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Priscilla     The Undead Burg was, more or less, the first real exposure anyone once had to Lordran. Even the first exposure Priscilla herself had felt in ten centuries. It seems almost unfair, then, that of all the places that have since brightened, stabilized, or at least improved in some concrete fashion of being less horrible, the weathered, rustic, stupidly high stone walls of the nearly abandoned human city, where the whole adventure had started, is not one of them. In the end, it had never become a place people could return to. It might have been best if they could, rather than the situation of living in Anor Londo, but here, there is simply nothing to return to.

    Distantly, the Parish atop the mountain, with its now-dormant Bell of Awakening, is all that remains miraculously unscathed across the great bridge that crosses one of Lordran's many sheer, misty mountain chasms. Everything beyond is a wasteland of twisted and melted stone and metal, dissolved into a semi-liquid slurry and gradually settled into the shape of a well-used candle on its last legs.

    It's impossible to tell where any of the individual buildings or streets may have once stood, as the latter have cracked open several layers deep, to expose the dark of the under-city, and the former has hardened in viscous, running waterfalls that hang over the edges like melted wax. Only the especially tall tower, or hardened fortification, is visible by some larger feature sticking out of the long-since hardened floes of molten rock, withered away and bearing its melted features horizontally.

    It's easy to imagine the incredible heat that must have smelted down the gargantuan, rambling medieval citadel, but it's long since faded in place of a deep, clammy cold. Even with the sun shining at its zenith, it feels like walking through a dense bank of frozen fog. Here and there, fissures in the ground seem to be issuing black smoke, though nothing actually glows with heat to let the dark vapour escape; at least, if anything does, it's down the yawning blackness that is just visible through the labyrinth of narrow, dark crevices in the lowest streets.

    One can certainly tell why Priscilla declared it off limits, way back. Doing so may have been a bad idea. For whatever reason, it doesn't /feel/ as desolate and abandoned as it should be. As if one could hear the echoing sounds of furtive conversation, or see distant candle light, the blackness projects the distinct sensation that it houses some form of congregation, in the way that it faintly exudes a sort of human familiarity, and sense of potential companionship, rather than a cold and hostile unknown.

    Go check it out.
Guest Psyber     It had been a while since Psyber had been back to the undead Burg Specifically. He hadn't been back since Kalameet had levelled most of it in his rage over the negotiations and had forced a more violent solution be used to bring him to heel. Still, this place had been a place of concern for him since the reformation of the world due to the lasting scar it put on the land and what may dwell within.

    The half-angel is present, with a bolt-action rifle across his back alongside a large sword. The now-freelance hunter half-lidded his eyes and looks around the melted area covered in a thick, cloak of cold air that permeated the area. His red eyes flickered into a dim glow as he looked over the area with his supernatural vision, taking it all in before rubbing his hands together.

    And then, with a tired sigh and no real words, he starts to make his way towards the echoing sounds of a congregation in the darkness.
Nozomi Houken     Nozomi Houken is not at all familiar with the Undead Burg; but she's had a growing familiarity with Lordran in general recently, and after the events of the recent riot, she finds herself more interested in the world's problems - particularly since they concern not just her boss, but some of her friends and coworkers as well. Seeing the molten remains of the place, a deep frown crosses her face. It's hard to tell WHAT this used to be, but if it was someone's homes once upon a time...

    And yet it feels almost hospitable in a weird way.

    If anything, that's the most worrying part. That somewhere so utterly trashed can somehow exude a sense of familiarity and welcome, is rather offputting to someone who's sort of made a career of dealing with the supernatural by this point. So she's sticking close to Psyber. She and Taiga both.

    And Taiga is scanning the everloving /hell/ out of the place.
Yuuki Kuran     Kuran Yuuki had made it a personal mission to involve herself in Priscilla's affairs in an effort to get closer to her superior, as well as an interesting individual to...

    Well Yuuki was an awful meddler and found herself intrigued by the awful crapsack world of Lordran as opposed to her own awful crapsack world of Euro-Japanese quasimodern land filled with bloodsucking monsters.

    Her world didn't have the sheer drop per capita of Lordran though, a fact she pointed out over the radio using her phone. The response she got made her smile wistfully. "I guess, Zero, that we don't stop to consider things that are just natural to us." Yuuki asides to her bodyguard, before shoving her hands in her pockets and peering over one of the NUMEROUS drops of the Burg.

    "There could be anything in here, though - a giant monster, or a whole colony of smaller ones... It's like a city-sandwich, with all the extras." She observes. "Zero, do you feel anything? The... 'air' is so thick here, I'm having trouble picking anything out."

    She ganders at Psyber. "Do you?"
Carna     The sun may be in the sky, but like every other source of sunlight Carna has encountered, it doesn't feel 'real'. It has no real emotional impact on her to see it after her entire existence (as far as she can remember) being spent in murk and near-total darkness. After it was explained to her, her reaction was essentially, 'Oh, okay then.' Just another aspect of the environment.

    It is not HER sun, so it doesn't matter. As she sits perched atop a convenient long-melted structured of some kind, peering down into the darkness, her attention is more fixed upon Psyber. She looks at him from beneath her huge hat in the same way she looked at Gwynevere, so long ago. But this time she has the presence of mind to look away. To not consider by what method she might divorce the half-angel from his 'Light'. But the fact remains that her hunger has grown after feeding upon her first Marble Guardian.

    She feels pushed to advance further. But for now, without her standard weapons, she wields a hand crossbow she received as a gift over the 'holidays', and begins exploring on her own, seeking whatever might be in the darkness below or around her.

    "Are we free to dispose of whatever we might encounter here, or are we taking prisoners?" she asks of whomever may be in range to hear. Then she thinks to also address it to the local radio, withdrawing a wax skull from within her cloak, and repeating her question into it. It chatters and repeats her words in a rush of whispers that somehow transform into radio signals.
Tomoe Undead Burg brought back a lot of memories to Tomoenot the best onesbut it was one of the first places in Lordran she ever saw. She's mindful of that and for once she's able to make use of her flight, at least for arrivng at Undead Burg. She could see why Priscilla had made it off limits. She comesw in for a landint now as she looks over the place something doesn't feel right though it's time to go dig deeper it seems.

She takes note of Pysber for a moment giving him a nod and falling in with him. Nozomui's arrival with Taiga also gets look and abt of a no from Tomoe.

She's moving now to trya nd fall in fromnt to take up the job of trap checking face first...and she figures there will be more arrivals soon, CArna and Yuuki soon turn up as well.

"Easy Carna, we don't know what's in there if there's andy thing lets' not persume that everything is food. Let's be on our guard but lets not be too rash...still lot of bad memories here..."
Zero Kiryu "Maybe."

Zero's answer is unhelpfully ambiguous. He trails alongside Yuuki, his weapon already held firm in his right hand. His overall demeanor in Lordran in general has been 'tense', and now is no exception. This place is teeming with predators that he can feel, even if he can't see them. In the case of this particular outing, it's less that he can't feel anything and more that he registers a whole hell of a lot of uninteresting false positives whenever he comes here. Practically everything is predatory, or vampiric enough that he can sense it clearly.

After a few more moments of silence and grumpy-faced observation, he adds, "I can sense almost everything on this world. I'm looking for details. There isn't anything that bothers me much yet."
Staren     Staren frowns a bit at the close-up sight of Kalameet's destruction. Well, at least the dragon is dead and gone. Or gone, anyway, since death is... strange here.

    "I feel something. Like people are here..." The strange feeling of a presense here is irritating. It's probably magic, but he doesn't know how it works. "/I/ don't have any psychic powers or something, so... whatever it is, is caused by something here."
Priscilla     All said, there are few people present who have the full context as to what happened to this place. Still, anyone who isn't new to the Multiverse's broad scope and scale of threats can tell the place wasn't bombed or imploded or anything, but incinerated like a raw ore going into a furnace; melted into glowing, homogenous nothing and poured through a crack in the earth.

    It is also quite clearly tainted. Cursed, in a sense. It's /really/ difficult to get a proper read on it. What lingers here doesn't register as black magic, the spirits of the dead, elemental evil, or anything truly, explicitly supernatural or arcane. It is something that is exclusive to this world; uniquely alien at the same time as it is profoundly nostalgic. It appeals to something that happens to be a fundamental part, of some size or another, to everyone here, while vexingly defying an academic definition.

    Like the metaphorical blind men and the elephant, Psyber's eyes can perceive the stark gradient where the 'aura' of something from below intrudes into the familiar reality above, where it blends and then fades out before the light of the sun. Taiga can read the lingering energy stored in the stones of this place as much as he can feel the residual divinity of where the gods go in Anor Londo, but not define what it is. Zero can sense 'that there are beings', but oddly, no concrete number or position like he could in Darkroot. Even Carna can feel a sort of maddeningly vague connection with something she /must/ have forgotten back in Lumiere. A little facet of it can be revealed by anyone who looks hard enough, but whatever it is, it appeals to something more commonly shared than everyone's individual powers.

    It seems Priscilla intends to keep in relatively close radio contact for this one. <<"If it is the sort of thing one couldst maketh a prisoner out of, I wouldst most likely advise against doing so. If thou encounter something that threatens thine being, the universal law of Lordran applies its precedent. With the vanishingly small chance that thou encounter living humans, it wouldst be best were thou to retrieveth them">>

    The way down is lengthy and complicated; ironically moreso than the urban sprawl that used to inhabit it. As one goes deeper, the sun vanishes, and yet the cold starts to become invitingly lukewarm, where the sheer amount of city and earth has somewhat insulated the lowest levels from the disaster above, and the odd semi-intact building can be found preserved enough to examine or enter, if only a badly warped corner of one. Anything wooden has, of course, turned to ash, and so they are all pretty sparse, leaving behind only extremely durable markers of what they were for. A blacksmith's anvil here, a jewellery case there . . .

    Sooner or later, one reaches the deepest under-streets that connected to the sewer system in past, though the damp greenery that grew everywhere has been well charred away. A cramped, winding alley twists into what had once been a gateway into the Depths, which had already been horrid before, but the path sags sharply, dipping like the peak of a roller coaster. Oddly, the sounds of rushing water still echo from inside. It seems improbable nothing would have dammed the flow, or else evaporated it at the source, but the drip drop and whispering babble is plainly audible.
Guest Psyber     Psyber looks towards Yuuki, "There's something here. Not sure what, but definitely something."

    He unslings the rifle from his back, checking the chamber for a round and then keeps walking. If he notices, cares, or feels threatened by Carna staring at him, he doesn't seem to show it. Then again, apex predators honestly rarely concern themselves with much.

    "Lordran is as alive as any person. When you wound something and you don't properly staunch and treat it, it gets infected. Grows septic. This place became filled with a necrotic sort of darkness."

    "It's the Abyss. The infection of a wound that can't heal. A hungering, festering scar upon the world."
Carna     Carna does not bother to respond to Tomoe's warning against approaching the situation with hostility. It's up to the environment and whatever is in it to prove itself safe, not for her to trust such without cause. Failure to provide such proof will result in all necessary steps being taken to defend herself. Priscilla's advisement on the matter more or less matches Carna's thoughts, though the preservation of living humans, no matter how unlikely, is a small divergence from her preferred course of action.

    Foe her own best interest, it would be hazardous to disobey that condition. So sparing some, if encountered, may have to be allowed in this instance.

    Carna looks up towards Staren when he starts talking about sensing things. She looks around. Then she looks back to him. "I do not know to what you refer. Perhaps you imagine this sensation. The Living are prone to imaginings, I am told." What she herself may or may not be feeling, whether there are clawings at the back of her mind about something... Something... Well, she doesn't voice them.

    Taking in Psyber's explanation, and what was said on the radio about reflecting natures, the Abyss, and 'the Dark', she puts aside wisps of strange mental disturbance in order to write in her journal. The oddities of sensation are of no more note to her than the texture of a rock. If she wasn't suffering from some strange mental disturbance or odd sensation, she'd begin to think there was something wrong with her, such is the commoness of such. Though the absence of whispers... Yes, perhaps that is it. She does not frequently hear the undercurrent of whispers from the Darkness outside of Lumiere. Could that be the source of this familiarity?

    For now, she jumps down from one once-molten ledge to another, picking her way through the ruins independent of the others or alongside of them, depending on if they're keeping pace with her or not. She is not trying to move especially swiftly, but she is not waiting for anyone either. The dead woman pokes around in out-of-the-way corners for anything of value. She inspects the blacksmith's anvil to see if there are any weapons remaining miraculously untouched. She prods at the jewelry case with some sort of short spear she draws from within her cloak to make sure it doesn't spit acid at her or something, and if there is no immediate hostile response, she either attempts to pry it open or just takes it with despite the cursed environment, for later examination.

    Upon reaching what sounds like some sort of waterway from the noises emanating from below, the Lantern sniffs at the air, even presses her face close to walls or the ground, snuffling like some sort of rotten beast trying to pick up a scent. She may not have superhuman senses, but she can differentiate between dead and living flesh. As a result, if there's anything of either kind down here with them, it might produce an odor she can detect distinct from the nebulous 'familiarity' she feels.
Staren     "Great. So how do we heal it? How... how was it even /wounded/? Or... Wait, you're saying Kalameet /broke the world?" Staren asks.
Nozomi Houken     Nozomi doesn't understand a lot of the more technical talk, nor the more in-depth information about this world... but Psyber explains what's going on in a way that she can grasp, to an extent. And he's also arming up at the same time, readying a rifle. That puts the girl on her guard as readily as anything. As they walk, she looks down into the route ahead, which dips sharply, and yet somehow sounds like flowing water? It's hard to tell. So she asks the only question she can really think of to ask, to the only person here whose judgment she trusts absolutely. Other than Taiga, anyway.

    "...Should I transform?" Nozomi asks Psyber.

    As much as doing so may leave her shaken up, when she becomes... that person, the world is much easier to handle.
Zero Kiryu "Apart from those among our number, there are beings here. That is all I can tell right now." Zero offers, once again ambiguously. It's not because he /wants/ to offer such a useless perspective. There's simply nothing else to offer. A glance is cast in the direction of Staren. He replies, "In the small while that I have visited this place, I have encountered a cat that made itself the spirit of a hideous garden and a great giant of a man who took a titanic wolf as his canine companion. I think little enough of this is unbelievable in this place."

"Especially after the murderous plant life." He adds, dully.

Distantly, he ponders the sounds that were made of the Abyss back in the garden. Artorias had remarked upon it-- the strength of its call. Had it been like water, itself? Why, he wonders, would a Primal realm represent itself as water of all things? Is it because life in general is drawn to the water, or is that entirely coincidental?

Already having his weapon drawn, Zero engages no further preparation for what might be to come.
Yuuki Kuran     Yuuki doesn't really understand the broad metaphysics of this place, and the stale, decaying air is so filled with the scents of a hundred eras (Or just two to three really, really rank ones) that she brings up a handkerchief and blows her nose, before covering it with a hand. "Well, if we can't find the source, perhaps we should explore?" She wonders almost as unhelpfully.

    "Experiencing a thing is a good way to gain understanding of it, though 'experiencing' a ravening hungering wound is probably not ideal... But what other choice do we have?"

    Not poking the consuming evil with a stick??? But who does that, that's boring.
Tomoe Tomoe sees the party form as Zero and Yuuki arrival along with Staren's own she seems to think they have a good team ready. She heads on in attemping to move in ahead on point. She's the tank it's her job. Right? She takes in the tainted place and shifters her skin feels clammy she doesn't like it here. There's something here lurking but she can't figure out what it is? She moves on her way down finding her way along she's not going to trust her wings once there's no sun and she';ll be on foot from that point out. She'll stop to check for loot here and there but she keeps her focus for anything major as they get deeper and deeper down.

"This place feels ... Not right."

She has said her mind to CArna for the moment and keeps on going down.

"Hummm? Ya the platlife can be murderous, Zero."
Priscilla     Because it was asked of her, an excerpt: <<"It is at least something similar. I believeth no Abyss of the precise nature we encountered before shalt ever exist again. The Dark mirrors the nature of those that peer into it. One's true nature imprints upon it, and grants it volition. Without the Primeval Man, it is something else. Albeit, this place also lingers because of the fire of the Black Dragon, of which we knew next to nothing of.">>

    Sadly, it seems little else in the blacksmith's shop has survived. There are still a few weapons that are decently intact, but at this point, they're essentially RPG wall decorations. What point in there in lifting very old, plain steel swords when much better is available in the next town? All that is notable are a handful of very small shards of titanite that must have trickled in once, though they seem to have turned jet black. The jewellery box has its clasps melted shut, and its fancy exterior scorched away, but the stuff inside is more or less fine. The pure gold isn't lucky, due to its notoriously low melting point, but there are a handful of valuable gems and silver. A determined salvager could make a decent living, exploring this wreck.

    The Depths still smell alright. They're deep enough that not even the black-gold fire nuke managed to get them that badly. There is, of course, the dank odour of well-travelled water and its associated growth and slime, but also the scent of something fleshy, like an open wound that is old enough to be clotted, but not infected. Sour, uncooked meat, kind of.

    Thankfully, the sound water turns out to be extremely literal. A broad, thin sheen of it courses steadily along the engraved ducts and paths, much like a modern sewer, though more spacious. Having long been bereft of anything to wash away, the water is actually clean-looking, though no doubt full of germs, microflora, and potential parasites, like water exposed to too much nature usually is. It all flows steadily downhill, and over many steep, but short drops, flanked by convenient stairs. It is one of those few places that is not hell to navigate, because it was actually built to be navigable.
Priscilla     It was goddamn gross the last time people were here, still. Mostly because of the Darksign meaning that fixed and transient populations of Undead could die over and over and fill it with their rank flesh, and attract whatever creatures fed on it. The creeping tendrils of mottled, grey-green-brown biomass that can be found on the walls like old ivy are, in fact, normal, as are the great boils and pustules that grow up from the floor as tall as a man, pulsing with what must be some kind of cardiac circulation. It's horrible, but the normal level of horrible.

    There are no giant rats, man-eating slimes, or mad butcher cult to be found, however. Even the basilisks are gone, though one can still stumble past the odd statue of an unlucky Undead cortorted in agony, bristling with grey crystals from under his stone skin. They're old bodies by now, of course. Their owners are either alive or dead somewhere else. It doesn't make it much less unnerving; especially when, as it seems no matter how far one goes, they are anyone's only company. It was somehow more hospitable when it was filled with monsters.

    Shortly enough, upon reaching a certain level of lower elevation, the transition really begins. Proper coordinates start to lose their bearing, halls stop quite matching up, corridors take more or less time to traverse than they should, sources of light rapidly shrink in range, and the silence becomes a kind of inaudible hum; empty enough to hear a pin drop, and yet busy enough to stifle the sound completely. There is the ever-present sensation of being watched, but perversely enough, not the kind that bristles neck hair and alerts primal instincts. More like . . . walking through a crowd. Pushing through a mass of people.

    Eventually, the bio-horror spread everywhere stars getting weird too. Green and brown turn blue and black, and the visible veins are shot through with luminous purple, and branch in unnatural ways. The growths cease to resemble blisters, and instead become blossoming flowers of inky flesh, giving off a faint, monochrome light of their own, though it illuminates nothing around it. At some point, the flowing water has gone completely silent, even though it is still present. It's impossible to remember when. Even the walls and floor start losing definition, like someone had photo-edited a dark, outdoor scene on top of the sewer, and started viciously abusing blending layers.
Nozomi Houken     Not /yet/. Well, that's less concerning than it COULD be, but also more concerning than she WISHES it were. But, such is Nozomi's life. At least, for the moment, she can remain untransformed safely, and ride on Taiga's back. Which... proves not as necessary as she'd expected, at least at first. The 'sewer' is much cleaner and nicer than one might think, and it doesn't occur to her that it might be due to how long it's been unused. She simply puzzles at it quietly, while the TIGER unit maintains his scans.

    The deeper they go, though, the gladder she becomes that she's on the robotiger's back. Especially when things get just a smidge non-euclidean. The eerie, stifling silence is probably what bothers her the most, the small girl hunkering down atop Taiga.

    She quietly glances at Psyber again, but this time says nothing. She's sure he'll speak up if it becomes a good idea.
Staren     Everything is what you'd expect, until... space starts warping? "I think... maybe we should stop here, or not proceed without more preparations. The way out might not be the same as the way in..."

    He looks around. "...I wonder if it's possible to end up in a minus world outside a videogame? Like, some kinda conceptual thing. A fake world made of... real parts that aren't quite right..."
Guest Psyber     "Dunno if it can be healed. Kalameet probably did it, combined with the pre-existing humanity remaining from the individuals that were around here.," Psyber tells Staren blandly, "I've been talking to Artorias about that lately, actually. He and I are working on a way to figure it out by making me an Abysswalker like he is."

    "I agree, though. To head much deeper without suitable preparation is a dangerous prospect. I'd like time to consult with Artorias. And to prepare some equipment of my own." He looks around a bit, producing a small camera from his hip and taking some pictures as he gets his bearings and gathers what information he can.

    "Tiger. Nozomi. I want you two to coordinate all data from his visual feed," 'His' being Taiga, of course, "... and get a copy ready for me back at my office. I wanna look at my own pictures alongside analytics and figure out what sort of supernatural infection this is. What I'll need to do to fight it."

    "It's definitely different from the Abyss when we fought Manus. It might be that without him to shape it, it's sort of a rampant infection. A cancer that requires regular excising to keep it from spreading."
Nozomi Houken     "Understood," Taiga replies. "It will take some time after we're done, but I can compose a video with overlaid sensor summary, and provide a more in-depth sensor log file separately."
Yuuki Kuran     Yuuki wanders down, down, down with the others, missing MULTIPLE context clues and Major Proper Nouns (Kalameet, for example). Her understanding of the Abyss grow not with secondhand knowledge (she has none, and it's a little thick to follow), and more with the warping nature of things. Normally empowered with an excellent sense of direction, Yuuki starts looking over her shoulder, staring into corners, and having her eyes trace the strange bio-horror bits in the periphery.

    When the group stops, she is hugging herself, a worried look fixed on her face. "This place feels... awful. But nothing's happened - do you know of any way to fix this, some technique, Psyber?"
Staren     Staren shrugs to Tomoe. "I'm serious, though. Like... at the edge of the abyss, has reality... stopped? And like, /something/ is making a messed-up imitation of it using building blocks that kinda /look/ like reality... I guess it's not really a minus world, if it's assembled instead of the result of misreading random data... But the end result is similar."
Staren     After a long moment, Staren adds: "Or maybe the... nothingness of the abyss is breaking down stuff like space and... colors."
Tomoe Tomoe pauses at what was in the blacksmith shop, there's nothing really worth taking weapons wise she will take a box, and what she could find of the titanite and a few gems things that should could easily take with her. They will vanish into her inventory and she'll move on. She can at least pay some bills with that. She'll move on deeper as she moves to deeper places here. She sees the water is actually water she eyes it not trusting it even if it's cleaner looking that the was last time.

She doesn't move to too fast or too slow but well they now end up ... reaching the biohorror there it is and Tomoe looks more concerned as they get deeper and deeper.

She's not talking much and she'll halt at the warping space for a moment.

"That hits way too close to home for me, Staren...I exist between reality too much as it is."

She does seem to be on her guard now and she looks to Psyber.

"I wish you luck in that Psyber and your far braver than I am doing that. I agree Pysber this is different from before...and we can't let another thing like that befall here."

Tomoe now thinks about it and makes sure FRAPs is running for her own records too.
Carna     There's plenty of strange odors in the area. Especially strange for one who is used to a sterile environment. Though parts of the Pristine Plagueway that they have visited seemed to be foul enough, this place is actually cleaner despite being a similar sort of sewer. Carna has done little exploration of that particular part of Lostrata, so can not say if there are comparable growths, but by this point, given similarity after similarity between Lordran and Lumiere, she would not put it past either place to share what can be found in either world.

    The Dark and the Darkness, reflections and Abyssal encroachment... Even as she cautiously circles around the protruding whatever-they-are, watching for sign of danger, but also curious about what happens if they are prodded, her thoughts are largely preoccupied with other matters. Only immediate safety or survival weighs more heavily upon her.

    As exploration goes deeper and deeper, space and light warp, strange silence with a buzzing to it replaces conventional background sound, and who knows what else is happening, Carna feels no immediate sense of urgency to ending their forward progress. As yet, there appears not to be any danger.

    "Why would we stop here," she asks, "before we have found any food--clues, that is. There must be more information further in. And perhaps something useful we can bring back with us." The cloaked dead woman continues forwards into the increasing distorted environment, regardless of who follows her or not. "Or perhaps something that can be used right here. If this Dark reflects our inner selves, then that seems a valuable method of gaining answers. If this 'Primeval Man' could create some sort of world of his own, imprinting our own selves upon the Dark could cause a similar result, correct?"

    Carna pauses long enough to look back at the others, journal in hand as she takes notes almost without even reading what she's writing. "And if this influence spreads, might our control not spread as well?"

    She doesn't know what it is that drives her to keep going. Something inside of her. A hungering dark different from that one that drives her to seek Light. Something that instead calls her to go lower, delve deeper, and find the source of... Something.

    This may not be her world. But it's close enough that whatever this Abyss or remnant thereof there may be, she wants to understand it better.

    And maybe 'obtain' it somehow.
Priscilla     Standing around somewhere nebulously within the periphery, and talking for an extended length of time, one can get the impression that the extremely vague border is moving ever so gradually towards the direction from which they'd come. It's not as if someone can just look at a wall and see darkness creeping along it, but more like the sensation of being aboard a train moving deeper into a tunnel; like the world is moving around them even as they are stood still.

    A hypothesis about it being infectious may be correct. Or the one about it gathering. Perhaps even bleeding from above. Sewers are known to collect and draw downwards in basic concept. Either way, it is clearly growing, as difficult as it is to visually confirm.

    Chief among those subtle cues, is that the feeling of a passing crowd steadily intensifies. Though the sewer corridor remains very much material, and at least mostly definite, the sensations of even the thinnest shadows looking inwards grows extremely strong. It's like every patch of darkness on the wall is actually a hole or gap; a window looking in, instead of just poor illumination on some masonry. The passage grows more 'populated' by the minute.

    The uncanny impression eventually becomes much more direct. Within the small island of light the party generates, wispy, insubstantial shadows begin to pass through. They appear as ephemeral, black silhouettes of human beings, though completely undetailed; iconographic of humans, rather than real people. They walk slowly, and utterly silently, on by, in steady procession, visible only as they exist in the light, before being swallowed by the darkness before the party, as they had appeared from behind. Flickering and tilting 'heads' provoke the gut reaction that the odd shadow is turning to 'look at' the Elites, before passing on, like pedestrian traffic on a subway platform.

    One can't help but feel as if there is a much, much bigger crowd moving past them, and the visible shades are just the small portion that happen to be close, though that is blatantly impossible with the corridor's dimensions.
Nozomi Houken     Oh boy. Oh, this is getting creepier by the moment. Taiga is recording everything he can, both in terms of visuals and what his sensors can pick up, but Nozomi is visibly growing more and more tense by the moment. It's not just the weirdness of the surroundings, or the fact that the abyss around them feels like a crowd of people with 'individuals' passing fairly close... though that, in and of itself, is quite distressing. It's compounded, though, by the fact that Nozomi is always at her most on-edge in densely-packed crowds. It has the poor girl hunkering down just that little bit more atop her robot death tiger.
Tomoe Tomoe Something doesn't feel right it feels like something is moving towards them and the idea about it being an infection? Seems to be the right idea about this. she takes a step forward and starts to look around now, her eyes dart about a she takes it in. She does feel like she's passing through a crowd as she goes deeper and deeper in with he rest of the part. Something is here something in every shadow.

"This is way beyond me...."

she sees the outlines of people going by but as Psyber gives the warning she gets the heck back and stops without going any further in she didn't want to really in the end. She then joins the talk on the radio.
Carna     A heated debate transpires on the radio/talking skull waves. Carna pressing to be permitted to continue investigation. The draw inside of her stronger than it has ever been, pulling her and pushing her simultaneously. It's almost irresisible. She brings a hand up to her shoulder, feeling an odd sensation there, as finally Psyber must resort to threat to keep her from doing something potentially disastrous. That alone wasn't enough to fully pull her back, though it made her waver. It was not until she was promised what she hungers for in the future, and with greater safety, that she shudderingly suppressed her hunger in favor of her own well-being.

    And now that she has stepped back from the precipice, both figuratively and literally thanks to moving back towards the others, she feels more clear-headed. Or as clear as she can be. How easily she is swayed by whatever it is inside of her that pushed her to crawl up from the writhing masses of mindless dead and eat brighter souls until she gained awareness. All it takes is simple exposure like this, and she starts making reasons to throw herself back into the pit she rose from.

    She is relieved she wound up not taking that step, but also now feels... Empty and unfulfilled after being right on the edge of satisfying that desire for answers. It was so close she could taste it. She digs her fingers into her shoulder, scratching absently at the itching sensation there, like an addict in need of a hit.

    Then she pauses and looks at her shoulder, craning her head as best she can as though she can see through the heavy fabric, the leather armor beneath, and so on. Whatever is going on with her, she eventually decides to pull her hand away and scan the others to see if anyone noticed. In particular, she eyes Psyber. Before it was out of a hunger for the power he holds. Now, it is due to recognizing him as a direct threat. He did and said what he had to. It was perfectly reasonable and practical to keep someone from bringing some awful curse back to the world outside if any sort of protection remains in place to prevent such.

    But a Lantern's mind is a broken thing, a mix of instinct, reason, and pre-programmed alien response, all painted over a framework composed of the memories and personality traits of dozens or hundreds of other people. And so she has calmly made the mental adjustment of Psyber from the ally box to the threat box in her internal relationship chart. No matter how justified stopping her was, from now on, she'll be keeping an eye on him.

    Just in case he decides that killing Carna better suits his interests than sharing the power he seeks. That would be a very Lantern-like way to think.
Zero Kiryu There are several long moments where Zero Kiryu ignores most of what is around him-- the strangeness of the surroundings, the shadowy figures that seem a part of a greater crowd. He's focusing on Carna, but not /visually/. His radar has swivelled about to focus on her, a dreadful gaze that has no real tells to speak of. But Yuuki can probably tell that the woman got his attention, even though he hasn't moved to do anything about her just yet. The shifting of the surroundings, and the line of questioning that Carna pushes into however, seems enough to get a reaction.

"I doubt that a being with a mind as muddied as yours is capable of claiming this place in the manner that you've suggested." He interjects after a long silence, his grip on Bloody Rose tightening slightly. "Even if it was, it probably wouldn't be a good thing. That one over there..." He gestures loosely towards Psyber, "... has asked to be trained to handle such things. I think his influence is more likely to take benign root."

"I don't care what you do, but he might. And I don't think that creatures with such a voracious appetite will find the substance of all of this easy to mold without being molded in turn." Privately, this is /also/ an admission by Zero that he doesn't feel qualified to attempt to influence a form of reality in this way, but he's not liable to clarify that matter for anybody who doesn't already know him well enough to understand it.
Staren     Things get creepier, conversation gets heated. A conclusion is reached: They will come back later.

    But... that doesn't mean they can't gather information multiple ways at once.

    Staren sets down on the floor one of his tablets, after setting it to start recording, putting it in autistic mode and bending it so it will stand up on its own. It should record for over four days, although with the weird things happening to physics here, who knows. When they return, if they find the tablet, they can decide what to do with it then.

    He leaves a couple more set up the same way on the way out, in different places.