2018-02-21: Tears of the North

• Log: Tears of the North
• Cast: Jack Van Burace, Fei Fong Wong, Malfi, Gwen Whitlock, Ida Everstead-Rey, Cassidy Cain, Cecilia Adlehyde, Agatha Pyrelight, Rosaline Calice, Garrett Stampede
• Where: A waystation near Lost July
• Date: 2018-02-21
• Summary: Jack has been searching for the ultimate power to fuel his revenge. Has he found it at last?

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<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.

It all starts quietly. In the evening, just as people around the outskirts of town. A little tavern. Nothing fancy, nothing expensive, a place to stop on the way to somewhere else. Somewhere on the edge of the Great Desert. It's the last place most people would think something would happen. But something has happened there. Out on the edge of the fiery desert. The tavern room buzzes with speculation and gossip. What could have caused it, the strage ice sculptures jutting up from a hillock not far away. Great jagged and twisted spires of ice in the middle of the hot desert, ice that refuses to melt. Ice that fightens away annimals as unnatural.

It's an odd thing. A strange thing. But in the grand schemes of strange things in the land, it's a small thing.

One for chatting over the fires and a mug of ale and dinner. Not one to worry mighty heroes and adventurers.

Right? RIIGHT?

Of course the conversation in the room is punctured by a sudden thump of a metal object being dragged downstairs.

Thump.

Thump.

THUMPTHUMPTHUD!

The last comes as two things suddenly spill down the stairway to the upstairs rooms. The first object is one blue furred wind mouse.

The second is a sheathed longsword, elegantly curved and peace bonded, which he was dragging before it fell all the way down said stairs with it.

"...oh bother." Hanpan mutters as he starts to pick himself up, looking somewhere between worried and exasperated. WHY DOES HE HAVE SUCH TINY USELESS ARMS!!!

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Yeah Fei is not going to camp in the Pleasing Gardens for a week. It isn't that pleasing. He passes by strange spooky ice sculptures on the way back to pick up some supplies. He has a bad feeling about this.

He makes his way into the local tavern because if he drinks just enough alcohol he forgets things, but he was also told--he recalls--to not seek answers at the bottom of a glass well he'll show that mysterious man in a mask, he'll find all the answers at the bottom of a glass.

Or maybe the bottom of stairs.

And maybe some stares because that's a wind mouse.

"Hanpan?" Fei says. He looks at the sword for a bit longer, frowning deeply. "I think... I think that sword's a bit big for you."

Pause. "...What's up?"

<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.

Amber eyes dart up from a large coffee and pie as Malfi watches the sword clatterskid down the stairs, supervised by an annoyed blue Wind Mouse. She thinks about asking if he needs help, but draws back as Fei approaches him. With her height and long white hair, Malfi would normally be attracting attention, but she's eclipsed by her cargo -- an Elbucky in a wheeled cage. The creature resembles nothing so much as a wildcat, pacing on its front paws, rump in the air, twin tails lashing in consternation. It does not like being caged! Fortunately, the cage looks sturdy enough to contain it, and anyone who looks closely will note an adquate supply of pellets and water. Cold glances from Malfi discourage gawking or worse, questions, as she returns to her soon-to-be-cold coffee...

 <Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        It was very convenient, after Ida had come across those artifacts in the ruined dojo in Lost July, that she had a courier right there to deliver the items to a safe box some distance away for further safe-keeping. Agreeing to meet back up with Ida at the waystation nearby Lost July, Gwen arrives at the tavern, giving Gulliver some muchly needed R&R while she does the same.

        Or, at least, tries to.

        See, there's a problem. Gwen hasn't seen a friend of hers for a while now. A friend who, recently, has understandably been through some rough patches. Y'know, being a survivor of a country that has been thoroughly taken over and ruled by Metal Demons. One of their knights, even. Pretty grave stuff, as well as stuff that's tough for Gwen to truly understand, even at her most negative. Revenge, and the need for vengeance, just doesn't make that much sense to Gwen.

        The fact that Jack always tries to keep a reign on his emotions despite Gwen's innocent tendencies to brush against those emotional wounds has not gone unappreciated by the courier.

        So, Gwen strolls to the bar, preparing to hydrate herself while waiting to hook up with Ida. A glance is spared towards Malfi and... her big cat(?), as well as Fei. Who is drinking. Sure, Gwen was going to do the same, but there's a difference between her kind of drinking and Fei's kind. He might try to arm-wrestle people, or- wait, that's just what she does when she's drunk.

        Ordering something with enough alcohol to chase away any nasty bits that could lurk in water in these parts, Gwen gives a nod to Fei, considering whether or not to join him, when there's some loud thumps coming down the stairs.

        And there, at the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor, is Hanpan. And Jack's sword. "... Uh. Hanpan?" Gwen squats down to peer at the tiny wind mouse, balancing on the balls of her feet. "What are you doin' with Jack's sword there?" Peering up the stairway, she begins to laugh. "Here I was 'bout to go lookin' for 'im, but if you're here, must mean he's just upstairs. Here, lemme give you a hand." She reaches over with her right hand and carefully picks up the sheathed sword as she straightens. "Man, this thing has some heft to it. Why're you stealin' away his sword anyway?"

        If there's any onlookers not already distracted by Malfi's caged companion, they'd probably be staring at the courier, talking to a wind mouse, while holding a rare sheathed sword.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        Ida felt it would be a good use of her time to go back to town to get more supplies--she hadn't carried much on the way in, but now that she knows where the ruin entrance is, she can prepare for a more thorough expedition. She also wanted to check up on Gwen, and ensure that she was all right, and that she got a box of valuable relics back to a hotel safe in November City.

        The good news: Gwen did her job admirably, and the box is safe. Having retrieved Gwen's message from the Memory Cube, she's headed to the tavern.

        The young naturalist-turned-Drifter walks into the bar with a slow, easy gait, takes off her hat, and scans the bar for Gwen. As luck would have it, though, the first thing she notices is the commotion at the foot of the stairs. "Hanpan?" Ida says, squinting down at the little wind mouse. She momentarily thinks of how everyone else might interpret this, but only momentarily--which is testament to how much she's changed. The sword. That's Jack's sword. He wouldn't go anywhere without it. Ida's eyes narrow. "Are you all right?" She bends down, her military-surplus overcoat pooling around her ankles. She places a hand on the floor, palm-down, to allow him to climb up if he chooses. "Where's Jack?"

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

She is presently recuperating, though one has to wonder just how much recuperating she is actually doing when she's at the common room of a tavern in the middle of nowhere, flirting with disaster.
 
 Except said disaster is a swarthy looking fellow with an olive complexion, and dark, heavy lidded eyes, and he seems to be surrounded by a group of henchmen dressed in dark coats - it's rare enough to find a man well connected enough to have this much security on him, and while the members of this motley crew try to look inconspicuous, they are failing miserably. If they were in any of the other commercial business centers in Filgaia, they would blend in easily, but here, amidst the sandy wastes, they stick out like cactuses on a stretch of beach - odd things that do not belong.
 
 Cassidy Cain remains her usual self, clad in her leathers and the impeccably tailored collared shirt with the ruffled collar that she favors, and as always, she doesn't make it a secret that she is armed, though her weapons are simple compared to the technological marvels that dot the planet's wastelands - they're certainly nothing like Gwen's: two pistols and an innocuous looking knife. Then again, her reputation often precedes her...she would rather talk her way out of trouble than go out shooting.
 
 Though if she's not given a choice but to do the latter, she isn't above shooting first either.
 
 Presumably, she is doing the latter and by looking at her, one wouldn't think that she had been spotted nearly half-dead in Rosaline Calice's shotgun wedding, a sassy crasher who made her disappointment that there was no reception plenty clear by attempting to marry the groom and the best man instead.
 
 Look, some poeple cope with disappointment in different ways.
 
 She seems alright, or at least alive. Hell only knows just what she is doing here, tucked away in the middle of nowhere. One could almost assume she stashed herself there for reasons of safety, given the state she was found and how extensive her injuries were - so much that Lily Keil actually insisted on seeing to her (and a measure of good will that she probably regrets, the blonde made a terrible patient). But with most of the Black Wolves, and therefore her partner, somewhere wreaking havoc in Kislev, she stays behind, content with her whiskey and a chat.
 
 A chat that ends with the man across her laughing aproariously.
 
 "You want to do what?" he asks, draping a long fingered hand on the arm rest of his seat, though his amusement doesn't touch his eyes. "So the rumors are true. You have gone insane."
 
 Cassidy leans back - save for the bandages wound around her fingers, slashed nearly to ribbons from where she had grabbed a Metal Demon Dragon's scales, there are no other signs of her more recent tribulations. The smile is there, however - brilliant and sharp enough to eviscerate.
 
 "Vito," she replies affably. "I want you tae remember our long and tumultuous history together and think tae yourself if I've never nae delivered."
 
 It could be the inflection in her voice, the way she says it, but the words wipe the man's smile out of his face entirely.
 
 "...Carillo will see you dead or worse," he points out. "I ought to just stuff you in a bag and deliver you to the Kid before the reporter and the fox find out."
 
 The blonde rolls her head back, her own amusement trained on the ceiling.
 
 "Dinnae ken if I oughtae be so flatttered that you've nae been idle," she muses, almost absently, her fingers tapping on her tumbler once, before taking it and moving to stand gradually from her chair. "Looking intae me so thoroughly. S'pose I can consider that a challenge."
 
 She pivots at that, waving a hand over her shoulder.
 
 "Just think about it, ay?"

<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.

"Why yes, it is." Hanpan sound distracted at Fei's statement. "I mean its nnot mine of course bu---" Then he pauses. "Mister Fei! Oh thank the Guardians. Someone who might can help!" He even looks more relieved when Gwen plucks the sword up. "Oh Miss Gwen too! Good good! You two must help. Please..."

The little Wind Mouse seems worried though, his paws twist over on each other and he frowns before he realises he is missing something, scampering round the bottom of the landing for a moment before coming up with a piece of paper. A note, hastily scribbled in a somewhat shaky hand.

"No...I'm..." He shakes his head slightly. "...he's not upstairs, Miss Gwen. Miss Ida. I don't know where he is. He just left this..."

He holds the note out, up towards the the pair of them.

Its a simple note:

'Hanpan,
You've been a better partner and friend than I deserved. I'm glad I got to travel with you, but now I have to find a different path. And its one I won't drag you down. Tell Cecilia and Rudy that I'll be fine, but I can't let them get away with this. The Demons have to pay. For everything they've done. I have to have the power to kill them. To make them fear us as much as we fear them. I'm sorry.
Don't try to find me.'

It's signed 'Jack' but that name is scribbled out to be replaced with the name Garrett.

P.S. Find Gwen, she'll take better care of you than I ever could.

Hanpan twists his paws together again. "I fear Jack went and did something very foolish...he...had a nightmare right before this and...he wouldn't tell me what it was. But I know where he's going, at least I think so..."

He's pacing as he talks. Back and forth, gesturing nervously, which is how he ends up pacing right into Cassidy's ankles as he blinks owlishly up towards the blonde.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        "Fei," Ida says, turning to look up at the swordsman. She pulls her hand back as Hanpan paces around, anxiously--mostly because she wants to give him some space. It's a little strange to watch a mouse pace around anxiously, but her concern for Jack and Hanpan overrides her concern about being seen as a madwoman.

        This is hardly the worst thing she's done in public, after all.

        Hanpan comes up with a piece of paper. Ida reads it, and as she does, her lips slowly curl into a frown. Her brow furrows. She can feel her pulse quickening--a sensation that's all too familiar. "We have to go find him," Ida says. "Before he does something he cannot take back." Ida rises, her guts tying themselves in knots. "Go with Hanpan, Gwen," Ida murmurs. Hanpan then stumbles into someone's ankle. Ida's gaze moves from the ankle to the face, and--

        "Miss Cain," Ida says. "I'd--offer to buy you a drink for your help last time, but this is a bad time."

<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.

Malfi watches impassively as Hanpan hands Jack's note to the lady in the military coat. Evidently several of these people know each other, and note's writer has run away or disappeared or something. It's a mystery that appeals to her hunter's instincts (and her captive will be just fine, even if she has to leave him for a day or two).

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei looks a little nervous when Hanpan uses the word 'Someone who might/can help!'. He is a little more relieved when Gwen and Ida also appear to be around to lend a hand. After a moment, he actually reads the note. Sometimes finding a different path is neccessary in life and isn't uncommon for a drifter.

'I have to have the power to kill them To make them fear us as much as we fear them.'

Fei wishes he hadn't read this letter. The last time he saw Jack was when they were fighting Lady Harken. They weren't able to defeat her and she acted strangely near the end there. Beyond that, he doesn't know Jack too well but he does know he's a friend of Cecilia's and, more to the point, someone who went out and learned how to play the guitar.

Fei says, "...But there aren't any...metal demon bases here, are there? Not unless you count Wayside..."

Yes genius, where do you think he'd be going?

No, Fei thinks, Jack wouldn't. Would he? Didn't they warn Riesenlied both of something like that happening? Enemies both from those she was trying to befriend and those she was leaving behind--

"The power to kill them." Fei says quietly, his fists slowly clenching. Power, power, power!!

NO WISDOM, NO COURAGE. ONLY POWER

Who doesn't desire power, boy?

Dost thou desire...

Fei shakes his head clear of such thoughts. "We have to find him. Do you have any idea of where he might've gone to, Hanpan? How long he's been gone?" He thinks it over. "Maybe he's somewhere in Lost July. They say a man destroyed that city in one day. If that's not power...what is?" He'd really rather not think that he's already acting on something.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        Gwen takes the crumbled note from Hanpan with her free hand, tucking the sheathed sword between her ARM and her side so she can carefully smooth out the letter, displaying it at an angle both Fei and Ida can read. "That..." The note shakes as Gwen bites down a sudden updraft of anger. "That damn idiot! What th'heck is he thinkin', pullin' this? I don't care what his problems are, he's got no right to go off into the desert n' make everyone worry themselves sick jus' cause he got a nightmare!"

        Gwen then winces, realizing a second too late just *how* insensitive that really was. "... Well, okay, yeah, he's seen a lotta stuff that would make my nightmares look dull as hell, but that's all the more reason to trek out after him and drag his ass right back for a good ol' session of friendly chattin'. Or whatever it'll take for him not to pull this again. Damn it, what about Cecilia n' Rudy? They need him! "

        It's about then, now that the courier's eyes have fully adjusted to the dark of the tavern, that she sees Cassidy there. "... Cassidy. You're lookin' a lot better since I saw you last." Her expression relaxes, glad to see the blonde in a bit better condition, before she remembers Jack.

        Damn it, now she's anxious and angry all over again.

        "Fei, you okay enough to come with me? N' Ida, you okay enough to go into god knows where after a guy who might've lost his mind?" She lifts the sword up. "Then again, if he left his sword with Hanpan, this might be easier to manage. He's tall, but I'm willin' to punch him if I don't lose my nerve between now and when we find him. And if not, well, Fei, you can punch a guy, right?"

        Yeah, it *would* be a shame if Cecilia saw this note...

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

She's about to refill her drink when the windmouse runs into her ankle, leaving impact strong enough for her to take notice and to glance down with too-bright eyes, suggestive of some degree of private mirth, or copious amounts of painkillers in her system.
 
 With the woman in question, it's probably both.
 
 Slender, pale fingers dip to pluck Hanpan off the ground, lifting him up to peer at his face right in the eyes. The conwoman and thief tilts her head slightly sideways, furrowing her brows once - thoughts pass through those virid eyes, inscrutable, unreadable, but recognition lights them up after a few moments of scrutinizing the little thing. "Ay, well. You certainly look familiar."
 
 Green eyes shot with gold fall upon the note the mouse holds up. The words are given a quick skim, but there's a lift of her brows and a decidedly feline slant to her expression once she finishes digesting the information - probably not a preferred expression, when one is a mouse.
 
 Miss Cain.
 
 It's only then that Cassidy looks up and seems to, for the first time, realize that there are familiar faces in the crowded common room. "Ida." There's a shift of her eyes. "Gwen." As informal as ever.
 
 And with tempers roused around her, she says nothing for a moment, simply reading the words once more on the piece of paper.
 
 "Well enough tae join a growing hunt, it looks like," she says simply, a hand draping loosely on the butt of one pistol. She should be recuperating. She should leave the party to their own devices, but needs must, and if the man in question means what he says, then really, they have a lot in common and she should probably speak to him.
 
 Besides, what's the worst that could happen?
 
 "Nae everyone's built like regular people, Gwen," she murmurs, finally. "Nae everyone can rise above revenge. Besides..." There's a glance at the aforementioned sword. "If the lad left his sword, that just means he's got some other plan. Dinnae think anyone's suicidal enough tae kill Metal Demons with just his wits."

<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.

Cassidy's mention of killing Metal Demons catches Malfi's attention, of course, but she says nothing. She hopes her disguise will hold up. It feels too weak, too small, to be comfortable, and worse -- it's unattractive.

<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

The comings and goings of Cecilia Adlehyde can be occasionally be hard to predict - moved by whims that she can't entirely explain, powers bigger than her own mind.

Or, often enough, her desire for literal bags full of hamburgers, which is what she walks into the bar with, a floppy cart-purchased burger halfway out of her gob. She is blissfully untroubled for a moment, because she has calories in her face and no currently-pending divine edicts to go set a man on fire, and--

She stops, foot upraised, mid-turn, and her head tips at the gathering of people she knows and a few people in mysterious cloaks, all looking dire.

...she gulps the hamburger down in a panel transition. "I know we didn't lose a statue," she says, because she feels those in her soul. "What's happened?"

<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.

"I...don't think Jack would go to Wayside...the way he signed that letter though. I know where he's going because of it." The wind mouse says with a worried frown. "I'm worried, Miss Ida. Jack hasn't been the same since he fought that skeleton swordsman. He stopped confiding in me, started avoiding people, I knew something was wrong but...he seemed to go mad after that nightmare. He...he was the one that created the ice. I've never seen him do that before."

His little paws twist round once more.

"But yes, Mister Fei. I know where he's going. At least I'm mostly sure. I just...I don't know if I should go alone. If something has happened..." A blink then towards Ida. "...you'd be willing to go with me Miss Ida? Oh thank the Guardians."

But then Gwen gets angry and Hanpan blinks in some suprise at her before he shakes his head. "It was...more than a nightmare. Something shook him, I don't know what. He didn't say, he just shouted a name of someone from his past. Elmina Niet. I don't know why."

But as people agree to take up the hunt the wind mouse gives a greatful smile. Though he does dart over towards Gwen, then up her and to her shoulder as Cassidy gives him that look.

Feline is bad when you're a mouse ok!!

The trip isn't that long to be honest. On out into the sands, past the strange ice sculptures there, further towards the mountains in the distance. Almost to the border. Plenty of time for people to explain to Cecilia what is going on.

Possibily not enough time for her to stop shouting.

Its hard to tell.

One more crest of a dune brings the little group to a patch of harder ground. Less sand, more rock as a hillock rises out of the edge of the desert. Its still sweltering of course. But on top of the hill a single scraggly tree can be seen. Clawing its way out of the dust like a solitary stubborn claw.

That seems normal enough.

What isn't normal is the swirling images that ring the hill.

Melovence roils in the air here, causing shimmers in the air that even those without an inkling of magical senses can see. Creatures flee from the area as they approach, birds and mice streaming away from the hill as that feeling of something wrong grows more intense. The ground at least isn't tainted.

Yet.

Those images resolve themselves into visions. Ghosts of the past brought back to life by the pervasive wrongness of the magic in the area. Before them looms the great wall of a kingdom in its heyday. Tall walls of granite from a shining gate of steal and wood, the crest of Arctica emblazoned on the front. They shimmer like a heat mirage, see though but still imposing. Ghostly figures in the outfits of guards stand atop the high walls keeping watch. Its a beautiful scene, so like Cecilia's own home it might bring back fond memories.

As they approach though something shifts in the image. The look on the guards faces turn to shock and horror. They point to something behind them, something only the ghosts can see.

On screams silently.

An image of an all too familiar spiked ball and chain suddenly tears though where the little group of mortals stand to collide with the gates, tearing though the ancient stone, the forged steel, the mighty oak with ease. The guards fall from their posts, crushed in the eerily silent spray of rubble as the faint echo of Berserk's laughter can be heard as if from a distance.

<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.

Malfi recognizes the scene. She's seen Berserk fight before. She even finds the Arctican crest on the gate familiar. She fought there herself, and slaughtered dozens of effete courtiers and fat middle-aged bureaucrats. It's where she learned to think of humans as pushovers -- before she was schooled better. She perceives the visions but can't really feel the Malevolence behind them. She reflexively reaches for her weapon, only to find she's not wearing one. Right, the disguise...

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        Ida doesn't talk to Cecilia the whole way there. She doesn't even look at her, though those observing might tell that it's been tempered--it's resentment, regret, or perhaps both. They did not part on good terms, after all.

        Ida expected the Malevolence. She knows what Jack was after, what he wanted in Wehaca. It doesn't stop her pulse from quickening as she climbs the hillock, step by step. She didn't see this herself, but it doesn't take a genius to put the pieces together. "Arctica," she whispers. She reaches into a pocket, and pulls out that brooch again--the one with her family crest on it. The one with the white lotus, the symbol of the Demon Fist... and her family line? Hildegarde Raye, Arctica.

        It's strange. If Ida's family is another twig on the same branch, then they must have diverged centuries ago. Nevertheless, she feels something like kinship as she sees those walls, those soldiers. She knows how it ends.

        Ida closes her eyes, takes a breath, tries to ignore the clawing sense of dread and wrongness. "Jack?" Ida says. She walks through the hole left by Berserk's spiked mace, raising her voice. "Jack?!" Ida looks around, swallows.

        "Garrett?!"

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Oh god damnit, Fei reflects as Cecilia shows up right then. But maybe, of course, Cecilia is precisely who needs to come along. He isn't going to show the note itself but he does at least explain the gist of you know abandoning his friends in his pursuit of power!

Uh. Except he tries to explain it in a way that doesn't sound so bad.

He fails at this.

Fei grimaces. "Not this again..." He says as he sees the Malevolence. "...Temper steel too much and it becomes brittle..." He shakes his head. "...Not that I'm expecting them to understand. Can we really do nothing about this?" He looks to Cecilia. "I know it's a new plague, but this kind of poison isn't new..." He clenches his fists. "It's not enough to take our lives, they want to taint our feelings, take away our ability to manage our own emotions and feelings...!"

He lowers his head as the images start appearing showing nothing good. "...And we're fertile ground for it..."

He punches his palm with his hand out of a lack of anything good to hit instead. "Damn it...!"

<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

Quite the opposite; Cecilia sees the note - doesn't let them hide that secret from her - and hisses something low. "As if I'd make it that easy on you, you arrogant--"

And then she doesn't say much other than leaving, apparently quite calmly expecting everyone else is just going to follow. Cecilia speaks freely of how much she disliked palace life; but in moments like this, when she reaches for composure amid her frustrations, she acts more like a princess than she'd be comfortable admitting. She stops only long enough to return to her room for her equipment - her crest case on her hip and her staff in hand. She's expecting a fight - or perhaps just preparing to blow up anyone unfortunate enough to think they are allowed to slow her down.

For whatever little it's worth, she doesn't seem to take much more than a moment's extra notice of Ida. Her focus is far removed from that day.

Her stomach churns; her head pulses, just once. Not the presence of the Guardians, but the stink of the poison of Malevolence is one she's starting to remember. "Something's here," she mutters.

She watches as the familiar hammer of Berserk slams into those illusions. "...we've never fought him here," she murmurs. "Is this before I met him...? Is it even real...?"

She looks back, at Fei's growing anger. "...I'm no Shepherd," she says. "But I can do something about this. Later."

Her fist clenches around her staff. "First, Jack."

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

Well, this is weird.
 
 But if there is anything over ten years of adventuring in the wastelands of Filgaia has told her, is that there are strange things out in the deserts. The concept of a mirage is well known, especially during the hottest months of the year, a glimpse of relief and torment before death from exposure and dehydration sets upon a tired body. This is an entirely different thing, as if this very spot has decided to take a bloody moment of its history and play it on loop.
 
 Cassidy Cain has always had a tenuous relationship with the Past - there is a reason why she complains in every dig she has been brought in, why she would tell anyone who would listen that the bones of history ought to stay buried where they are. The fact that a piece of it can come back to life this way, to haunt the sands, sits on her stomach uneasily, eyeing the landscape - if it can do that here, where else could it happen...and to who?
 
 "Well, fook me running," is all she sees, watching as walls crumble, and men die.
 
 That isn't to say their party isn't fraught with tension, already. She recognizes Cecilia - the destruction of Adlehyde has been burned indelibly in her memory, for all that is surprising for a woman who is so outwardly and determinedly blase about everything, and the fact that Ida is presently ignoring the princess. She doesn't pry, but playing confidence games have had a marked effect on the way she views the world and the strings that bind people together are those that she tends to detect and observe with the sensitivity of a shark scenting blood in the water. Still, she says nothing about it, and neither does she give any indication that she has noticed.
 
 Instead, she falls a step next to Gwen and the windmouse as the Everstead-Rey heiress calls for Jack.
 
 "Going all so tense for someone else other than me, I'm hurt," she tells the courier amicably. "Tae think I was this close tae running away with you and finding our happy ever after elsewhere. I s'pose I'll get over it eventually. I mean, we were even at a wedding together and we never had the time tae get hitched even with a priest right there. Sorry tae say it, luv, but I dinnae think it's meant tae be after all. I dinnae think I can compete with a man called 'Jack'. Is nae that the name of every dashing protagonist in every penny dreadful in the history of ever?"
 
 It's banter, somewhere at the back, as the rest of them stare at the growing plague pervading the landscape. Malevolence is a phenomenon that she is aware of, though it's difficult to say that she understands it, not when she calls it Moon Cancer. But its effects are familiar. She is almost certain it is the very thing that prompted Gwen to hallucinate and attack her.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        Of course not everyone's built like regular people. She's not saying that. She's-

        Cassidy's words, at first, just seem to frustrate Gwen, who tries to search for the words to properly express herself as Hanpan shifts from Cassidy to Gwen's shoulder.

        The action of an adorable saddened mouse scampering up to perch on her shoulder seems to calm her. "Okay, well, it's simple enough. We go into the desert, we find him, we drag him back, and he has to endure everyone of us yellin' or cryin' or whatever at him until he realizes he shouldn't do that again."

        ----

        "Nonononono. No. NO. No. Nope. No." Gwen just shakes her head. "The hell with this, I ain't losing someone else..."

        Now, as they go into the illusions that have sprung up in the oasis, that's when the sinking, gnawing feeling that evaded so many of Gwen's earlier attempts at words makes its form clear: Gwen was afraid that Malevolence was involved. If Rosaline could fall to it, so many others could do the same. Hell, even Gwen herself temporarily fell to it, when she was dealing with the news of her aunt's death, coupled with the news of Isiris's appearance in the Badlands, a man she didn't even have the name of. It wasn't that she turned into a Hellion, really, she just... attacked Cassidy, thinking she was someone, some_thing_ else.

        And the worst part is, it started this narrative where apparently she may've also tried to kiss Cassidy)?), elope with her (?), and-

        Well, at least it's proven to be a nice little lie to keep Gwen blushing and on her toes instead of tumbling headlong into more trouble. "C-cassidy! It ain't like that!" Gwen frantically waves her hands in front of her. "It's more like-"

        That's when Berserk's chain and ball bursts through the castle walls like they were toy props, centering Gwen once more. "We gotta find him."

<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.

Though the gates they step, the images rippling around them like water. Men die silently as they pace forwards, shouting for Jack. Then for Garrett. Hanpan clutches tight to Gwen as they move.

"These...are his nightmares." The wind mouse says softly. Horrified and fascinated all at once. "It's what he sees. Is this what he saw the other night..."

Off to the left bestial metal demons tear into homes and shops, dragging people into the street or down dark alleys. To the right desprite soldiers try to hold back the tide in a spear formation. This little block is lead by a figure that seems sharper than the others. Leather armor, a read and gold cloak, long lavender hair. This figure is in sharper focus, youthful face and shinnging medal of the Fenrir Knights pinned to its shoulder. They wield a bow that claims metal demon lives every time it sings. Wielded with skill and precision that few can claim to match as the tiny block of swordsmen and spearmen attempt to hold a line. To give the civilians time to retreat to safty.

Desprition is writ on the figures face as they fire arrow after arrow at an approaching target and the next second two robot like bugs slice though the image. Blood sprays and the image falls seconds before Beserk's hammer crashes into the soldiers and they fly like kindling under the hammer blow of the Quarter Knight's weapon.

There is a dark, twisted chuckle. "Bastis. Esperanzas." The voice coming from again a far distance. A memory of a memory as Alhazard speaks to his pets. "You know I need test subjects. Not corpses."

The bodies whisp away into a miasma that begins to swirl around the area. A thick fog pouring from that tree, or more specifically from a figure lying against the base of that tree. Not moving, almost seeming asleep.

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

Through the haze of someone else's nightmares, she barely pays it any heed - or so it seems, she certainly doesn't comment upon them: no gasp, no utterance of how terrible it all is. It wouldn't be beyond her to simply ignore what is happening out of blatant disregard or sheer apathy - or some kind of strange deference to the horrors one has suffered by saying nothing so trite.
 
 The hell with this, I ain't losing someone else.
 
 That earns Gwen a sidelong glance. Did something happen to her aunt?
 
 The twist on her lips at hearing those words is strange to say the least - sardonic and unreadable. Utterly incapable and unwilling to trespass those forbidden territories by expessing even just a modicum of sympathy, the pale-tressed Drifter draws out Hawthorne's revolver and dislodges the chamber to peer inside, ensuring that it is loaded and ready for bear. Satisfied by the array of rounds within, she snaps it back in with a sharp flick of her wrist.
 
 Absently, two digits lift from her spare hand, to toy with the string of pearls hanging around her neck, a single fingertip rolling over a lustrous bead where veins of red-brown are visible - save for those darker flecks, the quality is almost flawless.
 
 "S'pose you need tae ask yourself, then, as tae how much you can really handle," she tells Gwen. "Unless you're one of the lucky ones that dinnae lose a piece of yourself at every hit."
 
 There's a hooded-eyed look at the sudden swirl of thick mist.
 
 "Ken with that, I've only got one shot left," she murmurs, more to herself than who she is speaking with.
 
 Glimpsing a sleeping figure at the base of a tree, she levels the sight of her gun towards him, just in case. An inquiring look is angled to the others, to see if they recognize him.

<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.

Malfi gazes silently at the illusory carnage. This, too, she recognizes -- except for the archer. She would've remembered him, she is sure. She pads carefully behind the others, keeping up yet remaining unobtrusive. This has cast her mind back to that day. There had been blood, so much blood, and pain. It wasn't anything like striking the dummies in the training hall. She doesn't want to remember but doesn't really have a choice, not with these images swirling around her, making the past live again, if only as ghostly shadows. She is pensive, lost in thought and time, so badly she stumbles. The figure prone against the tree doesn't register, not really...she is too distracted.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei nods to Cecilia. "Even so it's just so... it's just so awful. It spreads so easily..." He rubs at his head. He can feel it, the anguish, it's so strong. He rubs at his forehead, biting at his lip. "He lost his home. The Metal Demons took their revenge." He murmurs to himself. "How did they fall after so long...?" He lowers his head. Lahan crawls into his eye-socket. He tries to push it out of his head, down into the pit in his stomach.

But this is frankly quaint compared to the reaction Fei has to Alhazard. He digs his nails into his palms that he pushes in welts.

So even the Metal Demons have someone like that.

Chi flows around his hand. He doesn't even seem to notice it. He can't stand it. He can't stand it. Is this what he dreams about? Does he dream about this every night? Was the Jack that cheerfully played his guitar just a facade? A fake? Is he just a coward? Just like him?

Men, young, the old, the young, demi-humans

Fei closes his eyes and exhales slowly.

Do you remember seeing them tumble like broken dolls? Do you remember what they put into you? What do you think they put in his comrades? What do you think they turned them into?

Fei snaps his eyes open and the aura fades. "Cecilia, if he's infected, we have to be careful."

No. You can't even hear me now can you?

FEI PSYCHO UP

<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

"We will," Cecilia says to Gwen, with sudden chill. Her lips go flat. "He did not get my permission to leave."

Bold words to disguise how worried she really is, maybe. Her fingers are curled tight around that staff. Who's Garrett? It's a name she doesn't know. She looks to Ida, acknowledging her plain for the first time in a while, and her lips curl down just so. The group...they knew so little about each other, she thinks dully. Each had kept their secrets from the rest...they'd respected each others' privacies. Except Cecilia, of course; who had tried so freely to make plain the things in her heart, only to be cheerfully ignored by--

Her knuckles turn white on her weapon. Just the malevolence, she forces herself to think. She dares to march on. "Even if he is an uncouth, ungrateful old man who never listens when people are speaking," she says, baring fangs, "I won't let him do something--"

She comes up short at Alhazred.

The Mediums tremble in their case, a sensation of anger and fear running through her soul from points external. She shivers, too. And then...her eyes cut up as the aura fades. Fei gives her very good advice.

She ignores it entirely, tearing off at a run. "Jack!" she calls.

<Pose Tracker> Agatha Pyrelight has posed.

 From a nearby tree, there comes a loud, ruckus laugh as a red eyed raven watching the proceedings begins to cackle. For no reason in particular.
 
 The fact that people are panicking and running towards Jack has nothing to do with it.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        Ida takes a deep breath, and forces herself to move onwards. Images of Adlehyde swirl in the back of her mind--buildings aflame, Metal Beasts stalking through the streets after fleeing civilians. The scent of their blood, the keeining death-cries they made when she shot them. Metal Dragons wheeling in the sky--the visions of death they once were, rather than the beings of mystery and legend and artifice she grew up with. She looks over at Gwen, and an image of Kalve just--picking her up--

        The figure with the bow falls before her. Ida doesn't recognize the things that murdered him, but she does recognize the voice of their master. "...Alhazred?" Ida whispers. Kalve's voice comes back to her, again, and it feels like an entirely different Kalve than the one that removed Gwen's arm with surgical precision.

        'He is... cruel, for cruelty's sake.'

        Ida recognized the tone in his voice--someone who hates the subject in question, but is unwilling to express it where it might return to bite them. He was there. He was at Arctica. She is hoping to God Jack didn't see what he did, if only so she won't have to.

        "Garrett!" Ida stops a stone's throw away from the man slumbering beneath the tree. She turns back to Fei, her jaw falling open as she sees the aura around his hand. "We're here, Fei," Ida says, in a desperate attempt to keep him grounded. "We're--"

        A horrible, corvid cackle echoes through the night. Ida snaps her jaw shut with an audible 'click', and shudders. She looks in the sound's direction. It's all right, she thinks. There were crows at Hope Springs, too, worst comes to worst she can just throw them a biscuit--

        Things are not all right. They weren't all right at Hope Springs, either. Worst has come to worst, hasn't it?

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

He did not get my permission to leave.
 
 There's a sudden laugh at that, but to Cassidy's infinite credit, there's nothing derisive about it. "Did he nae?" she wonders of Cecilia, emerald eyes glittering with barely suppressed mirth in spite of the growing terror in their surroundings. "You'll find that men that age and under his specific circumstances will do whatever they bloody well please, lass, crown or nae."
 
 She doesn't know any of the names being tossed around - fate of the world stuff is something that she actively avoids, though traces of history are ones that she can't help but collect, if not just to keep her head above the water, because her own survival is something that she is very interested in for all of her recklessness. Still, as the princess starts running towards Jack...or Garrett (she doesn't know anymore, not that she would ever judge anyone for having different names - she stole hers, after all), she follows at a more languid pace.
 
 And through the mists of terrible memories, a red-eyed raven cackles.
 
 She turns her revolver, and fires it at the bird. The sound of the shot cracks through the distance, echoing towards distant mountains.
 
 Though it's equal odds that she pulled the trigger to either wake up the sleeping man, or scare off the corvid.
 
 "And here I was, just starting tae like birds again," she remarks.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        Cassidy's words cause Gwen to pause. Irritation threatens to well up again, but, the odd wisdom the words have when viewed more closely allow Gwen to pause, and briefly close her eyes, thinking over them.

        "I'll handle what I need to," she says, opening her eyes. "I'd lose a lot more if I did nothing. Maybe that's... part of the gain and loss of connecting yourself to people?"

        She wishes they had the proper time to talk, maybe drink over it. For now, she pets the anxious Hanpan.

        Alhazard's image brings Gwen back to the time she had seen him before. This man... she had used her ARM in front of this man.

        A cool chill of realization runs through her.

        She sees Jack laying there, then. Temptation nearly drives her to run to him, like the others, but something is-

        Ah.

        The cackling of a raven, while distinct from a crow's, brings to mind all the more reason to be cautious.

        Especially since, last she remembered, all the animals in the area were doing the logical thing and getting out. What's left can only be viewed with suspicion.

        So, when Cassidy shoots, Gwen offers her an uneasy smile.

        "Glad I wasn't thinkin' the same thing, eheh..."

         Wait, what about Jack?

<Pose Tracker> Agatha Pyrelight has posed.

 The bird dissolves in a puff of black feathers, although there is no blood and no body left in its wake. Which is probably just a little disturbing.
 
 Agatha sits back for a moment and taps one clawed finger on her cheek for a moment. "Children are just so violent these days," she mutters after a moment, and then smiles.
 
 The feathers melt into the ground after a moment, flowing into the sinous form of a snake which rises up slightly to watch the proceedings once more.

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

The revolver is holstered back into the small of her back as she wanders away, once the feathers explode. She doesn't even check for blood.
 
 She was born of violence. Her life on the surface has been her attempt at leading a life that has less of that, but the world has no small shortage of irony. Freedom, like anything worth having, comes at an extremely steep price.
 
 I'll handle what I need to.
 
 "Ay, well. For your sake, I hope it dinnae happen over and over and over again." Cassidy reaches within the inner pockets of her jacket to bring out her cardboard pack of smokes, plucking one out between her teeth. The well-loved lighter that Gwen has seen many times within her fingers - silver and intricately engraved by the blue crystal-eyed snake eating its own tail - rolls out from between them to light up the end. Smoke curls in sinuous tendrils from around her cigarette.
 
 "Never met me a soul that had an endless capacity tae care, and I've met plenty who have forgotten what it's like tae feel that way again. Figured Life rations it out tae each person the moment they're born and get punched enough in the face and that good will dwindles out intae nothing. But dinnae ken, luv." She winks at the courier at that. "Maybe you'll be the rare unicorn I keep hearing about."
 
 Maybe that's...part of the gain and loss of connecting yourself to people.
 
 "Mmm." Her reply is an absent one, her thoughts far away, carried on the back of a metallic bird circling the skies of a country leagues from where she stands. "That's a checkbook that has nae any hope of ever balancing itself out, luv."

<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

Cecilia is too busy running directly into extreme danger but rest assured she is entirely aware of how god damn whimsical Jack Van Burace can be, Cassidy.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        Cassidy shoots. Ida startles at the noise, and glances in the bird's direction just in time for it to--not fly off, or fall, but... dissolve. Ida blinks, and rubs at her eyes, before turning back to...

        "Princess!" Ida's heart leaps into her throat. "Don't!" She takes a step forwards, and then another--inching closer, but keeping her distance all the same. It takes effort to do even that. The Malevolence is so intense that it's like walking into a strong headwind, except the headwind is dredging horrible memories of Adlehyde out of her head.

<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.

The tempo of the visions increase.

Death follows them though the strange nightmare land. More shining figures in the armor of knights are snuffed out. Halberd is shattered by Siegfried's spear as it pins a figure to the flickering image of a wall. A 'pathetic' is heard as the spear is pulled out and the body falls.

A woman with a sword and a man with spear and shield fight together in a courtyard. Generations of training and skill shown in their last stand. A heap of Metal Beasts around them, wounds slow them down but they fight on...

And a laughing Beserk sweeps them aside like they were so much wheat to be scythed down. Two more shining lights snuffed out as the world of the illusion grows darker.

They reach for the crest of the hill though, the sleeping figure of Jack almost seeming dead. Forcing their way past a tall man with a massive blade and one eye torn from an old wound. He looks over his shoulder and shouts to run towards the tree.

Before a blast of magic tears him apart.

"Too old for my purposes." Alhazred's voice again.

At the top of the hill, as Cecilia runs forwards, a bright image appears. The brightest yet. A woman in red armor and long hair wielding a sword. Her armor torn, blood covering her side. Looking towards Jack's sleeping form as she reaches for a lever to pull. The sound of a gate crashing down can be heard though out the illusion. She is so precise an image, to brilliant and bright a representation. She is important, that is beyond obvious.

Cassidy might say its always about a woman.

But then her light starts to fade as the tree itself twists, the branches twisting down to touch the image of the redhead. A new image forms around that tree. Alhazred himself. Robed Quarter knight, one hand placed on the woman's head in an almost loving fashion.

The Quarter Knight's other hand reaches out as well, arching over Jack's body as a third illusion forms in the air on the other side of the swordsman.

A familiar image.

Looming viciously over Cecilia, wide and wicked smile. Scythe in one hand a ghostly image of the Lady Harken begins to form.

As Harken's form seems to become more solid, the light around the redhead swordswoman fades, her body disappearing into Harken, channeled there by Alhazred's foul form.

"Yeeees...a perfect subject...." Alhazred's voice rumbles menacingly.

Which is when Cassidy fires. When people shout.

And when Jack's eyes fly open as he screams in rage, anger, hate, pain, terror. A dozen darker emotions as Malevolence rolls out of him in an icy wave, frosting over the top of the hill. Which might make Cecilia's headlong charge more difficult.

Even as the illusions snap off as he wakes, starting to claw himself to his feet.

His eyes are wild, his hair turned snow white and is compleatly unbound. When he speaks his voice is low, rough, pained from that scream.

"...Elmina...I'll...save you..." His eyes though slowly focus on the others around as they slowly narrow. "...I told you not to follow me..."

One hand rests on the tree that is once more just a tree, spiderwebs of ice arcing from where his fingers touch. From the other hand dangles a broken, blacked medallion of the Fenrir Knights. Which is right now leaking pure Melovelance into the air. Generating its own aura of wrongness as Jack Stares at them.

Behind him against the roots of the tree is a pile of stones, like one would use to mark a grave. Recently disturbed now, with a set of battered blue armor lying on the sands.

...oh, its also about forty degrees colder now as the air around the hillock begins to fill with flurries of snow.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei Fong Wong turns his gaze towards the bird. He watches it become a snake. He doesn't so much as blink irregularly.

He turns his head and smiles at Ida. "Sorry, I didn't notice I uh--" He shakes out his hand, allowing the aura fade. He doesn't stop Cecilia from running to Jack. He instead watches with narrowed eyes as the image shifts from a mysterious woman to Lady Harken.

"So that's why..." Fei murmurs.

That's how she knows the technique

He gives one last look to Ida before he approaches Jack. It's getting colder. Suddenly colder. Fei has to spend energy channeling a Kakei without actually firing it so that he doesn't get frostbite. The fire churns within him struggling to get out.

"Jack, is this the power that you want?" Fei asks. "Are you going to throw everything away? She can be saved still."

He knows it's not going to be enough. If anything happened to Elly he wouldn't be able to handle it even as 'well' as Jack is right now. He knows it.

Lily's dad all over again, Fei thinks. Nothing changes. Not really. There are no ends, no singular time, only pain twisted into different shapes.

"I know what it's like." Fei says. "I lost everything too."

<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.

Malfi's eyes widen as the connection between Lady Harken and the red-haired woman becomes clear, manifested in the phantasms.
                So that was where Harken came from.
                The Quarter Knight was a human.
                An inferior HUMAN.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        A distant, more detached part of Ida's mind--the one that was up in front when she first got to Ignas--searches for the emblem of the white lotus among the fallen. As though she needed more evidence to ground herself in the horror that happened. As if you need to make it personal in order to care about this man, and about the hell he went through.

        "Garrett!" She's not getting through, even though she keeps screaming his name over and over. She watches as the figure of the woman appears. Someone dear to Jack. She sees--

        Ida recoils. She presses a hand to her heart, and clenches the other in a fist. Her breath hisses through her teeth. "Impossible," Ida breathes.

        Jack shakes himself awake so violently that Ida wonders if he's in his death throes for all of a heartbeat or two. The surge of Malevolence hits her, washes over her. It digs its claws into her, forces images into the forefront of her mind. She's looking up and seeing Kalve's face, half-human, half... something else. Waking up in a bathtub full of black goo, a woman with burning eyes and a razor-sharp smile looming over her. The smile turning into the blade of a scythe that falls on her in a blow that would've cut her in two if she hadn't been guarded by every ward in Lacour Coliseum.

        "GARRETT, NO!" Ida screams. She pulls her coat tight around herself and starts to stagger up the hill, moving like a woman possessed. No. Please, no, not someone else she could have helped. Not someone else she should have helped, but couldn't, because she's powerless, she's always been powerless.

        That horrible razor smile looms up in the back of her memories, mocking her.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        Elmina. Elmina Niet.

        The name Jake called out while enmeshed in his nightmares, according to Hanpan.

        Elmina Niet, turning into... the one known as Lady Harken.

        "It's... It's not...."

        Gwen just stares blankly at the memories, the connections, the nightmares, and the damning realizations that would have been enough to make even the most happily well-adjusted person go mad.

        "Rudy n' I were just there, fightin' in front of him..." Thank the guardians Rudy didn't do anything too flashy in front of him. Gwen, meanwhile...

        But it makes sense. If someone like Riesenlied could potentially turn into... something, and everyone be afraid of an ARM potentially turning someone into a Metal Demon, just maybe.

         And Jack. And Jack. And... Guardians, Jack.

        No. Nope. Don't go there.

        Gwen slowly takes out a bullet from the pouch on her left sleeve garter, quietly and quickly loading it through a sewn flap in her sleeve into her right arm. She hunches down and extends her ARM, then takes in a breath.

        "Cassidy, uh... things are gonna get a little scary here in a sec."

        A loud bang sounds out over the field, issuing from the bared palm of Gwen's ARM.

        If she's lucky, shooting that medallion might have some effect, possibly saving Cecilia from the brunt of Jack's ire.

        If Gwen's *really* lucky, she'll have hit it.

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

It's not always about a woman, but the chances are good every time that it is.
 
 Malevolence spills over her like smoke and fire, and a little bit behind the rest, she watches when Jack rises from his slumber. Now he looks familiar, his features remain the same from when she had interacted with him, briefly, in Aveh when Solarians came pouring from the sky. Not one to misremember anyone she has met, she notes the change in his hair - paler now than she had seen it before.
 
 The world grows cold and this would be a time when she was thankful that she had elected to bring her jacket despite the heat, though it plummets to such a degree that any lower and no amount of leather and weatherproofing will be able to stave off its effects.
 
 Finally, one of the shades becomes familiar - she has fought Lady Harken before, fenced with her with steel and words but this bit of hidden history has been unknown to her - to anyone until now. Brows wing upwards towards her hairline and for the first time since this excursion has started, surprise flits over her face. She could have sworn that the man was in mourning, and while she is not a stranger to tragedy...especially of this nature...
 
 Jack's voice echoes, recently remembered. He said not to follow.
 
 To have the power to destroy the Metal Demons for taking something, someone, that was obviously precious to him.
 
 The easy expression vanishes from her features.
 
 Cassidy, uh...things are gonna get a little scary here in a sec.
 
 "Is it?" she wonders, absently. Her attention shifts, to rest directly on Jack.
 
 "Nae as scary as what he's feeling right now, methinks. Whatever he tries tae do tae anyone here, and I mean, nae like I ken the lad, but it will nae hold a candle tae what he's signing himself up for."
 
 She falls quiet at that. She does not move a muscle, does not raise a gun.
 
 There are probably extremely serious ramifications to what is happening here, to the man in particular, but whatever she has learned of Jack Van Burace, and how much of what she has seen...
 
 ...she isn't sure if she has the heart, or what remains of it, to stop him.

<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

The visions mean little, but so much besides. The armored woman - someone from before, maybe. Someone lost in that battle in Arctica. She knew he was from there. Knew he must've been a knight of some kind. But they'd never spoken about it; another of the secrets they never told each other. It never seemed important. He was here, and helping.

Now his illusions conjure a new form, one that stops her in her tracks as her own blood runs cold. That blade, cleaving her father nearly in twain...

Her teeth grit. "What...?" she croaks out. The words are clear enough, but it's too much, too fast, and her own thoughts tumble over each other to assemble. This woman, her father's very own murderer. No.

Her fingers hurt first from tension, then from cold. For all Cecilia manages better than she might be expected to, she is not, in fact, actually all THAT physically talented. Despite Lily's best efforts. The freeze stumbles her steps, and the blast of Malevolence blows at her, skids her backwards. But she slams her staff down into the dirt, shoulder jerking hard as it's pulled. "Jack! What is this!?" She shakes her head. "Who's going to protect YOU!? I promised you I'd help you! I promised I'd help you carry it!"

She sees the medallion, but is exerting all her power to staying upright - she can make no move against it. "So why all this!?"

<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.

"Garrett," The voice is gravely, cold at first but under that ice there is nothing left but rage and hate. "That was my name. Before I buried it. Buried my past. My memories." His eyes flicker between Ida, Cecilia, Cassidy and Fei. Bright burning coals fierce and wrathful. They all speak to him. Question his decisions.

"I am taking my name back." He decides before his gaze turns back towards Fei. "Yes. Her soul can be saved and I will free it from the thing that its in now." Then towards Cecilia as his legs find purchase in the snow on the hill as he stands tall. Ice cracking under his booted feet.

Those eyes cool slightly as he looks towards Cecilia. Some of the snow stills slightly. "This is what I must do, Cecilia. The Guardians denied us power to stop those Demons. Now...now I have it. I can stop them. I can free Elmina." There is a touch of a smile for only a moment a sad one. "You will understand one day. After I have my pound of flesh out of their hides..."

A glance then towards Ida but what he is about to say is lost in the report of that ARM of hers.

The shell strikes the amulet dead center.

It shatters.

Shards fly though the air only to whisp away into tendrils of smoke. Smoke that curls back towards the swordsman, curls around his body, twining in ribbons of Melovelance as his eyes wide. Paralyzed from the sudden shock. Those tendrils pull his armor towards him, melding it around him as he stands frozen.

...and the tempeture drops even faster. Quickly approaching a 'brisk' sub zero.

As he does so though, his head turns slowly. By degrees, burning eyes starting to fix on Malfi. As if he can smell her. Scene what she really is. The hate burns in his gaze as senses heightened by the Malevolence grant him enough vision to see though the disguise. The snow swirls, the wind starts to howl as a blizzard builds...

...but still. He's paralyzed, overwhelmed by the power of the Sworddancer's blade.

The figure of that grinning skull can be seen swirling in the tendrils of darkness around him.

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Amidst the whirling snow, a shape appears, arriving from the direction opposite the Drifter group.

Rosaline Calice is riding a black horse. The Malevolence-attuned see the beastwoman with deathly pale skin, grotesquely oversized bestial limbs and a long trail of flame in lieu of hair. The rest simply see a haggard, unblinking beastwoman, though the way her horse moves, stiff and unnatural, may be unnerving.

She rides in this area of concentrated Malevolence like a fish in water. The horse steps through the snow with difficulty, but the woman herself seems undaunted by the flurry whirling around her, the snowflakes melting before they even touch her.

She raises her shotgun-- Mother's Mercy, for those familiar --and fires a blast into the Malevolent skull apparition looming over them, dissipating it-- for now. The catwoman returns her attention to the armored man.

"Jack-- No, Garrett," she says, her tone soft, even gentle, yet hearable amidst the din. "I could smell your Malevolence from miles away. You shouldn't stay here. I know places to hide. Come with me."

She only spares the others a quick side-glance, lingering on Gwen, then Ida, ambiguously. She then pulls on the reins, which are made of red string (though it's invisible to some here). The horse turns around, its movements an approximation of how a horse normally behaves, its eyes dead and unblinking.

"Hurry up, and try to keep that frost of yours in check," she says, her voice hardening. "And you," she says, her back now turned to the rest, "don't try to follow us. We won't warn you again."

She holds up a palm, above which a large fireball swirls into being. Death by hypothermia or immolation is promised to those who ignore the command. Choose your poison.

<Pose Tracker> Agatha Pyrelight has posed.

 "Oh you can try, but this one is going head first down the rabbit hole," Agatha comments to herself, smiling at the unfolding spectacle. "For many humans, power is something terrifying - it speaks to responsibility, commitment, and necessity. But for those humans most suited to breaking the shackles on their souls... power is seductive. It promises everything they want, and they do not care what lies beyond their objectives."
 
 The snake slips into the grass again, sliding along as it listens to everyone shouting, trying to pull Jack back from the edge. "The strongest Hellions are those who have taken their vengeance, and find that they need more. After all, humans can be so amusingly frail. The hurt doesn't go away, as long as they cling to their connections." Agatha watches Rosaline ride into the scene, tilting her head to the side even as her familiar observes the situation.
 
 "I do hope they keep trying though. Failure leaves a dark mark on the soul, and brings the rest of you closer to true freedom."

<Pose Tracker> Garrett Stampede has posed.

That blast of the shotgun dissipates the Sword Dancer and with a rush of smoke and Malevolence is is sucked back into Garrett's hand. Though it's not an amulet anymore. Now? Now it is a massive black steel bastard sword. Jagged and vicious, wide in the hilt with a shattered symbol of his former Knight order set in the hilt.

He staggers out of his stupor to turn and look in suprise at Rosaline. A smirk grows as he slips the sword into a matching sheathe.

"I like the new look." He rumbles towards her as the blizzard begins to quiet.

He stalks towards the beastwoman, his steps gathering speed as he leaps up behind her on the unnatural steed.

Fire and Ice.

What a choice of how to die.

"Let me leave them something to play with, Firehair." He adds as he glances back towards the mound. "Garrett was not the only thing buried there..."

Even as he reaches back. Snaps his fingers a sliver of that Malevolence zips towards him. A former shard of the amulet, shifting . Reforming, slithering around to the form of a wicked looking wind mouse. A terrible mockery of Hanpan, ears coming to a point and vicious claws instead of paws. The little figure climbs up on Jack's shoulder as the Hellion snaps his fingers.

The ground rumbles and then bulges outwards. A Metal Beast tears itself from the ground, frost covers its wrecked hide. Its metal bones shattered at one point, recovered by ice and magic as it hurls itself towards the little knot of Drifters there. But especially at Malfi.

"That should keep them busy...so..." And one arm is slipped around Rosa's waist. To keep balance of course, as his ice dampens down to match her fire. "Shall we?"

<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.

Malfi braces herself for the Metal Beast's attack, readying her net. It's the only weapon she has on her right now. It probably won't hold it back for long, even if her aim is true.... The creature is doubtless corrupted, or its kinsight not working.

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

That was my name. Before I buried it. Buried my past. My memories.
 
 Cassidy's lashes shutter over her eyes.
 
 I am taking my name back.
 
 "Nae going tae question your decision tae do what you must tae take what's yours back," she remarks, obliterating whatever suspicions he may have that she will stop him from doing what he sets out to do, in whatever manner he chooses to do it. Because not only does his story resonate with her on dangerously personal levels that she would never confide in just anyone, but she remembers another face and for a moment, she hears another voice echoing the words of the man before her:
 
 But when I think about what happened in Adlehyde, put myself in your shoes...I would have done a lot worse.
 
 She wonders, privately, if this counts as 'a lot worse.'
 
 "But if you think throwing away whatever you decided tae make of yourself is going tae magically turn the clock back tae return things the way they are, you're bloody fooling yourself, mate. If you're going tae kill them all, dinnae do it for your old name."
 
 The temperature continues to drop. Goosebumps mottle on her pale skin and a flush pushes up from underneath her cheeks.
 
 She makes no move to prevent his egress with the other intruder in the premises - another familiar face. The appearance of the displaced bride, of all the people to show up, returns to spirit away her new cohort and her doing so has another glimmer of surprise to etch over her features.
 
 "Wow. Is it just me, or is Filgaia getting wee?"
 
 The Metal Beast that shows up, however? Not as surprising. Her earlier unreadable look dwindles away to her usual resigned expression.
 
 "Ugh. Figures."

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei says, desperately, "No--no no... No, I mean, like, even if she's in that form she can still be Elmina again. You saw her, she's still in there. There's gotta be another way besides...besides THAT." Fei swings his hand to the side. "This war's been going on for a thousand years, you can't stop it on your own--"

And then Rosaline appears, indicating that Jack won't be alone. Fei is briefly stunned.

"Rosaline... why are you...?" He begins, some of the fire evaporating from his body.

They want it

Fei's heart is sinking.

They enjoy it, don't they? The feeling of having something to blame for all the shitty things they do?

"And just like this you're some shitty dime store supervillain...?" Fei says. K.K isn't even here for this one. It was a flipping dream that did that. "You think you have nightmares, JACK!?"

He refuses to use the name Garrett. It's the name of a dead man. "Are Granas and Arctica full of weakminded prey?!" He's hurting so he's lashing out, of course.

He darts forward, charging SOMETHING that he thinks will take care of the fire and the ice but the Metal Beast bursts out before he gets close enough to do anything. He has to push backwards as it lunges at him. He sees it going for Malfi. Does he know Malfi's a metal demon?

It doesn't matter. He's too mad to care. He bursts into actual flames as he slams the metal beast back.

"You're going to abandon Hanpan?! Cecilia?! Think about her feelings!!"

But try as he might he can't reach them.

"You are the shitty things you do, Jack! All the things that are wrong with you! Not the metal demons, not Elmina, not your past or how hard things seem right now! It's you! Just you!"

But that seems to be all he can manage. He screams in wordless rage as he punches that metal beast again and again and again well after it's destroyed, well after it's no longer any threat, well after Jack and Rosaline are already gone.

'Them, Them, Them'.

There's nothing else to say. Two in one day.

Oh god, two in one day.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        Ida has gotten quite the sense for Malevolence over the past few months. Some might miss the arrival of a second Malevolent presence in the maelstrom of the first--in the sudden, horrific transformation of human being into Hellion. Ida does not. It's like being gut-punched twice in quick succession. Ida almost doubles over, glances up at the spectral form that she recognizes from Wehaca. "Rosa," Ida croaks out. A shot rings through the air--and Ida turns to her dear, Malevolence-twisted friend. A desperate plea dies on her lips as she sees the look in Rosaline's eyes. The puppet-strings controlling the horse, obviously dead. The young woman sinks to her knees in the snow, looking up at Garrett and Rosaline--two people who braved the Trials with her. Now, both of them...

        Garrett conveniently gives her something to take her anger out on. The Metal Beast is as dead as Rosaline's horse, but that doesn't make it any less deadly. Ida forces herself to her feet as it tears itself free of its cairn, her lips peeling back. Chi boils up around her knuckles. She starts hitting it--first with punches, then with half-disciplined hammerblows. She doesn't scream. She doesn't plead. She just brutalizes the reanimated Metal Beast alongside Fei, in another strange moment of bonding.

<Pose Tracker> Garrett Stampede has posed.

Also. Hanpan is at this point sniffling softly into Gwen's hair.

<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

"Jack! This is--" 'The Guardians denied us power to stop those Demons.'

Cecilia goes silent, her eyes wide while Jack....Garrett...? Says his peace.

And then there's a pulse from within her; a radiance of her own pushing back against the waves. Thin though it is, it allows her to stop leaning against the staff; force herself to her feet.

Scream, "Jack Van Burace you ABSOLUTE FUCKING NINCOMPOOP!"

She slams her staff down and the shriek of a bird is the only warning before Moor Gault's head emerges from the air behind her, blasting her surroundings with flame, melting the frost on her skin. "Denied us!? THEY HAVE GIVEN US EVERY SCRAP OF POWER THEY POSSESS YOU UNBELIEVABLE BELLEND!" She sweeps her staff again, scooping up the leylines around her, molding them with her staff. "But because you NEVER LISTEN, apparently to the point of SELLING YOUR SOUL LIKE A COWARD, I will EXPLAIN IT AGAIN!"

Her staff jams into the ground. "The Guardians have guided us on every step of this journey! Every statue saved, every inch traveled! Every TIME we manage to BUMBLE INTO A SITUATION AT THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND it's BECAUSE OF THEM! They gave everything they had to send us careening right into the Demons' lair! They have given, and given, and given! And still you want MORE you PATHETIC CREATURE! I am learning as fast as I dare! I've let you say it again and again Jack, but I HATE THEM TOO! THEY TOOK MY FAMILY! MY COUNTRY! YOU DO NOT HAVE A MONOPOLY ON SORROW YOU REPREHENSIBLE TWIT OF A MAN!"

She reaches for her Crest case, but it throws itself open, the Mediums - all six of them - leaping out of it to circle her defensively as Rosaline slams home.

One stops in front of her. "So let me show you," she says, quietly, as the air turns.

"MATERIAL!" she cries, as a stone medium hovers before her. She flickers and vanishes, replaced by--

                *

Wehaca. That horrible day. The statue in that awful shape as she kneeled before it, exhausted. But still, the voice came, a pinpoint of light shining before her.

        Shaman. I am Noua Shax, Guardian of Lightning. Fear not the storm that comes. Master the storm within.

The light gathers together...

                *

A massive lion, crackling with electricity, stands where Cecilia stood. The Metal Beast rips itself free of the ground.

        "RAGE HAMMER!"

It is not a bolt of lightning so much as a beam of electricity that emerges from Noua Shax's mouth, eliminating the beast, elminating most of the hillside, and hopefully singing Jack Van Burace's stupid mullet as it goes.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        The amulet shatters. Transforms. Reforms into armor, bonding with her friend. Sealing him in. Finishing the deed.

        "I thought..."

        Gwen's ARM falls loose to hang at her side, looking like someone just came over and slapped her in the face. Or that may be the temperature drop, which is quickly approaching something that *feels* like that.

        In the stinging silence, in the whatever space Gwen finds herself emotionally in

        That's when she feels the wet tears of the wind mouse against the side of her neck, and feels the warmth of the heartbroken creature against her neck.

        That's right. Jack wanted her to take care of Hanpan. That was his last request for her.

        But not his final one.

        Because, as Virginia had shown, they can come back.

        And, if Cecilia has anything to do with it, she'll make *sure* this happens, one way or another.

        "Jack! Rosaline!" Gwen shouts, even as the two depart and the metal demon corpse is brought forth in their wake, "I'm gonna keep interferin'. Doin' what I can to keep you from doin' things you'll regret later. I know you both're gonna maybe hate me for it, n' I'll probably make mistakes..." She roughly wipes at her eyes with one sleeve. "But it's better than doin' nothin' at all! So survive! Until the day when you two can come back! When you feel you can!"

        Then... there's just the metal demon there, which Malfi, Ida, and Fei are presumably exerting all their energy on.

        'Wow. Is it just me, or is Filgaia getting wee?'

        Cassidy's comment, as small as it is, is enough to break the spell.

        Gwen laughs, tears spilling from her face. As the influence of Cecilia's Guardian dissipates, her tears are cold enough to stick to her cheeks.

        Of course it's cold enough to do that, because it'd be nice if she could cry and not have it turn into these little ice rivers down her cheeks.

<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

Noua Shax flickers and vanishes, and the Princess returns.

And then, wild-eyed, she turns, and shouts, "DOES ANYONE ELSE" and sucks in a long breath, eyes scanning around, quivering with not entirely spent anger, "HAVE GRIEVANCES" she continues, in the voice of a person who will perhaps not respond kindly to the things she is requesting, "THAT I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT?!"

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

"Oh, shut up," Rosaline tells Fei, barely turning around. He insulted her, while Cassidy jokes. How could she?

Cecilia's rage is a notch or three more intense, which says a lot-- and Rosaline knows a thing or two about rage --but the small blessing is that it's not directed her way.

Ida meanwhile keeps her eyes on the prize, though not after saying Rosaline's name, or well, half of it. Gwen vows to keep interferin', for their own good. Rosaline's gaze lowers, though she still doesn't turn around.

And then Garrett gets on the horse. Finally, Rosaline thinks.

"Watch the hands, if you'd rather keep them," Rosaline hisses at Garrett, but otherwise doesn't move to dislodge him from the horse. Picking him up here was the idea. They'll find a mount for him soon enough, she's sure.

And a moment later... they're gone.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei takes in a deep, steadying breath.

"Well," Fei begins.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        Ida smells ozone. She throws herself to the side moments before a bolt of lightning incinerates the corpse of the Metal Beast, hits a snowbank, and rolls to a stop.

        Gwen does the noble thing, vows to stop the others. Ida just feels tired, weak, helpless, overwhelmed. When Cecilia asks her question, Ida just looks at her, her eyes saying what she herself cannot.

        "Fei," Ida says. Her voice is weak, unsteady. "Let's--let's go back to the inn. All right?"

 <Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

Poor Gwen.

 Out of everyone else here, her relationship with Gwen Whitlock started strangely but a few encounters in the pits of humanity together have forged between the two of them, at the very least, a thread of understanding. Her fascination with the courier can't be helped, so different from her in many ways and set with a heart so familiar, she can't help but be drawn to the rarity of it. To Cassidy Cain, there are ghosts everywhere, but they linger around the strawberry-blonde most of all if not just because of who she is reminded of every time she is near.

 ....unfortunately it doesn't stop her from pranking her, or foisting off any bounties meant for her to her, but she demonstrates her affection in strange and broken ways.

 Just ask Morgan Newkirk.

 As Cecilia screams behind her and takes out her rage on a Metal Beast, those green-and-gold eyes taking in the tears streaming down Gwen's face as she laughs and laughs and laughs.

 She had been laughing, too, with blood in her mouth. Unending rivers of crimson that she couldn't stop. It was nothing external, nothing inflicted from the outside, but something within - something inherent in her bones and lungs that was killing her....

 She looks away, rolling her thumb over the ouroboros engraved on her lighter, and pockets it. After adjusting the string of pearls around her neck to let it soak up the warmth of her skin, she pulls up the hood of her jacket.

 "Wee bit premature tae shed any of your diamonds, lass," she says simply from around her cigarette. "Let's go get a drink, ay?"