2018-06-19: The Ghosts of Nota
- Log: The Ghosts of Nota
- Cast: Isiris Shango'Ra, Pearl
- Where: East Nota
- Date: 3/07/2018
- Summary: A contingent of Althena's Guard investigate rumours in East Nota. They encounter something horrifying.
================================<* East Nota *>================================= Once two towns on opposite banks of a large river, East and West Nota are now a single city bound by a large bridge spanning both banks. Both halves of the city are laid out on sprawling terraces carved out of a large hill (some suggest by the Goddess herself). Stone stairs link the terraces to each other; the average Notan spends a good deal of her day climbing. East Nota marks the border separating the heart of the Meribus continent from the more lawless lands to the east. It serves as a large commercial hub where residents of the eastlands can still experience a taste of what some would call civilization. Althena's Guard maintains a significant detachment here, ostensibly to discourage banditry, but local rumours suggest the Goddess is preparing to extend her reach and call her recalcitrant children home. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54PlUl6avjw
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
The countryside in Nota has historically enjoyed a reputation in northern Meribus as the fringe lands of the goddess' influence, and as a point, been subject to more concerns about roving banditry than most. Though it is true that the land forms a sort of crossroads for men of ill repute, it is of no comparison to the southern lands, and especially not lands as far south as Glenwood.
This is what makes the rumors that have cropped up of late so confusing.
They walk at night, they say. Ghostly men, women, and children. They haunt the countryside, shadowy and indistinct people, no doubt getting into town and causing even the law-abiding men and women of the city to suffer unexplained bouts of amnesia and confusion, many ending up in unfamiliar places in the city with no memory or recollection of how they got there.
They can be seen at night, they say. And at night it is true that they are seen, unnamed citizens and children milling about the countryside, carrying water to homes that don't exist, and moving tock between shops that aren't there. Each have no distinct 'form,' no distinct color or intellect to what they do, some flickering in jangled motion from one task to another, as if participating unwillingly in the land's memory. This is what anyone investigating the rumors will find, they are willing to go far enough to see what commerce is at work in the dead of night.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Althena's Guard have a significant presence in both sides of Nota, and rumours of ghostly figures had reached the guard. So it was that a small detachment of Guardsmen are sent to investigate. Amongst that small detachment is a heavily scarred young woman, still wearing the wounds of battle. Fresh bandages are clear on her otherwise bare arms. The woman moves forward, as other members of the guard look, perhaps, dumbfounded.
"There are real ghosts out there, Sergeant! You can see them from here!" One of the younger guardsmen hisses to his superior. The presumed sergeant just grimaces. "Keep your heads on straight." He says, as he starts to move forward himself. "We can't go saying what they are yet."
Pearl, for her part, does not care what her supposed superior has to say about the matter, walking far too calmly towards the nearest apparition. There's an easy way to tell if these things are real or not. The martial artist moves a hand to grab one of the the flickering figures by the shoulder, to see if there is anything material there. And to see if they react at all.
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
There is no visible response from the apparitions, the guardwoman's hand passing through the breast of a stout and portly man as easily as one dips one's hands into the river. The man, for his credit, bears her no mind at all, dipping through her touch and walking past (and potentially through) her to go on about his day, taking in the day's cordwood to mind his fire.
There is no overt response to her intrusion, not truly. However, a distant cackle is heard as her disruption seems to cause a parallax shift in the routines of the oddly amiable crowd, some winking in nd out of existence around her, and several appearing in the midst of the group as the display changes, shifting fluidly as the ephemeral crowd move amongst the flesh and blood peacefully, children milling about and playing as easily amongst the men as they might a copse of trees.
The sound in the distance was not a human cackle, however, but a blackbird squawking, its chattering ken audible as it flaps chaotically past, disrupted from its roost in some unseen tree.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Interesting. Very interesting. Pearl lets the illusory figure past, but her ears are drawn to the cackle. It may not have elicited the reaction she hoped, but SOMETHING changes. More figures spawning amongst her companions, which elicits yelps of surprise from the guardsmen who came with Pearl. "I said keep your heads, damnit!" The sergeant yells, as the guardsmen scatter slightly.
The bird gets Pearl's attention, as she tries to find the source of the cackle. She tenses slightly until she sees the blackbird fly past her, and she ever so slightly relaxes her guard. With it gone, she starts to walk through the crowd, looking for... Well, she's not sure, really. Something out of place? Something real? Something that could be the source of this?
Which is to say it does not take long for frustration to build in the guardswoman's mind. These oddly amiable, oblivious spectres seem to be of no real threat. In which case, why even bother to call the guards?
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
It appears as if from behind a curtain.
The thing that Pearl discovers cannot be seen from every angle, no matter how clear the night air may be. First, it starts as a vision through the translucent bodies that stride past her, a smooth black slab of glass stone visible only through the lens of the unknowable. Then, as she comes closer, it is as if she strides around a corner that doesn't exist, the tenebrous throne visible as plain as day, as she strides through people that don't exist.
In sight of the throne, blackbirds fly in the sky, and loking directly at the smooth black surface of the stone is to remark upon it a peculiar symbol that does not correspond to any known geometry describable. Impossibly complex, it is almost outside of the perception of a thing, more of a notion than a real symbol. It is the sort of thing that induces an almost instant headache, as looking directly at the throne is to hear a very faint sound of a string being travelled by a wet finger, a powerful tremolo rattling sound that doesn't exist in ears that can't hear it.
Only the furthest of these, Pearl, can actually see the man on the other side, the man who sits on the throne, one leg crossed over the other and looking off into the far horizon. He doesn't greet her, his hands resting on jet black armrests, a voluminous grey coat stacked around him. The blackbrds swarm above, cackling in haunting fashion, tho it is another thing that cannot be heard by those around.
With only the slightest incline of his chin, he looks to the side, listening carefully. Absent any other act to goad her in one direction or another, she can feel the gravity of the affair. The weight of things settle strongly on her first impulse.
DC: You switch forms to Wolf Style Martial Artist! DC: Pearl switches forms to Wolf Style Martial Artist! [SYSTEM] You change to your 'Wolf Style' Description!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
The guardsmen that accompanied Pearl have differing reactions to the shape in the sky. Some recoil in pain, some look bewildered, but only one can see the being on the throne. True, Pearl experiences the same shrieking headache, but that's just pain. Pain she can deal with. She stares directly at the figure on the throne, and considers her options. She has to assume that whoever this is is aware of their presence. So there's no point in being subtle. But there are witnesses here. It would be bad form to attack first. Fine then.
"Is this show your doing?" Pearl asks, loudly, indicating the spectral figures that inhabit the town. "Or am I perhaps to believe that you are a coincidence?" Even as she talks, she tenses up. She doesn't drop into a fighting stance. But the fact remains she could at a seconds notice. Three more words are echoed up at the man in the throne. "Explain yourself. Now."
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
</poem>
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
It is a peculiar thing.
The longer one stares at the irrational symbol at the back of the throne that cannot be seen, the more one ceases to exist. As she speaks, all verve and iron, those around her might find her voice slowly becoming lost, as if in an echo chamber, growing further and further from 'reality.' She can feel it, an eerie tingle in the air, as if it were alive, and it only gets worse with the passing of each moment. She can very easily realize this is happening as she goes on.
The longer she stares at the patterns and shapes in the surface of the black throne, the more she is segregated from her retinue. The longer she stares, the more ghosts pass in front of her and behind her, each crowding out a piece of her body with their passage. She will feel whole, and if she looks at her hands and along the length of her, she will find no blemish or molestation visited her. But oh, will her head swim the longer she looks.
If she does not look away, if she does not break the spell, soon her guard will lose track of her entirely.
"What is the nature of a performance, but a dance that the weak do for the strong?" he asks, mild.
The young man never turns to face her, never rises from the jet black throne whose back faces her. His hands move inward, disappearing as he interlaces his fingers in the dark. His voice is as a razor passed over the wet string -- calm, collected, endlesly inviting and darkly sweet, a honey in the night. He canot be heard by anyone but the person he speaks to, so powerful is that headache-inducing tremolo whine, strong enough to bring tears to the eye. The blackbirds shriek and laugh in the sky, passing shadows over the twice-lit night sky.
"I am only a traveller, seeking those strong enough to withstand truth. Perhaps I will find one lowly enough one day that I will perform for them.... but today, this stage is not mine."
He considers his next words carefully.
"It is for you to dance for me."
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
More pain. More of that shrieking. Ghosts surrounding her. And yet Pearl steels herself, and refuses to look away. If anything, her grey eyes harden as she glares at the man. A dance the weak do for the strong? Even as her mind swims, the anger that drives her starts to manifest. She is not here to entertain an impossible madman. Even as the other guardsmen lose track of her, Pearl lets out a wolf like growl.
"If you think yourself strong enough to demand that I dance, you had best prove it." She says, bringing the clawed gloves she wears in front of her. She will not suffer being called weak. She won't even suffer it being intimated.
The martial artist launches herself into the air at the man, her metal claws glinting in the moonlight as she drives straight for his face, looking to rake across his face and drag him physically from the throne and to the ground. Perhaps she is misjudging her own strength. Perhaps she is too angry to care. Either way, the ferocity behind her attack is nothing short of feral.
GS: Pearl has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Leaping Claw! GS: Pearl has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Isiris Shango'Ra guards a hit from Pearl's Leaping Claw for 47 hit points! GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Pearl!
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
In the twisted end of the world, the guardsmen lose track of her entirely. They cannot hear her, cannot see her launch herself at a man who doesn't exist. One of them, as far as they know, is just simply gone. That is when the attack begins. In that world, blackbirds shriek as the ghostly travellers begin to reach for the guard with suddenly too-real hands, trying to swarm and pull at and claw at them, like drowning victims. First they will reach for armor, for weapons, for trinkets and rogue bits of leather and clothes. It is only eventual that they will begin to reach for hair, for noses, for eyes, for hands and feet.
The guards will find themselves in iminent danger of being pulled apart like warm bread.
In the smooth, formless night beyond the sudden din, the master martial leaps for the seated man, incensed by his supposition. It is such a long way to his face, as he faces away from her. His head, however, is a great target from above. The man -- now and from his voice undeniably so -- offers no real resistance to her as she sets upon him a wild tigress, metal claws buried in his skull to the knuckle. His hands slowly set to the rests below as the blood flows, spattering across the raging guard as she throws him bodily from the throne, his body ragdolling as she gains the upper hand swiftly. Setting raking claws to him, she grips onto the man in the coat without seeming resistance. His body hits the ground. But the whole way, she can never see his eyes, limned in darkness no matter which way she looks. As the trails of blood rivulet down his face, he smiles.
The same trails of blood flow down the face of the man, who even as he is pinned beneath her, still sits on the throne, watching her gore him on the ground. Two where there was once one before, one powerless, the other one witness. Eyeless is the gaze of the man on the throne, his face flat and calm, even as he bleeds. The idea of pain seems only to please him. "And if I do so," he asks quietly, his voice beyond a whisper, "prove it, that is...what will you do?"
The man beneath her reaches up quietly to lay a hand on her arm. And then another. And another. Parallax beyond measure, the prone reaches for her with a hundred hands, to lay hold of her in a hundred different ways, in a hollow echo of the battlefield beyond, ignored by both. A thousand hands in each. But only in one is it of any consequence when he decides to wring life from her.
The crow eaten sky is the only similarity the two scenes share.
GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has attacked Pearl with Merciless Genesis! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has completed his action. GS: Pearl takes a solid hit from Isiris Shango'Ra's Merciless Genesis for 131 hit points! GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Pearl! GS: Pearl has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
The guardsmen scatter and flee, as the birds descend on them. Some lose flesh, some just equipment, but as one they decide this is well beyond what they had prepared for. They just assume that Pearl is lost amongst the birds, if they think about her at all.
Pearl's attack connects more strongly then perhaps she had expected, sending the bloodied man to the ground with suspicious ease. As such, she is caught by surprise when he speaks. That's the sort of blow that is often quite fatal. Fine. This one is going to be hard to kill.
"I don't deal in what ifs." She responds, angrily. But as the hands start to lay upon her, she tries to dive out of the way. The problem is she is given nowhere to dive to. There is simply no escape as the hands, or hand, start to separate her from this mortal coil.
To her credit, Pearl gives only a grunt. Pain, once again, is just pain. She can deal with pain. Still, rage flows through her, and she starts to tear herself from the hands, claws on her hands and feet swinging wildly as she attempts to claw her way out. She tears freely, looking for an opening, any opening, to launch herself through. And when she finds it she launches herself straight at her attacker, She may not be able to pull herself completely free, but she is in close quarters. Close enough to drive the metal fang that sits where her right canine tooth should be into the man, aiming to bite and tear at him like an animal possessed.
GS: Pearl has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Wolf Style - Crippling Bite! GS: Pearl has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Isiris Shango'Ra takes a solid hit from Pearl's Wolf Style - Crippling Bite for 94 hit points! GS: Cripple! Statuses applied to Isiris Shango'Ra! GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Pearl!
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
He remains only mildly cognizant of the fleeing guards behind his throne, his disappointment muted, but plain to read on his face. He is considerably more pleased when the woman breaks free of his cage of hands, leaping for him with nary a pause in her ferocity to carry on killing him. He doesn't even lift his hands when she vaults onto his throne, biting viciously into his shoulder -- his weapon arm, he faintly realizes -- piercing deep with a metal fang into his flesh, the closest thing she can reach but for the grip of a hundred hands, rendering the move vicious and .
Blood flows freely down the front of his tunic, his protective coat painted red almost immediately with the pierce of her savage tooth. The taste of his blood, acrid and metallic, is on her tongue. His grip on the armrest grows tight, though he offers no other resistance to her savagery. It would have been a lethal decision if taken by any other. He reaches out with his other hand, to take her by the wrist.
"A shame," he remarks, breathlessly.
The iron taste on her tongue grows cold. The blood that slicks down her throat begins to travel, circling her neck. She has only a precious instant to realize what's happening, an instant to realize what he is doing even as she tears into him. She has only an instant to realize why he isn't fighting her. He will lay a hand on her, and then it will be done.
"Possibility is the only thing that gives this world color."
GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has activated a Force Action! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has attacked Pearl with Memory of Blood! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has completed his action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Isiris Shango'Ra's attack becomes clear! GS: Pearl guards a hit from Isiris Shango'Ra's Sin Axiom for 90 hit points! GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Pearl!
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
A moment later, his blood loops around her throat. Then it tightens.
Those hands will drag her back and away from him, again and again, as the noose of her own rage cinches about her neck, strangling her with a crimson collar. The leash of his hands drag at her, threatening to cage her. Again and again, she will feel that noose cinch tighter, as he steals away her rationality, one breath of air at a time.
Then, and only then, will the nightmare spinner stand.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
It's the fact that the blood tastes wrong that is the first and only clue. She is not fast enough to stop it seeping down her throat, the toxic liquid seeping down her throat. It's when it tightens around her neck that she is fast enough to force a hand in the way to stop her throat being crushed entirely. She is dragged back into the mass of hands. But her eyes glare out at her slowly standing opponent. She starts to tighten in the mass, coiling like a spring. There is nothing but death in this for her if she doesn't fight. And she does not welcome the reaper's touch.
Blackness starts to surround her. Inside the pit of hands, darkness grows. And lashes out. Her magic may not be as strong as her fist. But it's something else to fight her opponent's own dark sorcery. Hands start to vanish into the blackness, before another surge. Shadow surrounds her as she launches herself again at her now standing opponent, this time aiming to fully break free of the mass as she becomes a spiral of death, her claws striking out in rapid, frenzied strikes.
The technique is not sophisticated. It is not clean. But it is effective. She aims to rend at any part of the man that comes in reach, not prepared to let him dictate the terms of the fight any longer. Bloodstained metal flashes in the night. And Pearl's eyes, wide with fury, glare at the abomination in the coat of a man. "Stop. Playing."
GS: Pearl has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Wolf Style - Frenzied Claw! GS: Pearl takes 14 damage from Toxin! GS: Pearl has completed her action. GS: Isiris Shango'Ra takes a solid hit from Pearl's Wolf Style - Frenzied Claw for 128 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
"An admirable ferocity, tempered by anger, honed by skill..."
The man seems to take forever to even stand as she fights against being collared, strangled, and twisted into pieces, all without ever even being looked at directly by the nameless killer. The body she killed lays at her feet as she struggles, hands and arms sprouting from it at bizarre and odd angles, gripping and clawing at her as she finally flares with darkness, boiling away the grip of a thousand. The horror replies as if some great insect thing sprayed with lemongrass. Arms and hands splay free and claw at the grass as if belonging to bodies under the ground as they are separated whole from the source, his body vanishing beneath the black. She surges towards him, a blitz of motion and fury.
He is infuriating to hit, his coat enduring cut after cut ineffectually as she flies after him, stabbing into him again and again, only to find the man subtly moving free of her blades step by step. He moves left, and right, slipping free of her like a ghost. "Do you feel that I play with you?" he asks, inviting and provocative all at once. He does not look directly at her, his eyes never visible for once beneath his black bangs. But she is fast, so fast. His calm does not reflect the fact that her frenzy gains on him with each passing stroke.
"There is a feeling that one has, when one is incapable of comprehending the limitation of another. That feeling is called 'fear.'"
The implication is invariably enough. Her frenzy, the flash of blades, eclipses him, his words cut short as she drives blades into his side, and cuts him crosswise down the middle, the force and speed of her checking attack driving him off of his feet and sending him spiralling away from her, blood trailing from him from a hundred angles as he tumbles end-over-end away from her, catastrophic in his descent.
But still, the noose tightens around her neck.
He hits the ground a little less gracefully than is his intention, as he spins upright and alights on the ground hard. Standing upright, he breathes slowly, sadly. He dusts at his coat, minding the blood. He raises a hand, and a silver mote of light dances along it. When he finally lifts his eyes to her, they shine with their own internal light. They are the most vivid, crystalline blue. But to look at them is to invite that howling from beyond into one's own mind, the memory of a thousand hands and a life spent being strangled to death pulled from everywhere at once, a headache pounding relentlessly at the skull. His eyes are awful to look at.
"But you are strong, aren't you..."
The spell he casts is one without motion or wasted incantation. He merely gestures, and a beam of silver moonlight appears, with no intermediary movement between them. If she does not realize what he means and where he aims, her midsection will be speared through in an eyeblink, from even the distance that lay between them.
GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has activated a Force Action! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has attacked Pearl with Demiselene! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has completed his action. GS: Pearl has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Accelerate!
DC: MISS! Pearl completely evades Demiselene from Isiris Shango'Ra! DC: You switch forms to Shadow Dragon Assassin! DC: Pearl switches forms to Shadow Dragon Assassin!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Something changes. Ever so slightly. Almost imperceptibly.
But Pearl just isn't fast enough, it seems. The spear of light pierces her stomach, and she drops to the ground wordlessly. Silently. Without even the sound of impacting the ground.
And then her body dissolves into shadows.
"Playing your game is no fun any more." Pearl stands across from the man. And to the right of him. And on a tree above him. And, if he looks, behind him. In the darkness, they look identical. "You had ample chance to kill me. You wasted it." One of the Pearl's drops the clawed gloves to the ground. Somehow, her scarred hands look sharper. Her stance is completely different. And she speaks loudly, choked by the blood noose as she may be.
Where stood a feral fighter stands something completely different. A killer. An executioner. A monster. The ferocity displayed before is replaced with a sick glee. "Strong, but not strong enough. Not strong enough to kill him if you waste opportunities so rampantly."
Dark purple energy starts to flare from her body, her grey eyes fixing on the man and a cruel smile emerging on her face. "I must thank you for disposing of the witnesses. They'd probably ask too many questions if I had to kill them all myself."
Suddenly, she surges forward from four directions at her opponent, her hand glowing with purple energy as she moves to drive the corrosive, cutting ki of the Shadow Dragon Cult through the man's chest. "Don't worry. I'll make sure you suffer."
GS: Your next attack with the Sneak flag will display with the name Inverse Shredder. GS: Pearl has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Inverse Shredder! GS: Pearl takes 7 damage from Toxin! GS: Pearl has completed her action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Pearl's attack becomes clear! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra takes a solid hit from Pearl's Umbral Ambush for 155 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Four shadows launching open, obvious, strikes. Fast, aggressive, brutal.
And devoid of any substance.
There were five attacks. It's just the last one wasn't telegraphed. A blur appears behind the man, and suddenly the true Pearl is standing there, both palms driving toward the man's kidneys, ki pulsing through them with enough power to rupture the organs of an unlucky victim. The sort of blow a normal human does not recover from, as they die slowly and painfully, beyond the help of any healer. Her opponent is clearly not a normal human, but despite this, Pearl licks her lips in anticipation and hope of finally making her enemy scream.
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
He lowers his hand.
Abominably blue eyes blink slowly, half-lidding in decadent satisfaction as the woman turns out not only to not be dead, but surrounding him entirely. He seems pleased with her in that moment, not making any overt movement beyond the mild flex of one hand, the silver light still trailing from his fingertips with the motion. He doesn't raise his guard, not even as the assassins circle on him, cutting into--and through him--from four separate directions. Truthfully, he doesn't even seem aware he is being attacked at all.
With each passing body, he steps away, as if a leaf being battered by the breeze, copies striking into and through him, staggering him each time. Each knocks a piece from him, leaving an iteration of him standing where he was a moment prior. By the time the fifth arrives, he is defenseless, his body bucking under the force of her palms. Twin jets of black bloom through his midsection brutally, the ki causing untold damage without ever having to pierce anything physical at all. His hands sway slack at his sides as he leans back, boneless and without mooring. Peerless blue eyes look up into the sky.
One by one, the iterations of him around them fall to their knees, defeated.
"And who is she," he asks of the woman behind him, vividly languorous as his face drips blood, "so far beneath that she thinks I would wish to kill her?"
In the next instant, an iteration of the nightmare spinner collapses at her feet, moaning in plaintive, strangled repose. Feet squeal across the bloodstained wet grass as she reaches for her throat, dying an inch at a time. It echoes the painful constriction around her own neck.
Somewhere between one eyeblink and the next, the iterations of the man became iterations of the woman, the same that simply collapsed into shadow before. Except now, she can hear herself dying from four different angles at once.
Slowly, so slowly, the man straightens, smoothing out his bloodstained coat as she dies all around him in many diferent ways. He wipes the blood ineffectually from a corner of his lip onto his glove, the gesture only serving to stain his gloves as it is almost immediately replaced. By now, the injuries she's inflicted have taken on a life of their own, droplets of blood floating freely in the air around him as they drain.
Crows overhead chatter absently. Some laugh.
GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Nightmare Paradox! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has completed his action. GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Isiris Shango'Ra! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra heals Isiris Shango'Ra! He gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Well this is different. Pearl hears herself die. Again, and again, and again. As a child she thought about that sound often. Dreamed of it, desired it sometimes. This is designed to torment the woman, clearly. And it is unnatural. But instead of succumbing, she starts chanting a mantra quietly under her breath.
A mantra about the meaning of power. The reason for power. The use for power. To rule. To kill. To destroy. Power exists to elevate yourself above the weak. To kill those who would oppose you. To destroy that which would offend you. Memories of years of beatings, years of conditioning, years of cruelty come to give her the strength to continue fighting. She would use her power to destroy that which is in front of her.
"You speak nonsense." She spits, as she glares at the man. "If you don't kill, what use are you?"
She doesn't wait for an answer as she surges toward the man, purple, knife sharp ki glowing on her hand as she launches an open hand claw to swipe across her opponent's chest and aims to leave large gouges in the flesh. They may not last long. This thing has recovered from damage that should have killed him several times over. But Pearl needs satisfaction now.
And satisfaction looks like a corpse on a shattered throne.
GS: Pearl has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Inverse Claw! GS: Pearl takes 12 damage from Toxin! GS: Pearl has completed her action. GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has activated a Force Action! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra takes a solid hit from Pearl's Inverse Claw for 143 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
All around the dying ones, they stand.
By this time, the nightmare agent has turned to face her, his hands at his sides again, even as some version of her writhes, grey as a fish, beside him. He, like she, pays it no mind in the end, his preternatural nature giving his study an unreachable, unknowable quality. Those piercing blue eyes will cut her away, a slice at a time, if she lets them, and only the vicious mantra she repeats holds him any sway. Enmity bears her onward, driving her into him again and again, and yet he offers no resistance as she crushes him beneath her claws, lighting into his tunic and cutting him to the bone. His chest is bared in gory flashes of sinew and bone beneath the flashes of her claws, in a way that his protective coat simply didn't allow. It is eerie, the silence in which he is cut into. A battle is something filled with the clash of metal, of screaming and agony. It is seldom that one can hear the butcher-like sounds of their own steel thumping wetly into flesh.
"I seek the god of this world, and the one who is strong enough to use her power to remake the most flawed world of all," he explains quietly.
He reaches down to her dying lips, and touches a mote of silver light there.
In the next instant, the battlefield is cut in half.
Razor steel arcs from nowhere, as he produces a wave of metal from the throat of the strangled woman at his side. In an instant, he cuts her in half, wielding a full length killing saber in the air. A bright wave of cutting force flares from the zero cut point, bisecting earth with laser precision far away from the practical reach of his sword, the earth shuddering with the flash. The reaping blade is impossibly sharp inside that stroke, and any lesser person may simply have lost a limb, or been cut in twain by the brutal blow.
"The mercy I show you is immeasurable.."
GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has attacked Pearl with A World Without! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has completed his action. GS: Pearl has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Accelerate! GS: Pearl takes a glancing hit from Isiris Shango'Ra's A World Without for 81 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
The mantra continues in her head as one of the simulacra of herself is grotesquely cut apart all to cut a wave through the battlefield. She dashes forward, and manages to avoid the worst of the surreal blade, even as it slices the back of her leg. She's lucky enough to avoid the hamstrings, but her scarred leg bleeds profusely. Where she lands, one of the slowly dying clones continues to gasp and writhe.
Pearl stares at the clone briefly, before reaching down, and cleanly snapping it's neck with her bare hand. She stands up, bloody, angry, and above all else, done. She cares not what this creature wants. What it stands for. Why it keeps going.
"Then allow me to send you directly to Her embrace." Pearl rushes forward, blood flying in the air behind her as she launches a lightning fast roundhouse kick at her opponent, spiralling into an elbow to the throat, then a knee to the stomach. She moves so fast that she blurs, afterimages in her wake. Behind every blow is a killing intent, ready to end this here and now, despite all evidence her attacker has given to the contrary.
All she has to do is kill him hard enough to make it stick.
GS: Pearl has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Umbral Blitz! GS: Pearl has completed her action. GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has activated a Force Action!
DC: MISS! Isiris Shango'Ra completely evades Umbral Blitz from Pearl!
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
His attack has cut a ridge into the battlefield, a fracture that heaves one part of the ground above another. His blade lowers slowly as she surges past the cutting wave, snapping the neck of her own iteration, the dying woman's life cut short to some brutal, angry end. The bloodied agent watches the act quietly, making a low, vibrant sound in the back of his blood slaked throat.
She attacks him, with nothing held back. A roundhouse kick impacts steel, each blurring blow trailed by an afterimage and meeting a wall of steel. The nightmare agent glances the blows off of his blade, meeting her roundhouse with an overhead block from the flat of his blade, then cracking her elbow with the hilt of the weapon. He raises his free hand against her knee, throwing her by the thigh in lightning-fast attempt to counter her rotation, and throw her bodily to his side.
Especially when he begins to break into multiples, stepping out of his own shadow in a fast movement to flank her. He raises his blade slowly. There is something unreal about his movements, his attacks, matching her blurred motion with unerring, kaleidoscopic response. It will take everything in her to destroy him as she wills, as there seems to be no break in his martial style, compared to his more esoteric abilities.
And if she lets anger cloud her judgment, even for a second, he is going to cut her down to the very limit of her ability to survive.
GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has attacked Pearl with Geist Scything! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has completed his action. GS: Pearl takes a glancing hit from Isiris Shango'Ra's Geist Scything for 60 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Speed matches speed, as the mysterious man is able to deflect her assault, fist meeting blade. And in return, Pearl finds herself caught in a spiral of blades. So it appears her opponent, too, can generate clones. She's not fast enough to avoid every strike, but she's fast enough to avoid most of them. Still, she continues to bleed. The fact of the matter is that this fight can't go on much longer. Sooner rather than later, one of them will fall. And so it is that Pearl decides to take a drastic step.
She enters a low stance, and purple-black ki surrounds her entire body. Hatred, anger and the desire to kill flow through her body. It starts to manifest in her right hand. She looks forward, and focuses her all in the strike.
The strike itself is a simple open palm strike. The ki, however, is anathema to the spirit. A toxic ki that turns ones own spirit against itself. A series of chain reactions designed drive an opponents ki wild and out of control, before turning on it's wielder. To turn the energy of life into death. Three words emerge from Pearl's mouth as she unleashes it on her opponent, quiet and hard.
"Shadow Dragon Palm."
GS: Pearl has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Shadow Dragon Palm! GS: Pearl has completed her action.
DC: MISS! Isiris Shango'Ra completely evades Shadow Dragon Palm from Pearl!
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
They are alredy surrounded in floating motes of his blood.
The ki turns the grass black everywhere it goes, life cutting against life. The blast cuts rills into the grass behind him, killing in broad waves once set loose from the fist. It would be decisive, even to a creature with eyes like his. But the blow doesn't find his heart. There was no opportunity for any fancy evasion, no counterattack and riposte. Only one hand is used, and the nightmare agent has Pearl by her wrist, vitally close to the martial artist. His awful eyes flick to her, expression reverent. "Shadow Dragon Palm," he echoes, appreciatively. "But for now... you will dance."
"....initiate phantasmal surge."
The blast curtains the sky as the nightmare agent unleashes it, trails of blacklight tracing from each floating droplet of blood around him. The entire mass blooms into an earsplitting shriek of psychic distortion that ruptures the earth and cuts into the air. Power flows from every point around him, the blackbirds forming the carrier wave that makes up the psychotic blast. Clones, crows, all are swallowed into the great maw of force. If swallowed by it, all one will see is black.
He disappears there, leaving this stage.
GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has activated a Force Action! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has activated a Force Action! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has attacked Pearl with Phantasmal Surge! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has completed his action. GS: Pearl has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Accelerate!
DC: MISS! Pearl completely evades Phantasmal Surge from Isiris Shango'Ra!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
There is a low growl as her attack is stopped, but is left with no time to even curse as she realises what is happening. With a quick jerk she pulls her hand free from her opponents, and flips backward at speed. She has to outrun the blast before it can consume her. Her speed is her ally, as she clears the blast just in time as it consumes the battlefield behind her.
When she turns, her bizarre opponent is gone. The air is clear of birds. And quite possibly some confused members of the guard. Better confused than dead, for them.
She curses quietly, as she moves back toward the scattered surviving guardsmen. There are people who are going to have to be informed of this entity, and something done about it. Somehow.