The Battle Against The Harbinger

The battle had raged for what felt like an eternity—minutes stretched into what could have been hours, days, even years. The very nature of time seemed warped and twisted in the Far Realm, a place where reality bent under the weight of its own madness. Each heartbeat echoed in their skulls like thunder, while the ground beneath their feet pulsed with unnatural life. The adventurers—Rolando, Glim, Hiko, Toryn, and Knud Knudsson—had fought through waves of unspeakable horrors, but nothing could prepare them for facing the Harbinger in its true domain.
The entity loomed above them, an impossibility of flesh and madness. Its enormous body slithered and writhed in ways that should not have been possible, an amalgamation of an eel and an anglerfish, though maddening to behold for too long. Tentacles lashed through the air, each one dripping with an acidic, black substance that burned through the ground as though it were alive. At the center of its grotesque form was a single, enormous eye, unblinking and filled with malice. Gazing into it for too long was to court insanity.
They had been fighting for minutes—long, agonizing minutes that had felt like lifetimes. Every step forward seemed to be met with a surge of despair. Their bodies were no longer their own. Hiko, the fearless warrior, gritted his teeth as his arms bent unnaturally, long and spindly, no longer capable of the strength he was known for. His spear had grown, too, its shaft warping and bending like some dark, living vine.
"Don’t... give in..." Hiko growled, his voice a ragged whisper. He gripped the misshapen spear tighter, though his fingers felt as though they were slipping from reality itself.
Knud Knudsson, paladin of Caelum, stood at his side, his once-shining armor now a shifting mass of rusted iron and writhing flesh. His sword, too, flickered in and out of existence, sometimes steel, sometimes an ephemeral wisp of light. His normally steadfast eyes now twitched with each new hallucination brought on by the Far Realm’s influence. His entire body contorted painfully with each step forward, but he forced himself onward. "Stay together!" he bellowed. "We can beat this!"
Glim, the powerful mage, had nearly collapsed. His hands, once delicate instruments of magic, had turned into tendrils of translucent, pulsating flesh. Every attempt to cast a spell ended in horror, the arcane power twisting beyond his control, creating abominations where there should have been fire or light. "I... I can’t control it anymore!" His voice was strained with panic, his face pale beneath the otherworldly glow that surrounded them.
"It’s in our minds!" Toryn, the cleric of Da’Rhak, shouted through gritted teeth. His body, once strong and solid like any dwarf, had turned semi-transparent, his very bones visible beneath his shifting flesh. His holy symbol, once a proud emblem of Da’Rhak’s might, flickered weakly in his grasp. "Focus! Trust your senses, even if they lie! Da’Rhak... don’t leave me now..."
And then there was Rolando. The rogue stood at the edge of the battlefield, his body distorting in ways he could no longer comprehend. His cutlass and rapier—once extensions of his hands—seemed to melt into grotesque shapes with every motion. He slashed at the air, his strikes landing on nothing, his limbs feeling as though they belonged to another. "It’s... all slipping away," he murmured, trying to catch his breath, but the air was thick and suffocating. "I can’t even... feel my weapons anymore."
And through it all, the Harbinger laughed. Its voice was a deep, rumbling vibration that bypassed their ears and drilled directly into their minds, a sound that threatened to drive them mad with every syllable. "You are nothing!" the Harbinger’s voice thundered in their skulls. "You fight against the inevitable. You are already mine."
It lashed out with its tentacles, one of them slamming into Hiko’s side. The warrior let out a roar of pain as his body crumpled, his spear flying from his grasp. The others barely had time to react before another tentacle whipped through the air, crashing into Toryn’s shield and sending him sprawling.
"Knud!" Toryn yelled, his voice trembling. "We can’t... we can’t do this! It’s too strong!"
The paladin staggered forward, bloodied and broken, but the light in his eyes refused to dim. "No," he spat, raising his sword, the faintest glimmer of Caelum’s light flickering along its edge. "We end this here."
Rolando gritted his teeth, fighting back against the hallucinations that twisted his vision. He saw his rapier—a flickering, warped thing in his hand—and forced himself to remember its weight, its balance. He charged forward, weaving between the tentacles that slashed at him. "You want us?!" he shouted, lunging forward with a vicious strike, plunging his rapier deep into the Harbinger’s flesh. "Come and take us, you bastard!"
The Harbinger screeched, a sound that rattled their very bones, but it was still far from beaten.
Glim, summoning what little strength he had left, forced the tendrils that were once his hands to coalesce into something resembling fingers. He muttered the words to a spell, his voice shaking as reality seemed to rebel against him. A crackling bolt of energy shot forth, slamming into the Harbinger’s eye with a blinding flash. "We have to hit it together!" he cried out, the desperation clear in his voice.
Hiko, with every ounce of willpower he could muster, pulled himself back to his feet, his spear reforming in his hands. His twisted body screamed in pain with each movement, but he roared in defiance. "For Aranath!" With a great heave, he hurled his spear through the air. The weapon sailed, twisting and bending as if it were alive, before striking the Harbinger’s eye with a sickening squelch.
The Harbinger recoiled, tentacles flailing wildly. "You cannot defy me!" it screeched, but the pain in its voice was evident.
Toryn, drawing on the last vestiges of Da’Rhak’s power, raised his holy symbol high. "By the light of the mountain, you will fall!" With a guttural shout, he unleashed a burst of divine energy that shot through the void, striking the Harbinger with a beam of blinding light. The creature shrieked, its monstrous form shaking with the force of the blow.
Knud, seeing the opening, raised his sword once more. Though his body was broken, his spirit burned with a fury that refused to be quenched. "This ends now!" he roared, charging forward, his sword glowing with divine energy. He leapt into the air, bringing the blade down in a final, desperate strike.
At that moment, the adventurers’ attacks converged—Rolando’s rapier, Hiko’s spear, Glim’s magic, Toryn’s divine light, and Knud’s sword—all striking the Harbinger in unison. The creature let out one final, deafening screech as its enormous eye burst in a brilliant explosion of sickly green light.
The ground beneath them buckled, reality itself beginning to unravel as the Harbinger’s form disintegrated into nothingness. The Far Realm rippled and convulsed, as though the very fabric of the plane was being torn apart. The adventurers, their bodies still twisted and broken, collapsed to the ground, their minds barely holding on to what remained of their sanity.
For a brief moment, there was silence. The Harbinger was gone, its presence erased from existence.
But the Far Realm would never release them fully. Though the nightmare had ended, each of them knew that the scars of this battle—both seen and unseen—would linger forever.