5499/Nine Of Crows

Nine Of Crows
Date of Scene:	29 September 2017
Location:	Lumiere
Synopsis:	In an underground tunnel, fakes battle the real thing, with lives hanging in the balance.
Cast of Characters:	974, Count Kord, 513, Tomoe, Staren, Kushiko, Priscilla

---

Carna (974) has posed:
    When the story left off last time, three natives of Lumiere, Carna, Enark, and Crow, accompanied heavily-armed and powerful Elites in working their way towards what is hopefully an exit of some kind after escaping from Unlit hordes that faced the might of these same adventurers and then kept coming, a bizarre Nameless thing of unknown nature, purpose, or means, and are now in a pipe-like tunnel leading up from an endless abyss run through with structures like the skeleton of a building, the framework of the mechanism that is Lumiere. And they stand face to face with two figures of the past, and one even more familiar due to his appearance being similar to one who stands among them.

    Though the actual Kord's face seems to be melting less.

    The darkness was pulled back to reveal the sight of Seathe the Scaleless and Rewire, two very dead entities, reanimated in the form of continuously-dripping simulacrums of magical paint. Between them is a similarly paint-dripping Kord.

    After declaring their intent of hostilities, the first act is for the Unpainted Kord to sweep a hand out and restore the darkness he had peeled away... Plunging anyone without adequate senses or nightvision blind, and turning the Shadow named Crow utterly helpless with no light to be cast by

    This also covers the wires that reach out through the air, seeking flesh to dissect, and the crystallizing breath that spews forth in great gobs of paint, sweeping from one side of the tunnel to the other.

    As first moves go, it's a pretty good one.

    Carna rolls towards the last seen position of the one responsible for the darkness, lashing out to the best of her ability with a blade on a chain.

    Crow wails against its inability to act.

    Enark stands at the back and starts trying to throw water shields on people and hoping he's getting his allies instead of his attackers.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord was not expecting that.

    After being shaken by the horrors above, he saw the doppleganger -- the impression of his presence in Lumiere made manifest -- and grimaced behind his mask. Not only did he find the similarities repulsive, that repulsion folded in on itself when he realized it embodied a healthy chunk of his worst qualities. It was a selfish being with nothing to fight for but itself, it didn't even have a common people or allies in the traditional sense. And that... bothered him, to the point he barely moved until after the darkness swept over everything.

    Kord roars in the dark, and there's a sudden reminder that a copied being has nothing on the original. He still sees Unpainted Kord after the darkness falls, and he completely overlooks all other threats in the face of such a being.

    He lunges. His wings beat, and his power over darkness launches him forward at incredible speed. He reaches one of his hands out and the dark solidifies around Unpainted Kord to make something of a tunnel to try and funnel his target. His intent is to grab his doppleganger by the chest, lift him up and slam him down with stone-cracking force into the floor, but the maneuver is direct and fueled by a deep-seated hatred. There's a narrow window to get out of the way, but just the swipe of Kord's hand is as dangerous as a dragon's claws.

    Kord has collected a smattering of crystalline dust on his body from the nega-Seath's attack, having narrowly avoided getting skewered by the brunt of it, sparkling paint dripping off of him. He's hurt, that much is clear, but that hasn't done much to slow him down.

    "IMBECILE!"

Finna (513) has posed:
This is NOT a good situation. How Finna would love to CUT and RUN. Her body goes into shakes and shivers as the trio of MONSTERS emerges from the darkness. All dripping paint. All looking murderous. All looking quite weird and beyond dangerous!

    Yeah. She would easily run. Except...

    There's nowhere TO run.

    Darkness doesn't bother her, save for when it's absolute. The little white fox's eyes are perfectly suited for night time.

    The thought of making use of the darkness herself and staying hidden, to strike unseen, does occur to her... but with Enark throwing spells around in a blind panic and Crow wailing, she steps forward and---

    SHINE ON, SHIMMERING MOONLIGHT!

    Waves of cooly-blazing, drifting, wafting purples, blues, and light silver-blues burst like an oil-soaked thatch hut struck by a match. The light carries a feeling of fresh, cool breezes and the damp air of a spring night...

    And it also frames an explosive transformation, the tiny fox rising up to its feet and filling out with human-like form. Finna - now a seven-foot tall, sleek but muscular Snow Fox woman with silvery shining claws and fangs - rapidly drops into a combat stance. Sleek, dense, lithe muscles ripple and tighten with building savage power.

    Wires worm and snake about through the air towards her, but she springs left and right and zigs and zags like a meteor when they get near.

    Finna, it seems, is currently trying to get them to chase her and tie themselves into knots...

    "Now what?! As if this place wasn't bad enough!!"

Tomoe has posed:
The unpainted Kord worries her a lot given how the unpainted Staren was and in the back of her mind she wonders is there a version of /her/ like that running around? It's not a comforting thought to Tomoe but there's little comfort in this world she's in. She watches at the ready with sword out and she watches for half a second she sees the paint coming after them. She will attempt to try to avoid it and also move to follow up Carna she chants again.

The Nordic is badly butchered but it does it's thing. She'll fire bolts of light into the Darkness having the same idea as Carna more or less. Though it may seem that she should be aiding Enark and Crow soon.

Staren has posed:
    Unfortunately, 'heavily-armed and powerful' doesn't apply as much when you get summoned from the middle of Lunch rather than in your gear.

    Staren doesn't stare in disbelief -- this isn't the first time an enemy has thrown the specter of Wireless at him -- but he does look surprised that the doppelgangers could have even found out about his old friend.

    Without his armor, he doesn't have sensors ready that can see in darkness. As he fumbles to pull the 'flipphone' device from his pocket, his forcefield activating is the only warning he gets that he's under attack. The crystals and wires trying to pierce it shatter it (and there's a loud POP and some smoke from Staren's bandana where the forcefield projector is hidden,) but at least it bought Staren enough time to turn and run behind the others. "Rewire only wanted to help people! To fix their problems!" At least he's not blind now, the device using ultrasound and, if applicable, non-visible spectrum light to give him something to see. "These are just images, you don't even know what you're imitating!" Not having his heaviest weapons doesn't stop him from running his mouth!

    And Finna provides a way to see... As soon as he sees what she's doing, Staren shouts "That won't work! Use magic attacks!" Well, maybe. Who knows if these imitations share Wire's intelligence OR his weaknesses?

    Tomoe! There's the tank he can hide behind! Taking cover behind the salamander, he reaches into his bag and pulls out what /looks/ like an ordinary pistol, trying to fire around her at the Rewire clone. The bullets are charged with explosive magic! The raw power alone isn't as good as his laser pistol, but now he can find out if that magic weakness still applies...

Kushiko has posed:
Of things one might expect here, the simulacrums, the total combination of it all, from the darkness to the imitation of Kord to Seath and this... Rewire? She didn't know him or it, whatever that was, though Seath was, frankly, /Seath/, and even if she didn't know explicitly, the breath and wires are enough of a thing to just kind of hammer the 'threat' rating until broken.

And in response, there can be only one thing. Amidst the darkness, Valkyr--not Kushiko--screams. That echoing, resonant sound that is /felt/ as much as it is heard as the strange Void essence is wreathed around her. Senses of the Tenno, as does much of her, simply do not behave in the normal way, and in response to the endless storm of wires that seek flesh and metal to rend alike does the now glowering, glimmering figure of unparalleled violence join the fray.

And join the fray with aplomb, brightly glowering lilac talons of energy seeking straight up to simply /shred/ and cut those wires when they seem to grow tightest, to use their tension against them (potentially) so they simply couldn't tangle up afterwards. She's not solely focused on just cutting, however, weaving forward in an advance to offset what's covering the field before suddenly bolting through the air given Staren's words.

<"Define magic then!"> the operator quickly remarks--given what the Tenno is, 'magic' may well be an excellent way to describe her Void-gifted abilities; just 'technology' that she inhabits is a very advanced form of it. Maybe. Either way, Seath and his breathing on the others is something she cannot immediately assail just yet, instead seeking to straight up pounce the originator of those wires in Rewire. Or Wireless. Whomever.

Priscilla has posed:
    Priscilla, when she had released her painted self from her torment some time ago, had expected her involvement with the bastard Tharmas to be effectively over. Seeing what lies ahead of her in that dark tunnel not only proves her worryingly wrong, but instantly opens her mind to a much, much larger list of other concerning possibilities.

    Fortunately, she had already run into this tunnel invisible. If some mockery of Seath is here, there was probably already, on some strange and conceptual level, an understanding that she'd be here as well, but painted Kord, and Rewire (whom she doesn't recognize) wouldn't know that, and well, Priscilla got /pretty damn used/ to avoiding her blind dragon dad's notice for several years. With the same blood and the same magic running through her veins, she doesn't /particularly/ feat his crystal breath, especially not with the aid of Moonlight, so . . .

    "Leaveth the dragon to mineself." she says, hushed and strained over the radio. Carrying the scythe in one hand, Priscilla stealthily summons Moonlight to the other, its ethereal glow dissipated by her invisibility. She moves swiftly through the shadows cast by the painted Kord and Finna's anima light, warding away the painted breath with the sword made from the real Seath's soul, and circles behind to swing her scythe through the doppleganger's rear-most tail and see what it's really made of.

Staren has posed:
    "I dunno, he didn't exactly let me run a bunch of tests!" Staren shouts to Kushiko. "I used bombs made from crystallized water and fire energy!"

Carna (974) has posed:
    Unpainted Kord leaps up and over Carna's blind sword attack, though is then caught in midair by sizzling laser beams from Tomoe that mark him even before the darkness is shed, but not before Kord comes charging in. Rather than trying to evade, he spins his scythe into place to try to block the attack, and winds up being hammered into the tunnel floor as a result, paint bleeding from 'wounds' like tears in a canvas. The Unpainted Kord's eyes glow red with a fearsome stare that seeks to keep Kord from pulling away, challenging him to remain locked in battle, and promising retribution if the demi-god retreats, with a Mean Look.

    His paint-dripping cloak coils inwards, then, forming into an almost venus flytrap-like double-raw of spikes aimed at real-Kord's back even as he oozes into the crater formed in the floor by his own body.

    Thankfully, Carna's sword slices back as it returns to her, retracting on the chain, and cutting one row of cloak spikes. And with the light provided by Finna, a water shield soon encompasses Kord even if he doesn't fight off the escape-impairing glare.

    Tomoe, Staren, Finna, Carna, and Kushiko soon have similar shields to soak damage with. Priscilla doesn't because she's invisible, which is about as troublesome for targetting allies with as being in total darkness. "Must we do this!?" Enark calls out as he finishes his chanting, agreeing with Staren (probably??) that there is something wrong with this scenario on many levels.

    Crow is exposed again by the light that Finna produces, and lets out a, "Yaaaaaay!" =:D But then the light is so bright that it sends the shadows all over and further up the tunnel, displacing the Shadow from the battle. "Nooooooo!" D:=

    The wires are made of paint, so even as Kushiko severs them easily with her weapons and skills, sending them splattering on the floor, they just reform from the leftover cut ends, and even split into more wires, bifurcating each time to increase the number of weapons there are to dodge. Fake-Rewire does seem to be preoccupied with Finna mostly, though now also Kushiko since there's more wires to take people apart with. Finna mainly because she's acting as a light source that is helping those who don't have night vision or super-sensors, Kushiko because she's interfering.

    Which leaves him open to Staren's pistol which blows huge holes in the Rewire duplicate, sending it splattering everywhere, in what would be a grisly death for something of flesh and blood, and even for something made of paint, it is plenty gruesome with how deformed fake-Rewire's body has become.

    Whether it's the magic or the explosives that did it, the simulacrum doesn't appear to be prepared to fight any further until getting more of itself together. But then Kushiko pounces the golem and sends it scattering a dramatic red and black *SPLAT* across the tunnel walls and floor. One down...

Carna (974) has posed:
    As Priscilla deals with the dragon, countering the breath attack, and then moving in to sever a tail, the appendage writhes after being severed only to disintegrate, as a new tail starts to form in its place. An arm sweeps outwards to one side, and then the other arm to the other, while turning and trying to isolate the location of the one who inflicted this damage. The roar of Seath reverberates through the tunnel, even if it sounds as though it comes from under some viscuous liquid. If sorcery and intelligence were characteristics of the original, this one has yet to demonstrate much if anything in that department. It is a creature in the image of the original, just as the false-Rewire was. Just like Staren said. These are not the dead brought back to life, but facsimiles drawn imperfectly from memory, from artistic effort to paint those destined to come here, who just... Never did.

    But why THESE two? Are there prophecies for them too? Or were they torn from the memories of the countless iterations of these six as they were reborn over and over and over? Could ANYONE they once knew be here as a distorted, shambling homunculus, betraying all that the original stood for?

    Definitely things to consider.

    But a more pressing concern suddenly presses down on them, as a cube of glowing green light forms around Crow at the periphery of the battle, sending the Shadow into a black ball with a face on it in the center of the cube. Who did that? Does the real Kord have an ability like that? Is that Imprison? Or what? Two times now, tactics designed to keep Crow out of the fight have been employed.

    What the hell is going on exactly?

Priscilla has posed:
    Compared to her static duplicate, Priscilla finds what her scythe bites into . . . lacking. It's confusing, but perhaps not totally unexpected. After all . . .

    "Why here and now? What theme wouldst draw these disparate mockeries together, and why wouldst they be placed in our way at this point, of all places? There wouldst seemeth to be no sense in their appearance, and no significance in their timing, as well that no elements of their stories seemeth to follow them." That last part works just for her. Tracking down some kind of painted Primordial Crystal would be a nightmare, were that kind of thing possible.

    Crow again, though? "Can anyone maketh out from whence the spell cometh?" she asks out loud. "And is Sir Enark able to do anything about it? I ill like the idea of being made to chase a captive Shadow again." Down come the big dragon arms, lashing about in huge sweeps to either side. Priscilla crosses her sword behind her scythe haft and absorbs the blow with a hard brace and a hefty 'whumph', launched a considerable distance, but bouncing off her feet and coming to a slide instead of breaking her arms. She's grown much stronger since last she fought the white dragon, and this one seems to be far lesser.

    With that confidence in mind, she dives straight back into the fray, going up a yomi level and running at the painted Seath's front rather than trying to take a flank, where retaliation would be more expected. Invisibly, she takes her true size as she runs, eyes up to the level of the white dragons' chest, and this the shrieking arc of her scythe dances to take his arm off at the shoulder, then three wings off at the other, and then his skull at the neck, sparking faintly against the walls at the extreme edges of its movements.

Finna (513) has posed:
"N-Noticed that!" With the wires being made of GOO... Finna's noticing they're not exactly getting terribly tangled. They're focused on her, sure, but not getting tangled. Focused on her though, does mean they're less focused on other people. Good enough compromise for the short term, right?

    If she wasn't so nimble and quick, and wasn't a Lunar, the thoughts raging in the foxgirl's mind right now would be enough to slow her into suffering a grisly fate. As it is... she's putting her everything into dodging, weaving, and twisting her body in strange contortions that just don't look AT ALL comfortable... To an extent? They don't even look possible, on occasion. Joints shouldn't bend like they do when she flips, zigs, and zags...

    And the most prevalent thought that comes to mind is, "WHY WERE THESE WAITING FOR US?!" A thought punctuated by a swing of her arm that sends a half-dozen KNIVES FROM NOWHERE flying at the paint-Wire Core, each dangling on a faint, nearly invisible silvery thread of her own.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord locks eyes with the Unpainted duplicate. The spattering of paint across his body from the impact marks him with more oozing black, which he dutifully ignores. He had, somewhere in the middle of this, placed his weapon back in its holster, because he is about to get hands-on here. He almost gets skewered by the spikes, but his wings promptly jerk into place to take the brunt of the impalement. He tenses in visible pain, and blood sprays off of him, but he can only growl like the dark-aligned half-monster he is.

    He makes no attempt to flee.

    Instead, a terrible power surges through his body, and then... he stands up, and grasps an invisible weapon overhead, and swings it down. As he does, an incredible blast of wind emits from all directions around him, but especially in front of him, aiming for the center of Unpainted Kord's mass. The wind cuts like a powerful magic sword, blasting a groove in the floor several feet deep, and sending dust and debris far into the air. He doesn't usually use these abilities, but he knows he'd be somewhat resistant to anything dark-type.

Kushiko has posed:
It's probably a very good thing that Valkyr was wreathed in that damage nullifying measure of Hysteria--with the way the paint-like things were simply being made into more, there's little point in actually trying to cut them anymore directly.

<"Noted,"> she dryly remarks in that continually odd manner of hers. Though she /can/ take a hit, she saw no point in taking too much of them, blood flaying out through the seams in between the curious technorganic shell of hers as she closes in on Rewire.

One thing /can/ do, however, once she's closed in on Rewire more directly--is to loose another howling war cry--one that is heedless of shadow and simply blankets the immediate area with a twofold effect: increasing how fast one attacks by melee while doing the inverse to others. Nominally, Finna should be the best one affected by this, but if Staren and Tomoe are anywhere near (though probably not Priscilla and Seath, Kord and Not!Kord) it may do some good to swing the tide.

It's the kind of thing that'll help render the golem into so much red and black that one might think it were a Jackson Pollock. Flicking her hands to whick the goop off her claws, she quickly turns about to regard where Crow's been so rudely made into a fidget cube. She'll leave Finna, Tomoe and Staren to hopefully help out Kord some as she will attempt to simply /break/ that cube--the use of the otherworldly void claws of her Hysteria aspect may help in this. Or maybe not.

Staren has posed:
    Seeing the paint creatures take damage leaves Staren more in doubt over whether original 'weaknesses' matter... It doesn't really matter much now, anyway, as they're clearly able to dispatch these things by raw force.

    A bunch of things happen -- Kord faces off against 'himself', Priscilla faces off against Seath while pointing out that SOMETHING may be trying to steal Crow from them. He starts considering how to try and save Crow, but, Valkyr's probably got it... so, continuing to hide behind Tomoe, he fires more explosive bullets at Un-Kord, hoping that the force generated will be devastating to the paint!

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe keeps her eyes on the target as her lasers more or less strike home but is it enough to stop them? No but it's clearly effected them in some fashion. She will have otbe ready for things to get worse as she moves to track the unpainted Kord she will be in for a hell of a fight, and the shield does help her a good deal. She is going to try to go in though she's got a blade and it's time to put the Dawn-breaker to use as she makes a rush for the unpainted again she wonders about what others might have been copied here and she will keep fighting as Staren takes out the Rewire copy. Not that she knows anything about them but it's one less foe to deal with.

She's going to have to make ready as something else seems to be happening but she calls out to Finna.

"This isn't the first time wer run into things like this!"

She feels the effect from Kushiko's ability and he attacks speed the heck up as she will make another go for the faux Kord with her blad einto a brutal rapid combo of sword strikes.

She'll also make sure she will always be in the line of fire between Not Kord and Staren.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Fake-Seath is torn apart by full-sized Priscilla's blades, even as the dragon tries to breathe out his crystallizing paint breath at point-blank range into whatever is front of him. But in the end, as his head is severed from his neck, the construct begins to just fall apart and melt into a huge mound of paint that will no doubt turn into a vast puddle.

    With dragon down, android down, and Unpainted Kord seemingly on the ropes as he is blasted with the air sword, Carna firing off several crossbow shots under the influence of Kushiko's Hysteria into the paint golem, Enark dousing Kord in healing magics for the injuries suffered, Staren's explosive shots doing a number on the doppelganger (though possibly requiring more healing magic to be dumped on Kord if he's too close when they go off), and then Tomoe driving in to send a frenzy of sword slashes into the creature... Well, it may appear that the fight is done. No one is left standing, right? Now to just resolve the matter of crow and--

    The various puddles of paint ripple for a moment, and then draw inwards, flying through the air to mix together and form a coating like a huge black hand over the glowing green cube. Finna's strikes against it before resulted in a powerful repulsion effect, but now as a sheen of black forms with a face not like Kord's but perhaps more like the helmet he wears, even the option of striking it is complicated.

    The metallic-black paint rises up into Unpainted Kord again, now standing atop of the cube through which occasional shafts of emerald light shine through the substance coating it.

    "Excellent," the not-Kord says. "You've proven your power is worthy enough to serve me. But now, can you provide your wits?" The paint segments itself, turning into nine different rectangles, lined in green light. Each one has a different face upon it much like Crow's.

    =:D        D:=        =:>

    -\_(``/)_/-        >:E        =:<

    =:|        =:/        =:o

    Unpainted Kord says, "One of these is an expression your companion has never made. Choose the correct card, and it will go free. Choose incorrectly, and you will join it inside this prison until or unless someone else chooses correctly."

Priscilla has posed:
    The feeling of murdering Seath again is, to say the least, less cathartic. Whether it is simply because the painted abomination is a mere mockery, or whether Priscilla feels as if she has truly, holistically moved past his presence in her life, even she doesn't fully know, but the impression is little enough that the unpainted Kord dominates her attention instead of the thought of it.

    "Serve thee? A jest poorer than any one I hath ever heard made by the man thou hast failed to live up to. How wouldst thou even knoweth the answer to such a question? I little believeth the idea that somehow thou hast been everywhere Sir Crow hast, and even then, expecteth any one of us hath watched him at every moment." She points to the >:E face. "In all mine time with him, I hath never seen such a face of aggression from the innocent creature, and yet, how wouldst thou knoweth that, stalker and outsider?"

Staren has posed:
    "Ugh, it's reforming..." And then it's Kord again. Seriously? It STILL thinks they'd serve it? Staren raises his pistol to blow it away again, while thinking about how to destroy the paint for good -- would fire work? -- when Priscilla of all people actually takes the bait and plays the game presented to her. What the hell? Still, he'll hold off on shooting to see how her choice plays out.

    Also, because he can, he has Dawn search all the times he's seen Crow. Hmm, four of those expressions don't show up. So the test is basically rigged anyway... just as he expected.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord has his wits about him, and launches up into the air to turn and look upon the duplicate with all of that paint dripping off of him. The healing water spell gets a momentary distracted glance for Enark's sake, acknowledging the source of it. He doesn't thank the poor man, though. He wouldn't have asked for help anyways. He chuckles quietly at the bizarre game that the duplicate has turned this encounter into, because it does remind him of home. Leaders in his world do like their absurd little trials.

    He turns his head to watch Priscilla after she makes her decision. "He might not know," he offers, "Because magic does not always rely on what one knows." He makes a gesture to the box and cards. "This is clearly magic."

Finna (513) has posed:
With things calming down, Finna does a few backflips and lands stunningly away from the one Unpainted who survives the skirmish proper: not-quite-Kord. When she lands and comes to a halt she's still a-blaze... and with one twitch of a wrist she retrieves ALL the tossedknives. They whip back to her on spider-thin threads that dissolve as rapidly as she prestidigitates(?!?!?!) the knives out of sight with another wrist-flick... where DID they go?

    The glowing Lunar's looking unamused and quite uncooperative at the puzzle being shown though. She hasn't seen enough of Crow to get much of a judgement of him...

    "Awfully interested in our traveling companion!" She remarks pressingly. "Like you know something about him. I smell a mystery!"

Kushiko has posed:
Though she does not have the tangible memory of her former Orokin masters, the fake Kord strikes enough of a chord that there's absoutely no way that she'd even entertain the thought. The eyeless figure practically seethes with a cold violence that sloughs off her like a hazy smoke.

Given her attack went otherwise falling flat, she seems content, for now, to abdicate the decision, though the smooth 'face' seems to indicate the same choice of >:E as did Priscilla.

Tomoe has posed:
Unpainted Kord is what seems to be all that remains. at this point and it's not going to be for very long as the party cuts him down and she seems that her last attack combo helped to finish it off. but then the paint is changing it's morphing and she takes a step back from it. She looks at what comes from the paint and she looks at the not-Kord for a moment.

"Serve you? Sorry I'm not kneeing to you." Tact? What tact? She also looks at the puzzle for a moment an sighs a little bit as she stars trying to think it over, she was the sort to just blow up the wall rather than deal with an overly complex switch puzzle or anything like it. She starts to think but she also looks over to Staren and Priscilla. Maybe they have a better idea or perhaps Kord might or even the Kushiko might too. However she eoesn't want to lose Crow to this thing either.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Unpainted Kord calls down chidingly as though speaking to someone very young, "I have the creature right here to pull memories from. I know who has been present to see which expressions." He does not answer other questions asked of him, seemingly content to watch in amusement and not give too much explanation that could lead to unravelling things. No indication of the interest in Crow, or any of the other mysteries. When Priscilla points at the face with >:E, Unpainted Kord asks, "Is that your choice?"

    Carna's eyes dart furtively over the cube, not examining the cards, but rather looking for any weak point. She appears to also be of the 'look for a way to kill the enemy' school of thought, like Staren, but given the fluidity with which this opponent moves, the way it can reform itself, even if she struck it down, would that truly defeat it? Also, who knows what would happen to Crow if they disrupted that container. Maybe it would just shut off the light, freeing Crow.

    Or maybe it would do something insane they aren't expecting. If collapsing the tunnel on not-Kord and Crow would benefit them in any way, she might just go for that. But their exit would then be even more blocked than it is now.

    She doesn't like not being able to just stab the problem into submission.

    Enark stands by, regaining his composure as much as he can after the fight has finished, looking to anyone in need of aid and finding most fine for now. Fine except for Crow. Enark remembers when he was first burdened with the keeping of the Shadow. That he did, at the time, see it as a burden. An intrusion upon his research and his 'life'. But such reluctance born of isolation was gradually shed, and he found himself appreciating having someone around to talk to again. No longer was he lonely. Certainly, all the others, even Carna, are a nice change from eternal imprisonment by himself (with a mimic chair). But they had their own lives, their own goals, their own homes. Crow had been his little shadow in many ways.

    And in all that time, Enark had never once seen a face like the one Priscilla pointed to and the Valkyr emulated in its face plate.

    Besides, it doesn't have Crow's ear-horns.

    Enark steps forwards and says, "As the one who has spent the most time with Crow, I confidently choose the center face."

    Unpainted Kord asks teasingly, "Are you suuuure?"

    Enark stands up straight, brushing off his robe, and then says, "I am sure."

Carna (974) has posed:
    There is a dramatic pause. Then Unpainted Kord says, "That... Is the correct card."

    Enark trembles with relief, though he tries to contain it, and keep looking strong.

    Unpainted Kord says, "And now... I will set IT free." He raises his taloned hands and laughs as the adjoining cards flow inwards to the center one, causing it to bulge and mass together. And then it lances outwards, a simulacrum of Crow, bearing a face with angry 'eyebrows' and sharp teeth... And so very many painted spears, which run directly through Enark's torso and out the other side.

    The Blue Scholar staggers in shock, looking down at his injury, more surprised than pained. And then up to the fake of his friend, the one to deal this deadly blow.

    The real ball of shadows at the center of the cube begins boiling and bubbling, trying to fight against its own nature to break free, as Crow's voice, distant and muted, lets out a chorus of screaming 'NO's from within its prison.

    Unpainted Kord calls out, "Sorry. You have failed the test of wits. I can not accept you as my vassals." He is met with a hail of crossbow bolts from Carna, and who knows what else from everyone else.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord watches, suspiciously, something like amusement in his heart over the twisted game they've been forced into. He hadn't continued his attack because the magic would endanger Crow... momentarily, Kord wonders why he cares that shadow would be endangered, settling mentally on 'that is MY shadow puppet.'

    He flinches when Enark is attacked. The attack was not expected, not after he heard that it was the correct card. But he remembers this is a copy of him. He might've done the same to his enemies... The thought infuriates him, because it once again reminds him of the proverbial corner his life has forced him into. He moves once again with swift and dark power, like a flash step to clear the distance, almost like teleportation, and he already has his scythe swinging. As he does this, he screams at the others, "REPAIR THE SCHOLAR!!!"

    He vanishes the moment Unpainted Kord might try to evade to try and hit him from another angle, snapping through the shadows with absurd speed. The slash emits a half-circle wave of black energy crackling with red electricity, a magically enhanced slash that can easily kill any mortal man, and do serious harm to anything stronger than that.

    BOOM!

Staren has posed:
    It also occurs to Staren that maybe, just maybe, the real test of wits is to see if anyone is smart enough to NOT play the game. But that feels off somehow.

    Turns out to be right, though. He starts firing at Fake Kord as soon as Fake Crow starts moving... but then is given something else to worry about.

    Moving into position so that Not-Crow isn't between him and Enark, his hand dips into his bag with the handgun, and comes out with another, looking like an oversized revolver -- but not the Annihilator, and it has an arm brace -- which he fires at Not-Crow. Another of Morg's inventions, it hits like a supercharged shotgun. Staren's just going for impact force here, trying to knock Not-Crow away so others can engage it or, preferably, splatter it across the wall. Either way, he moves up to Enark to administer bandages and healing potions. "Hang in there!"

Kushiko has posed:
Not a single solitary word comes from Valkyr. From Kushiko as close as she is. She feels it, senses it, and it's the merest flicker, the tail of the Warframe spasming and twitching just so. The untold, unimaginable and nigh incomprehensible force of the Void gathers itself to answer Unpainted Kord's actions. Not with words.

The sound of rage and fury however, is another matter altogether.

She hurtles forward. With Fervor and Rage did she cross the distance in a blink of an eye. The claws her hands bore were hazy in a sense, energy roiling about, making the very air itself thick with light that seared at the senses with nearly blinding light.

As the true Kord made his presence known, she gave to it the only thing she could in this state.

            Madness.

Spinning kicks, headbutt, pivoting and smashing, every single muscle, every single limb is nothing short of a weapon in this state. She will not stop, she simply /cannot/, because something like her does not tire, does not become winded. Only death will satisfy her, of this Unpainted Kord and whatever it was that brought him here.

Because it isn't just Valkyr's howl of rage. It is, uniquely, the sound of Kushiko, the child and the tortured soul within. As one. This might be troubling to say, Priscilla who knows enough of her, and possibly others.

Priscilla has posed:
    Of course it's the right answer. As if Priscilla would ever forget something like that. Her memory is long and sharp, and though she may not show it, she pays great care to those who depend on her. Which happens to include Einar. So when the arrogant piece of shit she already condemns thinks he's achieved clever wordplay by being wilfully obtuse, and then dares to harm one of her own, Priscilla will tolerate him no further.

    "That is well enough." Priscilla seethes, her voice as cold as the ice of the Painted World and sharp as the edge of her scythe. "For I cannot accept thee as something that continues to exist." A cruciform blaze of light flashes from her eye, scouring space so thoroughly that the blowback of howling wind tosses her hair and ripples through her dress, scorching every surface with the peeling heat of malevolence so furious and hateful that it physically burns. The weave of reality screams like steel coming apart at the seams; like something being atomized in the well of a black hole.

    The full power she had taken from Kalameet blasts the false Kord head on, warping space and gravity down the length of the passage, and seizing hold of what it catches in a grip so comprehensively crushing that not even liquid could flow from it. The false Kord, the perverted mockery of Crow, even the cage that holds the true article. Her stare /sears/ its brand into the paint's very substance, which no change of shape can shed, stripping away the protections it creator had afforded it, and rapidly scouring away the possible realities in which it escapes what comes next without real and grievous harm.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is going to watch the puzzle play out and she sees as Enark picked the right card and Crow ends up hopefully get it free. That does not happen she's not fast enough top stop it. Now a rage fills Tomoe as she gets her blade ready but it's not in time she's moving but she's not quick enough as the Blue Scholar takes an attack she can not block.

"I WILL NEVER BE YOUR VASSEL!"

She lunges at the false Kord and intend to try and bisect them with her blade and when she gets in close she chants as the spell finishes she notes.

"BURN!!"

Okay Tomoe may have lost it or is on the verge of losing it.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Kushiko's attack blasts apart Unpainted Kord even as he tries to pool himself to block the crossbow bolts that turn his painted wings into a pincushion. More paint flows up from the glowing green cube to replace that eradicated by the power of the Void, only to meet Kord's scythe slashes as the doppelganger tries to react in time, and gets a searing line carved into its back. And then dozens of other places. Unlike when others injure him, the paint doesn't just splatter (or disinteagrate, such as has occurred with the Valkyr's attack) when Kord hits it. Instead, the paint peels away, to expose strips of almost paper-like material, like shredded canvas.

    Kushiko's follow up of frenzied attacks, paired with Kord's give little time for the fake to respond except to draw himself up onto the ceiling and then send out blades of painted shadow. But with how fast his opponents are moving, and having to deal with two of them, it is sketchy whether any of them will find their mark.

    The fake-Crow grinning viciously, morphs itself into a wave of shadowy knives as it rushes towards Staren, the shot blasting a hole through its painted form that probably would have been less than effective if that were actually real shadow. But it seems to be plenty effective, creating an opening to reach Enark through as the Scholar slips off the spears and onto the ground, a hole big enough to stick one's arm through in the center of his chest. "I-it's okay. It's worse than it looks! I mean it's--" he coughs, the lack of needing lungs to breathe not exactly negating the lack of lungs needed to speak with. As Staren sets to work trying to tend to Enark, he may notice the surprising lack of blood. Also, the injury seems very smooth. Did the spears just scrape everything dangly free or...?

    Enark's eyes widen as he looks up and behind Staren, trying to mouth a warning.

    The fake-Crow's body starts to close down on Staren like a huge set of jaws.

    While this has been going on, the cage holding Crow has been steadily suffering micro-fissures along its interior as the ball of Shadows practically vibrates, thrashing against the light and building in intensity. When Priscilla's power brands the cage, the not-Crow, and the not-Kord, a series of events occur rapidly.

    The not-Kord fumbles his attack, and the attacks already hitting him hit even harder. He stops morphing his body to respond to attacks, and just takes them as though, in his spread-out, partially-destroyed state, he had suddenly been rendered flesh and blood. Viscuous black fluid vomits from his injuries under the pummeling.

    The not-Crow halts its own attack against Staren in pain and confusion.

    And the cube holding a god cracks and breaks as a gigantic, golden, armored hand and arm tears forth, filling the tunnel with a pale radiance, accompanied by a single word in a voice only four present have heard come from the normally high-pitched and childish Shadow.

    "NO!

Carna (974) has posed:
    Crow's hand seizes not-Crow and smashes it into the tunnel wall, driving the demi-liquid creature's face and form across the unforgiving stone, tearing huge chunks of it free, rending steel supports, and then pausing as the rest of Crow, now visibly a much more stark and solid form than has ever before been witnessed, express pure rage that makes the 'mean' expression of fake-Crow look no more fierce than a scowling child.

    Molten golden light shines forth from slitted eyes, and a jack-o-lantern mouth of sharp points. All up Crow's arm and into its torso, there is golden armor with the imagery of a crescent moon upon it, with a coating of black, shadowy skin sizzling and burning on the surface. A film of dark flesh over a shell of divine power.

    Then Crow forces the cube open as its other hand and arm emerge, maintaining their flexible, shadowy nature and pulling the Shadow's full body out of its confinement. By this point, fake-Crow has begun to reform itself, though very slowly. It just took double damage from the palm of a god after all.

    It rises up from the tunnel's floor just in time for the real crow to blur into position, ramming its other arm through the fake's chest not unlike what it did to Enark, and then compressing its god arm and using it to punch the fake in the face so hard that the paint catches fire and thunder resonates through the tunnel, giving the sound of an angry heaven to supplement the maddened screams of Valkyr, the cold condemnations from Priscilla, and enraged order to provide aid to Enark from Kord.

    It's a shockwave enough to make the more lightweight among them who remain on the floor find their feet leavng it. Enark winces as he lands again, and starts pouring healing magic into his own wound to turn Staren's bandages into bindings that wrap around the hole in his body completely, and then start filling it with regrowing soulstuff. Fortunate that the Lit are so resilient to injury. Though if it had been the head instead...

    Crow's face, a cruelly twisted shadowy mask of fury and golden light while roughly a third of its body is the armor beneath, issues forth repeated, ferocious rejections of what has happened. "NO! NO! NO!" The arm that is still shadow splits into hundreds of individual tendrils and then uses the light from the god arm to grant the paint-golem a shadow. Then Crow's shadow tendrils seize the paint creature by its shadow all over.

    The face of the fake-Crow is no longer mean, but pained, confused, fatigued, looking more like the real Crow's face than Crow's face currently does.

    Crow doesn't care. It tears the shadow of its enemy apart and sends individual pieces flying in every direction to smolder and then disintegrate on the floor, walls, and ceiling.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Tomoe's blade delivers the seeming final blow to not-Kord, as the paint golem staggers on the verge of ruin thanks to the unceasing barrage from Kushiko and the repeated shadow-blinking bombardment of empowered scythe strikes from Kord, turning the creature into so much tattered canvas. The blade strike both pierces him and then makes him erupt into flames. The torrent of fire sends the remnants of Unpainted Kord boiling further up the tunnel to slam into some solid surface or another, before washing back on itself, consuming the decay of ages from the walls and leaving a magical conflagration ahead of the group. Though the flames will likely die out soon enough, in the meantime, searching for anything that might have survived will have to wait.

    Enark sits up slowly, offering a hand to Staren to help him, as he looks upon what his innocent, pacifist friend has become.

    Still bubbling and sending smoke and sizzling sounds and simultaneously beautiful and yet melancholy light flickering all across the tunnel, the god-beast that Crow has partially became remains hunched over, breathing out steam from its jagged-mouth. And then it searches for more targets. Fake-Kord is done with. Fake-Crow is done with. The cube... Enark is still 'alive'...

    Gradually, realization starts to return to the Shadow, just like its shadowy flesh that spreads to contain the light and armor once more, leaving Crow hunched over on the tunnel floor, and still strangely solid-looking, humanoid with legs and all, even after the armor has gone. Crow looks stricken as it gazes upon its taloned hands, upon the smoking points where its own duplicate is embedded in the tunnel. "Oh, no." are Crow's first words. "Oh, no. Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no. What did I do? What did I do, what did I do?" The last of the golden light fades from Crow's eyes as his mouth takes on a drastic form of dismay and distress. "What did I do!?"

    Ah. That's right.

    This is the first time Crow has hurt anyone. It's also the first time Crow has killed.

    And now Crow has made every expression on the cards.

Staren has posed:
    Well, Staren's ABOUT to use the rattler when Crow ascends, somehow, and starts beating the crap out of his doppelganger. No time to stare, got to start healing Enark... Soon thunder's knocking him off his feet and setting those cat ears ringing -- they splay and he moans in discomfort, before Enark helps him up. He turns to look at Crow. "You saved Enark. ...What's wrong?" It's never occured to him that Crow might be a pacifist. Sure, Crow's never attacked the monsters they've fought, but they've all been pretty darn powerful, and aside from that Super Mode that just happened, Crow didn't seem like he /could/ fight such things. But, he admitted to eating people's hands, so as far as Staren knows it's not like he's /never/ violent.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord moved. He swayed out of the way of spikes that narrowly missed because their owner had been smothered in a mountain of rage and calamity. Divine beings of several shapes and flavors make their displeasure known, alongside their mortal companions, spawning looks of awe and startle from Kord... especially when it comes from Crow. Crow's fury makes Kord land, and backpedal a few steps. He watches the animated shadow maim the fake beyond all possible notion that it could've survived the attack, and he puffs a breath, impressed with the events as they unfold even as the dim light slightly blinds him in the contrast with the shadows.

    He watches his duplicate smolder and burn, frowning behind his mask.

    Kord approaches Crow in the aftermath, and reaches out.

    And places his arm right on Crow's elbow, or where it should be. It's a physical touch. He's watched some soldiers go through this same moment, the first time they've killed something is almost universally traumatic, and his touch is just to show that he isn't alone. He doesn't have any words of friendship, because he is bloody terrible at those.

    "We have to go," he gently reminds, "This place is not safe."

Kushiko has posed:
The haze of ultraviolence, while occluding and allowing her to almost completely ignore what few hits Unpainted Kord is able to get out before he meets his well-deserved demise, is also keeping her singularly focused on that for a few moments past what's happening around her.

Like with Crow. And Shadow Crow (isn't that redundant?) even as sprays and gouts of ink and 'blood' are rendered like ribbons in the air. It's the voice that pierces the reverie, the battle high for all of a few moments. Recognition of Something Else, though she could not properly address it. She takes advantage of both Priscilla and Kord's actions to simply rip and tear, only halting once Tomoe's blow has finally landed.

Then, and only then does she find a moment to let that slaked rage roil and flow off her. Her hands close into fists, letting the claws and Void energy fall off of her, dispersing as she turns her attention to what... the hell is Crow doing. Enark's condition and to that matter Carna too is reconsidered; after all in that battle haze she completely eliminated all other considerations as she steadies herself as best as she can--what with /arms/ coming out of the tunnels.

And it's only in mute dumbfoundedness can she simply 'stare' at what fully transpires. What do you even say to reassure someone like that? The child within doesn't know, can only steel and regain her composure. <"He's right. We can talk about what happened when we are all fully safe."> A slight pause. <"For relative definitions of safe.">

Tomoe has posed:
Crow just does something she's not sene before they jut utterly lose it and seem to be gaining power from it? She knows the paint golem just takes the wrath of the entire party they do not let up she watches the unpainted Kord boils away and the flames finally dye out, she takes a step back not wanting to get caught in it. She stares with a mic of awe and fear at Crow who has actually killed something and now shes just at a loss for words.

Priscilla has posed:
    Orc.

    Priscilla had seen this before.

    At the Godforge, the most.

    Were she in any other state of mind, she might have moved to stop Crow; or rather, to stop Orc, so that he might remain Crow. With fury roused, both cold and hot, her own and the Black Dragon's, instead she only takes satisfaction in the thorough and utter destruction of the intruders who harmed the gentle and helpless dead under her protection. As they have so many times before.

    It's only when Crow finally cools down that she does as well, where the baleful light fades, the wind and heat and screaming die down, and then out, and space reasserts its proper dimensions. A while ago, what feels like forever, she had harboured some worries that the Shadow's utter lack of comprehension of harm would come back to bite them; make him dangerous. Now, seeing him realize the magnitude of the act even that the others had taken before him . . .

    Priscilla walks up slowly, and gently places her hand on his little black head, patting him between his nubby horns.

    "Let us away, brave young Sir Crow. Dwelling upon it now shalt serve us, least of all thee, no purpose. There is a time and a place to cometh to terms, and it is not here."

Carna (974) has posed:
    Carna is disappointed by the lack of Dead Lights to consume, but who knows how paint-creatures function. She looks back to Crow, unable to understand what it's going through in the slightest. But seeing that everyone is accounted for, she begins striding up the tunnel, heading for the end of it, and hopefully the way out -- fire or no fire.

    Enark looks pained, resting on Staren, and recasting healing magic every thirty seconds or so to keep the restoration effect going. But he mostly looks concerned for Crow. Even as the Shadow is given comfort by others, or simply being reminded that this isn't a safe place, Enark's friend seems to gather itself.

    "Yeah." Crow says dully, now fully back to 'Shadow' form, legs gone, physicality absent aside those who can touch shadows. At least there was still some solidity when the pat on the head was delivered. Crow links its 'base' to Enark to make sure to keep a close eye on him, and says nothing further the rest of the trip.

    At the end of the tunnel, they find a large vault-like door, similar to the one they used originally to get down here. But it's partially open and what lies on the other side is clearly a different area entirely. It looks... Almost like a junkyard of sorts at first. Dimly lit, though that is hardly new for Lumiere. What is new, however, are the vast variety of clocks, going on further than eyes can see.

            NEW AREA DISCOVERED: FIELD OF HANDS