Cedric knows where to put the blade, and that’s a relief; a templar ought to know their way around a dagger and the application thereof, how best and most cleanly to dispatch the dying. For better or worse.
There’s a glimmer of light, fading. Does the rift mean a general weakening of the veil in the vicinity? Does it make Rina’s passage easier? Impossible to tell.
Whatever she was, she’s gone, and there’s no new spirit to occupy her ruined flesh. Not yet. The death mages will collect her body; they will treat it in their own Nevarran way, not burn it to ash, and it’ll make a poor vessel ruined as it is, but at least her bones will eventually be taken care of. Strange doesn’t let himself feel any particular way about it. It’s just pummeled meat.
He looks up and sees another robed figure approaching them, with careful steps to not get his boots stuck in the worst of the ichor and gore. Another middle-aged Mortalitasi, a dusting of grey in his thick beard and floppy hair, laughter-lines at the corners of his eyes, tanned Antivan skin and accent to match.
“Olivier, she’s…” the young woman beside them starts, but then devolves into an inconsolable noise. The older mage makes a sympathetic tsk, shifts his staff to his other hand, and reaches down to pull her back up to her feet. Eloise buries herself into his side and he nods to the Riftwatchers.
“Thank you for your help, Riftwatch. We’ll make arrangements from here, and I expect Hezenkoss will be in touch. Under other circumstances, I would invite you all for a drink later, but hélas…!” Olivier smiles at them — mostly for show, it’s a little too grim to pass — and then politely leads his grieving colleague away, an arm around her shoulder, and Strange breathes out. There’s a red-blue after-impression lingering at the corners of his vision; the green that had suffused the entire chamber now gone, the rift closed, leaving only crystalline quartz in its wake.
Strange absentmindedly digs his fingers into the soil to pick up a lump of it, examining it. He waits until the Mortalitasi are out of earshot.
LMAO
There’s a glimmer of light, fading. Does the rift mean a general weakening of the veil in the vicinity? Does it make Rina’s passage easier? Impossible to tell.
Whatever she was, she’s gone, and there’s no new spirit to occupy her ruined flesh. Not yet. The death mages will collect her body; they will treat it in their own Nevarran way, not burn it to ash, and it’ll make a poor vessel ruined as it is, but at least her bones will eventually be taken care of. Strange doesn’t let himself feel any particular way about it. It’s just pummeled meat.
He looks up and sees another robed figure approaching them, with careful steps to not get his boots stuck in the worst of the ichor and gore. Another middle-aged Mortalitasi, a dusting of grey in his thick beard and floppy hair, laughter-lines at the corners of his eyes, tanned Antivan skin and accent to match.
“Olivier, she’s…” the young woman beside them starts, but then devolves into an inconsolable noise. The older mage makes a sympathetic tsk, shifts his staff to his other hand, and reaches down to pull her back up to her feet. Eloise buries herself into his side and he nods to the Riftwatchers.
“Thank you for your help, Riftwatch. We’ll make arrangements from here, and I expect Hezenkoss will be in touch. Under other circumstances, I would invite you all for a drink later, but hélas…!” Olivier smiles at them — mostly for show, it’s a little too grim to pass — and then politely leads his grieving colleague away, an arm around her shoulder, and Strange breathes out. There’s a red-blue after-impression lingering at the corners of his vision; the green that had suffused the entire chamber now gone, the rift closed, leaving only crystalline quartz in its wake.
Strange absentmindedly digs his fingers into the soil to pick up a lump of it, examining it. He waits until the Mortalitasi are out of earshot.
“Well done,” he says, tired. Good killing.