05-31-2025, 09:51 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-31-2025, 09:52 PM by ThreadLurkingComorant.)
![[Image: A%20World%20Not%20Worth%20Saving.png]](http://homebrewdeviants.com/static/Masa/NewCrankshafrt/A%20World%20Not%20Worth%20Saving.png)
[image description: A uncanny suburban neighborhood behind walls, unnatural wires from the sky dangling toward it..]
When you enter your domain, there is no home.
No negotiating table to sit down at.
There is no library, no painstaking collection of artifacts and treasures you've scooped from the many lives and hardships you face.
All that stands before you is a world desperate for a god, a parody of a suburb mangled with your own, tied by wires that go beyond the clouds.
The false fiend gives you confused look, but you're just as lost as he is.
???: Why did you bring me back here? Is it to mock me? Spare me out of pity? Send me back to my lord emptyhanded to face punishment?
Styx: I don't exactly know what here is if I'm frank.
???: You opened a rift with no clue where it was headed? Hardly living up to your own fables-
Styx: I'm not the man you're looking for, but I'll so much worse if you continue on. What exactly are we looking at here?
???: A composite of fallen pocket spaces, they have a tendency to pile up when left unmaintained for too long.
...What happened to your castle? Is it here? Destroyed? Did someone move it? Your contract with Charon is still live and strong, he's absolutely still alive but....
Styx: Home?
???: For only so much longer. Your world is about to cannibalize what's left, the island you and your friends stand on will be reformed as part of a connected mass to this above. A gate to the heavens, so to speak. Manufactured ones-
Styx: What manner of stupid ritual have you all commit to?
???: I simply wish to retrieve the vessel of one of our fallen lords and return it to where it belongs so that we may have a chance to defend against what comes next. You and your group of degenerates standing in our way is only going to make it worse for everyone involved.
Styx: If reality is breaking like so, I doubt there's much it'd do you good.
???: You're a tempered fiend, are you not?
Styx:... Am I?
???: A fiend who's soul and body have been hardened by extreme conditions, one who's capacity to generate scrap exceeds that of the norm. The standard fiend has a strong knack for shrugging off many of the world's natural endgames, a tempered one-
Styx: Is designed to be able to resist even that of another world outside our own.
???: The meddling is that of a unnatural nature but one that a body like yours and hers could more than thrive in, swim around without fear. You're hardly ideal as a candidate but-
Styx: You step any closer and I will leave you slit like a holiday dinner.
???: Quick to violence.
Styx: Hardly unmerited.
???: At the very least, meeting you lets us understand how you can be in two places at once. Right now as we speak, Sir Hyde is commencing siege. There's a mutt of your exact description right now, spilling blood with that crooked looking ladder sword. Have to ask who's really the imitation right now.
Styx: Shut the fuck up-
As you step forward the false fiend points directly up at the sky above. The coasts of Plaza clear as day look back at you like a reflection in a tide pool.
Styx: Someone really is merging the island...
???: You don't have much time I think. You could stay around on this world, extend what you have before it happens. After? Who knows, a fresh hand for everyone or perhaps truly the end. Either way, you will not walk away unscathed.
He turns his back toward you, making his way to the nearby town.
Styx: Where are you going?
???: Home, my findings are going to be important I think. You could cut me down but every minute is of the essence at the moment-
There's a loud rumble, from the distance you can see the top of your castle rumbling across the skyline.
???: Warn your friends, perhaps you all can escape just in time to avoid what comes next.