The whole collar fiasco was over, at least until some nightmarish anon decided to do something like that again. Orbran and Satius both messaged each other for a while, and then, finally, got ready to head home. They each said their little farewell-for-nows and stepped into the transportalizer. They felt the tugging to their home station and then...
What they saw when they arrive left them speechless. It was gone. Everything was gone. The hive, and everything in it, burned to ash. They didn’t have to wonder on the perpetrator, no of course not. He wouldn’t do anything without leaving a calling card. A big grinning clown face painted in the ash in a rainbow of blood colors from burgundy all the way to violet.
Orbran was shaking. Satius took a step to hold him, but then realized he was as well. They had worked so hard, done everything they knew to do. They had survived hell, and eked out a life for themselves... and now everything they had accrued was ashes. Satius realized something soon after. He looked all around, and Orbran seemed to realize too. He jumped off the cliff without any thought, splashing in the water below.
The silence and solitude following the splash was nearly maddening. Satius pulled out a cigarette and lit it with shaking hands, taking hurried draws from it to try and calm his nerves. Then he heard the water stir, and from the ocean rose the great serpent that served as Orbran’s custodian. It leaned in, mouth held at an odd angle. Satius couldn’t help but laugh, even in this depressing aftermath.
The snake opened it’s mouth, and out fell a very wet vinedoe, and wrapped in protective vines was Lutrin as well. The vinedoe was a bit indignant, but unharmed. She trotted over to Satius in a hurry and started looking him over and licking him, trying to tell him it would be alright. Lutrin was in a far worse state. He was burned and cut, but not severely so.
And that was the state of it. Three trolls, two custodians, homeless in the wake of a god’s wrath... but alive.
