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Albite knew the ******** way to the workshop nigh instinctually at this point. Knew it just as well as Prehnite; lucky ******** having both the audacity n pretty privilege to visit far more often than he did! So ********' unfair! That the General could just make it a common walk in the damn park whenever he wanted to. While going on about how he'd been researching ways to best strengthen the bond between himself and his precious Iolanthe.

Without risking her harm, of course. That was inexcusable. Albite understood why. So the journey in had been easy, borderline boring. Following the familiarly long path that led in, wound round, sloped down, and trailed past ominous caverns and youma holes. How it twisted deep into the scar that cleaved an entire mountainside; mountains whose peaks the pair of travelers could only make out via lightning strike on their way in. The way neither of them looked to the mountains peaks on their way out---

Not that Prehnite could've right now--

The way out had gone from being a jaunty bit of exercise; a elevator here, a few stairs there, a boring trek by low-lights and dry-storm sparks! To a mad-dash scramble out of the most pissed off parts of hell come awake and frothing at the seams.

It'd all started with that damn vial--

They'd traded placid banter. Went their own ways while staying relatively close; at least within shouting distance was the rule. The pair used every bit of charm on their person to draw the ticking time out longer and longer still. When a few hours didn't seem like enough. When three needed to be four needed to become seven for the sake of fine tuning a concept, or going another round, or checking that shadowy corridor one more time. The guises they'd wore going in let them roam un-accosted. Looking just as youma as all the rest; tentatcally n plantlike in equal measures. Then Albites chime gained them another hour, two, three. Let him have mental clarity while casually guarding Prehnites back. Enjoying himself all on his ownsome as the other man busied himself at consoles; pouring over texts, reading the minutia buried in manuals that hurt Albites head at a glance.

They were having fun.

Albite, was having fun!! Turning firefly shaped targets into broken husks. Placing his magical thousand-year-mau stickers in obscure and encouraging places! Rummaging through debris that seemed relatively untouched from before. Mostly he was looking for more hilts of shattered daggers with jagged edges. If only the magical cave of wonders lion had told him not to touch anything but the lamp upon entry!!! To do only what they'd come to do, before getting the ******** out!

Except there had been no magical lion -- or lamp -- or warning signs at all ---

There'd been a vial though: filthy, chipped, swirling with what looked to be pulverized ash on the inside. It made a noise when Albite shook it, crackled as he toyed with the cork holding all the broken bits inside. Albite had quickly become bored by the nothingness. The Eternal hadn't even ******** bothered to look more closely at the damn thing, before he was calling Prehnites attention to it. Tossing it the walking eggplants way while mouthing something out of pocket and off topic. Quick as that gone back to looking for real treasure in the place. Because what to Albite was trash worth tossing, to Prehnite? Was treasure worth uncorking.

Neither had expected the subsequent explosion to follow so long a pause. The minutes that had run dryly between finding the cursed thing, and seeing what contents were held inside. The Generals passive mutterings quickly becoming a stifled bout of screams. Then absolute silence. The bleeding notes of that injured pitch downed out by the sound of a concentrated storm breaking loose of confines in so narrow a space. An overwhelming howl of winds, whipped granite whirled quickly enough to gouge walls and spark like sharp obsidian over flesh and stone.

When Albite finally got his senses about him enough to get up--

It was only to notice that Prehnite was down, and staying that way. To have a second thought about how he was very suddenly a mostly alone Eternal in the deepest part of the scar. A screaming presence of a dinner bell, who'd wasted all his shielding magic and 'wolf in sheep's clothing' guises at the start, rather than saving it all up for when something went wrong. He'd never imagined something would go wrong. They weren't even that far out! Not that a distance of feet or miles mattered-- Not now. Not here. Especially not when the only thing keeping the denizens of the realm wholly not his to tread upon was dead to the world and -- <********> -- maybe dying!?

"Listen here plant-man. If you don't wake the ******** up by time we hit those godamned doors home. I will kill you--" Waru was more worried about the shallow breathing from concave looking bones, the bead of blood trailing from the corners of Reeds mouth, from both the mans ears. That if Prehnite died?! All the horrible ways Mizuki would kill them both!! "You b***h-a**, pink and purple, thirty pounds soaking wet son of a---" And then Waru had to consider what would happen if he died!? Oh, all the ways Faustite would resurrect them both *just* so he could kill them again too! It was like double jeopardy! Quadruple jeopardy!

All the terrible possibilities he considered as he hauled Prehnite over his shoulder, mounted the stairs like a bull, slipped past the caves hisss-ting into fevered life -- and felt the first terrible snag of a slowing claw nick his shoulder as he rounded a bend -- the way up was still so far -- the hallowed halls that led to safety suddenly a thousand miles away --

If we can just make it to the top from here---

Oh, hey — do I know that eel?

Rapidly became-— <********!!!

Those jaundiced eyes, electric-blue spots and flesh the color of overripe bananas— how every encounter went exactly the same. The creature lunged from a hole, murderous intent of a fubar looking moray, madder n mad; as if he’d personally murdered all its kin the last thousand life times.

And hell, maybe he had? Maybe this was the eels version of Retribution! But that was his schtick. The eel could ******** eat it, *bite him*, whole-sale swallow the attack Albite let fly. He was burning through his most basic all-stops on the medium-fry. Snarling at the smaller, more feral looking ******** that hovered in the distance; scavengers waiting to pick the leftovers off the plate the larger creepies would make of his bones.

All the ways his magic sung, joyously happy with the situation at hand! While he suffered; beast of glorious burden style. His magic didn’t care for his body or his mind—it only ever sought to be used properly. Hissing over his skin in slow, inky, crackles about how perfect a situation this was; while Waru begged and bled to differ—

The ******** the climb up those steps out of the scar had to be so much harder than the walk in!!

He knew he knew he knew why—

And he wasn’t thinking about how foolish it’d been to waste his tricks of the trade by ******** around beforehand— or how Faustite wasn’t here to call on— or how there was no teleporting in the Rift— or even about all the ways dumping Prehnite’s behind and bolting might just be the thing to save him!

Him alone. Just himself.

But that was a shitty cowards choice—

“Prehnite, buddy, plant-pal—“ and he tried to keep the tone of his plea light. Even as another crab-shaped flesh-carapaced creature approached, nipped at his trailing sashes — died in a shower of dust — “If you could be less dead weight right now? Idunno— I’d water your ******** garden-—manure your ******** yank to a stray dread had him whipping back, errantly facing away from the many cavernous holes that lined the sidewalls, and barking obscenities at a snake that crawled on fang-like-limbs, with too wide jaws. How this one somehow looked far more mindlessly hollow, than intelligently hungry, for his own personal liking.

“If you pushy ******** could back the hell off!” the first strike of the lash didn’t seem to kill it—shredded bones—laid bare chiton’ous defenses that mimicked scales—

So this one’s stronger—

The second strike took the creatures head from its winding, endless, neck— and burned through the remainder of his magic for that attack. He poured sweat as he backed his way up the steps, paying little minder to the patches of dark drips that were increasingly becoming his own, to the way his lungs burned from inhaling more than just Rift dust.

We have to get the ******** out of here—

“Tryna have a ******** conversation with this not-a-corpse and none of you are making it easy!” As if he could shout the Rift into temporary obedience, as if his bellows were beastly enough to make him sound bigger than he was, more deadly. A last ditch effort of a desperate sort, thrown down the path he’d trudged from, before he was twisting on his rough heels, running blindly.

Mounting the stairs to the next level.

He didn’t even see the wolf waiting in the shadows—

‘Dog—’ He froze, nearly letting the weight he was half-dragging slip from his grasp completely; it was terror, maybe, that kept the General in his grasp. The knowledge of the kind of end that awaited him if he let the potential lifeline go —

‘Double dog!!’ His mind uselessly supplied while his instincts screamed *wolf*; not the kind that wore sheeps clothing and chased after cartoon bow-peeps, but a hungrier, deadlier kind. It was almost comical, the way he’d always heard that two heads were better than one, but to see it? A right conversationalist, this one, seeming far smarter than the rest of its kin for the fact that it spoke alone. How the beast he eyed with saucer shaped eyes asked for his papers, middle name, social security number.

Waru would’ve given it all over too, anything!

Instead he was trying to figure out how to riddle his way around the sudden appearance of a 'not sphinx' that stood at the final ascending step towards freedom. His hopes of breaking free and straight up booking it until his legs gave out or they came across -- <********, something friendlier, maybe? The plant was always talking about his precious garden n'some pink petaled goatar and--

"I taste ******** terrible, for one. Like-- gym socks and old shoe leather, I swear it. Don't let alluv-this fool you cause it's mostly salt n'ah self-inflated ego. Just -- lots of air--- no substance." His mouth outpaced his senses as whatever fell through the sieve of his brainstem landed at the larger than life paws planted before him. "N'my friends a -- twig -- all bones --" Jostling Prehnite roughly as he spoke, as if that'd wake the man faster somehow, or at the very least make the General look alive enough to perk up n'intimidate something!

The seconds stretched, he reached for his magic in the most perfunctory way, felt it *whine* through his veins; like the sizzle that followed chugging ginger ale too quickly. Pinned between a massive furry rock and the endless writhing depths of a cavernous hard place!

"Plus! S'not my fault the hall pass I brought along expired early." Was the noise him, was it Prehnite? He couldn't quite tell if it was the mulberry haired man murmuring some death knell or his own heavy breathing hissting through his teeth as he growled yet more words out.

"Doesn't mean I don't belong here---"