A specter tortures Zeruiah worse than an enemy ever could.
Portrait
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Dialogue
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Music: "Overcome"
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- Even the deepest parts of the Vale have been affected by the recent conflicts.
- Before the roots of the great World Tree were able to recover from the Voidborn blight,
- the humans and their fires had singed and undone much of the healing process.
- In a secluded corner just out of sight, Zeruiah stirs violently in her sleep.
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Portrait
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Dialogue
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- "Hahahaha!"
- "Zeruiah! We meet again!"
- "The GREAT Starsage, sating her bloodthirst like a common beast!"
- "Care to join in the slaughter?"
- "Or can you bear the weight of your crimes?"
- "HehehaHAHA!"
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Portrait
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Dialogue
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- Zeruiah: *gasp!*
- Zeruiah: Baelf-
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Music: "Snowy Winds"
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- Her rest interrupted once again by traumatic images, Zeruiah breathes a shaky sigh.
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- Zeruiah: Is this...Is this punishment for vengeance?
- Zeruiah: Oh...Sky Father, Earth Mother!
- Zeruiah: Why...Why am I...
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- Zeruiah brings her bloodstained hands up to her face and stares bewilderedly into empty space.
- Her bejeweled glaive, stained with the violence of slaughter, seems to shift and pulse with malign energy.
- A soft, sorrowful voice can barely be heard amid the maddening whispers.
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- Zeruiah: Eirwen...Eirwen...
- Zeruiah: I...
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Portrait
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Dialogue
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Music: "Devil's Heart"
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- Sero-Anya: Mm....Mmmh....
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- Sero-Anya jerks awake in the darkness of a forest best left forgotten.
- It was here in her dreams where she felled the deer spirit Zeruiah, out of some deep-seated, unknown malice.
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- Sero-Anya: This place again...
- Sero-Anya: Oh no...I hope Tev wakes me up before something awful happens...
- Sero-Anya: (...Probably a bad idea to stay put...)
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- Sero-Anya wraps her arms around herself and shuffles through the tangled underbrush.
- As she treads carefully among the twisted foliage, she spots a dark stain in a corner.
- The shadows seem all the more deeper over that area.
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- Sero-Anya: (That's where Zeru...)
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- A blast of fire momentarily lights up the gloom, bringing with it a slew of embers and ash.
- The dark woods suddenly come alive with the cacophony of war.
- A wild howling, as if that of a beast, echoes out from somewhere behind her.
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Portrait
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Dialogue
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Music: "Dragon's Roar"
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- Crazed Wolf Man: Come out, come out!
- Crazed Wolf Man: Or are you going to spend the rest of eternity with your head in the ground?
- Crazed Wolf Man: ZERUIAH!
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- A human—or beast in human skin, perhaps—stalks out of this roiling scene.
- The cracked metal visage of a snarling wolf mask makes him seem all the more feral, as does the singed fur lining the inside of his coat.
- The man's head is bent at a painful angle, and a massive gash from his chest to his throat gapes with an endless torrent of blood.
- Though visibly injured and limping, none of it appears to bother him.
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- Crazed Wolf Man: HeheHAHAHA!
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- Zeruiah: FIEND!
- Zeruiah: Even here, you torment me!
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- Neither of the combatants pay attention to Sero-Anya, their blazing eyes fixated on each other.
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- Zeruiah: Why?! Your death was justified! You were a THREAT!
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- Crazed Wolf Man: You went through all that trouble to kill me, Sage.
- Crazed Wolf Man: Pity it isn't bringing you any solace!
- Crazed Wolf Man: Maybe you'd like to relive your glorious moment over and over and over again...?
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- Zeruiah grows increasingly wild-eyed with every clash of her glaive against the man's blade.
- Sero-Anya could only watch in stunned silence, even as the heat from the burning forest grows unbearable.
- ?: Zeruiah...!
- ?: No...I have to...
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- Sero-Anya: (That voice again...!)
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- ?: I can't let her...
- ?: Fall to the darkness...
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