Session Seventeen, Part Two: The Funeral of Dru & Di'Fier
The bodies were washed: carefully, lovingly. They were laid upon scented wood and anointed with oils and perfumes - perfumes that a person would wear only once in their existence. They were wrapped in the finest cloths and hung about with the sacred sun-metal, to guide them through the long darkness.
The boards were lifted, and the bodies carried out into the night.
The people of the Tiger clan wept so see such mighty warriors lying cold and pale. They had come from a far land, but they had not hesitated to give their all for the people of the island, and now they were honored for their sacrifice.
The man and woman chosen as their spouses (for both were, as far as the villagers could tell, unmarried - but it is improper to send a spirit to the afterlife without a grieving spouse) wept and tore their hair, flinging themselves to the dust and pouring it over them as if to join them in the grave.
All of the clans had fought for the honor of having such heros in their graveyard, but the Tiger Clan had won, and so it was there that the bodies were borne, and laid upon great pyres. As great heros, they would not be buried, but the smoke of the flames would carry their spirits to the heavens and assure them a place among the stars.
The two strongest warriors of the Tiger Clan came forth, bearing long staves whose ends blazed with light. They saluted the pyres.
In the darkness around them, shapes moved. Hunched and moaning, bursting forth from the darkness, faces painted with white in the shape of skulls and armed with staves of their own, a howling horde! Bravely the warriors of the Tiger Clan fought as the village watched, battling back the menace, sending them into the darkness.
Everyone agreed it was a fine dance, and a worthy retelling of the heros' last battle.
The warriors saluted each other, and raised their burning staves.
Grey.
Everything, grey: like ash blown over a landscape blurred by mist.
Dru climbed to her feet, slowly, stiffly. "This...is not what I expected."
Beside her, Di'Fier sat up. "Me neither." He picked up the sword that lay beside him as he climbed to his feet, looking around. "Where are we?"
Dru slowly turned in a circle. "I'm not sure. There's no buildings or anything, but..." she pointed. "That hill looks familiar, it's just like the one outside of Burowao."
"So where do we go now?" Di'Fier studied himself and his partner. Like the landscape, they too were grey, the colors washed out of them by the nature of whatever strange place they stood in. A chill passed over him.
Slowly, though, he began to distinguish...something...from the mist. A thin thread, trailing away from him into the grey expanse, black as sin. "Dru...look. I think this is what we should be following."
Dru looked behind him, and then to her own body. She frowned, puzzled, and held up her wrists. Tiny filaments of green - the only color in the landscape - writhed like serpents from them to join together and vanish in another direction.
"It must be your connection with the Jade Serpent," ventured Di'Fier.
"So, we could follow it back to Freeport?"
"For all the good it would do us," he said, looking pointedly around at the grey ground, the grey trees. "No, let's get this thing over with." He stepped forward, tracing the thread of black, and Dru followed - but not without a long look towards wherever the green thread ended.
Oh, Papa...
"How long have we been walking?"
"I can't tell. I'm not tired yet - are you?"
"No. Nor hungry. But..."
"What's wrong?"
"This is it. This is the place."
"It is?"
"Where she fed us. The Swamp Hag. I..."
"Di'Fier? Are you all right?"
The mage fell to his knees, the sword landing eerily soundlessly beside him. His arms clutched his stomach as he bent forward, heaving. Even in the endless expanse of grey, Dru could tell he'd gone paler.
"Di'Fier?"
"Inside me...it..."
Dru pulled her blade, glaring frantically out at the mists. "I can't just cut you open!" she cried.
"Get it...out..."
"Stick your finger down your throat!"
A gagging sound, and then it was cut off as Di'Fier convulsed. Thick and tarlike, something oozed from between his lips, cutting off all sound. His gut wrenched again, forcing more of it out - a questing, writhing mass as long and thick as an arm, impossibly forcing its way from his throat. It seemed to grow and swell, even as he heaved more of it from his own body. Thin legs peeled themselves from sides glistening with slime, and a maw opened at the end of a serpentine neck.
Di'Fier choked out the last bits of blackness and stared up at the thing, three times his size now, grasping weakly for his blade as the thing reared up on its four hind legs, its tiny eyes swiveling between him and Dru.
