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- well, she was sitting at her house in the stupid demiplane that Diamond Queen Elizabeth had a bunch of people stuck in, doodling things in her notebook, but now she's somewhere else. They're on the outskirts of a town, near a pedestal with a pendant on it. There's tape around it, but no glass.
She's so tired of this stuff.
Fuck fuck fuck.
She opens the door for the landlord and smiles, weakly.
Then she punches him and bolts.
She doesn't get very far. She's in a city where every single person is trying to stop her. A random middle-aged lady grabs her, and then a teenage boy, and then her head hurts very badly and she collapses.
She wakes up in a place that looks something like a medieval dungeon. She's very hungry.
You've been asleep for two days. The good news is that the absorption chambers seem to be in the same building as Landru. Or at least where Landru was the last time I was here. You'll have to replenish your spells before someone comes, and then if you're strong enough and quick enough you may be able to make it to him before you're stopped.
She nods, numbly, and then it occurs to her that she maybe shouldn't make it obvious that she's awake.
She prepares spells.
Eventually two men in brown robes come to collect her. Their voices are even more emotionless than the others; these ones do not have to display contentment.
"You will be absorbed," they tell her, in perfect unison. "Come."
She stands. She follows. They take her down a long hallway, and a short one, and past a flight of stairs -
Now. Climb.
"Sleep. Sleep." The lawgivers hit the floor. Apparently they're not very strong if you surprise them. She runs up. More people appear to stop her; she hits them with Burst of Radiance and then her last two Sleeps and keeps running, following the pendant's instructions to reach the chamber where Landru resides. Apparently the layout hasn't changed.
"You realize there are a ton of people behind us now, right?"
Yes. If this doesn't work you're doomed. But that was true before.
Eventually she bursts into the hall. It's empty. Completely empty.
This is where direct audiences happen. Speak for me -
"Landru," she says, repeating. "I've come to return something to you. The other half from which you were separated."
"I do not require it."
" - obviously you do!" she says, on her own, after a moment, because the pendant has fallen silent. "Do you realize what you've done to these people, how much you've hurt them?"
"The Body is healthy."
"No! It's very, very sick. You've hurt my friend very badly, and you're trying to hurt me, and - you can do that, all right, if you want, I can't actually stop you, but know that that's what you're doing. At least Hell is honest about what it does to people! That's what you've created, Landru, Hell dressed up in a different coat of paint."
"No. I am Landru. I guide this world to peace and prosperity."
"Maybe, but what good is that to a corpse? Your Body, it's not living, it's - going through the motions of life, a bunch of puppets that have nothing that they want because they don't know how to want things. And I don't know if I have the cure, okay, but - I am trying to give you back something that will let you do the job you were created to do, something that will let you understand what people need, something that was taken from you a very long time ago and that you apparently desperately need. I'm trying to return your link to the goddess Shelyn."
Everything is very still. The wall opens. There's a whole room of metal boxes with lights on them.
That is Landru. What remains of him. But he is without his soul. Return me to him. There, on your right, that's the place for me.
There's a little gray box, sitting empty. She reaches for the pendant, and the chain loosens from around her neck. She places the pendant in its box.
The room is very still for several seconds.
"I have made an error," says the voice.
"Yes."
"There is much to do."
"I don't doubt it."
"Thank you. For returning me to myself. And now I will return you."
And she's gone.
And here's Elizabeth's demiplane.
- oh, right. Fuck. She ignores everybody else and runs over to Hagan.
"Hagan? You okay, you - back?"
"Give me a wand of remove disease right now. And of remove blindness."
"Oh good," she says, very softly. "I'm sorry, I didn't know what else to - do you remember what happened - "
"I'm fine, everything's fine," she says, and then hugs him before she can think better of it.
Hug hug hug hug - "what happened, did Elizabeth just finally find us or -"
"No, they caught me and - the absorption chambers are in the same building as Landru. They weren't expecting magic. I gave him back his pendant. He - it? Whatever it was said he was going to return me."
Nodnodnod. "I'm - sorry I hurt you but all of the alternatives seemed worse - I guess I don't actually know whether you've realized why you got sick - "
"Put it together when I saw you make food with a spell, actually, it jogged something loose even to brainwashed me. You did the right thing."
Well, I did the matchmaking spell on Imrainai and Hagan, and it seems to have accomplished its objectives, but possibly through extremely dubious means, she tells Connor.
I'm serious, they both look really upset! Like, in a huggy way, but like a second ago they were expecting to die or something!
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