The Furies are at home in the mirror

The Furies are at home in the mirror - Printable Version

+- Chronicles of Eternia (https://chronicles-of-eternia.com/forum)
+-- Forum: In-Game (https://chronicles-of-eternia.com/forum/forum-9.html)
+--- Forum: Biographies (https://chronicles-of-eternia.com/forum/forum-12.html)
+--- Thread: The Furies are at home in the mirror (/thread-18668.html)

Pages: 1 2

The Furies are at home in the mirror - MalfGuy2 - 07-28-2024

There is nothing.

Only cold, primordial darkness.

Your being, your consciousness ferments in it - No larger than a single grain of chlorophyll.

It is safe here. No grand failures, no impersonal malaise encroach you.

Safe and sound in The Long Quiet.

...

An inordinate amount of time passes.

You feel like if you lay here, you might not ever wake up.

...But what's this? Somewhere in the sore, listless *imagination* around you - A sensation!

"Tell me. What's waiting for me?"

There is a giant ball, outside of this strange Hole In The Universe. And evil apes. And the evil apes are 'duking it out' on the ball.

You'll end up walking among them, in one way or another. It's basically all just evil apes dukin' it out on the big ball.

"How big is the ball?"

You can't even make out the ball while dukin' it out, it's so unfathomably large.

"How small are the apes?"

Infinitesimally small.

"And what's this 'duking it out' you keep saying?"

Competing for resources, labor, and time? It's just a silly expression you stole from the infinite darkness.

The part of the presentation you want to take home is this: You have to be better and stronger than all the evil apes, or you lose.

"That's sad."

Yes. So sad, it's lasted thousands and thousands of years.

And you drowned in that sadness a similarly long time ago.

"What do you mean, drowned?"

"You lost."

2-5-5-4 - MalfGuy2 - 08-08-2024

Do you know my face?

It's been some time between.

Can you recall,

"It's quiet in here."

"We want out."

The Long Quiet does not feel that strongly about you.

Nor do you, to Them.

You came to them first, in twisted flesh, and broken bone;

Now, take stock of your immediate person.

What forms around Us?

"We see... A red-blue-gold? Colour? Here, where there was nothing? I'm sure there's, like... A pillow or something."

"Or maybe an eggshell for a bed. Am I a lizard? How do I even know that I am 'me'? Do I normally look like a smeared blob?"

It's not too far-fetched. You know full and well that existence's implications to that single, tiny grain of chlorophyll that is 'you',

That willing it into being,

It means everything. And everything is a whole lot more than 'nothing', 'forever'.

"What about this strange feeling I keep having?"

"Every time We know, this cold..."

"Even now."

I am your Narrator Voice.

It's my job to funnel all those dissonant thoughts, all those feelings, into your abstract brain-stem-tube,

And make them make sense to you.

"That's convenient."

"..."

"Wait a minute, can't I tell you, to tell me these things outright?"

Can.

Doesn't mean you'll get a cogent answer.

"A fair assessment."

"I think I feel my fingers and toes spasming... Are appendages in working, torquing condition?"

Damage next to your jaw, where the occipital nerves should be running up the rear-right side of your head.

You'll forever be slightly off-balance, or at least, bad at visual calculus.

You're not much with such minimal optics either, but this will have to do.

"Minimal optics? Is that why it's so dark?"

Open your eyes all the way.

Eventually.

The Hole In The Universe fades away,

Replaced with a psychedelics-bound miasma of a city...

Inland Empire - MalfGuy2 - 08-16-2024

[Image: OIP.G9xH98475gfcm6XyNNxu8AHaKS?rs=1&pid=ImgDetMain]

The sight-addled trek through the forest glade tumbles to a halt.

We were doing just fine, though the stream of technicolour from the city behind had begun fading from view.

"Unfamiliar territory emits a siren's call; Tales of fresh things, of new blood, the call of mysteries in the dark."

"A new sensation joins the fray. This one is potent, but alone."

"Tell me, new feeling; What are you?"

"I am the imagination twisting between your brain and stem."

"It is like a storm, set in motion not by dreary heights, but by currents and eddies rising up from the ground."

"I like this one. We're keeping him, right?"

Of course we can keep him.

It's not like the mind is a finite kitchen cabinet.

"We'll call you... Kynod. Like that one weird mish-mash of sounds that came across the fighting field a moment ago."

Fighting field? You must mean where all those strange blobs of hairy apes were dukin' it out.

"Tell us, Kynod. Are there more like you out there?"

"A million pieces of shattered glass."
"Four hundred legs."
"Four thousand arms."
"Four hundred-thousand wings."
"Like the grandest blob of 'bird' you can conceptualize."

"Those flying things that are making the weird squeaky noises?"

"I guess. It wouldn't be too bad to copy their wings. Can I even do that? How does this body grow, anyhow?"

Through a touch of violence, of course. The Mana surges through your veins, beckoning you towards the nearest, most lesser Monster - At least, you think it's a Monster.
It tries to run, but you're already towering over it.
"Grass grows,"
Assimilation in progress.
"Rain falls,"
New Magickal knowledge unlocked for reference; Mana Absorption.

"...And the strong prey upon the weak."

Hand/Eye Coordination - MalfGuy2 - 08-18-2024

Incoming; Multiple Mana Signatures on the horizon.

The cavalry are arriving.

And they're absolutely livid at whatever you just did.

"What, they're upset about the snacks?"

"Riders on the storm..."

No.

These aren't the angry apes. They're the wrong shapes.

You reach down to pick up some of the rounded-yet-sharp objects off the ground, and take aim...

"That was a close one. You're lucky that the shiny pebble bounced off his nose just right on your last spellcast."

Not to mention the sheer amount of space that it's created. The angry grey mass tried to take a few good strikes at you, but you're too slippery.

You've whisked your way behind a hillside. Blurry farms and rivers dot the planescape.

"Time for a breather. Take stock of this new space in full."

"Another joins the fray."

The lights of more Mana accompany you, as do The Voices.

Evidently, in this world, a fractured magickal casting focus is a stronger one.

"You idly toss one of the shiny, rounded pebbles in your claws. Your vision is terrible, but it doesn't stop you from doing simpler party tricks with it."

"What's a party?"

"Like a group."

Unfortunately, even as you try and try to sleep, something else prowls along the edges of your vision.

Massive heaps of rotting flesh obscure part of the treeline.

Distinctively unfriendly walking pace.

Not to mention, it's flinging bright lights everywhere. Annoying.

It's going to be an eventful twenty-four-hours.

"Ready."

"Aim."

"Fire."

Some of the grander powers of the Cosmos further fracture what little integrity the mindscape had.

Your limbic system is overheating, unable to handle the acquisition of so many new powers simultaneously.

"Damage report. Now. Is it still fit for sailing?"

New Magickal Knowledge unlocked: Metaphysical.

New Magickal Knowledge unlocked: Spirit Summoning.

"More friends, more power."

"Shooting for the stars."

Electrochemistry - MalfGuy2 - 08-25-2024

Your retreat into the wilderness even further from the psychedelic city leads you closer to a grey, frigid space.

Moisture vapours rise off the nearby volcanoside.

"Uncomfortably warm."

Distant bells chime. Firestacks poke into the sky in either direction.

A modestly industrialized space; They must be working the shiny pebbles.

"When are we getting a reload?"

You scratch at your dominant arm's elbow every now and again as you trudge along, and brush against a thin, wiry plant of some kind.

"Bloodied dewdrops, bloodied clawtips."

"Well? What's it taste like?"

"You don't quite have the words, but it speaks to the bright, shiny ball in the center of your being."

"And it says..."

This feels damnably good.

You need more of it.

"Feeding frenzy."

You turn back to the grassy hills just to the southwest, separated by the thinnest of water-cycle-barriers that formed the higher tundra.

You can't rest. Not really.

"Still more to be eaten."

Dusty pebbles, dusty fingers.

"We're running out! Best find some more off of the angry apes."

You barely register the other Monsters' own retreats.

"Crashing skies above, gentle rivers below."

"What power did we take this time?"
"Best be ready for the next one."

You don't know.

Something's not quite right. This energy isn't like the others, where they were just raw beams of light and colour.

"You're a prince in your own right."

"You should do whatever you think the apes' princes do. Binge on their fineries, their weapons, their shinies."

"Leave nothing unturned."

New Magickal knowledge unlocked: Tempest Magic.

Something else stirs within. Your Mana reserve is condensing, pulsating around the congealed piece of stormy winds...

Your arms bristle & crack in immediate response. They're lengthening, gaining feathers & scales.

Like the Monsters you'd been fighting at the beachheads every now and again.

"Sire, we're losing hand dexterity! Something's wrong!"

"Hold on just a little while. You'll still be useful for visual calculus with these garbage eyes."

"Forty legs, four-hundred arms, four-thousand wings..."

"Feel the burn. Taste the joints snapping and popping."

The pain subsides after a good seven minutes or so. You weren't counting.

Which is a good thing, because in the next instant, you're face-to-face with another mass of rotting flesh.

This one's shaped different though.

Different, like it vaguely resembles you...

"Why isn't this one sparkling like the other? It's wings dare to soar like you, but no 'pizzazz'? No 'disco'?"

"Man the battlestations."

"We can't throw the shiny pebbles anymore."

"What? Why not?"

Your hands turned into clawtips, your arms, into wings.

Better get used to it - and get used to it yesterday.

The thing is already bearing down on us.

That was close. Too close. That aberration nearly had you and the Spirits following you - Good thing we got those wings.

"You still feel the throbbing in your joints, both where you'd transformed, and where that other Monster hit you."

"You're lucky. I can barely do anything."

"It's bothersome. When do we get to take the edge off?"

"When the world says we can land on solid ground again."

"Rather rough start to existence, isn't it?"

"This is a place with a lot of past, some present, and no future."

The updraft of a few campers' bonfires swings you towards the northern shores.

It's quieter here.

Perhaps even too quiet.

"Denning here will do for now. That took a lot out of us."

A peculiarly-masked hunk of metal in the vague shape of the apes floats by.

They, too, had the weapons that the city-apes were wielding,

But it turns away from you.

"They're scanning for something like us."

"Maybe that other creature from earlier is getting too popular to be ignored. Doesn't matter."

They stop in mid-air. Hesitation.

"In the middle of the night's Delphina Bay watch, two bespoke superweapons pass by one another."

"One is an imposing, bloodied truth; The other, a beautiful but false ideal."

"But their paths were destined to never cross."

"Hells yeah, we're a superweapon! Sounds cool. When's the next other beastie to break?"

"And does this spot have another one of those *absolutely psychedelic* berry branches to eat?"

Your vision blurs as the starry sky overhead steals your attention with a flashing cyan light,

And then, the metal creature is gone. Just like that.

Conceptualization - MalfGuy2 - 08-28-2024

"We float adrift in a tornado of jumbledness."

"The limbic system, The Narrator, has stopped responding for the moment..."

"The perfect opportunity to do a little re-organizing."

"What of our physical self? We're just a lame, sitting duck on the shore."

"In more ways than one."

"I know what'll make our great 'disco ball' come back."

"Go on, Demesne. Give them your old spot. Stay right here, with us. With the REAL kings of this world."

"Might as well see what happens. Maybe we'll jostle awake with a better idea."

The sound of seagulls and coastal breezes permeates the surroundings. Lightly muffled.

You haphazardly raise a wing at a twenty-eight-degree angle, sand pouring off to reveal your halfway-pancaked form stuck in the shoreline.

...Wait a minute. Since when was I over here?

"Since I put you there."

But only i'm supposed to have that power.

No matter. I suppose that makes us easier to categorize.

Getting a little smarter. More efficient.

"Now, where's that next high of ours going to be..?"
"Where it always comes from."
"But now, we can kind of fly around for short distances. How convenient."
"A sub-tropic locale greets dithered eyes, and the morning coastal fog."
"Nature is neither beautiful, nor ugly..."
"It just is."
"Nature."

As much as you want to stop to take in the view, that's not why we came up here.

Our wingbeats curve us towards the southeast, spying a black-and-grey blob on the ground.

Either more apes, or more prey - It mattered little.

"Something to throw ourselves at."
"Something beautiful is going to happen."

[Image: 571b5b8ef683347b092eb316abe01589.jpg]

"Hello?"

The blob is timid. Person-shaped.

"Not obvious prey."

"We should run away and go back to looking..."

"...What even are you? One of those Magical Beast thingies?"

You try to move your mouth, but find it oddly quiet. Timid. Shy.

"We should boast of ourselves first. That might help."

"Let freedom ring."

"Are you okay? You going to attack me, or what?"

"Can we get this over with?"

It was one of the spectating apes from a while back, when we were still throwing shiny pebbles at everything.

You can tell by the timing of their gait, the way they turn to look at you.

"Attention builds."

"Merp?"

Is all you can initially manage out of your mouth.

"What is this? Some kind of..."

"The thoughts of the gulls, of the salamanders, cascading entropy;"

"Now on our tongue."

"Merp? What?"

"...Y'know, i'm supposed to fight Demons and Monsters like you, but..."

"But?"

"Will you be my Spirit Bond?"

This sounded like a personal question, but we have little context for it.

"Like the way our shadow doubles up on our spells sometimes?"

"Deputized."

"I know it sounds weird."

"But i've been meaning to have some extra firepower with all the Monsters roaming around right now."

The person-shape is requesting our help in one way or another.

Your neck reflexively coils back a solid half-meter or so.

"Yeah, baby! We'll be unstoppable together!"

"Spirit-Bond, Spirit-Bond..."

The words sound guttural & too sophisticated for full enunciation from you, but it gets the point across.

Finally, he introduces himself with an outstretched hand, met by you awkwardly putting your face near it,

"While we're walking back to my desert home,"

"I'm Lore."

"What do you call yourself..?"

"Kynod."

"Demesne."

"Le Principiere."

"The zenith of all Monster-kind, baby!"

"The Divine Storm."

"Kynodisme."

Nightview Dojo - MalfGuy2 - 09-01-2024

The people are happy enough.

A healthy dose of skepticism. Weird looks, but no drawn weapons.

"Yet."

The desert is parching the chinks in your scales. Your joints don't move as much as they ought to -

But that probably applied both ways.

"So, i'll introduce you and all that in a bit..."
"Maybe they'll wanna fight you, too."

"The battles will never really end."

"Free adrenaline? By all means."

Raw Mana wisps constantly collide over the horizon; Glyphs too murky to make out dot the eastern sky.

Something powerful lurks in that massive, golden arboretum of a city...

But you don't have time to fully assess it. Not right now.

Already, the first of the many apes steps forwards, and bows to you.

"Let us bathe the truth in red."

"They are many, but fear not."

"Humans are dangerous..."

"The fight starts off slower than you thought. Come on, fling more spells already!"

Their spells almost harmlessly bounce off your thickened, feathery hide.
One by one, the Magi spars descend upon you,
Names flickering past the audible dunes.
Lore. Regalus. Raikami. Isshiko. Sytry. Sun. Syjin. Arkeid. Yuki.
All of these new names, all of these passing greetings fall in mock-duels before you, one by one, week after week, month after month...

"There are minutes where years happen."

"And there are years where seconds pass."

It's somewhat affirming to our skittish nature.

"Maybe we're not a bad shot after all?"

"Still have some reservations about these wings."

We'll get comfortable with this newfound power in due time.

For now, all that matters is that we assess our damages, and keep accumulating more Mana.

"More Mana, more power. Simple enough."

"Let's look into that city sooner or later. I reckon there's more challenges that await us."

Your blurred vision settles on a pair of neon-flashing wings.

A stark contrast against the numerous runes & golden branches that decorate a good twenty-mile diameter sky around you.

"So, one of Jokul's experiments finally ends up right where I want them..."

Krenel, Downwell, Somatosensor - MalfGuy2 - 09-06-2024

[Image: OIP.rpCFj7SK9IyP9zZb67dt3AHaEK?rs=1&pid=ImgDetMain]

"Ao Shun... Ao Shun... Please, open your eyes..."

The feeling of being watched by the golden boughs washes over you.

A subtle sound, a crackle,

The bursting of glass,

All a sudden build-up in the back of the head. Right next to the occipital nerve.

"Who dares touch me? They better pay for that!"

"Hold your fire."

"Something like us, but not. Shattered..."

"Alone."

"Atop an even lonelier mountain - And it risks falling from starry heights."

Whatever it was, the feeling went just as fast as it had arrived.

"I feel... Heavier. Empowered somehow."

"Can I make more rules, too?"

"You'll get your turn."

No major changes to your magickal output.

One of the drones passing by Nightview catches your eye, and with a closer look through the blurring and the astigmatistic lights...

You can tell there's something useful to be gained from absorbing it, too.

"Power-up time."

No objections?

You skillfully disable in one monochrome beam-blast what you believe to be of most import -

Which turns out to be whatever an 'I.F.F.' is, and a ghostly imitation of a magitech cannon.

The cannon will easily bond to the Spiritual casting component structure.

"Okay. But what's this I.F.F. thingy?"

"Will it help us shoot more?"

It's just as surprising, but apparently, removing that didn't trigger any offensive failsafe.

No self-preservation in spite of it being previously armed.

You reason that it must be some kind of optical 'scanner' of some sort, registering the shapes and blurs around you...

...And translating them into whatever the Golem thinks about.

"Try pairing it with the cannon."

"Already on it. These little metal tabs and buttons are a mess."

"Another idea-bubble to add to the pile..."

The weeks & months of sparring passed by without a hitch.

Likewise, Lore seems at his happiest, going hunting in the wilds with you.

A random Undead slain here, a random Demon maimed there,

That one time you split off, and help out the psychedelic town over by The Hole In The Universe...

"Everything is right with the world."

"Until it isn't."

Until one day, your spine chills as you let Lore set out in front of you.

Something beautiful was about to happen.

Something terrible was about to happen.

The bridge connecting Glufdor Volcano to much of the central wilderness looms in the distance.

A myriad of Demons, Elzara, retired Archmagi,

And a pair of corrupted-orange-yellow wings of the Cosmos rise to greet you and Lore from the other side.

There are even a few random cultists scattered about, and a valiant soul from that one dragon-y place next door.

Even your neighbors are here.

Even your cousins are here.

"There's too many of them."

"The mind is a maze, and every decision opens & closes various paths forwards..."

"Justice. Judgement. Retribution. Ready, aim..."

"Let's test out our new toy!"

"Outnumbered."

"Outgunned."

"And outmatched."

"...But Lore is moving his arm, and sprouting flaming wings of his own?"

Everything crawls to a stand-still.

Half the ongoing fights pause for the combatants to look at you & Lore.

Arriving on the scene.

"Buddy, I can't get to the big one over there that's shooting meteors at the kids."
"Mind running cover fire on the Demons, that big Fire Elemental over there?"

The Fire Elemental.

The massive bat, with his own flaming wings,

He was huge enough to almost count as a Kaor.

"Definitely outmatched."

"We'll lose valiantly."

"For them, it will be hellfire and brimstone. For you, it's just another Wednesday."

"Feel the burn."

Trepidation grips at your esophagus as you curl your neck back, propelling yourself into the air & taking flight.

Like you were dealing with regular Monsters, you enter an artillery attack mode;

All-Area-Type spells on rapidfire.

"-2: Binoclard."

"-1: Still a little skittish."

"-2: Running on an empty stomach."

"-1: Your cannon /will/ fail the first time you try using it."

"+12: Lore needs you."

(/battlelog breaks after this point. booo! boooooo! shame on you, /battlelog command.)

A flash of primal fury rises up to greet your own technicolour assault,
But in a surprise twist of fate,

"They mis-stepped too much."

"That bad footing at the end..."

The FireBat can't hold the line against your sheer barrage. He surrendered his position fortifying the bridge.

...Wait a minute.

"Where'd Lore go?"

"The flaming wings and the cosmic wings' Mana traces lead to the south."

"...Taken."

"Even that wasn't enough."

Without a battle-buddy, what are we supposed to do now?
Go wild again?
Most the crowd began to retreat - Either in confusion, or in sheer awe/terror of you.
You sit there.
On the ground.
Really, well and insulated from humanity,
Once more.

"Quiet..."

"A tremendous loneliness comes over you. You realize that everyone else in the world is doing something without you."

"...What use is justice, if we can't be everywhere at once?..."

"Need something to take the nerves off."

"Go back home. I will be the guiding light."i

"Not everything is lost."

Tarnished Platinum - MalfGuy2 - 09-15-2024

"Follow the yellow brick road..."

The soothing, quicksilver-gold light on the horizon calls to you as you fly northwest.

Back to the home the late Lore had arranged.

...Or so you thought.

A ghostly, phantasmal canopy greets you once more,

Only to fall silent.

Only to disappear.

Like it was a desert mirage all along, this 'Solais' of the oasis' makings had been blocked out of your perception...

"Forever."

"What do we make of this?"

"Here's hoping it means nothing. Come on, where's those stringy red berries again?"

"Then what /are/ we looking at?"

Your senses drift amongst the incorporeal tangents proffered up from the sands.

They are many.

They must forever change.

"But I can never change."

The quietude of earlier is broken both by the sound of your wingbeats, and a distant, echoing, warbling voice across the bay.

Ghosts rise into the evening sky.

"Who are you, ghosts?"

An aileron-dip of one wing lets you adjust your flight pattern, and you find yourself in Delphina Bay proper. Island-keeps and tiny lighthouses dot the landscape.

They rise up, like the fingers of a curious toddler,

About to greet you, to make a toy of the grander skies above,

And so too, does the beginning chord of wooden guitars & enchanted-iron percussion instruments.

"Told you so."

A massive party along the beaches of Nereides had ensued - Plenty of the small apes congregate.

Even moreso the ones with gills, fins, needle-tipped teeth, the hallmarks of the ocean.

Along the easternmost periphery, a scuffle between town guards, the Lumin-King-- Or whom you assume to be Mother Nature's Chosen--

And various miscellanneous Occultists.

"We can stay out of that."

"This IS their jurisdiction."

"We're here to party and drown our sorrows, not make more."

On the western periphery, a massive Leviathan dropped down from his own flight path to the sandy shores.

A notable amount of shimmering, ephemeral-looking smallfolk hop off the Leviathan's back.

Now that they've slown down, you can get a closer look: Those feathers are really just cyan- and prismarine-tinted scales.

"Another of the loves of the sea and air."

"Like a more draconic mirror."

They very much ARE a Dragon. They just inexplicably don't have wings like you do - And their pronounced neck-collarbone...

It was built to cannon their Element instead.

You're just a reckless, area-attack-only Monster by comparison.

The sound of the music, though amusing, does little to distract you from the Dragon.

"I can't look away."

"What's wrong with us?"

His head finally turns to face yours after some brief small-talk with the mortal populace.

Instead of a normal, formal greeting, or anything befitting a Monster,

You decide to condense the tiniest sphere you can manage that reflects all your magickal types.

Glyphs float all around it, trying to contain the ball as you will it to float towards the 'Dragon'.

"Behold! The ultimate disco ball!"

"I didn't throw it hat hard."

One of his dozens of smaller, clawed hands reaches out to 'catch' the air wave right in front of the ball.

"...I'm sorry, little one, but isn't this a little early to be giving away your heart?"

They get the idea.

It just came off culturally insensitive, or something - What could this possibly mean to them?

Think of a deflection.

"Absolutely not."

"We'll just say that we were wanting to play ball."

"Yeah, play ball. It's a party after all."

The prismarine scales ripple around where his uppermost shoulders are, and you hear a few short grunting noises.

That must have been his way of chuckling.

"Though that's more appropriate, I still have a responsibility to my cultivator juniors present."
"Perhaps later, we can find something else to do."
"I am Lord Shenlian, the Stormy-Pebbled River of the Fifth Heavenly Barrier."
"Who are you?"

"...Well, i'm sure we can enjoy some plum wine, and a game of this 'Go' of yours back home in Xuefeng."

The commotion of both the band & the arrests off to the east had begun dying down, and some of the small-folk from Shenlian were returning to him.

It was time to go.

"A new space to hunt in?"

"It's so difficult to see him turn to leave. Why?"

"You get the distinctive feeling that if Delphina Bay were to be attacked, right here, right now, that the Demons up and invaded,"

"He would instinctively shield you."

"Perhaps even lay down his life for you and his coterie."

"What is this?"

A shaking of your head.

You pressure your ankles, forcing a full vertical take-off. Shenlian's tubular form followed suit,

One Monster zooming in an erratic, elliptioid line,

A Dragon taking well-measured diagonals.

The plains & the northern coasts rise to greet you, as does the distant Vdalion volcano range & snow mountaintops.

"Where Truth and Ideals met."

"This is meant to happen."

"Now you're getting it."

Almost immediately on landing in a beveled-roofed town, Shenlian's fellows dismounted once more for the general square.

"Unfortunately, it /is/ getting late in my spot."

"I hope I see you tomorrow, dear Kynodisme. Maybe we will discern your nature and Heavenly Barrier then."

In a flash of prismatic lights not unlike your own, the prismarine scales disappeared from view.

IN MEMORIA(M), REPRISAL

Your vision shifts once more. You weren't surrounded by the snow, but by the golden sands Lore had called home.

He, too, had inexplicably returned barely a year after the fact,

"But something's wrong with him."

"I.F.F. thing is pinging like mad."

Something blackened, something terrible, something entropic threatened to tear through Lore's chest cavity. He's barely able to talk like this.

Regalus' platinum cloak puffs in the wind. He was pointing Lore out to Oliphr, to the Clinic, to a 'Basil' character that swoops in to grab Lore's shoulders and take him away,

But it barely phases you now.

You'll investigate Lore later - Let the professionals handle it for the time being.

Your eyes locked to the emeraldine-vermillion luma grid glow behind Regalus instead.

"I could... I could give you that power, too, Kyno,"
"But you might explode. Hels, I might explode."
"I don't even know if it's allowed."
"I'll have TWO weird, Timestream-cycling creatures on my hands!"
"But, if the stains of time insist..."

You nod your head.

Just the once.

Deeply.

It was what you were meant to do. Now, then, and forever again.

He knew you were meant for it, the day you first came to Nightview, and asked all those strange, esoteric questions...

He simply denied the Truth.

"Someone will re-unite Father Time and the Lord of Time's scaly visage. It might as well be us."

"What was, will be."

"What will be, was."

"Ready."

"Aim."

"Fire."

The cultivator sect dojo had failed to fully deter you.

Not a one of Lord Shenlian's disciples could break your sheer force, though Xuefeng's second-in-commands put up a valiant effort.

Few lasting injuries.

Fleeting blood only temporarily stains The Truth in red.

Raw Mana and Timestream Runes taken from their personages, now bound to yours.

"The brotherhood, the battle..."

"Chasing that same adrenaline high, but with lower stakes."

"Helps that those berries are common here too."

"Definitely helps."

"We stand atop a lonely mountain."

"Lord Ao Kyno Shun, Seventh Heavenly Barrier..."

One of them weakly gasped out from the sidelines as their fellows tended to their broken arm.

"Did you hear that? They respect us."

"They respect power."

"They respect Divine Chi."

"They respect the Divine Storm."

Wash away the anger.

Here we stand, a shining example of what The Storyteller's will originally meant.

Live it up a little. You get the distinctive feeling you won't be called a Lord again in a very, very long time...

"Horizon Signal acquired. Temporal perception instability quelled."

Hel's Bells - MalfGuy2 - 09-23-2024

Your vision dances between the jagged outlines of sand and snow.
Piercing, cold architecture - Always a stark contrast to the watercolour blurs you know and love.
But something lays amiss whenever you return to Lore's home.

"The Great Poison."

"Is the weapon still making that racket?"

"Gonna be a while before we can really sleep."

You toss and turn in your personal arbour's leafy bedding. Restless discontent.

The little motes of something or another corrupting Lore keep dancing in the air by his door.

There's this distinct sense of dread,

Like whatever we're about to do next, will change the course of history,

"And define us."

"Define me."

"Move up. Reach out to take it."

You don't have hands, but your mastery over illusions can sometimes make things happen that aren't supposed to--

Like willing a bottle over those disturbing, swirling masses that keep accumulating in front of the door.

"And then, you realize who the real enemy is."

Given enough mass, the inky, black-and-deep-vermillion tendrils of Mana congeal into something even more unsettling.

It surrounded a pallid orb at the center,

Leylines constantly threatening to tear itself and anything adjacent in the bottle apart.

Bottle included.

"Entropy? Does that have a Magickal attribute..?"

It feels familiar.

Too familiar.

Grotesque, and abhorrent, the curtain stain of failure;

"Moros' Aether. Cast it into the fire."

"We all agree to get rid of this thing, right?"

"Purge the unbeliever."

"Not in MY principality."

"Rend it to whence it came."

You will the bottle to shatter with enough force that the tendrils are separated once more into tiny, fragmented wisps instead.

Just another burning memory,

Searing unwanted frustration where it does not belong.

But now, there remained a problem:

Lore is creating this by merely existing.

"Justice should be served."

"We can't hurt our battle-buddy, but we can't just let this wrongness go either."

"The right thing to do?"

"A Monster, the guilt of the father, the mutilation of the son, the sacrifice of their home..."

You resolve to move out as soon as possible.

There were a point of those shiny pebbles elsewhere, something else binding humanity in togetherness.

The clear opposite of whatever... THAT was.

More 'gold' and 'coins' to be had by trying to ignore him instead.

Wealth could make a better motivator, a better distractor for the interim, but how?..

Post-Jokulian Economics

[Image: cyberpunk_desert_town_by_breuv_deozyua-p...2kJi9SHv7M]

You turn to Regalus' brother in the faith,

His baldened head a sunbeam amidst the desert sands-and-metal town.

The little Golem sentries look at you curiously every now and again, unable to comprehend why their fallen sibling's components are pinging back to them in a place...

That they don't belong.

"You see, Kyno, I know you love picking stuff up off the ground."
"But here, in human markets, we can come together to sell some of the useful stuff."
"Even mining shiny rocks out of the ground. People pay a pretty penny sometimes."

A sound method to 'manufacturing' more of the shiny pebble ammunition.

"This should be easy. We have so much time on our hands to fly around..."

"Let's take everything we can. Absorb the good stuff."

Dunsman - Though you insist on calling him,

"Thanks, DunesMan. You're the best."

Hands you the paperwork to own a Final Frontier shopping stall.

The meaning is partially lost on you. Not only because we don't have hands to accept this with, but because you've never bothered shopping stalls before.

"...But I dunno how to use this."

"The shopkeep will know."
"They'll try to passively sell everything you put in here."

DunesMan's hand does a little knocking motion on the wooden stalltop.

At least, you think that's what he's doing. At normal-people-size, that's a little blurry to you.

"Finally. Some of this junk was weighing us down."

You further attend DunesMan's more miscellaneous deeds around the prairie border-city to the south. The opening of a library,

The baptism of another faithful to Father Time,

A random Mestran wedding,

People are having fun.

"But it's always the same."
"Raindrops forming overhead."

Nobody there challenges your right to continue.

Hardly even a regular Magi spar registers.

It passes you by, as does your perception,

Until you are drawn back in.

Back towards the watercolour blurs, the autumnal cities on the horizon,

Back to 'home'.

But within The Hole In The Universe, something is never really all what it seems, especially not now...

Not after you've had a glimpse of The Hole In The Universe's nemesis.

Not with this burning, divine mission, churning away inside you now.

It's Me

"[Worry not, Mei'Ria. Let me diagnose our guest.]"

You look upon the Mind-Eater once more - Or, rather, the puppeteered thing that ostensibly couldn't exist.
Ripples sent across the Timestream all around The Hole In The Universe, subtle inclinations.

"[What is your purpose, strange creature?..]"

"A promise."

"Our promise? What promise?"

"I didn't bring us back for no reason."

"Everything is going according to plan."

"Why are you so simple and level-headed all of a sudden?"

"Yeah, aren't you supposed to be all dreamy?"

It matters not,
For you are brought before a hall of mirrors with or without your want,
Entreated to an illusory vivisection of the self. Your perceptions are suddenly completely cut off from all else around you.
You bring your imagined 'hand' to the mirror, as if to try wiping it clean with talons that fail to belong to your monstrous form yet -
Or were they what belonged to the smaller Magical Beasts, the little gremlins?
It's hard to tell when The Mind-Eater is doing what it wants.
The Mirrors are so uniquely enticing. You just can't look away from the horror.
The horror that is not you.

"The Long Quiet."

You've grown.