Chapter VI - Asunder

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IamLEAM1983
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

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"Really, darling," noted Holden, "I would've thought you'd remember all of our fellow co-conspirators, from last fall's moot of sorts," he said. "Jubal Whitney, one of Walpurgis' luminaries and the current head of the American Void Weavers' resistance against the Loyalists?" he rhetorically asked. "If you'd like, we can always take a peek," he said, pressing a button on the doorframe's console that enabled a two-way intercom.

"I say, old boy," he started, "ferreting us out of Brenner's establishment without being seen must've taken some skill! Care to fill us in on the specifics?"

Once the channel was reversed, the sounds of the cabin riding along with a flatbed truck could be heard. They passed what had to be one of the enclave's checkpoints, based on the sound, and drove along what had to be a road interchange. Sound alone wasn't enough to paint a clear picture, but they were clearly taking the express route to Sandhill, crossing the Bliss-infused Hillard. They slowed down, drove on gravel - and then static made the intercom squeal for a brief second. Thumps were then heard, outside footsteps stepping in the truck's bed - and finally, the intercom clicking to life.

The voice that rang out wasn't quite Jeff Bridges' affected Texas drawl in True Grit and it wasn't quite the easygoing smokiness of Michael Parks' Earl McGraw. It'd be fairly easy for Crystal to draw on it to bring memories of that meeting in the Wizard's Nook, from a few years back. "Apologies, fellas - you'll hafta run that one by me again, Holden. I would've left th' sound on back in Hope, but I had a Veil to stick to."

Archie repeated his question, but not before frowning and adding another element. "Whatever do you mean, back in Hope?"

The door opened with a hiss, and in stepped a cream-colored Void Weaver, sporting remarkably short tentacles safe for two that almost stubbornly stood horizontally, affecting a kind of luxuriant and lightly pulsating handlebar mustache. He was pale, and had to be as sun-kissed as the Squids' epidermis possibly allowed, which only added a healthy flush to his almost scrimshaw-white cheeks. He still had the wrinkles of someone who'd spent a long time in the sun - and definitely was one of the few Weavers who made Stetsons, white suits and string ties not look foolish.

"Fellas," he said, touching his hat brim as he nodded, "Miss Lowell - young lady - it's good seein' you again. For those o' y'all I'm seein' first, welcome. Let's head out, we'll need the space to load things in.
- Out where?" asked the android.

"One of our car hangars," replied the old gunslinger with a shrug. "You're in Walpurgis now - and I'm takin' y'all to see the President. Out Celestial allies are convinced somethin' big's shaping up in Hope, you're the only ones with even partial information we could reach, and we're puttin' a concerted plan of attack together.
- How did we-?"

Whitney's kind eyes twinkled and he couldn't help himself but to grasp one of his lapels. "I don't have the specifics, but Rothchild bondin' with the Architect somehow signaled the old geezer, made it clear some of us were sane enough to receive some o' the old boons. Add Meris' own efforts over the centuries, and we've made quantum leaps in our understandin' of spacetime alteration. We wouldn't have been able to send a signal out to Lucifer without Lucian Rothchild's Ascension."

Zebediah tried to rubberneck past the truck's box. For now, not much of the hangar was visible. "You could've flown in or terrorized some goon and slipped through Faerie - why fold space out of sight in an abandoned industrial park?
- The Goat's coalition's movin' in to control land, air and sea-based traffic. You'll need another kinda gate - one that serves as a reverse Trojan horse. We're packin' this place with JTF grunts, our triggermen, one full Exo division, two Sammaelite detachments and an entire Celestial platoon."

Brenner took a few steps forward. "If you're the one taking us to see Dafyd Jones, it means that you'll spilled the beans, then. All those Paradise conspiracy transmissions, all those stories about a rogue Archmage leading operations against an occult enemy...
- All true," replied Whitney with a smirk. "Your friends at the tower don't know it yet and we've worked to keep things mum from Nereus Marinos in case Chambers would've picked stuff up, but the Gentlemen and all allied Weavers went national as soon as Walpurgis became the Republic's last port o' call. As soon as we help you with the final push, as soon as we'll have peace, Jones is gonna recommend us to the Vienna Council."

He lightly nodded as he basked in the satisfaction of it all. "Yep - we'll have a name and a home; and we'll strip the Loyalists o' their advantage. Marinos an' Meris'll finally have a place to pitch a tent - and we'll be able to reclaim what we lost."

* * *

Calhoun stepped aside, letting the couple prepare the ritual. The wooden toys were kept in their box, but the small container was opened and placed nearby, elevated on a previously abandoned desk chair Tom had brought in from nearby. He supplied his folded jacket for Aislinn to rest her head on. He tested the chair's placement to make sure the small chest was within the roane's view without her having to crane her neck upwards, and then set to work on the ritual proper. For a hex or a curse, he would've placed himself a ways away from Grimley and McConmara, to better assert his dominance over the proceedings. Blessings, on the other hand, had nothing to do with Ego. Selflessness, for once, was the order of the day. Considering, he joined Aislinn on the floor and sat at the crown of her head, allowing his eyes to turn soft as he gazed into hers. Being what he was, he gently lessened his own self-control and allowed a touch of supernatural tenderness to fill him. Lust's kind and gentle shadow bloomed in his chest, and he took a few seconds to comb Aislinn's hair with his fingers and stroke her cheekbones with a knuckle.

"Relax," he told her. "Breathe deep. When you're ready, close your eyes. Imagine that you're in our living room, at night. All the lights are out, all of us are safe and cared for - and there's a candle in front of you. You didn't light it out of necessity; the power still works, the lights could still be turned on. You've just chosen to spend a few quiet moments by candlelight. You didn't light it with magic and I didn't supply Hellfire - it's a pure, simple and natural flame, maybe lit with a match or a lighter.

Now, think of that light as representing the sum of your joyful experiences, giving a comforting sense of scale to your surroundings. Sometimes, darkness can represent safety in rituals, and this is one of those times, Aislinn. It's the dark waiting under your favorite covers, with the click of the fridge's compressor turning on, alone in the studious and reflective small hours of the night. The flame itself never grows, but its glow and the warmth it exudes - these two come to gently expand past your hands, your arms, head or torso. As the glow spreads, so does contentment. So does quiet joy. The living room fills with it, with gratitude and simple comfort, and you hear echoes of our dinners, of our evenings spent turning pages, our cadging kisses while watching television.

Gratitude and comfort swell out of the room and past the pool deck. They leak past the tower's upper floors like a gentle summer rain and spill into Archie and Anjali's penthouse. They flood the Prometheans' floor and the Wizard's Nook, they leak into Ephesian & Wormsworth's offices and spill out further below. The deeper the liquid light goes, the deeper you go, the further back you reach. You start to draw back to further memories, to your seafaring childhood. At the same time, Aislinn, I want you to stay present - stay conscious. Don't fall asleep, but listen. Pay special attention to Horatio, who's at your right. We've robbed him of the strength he'd need to laugh or cry, to gnash his teeth or express the depths of his despair - but still, listen to him. He might not have drawn breath for other purposes than to talk in centuries, but there's a tension in him, an emptiness. I have a warthog's nose and I've been smelling his distress this whole time, but you're a Theriomorph. Draw on your experiences as a selkie and try and smell past what those beautiful human nostrils of yours could pick up. Smell just how much he needs help, the poor, poor man."

He paused. "Take your time. At your own pace, imagine that all that gentle, loving kindness I spoke of, all that joy - imagine that it's seeping out of you and actively questing for Horatio. Maybe you're atop a slight incline, but the light of your joy trickles down to him. You follow along with it. As you do, try and picture every detail of a place that's near and dear to you, that's at the root of your own contentment. You can draw back on what I've described, or you can focus on the box you brought along. Either way, childhood might be a decent marker. Imagine that you've made a space for Horatio inside your own private sanctum, that you're one of those Void Weavers sharing mind-space with a loved one. You're Meris, let's say, and you've found someone lost and afraid in the Darkhallow's depths. Gently, lovingly, you bring them into you, your thoughts, your mind - knowing that your own boundaries are strong enough, compassionate enough, to withstand their despair."

Another deliberate lull. "I'm going to lower one of my hands to reach for yours, Ais. If anything goes wrong, I'll be your anchor. I won't be there with you, down there - but I'll be up here, waiting to pull you up. If you make a fist in whatever construct you'll assemble down there, you'll squeeze my hand up here. Do that, and I'll know to pull you back out."

From Aislinn's perspective, her growing training in meditation and Tom using a smidge of his old lust made her sink down like a stone. Soon, Tom's warm fingers against her face were gone, replaced with a sight drawn from far back in her formative years. She stood on a rocky beachfront in a place she'd understand to not be the Orkneys, but rather one of the many ports the little McConmara clan had stopped in over the years. The sand was clumpy under her sneakers, the Atlantic surrounding a narrow band of land. Seaweed was tangled high up on the single dune, below her, and the colorful pidgin of Quebec's dialect rang in the air, marked with the slight, choppy drawl of the Gaspé peninsula. This was Haldimand Beach, one of Gaspé's rare expanses of sand. Dimly, Aislinn might remember Cole and Sedna renting a car from Entreprise or Avis or someplace similar, to have the kids spend a weekend away from the houseboat.

Still, there was no sound of her mother's chatter past the weeds atop the dunes. No smell of mesquite salmon, no aromas from Sedna's balsamic on arugula. No scent of sun-drenched baby tomatoes. Cotton candy and peanut brittle fought with the ocean's particular petrichor for her attention. Calliope music weakly reached her ears. A single electric blue strand of spun sugar floated down towards her from somewhere past the dune, the wind picking it up and carrying it towards the shore before it would have had the time to stick to her. Just as the location's ominous nature threatened to take over the lucid dream, the roane would see a brief purple pale fall in over the world, from the sea. The color washed over her, carrying Tom's quiet support. The air wafted of his breath for a second, and then the color and scent blew past her in the wind. Anxiety lifted, the clear, cool summer day from her memories partially restored.

Horatio had evidently taken the kids that had been playing on the beach and right past it. He'd taken the memory of her parents in that particular moment, the other campers around their rental cars, and the summer cabins that had been waiting beyond. The circus' big top had replaced everything, with the ringleader's greeting platform instead showing Konrad Clown on his stood, his preternaturally long limbs folded as had been customary for him.

His long, drooping features rested on the selkie as she crested the dune. "And so," he said, "Fate still finds a way to laugh at our expense... Like unto Cassandra, I had seen my demise and that of many others, had been promised a personal, poignant and tragic end to mine own tale. Death, it seems, had other plans. We rode on our Ringleader's madness, rode on his laughter to our graves - and all for naught. We saved little, defeated but a scant few of the enemy's multitudes - and then knew peace."

Konrad smiled slowly, if not sardonically. "Peace did not last. Heaven has little room for Lilith's boons and the Lightbringer's curse - our souls were made to cavort under the mad light of the moon, but the Light seeks to cure us. It seeks to aid us... It seeks to unmake us. The Light sees suffering where there is none, its kindness visiting agony upon my kind. Our pain sang to Horatio, the sacred bond of the first of the Moon-Mad, broken - our emptiness gnawed at him."

He then licked his lips. "The old foe was beckoned, called to the deepest of all Voids - the one Within."

The clown lightly turned on his stool, extending a too-long arm towards the tent. "You'll find him inside. We killed him in the old days, stopped him before he could strike at the Archmage, the Keybearer... Our previous head had been paltry, and we'd offered this one our gift. Our madness to replace his. Something foul now wears that agent's visage, and our insight made flesh now bleeds. The sacred office is perverted: the Heel is the Ringleader, the Ringleader the Heel. To ask Burning Insight to embody Fatality is madness upon madness - a red-nosed clown bound and gagged..."

Konrad smacked his lips together. "The flame, simply put, is being snuffed out."

He paused, as if to imply he'd finished, but his eyes glinted as he rested them on Aislinn's sternum. "If I did not know better, I would say the Fates had ended their comedy and had moved on to bolster melancholic humors... Is this fire I sense in you?"

* * *

"He did say Lucifer," needlessly confirmed Seward the scribe. "If I wrote it, he must've said it! I'd know if I'd dozed off again and missed something, there'd be more drool on the page."

A wave of derogatory comments followed, soon crashing against the Orientals, Westerners and Mac Loch's reminders of decorum. This time around, noise died out on its own.

"He did," concurred the dragon that had been sitting next to Cordatus and Ahriman. She looked like a vulpine anthro if foxes came in inverted color schemes, fur parting in scale-tipped hands past the wrists. Her kimono was a startling display of craftsmanship, an entire fresco draping from her limbs in minuscule and colorful ukiyo-e drawings. She had not one tail, but three, each of them tufted in fox-red, her mien looking like a cross between the flat and elongated jaw of a standard ryu and the almost conical maw of a fox. Her accent was nearly untraceable, her voice packing as much Trans-Atlantic airiness as it did West Asian twangs. Amaterasu had traveled with the Ainu and Japanese diasporas, speaking Latin and Portuguese when they did, English and Moroccan Arabic when they were called to do so.

"Our new friends in Texas have confirmed the transmission of a unique broadcast: its details were explained to mister Tanner and myself, but I feel I speak for the both of us if I say our centuries of experience fail to cover the semantic and arcane complexity of what was discussed. What Gabriel himself thought impossible has been done: Lucifer has been located and beckoned. He is on his way."

The Draugr shifted in his seat. "How much time do we have?
- Enough," replied Ahriman, "and far from enough, all at once. He will be here soon; that is as much as I can sense."

The gem-eyed man smirked lazily, his voice covered in the burrs and singing consonants of Mexican Spanish. "What are we supposed to do, sit back and let the Lightbringer mop this up for us?
- I'd be up for that," interjected Seward, yawning as he did. "Let the heroes take charge, eh? All I want is a safe enough space to-
- Yes, yes, yes," sighed a Western dragon in French, "take a nap, why don't you? For God's sake, why do you Addled have to stick so stubbornly to stupid themes?! We've pried your narcoleptic arse from anything that's even vaguely horizontal for the past two months, now - you're helpful for a few hours each day and then turn back to an utter nuisance!"

More noise sounded, Ahriman once again tapping his cane. "In due time, we will ask of the Council to re-evaluate the qualms levied at the Jabberwocky by the Finmen kings. With some patience, we may yet find some means to lessen their curse's more extreme manifestations. That, however, is neither here nor there. Lucifer will-"

Another interruption arose, in the form of Seward's stamina finally giving out. He slumped over his notepads, initiating a small rainfall of pencils, and immediately began noisily snoring.

Cordatus looked to be repressing the urge to murder someone. "We will... dispense with notes for the time being, and will rely on our agreement towards our more pressing issues. Matters of survival being at hand, I expect each and every one of you to support whatever initiatives we shall agree upon. Now, then - Lucifer."

Ahriman resumed, one of the Greens moving in to cast a sound-dampening spell over Seward. "Lucifer will elicit a violent response from the Goat, one which we believe has already begun to take shape. Countries are being forcefully conscripted into a new coalition based on mortal values of wealth and military might, America turning into a colonizing force under Pride's auspices. Our enemy will throw billions of innocent lives at us, in order to ensure his foothold. Many will die, many more will do so violently and in so doing, bolster the Damned's ranks. The call originates from Hope, in Rhode Island, and the endgame should take place there, as well."

Melmoth raised a hand. "Look at us - we're demons, angels, vampires, dragons; and we're holing up in different corners of the world. We've all fueled the stalemate, so I don't really see what we could do to end it."

Amaterasu blinked and met eyes with Abdiel. "All of dragonkind must fly to Hope - all of us. All undead with a care for this world, and all allied Fae, as well. If we take back the root of Pride's victory, the rest will fall. This means we have to open Gates, overthrow their keepers and have our best Artificers at the ready. Hope must become an impregnable fortress from without and our hunting grounds from within."

A Wyrm quirked an eyebrow. "All dragons are involved?" he asked, looking back to Seward as if to make his point. The narcoleptic archivist snorted and moaned, half of his face smushed against an outstretched arm.

Amaterasu nodded decisively and approached Abdiel. "Milady, our Orcadian brethren of old have suffered for centuries for the errors of a thoughtless few. Many Jabberwocky are barely functional on their own and spend their lives in need of assistance. While the Finmen's plight and concerns are both valid, some clarity and sense of purpose may bring about the resolve hiding behind their childlike innocence. Some are fonts of untapped knowledge clogged by a depth-dwelling liege-lord's bare sadism."

The dragon bowed slightly. "I beseech thee - give purpose to their eccentricities. Add clarity to their childlike hearts. Bring light to eyes clogged by useless fancies - but keep in mind how kind so many of them have become."

Cordatus hesitated. "Are you quite sure, my dear? Our own Ethelred is quite the jovial and likeable fellow, yes, but he is also the one who earned the Finmen's enmity for assisting Aldergard's old comrades. Are you sure he needs to shoulder so much guilt?"

The fox-headed dragon smiled. "I was the sun itself to many a man of Nippon, for thousands of years. I lit the day as it was and all paths ahead. Mortals sometimes came to me for clarity and wisdom - not to torture themselves with their past. The Jabberwocky do not need the weight of the past, but can cast eyes on the future's bright dawn."

* * *

Siv nodded, then curiously slipping out of her stilettos as she padded towards a wrought-iron staircase in the back. She led the group across, then through the second floor's similarly-open space and other bits of antique nostalgia, before climbing a few more steps, turning a corner and opening a door labeled Private.

Beyond it waited a musty, even slightly dingy office, with dust bunnies rolling off of a decades-old day planner. She closed the door, gathered her will, and turned the knob again. As she did, the cloying heat that came to mind when one thought of dense rainforests slammed into the group, even as the canopy's hundreds of animal and insect sounds filled their ears.

The Wilds looked like every Pulp novelist's vision of fallen trails belonging to dead civilizations, once-sculpted and carved stones poking out of the dense soil and the tree bark that had all but consumed them. Intoxicating scents rose in the air, while a myriad colors fought for attention. The sky above was a tiny slit of heat-oppressed azure, the near-dark of the canopy coming across as a mixed blessing: it kept the temperature down but trapped the plants' exuded humidity. One way or another, Morgana's domain packed the crushing heat to be expected as the polar opposite of Mab's icy wastes.

"Keep your hands to yourselves," warned the Huldra. "Where Mab wants to kill those who enter her domain, Morgana only wants trespassers to stay in hers - forever. The fruits and roots here can drive a man mad. Don't think you'll be special in crossing through here; everyone ends up finding a color or a scent to fixate on, sooner or later. As the story goes, only the old Raptors learned to thrive in here. Your Red Chimeras have thousands of years of exposure in their veins, which is why they're so hard to poison."

Three looked about, eyes wide. "This makes Avatar's Pandora look like chump change. Any other threats here?"

Siv shrugged as she walked. "Besides getting lost? You could always run into those who are already lost. Anyone who loses Morgana's game is granted immortality - but only here. Survival and bloody conquest are the only thing they've known for centuries, sometimes millennia. Their minds usually go after one or two years."

Agares gulped noisily. "Screw Pandora, this is Jumanji on an endless run."
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

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Crystal sighed. "I do remember Mr. Whitney, love, but with everything that has happened over the past weeks, you don't know exactly who or what might be responsible for something. It took until just a little while ago to learn that Belial was behind that massive wall of thorns," she admitted.

The younger werewolf merely raised a hand when Jubal greeted the them. "Hey, I'm Andrea. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Whitney."

As they listened to his plans, the former deputy chief frowned. "I might be missing something, but how will Lucifer's arrival sway the fight in our favor? Didn't he put the Goat in charge of the Pit to begin with?"

***

By now, the warmth and contentment she had discerned from the candle meditation in the apartment leapt happily at her heart. "Yes, I've come to cheer Mr. Grimley up. I heard that he's really sad. If he's upset, then he can't bring joy to others or help them," the child version of Aislinn stated.

***

"I certainly will, Amaterasu," the Throne of Fire replied.

"Fire has many purposes, and one of those is to bring illumination and insight in life. Too often, it is applied aggressively or zealously, as I have often seen in Heaven and in Hell. However, Hellfire and Celestial fire are two sides of the same coin. There is room for variation and balance. This is what I would offer Ethelred and the other Jabberwocky. It will not be the weariness of guilt they would experience, but the brilliant light of experience to aid them in not making the same mistakes. Their scientific inquiries will fulfill their curiosity as well as benefit our plight. Their eccentricity would be a boon, much as Lilith's curse is to the Freaks, even if many of my brethren would disagree," Abdiel reflected on it.

"It's essentially an adjustment of their curse with an inserted blessing. An arcane hacking, if you will," she noted.

***

"Don't pysch yourself out before we even get started, Agares," Aspasia retorted as she looked about that the many plants and trees, warily sniffing the air. "The first part of ignoring fanciful temptations is having a tether. Focus on the thing you need to accomplish. Ours is getting to Thorn's office, for the time being."

Meris nodded in agreement with the satyress's statement and turned to the Court members. "Even though your home is lost temporarily, you are still linked to me. Watch after those who followed us here and make sure they don't wander off or touch any roots or fruits."
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

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They headed out of the space-compressed warehouse and out of the truck's box, entering a lavishly-appointed indoor parking that looked to be the sort of space you'd reserve for a wealthy hotel patron's luxury vehicle. There were quite a few cars that fit the bill, to be sure, from a hydrogen fusion-powered Aston Martin DB12 to a Performance Hybrid model of the Lotus Elise. A few vintage mechanical and steam cars from Archie's heyday could also be seen, along with a selection of more practical vehicles.

"Not to change the subject," noted Archie, "but I'm surprised at your organization's means, mister Whitney..."

Jubal's chest puffed slightly, but he settled with shucking his hands in his pockets. "A few centuries o' thievin' worse thieves and killin' worse murderers gets us by, I've found. 'Course, none o' this is mine - if you wanted to thank anyone, you'd have to peek in the Architect's head office and rubberneck 'round for one Irwin Gard. Finest gent I ever knew, he was - the model for all our aspirations. He gave his life pullin' patrons and agents out of the Chicago sanctum, while it burned."

The space was dotted with a few people already, other Squids in variants on suits or power skirts, humans and anthros in the same sartorial genre - but the Weavers clearly didn't feel the need to wear a Flesh Mask. Noting the android's quirked eyebrow, Whitney smirked.

"Perks o' havin' the President's back," he said. "Suddenly, everyone in town's fine with us walkin' out in the open. We've saved lives, killed Pitspawn, foiled local plots - and we're trusted now. It's a Hell of a first for the Gentlemen, and an even bigger thing for us Void Weavers. I don't even have to hide in front o' my own, grown-up son anymore."

As he spoke, a man with burnished skin, mid-length hair and rolled-up shirtsleeves over slacks came forward, grinning at Whitney. "Pops," he said, Jubal's eyes twinkling as the offered hand turned into a short hug. "If you'd told me about this place earlier," he said, "there's no way I would've stuck in Nacogdoches! You're sittin' on about six animal husbandry experts, what the Hell are you doin' keepin' them up here in the big city?"

Whitney chuckled. "That's for another time, son. You've seen the nice parts so far - we'll hafta talk man-to-man about what keeps me drinkin' whiskey," he said, then looking back to the others. "May I present Lucas Whitney, also known as the only thing I'll leave behind in this world that's worth a damn."

As he walked further away, he turned back towards Crystal. "Now, I'm no Infernalist - you'll see the local conclave once we go up a few floors, anyway - but we've got enough o' those in town to have some sense of what's transpired. My understandin' is that seein' as the focus of Hell was supposed to be containin' the buggy Order Principle, the Lightbringer figgered that bein' managerial 'bout things would make it all easier. Before it all went to, well, you-know-where, Goatsie wasn't quite so self-obsessed. He was prideful, yeah, but enough to lift Egypt outta' the muck. Not that much more, honestly. Lucifer's big mistake was in assumin' that angels, even properly-briefed ones, would stick to their responsibilities over a long enough time span. As it turns out, though, power's infectious no matter if you've got wings or not."

They crossed the underground parking and headed for the elevators, Brenner looking very self-conscious as Zebediah kept him cradled in the crook of an arm so he'd be able to keep pace.

Whitney's shoulders shook over a silent scoff. "Long story short, Lucifer's the trusting parent who told the kids not to touch the cookie jar. By the time the Fall happened, he needed to re-jigger his plans to not only contain Akoman, but also everyone else he'd counted on to keep Damnation nice and orderly. 'Course, a few generations and time did allow for the cream to rise up an' form Pandemonium, but the Lightbringer didn't count on two opposite cultures to form in Hell. You've got one where Humanity matters and where penitent immortals work to better us for our own good - and the other where depravity's pretty much the order of the game."

The elevator's doors opened, its threshold buzzing with arcane power. Eliphas hesitated, Jubal ushering him in with an eye roll and a beckoning gesture. The cabin also packed its own space-altering effects, the entire group and the lupine all fitting comfortably in its expanse.

"Bottom line is Lucifer's pissed; that's almost a given. I've blown up before in front of cells of ours that threatened to go rogue, and I'm sure to God Almighty an' the Great Architect that there ain't no fire like a Lightbringer scorned."

Lucas eyed his father. "So all those times you told me to humor Mrs. Abernathy in Catechism...
- Sage advice, son," noted Jubal. "This is Texas, after all! We've got our Progressives and Walpurgis' got more than its fair few of those, but I've found it pays more to smile and nod when someone from the old orthodoxy says they know what lurks in the hearts o' men. Why, I reckon ol' Geraldine's done and keeled over by now - imagine her seein' an angel pullin' a gay couple outta rubble or God forbid, someone who's trans!"

A few floors later, the elevator opened out onto what looked like a blown-out Bavarian lodge crossed with Art Deco details and Art Nouveau lettering, the whole of it glinting with a luxurious patina of copper, inlaid gold, marble and polished wood. The lobby was large and also quite lavish, and it bustled with activity. Void Weavers were everywhere in sight, from the hotel porters to the front lobby's staff, to apparent patrons nursing tablets or ordered cups of coffee in one of four lounge spaces.

"Welcome to the Krieger Hotel," noted Jubal as he stepped out into the lobby. "Half arcane sanctum, half Eldritch research center, all-star comfort. When a centuries-old dragon tells ya he's never slept in a better suite, that's when you know we've done Irwin's spirit proud."

Zebediah felt a strange impulse come over him, and he placed a knee to the floor just outside the cabin, resting a hand on the polished marble floor. "That pattern," he said. "This isn't just Art Deco fluff, it's a ward!"

Whitney nodded. "Yarp - Walpurgis' entire layout follows an arcane circle's design; to accommodate Nergal and his wife and to make sure this place'd be one of the safest spots in America if Hell took things over. Six Pride Knight platoons tried to push past the city limits; the power the conclave channeled tore 'em to shreds. The few who managed to cross into town did that to surrender. We're safe - for now."

* * *

"Indeed, he can't," noted Konrad. "I won't stop you, little one, but stepping through is ill-advised."

As if to reinforce his point, a wailing cry rang out from the big top, a snarl from a similar throat following in its wake. The trailing wail went back up into a scream, which then turned into a tortured sob. As if on cue, the tent's openings were pulled away, light appearing within and shyly leaking outside.

"How many times, now?" asked a voice that sounded like Horatio's, if the man had never been freed from the Others' grasp. It sounded sane, inasmuch as someone excelling at cruelty, subterfuge and manipulation could be called sane. "How many times, now, have you looked to that opening, Horatio, silently pleading for someone to come through? It's been too often, hm? Far, far too often. Give up the ghost - nobody's coming! We're so far inside you, so deep, that nobody could ever hope to find you again."

The sound of a kick shook the air, a foot thudding against dead flesh that heaved and rasped. "It's a shame I wasn't around to meet this Morris Hogarth, or to wear his face sooner," the voice said. "Seeing that look on your face makes my day, friend. You used to default to full-throat laughter whenever someone tried to remind you of how much of a disappointment you were to Amaxi... You're not laughing now, aren't you?"

Grimley - the real one - was heard sobbing. "Who are you?!" he all but screamed. "What do you want from me?! Why did you rob me of my joy?!"

A pause. "Because I can," answered the thing that wore Morris Hogarth's face. "Because we're all soldiers in this, and because this is what I do. You knew what you'd gotten yourself into the moment you opted to hold down the fort so close to Centennial Park, but your insight blinded you. Wiping out one entire section would've been a feat, if the Pit wasn't continuously spewing out more onto your pitiful world's crust. As it stands, you only doomed your own coterie and peeved some of Wrath and Pride's best men. I hope you're proud of yourself."

Teeth clenched, Grimley only let out a grunt of pure rage. "My mind... hurts! Everything hurts! I need Lilith's gifts!"

Hogarth clicked his tongue. "Welcome to sanity, Horatio. Enjoy your stay."

Floodlights turned on outside, pointed on Aislinn. Hogarth's voice reached out to her even as he didn't seem to be particularly shouting. "Come on, then - let's have it. Let's have that token effort from your friends. With a little luck, hearing me dismiss your friendship with your own voice and your own deranged psyche must've shook them a little. Let's see who's been brave enough to try their luck with me."

The inner circle's dim bulbs were then supplemented with a few other spotlights, allowing Aislinn, if she peered inside, to see out onto the big top's circle of beaten-down soil. In the middle of it waited a Squid in circus ringleader clothing that wasn't wearing greasepaint, and a second one, held in chains. This second one had the ruinous tendrils Aislinn would know to be Grimley's, but his attire and facepaint design were different. He'd been forced into a Whiteface clown getup, complete with tiny black party hat and the single, stylized tear streak painted in black under one eye. His makeup had begun to run, however - and a quick visual inspection would make it clear makeup wasn't the only thing that was running away with his tears - his flesh also followed along. Long, jagged and floppy slashes stretched out below his eyes, bloodless flesh exposing the bone underneath. Desperately, Horatio tried to work up enough energy to stand up and lunge at his tormentor, but Hogarth-as-a-demon slipped away and yanked on the chain that followed the collar at Horatio's neck. His tendrils flared as he made choking sounds, lost his footing and poorly received himself on his side, his scream suggesting he'd injured himself in some way.

Hogarth tsked. "I told you I wouldn't touch you, Horatio. You're the only one doing all the punishing; I'm just laying out hard truths you used to have the luxury to laugh or cartoon-snore over. You were pathetic as a Prelate, you're pathetic as a Ringleader - and now? Now, you're seeing the truth of what you are. You know it as well as I do: Lilith made a mistake when she stirred the Blood, when she caused the Circus to welcome you into their ranks. You were good for a lark, and now the lark's over."

Coughing and shivering past the pain, Horatio found a bit of energy to press on. "Is the real Hogarth dead?"

The tormentor rolled his eyes. "If he wasn't, you wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here wasting my time with you. He was even more of an objective disappointment, and I hardly need to guess to figure out that Amaxi didn't care much for him. I might've liked to flip a switch, reset the ol' internal clock, maybe send him undercover at your friends' place - but that would've been time-consuming. Your friends, luckily for you, are on the move. It's just too bad they're not moving fast enough to save you."

Seething, Grimley's voice wracked with pain and the shivering of frayed nerves, he managed a frail, quiet and defiant cackle. "The Moon-Mad... always speak true. They'll come - they won't leave me here. You can't make me believe otherwise."

Hogarth was heard groaning. "Ugh, fine! Let's have that trite showdown, then! Is one of your trite blond-haired and blue-eyed wunderkind going to come down the aisle packing Laffy Taffy and a plastic beach ball?!"

He then turned, spotting Aislinn's backlit silhouette. "YOU THERE! COME DOWN HERE! LET'S SEE YOU TRY AND DEFEAT ME!" he shouted, then parting with a cruel cackle. "You've tried them all already, and all of them were pint-sized creations of your own desperate mind! NOBODY'S EVER COMING DOWN HERE, HORATIO! You've tried Holden as a mechanical Little Lord Fauntleroy in sailor blues, Meris as a pint-sized seal anthro, Drake as some deluded tyke packing Nerf pistols, even the warthog as a purple piglet - look around you! You've only found further ways to torture yourself!"

Hogarth parted from Grimley, sardonically welcoming Aislinn with an open-armed gesture. "Childlike innocence might've been a safe harbor for you, but it isn't quite enough to take me down. I come from the bitter, most mordant corners of Wrath's wastes, Horatio. I'm not like the other berserkers you've come across, back in the flesh."

He looked back at Aislinn. "I'm your own self-loathing, Grimley. Born of your myriad failures before the Blood blinded you, left to gestate and fester both in the Pit and somewhere behind all the horse laughs and guffaws - and now let loose."

Blood and oil spatters formed a wide arc behind the pair, with the discarded carcasses of the child forms of those Hogarth had listed forming a pile in a corner.

* * *

The H-word apparently was enough to get a rise out of the Jabberwock proper, whose head shot up past the central atrium's short wall on its almost stalk-like neck. He had almost insectile eyes, big and bulging and expressive beyond all common measure, with thin and small lips that couldn't quite touch one another to close the gap between his two pairs of rodent-like front incisors.

"Hack? Hrrm - Hack?" he asked, his voice sounding as though he'd aged, without his childlike mind keeping pace. There was something to his consonants that sounded almost like an infantile lisp, with experience and a dash of worldliness being the odd additions that sometimes popped up in his speech pattern. 

"Did someone say Hack? Hack with no Slash, no colon or executable - no manxome foe, no pointy bits, no swords? Did the wallflowers speak again, Cordatus?"

The Western dragon did his best to turn his groan into a cordial smile. "Er, Ethelred - this is Abdiel, the Fire Throne."

Paddling towards her, his head bobbing off-center from the rest of his body, he narrowed his eyes at the burnished woman. "You call that a throne? I'd call it a woman, myself - am I seeing things again, or was I supposed to sit on fair ladies' laps this whole time?"

The question prompted Melmoth to interpose an arm - and for the saner or more focused in the assembly to either roll their eyes, facepalm or look away in apparent consternation. A few of the Sammaelites added taunting hoots or wolf whistles, which elicited death glares from Bob.

"Er - Easy there, 'Red," started Melmoth, "Abbie's a Throne in the sense that she's one of the four seats o' God's power. One of four roots, basically.
- Root executable," nodded the Jabberwock, "Superuser access, kernel flash with a box of cashews - is there a ROM we need to flash, a processor socket to upgrade, a coil to replace in the Difference Engine?"

Melmoth looked like he very much hoped he had the capacity to die, in this exact moment. "I... think he understood that one, hon," he told the Fire Throne. "At least, I think so? A few more tirades like this and I'm gonna go root around for some Aspirin!"

Focalor, who looked vaguely lupine, shyly raised a hand for Cordatus to notice. "Why did he just spout modern technobabble if he's dressed like he just raided London's Crystal Palace?"

Tanner shrugged lightly. "I've done what I could to keep him occupied over the years, and he's always been quite the tinkerer, to be honest. He was spouting nonsense in grammatically perfect Latin two weeks after I'd begun teaching him, and there came a point where my limited clerical expertise failed his own interests. He gave the world its first armatures after sleepwalking his way to his draftsman's table and sketching designs and formulae with his eyes closed, but clothing and haberdashery never factored into his calculations. I've had to have copies of the same pants, shirt, waistcoat and cravat fashioned over the last two hundred years. Updating his wardrobe is a fool's errand."

He scoffed, gesturing at the gutted clock on the floor. "What was not was finding a Microelectronics engineer with an angel's patience and an eye for discretion... Before the Accords, he'd already gone as far as clockwork and steam would ever take him. Now, his workshop is somewhat of a Steampunk and Victorian rendition of your modern Hackerspace."

* * *

"Well said, Madame," nodded the Steward, who didn't seem to dare to take his eyes off of Siv. "A single file, if you please - we wouldn't want to jostle one another into those deceptively sweet, fragrant, mouth-watering and scrumptious wild strawberry bushes," he said, repressing a wistful moan as he walked on. Amduscias smirked and passed him by, adding a slap upside the canine's head for good measure. Naberius looked shocked for an instant, outrage flared in his eyes, then closely followed by realization.

"Er - thank you, old boy!" he blurted, then working to keep pace. "I doubt these passages were ever designed to ferry ones such as ourselves to their sylvan doom...
- If you think Morgana gives a rat's ass about who she traps, Cerberus ol' pal, I think you've gone off your bloody rocker," retorted the Prince of Pleasure.

Siv looked back to the group. "She doesn't, believe me! Now keep pace with me, and turn as I turn! The path forward isn't obvious, nor does it make sense by traditional logic!"

As if to prove her point, she spotted a particular tree trunk in the moss-covered maze and headed towards it, performing three complete circuits with a hand on the bark. Seeing this, Isaacs blinked a few times.

"This didn't take you anywhere," he said. "You're still here.
- Yes, but the way ahead's changed," she said. "If you can't think of it as a path, think of it as a combination lock. The steps we take are unlocking the way."

Rupert rolled his eyes. "This is nonsense - in which rough direction does Nodin Thorn's Gate lie, exactly?"

Siv pointed roughly eastward. "You'll die if you think of cutting through - you'll run into the lost ones!"

Isaacs grunted and brought up his prosthetic arm, then fiddling with its mounted computer. "I never said anything about cutting through, I just need a sense of which direction to send my pups in!"

Three gave Isaacs a circumspect look. "Pups?
- Ad-hoc geo-tagging drones - it was one of the few projects the Row's wardens thought they could ship out into the world, maybe market as Rupert Isaacs' rare figment of lucidity and altruism. I'd been wanting to map out the ventilation ducts in mine and Gregory's wing, but there was no helping it by the time the administration had its hands on my prototypes. At the very least, it got me off of laundromat duty for two years and supplied me with a nearly endless torrent of broken consumer-market drones..."

Siv looked annoyed by this. "This is useless, you can't simply figure out the path by mapping the terrain ahead; Morgana's offered tithes of land aren't neat squares like what you'd find back in England. That route I'm making you take is Nodin Thorn's precise tithe, as offered by Morgana herself!"

Isaacs' eyes hardened. "More nonsense - if the path is equal to a code, then I can crack it with a little work, brute-force it in a way that would make that dancing-'round-the-Maypole malarkey entirely redundant."

Siv's own eyes hardened. "Fine. You're welcome to try, I just hope you have the Queen of Dead Summers' mantle of authority, or else you'll never make any headway. Just try and keep up in the meantime; we have my family to save."

Feeling responsible for Isaacs - whom he saw as the most easily distracted - Aidan opted to stick close by. Rupert raised his homemade cyborg implement towards the blue slit in the canopy and flexed his fingers, a small door opening in his forearm. Two tiny spring-loaded launchers popped out, two small and decidedly janky-looking drones whirring like drunken bumblebees as he shot them out. Seeing the scientist almost lose all focus for what waited beyond his mounted PDA's borders, he placed a hand on his shoulder and began leading him along with the others.

* * *

In the immediate, and with business concerning Aspasia and her daughter concluded, Haraldson had led the girl and her friends back to Shen Long. Wyvern's trauma team had made short work of him, passing a stent just ahead of the severed artery. The damage done to such old tissues was too extensive for curative magic to be risked, and the Blues hadn't deemed it wise to let such a stubborn old fool overexert himself with a partially-functional heart. For now, one of China's mythical luminaries was in an artificial coma, paradoxically looking like he was enjoying a well-deserved period of deep rest.

"What's the prognosis?" asked Haraldson to the Fauness that held what looked to be like typical on-call nursing duties.

She smiled, but the gesture wasn't too encouraging. "Good, or at least as good as it could be for someone like him," she said. "Age is hard on any body, and dragons tend to live for a long time if they're successful. Via allows for small miracles when it comes to cellular replication, or else immortality wouldn't be possible. Transcription errors can't be avoided forever, though. Give anyone enough millennia, and age creeps back in. Shen Long's always been known in town as a model of health and stamina, but no amount of meditation and low-carb dieting could keep this particular recovery from being demanding."

The corner store owner squeezed one of the dragon's hands. "Do you think he'll go back to training kids?
- In Eastern philosophy or Tai Chi, maybe," nodded the Blue Chimera. "Active taijiquan or Kung Fu, though? That doesn't seem likely. I could quote about a dozen different physical therapy specialists who would've said the same thing and who were proven wrong by a patient of theirs; but I don't want to give any of you anything close to false hopes. Or to him, either. Once the stem cell culture starts to follow along the stent and heals the artery, we'll start putting more load on the heart's muscles again."

She parted the sheets, revealing that the stretch of abdomen below the taped gauze strips was badly bruised, visible even underneath his snowy fur. "There's been a lot of pooling and his lower half wasn't properly supplied with oxygenated blood for long enough to shock to settle in. He's not at risk of necrosis - we've got nanite cultures taking care of that - but there might be some diminished functionality with his muscles or intestines. A lot of martial arts use the core muscle groups to quickly shift balance points around; we'll have to see how his heal before he tries for anything like kicks or sweeps."

Kevin grimaced lightly. "If he's down to theory and sipping on Boost, he'll probably ask you to put him out of his misery, doc."

Magnus clicked his tongue. "We have to be fair to him, young man. I wouldn't want anyone to decide what to do with my body while I'm in Torpor - that decision is mine alone. I feel we owe him the same courtesy. We can project all we want, but none of us have ever been in Shen Long's exact position."

That said, he looked back to the nurse. "How long until he's stabilized enough to be pulled back into consciousness?
- A few days," she replied, seeming uncertain. "A week, maybe two. I don't know, honestly. This facility treats battlefield injuries related to ballistics or the occasional pulled muscle during training simulations - we haven't lost a Red yet, but they're also not the type to cling to life, if you catch my meaning. Honorable deaths are one of the things Elysium was more than happy to lift from both Japanese folklore and Morgana's Wilds. I told Spearhead to keep his men away from this wing, they'd see someone in Shen Long's position as being dishonored by false friends."
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TennyoCeres84
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

Post by TennyoCeres84 »

"Hopefully, we will be," Crystal agreed, then looking over to Jubal. "If Hope's the epicenter of the conflict that will decide a lot, how will Lucifer's arrival factor in? Has the President considered this already?" she asked.

***

"I'm here, Mr. Grimley. It's Aislinn," Aislinn declared with a certain amount of defiance. "I've come to help you and kick this jerk out of here." She proceeded forth into the tent. Both Horatio and Hogarth would see her as an eight year old version of herself. Her hair in low pigtails, she wore a black t-shirt with a gray, cutesy vampire bat's head with adorable red eyes and fangs and gray shorts. While she certainly epitomized childhood innocence, she also carried herself with purpose that belonged more appropriately to an adult.

As she could see the Hogarth demon torment the Ringleader, she walked further in said, "You're boring. Then again, what I've seen of Wrath, that pretty much describes all of you. Anger, pent-up rage, blah, blah, blah. Lucifer would think you're the pathetic failure."

She then glanced over at Horatio and grinned. "Watch this!" She then used her telekinesis to bat and punt his tormentor around like a beach ball, all the while giggling with childlike glee.

***

Abdiel pointedly cleared her throat and said, "Anyway. Let's get back on track, shall we?"

She smiled faintly and asked Cordatus, "What do you think would collectively get all of their attention?" she inquired. "Putting them under a sleep spell would be easy enough, but having their active minds focused on something would be more conducive to changing things around."

***

Aspasia didn't bother looking back at her creator and kept walking ahead, ignoring the bright colors and enticing smells. "Yeah, I just imagine some vines launching their thorns at those drones and knocking them out of the sky," she muttered back at Rupert. "You're applying the same approach to finding the right path to the way you did with us, expecting our WyldFae sides to wake up."

"Not everything's exact algorithms and the proper programming," she countered, then smirking lightly. "A lot I've seen in Faerie typically defies scientific logic, thankfully."

***

MIranda looked frustratedly down at the ground and sighed sadly as she looked back up at the comatose Shen Long. "I still don't get how Aric's suffering was stopped by me taking him out. That's what Shen Long told me to do with the Joyous Death, take away his suffering... He was just another bitter demon, as far as I'm concerned."
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

Post by IamLEAM1983 »

"That's a hard chestnut to crack," admitted Whitney with a slight grimace, as they crossed the lobby. A human bellhop rang up both elevators, Eliphas understanding these ones weren't modified on the arcane level. He nodded to the group, indicating they'd regroup upstairs.

"Consider America's relation with Catholicism, with Judeo-Christian mythology," continued the old gunslinger. "A sizable portion o' the electorate believes that all Evil has roots in Lucifer or Satan, without considerin' what post-doctoral practitioners or lifelong Infernalists tend to pick up. Lucifer and Satan are two different people, with different agendas. One wanted to spread the truth of Akoman's failures, save Creation before it'd be too late - the other is the only Pitspawn to stick close to Lucifer's edicts, the only one to have Fallen for the cause. In that sizable portion, you've got Congress members, senators, governors, members of Jones' cabinet... The ol' drake figured he'd keep the religious right on a leash and the recent events have made holdin' that leash a hard prospect."

They climbed in. "It's Doomsday, don't'cha know," he sarcastically drawled, "part o' the cabinet's only got eyes on finding a way past the President, so we can descend straight into a right old-fashioned apocalyptic religious theocracy," he said, scoffing. "Y'all are lucky we're around, and that dragons aren't too quick to be waylaid. For that reason, one o' the more occult items on the docket for peacetime is shuttin' down their cultural accelerator," he said. 

A slight pause. "Phineas Sharpe gave ya some trouble back in the day, Arch, and now he's got the Internet and the Dark Web to spread dissent. I'm sure you know he's still got his imperialistic goals on Morgana's behalf, only now he's targeted the fire-and-brimstone cohorts to fight his proxy battles online and in the circles o' power.
- I was aware," nodded the android, "but we had more pressing matters to attend to. There is that, and I admittedly underestimated the level of influence modern technology offered him."

Whitney shrugged. "No real harm, no real foul - y' sent us the files, and that got us started. I don't know why you're kickin' yourself, honestly: what was in them was pretty thorough: his compound in Savannah, modeled after the megamansions of his bankrollin' corporate an' spiritual apparatchiks, what he looked like back in the day, what he looks like now, a coupla threads o' what you thought he'd be susceptible to attempt... Some of it rang true, actually. His pillar's the Evangelicals, but he's also tossed money an' resources at other avenues for scared and impressionable folk - the New Age crowd, notably. We traced sizable donations goin' outta shell companies of his to some belongin' to Christopher Chambers - nothin' that connects him directly to Nereus."

Archie nodded. "Considering what one of your enemies did to a friend of mine, I am not surprised to hear of this. Does the name Charles Swinburne sound familiar?
- Not from our official channels, no," replied Whitney. "What happened?
- A particularly carnal Void Weaver used his gifts to briefly undo Tom Magnus' ideological restraints. His love for Aislinn held out, but it was all it took for him to avoid consuming the rest of us. He managed to turn on Swinburne, but it was some time before his self-control was fully restored. He likes to ply the usual Warlock bravura, but I can see through it - he's suffered trauma. He wouldn't have spent a month clinging to conjugal bliss if he hadn't needed some way to psychologically recover."

Jubal grimaced. "Tarnation - you'll have to talk to our researchers later on, I'm the son o' two rebel expats so I don't know much about some o' Dalarath's customs, but I do know some Prelates born under the same House as Nereus don't take to food to sate their urges."

Archie's eyes half-lidded themselves. "Wonderful - it takes a sexpot to make my own reluctant sexpot relapse... In any case, Sharpe has a rather colorful and capable lieutenant up his sleeve, the perfect weapon to demonize certain Progressive causes."

The doors opened to Eliphas' padding out from his own cabin, and onto a long corridor. In front of it waited two obvious Secret Service members, Lowell's keen senses perceiving their brief tension, followed by immediate release. One of them, a brown bear anthro, raised a hand to his earpiece. "Clear, Chtulhu with Small Party," he said.

Belliard quirked an eyebrow at this. "You're the one they slapped with Chtulhu as a moniker? I'd have gone for someone more butch..."

Jubal shrugged, chuckling as he did so. "Eh, I was the first Weaver the President met. Can't be helped."

* * *

Hope had started as a faint, fearful glimmer in Horatio's eyes, but it gleamed to full life as Hogarth was sent careening away, his chain-holding hand soon letting go of the abused Ringleader. Almost mindless glee made him smile so widely his tentacles started flaring outwards like the diseased version of a peacock's feathers, and he scurried and hobbled beside and just behind her, his pale eyes looking like they'd swallow her whole if they could.

"I knew it," he whispered, "I knew you'd come! I knew the Blood wouldn't lie to me!"

He then looked back to Hogarth, who soon gained enough control to force his own trajectory, stopping an upwards bound by gripping the trapeze artists' platform and hoisting himself on top.

"A decent attempt," he called out, "but you'll need more than a selkie's spunk to oust me!"

Using what he still had of Horatio's leash, he ziplined down one of the cables, righting himself with a kick-flip against the pole. He then reached behind his red frock's tails, pulling out a large bonesaw and a handful of scalpels. "Turning the Freaks into worshippers of the Others would've been inspired, coming from a first-year Prelate. Coming from Hogarth, it was a failure of vision, stagnant inspiration. If you'll notice, we never managed to crack the shell of one of your Void Weaver allies. A little push, though, just a little more effort - and you'd be the first, Horatio. A possessed Weaver, carrying out Valefor's orders."

He paced around the pair, grinning, observing their stance. "A few more incisions, a few more slices - and Doctor Hogarth would've returned with a vengeance!"

The ringleader twirled on himself, hoping that his coattails and gathered speed would make it difficult for the telekinetic to pick up the five glinting scalpels that shot towards her like bullets. The gesture was then followed with the bonesaw being thrust outwards in a modified fencer's hold, teeth aiming for Grimley's neck.

* * *

Tanner cast his eyes across the arc of seats the Jabberwocky occupied. They came in all shapes and sizes, a myriad of apparent occupations, and a wide gamut of affected derangements. Some peered back at him with eyes that seemed sane, even as a barrage of tics coursed through them. Others were in deep conversation with each other, folie à deux looking rather charming in-context, as elaborate nonsense was exchanged with the apparent seriousness you'd normally attribute to grave topics. Yet more babbled away at nobody in particular, as if talking was autonomic an exercise as keeping one's heart beating. A few showed more recognizable symptoms, their attention wholly focused on notebooks, hackles raising and teeth flaring when they were jostled. Some had recognizable "stimming" habits, with the wringing of hands or the tapping of a precise melody being visible in a few instances. On the goofier side of things, Seward and the other narcoleptics looked as though they found no restoration no matter how deep they sank into slumber, with most of them requiring assistance from one of the Council employees. A few sometimes straightened their heads and fought to stay awake, with the apparent lack of worthwhile stimuli leaving them to nod off again.

"Capturing their attention simultaneously might be difficult," admitted the lawyer. "They could be treated individually, but this could take time.
- Time we might not entirely have," added Ahriman. "Are there other avenues to consider?"

One of the Wyrm grunted. "This is a waste of time," he said, with a strong Russian accent. "We should put them out of their misery!"

A clamor rose at that, Ahriman again shouting for silence. "We will do no such thing!" he called out. "Believe me, dragons, you do not want that kind of blood on your conscience! Help us find a solution or kindly refrain from speaking on this matter!"

More noise rose, this time as close to three hundred heads tried to but heads on the same problem. After a while, Bob coughed in his fist. Strangely, the sound was both subdued and enough for the noise to die down.

"We're lookin' at a curse," he said. "Flip the values and turn it into a blessing," he said, shrugging. "When I gotta add guilt or second thoughts to someone, I head for the root of the problem - the person that started it all. The Jabberwock was in the back of the raiding party, he was the first the Finmen spotted - and the first they targeted."

He sniffed as he pointed at the Jabberwock. "Hack him with enough energy, enough power behind the counter-curse, and you'll hit the other ones like dominoes. Read the books - the Orcadians saw the curse hit home. It was one blow - like a bowling ball striking."

* * *

Isaacs' slight look back at Aspasia might have seemed withering, if he hadn't been so absorbed in his attempt at surveying the area. The group followed Siv as expected for a while, Three and the others gamely jumping over low branches, tapping the same rocks she tapped with the same foot, or pausing to touch the same tree trunks. What felt like five minutes passed, after which a few things happened.

Somewhere off to the west, someone let out a pained grunt. Faintly, something metallic was heard striking something that buzzed - and Isaacs wordlessly screamed as though he'd seen a child of his being struck.

"Over there!" he shouted, "someone threw a spear at my drone!"

Three tried to restrain him, but a bony elbow soon struck him in the stomach in the exact way that was needed for him to double over in pain. "Isaacs!" he croaked. "Come back here!"

Siv tried to interpose herself, so did Naberius and Amduscias, but their reluctance to leave the path allowed the scientist to duck just out of reach of their lunging arms. "It's not far!" shot back Rupert, as if to justify himself. Naberius was about to scream something unkind, when the scientist shouted again.

"There's someone here - they're hurt! I can't move the contraption they're pinned to - am I the only one who's even vaguely going to attempt to do the right thing?!"

Siv cursed in Norwegian behind her clenched teeth. "Nobody leaves this path! You won't find him even if you follow his voice!"

Isaacs was heard groaning. "Follow this place's rules, you dolts, and run where I ran! I can see you all from where I am; there's only a few fronds between us!"

Grunting, Three forced himself into a slow jog. "Yeah, well, I can't see you! Give me something to track that's not your voice!"

Another groan. "You're a disgraced jarhead who wanted to join the military police before Fate kicked you in the teeth, and you can't track me or walk in my footsteps?! What are you good for, Drake?!"

That might have stung, but it was enough to force Aidan to empty his head and double back by a few steps. That done, he placed a knee to the ground and began observing the upturned soil.

A few seconds passed. "Anything yet?!
- This isn't magic, Isaacs," groused Three, "you didn't exactly run like a trained soldier!"

He leaned forward and pushed a few large fallen leaves out of the way. Underneath them was an almost invisible speck of blood - dark red over rich, dark soil.

"Are you hurt?!" he called out to Rupert, Isaacs responding in the negative. "That's this poor man's blood!" he added. "I don't know how he's still conscious, but he is!
- Do we need to hurry?!"

A pause. "No - At least, I don't think so! It looks like he's been here for a long time, his ribs are abraded by the trap's teeth and he's bleeding profusely - but he's alive! I don't know how that's possible! His lungs are punctured - he's trying to speak, but he can't make more than wheezing sounds!"

Pushing panic away, Three took a deep breath and looked back to Aspasia. "I need your opinion on this - soldier to soldier! It looks like he grasped at a lot of branches ahead of him while running - I can see he took about ten paces with a bit of a rightwards slant, but I can't see which way he turned - the soil turns damp under the big ferns, over there. Can you see anything I might have missed, or maybe smell anything?"

Seeing this seemingly quelled some of Siv's anger. "It looks like you know the rules, at least," she said, kneeling beside the pair. "Morgana is known to have a thing for smart players - maybe you'll be able to put Isaacs' piece back on the board and take another one out of reserve."

Three sighed. "If anyone who gets trapped here can't leave, helping him might not be a good idea. It feels kind of sadistic.
- More sadistic than leaving a man in perpetual agony?" the Huldra rhetorically asked. "Mercy kills don't work here, remember. Nobody who loses the game stays dead for long."

* * *

The panda shook his head, chuckling. "Textbook Sifu decision-making," he said, almost ruefully. "He's always seen negative emotions that linger for too long as a kind of poison. Negative chi, basically. Up to a certain point, all sorts of things can turn bitterness into something constructive: constructive outlets, personal projects, spirituality or therapy - you name it. Past it, though, you..."

He clicked his tongue. "You basically go Sith, is the best way I could put it. Being angry at something that's dead and buried feels good, so you stay angry. You hold onto that resentment because it's started defining you. Little by little, you're chipping away at the person you used to be, the way some Infernalists do when they patronize the wrong demon. The part of Aric that was suffering wasn't the part that was attacking us; what was in pain was the part of Aric that was rationalizing our attacking us."

His dark eyes met Miranda's. "There's a lot more to bitterness than just being angry for no reason."

Leonard, who stood at the foot of the bed, drew in a breath. "Sobering words, mister Shou... The people I work with - those I find myself speaking for - are in this exact posture. So many of them claw at my soul, desperate for something to hold onto, that I haven't had the time to fully dedicate myself to the local restless dead. Sometimes, though, Herbert texts me a file and something clicks. I've got enough to give someone justice - but I can also feel that vindicating them won't end that bitterness. They've been tormented for too long to so much as know how to rest, anymore."

Haraldson nodded gravely. "I may feed on evildoers, but there's many for whom I've felt death acting as a form of kindness. An end to despair, the final period on a run-on sentence... I don't like drawing out their pain if I can help it. I think Shen Long wanted you to understand that in a way, you're also fighting for these demons, out there. They can't understand or see just how they're being played for fools, but they are being abused. Forcing them to go corporeal and ending their short lives oftentimes is the only option, out on the battlefield."
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

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Crystal shrugged. "Pop culture has a considerable influence over how different beings were seen. d'Aubignier was probably labelled Dracula or Nosferatu. Wolfman was probably placed on the first werewolf to sign the Accords, so people label you by what they know initially," she observed.

***

While she might've appeared young, her skill as a telekinesis user had become highly developed since her early days. Unfortunately for Hogarth-as-a-demon, the five scalpels were soon halted in midair, reversed, and then flung back at him with incredible speed. As for the bonesaw, she roughly twisted his wrist with her abilities in order for the impromtu weapon to be flung to a distant part of the tent.

"I can keep deflecting his attacks, but you need to find the flame again, that precious joy that lit up lives in the circus tent. I'm here to help you with that, but we have to stop him to be able to do that," Aislinn whispered as she drew close to him.

***

"Hence why the guy Issacs found isn't dead. He's already been here a long time, probably stuck for who knows how long in that trap," Aspasia replied as she sniffed for Issacs' scent and whoever else might be with him. "Hold on for a sec, Drake..." she muttered as she peered at the soil for any additional clues as to which way the scientist headed.

***

Abdiel nodded gratefully to Bob. "Thank you, that'll make targeting the specifics of this bless a great deal easier," she said. Her gaze then slid over to the Jabberwock himself. The angel approached and held her hand in front of her chest. A small, dancing flame appeared in the cupped appendage.

She pulled up two empty chairs, one for herself and the other for the afflicted dragon. The fire she held called to him like a beacon. "Ethelred, I have something to show you. It's something you've never seen before, and it requires your utmost attention to understand it," she said as she funneled power into her voice. "Have a seat in one of the chairs, please."

***

Miranda's ears drooped slightly as she pondered over Leonard and Magnus's words. "I get that, but how can that be accomplished when it seems like there's so many demons coming out of the woodwork, who's reachable and who's not," she murmured.

Nami looked to the girl. "I imagine it's something that comes with experience, just as any new skill does." She looked over at John and Kevin. "I know this is sudden, but she could still use some expertise from the both of you. The jian's taught her a lot about technique and philosophy, but it's always good to have someone with years of experience around."
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

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The rooms to the side might have once been suites, but for those for which the door had been left open, it'd be obvious that nobody slept there. Other things wafted forth, however: the smell of abandoned cigarettes, freshly-produced toner ink on crisp paper, the rank smell of burning dust trapped in computer cases - along with the sound of pages being rifled through, quiet arguments between presidential staff members, a few being recognizable by ear alone.

"We have to do something about Dodson, Cassandra," quietly seethed Igor Breshnev, the nasal-voiced Karthian Bronx native who stood as the Chief Digital Officer. "The IP address ranges that have been attacking our resources here all belong to his companies! We're here, trying to show the world that the real Commander-in-Chief is still in office, and someone from Dodson's back yard is pelting us with DDoS attacks faster than the Squids can handle! They're... xeno-anthropologists with guns and swords, for God's sake, Walpurgis' own server architecture can only do so much! What are you expecting me to do; conscript PCs and game consoles from random residents to add to the CPU pool?!"

Cassandra Jamil, the former White House Communications Director, was heard sighing. "Greg Dodson is Dafyd's own pick, Igor. Everyone with a politics-oriented Tumblr knows that Dodson's pick was concerted, so the President would have an easy way to assess the opposition's strategies. The only reason the only dragon in the administration lets a South Carolina Creationist nutjob lead Digital Strategy in the interim is precisely because he knows attacks like this are going to happen. We needed the bait so we could shut these opportunistic assholes down. If you go through that door and confront Dodson in front of Jones, Jones will have to play patsy and defend Dodson-"

On and on it went, fading in the background as they walked past the room. The corridor ended with another door, guarded by more spooks. A woman who looked like a modern cross between Lady Tremaine and Cruella DeVil lifted a manicured hand in front of them.

"Stop," she said, "I have to scan you all, first."

Whitney raised an eyebrow. "Minerva - did the old man elect to pitch his tent on the East Coast?
- Otto's back in Hope," she confirmed, her voice terse. "Now quiet down for a second!"

Her eyes closed, she lightly raised her chin at the group, only for them to open and focus on John. Her fingers curled, safe for the index finger.

"He waits outside," she stated, in a tone that left no room for negotiation.

Belliard scoffed. "I know I didn't get to freshen up 'fore we all scarpered, but y'can't exactly hold that against me-
- I'll hold anything I want against you, sir," Minerva replied. "I don't have time to figure out exactly which variety of louse you are, and I lead Walpurgis' Conclave until Otto's return. Ergo, what I say goes."

She looked at one of the spooks. "Get him a chair and a magazine - keep him close enough so I can sense him through the door."

As one of the men moved, Jubal coughed lightly. "On that wonderful note, allow me to present Minerva Devlin. She's one o' Geier's contemporaries an' formerly one of England's foremost occult specialists. She left the Spiritualist scene to go confront the bigger problems on the New World's shores, an' made her way here by the late nineteen-tens."

Archie had been about to compliment the middle-aged woman for maintaining her composure under the pressures imposed by Infernalism, only to realize just how heavily covered in makeup she was. The perimeter of her face was lined with a myriad tiny veins that disappeared under the foundation, while her green-gold eyes suddenly struck him as being contact lenses. She'd physically deprecated almost as much as Quint had, but had remained sufficiently lucid enough to seek palliative measures. Her immaculate teeth looked to be the product of recent cutting-edge dental work - bone resurfacing or tooth bud implants, perhaps. She'd paid a heavy cost for her power, but had been able to retain enough self-control. It likely explained Devlin's terse behavior, as well as the tension he sensed in her. Still, he felt compelled to extend some courtesy to the old swine.

"Apologies, mister Belliard - I've seen similar displays in my time, and let me assure you, not all of them were warranted," he said, the pig gamely sitting down in the proffered chair and idly rifling the pages of a pre-incursions edition of the American Arcane Sciences Digest. "It's fine," he said, shrugging it off. "She's probably pickin' up me disreputable past, anyways. 'Sides, with the President involved, I wouldn't have squat to contribute. Y'walk with the boys the way I have, Holden, y'start t'suss out wheres y'ain't wanted."

Archie was lightly surprised by this. "My, such patience," he said, his tone suggesting neither contempt or outright approval. It felt like he was being wary, or perhaps tried to be more observant towards the old mob boss. "This is appreciated, sir. I shall ensure that a precis of the meeting's outcome is written out for you."

John smirked. "Knock yourself out; I'd rather leave the world-savin' to those better equipped for the job," he said, pointing at Holden's new cane. That got a polite scoff out of Archibald, a light grin forming underneath the mustache relief.
- Are you quite sure you won't mind?" asked Zebediah, which made Eliphas' ears and eyes flash with soft-edged caution.

The pig grunted lightly as he lifted his right shin to rest against his left knee. "Water in yer wine, gents," he said, mockingly raising his eyebrows in false wisdom or sophistication. "Sometimes, gettin' what ya want means givin' somethin' away. In this case, I wanna be safe, and miss Devlin here don't quite like my cologne, so to speak. What am I gonna do, throw a bloody fit? Nope, fits are for the low-rank Pit rats we left behind in Hope, so I'm just gonna disappoint these fine MiBs here by actin' like a responsible adult."

He then pointed a finger at one of the spooks, a square-jawed African American man with an immaculately shaved head. "You're not gonna neuralize me, are ya?" he asked, teasing him. "Y'sure Will Smith ain't somewhere 'round the bend?"

The agent looked like he'd heard the joke a thousand times before. "Neuralizing our targets would be too long," he replied, on a falsely conversational tone, "at least, if we go by the movies' logic. We just shoot them, instead - taze 'em when we can."

Belliard looked like he'd heard veiled inferences like this just as often, and didn't satisfy the agent's obvious expectations of a decomposing and fearful look. He settled with a quiet cackle and then refocused his attention on the magazine he held. Looking utterly unimpressed, Mrs. Devlin turned on her heels and headed back inside after a short rap on the door. A few moments passed, and she reopened the door.

"The President will see you, now."

* * *

A few scalpels hit their new mark as intended, others being flung aside by a kinetic burst of the Black Speech. Hogarth's twisted wrist should've resulted in an immediately swollen joint, but the Squid physician allowed himself a weary cackle as he retreated.

"Nice twist," he quipped, sardonically complimenting Aislinn's handiwork. "Forced ulnar pronation, ligaments torn and hairline fractures! It's just too bad none of that has to last, in here."

His tendrils flashed in the gloom, the barely-visible bruise against his skin turned violet, then green, then back to the expected flesh tone. "I'll give you two a short while, I think. After all, we have all the time in the world, down here. Be sure to give the audience a good show, won't you?"

The bleachers' lights snapped back on, showing the benches as empty where gloom still filled the space, and packed with robe-wearing Prelates where light landed. They looked focused and circumspect, giving the pair the sort of looks you would've expected out of harsh critics rather than any other group of audience members.

"I can see yours," Grimley said, struggling to stand up and soon giving up as his hip flared in pain, "but this isn't our insight! How am I supposed to draw it from you? You're my friend; I don't want to hurt you! I don't want my hope to result in your death!"

Louder than should've been possible in the waking world, the sound of a match striking filled the big top. The Void Weaver figments didn't turn to acknowledge it, and it took a vague sense of exerted power, an undecipherable sense of control, for one of the spots to swivel and light the newcomer. Tom still looked like himself, but he'd traded his suit for a strongman's leopard pelt tunic, here dyed purple. Black leather armbands waited at his wrists, and the antebellum spherical weight design dating back to the turn of the nineteenth century waited on the floor, next to him. The match he'd lit went to a Sobranie Black Russian's tip, as he casually leaned against the side of the bleachers.

"I'd flex," he said, "but Infernalist flab is hard to part with. Not that this is my fight, though - the ritual prevents it."

More lights loudly snapped off and on, a spotlight landing back on the ringleader's stand, and Hogarth as he stood atop it. "If you're powerless here, then why are you bothering?"

Magnus shrugged. "Consider me a hype man of sorts, as well as the first one to kick your ass once we pull you out. For now, though; call me a eudaemon of sorts, there to sit in the sidelines and seductively whisper positive affirmations."

Hogarth's tentacles flared, Tom drawing on his cancer stick and casually flicking it forward as the Squid's conjured line of force met with the dainty extension of the Warlock's own willpower, Hogarth's distortion reacting like gasoline fumes once lit up. A split-second blaze lit the room with a loud Fwoosh, both men still standing in place afterwards. Hogarth looked aggravated, while Magnus settled with lighting another cigarette.

"Void Weaver," he said, pointing at the Squid, "Warlock," he then said, pointing at himself. "Pure willpower versus a massive, if still self-aware Ego. I could think of more pointless bouts if I cared enough, but I really don't."

* * *

Aspasia's color range was higher than Drake's by several million extra hues, largely thanks to the combined differences in gender, species and provenance. What looked to the human soldier like a clump of identical bits of soil contained several shades of earthen brown for her - including some that had conveniently turned darker in a pattern created by Isaacs' own wicked moisture. Sweat beads had likely formed and fallen as he'd sprinted forward, only to fly off of the human's forehead and sole remaining forearm, and landed there in a convenient line. Quite dimly, that trail also packed its own scent: Rupert Isaacs' oily musk of modern malnutrition, pervasive exhaustion and neglected hygiene, all of it covering the pheromone cocktail of his debased pride, hubris - and genuine concern for the trapped man...

Rupert wasn't wholly incapable of empathy; he really was more of a sociopath than a psychopath. It could be that the multidisciplinarian yen he'd always nurtured had been tickled at the prospect of figuring out the man's sustained existence, and he'd always seen torture as being excessive, in any case. He cared, then, because he had questions for the man. Not that this mattered in the immediate; it simply manifested as a complex concept for Robertson to grasp, while focusing on commanding her own nostrils.

All things considered, however, the scientist had turned right. There had to be a grove of sorts nearby, judging by the sounds of Isaacs' voice.

* * *

The ineffectual head of the Jabberwocky's insectile eyes were narrowed to slits at the sight of the brilliant flame. Abdiel's own grace combined with his boundless curiosity, his eyes then slowly widening as he parted with an almost childlike coo of wonder. "Oooh, shiny!" was the only thing he could manage, even as his head looked like it was stabilized on a gimbal: his body and limbs clambered across the half-wall in the central atrium and staggered over to her while knocking chairs out of the way, even as his long and fully-extended neck kept his head firmly at a level with the flame she'd produced. Only once his lower half had effectively caught up, did he manage to follow her and sit in one of the chairs. There, once again, he kept his head preternaturally stabilized with the flame, while his hands were wrung together back in the seat.

Nothing seemingly changed in the others, at least for the time being, but a few keen eyes in the assistance parted with light gasps and other shows of rapt attention: the other dragons and the Sammaelites had all noticed how in the exact moment Ethelred had become enthralled with Abdiel's flame, twin pinpricks of golden-orange light winked to life in the dark recesses of the other Jabberwocky's pupils. Someone lifted one of the eyelids of the silenced, if still laboriously snoring Mister Seward, reporting that the same twin lights faintly danced in his eyes, as well. For the moment, the other Addled kept on with their respective manias and fixations, even as tension slowly rose in the air. What kind of defenses or restraints had the Finmen put into place? Were there any to begin with? How seamless would the process be? Speculation flitted in the air in a cloud of hushed whispers. As Abdiel might've expected, she now had the eyes of several millennia-old and lifelong practitioners fixed on her, some having either pulled out magic-insulated dictaphones or small leather-bound notebooks and a fountain pen, to scribble their notes on the process.

* * *

The panda felt compelled to move as Nami voiced her own considerations, coming to a stop next to Miranda. "Don't worry," he then told the Nephilim, "Sifu's not the type to let his pupils wander aimlessly. He always placed me in the path of helpful people during each of my reincarnations. As soon as we're not hard-pressed for safety or time, I'll be more than happy to teach her what I can."

He then offered Miranda a smile. "The trick is to be present," he said. "Do what you can in the moment you find yourself in. It's not easy, and it's in the human nature to worry and project ourselves ahead by fifty or sixty different problems we haven't so much as approached yet. Some are so incapable of that, that they act like the other Magnus in town: they draw maps, project outcomes as much as they can, develop their sense of insight or even rent out a Diviner's assistance - and then usually realize that events usually dictate their own responses, instead of working the other way around."

Leonard seemed a bit concerned by this. "That sounds an awful lot like passivity, mister Shou.
- Anyone who says that tells me they haven't meditated a day in their life, before," said the panda, which made Ephesian chuckle.

"Well, your own master tried to help me in that respect, late last summer. My own troubles had started to come to a head, Shield were in their early attempts at helping me, and they sought out Shen Long's assistance. Meditation didn't bolster my defenses against the Goat, it just thinned the walls enough for him to take a peek outside for the first time. Mindfulness might work better for me now that I'm my own person again, but at the time, the last thing I wanted was deliberate solitude. If I was alone, he spoke to me - and that terrified me to no end. Maybe I'm biased, but it makes the idea of letting events assert themselves come across as a lack of decisive action."

The goat shrugged in admittance. "Maybe I'm missing something, here - I'll admit I've been restless since Rhadamantus changed me."

The panda gestured with a smile, suggesting he wasn't bothered by any means. "No, it's fine, don't worry. Mindfulness and loving kindness tend to be introduced to newcomers in moments of stillness because they make it easier to grasp both concepts. Disengaging is a useful springboard for mindful action, but there's always a point where you've grown sufficiently assured in your practice."

He looked back to Miranda. "Take that onslaught of demons that's causing you so much grief," he said. "I've seen them, I've seen them lay waste to our temple, and I've seen them kill people by the dozens. Now, I can't take the Pit's legions on by my lonesome, even with all my lifetimes of experience. It'd be suicide. That much is obvious to me. What I can do, though, is kill - or help - the first Pitspawn that comes my way. Then the next one, and the next one after that."

John then shrugged. "Let's say I toss a new jigsaw puzzle's plastic bag your way, Miranda. You tear it open, spill the pieces onto the table, and realize you have no immediate idea of where each piece goes - like you do. What do you do, in that case? Let that lack of immediate understanding gnaw at you until it turns into anxiety and the fun gets sapped out of solving the puzzle - or do you pick out the edge pieces first, assuming you'll be able to gradually see a pattern take shape?"
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

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Not willing to disagree with Minerva, Crystal only glanced back before leaving with the others. The woman obviously had her reasons to not let the pig join them in the meeting with the President, but doing so did pique the werewolf's earlier suspicions. Belliard had done a good job at lowering her suspicions, she reflected. She wasn't as familiar with the British crime underworld, so all she had to go on was his word as to his intentions. Had he hidden more nefarious plans for her while helping her and Andrea survive? It seemed likely with the practitioner's wariness toward the porcine man. If there was only a way to get him to reveal more...

Still, she turned her attention with meeting the real leader of their country and went along with the rest into the other room.

***

Aislinn glanced from the warthog and then looked back to Horatio. She dug inside the pockets of her shorts and brought out the driftwood wind-up seal and the little sailboat, handing them to the Void Weaver. "You're right that I don't have the same insight as you or other Freaks, but you and I do share some other commonalities. Before you were turned, you hailed from the sea and Dalarath. I grew up on a houseboat with my family and took trips around the coasts. These toys belonged to my dad, and Neasa, Ciaran, and I played with them. They embody our childhood joy and our experiences with the sea and all of the happiness we experience while out on the waves. Meris told me how young Void Weavers tended to make their own toys and have fun, if their joy's not squashed by stupid Prelates and Arbiters. Try to focus on these types of innocence and joys. They can rekindle your fire, Horatio."

***

Given she was working blindly as to the exact parameters of the Finmen's curse, Abdiel focused her power on searching out the curse and ramming past any potential arcane barriers or resistance with the targeted, but heated force of a welder's blowtorch. Once she would have passed those, she felt the proverbial switches that kept the Jabberwock and his ilk with limited functionality.

As she worked, her bodysuit slightly glowed with the inner workings of angelic gears turning to crack the magical code the Finfolk had laid upon their victim. What had proved hindering and harmful were "flipped" to more positive and beneficial behaviors. His insatiable curiosity become more focused and geared toward humane interests, rather than martial or self-centered ones. The mental haze began to clear with the illumination of her fire. She maintained some of the more carefree aspects of his personality, but she also permitted to him to have enough of a spine to resist attempts at luring him into unscrupulous plots. Additionally, all incantations for migraines and headaches were removed entirely, as they grated against her angelic distaste of pain.

Her eye half-lidded, she spoke intently, "I, Abdiel, Servant of God, Throne of Fire and Wheel of the Almighty's justice, bless Ethelred Seward with clear and brilliant inspiration and kind purpose behind his creations and machinations. May the Lord of the Host see this blessing and guide it to greater outcomes for all."

As for the spectators, they'd feel a general lulling, like that of an intense flame surging and then mellowing down to brilliant embers that might ascend and touch who had been afflicted.

***

The combine sight of Issacs' fallen sweat and his musk directed the Fauness's head to turn in the correct direction. "He went to the right. He's likely in a grove of some variation," she said, pointing in the detected area.

***

"You always start with the edge pieces first and then match up lines to put the pieces together," MIranda responded thoughtfully, then quirking a small smile. "Then you'll get the eventual image."

"Though, I see what you mean. This one conflict is only one part of the fight we'll be enduring. Seeing it through is the ultimate goal, but we may find friends or foes along the way. There are many steps in a dance, after all. Not just a spin or a step here or there."
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

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As could be expected of a Presidential suite, the space beyond was conservatively, if still somewhat luxuriously appointed. Neoclassical lines paired with white wainscoting and dark blue pinstriped wallpaper to make the space feel professional and graceful, the dark essences of the wooden flooring complemented by a few dashes of color about the space. They'd entered what had to be the living room, the space's affected stature disturbed by the presence of folders on the coffee table, of two TV sets that had been wheeled in and connected to bulky satellite receivers - and by the sheer amount of pressed suits and power skirts all currently busy staring or averting stares at the newcomers.

Alessa Michaels, the Secretary of State, was a fortysomething African American with regal Nubian features, full lips and a smile the gossip rags once called beguiling. A new scar had been added just below her lower lip, the flesh showing that nobody had had the luxury to apply the careful steps of a healing spell. The scar looked old-fashioned on her, the product of adhesive suturing or just plain old stitches, likely placed by someone else's deft fingers while in the midst of fleeing Washington. The way she smiled at them, it was obvious that her chin was either lacking sensitivity or had only regained partial innervation. The once-enchanting smile now pulled at her eyes, making the gesture look like a concealed wince.

"Pleased to meet you," she said, introducing herself and shaking a few hands. "You'll have to excuse the mess, jury-rigged Situation Rooms don't come cheap-"

She stopped and stared at Archie for an instant. "Mister Holden? Is that you?"

Archie affected a self-conscious askance glance. "Let us say circumstances forced a complete wardrobe revision on me, Madam, and leave it at that. Miss Lowell and I shall be more than glad to regale you with specifics at a later time.
- That's too bad," she said, affecting brief, if honest empathy. "I'm sure the Administration will be willing to reimburse your restoration costs; I can't imagine going digital was your first choice.
- Indeed it was not," he nodded, "but this newfound armature was procured for me at great cost by the Queen of the Vanguard. Madame Nasir is with us, should you wish to discuss matters."

Even if Michaels was no empath or gifted human, it'd be obvious she was surprised that Minerva had let someone as known for their strangeness as the leader of Paradise's so-called Space Mages through the security cordon. Helena's eyes glinted as she met Alessa's.

"Fear not," she intoned. "I may have grown distant, but I remember my roots here. The forces I wield may be dark, there is no cause to fear them."

Michaels looked a tad nervous, that causing her professional veneer to crack a bit. "Yeah, well, I wouldn't be surprised if Dodson and the newly-minted Secretary for Arcane Affairs don't agree too well with you. They're heavily invested in Seraphic magic, from a, ah, quaint perspective, let's say."

Nasir smirked. "Those who channel Celestial grace with fear or hatred in their hearts only experience a trickle of the Host's power. I channel the Void with complete confidence; their contempt means little to me.
- Still, I wouldn't use the V-word with 'em," she said. "They're convinced you're plotting to pull Hope into deep space, the same way Morgana made half of Wisconsin disappear for half a day, back in '86."

That got a surprisingly earnest laugh from Helena. "I have more subtle tricks, Madame Secretary. If I was able to draw Zebediah Buck's dark tether through the Void, killing eight million innocents by way of hypoxia would be trite, in comparison."

Michaels looked like she'd understood maybe a third of what Nasir had just said, which reduced Helena's brief ascent into mirth back into an almost-feline smile. Alessa coughed her nervousness away and turned to the others.

"This is General Amy Hodges," she said, pointing to a woman who looked barely out of her thirties and who wore a high-ranking Army officer's court uniform, short blonde hair under robin's-egg eyes. Next to her waited a man who could be her grandfather, wearing a simple suit. "This is Jack Immonen, Defense Secretary, and this is one of the newcomers to this whole trans-planar kerfuffle," she then claimed, gesturing to a young man who looked to have been plucked straight out of a California-based dotcom startup, with his flip-flops, salmon-colored shirt and loose man bun. He was a bit on the tallish side, maybe a little thin - and definitely looked familiar. He stood up and hand-shook the group of his own volition.

"Call me Gabe," he said, "Gabe Messenger. Long story short, I'm the Archangel Gabriel's youthful, comms-focused half. He knew he couldn't lead Celestial Command in Hope and stay here to oversee things, but he kinda needed to, all the same. The tactics-focused and occasionally punchy type is over there, I was supposed to stay here to make sure we'd be able to keep relaying instructions. Lately, though, I've had to keep an eye on the I'm using Jesus' name and half of the IT sector in vain and for personal gains crowd. I don't exactly have an official posting - I'm more of a re-jiggering type. LANs with military encryption might not be persons, but Krieger's own server infrastructure got a massive bump in national significance. If this place falls, what we've managed to save from the Goat's shuttering of Net Neutrality laws goes with it."

He smiled, the gesture somehow looking both brash and humble. "Call me the Throne of Tech, I guess - Dad cringes whenever I use that metaphor."

Archie smirked at Messenger. "I didn't think the old dog had it in him."

Gabe's eyes widened, then leading to a sputter and a chuckle. "Oh, no - I mean, all angels can produce offspring - just look at Matriel - but we can also split off parts of ourselves if we need a little more ubiquity than what corporeal existence allows for. I have my own mind and Dad doesn't exactly ping me every second or so, but I know what he knows just as he knows what I know. I'm divided from him, but I'm still an active part of him; it's not like those few times Bruce Banner and the Hulk got split up, if you catch my drift."

Hodges smiled, revealing dainty fangs that gave her expression a secretly impish look, behind her professional affectation. "Gabriel briefed us just as the incursions began - he then used Angel Time to prep for Hope's eventual occupation - hence the Host's prompt response. I didn't expect Heaven's general to be a closeted geek."

Brenner, who obviously felt self-conscious, opted to shield himself behind a sleazy smile. "How does such a youthful young lady grow to lead the country's army, if you'll excuse my curiosity? Frank Brenner, self-avowed white-collar crook and contraband salesman, at your service. I, er, divested a less-reputable would-be client of mine to give Lord Holden his much-needed second chance."

Amy's smile didn't falter, but neither did she move, hands still set behind her back. "A Confederate soldier who also doubled as a Carmilla plant of Phineas Sharpe's fed from me out of desperation, back in 1863. I was twenty-three and I lived out in the outskirts of what had just been christened as West Virginia. He ferried me out to Louisiana, taught me how to survive - and showed me just how cruel some of us could be. I fed him dead blood one evening, fled from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, then hitched a Fae Gate back to the Union. I wanted to make the bastards pay, so I posed for a man and joined the Union. Commander John Hodges found out about me, realized what I was and opted to keep me hidden. He adopted me, improved what I knew - and I've been doing it ever since. I joined the Marine Corps as soon as women were admitted. The rest is online, if you're that interested."

A voice rang out from behind Hodges, carrying a bit of a Welsh burr washed over by a century of American living. If the man that used it had been human, he probably would've looked to be somewhere in his late fifties - still quite spry, but beginning to show signs of earned wisdom. It sounded tired, but still pushed and pulled along by a core of indefatigable optimism.

"I'd read it, eventually - if you've got the time to spare someday," Dafyd Jones said, leaning on the doorframe that led into his office. His slacks were clean-pressed and his shirt loosened at the throat, his tie's knot lightly pulled loose. He was of a slightly darker shade than Hope's Cody Tanner, with glittering ambergris eyes, a pair of filed-down horns and a few other keratin plates lining his jaw. His scale-laden pate was bare, his brow marked by exhaustion and determination alike - but his smile still came easily as he sipped at his teacup.

The others immediately assumed a modicum of deference, murmured Mister Presidents flying in the air for a second. Jones rolled his eyes at the display, smirking behind his drink. "If I knock Dodson and Spillane fast asleep with a basic cantrip, Alessa, does it count as assault or terrorism? I'm planning on mind-wiping them before waking them up, by the way - I needed a break from their sanctimonious crap."

Messenger's lips curled in unease. "About twenty percent of the electorate buys that sanctimonious crap, sir. They hold true to the old demographics - they see America's problems as being a lack of faith and a lack of decisive action. The Evangelical vote is staunchly pro-Goat; they still buy the notion that he's the Antichrist, there to speed them along to expiation of their sins."

Jones clicked his tongue. "Well, that's unfortunate for them. I'm not throwing out the Allied States' ethnic diasporas on the vague promise that it'll make Hell on Earth hurt less. We're looking at families and children; the more pragmatic amongst yourselves might see them as taxpayers. Either way, we need them as much as they need us.
- What's the plan with the South's media circus, sir?" asked Messenger, which made Jones raise a finger and point back at the newcomers.

"One thing at a time, son," the dragon said. "Let's see about getting our friends some seats, first, and making sure they're up to speed." 

The dragon then stepped aside, wordlessly beckoning the group into his office. He quirked a brow at Archie. "Facelift, Archimedes?" he asked, surprising the android with his old codename. Archie stammered lightly. "Er, yes, sir. It was not sought after, but it also couldn't be avoided.
- I'm glad you're still around," Dafyd said. "For your friends and family's sake, of course, but also because it couldn't have happened more fortuitously for us. Pocket that look of surprise for now, though - we've plans to make and demons to rout."

As he'd been speaking, a few aides brought in additional chairs so the rest of them could sit, Eliphas having been supplied with a folded comforter to accommodate his more canine posture.

* * *

Horatio looked as though the toys served as a proffered lifeline, oblivious to how Hogarth tried to break Aislinn and him apart. Tom couldn't harm the demon or influence the situation, but he certainly did his best to keep the usurping ringleader busy. Intentionally useless attacks splashed against the slightly broader Squid, who himself had a hard time reaching Magnus. In the meantime, Grimley's eyes gleamed like gold coins in the low light, gloved fingers daintily turning the toy seal's crank until the articulated head bobbed and the tail flapped. Off in the distance, you could faintly hear seal barks articulating a call - too layered to be a common harbor seal's. This was a selkie's call, a pelt-wearing mother warning her currently human-seeming children about being careful on the slippery sand while she slipped out of fins and blubber. Children's laughter rang out, echoed in spaces unseen - and another seal's barks were heard, as if emerging from the void.

Spotlights flicked on, on either side of Hogarth, illuminating pedestals that held up Lumpy and Florence, the Circus' deathless seals. Being animals gifted with supernatural clarity, their eyes didn't quite gleam like a selkie's or a common seal's, and any animal conservationist would've balked at how bony they were, how matte and lifeless their pelts seemed. They weren't unhappy, however - Grimley's blood having long-ago gifted them with a sort of primal understanding. They arched their backs, managing surprisingly eloquent winks at Horatio, and barked in unison - letting Hogarth think they were just another part of the construct. As his coat's tails flashed past, however, so did their powerful jaws, teeth flashing as they grabbed the coat as best they could and pulled against it, pinning Hogarth.

The demon grunted in exertion. "Honorable efforts, but they won't save you!" he called, screaming as a lancet of fire Tom had produced enveloped his face, visiting pain on him but leaving no mark.

"Sheer moxie won't ever save anyone," agreed Tom with a grunt of effort, "but it gets the blood pumping, at least!"

Shyly, wrestling against his aching hip, Horatio stood up, cradling both toys as if they now meant the world to him. "I thought... I thought I'd never feel it again..."

In the assistance, the Squids were now fully animated. Some weren't preoccupied with Hogarth's efforts, however, and seemed to be doubled over in barely-controlled giggling fits. As they did, the spotlights heated and melted what had begun as skin and now looked as makeup, exposing more blighted tendrils, reddened lower lips, chalk-white complexions and careful applications of eyeliner and black paint. Others were shoved aside as humans and anthros pushed their way in from the darkness behind the bleachers, boisterously claiming seats and heckling the Prelates that remained.

Pushed by rage, Hogarth pulled himself free from the coat and lunged at Tom, pinning the warthog to the earthen floor. The Warlock kept the Squid's hands away, but his tone remained focused despite the strain.

"Aislinn's given you joy, Horatio - now I'm tossing in my passion!"

Slowly, rising out of the previously-empty orchestra's pit, violins climbed a scale and marked Tom's slowly overpowering Hogarth and pinning him to the ground with a punch, another hand going to his throat.

"Your Name, Fiend," he snarled, adding power to it. "You'll give it to me, so that I may expel you!"

Hogarth laughed, a split lip healing as quickly as it had formed. "Under who's authority, Warlock? Are you going to channel the Host, let alone God's name?!"

In the rear of the tent, the scents of the wheeled-in concession stand wafted, Horatio looking like the scents of popcorn and cheap wieners could've wrested tears of gratitude out of him. Shyly, he spoke out.

"Do it for Adora. Do it for Desolation Jones and Doctor Dickens, mister Magnus. Do it for Gnasher and Lumpy and Florence!"

Grunting, Tom flashed the Squid a sardonic look. "Anyone else, while we're at it? It isn't as though I'm pushing against a demonic will with my bare mind, huh?"

Horatio took his question literally, as more lights and noise flickered into being, outside. "Do it for popcorn and hot dogs' sake, for candy floss and toothy grins! Do it for young Aislinn and Aidan, for Ciaran and Neasa! Do it for the millions of glad faces I've never memorized! Do it for the lights and the barbary organs, the june-bugs and cicadas, for the stars and moon out in the countryside!"

Horatio's memories of his dead troupe members walked in, a combination of fixed grins and all-too-aware eyes glinting in the light, over a dozen supernaturally-bolstered arms pulling Magnus and Hogarth apart, less to harm the Warlock than to isolate Hogarth. The Squid landed blows, but they simply stood up again and closed the distance.

The demon screamed. "NO! YOU'VE LOST, YOU'VE ALREADY LOST! CAN'T YOU SEE?! HE NEEDS ME! YOU ALL NEED ME! I WOULD'VE INTERCEDED WITH WRATH FOR YOU! I COULD'VE CONVINCED VALEFOR TO STAND DOWN!"

The crowd erupted in laughter at that, the barrage of painted and festooned undead flesh leaving Tom to backtrack and stand beside Aislinn and Horatio.

"I think it's time for the clincher," he said, rubbing his bruised jaw with a few knuckles. "You've appeared as a kid in this construct, and I can think of a few things kids do to cheer one another up. As the ritual's lead, all I can offer is my support."

Horatio looked back to his troupe. "I can almost remember our sipping on blood bags together, sitting around a campfire..."

Tom looked a bit saddened by this. "I can't say if you'll ever have these again, Horatio - at least, not from here. As someone who carries passion, all I can do is show you what you could have with us, what you've always had the right to claim and never did. I don't care how surrounded by friends you've been, Grimley, you always had the option to ask for help, and we always would've answered."

Grimley's eyes gleamed. "B-But the Moon-Mad stand alone even amongst us Blighted! Our charge is sacred - and he almost despoiled it!" he said, looking back to the dogpiled Hogarth.

Tom smiled at that. "Things change, Horatio. Lilith might've picked you for a good reason, but even North America's Ringleader has his limits. You're allowed more than clients, you know. You can have friends, too."

Hesitantly, the bruised and battered clown picked up Aislinn, leaning against Tom so he could favor his uninjured side. "I... I could go for a good cry," he said, then placing a finger on his cheek, "and maybe a kiss here from a girl I'd almost forgotten. "That, and a hug."

He scoffed lightly, contemplating Aislinn's features. "Stars and garters; those eyes of yours! I knew I'd seen them somewhere before: you were just old enough for spunk and creepy-crawlies, just enough to leave safety and nostalgia behind on weekends; to go scrape those knees of yours in parks and softball arenas, for Mertown and the houseboats to start to feel small... I gave you my tents and lights for two nights out of a weekend, one late summer, and you paid me in awe. How glad I was, how glad were we all!"

* * *

Ethelred's eyes looked heavy and soft-focused, the expected warmth and pulling sensation keeping him and the other Addled focused on the ritual - until Abdiel would sense something had changed. If she'd been a rogue process tapping into a program, she would've received a flag showing that her code had been accurately injected, and that part of her blessing was now butting heads with the Finmen's anti-tampering measures. It began as the Jabberwock tensing, his eyes squinting shut and his hands being raised to grasp at his skull, a pained moan escaping him. Something then made his eyes snap open again, a look of ridiculous and thoughtless glee pasting itself on his features as he let out what felt equally like an agonized scream and a mad cackle. Similar outbursts overtook the other Jabberwocky, as they either flailed at each other, banged their heads on the walls or desks or transitioned to looks of sheer horror. In all those that could still speak, Ethelred included, a seemingly subconscious burst of old Norwegian coming out of their throats unbidden, the last memories previous to the Finmen kings' curse playing out on their own. The Jabberwock himself screamed what looked to have been something he'd initially verbalized conversationally.

"What you're asking for is monstrous, my Jarl! I've drafted the plans you requested and I know our brood leader approves - but to lay waste to populated shores because one of our more brazen brethren did so under threat is beneath everything I stand for as my brood's sole Artificer!"

Another wordless sound, forced glee trying to reassert its place despite the urging of Abdiel's declamation, Ethelred clambering his way to the half-wall, to which he clung whilst on his knees. For almost a full minute, he seemingly led the Addled in a spontaneous chant of the words "Forgive us" in Latin, the syllables turning into a repeating staccato. It ended abruptly, as every Addled mouth spoke Latin in unison:

"Forgive us, for we do not know what we say. Forgive us, for we do not know what we do. Forgive us, for we do not know what we did. Forgive us, for we do not know who were were. Forgive us, for we do not know who we are."

They repeated this a few times, the last repetition ending with the Addled producing odd gurgling noises from the back of their throats, their neck muscles all laboriously contracting, like a cat preparing to expel a hairball. On the Jabberwock proper, it looked like a snake working to slowly vomit something back up, a lump slowly climbing up his neck, working past the point where his neck curved past the half-wall. It seemed as though he'd turned half-conscious, with his chin against the floor and eyelids fluttering, gagging and snorting noises leaving him between half-formed syllables. Then, slowly, his neck lifted his head back up, pointing it straight upwards-

What had to be the slowest, most laborious and collective burble in recorded History followed, the gaseous mixture that was released looking unusually oily, its greenish tint flickering as colors danced in it. The colors took shape, showing elaborate acts of escapism or denial, centuries-long deflections or the carefully unconscious crafting of a persona that wouldn't have to carry an unnameable burden of shame and self-loathing, fugue states leading to mustaches on scales, to wings being ignored, to complete ignorance of the Self - some through personas, others through sleep, more that settled with draping the world in picturebook details of their own imaginings, in peppering it with adventures that never happened...

The others, of course, weren't quite so caught up. The other dragons and Sammaelites scrabbled away from the roiling cloud of gas, some working on conjuring updrafts to push the fumes towards the atrium's air vents. A few Western dragons and Council workers weren't so lucky and accidentally inhaled a bit of the stuff, most of them all but collapsing on the spot.

In the back, Enlil wasted no time and pressed his earpiece in. "Get me Maintenance - I need all adjacent vents closed and the chimney vents primed. Toxins are present in Atrium 1C, but no deployment is necessary. Call the Guildmates below; we'll need a toxicology detail."

He paused. "The source?" he asked. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

* * *

Three nodded. "Alright," he said, turning back to the others. "Stay here. Siv; give us five minutes, or at least as much as you can measure in a place like this. If Aspasia and I aren't back within that time, push on and lead Meris and the others to Thorn."

Naberius obviously protested. "What in Solomon's name are you saying, mister Drake?! We can't leave you here in good conscience!"

Drake nodded. "I know you can't, but Morgana can. It's her game, right? We're just pawns as long as we stay in here."

He drew in a breath and looked back to Aspasia. "I don't want to say anything trite, Asp. We'll get out of here, and you'll see Miranda again. We either win this game or walk off the board - whatever comes first-"

He'd been about to finish that the soil shifted under the influence of a sudden gust. Instead of lessening the scent trail or the visual tracks, however, the wind cleared the dirt away from them and made the direction they needed to take - and the exact steps needed - all the more clearer.

Agares grunted at that sight. "Looks like Poison Ivy likes her dumb heroics," he said, snorting. That, in turn, prompted Drake to give him an honest answer. "Considering how she's created the raptors that served as a basis for the Reds, I'm not surprised."

Glancing ahead, he lifted one foot, hesitated and then called out. "We're coming, Isaacs! Stay where you are! How's your friend?!
- Still bleeding, still in agony! I'd tell you to hurry, but Magnus and McConmara would boot both myself and Gregory two dimensional planes over if I let you bungle your steps! Take it slow but, er, don't dawdle!"

Slowly, carefully, Aidan began to step forward, keeping an eye out for any grip marks or signs of shifted weight, hopping from shoe print to shoe print.

* * *

"There you go," nodded the panda. "Not all steps to a dance are fun or even appreciated, and you don't always get the control you'd like to have - but you push on. You play the cards you're dealt, you play them as best you can - and if you're lucky, you'll get to form a strategy after a crapton of failures."

He pointed at the sword. "You'll have time to check things out once we take you back to the tower. If you ask them, you'll realize all the skill that's flowing through you started with twisted ankles, bad falls, broken limbs - all that, or just a clumsy landing that really spoils the whole physical poetry thing you were going for."

Shou added a shrug. "There's, I dunno, a couple hundred disapproving parents tucked in there, maybe? Exasperated spouses, classically-trained martial artists that didn't recognize Joyful Death for what it was; and I think I added my last six or seven landlords that didn't like my swinging it around, no matter how safe I made it. By accepting it, you've made it so all future wielders will sense a figment of yourself in there, too. From here on out, anyone who's worthy who touches this pig-sticker is going to move just a tiny bit like Miranda Robertson used to."

A small smirk adorned the attorney's features. "I'd say it's a sufficient reason to put your best foot forward, wouldn't you? Imagine Shen Long's surprise when he realizes what you'll have contributed to it."
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TennyoCeres84
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Re: Chapter VI - Asunder

Post by TennyoCeres84 »

Crystal and Andrea sat down in the offered seats, both mildly surprised yet relieved at how the President had managed to hold down the proverbial fort in the midst of the demonic chaos. Given that the Welsh dragon was about to explain the future plans for Hope, they held off from asking any questions.

***

Glad to see the recognition of old memories and joy in the Squid, the little selkie girl hugged him fiercely and lightly kissed him on the cheek. She then grinned at him and said, "I remember! The music, the sights, and everything else about it was so fun! It was definitely one of the fun points of that summer for me!" she declared happily.

Aislinn allowed him to cry on her shoulder. Their job was to offer him a new means of joy, but he still had to mourn and move past so he could focus on a potential future. "Hold tight to those memories, Horatio, and look to forming new ones! There'll be other kids, like me, who seek you out and yearn for the amazement only you can offer them!"

***

Abdiel produced a similar shield to before to protect herself, Melmoth and the survivors from the burbling effect, all the while guiding them away from the splash zone of the burbling spray. She understood that the Finmen's curse was to keep the Jabberwocky tethered to the horrors of the past, the shame, and the regret. The mermen had probably thought this was the easiest and harshest way to stop them from aiding the Jarls, but it was time for the curse to stop and be put to better use.

However, she remained focused on her blessing. "You are forgiven." she spoke with intense power. "Learn from your mistakes, but do not linger in self-pity or sorrow! Forgive yourself! There is work to be done that must not waylaid by the sins of the past! You must offer your talents to the world so it may survive and join your draconic brethren in Hope!"

***

Initially wanting to curse at Morgana, Aspasia opted to followed after Issacs's footprints and hopped along after Aidan. She kept her nose to the air and and kept her senses keen for any changes and additional information. She matched the human's careful and moderately slow speed and kept an eye out for Issacs or the injured victim.

***

Miranda felt her spirits perk up at the notion of carrying on for future sword wielders. She recalled her mother's advice that bravery wasn't the absence of fear but carrying on in spite of it. The past users and the future ones depended on her, and reliability was a trait the young Fauness prided herself on. Plus, the people of Hope would need every ally they could get to stop the Goat.

"Yeah, it's a sufficient reason to keep going and be another source of insight for other wielders of the Joyous Death. I know I need a lot of practice to hone these skills I've been given, but I want to make Shen Long and all the rest proud and happy to know that I've given my best with the sword, so we stop the Goat and make sure there's a world for others to learn in!"
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