5013/When The Sun Goes Out

When The Sun Goes Out
Date of Scene:	13 January 2017
Location:	Lumiere
Synopsis:	The first Marble Guardian awaits in a dungeon beneath the headquarters of the Stone Devils.
Cast of Characters:	974, Seifer Almasy, 984, Priscilla, Kushiko, Staren, Tomoe, Count Kord, Inga

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Carna (974) has posed:
    The Urban Decay that has been seen has seemed like it comprises the majority of Barrowville simply due to its scope and how frequently visitors have been exposed to it. But it is not until straying beyond that area, into City Limits, that one remembers just how vast this part of Lumiere is. While the Urban Decay is an apocalyptic mish-mash of buildings from all manner of cultures and time periods, of all kinds of purposes and states of disrepair, the City Limits are... Different. Most of the buildings are intact, though any seeming of being less chaotic in their arrangment is only superficial.

    The buildings appear to be ancient Roman or Greek in origins in many areas, and of the same general era as those civlizations as well. Of course, the streets tend towards narrow, nearly claustrophic, and in some places buildings abruptly cut off these routes, or doors are found in the middle of walls that in turn open into the second floor of buildings, which sometimes do not have floors on the other side, or stairs lead upwards only to end in front of a wall or in open air.

    City Limits seems more uniform and orderly by initial appearance only. Actual exploration reveals any order would come from the mind of some insane architect who has designed a massive, sprawling city of mazes and dead-drops and bridges crossing over bottomless marble ravines.

    Some buildings appears to be upside-down, or at least to extend downwards into the empty space underneath all this. Being on the very edge of Barrowville as it is, bordered by the Pristine Plagueway that loops through the emptiness that surrounds this plane, all of these buildings are clustered together to form a sort of platform extending out over a fall so long that one would probably die of thirst or hunger before ever seeing any sort of bottom. Perhaps a blessing for the living, given what is known to be ultimately waiting down there, in a seething, churning ocean of bodies. Less of a blessing for those already dead, since they would have plenty of time to think about their eventual fate being torn apart and eaten.

    And somewhere in all this, beneath the place claimed as the headquarters of the Stone Devils, the souls of the legendary figures known as King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table once held court. Perhaps no longer. But that which they guarded still remains, and with it, perhaps a way to bypass all the toil and suffering and go directly to their current goal: The City of Barad-Ghul, a place near to the link between the World of Ashes and Lumiere.

    A frontal assault upon the Stone Devils would have been untenable. Even if the potential for eventual victory existed, it would be a bloody one, unlike any battle that has been seen in Lumiere so far.

    But there is a different way. A way that Kord saw, while feining alliance with the Stone Devils. A way that has been whispered to him by sourceless voices that grow ever more distinct as he continues to listen to them. A way to keep himself and those he wishes to protect safe, and still get what he wants in the process.

    The search for the exact spot may be long or short. Kord was only here once after all, and then with the guidance of a pair of Stone Devils, including the nefarious Luc. But any time they stray from their course, it's like the walls of darkness that fill these narrow, cramped streets tug at the eye, or like they move to reveal stairs or corners that lead away from the Unlit and whatever other monsters dwell in this area.

    More than once, the sounds of wheezing corpse lungs, the shuffling of bare or skeletal feet across stone, or the silhouette of some best-unseen heaving shape padding silently closer may have been detected, only to find a course away from such things. The musty smell of rot so old it has lost its pungency clings cloyingly, but it never grows quite so intense that they know they've been found by the source of this ancient death.

Carna (974) has posed:
    And eventually, they find it. A grate like one would find leading to a sewer, but chained shut heavily. It has a corroded lock on it, rusted with blood, but force should open it, right? Or maybe there's another way...

    Assembled, those natives who have decided to attempt to sneak right underneath the Stone Devils and get what they want without having to draw steel against them, includes not only Carna, in her usual big pointed hat, cloak, face wrap, and leather armor, but also Enark in his tattered robes, once blue, now a muted grey-green, as well as Crow, an animate Shadow, glassy little circle eyes watching all the goings-on curiously, pointed horn-like ears mere triangular extensions of its head, that nonetheless turn and orient on sounds in the environment (or seem to, since they're 2-dimensional) in a mimicry of a cat.

    Particularly, it seems, Crow pays attention whenever Kord hears voices that the others present can barely discern as whispers.

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     "Well," Seifer Almasy observes with his usual bluntness, "This place is a /shithole/."

     The Gunblade Knight has demonstrated a surprising degree of competence in the infiltrative arts on this mission. He's been quiet, sticking to the shadows, walking lightly, and generally acting like a competent soldier, which probably surprises a lot of people who have only ever seen or heard him fight or talk. Seifer in fact conducts himself like a professional until they get to the grate, at which point he just sort of shoulders his blade, hangs out near Lin, and waits for somebody else to solve the problem. He glances off into the distance, which probably means he's listening to Gilgamesh again. Then his eyes slide back to the shadows.

     This place has him on edge for all the wrong reasons. It's worse than Odin's Tower, and Odin's Tower was pretty damned bad. All the grudges and misery remind him of Tonberries, but Tonberries that don't even have the veneer of adorable green lizard things that slowly doink towards you with a lantern - just the truth, the horrible, spiteful nature of the little creatures. He'd be lying if he said it didn't make him uncomfortable.

     But Lin and a host of other pretty girls are present, and that means Seifer can't afford to show the unpleasant tingle creeping up his spine or the unhappy feeling that someone is tapping on his shoulder when he isn't looking and it isn't the ghost he knows is following him. He has to be tough, and chivalrous, and manly, because, well, showing that he's having a problem down here just makes him look unreliable. Whatever passes for his god knows he can't have that, no matter how much he keeps wanting to turn around and shoot wildly into the darkness.

Karal Rei Lin (984) has posed:
Karal Rei Lin does not much like how little she understands of this ancient and dreary place. The more she's adventured in the Multiverse the more her eyes open, the less she remains simply a wandering mercenary. The more she questions her allies, questions herself, questions her surroundings.

    But trying to question THESE surroundings... that way lies madness. At the prospect, her face simply twists up in an agonized, disgusted scowl. **** this mess of a 'city.' Seriously.

    "I... I find myself agreeing..." Lin states from behind Seifer. She's none too sneaky so has been relying on him for guidance. Other than 'step quietly and don't bump into things' she knows very little of stealth.

    This place unnerves her, and her main comfort is the sword sheathed at her side and held carefully in place so it won't clink and jingle noisily in the scabbard...

    "How did it end up like this... I've heard the Underworld can be like a maze where city after city piles up on each other... and this is AN Underworld..."

Priscilla has posed:
    Priscilla had reservations about listening to anything out of Kord's mouth, before. This was because they were nominally on opposite sides of a confusing and utterly gelatinous war. Now, knowing he actually works for her, and seeing that his information is both accurate and completely on the level, Priscilla feels pretty good about herself for taking this plan on as a route to achieve the objective she had insisted upon. As powerful as she is, even she ill-likes the idea of charging a hundred Stone Devils and change.

    A rusty, bloodstained lock doesn't seem like much of an impediment, nor really likely to draw much attention. This feels suspicious, because if Lumiere is still itself, the lock will probably sprout teeth or explode into tentacles or something the minute someone touches it. With this in mind, as rude as it is to say so, Priscilla cannot, in good conscience, disagree with Seifer.

    "Thou art hardly in the wrong, so much as I wouldst ask thee hold thine tongue for that observation." the woman in white remarks drily. The whispers are something she has become relatively inured to after so many visits; never quite forgotten, but something she expects little from, being 'attuned' to neither death nor dark as Kord is. After so long in the Painted World, after its fall from grace, she is also just kind of plain scarred and hardened to all sorts of grotesque, morbid, and unnerving sights, and is often somewhat thoughtless as to how everyone else should rationally feel about them.

Kushiko has posed:
Realistically speaking it was /super/ annoying to the Lotus that she could not pick up on anything that Kord--and to a similar extent, Crow--in any useful sense. There was that auditory presence, yes, but no way to trace it, no way to reasonably extrapolate it's meaning.

-Be on guard,- was the woman's private words to Kushiko who had deployed Valkyr, the catlike Warframe that many here were well familiar with and one of her mainstays. The athletically female Warframe jogged along at a reasonable pace, making almost no sound as some measure of her Void power was used to reduce as much of her physical presence as necessary. Even the hints of lilac energy that streamed a little from two winglike extensions on her back didn't draw the attention it should, a bounded syandana that ended in two elegant points on either side of her flowing impossibly well.

Wordlessly, she appeared, accompanied by a twitchy little U-shaped drone that seemed to be doing it's level best to scan and document the surroundings visually. Really, Kushiko's studying the terrain and architecture itself--and privately, wanting to see what she could do to traverse it solely for -fun-. That was Kushiko for you. A bit of the chaotic whimsy and the chance to flex those parkour muscles was a strong one.

But the task they were here for was all the more stronger. The faceless Warframe bobs her head once towards not only Carna, but to Enark, Karal, Priscilla, and many more, including Seifer. Oh, and Crow was there too.

<"I've seen similar, but not in this fashion."> As to what Kushiko exactly means, the lines of light on her body pulsing lightly as she projects her voice. Female, the exact age quite ambiguous beyond 'maybe young?' as she continues. <"Death is... not unfamiliar to us. But this..."> She turned her head slightly, and far beyond from her Orbiter, Kushiko squinted a little bit. <"Just need to know where we need to go next, and I can scout the path with Kord."> Stealth was one of her fortes as even this close, those with supernatural senses of hearing might struggle to hear her steps. Which may be unnerving.

Staren has posed:
    Staren approves of trying to do this quickly rather than fighting through all the knights. He's still ready for a fight, of course, armored as always. He nods quietly at Seifer's assessment.

    At last they come to... a lock. "So... does anyone have any alternatives to try before we just blast our way through it...?"

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe was always on edge here but she's offered her help and couldn't turn away, even when it might be best for her own well being to do. She wont' leave this unfinished maybe she's naive but she thinks she can help in some fashion so here she is wonders though about the Stone Devils and how they are going to best take care of it. She'll leave the big plans up to the others. She herself knows it's her job to make sure the planners can act when the time comes. She's a bit nervous looking though as she looks to Karal for a moment.

"I never get used to places like this, Lin."

She keeps moving thought and makes note of Seifer, the Tenno and Lady Priscilla

"Is there even any way we can get through to them? They have never wished to ... talk before, Staren. Well so far as I know..."

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord is his usual grim and silent self on their way to their destination. He knows exactly where he needs to lead everyone and so that's where he intends to go. He has no evident desire to expain the details of the location to anyone among them as they walk and he seems to ignore their observations along the way, at least on the way there. The strange journey they make, where distance may not work quite the way a mortal mind comprehends, is not an impedance to Kord at all, the strange architecture and sights traversed as if he was right at home.

    When they get to the grate, Kord considers this obstacle. It has a way to open it with a lock... which Kord seems to pick up on instantly. He turns to regard Crow and there is an ominous pause for a couple seconds. Crow might notice the way his eyes narrow, and the soft skeptical noise he makes gives a hint to his feelings on what he heard.

    "... mmh."

    He decides on what he's going to do, apparently, when he steps forward and reaches out to rest his hand on the lock. The shadows deepen around him, and especially around the lock itself. He appears to be trying to open it with his shadow abilities. His skepticism is pretty sharp in the little rumbling noise he makes while he's doing this.

    "Have you been seeing a different world than I have?" Kord wonders to Karal, with a certain sour disbelief, his head turning a moment in distraction as he tries to figure out how to undo the lock.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Carna is not much of a talker, but she has at least begun to grasp socialization thanks to her exposure to the living she has been interacting with. In particular, while the concept of humor is still sketchy, she understands using deprecations to make a difficult situation seem less difficult, not to trick those involved into misjudging their capabilities, but in order to maximize their efficiency through the lessening of fear responses or other tensions which might otherwise obfuscate reasoning processes or lead to rash action.

    So her response to Seifer's statement that this place is 'a shithole' and the various and sundry agreements, leads Carna to deadpan, "You should see our sewers." Then, satisfied she has contributed to the efficiency increasing exchange, she returns her attention to watching the entrances to the alleyways, and especially the rooftops above them. This looks like the kind of place that would be ripe for an ambush by thousand-pound figures in stone armor with ridiculously big swords. No room to maneuver, nowhere to run. It's a death trap that she wants to get out of as soon as is viable.

    Crow is about as silent as Kushiko is (when it's not talking), but bends itself upside-down, like a pure-black rainbow with a face to peer at her frame's feet. But the Shadow changes the source of its attention when discussion of locks. Upon seeing the lock, Crow seems transfixed by it, and starts to extend a shadowed hand. It stops when Kord steps forwards, retracting its limb and watching with fascination as the darkness within the lock is turned and manipulated, activating internal mechanisms and unlatching safety measures, bypassing the need for a key completely. Or maybe the shadows WERE the key.

    The lock clicks and comes undone, and the chains that ran through its loop and the grate begin to retract slowly and quietly, the metal clicking and clanking barely audible, but in this vast place it can not be certain that no echoes reach distant, malformed ears.

    Still, it is surprisingly methodical, well-paced, and more quiet than one might expect a mass of ancient chains to be moving at when the thing holding them in place is no longer there.

    Though Enark looks around furtively, trying to send winning smiles to everyone to show just HOW COMFORTABLE HE IS HERE, he is still clearly nervous until he gets out of this blind alley and its many places things can attack from. He responds to Staren quietly with, "If you can think of another way, do let us know. It is fortunate we even know of this entrance, honestly."

    When it ends, the grate is unlocked, no chains in sight, and at least for the moment, nothing is attacking them. As though those chains and that lock were keeping the extremely porous grate air-tight, the smell of blood begins to seep out into the alley.

    Crow just says, "Cooool!" and feeds itself into the tunnel, sliding along the walls and scouting ahead as the only one present that can't be immediately stab-killed or crush-maimed by traps by dint of being flat and without vital organs of any kind. Kushiko and Kord will likely be the ones maintaining stealth for the rest of the group, and the former seems equipped to scan their surroundings in quite a lot of depth, but as an advance scout a Shadow is quite a useful asset.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Carna follows once she gets some kind of indication of it being safe, that mainly being Crow's head sticking back out telling them to watch their heads and then slipping back inside like paper that's been fed into a shredder, minus the shredding.

    On the other side of the grate is visibly a low-ceilinged tunnel of some kind. Dirt floor, a half-dome passage, practically requiring crawling on hands and knees to advance, but eventually opening up into a larger space. The transition from a haunted maze-city to the inside of a castle is a sudden one. The decorations and design non-specifically European. Not necessarily any one country stands out as a major influence.

    It's bits and pieces, like so much else of Lumiere.

    Any decoration that might have provided a clue of if this was really King Arthur's domain in the land of the dead has been consumed by the ages. Even in the afterlife, it seems that things can crumble and decay given an adequate amount of time. The space they find themselves in may be some sort of storage space. It looks like it could have been a place to keep food or supplies at one point. Some fallen stone blocks, each big enough to squash a grown man flat, lie just in front of the tunnel they entered through, having fallen from a wall to their right, that has only more stone blocks behind it. The fallen stones hid this entrance from view from the inside.

    Oddly, Luc had been aware when someone was just ATTEMPTING to trespass here when he brought Kord. But no one stopped them this time. Is this the power that the Darkness promises? That whatever those who listen seek, it will simply fall into their laps? Everything is easier as long as they USE what they're given? Or are some other circumstances responsible for the ease with which they have gotten this far? This may only be the entrance, but...

    Carna reaches out a hand to help haul the struggling Enark out of the tunnel after she has crawled through, but her eyes are searching for any sign of danger. If it's too good to be true, then it probably is.

    Stairs lead up from this storage space, though there's also a few crumbled doors leading off into what is likely to be more storage space. Even a cursory investigation will show that these additional rooms are too small to serve as passages, and scavenging whatever scraps of food for the dead might be left after so long is probably not the most prudent use of their time.

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     "No thanks," Seifer says offhandedly, still staring off into space. He follows along, putting his training to good use; stealth is something he is actually, again, surprisingly competent about, though he's sticking close to the people he perceives as needing his help if a fight breaks out. Occasionally he mutters something offhandedly, but it's most definitely conversations with Gilgamesh and not actual conversation with other people.

Staren has posed:
    "I meant the lock." Staren clarifies to Tomoe and Enark. Kord does something to it with shadows, that works. "Seems we had a way."

    Staren follows. "Do you know the rest of the way from here, or do we need to start exploring?" he asks Kord.

Priscilla has posed:
    Even if she hadn't been here before, the fact that nobody has jumped on them yet is not lost on Priscilla. Of course she would like to attribute this to something Kord had already expected, or discovered and exploited, hence why this was his recommended course of action. For the most part, she does. You do not, however, live long in Lordran without a healthy sense of suspicion. She allows herself to be distracted by a small fraction by looking out for the 'heat' and 'scent' of drifting souls; a generally easy task where everyone is already dead, or else carrying around the bits of a hundred or a thousand different dead people. That should keep her from being jumped by someone around a blind corner or dropped on from a high ceiling.

    Speaking of advanced scouts, Priscilla is going to do that too, because she's good at it. "I shalt go with the Shadow, as I am at the least in possession of a radio, and capable of using it quietly. Follow the Count's lead, in the meantime. I aim to ensureth there is nothing waiting for us in planning." she remarks, not expecting objection. The storage room fills with an icy draft, the the crossbreed fades from sight. The stairs are kind of a narrow route to take, but it doesn't seem likely to bump into someone on them, and so she tries to keep a healthy margin between herself and the rest of the party, so they have time to act on any warning she might give.

Karal Rei Lin (984) has posed:
Click goes the lock... and the smell of blood soon assaults Lin. She scrunches her face again, but focuses hard... and the more she does that, the sharper her senses become. Like a finely honed blade, dicing apart every minute sound from the darkness and whiff of air and screening for danger. ANYTHING dangerous. It may well be impossible to catch her by COMPLETE surprise... for anything less than a master assassin.

    Hand still securing her blade, she steps through into the storage chamber and takes a few moments to examine the crumbling construction... then onward. She has her eyes on those stairs...

Kushiko has posed:
Kushiko is good with a variety of locks, but the kind this one is, given what's already known by Kord and the others? Yeah, she's not going to press. But she is going to watch, as does the Helios that's accompanied her. Taloned fingers flex and squeeze slightly as she briefly seems to regard (hard to tell, as faceless as she is) before affixing her attention to what Crow was doing.

Once the way forward is open, she steps forward, the Warframe giving Kord a momentary aside look as she moves. Helios is able to do a great deal of scanning, yes, but Kushiko refuses to rely solely on that, cautious around what she perceives as open spaces, and basically taking what Kord can give (or only imply) to assess if the path forward is one that can be taken without causing much of a fuss.

It's a little creepy though, sometimes. The felinoid-themed Warframe sometimes takes to the 'ceiling' which resembles a floor of one part of it being upside down, clinging to it and moving on all fours. Occasionally an energy grappling tether is used to get a particularly out of the way place, the Tenno moving in all defiance of the standards of physics and gravity with a combination of bullet jumps, parkour and Goddamn Ninja Skills.

It goes to reason she keeps an extra set of eyes for those looking to act a bit more aggressively towards potential aggressors, her voice able to be directed to the others without actually being *heard* here. Useful, that. The Lotus would also be monitoring Kushiko's sensors and providing a second set of eyes--not to mention looking for signs that the group had been detected.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord's crawl through the cramped tunnel to what seems like a basement area. He makes no complaints, makes no comments about the state of the place. His silence is so he can hear the whispers more easily, and he does pick up on some along the way from the distraction clear in him when they roll over the area again. He squints a moment, and seems to sniff at the air, his head lifting as if that bird-like mask was an actual vulture beak.

    "We are seeking a round room at the bottom of a large staircase. It would be wise to avoid any doors that have been left open. Do not climb any stairs that you have not yet descended, either. If this was a place made to guard something, and the Stone Devils reside here, then there will be many traps. The gate we passed was one of them, if that blood were not a ruse."

    "This place is meant to keep people from wandering in, and to keep what it contains from getting out."

    "Whatever it is... It troubles me that these whispers may be coming from the very thing leading us further," he says, making it clear that he is quite aware of how bad this can get.

    And then, in accordance to what he has said, he advances further into the castle-like structure. He lets the others decide if they want to listen to that or not. He has given them reasons for either side of the argument.

    "Reminds me of home," he remarks aloud.

    That comment is probably more worrying than anything else he could say.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe grimaces but there's not much else to say she doens't say what she might be thinking about herebut the comment about the Sewers gets a smirk on her face.

"She's right Seifer." Seriously you don't wnat to see them, you really don't want to see them. She has an ide about it and never hope to ahve to go there ever again. Crow is looked at for a moment and she bobs her head a little bit at him. Nope h'e not talking much and they now move to unlock the the lock.

She then follows after Carna as they go they are soon on the other isde and she keeps herself hunched over slightly as she moves to avoid smacking her head once they get in and Crow is playing trap tester, she'll ow them one for that.

Tomoe looks around trying to list as best she can for sounds of trouble. She's also feeling sheepish about what Staren noted to her all this while. Priscilla makes use of her powers as does others she's just got her eyes and ears to search for trouble, however she's at least fairly alert so it may be worth something.

Carna (974) has posed:
    The stairs wind upwards for quite aways before exiting out into a dusty hallway, somehow lit by some sourceless ambience. Wall sconces bear no torches, no windows are in evidence, not even dislodged stones to let the pale glow of the distant Aetheir Cathedral shine in from whatever unfathomable distance it lies beyond. The hall is long, with many doors to investigate, many different ways they could go.

    And yet only one way is the way that is right. Though Crow can no more detect Priscilla by mundane senses than Priscilla (or anyone else) can detect the Shadow with supernal senses, it does its best to keep up with where it guesses her to be, keeping to the floors and walls for the most part, and occasionally dallying near a half-open door to peek inside and see if it can catch a glimpse of anything interesting.

    However, it does not delve too deeply into any of these. Doubly-so when Kord's warning is issued. Enark had begun to ascend the stairs and look around when he heard that the very whispers guiding Kord might be coming from that which they have come to find. That makes him even more nervous. "And we are, err, still going to listen to them then?" The warning about not going up any stairs he has not gone down hangs over the scholar's head as he stands half-way up the stairs leading from the storage room, but as Kushiko scans the area, not only using Helios but her own senses and awareness as well, it seems that at least these stairs are not part of that warning.

    Given Priscilla and Crow already went up them without issue, he might have guessed that. But the warning about doors makes more sense when he finds himself in a hallway lined with doors on both sides. Many of them seem to be open just a crack, as though in invitation. 'What might be found on the other side? Treasure? Knowledge? A means of reclaiming something lost? Adventure? Recognition? A secret passage? Come and see. You're clever enough to avoid any trouble, aren't you? Come choose a door and see what's on the other side.'

    Enark is pushed aside by Carna as she comes up the stairs behind him, tiring of waiting for the scholar to move. The Lantern looks at all of the doors in view, and decides to ignore them. They are looking for a large number of stairs leading down, all of these doors are open, and this hallway isn't round. As much as she might be willing to test the doors under other circumstances, perhaps with a pointed stick or sending Crow in ahead of her, any lure of loot falls by the way-side with the knowledge that this entire place is probably rigged to kill them with the slightest mis-step.

Carna (974) has posed:
    For those scanning the area, it seems like there's a number of presences in the distance. Masses of souls, or Dead Lights, in human frames. But they are not near enough to hear them even if they were banging pots and pans, and it doesn't appear they're even in the same structure. It seems like this castle has many rooms, and many stairs. Some rooms are large, some are small. The halls are not quite as maze-like as the city outside, but there is plenty of opportunity to get lost if they are incautious.

    For Priscilla and Crow, they have yet to encounter any protectors or traps. Though there's a big set of double doors at the end of the very long hall when they reach it. There is a different set of whispers that grow more noticeable over time though. Different from those that have been heard ever since coming to Lumiere, and very different from the outright speech that Kord hears when there is something important to say.

    These are acidic whispers. Something pouring venom and honey into one's ears. Clearly worded promises, distinct threats if they do not obey. In one ear they hear what they want to hear. In the other, what they fear to hear. Initially, simply ignoring them seems as plausible an option as ignoring the Darkness. Making it white noise that does not penetrate.

    But as the hall continues on and on and on, and they come closer to the source of the whisperer in the darkness, the sounds become more invasive. The smell of blood more potent. Paintings and tapestries they pass by, those that are not eaten away by age, bear some form of... Corrosion, like black mold. Spots of filth that stain stone and metal and canvas alike.

    Two sets of stairs off to the side of the long hallway appear, though one staircase leads up, not down. It seems like there's noises above them, and even some light shining down through cracks in a... Trapdoor? Despite the warning he was given, curiosity gets the better of Enark and stands at the base of them, trying to hear what's going on. "It sounds like... Someone is fighting up there," he mutters as the sound of heavy objects clashing drifts down to them. The scholar looks towards Kushiko and her ninja-climbing antics, and then to Staren, whose armament might prove useful if this turns out badly, and then to Seifer, who can sword things quickly if they rush at them.

    Then he... With surprising difficulty... Forces himself away from the stairs. 'Do not go up stairs you have not gone down.' Perhaps the others have a better idea of what's down the descending stairs.

Staren has posed:
    In younger days, Staren might have been foolish enough to open a door. Surely his technology can handle traps...

    But over a decade of surviving the Multiverse comes with a healthy paranoia. It's not worth comprimising the mission. Staren follows Kord and follows instructions. He stops to look at some of the metal-eating mold, but decides touching it would be a bad idea. He nods to Enark as they seem to approach some sort of fight, but he's not about to charge out there just yet.

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     Seifer really hates this place. He is having a lively conversation with Gilgamesh for /most/ of the duration, largely to ignore as much of this place as is safe for him to ignore and shut out as much of the place as he's capable of shutting out.

     But, eventually, they come to fighting. And, well, unfortunately, Seifer has a bunch of problems when it comes to fighting. First, it's something he's /really/, *stupidly* good at. Second, it's something that's tangible, something that he can get his head around that isn't all this stupid whisper shit. Third, he's headstrong and more than a little arrogant, and fourth, he loves showing off for pretty girls *almost compulsively*.

     This all sort of comes to a head as Seifer presses his foot down and says the magic words: "you ready, partner?" to the thin air.

     And then he goes shooting up through the trap door. He lands wherever it is possible to land, gunblade slung over his shoulder, and loudly makes a bold declaration:

     "I don't care which of you is right and which of you is wrong; you're making too damn much noise, so you better knock it the hell off before I beat it outta ya!"

Priscilla has posed:
    Kord's information is unnervingly specific, were Priscilla the kind to be unnerved about cryptic warnings and directions of unverifiable source (even if they aren't glowing orange). She feels the need to state the sensible, however.

    "If thou believest what thou hearest to be sent by the thing we seek, hast thou any reason to believeth it wants not to be found? Regardless of its eventual intent, what it shouldst want in the immediate term is for us to find it safely." Cross that bridge when they come to it.

    The advice is largely practical. If the object they seek is downstairs, then ascending stairs is counter productive. If it is meant to be guarded, no doors should be left open on the path to it. The traps though, and their absence, makes her wonder. It's something she doesn't ponder as much as she probably should. The new set of whispers is something she categorically hates. Priscilla has, at three points in her life, had enough of attempts to deceiver or unravel her psyche via tailored secrets and supernatural carrot and stick for the next thousand years. She wishes she were versed enough with the Dragon to drown it out with psychic whispers of her own.

    A strange feeling briefly touches her heart at seeing the badly deteriorated paintings, but she does not focus for over long. "As expected, this place is certainly occupied, but for its sheer size, even the company of the Stone Devils cannot fill it all, if even a small portion of it. They art well far away." She invisibly nudges Enark on the way past. "Most likely some session of sparring. They cannot die by normal circumstances, after all. Warrior orders art known for this."

    She nods towards Kushiko, before remembering she's invisible. "If thou hast the time and ability to gauge such without breaking our concealment, feel free to do so." This then goes horrifically pear shaped as Seifer decides to bust straight through the ceiling, eliciting a sharp cry of "Almasy!" after she'd just praised him for his restraint. "With him, now!" she shouts to Karal. "And Sir Staren, if thou wouldst as well. Thou art more prepared for battle than stealth". She focuses instead of the double doors, as to whether it's the obviously closed location that originates the whispers, or whether they instead come from below.

Karal Rei Lin (984) has posed:
The group moves on.. and... THE WHISPERS. Oh gods the Whispers. Lin's not sure what's happening at first, but when the Whispers become 'loud enough for her to notice she stumbles briefly and leans against the corridor wall, teeth clenched. Her mind is one of her last sanctuaries, and having voices pierce straight into it is disorienting and INFURIATING. "Simmer down, I'll talk to you when I'm good 'n ready..." She grunts, exerting her will to shut them out. The mark of the Dawn briefly shines on her forehead.

    The sounds of fighting draw her attention. She gazes up towards the trap door uncertainly. Combat sets her soul aflame, her interest is piqued, but she quells that for now. 'Go down, not up' was the directive... and as much of an impulse she has in most circumstances...

    This place scares the shit out of her. Best not barge about wildly like she owns the place, right?

    Of course then Enark and Seifer decide to do just that. "Sei--..." WHOOOSH up he goes. She's left briefly gaping, but her feet begin to move a split-second before Priscilla gives the command. Right up after him, she vaults straight up through the trap door and SOMEHOW manuevers through her fall to land off to the side...

    ... Just in time to hear his declaration. Even as her combat instincts have her madly scanning the area for the trouble and readying to react, she can't help but crack an appreciative grin for the bravado. Even if it's the kind of thing that she's gotten chastised for...

Kushiko has posed:
With the mapping largely completed in many ways, the Tenno has moved back towards somewhat more 'normal' traversing, slightly less crazy ninja tricks as the paths forward resolve into less aritechture for her to scurry about in.

And then come those whispers. Even without explicit familiarty of this place, instinct screams at Kushiko not to do anything towards any of these invitations, these objects. Something feels *wrong* and it's niggling at her more esoteric senses, but not in any way she can readily *use*. Such is the issue when one's mind is the mush it sometimes is. The whispers are something that she focuses on blocking out through her own, meditative practices, focusing her senses into a honed blade to disperse the echoes and keep her mind on the objective.

In either event this doesn't change her from staying as readied as could be. Helios' central 'eye' starts rapidly spinning as though it were attempting to use it's systems to assess possible hostile locations going forward through it's advanced sensors. >Does sound like fighting's going on up there. And more.< is Kushiko's voice projection through the Void, allowing it to be heard either by radio or just directed towards people. It's weird.

Ephemeral and without presence as that sound was, Valkyr appears to be glancing towards the descending stairs--right, unfortunately, before Seifer decides to take matters into his own hands with his annoyance regarding the whispers. Well. That does make one decision. As Seifer ascends, Valkyr turns towards the downward stairs. She's pretty good in a straight fight, but her abiltiy to recon and move about stealthily *until* that straight fight is unavoidable is what leads her to that descending stair instead.

Seifer should be able to handle himself. He wouldn't be a Concord member if he wasn't, and there are others who are undoubtedly capable of assisting him, yes?

Least that's the nominal logic between her and the Lotus. >Continuing reconnisance. Don't want anything to come from an angle we don't have covered, if there *is* anything. Karal, please keep an eye on him.<

Hey, all that noise might be a sufficiently impromptu distraction. Bonus.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is is aware of some sounds of movment ot she thinks she heads something. She knows it's likely going to get messy and she hears a whisper, she's not sure if sh can make them out. She has her sword and shield out now as she presses onwwards and she looks to be very wary here. She will keep with the Seifer shouting and yelling at whatever is behind all these whispers. She lets out a started noise and then moves to chase after the crazy Knight. Let's be honest in some ways she's very much like Seifer in some ways. Off she fgoes to try and keep him from getting killed because like hell she'll not let anyone drop in a party she's in, if she has anything to say about it, right?

"Damn it Seifer! Don't breka formation like that!"

Count Kord has posed:
    The sound of the thing in here becomes distinct from the sound of whatever Kord was listening to before. It is ... evil. Kord's nerves go frayed the instant the sound starts to grow louder, the tension in him evident in how heavy his footfalls get and how aggressive he seems to be. Once they reach the dual stairwells, he is already on his way to continue downward when he hears the sound of Seifer rushing upward to meet the racket up through the trap door.

    His stomach leaps into his throat. He turns his head to regard Priscilla, who orders others to go after Seifer. He frowns behind his mask and curses to himself, many of the curses being pokemon-themed lest we forget what world he comes from. He doesn't follow them, of course, and tries to continue onward to check out the place.

    "These new whispers are different," he tells the others over the chaos of things turning chaotic at the drop of a hat, "You really need to stop him." He offers further discussion about this over tactical bands, clarifying that the voice he hears and this new one are different ones altogether.

    He mutters to himself, "I am going to go mad from all these damned voices," but advances nonetheless.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Enark whirls around when he hears Priscilla's voice suddenly, having thought she was further ahead, and in the process of listening and nodding whirls around again when he is nudged. Fidgeting nervously, he says, "Yes, well--" But then he whirls around AGAIN as Seifer charges up the stairs and smashes through the trapdoor. He is totally flabbergasted. "No what why!" he yells, starting to run up after him only to stop when he realizes compounding one mistake with another probably isn't going to fix things and that he is more likely to die up there than basically anyone else present.

    In Enark's hesitance, Seifer has all the time in the world to burst into a large room filled with fog and the sounds of battle, even as others are ordered up after him. Initially, it's just a room of indeterminate size beyond 'probably very large', with no sign of combatants immediately visible, just this thick fog swirling all around. But the sounds of combat can be heard, yells of effort, screams of pain, the clashing of weapons on weapons, the rattle of armor.

    And then out of the fog, an opponent charges Seifer, sword raised, offering a battle cry as greeting before trying to cut him down! More follow, but their skill is such that while they are clearly warriors, Seifer should have no trouble facing them and defeating them. Slicing them, piercing them, and avoiding their blows.

    But then more appear. Figures in armor from all eras and cultures, weapons of exotic designs, fighters large and small, never a face to be seen, never a word exchanged beyond yelling murderously. Whoever else is fightign in here, it seems that there are plenty of challenges to come after a new swordsman, to test his mettle.

    Isn't that great? Even as Karal and Tomoe charge in after Seifer to help him, and Staren is ordered along as well, they seem to be able to stand together and overcome the onslaught no matter how many come their way. They are heroes! They are strong! They are proving their worth against dozens of enemies, one after another!

    They are what true knights should be! They could stand against this tide forever, they are... They are... Where's all this blood coming from? Are they bleeding? Were they nicked a little bit? Adrenaline dulling the pain? Or maybe there's puddles of blood forming on the floor from all the foes they've defeated, and it's splashing up onto them? Yes, that seems more likely.

    With foes like this, there can be no way they'd get seriously injured. And as soon as it's thought, or even almost-thought, the skill level of the enemies increases. Not too much. Enough to make them a challenge. To make the fighters able to test themselves truly, to exert their full skill and measure. And every skilled enemy they take down is replaced by another, just a little bit more skilled. A little bit more used to their fighting style, a little bit of a better match, forcing the Elites to improve and adapt as well.

    Though it's odd how they keep getting colder even as their blood runs hotter. And it's odd how the voices of those downstairs are so muted and distant despite being right there. Odd, but hardly important next to the fight.

    Right?

Carna (974) has posed:
    Carna is not going upstairs. She is staying down here with the crossbow she was given for the holidays ready to use, to put bolts in the first non-friendly thing he sees come down the stairs. If anything follows her allies on the way down, they are getting shot full of holes. Enark stands by, already waving reanimated spells in preparation to heal anyone who is injured.

    As Kushiko descends the stairs, the walls covered in mold growing denser with blackness as she goes, she may hear water below her. Or at least some kind of liquid. It looks like there's some kind of underground river of sorts, with overflowing marble fountains sticking up out of the body of water, and stairs leading down into the depths.

    Greek architecture, though more like something out of a temple. It looks like there's statues down there, beneath the surface, though at first glance it might have been seen as the bodies of those chained there to drown, hands clasped together in prayer. But no, they're marble statues. And they look like...

    ...Has Kushiko seen those somewhere before? Wasn't a giant statue of that woman standing in the Grand Gallery, inside the Tower of Escher? In that vast art gallery where the reproduction of Priscilla's painting was encountered?

    It doens't look like there's an immediate way down here for now, and if the source of this mold is here, then the water might not be safe to touch. But it's an interesting discovery.

    It also indicates the double doors they found might indeed be the way forward.

Staren has posed:
    Staren rushes after when ordered ahead. He hesitates, briefly, as the enemies first appear, then joins the fray.

    He wouldn't mistake blood on the outside of his armor for his own. It's not strange to end up covered in enemies' blood, right?

    But as they keep coming, and they keep getting smarter... He's reminded of a simulation, tuning itself to their skill level.

    "Are these even real?! Or is this a trick to tire us out and waste resources? Maybe they're magic projections that can't leave this room or something!" Still, no point in actually leaving to test that theory unless everyone else does. "Why are none of them shouting an alarm? Something's wrong here!"

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     The trick with Seifer is that he isn't actually battle-hungry. A *lot* of people make that mistake; they hear Seifer talk and be loud and brash, and they think that all Seifer Almasy wants is to beat people up and feel good about himself. Doubly so if they've seen him interact with his peers; he's a bully, and he throws his weight and skill around among SeeD because of it. Given his skill with arms, people also suspect that he's very into violence, especially the kind where you get to kill lots of people who don't matter.

     That's the mistake everybody, everywhere, makes. Even this weird, horrible place.

     As the enemies start flowing in, Seifer's swordplay is literally immaculate. It is a work of art unto itself, something supernatural that sort of defies explanation. There's no magic, there's no science, there's nothing but pure, raw, unbelievable skill on display as Seifer's blade winds its way through his opponents one by one, then en masse, then en horde. His blade turns their blades back upon them. His strikes are not strikes but parries of a most impossible nature, reversing attacks as casually as most people walk down the street. This, then, is the same way he killed Odin, the artistic blade style that slaughtered a god of swords /with his own sword/. These warriors don't have enough to touch him. He stays near Lin, every bit the dashing knight he never appears to be, every bit the protective gentleman he never sounds like whenever he opens his mouth.

     For a little bit, it's exciting. A knight defending a beautiful maiden from a horde of ravenous enemies. Also Staren is there, but that seems to be a theme with Seifer's life lately. If Seifer was daydreaming, Staren would probably show up in those daydreams to explain to him how he was unbuttoning his shirt improperly or something. Aside from Staren, everything is pretty much perfect.

     And then the cracks start to show.

     Seifer's lips turn downwards into a frown. His swordplay doesn't stop, but he's not expending much effort /anyway/; he's really just sort of masterfully turning other peoples' blades in on them for stunning lethal blows.

     And he's *not taking damage*.

     It's not hurting him. It's not testing him. It's not /challenging/ him like Squall does. It's not giving him that feeling of triumph he had when he carved into Odin's perfect Zantetsuken at the last possible second and sent it carving back through the great god like the divine force of essential swordsmanship was so much /butter/. It's...it's...

     It's just...slaughter.

     "/Damn/, this is boring! Don't you guys have a boss I can cut to, huh?!" Seifer demands loudly, "Come on, come on! Even that damn chicken-wuss could land a *punch* on me!"

     He glances over at Karal as she shouts over the radio.

     He cracks a smile. Okay, well, at least /she/ was happy.

Karal Rei Lin (984) has posed:
GAAAAAAAH!!! Lin wasn't expecting to be rushed by armored warriors from NOWHERE! Or to be surrounded by mists. But something in her SINGS at this turn of events. Even as she ducks under a few blows, comes in low and cuts her opponent across the belly with a lightning-quick draw cut. The air around her almost seems to swirl and tighten, becoming tenser than a wound spring as she drops into a practiced sword stance. Single Point Shining Into the Void Form...

    More and more foes emerge from the mists and the fog, but she merely grins. The challenge here is just TOO TEMPTING for her blazing spirit. NEVER has she had the OPPORTUNITY to cut loose against opponents that were seriously CHALLENGING in such a form. Fellow weapon users, instead of giant monsters?

    Now the freakishness of her style shows itself in full force. She moves like a ghost through the mist, leaving afterimages. More than once her sword appears to be in several places at the same time or nowhere at all as foes fall to pieces around her. Close shave follows close shave and speedy clash follows speedy clash. It's an uproarious mess of flowing steel. Soon the mists are challenged by a furious storm of sunlight rushing about Lin, who's grinning like a mad war god amidst the carnage.

    After a few hundred enemies though, she's... well, it turns out, Lin doesn't bleed much. Even the few nicks and the one stab that got into her... don't really seem to be slowing her down.

    The battle rush fades and the murderous intent flaring from her starts to dwindle. She backflips a few times and ends up back-to-back with Seifer.

    Unlike Seifer, apparently Lin -really does love a good battle for the hell of it.- nameless, faceless enemies formed of magic that push her into really exerting herself like this?

    She'd probably stay here for days on end... except...

    "Alright--" CLANG! She parries off a guy and kicks him back into a few other dudes in the mist... "Not so boring, but it's starting to freak me out... can't stay separated for long..."

    But there's a wistful air to her words. She REALLY would love to stay here about ten more minutes. Even if the foes are starting to wear her down... "Back through the door, don't think they'll follow!"

Tomoe has posed:
Look what you have done Seifer, you have women charging after you. Thankfully neither are yelling the word rage at you, She keeps moving and will be ready to engage as they move head soon they find themselves under attack, her sword goes out, her shield. She blocks when he can but Tomoe isn't getting off this unharmed she's going to be dealing with the feedback. She keeps fighting but in the back of her mind? She wonders how it ever came to this for her? She was knee deep in dead now and it was ... normal to her. How did that happen?

She keeps fighting but she wonder is this wave will ever end?

"I don't like this! It feels like a survival wave game! You can't win those!"

She looks to Seifer and she looks to Karal and Seifer. Whatever happen she's not going to just leave them there. She's always the last one out as it were. Or that's how it should be.

Count Kord has posed:
    As the sounds of battle grow more intense up above, Kord finds himself stopping to stare up in that direction. He makes a token attempt or two to demand for the others to come down from there. Well... the Concord victims among them, at least, because he actually doesn't care if the others get killed. He gave ample warnings.

    He is about to go up there to try to drag them out of the trap when it becomes clear that his boss is going to do so. He breathes a sigh to himself and turns to head toward the doors that are obviously the real way to progress. His steps are methodical and he is liable to open the doors and head through without those that became ensnared in the nefarious web of the creature they are advancing toward.

    He'll wait for them on the other side, at least. He's not a complete idiot.

Priscilla has posed:
    Priscilla listens intently to the radio, being left playing tactical coordinator for a little while. The floor below is a statuary, and a dead end. Its resemblance to the Tower of Escher is something she will have to investigate, but not immediately alarming. The double doors are likely their path forward, being the only ones closed and a non-ascent. The whispers are aggravating, to the point she is near replying to them with frosty spite. The others have yet to return from upstairs, save an exclamation of bizarre rapture from Karal. Kord is very, very insistent that they come back down. Kord knows more about this place than any of them do. Priscilla doesn't want to waste any more time, make noise that could attract Luc and his martial henchmen, and has a responsibility to take care of these kids.

    Were the stairs a little dustier, there would be quite the storm on their steps, but the only thing that announces that Priscilla has come for the two (and Staren (and Tomoe but that's not the joke)) is that, all of a sudden, the next wave charging for the gallant swordsmen, weapons raised, voices bellowing and murderous, feet pounding and blades glinting, are swept off their feet in some hurricane force wind, swirled and tossed into the air in a perfect arc, like so much sand.

    Except it doesn't look to be a hurricane. Every one of the mooks is all but obliterated by said wind, cleanly ripped through from start to end of their formation, and showering blood like rain; a lot of blood; way, way more blood than there should be, like their bodies are forcefully expelling every last drop like gory red fireworks, only allowing so much splattered flesh to thump back to earth. The gap left in the horde is multiple times someone's arm's reach, like someone just deleted a chunk of it.

    Priscilla reveals herself. Not the roughly mortal guise that is convenient for daily socialization and navigating cramped hallways, but her true, half-divine, half-dragon size, triple that of the others. The scythe has done /specifically/ what a scythe is /actually/ meant to do, and that is 'reap a huge area of things at waist level', and she is holding it as such. Actually, the scythe draws a little too much attention to itself. In this place of whispering dark and mind-bending death, its weirdly organic, silvery edge, is like a razor thin island of utter tranquillity. Not in a calm, peaceful way, so much as the blood-freezing moment where time stops in panic way.

    "Back down. Now." she utters, sternly, and with little patience. If anyone lags, she will physically swat them back down the stairs with her tail, now about as wide as someone's torso, and get more physical if someone hasn't gotten the message, only following them after.

Kushiko has posed:
If Valkyr could properly mimic Kushiko's reaction to what she finds, she absolutely would, seeing a concerned frown would be the beginnings of it. There's got to be a proper meaning to it, and she gives Helios a slight bob of her head; the gesture indicating to the sentinel drone to conduct a full mimeographic scan so it could be reproduced later holographically.

And while Helios does that, Valkyr very tentatively steps forward to allow the Tenno joined with her to view more personally, to say nothing of the Lotus' analysis. <"Be careful. You won't be able to go further into that water. Initial analysis suggests your Warframe won't be able to handle it without specialized protection, and Ordis cannot issue you your Archwing, which may be the best option for you"> As to others, well, there's probably going to be other options.

Really, what she's doing at first is seeing if those *are* bodies she thinks she sees, and then the purple-black colored Warframe just kind of stops cold. Okay. That's... a little bit unusual to put it mildly. Her curiosity is not given the opportunity to sate itself, as her Warframe's sensors warn her of the harm that the water may be, given the mold that's present here.

Add in the lack of voices and other notions, while this place would warrant exploration, now was not the chance to, and thusly did Valkyr double back once she'd completed her scans--including a bioanalysis sampling of the mold--towards where the group had split. To the double doors, though she was keeping first defensive position at the stair split for the others to return: not to mention support Carna, Enark and Shadow.

Besides, with the rampant deathdealing some others have done, she's content to hold herself in reserve. For now.

Karal Rei Lin (984) has posed:
Lin was ALREADY hunting for the trapdoor, so when the air shifts about weirdly she freezes in place. Priscilla may be invisible, but the presence of SOMETHING moving around unseen has Lin's heckles up. The shifting air where there should not be shifting air is apparently enough for the Dawn Caste's sharpened senses.

    WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH! ... There goes an awful lot of enemies. "Eeehhhgh..." Well, that gives her the opening she needed. Finally given a chance for a breather she takes a step back, sheathes her weapon and rubs her stabbed arm. It's bloodied, but nowhere near ENOUGH blood.

    Ohhhh hey, it's Priscilla. Lin offers a chagrined grin - sliiiiiiightly leery of her massive form - and retreats. "Thanks for the breather... they weren't stopping!" ALthough Seifer gets slapped, she doesn't wait long enough for that and dives through the door herself.

    She HAD been trying to do that... but was hesitant to do that when surrounded by foes.

Staren has posed:
    Once everyone agrees that retreating is the best course of action, Staren runs for the door. Hopefully their guess is right!

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     Seifer gets knocked pretty much flat on his ass by the tail. That tail. It sends him sprawling backwards out of the trap door, and he lands, somewhat unceremoniously, on the ground. "Dammit! Ow!"

     He stands up, cracking his back. That is more damage than he took the entire fight, which is both kind of exciting in its own way (he has a boss very worth respecting as well as pretty) and a little bit infuriating (his enemies didn't do anything to him anyway so it wasn't *real* danger). But he only grumbles a bit as he shoalsthers his Gunblade (he really needs a better word for that).

     "Ahh...none of those guys were a real challenge anyway," he consoles himself openly, before the real horror sinks in.

     "...this place made me wish for fuckin' /Zell/ to show up!" He hisses.

     "This place is *the worst!* HEY!" Seifer shouts up at the trap door.

     Then he gives it the middle finger. "THAT'S WHAT I THINK OF YOUR SHIT!"

     A moment later, Seifer's hands are back in his pockets and he's back to that uncharacteristic degree of restraint.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Whatever their source, there seems to be no end to them, and whatever their purpose, it is likely not of any benefit to the Elites. Infact, it's quite the insidious trap for one who would charge into the middle of a battle simply because of the draw that fighting brings. An appeal to their soul as a warrior, that traps them in very situation they sought out, giving them what they think they want.

    However, even if Seifer's true intentions and character are not that precisely, the opposition seems to change almost on-demand to give him what he is after. A larger figure comes forth, tall, imposingly dark and DISTINCT in the uncertainty of this foggy soup. A Black Knight of sorts, spiked mace in hand, shield at the ready. The 'boss' that Seifer seeks, perhaps? The empty slits in his helmet emit a deep, masculine bellow of rage and battle fury as he charges in, seemingly prepared to lead with his mace, but instead striking out with a shield bash with the mace following through afterwards from behind the barrier.

    As Karal starts hunting for the trap door, the skill level of the enemies abruptly goes from 'increasingly challenging' to 'YOU NEED TO FIGHT TO DEFEND YOURSELF NOW OR YOU WILL DIE'. The aggression being demonstrated before is nothing as several dozens warriors charge in, trying to overwhelm her with blades and spears and arrows shooting out of the fog, and every other ancient weapon one can think of. The moment her back is turned, the moment she tries to give up the fight, the fog and all its endless warriors go ballistic in their attempt to stop her. Giant-like warriors smash down clubs as large as trees between Seifer and Karal to separate them.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Knife-wielding fighters leap at Tomoe from behind as she cuts down others, appealing to the desire to be a knight in shining armor and save a lady in danger, even as the Black Knight bears down on Seifer. As Staren talks of retreat, he faces similar opposition. Snipers in the mist, throwing spears, hooked nets to entangle and weigh him down. Even as bodies fall by the multitude, the fighters in this room, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the room itself, seems intent on trying to keep them here. Changing and adapting to their desires, even if that means changing the priority from 'enjoyment' to 'survival'.

    And then Priscilla intercedes on the behalf of those trapped either by their will or against it. The hordes destroyed by Priscilla take time to replenish, all that blood on the floor gradually taking shape into warriors again. But in the aftermath of the demi-dragon's actions, some of the fog is pushed back, revealing some of what they're been trampling upon. Bodies. Bodies everywhere. unlike the faceless figures they've been fighting, these corpses, drained of blood, are probably those who came before them, died fighting endless opposition, and then became part of that opposition for future fighters.

    Never resting, always fighting, even when what gave them the ability to do so has been sucked out of them.

    The room is quiet for a short time, aside from any speech the Elites provide, but as the fog starts to move back into place, hiding the grisly sight once more, the sounds of ghosts fighting in the mist begins to return.

    It is fortunate, then, that they are in the process of getting the hell out of here. And upon doing so, Crow is stuck to the ceiling of the hallway, using its limbs to pull the trapdoor closed behind them with all of its friends on the SAFE (relatively) side of it.

    Enark immediately starts casting healing spells on everyone, not because everyone is injured, but because everyone is covered in blood and so they look terrible and in need of healing.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Carna turns to look at Kushiko as she returns from her scouting of the downstairs, and asks, "What is this about the Tower of Escher and statues?" She doesn't recall anything about that. And no one has told her yet still, so she hasn't written it down. Yay for keeping an ally in the dark about something she was dead during for nearly a year! Then she looks to Kord. She asks of the latter, "By voicing my concerns about the number of needless conflicts we have been caught up in, did I trigger what is known as a 'jinx'?" She then looks up at the ceiling, and down at the floor.

    "I know." she says seemingly to the air. "I'm aware. Be silent. I'll come claim it soon." Seems even Lanterns hear the voice. Enark is paler than usual, and has been less vocal than usual, so perhaps he is doing his best to ignore the voice as well. Crow seem completely normal.

    "Did you guys have fun?" =:D

    Meanwhile, as Kord pushes open the doors, he is greeted to the sight of a huge set of stairs leading down, and a large round room. The moment the double-doors are opened, the whispering voice changes from a tempter to a wave of despair that seeps into everything, trying to steal the strength right out of one's bones. The voice is no longre whispering, it is speaking directly into the brain.

    Everything you've built will come crashing down. Every connection you've made will be lost. Every person and thing you treasure will be taken from you. It'll happen again and again until you're alone again. This time, your new painting will having nothing but you. Forever.

    The voices in your head will replace you. Maybe they already have. Maybe you're just a puppet dancing to the tune of gods and prophecies. You think you're fighting fate? Making your own decisions? How do you know that? You don't. 'You' will never know.

    Memories? They can be manufactured as easily as your bodies. What happened yesterday can't be proven to have ever happened. You could have died a billion times and not even known about it. Infact, isn't that what already happened? You'll die and die and die and there will never be a moment when you'll know for certain you aren't just the latest in a long line of corpses pretending to be a person.

    Tailor-made messages of despair, tearing down every insecurity, peeling back every layer of defense, digging and digging. King Arthur and his knights were guarding this thing. They were enduring this for so long, without going mad.

    They've been here like ten minutes and some are probably about ready to consider bashing their heads against the wall to shut out the voice.

Carna (974) has posed:
    But down there, at the bottom of the stairs, is a round room. And floating above a floor covered in drained grates, is a ball of chains. Chains that run back up into the ceiling, and out to the walls, suspending the orb above the ground. Flaming blood pours out of it, molten and sizzling, flowing into the grates. The feeling of despair, the voice, it's coming from... That.

Kushiko has posed:
At first, Kushiko seems puzzled, >"... did *no one tell you*... urgh. Carna, I'll fill you in on everything later. I assumed Enark would. It was after that death and those mirrors..."< A pause. >"I think."< Either way, she's very, /very/ much apologetic when she actually says this, and even now the Lotus is compiling that information for that explicit purpose. Before all this *happened* with the multiversal reordering.

For what it's worth, as much as Kushiko might -hear- the voice, she's been doing her best to actually tune it out somewhat--and then people are coming down from the upstairs. And the blood. And the 'smell' of death she can pick up on. So to speak. Someone like her knows when there's been death, even instinctively up there, taking place long before they had come here.

And then, the voices.

On one hand, there's something that she's vaguely familiar with in this regard--seeing the bodies, seeing herself, seeing multitudes of others from before, in the Mirror Mimic Painting thing. They needed to eventually look into that too, didn't they? Problem is, the Warframe... that Transference, that doesn't make them invulnerable. It's easy for the Tenno Operators to sometimes think that at times. It's kind of a bad thing when one doesn't /have/ memories--at least, seemingly. There's parts of Kushiko's mind that aren't hers to control, locked away and sealed by someone else.

It's in this, that the digging voices find both resistance and success. An agonized shriek erupts from Valkyr through a shockwave of buffeting air and strange light that looks like actual tidal waves rippling outward. Whether it was Valkyr's 'voice' or Kushiko's was hard to initially discern--it sounded... younger, somehow, before the Warframe abruptly dropped to it's knees, slumped forward slightly like a puppet with it's strings cut.

Priscilla has posed:
    Even if she had to tailswat Seifer out of the room after his recklessness, Priscilla got a few uninterrupted seconds of watching his swordplay. She will hardly praise him /now/, because that would send the wrong message, but she is most certainly interested.

    "I believeth that not the point." she sighs in his direction. "It is clearly a trap laid for those who wouldst wish to storm the castle by force; one that exploits warriors' hubris. They art presented with the enemies they believeth to dwell within the fortifications, and art provided with the simple and thoughtless task of fighting them to the last, held captive by their belief that the battle is near won, as the magic bleeds them slowly. That is more oft the way of Lumiere."

    The Tower of Escher is something Priscilla hasn't told Carna about specifically for the complicated context surrounding 'mercy killing my weird static double as part of a simulated time loop'. "The grand gallery at the highest we hath ascended thus far, was simply decorated as such. After thou were eaten." she says matter-of-factly, not stumbling over 'you got eaten' at all, for . . . obvious reasons.

    Then, almost right away, hearing that awful Lords-damned voice daring speak to her, never mind daring speak to her so audibly that likely anyone can hear, has Priscilla making her mind up already. a) Arthur and his knights must have been motivated out of sheer, determined spite for this thing, and b) she is so sick of it that she becomes blissfully armoured against the whispers just by how much she abruptly wants to murder its source.

    When Quiet World had done this to her, she had made the mistake of making herself vulnerable, by using her feelings and thinking of her friends. Priscilla has since learned to armour herself in contempt, and silence by force.

    "That thing." Priscilla states out loud, spraying a thick line of phantom blood across the floor with a flourish of her scythe, almost drowning out her words with the loud splatter. "I will slay it, and take its soul, and perhaps fashion them into a pair of boots, or something as fitting to be trod upon." Priscilla forges forward.

    Basically, she shields herself with her xenocidal hate for the Emprah, except she is the Emprah.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord carries on through the doors. He begins to walk down, moving with the pace of a man mindlessly plodding down one more dune in an endless desert. He listens to the voice of despair as it rings through his head. It coats his feelings in a thick sludge of black negativity. He could very well already be mad, the possibility does occur to him. Perhaps he is Yveltal trapped in the flesh of a man. Perhaps he is the puppet of darker things. Maybe he has died and doesn't know it.

    He thinks to his childhood. Flowing fields of grain. The happiness of men and Pokemon working together to forge a happy life. The intense struggle of fighting the very world to make this a possibility. He thinks on the first murmurs of Yveltal, when he was alone, and what it offered him and the promises it has honored over the years. Yveltal speaks through his head in this moment. Its voice is calm, cold, familiar. Like a parent speaking to a child, as it always has.

    You are #####. You were born my Son not for a destiny but to be given a choice. This being questions the sanctity of your very mind. What will you do? What will the dread Count decide?

    Kord reaches under his cape and pulls his scythe from its scabbard, unfolding it and gripping the haft with both hands so hard that his gauntlets creeeeeak. He experiences a fell emotion. Hatred. He has struggled hard not out of despair or cynicism, but because he has hope that he can bring his world out of the darkness. Yveltal didn't control him, it pushed him with valuable lessons and rewards. That by mastering the darkness himself, he can bring prosperity to the people of Bayern. Death does not have to be evil.

    "It is good that you have made this decision easy."

    He lunges at the Marble Guardian, the terrible being of Despair, and he tries to whip the scythe over his head and down through the chains. The weapon is, thankfully, designed to even be able to injure ghosts. It seems like he's lost his temper more than a little bit, timed for right after the Warframe has its meltdown over there. "Save some of it for a new cape!" he replies to Priscilla in his maddened, battle-hungry state.

Staren has posed:
    A threat that he'll lose everything. Villains have blustered as much. Staren simply thinks 'No.' back at the whispers.

    Voices in his head? What? It's true that free will is questionable and may be an illusion, but for various reasons it's best to act as if it's not.

    The threat that this entire situation could be manufactured... That it's a simulation, or that he's a copy, gives him pause. Noone's actually /tried/ that one on him before. But it's not a new idea. His father warned him about memory manipulation (OR DID HE?! But Staren remembers it, all the same.) That the answer was to trust yourself. As Staren has himself grown and found himself working with technology that can do such things, he's also come to grasp that copies are no less people than any other.

    It doesn't matter what's coming, or if fate is against him, or if he's been produced from whole cloth with fake memories. He /is/, and that's just as real as anyone can be. And he's here now, and they have a mission.

    And they seem to have found it.

    "So... what do we DO with it?!"

    After a moment, he adds, "Don't listen to it. Trust me, I've thought a lot about ethics and philosophy; all the shit it's saying doesn't matter." He looks across the faces of his allies here today, trying to discern if any /are/ having doubts.

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     It's funny. The louder the voices get, the less Seifer has trouble dealing with 'em. Once they're actually /understandable/, Seifer actually can...well, it's not /drown out/ but /not care/. It's like, the whispers are one thing, the nagging at the edge of his brain, the muttering in his ears, and the senses that someone is standing right behind him when, no, nobody is. *That*? That fucks with him. That fucks with him bad, because it's a feeling of powerlessness, putting him and his trained soldier instincts on edge.

     A voice telling him how much he sucks? Shit, he's been living with *that* since he was a kid, and his response now, as ever, is pretty much the same: to tell it that he is Seifer Almasy and he /completely rules/.

     It is twice as easy to ignore the niggling doubts and thundering voices in his brain here in particular, because he already *has* a voice in his head: Gilgamesh. So as the voices start circling around the drain and picking at his specific problems, his insecurities, his issues - how he failed to be a SeeD, how he might've let people /die/, and other, darker, deeper things he's never talked about, things that he barely admits to *himself* - as the pressure mounts and climbs, Gilgamesh makes himself useful. For the first time. Ever.

     Hello, strange new voice! I'm sorry to tell you this, but there is a strict one-per-customer limit here!

     Yes. Gilgamesh thinks in /yellow and purple polkadots/.

     Now you understand why Seifer always looks like he wants to kick somebody's ass.

     So Gilgamesh starts /talking/ at the horror. He starts telling it his life's story, because Gilgamesh will tell anyone his life story at the drop of a hat, and this thing is clearly interested in talking. It all started, he says, with a guy named Galuf-

     -and as this goes on, Seifer just increasingly looks more and more annoyed, because, while everybody else is getting a nice comfy mental assault that picks apart their fears and self-doubts and insecurities, Seifer Almasy is walking through the closest to literal hell he has ever been, listening to Gilgamesh narrate his own life in excruciating detail.

     He sort of wants to kill himself.

Karal Rei Lin (984) has posed:
This whole trip has been an episode in weird and freaky. Lin's still glowing after dropping through the trap door again, and it only dims down to a more personal size as she takes a good ten second breather. She's bloodied and bruised but the stab through her arm has, freakily enough, already stopped. She's covered in blood though - hers, and some of the other warriors... doesn't seem to care a lot about it though.

    If anything, she seems to be rather pleased, despite herself.

    That was BLOODY CATHARTIC in a hundred thousand ways she didn't know she was stressed.

    Though this all comes crashing down as the Whispers turn into full-blown Barbs. She staggers and leans against a wall, breathing harshly.

    The voice is particularly naggly with her. Did she really leave the village of her own accord to gain experience and avoid bringing trouble to them from faraway Prasad... or did she leave because she feared her fellows, the Anathema they'd think she is.... when, what do you know, here she is acting like the barbaric Forsaken mere moments ago?

    It's especially naggling because she can't simply deny it. There's kernels of truth there. So she quivers with teeth clenched and a growing expression of rage on her face.

    "Shut up, you noisy beast..."

    Let it not be said that Autochthon was not a brilliant inventor. Long ago the question was raised: what shall protect the frail mortal minds of the Gods' Chosen from their Titanic enemies?

    Young she might be, but so were those ancient heroes once. Lin grits her teeth and staggers upright. Once again her Caste Mark blazes. The waning anima reignites to a fiercer display.

    DOWN THE STAIRS they go. Down and down into the depths. But as she sharpens her will like a blade, said blade appears. Golden and gleaming like a torch, the Glorious Solar Saber is kept at the ready.

    Her will cannot hold out forever, but so long as her spirit burns the voice can make no further progress. "I don't care what this thing is... it needs to be ended!"

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe take very bit note of what Priscillia does the mooks are just /gone/ with the wind there. She looks at what might be blood? She doens't think about it she makes reayd to push ahead and ses that Priscillia is there in her true for and feels very tiny. She also knows better than to argue with Priscilla about something like this. She keeps moving and she now has to make on gouing head as she looks Lin then back to Priscilla.

She's going to keep moving and looking for other ways she might be able to get moving it wouldn't hopefully take too long.

"Seifer? Do be a bit more careful?! I can't do my job if you run off like that."

Tomoe didn't really find it that fun, but this was playing for keeps one way or another and it wa a game. The wors can be heard by her she looks around and reels t the message.

"Heh, just someone who crawled out of hole. I'm along for the ... ride where it takes me.

The bit on Memories? That leaves he to wonder a bit, and she shakes her head a little bit. No that's not true, if anything Lin confronting Tomoe before the Union died, about her problem but the voice keep teating at her mind. Tomeo grits her teeth.

"Get out, get out."

Uner her powers he mind is mrotal she's a mortal and they are in her head.

"Shut up."

Carna (974) has posed:
    Enark staggers, having to use the wall of the stairwell to descend, unable to walk down unassisted. Not WANTING to go down there. He feels weakened, his expression is pinched with emotion, sweat and tears running down his cheeks in equal measure. "It wasn't my fault... There was nothing I could do...!" he's muttering to himself even as he continues trying to put one foot in front of the other. Crow is zipping about along flat surfaces, evidencing concern but unable to do anything for anyone.

    Carna is going down the stairs relatively smoothly, but she also has her gaze fixed on that mass of bleeding chains. She is keeping her predatory instincts locked onto the source of her suffering. The cause of her despair. Their target.

    Some cloak themselves in rage and hate, or spite, or annoyance, or self-confidence. Some are being eaten up inside, those with weaker wills, with less experience dealing with this sort of thing. Some are driven by a pure determination to get what they want that they will endure anything to get there. Some are oblivious but worried about their friends.

    But there is one who is not here. One who has not been worn down by the voice so far. One who can provide support they need here. A plan arranged ahead of time, in secret, just in case it was needed.

    Carna reaches the bottom of the stairs, as Kord lashes out with his scythe, cutting into one of the chains wrapped tight and comprising the thing's 'body' (or coiled around whatever body is bleeding underneath them). The yells of despair into their brains stop abruptly, as though the thing were shocked, but that isn't the feeling they get now. There's an almost-psychic *click* as though a switch had just been flipped.

    As more chains start to be shed, and more flaming blood begins to pour out, something begins to stir inside that ball of metal and searing crimson.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Carna looks to Enark, what little of her face that can be seen taut. She manages to catch the Blue Scholar's eye. Enark, with difficulty, nods. Then she looks over her shoulder at Kushiko, or her frame at least. She isn't letting the monster take any more than that from her. She'll need all the allies she can get if she's going to achieve the desire that drives her. She can't have them dying on her.

    She looks to the monster again, reaches inside her cloak and pulls something out. She holds a gloved hand out in front of her, fist closed around something. "I am no knight. I do not aspire to be one. I am more likely to be the sort of person they would take up arms again and execute. A monster mimicking a person. Perhaps your whispers and screams were correct. But knights kept you here for countless eons without succumbing. And after what my friend Kushiko saw, I believe I know how."

    Then she opens her hand, and lets a shining crystal fall. It looks like the peak of one of those Shrines of Light...

    ...It hits the ground and explodes into a flare of bright white. When the light fades, a certain priestess should be joining them. "The influence of the divine. That is your cage. How fortunate I am to have both a friend who holds the influence of a god... And a friend so expert in the functions of mimics that even one he did not make, scavenged from a subway station, he can render useful to us."

Carna (974) has posed:
    A huge eye opens in the air above the ball of chains. The sensation it radiates is alien. Not some demonic tempter, not some undead monster, not a god, just something unspeakably inhuman that has been awoken by wound, by trespass, and by annoying prattling.

    The blood flow suddenly multiplies many fold, turning into a continuous waterfall that overburdens the drainage grates in the floor, resulting in the room starting to flood with flesh-melting fluids. It looks like they're on a time limit.

            MARBLE GUARDIAN

            CHAINS OF THE DUSK SUN

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     By the time they get to the place the monster is, Gilgamesh has just about hit the part where I said "And now we-

     And Seifer just is not having any of it anymore. He's done. He's fed up with the whole place. He's fed up with the mental traps, with the whispers, with the whispering, with the psychic bullshit, with the evil horror, with the creepy shadows, with the eyes in the hallway, with the brushes across the back of his neck, with Gilgamesh talking, with wishing Zell was here, with all of it. He's fed up with trying to keep Lin from losing her shit and berserker raging into a trap, he's fed up with Staren's very presence, he's just, man, he is just mad. Seifer is just *mad*.

     So when the boss reveals itself, and is ugly, creepy, horrible, loud, pulasting, and evil, and not like a human being or a mind trick or one of those conceptual bosses like friendship, Seifer is actually delighted.

     "FINALLY!" Seifer shouts, "HEY, GREG! SHUT UP AND DO SOMETHING USEFUL! We're runnin' on empty and this thing looks like a proper boss! We're on the clock; it's time to punch in!"

     The incessant prattle suddenly cuts off in Seifer's skull, and so too does the privileged glimpse inside it.

     Seifer draws Hyperion as a shadowy existence appears out of thin air behind him. It flicks into focus almost immediately - a tall, red-clad, grey-skinned, white-eyed torso, with three visible grey arms and three cardboard ones. The torso reaches out its three arms at the Chains of the Dusk Sun as Seifer levels his blade at it.

     "Let's see what you got, pal! 'cause I got a promise to keep to a real pretty girl and I ain't got any more time to waste on you!"

     Blue orbs suddenly come yanking out of the Chains of the Dusk Sun. They spin in the air until they land in the grey torso's three outstretched hands. The spectral grey torso smashes them together into a single, shining blue ball of light, and then *forces* the ball into Seifer's back. The red-and-grey ghost disappears back into Seifer's body.

Inga has posed:
A form appears in that flash of light. It is not a large form. It is, indeed, rather short, slightly hunched, and wielding nothing more threatening than a stick and a small knife. Destinctly Inga-shaped. But she's worn her red dress. She's prepared to get bloody. Inga is here to fling her blood around so that other's blood can remain inside their bodies. And if any gods are inclined to power her here, she is ready to recieve.

Inga looks around, getting her bearings. She smiles to those present. "Pleased to join you," she says, then sets eyes on the....thing. She wrinkles her nose and brings her knife against her arm, knicking the vein so that she can begin to work her magic. "Yes, I think we'll start with wards..."

So it begins. Those inclined to melee combat get warded first, a shimmering crimson barrier that absorbs some incoming damage and smells vaguely of the memory of honey.

Staren has posed:
    The voices tell him he'll be misunderstood, never accepted, that even she will betray him... He has to trust that what he's doing is right, and trust her.

    "Stand clear for a moment!" He warns... as soon as there's room, he fires off all of his missiles -- HEAT warheads creating piercing lances of physics. A half-dozen go for the ball of chains, and a half-dozen for the eye. That's hopefully a start!

    Since he has ranged weapons, he stays away from the bottom of the stairs. He doesn't want to see what that icky fluid will do to his armor.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord hit it with his scythe. As it turns out, this made it stop talking. He is very happy about that. It is very mad now, though, and bears down on him with the oppressive feeling of alien contempt like the embodiment of eldritch death. He manifests his wings, a pair of strange claw-tipped appendages meant solely to keep him in the air during a fight and capitalize on his elemental affinities. He makes some distance from the Marble Guardian but not before getting some of that acidic blood on him, and having to shake it off with a lot more pokemon-themed cursing. ('By the crossed eyes of Xerneas!!' He's a little rude about his cursing, and there's several more like that.)

    He picks a nice spot in the air to aim up at the floating eye with the bladed end of his scythe. He focuses Dark power through his body, and fires it like a wave. Appropriately, this is called Dark Pulse and because Kord is specialized in using these kinds of abilities, it comes with a nice big BOOM sound and a rush of wind that forces him to one of the walls of the room where he braces himself with his feet to keep from being smashed up against the wall, and to prepare to dodge quickly if the Marble Guardian retaliates against him somehow.

Priscilla has posed:
    Priscilla had not been aware that Carna had taken the crystal out of the /bonfire mimic/ grade thing she had figured out in the subway. This turns out to have been a tremendously clever idea. She doesn't fully understand the intricacies of what it means to use it like that, but she has an idea, and it makes her feel much better than they had come here with a significantly more organized plan in mind than she had assumed. It puts some confidence at her back. "Thou art a crafty corpse." Priscilla remarks to Carna. She feels proud of her Concord.

    One some level, though different from Seifer, she is relieved to see what the Marble Guardian is as well. Had it been something more human; more rooted in some intelligible desire and come from some conscious choice, its existence would be an affront of an entirely different nature. Priscilla sees it for what it is, however. As Lumiere goes, it is grotesque, malevolent, predatory, hideous and strange, but it is, ultimately, a sort of weapon. She weathers the eye, in no small part, because of an eye of her own.

    Kord seems to have the right idea. Priscilla is no more eager to hear the whispers return than he, and so the black-silver scythe, preposterously huge and wickedly deadly, spins around once, and comes swinging through the densest cluster of chains that can be lined up in one arc, set to clear them like spiderwebs. The blade, for some reason or another, seems to sing in some eerie fashion, like the reverberating echo at the edge of a glass, rising and falling in crescendo and pianissimo as it just keeps moving.

    Instead of the back and forth sweeps or the repeated hacking one would expect of a polearm or axe, Priscilla wields the thing like a perfectly balanced staff. Where it completes one swing, it smoothly turns over in her hand, flipping under or over across another set of chains, pivoting around her body at waist level to carve another, deftly exchanging hands in another ambidextrous spin to cleave yet more. Peculiar, mercury-coloured trails follow it, resolving as brief, flickering flakes of ghostly snow.

    Weirdly, if the chains severed with sparks and broken metal, they gush blood like severed veins instead. Does her weird power work on even this messed up mockery of 'life'?

Kushiko has posed:
--ELSEWHERE...

The young girl slumped uneasily out of the chair, eyes scrunched closed. The Somatic Link had been severed. Part of her felt what the voices had said, part of it had rejected the notion but there was something more troubling. The confluence of these factors proved too shocking, too much for her and--"WAKE UP please!"

Ordis' glitchy, disjointed voice. At least that was disjointed then as lucidity rejoined her in short order. "Ordis, wh--" The Cephalon didn't even give her time to finish the statement before he gushed, "Thank the *stars* Operator, I didn't know what to do! Something flowed back through the Link and you just shut down. Are you able to continue?" The girl grunted, shoving and pulling herself back into the chair. "... hope so, gonna... need to be." She held her forehead briefly, trying to shake off the migraine that threatened to overwhelm her. That pale Void energy began to flow once more. It was sheer luck, perhaps, that others were there. And that the place didn't move. She'd hate to try and reacquire her Warframe link on a fast moving object.

--BACK IN LUMIERE...

Energy violently surged around Valkyr for a few moments, or attempted to. The lights that had gone dim moments ago begin to buzz with activity. Were Kushiko any other Tenno, and were this any other Warframe, there's no doubt that she'd probably be a little woozy getting up. Thing is... Valkyr felt it, what those voices, what this Guardian did. So when Kushiko reaches back into her Warframe, in an instant, she knows, and feels again. That fiercely protective instinct for when Stalker nearly slew her at Hunhow's machinations.

All it takes, is that one moment. The flicker of a soul felt more strongly than anything yet. As if to say, 'let me help you. let's go together'. She rose, energy buffeting about in a radial band as she found herself upright, and even though she was eyeless, the presence of being looked at with gratefulness could be felt by Carna for her willing defense.

And then she howled--once, that her rallying Warcry as given by the Warframe's strange systems could bolster the defenses of all--and increase one's melee attack speed and maybe diminish the Marble Guardian's own. If it didn't it didn't matter as she threw out her hands, bundling up the furor and berserk rage to focus it into a single point.

That second howl was *felt*, not heard as it heralded Hysteria Claws of energy stretched out from each finger as the Warframed wreathed itself with energy, imbuing herself into a truly vicious ball of rage that launched herself into the air like a cannonball, claws pointed outward that made her resemble a sawblade as she careened for the Marble Guardian for it's most grievous offenses.

To say Kushiko-Valkyr was pissed may be a tiny understatement.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is not so ready for a fight as she normally was she has that void in her head even as she keeps going. "I couldn't save them... shut up I had no choice but to watch! I was impaled to a tree..." Tomoe is clearly recalling something horrible, that this voice has dragged up. She keeps going the words keep coming the horrible memories keep coming but as they move on they encounter the horror behind it she grips her blade and tries to ready her self as Seifer makes his move? She does so and she's now rapidly trying to close on the thing and attack it with Dawnbreaker. Staren's starting to shoot his missiles a moment before and she comes in right after the blasts from them start to fade. She doesn't think about the liquid she'll focus on attacking, but keeps enough sense to keep out of the goop on the ground where she can. There might be a tell to using them but this thing? It's never seen them before. Her body moves with inhuman speed as she makes the attacks, the blade in her hand striking out as she goes.

Karal Rei Lin (984) has posed:
Into a chamber of death and AWFULTHINGS Lin strolls. Teeth still grinding like a millstone and knuckles WHITE from gripping the sunblade she carries. Even as horrific fluids drench the floor and spill about she doesn't flinch. Instead... she returns to the previous stance.

    She's already a bit winded from before, but the chance to make good her vengeance against this horrific thing has rekindled her drive.

    But... what to hit? The thing's form gives her a hellish headache. Chains, blood.. giant floating eye?

    "HAAAAAIT!!"

    She does something that LOOKS really stupid.

    She just HURLS the glowing sunblade up at the big eye, letting it spin around the center of gravity. For its brief flight it appears much like a buzzsaw...

Carna (974) has posed:
    Seifer draws upon the twisted power of the Marble Guardian. It's like pouring himself a cup of corruption from a bottle of bloody wine. The monster itself is... Hollow. A vessel of some kind. A container, which he has just siphoned some of its contents from. A shell, which a different monster has been used to fill. Weird. Probably not something he's going to spend much time philosophizing on, especially not right when he gets flaming blood chain powers.

    The barriers that Inga puts up seem to quite useful. Anyone affected by one of her wards suffers less from molten blood injuries than they would otherwise. When some of the snapped chains that continue to unwind from the main sphere lash out, just as Seifer warned them, force that might be bone-crushing is merely painful and perhaps bruise-causing. Carna didn't know the monster would be weak to the divine when she came in here. But a temple underneath this castle? With statues that reminded her of the goddess who is Priscilla's mother? Statues that were also present in Escher, at a time she was not available to witness them? That speaks of idols of some kind. Something that people worship. It was a bit of a leap in logic, and she planned to call upon Inga anyway, but now Inga is doubly useful, beyond the value she already had. Because the Lantern's guess seems to have been right.

    This monster that only pretends at divinity is vulnerable to the real thing.

    Staren's missiles seem effective no matter the target, though strikes to the eye earn more direct retaliation than the continued increase in the rate of blood filling the room or targeting by chains. The eye widens when the missiles explode against its surface, blood pouring from its base like tears, and a beam of concentrated misery shooting out at Staren in return. The missiles that hit the chains blow metal fragments and blood every which way, hastening both the rate of unraveling and the rate of blood flow. The eye seems a little bit dimmer after its attack.

    Kord's attack against the eye earns a similar response to Staren's. First the eye suffers damage of some kind (presumably. Beyond bleeding it doesn't appear injured), then it fires a beam of emotional energy with the potency of a laser. But Kord is ready to move, and if he evades successfully, the eye is dimmer still, almost entirely black. It darts wildly around the room, trying to locate targets it might be having trouble seeing.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Priscilla's scythe severs metal easily, enchanted to contain a monster or not. The amount of blood that now flows from the monster as layer after layer is peeled away, is such that there is no more escaping it. The entire floor is ankle deep in blood that's on fire. But it seems like they're getting closer to its core. The scythe even seems to be drawing out whatever it is, bit by bit, instead of making them dig for it--

    An arm of metal and blood woven together explodes out the side, chains in place of muscle and blood in place of flesh clawing at the floor. The hand uses its palm to sweep through the room and send a wave of blood at those in its path.

    Carna is near to Kushiko as the latter returns. She is glad that the matter was resolved, as the Lantern lacks the technical prowess to do anything about restoring her ally otherwise. It also frees her up from guard duty, allowing her to do more than stand on the bottom step of the stairs while everyone else has to wade through stuff that is burning their skin off (or eating away at armor, or WHATEVER). Further, the power that Kushiko unleashes gives Carna an increased ferocity and power when she finally enters the fray, intent not just on continuing to make Priscilla proud of her growth as a person, her progression from scavenger to tactician, but upon getting to the center of that monster and eating whatever is there.

    That's how she'll get the strength to reach the end of her journey.

    So she charges out into the blood pool, slightly slowed by the liquid resistance, but moving faster than she wuld otherwise thanks to the wards of Inga and the speed boost of Kushiko, and her predatory intent to KILL her prey. Her feet and shins are already screaming at her as dead flesh burns and boils, but she leaps into the air, not to escape the pain, but to try to land on top of the monster, even if it means putting herself directly into that waterfall of blood, and start trying to carve her way inside with rapid stabs and slashes of her knives.

    At the same time, Tomoe cleaves into the chains on the opposite side of the monster, cause it to slough them off like rotten flesh, even as a second arm of steel and blood bursts out, pounding its fist into the ground in frustration or pain or to get feeling back after being bound for so long. The other hand points swings at the Elites, and Tomoe who is closest, sending not a wave of blood but a series of long flaming chains around the room. They come in sequence. One in the middle, one low, and one high.

Carna (974) has posed:
    The thrown sword from Karal sends sparks and blood flying as it carves across the surface of the giant eye that hovers over a much-diminished ball of chains (now with arms). The eye sends out one last blast of suffering at the Solar, and then is so completely black that there is no chance of it seeing anything with that organ. Its attacks grow correspondingly inaccurate and dependent upon area-wide effects to deal damage.

    And then, as people suffer whatever injuries they have so far, Enark shows why he was brought along, as water serpents begin circling around his allies, drawing away the scalding blood and practically washing their wounds away as well. Sure, they'll continue to be hurt as long as they stay in the blood, and the battle goes on, but with direct healing, area healing, and heals-over-time, it seems that they'll be able to keep fighting until the end.

    And as everyone battles this horrifying monster (Crow is yelling encouragement from the sidelines, which is like fighting, but with one's voice), they gradually cut away layer after layer, fill the room with more and more blood, and eventually the 20 foot diameter sphere is whittled down to a single bloody core, from which pulsating meet falls away, to expose... A perfectly golden and gleaming cup, shining brilliantly. A...

    ...Grail?

    The Grail quickly starts to dim, and then corrode, and then fall apart. The arms that grew from it fall into the waist-deep blood, which has already cooled and lost its burning properties, with gross splashes.

    It seems they have... Killed a Marble Guardian. There's still something here though. Where the Grail used to be, floating in its remains. A massive amount of Dead Lights flows to everyone present, filling them with the chill sensation of fragments of spiritual energy, but that core of the monster remains.

    Carna looks around, looks at her hat that fell off and drifts in the pool she's standing in, looks at everyone present, and sees... Just about everyone except Enark and Crow (and maybe Inga)...

    "We all look bloody awful." Haaaaaaah! See? She can do jokes.

Inga has posed:
Inga is not wearing armor. Inga is wearing a dress. A dress that's hem is disintigrating in the flaming blood that continues to flow from this abomination. While Inga has remarkable regeneration abilities, this /hurts/ and she can't stand in it without taking damage. It is absolutely mind-numbingly painful.

Just when Inga is about to heal herself, Enark casts a spell it seems, that heals them all. Now /that/ is remarkable.

It seems they will not need much of this onslaught, for whatever it is is quickly falling to their combined assault. Inga didn't have have to hit it with lightning, which she might be slighly sad about.

What is beneath it all, that thing she sensed...is a cup.

Inga looks flabbergasted.

Count Kord has posed:
    A beam of pure emotion clips Kord in retaliation for his attack. He feels irrational despair course through his being and crash up against the 50-odd years of life experience where he has been assured and reassured and reinforced in his ways. He isn't brought down but he will be reeling later when he's alone with his thoughts.

    You are never alone.

    "Somehow, that's not comforting," he says aloud as he dips and rises and weaves out of the way of whipping chains so that he doesn't get destroyed. Eventually the onslaught of heroic violence brings the monster down until there's the Grail, the embodiment of greed and temptation and the despair of being crushed by one's own failures. He floats there in the air as it crumbles... and then has to come in for a landing when the Dead Lights surge into him. He is hit with quite a lot of them and being attuned to death means he feels them a lot more than the average joe. He ends up having to kneel there, his senses rattled by the surge of seemingly untouchable energy.

    "I've looked worse," Kord replies to Carna. He looks scorched and bloody and exhausted, and this isn't even the worst he's looked. "Who do we know that can clean the dregs of liquid despair out of my cape?" he asks around, apparently not joking as he plucks at the ostentatious article and fusses over all the stains and burns in it.

Staren has posed:
    Staren's forcefield together with Inga's ward seems to be sufficient protection from the chains. The beam of concentrated... whatever, though, that eats away at the forcefield. Likewise the molten blood... Now the forcefield is visible constantly, and the way it's changing from amber to white seems to suggest that's not good for it. Staren jumps, drops the field for a split-second to fire both beam cannons and his laser rifle simultaneously at the strange chainsphere, then the field comes back on and he lands in the molten blood. The discs on his chestplate are starting to smoke...

    And then the fight is over. The prize is a... grail? Staren drops his field when he notices the blood is cool, and looks around warily, and at himself, curious what, if anything, the dead lights did. "I swear, it better not grant wishes or something..."

Tomoe has posed:
This place is a hell the dead do haunt Tomoe, they haunt her so much, watching people seemingly explode into light and knowing thier brains had been cooked. The Multiverse all of it the monter had dug too deep into Tomoe and she's just fighting almost uncontrolled now. This does leave her open but she may be harder to stop as she just keeps going. No words, no banter nothing she just keeps attcking the chians go and Tomoe seems to be very focused on destrying? Killing? Making this thing go away? It doen't matter it just had to be gone and Tomoe who ends up caguh by the thing and she's sent back ahrd skidding cross the floor, with a veyr nasty break in her avatar reverting to wireframe.

She's trying to rise but that last hit was pretty bad there.

"You...thing...have...no...place in ... any world..."

Kushiko has posed:
If Kushiko-Valkyr cuts chains on the way to her prey, that's all well and good. If someone is helped on the way to taking down this Marble Guardian, this too, is all well and good. Alarmingly if not worrisome (for the Guardian) is that this Hysteria of hers can prove to be alarmingly *focused* as she lands atop the eye--at least, intermittently.

And she just starts thrusting. Clawed hands into the Eye, again and again, a literal blur of lilac light, burning away the blood at some points, but others it's just. Viciously making *chunks* flay out of her chosen expanse. What's really kind of horrifying for onlookers isn't *what* she's doing, it's how fast she's doing it. Raking claws, thrusting claws, all of it becomes a blur save to the most experienced combatants, and even then it's difficult to guess *how fast* she's going. Berserker is right when it comes to describing Valkyr.

Whatever pain the Marble Guardian's able to inflict by way of it's caustic aspect seems to not *matter* to Valkyr whilst she's channeling Hysteria. Chains, it doesn't matter. Enark's aid does ensure the delayed aspect to what she does to render herself so unassailable doesn't cause a nasty feedback effect to her.

Frankly, it's only when the monster grows still amidst flaying and slicing and gouging blows that she seems inclined to not let singleminded furor guide her. The blood she was covered in finally begins to sizzle off. Even some got on Helios, which had taken to being slice and dicey with parts of itself. Huh.

<"Should see the other guy,"> Kushiko manages to deadpan out, half crouched and letting that wonderous fury wash over her still--just in case something else came to attack them. She'd have to let herself recover soon enough though. Or it's just that she's still wary, and Valkyr herself is seething over this whole incident.

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     Like all JRPG or Dark Souls bosses, once you know the trick, the monster dies easy. Seifer barely has to lift a finger, which denies him the satisfaction of murdering the boss with its own weapon, but preserves a use of the Drawn toy for later, so it's basically a win-win.

     "Fuck this place," Seifer says loudly to nobody as he's covered in blood and splattered in grime. He wipes himself down as best he can. This is not very much, but he does the best he can.

     He hates this place. He hates this place so much he is determined to find a way to spite it. Before he came here, the worst he had to deal with was a tower full of tiny green assholes who stab you with grudges. Now he's been through the closest he could imagine to literal actual for real Hell. As the Grail melts and the room splashes with blood and everything just goes into horrible post-boss mode, Seifer makes a decision.

     There is exactly one way to spite this place.

     Seifer, with purpose, walks over to Lin. He hooks his arms around her waist, drags her against him, and pulls her into a deep kiss - the kind of romantic kiss you see on the cover of romance novels, the kind of kiss you see at the end of a romantic movie, the kind of kiss that knocks people's socks off in cartoons and has hearts beating physically out of their chests. He holds the kiss for as long as he can, then breaks away from her.

     "I told you it'd be great," he says with a wide grin. Then he shoulders his gunblade and starts heading for whatever passes for an exit.

     He hates this place so much, he had to find one way to spite it:

     Make a single happy memory in it.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord can be seen staring in dumbfounded surprise from way over there at Seifer's actions, eyes briefly widened in a cartoonish way.

    "Heh."

    And that's the depths of his feelings on the romantic gesture. Rrriveting.

Inga has posed:
Inga looks toward Seifer and slowly raising an eyebrow, wondering of Lin is going to kick him in the nuts or not.

Is there time to take a bet, she wonders?

Karal Rei Lin (984) has posed:
Lin can't quite dodge that blast. And without her blade she can't parry it. She stretches a hand out, just about to call back her weapon... when the blast slams into her. Crimson-black power knocks her off her feet, scorches her outfit... knocks her into the acidic goo!

    She's back on her feet with an athletic flip in no time of course, but... that, apparently, is all it took to bring down the creature. One huge barrage from everyone. "... Guess it was powerful, but not in defense..." Or everyone here is just ridiculously more powerful than a bunch of old knights. Hard to say.

    She SHIVERS when the Dead Lights rush into her, and starts to brush herself off and shake off the yuck - Thank heavens for Enark there though, really!

    But she's still covered in YEEEGHHK...

    So she glances Carna's way... "Y-... yeah. We all could use a good long--??"

    Seifer's approach is met with a quizzical look and her stopping mid-sentence. Her expression rapidly shifts like a stoplight changing colors with each stage of the manuever. Shock. Sheepish. Embarassment or excitement? Or is she just confused? With how little time there is to see them it's pretty hard to tell--

    SMOOOOOOOOOCH!!

    ... nope. Nope, she does NOT knee him or anything, Inga. In fact she goes with the flow and embraces the other swordsman tightly for the duration... until they suddenly part and she's left gasping for breath and quite dizzied, face fully flushed.

    With Seifer tromping away, Lin wrings her arms out a little, not bothering to look around in favor of getting her bearings back. She's looking pretty flustered, but in a good way!

    "G.... guys-and-girls-stuff." She blurts rather stupidly, as if there's just no helping it! "... weird... and nice..." Was that a first? ... Apparently so.

    "E-err, as I was.. saying. Need a bath. BATH. Gonna go find a river..."

Staren has posed:
    The grail doesn't grant wishes, apparently. It falls apart. "Good riddance... but what do we do now?"

    And then Seifer walks up and kisses the girl. Staren gives a quizzical look. Were they dating? Or was this spontaneous, do people actually do that?

    Lin seems to have taken it as a good thing, though. "It is, isn't it?" he says a bit wistfully, at Lin's evaluation of 'guys and girls stuff' as 'weird and nice'.

    But, you know, they're still standing in a pool of blood deep in a trap-filled dungeon. Staren turns back towards the door they came in, rubbing the back of his helmet with one hand. "We'd better get moving, before the gargoyle knights come down here."

Priscilla has posed:
    Priscilla cannot fly, which is something she occasionally regrets, thus she has Inga's wards and her own supernatural durability to lean on when it comes to the molten blood slowly filling the room. Amidst the silver dervish of the scythe spinning around her, hacking away chains left and right to whittle the thing down to the core, she thrusts out a hand to summon a gale of of freezing wind, buffeting the sluicing fall of horrible read. The wash of blood glasses over, ice spreading across its surface to stem the tide, but it lasts only moments, loudly crackling and popping before it simply disappears under the roiling tide of burning crimson.

    Being huge has its benefits. Rather than fighting waist deep in the stuff, Priscilla is up to the knees, which lessens the impairment to her mobility. She protects her face from the splash kicked up by the chain arm with her sleeve, searing holes through the white fabric, and splotching her skin with burns, but keeping it out of her eyes. She moves just in time to bat one of the physical blows with a lashing spin of the back end of her scythe, hammering the links away with a flash of scraping metal and fire.

    Her motions only speed into a slashing, ringing blur as Valkyr's echoing scream bathes her in the power of the Void, blurring away until the wrapped chains are cloven in two, and the Guardian's core is exposed for a last, fatal strike. Slowly, the blood begins to drain through the grate, as the source that overwhelmed it fades away, and the grain blackens, cracks, and turns to dust. This reveals Priscilla wearing a much shorter skirt than she had before (and ever wears) with her calves burnt relatively badly, but she remains steady on her feet.

    After all, who wouldn't want to retain all these delicious Dead Lights? Priscilla by far steals the lion's share, with her personal, soul-eating gravity taking up a large part of the room. What is anyone but Carna going to do with them anyways? Aside, she probably has her own priority. The thing's actual Soul however, as its core, bloody being, is something Priscilla takes for herself, physically clutching the thing in her hand, and taking it into herself for later. Honestly, she believes Carna has deserved it more than she, if the Lantern has any use for it.

    The joke actually has its intended effect, earning the kind of sigh that is close to a laugh for Priscilla as she shakes as much of the blood dregs off of her as she can. The look on her face when Seifer goes for a dipsmooch on Karal, and the Solar gets all teen girl flustered, is roughly equivalent to sticking her tongue out at the ickiness, just more dignified. "Perhaps later, Sir Almasy. Lady Karal." she intones deadpan, before dropping to her knees with a faint thump through the floor. "But I am proud of all of thee. I am aware it is the first time, for most of thee, facing a foe such as this. Thou hast fought admirably."