1Two figures walked away from the blinding flash of silvery blue light as it expanded then contracted and disappeared in less than a second. One held up the other, who was struggling to stay upright, his once smart black robes tattered and bloodstained, one visible clawed hand trying to cover up a deep stab wound in his chest. The other figure was younger and wore travelling clothes, a simple, worn-looking cloak and tunic, a bandanna holding back his unruly hair.
"What happened? Thought you'd died in there," said the younger man.
"I came close. I had to teleport out. Threw my cloak and staff in the air with some dust vials, made it look like I'd disintegrated, the simplest stage magic works best with the old-school vultures," he growled, "How'd you know I was here?"
"Saw it in a dream. I think... you know, HE... sent it."
The older man snarled, "Sod it, this hurts. Fuckers found my weak spot. It's not healing properly."
"Poison antidotes in the bag, same pouch as the healing potions," he looked warily in both directions, saw only a [ack of harpies keening a mournful cry as they flapped across a sunset-washed landscape of mountains and moorland. Then he sighed and slowed down so that the man could rummage around in his backpack, "I shouldn't be doing this."
"My side of the contract isn't exactly..." he coughed and spluttered as the acrid herbs and dubiously spiritually compatible divine magic poured down his throat, burning his sinuses, "Isn't exactly the easiest thing to uphold either."
"He okay in there? With the vultures?"
"He's not in there. I had him transferred to the Dragonspire."
"Saw it coming, eh?"
He nodded, "Still couldn't do a damn thing about it."
"Talking of prophetic visions, my need for escape was rather sudden, and you know how rough a teleportation can be if it isn't planned out properly and you're basically just flinging yourself out of the window and over the mountains in a random direction..."
"And praying you don't stop halfway through a tree. Yeah, I know. I have to shift a unit of twelve people with me every time I retreat, and did I mention yet that it goes off automatically when I'm near death? And that I got out this magical insurance that anchors your teleport but it costs a damn..."
"Please, this is urgent. It did more than just hurt. I think I ended up somewhere I wasn't supposed to go. Somewhere really bad."
"It's not the place the original Diggory ended up, is it?"
"Goddesses, no. It wasn't that straightforward, anyway. There was time involved. And possibility," he said, shuddering, "I've seen it before, Diggory. It's the reason I do this. It isn't just so I can preserve ancient ruins and shelter all the creatures that are unpopular with humanity right now. I've been somewhere truly horrifying and it changed me," his eyes went wide, pupils expanding over his feline yellow irises, "And it was a completion screen. A victory for the Light."
"I had a really bad vision once," admitted the young man called Diggory, identical to a long line of people called Diggory, selected for their physical resemblance to the original, drafted into the company and conditioned to play the role. He wasn't the only one of these in the party but he was the most ritually important, the one kept closest to the original. Whereas I'm just still alive after all the centuries, as our type as are likely to be, but older and weary and the survivor of one too many of these battles, "I dunno if it was me or one of the other Diggories, actually. Our memories get so mixed up, and... anyway, I was on this job, I was told it was simple, a Dragonewt who had been bothering people, but when I got down there, I found about twenty five of the damn things and I think they were holding their annual convention or something. I dunno what happened next, I lost a lot of time, I know I was hit by a bunch of fireballs and everything went black, and there were voices, and music, and... For the absolute longest time I swear the story was that I had been held captive in this weird room with lots of books in Draconic, which I only knew a bit of but managed to learn while I was there, and they didn't treat me that badly - I was still too injured to move anyway - and I was even taught a little bit of level guardian style fighting, the movement patterns and their ritual significance..."
"Sounds like Dragonewts. They're okay guys when you get to know them. I mean, they eat humans but they're not ALWAYS going to eat EVERY human. I've seen you eat biscuits and you're not eating a biscuit now..."
"Shut up, I listened to your story, didn't I?" he snapped, pulling a flask out of the medicinal potion pouch that looked and smelled suspiciously like gin, "Anyway, I finally woke up properly - not in pain, my head not cloudy, not hearing weird chanting all the time - and found myself in the Command Tent. I don't actually run the party, see, I lead from the front. We have this tactician... scary old guy... but I'm being taught to take over from him. And he swears I was there all along, the books are his, he'd let me stay out of the way in his office until I healed because I was ranting in Draconic and lashing out at the healers with my fists..."
"The dynamics of parties larger than five are beyond me, and terrifying, and I disapprove," the level guardian reminded him, as he often did whenever they met. He then gave the man his most pointed look, something he'd seen a vampire friend do but couldn't quite fully master, until the gin was passed to him .
"The point is, I had it clarified for me AFTER. Either someone's messing with my head or... or something happened to change the story," he frowned, "Where are you gonna go, anyway? Your place is probably still too dangerous, and might be trashed by now."
"I'll need another healing potion, then I'm calling for a dragon. The Guild will hear of this."
"Want to hire us to get the place back for you?"
"Are you allowed to do that?"
"Probably not," he frowned and shook his head.
"Do take care, Diggory, and I hope you find what it is you're looking for."
"You too," Diggory grinned.
(A/N: heavily inspired by Ys , Shining Force, some dreams I had)