Storm

The sky is lit with the frequent flash-quick glare of lightning, always followed closely by the almost deafening boom and crash of thunder. The ocean itself rages with the sky. The air is oppressive with elemental violence.
 
(Flash! Flash-boom!)
 
They make it across the causeway. It was not safe but no one is seriously injured.
 
(Crrrack!)
 
The forceful wind, the slick rock and seemingly endless noise pounding pounding pounding all around them… . Careful. Must be careful. One wrong step… .
 
(Flash!)
 
Safe. Sort of.
 
Keth seems distracted. He must focus. This is no time or place for hesitation.
 
(Boomcrash!)
 
It is just as bad inside. Gloomy. Wet. Loud. And…alive. Somehow, it is alive. She hears the beating heart. She sees the others do too. It must be made silent.
 
Go. Through the door. Let Wolf go in first. He is quick and–
 
“I think we need to do something about the shrine. You’re like a cleric or something, right?”
 
(Flash! Flash!)
 
“Ebondeath-” he begins. She feels herself grow pale. She stumbles, trying to catch her footing as the floor tilts. That fiend. That monster. She will never have rest until it is put to rest.
 
She almost does not hear anything after the name is spoken. But she does, grasping fragments. A war rages within as fierce as the storm that lashes without.
 
Ground it. Destroy it. This is Ebondeath’s advice. Why would he lend aid? Because he is lying and this is a foul trick. Or because he wants her to survive this darkness that they might meet again.
 
What is truth, what is lie? Either way, she wants to destroy the altar. Lathander would want the altar destroyed. The tension that comes with indecision is too much and she breaks.
 
Destroy it.
 
(Boom!)
 
She is blinded. This heat is unlike anything she’s felt from Lathander. There is cold at its core. It fills her lungs and grips her heart.
 
Her heart. Is it still beating?
 
Buhbump. Buhbump.
 
Yes. It beats. In time with the tower. She hardly notices. She opens her eyes and she sees…she’s unsure what it is. She sees Keth, and she can see the details of his features so sharp and clear and concerned, but she sees more than that. She sees energy pouring off him, around him, not entirely unlike the way Lathander grants her vision but more electric. A different kind of force.
 
And then she feels.
 
(Flash crash!)
 
Such power! She is a little god with such power. Sometimes there is a flare of it inside, and it hurts, but she quickly discovers she does not mind that internal sting. She finds that she wants to unleash it.
 
And she does. She kills with it.
 
(Flash!)
 
There is a voice.
 
It is an unfamiliar voice, at first seductive and then dangerous. She feels it groping and grabbing within, seizing control. No, she thinks. No no no.
 
Too late. She feels her muscles tighten as she swings an attack at Wolfaen. Thankfully he is quick. He dodges. And then strikes back. Did he hit her? She is too overwhelmed to notice.
 
(Flash!)
 
She is flying. It is wonderful and terrifying. The feeling doesn’t last long. The voice returns, tempting, alluring. It is a voice devoted to Talos. She wants to hate it. So badly she wants to hate it.
 
It whispers of destruction. It promises vengeance. Though now she is atop the tower, the tumultuous weather is nothing compared to the battle inside.
 
The temptations crash against the bulwark of her faith in Lathander. They splinter each other.
 
The voice knows Lathander alone could not defeat the dracolich. The voice says that Talos can. And maybe he can. Maybe that is why they couldn’t before, she and her companions. Maybe they relied on the wrong powers. Maybe the only way to defeat the evil is to be–
 
She tries. She tries so very hard to hold onto Lathander’s light. But the sky is dark.
 
She reminds herself that she is Lathander’s champion. That she had been deemed worthy to fight against Ebondeath, if only for the strength of her faith. Surely, surely she can stave off this threat.
 
The sky darkens, lit only in fierce flashes of lightning.
 
Enough for her to see her friends. Her vision and half her face are obscured by some vile little octopus creature.
 
The sky is dark.
 
She feels her own fingers sinking against the flesh of her chest. She cannot stop herself.
 
“Help me,” she gasps. Could they even hear her in the storm?
 
(Boom!)