Gate of Memoirs/The Fallen Sage

A specter tortures Zeruiah worse than an enemy ever could.
Portrait 	Dialogue
Music: "Overcome"	Music: "Overcome"
 	
*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.
Portrait	Dialogue
 	
*"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!"
Portrait 	Dialogue
 	
*Zeruiah: *gasp!*
*Zeruiah: Baelf-
Music: "Snowy Winds"	Music: "Snowy Winds"
 	
*Her rest interrupted once again by traumatic images, Zeruiah breathes a shaky sigh.
 	
*Zeruiah: Is this...Is this punishment for vengeance?
*Zeruiah: Oh...Sky Father, Earth Mother!
*Zeruiah: Why...Why am I...
 	
*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.
 	
*Zeruiah: Eirwen...Eirwen...
*Zeruiah: I...
Portrait 	Dialogue
Music: "Devil's Heart"	Music: "Devil's Heart"
 	
*Sero-Anya: Mm....Mmmh....
 	
*Sero-Anya: Oh!
 	
*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.
 	
*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...)
 	
*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.
 	
*Sero-Anya: (That's where Zeru...)
 	
*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.
 	
*Sero-Anya: !!!
Portrait 	Dialogue
Music: "Dragon's Roar"	Music: "Dragon's Roar"
 	
*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!
 	
*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.
 	
*Crazed Wolf Man: HeheHAHAHA!
 	
*Sero-Anya: Aaahhh!!!
 	
*Zeruiah: FIEND!
*Zeruiah: Even here, you torment me!
 	
*Sero-Anya: Z-Zeru?!
 	
*Neither of the combatants pay attention to Sero-Anya, their blazing eyes fixated on each other.
 	
*Zeruiah: Why?! Your death was justified! You were a THREAT!
 	
*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...?
 	
*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...
 	
*Sero-Anya: (That voice again...!)
 	
*?: I can't let her...
*?: Fall to the darkness...