Dana, Igna, Eodora, Lisa and Jeffrey plodded on for what seemed like hours. Dana noticed that after the initial attack, they saw neither hide nor hair of Astara's demon soldiery. Was Astara reserving her forces for a massive battle, or had she already given up? Dana did not care. She knew Astara's doom was certain.
"What's that?" said Igna, the most sensitive of the group to magic.
Dana paused. There was a faint cracking, as if the will which had made and maintained this world as what it was now was faltering. Everyone in the party noticed, just out of the corner of their eyes, a wavering, as if their environment was uncertain, hesitating between what it was, what it is, and what it could be.
"Astara has been challenged. She is weakening. She knows her doom is inescapable" Dana said, with a confidence that made the rest shudder. What if after this world, Dana wants mine? Igna thought, and she somehow knew that the giant lioness that had formerly been Prince Eodor was thinking the same thing.
Lisa thought no such thing--her confidence in the ability of her goddesses to defend their world was absolute. Rather she was reveling in the power, responsiveness and femininity of her new body, which longed for battle.
Jeffery, whose burns had been healed by a snap of the fingers from Dana, cared not for the fate of worlds, but only for his own. Mostly, he just wanted this to be over and Astara defeated, so he could make a new life on Igna's world, hopefully far away from those who remembered him as an impostor.
"There." said Dana, pointing in the direction of a faint outline of a building, just becoming visible over the horizon. "Astara's palace."