2021-01-23: Fire Ceremony
- Log: Fire Ceremony
- Cast: Loren Voss, Lan Lilac, Elhaym van Houten, Leah Sadalbari, Fei Fong Wong, Gwen Whitlock
- Where: Lunatic Garden
- Date: January 23, 2021
- Summary: The time has come to purge Rahab's influence from Loren's psyche. But it won't be easy, and it will require certain parties normally at odds to work together.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Preparation had taken time, once the meal had been finished. First a suitable place had to be located -- a role in which Lan had featured heavily. The island was not without its ausipiciously-aligned places, but finding an appropriate place had taken some time.
As had arranging the necessary parts and rites for the ritual itself.
It's nearly dawn. The sun is not yet up, though the sky is beginning to brighten.
The fire is lit.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
They'd found the ritual months ago, after intensive research in several parts of the world. It was in Sielje that they'd finally put all the pieces together, wasn't it? It seems like longer ago than that. She and Leah Sadalbari had thought it was promising, but Loren had balked at the idea, without ever quite explaining why.
Lan thinks she understands a little bit... He's always held a noticeable amount of disdain for the Guardians - for most surfacer practices, honestly - but she'd thought that surely he'd be willing to take help from them for something so important.
But of course, he's never made anything simple.
But of course, now circumstances have changed.
Which is how they've all ended up here, as dawn approaches, arranged in a loose circle around a roaring bonfire. Lan has marked out a boundary in a brightly-colored powder to make a circle several feet wide with the fire in the center, and has gotten Loren to sit down at the eastern-most side. She gave them a mug of something dark and bitter to drink, and had them pass it around until it was empty before taking a seat.
They've been at this for what feels like an hour now, the others asked to keep a simple rhythm with their voices and clapping hands the entire time.
In time, the rhythm seeps into their blood and meat and bones. Their hands stop hurting and seem to keep the beat of their own volition. The shadows cast by the blaze climb the walls, forming strange shapes. And Lan, her face and body painted in ash, sings - the heat of the fire carrying her words into the pre-dawn sky.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly van Houten is here due to the confluence of a powerful force in the cosmos, one that should by all rights be counted with the six fundamental forces:
Guilt.
Elly wore rather low-key clothing. No dress this time; dungarees spattered with the stains of fish and mollusks long past (they were laundered before coming here), a button up blouse. She tied her hair back and into a loose pendulous low-hanging ponytail bun.
She has followed Lan's guidance. Elly had no problems with keeping time or singing along.
Indeed, something about this is oddly comfortable. If it was not for the company, it might almost be - fun might be the wrong word; but something that Elly could get used to doing regularly.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Leah Sadalbari has been here, since she arrived with Lydia. She has not required Loren to stay only within her sight, or any such shows of insecurity. She has simply waited, patient.
One might expect a Solarian to be more skeptical of the Guardians and their power, like Loren's disdain, but Leah has not once indicated anything of the sort today. She sits within the circle now, where circumstances have changed. It has been time...
She continues to clap, but her hands do not make the meaty sound of flesh on flesh clapping. There is a blunter noise, hard fiber against hard fiber. Her hands never hurt in the first place, because they cannot. It is almost easy to fall into rhythm, considering. She feels the burn in her muscles lifting up her synthetic arms. It doesn't matter.
Her voice has not wavered.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei is not really a fan of Persona Dungeons, but maybe he just has to fight something. He can do that. He is uneasy about working with Grigori too for that matter and maybe he would be really tearing into her but knowing that she has significant backup here stays his hand. Besides, helping Loren is important to Elly. He doesn't really understand why because their last experiences with Loren w ere mostly about wanting to murder her and he isn't really sure that's going to change even if he's healed, but it's what Elly wants.
It IS what Elly wants, right?
He sits himself down near Elly and says, "Hey," softly to her. "You holding up alright?" He aims to take her hand into his own.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen has her own suspicions why, though the degrees to which she'd be wrong and yet right in them would be almost comical.
But her opinion of Rahab has always been of an eldritch being, unknowable to human minds, unlike Setanta, whose destructive, most dangerous qualities were oddly the parts of them that made them seem the most human, even if it may be a mistake in itself to anthropomorphize them. Perhaps Loren, in his loneliness, had found some way to seek council with Rahab in his dreams, like Gwen herself did. Loren, with his more logical mind, may have found something akin to what Gwen did, but on his terms, regardless of what ways it went. Perhaps he was fascinated.
It feels disconnected, to consider those thoughts and look at Loren now, a young man Gwen is more likely to dive in front of a Gear for than see in a neutral light. Some of that is that 'bond' they share, she reminds herself, but it was easy to ignore it before. It could very well be that she wanted it even more, to fall into the role of the big sister, laughing and enjoying each moment to its fullest in a way she hasn't been truly able to in a long, long time.
Loren will lose that intrinsic bond if they succeed, Gwen had told him.
And he may loose more, which Gwen... doesn't think she told him.
".... So.... uh... what's this again?" Gwen looks at the liquid dubiously. "... Ohhhh, right, this is that Baskar stuff! I tried it once, and boy, I completely regretted it!" She laughs, uneasily. ".... So this'll..."
She's unsure of the specifics. Maybe if she was sure, she'd opt out, due to... certain complications that may arise.
But she's a woman of her word. Loren wants this, and she'll help it happen, regardless of her own desires.
With a deep breath, she downs her share, passing it on with a wrinkled look on her face, as if she bit into a lemon. "... S'bitter as hell."
Halkf-heartedly she claps, unable to fully commit, but after a while, the rhythm and the sense of all those around her sweeps her along as well.
This is for them. This is not for her. This is for them.
DG: A party led by Leah Sadalbari is now entering Fire Ceremony.
==============================<* Fire Ceremony *>=============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Riding Into the Dark *>===================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The ceremony begins. The flames are lit, and the Fire Guardian, Moor Gault, is invoked. All fades to black as the Guardian descends, wings trailing flame. It takes but a second. And yet it only takes an eternity. All is dark still when you open your eyes: the only things you can see are each other in this black landscape. The outside world -- and Loren -- are gone. Where are you now? Which way should you go? The answer comes in flame. Moor Gault is even more brilliant in the dark, and it is already ahead of you. Without ceasing it flies into the darkness. You'll need to catch up to the Guardian, or you'll never be able to help it destroy the Primarch's presence within this space of eternal night. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROpOfZAt0Zg =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Reckless, Overzealous, Fright==================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
This time, he'd asked for her to do it, and has thus far done as she's instructed.
Had the Loren Lan had known ever been quite this obedient? The most he has balked in the approach to the ceremony's climax was to pull a face after drinking down the substance she'd given him and remark that it was very bitter, but not even once has he shown any reluctance or desire for them to turn back and give up on whatever this ritual might gain him.
If anything like 'gain' is still possible.
He's been keeping rhythm with the others. His gaze is distant, his thoughts a clouded mystery to everyone -- perhaps even himself.
The final step is to call down the Guardian and beseerch Moor Gault to purify Loren of whatever lingers in him -- the touch of the Ley, the likely lingering presence of the Primarch Rahab... and see what is left after the fires abate.
As called, the Guardian descends--
And everything fades to black.
Everyone awakens after a time that feels at once as if it has been merely a moment while also encompassing hours, perhaps days. The world around them is dark. Only themselves -- and each other -- can now be seen. There is nothing else here--
Save for the Guardian's form as they surge ahead into the void, a brilliant bird of flame.
Follow Me, for I will need Your hands and eyes in what lies ahead speaks the Guardian in what is neither thought nor voice but carries elements of both.
They're already ahead of you and beginning to vanish into the dark. You'll need to hurry to catch up before they vanish completely from sight.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
There's nothing to do but sing. Praise her gods, the elemental forces of the land where she was born. Sing and clap and bring down fire incarnate, a force far greater than what she brings forth with the help of a simple stone tablet.
In the darkness, she comes back to herself. The effects of the mixture feel faraway, contained in the body that continues to clap and sing and pray, but feels like a million miles distant. Here they are all soulstuff, here they are all avatars.
"Come on!" she encourages them all, turning back long enough to count heads before threading a little magic through the idea of her silver ribbon. It'll help lighten their steps as they run into the endless black.
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Butterfly Ribbon toward her party's challenge, Riding Into the Dark.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
At first glance, with a flurry of shock, panic, and a small amount of glee, Gwen had thought Setanta was arriving. She'd clearly need to straighten things out, mention that this was all just some misunderstanding, maybe even ask them for help.
--No, it's not them, as she's able to sense, like knowing the rhythm of her own heartbeat.
Moor Gault is more brilliant than she could have imagined, a winged being that makes her feel as if she was standing small, insignificant.
Or maybe, she feels that way because she brings the smell of another Primarch with her, and her own doubts and worries as well.
Rahab... clearly needs to be dealt with. Rahab must be hurting Loren, and maybe, they don't care that they are. Or maybe, they are like Setanta, and their influence is just that hard to separate from their being, like having fire without heat.
She looks down at herself, and isn't surprised to see herself in that same default her soul goes back to- that of her slightly younger self, hair even shorter, bare, skinny limbs, her ARM looking like it was made for someone else with a stronger body frame. A sundress that doubled as a hospital gown, with easy clasps and buttons on the wide linen shoulder straps, her feet bare. ...That, and a crack of luminous red magma, like a crack in ceramic bowl, filled in with glittering gemstone dust that shines from within. Lanval and Boudicca saw something so much worse, so when Gwen looks around and finds the faces of those who were with her, she searches their gazes, making sure they're not acting like she's a pair of bright headlights on a very annoying Gear.
In the light of Moor Gault, that's more pressing, as perhaps is the souls of others here.
".... ,,,,, Welp." She claps her hands together once, a grin on her face. "... Let's follow 'em. Though, uh, where's Loren?" She looks around, then blinks. "Oh, so... he's... already where Moor Gault's leading us. Right." It's a little harder to mask the sadness in her eyes, in this form, but her soul's pep shines even moreso.
DG: Gwen Whitlock has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Riding Into the Dark.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
In the waking world, Elly tells Fei softly, "Yes. I'm fine." She takes his hand, fingers intertwining, and she smiles, looking towards him if perhaps not quite bold enough to meet his eyes. Not right now. Sometimes she makes a minor production out of this; but here, there are other matters.
And in those depths...
The world darkens...
and Moor Gault shines.
"You have to hurry in a situation like this," Elly answers Gwen. She appears curiously nondescript, although it seems that her own interior image does keep those long flowing red locks.
And so she begins to move forwards, although it is quite certain that she does not unclasp her hand from someone else's.
Elly does turn her head over her shoulder; a glittering mesh of something, woven from starlight perhaps, flickers in the gloom behind them. Is this Ether manifestation? (Hopefully, it doesn't blow something up in the cave. That would be embarrassing.) Either way, it is like the thought of a safety net, or like those sketches from scraped black paper of something fine and diaphanous.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Fishing Gear toward her party's challenge, Riding Into the Dark.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
One would expect that Leah would have some pause working with Fei of all people. She hasn't shown it; she said she isn't here for any of them except for Loren, and so far that has proven reasonable. But is her aim actually what she says it is, here? Is there something else behind the scenes?
It's not unfair to be leery of working with the woman who is the Watcher. But here she is now, and she has done the same things for the rituals as everyone else. And in the darkness...
She is there. The Guardian's brilliant, flaming form illuminates her. Leah is already standing, the planes of her scarred face severe in the firelight. In fact, the scarring is worse than it was in the light, burns down her jawline and throat. She is in dark clothes, mostly black, of clear Solarian make. Her artificial hands are visible; black and gray and chrome, without a sign of flesh. Where skin is visible she is still burned.
She doesn't appear to notice; there's no sign of pain in her expression. She listens--
"Right," Leah answers Lan. She feels the magic, looks around to note who isn't here, and prepares to move. The Solarian snaps her fingers, and in an instant she starts to fall forward. Not down, but ahead, as if she'd simply changed which directions were important for the moment, and now she sails ahead feet-first towards the space ahead.
DG: Leah Sadalbari has used her Tool Gravity Module toward her party's challenge, Riding Into the Dark.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong opens his eyes. He frowns.
"Emeralda is the hide and seek champion." Fei says, standing himself up. He isn't surprised to see Loren missing, or the outside world gone but that doesn't mean he's relaxede about it. He mutters an annoyed, "Of course." as he sees the wrld fall away. "Least it's just me out this time."
He startles briefly and looks towards Elly's hand and sees he's still h olding it. He smiles.
"Seems like we're running to the end of the world, huh?" He quips to her. Luckily he's still clothed.
He sticks lclose to Elly even iff he i sn't going to neccessarily hold her hand the whole way, and h e's hesitant to go into a full out sprint while in this...zone?
Fei's Medium of Moor Gault feels hot against his skin.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Riding Into the Dark.
==============================<* Fire Ceremony *>=============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Riding Into the Dark *>===================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The ceremony begins. The flames are lit, and the Fire Guardian, Moor Gault, is invoked. All fades to black as the Guardian descends, wings trailing flame. It takes but a second. And yet it only takes an eternity. All is dark still when you open your eyes: the only things you can see are each other in this black landscape. The outside world -- and Loren -- are gone. Where are you now? Which way should you go? The answer comes in flame. Moor Gault is even more brilliant in the dark, and it is already ahead of you. Without ceasing it flies into the darkness. You'll need to catch up to the Guardian, or you'll never be able to help it destroy the Primarch's presence within this space of eternal night. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROpOfZAt0Zg =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Reckless, Overzealous, Fright==================
=========================<* Fire Ceremony - Round 1 *>========================== =======================< Results - Riding Into the Dark >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leah Sadalbari 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Gravity Module 3 Agility Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Butterfly Ribbon 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gwen Whitlock 0 --(8)--> 8 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Fishing Gear 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leah Sadalbari 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Fright(2)|Hesitate(2)|Overzealous(2)|Reckless(2) Effects: Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leah Sadalbari has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Leah Sadalbari has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Fire Ceremony *>===============================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - An Insatiable Hunger *>=====================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
Blue streaks mar the skies above. You can just see them bright and
glittering through the smoke.
The fire is not far behind you now. Moor Gault is not cruel but it is not
merciless: its intent is to burn out the Primarch's presence. And here you
are, climbing some shadowy incline with the flames at your heels.
No matter how high you climb it feels like the fires are just behind you.
Nevertheless, you didn't come here to fail. You must try to outpace them,
even so.
Perhaps in doing so, you might even be able to reach the trails in the dark
sky.
=Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Treasure=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren doesn't seem to be here. That may be expected -- in a sense, they have been pulled into his mindscape.
Or perhaps what remains of it.
They all hurry, in their own ways, racing to catch up to the Fire Guardian who leads them further into the dark.
There is much I must do. From here You must find Your way to the roots. I will burn the branches. But It must be removed by the roots says the Guardian, leaving them all as they ascend for some other point in the darkness.
There are blue streaks in the sky here, this place to where they have advanced with the Guardian's assistance.
There is a steep hillside here. Somehow they know this: know that there are stones littering the incline, and know that it involves an uphill climb that will tax the body for the ascent. It cannot be seen after all: there is nothing here to see save for each other, the signs of the presence of the Primarch (something in Gwen's chest will ache and she'll know with certainity, Rahab) and...
The fires. The smoke.
Moor Gault has wasted no time. Already, the fires are licking their way up along the hillside, threatening to catch them up unless they hurry.
But the stones may slip underfoot, and the hillside is quite steep.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"..." Maybe it will be odd that it's Gwen who hesitates, seeing the burn scars on Leah's form. Familiar, but not quite, as Gwen's never reach beyond the side of her neck. She tries to keep from staring or examining Leah, startled as Elly politely reminds Gwen they need to be on the move. "Y-yeah. Right." She nods, and tries to keep up their pace.
It'd be no wonder if she lags a little by the time.
Perhaps the reason she clutches her heart is because she's out of breath, her body having none of the muscle her physical self had, as subtle as it was underneath her layered clothing.
That _ache_.
"... I'm sorry..." she whispers, under her breath. "I hope you're not actually feeling or seeing this, Rahab."
She chances a look towards the flames. Even if it's just that connection she feels, she falls into it, feeling tears begin to well in her eyes.
"But if you are, I'll be here," she assures that presence, gently. "You won't be alone."
Even if Rahab was actually here, they can't die, can they?
The flames lick up the hillside, and Gwen looks away and up the hill, wiping her face. "Okay! Just need to get up the hill..." She scuttles up, her bare feet not seeming to mind the terrain as she tries to keep pace. "Keep going, I'm right behind y'all!"
DG: Gwen Whitlock has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, An Insatiable Hunger.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan... doesn't look appreciably different. She's even wearing the same clothes her body is back in 'reality' - the same halter top and shorts, the same leather sandals, even the twine-wrapped glass bottle at her hip. It's not until she begins to run that her difference becomes apparent, a long silver trail like that of a comet streaming from her hair as she goes.
Don't think, feel.
Don't worry, act.
It's her job to get them all through this safely. Lan takes a deep breath and pauses at the base of the unseen hill, staring up into the darkness. She can't stop to worry about whether or not there will be anything left beneath the layer of ash that will remain. A field of ash, flat and barren, under the blue, blue sky--
Stones roll nearby and Lan shakes her head, steering clear of the beginnings of a very bad trip. Gwen is struggling - she was weak and ill as a child, wasn't she? Is this the baggage she carries even all these years later?
"--Don't worry, Gwen." She goes to the (now-smaller) other girl and offers her shoulder and the power of her ribbon. "I've got you. Is everybody else okay? Come on!"
The heat of pure flame chases her. She's able to take some pretty amazing leaps with her own power, and bringing Gwen along for the ride isn't slowing Lan down. She runs for the summit, sweat beading at her hairline.
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Butterfly Ribbon toward her party's challenge, An Insatiable Hunger.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly answers Fei with a smile, and then they move on further. There is a voice from a Guardian.
Fei, Elly asks in a quiet and discreet way, somehow: Do you think we're lucky? Or do you think the Guardians speak this way to more people, and they just don't care to listen?
Aloud, if Aloud means anything here, Elly sighs: "We have to climb like this, do we?" And she seems, subtly, to be wearing her proper clothes, as she did in real life, just a few minutes(?) ago, at the fireside. She takes out a pair of gloves for a little extra gripping, wiggling her left hand into one and letting her eyes rest on Gwen for a moment. "... If you're sure..."
For the fire is rising, and fire can race faster than horses or even the proud birds of Spira. It is up that she goes, and as she puts one hand on a stone at a steep space to brace herself, she looks towards--
-- She nearly topples backwards, getting a 'good look' at the Watcher for a moment.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Fishing Gear toward her party's challenge, An Insatiable Hunger.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Leah notes the streaks in the sky, 'seeing' the color in this place, seeing the steep hillside ahead of them. There are stones, sure. There is the hillside, and fire beneath. The smoke is approaching quickly. Leah takes the time finally to examine each of the others.
She has noticed Gwen's hesitation watching her, but her expression remains unchanged. If one didn't see the little shifts of her breathing, one might imagine it can't change, is just a solid mask that looks like skin.
But she spots Gwen with tears in her eyes, murmuring. She tries to keep pace, but the Watcher can predict what will happen of this fire. So she turns towards Gwen. "Don't forget to consider yourself. We don't know what effect this fire could have on us." Lan offers Gwen her shoulder, and so Leah pauses, looking over the two of them. She notes the ribbon, as well as that silver trail. She begins by gripping the stone hard enough that she makes indentations into it, and then rising up. Here and there she might make a new handhold with a drive of her fingers. Until she looks to Elly, as if she has some sort of sixth sense for some someone is looking at her. Her single blue eye settles on the other woman, briefly, before she lifts a hand and snaps her fingers again.
Instead of climbing now she is falling, falling upward towards the sky and the roots like a lead weight through the sky.
DG: Leah Sadalbari has used her Tool Gravity Module toward her party's challenge, An Insatiable Hunger.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong narrows his eyes as he sees the blue streaks in the sky. "...Rahab. That's for sure." He hasn't seen what happened to Gwen as of yet, but he is still managing to be somewhat conflicted here. Is Rahab really the monster he first appeared ot be??
Time to climb. Or give his best but even Fei isn't an experienced mountain climber. He'll do what he can.
He does notice Gwen's own concern here but he isn't going to comment on that. Instead he keeps giving Leah looks. He's real nervous about her presence here. For pretty understandable reasons really.
"I don't know if I'd ever call myself lucky," Fei says, smiling. "Except maybe in one respect."
He pokes Elly to express what that respect is he's thinking about but maybe it could be expanded to all his loved ones, even if Elly is almost always at the forefront of his min.
He'll try to use a hand to steady Elly if he sees her slipping.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, An Insatiable Hunger.
==============================<* Fire Ceremony *>===============================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - An Insatiable Hunger *>=====================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
Blue streaks mar the skies above. You can just see them bright and
glittering through the smoke.
The fire is not far behind you now. Moor Gault is not cruel but it is not
merciless: its intent is to burn out the Primarch's presence. And here you
are, climbing some shadowy incline with the flames at your heels.
No matter how high you climb it feels like the fires are just behind you.
Nevertheless, you didn't come here to fail. You must try to outpace them,
even so.
Perhaps in doing so, you might even be able to reach the trails in the dark
sky.
=Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Treasure=========================================
=========================<* Fire Ceremony - Round 2 *>========================== =======================< Results - An Insatiable Hunger >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leah Sadalbari 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Gravity Module 3 Agility Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Butterfly Ribbon 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gwen Whitlock 8 --(10)--> 18 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Fishing Gear 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leah Sadalbari 20 --(25)--> 45 Pass Conditions: Fright(1)|Hesitate(1)|Overzealous(1)|Reckless(1)|Suffer(1)|Treasure(1) Effects: Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leah Sadalbari has passed this challenge! The party gained 25 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Leah Sadalbari has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Fire Ceremony *>=============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Coming Ashore *>========================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You've come too close to one of those streaks of the Primarch's presence. All around you now is blue. It's a wall, a sheet, the surface of the ocean. There is no malice to it but it catches you nonetheless. You're swallowed up by it, lost in an infinite azure expanse. No -- this isn't what you came here to let happen-- You need to break through. Tear yourself from its chains, burst free from this endless sea and find the shore you seek. =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It takes effort to ascend up the hillside quickly enough. Stones slip underfoot. The flames race behind them, seeming to always be 'just' behind where they are -- be it ascending the hillside or taking to the skies above.
But they reach the summit. And they reach the heavens.
And they come close, far too close, to one of those streaks of blue.
It is, all at once, surrounding them: the ocean's expanse, as far as one might see.
It grabs, it engulfs, and it pulls everyone into its embrace. Which direction is the correct one in which to head? The blue overwhelms the senses, drowns the mind.
The flames seem at this moment like a distant memory. But they must still be out there somewhere.
And if one could break free from this vestige of the Primarch--
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
With Lan's help, getting up is faster for Gwen, the shorter girl reaching out a freckled left arm to grab ahold of Lan's shoulder. "... usually I don't have this much trouble... I ain't used t'this..."
The heavens are so close. Their climb is done. They just need to reach up, up, up
And then they are in the blue expanse.
Gwen sinks down to her knees, closing her eyes contentedly, her linen dress spreading against the cooling waters.
"We should rest here," she says, softly.
She feels... h o me
".... We...."
She's home with sibling
Don't ache, she's here, she's here for you, with you
Her eyelids tremble, squeeze tight, then open, the teenager forcing herself back up to her feet.
"..... Please don't do this, Rahab. I promise, I'll be here, until the end. You won't die from this."
But would that be something Rahab would be scared of? Could Rahab even be scared?
"Let us go. Making Moor Gault do all of it... it'd likely hurt Loren." Water spreads out in slowly spreading waves around her. "If you don't, I will punch us out."
DG: Gwen Whitlock has used her Tool ARM-ored Fist toward her party's challenge, Coming Ashore.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
With an arm around Gwen, checking back occasionally to make sure Elly, Fei, and Leah aren't lagging - Leah whooshes past in a rush of redirected gravity, and Lan gets a moment to truly appreciate just how competent the Watcher is, no matter where she goes.
It's true Leah had said that she wasn't going to take Lan or Elly back - this time. That may change... just like the tide.
Reaching the top, Lan can't help but look up. Up, up, into the blueblueblue sky, so vast and clear. Not a single cloud, the way a sky should be-- an blue that only exists in memories.
Gwen slips to her knees, nearly tugging Lan down with her. There's not even the 'want' of a rest, of stopping; merely that she'd been running, and now she is not. Blue, like the sky, blue like w a t e r
Her lower lip trembles.
"Nnn... no. Keep going," she mumbles, before taking a deep breath. "This isn't it! We're not there yet--!" Lan lifts a foot and stomps, sending up a spray of water that splashes her legs (and probably anybody else that's too close). "Rahab! Let us pass! Please!"
DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Coming Ashore.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
They reach the top of the hill. It is interesting to Elly, in some abstract way, that this is a hill: it feels like a hill. What makes a hill distinct from a mountain? Elly is not sure, vaguely remembering that there is a definition of a certain altitude, but cannot remember what it is. Then they get too close to that BLUE and
it surges around them
Somewhere else.
Elly almost breathes out in frustration, but that is stopped by a moment of heartbeating concern. This place isn't regular, yes. It has a certain logic, a certain imagery. They are walking a path through-- something; but why would it be different from reality? What would happen if she took a big deep breath of this water?
You can, after all, drown quite nicely on dry land, if the conditions are right.
Elly reaches into a pocket. She doesn't exactly have a pocket here, not for real. But she remembers a pocket. What she reaches for and brings out is not exactly fishing gear. It is a lot closer to a memory of something that was there for her at a critical moment, when she was alone in an isolated space. It looks like a little bobber-float, with a sliver of some luminous material - a common little detail of salvage, one of the tiny pieces of ancient detritus produced once upon a time in cartload lots and now common enough to be affordable, if not made any more.
When she releases the float into the sea, it is an act of definition. It also looks a lot like a pyrefly.
Elly hears what Gwen says but tries to hold her peace, both with her mouth (easy) and her thoughts (somewhat harder). Maybe she misread the situation, Elly thinks. Maybe Rahab's going to eat us anyway.
The bobber-float glows, indifferent to Elly's angst.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Inventory Clutter toward her party's challenge, Coming Ashore.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Leah continues to be aware of Fei's position, but takes no action against any of the group for now. What she's thinking of them is more or less impossible to tell, though she sees Fei helping Elly. She doesn't comment.
Eventually she comes to something like ground and the machine disengages, a few sparks in her forearm suggesting that particular device may not be functional again for a while. ...Whether or not the rules should apply here, it would appear that some of them do.
But the streak of blue they're in expands, and Leah is in water, ocean all around her, beginning to sink immediately. She pulls something from her back, and it's a simple crowbar--but it begins to radiate blue energy. Leah uses it as a focus, water gathering up around her in a visible sphere of pressure.
"I will not allow you to hold us here."
Her voice is iron.
"You will not keep him."
DG: Leah Sadalbari has used her Tool Crowbar toward her party's challenge, Coming Ashore.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Now everything is blue. Infinite blue. But even in infinite blue, he is feeling great concern for Gwen. But he is quiet. He doesn't want Rahab to see his t houghts. Or hear his thoughts. Or have even the slightest bit of edgeworm into his skull. For Rahab's sake, as much as his own.
And indeded--he is frankly hesitant to strike even at t he infinite azure expanse b efore him. What if he hurts someone.
What if he kills someone without meaning to?
"Just...just a little." Fei says, focusing his breath.
He lets it in. Lets it out.
And then he shouts, "FIRE THE BART MISSILES!"
And he fires a chi blast at the blue.
...Not as big as he could've, but self defense wins out every time. Even for Feii. Even if he doesn't want it to.
Even when he's terrified.
Especially then.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Bart Jr Doll toward his party's challenge, Coming Ashore.
==============================<* Fire Ceremony *>=============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Coming Ashore *>========================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You've come too close to one of those streaks of the Primarch's presence. All around you now is blue. It's a wall, a sheet, the surface of the ocean. There is no malice to it but it catches you nonetheless. You're swallowed up by it, lost in an infinite azure expanse. No -- this isn't what you came here to let happen-- You need to break through. Tear yourself from its chains, burst free from this endless sea and find the shore you seek. =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
=========================<* Fire Ceremony - Round 3 *>========================== ==========================< Results - Coming Ashore >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leah Sadalbari 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Crowbar 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Bart Jr Doll 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gwen Whitlock 18 --(5)--> 23 Pass ARM-ored Fist 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Inventory Clutter 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leah Sadalbari 45 --(20)--> 65 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1) Effects: Cleanse|Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leah Sadalbari has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Leah Sadalbari has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Fire Ceremony *>=============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Contained in Water *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- This place is still. There is only darkness; the distant flames of the burning blue the only suggestion of what you've come here to root out. But you could take a moment to yourselves, if you would have it -- a moment of peace in the dark to get your bearings and take a breath. Unfortunately, it seems the Primarch's power rests more strongly in moments like these. The moment any of you stop and stall is the moment blue erupts in liquid chains about the place you've stopped, knitting itself together in an attempt to trap you in this peaceful place, forever. =Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
They give their all for the force that attempts to hold them here -- pleading and informing the traces of the Primarch's power that it let them go. That it also release Loren.
A crack traces down the shell-like (mother-of-pearl, is it? Blue on blue on blue...) expanse that surrounds them.
For a moment the black intrudes onto the blue through the gap.
And the red.
But only for a moment. Like threads pulling together sheets of cloth, the whole thing knits itself back together. The call to rest, to stay here -- stay here forever -- pulses again. Longer, louder.
Is it because Gwen is here? Sibling calls to sibling, even in vestiges and traces. Or perhaps it is Rahab's nature in some fashion.
But none of them can stay here, can they--
If the Primarch will not relent, then they must force their way.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It would be peaceful here. To sit, and not think. To simply rest. The Stranger couldn't find her here. And what if he could? It wouldn't matter. Nothing would matter.
Everything would
b e a
l l r i
g h t
No.
No, it wouldn't be all right.
Because Filgaia is still dying. And the Stranger is still out there. And Mirza is still a slave. And, and--!
And Ashansi died - disappeared - she remembers the feeling of his ashes slipping through her fingers -
Lan sucks in a breath and screams in a rare moment of defiance, stomping her feet in the water until the glassy smoothness is completely gone. Letting Gwen stand on her own again, Lan makes a circle with her fingers and sights through it, calling on the power of her own patron to send cannonballs made of starlight rocketing toward the place where that 'fissure' had existed, even if only for a moment.
DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Contained in Water.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
There is a brief laugh from Elly, despite the sea of BLUE. As Fei's hands come down from his practiced and fluid motion, used so many times that he can remember and (perhaps) more that he cannot, one hand finds itself caught --By Elly.
Elly smiles at Fei. Perhaps she can intuit the nature of this web - she is, after all, familiar with this sort of thing, at least to some extent, by analogy.
She does not quite have Leah's determination, but as the little green bobber-float bobs and floats, Elly produces something else from her pocket, which, with a toss of her wrist, she reveals in full to Fei: A knife!
Which she reaches over, turning around in her fingers, to gently put in her own grip - no, her grip intertwined with Fei's, as she looks at him for a moment and nods, solemnly.
Then, aloud, she says, "Oh -"
Oh right, she can speak here. Other people vocalized, and not just the Watcher. "I don't know if we can plead our way through this, but sometimes I think it might be better to make an apology than to make an argument." And then she can see where Lan has begin her bombardment.
"I guess the most I can say is... don't just think of this as a knife," Elly says. "It's going to cut us free. That's what it's for."
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Inventory Clutter toward her party's challenge, Contained in Water.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Fear is a natural, reasonable response in a space like this. Grigori appears not to show it outside her armor any more than in it, still burned visibly even in an expanse of blue. It all cracks, it all moves... But only for a moment. Is it because Gwen is here? Leah turns to look thoughtfully at Gwen for a few moments, not letting go her rippling aura of water at first. She takes greater hold of it instead and it shrinks, receding until it's nothing but a blazing blue glow around her. She inclines her head to Elly. "I agree. When you make an opening, I will tear it further apart."
The aura drains, fading into just the crowbar itself, which vibrates with force. She hefts the tool.
"What must be will be."
The Watcher launches herself bodily after the bombardments, standing to the side away from them so as not to be hit, but she'll take any opening and slam the implement into it to pry it open with whatever passes for force of will here.
"'Give me a place to stand, and...'"
DG: Leah Sadalbari has used her Tool Crowbar toward her party's challenge, Contained in Water.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
The need to rest, the feeling of comfort, the overall sensation of 'here', it beckons to her.
It's not even fair to call it a struggle, it's abstaining from falling into the waiting arms of someone dear to her, like finding a blood relative she didn't think she'd ever have, and never knew she wanted. It's akin to the feeling Gwen got in Lombardia's presence, but distorted, something following similar channels to achieve the same result.
It's an ache of ages.
She lets herself fall, just for a moment, willingly drinking in it. "... Thank you, for letting me know what that feels like," she finally says, tears in her eyes as her eyes look up with yet another shade of blue- that of fog against sky, of dim mornings.
Lan bombards, and Elly produces a knife, voicing what they all need to do.
"... Yeah." She turns her head back upwards, as if it was a closer link to Rahab than the air around them. "It's time for me-- for us, to go. I'll fight you, and it's okay. I'll still be grateful. We do this for Loren, because sometimes it's better to let go than to hold on to someone you care about."
Does Rahab care about Loren?
Or is that just Gwen, wishing that were the case so she could see Rahab in a light friendlier to her world view?
She holds back her fist, and concentrates.
Muscle begins to define her arms, adopting the same strength as her physical counterpart, her features and physique aging to that of a young woman. "This is about what the present Loren wants, not what I want!" She launches forward, and punches into the former crack that everyone else has bombarded.
DG: Gwen Whitlock has used her Tool ARM-ored Fist toward her party's challenge, Contained in Water.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei blinks as Eelly takes his hand. She can't help it, and smiles at her. "...With you here, it's... not really bad at all."
More blue. There's so much blue. Nevertheless, Fei slows down just long enough as blue CHAINS rip out of the ground and clasp around his feet. "Shit...!" Fei says, loudly. "I'm trying to be gentle here...! Why you clinging to Loren so much? It's not healthy for him, and you keep it up and it won't be for you neither!"
He tugs on his leg once, then twice more. He can't pull free!
But Elly can 'cut' him free. With one 'slice' of the 'knife', Fei is able to snap her leg free and sort of push into Elly aa bit before exhaling out a soft sigh.
Okay," He says. "I'm good."
He cracks a grin. "Good thing you're here, huh?" He's... He's praactically treating it as a date night right now. What a jerk.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Contained in Water.
==============================<* Fire Ceremony *>=============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Contained in Water *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- This place is still. There is only darkness; the distant flames of the burning blue the only suggestion of what you've come here to root out. But you could take a moment to yourselves, if you would have it -- a moment of peace in the dark to get your bearings and take a breath. Unfortunately, it seems the Primarch's power rests more strongly in moments like these. The moment any of you stop and stall is the moment blue erupts in liquid chains about the place you've stopped, knitting itself together in an attempt to trap you in this peaceful place, forever. =Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
=========================<* Fire Ceremony - Round 4 *>========================== ========================< Results - Contained in Water >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leah Sadalbari 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Crowbar 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 15 --(13)--> 28 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gwen Whitlock 23 --(5)--> 28 Pass ARM-ored Fist 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Inventory Clutter 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leah Sadalbari 65 --(20)--> 85 Pass Conditions: Save Point(1) Effects: Cleanse|Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leah Sadalbari has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Leah Sadalbari has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Fire Ceremony *>=============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Mountain is Gone *>===================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The blackness of this space fades to the purple of twilight; the blue strands you have followed have begun to converge. The fire lags behind you; there is still much yet for Moor Gault to burn. But... What is... this place where you're arrived? It looks like a field of execution. Except the same body hangs from the gallows is nailed to crosses is drawn and quartered is pinned through with countless blades-- Engil Voss. There can be no mistaking him, even among those who have never met him in life. He's been killed -- murdered -- a hundred times over. Standing there, blade in hand, is Loren. He advances on another duplicate of his brother, once again. This must stop. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIvHvaTbYvo =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Hesitate=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
The water -- the blue -- clings everywhere. It seeks to chain them, to drown them in its embrace. To keep them forever. Is this a part of why the Primarch's presence has lingered so long within Loren? Is this why the effects had been so much a slow and subtle poison for him?
It has been, after all. three years now since he had encountered the Primarch in the depths below Wayside.
But as much as it seeks to hold them, they will not be held: meteors batter the surface. A knife cuts others free. A metal fist batters at the very 'reality' that seeks to hold them. And give Leah a crowbar and the right place to stand, and...
They break through. It cannot hold them any longer, however it might strain to try it. It bursts under the strain, one tendril among many.
It is no longer black. The darkness is giving way to a purple the hue of twilight, in those moments before the what light remains in the world vanishes. The fires have not yet reached here; only a dull glow in the distance hints at their presence.
And they are no longer alone, in this place where they have arrived, where their struggle within the blue has taken them.
Perhaps it is best for the eye to take in the two figures here first, before anything else.
There is no mistaking the young man with the sword. Dressed in the black uniform of a Gebler captain, glasses perched on his nose, Loren stands above a similarly-attired young man. At a glance it might be easy to confuse the two for the same person -- they resemble one another strongly.
But they do not share the same face. Cousins?
No, siblings.
It is a strange thing to think: Loren is now older in years than his elder sibling ever managed.
Beneath him, Engil scrabbles against the ground as if nearly in a panic, trying to escape what may be inevitable.
Indeed, Loren has already done his older sibling in countless times...
...if the scene about them is to be any judge. This isn't a fight as much as a wholesale, brutal slaughter.
And Loren won't show mercy to this Engil, nor the one which will undoubtedly come after.
He raises his sword.
--This needs to stop.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Bit by bit, the blue is torn open. Before she can stop again, before she can be entranced in that unnatura, eternal calm, Lan breaks for the exit - whether to pull it wider for the others or to race ahead into the unknown, she hasn't even given a thought to.
But what greets her as she passes into black again is something she never could have anticipated.
Not here, even though she knew before they began that Loren is deeply fucked up, and that parts of his soul may be bared that he would have prefered nobody ever see. Things that haunt him, things he could never tell anybody. Perhaps this was what he truly loathed about the idea of the ritual... not that he'd be depending on the goodwill of the Guardians and the competency of Lambs.
Lan isn't sure how long she stands frozen in front of the tableau, Loren's sword held aloft as he prepares to murder the desperate form of someone who can only be Engil Voss.
The older brother who had suffered an accident, who had killed his classmates, who had inadvertently soured the fortunes of his entire family.
Especially those of the younger brother still bound to Etrenank.
She isn't sure when she got between the two of them. To everybody else, it looks like Lan just blinked out of existence, flashing back into place with one hand clenched around the blade before it can be swung. "Loren!" she snaps at him, shimmering blood trickling down her wrist. "This isn't-- STOP!"
She shoves him at the others, making sure they've taken care of him before crouching down next to the phantom of the man she'd never met, but whose presence is somehow familiar. "..." Lan removes the bottle of water from her belt and pours some out onto a cloth (where'd it come from... just because she needed it?) and wipes gently at the sweat and dirt on Engil's face. "It's okay. I'm sorry. ...I know you're a memory now, but..." What's she supposed to say? That Loren doesn't hate him?
It's not like anything she says might change things, and ... she's not even sure that's the truth. "...Thank you for growing the plants," she tells him quietly. "They helped me when I was suffering, like he is now. Please don't hate him."
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Clear Water toward her party's challenge, The Mountain is Gone.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Ah, young love. Fei and Elly could be called a beacon, some might say. The Watcher sees them, together. She sees Elly able to cut Fei free; she sees him smiling at her. It is one of many things she observes in this group, but it is one of those things.
She does not comment.
She focuses on this blue that seeks to train and drown them, but a dead woman cannot be drowned. Three years of lingering time, of slow and subtle poison break away. Twilight falls, and then the light is gone. Maybe--maybe it is best.
There is a ring visible now, a simple golden band on a chain around the Watcher's neck. It hangs against the front of her black jacket, gleaming there.
Loren first, in his uniform. A second man. Ah...
For a brief, brief moment, she sees him. She would know that face in an instant, no matter how many years have passed. Ah, but comprehension steals that moment, and she sees him for more moments still. A familiar face, looking dead-eyed into space. A familiar silhouette, pierced through with blades. Hanging on the gallows. Murdered, over and over, not by his own mistaken actions by by his own brother's hand. Again, and again, and again Leah sees the signs of death all around her.
But there is one. One, on the ground. Scrabbling, slipping, trying to escape. An Engil at a weak moment, maybe.
In need of protection. Protection that she wasn't in a position to give, back then.
How many times has she thought of it? Days where she blamed him, days where she blamed herself, days and days and days and days--
But her time as his healer ended long ago.
In one moment, Leah is completely still. In the next she is in motion, rapid like one would imagine she couldn't be--And Leah Voss bears down on Loren with death in her eye. Her hand lifts; lightning crackles out of her fingers with a surge of Ether, whiting out vision as fractal bolts arc towards Loren's sword raised. The lightning bursts into being with a sudden heat.
She wields the lightning like a hammer, stepping closer with broad strides. Visions of what remains of her skeleton--possibly of Loren's--flash as if by x-ray with how the the arcing electricity coils around her arms, down his weapon. She steps, and steps--
And when she gets close enough, the lightning starts to crackle out and she swings a synthetic fist for her brother-in-law.
Again. And again. And again. She batters at counterattacks, fights through injuries, even as the smell of burning flesh rises into the air. His? Hers? She does not speak. She does not stop.
DG: Leah Sadalbari has used her Tool Yamato Belt toward her party's challenge, The Mountain is Gone.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly swallows a sudden welling of bile in the back of her throat as they emerge from that blue sea of nothing-or-something and they see before them instead a sea of --
"Engil Voss," Elly says.
She keeps talking. "I never knew him," Elly says. "I think we saw each other once or twice. I remember seeing him in the refectory, once. But I don't know if he was only visiting and drawing a lunch chit there instead of going back across..."
Even if she didn't really and is confusing Engil with a similar-looking person, or even Loren himself, Elly does know more. Her head tilts downwards.
"Engil died in a training accident," Elly says. "... and so did most of his unit. It was a Gear-on-Gear accident... so there was..."
Elly wobbles for a moment, and then pushes out through clenched teeth, "It was an accident--!! No one did... nobody chose any of that! Nobody sat down and thought that they wanted to ruin someone's life, or to kill anybody. But I suppose that that's... not something I can really speak about."
Elly sucks in a deep breath and lets it out, raising up her head. "I don't know how much blame 'actually' fell upon Loren. In the home country, your family reflects heavily on you... it's hard to explain. But I know that he carried it with him. And I know that he resented it. I could tell it from him even then and I suppose that it's been where... where his heart was injured."
"But..."
"This isn't anger pouring out like it's a big cup of a hot drink," Elly continues. "I don't know if this is something he has done to himself or if it came from outside. I don't even know how real this is. But," And then Elly snaps her wrist out and hey, it's one of those slick little collapsible batons she hasn't had one of in like two years!
"I don't want to watch him do this to himself. Because he's not just doing it to himself," Elly continues, looking towards Lan for a moment. "Is he? We have -- to take care of ourselves, at least a little, because people are counting on us, whether we like it or not."
And with this Elly marches forwards.
The thunder and lightning is more dramatic because Elly is not sending forth Ether. Perhaps because Loren might smell it coming. So what Elly herself does is whip back and aim to smash him across both wrists!!
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Iron Born Staff toward her party's challenge, The Mountain is Gone.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong blinks cluelessy. "Hey..uh." Pause. "Wait...? What's this?" He seems disturbed. He does not like this. But he also doesn't like Leah going out to clobber Loren! "Wait a second...!" He complains. "He's your friend! You can't just electrocute him like crazy like that!" He throws up his hands. "He could get hurt!"
Then again, he has a really punchable face.
Fei quirks his head to the side, exaining loren like a bird. He listens to Elly's story. A
Gear
on Gear accident?
Fei nods once slowly. He understands what Gears can do in the hands of someone who doesn't really know what they're doing, or is being careless. Mysteriously. Strangely.
Fei clenches a hand into a fist and approaches Leah. He raises a hand and places a hand on her shoulder.
"He's family right?" Fei asks. "You shouldn't hurt him. You should never hurt family like that."
He pauses a moment and adds, "Let me do it. He already hates me."
And with that he steps forwardd and just tries to deck Loren in the face. Rock Beats Scissors, after all.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool RPS Badge toward his party's challenge, The Mountain is Gone.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
The blue is parted, and they are free. Perhaps, Gwen wonders, this will be a similar fate to hers, if her connection to Setanta is similar to this one. She's not entirely sure, as opposite as the two Primarchs are to each other in terms of nature.
This is the least of her worries right now. She's not the one in danger. The one who is in danger is...
Who is that person?
Gwen tries to remember the exact dimensions of Loren's family beyond her own assumptions, when Elly's voice comes in.
She watches Lan intervene. She watches Elly slap Loren's wrists
It hurts to watch it, yes, but hasn't Gwen done worse to Loren herself, physically? Even made a fool of him, with her lack of respect and complete willingness to treat him like a fellow Lamb afterwards, something that's even more of an insult when placed in this context. He's tried to kill them all. He used Lan, not because he meant to, but because he couldn't allow himself the ability to care so freely for someone outside his circle without Solaris changing that person to be in his circle, for better or worse.
He is also a man who healed people, who tried to make the most of a terrible situation and failed, again and again, but didn't stop, whether he felt it was his only opinion, or because he wanted it.
He may not even remember anything that happened before, or especially anything that happened here, in this strange... space, in his head(?).
But when Leah steps in, and lands that first hit, and then another--
Gwen can't take it anymore.
"STOP IT!"
Gwen attempts to separate the two through force alone, using her own body as a possible barrier. "_Damn it, that's enough_!"
DG: Gwen Whitlock has used her Tool Full Metal Courier toward her party's challenge, The Mountain is Gone.
==============================<* Fire Ceremony *>=============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Mountain is Gone *>===================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The blackness of this space fades to the purple of twilight; the blue strands you have followed have begun to converge. The fire lags behind you; there is still much yet for Moor Gault to burn. But... What is... this place where you're arrived? It looks like a field of execution. Except the same body hangs from the gallows is nailed to crosses is drawn and quartered is pinned through with countless blades-- Engil Voss. There can be no mistaking him, even among those who have never met him in life. He's been killed -- murdered -- a hundred times over. Standing there, blade in hand, is Loren. He advances on another duplicate of his brother, once again. This must stop. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIvHvaTbYvo =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Hesitate=========================================
=========================<* Fire Ceremony - Round 5 *>========================== =======================< Results - The Mountain is Gone >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leah Sadalbari 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Yamato Belt 1 Combat Effects: Embolden and Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 28 --(0)--> 28 Pass Clear Water 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass RPS Badge 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gwen Whitlock 28 --(0)--> 28 Pass Full Metal Courier 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Iron Born Staff 2 Combat Effects: Stalwart -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leah Sadalbari 85 --(0)--> 85 Pass Conditions: Fright(2)|Hesitate(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leah Sadalbari has passed this challenge! The party gained 0 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Leah Sadalbari has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Fire Ceremony *>===============================
=================<* CHALLENGE - At the Core of the Universe *>==================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The darkness fades.
You are in a place that may be familiar to some of you. It is without
question the personal chambers of someone in Solaris -- someone of First
Class rank, to be specific. The room is filled with plants of all shapes and
sizes.
This was Engil's room.
Neither are you alone in here: on the floor, curled in a fetal position, is
Loren. A much younger Loren: he looks to be about fourteen, fifteen at best.
The blue tendrils of the Primach's presence trail down towards his form
where he clutches at them, holding them tight against his chest. He won't
let go of them.
There must be some way to reach him, to convince him to let it go.
To let it all burn.
=Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
The blue doesn't end in this space. The lines twine together, as if forming a sort of stem for the corruption, but they continue past this space. But the tableau before them may form a more pressing matter of which to attend--
His expression is blank, as if his face were just a mask, as if there were no one else behind it. What is this, from Loren -- or perhaps, what part of Loren does this represent? What thoughts, feelings, desires...
Perhaps Lan, having been on the receiving end of something similar, not long ago, might guess it best.
And this Loren still manages to show some muted display of shock when she grabs for his blade, closes her hand around it, and yells at him to stop.
And shoves him away, towards the others. He stumbles; she had managed to throw him off balance.
And it's in that moment that Leah, literally and metaphorically embodying aspects of the storm, is upon him.
The blade conducts the current that rolls down its length and into his body only all too well. He spasms, seizes up; in flashes, even his skeleton can be seen as if illuminated from within by the lightning Leah Voss weilds against her brother-in-law.
He doesn't drop the sword. He swings for Leah even as she closes in on him, and perhaps it an intervention hadn't come--
Elly's rod swings for his wrists. The sword falls from his grasp, clatters against the ground. Leah is upon him.
--he might have even cut her.
Leah strikes at him instead, again and again. He lunges for her; he attempts as best as he's able to return what he's received. But she's not the only one striking at him, suddenly--
Fei intrudes, delivering a punch that knocks the young captain off his feet.
And then there is Gwen, standing between him and Leah, begging for all this to stop.
Engil, meanwhile, looks at Lan as if he's startled (or perhaps even stunned?) to see her. Maybe it's understandable, given what he -- even as a memory, as some figment of Loren's mind -- has been through. He recoils at first as she reaches for him, until it becomes plain that she means him no harm. Relenting as she tries to tend to him, he gives in to his apparent exhaustion and slumps against the ground.
"The plants...?" he utters, as if not entirely comprehending initially what she's referring to. Realization follows after. "My garden... is still there, huh." He gazes up at the dark twilight sky, chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath. "...I don't hate him," he tells Lan, without looking at her.
Loren, still on the ground behind Gwen, tries and fails to pull himself up. He slumps back, sighing out a breath and closes his eyes.
Twilight gives way to night; darkness descends and swallows up the entire world.
When it fades, they all stand in a space which may be immediately familiar to two people here and familiar if only in architecture to a third -- the bedroom of a First Class Solarian. It's absolutely full of plants. But a careful eye will note one important detail in here: the room is clean, pristine even. The bed is made and looks as if no one has slept here in a long time. But these facts might fall by the wayside.
Lying on the floor and curled up in a fetal position is a much younger Loren Voss. He clutches in his hands and hold close to his chest the trailing end of the Primarch's presence. This is where the roots run.
And... to permit them to be burned, he'll need to let go. But he doesn't seem like he'll do that willingly -- he hasn't even responded to anyone's sudden presence, as if he's intent on shutting out the entire world.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"Yeah," she nods, not looking back. "They are. Your room is just how you left it - Mirza told me. When I had to stay at your house for a while, the plants were the only thing that comforted me." Lan's experience of Etrenank was almost entirely 'being confined to the Voss residence while her official minder was in a month-long coma'.
He says he doesn't hate Loren. Lan knows that this isn't the real Engil - it's only a fragment of memory, and thus mostly made of Loren himself - but that's a good sign. If even a single part of Loren doesn't hate who he is, he can be saved.
From himself, and from Solaris.
"I'm glad," she tells the memory sincerely, gazing unashamedly at the face of the man whose presence - and absence - is still felt so keenly, even years after his death. She's only seen it in a photograph before, and she'll never have a chance to see it again, after all.
And this way, she doesn't have to look at Loren, or see the empty face that had stalked her through a cave and tried to kill her, who she had--
--it wasn't her fault, it was going to happen either way.
She hears the sounds of fighting cease behind her and glances away; when she looks back Engil is gone, and the darkness leaves with him. Instead--
'It's your brother's shrine,' she had told him so ignorantly, more than a year ago. When Loren had barged in on her in the middle of trying to meditate, in this one empty room in a house full of empty rooms. Lan stands up, squinting into the sudden brightness of electric light. "...It's his room," she mumbles, dumbfounded. So where is--
Ah.
Lan kneels back down, next to Loren this time, reaching out to lay a hand on his arm. He's holding on tight to the tendrils of Rahab's essence, as if...
"Oh. So this is why," she says, finally comprehending. "You wanted to forget everything, didn't you? Everything that hurt so bad." What can she do for him? "He needs something else to hold on to." Too bad they didn't bring a Carro plushie...
She reaches into her pocket, but there's nothing there now besides a scrap of folded paper. Even so, it's better than nothing - Lan attempts to slip it into his fingers.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Leah does not respond to Elly's explanation. She doesn't deny any of it, of course--it's the truth--but she doesn't stop what she's doing for that. Neither does she comment on Fei's insistence that he is her friend, that she can't do what she's doing. Not at first.
How real is it? Could she destroy the 'real' Loren by destroying this one? Does she realize that possibility, or care? It's hard to say. But he could get hurt.
Leah is rearing back her fist again for another strike when she feels Fei's hand on her shoulder. Her next blow hammers down not into Loren, but into Gwen. Indeed she has to be a barrier for one blow, though she does in fact stop there. Her expression is stony, looking down at Gwen, then forward at Fei. "...Family," she repeats.
She watches Fei deliver that punch; she looks to Gwen. Slowly, she takes a breath, still smoking from the lightning that was crackling all around her and Loren. She looks down to him, as he breathes.
Darkness descends. Leah stands in silence until they are standing in a room. The room is known to Leah; it's very familiar. All of its little foibles, the plants and which is where... She could describe it, given the necessity. And yet it is different to see it again, and for a moment she feels as if she is back there too, younger once again, looking at the awkward teenager she'd come to know as a child.
"Ah, yes," she says. "I remember. Except... She shakes her head.
"I was not here. I could not be here. The accident that claimed my husband left my body ruined. I was in no position to be anywhere, at this time. I doubt I was conscious."
"...And this," she says, looking around the room, to a familiar sort of flower, to the bed, "Is why I did not come alone."
"...He did not come to me, and I did not go to him, after. Not for some time. I watched, from a distance." She is calm now, as if her previous outburst never happened... No. That's only true at a glance. Leah, above all at the moment, looks tired.
"I have watched over him in my way. Seen him grow. But at this point, in this place, I could not be there. And perhaps, given what we have seen, it is best that I was not."
Her hand curls into a fist again, but there is little tension in her arm.
"He was a boy. He was not ready for the life that would become his. And this could well be that root which the Guardian must burn."
She then looks to Lan. She considers her words, the way she lays a hand on his arm. The warmth there, even now, even after everything.
"I cannot heal this wound. I do not have a warm hand to offer him. His destiny is not kind, and neither can I be always."
"...But I am not prepared to surrender him to this thing. For Engil's sake... and for Loren's own."
"...I do not believe that this is where it ends, one way or another."
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Paku-Paku toward her party's challenge, At the Core of the Universe. DG: Leah Sadalbari has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, At the Core of the Universe.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
I wonder if she saw my father, Elly thinks as she hears Lan speak. There is a moment of guilt at the thought, though only a moment: for it is a rather selfish thought, and it feels as if the thought is touching on a great hollow of...
No, not right now.
Leah speaks, Lan advances. Elly looks at the floor for a long moment, and then raises up her gaze. Forwards she walks, and she moves to the other side of the young Loren. She crouches then, settling down neatly on the backs of her heels.
"Loren...
"I suppose we're enemies, or we were enemies.
"I didn't want to be. You've saved my life in the past, and I haven't done anything much for you, I know.
"... You have to let go of this... if you can't slip out of these bonds, you'll just be trapped here. This isn't healing, or keeping a memory alive... it's not helping you work towards something greater. All that you're doing right now is hurting yourself... and not only yourself, either. There are people who love you. You have to think of them, too. You have to take care of each other, because you're the only ones who can.
"Even if you need to be angry... if your heart cries out. You have to do something with that anger. Turn it outwards. Let it be the paint you use to make your mark on the world. Don't use it to strangle yourself.
"You deserve a life as much as anyone else," Elly concludes, and she seems to consider whether or not to leave it at that. In the end, she reaches down to gently cup his cheek and stroke her hand over his hair, just once, before looking up in a slightly embarrassed way at Lan, rising up, and stepping back.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, At the Core of the Universe.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei is quiet. He exhales out slowly. He could say a hundred things to Leah right now but none of them would be productive. And part of him doesn't really want to be productive. What good can really come of being productive to people who have been chasing Elly and him, been threatening to kill Elly and him.
They like me more than you, you know. Just think of it as an extension of that. People like most people who hurt them.
Fei shakes his head slowly but he doesn't verbally argue.
They murdered a man you loved and then came crawling to Elly for help. They'll kill her. They already killed her. They'll kill you.
Fei shakes his head again, stepping back, more vigorously.
And then Fei notices something in the room. Loren? Sure, but that's not what's really drawing his attention in just this moment.
"Elly," Fei says.
"Why is the shower in the middle of the room?" Fei asks.
He points to it. "...Sorry, sorry, I know it's the wrong time it's just..."
He frowns faintly. "It's see through all around... I guess people wouldn't be shy in their own room but..."
He walks around it for a moment before finally looking back to Loren. Who is sitting there.
"Hey. Um."
Fei looks around a bit.
"Yeah," Fei says lamely. "This is real rough, buddy."
Pause.
"They never care about our lives, just expecting us to move on, huh...?"
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Medical Tricorder Fei Somehow Knows How To Use toward his party's challenge, At the Core of the Universe.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
As the next hit lands, not on Loren but on Gwen, a pained, brutually short cry escaped her clenched mouth, as if Gwen didn't expect it to hurt just that much, or that Leah _would not slow down_. The moment afterwards, her muscles are clenched, her expression firm, visually ready to take the next one.
But the second blow never comes.
She does not punch back.
And when the darkness falls, and then unravels back into the light of that small room, Gwen is glad she didn't.
"..." There were people who would be left behind, if Loren had moved on without his memories.
".... Sounds like you needed to heal too. Burns... take a while, even with your city's fancy tech, I imagine. Fire doesn't give back what it takes," she murmurs, her gaze looking downwards. "But, I guess, I ain't saying a thing nobody knows."
If Gwen were as burned as Leah was, she wouldn't even be here. No amount of big city visits and wealth would have enabled it. Dipping her head to Leah, Gwen says, "I'm sorry. I treated you like you were just a stranger, this entire time."
She brought them here to help, so that he'd be able to let go. He was clutching as hard as Rahab was, one to the other.
Her heart aches, whether due to that bond of the Primarch, to to see him caught in a prison of his own room. Age leaves her in that moment of emotion, as she becomes the age she was when she first entered this space, the glowing cracks never leaving her form throughout this process. She opens her mouth to speak, but there's no words she can really say, not when Lan is able to do it so much better, or when Elly speaks so kindly, so softly. She kneels by Loren, cautiously leaning the fingers of her left have to touch his head, gently.
When Fei speaks, Gwen looks up at him, and grins, a spark of humor in her eyes through the tears. Why not just say it? "Heh, yeah. It sucks! It fuckin' sucks!" She clears her throat, sniffing. "Er, well, swearin' ain't a great idea here, I guess."
But there is someone she could speak to, maybe.
Standing up, she hovers a hand over those strands, unsure if it's safe to touch, even if to try to impart some measure of comfort. ".... I ain't sure of the entire circumstances, so this may be real awkward, but..." She rubs the side of her head. "If you meant to help Loren... thank you. You were tryin' the only ways you knew how."
DG: Gwen Whitlock has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, At the Core of the Universe.
==============================<* Fire Ceremony *>===============================
=================<* CHALLENGE - At the Core of the Universe *>==================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The darkness fades.
You are in a place that may be familiar to some of you. It is without
question the personal chambers of someone in Solaris -- someone of First
Class rank, to be specific. The room is filled with plants of all shapes and
sizes.
This was Engil's room.
Neither are you alone in here: on the floor, curled in a fetal position, is
Loren. A much younger Loren: he looks to be about fourteen, fifteen at best.
The blue tendrils of the Primach's presence trail down towards his form
where he clutches at them, holding them tight against his chest. He won't
let go of them.
There must be some way to reach him, to convince him to let it go.
To let it all burn.
=Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
=========================<* Fire Ceremony - Round 6 *>========================== ===================< Results - At the Core of the Universe >==================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leah Sadalbari 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 28 --(5)--> 33 Pass Paku-Paku 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Medical Tricorder Fei Somehow Knows 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gwen Whitlock 28 --(5)--> 33 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leah Sadalbari 85 --(35)--> 120 Pass Conditions: Fright(1)|Hesitate(1)|Overwhelm Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leah Sadalbari has successfully explored Fire Ceremony!
==============================<* Fire Ceremony *>=============================== ==========<* CHALLENGE - The Lonely, Magnificent Power of Humanity *>=========== |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Loren lets go of the bundle of tendrils in the end, releasing the end of the blue threads reluctantly to drift in a stable float in the air. One hand reaches out for them for just the moment. But he draws it back. He's watching them still when the fire comes, consuming them without mercy. Moor Gault descends soon after, purifying flame washing off its wings with each stroke. The purification is nearly complete: only one thing remains. Flame consumes everything. Loren, this corroded memory, even you. There is no pain. Everything fades to white. When you open your eyes, you have returned. Loren -- the real Loren -- stirs on the ground and slowly rises to a kneeled position. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpnx1tALvP8 =Dungeon Conditions: Wonder===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Is this... the other reason why Loren had been reluctant to fix this? Because on some level, he hadn't wanted to fix it in the first place? Because he wanted to start over in some fashion, escaping the pain forever?
Because, as Lan has long noticed, he hates who he is?
He doesn't say anything when spoken to. Not to Leah, who expresses that this is a wound that she can't heal -- that this is why she had wanted to use other people to try to fix this. Because even she had some idea that this was not as simple a problem as it may have appeared from the outside.
Not to Lan, who grasps the problem immediately, who tries to provide him with something else to hold.
Not to Elly, who in spite of their increasingly messy and violent interactions with one another, shows him nothing but almost motherly kindness and understanding.
Not to Fei, who despite their outright violent relationship with one another, demonstrates the ability to commiserate.
And not to Gwen who, despite the fact that he's used her and tried to kill her, shows the gentleness that only she can.
He doesn't answer to any of them, and indeed, remains still, breathing quietly, hands still clutched tight around the root.
But a miracle, perhaps, occurs. Slowly, with painful reluctance, he begins to release his hold on the traces of the Primarch. One hand clutches tight the slip of paper Lan had left him as he rises out of the coiled position he'd been in, lifting his head to look at them all for a moment before letting go of the end of the thread altogether. He gazes at it for a moment, raises a hand as if to take it back...
But he draws back, in the end.
You have done well speaks the Guardian, descending into this space. This last is all that remains of It. Now, behold!
And it burns. And Loren burns. And this memory burns.
And everyone burns.
There is no pain.
In a way, this is a rebirth.
In the real world, the sun is beginning to rise, painting the clouds over the east with rose. How much time has passed? Minutes? An hour? A day, or more?
Everyone is as they were, seated about the ceremonial fire. Except Loren who, at some point during the proceedings, appears to have fallen over. He stirs after a moment and rises to his knees; he reels for a moment as if dizzy and touches a hand to his head.
--He remembers everything. What's just transpired, all the time he spent as a different sort of person, everything that happened while his memories were slipping away from him like water through a sieve, everything of note in his life before and after the moment that he...
...he had...
Slowly he lifts his hands, shaking, and buries them into his hair. He hunches over.
Pieces of him are slowly and delicately removed. Some of them are replaced with artificial parts. They're cool to the touch, smooth like ceramic. Other pieces are never returned at all. He can't move. It hurts so much. It hurts.
It wasn't his memory. It doesn't matter: he still reacts to it violently, giving voice as he impacts with it to a shout that is almost a scream.
The flames that surge from him trail outwards, tracing an elaborate mandala upon the packed earth upon which he crouches: orange, and green, and brilliant yellow. Elly -- and Leah -- would know it best: it's Ether, following something akin to the Jugend method of control and manifestation. but taking an odd left-hand fork away from established practice.
The flames never touch anyone here. They may dance close, close enough to feel warm on the skin, but they fail to burn. Instead they consume themselves, flickering away into nothingness and leaving only the scorch marks on the earth to show they had ever been.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Everybody is so kind to him. Lan knows that he's hurt all of them, he's hated all of them - even Leah, even her. But there was nobody Loren hated more than himself.
It's human nature, she supposes. If you hurt, and hurt, and hurt, and can't heal, you'll lash out and hurt others. People need to be seen, to have their wounds acknowledged.
It's why her treatment at the hands of the Stranger embedded itself so deeply into her - before Gwen, there was nobody else who could begin to understand. Perhaps nobody will ever truly understand. But Lan has people who care about her, and she has purpose in caring for others. What did Loren have?
Maybe they can be here for him now.
Moor Gault descends in a blaze and rush of flame, a sight that still makes her want to gasp at its beauty after all the times she's seen them. Burning away impurity. Burning away this room. burning away memories, and the Primarch, and her.
Lighting the dark night, and carrying them through to morning.
She first becomes aware of light and coolness, the roaring bonfire they'd built reduced now to smoking embers and charred wood. Lan opens her eyes and blinks at the dawn, lifting a hand to swipe ash and sweat from her face. "...Thank you," she finishes. The ritual is complete. It worked.
...Right?
Stiffly, her gaze moves to Loren when she hears a shout of -- is it pain?
Fire, bright and angry and purifying, erupts from him. Lan starts, and crawls to her feet, hobbling on half-asleep legs to his side once the fire dies. "You're okay! You're okay! I promise, you're okay--" she hurries to reassure him, glancing sidelong at everybody else as if to say 'help'.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Leah does not reply to what the others have to say, at first. Except for one thing, to Gwen: "You do not have to apologize."
Whatever else she might say will wait; she is not here to talk about her feelings, after all. But it would appear that at least some of them exist. But the memory burns...
Leah's single eye snaps open in a flash. She is still seated, unmoving now, and quickly makes a few determinations. There's a whirring noise if someone pays close attention, underneath the sounds of the land. But nothing immediately happens with it.
It's rather easier to pay attention to Loren, after all. Because he's moving, and because of the purpose of this exercise. Leah frowns, as she watches him hunch over, and that frown turns thoughtful as she sees the flames rush from him. She recognizes it quickly, and recognizes the differences as well. It is interesting in its way. ...But it is something for after.
Was this outcome pre-determined? Is Grigori's talk of destiny in play, here? It is hard to say, in the moment, as she rises to her feet, standing back to her full height once again.
"Loren," she says simply, and it is with a weight of expectation.
"It's time."
She looks to the others, each in turn--Fei, Elly, Gwen... Lan. She regards each with their own moments.
"Say your farewells."
One way... or another. She doesn't specify to whom he must say them.
Is there a choice?
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
It is done. Moor Gault spreads their cleansing fires upon the room, and then them all.
Gwen sees the flames dance up old scars, holding up her unscarred left hand to examine them, dully, as they dance on her.
This would have made her panic, surely, before the Blue Eyed Assassin took that away.
She stares, fascinated, idly wondering if her own connection will be burnt away--
--and they're here. As if they were always here, which they were.
Her eyes dart towards Loren, over Loren, her body naturally searching for that connection that she had gotten so familiar with.
Ah, right. She doesn't feel that connection anymore, to Loren.
It doesn't mean she's slow to react when he cries out, nearly reaching over to attempt to touch him before flames make her flinch back in surprise, falling back on her hands. "... Loren..." What does he remember? Did they succeed?
'Say your farewells.'
That apology Gwen gave Leah burns in her memory, like a red hot pick, stirring her anger.
"Can you at least give him a little more than that?!" Gwen exclaims with sudden anger up at Leah, her freckled cheeks flushed. "You wanna draw him into another goddamn meltdown?!"
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
The Guardians move. Moor Gault extends flame to purify. Elly wonders for a moment why she did not end up touching Moor Gault, instead of Solais Emsu. Perhaps she has acculturated more than she would like to admit.
But they have done well.
They behold -
And in the real life, the real world - or perhaps better to say, the material world - Loren is still burning.
Elly's head lifts up. She is still holding Fei's hand, after all of this. She looks around with sleepy eyes for a moment, feelingtastingseeing the Ether manifestations, and only seeing the others with her eyes. She gazes at Leah for a single silent second, and then looks to Lan. "... I'm sorry, but I think the best thing I - maybe we - can do is, ah, not be here."
Her eyes turn back to Leah and then to Loren as she says, towards mostly-Leah-let's-be-real, "Please take care of him. I hope we never meet again. Ah, but - not in a bad way -" Up she is rising, and she does smile, wide, authentic, to the point of cheek-dimpling, on her way towards the exit --
-- "Ah... Lydia... it went okay, I hope this wasn't too boring..." --
She is certainly in a hurry to depart, although there is not exactly the velocity or force of a headlong pursuit.
BUT ONCE SHE DOES LEAVE --
It's time for a full circumnavigation of the immediate area before leaving in an entirely random direction from which they entered. Is she trying to make potential tracking more difficult? Or does her heart, stirred by the sight of love, seek to return to a deep and trackless forest?
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
God damn it, Fei thinks as Moor Gault immolates him. Why couldn't I have attracted one of the non-asshole Guardians? Like the cat? Or the shrimp one everybody likes.
After...
"Gwen," Fei says. "I think if Leah was any other Commander..." He trails off. He looks to Elly, then to Lan. He nods once. "Like uh... Good luck. I guess." He heads off with Elly and then looks to Leah. "...She's...Please, just let us live our lives."
And with that he gives one look to Loren.
"......Good luck?"
He walks out with Elly.
But Lydia does say, "Well, I'll let you know if he keeps taking out his misery out on me again." She doesn't stop crossing her arms even once. She narrows her eyes at Fei and points her fingers at her eyes, then to Fei, then back at hers.
Maybe, Fei thinks, I should get like a nice aquatic pet for the ship. An eel, maybe. And he promptly departs with Elly.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
In a broad, technical sense of the word, Loren is okay. After all the ritual worked.
Gwen would note the success perhaps more powerfully than most: that strange metaphysical bond between her and him is gone, with not even a trace of it remaining.
It's just that he aches all over, as if he'd been sick for days and only just realized it. He feels hurt and sick and both at once as if sleep would elude him while he would also gladly collapse into a bed the first moment he could. And this isn't taking into account the other things, the other more delayed emotional and psychological shocks that won't really hit home until he's had more of a chance to unpack what's just happened.
For right now, as Lan hurries towards him and he unfolds himself, he extends one hand and just stares down at it, as if to dare it to also burst into flame.
It doesn't, and perhaps that's for the best.
Loren, Leah says, and he glances up. Even that movement makes him feel like his brain is simply rattling about inside his skull, a hundred thousand electrical shocks rolling through his head with that mere movement.
Say your farewells.
He stares at her blankly, as if he weren't sure -- at first -- what was meant.
...Oh.
Slowly he stands up, slowly he takes in all of them: Leah, Gwen, Elly, even Fei, and...
And Lan.
He hesitates for a long, perhaps heavy moment.
Then he lowers his head, as if ashamed somehow, and utters a simple, "...Bye."
And walks towards Leah.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Lydia waits until Fei and Elly are gone and makes her way back towards the grouping. Her posture is casual and relaxed rather than aggressive. She sees Loren walking away from Lan. She thinks, for a moment, that he has gotta be the biggest idiot alive.
But she already got out all her anger so now she just finds it to be particularly depressing. But then, is she really any better? Well, she hasn't had the CHOICE to leave. Not really.
"Sorry, Lan." Lydia says, and she even means it though she doesn't seem intent on going into detail.
She clearly is baffled as to why Loren is making such a choice but as everyone else has said, it is his baffling choice to make.
"Being alive is really just a constant stream of embarrassment."
She looks to Leah, awaiting further orders.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Gwen's sudden anger crashes on the rocks that is Leah's calm. Can't she give him a little more than that? Gwen's cheeks are flushed, but Leah simply looks towards her. "Drawing this experience out would not be a kindness," she answers simply.
She looks then to Elly, mostly looking at her, and nods to her. "I will. And I understand your meaning." She takes no particular offense from it. She does watch Fei, as he makes his answers, and his statement.
"Goodbye, Fei."
If she were any other Commander...
While she showed some emotion, some feeling within the dream, the dream is gone. Her burn scars are better concealed, less prominent. Her expression is stony again, without the pleasant look she might have once taken as a way to look. Her eye is unreadable.
She waits. She watches his blank look, the way he extends that hand and then... doesn't, anymore. She watches him hesitate, and her attention is on him alone.
...He starts to walk towards her. Leah at this point turns to see Lydia as she walks over to them and inclines her head to her. "That can be true," she agrees with Lydia, and looks back to Loren. "You're going to need rest. We will speak after you have rested."
It isn't quite the cold, clipped tones of an uncaring Commander, or the distorted sound of the Watcher's disguised voice. ...But it is stern nevertheless. Though she does add, "...Welcome back."
"We have what we came for," she says then. "Loren. Lydia." She looks to Lydia a moment too, "We'll talk later, too. But I imagine you've had enough of resting for the moment. Let's go."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Say your farewells.
No, she wants to protest. No, we just got him back, he needs to rest, we just-- we just--
But instead she's silent, just making sure that Loren is coherent before standing up next to him. She has so many things she wanted to say to him. She's sorry. She's sorry, she didn't mean to, did you see, do you remember that too?
But she can't make the words form.
It's too much.
Fei and Elly get ready to leave, and while she's grateful for their support Lan knows Elly is right. "I know. It's... be careful out there. Stay safe. Take care of each other," she tells them, squeezing Elly's hand impulsively before the two of them leave. They did so much, all for someone who...
They all did so much.
Say your farewells.
Lan's hands clench helplessly into fists. What's she supposed to do now? Be grateful that Leah isn't going to drag her back to Myyah Hawwa? Be grateful she's being shown mercy?
She takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. In, out. And walks resolutely up to the Watcher, to Grigori, and unless she's refused, puts her arms around the taller woman. "It had to be hard to see him," she murmurs into Leah's shoulder, eyes closed briefly. She doesn't want to be Leah's enemy, even if she must be Gebler's. "Be good to yourself too, okay?"
She releases Leah and turns to Loren, and finds herself still choking on words. "...Take care of yourself. Be good. I'm sorry," she manages, before returning to Gwen, where she ...just kind of sags against the courier's side. She's tired. Everybody is, surely. But she's tired all the way through, and, and...
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Leah will need to speak to him. But it can wait until after he's rested. He nods, stiffly, as if he weren't flesh and blood -- certainly, he doesn't feel like it, now.
She had--
He had--
But it's all too much to deal with right now, right here. His gaze remains downcast, perhaps the largest outward hint of whatever might be running along within. Change never comes quickly to anyone, but...
A lot has happened, in the span of months, weeks, hours, minutes.
And it's all come crashing down at once.
It's when Lan approaches Leah that he starts, alarm writ large across his face. What's she trying to do, is she--
She's hugging Leah.
He stands like a shocked statue that way for a long moment more, and then she turns to face him.
Take care of yourself. Be good.
She's sorry.
He's too tired to engage the way he'd normally. And he's also too tired and sick and hurt and worn to remain silent, not here, not like this.
"I'll try," he whispers, which might answer a mere two thirds of what she's said to him.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Fei and Elly's words manage to make Gwen pause from saying more, wanting to crash her emotional flames ineffectively against the wall of stone that is Leah's own emotions, now.
She looks up towards Lydia. "If he does, he should damn well know bet--"
It's when Gwen catches Loren's gaze that Gwen relents, and she nods, slowly, acknowledging that Leah's words on the matter are right.
It would not be a kindness.
"Thank you, you two," she whispers to Elly and Fei, nodding. "You're a great cook on top of being a good teacher, Elly. And Fei..." she hiccups a laugh, unable to say much more. "You're gonna have to show me what you're capable of cookin' wise, sometime."
When emotions get high, talk about food.
When Lan gets up and walks towards Leah, fear finally manages to sidestep Gwen's curse and squeeze a trail of ice down her spine. Guardians, Lan, no, not after-
It's Lan who hugs Leah. Gwen is as shocked as anyone, but she recovers faster, shocked back by Lan's actions to think about what Leah may still be dealing with.
As well as how this will be her last chance to say anything to Loren. But all the words she freely exchanged with him a day before are no longer come as easily to her lips.
Instead, she focuses on the other issues. "... I'll keep an eye on Lan as long as she'll let me."
Does he remember her? Would it make it any easier if he did, or didn't?
But there's something that'd be true, either way.
"Thank you, Loren."
True to her word, when Lan turns and says her goodbyes to Loren, Gwen is there, wrapping an arm around Lan's shoulders as she sags against her. "We did it, Lan," she murmurs softly, when everyone is out of earshot. "We did the right thing."
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Lan hugs Leah, and the older woman doesn't resist her. After a moment, she briefly sets an arm on Lan in turn. It is cool and hard, her fingers stiff, but it does not crush--it is not painful. "...You're a very kind girl," she says, like she said before. "Thank you."
She doesn't argue, though there is something in her tone of voice that may be concerning--for her, rather than about her. And then Lan pulls back and speaks to Loren, and Leah waits through this. She waits through Gwen's additions.
"...Good," she says instead to Gwen, and turns, nodding to Loren, and looking to Lydia to indicate that this pause... is done.
"Let's go, then."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"LYDIA OUT," Lydia shouts, throwing the horns as she follows Leah and Loren out.
There, she thinks, that was the right thing to say.