The black form moved forward and the shelves and books before it decayed and vanished. Tinuviel felt herself forgetting some of her long gathered knowledge.
"Stop it!" she shouted. "You're making me forget."
"Yes," the darkness that was Roquen agreed. "But soon you won't care."
"We have to take the fight out of Tinu's mind," Jol muttered to Xina.
"Hey, this is your deal," she said irritably. "I don't know how I got here." Jol groaned and reached out. He couldn't really affect the terrain here, it wasn't his mind, he could only change the way it looked. Perhaps, however, he could protect it a little. The cluttered books and shelves warped and changed into sheathes of metal with runes hammered into them. The darkness's passage twisted the metal, but didn't completly destroy them.
"Perhaps before I consume your souls, I'll explain it to you." Roquen reached out for Jol and the swordsman dodged aside as Xina flashed silvery light over the darkness. Tinuviel twisted around the battle and ran to some of the steel books flipping pages and looking for something about this situation.
"Gotcha!" Xina laughed as a large region of Roquen's form vanished. Then the shadow seemed to bleed out and reform as it was before. She blinked as the darkness, seeming to smile, reached out for her.
"Xina, move!" Jol shouted as the darkness passed into and through an unfazed Xina. The illusion looked down once before it shattered.
"I try not to be where I seem to be," he heard behind him. "Lure him to your mind, I'll work on this staff thingy." He turned back and saw nothing at first, until the wall seemed to blink at him.
"Damn you!" Jol shouted. A portal seemed to take form behind the swordsman, beyond it the others were looking on in concern at them.
"The outside world through your eyes," Roquen's voice echoed outward with laughter. "Perhaps I can return through your mind." The darkness had no distinguishable face but it still seemed as if the necromancer were smiling. Jolrael leaped back through the portal as the darkness charged.
Tinuviel shook her head her perception appeared to return to normal. She fell back, her legs weak, and looked up at Jol and Xina. Both were still locked in a sort of trance, but Xina seemed to release a pale radiance all her own. Silvery light, as if the moon shown inside this dungeon. She gripped the staff tightly and it was leaning against Jol's shoulder.
"Tinuviel-san," Amethyst gasped. "You're awake."
"How very interesting, you seem to be made of rock," they all blinked.
"Tinuviel, are you okay?"
"Hmm? Oh, you must know me then," the elf asked. "I'm sorry, that horrid beast erased some of my memories."
"That means we're going to have to go through those 'experiments' all over again," Val started. "Doesn't it?" Tinuviel turned to look at him and yet again her eyes seemed to pop out of her skull.
"Oh....my," she said. "Are you my boyfriend." Val blushed immediately and winced backwards.
"Of course not!"
"It didn't work," she sighed. She pulled a notebook, quill and a vial of ink out of her pack. "We'll see how the next experiment does."
"You mean you DO remember us?" Xalan asked.
"Of course I do," Tinuviel said. "But um, what was my name again?" Everybody face-faulted.
"Okay," Xina kept part of her mind focused on keeping track of Jol and the necromancer. Mostly, however she was trying to figure out just what she did. Or how the staff did it anyway.
The staff is a bridge. The voice was a woman's.
"Who are you?" Then she remembered Amethyst's story. "Amelia?" She felt as if the woman was smiling.
Xellos is here, but he's kind of tired or something.
"So do you know how this works?" she asked indicating the staff in her hands. She looked up and rushed to follow Jol and the necromancer out of Tinuviel's mind.
Not really, but I'm sure you'll figure it out. Hmm?....oh, Xellos said something about infusing it with power.
"That's done," she looked about Jol's mindscape. "Can he make it any more boring?"
Follow...my voice. That was her father but he sounded tired.
As soon as the darkness followed Jol the portal closed behind it. The scene of people looking on, with concerned expressions vanished. Replacing it was a blank field of wind swept dust. The darkness that represented Roquen's mind face Jol across this wasteland.
"This is your mind, elf-blood?" the darkness laughed. Jol yawned and shrugged. "Such a barren waste of life you must be." The darkness seemed to swell up to gigantic, amorphous proportions. Roquen began to crash down on Jolrael when the ground began to tremble and rock splitting apart underneath the necromancer. The darkness's fall over Jol was halted as Roquen flowed into the cracks and the ground was closed again.
Jol watched and waited as the ground seemed to ooze a fine black mist that was trying to gather into humanoid form again. He sighed and a wind arose to scatter the mist the corners of the field. The swordsman laughed quietly as he turned to face his own shadow trying to rise up to grab him. A brilliant light appeared between him and the shadow. A shriek of pain arose as the shadow recoiled.
"I have enslaved thousands of souls!" Roquen shouted. "You are no different."
"I'm alive." A ray of silvery light appeared behind his opponent, and the dust motes gathered together into Xina leaning on her staff and smiling.
"So am I," Roquen whirled to see Xina. and more importantly to his eyes, the staff. She bit her lip and looked at the staff. "This better work."
"Do you know how to use that, girl?" Xina snickered and jabbed a finger at Roquen.
"By the power of the moon, I'll punish you!" Roquen's dark form seemed confused and scratched its head.
"What was that?"
"It just sort of popped out," she said sheepishly.
"What is with the blue and white dress?" Jol asked.
"Oh shut up!" A flash of silvery light illuminated the region. As it passed they were in a realm of gray nothingness. The darkness of Roquen's form vanished, leaving the image of him as he was before his undead transformation. Fortunately for Xina's pride, the sailor fuku had been replaced by the fine, if now worn, garments Zelgadis had provided her with.
"I'd say she does," they all turned to see a purple haired man with a strong resemblance to both Xina and Xalan leaning back against a tree in the middle of the nothingness. A smiling woman somewhat like Amethyst stood a few feet away, until she saw Roquen of course.
"Villian, in the name of justice you shall be smited!"
"Yep, that must be Amethyst's mom," Xina said dryly.
"It is sort of hard to miss the resemblances," Jol admitted.
"Actually, this time Amelia has it about right," Xellos said cheerfully, then yawning.
"What do you mean by that? Justice is an illusion," Roquen laughed. "There is no greater order to the world, it was created on the whim of a lunatic."
"You should be very glad that she can't hear you right now." The speaker appeared among them all. He was a tall human seeming man with yellow eyes and a thick mane of what looked like raven feathers. He was wearing an odd looking black tunic and black patched jacket. His pants and boots were of similar color and state of wear.
"And what dead soul is this?" Roquen demanded.
"I am called many things, Ravenwolf, the Meddler, Gabriel," he smiled, a predatorial showing of teeth. "But most call me the Vagabond."
"I'll be sure to find your soul and torture it for...." The necromancer's eyes widened tremendously as a hole appeared in the grey nothingness. Beyond was roiling darkness. "You can't take me, I'm bound." He gestured to back to the nearly invisible silver cord binding him back to his phylactery.
"That can be taken care of," Jol said, sword appearing in his hand and slashing down through the cord.
"NOO!!! I cast all the spells! I should be immortal!" A wind seemed to rise up, but it only touched the necromancer's soul. "NOO!!"
"You probably should have stayed away from my realm," the Vagabond laughed as the necromancer was drawn inexorably to the dark portal. "You've been a fool the entire way, thinking to command the duties of a power."
"You can't do this! There are rules! There are ruuuuules aaaaaiieee!!!" Finally, despite all attempts to break from the sucking wind, Roquen flew into the portal which closed silently behind him.
"I MADE most of the rules," the vagabond laughed. "Speaking of which." he faced Jol and Xina. "This is not the astral, open to any who can find it, this is the realm of the waiting dead. And, as much as it surprises me, you're still alive."
"No wait...I want to talk to..." Xellos waved as the grayness vanished from around them. "My father." She said quietly as she recognized the dungeon around her.