Grox just eccepted what happened. The lightning coming from the fog around the goblin, and the weird cult members suddenly appearing to take away stride. He tossed the head to one of the priests and signaled Woggha to follow. He was awfully calm, but that had to do a lot with his brain overloading from what was going on. Even the abomination falling from the sky didn't seem unrealistic at this point.

Viccus Verringtail beheld the whole spectacle from a sticking up and slightly smouldering beam from the collapsed inn. It was quite something. In fact it was just too shocking to hide from, and anyone who looked his way would see an aghast rat staring at all the proceedings.

Maybe what this band of misfits needed was a leader, someone to give direction and bash heads to end conflicts. Obviously that leader wasn't Viccus, but from where he stood right now he wished some sort of leader would come along soon

From the sky and the very floors more came in. Some blue thing flew from the sky. Bob could respect that, it was his own personal method of quick escapes. What surprised and interested him was the small rat that was brave enough to come out of the rubble of the once proud Inn. Never one to leave the situation alone, he had to assert himself to the new abomination. Bob broke his steady pace with one of the mages, a blessing for the poor soul forced to drown his talking out. The first thing he noticed was the giant skeleton who was far too close for comfort walking less than an arms length behind him. Bob was very thankful he had a reason to look back and correct this before he had more dents in his armor. He walked close to Horace, keeping distance from him and keeping track of how far the mages were getting so he wouldn't be left behind.

"My, what a strange one you are. You wear no gear, nor have any wings. How exactly did you fly through the air? The first thought would be magic, but from how you landed, you would have to be really bad at that. People around here call me Bob, the ingrates. I'm the closest person to a leader around here since the orc over there beheaded what we could call the last smart one. Now you said something about animating objects? Now that is something interesting to me. I would love to hear more about how that works, and more importantly, how I can turn that into a new invention. Where are my manners? We are a group hired to do... Something, of which no one here knows what it is. The only one who knew was the dead half elf. Now that you're filled in, you might want to avoid the skeleton and the orc. Rather angry people, they are."

Bob was talking far too fast and too much as usual. The distance was growing from the mages and that was troubling, so he picked up his pace to catch up with them. His gear rattled and popped with more smoke billowing from his armor. The poor battery has been overworked again, a wonder how it still functions from how much it gets abused. Not even waiting for a reply, the blue thing was interesting, but not as much as the mages who stopped time. He already said his greetings, nothing else to add.

It was alredy dark when the party finally reached it's destiny. It had been a calm trip. Whenever a member of this newly formed group thought about starting a fight, a soothing hum would come from the mage's leader and as quickly as the an orc could decapitate an elf the violent thoughts would stop. That's not to say that the short journey happened without any problems. ARRRRGH! Decapitated a few ghouls who where gnawing on a auroch's bone. Bob managed to piss off an entire caravan of traders by insinuating that his worse piece of work (as if he had any) was hundreds of times better than their finest products, the situation did not escalated much more due to the intervention of the now familiar hum, bringing a short lasting peace once again.

Now they were in front of a huge building, it's stone walls lit by a full moon. All around them, hundreds of small shacks covered the dirty ground, with it's inhabitants peeking through the windows or, in a more common scenario, through fallen pieces of it's walls. The robbed group approached the door, which seemed to magically open.

The party once again followed the group, entering into a well lit hall. Torches covered the walls and a red carpet complemented the warm light coming from the fire. It felt safe, robust, and HOT. Way too hot, actually. As soon as the doors closed, killing the sweet breeze which came from outside, the members who were able to started to sweat. An overwhelming smell of smoke quickly filled the room, alarming the party. The group of mages, seemed indiferent and kept advancing towards a stair.

As the party followed, they noticed many doors spread through the building, all of them closed. As they reached the stairs, they found the source of the smoke. A blue fire was burning in the middle of an empty room, turning the suffocating red aura of the place into a chilling blue one.

The place seemed empty and devoid of life and, as soon as the group reached the bottom of the stairway, the reason became quite apparent. An awful smell of rotten fish, bile, and fruits filled the room. It was horrible, even by this city's standarts. The mages did not cared. A pair of Dark Elves carried the half-elf's body stretching it across the blue flames. His body was not burned. Instead a blue-ish glow was spreading through his body, as if the flames were burning him from inside out. A third mage, much more leaner and smaller, carried Stride's head, and placed it where it should be.

From the corner of the room, a small shadow moved towards the body. It's green body naked and bathed in a black oil. The small body, the big head and the point ears denounced it's race: a goblin. However, the thick black oil covered so much of him, that it was hard to determine it's sex or anything else. The goblin carried a wooden bowl, which contained more of that oil. It was clear by now that the oil was the origin of the putrid smell.

As the goblin moved towards the body, the oil dripped to the ground, revealing his face. It was clearly a male, and an excited one at that. An oversized smile on his face showed the rotten teeth left on his mouth. With every other step, a small spasms would shake his body, making him spill some of the oil to the stone ground.

The goblin approached the mage's circle and stood by the body, looking at the mages, as if expecting his next order. At this point, the party had spread itself through the room, choosing positions that would allow them to view the ritual through the wall formed by the mages' bodies. Those who were not paying attention, felt suddenly drawn to the mages once a harsh chant begun.

Their voices became much harsher than the party remembered. The fire slowly died out, with Stride's body glowing brighter and brighter. At this point, the goblin begun to drop the oil on top of the elf's body. However, instead of sticking to it, as it happened to the goblin, it would turn into a pitch black smoke and dissapear in the air, leaving an even worse smell in the air.

As the chanting turned louder, the room became darker. So dark that one could not see the walls or the ceiling or the floor. The only source of light was Stride's body. The whole thing felt surreal, as if they were stuck in the void, between life and death. Suddenly a loud sound of drums sounded, as if coming from where once were the walls.

The small goblin begun to dance a dance of excitement, ecstasy, and madness. The spasms shaking violently his body at every move, sometimes ruining his joyful steps. At this point, it was clear that the goblin was naked. Partly due to the amount of oil that had dripped from him, revealing his mold green skin, partly due to an easily visible hard on. The goblin jumped and screamed as he danced, using delicate and elegant steps at one moment and right afterwards doing libidinous moves with Stride's dead body.

The chanting went on for a few minutes longer, backed by the the earshattering drums. They sounded as if the God of Thunder were casting lightining in the corner of the room, shaking the ground. With a sudden movement from the tallest mage, everything stopped. The chanting and the drums gone. He moved foward and grabbed the little goblin by it throat, pulling him away from his surreal ecstasy with a single hand. What was in a first moment confusion in the goblin's face, quickly turned into terror as a blade appeared in the mage's other hand. It's cold and bright steel constrasting with a hand covered in dark fur.

"NO! This... You did not told me THIS! NOOOOOOOOOOO--", a quick flash, lit only by the cold blue light coming from the body, and the goblin was silent. It's blood, colored black by the blue light falling over the body. This time, the liquid did not turn into smoke. The room was clear once again and everyone felt as if they had just woken up from a very vivid dream.

@Banana
The ritual was complete. In the spiritual inn, a door opened. However, instead of showing the street, only a blue light came from it. It was up to Stride's to gather his courage and step through it.

Stride was finally back to the living world, and he came back screaming.

Holy shit. It was there.

Death really did follow through on her request. Stride was able to see into the living world from the blindingly blue light, and it enticed him with the sense of adventure he longed for. He took a final drink from his endless mug and then he took a deep breath before he entered the portal.

"... here we go. It's time to go and get that goddamned book."

Stride took a large step (a 'stride', if you will), and stepped directly into the light.

---

"... ... ... aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!" ^{_{*steel drums*}}

Stride's body jolted directly up from the laying position, as his hands immediately grabbed onto his neck with terror and just to see if something was still here. Alas, there was nothing, and Stride's head consciously shook beside his body on the table, still speaking. It shook enough to allow him to see his comrades that he knew, including Grox and Spiderman, and a lot of others that he didn't recognize yet. His arms moved around to feel for the misplaced head, and finally grabbed onto the hair of the wizard and placed the severed head onto the stump neck, screwing it on like it was a bolt. The head could still easily be knocked off, but at least it was there and Stride was alive to speak.

Once more, his accent began to come into play as he spoke to the group.

"... heh. Don't get ahead of yourselves, this was Lady Death's doin'."

The situation was a bizarre one having to follow mages the entire trip. Bob was doing his best to ask them questions, but was stone walled from every answer he was seeking. The stranger thing was how everyone was able to keep calm and collect. Anytime he started something, the felt a blissful peace and instead found himself apologizing for something that he couldn't find was his fault to start with. The mages wielded a powerful magic. Even Rage himself wasn't bellowing out his standard string of curses and tantrums. Granted, it was a better thing that it wasn't trying to squeeze his neck like it wanted last time. This was already going a lot better as they just were forced to keep marching. Bob was never lost being surrounded by his own personal symphony of machines and smoke that surrounded him constantly.

They finally approached a building, the first thing tonotice was the temperature rising far beyond even Bob's standards. He held a furnace in his face constantly, but even this was asking a bit too much. Still, he was used to it pretty quickly,t he only blessing was there was no fire that usually accompanied the intense heat. The only thing of interest was the body in the middle of blue fires. Magic, pheh, always up to something far beyond what Bob was comfortable with. The presence of a naked Goblin also was curious, the sheer amount of oil it was dancing around with. The Goblin was a bit naked, whether it was the lack of clothes or any type of gear. His face constantly washed with intense emotions, was a stark contrast to the mages. Devoid of emotion and refusing even light speech, anything was a better welcome.

The ritual went off without too many things unexpected. The sacrifice of the goblin was not met with anything other than laughter by Bob. The Goblin was a nobody and already lacked anything he wanted. The revival of the Elf was the shocker. His head twisted back on like a doll reassembled. So this was the missing member of the party the Orc decapitated. Even the Elf didn't seem to admit this was magic, just something about Lady Death?

"Well, this was a nice show and all, but now that the Elf is back. What was this freaking mission everyone has been chattering about? Who is Lady Death? Why are you so important you got a group of mages to try and bring you back to life? No one had a clue and I've lost any amount of Patience at this point. I've been shunned by mages, and far too much magic has been thrown in my face. Someone answer any of my questions!"

By this point, Khri'zhatt had long ceased trying to make any sense of what was happening, and resigned himself to scuttling along with the group in the hope that all of this would eventually veer closer to the promised lucrative course. At least, no more immediate attempts were being made on his life, which was already an improvement over the previous state of affairs; nonetheless, the general situation was far from satisfactory, as the best part of the day had been wasted without any profit and he had been harpooned by an orc. Thrik, on the other hand, did not seem overly concerned with the nonsensical events around him; then again, this was not quite so surprising, as he never understood anything was amiss unless his master explicitly told him so. Seeing as there was no point in overloading his already limited cognitive abilities, this was not the case; and thus it was without a word that the two entered into whatever sanctum the wizards had carried the elf’s body to.

What followed certainly did nothing to improve Khri’zhatt’s opinion on either the wizards or the course of the day’s events. When he had agreed to join the party on its vaguely defined quest, there had been no mention of being boiled in some sort of magical furnace, or watching a nude, malodorous goblin perform an erotic dance around the elf’s corpse. The smell was rather irritating, as well, and he was beginning to seriously consider ordering Thrik to seize the dancing goblin and clobber the wizards with it when the green imp was finally immolated. The elf was thereupon jolted back to life, and immediately began to scream inarticulately before gradually returning to a more intelligible, if equally senseless, mode of speaking. As the former cadaver placed his head in an appropriate, if precarious, position, Khri’zhatt prepared to repeat his now all-too-frequently repeated query concerning what they were supposed to do now, but was preceded in this by Bob the goblin, who had apparently grown equally impatient. Dim as these people were, he was not about to repeat someone else’s words for their benefit, and thus limited his intervention to ”What he said. And are we now finally going to begin this quest, whatever it is? Time isn’t free, you know. Especially not my time.”

In the journey towards a still unknown destination, the Skeleton had remained, for the lack of a better word, oddly calm, the scraping of his fingertips being the only sign of steadily rising anger. With each wave of relaxing energy affecting the skeleton less and less, it was only a matter of time before he snapped again. And the descent to what seemed to be a moist, damp dungeon most certainly did not serve to delay his impending wrath. Oh, how the Skeleton hated dungeons. Filled with ghouls and all sorts of creepy crawlies that fling themselves at newcomers, not to mention serving as a potential hub for more mages and their temporo-spatial shitery.

As they descended further into the complex, the peculiar dancing midget with it's jumblies wiggling about made the troublesome ossuary glad he could no longer smell, and, well, furious as well. Crudely shaking his hand at the goblin, whatever coil of indifference had wrapped itself around him violently snapped, as he returned to his usual ways. "WHAT THE FLYING FUCK IS THIS? WHY'S IT'S DICK HANGING OUT? WHAT THE FUCK IS IT-"

With the goblin getting murdered and Stride violently coming back to un-life, the skeleton's rage-filled voice gained a tad of confusion as well. He certainly did not expect some corpse they were carrying to spring up and reattach its' head, all while screaming something about some Lady-Death. He had signed up for a book retrieval, not high-powered wizard fuckery. Quickly pacing towards the newly reanimated elf, he attempted to grab it by its' shoulders and violently shake it, all while demanding an explanation for what just happened.

"OKAY, YOU HEADFUCKED PIECE OF GARBAGE. YOU'RE GOING TO TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON OR I'M GOING TO SHOVE YOUR LOOSE-HANGING NOGGIN WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE."

"Time to answer some questions I suppose?"

Stride shook free and stared at the group in front of him. He didn't blame them for wondering what was going on, as it was kind of confusing at the time. The only real thing he could do right now was explain what was going on.

"Ok, so as Khri'zhatt witnessed, I was brutally decapitated by the orc that's with us in this ragtag group. While I thought I was a surefire goner, I woke up in some sort of purgatory, where I met the actual Death itself and her servant, Tim. There she told me that she had a lot on me for accomplishing this goal, which is retrieving a magical book that may already be pursued by some do-gooders. This must be where you guys met those mages who took my body here to be resurrected allowing me to continue this mission... er... get it started. Anyway, now that I'm here, we can continue this crazed quest for the damnable book."

This would've been rather serious, had Stride's head not rolled off at the end of the explanation and landed on the ground with a thud, quickly followed by "Ow fuck!". It was an interesting sight to behold, a headless half-elf stammering around looking for it's head, followed by it being screwed back on in the same manner of fashion and the elf looking back onto the party with a smirk.

"Who's ready to go fetch a book and get paid?"