2018-07-18: Sacrifice
- Log: Sacrifice
- Cast: Ida Everstead-Rey, Jack Van Burace, Lily Keil, The Voice
- Where: The mind of one Lily Keil
- Date: July 18th, 2018 (OOC)
- Summary: Ida Everstead-Rey decides to use her artifact to visit Lily Keil's dreams after an argument. The abyss stares back.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Entering the dream is easy; abrubtly, the dreamers awaken within it, the strange dreamscape stretching out beyond.
The green, green Nortune countryside spreads out in all directions. A meadow amidst gentle hills, dotted with wild flowers and covered in grass, it is as peaceful a setting as any ever was. However:
The sky, should the dreamers look up, is blackened, covered in dark and stormy clouds. There is no thunder; there is only the pressure that suggests rain, the charge in the air. ...And the sounds of conversation. It's impossible to make out, but there are soldiers talking, a group of eight in black uniforms--dark clothes, heavy armored jackets, weapons at their sides and backs, and the insignia of a black wolf on each. They're all young; clustered around twenty, at the oldest. Some scarred, some not. They are paused in the meadow, at ease. At their head is a a blond man, and at their rear...
Their rear, of course, has one Lily Keil, in her usual look, save for the uniform's extra formality. A beautiful red wood rifle is at her back, a knife at her side, and she carries a satchel labelled with a medic's insignia. She isn't talking with the others much, but she's watching them, a small smile on her face as she watches each of her comrades. ...At her collar is the marking for a First Lieutenant; her hair is back with a ribbon.
None of the soldiers see the dreamers at the moment. But it may be wise to pick a vantage point quickly. Animals, rocks... inhabiting someone present.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida was reluctant to try and replenish the Mirror's energies after last night's foray. After dusk fell, though, and Ida found herself tossing and turning, wracked by stomach-twisting anxiety and homesick for a home that never existed. She plucked her mirror-shard off the nightstand, tried to ignore how it felt warmer, and how the bloodstains lingered.Ida rested a hand atop it, sank back onto her pillow, and dreamed.
Ida breathes in, savoring the feel and scent of the fresh country air. She opens her eyes, glances around, notices the group of soldiers--most of them, of course, are unknowns, but one of them is Lily. Ida swallows. Her form twists apart into strands of shadow, sliding across the ground and merging with the shadow of a large rock. From this shadow, she watches, and tries to figure out an approach.
<Pose Tracker> Garrett Stampede has posed.
The dreams come.
The dreams always come.
Stealing up on Jack like a black wave. Always the nightmares first until blessed blackness takes him. Though recently, for some odd reason, he's been getting pulled into other peoples Dreams. Being Jack though he just...well...has rolled with it as best he can.
When in Adelhyde and all that.
So when that strange stretching sensation hits him and his mind is pulled in a different direction he isn't entirely surprised to find himself staring at a group of soldiers in the mind of someone else. He notices the flits of shadow towards a rock and smirks slightly, eyes closing as swirls of wind tear his own form to shreads only to reform it in the body of a raven that alights ontop of Ida's rock.
"Let me guess," He murmurs. "You're sleeping with a Mirror again?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The shadow of the rock is a fine place to hide. None of the soldiers notice the play of darkness along the ground; it's already cloudy, after all. And a raven is entirely in keeping here. ...There are no others, but somehow it isn't strange.
But the world begins to still. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Lily turns her head, looking to the horizon, to a shape cresting a hill growing larger... and larger... and larger, blinking in surprise over what feels like an eternity of a moment before--
Time resumes. The great automaton, with deadly claw and great cannon on each arm, vaguely humanoid in the upper body but possessed of four legs, a great strange head atop its great form. It is much smaller than a Gear, its hulking form merely the size of a house. But it is /here/, abrubtly in the center of the group, the soldiers turning in surprise as it stands utterly, completely still.
Until it whirls into motion and launches its terrible claw forward, punching through a woman's chest outright without giving her the room even to scream. Blood coats the blades on its 'hand', and the soldier's corpse twitches only lightly before dangling in place. ...Before Gryndille drops her. The soldiers whirl into action, drawing weapons and beginning to fight their strange assailant.
"Tstsurt't'r'!"
Lily's voice calls out something incomprehensible, but the soldiers obey. Leon is abrutbly not among them, disappeared, but the other five survivors are in motion. The medic pulls her rifle, but her bullets bounce off of its terrible armor. The horror comes quickly. The youngest of them screams, his arm still clutching his saber as Gryndille shears it from his body. In an instant the cannon has relieved him of his head, as well.
Lily's golden eyes are wide with shock as it happens. But when another soldier charges from behind Gryndille at the sight of her fallen comrade, and Gryndille simply turns and blasts an entire segment of her into nothingness--
Lily's voice rises in a terrifying, brutal scream as she throws her weapon down and puts out her hands. Flames burst out of nowhere to crash down upon the automaton, but it does not stop. It continues scything through the Black Wolves. Lily hurls blasts of ice, terrible frozen blades, a volley of fireballs, but Gryndille does not stop, going through the rest one by one, spraying blood where it passes.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The shadow does not speak, but Garrett can feel Ida's intent nevertheless. She feels like she's being run ragged, needs /any/ sort of escape--and right now, the Mirror is her only way out of a reality that's too cruel for her to deal with right now. It needs to grow stronger. It needs to--
Ida doesn't exactly turn to look at Lily, but she focuses her attention on the woman, nevertheless. The world seems to hold its breath, as it does sometimes before something terrible happens. That shape. Is that--
Gryndille claims its first victim among the Wolves. The shadow that is Ida wavers as that claw punches clean through one of the soldiers, and things only get worse from there. Ida doesn't delude herself into thinking they have a chance. All she can do is watch as it kills them, one by one, until Lily is the only survivor. Until--
Again, the shadow can't truly glance at Garrett, but it seems to watch him, nevertheless. Pain. Concern.
Ida tells herself she needs this, and pushes down that guilt. Behind her, another presence begins to feed.
<Pose Tracker> Garrett Stampede has posed.
The bird tilts its head curiously for a moment. Peering towards the figures as they walk. He recognizes Lily...but she seems less dark here. Less wounded...
...and then comes the explanation of why.
The shadow can feel the raven tense. Its wings twisting in the initial desire to leap to the defense of the helpless dream fragments. Its beak clenched, every meager muscle of the bird drawn taunt as a bowstring.
/This...doesn't feel right.../ The thought forms near the shadows of the rock.
/Sitting here. Watching. Doing nothing...it doesn't feel right./
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Maybe the raven could have helped. The battle goes on, as the shadow and the raven watch; it is ugly, and brutal, and quick. The dream spares no details, does nothing to hide the blood and gore of this day.
In the end Lily is sending blasts of pure darkness at Gryndille, erupting at its shell and obliterating pieces of the meadow around it. ...But it does not stop. It does not stop until all but Leon and Lily are dead. Two remains. Lily is still throwing magic, a chaos visible a long way just with the pulse of Ether. Leon is here again and still, his long coat hanging limp, standing in silence, when Gryndille stops before him... and then simply turns, the mechanical clanking and hissing of its form obvious for the moments before it is gone.
But it is gone, and Lily looks as if dead of emotion to the bodies, rushing to each and kneeling beside them, checking for pulses, blasting healing red light into bodies to no avail. She moves quickly, efficiently...
The corpse with a hole in her chest stares into Lily. Her voice says, "Ju' vr'r ts'ffutsrdo t'u xrrf 'ts urlyibr."
"Yi xnuv," Lily murmurs back, and closes the corpse's eyes. To each Lily goes, and each has a new indictment for her, a new recrimination, each growing. The words cannot be understood, but the tones are clear; accusatory. She /failed/ them. And when she finishes with all of them, Lily Keil falls to her knees, stares into nothing as she tries to ignore the physical pain she's in. Battered, burned, bruised. ...But it is more than that.
The scene begins to fade as she pulls her satchel, closes her eyes long enough to stand, and begins to walk towards Leon. Thunder rolls in the distance. All goes dark.
There is a sensation for both dreamers of floating, for an instant, floating in darkness but not in total emptiness. ...In the distance, red light flickers, from below to above, in strange right angles perpendicular moving.
It is cloudy, stormy once again. The light rises, however, on a dim afternoon, snow coating the ground, a leafless tree a monument to when winter may one day end. Nortune architecture--a large, white house, wood lining crossing up, a rich brown roof, glass windows--show a large house. ...There are sounds within. Stretching beyond the yard, the dream terminates into nothingness. There is only one way forward.
The door is unlocked, the walkway clear.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
If Ida had a form, she would be shaking. She can feel Lily's helplessness, her fear--and while she knows Leon didn't die in this encounter, she /expects/ him to. Why should fate stop with just her friends when it can take her lover, too? The shadow remains perfectly still. Again, Garrett feels more than hears Ida. She didn't do anything to provoke this. It just happened. For all she knows, Lily has nightmares like this every single night.
It would have happened anyway.
Darkness. A faint red light. The shadow that is Ida reappears around the corner of the house, takes stock, and slides up to the doorstep. Is she in here? The shadow takes on another form, extruding itself into tendrils that knit into the form of something else. A dream-figment, the vague suggestion of 'the help', someone wearing black-and-white clothes. The figment's features are forgettable. It steps into the house.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
When Ida reappears, makes her way to the doorstep, it will take her a moment to notice something: she is alone. Garrett has disappeared entirely from the dream, gone without so much as a word. Guilt has dragged him out. ...And the dream feels already heavier and more isolating now that the dreamer is alone.
The 'help' opens the door, stepping inside, and the door closes behind her with no particular malice. The entryway is simple, but well-formed; a banister against a staircase leading upward, hardwood floors for the foyer; the decor is austere, dignified. ...And the sounds are louder, in the house. There is a small courtyard, a garden; this is hardly a noble manor, but it contains a little bit of nature, hidden away by the rest of the home for privacy's sake. ...A glass door leads the way to it, and Ida can see two figures:
The first is a woman in a wheeled chair, with long blonde hair. "Urkhuryin," she says, and the other figure is revealed--much smaller, a little girl of perhaps eleven at most, with long black hair, golden eyes that are hard to see from here. Her bare arms are pale, light; she's in a light dress, pale red. She nods, draws in a breath, and fire erupts around her; it shapes into six fireballs, each orbiting her person, great concentration evident.
Little Lily Keil bites her lip. "Yi tsurn dou yit'..."
She throws out her arm and starts hurling them at the burnished target. As the help arrives--
The woman shifts her gaze to the maid. There is a blanket in her lap, which does a reasonable job of drawing attention away from the fact that her legs end above where the knee would be. Her blue eyes are sharp, and she holds a notebook--her attire is somewhat formal, a buttoned blouse, a ribbon.
Lily's arms are no longer bare; they are covered in strange circuit patterns from her fingertips to her forearms, but no higher. They glow red. She doesn't seem to notice the shadow.
Her reflection, however, turns to smile at Ida, a quiet knowledge in childlike eyes.
"Ururea--"
Little Lily--not her reflection--cries out and suddenly bites her lip as the third fireball orbiting her falls, the smell of burning flesh filling the air as the others wink out of existence and she grips her arm in pain.
"Ju," the woman says, snapping her eyes to the 'maid.' "Tsuul tsumf'rtsts, nuv!" She looks, expectant, before she says gently to her daughter, "Tsurlm ju'tsrlp, Lyilj. Ju' tsurn pyih yit'."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
This is the home Lily grew up in. It's smaller than Ida's, but there are similarities--the little garden is one of them. She steps into the courtyard, her demeanor as quiet and unobtrusive as possible. She sees the younger Lily, recognizing her instantly even while the older woman remains something of an enigma. Is that Lily's mother? A tutor? She's taking notes about Lily's sorcery?
Lily's reflection looks at Ida, independent of Lily. The nondescript maid looks back, but does not seem to recognize the words. /None/ of the words make sense.
Lily burns herself. "The help" flinches, visibly distressed on the young woman's behalf. The older woman gives an order, and Ida turns on a heel, hurrying off to get... medical supplies? She really hopes that's what the woman wanted.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The internal walls are soft blue. The garden is... frankly, not in great shape; it /is/ winter, after all, and Nortune winters are cold. But it offers a good view of the cloudy sky. The scene here?
The woman's notebook is too hard to read from here. She looks to be about the right age for a daughter of Lily's years--perhaps a little young. And when 'the help' flinches, the older woman keeps her eyes sharply on Lily.
...The little girl has tears in her eyes, but she nods, slowly, sniffing a few times at her. "Uxurj..." The mother lifts an eyebrow, and Lily straightens. "Jrts, mur'urm," she corrects, and the light at her arms moves from red-orange to pure red, lighting beneath her fingernails as her hand passes over the burn. Within moments, it disappears completely, gone as if it had never been there.
It all happens in view of Ida when she returns; the supplies are nearby, easy to find, and there's a mirror Ida can look in while she's turned away.
...A mirror that Holds the reflection, still. "Something isn't quite right here, hmmm?"
Lily and her mother(?) do not seem to hear the voice. But the door can be slid open to attend to Lily easily.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida can hear Lily crying, sniffling, trying to be brave. With no idea what the dream-figures are actually saying, she finds herself assuming worse and worse--that this is an experiment of some sort, that the woman is pushing Lily in order to better observe her potential. By the time "the Help" returns with a roll of bandages and some heal berry salve, Ida is fighting down the urge to grab Lily and run. Where would she even run to?
'Something isn't quite right here, hmmm?'
"The Help" turns and looks into the mirror, stone-faced. Then she steps forwards, and starts tending to Lily's wounds. She dips two fingers into the jar of ointment, and gingerly starts applying it to Lily's burns. She's careful not to aggravate them further, and wipes her hands off on a towel once she's through. Then, she starts applying the gauze.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily makes no move to try to leave, or even to recoil from the woman observing her. She does blink up at the 'Help' when she arrives, though, lifting her golden eyes to stare for a moment. The markings on her arms disappear completely, leaving smooth, unbroken skin. "Yit'ts uxurj," she says shyly, slouching a little and biting her lip. "Yi tsurn earurl yit' mjtsrlp." She looks almost sweet, as she looks other to the other woman, who nods in approval at her, and waits for the maid to finish her work. However...
There's no burn to mend. The ointment goes on unbroken, unreddened skin. The wound is gone, as if it had never been there in the first place.
The older woman speaks, Urkhuryin. Eauldo yit' yin flurtsr. Dou nut' eayit' ear'."
Lily nods, and uses her free hand, conjures a single fireball, the orange-red circuitry gleaming into existence from her fingertips down, not quite to her elbow, and it /stays/ there, as she simply focuses on it, breathing slowly. She stares into it.
"You see," the voice of the reflection says, though the sound of it is an adult Lily, not the child, "There was no servant here, that day. There was no interruption. And yet here you are. It's quite interesting."
Lily keeps holding the fireball as the gauze is applied.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Idiot. Are you just doing this to make yourself feel better?
Ida goes through the whole routine, pretending to be a part of the dream that makes no sense. Why would someone think Lily was hurt when she's just fine?
Inwardly, she is now certain that Garrett is no longer here, no longer even /connected/. When the reflection straight-out addresses her, Ida whips around to face it, flashing back to a disheveled, bloodstained boy. She doesn't speak--she just steps away from Lily and the older woman, approaching the reflection.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
When Ida finishes, Lily looks up to her; she still has tears in her eyes, but they're older now; it is the memory of pain, not pain itself. "T'eaurnx ju', myitsts." She inclines her head to the maid, her polite words offered, and puts out both hands, closing her eyes. This time she stands with her hands out, and one fireball becomes two, becomes four. They begin to orbit her arms, orange-red light beneath them, slow at first.
"Xrrf eauldoyinkh," the older woman says, and turns to look at the maid with a small smile. "Tsear dourts ear' vrtst'. T'ear'r'ts ur vun'ts yin t'eayits pu' ju', pu' ju' tsyilrntsr."
Lily and the woman continue their work in the garden, as Ida steps towards the reflection in the mirror. Lily, little girl Lily in the pale red dress, smiles at Ida. It is an unpleasant smile; it has all the malice and wisdom of an adult in a child's face.
"Nothing to say for yourself, intruder? Nothing to offer?"
The reflection lifts her hand, and in it is a shard of mirror.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida feels as though she should be getting used to the sensation of being caught somewhere she shouldn't be, doing something she shouldn't be doing. It doesn't make it any better.
"Lily?" the maid whispers. "I--I'm sorry you had to... to go through that. I won't stay here. There was something I needed to attend to, and--"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The reflection's smile widens, when the maid whispers, apologizes. Says she won't stay.
"Lily..." She trails off, as if tasting the word. "Such a silly thing to call herself. Ah, what can you do?"
In the mirror, beside the reflection, Ida can see; the fireballs grow. They move faster, faster.
The little girl in the mirror holds up the shard, and she squeezes. It pierces her skin, lets blood flow down her wrist, drip, drip. ...The shard should look awfully familiar, considering that Ida went to sleep holding it.
"I don't think I'm ready to let you leave. You would make an excellent subject for my... experiments. If you survive the next few moments, you will see more."
The reflection smiles again, and Ida has only an instant to react as the fireballs start crashing towards /her/. The door ahead opens, promising escape, as the figures in it begin to melt into nothing.
Ida will not be able to leave the dream until she reclaims the shard.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida remembers the bloodstained, bedraggled child smiling at her. He had the exact same look in his eyes.
"What are you?" Ida demands. Her hands clench into claws at her sides. Her heart starts to hammer against her ribs. How did she get that? How did she know? She can still sense the Malevolence-construct within the Mirror, and she can still feel it gorging itself on Lily's misery like a leech. The part of it that acts as Ida's escape route, though...
Ida moves. She twists on a heel and springs for the door, diving forwards. She feels one of the fireballs pass over her back, coming close enough to singe her clothing and raise welts on the skin beneath. She hits ground, tumbles painfully, forces herself to her feet again. She runs.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"What do you think I am?"
There is no sense of Malevolence from the voice, though there certainly is from the shard. It is within the mirror, and it is /gorging/ on misery in this dream, and on pain. Indeed, since Ida has had to exert herself so relatively little, it is gaining a great deal of power. Power that she may be able to attempt to use... Maybe.
"An experiment has rules. Here are mine; make it to the end of one of the dreamscapes before you, alive, and I will return what is yours to you. Fail..."
The voice laughs, distantly, feminine and rich. "And 'Lily' will eat your power before she wakes."
As Ida moves, the fireball passes over; if she looks over her shoulder, she can see that the girl fades. Ida runs... and when she makes it down the walkway, she runs into darkness.
The void is difficult to move through, as if offering resistance to each movement. But there are three gleams of light heading forward. Directly ahead is a snowy landscape, a church building. To the left and forward, a shadowed, purple-drenched landscape that 'calls' to Ida's power; the memory of Malevolence. And to the right, the right and ahead...
Gunfire echoes from the dome there. Gunfire, and the desert wind.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
'What do you think I am?'
Ida's lips twist into a snarl as she ditches her disguise--the anonymous form of "the Help" grows, twists, reshapes itself into Ida's Hellion form. The burns on her back are already starting to heal. "With my luck, a fragment of Valmar come to possess someone I called 'friend'." The voice gives her its terms. The star in Ida's heart seethes at the thought of this unknown thing threatening her, but she cannot afford to let it catch her, whatever it is. Her run slows to an awkward walk as the void takes her. It's like she's moving uphill through heavy winds. Ida closes her eyes, and makes her way towards that Malevolence-tainted landscape, relying on her sixth sense more than anything else. It is agonizingly slow going.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Fascinating... So it applies here, as well."
Ida's burning heart lights the void. Wind is a way to look at it, certainly--but it is not the only. Once she makes her choice, however... Her speed starts to rise, and the going is much smoother.
"Such superstitious thinking. Tsk, tsk."
The landscape ahead is suddenly closer, closer, and all around Ida there is light. Brilliant, cascading light.
It is gone, replaced by firelight, heat in all directions. The sky above is choked with smoke, and the streets of Adelhyde are in ruins. Ida awakens on the ground, with little sense of what has past. ...And before her, is a woman in black, her hair tied back, her jacket's insignia that of the Black Wolf.
Lily is on one knee, golden eyes studying Ida. "Tsurn ju' tst'urndo?" she asks, businesslike but not ungentle. She is firm, but patient. "Ju' nrrdo t'u rburts'urt'r--" She stops, looking up, and yanks at Ida's arm. "Mubr!"
/This/ time, Lily moves to help, to pull Ida away from a collapsing wall. It's at this point that something else begins to drone in...
The echoes of suffering, everywhere. Miserable people, people in fear, pain, resentment for what is happening; it's a cacophony assaulting the sixth sense, Malevolence invisible but close.
Lily's eyes are not gold. The awful purple smoke seems to be gathered all around her, suffusing her entire form; her eyes are blackened with it.
There is a path, ahead. Between rubble, beside a building that has not fallen. Death is all around, bodies piled, Metal Demon and human and beastman alike. ...But there is a group ahead, scared townsfolk, three of them, facing down a great beast on four legs. ...Ida sees them first. There is time to react, if she moves quickly.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The first thing Ida smells is the smoke. It reaches back into her brain, and before her conscious mind can catch up with it, it's unleashed the memories. Ida all but jumps awake, uncertain what just happened, but certain the danger is far from over. "Lily?" Ida says, suddenly worried the figure before her might not actually /be/ the woman she's familiar with. "Lily, are you--" Lily hauls her to her feet. Behind her, stone crumbles. Ida looks back, puts a hand to her chest, breathes. "Thank you--"
And then, the cacophony begins. It presses against Ida from every angle, as though trying to overwhelm her. Ida has spent quite a bit of time in high concentrations of Malevolence--she went to sleep in one--but this it more like Lastonbell.
This is not Lastonbell. This is Adlehyde. This is Adlehyde, and the Malevolence has taken hold of Lily. "Run!" It's as much a reminder to herself as a plea to Lily. But she can't run, can she? It has its claws in her, and it's only a matter of time until it twists her into something like what Ida's become.
The Hellion doesn't wait for much longer. She covers her mouth and nose with a hand, picks her way through the building, tries not to look too long at the bodies. The townsfolk are a convenient distraction. Ida snarls again, reaches into her shadow with her free hand, comes up with Peacemaker. She takes aim even as she starts to charge, and fires off three rounds at the beast's head and torso.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
It looks, sounds like Lily, save for the Malevolence absolutely wreathing her. ...But her body has not shifted. She has not become twisted, or monstrous, though her words are still incomprehensible. "Yit'ts pyinr," she answers Ida's question and thanks both, looking over Ida's shoulder and then forward. They both move, and Lily does not need to be told twice; they both run, together. ...Lily doesn't even seem to /notice/ the Malevolence all around her, except--
Except she does. The pain glimmers in her eye, the fatigue, her movements are /heavy/ with it, weighed down and down. But when they move foward--
Lily hits a knee and starts shooting, her bullet sinking into the Metal Beast's chest. ...But it is upon one of the townsfolk, covered in his blood, tearing flesh to ribbons before the bullets sink in, hers or Ida's.
Indeed. The townsfolk made a very good distraction. Ida can feel more misery flooding into her shard, wherever it is held now in the dream.
"Dourmn yit'--" Lily cuts off her voice, shakes her head, and looks ahead, forward. She attempts to be reassuring, "Vr'll khrt' ju' u't' up ear'r. ...Nyitsr tseauut'yinkh, urt' lrurtst'." But thanks to Ida's shooting... the Beast is down. It does not rise again. The two remaining townsfolk look up gratefully, and Lily directs them behind her.
"This garnered a lot of data, at the time. The psychic phenomena in play affected her quite strongly."
The gate looms ahead already, freedom ahead, though no sign of the shard. However... Between them and the gate is a Metal Dragon, gigantic and terrible. It has not seen them... Yet. With the civilians Lily is trailing, it may not be safe to move with the group.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
It's just a dream, Ida reminds herself. It's a dream, but it happened--it happened, and it's been lodged in Ida's psyche like a thorn ever since. These people died because she did nothing. She was in the perfect place to see it coming--she had it all but spelled out for her--and she dismissed it as a worried flight of fancy. She should have known.
As the Metal Beast falls to the ground, Ida internalizes this not as two she saved, but one she failed to save.
Ida nods to the dream-Lily, and reloads Peacemaker. The Dragonbone gun gleams in the firelight, a Dream-replica of a totem Ida crafted with her own Malevolence. She steps out in front of the others, taking the lead--and then a shadow falls across the alley. Ida holds out a hand, motioning for the others to stop, and then steps forward as far as she dares. When she was a little girl, she dreamed about seeing a living Metal Dragon, but Adlehyde made it clear that the fanciful childhood dream was just that. Real Metal Dragons are monsters.
Ida takes a step forwards, and then another. She turns back to Lily. "Stay down," she says. "Protect those people. I will deal with this."
Almost immediately, the voice in the back of Ida's mind forms a rejoinder. Oh. So you're still flogging your vaunted ancestor's reputation after Lastonbell. Have you ever wondered how many other descendants she had? Why do you have to be the special one?
Ida steps forwards, padding across the road and pressing herself against the remains of a storefront. She glances back at the dragon, and starts creeping towards it. Are you so desperate to prove yourself that you'll cling to /any/ sort of relevance? No one cares. She's dead. You'll be dead, soon, too.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
A dream, a memory--the lines between them can blur. Still the sky is choked with smoke, is cloudy beyond that. Rubble is everywhere; the smell of bodies, of burning flesh and ruined buildings, all of it combines in this place. This is a warzone, and they cannot all be saved.
Even those who live will be forever changed.
Firelight licks the barrel of the Peacemaker, and dream-Lily snaps her dark, dark eyes to Ida at her suggestion, glancing to the way out, and back to Ida. To look at her now is not only to see the soldier; it is to see the shadows of spiders, of a great monster that once was and may be again.
"Yi'll khrt' t'ear tsyibyilyiurnts u't', urndo tsumr vurtsx pu' ju'." She nods firmly, and lifts a hand, gesturing to the civilians, and starting to lead them across the way.
"So you choose to save figments and put yourself at risk. Hardly rational. But then, this pollution has hold on you, as well."
Ida steps forward, and the Dragon seems not to see or hear her at first, using its great claws to hold a great stove in place and gnaw at its metal. There is blood in its maw, splashed across its form.
"So it's a matter of your ancestor, is it?"
With a low growl, the Dragon begins to turn Ida's way, slowly, its sharp eyes showing a terrifying intellect.
"Mortality prompts such strange hopes."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
It's seen into her mind.
Ida stops cold in the street, and Lily could be forgiven for thinking that the Hellion thinks the Dragon spotted her. How could it /not/, idiot girl? You're connected to Lily, and to whatever horrors are nestled in her mind.
"Shut up," Ida hisses.
The Dragon turns. Light plays off its bloodied scales. Her left hand clenches into a fist, Malevolence wreathing it. Her right hand tightens around Peacemaker, and still more Malevolence curdles around the round in the chamber. She's not helpless anymore. She can /fight/ this monster. She can win. "This is what this world gets," Ida whispers, as she raises the heavy pistol, aiming it between the Dragon's eyes. "for making a mockery of my dreams." Ida pulls the trigger. She aims for the right wing-joint before the bullet is halfway there, allowing the Malevolence to guide her hand. When saturated with hurt and anger--and the desire to hurt the world for hurting her--it's a potent force.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Yes, this should be interesting. What are your own ideas of your capabilities?"
Lily, behind, stops as the Dragon turns, motions the civilians to keep running. Ida can hear them, behind. ...And Malevolence wreathes her. As Ida draws upon it, the world itself seems to blur, to slow and waver in a heat-haze.
The pistol hits the dragon straight on one of its clear eyelids with its bullet, prompting a roar of anger; the right wing-joint is torn quickly, Malevolence guiding her aim. She can feel its power pulsing; the misery she's already gathered empowers her here, makes her move more quickly than she otherwise would against the foe ahead.
The dragon rears back, and pours its horrific, nuclear-hot breath out towards Ida, and beyond, yellow-orange and pestilent. The next few moments are horrific in their own way; Ida can feel power from behind her, as well, and if she looks, she will see sickly yellow eyes in Lily's face, a changed form; burnt almost entirely away, walking regardless, fingers turning to talons and breaking free of her gloves.
"Is this what you want?"
The Hellion beside Ida continues approaching, hurling dark magic to follow up her bullets. The fight is brutal, and swift... but Ida's hurt and anger bring the beast down in moments, its form disintegrated by Lily's followup.
Lily looks to Ida, stern, "Ju' eaurbr t'u xrrf mubyinkh! Veaurt' ju'r luuxyinkh pu' yitsn't' ear'r!"
...The dead dragon's ashes start to reform, becoming bone, slowly re-growing metal flesh. It will not be long before it returns.
The civilians half made it. Two burned forms remain on the path. ...But beyond them is a light; at the gates of the city, the gleam of glass beckons.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida cannot answer that question. She wouldn't want to, even if she could. She doesn't need to look back at Lily to feel that /pulse/ of Malevolence, the misery and guilt. The Dragon breathes, and Ida blurs out of the way of the white-hot nuclear core; the edge catches her, blackens and chars the skin of her left forearm. She screams in agony, looks up at Lily with tear-blurred eyes.
It's Lily. She's changed. Ida stares, uncomprehending, for a moment or two. She remembers what it felt like when she became a Hellion--how her body tore itself apart, and reassembled itself. The rush of power. Lily is--
Ida howls out a battle cry, turns to the Dragon, and empties the rest of the clip. Once it's dead, Ida allows herself to breathe a moment, as if she had the luxury. "Lily," Ida says. The stretching, slithering sensation in her right forearm is awful. The smell of burnt flesh makes her want to vomit. "I don't understand."
Then she catches sight of the charred corpses lying behind the two of them. She swallows. Figments, she reminds herself, but it feels like an excuse. She turns, and starts walking towards the gleam of glass, and the bodies.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily looks to Ida in return, and she looks with the distant gaze of something inhuman. Her sickly yellow eyes pulse briefly with power, violet light crackling around her hands. She steps forward, looks to the Dragon's form--
Ida's breathing is marked by smoke, of course. When she asks Lily, Lily frowns at her, shadows radiating from her changing body. She is taller than before, larger. "Veaurt' ju' tsrrx yits nut' ear'r. Ju' vyill doyir yip ju' tst'urj." Even her voice is strange, though; the shadows radiating from her seem to be the /substance/ of her body as well, and unlike Ida growing in rents, Lily seems if anything less solid, less substantial, halfway present and not a part of this world.
Her flesh, too, burns. The burns should have killed her, but they have not.
When Ida starts to walk, Lily nods at her, and draws herself up, floating upward and moving towards the fallen form of the dragon as it puts itself back together. Chunks of rubble rip themselves from the ground at her command, and the battle resumes.
Ida, however, steps towards the gleam--and then the city is gone. Completely gone. It is replaced by a landscape of clouds, still, but also a field; once green, browned with death, Hellionized animals and humans both scattered around, as the entrance to a grotto looms ahead. The Batical Grotto--west of Port Timney, Malevolence-soaked cavern complex--looms before Ida. ...All around, the landscape disappears into darkness. Here, however--here, she can /feel/ her quarry within.
"So you can act rationally."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida doesn't even want to cry. The flush of rage at being caught, entrapped, and presented with a nightmare of her own is subsiding. In its place is numbness. It's as though she's spent her entire tenure as a Hellion--and the months leading up to it--circling between two poles. One is rage at the world around her, deep-seated anger over its endless cruelty, and the continual humiliation it's thrust upon her. The other, is despair. Who is to blame for Ida's misery if not Ida herself? Why can't she just chin up and be happy, like Cyre or Noeline? Or maybe she's just /that/ defective. Maybe everyone hates her. Maybe they're not wrong to think that way.
The longer Ida looks at what Lily has become, the darker that despair grows. She turns from Lily, swallows down a sudden surge of acrid Malevolence in her throat. The scene changes.
Batical Grotto. Ida remembers consigning a tiny effigy of her identity to the flame, because if one doesn't leave a calling-card, one is disobeying social protocol. Ida starts to walk, slow and steady, towards the mouth of the cave. She remembers when Malevolence was something entirely alien. She smiles a bitter little smile.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Still, there is power. After Lily changed, Ida can now detect, the power going to her shard surged once again. Is it only her misery? Maybe, maybe not. But there is no sense of the emotional landscape of Lily right now. As Ida moves towards the cavern, the world around her feels dead, half-real but too detailed. Despair, maybe.
But one thing she will see, now that Lily is out of her view, is that this is not /Ida's/ memory. It is not the right time of day, not the right weather, to be the time Ida first came here. The Hellions around, when Ida looks again, are merely animals. ...Angry animals, animals in pain, but not at all supernatural.
And walking beside Ida, not seeing to notice her, is Lily Keil. Her dark clothes and thin gloves make her easy to miss here. She casts spells of ice, as they first move in.
The voice does not echo much now. The way down is complex, laborious; the entrance gives way to a misshapen rock wall blocking the way, to a narrow passage that must be climbed... to water flowing /up/ instead of down.
An underground river; a set of stepping stones, someof which crumble to the touch. Ghostly phantasms of others make the trek with her; Bart, Leon, Josie. But at the bottom, at the very bottom of the caverns...
Before Ida is an altar. Beyond it, a door, the only door here, and it will not budge no matter what. The altar has flint and fuel beside it. The door, a simple message:
OFFER UNTO THE PYRE.
Still all is silent. Utterly, deathly silent.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida stops outside the mouth of the cave, glancing at the animals she /knew/ were Hellions when she went to visit. She could almost see their true shapes, and it's as though she's searching for them all over again. She looks down at her hands, one of which is still regenerating, the other illuminated by Malevolence issuing from the rent in her right forearm.
She follows. Lily and her comrades take a different path through the cave, but there are things she finds familiar. The cave walls, the mist hanging in the air, the fungi growing in the darkness. And then, the altar.
Ida swallows. Rosaline offered a glove. She offered a calling card. She doesn't remember what Talise and Zed and Claude offered, if anything. All she knows is that the Trial Knight saw her offering, and found her wanting. Ida looks at Lily, from across the flames. Her face is expressionless, but only barely. She might be waiting for something horrible to happen.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Down, down, down. Flashes of memory; falling into the water, placing bombs at the wall. The four helping one another as they go. Ida cannot understand the words they speak to one another, but even looking at Leon shows brilliant detail, as if he's more 'real' than anyone or anything here. It's nearly impossible to miss that truth.
The mist is the same. The fungi, the same. The altar...
It is a deceptively rustic altar; simple, in its way, stained. The group seems to argue among themselves over what to do with it, looking to the door, to the room. All except one.
Ida can see Lily look thoughtful. She blasts at the door, but nothing happens. She flips through a small book, does not find an answer. But eventually...
She starts to pull off her gloves, from one finger at a time. Something odd covers her hands; a strange, goopy mess that was once makeup concealing the violet lines and patterns at the back of her hands, down her forearms, up into her sleeves, clear as she pushes them out. She tosses the gloves onto the altar, both of them, and kneels before it.
From her boot she pulls a wicked knife, the same that Ida has seen Lily always carrying somewhere on her person. She lifts it, and it gleams in the fire--
She /hacks/ it down across her arm, carving a bloody rent in her flesh that she puts over the altar. She squeezes the blood from her arm.
"Yip t'ear vrt' dourtsn't' v'n, Yi'll v'n yit'."
The group recoils in horror, grips Lily and /tugs/ her away from the altar. Arguing, shouting--Lily shouting back--
The phantasms fade. Ida is conscious, then, of how much rock is above her, of the door before her.
"Progress requires sacrifice. Is that something you understand?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Leon being more 'real' than everything else does not surprise Ida. She's fairly sure that if someone were to look into her memories, the people closest to her would appear more solid than everyone else. That's just the nature of memory. The Hellion watches Lily from across the fire, at first sure that the gloves are the sacrifice--like Rosaline, they disguise something that makes her visibly /inhuman/. Then the knife comes out.
Ida watches as Lily cuts herself, and offers a blood sacrifice.
The voice speaks. Ida is a while in answering. "I understand," she says.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Without the gloves, Lily is uncomfortable, she stares down at the inhuman markings upon her hands. But Ida only sees that for a flash, before she is gone. The blood sacrifice is offered.
The flames lick the altar, turning violet and black, horrific and unnatural. The door opens, but at the same time, the door remains closed; a phantom, was all. The altar is empty once again... save for the stains of Lily Keil's blood.
"This, then, is your test."
Ida can feel it; the pulse of power on the other side of the door, the familiar gleam of Malevolence that is her artifact, her entry and exit from this strange world.
"Are you willing to sacrifice to gain what is yours? Are you willing to suffer, to move forward? I will not pretend: it will hurt."
The voice is clinical, distant; the laughter of before is gone, replaced by a businesslike tone, explaining the terms of the experiment. The voice comes from all around--
The voice comes from a face along the wall, a mirror suddenly present again. Gold eyes focus on Ida, and it is Lily, an adult, but older, more haggard. Demanding.
"Give to me in trade. It is unfair. It is violent, and vile. You do not deserve this."
The Lily in the mirror smirks, cruel. "That's the point."
There is an old, ancient bitterness in her eyes. The voice goes silent, and the dream waits.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Anger flares as the voice gives its terms, but it's feeble. "I can bear the pain," Ida says. She sounds oddly certain of this fact. "I'm warning you, though, whatever you are. This power will not turn you into a monster. It simply takes what is already there, and empowers it. All those little contradictions cease to be little. Everything you try to hide about yourself comes spilling out."
Ida turns to the mirror, and smiles a bitter little smile. Of course the woman is being cruel. Of course she's lording it over Ida, demanding a sacrifice. That's just how life is, after all.
"I accept."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Oh, don't misunderstand me."
The reflection watches Ida, looks deep into her, as if she can see through her. "It is not your psychic corruption that I require. Not now, at least. No, it's more useful to me to have better control than that."
The altar looms. Smoke can be smelled from it. The door is closed.
"If you accept," the voice begins, "Then show me."
The mirror ripples, and a hand stretches out from it. It is gloved, but even so it is clear that the woman is thin. She offers forth a clean knife, impossibly smooth-bladed, with a plastic-reinforced handle. There are unfamiliar characters along the grip, but it is an ordinary knife. They resemble somewhat those on the Keystone Ida found.
"Make the sacrifice, and the shard is yours."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida smiles. It's thin and ragged and relieved, all at once. She reaches out to take the knife, testing its weight as she adjusts her grip. Ida walks back to the fire, and holds out her left arm. She looks at her right arm, at a long scar that is only part of a much larger scar Lady Harken gave her at Lacour. She pressed the tip of the knife to her left forearm, and cuts. Pain shoots through tender, newly-regenerated flesh, but Ida bites the inside of her cheek and keeps on going. Blood drips down into the fire.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The reflection looks on, staring down her nose at Ida, merciless. The knife is very light. It doesn't even take fingerprints, completely stainless. When Ida walks to the fire, she has the chance to do as she wills. The scar, on one arm; the knife, on the other.
Pain shoots through Ida's flesh, and at first it is simply the pain of a wound. Not for long: it grows, becoming mind-numbing, searing, spirit-melting agony, enough that the senses cease to give meaningful input and her existence is replaced for an indeterminate time by suffering.
The blood drips onto the altar, and it burns, orange at first, and then black-violet, acrid.
"Marvelous."
The door opens. Beyond it is a small pillow, on which sits the mirror shard. It is covered in Ida's own blood, and pulses with power: it is what she needed, what she brought with her.
Once Ida takes the shard, she may leave the dream at will.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
And there is the other shoe.
Sensation that isn't raw, elemental suffering returns. Ida's screaming trails off into shallow, ragged sobs, and then gasps. The spots fade from her vision, and when they're gone, she looks over at the door. Somehow, she manages to stumble over to the pillow, and she glances at the shard a moment, checking for signs of damage or tampering. She has no idea what they would even look like. It bothers her. Eventually, Ida plucks the shard off its pillow, holds it close, and lets it whisk her back to her slumbering body.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The woman in the mirror closes her eyes as Ida screams, as if listening to a symphony. She opens them, watches Ida stumble towards the pillow, glance to the shard. There is no damage. The only tampering is the blood along the side, and the fact that it's been polished; clearly, it was observed.
"We'll meet again."
There is a half-healed wound down Ida's arm when she awakens, and blood sticking the sheets to her. The shard is covered in dried, brown-turned blood along one edge.
But it is filled with power. The night's harvest of misery is great indeed.