Interlude - Threat

"So Forty-Seven chose to keep her," Victorina sipped on her teacup. "Interesting. Beholder, open Player 47."

The creature flying beside her, a large yellow eye with black bat wings attached to its either side, hovered above her white table. Its red iris heated up with white-blue light, and in front of it a rectangular projection grew apparent.

Frey Alcott sat before a campfire, reading a Player Tome that, Victorina recognized, was not his own. Opposite to him was Player 7, sitting tied to a tree, already awake.

"I see that Player have caught your attention." Victorina heard a voice behind her, deep and bold. She was alone in the Purgatory. Supposedly.

"Foolish of you to come here." Victorina put her teacup down its saucer on the porcelain round table before her. She turned her head only so slightly and, when a black-robed figure entered the corner of her view, she spoke. "Have you finally decided to join your masters in the cold void?" The beholder kept playing a live feed of Player 47's circumstances.

The figure laughed as though she had thrown a good joke. "On the contrary, I think I will be having them join me in this living realm, once more." It was then Victorina who chuckled.

"Surely you jest. Ten thousand years have passed, and you're still trying to revive the relics of a dark past? You should get over your loss, Raggoth. Your masters have tried us, and it did not end well for them. Do them a favor and let them rest in peace."

"Say what you want, Goddess. That sharp tongue of yours won't spare you from the reckoning that's about to come." Raggoth said. His true nature was concealed by a red mask that had no holes, no features whatsoever.

"There will be no "reckoning", lowly servant. There's only your futile attempt at revenge." Victorina wondered why he even bothered wearing a mask. She already knew what was behind it, anyway.

"Of course there will be. The gods of Earth have joined my cause, Goddess. The Deira will fall, and Edeleir will be ours."

Victorina vanished from her seat. She appeared behind Raggoth, brandishing a heavy black sword almost three feet in length and had a half-foot blade span. The edge of the sword flashed red, cleaving Raggoth in half.

Raggoth, laughing for the last time, exploded in a shower of blue, luminescent ash.

An Illusion, just as she thought. The barbarian wouldn't have the courage to face her head-on. She let go of her sword. Before the sword hit the ground it faded into a whiff of swirling black smoke. Her Beholder had stopped playing the feed.

"Turn it back on." She demanded and settled back down her seat. The Beholder's iris lit up, and a rectangular vision of Player 47 popped in front of her, along with Player 7. They were talking, but to Victorina their voices were nothing more than the chirp of birds in the background. What she heard loud in her ears were the words of Raggoth, playing over and over again.

The gods of Earth have joined my cause. The Deira will fall.

She doubted his words were more than a bluff but, in the off-chance that they're true, and that the Olympians are backing him, then they'll be quite the nuisance.

Victorina sighed. Now, to tell the others...