and above them all, the shattering brilliance of the sun.

"It is always morning somewhere, child.  Live, but forget this not: Your friend and the Director of this hospital MUST survive," the voice says.
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Greg, when the fight resumes, Storm is on his feet with full hit points and all Ki points restored.