Breakout! - Giancarlo's Lament

The hellion shriek of Fauna Pösen filled Giancarlo's ears as Giancarlo leapt into the icy rapids. Giancarlo's leap was timely as Pösen's blade swung with deadly accuracy, only just missing the wily Vodacce because of this unexpected, if rather foolhardy, ploy.

Then Giancarlo struck the raging waters. The air was forced from his lungs as the shock of the ice cold water hit him like the full thrust of a mighty Pösen boar spear. How far away now seemed the balmy rivers of his native Vodacce...?

Tumbling, tumbling, tumbling like a toy doll in the freezing torrent.

So hard to think. So, so cold.

"But I must swim, must swim, must swim," Giancarlo's numbing mind ordered his fast tiring limbs. And then, "Slam!" Giancarlo's body was thrown against a rock in the middle of the stream. Giancarlo's head banged against the rock as the current once more reclaimed him.

The water quickly washed the blood from out of Giancarlo's eyes and before him he seemed to see the gaunt and ghostly figure of Postafino grinning at him. Giancarlo tried to slash his way through the water to get at the evil shade, disregarding the great gulps of water that filled his mouth as he shouted his defiance at his old adversary. Finally, Giancarlo grabbed the spectral image and dove down deeper into the rushing waters, now as cold as Legion's heart. As Giancarlo's fingers froze in a death lock around his enemy's throat, the image of Postafino dissipated and all Giancarlo found himself holding was icy water.

Giancarlo's vision was now tinged with red as he tried to strike his way back up to the surface. But for every fathom he gained, the rage of the current thrust him back down two more. And then, Theus seemed to take a hand, for Giancarlo no longer felt cold and numb, the waters about him became warm and comforting, and as he swallowed them, the waters transformed into sweetly perfumed air.

Giancarlo now could hear the soft laughing voices of all of the women he had known in his life, the beautiful, the good, the bad, the sweet, even the once ill tempered, but all now laughing gently and soothingly. From each of them tinkled a throaty laugh ringing with promise. The women's faces began to fill his vision, and how lovely they all seemed. And then suddenly one loomed just before him, Lucinda Bondavini. Ah, the infinitely beautiful bella Lucinda... Lucinda kissed Giancarlo twice on the brow and then once lovingly on the lips, before slowly reaching out her pearl white hand to caress his face. As Lucinda's fingers slowly moved down his features, they gently closed Giancarlo's eyes, leaving him in a calm, cosy darkness.

As the darkness welcomed Giancarlo, and he in turn welcomed it, Giancarlo knew that his journey was over.