Just Too Late!

Let me fill in a little background for you, much of it taken from the briefing that we've been given. I am on my Validation Quest to ratify my acceptance as a Champion. My husband - how nice that sounds! - Synizn 2 is naturally with me, even though he's already a Champion. And naturally a few more of the Terra Prime-based Champions (namely Artizza, Fertal, Cuthbert and Joan 2) have come along to assist.

Our quest involves acquiring some more of those Key components. These particular components have been embedded by the Demons responsible within people who have had the misfortune to be turned into dancers compelled to dance nonstop for evermore, and who are currently within the power of a mage called Stryke. Stryke is a nasty piece of work, and beholden to the forces of Hell for the powers he got from signing a Contract with them,.

The dancers that he has put in the courtyard of his castle serve as both a warning and a status symbol of his power to his peers and enemies. There is great magical might within the dancers. No-one who has been foolish enough to attempt to get close enough to magically examine them without Stryke's approval has survived. Rumour had it that the dancers were enemies who had displeased him. It was also said that the dancers were an unwilling tool of power for Stryke, to be used later for God knows what.

The reality: Each dancer has within them a Key Component. Stryke has been tasked to guard and keep safe the dancers until his demonic masters come to "harvest" what is within them.

To make the task of keeping them alive easier, Stryke somehow got access to a special tree. The fruit of this tree when eaten makes the eater unable to be killed. No aging. Wounds regenerated. That sort of stuff.

Thus, in a stroke of genius, the evil mage has turned what was merely a weary task (of "baby sitter/guard") into a status symbol and a bluff of his power. The sign (somewhat false) of the favor with the Hell crew has become those dancers.

So what exactly are we Champions required to do? We have to get the dancers away from Stryke and deliver them to the Celestrials so that the Key components embedded within them can be removed. Whilst the components' original purpose (united, they would have formed a key able to unlock and control all of the Dark Tower, the center of all creation) is now thankfully null and void, they are still too dangerous to be left alone. The magical might still within those Key components could be misused for other things by an ambitious mage.

Now on with the story. The Rules and Agents, for reasons of their own which we only find out about later, have teleported us into the Cavern just before the transformed Hannah fades out. Just what has happened to her? Some of it Belboz can tell us about, but some of the details we only find out about later.

The Demon ally of Stryke's responsible for this seemingly knew a lot of little tricks that it shouldn't (something that allowed the blasted thing to go rogue in the first place), and so the wards that Belboz had in place were not able to deter it nor even to detect it. First it had frozen time, leaving an unlimited period for it to dink around with Hannah. It prepared and initiated all but the very last, split-second parts of the transformation spell (as well as other things that would allow Hannah to be snatched away). When time unfroze, the spells took effect one after the other, much too quickly to be countered. The fruit was swallowed, having been force-fed to Hannah during the period when time was frozen. This resulted in a flurry of hiccups. Coinciding with the third hiccup she found herself suddenly transformed. On the following hiccup, the fruit reached her stomach and took effect, giving her immortality. On the next hiccup, the Demon (still invisible) quickly slid in the Key Component, which had the effect of making the physical transformation irreversible. 

It is at the point that we arrive, just before the transformed Hannah fades from sight, being teleported away against her will. She is too new to her new form to be able to figure out how to magically counter that..... if the form she now has even can perform magic.  Besides, she is already under the compulsion to dance.  

So what do we glimpse in that second or so before Hannah disappears? A beautiful naked maiden, no more than three feet tall, who is just beginning to dance. She has fair hair that almost reaches the floor. Her breasts are almost ridiculously large, though they somehow seem to defy gravity, her hips are wide and her waist narrow.

1. "Oh shit!" I say, and the others are saying much the same.