The Aspiring Archivist

"No, but I probably wouldn't tell you anyways. And..." His expression changed from determined to pained. "I'm sorry for doing this to you. You'll get over it, eventually. But I know I wouldn't have."

"Oh. Yeah. Maybe this time he'll just make me jump off a cliff instead of trying to kill everyone I know. Maybe if he tries attack you, I can just burn pewter to incapacitate myself. What's a little more soul damage?"

"Yeah, but that knocked me out. Even if I could do it, I probably couldn't stand how long it would take to figure it out."

"We could all die in that tower. I'm just one person, and you all are the only ones left that I truly care about. Everyone else is dead. My parents, my friends... Tristan." He turned to look behind him, eyes lingering on the boy there for a few seconds. He then quickly turned back away. "If the man who has me trapped ends up killing me, it's probably for the best."

"And that's it! To save me. And the way we're doing that is going to some tower of doom. Look, you're just found to have to go back to the clinic or something. Thank you for being tolerant enough to stick with me, but I'm just found to go in on my own."

"I... I'm confused. How could you be real? If you're real, good do you know I'm real? And WHY DO YOU INSIST ON ENDANGERING YOURSELF FOR ME?" The last words came out in a painted, raw yell.

"A dream? Oh." He looked pensative. "So you aren't real? Good. I still wish Haly didn't bother to try and help me. She doesn't deserve all the trouble."

"TAAron, I'm sorry! I... I..." The boy fell to his knees, sobbing. "Please go. I'm not worth it." Lightning struck the ground only a few yards behind TAAron. He didn't flinch.

While Platypus and Thaidakar are arguing, I sweep in on my elytra and hit Thaidakar with an axe until he dies and drops the sandwich. I then take the sandwich and use my power level 3 firework rockets to fly away as fast as I can.

"Got it." Antin took a second sheet of paper and overlayed it on the one with the rune. Carefully tracing it this time, he came up with a tidy set of runes. "We'll I can't help. Do your thing."

"Alright. So how do you make these runes work, anyway?"

@Ookla the Kobold

Haly appeared in the middle of a large open field. On the edges of the field, a quaint town was visible, and further in that direction large city buildings cropped up. On the horizon in the other directions, a strange rift was visible in the sky. Lights flashed where the rift touched the ground. A fierce wind blew around them, seeing to come from all directions. Gray clouds above made the whole landscape look slightly dull in the odd way that it only does during the onset of a storm. TAAron was there, sitting on a tree stump, head bowed. Only a few feet away, another stump sat empty. "Haly?" TAAron looked up. Tears were streaming from his eyes, blowing sideways into the air. "You should leave. Something bad is happening, I know it somehow. I don't want you to get hurt. I can't..." His voice cut off, sounding choked. On the edge of the field, a young boy who Haly didn't recognize stood. He looked about five years younger than TAAron. He was hard to make out, but she could see that he had pale skin and messy brown hair that blew in the wind. On his wrist was a glowing, solid crystal bracelet, the very same that TAAron had gifted to Emma and Calano. In the dream, TAAron had an identical bracelet. "TAAron? Is that you?" The young boy's voice could barely be made out in the screaming wind.

TAAron sat in a corner, dejected. He still couldn't remember what had happened last time he was imprisoned like this, but he knew it wasn't good. He wished that he was back in Terra de Lumine, with Nameless, and Wynn... and Haly. For some reason, he felt a looking to see her especially. He could only assume he'd known her best before losing his memory. Slowly, he began drifting off into sleep.

Also @Ookla the Untitled want to get us moving?

Awkwardly, Antin took out his sheet of paper and pencil and tried to position both without moving his hand off of the runes. This might not work. My drawings will be too shaky. After a few tense moments, he got an idea. Holding the sheet of paper up to the rune directly, he ran his pencil back and forth over the rune, creating an image of its shape on the paper. Tucking away the paper, he made his way down. "I got it!"

"Alright." Antin began climbing the stairs, doing his best to dampen every rune he encountered. After a considerable amount of time, he passed the fire rune safely and got to the barrier rune. "Quest, can you hear me? I can see the rune, I'm going to read it to you!"