4218/Exploration: Grand Gallery (1)

Exploration: Grand Gallery (1)
Date of Scene:	14 June 2016
Location:	Lumiere
Synopsis:	An attempt to put an end to mimics creating mimics results in an encounter that no one expected.
Cast of Characters:	Staren, Priscilla, 513, Count Kord, Kushiko, 974

---

Carna (974) has posed:
    This is less of a 'Grand Archive' and more of a 'Grand Gallery'. The area they have arrived in, while rather cathedral-like, seems to be placing more emphasis on artwork than religious iconography. Putting aside the altars all throughout the expansive area below, or the robed figures worshipping at them and working twisted powers through their chanting. It looks like there are many bridges and paths for navigating the area, a tangle of criss-crossing walkways that will probably be a nightmare to navigate, in order to get down to where hundreds of mimics who have learned to mimic the mage-like former residents of this area to such an extent that they can use magic as well, will probably start throwing spells at the Elites.

    This place just keeps getting better and better. And to top it all off, there's a very big painting hanging on the wall directly across from the wide platform the Elites have arrived on. They are down one member, but with Enark apparently capable of providing healing, further losses might be avoided if they're careful.

    In a place like this, trying to 'cheat' by flying down through the open spaces between pathways might either be a brilliant idea or a terrible one. Who knows what's lurking in the blind spots produced by the top-down view they're presently looking through after all? But the painting, at least... They should be able to walk across the large bridge before them to THAT at the very minimum, rather than trying to reach its base.

    And at its base, there are creatures made of paint and dye wandering out of the canvas and into physicality in a small but steady trickle, so fighting through them is also probably best skipped.

    Enark is a bit at a loss. He was not expecting this to be here or to look like this or for any of these creatures to be here. But they are. So his knowledge of this place is now fairly compromised.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord looks at their surroundings with great unease. It's clear now that this room in particular is more dangerous to him than the previous, and his comment a moment before about throwing Enark down the library was indicative of how much this place was beginning to bother him. Being in a region of Lumiere where he could get killed in the blink of an eye was not fun for him!

    "Forge ahead," he murmurs to himself, stepping forward, to follow that large bridge toward the painting and investigate it. His steps are careful and silent. He tries to keep an eye on his surroundings, not wanting to get sniped by any mimics on the way to the painting.

Priscilla has posed:
    Far from being able to criticize Enark, Priscilla is slightly lost as well. This should be a situation where she knows infinitely more about it than everyone else present, and technically, she does, but that doesn't really translate into what they should do about it. The Archive itself would already be nauseating enough to see even were it not for the way the invasive profane has layered onto it as if halfway between pointed mockery and painstaking homage. The one, true divergence comes from the fact that there are creatures /leaving/ the painting, bleeding into the real world in just such a way as to push the spectacle from aggravatingly predictable to alarmingly offputting. It mainly leaves only one real question.

    "I wouldst recommendeth against charging straight into such, assuming it wouldst be receptive to thee to beginneth with. Either the seal on such an object is already far broken, and thou wouldst be walking directly into the unknown, or else some bizarre inversion hath taken place and we art currently 'sealed inside' the real world. If it is the latter, I dread to say that I hath a precise idea of how to circumvent it, but at the very least I wouldst wish us all present at once."
That said, there's nowhere else to go just yet. If they can avoid the notice of the teeming hordes below, that'd be great. There's no sense searching after a doll that may or may not be here just yet. All she really wants is for Kord to stick with the group as they push on rather than doing his usual thing.

Kushiko has posed:
Speaking of blind knowledge, that's presently how the Tenno is feeling. More accurately, Kushiko, controlling her two Warframes is misliking this part of reconnaissence: compromised intel, and not having a proper place forward.

They needed one, from the sound of it, with the way this world functioned they could (and have) used those Shrines to whisk themselves forward minus that necessary effort. And given the situation, it resulted in a strange display from Mag: a flicker of light, and a projection of a holographic panel depicting not the Lotus, but a slightly young figure, a chaotic swirl of vermillion mist and light in the panel itself surrounding her. The pilot?

Much as it could be, as she spoke directly. "So, uh, I'm going to assume we're going to avoid the painting for now, find a place to regroup then come back later, is that is?" IT's a fair question, Kushiko feels as Mag reloads her sidearm, discarding the rounded canister.

Mesa gestures, projecting an odd little circling band of lavender light around her as she jogs forward along with Mag. Within a moment, a strand of light beams over to Mag, tethering itself to the Warframe before 'jumping' another band of light over to her and circling her similar to Mesa.

Looks like they were as prepared as they were going to be, keeping by the group in a loosely protective flanking formation.

Staren has posed:
    After commenting that maybe this /isn't/ the Grand Archive, Staren walks in a bit further and sees that... oh. It's /another/ multi-tired balcony-ringed structure. "Ugh. Any idea where in this gallery we need to go, Enark? Or is it just the big obvious painting?" He checks that his weapons work on the endless paint-monsters, too.

Finna (513) has posed:
Finna prances across the safe spaces they have, sniffing at the ground and at the air. Her senses, already bestially sharp, are pushed even further through practice and enlightenment - it's unlikely anyone here today will be hiding anything scent-based, be they ally or foe. Whether the mimics give any useful scent, or other creatures show up, remains to be seen... but she edges towards the walkways and gives a few sniffs.

    Then whispers Enark's way, "Enark. One of the lords, a great painter you said?"

Carna (974) has posed:
    Enark is snapped out of his reverie at Staren's and Finna's words. "Ah... This place does not look like it is part of the tower that I recognize. There should be a rather vast librarium beyond here, straight rows of records and texts stretching on and on. And from there, the Way of Blue. A means of transport leading both above and below. Though I suppose that if the mimics are capable of replicating the former residents, they could have remodelled over the billion years or more that I have been here. And yes, one of the former Lords was quite the painter. One of those who left Lumiere... Though he was the one the Blue Scholars followed and revered. Some said he practically had paint running in his veins, given how many paintings he made. All of them of profound arcane power. I am more surprised by the changes to the area than the fact there could be a magical painting here."

    Enark clears his throat and begins reciting, "'Lord Tharmas, the Mystic Painter. The Silent Lord of Sensation. His Element is Water, which is in turn connected to Time'. His mate was Lady Enion, though when the two were separated they became very different... Beings. They were restored eventually, but those were dark times. We Blue Scholars have been apart from Lord Tharmas for quite a long time ourselves. His successor, the Seer of the River Styx, rarely even visited the tower!" As he goes on about all sorts of things, the investigation into what lies in wait reveals that there are definitely things tucked away out of sight within the maze of pathways.

    Things clinging to the undersides of some of the bridges, presumably lying in wait to ambush. The mimics mostly smell like dust and rust, when they have any scent at all. Most smell like what they look like, making them indistiguishable from the genuine article. Though small visual cues might betray their true natures. A statue of a shapely woman in a hood stands in repeated form along one wall, with statues of various others. But one of the statues is subtly different than the others. Just a little bit off in terms of shading. A little bit more stretched, in a way more like flesh than stone.

    If one takes the time to look instead of rushing in, identifying the mimics among the mundane, while still not an EASY task per se, may seem slightly more manageable.

    The bridge ahead that Kord has begun to cross has produced no mimics, traps, or threats. Whether or not he continues across to the painting, with the bridge terminating or going INTO the painting or something at about the vicinity of that ruin upon the canvas, after hearing Prsicilla's words, he remains unassaulted for now.

    Eventually Enark stops ranting about the successor he feels did not live up to the potential of his Lord, and looks to the projection of a young girl. "Ah... Well, you know. We do not have an immediate means of egress at the moment. We may have to search for one of these 'Shrines of Light' though I am not certain I trust them myself. They seem to work fine for you all, at least..."

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord makes sure to stop just before he would actually walk into the painting itself, so he can assess how much depth it actually has. If he looks at it from the right angle, is there space within the painting beyond the borders? Is there an amount of depth to it to make it feel like a real space? Is there a 'threshold' that he would have to walk through, a painted barrier that makes it clear where the bridge's real shape terminates? All in all, he is very cautious about this particular instance, and doesn't actually rush ahead into the painting itself.

    He reaches out and tests with his left hand, first with the clawed tips of his gauntlet.

    He is clearly fairly aware of arcane threats. It could just be healthy caution after all their mimic encounters, though.

    He glances back over his shoulder at Priscilla, her disapproval of his behavior noted, but it does little to stop his 'proactive' stance to Lumiere, apparently.

Staren has posed:
    "'Librarium'?" Staren echoes. Is that even a word?

    "So... any idea yet where the stuff we're looking for might be?" He looks for the way down. Stairs, slanted bridges, another elevator...? "Hey, could there be another elevator here?"

Priscilla has posed:
    "That question is at least, simply answered, Sir Staren." Priscilla says altogether far too placidly, taking the bridge at her own pace. "We didst cometh here in the vague hopes that such a librarium wouldst grant us some manner of knowledge as to one or more of the Lords of Silence. Now that we art faced with what is so clearly one of their handmade works, what use to us art books? Especially those of which we had no guarantee of being useful." It's a shock alright, and an ominous one, but they'd come here pursuing an objective, and mimics aside, the giant painting is clearly a better step forward than they were hoping for.

    And then Kord is poking at the painting. Priscilla knows full well how that goes. If he gets pulled in, she's going after him, otherwise she cagily tells Staren and Finna to be on the lookout for any 'discarded objects' and waits by to observe everything she can about the paint creatures.

Finna (513) has posed:
Finna decides to be sneaky this time and assumes NOTHING. She sneaks around, crawling like a SPIDER on the walls and under the bridges and looking around carefully for any signs that things aren't as they should be.

    Once she finds a safe bridge she wags her tail at the rest of the group and goes to crawl across on her belly at... startlingly prodigious speeds. Sneaky girl!

Staren has posed:
    "Spider-fox, spider-fox, does whatever a spider fox does o/~" Staren sings softly to himself when he sees Finna on the walls.

Kushiko has posed:
Speaking of identifying mimics and the like, the Tenno does the following as the group begins to move forward towards the bridge: namely, having her Helios sentinel simply /scan/ and vet for the tiniest of differences physically, and report that back to her.

Seems to be the most straightforward way: hard analytics and scanning the the examples of what's a mimic and what wasn't. Plus it helps to have them scan for things that might be, you know. Secret door or air flow coming out of places nearby, but the lion's share of Helios' scanning was directed solely at the painting itself.

This was also something Mesa and Mag took a more direct hand in, in between minding what Finna and Staren were doing, sometimes taking a closer look with their own suit-mounted devices to truly catalogue this place: at some point they would be able to replicate, with their data, a panoramic mimeograph for later, including the creatures they've seen so far at least.

Such is the lovely aspect of the scanners they keep.

In the meantime, they kept an eye on Kord not so much out of inherent wariness, but given he was up there and they were back where Priscilla, Staren and Finna were, Mesa had begun to reposition a little closer, enabling her to have the ability to react quickly should he get somehow pulled in--or attacked.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Enark is spared from answering by Priscilla's words. He simply indicates her with one hand, and then watches as Kord approaches the painting. "A painting that is its own world... That prophecy said something about a 'dweller within the canvas', did it not? Perhaps this is what it referred to!" He seems so excited about how clever this conclusion he has come to is. If only he knew.

    The bridge directly ahead from the platform the rest of the Elites are on seems to be safe, according to Finna's exploration. The others, not really. Creatures like spiders with huge, tooth-lined tongues for bodies are lurking all over the place, salivating. There may be traps as well. The scanning of the mimics via Helios is getting Kushiko some good data for later. The mimics come in a variety of forms, and seem to be infused with more of those 'Dead Lights'. Though some seem to have something extra flowing through them. The painting directly ahead is a very large source of magical energy, but not one of the two huge ones that were detected before. Meaning there's something even more intense further in, and then something else even higher up. Superb.

    As Kord touches the painting, nothing immediately bad happens, except the surface seems to ripple around the contact point. However, the paint seems to stick to his talons, and slowly be crawling its way up his hand. And if he attempts to pull away, he may find the adhesive effect to be fairly... Resilient. Infact, it just spreads faster and faster, gradually drawing him in. On the other side of the painting, he may feel what seems like an open space. The same frigid air that has been spilling out of it all this time, that Helios would have picked up long ago. Cold, and the motion of air, and perhaps the feel of snow flakes gently impacting and then breaking upon him, but nothing actually HURTING him. Unless he or Mesa pulls some crazy stunt to free Kord from the magic he has activated, however, he will eventually get drawn into the painting. And anyone in contact with him too. And if that happens, then Priscilla has already determined she will join him. The others may not be far behind.

    And from there, it's up to the others to determine if they will do the same or not, but given the absence of shrieks of terror or pain or anything, and the fact that two little figures might even be seen standing on a broken bridge within the painting and... Moving around like living things, afterwards, if this sequence of events plays out, it appears they are unharmed. And that joining up with them might be a wise idea.

    On the inside, things are a bit different from how they were when Priscilla was in her OWN painted world. To begin with, the shattered bridge that terminates over an endless open space instead terminates over a half-full open space. It's filled with what look like pebbles... Or maybe skulls? They're round, at least. Each is dyed a single color, creating a relatively even plateau of dull, rainbow spheres, going on into an ambiguous, wobbling distance, shrouded in mist. And it looks like there's another huge difference. They aren't going to have to go far to find this Painting's residents. There's something coming. A staticky outline of black, flecked with what might be stars or other cosmic phenomena, or perhaps just random bits of color that are gone as quickly as they appear. The static creature advances, and stands at the point where the bridge connects to the land. The ruins all around are strikingly similar to Priscilla's own painting, but in many other ways, different. For one, it's even bleaker. Because the color is gradually bleeding out of everything, even those things filling the space far below them, as the essence of it is drawn off to create more monsters on the 'outside'.

    The staticky form just stands there and watches silently, making no motion to attack or act until everyone is here. But once they are, a female voice says in a tone equal parts sad and kind, "I see that thou hath returned."

Carna (974) has posed:
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Painted Reality, Parasite Scarred

Staren has posed:
    "Why aren't they attacking us?" Staren asks as there are mimics all around but far less agressive than before. He goes to investigate the statue, but Finna stops him. "Oh. OHHHHh. I get it. Not a secret door. Not a secret door at all."

    So here they are: The painting! Staren looks... concerned at the way the painting drags Kord in, but Priscilla seems pretty fearless, and she knows her magic paintings, and also he can see them in the painting there, so in he goes!

    And there's a giant-ish staticy form speaking old-fashioned English. Staren's hand rise to the cheeks of his helmet.

    "Oh. My god."

    He looks to see Priscilla's reaction, before he realizes something. "Wait, what do you mean 'back'? We've never been here before! Awww shoot, we really /are/ trapped in a timeloop aren't we?"

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord doesn't panic, having expected something along the lines of what he sees crawl up his hand. The bridge would not have been designed, he figured to himself, unless there was something of substance on the other side. The painting itself could just be a very complex mimic, but he puts the thought aside quickly because there is no precedence for such a thing. They've all had teeth so far, and it isn't bending in toward him to chomp him.

    Once he's on the other side, he raises his head to note the falling snow flakes. His steps move forward only in enough strides to note the figure so he may stay at a safe distance. His gaze focuses keenly on the unusual being, its unearthly appearance a cause of concern in him. He reaches for his weapon but hesitates only because its advance had halted before any sort of attack.

    Once everyone that needs to be here has gathered, and the figure speaks, he says, "You are mistaken. I have never been to this realm before. Unless you mean..."

    Kord looks over his shoulder to the others, particularly to Priscilla, the one most interested in keeping him from running off ahead in this leg of this adventure. Staren's comment gets a breathy sigh from him of clear disapproval, and he turns his head to look back to the vague entity before them.

Finna (513) has posed:
"Hail!" Exclaims the fox, leaping atop the bridge's suspension. She's both daring enough to, and capable of, balancing perfectly on such a tightrope manuever. Even if it sways in the wind, she's not bothered.

    But at the call of returned... the fox looks back confusedly at her companions. Who... who's returned?

    "Is this... inside the painting? Is the painting a sort of gate to the world.... does the difference even matter?" She murmurs softly, confounded by this turn of events.

Priscilla has posed:
    Past a certain point, Priscilla can no longer even pretend that all of this has only coincidental similarity; even to herself. As much as she might wish it to be some aspect of this world's sick sense of humour, or a psychological game to unsettle her, entering the painting itself only confirms that the parallel is conscious, direct and deliberate. Someone had set all of this up in exacting accordance with a considerable degree of knowledge, or perhaps legitimate prophetic foresight, of her and her history. All those little differences, the subtle diversions here and there where the artist clearly had to fill in the blanks with their macabre imagination, only cement the idea; only a careful homage with inexact information could produce something so lovingly rendered and yet 'off' in the sense only someone with first hand memory of the experience would recognize.

    So at the point a mobile unraveling in the painting's fabric, like something out of her earliest, more childish nightmares, starts talking to her what feels like directly, there's really nothing to do but drop the pretense. She starts straight ahead on the bridge in a way that isn't even brave, as it can only look like fearlessness born out of long familiarity. "Were it only so simple, Sir Staren." she intones, seemingly content to head for the opposite side even with the living static in her way. "Thine question is answered, however. Lord Los can only hath been a legitimate prophet, as this place is rendered so closely to an old home of mine that I can only imagine it produced from clear sight and imperfect memory. As his texts mention mineself in anticipation, so too wouldst this place hath been created of the same. Mine apologies to all of thee. If thou art also to be selected to bear a place in this world's tapestry, I regret that this is to be the first of it thou seest." She stops just before reaching what seems to be the origin of the voice. "And so, ultimately, yes. In a sense, I believeth I hath returned."

Kushiko has posed:
The datastreams they're getting is not good, relatively speaking. The Lotus remotely sifting through this data is assisting in the processing, compiling and working to ensure that they can make /use/ of this data, particularly the nature of the Dead Lights. Having a biotechnological... /something/ angle might be useful later.

This of course includes the painting itself. It's... oddly familiar not because of where it leads, but the space-time-like twisting. It reminds them of the portals they've seen in their own world, but obviously differently origin.

Well, the first response is near noiseless from Mag and Mesa when Kord is drawn forward. While surprise might be on Kushiko's distant face, the fact is instinct likens to take over, and hurtle to grab him, but recognizing that it won't be an easy thing to extricate him by pulling him back or otherwise?

Yeah, there's no stopping the fact both Mesa and Mag are going to follow him in as well, both Warframes pushing into the cold, sticky-goopy... /thing/ of it all. Cold, as a secondary thing, really sucks. Extreme cold at least; hopefully the two frames won't be seeing that anytime soon.

Frankly, once they've arrived, they're turning their attention to the way this location is--documentation as that voice from one of the Warframes addresses Finna: "Difference likely doesn't matter here... it's oddly beautiful," she muses. Then again, Kushiko probably has a very odd sense of what beauty is, Mag quietly circling to one side of where Priscilla stands and speaks.

After all when it came to space-time and continuity... snarls, their experience was one that they couldn't voice without making for more questions that didn't help this situation.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Enark is Dead, but even he seems to be capable of experiencing discomfort from the cold. Though perhaps it is more psychological than physical. Unlike Lanterns, the Lit do not appear to have any special resilience. They even bleed like living people, even if the blood is of questionable ultimate nature. He does look around a lot, and unwisely peer over the edge of the shattered stone bridge they stand upon, as though trying to see where the intact bridge they just stepped off of might be.

    The indistinct form waits for the others to look around, to talk among themselves, to ask questions and to approach. And then as though it had been rehearsed thoroughly, the staticky woman begins to speak. "Priscilla, Kord, Finna, Staren, Enark, Mesa and Mag... And thy controller. Thou hath come to the Painted World of Alouette. Presently, a foul creature of terrible power feedeth upon the magics of this place. It attempts to maketh its own reality through the mimicry of worlds and the consumption of the original. Only, thou hath all gone forth to face it time and time again, and failed. We hath spoken at length in previous visitations. We hath spent days, weeks, years, and centuries together, my only company in this world, quickly being abandoned. Always, when thou return, you art as you were the first time thou stepped into this world: unknowing and unrecognizing."

    The silhouette turns away from Priscilla after long moments of matching gazes with her... Even if the 'eyes' of the former are unseen. She begins walking off towards the broken remnants of whatever this used to be or what it's SUPPOSED to be a recreation of being. "I implore thee once more, though I expect my advice shalt not be heeded... Leave this place. I shall show thee the means of egress. There art no inhabitants other than mineself to impede thee anymore. Let this land die, and me with it. I am not worth saving. The soul of the World Mimic is not worth harvesting."

    It's hard to tell, but the figure may be hugging her arms about herself as she faces away. "Please, I beg thee to stop trying."

    Attempts to analyze the environment may reveal there are definitely things wrong. Some parts of the area are... Squirming. Like the grooves in certain types of paintings, where the brush left behind evidence of its passage, but they are woven into the world itself. And lines of light are gradually flowing up them and off towards some distance central location. Light that is flowing from the distorted barrier between this world and the one they came from.

    There is a lot to take in, obviously. But it does not look like they are going anywhere.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord's breath catches in a way like the very thought that some... other iteration of him not only existed, but existed along innumerable others. The thought of it is maddening by itself, and even trying to explain to himself the other ways it could be interpretted bothers him severely. He takes the weapon out of its scabbard, perhaps not the first time he has reacted in this manner, and that fact also makes him unhappy with this place. The maddening idea that he is stuck in some doomed fated loop makes his blood boil.

    A power that forces him to fail, a power like a god.

    "If you speak the truth, nothing you say will stop us from making the attempt," he tells the figure, the figure that he believes must be some distorted image of Priscilla by the way it speaks.

    "But this is a world I have never once stepped foot on. This is a world where prophecy is used like a guiding hand. Prophecy is the tool of a manipulator, of a being that sees themselves as a god, and I will not accept that our attempt will mean our death, because that would give that wretch power over us that is not deserved."

    He turns to look at the others. For the first time since they've seen him, he looks like he's ready to help them more directly. "Shall we defy this engineered fate, hmm?" He sounds... livid.

Staren has posed:
    Centuries together? "Ah, shoot, I don't want to spend /centuries/ here! No offense... I was thinking more like, she'd say we'd been here once before... Ugh... Maybe... well... look, if we've done this before, the explanation's old hat, right? Can you catch us up like you always do?"

    To the party, he comments, "Hopefully, the previous us's are... I dunno, fakes or something, rather than future selves... Actually, now that I think about it, if it was our future selves, they'd already know what's up, right? She'd say something like 'Each time you appear, you know less...'"

Staren has posed:
    Staren thinks about what he's learned about time travel. "It could be the previous us's are ones from dead timelines... So, either we're the ones that will succeed, or we're already in..." He doesn't like the sound of that.

    "...Wait! If they were in dead timelines, she shouldn't remember it... Maybe they were some kind of super mimics, and she has bad eyesight and can't tell the difference?"

Priscilla has posed:
    Priscilla is distantly, grimly glad of the fact that she hadn't mocked Staren for asserting that their situation had to be caused by looping time. She'd look pretty stupid right now if she had.

    That strange place her mind leaps to first aside, there is the actual problem of this woman insisting that they've been here over and over again for centuries of subjective time. Objectively, that can't be true, though that is only possible to count and recognize with knowledge of the Multiverse's timeline itself, which even if this being is peripherally aware of, she has surely never experienced for herself. In fact, she'd place very good odds on her having never left this painting in the hundreds, thousands or millions of years it may have existed, and so perhaps hasn't even seen Lumiere outside. She can't discount that whatever other 'incarnations' of them have gone before have told her of the outside in some bizarre pantomime of proper causality, but . . .

    Her head hurts, and not out of confusion. Her fingers curl around the bizarre, vacuous pendant hanging from her throat.

    "Then I am certain that thou hast previously heard of all predictable arguments and ideals that wouldst typically cometh from us, Lady Alouette, if that is to be thine name if not the name of this world's artist as it may yet be. Though I wouldst tell of thee the illusion of time, and such circumstance as to perhaps sway thine mind, the effort of demonstration and proof is well beyond our allotted means, and perhaps beyond thine capability to experience. I wouldst feel that thou art in no need of hearing out such repetitious rhetoric, and fierce denial any such association with what thou knowest of us. Not after so long." She doesn't seem insulted or aggravated or full of fire to prove the lady wrong and reaffirm her own train of consciousness. She just sounds . . . kind of sympathetically sad; sad that the Painter would go this far to imitate the kind of cruelty he must have known belonged, but had been unable to clearly see.

    "I believeth the worry of distinction can wait until later, Sir Staren. The conundrum is not about to flee from memory. What is more important is what we hath come here for. Demonstrate to our Lady through action." She looks /almost/ approvingly at Kord. "Very well. As high as mine opinion is of Sir Enark's capacity in mimic craft, if nothing else, I do not believeth him capable of crafting something such as this." with the unspoken subtext of 'and then forget all about it after barricading himself away'. As appropriately horrifying a realization it would be, she can't quite believe the Blue Scholar has the power to destroy the work of a Lord of Silence just yet. "Pray, show us of what thou speaketh. I hath, as of this moment, no precise intentions of attempting what thou believst we hath done in past. As loath as I am to see a place such as this in miserable straits as these, we art primarily here for another objective." i.e. show us the problem and we'll pretend like we aren't about to jump on it.

Finna (513) has posed:
"If that's the case... she couldn't know our NAMES." Finna snaps Staren's way, with an exasperated wail. Not at him, but the situation. She is cautious as it gets though, for upon having her name called... she went slack-jawed. As a fox.

    Now... now she toddles over the bridge towards their advocate... and sniffs testingly. Flesh or stranger things? "We've.. been here before?"

Kushiko has posed:
Centuries?

...

OK, the fact that Kushiko has very spotty memory besides makes all of this the more worse for her. Which means it's time to establish some factors to keep things /safe and sane/. Like names. Names she offers via the radio, but that's not all.

It's the analysis of this place, of what her suit's systems are picking up on, the power of the Void allowing her to resonate with, to understand and pick up on. Mesa seems the one chosen to mimic the Operator most, heeled foot making a slight crunch beneath her steps as Helios, floating near Mag Prime, twitches it's ocular scanner towards some of the surroundings.

... all of the surroundings really. Telemetry, magical energy, everything is being devoured by the little U-shaped Sentinel's optics and scanners, with Mag keeping an eye on it (so to speak) as she steps gently to one side.

"Supposition and guesses," the voice of Kushiko notes. Not bothering to have her holoprojection active as Mesa regards Staren. "Nothing more than that and no point guessing.

Being here before and more, the concept of losing her Warframes, perhaps losing more, is something that she is dwelling on quietly besides. A temporal loop possibility is plain, certainly, but it's been done time and time again, from the sound of it, and there's no spatial congition she's aware of either.

Lovely. So very lovely. "... not all of them. Not yet," she offers to Finna. Or perhaps the figure simply adhered to her tacit desire expressed before to not reveal her name so readily. Perhaps even now, maybe, they were changing things. Or were they?

... no, she did not like this, no she did not like this at all, and it honestly made her /want/ to leave. At least until they knew more. To Priscilla, and Priscilla chiefly, however, her holoprojection shows up, Mesa turning ever so slightly.

It's perhaps in this regard that the group can come to fathom the wielder of the frames is a child as her voice, devoid of emotional inflection for a few passing moments, simply asks, "But what about those without memory to flee from?" Pale lilac eyes inhumanly flickering through that ghostly specter of the holopanel fades. "... way is not clear to us." she concludes somewhat morosely.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Enark shakes his head violently, somewhat flabbergasted by all this. "No, no! I have never made anything of the sort! I am not certain that even the mimics feigning at being Blue Scholars could weave magic like this... Not anymoe. Magic has been slain. All that remains is Mumurs, echoes, and the last vestiges of powers wrought in the ancient past by those who care not for the death of the concept of mysticism. I could never approach making something like this. It would require concentrated power from one who WAS capable of it... Like... A part of the original generation of the Lords of Silence. Not the dilluted successors, but those who made most of this place to begin with, who put into place the rules that made Lumiere possible. Those sorts of beings. But they have gone! Who could have turned my creations into all of this so long after their depature?" He holds his head in his hands, painfully aware of the chill, but his head hurting more at the enormity of what he is responsible for, even if not by intent. "Who knew that trying to protect myself... That seek companions after so long alone... Could cause... All of this?"

    The silhouetted figure listens with her back to the others as they make their various declarations. Kord, with his determination, his power to change fate. Staren with his inquisitive passion, to find the answers and try to keep everyone safe. Kushiko, chipperly offering the worst of news and then trying to find a way to make it all work out. Finna's wild heart and energetic curiosity. Priscilla's sympathy out of shared suffering, and keen awareness of what this all means, under the surface. Enark, self-doubting and self-important all at once, a scholar who wants to know more about the world simply out of a love of learning, but who also wants to make his mark upon it, even if not always wise.

    "Haha..." the unraveled woman laughs without humor, but with the slightest hint of an unseen smile. "Every time... Thou art as I remember thee best..." Not torn to bloody pieces upon the snow... Not crushed beneath the weight of a false world... Not devoured from within by one's own darkness in a desparation-fuelled shattering of seals... Not being eaten and the distant operator being carved from her world as the mimic seeks to sample at least a small part of it... Not all the myriad terrible fates she has witnessed for all of them. Time and again. The painful memories keep accumulating. And they are making the reminder of these companions when they are alive even more painful with each repeated encounter.

    She points towards that enormous gulf below them, half-full with distant small objects. "One for each of thee. Form, raiment, or other reminder. One element of what is left over, for each time that thou hath fallen. I deposited them there, originally as a form of farewell to friends now absent. Now it hath become habit."

Carna (974) has posed:
    She turns around to face everyone. "Each time, in an attempt to mimic the worlds that thou hath travelled from, it draws thee back, recreating thy forms. But it can not create thy memories or thy selves. The parts of thee that are at your core. From what Sir Enark hath determined in the past, Lumiere attempts to resurrect thee as the Dead, but thou art not of this place. So thou art restored in whole, without completing the process of death. Thus, caught between life and death, thou return. And I smile, and I tell thee what has happened. And in the past, I hath tried to help you. To facilitate thy grand plans and brave efforts."

    But not anymore, it seems.

    "How many times must I try to save thee, before thou cease thy attempts? How many times must I watch thee die?" the staticky figure asks. Then after a small period of silence, after considering Priscilla's words, she says, "If thou art determined to defy fate, then do not waste that determination upon an impossible task. I shall show thee what thou wish, but I also wish to offer an alternative before any course of action is decided upon." She first leads the way back towards the place that is a facsimile, an increasingly flawed recreation of Priscilla's own chambers in her own painting.

    "It hath been said of thee, Priscilla, that thou art an abomination who should not exist. And yet thou existeth." The staticky woman ascends the steps into the chambers, the round room subtly different, chipped and mismatched in places. "A prophecy that hath been spoken of in previous visitations foretold that I would choose a champion, and that that champion would speak to the Abyss, and it would answer. But to do this, I must leave here. This is something I can not do."

    The towering woman stands beside a soupy mist that flows continuously within an archway. And then she says, "I was supposed to exist. But I do not. A painted figure, who could not be completed." She then turns and looks out through the open walls, and points at a vast dark writhing mass on the horizon, larger than the mountains it rests upon, as lines of light flow continuously towards it like a visualization of the electricity moving along neural pathways. All to the a central bulk, with a squirming tongue of living paint, and an outline that indicates teeth all along its exterior.

Carna (974) has posed:
    "Alouette is a name for the world. I do not deserve a name, as one who does not exist. But if thou do not wisheth to leave empty-handed, slay me." She looks upon her friends, whether she has truly known them or there have simply been countless simulations of their friendship over countless eons. "I will name thee my champion. Thou will speak to the Abyss. And thou will simultaneously subvert and inherit my fate. Only one of us needs to be real. I wouldst rather it be the one who was born." She looks towards Kord, certain he is balking at the idea of being bound by any sort of destiny. "To break a prophecy, one must first fulfill it in the manner of one's choosing. Change the ending by changing thy role."

    The 'non-existent' woman then bows and says, "You need not rush to judgement. Simply departing would be enough to change the cycle. From there... You could prepare if you ever choose to return."

Kushiko has posed:
Stunned silence--well, silence by any means is not something out of the ordinary for the Tenno. Not in the least.

However, it's not just Kushiko who's listening. It's Ordis, it's the Lotus, the caretaker and guide who is unaware of the happenings of this place, for whom had been growing ever so much more wary as time had progressed, but unable to do naught but advise. To say this tale is incredulous is putting it mildly: for her memory to be mired in what's happened here would suggest her datalink to the the Warframes is a link for what has been happening here to affect her as well.

Being told is one thing. Being felt is another. The countenance of both Mesa and Mag seem to change a little bit, the two frames, one mirroring the classic high tech look of a sleek, bodysuited ninja, the other espousing that notion of the hi-tech gunslinger, their syandanas flowing lightly in the chill wind itself. There's something that resonates with this tale as they glance aside, then towards the gulf, both of whom find themselves gazing into chasm.

True death is felt, intuited at almost instinctively, due in no small part to the lack of personal memory she has. To find that she had been part of something else yet again but could not remember, but could not remember because of something like this was an utterly horrific kind of sensation and situation.

<"I know,"> was the voice of the Tenno Kushiko, barely heard as a murmur, save to her Warframes, <"I sense it too. I see our weapons down there.">

Kushiko has posed:
Before, there was always the gnawing sense of the Void permeating the spaces between, woven within the spirit of the two machines, cleverly hidden except when power was brought to the surface. Now, there was something far more than before, some sense of light that was borne from the deepest shadow, a blinding hellscape from which the Tenno originated from. The squirming darkness she could feel and a desire most severe to bring it to an end.

Because lain before the Tenno was, as best as she and the Lotus, distant and only able to watch--perhaps undoubtedly desperate to surge the systems of the Warframes as Kushiko was broken time and time again on the shoals of distant combat within the painting--were facts. Facts that maybe were not the easiest to verify, but at their core, one hoped they were truth. The nature of this world bespoke of something entirely supernatural, yet not something she was far flung from. Perhaps it was time to embrace it. Facts such as their inevitable deaths, but their own lack of awareness, and the attempts the World Mimic has made upon them and theirs.

Of course, the problem was not knowing what they had perhaps done or attempted to do already, any suggestion was likely one that had been made before. And yet a new suggestion was being made here: simply leave and not come back. What were the risks to this place and beyond had they not elected to?

"... are you certain?" Those words are quiet, but forceful as both Mesa and Mag take up positions on opposite sides from where the static, 'non-existent' figure has led them. "Assume we believe. Assume that instead of even coming here to begin with, we should have sought one of those Shrines," Which she /knows/ she did, before they entered the painting

"What happens if this place just eats itself from within, if it dies as you hope it will?"

Staren has posed:
    Staren thinks. It's true they don't know exactly what's going on. It doesn't make sense for it to be a true timeloop, but even if it's a fake one or something else is going on...

    What would Staren do if he was about to fail, realized that the end was really here? Only time can tell for certain, but his gut feeling is that he would leave a record. A message, a warning, information that would allow whoever came after to eventually triumph.

    Even if he didn't have time for that, his armor and headware contain records. There might even be cortical stacks left, but activating those presents a philosophical and ethical quandary he wants no part of.

    Pristatic says anything left behind when they failed is in that pit down below.

    Staren tries to activate his energy wings. If they work here, then down he goes, looking for anything these supposed past selves left behind...

Count Kord has posed:
    The notion that innumerable versions of himself existed, failed and died grinds against Kord's nerves in a very special way and as the image of a familiar party member continues to speak and explain, he follows along with more and more unease. Eventually he makes a gutteral roar of anger and just slams the blade of his scythe into the ground when it's put before them to destroy this being, this creature that, in her own words, has done nothing but try to save them or some image of them from a doomed fate. He leaves the weapon embedded there and seethes, one of his hands clenching until the metal of his gauntlet creaks, his shoulders hunched. Shadows thicken around him menacingly for several seconds.

    He calms, his posture straightening. He's quiet after that, his eyes down-turned.

    An aura of death hums around him. The paint peels around his feet just enough to be noti<span style="color:eable.

    c#8b0000">Slay her.</span> Yveltal whispers, the words echoing in Kord's head. A breeze washes by where ordinarily there would be none, the only indication of the being's influence to the others.

Finna (513) has posed:
After circling around and debating on these weird points... Finna peers at her fellows. "Well. Not going to waste too much thinking on this decision because there's no good answer. Just think we should head back and see what happens!"

    ... As a Lunar, Finna has learned to trust her whimsical gut instincts when all attempts at thinking straight fail.

    And her instincts say laughing in the face of fate and doing something unexpected is always a good idea.

Priscilla has posed:
    "It hath been said many, many times indeed." Priscilla intones back to her neverborn doppelganger, so suddenly matching her tone with such impossibly weighty, long-resolved resignation that even a human of only a few decades can palpably feel the crushing weight of millenia on their shoulders. "But it is said no longer. Even aside from the deliberate, I see much of mineself in thee; more than can be captured by an attentive eye. I was perhaps not at such an exact place as thee, as thou art now, for thine story has been left far from completion and left wanting dearly for its next chapter for far too long, but from one to another, more sincerely than I couldst ever possibly articulate: eventually, upon one very distant day, something shalt always change. It is not fair of me to speak any further as one with the privilege of continuing her life under her own power, but knoweth from the bottom of mine heart that there is no greater an illusion as inevitability, and no greater a lie than eternity."

    As Staren flies off to check the chasm full of nick-knacks, she surreptitiously palms him the black fire pendant from around her neck, curling his fingers around it. She expects him to see if he can find a single instance of it there, down amongst the refuse, and she very well expects he won't, which should tell him something why. She can't find it within herself to admonish Kord for losing his patience so spectacularly. The idea that she could possibly have failed this person, that she could have lost over and over again, grinds against her deepest nerves ferociously, but those nerves are freshly scarred and numb from recent events very much to the contrary of what she'd like to believe. Instead, she simply says, "There is much I wouldst knoweth of thee, but I wouldst be gladdened to taketh it with me regardless. All I must, if nothing else, asketh of thee, is for what of thine tale thou wouldst commit to pages before thou wouldst join it with mine? What of Tharmas? What of Alouette? What of this painting and this 'world mimic'? One way or another, one or all of them shalt cease to be in the near future, but we hath much need of knowing as much as can be."

Carna (974) has posed:
    Even if this is essentially another world, though an unfinished one, it still lies within the Library of Murdered Knowledge: repository of all recorded information. That means there are things possible here that might not be otherwise. Memories are more than just things stored within the brain. As the nothing-woman quietly listens to and observes the reactions of those around her, taking in their living presence like a freezing cold breath after being nearly drowned repeatedly, the pain is fresh, even if not new. And yet she wants more of it, because as long as she feels this pain, it means that the others are still alive.

    In the middle of the room, a ghostly image appears of a surreal scene of everyone here seated around a magical fire of some kind, some nearer than others, and Staren present within the vision though he has gone to investigate the ravine here in the present. They just seem to be sitting there and talking. It flickers back out of existence as suddenly as it appeared. The unpainted one turns away, walking slowly towards an open wall, and resting a fizzling hand upon a broken edge worn smooth with physical contact over countless lengths of time. Lookg out upon the ruined surroundings, and the grotesque writhing mass on the horizon.

    "If this accursed place devours itself, yonder monstrosity shall never emerge. Its growth, gorged upon what it can steal from its visitors over and over, will consumeth its own environment instead. Without the means to function in the place thou hail from, if it does not expire outright, it should appear in a crippled state: comparatively simple to dispose of when carved from its world as it has attempted to do to thee so many times before."

    As Staren flies down to inspect the left over fragments of their former selves, he finds that it's a lengthy descent. And the further down he goes, the greater the scope of just how many times temporal iterations or simulated versions or whatever they are have expired becomes. Scraps of cloth. Clumps of bloody fur. Broken fragments of armor. Shards from some metal weapon... So many little things that, individually, mean nothing. Not unless one has actually seen what they're from can one really guess at what they came from. And even then, to actually piece something together whole requires a healthy imagination... Or really good analytical equipment. Very little of it what could be called 'whole'. And if there's one for each of them, for every time they've died...

    Looking out across a sea of of these baubles indicates there have been many, many, many, many deaths. Numbers like 'billions' and 'trillions' are meaningless before something like this. There's too many to count. But he's supposed to be looking for something in particular right? Maybe there's something whole and intact among all this. Or at least mostly-intact.

Carna (974) has posed:
    The unpainted one says after a long time of just staring out at the bleak wastes, "I shall tell thee what I know. Though it art a long story. 'Twould be faster to impart the memories directly." All around her, flickering in still shots or short sequences of action, there are scenes of all of them doing things. Standing, arguing, sleeping, laughing, fighting, or leaping out from this open space to go fight the World Mimic... Only for this 'pristatic' to come back or stay behind each time, weeping, or simply numb and hauling bodies, or clutching bloody baubles as though they were worth more than the greatest treasures as she staggers out of the room.

    "It began with a prophecy, that one among several pivotal figures would come to mend the broken world outside. A queen of two nations, from within the canvas. As eons hath passed, and those who knew of the prophecy waited for the promised day without it being realized, it became clear that no one was coming. An effort was made, through fragments of knowledge that hath been gleaned through the Flames of Prophecy, to create these prophecied ones so that it couldst be fulfilled." The unpainted one turns to look over her flickering void shoulder at the others. "Someone thought to use Sir Enark's creations to accomplish this. By taking the blood of Lord Tharmas himself and infusing it into a mimic that would paint and emulate the worlds of those expected to come here. In time, it was believed that the prophecied ones would arise within the painted worlds. That I wouldst eventually be joined by others."

    As Staren floats over these remains and fragments of remains, he may see what seems to be a hollow but somewhat intact warframe, with something draped upon its fingers... Glittering in the dim almost-dark. It couldn't be what Priscilla wanted Staren to find, could it? If he lands to inspect it... Suddenly there is a shift in lighting in the environment. The sky flickers and turns red. Everything down here where he is turns to black. And all these partial remains turn complete. They're glassy-eyed, staring bodies. Of him. Of Kord. Of the Mesa and Mag. Of Priscilla. Of Finna. Of Enark. Just lying there. Wounded in many ways, mortally so, but their unblinking eyes staring directly at him, almost accusatorily for living while they did not.

    One of the Starens, staticky like the unpainted one, reached up out of the sea of the dead and grabs the actual Staren's ankle.

    Then the lighting flickers again and there's nothing. It's how it was before. Fragments. Pieces. Nothing touching him. And the bauble dangling from those fingers is just some piece of electronic or something.

    There's no indication of the pendant he is looking for down here. Just nightmares.

    The staticky woman faces back out towards the mimic again. "But Alouette was the first and only such world. There was not enough known about thee to complete it, Lady Priscilla. And as I waited to be rescued, to go forth and fix everything alongside the allies I was prophecied to have... Nobody came."

Staren has posed:
    There's nothing left but shards... Good grief, how many times has /whatever/'s going on here happened? Hey wait, there's an intact one of Kushiko's bodies. He lands by it to investigate... And suddenly everything changes.

    They can't be alive. They must be zombies. He frantically tries to hack zombie-Staren's computers -- and then he's grabbed, and before he can really /do/ anything, it's gone.

    Great. It seems there's nothing of import down here. Just... visions? What the hell was that? Still, no point in staying down here then. He flies back up to the others, shaking his head. Priscilla seemed to want discretion, so he'll return the amulet to her when he's /not/ attracting attention. He turns to Pristatic, as it seems the narrators have decided to dub her. "Okay. I /know/ me. I must have given you /something/ to show us. If not... are there more complete parts of my armor or my head anywhere?"

Kushiko has posed:
Things that are affirmed in rather short order is the following: not having a sense of memories beyond what's taken place actively since she was 'awakened' (which was only perhaps a few months prior to unification) means she's a bit more susceptible to what's being told here than most. The Lotus can only assure her so much, but even for now, that voice has almost died on the chill winds of this place.

What's really worse for her is the way her Transference and the like works: she can infuse her consciousness into one of the Warframes, to surge it's revival system; whether or not there's enough intact down there, she can't tell and it's /gnawing at her/ at the edge of her senses, that peripheral sense of it all. It's making both frames look momentarily unsettled--and for Staren's regard, something that he MIGHT catch sight of briefly before? Those Warframes had no eyes. At least, beyond the helmet optics, which could be just plain disturbing in retrospect.

And yet, through these two, through Mag and Mesa, Kushiko listened, as much as she could listen with the cognition of... /what/ she felt. And it felt so wrong, so profane that for a fleeting moment, she thought about practically immolating what was down there via a firestorm of weaponry. Destroy all of them, consume them and scatter these bodies and fragments to the light itself.

        CONSIGN IT ALL TO THE LIGHT!

That's about when Mag's grip tightened on the Tonkor--wait, was it on the Tonkor before? No, it wasn't, and just a miniscule amount of trembling from the intensity of the grip could be seen as the monocular pinprick of light within the center of Mag's helmet seemed to burn with lilac energy.

"This isn't right," Kushiko seethes quietly, her voice hanging in the air like an ephemeral mist between her Warframes. It's then that a gentler, if still firm voice spoke up, "No, it isn't. /Calm down/, Tenno, I think I might know what's going on..." It was then that her hand stilled on the grip of her weapon, even as she loosed it from her back, letting Mag's arm fall to one side, keeping the weapon gripped.

The masked visage of the Lotus appeared, hanging slightly above and to the side of Mag, the purple-blues of the lotus-inspired headgear trailing tubes and wires off-camera, static occasionally flickering throughout. "You are you. All of you are you. Time is not working the way it should here." Such things said not long after Kushiko stared morosely through her suit's optics at the visions lain bare before them.

"Still your mind." the Lotus commands. "Only that which you have brought here is all that you have." For several moments, she does as bidden. To let what 'Pristatic' say sink into her, to suffuse it within her mind, to discard the aggravation, the furor of that which is facsimile that she could feel. "... everything is relative." Kushiko murmurs faintly. "Going on as long as this has because we were /expected/."

... Ah, that's the sound in someone's voice of dawning horror and confusion in equal measure, yet now at least there's a hope for clarity.

... she still had an impossible /need/ to go down there and destroy all her broken frames, simulacrum or not.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord doesn't move to slay 'Pristatic' and has already voiced why this is a painful thing to resist to the others over the radio in the interim; he doesn't want to be here, and it's all Yveltal that wants him to do anything here. He closes his eyes and listens to the voice of Yveltal in his head, urging him over and over to follow its bidding. He just ignores it for now, until it grows silent, as if the being has come to understand why he chooses to abstain until their approach can be decided on. He turns his head toward Staren when he returns, and watches with interest for a moment or two. That he doesn't have anything forthcoming means...

    Kord pulls the scythe out of the floor.

    His hands both clench on the haft of the weapon. His gauntlets creak, his body shifting weight from one foot to another.

    "It would break the chains of fate just as well to have you fulfill the role the fools that made you intended, despite the abject failure of this realm's mission. Do you really want us to kill you?"

Finna (513) has posed:
HEARING what Staren says when he returns is enough to have Finna stop in her pacing, ears going straight up and alert. her whole body swerves to listen because - loathe as she is to admit it - the current situation is far, far beyond her en philosophically.

    If it weren't she wouldn't have reverted to acting on instinct so fast.

    And she's around people who'll solve in no time what may take her a few days or hours.

    Those same instincts now warn her tht something's about to happen in the same way that cats sometimes predict Earthquakes. The fox tenses up and looks up her her spot near the bridge, where she'd been gazing down into the chasm of Lost Things...

Priscilla has posed:
    "I see it is all as I suspect then." Priscilla says, and with it, says probably all that her unfinished counterpart really needs to understand; that sense she had since arriving, of an extremely dedicated painter trying to capture every detail they could from memory, but being forced to fill, or leave, gaps where they couldn't see, or couldn't fathom. It's sad to see this kind of thing, but even sadder to see it left unfinished. Even a sad story needs either an ending or a continuation. "I cannot begrudge the intentions behind such an idea, but an old and noble witch once made such a mistake as to trust it without fear, and so I am ill surprised to hear of its same, innocent root."

    She casts a disinterested, far away gaze to the massive, conceptually engorged mimic writhin on the horizon, and then looks back to Pristatic with painful sincerity. "I wish for thee to suffer no more, but I wish for thee to endure on longer. I wish very much for thee to leaveth this world and becometh part of something greater than an unreconizable smudge on the canvas of a painting never to be finished. I wish to avenge thee, but more importantly, I wish for thee something better than this, and I wouldst be unforgivably remiss if I were not to act on what I hath said to thee: that no matter how long, all things may change in time. Even if thou hast never lived, I wouldst preserveth all possibility for thee to see what I hath seen, and know the next chapter in a miserable tale seeming never ending. But thou art right. More than any else couldst realize. Such a thing cannot end until it has properly begun." She holds her hand up towards Kord, almost soothingly. "And so I shalt do what thou beg of me, so thou may dream a long dream of completion, and one day awaken from it anew."

    Then, out of that small, selfish desire that burns so inexplicably hot within her after all that she had lost and gained such a short time ago, she kills the unpainted woman. It is quick, simple, and without ceremony or brutality, only recognizable by the flash of silver that resolves from the disappearing of the star-flecked black. What she takes from it is a single piece; a small, silent flame of the same speckled, cosmic hues; the essence of an unfinished soul. It's such a self-centered thing, but it is the one course of action where she can guarantee her counterpart's continued existence in one form or another, without exposing anything to any form of chance, complication or circumstance; the one thing so absolutely under her power that it cannot be thwarted. Let her properly join the story she was meant to mimic, and then maybe, eventually, come out of it as some thing or person all its own. Right now, Priscilla would rather exercise resolve for certainty, rather than hope for happiness.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Enark has been very quiet, but also very troubled. The visions of past selves of his appearing here and there as ghostly images is highly disturbing. But not so disturbing as the fact that someone not only twisted one of his creations to this end... But also somehow has access to the 'blood' of a Lord of Silence. Who would have such a thing? How did they obtain it? Who was it that put this all into motion? How could his simple wishes to be safe and have companions turn into this nightmare? Was it his own arrogance in thinking he was fit to do what only the Eternals were meant to do? To create an entirely new form of existence, like Los did with humans, or Urizen did before that with EVERYTHING?

    There are no words to express the enormity of the guilt he feels. To know his actions resulted in all this suffering. He opens his mouth to try to say something. Some form of apology. But he is saved from making a woefully inadequate attempt at mollifying his own sense of being miserable by trying to assuage another by Staren's arrival.

    The unpainted one looks over when Staren arrives. She's still telling her story, but she pauses for him and his questions. She indicates the direction of the World Mimic. "I couldst not transport everything alone. If anything remains that thou did not find below, it is there." There is not much more to tell regardless. Recounting the initial meeting between her and the 'real' people when they finally arrived, and every death and re-meeting since then, would simply take too much time. Be too draining. Too much repetition of the same suffering over and over until she is nearly numb to it. Might have even been numb to it for a long time, before something changed to renew her emotions... And the pain that comes with it. She may have gone through countless such cycles.

    They can figure it out. They do not need to grasp the full emotional content of her experiences. She would not wish them to. But this is the last, final thing she can do to try to change fate. The only thing she has never tried before: To die.

Carna (974) has posed:
    It seems to be working. The wheel of fate is changing its path. Even if only a little. She looks towards Kord, and even without a discernible face, there is a sensation of a sad smile. "If only it 'twere so simple as to step through and depart. Like the World Mimic, I lack the physical substance to exist properly, even here. Beyond... Not even this imitation of form would survive. Thou who art meant to fulfill thy purpose are better off pursuing such. Only, remember this: The first step to breaking an abhorrent prophecy is to change how it is carried out. What thou accomplish in the end will determine thy ultimate success. Simply fighting it oft causes all to occur as planned by other parties. Make them believe compliance. Then, throw their plans into disarray at the end."

    Then she focuses on Priscilla. The woman she was supposed to be a replica of, but couldn't be. Again, the sensation of a smile without visible indicator of such as the promise is made to do as was asked. She lowers her head to accept the death as though it were a great blessing being bestowed upon her. To have an end to her pain and for her friends to live at the same time? Nevermind the promise a potential future. Those two things, especially the latter, have been her sole wish for so long she has forgotten her original dream of doing what she was made to do. "Then I name thee my champion. And my replacement." she says quietly as she, as far as she knows, takes her last look at the faces of those she has tried to protect for so long. "I thank thee all for everything thou have taught me."

    And now, as the flash of silver cuts through an empty silhouette, the static ceases, all signs of a faux person gone. Though it was almost as though, right at the end, she turned her head to the side and breathed in. What that was, if anything, shall probably never be known with certainty. Not unless some way is found in the distant future to restore her by giving her an existence of her own.

    The swirling mist that marks the exit from this place remains, churning silently. There are no other sounds in this place, aside from the occasional whistling of chill winds. No dramatic tremors. No signs that what they've just done has had any impact on this world.

    There probably will not be such a sign. Not while they are still here to potentially begin the cycle again.

Staren has posed:
    "Priscilla, what are you doing?!" Staren is shocked, but... the static copy's reaction, and a comment by Priscilla about breaking the cycle, are enough to mollify him. "I suppose... if it's what she wishes. I'm just sorry, that me and none of the other mes, could save you. We'll try to make your sacrifice worthwhile, at least. ...Goodbye." What else can he even say?

Count Kord has posed:
    That moment where Priscilla took the reins and took decisive action would burn into Kord's mind in a way he hadn't anticipated. She struck down the figure, and perhaps it was always her place to do so. He lowers his weapon, then folds it up and places it back in the holster where it belongs. Then he turns to regard the World Mimic, devouring this painted world in the distance, so that he can distract himself from what Priscilla has done. There's no outrage from him, and he barely twitched when she moved. He had expected it.

    After a few moments of thinking on the image's words, her advice, and the actions of those present, be believes he can trust them to understand what he has to say now.

    "There are some things I would like to discuss with you, Priscilla, soon. Privately," he says, "For now... how were we supposed to fight that?" He gestures toward the big angry mouth in the distance(?) with an unfurling of his fingers, his head turning to look over his shoulder.

    "Maybe we should save it for another time and find one of those shrines to get out of here."

Kushiko has posed:
Shock is not something that necessarily registers upon either Warframe because, well. Good luck actually having either display emotion. It's when she speaks, when the Tenno Operator addresses what just happened that there's a surprising amount of calm in her voice. Mind you, this being the voice and regard of what couldn't be more than a 15 year old at the head of these two respective engines of destruction.

"... she did what she had to. If she didn't, I would have, based on what she said. But I wouldn't because I don't think I was the one who needed to kill her." The young girl's face flicker's to life on a holo projection to regard Staren for a moment. "Those copies deserve no apologies, no remorse. They were made to fulfill a purpose, and they failed that purpose." A pause. "But their failure was enough to bring this about." the child remarks quietly, a little hint of sorrow in her voice.

"They played a role, as we must, and when the time is right, we make our own... but until then..." That was when Mag simply stood a little more straighter as she turned towards the point from which they came from as much as the chasma further off in silent watch. Mesa, the blindfolded vagabond and gunslinger studying Priscilla not just from the moment she ended the static, unfinished 'Priscilla' as she assumed what would be the role required.

"... either way, we have work to do. Regroup. Change the fate... and remember perception is everything. What we are perceived as... and what we perceive each other and ourselves to be."

Priscilla has posed:
    Priscilla lets out a long, deep breath; one that she hadn't realized she'd been holding in, she turns to the other with the full knowledge of what they were probably thinking, but without regret, and without reason to fear any reprisal yet. "Thou hast thine own ways and I hath mine, Sir Staren. We shalt see what becomes of it, but I cannot in sound conscience gamble everything on heroism and 'the right answer' here." And he probably knows why. "Very well then." she says to Kord, before adopting an immediately less crushingly exhausted tone. "We shalt do exactly as planned. We no longer fight a massive and mighty foe in the hopes that it shalt not unravel that which we seeketh to protect anyways. Our objectives here art secured. Now we simply wait for the beast to shrivel, and then, believeth mineself, we shalt see it is suitably no longer permitted to exist. Consider that our catharsis. I wouldst not dare leave without seeing the abomination slain for all of this." She then looks back to what should be a very familiar short ledge and long drop. "At either rate, I believeth I know of our exit."

Staren has posed:
    Staren also hands the pendant back to Priscilla once she reminds him.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Once everyone has gone, when the swirling fog has been penetrated and the ledge departed from, and all returned to the place outside the painting... From this angle, what wasn't visible from their original entry point may be seen. A ladder leading down from that first platform on this side of the huge doors. A ladder leading to a ledge underneath the platform, where a Shrine of Light lays tucked away, barely visible among the maze of pathways and bridges, in the darkness. Just waiting to be lit.

    Enark clenches his fists at his sides. He doesn't know how he feels about just ending the existence of someone who never lived. Even if it seemed to be necessary, he wishes there had been another way. But if her words were true... They had already tried just about every other way. Dying may have been the final option left to her.

    The Blue Scholar says, "I believe I have a new purpose beyond simply reclaiming the Library. I will accompany you on your journey. And I WILL find a way to make up for my errors. I... Do not know if I can ever truly fix even a fraction of what I have ruined. But I must do SOMETHING to set things right again."

    He looks over his shoulder at the painting, and then ahead again, closing his eyes. "I owe her that much at the very least."