1959/The Truth Only Dark Can Reveal

The Truth Only Dark Can Reveal
Date of Scene:	05 April 2015
Location:	Great Painting of Ariamis <PoA>
Synopsis:	The Four Kings are defeated, but the Darkstalker Kaathe reveals an unfortunate truth.
Cast of Characters:	Tomoe, Priscilla, 168, 183, 253, Reina Kinney, 395, 560, Lezard Valeth

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Priscilla has posed:
    No part of Lordran has so stubbornly resisted the joint advances of the Union and Confederace as the New Londo Ruins. It had been weeks since a party had first set foot within the gargantuan, twilit cavern and the ghost of the city beneath the surface of the ancient, artificial lake. Today marks the third and final time they walk the haunted streets, though now clear of ghosts, darkwraiths, and strangely, corpses, leaving nothing but a quiet and unnerving trudge to the well-familiar breach in the base of the world; to the tendril of Dark that had snaked its way out of its proper place and probed into the realm of all things known to man.

    Priscilla seems tired and worn. Oscar marches dutifully by her side, the crystal given to him by Lezard hanging securely around his neck, well guarded in the time it had taken them to marshal their forces for the true offensive. Priscilla wears the same, the cord wrapped tightly around her wrist. She pauses only briefly by the edge of the yawning blackness found at the bottom of the old guard tower, peering into the impenetrable depths of blackness beyond blackness, before grabbing her scythe and turning to the party. "This shalt be the last of the Lordsouls, and quite probably, the last step of our journey. Thou hast mine neverending gratitute for all thou hast done until now. Fail not now, and all of thine hard effort shalt be rewarded in full." She casts one more misgiving glance to the dark beyond, which Oscar takes as his signal to wordlessly take a running start and leap from the stairs and into the hole, plunging out of sight the instant the top of his helmet clears the lip of the breach. That's the kind of guy he is. Rip the bandage off all at once instead of letting the anticipation build. It's a unique kind of bravery.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber's here, as a Blue Spirit. He has his hands in his pockets and is dressed as per normal. He's also likely hovering around whatever apparition of Nathan is there, making sure no harm will be coming to him on this trip. He's got his standard loadout: a few guns in his jacket, a sword maybe, but nothing too fancy besides.

    "Sorry it took me so long to come back around to help you. I had a lot on my plate for a while, but I'm here now," He notes to both Priscilla and Nathan, seeming apologetic for his prolonged absence from these excursions.

Reina Kinney has posed:
    Already having been here for awhile, and trying to find out what she could when she could, Reina shows signs of stress as well. Even the best of GUARDIANS get stressed out too. Just look at Laia when she's having a bad day. But that's aside from the point.

    "We won't fail," Reina says, her voice full of determination and sternness, a contrast from the usually sarcastic woman who is quick to give the brush off or lighthearted comment to something. Apparently she's taking this quite seriously, just like anyone else should. "We'll do this, and see to it that the mission is completed!" She punches her fist into a slightly opened palm, wrapping the hand around it. "I'm ready when everyone else is!"

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Mizuki seems alltogether different today than she has the last several times she's been called upon to aid Priscilla. Where before her aura could've been described as 'quiet' or even 'resigned', now her expression and presence alike absolutely pour a certain energy of determination into the atmosphere. As she's summoned, her phantom might even glow somewhat brighter; for the most fleeting instant, she might appear white rather than gray, or even gold. The color softens after several moments have passed, but the zeal backing her motions stays, as does the resolve of her expression.

    She looks to Priscilla with this countenance and gives a single, deep nod. As always, her sword flahses into her palm, but it appears somehow... different today. It maintains the rough appearance of a conductor's baton, but now the metal is a twist of two blades in a DNA-like spiral which only join together at the tip. Its hilt retains the decoration of angelic wings, though, and its form is slim and lithe as a rapier's.

    "The only reward I could ever ask for is to see your world's future ordained how you wish for it to be, Priscilla. You have helped me in the same, and now I will repay my debt to you in full." Her wings appear, and she quickly slips Lezard's charm around her neck. She's ready.

    In a moment of interim before they launch unto the nothingness, she might step back one, two, or three paces to stand by Psyber. He receives a nod as well, and perhaps even a smile.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    It took Amalthea some time to work herself out of bed this morning. But duty calls, and when it calls, it cannot be denied nor put aside. Thus, the golden figure of the unicorn knight, resplendant and glowing brilliantly, is summoned once she is armed and girded.
    The depths of the Abyss seem a most unwelcoming place, moreso than the rest of Lordran, to the point that she has not donned the light chain, plate, and surcoat of the Astora Knight armor she has since come into possession of. But rather she emerges, clad of a thick layering of her heaviest suit of full plate, and though she cannot wear a helm for the most obvious of reasons, the armored crown upon her head and horn will do fine enough.
    "Mn." It's a quiet announcement of her presence before her eye trails after Oscar as he leaps into the depths below. She merely trudges to the edge of that blackness.
    And hops in after him.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    Once more Shirou's taken up the Gold Phantom guardian position near Priscilla. He's already armed himself - Kanshou and Bakuya, the weapons he favors most for some reason, glimmer and gleam in his grip.

    "Just this last one then we'll break this awful curse!" At least the redhead has good reasons to be HOTBLOODEDLY OPTIMISTIC, right?

    You kind of have to be when leaping into the Abyss after Oscar.

    That place scares a person to the bone.

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    "With luck, this will be the conclusion of this business." Nathan says, nodding somberly but, as ever, speaking in a pure monotone. He looks... Sick, still. He's clearly been eating more and he's clearly been getting more than enough sleep, most likely, but he's still looking a bit like death. Good enough for the operation, but the kind of look that seems like he ought to to see a doctor who isn't Haruno. "This experience has been dangerous and worrying, and I will be glad to see a positive end for it. But we have been eager and happy to help, Priscilla. Your gratitude is appreciated, though."

    "Sir Oscar seems to have the right approach in dealing with this." He says, looking to where the man just went leaping off into the literal abyss. "Please double-check the integrity of your Abyss-warding apparatus and begin the excursion. We have little advantage in waiting." And then he gives a nod to Psyber. "I understand." He says, simply. "You had business that none of us were aware of at the time. It had you busy." And then he strides forward. "No delays, if possible. Please prepare for loss of radio contact and a disassociation from coherent modes of existence."

    And then he steps forward and more cautiously -- though never hesitating -- moves to descend into the Abyss.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
And what would this gathering be without Lezard Valeth, the enigmatic necromancer who has taken such a liking to Lordran? His purposes have always been murky, his actions often reaching the edges of tolerance for the Union associates.

But he has been effective. Effective and loyal, which is perhaps more than many can say of the other crimson phantoms that haunt these lands. Perhaps Lezard answers to a higher... Or lower cause of his own. Nevertheless, Lezard has made sure to check on th lynchpin of their invasion plan, the captive Darkwraith whose soul is carrying the burden of the exposure to the Abyss for them.

Everything is, of course, in order.

The Necromancer seems to concur with Nathan's read on things, for he wastes no time in leaping from the stairs into the Abyss once more. His behavior in this area is a mix of intense curiosity and, perhaps, respectful fear. Such a place has great potential, but is not to be trifled with lightly. He has no inspiring words. The words he will be speaking will be ones of action and destruction. For the last Lordsoul awaits, and with it, perhaps further elucidation by a being Lezard has been intent to hear from.

Priscilla has posed:
    Priscilla can fully understand Psyber. She herself had some important things to take care of, especially relating to Mizuki, for the past little while. It's probably the main reason why she seems so exhausted, but it was her call to line these two things up so closely. She responds to the assorted gestures of confidence and encouragement with the faintest sigh of relief, as if having expected something else entirely. Though she doesn't show it, she is happy beyond words that her allies can still be this enthusiastic after such a long, dark, and unrelently brutal journey.

    "Let us not keep our dear knights waiting." she says after Amalthea follows Oscar, hesitantly stepping over the edge herself. Anyone following her is treated to the same barrage of sensations as before, not one bit less jarring than the first time they had experienced them. The way they disappear entirely despite the light that should still be streaming through the hole. The sudden lurch of missing a step in the dark. The sensation on the front of one's face of being sure one is about to walk into something with their eyes closed. The feeling of the heart leaping into the throat. The pinprick of twilight from the land of the ancient lords flits out of sight as some kind of conceptual terminal velocity is achieved, leaving those who step forward in a dizzying, featureless expanse of blackness, their bodies weightless and without orientation, unable to tell if they are really falling with the absence of air and light. As before, Lezard's crystals resonate with the boundaryline of the Abyss; the space between the two worlds where the darkwraiths dwelled. This time, the sensation of eyes on them from all around is far more intense. Where before it had been some alien emotion similar to the kind of curiosity one shows an unusual insect in one's home, now it is the kind of distaste of seeing the same insect a second time, in the process of crawling all over clean dishes.

    Their response is not long waited for. Not this time. They have tread once on the tranquil doorstep of the other reality, and so something has lingered in the area, staking it out for their probable return. These things were once human, and so the sudden sense of hostility is far more familiar than whatever intent the invisibly omnipresent hold for intruders. As specks of grey appear on the horizon however, illuminated as if by a perfectly even light from all directions, they clearly aren't any more. True to what the party expects, there are four of them, converging from undefined corners of the endless, shapeless expanse around them. As they get closer, the group can make out vaguely humanoid silhouettes, but only just. The creatures that fade into view at an alarmingly accelerating rate are over twice as tall as any human, as is typical of those in Lordran who consume a great number of, or especially powerful, souls. At first it seems as if they are some kind of tattered clothes of trailing ash, but their impossibly spindly and fragile looking limbs make that an impossibility. The swirls and tatters of grey that garb them appear to have sprouted from their flesh, as if some kind of hideous, parasitic fungal growth, completely engulfing limbs here and there between them, leaving them looking as if their shilhouettes had been shattered in a mirror. Their faces are now expressionless, obsidian masks, completely identical, thus removing whatever visage they had in life, and twisted horns of bone jut from their skulls. Their chests appear to be nothing more than cavities of sucking void where their hearts would be. Whatever the darkwraiths were, the Four Kings have clearly been exposed to the Abyss for far, far longer than they. The only things that look relatively normal are the enormous, matched quartet of swords they clutch between them, but even they look corroded and uneven, as if their substance had been eaten away by the dark.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    ENTER, THE FOUR KINGS!

    After a gutwrenching, disorienting transition into an even more nauseating and existentially jarring locale, Shirou quivers right where he stands.

    These four are horrifying figures the likes of which he's never before beheld - and hopefully never will again.

    But fear is meaningless to Shirou, no matter how much of it he feels.

    "Here they come! Get ready!"The teenager then gives a worried but 'enthusiastic' cry and dashes over towards Oscar - the person who stands to lose the most if slain here. What an UNdead loses can be worse than many other things... existence as a Hollow isn't fun at all.

    But even so, he gulps. There is NO COVER down here, and the intense darkness has his sense of direction utterly scrambled... IS there even direction down here?

    Such a scary idea.

    "All four at once?!... I've enough enemies just dealing with keeping these weapons intact..."

    As an experiment, Shirou hurls his twin short swords at one of the Four Kings, mind already drafting up the framework of a replacement weapon...

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber is back in his serious and professional mode as Mizuki is greeted with a nod of acknowledgement as she moves to stand next to him. He doesn't say anything, though, owing to the fact that he's still somewhat tired from the exertions of the past few days. One would be hard-pressed to determine if he had even slept.

    "While I appreciate the understanding, still tell me if you need anything, Nate," Psyber says seriously, moving along behind the librarian as he moves towards the Abyss. The half-angel sticks close, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder and squeezing it once before releasing and falling into step.

    When the Four Kings appear, Psyber moves to step between them and Nate, drawing a pistol. It's not much, but he at least takes out a magazine right after with some blessed bullets, putting it in and then cracking off a few shots. He's not going full-aggressive, mostly in a desire to stay around Nathan and keep him safe.

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    For a brief few moments, Mizuki stares down deep into the abyssal stairwell before leaping herself. She feels... hesitant, a trifle like someone standing on the edge of a high dive. The real oddity of the situation is that this feeling was entirely absent last time. Why would it have only surfaced now if she had been there before? Truly, she has no certain idea, but she suspects it may have to do with the problems in her world being solved. That might've freed up her emotions, somewhat -- allowed her to feel fear of other situations a bit more acutely. Perhaps she's become more possessive of the new life and friends she's accrued, too?

    Well, thinking about it isn't going to help. So she braces herself, unfurls her wings, and leaps off the edge. She clutches the charm bequeathed to her by Lezard as she gradually, gently descends. Her trepidation clears somewhat as the figures of her friends come into view around her. Yes. Yes, this will go well. After all, she had seen firsthand what Psyber could do yesterday, hand't she? She blinks. No... no, she hadn't. He had fought Arthur's shadow, hadn't he? And then he fought with...

    ... hmm. So maybe some of the old memories had carried over? Some, perhaps, but mercifully not enough to obstruct her current personality.

    Before she can reach any sort of catharsis with that realization, she lands. The timing is unceremonious, but she still manages with all the dignity and grace of her norm. Her wings bend and hug themselves to her back, and the grip she keeps around her sword suddenly tightens. The four kings give them no quarter nor room for adjustment, though; in moments they've appeared, brandishing their blades, the airs oozing out of their forms hinting all too neatly of their malicious intent. Mizuki levels her sword in the direction of one that had appeared behind them, but she doesn't go dashing off just yet -- rather, she would do her utmost to maintain cohesion with her allies until the battle has begun properly.

    She draws her revolver and spins its chamber with her right hand. There is, of course, no way to negotiate with beings so far gone.

Reina Kinney has posed:
    So the battle has finally begun. Reina looks at the Four Kings and narrows her eyes. "You picked the wrong group to mess with! Too bad you won't live to realize it once we're done with you!" She snaps her fingers and a pair of pistols form in her hands. "It's time to teach you a lesson the hard way!"

    It's only for a brief moment that Reina realizes she's wasting her breath talking, since these things aren't about to be talking... or could even recognize what she's saying. Nevertheless, Reina prepares to attack when the moment is right.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard strikes the ground in a landing without sensation, as he had last time. The Abyss is not a place one can remain for long, an alien environment. Lezard moves quickly, producing his ruby-tipped sceptre. However, his expectations are quickly dashed. "Tch! I hoped we would have the chance to hunt them down one at a time." He hisses. "Very well."

He turns, looking to Nathan. They will both likely have the same idea. "Quickly, split and meet them apart! Do not allow them to focus on a single target and overwhelm them." He cannot summon his Undead here. He can tell they would not be able to persist. He dare not even use his teleportation magics here. This space is too foreign. He must depend on himself.

And the others present, of course, but he is not without... his own resources. He focuses on the same King Shirou strikes at, raising his blade. "LIGHTNING BOLT!" Lezard intones, throwing a crackling blast of electricity to join the blades Shirou hurls. He is not sure which magics they might be weak to, if any. For all he knows, they might even be completely magic resistant, like the rumors he hears of other spiritual beings. Nathan will undoubtedly provide the relevant information soon enough, however. "Keep focused, Magus Shirou! Strike down your enemy without pause, and then we can move to the next!"

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    When Psyber put his hand on Nathan's shoulder, he'll feel an unusual, gentle trembling. Hmmm.

    Onto more important matters. Nathan entered this abyss once before; describing his descent a second time would be a little much. He lands without major incident, and that's all we need to say, essentially. But he then looks around, observing keenly. "Uniformity of development." He says. "One weakness should be shared among all." His glasses light up with a gentle white glare as he takes a position near Psyber, and initiating his [SCAN] to seek out information. He calls out to the others, though: "If these entities are at all like the Darkwraiths, immediately utilize fire for the greatest effects, and any divine tools or attacks you can use."

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is moving ahead trying to keep to the front of the group as best she's able, she's been here all along. Either way she's on edge with this place an d eveyrthing else as they have no choicde at this point they have to fight these things in all likely hood. She tries to not think about the things that were once the four kings she has dawn breaker and the mourning wall. She's as ready as she's ever going to be to face the

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    The stomach-churning falling sensation notwithstanding, Amalthea lands, after a time, indeed. With no means of knowing when she will, the unicorn has no idea of when to judge the time to arrest her fall, and though she lands without sound in the abysmal black, she still ends up dropping to a knee out of pure instinct and reflext the instant her boot connects with something resembling solid ground.
    A hiss of steam from her joints and she rises to stand, already at Oscar's side, shield in hand. There is no missing that dread hostile intent on quick approach. And when the four come as one, another instinct kicks in.
    Terror and fear are not feelings that easily come to the old knight. And it is not those feelings that visit upon her heart as she sets her boots. Yet still, the ever pervasive, endlessly, dark black of the edge of the Abyss brings with it a cloying sense of supernatural dread to the unicorn, a feeling she summarily shoves aside through focused effort of will, as she grips her blade.
    In this dark place, Faith shines. The blue-steel of the legendary and holy god-killing sword glimmering with a light all its own as she draws sword from scabbard, ringing with a defiantly joyous chime of keen egde against the lip of the sheath. For it is as the Four Kings approach that the unicorn steels herself. In her mind she singles out one of the four, focus wholly upon the figure on approach in hopes of lessening the burden on her allies. She takes a step forward...
    And throws her arms wide open as if in beckon.
    "What ho, kings of this endless blackness. I come for you!" Called, loud and rebellious against the darkness.

Priscilla has posed:
    One of the small blessings of never being seen without a helmet, Oscar's thoughts and feelings on taking his first plunge into this half-realm of existence are hidden by a steel visor. He steps to the side slightly to allow Shirou to take up his position, fairly familiar with the young magus' core fighting style by now, and takes up his shield on Amalthea's opposite flank. Priscilla does what she does best and disappears the moment she can feel the hostile presence, wasting no time in setting up her main tactical advantage. She takes the rear guard of the formation with Mizuki, trusting that she isn't making some kind of conceptual ripple on the edge of the Abyss that the Four Kings can sense. Weapons are drawn and spells are readied, but the enemy makes no attempt to circle or take formation, simply drifting forward as if pulled on strings.

    This behaviour does not change as the party begins to attack. Perhaps to Shirou's surprise, his chosen foe makes no effort to dodge or parry his blades. Kanshou and Bakuya slash straight through the twisted growths that sprout from its body, momentarily thwarted by the sheer amount of it they have to hack off. The chunks that come free crumble into ash, drifting through the incorporeal 'floor' of the quasi-arena and out of sight. Lezard's lightning bolt blasts it dead on in the chest, blowing off the spirals that sprout from its vacant heart, but it fails to react in surprise, anger, or even pain, its face still fixed in that immutable, inscrutable mask. The same goes for Psyber's chosen opponent. Though the bullets rip into it one after the other, plumes of grey dust erupting from its back, it makes no motion to stop or slow, or even so much as to try and zigzag. The blessed bullets appear to have a marginally greater effect than mundane ones would, due to the exceptionally vague approximation of 'holy' to something that had originated from the First Flame. The king menacing mizuki has the growth engulfing its arm come off at the shoulder, spraying some kind of sparkling white liquid as the Lifehunt rips into it, but it too fails to register a reaction, which eliminates any possible that they are even capable of feeling pain.

    Nathan quickly finds out why. The Four Kings aren't made of flesh and bone any longer; the exposure to the periphery of the Abyss has worn away at their fundamental substance. Their physical bodies aren't especially durable for something of their level of power, but they care so little for what happens to them because they are functionally irrelevant. It seems that no matter how many times one of them is destroyed, they will simply gain substance from the Abyss beneath them again, over and over without end, with perhaps a minute at best as a breather in between. What seems to be their weakness is that their souls, cut off from the world in which they had originated and unable to exist within the true Dark below, are trapped within the bounds of this space. It seems that there should be a brief window after the destruction of a body where the soul has yet to move to another location, in which it could probably be broken to pieces to free the shard within, though there's no telling what that would actually take.

Priscilla has posed:
    With their advance inexorable, it is only a matter of time until the Four Kings close into range. One of them diverts its course towards Amalthea, drifting off silently as if compelled by the noise rather than the words, swiftly interposing itself between her and oscar where it lashes out with a sword the size of her entire body. Despite its grotesque, stick-like limbs, wasted away into nothing, the power of the tiny shard of a Lordsoul within it allows it to hit like an out of control freight train, probably sending her flying should she block it directly. Such is what happens to Oscar when he charges ahead of Shirou to the foe directly in his path, lunging forward with a skillful pair of slashes to both of its dangling legs, severing them neatly at the knee, but unfortunately doing nothing to slow it down. He tanks the reprisal against his titanite enhanced shield, sent sailing through the air where he narrowly twists to avoid Lezard and hits the ground in an expertly executed roll, picking himself back up without a moment's pause and rushing back into the fray. The third king flits between Reina and Tomoe like a shadow, twisting into an oddly dance-like spin, where its blade swings outwards around it in several complete circles, cleaving at both of them multiple times in quick succession with enough force to bisect them completely. The final one makes a beeline for Psyber, sweving suddenly to take an abrupt sideswipe at Mizuki, before jankily closing in on the half-angel, where it swings high over its head and simply attempts to crush him beneath the edge of its sword. The 'ground' here won't absorb any of the impact.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    Shirou does indeed balk at the lack of effect his married swords have on the monstrosity. A glance is cast over at Oscar, but Shirou doesn't budge. He WILL defend the Chosen Undead, even if it means awful agony for himself. Even if his enemy seems completely insurmountable, he doesn't budge.

    Unlike Amalthea, it's not because he's so brazenly fearless.

    It's not even that he values the cause more than himself.

    He's just not thinking about himself at all. Not a single instant of the enemy's advance is spent thinking about how well he'll come out of this - only whether he can project his needed weapon in time or not.

    The calculation says no. But his attention flickers over for an infinitely stretched instant to Amalthea taking a stand.

    And his amber eyes lock onto THAT SWORD. A sword of righteousness and holy justice.

    Certainly a weapon that can slay a fallen, monstrous king...

    With a loud proclomation of "TRACE ON!!" the redheaded magus takes a step forward, grips the air, and-- SIZZLE, CRACKLE, KRRRSSSSSSSSSSH!!

    Emerald prana flickers wildly like lightning from his palms, then coaelsces inwards into the rough silhouette of Faith. It's narrowed down in great chunks, taking form from within as a bright white core...

    Emiya Shirou, the wannabe Hero of Justice, takes another step forward, scattering a host of small glowing orange embers to rise up around him from the flames licking the scorched ground around him.

    Wait, ground? Flames?

    "If that's not gonna do it... then TRY THIS!!" He springs from the cracked, dry ground - no wait, it's that murky nonsense darkness ground right?

    What the heck.

    "TEEEYAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"

    Oscar might think he's familiar with Shirou's fighting style, but really, he has no clue. As a nearly perfect replica of Amalthea's treasured Faith is wrenched free of the forge-fires of Shirou's heart and soul and brought into this wretched place his stance shifts - even midair - into a wild balance and the sword's brought down with full fury at his opponent with the grace of a goring impalement from a proud and noble beast! When his feet touch down he goes on a wild offensive as though lead by that shining weapon for blow after blow, screaming like a madman at the top of his lungs the whole while!

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber frowns at the slight tremble out of Nathan. And, in fact, after a couple shots on his pistol he takes out his phone and quickly keys somethign into it before shutting whatever he was typing in. He made a note somewhere about things, which will get addressed later.

    For now, he just looks annoyed, upset, and a bit hurt. The phone is flicked shut as one of the enemies comes in toward him. He holsters the pistol and scowls, flourishing his hand as his signature weapon of lightning and holy is summoned into it. With a thunderous crash, he brings it up to parry the smashing attack, seeking to protect both himself and Nathan from that downward swing.

    "Just stay back, Nathan. I'll handle this."

    Psyber switches hands the sword is in, his dominant arm temporarily broken from the force of the parry. With a smooth motion, he arcs the blade and sends a bolt of holy-electric energy right towards the fourth King.

Reina Kinney has posed:
    Reina would be cleaved if it weren't for two things. One is the fact she's very agile and can dodge quickly when the time is right. The other is that her shields popped up just in the nick of time to protect her. But the force of that cleaving blow brought down their efficiency big time. Meaning that Reina's going to have to rely on her wits and her guns to survive. As long as she's not dead, though, is all that matters. Once Reina's recovered from her rolling dodge, she realizes what's happened to her shields and shakes her head.

    "It's all up to fate now," Reina mutters as she backs away as best as she can, watching that king carefully. When she thinks she has the shot, she fires her pistols a few times. They won't do much good on their own, but every little bit helps.

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    One of the many benefits of being late to act is that, when you finally do, you've had such time to size up the situation that little can happen to surprise you.

    Still, people make errors, and as ironic as it may be for a chronomancer her timing is a bit off when that sideswipe comes. She would strafe off to the side, quick as she's able, but a sliver of the end of the blade still reaches her side. A flurry of familiar, cerulean sparks flake off of her being and she might wince from the sting, but this entity's focus on Psyber has given her a pronounced window of opportunity. She uses this moment to check in with Nathan on the radio and get her thoughts in order before nodding to herself, lapsing out of time, and appearing beside the king nearest her and Psyber once the guardian angel has had his time to lay into their enemy.

    Once they've met with the former's onslaught, Mizuki makes several contributions of her own -- a flurry of swift, deep jabs are delivered in haste, her sword and blade arm both hastened by her magic. A few more gunshots might be contributed in supplement if she has the time before she's countered, but her main focus would be on choosing a precise moment where she has the best chance of landing a direct blow in the king's apparent center of mass. If she's successful in doing so, she would keep her blade help at its point of impact a moment, twisting it in place until a portal has formed at its tip. Then she promptly leaps back, quickly loading a few more bullets into her revolver.

    That's not all, though, if she successfully made that portal. She would call forth a complementary one in front of herself if she had been, unleashing another quick flurry of strikes to see if, perhaps, she may be able to deal damage this way from a distance. Still, this isn't the most important intention of the portal -- she'll be watching it constantly for any hint of a lordsoul fragment. If these things appear when they die, she presumes, there's no better place to search than whatever interstice they fade to whilst they're recuperating. If the portal maintains its link as they flee there, she'll have a plan fitted.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard grimaces as he notes his lightning bolt does little to the fiend. But he should have expected as much, considering the situation. Oscar goes flying past, and Lezard looks to the fallen Knight, kneeling down next to him and hovering his scepter of the man. "Heal." He intones, and a bright green light shines out over him, mending his wounds.

He straightens up, looking over his shoulder to see Shirou begin his invocation. Eyes go wide for a moment in surprise as he watches the Trace effects flare around him, the unusual space around him... "Warped space...?" Lezard hisses, eyes narrowing and he falls back several steps, letting Shirou engage maximum Shounen Mode on one of the Kings. He doesn't act immediately, tracing something in the air as he prepares his own countermeasures. Lezard specializes in soul shenanigans, after all.

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    Nathan is told to stay back. "Of course." He says, simply. Taking a quick hop back, he keeps out of range of the foe Psyber finds himself facing down, and begins rattling off all the obligatory analysis. "Foe utilizes unusual nature of environment to its advantage. Recommend combat via mid-'air' tactical maneuvering. Warning, limb action is unrelated to physical material; modulate defense appropriately for semi-spiritual strength. Demonstrated awareness of all areas within the Abyss at once; do not attempt to exploit blindspots of perception, perform with disregard for facing. Sword weight estimated at null for attack motions but high for defense motions, do not treat the weapons as standard material. No pain reaction noted, movement unimpeded by various wounds, destroy the body as thoroughly as possible as swiftly as possible..."

    He drones on and on, a constant stream of battle data meant to enhance the listener's effective martial prowess. There's little he can do in a direct fight against the Kings, and as such, the most he can do is provide a constant, streaming analysis of their behaviors, advantages, and weaknesses.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe does not have any issue as Pysber takes point on protecting Hall. He's falt out more experianced and stronger than he. so she turns her attentipon upon the third king as she attemps to taunt him.

"Come on, you want some of me?!"

She watches them moving in towards them. WAit how the heck is it moving like that? She moves to block the blows with her shield or blade attemping to push him back and she chants. Thr norse is bad as ever but the effects are not as she launches a ray of light at the third king hoping to lure him into direct combat with her.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    Just as she had intended, one of the kings comes for her. Though she doesn't stand alone against it with Shirou and Oscar by her side, Amalthea readies herself regardless, fingers clenching about the grip of her trusty shield.
    Though she sets her boots, the kinf of the Abyss is upon her, wroth in silent fury and terrible in strength, that immense blade makes contact with her shield, ringing with all the clangor of a hammer upon an anvil.
    Were she on a-horseback she would be flung from her saddle, served thusly and launched through the air the length of two spears, she lands, hitting the ground with such a force that were this not the darkest pits of the abyss, the ground would shake from the force she strikes with.
    Grunting, the knight rises, though, dizzy in swoon, but not faint for strength. The cracked earth in this place of nothingness however draws her gaze, following it to its origins in the young hero to be, her eye widens at the sight she beholds. A sword akin, and equal to her own in appearance, truly this must be some trick of sorcery. Indeed it is, when her lightheaded swoon clears and seeing that it is Shirou who holds Faith in his grasp.
    She rises to stand, steam gusting in great amounts from her body like the wrath that rises in her veins. "Boy, if you can use that sword, then so be it."
    Her blessing given, thusly, the venerable knight throws herself into action, for it is then...
    The unicorn roars.
    A sound that can be found only in dream, somewhere betwixt the bellow of a great and proud lion, and the keening and clarion toll of a church bell ringing mournful and dirgelike. A call that would set quail in the hearts of evil, and make the goodly weep for joy and pity. It is with this old, gay, cry of ruin she storms forth, eye wide and wild, mane tossing and worn like a plume of lightning upon her head she joins Shirou in his frenzied assault, like an identical twin in swordplay, both wild and vicious as it is beauteous and graceful as the true sword Faith lashes in stroke after stroke of its holy blade.

Priscilla has posed:
    Shirou has made an excellent choice. Though the brief flash into another reality altogether, briefly made manifest in the gap between worlds, fades from view the moment his feet leave the cracked earth beneath them, Faith remains bright and inviolable in his hands; a beacon of unwavering human hope against the endless realm inimical to its existence. The mythic sword plunges straight through the ashen detritus that sprouts from the king's warped body, causing light to issue forth from the gaps in its chest where Lezard had struck. Each swing he takes carves through the non-matter that composes his enemy in great chunks, hacking away at it like an axe against a dying tree. Still however, his enemy refuses to flinch, remaining just as stoically impassive as something already dead. Its own blade meets Faith by complete accident, swinging at the same time as Shirou, where the monstrosity's superior strength almost certainly wins out. It drifts towards him like a ghost, attacking him over and over again without any real strategy. It must have had some considerable skill with a sword in life, judging by the ease with which it handles the colossal weapon in a single hand, but little of it shows through now. Only should Shirou survive for long enough will it eventually reach out with its empty hand, skeletal fingers grasping for his face, whereupon Oscar charges into the scene and takes it off at the wrist in a single, bounding slash, healed by Lezard enough to grant Shirou some breathing room and bolster his offensive.

    It is definitely a good thing that the Union has such a monopoly on powerful holy swords, because Psyber finds Einherjar working just as well. The crashing bolt of divine lightning smites the king directly in the head, blasting off its face entirely wherein he can glimpse a swirling void only visible against the black background by the faint hints of purple that writhe within it. This actually causes it to pause for a moment, lifting one hand to feel at its missing visage, before letting its hand fall away. The next moment, the vortex surges, issuing forth a swirling maelstrom of violet-white substance that seeks him as if alive, where it will eat away at his essence as if he were dipped in obscenely powerful acid.

    So occupied by Psyber is it that it seemingly fails to notice Mizuki. Aelinos rips into it between every gunshot, slashing and blasting apart the thick tangle that weaves its cage around the pulsing, black core of its being. As pieces of grey, bone-like substance flake away like dead bark, the creeping shadow beneath grows stronger and strong, inside of which glimmers something exceedingly faint. Only once that is exposed does it turn towards Mizuki, firing off a lance of similar darkness exployed against Psyber, actively chasing her through her own portal. Priscilla's presence is reasserted by a wave of moonlight splitting the darkness, cleaving across the king's body like a wide angle laser and severing part of its shoulder and neck.

    Between Tomoe and Reina, their particular king decides to focus on the former, which is fortunate due to her being the dedicated tank. The photon bullets rattle across its exterior, blowing off chunks of matter like tiny meteor impacts, leaving its body cratered and scarred as layers break off one at a time. Tomoe's magic pierces straight through its chest, but narrowly misses the core, leaving a hole through which the blackness seeps. This particular one doesn't even have a second arm, having been twisted into a flayed mess of trailing tatters, and yet it seems to be more aggressive than the others in melee combat, wielding its sword with a greater memory of actual technique, 'stepping' in brief bursts of hovering movement as part of a relentless advance of combination strikes meant to batter her down through sheer power.

Priscilla has posed:
    Finally, Amalthea joins the fray. Predictably, the original sword is just as powerful as the projection, if not moreso when wielded in the hands of its true owner. Sprays of glittering white substance fly this way and that as the luminous blade hacks back and forth through the dense tangle of misshapen shell, the king's left arm coming off completely above the elbow. Undeterred by its greivous injures, its presses its advance on Amalthea, swatting her with the crushing force of its sword a few times to try and stagger or disorient her, and then suddenly opening the ragged wound of its shoulder like the spreading petals of a flower, wrapping the cloth-like shreds around her and hauling her into the air, where she will be subject to an even stronger degree of metaphysical corrosion than Psyber.

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    It's probably best that Mizuki learns now that portals are occasionally a double-edged sword. Suffice it to say, though, she had -not- expected one of those dark lance techniques to be able to enter a portal placed /within/ her enemy. One would think she would be more understanding of the inconvenient ways in which logic bends to suit the kings' needs, being a resident of the world she is, but for better or for worse she has become much better adjusted to the machinations physics tend to operate my in the majority of worlds across the Multiverse by now. And after all those zealous proclamations of how much being a part of this brave new world had improved her!

    But ah, well. Can't win them all, she supposes. She only barely has enough time to pull away from her portal and prevent that bolt from hitting her head-on, but as it was with the blade before it still singes her forearm. She clutches the affected area and bars her teeth. If her sword arm has been temporarily taken out, she supposes, why not try something else instead? She passes her sword into her right hand instead, unsteadily pointing it at the air in front of herself and loosing a slash. It has none of the force it might've required to deal actual damage, but luckily that was not the intent at all.

    Rather, a shockwave rushes throughout the area. It rushes alongside the lance-bolt as it travels higher into the sky, and if it is able to surpass it, that shockwave would stop then and there to tear a new portal in the air. Then before the spell has time to enter it, Mizuki summons a new gate in front of herself, pointed directly at her quarry. Here she's attempting to use the king's last strike against them.

    When her arm has recovered, she passes Aelinos back into her left hand and redraws her pistol. She fires a circle of bullets more before bracing herself for any offensive reply.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    Sparks fly and light flares whenever Faith clashes against the Former Kings' eroded blade. And while Shirou was great on the offense, for DEFENSE he's not that good. You can only weave and duck wildly so many times before a parry is required, and that's when--

    "GYGH!!!" He's driven back, skidding across the ground. There's no sign of that previous flare of strange magic scenery. And he's lucky the weapon hasn't cracked even though he's driven into a corner (so to speak) defending against blow after blow. Amalthea's weapon might be sturdy as they come, but Shirou's ability to copy it is...R
    Questionable, to say the least.

    But he's left staring at an oncoming palm and--

    SLASH!

    Oscar and Lezard to ther escue. "Whew.... thanks for the save!" Shirou heaves a sigh of relief before sprouting a confident smirk for just a moment. "Alright then... once again!"

    But he's wincing in pain the moment he raises that sword.

    Amalthea's fighting style is not suiting him very well to say the least.

    But it's okay. He'll just... ignore the searing pain of his shoulder crying out 'don't dislocate me!'

    He tends to do that a lot.

    Now, however, some hints of magic filter through his muscles and bones. The mystically sensitive might even see the power glowing through him in circuit patterns.

    This time, when he leaps forth into his wild fury, the strikes are backed by MUCH more strength than before. Easily a good third more oomph behind them! And faster, to boot! "You guys would be better off just surrendering! We're not stopping for anything until the curse is broken!"

Reina Kinney has posed:
    Even though the King is focused on Tomoe, that doesn't mean it's going to get off easily from Reina. She looks at her pistols and sees that they're recharging at the moment. With a few muttered curse words, Reina thinks quickly, not wanting Tomoe to be left all alone out there. She thinks quick and then remembers her technics. They may not be true magic, but they still work well.

    As Reina points at the King in question, she focuses her mind a little on her target, and a yellowish glow forms around her hand. With a yell, she sends forth an electrical shock.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber tries to retreat from the eroding presence of that substance that spills from the face of the King he just blasted with lightning, "Nathan! I could use some of your counter magic on this if you've got it."

    He makes it more of a suggestion than an order, still treating the librarian with a gentle sort of demeanor. As the substance comes in contact with him, he grunts a bit in pain, trying to keep mobile. He ducks and weaves, leading it away from the man he was statedly trying to protect. But in doing so, he leaves himself open to several stinging attacks from it.

    As he moves, he flings his sword with a movement of his arm. There's a crack like lightning and it turns into a bolt. It seeks to collide with the chest of his opponent, or what it has that would pass for a chest anyway. If it connects, the bolt of lightning would rematerialize into Psyber's sword. And then the blade would discharge massive amounts of holt energy into its target, trying to outright purge it.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    Wild and wroth with a righteous fury, the unicorn is yet undeterred. Even as the fell king's blade strikes her down, she does naught but to simply get back up again and fling herself upon the dark beast, blade swinging with a wild abandon as though her arm had no other singular purpose in life but to wield that selfsame sword. Heedless of danger to her person, showing no sign of duress even as blows strike her and her spectral form erupts in sprays and showers of golden mist with each impact.
    As the king's arm is cleft from his body, she presses her attack. And she pays for it. Though Shirou is spared by virtue of Oscar and Lezard, Amalthea is caught; snatched up within the split maw of the Abyssal king's wound and lifted bodily into the air as her Phantasmal form decrades. She calls out not in pain, but in a fury, grip true on her blade unto the last, even as the crushing nothingness devours her and glinting gold of her form begins to evaporate into a fine gold dust, as though blown off on an invisible breeze.
    It is her last act of defiance in which she releases her blade- with intent to leave it within the King as her body fades. For as one of the three great master Smiths who refoged Faith once said
    'Should a beast be unfortunate enough to swallow this it would certainly cut its way right back out.'

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    "Right away." Nathan says, darting forward and crossing his arms in front of him. "Emerald Countermagic." He says, after a few swift Old Realm chants, and attempts to blast the magic of the attack with a strong magical disruption of his own as he immediately darts in towards Psyber and the substance chasing him. The effect ought to disrupt any coherent spells within his ability to realistically strike at, hopefully dispersing it and potentially damaging the original spell-structure that was responsible for its casting, damage possibly feedbacking to the King themself.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is keeping the third king busy and she's very much got his attention which is good. She doesn't bring him down, yet the spell did more than she expected to be perfectly honest And she's in for a heck of a fight. She sees it move she sees it moving to attack and she's just forced to keep parrying. Her shield is takiung such a beating that one might expect it to wireframe, it doesn't it's more taking actual damage it seems the shield is not a construct of some sort. With Reina's back up she's not down yet but she's clearly going to be over powered at this rate.

Priscilla has posed:
    The shred of animate Dark chasing Psyber is nothing so complex or advanced as a spell. There is no real structure to it, no process in which it is cast, and no connection to the king that had imbued it with life. Still, this close to the Abyss, its natural inclination is to entropy into the darkness around it, and so Nathan hitting it with sufficiently powerful countermagic causes it to destabilize and burst, unfortunately washing over both him and Psyber with the effect and sensation of a million tiny razor blades being pulled across their skin. It's better than being erased from existence, but not by much. Mizuki manages to redirect the one chasing her, if only just barely, sending it careening back into its point of origin. One would think that someone that could survive here would be immune to something like that, but as long as they possess souls, the Four Kings are not yet a true part of the Abyss, and so the greater Dark consumes them all the same. The bolt detonates on the monstrosity's chest, blowing a hole clean into it through which the thunderbolt of Psyber's hold sword lances, sinking deep into the writhing black morass at its center, and then flashing with a brilliant light that is muted into a dull, sickly purple before it finally explodes free, tearing the king to shreds and casting off the sickly tendrils of something clinging to the tiniest ember of a familiar golden flame. Though it pales in comparison even to the incomplete shard Seath possessed, everyone present can feel its heat. The Dark recoils at its presence.

    Shirou will regret what he has to put his body through at this moment. Even with the phenomenal power at his disposal, his target is large, dense, possesses nothing in the way of true vitals, and is absurdly strong. It trades him blow for blow, heedless to the wounds it receives as its body comes apart piece by piece, smashing Shirou with its own blade over and over again, regardless of how many times he parries it and how many bones he might break doing it. Only once there is barely anything more than its hear, sword arm and head left of it, does it do the same thing to him as its compatriot had to Amalthea, abruptly engulfing him in a swirl of ashen tendrils. He can feel them constricting around him, pulling him into a crushing embrace where the entire surface of his body would start to dissolve from the outside in. Before he has to fight his way out or die trying however, Oscar takes advantage of the giant opening left by the magus' frenzied assault, charging straight in, leaping over the swing of the king's blade, stepping off of its wrist, and launch a flying, plunging attack into the creature's heart, letting the hierloom sword of the Astoran knights, blessed by the monarchy of Gwyn, rend the corrupted soul apart from its prize.

    Amalthea is in the unenviable position of having to fight one of the kings by herself, and so the fact that she matches the monster strike for strike is beyond commendable. Were it possible for anyone to observe this fight at the end of the world, there would be songs about her passed down for generations. Even as the king has its way, consuming her phantom essence utterly, the sword left within it gradually sinks into its mark, cutting deep through its battered body, and slowly but surely purging the corrupted soul with its touch, causing the monster to gradually crumble away until its ashes drift into the nothingness and the swiftly fading form of phantom Faith clatters to the invisible ground.

Priscilla has posed:
    With all four holy weapons accounted for, Reina and Tomoe are in something of a bad spot. While Tomoe is stuck on the defensive, doing the tank's job of drawing aggro, only Reina is left to try and pick up the attack, and the task is extremely difficult for a single person. The zonde tech leaves its mark, cleaving open a smoking crater in the king's back even as it refuses to divert its attention from the relentless task of attempting to butcher her partner. The crater, however, is all that is needed, as an invisible scythe plunges straight through the open wound and erupts out of the king's chest. The Lifehunt is not a holy power by any definition of the word, but the distinction fails to matter. God, demon, living, dead, immortal or thing from beyond, it will bring it to a painful and permanent end. The final king is rent in two, adding its lifeless dust to the endless chasm below, and leaving the fourth and final fragment of the Lordsoul shard behind.

    Already possessing two full souls and a greater shard of the third, Oscar's spiritual gravity draws the totality of the second shard in without hesitation; the four burning embers swirling through the dark until they converge on him at their center, suffusing him with a golden blast of flame that momentarily eases the blackness into a simple lack of light, purging the supernatural presence for the few seconds it takes to die down. It seems that now would be the time that the weary knight would breathe a sigh of relief, his task completed in all but name, but Oscar does no such thing. He yet remembers the words of his former companion relayed to him by the last party to journey into the Abyss, and now as the last tatters of the Four Kings fade from sight, he can feel the presence of the other being he had come here to seek.

    From out of the dark rears the unmistakable silhouette of a primordial serpent, surging from the chasm below until it towers over everyone present. The rounded skull, the strangely human nose, the bulging reptilian eyes, and the permanent, lipless grimace are all impossible to misplace. In fact, as far as anyone can tell, it looks /exactly/ the same as Frampt. Whereas the former had simply popped his head out of a pit in Firelink Shrine however, the true dimensions of this one are indeterminate. It's impossible see more than ten meters of its neck, simply fading into shadow any further down than that. There is also the salient fact that it had just come /up/ from below, rather than from somewhere else in the infinite plane. Only when it speaks does it differentiate itself. It too wears the voice of an old, wizened man, but it is sufficiently different in tone to sound much less friendly.

    "Greetings, warriors." it says, teeth clacking as it speaks, its slitted eyes swivelling to and fro over the assembled, even as Priscilla busies herself with tracing the sign required to resummon Amalthea. "I am the Primordial Serpent, Darkstalker Kaathe. I was told that you would come, but I did not expect thee to survive."

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard was prepared to engage his own soul talents if needed to ensure the Four Kings did not somehow reconstitute themselves from the Abyss. The requirements of the ritual functionally took him out of the fight, however... And he lets the complicated ritual dissipate when he sees that Oscar has safely consumed the souls and gathered them all as needed.

He turns, looking over those present with a measuring gaze, and then looks to the Primordial Serpent. He approaches, joining the others as they move to stand before him. "Greetings, Darkstalker Kaathe." He bows politely, and looks over the malformed, strange being. "Our presene here was inevitable. The Four Kings have been stagnant too long. There would eventually have been a force that could overcome them. And that force is us."

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    Shirou wouldn't envy Amalthea her miserable position, and he unfortunately can't either move to help or spare her suffering any attention. But if he could see it, boy could and would he sympathize.

    He's suffered horrific death as a Phantom before, and it was most unpleasant.

    The predicament he's in right now ain't much better. He has not even a quarter of her strength and grace, and every time his Faith clashes with the Kings' weapon it sizzles weirdly, almost pixellating as its image falters only to be hastily shored up. But the blade doesn't break no matter how times Shirou parries between finding a moment to strike back.

    And each parry, each strike, is a loss. His muscles tear. His bones crack. His heart comes to bursting and he's long since stopped breathing - the constant ring of clashing steel at speeds his brain burns to follow. After dealing a few decisive blows - or what he thought were them- he ends up engulfed.

    The scream this new torment squeezes out is one of terrible agony - and it doesn't quite end when he's cut through!

    SHirou goes tumbling across the ground, both his arms flopping around in directions they probably wouldn't go if the bones had held up better.

    "Ghhhhhh.."

    Faith dissolves into a wispy smoke-like gathering of motes that are quickly swallowed up into the Abyss, but...

    Shaking from exhaustion no human should be able to overcome, and with his body battered beyond reason, Shirou struggles to get to his feet before even checking the situation. He's gasping and panting, bloodied heavily, and cannot possibly defend himself, but...

    There's another, smaller flare of energy and Kanshou appears in his somewhat better-off-arm... "I'm not done yet..."

    ... Yeah, he is.

    And he's so out of it that he barely notices that it's over until Oscar's spiritual lightshow all but bowls him over with another helpless yelp. Onto his tush he falls, Kanshou vanishing as quickly as it came.

    He's on his tush when Kaathe arises...

    An occurence that leaves him staring for a good ten seconds.

    Then he flops flat on his back - with another yelp.

    "You're kidding, right? Someone can be in this much pain and be considered alive?"

Reina Kinney has posed:
    Weakened and out of breath, but still going, Reina tries to maintain a formal stance as best as she can. "We knew it would be dangerous," She comments without any hint of sarcasm, bowing as best as she can. "But we had to do what we had to. There was no other option." At the same time, she's healing her allies with some technics if anyone needs it.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    It is an inexplicable, fell, and terrible sensation. To fall in combat and die. And even though Amalthea awakens safe and sound in the base at Njorun, even to this day, despite her multiple bouts of ill luck in Lordran, the sensation of Mortality, to an Immortal, is like a hammerblow. Even in her victory, the King of the Abyss succeeded in shaking her to her very core simply by bringing about her death in that dark place at the pit of the world.
    Were she able to sweat, the unicorn would be drenched in a chill dampness, as she lurches to sit up with a cry that is amix between a shriek and a bleat. It is only once she stills the tremors of her heart through slowed breath that she allows herself to be summoned once more.
    Thus, once again the Gold Phantom returns to that dark place, silent and somber but whole, looking haunted for a time before she hisses a long venting gust of steam, opting to keep wordless for a time now that the battle is won.

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Well! This night has given Mizuki all that she had hoped for and more. As she confirms for herself that the battle is done, she flashes a smile to Psyber as if to say 'Good job'. She twirls her blade in a long, sweeping flourish before allowing it to vanish against the bleak 'skies' of the abyss. She contemplates adding a small, celebratory curtsy there for a moment, too, but Priscilla is here! Even if she's regained some of the pomp she first entered the Multiverse with, she doesn't want to embarrass herself in front of her friend. Or... more importantly, she doesn't want to show disrespect. Ahem! Yes. So she refrains, allowing herself a moment for silence, stillness, and breath.

    And for once, this stint of refuge is not interrupted by any other creeping terrors in the area. She's allowed to enjoy the calm of the moment for an ample few seconds before the local quiet is interrupted by an echoing voice. It sounds familiar -- the particular gravel, rasp, and depth of that voice is all too familiar after the group's conversation with the kingseeker. She would almost have thought Frampt had come to congratulate them personally on their victory -- it would've been appropriate considering they've gathered all the lordsouls, after all -- but something in the inflection tips her off. Her expression of gentle mirth fades in that instant to something a bit more subtle, serious, as she turns to face the source of the noise.

    A serpent, yes, but not Frampt. Her arms fold, and she takes several cautious steps in their direction. This 'Kaathe', as they call themselves, must surely be his inverse -- a 'Darkstalker' to complement the denizen of the sun. Immediately she grasps the ramifications of this: this one is the agent of the other opinion. Her frown deepens, but not out of dismay: out of interest. She had suggested once long ago to the halfbreed that there might be something to say of the Dark; something less dismal than the legends make out. Perhaps now the group will receive some reply on that front. What can they say that Frampt hadn't told them? Are they to be deceitful through omission as he was, or might they be a bit more forthcoming?

    The only way to know for sure, in the end, is to see for oneself.

    Mizuki unfolds her arms and greets Kaathe with a small bow. "Greetings, Darkstalker. I am Mizuki. I and those who accompany me have, as I suspect you must already know, been aiding Oscar, the Chosen Undead, in his quest to kindle the first flame. Naturally, it is for this reason we have arrived here to retrieve the lordsoul from the four kings." She smiles. "But I will admit that Frampt's explanation of things might not have satisfied me in full. So what say you? What parts of the story has he obscured from our vision? What promise might there be in the knowledge you hold?" She will leave her suspicions as to the honesty of this one's words unstated for the time being. Better to start off witless and polite -- it may lower their guard.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber snaps his fingers and the embedded sword vanishes in a flash of light, the half-angel finally coming to a stop as the creeping magic coming after him ceases. He slowly rises back up to a standing position, returning the nod to Mizuki.

    And then, owing to his player's cramped timetable, Psyber will then mostly return to Nathan's side and kind of hang out protectively.

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    Nathan is wounded, but not anywhere near severely. The pain is /extremely/ intense! In fact, it threatens to break Nathan's stoicism, for a moment, but only for a moment. The bleeding he's doing now isn't that bad. He'll survive long enough to have a talk and be dispelled, and he's completely stoic about it. "Salutations, Primordial Serpent, and I do not fault your expectations, considering the strength of the Kings. I am told you remember a time before Fire and Dark, Lordran or Abyss, and that you have some measure of understanding of the means by which the Curse of the Darksign might be broken, and some insight into the true nature of humanity."

    He keeps completely still after he assumes a rather stoic and polite posture, with his arms folded behind his back in an official sort of way. "We come not only for the Lordsoul, but also asking what insight you have to offer, that Sebastian was given, and that we might consider in our path to bring a cure to the land." Hey big guy! Please give me exposition, Nathan essentially says, I promise I will be really respectful about it.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is tired not physically persay but mentallyu she is keeping up with the king had been a hell of a taxing thing for the Salamnder. She lowere her weapons and she looks at the strange being which has appeared. The Darkstalker thyave have sought has appeared and she bows slighly to them.

"Greetings, DArkstalker Kaathe."

She seems tired and she'll let the others speak at this point. Given the far better wordcrafters she's in the company of today? She's just going to go quiet now. She doe showever hover a bit closer to Nathan Hall, should things go bad? Someone needs to protect him.

Priscilla has posed:
    Kaathe's bulbous eyes flit from Reina to Shirou as they give their two cents, something that sounds like it might have been the beginning of a chuckle rising from his gravelly throat, but dying before it reaches his tongue. If anything, his unblinking stare is interested; intensely so, taking every little detail of the Elites gathered with far more attentiveness than Frampt had. He lowers his head somewhat to peer down at Oscar, who stares up at the serpent unflinchingly in return, having had more than enough experience in dealing with strange, ancient beings since first arriving in Lordran to no longer find the prospect so intimidating. "Everything is inevitable." he says in a way to Lezard that somehow seems to imply far more layers of meaning than such a simple and nonsensical statement should be allowed.

    "The one who came before." he replies to Nathan, the inflection almost questioning, but not quite. "Yes, warriors such as him are few, but those such as yourselves are far, far fewer. And as for the chosen, well . . . there can only be one of those." He leans ever closer, slowly swerving to the side without so much as a slithering sound, looking Oscar up and down. "Yes, I see it now. You have already collected the rest, have you not? And now you go to the Kiln of the First Flame, to rekindle the fire and bring a new age upon the world, is that correct?" He suddenly turns to Mizuki. "Indeed, you are wise to be unsatisfied. Frampt has lost his sense. Befriending the Lord Gwyn denies his true nature. /Our/ true nature." He looks one more time to Nathan, and then very suddenly to Priscilla as she reappears next to him, with a fleeting glimpse of . . . recognition? Of course not.

    ". . . I will share the truth with thee without sentiment." says Kaathe, finally moving a respectful distance back from Oscar, who sheathes his sword and inclines his head, wordlessly impelling the sperent to continue. "All knowledge of the Age of Ancients recorded by Anor Londo states that thee great souls were found within the First Flame. The Lordsouls claimed by the Lord of Sunlight, the Witch of Izalith, and the Gravelord Nito. In truth, there was a fourth. One found smouldering in the ashes of that great conflagration, different from the others. After all the gods had claimed their power, only one, furtive being remained behind, and so the soul that lay hidden in the embers fell to him. The Dark Soul; inherited by the ancestor of man. He fought not the dragons, nor did he join the city of the gods, and instead created the least race, releasing humankind upon the earth. The ancestor of man knew that the Age of Fire was not to last, and that an Age of Dark would follow as inevitably as the sun sets on the horizon, and so he birthed a people to rule it. You see, men were not meant to rule this age, but to await the flames to subside, and to inherit the earth after the last of the gods had faded away. However, Lord Gwyn trembled at the oncoming dark. Clinging to his Age of Fire, he feared humans, and the fourth Lord that would eventually rise among them, and so he resisted the course of nature. He sacrificed himself to link the fire, and commanded his children to shepherd mankind, hiding their past from them until a successor could be found to repeat the cycle. The Chosen Undead exists only to burn at the First Flame in place of Gwyn, perpetuating the Age of Fire until he too is replaced in turn, ensuring the rule of the gods for all eternity."

Priscilla has posed:
    Kaathe straightens up, his voice increasing in volume and surety. "I am the true Primordial Serpent. I seek to right the wrongs of the past and discover the True Lord of this world. If you, Chosen Undead, would cast yourself free of this humourless joke and shirk your duty to burn for a millenia, then you must destroy the fading Lord Gwyn, and restore the course of nature; to bring the age of the gods to a close, and begin the age of men." Oscar remains silent for several, long moments, before suddenly dropping to his knees, clutching the face of his helmet in one gauntleted hand, momentarily overwhelmed. This leaves an excellent chance for someone to get a word in.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    "....."

    Suddenly, everything has gotten so terribly complicated. Shirou, phantom body slowly (VERY slowly, given his distance from Saber) knitting itself together at least enough for his arms to work, manages to get to his feet and gawk, open-mouthed, at the bomb that was just dropped.

    "What." He croaks out, dry-throatedly. Oscar, burn for a millenia to keep the Age of Fire.... 'burning?'

    The reason the Gods are all missing is because the Sun God is PRETTY MUCH DEAD?

    "This is so screwed up."

    But if Kaathe is telling the truth... "Then... what is this about the curse of the undead?! What's the Age of Dark...? I'm out to save as many people from misery as I can. This mess with people going Hollow and turning on their allies has to end. ... We were told using the Lordsouls to help the Fire would solve that? ... But if you're telling the truth... then if Oscar did that, he's just a sacrifice..."

    A sacrifice.

    No, that's not right. There shouldn't be sacrifices in the world Shirou wants to see. A world where everyone is happy and nobody has to cry...

    Oscar isn't the only one who just got gutunched.

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    If there is one thing that Mizuki despises more than all else, that is an arbitrary cycle. The word 'inevitable' is not one she swallows well or easily, and one that she has much reason to doubt the right usage of after her friends had just decimated a seemingly 'unbreakable' chain of events not a day ago. It's fortunate that the Darkstalker likely does not have the fullest understanding of human gestures because Mizuki's arms fold at her back almost as soon as his words of exposition begin to pour fourth. The events he speaks of are stated with no curiosity or room for error -- this is an entity who, like Kaathe, speaks as though he could not be wrong, or as though he does not care if he is. This is not heartening.

    It's immediately clear that he's as intent on proving his 'truth' as was Frampt before him. That's to say, this is not a presentation of details so that they may be used how the group sees fit even if it is framed as such; this is a sale's pitch. She has nothing against to verify what he's saying, and though she's quite a firm believer in the value of faith in cases where she knows the source is truthful, she cannot be with this serpent. After all, serpents are beings with a fairly dismal reputation when it comes to speaking troth without proviso.

    And any truth used selectively immediately loses its genuineness. So yes, the game is afoot. How to weave between Kaathe's words and Frampt's? How to decide the best course of action between the two of them? Well, that's something that she will only come to know as she presses this one for more information. If absolutely nothing else, he seems more frank than his lighted twin. She appreciates that.

    So once they're finished, Mizuki holds up a hand. When she's given a natural position to speak, she does so. "I wish to establish one, immutable fact before we go any further, Darkstalker." Her hand lowers, and she allows for a pause. "This 'Age of Man' you propose is a thing that demands far more commitment than prolonging the Age of Fire. Once the flame has gone out, there is no recourse. It is gone. The gesture is, at least from an outside perspective, much more permanent. If the Age of Fire is doomed to transience as you say, then even if we are uncertain of which path to take, it would be the more moderate one. I will not speak too much of myself, but it is important that you understand that I and many of our colleagues have as much time to wait as do you. We could watch over this world continually and forever. Thus, you will have to make a vastly more compelling argument than Frampt if you seek our cooperation."

    "At least for me," She continues, "you have not yet done so. If you want our help, you must render us more than lore -- you must give us facts. If you know the answer, then tell me: what will the nature of the curse be in this new, darkened realm? Will it continue to plague people as it does now? And will the denizens of that plain be thinking, feeling, emotive beings as we are? Or will they be bestial creatures that live subdued to an instrument of primacy? You must tell us -why- Gwyn feared the dark, for surely he could not only have been interested in maintaining his power."

    "As a last query for now," She says, "I will ask something simple, yet infinitely complex. We now know of two options for the future of this world. Have you, in all the many years you have dwelled in this place, thought of any alternatives yourself? Have you perhaps run across any other ideas through hearsay? If so, what are they, and why does the Age of Dark still seem more compelling in comparison to them?" She takes a breath, letting her hands fall to more neutral positions at her sides. "Whatever your replies, thank you for allowing me these curiosities, and I beg your pardon for any impertinence or presumption they might've carried. No such thing was intentional."

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    Nathan's eyebrows go up, but his expression remains firmly, grimly stoic. He pauses for some time, giving the entire statement all due consideration, turning it over in his mind. He crosses his arms and nods. "I understand. This does not seem entirely consistent, but I will give it all due consideration. I have several questions, however. The first is that I need to know how, precisely, this might cure the curse of the undead, or at least ensure the restoration of their humanity. When the First Flame is extinguished, is the Darksign as well?" He tilts his head and squints slightly.

    "And another. I am told the Abyss has some connection with humanity, with man. In what way can we take our experiences here, within the Abyss, as an indication of what may be expected from this Age of Men? The Abyss clearly has interest in this matter, in a sense; I have seen that it represents an extinguishing, of sorts. I need to know the meaning of it, and what the Age of Men might imply for the future of the intersections between Lordran and the Abyss."

Lezard Valeth has posed:
The small response from Kaathe causes a twist in Lezard's expression. A small smirk. Does he agree with the Darkstalker? Who knows?

the more important points, however, are to follow. He listens, and then smiles. "Hah. The missing portions of the narrative become apparent now. The question becomes... Does one wish to continue propping up a dying age with one's self sacrifice? Noble it may be, but does one truly believe in these construction?"

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is listening and this is seriously over her pay grade with the implication of this. Cycles, the nature of humanity? Tomoe shakes her head a little bit as if trying to clear cobwebs out of her head. This is some very serious stuff, she doest get fate is trying to set up Oscar to suffer a grim fate.

Priscilla has posed:
    Kaathe seems to respond to no single person in particular, swaying ever so subtly back and forth as he absorbs the volume of queries levied at him. Oscar turns to look over his shoulder at the much more eloquent reactions of several Elites, perhaps wondering how they can be so collected at a time like this, though the answer is clearly that they simply haven't had their entire lives defined by this singular quest. Kaathe considers his words, but only briefly. It seems like the pause of someone trying to decide whether they should say something, rather than that of someone fabricating truths from whole cloth.

    "Indeed, the Darksign is tied to the dwindling of the First Flame, but the state of undeath is not the end destination of humans should the fire be finally extinguished. The Darksign is just that. A sign. A portent of man's swiftly arriving destiny. What humans know as their only form is little more than a prop; shackles devised by the gods. A false life that renders them weak and mortal. The Darksign appears when the power of the First Flame is so weak that the traces of the Dark Soul man has inheritent -- that counfounded substance called Humanity -- can begin to make themselves known. Caught between their mortal souls anchored to the cycle of the First Flame and their true nature, a human is little more than a walking corpse. Only once that tenuous grasp of fire has been released from them completely can they be liberated."

    Kaathe takes a deep breath before continuing. "It is also true that rekindling the flame would erase the Darksign, obscuring mankind's true shape once more. However, doing so comes at the cost of the lives of the undead. Hollowing cannot be reversed. The undead cannot simply return to the way they were before. They can either become what they were meant to be, or they can finally know death. Such a concern is unworthy of the gods, who fear humanity in their ignorance, and will do anything to see their world unchanged from the way they have made it. As for the Abyss . . . there is little to say. The Abyss has existed since the First Flame. It is the world of Dark to Lordran's Flame; its mirror. It will continue to exist, but the deepest shadow is cast only by the brightest flame. A man who reclaims his true nature cannot be dissuaded by it."

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Mizuki offers Kaathe a tiny, tiny smile at the end of his overture. "A compelling argument indeed, Darkstalker. I understand very well the desire to see humanity freed from its limitations. I know all too well what it is to be at odds with Gods that are fearful of humanity and poor in their understanding of them, especially when they act upon that trepidation by locking things into a certain, stagnant state." She nods her head several more times to further communicate her approval of the idea. "Now, I'm sure your words are true. I know that you have had eons to contemplate these things, and that you have accrued much wisdom in that time. So I'm certain that you would have no qualms giving us something to corroborate what we have just been told? Some living example of a transcended human, perhaps? This would erase any doubt that still lingers in my mind."

    She's not as sold as she's playing at being, no, but she thinks that if she makes Kaathe feel as though they're about to seal the deal they will be more forthcoming. There's a good chance that human psychology doesn't apply to them, though. Once she's finished, she turns from her conversation briefly to look to Nathan, Lezard, and all the rest. 'Do you have anything else to put forward?', her expression seems to ask. Seems she's either out of ideas for the time being or has at least had her fill of talking.

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    Nathan actually seems a bit compelled by this argument, in some way. It's not entirely clear how, but it's clearly leaving a strong mark on him in a way. There's a very clear chance that he intends to give the matter plenty of due consideration, at the very least. It's clear that the Darksign must be dealt with, but what sort of humanity would humans become in the Age of Men? Nathan can't seem to determine exactly what, given how the Abyss is a rather skewed vision of it, and how the status quo shouldn't be maintained.

    "We understand and appreciate the information that you have now provided us." Nathan says, with a grim sort of monotone considering all the bleeding he's doing. "And we will give it all due consideration. We will put our own research to finding the truth of this in detail, and we will question Frampt of his own information." He can't think of further information worth querying such an important being for, and so simply waits to see if Mizuki's query can get a response, before likely requesting to be dispelled if this is all mostly done with.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
    Shirou makes a 'blech' face. Against his normal politeness, such as it is, but this is simply THAT distasteful to him!

    "... Man, there's so many questions left unanswered by this I don't even know where to start." The big question is... what does Oscar think?

    Shirou glances his way in sympathy, worried for the guy...

    But he's also facing Kaathe a moment later even as his body painfully heals ever so slowly but... somewhat noticeably. He's not bleeding for instance.

    "You mentioned Frampt is denying his true nature?"

Priscilla has posed:
    Kaathe /seems/ relatively sold on Mizuki's air of cooperation, though it's also possible that he too could be bluffing. It's really difficult to tell, especially with such an inhuman face and a complete lack of body to display subverbal context. "Unfortunately, to do that, I would need to take you to the very heart of the Abyss, where the primeval man yet awaits the dawn of the new age, far from where the gods may reach him. Humans have never existed outside of the First Flame's light, and so there are no living examples but he. Even the ones that make their way here are so marred by flame that the touch of Dark twists their bodies and minds. You are wise to desire proof, especially so after the lies you have already been told, but this is simply something that cannot be done." He sounds totally confident as he says it. It isn't the tone that someone uses when evading a question. Either he has an incredibly good poker face, or he simply trusts that everyone will see sense in his words.

    He does however, spare a moment of time for Shirou. "We Primordial Serpents are descended from the Everlasting Dragons of old. We predate the dichotomy of light and dark; of life and death. It is not our role to decide the course of this world, but to observe it, and preserve it against that which would pervert its nature. Frampt has lost sight of this, though whether he desires power for himself, or whether his friendship with Lord Gwyn has poisoned his mind, I do not know." Oscar seems to have gotten his legs back under him, literally and metaphorically. "It is as they say. I will consider your words, Darkstalker. I apologize, but I am unable to take such a step all at once. I would like time." The serpent seems unphased, leaning over the knight of Astora. "Very well. I will wait, but not forever. Make your choice soon." He casts his gaze to Priscilla, stonefaced and unreadable the entire time, who recognizes the fact that she and Oscar will be relying on him to leave the Abyss. She turns to the gathered Elites with a weary sigh. "Thou hast mine apologies that this couldst not hath ended the way we anticipated. We shalt discuss this. Soon. There is still yet time. As for now . . . thou art released from thine service. I will meet with thee again shortly."