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Owner Pose
Priscilla     There is no official summons. No decree, royal, Concord, or otherwise. No posted job or call for specialists with pay. Those who arrive are requested specifically, and quietly, through private missives and secure calls. Without exception, they are people that Priscilla herself has either known a long time, has worked with under circumstances of serious trust, or is entangled with in such a way that would make anything untoward unthinkable. The reason is that, today, it isn't about Lordran. It isn't about the gods or the people or the far corners of the world where strange things are left unchecked. Today is about her. The first of that sort in years. Some should know not to take that lightly.

    Despite the grave portent that paints, the start to all of this is unassuming; almost shockingly so. Though arrivals are guided individually, at different times, throughout the gargantuan, architectural maze of the Citadel Palace, not entirely designed with human accessibility in mind in all places, and even lead to the throne room itself, there is alarmingly little of obvious importance.

    The chamber, as colossal as it is, is as spartan as it has always been. A warrior by heart, the great lord Gwyn had furnished it with barely more than the requisite throne carved of the Archstone heart of the mountain; a grey, coarse, and imposing thing from an era long before Anor Londo's brilliance. Any other seating and convenience is incidental, and Priscilla has done nothing to change that, out of respect for the days when Lordran was actively ruled, and the sacrifice of the man who hoped to preserve it. Other than Priscilla herself, in here, there is only one difference from how it was eleven centuries ago.

    The back wall is dominated by the looming shade of a great, framed painting, occupying even the giant-proportioned room from floor to ceiling. It should be familiar to some, depicting an immense landscape of snowy mountains, rustle castle walls, and an absent sky, but to a few more, the sensation of hushed, oppressive stillness that surrounds it, as if forced quiet were radiated from it like heat, is a new and spine tingling feeling.

    Priscilla has obviously spent a long time looking at it. Laying her hand on it, even, though that should be terrible for a normal painting. She barely remarks on arrivals, apparently waiting and counting until all of those she had called, and could reach, have assembled, before speaking.

    "Thou hast mine thanks. All of thee. Whatever happens." says Priscilla, in lieu of the traditional 'well met'. "I pray only that thine aid may not be needed today. Were I able, I wouldst inform thee of a great deal of history, and guide thine actions as I once did before, but in truth, I hath little idea of what may happen, and so I am in need of those I knoweth cannot fail me. This is the last great work of the Divine Painter of Ariamis, into which went his life's blood, to createth a place far distant from all the world outside, cut away from its trials and troubles, down to the very, fundamental fabric of it. I didst spend almost . . . mine entire life, here. It is a thing precious to me, even after it was . . . abused so sorely by those that came after. Even so, I hath not returned to it in some time, and for the purpose of laying certain obstacles to rest . . . I shalt be breaking its seal today."

    In her left hand, by her side, is clutched a peculiar looking doll.
Kushiko A request such as this doesn't even make Kushiko think twice, the only concern, perhaps as it were, being /how/ to present herself. The regal huntress, the berserker Valkyr is swiftly chosen, and only the kubrow, Kiras, comes along. Ordis nor Lotus are one to speak, though in a peculiar way, given the gargantuan size, there's an.. odd feeling of 'home'. Home in a weird way, given Orokin Towers, but given the construction here of the Citadel, and the person by which they were coming to see, it was a great deal more reassuring than most.

The painting... well. That painting is familiar, yet not. She had known of something similiar owing to what has happened in Lumiere, yet she dare not comment, dare not make any kind of presumptions. No, many of those thoughts are dismissed outright, and it's a quiet sense of awe and contentment that wraps around her as she progresses inward.

Even the black and lilac furred Kubrow is amazingly peaceful here.

Her voice rises from around her, not from the faceless visage of Valkyr, but from the very essence itself. And to that end,a single diode emits a holographic panel. This too, is rare; as it is of the child, scarred around one eye, little cybernetic pieces visible if one looked closely. And a weirdly primeval-looking mist in the 'background' around her.

<"Whatever needs to be done, it will be. But... to what end is the seal going to be broken?"> She almost hates to ask this, but the sense of loyalty she holds for the halfbreed is outside the Concord-related aspects.
Captain Flint In his short time exploring the Multiverse, Flint has found himself entangled in Concord affairs a number of times. They are reliable allies, if somewhat mercenary, which is why this particular request for aid has caught the captain's interest. it's less a matter of business, more a personal concern. Having a favor owed by Priscilla, of all people, is a considerable advantage for someone looking to build a new polity from the ground up.

     The throne room is strange. The sheer size of it would imply an allowance for opulence, yet save for the throne and the painting, it's relatively barren. With a furrowed brow, Flint notes the doll clutched in Priscilla's hand. The painting is a doorway, then, and the doll a key, not unlike the many byways of Sigil.

     Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. In walks John Silver, his brow wet with sweat from the exertion now associated with walking. Where once there was a leg, now there's a crude 18th century prosthetic, helped along by a crutch which the sailor-turned-pirate seems none too keen on using. Bringing up the rear are three more crew members, one of whom is the ship's doctor.

     "Ready when you are," says Flint--both to Priscilla and to his crew.
Septette Arcubielle      Septette enters the enormous throne room with the clanking footsteps of metal-on-stone, her expression solemn and respectful despite the noise. She's dressed in a peculiar outfit, far different from her usual ragged and faintly blood-stained shawls. It's the elaborate white and purple dress given to her by Priscilla mere weeks ago, a breathtakingly well-made garment embroidered with designs reminiscent of a great tree: reminders of Etria in Lordran style.

     One gets the sense that she wears it less out of an obligation to be formal, and more out of the desire to show her appreciation for the gesture. It's a bit like wearing the sweater your grandmother gave you for Christmas, when next she comes to visit.

     There are many Elites that she recognizes, at least in passing, and a handful that she does not. Introductions, however, will wait for a less grave moment. Her expression remains placid, but acquires a more somber cast as Priscilla speaks. 'Those I knoweth cannot fail me'- that is a trust she might still hesitate to extend to Priscilla in kind, and being offered it by someone of sound judgement is humbling, in a way.

     "I can only assume," she finally says in quiet tones, "that the doll is more than a sentimental heirloom, if you carry it still." It's a statement that is simultaneously a question, though Priscilla may well answer it through demonstration rather than words. Septette tilts her head slightly to one side in anticipation of the response, whatever form it may take, and twitches one metal ear-fin.
Starbound Flotilla     The Starbound Flotilla are just such an organization. While their motives may be diverse, their reliable function as the miniboss squad for those who need them make them an easily trusted group to involve in this, and so their qualifications are quite reliable. Moving through the myriad halls and passageways of the Citadel, they assemble at Priscilla's throne chambers with a practiced ease, each in their own way.

"I'd hope for our help bein' needed, but ye pay us either way."
"If you seek those with respect for the troubles here, you have them."
"Yeah, Moonie loves paintings, and Biteblade loves life's blood."
"Is true! Agree with dumb fish, for one time. Floran, bessst at lay obssstacle to ressst. Guarantee! Esssspecially if very big meaning for fluffy friend."
"Hmmph. Zero-collateral-damage is limiting, but objectives are objectives. Rely on us and we won't let you down."
"Anxious. Oh goodness, Priscilla... I do not understand all that is going on, but I will do my best to help a place that is this important to you."

    The STARBOUND FLOTILLA are here, in their standard Durasteel equipment! Moonfin, the fishman, is in elaborate full-body durasteel armor that looks like a powered cross between a diving suit and a samurai's armor, glowing cyan at the faceplate. Biteblade, the humanoid plant, is in durasteel plating with elaborately carved wood and bone ornaments over glowing powered components that glow an intense green. Pavo the bird-girl wears a pirate-aesthetic set of mesoamerican-style armor, with yellow bands of energized fabric linking the pieces to her central piratey longcoat. Albert the monkey-man is wearing elaborate dystopian commando armor reconstructed with a 'rebel spy' aesthetic: A sleeker faceplate, a slimmer form, and a more chaotic design that integrates thin, resilient plates of durasteel, and lines of bright white. George (just plain human) wears a futuristic combat EVA hardsuit that glows a gentle red at the flat faceplate. Seft, the robotic Flotilla member, is wearing full-on medieval knight armor with a soft energized blue glow below the plates on her body, and especially around the eyes. Each has a heavy industrial-yellow two-pronged plasma-cutter-like tool strapped to their side, a Matter Manipulator.

    And of course, despite their great intent to respect Priscilla, they at least have a few high regards for many of their allies. As per the norm, Biteblade is focused on Septette, seemingly in awe of her new dress, and only barely restraining from a greeting hug. Kushiko has received one of those strong, noble nods from Moonfin that is probably meant to convey some tremendous, profound greeting. George keeps his relaxed stance close to Flint as an unspoken gesture of familiarity mixed with positive regard. Albert gives a greeting grunt to Staren, which is a whole lot more than he gives to most people. The social exchange is subtle, though. Time to focus on the painting, and Priscilla.
Tomoe There was no summons, not official ones. She had got a simple message to come here. She'd been planning to recover in light of what happened to her the day before but with Sanary's timely healing after the fact she was asked for? In such a way? It left her to be concerned and would answer it. She's going to be trying to fly where she can as otherwise she's going to be limping a bit today.

This is not about the world no it's about Priscilla someone she at least considers a friend and someone she's never forgot what she did for her in one of the darkest times of her life.

Tomoe would be fairly quick to arrive but she sees Priscilla looking at the painting, and she doesn't speak until Priscilla speaks to her only then does she reply.

"I would be a poor friend if I didn't come to help. Whatever we have to do? I'm going to stick with you to the end."

She seems to agree with Flint's sentiment about the whole situation. Septette asks a very important question, and she thinks upon it but has nothing to added. she also takes note of Kushiko and the Kubrow as well as even more people filter in such as the Captains of the Starbound Flotilla. Which just drives home how important coming today is.
Carna     This is Carna's first time seeing it. Crow's too. Enark, on the other hand, has seen a very similar, if not practically identical, painting of a scale large enough to build a bridge through it.

    While the still-recovering Lantern, body savaged by loathsome nightmare parasites that may have rendered her mute until fully healed, is here primarily out of self-interest: A desire to explore and learn, to seek and obtain power, and to perform perfunctory duties of allegiance she sees as required to retain the aid of the Concord in her own world, her recent near-loss of her journal paired with being swallowed up by a monster while in the grips of paranoia and flung into a closed space where she could not escape, could not move, could do nothing but be eaten slowly, has left her thinking a bit more about what the Concord, and those in it, mean to her beyond being a resource she can use.

    Once upon a time, she wanted to be a hero, to break free of the dark fate of a Lantern that bound her, to buck the chains of mercilessness and brutality that grips her festering heart full of Darkness and stolen Light.

    She abandoned that after sufficient exposure to the Living, and the progress she was making has backslid until she has regressed to something considerably less than she was when she met the outsiders from the Multiverse. But what now? Will she always remain that way? Will she continue hardening her heart, withdrawing into herself, obsessed with nothing more than the twin goals tearing her apart? The programmed instinct to seek out the World of Ashes, that wars with the drive to delve lower and lower, seeking out the source of the Darkness and drowning in it?

    Once upon a time, she accepted that these people who had been helping her in her world were more than allies. They were friends.

    She can't remember when she stopped seeing them that way. But she is only here now because someone cared enough to extract her from a river of corruption that they could have just as easily left her in. So, broken, shattered imitations of feelings bubbling to the surface, she has to seek again what she really is, and what she will choose to be. And the first step to that is to give back something. She will assist Priscilla, as Carna herself was assisted. What else happens because of that, is yet to be seen.

    Crow is a silent shadow, horned, with little round eyes of glassy white. No mouth mars the blackness presently, the elongated stretch of absent light simply remaining on the ground where it is cast, and observing for the moment.

    The Shadow, too, has recently been through some life-altering events that require contemplation. Maybe helping a friend is its way of avoiding those very ruminations.

    The scholar in blue robes, gifted at some point to replace his old tattered ones, turned to gray by the ages, looks solemnly upon the vast chamber, the semi-familiar painting, and hears what Priscilla has to say. He has many questions. His curiosity drives him to ask, but he resists. This is not for him. It's for her. Even so, he says, "I thank you for trusting me to aid in this... Matter. We have known you for less time than some, but I would like to think that the potential to render assistance as others have done for Lumiere is something within our--Within my power."

    Then he fidgets and can resist no longer. "Would you, perhaps, be able to share with me the name of this 'Divine Painter'?" For obvious reasons, Enark, as the last surviving follower of the Mystic Painter in Lumiere who attempted to perfectly duplicate this painting using the prophecies of another, to create the heroes who were destined to save them all, and then for unknown reasons abandoned it without setting those heroes free, might wish to know if there is any other connection between these two figures.

    Perhaps, he even wonders if they might be the same. If, when Tharmas left Lumiere, venturing of into Eternity to find a new world, he wound up here in Lordran.
Eryl Fairfax     Eryl is here, in spite of the massive conflict of interest that poses these days. Priscilla, First of the Concord, an organization dedicated to self-service at the expense of all else, including laws and morals. Eryl, Grandmaster of the Paladins, an organization dedicated to the rule of common law. Even outside of factional ties, Priscilla is a tyrant. A just one, certainly, and one whom represents most of the people of Lordran. But a singular ruler whom possesses total executive power nonetheless.

    But that she reached him over private channels says much. This is not just a job, barely even a favour or request. So he arrived, having pulled up the hood of his cloak, and his Paladin badge absent from the front of it. The ascent to the Citadel Palace is a nostalgic one; it's been a while since Eryl had walked the awe-inspiring steps of Lordran. Only once he stands before the painting does the hood come down.

    "It has remained sealed ever since the death of Gwyn, correct?" he asks. "Just short of two Terran years ago, I believe. Remind me, did you have any particular reason for sealing it, or did your new duties just sweep you away?"
Xiaomu Xiaomu does not usually consider herself somebody to be entrusted with Big Things. Sure, she's a professional kicker of monstrous asses (some more monstrous than others), and she's been Priscilla's ally since Union days. And while Xiaomu doesn't ALWAYS shirk her responsibilities (thanks in large chunks to Reiji), she's not one to seek out or volunteer for stuff that doesn't intersect with her usual interests. So getting an invitation from Priscilla to come help out ...

It gets her attention. Just the fact of *being* asked to help out counts for something.

So Xiaomu does indeed come, not exactly 'with bells on' as the saying goes, but attired much as she usually is, and equipped to similar effect. And Priscilla's solemn demeanor actually gets the sage fox to act a little more seriously than she might otherwise - looking the painting over for herself in what time she has before everyone's gathered and the meeting starts up. A few familiar faces, plenty of unfamiliar ones, she takes note of that much. The painting itself - subject of such attention from Priscilla herself - has Xiaomu studying it, a piece of her trying to pick out familiar locations from past adventures.

Just in case there are any visible.

When everyone's there ad Priscilla begins speaking, Xiaomu's attention shifts to her, and her ears perk up a bit while she listens to the introductory comments. The last work of Ariamis ... no wonder it has such a 'weight' to it, if that much of his life's effort went into it. "Like usual, I'll do the best I can to help out," the sage fox states. "I'm guessing the seal was partly to keep some of those 'obstacles' from chasing you into this world or something ... ?"
Staren     Staren's expression on seeing the painting says 'Oh, so that's where that ended up'. Her initial words give him concern... her explanation of the preciousness of the painting surprises him. He'd never really thought about it that much. After all, Iianor had a painting too and nobody made a big deal about it. He just sort of figured it was A Thing that happened in the Multiverse and was so busy dealing with everything else that he kind of forgot to look into people /literally making worlds/ with paint and magic. He also somehow missed that she'd sealed it.

    "Well..." he's a bit caught off-guard, "Whatever you need... I'm glad to help, of course. What is this about...?"
Priscilla think
    "As impressive a work as Ariamis' blood seal is, ultimately, it was only misused. Whence his painting became a place impenetrable and inscrutable to the gods, and easily forgotten for what it was by men, it became a convenient place for any and all things which one wouldst wish out of sight and out of mind . . . for good. A place from whence nothing returns, even cut off from the Bonfires of the land, where the First Flame reaches not, from which souls cannot leave." Priscilla answers several people at once, only to nod towards Eryl. "It was a matter of sensibility. It was fine as it was, to remaineth here whilst the city was empty, but after those events, I had . . . uncertainties, about leaving it within the reach of anyone else." She then trails off for a minute. "It is good to see the again. As old times." Then eventually, she wears a thin, awkward smile for Septette. "Perhaps a little of both." and to Staren: "We art about to discover such."

    Priscilla turns, and then she stays there, for quite a while. It's the first time she's shown real, true hesitation since . . . well, two years ago. Inevitably, however, just like always, with others that trust and depend upon her at her back, Priscilla finally moves, and taking the doll in both hands, touches it with all the gentleness in the world to the weathered canvas.

    The response is not gentle in kind.

    Like putting pressure onto the thinnest layer of ice over water, nothing happens, and nothing happens, until finally everything snaps all at once, and one plunges straight into those icy depths in a flailing moment of shock. The entire surface of the monolithic painting, larger than an entire home, ripples violently, as a disturbed pond. Those ripples spread out into the air of the room around it, as a kind of reverberating, sub-sonic force that makes it feel as if every bone is rattling against every other one. The light dies all at once. The sun through the window is snuffed out like a candle. The chamber fills with a deep, crackling, scraping, windy howl, all at once, it becomes the blasted center of a swirling tornado of ink-black fog and liquid clouds of monochromatic aberration.

    A force more irresistible than gravity permeates every square inch of the throne room, like space itself is draining into the painting like a hole opened in the bottom of a lake, just as dark and gurgling just as ominously already. It is simply an inevitability that, one by one, the Elites are picked up and tossed into the canvas, where they disappear in a flash of light and a ripple of distorted space, and take a long, dark, fall, and find themselves crunching face down into a thick blanket of cold snow.
Priscilla Snowy Village - <Great Painting of Ariamis> (Year AF-951)
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    A cold, dark, and very gentle place. The night sky is a royal blue blanket of stars over the heavens, without so much as the moon to be seen. The air is filled with diamond dust so fine and bright it's as if there is no distance at all between the sheets of pure white snow that embrace the earth all around, and the constellations in the sky. Despite the sheen of ice that clings to the mountain stones visibly jutting from the soft, white expanse, and fog of one's breath, the cold is not painful, or even especially uncomfortable, despite the way it deeply sinks into the bones. Snuggled in a picturesque valley between twin peaks of the same mountain, a rustic village is surrounded by forests of pine, and lit up by the winking lights of candle and hearth. Wispy trails of smoke climb high into the night sky, crystal clear enough to see the next mountain over without any scattering of the air. Just barely visible, one of the narrow, winding paths that lead from the village, makes its way back around to an impressively long wooden suspension bridge, allowing traverse over the steep valley between them, and access to a very tall and multi-layered castle keep sat atop the very summit, glowing with numerous fire lights of its own, and giving off the distant echoes of music.

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Contents
Procession Square
Statue of a Robed Woman
Unadorned Church
Late Night Forge
Frozen Lake
Large Nest
Stained Glass Mural
Priscilla     By whatever machination, they have entered this place split up and cast wide apart. While no one Elite is within a stone's throw of any other, they are very roughly grouped. Carna Enark and Crow, Kushiko and Xiaomu end up loosely scattered to the south, closest to the the periphery of a frozen lake, where a packed road crosses with trails of animal tracks and odd roadside shrines. Eryl, Flint and Silver, and Tomoe are dumped unceremoniously to the west, where the darkest edges of the forest open up to the inviting gates adjacent to what must be a main street, wide and cobble paved like a Christmas parade ground, or a scene from an illustrated fable, complete with sounds of trotting hooves and hammering iron. Staren, Septette, and the Flotilla are cast to the east, where rolling sub-hills strewn with snowy boulders intermingle into a small graveyard, out behind a surprisingly broad and well-maintained church, with a large statue at the front of it, and an extensive mural across each wall. Priscilla is nowhere to be found.
Septette Arcubielle      In one moment, Septette is taking Biteblade's hand in her own, giving it a gentle squeeze and exchanging benignly conspiratorial smiles. In the next, the room ripples and warps, and then she's a deep snow angel in the middle of a chilly graveyard, unceremoniously indented into the ground by her own heavy impact.

     For a moment or two, everything is still and silent. Then a skeletal hand and arm erupt from the snow, reaching for the sky as if freshly exhumed. A rattling, inhuman groan echoes over the rolling drifts as the fingers clench into a fist, grave-dirt mixed with snow falling from between the bony digits.

     Then Septette sits up, blinking in mild confusion, and shakes her head to clear the powdered snow from her hair. "Urrrrgh. My head. Where the hell...?"
Captain Flint The Walrus' captain pauses, getting his bearings. Turning around, he makes a quick roll call, finding both Silver and the three members of the Walrus crew to be present and accounted for.

     Silver nearly loses his footing on the snowy ground, but help from two of the crew keeps him upright. He utters a quiet word of thanks to them, surprised and perhaps a little unnerved by the gesture of support. "Well... we came through with a lot more." He glances from Eryl to Tomoe, then to Flint. "Where are the others?"

     Flint gives a noncommital shrug in response. Wherever they are, they're not here. The sound from the town nearby, though? That's interesting. Priscilla said she wasn't sure how things would turn out once they crossed over. Maybe someone in that town will have some valuable information. "I'll reconnoiter the town. Try and reach them on the radio, Priscilla especially."

     Silver nods, and begins trying to raise the other Elites on the radio.
Kushiko Brief as the projection of her true self was, there was a moment where she too, would actually return the favor of the nod given by Moonfin, the almost eerie look of the Warframe's head bowing at the same time the child's head bobs. Or maybe not that eerie. It's clear she's not in there, but that's always been the way, hasn't it?

As others here arrive, eventually does the projection of light blip out.

After all, there was a bit more to focus on. Like not only what the others who arrive here have to say, but the next acts... including well, going into the painting itself? That was incredibly, similarly familiar to the analogue in Lumiere, and even the Warframe itself seems to shiver on the way through, though braced as she against the whole, /picked up and yanked through/ element, where she lands, well.

At the very least, the premise of a cat landing on her feet carries through, and the lean, felinoid Warframe keeps herself from going to her knees or flat on her ass. Kiras isn't as lucky, the kubrow howling in surprise once before shaking himself off and bolting for her master. The frozen lake is briefly considered, before she looks to where Carna, Enark and Crow have landed, followed by Xiaomu as she calls out, <"Carna! Enark! Crow! Xiaomu!"> and trudging over towards them, but shaking her head a little bit before simply sprinting and launching herself horizontally through the air to regroup with them.

This was... not a very good time, no. <"... where are the others? Where's Priscilla?"> she wonders suddenly.
Staren     Staren notices the strange sensation of not moving as he's clearly being sucked into the painting, but doesn't have time to do anymore than think it strange...

    And they end up all separated from eachother. "Okay, THAT wasn't normal, I think..." He pokes at the snow on one of the boulders as if confirming that it's there and affected by his touch. "Have you never been here before?" Staren comments to Sept, thinking back. "I suppose not. This is, or was, Priscilla's home." After looking around, he too comes to the idea of looking for the others, and starts sending up drones in automated scouting patterns.
Eryl Fairfax     In response to Priscilla's comment, Eryl can only offer a tight smile and soft exhalation through the nose. Not quite a sigh, but an expression of... something. Maybe even he doesn't know. He watches with quiet apprehension as Priscilla touches the doll to the canvas. Maybe it will be fine, maybe...

    The world ripples like disturbed water as the still image seems to reject the doll. A force tugs on him, and he immediately tries to drop low and widen his centre of gravity to counteract it. But the Painted World will not be denied. He slips, and falls in.

    The snow under him crunches heavily as he rolls over, blowing some of it from his mouth and nose. On no other day has he privately thanked the firmware update the Commonwealth made for him more than today. On the old system, an occurrence like that would have put him out of it for half a minute. "Sound off!" he calls as he rises, scanning his immediate surroundings to spy Tomoe, Flint and Silver. "Likely elsewhere. We'll have to find them."

    "We seem to be inside. I only ever say the bonfire by the bridge though..." He cocks his head, listening to the stomp of hooves and the clang of metal on metal. "I'll see who is making that hammering sound. Stay in touch, and be careful. This place seems less peaceful and kind than Queen Priscilla once claimed."

    He strides through the village, hunting the source of the sound. Someone has to be making it, right?
Xiaomu As Priscilla sets to work on breaking the seal, Xiaomu gets a good grip on her staff and steps up next to her.

.... and ... nothing really happens for a lengthy moment, long enough for the sage fox to start relaxing her guard again. "This is supposed to work, ri--"

Then it works, and she lets out a shrill yelp as she gets yanked through along with everyone else. For all that Xiaomu doesn't LOOK like she's dressed for wintry weather, the cold and snow are less of a problem for her when she isn't burying her face in a snowdrift.

Guess where she winds up. At least it breaks her fall a little more comfortably than the ice itself would have, or the rocky ground for that matter. She gives gravity a few seconds to make sure it's settled in a single direction, then starts getting back to her feet, brushing snow off her face and chest, and out of her ears and hair and tails. "Right," she comments to nobody in particular. "I forgot that this world doesn't like things to go smoothly unless you earn it ..." She finishes brushing snow off of herself, and looks around, ears flicking as she tries to listen for hints of where her allies are.

... 'allies' might be a bit of a stretch in Carna's case, since she and Xiaomu have barely crossed paths before. The Tenno is somewhat more familiar, though, and with Kushiko calling out, Xiaomu replies with a simple, "Ooooiiiiiiiiiii!!!!" and smacks her staff's butt on the ground three times, each strike eliciting a loud, clear jingle from the rings hanging from its headpiece.
Starbound Flotilla "Uhhhh, sea's gettin' a little stormy there. Is it supposed to...?"
"Squad! Hooks down!"
"These aren't gonna hold! I've seen stuff like this, we gotta kill the gravity from the inside!"
"Take care! Little holds such danger and attraction as elegance!"
"Panicked. Everyone hold on to each other...!!"
"Floran hold ssskeleton friend!"

    The first thing Staren finds is six familiar signatures. The Starbound Flotilla are thankfully kept together. Mostly by virtue of being coordinated enough to all grab onto each other fast enough, and also hold onto Biteblade, who grasped Septette's hand strongly. They pop up out of the thick snow like small woodland creatures emerging from the ground. They sound off their proximity to each other, and note Septette herself, though calls for Priscilla seem unanswered.

"Flotilla. Sound off."
"Alive. Such engaging artistic elegance."
"Aye. Feel like we've washed ashore the wrong way."
"Reporting. Alive, it seems. We need to find out if something went wrong, and to make sure Priscilla is safe!"
"Phwuh! Floran alive! Sssnowy too. Held onto ssskeleton friend! Hey, ssskeleton friend!"
"That was a hell of a thing. Proper gravitational anomaly. Good thing it wasn't a lethal brand."

    They all reassemble, and gather around Staren and Septette. "Worried. I would rather not spend a terribly great amount of time in a graveyard..." Seft synthesizes softly, before looking around. "Pondering. The others aren't here. We should... Maybe it would be a good idea to enter the church. I could try to set up a scanning apparatus on the upper floors, and its good condition might tell us a little bit about the broader conditions of this place?"

    Moonfin is the one who begins heading there first, and the others follow. "Perhaps someone therein could offer us guidance. Those who devote themselves to a god do so with great strength, and are most often the ones who stay when all others may leave. I should examine the elegance of this region." And that's the plan; get everyone over there, check out that statue and those murals and such, and get inside, hopefully to upper floors, where Seft might get up into a belltower or something, and set up a local scanner to search for objective markers.
Tomoe Tomoe finds out some new things about the painting that she did not know, she listens intently trying to make note of it as it could be very important in the future. She wait though as the tale is laid out. She nods to Staren and Priscilla for a moment before she takes note of Priscilla hesitating. She does not expect to go flying yet she does as she like everyone else will end up in the painting. She ends up face frown in the snow, spurting as she comes too.

"Well that was a trip and a half."

She looks around as she gets up to see if everyone is all right.

As she rises she sees Captain Flint. 5R
"I do not know Captain."

She gives a look to Eryl for a moment and tilts her head a little bit.

"Eryl, do you have any ideas what we should do?"

Tomoe will check to see if the light here counts as proper light, if it does she'll be able to fly, if not she's ground bound like everyone else.

She sees Flint's men are on the job trying to raise the others and she's going to take a good look around to get herself situated.
Septette Arcubielle      If there's one thing Staren can take comfort in, it's the fact that Septette can't really be as disoriented as she acts. If she thinks that there's time to drop her inhuman poise and play-act at being easily bewildered, that implies that she doesn't feel threatened by their immediate surroundings. Staren's drones will likely soon reveal whether that assumption of hers is justified, but for now, she makes a show of fussing over her clothes and magically sublimating the snow that's gotten all in the nooks and crannies of her mechanical frame.

     "I've never been here," she replies after spitting some snow out of her mouth, "but I know bits and pieces of the story second-hand. We've had one or two opportunities to talk... Either she's taken a shine to me to invite me to such an occasion after that short acquaintance, or this is part of some overarching plan to ditch me in a snowbank."

     A wry smile crosses her face as she pokes Biteblade on the shoulder, glancing over her and the rest of the Flotilla for obvious injuries and finding none. "But the presence of the rest of you here makes that particular alternative significantly less likely. The church sounds like a superb place to start- but please, allow me to take point. We don't know what we might find out here."

     Her claw-like feet sink deep into the snow, slowing her brisk steps a bit, but she still seems intent on keeping ahead of her teammates here as they circle around to the front of the church. Once there- assuming no townsfolk appear to stop them- she'll test the door, looking hopeful that it's been left unlocked.
Carna     "Oh, Ariamis is the name of... I see." It sounds SORT of like 'Tharmas' but it was probably too much to hope for that there might be clues to the location of that so-knowledgeable Silent Lord here in another world. Such thoughts fly from Enark's mind when the paitning 'activates' however. It is very different from the experience with the one in the Grand Gallery. There they had been drawn inwards, but not pressed down upon, and certainly not scattered.

    Any introspection that Carna may have been having is likewise gone as survival mode kicks in. She is immediately crouched and scanning for threats, handcrossbow ready, red eyes glinting with the reflection of a frozen lake in the distance. That Enark and Crow remain nearby, as well as one of Kushiko's frames and someone who was just in the room with them before, she at least semi-relaxes with the knowledge she is still surrounded by allies. But strange space warping effects in foreign locales is not comfort-inducing.

    Crow seems to have little reaction except to coil around Enark's body protectively.

    Enark calls back to Xiaomu as she approaches, "I know not! And given her propensity for vanishing, even if she were nearby, I would scarcely be able to locate her if she chose not to reveal herself!"

    Carna uses her free hand to withdraw a wax skull through whispers hiss. Ah, yes. Radio. Instead of wanderin aimlessly, they should just coordinate with each other. Good idea, throatless undead lady!

    When Xiaomu approaches, despite that her remark about this world was uttered before she came over to join the group, Crow comments on it while looking this way and that. "Its nature is similar, then, to Lumiere. Yet different. Rather than encouraging effort for the sake of accomplishent, our world forces hard paths to destroy hope."

    Enark, startled away from waving to the Tenno and the fox girl looks towards Crow. "What?"

    "Nuthin'." Crow says dismissively. "I'm going to get a better look. One of youse guys (or gals) Aye-Em the others, kay?" Eyes glowing a pale yellow, like light off the moon, shining off of gold-inlaid armor, Crow stretches itself up as far as available light sources will permit a shadow to extend, and then produces more of those gleaming eyes all over itself so that it can look in every direction at once, trying to see if any others of their allies are visible.
Priscilla ~~EAST~~

    Staren's cautious poking finds that the snow definitely is snow, as much as the rock underneath definitely is rock. Unlike the morbidly bastardized version some people have seen, everything hear appears to be as real as it gets; or at least totally indistinguishable from the real thing. There aren't any screwy physics or elemental paint molecules making everything up.

    Odd that the radio doesn't reach outside, then. Wherever outside is. They're already outdoors.

    A graveyard might be a bit of a dark, if fitting, place for Septette to end up, but there's nothing amiss about it. The number of markers indicates it hasn't been around for very long, but the amount of empty space in the uncleared fields beyond means that it might be expected to. Rather than little angels and crosses, what little imagery there is appears to be centered around birds and dragons.

    Entering into the church, the Flotilla find it probably the nicest bit of architecture around; that isn't to say that the buildings a little further away are shabby by any means, but to the eyes of an architect, the surfaces here have been clearly sanded and polished to the point the bricks are barely visible, and great care has gone into the vaults and arches that are the closest approximation one could get to the style of the room they were in not long ago with very basic tools.

    It's not a very tall building, but fairly wide, with many rows of pews to seat a great number of people, meaning that it's probably the only church in town. There are ladders that lead up to a wooden balcony that rings the entire main floor, and doors from there that must enter a smaller, second storey, likely where the clergy sleeps and supplies are kept, but then little more than a short bell tower beyond that. What faith the people worship here is difficult to discern. Here and there are inconspicuous marks reminiscent of Gwyn's chosen royal symbols, with the lion, wolf, hawk and hornet present in various etchings and woven into coats of arms, but the main altar appears to be swept clear of any paraphernalia for the time being, with anything that would give answers now in storage, and the bronze sculptures that surround it are of a crow, a dragon, and a female figure, each bearing a spear. The place appears to be empty, which means today must be an important, non-religious day.

    Setting up a scanner on the tower isn't terribly difficult, though Staren's drones circling around the area would immediately notice the bell itself is almost a carbon copy of the Bells of Awakening they had found above and beneath the Burg long before, in pristine condition. Considering the time period, though, there isn't a lot to find. The village overview indicates it must be a few hundred people at most, and so the most important points appear to be that any farmland within view looks token at best, that a number of connecting paths seem to disappear into the woods all around, that traces of other settlements of equally tiny size can be picked out on the dark horizon, and that the temperature reads 30 below, even though it doesn't actually feel all that bad. Most of the village's population, represented on thermal, appears to be congregating for some reason.
Priscilla ~~SOUTH~~

    Kushiko and the Lumiere gang will be able to find Xiaomu and each other pretty easily. The snow is deep, but not obnoxiously so, and clearly packed down into quasi-ice where people have clearly been going for water. A tiny cairn-like thing is especially prominent by the side of the road, glued together with frost, in an oddly humanoid, top-heavy shape (barely sacred at all, by Xiaomu's examination). The lake itself isn't especially large either, though it could almost be called a very large pond for what little evidence remains of a river in this winter.

    Crow's eyes piercing into the night will be able to pick out some of the others, but at considerable distance; little more than shadowy blips that are largely only visible because of their white backdrop. There is plentiful evidence of other creatures as well. Aside from the prints of what are obviously iron-shod hooves, there are a very large number of prints belonging to wolves and rabbits, and a very, very large single set belonging to some kind of bird of abnormal size. Peering around, he'll find that they sort of vanish once they get to the trees, which would be comically close to human civilization for real animals to want to live in. Still, there are a number of pines that appear to have been twisted and tangled together near the top, and whose boughs now support some kind of massive nest of dried bristles and twigs, likely from last year.

    Any other signs of human movement beyond the perimeter of the village is especially scarce. There isn't even so much as a strategic well anywhere. It's as if no one has gone anywhere but the paths in at least a week. It has to be, considering how think, even, and not at all recent the snowfall is.
Septette Arcubielle      Despite her eagerness to get into the church, a truly daunting obstacle prevents Septette from aiding with setting up the observation equipment.

     Rickety wooden ladders.

     If she were to try ascending to the second story, it would immediately give way; she might even punch through the stone floor on her way down! She wisely chooses discretion over an embarrassing fall, and simply examines the murals and religious paraphernalia on the ground floor while Staren and the Flotilla do their work. When their sensors return valuable thermal data, however, it doesn't take long for her to turn on her heel and head back out the front door!

     "Lots of people congregated in one spot indicates something of great significance. Any 'obstacles' or 'exits' are likely to also be things of great significance, so there's no reason not to check it out," she calls back to her allies. "Worst-case scenario, they're gathering over nothing but we find some villagers to get answers from. If there's no further work you'd like to do in the church, I'd enjoy your company."
Staren     Staren didn't even come inside, he's monitoring the drone feeds. As Septette decides to go check out the locals, he follows. Her logic is sound.
Kushiko Well, that's one way to be found, she muses of Xiaomu. Calling out as she herself did, with her voice carrying in that peculiar presence-less fashion, it didn't take too long to reunite--so to speak--with her and Carna, Enark and Crow. The lack of Priscilla, combined with what she's hearing over the local frequency annnd... yeah, the Lotus trying to communicate with the others here being roundedly /fucked/ is troubling.

Crunches of snow not withstanding, she considers their options as Crow's able to discern them. And their options are somewhat limited aren't they? <"We could go for the village, but I kind of would like to investigate here further,"> the Warframe admits, unhooking her shotgun in the meantime just in case. Something feels very off about this situation.
Carna     As Enark converses on the radio, Crow descends from its elongated height and squashes itself back down into a sort of draping black cloak that hangs weightlessly on the scholar's frame. Crow then reports what it saw, the tracks that indicate a lot of traffic, though little of it off the paths, and even less of it resembling humans. "Maybe some horses were rode through here. I see hoof marks. I also see wolves, rabbits, very large birds, churches, small rocks, witches, very small rocks, and a giant nest over on top of those trees, and also some of our buddies in the distance but they're, like, too far away to get to easily. I could go to them, but I can't guarantee I'd have shadows to jump to the whole way. Also four of those things I said I saw I didn't actually see."

    Carna gesticulates to Crow, who seems to understand. "Right, right. The things I saw are... Thataway." The Shadow turns itself into a sign post, arrows extending out from its silhouette in different compass directions, writing made out of eyes and mouths substituting for letters to indicate the direct of the woods and the nest, the town, and so forth.
Starbound Flotilla "Such elegance in the construction."
"Yeah, yeah, keep it in your eyeballs, Moonie."
"Ye think there's a collection basket around here?"
"Tense. Shut up, Pavo. Let's focus on making sure Priscilla is safe."
"Mhm. Prioritize objective. No damage, maximize speed."
"But where isss all PEOPLE! Floran sssaw fire! Sssmoke!"

    Seft heads up to set up the scanner, and soon finds the congregation on thermal scanning when she gets it activated in the belltower. The rest stay downstairs with Septette, reporting the data to her as they go about their many scans of local construction. And when she heads out, the logic seems sound to them to; they wait just long enough for Seft to pack back up, descend the tower on her grappling hook, and then set right back off after Septette. "Urgent. Goodness, wait--" Bzzt. "Correcting. No, you're right, we should find Priscilla with utmost speed." The cluster of minibosses jog to catch back up, intending to head right on over towards the congregation and start mashing the interact button on anyone that looks like they can get a chat.
Priscilla ~~WEST~~

    Tomoe finds that the light here serves perfectly well for her wings. As good as full daylight, in fact. This is odd, considering the definite lack of a real moon. That's even more odd, considering how easy it is to see. Everything almost sort of glows as if lit by something ambient to the air, softly illuminated by the shades of a brush that don't have to make perfect sense, but definitely look beautiful. Maybe the stars are just incredibly bright. From the air, she can discern much the same as the other scouts, including that the village itself is looking distinctly underpopulated for the night. Gaining extra height, however, she can begin to see into the valley that separates the mountains, and get the general idea that this village is one of many that form a mountainous 'ring' around a central peak, separated from the others by at least a mile of very steep drop. Despite its unrealistic sheerness, however, there appears to be nothing more offensive than a still-flowing river and falls down there, and a greener, less frozen boreal forest.

    Eryl is more or less free to waltz right in. 'Quaint', would describe the sights best. The buildings are clearly hand-made by masons without big city formal training, but they look cozy, and there seems to be plenty of firewood to go around. The layout is not planned at all, but easy to navigate. The streets are warmed by the ambient heat of so many homes, and so the snow and frost are much more sparse, and the paths easy to walk. Wooden arches and posts are frequent appearances, most hung with small bells, tapestries, and likely festive garlands, like late-hung Christmas decorations. Most of the streets are completely empty, and so he runs into Flint swiftly enough, who, if he feels like peeking through windows, will see that most of them are being housewatched by elders or parents with sleeping children.

    The hammering, predictably, comes from a forge. A small, local one. Much like everywhere else, there is only a skeleton crew of one still around. The apprentices are probably off where everyone else is, which makes it all the more impressive that he's managed to keep such a furnace stack going by himself, considering the heat it practically blistering the moment one steps inside. The more jarring detail, however, is that Eryl will recognize the man. Unusually tall, exceptionally barrel-chested, with arms like tree stumps acquired elbows, and a sooty beard almost to the end of his ribs, there's no mistaking him for anything but the spitting image of Andre. Accent and all, apparently, as he looks up from his work.

    "Decided to stop by, Eh? Now what could ye' possibly want on a night like this? I was 'oping to catch up on some old favours, so I'm not taking new ones ye' hear? 'least not until tomorrow. Why don't ye' go back to bed?"
Xiaomu "Probably not gonna be able to tell from a passing glance what's important and what isn't," Xiaomu notes to her companions - normally allies or not, they're all in thsi together *now*, and as long as nobody tries to collect her pelt, she's not gonna worry too much about their individual intentions. "So yeah, checking out everything, at least in passing, and keeping stuff in mind that might turn out to be more important later on or further in."

That cairn-like structure definitely seems relevant to something, though, and Xiaomu - having noticed it while she was signaling so the others could find her - takes a moment to look it over more closely. It's probably just a landmark to help people locate the lake in less-than-convenient weather (assuming it's ever anything *but* snowy around here); given the ice which helps hold the stones in their arranged shape, she wonders if this land ever even knows spring.

Crow's mention of animal tracks seems important as well, maybe even moreso than the human-made signs of somebody beign here. "Wild animals getting this close to regular human activity ..." The Chinese foxgirl purses her lips for a moment. "Horses would be used to people. Wolves, rabbits ... wait a sec." She looks right at Crow, "Any sign of the wolves' prints chasing any of the other animals?"
Captain Flint Flint radios back to Silver. "All clear," he says. "Seems normal, save perhaps the scarce population. Any word on the others?"

     Back on the outskirts of town, Silver runs a hand through dark, wavy hair, leaning on his crutch for support. "Everyone but Priscilla," he replies with a frown.

     "Of course. The 'obstacle' or something related, I'd wager." A short, terse sigh from the captain. "Let's regroup in town. Follow the sound of the hammering."

     Flint does, in fact, take some time to look into windows, and the scene is fairly reminiscent of evening London at Christmas. There are... complex emotions drudged up by that comparison. Rather than risk thinking of a happier time, turns his back on the windows with a determined scowl. He follows Eryl, but rather than get any closer to Andre, he waits outside, eavesdropping.

     He's just waiting for his crew, honest.
Eryl Fairfax     The quaint little streets irritate Eryl a little. After a century of open plains of dirt, followed by living mostly in tidy Commonwealth cities lately, the winding streets make finding his target difficult. He has to stop at every fork and listen closely for the echo, making sure he's not going to find himself at a dead end.

    But eventually, he arrives. The blazing heat counters the chill of the outdoors as he strides into the forge. For a single man to keep it that hot while also hammering at something is a feat indeed. It would take a very skilled blacksmith... a very familiar skilled blacksmith. The gray beard, the chest like rock, arms like pythons.

    "You are... Andre, correct?" is the first thing Eryl asks. It could be a relative of some kind. "Worry not, I am not here to make a request. I find myself lost here. This is the Painted World of Ariamis, is it not?"

    Meawhile, Original Face is firing on all cylinders, trying to figure out what has happened. The castle he saw during his first visit was in ruins, but this village is in good condition. Indeed, he saw nowhere like this anywhere before. Unfortunately, all he gets is;

INCONCLUSIVE. NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION.
Priscilla ~~EAST~~

    Septette's examinations of the murals reveals largely cryptic information. Many of them are like what one would find in Anor Londo, save, it seems, without any historical specificity. Right alongside them are depictions of ominous figures in hooded cloaks, of snakes and crows, and of human figures immersed in flames, though seemingly coming out(?) of them, instead of being cast down.

    There seems to be no foil to any of it, as if the Renaissance and dark Gothic motifs are one and the same. In fact, they often blend together in places, with skeletal creatures standing amidst royals and gods. Otherwise, all that's notable is how weird the dragon iconography looks up close. Stereotypical at a casual glance, she quickly finds that any and all depictions bear at least twice the normal number of wings, blank or no eyes, varying degrees of spinal fur, and those with open maws display a second set of interior jaws behind the first.

    It's a fair hike from the church to where the thermals lead them, however. Going through many similar streets, the Flotilla and Staren will get the idea that today is some kind of holiday, of the unofficial but locally recognized kind, like St. Patrick's day rather than Christmas. What they find appears to be a gathering of townspeople coming back from somewhere else, converging from many of the narrow wilderness paths into a sort of natural plaza that half bleeds into the town square, lit as much by iron lanterns hung for safety and guidance as it is by the more fanciful, permanent fixtures of the town.

    For this rustic kind of place, they appear to be dressed in what approximates 'Sunday best'. Warm furs seem to be a constant, but otherwise they've chosen to dress in many layers of colourful cloaks, dresses, gowns, breeches, tunics, and such like that, more suitable for a winter church ball than a new years party or similar. Several of them are holding the reigns of horses, but most appear to have gone on foot, carrying their own lamps starting to run low on oil, but hanging around to talk excitedly with one another anyways. Half-empty bottles and small gifts are a common sight. Judging by the tone of their conversation, at least three dozen people all know each other very well, in that small town kind of way. A significant number of children in parkas and mittens are looking sleepy and clinging to their parents' hands.

    To say that the Elites get some weird looks is almost an understatement. These pretty ordinary people look very offput at the robots and fish/plant/animal people they now have in their midst. It would seem like their reaction might be hostile or shocked, save for that they appear to have very little concept of threat; like 'dangerous strangers' isn't really a thing they're familiar with. It takes a while before they run into who is very obviously the priest they had been missing, looking slightly tipsy in a rose-cheeked kind of way, which makes for a good 'community representative with low inhibitions at the moment'.

    "Ah ah hold up one moment! Can I help one of you? Many of you? I'm afraid you're a little late to see the castle, but please, if you need help, or perhaps a place to stay, you had need only ask! It's our way here, you see, to accept all those who come here with open hearts, in search of a gentler place. Wherever you um . . . might be from."
Tomoe Tomoe says "Didn't think I'd be working with you again Eryl, but it's good to be."

She finds that for once she can fly, here and will make use of it he bright red wings flare out from her back and she takes a moment to flex them before she'll hover off the ground and take off to get a look around. She'll keep alert as she doesn't know if there might be flying things around here who wont take kindly to her.

She takes in the sights it is really pretty she has to admit and she'd take time to linger and enjoy them. She does not have the time though.

She takes notice of the village and the forest which she finds interesting as it could be a place to check out or at the very least she will aid to give her allies some air scouting.

It is not long though before she moves to come in for a landing to join, Silver, Flint and Eyrl though it's going to take her a moment to come in for a landing at least when she does? Tomoe does not make too big of a show of it and banishes her wings shortly after landing. She will though let Eryl do the talking as she gives a wordless greeting.
Priscilla ~~SOUTH~~

    Xiaomu examines the roadside 'shrine'. Close to her assumption, it appears it's been frozen together like that for quite a while. It's pretty likely that it /never/ climbs above freezing for months at a time here, though, expert on ice that she is, it's clearly been melted and re-frozen several times, so it must at least bounce up and down throughout the year.

    A little more importantly, the earth around it looks like people have buried a number of . . . offerings? It seems odd to dig them into the ground. If someone decides to go digging at the hard, cold soil, they'll find no pattern to them. Everything from flowers to old pictures to tools to entire fat pouches of coins or even jewelery have been left behind, practically like someone was trying to hide evidence more than pay respects. In fact, there are a number of arrangements like these along the road from the lake, all with identically nonsensical 'offerings', up to and including an entire sword. All the stones are in different shapes, so there's no consistently depicted image of a divinity or something, but traces of divine energy /do/ linger. The oldest isn't even made out of rocks, but an especially crude collection of fur, snake skin, and a wooden doll that . . .

    Okay, it looks like a /really/ clumsy attempt at depicting a fur-robed figure with a tail. That's not incredibly cryptic.

    Oddly, none of the tracks show any particular signs of hunting. Either the animals rarely run into each other, or they all came this way days apart from one another. Horses are the only consistent traffic. It takes some doing to find wolf tracks that are easily as large as the absurd avian talon marks as well. Why would there be megafauna up on a mountain?
Staren     Staren looks at the man a moment. This is all very strange, but they seem harmless. "We're just visiting, however impossible that sounds. We're friends of Priscilla... What do you mean about 'too late to see the Castle'? What's going on today?"
Priscilla ~~WEST~~

    Tomoe doing further scouting doesn't run into anything in the air, but not for lack of anything that could fly. For some reason or another, every owl, song bird, falcon, and especially crow, she can spot, are all perched in their trees and rafter nooks as if it were a communal agreement not to go out tonight. Avian eyes glint at her from every direction, watching the cut of her ruby red wings. It doesn't take the vision of an eagle to spot the outstanding one in the distance. A small mountain of black feathers hunched against the mountain air, bigger than she is by far, like some misunderstood villain of a talking animal book. She can certainly feel something uncanny by the way it watches her, even if its eyes are little more than yellow dots in the far background.

    There isn't really anyone to spot Flint loitering around, nor does there seem to be much of an aura of suspicion necessary for anyone to look out their windows. In fact, nobody seems to have locks on their own doors or windows. He has free run to spy on anyone he feels like. Andre certainly doesn't seem to notice, as he looks up at Eryl without so much as a hint of recognition in his steely eyes.

    "Aye, that'd be me." he acknowledges, his voice as charmingly gravely as always. "The local smiths all wanted to go to the castle y'see, so they needed someone t'fill in for all the work they weren't doin' today. I owed them a few, so I came down and took the job. I spend all my time o'er there anyways. Made sure to give the little missus my gift early I did. How can I help ye'? If you somehow stumbled in 'ere by accident, it's going to be tomorrow at the soonest before someone can show ye' the door."
Septette Arcubielle      That these people lack any instinctive sense of danger is fortunate. Septette's present dress does little to hide her blatantly weaponized form, instead playing off and accentuating it in some attempt at aesthetic appeal over concealment. Her demeanor, however, should do something to disarm what little wariness they have: she's all smiles and bright eyes, going so far as to kneel down and shake the hand of one of the braver children to approach.

     The priest, in particular, she hastens to greet with as much synthetic charm as she can exude. "Ah! Just the pillar of the community we're looking for. We're looking for a friend of ours who may have recently become lost around here- someone by the name of Priscilla, fairly tall, all white furs and fluffiness. You wouldn't happen to have seen her, would you?"
Starbound Flotilla     "Ahh, I think we are putting them into a strange predicament in how to react. Please, allow me." Moonfin asides to his allies, and then approaches the man. He gives a deep bow, with plenty of ostentatious Hylotl gesturing to go along with it. "Thank you for the warm welcome on this cold night, I hope the evening finds you well. I am Haruto, Moonfin of the Hylotl. We have come here seeking a friend of ours, one who we think has found her way here through strange and magical events. Your hospitality is much appreciated, and we may yet partake of it should the need arise." He doesn't go straight into "none of this is real you're a painting give me back my faction owner" for very obvious reasons, but mostly because he likes hearing the sound of his own voice. "Quite tall, often favoring white furs, white hair, perhaps you have seen her? 'Priscilla'?"

    "Worried. I am not sure what drew her here, but we think it might be something powerful, and we need to speak with her if you know where she is." Seft speaks up, robotically fidgeting in her armor. "Nervous. It will allow us to return home as well, at least perhaps more quickly than the alternative routes." She's a little more overt, but still, treating people here with respect. "Kind. Though, if I'm honest, whatever celebration you're having here seems so interesting and fun, I might not try to hurry home so quickly. This village seems quite wonderful." And then she flickers a weird expression. "Awkward. That is, if business permits and if it won't be an imposition!!" She says, doing short almost flailing sort of social gesture.
Carna     Carna is less concerned about everything else people are saying and doing and more about salvaging useful things. It's habit. So she is inspecting the shrine, prodding at the ground, and ransacking anything that seems useful from among the offerings while others discuss courses of action.

    "I only know what I read about tracks and animals in the Library, lady." Crow responds to Xiaomu. "But it doesn't look like they're hunting each other, or at least not very often. Let me check." Crow stretches more of itself over to look at the tracks again, rapidly examining and comparing tracks with dozens of gleaming circular eyes, and then 'snapping' back soundlessly. "Yeh, there's even giant wolf tracks. I suspect we're gonna' be running into some major mojo domo arigatou beasties out here at some point.--Hey, whoah! Is that an Entire Sword?" the Shadow remarks as Carna digs the weapon up.

    "You should definitely take that and the Priss-zilla doll too. It's probably a Key Item." =:O

    Carna, still throatless for the moment, just gives Crow a dirty look as though the Shadow were disrupting the mood with its excitability, and then dutifully salvages both the sword and the doll, alongside everything else being shoved into the assortments of sacks and satchels on her person.

    Enark looks to Kushiko and says, "While there may be things in the vicinity that yield clues, as Lady Carna has just uncovered, I also think perhaps staying here for too long might not be in our best interests. Cold as it may be, this looks like a high traffic area, and if we are to face enormous beasts, I feel we should secure some form of fortified location to defend ourselves within."

    Enark also walks over to the statue to squint at it. Hmmm... A top-heavy humanoid statue. He has been seeing a lot of these lately. He tries to sense anything from it, but he is a wizard, not a priest, and as much as a Blue Scholar's role might overlap with such, and he possesses no special senses. Just wits. "Does this at all resemble the statues from Lumiere and the Lordran outside the painting to anyone else?"

    Crow's eyes, down to just two again and gleaming gold once more, fall upon the statue. "Semblance indicates a link, tho' essence speaks of scarce sanctity. Traces of the divine, echoes of power faded and glory lost. Divinity touched here, but hath been rubbed off as surely as melting snow." The glittering circles like full moons turn crescent shaped, though the curve is upwards rather than horizontal, as though squinting. "Some presence still lingers on the other monuments, even if form is lacking. It might be harvested, though to what end? Let us not linger over long."

    Enark and Carna stare as the divine power leaking out of Crow, infused into its very voice, makes any attempt on their parts to discern any divine energy in the monuments or statue rather fruitless. Xiaomu is the specialist in this sort of thing, so she's probably the one to give specifics.

    "Crow, are you...?" Enark begins to ask, but the Shadow is already distracted again, horn-nubbins listening for signs of wolves or other dangers.
Captain Flint Flint pulls his long coat over the pistol at his hip just as his crew arrives. The cobblestone road poses a challenge for Silver, it seems, who must take each step with carefully measured consideration or risk a fall. Once they regroup, Flint makes a 'hush' sort of motion with his hand as Andre mentions a castle.

     It seems as though there's some sort of celebration in town. Decorations abound, the local smiths taking the day off... and mention of a present being given to a person of note, with an implication of social expectation. One such person comes to mind--Priscilla, perhaps? It'd be reasonable to assume a certain station attached to her name, especially given her own thoughts on the painting.

     Of course, one can't be too certain. It's been some time, by her own admission, since she last entered the painting. It'd be unfortunate if the mention of her name were, in fact, a faux pas. So, stepping out from behind the support beam, he poses a question directly to Andre.

     "That won't be a problem," says Flint. Behind him, his crew whisper among themselves with equal parts concern and umbrage--is he really in no hurry to get out, or does he know something they don't? He ignores the embittered muttering while Silver does his best to quiet it. "We're travelers, of a sort."

     The captain's eyes linger on the smith's anvil. "It seems as though your town's in the midst of a celebration." With a smile as warm as the embers of the average hearth in this wintertime burg, he poses a question. "Might I ask in whose honor?" And then, thinking upon his own question, he appends an inoffensive condition: "If it wouldn't distract overmuch from your work, of course."
Eryl Fairfax     Andre really does sound the exact same. That makes it hard to place exactly where this is in his life. Eryl's eyes take in the man, comparing him to the lst image of him in his memory banks. Hunting for any absent scars or old wounds, comparing the colour of his beard, anything to better understand if he is younger or older than the one he had met.

    And though he is taciturn as ever, there are two key phrases in his statement that Original Face clamps down on like a vice. Comparing it with recent experiences, a theory begins to assemble like puzzle pieces falling from a box into a completed configuration.

THE CASTLE

LITTLE MISS

PRISCILLA ABSENT FROM RADIO, NOT WITH ANY OF THE OTHERS

A NON-RUINED PAINTED WORLD

    With a theory in mind, he smiles to the blacksmith, just as Flint walks in. "I am just a wanderer who came here by mistake. Thank you for your advice. I'll be out of your hair now. Good forging to you." He turns on his heels and departs, not even letting Andre get a word in edgewise. The less time he has to remember Eryl, the better. The Commonwealth has laws about this kind of thing.

    On his way out, he spots Flint and nods to him. Immediately catching what he's really asking for, but he doesn't slow his stride. He makes immediately for the castle. If his hunch is true, Lordran-and everyone who came here with him-may suffer.
Xiaomu Xiaomu sees no particular need to go digging around to investigate the offerings; if anyone else in her group really wants to, she'll let them - she's a little curious - but trying to study other offerings which were deliberately buried is kind of rude to the god, however low-level he, she, or it may be. It's like rooting around in somebody's porn folders, except even more intimate, or maybe akin to datamining a game to find out what an enemy's drop tables are like.

Ultimately, her theory about the 'cairn' is as follows: "My guess would be that it's 'sacred' because of concerted and fairly-deliberate mortal effort. Remember how souls work in this world - it wouldn't surprise me a lot if human activity invested the statue with its religious meaning, particularly given it's marking one reliable source of presumably-clean water."

There is, however, almost no such reason for the animal tracks to almost not interact at all ... sure, it could just be that they're never in the same place at the same time, but what *are* the odds of that?

"Anyway, yeah - not lingering sounds like a good plan," she agrees with Crow, endeavoring to treat his actions and speech like they're not a particularly big deal. Enark's question isn't a bad one, though, and Xiaomu takes a moment to look at the statue with that question in mind ...
Tomoe Tomoe does notices all the native flyers do not want to get out and about it's odd, like they know something she does not. She thinks about that other bird she saw and she's off again to take interest in it she'll trust things to Eryl. She will return and head towards the strange bird she saw earlier hoping it's still there she'll hover there with her wings at a hopefully non-threatening distance from it.

"Hello? I'm Tomoe..."

She attempts to speak maybe there's more to it than it just being a big bird. Given this world and the world the painting was made in? She's thinks there may be a chance that there's more to this bird than just being a bird.
Priscilla     ~~EAST~~

    Strangely, what Staren, Septette, and Moonfin/Septette have to say for themselves, seems to be even more offputting than their appearances. While their odd outward looks had elicited a sort of open-minded shock, their polite and pleasant explanations of the purpose of their visits cause even the flushed priest's round and kindly face to falter in its smile a little.

    "Dear boy, if you are truly a friend of the young lady as you say, you are dreadfully remiss in your memory. I'm afraid I must inform you that you've arrived just a hair too late. The celebrations have already ended, and I have no doubt she would rather be in bed at the minute. I hope you have an adequate explanation prepared for why you've forgotten your friend's birthday!" He keeps up with doing the talking. No amount of little kids bugging their parents to go home seems to effectively draw anyone away from the concerning conversation taking place.

    "Could it be . . . ah, Sir and Madam, that your news is very much out of date? I know not where you heard it from, but this is the girl's thirty first anniversary here. You needn't worry. She's become quite well adjusted by now, if still a little shy, perhaps. Really, how far did you travel? You sound as if you only just became aware of it!" He takes a second to regard Septette as if he's not sure if she's serious, though he's certainly looking at her height. "I'm afraid you're a little too /early/ to find someone 'fairly tall' however! She may be as old as I am, but the adorable little thing barely comes up to my waist! I expect that means she'll live a very long life! I'm only sad to think that I might be dead and gone by the time she becomes a proper lady."
Kushiko Why indeed? It could be nothing, it could be everything, but the megafauna potential is not something she really wants to leave uncovered. What she will and is perfectly content to leave uncovered is the whole offering sets that ARE here. No reason, no need, to disrespect the dead. She's not religiously minded in a traditional way, but she knows well enough.

But the doll though, as she moves and looks sometimes at what Xiaomu is perusing, or what Enark and Carna and Crow might be, as items /are/, well. Ransacked... she'd frown if she could through the frame. Not that she can. <"Makes me think that they wanted to appease Priscilla here, way these things look,"> she muses faintly in response to Enark's first remarks. <"... or, wait, no... given they tried to hide her existence, wasn't it? That they'd bury it instead."> That makes more sense. At least, at first, before considering what Xiaomu had to say on it.

And then Crow went divine. Again. It's... yeah, this is going to be problematic for people to make sense of it. She's not particularly keen on detecting or sensing things; most of what she does is technologically inclined. Add to it what's going on with the radio she's hearing... <"...let's see if we can't find the wolf or the bird, one of the two. Given what people are talking about, let's go say hello to one of the two big beasties."> Barring objections, that's what she's going to do--start tracking and following.
Staren     Oh no they're IN THE PAST.

    Time travel never goes anywhere good.

    Or should that be 'anywhen' good?

    Staren considers what to say. "I think we have need of the counsel of your most learned wizard, or whoever might know about time travel and alternate dimensions. It sounds as if we've arrived... rather not when we meant to. We're Priscilla's friends from the future. I mean, she hasn't met us yet. So we need to... sort this out, and visit her at the right time. I know it sounds strange, but do you have any idea who could help us?"
Priscilla     ~~SOUTH~~

    The affectionately clumsy effigy is difficult for Carna to remove from the ground, simply due to the many, many layers of ice fusing it to its surroundings, and takes some careful chipping away to pick up. It clatters slightly in her hand, as the little wooden joints in its elbows, knees, and crude tail bounce against each other. The sword, oddly, is of vastly finer make. A knightly straight sword embellished with gold and brass, with a broad blade and prominent spine, it looks like something a museum would pay a fortune for, but very much sturdy enough to use in battle. It's an oddity to her, but Xiaomu would immediately recognize it as the sword of a knight of Astora, if only at the least because she would recognize it as 'very close to what Oscar used to use'. That's something you're supposed to go to your grave with.

    Crow (or perhaps Orc) is very much correct, though. It seems as if a real divinity, at least a small one, had come here once upon a time, before Xiaomu's thesis holds that what lingers is collective respect paid to the abstract significance of the little shrines. The faith of humanity is always a little varied, but the signature beneath it all is consistent from cairn to doll to wood carving to jumbled pile of stones. They're like . . . sacred places to leave things behind. Important things, apparently. Somewhere they can be buried and forgotten, with the blessings of a god to do so.

    Tracking the prints off into the woods is troublesome, even for Kushiko. Her mapping software is basically garbage here, with all external collaboration cut off. Furthermore, the further away she strays from the others, the more . . . samey, things start to look. She's from a high-tech world, so she'd be able to put some words to the odd creep of deja vu. 'Procedurally generated'. 'Low settings'. Coming near paths or major landmarks, the prints are easily followed, but when all sight of those navigators is lost, they just seem to go around in circles. It's quite a while, and quite a distance, before she catches sight of something.

    A great, grey wolf, so large that it can effectively hide in plain sight against the snow and pines, save for the glimmer of its eyes. The thing is tremendous, yet utterly silent, every bit the artistic depiction of wild canine strength as a painting would lead one to believe. Very pressing in detail; it looks to be exactly the same 'species' as Sif, like it wouldn't be remotely surprising if it was /that/ wolf's great, great, great grandmother. There certainly is an . . . uncanny glint of intelligence in its soundless stare.
Starbound Flotilla "Alright, everyone hold up and stop a bit."
"We don't have time for whatever stupidity this is."
"No, this is important. Think about this opportunity we've got."
"An opportunity? This is no time to exploit the situation, George, art is a delicate matter and it must be treated with care."
"No. Listen. I want you to imagine Priscilla, but small."
"Woah. Sssound really cute. /Really/ wanna hug."
"...Aye, he's right. 'Tis a great opportunity."
"Astounded. Why you, of all people?"
"What? I'm a pirate. I'm not /heartless/."
"This is stupid. We need to find the First."
"Awkward. Well, we only have one lead. Perhaps...?"

    After thorough discussion among themselves, the Flotilla seems to decide what they intend to do. Maybe there's a way to see Priscilla. "Ahhh, thank you, sir. I apologize. We have traveled quite far. And the flow of time itself is convoluted, you see." Moonfin explains. "We'll cause you no troubles with our own strange distortions during our stay, I am sure. To marr such a celebration with faux pas would be unforgivable." He looks to Staren, gesturing at him. "But, I am quite doubtful that there are... /learned wizards/ in such a village, which has more of a surplus of wonderful hospitality than it has arcane high research. However, he is quite correct."

    "Nervous. Um. You probably think we are crazy. I apologize, mister-- er. I never got your name." Seft speaks up, stepping forward. Her robotic eyes flicker several times between an assortment of softly concerned expressions. "Hopeful. But, we'd like to do this respectfully! If she's not taking visitors anymore, maybe we could have a gift sent to her? One that would let her speak with us at a distance."
Septette Arcubielle      Septette's face twists up in a kind of worried frown as she listens to the priest's explanation, evidently struggling to reconcile her thoughts with what she's being told. "Staren- how old is our Priscilla, again...?" When he remarks on their blatantly being from 'the future', however, her eyes half-lid with a kind of soft resignation and her frown goes flat again. It is, admittedly, impressive how he manages to be more heavyhanded than someone with fists of steel.

     Between them, Seft and Moonfin seem to have all the points that she'd address covered- but at the mention of a small Priscilla, she breaks into an open grin, her eyes brightening with scarcely-restrained glee. "As much as we'd like to see her, it's understandable that a growing young lady needs her rest. And, given the circumstances, I doubt she'd recognize our names. If your offer of a room still holds true, perhaps we could wait until morning...?"
Priscilla ~~WEST~~

    Tomoe's run-in with a giant, possibly-intelligent animal is less immediately meaningful. Only eerie, for the unshakeable sense that it somehow /knows/ her. Yet again, it's clearly a crow; something of a frequently recurring theme here. Unbeknownst to her at the moment, the same bird that is prominently displayed alongside a dragon inside the church. It takes her trying to talk to it for the creature to react, stressing the tree beneath it as it rears up and spreads its utterly massive wingspan in an intimidation gesture more typical to birds of prey than its own species.

    Hadn't she seen one of these before, perhaps?

    Eryl's detailed scan confirms that the Andre he sees appears to be nebulously 'younger' than the real deal, though only in the sense of identifying marks. The man had always given off the impression he could be 30 or 70, and at the time they had met, he was Undead anyways. There's no real telling when he would have stopped aging before. It's odd, though, considering he had gone by 'Andre of Astora' back then. Admittedly, it might be logical that one wouldn't want to talk about being from a painting, but still. A visit? Or . . .

    "'Ey! 'EY! Where ye' off to if ye' don't even know where ye' are then?!" he croaks out after Eryl, but the Paladin is already gone, leaving Andre huffing over a slowly cooling horseshoe; a humble comparison to the divine arms he now toils over at Anor Londo. He gives Flint just a little bit of a sour look, though it's hard for a face like that to look anything but affably grouchy.

    "Yer with 'im then? All the townsfolk get together at this time at year, join up with their friends from the other villages, and they all go see the little missus up on the middle mountain. S'posed to be her birthday, but it's just a date we all made up a long time ago t'make her feel better. Still. It caught on mighty fine, and a good thing too. Poor girl needed it. Never'd have thought a daughter of royalty'd wind up 'ere, but I suppose it don't mean much who y'are when the world decides it doesn't have a place for ye' anymore."

    "She'll grow into a fine one, though, mark my words. People 've already started halfway considering her a real princess, what with how clever she's gotten. Tells the elders what to do more often than the other way 'round these days! Can't tell if it's a proper education or if the little fluff ball has just got an ambitious streak. Asides, she's definitely more popular than the old boring bastards that speak at town hall, haha!"
Eryl Fairfax     For once, Andre gets to experience how it feels to deal with someone so standoffish. But Eryl has a reason beyond his haste and concern. Though it is not something the Commonwealth exactly practices, they have drafted laws regarding time travel in the event it happens. One of the most important ones is 'leave as little trace of yourself as someone from the future as possible.' There is also a very important amendment to that law. 'If you interact with those who know you in the future, take extra care to be as unremarkable as possible.' The last thing he needs is Andre connecting the strange cloaked man in the Painted World to the leader of the Paladins.

    On his way to the castle, his mind and Original Face race. Could it be that Priscilla is not folded into her past self, as he fears? Maybe she's just... hiding somewhere. Taking the chance to re-experience the place of her childhood. He hopes so, it would certainly make things much easier. They would just have to take the door out and dust their hands of it.

    But it' never that easy, he realizes as he looks across the study, whole bridge to the castle. Properly guarded, and this late at night, there's no way they'll let a stranger waltz in and meet their young princess. Also, there's no guarantee that the 'door out' will even put them where they came in, chronologically speaking. The best way to handle this is not to quickly make themselves scarce, but to figure out what has gone wrong, and resolve it.

    "Everyone," he says over the radio. "We need to convene. Look through the village for an inn, and communicate your location when you find it. Furthermore... just in case our communications may still reach our present, keep all discussion on what is happening here on this frequency. If Lordran realizes that their new queen is absent, someone may launch a coup." Also, the Multiverse doesn't need to know that two major faction leaders are absent, but he doesn't mention that part.

    And with that, he heads back into the village to scout out a place for everyone to stay.
Tomoe Tomoe looks at the large Crow for a moment, it's huge maybe talking to it was a bad idea as she has a feeling it somehow knows her. She looks back and it lets it's wings lose. Which make her own seem quite tiny she now stats to back off a bit not wanting to pervoke a fight and she stops talking. Wait did she run into such a beast before? When they were in the world outside before the the world was repaired. Were there some undead ones? She tries to recall as the looks the massive bird over.

She does not make a hostile move and she's stopped talking she has a mystery here which she'd like to figure out without ending it in a bloody battle.

She seems willing to back off and try to figure this out later however she clearly normally a sword arm but maybe she's not as dim as some people might take her for. Her body lanuage is trying to say I get it, this is your spot I'm not looking for as fight as she does her best to seem trying to back off. Though if nothing else happens she will follow up Eryl's call for them to all meet up.
Xiaomu The sword which Carna has unearthed *immediately* draws Xiaomu's attention - rapidly escalating to her *full* attention. "What the ... what's a sword like that doing out here, unless ..."

Unless it were placed - even buried - as an offering. A gift of GREAT power, or at least symbolic of a significant amount of same; Xiaomu's seen a sword like that wielded in battle, sure enough. But whatever it signifies, she *does* know it shouldn't be here on its own. The only possibly explanation she can think of is if its wielder retired to this village - and even that's a stretch.

"Yeah, convening at the inn sounds like a really good idea," she comments in reply to Eryl (after a somewhat more snarky rejoinder). There are questions which need answers; she can only hope the answers aren't buried too much more deeply than a bunch of the questions have been. At least the village proper isn't TOO hard to find ...
Kushiko In a largely unknown region, without any history to really go by, Kushiko has to operate on instinct. The instincts somewhat born of the Valkyr Warframe which is to say, mostly violent hunting, but it doesn't help here. It's probably some luck things are working as they are, but instead of relying on her usual tech-heavy aspect, it's the Void. It's that ephemeral sense, instinct guiding her. However her instinct /also/ sees how things are starting to look /too/ much alike. The cold, thankfully, doesn't bother her. Black and purple is horribly distinctive amidst the snows, for both Kushiko and Kiras alike. Which is why it--whatever it is, this wolf's identity can see her easily before even she can see it.

The ears of Kiras perk almost too late, before drawing low. A gesture keeps Kiras from making any truly hostile change in body language. It was the intelligence that bespoke Kushiko's reaction. Not fear, not hostility, but respect. She doesn't know about Sif. To her, this is all new, an entirely unique experience and against all impulses otherwise, against the notion of say, backing off...

...she's going to engage it. Not violently. But with words. Gestures and body language. <"... can you understand us, if we speak?"> she asks plainly. <"We are sorry if we are here in an unwanted fashion. We are simply curious... we are known as Kushiko. Who might you be?"> Something about the intelligence in the wolf's eyes; it's not that Kushiko expects the wolf to respond, at least verbally...

But maybe the wolf may yet understand that she meant no harm, and perhaps let her pass without incident back from whence she came.
Carna     Carna stab-stab-stabs the ground to work the doll free of the ice. It's just a doll, but she is a very determined dead woman and she wants what she wants. Eventually she obtains it, taking a moment to work the ice off the wooden joints as best she can and then putting it away. She doesn't seem impressed by the sacredness of any of this, but she has not really had much reason to place stock in gods so far in her existence, as she has expressed in the past. Though she does have to admit that when Crow is using its true power, it can be quite useful. And terrifying. And tempting.

    Hopefully, Crow will not tempt Carna further, because all that divine power would certainly heal her wounds and might even fill up the emptiness inside of her. She stands and starts moving along the path, examining the sword she retrieved as Xiaomu pays it heed. Unlike the shrines, Carna can much more easily grasp how this could be something valuable. Maybe not valuable in the sense of showign it respect, but valuable as in, 'She can use this thing to kill other things'. She'll have to test it soon.

    It seems Kushiko has headed off towards the woods, so with minimal reluctance, the Lantern follows.

    Enark is slightly more concerned about the desecration visited upon the sacred sites, but he's no priest and doesn't feel it's his place to comment. He also doesn't touch any of it, though, so he doesn't wind up cursed by his party's actions. "Time travel," Enark mutters after what he heard on the radio. Or rather the whispering wax skull in his hand. His original theory about Tharmas and Ariamis seems ever more credible as they learn more. Tharmas could have made the reproduction based off prophecies, and then left to a younger Lordran, where this Ariamis, if he or she or it is different from Tharmas might have learned of it and made the 'original'. Then later on, when Lordran was older, Los's prophecies led a younger Tharmas to try to realize them with the reproduction. Meaning that if any of this is at all accurate, they are... Before Los wrote his prophecies? Even as a Blue Scholar, this theory is convoluted. He favored the water aspect of Tharmas in his studies more than the temporal nonsense.

    He's probably getting loads wrong and may just be grasping as straws due to his desire to see the god that he once devoted himself to serving as a student.

    "Do you see somewhere safe-looking in the woods, Lady Kushiko? Is that why you are leading us there?" he asks as he follows along after. He is unaware there is a giant fugging wolf up ahead of them. Thankfully, she announces such right as he is pausing, torn between Eryl's sugggestion they should meet at an inn, and Xiaomu's agreement. He quickly becomes untorn. "Perhaps we should let sleeping wolves lie." Enark supplies and turns about, heading down the path and in the direction of the village.

    Carna pauses, and watches the others go, as if intending to keep on heading into the woods. Kushiko does not appear to be returning. Purely self-interested, a Lantern should leave someone foolish enough to prod wolves behind. A slightly more forward-thinking Lantern might provide an ally one or two warnings, for the sake of preserving a resource. Carna, however, unable to warn with a non-functional throat, seems to have decided to stay by the edge of the woods until such a time as she is certain Kushiko is coming, or at least safe.

    And if Kushiko isn't... She will decide what to do then.

    Crow, at some point, seems to have gone missing.
Priscilla     ~~WEST~~

    Eryl halts before the bridge at the same time as Tomoe halts before the crow. Both of them, whether by coincidence or not, experience the overwhelming, near-subconscious impression that this is for the best; that to push on any further would somehow stray too far outside the lines, and let something spill over all at once. Looking for an inn, Eryl will not find one. Inns are for people that only intend to stay for a short while. There is no place for passers by here. No sign at all that anyone who visits ever leaves. Tomoe gets only the uncanny impression that the great corvid is practically urging her with its eyes that she not say another word.

    ~~SOUTH~~

    No matter how Xiaomu might look at it, her initial conclusion is inescapable. The sword is the genuine article, and thus would never be offered up to appease even a god. Nothing so domineering and vengeful to demand such could exist without an elite knight of Astora drawing steel against it first. This precious badge of honour of an entire way of life has been given up. Put away. Hung up. Left behind. Maybe all of these things are like that, which their old owners no longer want, or no longer deserve, like some ritualistic fashion of shedding attachments to an old life, having become sacred over the years.

    Carna won't be finding Kushiko, though. For whatever reason, Valkyr's own tracks, as well as those of the Kubrow, vanish long before those of the wolf they had stalked. Looking all around, the near identical trees paint nothing more than a dizzying, frigid labyrinth, which feels all the more realistic for its bitter and chilling indifference. Those three words would easily describe the look that the wolf gives Kushiko herself, through the metaphorical eyes of Valkyr. It's like it knows what she is, and in response, its lips curl back in a deep, hissing facsimile of a snarl. The vapour that issues from between its teeth is not the fog of a living creature's hot breath, but a glittering mist of ghastly, luminous ice fog in of itself.

    ~~EAST~~

    "Learned . . . wizard? From the future?" the poor priest attempts to deal with Staren, clearly wondering if he drank too much to understand this, but probably wouldn't follow even if he were fully sober. "Even of the few sorcerers who found themselves drawn here, none are so . . . the convolution of time is not something one simply /researches/. It is an old and inseparable . . . are you quite alright my boy?" Finally, he just starts to look concerned, like he might have been remiss in dealing with someone so clearly in need of responsible adult help all along.

    He can only nod slowly as Septette volunteers to take him off their hands, suddenly paying special attention to her manner of dress; one that, avant garde as it might be, must still be clearly incorporating styles and symbology centuries old. "Of course, of course. If you have nowhere to stay, our church of our Fair Lady has rooms for just such occasions. Very few who find this place arrive with many possessions, and none at all with places in which they belong. After all, that is why we are here; what binds us together."

    Finally, he meets them halfway a little, when Sept makes mention of handing over a gift. Specifically, a radio, though he has no idea what it would be, for obvious reasons. "I will absolutely see what I can do! I'm certain she would appreciate meeting you very much! Such well-mannered visitors are rare, and contributions to-" Then, he abruptly becomes unintelligible. It's not like he begins speaking another language or something, but the sounds he makes devolve into faint, basic tones about as distinct as if they were heard through severe tinnitus.
Priscilla     ~~EAST, SOUTH, WEST~~

    That goes for /all/ sounds. The minute Seft attempts to hand the Multiversal radio over and make contact, the whole world suddenly shifts several hues of grey, where everything from the crunch of snow to the tap of feet on cobblestones to the rustle of giant feathers becomes so much muffled garbage. The colour begins to drain out of the beautiful scenery before one's very eyes, and then even the outlines blur and waver like marred watercolour, coming unstuck and draining away. The sound disappears, then sight, then everything else, until there is nothing left but the individual experience of floating --less than floating-- in a black, featureless void, somehow without direction, and also hovering far over something below at the same time. Something much too deep and much too dark for even that impenetrable void to go near. In their last few moments spent in that insensate, existential limbo, they just barely begin to hear something from that impossible 'below', rising from the non-direction like an echo that had only just crawled into their audible range. For those few, terrible seconds, there is something like a song, and the voices that sound out to them, sound like this:

    http://puu.sh/xZe48/490fb04d83.mp3

    The sensation of those senses returning one at a time, popping back in like old lights, is new to some, but very familiar to others. Regaining a sense of self, then of gravity and orientation, then sound, then sight, then the aches associated with apparently falling to the floor, are all the hallmarks of being summoned as a phantom, save that this time nobody had the opportunity to sit down in a special ward in Njorun at an appointed time, and nobody had written down a summoning sign to make that physically /possible/. Yet, somehow, everyone is accounted for, strewn across the floor of the throne room in exactly the same places they were standing before the calamitous vortex had ever happened, and only just now slowly reuniting with their correct temporal existence. That includes Priscilla, who would never be unconscious otherwise, pulling herself to her feet with the aid of the coarse stone of the throne. Everything just used, unfortunately including Staren's drones and Seft's scanning array, is missing.

    So is the Peculiar Doll
Staren     "Yes, I'm... well, as alright as one can be, stranded in the past." This might take longer to solve than he hoped -- a place to use as a base of operations may be a good idea... He pulls some image files of adult Priscilla from earlier today to show the man but Septette is already handing over a radio and

    OH NO

    THEY BROKE TIME!

    Wait, that's not how that is supposed to work...

    ...After the buzzing (singing? Buzzing? It's hard to tell...) He's aware of... existing, and then... this is like after being dismissed or killed as a phantom, but that doesn't make any sense...

    He stands to his feet, sees everyone is here, they're back in the throne room, and Priscilla's here too. "We went to the painting's past. Friendly villagers said it was your 31st birthday. Where did you go? Or did you not go anywhere?"

    This weirdness is all too weird to be mysterious about. Better to lay all the cards on the table and try to straighten things out.
Kushiko It was an honest attempt. And as it happens, possibly an equally honest mistake. The notion of simply getting out of there without incident is about to be thrown to the wind, with the way the wolf reacts. It's intelligence is more than that, it's a primal instinct that is about to pit two hunters together.

But before any conflict would ensue, the sounds, the terrible sensations, being completely, unequivocably disoriented have a profound effect. It's a shrieking cry of pain, bereft of anything save that of a child being assaulted upon the airwaves for a few fleeting moments. When others return to the throne room, Valkyr's shape is limp, like a rag doll, a puppet with it's strings cut. The Kubrow that accompanied Valkyr makes several confounded noises as she picks herself up, struggling and shaking itself of the sensations, a little drunken wobble before finally realizing Valkyr's not moving.

A sharp, keening whine, batlike nose being a few times. A few more pawings at the stillform body. Why isn't it moving?
Starbound Flotilla "Woah woah woah! We just went early twentieth!"
"There are temporospatial effects! Take care and steady yourselves!"
"Guh! Floran, cannot hear! Where isss going?!"
"Avast! What've they been settin' in motion over there!"
"EPPs active! Whatever it is..."
"Frightened. It's... It's a spiritual event! Some form of psionic force, or...!"

    And then they're waking up. "Gah, what the hell!!" George calls out. "Did anyone get the license plate number on that timeline that hit us?" The whole Flotilla start clambering to their feet, checking things over. "Did we have a security camera in here? We need to get tapes on that, god damn." George mutters, and then gets to work on checking things over.

    "Surprised. My scanner! It's still gone somehow, even though we weren't in there...?" She looks up at the painting, eyes in a wide O__O expression. "Fascinated. Is it some kind of time effect that has extended outside of the painting...?"