Scene #9750: BINDING BLADE Ch59: Our Last Campfire Together

Owner	Pose
Marigold	THE HEART OF THE KINGDOM OF BERN Or rather, beyond a Warpgate just adjacent to it. Though it might feel odd meeting the Lycian army somewhere that isn't Elibe, they probably made the safe bet by encamping on the far side of a Warpgate this time, so as not to be seen by wyvern-riders from above. Purely by coincidence, this Warpgate's other side is a sunny forested lakeside that might have been a campground in another life. Your route to join back up with the army takes you along an asphalt-paved road, around a thick stand of trees, and past the Warpgate still showing a shimmering image of Bern's wildflower-strewn fields. On the far horizon through that Warpgate is a tiny peak. You might take it for a mountain; only those with very good eyes are apt to notice it's a castle. "Return the peace you took from me..." "Give me back my community..." "Show us the good-will you were shown..." "And leave us alo-o-one..." Lucius's ethereal voice is audible, singing Flamel's lyrics, before the campfire comes into view. When it does, you can see Lugh sitting next to him, strumming only somewhat clumsily on a lute. The vocals carry the instrumental. His temple-and-orphanage, burned down that first day Elibe asked for help... "Mel-ted holes in cell-u-loid..." "Give me back what you've destroyed..." "You-who-come, demanding proof..." "Let your God re-build this roof." But it's contemplative more than purely sad. These past two years haven't been too unkind to him, on balance. Lugh has those Psi-Cadet badges on his sash, now, and Chad sitting next to them doesn't try as hard as he once might have to look annoyed by the music. The strumming takes a break and the singing winds down when the three of them spot you; Lugh runs up and tries to foist the lute onto Flamel- "Here! You do it. I don't think I got it quite right..."- while Lucius smiles and waves from his spot, and Chad gives a wary-acknowledging nod before going back to the-- is that an ice cream sandwich he's got? The ripple-pattern of the red sunset dappling off the lake is disrupted by Fae's big loch-ness-monster-like body sloshing in the shallows; the reaction of Lucius's group perks her up from blowing bubbles in the water with a little "--au--uu?". Raigh and Sophia both flinch to protect the half-bound tome they were consulting from the splash, and Igrene can't keep down a smile as she pats the top of Fae's head to settle her. Shanna and Thea aren't here, and neither are their pegasi, but nearly everyone else is. Melady, your other flier, is standing at Guinivere's shoulder while the princess sits on a crate by the wagons, opposite Roy (hugging the wrapped Blade in his lap), Merlinus (also feasting on an ice cream sandwich), and Marcus (he of lightly-bandaged shoulder). The princess is drawing a floor-plan sketch, for the others' benefit. Melady has shed most of the old heaviness of her demeanor, but taken on a new and ambiguous kind. Closure is never really perfect. "Well, well. If it isn't my saviors. If you've come to collect a life-debt, I'm afraid I'm still paying off the last one," Marcus is the first to tease, for those who approach the nobles' huddle.
Riku Asakura	Riku arrives at the forested lakeside where the Lycian army had gathered. It's hard to imagine them being this close to Castle Bern, but well... they are here, and it would likely be the last time for a 'rest' before the end of what they came here to do. Riku hasn't been here the entire campaign, coming in at about the halfway point. Still, he has grown fond of the people here. The song catches his attention first, though he isn't aware of the origin of the song being Flamel's, so he instead walks closer to the enclave of people, respectfully being silent while the song plays out. The song might be more contemplative, but it was still at least a little sad to Riku. He gives a wave to Lucius, Lugh, and Chad. "I haven't heard that song before. Where did you learn it?" he asks Lucius. Before Lugh rushes up to Flamel. "What, is this more camp counselor training?" he asks Flamel. Not that he's jealous or anything, but he wonders if Flamel's answer is to make everyone a counselor. He also catches Fae's splash nearly catching the tome with her splash, and can't help but chuckle a little at Raigh and Sophia's expense. He also notices Melady, and by her, Guinivere, who is drawing something? He gets closer to take a better look and realizes it's a floor plan. It's probably of the castle they would be storming on all too soon. He looks up to Marcus, waving a hand. "I don't think I did anything; also, I'd be very uncomfortable asking that kinda thing from anyone..." Riku says.
Nobunaga	The general Oda Nobunaga arrives with not one but two retainers. To her left is the familiar giant Mori Nagayoshi. To her right is someone, shockingly, even shorter than she is. The Lady Yodo, in her mixed outfit of colorful frilly finery and smooth black samurai armor. Just the look on her face and the way she walks conveys 'Brat' without her having to speak a word. At the edge of camp, Nagayoshi gestures and Nobunaga nods; the big man splits off from the pair and wanders down to the lakeside. Nobbu soldiers, slipping out of various unknown hidden places like bushes, stones, and under Merlinius' wagons, scurry over to gather around him with various Nobu! Nobu!s. "Oi, Kiddo," is the greeting he offers Fae in the water. He jabs his spear into the ground, then uses it to lean back against with his hands tucked into his armor belt, turning red eyes to the sunset, "Blood-Orange Sunset; Filtering through a cloudy veil; Hints of coming storm." "Would that I had thought to bring my inks," Nobunaga remarks, "Such good atmosphere today, the music is especially welcome." She plants herself on a crate nearby Gwenevere, observing the drawing, then shifts red eyes to Melady, "Doing alright?" "Auntie has forgotten," the bratty younger woman declares. From within her sleeves, she produces her own inkstone and a sheaf of curled scrolls, "But Chacha has not! If you are drawing maps, then Chacha shall duplicate them so everyone can have one." She settles in a flurry of skirts and petticoats beside the Princess, spreading a scroll across a dropcloth on her lap to protect the lovely kimono layers.
Odette Raskins	This wouldn't be the first time Odette's meeting the Lycian army outside of Elibe, but it does feel odd knowing this might be the last. She's certainly hoping it won't be, of course, since there's so many more things she wants to see and show everyone, but there's a feeling of finality hitting her in the gut as she comes through the warpgate with a hefty crate held against her back by a harness not unlike an oversized backpack that could tip her over with the slightest push. It's almost half as tall as she is, and just a bit wider and longer than her shoulders. Hearing Lucius' singing voice makes the crate feel like it weighs nothing as she approaches the camp, picking up her pace to join up with everyone and raise her arm in a high, excited wave. She's dressed in her pseudo-adventurer gear today with the blue tunic and the white bedsheet-turned-cape, although she's also wearing a 3/4 sleeved shirt underneath that conveniently keeps the scars on her arms covered up neatly. The wave nearly unbalances her enough to tip over, but she maintains her footing by shoving her hands under the crate-harness straps, then scurries over to join Lucius, Lugh, and Chad first. "Hi, Father Lucius! Hi, Lugh! Hi, Chad! That song..." She pauses, being someone that's usually pretty slow to grasp lyrics, yet the mood isn't completely lost on her. She giggles quietly at seeing Lugh's foisting attempt, then claps her hands together while turning to Lucius with a hopeful, if still somewhat tired smile. "M-maybe after all this stuff is done and things settle back down, we could try performing together to celebrate. I could even bring..." She pauses, realizing Chad's got an ice cream sandwich. "... More of those, if everyone's okay with that? Er. Nobody's lactose intolerant here, are they?" Watching and hearing Fae's antics is always a treat, of course, although Odette can't enjoy the sight for long. She waves at Igrene and Fae quickly, shoots a sympathetic look over at Raigh and Sophia, then greets the group of nobles with some more broad waves. "Hello, Princess Guinivere! Hi, Roy! Hello, Merlinus! And Marcus, how's your arm feeling?" All that waving finally does have Odette tipping backwards with that crate, and she slumps back on it like an overturned turtle. She thrashes her legs around a few times before finally righting herself again, then looks straight at Roy suddenly. "Oh. Um. Roy! Are you going to be busy later? There's some stuff I want to show you, if you're up for it."
Flamel Parsons	Flamel accepts the lute, squinting at it and trying to figure out how to translate his guitar-playing into lute-playing. It takes him a while. "o/~ Mmmm... Mmmhmmm... o/ o/~ o/~õ/" He starts. "And re-store! The temple! Of Isis... No, that's not quite right. Hey, Lugh, mind if I grab the chords?" He reaches into Lugh's head, checking around for the set to use. "I've been training Lugh in Psychonautry." He explains to Riku. "It'll be up to him to bridge it to local magic, but we've been putting together transcranial stimulation systems and using thunder magic, and microcryonic systems of ice magic have shown some promising effects once you figure out the blood-brain barrier. He'll be a graduate before I'm done here. I'd love to see him running a camp though! I bet he'd do great. I'm expecting more of a school of study once this is over, though. He seems more like he'll be a teacher than a counselor. Still, he plays a decent lute. He could do anything he wanted in the whole world, now." Once he's got those chords, he resumes singing. "They came like beasts who taste blood," "First a few o/~ and then the flood... o/~õ/" "o/~ Coursing over hill and dale... o/~" "o/~õ/ Wet paw prints on their bloody trail o/~" "o/~ Return the peace you took from me..." It's nostalgic. This will be the last peaceful campfire they have. Eventually it's time for Flamel to head to the planning session. Flamel tries to help the soaked Fae out with some pyrokinetic heating before he settles around the floor-plan sketch. "You're almost at the end here." He says to Guinivere. "Do you want to be nearby when we do our final push, or would you rather...?" It's only sensible to leave her an out. This is her brother. "Well, either way, your guidance is definitely our best shot at finishing this. I'd love any intel you have." It's Zephiel soon, isn't it? The man himself. If they can get past the front door, anyway.
Angela	Angela arrives with Petra. This may be the last time she actually visits the fine people of Elibe and assorted, assuming there isn't some sort of victory celebration, but Angela isn't really sure what is normal to do after a war. In a way, this is the first war she's really particpiated in! The ''war'' against the Queen in Rita's world was a situation she had largely shown up lending a hand at the end, and it wasn't really a prolonged conflict in the same way. Well, unless there was a lot more of that when she wasn't around. Angela exhales, hearing Lucius sing Flamel's song, but it is a pretty catchy song and she's trying to be nicer to Flamel now largely because she is not still looking for a dad to be mad at like he suggested and fuck him for suggesting so but also, honestly, one of the reasons she was angry at him was because he's always seemed so untroubled by everything. And lately, he has seemed more troubled and exhausted and beat up. ... Sure, maybe he is just sort of activating BeRemorsefulAndAffected.EXE or whatever, but so long as he doesn't overtly ask her to file a satisfaction survey about it she can at least treat it as real. She can so vividly imagine the survey in her hands already. Along with Angela is Roland and Love and Red Hooded Mercenary never left, doing her thing of being a late game recruit by not having many lines or social links to reach out to with the others. "Faeeee!" Love immediately rushes to the dragon and her caretaker. "I was so good I guarded so many people, gosh are you looking--perhaps???--a little more adorable than last time? What's your secret??" "Hey." Roland says to Igrene, nodding to Fae, but focusing on the former. "Nervous? Sounds like we're nearing the end one way or the other. But let's say that it goes better than we could have hoped--any idea what you'll do then?" Red gives a quiet nod to Marcus, pleased that he survived the battle, of course, though too wargrizzled to express it any more healthily than this. Love, on the other hand, focuses on Lucius. sitting down to watch him play, ironically next to Chad of all people. She stares, showing little outward emotion, though she does seem a little less stiff than usual all the same. More naturally quiet rather than rusty.
Petra Soroka	Petra doesn't need to actually be able to make out the shape of the castle through the warpgate to know what it is, for pure narrative framing. Having it in sight finally, for the first time in two years, after having been parasocially fixated on Zephiel for so long, fills her with a suffocatingly pressing feeling of immediacy to do or change something; to either refine or divert the path they're all on. The funny little cosplay-esque outfit she bought with Sophia in Aquelia, to replace the other, sillier outfit she got for the voyage aboard the Dia's Lily, has long since just become 'a part of her wardrobe'. Two years have gone by, and Lugh and Chad and even Roy have gone from scared and hapless children to young adults who have a grasp on their place in the world, and Petra was only a little bit older than Roy is now when she folded herself into the war effort. Raigh left and returned, governments have been torn down and propped up, even Fae, growing a hundred times slower than anyone else, will now grow up into a world where either every city is Arcadia, or they're all wiped out. The tragedy of war, despite being there for it, feels kind of immaterial in comparison. The suffering and destruction across Elibe has been widespread, sure, and terminal in many cases, but the future arc of the world feels objectively better for it having happened, both individually and societally. Petra spent too long in the ruins of Bulgar, or seeing the state of Etruria or Ilia ravaged by war, or the dragon in Juteaux, to come straight out with the opinion of it being 'worth it', but as a crucible, the rot was tangibly burnt away. And Zephiel doesn't even know! The application of his ideology, misanthropic though it may be, is embodied here in the army on his doorstep, and he doesn't even know about all of that! And they're just gonna try and kill him! Isn't that kind of, like, wrong?!
Petra Soroka	"If you've come to collect a life-debt, I'm afraid I'm still paying off the last one," "No, that's okay." Petra is weirdly distracted, fingering the smooth morphmetal hilt of her 'sword' and looking around. "I'm pretty much always operating in the red on that kind of thing anyways." She has to stop by and say hi to Fae, and everyone around her really, even in the weird mood she's in. Petra's kind of hoping no one says it out loud, but the grim finality of the whole venture is blaring in her mind now with Zephiel on the horizon. No one will die, surely-- they've all made it this long-- but the 'relationship of two people embroiled in the same conflict' will die no matter what happens in the next month, and that's already making Petra freak out a little in advance. "Hey, Sophia, Raigh. --Oh shit, is that Apocalypse?" After a splash from Fae, Petra clears her throat, and strains for the little fragment of dragon-speech she picked up. "And au-uuu-au to you too, Fae." She passes by Lucius, Lugh, and Flamel too, idly wandering to be drawn in by the music and the winding down of the summer camp vibe. When Lugh stops and hands the lute off to Flamel, Petra taps the bag slung over her shoulder and says, "Come out, Daisy," which triggers it to teleport her guitar into her hands. She twists a few of the knobs by muscle memory, strums it once or twice while tuning to ear, then again once she's satisfied with the chords matching Lugh's playing. "It's like that, I think." "He seems more like he'll be a teacher than a counselor." "I wonder." Half to Lugh, half to Flamel, and half directionlessly to Lucius, contemplating the future in her weird mood, "I mean, what kind of place are you planning for the Psychonauts to have in the world after this? Even once Lugh graduates, he's only one person." Eventually, though, she circles back around to the nobles' gathering around Roy, the guitar still loosely in her hand. Without sitting down, she approaches just inside their conversation range and then completely ruins the vibe. "I think we've gotta talk about Zephiel."
Lilian Rook	If the war in Elibe had closely followed the arc of tension in Lilian's life up until now, she would feel too deeply superstious of the final sprint in Bern to sit down. As it is, the coinciding trajectories of 'One way or another, we will have our answers very soon' converging on the closing days of the Lycian League's campaign leave Lilian in a state of compulsive rumination that spirals incrementally ever-closer to obsession. The question of Zephiel, or rather, Zephiel's question, possessive, has always weighed more heavily on her as the trail went on, and not less. The little revelation she'd gleaned through Iðunn, who had chose her of all the people in the League to speak to, had made it worse, not better, for its clarity. Her habit, as always, is to keep these thoughts to herself as much as she can, and yet, 'Why Zephiel? On 'the final test of humanity and its nature' and 'Why now? In the little time I have left to decide whether I can speak for 'humanity' at all' orbit each other at such speed, in such tight lockstep of thought, that Lilian can barely think of anything else. So of course she recognizes the song; Flamel has performed it twice before, and she looked up the rest the second time. It's just the part that he doesn't like to sing that sticks in her head now. Their hunger like a worm inside them No sacred place could be denied them They who talk all day of beauty Call all the plain things dirty She doesn't really think about Bern all that much today. 'He'll be a graduate before I'm done here. I'd love to see him running a camp though! I bet he'd do great. I'm expecting more of a school of study once this is over, though. He seems more like he'll be a teacher than a counselor. Still, he plays a decent lute. He could do anything he wanted in the whole world, now.' Lilian, who didn't dress for the country for the first time in nearly two years, minutes after settling in, finally manages to smile; albeit on a very long delay. Still in the casual clothes she went visiting the seaside countryhouse in, she looks strangely at Flamel, tilts her head slightly to one side, and says "Do you speak like that all the time at those summer camps? You sound like you're his father." Or how she imagines a doting dad must sound, at least. 'Hey, Sophia, Raigh. --Oh shit, is that Apocalypse?' Lilian breathes out sharply. "Oh thank god. I was afraid to ask." she says, and places her hands down on her knees before getting up. Now that someone else has mentioned it, it's socially acceptable to approach and look. 'Even once Lugh graduates, he's only one person.' "So was Saint Elimine." Lilian says. "And before you try to point out that she was 'one of the heroes', look around you." She doesn't really expect Petra to, but someone might be thinking it. She tries finding a spot near Raigh and Sophia to look at the book instead.
Lilian Rook	'I think we've gotta talk about Zephiel.' "Do we?" Lilian says it more in reluctance than doubt. Of course it's true. But what is there to say? Strictly speaking, there are a thousand different things that could be 'talked about', but how many would mean anything to anyone else to say them? Will talking change anything? Even her own feelings? ". . . I suppose it's as good a time as any to reiterate that what we need is for the war to be over, not for Zephiel to be dead." she says, carefully measuring her words. "Which is to say that Iðunn went on fighting the entire world by herself once before. So I don't doubt she might do it again. Everyone understands what that means, right?" She makes her own question rhetorical, changing her mind mere moments after. "Now isn't the time to try and get your cathartic closure from Zephiel. There may never be a time."
Angela	''He's only one person.'' "Perhaps he just needs to find four more." Angela says. "Though I suppose Flamel is hardly being ''banished'' after all this is over. Usually some people stay behind, don't they?" She thinks about Nonon and Shajo and feels a spike of anger and depression before smothering the newborn feelings in the crib. It's ridiculous to be upset at those who managed to escape, that's all. Maybe that is a benefit of being 'water', she can decide to not be too bothered. "I hardly have experience with the man, so I will do as the experts would like." She is not exactly unsympathetic to people who have a grudge against the world because their father figured it'd be better off if they were dead and everyone else was just agreeable because he happened to have power. But she doesn't actually have to care about that because if he wins, Lucius will be dead, so it feels like it'd be easy for her to not care at all if Petra and Lilian didn't have strong feelings about the man she's basically never met. Also Love would cry for ages and Roland would get depressed about it. Having relationships, Angela thinks, maybe that's why she's been so indecisive relative to before. People whom she cares about the future of other than herself. How did she end up in this conundrum? It all goes back to... ''Do we?'' "I have no desire to kill Zephiel." Angela says, though this is just true and not an attempt to appease Lilian. Angela is more sympathetic than she is upset at the man. "I'll ask Love to avoid delivering a speech and I suspect Roland isn't the type either." She doesn't know he did ask 'why not just ice the guy?' but, well, she knows that the average Fixer prefers simpler jobs over complicated ones. That doesn't always mean easier or better and she suspects that this inclination comes out of a desire to not be murdered by monsters but that doesn't always mean it's the way to go. Is she getting used to this? She shudders. "I am certain that if anybody can end this war without killing Zephiel, it is the people here." Angela says, looking for a long moment at Lilian. "The people I've sent here will listen to commands." That pretty much goes without saying. With one notable exception, they always have to a tee.
Nobunaga	> "I suppose it's as good a time as any to reiterate that what we need is for the war to be over, not for Zephiel to be dead." "You are right," Nobunaga nods once, eyes closed in thought, "Though I highly doubt we'll be able to end it while he's still alive. His conviction is very strong, after all. The real mastermind is Iðunn, and we are likely to have to go through him to even reach her." She opens her eyes, gaze lifting to the fiery orange sunset, "I have no doubt he would sooner lay his life down at her feet than ever surrender. His own life is meaningless, she is all that matters to him."
Riku Asakura	'I've been training Lugh in Psychonautry.' "Oooooh," Riku doesn't really understand magic OR Psychonautry besides the very little he's seen. He knows it can be used to hurt people or rummage in their minds. "It's good you think so highly of him then. It's going to be a very different world once this is done..." Maybe even another thousand or so years of peace. 'Even once Lugh graduates, he's only one person.' "Well... even one person can make a difference. Also, it's not like Lugh's alone, right? It also doesn't mean that Flamel can't come back if things take a turn or something important comes up." 'I think we've gotta talk about Zephiel.' 'I suppose it's as good a time as any to reiterate that what we need is for the war to be over, not for Zephiel to be dead.' Riku grows quiet at the mention of the topic. Indeed, Zephiel doesn't need to be dead for this to end, but he wonders whether it will be possible. The man seemed... very intent on what he's doing. It's the destruction of the world too... On the other hand, wouldn't he be a hypocrite if he didn't try, as he did with Kei Fukuide? "Then we'd have to show him something convincing. Something that proves that humans are not like the people he grew up around, right? That they are worth not being wiped out. I don't think it'd be easy, and there is a chance that even if we do, he still might not let go of what happened to him..." he sighs. "But I still think it's worth a shot. I wouldn't feel right turning my head at someone else's pain, even if he's doing something like this."
Flamel Parsons	Petra gets a weak little smile. None of the consistent beaming of the start of this campaign, he is affected, just like Angela's thinking. "What kind of place we'll have here... The Psychonauts barely have a place back home, you know. We'd have less of one here, or at least we'd have trouble affording it. Lugh'll be one man," He uses that word deliberately. "But Psychonautry is a skill that can take you far wherever you go, and he's got plenty of his own. My place... I'll be keeping in touch! Visiting in the fall!" He gestures at Angela. "And inviting him to the seminars and office-parties at the Motherlobe. Not a lot else I can do. Lugh, on the other hand, he'll have the gratitude of a half-dozen nations and the skills to build something to pass on what we've been developing." He beams at Riku, casually reading his mind and saying, "Hopefully he'll make a nice organization that helps the next thousand years of peace happen, yeah!" Lilian asks if he speaks like this at the camps. "Well, of course!" He raises one finger instructively. "Young people can tell if you're being dishonest with them. It's only much older adults who learn to be lied to the way I tend to lie." No, maybe that beaming smile is still there, sometimes. Eventually they're around the map. Lilian's suggestion is that they avoid committing needlessly to killing Zephiel. "Oh, I never kill, myself." Flamel says, nodding along. But he gestures to Nobunaga here. "He'd rather die than live in a world where he's wrong though." But he turns back to Lilian. "Tell you what, though. We're heading into it." He digs around in his jacket pocket and finds his Psychoportal, offering it to her. The tiny door is held out absurdly. "If you can get this on his head, then we can get in there and do whatever it takes to try to fight his convictions to destroy the world directly. That'll mean fighting with something the size of an entire world, but it's worth trying if you're willing to put your all into it." His eyes, hidden behind sunglasses, briefly flick to Angela, before he swallows. "That'll mean a lot of danger. More than just trying to kill him. I'd be willing to take that on, though. And he's had plenty of time to build the intel he needs to know I depend on it, so if it'd do anything, he'll be treating the psychoportal like a killing blow." His courageous smile weakens again. "Which was why I haven't snuck ahead to try to get into his mind while he's sleeping or anything."
Odette Raskins	"I think we've gotta talk about Zephiel." "... what we need is for the war to be over, not for Zephiel to be dead."" "Do we?" Odette asks, half a second after Lilian does and with doubt rather than reluctance. She looks up and over at Lilian in a brief moment of surprise, then quiets down to listen. She nods slowly afterwards, checking her holstered sidearm briefly before up again. "I thought... Er. That we're all on the same page about that. I mean, I'd.. It'd be great if we could bring it all to an end without killing both of them, and stopping Iounn definitely feels like the best way to do that if we can get right to the head. Still..." She lets out an uneasy noise, once again made quite conscious of the weight of the sword and gun on her belt. Angela's encouragement does have Odette looking her way for a long moment, though, and the EMT settles into a more anxious, yet upbeat smile than her earlier troubled expression. "Well... B-between all of our fighters and our healers, it's not an unrealistic possibility, right? If it means going into his head, though-" She continues, eyeing the Psychoportal in confusion. "-then... Er. W-wait, even more dangerous than fighting him head on?" Another uneasy noise comes out of her, and then she smacks her hands on her cheeks to pump herself up while giving Flamel the same anxious/upbeat smile to try and encourage him. "We'll make it work. Whatever you're going for, I'll.. I'll be all in, no matter what!"
Marigold	"We learned it from Flamel, of course!" Lugh says perkily, before scrunching one eye shut as Flamel reaches into his head. He looks halfway like someone's stuck their tongue in his ear, but recovers quickly. "Uahh... um, the transcranial anima techniques are still coming along, Mr. Parsons! I'm not sure how much use they are yet, but at least I haven't singed anyone's hair again." At the mention of becoming a teacher or counselor, though, Lugh's face can't quite decide whether to blanch or blush. "I-- are you sure? I still definitely don't feel like a grown-up, or anything. I mean, what if I... counsel people wrong, or something?" He seems relieved by Petra insisting he's just one person, but Lucius shrugs warmly: "One person can teach ten, and ten can teach a hundred. Whatever parts of Psychonautry are easiest to learn and most useful for healing, I imagine might catch on among the priesthood. It's up to Lugh how much of a project he wishes to make of it." "Now that sounds scary again..." "Why don't you teach me, after all this? I've always found teaching the best way to cement my own understanding." "Well, maybe. I could probably handle just one." Fae is elated by Petra dragon-talking back to her, and pitches backwards in the water to bring her stubby little arms above the surface and clap with them. "--aouu--oh!!" she croons back to Petra before sparkly-smiling at Love, with the words for 'friend' and 'good' partially audible in there somewhere. "You were so good," says Igrene to Love, patting her on the head without really thinking about it- maybe Love just slots into a Fae-oid archetype, to her. "Oh, she's just as much of a scamp as ever, I'm afraid." Sophia and Raigh jointly hold the book up. The binding is lavish in an amateurish sort of way, dark-stained leather still in need of finishing touches. "... Ah, yes, it's..." "Apocalypse, I guess. It'd be stupid to waste pages on a 'test run', but we've been trying to figure it out together. Why?" "... Mhm. That." In silence, Chad offers Love the remaining quarter of his ice cream sandwich. Odette's offer of more tempts him from his teenaged reticence: "Mmf. That sounds pretty good. What's 'lactose'?" Guinivere smiles at Nobunaga's approach- it is indeed a crude map of a castle that she's drawing- and Melady frowns, pensively acknowledging. "I'm doing... okay. I'll be 'all right' when I hear that Galle's retired in disgrace. If he comes back with a replacement hand from the Otherworld or something, I really am going to lose it." "I'm... not a soldier. I don't have any place on a battlefield," Guinivere says to Flamel. "It feels too much like shirking a responsibility, to be absent when you all raid the castle... but I can't think of a single good reason why I ought to be there, other than to stem my own guilt." From glancing at the drawings, Castle Bern seems more like a palace than a fortress, which is good; but it's also really big and surrounded by open sight-lines from every direction but the adjoining city to the north, which is bad.
Marigold	Melady pokes the map with a gauntleted finger, tapping the western entrance. "They ought to be expecting us to come from this direction, since they know we're taking the Warpgates. And there are ground troops barracked nearby for security, on top of the patrolling wyvern-knights; likely some of Brunnya's. But they're concentrated in the opposite direction, to the east." "I can't tell if Galle lied to Bern about our approach, or if he's laying a trap. Even with that, I can't figure out a clean way in that won't take a miracle." "What, you two wouldn't want a loyal knight in your service? Lord Roy seems to like it quite a bit," Marcus jokes to Petra and Riku. "Well, ah," says Roy. "Oh, Lord Roy, don't wound an old man like this..." "Couldn't you tone down the loyalty a bit?" "Absolutely not." "Or at least just call me 'Roy' again, sometimes?" "... Mmmh. I'll consider it." "Thanks. And, um, sure, Odette? I think I ought to be free." "I think we've gotta talk about Zephiel." Contrary to Lilian, Roy nods immediately and guiltily, as if it had been nagging at him all this time too and he'd been purposefully putting it off. "Yeah. I'm sorry. We do," he says, hugging the wrapped Blade a little tighter. "... I don't feel ready at all. I can't sit back while everyone else fights, but... when I tried to use the Blade against Galle, I... my heart wasn't strong enough. I didn't really want to hurt those people, even though they were hruting us. And if it turns out I don't "want" to hurt Zephiel, even after all he's done, then... I haven't done much growing-up at all, have I." He seems relieved, and Guinivere seems ill-eased, by the idea of taking Zephiel alive. Nodding to Nobunaga: "I'm afraid our dear General is right. Try what you can, but I can't imagine he wouldn't simply... destroy himself, rather than be persuaded. We may as well assume that Iðunn will be there at his side, too, given how rarely they've been apart. How does that weigh on your thinking?"
Angela	''The real mastermind is Idunn'' "Must it be so?" Angela sighs. She looks over to Flamel. "The 'Summer Camp' was enjoyable, though I have spent my last page of summoning big hands. Roland enjoyed the tool a great deal. I'll be happy if they manage peace for my own lifetime. I want to be able to travel this land one day without worrying about my condition being taken advantage of." ''No, maybe that beaming smile is still there, sometimes.'' Angela squints, but doesn't say anything. An honest shot means not jumping the gun. "Fighting his conviction to destroy the world directly would likely be about as difficult as fighting Idunn herself. That is not an idle conviction. Destabilizing a core motivation such as that could have adverse effects from the whiplash." ''That'll mean a lot of danger. More than just trying to kill him.'' "Indeed." Angela agrees. "...Love and Red would be willing but I'd have to check with Roland. He may work for me but this is more dangerous than a mere battle in a pit. Though considering he is a man of The City..." She's a little worried that Roland's experiences would only fuel his already world-sized conviction. ''W-wait, even more dangerous than fighting him head on?'' "Yes." Angela says. "His conviction is surely stronger than merely his body. I do not know how capable of a fighter he is, but no matter how capable of a warrior he is, his body is surely weaker than his will or we wouldn't be in this position in the first place. I will not be the one taking the risks, so ... I can only say so much." Love giggles at being headpatted, looking up at Igrene like she's an Adult. This is different from the way that she looks at lower case adults, of course, Love iis seeing her as in the role of Adult. That means Igrene is someone who sometimes has misunderstandings with her daughter, Fae, because of circumstances beyond both of their control and maybe someone gets turned into an orb as a result but everything will be okay afterwards because they'll reaffirm their love for one another and hug it out and the bad guy will go 'tcch! Interesting!' and vanish for one whole week at least. Maybe two if there's a holiday in there somewhere. "I wanna cuddle into her feathers and fall asleep there." ''Chad offers Love an ice cream sandwich!'' That's such a sweet thing to do! In Love's eyes, that means Chad has pink bubbles floating around him right as we speak. She's suddenly bashful because Chad is a dark magical boy. She has to do something that gets him a little riled up! But what?? She bites into the ice cream sandwich, thinking about what to do. "Oh!! It's yummy! Thank you, Chad!" She then takes her ice cream sandwich smudged hands, holds onto one of Chad's and says, "You're really sweet!" with sparkly eyes and a big smile. ''And if it turns out I don't "want" to hurt Zephiel.'' "Don't like a weapon that demands you really wanna hurt someone in order to hurt someone. It feels like it's asking too much." Roland says.
Riku Asakura	'We learned it from Flamel, of course!' Riku looks a little surprised, but nods at Lugh. "I see. It's a good song," he says, looking towards Flamel with a soft smile. Riku is still... anxious about people going through others' heads, but they seem to be okay with it, so... 'One person can teach ten, and ten can teach a hundred.' "Yeah, that's right. It just takes time. Even if one person can't teach the world, just enough people will make sure the practice doesn't die, right?" he says, nodding towards Lucius. He also takes a look at Lugh, "Well... lots of things are scary. It's okay to be afraid or anxious about things, but it's what you do with that fear or anxiousness." "You can't let it control you, and you do your best. Balance that with not being arrogant, and I think you'll do just fine!" He pauses, "It's really important for that last part, though. People sometimes get too focused on their powers and think they can solve everything with them." 'I'll be 'all right' when I hear that Galle's retired in disgrace.' Riku didn't know Galle at all, and the last time they met was his first time. To hear that man speak, though... it made him really sad. To think anyone could live their lives like that... 'It feels too much like shirking a responsibility, to be absent when you all raid the castle... but I can't think of a single good reason why I ought to be there, other than to stem my own guilt.' "I think it would be a terrible idea for you to be there if you aren't a fighter. Sometimes you aren't the right fit for the job, and I know that can really feel bad that you can't do anything. Guilt is its own kinda beast sometimes, you know? I think we'd all be happier if you were safe and not in harm's way. Putting yourself in that kinda risk isn't bravery, though. I know it's easy to say from my position, as I'm the guy who can be a giant but... I really don't think you should beat yourself up about this." Melady talks about the layout of the defenses of the castle. While it's not a fort, it /still/ is a castle, so just because it's not entirely built for defense doesn't mean it can't be made defensible. He doesn't know what to make of the layout of their defenses either. "Encirclement maybe? Trying to cut off our escape and then press in from all sides?" Marcus breaks him out of looking at the map, and he raises his hands in a waving motion. "Uh, I don't really have 'a service', and I couldn't really command anything." He feels probably the same as Roy does right now, and he just shakes his head. "I'm not a lord or anything, just some orphan from Japan." Things turn back towards Roy and his desire, or rather lack thereof, to kill or hurt Zephiel. It also seems really unfair to make people hurt each other for any reason. The Binding Blade was terrible, and they had done so much to make sure to get it, but what could they do if Roy couldn't hurt him anyway? 'His conviction is surely stronger than merely his body.' Riku nods at that; he agrees with Angela on this. It's not impossible, but in this case they'd need something that Zephiel couldn't deny outright, right? Some proof... some idea... "I wish we knew the man better..."
Nobunaga	When Melady points at the probable direction of attack, Chacha leans forward a touch from her copying to take a closer look. After a bit, she settles back and resumes duplicating the map; this copy is getting some bunnies in stylish black ink swirls here and there, in empty parts of the scrollwork. The previous one has cherry blossoms and leafy tree branches along the edges, already drying on a nearby crate. At the lakeside, Nagayoshi glances down, rummaging in his haori with both hands. After a moment, he produces a traditional Japanese flute; a Shakuhachi. Closing his eyes, he places it to his lips and starts to play his own musical compliment. A slow, thoughtful, soothing and somehow also melancholy piece. Like the musical version of an impassioned eulogy delivered in advance. Nobunaga shifts her head slightly towards Flamel as he brings up the psychoportal and entering Zephiel's mind to fight his conviction head-on, "Ahaha, you really are a reckless one, aren't you?" Her eyes close and she lets out a breath, "Would you like me to also unfurl my soul inside his mind and incinerate him from the inside-out, perhaps? Because as dramatic as that sounds, I doubt it would be very effective." Lifting her eyes back to the sky, she nods along to Angela's assessment and Guinevere's agreement, "His body will fail before his mind by a long shot. You are proposing we fight a foe as relentless as the sea and as firm as the mountain." "And in a battle already filled with long shots courtesy of the Divine Demon Dragon, I would prefer to reach for more reliable solutions to less severe challenges."
Odette Raskins	"We learned it from Flamel, of course!" "He's really taught you a lot, huh? Psychonautry, songs, all sorts of mental health stuff it sounds like." Odette comments with another giggle at Lugh's expense, especially when he raises concerns about incorrect counseling. "Lugh, if there's anyone here that knows if you've got the potential to do that, it'd be Father Lucius and Mister Parsons. Is that'd know you better than them?" She'd give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder if getting up wasn't kind of hard after squatting with the crate, so she settles for an encouraging fist pump in the air. "Mmf. That sounds pretty good. What's 'lactose'?" Beaming confidently as Chad takes her up on that, Odette's mind is already starting to draw up plans. "Believe me, there's a whole world of different flavors out there, and different ways to eat these things. Heck, there's still plenty I haven't even tried yet. And lactose is a thing in milk that some people's bodies can't handle when they drink or eat stuff with milk in it. You'll know for sure if your body can't handle it a few hours after having a cup of milk or two. Still, if you like the flavor enough, there's ways around that, too!" "They ought to be expecting us to come from this direction, since they know we're taking the Warpgates." "Looks like a trap for sure, but do we have any other choice but to head in from where they can see us?" Odette wrinkles her nose slightly while poring over the map, drawing little lines with her eyes like she's trying to find a way in that isn't straight in despite her words. "Even if we could get in from the city itself somehow, it'd be too much of a mess for the people living in there. And... We probably don't have any way of getting in from underground, do we?" She's doubtful that's going to happen, but she does look around just to see if anyone actually bites on that one. "I think I ought to be free." Roy gets a nod from Odette there, but she doesn't elaborate on what she's thinking of right away. "And if it turns out I don't "want" to hurt Zephiel, even after all he's done, then..." It's after Roy says his piece that Odette finally answers him, taking on a more authoritative and steady tone as though she might have been thinking about and practicing how to say this for a while. "You're not the only one. I haven't HURT-hurt anyone out here before, either, but the chance we'll have to before the day is over is super high. There's a good chance we'll have to cut down Zephiel before we stop Iounn, and there's a chance that we might not all be around to fight Iounn after, or to treat everyone in time after she's stopped." The thought of dying in battle is kind of terrifying this close to the finish line, but Odette actually manages to hold it together thanks to the power of rehearsing this all in front of a mirror after the last few near-death experiences. Turning to the crate she brought with her, she unclasps the locks holding it shut, then pulls one side open to reveal a full-sized model of a human torso, complete with fake removable organs, muscles, and even bones! "So! I'd like to give you give you a crash course in triage before we move on Bern. If you're willing to learn as much as you can between now and then, then if... When we stop Zephiel, you could be the difference between some of us surviving long enough to make a full recovery after everything's finished. You could even be the one to cut him down, and you can also be the one to make sure he lives to see the world after the war." "His conviction is surely stronger than merely his body." Despite being able to get through her pitch to Roy without a hitch, what Angela says about Zephiel's conviction versus his physical strength is what has the EMT starting to sweat again. "Erk... Really? That's... I-I guess it's good to be ready for that now, than to get surprised by it later." She says, certainly not feeling much better about that possibility.
Petra Soroka	"And before you try to point out that she was 'one of the heroes', look around you." "Oh, I wouldn't. Be snarky like that, I mean." It is so weird that Lilian isn't dressed for Elibe today. Petra doesn't know what to think about it, but she absolutely does think about it, the way that Petra is the only one who really wears the local soldier image between them right now. "No, I'm super locked in on the whole modern mythopoetic retreading thing we've been doing. I brought it up before to Cecelia, the way she'll probably be remembered like that. I mean more...." "Hopefully he'll make a nice organization that helps the next thousand years of peace happen, yeah!" "Yeah, I mean more if that's, like, the goal. Or if Lugh felt like it was more of a personal tool for getting through the war and all. Like, it's not like every swordsman here's gonna start a sword school and teach everybody sword stuff." "Whatever parts of Psychonautry are easiest to learn and most useful for healing, I imagine might catch on among the priesthood." "Oh, that's kind of cute..." Really, Petra is just being so sentimental about the future. The post-plot epilogue cards are looming in her mind, the single sentences of resultant fate summarized compared to the vibrancy of living through the war together. To give those alien futures life in her mind, she feels compelled to talk face to face with the people here now, so she has a memory to associate with it. "Actually, I can totally imagine it being folded into a sect of healing magic, as a kind of blended school, decades or centuries in the future. A fourth thing added to the whole, light, dark, and anima triangle. If it catches on, you know." That's probably going to make Lugh more worried again. "If he comes back with a replacement hand from the Otherworld or something, I really am going to lose it." Sarracenia having two eyes again proves that no consequences are sacred and no one ever gets what they deserve. "No, you don't even know. That's so much more possible than you think it is. Don't speak that into existence." "What, you two wouldn't want a loyal knight in your service? Lord Roy seems to like it quite a bit," "Oh, oh no." Petra raises up her hands in front of her, probably joking back at Marcus in return. "No, I'm usually in hers." She does snort at Roy awkwardly interjecting though. "Do we?" "... I don't feel ready at all." Petra drops down beside the group, sitting cross-legged with her guitar propped up in her lap to lean across in the same way others are draped over their swords. She sighs heavily, foot bouncing restlessly. "I-- kind of hate it. We need the war to end, sure. And Zephiel will keep it going forever, and Idunn can keep it going forever. And I hate that bullshit about Idunn being 'the real mastermind', like-- is it really that impossible to accept two people being in a partnership and cooperating about something?" That thing being the total extermination of the human race is irrelevant.
Petra Soroka	"I just... I don't even mean, 'we shouldn't kill him'. Because, like, he's gotten so many people killed and stuff, and even without any kind of moral judgement, I don't see what point he'd have in living anymore after this. Besides some insane fantasy hypothetical where we somehow convince Idunn to start attempting to reconcile with humanity and he follows along with her." It seems like when Petra said 'we have to talk about Zephiel', she largely meant herself talking about him. Her thoughts are unfocused and meandering, with no call to action at all, but irrepressible in the shadow of Bern's castle through the warpgate. "... Probably, Lilian really has it right. I don't feel like it's fair not to give some Zephiel some closure, or at least try. I don't know how I feel about, er... challenging his convictions, or trying to treat him mercifully, or anything like that. But I feel like he should at least be able to see how the world's changed in the past few years before dying, or something. I'm sure the inside of Bern's armies gives him a way bleaker view than we've been getting, which was kind of his whole problem in the first place." "And if it turns out I don't "want" to hurt Zephiel, even after all he's done, then... I haven't done much growing-up at all, have I." "Would you want to hurt Idunn?" Petra shifts in her sitting to face towards Roy, arm hanging over the neck of her guitar while she stares. What a horribly lose-lose question for him! "That'll mean fighting with something the size of an entire world, but it's worth trying if you're willing to put your all into it." "I don't know if I can even imagine that. Zephiel without his convictions, I mean; I can totally imagine fighting the entire world, obviously. Putting aside the question of whether it's possible for us to win against such a big pillar of the psyche of a guy like that, it doesn't even seem any less likely to leave him dead than shooting him would." "I'm sort of willing to try anything, but on the other hand, we really only get to try one thing. And, uh, soon." It sucks!!! It really sucks that war can't go on forever! Someone should make a kind of war that doesn't end! "Like, again, I'm not gonna be suddenly seized with doubt or guilt or anything if he starts doing the whole 'you and I are the same' type thing, and I don't see a way through this where he doesn't die. Just, like, do we have to be desperate enough to shoot for survival without closure?"
Lilian Rook	'Young people can tell if you're being dishonest with them. It's only much older adults who learn to be lied to the way I tend to lie.' 'Uahh... um, the transcranial anima techniques are still coming along, Mr. Parsons!' Lilian exhales in a way that turns a batch of pre-laugh tremors almost instantly. "You know, never mind. I'm not certain the image still works." She says it as if it's almost a compliment. 'Oh, I never kill, myself.' And yet, "If ony that were an easier way to be." she sighs. 'That'll mean a lot of danger. More than just trying to kill him.' "I know. It always does." 'I mean, what if I... counsel people wrong, or something?' 'One person can teach ten, and ten can teach a hundred.' Microdosing Flamel is already bringing down her mood. The reason that Lilian originally chose to speak to him at all was because of Lugh, and what happens next shouldn't concern him outside of the fact that it amounts to the fate of the world. Of course what comes after is more important to him. It should be to everyone else. "I'm sorry to say Lugh, but adults teach and are taught things wrong all the time. It's an unavoidable part of life." she says. "We're supposed to be kept in check by the experience and common sense of the others around us. That's why it's so difficult to be the first to do something." 'You were so good' Lilian sighs, and says "God. I'm a little jealous, but it'd be pathetic to say so now." possibly without realizing that she has??? "I had plenty of time to learn to speak dragon already. No use pining about it." Girl? '... Ah, yes, it's...' 'Apocalypse, I guess. It'd be stupid to waste pages on a 'test run', but we've been trying to figure it out together. Why?' Well, that was the core draw of Lilian's attention, away from the bottomless introspective spiral around the final confrontation on the horizon. Seating herself, she first asks "Figure it out? What is there to do? I'm afraid I'm only familiar with the bare basics of how glyphs factor into magic here. I know that you have to learn to use magic in the first place, but if you're not inventing something on your own like Brammimond or Brunya, is it not just a matter of activating what we've been given?" 'If he comes back with a replacement hand from the Otherworld or something, I really am going to lose it.' Lilian, raptly staring at the pages one second, jolts upright the next. "Oh god. Don't say that. Cyborg arm Galle is so plausible. Please don't manifest Meta-Galle." 'I can't think of a single good reason why I ought to be there, other than to stem my own guilt.' Lilian's gaze drifts. Her tone is moderated towards neutral. "That's a surer sign than any that you shouldn't do something." Lilian says. "Unproductive guilt-assuaging is a terrible vice. Even though it never feels good and you always regret the outcome, it never gets any less tempting." 'I can't tell if Galle lied to Bern about our approach, or if he's laying a trap. Even with that, I can't figure out a clean way in that won't take a miracle.' Lilian sighs. "What I'd give for about ten of those teleport staves. I suppose my fussiness in when to use it was well-considered, but coincidentally pointless in the end." she says.
Lilian Rook	'Couldn't you tone down the loyalty a bit?' Lilian looks at Roy, eyes wide, one eyebrow up. She looks at Petra, looks back to him, and visibly holds down a laugh. "Try praising him for how uncomplicated and true his loyalty is instead. You're never going to get anyone to follow that request." '... I don't feel ready at all. I can't sit back while everyone else fights, but... when I tried to use the Blade against Galle, I... my heart wasn't strong enough. I didn't really want to hurt those people, even though they were hruting us. And if it turns out I don't "want" to hurt Zephiel, even after all he's done, then...' For a spell, Lilian is transported back in time, to when she was barely any older than Roy; when 'want' and 'deserve' were the two most powerful words in the world, and the nature of her reality depended upon both. The girl she was before someone very patient talked to her all about 'want', teaching her everything she knew, is practically impossible for her to model in-mind anymore. That girl is an alien. An evil spirit from her past. A deeply, unsympathetically unwell, wild animal. There is no line she can draw from that girl to Roy, and she barely has to think even a second longer to know that she is in no position to be Persephone for him. So . . . "I told Brammimond that I wanted the Blade because I wanted you to have the chance to fix things if I fucked them all up." Lilian says. "Don't go using something like that on Zephiel. He isn't a calamity that humanity need a miracle to be saved from. Even if he was, I wouldn't defer responsibility to the Divine; for the fact that we created him." "The Binding Blade is for the worst possible circumstance. And if that really does come about, you won't have any trouble wishing that it didn't. So stop worrying about it." 'His conviction is surely stronger than merely his body. I do not know how capable of a fighter he is, but no matter how capable of a warrior he is, his body is surely weaker than his will or we wouldn't be in this position in the first place.' "Ah. That reminds me." Lilian looks at Angela, though really it's a topic for everyone; she was just the first to prompt it. "He still has Ekesachs too. He isn't the sort of person to hold onto a Divine Weapon as a symbol of rulership, so I think we should at least consider the possibility that he's on par with any of the other Divine Weapon wielders, if not a cut above the ones under his command. We'll also want to retrieve it from him, and he'll know we will. It's likely more worth considering what forces he can have deployed against us once we've already gotten to him, and how to make certain he can employ as few as them as possible. Especially not Iðunn. We don't fight them at the same time." 'Besides some insane fantasy hypothetical where we somehow convince Idunn to start attempting to reconcile with humanity and he follows along with her.' Lilian returns her eyes to the book. "We play to our outs." she says, grim-toned. "I'm not speaking out of moral caution. I mean the possibility of Iðunn going out in a blaze of glory without anyone to hold her back is the worst possible disaster, and we have to avoid it however possible." The scraping reluctance with which she says every word feels stingingly personal, despite being nothing more than a wild guess. "We've gotten this far by being able to understand, anticipate, and keep up with, Zephiel's personal vision of the destruction of Elibe as we know it. We have to play that out until the end."
Flamel Parsons	What if you counsel people wrong? Flamel puts a hand on Lugh's shoulder: "Make sure not to do that! It'd be so bad!" His sunglasses gleam in his beaming smile. But he does provide some reassurance. "It's easier to get it right than it sounds, though, weird secret. Because usually they'll tell you what they need first." "You should go with your intuition there, really. If something inside you says you need to be there, be there." Flamel says rather seriously to Guinivere. "Frankly, if there's one person I should get into his mind, it's you. Heck if I know what you'd do once you're there." Roy's situation gets him tapping his chin. He looks to Lugh again, outside the tactical circle. "Roy," He says. "I think it's time you went in for some Psychonautry, actually. Your executive construct is still looking for the blade in your mind, so to speak. I don't even know if I'd be able to set you on it, but you... Hey, mind if I scout it out a bit in there, real quick? I've got a theory." --- The Parsons Institute does its best to establish its research post in the distant anomalous realm that is the Limbic-ean League, and to explore it in-depth. An ultra-high-empathy environment like that is toxic to them, requiring hazmat suits, ruggedized science gear, all sorts of things like that. They're looking for the Binding Blade, an anomalous object of great power, UPE-000-Roy -- the core psychic construct responsible for Roy being capable of earnestly wishing with his whole heart for a particular future, without hesitation and without reservation, knowing that the wish is good. That blade isn't where it needs to be, and the researchers will struggle to move it, but with all their spinning dishes and clicking readers and flickering video cassette tapes of expeditions, they'll hopefully assemble hints of where it is, and maybe even put parts of that mind on track to locate it. --- He focuses a bit on Nobunaga. "Oh, reckless, plenty. I'd never think of going after his conviction, but a good friend of mine recently told me I was losing my knack for heroic aspiration, so I figured I'd look for the biggest target and get ambitious! I'm not sure what would happen if you did your astral inversion in there... I sort of hate thinking about astral inversions in general, ever since all of the really bad experiences I've had and the absence of good experiences I've had with them!" He smiles so big at that. "But, you're right. It would be targeting him right where he's strongest." His plaintive open-hand gesture is at Petra now. "Becuase, yeah, I think I'm maybe twenty years too late to this situation. His conviction to destroy the world is most of him now. We're going to be having a lot of medical conversations when I learn triage later so I guess best metaphor is one of those, you know, those really really strange cancers were it's a diffuse fluid throughout the whole body. He is mostly conviction by mass and by volume and, even assuming we could beat it, I don't know if he'd be standing after. Frankly at this stage I wouldn't be surprised if his heartbeat-impulse has roots in it." "But otherwise, there's..." He drifts off a bit. "Assuming we can reach him, there's procedures. For closure, I mean." He scratches the side of his face, squeezes his eyes shut, and then says, "For some reason my gut is saying that... I guess I do need him to have some closure? To be able to do something else, later, something important. I can't tell why. It's not a clairvoyance that's got me thinking that, it's something else."
Marigold	Lugh practically crumples under the pressure that Flamel and Petra place on him. In a cartoonier artstyle, he'd probably be turning sheet-white with a little ghost escaping through his mouth. Fortunately, Lucius revives him by putting a hand on his shoulder. "He would know better than us about himself, Odette," the priest says, gently smiling. "But as Petra says, you could be a great help to the Church, Lugh. We can do much for the body; healing the soul, as it is, is often beyond our grasp. And though you may not feel ambitious, I know you've always leapt at chances to help me before." "I... I can do my best," he murmurs. Chad isn't in a much better situation! Love praising him about being 'sweet' is entirely outside his wheelhouse. He turns slightly pink while figuring out what to say, fumbles out "Yeah, well, obviously," while pulling up his cloak's edge over his mouth, and then turns pinker when he realizes he's copped to it. Poor guy. The questions about Apocalypse perk both Sophia and Lugh up, in their different ways- her subtly gleaming, his chest puffed. "The written sigil is only half the diagram," he says proudly. "You touch a finger to the page, and make a gesture to complete it. Say I scribe a basic Flux tome, and leave out only the final upward stroke- then the gesture is just like that," making a sweeping motion with his hand. "Leaving the written rune less complete and more ambiguous allows for versatility. Say I left out several strokes, so the diagram could be closed in different ways. But Bramimond was a sage of unbelievable skill, so the diagram of Apocalypse is so flexible that-- hm?" Sophia is holding up a finger politely. "There's also... mindset..." "Ah, thank you Sophia. I'd taken for granted we all understood something so basic. So, one's meditative practices or spiritual attunements as one casts the spell must align at least loosely with the original scriber's vision. Now Bramimond was writing in a very different environment, and practicing now-lost forms of--" This could go on for a while if nobody stops him. "I had plenty of time to learn to speak dragon already. No use pining about it." Igrene eyes Lilian up and down, arms crossed and eyebrows raised, in a way that suggests she's very familiar with the tone. "... I'd consider it a personal favor if you came by Arcadia now and then," she says. "There's no point forbidding you, since you've already seen it. And we'll need someone to be checking on us, just in case."
Marigold	Roy sort of un-crimps from around the wrapped Blade as Lilian talks, relieving him of the imagined burden of swinging it against Zephiel. He clutches it tighter when it nauseates him, and holds it looser when it feels like less of a weight. "If... if you really think it's not that grave," Roy says, eager to accept her conclusion in one way but reluctant in another. "All of you from the Otherworld... excuse me, the Multiverse... you talk almost like this is a fairy tale, and victory is assured, so all that's left to worry about is how noble the means," he continues slowly, eyes sliding to Petra and then away. "It does lift my spirits to hear you talk that way. And you're all certainly capable enough to. But, that last battle with Galle, Sir Marcus almost died. If it came down to something like that again... if someone here dies because not 'wasting' the Binding Blade was more important..." "It is more important, Roy," Marcus says, and maybe because of dropping the 'lord' for once, Roy looks shaken. "But I--" "The Binding Blade saved all of humanity once. It will do so again. If you let a single chip come to it just to save these old bones, I would live in shame for the rest of my short days. And I think most in this camp would agree." "I... I see." Now Roy looks queasy again for a different reason. "... It does feel wrong just to stop Zephiel with violence and nothing else. That'd almost be like proving him right, even if we have better reasons. But is there anything at all that could change his mind?" He looks from the Elites talking to him, to Guinivere, but she doesn't have an answer for him either. "I'm no philosopher, Lord Roy, but it seems as likely to me as not that he'll just call us a deluded pile of worms too benighted to see the worthlessness of our own existence. Or something to that meter," Marcus says, without any wry pleasure. "... At the very least, Sophia and Fae can discern the presence of other dragons, and they've felt Iðunn from fairly far away. If Sophia's willing to pass by the castle at a distance, we can be sure of a time the two of them aren't together." "Would you want to hurt Idunn?" Petra's question really is awful. Roy's face screws up. "I... I don't know. I don't think I do, right now. We're probably in this mess because Hartmut didn't want to hurt her a thousand years ago. Maybe... maybe in the moment it'll come to me, but..." "Well I definitely want to hurt Galle," Melady finally bubbles over. "Um?" "Ah, pardon?" "I'm just saying. If he does have a 'cyborg' arm or something I will just kill him. I swear you all won't even have to help." "Uh, thank you, Melady. That's very reassuring." Clearing his throat, Roy nods at Flamel, with only a little hesitation after seeing how Lugh reacted as if wet-willied to the Brain Touch. "Please. Go ahead. I could do with any clarity you can give me." Maybe the little mind-incursion that Flamel mounts can shore the poor boy up.
Lilian Rook	'But Bramimond was a sage of unbelievable skill, so the diagram of Apocalypse is so flexible that-- hm?' Lilian, of course, waits for Sophia. She's distracted by the finger too, but she wants to hear what she has to say, with her being the expert on the subject. Still, she comes back around to 'first things first'. "Go on. Is it that any gesture would work, or that it's impossible to figure out which one would? Or at least, which one is best." 'So, one's meditative practices or spiritual attunements as one casts the spell must align at least loosely with the original scriber's vision.' Lilian is, in fact, going to let him go on forever. She is, all things said, a lifelong appreciator of magic. "Well, even if the times were very different, they did give it to us, and with them borrowing so much of our own various intuitions, they'd know if it simply couldn't possibly work. I imagine they expect we can use it. At least--" Lilian hitches at the moment of recollection. Brammimond drew out the sigil right in front of her. It's plausible they knew of the other groups at the time, but the Brammimond appearing before her seemed to only have inherited the personalities of herself, Petra, Guinivere, and Skipper. It's irresponsible to assume anything other than Brammimond meaning it for one of those four at the time. Guinivere has no magic experience that she knows of, though she hasn't asked. Skipper is right out. Petra was the one who received the sigil itself; so if it isn't her, then-- "You said that this sort of magic--" don't say 'dark magic' "--had to do with 'absence', right? I'm only consulting my memory, but I think I recall that it was characterized by a mindset attuned to where something isn't, or is missing. Could--" Lilian doesn't explain why she suddenly needs to stop for breath at the very start of her own sentence. "--it be that Bramimond had the Scouring itself to call on? It's sort of . . . I can't imagine it as anything other than an irreplicable contemplation on loss and emptiness." "The absence of what humanity was fighting for. The vanishing of what they had. Of what dragons had. The grinding down and diminishment of the world; where things used to be, and no longer are, even today. The empty places around the fire where comrades used to be. The choices they never got to make, about the lives they didn't get to live." Lilian stops her uncontrolled carry-on when she finally notices her own tense jaw, her evasive gaze, the encroaching breathlessness slowly altering her voice; enough to make her cough, lamely pretend it's from talking too much, and distract right away with "Is there any way to verify that an approach without actually casting it? Not being able to test it for real is a bit . . ." '... I'd consider it a personal favor if you came by Arcadia now and then' "Huh?" The power that compels Lilian to doe-eyed blinking is a deep and terrifying one. Igrene calls upon it without knowing. "O-oh I . . . Well if you say so." Lilian says, nervously brushing back and straightening her hair all of a sudden. "Where did that come from?" she says, stupid-style. 'If... if you really think it's not that grave,'
Lilian Rook	"Well . . ." Lilian frowns, taking a moment to decide. "I'll be honest with you. I don't think it's great. Even I'm approaching this with a certain amount of 'I'll just have to put my back into it and make it work when I see it' at this point. I normally wouldn't even entertain the idea that I could fail." she says, and rubs the side of her face. "But we're underdogs, not desperate. There's still some wiggle room between our backs and the wall for now. So there's no use contemplating 'what if we're doomed'. The only thing to do is to procede as if we can accomplish the best outcome still possible, and consider all the less-desirable victories we can possibly win in descending order." 'And I think most in this camp would agree.' "I was hoping you wouldn't make me say it." Lilian's lips twist, but she doesn't break eye contact. "It's true. Moving with a small, elite group, prioritizing avoiding attention where possible, committing to small and decisive engagements, and gathering local support each time, has been an approach of absolute minimization of casualties. I believe in the force we've assembled, but we are at the point now where the outcomes are rapidly about to become victory or global annihilation. We haven't won every single battle we've fought so far, and we don't have the option of retreating into a Warpgate once we commence. So . . ." "Well. I'll give it everything I have. Marcus has the right of things, and he's right that Sophia and Fae can help us as well." 'I'm just saying. If he does have a 'cyborg' arm or something I will just kill him. I swear you all won't even have to help.' Lilian cracks up, covering her mouth and laughing through her nose. "Christ. If we get Meta-Galle I'll pull up a seat and watch."