TL;DR:
The elevator was broken. Wandering in the darkness. Dim lights to chase away the shadows.
Searching, hoping, trying to escape.
Just like before.
Endless stalking through catacombs. The only hope the blade in my hand. The air thick with smoke and death and ozone.
The rage. Vengeance. Coursing from the depths of my heart and sparking from my pupils. Binding my eyes so prevent warning prey of my approach.
Lost. The rage keeps me focused, yet blind. Despair.
As always, she gives me strength - her sultry, passionate voice soothing me:
"Keep going my love, keep going - the darkness is nothing - I'm here for you.
Call to me for your light my love. Ask of me anything... I am yours. All you need I am for you."
My vision blurs, seems less intense. We round a corner and see figures in the darkness.
Is that Vira? Hept'zar? They are gathered by an escape. An elevator.
Relief. I try to rally our hopes, I speak - but the voice is always not mine.
"Good news everybody! Our ally is here to help us!"
Was it my tutor who used to drool in such ways? My jester? Surely I could not be so enfeebled. I am still young.
Her voice offers guidance: "No my love, something is amiss... your allies are here beside us."
As always, she was right. Hept'zar and Vira moved with us, in formation. Their eyes wide with disbelief and outrage.
At least Vira's were, Hept'zar as always refused to admit kind of emotion from infecting his face.
False-Vira coldly surveyed as False-Hept'zar and some followers hacked away mindless at miners.
The poor people squealed as their humble flesh was sundered cruelly.
I remember: memories of a simpler time - of open air and horseback, a sweet voice and silken favours tied to my lance.
I would sallying forth, with shining armour and sword.
Instinct. I strode forward to protect the helpless - just as I always would. I swore an Oath.
"The innocent must be protected, by my honour this bloodshed must stop!" I proclaimed. Zacarias puffed a smokey circle - his sign of consent.
I remember: a rebirth. The enemy trying to escape me. The rage, pushing away my grief... my loss.
Fueling me. Given me strength where I should be weak. I see, as always, The Enemy trying to escape me.
We charged. I remember lessons with my father's battlemage: Always seize the wizard first.
The Falses cowered on the elevator. Tricks of the light made the steam appear red. Slowly they rose past our reach.
Most of our reach.
"Bring him to me, my beloved." I pleaded.
"At once my lord!" Her voice alight with pleasure.
The rage floods through me. She reaches from her bed, eldritch talons closing on False Hept'zar.
His body shredded. The foul beasts leapt on him, savaging his form until Colter's bloody corpse laid before me.
Tricked. Fooled. As always.
My eyes glow from white-hot anger to a sickly green as my beloved entwines me. The poison of a balrog's whip courses through my veins.
From her raising vantage point, False Vira mocks me.
Before I can strike her down, a foul spectre with chains reaches to end my life.
If only. If only it could be done as easily.
It's ghastly nails skid of my plate. Invisible mail, forced into existence by the force of my will. Forged into a form I remember being comforting long ago.
I meet what should have been it's eyes. I issue my challenge. Contempt and a declaration of intent flows from my lips. The only thing I can say with my true voice.
"You are not prepared."
Unknown to the monstrosity. My plate flows from me to encircle it, distracting it from any other foe instead of myself. Interfering with it's strikes.
Battle is joined. Undead moaning for our sweet flesh scurry around me.
Just like before.
I cannot distinguish from present and past.
I notice the potion too late. I have never experienced this alchemy before. Red smoke and heat envelop my body and crush the elevator mechanisms.
Searing pain. Fire, the tool of my hated Enemy.
These licks of flame cannot compare to the scorched scar they left on my soul.
I force the undead back with sword and fury. Zacarias and Micrin rush past me to engage the chained undead.
I watch bemused, as Zacarias and Micrin do what they do best. I protect them.
Ever a silent guardian.
Ashen cheers, his lewd and bawdy quips easing the pain from the scratches on their arms.
And we wait. And wait. And wait.
For once, Zacarias appears to notice that smoking is an unhealthy habit. He puffs as he methodically punctures every undead orifice he can reach.
The remains of Haroran lay at their feet. The true foe, once again, had escaped. I spit on the corpse.
"You. Were not prepared." I mutter.
I have long forgotten if I were referring to myself in irony.
In desperation, Micrin severed the elevator cables. The crash was the second loudest sound I have ever heard. No sign of our foe.
The frustration is overwhelming. As always, I hear her voice:
"Do not fret, my love - we shall prevail eventually as long as we are together. Do not fear, I shall never leave you... I am the only one for you. The only one, my love."
