Shattered Star

Inside the coffin is an extremely beautiful woman who matches the depictions all around the area, those of Runelord Sorshen. She wears an elegant red dress adorned with all sorts of decorative elements and jewels. She seems to be in a mild panic.

Cade sees Ali lifting the ceiling off from above himself and letting light flood his vision.

Anastasia sees the woman in the sarcophagus, clearly Sorshen. She then looks at Cade's body, and then at the woman in the coffin. "... you. You did this. I will show you what happens to those who kill my friends!" She lunges for the woman, fangs bared.

The roaring in Cade's ears begins to dim, as torchlight floods his vision.  "Anast--?" Cade mutters, his eyes unfocused.  Beyond the coffin's lid is nothing but smears of darkness and blurred shapes, and it isn't until Anastasia comes within arm's length of the sarcophagus that Cade can make anything out.  Unfortunately for him, the first thing he sees upon refocusing is Anastasia's face twisted into a viscous snarl, canines bared in bloodlust.  "--Anastasia no!" he cries out, bringing up his arms to shield his face.

Anastasia hesitates a moment, before grabbing Sorshen by her robes and pulling her forward so their noses are mere centimeters apart. "How do you know my name? Did you take his memories as well as his life, you bitch? What kind of sick monster are you?"

"'M-Monster?'" Cade parrots, his voice unusually high-pitched in fear.  "Wha-what are you talking--Anastasia, it's just me! Why would--how could I not know your name?! We-we traveled all the way here together!"

Anastasia blinks slowly. "... Cade?"

"Y-Yes, Anastasia?" Cade replies nervously.  Her face and Cade's were still inches apart, and Anastasia's fangs were still bared.

"... pfftHAHAHAHAHA!" Anastasia bursts out laughing, releasing her iron grip on Cade's new robes. "Oh... my gods... you absolute fucking moron, you would do this to yourself, hahahaha."

Cade falls back a bit upon being released by Anastasia's grip. "I... beg your pardon?" Cade inquires, raising an eyebrow. "Do... what to myself?"

Meliora lets out a breathe as she lowers her bow from the half draw position she took when Ali moved to open the stone coffin. "We thought you died, Cade," she explains, her voice still shaky. "Your body is still over there,"

"--Excuse me?!" Cade responds, taken aback.  Cade then frantically looks around the room, then settles on the robed figure laying face-up on the marble floor.  "Th-that's... n-no, no no no no that cannot-that cannot be!  I-I cann--" he raises a hand to point at the body, but he freezes as he sees "his" hand point forward.

It is not his own.

Slowly, Cade traces his gaze from the tanned, beautifully manicured fingers to the svelte an arm draped in fine silks, then to a well-endowed chest.  When he reaches his chest, Cade begins to hyperventilate.  His hands shoot to his face, first feeling for his glasses, then try running through his hair only to be met with long, raven locks.  He puts his hands on his chest in disbelief, then looks back at his body, then at the party, then back to his body, then... with an incomprehensible mutter he falls back into the sarcophagus, fainting from the shock.

Ali lets out a heh...then a chuckle, then a full on hideous laugh for a minute straight before they start to sob. They cry into Cade's body for a moment before looking back up. "I..I thought I lost another teammate..." They state plainly before shaking Cade back to consciousness

Eiko approaches the unconscious woman as Ali works on shaking her awake. "Mr. Cade? Are you really Mrs. Cade now?" She asks, getting uncomfortably close with wide, curious eyes.

Cade blinks in disorientation as he is quickly roused by Ali's shaking.  As Eiko asks her question, the frazzled mage sputters a lock of raven hair away from his face.  "...Er," he murmurs as the unnerving child gets uncomfortably close.  "...Well... w-well no, Miss Eiko," he replies, "as the correct terminology would be 'Ms. Cade,' as 'Mrs.' would refer to a married woman.  I am... er," he glances down and inspects himself once more, "...st-still unmarried, at the very least."

"Nah, it's what you identify as. Still wanna refer to yourself as male, then you're still Mr. in my books" Ali says sagely.

"And if it was something magic that got you into this, there'll be something magic to get you out," Meliora adds. "We can fix this later, I'm just glad it wasn't something we... couldn't"

"Oh, okay then," Eiko says, before skipping over to where Asami is still on all fours on the stairs. "Mommy, it's okay, Mr. Cade just has a new body now."

Anastasia, meanwhile, is still doubled over with laughter.

Cade look up at Ali with an impressed expression and wordlessly murmurs in agreement.  "...Indeed," Cade replies slowly as he grabs the lip of the coffin.  "The experience felt wholly unnatural from my perspective," he explains as he gingerly lifts himself from his seat.  "It felt as if--oop!" he exclaims as his legs buckle from underneath him, sluggish from their long inactivity.  Steadying and righting himself back up, Cade slowly steps over the casket wall.  "As if... there was..." he continues as he makes his way over, "a--golem crushing me.  As I touched the sarcophagus."

Straightening back up, Cade looks back at the empty casket, then forwards toward his own corpse.  Wincing, he staggers forward, arms outstretched, as if he were relearning how to walk.  Upon reaching his corpse, he comments "...Disturbing," as he plops down besides it.  "...Did you all have to leave my eyes open like that?" he adds aloud, placing his living hand against his dead cheek.  After morbidly confirming that it was indeed a dead body, Cade plucks his glasses from his old body and attempts to wear them, but squints as the glass blurs his vision.  "Well, that is one silver-lining..." he quips as he folds the frames and proceeds to hang them from his robe's collar--one that he immediately discovers both plunges and contours well with his new body's figure.  Turning back to the group, he asks "So... what do we do with..." he motions to his lifeless body "me?"

Anastasia recovers from her laughing fit, although she's still smirking widely. "... I mean..." she fights down another chuckle. "... you're not using it anymore..." Her tongue flicks out and licks her lips at the thought of human blood, even still cooling.

"I think," Meliora quickly interjects. "That it depends on whether you want to return to your original body, or if you want to find some magic to change the body you're in now to one that you're more comfortable with," she says. "If its the first, then we should preserve your body. If it's the second, then I think that's up to you."

Cade glances with discomfort as Anastasia licks her lips, and is quick to agree with Meliora's suggestion.  "--Preservation!  Yes!" Cade replies hastily, hoping to dissuade Anastasia's worrying advances.  "I would vastly prefer to preserve my body and to not defile it," he adds, adding emphasis on the latter part of his statement.  "...That being said," he wonders aloud, "I do not have anything that would preserve a corpse..."  Taking his spellbook from his cold body, Cade nervously flips through his notes, his movements more frantic as he nears the end of his spells.  "...Oh dear," he mutters pitifully as he flips back to the beginning.  "...D-Does anyone else have anything that would assist in... preserv..." his voice trails off as his question is met with unanimous disagreement.  "...Ohhh dear..."

"What about the crypt your new body was in?" Meliora asks. "Maybe it still has some preservation magic inside it?"

Nodding along, Cade quickly fumbles out a spell of divination on the sarcophagus, and his expression quickly falls from hopeful into despair.  "...Fading," he mutters, crestfallen.  "A magical trap to protect the sarcophagus... a spell of cloning... and a spell of preservation.  All of them, fading away."  Cade glances back at his original body, the color faded from his skin.  "...Hah," the wizard chuckles, his laugh hollow.  "Hah... Well, that is... unfortunate..."