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They weren’t really monsters so much as the absence of monsters, inky black voids in human shape. Doesn’t stop them from being painful , she thought grimly, dragging her feet forward to come up behind one of them. She winced in sympathy as it swiped down towards Karash, but he sidestepped just in time. While it was distracted, she seized the opportunity.
The sunblade in her hand was as heavy as a greatsword, but she struck true, and the shadow hissed like a leaking snake. She struck out with her fist, feeling it connect somehow with the nothingness. Even lifting her clenched hand took far more effort than it should have–she’d just killed two more of these things, but the second one had stabbed her in just such a way as to leave her strength zapped.
Never mind that. She focused her mind, her fists moving in a blur, striking it twice more.
Unfortunately, that got its attention.
The void’s unfeatures swirled into anger, and as it turned toward her, its arm stretched into the shape of a sword. She stumbled in her attempt to dodge, and pain like ice washed down her spine as the darkness pierced her in the exact same spot the other shadow had stabbed just a second before.
As it withdrew its sword-arm, she staggered, the very clothes on her back suddenly heavier. The sunblade seemed determined to drag her into the earth, she could hardly keep her grasp on its handle. Sheer muscle wasn’t going to get her anywhere, she realized, and pivoted instead, pushing hard with her foot into a spin, letting the weight of the sword handle act as a pendulum, pulling her body with it.
The dazzling blade intersected oddly with the dark uncreature, the darkness creeping up as if it would eat the light before the being’s entire arm dissolved off in wisps of smoky nothingness.
She let the full momentum of the swing carry her back to stand upright, trembling from supporting the weight of her own skeleton. Even moving her eyes felt like rolling boulders. To her left and right, her friends fought similar ink blot monsters, and she tried to open her mouth to ask for help, but couldn’t summon the strength. With a gargantuan effort, she shifted her gaze back to the void before her, just as it reformed its remaining arm into a blade.
As it pierced her chest, the heaviest quiet she’d ever experienced settled over her bones. The handle of the sunblade fell from her hand, and its clatter on the flagstones reached her as if through a dream.
It was a relief to join it, to crumple to the cool stone like falling into bed after a long day.
The cry caught in her throat rattled out instead as a gasping breath, and she had no energy left to draw another.
***
She woke to blinding radiance, and her first thought was to wonder who’d turned the sunblade on. As the initial light dimmed and her eyes cleared, Trifle’s anxious face swam into view above her.
After a moment (a blink, a breath), she understood the pressure of the goblin’s tiny hands on her chest. “Trifle?”
“You’re okay,” Trifle answered, and as she reached up to grip the holy symbol around her neck, Lua’niira felt healing wash through her body like a wave hitting the shore.
She sat up, realizing belatedly that Trifle had revived her in the midst of chaos. A horde of rats, followed by a trio of black-robed cultists, raced around the corner towards them.
“Who goes there?” one of the cultists called.
Dunkel shouted something from behind them, and fire and heat burst suddenly from the hallway’s far corner, followed by the scent of burning fur and flesh.
When the air cleared, Travis’ crossbow bolts pinned the cultists to the wall before the ash that had been the rats settled to the floor, and there was quiet.
***
They’d settled for the night in some long-abandoned dormitory. Lua’niira had plunked down on the nearest bunk the moment they’d decided to stay, and hadn’t moved since. She could hear the quiet bustle of everyone settling in–Karash cleaning his swords, Travis tending to his crossbow, Dunkel restocking his spell components, Trifle checking on everyone and everything–but it all sounded very far away.
The edge of the bed next to Lua’niira dipped slightly. “So…how are you doing? Like…spiritually? Since, y’know, you died?” Even without looking, she could hear the grimace in Trifle’s voice.
Lua’niira blinked several times, trying to pull her gaze and mind back from the middle distance. “I, uh,” she began, and then paused. Trying to get her brain to focus on the events of the past two hours felt a bit like trying to force the wrong ends of magnets together. “I don’t know,” she finally said.
Trifle shifted, her feet dangling over the edge of the bed. After a moment, when it was clear Lua’niira was drifting back into her own world, she continued, “Well, I just figured it would be good for you, to…you know, talk about it. Dying can be a big deal, and coming back too. I think it’s good to talk about it.”
The half-elf nodded, letting Trifle’s words rattle around her mind until they finally made sense. “That makes sense,” she said aloud. “It didn’t–I mean, it was, but, I mean. I didn’t even know I was dead, really.”
“It was quick, you were only dead for about ten seconds. Hardly any time at all.” Trifle was quick to reassure her.
“I’m glad you were there,” Lua’niira said quietly. “Thank you.” She glanced over at the goblin girl perched next to her on the bunk. “I…I don’t know if I’m ready to be dead, quite yet.”
The cleric nodded in acknowledgement. “I’m gonna do my best to keep you alive, then. Or…well, bring you back if I can’t.”
“I appreciate that.” Lua’niira looked down at her hands, and opened her mouth to say more, but thought better of it and closed it again. After a moment, she added, “You do a good job.”
“Thanks.” The goblin girl’s mouth curved in a tiny smile. Her eyes drifted off someplace far away, and after a moment, she ventured, “Sometimes…you know, I wonder. Kelemvor is the god of death, so I wonder whether that’s really our place…to bring people back, as Doomguides. But, you know, I guess our magic comes from Kelemvor, so if he didn’t want it to happen…” She shrugged.
Lua’niira’s brow creased. “Then why do you do it?”
“Mm, a lot of reasons I guess. Sometimes it’s as simple as I don’t want the people around me to die…I don’t want you to die.” She looked over at the half-elf. “Then, sometimes, I think that it’s my…not job, maybe, but calling? It’s my…calling to protect people, so that’s part of it. But also, I think about what the people I bring back would want. And I thought, maybe, you had things you wanted to do, or things you might want to say, and you should have the opportunity to do them.”
Lua’niira hummed in acknowledgement, mulling it over. Things she still wanted to do, and things she still wanted to say. The people she’d want to say those things to. Myrym’zira, and Sol’atar, and Calfryn, and Yves, and Fel’rekt–oh gods, Fel’rekt– Her throat tightened, and she swallowed hard to clear it. Yes, there were a lot of those things, she realized. “Thank you,” she repeated, breathing carefully to keep the quaver out of her voice. After a moment, she looked back at Trifle again. “What about you? What if we can’t do the same for you?”
Trifle’s brows drew together, and she drummed her heels meditatively against the edge of the bunk. Lua’niira could almost see the thoughts forming and reforming on her friend’s face as she considered how to say them. Finally, she said, “Sometimes…death is just…death. It comes to everyone, it came to you today, it’s come for Dunkel, and someday it’ll come for me. It’s impartial like that, and in some ways that’s like…comforting?”
She ran her tiny fingers over the holy symbol at her throat. “I…accepted the idea of my death a long time ago, I’m not so good at accepting the deaths of people around me. But…mine? I don’t know. I think if I died, and you couldn’t bring me back…well, I think that would be okay. Especially if you all were safe and alive. That’s good enough for me.”
She paused for a long time, her hand drifting back to the holy symbol. She took a deep breath. “I think…sometimes, that even if I could be brought back, I don’t know that I’d want to.”
“Hmm.” Lua’niira frowned at her own hands, interlaced in her lap. “I…don’t like that, but I respect it. Do you think–where do you–would it be better, for you, wherever is next?”
“Mm, well, I do think dying would be a bit like being greeted by an old friend.” The tiniest bit of a smile played over her face. “But I don’t really think of what comes next as better or worse than life…it just…is.”
“Then…why wouldn’t you want to come back?” She thought again of her own list of yet unsaid and undone things, and shook her head minutely, perplexed.
Trifle frowned, her brow creasing. She opened her mouth, then shut it again. More hesitantly, she answered. “It–It’s not that I wouldn’t want to be here. I…I would be sad if I died…before we took care of Kerestra, or I lost the chance to…see my friends change and grow, but…I’ve always figured if I died it would be what was meant to happen, and I’m okay with that.”
“That seems…wise. And…mature.” Lua’niira ventured, holding up the words to see if they fit as if they were clothing. “But also, I’m glad you’re here, now. So don’t go anywhere, okay?” Her mouth twisted in a wry smile as she added, “Leave the dying to the rest of us for awhile.”