Last Chapter! I am skipping over Rising Hell since I've never played it myself, so I hope no one gets confused.

Gnarl was once again proving himself to have no loyalty or shame, but also how quick thinking he was. Rose could respect that, and, more importantly, she could use that. But was it worth the risk?

Very shortly after Sol had run from the Throne room, shirtless and raving like a mad woman, Gnarl had come sauntering in with a small group of blues. The minion master became fraught with false concern at the sight of Rose. The influx of magical energy Rose had received had brought her back from the brink, but dying had still remained a distinct possibility. The blues had rushed over at Gnarl's command and they quickly removed the blade and sealed the wound with their healing magic. The Wizard's fight must not have been going well, assuming he wasn't dead already.

The sudden absence of pain was startling and gave Rose an almost uneasy feeling, like it was a trick and any second it would all come rushing back. She pressed a hand to her stomach over the tear in her dress, the fabric and her skin stained red.

"I would be careful standing up, Mistress," Gnarl said. "Healing does not replace the blood already lost."

"What do you want, Gnarl?" Rose demanded, sitting up. It was a redundant question since she full well already knew the answer, but it was something to keep him occupied while she gathered her thoughts.

"To serve the Overlord, of course! It is what I have always done, and it is what I will always do."

Rose very carefully rose to her feet. She wobbled slightly and felt rather light headed, but she would never show weakness to anyone, especially not Gnarl. She looked down at him sternly.

"And what of the Wizard?"

"A hero could never be the Overlord. He must have used his magic to tamper with Tower Heart, for surely neither myself or any of the minion tribes would ever willingly serve a hero. My loyalty lies with Overlord Kaern, and of course, with his Mistress. A Mistress who was saved by my intervention, might I add, and who could surely make use of my expertise in the future."

So transparent, yet so tempting an offer. What could a dead Gnarl offer her? Nothing. What could a living Gnarl offer her? A Gnarl whose very life could swiftly be brought to an end at any time by her whim? Oh, the possibilities.

...

Rose was reminded of the moment after Kaern had conquered the Silent Order and Sol had appeared, shambling across the bridge like a plague infected zombie. The stairwell was empty, and then she was suddenly there, at the top. Sol stood still as a cornered mouse, her expression one of a vacant despondence, of someone who had seen their fate and could not find the will to struggle against it.

"You live," she stated blandly. Rose wasn't sure which of the three of them that was directed to.

Kaern sat on his throne, armor dented and stained with blood. He was a little worse for wear but he had defeated the Wizard, his powers had been restored, and he was now the undisputed Overlord. The bare sword resting on his lap dared anyone to say differently.

Rose stood beside, still wearing the ruined and blood covered dress, not because she hadn't had the time to change, but to help drive home the point of just how close she had come to death. That was essential in reigning Kaern in and getting him to listen.

Gnarl was currently reaping the benefits of Rose's words. He stayed off to the side, far enough away to remain unobtrusive but still in sight to give Kaern a full view as the minion master gave orders and directed the clean up of the Tower. Gnarl was in a very precarious position, and while Rose's very convincing and very embellished recounting of her rescue was the only thing keeping him alive, Gnarl had to be sure to make himself if not irreplaceable, then at least useful.

What of Toby? Kaern asked.

Sol got a far away look in her eyes. "Gone."

"What do you mean, 'gone'?" Rose demanded.

"Gone," she repeated, almost in a whisper. Then her eyes snapped back into focus. "I'm going to bed," she said suddenly, full of a conviction unsuited for such a banal statement. She cut across the Throne room, heading straight for the door that would take her upstairs.

Stop!

Sol halted midstride. Kaern rose from his throne and, like a cat moving in on its prey, walked over to Sol with his weapon in hand.

Where is Toby? he demanded, looming over Sol.

Sol looked up at him with that same vacant despondence. "Escaped. I don't know where to."

Will he return?

"Not in your lifetime." Sol shuffled her feet. "Can I go now?"

"Yes. Leave," Rose said. If there was anything pressing even Sol wasn't childish enough to leave it unmentioned, and it would be best to wait to hear the whole story later when pulling the answers out of her wasn't a frustration game of 'get your questions even more specific'.

After a moment's consideration, Kaern waved a hand at Sol to leave and returned to his place on his throne. Only after he gave the go ahead did Sol move.

"I'm gonna want my shirt back," she said before disappearing through the door.

Rose sighed and placed a hand on Kaern's shoulder. She was glad this mess was done with. Perhaps now she could look forward to some stability and order.

...

Sol laid a hand on the cracked floor of the place she thought of as only 'the room', deep underneath the Tower. At this point she might even have crossed over into the Netherworld. Location wasn't really important, but the markings on the floor were. She traced the outer white chalk markings, faded after fourteen months.

Sol rolled her eyes and scoffed. She felt personally offended by just how terribly the spatial runes had drawn. Sol was more skilled than this when she was twelve. Of course, Toby had been a Follower of Aetherya. They were only cursorily trained in the making of portals, but still, that was no excuse to put the Spear of Hartwyn next to the Bow of Dazen.

Looking at it closely, Sol was amazed that this ever worked. Sol moved in closer to the center, under where the portal had been made. Here the chalk had been completely wiped away when the portal had closed, making it impossible to determine just where Toby had set it to take him. Though if the destination runes had been as poorly drawn as the stability runes, it was unlikely Toby had ended up where he had intended. Maybe he had been torn apart in the In-Between. If Sol tried to force open the ripples left behind, she certainly would be.

Sol studied it for a while longer, moving slowly around the room. She could feel the instability in the air where the world had been torn open so sloppily. Was this what gave the Forgotten God a foothold into opening his own gateways into this world? They were sealed now, but the damage didn't feel to have lessened. Reality was barely holding together here.

There wasn't any way to repair that, to smooth out were it was bunched, patch the holes and reweave the snapped threads. Sol could only try to ensure the damage didn't worsen. When she finished studying the spatial runes, finding nothing of note or a clue to where Toby had gone, she got down on her knees and pulled a rag from her pocket. The greasy chalk was tough to get wipe away completely, but she could smear the designs to a point beyond recognition.

Finished, she tossed the rag to the side and retrieved her pack and staff from where she had set them down near the entrance. Sol paused and sighed heavily before leaving through the tunnel. Fourteen months. Fourteen fucking months of chains and fire and Gnarl's sneering, of expansion and conquest and blood, of orders she would of followed without issue before but hated with a passion when she no longer had the option to make a choice she never would have made.

Sol left the room and into the tunnels. She picked the route seemingly at random, following whims and instinct. She always ended up where she wanted to go. The Tower accepted her presence, nothing like before when she could wander around in circles for hours at a time. The floor sloped upwards steeply for a long while before leveling off, rough rock turning to smooth stone and she found herself at the foot of a flight of stairs. She began to climb while ignoring any minion she passed.

They were shadows of their former selves, the minions. Without an Overlord their drive, their will, even the destructive nature that defined them, had shriveled up to practically nothing. They simply wandered about aimlessly. It hadn't taken the masses long to notice the change, and rebellions were cropping up in disturbing numbers. The Dwarves of Golden Hills had risen up first, the minions stationed there were slaughtered without much fuss and the area was lost. Spree had been next, the horrors of the Evernight were pushing back any force that entered, and the city of Heaven's Peak, where the Overlord was still viewed as a saviour after the plague and worshiped by the Silent Order, was under siege by 'heroes' wanting to 'liberate the people'. In short, everything was going to shit.

Sol reached the heavy oak doors to the Tower's private quarters. Two browns stood guard, slouched over and staring at the floor, barely keeping a grip on their weapons.

"Get lost," Sol ordered. They looked up at her with empty eyes, then left without a word. At least when they were docile like this they didn't get in her way.

Sol opened the doors just wide enough for her to slip through. She had never been in the Overlord's private quarters before. Rose's influence could be seen everywhere, in the marble statues of elegant women holding pots of roses, in the fragrant plants entwining the columns, in the faint tinkling of pouring water that could be heard in the background.

As wearily as if she were sneaking through enemy territory, Sol stepped deeper inside, listening intently for signs of the quarter's occupant. What she heard was quiet sobbing. She followed it through the hall, finding the source in a large room that had been transformed into a thriving botanical garden, filled with colours and scents and also the Tower's mistress crying over what Sol thought was an Aloe Vera plant.

This was... unexpected. Sol had never seen Rose without her mask of perfect composure, even when Kaern had been lost, and she didn't know what to do. She settled for awkwardly hovering in the doorway, waiting to be noticed. What had Rose in tears was something Sol was unsure of. Kaern? Stress? Herself? Or was she crying because she just felt like crying?

Sol considered leaving to let her have some privacy and time to get herself together. The last few weeks had been hard on everybody. But time was of the essence. They needed to be gone before Gnarl caught wind of what was happening.

"Ahem," Sol cleared her throat.

Rose stopped immediately and wiped the tears from her face. She straightened and faced Sol, eyes red but face as hard as steel. It was nearly identical to the face she had worn when she had asked Sol if it were possible for her to open a portal to the Infernal Abyss.

"No," Sol had said. She had been going to explain why, how the Abyss wasn't a full world unto itself, that it was just a thin layer that surrounded this realm, and portals as Sol knew them just weren't precise enough. There was no way for her to bring Kaern back, even if he was still alive.

But Rose had cut her off, acknowledged her response and walked away. She never asked again.

"I'm ready to leave," Rose said and brushed by Sol. Her hands rested on her belly as she walked, over the soft, barely visible swell. The sight filled Sol with unease. This would be rough enough without the added complication.

Sol waited in the hall while Rose disappeared into an adjacent room. She reemerged shortly after wearing a full-to-bursting pack and carrying a case the size of a small child.

"Give those to me," Sol said, stepping in the way. Rose didn't protest and quickly handed them over, as if her carrying them in the first place had just been a formality that had to be seen to. Sol was just glad Rose had been somewhat more practical with her packing this time than when she usually traveled.

Sol shouldered the bag and took the case then followed Rose through the private quarters. Rose claimed there was a route out of the Tower that no one else knew about, but Sol highly doubted that. Sure, it was probably there, but Gnarl had to know every inch of the place given how long he had been living there. The minion master had bigger things to deal with at the moment than keeping track of the two's location at all times, so Sol still had hope they could slip away undetected.

"... Hold on a moment," Sol said. Rose raised an eyebrow as Sol placed the case on the ground. "I'll be right back."

Sol turned and rounded a corner before stopping to kneel in front of one of the statues. She considered the empty spot beside it for a moment in silence.

"Things have really gone to shit, huh?" Sol said.

A brief second passed in which nothing happened, and then the air shimmered. A green minion appeared seemingly from nowhere, tucked in beside the statue, lines of black snaked across its skin like a spreading disease and it stared at Sol with dead, solid black eyes.

"Think you can cover for us? We'll need as much of a head start as we can get."

The green continued to simply stare at her blankly, before very suddenly breaking into a grin, revealing a set of sharply pointed teeth. The air shimmered and the green was gone. Once more Sol was left to wonder what had happened to turn Rhaeg into... whatever the Hell he was now.

But that was a question for another time. Now they had to leave the Tower.

And so ends Sol of the Dark Tower! And so begins Sol of the Netherworld! I already posted the prologue, but I won't begin writing chapters for a while yet, unfortunately. I've got a lot going on and other fics I've been neglecting, but you can go ahead and follow SofN so you get alerted when I do start posting chapters.

Thank you to all my readers, and especially thank you to all my reviewers! I didn't realize when I started just how difficult a commitment writing this would be, and it's thanks to you I've made it this far! Hope you enjoyed it cause I know I did!