Chapter VII - Healing Pains

This is what you came here for. Adventure, intrigue, murder, mystery and action - plus a healthy dose of boring everyday stuff. One continuous story-line, broken up into smaller themes for easier consumption.
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TennyoCeres84
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Re: Chapter VII - Healing Pains

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Meris nodded approvingly at Wallace's deduction of repurposing the Damnatio Memoriae to target Chambers specifically and looked to Nereus. "We could speak with Matriel about it. He'll be there with Hanako at the Choosing. If we go this route, I'd rather go with some angels we know we can trust. Amenadiel may have collaborators in Heaven that haven't been flushed out."

As to the former solution, she purses her lips tightly as she spoke, "A genetic makeover would be a last resort option, since it wouldn't be a painless feat. However, cursing Chambers would the easier option, albeit we would have to be concerned with getting in contact with him without raising his suspicions. Now that you're gone, his paranoia has likely increased, and he will be more observant."
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Re: Chapter VII - Healing Pains

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Modify the curse? "Well... I'm not sure they would? But I could do something similar, though more limited. I had a lot of time to study its effects, after all, in my quest to break the thing." He put a companionable arm on Nereus' shoulder. "Don't blink, any of you."

He said a few words in what sounded like some variant of Egyptian, then he and Nereus both became vague, for want of a better word. Even Meris had difficulty focusing on her beau, her eyes and attention simply sliding off and refusing point-blank to believe he was worth her time. Oh, she could still see him, if she looked at someone else and sort of waited for him to appear in the corner of her eye, but he went away again the very moment she tried to look directly.

"What th' fuck," Charles deadpanned, staring right at Nereus and clearly not taking in a thing. "Yer ain't invisible, I knows wha' THAT looks like..."

Marius muttered a few other words, and the effect went away. "The conscious mind is easy to fool," he said with a smirk, letting go of Nereus again. "Imagine living under that for a thousand years and more, hm? It isn't pretty, believe you me."

"How many can you hide at once this way?" Abraham asked. "And can you tailor it so only Chambers or his ilk are blinded?"

"I'm sure I could. If my fellow researchers would care to help me expand on it?" and he grinned at Meris.
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Re: Chapter VII - Healing Pains

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Nereus smiled behind his tendrils and parted with a gamely scoff. "I'm up for it!"

Archie tapped his own cane's pommel a few times as he processed all this. "How weakened is our foe, exactly?" he asked, which made the Augur shift to vague uncertainty. 

"I know it's not very Eldritch of me to say so, but Azorthagal's poison is subtle. I thought it would overwhelm his physical defenses at first - trigger a cytokine storm of sorts, so his immune system wouldn't be able to catch on; but I think it's somehow sentient, or at least designed in order to keep him as weakened as possible no matter the attempted treatments. I first thought it was the bunker's AC; breathing in recycled air for months isn't good for anybody. So - vague muscular pains at first, episodes of throbbing along his limbs, a sore throat and a dry cough... His lymph nodes were out and active by the end of the first week and made any sort of palpation uncomfortable."

That surprised Three. "You gave him a check-up?
- The basics," conceded the Squid, "so I wouldn't look completely unconcerned by his state, at least. You pick up a few things after dating a Cantor..."

In so saying, Marinos offered Meris a tender smile. "Slight hypertension, obvious signs of exhaustion and everything that comes with fatigue - including the more specific doubling of his sleeping hours. He spent about nineteen hours in the Darkhallow, shortly before I left. I didn't need to snoop in to see he was trying to run research on his own and delegate potentials to volunteers. He was tossing and turning the way I used to before I first contacted your friends," he told her.

Bucky nodded. "And how lucid was he, at the end?
- Debatably lucid," confirmed the Squid, "but too weak to oppose me. "The curse had switched to attacking his lungs, so he had regular IVs of corticosteroids as well as an oxygen cart with an adapted lead," he explained, suggesting wires extended past his jawline and dipping out of view just below where his outer ears would've been, if he'd been human. Most Squids' nasal slits were below the ears, essentially existing as repurposed gills. "He didn't saturate properly, so he was constantly drowsy and couldn't focus enough to enter the Darkhallow."

Nereus' exhale suggested some tension. "Whenever the O2 output was adjusted, he'd drop straight to sleep for a few minutes and then wake up with this glacial stare as if he was entirely, well, there, in the moment. I knew that if he'd only had the strength, he would've pushed me down and through the bunker's foundations. He would've had enough for a short salvo, but not much more."

Magnus shrugged lightly. "Why didn't you kill the bastard where he stood, if I may?
- Raising my hand on him would've keyed into our staff's conditioning," he explained. "I was tethered to his scheme and so had little choice but to let him create conditions that would let my own thralls attack me - for his own safety. I'm sure there's some here that would think this was a moment of weakness on my part, but I didn't want to harm people who were barely any different from those thralls we saw at the rest area," he explained, glancing at Marius.

He scoffed lightly. "I had two on-site chefs, one personal trainer, a small medical wing's worth of personnel, twenty armed guards, thirty brainwashed and fallen Hollywood heartthrobs - and all of them had been conditioned to be expert killers if the need ever arose. Christopher saw them as tools, and I could still sense the people they were, trapped inside. I couldn't face them - not like this. I used them, instead; conditioned our daily routine until it looked like a rehearsed ballet - all so he wouldn't notice my slipping between staff members at the break of dawn."

Hearing this, the Ringleader parted with a somehow graven-sounding titter. "Speaking of ballet..." he cryptically added, just as the spotlight behind him narrowed its iris. The passage hadn't been completely dark, but it had seemingly been enough for him to teleport somewhere back behind the main stage's drapes. A microphone was heard clicking, and the vampire Squid expertly marshalled his usual hilarity with a single sobering cough. He spoke with a lighter tone than usual, possibly aping the delivery of a flight attendant.

"To friends and allies, ladies and gentlemen, boils and ghouls - please find your seats; the evening's entertainment shall begin shortly. The tale will be told from all angles, so feel free to adjust said seats as needed. Please ensure that all recording devices and spells have been turned off, and for those of us well acquainted with our story, please refrain from spoiling the proceedings for others. Please refrain from reaching into the center ring; frequent and widespread structural changes are to be expected. For your safety, please keep hands and feet within the area covered by the seats. Would Mister Marinos and Miss. McConmara please find the seats numbered E3 to E5, thank you - Mister Wallace, you've been seated at D5 and D6."

Grimley's falsetto briefly returned. "If anyone feels like relieving themselves, you could've done so within the last five minutes... If all else fails, you'll find a solid path between the E and D seat groups. The first intermission is in twenty, the second one in an hour. Any, hm, last words, perchance?"

Three picked a seat some distance away from Meris and Nereus' cluster and raised his voice as he sat down. "Yeah; your mention of solid paths isn't exactly encouraging!"

The troupe's usual hoots and guffaws filled the upper expanse of the building for a few seconds, and died out just soon enough for a keen ear to almost certainly pinpoint the choir and Lucian's voices, and their more reserved chuckles. "Oh, I wouldn't worry too much," cheerfully replied Horatio. "We haven't killed anyone - yet," he said, a bit of mocked murderous intent slipping in. "The floor plan might change, but the ground-plane won't, and our VFX supervisor assures this'll all be safer than the Mouse's tawdry Gothic fancies..."
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Re: Chapter VII - Healing Pains

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Meris smiled at Nereus and Marius. "I will absolutely contribute to it!" she answered with an energetic smirk. Chambers was an exception that brought out the selkie's rare mean streak, but it quickly left as Nereus took note of the Chamberlain's weaknesses. A strategist's expression appeared as the former Augur explained.

Once Horatio segued from their discussion to the performance announcement, she gave Nereus's hand a quick squeeze and went to find the specified seats. "We'll deal with Chambers in due time, love. However, this play should be an event to remember!" she said with a bright smile.

Neasa found her seat next to Bucky at D4. "Hey Bucky, hope you don't mind the company," she said.

The other McConmara siblings took their seats not far from Neasa and Bucky. Given that it seemed like every seat was a good one, Aspasia picked one in row C. Miranda could be seen scurrying from the women's bathroom for a last minute break to then get settled next to her parents.
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Re: Chapter VII - Healing Pains

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Marius sat down next to Nereus, curious what was in store for them. He had recognized Lucian and the Choir, and wondered what their involvement presaged. Charles and Abraham found seats near Aidan, and got settled in for the show.
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Re: Chapter VII - Healing Pains

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"Wouldn't mind it in a thousand years, Ness," replied Bucky, a combination of lowered eyebrows and a single low puff from his boiler indicating fondness. A few moments later, an unseen orchestra and organ lumbered into action somewhere beyond the stage's drapes, first settling into a slightly off-kilter original piece that wouldn't have been out of place in John Philip Souza's compositions. Spotlights whirled over the canvas as the room grew darker, a giddy crescendo was reached that allowed the organ to take center-stage - and the entire orchestra then dropped off, safe for the organ. It maintained a single note, effectively creating a churchlike atmosphere. Penfield's ensemble was then heard, plying their skill on a cover of an unusual piece for Void Weavers: Hildergard von Blingen's O Virtus Sapientiae.

O strength of Wisdom
who, circling, circled,
enclosing all
in one lifegiving path,
three wings you have:
one soars to the heights,
one distils its essence upon the earth,
and the third is everywhere.
Praise to you, as is fitting,
O Wisdom

As they sang, Penfield's own voice began to separate from the group, following a circuitous path around the assembly. He eventually stepped out from the curtains and into full view, wearing something that would remind Meris of the Chamberlain's old robes, if they'd been fashioned out of white linen and silk. The sigils were entirely different along the hem and front of the robe, as well. They weren't the old feverishly insane paeans to primordial chaos, but gracefully-ordered words of praise to Order - not in its ultimate form, but in the precise and calculated elemental dance that allowed for life to flourish. As they finished, Penfield switched to a speaking registry.

"Wisdom - or sentience. The most gracious gift of any Creator to its creatures," he said. "Your philosophers attest to the winding road and multiple paths leading to its Garden, from the ruthless forces of Life and Death to the gift of Magic - for even as one Thinks, true sentience is unattainable for all of us of the material planes. All-encompassing sight is the province of Gods, and all of us are granted a single angle, one unique point of view - a single piece in the multitudes of Wisdoms to be encountered. Thus is humility ensured, and so does equanimity find root. So it was for us of Dalarath, raised out of the Ordovician Era's seas to bear witness to this Order."

As he spoke, hazy patches of marine blue began to encircle the stage, eventually clarifying into portals or patches of deep-sea water, as if someone had opened portholes along the sides of the front stage. In these patches swam squids, octopuses, cuttlefish and nautiluses - who slowly began to change as they gyrated aimlessly around the stage. More tendrils formed, even as others began to specialize - buds of arms and feet terminating ever-shrinking limbs. The hominid cephalopods were then seen picking up stones and striking them together, creating crude arrow and spear-points. They had no need for fire, living underwater as they did, and instead were seen creating huddles within descending shafts of sun and moonlight. They hunted, foraged, explored - and some died unfortunate deaths at the hands of craftier, more primal lifeforms. As with humans, this seemed to push their cognitive development.

"For my kind," continued Penfield, "language is sacred. It is a gift from the Architect, a spout and font combined; the most effective means for the dispersal of Wisdom. This is even truer, considering the scope of the gift which we'd received. The first one of us who ascended to the Cavern and who first spoke was celebrated, but the first one of us who truly, confidently Spoke as the Architect does became the first of us - the first of the Keepers and Guardians."

The central stage's lacquered finish rippled and cracked, and irregular pillars of basalt were soon seen pushing out of the ground, seawater following along and somehow flooding the stage without spilling over into the seating areas. Another layer of illusion surrounded it, creating rough stone surfaces Meris might remember as the sides of one of the small inlets in Respite Point. Out of it and onto the suggested rocky beach did Helena Rivas crawl, clad for the occasion in conjured sharkskins and dried nerves used as rope. Her acting wasn't entirely on-point as she caught sight of Meris and Nereus, but she quickly refocused on her role and set a steely and determined gaze at a point above. It wasn't too hard to imagine her as an exhausted and hungry hunter, shivering with pain from sustained injuries and sufficiently desperate for food and shelter so as to make History.

Suggesting heavy panting motions, she fell to her knees, drew in a breath, and effectively lip-synched Penfield's delivery of the verbal portion of the Speech. What started as a pathetic and pleading prayer for assistance turned to shock at the sight of more rising pillars, the floating windows suggesting towers and docks rising out of the stone fully-formed. Shock then turned to exultation as tears of gratitude convincingly welled out of the female Squid's eyes, and as Penfield's suggested fervor, joyful and fierce, chiselled bas-reliefs into being and conjured gold and amber filligree wherever plain white stone needed embellishment. The beleagered hunter sang food and freshwater into being and sang her own pains away, her humble clothes Weaving themselves into the first Augur's robes and her spear turning into a sort of caduceus staff, tentacles and engraved marine life embracing a Mobius Strip design. Far up ahead in the still-deserted and brand-new city, the palace's gates were seen opening - light welling forth.

"Come," called out a voice Meris would recognize, "come forth, my child. I am the Architect, and so have you spoken the seat of my demesne in this world. Come forth, that I may grace you, and speak to you of the Covenant which binds me to the Young God."

It obviously was Lucian, here standing in for the Architect Himself - and having seen the Old God for herself, she might find her friend had a sufficient vocal range so as to effectively evoke Him. 

"I name you Nu of the Primordial Waters, She Who Was Unmade. First of the Augurs, last of your kind to walk in darkness. I give to you all my gifts, so that you may cherish and protect them for all generations to come, and the Young God gifts to you Her Paints and Easel. This world is young still, and its fundaments require a watchful gaze."

The newly-robed Helena - or Nu - walked across what would eventually be Respite Point, her expression combining faith in its fiercest and kindest expressions as well as a sudden surety of purpose. She stopped at the edge of the lake's shore, bent down and touched the water line with a few Words on her lips. In response, a beautiful arch of somehow solidified water rose from the lake, providing the first Augur with a long bridge to the city. The setpiece couldn't leave the boundaries of the central ring, but it still allowed Helena to rise along with the arch and to at least suggest a long walk. Far behind her, more shadows rose out of the shallows in Respite Point, as the farthest ancestors of Dalarath's inhabitants found their lost sister and began to walk in her path.

Penfield's tone was soft and melancholy. "So it was for untold millions of years. While the world above thrived, those of us below the waves dug ever deeper into the Garden's mysteries, in search of ever-more effective means of protecting Creation from enemies we, also, studied. We consorted with Thrones and spoke with other holdovers from other Creations, watched other elder beings fall to the twilight of their own galaxies and stars. We watched as most of Those Who Came Before graciously allowed the Young God to wield the Tools as She saw fit, with only the Architect offering more than mere counsel - for He knew that in Their Midst, covetousness was brewing. In ours, so too did Arrogance begin to plant its seeds..."

By this point, Nereus had a hand firmly affixed over his tentacles out of equal parts emotional distress and intellectual involvement. He'd known that Penfield had been placed into a life-preserving state for the express purpose of serving as a palimpsest of the past or a vague glimpse of the world as it had been before the Usurper's involvement and had always suspected that his people's genesis were rooted in honest, practical Good that ran as deeply as the Others' entrenched Evil - but to have centuries of illicit research and destroyed documents vindicated in the context of a play, of all things, was almost too much to bear.

He coughed in order to steady himself. The scene change leaving them with a few moments of relative silence, he turned to his wife. "I remember Lucian telling me of old notes he'd found, in one of the adjoining caverns' dump sites. We had plans to reach out to Mesopotamia and Egypt's philosophers and theoricians, to begin an equal exchange of knowledge with the surface world - and it all was tossed aside like so much garbage, once the Others' gospel overruled the old faith."

He couldn't help himself but to glance at Marius as he spoke to his wife. "Imagine how much we could've been able to help, if we'd known to better shield ourselves! Can you imagine how different History would be, if we'd never fallen? We could've called Uriel forth and forced him to see reason; we could've provided arbitrage in Marius' case and we could've saved him thousands of years of suffering!"
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Re: Chapter VII - Healing Pains

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As the Archmage watched Helena play Nu, her expression tightened a bit as she understood what was to come. The images the Architect has shown her of Merath's final moments had lingered in her mind, even after the incursions were over. They were from long, distant past; they couldn't hurt, but there was still an almost phantom sting of watching her predecessor died tragically at the hands of the Usurper.

Meris rested one of her hands on his hand that was closest to her, her lips pursed thoughtfully. "Perhaps knowing might've helped the Void Weavers prevent the Others from tainting you all, but that's not a certainty. Even the best diviners have blind spots that leave them vulnerable. Especially when you know how things will play out, you can still end up being helpless and you can't do anything to deter from awful things from occurring. All you can do is regroup after and work to improve the situation."

She sighed. "That might sound too fatalist or defeatist for me, but things do eventually stop working in your favor. You have to step back and come at things from a new angle. Such as with Penfield's monologue, we are all given a single gift of Wisdom. Your earliest ancestors were given what they were, and the Fall still happened. With the Usurper and others like Chambers, their will is frighteningly strong, strong enough to sometimes thwart the purest ideals. Arrogance snakes its way into paradise, quiet and subtle. It's typically not until later does it become more overt. It's up to us to ensure that the future is brighter and happier."
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Re: Chapter VII - Healing Pains

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"No," Marius replied, more sharply and bitterly than he had intended. In the next second he shook his head and sighed. "I don't mean to be so blunt, Nereus, but you're wrong, at least about me. Before they were returned to their own timelines, I was able to speak with some of my doubles after the battle at Centennial Park, and a few had avoided both Uriel and the Weavers. And you know what they told me?"

He turned to look Nereus right in the eye. "They told me they would have taken Uriel's curse, the meddling of the Weavers, over what they experienced! Their timeline was boring, and they were the weaker for it! Granted, they might have been a bit melodramatic about it, but even so I learned something of myself as well! I am not a man who suffers boredom lightly, which is why I handled the Curse so badly. I'm sure Uriel realized that when he did what he did, he must have known all the others he was punishing indirectly when he inflicted his wrath on me back then, all the suffering that would result from it."

Only then did he look away. "I am not a man to evade responsibility, not anymore, and I will atone for what I have done. But I want to see Uriel brought to justice as well, personally if need be!"

For his part, Charles just looked thoughtful. "Drakey, you was there when Jan were brought back t' life, yeah? Y' think all 'is is related to Jan's story? A' least, th' way Cap'n Sam told it?" Abraham gave his boss a careful look at those words; he had not taken the tale well at the time, had in fact had to be choked out into unconsciousness by a quick-witted Mary Jameson before he fell into some sort of violent breakdown. But he seemed level enough at the moment...
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Re: Chapter VII - Healing Pains

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Both Meris' sobering words and Marius' objectivity seemed to be registered by the former Augur as bitter pills to swallow. Tendrils pulled together in an expression of contrition, he nodded to the both of them.

"I understand your respective points and I know that my people can't be expected to solve anything if they can't help themselves, first of all - but it doesn't make what followed right, not by my reckoning. I know there probably wouldn't have been much we realistically could've done seeing as Damnatio wasn't our curse to wield and I'm glad to see you work through your trauma, Marius, but I'm compelled by a different force than your average Loyalist. Even if you take inevitability or fatalism into account, even if you consider that you have the right to face your past as you see fit; it doesn't make it right."

Three nodded, extending the gesture to both Charles and Nereus. "I know. I especially know how rotten this feels, Nereus. In my case, the only way I have that lets me help and pay respects to those I killed under Anton's influence, in the Middle East, is to do what I can now, in the context of what's actually feasible. I'm no god, my handle over the Speech is still developing, but I choose to use the situation as it is now in order to improve whatever future might unfold."

He looked back to Charles. "It's likely that you owe part of who you are to what Jan went through at the hands of Nereus' people, Charles. My own trauma doesn't reach as far and I'm horrified just the same. Things are different now, though: the Gates are open, Jan regularly stops by Horatio's Crossing, and we've helped him. That's what matters. He's out there, drinking himself to a stupor or probably discovering Mixed Martial Arts on ESPN, probably thinking it'd look a whole lot better if the referees just let the guys pick up battleaxes or round Saxon shields."

Nereus reached out, a bit of Eldritch force bending the light around his right hand's fingers, and Jenkins would feel as though Nereus were sitting close enough to touch him, with a brief clasp of his own hand as a show of support.

"I know it's not very Life Coach-y of me, considering my previous occupation, but I'd say to Hell with the Loyalists, mister Jenkins. You're a good man in my book, and you'll find that I'm more than willing to extend the same courtesy to your reborn or resurrected ancestors. What's done is done, you and Jan both have the opportunity to become the best versions of yourselves you could ever hope to be."

The transitional calliope music that surrounded them began to settle down, traditional Greek instruments soon emerging out of the Souza-esque morass even as both the front stage and central ring flowed again. Cracked and pitted Doric pillars rose out of the ground, along with halfpipe-shaped Roman seats and a few stone-hewn loungers. Vines crept over everything in a rapid timelapse, artistically stopping at a point where green tendrils enveloped everything and the dispersed trellises all supported thick bushels of raisins. Doctor Dickens' voice then rang out, sedately announcing the act's title and motif.

"A Comedy of Errors, Played Out Beyond Spacetime. A satirical one-act play for small audiences, as recovered in fragments from Respite Point's adjoining dump site and modernized for current audiences. Dramatis Personae: Alora the Snake Dancer as Amaxi the Many-Armed, Arthur Holden as Dar-Larath the Irate and Ezekiel Lyman as Harrogath the Deceitful..."

Music played out for a few seconds more, the spotlights darkened, and seconds after the piece ended, a large amphora shot out from behind the curtains and crashed against the central ring's stone lounger, shattering in a dozen pieces as it did so. "ENOUGH!" cried out Alora, suggesting a temper tantrum possibly worthy of Cleopatra herself.

"I've HAD IT with that brat rubbing her success in our faces, Dar-Larath! Billions upon billions of years in my own spacetime, and did I ever get a shred of recognition?! Not once!"

Storming into view, Alora-as-Amaxi wore a Greek robe you could've found on Athenian noblewomen during late Antiquity, possibly working her scale-laden arms for visual effect in order to suggest the goddess' corruption. Sandals clattering on wood, she tromped off towards the jar she'd just savaged and bent down, looking contrite over the spilling red liquid that stained the ring's earthen floor. From the curtains followed Arthur, who wore a Greek synthesis and sandals for the occasion, with an empty sheath waiting at his waist.

"How do you think my efforts were received, sister?" he asked his fellow actor. "My thermodynamics weren't stable enough and I could only make the Goldilocks zone stretch out for a few thousand years, which barely gave enough time for anything close to a primordial soup to take shape anywhere," he replied, his tone snide as if he were repeating someone's objections dismissively. "As if the Architect were the only one to figure out how to cook a soup; any idiot with base chemicals and heat can spring life into shape!"

Amaxi picked up the jar's shards. "I guess, not that you would've known what to do with that life. You were always so brash; your first few tries basically amounted to water-worlds sheltering superbugs; it's no wonder you never got past single-celled organisms; everything was busy tearing itself apart!"

Arthur offered Alora a mute snarl and crossed his bare arms together. "At least I got that far. You're happy so long as you get to treat Matter like Play-Doh! Rock. Lava. Rock. Lava. Rock. Lava. Rock. Lav- PICK A SIDE AND STICK TO IT, FOR ONCE!"

Alora seemed full to bursting with the rare kind of sibling-related hatred you'd sometimes find in dysfunctional families, which was a solid bit of conveyance on her part. "Oh, sure. Mister Perfect was the first, so Mister Perfect gets all the after-hours catch-up sessions with the Old Man - You're Perfection Incarnate, aren't you?!"

Holden audibly snarled and stepped closer, a hand raised as if to strike, when a sonorous burp was heard, followed by loud munching noises. A short fanfare rang out, and Zeke was carried out and onto the stage on a palanquin, the four bearers being part of Penfield's ensemble. They obviously used their abilities so as not to physically shoulder too much of the demon's girth, and consequently didn't strain much as they lowered the open-air carriage onto the stage. Lyman was clad in a Roman emperor's fineries, already artistically stained with a number of suggested edible substances. He also had an emperor's laurels atop his head, and clutched a massive ham haunch in one hand and a wine chalice in the other.

"Aren't you two done with this?" he asked. "You've been bickering for, what, two or three billion billion billion years, and you still haven't made any headway. I don't know about you two, but when a door doesn't work no matter how much I pull at it, I at least make it a point to start pushing, for once."

Taylor stepped forward. "Announcing Harrogath the Deceitful, Harrogath the Gluttonous, Harrogath the Crafty, the Wily, the Wise. Harrogath the Seducer, Claimer of Hearts Three Creations Hence-"

Alora practically pounced on the poor Squid. "I'M THE SEDUCER, I SEDUCE, NOBODY ELSE DOES!"

Harrogath shrugged and took a bite of his haunch, speaking through it. "I vouldn't thay you're pahticulahly seductive, right now. I've done a better job in my own Creations, and-"

Zeke swallowed noisily, stopping to push against his own chest with a few fingertips, grimacing as the chunk of ham apparently went down hard. "I'm - ugh - not usually one to brag, but I at least made it to sapient life-"

"I'M THE SEDUCER!" screamed Alora, which led Lyman to wince, shake his head and mockingly sick a pinky in one of his ears as he gave the assistance a knowing glance.

"If she's the Seducer," he said, "I'd like to meet the gods' usual divorce counsellor!"

Three couldn't help himself but to chuckle at that one, only to find himself giving "Harrogath" a bit of a thoughtful side-glance. Why did ancient Void Weavers depict Harrogath, of all beings, as critical of his Brother and Sister? How much of that might've shaped Nereus' religious service, not to mention his own personality? Could Harrogath somehow display some level of common sense, or was this all just Eldritch machinations shrunken down to the level of an improv sketch or a ditty?
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Re: Chapter VII - Healing Pains

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Meris chuckled at Lyman's slight breaking of the fourth wall and caught onto Aidan's thoughtful side glance. "I sense you're wondering why Harrogath stands out in contrast to Amaxi and Dar-larath. The fact is that he was the only one of the three to create sapient life. He at least came away with some understanding to how they worked, why beings needed senses and how life could be enjoyed through them or manipulated through them. The creations he had made enjoyed at least some fulfillment."

She looked back to Alora-as-Amaxi and Arthur-as-Dar-larath thoughtfully. "Dar-larath is too impatient, overly passionate and brash to let life mature as it needs to, in contrast to the way God works. They have many projects going on, but for the most part, They're willing to put the effort into shaping things just enough to support themselves. That and They've allowed others to create in Their name. Things took their time, and while not perfect, they're thriving."

"Amaxi's epithet of the Many-Armed actually indicates Her strengths and weaknesses. Many-Armed can be taken to mean having many talents, but it can also be seen as inconsistent or unfocused. With the lava or rock example, She's not capable to sticking with one thing until it can support itself. Instead, She becomes angry and screams Her rage. Her "seductive" side is more of a facade that only lasts as long as the party She attempts to seduce is willing to listen. Otherwise, She screeches at them with all the energy of a frustrated and overbearing mother or wife."

She smiled lightly at the young man and spoke softly, "With that in mind, I think you can see why Nereus takes after Harrogath more, thankfully now able to determine how to enjoy life for himself and not for a dead god."
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