The Past Ahead - an Empires SMP AU

Chapter 27 - Lost and found

           The bard let out a girlish scream, and Xornoth looked up from his battle with Katherine, pleased. He electrocuted Katherine and threw her to the ground, then walked towards Oli, laughing menacingly all the way. "Where are your friends?" Oli glanced around desperately.

           Katherine was slowly getting up, but the excess electricity was still running through her body and it evidently hurt. Pearl was next to her, fully knocked out now. fWhip was still asleep on the ground; Oli hoped the random mixture of potions thrown at him didn't have a deadly effect. Then Xornoth picked up a fallen sword and drove it right through him. The bard's last thoughts entailed his surprise at being the last one to fall, right until he died. 

           Dying was a painful process. Respawning was only slightly less so. Oli was getting pretty used to it by now, but dying was still to be steered clear of at all costs. Besides, everyone knew that one day, they would stop respawning. Best to avoid death in general.

           Oli strained to keep from floating into the great beyond, and fought harder to respawn. Finally he woke up, breathing heavily, in the bed he'd brought into Scott's room. He hurriedly rushed downstairs and out the door. He found his stuff lying on the ground and picked it all up. He had everything. Everything but the Crown. 

           He went back in and took some healing potions and gave it to Katherine and Pearl, and he was picking fWhip up to bring inside when he heard the shout. "Oli!" He turned around and saw that all the emperors who had left the day prior had finally come back. "Scott!" Oli cried joyfully.

           "Both of you! You've been rescued!" The other emperors came running up to him. "What happened?!" "Xornoth attacked," Pearl slurred, still a little groggy from the concussion, although the potion that had been splashed on her was slowly bringing her back to health.

            "fWhip!" Wizard Gem shouted, and she rushed to him, checking his pulse. "He got a lot of potions thrown at him," Oli said worriedly. "I think they might've mixed or something; I'm pretty sure weakness potions and harming potions don't knock you out." 

           They brought him into Scott's house and put him on a free bed. Gem started casting all the healing spells she knew, helped by Shelby and Sausage, and within a few minutes fWhip was awake again. "fWhip!" Gem cried, hugging him. fWhip yowled.

           "Gem-!"

           "You promised to stay safe!" "I know-"

           "Don't ever do that again!"

           "I can't help it if Lizzie's actually a pretty good fighter!"

           "What is that supposed to mean?!" Ocean Queen Lizzie asked, frowning at him.

           "What are we supposed to do now that Xornoth's got the Crown?" Pix asked, bringing up the elephant in the room. Then he winced and complained about headaches, and everyone looked worriedly at him. "He won't use it to make a rule," False said, and Oli realized for the first time that she was in the room with the rest of them. He clumsily unsheathed his sword and pointed it at her. "What are you doing here?!" 

           "Relax, she's on our side. I think," Scott said, taking the bard's sword and putting it away. "You think?!" Joel cut them off. "What do you mean, Xornoth won't make a rule?" Oli noticed that the god was moving and talking rather slowly, and when he asked about it he was told that the same thing that had happened to Sausage of Sanctuary was now happening to him.

           "Xornoth told me he needed the Crown for a spell to get his body back, and thanks to some kind of magic mumbo jumbo, he needs the Crown to have not been used to make a rule for the spell to work." False explained to Joel.