2022-11-09: Theatrum Chemicum
- Log: Theatrum Chemicum
- Cast: Hiro, Seraph Harmaus
- Where: Sielje Icy Sea
- Date: November 9, 2022
- Summary: But of course, there is one person in particular whom Harmaus wishes to capture for his plot.
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.
Yggdrasil Isle is a mystifying place for Hiro, to see such places exist on Lunar is one thing, on Filgaia is a rarity. If he didn't see the Silver Star overhead at night he'd swear that he was on Lunar.
Instead however, it's early evening. And the BEAST is hungry...
"Hirroooo when are you gonna catch one!? I'm starving here!"
... the BEAST may be a cute and fluffy winged cat like being that can alternate with being a human teen at times, go fig. Hiro just sits there with an even rhythm of metal across stone, as he sharpens his blade on a whetstone, the fishing pole held between his knees.
"I've caught, three - already. And fed you all of them." Hiro says with a grin, "Just because I took a nap at one point doesn't mean I have memory loss."
Ruby mutters and thrusts her pawsies at him, "Red Dragon Amnesia...!"
"... Ruby, just because you can change into a human now for a few minutes a day doesn't mean you're suddenly some all powerful magic being."
"It might mean that! I won't know unless I keep trying!"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
A garden requires proper fertilizer, lest the desired flowers fail to thrive and bloom. For the flower that Harmaus wishes to cultivate, he requires a very particular sort of fertilizer, indeed. Though he has found many that are suitable, there is one that is required, by his own twisted reckoning.
Magilou, once-companion to a Lord of Calamity of yore herself, had told him as much.
You will know the Lord of Calamity by her company.
Thus, to make a Lord, would it not be necessary to affect her companions first of all? Touched by Malevolence, they will become torches to guide her further into the form she may -- must! -- attain.
She refused him when he begged of her. So be it. If he has to make the Lord of Calamity by his own hands (paws) then that is what he will do. He will turn that frail seed into a wonderful flower.
The world must be as it must be. There is no other way.
They are not alone here, out in the wilds of this particular isle. Another yet lurks in the darkness of the trees, unseen by either of the two longtime companions.
"Ah..." rumbles a perhaps-familiar voice from somewhere above.
"Alone, is it? Travels it far from its lady?"
There is no sign of Harmaus himself, no sign at all. Just a terrible voice in the darkness, lilting from the trees.
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.
They are not alone here. There are many Drifters gathered here to deal with the problem at hand. However, at the moment...
... the two are very isolated. Hiro's neck turns as his gaze shoots up towards the boughs of the treetops, and he tosses the pole aside. Rising with his sword still in hand, as he stuffs the whetstone away back into his things.
"Alone isn't the word for it." Ruby flies up, indignantly. "Yeah! His lady is right here Mister! Are you blind?!"
Hiro turns a shade redder. "Ruby he means Lucia." "... Wait really!? He should be more clear about these things then!" Hiro just sighs, but never takes his eyes off the tree tops, "Look. Harmaus. If you're here to join her or convince her that she's the Lord of Calamity again, you need to face facts. ... The Real Lord of Calamity is back on Lunar. You can ask any number of people. K.K. themselves threw a spear of light at him to help banish him back!"
Hiro takes one step, then another, like he's warily starting to creep along the shore in a productive direction, "She's just suffering a curse. When I met her, there wasn't any malevolence at all. She was powerful beyond anything I've seen in all my travels. The malevolence suppresses her powers...! It doesn't strengthen them!"
He knows its almost certainly pointless reasoning with him, but he still feels an obligation to try. Honestly this cat Seraph just makes his skin crawl and he wants him as far away from them as possible.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Ah. Problem, problem..." sighs Harmaus from the trees. "Lingers it with 'half-dragon'? Mmm... is not right word. Half, half... partial? Unfull, empty moon of a dragon," Harmaus muses. "But it matters me not. Cares I little of dragon-thing! It and dragon-thing are here alone, though..."
And Harmaus, though hardly the most companionable sort, is not alone as such. His company, however, is not the most sociable sort.
"Knows I this," Harmaus replies, from somewhere amidst the trees. "Many may meet Malevolence's measure! But not all who called, answer! Not all suitable. Maybe this other meets requirements. Maybe it becomes 'Lord of Calamity'. But Lucia... ah."
He falls silent for a time. Only the distant chirping of insects fills the void until that moment he speaks again.
"Remembers me of Anitia."
Anitia, another of the Lords of Calamity of yore.
"But become not... yet. Not yet! Knows I of potential sleeping in Lucia. Magilou, witch of Calamity speaks to me of such. What was, will again! And brings she down 'False Goddess' -- Althena!"
Just what did Magilou tell him -- and how much is he reading the wrong narrative into this altogether?
"Jaeja. When awakens she to truth, powers dampen her not. She gains true power! True strength! But, ah... 'knows Lord by her companions'. It holds her back, yes?"
The voice is closer. Overhead, perhaps.
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.
"Who are you calling a half-pint you lousy cat gremlin!?" Ruby flails in mid-air as if ready to brawl. Which would be a bad idea for her honestly, but she's scrappy about it. "You'll start to care when I claw your face off!"
Hiro's still backing up, warily, when Harmaus mentions 'Anitia' and his eyebrows shoot up. "... alright, I'll bite. How does she remind you of Anitia?" He asks, but he's still moving along that muddy shore. When Harmaus mentions Magilou - "OF. COURSE!" "Ruby it's fine, whatever Magilou told him I'm pretty sure he's getting at least three quarters of it wrong." "Yeah but what if she's manipulating him to get it wrong ON PURPOSE! Huh? Did you ever think of that!?"
"... No. I'm betting he just doesn't get what Magilou meant by potential." Hiro says, because despite it being against all of his practical experience with her, he still has... full faith in Magilou. He just believes in the best of her.
'It holds her back, yes?'
Ruby just pauses, and then... her feline face twitches, and then she starts to laugh uproariously, "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"
Ruby is forced to descend to the ground, rolling around on her back, "Oh gosh! My side hurts! He actually believes-!" Coming to rest on her side, she shouts up above, Look, Harmaus - Lucia wouldn't have made it five steps out of Larpa if Hiro hadn't decided to run after her. She was literally dead on her feet. A single Gob could have taken her down! You think we're holding her back!? Nahhhhh! We're the only reason she's still here!"
Hiro seems to find that whole idea he's holding her back, less funny than Ruby, in fact he seems a little upset by how flippant she's being about Lucia's survival chances without them. However, for now he takes that out on Harmaus instead, "... Think what you want. You're just proving how little you actually understand about her."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Jaeja. Is fighting me? Ah, but has I time not for it. It fights me another day," Harmaus remarks, as if to brush Ruby aside. "Here for other purpose is I."
What... purpose is that?
He does not clarify.
"Where goes it?" Harmaus calls out, as if to remark on Hiro's slow attempt to get further and further away from the Seraph that lingers still in the darkness among the trees. His form permits him much flexibility in hiding himself -- finding him will take time and effort with so many options available for him.
"Runs it away? Ah, but it talks at me more first!"
Of Anitia, among other things.
"Anitia... Anitia. Awoke me to much! An understanding of the world gains I from her. But gone, long, is she. Lucia remembers me much of Anitia's care. Much love has she who rips away world's curtain! But, ah... world cares not much for love in return!"
Anitia had been slain, as the stories go.
Harmaus wonders if Hiro is holding Lucia back.
Eyes glint from above with sudden menace, the first sign perhaps of where Harmaus is hiding in the shadows. "It mocks Lucia not! It insults my quest not!" he snarls. --Yes, that's definitely where he is. He's too loud, too angry to be mistaken for any other point in the trees. Was this Ruby's aim, or--
"When world is returned to truth, I leaves it in shadow! Long will it writhe and cry and beg, but I minds it not! To oblivion goes it!"
It takes Harmaus a moment to compose himself.
"Ah," he utters, after a few seconds more. "But dragon-thing is not my aim. I seeks... the boy."
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.
"Just recognizing that 'talks' with you rarely end well."
Hiro has his pride, so part of him bristles at the idea that he's running. However, he also knows how powerful Harmaus can be going all out. He can't be reckless here, Lucia needs him.
"Oh? And what did she teach you about the world?" Hiro asks, with genuine curiosity, "What understanding did she grant you?" However, curious as he is, he's more steadily side stepping now, to get away.
As for Ruby's aim... it was about 80 percent laughing at the idea of Lucia being held back by them, 20 percent revealing his position if she were to be honest but- she's definitely going to pretend later it was her entire aim.
Hiro's eyes fix on that spot in the trees and as Harmaus reveals his aim is on him... "Sounds like you're holding an unhealthy grudge against the world. Tell you what... if you want to leave something in shadow-"
Hiro thrusts out a hand, "O twisted Door of Distortion, open wide!" Runes paint against the tree, as they slowly coalesce into an Umbral orb, "Negative Gate!"
Hiro knows that won't stop him, he's simply hoping the vacuum like draw of the orb will slow him down, just enough...
... because he just takes off running, "C'mon Ruby!" He looks - there's...
... already a blinking dotted line where Ruby once was. "What are you waiting on!? Hurry up!" Hiro takes off running, but even assuming his spell even momentarily slows Harmaus down, the distraction might be costly...
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Ah? Well, matters me not," Harmaus rumbles from the trees.
Anitia, though. According to the stories from the church, she was a heretic of the highest order who plotted against the goddess, until her movement was stopped and she was put down. So Harmaus knew her.
"Of truth. Of that crawlings unseen, behind veil of world," Harmaus murmurs from the dark. "Of what lies hidden! Unwoken, slumbering, yet! Wakes it I, shakes I dust from eyes of world!" There is a pause, and with uncharacteristic cause in such matter, he ends, "Finishes I what Anitia begins."
Hiro levels an accusation his way, in the midst of his rant about Ruby. "Ah? And what knows it of world? Stripling! Infant!" he spits at Hiro -- and perhaps Ruby, too might be included in such abuse. But darkness erupts into his direction shortly there after.
There is a sharp squall from the trees, as if Hiro had gotten him with a hose instead.
Yet, even so. Even so, Harmaus is not stopping so readily.
"...It escapes not," proclaims the Seraph, slipping out of the darkness at last.
"-Now, to me!-" Harmaus snarls from the trees in the Ancient Tongue.
There are two of them when they emerge, one erupting from the river and the other from the darkness of the trees. They're big, to a degree that they might give the impression that they should be ponderous in their movement, but the two Hellions move with alarming speed.
In what light persists, they look like a pair of nothing else but gold-plated humanoid stinkbugs -- or something close to that.
The Rosenwach do not speak. Neither are they easily deterred, instead descending upon Hiro as he makes his escape attempt. Evading them entirely will be hard. Causing them serious harm will be harder yet.
And Harmaus is gaining, coming rapidly at Hiro's heels. His corpus is ablaze with his own magic, bundling in strength.
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.
Anitia sounds... like a complicated figure, but she also sounds like a pretty traditional Lord of Calamity if she enraptured him so on the twisted things that lie beyond the veil. Hiro thinks back to Wayside and the THINGS within that cavern, the whisperings in the dark.
The 'unhealthy grudge against the world' was mostly a distraction so Hiro tries not to pay attention to the invective. Ordinarily he'd chafe at running, but he understands what kind of likely ambush this was, by a Seraph that took on all of them. He's trying to see it more as a tactical retreat, before he turns back on him.
Those hopes die the moment two figures emerge to the call of the ancient tongue. He seems to understand the words enough that he looks in alarm before two hellions emerge to flank him on both sides. He tries to run past, but one blocks his way, a smack of his sword leads to it mostly being deflected off its shell.
The Rosenwach simply uses the momentum of the deflected blade to knock him to the ground before it tries to pin him. A kick - does not get it off of him from its sheer mass. A wind spell directed upwards only draws it off just enough that...
... he can slide out, but the other is there. The boomerang to the face doesn't do much at all, as the one he just got out from under strikes him from behind.
"HIRO!" "K-Keep going Ruby!"
Ruby... hesitates, then keeps flying off.
Drawing himself up, he takes them more seriously as a threat now. Drawing himself up warily into a ready sword duel, as his sword bursts aflame. "Think your Anitia would be disappointed you couldn't manage a task like this on your own." Hiro spits out blood, not liking his odds, but readying himself for taking the three on for as long as he can.
The taunt is meant maybe to shame Harmaus into making things more even. However he doesn't really know the Lord of Calamity, so it's a gamble, relying on a sense of pride that may not exist in this cat.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
They were drawn from the earth and rock of the mines in which the Rose Queen had made her home, and thus they share in its attributes: unlike those Hellions that had once been normal living things, these lack any distinctions in will and desires that would make them comprehendable -- and exploitable -- in the way others might. They simply are, for good or ill, and they deploy their creator's will without hesitation or thought.
Or, in this particular case, their creator's ally, Harmaus.
"Jaeja... Thinks it such of Anitia?" Harmaus remarks from close at hand, unkindly. The boomerang blow staggers the one Rosenwach briefly, but does no more than that: with two of them working to apprehend him, he's outnumbered--
"Any means. Any means necessary! I does as I must, as Anitia did. And close now am I! So very close..."
Light erupts in a blinding flash from Harmaus.
"Requires I it most of all!"
The flare of light is more than enough to blind: it might even provoke tears, so overwhelmingly does it flood the eyes. This might be all the opportunity that the Rosenwach require.
"What thinks it Lucia becomes...?"
Harmaus has one more thing to wonder aloud at Hiro.
"When so touched her companion? Ah... but her seed blooms, yet. It bears witness! It makes her become!"
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.
"..."
Hiro falls quiet at Harmaus' speech of Anitia's nature, her means justifying the end belief that he carries on in her name.
"So that's what she was like? That's the will you're carrying with you?" Hiro asks, as he starts to charge.
Harmaus glows brilliantly, and even out of his periphery, the flare of light blasts at his eyes, doing way more than spots. It's just choking, blinding pain, and he bites down to prevent crying out.
And all is just white for a time.
The Sword Technique Hiro was readying was meant for this situation, against these odds. Three targets in one movement, spearing through them with the sword wielded like a flaming lance. Unfortunately in this state, his footwork is spoiled, his sense of direction is mutilated.
The Rosenwach fall in on him, and to his credit, he responds as best as he can, like Jean taught him. To use more than just sight-
However, the flames gutter out after the first slash - it's all spoiled by the lack of momentum, the absence of charge. He can't even see how much damage he's done, only that he struck something solid.
"You've already failed then."
Hiro says, before he takes a blow to the ribs, knocking the wind out of him, and smashing him into the edge of the lake with a splash, where he comes to a rest in the shallows, with some of the fight knocked out of him, as he gasps, and tries to... get up, his eyes still squinting to try and regain some measure of sight.
"If I've learned... anything from this journey... types like y-you...?" More blood drips into the pond, but he cannot see it, "... they nuh-notch a few wins - maybe a lot of them even - but they never make it across the finish line."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Yes," Harmaus answers simply.
"Many centuries I carries it. And... at long last!"
At long last, from beyond the grave... her will may yet be done. Their abandonment will be avenged. The false will be cast down, and the world will become as it should have always been. He has desired nothing more.
Magilou had remarked on it, once. Harmaus had barely noticed.
It's unfortunate, really. It all leads to this dreadful moment, where Harmaus shines brightly enough to blind, and the Hellions which he has been lent take full advantage of the moment. They reach out and seize for his arms even as his flaming sword cuts through the air and lances at once of the Hellions.
In truth, he has cut deeply one of the Rosenwach, though he cannot see it. But his sword did not cut deeply enough. It still stands, it still swings at him, it still connects.
As does the one on the other side. They are not kind--
But neither do they (or more accurately, Harmaus) wish him dead. They move to pluck the sword from his grasp, to grasp either arm and pin him between them, to trap him so he has no hope of an escape.
"Fails, I?" Harmaus remarks, that tail of his swishing softly against the grass and stone mere feet from where Hiro is caught. "Says that one caught, caught like a mouse in trap! But it matters me not. Sees it soon enough, what Lucia becomes."
Cats can't smile, but that look on Harmaus' face might be near enough to one.
"Perhaps, it even thanks me."
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.
His vision is still not quite clear by the time the sword is wrenched from his grasp, and he's hauled up between them. There's a struggle for a moment, but in a contest of physical strength he can't hope to win this. Sorcerous might? Probably not, he's not a dedicated mage. He swings a sword better than he casts a spell.
Harmaus refutes his words, and it feels like he's crowing in triumph at him. His vision clears just enough to see that ghastly look on his face far too close to a smile. More blood dribbles out of his mouth.
"You d-don't get it." Hiro remembers, after Siegfried nearly killed her, when the malevolence became too much. It didn't turn her into a Hellion. It just started to steal her life away, turn her more and more translucent. She faded - she didn't transcend into being some Lord of Calamity. "You don't uh-understand her at all... she's not what you think she is."
He mutters, though Harmaus will likely think it's just the ranting of a sore loser. However, his eyes fixate upon him as it registers that Harmaus speculates that he might even thank him.
"... Thinking you k-know what's best for her, better than her...?"
Hiro spits out more blood into the pondwater, "That's somethin' I'd never... th-thank you for."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Perhaps if he hadn't been disarmed -- perhaps if he hadn't been outnumbered. There might have been a better chance for him under any circumstance than this, even taking Harmaus' magical might into consideration. As it stands, though Hiro puts up a struggle, the end is an inevitable one.
He's left to hang between the two monstrous Hellions, his feet only barely touching the earth below. He won't suffer like this long, though.
Harmaus trots towards his captive, his tail twitching once, twice as it sways in the air. It's almost as if it were a banner -- some manner of declaration of what he sees as his long-awaited victory.
"Ah?" Harmaus asks of Hiro, his amber eyes slitted. "Thinks it knows nature of Lucia better than I? When graces her presence so little, little. Ah... but is fine, yes? It sees soon enough!" He bares his fangs as if in glee, gazing up at Hiro.
"Shh, shh, shh," Harmaus purrs, settling down on his haunches. "Here. Sleeps it now, and dreams of what comes next!" Light begins to swell around the Seraph, erupting in short order in an overwhelming flood of brilliance. It may be hard for Hiro to maintain himself amidst such a glare. It may be easier to let himself go, and sink into oblivion for a time.
"Enlightenment I gives freely," Harmaus will tell him, sensate or not. "It sees! It knows! Soon, now!"
A single piece of paper will be left to tangle in the mud and water, perhaps to soon be found by Ruby or other allies of the young man. After all, if he takes Hiro into the very nucleus of truth within that garden he plans...
...it means nothing if it has no witnesses.
And it is meaningless to have bait and not appropriately lure his prey.