2018-01-13: Dead and Dreaming

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This scene continues from 2018-01-12: Vorthuzahl's Prize.


==============================<* Hadal Temple *>==============================

The Hadal Temple's entranceway rests at the deepest recess of the Wayside Qanat, beyond what was once the site of the Guardian Statue of Water. The ground is cold and clammy, slicked with ice past this point, and the temperature takes a deep plunge as the air starts to puft up with bouquets of frost. A menacing depth awaits you beyond this point, taking you to the realm of the Detestable and its Deep Soldiers...

<Pose Tracker> Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has posed.

PREVIOUSLY ON DREAM CHASER MUSH:
        This Thing, inspiring the instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy. It is vaguely anthropoid, with an octopus-like head. A grotesque and disorganised mass of eye-studded feelers writhes underneath, each of them bloated and slothful in how they wriggle and lash. It is a Thing of bloated corpulence, laced with undecipherable characters so remote to any kind of linguistic kinship.

                            ...Call upon my Name...

        It is horrible, because its presence seems so alien, suggestive of unhallowed cycles of life in which Filgaia has taken no part.

        Yet, it is perhaps more horrible... because it so clearly contradicts that notion, drawing from concepts the human mind can comprehend. The crest of Muse shines upon a fixture on its forehead. This is no alien thing. This... is a creature of Filgaia.

                         ...and walk beyond the Ley...

        It sups upon the very point of light that it cradles upon, bulging and gluttonous feeding upon the very planet's lifeblood as it has for so long. And it has awoken, now.

        There is a strangeness in the air, a genuinely abysmal antiquity that touches the eye and glimpses archaic vistas towards it. The sensation of crawling insects and writhing worms dig at the back of the mind. It abandons all thought of callous rationalism. Five hundred years of recorded human knowledge seems dim in its bluish surface of implacable presence. Its sensations encroach upon all senses -- in vision, in sound, in taste, scent and upon the mind and soul...

        Drifters.

        It squirms and ratchets across the pieces of the broken lake, and perhaps for many assembled here, they first receive the sensation of having a full ensemble of a thousand eyes gazing upon them.

        As it were, as it always shall be. Time and time again... the dance of destruction and rebirth continues without end...

        It flashes, and the Ley Point begins to thrive with a tortured, twisted emanation. Those with magical senses can feel the warping power skewing and draining -- and those that have Mediums on their persons can feel them throbbing, as if the very Guardians were afraid. And then-- the unthinkable happens.

        But you are wounded. You have battled the might of myths seldom told. It would be... a trifle to deal with you as you are now. Unsporting.

        Jacqueline and others who have studied the Crest Sorcery alignments know -- Muse is also the alignment of healing. And... healing is exactly what pours out, of lifefonts of water that erupt around the Drifters. But... is this a trap? Do you dare accept healing from an unknowable being that taunts you?

                                      ~*~

The Primarch is ensconced in an overwhelming shell of raw Leyline power -- it's
clear that coming even in close contact with it is going to be highly damaging,
 if not outright lethal. Conventional ARMs, weapons and spells are going to be
        ineffective... you will need to think of a solution... quickly.
                                                                               
                             TURNS UNTIL DOOM: 0/3

DC: 1 turn has elapsed in the battle against Primarch of Muse -Rahab-! 4 turns remain!
DC: 2 turns have elapsed in the battle against Primarch of Muse -Rahab-! 3 turns remain!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

        Riesenlied can scarce catch up with what had happened -- on the one hand, she'd sensed a similar situation happening with Harken that she'd encountered in Lacour. She was -- struggling with something, losing control in a way she'd uncomfortably seen before. She and Noeline suspected Alhazred of wrongdoing, but nothing had come of it. And... it seemed that Jack's influence upon her was more than just mere coincidence -- just what had happened between those two? It was perplexing...

        But before she can even cope with everything else -- she sees Ida's power, as she gathers the strength of the Lotus and strikes Vorthuzahl, having freshly embraced the Ember Catalyst and transformed into a Dragonlord, blasting him forth and back towards the Ley Point...

        ...and the ice had broken. That which has slept dreamless for centuries has now... risen...

        She can immediately feel Rahab's presence in her mind -- and she dives down from Muni-Muni, her wings spreading as she drops towards safe footing. She finally detaches the attache-case she's been carrying -- and the Fallen Sword within floats in the air, shimmering with the same photonic energies as that of her Dragon's Tear.

        "Jacqueline, everyone!" she calls out to the one she'd been collaborating to research the Primarch, "I will-- I will buy us some time and create a field to ward its influences off... but I'll need you to..."

        She holds onto her forehead, gasping and wincing. It was a pressure unlike she'd felt before, something truly uncanny and terrifying. But she gathers her soul and places her hands upon the crystalline sword...

        ... and a dome of indefatigable light-energy blossoms outwards once more -- a calming, empathic sensation that helps to ward off the most aggressive and invasive of the Primarch's influences, to whoever stands within the consecrated field. And within this, Riesenlied's concentration is such that she seems unresponsive, floating within the shield as she is...

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

        Meanwhile, outside... A great big Z is projected into the clouds. A Z...!? What could that mean?

What... could that mean...?

It means but one thing and one thing only. It means... IT MEANS...!

It means that the earth, the sky, the sea, the stars, they call out for justice- for salvation- for A Hero to appear!

Unfortunately, they'll just have to settle... For This Guy.

Something drops out of one of the holes in the ceiling. It's... It's...

Well. There's really no point in beating around the bush. It's Zed. There's a mop of green hair on his head and everything. It's about as Zeddy as a Zed can possibly get without doing something ~extreme.~

"Ahahahahaha! Hello everyone! I came as soon as I saw the signal! Sorry I'm late! I was--" Zed pauses, turning slowly to stare at the enormous tentacle monster suspended in its embryonic sac of pure, watery essence. "Oh. Oh."

It's the thing that drove Dva insane...! "Riese!" Zed calls, drawing the cursed blade from its grand sheath, "Riese, how the heck do I stab it!?"

Well. At least you've got another set of hands.

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

Leon Albus is half-crouched over, after the last blow he took from Lady Harken. He stares after her, at first, his breathing heavy and uneven. He isn't ready for more battle. He feels the way his side is cut into; feels the weakness there. He has little left in the tank for the Quarter Knight. He has far less for an eldritch horror. His head turns, eyes widening as he looks at the Primarch. The bluish thing, unspeakable, sends thoughts of spiders crawling over him.

His teeth set, as he feels the offer. He is a soldier, first and foremost, and the idea of being here without healing... it is unthinkable. Blue light swims around him, the wound begins to vanish from his side -- and he stands up, again, Argent Divider lifted. Riesenlied projects a field out, a consecrated ground of golden light that keeps that ethereal blue at bay.

He stares at it, then he looks up at Zed. He sighs, a little.

Then, he levels Argent Divider towards it, and the weapon's blade telescopes back up. The barrels snap into place, and he fires a shotgun shell at the Primarch, for the sheer uselessness of it.

His eyebrows knit, and he frowns. "...Fat lot of good it'll do, though. Does anyone have a brilliant plan!?"

GS: Leon Albus has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Shotgun Blast!
GS: Leon Albus has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a glancing hit from Leon Albus's Shotgun Blast for 120 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        Give her a small share of power. Under the circumstances, with one unknowable foe below them in the lake it watches undreaming plotting waiting and two more yet through the chamber -- to say nothing of the assembled threat that could arise from the Drifters, to say nothing of the ship, lending her some force to at least attempt to down one of their foes is a simple matter.

        From behind the face-concealing plate, he watches her as she strikes the dragon. To Loren, the technique is familiar.
        Shevite, he thinks, blood running cold. He's just assisted one of them.
        And given his armor, his technique, she must know exactly what he is.

        As horrible this thought might be -- and the consequences he knows must await -- it's Ida's sudden reappearance (his own awareness a thing thing) and the realization of what she must be doing now, pinning her own lifeforce as weight behind this strike and
        then time slows to a crawl as Vorthuzahl slams into the Ley Point
        then time and everything else freezes, a long thin-spun moment wherein Loren doesn't think anything. Doesn't breath. Doesn't.

        The explosion returns sense as well as time. Lifting his arm and ducking his head, the shockwave is enormous, sending him skidding backwards. The whole chamber is alight with the flare of it.
        He doesn't see what's happened to Ida or Vorthuzahl.

        The ice cracks from the heat. This, Loren sees underfoot as the way opens creaking on its hinges a wide sucking writhe of ice; he scrambles backwards, abandoning the ice for more stable ground. In his bones and pinned through his awareness, he knows.
        He's already known.

        "It's here," he utters aloud, the first words he's said in anyone's presence since arriving in this chamber.

        The chain is drawn taut.

        But the chain does not break.

        The chain crumbles into ash.

        The thing slowly emerges from the frozen sea.
        He lifts his head and looks at it, arms dropping to hang loose at his sides.

        It doesn't so much speak as insinuate itself further into his brain, one curling tendril at a time this is not the first it is not the last.
        An offer is made. He takes one slow step forward.

        Then stops. In the kit at his side the Medium trembles, as if the stone -- the Guardian it is tied to -- were shuddering in abject terror. Connection, realization, shock -- all follow one another quickly. He looks away, averting his eyes from the Primach as pain once again blooms behind his eyes.

        "Don't-- look at it!"

        He can't accept an offer like that. Instead he makes his own counter-offer. Loren takes a breath, burning ether in a bright burst of hard-angled green lines, spreading across the battlefield and rooting themselves deep. They work into his own flesh, mending the damage Vorthuzahl had rendered. He takes another breath.

        And... now what.

        He doesn't look at it, standing there on the shoreline. Crest Sorcery is not something he knows in any detail -- few people would stoop to even studying the theory in Solaris -- but he doesn't need to know the specifics of that magic method to know two things about that wall it's powering.

        It's effectively atop a Ley Point, absorbing energy directly from Filgaia.
        The barrier is like nothing else he's seen, and if there's one thing he's an adept at controlling...

        He starts moving along the shoreline, off at a clip. Everything reeks of Water element in here. So, to think of basic elemental theory: what counters water? ...It's not much use either, to be honest.
        But thinking of elemental theory spurs a flash of insight. He has an idea -- the explosive device, still in his bag -- but where to use it? Is there something he could reach to bring down a section of the cavern?
        Maybe it's possible to bury under several tons of rock.

GS: Loren Voss has attacked Loren Voss with Healing Order!
GS: Loren Voss has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Healing Order!
GS: Loren Voss has attacked Lily Keil with Healing Order!
GS: Loren Voss has completed his action.
GS: Loren Voss heals Loren Voss! He gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Loren Voss heals Lily Keil! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

PREVIOUSLY ON DREAM CHASER MUSH

Fei Fong Wong got assbeat by Harken and had a flashback as the Primarch came. See the log if you want to know more about how this is completely the Elw's fault!

NOW

Fei Fong Wong opens his eyes. He stands himself up, rubbing at his head. Let him in, cut his little puppet strings inside Fei blinks at the creature. The Crest of Muse, Fei thinks.

Fei looks at the Primarch. He stares at it. He saw a vision, once again.He saw this, didn't he?

"Eheh...." Fei starts laughing. Has he finally gone mad. He leans back, fanning out his arms from side to side, laughing hysterically like Gig on a good day. "Hehehahaha! Leon! This is hilarious!"

He looks towards his friend and smiles at him. "That thing... that thing is no elder god, it's no ancient thing...!" Few people could look at something from the Metal Demon Wars and say that that isn't ancient.

He jabs a finger in its direction, grinning wildly. "It's just a science experiment that the Elw thought up! A failed experiment!"

Blood drips all around Fei's forehead. He has been stabbed in the gut. He's barely able to stand, so it's a wonder how he has energy to laugh like this. It's so funny that he can't stop laughing.

It's so funny that tears are spilling down his cheeks. One splots on his hand and Fei stops, suddenly, looking at it.

He seems surprised its there. He stares for a moment before swinging out a hand and launching a chi blast for the crest, it's even designed to punch through barriers like that, but there's barriers and then there's this.

"We have to disrupt its connection to the Crest of Muse, one way or another." Fei suggests to Leon. "Or we could try freezing it with all the water around or..."

He considers for a moment.

"...Rig the ship up and ram it?"

Healing fills him but not from the beast. He refuses to accept that kind, but he doesn't have much of a choice when it comes from Loren.

He blinks at Loren in shock before walking backwards a bit. "...He's here too..."

He frowns for a moment, mildly agitated, but he focuses on the task at hand. Loren is calling him slightly (only slightly) less than the so-called elder god.

Instead he tries taunting.

"You're just some experiment that lost its use ages ago. We don't need you to deal with Metal Demons, we don't need you to deal with anything, so why don't you fuck off?? Stop acting like you're absorbing some kind of wisdom from the sources of power you're leeching from!"

GS: Loren Voss heals Fei Fong Wong! He gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline had initially intended to aid Riesenlied and the others in their fight against the Metal Demons they met deep beneath the earth. However, while she was trying to move forward, she and Matilda had found an obstruction they hadn't expected. The advance scout, Yarobeleedt, had descended upon them, and in their fight and the avalanche that had occurred they had been separated from the others.

It is only as the Thing, the Primarch of Muse, Rahab, awakens that Jacqueline rejoins them.

It is, in a way, indescribably awful. Almost alien, but...that Crest. She knows that Crest. Indeed, there are Graphs in her pouch that bear that same Crest. It is a symbol of Filgaia, and only a creature of Filgaia would bear that Crest.

She looks upon it in awe and horror. She had been studying for this very moment, and yet as she stands before it now she felt wholly unprepared to deal with it. And yet...it speaks to her. Speaks into her mind, with that feeling as if something is writhing inside her head. In her bags, the Earth Medium throbs. It is as if Grudiev himself is shivering in terror...

And it offers healing...

She expected this, in a way. Muse is the alignment of healing. Perhaps that is what its regenerative properties stemmed from. But to accept healing from this creature...

"Don't listen to it! That thing can't be trusted! Its power comes at too great a cost!" Jacqueline shouts, then glances toward Riesenlied with a nod.

"Understood." She replies, then reaches into her pouch for a Crest.

"Everyone, this creature has been gorging itself on the lifeblood of Filgaia! The Leylines... It's situated atop one of them now. If we are to have any hope of stopping it, we will need to remove it from the source of its power!" With that said, Jacqueline draws forth a Crest.

She had been researching a way to stop this creature, to prevent it from draining power from the Leypoint. Unfortunately, in her research, she had found that there was no known precedence for something like this happening, for a creature to attach itself to the Leyline directly like this...

She would have to use her own instinct to deal with this situation.

The Crest she draws bears the crest of Geo. It was the alignment she utilized the most. To defeat a creature aligned with Muse in its own domain...perhaps the only answer she could come up with was to try and challenge it with a different element, one she hoped could combat it.

Jacqueline invokes the Crest, and the earth beneath her seems to shift and churn...suddenly, tendrils of earth shoot out from around her, seeking to pierce and pry into Leyline barrier in hopes of creating an opening. They will also provide her some cover from attacks it might try.

GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Geo Grasp!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a glancing hit from Jacqueline Barber's Geo Grasp for 72 hit points!
GS: Jacqueline Barber takes Cover! She gains 50 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

        Somehow they did it, Noeline thinks. Harken drops almost down to one knee; her composure shattered, the Quarter Knight can only yell and rant in an almost incoherent manner before the fuzz of teleportation indicates that she's getting out of dodge. If she had to guess, the demon would blame Alhazred - Harken isn't really the sort to retreat if left to her own devices - but the actual details are kind of elementary. They've repelled a Quarter Knight, and earned a very temporary reprieve.

        That means they'll be back later with more of them, she thinks dully, her attention drifting in the miasmic haze of the cavern. She's tired, and that makes it oh-so-easier to indulge the swirling thoughts, a muted note of warning sounding in the back of her head as she reaches a dim awareness that they're not fully her own. Automatically rebelling at that thought, she latches onto the truth as hard as she can: they've succeeded. If only for the moment, they've kept Wayside - and its only means of escape - safe. The thought lets her focus her mind a little better as she hauls herself to her feet.

        She's more aware than most how hurt the Photosphere's pride will be at the fact the Tainted are protecting the Guardians, at the thought of the Tainted beating a Quarter Knight. The only thing that's kept them safe thus far are the presence of Guardian Statues in the region, and the number of unsealed Statues is running out. Walking away from Wayside simply isn't an option at this point, not when your enemy can teleport wherever they please and you have wounded and children to think of. The idea of standing and fighting against all four Quarter Knights at once, just as suicidal an option. Logistically, this is all they've got.

        But it's safe.

        Also, the ground is heaving and tearing, the world is swimming around them, and the heaving, twisting bulk of the Primarch is scraping across both the ground and the surface of their minds. ... it's almost comical, the way Noeline stares dumbfounded, accepting it as if it were just another hallucination.

        Then her eyes widen, and she makes a choked, strangling noise before Riesenlied's empathic field washes over the assembled Drifters. "Shit!" she blurts, not terrifically eloquent compared to normal, and snaps her head up to check her partner - unresponsive, in the midst of said field. Damn it. "--Devet! Get word above! Get the people above ready to evacuate!" she calls over the din into her earpiece, squinting as she tries desperately to rebuild her mental defences.

        Despite herself, and without realizing, she's running forwards. Fatique doesn't stop a Metal Demon for long, after all. One shoulder slams into one of the pillars Jacqueline's set up, Noeline throwing herself against it for cover; she throws out a hand, and twin beeps answer as Trouble and Strife fearlessly sweep around in a wide circle, peppering the Primach with light fire. It can't hope to do anything to a creature that massive, but it's more to try to gather the creature's attention rather than anything more concrete.

        Heeding the warning of one of the Drifters, her glance around the edge of the pillar is as brief as she can make it, and even that is enough to send her vision to static for a moment. "--Jay! Can you sever that connection to the Leyline?--" she tries to yell above the sudden din, and even as she says it her expression shows that she realizes how ridiculous that sounds.

GS: Noeline has attacked Noeline with Covering Fire!
GS: Noeline takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Noeline has completed her action.
GS: Noeline heals Noeline! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Sever the connection to the who and the what now!?" Zed looks about as utterly clueless as Zed can be expected to be. "I have a sword! It can cut things! You wanna think I should try!?"

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily Keil is on the ground again, half-kneeling, drawing in ragged breaths. The shields that Riesenlied gave her have helped, but fighting Lady Harken like this has taken a lot out of her; nothing about the Quarter Knight has abated in strength since the last time she saw her. What is different about her, Harken asked? What is not the same? ...Lily can think of many answers.

"I'm not here to answer your questions," she says instead, darkly, calmly, without emotion. "I'm here to kill you." The darkness is comforting in that way; between its power and the brilliance of the light, she can block out the rest as she presses her assault... Until Harken has her fit, and blasts outward with that strange power.

Lily finds herself in that place, on the ground, half-kneeling, bloody. ...Elly's help does some for her, but her injuries so far are great, and they are not all physical. And now, the ice has broken. It has risen, or they have fallen to meet it. The crest shines; Lily is no expert in Crest Sorcery, but the feeling it puts off is good enough, and she feels as if she has been plunged into cold water, her senses dulling for an instant except with its sensations. There are things crawling all over her and she cannot move stares unblinking forward the eyes are upon her watching eyes noting her reactions threatening to engulf her

Lily feels the power, and it screams in her ears; she does not notice the strangled cry she makes in the assault of her senses, in time with the Medium throbbing on her person. ...The healing pours out. Lily cannot breathe, cannot find Leon near her. Blue light swims around her; she cannot close herself to it, and she too is a soldier, above all else she must have the strength to fight. Her wounds begin to vanish utterly, even her clothing restoring itself somehow, sleeves covering skin again. And then Riesenlied's field of light spreads again, and Lily can see with her eyes again, shaking her head. "You..."

Loren's magic is unmistakable to her however. She turns, staring, in his direction. She cannot recognize his face, of course, but she knows Ether when she feels it. ...So as Fei calls out his findings, his memories, Lily looks to the creature and then away, considering... Ether. Magic like hers. Maybe...

Her mind is raw, but she slips backward as she rises, gathering up her power and taking a breath. First--test the theory. Lily raises her hands. Noeline mentions the idea of severing the connection, so as Jay works on opposing it, Lily focuses, charges within herself, and heat begins to rise. ...It's easy, to draw on this power, having heard Loren's voice. Easy to consider it. So she lets it fill her, and then suddenly--

She throws out her hand, and a burst of power erupts--and becomes a beam of golden light, pointed straight for the start of the leyline where it becomes visible, nuclear fire set to destabilize just for a few key moments--if she can do it. If she can interrupt the connection--

Even if she can't, she lets the recoil propel her backwards... Where she lands beside Loren.

"You," she says, her voice dripping cold. "...The only way I see out of this is working together. Unless you happen to have more of that drug on you."

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Alphashock!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a glancing hit from Lily Keil's Alphashock for 66 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Guided Shot!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes 9 damage from Poison!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a glancing hit from Fei Fong Wong's Guided Shot for 55 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.

 
POINT XX, NINE MILES NORTH BY NORTHEAST OF WAYSIDE VILLAGE AND ON THE OTHER SIDE OF A RIDGE

The Hounds of Hell Foot Cavalry had been enjoying skewered meat. At the sight of a dragon hurled bodily out of a crevice in what had been heretofore considered to be "barren hillock #9," one of them drops their skewer gently. (Another Hound catches it.)

"By the Goddess!" exclaims one rugged older man.

"Don't see that every day," says a guy in a greased and glistening leather jacket and not a lot else.

"I do," says a short woman in tights, who catches the dropped skewer.

MARGARET, THE BLACK PEARL OF NEO-VANE, slow-blinks. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"So do we," say the assembled.

"I'm going to check it out," she states, straightening upright.

There is murmur, but a slow dawning of the plan, familiar patterns and habits expressing themselves in subtle shortcuts, ripples across the double handful of grizzled veterans of Neo-Vane. Consensus is reached, and the man in the glistening jacket says, "So you'll be going on ahead." "And we'll be bringing up the rear," says the older man. "Mmpgh," says the hungry short woman.

"That is it EXACTLY!" Margaret says. She reaches with her unbandaged arm for her naginata. "Starlight--"

A FEW MOMENTS LATER

As the other Hounds strap up, the short woman points her skewer up at the sky. "What's with the big Z?"

DISTRESSINGLY QUICKLY AFTER THAT

There is a small crash near one of the holes in the vast roof looming darkly above the Hadal Temple. There are a series of streaking, sparkling leaps and jumps with intermingling THOOMs and kra-KRASHes. They are of course probably pretty small potatoes compared to THAT.

And it is THAT that attracts the attention of the Black Pearl of Neo-Vane. The unholy touches of some nasty thing that has gnawed the Blue Star since time immemorial, the tainted grasp and cling and suction of this MANIFESTATION makes the small of her back tighten up, makes her ears flatten back as if she's facing a howling tiger or screaming monster.

Then the figures near it - their postures screaming of fatigue and determination - come into focus to the sharp eyed gaze of Margaret. For a moment she had considered hesitation, withdrawal, regrouping. The consideration vanishes without leaving a trace behind it.

Besides, Margaret rationalizes to herself as she takes the last curving stretch of pathway down, riding the fading starlight around her feet for a final power-slide onto the scene: They'll remember this one.

OR, FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE ASSEMBLED, a woman with a spear and too much scented oil on just skidded in out of nowhere.

BGM INSERTION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBcDoZnN8ac

Margaret's head snaps to look alertly at Jacqueline as she explains something and is also helpfully not a horror of the cosmos. Margaret breathes in and out steadily to keep herself centered, cracking wise afterwards, "Is this why there's so much sand, then? I'd been wondering."

Tossing her hair back, Margaret hears someone cry out in dismay. But that person, that Noeline, has also given her cause to think. "Severing connections like that...? It's an ambitious plan, but do you think you have the tools at your disposal?" She rests her weapon across her shoulders then.

"... Did she just mention evacuation? Well, shit," Margaret mutters, to herself if in a theatrical way. Then her voice lifts up again. "There's a dozen mages coming behind me, but this is completely outside of our experience! I'm at your disposal, M--"

Margaret's voice goes back down again. "Oh," she says, "it's you." Her head tilts to the side when a burst of searing golden light erupts around her, brow furrowing as Lily gets a double-take.

<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Matilda continues to stick with Jay, taking a few moments to breathe and recenter herself. Unlike Jay, she sees nothing in the crest; she's not a student of magic -- indeed, she's never shown any facility for the subject. She stands mutely for a few moments, though, as it whispers darkness into the back of every mind nearby.

She feels... disoriented. The world spins a little, space feeling just a little bit off -- but Matilda drives one booted foot into the ground with some force, as if trying to dispel it and retrieve a more normal awareness. ... It's hard to tell if it works -- even for her.

She takes a moment to just... attempt to understand the creature, trying to figure out how to even approach it. It stares back. She reels again, but as others attempt to strike out at it, she joins in the work in short order.

Fei calls it a science experiment -- something from the Elw? She... doesn't know what to make of it, truthfully. But that does tell her the same thing that those skilled with sorcery already know -- it is a creature of Filgaia...

... and it can be shot.

GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Simple Pistol!
GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a glancing hit from Matilda Whitehead's Simple Pistol for 49 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has posed.

Zed emerges from yet another hole in the ceiling, perhaps the sixth in Wayside to have erupted now. At this point in time, a 50-foot dragon flying out of a hole underground to disappear into the distance is probably business as usual for Mikaia... But the presence of the cursed blade draws Rahab's attention. There is a deep, rich chuckle from the Primarch.

        A strange weapon for a strange Demon. Why do you toy with such artifacts, fiend?

        He accentuates that with a sting of Muse-powered crest magic -- icicle shards spraying through the sky with no effort to attempt to shred Zed.

        Leon levels Argent Divider, and showers a blast that seemingly is seeped into the field of power -- each individual pellet from the shotgun shell warps and dissipates into the Leyline. It draws the Primarch's attention towards him. A feeler, laced with a gorge of eyes, stares... and it speaks once more.

        So. Soldiers exist even today. Unsurprising, that the nature of mankind has not changed one bit. Tell me, soldier... which country do you fight for? What is your cause?

        ... and where the shotgun pellets once disappeared -- they suddenly fling back against him. They are shaped such that they behave exactly like how an ARM would perform. Is... is the Primarch taunting Leon, shaping its attack with something he would be familiar with?

        Loren draws the beast's attention when he crests the shoreline and begins running -- and his thoughts seem to pique his interest as well, as it observes his healing ether. Fascinating. A massive feeler moves to block his path, eyes gazing like pinpricks upon him.

        You are unlike these others. You hold station and purpose. Yet what has it brought you? Do you pride yourself on your education? Good...

        There is a mocking, rumbling laugh, unsettling if only for the lack of presence of a mouth for it to come out of. Like it comes straight to the soul.

        You have become useful.

        Shards upon shards of ice attempt to box Loren in, crafted from multiple Crests manifested from the air. Is the creature attempting to... imprison him? Use him for some purpose?

        Fei demonstrates well his knowledge of the past, as he glimpses upon visions beyond his lifespan. How he manages it, the Primarch does not quite know -- yet it is intriguing nonetheless. If there is ever any motion of irritation from this inhuman being, it would be then.

        How many failed experiments does it take to doom the world?

        A grand crest emerges in the very ground underneath Fei. Move fast, for powerful spires of primeval ice will be erupting from within that mandala that comes direct from the Primarch's source of power...

        How many generations will it take for you to realise what you collectively do to the world?

        Well, if it's taunted and angry, it would seem that it is working...

<Pose Tracker> Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has posed.

Jacqueline is perhaps the most learned, though Fei more correctly guesses the background of this creature, of how to deal with this problem. Crest Sorcery is her domain, and she is of the dominant element -- Geo sups upon the power of Muse and is strengthened by it, much like how the soil grows in the presence of abundant water.

        Yet, even as Jacqueline summons her earth pillars to provide cover for herself and to push further into the barrier...

        You wield great power, Crest Sorceress. But you pay homage to a greater power than yourself -- of Grudiev, Guardian of Earth... and you must feel his fear. What chance do you have, when the power that sustains the world itself fears?

        Once more, he accentuates that with something Rahab has inflicted upon Jacqueline once -- an eight-sided attack that seeks to trap her inside one of his ice coffins, with a deep reflection of the unpleasant within...

        But at the same time, it is undeniable he seeks to stop her. Her powers over Geo do have a foothold -- as the barrier begins to flicker, ever so softly. But it will take greater power...

        Noeline may have been spared the full wrath of the Quarter Knight and a newly christened Metal Dragon, but her troubles are not over. Devet whimpers as she exclaims, "Y-yeah, the others are already in place to do so! I'm getting out of here, but-- but don't die, okay?!"

        She gives a salute towards Zed as well as Muni-Muni reluctantly flies up and out of a hole in the ceiling, not wanting to leave its master behind... but Riesenlied is simply not speaking anymore, so focused in cocnentration as she is. Trouble and Strife peppers the Primarch with covering flame, and in the midst of it, it brings up barriers of frost to repel the offense.

        How abnormal. Demons who stand with humans? This is beyond even a poor jest. A fundamentally incompatible existence. Have you truly found answers to the most difficult questions? Or is your cause doomed from the start?

        There is a rasping laugh as the pillars that Noeline hide behind begin to freeze -- and it would not be long before they explode, much like explosives. She'd best run.

        Lily accepts the healing that Rahab offers. Much like Leon, she is a soldier, and a soldier needs strength to fight. It is an attitude and mindset that the Primarch can humour, and often does. It is that instinct in humans -- the instinct of fight and flight -- that makes them so fascinating, after all...

        ... and he can find something to work with, here.

        Am I truly the one you despise right now?

        It does not need to say more at this point in time. That question is shaped so piercingly, to hit at the very focal point of all Lily is... to feed upon that weakness that he sees in her.

        But at the same time, it permits her to fire with all her might into that Ley Point. Flame -- nuclear flame -- begins to shift and mutate into a form that permeates the normally blue point of Muse... and while it does not affect the connection, the Primarch...

        ...shifts hue for a moment. It flickers. Huh. Did it do something?

        Margaret appears with one of her patented dramatic entrances. The power of Thunder Road allows her to safely traverse even the hostile environment of Hadal Temple as she descends and joins the fight proper, perhaps a welcome sight to the battered Drifters who reject the power of healing Rahab offers. It isn't long until that same hostile environment starts to shower her with icicles around where Noeline's pillar exploded.

        You flock like a swarm of cuccos, ever since ancient times. How many more are there? It will not matter. Numbers shall not save you.

        Matilda's pistol sends a loud 'POP' through the air, and a feeler of the largely immobile Primarch's mass. It stares back towards her, moreso than the feeling of paranoia it inspires within her. Much like Lily, it feels something within Matilda, in the way she reacts to it... how amusing...

        Is this world worth saving? You have sacrificed much. What have you gained?

        It's weaselly words -- purposefully vague -- but ensconced in its presence, it seeks to get a foothold on anything it can find...

GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Leon Albus with Shotgun Ice!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Loren Voss with Ice Coffin!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Ice Coffin!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Lily Keil with Feed upon Weakness!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Feed upon Weakness!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Grand Freeze!
DC: 3 turns have elapsed in the battle against Primarch of Muse -Rahab-! 2 turns remain!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Zed with High Freeze!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Noeline with High Freeze!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Margaret with High Freeze!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

A slight gap has opened upon the Leyline barrier -- and though attacks have not
 been effective, perhaps this new opening is what the Drifters need to proceed
    and truly give harm upon the Primarch itself. And at the same time, the
Primarch is flickering with an iridescent hue from time to time. What might it
                                   portend?
                                                                               
                             TURNS UNTIL DOOM: 1/3

GS: Zed takes a glancing hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s High Freeze for 81 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Leon Albus takes a glancing hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s Shotgun Ice for 71 hit points!
GS: Poison and Mute! Statuses applied to Leon Albus!
GS: Noeline takes a solid hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s High Freeze for 158 hit points!
GS: Jacqueline Barber critically Guards a hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s Ice Coffin for 22 hit points!
GS: Jacqueline Barber enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil critically Guards a hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s Feed upon Weakness for 38 hit points!
GS: Poison and Mute! Statuses applied to Lily Keil!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- drains Lily Keil! Primarch of Muse -Rahab- gains 38 temporary hit points!
DC: MISS! Margaret completely evades High Freeze from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-!
GS: Matilda Whitehead takes a glancing hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s Feed upon Weakness for 88 hit points!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- drains Matilda Whitehead! Primarch of Muse -Rahab- gains 107 temporary hit points!
GS: Matilda Whitehead enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Loren Voss takes a glancing hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s Ice Coffin for 57 hit points!
GS: Break and Slow! Statuses applied to Loren Voss!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s Grand Freeze for 103 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Matilda's grip on her weapon turns white-knuckled as the creature before her whispers into her mind, teases at every dark feeling in the pit of her stomach. She reels back a

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Riesenlied's floating form is so terribly close to the presence of the Primarch itself -- yet she hovers with a strength that does not so much seem to exude from her body... as it does the very air. She struggles, incandescent as motes of photons continue to escape from her form, literally shaving away her very lifeforce as she struggles to hold strong the shield that would help them resist the major influences of the Primarch...

        In her trance, she can sense those that are in danger, seemingly so far away, even if they are beside her.

        Traced upon the very air are lines that form a complex mandala, creating ablative barriers that both sustain against the more physical powers of the Primarch's ice spells... and hopefully, though she cannot be sure if it reaches or not -- more mental fortitude to resist...

        Within the depths of the trance, her support does not come in understandable words. It sounds more like a... song, ever so faint, yet strengthening. A song, made to soothe even a raging giant.

GS: Riesenlied has attacked Noeline with Rising Heart - 'Seek the New World'!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Rising Heart - 'Seek the New World'!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Margaret with Rising Heart - 'Seek the New World'!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Rising Heart - 'Seek the New World'!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
GS: Riesenlied heals Jacqueline Barber! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
GS: Riesenlied heals Fei Fong Wong! He gains 200 temporary hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Riesenlied heals Margaret! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Rieeese," Zed calls, craning his head over-- "Riese I could really use some guidance right n--oh you're busy okay I guess I'll just have to do this myself. Uh." His gaze snaps right back to the thing with way too many tenticles and way, WAY too many eyes. "Wow," Zed says as the thing somehow, inexplicably, undulates in such a way that actually chains together into sensible diction. "You are even uglier than the last time I saw you. Ahahahahahaaaayou have so many eyes, how do you keep them from getting dry down here-"

He's suspended in a field of pure Muse energy, Zed. It's probably like floating in a bubble of visine. That must be hugely convenient! Not convenient: having to dodge a barrage of icicles from the sky.

"Wha- hey!" Zed gawps, dodging and weaving through the uncomfortable lethal tempest. Shards of hypersharp ice carve into his bodysuit when he can't avoid them-- even the greatest warrior would find it hard-pressed to dodge between raindrops after all-- sending little rivulets of liquid metal dripping from fresh wounds.

But... something the thing says... draws Zed's attention. "Artifacts?" Zed blinks. "What. You mean The Dread Zauber - Doom Bringer?" He frowns, staring at the sword inquisitively, "What are you... What do you know about my sword, tentacle fie-ow!"

A chunk of ice falls... right onto his head.

It cracks in two, because even solid ice is not nearly as hard as Zed's Head.

"Khhhh, that hurt...!" Zed growls, only winking open an eye to flip a quick wave as Devet gets the hell out of dodge. "Go! We'll handle this. Whatever it might know, it has made a terrible mistake!"

"IT DEIGNED TO BE AN OCTOPUS IN THE PRESENCE OF I, ZED, WHOSE SWORD IS THE SHARPEST BLADE!"

The Metal Demon roars as he leaps, charging boldly through the frigid storm. His gaze is fixed on... something. Some slim, insignificant gap in the creature's defenses. Or rather, a slim, insignificant gap... in the planetary vein from which the beast feeds. You see, Zed, in spite of his... eccentricities, is a good listener. He heard everything that monster said. Everything.

"So," he says as Doom Bringer suddenly pulses with terrible, alien energies. "You say the Guardians are afraid of you? Too bad..."

Zed roars. He burns with the a dreadful un-light as he brings his blade down into the pulsating vein splitting up off the Leyline. "I'M NO GUARDIAN! GO, DOOM BRINGER! SEVER IT!"

GS: Zed has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Sealed Blade - Demon Breaker!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a solid hit from Zed's Sealed Blade - Demon Breaker for 131 hit points!
GS: Poison! Statuses applied to Primarch of Muse -Rahab-!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

Leon's head turns, slowly, to look at Fei. He makes a concerned face at the crazed laughter, one eyebrow raised. "How do you..." He has learned better than to question, in the moment. Fei is perceptive -- Fei knows things. There is much to Fei Fong Wong, Leon knows, and he knows better than to dismiss him just because he laughs like a madman for a moment. Instead, he looks back at the Primarch of Muse. His eyebrows narrow.

"Sever it from the crest..." He repeats it, considering, and wishes desperately for a moment that he knew a damn thing about magic. He glances sideways to Lily -- and blinks at her, unsure of who she is talking to. He frowns for a moment, before he considers the Gebler combat armor.

"Gebler soldier!" he snaps at Loren. "I suggest you start telling us whatever infernal secrets your people know, before we all die down here!"

Which is when Margaret drops down. He looks at her, then he blinks, and looks back up at Rahab. Which addresses him, speaking into his mind. He gasps -- and leaps to the side, the shotgun's pellets coming back at him. A few slice into his arm and leg, as he doesn't get away in time. He hisses, stumbling, and stares at it.

"No nation," he says. "And my cause--in the face of you, it's putting an end to you. I don't have room for a distraction in this situation."

Still, he is tense -- on edge, and looking nervously in Lily's direction. She is more receptive to such things than he. But, the nuclear flame -- and the rest -- have cracked open a hole in the barrier. He tries to steel himself, even with Riesenlied's song, and then snaps his weapon to the side. Barrels unfold; the longsword telescopes out. He grips it with both hands, before he lunges -- and comes down a little after, and then next to Zed. "Your sword doesn't have ears!" he snaps at Zed. "Save your words for something that can listen!"

He thrusts Argent Divider down -- and a flash of deep red is behind the sword, driving his blade down with a long, wide arc.

GS: Leon Albus has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Riot Crash!
GS: Leon Albus takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Leon Albus has completed his action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a glancing hit from Leon Albus's Riot Crash for 139 hit points!
GS: Riesenlied heals Noeline! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.


Morgan Newkirk was just passing by. Him and his band of merry cutthroats. Out delivering supplies. Ripping off Gebler forces. Poking fun at Aveh. They were just doing what they did best. He had heard rumors of something happening in Wayside though, something lible to give him a headache. Something about lost ships and Metal Demons. So he had come to check out just what all this noise was about.

Well he missed the lost spaceship.

He missed the Metal Demons.

He made it just in time for the elder gods.

"Boss," Sharpe, the sniper of his merry little band drawls as he sees the mighty form of a demon 'thing' feeding directly off the leyline. "That doesn't look like an ancient warship."

"Thank ya for that," Morgan's sardonic response comes as he surveys the mess of the field. Seeing the glowing form of Riese, the flying form of Zed, the angry form of Lily.

Wait he knows that one.

"Oi! Lily!" The foxslinger calls. "I'm gonna guess the plan here is shoot that thing till it stops what its doin', right?"

It's a simple plan, but effective. He's known her to be simple yet effective.

"Sharpe, warm up the toys. The rest of you boys get out of this things range." The fox just grins. "I've been wantin' ta try somethin' new out anyway."

...because he does intend to shoot it. At least shoot where everyone else seems to be shooting.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"I WAS TALKING TO THE SQUID," Zed says as he continues hitting the very lifeforce of the planet with his horribly cursed sword. "I KNOW NOT TO TALK TO MY SWORD, YOU MORON."

"OUR HEARTS ARE CONNECTED. THERE ARE NO NEED FOR WORDS BETWEEN UUUUUUUUUUUUUS!"

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

        If nothing else, the cover gives her a moment to catch her breath, and take better stock of the situation. The spike of fear in her mind actually seems to help, rather than hinder - it's something she can focus on, a problem she can work towards. She steals another glimpse of the creature around the pillar despite the disorientation, as if the sharp fuzzing sensation is reminding her of where to keep her attention directed.

        "--Zed! I don't mean literally! That thing's tied itself to the Leyline! It's not something you can just up and cut--" is about as far as she gets before her jaw automatically hinges shut. She's seem that sword before and she's seen what exactly it can do, even if the answer to that is 'whatever the hell it damn well feels like at the time'. So rather than continue, she just sharply nods instead. "Try whatever you like! Keep it occupied! The others need time to get ready, even if that's all we can provide!"

        Her head snaps around in astonishment as the Black Pearl of Neo-Vane appears on scene; her lips thin as she grimaces for a moment, privately wondering how many other factions are going to choose to show up today. But it only lasts a moment; they all, collectively, have much bigger problems. "--I haven't the faintest idea!" she hoarsely calls back in regards to whether her plan is even mechanically sound, her voice tight with urgency as she shakes her head. "Just-- tear down that thing's barrier as hard as possible, and we'll go from there!"

        She stiffens, sensing more than seeing the crackling ice as it overtakes the pillar; it spreads quickly, much too quickly, and it's only an instinctive dodge backwards that saves her from being rooted fast to the ground and encased in the stuff. Not that it matters; moments later, the stone explodes outwards into an array of violently sharp shards, impacting against her and throwing her backwards. It isn't an attack she can guard, no more than you can guard a shotgun blast, but she still tries, pulling her injured arms up to cover her face. Deja vu, she thinks to herself with a rather manic chuckle.

        And yet... she manages to keep her feet and stay upright, buoyed up by Riesenlied's light as she grits her teeth against the pain, forces herself to tighten her grip on her scythe. The Primach's words roll over her--

        --and she laughs hoarsely in the face of them, trying to shake her mind clear of the fog that spreads in the wake of them. "... is that all you have to say? How boring," she mutters darkly. "For all that wisdom, all you can do is spout the same nonsense I've heard a hundred times before." That black flame billows back along her scythe, spreading directly from her arm; whether the Hades Guardian is quivering in fear or not, she still channels its power, grimacing at the pain blossoming in her limbs. "It's not a matter of answers. It's just a matter of wanting change."

        She rocks backwards for a moment - and then bolts forwards in the wake of Leon and Zed's strikes, Trouble and Strife both winging in to her side to begin a barrage of peppering shots as she tries to harry the creature. "Jay! Lily! We'll keep it where it is! Tear the damn thing apart in the meantime!" she commands, her voice sharp.

GS: Noeline has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Trouble and Strife!
GS: Noeline has completed her action.
DC: Morgan Newkirk switches forms to Gun Slinging Pilot Morgan!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei Fong Wong listens to the Primarch. He's still a little delirious from the blood loss but he does listen. "Yeah... well... Don't get me wrong..." He narrows his eyes, looking away for a moment. "...It's not like I don't recognize it's our own hubris at fault here... but even so..."

He doesn't get to finish his sentence because shortly thereafter, he's frozen...FROZEN IN ICE! Nothing can survive that! That is...

Nobody can survive that so long as they don't shift their chi flow and mix it with fire ether so his body surges with heat and warmth even in these circumstances. The ice that Fei is encased in starts to melt. Slowly at first, then more quickly. He wishes in this moment he could be like Elly, though, and just electrocute the thing--but fire will have to do for right now. It's what he's got.

The ice shatters and Fei drops down into a crouch. This time his attention IS drawn by Loren because both Leon and Lily are chatting him up. He doesn't quite get it at this moment, who he is, but he does recognize that he's Gebler. He better watch out what he says about Elly.

Wouldn't want to blow her cover.

He straightens up, cricks his neck, and then throws himself up into the air and turns himself into what's essentially an exploding fireball as he throws himself at that gap, trying to bust on through or at least make the opening larger with his strike. Somehow, despite being on fire and kind of exploding, Fei just deals with it...

...though even with this fire, his skin is still blue and chilled from the ice freezing around him. It's that c-c-c-cold.

GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Smokin' Fire!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Kakei!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a glancing hit from Noeline's Trouble and Strife for 40 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        He's clearly thinking of something. No one turns and runs off in a particular direction like that unless they have something specific in mind.

        This is a fact that Lily, naturally, notices.

        She lands right alongside him; he skids to a stop and whirls to face her. "What is it? Don't get in my way--"
        Behind the faceplate, he blinks.
        "No," he says simply, answering first the second suggestion she makes.
        The first one takes him a moment longer to answer.

        Others level their weapons at the Primach. The Pilot shouts a claim that this is just some failure of a science experiment of the Elw, from ages long past. If this is a failure imagine the successes. Still standing alongside Lily, he shakes his head. "Idiots. That's not going to work," he says, gaze still averted from the writhing waiting thing. A hard breath escapes his lips.

        And in the face of the unbreakable thing, Loren makes a compromise.
        As Leon shouts at him, no less. "Infernal... fine." Behind the faceplate, Loren rolls his eyes. "I have an explosive device. If we can drop part of the ceiling on it, it might be enough."

        Or it might not be, now that he thinks about it. Wouldn't that be fantastic, dropping the whole complex down unto it, only to watch it come slithing out unfazed unbroken unstoppable of the wreckage.
        Assuming he didn't die pointlessly in the process.

        He's not even looking at it the moment it plunges its way into the depths of his psyche, barely holding back a shudder as it ungently skims the contents. He can feel it; the headache makes a resurgence.

        "What..."
        Did it plan this?

        "...Useful?"

        He reels back as if ripping away from some grasp, hauling back as shard after shard materializes in array around him. It's trying to box him in--

        He dodges back. It was a good dodge.
        It still doesn't stop the prison from fencing him in. One gloved hand reaches for the ice; slips on it. A conjuration of vibrational force follows.
        This won't break easily.

        He turns his attention towards Lily, then undoes the straps linking the additional section of his usual medic's kit from the rest of it.

        "I hope you don't blow us all up," he says, before tossing it over the walls of the prison he's caught in.

        It might be a bad idea. It's probably a bad idea. She's just a Lamb. But time's of the essence, and there's little to spare.
        Focusing, he plants a hand on the ice wall and sinks his focus down into the earth. For a moment, he's a conduit, channeling the pentup forces of the planet. He'll direct them into the walls prison that holds him.
        And hold on to just a little bit of that power for his own.

GS: Loren Voss has attacked Loren Voss with Barrier Prime!
GS: Loren Voss has completed his action.
GS: Loren Voss takes a solid hit from Loren Voss's Barrier Prime for 0 hit points!
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Loren Voss!
GS: Restore! Loren Voss clears debuffs from Loren Voss!
GS: CRITICAL! Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a glancing hit from Morgan Newkirk's Smokin' Fire for 55 hit points!
GS: Cripple! Statuses applied to Primarch of Muse -Rahab-!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

A certain someone appears out of nowhere. A someone Jacqueline had not expected to see here, not at this time. She's momentarily takes back as she looks upon Margaret.

"M-Miss Margaret...?" She comments, surprised. "Well, I don't know for sure, but...it seems likely. It certainly isn't helping matters."

Jacqueline shakes her head.

"If you can offer any assistance, be grateful. But be careful - it will try to get into your head. To turn you against yourself and your allies...do not listen to its lies." She explains.

Jacqueline can see that her Sorcery has had an effect. It was as she thought - the power of Geo was dominant to the power of Muse, therefore, her Sorcery would be effective here. It speaks to her...and attacks. She sees the attack coming - an attack on all sides, to trap her in a coffin of ice and inflict upon her terrible visions.

She finds herself trapped in a coffin of ice.

On all sides, she watches as her friends and allies are slaughtered. Turned against each other, or laid low by the Primarch's Sorcery. Jacqueline falls to her knees, begs for release from this cof

A pillar of earth erupts from the Ice Coffin, shattering through one of its eight sections. Jacqueline can be seen standing upright within, brandishing the Crest with a defiant expression.

"Not this time. I won't fall for that again." Jacqueline says, her voice cold. A moment later, thanks to Riesenlied, a golden barrier surrounds her. This barrier disperses the surrounding ice walls, freeing her completely.

"Of course I feel his fear. I'm trembling right now, myself. I don't know if I can stop you. But...! I have to try. We can't let fear hold ourselves back! We can't let fear stop ourselves from trying to make a better world! Even if it means standing against something greater than ourselves..." Jacqueline replies. In her free hand, her Medium is freely visible.

"And so...Grudiev, I know you're afraid... But I need you right now! Please! Help me unseat our foe from its throne!"

Jacqueline calls upon the Guardian of Earth, and he appears.

The image of a massive saurian creature with crystals upon his back appears behind her. He draws in power...and then, with a wave of his arm raises the earth before him, slamming against the creature's barrier. Not only that, earth is raised around the area, as well, providing platforms to get to higher ground or to be used as cover, as necessary.

GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Material - Titanic Upheaval!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a glancing hit from Fei Fong Wong's Kakei for 153 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.

 
Margaret pieces other things together, somewhat gradually. "It's an experiment? Does that mean there's only one?" she asks Fei, with a sort of tentative hope. Then comes the looming voice of this vasty thing.

Margaret hears that voice. She bares her teeth at the ancient horror.

"Fat talk from a tick buried in the veins of the planet! Whatever foolishness and poor farming practices these people undertake," Margaret says, with a performative heat that belies a cold tension in her heart, "you suck up the power of the world and convert it into - into what, MOLLUSK TURDS?"

Margaret raises her free hand in defiance of the horror and makes herself STARE IT DEAD IN THE EYE, which is, at least, easy to do. Her toes curl in her boots but that isn't clear from the outside. "The Blue Star's people have languished without the light of the Goddess, and in many ways they have suffered... but this star ill needs a savior such as you, preaching such doctrines of despair and calumny! This is the act of a Lord of Calamity, even if your form's unrelated. Perhaps you've lurked here so long..."

"But the blade of the holy axe can fell the most ancient of trees!"

Margaret hopes that one won't be lost on the locals. They do have some trees; she knows, she's seen them. Her eyes flick towards Leon for a moment, then dead ahead as she leans forwards. Riesenlied blesses her with support, and Margaret says with a flick of her hair, "THANK you, my good lady. You've made a good choice. This creature seems dire, but the Black Pearl of Neo-Vane fears no MOLLUSK."

And yet she doesn't run in. Peculiar. She does move with swift surety, getting closer, moving laterally. She watches, quite frankly and shamelessly, as other people make their blows and render their attacks. As she does, she reaches into one pouch on her belt.

(In the background, Elly is not far from Riesenlied and is probably occasionally tossing her a Rosesol. Flavor.)

Margaret's eyes narrow. "So you're connected to this line by way of fortune, are you? What would happen, O Vendor of Deceit, if you were to find your auspices changed...?"

Out come three cards, steel layered with silk and brightly painted. Margaret twists them as if to show them to the eyes of the great Primarch, which again is not that hard, but her own eyes avoid that gaze. She grins even so. "Can you even survive outside of such fortuitous circumstances!?" And with that the cards are hurled -- to intersect like a ragged gash into the ley line, as best as Margaret can spot it!

This is, in fact, a bluff: given the titan scale of this creature, Margaret suspects she will, at best, cause a minor disturbance, and more plausibly cause a giant burp that will accomplish nothing. Maybe a flashy special effect. But perhaps that flash is what they need.

And of course, then Earth itself is reshaped. Margaret does a visible double-take at the sight of Grudiev, before she cries to Jacqueline with sudden enthusiasm, "The cards! Tell it to aim for the cards! You didn't tell me you had a familiar, woman!!"

GS: Margaret has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Killer Hand!
GS: Margaret has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Matilda's grip on her weapon turns white-knuckled as the creature before her whispers into her mind, teases at every dark feeling in the pit of her stomach. She reels back a little bit, her shoulders sagging a little bit.

"What have I gained...?" Matilda asks. She looks to the past. Money enough to live comfortably on for decades -- spent ultimately on her schooling, and on Freischütz's appraisal and repair. Time with her family -- lost. Never to be regained, now. All in pursuit of a cure for the rot that rips through Filgaia, the desertification that makes it just a little harder to grow food every year... and in pursuit of that feeling of peace that she hasn't been allowed in years.

Weeks of eating out of dumpsters, to get that Slave Generator that she bolted into Honeybee. Crawling in the dirt looking for wild mandrake and Artemis leaf, having wasted all of hers on the illusion of agency after Adlehyde. Time and energy and the last vestiges of feeling all sacrificed on the altar of 'heroism,' of 'saving a dying world,' of 'the desperate hope that someday Filgaia might not turn its people upon itself.'

And what has she gained? Immense power -- buried beneath dirt and rubble, possibly forever. Friendship -- that she's still never sure if she can really trust, and even less so after her last trip into this twisted pit beneath Wayside.

... and someone...

... someone who...

... that has to be enough.

But can it? She's so fragile -- and even if Matilda, with her boundless talent, with her genius, with her sheer will to sacrifice anything on that altar, could find a cure... would it be in time? Would it profit her even the littlest bit, or simply be another 'wonderful thing' done that leaves her crawling in the dirt?

Everyone else brings magic, brings swords of legend, brings their inner fire. Matilda brings an ARM she increasingly suspects was never intended for frontline combat, and the most basic of home defense tools. Rahab... is too much, for her. In the end, she's weak -- she's... useless. This is not a beast against which she can stand.

"It's... impossible," she murmurs, even as she withdraws Freischütz again, even as she pours a syrupy, glittering mixture into its reservoir. "Maybe Grudiev can do something against this, but..."

Her gaze turns to Riesenlied. Struggling, wounded -- and yet, so much more than her. Someone with power. Someone who, for good or ill, everyone seems to recognize can do something. ... That's what Matilda decides to trust in, as she fires a pearl of glittering power from Freischütz, bolstering the Hyadean as that song issues forth.

GS: Matilda Whitehead enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Riesenlied with Fairy Bullet!
GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a glancing hit from Margaret's Killer Hand for 42 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! Statuses applied to Primarch of Muse -Rahab-!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily can hear the monster's words echoing in her mind. ...But she glances to Leon, too. She does not seem pleased, but then, should she? This is an awful situation for all of them. ...And she is here now, with Loren, aware of who he is. Aare of Riesenlied, in the lines of her mandala, the barriers showing. The song... THe song, she can hear. And this thing is still there, looming in her vision even when she closes her eyes to focus.

"We represent no country," Lily answers, her voice dull, as she works to plan. She watches as the blue point changes... THe Primarch shifts. DId it do something? It may have. She can't be certain. And yet--

Its question lingers.

Am I truly the one you despise right now?

"Nn..." LIly stumbles where she is, eyes closing, but still she sees it. Loren answers her. She feels nauseous, here. "Fei..." She looks to him--and hears Loren's compromise. "Right. It might... be enough." Lily looks up to the ceiling. Wayside is up there. ...How much might this harm the town? But then, the town is lost completely if they can't stop this creature. It--

"Voss-" Lily watches Loren trapped by the shards, not concerned for him exactly. He throws her the bomb. "...I'm a demolitions expert," Lily points out. "If anybody can do this it's... me." She huffs, for an instant, and feels Loren's Ether beside her. ...Then she takes the bomb into her arms, and surrounds it with a black aura. "...All there is..." She sees the cliff before her; she sees the roof far above. Which means--She rears back, and takes off at a dead run. She leaps--and puts one hand out. Flames explode from beneath her, a combustion reaction that shatters remaining ice and launches her upward. Lily lifts the bomb, looking at it again, pressing buttons and setting it in place--

She sets the timer for mere seconds as she reaches near the top of the ceiling, launches it at the point where she calculates will do the most damage. Then she throws her arms up, encapuslates herself in the shadow that fades from the bomb...

And falls, curled up into a ball to avoid impact. 3... 2...

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Bombing Run!
GS: Lily Keil takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Material - Titanic Upheaval for 103 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Bombing Run for 196 hit points!
GS: Matilda Whitehead heals Riesenlied! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has posed.

        Unfortunate to Zed, Riesenlied is indeed too busy to really provide guidance to him -- but that's why she's entrusted the task to the others! He'll figure it out somehow, as is the wont of the Dark Hero--

        Eyes should remain moist.

        As if accentuating that point, seemingly by sheer insistence-- Zed charges the Doom Bringer and sheathes it in unknowable, awful alien energies. The Guardians may fear... yet... this blade...

        The un-light (is unlight Legally and Medically Distinct from Darkness?) blasts through the gap in that barrier, which starts to throb -- and like Lily before him, that flickering, iridescent pulse surrounding the Primarch begins to convulse even more powerfully.

        ... do you understand the power that you are playing with, demon? Those who play with flame are destined to be burnt... yet those who do not even comprehend flame...

        It sounds -- not hurt, perhaps, but seemingly... shocked, for a moment? How unusual. That fury comes at a price, however. Surrounding Zed, for once, is not a crest or ice...

        ... but the very inky darkness of the Abyss upon which he comes from -- a reflection of the purity of the Leyline that sustains the world. Eyes gaze once more, like pinpricks... millions upon millions of eyes, splayed apart on a bleak landscape that scatters as far as Zed can sense...

        Leon begins to cotton onto the plan, as is his milieu -- commanders sort the tactics out and relay them onto the troops, after all... but this is outside of his expertise, as he wishes he knew anything about magic. No matter.

        A soldier of no nation. Have nations ceased to become a -thing-? How sad... what have you been reduced to fighting for? For no king, no ideology...? For pure destruction? For sport?

        It seems... strangely sympathetic for a moment -- but whatever sympathy once more is consumed within the same abyssal landscape that Zed is plunged into. The Black Wolf Captain enters into a descending landscape, but where there was nothing but eyes before...

        A woman in tattered garments gasps desperately, her lungs burning. She clutches onto her child, skin mottled and singed; she does not know or understand what happened. A black -thing- that she mistakes to be a bird flies overhead...

        Static.

        -Delivering the payload.-

        She traces her sight to where the bombs descend -- and her very world flashes white. She feels her skin melt--

        The Primarch's chuckle rumbles in Leon's head.

        Is this where your fight will lead you, soldier?

<Pose Tracker> Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has posed.

        Noeline continues to bark orders, and the Primarch identifies her as one of the more prominent threats on the battlefield. Or perhaps one of the more prominent sources of amusement. The Primarch seems to enjoy conflating the two, indeed.

        Change cannot come without answers to the most difficult dilemmas. You are anathema to Filgaia. You cannot deny this fact. A revolution cannot stand on baseless ground...

        Trouble and Strife both wing onto Noeline's side and shower the Primarch in a bevy of shots, further buckling that barrier in to support the mages in their fervent attempt to conjure that which can harm it.

        But perhaps it is not you I should be concerned about. What would you do if you lost the one you love?

        A quartet of tentacles suddenly shoot outwards in a spiral formation -- aimed towards where Riesenlied is floating at the centre of the barrier. Concentrating as she is, she does not move, seemingly defenseless to resist...

        Morgan is a latecomer, but the Primarch regards him all the same as he did Margaret. More and more Drifters still! He calls Lily for the plan, and sure enough, much like the other Drifters, it's shoot until it stops asking questions. But the Primarch has a -lot- of questions to ask...

        The blast of the fox gunslinger rings true throughout the cavern! That barrier is starting to -- to shake and warble, with the amount of abuse that it's taking. But ultimately, it's just a barrier... what will they do once they've cut into the vein?

        Its voice seems to echo in Morgan's head, along with his range of cutthroats.

        Ruffians. Gangs? If there are no nations, has Filgaia devolved into lawlessness, then? Anarchy and ARMs... what a sad outcome indeed.

        Is it... lamenting the state of the world? Certainly not something that would be expected of an ancient threat, but then again, they do come in all shapes and sizes these days... and, speaking of shapes and sizes, a flutter of icicles erupt from the ground as the Primarch seeks to interrupt Morgan's boys from 'warming up the toys'.

        Fei does admit that hubris is at fault for the conflict that they are engaged in -- but ice soon interrupts their conversation -- ice that he breaks out of, slowly, then -- in a burst of flurry and speed that wreathes him in flame. He charges on ahead, seemingly sheathed in fire like how a phoenix would take flight in the skies. He blasts through that wounded barrier, giving the mages a chance!

        You control your natural energies with superb flow. I see that the humans of this age have not waned, yet...

        He flickers further. As Fei lands upon the other end, he, too, is ensconced upon the same surrounds as Zed and Leon before them -- and where Zed has eyes upon him, and Leon sees a landscape battered in nuclear flame, Fei sees...

        Power... is not what brings you happiness, now is it?

        ... well. What does he see? It is not violence that he brings upon the martial artist, but a foreign landscape of seeming bliss that would only make sense to someone with a knowledge of the past. A roundabout attack to present just how -wonderful- things could be, once upon a time... perhaps, lost forever to hubris...

<Pose Tracker> Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has posed.

        Margaret gets a tantalising bit of information that may be shocking as much as it is informative. There is a verve in his voice, as he lectures as much as he chides her...

        There are four Leylines, each corresponding to the primal elements. The Elw, as that man has informed, are surely not content to play with only the one...

        But then the insults get hurled. Three cards are planted onto its side where its barrier is now exposed. There is the equivalent of a primal snort from the fat tick buried in the veins of the planet.

        Yes. That is absolutely my grand plan. I shall digest the raw, nutritious veins of the Leyline within my stomach and convert it into mythical excrement and waste as you humans do. You have discovered my master plan.

        It seems pissed off enough at Margaret, Taunter who can Taunt Even the Elder Gods, that it too plunges her within that abyssal landscape...

        And the words she has spoken against him perhaps gives him some ammunition, for upon her he shapes a world. A world without the Goddess. A world without Althena... a world consumed by what he briefly glimpses is the form of the Lord of Calamity -- perhaps Lucia, perhaps another figure... a world where the Guard's doctrine is all but useless.

        And Matilda struggles with the question that the Primarch posits. What he has asked, she has taken and run with, and it provides for him a landscape upon which he can paint. A someone. Much like Lily before, he drills in on that one thought, as she fires a syrupy glaze to fire upon Riesenlied.

        That someone does not walk the same path you do. You two will diverge. You must know this.

        And then we come upon Jacqueline. Jacqueline, who has suffered greatly from her repeated trips into Hadal Temple, seen her allies and dearest friends slaughter and be slain. She has had her mind buckle and struggle against the Primarch's influence.

        But this time... you are different.

        She shatters against the Ice Coffin, which had been time enough for him to flee earlier when they came upon his tendrils during the expedition.

        Grudiev... you cannot do anything. You lament the state of this world as much as I do...

        But Grudiev does coalesce, that massive planet-breaking saurian creature rising behind Jacqueline. The Guardian is manifest in its prime form, and perhaps to compensate for what it could not do the last time... when the statue of its dear cohort Schturdark was sundered... it seems to make amends.

        And from those gaps upon his back, his crystals emanate with a verve--

        And the power of the Titanic Upheaval is visited upon the Primarch, utterly shattering the last of the veins which had been exposed. And at that same time, upon the breach as the Ley Point's connection hangs on a simple, fragile balance, both Loren and Lily's hard work finally bears fruit.

        There is a chuckle as the Gebler agent escapes from his icy prison, and hands Lily the bomb. Was it simply playing his mind before, or is even this a ploy at his hand? Why does he seem so confident even in this hour of his seeming defeat?

        You -cannot- change anything. All that has been laid out so carefully... shall come to pass.

        The explosion simply -erupts- and sends the ceiling coming down upon the Primarch itself. Pillars of rock descend from above where Grudiev's power comes from below -- trapping the creature of Water in a pincer attack of its very weakest element!

        There's an explosion that overtakes the entire battlefield--

GS: The barrier of Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has been breached! 
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has entered BREAK! status!

<Pose Tracker> Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has posed.

         --and as the vestiges of the Guardian's power fades away, the creature is toppled, its barrier gone. Its underbelly is
 present, and no shielding can stop it now. There is a large gaping hole, and you can scarce see a woman with a refrigerator for a
 torso stare from upstairs. "I don't even know which god to cuss for that 'un!"
 
         You who have so long wallowed in despair at your loss a thousand years ago... is this your answer, Grudiev?
 
         There is... silence. There is no snarl. There is no frustration. Is it a feint, hiding its measure of desperation,
 surprise? That pomp and arrogance seems to drain from his voice as he simply says:
 
         To my side. Now.
 
         That miasmic emanation begins to thicken. Whatever does he /mean/...?

GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has adjusted their boss mode to Boss!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Riesenlied with Wailing Wall!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has completed its action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Morgan Newkirk with High Freeze!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has activated a Force Action!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Zed with Abyssal Offering!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Leon Albus with Abyssal Offering!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Abyssal Offering!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Margaret with Abyssal Offering!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Feed upon Weakness!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Loren Voss with Feed upon Weakness!
GS: CRITICAL! Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s Abyssal Offering for 71 hit points!
GS: Poison and Mute! Statuses applied to Fei Fong Wong!
GS: CRITICAL! Margaret guards a hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s Abyssal Offering for 219 hit points!
GS: Poison and Mute! Statuses applied to Margaret!
GS: Morgan Newkirk guards a hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s High Freeze for 139 hit points!
DC: MISS! Leon Albus completely evades Abyssal Offering from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-!
GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s Abyssal Offering for 289 hit points!
GS: Matilda Whitehead takes a glancing hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s Feed upon Weakness for 118 hit points!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- drains Matilda Whitehead! Primarch of Muse -Rahab- gains 118 temporary hit points!
GS: Loren Voss takes a solid hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s Feed upon Weakness for 243 hit points!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- drains Loren Voss! Primarch of Muse -Rahab- gains 250 temporary hit points!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has completed its action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily hangs in the air, falling. ...She has fallen before. She knows the ground is far below, can count at best on the frigid water to break her fall, if she is lucky. She may fall on the creature if she is unlucky, and she is often, often unlucky. The voices echo in her mind. A soldier of no nation, she and Leon are both called. And Lily...

Descends. The darkness unfurls about her, masking the sound of her fall completely. She sinks like a stone, as the explosion above deafens her. The heat is on her back, enough to crash towards her; the Guardian below, the crystals emanating--

The Guardian fades... and the creature shows its underbelly. The hole from above, with Val, shows through. This is the answer, it seems. Lily has done her work, however. She starts to unfurl, lets the darkness prepare to scythe through the ice--

And hits, hard. There is a crackle of power, and the ball of darkness there is still. Lily Keil is present. ...She is rising, to her feet... Past her feet.

Her eyes open, and they glow blue as the miasma thickens. "<We are here,>" Lily speaks in a language few in this room know, that no one in this room should know, hovering above the ground as her hands come out to her sides, falling and rising. She takes in a deep breath, and the air before her mists.

A blue aura surrounds her, the crest of Muse on her forehead showing and then fading. ...The aura turns violet, and then black, and Ether hums in the air, raw destructive power present.

Abrubtly Lily is holding a pair of black blades, rents in the very world itself. Lily Keil... is not present.

"<Come.>"

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily hangs in the air, falling. ...She has fallen before. She knows the ground is far below, can count at best on the frigid water to break her fall, if she is lucky. She may fall on the creature if she is unlucky, and she is often, often unlucky. The voices echo in her mind. A soldier of no nation, she and Leon are both called. And Lily...

Descends. The darkness unfurls about her, masking the sound of her fall completely. She sinks like a stone, as the explosion above deafens her. The heat is on her back, enough to crash towards her; the Guardian below, the crystals emanating--

The Guardian fades... and the creature shows its underbelly. The hole from above, with Val, shows through. This is the answer, it seems. Lily has done her work, however. She starts to unfurl, lets the darkness prepare to scythe through the ice--

And hits, hard. There is a crackle of power, and the ball of darkness there is still. Lily Keil is present. ...She is rising, to her feet... Past her feet.

Her eyes open, and they glow blue as the miasma thickens. "<We are here,>" Lily speaks in a language few in this room know, that no one in this room should know, hovering above the ground as her hands come out to her sides, falling and rising. She takes in a deep breath, and the air before her mists.

A blue aura surrounds her, the crest of Muse on her forehead showing and then fading. ...The aura turns violet, and then black, and Ether hums in the air, raw destructive power present.

Abrubtly Lily is holding a pair of black blades, rents in the very world itself. Lily Keil... is not present.

"<Come.>"

GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has adjusted their boss level for 7 opponents!
DC: Noeline switches forms to Chevalier of the Dragon!
GS: Noeline used the Force Action Protect! She takes Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s attack on Riesenlied on herself!
GS: Noeline has activated a Force Action!
GS: Noeline takes a solid hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s Wailing Wall for 54 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

        Noeline has likened her combat style to a dance before, but-- this is more an assault of cowardice, you could say, a collection of hit-and-run tactics as she weaves and feints between the pillars of earth thrown up from Jacqueline's power and Grudiev's advent. One moment, she'll be pressing an attack - the next, she's slipped behind the cover of an outcropping, leaving Trouble and Strife to try to direct the creature's attention before she abruptly appears from elsewhere around the creature's bulk.

        It's debatable whether it's actually doing anything; it's obviously an attempt to hold the Primarch's attention rather than actually cause it any damage, and yet Duras Drum's power - that much she can channel - crashes against its barrier again and again. Still, can you really misdirect a creature whose power pervades all through its lair? Surely the Primach can simply sense where they are?

        Noeline seems to recognize that quandary, because she stops behind the next pillar, allowing herself just a moment to breathe. "... and yet, here I stand, a Guardian's power running through me," she challenges back with her teeth set against each other, wincing from the pain as she catches her breath. "Besides, the suggestion we should only move if we have absolutely everything planned out is nonsense. Nothing would ever change," she mutters, adding the last part under her breath.

        The question makes her stiffen for just an instant - not least because that's all the time she's got, snapping her head up to watch as several of the monster's tentacles suddenly stab towards Riesenlied at an impossible speed for a creature of that size. There's really no chance to think, no opportunity to do anything but act on instinct - and before she knows what she's doing she's wrenched an arm around, simply flinging her scythe up into the air and towards Riesenlied, hoping to intercept the attack.

        At the same time, she pushes within herself, harder than she has before. In a confusing blink of an eye, Noeline's presence appears to melt away. Whether it's some trickery of living metal, the power of the Illusion Guardian, or something in between, she cannot begin to say - but the fact registers through her disorientation that her hands are on her scythe, the living metal already stretching and warping as she tries to summon together a barrier of her own. Not one of empathic senses, but purely of herself.

        It's not enough, and she jolts and bucks as the Primarch's attack hits, crying out in a pain she muffles herself by forcing her mouth shut. One tentacle punches straight through her shoulder, and another nearly tears her arm off as she coughs up white fluid - but she manages somehow to hold fast, the slowly-growing layer of living metal acting more to entrap the creature's limbs rather than actually shield Riese.

        Slowly, Noeline grins. "... I'd tear you into pieces," she finally answers, her voice low and steady. "... but I don't need to. Because there's plenty of others here who'd do the same. You're going to burn."

        The air around her thrums, and then-- Duras Drum's flame suddenly races back into view, sliding along the surface of her impromptu shield. Cutting into the tentacles the creature has extended, using them as a bridge to race along.

GS: Noeline has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Pyrrhic Flame!
GS: Noeline has completed her action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a solid hit from Noeline's Pyrrhic Flame for 120 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

        "... Noe..." comes the lull from Riesenlied's trance, seemingly able to shock her even from the deep trance that she has succumbed into. Her head lulls forward... and she descends slowly-- as she places her hand forward, clutching onto her partner's free one. Her eyes are glassy as she gazes upon the Primarch before them, unseated by the combination of clever explosions and Grudiev's power...

        And further turn to wakefulness as she sees Lily's state, with a soft gasp. But she is busy at present--

        --surrounded by the power that Matilda has granted her... she looks towards her. "Let us finish this... for Wayside's sake."

        Once more, she empowers Noeline, granting a sheen of power that starts to surround her as the two Hyadeans hold hands, the black flame of Duras Drum and her own empathic light intertwining and blossoming into a vague form which might look a little like a flower.

        "I am by your side, Noeline..."

GS: Riesenlied has attacked Noeline with Rising Heart - 'Seek the New World'!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

"It would be disingenious to call him a familiar...that's Grudiev, Guardian of Earth." Jacqueline explains, glancing to Margaret. "And I don't need to tell him where to aim."

Jacqueline calls upon Grudiev, and he answers. He appears, unleashing his power against the Primarch. Even through his laments.

On it's own, it might not have been enough. But with rocks dropping from above, and with everyone working together, an explosion rocks the battle field. Jacqueline huddles behind her earlier-conjured pillar for cover...and when she looks out from it, she sees the shielding gone.

It's heartening, but she doesn't let out any cheers just yet. Because she knows this fight is far from over. They still have to deal with the creature itself.

"Is everyone alright...? Just a little more, we can do this!" Jacqueline urges. She takes stock of those around her. Others are still exhausted from the fight with Vorthuzahl and Lady Harken before. And...

"L-lily?" Jacqueline says, her head turning toward soldier woman...who now has a blue glow to her eyes and - at least temporarily - the Crest of Muse on her forehead. Jacqueline pales.

This...was a problem.

She's seen the power Lily wields. And to have that in the hands of the Primarch...

"We need to finish this quickly!" Jacqueline shouts, reaching into her bags.

"You say that we can't change anything...but I refuse to believe that. I'll show you that we can make a difference!" She says. She draws out a bottle of liquid. It's coloration is exactly the reverse of the pale blue of her healing potions. And it's effect was similar - a reverse healing potion. Muse was the alignment of healing and restoration of power...but what if that power was turned against the Primarch? She doesn't know if it will work...

...but Jacqueline hurls the bottle at the Primarch's exposed underbelly, hoping the potion will be able to find purchase.
<DICE ROLLER> Fei Fong Wong rolled 1d100 <65> + 0 = 65

GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Reverse Restorative!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Reverse Restorative for 0 hit points!
GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Primarch of Muse -Rahab-!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Un-light is different from darkness because it's still something! Darkness is just the absence of light. It also sounds cooler! And this is Zed, so coolness is basically Number One in his book. Something that is not at all cool: Being swallowed up by a sphere of pure darkness. Like, actual darkness. Physical darkness. It shouldn't exist, but it does. "What-- Of course I don't know what it is! I'm a swordsman, not a fireman! I-blub."

Blub.

Blub.

The darkness doesn't last. The world changes. There is nothing but a wasteland. A vast, never-ending expanse of darkness, death, non-life. Zed stands at the heart of it all, staring wide-eyed at the spiralling coils of beast-tendrils, tentacles which have assembled into many-eyed pillars that stretch from earth to sky.

They ask him.

They ask. They coil. Closer, closer, the nightmarish darkness coils. They reach, twining around his limbs, slithering in and out through his pores, coiling up around his mind, searching. Searching. Peeling him away. Why. Who. Why?

Why?

Why?

"Because," Zed says, "I'm the best." Zed... Drives his blade through his abdomen. His pain splits the darkness.

The sphere of darkness suddenly explodes with an agonizing roar and a blast of quicksilver blood. The Hyadean sealed within explodes from the inky womb, shattering the madness closing around his mind and the darkness surrounding him all in one motion. Doom Bringer tears out from his midsection, a spiral of quicksilver blood twining about the blade. He roars, diving downward, past Lily, through the darkness, through the pain. Energy surges down through that contrail of alien vitae, forging a vast helix of brilliant, unnatural light.

"I'LL TEACH YOU--" Zed screams as he dives like a humanoid drill right for the beast's heart. "I'LL TEACH YOU WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TRY TO EAT MY BRAIN!"

"I NEED THAT FOR THINGS, YOU JERK!"

GS: Zed has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Vortex Edge - Spiral Impulse!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

"We'll buy time, then!" Leon calls back to Loren and Lily. Which is precisely what he does, because -- at least, until Argent Divider is prepared -- he has no way to inflict the larger sort of damage that might weaken its grip on the leyline.

He frowns at Zed, but his attention is back on the Primarch. "For sport? Destruction? Hardly. I fight for my comrades--those I lost and..." There is hesitation; not in the truth of the statement, but in admitting such a thing. "...and those I found. And for the vengeance of the former. Nations still exist, but they don't want a man like myself."

Nor does he want them.

And then he descends into madness.

He looks about, seeing the woman stumbling, and he reaches out -- and sees the way the world flashes white. His eyes widen sharply, a sick feeling ripping through him; a familiar sensation, one he cannot place. He stumbles backward, as the vision fades, and he shakes his head sharply -- cutting himself out of it. "No... no," he says. "That isn't how it ends. That--that is the end I'll stop."

He says it quietly, with resolve -- even as the explosions erupt, as Grudiev does his part, and the barrier comes crashing down and gives them the chance to find purchase on this monster. But he sees the crest flashing on Lily's head, and he turns -- understanding the words she speaks. He may be the only one in the room who can. His eyes turn, widening sharply.

"Lily...?"

He feels a knot in his throat. A sick feeling; a feeling that's unreal, as the black blades form. Then, he turns and looks at the Primarch, his expression screwing up. "We do!" he agrees with Jay. He rushes forward, and then brings back Argent Divider. He strikes forward with the blade -- and then he adjusts the telescoping, to hook it into its flesh. He begins to twist. "Release her."

He commands it, calmly. Then, as he twists harder, he screams it. "RELEASE HER!"

GS: Leon Albus has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Hazard Break!
GS: Leon Albus takes 5 damage from Poison!
GS: Leon Albus has completed his action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a solid hit from Leon Albus's Hazard Break for 192 hit points!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a solid hit from Zed's Vortex Edge - Spiral Impulse for 127 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.

 
Margaret's true weapon is not her naginata nor her sorcerous cards, but her tongue. And then the creature speaks to her. Her head tilts back - four elements! she thinks; is Filgaia built differently, or is this some other detail that she can't see.

"A squid with sarcasm!" Margaret retorts...

But the words die in her lips like the shape of the Lord of Calamity appearing before her, the mild head of the woman some call 'Lucia' gazing towards her, black litten with dull red eyes like luminous clots of menace. Margaret croaks a little, staggering back. The naginata, shining and polished, is little more than a staff for her as she seems, suddenly, aged - weakened.

Around her the world burns. But the vision that she sees does not make her recoil from the sight of despair and sorrow and people ground underfoot. Those are unpleasant memories, and having them stirred up like the filth at the bottom of a river hurts... but the feel of the hand of the destroyer on her chin, a contemptous laugh, and then

nothing.

Nothing but a distant sound of burning and it is then that Margaret feels something twinge because *where is Borgan* and *is this actually* --

-- For Margaret's mastery of the indirect sorceries of shadows means that she is not unfamiliar with illusions. There is no way for even she to contend direct and entire with the raw force of the leyline-fattened creature ahead of her, but an illusion, however heavy...

Margaret bites, with savage force, onto the tip of her tongue and the inside of her lips. The taste of blood, the prick of pain, these are sparks, ropes, handholds. She grips and follows and the world comes, with slow painfulness, back to the miserable dark miasm in which she was to begin with. She's coughing and she doesn't realize it for nearly three seconds.

"Ugh," she says finally, her eyes coming up -- to see the luminous rending of darkness and the black-limned form that is, or was, or Lily Keil.

"Shit."

"I'm not going to be shown up by some assemblage of obese tentacle meat," Margaret mutters to herself, raising a hand and pressing it to her mouth. She murmurs there, her words layering against her fingers even as she sees and hears the grief and the screaming in the voice of Leon Albus. Her eyes turn to him with a certain resigned sympathy.

"You can thank me later," she mumbles to him, before her hand comes up and the 'kiss' is blown towards Lily. In all the different thousand forms of dark blue and evil blacklight being thrown around, a vaguely kiss-shaped sparkle is almost certainly going to look like a particularly arbitrary twinkle. Margaret is counting on that.

-- As for the Illusion Kiss's 'payload'... well, these things are always more art than science. But Margaret has a go-to thing, a witch's brew of emotional fury, outrage, and that particular sent of being mocked and derided, which is coming from -- ?? SOMETHING ?? -- something Lily hates the most -- standing right over there! Kill it! Show it what for! Make it suffer, Lily! (So Margaret's illusion goes.)

'Right over there' is a nondescript chunk of unusually durable ice. In the illusion, Margaret screeches in animal delight (so as for Lily to hear), 'kill them! Kill them all! I'll back you up!'

The actual Margaret hoists her naginata and flicks a gaze towards the Primarch again. Her legs tense up. There may only be one shot.

GS: Margaret has attacked Lily Keil with Illusion Kiss!
GS: Margaret takes 9 damage from Poison!
GS: Margaret has completed her action.
GS: Lily Keil guards a hit from Margaret's Illusion Kiss for 0 hit points!
GS: Disease and Weaken! Statuses applied to Lily Keil!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.


"Boss!" Sharpe calls as the blue-white magic coats the ground around Morgan and his boys.

"On it!" The fox calls out as he slams his ARM into the ground. Energy flows out, catching some but not quite all the spires of ice on glimering techno-magic shields. "Sharpe, fall back. Get the Gears workin' in case this thing breaks free. Go on! I'll be fine."

The fox can see the barrier waver in parts. Weakening, becoming thinner. Weak and brittle enough to pierce? That one is hard to tell. There is of course only one way to find out.

Then of course, thats when Lily goes plum mad.

"Well," The fox drawls. "I'm gonna guess thats not part of this plan. You boys got her?" He asks as the tall Fox strides forwards. His ARM glimmers with arcane power, technology sufficiently advanced to be mystical in nature. Light spirals out from the weapon, growing wider and denser as it dances though the air and the miasma.

"Oh there still is nations and armies, I just don't like most of em. Call me an independent operator. Since I ain't quite from around here." He calls to the voice in his head as he braces his feet and the light around him reaches a crashing end.

What it leaves behind is a large rifle like weapon. Blocky in nature, parts gleaming with the same light of his ARM. A strange centerpiece suddenly spinning up as the bore of the weapon glows white-hot.

A beam of brilliant energy explodes from that barrel, twisting though the air before slamming hard into that barrier. Searching for the weak points, trying to seek out the one soft section of this monstrous thing.

...a thing that seems quite a reasonable conversationalist really. So Morgan only feels a little bit bad about it.

I mean it is trying to eat Zed's mind and all, so it can't be entirely polite.

GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with Rain Down!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei sees something before him. Only he sees it. And he's seen it before. It's just some kid that looks like him bouncing a ball back and forth with his mother. Fei stares at this hallucination even as rage builds up in his mind. How dare he, how dare he, how dare he. It takes Lily.

NOT NEARLY LONG ENOUGH AGO, WITHIN YOUR LIFETIME EVEN

Mommy keeps bringing people over. Beastmen. Elves. Humans. All sorts. They try to get inside his mind. They keep trying to reach something inside his mind.

He knows what they're after. Mommy, it hurts when they go inside. It hurts. IT HURTS! The people keep falling over when they try to go inside his head. They keep trying, and it keeps hurting but if he hides. If he hides from it all, if he makes someone else feel the pain, then it doesn't hurt so much...

This is not Fei's memory.

NOW

Fei snaps off the tie keeping his hair up, letting his hair tumble down around his shoulders. He doesn't make a demand to release her, though it doesn't take much levels in PSIONICS to understand what has enraged him.

No, he gestures forward with one hand. It's not even touching the Primarch.

But the Primarch finds something reaching out for ITS mind, as if it's trying to probe it right back.

Snip snip snip little puppet strings snip snip snip they all fall down snip snip snip hahahahaha snip snip snip it's y ou.

And tha'ts it. No words. The fires from the explosion and the shrapnel slam into him, and he is pushed backwards, but he just keeps staring at the Primarch.

He just keeps staring.

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Primarch of Muse -Rahab- with If You Take A Swing At The Mind Of The Contact You Best Not Miss!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes 8 damage from Poison!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a solid hit from Morgan Newkirk's Rain Down for 164 hit points!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes a glancing hit from Fei Fong Wong's If You Take A Swing At The Mind Of The Contact You Best Not
Miss for 55 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Matilda quivers as Rahab whispers in her ear. They'll diverge. ...well, yes. In all likelihood, if nothing else, she'll go on ahead. Just like Baldwin. Just like Helena. She... she'd made her peace with that, though, hadn't she? The fact that if she can't find a cure -- and fast -- she'll lose her.

Her hand comes up to her chest, gripping at a bright pendant worn there like it's a lifeline. The wall between human and Veruni... it's arrogance to think she can surmount it, isn't it? To love someone who features in children's stories as a bogeyman. To love someone who could simply -- keel over, any day. Her grip intensifies.

Lily is overtaken. It's... hard for Matilda to care, honestly, at first. She's losing herself in herself, she's twisting in the ice-cold wind. ... But this -- this is something she can do something about. It's not the immense power of the Primarch.. it's just... Lily. Powerful, certainly... but ultimately just a person.

Matilda pries herself up off the ground, slow and sure. For an instant, she reaches into her coat... but she seems to think better of it, and indeed stows Freischütz entirely, instead. She doesn't retrieve her pistol -- she doesn't retrieve her knife.

Instead, she brings herself into a tall, neutral stance, advancing at a nice, even clip. While Margaret provides a distraction, Matilda provides something a little more -- immediate. "Ah -- sorry, Miss Keil," she manages, trying desperately to push her earlier thoughts of despair out of her mind in favor of the far more immediate issue of hooking a leg behind Lily's leg, tripping her, and starting to choke her. It's a blood choke, not an attempt to crush the airway -- surgical, quick.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        "...Stupid. Stop looking at it," he tells her.

         He can see it -- where he looks, carefully avoiding glancing at the THING directly. The connections that bind it to the Ley Point. "We need to detach it from the Ley Point," he says, pointing out a similar sentiment others have voiced.

        "Fine! Then do that!" he snaps at Leon, venting some of his current stress in the first direction he has available.

        The village, he figures, similarly glancing up towards the vault of the chamber, will possibly be destroyed. Most likely suffer heavy damages.
        It's a fair enough sacrifice, he figures, in the same moment. Nothing lives there but broken Metal Demons, a smattering of surfacers. If that's the cost of sealing something like this, it's acceptable.

        Of course the question also arises of what would come of the rest of them down in the cavern.
        ...That's acceptable too. Even including himself.
        If this works and isn't useless.

        It takes a pulse of that channeled power to break free of the walls that hold him. He doesn't stay put, fully expecting them to rise again or reform in a heartbeat. He needs to catch up with--
        No, he can't. She's already primed the explosives. Already running. Leaping.

        Now he just has nothing left but to hope he hasn't made a dire mistake.
        But if he's lucky, it's just the sort of mistake where he dies.
        Emperor help him if it's other sort, where command finds out.

        An explosion ricochets above. Rock falls. And Loren hears a noise.
        It stops him in his tracks.

        He was brought here for a reason. He came down to the surface for a reason. But the reason doesn't matter because it's meaningless it's meaningless it's meaningless--

        A sharp breath escapes him and he drops to one knee, shuddering a moment as the Primach's touch on his mind, until now remaining only towards the surface, sinks deep and pulls.
        It must have been a sizable piece of him it tore free, considering how he screams.

        One hand plants on frozen ground moments later, only just stopping the medic from sprawling flat. Loren breathes hard and only finally rises to his feet at a remove.

        To see Lily rise to her feet and then some.

        Her eyes glow. An unknown tongue slips from her lips. And there she floats.

        Like the time she was on Drive. His worst, to date, failure.

        For a moment, Loren just stands there, staring at her.

        "No." It's not a gasp of shock, not a denial of what he sees. Just a simple blanket refusal of Lily and whatever wellspring she's tapped now.
        Not this time, Keil.

        He bolts right for her, a singleminded determination to see her downed all that rides him. The dash is punctuated by but a single final leap, the shield deploying as he slams it down towards her, throwing weight and momentum into the strike.

GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Lily Keil with Planting a Seed!
GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
GS: Loren Voss has attacked Lily Keil with Astral Hammer!
GS: Loren Voss has completed his action.
GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Matilda Whitehead's Planting a Seed for 124 hit points!
GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Loren Voss's Astral Hammer for 138 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has posed.

        Noeline leaps to Riesenlied's defence in amazing time -- and the tentacles find themselves missing their mark as the Hyadean blinks into presence, by a trick of the Guardian of Illusion, by her scythe. The tentacles -stab- in a roar of fury, stabbing through her shoulder and nearly tearing her arm off...

        ... but her partner comes by her side, seemingly woken from her trance. There is a snort from the Primarch, or what passes for one from an ancient creature so ensconced by the very powers of the planet. It is wounded, but it seems to have verve to speak in turn.

        So you do. But what does it change? You still dance around the question I posit. How do you save your brethren from the damage of the planet?

        Noeline channels the Guardian's power in its stead, and its tentacles are enflamed -- they retreat from her as they screech, drowning in the flames of Duras Drum's power over Hades itself.

        Jacqueline is there to resist him at every turn, now. Even after Grudiev dissipates and returns to the planet, she still stands with more... and she throws, this time, the fruit of what she has researched. A reversal of the potion that would heal others, designed to now ruin and harm...

        To stir the Guardian into action... it is either a sign of true desperation, or...

        It chuckles once more.

        I shall watch over you, Crest Sorceress. And we shall see whether this seed is despair or hope.

        Zed unexpectedly breaks through the Primarch's trap by stabbing himself. A most peculiar manuever, perhaps thinkable by only the most off-minded of demons... it should have known better, perhaps.

        Doom Bringer is coming its way, laced in the mercurial blood of the demons. Zed pierces through a limb that screeches with a mouth-like echo, reverberating through the primal itself.

        Be careful that you do not invite your own doom... demon.

        Leon clarifies the state of the world. Yet it does not seem to please the Primarch much, and he tests him... and he comes through with resolve. Power brimming through him, through the telescoping blade of Argent Divider, in his very spirit and resolve.

        He leaps as a man possessed, carving forth with the gun-blade as he carves through flesh and nearly succumbs himself in the viscous goop that passes for the Primarch's blood.

        A soldier of honour. How unusual, to see someone with such verve in this day and age... is that why you work with such a colourful crew?

        He twists the blade. There is an unnatural, guttural screeching. Even in pain, the Primarch continues to taunt.

        You do not even begin to know how she suffers. Can you truly call yourself her companion... Captain?

<Pose Tracker> Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has posed.

        Margaret demonstrates a powerful understanding of how illusions work, finding the gap in the landscape that he has painted upon her. She is a wily one, of a much slipperier mind than the others around here. Still, even as she focuses her attention on the minion he's managed to turn against the Drifters, he still has to retort.

        I am not obese. I am fit for my size.

        Morgan assembles his flock effectively, saving his equipment from the Primarch's assault of ice magic. He arms himself with a massive rifle...like weapon, perhaps too curious and foreign to be truly called a rifle due to its spinning-hot centerpiece. And a -beam- flares outwards from it--

        --and pierces the very centre of the Primarch, sending it reeling back.

        That such 'independent' operators can carry such weapons... just what have you all learnt...?

        It is a voice of lament.

        Loren turns to battle Lily, with a singleminded determination to see her brought down. Time and time again he has been stymied, and it is with power that he springs forth.

        Be on the lookout for those who will prey upon you.

        It is all he gives him, of the medical student. But perhaps... it is all that he needs to.

        Matilda decides that her best course of option is to assault Lily, as is seemingly the plan as he reels from the attacks being leveraged its way. There is a faint chuckle once more, that he keeps to himself... yet he seems to see fit to torque that mental knife in a little further.

        Take stock in what you are doing. This is what you can aspire to. Do not forget that.

        A pause.

        Rahab feels... something. Something strange-- and something encroaches back upon its mind. There is a quiet moment -- the moment of a psychic hiss -- as the equivalent of scissors comes across its mental space. Fei's mental attack intrudes upon its landscape. It would be distressing, if the Primarch was of a constructed mind such that it can be distressed. Instead, it just feels... disquieting, much like how it is disquieting when he is severed from his very connection.

        So you -are-... but you have scarce begun to understood your -role-...

        Something extremely precious gets -ripped-. It pauses.

        The Primarch's form continues to flicker -- that iridescent glow that was initiated by Lily's blast earlier... and that octopus-like head, the one permeated with the crest of Muse distends, bloated and full of a horrifyingly disgusting pus and blood--

        --and rips open.

<Pose Tracker> Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has posed.

        What comes out is nothing more than a glowing sphere, with a black core. It shimmers with the same light of the Muse Leyline. Is this... the core of the Primarch? Its very light is that of the Ley... which would make sense, for a creature borne of it. No matter a failure, or a mistake...

        I must thank you. Every single one of you.

        It descends closer towards the Ley Point where this all began, at startling speeds now that it is freed of its corpulent body.

        I now know beyond a doubt that Filgaia still suffers. Even after a thousand years, Demons still walk this world. Mankind has not changed. And the Elw must still pay.

        It slowly absconds into the point itself, slowly melding into the very lifeblood of the planet... at this point, to attack it would be to attack pure energy itself.

        I shall awaken my brethren...

        And it leaves a final gift behind:

        Water.

        Torrential hordes of water that spin in a vicious spiral, threatening to flood the very basin at the bottom of Hadal Temple. The threat has now become extremely, extremely immediate and physical.

GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Loren Voss with High Freeze!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Matilda Whitehead with High Freeze!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Fei Fong Wong with High Freeze!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Morgan Newkirk with High Freeze!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Margaret with High Freeze!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Leon Albus with High Freeze!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Zed with High Freeze!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- takes 5 damage from Poison!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has completed its action.
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Jacqueline Barber with High Freeze!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Riesenlied with High Freeze!
GS: Primarch of Muse -Rahab- has attacked Noeline with High Freeze!
GS: Riesenlied heals Noeline! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
GS: Noeline guards a hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s High Freeze for 133 hit points!
GS: Margaret takes a solid hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s High Freeze for 217 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Riesenlied takes a glancing hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s High Freeze for 135 hit points!
GS: Poison and Mute! Statuses applied to Riesenlied!
GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s High Freeze for 141 hit points!
GS: Poison and Mute! Statuses applied to Jacqueline Barber!
GS: Matilda Whitehead takes a glancing hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s High Freeze for 115 hit points!
GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s High Freeze for 223 hit points!
GS: Zed has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
GS: Leon Albus takes a solid hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s High Freeze for 223 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

There are voices that call to Lily. ...One, above all, questioning, looking towards her. Perhaps something inside her does notice it, a self that feels herself overwhelmed, floating in black water, rippling all around her, terrible reflections translucent through the darkness. ...Floating. Always, always floating.

But the figure here floats too, in the air, hovering above the water and the ice that she sheared away with her magic moments ago. She doesn't seem to move, at first, her breathing slow and even, taking in the scene before her. The sorceress's eyes continue to glow blue, merciless, inhuman. Leon's calls do not receive an answer. His work at the Primarch does not get more than a glance.

"<...Targets in view. Preparing.>"

Margaret charges her spell at her, and Lily looks to the strange sparkle before her; she stares into it, judging. The strange witch's brew crashes towards her, but being mocked... Does not seem to hold purchase on a woman whose mind is not present. She shows no emotional reaction whatsoever. But what she does do?

She hurls one of her blades immediately towards the ice, which will likely carve straight through it. Margaret is screeching before her to kill them all. She inclines her head. "<Yes...>" The danger of the ice block is clear and present; Lily lifts her now-free hand, and suddenly she is surrounded by a protective red aura, pulsing from within her.

Loren and Matilda are next. Matilda pries herself off of the ground, and brings at her neutral stance. Matilda comes in at the distraction, and takes hold of Lily as she casts; her blade still in hand, Lily is suddenly tripped, her throat cold, too cold, under Matilda's hands. Lily does not respond to the pain; she stares forward, unseeing, unspeaking.

Loren denies her; he has bolted. The leap takes him towards her, and the shield slams down into her with a sick noise, punching through her armor with its force. Still being choked, she takes the blade head-on--

And thrusts upward with her blade under the shield, ignoring the bone-crunching wound she just suffered to attempt to run through Loren entirely.

Then Matilda's hands begin to grow cold, too cold. The air around Lily's form mists, becoming sub-frigid in an instant and opaque an instant after that. There is little time to escape before blades of ice erupt from her in all directions, like an unholy star of frost.

"<Initiating counterassualt.>"

The water begins to rush at her feet; Lily does not move. Still her eyes glow, still she makes her assault. Except...

The ice starts to fade from around her, and she stumbles. Fire erupts all around her, in a circle that melts ice, as she lashes out blindly. "<what--what's...>"

She is starting to touch the ground again, backing towards the ice. The flames get hotter.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Lily Keil with Red Aura!
GS: DISEASE! Lily Keil tries to heal Lily Keil, but it doesn't work!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s High Freeze for 132 hit points!
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Loren Voss with Black Wolf's Claw!
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Conflagration!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Matilda Whitehead used Mystic on Matilda Whitehead! 100 Temporary HP gained! All statuses cleared!
GS: Matilda Whitehead has activated a Force Action!
GS: Matilda Whitehead critically Guards a hit from Lily Keil's Conflagration for 28 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Loren Voss guards a hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s High Freeze for 149 hit points!
GS: Poison and Mute! Statuses applied to Loren Voss!
GS: Loren Voss has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
GS: Loren Voss takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Black Wolf's Claw for 142 hit points!
GS: Loren Voss has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

        It hurts. It hurts terribly. There's a hole in her arm, another near her stomach. Two more of the Primarch's tentacles have plunged straight through her shield, and while that doesn't technically count as part of herself - at the same time, it absolutely does. Noeline's-- not a stranger to pain, but she's not exactly a common friend to it either, preferring to avoid battle wherever possible, and this is more than she's felt in some time.

        Worse than that, this is the Primarch - the creature that infected and twisted the Astrid, covering it in its power. Desperately, she pushes herself to reach for more of Duras Drum's power, knowing it might be the only thing that saves her. Keep up a barrier of Guardian flame. Keep it away from you.

        She hacks up another cough of white fluid when the tentacles mercifully retract, spitting it out of her mouth. She's-- more or less at her limit, she knows, and it's all she can do to hold fast in place, accepting the sensation of Riesenlied's healing as she grasps for the hand of her partner behind her. The feeling of some of her metal flesh knitting back together in its wake, as if spurred by the mixture of powers, brings its own kind of pain in turn, and she hisses sharply as she feels the sensation encompass her.

        Dimly, she's aware that something else is going wrong, but opening her eyes is a little more than she can handle right now, falling back against Riesenlied's shoulder as she gasps and scrapes for breath she doesn't strictly need, but instinctively grasps for. "I-- don't-- know," she rasps out, each syllable hoarse but slowly clearing. "But as we were... we could never have found the answer. As giant a leap as it is-- this is still a first step."

        There's a noise she can't identify with her eyes closed, a sickening and biological sort of thing. More telling is the way the sensation in the cavern abates at least a little; while it might still be saturated by the Primarch's power, something about the air clears, the way it tries to worm into her head somewhat lessened.

        In its place, the sound of rushing water - a lot of rushing water - and Noeline instinctively understands what that might mean, swearing (if rather more softly) under her breath once more. "--Devet," she rasps urgently as she finally gets an eye open, giving her partner a relieved smile despite the situation. "The Primach has-- left. We need a lift." There is a pause, as her gaze sweeps the remnants of the battlefield.

        Which aren't actually remnants. She straightens a little, despite the jolting ache that races down her spine and along her wounded shoulder. "What-- is Miss Keil doing--"

GS: Morgan Newkirk guards a hit from Primarch of Muse -Rahab-'s High Freeze for 131 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

        Riesenlied lets out a 'shh'ing sound to her wounded partner, some part of her perhaps regretting that she can't take a more active part in the battle -- but at the same time, she knows the importance in which what she had to do is. She doesn't dwell on it, clutching a hand to that wound on Noeline's stomach as she concentrates her power--

        --the coalescing emanations of photons starting to sap away at the wound to mend it where she can. She may not truly possess the power of healing, but she can soothe the mind, and if it is a manner of staunching what bleeds...

        ... then she can give a bit of herself, into Noeline.

        "... if we did not march until we had all the answers, it would be truly too late," Riesenlied answers the air gently. Her eyes widen as the cavern starts to erupt and roar with a fluctuation of water, and she chimes in as well--

        "Yes, please..."

        Noeline points Lily out to Riesenlied, and she finally catches upon that sensation that had nagged her all this time--

        Her eyes widen further as she watches Lily battling the other Drifters, that crest surrounding her eyes. Her eyes blue, inhuman. She gasps in horror. "Was that the-- was it the Primarch's doing...?"

        She winces, gasping. She can't lend aid at this point... "Miss Lily... please, fight it..."

        But Hope, as it turns out, does not ride alone.

        Not one, not two, but five dragons descend from the sundered ceiling, each of the Ebony Wings seated upon their individual mount. Muni-Muni is the first to return with Devet, descending down rather close as she reaches out for both Riesenlied and Noeline's hand with a worried look on her face. "Geez, look at you two!" A pause. "Where's Zed?!"

        Each of the other Dragons descend to lend aid, giving platforms upon their backs for those that will accept them. "Damn, what a mess..." Jedan grouses, a sordid grin on his face. "You really keep topping each disaster with the next one, huh?"

        And they aren't alone in their rescue efforts, either...

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

You know who else needs a lift?

Zed.

Zed, who currently has a gaping, sucking wound in the middle of a massive flood-tide and is trying very hard to keep his blood in his body. He could probably use a lift.

Tasukete Devet!

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

"No, I don't know how she suffers," Leon snaps down at Rahab. "I know how to end it. I will rip you apart if that's what it takes! Release her!"

His face red, veins in his neck bulging, Leon's sense of control over the situation is slipping. He is forced to pull back, quickly, when a disgusting splatter of pus and blood erupts out. Argent Divider rips away, still cleaned, and he snaps it to the slide before it gets onto him. His eyes widen, as he hears its words. Something about that sits with him.

Digs at him. Claws at his mind, reminding him of Dietrich Keil -- of the man he swore himself to. Of watching plans unfold -- of watching enemies move, and Keil's smile.

'You did exactly what I wanted.'

Once, hearing such a proclamation filled him with pride. Hearing it now fills him with something else. A profound emptiness, as the shadows deepen as it descends into the very life energies of the planet, all aglow. His eyes stare down at it.

From the shadows, the young girl with black hair watches. She smiles when Rahab mentions what must come.

His heart beats. It echoes in his ears. Everything else feels silent.

"Oh, the things that come to pass..."

Leon's heart beating faster and faster, until it feels like he might explode. Then, he does. "GET BACK HERE!" he screams down into the abyss. "Get BACK HERE! I am not done with you! I will tear you apart, if I have to, to bring her out of this! I will--"

And then the water slams into him. It smashes him out of his fury, slamming him against the wall, and he rolls to a stop. He rises -- and then, some sense back, his head snaps to look at Lily.

He finds his hand shaking on Argent Divider. His anger wasn't only for Rahab. It was for himself. There is, it seems, one thing he cannot do.

His heart keeps racing.

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

        Devet shrieks a little as she spots a head of green hair in the midst of the flood. "Zed!" she mashes frantically on her keyboard, tap tap tap--

        --Zed, as he gets dragged along the currents, goes 'thunk' as he bumps against a hard-light hologram... that scoops him up like a literal spatula, and dumps him on Muni-Muni's back.

        "S-sorry! It's the first shape I could think of!"

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Zed...

Is very visibly bleeding from what looks like a self-inflicted sword wound right through his midsection.

At least he's got enough strength to give a little thumbs-up. Even if he is being lifted up like some kind of zedburger.

<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Matilda is thrown off of Lily by the icy, frigid blades, biting into her side and through her armor at spots; she winces -- but no, she tells herself, as the Primarch recedes. This is something she can do. If she wants to stop feeling useless -- if she wants to forget that just moments ago she was kneeling in the muck, miserable, self-loathing -- she has to do this.

She staggers toward Lily again, hearing the confusion sink into her voice and seeing a chance to capitalize. She calls to everyone else, "Go -- find a way up! I'll handle this!"

Lily's not responding to pain, or even to base physical needs, Matilda has noticed; there's only one solution to this situation, then: cause a wound that she's confident that she, herself, can treat, disable her, and deal with everything else later. She smashes some blueberry paste into one of her wounds, then withdraws a dagger from her coat.

She looks to Leon. "Board one of the dragons! I'll -- handle this," she calls, before stepping up to Lily again. "... Apologies," she murmurs, before bringing one gloved hand up to hook into Lily's arms, and the other --

-- to stab her in the side, and hopefully weaken her enough to drag her onto one of the dragons.

GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Lily Keil with Weeding!
GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Matilda Whitehead's Weeding for 105 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.


"Oh this," Morgan pats the side of the energy weapon. "This is something I knew way before I even got here." Smoke curls from the end of the weapon. Plasma energy sparking from the spinning piece in the center before he takes aim a second time and...

...oh...

...oh that can't be good at all.

His eyes widen and quickly takes aim again on that floating ball of energy. The blue holodisplay of the targeting system swims over the glowing ball as it rushes towards the leyline. His finger strokes the trigger, the deadly whirr of the charging blast and then...

Then the ball it gone and the blast cleaves though empty space. Space that isn't empty for long though as a sudden flood explodes into the cavern. "Ah hell." A beatpause. "I hate cold water!" He shouts, glad that he sent his crew back out of here.

He's pulling back though, the gun dismisses into the aether again as he scrambles up rocks to be above the water level.

He whips his ARM back to fire a single shaft of solid light back towards the ones on lower ground. Then a second. A third. Giving them a net to climb up as he braces himself to hold them up.

"Come on people! Get up he--oh good. Is Lily still posessed? Yup. She still sure looks posessed!"

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

The Primarch is not wrong. Fei? does not know his role. Despite everything he said about the Primarch, the Primarch has not been wrong about Fei, not really. He's not thinking with wisdom, he might not even be thinking at all. It's been a rough year for Fei Fong Wong in spite of everything, it was only a few burgeoning friendships, some closer than others, and a keen love for another that has kept that persona active at all. Fei? doesn't argue with the Primarch.

Fei? doesn't even dodge the torrent of water. Could he even try? No, he practically welcomes it. Maybe this will finally be the thing that ends it--is always a turn of phrase that lies within this mental operating system, a lifelong struggle that sometimes has its ups and sometimes has its downs. A struggle for multiple lifetimes.

But it doesn't end it. It grievously wounds Fei?, certainly, as he's bashed repeatedly against the ground and nearly drowned--but it's just not enough. By the end of it all, he's standing up again.

He looks towards Leon. He then spins on his heel and approaches Lily. He's walking. Fire is surrounding her. He sloshes as he does so, stumbling periodically. It seems less badass and more tired and exhausted.

Fei? listens to the language. It stirs a cold fire within him.

He reaches forward with a palm towards Lily, through the fire and--




*headpat*

"..."

*headpat*

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Lily Keil with Headpat!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes 9 damage from Poison!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Fei Fong Wong with No Rest For The Wicked!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Morgan Newkirk's No Rest For The Wicked for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Fei Fong Wong!
GS: Restore! Morgan Newkirk clears debuffs from Fei Fong Wong!
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Matilda is thrown off of Lily by the icy, frigid blades, biting into her side and through her armor at spots; she winces -- but no, she tells herself, as the Primarch recedes. This is something she can do. If she wants to stop feeling useless -- if she wants to forget that just moments ago she was kneeling in the muck, miserable, self-loathing -- she has to do this.

She staggers toward Lily again, hearing the confusion sink into her voice and seeing a chance to capitalize. She calls to everyone else, "Go -- find a way up! I'll handle this!"

Matilda continues forward through the waves, wincing as the water starts to crash in; she manages to stay standing, but only because she's pushing forward with such force already. If there wasn't urgency before, there sure is now.

Lily's not responding to pain, or even to base physical needs, Matilda has noticed; there's only one solution to this situation, then: cause a wound that she's confident that she, herself, can treat, disable her, and deal with everything else later. She smashes some blueberry paste into one of her wounds, then withdraws a dagger from her coat.

She looks to Leon. "Board one of the dragons! I'll -- handle this," she calls, before stepping up to Lily again. "... Apologies," she murmurs, before bringing one gloved hand up to hook into Lily's arms, and the other --

-- to stab her in the side, and hopefully weaken her enough to drag her onto one of the dragons.

GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Headpat for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline can't help but feel satisfied that her potion has had some effect, even if it wasn't much. She knew that her potions, though intended to help, could be used by those with only foul intentions. That is the true meaning behind her potion, and to see it put to work satisfies her.

"Watch me, then. I'll be watching you, too." Jacqueline replies simply.

The others continue fighting against the Primarch, and then, something happens that Jacqueline doesn't quite understand. A glowing sphere with a black core tears out of its body. And yet, it continues to speak, even as it melds into the Leyline. Perhaps all along this was the true Primarch...

"Brethren...so there were more of you..." Jacqueline murmurs. A part of her expected that, but a part of her had considered its earlier comment a taunt.

It does, however, leave them with a gift.

A bone-crushing Grand Maelstrom that seeks to drown them all, to send them down into the dark abyss.

Fortunately, the Ebony Wings arrive with excellent timing. Jacqueline moves quickly, trying to make her way up the stone platforms Grudiev had created earlier.

But the tides are swift and merciless. Just as she is about to make her way to the top...they crash into her at full force, sweeping her into the depths.

There's...nothing she can do to save herself here. She can't use her Crests in the water, and in this state, she can't entreat Grudiev.

...What can she do...?

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        Be on the lookout for those who will prey upon you.

        These words are spoken with less awful purchase across his psyche than before, if with a subtle writhe that this is exactly what could happen. He shudders, jerking his head away from the Primarch.

        Of course they are. Will, runs the correction. That's how it has ever gone. Turn your back and you await the knife.

        And that's another reason why he cannot suffer Lily to live.

        He's close once the attack connects, the impact rolling up his arm.

        Loren shifts a leg back, toe to heel, aware -- in passing -- of Matilda's approach not far behind him. With his free hand -- the other and the well-battered shield held in a guard before him -- he reaches upwards to attempt to grab for her upper arm.
        If he hadn't been interrupted, he would have then proceeded from there to a throw.

        Instead, the darkness blade cuts up beneath his shield and right through him.

        There he freezes.
        A wet, choked-off sort of sound slips from him.

        And the blade rips free, drawing a spray of blood in its wake. With a gasp, Loren sinks to his knees, planting a hand against the wound.

        pain wound's deep organ damage possible no certain descending aorta is? is this how? shouldn't can't...
        His thoughts are disjointed.
        His autonomic response, possibly less so. Like a crystal grows, green light traces streaks across his body. Some tissue knits back together, mending what's been broken. Enough of it does.

        And he lifts his head.

        The Water Primarch, Rahab, gives them thanks.

        What you were brought here for.

        To feed it. Free it. Your true purpose.

        As he is -- even with some life stitched back into his body, catastrophic existence failure averted -- he only dimly processes those brief flashes of hallucination that arc their way across his mind.

        Save for one thing. Brethren. There are more.

        There is then a deluge.

        For him, still building his way back up from the point of no return, there's no escape. He's soon lost to the tides.

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

        There is one whose rescue angle approaches close to Jacqueline, when she finds herself upon danger. The one that had scorned her before, used her as an example to sow discord against the alchemist and Riesenlied. The one that had also become transfixed upon the voice of the Primarch, Rahab, in the first place.

        Jay sees, in the midst of the frosty depths, someone--

        Someone who excels at swimming. Someone whose moment had truly come.

        It's Dva! And she's gritted her teeth as her hydrojets flare at full force, and she scoops the alchemist up into her arms. She twists and torques in the air, bubbles escaping her lips as she blasts upwards and lands with grit and determination on her Dragon.

        "Oh geez, oh geez-- please be alive, please be alive..." she mumbles haphazardly.

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

Leon looks sideways to Matilda, eyes taking a moment to focus -- and then he nods. He dislikes the idea of stabbing her, but...

But that may be the only way. And Fei moves in, too. He gets a glimpse of him patting her on the head, before slides over towards Muni-Muni. He knows Muni-Muni the best. He hops on the dragon's back, before he looks down at them. "We need to get her out of here! Quickly!"

But, of course, they know that.

Leon is not currently in the best emotional state.

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

        Noeline gasps again as she feels Riesenlied touch at her wound; it's a mixture of pain and relief, intermingled into a mess of sensation that the metal demon is rather ill-equipped to handle at present; it disorients her, though at least in a much more mundane way than the Primarch's miasma. That's relief, of a sort.

        "--he's below," she rasps to Devet, watching a little dully as the technician dives downwards towards the rising water - then snaps her head back in surprise as several shafts of light bolt upwards instead, blinking curiously at the strange arm that Morgan wields. ... were it any other time, she might have something flippant to say. Right now, she's simply tired, and a little too haggard to really offer a great deal in response.

        ... well, okay, that's a bit of a lie. She can at least give Jedan the eye, huffing for a moment - oh, that was a terrible idea, the way her lungs constrict for a moment as they send another blossoming spike of pain through her. "Well. If things would just leave us alone for a moment..." she grouses in return, a wry smile on her face.

        Instinctively, she reaches for Jedan's arm, which turns out to be an incredibly stupid mistake when you have a shattered shoulder; she howls with pain for a moment, but then clamps her mouth shut as she helps drag the pair of them onto the back of one dragon. Even then, she can't bring herself to let go of Riese; fortunately, that's about all she needed to do, beyond blearily look down to try to take stock of what's happened to the Astrid and the Drifters.

        She's silently thankful that the Ebony Wings are experienced enough not to be told 'hey go get the others', because she's very, very tired.

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Between the deathly chill of the waters and the loss of breath, it was hard to remain conscious. But Jacqueline was not one to give up easily. She fights against the tides, but just when it seems that she's fighting a losing battle...

She feels herself being scooped up, and the sensation of flying...before eventually coming to a stop on top of something. Jacqueline coughs, releasing water - thankfully off the side, and not on Icedrake or Dva herself - as she opens her eyes. Her glasses are gone, having also been swept away...but she recognizes that face, and that voice, and offers Dva a weak smile.

"Th-thank you...I owe you..." She murmurs. Dva, who had once feared Riesenlied trusted Jay more than her...had saved her life.

<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.

 
Margaret ends up having a petty argument with a bollocks-shrivelling horror of the cthonic underdepths. She exhales with force, breath misting up, but the creature seems to be withdrawing. It will be a problem in the future, Margaret can absolutely tell - she doesn't need cards to see that - but it is not a problem for right now.

What did I just see? she wonders.

What horrid thing was this to lurk here? What sins and crimes did the far-off past of the Blue Star commit? Were we not taken to a divine paradise or rescued from destruction, but were we instead saved by a desperate goddess from a civilization that wrought such works as that?

That such things were MADE... Margaret looks towards Fei for a moment, for, somehow, he knew what it was. This is about the time when her dignity is offended by pus and blood spraying over her, gouting across her chest and making her look down in disgust. The water surges up among them. Her attention turns to Leon, who stands nearby, but a leg cramp shoots up the back of her right calf. DAMMIT - NOT HERE -

Not with that woman still screaming. Margaret turns herself, heavily. Counterassault, she thinks. Her grip tightens on her naginata.

BUT

There is a hellacious howling sound from above as the dragons descend. For once, it is not an augury of a monster. Several shapes that seem to make no sense travail down the sides of the walls leading down into this cavern, along with a weird and leathery noise. No, not leathery: they're clapping.

They? There are a bunch of idiots in mismatched clothes on the back of the dragons. Several of them leap off once they see water, carrying - what - canvas? Folding chairs?

NO!! Collapsible boats!! The Hounds of Hell hit the water with a series of splashes, and two of the three collapsible boats are immediately boarded and adequately manned. The remaining one appears to be both a wash and awash, although it is dog-paddled with disturbing swiftness towards a high point.

Margaret shouts immediately towards the ones who stuck the landing, "IDIOTS! You think you're getting favors because you couldn't handle a boat!?" Water laps over her calves. She doesn't gun towards a boat. The naginata is swept around as a signalling mechanism. "Paddle! Paddle for your lives! This is colder than the Lord of Calamity's t--"

MEANWHILE

That weird shape on the side of the cavern wall was, in fact, something being cushioned by the air. That short woman still has a meat skewer in her mouth and has her hands spread out, green ambiance emitting outwards - wind magic - a ground effect! The tiller is being manned by the burly old man, and in the center - pride of place - is

GRIZ. A man with a glossy jacket, no shirt, and well-sculpted hair. The light glints off his teeth as he says, "Silf! Left! I see a floater!"

There is a spray of water as the boat hits the freezing drink, but nobody gets wet. Griz starts to work his legs. Because, Loren, your nightmares have come to save you - an ancient foe resurrected in order to mock your sorrow -

For Loren there is a distant murmuring of voices, and then a sudden sharp shock as if he had been STRUCK in his injury -- which is, somehow, improved by the practice, as if heat billowed out of it instead of pain. Griz and the older man lean forwards, to look at him.

"Think he's a tenor, Rex," Griz says to the other.

Rex, now en-named, says, "We can't just let a tenor freeze. Swap with me!" And there is bustling, and rustling, and soon enough Loren's frigid body is being clasped to a muscular, oiled, bare chest beneath Griz's leather jerkin.

"You've got stones to come out here, bud!" Griz booms. "We'll get you outta this piss, you just get warm! Silf, sing a song or something, give 'im something to focus on."

"Eat me," Silf replies.

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

What suffering?

Lily's eyes are blank, still glowing blue. She ignores pain, ignores the receding of the Creature beyond, the energy that it was. She ignores all of them, except the flames around her, starting to continue her assault. ...But that starts to turn into something more defensive, as she stumbles around, seemingly without direction in the absence of Rahab. She does not follow up after Loren; the blade that impaled him disappears completely. She does not even look at her nemesis falling. There is no satisfaction there; there is nothing. She does not even look to Leon, who calls out for hr, who loses himself in his worries.

...Fei approaches. Fei walks through the fire, and pats her head, empowered by Morgan's abilities. ...Her hair is cold, and soft somehow. She stares blankly at him for an instant, uncomprehending, and does not even strike back in that moment. ...At the same time, Matilda slips up, quiet as death, and takes hold of one of Lily's arms to slide a knife straight into her side, easy as anything. ...It's not easy, of course; Matilda has to punch through armor, has to punch through flesh, feels hot blood spill out in contrast to the cold everything else of Lily in the rising waters.

Lily starts to open her mouth, and then her eyes flicker, turning back to the featureless black they were before she was overtaken... and stare into nothing as her knees buckle and she starts to fall. It's exactly like a puppet whose strings have been cut.

The flames around her fade out with a hiss of steam, and the Black Wolves' Lieutenant shivers involuntarily against the terrible cold.

Still in Zeboim she murmurs, "<Every... where...>" It fades into a hoarse whisper, and she says nothing else.

GS: Lily Keil has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei? watches Lily.

He watches her fall exactly like a puppet whose strings have been cut. He turns his hand back and looks at it.

"..."

His hand drops to his side and he just stares at Lily as she's pulled away.

And then he too is taken by one of the dragons and evacuated away. At some point he fell asleep, but how long ago it was is a mystery.

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

        Around them, Riesenlied can only watch... both horrors and untold tragedies unfold, beyond her knowing. She sees Matilda stabbing Lily-- which prompts an echoing sting in her head as she feels some sensation of that pain through Lily's own empathic aura... She does not know the reaches that the creature has touched upon people -- to permeate their own senses of paranoia with layer upon further layer of doubt. And of the truly deep concerns that one should worry, for creatures created of -science- in the past have now risen to take vengeance. It was like seeing the same story, the same song in the Photosphere unfold in a different manner.

        That the very Planet has avengers, no matter how accidental, against them.

        Yet in the midst of that seeming despair--

        She sees hope, too.

        She sees Morgan and his allies assisting, creating rungs upon rungs of hard light to help scoop those out of the water. She remembers him, how he called her 'little Dragon', in the Stone Desert back then. He was unusually kind to her.

        She sees the Ebony Wings, and they aren't alone -- surprisingly, there is Griz, Rex and Silf, those of mismatched clothing, throwing collapsible boats... were they the flunkies of someone else? It is heartening, to see the Dragons working with disaparate colors. If she knew the true depths of what was accomplished here -- that members of the Althenan Guard were working in tandem with the Tainted, to save Drifters of differing stripes and walks and even a member of -Gebler-...

        Well...

        All she can do now is clutch at Noeline as she continues to work her power over her, lending more and more of her fragmented body to seal her life partner's wounds. Someone's going to tease them about that later, and she's not going to get why having a part of herself in Noeline is so lewd.

        And above all..

        This is the first seed towards that hopeful future she so desires, is it not?

        A seed to opening, together, the doors to that New World...