5457/Depths

Depths
Date of Scene:	23 August 2017
Location:	Lumiere
Synopsis:	After escaping a horde of Unlit, the explorers find themselves in worse shape. But at least they gain reinforcements.
Cast of Characters:	974, 513, Kushiko, Priscilla, Staren, Count Kord, Tomoe

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Carna (974) has posed:
    The cacophony of many voices in a multitude of languages echo off the walls of a gigantic room built to accomodate a constant influx of the newly-dead. All seem to be saying more or less the same thing. 'Stay calm and get out. Get out now. Calmly but immediately.' Not those exact words, but the urgency is apparent in their tone. It is not a message intended to inspire people to slowly evacuate in order to avoid a stampede. It is a message intended to make sure as many people as possible know they have to leave this place because something bad is happening.

    Ironically, the message of warning was probably not even intended for the actual danger that is actually threatening the explorers of Lumiere, so long after it was broken. The alarms war with the roar of shrieking, clamouring voice and cries of hunger. Dust dry anguish has been swirling about in these tunnels for so long that the very continued passage of time without finality is painful to the empty husks that now spill into the cavernous space, flooding over and around fallen masonry, slamming into obstructions in their haste, their dire need to consume obliterating all else, even if these shells had any mind to think with. And the only resolution is to try to gobble up all the Light they can find.

    Every one of the entrances to this depot, except the one currently channeling a river of bodies into the room from the train tunnels outside, has been cut off by a crackling field of black energy. Of those Unlit that run into it, their skin is stripped from their bones, and they stagger through into depot a short distance, before collapssing into sketal heaps that then continue trying to crawl forward regardless once they get the hang of moving without any muscles.

Carna (974) has posed:
    The computer terminals here, even if information could have been salvaged from them with careful study and methodical work to repair them, are no longer their biggest priority. There is no way out of here. None.

    Except for the circular openings that have appeared along the walls. These are the the evacuation centers that alarm is warning all the Lit dead that are no longer here (except Enark) to use in escaping whatever a 'Nameless' is. But the feel of them, the sense of danger radiating from them, is almost more than the more immediate danger of being eaten alive by an unending swarm of relentless predatory corpses.

    Almost. But not quite.

    Carna is already off and running for one of these entrances, the choice between an obvious and greater threat or a subtle and hidden one easier for her Lantern instincts to resolve. There is really only one choice here. 'Don't get eaten.'

    Crow threads shadowy tendrils through chunks of the ceiling that fell in the past, grabbing their shadows, and then whipping them at the Unlit, trying to slow them down while the other escape. It even grabs that infernal alarm crystal dangling from the ceiling and chucks it against the far wall near the scorched-black runed ring set there -- where the Dead probably used to arrive. Thankfully that ends the urgent evacuation instructions. But the roar of the Unlit horde still fills everything, and it's a bit late to expect them to just turn around now that they've caught the scent of prey.

    Enark, paler than he has ever been aside perhaps from when everyone chased him down originally in Escher and took him prisoner, scrambles over the extremely long marble reception desk, rams into a pile of paper records of the newly-Dead, toppling it, and then gets back to his feet as he fights to make it way through the terrain hazard of the bureaucracy of the afterlife. The Blue Scholar wades through the papers, clearly not going to make it to the tunnel Carna is already half-way across the vast room to reaching before the Unlit are upon him. Hopefully someone will scoop him up along the way.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Even among all the other noise, two present, Kord and Carna, get a nagging rush of voices in their heads that are almost drowned out. Carna seems to be ignoring them, used to hearing mysterious voices urging her to do things. But either way, in the tunnel, it's simply a race from things coming to eat them. An adrenaline-pumping, instinct-driven chase, where even the predators among them are being run down like prey. The tunnel levels out for a hundred feet or so, then turns into a downwards incline that has them careening at break-neck pace, then levelling out again, over and over and over. It's a nightmarish scenario seemingly without an end to it, as they go deeper and deeper and deeper into Lumiere.

    But right as fatigue may be becoming an issue for some, a huge vault door-like obstruction comes into a view ahead of them. Their path here has been lit by occasional balls of illumination like in the ceiling of the arrival center, placed in the walls, but most of them are broken, leaving long stretches of their flight being through near-total blackness. But whatever is on the other side of that vault door seems to be providing more substantial illumination. Enough to see their destination by.

    And once on the other side, it's just a matter of waiting for everyone to be through and then trying to close the door with some sort of crank wheel system. Crow barely made it with them through all that darkness, relying on any carried light sources the others have to maintain cohesion, and the rest of the time losing its body entirely. But in the new illumination provided by a Shrine of Light, the Shadow helps with closing the huge vault door by winding itself through the shadow of the crank wheel and spinning it with deftness and 'strength' that requires no physical power to employ.

    The view of the Unlit coming down the tunnel they just left is gradually cut off, and the sound as well, until finally it seals with a very final-sounding *BOOM*.

Carna (974) has posed:
    The further sound of bolts and levers and such clicking into place indicates this is not going to be opening again in the near future. The silence that follows, even the sound of the Unlit scrabbling at the other side muted to near-inaudibility, is nearly deafening after all that noise. It's almost a blessing to hear something again when Crow turns to everyone and says, "I think we might be outnumbered." Then its glassy little circles of white alight upon the Shrine sitting there glowing with ephemeral brightness, and the Shadow says, "Hang on, I'll call for help." Even Carna needs a moment for her undead body to regenerate its stamina, so even though she's the closest to the Shrine, she doesn't have the energy to stop Crow as the creature reaches a hand out towards it, and does... Something.

    Its shadowy hand seems to peel back its black layers in a shower of brilliant golden sparks, revealing an armored gauntlet underneath. This gauntlet seems to spread its gold coloration to the Shrine, making the miniature reproduction of the spire atop Atheir Cathedral turn sun-hued. Then there is a flash, and a warping of space, and they now have a new party member in this vault-like location with them.

    And the Shrine loses all of its Light entirely, leaving them once again in darkness, aside from Crow's glowing gauntlet-haunt, and anything they have brought.

Finna (513) has posed:
After all that hustling and bustling and screaming and dashing, there is in fact one more source of light!

    A silvery-blue-purple glow of soft but spreading moonlight comes from Finna, proving to be an effective flashlight. It's not harsh enough to unsettle undead, either, as sunlight might.

    The foxgirl is clutching a few scattered stacks of papers tightly to her chest.

    She's not breathing hard exactly, but her ears are peaked in full alert mode and the girl's looking pretty nervous and jumpy. "Oh this place is just THE BEST UNDERWORLD EVER! Not! Now what...?"

Kushiko has posed:
Crow wasn't the only one who was throwing down some semblance of 'cover', as it were.

Having done her best simply to give those here /some/ measure of personal protection, she actually lingered behind--half to protect Crow directly, the other half to simply tear into and rend and savagely unleash the fury she had so summoned.

For those retreating and keeping her in sight, it's nothing sort of perfect savagery. An untrained eye could at best, see the trails of energy her claws left in their wake, tearing into Unlit in wide, sweeping arcs, occasionally throwing roundhouse kicks, twisting and spinning with her claws out like a humanoid abomination of blending.

And she just kept getting faster.

She pounced, on occasion, after one or two Unlit seemed to get past her, but it was a measured act to keep herself from truly getting overwhelmed, leaping through the air and then throwing a freshly savaged Unlit back into the horde. She tore the ground beneath her, and HEAVED a great slab outward once she felt the others had gotten enough distance that she could focus on her own escape.

And escape she does, though it's by the most narrow of margins, and providing her own light source by means of those claws to cast proper shadows at times. Of course, now that she's back in full view, once the light dies, there's kind of a strange hissing sound. Black, oily ichor, smoke and ashen dust from the sheer seem to be dripping from her, if in passing and coming from her claws. With the light lines of Valkyr casting a faintly luminous glow, it seems that's all the light she may provide.

That is of course, until she activates more direct light, emitted from her shoulder as she focuses her attention on who has joined--or perhaps, rejoined them.

Priscilla has posed:
    Priscilla is not particularly keen to test her luck with the insane energy barriers that apparently not only vapourize the flesh from the dead, but also the probably never alive in the first place. She doesn't expect any metaphysical dickery to really help with that. In a different situation, she may take her chances with the Unlit. Massacring crowds of smaller, disorganized opponents is something of a specialty, but it'd take her back really being up against the wall to elect to gamble on the size of the horde they still can't see, over taking an obvious escape route. Lumiere has not been known to do things in small measures; especially not imminent disasters.

    So, she goes through the damn tunnel. That's what anyone smart would do. She stops only as they get to the vault door, and just long enough to unleash a heavy stream of her breath weapon, raking it back and forth across the floor and up and down the walls to provide as much of a hellish crystalline barrier as she can, knowing full well it will merely be a delaying tactic against a number of enemies who are not only incapable of being deterred, but whom there are simply enough of to make a walkway over it out of their own corpses, if not just causing them to shatter under the sheer weight of bodies clawing past. She puts her own /considerable/ strength to work on the crank after that, consciously aware of the time pressure on those around her less able to manage or escape from a crowd of this size.

    Fortunately, it looks like they're just in time. The Shrine of Light is a hopeful sight, but when Crow does the same thing he had done at the godforge, unwittingly revealing himself to herself and Kord as Orc, her concern multiplies considerably. Not only because the shrine seems to have been exhausted, but because the last time he had exposed his golden essence, it had been excruciatingly painful for him and he had wanted to stop immediately.

    "Art thou . . . quite alright, Sir Crow?" she asks, testingly.

Staren has posed:
    Staren had a meeting with agents of the Council of Learning today. Filling them in on his findings in the Multiverse, reviewing the progress that the careful, limited studies of transhuman nanotechnology are making. Progress is frustratingly slow -- The Council was adamant that they will not risk a repeat of what happened to Rory's Earth.

    Well... it's annoying but he'll survive to see it help the people of Lazlo, one day. And then Earth.

    On his way home he's stopped at a fast food joint. He sits down at a booth, sips his soda, and then lifts his chili dog to his mouth.

    Chew, chew. "Mm. This's really good!" Behind the counter, a man with red skin and horns nods with a smile.

    Staren holds the chili dog up to his mouth, opens to take a bite--

    And then Staren is falling on his ass because the booth didn't come with him. He looks around in alarm and quick-stands, drawing his laser pistol from under his coat. At least he's surrounded by familiar faces!

    "What the hell is going on?!"

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord hadn't halted. The moment the alarms went off and all exits began to close off, his heart lept into his throat. The alarm sound was deafening. He reacts quickly... the valuable individuals here are given a glance, and when he spots Enark's struggle to flee the Unlit, the Count doesn't hesitate. He grunts and snaps his weapon folded to set it back in its holster as he already turns to leap toward him, and there is a soft pressure of wind as he launches himself clear across the room in a straight line, his wings manifesting partway through his arc to spread out. He snags Enark around the middle, and turns practically on a dime in the air.

    Then he flaps his wings and launches himself toward the only doorway that is provided to them. He doesn't even hesitate as a voice hums urgently in his head, and tells him to stop. He sets Enark down once within and the doors are slammed shut, and there he makes sure to scan their surroundings. The vault they have ended up in is enormous, and thanks to his lineage, he can name at least one way to progress further. He doesn't wait for the others to get their bearings.

    "Something wants us to leave this place more than it cares about the Unlit outside. Why...?"

    "There's a hole in the vault this way. Come."

    And then he leaps into the darkness and vanishes into the black, forgetting that people can't really see him. He didn't move too quickly to see what direction he left in, he's headed to where he says he saw the hole in the vault.

Tomoe has posed:
So things were not going well for them they could fight but this wasn't the best idea at this point in time. The shine gopes lights out and he's already moving to get her naginata at the ready. This was not a holding ground situation. Though she's one of the last if not the last to join the group in flight and finally after some time they do escape for the moment.

"Hey Crow? You all right?"

Carna (974) has posed:
    Kushiko's and Crow's combined effort to impede the Unlit outside, and then Priscilla's to delay them in the tunnel, while not pointless by any means, really are just impeding and delaying. Against an enemy that knows no pain, and whose only fear is the eternal emptiness that fills them and from which they were born, no amount of massed combat or deadly obstacles will truly stop their advance.

    After being set down Enark crawls over to the nearest wall and lies curled up against it, shuddering in terror even after the vault door is slammed shut. It takes the sight of Crow's hand being exposed -- its TRUE hand, that the flat and depthless shadows don't seem as though they should be able to conceal -- to snap him back to reality.

    Carna's eyes are fixed on Crow like they were back then, at the God Forge, but unlike then, she simply watches for a short time then looks in the direction that Kord went. She looks to Staren and says, "I will let someone else explain." Then she turns and starts to follow across the enormous empty space they have found themselves in, towards a gaping hole in the back, only identifiable by being darker than the surrounding darkness by comparison due to there being no wall to reflect any light. And those who can not see in the dark or are not close enough to the distant far-end of the vault to shine their light sources would not even see that much, simply having to take Kord's word for it that there is something back there.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Crow turns when spoken to, gauntleted hand gradually being consumed in shadows again, its light being smothered and then turned into no more than a 2-D fascimile of an appendage. "Huh? Yeah." It looks between Priscilla and Tomoe as they show concern, then to Staren. "Do you remember when Miss Carna used a piece of a Shrine to teleport Miss Inga to us when we fought that Marble Guardian? The one in that despair dungeon? I just did the same thing here!"

    Unsteadily, aware that some of their party is going off on their own in unknown territory but unsure how to stop that precisely, Enark gets to his feet, clears his throat a few times before he can speak, and says, "So that was a... Mimic? A Shrine Mimic?"

    Crow tilts its head, and the rest of its noodily shadow body in confusion. "No. I don't think so. Why? Was it supposed to be?"

    Enark opens and closes his mouth, flabbergasted. "B-b-but the only reason that trick worked at all was because I modified the mimic to operate as though it were an actual Shrine of Light, but altered with my Mimic-craft! With a real one, you shouldn't have been able to do it!"

    Crow stares at Enark. Then it stares at the lightless stone and crystal shrine that is no more than an ornate door stop now. Then it stares at Enark again. "I don't get it. But it worked, right?" D:=

    Enark sputters.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Crow then focuses on Staren again, as Kushiko shines spotlights in his eyes. "Anyway! We took a train here, but at first Mister Enark didn't know how to drive it so it went really fast, but then it stopped and some Unlit saw us, and then Mister Kord took over, but we stopped at some big place with desks and computers and a waaAAaaAAacky alarm, and then Miss Kushiko and Mister Enark turned the alarm on, and then all the Unlit we passed on the train came in, and then we all ran away, except me and Miss Kushiko who went all Noble Rear Guard Sacrifice on the bad guys until Whoops! We ran away too, and then we wound up in this place here with this giant door, and I thought we could use a brainy person to help us figure out all this stuff, and the computers back there too, so I put down my summoning sign and summoned you. Only I guess I wasn't supposed to be able to, so maybe you should go back, only I don't think you can now, sorry." Through all this, Crow uses its body to pantomime all the events, forming little duplicates of people and places and objects by causing the edges of its shadowy form to create silhouettes that demonstrate all that has happened.

    It's actually really impressive how far Crow's control has come since when they first met it and the entire concept of hands was a novelty.

    Meanwhile, Kord's vision permits him to see the huge scope of the vault they are in, the giant hole at the back of it, and once he finally reaches it, the vision that lies beyond. Steel girders dangle from cables that lead up into further blackness above, where they attach to huge building-skeletons, like a skyscraper under construction. Support pillars rise up from the darkness below, seemingly all part of the same structure. But the full depth of the darkness below them is hard to gauge because it just keeps going down and down and down, and there is no ground in sight. Just more of this incomplete building or whatever it is.

    But there is at least some kind of building on the other end of what looks like to be a platform puzzle, with a bit more completeness to it.

Staren has posed:
    "I don't remember that..." Staren mutters to Crow. Taking it all in -- Kord running off, Crow having a hand.

    He takes another bite of his chilidog, holsters his pistol, and pulls a flipphone-like device from his pocket, opening it and waving it the way Kord went. Then he frowns slightly, pockets it for a second while pulling a pair of something like wraparound sunglasses from his bag, putting them on his face, and taking out the not-phone again while Crow explains.

    "There were computers here?" He starts to follow Kord, then decides to wait for some more less-squishy people to go ahead first.

Kushiko has posed:
For what it's worth, Kushiko knows a little something about endless foes that know no pain, or simply do not care and mass themselves like this. But this was excessive, and she could not, nor would not fight to her fullest extent while needing to concern herself with the others.

Nonetheless, it's a flick of her wrist--and the faceless regarding of both Crow and Staren. And then Enark. Concern for Crow can't properly be evidenced on the Warframe's face, but there's a slightly resonant /sigh/ as Crow explains himself and how he summoned help. All of this is making her head hurt, however distantly. And given Priscilla's overall question, Valkyr just kind of heaves her shoulders helplessly.

<"You all can figure out how that worked."> Kushiko murmurs faintly, affixing her attention to the endless abyss and platforming puzzle they've got ahead of them. Her sentinel floats nearby, expectantly as she extinguishes her energy claws--and with it, that Hysteria aspect of hers. Frankly, while she can't fly in this frame, she can leap and cross inhospitable terrain like this really well.

<"We can help by way of using our grappling line if people don't trust the way over,"> she offers, before taking an utterly graceful kind of flying leap, gravity loosening it's grip on her to let her glide, cling to and pull herself onto the first of many platforms.

Staren has posed:
    After a moment (and another bite and some more chewing,) Staren adds, "Oh. I really need to find out how that works..." he mutters.

Finna (513) has posed:
"Oooooh, nice show!" Finna claps for crow's performance, tucking the piles of papers she snagged into her tail's grasp instead. Somehow she seems to have no trouble hanging on to them like that, as odd as that looks.

    "No, don't send anyone away! We need help getting out of here!" Which leaves her eying Staren now, and he sure wasn't there before. "Seems we're team mates again, scholar!" And she's seemingly happy about that.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe pauses at Finna there's some bried conversation on the radio. She flexes hwr shoulders for a moment and a pair of red translucent energy wings form from her back. She takres a moment and wiggles them for a moment pausing as she looks at Finna for a moment.
% "Huh, it actually considers that moon light."

She's a Lunar sure, but she did't exct this quite to work.

"I recall that I think, Crow. All right then if you say your all right."

She's flexing her wings a bit more, she's done so many jobs or adventures in places she just couldn't do it. this changes the game a bit for her now looks at the hole and the platform puzel humm.

"I might be able to bypass some of this so long as the light holds out..."

"I know how to operate Computers but don't ask me to hack or code, that's not my bag still hummmm."

Count Kord has posed:
    Platform puzzle? Kord can fly. He spares the strange puzzle almost no mind as he floats inward through the hole. His wings tilt and curl as he drifts through the air in almost total silence, floating along like a ghost in the dark. He makes sure to avoid touching the platforms on accident as he passes, and keeps mindful of any funny supernatural tricks such as those that might magnetize him to the ground.

    As he nears the building, he would slow to a stop and turn to wait for the others, his wings beating slowly in a way that could in no way keep a creature aloft the way it's doing for him. He waits for the others... just so he can watch what those odd platforms are about from a safe vantage. He'd rather not let a valuable ally plummet into the abyss because he wasn't paying attention. Especially not Enark.

    "I really need to teach that man how to run away without tripping over himself," the Count muses aloud in the dark.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Crow blinks at Staren. "Really? You don't remember a giant ball of chains with a gross floating eye that leaks flaming blood? Maybe you should keep a journal like Miss Carna. Anyway, yeah, there were computers. Kind of. They were made of crystal, but they had keyboards. Kind of. You could do stuff just by touching the screens, so I'm not sure what the boards were for. Anyway, they were Lumiere computers or something, not like the ones I saw at the Concord's base. Mister Enark said they handled stuff like... Like... Records of the dead and stuff, and also some kind of alarm for 'Nameless'. Reactivating the sound system for that alarm is why we're down here now instead of up there." Crow points back the way they came, through the now-sealed vault door, that even now, the dull thumping of Unlit fists pounding on the other side can be heard from.

    Carna is used to some feats of acrobatics and maneuvering around tricky ledges and so on, but leaping from dangling steel girders attached tenuously to unseen structures by ancient cables, and standing on fractured support beams, is a bit outside her realm of experience. It looks dangerous enough that she probably wouldn't even be attempting it if there were any other way out of here. She takes a cue from Priscilla's book, drawing a handful of colored marble-like objects. Upon exposure to any degree of light, they not only start to glow, they also seem to be emitting a muted noise like muffled screaming.

    She backs up, taking the measure of the distance, and then performs a running leap, landing on a girder, then leaping off onto a support beam as the girder starts to swing, and then performing a series of jumps, one after another, until she arrives on more stable footing near the building on the other side of the abyss.

    She dropped one of the colored marbles at each spot she leapt at to mark safe landings. The glowing orbs are helpful for those who follow in that way. Though they could probably do without the sounds as though someone is being tortured with a bag over their head.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Kord seems to suffer no ill effecs from bypassing the terrain. Nothing attacks him or tries to draw him downwards. Likewise, Kushiko's extended leaping via her frame seems to work just as well. If Tomoe chooses to fly over, she gets the same results as Kord. Honestly, aside from the way the dangling girder swings and the cables creak, and the fact they don't know if any of this will stand up for repeated crossings, the whole affair is considerably more bland than the nightmare chase they just got out of.

    And yet, even when Kung-Fu-ing the Unlit like Kushiko did, or creating crystallize caltrops all over the walls and floor like Priscilla did, or throwing rocks at them like Crow did, the sense of danger came from the obvious threat to their survival.

    But the omnipresent sense of impending doom, like something is about to go wrong, just seems to hover around them like a cloud, with no apparent threat other than questionable terrain. And when THAT is passed without incident... The fact that STILL nothing has happened may make the suspense of waiting for something to happen even sharper.

    It's really hard to tell where exactly they are or just how much space is below, around, and above them. While there is utter blackness in all directions, it seems all this incomplete or not-meant-to-be-seen supporting structure stretches all over the place. That evacuation vault probably wasn't supposed to have a giant torn-metal hole in the back of it. So everything they're seeing now wouldn't have been visible to the Lit who evacuated here in the past to escape this 'Nameless'.

Carna (974) has posed:
    So what is to be made of the building that stands before them now? It looks somewhat small from a distance, but it's clearly a larger building -- even if within the scope of what could be found on Earth for once. Its blocky construction and dearth of decoration makes its purpose unclear. Some sort of sandstone material (or white marble?) seems to have been used in its construction, but like it was carved from a single chunk of stone.

    It's really pretty boring-looking. And yet the frameless, glassless square-shaped cut-outs in the walls that suffice for windows are like eyes looking down at them. The similar cut-from-the-walls doorways are like mouths waiting to swallow them up. Hopefully this impression is merely figurative rather than literal, but in Lumiere, who can tell? Either way, it seems old. Older than Enark's mimics. Older than a lot of things. Like it was simply deposited here from Earth directly rather than made in Lumiere. The corpse of some ancient temple maybe?

    Crow doesn't have any way of crossing this hurdle really. It used to be trapped on a road just because the road had no 'off-ramps'. Covering a ravine of this magnitude is beyond the scope of its powers. "Maybe I'll just wait here. I don't think I can go with you, and that building is too spooky for me."

    Enark, mopping at his forehead with his sleeve, says, "I concur. For the moment, it seems this... Evacuation vault is safer than..." He gestures vaguely. "All of that. Do feel free to explore though and let me know what you find."

    Crow says, "Nah."

    Enark turns to the Shadow, frowning. "What do you mean by 'nah'?"

    Crow says, "I mean, 'Nah, you should go.'"

    "But I don't want to! I would be of no use here!" Enark protests.

    Crow picks Enark up by his shadow, thanks to Finna's illumination giving it some 'mass' to work with, and deposits the Blue Scholar on Kushiko's grappling line. "Ready?"

    "NO! What are you doing!? I am NOT ready! Stop this immediate--"

    "And away you go!" Crow lets go. Enark screams the whole way across the abyss to the other side as he slides along with his hands until he tumbles off the far end and goes rolling across the floating earthen platform until he comes to a stop.

    Crow just stays where it is. "I'm helping." =:>

Staren has posed:
    Staren waves his hand dismissively at Crow. "No, I remember the monster, I just forgot about summoning Inga. Anyway I looked it up, I remember that too now. Next time give me a call on the radio first so I can suit up." His ears turn forward as Crow explains 'Lumiere computers'. Huh.

    He considers the platforming puzzle, looking it over as he finishes his chili dog and watches the others head up. Then he manifests wings -- reminiscent of Tomoe's but orange and with a different design -- and... then changes his mind. "Guess I should stay in practice." The wings dismiss and he makes his way up using super-powered jumps (his shoes have some kind of thrust capability that lets him jump like a videogame character) and the grapple tag gun on his armband. Since he can just activate the wings if he falls, this is /pretty/ safe. He's over-relying on the grapple, though, just using it directly whenever he's not /quite/ sure if he can make the jump.

    "What a strange area. Does it serve any purpose /aside/ from being navigated like this? Oh hey, is that where we're going?" He comments as the building comes into view. Then: "Are building mimics a thing?" he asks Enark, since the man has now been sent across the gap.

    He'll wait for someone else to try entering the building before he trusts that door, though.

Kushiko has posed:
Remarkably depending on how one views it, Kushiko keeps up pretty well with Kord's flight by virtue of her not really obeying things like the laws of physics and what have you. Of course, her Rip Line grappling hook ensures that she can get across with a minimal of pressure on the places she /does/ need to land or kick off from.

Somewhere, someone got insanely envious of the sick parkour video this could've been.

However what she /was/ doing is something that needs to immediately kind of change, as she didn't expect Crow to drop Enark on the lines she left behind. And by 'leave behind' we mean tenuous ribbons of energy that Crow defies the physics and makes Enark fly much like she did. Without, you know, the usual elements of her exceptional skills overcoming difficult terrain.

So while the others look at the kind of dismal terrain and something that shouldn't be, she pivots, and launches herself to intercept the Blue Scholar, cradling him under one arm like a duffle bag so she can get both of them back to the side without Crow. Er, we mean, the side they were crossing. Yes, that's it, that's what's she's doing in order to set Enark down safe and sound.

Yes, This is fine now. <"There's no way that should've worked."> she muses faintly, making sure Enark's mostly not freaking out by now. Dusts him off. <"We dislike this, but at this point the only way is forward and through. Death... hn."> Valkyr seems to shake her head slightly, maybe mimicing the operator untold distances away.

Priscilla has posed:
    Priscilla decides to drop the question there. Prodding Crow past something he doesn't seem to know or find odd works zero percent of the time. Kord seems to have the only promising lead, and they certainly aren't about to go back out the door they just sealed shut either. Were this a couple of years ago, Priscilla might have had to breathe deep and ask someone to carry her (and she might have done so without getting hung up on it), but this time she feels she can trust her figurative ridiculously DEX-stacked endgame build to carry her, and she ends up making swift progress over the landscape of girders and cables once she gets into the flow of it.

    Then she hears the lovely words 'building mimic'. Making a face of serious consternation, she takes a moment to pluck a little grey skull the size of a marble (and apparently made like one) out, and then chuck it over the gap and in through one of the building's doors, to see if it decides to chomp down on it. Only provided it doesn't do anything untoward, does she hurry after Enark as quickly as possible, likely having to pick him up off the floor, and hold her light high. "What is it of this place that makes thou feel so, Count Kord? Can any of the others findeth something to substantiate this?"

Finna (513) has posed:
"Ooooooh. Jumping games!" Finna hurtles herself at the obstacle course ahead of them with gusto, though when she lands she's taken the form of a white-furred fox that's far, FAR nimbler than any mortal fox could ever be. She leaps and hops, perches and prances with the greatest of ease. The swinging beams may as well be a wide and solid bridge.

    She does stop halfway across, noticing that Crow seems to be going nowhere...

    "Need a lift, Shadow-man? I can be bigger!"

    For Tomoe's benefit, she's still glowing brilliantly with waves of shifting moonlight. The moonlight, though, casts some very ominous shadows in a place as dire as this...

    Or, IS this building so dire? The fox cants her head quizzically at it, unsure what to make of this architecture.

    "... No idea what THAT is for. Never seen anything that style!"

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord sees the others seem to be handling the platforming challenges handily... so he doesn't focus overly much on that after a point. He turns around instead, and prepares to fly toward the building. The sensation of dread is powerful as he approaches, but when he hits a point there is a spike of terror of a suffocating darkness that seems afraid of what's in front of him.

    It's so powerful that his vision blurs and he feels his stomach try to do a backflip.

    "Hngh--!"

    He nearly drops out of the air as his focus on flying evaporates, and a loud 'WHUMPF' can be heard from his wings kicking up air in a panic to keep him from dropping and injuring himself or worse.

    He stares at the building in front of him and his eyes widen to the figurative dinnerplate size behind his helmet, his pupils shrinking in adrenaline-fueled primal terror, his skin crawling and his breath catching in his throat.

    Man fights death by conquering mystery. Yveltal says in its consistent calm whisper.

    Kord doesn't have a grumpy retort for that. He feels it's appropriate. He assesses himself, and then he decides to advance. He approaches the entry to the building, and says over his shoulder to answer Priscilla...

    "It looks and smells like something that strikes fear into gods."

    That make him sound excited. He's one of those types.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe can't forget the horrible eyeball thing. As much as she'd want to forget that thing no matter how badly she wishes she could do so. She will keep going with Kord and she is flying over she find nothing attacks her and she seems to be doing pretty well as she comes in for a laning flexing hr wings for a moment.

"That felt good."

She notes before she moves to fall in with the Count ready for whatever might jump them. She seems to b on edge given this world is it any wonder.

"I ... should have carried Enark."

She'll kook over to Staren for a moment.

"I feel strange when I don't have wings now honestly Staren and ... who knows given this is the land of the dead, right?"

Carna (974) has posed:
    When Carna first attempted to approach the building against her own instinctual desire to go the other way, she dropped to her hands and knees like something had just kicked her legs out from under her. The building before seems to pinch and stretch and warp, making her feel dizzy and sick (the latter quite a feat for someone who has only just recently regenerated a partial stomach). She doesn't want to go here. Not at all. But Kord's prodding, his insistence upon going despite being the first to voice the idea they NOT do so, has her determinedly forcing herself back up onto her feet and trying to push through an intangible, invisible wall like supernatural molasses, that tugs at her mind, her hollow simulacrum of a soul, makes her limbs heavy, her vision blur, and dizziness nearly drop her to her knees again.

    She has no ready answer for Priscilla. "No part of me, aside my hunger, wishes to proceed. My mind and body are in open rebellion at the very concept of going closer. But I can name no specific reason for it." Something about what she just said strikes her as significant beyond the meaning she put into them, but she can no more isolate the idea of importance there than she can the feeling of fear that physically stings her with the pain of trying to push through a cloud of wasps.

    Enark arrives safely thanks to Kushiko, dusting himself off once he has his feet back on solid ground. "Thank you, Lady Kushiko. At least SOMEONE has some common sense here." He turns to glare back at Crow.

    Crow just waves its arms in a wiggly movement and smiles back. =:D

Carna (974) has posed:
    Enark looks forwards again even as he waves off Tomoe's concern. "If such a circumstance as this occurs again, Tharmas-forbid, you may have a turn at carrying me. You would be the fourth the manhandle me on this expedition so far." The Blue Scholar is not attuned as the other two are, but like the rest of them, he can feel that the decision to continue may be their undoing. Having offered his protest, he can only try to answer the question posed to him by Priscilla. "Well, Queen Priscilla, I did not make the Shrine Mimic that you all slew. There are many that we have seen thus far that I had no hand in. I can not state with certainty that we do not face one. But from what I can tell of its sub-structure, my mark is not upon it. Further, I feel it being a Mimic is unlikely. Unlike my Monstrous Invader Murdering Incognito Constructs, this is clearly in place prey is unlikely to come, in a place outside the overall construction of Barrowville. All of this we are seeing here seems older than Umberdark Tunnels. If it is a product of humanity, it may very well predate the systems set up to house and govern the Dead. That would make it from the earliest stages of human civilization -- assuming, of course, that humans even made it."

    Buildings in the land of the dead that predate humans could mean anything. Nothing specific enough to know what awaits them however. Except for... "Well, there were the gods. They existed before humanity. While they made much of Lumiere, what they made AFTER humanity appeared and what they made in the four billion years BEFORE could serve very different purposes. And there were many more species before humans as well. Dragons, for example. Any number of beings native to Eternity could have... Um..." Enark loses his train of thought as he moves closer and closer to the building and feels fear clouding his mind. Eventually, only not breathing heavily because he has no need for air, he has to stop just outside the nearest doorway. The darkness inside might as well be solid for all his ability to proceed.

    He sits down heavily and says, "I... Do not think I can go further than this." His hands go to his face, his entire body trembling. "I apologize for my weakness."

Carna (974) has posed:
    Crow waves off Finna's offer. "Thanks, I'm good. I think it's safer if I stay here." But then it sees the trouble Enark and Carna and Kord (and possibly others) may be having, the Shadow rethinks it and slips onto the Lunar's back, flowing across her body using the surrounding endless blackness as the source to draw its shape from and the moonlight-like illumination to cast itself by. It snugs itself around Finna's eyes like a little mask with horns.

    "But maybe I should stay nearby incase my friends need help, yeah?" =:/

    Once all are gathered, they get to observe Priscilla throwing a skull inside of the building, but nothing appears to happen. There's also no visual indicator of the skull inside the building, like the darkness is so thick that it just smothers all light.

Staren has posed:
    Staren takes a moment to upload what's been seen so far across the radio network to home. Dawn will release it if he doesn't come back. It feels better to do it this way than giving Ainsley and Twilight regular heart attacks for missions he ends up coming back from.

    After watching Priscilla throw a skull in and having a few seconds to think about it, though, an obviously better idea comes to mind: Send a drone.

    He pocketed the 'phone' before starting the platforming section. Now he draws from his bag a small tablet, and a quadrotor just small enough to hold in one hand. The drone activates and floats in front of him, and he holds out the tablet for others to see -- it shows the drone's camera's view, as he controls the drone by some other method, piloting it towards the door... then stopping and bringing it back to tie some bright LEDs to. Okay. NOW sending it through the door...

Tomoe has posed:
Well things seem to not be going too bad, for the most part. The talk CArna has about her hunger driving her on? Well she's honest about it. She also makes certain Enrakr is okay before she gets ready to move on, once again armed and ready.

"So if you didn't make it? I have to ask? Who did and we're really getting into the older part now ain't we?"

The sorts ot thing where the flaming demons with swords lay in wait for those who dig too deep.

She looks at the bulding and wonders what they could mean.%

"Hey don't worry about it, you push on harder than I'd expect someone like your self would be able to do."

She looks at Finna for a moment.

"Thank you for the moobn light."

Finna (513) has posed:
Finna's A BIT WEIRDED OUT by having Crow just sort of OOZE around her like this, but the Lunar merely grins after a few seconds to get a feel for it. WHOOOSH! she's off...but on approach to that ominous building...

    Yeah, her forced dash rapidly dwindles into a slow trot. And eventually... a complete halt.

    She shakes and shivers, both ears flattening. The vixen WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIINES in protest, then promptly circles in place and lays down with her head buried into her tail!

    "Nooooooo what is WRONG with this place, not going anyfurther!"

    She does peek her snout up over her tail at Tomoe's show of gratitude and yips a, "You're welcome!"

    So now she settles her view on Staren. What's he gonna do...?

Kushiko has posed:
In the case of the existential dread that's been snaking it's way into people, regardless of their particular species, Kushiko hasn't experienced it in quite the same, unsettling way. The contemplation of a building mimic is, without a doubt extremely troubling and makes one wish she was in Nova, that way she could bring about a total annhiliation. Maybe.

But of the shrieking, existential terror, it calls to mind hazy memories, impressions, feelings. The endless, blinding light of hellscapes coiled around her tender heart, and how she, and others like her swam like children at play while all around them, others descended into madness.

This... whatever it was, was still unnerving. But maybe it was just her mind, her memory playing tricks to feel something vaguely familiar as she strode forward as those here contemplated what best to do. That while it did not instill in her a need to run away, but both a keening familiarity and the notion of encountering the most primal force she's ever seen, short of those whom the Orokin once sent her and others like her against. <"Like us, but not. We do not know these... feelings.">

Which was true. She didn't know why she felt like this. She hadn't, simply. It dug at the hidden and forgotten, making her unfold gleaming claws from her wrists as she half-studied Staren's display and where the light Priscilla flung had vanished into. Energy begins to surge across her, like a shadow made of light, overlain. Parts of the armor simply shimmer, chaotic, terrible light smoldering beneath the surface. She didn't advance any further except where it left her best positioned to take the charge.

Carna (974) has posed:
    The drone that enters the building is immediately engulfed in thick darkness, like black mist. The walls, far apart as they are, do not appear to possess any decoration or imagery that the drone can discern if it gets close enough to scan them. The alluring skull seems to be gone. Possibly rolled down the broad stone steps carved into the ground, passing under an 'overhang' of the floor, and into an even deeper darkness.

    Carna helps to haul Enark away from the building, even though she herself is having difficulty getting near. Enark seems rather weakened by just that approach. He tries to give a gracious smile to Tomoe for her praise, but it just comes off as a sickly grimace.

    Through video and audio-pick-ups on the drone, it seems there is a thrumming background noise that reverberates within the temple. While outside, the only noise is the group of explorers, the inside of the temple seems to have other sounds. Sounds like digging through dirt scattered erratically, sometimes near, sometimes far. What sounds like an incomprehensible guttural mumbling can be heard drifting up from the stairs.

    Descending them leads to a carved stone tunnel from which a static-like noise seems to be travelling around, even as that THRUMMING keeps building and fading. An unidentifiable sound that might be a creature of some sort echoes down the passage. But so far, no sign of any people. The Alluring Skull is still nowhere in sight. And the tunnel just goes deeper and deeper into the island of stone the structure sits upon.

Carna (974) has posed:
    While the air drips with menace, nothing has happened. The constant build-up without any release is veritably painful. And when inhuman clicking-whispers start to leak from the walls without apparent source, sensor ghosts appearing in the display that make it seem as though there are figures in the darkness, only to break up and fade away...

    Well, they are in the land of the dead. It would be odd if they never ran into any ghosts.

    Eventually it comes to a stop in a room where the noise has increased in pitch and intensity until the frigid air vibrates. A large chamber, with might be mummified bodies that have collapsed in on themselves or just piles of bandages left to decay strewn in various places, all seemingly pointed towards the far wall. The wall that isn't there. Just an open space looking out onto nothingness. For awhile, it appears that's it. Just a big empty building, with stairs, a tunnel, and a chamber for worshippers of some kind. Creepy, but no sign of what's so dangerous. And hey, there's that Alluring Skull, right at the edge of the opening! It sure did roll a long way.

    But then something becomes dimly visible in the distance. Something in the Nothing. It is very small, or at least very far away. It seems slender, willowy, and moves with a lightness as though a balloon had been given legs, or a person were skipping on the moon. It bounces, jiggles, twists to and fro.

    And it grows larger as it comes closer. Its approach seems slow, but only because it is so distant. As it becomes clear just how big it is, the bobbing, float-running... THING proves to be very large indeed. From its sillhouette it has two legs and two arms, the latter held above its head.

    But no, those aren't arms. Actually, none of those are recognizable limbs. They are like sacks of meat pinched off at the ends, stitched into a larger blob. But before the drone's sensors, or at least before the eyes of those trying to interpret the sensors, that shifts.

Carna (974) has posed:
    It is no longer a weightless, headless meat sack, it is a hand with digits on the bottom and the top of its palm. A reaching appendage, seeking, seeking. The sense of doom no longer comes from the temple. Or rather, it is eclipsed by something worse. The senses of those assembled once more change how they are interpreting what they are seeing. The alien 'hand' is a head made of enormous mummified snakes, all wound together in a ball. Those four protrusions are simply some of the serpents sniffing about for prey, above and below.

    No, it's like the mouth of a lamprey, with fangs for gripping so that the slithering maw at the center can wind its way inside and consume the delectable innards.

    No!

    It just keeps changing. The minds of the observers changing how they interpret the unholy vision that comes closer and closer, vaster and vaster, and yet still has not yet arrived. The very real sense that this is something they do not want to be here to face when it does show up spikes higher and higher.

    And the Nameless thing approaches silently through the nothingness. Without sound, without scent, without even a fixed appearance. Just something beyond nightmares, beyond terror, beyond mortals, immortals, and gods, closing in on a temple once devoted to the worship of oblivion. Worship gobbled up without care for the worshippers, leaving only their empty, mummified skins behind.

    These are things that gods fear, because they are things that can even kill gods.

Staren has posed:
    "Geeze." Staren comments as the drone starts picking up... sounds. and ghosts. This is some grade-AA creepypasta, for sure. And then... mummies! Or not-even-mummies-anymore. Sheesh. And... nothingness? Is this another access point to the abyss? Wait, no, wrong world... "What is that?" he asks Carna, as the drone peers into Nothing.

     And then... a silhouette of something. No, with two legs and two arms... someone? <"Who's there? Who are you?"> he asks through the drone.

    And then it changes. "Woah. What is that?"

    And then it changes again. "Hey, does anyone else see that? It was a humanoid figure, then a hand with two sets of fingers, then a bunch of snakes, for me." For some reason, stopping to think about that is what gives the fear another chance to take hold. A crack in Staren's resolve it can start to wedge into... "Should we maybe... get out of here?" He looks around uneasily.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord had stopped to observe through Staren's drone feed. He picked a spot aloft in the air to peer down at it, and his tail wiggles behind him in anticipatory agitation, like a curious cat. That froze the moment something apparated in the drone's view that was clearly beyond ordinary mortal comprehension. He squints at the sight of it, and at the clear hole in the wall where the temple just ends.

    "Hnn. Not worth the trouble."

    And then Kord just leaves. He flaps his wings once and flits off and dives into the abyss below them to investigate what is further down. He isn't particularly interested in fighting that, now that he knows what's in there. If it has stayed in there for that long without crawling out into the rest of Lumiere, he isn't terribly worried about leaving it be for now.

Priscilla has posed:
    Agreeing that letting Staren use expendable scouting labour for what it is actually for is a good idea, Priscilla . . . well, doesn't really crowd around him, so much as just looks down from over top him at the screen. Her expression very quickly betrays that she's wondering the exact same thing about where her little skull went, and she winds up leaning closer than is really necessary, as if somehow closer proximity to the screen will up its resolution somehow.

    She ends up leaning back away from that screen in a real damn hurry. "That, Sir Staren, I believeth is to what we may oweth the alarm system. If there art machines and protocols dedicated to aiding the escape of those nearby in case of the escape of some dangerous being, it wouldst only seemeth sensible that this, so close, be it. Even Lumiere is unlikely to house so many of such scope in such proximity that there couldst be any confusion."

    Priscilla watches as Kord flies off, biting her lip in discontentment, but ultimately agreeing. "As much as I dislike the thought of leaving such a creature as a loose end, it is plain now that the structure it occupies is most unlikely to be our way out from here. I cannot imagine one built to imprison wouldst hath easy access to elsewhere in Lumiere. There is little to gain by challenging it at the moment, and much to lose, as we hath yet no idea of our exit, without which we wouldst be unable to so much as lead a fighting retreat."

    Huffing at having to pass up a boss battle and backtrack to it later, Priscilla starts her way down the girders as well, leaving little marbles at each one she visits that pulse with a rainbow glow, to serve as a handy trail.

Finna (513) has posed:
"NononononoooooooooooNONONONONONONONONONO!" Finna's response to seeing that FREAKISH, AMORPHOUS, THING looming towards the skull and the drone is to full on PANIC and ZIP-DASH across the dusty grounds back towards the pits they just crossed...

    And stares a bit at Kord just flapping on down it... and squeak out, "H-hey don't go too far from the gang! It's dangerous to go alone!"

    Staying here for that thing to possibly follow them is also pretty dangerous. The white fox doesn't seem eager to go down into the darkness though...

Kushiko has posed:
All throughout, the light continues to coruscate. Far more than the glowing lines and diodes on the sleek Valkyr Warframe. She felt as much as /saw/ what Staren had to show. The need to slay this... thing, to destroy it, to snuff out this void was clawing at her very being as she regards the Temple for several long moments.

She is a finely honed weapon, drawn tightly, drawn coldly and ready at a moment's notice to blur into action, into nothing but a tempest of martial fury. But when the... /thing/ begins to truly surface, that sense of needing to kill, of primordial danger that something like it should exist goes from simply clawing to screaming.

Thusly did the light coruscate more angrily, the summoning of Void energies rising in defiance of it's existence. Looking at her now gives a glimpse of the true terror that wrought beings such as she. If only just. <"We do not have what we need. Nova. Mag. We would bring this building down on it, crush it, smash it, break it, stab it, slice it. We would do all these things."> she says--or really, reverberates, such is said practically at the behest of Kord deciding that his time would be better served hauling ass. He's not wrong.

But this doesn't sit well with her. It goes beyond the notion of an insurmountable foe. They would be back; and this time, prepared. To Carna and Enark she looks. <"We will carry one of you, the other must cling to our back if you wish to leave with us."> Technically possible. Probably going to feel fast. Enark's probably going to need be carried, whom she seems to be approaching first.

The darkness is just an absence of light, after all. Depending on how one views it, both can be just as blinding.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe does mean it too, Enark has gone crawling with them in situationbs she'd not expect someone like him to be and had been a good support to the party as a whole. She also looks ahead for a moment to STarena nd then back. She's not sure moving onwards is a good idea she'll try to get a good clear peak at the Staren for a mmen she looks back part of he mind rebells some primal part scremaing yes those things exist in forsaken corners of reality.

"I... I ... we need to go now we need to leave. We are not ready to deal with something like this."

Priscilla's words calm hr a bit though.

"Right, I agree lets leave it be."

Carna (974) has posed:
    Carna has no idea what she's looking at either. Enark seems close to passing out. Crow seems content to remain quietly spooked on Finna's face. "I am so spooked right now!" the Shadow adds, just to make that clear.

    And then they decide to follow after Kord and Priscilla, Enark likely needing help (here's Tomoe's turn to carry him!) as they follow the path laid out by Priscilla. Carna has been very quiet during all this, not that being sociable is her strong suit, but the quiet terror she was experiencing becomes lesser as they put that thing behind them, and the sense of impending doom with it.

    The Darkness that had been pressuring her and Kord silently returns in the form of whispers, assuring them they made the right choice in listening, and guiding them towards safety. 'Down there. A gateway. Not the burning ring. The one behind the marker.' Cryptic-but-helpful.

    Carna is too worn out to care anymore. She just wants to be somewhere safer. She decides to be carried by Kushiko, wanting to put distance between her and this place as soon as possible. "My hunger for power has soured." she voices as they eventually reach another stable ledge of concrete protruding from a mass of steel beams and girders connected to who-even-fucking-knows. "That thing seems inedible to me." For now. She shakes her head. "If there is conflict, you all are correct. This is not the time or place. While on the run from enemies is not the time to find more."

Carna (974) has posed:
    Kord likely will see it first because he was in the lead. As he passes over the newest patch of stable footing in search of an exit, the sight of a gigantic silver ring, burning with ghostly flames, comes into view below them. Other rings, blackened and broken, follow it but they are out of place, collapsed, and hang like a series of broken bracelets dangling in a lightless pool. What might have once been a vertical column of sequential rings, all engraved with underworld glyphs like those in the arrival center, is now just ruins.

    But there is a tunnel of sorts that seems to lead up and back into the Umberdark Tunnels, if the gentle slope of the horn-shaped tube is anything to go by. It's a steep fall for those who can not fly, but the fall damage alone shouldn't kill them if they jump at full health.

    It's still going to suck.

    There is a gate though. Similar to the vault-doors of the evacuation vaults, but it seems to already be part-way open. Was there another vault attached to this tube at once point? It seems to be much further down than the enormous oblong chambers up above them.

    Whatever. This is probably the way out. And look at that, according to all available senses and sensors, there are neither unreality horrors nor Unlit in there. But there DO seem to be... People? Maybe other Lanterns? They smell like the Dead anyway, for those who smell dead people. Perhaps they can give some directions on how to get out of here.

Staren has posed:
    Aaand they're getting out of there! Staren lets the drone drop, shuts off his control signal and pockets the tablet, then decides to use the wings this time to fly down after the others. Ready to render medical aid to any who fall. He'll let someone else try talking to the mysterious people(?)

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord takes his time to examine the rings. He knows he has a unique opportunity to do so, and their nature does not escape him. The more he thinks about it, the more he thinks these may be more rings for accepting souls from the living world into Lumiere. He pauses at each one, frowning to himself as he understands that a universe had to have died to have burned out all of these rings. He does not know enough about science to understand the infinite consequence of such an event, the last event to ever happen.

    He just knows that Lumiere is decaying because of this. "Could a new living world be born...?" he muses aloud, as he circles one of the rings, and then flaps his wings once to hurry along.

    He may not sense any Lanterns or other people, but he does progress up to the point of the vault door, and attempt to go through it. He'll find out there's someone in there after the fact.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe will carry Enark and she shows she's a heck of a lot stronger one might think even from her physical build and size. She's moving along with Enark now carrying him and making to get the heck out of here. She wants to get farr away from that thing, and the farther they get? The better Tomoe feels, she carries Enark as long as he wishes too but due to carrying she is lagging behind the otehrs a bit.

Kushiko has posed:
Well, that'll work out, the carrying of people. Enark for Tomoe, Carna for herself. She secures Carna carefully, given the armor and what have you, not wanting to have anything drop off of Carna's person as she uses a combination of her usual parkour and grapplings to make it seem like she were simply bounding across a walkway instead of a terrifying expanse of floating isles and girders, now on the descent.

Normally that last part of actually descending down would probably hurt--a lot. A whole lot. But while she doesn't /fly/, Valkyr is naturally capable of falling down huge distances /without/ hurting herself, moreso than any frame. Still, she slows herself intermittently with her abilities into a slight glide so Carna isn't given to abject falling terror.

She's not much for talking up the people, but she is keeping a cautious look all the same. Once she's down and on the ground--having made sure Carna's able to get up and move on her own, she'll turn to the others. Not that the rings on the column meant much to her--their images are taken as a matter of fact, seeing them with her suit's sensors means that they'll be available for later review.

In theory, at least. It'll be nice to review them later.

Priscilla has posed:
    "What prompts thee to sayeth such a strange thing now, of all times?" Priscilla asks Kord, apparently at some point having gotten really close. She may not be able to fly, but precisely falling off of shitty pieces of broken construction to equally precisely land on other shitty pieces of broken construction in careful sequence to avoid lethal fall damage while also not missing and falling into a giant abyss is an oddly specific skill that she has oddly specifically gotten good at.

    Don't ask.

    "A better question wouldst perhaps be why one continues to function, whilst the others hath been so thoroughly shattered by the torrential flow of souls." she posits, before navigating further and further down, and making sure to turn invisible before slipping through the gap in the doors, if only so that she doesn't startle anyone and get shot at.

Finna (513) has posed:
Jumpin off the abyss doesn't bother Finna once she's not the first one down! With one last look back, she dives off... and sprouts hummingbird wings halfway through the strange descent. Lumiere's typical BIZARRE ARCHITECTURE is on display as always, and she's completely uncertain what these weird ghostflame'd rings and other structures actually mean...

    Though her brainmeats churn and start piecing together ideas...

    "If worlds were made once, there could be more! Why not?" She wonders aloud in answer... and softly lands down with the others.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Once everyone is inside the tunnel, Kord using his strength to drw it the rest of the way open for everyone to go through, it can be seen to indeed slope upwards as it looked from the outside, though there are stairs to take instead of just a steady incline to scale. And eventually it exits out onto level ground and a spacious tunnel. A spacious tunnel that is occupied.

    A mechanical sound emerges from the darkness. Robotic movements, one step in front of the other. A silhouette that is readily identifiable to Staren, though its sheer impossibility may cause it not to register at first. But the figure emerges from the darkness.

    A form that once belonged to an ex-Confederate. A kindred spirit of sorts.

    But that person is dead... Isn't he? It looks like him, mostly. Perhaps a bit meltier. This is the land of the dead, but could Lumiere really have brought back even...

    Wireless?

    Before there is time to take this in, something much bigger starts shuffling up the tunnel behind them. A slithering and rumbling noise and somewhat elegant, serpentine silhouette that would stand out to any who faced it within Lordran. The shadows peel away from this form as well. Not because it has emerged into what little light is available, but because the shadows themselves are physically retreating further up the tunnel.

    A huge white dragon-like creature, its lower body merely tentacles, or perhaps tails. Dripping eyes of a dead monster search fruitlessly for the one he was brought forth to face a second time. But thanks to her invisibility, this one's 'daughter' remains unfound. And yet, here is Duke Seath the Scaleless.

    Finally, a third figure emerges, dripping fluids from his taloned gauntlets, eyes piercing from within his bird-like mask, his cloak flowing out behind him just like the shadows he controls, as he strides purporsefully forwards.

    It is Kord himself.

    Or rather, judging by the dyes dripping from all three figures, Unpainted Kord.

    The distorted, doppleganger Count tilts his perpetually-melting head a bit and speaks in a voice that bubbles up his throat and yet is still unmistakeably Kord's, "I borrowed these from a painting. Before I can accept you as my vassals, I would like to see you play with them for a while. One must know the value of one's servants after all."

    The scaleless dragon, white painted running from its body in veritable waterfalls roars. The android releases a wordless electronic scream, its form as incomplete as the others. Unpainted Kord produces a scythe of black ink that trails smears upon the air wherever it passes.

    All three attack.