2022-01-29: Fear and Loathing in Guadosalam
- Log: Fear and Loathing in Guadosalam
- Cast: Seymour Guado, Gon Guado, Yuna, Mariel, Tidus, Lulu, Pearl, Ree, Jacqueline Barber, Rikku, Seraph Boudicca, Margaret, Cyre H. Lorentz, Citan Uzuki, Ida Everstead-Rey, Marivel Armitage, Paine
- Where: Guadosalam
- Date: January 29, 2022
- Summary: Seymour Guado makes a play for power -- and desperation -- in Guadosalam. Gon Guado forces himself to stand up.
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
Deep within Guadosalam, there is a place where the Guado have dug a tunnel into the Farplane. Together, a group of Drifters -- with Gon Guado's aid -- have found that the tunnel leads to that location. They do not yet know the reason for this.
It is a long trek back from the Farplane -- or, perhaps, a long trek through Guadosalam to this place -- but it leads to where the journey began. There is a plaza here, amidst the natural cave walls. Worked stone floor and walls make up the plaza, with a single ornate stone doorway. A few are emerging from those double doors, which have Yevonite runes engraved upon them. There are steady streams of pyreflies flowing from them.
Those streams of pyreflies turn and twist, wrapping about each other in great spirals. They move and flow, like water, to the figure at the center of the plaza.
Seymour Guado stands there, wearing his blue Maester's robes. His arms are outstretched -- the fingers on his lift hand flicker to prismatic light and back to flesh -- and he looks towards those entering.
Seymour smiles. "Ah, good... you've come. It is time to enact my plans -- and how right that you should be here for the moment that I remake Spira! That I remake this land of death!"
Scattered around him are several pillars. Stone pillars, which reach up to the ceiling. Each of them has been sculpted -- evoking different elements -- and each has a crystal inside, which pulses with light. For those with the sense, there is powerful Ley energy here -- this place is an Earthpulse, and these pillars somehow draw it out.
"Welcome... to the dawn of a new age!"
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
Among the last to arrive is the group headed by Gon Guado. What humor can be wrought from their greatest help having the hardest time navigating forward and back is left to the wayside. All of this is deadly serious business - a direct path into the Farplane, enough to loosen a flood of pyreflies back. (That is how they make their way back - something is twisting them that way.)
"Enough of this!" It is unthinkable to hear the voice of a fellow Guado speak up against their superior. (Just as unthinkable as it was that the current Maester could murder the previous - their own father - and get everyone to sweep it under the rug for appearances, but, baby steps.)
It may be even more unthinkable, now, that one of the oldest of the active Guado Guardians is the one speaking out. Gon Guado, who very nearly followed Seymour to the absolute terminus of his plans for Spira were it not for a wake up call from his own daughters and the continued pursuit by Otherworlders for something better for Spira as a whole.
"How right that we should be here for this moment indeed..." The power that pulses through here is immense, Ley and pyreflies alike, as Gon's eyes close for a moment and remember the corrosive whispers he heard in these halls from his own father.
"We have ever toiled to see to the prosperity of our own ever since the late Maester Jyascal bid us integrate ourselves with the tenets of Yevon." Have they ever. "So that Yevon brought a modicum of peace to Spira, so too would our people benefit through our guardianship of the Farplane." The exploitation of death and emotional fraility born from sudden loss that can't ever have full justice or reprieve from it happening again.
"The people of Spira are in the midst of choosing a new course. Long have I struggled to stay afloat of this... change," a side-eye to the Otherworlders, becuase he's not going to be rid of all of his ill feelings overnight, "and allowed you your decrees and measures to see to it. That you would do so at expense of all that could arise hereafter our times... and steal from our own children, their perogative to see to their own prosperity hereafter - be it for themselves and the rest of Spira... and beyond."
Gon quietly intones the power of 'prayer' - or White Magic as it's known in other continents of Lunar - to wash restorative energies over everyone. It's warm, like the kindness of a good fire.
Party's HP restored!
And there, Gon drops into the traditional Guado Guardian combat stance. Arms to the sides in anticipation and all.
"...As it was ever my duty prior to see to the safety of the lands surrounding Guadosalam to deal with roving Fiends, it is far time you take your leave!"
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna feels Seymour before she sees him; or, more aptly, she feels the effect he's having on the pyreflies. They are being drawn to him with much greater density, direction and intent than they are to her more passive attraction. And she can only imagine, given their more recent, posthumous encounters, what horrors he can commit with As Many Pyreflies As The Farplane Can Supply.
Some cavernous corridors ahead of emerging from the double doors she has urged the group into a flat-out sprint, and they burst through the gap at full speed.
There, Seymour's appearance -- surrounded by strange architecture and strange magic -- fills her gut with the same gnawing pangs of distress as he did on Filgaia, amongst the Baskar.
Gon strikes quite the correct tone. Yuna stands behind him, a solid pillar of support and an existential threat to their opponent, especially this close to the Farplane. It might be their best chance ever to Send him, if he can be subdued for long enough.
Nevertheless, she takes the bait Seymour dangles. It would be rude not to. And no one will ever accuse Yuna of being rude, not even to her mass-murdering kidnapper of an ex-husband (though 'till death do you part might be a less meaningful clause when the groom was already Unsent at the time, food for thought).
That, and -- some tiny, squeakingly little part of her might have the teensiest weensiest bit of HOPE. Hope that there's something to LEARN here. There's so much they don't know about Sin, about Spira. They need all the help they can get. Is it possible -- maybe -- that Seymour really has come upon a solution?
"Remake Spira?" she prompts, after Gon is finished, with the cautious and slightly strained voice of someone who thinks she probably already knows the answer to her own question but is going to make sure, just in case, to be polite. "Um, into what?"
(Death. It's Seymour. The answer is always death. His not-so-hot youth pastor New Age vision is invariably highly oriented around everyone being freed of the cruel burden of being alive. Yuna needs to learn to shoot first and ask questions later, but she is who she is, alas.)
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Mariel had come with Gon (and others) when she heard that Seymour was doing... something down in the depths under Guadosalam. And as they went further down, closer and closer, she felt it. Lunar isn't her home, but it doesn't have to be. This kind of distortion is obvious at a distance.
But she doesn't know the region very well, and so she's followed the pyreflies, with Gon. Mariel is already in discomfort by the time they approach Seymour - not pain, but anxiety, the feeling that Something Is Wrong.
"The - the flow of energy," Mariel says, correcting herself as she doesn't know if the Guado use the same terminology for Ley. "It's twisted here. Something has distorted it..."
Not something. Someone. Someone like Seymour.
Mariel has said enough to Seymour in her time. She says nothing here, using Gon's words (unintentionally; she's not that rude) as a distraction to move toward the pillars. She doesn't fight well - she hates doing it, even against something (some*thing*) like Seymour. She could be of help with her medicine, but it would not be where she's best, not even close.
But she understands Ley. She understands the flow of the energies through the earth. And even if Lunar isn't Filgaia, it's as close as cousins; something that still makes sense to her even if it has its own subtleties and distinctions. Balancing it is as deep as an instinct; around her, the energy flows slightly differently as she makes miniscule adjustments without even thinking about it.
If she can see the knots of control around those pillars and crystals...
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
It hasn't been a great trip down here for Tidus *or* any of his friends and companions. The light of the pyreflies whorling overhead only remind him of the voices he heard--that they *all* heard, individually--and the fact that they have to head down and then back again does absolutely nothing for his mood. When Yuna urges everyone into a sprint and they all burst through those final double doors, and there stands Seymour, Tidus's teeth reflexively grind. The flickering of light and flesh on the Maestro's left hand don't help any.
"Remake it to what, a land of even more death?" Tidus quips sarcastically, knuckles white as he grips the hilt of Brotherhood and swings it to his side. "When're you ever going to learn, Seymour?!"
He doesn't even pay attention to those sculpted stone pillars. He just nods fiercely at Gon, who turns out to *actually* be on their side after all. Deciding to trust him paid off. He smiles fiercely at the old Guado as he calls up that healing magic to restore each of them from their trek. "You said it, Gon!" he declares. "Let him know what's what!"
After all, as much as he hates Seymour, Tidus recognizes that this has to be way more personal for one of Seymour's own former subordinates--one of his own people. Yuna can ask the questions about what exactly Seymour's trying to do, and Mariel can observe the nature of the energy twisting around him; as far as Tidus is concerned, none of it's any good and that's all any of them really need to know.
<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.
Lulu 'feels' what happens before she sees it too--but she does not feel the pyreflies. What she feels is the sheer elemental energy he is calling up, the pillars and their influence on what the Otherworlders call the Earthpulse. And she is sprinting after Yuna, not as fast but fast enough.
And she sees the source of the strange feelings she has. She sees the source, and then she sees... Gon. Gon, of all people, not leaving Guado matters to the Guado anymore. She is... surprised, to say the least, to feel his power helping them.
She doesn't take the bait; Yuna has done that already. Instead, she comes to stand at Yuna's side, looking over the pillars thoughtfully and letting the others handle the conversation. Mariel speaks what she's thinking--the flow of energy...
"It must be undone," Lulu says, looking to Mariel seriously--she seems already to be investigating it. So Lulu considers her own duty.
She has no words for Seymour, the murderer of her second Summoner. She simply stands, an orange doll under her arm, and waits for what must be.
All else must be set aside, for now. She will not look into the Farplane for those who are not there.
"...I'm with you," she says to Yuna and the others, instead.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Pearl is, frankly, not feeling great. She was literally confronted by the ghost of her past. But she doesn't have time to process it. There's still Seymour to stop. Otherwise.... people she cares about it won't survive. Possibly across two worlds.
She didn't realize she cared about that many people. She'll feel good but conflicted about it later.
And then she sees Seymour. She sees the Guado that would not die and then when he did would not stay dead. 'Remake this land of death' he says. Into what? A land of ghosts? Or a land of nothingness? She doesn't understand the Farplane as well as she would like, and is unlikely to be let in Yevon's library any time soon.
The Littlest Guardian stands beside her, radiating reassuring presence. She nods to him. She looks to the people she entered with.
And then Gon Guado stands, and speaks.
tAnd his words hit her like a freight train.
Pearl stares, eyes widened, at Gon's speech. He could change. Even he- who was an immovable object- refusing to learn, refusing to see what could be has changed. Even Gon could learn to see a future.
But even he was not as much as monster as I am.
She feels a hard thump against her leg, with a fierce "Fu!". Leo Jr was right, now was not the time to sink into despair. Lady Yuna steps forward in front of Seymour, and asks the question Pearl wouldn't. The silver haired summoner inhales, and looks to Mariel. This is ley, then... And Mariel knows Ley. "...How can we stop it?"
Not if. How.
Failing is unacceptable.
<Pose Tracker> Ree has posed.
"Welcome... to the dawn of a new age!" the tall blue-haired Guado intones. Ree scowls. It's an expression she's worn too often of late.
Powerful religious leader? Check.
Plans for world domination? Almost certainly.
Needs to be stopped? Definitely!
Yeah, she's seen THIS pattern before! Power-madness, that's what it was. She glances around taking quick stock of her companions...some warriors, some magic-users, some she can't quite place. She nods to as many whose attention she can catch. They'll have to work together to be victorious!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
The journey is circuitous, but necessary. With the significance the Farplane holds, checking on it is important. And so, after taking enough time to recover back up to fighting strength, Jacqueline and those with her make the trek back - back to those double doors...
...And waiting for them, of course, is Seymour himself.
"Seymour. You look well." Jacqueline greets, adjusting her glasses. Will he be surprised to see that she's still alive after the stunt he pulled last time? ...A part of her is hoping he is, as petty as that feels. "For Lunata's sake... I'm going to ask you one last time to stand down. Please. We can figure something out, that doesn't require so much death."
Her eyes flick toward the pillars, taking note of the way they're sculpted and the elemental carvings... as well as the pulsing crystal. As an experienced Crest Sorceress, she can sense it - sense the power of the Ley pulsing from this place, and sense the way the pillars draw it out. A frown crosses her face. Her attention turns to Mariel as she arrives - if Mariel's saying that much, then that means her instincts are correct. ...Jacqueline doesn't like this.
And then, her attention turns toward Gon. She listens as he delivers his speech... and she nods. It's good to have him here with them, on their side... and she feels that healing sorcery wash over her, restoring the rest of her strength.
She's ready, now - for whatever happens.
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
Rikku's still in a strange place after Maester Kinoc, trying not to say anything about it. Because she understands why Yuna halted her, but absolutely wanting to. Yet as they descend deeper and deeper into Guadosalam, and back within the farplane...
... her attention changes focus as the pyreflies grow thick, moving around her in their odd journey through this place. And... Seymour, as they run out the doors and to them among the other Guardians, she gives Paine one last worried look, "Are you going to be alright?" It's the most she asks though, before they go forward.
He's always an upsetting sight. Especially now after... Zanarkand, after Yunalesca. Knowing how he intended to remake the land once, and already he's on to another plan.
Here, in the farplane. A place she never wanted to come. A place she never wanted to be - now forced to be, because of him.
Gon though speaks, and Rikku looks... appearing intensely upset for a moment, listening to him, but also shocked. As she never expected... he could change.
Once she's finished she turns to Gon - fresh off the high of his White Magic which gives her a burst of renewed vigor and says to him quitely yet audibly in no uncertain terms, "I don't forgive you. I never will." She says with a tone that might seem uncharacteristic for her, for the Merriest... but then it eases up, just a touch. "But I will thank you... for that... for what you're doing."
Maybe there's some kind of measure of hope after all... for that enmity easing off.
Turning then to Seymour, she listens to Yuna ask, she listens to Tidus ask... and Lulu saying she's with them, "This place gives a lot of people comfort..." Rikku... well, she doesn't really believe this is the afterlife where sent Souls go, even now, even traveling with actual Unsent. But she does believe it's important to a lot of people, even if it's not to her.
"... so it figures you'd want to ruin it too!" As she takes a stance ... ready to fight.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Hell has emptied out, all poured out through the cracks and the gaps. A thousand screaming memories, what has come before, recontextualised to realisation:
The devil is here!
Swept in by all those twisting pyreflies, Gon, and the people who accepted the help of a man who sent so MANY of these echoes to the great beyond. Amongst them, child of the Earthpulse, who felt the air which was of her which such joy, until --
The Seraph, Boudicca, comes to rest beside Seymour. That air curls around her, passively, expressively, picks up those twin braids which dangle so much more impressively given how tall she towers. Steel armour, green silk, at once solid and malleable, and it's not a contradiction, not really.
"I will not take your welcome," she denies, steel-chill anger. "The world you would make is gentle only as death is gentle, Seymour. I deny it."
She half-turns, seeks out the other woman she knows must feel this, must know this, must see this.
"Go," she urges Mariel, with low tones of desperation. She grasps her tonfa, and her knuckles aren't white under those gauntlets, but it's just because she's forgotten that detail. "I will stand between you. He shall not have this world." She's going to protect her..?
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
The afterlife was not what Margaret, the Black Pearl, expected. She certainly didn't expect to have ten shades of pain beaten out of her by the Blue Master Lunn's restless shade, even if, she has had to admit, she did probably open up by yelling.
The Farplane is curiously gorgeous, despite its distortion. But she couldn't see any of the others here, and so it felt melancholy for Margaret, despite the ministrations of Jacqueline Barber - potions, a splint for her broken arm, wraps.
But what can we expect? Margaret thinks to herself. We were invaders here, weren't we?
Yet somehow...
There he is; there he speaks. That's what's twisting this land. This place. This realm of death. The pyreflies are flowing; did my brothers, my sisters, already get placed somewhere? Margaret wonders.
She had been sitting, cross legged, and she gets up, heavily. Gon's magicks ease the pain but it is still tiresome. Sore. Her arm still hurts. She looks at her hands for a moment and wonders if she's been burning the candle harder than she thought. Margaret takes a deep breath and looks upwards.
"You aren't building anything," Margaret says, and at least her vocal delivery is on point. Scornful, perhaps even encouraging. She walks forwards, grasping her blade with her good arm, twisting it round leisurely.
"Miracles are possible in this world, even if nothing is ever perfect," says the former resident of Neo-Vane, "and this is not something new. You're merely taking what is already there for whatever darkling end you've dreamed up! As an interloper, of course," Margaret continues, "I have no right to tell you, and if you'd like to take a moment to reconsider, please, by all means."
She walks forwards, and past -- some people she knows!
"Good to see you, you look well given everything.," Margaret tells Yuna.
"Did you redo your hair? Top shelf look," Margaret tells Rikku.
"That one's cute," Margaret tells Lulu.
"You're an athlete, right?" Margaret *asks* Tidus as she reaches more or less alongside him. This is when she actually gets tight on the grip of her sword, which is plain steel with a hand-and-a-half grip.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Someone... crawls out of the tunnels, barely keeping himself upright, his body weight creaking against his staff and straining the wood to its breaking point... Who else would it be but Cyre Lorentz, who stubbornly resisted being hauled out of the tunnels by some manner of moss-haired metal man. Of course he had to be here. Of course he had to be here.
Because Seymour is here, trying to do something absolutely grotesque to the spiritual landscape of the last fertile haven in remotely in Filgaia's proximity. The concentration of pyreflies has shown him the way, lighting his path in the dark until, finally, he staggers out, half-dead and probably cursed and possibly possessed.
And then a wave of healing magic washes over him, and pushes all of those badfeels right out.
"Gon, thanks." Cyre nods, before pushing forward toward the front line, staring daggers at the pillars pulsing with the living energy of the world. Living, for now. "Mariel... You got this? We'll try to keep... him busy for as long as possible."
Or, you know, they could just murder him. That'd be nice. THAT SURE WOULD BE NICE.
DC: Cyre H. Lorentz switches forms to Wind Shaman Cyre!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
There and back again.
'Heaven' is not a place that one can visit while still alive. Thus has it always spoken back on the Blue Star of Filgaia. Even on Lunar, the afterlife had remained an undiscovered country.
But it is not so in Spira, or so it had seemed -- a non-Guado 'Otherworlder' such as Doctor Uzuki would not simply be allowed to visit, not any further than the threshold, as it were.
Perhaps it should have been expected, pressing into that place behind the Gate. But he had still ended up 'crossing over', and had seen for himself the Farplane.
...Was it true, as he had thought, that the Farplane was the source of Pyreflies? Even having now visited, he is not certain. But, with the spiritual weight of this place, with what he had witness 'beyond'...
Pyreflies stream into this place, and the man who defied death itself stands before them.
"'Remake Spira'..." Citan echoes, gazing at the Maester. "Into whose vision? Your own? I do not believe you mean well for this land." He glances towards some of the others as they speak their pieces, nodding when Gon speaks of the changes that Spira is undergoing. "Indeed, I do not doubt that you would cause it to become 'undone' entirely. That, would be your 'new age'." Citan gestures at the room around him.
"...Those crystals are the key, correct? Then we must act to destroy them!"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Footsteps cross the great plaza, echoing off the stone walls with perfect clarity. Ida took up the rear as her party made the trek back, keeping one eye on their surroundings the whole time. The shifting Pyreflies made it hard to tell if they were being tailed, but she kept lookout all the same. She didn't speak much. To say she was awed and humbled by this brush with the numinous is an understatement.
Ida's footfalls underscore Gon's words like the steady beat of a wardrum. She stops at his flank, and brings her right fist into her left palm with the ringing clang of exoskeleton striking exoskeleton.
"Finally," Ida says, glancing aside at Yuna and Gon and Mariel and Boudicca and Marivel. Her face bears a grim smile, and she's showing teeth. "Seymour Guado. I regret not having the chance to greet you properly, much less speak to you about your deeds." Her tone is genial, but it's as thin as the film of a bubble, and underneath are razors. "Yuna is a dear friend of mine, after all, and you've had no small impact on her, and her journey."
The claws come out.
Ida steps forward, the stomp of her foot raising a dust cloud as she slips into a boxer's stance. "You couldn't break her. You couldn't break us." Gon's healing sorcery washes over the room, the flame of his power fanning the heat rising in Ida's chest. "I--no. Yuna. Her first. You answer her, then--" Ida's face tightens in a snarl. "Why? Everyone you've killed--why?! Are you so broken, so empty, that you can't see any way out? No hope at all? Because you know what waits for you if you win--you exist, alone, for the rest of eternity. Is that really what you want?!"
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel looks up and around the pillars. She hums faintly. "My my my. This explains a lot doesn't it, Mariel?"
She pats her on the arm with her hand. She glances over to Seymour and then asides to Mariel, "Well at the very least, he has the sense of drama down. I appreciate that in an omnicidal maniac."
She feels like the omnicidal maniac part hasn't really been PUSHED HARD ENOUGH because most people prefer to not be dead and yet Seymour seems to have plenty of followers yet. Nevertheless, she is not a pillar of that community. And now--there IS one here.
Gon speaks up. And for this, at least, Marivel does give her full foucs. She listens to him carefully. And then, when he is done, she cracks a smile.
"Heroism suits him better, don't you think Mariel? Still..." She exhales.
And she leaves the thought unsaid. Heroism isn't all what it's cracked up to be and the sad truth in Marivel's heart--
--No, she thinks, they will all get through this one. There has been enough death, there hasn't been enough SENDING.
Marivel looks towards Yuna. She gives her one (1) nod. Then she gives Tidus and Rikku one (1) nod.
And then because Boudicca is super special, Marivel nods to her twice.
"Well said." She says. "That determination will serve you well. Worry not, I will look after our lovely mutual friend."
She summons Guillotine in her hand and it transmogrifies and twists into the form of a staff.
Which she smacks once against the ground.
<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.
Paine has been withdrawn even by her usual standards, since her encounter with Kinoc. But she is no slower with her machina weapon when confronted with Seymour, putting it to shoulder and sighting down it, to be ready when Yuna feels the already paper-thin hope of discussion is expended. It's as well that Margaret has no comments on her fashion sense; impending combat has not made her playful today.
She finds herself distracted by Rikku, whose brightness is uncharacteristically marred by hurt and anger. Her red eyes slide to Gon Guado. If she were Tidus, perhaps she would have said something, to Rikku or for Rikku. But Paine's ambitions for bettering the world are narrow, and hesitant. The only one she is fully confident in is standing in front of her and several feet to the right, with a big yellow bow on her back. She and Lulu are of one taciturn purpose at the moment.
And Wen Kinoc, confused and dead though he was, had done a good job of tweaking Paine's nose when it comes to Seymour and Yuna.
"Maybe you haven't noticed," Paine tells Seymour, by way of summary of her companions. "But we're not here to watch."
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
'Enough of this!'
Seymour Guado wonders Gon Guado walks in, at the head of them. It is unthinkable, in truth: that Seymour, the Guado's leader, would be challenged by a Guardian. "Gon Guado. You are correct... I would do this at the expense of Guadosalam. I am Guadosalam. I would do this at the expense of my father, Jyscal -- at the expense of myself! I would bring about an end, and it is the greatest gift that I might provide our people."
He glances, then, at Yuna. There is a respectful nod to her. "If I cannot become Sin... then I shall become what I can. To bring about the same end, Lady Yuna. Tidus is right--" He nods at him. "A land of death. It is good to see both of you again."
He smiles, but it is cold.
Mariel approaches the pillars. There is some distance to cover -- and they're spread out, as it happens. Seymour, at first, just regards her -- as he does any others going with her.
He looks at Jay, then -- and Seymour's pale eyes widen as he sees her. He tenses, half-freezing in an instant. "You're--" He bites back something. "I see that whatever gods you claim to exist have favored you! But for how much longer? Perhaps I shall finish what I began, Jacqueline Barber."
He looks back at Rikku. "I do not deny it -- for I would tear away a false comfort," he says. "Do you not believe this is false?" And then, his pale eyes look back to Margaret. "I am building an end. Deny it, if you wish!"
"I wish to bring an end to Spira -- to Lunar -- and then to Filgaia. To free it, from an endless cycle of misery," he says to Citan. Then, he looks back at Ida. He tilts his head. "Then I shall redouble my efforts, and be done with you, wretch!"
He spots -- Paine -- and the way she gives him that red-eyed look. He lifts his chin; he considers, for a moment. "So I shall give you something to do."
Then, finally, he looks at Boudicca. "Ah, so you would make yourself a shield. I will oblge you by breaking it."
He throws his arms open.
"It is time. An Unsent is a creature of pyreflies -- and I shall draw on all of those from the Farplane," Seymour says. "Witness, as I claim this power. The power I shall take, if I cannot have Sin!"
The pyreflies keep streaming into Seymour. His body shudders; it trembles; it convulses. Muscles twitch and shake; his mouth opens into a rictus smile of pain. Then, he lurches over, as the head and back of a draconic form lurches out of him, pyreflies adding upon themselves until forming a roaring -- but eyeless -- draconic head. Seymour's human head is buried underneath the dragonflesh. Two huge hindlegs form, as great wings take shape and beat.
Seymour flies up into the air, his pale eyes blazing -- and his draconic mouth open, fanged and roaring. Pyreflies continue to stream endlessly into his body as he lifts high into the air. "Yes... yes, this is it!"
The crystals around the room -- in their pillars -- begin to glow brighter. Then, a prismatic glow begins to infuse the doors to the Farplane. It seems into them -- and in places, it shimmers like water.
Seymour's human arms fling out. Then, he summons a maelstrom of elemental energy. Balls of flame all form -- dozens of them -- and begin to hurtle down, slamming into stone and Gon and Tidus alike with fiery explosions. Then, behind him, pyreflies swirl -- and form an immense draconic tail. It sweeps out -- and rakes across all of those here!
Then, he floats up higher. Magic swirls around him -- power arcs over him -- and he prepares a spell for those going for the pillars.
DC: Seymour Guado switches forms to DO NOT USE! DC: Seymour Guado switches forms to Seymour Archaeo!
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Gon Guado with Multi-Fira! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Tidus with Multi-Fira! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Yuna with Tail Strike! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lulu with Tail Strike! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Ree with Tail Strike! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Rikku with Tail Strike! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Tail Strike! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Margaret with Tail Strike! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Tail Strike! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Tail Strike! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rikku takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Tail Strike for 143 hit points! GS: Margaret takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Tail Strike for 123 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Cyre H. Lorentz takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Tail Strike for 97 hit points!
DG: A party led by Mariel is now entering The Broken Seal.
=============================<* The Broken Seal *>============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Multi-Black Magic *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- There are multiple pillars about the room. Each is stone, but the stone is colored like an element of the Earthpulse energy that it is tied to. Runes are on each side. Mounted within each pillar is a large crystal, also sharing a hue of the element that it matches. In a way, this has a simplicity: break the crystals, save the world. It doesn't quite pan out that way, of course. Seymour floats in the air, massive and horrid. The scales across his body -- ridges, really -- all pulse with power. The power, as sorcery often does, has a color. It looks like lightning, but with blues, reds, and golds that criss-cross his body. They leap off clawed hands. And the group rushing towards the pillars finds blasts of flame, geysers of water, and sundering arcs of lightning rushing for all of them. This might be easy enough -- but they also hear something else. It is not spoken aloud, but it is heard inside of their minds. ...ildren of a distant star. Come again to... ...orld. Hurry... Theirs is not a voice any in the Farplane have ever heard before -- and they struggle, mightily, to speak at all. =Dungeon Conditions: Injure, Secret===========================================
GS: Lulu takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Tail Strike for 152 hit points! GS: COUNTER! Gon Guado counterattacks Seymour Guado with ! GS: Gon Guado takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fira for 136 hit points! GS: COUNTER! Yuna counterattacks Seymour Guado with ! GS: Yuna takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Tail Strike for 152 hit points! GS: Ree suffers a terrible blow from Seymour Guado's Tail Strike for 140 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado suffers a terrible blow from Gon Guado's for 139 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado solidly guards Yuna's for 75 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Yuna! GS: Tidus suffers a terrible blow from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fira for 135 hit points! GS: Seraph Boudicca partially evades Seymour Guado's Tail Strike for 100 hit points! GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Power Burst! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Tail Strike for 133 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey activates Power Burst!
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
"Huh? Yeah?" Tidus utters at Margaret, caught off-guard by the sudden question. "Why?" Regardless of her answer, he raises an eyebrow at Rikku when she talks about the Farplane giving comfort--then snorts at her follow up. "Right? It just figures," he cracks. He gives Marivel a firm nod back, and chimes in after Paine with a firm, "Damn right!" Lulu doesn't have a lot to say, but... honestly, that's probably the smart way to go when it comes to Seymour. Dealing with him is just a headache.
Case in point: Seymour acknowledging he's right just brings a sour scowl to Tidus's face. It only deepens when Seymour conveys how nice it is to see him again. "Bite me," he quips, one he might come to regret later.
For now, there's plenty to mess him up when the (former?) Maester sucks in the pyreflies around him like a vacuum, transforming himself into something like a dragon but way, way more horrible. The crystals in the pillars shine, and Tidus *finally* pays attention to them just in time for fireballs upon fireballs to hurl themselves upon him. He tries to dash out of the way, but there's too many of them covering too wide an area; he's engulfed in flames, screaming in pain. At least he's knocked out of the way of that draconic tail, but god. Whoever came up with nuclear arms didn't have anything on Seymour.
Even so, Tidus gets up again, glaring furiously at him. "Yuna! Guys! I'm going in!" he calls to make his intentions known. Trusting his friends to have his back and heal his wounds, he then launches himself forward, dashing across the battlefield until he's within range. Then he sails into a tight, quick succession of acrobatics, kicking off of pillars to give him the height he needs as Seymour floats upwards, until he spins in midair and twists around to bring his blade down on Seymour's eyeless 'head,' *hard*.
GS: Tidus has attacked Seymour Guado with Spiral Cut! GS: Tidus has entered Avenger Stance! GS: Tidus has completed his action. GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Tidus's Spiral Cut for 132 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ree has posed.
Seymour's tail SLAMS Ree into the stone floor face-first. It costs her a great deal of bruising and several teeth. She rises slowly, fueled by rage and the remnant of Gon's earlier healing energies. In spite of the pain she growls, "You...bring...only...death." Or at least she tries. It comes out disorted, what with the missing teeth and her swollen mouth. She raises both pistols, aims them at the blue-haired Guado, and fires. "Let ush shee what Shpira will deshhide!"
GS: Ree has attacked Seymour Guado with Iron Duke! GS: Ree has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
There's a lot of people who are putting their trust in Mariel. It's enough to make her self-conscious, even anxious. Not enough to put her off doing it, of course. She's made a decision, after all; it wouldn't do to go back on it.
She gives a hesitant nod. "Thank you," she mouths back - to Bou, to Lulu, to the others - and then ducks, darting toward the closest of the pillars. "This way," she hisses, not loud; she doesn't want Seymour to pay attention to her, but she does want the other people who think they can help with it to come with her.
Seymour is rising into the air, but Mariel has planned her approach, and even a burst of water and lightning doesn't stop her. She swerves around it, staying low where she's a smaller target (not that it matters against geysers from the ground), opening her bag as she comes closer. There's only a few things in there that will help, but she's fairly certain that ...
...Mariel's ears perk at the voice. It's not a voice she hears with her ears, though. She looks around, hastily, to see if anyone else did. Standing around is a mistake, though; she almost gets blasted by a stray fireball, causing her to roll toward the closest pillar and use it as cover.
"...?" It's not really a verbal response Mariel makes. But... that voice...
DG: Mariel has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Multi-Black Magic.
GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Ree's Iron Duke for 103 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
"Do you..." Cyre winces, his body might have been restored by Gon's magic, but his stamina is still flagging. You don't wander through the farplane the hard way and not end up... exhausted. And yet...
And yet this is Cyre, so even in the face of a monstrous dragon-like beast wearing Seymour's body like an unsightly blemish drawing upon the whole of the Farplane, he still has the strength to be snippy. "Do you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk? Who gave you the right to decide when we have to give up? Our 'suffering' is ours! You've got no right to it!"
A tail lashes down into the assembled drifters. It nearly smashes directly into his running mouth. Instead, it smashes into the stone that was briefly under his running feet. Cyre surges with desperate speed, tearing his tattered robes from his body and leaving them to be torn to shreds by Seymour's strike.
"That's what you megalomaniacal saviors always get wrong. Some of us live on not just because of what life throws at us, but in spite of it!" Cyre's staff whirls, his weapon catching the swirling magic like a rod in a whirling cyclone of cotton candy. With a grunt, he leaps upward, wind exploding under his heels to launch him into the sky-- and he thrusts. The tip of his staff erupts in a wave of force as he nears the enormous beast, splintering the wood completely but releasing a catastrophic burst of pressure...!
Even as a voice he does not recognize rings out in his head...
"...Some of us are lucky enough to have found something in this world worth living for," Cyre says as he falls back down to earth, muscles straining to keep his body upright. "...And I thank the Guardians every single day for the happiness I've found. But even for those who haven't been so lucky-- it's not anyone's choice whether they live or die but their own! You who have abandoned hope, go disappear on your own if you find so little worth in life!"
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Seymour Guado with Grand Pressure! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action. GS: Seymour Guado's Poison Ward prevents an effect! GS: Seymour Guado solidly guards Cyre H. Lorentz's Grand Pressure for 81 hit points! GS: Quick applied to Cyre H. Lorentz!
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
Rikku's words of disdain with that faint thanks for the current acts he is doing is sobering. The extent in which he pushed for what he did - unforgiveable by any measure - all just to keep hold of an exploitative system where his people enjoyed the byproducts of others' losses.
Seymour's retort to his own statements are met with a scowl. "My daughters do not accept your gift... and neither shall I!" All the retorts in the world do not stop Seymour from channeling the pyreflies into his form and warping it accordingly into something draconic. Gon's already leaping towards him when balls of flame come crashing down. In life, Seymour was one of the greatest Black Mages of his day. In undeath, this hasn't changed.
Flame wreathes and wraps around his form as it meets a chilling inner calm, sweeping and twisting his burning form into a leaping back-hand strike towards the Unsent's draconic head.
He's forced to touch down, where he just misses the chaos of the sweeping tail as the wreathing flames of Fira taper off a slightly more scorched Gon, kneeling to allow Tidus his space to go for his strike.
A moment for some other strange voice filtering through, as he steadies up, stares down the draconic Unsent... and like a blink, lunges again in an upward strike of a clawed gauntlet.
GS: Gon Guado has attacked Seymour Guado with Buer Blink! GS: Gon Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gon Guado has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna returns the nods of those who greet her, and bends an ear to the analysis of various allies, closer and further away, about Ley and the pillars and crystals and so forth. She has the barest sense of what an extraordinary person Mariel is, and gives her a quick smile in passing; she knows that whatever's about to happen, Spira's in the best possible hands. With Marivel and the others at her side, she cannot help but succeed.
She gets her answer, and her expression flickers over that flickering hand, the hand that Tidus mangled before Yuna and Shiva undid Seymour from life entirely. There's something a little bit sad about hearing the speech again; she could have written it herself, from Bevelle, from Gagazet. It isn't that she knows him so very well -- that things are so terribly personal -- though there is some of that. (Well that Rikku brings up Home. They are words that deserve to be said.)
But Yuna's melancholy is born from seeing a twisted but vibrant person turned into a ghost essentially stuck on repeat is a genuinely painful thing. This shade is so much less than Seymour was in life. And she's the one who broke him. 'I did this,' thinks Yuna. 'We won't fail him again,' she had said, outside Guadosalam, to the children who set them their charge.
She should have known better than to hope. The dead know much...
...but they don't answer the questions of the living. They only answer to themselves, and their own regrets.
"No," she replies, as to it being good to see him again. "It is not. I pray that this will be the last time we meet... Seymour."
The dragon he becomes is new, but Seymour revealing his inner monstrosity is not, and she finds herself beyond shock but not beyond awe. What he's proposing -- and doing, in real time -- tapping directly into the Farplane to fuel his own strength? He may not be able to use her to become Sin anymore, but could he become dangerous enough to kill everyone on two worlds?
She can believe it.
The pyrefly-formed tail strikes faster than she can move; it knocks her straight to her knees, even as the room is lit by dozens of fireballs, and a voice she doesn't recognize resounds in her ears.
She gets up immediately, and places a palm above her heart.
"Be healed," she commands, straight and to the point, and it is so. The always-startling warmth of Yuna's affectionate, white magical embrace -- her will to see her friends unharmed, or if she cannot prevent that, then to see them whole again -- explodes outwards from within, rather than sinking into them from without. Gon and Tidus, who especially suffered from Seymour's ministrations, are the beneficiaries of this invocation, and the Guado in particular may not have experienced the power of her feelings before -- at least, not since Luca, perhaps.
"Be careful," she adds to Tidus, pointlessly but without resentment. She of all people has no real right to tell anyone to be careful. She side-eyes Paine and Rikku, and her eyebrows suggest, succinctly, that she'd appreciate it if they watch his recently-flambe'd back.
GS: Yuna has attacked Tidus with Cura! GS: Yuna has attacked Gon Guado with Cura! GS: Yuna has gained 1 Combo! GS: Yuna has entered Stoic Stance! GS: Yuna gains 1 Combo from she Cautious! GS: Yuna has completed her action. GS: Yuna heals Gon Guado! He gains 215 temporary hit points! GS: Hyper and Quick applied to Yuna! GS: Seymour Guado solidly guards Gon Guado's Buer Blink for 50 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Yuna heals Tidus! He gains 215 temporary hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Yuna!
<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.
"Thank you,", Lulu remarks to Margaret as she passes.
Lulu hasn't pressed Paine about what she saw--about what happened. If there is to be anything more to say about that... it won't be now, because Paine and Lulu share this purpose.
She says nothing else to Seymour yet. Not as he speaks of the End, not as he speaks of what he will do. She does witness. She watches, as the creature begins to grow... as the glow comes. Balls of flame form, and Lulu cannot dodge them out of the way, hit by a blast of fire and knocked a step back by its force.
Finally, she does speak up. "...An 'end' is what's necessary. But not to Spira. To you."
Tidus is going in. Lulu lifts her hand, readying a spell, the little doll on her arm staring mutely forward with sword and shield at the ready. But--That voice comes to Lulu's mind, too, even as the sorcery blocks the way of the others to break the crystals. "...Do you hear that?' she inquires of those around her, of Rikku, Yuna and Margaret in particular. "A voice..."
Regardless of the answer, Lulu will not let wondering hold her back. The others are at their work, and so she calls up the power of Earth in her hand, drawing out black magic. It shimmers around her as a field first--and then bursts into being beneath Seymour's twisted form, becoming a great orb of cthonic power that bursts with magic.
GS: Lulu has attacked Seymour Guado with Demi! GS: Lulu has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
Margaret asks if she redid her hair and for some reason that gets her attention with a little smile of cheer despite how dark the moment is, "Oh! Lulu redid my braids. Do you like it?" Before she nods Marivel's way respectfully with (1) nod while waving a hand with a small bounce of her toes.
Yet Seymour speaks, and Rikku - finds her attention on him, still for a moment.
"I don't believe the spirits of the dead are here." She finally replies, "Other than you. But - that doesn't mean the comfort is false, even if I don't want it myself. Some people, seeing the memories of people they've lost reflected, it helps them."
Seymour though, draws upon all the pyreflies of the Farplane, and Rikku gawks as he becomes an immense Draconic creature. "No way." His tail plummets towards her, and Rikku tries to twist at the ankle and roll, but it catches her in an immense arcing blow. Causing her to skip along the base of the farplane with a scream of pain.
Coming up on a knee, she whirls around, a grenade in hand. A look from Yuna, and Rikku gets this silly grin as she glances Paine's way then back to Yuna, and mouths 'okay' before calling out- 'pained'. "Paine and me have got your back Tidus!"
Pulling the pin of her grenade, she tosses it so that it will explode - if she gets her way, right by Seymour's impressive Draconic visage. Hoping it will give him the most fractional of openings.
Lulu speaks of a voice, and Rikku's head cocks, as if maybe she's hearing it too...
GS: Rikku has attacked Seymour Guado with Use: Grenade! GS: Rikku has gained 2 Combo! GS: Rikku has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel Armitage says, "Heh! There you go!" to Mariel.
She hears a voice and--
--huh, Marivel thinks. It's a new mysterious voice in her head. How exciting!
"Though to be totally honest," Marivel adds. "I'm pretty sure we're using the same star. Maybe the mysterious voice is an alien. How exciting."
She pauses a moment and then adds, more quietly, "You all DID hear it too, didn't you? Not just your pal Marivel? Okay good."
Mariel didn't have much to say about Gon there but Marivel can hardly blame her. And as usual--
--Marivel turns into a bat and weaves between fireballs. "NEener neener, Seymour!" She squeaks. "Guess you should SEE MORE about your aim! Nyaaahh!"
DC: Ida Everstead-Rey switches forms to Command Gear Dust Dragoon!
DG: Marivel Armitage has used her Tool Tomato Juice For Grownups toward her party's challenge, Multi-Black Magic.
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
"I do deny it," Margaret retorts. "You lack the right to decide such things. In our arrogance we invaded a realm; in your arrogance, you'd demolish one? Do you know what a treasure you have here!? Even if it is imperfect, whatever artifice it may be," Margaret begins, her voice heating up -
She exhales with some force. Which then turns into a recoil as Seymour's body distorts --
"I'm asking because I want you to keep up with me," she tells Tidus, by way of explanation. And then the tail swings! Margaret leaps up into the air, fatigue of battle having faded with the fresh resurgence of conflict; the tail clips her leg, she tumbles out, and by the time she recovers, Tidus has surged on ahead.
"Tch! After I talk all this mess, he shows me up," Margaret says. "That's how it always is. Alright, then," and she shifts to a more tensed stance, sword held in one hand as the weaker one comes up in a mystical gesture. "Once more, then: With feeling."
"Sea, part; rain, stop; thought, stand behind us! STARLIGHT-" The nebular bloom around her rises immediately, swirling and coalesceing largely but not entirely around her legs, head tilting forwards for the time of one quick breath before surging forwards, vaulting onto the first of the pillars with lightning swiftness.
GS: Margaret has attacked Margaret with Starlight Express! GS: Margaret has completed her action.
DC: Ida Everstead-Rey switches forms to Gentlewoman Adventurer Ida!
GS: Margaret accepts Margaret's Starlight Express for 0 hit points! GS: Burst, Hyper, and Quick applied to Margaret! GS: Seymour Guado partially guards Lulu's Demi for 124 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Seymour Guado receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Seymour Guado enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seymour Guado solidly guards Rikku's Use: Grenade for 71 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Seymour half-freezes at the sight of Jacqueline. That's good enough for her.
"Maybe Chapapanga smiled on me for a moment - but I'll admit, I had a little help." Jacqueline replies, then shakes of her head. "...Hm. Well, it's unfortunate, but... if you won't stand down, then I suppose we will be bringing this to an end today - one way or the other."
Seymour speaks to the others... and then casts his arms wide. It's Jacqueline's turn for surprise, her eyes opening wide as he begins to draw the pyreflies into him.
"Gorging yourselves on the lives of your people... You're sick." She says, shaking her head in disgust. She backpedals as his form shifts - becoming more and more draconic. Her eyes open wide, and once more she shakes her head. She turns her attention, then, to the pillars as they begin to glow. Her eyes narrow.
"...Cyre, keep him busy! Mariel, I'm with you!" Jacqueline calls out. She breaks into a run, then, and as she does she rummages through her bags to draw out a bottle of pale green liquid. With a Mystic touch, its effects spread to those heading for the pillars to promote freedom of movement - a necessity, in the situation like this.
Jacqueline takes a leap over topped debris... and then, there's Seymour's sorcery to contend with. Quickly, she begins to make gestures with her left hand, invoking a Crest Graph with her gauntlet - a Crest of Fray and Muse, in White Sorcery alignment. With how much he is casting and with how powerful he's become, there's no hope of dealing with all of them. But perhaps she can make their situation at least a little bit easier with anti-Sorcery invocations.
...And then, she hears a voice. In her head, rather than aloud.
"Who are you...?" She murmurs to herself. "...Don't worry. We'll do our best..."
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Rapid Remedy toward her party's challenge, Multi-Black Magic.
DC: Ida Everstead-Rey switches forms to Gentlewoman Adventurer Ida!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Seymour becomes a horrific beast, and Pearl feels fear again. The blasts go wild, raining down. And when Mariel starts off, Pearl follows. If Lady Boudicca and so many others are prepared to stand and fight Seymour, then... Someone needs to make sure Mariel can do what only she can.
"Gon Guado!" She shouts, to the older warrior. "You must survive this battle. It is the only way one can learn how to make right." It is a lesson Pearl hasn't learned yet. But this is not a death that would absolve him.
The bursts of magic fly at them, and Pearl slides to ground. There's too much fire and water and ice and lightning. It's overwhelming.
And then there is a voice in her head, and Pearl startles. It's not Leviathan. It's not her own past. She doesn't respond to it loudly, as everyone else does. She's too busy being stunned.
Jay and Marivel seem to be more hated than Pearl- merely trying to assassinate him three times doesn't count anymore. Which means...
"Mariel!" She flicks out with her grapnel, to offer a hand if needed, and to be a shield if not. She aims to rush between the pillars with it, to speed their ascent.
Leo Jr is making his own way. That little bulb can move. And bounce.
DG: Pearl has used her Tool Wrist-Mounted Grapnel toward her party's challenge, Multi-Black Magic.
=============================<* The Broken Seal *>============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Multi-Black Magic *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- There are multiple pillars about the room. Each is stone, but the stone is colored like an element of the Earthpulse energy that it is tied to. Runes are on each side. Mounted within each pillar is a large crystal, also sharing a hue of the element that it matches. In a way, this has a simplicity: break the crystals, save the world. It doesn't quite pan out that way, of course. Seymour floats in the air, massive and horrid. The scales across his body -- ridges, really -- all pulse with power. The power, as sorcery often does, has a color. It looks like lightning, but with blues, reds, and golds that criss-cross his body. They leap off clawed hands. And the group rushing towards the pillars finds blasts of flame, geysers of water, and sundering arcs of lightning rushing for all of them. This might be easy enough -- but they also hear something else. It is not spoken aloud, but it is heard inside of their minds. ...ildren of a distant star. Come again to... ...orld. Hurry... Theirs is not a voice any in the Farplane have ever heard before -- and they struggle, mightily, to speak at all. =Dungeon Conditions: Injure, Secret===========================================
========================<* The Broken Seal - Round 1 *>========================= ========================< Results - Multi-Black Magic >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mariel 0 --(17)--> 17 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pearl 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Wrist-Mounted Grapnel 3 Agility Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacqueline Barber 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Rapid Remedy 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marivel Armitage 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Tomato Juice For Grownups 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Mariel 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Injure(2)|Secret(2) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Mariel 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: Pearl has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* The Broken Seal *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Pillar of Shadow *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The pillar of shadow looms ahead of those handling the pillars. The stone dark granite, with veins of inky black and violet quartz threaded throughout. Violet runes are carved into the sides here and there, while the crystal has a glowing core of deep violet light. The voice comes to them again: ...atter the crystal and brea... ...the Earthpul... As they rush closer, the pillar's trap is revealed. There is a pulse of sheer, utter blackness that explodes from it -- and it comes with a tremble in the floor, before stones jut out. In the middle of a pitched battle, this section of the room is wreathed in darkness greater than even the blackest night. Stray spells, bullets, and pieces of rock shotting up from the floor make crossing hazardous. Finding the crystal in the darkness will be a considerable challenge. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Exhaust=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Boudicca looks back to Ida; she can't smile, in a place like this, but she's glad she's here. She nods to Marivel, in turn. "I am counting on you."
But then Seymour responds, and Boudicca is struck by the mild cruelty of it, as she looks from him to Yuna. "You would say this..?" It's not that Boudicca wasn't expecting the answer, but... Yuna was willing to ask.
Even then, Seymour wouldn't even pause to reconsider... how terrible.
No wonder he keeps being terrible. He would break her shield. The bulwark she presents, again, again --
Strike me until your dark heart is satisfied.
"I am iron," she asserts, though she isn't, not really, not for some time now.
She doesn't have time to finish the rest.
What rises is anathema to her eyes if not her heart; she steps backward, gaze rising up, as that eyeless monstrosity towers. For a moment she does not think of the fact that it is pyreflies, not Malevolence. For a moment --
He creates that tail, and Boudicca flees from it. Ley in the air, it is not so difficult for the wind to be at her heels, springing up -- but his sweep is so vast, it catches her regardless, sends her crashing back to ground.
She billows herself back up, finds her footing again, repeats -- more run-ragged with fear, this time, but the same words.
"I will not fall!"
It's not a favour, but it was never a favour to the aggressor, not really. To stand against that rage, it's --
It has to be about protecting someone.
Boudicca runs, forward, to face this horror, this terror without a sky. "Yuna! We are with you!" She calls, a green glyph about her feet, which charges, releases -- "Thousand Sky!" -- to gallivant a breeze about her, a wyrding path of surety.
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Yuna with Thousand Sky! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Yuna accepts Seraph Boudicca's Thousand Sky for 0 hit points! GS: Pray grants a random effect! Lock State and Surge applied to Yuna! GS: Pray grants a random effect! Quick applied to Seraph Boudicca!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
It's hardly the first time that they have ended up in opposition with one another -- indeed, since the moment the Maester had shown once and for all his true colors, Citan has ever found himself contending with the man's plots.
Whether it's here in Spira, or far further abroad.
He will do this at the expense of Guadosalam, he says.
He will bring about the end, he says. To Spira. To all of Lunar.
To Filgaia.
Citan locks eyes with the Maester, if just for that moment. "...I see. So you are saying that you shall destroy 'everything'." If just for that moment, his hand aches again to hold that which he has foresworn.
Thus, he must go without. "Then I shall stop you here. An end... that... is something that I cannot permit!"
Once more Seymour's form transforms, mutates, taking him into a state far more akin to the Fiends that walk this land than the shape he so typically pretends to wear. It might be a philosophical exercise, for someday: what would the differences be between Unsent and Fiend? What precisely delineates them, or is it just semantic?
But there is no moment for such now. There, in an impossible eyebling, there is a dragonic tail--
And moving when he does, swaying back as it swings near enough to him that he could just about feel every scale there, it misses Citan by only scant inches. Next time, he may not be as fortunate.
Light dims around his form, all the ambient glow throughout this chamber beginning to fail the closer it drifts to his person.
"We must keep him busy!" he shouts, even as a voice, strange and unfamiliar, seems to echo in his mind. "--Who are you?" Were this Filgaia, he might name it as an unknown Guardian. But here?
GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Citan Uzuki with Yamiga! GS: Citan Uzuki has gained 1 Combo! GS: Citan Uzuki has entered Avenger Stance! GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action. GS: Citan Uzuki accepts Citan Uzuki's Yamiga for 0 hit points! GS: Burst applied to Citan Uzuki! GS: Mighty applied to Citan Uzuki!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
'Then I shall redouble my efforts, and be done with you, wretch!'
"Is that any way to greet a lady? We've only just met." Ida's face twists into a look of shock, and she glances aside at Yuna as if to say 'Did you hear that?!' It's gone in the next heartbeat, replaced by righteous rage. "Better beings than you have tried to break me," Ida says. "And stronger, I might add."
But Seymour's words send a chill down her spine nevertheless. Ida saw him possess Issachar, for lack of a better term, and she knows that Fiends can be sculpted--even created--by someone who knows how to manipulate Pyreflies. Seymour is Pyreflies, so it stands to reason that he can sculpt his own form with ease that would make Ida deeply jealous--
But this is all taking a back seat to the surge of adrenaline rushing through her--to her own fear and anger and defiance, and the mixture of half-recognition and raw fury rushing in from Fafnir.
"WATCH OUT!" Ida screams, and the act of screaming feels so slow as she tries to alert Mariel, and those following after. But Seymour doesn't give her the chance to rush in and cover them. That draconic tail lashes out, and Ida leaps into the air, clearing a good two feet before the limb slams into her. It slams into her hips with bone-crushing force, swats her out of the air. Ida hits the cobbles of the plaza and rolls. Her face twists into a snarl, and the armor on her fingers twists into claws. She digs both into the stonework, carving out gouges as she beings herself to a stop.
Ida wobbles unsteadily as she rises--as Hyadean stem tissue threads its way through bone and muscle, wraps around blood vessels to stop internal bleeding. She's going to have terrible bruises, but nothing's broken.
"Not bad," Ida grunts. "But it'll take more than that. Catch." In a single, smooth motion, she whips something from her belt and flings it through the air. "GRENADE!" she shouts--
Ida hears a voice. She feels her chest tightening as she strains to hear it. She thinks, for a moment, that she's hallucinating--
She hears other voices. They hear it, too.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Seymour Guado with Flare Grenade! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado partially guards Ida Everstead-Rey's Flare Grenade for 0 hit points! GS: Blind applied to Seymour Guado!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The grenade, of course, is an inanimate object, and cannot hear the voice. It follows its arc, dictated by the laws of physics and metaphsics, until its fuse burns out and ignites the magnesium and gunpowder.
A flash of blinding white erupts from the tiny cannister, along with a deafening BOOM.
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Mariel does get a little scorched on her dive. It's not... too serious; she is not on fire, though there is a scorch mark on her sleeve and she does momentarily panic when it smoulders a bit, batting at it rapidly. But she's not burning. Thankfully.
The others make it more easily. Pearl uses a grapnel to pull herself closer; Marivel taunts and dives and actually gets away with it (this time); Jay uses a potion to make it a little smoother and then goes on the defensive. None of them get hit directly, though there are some very close calls.
Especially fo Marivel. Taunting is dangerous.
But as the group approaches the pillar, it flashes violet, then black - and then the entire zone around it is shrouded in darkness, the very ground striking with stone shards and shrapnel.
In one way, this doesn't stop Mariel at all. She doesn't need her eyes to tell where the pillar is, *and* she can feel the churning of the earth without actually looking at it. But in another way, it absolutely does; she can't see the precise location of shards, nor can she see anything in her bag. She has to do it by feel, and her book certainly won't help her here.
"I do hear it," she says to Marivel, because the response is enough to tell the others where she still is. A hesitant moment, and she starts to hop across the broken ground, trusting to feel rather than sight. Break the Earthpulse...
...part of that feels wrong. She doesn't want to damage such a wellspring, only smooth out the knots that Seymour has made in it. She opens herself up further, feeling around her with a sense that humans don't have a word for, both listening and sensing the energy of the earth.
And everything else. You better believe that all that magic over there is a constant distraction - all elemental evocations are, by definition, unbalanced, which is why Mariel doesn't use them even though she understands Crest theory just fine.
Hopefully it's actually holding Seymour at bey, though...
<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.
Yuna cherishes all of her Guardians, even her newest. To protect her, they have to protect one another. But Tidus has a unique privilege among them. To protect his pretty blond head is to protect Yuna's dating life. And how many comforts has Yuna left?
So, with Rikku taking the liberty of announcing their intentions, Paine lines up her shot. And when Tidus is ready to move again, she begins to fire, unhastily, spacing her shots so that they keep pinging against dragon-armor at distracting moments. Margaret will benefit as well, as she races the blitzball player into battle.
"Lulu."
BLAM.
"He's pretty big. I don't know if swords and bullets will--"
BLAM.
"Be quite the right scale."
BLAM. BLAM.
With a clatter, Paine begins to reload. Of course, she could have addressed Yuna. But she is not in the habit of asking for miracles. They arrive when they are ready.
GS: Paine has attacked Seymour Guado with Covering Fire! GS: Paine has gained 1 Combo! GS: Paine has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado solidly guards Paine's Covering Fire for 10 hit points! GS: Weaken applied to Seymour Guado! GS: Cover applied to Paine!
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
Seymour rises into the air -- and rains flame, lightning, and water down on the four going for the crystals. He might do more, but...
Tidus's blade cuts down into the eyeless, dracoic head. It has scales and hide, with ridges along it, but like all of Seymour's other forms -- ah, well. Once the flesh gives way, pyreflies all flutter away from the blade's bite.
"You were so determined to grant your father a long reprieve from death, were you not?" he asks Tidus. "In killing Yunalesca..."
Ree's pistol shots slam into his side. Pyreflies explode out from where they hit. "But there is far more than your suffering. Than any one person's! There is a world of suffering to cure--no, two." Seymour smiles at Cyre with two mouths. "And death shall be the release from this! Death, wrought by destruction itself -- by me!"
His staff hits. Wind explodes off it, blasting Seymour backward with the sheer impact of the wind. Then Gon comes rushing in, a scowl that would have made Seymour flinch, in life. Did make him flinch, a few times, when he was youger. The clawed gauntlet slams into Seymour -- but into a clawed draconic hand, grabbing the punch and hurtling aside.
"Ever am I tasked... with ending the old men who would say what Guadosalam is! And not what it should be!" Seymour shouts. "DUST!"
Then, he looks at Yuna. "I am sorry to hear that, Lady Yuna. But yes, I think it will be," he says. "I--" He looks at Marivel. "Your end will come, Armitage!"
Then, he is struck from below. A blast of gravitational force -- as Earth magic unleashes under him, slamming him up brutally. "Nngh... no, not to me! Not yet!"
Rikku's grenade explodes near his second, larger, eyeless head. The head is blasted back with a spray of pyreflies. "You will all FALL!" he answers Boudicca, with a bellow -- and glares after Jacqueline, too.
But Ida's grenade flashes in front of him, and he jerks his head away. "Bravado? I am unmoved!" he answers her.
He is moved when Paine fires. Her machina rifle shot slams his head aside -- another couple shots strike, sending up pyreflies. "Another Guardian, is it?" he asks Paine. "Too many of you interlopers... so be it!"
The great, draconic wings beat. Then, a blast of frigid wind explodes out. Blades of ice form -- and then rain down over those present. Where they strike the floor, they make a patina of slippery ice when they shatter. Where they strike, they tear and cut -- and the cold cuts to the bone.
GS: Seymour Guado spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Tidus with Frost! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Ree with Frost! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Gon Guado with Frost! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Yuna with Frost! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lulu with Frost! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Rikku with Frost! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Margaret with Frost! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Frost! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Citan Uzuki with Frost! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Frost! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Paine with Frost! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Rikku suffers a terrible blow from Seymour Guado's Frost for 257 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rikku gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Rikku!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
"I cannot not make sense of this voice." Pearl concedes. There's too much missing. When the pillar suddenly is encompassed in darkness, Pearl feels...
Familiar. Uncomfortable, but a place she knows. She knows what to do in darkness.
It just that it doesn't help anyone else. Unfortunately... The time demands someone do something. She cannot feel the earthpulse... But she she can feel the darkness.r
The magic surrounds her and suddenly her body is completely engulfed in the magical darkness- as are her eyes. A Shadow Dragon trick, and a fairly advanced one. She can see, but she cannot be seen.
That doesn't stop her being followed, however, as Leo Jr trundles behind her. That causes a pause, then a smile. "...Can the others see you?"
Leo Jr gives a thoughtful 'Pefuuu...' before focusing and then... A light blue flower grows from his head. And glows faintly, like something from the flowers in Macalania. It's not much, but it's a little light, and a guide.
"Follow him, if you need." Pearl's voice is masked and distant- It's almost hard to confirm it's her.
DG: Pearl has used her Tool Leo Jr toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Shadow.
GS: CRITICAL! Lulu takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Frost for 238 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lulu gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Lulu! GS: Lulu activates Guard bonus and Arcane Font! GS: Yuna suffers a terrible blow from Seymour Guado's Frost for 216 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yuna gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Yuna! GS: Yuna activates Arcane Font and Gleam! GS: Ree solidly guards Seymour Guado's Frost for 85 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ree gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Ree! GS: Ree activates Guard bonus! GS: Tidus takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Frost for 205 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Tidus! GS: Tidus activates Evade bonus! GS: Paine suffers a terrible blow from Seymour Guado's Frost for 200 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Paine! GS: Paine activates Sufferer! GS: Citan Uzuki takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Frost for 182 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Citan Uzuki! GS: CRITICAL! Margaret takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Frost for 249 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Margaret! GS: Margaret activates Arcane Font! GS: Gon Guado solidly guards Seymour Guado's Frost for 84 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gon Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Gon Guado! GS: Gon Guado activates Guard bonus! GS: Seraph Boudicca suffers a terrible blow from Seymour Guado's Frost for 202 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Seraph Boudicca! GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
They all manage to survive the first volley at least.
"Is everyone alright?" Jacqueline asks, as they all make it close to one of the pillars. ...It's almost pretty, really. It's a shame it's being used for such foul ends. And then, the voice speaks out again.
"'Shatter the crystal'... I guess it's the only thing we have to go on..." Jacqueline considers. She's wary of the voice, of course... but right now, it doesn't seem against them.
Before she can say anything else, a deep darkness explodes from it, engulfing all of them. She feels more than sees the shifting of stone that follows, no doubt obfuscating the path ahead.
"...Try to keep talking, everyone." Jacqueline says. "We don't want to lose ourselves in this darkness..."
Not that it's easy to hear each other over the sounds of the battle raging not too far away - the clash of blades, spells, and souls for the fate of the world...
In the darkness she can't see Seymour's glare - but she can definitely still feel it, piercing into her. It sends a shudder down her back. ...Hopefully the others can keep him busy.
"A light spell... a light spell... I think I still have one of those." She murmurs to herself, shuffling through her deck of Crest Graphs in the darkness. ...But in the end, she doesn't need it! Up ahead, a light emits from a light blue flower.
"Oh! You're a friendly little fellow, aren't you? Thank you." Jacqueline beams gratefully at Leo Jr., before she turns to face the voice accompanying it. "And thank you. This will be a big help..."
Now that she can see what she's doing a little better, she feels comfortable breaking out her Sorcery. She gestures with her left hand, drawing upon spells of earth to try and exert her will over the stone ahead of them, to force it to smooth out and provide thems afer passage.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Shadow.
GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Frost for 225 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey activates Guard bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
Tidus flashes a grin over his shoulder at Yuna when she bids him be careful. 'Aren't I always?' she might just hear him say in that wry, joking way he does. But he's still in the middle of a charge, and there's no time for words. That look will be enough as her healing magic pours over him, caressing those burns away as he makes his move.
A good thing, too. Ice on burns is bad, bad news. When that frigid wind slams into him, he's *merely* knocked hard to the unrelenting ground, rather than given instant hypothermia. Where a few burns *do* remain, though, they sear with bitter, unrelenting cold from the shards of ice that erupt around him, ironically smoldering like an inverted coal.
"Ugh," he utters, not just from the attack but from Seymour's talk of his old man. "Don't try to twist the facts, Seymour. You're just looking for a justification to make your pain everyone else's problem!"
Which doesn't mean he's *not* out to put Jecht out of his misery. Maybe both of them are right.
But Paine's giving him cover fire, and Lulu's unleashing more of her spells, and Rikku's hurling a grenade to rock out an explosion that gets Tidus scrambling back to his feet, and Margaret offers some self-sass that gets a laugh out of him. "Don't try to mess with the star of the Zanarkand Abes!" he calls her way. "Don't worry about it, though. There's enough of *this* creep--" He glares at Seymour. "To go around!!"
Three rings of technical might circle around his blade. He shifts his weight and uses the ice slicks to his advantage, skating on sneakers to zip in close to Seymour's underside and *swing* upwards at the arch. As he does, that disruptive force looses itself off his sword and up towards the Unsent, potentially giving him the start of a really bad rest of his day.
GS: Tidus has attacked Seymour Guado with Triple Foul! GS: Tidus takes 28 damage from Poison! GS: Tidus has completed his action. GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Tidus's Triple Foul for 66 hit points! GS: Disease and Disrupt applied to Seymour Guado! GS: Seymour Guado enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seymour Guado loses 0 THP from Disease!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
That voice, still.
Marivel closes her eyes for a moment. And when she opesn them, well--
--Now there's DARKNESS.
But Marivel is still in bat form. She doesn't need her eyes to see even in her humanoid form. As a BAT, well, you've heard the expression 'blind as a bat'. They have their own way of getting along.
"Follow me!" Marivel shouts, flapping rather directly towards the crystal. Eventually, Marivel touches down near it. YEah this is the sort of thing MArivel can just do.
"It's over here!" She says. "Sounds like we have to shatter the crystal so aim your cool and snazzy superpowers over here!"
She'll, like, move at the last moment so she doesn't become a Batkebob.
"Don't worry, I can 'see' just perfectly, Kya ha ha ha ha!"
She quietly pats out a small fire smoldering off her out with a wing.
DG: Marivel Armitage has used her Tool Wisdom of the Crimson Nobles by M. Armitage toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Shadow. DG: Mariel has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Shadow.
<Pose Tracker> Ree has posed.
"Once again Seymour proclaims death to the -- no, two -- worlds. But he didn't know humans and their ilk very well if he expected them to just roll over and accept it! Their resistance is made evident in injuries that make him bleed pyreflies. Ree wonders how much damage is actually being done -- if pyreflies were light, wouldn't blows just go right through them? She shudders and hopes not. He unleashes an Ice attack, but Ice is her element -- the runes along her arms and face activate and glow, mitigating some of the damage, ameliorating the bitter, bitter cold. She grins evilly -- a smile-grimace made even more disturbing by her recently-missing teeth -- and unleashes a stream of profanity so foul it attracts immediate attention. Insulting Seymours progenitors right down to the first generation, she waves her arms and fingers in an eldritch way --
And the Symbological practicioners in the area might just realize the profanity isn't just cursing, it's her verbal components. Of this particular spell, anyway."
GS: Ree has attacked Seymour Guado with Blue Streak! GS: Ree has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ree takes 30 damage from Poison! GS: Ree has completed her action.
=============================<* The Broken Seal *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Pillar of Shadow *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The pillar of shadow looms ahead of those handling the pillars. The stone dark granite, with veins of inky black and violet quartz threaded throughout. Violet runes are carved into the sides here and there, while the crystal has a glowing core of deep violet light. The voice comes to them again: ...atter the crystal and brea... ...the Earthpul... As they rush closer, the pillar's trap is revealed. There is a pulse of sheer, utter blackness that explodes from it -- and it comes with a tremble in the floor, before stones jut out. In the middle of a pitched battle, this section of the room is wreathed in darkness greater than even the blackest night. Stray spells, bullets, and pieces of rock shotting up from the floor make crossing hazardous. Finding the crystal in the darkness will be a considerable challenge. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Exhaust=========================================
========================<* The Broken Seal - Round 2 *>========================= =======================< Results - The Pillar of Shadow >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mariel 17 --(25)--> 42 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pearl 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Leo Jr 3 Wits Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacqueline Barber 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marivel Armitage 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Wisdom of the Crimson Nobles by M. 3 Wits Effects: Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Mariel 20 --(30)--> 50 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Secret(1)|Stupify(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Mariel has passed this challenge! The party gained 30 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.
GS: Seymour Guado suffers a terrible blow from Ree's Blue Streak for 120 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
Seymour sees the darkness wreathing one crystal. Good, he thinks; the Guado prepared their traps for the pillars well. He doubts he could fend them off all of them.
Ree looses profanity -- and the resulting spell explodes out. A blast of energy slams into Seymour -- and through. He stumbles, his body ragged; pyreflies waft away from him, too.
He snarls down at Tidus -- as the blitzer skates along the ice, and then swings up. His underbelly is cut into (and his draconic form, he indeed has one); pyreflies shoot out in a line, after his sword tears through. "Gh--run away from it if you like! You have destroyed the method by which you may kill Sin! You--GAAAH!"
His body explodes apart into pyreflies.
BGM: Final Fantasy X - Victory Theme - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i85iMapeTfs
And then the pyreflies swirl from under the door. They come together, reforming, and Seymour explodes into terrific existence once more, draconic tail swinging and second head roaring. There is not one wound upon him. "See the futility of your actions!" he shouts. "Strike me down all you wish -- I shall return, without delay!"
DG: Marivel Armitage has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* The Broken Seal *>============================= ====================<* CHALLENGE - The Pillar of Water *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The group rushes to the pillar of water. The stone here has been worked to look like an ocean spray, strands of water that break through the crest. There are runes engraved on the strands of stone, each of them glowing a faint blue. In the center is a crystal, softly emitting a pale blue light. The voice comes to them again: ...atter the crystal and brea... ...the Earthpul... As they get close, water begins rise up, flowing along the strands. It launches into the air -- and those strands spin and weave together, until they assume a form: a large horse, made entirely of water, and sending a spray of droplets from its foamy mane when it moves its head. It stands between them and the pillar, with its crystal. And then it gallops forward, to do battle! =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Exhaust===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
(Previously, Margaret had answered the replies with a passing wink and smile, because she was on her way to hit someone with her sword.)
Wind whips at Margaret as she begins to vault and leap. There is agility in her motion as well as speed; she could have made this run without her magicks, if perhaps not quite as adroitly as a blitzballer in peak, nay, *perfect* condition. But she didn't, so that's what's going on.
The wind is not mere breeze, but something colder, biting. Margaret, who has a meaningful amount of exposed skin, feels her ears throb and her arms yelp and tightens herself, tensing her teeth as she pushes forwards in the face of shot and bomb and more. She leaps abruptly forwards -- with enough velocity that she ends up simply sort of -- bobbling up and down in the face of the wind, landing in a crouch and bringing up her wounded arm in a bracing stance.
Then -- "Hah!" Margaret says in victory. She pumps a hand in the air and is IMMEDIATELY AND DECISIVELY shown what-for as Seymour reconstitutes himself. Incredulous, Margaret says, "What manner of devilry is THIS? Don't the Unsent fall apart? Never mind! Hyah--"
Forward she leaps, and her blade flashes silver-white with impossible swiftness as she makes her pass, carving a good half-dozen strikes and thrusts into Seymour's side and -- second neck as she comes down to land in a skid, twisting on the ice to face herself again and brace for a second dashing pass.
GS: Formation! Margaret has attacked Seymour Guado with Manual of Arms! GS: Margaret takes 31 damage from Poison! GS: Margaret has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
Some of Seymour's words in the wake of the follow-up strike on Gon's part is chilling. Ending the old men who would say what Guadosalam is. And not what it should be...
It is an epiphany in that moment. Seymour, in his tenure as Maester, ever advocated bolder and more overt risky action that put so many Guado lives to an end. It was deemed a necessity, for it was always their way to keep their affairs to themselves. To follow their elders with blind loyalty, their vision clear for the way forward for their people.
It is difficult for an older Guado like himself to reconcile that idea, and his own complicity.
"You would say you would bring peace, but those words... they are of resentment for everything in which you were entrusted!" Gon isn't given much more time to shout back, as draconic wings beat and dispense immense blades of ice along the arctic winds. Gon crosses his arms, and with another dose of 'prayer,' fiery warmth surrounds him protectively as much of the ice surrounding him melts to... cold, uncomfortable splashes of water at injurious amounts of pressure, preventing most of the grievous punctures and other ghastly injuries.
Seymour disappears... and reforms again. This may remind some people of the trick Gon himself pulled beyond the caves of Mount Gagazet, as a combination of his masterful White Magic use and the Guado art of pyrefly weaving.
"Ah," Gon's stride breaks for a hot moment. "Is this why you burrowed so deep into Guadosalam...!" It's horrifying to think of. He doesn't think he could siphon any of the pyrefly streams into weaker Fiends. He asides to Margaret. "There are those among our kind skilled in weaving pyreflies into Fiends anew - and the number at his disposal in which to maintain his form..."
He seems stricken by fear, in the moment, just from the logistics of it... exhales, steadies himself, and chants anew. "Time and time again, you have humiliated me," an aside to everyone, "upended everything I knew, and found some way, some new idea, to undo everything."
The warmth - the healing aspects of Fire by Althena's Blessing - continues to radiate from around him as it is forced through Spiran spellcasting discipline into the shapes and forms all of its expression of White Magic undergoes.
"There is a reason the Fiends are so insistent upon delaying their journey to the Farplane, Seymour," he says as he extends this warmth - in the form of sparkling, rejuvanating energies at its near-peak.
To the ever-stoic Guardian that is Lulu, to one of the ever-wronged survivors of his fear-based decision to strike down their people, to the kindly spirit of another land who saw to the safety of his children, to a fire-forged adventurer who made him into an errand boy at the party before Seymour's death, to the Black Pearl who he had grudgingly opened a dialogue with upon the seas...
...And to, whether he realizes it or not, she who embodies the collective will of Spira to live past the endless cycle that has plagued them so.
"Curaga!" He unleashes the gathered energies into a potent wave of healing - a preview of how many lives could have been saved at Bevelle had he not retreated from there alongside Seymour and the others loyal to him.
"...Whatever new frustrations you bring in store today," to the rest, "I would ask you render them unto Seymour!" As if counting on their new ways of thinking, their new ideas, to find some way to undo all of this.
GS: Gon Guado has activated a Force Action! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Lulu with Curaga! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Rikku with Curaga! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Curaga! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Curaga! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Margaret with Curaga! GS: Gon Guado has attacked Yuna with Curaga! GS: Gon Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gon Guado takes 30 damage from Poison! GS: Gon Guado has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
It's clear that something is coming from the transfigured Seymour, as the draconing being draws back. But what? And from what angle?
There is seemingly nowhere to maneuver, not in this space. Holding his ground instead, Citan awaits what is to come.
This was a mistake, he is given to reflect, as the world around him bursts into a wintery blast: even preparing for whatever had been about to come had been insufficient. He stumbles as the icy wind buffets him back; his right foot finds an icy patch. He falls.
"This is... not good," he remarks, slowly levering himself up onto his hands. He rises to his feet soon after, having found himself cast into the vicinity of a few young ladies he has come to know...
...without ever formally introducing himself.
He offers Lulu a hand up. "My, this is quite the situation we have found ourselves in once again!" Citan says, smiling in spite of the circumstances. "Now, I do not think that I have introduced myself. Doctor Citan Uzuki. And yourself? I am of course familiar with Miss Yuna and Tidus." If one by reputation and the other by encounter.
Tidus had said to not call him Mister Tidus.
There's enough time for this to pass, then no more -- with a flurry of blows, Seymour is again struck down and reduced to Pyreflies.
There is not even a moment to celebrate. Another moment, and he has reconstituted, returning to the stage. "...And it appears we are not yet finished! All of you, be wary! He will not go quietly!" He rounds away from the draconic Seymour, taking this opportunity to sweep the room -- the elements of the ritual taking place here -- as he slips low with his intent and will.
It cannot be seen. It can barely be felt: it is little more than the moisture carried in the air as it radiates from him, adrift as it seeks his targets. That blast before had carried winter's grasp with it: he knows well that ice is not so easily vanquished. Thus, through his own manipulation of the same element...
...perhaps balance can be again attained.
GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Rikku with Renki! GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Lulu with Renki! GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Yuna with Renki! GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Margaret with Renki! GS: Citan Uzuki takes 32 damage from Poison! GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action. GS: Gon Guado heals Rikku! She gains 300 temporary hit points! GS: Rikku accepts Citan Uzuki's Renki for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Poison removed! GS: Gon Guado heals Lulu! She gains 300 temporary hit points! GS: Lulu accepts Citan Uzuki's Renki for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Poison removed! GS: Gon Guado heals Margaret! She gains 300 temporary hit points! GS: Margaret accepts Citan Uzuki's Renki for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Poison removed!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Seymour bellows -- they'll all fall. Boudicca can't deny she's shaken, as much as it's less terrifying, to hear something speak in the form of a dragon. (Dragons, you understand, do not think, let alone speak.) "But not today!" She cries, she insists, and --
Well, it's a particular comment, from a woman who is functionally immortal. (It's not quite like that, she's come to understand, but it's closer to that than mortality.) The passage of death, itself, is not a thing she will rail against. Rather --
"It is not their time!" Boudicca yells, her chill anger heating up.
Death, itself, is not the tragedy.
To Boudicca, the tragedy is death before its time.
It's a tragedy, really, that the wind would betray her like this. Boudicca tries to leap away from those icicles, only to be stuck by something chilling-cold. It is not the piercing which hurts her, truly -- it is the cold. The cold of Seymour's logic, the callousness of his determination, his...
She is stuck to the ground, for a moment, and at least she does not slip.
Lying here she hears it, that distant echo, a voice she has not heard. The Earthpulse..?
"Mariel," Boudicca murmurs, quietly, "... I believe in you."
She doesn't know what those echoes mean -- she can't shift her attention to solve the puzzle. What she can do is get between Seymour and the solving. What they can do --
"Ida!" Boudicca cries, as she bullies herself up, shoves the ice off of herself. (It is a bloodless wound; Boudicca is conscientious of mortal concerns.) "Spark flame!"
Unlike Yuna, when Boudicca snaps her fingers, it is a gesture which invites flame. She is flint and steel, and she stokes Moor Gault's fires inside Ida, the hearthfire-warmth billowing out -- reaching the Shaman, Cyre, and the Guardian, Paine, as well.
It's warmth which helps her up out of the cold, even if the ground is quite a bit more slippery, underneath her. Boudicca neatly solves this problem with a quick Float spell, the sort of thing she doesn't really have to think about.
She's bouncing, a little, up and down on the buffeting breeze, as Seymour screams.
"Is he..?" Hope is reedy on her voice, venturing, daring; she looks to Ree, a human she knows not. "A fine strike!" She calls, encouraging, encouraged. She turns to Yuna -- Boudicca would ask for a miracle --
except,
there are so many pyreflies.
The air stills around her, all breeze stoppered; her silks fall, her hair falls, for a moment she sinks to ground, as well. "Seymour..." Boudicca trails, as he is risen, again.
She shakes her head, and rises to a float, again.
"Gon!" Boudicca calls, looking to him. This isn't the first time Boudicca has seen a Fiend rise again, like this. "I know what you have done, but we need you!"
His answer is Curaga; it steadies her, too.
"Thank you," she replies, more quietly.
... it isn't forgiveness, but it's something.
GS: Seraph Boudicca has activated a Force Action! GS: Gon Guado heals Seraph Boudicca! She gains 300 temporary hit points! GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Sufferer! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Smoke Sigil! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Smoke Sigil! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Paine with Smoke Sigil! GS: Seraph Boudicca takes 25 damage from Poison! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Yuna accepts Citan Uzuki's Renki for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Poison removed! GS: Gon Guado heals Yuna! She gains 300 temporary hit points! GS: Yuna enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Paine accepts Seraph Boudicca's Smoke Sigil for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Hyper applied to Paine! GS: Paine activates Seraph Boudicca's Reload! and Sufferer! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz accepts Seraph Boudicca's Smoke Sigil for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Hyper applied to Cyre H. Lorentz! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz activates Seraph Boudicca's Reload!!
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Boudicca is with Yuna. The Seraph's blessing is no small thing, and the wind that stirs her from top to toe -- in raiment designed to flow with even the smallest movements, skirts and sleeves and beaded earring, such a humble thing to have come so far from the Isle of Besaid -- is a vivid reminder of what they're here to protect.
The world, and one another, both. Theirs is a charge that risks feeling smaller the larger it becomes. But the opposite is true also.
"We are with each other, Lady Boudicca," she agrees, her voice ringing with warm notes of gratitude, carried back to the Seraph on her same conjured breeze, as it wraps around her, then returns.
Ida is also with Yuna and Yuna catches that side-eye and gives the tiniest wingtip shrug with the bare tops of her shoulderblades. I know, right? It is in hindsight a little bit funny that anyone ever believed the two of them would make a good match. Seymour in life could do a pretty good impression of respectable... but respect? He never was much for obeisance, while Yuna, of course, has it ingrained into every pore even after her entire civilization declared her an apostate and sentenced her to death. Though she's trying to do better. Celebrate, team, that she hasn't yet apologized to Seymour today. Or to anyone else for that matter.
But she did ask, to some peoples' surprise. She thinks about the one who isn't here -- who cannot be here, by choice and by charge and by circumstance. THEY would have approved. Never let anything stop you from asking questions, they chided her. You'll never know if you don't ask.
Good advice. And not their only advice.
Gazing up at the bizarre sight of Seymour, rent and overwrought from a lifetime of abandonment, suffering, misery, and okay, also entitlement -- Yuna searches her feelings, and she knows what feels right. Being so close to the Farplane has advantages and disadvantages for him; risks and rewards.
But he's not the only one for whom it is that way.
It is not Shiva, though, who wields the power of ice today. To say that Yuna deliberately steps into it would be a lie; to say that she's slower in getting out of the way than she should have been, due to some lingering feelings about what happened at Macalania Temple -- and a certain, deeply-felt sense that she might deserve this -- would not be. One blade pierces her in the shoulder, bare inches from her heart; instead of shattering as Diamond Dust might have, it is absorbed into her and leaves its chill behindd. Her teeth chatter in the aftermath, hoarfrost flaking off her body as she moves it; for a moment she feels sluggish, stupid, numb even to thought.
Seymour's total destruction and immediate rebirth, thus, is met at first with stunned silence.
And then she sees Mariel's group disappearing into darkness around one of the crystals.
Yes, she thinks, the gears turning again. That's what's important. We have to buy them time. And I need time to do so.
And Gon and Citan answer her need -- by the time the Guado's words and white magic have poured through her, and the doctor's friendly manipulation of water -- she feels much better.
"I will," she promises Gon; "Pleased to meet you," she greets Citan -- EVEN NOW, in all this, seizing a moment for pleasantries.
It is rare for Yuna to cast a spell only on herself, but she does now. She discovered this ability after one too many duels against Seymour's mystic might; it is KIND of her favorite thing to do to him, and he SO totally deserves it every time. Her hands come up, and fold across herself in a warding gesture; the light that gathers at her fingertips is not white but silver, a silver that briefly and beautifully reflects her own pinks and blues before it settles across her, invisible and deadly.
And now, for better or for worse, she feels nigh on invincible.
Paine or Lulu is going to yell at her for this, but...
...they've got to distract him even more firmly.
And like so many things in the two worlds, the key lies in the past. The past is present. And, recently, they had the rare privilege to be present for the past.
"SEYMOUR," she screams into the chaos of the battlefield, "I SAW YOU AND YOUR MOTHER IN ZANARKAND."
Ouch.
Yuna looks him dead in his eyeless face, and then her gaze slides down, to the man's head -- the head, in the dragon's chest, which so obviously looks like a grieving boy's to her now -- and her expression contains an unbearable amount of pity.
"What she did to you was cruel. It was wrong," she says with great composure and a terribly penetrating compassion, into the brief silence her outburst created. "But it doesn't make you right."
She spreads her arms wide... in the first gesture of a summoning posture.
<Pose Tracker> Ree has posed.
Ree watches aghast as Seymour's monstrous draconic form re-solidifies...without a scratch on him. ""Strike me down all you wish!" he gloats. "I shall return, without delay!"
She believes him. This may well be a futile battle. She elects to fortify herself for the upcoming rounds. Which might turn out to be endless. No way she'd survive those...
He's got to have a weakness. Unfortunately she has no idea which one! Perhaps one of her companions might know? She's so busy brooding that Boudicca's compliment hardly registers...
GS: Ree has attacked Ree with Hedging Her Bets! GS: Ree has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ree takes 25 damage from Poison! GS: Ree has completed her action. GS: Yuna enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Yuna has attacked Yuna with Reflect! GS: Yuna enters a Counter stance! GS: Yuna has gained 1 Combo! GS: Yuna has entered Stance! GS: Yuna gains 1 Combo from she Cautious! GS: Yuna enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Yuna has completed her action. GS: Ree accepts Ree's Hedging Her Bets for 0 hit points! GS: Pray grants a random effect! Amplify, Regen, and Surge applied to Ree! GS: Yuna heals Yuna! She gains 120 temporary hit points! GS: Gon Guado heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 300 temporary hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Seraph Boudicca's Smoke Sigil for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Hyper applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey activates Seraph Boudicca's Reload!! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
"So what if there's a world full of suffering!?" Cyre shouts back at the dragon in the sky. A wave of frost washes across the world-- but it does not find Cyre where he should be. Again, the shaman races across the landscape, globes of wind whirling at his feet as he weaves a tight dance through the frigid onslaught. "That does not give you-- or anyone-- the right to choose when or how it ends! Every single one of those people suffering, they're still alive, they still struggle to live. For one reason or another, they've all chosen life over death! And you--!"
The thing shatters. But then, almost instantaneously, it reforms. They're getting nowhere like this. Not unless they can tear through the source of his power.
But there's at least one good thing about this situation. One small, radiant pinprick of light in the overwhelming dark...
Is that this means they can punch the guy in the face repeatedly to death.
"--You've got no right to tell them that it was all for nothing! To stomp on all their pain! That's theirs! This world is absolutely, undeniably one of suffering-- of meetings and partings and endless hardship and pain, but it's also one of hope..." A wave of warmth washes over him. Moor Gault, he recognizes. The guardians are here, amidst all these roiling pyreflies.
Which means...
The shaman's eyes blaze. Wind gathers, building in his throat. "Seymour Guado, one who spits in the face of the Guardian Lords will never decide Filgaia's fate," he inhales deeply, even as Margaret leaps to attack...
And finds Cyre there, for a split second, leaping Seymour's draconic form. As she passes, delivering her first strike, Cyre takes the opportunity to launch his own...
And roars, point blank, unleashing a devastating shockwave to set the massive Unsent off-balance for Margaret's follow-up blow...!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: Formation! Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Seymour Guado with Howling Gale! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.
"Right." Lulu nods to Paine. "Big I can do." She has the same concern; swords and bullets can go a long way, but something of this scale... She needs to try to match it. This is part of her job.
She notices Boudicca's support--protecting someone, protecting Yuna. She does not acknowledge her in the moment, but she sees it. And she focuses on Seymour. Not in time, of course. The blades of ice form, and Lulu takes a deep cut, the ice slashing into her side, and the only reason it does not bleed more is that the wound instantly freezes over. She stumbles back, under the force of it. It could have been lethal, but for the protection of her bangle's magical field...
"You--"
Seymour falls, and explodes back into being. Lulu is still down for the moment--but Fire begins to expand around her, a magical force that begins to heal that wound. When Citan speaks to her, she looks up--and is in a place where she can take that hand. "So it is," she agrees, eyeing Yuna and Tidus ahead, and the othere Guardians, before looking back to Citan. "Lulu. Guardian."
She feels a change in elemental energy, thanks to Citan's efforts--and she is sure it comes from him, somehow. Standing back to back with the Good Doctor, Lulu draws herself back up to her full height.
And she does not yell at Yuna for what she is doing. Frankly... she approves, because it's true, and because it makes her realize something as well. But, wryly, she notes that she will have to distract him even more, yes.
Lulu calls out, "Yes, an end to you! Here, and now!"
"Wallowing in suffering, refusing to see the future for a past you can't let go of. It's foolish... and sad. So no matter how many times you rise, we'll destroy you! Over and over, if that's what it takes!"
And it will. Lulu can see it. With this many Pyreflies, force alone will not be enough. ...But it is no less necessary for it. If only to buy Yuna time to buy the others time...
Lulu sets down her doll, and the Onion Knight strides forth, taking up position in front of her and raising its sword and shield. Lulu's hands both stretch to the sky as she calls upon the energy around her--the energy of the world, the energy she has known since childhood. She calls, now... upon lightning.
Crackling above as if from a stormy sky, the thunder is the first sound--and then blasts and blasts of lightning arc down in a gigantic column straight overtop Seymour's draconic form.
"...And I can't say I won't enjoy doing it."
GS: Lulu has activated a Force Action! GS: Lulu has attacked Seymour Guado with Thundaga! GS: Lulu has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado solidly guards Margaret's Manual of Arms for 56 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado suffers a terrible blow from Cyre H. Lorentz's Howling Gale for 274 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Pearl doesn't even need Marivel's assistance to move forward, though even with a glowing Leo Jr helping you avoid getting lost, Marivel's shouts are able to help them find the target--with Jay's own magicks helping make the way forward even easier. Mariel can feel the earth moving thanks to Jay's manipulations.
One shattered crystal later and the quartet find their vision clearing--a new pillar awaiting them, with a similar request from that mysterious voice!
This time ti's a water crystal, strands of water forming a ... KELPIE?! Oh shit!!
It shakes its head, sending water spraying before charging towards our heroes, intending to trample them!
Marivel BAMFS back into her humanoid form and draws out her microphone.
She hums into it, swaying slightly to the beat and the Kelpie finds its movements slow and then gradually come to a stop altogether. But it isn't wholly tamed. It writhes against whatever sorceric chains that are binding it, hissing at those that would dare shatter the crystals.
Marivel, while she is humming, turns to look towards Lulu.
She looks directly at Lulu as she summons an Onion Knight, notable from being the SECOND from a famous saga. Indeed, much like Marivel...!!?
But it is what she says last that matters most.
And I can't say I won't enjoy doing it.
Marivel raises her head--
--and then nods at Lulu.
She nods at Lulu three times.
DG: Marivel Armitage has used her Tool My Mike toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Water.
GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado suffers a terrible blow from Lulu's Thundaga for 279 hit points! GS: Disrupt and Jam applied to Seymour Guado!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Seymour is Unsent--a ghost, and one that plays by Spira's strange rules. Ida wouldn't be surprised if he has other ways of seeing, but when the grenade cooks off, and that draconic form flinches away, she realizes she's at least hindered him. That momentary triumph flickers like a guttering flame as a chill wind whips through the cavern, and shards of ice rain down from Seymour's wings. One of them slams into the ground at Ida's right, shatters. Icy fragments pepper her leg, stinging--but none draw blood. Ida rushes forward, but the moisture's frozen right out of the air, and her foot skids just a bit as she sets it down. It's enough to throw her off.
The next icicle comes in high, strikes her in the shoulder. There's a hideous scraping noise, and Ida falls back, blown off her feet. Crimson and quicksilver drip down her shoulder from the bloody wound. "B-bravado?" Ida says, even as her jaw starts to tremble, and a creaking ache spreads through her arm. "G--guilty as charged. But I don't just want to hurt you because you hurt m--my friends, deeply and spitefully."
Warmth builds within her. The heat focuses in her shoulder, and she glances down to see flesh knitting itself back together. She follows the mystic heat-haze--and sees not Boudicca on the other end, but Gon Guado. Ida's throat tightens. She nods to him, once, steps forward, points a single armored finger right at Seymour's visible body. "I saw despair. I felt it smother my hopes, and curdle my dreams into horrible fears. The world was too cruel, too stupid, too pointless to endure."
"I know what drove me to that point--but you. W--why did you give--?"
An ERUPTION. Ida blinks, once, stupefied--but for once, her brief, anxious flash of is he really? proves to be correct. "Of course," Ida spits. "Of course." But Boudicca's called her name, and it's her turn to rise to the occasion. Boudicca snaps her fingers, and Ida's lifeforce ignites around her, enkindling the souls of those nearby. It's fire's nature to spread.
And then Yuna speaks up, and Ida's jaw falls open. "Zanarkand," she says. "that means--" He was so close. She heard what Seymour said there--how he tried to break them by telling them how a Summoner's journey ends. How it has to end. For a moment, Ida's body is on autopilot. Silvery flesh pours from her skin, flowing over her until all that's uncovered are her face and scalp. "You-- did you complete it? No. You couldn't have. Who did she--did you--sacrifice?"
The armor hardens, encasing Ida from head to toe in gleaming biometal. Brilliant, fire-golden veins ignite within it; the make of it is all Ida's, all blue and golds, like her family's crest. But someone else is listening, too, though they can't... quite put the pieces together.
Who did he sacrifice...? Is that why--?
Little wing-like vanes split open at Ida's shoulders. The moment of shock passes.
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
"Bigger explosions then Paine? I've got ones that can go boom real big!" Rikku asks.
The beat of Draconic Wings, Rikku feels the frigid wind and tries to shield herself by raising her little buckler. However - it's inadequate for the storm of Ice, which descend like small daggers, ripping some bloody lacerations across her even before to add insult to injury, those same ice daggers that struck her cause the ground around her to become slippery. With a yelp of pain, she takes a wrong step and ends up flat on her butt.
"Ow..." Rikku makes a small, muted noise that's wispy through a wheeze as she curls up for a moment on the patch of ice, "...wie..."
Shakily standing, her whole body twitching and shivering, patches of her blue stained with red.
And then he explodes into pyreflies, "We dddid ittt!" Despite being frostbitten she pumps her fist in the air and... Rikku gawks as he reforms, and lets out a small sound, as she gives voice to her despair with a single word
"Awfultastic."
It's actually a good thing for her that Gon sent his healing magic her way, as the blue and red patches of skin seem to return to a rosy color... and Citan's Chi technique eases her breathing of tortured lungs that felt as though they were breathing in icicles from how thick the air was.
"I'm glad... you realized something so important, Gon." She says again, softer. She's not... proud of Gon's revelations, but... she can at least take comfort in the fact that he won't hurt anyone else because of the recognition of his errors. She can't say thanks again, not yet, even if she is thankful.
Yuna though mentions that she saw his mother and him in Zanarkand... and that it was cruel. "You're just lashing out."
Rikku though suddenly sees Lulu gathering spell energy and... starts to cover her ears and squats down to make herself small. It doesn't help much against Thundaga. Bolt after bolt of thunderous fury from Lulu's Sorcerous rage. She still screams, but she needs a minute for...
GS: Rikku spends 1 Combo on Reload! GS: Rikku has attacked Rikku with Need a minute for AAAAAAAAAAAAA! GS: Rikku has completed her action. GS: Rikku accepts Rikku's Need a minute for AAAAAAAAAAAAA for 0 hit points! GS: Rikku activates Rikku's Reload!!
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Rocks are Mariel's greatest enemy. Being able to tell where the churning ground is doesn't help you dodge the chunks of stone flying out of it. Several batter her, and in the darkness, Mariel can't see to dodge them -
But after a few moments longer, a greenish glow like the phosphorescence of some mushrooms springs out in the darkness, in a vial that Mariel has pulled out and mixed vigorously. It's not that bright, but it's enough to see by, and make her way out of the danger zone. Not before she gets battered and bruised, though; not before everything hurts.
She doesn't even have time to heal herself. She sees Seymour fall - and reassemble himself, with Yuna calling to him. Is she trying to distract him? It's dangerous... she can't let herself be distracted by what they're talking about. She can't.
Though she might have some more questions, later.
"Marivel," she says, "are you still hearing - we can get to the crystal..." A kelpie forms, and - for a change - Mariel feels like she knows what to do. She's seen one of these! Recently, even!
Thanks, Ivan. You *educated* her. By mistake.
Mariel does two things. First, she opens a bottle of a viscous greenish fluid and flings it at the kelpie hard enough to get it into the water; and second, she retrieves a healing herb, finally applying it to herself with a hiss of pain. Only after that does she start edging toward the pillar again, hoping that the kelpie is rather occupied, to work on the crystal.
This is because the bottle she threw in there reacts with water, causing an oily foam. Water elementals don't handle being 'looser' water very well, in her experience; they tend to sag, to lose strength and control where the fluid changes. And that's clearly what they need right now.
Thanks, Boudicca, she thinks. Thanks, Lulu. And everyone else. They can still do this...
DG: Mariel has used her Tool Herbal Helper toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Water.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
The crystal of shadow is broken, and the darkness recedes. With it gone, they can see Seymour... in his death throes?
"Did they...?" She murmurs, feeling briefly hopeful. ...A hope that is soon crushed, as yet more pyreflies rush out from beneath those double doors, drawn into the terrible vortex that is Seymour and reforming his body. Jacqueline frowns, just slightly.
"...I guess... it was never going to be that easy." She murmurs. They'll still have to deal with these pillars after all.
The others renew their fight. As much as she wishes she could provide them some more material aid, Jacqueline knows right now that her focus is best spent on dealing with these pillars along with the others. One thing catches her ear, though, as Yuna shouts across the battlefield...
"Seymour's mother...?" Jacqueline murmurs. ...What happened between them? In Zanarkand... she can hazard a guess, maybe.
...She'll have to think about that later. Right now, they have another pillar ahead of them. This one, a pillar of water, suffused with the elemental power of Muse. For a second, Jacqueline is afraid that it will flood the area. She doesn't have enough waterbreathing potions for everyone here.
But it doesn't - instead, the water crashes together from the waves, forming a horse-shaped guardian from the foam. Quickly, Jacqueline backpedals just a bit, drawing the Lifeweaver's Codex from her belongings and flipping through its pages.
"A kelpie... It seems like possesses a good deal of strength and speed... I don't doubt it can draw upon the power of Muse, as well - don't let it engulf you with water. Be careful! It won't let us past until we've destroyed it, so give it everything you have!" Jacqueline advises, before shutting the book and stowing it away.
...Now, to consider their course of action. On Filgaia, she would draw upon the power of earth to stop it. But this is, after all, Spira. When in Spira, do as the Spirans do.
And so, with that in mind, Jacqueline slashes her right hand down with a gesture - and in response, a bolt of lightning descends upon the watery beast with a resounding crash!
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool The Lifeweaver's Codex toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Water.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Marivel's calls still help- Magic darkness is a little harder to see through. But they see through it. Somehow.
And then Seymor falls only to rise again, and anger rises inside her. The sea surges in her, wishing to join the fight against he who would be Sin.
But Pearl fights them down. Not now. What she's doing is important. They can't stop him if he keeps getting up, better to stop his plans. Yuna draws Seymour's attention, and Pearl realises what she's doing. It's one of her favourite activities.
As they reach the Kelpie, though, Pearl feels the water around her feet. She sees the angry beast. Marivel binds it. Then they need to finish it. She sees Mariel's mix fly into the beast, and Jay brings the lightning of knowledge as well as actual lightning.
She enters into a flowing stance. "Let us see who Lunar's Six Seas favour."
And then she charges forward to strike at the water itself. But she knows the heart of water. Can she find the heart of a Kelpie?
DG: Pearl has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Water.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Third Method - Shaping the Battle-Forged Shell! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 3 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes 30 damage from Poison! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Ida Everstead-Rey's Third Method - Shaping the Battle-Forged Shell for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Cover applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!!
=============================<* The Broken Seal *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Pillar of Water *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The group rushes to the pillar of water. The stone here has been worked to look like an ocean spray, strands of water that break through the crest. There are runes engraved on the strands of stone, each of them glowing a faint blue. In the center is a crystal, softly emitting a pale blue light. The voice comes to them again: ...atter the crystal and brea... ...the Earthpul... As they get close, water begins rise up, flowing along the strands. It launches into the air -- and those strands spin and weave together, until they assume a form: a large horse, made entirely of water, and sending a spray of droplets from its foamy mane when it moves its head. It stands between them and the pillar, with its crystal. And then it gallops forward, to do battle! =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Exhaust===========================================
========================<* The Broken Seal - Round 3 *>========================= =======================< Results - The Pillar of Water >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mariel 42 --(5)--> 47 Pass Herbal Helper 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pearl 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacqueline Barber 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass The Lifeweaver's Codex 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marivel Armitage 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass My Mike 4 Combat Effects: Efficient and Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Mariel 50 --(20)--> 70 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Stupify(1)|Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Mariel 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: Jacqueline Barber has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* The Broken Seal *>============================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Pillar of Wind *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Some of our group rushes towards the pillar of wind. Hewn from stone, as they get closer they can see that it was carved to have a weathered look -- as the corners and sides were sanded down by ages and ages of being windblown. The crystal in its center pulses a light green shade. The voice comes to them again: ...atter the crystal and brea... ...the Earthpul... As they get closer, though, it becomes clear the Guado built traps into this pillar, too. Runes carved into it flash -- bursting with green light -- and then powerful gusts of wind explode outward. The first /hurtles/ someone backward several yards. They come unevenly, and are tinged with sparkles of green light. Getting close to the pillar and shattering the crystal means dodging the huge blasts of wind hurtling forth. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Tire===============================================
<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.
"No amount of people is too many to put between you and her," Paine seethes at the man who almost wed her Summoner. For a latecomer to the party, she is startlingly invested in this sentiment.
Chambering her first reloaded round, Paine tries to punctuate the sentiment in characteristic fashion. But before she can fire a shot, she's forced to dive and roll to avoid a massive blade of ice. Several smaller ones pelt her, shattering against her shoulder or ripping a cut across her thigh, and Paine lets out a controlled hiss, her eyes hot even as the edges of her body sparkle with frost. Even as she does so, however, her enemy erupts into pyreflies, defeated already by the attacks of her allies.
"Hm." Lowering her machina rifle partway, Paine looks at Lulu and, after a moment, shrugs with her free shoulder, her cloak lifting above her ankle on that side. Apparently that request she made of the black mage wasn't necessary. "Yun--?" she starts to ask after the Summoner's health.
Seymour bursts back to unlife, and Paine sights down her rifle again, advancing slowly, as Gon heals the wounds of her allies. She's better off without a heal. After Kinoc, she needed some pain to get into the right mindset again.
She hesitates, however, before firing, briefly distracted as Dame Lulu places her pale hand upon a palm unfamiliar to Paine. Uzuki, huh... quite the gallant. If the good doctor catches Paine peeking at him, it may comfort him to know her eyes are always red, regardless of the situation. Are they always quite so hairy, though?
Snapping off a shot at Seymour with a thud of the rifle against her shoulder, Paine smirks to herself as Citan, like Gon before him, uses his magic to support Lulu, Rikku, and Yuna. "Us guys gotta watch out for ourselves," she counsels Tidus, doing her part by continuing her supporting fire. Dropping to one knee, she tucks her chin to her shoulder to protect herself from any side effects of the casting that she requested from Lulu. But what she is not prepared for is the sudden screaming of her companion, Rikku.
"Rikku!" Shoving herself to her feet, Paine runs at the Al Bhed thief, catching her under her arm and swinging her behind her body, shielding her with her cloak. At the same time, her right arm unfurls, the carbine rifle held with one hand now as she fires it with more accuracy than half of her attention ought to yield. She blasts its magazine dry as she walks Rikku backwards, then, when it is empty, drops it with a clatter.
"Where are you hurt?" she demands sharply. "Speak."
At that moment, a spell washes over her. Glancing up, Paine finds its source in Boudicca, and gives her a firm nod. Looks like Paine's not a boy after all.
GS: Paine has attacked Seymour Guado with Ironsights! GS: Paine takes 23 damage from Poison! GS: Paine has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Paine's Ironsights for 118 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
Seymour strikes out immediately. A huge claw rakes down for Tidus, just after his draconic arm reforms. The claws are wicked sharp and try to rake, bloodily, acroiss Tidus. Then, Margaret is upon him. She swings multiple slashes. Each hits -- at his neck, his side, and leaving rends that spew up pyreflies in its wake.
"I will become undying... if only long enough to kill everything in this world!" he shouts down at Margaret. Then, he looks down at Gon, and his eyes are baleful as he considers him -- if hard to see with the mass of the eyeless, draconic head over his human face. "And if I did? All things must end -- especially when they refuse to! I sought to shatter Spira's stasis. To save it! To save Guadosalam... by ending it!"
Citan says he will not go quietly. Seymour does not correct him. He looks, then, towards Boudicca. He thrusts one of his human hands out. Two fireballs swirl into existence; after she stands, she finds both swirling in, hurtling like missiles towards her and exploding when they get close. Ice on the floor flash-melts as they pass.
Cyre leaps in after Margaret. Seymour heard his words -- though there is a glare, a firm rejection -- and then a shout, as Cyre's shockwave hits him. It blows him backward, wings beating, but he only barely keeps from toppling at its terrific impact.
LIghtning crashes down from Lulu's call. It smashes down, striking into Seymour, and his draconic form shudders mightily. Waves of pyreflies shoot off his newly formed body.
He looks at Ida, then. His expression is cold. "Because I see this world's futility. Because I see that the sacrifices will not end. I see its demands must be crushed, not answered," he tells her.
Paine's rifle fires repeatedly. Each shot punctures into dragon-like hide -- with blasts of pyreflies erupting from the wounds. "Gh--"
Yuna screams at him. It may be to make sure she is heard over the din and roar of battle, but she screams nonetheless. Her words reach his ears. Really, only one word needs to: 'mother.' His head snaps towards her, and he stares for a second. His eyes are pale -- glowering -- and baleful. He glares down at her, furiously.
It is different. Becoming an Unsent changed him. Once, Seymour could show gratitude for understanding; he may have misunderstood himself, but he saw warmth. He could feel it.
And now, Yuna may see, that is gone.
Whatever used to be Seymour Guado, who could feel both pain and happiness, whose anger came from something very human, is gone. He is a hateful, angry shade, magnifying the worst of what he was. "Be SILENT, YUNA!" he shouts. "You--you know nothing of my pain! My endless, ceasing pain! And the world must die for it to end!"
Seymour's hands reach out. Dozens of spells are activated -- balls of flame and gouts of water -- and they rain down across the battlefield, spilling over it. When fire and water crash together, there are huge bursts of steam.
GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Tidus with Claw! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Multi-Fira! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Ree with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Gon Guado with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Yuna with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Rikku with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Margaret with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Citan Uzuki with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Lulu with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: Seymour Guado has attacked Paine with Multi-Fire and Multi-Water! GS: CRITICAL! Lulu takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 144 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lulu gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Lulu activates Arcane Font! GS: Lulu enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Yuna suffers a terrible blow from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 171 hit points! GS: Yuna activates Arcane Font and Gleam! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Boudicca partially evades Seymour Guado's Multi-Fira for 117 hit points! GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Evade bonus and Sufferer! GS: Ree takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 188 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ree gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ree activates Evade bonus and Gleam! GS: Ree enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Poison expired! GS: Margaret takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 138 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Margaret activates Arcane Font! GS: Margaret enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Gon Guado solidly guards Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 146 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gon Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey suffers a terrible blow from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 162 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Rikku suffers a terrible blow from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 157 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rikku gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Rikku enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz suffers a terrible blow from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 293 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
The pillars' defenses are made to be difficult to break - and so, the kelpie is a difficult foe. But they're all very experienced, and teamwork sees them through. Marivel's mysterious tunes slow it movements enough for Mariel to hurl a bottle into its center. Indeed, the kelpie begins to sag and lose cohesion as the outside mixture begins to permeate it. Jacqueline brings a bolt of lightning down with a crash... and then Pearl, who knows the heart of water, delivers a strike to the kelpie, destroying its form. Water splashes across the floor ahead of her, and the crystal can be destroyed.
"...One more down." Jacqueline says, heaving a sigh. "Let's keep moving."
She starts forward, orienting toward the pillar of wind. Again, the voice speaks. And as they draw closer to the pillar...
"Look out!" Jacqueline gasps out. There's no time to react - she braces herself as a gust of wind explodes out toward her. She manages to keep on her feet, but she's hurled back a good distance.
"...Getting close is going to be difficult like this." She murmurs with a frown. She takes a few steps more forward, gesturing with her left hand to bring up a pillar of earth. It'll act as a good point to start, to give them some cover from the gusts of wind as they make their way ahead.
With that done, she once more draws out one of those pale-green potions and applies it to the entire party. It looks like freedom of movement will be key in this situation.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Rapid Remedy toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Wind.
GS: Citan Uzuki takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 214 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Citan Uzuki gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Charge!! You gain 30 FP! GS: Paine partially guards Seymour Guado's Multi-Fire and Multi-Water for 158 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Paine gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Paine activates Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Be careful what you wish for. Yuna's focus is drawing inwards; she will not easily see the manifold consequences of Seymour's rage upon others, when normally she would feel their pain almost more than her own. For herself, as fire and water and steam crash, as planned, against her wizardly shield, they are dispersed harmlessly backwards, away from her.
"No, not the world," she murmurs, sadder for the little boy, who is already long dead, than for the angry ghost. It is much too late to mourn the former. The latter would not be glad of it. "Just you."
And that's all.
The time for words is over.
Yuna's journey has been far longer than a thousand miles.
Now, she takes a single step.
<SoundTracker> Purified Dragon -- BOTW OST -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDCctvADCQI
Soft, deliberate; her arch flexes as it takes her weight, then her ankle. The delicate ball of her foot touches the ground? floor? base? of the Farplane-adjacent plaza at a single point, and in that moment, to the sound of a single raindrop rejoining the sea, everyone finds out that it is none of these. Because three concentric ripples are spreading in every direction, awakened by her touch. An unexpectedly deep impact.
Yuna turns on toe-tip, and her other leg lifts, balletic in the curve that her body creates, except that this is not ballet, or Western dance of any kind, or even Earthly. This is profoundly Spiran ritual, and even more fundamentally than that, as her matchstick-thin leg supports not just herself, not just the chorus of fayth who ride with her, but the hopes and dreams and future of the peoples of Spira in general and two Guado children in particular -- such a slender thing to bear such a massive burden -- it is Yuna's own dance. Yevon never was so graceful, or so self-assured. The motive force of that religion is grief, when it isn't fear. What moves Yuna is something else, now.
As she spins, slowly, perfectly, strength evident in the degree of her body control, more water emerges from beneath her little toes, until she stands on a disk of infinitesimal thinness about as wide as the span of her arms, which have spread, winglike, fingers splayed open, grasping at nothing? or calling, calling at something, indeed.
The pyreflies, which had up until this point been answering only one summons... are now split between two. This is a tug of war she cannot win directly; as an Unsent, Seymour's communion with them is too great. But some do pause in their endless drift towards him, hesitating, about to -- with the slightest impetus -- be drawn towards her instead. And there are a lot of them available. Even a smaller portion is a great deal more than normal, here at the Guado's sacred threshhold.
A second spin, faster, her raised leg dipping to trail in the pool, then dig in to push off and gain momentum -- a casual impossibility, but then, walking on water is one of the first skills she was taught as a summoner. The water leaps outwards in response, and upwards too. More and more of it spills out around her, like a huge flower, and it suddenly smells, inexorably, irrepressibly, of gardenias, reinforcing that connection.
It also smells of the sea.
The ocean means different things to different Spirans, but almost everyone lives with it near at hand, whether in a high mainland city or a tiny island village. And for the past thousand years, its strongest association has been, of course, with death. With Sin; Sin, the terror of all, who uses the deeps as entrance and exit, as refuge and lair. Sin who arrives like a hurricane, slays everyone in sight, and then departs just as suddenly, leaving the survivors to care for each other, and the summoners to tend to the dead. The dead, who are wrapped and beflowered and lowered into that same water, not as an offering to placate the inevitable, but as a departure. A release.
A summoning rune pulses beneath her foot on the third spin, and a geyser explodes upwards. She does not ascend at its apex, but rather, still dances at its base and in its center, visible only in silhouette now. The whole column of seawater is lit from beneath by the rune, turning it a brilliant and shimmering sea green, with her blue-black, swirling shadow at its heart. She must be under tremendous pressure but is unbowed, unbroken. The hem of her skirt begins to lift, borne upwards not by the power of the ocean but by the gaining speed of her own endless rotations.
The ocean doesn't need Sin to be deadly, of course. Waves can be murderous things, currents also. And the endless darkness of depth, the most powerful and guaranteed demise of all. It killed countless sailors. It killed Ryuggu and Cambria. It killed Belize...
That was a terrible ending, but it was also a beginning.
First, a beginning for Belize and Seymour. And much later... for Yuna, as well. They spoke often. They fought, side by side. They became friends, introduced by Seymour.
They became enemies across his corpse.
They became something much too complex to contain in a single measly word.
A bubble escapes Yuna's throat, passing between her lips, only to be crushed instantly and totally by the pressure all around her.
"Rage, Yuna! Rage against your betrayals! Refuse to give in to the despair that would swallow you whole, and hurl it back a thousandfold!"
"You really believe it, don't you? You think that the only thing that can defeat suffering is more suffering."
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
With effort, she lifts her arms above her head, clasping her hands together, drawing her whole self inwards, and accelerates even harder. The still-shooting geyser begins, with enormous effort, to spin with her. No flower now, but a tree-trunk; water falls off its sky-high top in many branches. Of course, it is no terrestrial flora. Nor must it be. Kelp forests, coral reefs... there is something of both to its shape, its thickness, its fineness, its complexity.
The fountaining water separates into smaller drops which fall not like rain but like blossoms, larger pieces separating into smaller midflight, a shower of fluid petals. The scent of flowers grows stronger, but as the water reaches eye-level it becomes evident that they aren't petals at all. They are almost every other shape in the sea.
Because the ocean is LIFE!
Big and small. Clownfish and dolphin. Turtle and krill. Shark and eel. Anemone, starfish, sardine, whale. They sparkle as they tumble through the air, losing their transparency as the light hits them, and their insubstantiality also, as pyrefly illusion becomes manifest reality. Water's iridescence they keep. Before any water can impact the ground, it completes its transformation, becoming scales, instead, ranging from white through palest to darkest blue, with touches of green and even pink in between. Scales which spiral downwards, wrapping around the column. The geyser is now a whirlpool, it has caught up to Yuna's fierce turning, and now threatens to turn her instead, to catch her up. To keep her if it can. If they can.
They swirl together, skirts and sleeves, scales and spikes, flow and counterflow, interlocking like fingers, laced together not by grief -- or by judgement -- but by the phenomenal miracle of joy. Love of the sea -- of its strength, of its motion, its magicks, great and small -- pours outwards, a fountain of shared feeling between fayth and summoner every bit as real, every bit as important, as the more spectacular waters they're creating together as one. She has walked upon water to dance for the dead so many, many times. This, now, is something else entirely.
Even Sin... isn't what they thought. Not always.
It was while rescuing this fayth that he, Jecht, her father's Final Aeon, came and left in silence. In peace. The surface of the ocean closed over him with fewer ripples than she's made today.
She only met him a few times, but even as a little girl, she could tell... that Jecht loved the ocean too.
"Show us that you will be the one to fulfill our wishes! Show me you will be the one to Send me to the Farplane!!"
"I will."
The scales' spiral downwards becomes a spiral inwards, counter to but perfectly aligned with Yuna's outgoing clockwise spin. Until, with a final surge and a terrific roar of far more than only water, the pillar of sea explodes outwards in a wave.
Where there is ocean, there is Leviathan also. But today the reverse has been made true.
And they are both deadly; both tempestuous; both uncontrollable; both beautiful; both vital; both breathtakingly large. To visit the shore for the first time, as a child, is how it is to behold Leviathan every time.
Yuna catches her breath (and her balance, all that spinning!) for a second, perched upon a massive, glistening coil of the Lord of All Waters not unlike a seagull on the back of a whale. Her scaly seat is bent in a reversed U where it emerges, then resubmerges, in this newly-summoned inland, inward, in-heart sea. It is one of many such coils, and the limits of this aeon, at least as expressed through the lens of Yuna, may be that they cannot be summoned indoors. (Bahamut shattered the vaulted ceilings of the Via Purifico; Leviathan is not larger, but they are longer.) One arm is draped along an immense fin, holding herself on. She is soaked to the skin, until the mighty serpent bows their head to her and snorts -- an amused noise -- a puff of hot air which blow-dries her instantly (and somewhat fluffily, as regards her hair; better than her dandelion-head impression caused by Ixion, at least...).
She reaches out a hand, untrembling, to place a palm marked HERETIC on Leviathan's snout. It is dwarfed by the nostrils on either side. Her eyes, too, are tiny in comparison to theirs, when they meet and exchange a long, serious look. Something passes between them, and it isn't joy. There's much more that binds the once-lost fayth, lately of Bikanel Island, and Yuna's soul, as one. Their connection, too, cannot be so easily reduced to one word or one feeling.
With remarkable delicacy for wielding incisors larger than she is tall, Leviathan picks her up by the fabric at the nape of her neck like a kitten, and drops her off with her guardians at a safe distance. Safer. No one and nothing is truly safe when the Sea King is at hand.
Rearing upwards, Leviathan gazes upon Seymour with eyes like, and totally unlike, those of his last executioner, Shiva. Her rage was righteous. Leviathan's is not lesser, or tainted, in coming from a place of vengeance. But it is different. They are different.
And so is Yuna, a thousand miles and a single step later. The fayth, enraged by Sin's decimation of those who take to sea, is not more pleased to behold the betrayer of their first summoner in modern history as he attempts not to defeat, not to end, but to replicate, to extend that horror. To wield it. To control it. To become it, or, in the aftermath of Yunalesca's destruction, as close as may be possible.
And to kill as many people as he has to, to get what he wants, which is to kill everyone else.
Their eyes narrow simultaneously, the serpent's and the girl's.
"I made you a promise. Your path to the Farplane goes through me, but in another way."
It goes through Sin.
And though he has not yet succeeded at his goal, the separation between Sin and Seymour is shrinking all the time.
That path must go through Seymour now as well.
"For Belize, who believed in you," Yuna murmurs -- and Leviathan strikes, flashing forward in a crushingly powerful torrent of muscle, cascading scales, and waters, dragged behind them so hard and fast that they launch upwards to either side, momentarily putting sea serpent and Seymour alike -- no matter how high the Unsent flies! -- at the bottom of an oceanic trench.
And then they fall, waves collapsing inwards to turn one pounding into three. The waters are choking, punishing -- and apt to fill the mouths of even two heads, muting him for at least one critical moment. The many coils grasp at Seymour, matching him dragon for dragon, and... constrict.
Fall, waves -- and fall, dragons. If Leviathan has his way, they'll both plunge, headfirst, out of the air above the plaza, and whether they hit land or sea, at these speeds it will feel as hard as concrete.
DC: Yuna switches forms to Leviathan!
GS: Yuna has attacked Seymour Guado with Lord of All Waters! GS: Yuna has gained 1 Combo! GS: Yuna has entered Avenger Stance! GS: Yuna gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Yuna receives 200 temporary hit points. GS: Yuna enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Yuna has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado's Mute Ward prevents an effect! GS: Seymour Guado partially guards Yuna's Lord of All Waters for 168 hit points! GS: Tidus partially evades Seymour Guado's Claw for 106 hit points! GS: Break applied to Tidus! GS: Tidus activates Power Burst!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"And I as well," he replies to Yuna. There is hardly time for anything more than that, but pleasantries can bloom even on the battlefield. He nods. "Miss Lulu, then! And, yourself?" The last is spoken to Paine, as she turns her attention their way as well. Her name, he does not believe he has heard, either.
Though that appears to be, er, quite the look to which he is being subjected?
He has enough time to take stock of things around them. The still pulsing crystals. Seymour's repeated reconstitutions. Their own positions in this place. The voice that, fragmented, echoing its previous half-statement, continues to speak to his -- and others -- minds.
He glances back over his shoulder, once, at the woman he now stands back to back against. "It is safe to say that unless his source of Pyreflies is staunched... we are in this for the long haul, Miss Lulu! Miss Yuna, are your Summoner's arts able to function here?"
They may be needed to help hold their ground, is what Citan is saying.
"We must trust in them. We must do our part and keep his wrath focused upon us! ...Ah, but please, do not fall in doing so!" It would be counterproductive, to say the very least.
He turns his head, and he is in time to watch Rikku drop to her knees and cover her head and ears... just before Lulu's spell rips for Seymour.
Rikku screams after that. But she hadn't been struck -- he was certain of it. Astraphobia, perhaps--?
Paine might rush to Rikku's side, but Citan's attention is taken by Yuna's shout -- or rather the contents thereof.
"His... mother?" Citan is given to speak, as if asking the others present for further context. His mother. What she had done to him. In Zanarkand. It does not take much more to assemble the rest of the puzzle. "--You do not mean," Citan starts to say. Yuna has, in fact, begun to work her summoner's arts, though it is not immediately apparent to Citan; he has only had the opportunity to witness the act of summoning a scant few times. But it will not be long.
"He completed the pilgrimage, and his mother became... a Final Aeon?"
But Seymour is beyond reason, as he is beyond so many things right now, and to be reminded of his loss -- his pain -- serves only to enrage him further. The man works countless spells at once, a situation that prompts Citan to shout to his temporary partners in this fight to, "Scatter!" lest they all be caught in this barrage.
It may well be for naught: there is little space that remains untouched by the maelstrom of water and flame. Even Citan is far from unscatched, standing amidst the steaming wreckage in the wake of the sorcerous onslaught. Standing there, scorched and burnt, the remnants of what portions of the watery spells he had been able to 'capture' rolling in a slow orbit around him, he bears witness to a miracle.
Here rises a dragon, born from the sea. Leviathan.
"Please, allow me." With a gesture, he draws the magical water he had claimed from Seymour before him, arranging his own body into a readied stance. It's his only hand that he brings up through the air sharply, guilding the water in its flight for Seymour. But one might be forgiven for mistaking it for a blade.
Should it strike true, the stolen torrent will strike as keenly as if it had been driven by swordpoint.
GS: Citan Uzuki spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Seymour Guado with Suisei -Retsu-! GS: Citan Uzuki has gained 1 Combo! GS: Citan Uzuki takes 23 damage from Poison! GS: Mighty expired! GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Mariel doesn't feel guilty about interrupting an elemental. She will *later*, but right now it's easy to tell herself that it's just a projection of the elemental control of these pillars, the link to the Earthpulse. She can consider the complex details later.
Not that she was the one that destroyed it, but the point remains. Mariel has the responsibility for what she did either way.
Water down, Mariel turns her attention to Wind. She can feel the air, and opens herself to the way the air moves, the flow of wind gently (or not so gently) guiding the pyreflies, the constant pulse from Cyre and in a different way, Boudicca; the alternating elements from other people's connections - and Seymour himself, who is throwing them around with abandon, though his 'feel' different.
"This way," she calls to Jay, and starts to run. Mariel doesn't have any equipment for this - she just has to do it by feel and hope that it doesn't catch her. "The - knot, his knot, isn't as tight anymore! It's close - "
It's not *too* much more, she thinks. Just a little more... she works at the energy flows while she moves, 'feeling' around her and soothing things back into balance. It's not something she does so much as something she is, though she lacks the easy smoothness she would have on Filgaia.
DG: Mariel has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Wind.
GS: Seymour Guado suffers a terrible blow from Citan Uzuki's Suisei -Retsu- for 226 hit points! GS: Purge! Disrupt and Jam removed!
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
"We destroyed *a* method! We'll find another way and--"
And then Seymour explodes.
Tidus blinks wildly, for a moment caught off-guard by the sudden, easy-seeming win. Good job, team?? ...except then Seymour reforms and goes right back to being the giant prick they all know and loathe. The worst part is that he isn't even wounded anymore.
"OH, COME ON!!" he roars, stomping a foot in petulant fury. "LEARN TO TAKE A HINT, SEYMOUR!!"
Gon asides to the group about how many times they humiliated him, taught him something new that upended his world. Tidus doesn't know what to say at first; he sure isn't sorry. So he instead cracks wise and quips, "Yeah, you're welcome!"
But... Yuna steps forward, calling up her magic to reflect Seymour's, and calls to him what she--what they *all* saw in Zanarkand.
Tidus isn't even the slightest bit sorry for Seymour. But he *does* wince, because man, that is brutal. No one wants to be reminded of when they were small and desperate for a parent's love, desperate not to be abandoned, and received only agony in return. (Or maybe it's just him.) But Yuna's not cruel, never cruel; she says it only to make it clear that she knows, to underscore that she understands, and that nonetheless it doesn't justify what Seymour's doing. Because it's something Seymour needs to hear, whether he's willing to hear it or not.
He probably is not. It's Seymour after all. Tidus shakes his head, then focuses over to Citan. "Yeah, hey there," he calls, lifting a hand briefly to him. "Not the best time to chat, but nice seeing you again!"
A bad time to get distracted; Seymour rakes his claws into him, ripping and slashing at his tan skin. Tidus manages at least to move *with* the attacks rather than against them and so mitigate some of the damage, but he still comes away a bloody mess. He at least gives... *mostly* as good as he gets, stabbing in towards those claws with his sword, channeling temporal magic to hopefully slow the massive Unsent down and make it easier for the others to do what needs to get done.
(As for THEM, they *would* approve--not just approve but be proud. Yuna has come so far and grown so strong, and her calling of Leviathan is so fiercely her own. Belize would smile to see her now even as the circumstances would also break what remains of their heart.)
GS: Tidus has attacked Seymour Guado with Delay Buster! GS: Tidus takes 28 damage from Poison! GS: Tidus has completed his action. GS: Seymour Guado solidly guards Tidus's Delay Buster for 60 hit points! GS: Blind applied to Seymour Guado!
<Pose Tracker> Ree has posed.
Ree shrieks as Seymour's fire and water spells torrent over her, first burning, then soothing while still battering. She manages to twist so most of the fire cascades across her back and hopes it won't burn away her new Symbology tattoos. She hears how full of hate he is, how convinced that ending everything is the only way to address his inner pain. She feels no sympathy. Life was pain, and choosing to endure it. Above all, she notices his reaction to the word "mother." "Hey mama's boy!" she taunts. "Get a load of this CURSE!"
And she directs her most powerful spell right at him.
As her magic flows out of her she notices that Yuna's summoned Leviathan and hopes the water dragon will be able to defeat the pyrefly one. Anything to even the odds -- Seymour was proving difficult, if not impossible, to kill.
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Ree has attacked Seymour Guado with Kismet's Middle Finger! GS: Ree has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ree gains 60 THP from Regen! GS: Ree has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado's Mute Ward prevents an effect! GS: Seymour Guado's Poison Ward prevents an effect! GS: Seymour Guado partially guards Ree's Kismet's Middle Finger for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Jam applied to Seymour Guado! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Seymour Guado receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Seymour Guado enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Healing magicks wash over Margaret. Alien, or at least unfamiliar, yet soothing in their effect -- and one of them is completely alien. A sort of rebalancing of herself. Margaret feels herself flush slightly and glances towards that origin, and her eyebrows lift at the sight of Dr. Citan Uzuki. The eyes of the elves focus briefly on the doctor's hands, as if checking on things.
And this bad habit is at least not penalized. The lady Summoner addresses their common foe with knowledge and familiarity. Margaret shifts her weapon round, ready. And then she reveals - something about his mother?
Margaret's brow knits. Her ears flatten against the sides of her head. Ida seems to understand more about this ritual of the summoning...
"Awfultastic indeed," she concurs with Rikku.
Exhaling, Margaret raises her weapon up again. She surges forwards -- JUST in time for the interlocking bursts of flame and water to send her blasting backwards, bobbled for a moment from the inertia of the forty-miles-an-hour or so she managed to reach with her magically-enhanced dashing but soon enough thrown back against a wall, hard enough that the sword clatters loose from her hands and she skids to the ground, stunned and bloody and hurting and --
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
That hole in the ground is laughing at me, Margaret thinks.
"No I'm not," says the hole.
"**** off, probably dying and you don't have to sound like him after all this," Margaret mumbles, eyes swimming, struggling to focus. Maybe one of them will tend to her, but why should they? she thinks bleakly: I'm going to distract them if anything.
"It's me," says the hole (or so Margaret thinks). "Seriously. You still have the ring, right?"
I feel awfully paranoid for someone dying, Margaret thinks. Does being dead make you paranoid?
"Guys, the captain doesn't believe us. Sound off."
"Hup!" "Heyah!" "Here!" "Represented." "Tada!" "We're here!" "Yeah!" "Here!" Marivel can clearly hear someone in her head that isn't her say, "Cheers".
"Didn't your mothers ever teach you it isn't polite to make fun of the dying," Margaret complains. And then she blinks, focus returning to her eyes. Straightening her shoulders, she reaches over to collect her sword. The glimmer of Starlight Express is still around her.
"We don't get it either," says the hole in the ground in its original voice to Margaret. "But nevertheless, here we are."
"I couldn't see you."
"It's not a trivial thing. You've got a lot on your mind. Come by again - if you want. No hard feelings."
Margaret makes a wet, ugly sniffle, suppressing the urge to turn it into a full tantrum of a bawl mostly because of the enormous draconic figure vowing their death.
The hole to the Farplane asks, "How are they?"
"Well enough. We're leaving. To Filgaia, like we'd thought about."
"And Neo-Vane?"
"Don't know," Margaret says, swallowing. "I doubt I will." She starts pulling herself upright. "... Borgan's skin wasn't worth any of you, anyway."
"It's too bad... but there's a lot of dreams out there, aren't there?" says the hole, more distantly.
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
"Goodbye," Margaret says. "I can't stay."
"But you were there," says the hole, and Margaret thinks she hears her old friend's laugh for a moment...
... and then it's back to actual reality in full focus again. In time to see -- Margaret's eyes widen again at the sheer *vastness* of Leviathan, who has expanded to fill much of the available space in the plaza! She glances at the channel to the Farplane-direct for a moment, as if wondering how long she was stunned, but it is clear that it is Yuna atop it, and that it is not some new horror Seymour has produced.
"I bet you'd never thought you'd see this, did you?" Margaret then addresses her sword, before leaning forwards and running round the entirety of Leviathan and indeed most of the plaza in a great gibbous moon of a shape -- largely gathering speed before --
LEAPING upwards to stab at the underside of giant mouths:
STABBING into neck and torso to drag downwards:
KICKING off to flip in the middle of the air and then streak round the sides:
All of it aiming to remain beneath the sightlines of the great form of Seymour, pressing to the utmost. To score and to harry; to bleed; and perhaps to slay!
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Margaret has attacked Seymour Guado with There's A Light At The End Of The Tunnel! GS: Margaret has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
Rikku sees Paine in her field of vision, still shaking and shivering as she's caught under the arm and swung behind her, walked backwards as she empties her carbine with suppressing fire. "E-Everywhere...? But it's not that. It's... Lulu used the real big Thunder spell."
Wait? What? She's serious?! Rikku gives Paine though a shaken look with those green eyes with spiral pupils. "S-Scary!" She exclaims, looking truly shaken.
Unfortunately for Rikku, she doesn't get hit by the water spell first. A gout of flame envelops her first when she gets her wits about her and tries to scatter - right before the water spell flattens her against the ground.
Utterly drenched, with several prominent scorch marks across her, she staggers back to her feet. And takes a long moment, watching Yuna stand up to Seymour - his pain will only end when the world ends? What a terrible concept.
Still she watches in admiration, as she begins her Summoning of her Aeon. An Aeon's born of a Fayth whose statue she allowed Belize to place on Bikanel despite the tragedy of what happened. Because she wanted to believe in a better world. Maybe that's why she could tell Gon Thanks tonight. There's just too many things awful in the world, and she just wants to see the bright side anyway. The idea things can just... get better. Be better.
If she takes a step. It was Yuna she wanted the world to be better for. It was Yuna who inspired her to want to make it better - rather than merely stopping it terrible things. Like Summoners being sacrificed.
Leviathan comes, and she watches its water swirl around Seymour in a burst of power.
"Well. Let's see if I can cook up something even a tenth as impressive as that."
Kneeling down, Rikku brings out a metal cylinder, and puts in it a variety of spheres. It's a strange mix. It's hard to say what all she put in there. It just looks like the kitchen sink. Then some fiend parts besides. With a twist, she snaps it shut.
"Hey Paine, you had your sphere recorder out right? You made sure to get some shots of Yunie doing that - right?" She asks which may be SUCH a weird question given the circumstances... and with a casual toss, hurls it up in the air towards Seymour. Turning around to face Paine instead.
When it detonates, it starts a chaotic confluence of chain reactions. First there's a burst of red. A detonation that doesn't seem like fire. Not exactly. More like a chemical eruption.
Then a hue of yellow with a sulphurous smell. A venomous green that looks absolutely toxic. Faster and faster like fireworks. A shockwave of blue that billows outwards in a cloud. And finally... an ominous purple.
As each cloud clears, a strange effect happens... each one becomes letters spelling a simple word that lingers in the air in smoky letters.
Rikku
Rikku shrugs her shoulders like it's no big deal, then puts two fingertips up to her forehead in a V, winking with the backdrop of her name behind her. "Well... if you don't mind more... Get my good side?"
It's absurd given the deadly threat that Seymour poses perhaps... they're fighting for the future of the Farplane, of Spira... but it's also her. Maybe she doesn't actually expect Paine to do it, but if it's enough a momentary reprieve from the terrible circumstances... then it was worth doing.
GS: Gamble: Low! Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Margaret's There's A Light At The End Of The Tunnel for 152 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mighty applied to Margaret!
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
It's undeath, isn't it? It's a terrible thing, to be an unsent. To be stripped of so much humanity that only obsession remains. Obsession. Obsession. Is Sin nothing more than an unsent at its heart, too? Or does its existence fuel the existence of unsent?
It doesn't matter right now. What does: Steam.
Lots of steam.
"Hraaagh!" Cyre shouts, leaping free of a tremendous confluence of roiling flame and boiling water, his body burnt raw, skin flayed and scarred. It hurts, every motion hurts. But that's why he knows he can still keep going.
That's not a grand statement of emotional fortitude or something about pain being power or anything. Cyre just knows that feeling pain means he DOESN'T have third degree burns, and that means he can still probably contribute.
"'Everything must end?' 'Breaking the stasis?' You blind fool--" The shaman leaps, his raw flesh aglow as streaks of red and green light twist around his scorched body. In one moment, Cyre is there.
And the next, he is not.
He is a blur of flame and wind, fingers curled into claws. He whirls and dances, carving rending arcs of scarlet and emerald force into the immortal dragon. Each blow is not merely a strike, but the weaving of a glyph sacred to the Guardian of Death. Perhaps it would do nothing, but perhaps, this close to the Farplane, against this foe, Ge Ramtos might hear the call of Fengalon's high priest to, if nothing else, sweep some the souls clinging to the Unsent Guado back into the ley. "If you hurt so much, if you can't take the pain, then disappear already. Leave the rest of the world out of this!"
GS: Rikku has activated a Force Action! GS: Rikku has activated a Force Action! GS: Rikku spends 3 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Rikku has attacked Seymour Guado with CHAOS GRENADE! GS: Rikku has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rikku has completed her action. GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Seymour Guado with Reap the Whirlwind! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz enters a Counter stance! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel doesn't feel guilty about interrupting an elemental either.
Nevertheless, Marivel ends up trailing behind a bit. She thinks about the 'other way' Tidus is hoping for. She hopes they find one but if they don't, well, that's preferable than murdering Yuna in lieu of a better solution!
Look, Marivel pretended to be okay with it when she thought FOR SURE Yuna was going to be ending her own life. She pretended real good. But she was never EVER EVER really okay with it. She can't. It's so against her nature she'd become like a Dragon or worse if she entertained it. It's that contradictory to her nature.
"...YEah." Marivel says, going a bit quiet for now.
She glances back to the fight. "Well, one more rune...!"
She BAMFS back into bat form, trying to weave around windblasts to get close. Of course, she might have a hard time SHATTERINg it in bat form but at least getting there shouldn't be too tough.
"How did htey have so much time to set up all these traps!" She complains. "And then, despite that, make us come all thew ay back here!"
DG: Marivel Armitage has used her Tool Tomato Juice For Grownups toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Wind.
GS: Seymour Guado's Mute Ward prevents an effect! GS: Seymour Guado's Poison Ward prevents an effect! GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado partially guards Rikku's CHAOS GRENADE for 180 hit points! GS: Blind and Drowsy applied to Seymour Guado!
<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.
Lulu notices Paine's glare at Citan, and for just an instant, a flicker of amusement flashes across her face. She directs it at Paine, and then looks to Citan, "Yes. And it would seem that we are."
She needed a little boost for this fight. She'll take it. Citan... is suggesting they not fall. It's definitely good advice. But when Rikku falls, Lulu doesn't blink--she just steps forward, to further move to protect Rikku if necessary. She picks the spells she has to pick.
Citan assembles the puzzle... And Lulu nods. "Correct," Lulu answers. And then Seymour's rage comes and it hits her, fire and water both at once, not cancelling each other out but becoming a great gout of steam that melts her earlier frozen wound, sending blood trailing down her side. The black mage does not slow down--she hits one knee, but around her she gathers up the power directed at her, rising again after a moment on her own this time. "...I will not," Lulu says, and perhaps she is answering Citan...
But she doesn't have to look at Paine, as Paine has Rikku covered. Instead she looks up at Seymour again. And to Tidus, before him. She considers her best angle...
Yes. This is the one.
The Onion Knight rises again, and Lulu nods back at Marivel, before she raises both hands to channel more power. This time, it is a ferocious blizzard she summons, the wind starting up from nothing to burst into a storm--which becomes super-chilled, freezing parts of the water Leviathan calls up and becoming a column of icy destruction.
"Yes," Lulu agrees with Yuna's murmur, nevermind how she heard it. And she lets her spell go.
GS: Lulu has activated a Force Action! GS: Lulu spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Lulu has attacked Seymour Guado with Blizzaga! GS: Lulu has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lulu has entered Avenger Stance! GS: Lulu has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
That worked. Four people working together have broken Earth and Water. She prepares to face the wind with her allies, as everyone else buys her time.
And then she feels it. She feels a pull inside her. She can't not turn to look.
She watches the movements of the other summoner- sometimes, she feels like the only other summoner- the grace, the skill. She never learnt to walk on water, her ritual was self taught and simple. The dance of a true Summoner is so very difference.
The scent of salt spray washes over her. It may mean many things to Spira but it means one thing to Pearl.
It meant the first time she had ever been free.
She sees the companion of her soul rise to Yuna's call, and it's a strange feeling. Uneasy. But they were never just her power, even if it felt that way some times. Belize entrusted the Fayth not just to Spira, but to all of Lunar, but so few heeded the call. But while the roar may be distant, it's still there. She can't call on them, but that's fine. "Fight well." She whispers to someone a room away.
"We must move!" She yells, as Jay uses her potions, nodding appreciatively. "You have given us a windbreak... Now let press forward."
She flicks out her wrist mounted grapnel again and launches forward, from Pillar to Pillar. If one can get there, then the rest can can move forward more easily with a shattered crystal.
DG: Pearl has used her Tool Wrist-Mounted Grapnel toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Wind.
============================<* The Broken Seal *>============================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Pillar of Wind *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Some of our group rushes towards the pillar of wind. Hewn from stone, as they get closer they can see that it was carved to have a weathered look -- as the corners and sides were sanded down by ages and ages of being windblown. The crystal in its center pulses a light green shade. The voice comes to them again: ...atter the crystal and brea... ...the Earthpul... As they get closer, though, it becomes clear the Guado built traps into this pillar, too. Runes carved into it flash -- bursting with green light -- and then powerful gusts of wind explode outward. The first /hurtles/ someone backward several yards. They come unevenly, and are tinged with sparkles of green light. Getting close to the pillar and shattering the crystal means dodging the huge blasts of wind hurtling forth. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Tire===============================================
=======================<* The Broken Seal - Round 4 *>======================== =======================< Results - The Pillar of Wind >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mariel 47 --(5)--> 52 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pearl 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Wrist-Mounted Grapnel 3 Agility Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jacqueline Barber 15 --(17)--> 32 Fail Rapid Remedy 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Marivel Armitage 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Tomato Juice For Grownups 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Mariel 70 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Slow(2)|Tire(2) Effects: Cleanse ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Mariel 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.
GS: Seymour Guado's Cripple Ward prevents an effect! GS: Seymour Guado's Mute Ward prevents an effect! GS: Seymour Guado partially guards Lulu's Blizzaga for 146 hit points! GS: Mighty applied to Lulu! GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado partially guards Cyre H. Lorentz's Reap the Whirlwind for 154 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
To look upon the lightless lack of 'eyes' bearing down upon him is to know the scorn of someone he once served unconditionally, and those fell whispers of his own father's voice still haunt Gon as much as the Unsent's own fervent desire to just kill everything.
"Guadosalam as it is will not be for much longer," a concession from Gon. It was already on a downturn after the war. The Al Bhed and Ronso both bore legitimate grievance for the actions of the Guado. The people of Bevelle have not forgotten their abandonment. The social and economic prosperity Guadosalam enjoyed over the last few decades seemed to dry up overnight - and most Guado who lived outside of their borders, likewise, found themselves shunned.
His own people now stand to become the outcasts, or worse... should tempers flare and the most extreme forms of retribution are both imagined or acted upon. Something his daughters may have, at best, delayed. Seymour's desires for that place are not unique to him.
"But it will ever be Guadosalam, under whoever's will guides it - even as we all take our leave at the time we do." Gon speaks soberly. It will be his children's turn to decide after all of this - and it is they who had the will to reach out, ask for help. Once again, they may have given the Guado people a chance to survive this by looking past their cultural pride and ask for help.
There is no further speaking or reasoning with Seymour in the moment as he starts screaming to Yuna - and the splitting of pyrefly flows happening between them. He cannot hope to contribute as waves of flame and water wash together into scalding steam. He can only reassert that grumpy snarl, grit, and run through it with his gauntlets in a defensive position.
He demonstrates the agility his people are known for, that age has only just begun to rob - swinging, slicing through the elemental forces to aggressively parry them on approach, even as it all singes, stings, and makes it difficult to breathe - and the added weight from being sopping wet doesn't do him much favor.
But he hasn't been halted. As the Lord of All Waters makes their presence known, Gon makes a leap up into the air off of some overturned detritus to avoid the initial wave of the Aeon's torrential waters, a glint of light at the end of Gon's right clawed gauntlet from how the power filling the chamber reflects off of it.
In the moment, he reflects upon the beautiful sight of the waters of the Moonflow at night. The crescent of Gaia above - and how he and his future wife first met. A striking sight worth preserving in memory, however fleeting their younger years. How it inspired his greatest technique... quaint as it is compared to the superior martial arts introduced from beyond Spira.
Wordlessly, that sight stays in his mind as he comes down from the leap and swings with a carving blow of his gauntlet across one of the Unsent horror's wings - and the subsequent, even comical descent into turbulent waters that wash and fling him across the chamber.
The in-built grappling hook in the opposite claw gauntlet flies out to latch onto another surface, damaging a traditional carving in the process - but a vandalizing act showing some will to yet cling on to life regardless of everything.
GS: Gon Guado has attacked Seymour Guado with Moonflow Blue Crescent! GS: Gon Guado has gained 2 Combo! GS: Gon Guado takes 32 damage from Poison! GS: Gon Guado has completed his action. GS: Seymour Guado solidly guards Gon Guado's Moonflow Blue Crescent for 80 hit points! GS: Shieldbreak applied to Seymour Guado!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel brings a paw up to her forehead.
"You still holding frosty?" She asks. "Just a bit longer, Jack. Just a bit longer..."
"I'll bring you home so you can rest in your land, not theirs... I promise."
But there's a bit of cheer in her own voice. Maybe Jack's enthusiasm is infectious.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* The Broken Seal *>============================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Pillar of Fire *>===================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The final pillar awaits. It is crafted of stone, like all of the others, though the sides of it are sculpted in places to look like rising and crackling flames. In the center is the final crystal, which is glowing a soft red. The voice speaks again: ...final crystal. Break it and the conn... The voice grows too faint to hear for a moment. ...pulse will be broken. The Unsent will lose his power... Another pause. Go, now, children of a distant star. Flame swirls off it, but you expect a fight by now. The flame swirls all about, and it shifts into the form of a towering humanoid figure. It sweeps out with a hand. But, just as it is struck, it shifts. The flames swirls out into the form of a huge hand -- and slams down amidst the group. And with a next blow, it shifts again -- into a fiery tornado that shoots down the midst of the group. It shifts with each blow, making it dangerous in the extreme. But it must be defeated to break the final crystal, and put an end to this. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Injure============================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
They are with each other. Boudicca repeats those words to herself as she looks up at the reborn Seymour. She thinks of Yuna, whose destiny was so distaff familiar to her own, who chose life in defiance of all their traditions. But it's not just Yuna, she realises, as she looks out into the chamber. She thinks of Cyre, the Baskar Shaman, who taught Boudicca the cultural context of her bond with Moor Gault. Of Pearl, whose bond is with the Fayth, a link between cultures, not entirely unlike her. Mariel, who knows the veins beneath the earth which birthed her. Her Seer, Yuna's Guardians, monsters looking out for their friends and for the enemies of their enemies, sharp-tongued women, average men and merchants...
It is something which shakes her, as she realises just how much support she has, threaded through all the Drifters gathered here. Even those few she does not know -- they are still human, still in warm regard, it's Boudicca's default position.
"... even if I fall here," Boudicca says, hand to her heart, "my friends would right me once more." Her friends. Her friends! "And I, they."
Not even Seymour can destroy this thing, encoded in the fire stoked between Ida and Boudicca, a warmth she can share with everyone, a warmth which helps her standing.
But he can certainly try.
Does he know, by now, that fire feeds on the air, fanned to inferno? She gives of herself to Moor Gault, fans their flames. Multi-Fira seems to her such a mockery of the pyre, boiling-point unkind -- but the theory is much the same. Once again she flees on the breeze, but the breeze is its own slipstream. She outruns the first fireball, only for the second to fan so much LARGER in the wake of her, plunging over her, plunging into her. Silk burns easily.
"Ah--!"
It is difficult to kill an elemental spirit, but Seymour has made himself something of an expert on death, after all. Deeper than boiling skin is the pain of his determination, this warped and twisted thing which would bring salvation on the heels of annihilation.
She stumbles, catches herself on the breeze. She looks up to Seymour, as Yuna denounces him -- his mother.
"Ah," says Boudicca, again, not so razor-edge agonised.
"I suppose you were mortal, once."
It is a moment in which she allows herself sorrow, allows herself grief, to look up at this thing like a dragon, this thing which would destroy them all. Affection for mortality is, after all, Boudicca's default position. It is a sad thing -- a great, sad thing -- to know the pain at his roots.
... but Seymour is not someone who can be saved. Even if Boudicca didn't know that -- and she does, after all his crimes, know it painfully well -- he makes it abundantly clear with his yell in response.
Lay a flower on his grave, and do better next time.
Just him, just so.
The water crashes around her, the flame, but she is smouldering still. Perhaps that's why the new flame does not touch her, as she moves through it. It's only when she sees Yuna moving that she stills, that she turns.
So many people have died, but is that really why Yuna dances? Boudicca has to wonder. She does not have the context of the ocean Yuna does; for three hundred years she was unaware water so large existed in this world. But as she watches her movements, sweeping, vivacious, fluid as what she calls, she has some sense of the depths of the concept. It is a dance which communicates so much in her eyes -- of Yuna, of her world, of her Fayth.
And Boudicca is not looking at Seymour; she is looking at Yuna.
What beautiful nuance, she thinks, between the two of them. Because this is not the first time she has seen Leviathan come forth -- but it is the first time she has met Yuna's Leviathan, this creature of so many shining scales.
Yuna chose life, and it is here, present, physical, remembered.
Leviathan makes a splash, and the flames still smouldering Boudicca's silks are extinguished, too.
"The Aeon is come -- Guardians! I know you have a task, as well!" Boudicca calls, as another green glyph erupts beneath her feet, memories pulsing. A tailwind wends from her, to Rikku, to Lulu, to Tidus. (Paine is evidently more than strong enough, especially with that added fire.) It's a warding wind, to frustrate incoming strikes, to help them move.
She's not about to let Seymour have his way. Not yet.
GS: Seraph Boudicca has activated a Force Action! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Tidus with Fortifying Tailwind! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Rikku with Fortifying Tailwind! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Lulu with Fortifying Tailwind! GS: Seraph Boudicca takes 22 damage from Poison! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Rikku accepts Seraph Boudicca's Fortifying Tailwind for 0 hit points! GS: Burst, Quick, and Shield applied to Rikku! GS: Lulu accepts Seraph Boudicca's Fortifying Tailwind for 0 hit points! GS: Burst, Quick, and Shield applied to Lulu! GS: Tidus accepts Seraph Boudicca's Fortifying Tailwind for 0 hit points! GS: Burst, Quick, and Shield applied to Tidus!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
'Because I see this world's futility. Because I see that the sacrifices will not end.'
Ida remembers the perfect, glossy black of the Umbral Mirror. She remembers it pouring over her, deep and dark as the ink that Sister Emory poured into water to show her what sin did to a soul. Ida's throat tightens, and she looks at Gon Guado, the man who led the butchery at Home. Ida killed Yevonites to defend the Al Bhed people, and they took their anger out on her while she was imprisoned. Cruelty. Anger fed by fear and lies. A cycle.
'Because I see its demands must be crushed, not answered.'
Ida feels more than sees Boudicca's presence at her back. She was the Seraph's first mortal friend. Boudicca reached out to her, even as a Hellion. But if there's one thing she learned from that whole, awful episode--something carved into her soul--it's that while people can be monsters, they never stop being people.
And there, before her, is Seymour's. Ida looks at Yuna, and then at Citan, eyes widening. "My God," she breathes. It's a theory, she reminds herself. But if it's right...
"SEYMOUR!" And Ida's throat tightens and her heart twists into a knot and as Seymour declares the extent of his grief she rushes towards him, and he can see tears glimmering in her eyes.
It's like Miss Myyah said, so long ago. She sees them as people, now.
But that does not mean he has a right to take his grief out on the world.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The water rolls over her first. Ida stands her ground, rolling with the flow of it like Lanval taught her. Her armor is a part of her, and it shifts to blunt the force of the waves. Then comes the fire. The water flash-boils instantly, superheating the air around her. For a few moments, Ida feels like she's been dipped into molten tar. She doesn't dare breathe, for fear she'll scorch her lungs, and she doesn't dare open her eyes.
And then, the scent of flowers, and the cool sea breeze. Sea-spray splashes out, drowning the flames; Ida looks up just in time to see a very familiar serpent answer Yuna's call. The last time Ida saw them, she was in a Gear, and she only had Pearl for a sense of scale. Despite the pain both physical and emotional, Ida can't help but smile.
"Leviathan," Ida breathes. "Thank you. If... If I may?"
Ida reaches out, grabs one of the serpent's fins, hauls herself onto the Aeon's coils as delicately as she can. For a few hair-raising seconds, she hangs on for dear life as Leviathan unleashes their fury. She sees the flow of the waves, like Lanval taught her. As Leviathan's body twists, Ida lets go, kicking off and using the momentum of their maneuver to send her flying at Seymour. Her aura ignites, blazing like a tiny star--her fist is like a solar prominence, trailing plumes of Breath. A roar tears free from her lips--dwarfed by Leviathan's, but full of feeling all the same.
Seymour has made himself into a dragon. Ida drives at him, everything she has lined up behind a single, dragon-killing punch.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Seymour Guado with Unbroken Lotus Fist! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has entered Avenger Stance! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes 25 damage from Poison! GS: Poison expired! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Unbroken Lotus Fist for 280 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Marivel asks a question, and Jacqueline considers for a moment.
"I feel like... these must have been down here for a while." Jacqueline considers. "I wonder if they were meant for something like this in the first place, or if Seymour has simply manipulated them to his own ends..."
Give her a puzzle, a mystery, to think on, and she'll think on it all day - but they don't have all day. Against the wind, they push forward.
"Right." Jacqueline calls back to Pearl and Mariel as they call to her, and then follows after Mariel as she begins to move. She trusts her's judgment, her sense of these things, and follows after her. Marivel and Pearl, meanwhile, have their own methods of crossing - Marivel uses her bat form to fly over the gusts of wind, while Pearl uses her grapnel to weave between the blasts.
And so, another crystal is shattered. One yet remains, and the voice speaks.
"...It sounds like... this last one should do it." Jacqueline says, as they whirl upon the final pillar - the pillar of flame, of Fray. Fire erupts from it, swirling and coalescing into a humanoid form. It stares down at them, faceless and wreathed in flame.
Quickly, Jacqueline raises a pillar as a barrier and draws out the Lifeweaver's Codex once more.
"This won't be easy... They call this creature the 'Liquid Flame', apparently, for the way its form shifts and changes with each strike... each form has its own dangers, so be careful when going on the attack!" Jacqueline warns. For her part, she does something very simple. She draws out a bottle of icy-blue liquid - chilling to the very touch. With the power of Mystic she spreads its effects across the party, to provide respite from the flames before them.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool The Lifeweaver's Codex toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Fire.
<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.
"Paine," she answers Citan. It's a name, not a statement of annoyance. Even Paine is aware she's being unfair to the good doctor.
When Rikku, shivering, manages to explain, Paine's eyes widen, and swing with a brief accusation at a (probably distracted) Yuna, whose frequent sneezing fits on the Thunder Plains instantly snap into context. She looks down, her teeth clenched, trying to restrain something that must seem like anger at first. It certainly seems painful, like a migraine she is enduring, or a crushing chest pain.
"C... cute," she complains, releasing the shorter girl.
Turning, her hands for a moment empty of weapons, Paine feels the discomfort of Rikku's cuteness washed away by the beauty of Yuna's dance. She ought to be rejoining the fight, but all she can do is watch, and there is something in the sheer sense of power radiating from the ritual that makes that seem all right. If you are in a brawl and a meteor hurtles towards the bar, the punching doesn't seem to matter so much, does it? So, as the air begins to pulse with sea-green life, as scales ripple and silk flutters, Paine watches Yuna, her hands slack at her sides. I need to remember this, she thinks.
And when she thinks that, as always, her hands move automatically to her sphere recorder. She missed the early dance, unfortunately. But she watches the terrifying tenderness with which Yuna is lifted, and the magical moment when she goes from soaked to dry in one breath, her puffed hair endearing. And she watches as countless tons of ocean-muscle surge and flow.
"...right," Paine admits to Rikku, distractedly. She is not embarrassed to record during battle. That is what she was trained to do. But, silently, she does turn the recorder on the explosives that spell Rikku's name. Her editorial commentary is always slim, eloquently brief, especially with talkative subjects. But she cannot resist a small "hmm" as comment to this showboating. She does oblige, turning the recorder on Rikku afterwards. Future viewers will have to decide for themselves whether Rikku knows how to present her good side, or Paine agreeably chose the right angle for it.
Seymour seems to need more convincing, however. As Lulu shifts from lightning to frost, Paine drops to a knee again to avoid the breeze from her magicks, several flakey motes of frost brushing through her hair, or catching there invisibly among the white. With a shove of her thumb, she dislodges a loader into her palm from her belt, with the midsection of its bullets visible. Though they appear the usual brass, a red X is painted on each, crudely, probably by Paine herself. And when she feeds the bullets into her machina rifle, she does so with unusual care and finality, her thumb pinning each one in place firmly for a moment before she dares swing the carbine closed again.
Setting the recorder down, tilted up towards Seymour and Leviathan, Paine lifts the carbine to her shoulder. It feels rude, almost, to join such a combat, especially with a weapon that Paine (and Yuna's) culture views as dirty, heretical. A coward's weapon, fired from a distance, a cheap machina interceding in divine combat.
But sometimes the holy ones need a little help.
The BLAM is no louder this time than it had been at any other, but whereas before it swallowed up the ping of the bullet itself impacting, this time it is a small boom that is immediately swallowed by the explosion that erupts on impact. Like a child tormenting a snake with paper poppers, Paine pelts Seymour over and over, each shot meticulously aimed and delivered with almost sadistic care. BLAM-BOOM! BLAM-BOOM!
GS: Paine has activated a Force Action! GS: Paine spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Paine has attacked Seymour Guado with Explosive Rounds! GS: Paine has gained 1 Combo! GS: Paine takes 24 damage from Poison! GS: Cover expired! GS: Paine has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado takes a solid hit from Paine's Explosive Rounds for 191 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
"No--"
Seymour shouts, but his voice is drowned out by crashing water. Leviathan comes, summoned up by Yuna and Leviathan alike. He hears Belize's name, and he grimaces; they bring back an old emotion, something painful. An echo of who he was; they always brought him, somehow, a little closer to life. Much like Lunata could, until he pushed her away. He never had the chance with them.
Waves crash down -- and he is dragged into the water, screaming. Seymour bellows his fury, his betrayal -- and he shudders, until his body EXPLODES apart into so many pyreflies.
And he reforms, a moment later, over Leviathan. He is reformed, complete and whole; he is not even wet. But he is affected, as the furious anger in his face shows. Seymour turns his head, and he looks at Citan. "Yes," he says. "She chose that path -- and I chose to reject it, after she persisted." Citan's slash guides a blast of water. It smashes into his chest, and wehn the flesh dents in, it ripples -- and waves prismatic light can be seen.
Tidus follows up on that. He strikes his blade into those claws -- through the middle of the hand, then rips out, and pyreflies explode away from it. Seymour snarls down at him in pain.
He can only just bat aside the magic that Ree sends at him. His hand throws out a barrier, which the spell strikes against, and splits apart.
He can't know about Margaret's pain. He can't know about a lost friend -- but he does, abruptly, learn about her spear. It shoots under the dragon's mouth, spearing out the back. Pyreflies erupt and fly, the head yanking hard side-to-side. Then, it tears free, and the head is shorn off. It falls, in a blast of pyreflies, and vanishes into a cloud of the same. There is a headless dragon there, his beating wings sending ripples through the waves. Rikku's grenade flies, slamming into the Unsent's chest. Clouds of colored smoke explode -- and Seymour flies out of them, with a shout.
Rikku's name hovers before him. "Gh...!"
Cyre lays into him. Slashing and striking, with flame and wind. Pyreflies burst away -- and he screams through it. Wind and fire is joined by Lulu's ice -- and the Black Mage rams a chunk of frozen seawater clean through his chest. Pyreflies explode out of the entrance and exit wounds, as his body convulses.
His head turns -- and he sees one more pillar, brought down. The wind crystal, shattered. "No--no!"
That seems to be having a great effect.
And Gon chooses that moment to strike. The old Guado Guardian comes down, his gauntlet slamming into a wing. The wing crumples; it breaks like bone, and sags, before it also vanishes in a burst of pyreflies that come raining down all around. The room has so many now that, even if all the other lights were snuffed out, one could read.
The grappling hook tears a line, through his flesh, and Seymour bellows and thrashes, trying to knock Gon aside. "I should have killed you sooner, old man!"
His eyes turn, looking at Mariel. "I will end all of you! Stay away from it!"
Ida surges in. Using one of Leviathan's fins, she sends herself flying -- and her punch slams into Seymour's chest. He crumples about it. His body shudders -- explodes into pyreflies -- and Ida passes through it, pyreflies swirling about her. Then, they swirl up, in streams, and merge back together.
Back into Seymour's draconic form -- with both wings, with its head, fully formed and fully whole. "Is that all!? IS THAT ALL--"
Half of his head is blasted away, exploding into pyreflies. Seymour is blasted, again and again, each shot striking him violently -- and exploding into blast after blast of flame. He looks more ragged, as it is done; pyreflies waft away, and some holes do not mend. His face only shifts back into being with some focus. "So be it. If you wish protect them so badly... then be the first to die!"
He throws both of his hands forward.
And it's a wicked and wild wind that picks up. It starts as a fast wind -- and it grows faster and faster yet, blowing harder and harder. The wind rakes the floor; it starts to cut into the stone. It blows with such force that it may pick people up, and it starts pulling in so much water from Leviathan's ocean that it becomes a water spout as much as a tornado.
And it threatens to engulf everyone.
"I will see you all dead! I will NOT fail here!"
GS: Seymour Guado spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Seymour Guado has attacked Yuna with Maelstrom! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Seymour Guado has attacked Citan Uzuki with Maelstrom! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Seymour Guado has attacked Tidus with Maelstrom! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Seymour Guado has attacked Ree with Maelstrom! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Seymour Guado has attacked Margaret with Maelstrom! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Seymour Guado has attacked Rikku with Maelstrom! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Seymour Guado has attacked Lulu with Maelstrom! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Seymour Guado has attacked Gon Guado with Maelstrom! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Seymour Guado has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Maelstrom! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Seymour Guado has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Maelstrom! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Seymour Guado has attacked Paine with Maelstrom! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Seymour Guado has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Maelstrom! GS: Seymour Guado has gained 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"We're being asked to break it." Marivel considers. "I wonder if this is a power behind the fayths...?"
She glances to Jacqueline. "Yeah, well, normally I prefer to be skeptical of mysterious voices but we don't have much choice. If it makes everything bad we can deal with it then."
She then turns and sees
LONG AGO IN HER MIND, NOW IN REALITY
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HtOv2QwgHM
Lord Blazer, as he would be called, a silly little name to make him seem a little less dangerous reaches out towards Marivel. Nuclear fire boils off his limb and reaches for her. He wants to complete the set. He wants her soul. Not to keep. To consume. To dissect. To incinerate. To leave nothing but ash.
Just like how he left his family. "Ana..."
Where Pearl is, she instead sees Luceid. Where Jay is, she sees Ana. She rushes towards Jay. She places a hand on her shoulder. Jay can feel eldricht powers from an elden time empowering her, boosting her strength, agility, magic power--everything.
Marivel's eyes glow crimson, but she isn't seeing Jay. Not really. "Ana, Hold fast. Hold true. Help will come. You've inspired them, they know we are here, they will pray for us. They will give us the strength. And we can finish this fight. Althena. She'll be here any moment. She hasn't let us down yet."
"Yes..." Her eyes burn. "This is almost enough. It's almost enough. When she gets here... He'll be able to finish him off. My family, they'll be avenged and... and we can live the rest of our lives, Ana... Happily. Ever. After. Kamui and Gami will have the peaceful lives they deserve. They're so happy together I... I..."
She senses an Elw nearby.
She turns her head and she smiles at Mariel.
"...Althy... You made it."
No that.
That didn't happen. They were...
NOW. AND NOW
Marivel blinks twice. She raises her hand to her forehead. Her eyes widen and she pants for breath as a panic attack hits her. She shakes her head quickly.
"Finish it..." She seethes, srtuggling to stand. "Finish it."
DG: Marivel Armitage has used her Tool My Mike toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Fire.
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has activated a Force Action! GS: Margaret suffers a terrible blow from Seymour Guado's Maelstrom for 236 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Margaret activates Arcane Font! GS: Margaret enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: COUNTER! Cyre H. Lorentz counterattacks Seymour Guado with Bloody Aftershock! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Maelstrom for 235 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Cyre H. Lorentz gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seymour Guado partially guards Cyre H. Lorentz's Bloody Aftershock for 154 hit points! GS: Lulu has activated a Force Action! GS: Lulu takes a glancing hit from Seymour Guado's Maelstrom for 118 hit points! GS: Lulu activates Arcane Font! GS: Lulu enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Tidus suffers a terrible blow from Seymour Guado's Maelstrom for 236 hit points! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Tidus receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Tidus enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Poison expired! GS: Citan Uzuki has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Guard! GS: CRITICAL! Ree partially evades Seymour Guado's Maelstrom for 214 hit points! GS: Citan Uzuki suffers a terrible blow from Seymour Guado's Maelstrom for 221 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Citan Uzuki gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Citan Uzuki receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Citan Uzuki enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Poison expired! GS: Rikku suffers a terrible blow from Seymour Guado's Maelstrom for 245 hit points! GS: Rikku enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Yuna takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Maelstrom for 243 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yuna gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Paine partially evades Seymour Guado's Maelstrom for 174 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Paine gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Paine activates Sufferer! Paine enters Critical health and gains 25 FP! GS: Paine enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Poison expired!
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
"I think... they must have been for something else. They're - " Mariel isn't sure, having never seen them in their original state, but... "I think they were to stabilize it. Like... stones, along a river, or an irrigation line. To keep the energy flowing properly. But this - "
What Seymour is doing, by comparison, is using them to channel the flow right into the center of town, flooding it. The same technique, used for aggression instead of productivity... or to prevent a flood just like this.
Mariel hates it. That's not what you're supposed to do with the energies of the world! Or anything else!
Shooting a glance at the rest of the battle, Mariel turns back to Fire. The last of them, though honestly had she picked it would have been first; fire, alone, is volatile, and without anything else to balance it, dangerous.
"The Liquid Flame..." No, she hasn't ever seen that before. Jay recognized it, not her. What can she do against something like that? Go around and let the others deal with it? But...
Marivel is here. Marivel speaks, and right now, Mariel can't leave her. "Marivel," she says, quietly. "I'm here. But I'm not her." She reaches out, wrapping one arm around Marivel's shoulders, helping her stand.
And she sees, in a flash of insight, what to do.
The elements are unbalanced right now. Of the pillars, only Fire stands. There is a gap for the others - a vacuum for earth, but also for wind, and for water, and those are what are running rampant not all that far away. Mariel does something intentionally that she's rarely tried to do before - she *pushes*, trying to bring the energy flows into something like balance.
Two things happen at once: first, Mariel half-collapses against Marivel. Instead of supporting the other woman, they're kind of propping each other up at this point. Spots dance in Mariel's hearing, and she sees the roar of the wind and wave, her senses momentarily so overloaded they are confused.
Second, some of the Maelstrom angles itself toward the Liquid Flame as the elements try to return to something like balance - which means flattening out the fire, and bringing the others where they weren't. Without the Earthpulse being right here, Mariel wouldn't even *think* about trying something like this.
But with it...
DG: Mariel has used her Tool Herbal Helper toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Fire.
<Pose Tracker> Ree has posed.
Bruised, bleeding, and staggering under Seymour's magical assault, Ree realizes she may not make it out of here. In the past she's relied on her ARMS, her magic: she's gotten out of plenty of tough scrapes before.
But would her skills be enough now?
Only one way to find out.
She pours everything she has into a last desperate Blizzard attack, aiming specifically for Seymour's eyes. If he had a physical form, he'd need vision...! She is hoping this will be his weakness!
GS: Ree has attacked Seymour Guado with Snowblind! GS: Ree gains 60 THP from Regen! GS: Ree has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado solidly guards Ree's Snowblind for 92 hit points! GS: Blind and Drowsy applied to Seymour Guado!
DC: Cyre H. Lorentz switches forms to Nahual - Fengalon! DC: Cyre H. Lorentz switches forms to Wind Shaman Cyre!
GS: Gon Guado has activated a Force Action! GS: Gon Guado suffers a terrible blow from Seymour Guado's Maelstrom for 221 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gon Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Gon Guado used Defend! He takes Seymour Guado's Maelstrom attack on Ida Everstead-Rey on himself! GS: Gon Guado solidly guards Seymour Guado's Maelstrom for 98 hit points! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Gon Guado receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Gon Guado enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Poison expired! GS: Gon Guado has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Seymour Guado's Maelstrom for 212 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Boudicca gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Guard bonus and Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
A being made entirely of flame.
She watches as it forms. How does one fight a being made of flame? Just striking it seems foolhardy, but Jay makes it a possibility.
But Pearl doesn't rush in immediately. Instead she focuses, and outstretched a hand. Darkness wisps around the Liquid Flame like wind, pulled toward the flame.
Pearl has no way of knowing what Marivel is seeing. But she hears the desperate cries to finish it, the horrible flame. "Do not worry. There is no other option." She can't entertain failure here. She looks forward with steel grey eyes. Ice starts to fall from the darkness. Once again, Spira has granted her what she needed.
"Dark Blizzaga." She whispers, the closest she has come to chanting.
The darkness suddenly attempts to encoil the pillar, before ice spikes out in all directions, fractal, jagged and harsh. No light passes through the ice, pulled into the consuming darkness. The Maelstrom is torn toward it, as Mariel slumps, it's terrible power clashing into darkness and flame. Leo Jr, the little guardian, places himself between the struggling duo, as though his plant body could withstand flame. Maybe it can.
Pearl does not understand the ley, or the Earthpulse, or magic really. But she understands chi. She understands following the lines of life, and this thing has life. Life and multiple conflicting energies. Her own blessing of darkness has always tended towards messy. They just need a catalyst. Something to set it all off. Fortunately, she has the trick. "...Commander. Kaguya. May your technique work." She had attempted to end Seymour herself no less than three times, and never succeeded. But this time she wasn't doing it alone. Maybe this time it would stick.
'Finish it', Marivel had cried. So Pearl was going to damn well do it. There was no entertaining failure.
"Demon Fist!" She yells, sending the wave of energy at the Liquid Flame and the energies surrounding it. All to try and detonate the chaotic mixture, and wash away the flames for good.
DG: Pearl has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Pillar of Fire.
============================<* The Broken Seal *>============================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Pillar of Fire *>===================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The final pillar awaits. It is crafted of stone, like all of the others, though the sides of it are sculpted in places to look like rising and crackling flames. In the center is the final crystal, which is glowing a soft red. The voice speaks again: ...final crystal. Break it and the conn... The voice grows too faint to hear for a moment. ...pulse will be broken. The Unsent will lose his power... Another pause. Go, now, children of a distant star. Flame swirls off it, but you expect a fight by now. The flame swirls all about, and it shifts into the form of a towering humanoid figure. It sweeps out with a hand. But, just as it is struck, it shifts. The flames swirls out into the form of a huge hand -- and slams down amidst the group. And with a next blow, it shifts again -- into a fiery tornado that shoots down the midst of the group. It shifts with each blow, making it dangerous in the extreme. But it must be defeated to break the final crystal, and put an end to this. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Injure============================================
=======================<* The Broken Seal - Round 5 *>======================== =======================< Results - The Pillar of Fire >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mariel 52 --(17)--> 69 Fail Herbal Helper 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pearl 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jacqueline Barber 32 --(5)--> 37 Pass The Lifeweaver's Codex 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Marivel Armitage 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass My Mike 4 Combat Effects: Efficient and Fanfare ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Mariel 80 --(35)--> 115 Pass Conditions: Injure(2)|Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Mariel has successfully explored The Broken Seal!
============================<* The Broken Seal *>============================= ==============<* CHALLENGE - The Restored Seal - The Lost Age *>============== |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The final crystal shatters. As it does, the stone doorway here is aglow -- but that glow fades, as do the steady stream of pyreflies coming from it. There is a pulse of light throughout the room, and Seymour's entire form shudders mightily with the impact. The door seems to change its very form. The door is already closed, but there is an impression of hardening -- as if the cracks between the wall and doors have sealed shut, as if the stone is harder than before. The pyreflies stop even trickling through. Seymour screams, at that. The voice speaks, one final time: The seal is made. Our domain is secure, but know this: our kind will tolerate no further interference into the Heavenly Steppes. We shall not swear the oaths! There is but a brief pause. Strike now -- you will not have another chance! =Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
"steady on old girl. i'm holding out. wondering how it'll go you know. i just heard old rex give the call... can't let a friend down now can you" comes the voice in Marivel's - thoughts? soul? heart? Go with heart - that's where the blood goes, doesn't it? It fades; back to sleep.
Not everyone is asleep, though.
Margaret kicks and leaps and slashes against the dragon. It is the sort of fury that could, with the right blade, maim the gods - but partway through, on one particularly vicious slash, Margaret's sword gives out. A good blade of reclaimed steel, forged in some ancient war in the days before the Day of Collapse: nevertheless, it wasn't made to get used as what is, ultimately, a sort of high speed chopping instrument.
With about half of a sword, Margaret leaps back, away from the immediate reach of the wyrm-Seymour, even as he screams. "Ha!" she answers him. "I have a score to settle, far too big for" ALTHENA DAMN IT, Margaret thinks as she feels the presaging of an enormous spell, even as her eyes flick towards the handsome gunner unleashing Hell on the creature. And then the wind begins to rise, and the water intermingles, and soon enough the maelstrom comes for them all and Margaret feels a solid wall of water, just about, slamming into her - ah! Not quite solid! It's like a wall of blunt pins! she thinks, skidding against the ground hard enough for the metal soles of her shoes to throw sparks.
She is whipped up then, coming nearly fully around the circumference of the plaza before being smashed to the cobblestone. The blow jars her and she stabs at the ground with the remaining half of Steel's Kiss, several times, before finally finding an anchor, hair whipping like wild black moss in the storm. She opens one eye that she hadn't known she was closing, looks round --
She is within arm's reach of Lulu. She reaches over to grasp a belt and rattle it. "Lulu!" she calls upwards. "Lulu, right!? Did you ever see the trains on Filgaia?!"
"Great big engines!" Margaret says. "They burn a fire under a tank of water - the pressure drives the motor! Fastest thing you ever saw! Until it blows out the opening -- or is blown to fragments! And THAT is the biggest BURST you ever saw, either!"
"You've got the water already!" Margaret shouts, before turning herself to cling all the harder to her blade as a particular nasty downdraft threatens to scrape her across the paving like butter on warm toast.
GS: Margaret enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Margaret has attacked Lulu with Shout! Choreography In The Field! GS: Margaret has attacked Rikku with Shout! Choreography In The Field! GS: Margaret has attacked Paine with Shout! Choreography In The Field! GS: Margaret has gained 1 Combo! GS: Margaret enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: Lulu accepts Margaret's Shout! Choreography In The Field for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Lulu! GS: Quick applied to Margaret! GS: Paine accepts Margaret's Shout! Choreography In The Field for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Paine! GS: Rikku accepts Margaret's Shout! Choreography In The Field for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Rikku!
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Leviathan rises at the Summoner's call, and for a moment Cyre is awed into silence. Seeing the Aeons awaken is always an experience, one that is so similar but so different from witnessing the manifestation of the Guardians. He only returns to himself when he realizes he hasn't breathed for a moment or two too long. Finally releasing his breath, the shaman stares up at the monstrous thing Seymour has become.
...And feels a wicked wind begin to blow.
"Nn...?" Cyre asks of the air. Wind building speed, faster and faster and faster. Roaring at a speed that few could survive. Cyre stares into that horrible wind, that terrible stone-shredding gale. He grits his teeth and steadies his stance. "Okay," he says to himself, "Let's do it your way then."
The maelstrom tears into him. He stands at the precipice of a wall of world-scourging wind. He feels his flesh tear and his blood shed. He feels his life draining out of his body drop by bloody drop. Has he accepted this as his end?
No...
No. The Nahuals of Wehaca-- offer their blood to the Guardians they worship. They offer their bodies to the sacred spirits of the land. They offer their souls to stand eternal vigil until the day that the planet is once more as it once was. Cyre bleeds into the wind.
...And takes it all into himself.
Emerald incandesence floods across the scarred stone. There, deep in the storm, a metamorphosis takes place. Wind whirls down in tightening gyres, draining away from Seymour's fiendish sorcery. Wind, an element that does not normally exist in Spira's elemental cycle, conjured here by something that should not exist in its cycle of reincarnation...
But which, on Filgaia, is one of the four principal forces of the ley.
Which, here, is manifest in the one among all mortals who is closest to its god.
"Seymour Guado," Cyre roars in a voice that is not wholly his own. "You are already dead."
The veil of wind breaks. Out from it comes the manifest Shintai of the Wind Tiger: Fengalon and his Nahual, become one.
"It's time for you to leave this pain of yours behind. Be released from the world." The Nahual rises, motes of green light gathering into an emerald current, subverting the lingering maelstrom winds into a tempest of far more auspicious providence. "The winds shall scatter your soul to the four corners and free you from suffering," Cyre declares, lifting a hand toward the would-be Eternal Fiend. The emerald tornado lurches forward to do exactly as was promised. To flense soul from soul, and tear apart the very foundations of Seymour Guado's terrible form!
Long ago, this very form was used to deceive Gon Guado in Luca. A Summoner and her Aeon, the story went. But now, it's clear...
This is no Aeon. Of course, it could never be. This was, and will forever be, a Guardian.
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has activated a Force Action!
DC: Cyre H. Lorentz switches forms to Nahual - Fengalon!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has activated a Force Action! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz spends 4 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Seymour Guado with Awakening Air! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado suffers a terrible blow from Cyre H. Lorentz's Awakening Air for 271 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
The thrashing on Seymour's part is enough to sever the hook that is Gon's lifeline through the tempests, and Gon is in no position to give much response to Seymour's desire to have killed him off sooner. A wicked wind stirs up the conjured oceans, and for a time, Gon is but a ragdoll who stands to drown within it if the g-forces and whiplash don't do it for him.
He's blacking in and out, in and out, through the whirling. Every so often, he catches glimpses in his fading consciousness of the Summoner Yuna with Leviathan, and then others yet. There are many faces here that do not readily inspire hope or joy in him if taken as individuals. (The feeling is mutual.)
A few times through the whirl, he can catch a look at Pearl - or "Ena." The earnestness in which she presented her lies as a means of accomplishing goals for Althena - but, seeing that Leviathan favored her, was it a lie? He remembers how he helped see her through her training in that stern, unyielding way.
There is one claim to fame on his end that is not yet besmirched, and for all the hits to his pride, he's not going to suffer one now.
His one remaining clawed gauntlet digs into nearby stone with horrid screeching as he tries to assert a grip in the tempestuous tantrum of socery, managing to find some grounding. A moment, in which to cast his magic.
A frigid, cool air surrounds him as a vaguely circular dome of empty space seems to push against some of the water and wind - a Shell, if one will - as he hurls himself down somewhere in the direction of the pillars. It seems incidental, then, that one Otherworlder will find immediate shelter as the White aspect of Ice forms an effective enough shield to not allow Gon to be completely swallowed up by it again yet.
He takes a step or two to stand up, one gauntlet-clad hand and one bare crossed over him, looking back over his shoulder to Ida.
"I have participated in several Pilgrimages. All abandoned them... I had ever pushed my charges to fulfill their roles to Yevon. Bring peace and closure to the living. To deliver the fallen to the Farplane." Almost like a confession. "Nonetheless..."
Gon's expression hardens. "Not once did I allow a Summoner nor her allies to fall." He looks back ahead, so focused on keeping the Shell up he cannot move or act otherwise - trying to buffer and keep all that mess from spilling onto the site where another team is struggling to destroy the pillars.
"...I will not allow that to happen now," with pained humility, "regardless of who these allies may be."
The same man Ida once went 'oh, here, deliver this gift to Seymour' to at the would-be wedding party, as if that were his standing, who turned out to be so much more awful - but not above giving ground to correct his mistakes.
He grunts in frustration at seeing that form of Cyre, remembering when someone or something bonked him on the back of the head before he thought to go raise the alarm to someone else - back during the plot to reinforce Luca's fealty to Yevon.
GS: Gon Guado has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed. <SoundTracker> In The Water Where The City Ends - Simone White - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot9aU6P8cCg
Leviathan is a willing boost for Ida, but the punch rips her loose, and the titanic sea serpent makes no effort to retrieve her. Fortunately her landing will be soft (and wet), but... it's getting dryer all the time.
Is Yuna losing her grip? Is the magic fading already? Has Seymour taken all the water for himself, to turn against her and her allies, without so much as a fight?
Looking at her, it's impossible to believe. She is focused, unimaginably focused; condensed into a white hole, into a singularity of self. One might expect that to be distance -- to have to seek her at the end of a long, dark tunnel. But Yuna is Yuna. And so it is, she is, the opposite of convention. She is present, profoundly and absolutely so. It is difficult to say where her awareness ends and the fayth's begins. Indeed, as others approach their communion, in word and deed, they find that to meet the summoner's eyes is not to intrude where they are not welcome.
There is a mirror in Yuna's heart, and it's big enough to reflect them, too. To contain and re-emit their awe, or their nostalgia, or even simply their very practical relief. Yuna joins you in all of this. It is a very special time. It is a very dangerous time.
But still, the waterline recedes...
sat the corner
on the crossing
hear the border
where the light begins
Leviathan endures the maelstrom as only a water elemental can, spreading themselves as wide as possible to provide cover for Yuna and anyone else nearby. But there's so much wind -- and it is so terrible a force -- that even they are not immune. There is something fishy going on here, though, and it isn't the aeon's fins and scales. Every time ichor-stained water drains off of their coils -- or, red-tinged, off of one of Seymour's other victims -- it moves, snakelike in itself, against gravity and back towards the Lord of All Waters.
If not for their enormous mass, Yuna might have been blown away. And even Leviathan cannot protect her from Seymour's rage and hatred and toxic grief, which she has left herself open to as much as anything else. More. Waves crash, currents grip and suck, the wind tears her feet from the floor for a moment -- but it's his feeling of betrayal that hits hardest of all.
single doorway
of a station
in the water
now the city ends
He explains it so casually, so matter-of-factly.
Yuna elaborates. The others... they deserve to know. They've given enough pounds of flesh, because of him, to know more of the truth.
"He was a child," she seethes, as the storm abates at last. "She took him all the way up the mountain... through all that cold, and all those fiends. She took him across the wasteland. And she took him... down. Down, to Zanarkand. And there..."
all divisible by you
hold me close we slip right through
"...she left him. She chose to die for him. But that's just another way of saying that she left him all alone."
It doesn't excuse anything. It doesn't justify a single act of harm, let alone murder, that Seymour has committed, against the Guado who drove her to such desperation, against the world who might have hailed the corpse of a child, raised him into statues as the next High Summoner, just as they would have raised her.
But it does provide... context.
Meanwhile, the water continues to leak and seep downwards, then across, the plaza.
cross a bridge
whisper the houses
would the narrow wooden walkways
stand a chamber
left the structure
in the the tidal river bend
The scent of gardenias is overpowering, now, with so little of the sea to contest it. It smells rich and ripe and thick, thick with oil, lantern oil from ships that cannot sail upon Sin's seas. That kind of life is over; ferryman and fishermen have careers that are harsh, brutal, and devastatingly short.
But against damp skin, the touch of shadow is harsh, too.
The temperature plunges several degrees.
And above Leviathan, the wave they have collected... grows.
all divisible by you
hold me close we slip right through
It is taller than Yuna. It is taller than the serpent's foreclaws. It is taller than their hood.
It is taller, even, than Seymour in midair.
Suddenly, the door slams shut. And Yuna's head lifts, as she hears unfamiliar words... and heeds their guidance.
She thrusts both palms forth, and the plaza fills with the sound of cresting momentum. Of churning bubbles, as water hungrily consumes air.
And then--
palace speak
fire the canyon
understood and congregation
reflected us quiet formation
in the water
where the city ends
--it's such unparalleled violence. Such a small word for such a large body count. Though it could not defeat Sin in combat, it might defeat him in tragedy. Sin, after all, has purpose, if not reason.
There is a terrible impersonality to a tsunami.
It crushes everything in its path. Inexplicably, Yuna's allies are not; not because no one is between Leviathan and Seymour, but because, as her Guardians experienced at Macalania Temple, there comes a point in a summoner's career where they no longer give a damn about collateral damage not because they're callous but because they're immune.
It's like being in an aquarium tunnel, just for a moment. The only force more powerful than Yuna and Leviathan's combined determination to grant Seymour the ending he craves--
--is Yuna's mercy. She guarantees the safety of the others through willpower alone. When the wave passes... not a hair upon them is wet from it.
all divisible by you
hold me close we slip right through
As for Seymour...
...she assumes the worst. The best.
The end.
Perhaps 'hope' is a better word. She dares to hope that, this time, at last, they have not failed him.
She does not wait to see the outcome across the plaza, to begin the Sending.
GS: Yuna has activated a Force Action! GS: Yuna spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Yuna has attacked Seymour Guado with TSUNAMI! GS: Yuna has gained 2 Combo! GS: Yuna gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Yuna has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado suffers a terrible blow from Yuna's TSUNAMI for 342 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Purge! Blind and Drowsy removed!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"Yeah... at this point, we don't have much choice between trusting it or seeing if there's a limit to how much Seymour can knit himself back together." Jacqueline replies with a nod toward Marivel. And she has a feeling their allies, as much trust as she has in them, don't have enough stamina for that.
And so, the Liquid Flame rises before them. Jacqueline hears Marivel speaking. ...Ana? She is surprised to find that directed at her, as Marivel approaches her to rest a hand on her shoulder.
"Marivel? I'm not-" She starts... but, no. Marivel isn't looking at her - not really. It's more like... she's looking 'through' her, seeing someone else. That's the sensation Jacqueline gets. Hearing the way she speaks to Anastasia... she feels a little sad. If only they could've had that peaceful life together.
Jacqueline turns her attention back to the fight at hand. Marivel has given her power - the least she can do is return the favor. She begins to cast, using the boost to weave spells of strength and defense across the party to help them handle the Liquid Flame.
And she watches with curiosity as Mariel, for the first time Jacqueline has seen her do so, seems to draw upon the elements. She can feel a little of what happens, as the elemental balance shifts into something closer to normalcy, as water crashes against flame.
The Liquid Flame seems weakened, now - vulnerable. And before it can build itself back up, Pearl is upon it. Darkness joins together with ice, and a practiced hand directs it at the Liquid Flame in a wave, crashing into it... and through, as the flames disperse.
And thus, the final crystal shatters. ...And in response, the door the pyreflies flow from seals itself shut, and the voice speaks again.
"Wait! Thank you for your help, but... who are you? What oaths? What are the Heavenly Steppes?" Jacqueline calls out. A mystery...
She turns her attention to the battle raging nearby - and notes, with curiosity, the protective shell that Gon forms.
"...Thank you." She says.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
The wind is many things to many people.
To sailors, it fills sails. Quickly do they venture through the seas on the kites they have affixed to their boats. But they have to collapse those kites, when the wind grows too angry.
To farmers, it grinds millet. The blades of windmills spin, and the legacy of a storm is a destroyed field.
To Drifters, it carries them forward. Forward, into...
The wind tears at Boudicca; she does not spring away. She stands firm, and hers answers his, spiral-counterspiral, the sort of front which creates a whirling hurricane. Her silks tear in the violence of it, in the violence of her, in this betrayal of the sheer shearing FORCE of the gale, so unlike a soothing breeze.
Such is it that the wind does not, entirely, STOP whirling, around Boudicca. At some point the maelstrom stopped being his -- at some point Boudicca asserted herself over it. This is not the point it stops raging.
He is not the only one who is angry.
She is no less angry to know why.
"Blow, storm, and stopper misery!" Boudicca incants, because there's a glyph at her feet, a gale about her, around her, a tearing hurricane she can pour into Seymour, he who was lost. "HOWLING GALE!"
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"No," Marivel murmurs to Jack. "You can't let a friend down..."
Marivel. I'm here. But I'm not her.
Marivel knows that too. "I'm a terrible friend," Marivel murmurs, more to herself than to Mariel. "But all the same I won't let you down."
She's getting her focus back. Quickly, but--
He was a child.
Marivel turns to look at Yuna, but keeps Mariel steady. She is SEETHING, you see.
And she sees why Yuna can still feel empathy for someone like Seymour as she speaks the rest. Seymour isn't the only person who was left alone by their parent's sacrifices. So was Yuna.
So was Marivel.
Marivel wonders, if she could have seen that earlier, would anything have changed? Perhaps not, perhaps not. And yet--
If there is one thing she can understasnd about Seymour, it's that pain. And she knows just how far it could push her. Not as far as Seymour, perhaps, but far enough. Far enough.
So she says the words that have kept her going. Maybe the very words that kept her from becoming a man like him.
"No matter where you go." Marivel says to Seymour, of Seymour. "You will never be alone."
She straightens up. She takes in a deep breath. She exhales. The crystal is shattered. The job is done. Whatever comes of it will come.
"Be grateful it's just that." Marivel says to Jay. "And...apologies. The situation was too similar. Normally flame alone..."
GS: Seraph Boudicca has activated a Force Action! GS: Seraph Boudicca spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seymour Guado with Howling Gale! GS: Seraph Boudicca takes 20 damage from Poison! GS: Poison and Quick expired! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado suffers a terrible blow from Seraph Boudicca's Howling Gale for 148 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
It's only around now, when the wind pillar shatters, and Seymour screams about it, that Tidus puts together that--oh, right, breaking those is breaking whatever's keeping Seymour around. He takes a moment to feel kind of dumb about it. Then a maelstrom picks up, and he has much bigger things to worry about.
Tidus is one of those who gets picked up by the gale force. It's not the first time he's gotten picked up and tossed around by a force larger than himself, but that makes it no less godawful for it. At least when he slams into the water, his blitzer instincts kick in and he takes a reflexive deep breath before he's submerged in the waterspout. When he lands, he's bruised, battered, bloody--but still alive. The wind that Boudicca had called up earlier to wrap around him protectively saw to that.
There's a lot going on right now. Tidus, beat up as he is, standing only because of the healing he got from Yuna earlier, can't really focus on a lot of it. There's, like, a giant tiger made of wind over there? What?? Is he hallucinating that??? Whatever, it's fine. The point is that those pillars are shattering, and Seymour's come back again, but this is going to be the *last time, dammit*.
Water shifts and rises around him. For a moment, all is a tunnel, and he watches the water crash down, *crush* down, towards Seymour. Tidus looks back at Yuna, at Leviathan, and smiles. It's a bittersweet one. He can always focus on her voice, and her voice tells Seymour's tale. Not really the kind of thing he wants to hear, but... he gets it. He gets it better than he really ever wanted to.
He tightens his grip on his sword and runs forward. The wall of water is so powerful that it's shockingly easy for the blitzer to rebound off of it as if it were solid rather than liquid. His training as a pro athlete help too, of course. As long as there's something there to resist you, you can rebound off of it. And he rebounds high, so high he nears the ceiling, a vast and brilliant light shining behind him like the sun as he raises his blade.
As he spins, he brings his blade down. The water all around them, in the air, on the floor and walls, surging in to put an end to Seymour, spares some droplets to join with the light. As a rainbow passes, Tidus slashes *down*, and that force rams downwards towards the savage Unsent.
"Rest in pieces, Seymour," he quips, because he really does hate this guy that much.
GS: Tidus has activated a Force Action! GS: Tidus has activated a Force Action! GS: Tidus spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Formation! Tidus has attacked Seymour Guado with Sunshower Strike! GS: Tidus has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado suffers a terrible blow from Tidus's Sunshower Strike for 188 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"Miss Paine, then!" He had wondered if perhaps he had overstepped in some way, but...
Perhaps Lulu is answering him. Or perhaps not. But it may suffice regardless.
The same goes for him as well: he would do well not to fall here. There is much yet to be done.
(It seems that he might be right, on his assumption of Rikku's 'affliction'. But now is hardly the time for dwelling upon that.)
Because... the cold realization he had come to was the truth.
She persisted, says Seymour, of that horrible truth. So he rejected it utterly.
Citan is a father. And he has had ample opportunity to reflect on this considering his own history. How does loss alter the trajectory of a child's life? To be take on such a journey -- one that he now knows has but one purpose and, under normal circumstances, but one end -- and in so doing, lose their beloved mother? Was that truly the start of it all? Would all be averted if it had transpired differently?
"...Miss Yuna," Citan says, not addressing Seymour's comment directly. "Your father had also been a Summoner, correct? I have heard stories of Lord Braska. Had he not...?"
The circumstances are different. One was a journey the traveler wished for. One was a journey forced upon the traveler. He has heard stories of Braska, though he had of course never met the man. But they had both been journeys that had left behind a child.
"Maester Seymour," Citan then says. "You are far from the only one to suffer such. And yet, you alone have chosen this path!"
And the wind crystal shatters. That would leave only...
"Hurry!" he calls out, as if to urge forth Jacqueline, Marivel, Mariel, Pearl. They may be reaching their limits, and then there will be hardly anything to divert Seymour's attention. Indeed, if they had not managed in that moment to again to tear him apart, to reduce again his corpus to Pyreflies... perhaps he would have...
And still he reconstitutes himself. The fact that he turns his attention upon the lot of them is cold comfort. An ill wind blows. There is no escaping it, however he might try.
It's strange how, in moments like these, he is given to think of old friends. He is flying in this moment, ripped from the stability of the ground under his feet, helpless whatever his ability in the face of this display of natural fury. He knows what will become of a body moving at this speed -- what will happen when the storm lets him go. But instead of dwelling on those thoughts, that pending reality, he thinks instead of the nature of the wind, and thus of old friends.
If light should shimmer about the outline of his body, it will certainly be missed in the fury of the maelstrom.
It, eventually, lets him go. He impacts a wall, hard, and does not rise immediately. When he does, he does so slowly, a grimace coloring his expression. A pair of fingers touch to his face. "Oh dear..."
Of all things that have been heaped upon him today, he seems most hurt by the apparent loss of his spectacles.
But he was thinking about old friends when the storm took him. Watching the monumental wave brought home by Leviathan's call, there is almost unceremoniously flame brought forth; it gathers about his left hand and forearm. "...You would say I have taken all leave of my senses, I suspect," he remarks to no one, before he snaps forward a few steps and unleashes that scorching edge of flame.
It is not a blade. It merely resembles one.
GS: Citan Uzuki has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Full Clip! GS: Citan Uzuki spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Seymour Guado with Kasei -Goku-! GS: Citan Uzuki has gained 2 Combo! GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action. GS: Seymour Guado suffers a terrible blow from Citan Uzuki's Kasei -Goku- for 238 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!!
<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.
Lulu is already much better at working with Paine than she was when they started; she can throw spells knowing that the black-clad warrior will not get into them. She knows Paine's aim will strike true--and she has no problem with that particular weapon.
She, and the other Guardians, all have a task. The warding wind wends its way about Lulu, too, and it is this blessing that will grant her the speed for what she will do in moments.
Because Seymour's assault--that is when Lulu ducks back quickly behind Leviathan, trusting in Yuna's Aeon to absorb the punishment of Seymour's terrible Maelstrom. She Focuses magic within herself to defray the damage, relying on trained techniques to increase her speed, her mental fortitude--and so, when the Maelstrom passes... Lulu is left behind. It cuts through the magical barriers and the helpful spells she's received, but all the same, she remains when it is over, and the black mage turns her eyes back to her opponent.
"No," Lulu intones, coming out from behind Leviathan. "That is not 'all'."
Margaret calls out to her--a belt rattles as part of Lulu's skirt, and she realizes Margaret is there. "The trains..."
"Yes. I understand." Lulu steps forward, and again, to move between Seymour and Margaret now, as she begins to channel energy for her next, most potent spell.
As Gon shielsd them, Lulu cannot say the same that he does. But she will use his shield to ready herself. There--there, in the perfect moment, when Leviathan's waters come. Lulu lets the waves pass over and through her, and there is no moment where she fears what is to come, not with Yuna there directing the waters. She is not so much as dampened by the waves. ...But the waves persist. And Lulu lifts both of her hands to the sky, and calls upon the power of the world around her.
Lulu stands as the green energy gathers around her, shimmering brightly until she cannot be seen, her or her doll on the ground. "...Zuke... I failed you, too. But I will not fail Yuna. Not today."
Amidst the waves, a single sphere of light beams into being, just over Seymour--and implodes, becoming a greater fireball that itself bursts, a shockwave of a single plane crackling out once--then again, and again, and again, superheating air and water alike in terrific explosions.
"Spira will be left for the living!"
GS: Lulu has activated a Force Action! GS: Blitz! Lulu has attacked Seymour Guado with Flare! GS: Lulu has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado suffers a terrible blow from Lulu's Flare for 216 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
Rikku cocks her head at Paine, as if she wasn't sure if she was hearing that right. "Wait what was that? Say that again?" Though the 'hmmm' during the recording just gets a 'hmm?' back, hers more an interrogative than non-comittal. Seymour keeps reforming though - as he tries to halt the team trying to bring about their salvation.
Boudicca though calls of their task, and a tailwind rushes over her in a warding wind. "Oh! Hey thanks for the help!"
The task Boudicca speaks of is proving harder than she imagined though, as Seymour keeps... returning. "Just give up!" She calls out, a little aghast that he keeps reforming again and again. Even if they keep on taking chunks out of his form, he keeps reforming them. It's becoming disquieting, it's becoming a plea.
It's too much. His pain, his suffering, made manifest. Can it actually be endless.
And then he starts to swirl round and round, faster and faster. The wind picks up though, and at first Rikku tries to simply brace herself - but after a moment flies away as the winds whip around her, slicing her up. "Oh my gosh - Oh my gosh-AGLUGGLUGGUGH!"
That's her being dropped right into Leviathan's water spout, an extremely uncomfortable experience as she's suddenly immersed in the waters that Seymour's storm has shoved upwards then hurled out again, then back in, skipped along its length like a stone.
When she eventually drops, she learns how fortunate she was that Boudicca warded her, when the winds slow her down... RIGHT before she hits the ground in a marvelous display of magical force and counterforce.
Raggedly, she takes a few breaths, then gets up. As the final crystal shatters, as the door shuts. Margaret calls out to Lulu, and Rikku looks somewhat... unfocused. "Gaian Machina? What do they have to do with..." Rikku sounds like she's mildly concussed, and takes a few seconds. "Ohhhhhhhh." The problem remains though, where to get a fire hot enough to do it? Her blurred eyes spy something just out of her periphery.
Hands grasping a wisp of shadow, she eyes it strangely as it flows through her fingertips, playing with it like it's... a child's toy. After a moment she stares at the water. And lets loose this small giggle, "Ehe..." And promptly breaks out another phial, putting in a fragment of a BOMB fiend. And a shadow from the Farplane within it, poking it as it reacts before her eyes.
"Whoa. That's a spicy one."
The wisp of shadow and fragment seem to become stuff of elemental chemistry, as fundamental as something like vermilion - but a mystery. Rikku abruptly just chucks that mystery into the water as she's bid to.
Immediately flame flares up in the water in three titanic columns of erupting flame, vaporizing it further as Rikku unleashes...
Mix: Abaddon Flame
Despite her state though that seems... off, Yuna's retelling of the story brings back memories of Zanarkand... and so, suddenly there's a somber shift, right at the end. "We'll do our best to make a world where... people like you don't have to hurt so much." It'll be no comfort to him, he knows, but... that's all she can do.
GS: Rikku has activated a Force Action! GS: Rikku has activated a Force Action! GS: Rikku has activated a Force Action! GS: Rikku spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Blitz! Rikku has attacked Seymour Guado with Souped Up Ouch-Ouch Surprise!! GS: Rikku has completed her action. GS: Gamble: Moderate! Seymour Guado suffers a terrible blow from Rikku's Souped Up Ouch-Ouch Surprise! for 247 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Seymour's body tears itself apart. Ida knows she has scant seconds before he reforms, but she allows herself a thin, triumphant smile nevertheless. She lands behind the cloud, and takes a few careful steps, moving towards the pillars. The others are fighting something, and Ida can feel a distant heat, hear the sounds of combat. The voice repeats itself, as it's done several times, now. This time, it's far clearer, and Ida answers it aloud. "They're trying--!" she chokes out. "Whomever you are, please have faith--"
Seymour roars. A moment later, the wind answers him Ida is no sorceress, but even she can feel the powers he's drawing upon. The others. She has to--
"LOOK OUT!" Ida shouts, and her voice is raw, but she's trying to be heard over Seymour and the wind and the localized tempest that is being in Leviathan's presence. The waves batter her. Spikes extrude from her soles, burying themselves in the stone. She stands between Mariel's team and Seymour's fury, even though her body is the tiniest bulwark.
A sudden flash of cold. The water freezes. Ida closed her eyes, and locked her arms over her face--but she hears Gon's voice all the same. Slowly, motion and life return to her, and she looks at the older man with sudden realization. "And I once thought you a butler," Ida says, her face twisting into a threadbare but genuine smile.
It doesn't last. It can't last as Yuna puts together the final pieces. "And all that's left," Ida breathes, "is him. Is this ghost." It makes perverse sense. "That--that thing he summoned in the Stadium--that was his--"
Mother...?
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida turns to Gon. "Keep them safe," she says, and the fact that she's saying this--entrusting her friends to him--says much about her own faith. "I'll keep him busy. Timu and Pani are waiting for you." Leviathan's waves surge up around her, and Ida lets them sweep her up as the Aeon moves inexorably towards Seymour. She entrusted Jay and Mariel and the others to Gon, and now she entrusts herself to a force of nature that could kill her as easy as she draws breath.
Leviathan does not. Somewhere in the maelstrom they conjure, she drifts towards Seymour, despite the fact that she is comically tiny when compared to him. As Lulu superheats the air around them, Ida uses Seymour's body as a shield, and Leviathan's waves as ablative armor. Things get unpleasantly warm, but when it ends, she's on the ground, twisting into what is definitely a variant of a Spiran suplex.
Flow like water, just like Lanval taught you. The mass involved does not matter. Water will fell even the strongest mountains, given time.
And so, Ida reaches out for Seymour, to grab him and twist and use his momentum to SLAM him into the ground, heads-first.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Seymour Guado with Overturn the Black Tortoise! GS: Cover expired! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Seymour Guado suffers a terrible blow from Ida Everstead-Rey's Overturn the Black Tortoise for 157 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seymour Guado gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Apparently, that is how one douses a flame. But it's only when the crystal shatters that Pearl turns to see the battle. When she hears the scream. When she sees Leviathan brought to bear against a monster. And when Gon Guado makes good on his oath.
But Yuna's words echo in her ears. So, Seymour was forced to become this? Is this what a parents love is supposed to be? She stares down at the dragon that is Seymour Guado. She's not sure what she feels. It's not sympathy, is it? She still despises him. She does not regret trying to kill him, even now. She doesn't feel understanding quite. She doesn't know what it is.
But when Citan speaks of choosing the path...
"No." Her cold grey eyes stare down at the doctor, her scarred face and exhausted expression. "If he was a child, and this was his mother's doing..." She is not sure what thought she's trying to articulate. Speaking was never her strong suit. She could read, she could write, but speaking like this requires a connection to something she never had. "His error was not being set on this path, if he was too young, too traumatized to know anything else." She grimaces, hating herself for seeing Seymour's pain. Or is she putting herself there. "The error is not taking the opportunity to walk off it, when the opportunity was granted."
That seems to be the difference to her, between the two of them. They are both monsters, murderers on a grand scale. Seymour's kill count may be more so, but truly by how much? So few of his plans have outright succeeded. It does not absolve him, but does it make her worse?
"He is still responsible for his deeds, still a monster that deserves no redemption. But it is not always choice that puts one on such a path."
Why did that hurt so much?
She looks to Lady Yuna with a nod, and then to the companion of her soul. She had never looked into their face like this, as they were another's partner. "Please. Make this last time we have to face him." In her head, words go unsaid.
'Have the strength, Lady Yuna, to end this monster once and for all, as I could not.'
<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.
"Shut up," Paine tells Rikku. She's not going to repeat that word willingly.
("Uzuki," Paine rejoins, accepting his choice of term for her and offering her own back.)
The devastation inflicted by her explosive rounds on the thick hide of Seymour is satisfying, but retribution is close at hand. Paine quickly but smoothly takes up her sphere recorder and attaches it to her belt, then slings her rifle; she cannot risk fumbling either, there is time to do it right but there is no time to do it twice. Then, as a pebble zips across her bare forearm, drawing blood, she draws her heavy grey sword, reverses it in her half-gloved hands, and drives it deep into the ground.
"Rikku," she says, extending a hand back. But the blonde girl sails by like a dandelion seed. Maybe she should have rushed after all.
Grabbing on with both hands and putting her shoulder to the flat of the blade, Paine clings on, striving to remain kneeling. The maelstrom batters her, taking stringy chunks out of her cloak from debris, or knocking her to bruising against her own weapon. Her short white hair stays out of her face easily, but having more of a veil of hair would have been protective, too; without it she has to keep her eyes nearly closed. Her long blade begins to saw around in its hole, loosening, and Paine begins to wonder if she will end up flying about like Rikku... when finally the attack begins to fade, and Paine is entrusted once more to gravity.
Standing up on sore knees, Paine lets her rifle drop from her shoulder, its sling falling around the sword, pinning the machina weapon in place in case more wind returns. But she is going to need her whole body free for this. Yuna is up there on Leviathan, fighting a battle both brutal on a geological scale, and yet utterly personal. In neither sense can that fight have anything to do with Paine, who feels as distant from Yuna's kind compassion as she does from Leviathan's raw power. But Paine has one role here, and it never changes, no matter how small one former soldier may become in the shadow of Leviathan.
Fight, to protect Yuna.
As Paine lopes into a run, the massive wave behind her catches up rapidly, until it is a wall behind her. She does not break her stride even as it somehow passes across her, separating enough to spare her more than the scent of spray. As her pale body and dark cloak pursue the water, one of her hands drops to her side under the weight of a grenade. Several steps behind, its pin bounces, tinkling from end to end until it rattles to the ground.
Panting, Paine tosses a glance over her shoulder, then follows Lulu's flare up into Seymour's armored hide. Her steps fall into an irregular gallop for the last few strides, her arm cocking back hard. Then, with a cry of pain as she wrenches her shoulder throwing a heavy grenade the way one should only really throw a lighter ball, she sends the explosive streaking after Lulu's flare. It does not matter if Lulu was aiming for a weak point. Whatever Lulu hits becomes a weak point thereafter.
Having started so far away and thrown so hard, Paine does not have to hit the ground. Putting one hand on her knee, she instead lifts her sphere recorder, calming her panting. A great man of Spira only dies so often.
GS: Paine spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Blitz! Paine has attacked Seymour Guado with Grenade! GS: Paine has gained 2 Combo! GS: Paine has completed her action. GS: Seymour Guado's Poison Ward prevents an effect! GS: Seymour Guado suffers a terrible blow from Paine's Grenade for 177 hit points! GS: Seymour Guado has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
Seymour unleashes his maelstrom -- and he exults in it, right until he spies of Mariel uses the wind he called against the Liquid Flame. As she shifts the elemental balance of the chamber, his eyes widen -- and then he shakes his head. "No--no!"
Ree's ice spell blasts into his draconic form, knocking him back before he can intervene. Cyre transforms -- the Nahual, with wind about him and light gathering. Seymour's own spell used to give Cyre power, and he looses a massive blast of wind right back at Seymour. His draconic form is struck into. He is blown backward, as pyreflies are stripped continuously from his very form.
"No! I will bring this world down with me!" he shouts.
And then, Gon speaks. He looks back at him -- at the way the Guado Guardian withstood with a spell, and how he steps out and up. His eyes turn towards Gon's; there is nothing of the obstinate, passionate youth there. Nothing, even, of the young leader who took his duties seriously... and it was not always an act. A hateful creature, both what he always was and what he became. But, he has lost something.
"You--you speak as if it is something to be proud of!" he shouts to Gon. "You--"
And he realizes, then, that Gon has protected a summoner. He protected those taking out the last crystal. The Living Flame is gone in the blink of an eye. There is that voice -- that voice he ignored, dismissed -- and he draws in a sharp breath. Pearl strikes, darkness and ice, and the crystal shatters after the Liquid Flame.
There is a flash -- and the light fades from the doors. Indeed, they seem to strengthen; to bind; to seal.
That is when Leviathan's tsunami crashes down upon him. It crashes down with Yuna's words, explaining his past and his pain. He snarls at them, his face a mask of pain and hurt now. Maybe this, too, is who he always was -- at least, after he first went to Zanarkand as a boy. The wave smashes him back against the door that is now suddenly so solid, and does not bend at the wave.
He does, his wings crumpling and cracking -- and pyreflies explode behind him. His feet stumble down to the floor. His tails supports him.
He breathes, raggedly, as the rest comes.
Boudicca summons her own storm. It swirls about her -- and then crashes into him. It smashes mightily into him, his body shuddering; pyreflies waft off. They do not come back. And Marivel speaks, and his eyes widen. "That--be silent," he spits, "BE SILENT!"
She cut deep, there.
As does Citan. He says Seymour chose this path -- and Seymour would not disagree with the doctor. The flame may not resemble a blade, but the fire slams into Seymour and burns into him intensely.
Lulu sends a spell for Seymour that he knows. The sphere of light, slamming into him -- and exploding out in an enormous fireball. It is joined not a moment later by what Rikku throws: a 'spicy one,' with a mysterious flame. That is joined, too, by Paine's grenade. It's a titanic sorcerous fireball, three alchemical columns of flame, and a high explosive that blast up high and engulf Seymour. The draconic tail and head are burnt away -- parts of him are scorched away, scales burning to ash and then into pyreflies.
Ida strikes into him. He doesn't really get slammed into the ground head first -- his mass is too great, still, and he is pushed back against the wall -- but he gets smashed back against it hard, a burst of pyreflies erupting from him.
Tidus charges in. Droplets reflect the light -- and he slams down, passing through a rainbow. His blade slashed into Seymour's collarbone and deeper. It isn't blood or flesh or bone that parts. It breaks apart, and pyreflies shoot out all around. Seymour's pale eyes roll up, and he shakes and shudders. The remnants of the draconic form begin to slough away into so many pyreflies.
And then Seymour bursts apart, into so many pyreflies. They scatter, wafting and moving about, and fading. There is no further sign of Seymour.
And the voice they all heard earlier speaks no further.
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
The circumstances are more similar than even Citan has guessed. Yes; they are both children tied deeply to the summoning tradition. Yes; their parents invited them to kill themselves to save Spira, if more directly for Seymour, and less directly for Yuna. And yes; they are both children of two worlds, two cultures, punished heavily by one for the taint of their mixed blood.
Yuna smiles at him very gently.
"We are very much the same, it's true. But... I had something he didn't."
No; she smiles past him.
At Lulu.
Lulu, who mourns Father Zuke... and Lady Ginnem. Who has mourned Ginnem for as long as they've known one another. Who has endured so much to ensure Yuna would not meet their fate. Who has been with her from the very beginning... until the very end.
Her childhood was sometimes scary, and sometimes lonely.
But it was, fundamentally, a happy one. Because of Lulu... and Kimahri. And Wakka, and Chappu.
And the others, too. Rikku, who promises so solemnly to build Seymour a better world, has been her family far longer than they've been together. Tidus, who even at his most vengeful, is shedding rainbows off his blade as he smiles back at her. Paine, who has joined lately, but no less fiercely, in her fighting and -- beneath it all -- in her friendship. Auron, who watched over from afar, and then as near as anyone could.
Not even just family or Guardians. Look around her! Yuna is surrounded by friends. By Ida and Marivel, Boudicca and Margaret, Mariel and Jay -- even Citan, who she was introduced to five minutes ago, and Pearl, who she only knows by another name.
She never said that Seymour was forced to become anything.
All she knows... is that their two roads diverged in a wood, where one of them walked among many, and the other walked alone.
She smiles, weary, ragged, but still standing -- at them all.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
The Wind God sighs, disappearing into a haze of elemental wind. Cyre, burnt and beaten and battered and possibly STILL carrying lingering pyrefly curses stands in its place, hunched over and exhausted. He stares up with one good eye as Seymour fades away...
And promptly collapses upon his own face, utterly and completely spent.
Someone should probably collect their cat.
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
Everything dissipates - beyond a single spoken voice of authority that does not clarify nor repeat itself - and Gon, spent from trying to redirect the Maelstrom around a fading Shell spell, is down to a knee in fatigue. The other claw-gauntlet shakes off, leaving him to bring his bare hands up to his face to bear stress, fatigue, and maybe something resembling a form of relief. He does not think to recover them, after all's said and done.
They all live, and... it will be difficult to say what comes next for the people of Guadosalam, but as Ida and others doubtless will point out, Timu and Pani will await their father's return from the depths.
One thing he can say for certain: all this has become beyond his reach, and it is time to consider his age.
Loot drops!
- Chain Claw, currently busted and embedded partially in a wall, can be recovered as an Agility tool! Grappling hook with a handy twist!
- Pull Claw, the other more intact one right there, is a Brute Tool for doing... what the name says, with a powerful grip!