There can be only one

Noxala, guildmaster of the Rotwood Conclave, falls. Her great horns wither, her face hardens into bark and crumbles, her body decays where it stands. And then a great gust of wind blows through the halls, and she is gone.

The blighted tree also withers. There is a gasp of pain, then the sad sigh of an elven girl as Sarah Blightborn breathes her last. Then she, too, is gone.

The day after, the guild assembles to celebrate, and to mourn its dead. Lady Wintergreen looks sorrowfully over three new gravestones in the Shrine of the Ancestors. None of these three have bodies beneath them, they’re mere memorials. They read Breac Sunfist, Sarah Goldmist, and Noxala Wintergreen. Its going to be painful, carrying on in their absence.

Then her gaze turns to the survivors who have given up so much for their world, and for the first time in a year, she smiles at her guild.

  On the shores of the River of Stories, the fallen assemble to board the Everae and greet their new Ferryman…
“Wait just a moment!” Auxum cries, running towards the shore as Breac pulls the Everae to dock. “Aren't you forgetting something? These Little Warriors have fallen, they can no longer protect the innocent, and so I claim they have broken contract. Their souls belong to me now!”

Breac pulls out a copy of the contract. “Auxum – you are mentioned here as a beneficiary if the contract is broken. But the contract is between the Little Warriors and the people of the multiverse. You did not write it. You did not sign it. You have no standing here to claim if the contract is void or broken, unless Whisper named you Arbiter? Mmmm…now who did he name…by default it would be the Silent Queen, but did he specify someone?...”
Breac reads through the contract for a moment, then his eyes widen in shock and incredulous amusement. He cackles in helpless laughter. As each Little Warrior takes the contract in turn and reads the fine print, they too lose their composure.

“Oh, give me that!” Auxum snaps, grabbing the contract and rapidly scanning it. “ ‘In recognition that terms of the aforementioned oath are subjective and dependent on context, we the below signed do accept the discretion and judgement of a neutral arbiter, whom we name as…’ Rin Knotting? The fish girl? That’s the most ridiculous joke I’ve read in my existence!”
This only triggers more hysterics from the fallen souls, until even Auxum is forced to give a reluctant smile. "But no, really..." he insists. "This changes nothing."
"No, it does not," Breac admits, wiping a tear from his eye. "Whisper hasn't won the battle for the souls of the Little Warriors. He just moved the goalposts. There is absolutely a timeline where you drive them to unrepentant greed, and claim them all. It's just that, if Rin's the one you need to convince to pass judgement that the Little Warriors are damned, you're going to have to learn to speak exclusively in fish puns!"


  On the banks of the Tanquary River, Whisper sits down below a large oak. It’s a place not far from the guild hall, but far enough from civilization that no one notices him, and he leaves no identifiable trace. The exact location today, only Wintergreen and Reason know.
His breath grows laboured. He takes in the fresh river air. Oh, what a wonderful world this is, full of such amazing people! How blessed he feels to have lived among them, if only for a time.
His breathing stops, and he dies.

And as he dies, his soul rises, climbing a long staircase visible only to him. He passes the River of Stories, grimly saluting the new Ferryman, then proceeds upward. He climbs up above the clouds, beyond the sun and stars, and into the void beyond. He finally reaches a wide, round room, surrounded by stairs leading up to massive thrones. In those thrones are powerful beings who label him arrogant, who call him fool, upstart or even traitor. Except one, who ignores him and continues writing in her book.

He faces one throne that is empty. Above it hovers a crown of black flames. He climbs the stairs, reaches out for the crown with his mage hand…and crushes it, hurling it into the void. The throne shatters. All the thrones around the room shatter, leaving the gods now screaming at him, HOW DARE HE, while Rhilliane simply folds her legs underneath her and hovers in place, continuing to write.

“I will never be one of you,” Whisper grates. “I am Whisper. I am Nathrael as he should have been. The Changebringer, the Dreamwalker, the grain of sand that tips the scales. When you are safe and comfortable, I am the last person you ever want to see! But if you are alone, and broken, and everyone tells you ‘this is just the way things are, and the way they always will be!’. Then SAY MY NAME!!! You will probably die. But you will do so knowing that nothing will ever be the same again!”

Rhillaine finishes her page. Then she looks up, gives a start of surprise, then a nod of approval at Whisper. “Ah, good,” she says. “Then on that, I end my turn.”
And she turns the page...

<End of season 2>