Mola: "Your home...? How would I know anything about it?"
Her voice was a dry rasp, fragile as old parchment. Bazren kept her flail materialized, the spiked head resting on the stone floor. She knelt, bringing her new, unfamiliar face close to Mola's, the pink wind rose of her irises a piercing glow in the gloom.
Bazren: "Tentoria."
The name was a key, a probe slid into a lock. Mola's gaze, hollow and adrift, met Bazren's. For a moment, Bazren searched, hoping to see a flicker of recognition, a sign of the entity hiding within the human shell. There was nothing. Only a deep, uncomprehending weariness.
Mola: "W-who?"
Her brow furrowed, a genuine confusion that only stoked Bazren's frustration.
Bazren: "Drats...!"
She shot to her feet, her movement sharp and furious. With a guttural cry, she slammed the head of her flail into the stone floor. The impact sent a spiderweb of cracks through the ancient rock and shook a fresh shower of dust from the rafters.
Bazren: "She's in there, alright... We have but to get her out."
Xayn's gaze, which had been fixed on the interaction with a grim intensity, now hardened as he looked at Bazren. He squinted, the muscles around his new eyes tightening, before his focus shifted back to Mola, his expression softening into one of grim analysis.
Xayn: "Has a voice not spoken to you...? Shown you visions from within your mind?"
Mola simply stared, shrinking away from them, her bewilderment deepening into fear.
Mola: "What are you two on about!?"
Bazren let out a long, loud sigh of pure exasperation, the flail dissolving into motes of fading pink light.
Bazren: "Black magic. That's what made her show. It should work if we do it again."
Xayn shook his head, the dark hair of his new form shifting. His disapproval was a palpable weight in the room.
Xayn: "Are you certain we'd survive that encounter...? It was close enough as it was. If Mola loses control again, there is no telling what damage will ensue."
Mola's hands, hidden in the folds of her torn robes, clenched into tight fists. Her knuckles were white.
Mola (muttering): "It doesn't make sense... I was getting closer... I was getting better at it...!"
The words were a low, bitter mutter, not meant for them, but they hung in the air like poison. Xayn and Bazren both stilled, their attention snapping to her.
Xayn: "Better at what, exactly...?"
Her head lifted slowly. Her gaze, no longer simply weary, was sharp, accusatory. It swept over them, over their new, stolen faces and the unnatural light in their eyes. The one variable. The one thing that had been introduced into her disastrous equation.
Mola: "You... How exactly did you make your way to the world of the living...?"
Before Xayn could form a measured reply, Bazren stepped forward, a bulwark of pure fury. Her new face, so deceptively human, twisted into a venomous sneer.
Bazren: "What's it to you...? You who so eagerly toys with such atrocious magic? You who bears far more secrets than you let on, what right do you have to pry into our past?"
Mola didn't flinch. She simply sat there, a broken thing on a broken floor, the silence stretching until it was taut enough to snap. She took a deep, shuddering breath, the kind one takes before stepping off a cliff. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, stripped of all artifice. A dead thing.
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Mola: "... I created the dagger. It's my fault all those people died."
The silence that followed was absolute, a sudden void where sound had been. Even the distant wind howling through the shattered windows seemed to hold its breath. Xayn's eyes widened, the blue enso light flaring with disbelief. Mola continued, her voice flat, emotionless.
Mola: "It was going to be my proof."
The words hung in the air for a single, heartbeat. Then, Bazren's composure shattered.
Bazren: "Proof...?! PROOF OF WHAT, YOU IMBECILE?!"
Her roar was a physical force, tearing through the quiet of the study. Xayn made no move to stop her.
Bazren: "DARK MAGIC IS FILTH! IT IS THE REASON WE WERE IMPRISONED IN MORTMUNDUS FOR MILLENNIA!"
She lunged, her new, fleshy hands surprisingly swift. She closed them around Mola's throat, lifting her slightly from the floor. The feel of the warm, living flesh, the fragile pulse beating against her thumbs, was a horrifying novelty.
Bazren: "THE REASON WHY OUR MISSION ALMOST FAILED, BARELY AFTER IT STARTED..."
Her grip tightened. She could feel the delicate bones and cartilage of Mola's neck straining beneath her inhuman strength.
Bazren: "... THE REASON WHY YOU KILLED YOUR MASTER WITH YOUR BARE HANDS, HER BEATING HEART CLUTCHED IN YOUR GRASP!"
Mola's eyes began to roll back, a strangled gasp escaping her lips as she clawed weakly at Bazren's wrists.
Bazren: "And you voluntarily... unprovoked... wanted to prove you could CONTROL IT? A feeble, irresponsible, foolish human such as yourself?!"
Xayn finally spoke, his voice strained.
Xayn: "Bazren, she'll choke --"
Bazren: "You play with something your kind was never meant to have. When I met you... I told myself it was for survival. Thought you were just desperate, using it as a last resort. But no."
Mola's neck veins bulged, her face turning a dusky shade of purple under Bazren's increasingly tighter hold.
Bazren: "You're just sick. Sick in the fucking head. You wish to summon into the world of the living a force whose sole purpose is DEATH. What justification could you possibly have for that?!"
She eased her grasp just enough for air to rasp in Mola's throat, her face inches away, her pink eyes burning.
Waiting.
Bazren: "ANSWER ME!"
But Mola's head only lolled, her expression a mask of dejection. Apathy. Bazren's face twisted in disgust.
Bazren: "I'm ending her here and now, Xayn. I've seen enough. We'll seek our answers elsewhere."
Xayn opened his mouth, but no words came. In Mola's volatile, misanthropic actions, he saw the reflection of countless souls cursed to remain in Mortmundus, destined to spend all of eternity there. He saw the logic, cold and brutal, in Bazren's verdict. With a heavy heart, he turned his back, the fine hairs on his new arms standing on end.
It was now solely Bazren's choice.
A choked whisper from Mola, her voice raw.
Mola: "Since you're killing me anyway... I'll tell you why."
The tears she had held back for so long now flowed freely, hot trails on her cold cheeks.
Mola: "Because I never cared. Because it has always been *me* and *them* -- never *us*. Do you care about an insect when you kill it...? Do you care about that annoying fly you swat without thinking twice about it? I may be human like the rest, but I NEVER saw them as my equals."
Bazren's face contorted, not with rage this time, but with pure, visceral disgust.
Bazren: "Is that so...? What of your Master, then? Was she nothing more than a fly you swatted? You want me to believe you're crying because you squashed an insect?!"
To that, Mola had no answer. Her defense, so hateful and absolute, crumbled into nothing. Bazren saw it then. The lie behind the nihilism.
Bazren: "You're full of shit, witch bitch. Know what I think...? I think that after getting hit with the weight of the horrible things you've done, you actually WANT to die. Don't you now...?"
Mola's choked sob was all the confirmation she needed.
Bazren: "... How pathetic you are."
She released Mola, who slumped to the floor, gasping.
Bazren took a step back, summoning her flail in a furious shower of pink sparks. She began to spin it, the chain whistling through the air as she charged a powerful, head-crushing blow.
Bazren: "Well, I'll happily grant that wish."
Xayn closed his eyes, hearing the familiar, terrible sound of Bazren's chain extending to its full length. The spiked ball rose high into the air, then was pulled down with unstoppable, vengeful force.
Bazren: "See you in the next life."
Its crushing advance was meant to pop a skull like a watermelon.
A voice, their voice, the voice, echoed not in the room, but in the deepest chambers of their minds, sharp and absolute.
Tentoria: "You must *protect* the vessel. Not bring it to harm."
The flail stopped.
Not slowed, not deflected. It stopped dead, suspended inches from Mola's tear-streaked face, humming with arrested momentum. Bazren's entire body was frozen, coerced by an invisible force that clamped down on her with the weight of a collapsing mountain.
Their minds were being assaulted yet again.
She had returned.