It seemed like a great idea. To take a break and wander across the other continent. She needed the time away from her temple as the stress built up. Maybe it was from her crazy baby or just the raging flow of visitors since her sphere change. A calm sigh left her lips as she pulled down the berries that killed just about anyone who ate them. She popped a few into her mouth before tossing the rest into the basket by her.

She thought she saw a fairy pass out from the number of the poisonous fruit the goddess ate. She did a deadpan look at the little thing and their eyes met as she popped another fruit into her mouth. The look was hilarious. Most people died within seconds and yet Angela was picking them for hours and eating a few at a time. Being a goddess was grand after all. Of course, the shock factor eventually left the fairy as it flew over and attempted to help Angela. “Now don’t you eat them, you’ll die.” She lightly booped the little nose on the fairy and the little one laughed.

Her basket was about half way full. “We got some Burrberries I suppose I need to pick some of the Nightshade laying around here as well.” She mused as she reached down and began to pluck at the petals. “Not whole only the petals. Maybe I can get some other types of fruit to try in the wine this time around.” Gods tended to scare the inhabitants of Parvpora away but the goddess didn’t mind her new little friend.

Touching the tree she was at made it glow. The fruit began to come back as if she was forcing it to grow. They were bigger than they normally were and Angela smiled. “This is the fastest way and best way to get them after all.” The little fairy flew around and checked out the tree. It was likely it was just a child compared to the others who hid from Angela. They were weary and they had a right to be. Gods had gotten their tree killed. People had gotten their tree killed and it was no love lost with the mortals around the forest. It was sad. She wondered if the forest was so poisonous because it resented the mortals.

It made her pause for a moment as held onto a branch. “Maybe the forest is punishing those it feels is responsible.” It was no secret that Feeorin once fed off the magic of the Parvpora World Tree. It brought to the goddess theories. After the quick thought, she continued to pluck the berries off.

A frigid wind blew across the plains from the north.  It circled and danced its way across the moors, over tiny rivers, and through tranquil meadows.  Small birds caught it under their wings and lifted up, singing into the cold, grey sky.  It blew past a group of rams, uncharacteristically in lower climes in the shadows of the mountains to the southeast.  They chewed on the sparse grass as the wind tugged playfully at their coarse wool.  One ram looked up from his meal, bored eyes scanning the horizon as he chewed loudly.  Then he stopped suddenly as he spotted something shambling across the plains.  It was but a moment before the ram, spilling half-chewed grass across his chin and the cold ground below, let out a loud bleat and began running for the foothills and higher ground of his mountain home.  The other creatures, put off by their fellow's loud interruption of the dinner party looked up to see what had caused such a bother.  They too began bleating and running for the hills, causing rocks to skip down the rolling hillside as they did so.  Dust rose from the few rocks that fell and rose into the air, but was disturbed and brushed aside as a red-robed figure, dripping and soaking wet, barged his way through it.  The rams had left some leavings behind, as animals are wont to do, though they didn't smell nearly as poorly as this newcomer, who smelt strongly of death, decay, and sea salt.  The figure leaned heavily upon a steel staff with a sickly green orb atop it.  One hand was raised towards its face, and it seemed to be muttering discontentedly to itself.  "Of all the times… Why did I have to go and… Is that an eel in my spleen?"  

The figure continued trudging on southwards, tracking sea water and a modicum of ram droppings in his wake.  The decayed robe was incredibly frayed and disheveled, and it seemed to be just as worn out as the body of its wearer… who was dead.  But this was no ordinary corpse, no.  This was an undead; a lich to be exact.  The figure took its hand away from its face to reveal a horrifying landscape, raked and ravaged by time and nature.  Blue lights emanated from its eyes, casting an eerie light on the decaying strips of skin that still clung desperately to the creature's face.  "Harriet!"  The thing shouted, its mouth not moving as the voice seemed to emanate from much deeper within its form.  "Harriet!  Can you hear me?  Squelch twice for yes like we practiced!"  The corpse stood in the plains for a while, waiting for a response, before a fat nightcrawler oozed its way out of the corpse's eyesocket.  "Oh, Harriet, thank goodness!  I thought I'd lost you, there.  I didn't realize I was walking through the ocean until that shark came, I swear!"  The corpse stroked the nightcrawler with one finger, the negative energy not having any effect on the creature that lived constantly in contact with the dreaded being.  "Well… really the school of fish should have caught my notice first but, well, you see odd things in travels from time to time.  Flying fish aren't too far out of the question, Harriet.  Say… flying fish…"

This was Thanxeros, the lich.  He was once a much lauded and sought after master of the arcane, and now a dead man. He shoved Harriet back into his eyesocket and continued on south, visions of flying fish dancing in his head.  By the time he looked up again, a few weeks had passed.  To Thanxeros, however, that wasn't much time.  It was time that had been spent in quiet thought and reflection.  Well, there was the mountain lion attack, but that wasn't the point.  He looked around to see himself in a beautiful forest, though it was unlike any forest the lich had ever seen.  All around him the trees positively danced and shimmered with different shades of scintillating blue.  Small motes of blue light danced about him, almost little reflections of the blue orbs of his eyes.  He looked up to observe the canopy and saw that the sky wasn't the color he expected it to be.  First it was red, then green, then a deep turquoise blue.  "Harriet", he whispered silently to his companion, "I believe we'll be staying here a while".

Thanxeros spent a long while wandering the woods.  There were many dangers that he inadvertently avoided or ignored, and he found himself many a time stopping to rest under lovely giant flowers.  He couldn't smell that they gave off the stench of a rotting body, and it didn't matter as he did as well.  Occasionally, small fairies would hover near him, regarding him and whispering to each other about the odd visitor the woods had recently gained.  The few times Thanxeros noticed these whispers, he simply muttered that Harriet needed to stop talking so that he could continue his studies and settled in with his scrolls.  Finally, after a few days of travelling through the woods, Thanxeros saw a beautiful tree bearing vibrantly colored purple berries.  Something about these berries caught his attention and he approached, the blue orbs of his eyes darting from cluster to cluster.  "My, my, Harriet.  Have you seen fruit like this before?"  He reached up and plucked a single berry down from the tree and regarded it closely.  "It really is a beautiful shade of purple.  I used to wear robes this color, actually, a long time ago.  Oh, if only I could taste again."  He dropped the berry, then stopped.  He began to wonder about what properties these fruits might have.  Then he grinned, snapping a few strips of flesh in the process, and took out his mortar and pestle.  "Now where did I put that eel, Harriet?  We need a test subject."

Angela was stuck in her own thoughts, at least for the most part. Her ears picked up on something that made her blink a few times. It wasn’t just the voice but the mention of Harriet that made her grin. Her green eyes peeked around the tree. Her mood lightened just a tad, enough for her to pick up her basket and move over to him. “Oh, my dear Thanxeros. You don’t want to eat something like that. What would Harriet do without you.” She came up behind him now as she set her basket full of berries down. “It has been a rather long time… a different world.” She wrapped her arms around the lich and chuckled.

“I thought my mind was going rather mad when I heard your voice and talking to Harriet. It appears that we meet again my dear friend.” She reached up and ran her hand through his hair and chuckled. “You don’t change much but just where did you end up when the world blew up.” She wrapped his hair around her fingers.

She unraveled her fingers and moved to sit next to him. “I have been here collecting the berries myself but I would never let my friends eat this to die. At least my non-deity friends, like yourself and Harriet.” She chuckled a bit. “What brings you to a place like Feeorin?”

Thanxeros was hard at work grinding the berries into a pulp filled paste in his mortar.  The sighing of wind and gentle singing of the fey were cut across by the constant grating and sharp thuds of the pestle, mixed with the occasional musings of the distracted lich.  "Hmm, a bit too watery, that one.  Looks too old.  I wonder how old?"  The lich looked up and pondered the tree, its gentle light caressing his withered and torn face.  There was a peaceful serenity to this place for Thanxeros.  Most mortals that came here would be constantly fearful and watching their back for any sign of danger or movement.  For the lich, however, there was a calm he had not felt for centuries, and a solitude that did not lead to loneliness, but self reflection.  He sat before the tree for a few hours, for once all thoughts of experimentation out of his mind.  He simply enjoyed his surroundings.  The only thing that could make it better would have been the gently falling rain.  Though, perhaps Harriet had had enough water for a while.  The thought of Harriet brought Thanxeros back to the present.  "Ah, forgive me, Harriet.  My mind wandered a bit there.  How did it get past you?"  He smiled to himself, then continued with his herbalism.

Thanxeros did not hear the footfalls of the approaching goddess, so engrossed as he was in his studies.  "Oh, my dear Thanxeros.  You don't want to eat something like that.  What would Harriet do without you?"  Thanxeros didn't quite register it was another person talking to him, yet he answered anyway.  "Oh, most likely find some other corpse to feed on or perhaps be taken off by a hungry bird, poor thing.  The bird I mean, not Harriet.  It wouldn't know what it's in for.  Between you and me, she is a very feisty nightcraw–".  Thanxeros stopped and turned around, slackjawed not just from decay this time.  "I know that voice!  Lady Angela!  Erm, I mean Goddess, yes?" He made to stand as she approached.  "It has been a rather long time", she said, "… a different world".  And then she hugged him, chuckling quietly to herself.  Thanxeros wasn't quite sure what to do with this situation.  Normally when another being touched him they would be so buffeted by negative energy that they would become paralyzed, almost dead to the casual observer.  This was not so with a goddess, especially that of the earth.  Positive and negative energies fought and flashed on contact, causing sizzling cracks in the air and purple and green faerie fire.  Yet that was not the part that amazed Thanxeros.  He slowly hugged Angela back, incredulous and for the first time in ages at a loss for words.  

"I thought my mind was going rather mad when I heard your voice and talking to Harriet.  It appears that we meet again, my dear friend".  

"Oh believe me, madness creeps up far more slowly than that, Lady Rose".  She ran her hand through the lich's ragged, white hair, dislodging spiderwebs and their inhabitants as well as many unrecognizable husks of dead insects.  "You don't change much, but just where did you end up when the world blew up?"  Thanxeros looked around, confused.  He looked down at the ground and gave a few exploratory hops.  "I'm not sure I understand, Goddess.  The world seems fine.  Unless we're on some fragment flying through the far reaches of the void.  Well, a smaller fragment I mean, not the larger one we call the world.  Are we not on the same world?"

"I have been here collecting the berries myself, but I would never let my friends eat this to die.  At least my non-deity friends, like yourself and Harriet".  Thanxeros was a bit taken aback as he looked down at his mortar.  "This is poisonous enough to kill even me?"  Then his eyes brightened and his lips contorted into a grin.  "This is poisonous enough to kill even me!"  

"What brings you to a place like Feeorin?"  Thanxeros examined his surroundings.  "Well, I didn't come here intentionally, Angela, but I must say I do enjoy this place.  I mean look at the sky alone!"  Thanxeros gestured up towards the heavens and the scintillating lights of the sky.  "Such a wondrous place I have never seen before.  But no, I came here purely by chance.  A few months ago I may have wandered through a portal, but I cannot say the circumstances of that transit."  

Thanxeros put his finger up to his eye and let Harriet crawl out onto it.  "If we're on another world or plane or such, how did you come to be here?  That is, if you don't mind me asking of course.  And can you tell me more about this Feeorin place?  Oh and, forgive my blathering and carrying on, but why the warm embrace?  As a corpse I'm not used to an embrace unless it is that of an exceptionally unlucky and foolish grave-robber". 

“Harriet has certainly always been very feisty.” Angela was amused that it took him so long to realize she was there. Since their time in Mooncrest back in the old land, Thanxeros had always made her laugh and he was quite the character. She was pleased when the tattered man hugged her back. She could smell the rotten earth on him but it did not bother her as it would others. Certainly did not smell worse than what her infant could make. That did make her form a rather funny face, hopefully, one that Thanxeros did not see.

“Oh yes! It has been quite some time since the cobblestone road in Mooncrest has it not?” Her eyes twinkled with a bit of mischief as she fondly remember their time together. She was a newly raised deity in Mooncrest and the lich had amused her greatly.

A joyous laugh left her lips. “You passed through without even knowing it. That is something that amuses me to no end, my dear friend. We’re no longer in the land known as DaeLuin but rather Revaliir. This is an old proud land and you are on the second continent, my friend. We’re in a complete other time space, my dear.” She gave him a concerned look. “Not many made it I am afraid. I am glad to see you though. The world is a little brighter with you in it.”

Angela thought on it for a moment as she looked down at the berries. “The berries are supernatural so anything, including creatures like liches are vulnerable. Gods on the other hand, are not.” She stared up at the sky now with him as they chuckled. “The portal must have been a tear into this dimension, my dear.”

She thought about the circumstances of her ascension into this world and nodded to herself. “It appears that there was another Angela here. Well… I suppose I am more her. DaeLuin Angela lost a lot. As dopplegangers, we sort of formed a bond together and became one. I’ve been a deity in these lands for almost two centuries now. When we met I was barely a fledgling deity. Weird how the world has been working.” Looking at the trees she began to think about Feeorin.

“It’s a fairy forest which you no doubt have noticed. Revaliir use to have two world trees. Feeorin was blessed with the magic of the one from Parvpora. Though most of the things in this place can kill. No one remembers the Parvpora tree being nice at all.” 

Chuckling at her words she shook her head as it was no problem. “Oh, my dear don’t even fret. I suppose I was happy to see someone else live through the sundering. I lost my dear husband Taylef and my daughter Aaryona lost her father, who was a good friend of mine. Much has been lost my friend but I am glad to see that you are alright.”

There was sadness written on her face as she said hello to Harriet and smiled up at him once more. “I am just glad that the sundering did not claim you, my friends. The world has lost too much light as it is.”

"She's always been stubborn, too", the lich said as he pet the fat nightcrawler.  "When I first found her, she was nesting inside my nostril.  I pulled her out and went back to studying, only to find her inside my eye socket.  Well by that point there was no use fighting the thing, so I let her stay".  The nightcrawler wrapped itself tightly around the lich's knuckle bone, a putrid ring on a putrid finger.  "Since then she has been a constant and dear companion.  She's a great listener really, and doesn't mouth off very often either.  I've had far worse".  

"Has it been long since our first meeting?"  Thanxeros thoughtfully rubbed his chin, scraping bone against bone and ripping away bits of flesh with each motion.  "I do apologize.  I tend to lose track of time quite easily.  When you're dead, you have no schedules to keep, and thus time becomes meaningless.  In addition", the lich brightened and ruffled in his pouches for a while, eventually producing a large sheaf of papers in various stages of wear and legibility, "I've been quite busy!"  He grinned excitedly at the goddess as he dropped the large pile of papers onto her lap.  "Go ahead!  You can look if you like.  As a goddess you might even be able to help with a few things here and there.  For instance, there's this one idea I wrote over here about flying fish…"

"Passed through?  Yes I suppose I must have.  It happens more often than you think.  One moment here, the next in the Plane of Elemental Fire, all without realizing it.  I have some scorch marks from blunders like that, yet here I am.  We're not in DaeLuin at all?"  Thanxeros looked away for a moment.  He felt something he hadn't felt in centuries: sadness.  Sure he had felt loneliness and at times wondered whether becoming a lich was a good idea, but never had he been saddened by something quite like this.  He felt as though he was now missing something.  "Well, at least Revaliir has a nice ring to it, I suppose.  Do they have many schools of magic in this world?"

Thanxeros looked down at the berries.  If these could truly kill him utterly, he would have to be something he hadn't had to be in centuries: careful.  He smiled to himself, imagining the possibilities of the berries.

Thanxeros wasn't sure what to make of the talk of dopplegangers and multiple Angelas.  He chalked it up to cosmic workings that he, as a mere corpse, would most likely never comprehend.  He would stick with the simpler things in life, like the Metaphysical Applications of Thaumaturgy and Related Schools of Magic.  

"Well if even in death the tree seeks to kill all living things, I would agree with the peoples' memories.  Eternity is far too long to hold a grudge".  Thanxeros looked at the trees around him and wondered if their links to the world tree might perhaps give them special properties.  As he continued to talk with Angela, he absent-mindedly began taking bark scrapings off the trees.  You never knew when the distant relation of a God Tree would come in handy.

"I'm happy to see that you lived through the sundering as well, Goddess.  I'm… very sorry to hear of your loss.  Should you need any assistance with anything, so long as my feet still trudge across the ground you may request it.  Much has been lost, true, but we have also gained a new world and new possibilities, some of which even a goddess like you may never have imagined.  Erm, not meaning any offense of course."

"Well I don't give off that much light, Angela.  While it's true my eyes are luminescent, they hardly give off enough light to… oh".  He smiled again.  "I see.  It was a metaphor.  My apologies.  Thank you for the sentiment, Earth Mother.  I'm glad to see you safe as well."

Thanxeros dug his bony fingers into the ground and let the dirt slip through his fingers.  "I suppose if we truly are in a new world, I should know more about it.  Magic still seems to function the same way here".  Thanxeros, his eyes dimming slightly as he concentrated, began chanting the arcane words to a spell, using his hands to dexterously control and work the magical energies around him as a weaver at a loom.  When the spell finished, a Darkness Elemental floated just behind him, silently regarding the pair as they sat.  Thanxeros pointed at the tree and the berries and, after a brief hesitation, the elemental began gathering the reagents.  "And I haven't fallen apart yet, which is a good sign of habitability for me.  What are the people here like?  Are there certain kingdoms I should avoid?  I have the time to sit and listen if you have the time to discuss".