The sky was on fire. Ablaze in an orgy of colors unimaginable, the workings of magic swirled away in their incomprehensible patterns, catering to some unknown goal of a being beyond understanding.
The crushing desperation emanating from the surrounding countryside could be felt even from the stunning, pristine emerald hilltop – these people, innumerable souls, countless and all but forgotten, were all crying out to be saved from a fate they did not understand.
Everything that any of them had ever known was about to change forever. The prophets, all of them, had confirmed this.
It was more terrifying than the nightmares dreamed of by dead gods, of which at this point there were plenty. And yet, on top of this hill, resting for what they knew would be the last time, the sky was beautiful.

“So this is what the end looks like, huh?” Nemelex, the Gambler, broke the silence. The three other adventurers on this side of the hill stirred at the sound of his all-too-charming voice. So engrossing was the sky that each of them had almost fallen intro a trance while staring into it. “What do you think it looks like from where we’re headed?” he prodded the group for conversation.
“I imagine it’s even more beautiful than this,” chirped X’than, the Druid. “He always was the type that would appreciate a show like this. I think that if he made it this amazing on our side, he’d have made it at least twice as brilliant from his view.” Her beautiful smile, present throughout even the toughest trials the group had faced before now, was there still; never ceasing to illuminate the hearts of her companions when they needed it most.
“You should have ceased referring to it as ‘he’ long ago. It is no longer the being we once knew.” Thanatos, ever the voice of reason, had finally taken an interest in the conversation.  The wise magician’s eyes, illuminated by the brilliance of the sky, gleamed out of his cloak to show not an expression of frustration with the Druid, but rather one of sympathy. He himself understood and felt, even despite all the composure he attempted to smother it with on the surface, the deep, yearning pain caused by the same loss which his companion had not yet come to terms with.

X’than’tch’an kept her gaze to the sky and was silent – a rarity when it came to the usually vocal half-dryad, though an increasingly common one. She once again found her thoughts drifting to the past, recollecting all that had transpired over the past year and a half. Soon she was in a daze once more, transfixed on the sky’s neon flow.
Similarly silent, by her side, was the Cleric of the group, Quercitrin.  The ordinarily motherly young woman was currently idly sucking on a lollipop, caught in a daydream of the paradise she had been subjected to on two separate occasions, and then wrenched from. Though she did not hold it against her friends for releasing her from what they had believed on both occasions to be dark magic, she still could not avoid dreaming, in her weaker moments, of the land of sweets she had been imprisoned in.
Quercitrin presently wondered if she would ever have the extraordinary luck to be subjected to such an enchantment again, though she would never admit to her friends of her longing, even if pressed. To secretly wish to be subjected to dark magic would be an infringement on her vows, and unladylike besides. And more so, her friends needed her now more than ever.

---ALL I AM WRITING FOR TONIGHT IT IS ALMOST 4 AM---