Rusk stared at his monstrous comrades. He and Mandy shared a look.

“Where’s Iraiah?” asked Mandy.

Rusk shrugged and shook his head. He didn’t know any more than her.

Then in a burst of energy Mandy was shoving him along, firing arrows over her shoulder, pushing and shoving until they were out of range of the monsters, and were stuck in a stone closet behind the King’s throne. Which led directly to the dungeon. Which still had half its wall collapsed and the open air streamed inside, a breath of life in this terrible place.

“Is the King dead or not?” asked Rusk.

“You think that’s the best use of our resources right now?”

“Okay, well you said we’d find a cure. Any ideas?”

Mandy covered the opening in the stone and when she shot one last arrow through the hole someone screamed but Rusk couldn’t tell who it was. He hoped and hoped it wasn’t Loretta. Sounded female. Wait, what was he thinking? He couldn’t afford to prioritize. That would make him even less of a Hero than he already was. He focused on finding something, anything that could help them out of this terrible predicament. There was a curious stone on the back of the King’s throne, which was between Mandy and him and Mandy and the opening. Apparently she’d been shooting right through the wall through some crack after pulling the throne in between them and the monsters behind them.

“They say monsters are a perversion of the natural elements.” Rusk reached out for the stone. “And these natural elements are everywhere, all over.”

“Yeah, and?” Mandy fired another shot.

“And I think I just found one. Or the remnants of one. Look, see? This stone. There’s something not right about it.” As Rusk pulled it out of its place on the throne, he realized that it matched the one on the necromancer’s staff, and the King inhaled sharply, as if he were alive and waking up from a coma all at once, and then there was confused muttering on the other side of the throne and the monsters shrieked even louder.

Loretta’s voice wasn’t among them. Felix and Elena then. Rusk tried not to think of it. He had to figure a way to solve this entire problem in one go, but he knew that’s not how things really worked. You had to do it in increments. One at a time. Or the whole thing would collapse on top of your head.

Wait. A collapse. If nothing else they could manufacture a collapse. Could they do it more than physically? Could they use the natural elements in the stone? Rusk’s mind worked at top speed as he flipped the stone over and over in hand. And he heard a voice from it, similar to the Dragons Knock. Wait. He’d heard the voice before.

It was Floumeré. And the stone was hot. Black and hot, like volcanic glass. A shard of obsidian. At some point it had transformed inside Rusk’s palm. Because before it had really been the necromancer’s stone, but now… now it reverted back to its natural original form, and with that came the realization that Rusk could use it to fix his friends. He could do this. He could do this.

The half of the wall that wasn’t already on the floor of the dungeon collapsed, and someone groaned from beyond a cell.

“You got a plan yet, Mandy?” Iraiah grumbled, picking debris off herself.

“You’re alive! You made it through!” Rusk rushed over to Iraiah, suddenly overcome with emotion. He thought anyone who passed through the portal wound up as either a monster or dead. She was neither. It was giving him hope and hope was terrifying. “You alright? How’d you get past the portal without, you know?”

“No, I don’t know. What the heck’s he talking about, Mandy?”

“He has a theory about the dead portal. Thinks anyone who passes through ends up monster.”

“That’s what Elena told me.”

“And what else did she say exactly?” said Gedresial’s voice. The dead skeleton bird flew through the crack behind the throne into their little sunshine bunker full of debris and landed on Iraiah’s shoulder. “Elena does not understand her own power. She thinks the portal follows her, kills things. But she is wrong. It is a transfer of materials, dead or alive. Much like that fellow who was here before… Greil, that was his name, I believe. Only while he stole his gift, hers comes naturally. She was likely born with it.”

“Yes great,” said Mandy. “And how does that help us now?”

“Well, we happen to have an individual here who can put things back where they go.” Gedresial looked right at Rusk with those hollow bird eyes.

“Me?”

“You.”

“You’re wrong. And anyway anything I pulled from the Elva I learned from Mandy.”

“No.” Mandy fired another arrow, but it didn’t seem to hit anything on the other side. Which was strange seeing as she was a perfect shot for the majority of the time. Either something was messing with her head or something had physically messed with her arrow. “What I learned I learned from the monster. Um. Gedresial. You know. Him. In the bird.”

“And I shall reteach you,” said Gedresial. “Pull from the Elva. Pull everything it offers. All of it. And your friends shall be returned to normal. It is the light in this world, the purity. It purges monsters, which is why we fear it, why we avoid it. It is the yang to our yin. Or some other apt metaphor. I’m sure you understand. So go. Pull from it. Release your friends from their monstrous forms. They may be yanked back through the dead portal in the process, but on the other side they will be themselves I assure you.”

“I can’t do that,” said Rusk. “It would kill Elena.” He didn’t know how he knew that but he did. He remembered what the Elva pulling had done to her back on the ship.

“Have you ever considered her rightful place is in the grave?” asked Gedresial.

“What.”

“Are we really going to have a moral debate right now in the middle of them trying to eat us?” snapped Iraiah.

“I won’t kill her. I won’t do it.”

“You are not killing anyone. You are returning her to her original form. And perhaps we will all be better for it.”

“I don’t work in perhaps.”

“Then we shall die here, after Mandy’s resources are depleted. Which will be soon if you ask me. And I know best. She is scrappy, my old host, but not without limits. As are you.”

Iraiah looked at Rusk, and in that moment he understood something about her. That she’d do anything for Mandy. Anything. More than he would. More than he even could.

“I can’t pick and choose who lives and who dies. That’s not what a Hero does.”

“Yes it is.” Gedresial flew over, flapping in Rusk’s face.

And Iraiah stood up straighter. “It’s your choice. Them or us. Pick your poison, Hero.”

“I can’t.”

“Then I will,” said Mandy. She pulled the Dragons Knock and fired it right at the dead portal through the hole in the throne. It struck true, and Rusk felt his soul collapsing in on itself as the portal screamed in agony. “You’re welcome.”

“Fuck.” Rusk doubled over. “Fuck!”

“Dying?” asked Mandy calmly.

“The fuck I am!” Rusk pulled himself to his feet and shoved her away from the hole.

And he watched as his friends were pulled back through the portal as it collapsed in on itself, and after such agony passed through him he was sure he was dying, he realized he had in fact not, and was still alive. Hurting, but alive. He could only hope the same could be said for his friends.

“Next order of business,” said Iraiah. “Let’s get the fuck out of here and make sure the rest of the kingdom knows the King was dead the whole time.”

“Dead?” asked King Ehrryn. He peeked through the hole. Only one eye, so full of confusion and unshed tears. “I am not dead, my child.”

“Don’t ever call me that,” said Iraiah.

“Does someone want to explain to me why there’s chaos in my castle?”

“How about you explain why you’ve just sat there while a necromancer runs the kingdom,” said Rusk. He didn’t realize he still held the obsidian shard, and when Flow’s voice broke through he jumped from surprise.

“It is not his fault. He was under the influence of a primordial force. It was not really him.”

“Bullshit,” said Rusk.

“I’ll second that,” said Iraiah.

Mandy sighed and knocked another arrow. A normal one this time. “Tell the people of all that’s happened here. Do it.”

“But my child, I don’t understand what has happened here.”

“Yes you do,” said Rusk. “Seek your memories. I’m sure you’ll figure out something.”

“Blame the necromancer or blame yourself or blame a combination but the people will know. We’ll make sure of that. And you won’t be able to stop us.”

“Certainly not.”

Rusk and the others escaped through the collapsed half of the dungeon and out into sunshine. There they made amends for everything gone down inside the castle and gathered themselves once again to escape through the garden like Rusk and Iraiah had done the first time. This time Gedresial was with them, and he and Mandy had their moment.

“It has been long,” said Gedresial.

“Not long enough,” said Mandy.

There was no royal guard or soldiers to chase them. All had been dead and under the control of the necromancer. And Rusk held the obsidian firmly in hand, speaking to flow as he ran.

“How are you doing this, Flow? Are you even really here or is it my mind gone crazy after all this crap?”

“I am here. And I speak through the earth. My earth. The obsidian came from my volcano, to which I am always connected. And that reminds me of another issue. When you are through with your business in that kingdom, perhaps you shall return to me. To Sanctuary Island. And we shall rebuild.”

Rusk pondered, thankful he was sprinting to keep his limbs occupied. “I’ll think on it.”

“Hell I’ll rebuild if it gets us out of this shithole kingdom,” said Iraiah.

“I as well,” said Mandy.

And so they ran. The King was left with his near empty kingdom, and they all made their way to the city of boats and harbors, Porttegat, and there they found their comrades. Safe and unharmed. Relatively speaking.

Except Loretta. Loretta was shot with an arrow through the shoulder, and the wound was festering when Rusk reached her. Felix shook his head.

Rusk took her hand.

“Did I make a difference?” asked Loretta with feverish eyes.

“Yes,” said Rusk. “We all did. Get some rest.”

She smiled and fell into the deepest sleep Rusk had ever seen someone enter. Through the obsidian Flow informed him she might have something to help Loretta, so he swept her up in his arms and carried her to their ship. Which was Captain Arrolg’s ship, which just so happened to have been returned to the port after its commanding officer drowned.

And Elena was there to greet them. She waved, and she was a ghost. See through. The whole nine yards.

But at least she was a ghost they knew. And now, one Rusk trusted.

She navigated the waters as they sailed. In a quiet moment, she asked Rusk something.

“Did you know? Did you know I’d been dead from the start?”

“No. No, I didn’t know.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Hey listen. You’ll have a place, Elena. On the island. We’ll figure something out, alright?”

“No.” She floated around the steering wheel of the ship, twisting this way and that to keep them on course. “I’ll stay with the sea, as I always have. I feel like I belong here. Out on the water.”

“Yeah,” said Rusk. “Sure. I can work with that.” He gave her a tiny tiny smile, the first he’d mustered since before they’d stormed King Ehrryn’s castle. “We’ll need a ferryman to repopulate Sanctuary anyway. Word is we’re rebuilding it.”

“We are?”

“Well. I am. And Flow. Hopefully Loretta if she survives and Felix too. No clue on Mandy or Iraiah. But it would be nice.”

“So what would that make you? The Heroes’ Hero?”

Rusk laughed, heartily and full of mirth. Elena could always bring out that side of him. He felt the need to be brotherly around her. To keep her from thinking too hard on serious subjects. It was his responsibility, ever since he’d found her stowed away down here on her grandfather’s own ship. “Yeah. I like that. Heroes’ Hero. Make it my official title, if this crazy plan actually works.”

“It’ll work,” said Elena. “Because you’re the one doing it. The crazy plans always work for people like you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She smirked. “You mean you don’t know the tales? Bad Luck Heroes.”