2018-08-03: The Fall of the Forgotten
- Log: The Fall of the Forgotten
- Cast: Nameless Lord, Seraph Ragnell, Talise Gianfair, Sorey, Seraph Nimue, Ida Everstead-Rey
- Where: Nameless Spire, Biroclef Ridge
- Date: 8/3/2018
- Summary: Gathering together a team, Seraph Ragnell ventures deep into the heart of the Nameless Spire to confront its lord. A centuries-old obsession comes to its end.
==============================<* Biroclef Ridge *>============================== Biroclef Ridge is a network of canyons and high ridges that stretch across the southern mountains between the Gododdin region and Pearloats Pasture. The ridges here are narrow and difficult to walk, which makes trade between them difficult. This also aren't blessed by the temperate weather to the north; the land is drier here, except when great storms come rolling in from the southern seas. The network of ridges, canyons, and caverns also forms a maze that many an unfortunate traveler has gotten lost in. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGxq2eoLSDY
DC: Seraph Ragnell switches forms to The Free!
<Pose Tracker> Nameless Lord has posed.
A throne room. That's as best as this place can be summed up as. A circular chamber, ornate and extravagent... and dripping with Malevolence. It thrums through this place like it was the origin point of this tower's misery, and while the rest of the spire may be too far gone, all of it seems to be centered right... here. Paintings surround this room, hung on the circular walls of it, all of them depicting scenes from a war that all seem connected to the other like an extended panoramic. The scenes of the battle shift and move, most of them showing people fleeing in fear -- fleeing from the strange, shadowy silhouette of a woman that seems more demon than human, unable to make out save for horrible, gleaming red eyes.
And at the center of this chamber is a simple seat, like a sad, lonely throne. Whispering in a voice that grows louder and louder the closer you get:
"Are you her...?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Finally. It feels like it's been an age since Ragnell was last in the Nameless Spire. But to a Seraph, it was really only the blink of an eye, wasn't it? The anticipation of finally wiping the worthless creature that isn't even deserving of a name from the world shows in the hardness of her step, the harshness of her stare, as she strides into the throne room. She lifts her chin and eyes the Malevolence dripping in this ostentatious place with defiance, even as paintings show a long-past war, painted figures fleeing in the wake of a red-eyed woman.
Please. It's not *her* eyes that were red.
"I'm here in her place," Ragnell announces as she approaches the little, lonely throne. "Lord of Nothing." She stops several feet from the throne and draws her paired pistols. It doesn't matter to her if anyone is at her side or her back or not. She'd do this alone if she had to. "It's time for us to end your sad, pathetic existence..." She lifts that pistol and aims it square at where someone's face would be, if they were seated upon that chair. "...in the name of Shepherd Bradamante."
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
Talise got to punch things not so long ago. It was pretty cathartic.
The sad, lonely room seems all too appropriate for one in the situation of the nameless entity cursed to occupy it. Sword in hand, Talise makes her way forward a few paces, then rests the weapon over her shoulder.
She hangs back and lets someone else do the talking. Her emotional connection to this one significantly more tenuous than, say, Ragnell's. The lord of this place annoyed her, and his history offends her on a level of sheer principles - but the ones more aggrieved than her are, basically, everyone else.
Really it's her personal connection to Ida that brought her along - and not for the first time, it's occurred to her that Ida has gone out of her way to not talk to, look at or acknowledge her except under duress.
Talise keeps her mouth shut and reflects momentarily on what she was even thinking by coming along in the first place.
<Pose Tracker> Sorey has posed.
He had heard Alisha was here! Alisha was here... right?
Okay, so perhaps not. But Sorey had also been interested in the Nameless Spire, but had been late for the latest delve. That hadn't stopped him from following along behind the group at as best a speed as he could, but the Shepherd couldn't say that he had a firm grasp of what was going on here at the moment. The throne room they have discovered is quite interesting, but Sorey's attention is drawn by the strange spectacle that is unfolding in the midst of the room.
But Sorey's mouth narrows after a moment as he walks forward - the mention of an older Shepherd was quite interesting, but the fact that he wasn't really seeing the Lord they had talked about was... unusual. Sorey's own sensitivity was enough that a spirit should be visible, but it was possible that there was something here that he couldn't quite detect as of yet.
He can hear it, however.
And so the Shepherd stops before walking too deeply into the room, one hand resting on his still sheathed sword as he considers the room. He doesn't say anything as of yet, although those sensitive to their presence will feel both the Shepherd and his accompanying Seraphim arriving. He does give Lailah a questioning look, wondering where Alisha is. She... hitches her shoulders for a moment.
The world is a strange place. Best to deal with this problem first, and then they can locate his friend.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
Nimue isn't far behind Ragnell in this endeavor; she's a little less enthusiastic about heading headlong into danger here, but this is something important to her, too. She grips her staff tightly, taking a moment to try to psych herself up. She... isn't as enthusiastic about combat in a Malevolence-laden hellscape as Ragnell is.
When Ragnell addresses the Lord, Nimue steps back. She offers a somewhat quiet, "... heeeey, humans, last chance to back out," though it's honestly more to get her *own* head in the game than try to psych out Ragnell and Nimue's companions. She needs to remind herself that she *isn't* backing out -- that she's seeing this through, for Ragnell's sake.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida isn't sure why she's here, either. Ostensibly, the Nameless Lord's Domain tormented her; it cast her and her trusted companions out in disgrace, humiliated them, reminded her of traumatic childhood memories. And yet, even after traversing the Tower for what may be the final time, she's still uncertain. Conflicted. The Malevolent star in her chest flares brilliantly as she stalks towards the throne, not two steps behind Ragnell. The Seraph's words still echo in her head
'Hellionhood only affords you immortality as long as you *stay* a Hellion, an' if you weren't naturally immortal before it happened... well, all the age you skipped out on suddenly catches up to you.'
"I am not her, either," the big Hellion says, trying to keep cool and threatening. Garrett mysteriously vanishing did not help matters. She can't sense him. "I am here, old man, because your Domain hurt me and mine. And, if I'm to be honest, giving you a mercy you do not deserve." Ida rolls her shoulders, feeling the taut, dense muscle roll and shift beneath the fabric of her sleeveless coat. She steps forwards one final time, the heel of her leather boot echoing like the first beat of a war drum. She looks back at Talise when Nimue mentions this is the last chance for the 'humans' to escape, and sees her stand, resolute. Good, Ida thinks.
At the very least, having others here is incentive not to run. Ida's Domain ignites around her, a dark inner core surrounded by coruscating layers of violet. "This idiot girl is here to finish what she started."
<Pose Tracker> Nameless Lord has posed. <SoundTracker> Scarred and Battled - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd29v2uZv0w
The whispers in this place seem to shiver their way across the walls, as if the maddened mantra alone was what was making the panorama surrounding this sad throne room ripple with life. The paint wobbles, fluctuating with little tremors of Malevolence that make that battle play out in all its seemingly infernal madness.
But everything seems empty. There is no obvious sign of the Lord of this land. None except that perpetual whisper, rising to a maddened, demanding fever pitch. A whisper that begs, commands, threatens for an answer.
Are you her?
I'm here in her place, Lord of Nothing.
The whispers stop. The painting pauses in its motions. All stills, like the entire room had been caught in unexpected headlights... or the entire party encroaching upon this private place have just entered the eye of the storm.
It's time for us to end your sad, pathetic existence...
Paint trembles. The room feels like it starts to grow hotter as Ida says her piece. Something drips from above, splattering on Ragnell's shoulder.
... in the name of Shepherd Bradamante.
" LIES "
A bloody smear of paint.
They have all of a second to look up before they see it -- paint, bleeding from the wall, gushing forth like a deluge of conflicting colors that start to wind and weave themselves together like the were spools of thread creating something from their colorfully inky depths.
"PETS OF A PET! You come here for NOTHING! WHERE IS SHE!"
And what they form... seems almost sad, for all it shrieks so maddeningly. Covered in black robes, it floats above the ground, a frail slip of a thing barely even half the size of an average man, its overlarge head covered by a wide hat that looks like a twisted mockery of a noble's head wear on its bizarrely proportioned figure. That head is utterly round and utterly pitch black -- save for two, massive blue eyes that almost dominate the entirety of its face, twitching obsessively back and forth, as if searching.
"The lapdogs of Dragonia's lapdog are here! They're here! To me -- TO ME! SAVE ME!"
And as if responding to his commands, puddles of Malevolent paint beneath him form up into two more figures: one tall and gaunt, one large like a walking mountain of muscle.
Both of them searching with frantic, blazing blue eyes as the Nameless Lord unleashes a bubbling torrent of liquid flame to rage across the ground beneath him and douse -anyone- who gets in its way.
"Find her, find her, I need to see her -- no! Keep her away!"
M i s s i o n O b j e c t i v e
A Forgotten Requiem
Defeat the Nameless Lord!
<Pose Tracker> Nameless Lord has posed.
The Nameless Slave and the Nameless Servant begin to search frantically...
GS: Nameless Lord has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Bloodflamme! GS: Nameless Lord has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Bloodflamme! GS: Nameless Lord has attacked Sorey with Bloodflamme! GS: Nameless Lord has attacked Talise Gianfair with Bloodflamme! GS: Nameless Lord has attacked Seraph Nimue with Bloodflamme! GS: Nameless Lord has completed its action. GS: Talise Gianfair guards a hit from Nameless Lord's Bloodflamme for 75 hit points! GS: Sorey guards a hit from Nameless Lord's Bloodflamme for 66 hit points! GS: Seraph Nimue critically Guards a hit from Nameless Lord's Bloodflamme for 23 hit points! GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a solid hit from Nameless Lord's Bloodflamme for 120 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Nameless Lord's Bloodflamme for 59 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
The non-euclidean twists and spacial turns of the Nameless Spire are insidious indeed; it seems, just before the group entered the throne room, it split the last hallway, leading Alisha, Rudy, and Garrett off elsewhere... probably on a chute all the way back to the bottom and the outside, unlucky for them. By the time they make their way back in, if they try to do that, the battle will no doubt be over. Fights tend to be over quickly, after all.
It's just as well that Ida and Talise keep their thoughts about why they're here to themselves. It's just as well that Nimue issues a final 'out' for the humans while remaining at Ragnell's back. It's just as well that Sorey shows up in the nick of time to join up with Lailah, just as Alisha had been cut from the group.
It's just as well, because this particular tragedy is going to end here.
A splatter of paint falls on Ragnell's shoulder. She shoots a glance at it, then up at the source, just before the deluge of paint rains down, forming in a bobble-headed, blue-eyed mockery of a nobleman in black robes. "You think she'd waste her time on a wretch like you?! Lapdogs of a lapdog are more than good enough for *you*!" the Seraph snaps.
She pays for her lip when that burst of liquid flame erupts forward from him, faster at her in particular, faster than she can dodge. It hits her dead on, sending her arcing backwards to fall flat on her back. Nonetheless, patting burns from her clothes, Ragnell rolls back onto her feet, lips curled in a snarl. As she does, though, she catches sight of Sorey, and looks back over at him and Lailah--then smirks. "Heh... So you made it after all, huh. Make sure you support 'im good, Lai!"
Then Ragnell focuses back in on the Nameless Lord, leaping forward into a dash to circle the room, keep him and his servitors searching fruitlessly. "Nimue! Watch my back!" she calls to her Seraph companion as she runs, firing off several electric bullets that arc in towards the Nameless Lord, aiming to strike him in his big dumb head.
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Nameless Lord with Storm Runner! GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action. GS: Nameless Lord takes a solid hit from Seraph Ragnell's Storm Runner for 140 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Sorey has posed.
"So are you that lost, Ida, that you'd deny someone who has been cursed relief from their own suffering?" Sorey asks quietly from the back of the room. There is a faint whisper as his sword slides free of its sheath, the wooden blade moving quietly through the air as the Shepherd walks forwards towards the throne. He looks sadly upon the cursed man who has been bound to this place, unable to see the endless roll of years, and searching for something which no longer exists - as far as the Shepherd knows, at least.
The two strange figures are indeed menacing, but Sorey senses that the lord himself is the source of the trouble - and dealing with him is probably going to be the best way to deal with this. And with the others being focused upon by the strange servants, Sorey declares himself to the Lord as he walks forward, several blue flames appearing around his feet in the process. "Forgotten Lord, I am here to set you free," Sorey declares, leveling his sword. He brings his sword down as the flame washes out towards him, the wave of fire broken by the impact of his blade. The feeling of heat is painful, but it does not contact him directly - and Sorey narrows his eyes. "Your eyes are clouded by malevolence - but even those who are lost can be found and given a measure of peace one day."
Sorey's sword snaps down, and the blue flames around him streak across the floor, headed towards the Nameless Lord and erupting in a gout of flame that rushes up towards him.
"My name is Shepherd Sorey, and I am here to put an end to your nightmare!"
The Shepherd nods once to Ragnell, and again to the others. Despite everything, he has a focus here, and he's not going to pick any other fights. Although if Ida happens to get purified in the crossfire, he won't complain...
GS: Sorey has attacked Nameless Lord with Cantering Flames! GS: Sorey has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
As much as Talise wishes helping a friend felt more like the person she was helping was still her friend, she doesn't seem all that inclined to back out now. A fight is a fight, and this person's an ass.
Talise lowers her eyelids ever so slightly as Ida utters the phrase 'idiot girl.' Her own purple inner voice has been repeating that one to her since Rosaline and Ida turned Hellion and ran off.
All she says to the Nameless one is, "Whatever else you've done, messing around with my friends gets you punched in the face."
When that sad shape comes melting out of the back wall, Talise finds herself briefly struck by what she can only describe as pity. The Hellion barely seems to be a coherent creature anymore - any semblance of humanity shed in favour of a sheer embodiment of its own grievance. "...Hey Sorey," Talise asks suddenly, "is that what happens to very old Hellions... they become so consumed by their negative emotions that they basically become nothing but those feelings in the end?"
Then the Lord starts spewing liquid flame and it occurs to Talise for the millionth time that she's by far the least magical person here - and that limits what she can do against this kind of enemy.
"Damn it all," she growls, whisking back and shielding herself with a fold of her coat to try and keep the liquid flame from consuming her; it lashes along her leg up to her hip, burning away part of the tail of her garment and leaving scorchmarks up her calf. She winces and whirls away as quickly as she can, gripping her sword with both hands.
"I sure as hell hope this guy still has corporeal form," growls Talise as she darts forward again. With a glance given to the searching Slave and Servant, she swings Rastaban in a couple of hard, arcing strikes at the Lord himself. Against a person she'd be trying to sever something. In this case, she's trying to make sure he's something she can actually kill with a sword or a gun.
GS: Talise Gianfair has attacked Nameless Lord with Infinitely Rippling Waters! GS: Talise Gianfair has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Sorey has posed.
Sorey nods once to Talise. "For humans who are transformed into Hellions, they can ultimately be consumed over time by their malevolence. Many die when their natural lives end, but there are those who transcend their physical forms and become cursed spirits. They are trapped here, suffering and bringing suffering to others."
He narrows his eyes, his expression sad as he gazes at the Lord. "Bound by their own malevolence, unable to move on. If we can set them free, then I think we are doing them a service."
GS: Nameless Lord takes a solid hit from Sorey's Cantering Flames for 108 hit points! GS: Nameless Lord takes a glancing hit from Talise Gianfair's Infinitely Rippling Waters for 138 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"He is dead either way," Ida says, to Sorey. "And either way, he is no longer alive, and no longer suffer--"
Drip, drip.
Ida glances over to Ragnell's shoulder, watching as the bloody paint forms a single word. Her head whips up, and her eyes widen as she sees the wall melting, as though the painting were unmaking itself. She settles into limber defensive stance, rolling her shoulders through a wider range of motion than strictly human anatomy would allow. She watches as the Nameless Lord takes shape.
A sharp bark of laughter escapes Ida's lips. "That's him?" Ida says. She takes a step closer, the amusement on her face turning into a sort of predatory hunger.
'PETS OF A PET! You come here for NOTHING! WHERE IS SHE!'
"You bloody idiot," Ida snaps, trying to talk over the elder Hellion. "'She' has been dead for longer than you can imagine!" And that's all that she gets out before the paint vomits forth two more Hellions, both significantly more intimidating than their master. "Mind the entourage!" Ida shouts, but the Lord soon proves he's no slouch, either. Flame rips across the floor, licking up around Ida's boots. Her skin blisters and burns on contact, and her clothing doesn't fare much better. Despite this, she's graceful enough to vault to the side, tumbling and rolling out of the flow of fire. The younger Hellion's Domain rises around her, smothering the fire in thick, all-consuming darkness. See how helpless you are, fire?
'I sure as hell hope this guy still has corporeal form.'
"Let's find out," Ida says. Malevolence surges down her lower legs, patching together flesh, fabric, and leather. Her body is healing itself, reflexively, drawing upon the reactor-star in her chest to manage it. She surges forwards, springing off the floor and leaping past the stumbling Nameless Slave. She twists in mid-air--or, more accurately, space around her bends in strange, terrifying ways--and whips out her right leg, dropping it at the Nameless Lord's head in an axe kick.
Notably, she hasn't answered Sorey's question about how far she's fallen. Nor does she comment on Talise calling her a friend.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Nameless Lord with Devil Fist! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Nameless Lord takes a glancing hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Devil Fist for 111 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
It's hard for Nimue to hide her naked contempt for Sorey; when the Shepherd arrives, she can't quite stop herself from letting out a slightly put-upon sigh. She knows that the Shepherd helps the humans, and this, that, and the other thing, of course, but... well... in the end she just can't get past her distaste for the sort of system that needs a Shepherd.
As the twisted Hellion before them shouts at them, revealing its tiny, frail form, Nimue takes up her sling-staff and shuffles next to Ragnell. "... Yeah, sorry," Nimue offers him after a few moments. "You don't rate anything else."
She gives her weapon a quick twirl, bobbing slightly on her feet -- and creating a wave of wind around herself that repels the flames. She doesn't have the sheer projection capability of many seraphim, but keeping herself safe...? That she can do.
She's been saving her Filgaian grenades... but this is a good cause and the right time. Tossing one of them up into the air, Nimue catches it in her sling-staff, twirls it once (and the sound of a pin falling out can be heard), and then whips it full-speed for the Nameless Lord.
It promptly explodes into shards of razor-sharp metal.
GS: Seraph Nimue has attacked Nameless Lord with Razor Monsoon! GS: Seraph Nimue has completed her action. GS: Nameless Lord takes a glancing hit from Seraph Nimue's Razor Monsoon for 61 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Nameless Lord has posed.
Floating in the air, the diminutive form of the Nameless Lord looks almost adrift -- as if struggling to regain some semblance of bearings that have been forever lost to him, even as that deadly, mad fire dances across his tiny fingers.
"No," he whispers, voice reverberating through the walls, making the paint of the panorama shudder. The tableau surrounding the walls starts to slowly darken. "No, no, no no no no no. No! I do not know you! I do not know your people! My lineage is the blood of countries! Older than any of you -- a-any... any... but why can't I remember, what was -- what was--"
The stream of consciousness that is the Nameless Lord's response to Ragnell dies when the Lightning Seraph's electrified bullets pepper the Hellion's body in plasmic jolts that inspire an annoyed screech from the creature. The bullets almost -plop- into his head, that black skull rippling like a disturbed lake of... well... paint as that oversized head lurches towards his right. The Nameless Servant reacts almost immediately, wandering gaze snapping upon the flying form of Ragnell as it extends a single hand. A burning brand of Malevolence seethes at the gaunt Hellion's palm, before pure, violet energy shrieks across the impromptu battlefield this lonely throne room has become, looking to intercept the Lightning Seraph violently.
"No! She was the waste! Low-breed! Charlatan! Abandoned! Ha ha ha, cast out, cast out, because you never understood! Curs like you exist to serve -- why didn't they understand that, why did they never understand that, if they just did what I asked --" So small as the Nameless Lord is, the Rastaban seems almost twice as large as the Hellion -- a fact that makes itself especially known as the blade carves through the creature with titanic strength. Paint splatters across the ground as the Nameless Lord shrieks in pain and confusion, bodily flying from Talise's blows and hitting a wall, hard. He slumps forward, listlessly, tiny black fingers twitching back and forth as his large, unsteady eyes lift.
"Is it you? Is it her? S-stay away from me! Witch! You've taken everything worth taking, what left is there?!"
And then, a grenade. -That- seems to draw sheer, utter confusion from the Nameless Lord. His heavy head lifts upward. "What--" he begins -- before the explosion of shrapnel -rips- through him in a disorienting shriek, all but pinning him to the wall he has been tossed into. "WITCHCRAFT! HERESY! More sad tricks from Dragonia's mutts! You would cast judgment on ME?! WHAT PLACE HAVE YOU TO, DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"
And as Ida charges, a whisper ripples across puddling paint.
"please tell me who i am"
And as Ida strikes, the massive, bulky frame of the Nameless Slave rears itself up behind Nimue; tremendous fists clasped together, they crackle with pent up Malevolence as they SWING downward -- intent to attempt to punish her with a violent, impromptu hammerblow and an explosion of Malevolent might...
... timed perfectly with the violent axe kick that -cracks- into the Nameless Lord's head, sending him -smashing- into the ground. "Dead... dead dead... dead... dead dead dead dead... 'dead'...?"
My name is Shepherd Sorey, and I am here to put an end to your nightmare!
Blue flames rip through the ground. They strike the Hellion Lord, and Malevolence burns off him like vaporous paint. But something has seized hold of his large, blue eyes.
"Shepherd........"
And as he burns, the Nameless Lord dives into the now pitch-black expanse of that panorama, disappearing into it in a ripple.
IMPOSSIBLE
And the paint of the panorama EXPLODES outward from it in a tidal wave too fast to truly react to in time, gripping, seizing, pulling...
... until they are all drawn into the art of the Nameless Lord's spire.
Where they arrive -looks- like a painting. Real enough to be touched, but smudged, slicked with paint. A tableau world of what looks like a courtroom, countless seats with faceless people sitting in judgment, empty manacles pooled beneath a great podium emblazoned with the insignia of House Dragonia. It is quiet. For a moment.
Until several of those painted people suddenly twist like they were towels to be wrung, wrapping themselves together into countless spears of painted judges that -lance- through the air with intent to -skewer- everyone caught within this strange place. The Nameless Slave and Nameless Servant rise from pooling ink once more...
... as the Nameless Lord starts to forge himself anew from that great podium, so many times larger and made of painted wood and big, burning blue eyes. And brandishing a titanic judge's mallet.
"You cannot you cannot you cannot be -- another imposter, just like her! False savior! You are one of her kin, aren't you? Where is she? She yet lives, I know it! I can feel it! Please! Tell her I'm sorry! Tell her I TOOK EVERYTHING FROM HER LIKE SHE DID ME!"
And that mallet swings, screaming condemnation straight for them all.
GS: Nameless Lord has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Extend! GS: Nameless Lord has spent 7 Combo on Headshot and Gatling! GS: Nameless Lord has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Forgotten Glory! GS: Nameless Lord has attacked Talise Gianfair with Forgotten Glory! GS: Nameless Lord has attacked Sorey with Forgotten Glory! GS: Nameless Lord has attacked Seraph Nimue with Forgotten Glory! GS: Nameless Lord has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Forgotten Glory! GS: Nameless Lord has completed its action. GS: Nameless Slave has spent 2 Combo on Smite! GS: Nameless Slave has attacked Seraph Nimue with The Slave's Brand! GS: Nameless Servant has attacked Seraph Ragnell with The Servant's Mark!
<Pose Tracker> Nameless Lord has posed.
The Nameless Slave and the Nameless Servant begin to search frantically...
GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Nimue guards a hit from Nameless Lord's Forgotten Glory for 155 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Seraph Nimue! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Nameless Lord! GS: Seraph Nimue guards a hit from Nameless Slave's The Slave's Brand for 24 hit points! GS: Sorey has activated a Force Action! GS: CRITICAL! Sorey takes a glancing hit from Nameless Lord's Forgotten Glory for 123 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Sorey! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Nameless Lord! GS: CRITICAL! Talise Gianfair takes a solid hit from Nameless Lord's Forgotten Glory for 305 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Talise Gianfair! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Nameless Lord! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Ragnell takes a glancing hit from Nameless Lord's Forgotten Glory for 155 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Seraph Ragnell! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Nameless Lord! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Nameless Lord's Forgotten Glory for 255 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Nameless Lord!
DC: MISS! Seraph Ragnell completely evades The Servant's Mark from Nameless Servant!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
If Ragnell were the forgiving type, she might feel pity for the Nameless Lord as he shudders and wails and whispers, begging for his identity. She isn't. She might not be the type to hold a grudge either, but here, her only feeling is that he's gotten what he Goddess-damn well deserves. "Couldn't'a put it better myself," she calls over to Nimue. Her bullets strike true, but in return, the Nameless Servant outstretches a thin palm and sends a bolt of Malevolence her way. This time, she sees it coming, and nimbly back-steps out of the way of the foul strike before it lands home.
"Keep foolin' yourself! But even your own fellow nobles threw you to the dogs!" Ragnell sneers, eyes narrowing at the Lord's insistence on insulting Bradamante. "To be worth followin', first you've got to have at *least* a mote of dignity and nobility! Snivelin' cowards like you--"
The others' attacks fall again and again on the Lord, slashes and punches and grenades. Ragnell barks with cruel laughter, then concludes, "--can just go ahead and DIE!!"
Sorey introduces himself as Shepherd. The Nameless Lord flips. Ragnell laughs again, cut off when paint deluges down from above to grab them all, yank them into the paintings. Once inside, she crouches, pistols still in hand, shooting her red gaze back and forth. The figurines lance forward, and she's snagged, pinned down for the Lord to swing his mallet and *crush* into her. If she had a physical body, she surely would've broken several bones in the impact; as it is, her body erupts with pain as she's slammed into the ground. She coughs, gags, and spits up something that might be paint but isn't.
He insists that Sorey must be an imposter. "Care to let him in on the truth, Prime Lord?" she rasps over to Lailah--if Lailah was pulled in along with the rest of them, anyway. Whether she was or not, Ragnell staggers up to her feet, her hat askew, covering one eye as she bores a hateful stare at the pathetic Hellion.
And then, as the light of a Seraphic arte shimmers around her in a magic glyph, as the Hellion glaims he took everything from her, she just laughs in his face. The cherry on top?
"Thunder Blade!!"
Is the way a sword made of lightning *slashes* towards the delirious creature, exploding with concussive force upon impact with the floor.
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Nameless Lord with Thunder Blade! GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action. GS: Nameless Lord takes a solid hit from Seraph Ragnell's Thunder Blade for 132 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Sorey has posed.
Sorey brings his sword around in a spinning arc of blue flame, deflecting several of the blades away as the spears drive down towards him. The rapid transformation of the room seem to have caught him off guard at least for a moment... but he doubts that he is the only one, and the rapidly transforming figure of the Nameless Lord shows just how lost the Hellion is to reality. Several of the spears tear into Sorey's clothes, one slamming into his leg and causing him to grunt in pain. He looks up for a moment at the concerned Seraphim who reappears besides him, and grins. "Guess he really wants to make his point..." the Shepherd mutters.
"...I don't think this is the time for puns, Sorey!" Lailah exclaims after taking a moment to boggle at the fact that he would make a joke at a time like this. But she holds out one hand, helping Sorey to his feet. "If he continues to lose himself like this, it will cause him to lose more and more of what is left of his rationality, and who knows if he can truly move on in peace like that. If we want to purify him, then we need to hurry!"
"Yeah, you're right," Sorey states quietly, focusing. "Let's do this.
"Fethmus Mioma!"
Lailah vanishes, and in her place... a massive sword appears out of thin air, materializing within Sorey's grasp. The Shepherd spins the blade around, a wave of red and yellow flame ripping across his form. His usual travel clothing vanishes from sight, leaving a white and gold outfit in its wake, with red accents visible from the feathers tied to his hair and the crossed belts around his waist.
"If you have any doubts then I will dispel them, oh lost soul!" Sorey declares, his voice and Lailah's echoing together as they speak. The sword comes back, and he continues: "You cannot seek your lost one as long as you are trapped by this curse!"
And with that, the Armatized Shepherd launches himself towards the Nameless Lord. The Divine Blade comes around in a wide arc, a trail of flame ripping along behind it as the Sorey unleashes both blade and its purifying flames at the Hellion.
DC: Sorey switches forms to Armatus Fethmus Mioma!
GS: Sorey has attacked Nameless Lord with Vermillion Crescent! GS: Sorey has completed his action. GS: Nameless Lord takes a solid hit from Sorey's Vermillion Crescent for 145 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
Nimue turns around to face the Nameless Slave, with its massive, bulky body... and meets that hammer blow with her staff. Unfortunately, that leaves her off-balance as they'e drawn into the painting, and moreso as that gavel comes down, bringing condemnation.
Even though Nimue's able to partially turn and defend herself, she's still left screaming; part of her wonders if she shouldn't have taken her own advice, shouldn't have just cut and run. But -- well, this is the sort of thing she really ought to see through. Even she appreciates that much.
Prying herself off the ground, Nimue has to take a moment to think about her appr --
--no she doesn't. Nimue is, frankly, not that good at fighting. She relies extensively on self-protection, surprising ARMs stolen from the Blue Star, and even outright retreat, more often than not.
So she does what she does best: tosses a second grenade up into the air and whips it at the Nameless Lord, even as her stance sags. "Yeah, that's right," she says. "Heresy. A seraph who can't even use her artes. ... Whatever."
GS: Seraph Nimue has attacked Nameless Lord with Jetstream Scatter! GS: Seraph Nimue has completed her action. GS: Nameless Lord takes a solid hit from Seraph Nimue's Jetstream Scatter for 139 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
'please tell me who i am'
In the split-second before Ida's foot strikes home, the Nameless Lord's voice lodges in her heart and twists. What can she possibly say to this creature? His words have the tenor of someone gone mad, someone hopelessly lost in a tableau that only they can see. Bradamante has been dead for centuries. The Nameless Lord has been rotting away in this tower for nearly as long.
There is a horrible squelch. Paint splatters Ida's pants, coating the pale linen with a rainbow of color.
"I can't," Ida whispers. Realization twists her guts in knots. She'd pictured the owner of this place as an imperious titan, but all she sees before her now is a sad little man she knows nothing about. All she can do is hope her words reach him, somehow. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry you have to--"
He's gone. The painting ripples in the Nameless Lord's wake, and then washes out into the chamber, drowning everything. Ida's world becomes a kaleidoscope of paint and obsession-laden Malevolence. When she regains her bearings, she's standing before a pile of manacles. The Nameless Lord catches her flat-footed before she can react. A painted spear stabs clean through the Hellion's shoulder, blood mingling with the paint. Ida staggers backwards, her back slamming into the wood of a jury box. Faceless jurors look at her, and as she turns to look at them, she sees their judgmental stares through the glaze of pain. She grabs for the spear with trembling hands--
The gavel falls. Ida's body disappers beneath it with the sickening sound of something going crunch beneath. It's hard to tell if it's flesh or wood or both.
Why am I even here?
Idiot girl.
Is this what I will become?
Talise is going to sacrifice herself for you, again, and you're worried about yourself.
Just a madwoman, raving about people who have long since turned to dust?
Stop acting as though you're above this thing. You're pathetic.
Living like this isn't living at all.
But you're not going to just lie down and die, are you?
This place made me remember being helpless. I'm so sick of being helpless.
Shut up. Stop whining.
I'm so angry. I'm so tired. I hate it.
Why are you still--
No. Shut up. I'm sick of this. I'm so sick of this!
The gavel begins to rise, an inch at a time. Ida's Domain surges out from beneath it in coils of black and violet. Soon after, the Hellion herself becomes visible--bleeding, her right arm dislocated at the shoulder and bent in several places a human arm should never bend. Her left hand holds up the gavel, pushes it back. The star in her chest flares bright enough to leave strange, eldritch after-images in one's eyes--afterimages of a little girl tackling a bully to the floor and beating him. Afterimages of a grown woman training a gun on the Trial Knight.
"I'm sorry," Ida whispers, to the Hellion that just tried to murder her, and nearly succeeded. Her body tugs itself in all directions, as if pulled by unseen strings. Flesh pulls itself apart, bloodlessly, transmuting into streamers of shadow until all that is left of Ida is that Malevolent sun orbited by thick strings of shadow-stuff. The star flares brilliantly, engulfs them. It flares again, bleaching the paint around it, making it crack and fade and crumble. It flares a third time--
And in her mind's eye, Ida sees the mirror, and feels more than sees the tumor she has injected into the lifeblood of this world.
The light fades. The star uncoils, extruding thick, dark metal from its core. Volcanic stone forms from nothing. It forms deft, strong hands, three sets of muscular arms, a sturdy yet feminine body. A blank pane appears on the front of its head, and molds itself into strong, aristocratic features. Dark metal hair spins out from its head. That Malevolent star ignites in its chest, and cracks erupt throughout the entity's literally statuesque form.
"Your time here is over," Ida says. She draws back an open palm, and Malevolence glows within. She thrusts it forwards, and paint explodes off the Nameless Lord's surroundings; should it strike, the shockwave will go directly through the man's torso before exploding out the other end in a burst of pure, finely-painted white lotuses.
DC: Ida Everstead-Rey switches forms to The Hollow Asura!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Nameless Lord with The Lotus Blooms! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Nameless Lord takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's The Lotus Blooms for 157 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
"That's sad," Talise manages to murmur, glancing sidelong at Sorey as she swings. There's something profoundly mournful in her eyes. "To become so consumed by your insecurities that you eventually become nothing but your insecurities...."
And then Talise gets hit with the mallet and gets launched into the back wall of the room. She hits it hard enough that she punches through it and lands a room over. Masonry breaks out of the wall and collapses on top of her in a dusty heap.
Oh, well, this is nice, Talise reflects from under the rockpile through what is otherwise untold pain. Looks like I'm going to be casually killed fighting a sad sack who's never offended me for the sake of someone who holds me in contempt. It's like someone's just trying to find the most appropriate possible way for me to go out.
Talise doesn't climb out from under the masonry pile. She lies there and closes her eyes for a few minutes to try and put her affairs in order.
GS: Talise Gianfair has attacked Talise Gianfair with Placid Water Stance! GS: Talise Gianfair has completed her action. GS: Talise Gianfair gains Restore, shortening negative statuses by 3 turns each! GS: Talise Gianfair heals Talise Gianfair! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Nameless Lord has posed.
There really is no reasoning with this creature who was once a man. Centuries closing in on a millennium of isolation and loneliness and festering obsession have left the pitiful thing here now like a cautionary tale, all his danger and potency leashed uselessly to a tower no one truly knows or cares about. Forgotten to time, left in miserable obscurity.
Even by himself.
But in the present, it makes the Nameless Lord no less dangerous. If anything, it just makes the threat of him that much more prominent. Now looking as if he has been built out of painted wood, the Nameless Lord lurches from his place of judgment, head hanging low as his eyes dart feverishly from side to side -- looking, thanks to his nature, as if they are moving across his face, over and over. "where where where tell me tell me" he mumbles in a way that rightly ought to be under his breath save for how it seems to just -ripple- through the courtroom. "She had no right to ruin me, they were mine to punish, they were mine, MINE!"
And the still absurdly disproportioned frame of the now-massive Nameless Lord yanks backwards, Malevolence crackling black pulses throughout his makeshift body.
"MINE TO BEND TO HEEL! WHAT RIGHT?!"
And as the Hellion rages, another grenade flies; it lodges in split segments of paint-wood in a way that the mad creature does not even notice -- not until it EXPLODES, blowing apart shards of wood that -splatter- across the ground in puddling pools of brown paint as shrapnel tears a sizable gap on the Lord's shoulder joint. The Hellion flails violently, floating backwards across the earth until it cracks bodily against a nearby wall. "Seraph...? Madness. Madness! Nothing but the witchspawn of a fraud!"
Perhaps there's a certain irony, in something like him saying that. Even now, even as he is, he seems so willfully ignorant of the world around him.
But what does one expect from someone quite literally trapped in a prison of their own, faded past?
It is the surge of Malevolence, though, that catches his most immediate notice. The large head of the Nameless Lord tilts, turning towards the direction of Ida as her many-armed figure unfurls in a way that makes that perfectly-rounded cranium seem to sag. Apprehension fills that blue stare. "You... are you one of my servants? Save me from these creatures--"
It's a command that never quite manages to finish before that open palm SMASHES through paint-soaked surroundings, sending even his large, yet still so stubby frame literally bending inwards like he had just been folded. Already-wide burning blue eyes widen further as the Hellion is -flung- like a ragdoll...
... right into a blade forged of pure lightning. A hole blown through his midsection, that wrathful, plasmic blade carves another wound through splintering wood that all dissolves away into splatters of paint the moment they tear through his body. He convulses, hissing. "No! No no! Not a servant! You're like HER!" he hisses through each painful jolt; and as the concussive burst BLOWS him back, the Nameless Slave roars, the large Hellion churning with Malevolence as it looks to tackle itself bodily into Ida with mounting momentum.
Slowly, the Nameless Lord drags his smoking body upwards. He looks towards a gleam of light, a surge of something unfamiliar and yet horrifyingly similar.
And that is when he sees it.
Fethmus Mioma!
The white and gold of a Shepherd Armatized.
Eyes widen in some primal fear that instantly grips the Hellion, etched into the lizard parts of his brain by an encounter he was still too blind to see in full. Here, though, he sees it all -- he sees the Divine Blade swing, sees the flames burn -- and he FEELS the sharpness and the heat as it -rips- through him. He shrieks, not as much in pain but in abject terror as that weapon gouges a burning wound straight through his 'wounded' body. Flames gobbling him up, he staggers backward, holding tiny little hands up in front of his face. "NO! PLEASE! I'm sorry! I hate you! Why are you here?! Have you come to mock me?? Save me! I'll kill you!! Someone, get it away, get it away from me!!"
The Hellion seethes with contradictory impulses, but ultimately, one of them wins out; black electricity sparking along his body, he lashes out like someone might compulsively try to smack away a threatening animal. Malevolent magic churns just as paint swirls.
And as the Nameless Servant spins, to try to blast Sorey with a scorching surge of Malevolent lightning from its palm --
--space seems to grow heavier in the area around him and the Seraphim.
They only have a second before a well of gravity EXPLODES forward in a surge of force, and then -sucks- inward with compressing might, trying to draw them in towards a black, churning center. As they do, chains of paint EXPLODE from the wooden hands of the Hellion, flying towards the prone Talise and the transformed Ida, to lash, to surround them, to -constrict-, as the Nameless Lord FLINGS himself forward --
To try to grab hold of Nimue and Ragnell to -push- them into that building gravity well, as if someone carrying out a single-minded vendetta.
"I heard. I remember now. Did she cry when she burned? Did she scream? Did she shout?" All around them, the purifying flames start to catch on the very landscape itself, slowly beginning to burn it away to reveal bits and pieces of the real world beyond. "Was she pitiful? Did they spit on her? Tell me! Tell me!!"
GS: Nameless Lord enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Nameless Lord has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Gravity Well! GS: Nameless Lord has entered a Reflect stance! GS: Nameless Lord has attacked Seraph Nimue with Gravity Well! GS: Nameless Lord has entered a Reflect stance! GS: Nameless Lord has spent 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Nameless Lord has attacked Talise Gianfair with Fetters of the Past! GS: Nameless Lord has spent 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Nameless Lord has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Fetters of the Past! GS: Nameless Lord has attacked Sorey with Gravity Well! GS: Nameless Lord has entered a Reflect stance! GS: Nameless Lord has completed its action. GS: Talise Gianfair critically Guards a hit from Nameless Lord's Fetters of the Past for 19 hit points! GS: Sorey takes a solid hit from Nameless Lord's Gravity Well for 99 hit points! GS: Nameless Slave has spent 2 Combo on Smite! GS: Nameless Slave has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with The Slave's Brand! GS: Nameless Servant has attacked Sorey with The Servant's Mark! GS: Sorey takes a solid hit from Nameless Servant's The Servant's Mark for 66 hit points! GS: Sorey loses a Combo from Interrupt! GS: Seraph Nimue guards a hit from Nameless Lord's Gravity Well for 57 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Nameless Lord has posed.
The Nameless Slave and the Nameless Servant begin to search frantically...
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey critically Guards a hit from Nameless Lord's Fetters of the Past for 17 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey critically Guards a hit from Nameless Slave's The Slave's Brand for 6 hit points! GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a glancing hit from Nameless Lord's Gravity Well for 50 hit points! GS: Talise Gianfair has activated a Force Action!
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
As she lies under a rubble pile, Talise reasons her way through a few things. It gives her the opportunity to do something other than what she'd normally do: Either stab it while arguing with it, or ignore it and stab it anyway.
Instead she listens to what the Lord With No Name is saying. On its face, it seems to be empty gibbering.
Instead it's translateable. All of it traces back to the core of this creature - a being so lost in the very circumstances of its existence, so mired in the fundamental hatred of its being, that it has lost the mind which once harboured that hate.
Talise closes her eyes and listens for a moment.
Ida....
A wall of gravity roars forward. Masonry tears away from the floor; the bricks that collapsed earlier are sucked out towards the churning heart of the black hole. They have help from a large arm that reaches out of the rubble heap and thrusts much of it aside.
Talise has seen better days. The way she carries herself comes with a certain slouch, and most of her coat has been ripped off. Her breastplate has split right in half where the mallet hit her. Blood runs from her mouth and down her chin, and freely from countless cuts of varying depth, mingling obscenely with the dust of ages.
The chains of paint tear forth - and one coils around Talise's left arm. She holds it out in front of her.
"The only one I pity in this room is you," the swordswoman says, her tone quiet and sad as she braces her arm - and her muscles strain as the chains coil about her forearm. She prevents it from pulling her through sheer strength, bracing herself against the powerful gravity and the constricting chain through virtue of simple goddamned stubbornness. Countless broken ribs or not, she can at least do that much.
"I'm glad the Shepherd is here," Talise says, finding the Nameless One's empty blue eyeholes with a steady look of her own. "You were a sinner when you lived, but there's nothing left of the person who sinned. Just an old primal scream that's grown so loud and so hoarse that it's long forgotten the screamer. And frankly... that's enough."
Talise clenches her teeth - and with a bunching of shoulder and bicep, she snarls and yanks her arm back with a sharp motion. The chain binding it snaps under the sheer force she puts on it.
The broken-off part of that chain continues to dangle from her forearm as she clenches both hands around Rastaban's hilt. With a sudden burst of speed, she lunges forward, trailing dust, shreds of coat and a few drops of blood that glitter like garnets as they hang in the air behind her and then hurtle into the gravitic front.
Talise doesn't even have the heart to shout a challenge as she charges in, rears up, and brings Rastaban down. She doesn't have it in her to even make a sound beyond the silvery 'SHHHHHNNNNNNNN' as the steely hum of Rastaban's passage reverberates in the air, followed by the deceptively soft click of her bootheels hitting the floor.
She can't bring herself to hate a being this small and pathetic. Only pity.
GS: Talise Gianfair has spent 3 Combo on Headshot! GS: Talise Gianfair has attacked Nameless Lord with Cascading Steel Dragon! GS: Talise Gianfair has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
If there's one thing Nimue does great, it's survive. Even as she's pushed into that gravity well, she claws for just about anything else -- manages to root her staff in the ground. The gravity pulls and claws at her body, but doesn't quite raw her all the way in; she hangs on, if only for now. She weathers the storm, as she has weathered so many others.
When at last it abates, she looks... much the worse for wear, but still moving in spite of it. The Seraph laughs a little. "Fraud? Witch-spawn?" She laughs a little more -- and then cuts herself off, eyes narrowed. "How dare you."
Even faced with a creature as pathetic as this -- small, gibbering, sad more than anything else -- Nimue can't hide her contempt. She comes forward at last, twirling her staff and going, first, for a full-speed swing of the butt end.
She strikes with the weapon twice, then upends her bag in front of herself; many grenades -- some Filgaian, others made with careful application of Seraphic sorcery -- spill out.
"... I'm not going to tell you anything," she says, taking one grenade with her in the cup of her sling-staff. Walking back away, she turns and hurls it... and it sets off all the others on impact, as she says, "Crumble under the weight of centuries of despair."
GS: Seraph Nimue has activated a Force Action! GS: Seraph Nimue has spent 1 Combo on Headshot and Gatling! GS: Seraph Nimue has spent 1 Combo on Headshot and Gatling! GS: Seraph Nimue has attacked Nameless Lord with Millennium Desperado! GS: Seraph Nimue has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
In a certain sense, it feels good to Ragnell to see the Nameless Lord like this. No matter how painful Bradamante's death, no matter how wretchedly she'd been betrayed, she'd left enough of an impression on this creature that, nearly eight hundred years later, he's *still* gibbering in naked terror at something even simply like her. Fethmus Mioma... The purifying flame of the Shepherd and the Prime Lord united, once more. Ragnell still wouldn't waste Bradamante's time with mopping up this pathetic thing, were she here, but it gives her a certain grim satisfaction all the same.
"Keep tellin' yourself that, buttercup! But it's plain to all of us that you're caught in a mirror hall of delusions!" she tells the Hellions Lord. She goes over to Nimue to check on her, but she seems to have at least peeled herself off the ground well enough. Ragnell's mouth slants when Nimue mutters about heresy, but she leaves that one be. Though, even if she'd wanted to, the compressing gravitation of the Gravity Well arte abruptly takes up all of her attention. In leaping away from it to avoid being caught in the initial plume, she's caught by the Lord, who then attempts to shove her into it. Unfortunately for him, he does this while demanding to know about *her* ignoble death, every bitter, horrifying detail.
Ragnell, caught in his grip, charges Seraphic power in her pistols--and then shoves the muzzles, if not in the Lord's mouth, then as close to it as she can get them both. Seraphic light gushes up from a glyph forming beneath both their feets, two nearly smushed into one due to the point-blank proximity, as she collects and gathers her power in the Filgaian ARMs. Momentarily, that white light splits into the seven colors of the rainbow.
Nimue's response is succinct. Ragnell's, even more so:
"Die wondering about it," she growls.
And then she pulls the trigger. A *lot*.
GS: Seraph Ragnell has activated a Force Action! GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Nameless Lord with Prism Tango! GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Sorey has posed.
"Don't worry," Sorey states simply. "I won't leave you to be consumed by this darkness."
The Nameless Lord may not even understand what it is that he wants, but Sorey can hear the cry of a soul who knows that something is profoundly wrong with the world. Who knows he has been twisted and warped by it. And the Shepherd can only hope to free him from the terrible chains that malevolence has created about him. Chains that warp the world around them and have cursed his servants and dragged them down into this nightmare along with the Lord.
The point isn't to save people simply because they asked for it. It wasn't to try and save the world. Sorey wanted to save people from malevolence because it was the right thing to do. And that is what sends him leaping into the fray. The Nameless Servant unleashes a bolt of lighting, and the Shepherd takes it head on, the blast scorching his garments for a moment, leaving black, sticky trails of darkness along the surface. He grimaces, and then a wave of flame washes over him - the blackness burning away in a single moment as it is burned to ash and drifts away on the breeze. The sphere of darkness, the crushing landscape that attempts to bear down on the Seraphim and Shepherd alike, is another obstacle. But Sorey looks to Ragnell and Nimue, and shouts, "We need to push through together!"
They seem to have their reasons for opposing this Hellion - something personal he doesn't understand. But while they are helpful in reducing its strength enough that he can purify it... letting them kill this spirit and perhaps sending it to some dark and unfortunate fate is not something Sorey is willing to allow. He just has to aim for the right moment...
Pulling away from the energies of the gravity well will help cause them to disperse, and Sorey rushes onwards straight at the Nameless Lord. The Divine Weapon around behind his back, scraping across the ground and leaving a line of purifying flame in its wake.
"Crimson Flames! May they burn the darkness from your soul! Flamberge!"
Lailah's Divine Weapon erupts in a massive gout of flame, swirling streamers of red and yellow twisting about as Sorey brings the weapon around in a single, decisive strike aimed right at the center of the Nameless Lord.
To unleash a truly colossal amount of purifying flame directly through its very being, and to try and burn the malevolence away completely.
In the next moment, he turns about and brings his weapon around - and bars the way to anyone who would attempt to finish off the spirit before its purification can be completed.
GS: Sorey has spent 1 Combo on Poison and Disease! GS: Sorey has attacked Nameless Lord with Flamberge! GS: Sorey has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"I am no slave of yours," Ida says. Transformed like this, her voice has a hollow, metallic resonance to it, as if she were speaking from deep within the metal shell that is now her body. Twin spheres of Malevolence ignite in the hollows of carved stone sockets. She looks down at her right hand, smiles. Her right shoulder splits open, spewing gobbets of molten metal and smoke-like Malevolence, the change rolling across her torso and back in a wave of cracks. The wound seals itself shut. Her lower back erupts, and then her right thigh. It continues, without ceasing, each time healing into its normal state, riddled with glowing cracks but otherwise whole. It's like she's constantly tearing herself apart and remaking herself.
The Nameless Slave rushes Ida. Malevolence erupts from her shoulders, followed by bits of metal. She spins on a heel with a dancer's grace, and two of her right palms snap out, slamming into the lesser Hellion's torso with a thunk-thunk. Her Domain surges up around her, rooting her to the spot. She will not be moved by this pathetic creature. Chains whip out, lashing around her shoulders. Two left arms are pinned against her side, and a right arm is bent back, awkwardly.
"Would you chain me?" Ida says, steel teeth gleaming in a smile that is enraged, predatory, and self-depracating all at once. "I've already chained myself, little man." Muscles ripple, bulge, surge. The chain snaps in a dozen places at once, links ricocheting outwards like flying bullets. Ida steps forwards, twists so she's close enough to reach out and touch the Nameless Lord if she so pleases. "I want to say I hate you, but I don't hate you nearly as much as I hate myself." Ragnell draws. Malevolent eyes glance sideways at the Seraph. "I wonder..." The Hellion's hands reach back, darting into her own shadow. This is how Ida draws her ARMs, but the weapons she pulls loose aren't mere Dragonbone-forged firearms. They're sleek, idealized, more like an artist's renditions of what Zeboim ARMs looked like. Three are clearly pistols--two are a matched set, but the third is heavier, bulkier. The fourth gun is a shotgun of some kind. Ida blurs back a half-pace, and holds up her right uppermost hand in something resembling a mudra; the rest of them take aim, brace.
"I honestly don't know why I'm doing this," Ida says. A high-pitched whine echoes through the room as the weapons begin charging. Loading? It's not clear. "Maybe I'm just driven to grant you the mercy I don't deserve. Maybe I think Ragnell deserves closure. I don't know." Sorey unleashes his fire. Suddenly, it's a challenge.
"Die," Ida says. She opens fire. The shotgun sprays forth a veritable cloud of lead pellets that keep dividing even as they race towards their target, filling the space the Nameless Lord is occupying with a truly unhealthy volume of lead. The twin pistols spit projectiles that aren't quite solid, one black and one white; both hit the same point, however impossible that is, and the contradiction they contain starts shredding that something apart. Finally, Ida takes aim with the stylized replica of Devil's Due, the gun her mother trusted her with. She pulls the trigger.
A slug races from the barrel, trailing a shockwave of horrible, rending power and brilliant red light.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has spent 4 Combo on Gatling! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Nameless Lord with Soul-Piercing Rage! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Nameless Lord takes a solid hit from Talise Gianfair's Cascading Steel Dragon for 303 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Nameless Lord takes a solid hit from Seraph Nimue's Millennium Desperado for 255 hit points! GS: Nameless Lord has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight! GS: CRITICAL! Nameless Lord takes a solid hit from Seraph Ragnell's Prism Tango for 191 hit points! GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Seraph Ragnell! GS: Nameless Lord has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight! GS: Nameless Lord takes a solid hit from Sorey's Flamberge for 176 hit points! GS: Disease and Toxin! Statuses applied to Nameless Lord! GS: Nameless Lord has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points! GS: Nameless Lord has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight! GS: Nameless Lord takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Soul-Piercing Rage for 275 hit points! GS: Nameless Lord has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Nameless Lord has posed.
It sounds sad, the noise that comes out of the Nameless Lord. Like something trapped between a sob and a laugh, unable to decide which is the more appropriate of the two. Echoes of the arrogance, the cruelty, of the man he once was, swirled with the obsessive madness of the thing he is now.
Echoes of the past, clinging to the present.
"Aha ha ha h a a aaah... aaugh... I took it all. Every piece I could find. Everything. If I'll be forgotten, she'll be forgotten to, not even remembered as the -burning witch- she died as. I -- I am in the right. I was deprived everything. Unjustly! UnJUSTly! Loegres! Glenwood! The throne! Dragonia's whore took it from me, and I will take from her, SO TELL ME, TELL ME AND I WILL BURN THAT MEMORY TOO--"
And as he vacillates between the cruelty of his lucidity, and the raving madness of his Malevolence, he feels something jam into his black, wooden mouth. A strangled sound of confusion over a piece of technology he has so little experience with rings out, seconds before Seraphic power channeled through a Filgaian ARM explodes a prism of light directly into the strange mouth of the Hellion. He yanks backwards with an incoherent screech; the burning world of pain literally -trembles- as if in response to his pain, his frustration, his -rage- as massive tendrils of the stuff weave out of whatever of the tableau remains to -seize- Ragnell. His mouth burning and partially missing, wide blue eyes stare in a way that can communicate only insane hate transferred and fixated on the closest available target. Those tendrils attempt to squeeze, to constrict, to crush --
--which is precisely when that sling staff hammers into him, seconds before he sees that grenade flying through the air. Seconds before he notices the rest, littering the space around him.
"gnhf--"
Crumble under the weight of centuries of despair.
BOOM
And each one goes off, one after the other, like a domino effect, and those tendrils slack before dissolving away seconds before the flames of Purification chew through the paint that composed them. The forgotten lord goes flying through that raw, kinetic force, an arm missing, his wood-forged body burning away. He snarls something incomprehensible, magic churning around him...
... before Talise rips past with the mighty weight of the Rastaban roaring behind her, cleaving her way through the wooden weight of the Hellion in a way that CARVES through a massive chunk of the setting he once possessed. He stumbles, trying to lift himself. Trying to float. To get away.
And the last thing he sees is those purifying flames before his entire world is awash in silver.
Everything burns. The impurity of the painted world they were trapped into starts to crackle into so much Malevolent ash. Memories rush, in a confused jumble of painted reflections. Of armies, and wars. Of deals between nobles. Of a village burning while a large-eyed scrawny man in noble's finery watches. Of that same man in chains, full of contempt. None of them assembled in any sort of order. All of them flashes, glimpses...
... except one.
Like a little core of obsession. A memory of that same man, now seething with Malevolence, receiving something from a messenger in a room that looks so much like the throne room of the Spire. He holds it like it was simultaneously something precious and yet repulsive, unsure if he should keep it tight to his chest or as far away as possible, and so instead just handling it like it had all the fragility of glass. He opens a secret pathway beneath the throne, pushing that sad chair aside.
The last look is a glimmer of sharpened steel cradled in his hands before he disappears into that passageway.
When the memories are gone, they are back in the chamber of the Spire. The panorama is once more of that battle in the Meadow of Triumph, only now inert -- and that seemingly demonic woman now replaced with a girl with brown hair wearing leather and armor, looking steadfast and determined as she charges the enemies of her lord. Holding a simple longsword of sharpened steel.
And there lies the Nameless Lord, slowly dissolving away, flames eating at him and the Malevolence of this place as if he were the nexus point of all of it. Purifying, slowly. As Ida's shotgun lifts.
Die.
As she opens fire--
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
Old memories play through minds. They play through the eyes of a swordswoman, who focuses on them keenly as she digests what's been served up to her. The cynicism and self-serving callousness of one so used to and so utterly driven by having the biggest name that the lives of those with small names are simply pawns on a chessboard.
Small wonder, Talise reflects. Frigging nobility.
But there are more pressing concerns. As Ida lines up her killshot, there's a quick ripple of movement.
Then a steel-clad hand comes down on the barrel of the replica of Devil's Due.
From where she's just popped up on Ida's left, a scowling Talise curls her fingers and gradually pushes the front of the barrel downward. Pushing back against her is like pushing back against an iron wall. On more than a few occasions, Ida's seen Talise lift absurdly huge things, even without her strength gauntlets.
She's using them this time, and giving Ida a long, straight-ahead look as she steadily muscles her gun barrel downwards until she'll hit the floor a few feet in front of her.
"He's already dead, Ida," she says with a jerk of her head towards where Sorey is working.
"Watch what he's doing and watch what's going to be left."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Wrestling with Ida in this shape is like trying to stop an avalanche. Steel muscle does not yield, nor does the Malevolence powering it--but Talise manages to move the gun that crucial half-inch. The false Devil's Due fires, and in the eruption of heat and light, a chunk of stone flooring two feet across simply vanishes. Chips of stone flake off the edges of the wound. Beautiful features contort in a hideous snarl as her attempt to put this foolish old man out of his misery on her terms is thwarted.
"I don't know," Ida says. She knows. Anger boils in her voice. "What would be left of a human body after centuries? Bones, maybe, or even less?" She doesn't shoot again. Her furious gaze darts between Sorey and the dissolving Hellion and Sorey again. "All that's changed is who pulled the trigger on him."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"Ida, *please*," Ragnell says then, voice filled with derision and contempt. "Didn't you say yourself you didn't even know why you were here, after all that cryin' you did to me before about how bad he did by you an' your friends? An' now you wanna get all high an' mighty because you didn't get to get the kill? Take *several* seats." She turns a glittering gaze towards the old man's spirit as the flames of purification burn away the last of his Malevolence. "This is the way Brad would've done it. So this is fine by me."
<Pose Tracker> Nameless Lord has posed.
Wholly unaware of the death he almost faced at the hands of Ida's Malevolence-woven weapon, the Nameless Lord crawls across the ground as the Flames of Purification eat away at his body. The length of the process speaks volumes to the sheer amount of impurity the obsessed, forgotten creature had accumulated overtime, festering in his own pit of dissonance.
The spire groans. One can feel the shift and change of the foundations of it, reasserting into old forms like a stretched rubber band snapping back into place. The flames bleed through every nook and cranny of the architecture, creating normalcy from the warped as the Lord of this Nameless Spire crawls himself feebly forward towards that pathetic little throne, his sad little symbol of everything he once was.
He reaches for it, like it might hold some great treasure.
"i am... i am..."
His smile is a faint and pathetic thing, like a child discovering great joy over something paltry.
"I am... L..."
And he dissolves away in so much silver flame. In the end?
There's nothing.
Nothing but burning obsession and fear into something more pure.
---
The spire is no longer possessed, the architecture no longer so bafflingly irrational. Those who came here to find the lord of this place can now leave much more easily than they did. And if they check that throne, they'll find it can move, opening up a secret stairway. And within?
A small chamber, almost like a shrine, full of little knick knacks that mean nothing. Fragments of a past long gone. Some his, like mementos, jewelry.
But some little objects here, medals emblazoned with Dragonia's emblem, and other, crumbling trinkets of much more poor quality, are quite obviously someone else's.
And at the center of it all is mounted a single longsword. Of a make eloquent in its simplicity, but one still weighted with an impossible sense of history to it and immaculately maintained. Its guardless hilt decorated with a simple gold ring dangling from a string on the pommel. A weapon Nimue and Ragnell would doubtless recognize. Because it belonged to someone they knew well.
The sword of a forgotten Shepherd.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
"We're gonna find out, Ida," Talise says. If she's furious, it's hard to tell since her body language is a cross between cold focus and pained stubbornness, considering she's still bleeding from the various cuts she's suffered.
She gestures towards Ragnell - with her sword hand, given that her other one was a little busy. "She's closer to it than any of us, and she's not wrong. Bradamante would've done the same thing. Shepherd and all that. So let's let the Shepherd deal with it."
She does, however, remove her grip from Ida's gun, giving her purple friend at least enough trust to know she won't try again.
Sorey does his thing. Talise looks on with her lips pressed gently together, her hands clasped over the pommel of Rastaban as she sets the point against the turf. Shepherd-magic works its touch into the Hellion and brings forth some remnant of the figure that once was.
They never know his name. Only what is left behind. Talise doesn't touch the weapon Bradamante left, merely bowing her head and taking a step back, ceding the blade to Ragnell - this was her battle, after all, and Talise has her own weapon of the past, though since this one's backscened she'll have to wait awhile to learn the truth about Rastaban.
"So that's what's left, huh," she murmurs. "To be that consumed by your demons that there's ultimately just the demons and no more you.... Must've been a shitty existence." Talise shrugs. "Though deserved. And a chapter's closed."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Chewing out the other Hellion in the room aside, Ragnell takes grim satisfaction as everyone's power comes together to shred the Nameless Lord's form. Sorey calls to her and Nimue to work together, and that at least gets Ragnell to stay her hand at the last second as she breaks away from the dying Hellion to rejoin Nimue. "...If you're gonna purify this twisted soul, then go ahead," she says to him. Ida attempts to take her shot, but Talise stops her, and Ragnell weighs in for a second.
And so the Shepherd's purifying flames overtake the Nameless Lord. Ragnell holsters her guns and rests a hand on her hip as she silently watches him burn into nothing, even as he crawls inch by wretched inch towards his throne. He almost remembers. But it's too late. At last, at last, he is laid to rest, the obsession and contradiction cleased.
Then she lets out a small sigh. With its master gone, this tower has already returned to normal. Sorey and Lailah will no doubt be able to find Alisha in short order, something they probably waste no time doing now that the Hellion Lord has been cleansed. And perhaps Ida and Talise have a word for each other now that what they've come for has been completed. And Nimue... maybe she'll go, maybe she'll stay. For Ragnell's part, she walks over to the throne and nudges it with a foot... and when it moves, she pushes it the rest of the way away from the staircase below.
Naturally, she descends. Ragnell was always the curious type, and she expects to find something of interest here, especially after all those snippets of memory they'd seen but a few moments ago.
She's right, too. At the center of the trinkets and paraphernalia and historical memorabilia, there is a sword.
Bradamante's sword.
Ragnell gazes at it, expression both soft and inscrutable, as Talise remarks on the fate of the Nameless Lord. "Yeah," she murmurs. "Good riddance to bad rubbish an' all that. But this..." She picks the longsword up by the hilt and holds it up, letting light glint off the blade.
Then she laughs a little, nostalgic, rueful, bittersweet. "I don't even know what t' do with this. What do I need a sword for?"
Even so, unless someone else tries to claim it, she puts it away. Ragnell's a sucker for a memory. Then she turns away and pats her Seraph companion on the shoulder. "...C'mon, Nim," she says. "I know you hate this kinda thing, so I'll treat you to a beer. The good stuff."
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
"Suggestion," Talise speaks up with a raised eyebrow for Ragnell.
"Hold on to the sword, if you're not gonna carry it yourself. You never know. Maybe one day you'll meet someone you consider worthy. Someone who you think Bradamante would've liked."
Talise smiles faintly and pats the pommel of her own sword. "I don't know who left this one or why. But you do know what Bradamante would've looked for in someone. But it's up to you, I guess. I'm just here to stab things."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
As Ragnell comes over to Nimue, Nimue... just looks away fom the cleansing. She knows it's necessay -- even desirable -- but... she just can't stomach that sort of thing anymore. Instead, she looks to Ragnell -- to the blade for just a moment, but ultimately to Ragnell -- and nods, a little weakly.
"Hey, you still know me, your pal," she says, with some slightly worn-down laughter. "Sure thing. Let's get outta here."
She looks back toward Talise as she makes the suggestion... an ultimately nods. "I think she's on to something," Nimue whispers, a little too loud to *actually* intend not to be heard.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
It's always so much worse when the one laying into you is telling the truth. Ida reflexively spins together a rationale, but before it can leave her lips, it dies. Fuck the Shepherd, she wants to say. Fuck all those who judge her without bothering to understand. Fuck anyone and everyone who tries to be a hero in this worthless world, and ultimately ends up drawing out its slow, terrible death. She doesn't say any of that. She doesn't express the anger, or the sudden, raw, festering envy of this woman who was long dead and is so much better than she is. She wanted to be a hero. She wanted to do something. She wanted to feel like she meant something. She wanted to strike the world until it allowed her to establish some semblance of identity for herself.
She's failed. She's failed on all counts, and worst of all, everyone is judging her for it. All they see is the venom consuming her, and not--
All of this goes unspoken, but this doesn't mean it doesn't show. The eruptions trailing across Ida's form quicken. The points of light that are her eyes brighten. Her mouth opens, and Malevolence shines from within. She looks at Talise, then at the Seraphim, and the look on her face is far too much like the Hellion they just killed: fear and rage.
Ida collapses. Her form shreds itself apart, sinking into the star at her heart, which erupts one, final time. When the light fades, there is no sign Ida was ever there.
As Nimue and Ragnell descend the stair, the shadows flicker. A shadow alights on the wall, lost in the darkness, and observes the gathered items. A blade. Bradamante's? It's so simple. She watches as the others retrieve it, still and hidden, and if she could, she would cry until she could cry no more.
There's no place left for her anymore. If she sacrifices this power, she will die helpless and dependent on everyone around her, as she always was. If she doesn't, she will have Kalve, and also a slow, withering descent into madness, and he will get to watch every moment of it.
The shadow flickers back up the staircase, hidden in the darkness. Ida wishes she could stay a shadow forever.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
It's better for Ida that she keeps her venom to herself. Ragnell would have plenty more of her own to dish out. She might have helped her defeat an age-old enemy, but that doesn't mean that Ragnell will hesitate to verbally tear her to shreds. As it stands, Ragnell merely gives Ida a sidelong look when she flees to the shadows without another word. Then she shakes her head and descends those stairs.
Talise makes a suggestion. Nimue seconds it in none-too-subtle a fashion. Ragnell chuckles as she turns the old sword the other way. "Wait for a worthy human to bestow it to... Well, it's not a bad idea. I'll keep it in mind." She gives Talise a faint smile. "Findin' the right one'll be hard, though. Bradamante..." She sighs. "...liked everyone."
She puts it away. Nimue agrees to booze, and together, they ascend the stairs. "Thanks for th' help with th' stabbin'," she says to Talise as she goes. "Everyone else fucked off, so if there's anythin' here that catches your eye, it's all yours." Granted that the longsword was the most interesting piece--but given the age of the memorabilia here, Talise can no doubt find something that'd sell for a tidy sum to a historian or a collector.
To Nimue, she says as they ascend the stairs, "So have you ever been to that place that Lanval the Water Seraph used to preside over...?" And from there, well--conversation until they're out and away.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
As Ida sinks away into the darkness, Talise blinks a couple of times. She tries to follow that shadow but can't quite do it.
But she could see that look in the face of the woman she once met as a simple naturalist, who carried so many justifiable doubts, fears and anxieties with her for far too long. A look she didn't want to see in Ida's face.
Depending on how long Ida lingers, she may get to see Talise sink to one knee and rest her fingers against her temple, unburdening herself of the long sigh she really wanted to push out hours ago. Keeping her straight face up when Ida's around is a challenge.
"I guess I kind of understand where she's coming from," she concedes quietly. "I just hope she doesn't go off the deep end and end up like Nameless here. She's too good a person, no matter what her purple feelings say."
She can't give words to her real fear: Talise does not want to have to kill Ida, or stand there when Sorey purifies her only to find no Ida left.
She tilts her head and smiles quietly back at Ragnell, sliding a gauntlet off so she can push a hand through her hair. "...Glad I could help you out." Benedict the courier will end up with a lot of historical artifacts to be taken back to the mysterious benefactor.