Dragon Quest IV [ME7]

[Akh Uur Hoon]

"Will it?" Her eyes were completely glassy, dead in not-so-metaphorical sense, and there was no telling what they actually registered. "Will it, Count?" She didn't resist, her body was limp, as if infused with venom that paralysed all muscle activity. She felt like a sack of flesh, not unlike the one enclosed in the piece of armour they had investigated together, even as she wasn't spilling much beyond the viscous yellowy trickle from both her nostrils, and drool sipping from between sharp ghoulish teeth exposed in a grotesque grin. "All I ever wanted is the mercy of death...! The pain... ! It will never go away..." Instead of wails that were in her frozen grimace, she could only whimper. "End me, I beg you to end me!"

[Cyprian Kircheis]

"Akh..." he held her, helplessly cleaning her face as best as he could. Once it proved fruitless he'd take her into his arms. "I will one day, If that's what you wish... I will." He sniffed as he carried her out of the keep, and through the cave. "Just hold onto me until then okay? I'll see your soul reunited, and then we'll sleep."

He'd carry her out of the Abyss unless stopped. Comforting her as best as he could. Once back he'd remove the Dragon Skull and hand it to her. "See? This is why we went there remember? You wanted to save the dragonling. Avenge him. Bring him peace." If she didn't reach to grab it, or readily accept it he'd lay it on her lap. "He needs you Akh, you're the only one that can help him. I can't do it."

[Akh Uur Hoon]

He'd have to put her hands on it as her body remained limp, wriggling like a fish too long out of water, not yet gone, but out of strength to struggle, or perhaps acknowledging the futility. His promises fell on deaf ears as her mind was elsewhere, and only blurry images were coming through. In them, she saw Strahd in her dear dhampir, and could muster nothing but whimper at the terror. She seemed to have fully surrendered to her helplessness, all sense of agency withering and decaying before Cyprian's eyes.

[Makeshift]

Stumbling out of the portal, into the bleakness of the Darkhouse Inn, Cyprian and Akh come face tof ace with two Dustmen, dressed in their usual robes, looking at the two furtitively. They hold two torches and pass to Cyprian two vials of clear liquid, with cloudy flecks of something gold in it.

"Liquid Oblivion. Distilled from the water of Lethe. It should... Smooth things over." They say, and remain by your side, ready to assist.

As Cyprian presses the skull to Akh's hands, Akh is filled with a sense of calm. Her mind still shudders at the memories of the "joke" and the terrible sensations that accompanied it, but they have firmly moved to the realm of the past. The skull feels warm to the touch, like an icy flame resides in it's mouth.

---

The madness fades... No disadvantages anymore. Feel free to resume normal mental operations.

[Cyprian Kircheis]

Cyprian had been so distraught he'd completely missed the two Dustmen. "Wha- what?" He takes the vial still cradling Akh and casts identify. "That bastard." Cyprian whispered under his breath.

[Akh Uur Hoon]

Akh's mind had been squeezed between an encroaching wall of phantasmagoria and the invisible barrier across the darkness that barred her passage into unbeing. In that squeeze, it had contracted into a mote, rattled from wall to wall, finding the middle ground in which she could exist contracting fast, soon to snuff her will out. And then... the flame. She instinctively lurched toward it, just as naive souls follow will-o'-wisp out of confusion and despair. But where would it lead her...?

Faces.

[Cyprian Kircheis]

"Akh?" Cyprian asked as something seemed to shift. His voice is soft and his face is vulnerable. "Are you..." He struggled to find the words. "Please don't leave me butterfly."

[Akh Uur Hoon]

"I am..." She admitted weakly, and reluctantly. The filaments between the body and the soul seemed brittle but not yet torn for good. Her lips creased up at recognising Cyprian and flattened seeing fellow Dustmen. It took her a good moment to realise what they were holding. "I... can't afford... disremembering anything."

[Cyprian Kircheis]

A weight dances off of Cyprian's shoulders as Akh returns to cognition. He presses his lips to her hand beaming at her while she speaks and reacclimates to her surroundings. "Thank the gods." He whispers. "Would you like help getting back to your feet?"

He had to admit that there's a temptation to forget what he saw in that infernal tower. But it's equally likely that such things might become common place. If he was going to have to keep dealing with that terror, and his dustmen, then it's better to rip off the bandage.

[Akh Uur Hoon]

She nodded. Sluggishly, she managed to pull herself up, leaning into Cyprian's embrace, but it was mostly because of vertigo, not because her body was physically compromised anymore than it had ever been since she died. And because she was clinging to the draconic skull with both arms.

She wanted to reach out to it, to establish a link to whatever was making her warm, to commune with the light that had pulled her out of the abyss of the mind, but she didn't know exactly how.