2022-04-01: Returning to the Roots
- Log: Returning to the Roots
- Cast: Loren Voss, Lan Lilac, Gwen Whitlock
- Where: ???
- Date: April 01, 2022
- Summary: This is the story of how it all happened.
DG: A party led by Loren Voss is now entering Hadal Temple. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Gathering of the Deep *>===================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- A primordial scream rings through the air the instant you enter the Hadal Temple. Brook no dissent... from the living... Something moves. Creatures emerge from the darkness, moving with an eerie, undulating grace. They're humanoid, barely, and their bodies are still clothed in patchwork armor and the tattered remains of uniforms. Bits of shell and scale and bone obscure their faces. These are Deep Soldiers, and they have broken through one of the cistern gates. They will overrun you if you do nothing -- but you spot an ancient block infested with pale eyeballs that could be pushed to trap the incoming swarm. (INFO: In this dungeon, certain statements will be marked in Blue. These Blue Statements can only be seen by the one posing the Dungeon Round (or a volunteer if agreed upon), and represents both the speech and the corruptions of the Temple. The drawer is free to believe or disbelieve, but the rest of the party won't be seeing or hearing anything in Blue!) =Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Sometimes, he dreams of Anaitis.
Typically, this is nothing so traumatic as such -- right up until the moment he stirs in whatever bed or cot his assignment sees him in and realizes it had been but a dream after all. Sure. He'd broken things off because it couldn't work out -- not without throwing wide the gates again to the Primarch's very nature, and descending again into a type of madness. It's Rahab's nature to erode and wash away, as it is his nature to wish to become eroded. He'd made the only decision he could.
But it doesn't mean that sometimes, he doesn't turn back to gaze towards what had been.
If the fates are kind, this weakness of his will not transform him into a pillar of salt.
"No--"
Tonight's dream is unkind.
He knows where he is. The touch of this place -- cold, clammy -- is all too familiar. Like a lover's touch, so the cliche might run, and it would only be too accurate here.
Here Anaitis -- Rahab, the Primarch of Muse -- lay buried.
Loren takes a few lurching steps forward. It's something like longing. Something like terror. He should turn back, run as if the dream will let him go. He should press on.
Furiously, he shakes his head. Whatever he does, he can't stand here. Maybe if the Deep Soldiers killed him he would wake up--
But maybe, he wouldn't. Not in a dream with as much a hold on him as this one.
He's palmed the one thing that feels real to him (a stone, in his hand, its surface wonderfully smooth) and gripped it tightly, searching about for some way to block the oncoming troop. He sights it.
It, to his view alone, sights him. He draws in a sharp breath, closes his eyes, and channels as much of his terror and panic into the power that is his birthright.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Worry Stone toward his party's challenge, Gathering of the Deep.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It isn't a pull, not really. A pull is an action, which means a reaction is possible. No, for Lan there was no 'reaction', no illusion of choice. Because someone she cares about is suffering, and she is where she can hear it.
It's her nature. And we are all slaves to our 'selves'.
That doesn't mean she understands what's happened, or why she's woken up in a temple she's never seen before. Or that she realizes she's come to try to save someone. Dreams are messy - other people's moreso than usual.
"Where is this...?" she murmurs quietly, glancing around in unease at the way water distorts the echo of her voice. The stumbling figures of the Deep Soldiers have her immediately taking a defensive stance, rising onto one foot with her other leg ready to lash out and drive them back.
This isn't Gethsemane.
These aren't those Drowned. She doesn't feel the Stranger's crushing --soothing-- presence.
But then-- the familiar smooth, heavy resonance of earth Ether. Lan launches herself into the air, spinning to give her knee some extra torque before she drives into into a Soldier's chest, knocking them away. She rebounds, kicking off of nothing and slamming heel-first into the side of the stone block, hoping to help push it further on its way. "Go!!"
DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Gathering of the Deep.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
At least, for tonight, Loren and Lan are granted a boon, though at least one may not see it that way.
".... I'm back?"
A befuddled Gwen walks onto the two of them like she had walked in on them at a campfire, the courier scratching the side of her curly head. "Rahab, I really appreciated bein' able t'help the last people who came here, but who else would be comin' here now?" Except-- "Ah."
She knows the two well enough to be able to tell them from their backs.
The Primarch may or may not have any hold here in this palace of dreams, but Gwen is appreciative all the same, even if it may be coming at the cost of a good night's rest. ... That is, if this is is not just a dream, and the participants merely figments of her replaying certain questions in her mind.
"Hold on. It hasn't been that long for me. I can probably luck out this time." That's the sound of Gwen, drawing past Loren, the freckled pink of her cheeks and the pale glow of her exposed skin showing her to be very much alive. "You found the block? Okay, good. We'll just give it a few shoves n' deal with the leftovers n' we'll be right as rain." Gwen sets about manually pushing against the stone. The floor may be slippery and wet, but between all three of them, this should go smoothly.
DG: Gwen Whitlock has used her Tool ARM-ored Fist toward her party's challenge, Gathering of the Deep.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Gathering of the Deep *>===================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- A primordial scream rings through the air the instant you enter the Hadal Temple. Brook no dissent... from the living... Something moves. Creatures emerge from the darkness, moving with an eerie, undulating grace. They're humanoid, barely, and their bodies are still clothed in patchwork armor and the tattered remains of uniforms. Bits of shell and scale and bone obscure their faces. These are Deep Soldiers, and they have broken through one of the cistern gates. They will overrun you if you do nothing -- but you spot an ancient block infested with pale eyeballs that could be pushed to trap the incoming swarm. (INFO: In this dungeon, certain statements will be marked in Blue. These Blue Statements can only be seen by the one posing the Dungeon Round (or a volunteer if agreed upon), and represents both the speech and the corruptions of the Temple. The drawer is free to believe or disbelieve, but the rest of the party won't be seeing or hearing anything in Blue!) =Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
==========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 1 *>========================== ======================< Results - Gathering of the Deep >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Worry Stone 2 Brute Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gwen Whitlock 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass ARM-ored Fist 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Overwhelm Effects: Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss 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.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He had been hoping -- hope against hope -- that maybe he could stem the time of the soldiers. That then maybe he could run, if the dream would let him.
Could he get infected again in a dream? Was it possible that everything he'd managed since could be undone by sheer chance?
This is not to say that he doesn't wish this. That there's not a part of him, however small, that wants to be drowned again. It's simply that he knows by now that he can't become undone again, or there might be no coming back to himself.
However enticing a part of that might be to him.
But then he's suddenly not alone. Suddenly, Lan is there, impossingly, driving a kick at those hordes surging towards him as he channels Ether. It buys him time.
It buys Gwen time. She's also here, as improbably as a dream might summon another, and there she is shifting the now-fallen block into place. It seals them all off. The horde of the Deep Soldiers, yes, but also the three of them. Once Loren takes stock of where they are again, he realizes this for himself.
There's no exit from this route he's on and the enormity of what it means -- what it could mean -- has him drop down to one knee as if he were defeated.
DG: Gwen Whitlock has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Stair into the Abyss *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You've been sequestered into a riotous landscape of impossible stairways, painted with the blue blood of the Deep. The staircases twist and turn in nonsensical directions, and it's difficult to find any sort of pattern in the maddening shapes. Who knows what might happen if you fall? Yet perhaps to let go of common sense is the only way forward here. =Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Tire============================================
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"At least the stairways look pretty."
This is the comment Gwen makes as they've been up their fifth staircase, commenting on stonework that is the same wet gray as the rest, not the Blue of the Deep that Gwen herself sees.
It should be disturbing, but Gwen is used to Blue by now.
"... Let's try a different tactic."
She proudly produces a piece of chalk from her kit, and begins marking as they go up, up, and.... down?
When did that happen?
When the chalk marks appear on the ceiling above them, Gwen shrugs. "... Maybe we were upsidedown at some point? I mean, these ruins, in a dream? That's double the mind-bending-ness."
Gwen is taking this very seriously, of course-- she knows the way to break down is to let it get to you. To let everything simply be? It's the best option, right now, instead of using valuable energy when further stress is certain to be found deeper within. "Let's keep going."
DG: Gwen Whitlock has used her Tool Courier Kit toward her party's challenge, Stair into the Abyss.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"Gwen!" There's something beteen delight and relief in Lan's voice when she calls out to the courier. Even if the three of them are all tainted, even if they're tangled up with the Stranger and with each other, it's good to have both of her closest friends here with her. (Even if being here is probably Loren's fault to begin with. Lan isn't picky.)
The stone slides easily into place, and they're shut off from the swarming Deep Soldiers. Lan brushes her hands off and inspects her knee for any remaining Deep Goo or whatever might have gotten left on her. "Whew. ...What is this place?"
She wasn't there when Rahab had flooded into Loren, trickled down into the cracks in his psyche.
The staircases are pretty. It's just that... shouldn't they actually lead somewhere? Gwen has her chalk, but Lan pulls out her oracle paper anyway, just in case. It's better to be doubly right than singularly lost! ...Right?
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Paku-Paku toward her party's challenge, Stair into the Abyss.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"...I... don't want to be here," is what he says, eventually, hunching over where he's knelt. He doesn't meet either of their gazes from where he remains kneeling on the floor.
He can hear scratching against the barrier they've erected. Perhaps the Deep Soldiers might find a way to get through. And even if he's asleep and this is a dream, he can't really just sit here for the duration, of. Can he?
He eventually gets up onto his feet and glances about himself, then takes off at a decent trot for the staircase.
It's just one of many, as it happens. Even taking the steps two at a time doesn't seem to matter: it's as if they're caught in a loop.
He sits down on a step once Gwen remarks that they might have been upside down at some point.
Unwrapping a bar from his pack, he starts to take it apart in his hands, casting a chunk of it onto the steps. Can he know that they've really not been this way before (at least on this side of the steps)? Or maybe, attempting logic in a dream of a maddened place is doomed effort.
'Let's keep going', Gwen says.
"...Yeah," Loren replies, finally getting up off the step and following after.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Soylent Nutribar toward his party's challenge, Stair into the Abyss.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Stair into the Abyss *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You've been sequestered into a riotous landscape of impossible stairways, painted with the blue blood of the Deep. The staircases twist and turn in nonsensical directions, and it's difficult to find any sort of pattern in the maddening shapes. Who knows what might happen if you fall? Yet perhaps to let go of common sense is the only way forward here. =Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Tire============================================
==========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 2 *>========================== =======================< Results - Stair into the Abyss >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 5 --(13)--> 18 Pass Soylent Nutribar 2 Wits Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gwen Whitlock 5 --(13)--> 18 Pass Courier Kit 1 Wits Effects: Resilient and Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 5 --(13)--> 18 Pass Paku-Paku 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Madness|Overwhelm|Tire(2) Effects: Enlighten(1)|Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss 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.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"It's ok. Whether you need to get through this or not, it's okay to not want it in the first place. Honestly.... probably is the best frame of mind to come here with, come t'think of it." Gwen scratches the side of her head. "But, we're in a place where you can take your time. If you or Lan need t'stop n' we're in an area were we can, just say so. I'll bind myself to the same promise, even. Will that work?"
This is the same man who has burned and attacked her, many times. But she, in turn...
It's the setup they all endure, and then willingly cast away in situations like these.
They need to stop again, if just to deal with the fact that they, seemingly, were upside down without knowing it. Gwen accepts this, sitting down herself. "I was just here, a few nights ago. Helping out some other acquaintances. Dream or no... I guess the entity here thinks I'm a person t'call on, at least in these cases. That, or I called myself."
The sound of her voice is soft, an effort to squeeze out the oppressive silence that would prevail otherwise, giving some normalcy where there should be none.
When Loren and Lan seem ready, Gwen gets up, dusting herself off. "Okay, then. Off we go."
DG: Lan Lilac has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== ===================<* CHALLENGE - Labyrinth of Chalky Wood *>=================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You come onto another landscape of the Temple, dominated by white, chalky trees upon frozen ground. Though beautiful, their fragile nature presents a potent problem -- they collapse easily, perhaps even deliberately, behind and in front you. Before long, you're lost in a maze of crystalline trees, with no landmarks save those you choose to make--if they last. You'll need to be methodical and certain, for the frost continues to sap away at you. =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Stupify========================================
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
I don't want to be here. How many times has Lan whispered that where nobody else can hear it? So quietly that even she herself could scarcely make out the words?
...Yeah. She knows that feeling, knows the misery of going forward because to stay in one place would be even worse. Not in the same way that Loren does, surely, nor Gwen. But Lan has been lost and alone too.
She reaches for his hand where they rest together on the steps - hesitates - and briefly squeezes his hand before she can think about it too hard. Just because it's her nature.
She's glad they're not kids for this one. Lan is not at all equipped to babysit when there are zombies around.
"As long as you mean it when you say you'll do the same," she replies to Gwen, although her attempt to be lighthearted about it probably comes off a little flat. "But who's the 'entity'? None of this looks Guardianist, or at least it's nothing I've ever seen before."
They continue on, into a frozen waste that doesn't seem possible to exist inside any building, no matter how grandiose in scale. A frozen ground that seems endless, studded by chalk-white dead trees. The cold bites at Lan's exposed skin, frost threatening her bare toes. She shudders from it, wrapping her arms around herself, despite knowing that it's a dream. "Ghhh..."
There are so many of the trees, and they all look so much alike. She stops underneath the branches to consult her paku-paku again, stiff fingers fumbling with it--
A crack like gunfire --a sudden malice that tastes like frostbite-- is their only warning. A heavy branch drops, fingerlike twigs snatching at hair and clothes as it oh-so-barely misses. "You guys okay? C-come on, we've gotta," Lan gets out, stumbling forward, clutching doggedly to her paper. "Gotta watch out, there's something here--"
Crack. Crack.
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Paku-Paku toward her party's challenge, Labyrinth of Chalky Wood.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Just like the last time, Lan takes his hand. That time it had been real.
Somehow it's the worse this time for it being a dream. It's possible this is just some crossing over, some shared experience in the dreaming space of which Lan had spoke. But equally terrifying -- more terrifying yet? -- is the possibility that he's created this out of whole cloth, that his unconscious mind wants this to happen.
As badly as a part of it wants to descend and see again that light in the basin of the frozen waterfall.
He'd been... drowning.
He doesn't pull away like he had in waking life. Rather, he lets go of Lan's hand bit by bit, sliding his hand from hers.
"...I don't want to stay here any longer than I have to. Let's keep going," he tells Gwen, unable to bring himself to look at Lan.
The staircase eventually gives way. They've reached reached an impossible wood, wreathed in frost.
"It's not far," he murmurs, his gaze distant. "I wonder... now. Was any of this 'real'? Or had it always been..."
As if in a trance, he reaches out for one of the treebranches.
It crumbles like so much chalk.
"I wonder if this was intentional. Or was it because they were still asleep? Or were they asleep," he continues, wandering amidst the white chalk trees.
His saving grace may come only in the form of the fragments of the bar Loren leaves behind himself as he walks the wood as if he were haunting it.
Of course there's something here. Loren knows them well.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Soylent Nutribar toward his party's challenge, Labyrinth of Chalky Wood.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Yeah." Gwen chuckles. "Can't afford not to in a place like this." Her grin disappears when Lan asks who the 'entity' is. Well...
"It's...." Running a hand through her hair, Gwen looks aside at Loren, wondering if it would be better if he answered Lan's question. "... I honestly don't know much about it aside from what I've absorbed from my visits. The real place, I mean. And, I guess, in dream, too."
Loren remarks that he didn't want to stay here longer than he had to. Gwen nods. "That's fair," she says, nodding slowly.
The shattering tree makes her jump and whip out her right hand, almost protectively, as her left hand strays towards Lan and Loren as she points her right towards the tree.
".... Guess we'll need to be careful here..."
It's been cold those other times too.
Undoing the knot of the neckerchief around her neck, Gwen flips it around a few times, and wraps it around the top of her head as a sort of silk headscarf. It'll help conserve her body heat, at least, even if it's not that she's actually freezing. "... Better to think of it the way my other dream went. It's less 'bout whether or not it's real, and more about the journey towards an answer. You might not even know the question, but at the very least..."
She had described it as a 'warrior's journey' or something to that effect, which worked better for Fafnir than it would here.
Gwen adjusts her headscarf. "... I guess that's not really a great way of puttin' it."
DG: Gwen Whitlock has used her Tool Courier Kit toward her party's challenge, Labyrinth of Chalky Wood.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== ===================<* CHALLENGE - Labyrinth of Chalky Wood *>=================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You come onto another landscape of the Temple, dominated by white, chalky trees upon frozen ground. Though beautiful, their fragile nature presents a potent problem -- they collapse easily, perhaps even deliberately, behind and in front you. Before long, you're lost in a maze of crystalline trees, with no landmarks save those you choose to make--if they last. You'll need to be methodical and certain, for the frost continues to sap away at you. =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Stupify========================================
==========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 3 *>========================== =====================< Results - Labyrinth of Chalky Wood >===================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 18 --(13)--> 31 Pass Soylent Nutribar 2 Wits Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gwen Whitlock 18 --(25)--> 43 Fail Courier Kit 1 Wits Effects: Resilient and Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 18 --(13)--> 31 Pass Paku-Paku 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 40 --(20)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Madness|Overwhelm|Reckless(2)|Stupify(2)|Tire(1) Effects: Enlighten(1)|Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss 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.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"Real?" Lan echoes. So this was, is, a real place out in the waking world? But nobody wants to tell her about it. ...Was it that awful?
What happened here, that neither of them will tell her?
Gwen's caution is warranted. There are too many 'coincidental' cracks, chalk crumbling quietly before another branch falls towards them. But they make it through without injury, though Lan can't help but reach out and take Gwen's hand for a moment as they trudge through the chill. Between Lan's cold hand and the thin silk of her scarf, it's harder to conserve body heat.
DG: Loren Voss has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Ice Coffin *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You emerge onto the shores of a beautiful lake of frozen crystal, ley-like patterns ambiently thrumming with life against the walls. But suddenly, crystalline spires rise from the surface, conspiring to slowly trap and squash you. There's no clean gap in which you can fit through. ...Reflect within thine icy tomb... You'll have to break the ice and pierce through with force, ,but beware the black reflections that the crystals show you... =Dungeon Conditions: Collapse=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He doesn't provide further insight on the matter of where they are, instead putting one foot in front of the other as he moves through the forest as if approaching the gallows.
Some trees crumble the nearer they approach to them. Others remain, standing tall in spite of their movement through the forest. In time, the trees thin out, parting to reveal a lakeside scene.
Angular lines spiderweb their way across the like, their faint glow betraying them for what they are: the Ley is strong in this space though not yet the overwhelming din of river's rapids.
"I remember this," Loren says, standing a time before the lake of crystal. "It was near here that I..." He trails off, approaching the lake.
The world is peaceful and still, and so it will remain until the moment they approach the water's edge.
Large crystalline pillars erupt from the surface to form an interlocking prison around the lot of them. There's scarce space to slip a hand through, so neatly do they fit together. Knocked from his feet by the sudden emergence of the ice, Loren has come face to face with one of the flat reflective panes of crystal.
"...This wasn't my tomb," he tells the facet, a dark reflection lurking there which only he can see. "It was yours... wasn't it, Anaitis?"
He gets up onto his hands and knees before the facet and even this movement is almost gentle. Reluctant, even.
"I'm sorry," he says to the crystal, once again.
His right hand tightens around the stone, which has found its way into his grasp. He squeezes it, letting it hurt -- almost. Then, he places his left palm against the facet.
"But I still can't stay."
And into the stone he delivers a destabilizing wave into the crystal's basic structure.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Worry Stone toward his party's challenge, Ice Coffin.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
What is this place? Was it that awful, that nobody can bring themselves to speak of it?
But first, the cold. She almost can't believe she didn't think of it sooner, but then Lan has always favored her patron. It's harder to remember the shape and weight of the second stone tablet, the one she keeps in her bag. Rigdobrite's is held close to her, usually hidden in her clothes. But Moor Gault...
Stone takes shape in her hands as Lan wills it into existence here. Just holding it takes the worst of the chill away, though her feet are still somewhere between aching and numb. Think of scorching sand underneath her sandals, think of the sun beating down on her shoulders and the crown of her head.
Think of anything but ice, think of anything but loneliness.
But the lake hides danger underneath its surface. Pillars of ice cage them, so thick that even a mule kick (a weak one, because Lan doesn't want to break her ankle just because she can't feel what she's doing) won't crack. "What..." Loren says something. A name. "Anaitis..."
The person that Loren had fallen in love with. He'd come to her for advice, and she'd had so little to give... but Loren had been happier for a while, hadn't he?
...Wait, did something happen to Anaitis? Loren hasn't mentioned them in ages.
Could this place be...
"Gwen, close your eyes!" Lan grips the tablet in both hands, holding it aloft like a treasure, like a beacon. "O you of the hearth, O you of inferno!"
Heat flares around her, a pillar of flame that engulfs Lan and the pillars of ice and Gwen and Loren too. It blazes hotter and higher as Lan chants, whipping their hair and clothes in a vortex of heat.
DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Ice Coffin.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Anaitis...." Has she heard that name before? She was familiar with Rahab.
Perhaps, Anaitis is...
As Loren moves away and Lan's hand is in hers, Gwen whispers, ".... Even if I don't know much, it ain't my place to say anything. I'm leavin' it up to Loren. And even then... his knowledge may be spotty too. So... don't feel bad."
'I'm sorry', Loren says.
"... It ain't impolite... to visit, once n' a while." Gwen gives Loren a gentle smile as he delivers a wave into the crystal. "... But only when you know you'll be able to come back, at the end of it."
It's only then, after Loren have delivers his blow that Gwen delivers her own, square into the crack Loren may have made.
Lan gives a warning, and Gwen takes it, closing her eyes in an act of pure trust.
She shudders, as if freezing cold, as the heat licks against her skin, but doesn't burn, staying absolutely still. "..... tell me when I can open my eyes, Lan..."
Please do, before her nerve overpowers her judgement.
DG: Gwen Whitlock has used her Tool ARM-ored Fist toward her party's challenge, Ice Coffin.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Ice Coffin *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You emerge onto the shores of a beautiful lake of frozen crystal, ley-like patterns ambiently thrumming with life against the walls. But suddenly, crystalline spires rise from the surface, conspiring to slowly trap and squash you. There's no clean gap in which you can fit through. ...Reflect within thine icy tomb... You'll have to break the ice and pierce through with force, ,but beware the black reflections that the crystals show you... =Dungeon Conditions: Collapse=================================================
==========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 4 *>========================== ============================< Results - Ice Coffin >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 31 --(0)--> 31 Pass Worry Stone 2 Brute Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gwen Whitlock 43 --(0)--> 43 Pass ARM-ored Fist 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 31 --(0)--> 31 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 60 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Collapse|Madness|Overwhelm|Reckless(1)|Stupify(1) Effects: Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss 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: Gwen Whitlock has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Fall of the Dragon *>====================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You are at the top of a flowing waterfall, broken by the roots of the chalky trees that have oft dotted the Temple's landscape. Below, eyes and tendrils break the surface of the icy lake like waves -- the nest of the Detestable is close at hand. The Detestable Pale draws near... The water's surface breaks and lashes. A bone-chilling shriek splits the air, and something massive rushes at you from above. A fifty-foot Metal Dragon, perhaps the same one as before, throws itself at you. Its flesh is riddled with tears and rents, and it is clearly dead, but it still moves. Tendrils of lashing water stress at its shaven metallic flesh. Bulbous, distending eyes burst from the cracks within its bones, dripping with mercurial blood. You've no way forward but down the waterfall -- but be careful you do not slip, for it may not be mere water at the bottom of the basin! =Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Anaitis is--
"...Rahab. The Primarch of Muse," Loren says, hand pressed gently against the crystal's surface, as if he could somehow take in hand the reflection that he sees within it. But he cannot.
Which is why he bids it to obey him and shatter. However he might long otherwise -- however a part of him might want to vanish in the Primarch's all-consuming embrace -- he has learned better than that.
He faces away from the flame when it kicks up behind him, so focused is he on destroying that which might have been. Already the crystal is melting under the heat of the flame.
When Gwen's fist impacts its surface, it shatters into so much powder. The cage that had held them shudders and gives way, permitting a release from their trap.
"This... is where they were sealed," Loren says, without looking back at either of them.
"This is where we met."
This is where it all began.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Anaitis is Rahab.
Gwen nods slowly, unshocked by this statement. "I see... there's some similarities to how Setanta and I met. But with you two..." Not exactly similar. Setanta was linked to her in an action she initiated, and they found friendship in a space where she could not die, and he could not kill her in his fiery quick rage.
It was similar in that they were the sort of person who'd find that elusive string, be it friendship, or love. Because, with a Primarch, how can someone reach a string that has existed for so long? How could they comprehend?
"Let's keep moving, if you two are ready."
Later on, Gwen looks out over a familiar waterfall, the trees still pristine chalky white, and very unbroken, unlike the last time she was left to cast over the side like a thrown pebble. "It didn't look like this before... There's... all kinds of eyes n' tendrils down there. Even if we get down, it's gonna be all kinds of trouble, gettin' across it."
There are no eyeballs. There are no tendrils. Just ice.
But since when has anything presented itself plainly here?
She sighs. "But at least we won't have the--"
**SHRIEK**
"OH C'MON." Gwen wheels around angrily and shakes a fist at the fifty-foot Metal Dragon. It's the same as before, cracked metallic flesh and liquid gleaming blood, crashing down on the ground as Gwen points her right hand at the dragon, palm facing forward and buckle undone, and fires a bright blast of light.
"Start goin' down, I'll try to follow after y'all!" She's shooting away at the giant rotten corpse gnashing its sharp teeth at them, trying to buy some time. "Just be careful about what's at the bottom!"
DG: Gwen Whitlock has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Fall of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Wait. Wait wait wait. "Anaitis is--"
How?? The same way Gwen carried a spark of Sentata at her core, nurtured it unknowingly into an inferno for the Stranger to steal? ...Does that mean Anaitis is... Or that Anaitis was... "So when we burned the Primarch out of you, what happened to Anaitis?" She'd never met them. She'd only heard what Loren told her.
When they had stripped Rahab out of Loren, burning it away like a stump from a field...
But Gwen mentions something strange, even as they all stare down the length of the waterfall. Lan squints, peering as far down as she can. It doesn't exactly look inviting, true, but she can't see any "Eyes? I don't see them," she frowns, crouching at the edge of the precipice. Is that a metaphor or something? Lan's horrible at those.
Something shrieks overhead, shattering her moment of morbid introspection. "Gwen!" But Gwen sees it, and Gwen's already dealing with it. It's horrible in every sense of the word, dead and ever-dying and yet it keeps moving. It keeps shrieking. ...It must be in so much pain, Lan realizes, mouth tightening into a thin line.
"Come on," she urges, slinging an arm around Loren and pulling him tight against her, grabbing for Gwen to pull her close too--
And Lan pitches them all headlong over the edge, holding them both close. Magic flares around them again, the Dreaming letting her use her ribbon past its normal limits. It's not a perfect, graceful fall, but more of a well-controlled plummet. "Hold on tight!"
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Butterfly Ribbon toward her party's challenge, Fall of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He shakes his head. "They... went elsewhere," Loren explains. "They're still around. Just..."
He doesn't know the specifics. It never seemed appropriate to ask after the specifics. If Anaitis had existed before Rahab. If their existence had been one the Primarch had managed to conjure out of whole cloth. Or what it was that they would do now.
He'd just told Anat to go. That it wouldn't be safe for them.
That it wouldn't be possible for him to see them again, so long as a part of him wishes to be obliterated.
He finally turns about, gazing at the frozen lake of the Ley. "I don't want to stay here. There's a risk that I... We should finish it. There's going to be an end to the dream."
They just need to reach it, first.
The lake feeds, in time, to a familiar waterfall. Loren has turned his gaze heavensward, as if to search for something that ought to be here but isn't. "When it happened... Major Yugh, Seraphita, and I-- we'd been here. But I fell, and--"
Even looking at the sky, its advent comes as a surprise. Loren startles, turns hard towards the half-frozen corpse of the Metal Dragon that looms above them. "--We can't fight that! We have to," he starts to say, rushing to the edge only to there balk.
It's a long way down, it is.
And then Lan takes him around the waist and that settles the matter for him.
"--Careful! The eyes aren't there, but they're also there!"
It's cryptic, and also the last thing he says before he goes over the edge with her.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Fall of the Dragon.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Fall of the Dragon *>====================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You are at the top of a flowing waterfall, broken by the roots of the chalky trees that have oft dotted the Temple's landscape. Below, eyes and tendrils break the surface of the icy lake like waves -- the nest of the Detestable is close at hand. The Detestable Pale draws near... The water's surface breaks and lashes. A bone-chilling shriek splits the air, and something massive rushes at you from above. A fifty-foot Metal Dragon, perhaps the same one as before, throws itself at you. Its flesh is riddled with tears and rents, and it is clearly dead, but it still moves. Tendrils of lashing water stress at its shaven metallic flesh. Bulbous, distending eyes burst from the cracks within its bones, dripping with mercurial blood. You've no way forward but down the waterfall -- but be careful you do not slip, for it may not be mere water at the bottom of the basin! =Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
==========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 5 *>========================== ========================< Results - Fall of the Dragon >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 31 --(34)--> 65 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gwen Whitlock 43 --(34)--> 77 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 31 --(22)--> 53 Pass Butterfly Ribbon 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 80 --(0)--> 80 Fail Conditions: Collapse|Madness|Overwhelm|Save Point(1) Effects: Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has failed this challenge! The party gained 0 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"They can't die. They're like the Guardians in that way." Gwen nods at Loren's explanation. ".... I think that was the only thing you could do, Loren. I ain't sure what or how Solaris'd do with someone like Anaitis, but I doubt it'd end well for anyone." Lan doesn't see the eyes, but that explanation will come soon enough. For now, there's just the dragon to deal with, and a whole lot of gravity.
It's for the best that Lan grabs ahold of Loren and Gwen with her ribbons and takes them with her as she falls. The air smells of decaying copper and chalk as the Metal Dragon swoops overhead, missing them barely with its snapping jaw.
Now, they are at the whims of a different enemy, as those ribbons work overtime to cushion their fall. Snap, snap, snap go each tree that is used as a means to slow their descent, their help miniscle, but still contributing.
Then, there, one snags on a rock--
and the three are deposited roughly, but still whole. Lan gets the best treatment, being the source of the magic ribbons, but it still will be a moment before anyone can move.
.... as the eyeballs stare and the fronds move with the icy tide, silent observers.
"... ow...." That was Gwen, thankfully.
DG: Lan Lilac has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>===============================
================<* CHALLENGE - Thrall of the Detestable Pale *>=================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
Your descent downwards has finally taken you to the edge of the basin, to a
hideous mass of bulbous eyes and writhing, tainted tendrils. In the center
of the mass is a brilliant blue-white light, a pinprick of primordial energy
that threatens to shear away at your very being.
Those of Filgaian sorcerous inclinations may know that this is a Leyline...
and being exposed to it for long periods of time is in no way healthy.
The voice of the Primarch is audible to all:
Immerse thyself...
...within the Pale...
...Call upon my name...
...and walk beyond the Ley...
The undead Dragon lands at the centre of the nest, gazing down towards you.
The tendrils lacing its body flail, eliciting a tortured hiss from its
throat, and the many bulbous eyes bursting from the cracks within its bones
gaze towards you. It bleeds with viscous white mercury, liquid even at this
temperature. Its eye-sockets are threaded through with tendrils, but it
looks like it's pleading.
It rushes forward, wreathed in the shadow of the Primach. End this.
=Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
A risk that I...
Lan doesn't say anything. She knows. Once again, she wishes she'd had anything better than a scrap of paper to give him. But even that wouldn't have fixed what's wrong with Loren.
They fall, and fall, and fall. Even with her antigravity magic pushed to its limits, even inside the Dreaming, she can't float all three of them like she can herself. But it's even more impossible for her to leave either of them behind.
In the end they lie sprawling at the base of the waterfall. Lan pushes herself up onto her elbows, huffing out a clipped breath. Why is it so...
She opens her eyes, and understands.
What lies in the bason of the waterfall is no mere Hellion, no Seraph, no water spirit gone mad. It's heavy, and scouring, the spiritual equivalent of staring at the sun. It's hard to breathe.
She stares up at the corpse of a Metal Dragon, warped and sickened and still moving in death. Wrapped in the taint and corruption of bad water. "Is this..." Anaitis, she doesn't ask, nearly losing her nerve now that they're confronted again by eyes where eyes shouldn't be, by such concentrated sickness. This --blue--.
The Dragon charges and Lan sucks in a deep breath, forces herself to her feet. "O you," she chokes out. Silver starlight lances down from above, from far beyond the top of the waterfall, spearing through anything in its path, skewering through water and rock and Metal and taint as Lan fights further.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"...Yeah," is the sum total of what he says to Gwen, because how could he say anything else? There was rot within Solaris, that was true, and if they were capable of capturing one such as Anaitis... it would not have gone well for them. Of that, he could be abundantly certain. Even if Anat had evaded the attentions of the labs, there would have been no mercy whatsoever from Major Sadalbari. Of that, Loren was reasonably certain.
So over the edge he goes, without another word otherwise, his descent a sharp drop and controlled only by Lan's silver ribbons. It isn't a gentle landing.
But it's a better sight of a landing than the one he'd had, that day.
He rises after a time, going so far as to offer a hand up to whichever of them needs it. This is a dream of that time, after all, and he knows what lies ahead.
"Be ready," he says.
This is where it's going to be dangerous. For not only does the raw power of the Ley await them...
But the echo of the sealed Primarch.
"Yeah. It is." A memory -- a dream of a memory. But one that might still have bite. Somewhere in the world Rahab still lingers, after all, and Loren's soul cries out for their touch.
But it's far too late to turn back now.
Particularly not when the Dragon swoops down from on high, hardly done with them yet.
"I'll cover you!" he shouts, all too aware that he's fighting a three-front battle. The dragon before them, sure, but also the heavy taint of the Ley.
And Rahab's presence.
Gritting his teeth, Loren threads Ether through the tuner looped at his wrist. "Don't get close to it -- to any of it!" he manages, throwing out his hand as translucent bubbles haze into being about the three of them.
All he would have to do is turn his head. And--
He doesn't dare.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Ether Tuner toward his party's challenge, Thrall of the Detestable Pale.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Without a second thought, Gwen accepts Loren's hand. While he may or may not be prepared for the weight as she gets up, she's merely using him for that brief moment in time before she regains her balance. "Thank you."
He warns them to be ready, and Gwen nods. Even if she has a clue, even if it might be the same setup, it would still be different.
There's no Astrid to seek beyond this. Gwen's here for another reason, and the beast becomes a symbol for something else.
"I trust you!" Loren may be a 'lightweight' compared to her, he could take this on better than she could, through his own experience, and his own will. Even now, it calls to her, wanting her to embrace it.
To have a taste of that feeling of being home, like she was in Loren's mind. Of the warmth of that spark, against the soothing cold of Rahab, a perfect embrace.
Gwen grits her teeth, shooting from afar. "I have the memories.... and that's precious enough!"
DG: Gwen Whitlock has used her Tool One For the Road toward her party's challenge, Thrall of the Detestable Pale. DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Thrall of the Detestable Pale.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>===============================
================<* CHALLENGE - Thrall of the Detestable Pale *>=================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
Your descent downwards has finally taken you to the edge of the basin, to a
hideous mass of bulbous eyes and writhing, tainted tendrils. In the center
of the mass is a brilliant blue-white light, a pinprick of primordial energy
that threatens to shear away at your very being.
Those of Filgaian sorcerous inclinations may know that this is a Leyline...
and being exposed to it for long periods of time is in no way healthy.
The voice of the Primarch is audible to all:
Immerse thyself...
...within the Pale...
...Call upon my name...
...and walk beyond the Ley...
The undead Dragon lands at the centre of the nest, gazing down towards you.
The tendrils lacing its body flail, eliciting a tortured hiss from its
throat, and the many bulbous eyes bursting from the cracks within its bones
gaze towards you. It bleeds with viscous white mercury, liquid even at this
temperature. Its eye-sockets are threaded through with tendrils, but it
looks like it's pleading.
It rushes forward, wreathed in the shadow of the Primach. End this.
=Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
==========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 6 *>========================== ==================< Results - Thrall of the Detestable Pale >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 65 --(15)--> 80 Pass Ether Tuner 3 Combat Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gwen Whitlock 77 --(15)--> 92 Pass One For the Road 3 Combat Effects: Cleanse, Sacrifice, a -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 53 --(27)--> 80 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 80 --(35)--> 115 Pass Conditions: Collapse|Madness|Overwhelm|Suffer(1) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Loren Voss has successfully explored Hadal Temple!
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Befouled Crest Graph *>===================== |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- With a thunderous roar, the Primarch departs, its mass pulling deeper into the earth like water being sucked down a drain. Within a minute, it's gone, and its departure reveals a path in the wreckage around its nest. It leads to a cliff-face, overlooking a cavern saturated with a thick haze. Sitting inside, half-buried in the earth, is the hull of a massive, derelict skyship. Between the mist, the sheer drop, and your own exhaustion, you'll have to wait another day to get there. With the Primarch gone, though, you're free to explore its antechamber. On one of its walls, you discover... what appears to be a stone Crest Graph, etched with the mark of Muse. You can feel the Primarch's Taint upon it, however... whether you keep it for your own -- very possibly dangerous -- experiments in magic or destroy it is entirely up to you. =Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It would be far too easy to give in, even in a dream. Let him fall into the Ley itself. Surrender himself, again, to the scouring touch of Rahab. Even -- as a small, still-present part of him wishes -- to relinquish himself to the undead dragon's claws. It's a dream: he probably could do it, probably could survive it.
But it's the 'what if' that matters. And it's the fact that if he gives himself up to it here, now...
...what does that mean for him?
So he doesn't look back. So he keeps his eyes closed tight as he threads all his will into the barriers he projects, all too aware of all three threats bearing down upon the lot of them. If he dies just because he messes up, that-- that's okay, but he just can't--
He doesn't see the spears of light that tear through the dragon as it batters against his barriers. He doesn't see how Gwen fires again and again at the dragon. He can hear it all just fine, on the contrary. He can feel it as its claws try to rip their way towards the three of them. He can hear it scream, hear all the sounds of his allies' might against what remaints of its flesh.
It feels like his ears are about to pop from the Ley's pressure.
It feels like he's drowning, like the Primarch of Muse is everywhere about him even if he doesn't look.
And then, it simply drains away, the sensations pouring off him as if he'd risen from the depths of the sea, or as if the floodwaters were washing away to leave dry bare land.
Loren staggers from the lack of it, that too-great pressure suddenly lifted from his shoulders.
To the others, with their eyes open, they can see that they've attained victory -- over the dragon. The dragon falls only to suddenly be consumed by the Ley -- or Rahab? But even as the Primarch rouses from its slumber, its presence taking over almost all of their senses, it... pauses.
And simply withdraws, the Ley retreating with it as if it were merely the tide going out.
A light mist fills this chilly crystalline cavern, slowly dissipating. In the distance, there is an opening to the outside world. Light shines in, illuminating what will turn out to be a stone Crest graph on the floor.
It's over.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It's a dream. Maybe he would be no worse the wear for it. Maybe he'd wake up in the morning, the same as ever, and maybe the memory of momentary peace would taste like dust in his mouth.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. There is a way to find out--
--Until there isn't.
Lan stands beside them both, bruised up and breathing hard as the Metal Dragon falls. That's only a single threat down, and they still have the Primarch to deal with next. She lowers her arms from their casting position, agitatedly swiping some hair from her face as she stares at the corpse. "How're we gonna--"
Deal with the Primarch, she doesn't get a chance to say. It rises up, engulfs the Dragon-- engulfs them--
Water. In her mouth, in her lungs, in her eyes. Tangling her hair, pruning her skin. Engulf. Wash away. Flood. Drown.
And then... it's gone, along with the scouring spiritual pressure. So that's what it's like... to be subsumed. A leaf on a river. A rock dropped into a well.
Her cheeks are still wet. Lan brushes at her face and finds tears. "...It was huge," she manages to say after a moment, staring at nothing in particular. So that's a Primarch. So that's 'Muse'.
It takes her longer still to shake off the remnants of bing overwhelmed, but when she does Lan turns away from the mist to check on Gwen and Loren. "Are you guys okay? That was..."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
It would be easy to give in, with the knowledge that it's 'just' a dream. But things are rarely that cut and dry when dealing with Primarchs; this place is still a battleground of the soul.
Gwen could give in to it, but she has even less reason to do so here. In the end, it would only be her chasing after a feeling of something she wasn't supposed to feel in the first place. She felt 'home' while in Loren's mindscape because the ember she had stolen resonated with Rahab. Setenta and Rahab were siblings, bound by their creation and experiences. She was feeling the reflection of that, like the flickering of a bonfire's light against a wall.
The water consumes everything as the dragon falls, filling Gwen with the panic of drowning, this time being as real as any time she had drowned in her dreams under Isiris's spell. It's drowning, but a different kind, but also the same.
And then, it pulls back.
Gwen opens her eyes, her breath finally able to leave her lips, her lungs hungry for air. Her short hair hangs in a drenched, wavy mess, still stapled to her scalp.
".... Thanks, Rahab..." Is it too early to thank a Primarch for doing what they may have intended, all along? If all of this was intentional, as Gwen had suspected.
Maybe it wasn't.
Still, Loren passed this test of will.
"Loren, Lan, you two okay?" Gwen tests the air with those questions, almost afraid it would be the needle that would pierce that moment of quiet, but finds Lan asking the same questions at nearly the same time. "... Yeah, I think I'm okay. Guardians, that was... _rough_. But we all got through it."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It was huge.
'It', a part of him registers, as if to bring that fact out in front where he can't avoid it. It.
He'd never really grappled with it, partly because there hadn't been the space to grapple with it, when all was said and done. The choice had been nearly made for him. And so, in the end...
He's still not sure what he should think and feel about it. If he should think or feel anything specific -- well, beyond the obvious.
The fact is, it had been impossible from the start. It just took him a long time to also realize it was so. And even so, he still wants to cast that fact to the four winds. And even so--
Loren, water dripping from his hair, glances between the two of them and when his gaze lingers a moment on Lan in particular, he can't help but feel a lingering sense of discomfort. Disquiet, perhaps. Or is it just guilt?
"...Yeah," he says, finally, turning his head to gaze towards the cave entrance.
"It's not how it happened. That time, I..." He shakes his head. "...There's no point. That was reality, and this is the dream. And... I guess we'll all wake up soon."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
There are reasons and places for Lan to give up, to let herself be consumed. But this half-forgotten temple isn't one of them. She doesn't know a Primarch's embrace.
"I'm okay," she nods, swiping limp bangs out of her face before giving a sigh and starting the long process of squeezing the water out of her sodden hair. Even in a dream, it's heavy.
"...What about last time?" The way he just trailed off makes her wonder what Loren was going to say. She never knows what he's thinking, unless he's panicking. It's not fair. She and Gwen are, are open books! They make sense!
"What happened then?"
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen grins. "You're talkin' to someone who absorbed a piece of Setenta. Even if the circumstances, the situations, and the outcomes were different... We're still humans that were encounterin' something beyond us. Nice thing is, we were the sort of humans that seemed to make an impression... maybe just because we dared to? I dunno." She rubs the side of her head.
How can she be so drenched in a dream? At least she's not freezing. Or self-conscious.
Lan asks the obvious question, and Gwen casts a look towards Loren, offering a half smile. "Up t'you to answer. Heck, if you just wanna tell Lan, I can plug my ears and pretend I'm hearin' nothin."
Immediately, she regrets saying that, as she wants to know, as well.
"... Though, if you feel up to it, I'd like to know as well."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
What about last time?
Loren doesn't answer her at first, his gaze fixed on that crack in the rock that leads presumedly out into the light. Into the waking world once more, perhaps.
"...What do you think happened?" he says, finally, grimacing. Here in the dream, looking out at a sight he'd never seen himself and probably never existed, all he can do is answer their questions -- why shouldn't he?
Here in this place, it seems only fitting.
"I looked into the Ley and... that's when it happened. After that, I was sent back here to destroy the ship, but it didn't work out. Instead, when we fought Rahab, I drowned."
Literally, he had drowned. Grievously wounded by Lily Keil, he'd been left in the caves as they flooded. It had been Margaret's gang, of all people, who had fished him out of the flooded caverns before wound and exposure -- to say nothing of the water in his lungs -- could finish him off. There are a number of gaps in his memory after first encountering Rahab, still, but this is the longest of them.
"Maybe... it wasn't just chance that I survived," he's given to muse aloud. Slowly, he's begun to walk towards the light.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan grimaces right back. He's still a brat sometimes. "I know what I think happened, but we wanted to hear it from you!" But Loren continues after a moment, so she quiets down. It's not any different than what she'd come to assume after months of trying to puzzle it all out from hints and clues in his increasingly-erratic recollections.
"...I'm glad you lived," she says eventually, to his back.
Giving up on squeezing any more water out of her hair, Lan checks to see if Gwen is coming too before moving for what she hopes is the exit. Maybe there's still time to get some actual, non-traumatic sleep before morning?
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen nods at Loren's words, giving him that same half-smile. She knows enough not to just grin at him like an idiot, but the smile at least shows some level of understanding. She hopes.
"... It sounds like you were tempted to give in, even more than I was. Not for the stuff you suffered, of course, anymore than I would've..."
She can't voice the rest. She doesn't know Loren's full experience anymore than he does himself. She only knows hers- the connection she had to Setenta was not romantic, but it was a bond. Showing a being everything she felt about the world, to try to get them to love it as she does? A part of you grows attached.
"You chose differently. That's something not a whole lotta people can say in the same position."
He's grown.
Her smile grows wider as Lan has her say, running a hand through her wet curls.
".... I'm glad you lived too, Loren. Here's to the rest of our lives."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Even he can't be entire sure what happened -- and maybe he never will.
Maybe, even, it's better that way.
"...Enough," he says, when Gwen speaks of him being tested -- tempted, really, as she puts it -- of him chosing different. "It's just a dream," he says, and with his back to the two of them, what rests on his face might be hidden from sight. Still, he has paused a moment before the threshold, as if waiting to hear what they have to say.
They're glad he lived, though and that--
There's nothing he can say to that. His shoulders slouch slightly, his gaze still on the tear of light before them. There's not even a sign of there even being anything beyond it: it's just light, pouring in.
"...You're both weird," he says, before he steps into the light and vanishes.
...
He wakes, not long after, sprawled in a mess of his blanket and sheets. His pillow is nowhere to be found and... his face is wet?
The reason for the last will become evident once he realizes that the cloudbear is chewing on his ear again. Or trying to.
It doesn't have tangible teeth as such.