|
Unknown | Arcane Wizard | Chaotic Neutral
As soon as the Shimmering Pinecones appeared in front of him, the golem locked their eyes on them. Unknown uses magic to make one of the Shimmering Pinecones floating in front of him land in a corner of the room, which makes the golem launch themself after it, and in a surprising turn of events, starts to eat it! Unknown decides to launch all the Pinecones at the golem, and use this opportunity to help Gloomwillow pull of the golem's helmet.
|
They act quickly, and as soon as the helmet is removed from the golem's head the golem's body cracks asunder, and a purple portal opens up beneath them and pulls the into it.
When Unknown an Gloomwillow open their eyes, they realize that they've finally been teleported back to The Tangled Woods. A lot of dragons are gathered here, chattering among themselves, congratulating each other on their victories, some asking every dragon that makes it through a portal if they enjoyed the game.
Unknown looks down at the helmet in his claws, it looks quite ordinary, but it oozes Shadow Magic, so he understands that this must be his and Gloomwillow's reward for finishing the game.
Gloomwillow flies happily around him, but also makes sure to bow respectfully at The Shadowbiner who is sitting inside a hollow tree, Her body partially poking out from the shadows inside of the hollow tree. How She can fit there seems impossible, but it's probably one of Her many illusions and tricks. She's real, though, very real, and Unknown too makes sure to pay Her respect as She thanks them all, one by one, for having played Her little game during Trickmurk Circus.
Unknown suddenly remembers something, so he stretches out his left claw, and in it, the purple amethyst appears floating above it. Unknown looks at it, and then at The Shadowbinder, who nods and smiles at him, shadowy liquid oozing from Her maw. He closes his claw, and the amethyst winks out of view. This was quite the the reward, much better than a helmet if a Wizard like himself gets to pick.
As everyone starts to head back home, dragons that weren't taking part in the game occasionally come running at them, asking where they had been for so long, including, of course, Fireclaw, who for some reason has a meeping frog on his head.
Fireclaw comes rushing at them and throws himself at Unknown's neck to hug him and ask them both were they had been these last fours days. Fireclaw also tells him that the fierce frog on his head
is from a magical swamp and that the frog had been his guide to this remote and difficult to find location of the woods.
Unknown is surprised, had it been four days? It felt like just a few hours. He shrugged it off, figuring that this is one of Shadowbinder's many tricks. The frog on Fireclaw's head meeps respectfully at The Shadowbinder, which makes Fireclaw finally notice Her presence. Ashamed for not having paid attention to Her earlier, he hurriedly bow down as respectfully as draconicly possible towards Her. He also whispers to Unknown under his breath to ask him what the hell has happened here.
Unknown chuckles, he's relived that this turned out to be a Deity's shenaningans and not anything more serious. He promises to tell Fireclaw everything about the adventure, so they pay their final respects to The Shadowbinder and starts the trek back to the tent they were staying at during the Circus.
On their way back, with Gloomwillow resting on his shoulder, Unknown puts the helmet he got from The Shadowbinder on Fireclaw's head. The helmet is way too big for him, but at least the frog seems to like it.
''Yo, can keep this wicked cool helmet?'', wonders Fireclaw, which Unknown answers that of course he could. If he can't use it maybe it can become the frog's new home. They chuckle at the thought, but the frog jumps into the helmet as soon as Fireclaw pulls it off his head, and meeps fiercely at them - it appears it's theirs now.
''You sure I can keep this? It's a gift from The Shadowbinder, shouldn't you keep it?''
Unknown waves his head.
''You sure... ?!'' prods Fireclaw, exicted at the thought of getting to keep it, but also hesitant since this is the gift of a Deity Herself they're talking about!
''Yes, I got something better... .''
''Oh... ! Do tell.'' Fireclaw exclaims excitedly.
Unknown retrives the purple amethyst from one of his pockets, and shows it to Fireclaw. It winks in and out of view, but when he concentrates, it stays visible all the time.
''What is that?!''
''Well, let's just say if we ever want to play a game of dice in a dungeon we can use this. I could be wrong, though, I've yet to experiment with it in this world.''
''Can we go and roughhouse around The Shadowbinder's game dimension?!!!'' he bounces with excitement.
Unknown just chuckles, defeated, he shouldn't have told Fireclaw that, 'cause now he probably won't hear the end of it until they've at least played a game or two together. Oh well, he thinks, as long as he agrees to it he supposes that Fireclaw will let him rest a day or two before going on any new adventures.
The End.
Read from the beginning: X