Lionhearts ||Skephalo||

70

Where had Tubbo gotten to? An excellent question.

The answer to it was muffled screaming, struggling to pry a hand away from his mouth—where was Tubbo? Somewhere in the bowels of this building, being held tightly to prevent him escaping as his limbs are bound. He tries to cast a small flame, burning through the rope, but he's not so lucky. He glares up at his captor, unsurprised but dismayed to have his hunch confirmed in such an unpleasant way. The cloak drawn over Lum doesn't hide the piglin's wide eyes, glowing an eerie shade of green as he slowly lifts a dagger wrought of a dark metal, holding it to Tubbo's throat with in an obvious threat.

"You made it so I can't touch it," he hisses, "The seal, the runes—you need to fix it, you need to undo it!"

I can hardly do that all tied up, Tubbo would've snarked at him if he had the breath to do so. But it seems that he wasn't being asked to do anything; the blade nicks his skin, carving a thin line that drips down, dark red liquid landing not on the floor, but in Lum's hand.

"What—what the fuck," he finally gasps, "What are you DOING? Lum?"

Lum's expression, as dazed and empty as it is unsettling, is pitiful.

"I need to break it," he whispers, "The seals. You need to understand, I have to do this!"

"Or what?" Tubbo quickly begins to realize he couldn't scream for help here; it was too far away from the traversed areas. He could call for Phil, but perhaps that would be a bad decision at the moment. Besides—as he reaches, his mind is too foggy to find Phil, fear clouding his reach.

Lum gestures jerkily, Tubbo's blood dripping down his palm, to his wrist.

"He said it would be okay," Lum says mournfully, "If I broke it, we'd be together again. He said that he would bring it back to me—what I've lost."

"Are—did the demon speak to you?" Tubbo asks, still grappling with the fog to find Phil. "Did he offer you something?"

Lum's expression turns soft, as though he's locked in a sweet daydream. He fidgets with his bracelet, and softly murmurs,

"I'd get to see him again. He has the power to let us be together again—I just need to free him. I'm sorry, Tubbo. But you need to break the seal."

"Nobody can revive the dead," Tubbo urgently says, realizing all too fast what the demon must have offered. "Lum, think—would Stolfas really want you to bring him back at the expense of the world?"

Lum clenches his jaw, and the knife cuts a bit deeper as his hand shakes. Tubbo freezes, now unwilling to say too much for fear of it nicking a vital.

"Don't," Lum says, "Don't lie to me. He can do anything, I've felt how strong his magic is—all he needs is to be freed. I'll do it, I'll free him—break the seal, Tubbo, break it or I will have to make you. Please, just listen."

Phil, Tubbo cries out, desperately into the fog as tears bubble up, whimpers escaping him at the pain, Phil please this nutjob might KILL me!

He doesn't think he'll really be killed—he could probably retaliate if he needed to, even if it would be hard.

"Lum, you," Tubbo sucks in a breath, "Please, you don't need to do this. You'll be okay if you don't." Lum looks off to a distant point in space, eyes glazed over.

"If I don't free him," he murmurs, "Everything will be destroyed when he escapes. Everything. He promised to let me keep a small place—to let me save my friends. We'd all be spared if I freed him. But if he has to escape on his own...he will spare none of us."