My Last Breath

Frustrated by his prey escaping with the prize Eonlypse demanded, Murmaider unleashes a large beam of water and ice towards the portal. An explosion of Essence knocks Yelyah and Ellinor away from the portal and onto their backs. Ellinor looks up in horror as the monster approaches her, dripping wet with water and black blood, dead behind the eyes and hate filled in every facial muscle. She closes her eyes and braces herself to be struck down with his frozen trident. At the last second a piercing metallic clang fills the air as Yelyah manages to swiftly meet his trident with her ax, surging with Essence and Sevendust. Quickly becoming overpowered by his brute strength, Yelyah blasts Murmaider with a manipulative Essence attack filled with energy and wind, pushing him backwards creating some distance. Immediately she casts more Essence, creating mirror images of herself to confuse Murmaider and give her a second to tend to Ellinor.

Yelyah unclips her side pouch with large vials attached. “Take these, get inside and scatter everything here along the walls facing east!” Ellinor, still in shock, tries to process what she just heard. “Hurry Ellinor!” she yells while using Essence to blur Ellinor’s presence. More tentacles of the deep shatter through the icy ground, swiping at all the mirror images as Murmaider works to locate the real target. As soon as he does, he lets forth another ice blast, which hits the ground and releases razor sharp icicles. Most bounce off of Yelyah’s armor, but one manages to pierce a weak spot. Ellinor manages to get missed, as the words she heard moments ago finally register in her head. Yelyah swoops towards Murmaider as they clash again to do battle.

Ellinor makes it back through the secret entrance of the tower. Having lived almost all her life inside the tower, she begins to catch her breath as the familiarity of it gives her comfort. The shouting, blasts, and sounds of metal on metal are still present but ever so faintly. “I leave this tower for five minutes and I almost die!?!? This is insane!!!” She reconsiders even doing what the lady she just met today asked her to do and instead, use the tower to her advantage and just hide. “I’d like to help, sure. Would be a nice way to introduce myself to the outside world, someone who’s nice, willing to help out, and a good listener. I’m all those things, right? I think?? Not dying sounds really nice too though!!!” She closes her eyes for a minute, searching her heart for an answer.

“Raaaaaaa!!!!!!” Murmaider screams as he swings his trident violently and relentlessly at Yelyah. She manages to meet every swing with a deflection. After another parry, she engages her jetpack to quickly slide backwards through Murmaider’s legs, and leap on top of his shoulders. Wrapping her legs around his neck, she grabs a blade from her side to stab him through the head. As she’s about to thrust, her legs and hand that are holding onto him start to writhe with insurmountable pain. Trails of spreading ice quickly travel along her limbs, snaking their way up and all over her body. She stabs wildly and manages to push herself off of him, hitting him in the collarbone. Yelyah uses an Essence repel the ice from her body. “Foolish child. I’ll be sure to drown you for an eternity for such a feeble attempt.” Murmaider removes the blade from himself, pouring blood black as night. He marches his way to finish her.

“... and well, I really do like my room, but mother waaaasss pretty evil. Which means maybe eventually ‘I’ would be evil. And I don’t think that suits me. Nope, nope. OK. Going to do this.” Ellinor takes a deep breath as she decides to follow through. She opens the strangely heavy pouch. Inside, metal spheres with small glass circles, revealing a faint blue glow. She grabs one and tosses it towards the northeast corner of the tower. As it lands, it beeps a few seconds later and turns a very bright blue glow. She stops for a second, waiting to see if she had messed up. When nothing happens, she continues on, trying her best to spread the orbs evenly across the eastern wall of the tower,

Yelyah and Murmaider continue to trade blows outside, with Yelyah now becoming more and more fatigued as she tries to stave off this monster. “C’mon Ellinor, hurry up!” she thinks in her head. Yelyah dances in battle, both dodging blows and looking for a more advantageous situation. Seeing him standing on some watery ice, she takes her pistol out, blasting away at the ground around Murmaider. After the quickest trigger pulling she’s ever done in her life, the ice breaks away and he falls through. She pauses, breathes, and waits, knowing it would not be so easy to get rid of someone who commands the waters. But as she waits, she notices something. A ball knots in her throat. “Tentacles, where the fuck are all those tentacles?? Ellinor….”

As Ellinor finishes distributing the metal spheres and starts dumping the contents of the vials over top, she hears creaking. She stops to listen, as the last of the liquid drips out. More creaking. Then suddenly a huge shockwave from underneath her sends her flying up. Enormous tentacles break through the floor of the tower, lashing out in every direction. Water starts to flood everywhere. Ellinor struggles back to her feet to escape but before she can the tentacles find her first and grab around her legs, yanking her through the broken stones and into her soon-to-be watery grave. Before she could even let out a scream, she was under water. Slowly sinking chunks of stone were around her head. Below, many tentacles wiggling from what seemed like a black abyss. Despair. That’s all she could feel. She wanted to cry but even that seemed like too much effort as she tried to break free of the impossibly strong creature. As the last of her thoughts raced her mind, she thought of her new friend, Blocus. How bloodied and well, dead he was when he appeared in her room. She remembered how she brought him to life using her Essence, feeling terrible for the wickedly infected wounds he had suffered. Then she remembered how kind and brash he was, in a funny kind of way. Despite having been dead, he managed to still enjoy himself and well, life. She realized though, through herself, she was able to accomplish that. After she realizes she was able to help with that, her hair starts to glow, full of Essence. The tentacles start to release and retreat, as if the light is hurting them and she becomes too difficult to hold onto. As soon as she feels them release, she shoots up like a missile, exiting the water and gasping for air.

Yelyah dashes for the secret doorway of the tower. Abruptly she’s knocked back again as Murmaider breaks through the ice in between her and the doorway. Struggling to find more energy to go on, she dashes towards him, striking at his side. He easily blocks it and kicks her back towards the tower. He then uses Essence himself, calling on the water underneath her boots to ensnare her, creating blocks of ice around her legs. He takes a few steps forward, trident in full swing overhead. Yelyah envelops her body with her mechanical wings and as she does so a deafening sound rings her eardrums as a crystal clear blade with streaks of black inside slices through, letting in a stream of what little sunlight is left of the day. Again he pounds on her wings, crushing them with each blow. It’s only a matter of time before this egg cracks. “Come out little one, let me feast on your snow white skin!!!!” With another swing, one of her wings begins to crack and fall off, exposing some of her body. Yelyah remains still, as she uses Essence to melt off the unworldly ice.

“Yelyah!!!!” shouts Ellinor, soaking wet and standing at the doorway. Murmaider looks up, seeing a glowing figure whom he thought would be feeding his pet by now. With the last bit of ice off and using the calling as a distraction. Yelyah lets forth a small electrical charge, disorientating Murmaider for a much needed moment. Yelyah and Ellinor run towards each other as Yelyah hugs her tightly. “Hang on, this might get a little crazy!” “MORE crazy?? I’d like to be done with crazy please!” Murmaider moves up, goes to swing his trident for a double kill. Yelyah taps her upper shoulder deliberately and then punches the side of her jetpack. They explode up, over Murmaider and away from the tower uncontrollably as her one wing was completely broken off. Next, huge rumbles and explosions break through the eastern walls of Gothel’s Tower. Enough of the walls break down, allowing for the entire thing to start collapsing eastward. Before he could shield himself or escape, Murmaider is met with the weight of the entire tower crashing into him and through the ice. Yelyah and Ellinor squeeze each other tightly as they hurl through the air horizontally, spinning violently as the tower tries to catch them as it falls. What seems like minutes is over as they narrowly escape past the top of the tower and continue blasting off towards the coast.

They eventually crash into a bank of snow. Ellinor, peeking with one eye open, looks around, only to see the stillness of the landscape and a huge bloom of smoke off into the distance. Feeling safer and massive relief, “OK, I’ll admit that was pretty awesome! You’re one shifty gal…..” Her voice tapers off as she lets go of Yelyah, seemingly unconscious from the whole ordeal. “Shit.” With only her Essence preventing her from freezing to death, Ellinor drags Yelyah with her, looking for well, anything. She makes it to the docks. A small boat lies waiting. “Better than nothing for sure. Hope they have a blanket. A big, fluffy blanket. A COUPLE of big fluffy blankets!” They board the boat and through some trial and error, Ellinor manages to set sail.

Leyawiin disembarks the boat onto the dock, greeted by Princess Trinity and a formal entourage of soldiers. “Hello Leyawiin, it is an honor to meet the hero of the Omega Conflict.” Feeling both embarrassed and undeserving, Leyawiin struggles to show gratitude towards the compliment. “Thank you Princess Trinity, it is an honor for me as well. And thank you for the hospitality, though very generous it was not necessary.” Princess Trinity smiles, appreciating her humility and knows Leyawiin is truly grateful. As the two converse and share formalities, a boat floats towards the docks, almost as if empty. Princess Trinity looks intrigued, if not a bit concerned. Her guards take notice and become a bit more alert. Leyawiin turns around as the boat gradually glides to a stop into a nearby dock. They all begin to slowly walk towards the derelict ship. Emerging into a sight, two women, one assisting the other walking, disembark the boat. Leyawiin goes first to meet the two. Her eyes first notice the blonde girl, wrapped in many tattered blankets. Then her eyes quickly glance at the Lithoborne. She takes note of the advanced yet heavily damaged armor then studies her face intensely. “Ms. Rose?” she says quietly, almost as if she meant to say it in her head. Yelyah looks at the woman, searching her memories for her face. “I feel like we have met.” “What probably feels like a lifetime ago” half-jokingly replies Leyawiin. “At this point, probably three or four.” She winces a bit as she is now standing on her own. “I’d love to chat, but I think it’s imperative I get moving. I have an important meeting at By And Down.” Princess Trinity joins the conversation. “I think we can help arrange that, if you don’t mind getting me caught up on what’s going on here.”