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Firra whoa, gio's not 'dead'?! AWESOME. Can i see his final healthbar? I'm super curious!
By the by, this was really fun to participate in, though I couldn't get as invested as I wanted to because I was bolting around fixing things for school and the like. but thank you for hosting such a cool event! x3
Gee now i'm nervous on how i should end this XD
Levias came to under pitch darkness. They were sore, but nothing was damaged in that final twist and fall... how odd. Regaining their senses, the Bubbling Goblin felt a warmth with tufts of fur and a mesh of scales. They wriggled out from under Giovanni's paws that broke Levias' fall into nothing. Even as a creature, they felt all the sadness and relief gazing upon the fallen skydancer. Giovanni protected them until the very end. Levias pawed and kneaded about Giovanni's hide, trying with all their might to lift his head from the ground, to get him
moving once again. but every time, their body just fell gently back on the ground.
Nothing.
At last, Levias placed the bag of stones they had collected for him against the garnet dragon. They had to leave if they wanted to survive and return to the surface. Maybe... Giovanni's clan could find his body and return it home. They turned away, facing the path they came from. Taking a single step, Levias suddenly went rigid.
They saw a pair of rescue workers traversing the caverns, calling out the names of the missing dragons on their list...
There was a huge line of twine strapped to one of them!
...And then they walked right past the cavern Giovanni took...
With a blink, Levias returned to reality. Giovanni was still there. The two of them were alone.
Not if Levias could help it. What the goblin had just seen... it was a premonition. A future still unwritten. And by the Tidelord, Levias was going to bring them down to Giovanni. out of the corner of their eyes, Giovanni finally began breathing again. There wasn't much time!
Filled with a sudden determination, Levias took to climbing the path the two of them had fallen into right back up. The crystal spikes burned the goblin's sensitive flesh but it was the perfect ramp upwards. The spikes did not break under the goblin's light weight. A few nicks here and there were nothing to them when Giovanni's condition was so fragile. They emerged from the pit of darkness and ran in the direction they came, nearly howling into the dank air to get the attention of the rescuers.
"Do you hear that?"
From the shadows of stalagmites, Levias emerged and ran straight for the spool of twine attached to the dragon's belt
"H-hEY! Do you know how crucial this is to us?" Levias turned angrily towards the ignorant dragon and pulled out the end with their teeth. And then they handed the end to one dragon, who only looked in amazement as Levias began unwinding the thread as they ran back.
Three turns from the solidified string formations
XXXXXLeft at the fork
XXXXXXXXXXAnd down the rabbit hole Levias went.
Every time they lost the trail of the dragons, the Bubbling Goblin came back and gave a good YANK on the twine, urging them to follow.
"The little guy is definitely leading us to someone..." The dragons realized. At the mouth of the pit, Levias vanished, but they knew something was down below.
"Is anyone down there?!"
Dark... Darker, full of a never-ending burning pain.
"Where... where am I?" His voice was hoarse, thirsty and dry. It was as if he's eaten nothing but rocks for an entire moon. he didn't recognize anything, but the white-hot pain across his body. However, the pain began to ease, Giovanni was suddenly overcome with calm. every second that passed, the pain became less and less of an object.
He stood, and heard the silent whispers around him. It was as if he heard all the voices he cared about in one. Nils was there, the golden-hide Bard. Iris, calm as the healing magic she wielded . Everyone was here and it was almost as if... they were collectively making the pain vanish. he felt the warm embrace of his matriarch and then, a coo. They urged Giovanni to follow, this one voice, the essence of everything he held dear.
he took one step forward, and the cooes turned into screams. His screams, Levias' screams. The pain returned, hitting him like a well-placed bolt to the chest. Giovanni stumbled and his claws caught onto something very much solid. Moderately soggy, definitely heavy. in his front paws was his little friend's bag. The stones clattered and jiggled as he moved in an attempt to shake it off. but the bag was ensnared around his legs.
And then he heard Levias once more from a place far distant in the caves. yes, the caves! he remembered now! wherever Giovanni was spectrally was not where he belonged.
That realization made the soft voices writhe, snarling in malcontent. All his hairs stood on end at the unholy noise before him. The darkness receded into a corner of his mind, the Skydancer heaved instinctively, clutching his chest with a paw. For a moment, he felt everything that was his pull itself out of his body before returning at him full-force. And when he caught his breath, the shadow remained. It charged forward, millions of maws opened wide to consume him whole.
Giovanni roared back. And his voice shook the walls that contained him.
...
"There! There really is someone there! HURRY, WE HAVE TO GET TO HIM." These alien voices made Giovanni's neck crane towards the exit where he fell. Dragons... they had found him?
Something that sounded akin to wailing filled his ears. Gio looked down to face Levias directly. There were no words shared between them... only a scaly embrace as Levias hugged Giovanni's snout.
Perhaps, they would be just fine.
Admittedly, I took more than a few creative liberties with this ^^;
Goblins are described as the 'Eye' of their deity, and Levias just so happens to be the Tidelord's eyes. I wonder... if they too can see small glimpses into the future if the chance arises.
I read that the shade is in the smallest pebble to the largest tree, only in small amounts. So, what if the shade had gathered enough on the negative energies deep within The Pit and managed to somehow reach Giovanni deep within his subconscious, attempting to barter with him for his life and body as a vessel to the shade. in the end, Giovanni fought it, but only because it was so little shade at such a moment in time....
