Scene #5563: Song of the Deep, World Within the Canvas-AF1624

Owner	Pose
Priscilla	Dark Basement - <Great Painting of Ariamis> (Year AF-1624) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Despite being indoors, it is bitterly cold; far colder than it had even been before. The gentle embrace of the cozy, wintery nights have faded away over time, into the icy reality of life atop a lonely mountain. Breath fogs in the frigid air, and frost creeps in dark corners, away from the light of any fire. The wind moans outside, swirling mournfully through some valley, or perhaps building, of some description, but it sounds impossibly far away, and only echoes downward as a low, solemn howl. It's fitting that it be dark as well. Almost pitch black, were it not for the guttering glow of candles, stacked dozens high on dark, varnished, and heavily worn desk racks, like one would find at a church, now dripping frozen waterfalls of red wax. They've been here, lit, for a very long time, and perhaps have a few days before they burn their last, and leave the dark confines of indeterminate size darkened for good. Where pools of weak light exist, grey and crumbling human bones lay piled on the rough, cold flagstones, aged as if belonging in a museum. Yet, the smell of gore has not yet faded, and permeates the shadows with a metallic stench. The center of the room, where the light is brightest, radiating from a fantastic candelabra drenched in black wax, seems to have put it to use. The gaps in the stone are thick with dried and sticky blood, where it has run from the wide and coarse strokes of a painter's brush, slapped and dragged across the stones in a wide, complicated circle of esoteric and obscene symbols. Whatever it was for, all it seems to have produced is what could be described as a puddle of flesh, like a great ape had melted on the spot, save for the impression of spindly arms. Deep, crimson fungus has started to grow in the cracks, replete with wiggling tendrils. Rasping, human breathing, can be heard in the pitch black distance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents Occult Candles Human Remains Blood Circle Failure of Flesh Last Breaths The Wind Howls -SIGNAL LOST- After Priscilla hadn't shown herself last time, it is little surprise that she would now. If anyone had suspicions that she had simply not the spirit to see the past any longer before, they are confirmed today. The instant boots touch the ground, the atmosphere itself clings to the skin with an aura that can only belong to the utterly forlorn. The gentle and inviting winter is long gone from this place, and the offensive sights and sounds, simultaneously achingly empty, and yet just so uneasily occupied, are the kind that echo a bad nightmare best forgotten. The trip in and out, so much closer to the present, has become so precise that all people present appear inside a single room, large as it may be. That could mean several things. As convenient as it is, few of them are good.
Captain Flint	Flint appears in the painted world... with none of his crew. Apparently, the last little incident had them rather sore at him. Silver and Gates would no doubt be trying to smooth things over right now, in Nassau. If only his crew realized how much was truly at stake, then they might be more willing to work for a favor. Especially a favor from one of the Multiverse's most influential people. But the only thing they understand is money--and as soon as Howell put them on that line of reasoning, they'd dug their heels in and refused to come along. The doctor is lucky he's so useful. The basement is dark, even with the candles. The first thing the captain does is retrieve a torch from his supplies. It looks as if it was wrenched off of a wall somewhere. If George is here, he'll recognize it as indeed being wrenched from one of Fort Nassau's walls. Might as well get some use out of it, right? Once he's gotten it lit, the captain surveys the surroundings with a frown. Particularly... whatever was meant to have been accomplished with the ritual circle. It seems as if whatever force or entity has been pulling them through the painting's history has done so with an interest in them witnessing it. With that in mind, Flint uses the light of the torch to search for some sort of book. After all, occultists usually draw from arcane manuals--perhaps whoever's failed attempt this was left some notes behind?
Kushiko	What's that old saying other people use? 'Once more, into the breach'? The presence of Priscilla this time would've been cause for alarm, truth be told, which is why it's just as well that this time, like all times before, she was not actually present. Kushiko on the other hand, was present in a slightly different form that's familiar to others who've seen her various Warframes. This being Valkyr, the berserker, the felinoid-looking Gersemi aspect, tail weaving in the air slightly as she lands--and tilts her head. Sheathed claws which can be seen mounted on her wrist and back of her hand seemed ready to extend before not doing so. Seeing everyone here--so to speak was an ominous little omen. <"Cold,"> is a singular phrase of grumpiness from the voice that exists without. Her shielding seems to be a bit more active thanks to it, the bitter temperature threatening to compromise it. <"Bloody,"> comes the next intonation--that seems to be what drew out her claws instinctively upon arrival. With the signal no longer present, all she can do is become the predator of that which lives, turning her attention towards the raspy breathing. Lights begin to cast from her shoulders, which makes it look a little better than 'lights on a strangely shaped predator' that Valkyr gives in the darkness. <"We will look to what we hear now,"> she intones softly, the breathy sounds she hears.
Reiji Arisu	It seems like this place just continues to degenerate the more they visit. What was once a rustic, peaceful little village has decayed into... This. Sure, they're in a basement of all places, but even the atmosphere in this place feels... Forlorn. Abandoned. Lonely in a way that it wasn't before. Reiji emerges more surefootedly than the last time. After so many trips into the Painted World, he seems to be getting used to the transition. He frowns as he glances up into the candles and the murk and the... Profane sigils writ with blood. "What happened here?" The exorcist mutters, making his way over to examine that unnatural, bloody circle. He's been in Lordran more than enough to begin understanding how some of this place's magic functions. Even without that, though, the circle disturbs him- as anything written in blood aught to do. The fact that there's a... puddle of liquefied flesh sitting right in the middle of it is even more of a warning that Something Is Not Quite Right. Well. That's what he's here to investigate, isn't it?
Tomoe	So here they go again, Tomoe would not take long to arrive with he others, this time? She does not land face first on the ground, this time. Tomoe manages to land on her feet in a crouch. She rises up and takes a moment to look around she takes note of Kushiko's arrive and gives the Tenno a nod before looking to Captain Flint and then to Reiji whose checking out the strange occult things. It's better him to check it out than her, she'll move to fall into keeping watch and soon Dawn Breaker is in hand as she now waits. "This is new, we haven't arrived inside ... like this before." Tomoe's eyes dart about and he pays attention to any strange sounds, but she too is looking for anything that might be an active threat to her companions.
Starbound Flotilla	"With every visit, the reality of this work of art grows more and more bleak. Why would they do this? What was the purpose of such a use for this work of art?" "Bonesss! Aaaawh, no meat! Floran like where isss going though." "Nervous. What is all this? Are they doing some sort of awful magic...?" "Aye, reminds me of the darker Stargazer rituals." "Signals are wonky. Might need to blind-broadcast the cancel." "Squad. Ready. Possible hazards." The STARBOUND FLOTILLA are here, and the moment they arrive they equip their standard Durasteel equipment! Moonfin, the fishman, is in elaborate full-body durasteel armor that looks like a powered cross between a diving suit and a samurai's armor, glowing cyan at the faceplate. Biteblade, the humanoid plant, is in durasteel plating with elaborately carved wood and bone ornaments over glowing powered components that glow an intense green. Pavo the bird-girl wears a pirate-aesthetic set of mesoamerican-style armor, with yellow bands of energized fabric linking the pieces to her central piratey longcoat. Albert the monkey-man is wearing elaborate dystopian commando armor reconstructed with a 'rebel spy' aesthetic: A sleeker faceplate, a slimmer form, and a more chaotic design that integrates thin, resilient plates of durasteel, and lines of bright white. George (just plain human) wears a futuristic combat EVA hardsuit that glows a gentle red at the flat faceplate. Seft, the robotic Flotilla member, is wearing full-on medieval knight armor with a soft energized blue glow below the plates on her body, and especially around the eyes. Each has a heavy industrial-yellow two-pronged plasma-cutter-like tool strapped to their side, a Matter Manipulator. Biteblade is the one that approaches the puddle of awful flesh, first with caution, and then with hunger, deciding that if nobody /else/ is going to use that meat, she's gonna try to put it to good use. Moonfin regards the attempted feast with disgust, and quickly focuses on the more relevant matters at hand. He and Seft draw their weapons and take the vanguard positions. "If this ritual's recent nature is any indication," Moonfin says. "Our scheme to force the temporal corrective mechanism to draw us to an incident of significance has been successful. Such good fortune must only be matched with poor fortune, we seem to have no signal from it, and only the most meager hopes that it will serendipitously receive ours, aided by that same temporal corrective measure. We can give no insight into what may have just occurred, beyond that it must possess strange power in great quantities." The others are drawing their weapons and forming up. "Light." Albert says, in a monosyllabic grunt. "Aye, matey. Let there be light." Pavo says, raising her Matter Manipulator and beginning to project something hopefully more useful. Emergency floodlights! They're made out of strange, radiation-encoded gems that emit astounding levels of light in their chosen direction. Albert, meanwhile, tries to blind-broadcast a shutdown to the artillery far away, to preserve the timeline and allow them to stick around more. They intend to head for any visible exits now, or points of more clear interest than just the rasping that the others are investigating. Mostly, they want to find who did this ritual, and any signs of where they must have gone.
Eryl Fairfax	Eryl touches down in the basement with a tiny scowl on his face. That Priscilla has, once again, refused to join them on this little jaunt irks him somewhat. Even if it is just a case of her feeling no need to relive the past, the fact remains that she assembled this team for this operation, regardless of factional ties. That makes her responsible for everything. If she thinks she can order them around like they were the Concord, she has another thing coming. His breath fails to fog as his lungs strip the moisture from every breath. It's oppressively cold, but he's built to tolerate extremes on both sides of the temperature range. He looks about at everyone having arrived within the same room, and frowns. Their arrival was becoming more and more precise. Guided even, as he considers what lies around them. Did some force want to show them this? Is that why they arrived inside, instead of at the usual crossroads? He hears raspy breathing in the dark, and begins to stalk towards it. He doesn't call out to the owner, just in case they have hostile intentions. But he walks slowly, moving in the shadows to get a closer look. If they pose no threat, or seem lucid, he says, "Hello? Pardon me, but where exactly are we?"
Carna	Carna spends time looking around upon arrival. Her breath does not fog, beause she does not breathe. She pays little attention to the remains or the blood seeping out of the walls, instead intent on signs of danger. The sound of breathing in the distance is what draws her to step back into the shadows and start navigating towards it, to discover its nature. While scavenging would ordinarily be something she would have in her priority list, the potential for attackers presse more heavily upon her. She actually expected to be near that town again so that she could try to make contact with Priscilla or her followers, or at least see if anyone replied to the message she left on a wall there. That they are in some random room somewhere instead is unexpected, and thus she is already on edge. Aside from being stolen from or being threatened, there is nothing Carna hates more than surprises. So she accompanies Kushiko, even if not side-by-side in investigation. Enark blinks owlishly at his surroundings, displeased but somehow becoming almost... Resigned to the gruesomeness of the worlds he traverses. The blue-robed wizard cautiously begins to examine the ritual circle itself, and the designs surrounding it. He is not quite prepared to approach the flesh glob to examine it directly, but he is the one with the academic background in sorcery, and he has some experience at trying to create life, so maybe he can puzzle something out of this. "I am not certain, Sir Reiji. But I intend to take a page from Carna's book and... Add a page to my book, I suppose." He has a notebook out and is sketching all of the ritual elements he sees, as well as making annotations where needed. "I don't suppose this could be a sign of someone trying to create an organism free of whatever infection plagued those outside. Or perhaps even its source. A magical parasite or micro-organism is what it appeared to be when I examined it originally." He hesitates to prod at the misshapen mass, nearly dancing around the edges of the circle, wanting to take more samples but not wanting to actually get close enough to do so. Eventually he picks up a human bone from the floor and holds it out to Reiji. "Could you please go collect a sample from that thing over there? You can use this bone."
Staren	Staren's done trying to blend in after last time. And since he's had a number of especially dangerous missions this week, he's chosen simply to remain swapped into his robot body until today. When they appear inside, in a room with candles that can only have been lit so long ago, he comments, "Was someone expecting us?" and looks around... But there's only... a puddle of flesh inside a magic blood circle. Huh. That's clearly some sort of magic experiment gone wrong. If someone WAS expecting them, it's probably the raspy breathing nearby. Or that's just another failed experiment. He heads that way to look, shining a light into the darkness. "Hello?"
Reiji Arisu	Reiji stares at Enark for a long moment. "If this thing /is/ infected," he says, frowning severely, "I am pretty sure I'm just as suceptible as you are. I do have safety gear, but I'm not sure how virulent this stuff is. Could you ask one of the 'mechs to do it instead?"
Priscilla	Lights cast into the dark, from torches and crystals, reveal the true extent of the dark, freezing cellar. It wouldn't be surprising were its boundaries to stop at the rows and racks of candles, logically pushed to the walls, but the reality is that they've been crowded into the center of a much more vast, underground expanse, creating an island of occupation amidst a dense forest of cobbled pillars and patchwork floors, ground down into dirt by the expansion of ice in many places, where water has seeped through the ceiling. It appears to be the size of a public garage, and even more unpleasant, before one even begins to consider that the heaps of bones continue regularly in every direction. There is a sad lack of convenient scripture to be found anywhere. For the moment, that is. When multiple of the lights inevitably turn the way from which the sound comes that signifies they aren't quite alone down here, Flint will find his papers. Blood drenched papers scattered in sticky mats around a sole figure, emaciated, filthy and decrepit, clutching the rest tightly in his withered arms as he sits against one of the pillars. Whatever his clothes originally were, they now resemble nothing but a threadbare black coat, and his hair looks like it hasn't been trimmed in a year, making him look almost as deformed and bestial as the cursed crow men. He barely squints into the light, only drawing in a rattling breath that comes out as a dull, fatalistic laugh, as if he sourly doubts the veracity of what he's seeing. "Ahhh . . . either the attempt to open a way into the other side succeeded in opening a way to somewhere else completely, or sweet death has finally come for me. I cannot decide which I would prefer." Are the words he chooses, as if they don't matter in the slightest.
Priscilla	Poring over the circle, it's clearly nothing like any of the magic anyone has seen thus far in Lordran. It doesn't resemble the primitive and instructive symbols of pyromancy, nor the dry and esoteric ciphers and diagrams of sorcery, nor the dense and immaculate texts and icons of a miracle, though it perhaps resembles the last the most. It's something dark, obscure, and informal; a theory written in human blood, and abandoned by those who wrote it. It utterly reeks of dark magic, but of a distinctly twisted bent, without the allure of the Dark itself, too polluted is it by extraneous elements to engineer it. The blob that occupies the middle does not appear to be entirely liquid. It looks more like a distended sack of skin, where the insides became jelly and the whole body slowly softened into sludge. There are distinctly those limbs, however, and the faintest shape of an upper body, buried in the mess. When Biteblade approaches, the arms, previously locked in rigor mortis, suddenly snatch at her wrists, and a near-boneless, eyeless, hollow human face rises fluidly from its own mottled, fleshy muck.
Kushiko	The Tenno gives Carna a slight nod in passing. It gnaws at her a little bit more, regarding the coldness that now comes from Carna. Granted, she herself does not fully know why, and it feels like trying to approach her on it is a null sum game. That and trying to broach it here isn't a good idea. What the man has to say suggests something to be made sense of. <"You were trying to leave,"> she says as a matter of fact. Leave the painting. She wonders if with the time-space oddity of what's going on that things were made even more difficult, even more confounding than say, there weren't the follies of time differentials to worry about, especially with the /years/ in between. <"Death does not come to you from us, however. How long was this... ritual, worked on?"> Seems to be a reasonable question to ask. <"What year is it?"> Might be as they can use something from older data to piece it together.
Staren	The candles up against the wall turn out to actually be at the center of a huge room full of pillars. "...I swear, this better not be the entrance to another Marble Guardian's lair." Staren comments. And then they find their... summoner? "Not... exactly. It's complicated. There's..." Staren considers how to word this as he approaches the old man. "...Time travel is involved. It's pretty messed up. Were you trying to escape, or simply to contact the outside? We can take a message for you, but we probably can't bring you back out. ...Sorry."
Eryl Fairfax	"You're not dead yet sir," Eryl says with a warm smile, something that stands in a stark contrast to everything else in here. As the only living thing in the area, it can only be him that did... all this. The writings on the wall, the circle on the ground, the grotesque thing within it. No doubt, this man is dangerous, but he is not hostile. Too close to death for that. He begins looking over the papers lightly. No doubt, the information they contain is far beyond him. But his implants capture a perfect record of each one, securing their contents within the vault of his mind for later checkup. He gingerly reaches for a pile, and if the man does not show anger or distress at him doing so, will start to look through them to record more. "You were trying to invoke something then? Precisely what, if I may ask?"
Captain Flint	Eryl has the right idea, when it comes to questioning the haggard figure. "And," he adds, "What 'other side' might you be interested in?" The captain has two suspicions--either the man was trying to pierce the sought-after layer between life and death, or he was seeking a way out of the painted world. To ask too specific a question would be to reveal his own hand, however. While he waits for a response from the wheezing shell of a man, the pirate draws his flintlock, trains it on the figure. Without taking his eyes off of him, Flint sets the torch down someplace where it won't cause a fire, then kneels and begins gathering the scattered pages not grasped by those atrophied arms. What do they say? Are they legible, or merely the arcane, strange figures he's come to associate with magic?
Carna	Enark is left standing there awkwardly with a bone in his hand and then turns to the others to see if someone immune to contagion wants to collect samples for him. In the end, he resolves to just study the runework instead and compare it against the rest of the stuff in his notebook. "Hm... I see... I see... Nothing familiar, I am afraid. It vaguely resembles what is involved in Miracles, but my familiarity on that subject is scarce, and I have only what I could salvage from the records compiled by others, for the most part. And I would not really call it the same thing. It appears discordant. Experimental. There's too many other elements involved to pin down." He pauses when he sees the figure revealed and feels an intense sensation of deja vu sweep over him. It's like he sees himself there for a moment. "Do you require medical aid? I am a healer. We can help you--Dear lord!" he leaps back as the blob pile reaches for one of their companions, reflectively casting a water shield on himself, and then on Biteblade. Carna, meanwhile, hovers nearby in the dark, not sure yet if this man is all that is producing sound here, nor the only threat. The heaving flesh pile in the middle of the circle proves her caution wise, and she soon has a hand crossbow up and firing several bolts into the creature. She doesn't have the time to caution Staren, though if her memory is accurate (and it usually isn't) he paradoxed them out of the painting once before by mentioning time travel, and maybe not doing it again would seem like a reasonable course of action, but she only barely grasps the basic idea of time travel, and like with Enark, she prefers to leave it in the hands of those with more intelligence and experience. "Let us not approach unusual piles of flesh any further while we are here." she at least recommends. "And keep the sharing of unnecessary information to a minimum. Anything remotely suspicious, we should purge with fire." She then emerges from the darkness near to the gaunt man, deciding that whether to protect or to guard, this is the best place for her to be right now, not risking ambush in the dark.
Reiji Arisu	These symbols... Are utterly unfamiliar. A haphazard, scrawling, meandering kind of magic that could only come about from years of half-crazed separation from the arcane canon of the outside world. The closest thing, in Reiji's appraisal, is to the work of Miracles. In some way, it has some scant but distressing similarities to the one devised in his own image- or rather, in his sword's image- but twisted. Where Darkdrift is imbued with the comforting, chilling calm of death, these inscriptions instead seem the opposite. Frantic, twisted, scrawled out of some desperate madness to achieve... What? To turn flesh into some... /thing?/ It's still alive, Reiji recognizes. It grabs at Biteblade's ankles-- Well. It will be mourned by someone, he's sure. "It's nothing good," Reiji says to Eryl. "If this magic is his idea of a summoning circle, whatever he was trying to pull through can't have been anything benign." He shakes his head, frowning. "I don't know if I want to even try studying this stuff. It's giving me a really bad feeling. Reminds me too much of the Dark, but... Not. If you stripped out all that was good about the Dark, you might have something similar to this. To the Abyss, maybe, but I can't tell for sure." Reiji looks to the man in the shadows, and asks: "What happened here? This world seems... Decayed."
Tomoe	It seems they are not alone here that someone or something is left? She's not sure about the she's wary but they have yet to make any hostile action, she also knows Flint and his crew are very good at taking care of themselves. Still she is ready for possible trouble from that point as others pour over things that have been left in the wake of whatever happened here. She takes action as Biteblade comes under attack. or it seems seems to. "Wait it's still moving?!" She has no idea about this one and she's moving yet lend aid to biteblade if she's needing it while others talk the other being down here but is the goop thing a threat? She's not certain and Bite should be able to handle it but she's there if it proves to be more troublesome.
Starbound Flotilla	"Aaaaaa!! Meat isss try to grab Floran back!!" Biteblade cries out, yanking back from the deathgrip on her wrists. With a massive yanking motion she pulls back and does her best to chomp down hard. Heavy articulators unfold around her jaw and provide, apparently, /power-armor biting/ as she tries to chomp through the limbs before they crush her wrist bone-like bits! Thankfully, the water shield should give her enough space to not have her arm parts /shattered/! "Thanksss for help Floran!" The others, aside Seft and Moonfin, begin to dump damage into the blob using their short-range weapons, in coordinated fire. Moonfin strides forward towards the man, with a critical and almost angry look on his face, like he's about to deliver harsh assessments of someone's art. "You. You will suffice, you seem a man with a healthy attachment to his writing. All of this has been a disruption of the vision of the artist, but for what /purpose/? What was the cause of so many arrivals? You, I assume, very much among them." He sheathes his blade and crosses his arms. "Tell me why you -- all of you -- are here." Seft pulls out a hand scanner apparatus, ticks a few settings, and points it up. Where are they? Is this... Below the castle Priscilla was at, or was this built, somehow, somewhere else? This might give them a better idea of where to go, or any proper Quest Objective markers to follow. Which, of course, she will!
Priscilla	"Leave? Outside?" the gaunt and haggar shell of a man says in response, practically repeating her just so the words don't escape him. "No no, the /out/side has already made its point clear. We aren't wanted there. It took them years to round up all my colleagues --all of those who thought like us-- but in the end, I think they got every last one. I've merely been here the longest. It's the /other/ side we wanted to see." The withered man merely cracks a crooked, half-toothless smile at Flint when he draws his pistol, having nothing close to the strength, nor the care, to resist him gathering the papers. It seems a great deal of the blood might be his own. "Common parlance with us, really. Theory about where a soul goes when nobody claims it. We've always observed they tend to . . . fade away and disappear, but where to? Certainly, a soul cannot be something that simply burns away and snuffs out for good, like a candle, but I suppose I'll never know now. Maybe the question was pointless from the start, ehehehehe." The papers, from what he can make out under the heavy and revolting smearing, ratify his statement. They combine extremely detailed, post-renaissance era examinations of human physiology, inside and out, with almost mad scrawlings of obtuse mathematics and eclectic jumbles of choice religious excerpts, from what appear to be a great number of different books. His wheezing laughter grows to a full, uproarious cackle as Biteblade reacts in panic to the abomination latching hold of her, and the others immediately react in pumping it full of crossbow bolts and drowning it in gunfire. The thing shrieks and writhes, oozing far too much blood for anything that might have once been human (or at least, one human) and eventually dies, deflating once more, and then disintegrating into the wavering mirage of soul dust that befalls either the most powerful, or the most unnatural beings here. "Oh don't blame me. It was already like this when I found it. Mostly. Of course, all the accoutrements were mine, but there have been more dead than living here for a very long time, I think. It'd be the perfect testing ground, you know. All the time in the world, all the corpses you could want, and nobody to bother you. The only other people here are my colleagues, somewhere out in those wastes, still trying like the fools they are, and the superstitious and hostile bunch holed up on that mountain. Broke down the bridge they did. Of course, if the fool boy gets that great big dead think he somehow brought in with him into the air again . . ."
Priscilla	He shifts topics very abruptly. "You know, I think it was doomed from the start. It's hard to tell from just the bones, but the people here . . . I don't think they were all that alive to start. Every now and again, the basics work. The theory is sound. But even when you sift out all the strange ones, there's just something /off/ about the rest. Slipshod. Not all there, you get me? I wonder, how many of those frozen corpses and ancient bones, left to rot out here like we've been, were ever people from the start, or just convincing fakes. How funny would that be? Hehehehehe . . ." Basic positioning is hard to obtain, though somewhat relievingly, it mostly seems to be due simply to the depth below the ground, and thick layers of extremely dense material between them and the surface. Positioning with the satellite previous tells them that they aren't at the center, but as close as they've ever been to the castle, most likely walking distance from the steep valley that surrounds it. Looking around, there don't appear to be any stairs, but only a thin, badly corroded iron ladder upwards, leading to a trap door. "I'd not go poking around too much, if I were you. From what I've seen of the others . . . well, I'm happy enough to rot away here, if it was really impossible from the start. I'd like very much to see for myself, where my soul goes, left alone in the dark. I don't need to be splattered all over the snow by whatever horrid thing chases the living that stray too close to the bridge. If I have any interest in it, it's only to know what it looks like."
Carna	Carna looks down upon the man, seemingly half-lost in madness, alone in the dark, waiting to either die or be consumed. It bothers her for different reasons than it does Enark. It reminds her too much of time beyond her reckoning, spent without concept of self or others, barelt scraping together enough soul bits over time to knit together an awareness, and realize she was completely alone, and everything was her enemy. Some of her sanity has been returning of late, as her body finished recovering from her death in the jaws of a mimic in Escher. So she wishes to try not just to do what benefits her, what is in her best interest, but also will help others. When Enark proposes the idea of helping this man, she tries to facilitate it, even when Enark himself gives up on doing so. And speaking of Enark, the Blue Scholar stands there, looking torn, as the heated discussion on the radio sends him on an emotional rollercoaster, from the realization of the uselessness of his desire to help, to his being aghast at Carna's suggested method, to uncertainty and discomfort, to a glimmer of hope that, maybe, just maybe, they could actually make this work and save someone who reminds him of his time spent alone in madness of his own, disshevelled, drained, regretting and resigned to his hellish existence... And wishing he could give the salvation of being discovered by allies who could become friends to him as well. He stands there clenching his fists open and closed, giving a tight smile to Biteblade, glad to have been able to help at least ONE person, and then looks to the man. "I can... Ease your suffering. I am a healer, as I mentioned. I can heal your wounds. Give you water and... Maybe food? I know you said you want to die alone here in the dark, but... If you..." He pauses, swallowing. He fights down the urge to blurt it out. The offer of a possibility of helping. He doesn't know this man, or his history. He may have been involved in extremely dark magic and unwholesome activities. It seems there were others like him who did the same. And yet... He wants to provide the salvation that was given to him. To pass on that good will to someone else who, like him, made terrible mistakes, and deserves a chance to learn from them, among friends. The words are on his lips, in his throat, waiting to burst out. He finally just advances from the circle to crouch down next to him, extending a hand to rest it on this fellow scholar's shoulder. "I hope that you find what you are looking for, and freedom from suffering. And I... Really, truly wish I could do more." It is taking all his self control not to cry at his helplessness to render aid to one dying man. Carna just seems to be looking away, out into the dark, and the mention of others there somewhere. Whether because it is her Lantern's instinct to guard against threat, or because she doesn't want to look upon this sad sight, is hard to say. "Kushiko. Do you detect anything else out there?" she asks quietly, as a change of subject.
Kushiko	Truth be told, some of this is going to go over Kushiko's head; she's reliant more on the piecing together by others in some regards. Given that, and what was happening prior, her attention shifts as the man regales--and then laughs so uproariously given the abomination springing to life. Her position would've had little point for her to attack, instead staying on guard. Still, as he speaks, she shifts into a more upright position. There was more to consider here that had not yet been consider--namely, the crimson fungus that was. The bridge itself... she recalls the data, the information from before. <"Look to that strange fungus. We will head outside. Those who are not looking into what else is here, join us."> She turns, moving to exit the building they're presently in; that is, presuming the exit isn't too hard to discern from the pitch black location. After all, they were dropped into this building, but where were they in the greater scheme of things? Carna's words change exactly what she does, however--and she turns her keen senses--to the potential of threat, and her internal systems to actually trying to sortof 'map' the location beyond. The danger sense she possesses, the scanning aperatus of her Warframe might be able to tell us her something. <"Only the wind so far, but we should see for certain."> And that's precisely what she'll head to find out. If she can!
Staren	So this man found this place, and he's part of a cult that tries to figure out what comes after death. He wasn't trying to summon them, or to get outside the painting. He's simply waiting for death, having exhausted whatever other means he has of researching the problem. Staren looks at him somewhat dispassionately, but with a hint of confusion. It's a strange concept, wanting to die, but refreshingly logical that the man desires the most obvious and straightforward method of examining the afterlife. "But what if there's nothing?" The boy who's cheated death (so far) asks.
Starbound Flotilla	One of the Flotilla members is particularly taken in on this issue. "Disgusting. You 'substance over style' philistines will never cease to infest the most sacred of places. Even the depths of art itself are made to reek with your stench." Moonfin says, twisting his face to an arrogant disgust and shifting his posture to one of egotistical aggression. "They were good enough to be what Priscilla needed. That they were hollow for your purposes is no fault of theirs. Your purposes and your intentions were foul at the core. To demand something more is to act with malice towards art itself. I've no interest in taking the spiritual energy of one such as yourself, lest it stain my refined taste." Man, for a missionary of a race of pacifists, he's gotten brutal. He draws his katana. "If the next world is the only art your kind will appreciate, I am happy to be your tour guide." And as if to acknowledge Staren's words, "And if there truly is merely void, you shall finally know yourself to be entirely lacking taste." "Sixth Sea Hylotl Style: Funeral at Sea." Unless someone else tells him to stop, he's just gonna give the guy a quick, clean death, swiftly beheading him with the blade in a cut that is finely designed to ensure the absolute minimum of remaining brain activity even after the oxygen is cut off. Man, this guy HATES people who don't appreciate art. The rest of the Flotilla seem to be finished here as well. Biteblade rubs her wrists, and seems disappointed at the lack of MEAT. "Helpful. I'll try to reinforce the path to the area above. We're closer to the castle than we've ever been, I think this is meaningful..." They're going to head up, repairing and reinforcing the ladder as they go.
Eryl Fairfax	Original Face begins to piece things together based on the dying man's ramblings. His work here amounts to necromancy. Specifically, the study of what happens to a soul once it fades away. Reiji's words to him help him figure out what the circle does. The abomination within must be the result of trying to reconstitute one from whatever state that entails. Whatever that may be, it can't be anything good, based on the exorcist's greater understanding. Speaking off, the gunfire that terminates the thing after it revives startles him out of his reverie. He gives the Flotilla a filthy look, and pauses to listen, making sure the gunfire did not draw the attention of anything before continuing to line things up. This must be the point where the Painted World was declining. The bridge to the castle was cut, and something is stalking the snow, killing anything it finds. How vexing. Perhaps Priscilla would know what it was, so they knew what they might have to deal with when should they encounter it... but again, no oversight. And then Moonfin lunges with a blade to take the man's life in an instant. Eryl goes to block the blade with his own arm, glowering at the Hylotl. "As devoid as your sense of aesthetics this man may be, he deserves to go out his own way, after saying anything he wants to get off his chest. If you are so eager to claim his life, you had better ask first. Otherwise, you come across a mere brute with the glamour of a poet." He looks over his shoulder at the wizened figure. "Anything else to say sir? Any words for those who left you behind? We will do our best to deliver them, if you wish it. If not, and you would prefer a faster end, I'll leave you to it."
Starbound Flotilla	SHWING. "..." Moonfin's brow quirks, and the left and right eyes close, leaving only the center one to look at Eryl placidly. "If that is your intention, then." He sheathes his katana... Its edge is clearly far more damaged than Eryl's arm is, a display of their relative quality of craft. He walks away towards the rest of the Flotilla, just as haughty and arrogant as ever. God. What an absolute fucking /asshole/.
Tomoe	The thing on Biteblade goes down in a hail of attack she'll lower her blade and return it to it's scabbard for the moment. She'll also pay attention to the man as he tells some of his tale or what might be part of his tale. Shes trying to figure it out but some of it goes over her head. Still she's got some idea of people who were not wanted were exiled here much like Priscilla had been so long ago. Eryl's idea to get samples is a good one even if she's left being very wary of it all. She hears the warning though about poking around. "Thank you for the warning." She notes before she makes ready to start on heading out of the room to see whats out there there has to be more clues to work. She looks to Staren for a moment with an odd look on her face. "..." she just opens her mouth and then closes it now is not the time but she's shooting Staren the stink eye now as she gets ready to head out when the rest of the party is.
Reiji Arisu	Necromancy indeed. The one necromancer that Reiji is at all aware of is the one named Pinwheel, who sought to steal the powers of the First of the Dead for himself. Could this twisted soul be of the same order as that abomination? Could this ritual somehow be related to the Rite of Kindling? Reiji frowns, quietly jotting down a copy of the circle in as fine detail as he can manage into a small pocketbook. He knows where to go to ask questions, at any rate. If anyone knows anything about this group of sorcerers and what they sought to accomplish, it's the Gravelord. The exorcist rises from where he had been crouching next to the circle and glances Kushiko's way. "Shout if there's anything we should be worried about up there. I'll head up soon." But first. Eryl just blocked a goddamn katana with his arm. Well. At least he's tough enough to tank the hit without much trouble. Or else there might be... Issues. "Hey, Flotilla. Enark. You guys should take a sample of that weird fungus, too. I'm going to double-check the place. Make sure we haven't missed anything." Reiji unsheathes his burning blade, then, the sword becoming, again, a makeshift torch as he goes to investigate the darker corners of the room. He prods in the shadows, examines the candles, and carefully peels back the waterfalls of wax to see what they might be hiding. It never hurts to be thorough. Worst case, he'll just follow the others upstairs in a little bit.
Captain Flint	Flint knows the look on this man's face--he's seen it lurking in the holds of ships sailing the Triangle Trade. Where he's had the power to do so, he's always freed men from such shackles. But this man wears the last ones to be broken. Like so many faces in those dark, stinking holds, this man would surely welcome death. He pulls back the hammer of his flintlock, only for Moonfin to have the same idea. The captain lowers the weapon, especially upon seeing the way Eryl's arm alone crumples Moonfin's katana. "Some of this is similar to Ficino's 'Platonic Theology,'" says Flint of the haggard man's work. "Though it's not my speciality, I'd wager it's safe to assume he was trying to determine what became of souls when the owner died here." Strange... a scant few years ago he'd have dismissed the very notion of a soul as academic at best and rose-colored mysticism at worst.
Priscilla	"Ahh, suffering? No need, no need my good man. All the pain stopped the other day. At least, I think it's been a day. Hard to tell without the sun, you know? But the sun here is strange anyways. No, I think I'm comfortable the way I am. Best not to start dying from scratch, after you're already nearly done. Just hurts all over again. This is comfortable." he says, sprawled on as much bloody and half-melted snow, mud, and crimson mossy growth as he is stone. Looking closely, his fingers have turned completely blue. No doubt he isn't feeling much of anything at this point. A lesser man would probably have died days ago, but this one has imbibed more than a few souls in his time, even if they all went to his wits rather than his muscles. For the brief period the strange and inexplicable appearance of the Elites can rekindle something approaching life in his eyes, expending his meagre remaining energy to strike up a conversation with people he may still believe figments of his imagination, he manages to laugh once more for Staren. "What if there is? Then none of this had meaning from the start. I have my answer either way, and the answer was all that was important in the end. If nothing else works, why avoid it? Besides. If it's nothing that greets me, then she's never coming back, and there's no point in prolonging the inevitable anyway." Oh. Much too far gone to really comprehend Moonfin, his laughter only becomes more demented when the hyotyl draws his sword. "Oh, now I wonder! Can my mad dreams really kill me? Can my imagination do me harm? Maybe this is my brain's way of dressing up the end in a way that makes sense, knowing it'll expire at the same time my head 'comes off'. Or maybe it's all real, and I'm just lucky enough to welcome the next batch of rejects to this godsforsaken place. Ahh, it's really true. Things must have been so much different when the Great Lord was still about. He'd never abide all this, I'm sure. Then again, he'd never abide me! Hahahah!" His bloodstained grin only becomes wider when Eryl leaps to the fore. "Go then, O evil spirits summoned from beyond, and tell the fool of a boy to give up on stitching his 'dragon' together. What a ludicrous notion. If he wished to cross the bridge so badly, all he need do is renounce me. Imbecile." Reiji goes wandering through the pillars, and eventually reaches the ends of the room, carved from solid rock without anyone having had the time or the care to brick them up. There are more than just bones here. Chains as well. Manacles bolted to the wall. Wooden wheels. Iron spikes. Implements of imprisonment and torture, slapdashed to the walls of a forgotten cellar. Truly, whether it was he or his colleagues, the dying man has no illusions about his virtue. Each round of arrivals has been fouler than the last, it seems. For many, many centuries, gone from refugees and outcasts, to the diseased, mad, heretical, and worse.
Priscilla	Climbing the ladder out is a nerve-wracking and precarious affair, with the sheer degree of oxidization and corrosion that has happened to it under decades of snow and ice melt, and probably more than a little blood. The trap door has to be banged open by force, covered in a thick layer of ice; thick enough to suggest the man had been down there much longer than just the short while it would take to starve. Those who do, emerge into nothing but ruins, clearly once one of the largest settlements ringing the castle on the isolated mountain, but now not only long devastated by plague, but apparently obliterated by fire. Only crumbling walls, slowly falling to pieces with each new round of melting and freezing ice as the months go by, remain in any capacity, as well as the handful of scorched bones that still pile high enough to breach the snow. The plague men had resorted to putting this town to the torch long ago, and they had been thorough. None had come back since, no doubt. The few 'fresh' dead to be found have clearly frozen to death, or at least died of starvation, in the streets, wandering in from the outside world with no more cheerful and open-minded townsfolk to greet them, and succumbing to the elements, out of sight and out of mind. The artillery cannon's signal is regained at this point, clearly enough to be switched off, however, it seems someone else has gotten to it first, and made a point of poking around in its systems to the incredibly limited extent one could with manual controls and no knowledge of computers. According to its records, at least. This is the closest anyone here has been to the actual castle, upon which the sole Bonfire rests, this entire time, to the point the perilously long bridge is properly visible as a thread of snow-laden white across the chasm between it and the townships, an hour's walk away at most. Where it had blazed with light before, though, those high walls now only issue few beacons of fire, mostly in the form of smoke trickling into the sky, where wood has replaced all the oil. It looks dark. Austere. Somber. Looming, almost. As much a dim and barred prison as the center of a community. The entire surviving population of the plague had crammed in there a couple of centuries ago, and apparently barely left since. So why has the population declined so precipitously?
Kushiko	When it comes to climbing out, one of the things she starts doing after a bit of time is simply bounding off the walls--literally. She hops off the ladder, and starts wall-running in a sense--or is it wall jumping? She just touches off each time, propelling her further and further up. It's pretty good since once she gets to that trap door, after realizing she can't just open it, she drops down a little ways, then launches a grapple upwards. This pulls her violently forward, to which she extends a three-taloned digitgrade foot to KICK the damn thing open, grabbing the edge as she passes through and landing in a three-point stance. What greets her is... well. This is something. She stands and looks around, visually documenting everything she can, rather rapidly. <"Ruin..."> she urmurs aloud softly, looking back. <"There's a signal,"> she announces, looking back towards the exit point of the cellarge they just emerged from, and probably going to help whomsoever else comes out. She doesn't trust that ladder. She reports this as much as she can, before starting to walk cautiously towards the bridge itself. Her claws extend, a base precaution just in case, as she stalks in the snow towards the very Castle that looms over this place.
Reiji Arisu	This place really has been getting... worse over the years. It's almost ironic: this Painted World was meant to be a sanctuary, of sorts. But over the years, as the outside world has slowly slid into decay, those who it banished to the Painted World have themselves become more and more degenerate. No matter how isolated this little microcosm might be, even it couldn't escape the slow death of the Age of the Gods. Reiji shakes his head as he turns his back on the torture chamber. There's nothing of worth down here. Up, then. Into the wasteland. Reiji emerges not long after the others make their way up. What greets him is... Nothing. Barren, empty expanse. The exorcist frowns at how... how /lifeless/ this place had become. How many years did Priscilla have to watch the inevitable decay of the only world she knew? Mmn. No matter. There's a goal to reach, at least. The castle is the only place he can see that might still hold value in this decrepit husk of a world. "I'm going on ahead," he says to the others, making his way towards the bridge-- and the castle beyond it. "I want to see how many people are still alive, after all this time."
Carna	'At least, I think it's been a day. Hard to tell without the sun, you know?' Enark just says in the tone of someone who understands all too well, "I know." He examines the man, ascertaining his injuries more out of habit than anything, even as the offer of help is declined. "If I were better at manipulating souls and Time... If I knew more, had more power... I could guarantee you a place to go to when you die. A place I know well. I too have experimented, sought knowledge and truth, to sate my own curiosity, for the sake of knowledge, or to find companionship once again that was taken from me. I understand all too well. But I am just... Powerless to help you. I know not where the Dead of this realm go. I can not even provide that much." A fellow scholar, one who just wanted to sate his curiosity, to learn, to not be alone anymore. One experimented with souls and life and death. The experiments may not have been exactly the same, but there is far too much similarity for Enark's tastes. No matter how evil this man may have been, what he might have done to others, he senses a kindred spirit of sorts. This man will die, and Enark will do nothing. "I am sorry--" he breaks off and turns wary eyes on Moonfin as angry declarations are made about... Art? And then a murder attempt!? Enark jerks back briefly, still responding as one who fears for his life despite being so long dead, but thankfully no one is armed as Eryl intervenes, taking the would-be killing blow to the arm and warning away anything further. Enark, agitated by the incident stands slowly and watches cautiously even after the fishurai backs off. His somberness disrupted by the act of violence, he moves off, casting doubting glances back on this necromancer, and then examining the fungi as suggested by Reiji. He withdraws his sample carrying case from within his robes, and carefully begins collecting what he can while trying to minimize his own exposure. To that end, he analyzes what he can, trying to make sure there is no waiting trap, or latent magic discharge that will go off upon contact, or any similar sign of threat. Carna's crimson eyes peering out between large hat and high collar are fixed completely on Moonfin now, hostility and predatory fixation leaving them wide and intense after that display. Unlike Enark, she feels little for this man, and has on more than one occasion off-handedly suggested or implimented killing those who are of no use or in her way. But this man, for whatever reason, is important to someone who is in turn important to her. She doesn't identify with him the way the Blue Scholar does, but Enark clearly cares, and as emotionally stunted as Carna is, the Lantern can still tell her companion finds this person to be of value. Hypocritical or not, the judicious application of lethal force has made Moonfin a target for Carna. She is going to have her eyes on him the rest of the mission. "Thank you, Lady Kushiko." she says frigidly at the report, her attention on only one thing right now. "I will join you above when we're done here."
Captain Flint	Flint hands the gathered pages to the haggard figure. They're interesting to look at, but they're also the life's work of another man. The fellow already has nothing. Whatever he's done, Flint won't take away the last bit of something he has. Not unless it serves his goals, anyway. With that done, he picks up the torch, douses it, and begins the long climb up the rusty ladder, out the trap door, and so on. Once he's finally in the open air, it's the dimly lit bonfire that'll catch his attention. No captain of his era would be without his or her looking glass. Flint retrieves it from his bag and takes a look, hoping to see firstly if there are any living figures still within the castle walls (such that the archaic instrument could see, anyway). And, secondly--if anyone /is/ there, are they still suffering from plague?
Eryl Fairfax	The old man might be laughing, but Eryl certainly isn't. This is far from his first time taking the last words of the dying. At the very least, he is beyond pain, hunger, and thirst. He's also considering the sleeve on his suit, now cut thanks to Moonfin. It even went through the false skin that covers the metal that makes up the limb, but that is unscratched. Good. "Tell the boy that stitching the dragon together is foolish, and that he can cross the bridge by renouncing you. I understand sir. I'll leave you be then." He stands, and fixes everyone still in there with a stare. "No execution unless he specifically asks for it. Pondering if we 'figments' could do it is not informed consent. If anyone takes his life before then, they answer to me." An extra stern glare at Moonfin before Eryl also departs up to the surface. He tests the ladder before making his ascent, ensuring it can hold his weight in spite of its age. As Reiji departs for the settlement, Eryl nods and goes to the bridge. There, across from them, the only source of Flame in the whole painting... but the bridge is collapsed. Gingerly, he tests the remaining ropes for strength. Is there any chance they would allow someone acrobatic enough to clamber across?
Staren	Staren makes a bit of a scoffing sound when the man says 'none of this had meaning from the start'. But the words 'then she's never coming back' change his expression and he hangs his head. Moonfin is stopped from his abrupt execution, leaving them to talk. But... should he? He can't believe that this is entirely hopeless. If something happened to his love, he wouldn't just give up like this! ...Except for the time he totally did cry in bed for a week that one time when it seemed there was nothing he could do. But... her other friends /did/ find a way, and he would have stopped moping and started thinking again eventually, right? Recovering a dead loved one is a monumental undertaking. Time travel or something equally powerful is probably required... not to just go back and stop it from happening, that way lies disaster. No, it'd be PART of a multi-step solution in going back to a time when their condition was at least one you can recover. Certainly, he can't muster that power here. But who knows what might be possible, in time? Maybe, just maybe, a way could be found. Does he have the right to give hope to this man though, over such a slim chance? He's already dying. Hope, and losing it, would bring nothing but pain. But then... isn't that what heroes are for? To champion the causes, to help the people, that don't have much of a chance? It's EASY to help the people who don't need much help, after all. One can imagine the happy couple, in the future, telling him 'Wow, you know, it's incredibly unlikely that we pulled it off, but we did. And we never would have if you hadn't helped us.' Is it right to cut off all chance of that future, just because it's improbable, just because things will probably go wrong? But then, if he were to champion this man and his love... What makes them more deserving than all the others who died senselessly, here in the painting, heck, here in the Multiverse... Staren stands there, hanging his head, lost in thought. Eventually, noticing that people are moving on stirs him from his reverie. "...We will try to deliver your message. Perhaps this boy you speak of will remember you, at least... I'm sorry we can't offer more." Staren trudges off towards the ladder, then just flies up through the hole. He looks over the landscape, and the distant bridge, and wonders how you go about finding someone 'stitching together a dragon'. Might the dragon be a big and obvious... construction, out in the open? Or secluded somewhere? His mind feels a bit sluggish to switch from morose existential philosophizing to more immediate problem-solving.
Starbound Flotilla	"Gods have not forsaken you. Art reflects the soul and nothing else, and the Painted World is little different. In the only way you can, your meager hands channel the spark of a master artisan, to craft your own forsakenness this way." Moonfin mutters as he ascends the ladder, not even especially intending to be heard by the man himself. He pushes himself up to the ground level far, and emerges with the rest of the group, joining the Flotilla properly. His only words for Eryl are, "I wonder if you believe that is what Priscilla would have wanted for her home, to have allowed one more disgrace to stain it for his remaining meager mortal time." It's a low blow and a resentful, passive-aggressive, shitty thing to say. "Apologetic. I'm sorry about Haruto, Mr. Fairfax." Seft says, coming up along Eryl when he gets to the bridge "Hopeful. I don't want his cultural issues to sour too much of the strained relations with the Paladins. Um, would you like me to take a look at...?" She asks, gesturing to the bridge. Bridges! Architecture! All that stuff! The Flotilla is /great/ at repairing those! They'll get to work quickly and efficiently, if they're approved to try to get it working again. Biteblade, with her injuries, mostly stays on watch for any dragons... Or for violence that comes from those who seek to keep them out. After all, they certainly intend to renounce that guy as fast as they can if /that's/ the requirement to get across the bridge.
Tomoe	She does not think the old man is lying about not feeling pain anymore, she can't fault him for seeking comfort in the end of some sort. She does see he doesn't feel much anymore though and she does have a moment to look a the man and will respect his finally hears some more on what the man has to say about life and death. Tomoe seems to have some level of understanding on it. The moment against the Skull Reaper the thought of not having Klein in the world was too much to bear and she took the hit that should have been the end of her. She totally gets where the man is coming from. "For what it is worth I hope you find the one you wish to see again." She really does, and she will in turn honour the answer that she gives a nod to Reiji, there is little more she can do for the man and they have to push on.
Priscilla	"No need, no need, my good ghostly fellow." the dying man creaks out, clearly reaching the limits of his ability to perpetuate a delusional conversation with what he increasingly appears to believe is thin air. "I'd not want to go anywhere but where it is that already waits for me. I'm not afraid for my life, you know. Whatever happens, happens. I'll see the truth, and that'll be that. If you feel differently, make your way out of here as soon as possible. This blasted place is the dead end of the universe, where everything goes when nobody wants it to ever come back. It has a gravity, you know? The longer you stay here, the harder it is to leave; the more it taints your soul. There's something about it. I don't know what. Truthfully, I'd fear to live any longer here. Who knows what I'd become after a few hundred years? Hehe . . ." He gives a slow, grinning nod of appreciation to Staren and Eryl, manages to mouth the words "I'd hope so too." to Tomoe, and then nods off completely, slipping into a shallow doze from which he is unlikely to awaken. Rather, from which he will not awaken. This has already happened. This is ancient history. One would do well to remember that. They'd be better than Priscilla if they did. Eryl, Reiji, Kushiko, and members of the Flotilla don't have to walk far to arrive at the bridge. The way there is not easy, however. Twisting, cramped, and narrowly wedged between heavy stones, overcrowded with boreal foliage and their gnarled and twisted roots, it's a battle just to end up at the blank, snowy plateau that connects to the simple, large wooden posts hammered into the rock, which nail down the end of the incredibly long bridge to the stone. Looking at it up close, it's nothing but plain wooden planks and rope. In all sensible respects, there's no way it should be able to support what looks like half a mile of its own weight, never mind in the snow and the wet and the wind for countless centuries. Here, near the center of the painting, where Ariamis had directly depicted the sights on the canvas, rather than leaving them implied by the background, reality seems a little strange that way. There will be no crossing it, however. Not on foot. Someone has very deliberately taken an axe to the planks, and a very considerable number of them, leaving at least a hundred meters of gap, such that no superhuman would be jumping over. Climbing the ropes themselves is a dubious task in the extreme. On one hand, they already do the impossible, but on the other, they're still just ancient, frayed, alarmingly flimsy-looking ropes. Worst of all, if one is to look down, they find themselves face to face with another, out of place detail.
Priscilla	Where the steep dive between the mountains had once given way to a temperate sort of northern forest, with flowing water deep, deep below, the bottom is now invisible, shrouded in dense, illogical shadows, despite the hazy, distinctly off-coloured light that filters through the ashen cloud cover, faintly blue-greenish in hue. It's a very long drop, and now once can no longer be certain that mere trees lie at the bottom. Even pointing scanners directly down, they come up blank, their waves disappearing forever into the deeply unnatural shadows. Staren has the easiest time. By taking to the air, he gets the direct down view of everything surrounding the castle, and it turns out that the dying man's words were quite literal. In a clearing of trees not at all far from the bridge, at a slightly higher elevation, a lone human figure can be seen toiling over an immense corpse, half-buried in snow, with distinctly draconic wings spread wide and lifeless over the frozen ground, surrounded by scattered tarps, tools, and what must be hundreds of discarded torches and emptied packs, looted from the burnt towns, no doubt. Its actually extremely close to the artillery cannon signal, which he, Kushiko, and the Flotilla can pick up. Enarks sample-taking goes uneventfully. The fungus looks distinctly less . . . fungal, up close, looking almost more like flesh-coloured bulbs of some flower yet to bloom, rooted in red grass more like slimy cilia. It grows eagerly in the deep blood, and seems to subsist off of nothing much else. Who knows where it came from. Flint's looking glass gets the job done, at least. The high, sheer walls of the castle don't seem to be built to allow people to peep in, and he gets the sense that the thick stone, tiny windows, unrealistically vertical construction, and tight, concentric designs are partly to keep the warmth in, partly to keep eyes out, partly to be extremely secure, and largely out of artistic motif attempting to evoke all of those feelings at once. Were it a little more alive, it'd certainly seem cozy and safe, but most of what he can see is uncleared snow piled high on creaking or steadily breaking roofs and rafters, emptied barrels and wagons from outside, and an unplanned graveyard practically spilling over the edge of an eastern cliff, which leads directly to the chasm from beyond the walls. Signs of people are very few, as none linger outside, limiting him to scarce glimpses of sullen souls, huddled inside, and conspicuously staying off the ground level. The sound of hammering is completely absent.
Carna	As people begin moving on, climbing the ladder and going above, Enark lingers behind. Carna stops at the base of the ladder, torn between keeping an eye on the still-resentful Moonfin, or guarding Enark. But the Blue Scholar says quietly, "Go on ahead. I will be along shortly." The Lantern stares for several seconds longer and then climbs up the ladder as well. Enark finishes taking his mushroom samples and then looks up after Carna as he begins wending his way back towards the necromancer. He crouches down next to him. And he asks the unconscious man a question. "My colleague in the study of life and death, my name is Enark. I am of an Order known as the Blue Scholars. We share many similar interests, you and I. While we are few now, I think that you would fit in quite well. I understand your desire. And I shall leave you to it." He looks off to the side, arms folded on the backs of his knees. "I can confirm, with all certainty, that there is a place one goes to after death. I have been there, and have come from there. The same means which brought you and I together here can be used to traverse the barrier between the otherside and this side." He brings his eyes back to the necromancer. A cordial, yet pained smile on his face, beneath a hook nose and sadness-darkened eyes. "I have my home in a tower that contains all human knowledge. A massive library, the likes of which the living have never seen. Everything you could ever wish to know and more, and an eternity to learn it all. And if you ever wish to come back to this side, to remind yourself of what it is to see the sun or enjoy a good meal or see those you left behind, you can DO THAT now." Energy is in his voice, a broad smile on his lips, wonder in his eyes half his own and half what he tries to impress upon to his unhearing audience. Enark shakes his head silently, still smiling. "I know that this must all sound utterly insane. Especially with you not convinced that I am even real. That ANY of us are real! I undersand. I succumbed to madness a long time ago, and have had to fight to drag myself out of it. But I had people there to help me, to remind me who I was and what was important. And now, I can study to my heart's content." He crouch-walks in closer, until his face is very near this dying man's. He speaks in a whisper, his tongue wetting his lips as he says urgently, "I have tried to bring people back as well, and have devised a method. A way of remaking a person perfectly, even in death. It is difficult. It requires complete familiarity. If your memories are sharp enough, together we could find a way to reunite you with the one you seek. Even if they're not, we have, as I mentioned, all of forever to figure it out." His head moves with his words, bobbing or turning to the side. His hands gesture loosely from their positions on his knees, close to his chest.
Carna	He puts a hand on the other man's shoulder, to make sure he has his attention. "It has been far too long since I have found a like mind. And I think there is much we can accomplish, you and I." He shakes the other very lightly. "Together! Doesn't that sound grand?" He dips his head a bit, expectantly, as though trying to encourage someone timid to open up. "Would you please tell me your name?" Of course, the man is likely to be unresponsive, given his condition. But Enark doesn't seem to notice. He just nods his head and closes his eyes after long, tense moments of waiting patiently. "That's okay. I'm sure I'll figure it out on my own. I just want you to know, that..." He opens his eyes, overbright with unspilled tears as he takes in a rattling breath. "There is definitely a place waiting for you. And I promise, no matter what..." He applies both hands, one on the necromancer's shoulder, and the other placed upon his forehead in almost ritual-like gesture. Then he closes his eyes again as he struggles, nodding in a rolling manner as he struggles to speak. When finally he opens his eyes again, there is a darkly determined look in them. "...I will be waiting there for you." Then he releases a wave of magic on this living man, if only barely, sending a grid of power through him, which examines every part of him on a level beyond any x-ray, analyzing how it all fits together, how it works, what is broken, and what needs to be fixed. A complete map of his anatomy, his brain, the neural connections, his soul, and everything else about him, creating a blueprint for this person before him. Enark closes his eyes, as he sees all the data pouring by behind his lids. And when he opens them again, fatigued, distant, he stands and turns towards the ladder. "I'll see you soon." Then he begins to climb up to join everyone. Carna has waited nearby, watches Enark emerge, and then accompanies him as they move to catch up with the others.
Captain Flint	Flint's face matches the bitter cold of the air as the looking glass is lowered. The destruction he sees isn't the kind that's caused by cannons or armies, but it's destruction nonetheless. Though his first visit to the painted world brought back painful memories, even he could see it was a happy place. Priscilla had to grow up slowly having that happiness robbed from her in a more personal sense than most. The shell of a man in the basement and his atrocities were merely symptoms of a larger sickness--the kind of moral sickness which drives someone to treat an entire world like a rug to sweep things under. He doesn't know why Priscilla was put here, but he sincerely doubts it was for any crime. To have heard the villagers which no doubt lie dead or dying across this wasted world tell it, she was only a child, or at least, a child by her own immortal standards. The captain slides the looking glass back into his traveling bag. "I hope whatever bastard caused all this died an ignominious and painful death." No doubt, it was someone with the influence to know of such a painting and the power to throw them in--and the welfare of a little girl and her only human connections, painted though they may be... were an afterthought.
Reiji Arisu	How much time do they have left? Perhaps if he was very careful, Reiji could shuffle across that rickety old rope. It's a bad idea by any stretch of the imagination, sure; the blurry, featureless void below is indication enough of that. But perhaps... Perhaps he could make it. But. That's the strange thing, isn't it? That what used to be a lush forest is nothing now but a melange of smudged, indistinct color. Something about the tint of that fog suggests a memory of that inviting forest might still persist, but no. It's as if the very painting itself were... degenerating. Losing detail, losing meaning. Even the bridge, the castle, everything here is deteriorating. It's... Sad. How must Priscilla feel about all of this? How long until there's nothing left but the lonely, broken castle that features so centrally in the painting? Reiji puts the question to the back of his mind. He has somewhere to be. His legs are tired and ache in protest, but he moves up to higher and higher elevations, coming to rest finally... Near a massive, fetid pile of draconic flesh, and the man working it. "Hey," Reiji calls to the necrocrafter. "We met an old man. Said that he knew you. What's your name, necromancer? What is it you're doing here?"
Staren	After a moment of looking around, Staren takes to the air and-- oh hey there's a dragon obviously being worked on. It's nice when something is easy for once. Staren flies that way, landing in the little clearing. "Hey there. We come in peace." He nods to Reiji. "We met an old man with an interest in death. His last wish was to tell you to renounce him." He briefly wonders if maybe he could've delivered this news in a better manner, but... given the situation, Staren figures it's expected rather than shocking. Staren looks over the man and his dragon. "...So, if you refuse, what's your plan exactly? To animate this dragon and fly over there? I can't imagine them being eager to get along with someone who forced their way to the castle without permission."
Tomoe	She leaves the man to find his answer at long last and hopefully find the one he so dearly wishes to see again. There is nothing more that can be done it's time to head out and she'll move to catch up with everyone else. She's moving at a fairly quick pace , to make sure she doesn't end up alone and she needs to get back to trying to take point, and when she does catch up them. It's not a fun time there's shit to deal with which slows her down so her pace slows but she does catch up with the others eventually. She look to Eryl, Reiji, Kushiko and the starbounders for a moment before she'll move to follow them. It's not fun it's quite a pain to deal with and clearly it's been hard to work to even get there. She might be able to ferry people across but that would be slow going. "I could ferry someone across or I could do additional scouting ahead." Eryl does her thing and she can't help but smile a bit. "Good thinking." Each time they arrive here though there's less and less people and worse horror. She can only wonder how things will be the next time and it doesn't fill her with much in the way of good feelings, heck it puts some dark thoughts. Ones that kill the smile fairly quickly.
Kushiko	Occasionally, Kushiko would look back to members of the Flotilla, to Reiji and Eryl and reposition herself to help them through. Or sometimes just downright rend claws, her entire body taken with a brilliant corona of energy dancing across her warframe as she channels Void energies through herself. It leaves glittering ribbons of light that fade quickly enough. If she could frown at their discovery, she would. Nonetheless, it's very evident in her voice. <"I'm pretty good at getting across places here, but this... I can't do this with just my Warframe,"> she admits. The rope is there, make no doubt, but the real reason why is what she sees below. That bottomless abyss that returns /nothing/. <"The ropes might be possible, but they don't look structurally sound even for me and I'm made for that kind of thing. Building too..."> Even her best, most high velocity launch with Rip Line would do her little good. It's a shame she didn't bring Nova. Or an Archwing. An Archwing would frickin' help here. Nonetheless, the imposed solitude, the death of everything around... she could sympathize in a weird way. There was something that resonated with her, and she glanced aside in that weird eyeless way of hers towards Eryl, Reiji and the Flotilla in passing. She was at a loss for what to do in this situation, so once she took what few readings she could of the chasm (and sharing them with the Flotilla for archival reasons) she moved on to the dragon's body with the others, preferring to let them speak.
Eryl Fairfax	Eryl has no response to Moonfin's salty Johns. He is not here to get dragged into a bickering contest with a fish weeaboo, and even giving his snippy reply a response is granting it more consideration than what it is due. To Seft though, he only offers a smile. "I try not to judge by the company others keep," is all he says. To the bridge! Out come his Ungraspables to hack a way through the tangled growth, the blades bringing a spot of warmth to the chilly air as they vibrate against it at great speeds. Once they reach the bridge itself, he dares not to even tug on the ropes, least that be the stress that breaks the whole structure. Logically, it shouldn't, judging by the weight of ice and snow and what remains of the boards. But their appearance alone is enough to put the fear in him. He certainly wouldn't try the planks either. Even if he could clear the gaps between them, he's heavier than he seems. So he turns his attention to the apparent abyss below. Cupping his hands before his mouth, he lets out a shrill whistle, directing the sound waves down into the emptiness. When he hears no echo, he nods. "The bottom is no longer there. It cannot be the result of seismic activity, because such activity would undoubtedly have more impact than that. Something has swallowed the bottom, and may continue to grow..." To measure it, he points his fingers at the walls of the shelf that supports the castle and begins firing supercharged shots at measured intervals up its height. "Now when we return, we can gauge the rate of growth," he explains.
Starbound Flotilla	The Flotilla properly navigates this awful environment, through the thorough and expert use of a ton of platforming tools and hardy, rugged wilderness gear, just behind Eryl's lead. Seft seems to uneasily accept Eryl's words, but still, she flickers between uneasy expressions and says, "Sheepish. Well, I'm going to try it out at least, and hopefully it'll work." She pushes forward onto the bridge, starting to bring out wood planks that she and the rest of the Flotilla use for crafting purposes, and begin properly attaching them where the planks of the bridge go! She also works on reinforcing any fraying rope or suchlike, trying to rebuild and restore the structure! Moonfin notes Eryl's activities, and /deigns/ to be more helpful. "Perhaps," He says. "It is no mere absence of presence, but a presence of absence." He pulls out a grappling hook, and begins to attach a half-dozen extra coils of carbon nanotether, before attaching it to the cliffside and beginning to rappel down it swiftly. He intends to investigate how it behaves, when he flicks a rock at it, or pokes it with a toe, or things like that, to understand if those irrational shadows represent a boundary of the Painted World -- which he has some data from, and can recognize -- or if it represents, itself, some form of horrible intrusive force or elemement.
Priscilla	As heartfelt, as sincere, and as exhaustingly, painfully, emotionally genuine as the words are shared between Enark and the dying, yet long dead, necromancer are, perhaps one of very few he has ever shared any words like those, it is too late for him to make much sense of them, perhaps asides in his troubled dreaming mind, if Enark is to take the ghost of a smile splitting his bloodied lips to be anything significant at all. The scans go off without a hitch, but . . . It'll be a long time before he finds out why that was a bad idea. The dramatic irony which surrounds Flint's emphatic curse goes unacknowledged by the empty air. His voice doesn't even reverberate back to him, despite the mountains. If he listens closely for it, all he'll notice is the sudden absence of the noises of wolves and crows, easily missed while in the secluded basement, but now seeming so glaring that it's shocking they had been missed. A couple of others climb and touch down to the conspicuous clearing, where one lone figure toils over a mountain of greying flesh, mummified by the cold, and mottled purple with rudimentary circulation. Dressed in multiple layers of furs, if he is as starved as the man downstairs, it'd be impossible to tell, though he is certainly far younger; young enough to be his son, were there any family resemblance at all. The snow all around is tamped down with what must be weeks, if not months, of constant movement around it, and littered with used and discarded supplies, he's been up here an awfully long time. It's immediately easy to see why. What he's working on certainly looks like a dragon, clearly stone dead and skeletal as it is, but even on casual close inspection, anyone can tell that it isn't. It's been sewn together out of a number of different fitting parts, from different beasts, and its rear half still hasn't been attached to its top. Of course, this only makes sense. Dragons were long 'extinct' by now, and in the first place, they can't rot or zombify in the first place. His work is also the clearly more generic, heavily western description of a dragon, rather than the bizarre forms many here have seen before. It's an undead simulacrum made from storybook description and obsession It smells utterly putrid.
Priscilla	"What? Who are you?!" the youth says, defensively. Understandable, given he must have been alone here for a very long time. "If you want the food, go somewhere else! There's none here! It's picked clean!" He turns to try and shield the enormous, tyrannosaur-esque head of his creation, lying lifeless in the snow for now. It takes him several moments to grasp what anyone is trying to say to him; almost a full minute of him staring boggle-eyed and fretful, before he finally slumps down into the snow. "N-no. No way. Not now! I'm almost finished! If he'd just hang on he'd- dammit I'll show them! Even if I'm the last one, that just means I have to prove it! I have to prove that we were on to something! That we were right! It's not- it's not that I'm just trying to get over there! It's not like that! I have to show them! I have to show them that we aren't crazy! That I know things, a-and I can be useful, and I was right all along, and they'll have to acknowledge me when I fly overhead on this great big thing! They'll see what they missed by rejecting us!" The poor boy has no idea why those few, traumatized remainders of the original inhabitants want nothing to do with any new arrivals. No idea whatsoever. Moonfin begins scaling down the mountainside, though it might be better described as a cliffside. Without a true pretense at natural erosion or tectonic movement, the slope grows more indistinct, more regular, more sheer, and more difficult, as it descends. Where before, it had slowly unfolded into rolling greenery, now it fades into uniform, featureless grey, long before the unnatural shade encroaches. He hasn't described it poorly. Perhaps not even inaccurately. Even quite far away, once he dips below the lip of the plateau, he just gets the uncanny sense that there's something 'beneath' it, like the nothing that swallows the light and colour and substance of this world has slid into its deepest recesses like a dark fog, and slowly condensed and concentrated over countless years. It's like a haze. A miasma. Something just too dim and indistinct to truly be called a lake, but the same principle. Something very antithetical to not only Ariamis' life's work, but the greater nature of the workings of Lordran itself, has gathered here, and like the toxins unknowingly building up in the diet of an apex predatory, the painting's 'prey' have somehow brought this taint here, and /something/ . . . /something/ draws it ever closer to the castle, crowding around the feet of the lonely mountain, and crawling, reaching, grasping towards the top, filling up like an ocean, with all the time in the world to eventually spill over its sides and reach the point of its magnetic attraction.
Priscilla	As he grows dangerously close, it feels as if it slowly rises up to meet him. Something stirs glowly, gradually, sleepily inside of it. The faintest impressions of murmured speech reach his ears, if it can even be called that. A sense of hearing sounds that are anthropomorphized through leaps of instinctive logic. A sort of proto-speech. An Ur-whisper. There are only a few of them, vague enough that he has no sense of their 'number' or 'who' or 'what' they belong to, but specific enough to define them as separate 'voices' all the same. They whisper, murmur, and hum into his ears, then his mind, and then, it spreads from his head like a virus, to the minds of those around him, starting with Seft, then Eryl and Kushiko, then Tomoe and Staren and Reiji, then even all the way to Flint. It's only when they can all hear it, clear as day, impossible to drown out, leaking through the sturdiest helmet or the tightest hold over the ears, and slowly dimming the senses, from the edges of one's vision to the sluggishness of their thoughts, that the world abruptly dissolves around them, and they are cast into a cacophonous abyss of singing blackness, rushing wildly through a perception of infinite, directionless space, before being ejected on the throne room floor. This may have been their last glimpse of the distant past. If they come again, it will be hundreds of years worse still. They will be left with the inescapable and immutable reality of the present, and the growing realization of how much, much worse it may be, this time. Lordran had always been a savage and unforgiving place for the business of world saving, but it had always been one with a guarantee: find the hidden way, brave the deadly hazards, endure the crushing hardship, triumph over the vicious guardian, and claim the prize if you are strong enough. This . . . doesn't feel like that. It's more like if everything that would be just a hair too cruel, too unreasonable, too unfair, too impossible, too heartbreaking, too soul-shattering, too bleak and unwinnable, to make an Undead's journey possible, had somehow been drawn in over the ages and safely locked away. Where somehow, it had formed into . . . Something.
Staren	Staren feels for the young man. How many years did he spend thinking that if he just helped enough, the Union would respect him and stop treating him like he was planning to go villain at any moment? Having such old, unpleasant memories dredged up again today shocks him, and before he can formulate a reply, there's whispering, growing louder and louder, and then suddenly he's tumbling onto the floor. Just to cap things off, something about all this reminds him of a nightmare he once had. He doesn't actually remember the nightmare itself, just the intense wrongness, and waking up in his bed with a headache, soaked in sweat, vomit in his mouth, heart pumping with adrenaline. None of those things apply to his robot body, but he has a feeling... He tries to shake it off as he gets to his feet.
Kushiko	A stain on the painting. A stain on the soul. How much providence was it for her to be here, she knew well enough what it was to be 'stained'. She herself was stained in ways none of them here could know. It was made worse by the whispers. The Warframe seemed to twitch a little bit. Near Eryl, near members of the Flotilla, she trudged slightly, then howled suddenly GET OUT and yet it wasn't the completely ephemeral, resonantly feminine voice. It was the angry bellow of a child as lilac light seethed and danced across the surface of her armor. Such seething, writhing things awoken from within the Warframe, within the Tenno that inhabited it, would pass as soon as it was time to depart. And as soon as they had managed to return, she could think, she could dwell on what she's seen and heard so far. Some of it's harder for her to connect than the others. Time to actually conduct something that resembled research, and she couldn't just leave it to the Lotus either.
Eryl Fairfax	In spite of their differences, Eryl tends to Moonfin's line, ensuring it is secure and monitoring his descent. As such, he is one of the first that the whispers spreads to. His face goes pale, but Original Face does its best to record what is being said, as frightful as it may be. The deep dread that grips his augmented stomach, that makes even his emotionless finger and toetips feel numb grips him like a vice, leaving the diplomat truly wordless for the first time in years. And then, like a passing breeze, it's gone. He stands in the throne room once more, his implants flooding his system with endorphins and serotonin to counteract the rush of fear. In a mere second, he has shrugged it off and regained composure enough to help anyone who needs it up, and start making plans. 1.) Visit the Duke's Archives and cross-reference the pages he found with their vast knowledge. 2.) Talk to Priscilla, ad get her to stop dodging her responsibilities concerning the Painted World.
Tomoe	There's a lot to take in she's not even sure what to think about the Young man she knows this is long over and part of her grimaces inwardly for the boy's likely feat she also fears though they may have to deal with his creation one day. However there is little she can do about it now, then comes the voice? Voices? She can not tell. She just knows she's not the only one who heard it and it scares her. This is not good she feels almost ill from it and it lingers before it passes leaving her looking very haggard she's got preparations to make the next time. Tomoe's got a feeling it's going to be bad.
Reiji Arisu	There it is again. That strange feeling of the world coming apart. They barely had a chance to speak with the young, eager, desperate apprentice when the universe began to fray at the edges. But-- no. Something is wrong. Something is /wrong./ The world dissolves and something /rushes/ out of the cracks in the universe. Something terrible. Darker and more avaricious even than the Abyss. More hateful, more hungry even than Chaos. Something... /else./ What Is That Reiji awakens with a gasp and a sudden and unshakable feeling of unease. That... That was not normal. A brief conversation over the radio confirms it. That was /not/ normal at all. He stares up at the painting with wide, disturbed eyes. Is that-- how long until that blight breaks free of the painting? What can they do to stop it? ... If anyone knows, it's... Well, there are five people. Priscilla counts among them. Nito, Velka, Solaire, Artorias. These people might know something. Something that might give them a chance against whatever /that/ was.
Captain Flint	The knowledge that things only get worse from here isn't lost on Flint. He's never seen the Painted World's present, and so this is all new to him. Every failure of infrastructure, every consequence of the outside world's carelessness unfolding before him does so without context for what will eventually become of the place. It instills upon the captain a deep, seething anger--a desire to find the one, or the ones, responsible for the state of this world, for the suffering of its people and its ruler. To find them and exact violent retribution upon them. But his rational side quells that anger, reduces it to a simmer. Looking deeper, however, at the logs upon the fire, the fuel feeding it... There is sympathy. Something Flint hasn't felt in a long time. He knows all too well what it is to suffer at the hands of an abusive, uncaring world. That she has persisted with so brave a face, and succeeded in the Multiverse, despite watching everything she loved wither away? It fills him with newfound respect and admiration. It reminds him of Miranda. At first, this incursion was simply an attempt to curry favor with Priscilla. But now, he feels a need to stand in solidarity with her. Even if it's him standing by himself, without the aid of the crew, or even Gates... he's going to see this through. In time... there might come a need for Nassau to have a strong ally. If Priscilla, of all people--Priscilla, who has endured these constant abuses like a rocky promontory... If she's the one leading it, perhaps he can trust them more than he thought. For now, he'll have to do some exploring. Perhaps accompany one of the other Elites, or do some legwork of his own within Lordran. At the very least, the painting must be restored. And if possible... vengeance. Should a single soul responsible for the state of this place still cling to even the faintest shred of life, he'll be there to extinguish it slowly--so that they can know what it is to die slowly beneath the cruel, callous boot of an oppressor.
Starbound Flotilla	Hylotl are deeply attuned to their senses, something that even functions a little without the Hylotl armor to provide a bit of sensory bonus. The whispers are something he care hear on multiple levels, and the speech-without-words is something that draws him closer. He's almost rappeling down enough to touch the thing, even through the overwhelming sounds, that the world dissolves, possibly now for the last time. Moonfin, as a connoisseur of art, understands deeply the way this fits into the context of the artwork. He has experienced the intensity of its effect on the work. He has come to a deep and intense understanding. And, as he does, understanding breeds the utmost contempt. His mind and heart fill with-- It's not hatred, per se. It's disgust on a hostile, violent level, the disgust one might have for a deadly swarm of wasps. Fear without respect, hate without acknowledgement of a place in the world that it deserves. It is the most arrogant, Hylotl feeling he's probably had, ever. He very, very much wants to get this stain on the painting's beauty restored. His face is just as much twisted into that expression of powerful contempt moments after they're ejected from the painting, left beyond it and now, it seems, possibly far beyond its past. He stands from where it has deposited him, adjusts his armor, and says, with a definitive tone, "It would seem we have been granted a convenience rarely found in reality, too often found only in works of art. The convenience of all the world's ills being so concentrated in one place, in one entity, in one space, the purest form of refined antagonist. I hope we may yet purge it and restore the painting." He says the word "purge" as if he were swearing, or spitting some kind of venom.