Welcome to Gaia! ::

All too pleased to follow along, Belladonna momentarily stilled long enough to receive the shock. She let out a small noise of delight and gave a little jump as the spark worked through her. Her head was shaken to get the residual bits of electricity out before she raised up on tip toes to quickly press a kiss to his cheek. A smile was his thank you before she let him go to trail behind the boils. Having learned her lesson last time, the witch was less than enthusiastic about leading this round.
Oddly as they continued one the air began to get a bit warmer, as though something awful was up ahead. And hey! Guess what, there totally was. And it was lava. Fantastic.
The very unmanly squeal from Mort was overshadowed by the totally normal one from Belladonna at the sight of lava. Could she nope out of here please?
But well, no! No she very well couldn't!

So with a pout Belladonna took a step forward and leapt forward onto one of the stepping stones. Thankfully it held and she was able to remember to breath. After that she turned around to face the boils and flashed them a bright smile and a shaky thumbs up.

HP: 47

OhJackohJackohJack -

OhJackohJackohJack -

Was this for real? Was this seriously life? Of course Mort had to have led them on the path towards lava. He whimpered anxiously as both Belladonna and Alexander made their way across without casualties, clutching his hands together as he paced the edge for a solid ten seconds afterwards. It was hard to overcome the instinct to run away, made worse by the memory of the caterpillar's hallucination at the last party: Belladonna in pieces and bleeding, lava coating the floor and swallowing him up -

A sheen of what constituted as sweat for the undead covered him, and Mort ran a hand through his hair as he looked for the nearest platform. This was crazy. This was insane. This was not right.

But he wasn't going to be left behind to ponder the pool of liquid fire by himself, not when it was the last leg of the journey. And weren't those always the worst anyway? Mort took a deep breath to calm himself, backed up, and pushed himself into a run that propelled him to a platform near theirs. The zomboil stumbled his landing a bit but wavered about in the center nevertheless, shaken but unharmed as the mass beneath him kept afloat.

He had no words, only a faint bracing smile and a shaky thumbs up in return. One down.

HP: 38

At first Alexander was just anxiously scared, but now that he was in the middle of the lava lake, surrounded by molten heat and imminent fiery death he was absolutely terrified. He finally managed to open his eye to look around himself, and his body went absolutely rigidly stiff, paralysed by his horror.

This was pure, unadulterated hell. Literally, he imagined that this is what hell would look like and it was not a place he ever wanted to visit. The zomboil couldn't help but just continue to stare, completely fixated, unable to move or do otherwise.

He saw Belladonna move out of the corner of his eye and his face finally turned, watching, cringing inwardly, one hand lifting as though it could save her from doom.

But she made it, and somehow he was able to relax, if only slightly. Okay, he could do this. The only way out of this mess was to continue to go forward. That's what he needed to remind himself now. It would all be over faster, the sooner he made himself move.

So he took another leap, aiming for a stone not far from Belladonna and within what he thought was fairly easy distance. He somehow managed to land solidly without staggering, and he reached up with two trembling hands to rub at his face.

What a freaking nightmare.

HP: 40
roll: 2/3

Alright, just one more leap across and Belladonna would make it. That wasn't too bad, she couldn't definitely do that. After all, she'd leapt longer distances from her broom to her window and she almost always made those (except that one time she didn't and ended up half hanging out the window for a few scary seconds). But this! This was nothing.
One last glance backwards was all the witch needed to know the boils were still behind her, still making their way across. With that she turned around and rose on her toes. A flex of calves and she was up into the air, suspended for far too long as she aimed for the safety of the ground. Odd that the scream from behind did not just met ears and pass through but instead seem to physically knock the witch off her path. Both feet hit the rock, scrambled for purchase before they slipped out from beneath Belladonna. The awful noise just outside her field of vision hurt more than the feel of harsh ground against her skin or even the acrid, hot thick substance that rose up to claim the leg that had waywardly fallen off the ground.
With her own scream the witch wrenched her foot out of the pit, but the damage was already done. Fingers grabbed at whatever they could for purchase as she sought to move herself backwards, away from the lava and to turn herself around, to see if she could find--
"MORT?!"

No sign of the zomboil was left, no left over scrap of clothing or indication that he had ever been with them. Had she not already been on the ground, Belladonna might have fallen at the realization that those screams had been from her lover. As it were, she instead only sat there and stared into the lava, confused over what to do next.

HP: 23

After a few more moments of sitting there, of just focusing on the horrid pain of an entirely burnt foot, Belladonna finally was able to anchor herself enough to push herself back onto the rocks. It took a few tries, but finally she managed to stand and hobble back a few paces. A tall slab of rock was her goal, one a few feet away she could rest on and heal as she waited for Alexander to cross back and for Mort to scale the mountain once more. Surely he was only brought back to the beginning, not really gone. The witch knew better than that, knew she just had to wait a bit longer. Still, even knowing he was presumably safe did not ebb the pain she felt over his loss, as well as the knowledge that surely his temporary demise had been rather nasty.
Plagued with such awful thoughts, the witch still found the haven of her rock and let her hands reach down for it only to be once more greeted with the sounds of agony.
"Alexander! Oh Hecate, no!" She could not turn fast enough, not with her injured leg as it were. Instead all she could do was fall forward onto the rough surface and turn to see...
The she was all alone.

For a long time more, the witch sat on the rock and clutched at her knees. If she waited long enough, they would come back. If she just held on a bit longer, Mort and Alexander would crest the hill and jump through the lava and join her once more. They would take her home and all be very proud of themselves for completing the quest and... And...
After what seemed ages, finally it seemed to dawn that they weren't coming back. At least not right away, in any event. The only other option was to continue on as best she could, regardless of how very much her foot ached. As of yet the witch had not spared her appendage a passing glance, mostly because she knew how horrid her own reaction would be so it was best to just let that one thing be ignored until she had the luxury of freaking out.
Naturally, the only option left was to trek up to the little opening between the rocks just past her perch.
With a sigh, Belladonna was up on one wobbly foot, unsure if she could traverse the treacherous ground with only one support when she was used to two. It seemed to take forever, but as she hopped along the path, she knew she had plenty of time. It had taken their group quite a bit to get to this point regardless, so there was really no rush.

Somehow, maybe she really was a lucky charm after all, Belladonna made it to the entrance. Within were 13 shrines, each adorned with their own symbols decorated on their dais. Items could be spied atop them, but a few were missing. With a sigh the witch hobbled forward and nearly fell over when she realized that the ground had begun to shift. Both arms stuck out suddenly to keep her balance, but a path before on altar seemed straight, even and unchanged. She hastened toward that and grew closer to see flowers decorated this dais. Upon its top was a beautiful flower that glistened with color and though it was tempting, to take it felt... Wrong.
She had won an item, but had lost her zombies. The fact that they had temporarily dissipated so she could continue felt incomplete.
Her hand retracted and despite the fact she'd come so far, Belladonna jumped around and headed back toward the entrance.
At least now she knew they could accomplish this task and what waited for them.

(( Okay maybe some rp this time

Mort - 29
Bells - 13
Alex - 19 ))

The zomboil was curled up in the fetal position when he regained his sentience, still feeling as if the lava had only just been wiped off his skin and bones; Thor's jarringly cool presence was at odds with the sensation but helped stabilize Mort, helped him tell the difference between what his fears perpetuated and his reality was.

Trial by fires sucked a**. The book hadn't mentioned lava. No sir. ******** A . . .

Gingerly he raised his head over his arms to survey the familiar rocky foot of the mountain - so the portal acted as a sort of pumpkin patch. Interesting. His body still tingled unpleasantly as Mort uncurled himself into a sitting position, flexings his fingers before his face and half expecting lava to come back and swallow him from beneath again. The world spun, the smell of burnt flesh clung to his nose even when he was physically fine, and the echoes of his own screams continued to bounce around in his head along with the whispers.

All in all, Mort was not a happy camper when Alex reappeared by him. For a few moments the zomboil said nothing, only sat patiently and recollected himself. Then: "G-Guess she made it . . . You, ah, a-alright?" He didn't have to ask if the lava got Alex - he assumed it.