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Carna	What before was an aura of fear, has become something else. It is no longer merely a presence, or a matter of power. It is something physical. Waves of something not quite elemental, not quite conceptual, and definitely not magical or divine, roll through the Mausoleum in a quite tangible manner. Clouds of cold terror, needles of throat-seizing panic, blades of horror working their way up under the ribs and towards the heart, every metaphor that could be used to describe fear is now a phantasmal and yet SUBSTANTIAL force. Unlike the Aspect of Despair wielded by the Chains of the Dusk Sun, this is a power with purpose, with a hungry need to invade and consume.     It does not settle for petty manipulations, it takes itself and rams into minds and hearts, drilling deep. Or trying, at least.     A group of mercenary undead hunters faced a power like this on October 31st. Their hearts beat so fast in sheer fear that the organs burst, killing them on the spot.     That fate seems to be spared those in the dungeon, whether they be out in the corridor leading to the Marble Guardian's lair, or those who have surged ahead and found themselves standing in the vile remains of the dead, swarming above, on top, and in the crimson below, with bizarre, revolting, and well-fed insect-things.     Whether it is their own personal power, their physiology, this 'destiny' they supposedly possess, the benefits of their allies' buffering, or simply that even at this level, it is not quite as intense as the Crimson King himself, the result is the same. Though 'feeling on the verge of death, simultaneously freezing and aflame, like blood has turned to ice and skin to blaze' would be an apt description of this sensation, they are able to stand in this monster's presence. It is even less likely that they truly want to be here now than when they stood outside, discussing the matter of retreat and moving forward... Before the Marble Guardian became aware of their presence and directed its power with hostile intent.     Yet they are here.     Whatever the results of all this may be, they have made their choice.     The Balance shifts.     The Darkness grows stronger.     Moonlight grows stronger.     Law grows stronger.     Chaos grows stronger.     Purification advances a step.     The world grows more Corrupt...     Purity --------------------++++--------------------- Corruption
Carna	Enark, Staren, and Kushiko are presently separated from the group, back in the corridor leading to the Marble Guardian's pit.     Kord, Finna, Asterios, Priscilla, and Carna, in more or less that order, have charged to the end of the fear-shrouded corridor, vision nearly blanked out by the blackness gathering at the corners of their vision, until they hsplash down in the disgusting blood pit, and face their foe.     Their enemy appears to be a being made of blood. Below the surface of its blood-skin face is a mask like Count Kord's, though there all resemblance ends. A shining golden grown with strange reflections of a molten red, a cruel beauty to it that makes mortal hearts ache to possess it, sits, blood-stained atop the monster's dripping brow. As it sloshes through the waist-deep pool, paying no heed to the flying and swimming and crawling bugs all around, the unseen shapes bumping into legs beneath the surface, or the wads of meat and fat floating atop, two more masks emerge from its body. These, while similar to Kord's, are not quite the same.     The throne in the back of the room, sits on a pedestral, beneath a rain of blood, and also the only light source that was already here before the new arrivals plunged in. A dim glow that is nonetheless blindingly bright compared to all the darkness everywhere else, spilling down from a grating of some kind overhead.     The blood monster does not wait for the intruders to attack, coming to them, and lashing out with a whip of crimson with a swing of its arm that draws up a length of coagulated blood from the pool around it. It is meant to sweep across all foes before it.     And all the way, physical pressure of a force will squirm its way into any wound as surgely as the blood-eating worms all around, crawl its way under the skin, and then eat them alive buffets them like an invisible gale force wind.     Maybe this is what a Marble Guardian can become if it is allowed to be filled with its Aspect if it does not have guardians to keep it locked away like the Chains of the Dusk Sun was. Even if Arthur and his knights were slain by them, the Stone Devils did an admirable job of keeping anyone else from coming near and becoming its sustenance. But how many before them have come here and been added to this monster's overcrowded belly?     Or maybe there is another cause for this stark difference.     They might never know. And rational thought and analysis is something decidedly more difficult than usual under these circumstances.
Staren	Staren may have advocated leaving and coming back, but he's not going to leave the others to their fate! He's heard enough tales of adventurers to know you never split the party. And he certainly can't leave the First to die here. As soon as Priscilla makes the call to go in, he follows.     He clings desperately to the rock of logic and academic knowledge. This is a supernatural fear effect. There's no reason for this to be any scarier than anywhere else in Lumiere that he's survived just fine. But how well can he fight, clinging to a rock in a turbulent ocean?     He sees a whip of blood swipe at the others ahead. Staren lands. The enemy is here. Hit it with everything. He fires his beam cannons, and unleashes a dozen missiles from his armor. You don't need yet another flowery description of how shaped charges work -- the end result is lances of plasma that go through tanks like tissue paper.     The missiles' guidance systems know no fear.
Asterios	In the old times, the Minotaur was a creature which inspired awe and fear in all those who knew of the Kingdom of Crete. In some ways, it was worshipped as a god; or perhaps that's what the people knew it to be. Humans were sacrificed to feed the Labyrinth Bull of King of Minos, to win the favor of the court, to gain the favor of the gods. They did not know then that the creature that so revolted and disturbed them was nothing more than a lost, abandoned child. They called it Minotaur, the Bull of Minos. They called it monster. And so the Minotaur grew to become a monster. To survive. To live. To carry the burden of its caged existence. In those days, the only thing which the Minotaur feared was himself. His sins. The monster that he became, which lived so invariably close to the child that he still was. Is it at all strange, then, what has happened to him now? The Minotaur erupts into the Vampire King's throne room like an unfurling calamity. Waves of terror slam into him, needle into his flesh, tangible fear that beats at the walls of his soul and body alike. They remind him of his guilt. They remind him of his nature. The Minotaur roars; it fears only itself. Fear collides with pure, unbridled fury. A whip of blood slashes across the giant's broad chest as it rushes the bloody vampire-creature down. With a tremendous yell, he swings his tremendous axes into the Shadow's first mask, bringing steel forged in the High Age of the Gods to bear against this agent of corruption and torment. There is more than one monster in this maze, now. By the end, there will be at least one less.
Count Kord	Kord came in for a landing... of a sort. He stands on the shadows he formed so he may stand on the surface of the blood. He concentrates on this task for a minute so he can observe the being that seems to resemble him... but then something briefly occurs to him about the creature in front of him. It doesn't talk. It didn't speak a single peep. And it appears to be wearing a crown, something his eyes fixate on in the very brief window he's given to take in what sits before him.     And then he realizes time doesn't get perceived correctly when stunned by fear and the gnawing hunger to TAKE THAT CROWN from this being. He barely has time to respond to the whip of blood, which sends him skidding back over the surface of the blood when he expertly whips out his scythe to parry the blow. His arms tingle and he feels a fracture in one of his fingers from the impact, and something worse burns in his skin from the power behind the attack. Fear, used as an actual weapon against him.     With light cast down into here... it means that there are stronger shadows for him to utilize. He shifts his feet and suddenly launches himself forward, catapulting to the shadows cast from the light behind the Marble Guardian. He picks a window when the others would be attacking the Marble Guardian to do something else.     He vanishes from immediate view. Disgustingly, he had dove under the surface of the blood, and when he emerges again, it's /behind/ the Marble Guardian. Horrific insects spray in all directions as he singles out the crown atop the Marble Guardian's head...     And tries to backhand the crown right off of the being with a vicious swipe of his hand and a burst of black and red energy.
Tomoe	So they were here at last the blood monster makes her skin crawl, even with as much as she'd seen in her short life. This is a new one but it's time to fight she can not let herself pause here, that could mean death for any one here or worse for those who are already such. She watches Kord, Finna, Asterios, Priscilla and Carna charge on in. She for once waits a moment as she changes the runes she normally gets dance about her with the strange native one,s she pulls her sword, not Dawn Breaker, it's Caliburn she pulls from her inventory. The blade glows with light and the additional strange wounds before Tomoe's wing flare out. "You want some of this?!" She gives no further words as she take flight she'll be careful with her flying as she makes for the Marble Guardian trying to get in close? She does take note to think of the Stone Devils they may have been ass holes but they ... may have bought time to keep that one guardian starved as it was. With ht she'll move to attempt to slam into it full force as he launches a rapid attack with her now enchanted blade.
Finna	It's difficult to say from a glance at her what Finna's current mindset is. She's, by the look of it, receded into the labyrinthian mind of the beast within, letting pure instinct guide her.     And the instinct of the Lunar Exalted is to slay the monsters from beyond the world, and survive through anything.     The little fox starts to take on a strange vibrancy, the swirling anima drawing near and focusing tightening down into a superimposed phantom fox painted in broad strokes of moonfire, which mimics the motions of the real flesh and blood. All the dirt and grime and blood and guts they've been through boils away from her fur in the moonlight-turned-harsh. Moonsilver Tattoos blaze through the white fur, glittering and gleaming with the same unmistakable glare of a cat's eyes at night.     The choking terror claws at the beast. It tears at the beast's flesh.     But by the time she bursts into the site of this fateful battle, she is no longer a little creature of the woods. Seven, perhaps eight feet of hulking beastflesh charge-lopes out into the fray, wreathed in a burning blaze of moonfire. The moonfire fox that is Finna's soul on display joins her in rearing back and bellowing a piercing, bone-chilling, shriek-roar of her own - the warcry stoked from the blood of the hundred beasts that run through her veins.     Two hundred pounds of tight, honed, predatory muscle ripple and compress with divine speed as the bloodlash nears. She effortlessly vaults over it and blitzes ACROSS the bloody pool whether there's any reasonable footing or not, going straight for the apparent core of the blood-monster with furious swipes from silver claws sharp as the tip of the crescent moon, and just as aglow.     This, it seems, is how Finna will endure the terror.     It's a good thing that she rarely shows this side, right?
Priscilla	The feeling about this place, the one that physically fills it and glows out of it like searing radiation, is revolting. Moreso than the blood, the insects, the gore and flesh and even the stench of it all, the most offensively repulsive aspect of it all --the thing that most violently drives her back-- is the fact that this room, and the creature within it, force Priscilla to what it was like to be afraid. Not in the advanced sense; afraid of failure, afraid of disapproval, afraid of losing something. Frightened in the deep, primitive, equivalently lizard brain sense, with all the physical hallmarks of the instinct that screams flight over fight.     She had recently been forced to remember exactly how it had prevented her from acting when she should have, a long time ago. She is thus more than unhappy to have this forced on her a second time. Had she Kord's and Asterios' ear, she would, in fact, heed Staren's wisdom and leave. Priscilla is brave in a sense, she is jaded, she is ruthless, and she is exceptionally strong-willed, but she is not a fool, and has nothing to prove by intentionally subjecting herself to this. Had she her way, she'd listen to the sensible catboy and come back later with some means to protect herself from experiencing this nauseating feeling that turns her stomach in a way it shouldn't be able to. Sadly, she does not have that opportunity, so long as the Count and the Bull rage.     A direct attack is something can handle. Things have tried to kill her for centuries by now. The way Moonlight darts out is an automatic reflex, rehearsed through countless skewering parries (albeit with a shorter blade), but not only a whip, but a liquid one, is a poor thing to block thusly. The blade cleaves right through the bloody strand that finds her last, and does nothing to slow or hinder the tip already aimed for her, slashing her with the same velocity and opening the same kind of hydraulic gash across her midriff and ribs.     She almost wants to double over at the unbelievable sting of it, but honestly, some cold adrenaline in her system is an improvement over just a moment before. It clears her head. The dull black gem set into the crossbreed's own crown actively whorls with such stark white that it seems to move on its own. The blade of Moonlight hums faintly of its own accord, slowly issuing tiny embers of soft, blue light, for some reason or another.      Which is good, because even with the little jolt to her shaking system, she's still not wading into that mess to fight the Marble Guardian up close. Instead, she takes her hand, now sticky and red, away from her side and places it on the lower golden grip of the sword, bringing its passive glow up to a gleaming, singing shine, and cleaving through the air, sending a screaming blade of brilliant soulfire hurtling through the air and into the hideous beast's bloody torso.
Kushiko	Fury, rage at something just beyond the veil. Within the child lies secrets too terrible to be known by her mind, sealed away long ago. This... fear, this /thing/ scratched at it. It caused her power to manifest in a way that was not quite expected. To unleash that Void within her, the way of Zenurik--to dominate and overwhelm the enemy, and this enemy was fear itself, at least what was known at the time. It was probably a good thing that of all things, technically speaking, that for what she was, for who she is, that she didn't 'need' anyone to come back and secure her. Her body began to warp, to be drawn into a singular point like a swirling hurricane spiral that's drawn back into her Warframe, the gunslinger rising--though with some effort. Void energy overwhelmingly flows from her body like an aura unto herself. And then it blossoms outward. An oddly hued 'territory' as it were, extending down the corridor as she spins her twinlinked machine pistols in an elegant dance, making them disappear into the lilac light as she glances back--well, as much as someone /without eyes/ can glance back at the Blue Scholar. Cool light flows off of her, the nodes on her elbows releasing steam. It might not well be enough for anymore than her and the Blue Scholar, this Void-derived radiance, but it's all she can hope for as the tonfa-like attachments--longbarrel weapons, as one snaps into her finger, converting her left hand into one arm of the weapon that she truly is. <"Keep going, Enark. I'll cover you and make sure you can focus on this task."> she cooly states. All while pulling the trigger on her Regulator. The shot--is not like a bullet. It carries /properties/ of a bullet, but she can sense where the others are--the extension of her aura to know where that Marble Guardian is. It's something dizzylingly instantaneous, that first, measured shot--something that defies even the absurd physics of this world and the rest. It may as well be described as a warp bullet--whoever, whomever might be in the way of it, it will only find it's target; whether it'll HURT it any, is hard to say. Not that such a thing will go noticed on a technical thing, but her second Regulator comes into place, leveled at the future mimic that will be their ad-hoc Shrine of Light here.
Carna	Staren's attacks riddle the blood monster, causing eruptions of red that would mark terrible and lethal wounds in anything with a living body... Or with an actual body with organs and such period. Missiles sink into it and detonate inside, sending splatter everywhere. It keeps walking forward through the onslaught, blood flowing up from the pool it wades through to replace what is blown out of it by overwhelming force.     Asterio's axes sinks into the first mask, the one that looks like Kord's, with explosive force. Blows that would have liquefied the head of any other foe, if only their head wasn't already made of liquid. Shockwaves send waves of blood roiling back to wash up against the pedestal upon which the throne sits, sending flying insects scattering, and disturbing their nests.     Soon, there will be swarms of creatures like a cross between mosquitos the size of a grown man's hand and tarantula wasps, to come attack the intruders, but for now, they are lost in a whirlwind of confusion and anger, as well as a literal whirlwind.     The blades stick in the monster's face.     Asterios easily possesses the strength to pull them free without resistance.     But the monster reaches both of its sharp-taloned hands up and is about to attempt to plunge them directly into Asterios's chest, apparently undaunted by the enormous damage it is taking. But then Kord appears behind the monster that has borrowed part of his appearance, and knocks the crown from its head. The reaction is immediate, a screech of outrage that pierces like an icicle to the heart.     The crown plops into the blood and sinks out of sight.     Tomoe then charges in, ramming her light-infused blade into it and sending it staggering back, sizzling, with a slow-to-repair gouge in its torso. Whether Asterios pulled his goopy axes free on his own or if they were freed when the monster was send... Not 'skidding' but perhaps 'flowing' back, either way, they are now free to drive into the creature once more.
Carna	Finna plows into it in her transformed stated, focusing on the wound that Tomoe inflicted, and carving her way into its chest. The beast of blood seems far more responsive to injury now without its crown, and also faster to retaliate. Its arms turn into blood scythes it slashes back and forth with force like a high-tension cable snapping. It is not healing from its wounds, not pleased with them, but apparently not crippled with pain. But that is somewhat to be expected from something made out of blood.     The soulfire plunges into that ever-widening hole in its body, almost see-through at this point, as the curtain of blood that drips down from higher up its body can not fill that gap fast enough. The crimson fluid combusts around the edges in response to that power, and soon the creature is ablaze. And still trying to slice down anything in its path as it advances.     Kushiko's bullet seems to be the final straw as it strikes and rips the damaged body apart. The mask in its face shatters in a mass of Dead Lights, and amidst screams of pain and rage, the blood monster dissolves into the muck.     Is that the end?
Carna	No.     The blood monster rises back up from the depths, wearing its crown once more. Even dripping with blood, that golden circle is a spectacle to behold. Maybe it is even more so for the red stains upon it. The mask in its face has shifted, and it has one less in its body. Its feeling shifts as well. Rather than an overbearing fear-presence, the room chills and darkens, the bleeding walls seeming to close in around them, bending inwards to crush them.     Skittering black has replaced the imminent-black-out-like visual distortion. Lines of stuttering shadow, like distortions and stains in old film, but these are inside their eyes. Inside their heads. The mask is different... And so is the power behind it. This presence is much more familiar for those 'lucky' few who ventured to the Lumiere of the past this year. It IS the presence of the Crimson King they saw then.             MARBLE GUARDIAN             SHADOW OF THE FIRST VAMPIRE KING
Carna	But this is still fractured, weaker than what was felt then. Maybe even weaker than the presence they just faced. The physical fear effect is reduced as well, it is no longer an invisible hurricane buffeting them, it is simply an ice water lake that they're submerged in, trying to sap the life out of them, the very desire to struggle, pushing surrender to the Fear rather than pursuing the struggles that accompany it.     The sudden drop in blood pressure for those who have it from the nearly-lethal highs it was at before would be enough to make any normal mortal faint on the spot, and whether drowning in blood or the fanged larva swimming in it killed them first would be up to chance.     Carna has no blood pressure. And she is also the only one who has not attacked. Instead she has been trying to leap repeatedly, to spend as little time in the blood as possible, while she works her way towards the platform at the far end. She has her bow out, but has taken no shots. Perhaps she feels that striking from a vantage point other than the very element that composes the enemy would be more successful. She does appear to have tried to shoot a few times only to be interrupted by larva things biting her and forcing her to leap out of the blood to lose them.     It's just logical.     And while logic may be difficult right now, a Lantern's predatory instincts when faced with great power can sometimes surpass even their sense of self-preservation.
Carna	Enark is surprised to see Kushiko back up. "Are you alright? Queen Priscilla ordered us to retreat--" but the frame is already preparing for combat. It seems Enark is the only one still in no condition to battle. As the fear presence shifts, he vomits blood from the sudden shift in blood pressure, forced though the high pressure was to begin with. It is not so much the functions of his organs but 'all the blood accumulating in an unmoving heart and then suddenly being shifted outwards'. He doesn't stop to wipe his mouth, just focuses on the task at hand. He has never used his Murmurs to manipulate the water in blood, just water and 'Water'. But it is still water, in a sense, so he succeeds in creating a blood-shrine. Then he activates it as a mimic. It has a moment for its Shrine-stand 'legs' to start twitching and moving, and then Kushiko is likely to blast it, killing it. And then from there, Enark need only remember the pattern of the Shrine Mimic he turned into an active teleporter before, and apply that template here.     Then they'll have their exit, and he can join the others.     Beyond the change in presence, however, the new Marble Guardian has new attacks. It lifts its hands and the blood around seethes in places like there's creatures blowing bubbles swimming towards the intruders. If they get close enough, they erupt in huge solidified blood spikes, spearing towards the ceiling. Enough to impale or at least violently throw most foes.
Staren	It's made of liquid. Shit, Staren needs other tactics... and he can't use them while people are crowded around meleeing the thing.     Staren has to trudge through the ick. Flying requires concentration he doesn't have right now. He weathers the spike of fear as the crown falls off as best he can. He sees swarms of bugs. Which can't get through his armor, but which can harass his allies... but which are distracted right now. THAT he can deal with. He pulls a missile launcher from his bag and starts firing a different kind of missile, one that results in fireballs to burn away the clouds of insects.     He's left woozy on his feet as the fear shifts -- his armor props him up until he can recover, the spark of fire and anger starting to grow inside him to push away the fear. Now he's pissed. Now he CAN be pissed.
Kushiko	<"She did, and though we we would never admit it, retreat is something we rarely know."> Mesa-Kushiko answers somewhat cryptically. <"It would hurt us, hurt me, a great deal to lose Mesa here. But I can lose it, and they can't lose themselves here, even though they already have begun to slip."> She falls silent for a moment, before she directs both of her Regulators into it--blasting it with dizzying precision and speed--a rapidfire concerto of her guns blasting into it. <"... we're okay. This... whatever it is, is making us feel things we don't know why we're feeling it. There's a hole in our mind we've yet to fill."> The moment of candor comes and goes with the Tenno as she waits for Enark to finish the job. And then once she's relatively certain of it being done, she'll escort him towards the chamber proper so she can re-engage there. She can /shoot/ from here, sure, but single shots, not the rapidfire concerto she just demonstrated on the newly-formed mimic, though she does level one last trickshot--aimed at crippling one of its limbs if at all possible.
Count Kord	Scything blood responds to Kord's precision tactic to rob the being of its shiny jewelery. He regrets being so close to it, and the attack sends him backward when he tries to block it with his scythe. The physical power of it is intense, and the fear that robs strength from his muscles makes it even harder to focus. His heart hammers in his ears, making his head ache. His blood runs cold, and then... He almost passes out. The way his body slumps as he tries to stand on a wavering platform of dark atop the blood shows how close the shift in aura was to make him collapse.     But he doesn't. He can't even make out the sight of his own wounds, as drenched with stinking blood as he is. He tears his cloak off and throws it aside... he almost resembles how the Marble Guardian did at first, but through the dripping red, one can see that it's still him. Those glowing, pale blue points of light in his helmet show that he is quite awake and aware. He's just grody right now.     When the Marble Guardian prepares another attack, Kord does his quick shadowstep again, creating a spray of blood. But what he does is he steps /away/ from it, and tries to scoop Carna up. He does it swiftly, and places her at a stand atop the throne, the only point in the room where she might be able to avoid the blood bugs that fill this arena of death. He doesn't stop there, though, he makes absolutely sure to create an area of denial for further blood spikes by swiping his arm, and creating a loud BOOM as the liquid is forced aside and pushed in a wide circle away from him, a perimeter of shadow harnessed by the beam of light above him.     "The crown," he tells Carna, pointing toward it. "Destroy it."
Asterios	Asterios' fury is a mixed blessing. His heart thunders in his chest not out of fear, but because that fear has triggered something which comes far more naturally to the Berserker. Rage fills his world. The room might be flooded with blood, but it's wrath that turns the Minotaur's vision red. With a sudden roar, he rips his great axe from the king's mask. He barely registers when the King's Shadow strikes back, but only because everyone gets to the king first. The Minotaur yells in defiant rage, surging forward with footfalls like thunderclaps. By the time he gets there, the King is dead. Asterios' axe slams into empty space as he nearly barrels through Finna's engorged form. But it's not done yet. The air still thrums with danger. The world still churns with fear. Asterios' fury rages unabated. Even as the nature of the terror washing over him changes, even as he feels blood he didn't even realize was there rush away from his brain, only to be hammered back in by the furious throb of his beating heart, the Minotaur thrashes in violent rage. Its axe slams into the throne, hews through the blood-lake. The king rematerializes in his peripheral vision. A bad move. If it weren't for the fact that pikes of solidified blood have just lanced up and /through/ the Minotaur's torso. Asterios screams in rage and pain as he's impaled. Ordinary men would meet their end there. The Minotaur does not. The Minotaur charges, shattering the bloody spikes with a sudden burst of explosive, forward force. Asterios yells in spite of his grievous wounds; he is made of stronger stuff than that. He will endure much more before he can be truly put down. In a split second, he's in range. A moment later, twin axes are swung with force enough to pulverize stone right at the creature's head. The way he's attacking... It might just shatter that crown, too.
Tomoe	Tomoe scores a heck of a hit on her opening attack even as Asterios is also making his own attacks. She sees the wound isn't healing as quickly, it seems this guardian does not like the light at all at all and she's going to not let up in the attacks, given her blade is charged with her normal magic and what ever has bonded ith her. She will keep up close and she will keep up the attack and move to bring the mourning wall to intercept. She is no sure if this is the end as the monster seems to go down, no it's back up, with it's crown and she starts to wonder just what it is now or should she say who it was? Then it dawns on her. "Wait this is...? Oh this is not good." She notes and that's when she drops the party wide buff causing her allies to be boosted in terms of defences and endurance. "I'll try to keep the king's attention." She lunges in now aiming to get in it's face but she sure is taking risks keeping close up like this.
Finna	Most warriors would be troubled by engaging an enemy in an arena that is clearly unsuited for them... and vastly favors their opponent. This is one such arena. The choking pool of blood and its vampiric maggot spawn is one such arena. The blood is slick and impedes manuevering, on top of being decisively UNFRIENDLY.     The Children of Luna were made for fighting terrible foes in their lairs, though. Whether seas of acid or the jaws of swirling chaos.     If this Marble Guardian hopes to overcome the Lunar Exalt through its unfavorable arena, it's in for considerable dismay.     Finna all but glides across the blood without slipping with sprinting steps light as moonlight and hardly rippling the pool's surface. The blood rises and twists into great scythes that strike from behind-- but her whole form twists, melts, and REVERSES. What was her front is suddenly her back, and vice-versa. The twist happens almost faster than the eye can see. With a mighty metallic CLANG and an explosive flaring of blood and silvery energies her claws meet the scythes with expert precision, turning them away at the last moment. They still curve about wickedly and pierce into her shoulders, the recoil does still fling her back across the chamber.     The blood-maggots fester, trying to squirm into the new openings. But though some of her blood drips out into the pool, the creatures are repulsed by new flesh rapidly growing in to stich the wound back together, good as new.     The lithe, but muscular werefox executes a stunning backflip manuever to recover and slams into the far wall... effortlessly transitioning the motion into DASHING STRAIGHT UP THE WALL and across the ceiling. Up, down, left, right, whatever. It's apparently all the same to this strange beastly warrior.     Snarling and growling deep in her throat, the Finna-beast returns to the fray by kicking off the ceiling and diving back down towards the renewed Marble Guardian like a blazing silver meteor. She splashes down on the bloody arena just in time to gather up her strength and--     And be run clean through by an assortment of spikes that rise to meet her. They pierce her belly, legs, arms and one comes dangerously close to her neck. Only a last-second twist saved her most important of vitals from impalement.     Yet this, too, does not halt her bestial assault. Snarling through the pain, the Lunar forces herself down onto all fours even if that means burying some spikes deeper into her flesh... and tears herself free in an IMPOSSIBLE MANNER. She simply vaults forwards, and her entire body ripples as though momentarily composed of quicksilver. The spikes 'flow' free of the fox as she dives towards her target, but they have claimed some prizes. Bits of flesh and bone, and pieces of digestive organs adorn the spikes.     Things that have been regenerated in short order.     Finna's swirling anima once again ripples like a moonbeam... and the distance between her and the Marble Guardian just vanishes. For a few brief moments the white foxmonster's all over the creature from multiple angles. This is an illusion of course, but it serves the purpose of making things hard on the creature so it may not know just which set of claws is the one that's aiming to slice through its neck!
Priscilla	Count Kord says that the crown is this thing's core. More than the fact that it gets back up again after being killed once, more than that the object is so conspicuously placed and different from everything else, more than how the creature howls and screeches with rage when it is knocked loose, and more than the fact it is the only thing here but a throne and blood, Priscilla trusts his judgement for the sole fact that the Marble Guardian wears his face. So to speak. Allusions are almost never without merit to match their symbolism here.     Priscilla is validated in her decision to stay away from the blood, sweeping backward and out of reach of the spikes that lunge out of the pool to skewer her, not making the mstake of trying to block them again. There where she lands, she unslings, draws, and plants the black bow (with a squishier sound than usual), and strings one of her two remaining great arrows, barely able to see past the coalescing swarm, but sighting down on the gleaming, bloodstained object regardless.     Open the string and the bow, the great lance of flanged iron ignites, bursting into violently roiling black and gold flames, twisting and shredding at each other as if loathe to attached to the same object, and only blending together for it. The steel itself glows white hot, and the walls around her are cast into flickering light and shadow. After a breath, she releases the lance with the accompanying, deafening snap of the metallic string, sending it straight towards her target with the general speed and streaking light of a tracer round. The intense heat and occultic flame should do a fine job of incinerating a wide hole through the cloud of malicious insects, before it even reaches its final, dramatic explosions.
Carna	Red Trough (Darkness) - <Lumiere> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------     The Red Trough looks mostly the same. A second Kord stands beside the throne. A gaunt young man stands beside the throne.     Something is sitting upon the throne. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents A Marble Throne <Something BAD Is Sitting Here> A Monster <The Crown Is Injured And Bleeding> Asterios <Exactly The Same> Carna <Something Hungry Trying To Escape> Count Kord <Intestines Streaming Out Of Belly To Connect With Second Kord> Enark <Exactly The Same> Finna <Smudged Fur> Kushiko <Covered In Skulls Dripping Rot> Priscilla <Exactly The Same> Staren <Black Smudges> Tomoe <Black Smudges On A Being Of Light>
Carna	Red Trough (Law) - <Lumiere> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------     The Red Trough looks mostly the same. But there is much wrong here that must be corrected.     Lines of power connect the throne to the monster. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents A Marble Throne <Runes Linking To The Monster> A Monster <Runes Linking To The Throne> Asterios <Exactly The Same> Carna <Something Hungry Trying To Escape> Count Kord <Half Gone> Enark <Exactly The Same> Finna <Exactly The Same> Kushiko <Exactly The Same> Priscilla <Lines Of Power Link Her Crown To The Throne> Staren <Connection Ports In His Head> Tomoe <Blinding White. Wings Made Of Runes>
Carna	Red Trough (Moonlight) - <Lumiere> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------     The Red Trough looks mostly the same in the light of the moon as it does normally, but the light at the far end of the room seems more intense.     It shines down upon the throne like a spotlight. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents A Marble Throne <Light Shines Down> A Monster <Crown Of Black Flame> Asterios <Bright White Hair> Carna <Something Hungry Trying To Escape> Count Kord <Exactly The Same> Enark <Exactly The Same> Finna <Shining Silver Tattoos> Kushiko <Exactly The Same> Priscilla <A Pair Of Transparent Arms Encircle Her From Behind> Staren <Exactly The Same> Tomoe <Black Smudges On A Being Of Light>
Carna	Red Trough (Chaos) - <Lumiere> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------     The Red Trough looks mostly the same, though the red haze that infuses everything obscures details. The walls seem to rearrange themselves at random.     But there's someone else here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents A Marble Throne <Bleeding Fear> A Monster <Something Sharp> Asterios <Scars Shining With Red Light From Within> Carna <Something Hungry Trying To Escape> Count Kord <Hands Itching For Meat> Enark <Exactly The Same> Finna <Tattoos Burning Molten Red> Kushiko <Cracks Of Red All Over Mesa's Form> Priscilla <Exactly The Same> Staren <Red Circuit Patterns Burn In His Head> Tomoe <Exactly The Same>
Carna	Staren prevents what might have been a terrible problem for the others to deal with by setting the huge insects ablaze. Though they continue to careen wildly around, sizzling and popping as they burst grossly and fall into the blood, dousing themselves and then being eaten by worm-things in turn, their threat as flying torches is far less than that of vampirising the party.     So far, aside from a few faint changes from Priscilla's blade giving off moonlight, there have been none of the reality alterations that have been experienced so far. However, with one mask down, something changes. It is not just one layer of reality revealed, but multiple at once.     Though this is not the most ideal time to be answering the non-voices that speak to him now, they seem insistent that it happen right now. One in the form of data, another in the form of animalistic growls, one in the form of whispers.     The decision they tell him to make is a simple single word, with a simple definition, and yet made infinitely complex not by the strict definition of it, but what it can mean beyond what is being spoken.     Choose.
Carna	Kushiko assists Enark in getting closer after he completes his task. A damaged blood-shrine sits there, but it should provide enough transportation shards for each of them. When he reaches the end of the corridor, and looks upon the awful vision of what the others are facing, and in WHAT, he decides to stay up where he is and cast water shields on everyone and healing spells where appropriate. That is the most benefit he can provide now. He has not yet done anything to heal himself, however, and his eyes are still clouded with red from the blood filling them from within. But he's not going to die from that. And if he has anything to say about it, none of his allies will die either.     Kushiko gets off her shot, exploding one of the blood limbs of the new form of the Marble Guardian. It does not seem to pay much attention, though it does take longer to reform than when it had three masks.     Non-voices begin to speak to her wordlessly. One in the form of whispers, one in the form of frantic, unstable-sounding song notes. They ask her to make a simply decision, with likely highly complex ramifications.     Choose.
Carna	Kord scoops up Carna and ATTEMPTS to place her on the throne, but she thrashes so wildly, like a feral beast, that unless he is prepared to use heavy force, she will refuse to touch it and instead try to just be set down on the platform the throne rests upon it. Why she should show such reluctance is unclear. But when he tells her to attack the crown... She looks once at the crown. Then at Kord.     "I refuse." Then she draws bowstring and fires it into the throne instead. Blood begins to trickle out of the spot where the arrow punctures it. "This is the only thing in this entire room that is not coated in blood. I think its weakness is here." As if to confirm her suspicions, the room trembles several seconds after the wound is inflicted. The walls start to crack open and more blood pours out, at a much faster rate. The blood level starts to rise.     Non-voices ask Kord to make the same decision as the rest.     All-too-familiar whispers, a series of symbols or letters that imprint themselves upon him urgently, and a restless desire in his hands, as though they independently desire to tear into something. The whispers are the loudest, the most clearly audible, enough to render the other two effectively imperceptible. But they are still there, even if unheard. And their message is the same.     Choose.
Carna	Asterios may not have succeeded in wounding the first king, but his axe slamming into the throne causes a jet-stream of blood to spray from the injury, for the walls and floor to shudder even more violently, like a living thing in pain, and for a screeching echo from beyond the space they occupy to resound on a level outside their own senses. Asterios may be too far gone to realize what he's doing, but the new king is reeling with pain and anger and fear from the wounds inflicted upon the throne. Blood pours out of the bricks and mortar in a flood, the already waist-height blood pool now up the chests of all but the tallest here in short order. Squirming worms bite and tear at anyone stuck swimming in this mess and even those who aren't, as long as they stand within it.     Kord's shockwave blows disrupt some of the creatures, and push back the blood that threatens to flow up onto the platform. It has already swallowed the first step.     As Asterios's axes slam into the blood-king tearing him in half despite the hideous wound suffered, the crown releases a distinct metallic ringing, but seems not to bend in any way whatsoever to the blow.     But the ringing sounds pained and mournful. Different in a very distinct sense from the fear and pain and suffering and rage and awfulness around them. Unlike just about everything around them, that crown might very well be alive.     Not that Asterios is in any state to realize it. Or even to understand the non-voices that speak to him wordlessly.     A roar of primal rage, madness, and killing fury, drowning out almost everything, swamping him in a primitive urging to make a decision. And also, a very quiet, gentle, reassuring voice, nostalgic in a why, like someone precious long forgotten. Despite its faintness, despite the volume of the sourceless roaring, it is not quite too quiet to ignore. Both pressure the Minotaur to make a decision.     Choose.
Carna	Tomoe chooses to forgot further violence. Such turns out to be highly useful in what comes next. As the throne is wounded, and the room bleeds, the buffer Tomoe provides for defenses keeps larval horrors from worming their way into the injuries they inflict and starting to eat her allies from within. With Enark's water shields stacked on top of them, and the injuries so far either receiving instant heals or healing over time effects, it is proven once again that brute force is not all that is important in battle, and especially not in Lumiere.     Runes circle past before Tomoe's eyes, a wordless non-voice translating a message for her brain. There are also whispers she has heard before, ever since coming to Lumiere, and finally listened to in the Library of Murdered Knowledge when they sought to warn her and her allies of impending threat. There is also a silted, quiet voice like a child's, that has been there for a long time now, but never consciously perceived until now. She says the same thing the other two voices do.     Choose.
Carna	Finna's strike following her impalement and body morphing escape meets a creature with most of its head and half its body already gone. It is in no position to try to guess which of her natural weapons she will use to tear it apart. But her strike likely would have landed regardless such is her speed, ferocity, and power. The remainder of the creature scatters and splatters, melding back into the blood. The crown was sent airborn when Asterios struck it. And, following the pattern, it will probably emerge from the blood atop a new abomination's head.     But amidst all of Finna's ferocious growling, her clamouring for blood despite being surrounded by it, non-voices speak to her wordlessly.     A strong, joyful, gentle voice that nonetheless rings with notes of caution, the bestial instincts that presently consume her spasming through her brain in growls and barks and snarls, as well as deathly whispers that she has heard on occasion since coming to Lumiere, and listened to only once, when Abyssal Horrors crept out of abandoned homes and began to erase everything by eating up everything that made them what they were.     They all have the same message.     Choose.
Carna	Priscilla's arrow slams into the crown in mid-air, causing a calamitous explosion that send out metallic shrieks of pain. Unlike when the throne is struck, it seems to have no impact upon the room they are in. But it is clearly doing SOMETHING. And while the crown is remarkably STILL THERE in the aftermath, its decorative spikes are bent, some are broken, and power bleeds from it in a way that Priscilla can detect quite clearly with her soul sense. This is a creature, not simply an object, and she may have just dealt it a mortal wound.     It plunks into the blood, the red turning to black around where it fell as something mixes with the surrounding awfulness, turning it into something else completely. Something very distinctly of Death, but also of... Corruption? The decay of the world, the gradual crumbling of moral fiber, the rot that underlies everything, not just in the land of the dead but also in the land of the living. The sense that things are not getting better, they are only getting faster, rushing headlong towards a doom that everyone can see coming if they would just LOOK, but which too many choose to avert their eyes from, and too many others face with apathy and decide to do nothing about.     And in spite of that... That feeling of a twisted true nature, that while Wrong, is still somehow 'Natural', two wordlessly non-voices speak to her.     One is the voice she heard in the ruins of Sub-Terra Luna. That child with the long hair. The other is Priscilla's own voice, cold, regal, imperious, and commanding. Though one is gentle and almost fragile, and one COMMANDS respect because it is OWED, they speak with exactly the same silent 'volume', when one requests and one ORDERS a decision.     Choose.
Carna	As expected, when the crown emerges again, there is a new monster. However, this time is different.     Just as the fear has changed flavor each time, so has it also changed masks. Its last one shattered in a mist of Dead Lights. And now its third adorns its face. The one with the longest 'beak'. However, the gaze that emits from its empty sockets is nothing like what came from the other two. The first one, that wore Kord's mask, was painful just to stand in the same room as, such was its power. The second was somewhat weaker, though terrible in entirely different ways.     There is no comparison of powers between this one and the other two. There is no scale that exists that can measure something like this. No system that can predict an outcome. No comprehension. In many senses, they simply can not feel this power directly, because it is beyond any frame of reference they have had so far. It is beyond the gods. Beyond those who exceed gods, the Titans.     This is a shadow.     A shadow of those primal incarnations that were said to Be power by Enark.     The forgers of Eternity, within which Lumiere and the underworld are an insignificant speck among so many others.     It is only a shadow.     But it is still, undoubtedly an Eternal.     Enark and Kushiko are sucked inside by a great pressure. The details of the room they are in fade away. There is still blood filling it at a frightening pace. There are still gross bugs. There is still a platform, and a bleeding throne. But the walls are gone. The blood-drowned floor is gone. The ceiling is gone. Everything around them is just black. It is as though they are in a box with invisible walls, at the bottom of the deepest, darkest ocean -- and that ocean of blood is trying to force its way in... And succeeding.
Carna	They have tasted many flavors of fear.     Anxiety, panic, terror, horror... And now they have finally delved too deep.     They now face that which there is no preparing oneself for. By definition, Fear of the Unknown can not be anticipated.     The monster that rises INSIDE their 'box' is a simple frame of blood, with a crown, and the third mask, with the longest beak. But OUTSIDE of the box, a massive version of that mask fades into sight out of the darkness, like a deepsea monster emerging into the artificial light of a diver far outside their depth. Crimson arms circle inwards, their scale impossible to guess at, all perspective thrown completely out of the window. Armor smoldering with flames, molten flesh between black steel plates, corruption bleeding out into the world like this entity is hemmorhaging Wrong.     And despite all that fire, that fury, that volcanic flesh...     There is No Light From The Fires.             FIRST KING OF LOSTRATA             LOS, THE CRIMSON KING
Staren	Anger is flaring up in Staren. Anger at being made to feel this way, which he in turn clings to to feel something other than the fear, which allows it to grow.     The world looks... strange. There are clues, maybe, about the throne having come connection to Priscilla and the Monster, and Kord having some connection to the monster.     And then something dares to ask him to make a decision. Demanding. Without information, without context. It is a red flag made of little red flags wrapped in red flags. Through the lens of anger, it feels like something trying to /manipulate/ him. Something that will take his words, twist them, and then blame him for the results forever more.     "NO!" he shouts. "I grant my OWN wishes! Take your CHOICE and go to hell!"     Then he remembers that they were fighting. He looks to the King, but it's being torn apart.     Only to reform as something new. The masks and the crown are clearly significant -- it's out of masks now. Is this its final form? Or perhaps the penultimate one. Or maybe they must destroy the mask and the crown, and THEN the monster?     But as he takes aim at the crown, another monster appears. A huge one. He's fought big things before. But... there's something off about its appearance. Like it's in the skybox, rather than actually here.     Staren starts circling around to put the king between him and the new threat. "Concentrate fire!" He fires his beam cannons at the crown. They shouldn't fight on two fronts. First the king, then the new threat.
Asterios	Asterios is too far gone to realize what is happening on any level but the most base and animalistic. He has become an engine of wrath and destruction and raw, predatory instinct. The Minoan Bull was no gentle death. It brought a gruesome, painful end. It hunted its walls like a starving beast. None would escape from it. None could escape from it. It killed and it ate and it killed and it ate, the bane of heroes, the thing that crushed the brave and the foolish alike. The Minotaur grins with manic glee as its axes find purchase. Metal screams and blood splits in vast crimson gouts. The Minotaur exhults with primal joy as it cries and-- and-- The world                                   changes                                       The Minotaur staggers as twin forces buffet at its mind. Red and white blend but never mix, transforming his perception of the world into an alien haze of fury and... and... the ringing sounds pained and mournful     primal rage, madness and killing fury, drowning out everything         a voice A voice. A... voice... "Hnnn!" Asterios slams against a wall, the room trembling with the impact. He groans, shaking his head as that... that /thing./ That monster. The great mask and the figure that it rests upon. Asterios pays it no heed. He cant. There's... Something else. Something else.                               "Mo...ther...?"                               He shakes his head. The feeling of wrongness, of raw corruption, seems to seep into his pores like an awful, viscous grease. It worms its way into his ears, into his eyes. But there's something else there now. The memories flood back. Asterios stares at the monster. He bellows a tremendous roar. Choose. Choose. Choose. Asterios chooses. He charges. He brings his axes down, again and again and again, with all the power in his limbs. ...Onto the bleeding throne.
Finna	The questionable mental state that Finna's seemed to be in thus far... well, there might be a method to the madness, an awareness under the ferocity. However buried her higher levels of decision making and emotions might've been under inside the labyrinth of the beast within, human alertness and focus has been slowly returning since the Marble Guardian's first shift.     As the creature's completely demolished by her strikes and sent sailing off to reform, the foxbeast doubles forward to gasp and heave. She flips off the pool of blood and onto solid footing. Just breathing.     And with every breath, the relentless Lunary fury quiets. Everything goes quiet in her awareness... and the visions strike. All at once. Each perceived separately, but alike. Three different visions of the reality. Three voices.     "......"     With one final howl-shriek the beastly flesh steams forth more milky Lunar Essence... and recedes like melting snow. No, that's not quite right either. It sinks like a stone into a deep lake. The hulking form shrinks, drawn inwards until only the human girl in hunting leathers is left, clutching her bow. Her skin - as usual, a daring amount indeed - glows from within.     Despite how TERRIFIED this place made her, have these visions somehow... comforted her?     Springing a warm smile that's unsuited to the gloomy and macabre locale and clasping her bow-hand over her heart in a show of sincerity, she speaks airily to nobody in particular, "You even need to ask? Don't be silly." The mark of the crescent moon on her forehead pulses and gleams even brighter, along with her tattoos.     Her heart's still pounding hard enough to bruise her ribcage.     Her eyes narrow as she levels her bow and draws an arrow from Elsewhere, takes aim...     The distant monster, and its crown of black flames, which she finds so offensive.     Her powerbow reaches maximum draw... and she looses the arrow. It spears through the air trailing sparkles of silvery anima!
Count Kord	Despite everything Kord has done or said up until now, despite the darkness in him that swells into a crescendo of horrific violence, he does not react much to Carna's defiance. Her reply to him, striking at the throne itself, creates a moment of hesitance from him, and then realization of what that might be. That may, in fact, be the core of the beast. Yes... he remembers now. One side would be one thing, and the throne would be another. He remembers the throne rising out of the floor when the Crimson King arrived to view everyone else.     He saw the other images. He saw them practically tethered in place. There was an injustice here, something that rose his hackles. Even the crown, perhaps, was trapped here... or that's what he thinks as the world falls away and a primal fear arrives.     Los towers over them. He looks at the being, and recognizes something there. He saw a god there, a being beyond measure, representing something that cannot be fought. He felt the crushing weight of the Unknown.     He had said he would kill Los... but when the time came, he looked the god in those hollow pits that might be eyes, turned, lifted his hand, and slammed his claws down toward the Throne as hard as he could. A massive wave of black energy follows it, just raw elemental power, nothing fancy or unusual. If he had jaws, it gave the impression he would've used them. There would be a loud Crunch of stone and a blast of wind from the attack. Even through his desire for strength, for freedom, he was still a good man. He still wanted to save people, over hurting them. When he made a decision to kill, it was never done lightly. He never felt satisfaction in it.     Going with his theory, he tries to shatter the throne, to free those wayward souls that relied on its power, to undo a cycle of torment.
Kushiko	It's wonderful isn't it, to face such euclidean horrors, ephemeral yet so very /real/ in their ways. She felt it as she progressed through the corridors, felt it even as she had briefly disengaged her Peacemaker systems, the Regulators snapping their long barrel back into place along her arms. <"Tend to yourself too, Enark,"> she can be heard as saying, her voice cutting and wrapping itself close to the Blue Scholar, a projection without the physical presence owed to a true 'voice'. Regardless as she arrives by way of them being /sucked in/ to this room she readies herself, nay, steadies herself for the battle to be properly rejoined by herself and Enark... the voices. The concept of voices is something that is... an unfortunate companion to her. They become murky things, due to the instability. Margulis. Mother. The two things, the song notes make her very nearly pitch back, though she stiffens at the very last moment. A concept without the words to accompany it.     The beats of the drums at the last ceremony to honor them. The way Kushiko 'sees' through the Warframe is sometimes a peculiar thing. Sometimes it's a perspective through the head-mounted sensors, the technocyte flesh within providing the conduit. Other times she can see within and without, like a specter guiding her own body. And it's this vision that lets her see, through the Darkness and Chaos she sees: the spiderweb of cracks, of crimson red and so adorned by skulls that drip with rot. What it means, she cannot say. That others in the passing moments look precisely the same is... potentially troubling, to put it mildly. What does it even mean for her, compared to others, let alone what did they see? Priscilla looked stressingly /normal/ to her, as did Enark. But she couldn't dwell on it. Whatever 'choice' there was, she could only focus on what she felt, what she knew. And what she knew meant that the figure on the throne--not the throne itself, was to be her focus. Asterios, Staren, Kord, whomsoever is in her way needn't worry at least. As the Regulators snap into place on her fingers, she sweeps her hands, bringing forth a lasso-like satellite of lilac energy to orbit her. And when she begins to fire, she becomes likened to a phantom, distorting reality around her as when she starts firing, it's something that can visually be tracked, for certain. But as the seconds pass, and her narrow field of focus--the aura that extended from her and focused on her as she utilized the Warframe's ultimate ability, she started moving so fast that it was like still frames; ghosts of the motion she made transitioning from one posture to another. And she'd fire. And fire, and fire, and fire until it sounded like a rapidfire jackhammer of discharging guns. Sure, there were those targeting the throne itself, but that which resided on the throne... something /bad/ screamed out to all of her senses, all of her combat instinct would not rest until it was erased from this reality and the next.
Tomoe	Tomoe sees things strange things she's starting to see things now too. She sees several visions of things here it's hard to make it out for a moment everything is different here. She everyone through other views she even kinda gets a bit of a look upon her self here. She sees the marble Throne, is it chaining the fallen King here? Has it been tied to it to them to suffer? Is it the key to the thing's power? That could be both really, it could be both of them. She wanted to help Carna, to help Einark and others fix this world. So it would function again and stop this eternal suffering of it's inhabitants that is why she came here. She sees the axe thing the the throne, that spray of blood makes her glad she was able to help her allies and keep them safe from suffer harm from the larva can not borrow into them. That was a lucky boon to everyone and she hears the not one voice but several all of them are saying the same thing. She must choose and it's better to act than never to act and sit on the fence. She sees the Runes linking to the monster she now has an idea it's tied to it. She chants a spell again boosting the effect on her blade her bight glowing wings flare out the normal runes and strange runes from here dance around her body and then she charges to try and sever the monster's lines to the thrown trying to cut it's connection with her currently blazing sword. It is better to act than not to act often, no action changes nothing. Her choice has been made and she calls out. "That thing is connected to the Throne I'm trying to cut the connection!"
Priscilla	The crown had certainly been the core of something alright. The feeling of seeing the colossal arrow strike home and erupt into a million flaming fragments is something deeply satisfying as error, as is the ping of the golden circle being sent spinning and splashing into the blood. Priscilla looks up from its final plunge before she even lowers her fingers, looking to Kord and to Carna, but finding the former busying himself with the throne instead, even after suggesting the crown as a target, and the latter not at all dealing with the surge of Dead Lights that is currently her near-whole purpose to consume.      Priscilla looks back down again, in confusion and dismay. Her hand hovers back to the small of her back, fingers curling around the notched base of the third and final metallic lance, but hesitating at the draw when she sees the blood blacken, sicken, and die around the splashdown site of the crown. The significance of it doesn't click for her. It registers, but she is left with mental gears spinning as to why even this hot, reeking, humid, slick and gorey hell, buzzing with voracious flies and maggots and coated in shredded flesh, can somehow still find some way to decay and worsen further.     It it an improvement? Is being rid of the stuff worth it? Is it harming the Marble Guardian? Is damaging the crown damaging its domain? But it's the throne that seems to do it. If Dead Lights are leaking out without the crown being 'slain', is the corruption another kind of power leaking out of it as well? An intentional seal, or a prison made and worn by the creature itself? No doubt it had been fed plenty before coming here, so is that where it stored all of its kills? Priscilla can come up with wild theories all she wants but even if any are true, she can't recognize them. This kind of prolonged, thoughtful hesitation in the midst of combat would normally be fatal, did she not have the benefit of so many others working their hardest to support this final effort unto the end of Lostrata.     It's a good thing, then, that she doesn't have forever to think about it. The blood surges upwards, devouring and drowning her perch, driving her backwards further, but winding up around her ankles, then her knees, and then rising from there, submerging her in the same filth that had set itself alight whence poured from the Chains of the Dusk Sun. The final arrow comes out and finds its place across the massive span of her bow, beginning to flicker with the light and dark flames that will ensure its violent end, but when the world shrinks away, the detail of the situation flees with it, and the throne and its existential bleeding is what rises out of the black to define the center of their new universe, coiled within the pulsing and corrupted arms that bear such a striking resemblance to the traces of power Crow had shown, the point swivels upwards to the target of the last, desperate assault, and a wailing, keening, metaphysical scream, --the echoes of a psychic screech that physically burns with the seething, vapourizing intensity of its hate and its rage and its covetous spite-- sears itself into the throne as a brand.
Priscilla	She hears the two voices in her head, and unlike the others, it isn't difficult for her to choose simply out of picking between two devils she doesn't know. Though one is gentle and one is commanding, the one she knows not the intentions of belongs to one of the very few people who had wished her any well in this place, and the one that could, theoretically, be a darker side, belongs to someone she already knows inside and out, and could not be surprised by. Though there is the tangible prospect of confronting some sort of inner evil of her own, weighed against the clear salvation offered by the moonlit girl who had reached out to her twice before, Priscilla's thoughts rest somewhere else: on a slight, tenuous thread of possibility, that she groped for blindly in the metaphorical and quite literal blackness, for the simple fact that she would never let herself stop wondering 'what if' if she didn't.     "Priscilla." she whispers, not to herself, but to the only other person she had met deserving of the name, half-real as they had been. "If it is thee that I hear, some way and some how, thou knowest mine choice already. There is a promise to thee that precedes and supercedes all other matters. It is one I intendeth to keep."     The arrow bursts into a conflagration of unholy fire, and launches itself, hungering, screaming, and wishing for its own explosive death, straight into the baleful mark of Calamity placed upon the throne.
Carna	The wounded crown leaks power, losing its unseen contents and turning the blood creature it is perched upon from red to black, in the ensuing less literal bleeding. Staren's attack slams into the crown, knocking it free of the blood monster's head for a third time. Another of its 'spokes' snaps off under the onslaught. The impression that this is something that should not have broken so easily, that it once had power enough to weather far more than this, and has now been weakened by the power that Staren wields or perhaps simply the essence of his choice or maybe just because he is more than a normal man, and everything he has done to come to this point is why he can do things that someone who simply sat around theorizing about what might be possible if they got up and did something could never do.     This act may resonate there for a moment.     Yes, he made a choice, even if he thinks he didn't. All of them did. And they'll find that out sooner or later.     For Staren, it is sooner.
Carna	The Minotaur's axes slam down again and again, splitting the throne more and more, carving into it, exposing the unwholesome not-quite-meat within a construct of stone and steel, and the blood sprays out, the shuddering of unseen walls becomes more violent even as the level of blood rises and rises, until even the throne itself, splintered and fragmented, is about to be drowned, and even the giants among them will have to start swimming if they do not make it to the throne in the next few seconds.     But this foul creation is undoubtedly the source of the Fear now, as it made clear when the aura of Fear that has been assaulting them all this time begins to fade, decreasing in sharp spikes, more and more with each strike that lands.     As things fade, hoewver, some memories may become stronger in turn. Better ones.
Carna	Finna reverts to her more human form. She sheds the trappings of a beast, she eschews the frippery of an Exalted, taking only the attire of a huntress of the wilds. Though the weapon she uses is more than mortal, she chose not to give in to blood lust and primitive instinct. Her arrow strikes the crown in mid-air, much like Priscilla's did before.     There is one last inhuman, un-animal cry of pain from something with an inanimate form but a living presence, and then its golden gleam loses its luster and its power leakage slows to a trickle, and it sinks without rising again into the pool of blood.     The blood stops turning black around where it falls.
Carna	Kord sees that which he swore to kill. He rethinks his priorities. And he turns and slams his hand, his power, into the Throne. Much like Asterio's axe blows, it has an immediate, tangible effect. Walls that were trembling and closing in begin to recede. Blood begins to drawn from the room. A hole has been punched clear through to the back of the monstrous seat, the sheer resilience of this thing betraying its true nature. THIS was the Marble Guardian. Fighting them by proxy, making up for its own inability to act by corrupting and using others. Egging them on with fears, real and imaginary, until they snapped.     The other Kord, Unpainted Kord, looks down at the intestines that link him and Kord in the Darkness vision. The Darkness recedes, and that, as well as the Unpainted Kord, both vanish. Likewise, the blackness from which Los is emerging begins to flow back over him, or at least this shadow, this echo, of him from when he sat the throne in a different time. It is hard to imagine he ever could fit in such a seat. But perhaps he didn't. Perhaps it was made for those who came after.     It is not that he is retreating, that he has stopped coming closer to them, but the medium he travels through has extended to conceal him once more. If he has stopped or not, there is no way to tell. But at least the walls and ceiling stop being transparent, as they are returned to the normal form of this room.
Carna	Kushiko fires into the throne over and over and over. She's targetting what's on it, but her shots pass through the phantom. Is it actually real? Is it actually there at all? Kord suffered hallucinations. And despite what all of them have seen, even the shared visions, there's no gurantee that ANY of this has been real. But her attacks, while they do not wound what sits there because of its seeming insubstantiality, they do have an impact.     The entity looks down at itself, at the shats passing through. Then it looks around the room, as though only just realizing there are other people around. And then it fixes its gaze on Kushiko. It has no visible eyes. No visible face. It's just a sensation that 'something is BAD' and 'it is sitting there'. It is that vague. But it becomes less vague when it stands, and looks at Kushiko. Not at Mesa. AT. KUSHIKO. And then it starts trying to crawl up the link towards her, to pry open causality, gut it, and slither through the hole to the other side.     And then it has a face. It is a mask.     A creepy, smiling theater mask. Something is moving under it. She can't see that, but she can feel it, the same way she can feel it is BAD.     But then something is flooding in, black and cold and whispering, and it closes up the psychic tunnel being formed, even though the BAD thing keeps looking right at her, all the way up to the end.     And her shots have filled the throne full of holes, smoldering and bleeding. It is no longer even recognizable as a throne. It is a squatting, bleeding thing, like a smashed spider.     The BAD thing isn't here now.     But that doesn't mean it's gone for good.     And it knows her face now.
Carna	Tomoe attacks the runes linking monster to throne. Somehow, she breaks them. Severs them with her sword. The power is snapped, and the blood monster dies without losing its final mask. It collapses into a puddle, the rotten blood and revolting insects having been sinking until the latter are left stranded to shrivel and offer up their Dead Lights to each of them in turn, the cold feeling of bits of other people's spirits congealing together, gathering in the pits of their stomachs.     Something Wrong was just made right. Law was applied to undo something that was written into being against Law's will.     Tomoe may feel, quite correctly, that while the efforts of her companions were not any LESS important to putting a stop to this travesty, it would not have truly been ended satisfactorily unless this step was taken. This measure to put something she does not even understand to rest, without asking why, or what she will gain from it, simply doing it becaue that is what is Correct.     And in the wake of this act, a gaunt young man standing alongside the throne gives a relieved sigh and fades away. Or at least from Tomoe's sight.     It's hard to say if a ghost is ever really gone in Lumiere. Especially one as old as the First Vampire King.
Carna	Priscilla has bigger things on her mind right now than the receding blood levels, most likely. MUCH bigger. But as Los vanishes from sight, the room becoming opaque again, and the filthy blood, unlike what flowed from the Chains of the Dusk Sun because this comes from those sacrificed for the sake of this awful throne and the monster that sat upon it for so long, diminishes to mere puddles on the floor. Unlike with the Chains of the Dusk Sun, there is no sign of gutters for it to flow into. It just all turns into Dead Lights at once. All those slain Lanterns and possibly Lit as well, all the beings who were gutted and torn apart, turned into fodder for a wretched thing that might not even have wanted it, but NEEDED it to feed its addiction, have not been permitted to try again or pass on until now.     The rush of power into all of them makes the offering of the bloated bugs nothing by comparison. But it is not a heady rush of fulfilling power, of strength. It is the stolen Light of countless victims, now shared between them all, linking them in a battle and its conclusion and an understanding of what they finally put to right, that no one outside this room will ever truly comprehend.     An abomination was put to right here.     And when Priscilla delivers the final blow to the awful throne, somehow still clinging to existence, even growing hairy spider legs in its final moments, for a last desperate attempt to kill those who have come before it, to stop them from the path they have set themselves upon, the entire room is burned free of this filthy corruption. Even the grossness coating them is dissolved into Dead Lights.     And something unexpected happens.     A river of power surges up the link between Priscilla's crown and the throne, binding the lines that were already there together, and condensing them down to a single silver thread. After Tomoe cut the runes between monster and throne, it had nowhere else to go.     And now her fate is bound, or least whomever wears her crown, to that of Lostrata's throne. Even if the physical throne itself is now gone.     'To the dragon queen, a third throne waits.'
Carna	MARBLE GUARDIAN SLAIN: THRONE OF THE CRIMSON KING.     There are some things which remain in the aftermath. A broken and battered crown, a white bird-like mask, and the platform the Marble Guardian rested upon. The platform which rises up out of the floor much like the one in the Crimson King's palace did. It rises all the way up to the ceiling... And then it punched through the grate there. A glyph glows upon it, and a voice chimes.     "Connection to Villa de Plaguen re-established. Second Plane now available for transit."     Enark looks ragged as all hell, and ready to get out of here, and even suggests such. "If someone could get us back up to that corridor... I think we can teleport to... Somewhere safer."     Carna looks frustrated as she stands there with her bow in hand. Unlike everyone else, she heard nothing. She senses no satisfaction in what she did. Even the Dead Lights that have filled her do not make her feel fulfilled.     Maybe it's not this battle that leaves her feeling this way... But the desire to go above, that is almost overpowering. To finally see what is beyond this Plane that is all she has ever known.     The desire to see the World of Ashes for herself grows stronger.
Kushiko	You ever have the feeling that you've maybe made a horrible mistake midway through something you thought, maybe even felt was right? Something about what was wrong here felt... something familiar, something that she herself had a suspicion of, but could never even remotely touch it. Even as she fired, she tried, she tried and /tried/ to focus, to guide the bullets, the infusions of Void energy into them, to cross the borderstates. It wasn't something she /thought of/ in that way, just relying purely on instinct. So when it came to this... entity thing, something that looked through her, looked through Mesa, through the Transference Link, she felt that very real sense of panic that Ordis himself did, who begged for her to shut off the Link. She very nearly does--until... that /something/ reaches to flood in, black and cold and pervasive along her Link. hey kiddo Comprehension is... not something she can immediately seize. The most outward evidence of this, of something... /happening/, is the automatic systems of the Warframe disengaging Mesa's Peacemaker systems, the Regulators snapping and slotting back as she staggers and buckles to one knee. Energy roils not around, but as part of her, like a wildly flickering lightning storm on the surface of the Warframe in weirdly uniform places. And then to a second knee, on hands as well, before she slowly begins to try and get to her feet. When she speaks, her voice resonates, flickering back and forth like it was near any number of people at random. ("It knows... me.")     <"Something... bad.">         ("Something that shouldn't be.")     <"Like me, but more, worse.">    <"Something else was there too."> After a few moments, it seems like she's... trying to focus herself. The Void energy, the way she speaks through the conduit of her frame is becoming a little more stable. <"I don't know what it could be but it's..."> Her voice trails off as it seems even Mesa's head hangs a little bit.
Staren	Staren sticks to the last objective called out: the crown.     If this is a bad thing, he could point out that he was hardly in a situation to think or choose clearly. He did the best he could with a bad situation. As he has so many times. So many are dead because he didn't put Wireless down earlier, after all.     But it's not really clear that it IS a bad thing. Or a good thing. It seems the throne was the true monster, and the crown a... symbol? With both gone... Well, honestly, Staren could argue that they're symbols with no real meaning now. Lumiere is scarcely organized enough for a king to rule over. And when it is, whatever form of government its denizens choose will matter more than some relics of a bygone age.     So what was their purpose, here?     Oh right, they were ending a monster that tortured people.     Which means that their job isn't over yet.     Staren drops the crown -- it's quite possibly cursed or something -- and heads out. He has lanterns to free and unlit to burn.
Asterios	Stone buckles, breaks, shatters, crumbles. Flesh-under-stone breaks, bleeds, withers, dies. With each blow, the fear abates. Each blow shrinks that chilling, pulsing terror that has pressed so long and powerfully against his psyche. Asterios roars in triumph as the throne at long last goes utterly still. ...And then promptly hefts his axes from where they've been buried in the broken throne, crooks one between his neck and cheek and shoulder, and idly inspects the gaping wounds in his chest. They aren't... bad. But... "That... voice," Asterios mutters, gazing meaningfully at the light still pouring from the grate in the ceiling. It stirs an old memory. One of the few that isn't tainted in misery and despair. Memory conjures memory. The Minotaur allows himself a slight smile, before turning to the others. "Aa! I will. Carry. Let's go!" And so he does. And so they do. It'll be nice to be in a place that isn't here again. Asterios is looking forward to it.