5500/Hands

Hands
Date of Scene:	29 September 2017
Location:	Lumiere
Synopsis:	Elites come across a most worrisome clock.
Cast of Characters:	974, Staren, Count Kord, Priscilla, Kushiko, Tomoe, 513

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Carna (974) has posed:
    The evacuation tunnel they exit following their battle with the Unpainted Kord leads them directly into a cavernous area seemingly made entirely of the smashed, broken, old, and decaying remains of clocks and time-keeping devices of all sorts. Ancient, modern, and futuristic, any device for keeping time that once existed and then was destroyed was seemingly brought to the same place and abandoned.

    It could be considered a graveyard for time.

    Carna is hunting for dangers immediately, eyes scanning for any sign of something awful lying in wait to attack them. They've been ambushed twice so far on this expedition, after all, even if one of them was sort of brought upon their own heads by activating an alarm.

    Crow remains quiet and lurking in Enark's shadow as the Blue Scholar finishes regenerating enough of his inner organs and such from his healing magic to speak again, even if quite wheezingly. He coughs into one hand as he continues to lean upon Staren for support. "Ah... This place... I remember. This is where I came to collect my time pieces." Hack cough. "A-Ahem. It was forbidden to have these. Keeping track of time forms..." Wheeze. "...Attachments to the past that hinder passing on from who we once were. But it was so obnoxious not knowing. So I would salvage what I could here."

    Enark looks back at Crow for a moment, then to Kord, who had previously on the radio said he wished to speak to him at some point. Then he brightens and says, "Oh, there is a most unusual clock I wish to check up on! Come, I will show it to you!" He slips his arm off of Staren's shoulders and starts hurrying off on his own along one of various paths cleared through the towering heaps of clockwork and circuits and metal and stone and wood. Whatever lies above them is too far away to discern, but there's some awfully large clocks around here. Isn't that 'Big Ben' off to the left?

    Carna starts feeling around inside of her cloak for her journal so that she can take notes on what has happened. A great deal has occurred after all.

Staren has posed:
    Staren stays near the back of the party at first -- or at least, behind Tomoe. After checking the ammo in his pistol (it's low-tech enough that he actually has to eject the magazine and look?), he's stashed it away and drawn his laser pistol instead, his left arm around Enark to help support the scholar.

    When Enark runs off, he shouts: "Don't run off on your own! Get back here!" He resists the impulse to chase after -- It's no good if they /both/ get killed by an ambusher, after all.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord growls in displeasure when Enark tries to hurry off ahead, so soon after he said they need to talk. Still grimy and unhappy, the man trudges along to follow Enark, Staren (presumably) and Crow. He keeps his eyes, and nose, peeled for any sort of danger in the dark down here, where so many destroyed time pieces exist. He thinks to himself about whether the afterlife resembles something like this, to bait his patron god into providing some sort of clue, but he is met with silence.

    Kord will follow Enark specifically to keep the man from getting maimed beyond recognition.

    "That man recovers quickly," he mutters.

    Kord is so miserable right now that he doesn't have time to acknowledge the wonder of such a place. The graveyard of every time piece that has ever been deserves some appreciation, but he doesn't seem interested right now.

Priscilla has posed:
    "It is better that he dost than that he doth not." Priscilla says to Kord. It's slightly weird resuming chatting with him, after his weirdo paint-fake. Still, the only way to go is forward.

    The thematic of this place is far more bizarre, and almost equally perplexing. Why would every clock in the world gather in this place? Was it something akin to Unification, or had the dead of Lumiere carefully gathered and disposed of them here so that the Lit would think little of events transpiring in the world of the living, and let go of their time-sensitive worries? It bugs her, a little, for reasons she can't entirely describe. Had there ever been a clock in the Painted World? She doesn't think so.

    Idly, she checks to see if any still work, up to and including shining a light on a sundial she might pass to see if the shadow does anything screwy, but she dares not let Enark get too far ahead, lest he get himself stabbed again.

Kushiko has posed:
When it came to where Valkyr-Kushiko was positioned, it was largely near the front. A mixture of blood and ink in varying ways had been effectively spattered at different points of the purple-black colors of the Warframe, having since dismissed that held Void energy. Systems--organic and otherwise--knit themselves back together as she took the fore.

So this time, she's got one of her weapons out--that 'speargun' she hadn't really had a chance to properly use, and a pair of stars tucked between her fingers, ready to double up on something if it chooses to make their presence known. So when Enark rushes past, there's a discordant grumbling sound as she watches Kord at least pursue, though the others do not yet.

Thusly did she close in a little towards Carna to ensure she's covered well enough by her tanky presence, and to let her actually write some as she quietly murmurs, <"You doing alright?">

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is trying to keep on point as she's wont to do, she seems on edge but that's also not new either she looks to Crow and Enark for a moment mking sure he's recovering well enough. "Tell me about it not knowing who you were losing everything? It's like jumping into abyss sometimes..."

She trails off and she looks back to Staren it's good to have him on backup though she's shocked Staren had something like her home world would have.

"He does, I doubt I'd heal that quick or even surive what happened..."

Carna (974) has posed:
    Enark slows his gait, but doesn't stop. Despite his recent injuries, and the coughing fits that continue to ensue as partially-reconsistuted lungs try to provide the air for speaking with, he seems remarkably chipper and enthused after what just happened. "I am sorry. It has simply been... Quite some time since I was here last! ...Heh. You see what I did there? You get it? Time?"

    Crow pipes up in response to Enark trying his hand at humor. "We got it, we just don't want it." D:=

    Enark hmphs. And coughs. "I admit it has been a long time -- heh -- since I was here last, but back then no one came here. There is nothing for predators to hunters, nothing useful to be salvaged, and coming here at all was a great risk. Purifiers were the only ones permitted, for the sake of disposing of any stray time pieces, and the less said about them the better. I risked annihilation if I was caught here." He frowns in thought. "I used to carry a powerful divine tool of Lord Tharmas to render me completely undetectable. I wonder what ever happened to it? I was lost in madness for so long in that tower..." He shakes off his gloom, and continues along, following the paths this way and that around mounds of machinery and masonry and whatever else, knowing his way well even after so long.

    Most of the clocks seem to be non-functional. Even the ones that seem mechanically sound just don't do anything, but all of them seem to have suffered some form of damage, rather intentionally smashed, or from a long fall. The sundial seems to work just fine as Priscilla shines a light on it, so at least the clocks aren't breaking physics. The more complex ones just aren't working anymore.

    Though a large, half-destroyed wooden frame with a blood-stained pendulum lined with razors looks like it may have once been some kind of exotic execution or torture device, so if there's more things like that around here, maybe it's fortunate that nothing is running anymore.

    Carna's searching becomes more frantic as Kushiko speaks to her. Carna does not answer immediately, instead stripping off her cloak to search all of its pockets individually, fingers deftly and quickly opening latches, undoing buttons, and checking the contents of each in sequence. She removes her hat and searches inside of it. She pats down her body, looks around at the ground, and then panickedly returns to her cloak to search it again, already having forgotten which pockets she has checked. Which is all of them.

    "My journal is gone." she says extremely tensely. "We have to go back and look for it."

Staren has posed:
    Staren would have figured that this is just where dead clocks end up, like how dead knowledge ends up in the library, but apparently the population of the dead had a culture of getting rid of stuff? This raises questions about who, exactly, had such a culture, since the survivors struggling to live in the city sure didn't have the power to make it all the way here just to dump clocks.

    But now they have a more pressing problem. Staren checks something. After stopping to stare into space for a few moments, he says: "I haven't seen your journal since I was summoned here. You must have lost it sometime before then." He folds his arms and grunts a 'Hmmm.' "Are there any shrines of light near that facility? If so, perhaps we should press on to the next one so we can mount a recovery expedition from a better position. Alternatively... where do you... live? Perhaps it's there."

    After a moment more of thought about this, considering Carna's condition, he offers her a spare tablet. "If you need to write something down right now, you can use this and then copy it into the journal when we find it. How long do we have before your memories fade?"

Priscilla has posed:
    Priscilla very much leans on the latter hypothesis. The devices seem very deliberately damaged; something she can tell even when it comes to the handful that are too complicated for her to really understand. "Purifiers?" she asks, looking away from the shadow cast by the stone needle she finds herself at. "Some manner of holy men? Or perhaps men of the law? A Covenant of enforcement of Lumiere's ways?" It does sound kind of interesting. Then, in exasperation: "Thou once had something of that nature and power and had never thought to mention it at all this entire time?" God dammit crazy mimic guy.

    Also god dammit Carna. Were it any form of normal journal, Priscilla would tell them 'tough' and keep going. Knowing that it contains literally all of the memories that make Carna remotely useful to anyone in the Multiverse though, the problem is a little more nuanced. "Didst thou not just recently possess it? Where is it that it was last seen? If it was beyond the vault door, there shalt be no retrieving it now. Thou shalt hath to write a new one, with the aid of another possesed of a tighter weave of memory."

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord follows Enark further into the graveyard of time, listening to his words. His memories being muddled makes the man lift his hand up to his concealed chin, contemplating all he knows and has heard so far. He doesn't have much to say in regards to puns, seeming distracted in those very thoughts. He approaches Enark after he reaches a conclusion about something, ignoring the panic behind them coming from Carna. He takes this opportunity to carefully reach out and rest his hand on Enark's shoulder, so that he may speak frankly to the man.

    "You did succeed in making that perfect mimic," he speaks in almost a whisper to Enark, "Because you are that mimic. That is why you don't remember. You are like a Lantern. You probably took in his Dead Lights after he was destroyed."

    "You are not truly Enark, or ... perhaps you are intended to carry on his will, in a more durable form. Those spikes should have destroyed you. Moreover, it is impossible to believe you survived in that library all that time on your own, especially if you went mad from so frequently. Those beastly constructs would have killed you, if not for your current state."

    "You are proof of Enark's success."

    His grip is tight, so that Enark can't jerk away from him.

    "I will let you think about that. We are returning to the library as soon as we can. There are matters that need to be investigated therein."

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe gives s short laugh at Crowand Enark she found it funny enough and anything to lift one's spirits and she will take it. she looks to Wnark though for a moment as she listens.

"This explains much of where your ability to keep up with came on even I'd balk at being errased."

She notes as she looks at the path ahed keeping with Enark and the rest. The clocks get locked at and she tilts her head a little bit.

"Wait your journal's gone? Carna?! Shit!" 5R
he starts looking around trying to think of where the journal might have gone or been left.

Kushiko has posed:
Quizzical is Kushiko at first, the Warframe tilting her head in mimicry of what she herself is doing untold distances away. If her displayed face could show it, it would be a definintive one of shock and concern, make no mistake about it. Mind you, she already seems to start instinctively looking--using her own tech momentarily to check the immediate vicinity--fruitlessly, before she focuses on the other possibilities.

<"We could help, so to speak. Of the times we've been with you and not separated, I'm sure I could at least offer something to try filling it in if we cannot go back where we need to.">

An occasional glance is given in Enark and Kord's direction; whether she can hear what they're saying from this distance, the Warframe gives no proper indicator. Hrrrm... <"We're asking Ordis and the Lotus to review what they've seen through my frame's systems. Might get some clue at least, but maybe not."> Given that Staren couldn't pick up something... oh surely not when they were doing that platforming earlier??

Finna (513) has posed:
Once again, Finna's taken the form of a simple fox. She seems to prefer this one at the moment, it seems, in a way that she didn't before the Union collapsed. Because normally she'd be in human form teasing and antagonizing someone in the gang, right?

    The white-furred fox whines quietly as it paws along with the group, sticking closest to Staren and Tomoe - and furthest from Priscilla as possible.

    Though as soon as people start bemoaning a missing Journal, she blinks a few times... and digs around in her fur?!

    Somehow or another this allows her to produce Carna's journal, clasped gently in her jaws. She bounces over to the Lantern and hops up onto Carna's shoulders... and drops the journal straight into her clutches.

    "You did drop this earlier! A little more careful next time."

Staren has posed:
    "We should really get a copy of that made. Multiple copies." Staren comments, eying the Journal.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Enark slows down even more when he is questioned about Purifiers, looking significantly discomfitted. "Err... No. They are not... What I would call men of any persuasion. Have you, err... Do they have 'angels' where you all come from? Or have you read the Bible? The original one? Where the angels are described rather... Nightmarishly? Purifiers are... They're like that. They could charitably be called sentinels of Purity, or 'Law Golems'. They are made of and enforce absolute adherence to their element. Any deviation from their protocols is met with overwhelming force. Any contact with something deemed corrupt makes those affiliated with the corrupt one also a targt for eradication." Enark gestures as he calls back to Priscilla from where he and Kord and Tomoe are assembled up ahead.

    "There used to be entire flying cities that existed parallel to Lumiere, floating around it. Islands. Worlds owned by powerful immortal beings and gods."

    Enark shrugs. "I have no idea what caused them to be declared corrupt, but the Purifiers did what they were made to do, and most of them are gone now." The Scholar looks upwards at an unseen ceiling. "I wonder why they didn't try to stop the Unlit. Maybe whomever controls them has fallen as well."

    Before he has a chance to remark on the artifact that he lost, Kord puts a hand on his shoulder. Enark looks slightly pensive at first, but then just frowning in puzzlement. He keeps his own voice down, and says, "The Lit are very durable. That is why the prospect of being taken to one of the various 'Hells' by Corruptors made the presence of Purifiers desirable by Lumiere's rulers. Who wants to be tortured for eternity? Though the Crimson King wound up trying regardles..." He shakes his head. "I understand that the threat of mimics is a heavy one, but mimics do not absorb Dead Lights. That is not how I designed them. I didn't even know Dead Lights existed until after you all rescued me. They are the fragments of slain souls, torn from their originators. I doubt that, even in madness, I could have created something that functioned upon principles I did not yet know about."

Carna (974) has posed:
    He does not seem concerned about the possibility of being a mimic. He gets tired, he has internal organs, he has yet to attempt to eat anyone's face... Who would believe such a thing? But something about Kord's theory stirs a memory for Enark, and he begins to think on it. He created the Perfect Mimic for company. Could he have modelled it after himself too? If that's the case, then could there be another of him out there somewhere, wearing his face? As a matter of fact... Everyone else has an Unpainted duplicate, it seems. Could there be THREE of him?

    Before he can try to track down the errant strand of memory further, he is disrupted by all the commotion surrounding Carna. "What the devil?" he ponders as he stands on tip toes to try to see.

    Carna is extremely agitated, and the attempts by others to help don't seem to be soothing her at all. "I don't remember where I had it last. I have to go back and find it." Finding a Shrine of Light might be a better plan, giving them a shortcut back to their arrival point in the Umberdark Tunnels, but it appears reason is leaving her as quickly as memory. She grabs the tablet Staren hands her jabs at the unfamiliar object with her fingers in a fruitless attempt to try to write on it, and then throws it away.

    "Find it and I will go there." she snaps as Kushiko offers to scan her memories for it. But then Finna leaps up on her shoulder, making Carna whirl in response and draw a knife from her vest. The journal is dropped into her hand though, and she violently graps it and holds it to her chest with both hands, trying to shake the fox off. "You took it! You took it, didn't you!?" She backs away from everyone, back towards the tunnel they just left, before realizing that is a useless escape route. Has she forgotten her allies already? She takes a moment to look at her journal, to flip it open and start scanning through it, and then just continues reading it. She sits down hard and just remains there, renewing her memories, and reminding herself of who everyone is, what has happened, and who Carna herself is.

    It doesn't look like she's going to be getting up for a little while.

    Crow has remained mostly silent through all this. Its usual energetic attitude and playfulness extremely subdued. Of course, the Shadow was nearby to hear Kord's theory, but little horn-nubbins twitch this way and that listening to all the other conversations going on. "Can that journal even be copied? It's enchanted." Did they know it was enchanted? Well, the fact that Carna never seems to run out of pages no matter how much she writes in it may have been a clue to that effect, but...

    Their voices carry far in this trash heap of timepieces, but the sudden creaking groan and cacophony of eternally-old clocks crashing and collapsing somewhere in the distance carries even further.

Staren has posed:
    Great, so there might be Purifiers somewhere. Wonderful. He goes to retrieve the tablet. He can make more, but why waste? When he hears her shouting at Finna, he looks back, "Calm down!" And... now she's reading. Staren supposes she might need a little while. "Enchanted how?" he asks Crow.

    And then there's a noise somewhere. Great. "Shall I send some drones to have a look, or does one of you..." he looks towards Finna, "Perhaps the stealthy one... want to go look?"

Count Kord has posed:
    Well. Kord's theory has a wrinkle. He frowns to himself, not entirely convinced that he was wrong, but jarred enough to grunt and decide to leave Enark alone. The fact that Enark would not have understood what Dead Lights are -- because the Lit were too durable to shred up the way Unlit could do to them, making such knowledge rare even among the Blue Scholars -- makes him wonder if his assumption was wrong, but his arms cross as his head turns, listening to the sound of Carna flipping her lid over yonder. He is... stunned by her helplessness, and frowns to himself behind his helmet and mask in sympathy for the creature, whose identity is really just a carefully crafted disguise.

    A distant crashing.

    Kord is already gone by the time Staren makes his suggestion. There isn't even a whisper, his wings carrying him up into the air for him to fly over the graveyard of clocks at high speed to investigate the source of the sound. Somehow, in the pitch black, he can move with utter silence. If something attacks him, it won't be because it heard or saw him, that's almost certain.

Finna (513) has posed:
Finna's first a bit reluctant to just hop off despite all the shaking! Because annoying Carna a little is fun. But when the Lantern simply FREAKS OUT... it's no longer fun. In fact it's a bit jarring. The fox leaps clear away and lands softly near Staren, eyes on the retreating Carna.

    "... Ehehehe... that's what happens when your memory's like that smelly cheese." She grouches softly. A bit of sympathy there!

    "Did not!" The fox yaps back a moment later, only a tad bit hurt.

    With all of that consternation, she only half-heard the explanation... but half is still enough for the fox to turn her nose - and eyes - towards Staren's face, tail now wagging a bit! Happy someone actually appreciates her, maybe?

    "Where'm I scouting? Just tell me where to go!"

Tomoe has posed:
Enark slows down and she tilts her head. "Ah Angels I get it, and yes the whole fictionalization of them in pop culture." She gets the idea and trails of fa little distracted she listens to the rest of Enark's situation.

"Maybe we can fin out someday and maybe fix things or at least make this place less a pit of suffering for all the souls here." She pauses looking concerned for a moment about the journal is found and she's glad someone found. she looks to Carna worried for a moment and can only guess what it's like to have to live with the mental state she does

"Easy Carna you lost the journal and were asking for help to find it."

She hears the crashing too and wants to go check it out but people are already on it and she can't fly down here.

Staren has posed:
    "You didn't hear that sound?" Staren points at his ears. "I'm not sure exactly where it was, though." It's actually a moment before Staren realizes Kord is gone, he's so quiet. "...Oh, huh. I guess Kord's the stealthy one too..."

Kushiko has posed:
Indeed, there's kind of a twofold thing--one, she does see when it was dropped, and is about to actually present the visual feed from it--but the second part? Is Finna actually having caught it when it slipped out. <"... well, that was easy. It was back from when we were in that room with the computers, so to speak."> Specifically when she and Crow were messing with things.

She is kind of empathetic to that plight though. At least Carna could /write things down/ when it came to memories. There were such gaping holes in hers, no amount of writing or scribing down could help her, and she's kind of taken aback by her overall reaction. <"No no... alright, just keep an eye out too, okay?>

What she sees happening, a replay of data is enough to make her quietly shift her position from where she's at, meandering a little ways towards Priscilla to investigate a few things. At least, at first. Once she's closer to Priscilla--and in a position where Finna's not necessarily looking her way, she lifts a hand near Priscilla and shows her a projection. It's without sound, but it demonstrates a key image and a few words--but unless one's on Priscilla's shoulder or behind her, they might have a problem making it out. 'Dropping nor stealing may not be what happened.

In the meantime, she's keeping a secondary ear, or rather, the Lotus and Ordis are while she's otherwise investigating, the images briefly succint as she focuses her attention elsewhere. The crashing, resounding sound however, makes her quickly alert to something that may be coming. Again. With Kord moving as he does, Valkyr follows in her own eerie and silent fashion as well. Two could do that whole noiseless motion, and the cyberninja was pretty darn good at it too.

Finna (513) has posed:
"Are you kidding me? We just got AWAY from things that wanted to smash us!" Finna mock-complains... and breaks into a prancey trot that looks very odd for a fox. But soon enough... both the sound of her paws - miniscule though they were - and her very presence seem to be no longer there.

    The disappearance is so complete that one can't quite figure out exactly when she vanished or what she was doing. A brainfart results from anyone who tries too hard.

    Off she goes to follow up on the noise!

Priscilla has posed:
    Huh. That's not entirely something Priscilla can relate to. She knows about golems, but they're more or less just tools of war. Inhuman protectors of justice and divine law are more like the Silver Knights, but they're still really quite human. The scale of power Enark is suggesting is reminiscent of the gods themselves, but those are honestly the most human and fallible of all. It's something she'll have to think about for a while.

    She misses all the bits about being a mimic though, since she's suddenly busy trying to walk Carna calmly through having misplaced her journal. She asked Staren to check his recordings, but he already had that idea and didn't come up with anything. Of course Carna herself doesn't remember, and it seems neither Kord nor herself typically pay enough attention to the Lantern's common habit. Only Kushiko had really glimpsed at it, and by her account, it's behind a huge amount of distance and a horde of Unlit kept at bay behind vault doors.

Finna has it. That is incredibly suspicious. Priscilla's displeasure is pretty much palpable, but just barely left unvoiced, on the chance that she had actually just been helping. Maybe. The fact she hadn't given it back already is maximum squint material.

    "I shalt be staying with Sir Enark and Lady Carna for the moment, whilst one is wounded and the other is . . ." she looks at the journal-flipping Lantern. "Preoccupied."

Carna (974) has posed:
    Carna seems stuck in her own little world as she reads, unresponsive to anything else unless physically provoked. Which means Kushiko, Tomoe, and Priscilla standing by may be good, since it means someone is watching Carna's back while the Lantern is oblivious to the world.

    Enark hesitates at the noise, clearly uncertain about his pronouncement of how safe this place is now. Especially since, unlike when he snuck down here before to steal clocks, he had an invisibility amulet or something, and now he doesn't, so if Purifiers are still hanging around they are all in immense danger. World-burners and soul-scrubbers aren't titles for things one wants to meet in general.

    Crow drapes upon Enark as best a 2-D silhouette can, to provide what protection it can. It appears far morre significantly drained than at the God Forge.

    As Kord flies off to examine the source of the sound, Staren ponders (or has already sent out) drones to also investigate, and Finna may be on her way as well.

    What they find at the source could easily be chalked up to the wear and tear of ages. Some stone ledge has crumbled from an invisible wall of sorts. The platform it fell from was concealed. While guards are useful for dissuading scavengers, so is making the place unfindable. But it looks like whatever magics kept this place invisible from the outside are now only still active on the inside. However, they have their way out. And it just happens that there's a trio of Shrines of Light up in the tunnel that seems to lead upwards.

    Three? That is worrying given the last time there were two in close proximity. But there's something a bit more pressing that might take up Kord's attention, and then that of Staren's and Finna's when they observe it, and anyone else who comes along after that.

Carna (974) has posed:
    A vast clock like a gigantic grandfather clock. Larger than the tallest modern building of Earth, and far more ornate. Black wood, lined from base to top with decorations and imagery in silver and gold, depicting near-biblical scenes of the dead, the underworld, gods and demons, all looking up towards the top, spanning the entire timepiece on both sides, all the way up. Whether cringing in fear, looking on in awe, or standing boldly and determinedly, they are all looking upon a mural on the inside of the clock, their metal hands seemingly trying to hold the glass door shut. The chamber within the cloak holds a giant-sized pendulum that lies still.

    The mural is of a single ebon-skinned figure, humanoid and herculean in bulld and stature, going all the way from the interior's bottom to the very, very top, where the clock face acts as his own face. A mere silhouette of a man of titanic proportions, but one that the sight of may stir cold fear in the pit of bellies, a clutching alien terror squeezing at the heart, for reasons wholly unclear.

    However, it's also the same visage that was painted upon the ceiling of the Library of Murdered Knowledge, as an army of gods and heroes prepared to wage war against it.

    Enark, unwilling to venture after the others until there is some indication of if there is a threat, at least calls out to them, relying on the accoustics and otherwise total silence to carry his words. "While you are over there, can you check if there's any time left on that absurdly tall clock?"

    Crow murmurs, "Hey, let's keep it down. I don't want you to get hurt again." Then it responds to Staren. "It's magicked to have infinite pages. We might be able to find more, or a substitute, but I don't know if copying it exactly will work. Something to investigate, I guess."

Staren has posed:
    Staren stays with Carna, for the moment, waiting for the scouts to report back. When someone points out the figure, he asks Enark, "Who is it supposed to be?" when someone points out there are three shrines of light, he sighs. "Great..."

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord flies until he finds that it was simple debris from the gradual decay of this place. Their disturbance of the dead air itself may have tipped the scale for the collapse, but it seems, to his untrained eye, that it was a ... clock-slide, so to speak. He makes sure to scout and does, indeed, espy the sight of the Shrines of Light. He doesn't advance on them, suspicious of their presence because of what he's heard from others about this very problem, and how mimics are so prevalent.

    He turns, and only just realizes that the massive clock is near him. It is not a dead clock, but a clock depicting ...

    "Yveltal preserve my soul. We need to get back to that library," he utters, upon recognizing the figure.

    He climbs up, and up, and up into the air, to read the face of the clock. He beats his wings slowly, grimacing at their aching from the previous battle. Seeing the answer in the form of both hands pointed straight up, he calls back to the scholar.

    "No, Enark!"

Kushiko has posed:
<"... three's not normal, right?"> Standing guard as she is, the Tenno really doesn't have all that much to do save staying alert--and alert she does. Feels like she's got eyes everywhere. Which is funny, since she has no visible eyes. She does pace back and forth a little bit, gently rolling the speargun-looking staff in her hand around and over between her hands. She's still dwelling on what she saw, and what Carna's doing. Maybe not giving Finna as much of a stinkeye as Priscilla is, but definitely watching the fox.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is concerned for Carna's well being but also sees she's just lost in her own little world for the moment, and it would be best to cover Carna for the moment. She will give Priscilla a look for a moment and then looks back to Carna. With the noise though she's aware something else is going on but not to the nature of what it is, she'll hold watch on Carna for now. She will however take a good look at what's ahead and she listens to what CRow has to say on the magic.

"Magic, it divides by zero...wait a fetch quest?! You hgave got to be kidding me."

Finna (513) has posed:
Finna is next seen by anyone looking shivering near the Shrines of Light, gazing on that terrifying mural. Seems she just couldn't keep up her stealth in the face of THAT.

    When Enark arrives she springs up to her feet with renewed vigor and interest, but his proposal - being mad - triggers another quiver from her.

    "What'll happen if someone wound up that clock?" She posits fearfully.

Priscilla has posed:
    "Time left?" Priscilla inquires. "Is it not the purpose of a clock to tell simply what time it is? How wouldst time runneth down on a clock? And time until what?" When people start yammering on about the freaky giant clock and the fact that a ledge just broke, though, she decides it's probably safe to continue on, for lack of any Purifiers coming to check nobody is touching the time pieces. If at all possible, she'll drag the others with her; Carna can read as she goes. If only Staren could plug a memory chip into her brain or something.

    Ultimately, Priscilla agrees with Kord. "Yes. I had insisted upon such a while ago, but I assumeth now it to be more than a simple loose end to tie up. Aside from the matter of the 'dragon' and the many unexplored floors . . ." Why does the giant figure nag at her?

    Three Shrines. Not this shit again. Already knowing Enark had been here at least once before, Priscilla is not falling for goddamn mimics for the umpteenth time, and chucks one of those little pewter skulls into the middle of the formation.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Enark purses his lips as he receives the news, obviously unhappy, but not surprised. "I thought as much." He answers the question of who the figure is easily, "That is the Primordial Man. Albion. He was the 'other side' in the Battle of the Unmaker, a mythical and historical war between him and almost every god, titans, immortal, Eternal, hero, and so on. Few chose cowardice and hid rather than fight, because if Albion won, there would be no hiding place anywhere or anywhen. Countless beings and concepts died, or were unmade, never again to appear, while those few that survived as scraps of what they once were even now are but mere echoes. I do not cast magic, for example. I simply reuse a spell that has already been cast in the past. The corpse of the arcane, reanimated infinitely by Lumiere, to be spent again and again."

    He shakes his head, having explained most of the big deal with the clock on the radio. "I call it the Doomsday Clock, because the first time it chimed coincided with the apocalypse. It seems I named it aptly, as the second time coincided with all life dying." He looks to Finna thoughtfully as she proposes turning back the clock. He starts moving as Carna gets to her feet, looking a bit more cognizant of her surroundings now that she has had the chance to remember who and what she is, and all that has happened. Or most of it. "I do not know what would happen. Possibly nothing. It may have served its purpose already. If it has special powers, then it might 'buy us more time'. It might provide a chance to fix some of what was broken, or to stop the clock at a point before everything ended, if it has some sort of cosmic power of that type. But I doubt we personally have the power available to us to wind the clock again. Even if we had a key, how would we turn it?" He shakes his head and then moves to join everyone as they seem to be heading for the Shrines.

    He pauses upon seeing multiples, and waits to see the results of Priscilla's skull throw. "Not in such close proximity, no," he answers Kushiko.

    Crow shrugs at Tomoe. "They're just books. How hard can it be to find a book?" Then the Shadow slides off of Enark and closer to the Shrines, as they remain innocently stationary. Crow looks at each in turn, stretching this way and that, demonstrating more of its usual body morphic abilities as some of its energy comes back to it. "They aren't fakes." the Shadow concludes eventually.

    Crow's horn-nubs droop a bit. "But something really sad happened here."

    Enark frowns as he starts climbing his way up the piles of clocks and the fallen slab of stone from the ledge. "What do you mean?"

    Crow shrugs. "I just know." -\_(``/)_//-

    Enark considers for a moment whether to ask Crow if it remembers the battle against Albion that it supposedly took part in during a former existence. An existence that seems to be ever more coming closer to the surface. But this is not the time, and there is enough on Enark's mind due to Kord's theory. Not the theory itself, but something ABOUT it... He stands near one of the Shrines. "Crow's word is good enough for me. All aboard. Next stop: Somewhere the hell else."

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord flies away from the clock that tells him the end has already come. But if that is the case, then wouldn't Lumiere already be gone?

    Kord flits his way through the incredible dark void with the comfort of an eagle in the blue skies. He realizes how comfortable he is doing this, and frowns to himself. He thinks about the implications behind Albion, and what it might mean for the gods. It meant that the gods, magic, heroes, all of it was at the mercy of the primordial concept of humanity. It meant this whole place was the product of a human touch, in a way. Afterlives don't matter in a realm with no thought. It's all just bits slamming into other bits with nothing to ascribe meaning to it.

    "This place will drive me mad."

    Some call that enlightenment.

    "Shut up, you."

    Kord lands near the Shrines of Light. He purposefully waits for the others to leave, first, so that he can stand in the silence and shade by himself for a few minutes. So he can be alone with the dead air. It reminded him of a home he left a long time ago, and he could derive some comfort from that.

Finna (513) has posed:
"Something BAD could happen too!" Finna wonders aloud... but quickly yelps at Priscilla HURLING something in her general direction. The Fox leap-flips and redirects herself through the air by cracking her tail almost like a WHIP.

    The highly acrobatic manuever leaves her seated near Crow, still incredibly subdued from her usual exuberance. Lumiere is simply too terrifying and depressing for her to enjoy herself AT ALL sometimes.

    Now is one of those times.

    "ALL FOR LEAVING!" She yips in agreement.

Kushiko has posed:
Lots to consider in more than a few ways--theories discussed will be analyzed somewhat by the Lotus and for her to digest in full later. What Finna and Carna may--or may not--have been doing. Enark. Crow. All of this feels like it's coming to a head, to a point she can't visualize just yet.

Especially with her somewhat mute observation--and recording--of everything she's seeing. Handy thing for later study, perhaps by the others. <"... yes. Let's."> she concludes, a little quieter with what's going on. She'd have to consider her role, her place in all this. Something to meditate on once they're back, safe and sound as she approaches one of the Shrines to use, ensuring everyone's actually, you know. Leaving. She'd be next to last to leave, her faceless gaze on Kord before departing.

Staren has posed:
    "Infinite pages? That's neat, but practically infinite storage space is available with digital devices. We can probably come up with something she can use as a backup." Staren replies. Enark fills them in on the doomsday clock. "I'm not sure we /want/ it to chime again. What's left to happen? Turn all of Lumiere into nothing?"

    It's a tense wait for the shrines to be checked. He's aiming his laser pistol at them, ready... but nothing happens. He relaxes a bit, but he still won't be the first to approach the shrines. He's relieved to get out of here, though... "Is summoning me going to be a thing? I may need to find a way to make sure I have some armor here..."

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe Says "How hard? It could be very hard we're going to ahve to see crow." She looks at Crow watching them for a moment and she's pretty sure crows right about them not being fakes She also knows it may be time to go soon. She does pay attention though and stars to understand just how big this mess really is. It's getting into things that are way over her head and she kinda graps it but does get this is serious. She really can't run away now even if she wants to and part of her mind has been going on abotu why does she keep wandering the multiverse? She shuts that voice up and glances back to crow.

"I'll take your word for it Crow."

She's being serious as well not sassing Crow in the slightest. It's time to get going and she'll follow Enark, she doesn't want to stay here any longer either.

Priscilla has posed:
    Primordial Man.

    Even to the casual observer, something unnatural flickers behind Priscilla's eyes when she hears those words. Something a little more strange than simply her inhuman pupils.

    "The library first." she insists, low and steady, after quite a long pause. "We hath not the energy nor the men nor the lack of sense to spread ourselves so thin over so many leads. Asides, this place is inconvenient in the extreme to reach from elsewhere. For lack of reason not, divide thineselves between the shrines, at the very least in pairs. Shouldst one lead somewhere dangerous, returneth along the same track. At least one must lead to the greater network."

    Then Priscilla does just that, taking the shrine with the squishiest people involved, being the toughest involved save Tomoe.