Nuzzle hug. "I don't mind, except strategically... But would it hurt to try and see if I can go through as I am?"

"Worst case- it works but it rips you apart and only some of you gets through. Some of you stays here. Some of you is lost in the interstices of Oblivion."

" - If I was closer to a god I'd guess that wouldn't be too bad because my subsouls could operate separately and just find each other later, but I don't actually know if I have discrete subsouls."

"That just makes it more complicated."

Hugs hugs hugs.

" - I think we should go for it, without waiting. It's a risk, but this is our best lead right now."

Deep breath.

"Okay. Let's go."

Kiss. "Together, then?"

"Together." She holds Lace's hand to the portal.

And through -

The portal's disorienting. (Painful, for Lace, like being punched in the chest.) Everything around them goes dark - bright - dark - swirls - and then they're on solid stone, black floating stairs under their feet, descending to a desolate, ashy plain. The sky is a shimmering purple-blue, black clouds slashed across it, and a dull fog makes it hard to see very far. There's black gravestones and enormous bones emerging from the ash, a few skeletal trees looming in the distance, and strange grey plants growing at the base of the stairs.

Lace seems to still be intact, at least. Still gripping tightly onto Elana's hand.

"-Still here?"

"Yeah. Don't think anything's changed..."

"Good. That's- good." She checks their surroundings. There doesn't seem to be anyone in the immediate area. "I want to try draining you."

She nods, squeezing Elana's hand. "Alright."

She starts just lightly at first, as a test.

It works. (It hurts a a bit more than it should, maybe.) Lace keeps holding Elana's hand. "I'm not feeling drained."

She cuts it off. "Okay. I'll do it if I need to."

"Alright."

"We should start looking."

She nods and squints. "I think I see something that might be a building over there... And it looks like there's a path at the base of these stairs..."

"Suppose we'll have to start there."

Onward, then.

Elana keeps a watch for dangers. She doesn't like this place.

The place isn't a maze, but it might as well be - one bit of desolate foggy land looks much like another, and there's no landmarks visible through the haze. Souls wander around, many disoriented, many miserable - wandering mortals whose last memory is being soul trapped, animals standing still and staring blankly into the distance, a ghastly horse that charges them then vanishes - the soul of a farmer, mindlessly tending the skeletons of crops as his ghost cows walk in circles -

The buildings are shells, mostly, twisted mockeries of the works of the living. Most are guarded by powerful skeletons with jet black bones that collapse into a shimmering powder when killed, or by animated empty suits of dark armor. No one recalls seeing anyone else solid pass by, but there are murmurs of unease - something's stirring, in the flashes of sickly light in the sky, in the bones that emerge from the ashen ground.

It's a large place, but - their path seems to be converging on a center. A looming castle with dark spires limed with pink and purple light, the doors open.

"If she's anywhere, she'll be in there," Elana says. "Never misses an opportunity to insinuate into the center of things."

"Well, gives us a narrower place to look."

"I'll follow your lead, here."