It is time.

It is time that we ...

The ruined remains of No-One, priestess and sorceress of the demon god Bark'al'tol, lay before her hooves and lowered horns. As her huge chest panted, eyes mad with savage beastial anger, she tried to grasp what had just happened. What her rage had brought her. Pain, that was clear. Heavily, the dire-goat spewed out a wave of vomit, made of the faun's breakfast and leftover blood and bile from the agonising transformation. Heaving, she could barely watch as the corpse seemed to wither away before her, the skin flaking off and writhing into the air like the dust golems she had so cunningly animated. Pale beauty became grey horror as right there Bark'al'tol claimed her soul, flesh and mind, stealing the youth that he had granted and casting her body straight into cremation. No flames came, but ash and smoke rose, spiralling beyond the wheezing goat's head.

Suddenly, Philomel collapsed to the ground, letting out a pained bleat as agony ripped through her. Siezing her form it made her instinctive mind once more aware of the horror Veridian was still going through, as the full force of the light energy still thrummed through him. The part of him that was Behemoth, the ancient fire whisp, fought with heart and glory against the dark light of Bark'al'tol, but it was a losing battle. Slowly, Veridian was fading, and though he had found the energy to bite at No-One's ankle and help them win the war, he was drifting away. Drifting into death and back to that ash tree where they had first met, all those years ago ...

Philomel, his voice gasped in her ear, Philomel, the quest is still not over. You need ... you need to ...

And into her mind he sent a glorious image of the goddess herself. And not just any goddess, but the goddess. Drys, the beloved, Drys, the tree-maker, Drys the mighty and mother of fauns and earth-spirits. Drys, who ruled over Philomel's and Veridian's hearts and had made them hers - her totem on the face of Althanas.

There, in all of her bright glory. Long, flowing fair hair drifting to the ground. Pale skin, like that of a beech tree, with leaf-green eyes. A gown made of the softest silk, as if sewn by spiders and made from petals, which flowed off her form and down, down to the ground where it seemed to merge with the ground and become nothing more than the forest floor. It parted, though, and showed those dainty, bare feet, hovering inches above the air as wings made from vines and branches spread out to the air, ground and atmosphere but unbeating in themselves ...

Oh my. Oh Drys ...

Gasp. Reach. Clasp. Grasp.

Calling out she fell to the floor, spasming and writhing as her mind awoke. Body shaking, the fur began to receded back to its original pattern - just around the legs. The tail shortened, the horns spiralled back, and the head began to mutate to present the skin once more. Skin under the goat, under the beast, that was ...

Humanoid. That was Philomel, and that was gloriously faun.

The Matriarch awoke, gulping in air as she lay there, naked and pure, eyes staring around. They looked to Veridian, who she could feel was on his last breaths, and they looked over to Breaker, standing there, crouching with an avid concerned look on his face. They looked to the now burnt remains of No-One who no one actually cared about, then briefly regarded the lumpy hulk of Feardon - long forgotten, long since unknown.

And then they looked up the now short distance up the dyke and over to the altar-like tomb with the partially shattered lid. With the weathered carvings, she could see now, of the life of a man who was a great musician. A man who had challenged a minstrel god to a contest and won. Won a lyre that, when played, could, if legend was true, force anyone to do his or her biding.

A tomb where she knew, because of the book in that downstairs library that now seemed so long ago had been mentioned. The resting place of Orphaeo, the legendary minstrel, he who had the lyre. The lyre that had been buried with him and had been sought by demon-god and barbarian alike and now ... now ...

Now was within her grasp.

Shaking, she began to stand and stagger to the final resting place of the final leg of her quest.