After seeing the odd spectacle that unfolded in front of his eyes, Elyan turned to Valeria and pointed in the stranger's direction.
"That. That's going on right now."
He then turned to Allora and patted her on the shoulder.
"I hate to break it to you, but...the pie is a lie. Truth is, we're under attack by bandits. But hey, you did a great job of spotting them, so thanks for that."
He then casually walked over to where the bandit ran into the wall, drew his sword, pulled the bandit up by the collar and gave him a wry smile.
"First question. Why are you here? Second question. How many of you are there? Third question..."
He held his sword up to the man's throat.
"...How much do you think they value your life, prisoner? Feel free to answer those in any order, but make it quick."

"It."
One bandit suddenly realized he was standing in a pool of treacle, which was blue.
"Is."
Another was ambushed by strange flying snakes.
"Too early."
Yet two more found themselves swarmed by elephants the size of ants, thousands of them all shrilly trumpeting.
"In the **********ing **** ****** ***** morning."
A moment later, a few more found themselves staring down a chicken. Said chicken was the size of the house they were attacking. It didn't have horns or spikes, it was just a chicken. However, it was an incredibly EVIL looking chicken, with this particular poultry looking like it would rape, mutilate, murder then eat the families of everyone it faced. It tilted its head, its malicious gaze promising all the torments of the fires of hell, and went "Bwaark."

The king noticed her lack of passion and reluctantly moved off her.
"Yes Ella, I do love you. I love you more than life itself. Than ANYTHING. I insist that you believe that."

Upon hearing the arrows that were flying in his direction, Elyan held out his hand and the arrows froze in place as a blue aura surrounded them. Unfortunately for the prisoner, it was the hand the Elyan was using to hold him up, meaning that he quickly fell to the ground with an amusing thud.
"That's funny. He seemed awake just a few seconds ago when he was cursing up a storm."
While holding the arrows in place, he was still looking at the unconscious prisoner on the ground.
"Oh well, I guess it can't be helped."
With a wave of his hand, he threw the arrows behind him and far over the house so they would land harmlessly in the woods. He then stood up and faced the new intruders. When he saw all sorts of creatures being summoned by Mathuriel, he shrugged his shoulders with a slight look of disappointment.
"Sure, I guess you can take all the fun. I didn't want any morning exercise anyhow."
He looked up at the giant chicken and chuckled to himself.
"I want to make a crude joke out of this, but it's just too early in the morning for me to bother."

Valeria looked to Elyan and smiled gently. She leaned against the door frame, and looked down to the unconscious brute. "I have an idea." She pushed herself off the door frame, and pulled off her gloves. She walked over to the brute, and knelt down to him. She then placed her hands on his temples, hoping that her freezing cold hands would wake the brute up.

Mathuriel was a dangerous mix of channeling multiple serrated dimensional rifts and not being a morning person, but the man's appeal sounded serious. "And why would we do that?" he yelled back, hoping Valeria's plan would work and the guy would wake up. Bargaining chips were so much better when they were conscious... most of the time.

The arrow did indeed thwuk into the chicken's head. The chicken turned, very slowly and deliberately, to look at Allora.
"Bcuk buk bwaak bwarrk," it said menacingly. A rough translation would be "Bitch, you fucking with the wrooong fowl."
The chicken then proceeded to charge at her squawking madly, trying to crush her underfoot.

The king bit his lip. "I..."
He sat on the bed next to her, and he was crying. Honest tears flowed down his cheeks, and he made no attempt to hide his distress.
"I wish I could, Ella. I really wish I could. You're too important to me to let go. You always have been." He caressed her cheek with a trembling hand. "What I wouldn't give for this to be normal... for there to be no lies, no tricks, just love. What I... wouldn't give..."

Elyan nodded at Mathuriel's question.
"Good question. It doesn't sound like there's much in it for us, considering that we seem to have you at a very severe disadvantage. And that's putting it kindly. I'll tell you what, if you tell us everything we want to know-- and I mean immediately-- then we might consider letting you go back home with your lives."
He pointed at the man who seemed to be their leader.
"First off, do you have any connection to the king? If you don't, I'd like to know how you knew we were going to be out here in the middle of nowhere when even WE didn't know we were going to be here until we found this place."
He then glanced back to Valeria with a smirk.
"Good call on that, by the way. Let me know if he starts moving."

Something...happened in Mathuriel's head, and blood started dripping from his nose yet again. He lifted his staff and pointed it at the man holding Valeria hostage, and spoke in a voice that was very definitely unlike anything he'd ever said before.
"If he kills her, we'll kill both men. We have enough forces to kill the rest," he said coldly, blood spilling down his front though he seemed to be ignoring it, and there was a strange lilt to his voice. "I have had quite enough of this running. We can always get another Valeria, there's infinite amounts of her. And it solves our situation quite nicely."
The tip of his sceptre started glowing just a little, his eyes glazed and fixed in a vicious glare. "Sorry Valeria, nothing personal."

Elyan turned towards Mathuriel and snapped back at him, anger showing in his eyes.
"I get what you're trying to do, but don't even say things like that! You don't know what these people are capable of! None of us do!"
He looked back at the bandit leader.
"Okay...we get the point. To answer your question, we're heading north to start a rebellion. I hope you don't like the king that much because we're going to start planning a little regicide once we get there. Now that we've answered your question, this can go one of two ways. We put away our weapons, you give Valeria back and we all go our separate ways and pretend we never met each other. Or..."
His eyes began to glow brightly and an aura of power surrounded him.
"If you really want to kill her...just keep in mind that we will kill you right back. Did you really think we're just some random band of travelers? No...in fact, I think that any one of us could annihilate your men without much trouble. And I will. Trust me, I will. Have you ever wondered what would happen if all the blood in your body started to flow...backwards? I'm sure it wouldn't be pretty, and I'd be more than willing to find out if you don't let her go NOW!"
He threw his sword on the ground, just as he said he would.
"Your choice."

The king looked up at her, still crying. "Oh, Ella," he said pityingly. "You hate me so much. So, so very much. I killed your boyfriend, your mother, Kiss... I've been trying to capture you for years. Then I wiped your memory so you wouldn't remember, and brainwashed you into only serving me. But that's not how I wanted it. Not how I wanted it at all."
The shadows that always marked his face vanished, showing, for the first time, his true face to Ella.

OOT: Dun dun DUUUUUUUN!

The chicken let out a frenzied "BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARKKKK!!!!!" as the arrow entered its eye, and it staggered around for a few seconds before collapsing, dead. Then the body of the chicken, so meaty and plump and tasty-looking, completely vanished into thin air as the magic binding it to this dimension vanished with its life signs.

OOT: Trololololol

Mathuriel's hand didn't waver. "Why?" he asked, his voice flat. "Why surrender when we can just..."
A rift opened next to Valeria's and the intruder's head. If it widened by a few inches, both would be decapitated.

Elyan threw a quick glare towards Mathuriel as his power began to subside.
"Don't worry about that, he had it coming."
He then looked back to the bandit leader, still feeling a little bitter.
"But you know, it wouldn't hurt to at least ask people who they are before you shove a blade next to their throat. Or is that just how you say hello around here?"
He knelt down to pick up his sword and return it to its sheath.
"So, what's your story? It sounds like you've got a grudge of your own against the king."

Valeria dropped to the ground upon her release. She placed her hand on her neck, making sure that she was not injured. After a second or two, she rose to her feet, walked over to Mathureil and slapped him.

The slap brought Mathuriel back to proper consciousness, though he remained quiet - his eyes were shadowed and he seemed stricken somehow. Yet he meekly waited for the others to start moving, not drawing any attention to himself.

The face Ella knew all too well crinkled in a sad smile.
"Even now... even when you're terrified, afraid, angry, horrified, all those horrible feelings swirling around inside, you're still so beautiful. And I'd do everything again. That's the worst of it, I think - I know my actions have marked me a monster beyond redemption, I know that I've hurt and killed so many, and I know that I've completely destroyed all hopes that you'll ever feel the same way about me without some...persuasion on my part. But, nevertheless, I would repeat every second to have you with me. Even though it hurts sometimes... with you, it's all worth it."
He leaned back, the light throwing his face into further sharp relief. "But first, my darling... tell me something. Disillusion me. Do you think you could ever love me knowing what I've done?"

Valeria turned slightly. "Your lady?" She questioned with a puzzled expression on her face. After a moment or two, she shrugged her shoulders. "I suppose we could make time." She looked at the others. "Right?"

Elyan had a dubious expression on his face.
"I'm not so sure about that."
He turned back to Arton.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but we don't have a whole lot of time for sightseeing. If we're going to see this lady of yours, we'll need a pretty good reason to make the time."
His expression darkened as he thought about Ella's captivity and Mathuriel's condition.
"We're running out of time...in fact, I just hope we're not too late already."

Elyan glanced towards "Wolfman" with a wry smile.
"Down, boy."
He looked back at Arton with a more serious expression.
"Well, you got me there. It's not every day that a goddess wants to talk to us, so I'd say that's worth making some time for. I'm game."
He then looked towards Valeria.
"It sounds like you're up for this, so I won't bother asking."
He turned his attention to Mathuriel and Allora.
"What about you two? You wanna see what this goddess has to say?