“Gnehh… That idiot killed me.”

Rodin found himself staring at an extremely strange landscape. All mountains were volcanoes that continuously spewed some sort of blue substance into the atmosphere.

“Not quite what I expected the land of the dead to be… But I suppose once you’re past that point, you don’t have much of a choice.”

He knew, maybe, deep down inside that he wasn’t dead. Primarily because the last thing he’d heard the magician say was something… about respecting him? Since Clerics can’t resurrect people, he wouldn’t have killed him. But then, what was this place?

Rodin reached for his sword, unsheathing it smoothly and holding it in his hand, feeling the weight of it and making sure that it was indeed a sword.

“Argh,” he said between clenched teeth. “Let’s see if I can do this right, this time.” He lowered his sword to the ground and created a cross pattern. He continued, the pattern growing continously more complex.

“Let’s see… I should know this, I helped come up with Sword Sacrifice spells…”

He finished it and stood in the middle, speaking two words with clarity. ”Conscience drive.”

He took over an omniscient point of view, his body hanging there in a delicate balance. He looked over the landscape for any helpful landmarks. There were none.

“Hmph,” he said as he returned to normal. “Seeing as I can do that, I’m not dead… but then…”
“Done yet?!”
He made no sound as he turned his sword around, looking for the source of the voice. There wasn’t any.
“Well, whatever. I’m done having you sleep it off. Sleep isn’t death, you know.”

Suddenly, with that snap of gravity that you usually feel while waking up from a dream, he found himself staring at the Cleric from a vantage point on an oddly comfortable bed.

“Welcome back.”
“You… what the heck are you doing with me?”
“I need your… skills to help me with a rather hard problem.”
“And why should I help you? You took me against my will! You interrupted our pilgrimage to… wait, what have you done with Sarah?”
“That would of course be the first reason that you’re going to help me.” Then, with a word that sent ripples through reality, ‘Follow,’ Rodin felt his body go under the cleric’s control, and he followed.

“I swear, Cleric… if you’ve done anything to Sarah I will eat your brains.”
“Ah… just call me Aurida for convience sake.”

They walked through numerous rooms, each decorated with a different style of architexture. “Nice change of scenery from the desert,” Rodin thought to himself. They finally arrived outside, in an enclosed courtyard where numerous statues were standing.

“…You.”
“Me. Me, me, me.”
“You’ve gone through this routine countless times, haven’t you?”
“No, you’re the first that I’ve been able to. Being the Head Priest of this city gives me a certain amount of leverage…’ He followed with another two words spoken in the world-shaking diction, “Release Follow.”
Rodin, being used to being strung along by Aurida’s spell, lost balance and almost fell forward. When he realized he could move, the first thing he did was to run over to the statue of Sarah he saw, standing by the wall opposite to the way they’d come on.

“I hate you. So much.”
“That’s probably to be expected. So, are you going to help or do I need my interior decorator to figure out where to put you?”
“Will you change Sarah back if I help?”
“Probably. That’s a very good chance.”
A single tear rolled down his face as he muttered. “All right. I’ll do it.”
“I’m sorry, what was that you said?”
He turned his head quickly and practically screamed, “I said that I’ll help!!”
“Always gets them when I do that. Hehe. But, I’ll need to test that you’re all that you think you are, first.”

The Cleric withdrew his staff, and with a motion that clearly represented summoning, started a spell.