Somewhere... Else?
20 Solmes, 333
Daina
Holding the small bud up she smiles a little and holds it up to regard it. Being sure she’s picked the best of the bunch she then puts it into her cupped hands. Closing her eyes she takes a few slow breaths, wanting to fan the flames of her being the way the billows livened Jerri’s forge. She slowly begins dancing with her hands clasped in front of her. The first few steps a sort of ballet series, sweeping moves that made her tiny steps stretch further, her torso leaning one way then the other. As she feels the slow warmth of sinking into a well earned rest in a soft bed. Her expression going from one of focus to that of a gentle slumber. As the warmth starts to sink into the bud her limbs loosen and she twirls and leaps with greater abandon. The heat that fills her hands and the small stirring plant is like the licking dancing of flames. She drops gently down to one side then springs up on her toes and off the ground. Her movements more erratic unpredictable, large movements that spread her limbs and allow her greater height. Feeling that same chaos and yet cycles of the world in between. Then with a swift crashing landing on one knee the other leg extending out behind her. Like exiting the world alongside this one was a movement of abrupt grace.
Fate
For Magic + Knowledge: Pharmacology it's Diff 13
Daina
21 total succs
Fate
Phew! That's a success and a half!
Well, and then some.
Daina
As it begins to grow, the once slumbering plant life exploding from her fingers and beginning to shoot upwards into monks hood and then a sativa and after that the same flowers that would grow on a marijuana plant. Only it’s not quite the plant that has stretched into being. Instead it’s a sizable glowing shape of ‘warmth’ seemingly attached for the moment to the small plant and roots that cling to her. Beyond the small beginnings the leaves and flowers are all ephemeral. Much of the .. shimmering glow of the warmth shaped to a hybrid plant would dim as it retreats into the physical bud. “I think this is ready to go.. I’ll just need to pluck a flower from the bud when we’re ready to feed it to the creature...” she holds the bud and anyone savvy to such would hear it’s song is a riot of various plants but all somehow in harmony with the joint effects from slumber all the way to cessation of life. It seems to flow from slumber to chaos to death to chaos to slumber round and round with all the potential of the varied plants. She takes a moment to practice halting the plant at each stage of effect.. Sleep.. Hallucination.. Death... The last of the trio being a syphon that pours the energy back into her body and then resuming the warming growth. She shivers a little bit as her body goes from Hot to warm to cool to hot and so on. Standing ready for the meeting they were heading to.
Slavina
Slavina watches Daina's dance intently, gives her a smile as she holds up the finished product. "Wonderful. Thank you Dainina." She looks over to Stu. "Before we get going... were you able to see the spirit we're going to meet?"
Fate
Stu shakes his head, a bit of a grim smile poking at one side of his mouth. "I worked damn hard not to."
Slavina
Slavina chuckles at that. "I don't blame you! But it would be nice to know what we're meeting. Before we get there, that is." She rolls her shoulders back as she thinks. "Aaren, would you sing the song of That Which Lurks as completely as you can? And Daina," Slavina looks over her shoulder at the goddess, "Would you dance to that song, please?"
Aaren
"Sure!" Aaren chirps. Then she turns her voices from their various tasks to the grim, arythmic song of the creature.
Daina
Daina looks up from the plant and makes a faintly comical face that involves one eye squinting and her nose wrinkling. She sighs though. "Right.. ok I can do that" This dance is .. very closed and small motioned. Slow and sluggish before a stretch of arms or leg out and then drawn back like grabbing at something.
Fate
(( Okay. I'm gonna want some rolls. I'm thinking something like
Aaren: Artistry + Art (Singing)
Daina: Wits + Art (Dancing)
Slavina: Mystery + Knowledge: Spirit World
You may of course choose a roll you think more appropriate. But for every 7 successes Aaren scores, that nets Daina +1 dice to her roll, and for every 5 successes Daina scores, that nets Slavina +1 dice. ))
That's a four for Aaren's roll, so no extra dice for Daina.
Base difficulty for Slavina's roll: 15. Every 2 successes over nets you more info.
Slavina
She watches this strange, lurching dance. Drinks in the discordant notes and start-stop rhythm of the song. Slavina sways slightly with the beat: not in time to it, exactly, although sometimes the pendulum of her shoulders or hips reaches its azimuth at the same time as Daina's lunges.
Slavina isn't moving to this song at all, really. This song is twisted.
Warped.
She can see the pattern in her head - the one she danced out in ecstatic swirls on the dining room floor. She looks for how this fits, and more... for the way the pattern has been wrenched. Like ink dripped in still water. Looks back up the tendrils to untwist them, to see that double image:
What it is
What it was
I'd like to roll mystery + knowledge: spirit world to find out what type of thing this used to be and what it's been twisted into
Fate
Go for it!
Slavina
15 on the reroll! JUST MADE IT
Fate
Whoo!
Daina
wooty woot
Fate
(To Slavina)
The pattern unfolds, jagged, not lining up properly, as if viewed through thousands of mirror-fragments. But you can put the pieces together, sort them from the others. And an image develops...
That Which Lurks was once a warm, pleasant spirit of overflowing love. Now it is a twisted thing whose love is overwhelming, oppressive, desperate, and unrelenting. (Insatiably hungry, one could say.)
Slavina
Slavina's lips thin as she gets a sense of things. Her swaying and nodding slows, then stops. "I see. Thank you both." She takes a moment to pin a loose strand of hair back, then directs her information at Stu. "That Which Lurks used to be a generous and loving spirit. Being here's made it grasping and desperate. Like the world's most overacted mother-in-law."
Fate
Like that, a little bit of the tension fades from Stu. He chuckles, dark, joined by Janin and Soheila. Kelly and Vievka, meanwhile, are quiet. Although in Vievka's case that could be because of her sheer intent alertness.
"And I here thought those only existed in stories," says Stu. But he quickly returns to the task at hand. "What... ah... what do we have to negotiate with, then?"
Aaren
"Can we offer to take it out of here?" Aaren sings.
Fate
"Won't it just—" Janin clears his throat, straightening his voice out from its singing. "Won't it just move on to eat other things?"
Daina
Daina winces "dunno though.. if the being will revert .. " pointing to Janin "Yeah.. "
Slavina
"Right now, probably." Slavina spins slowly to view the whole group. "But what if we offer to heal it?"
Fate
Dubiousness flashes over Stu's features briefly. "Well, that'd be great, assuming it wants to be healed." He rolls a shoulder. "Does it even think that something's wrong, though?"
Aaren
Aaren tilts her head for a moment, then wrinkles her nose. Her voices have split back off into peices, one singing her own song, one still following the holes in the world, a few others tracing the bodies of her companions.
"That's secondary." Aaren sings, firmly. "If it gives us what we want, we can always heal it when it get outside."
But one of her voices is singing Vir's song, so she realizes she's talking to the expert. So she adds, "Right?"
Slavina
"I was thinking," Slavina muses, "if we present it the right way it'll probably agree. It might not know anything is wrong, but if we tell it we can make it more desireable to people... that's just the kind of thing it would like."
Daina
Daina hums softly "I mean that sounds like a good idea but don't we need it's original song for Aaren to fix it up?"
Aaren
"Depends." Aaren sings. "Do you want to turn into what it used to be, or just into not wanting to eat people anymore?" With another voice she adds, "If it does consent, we can always just ask it what it wants to be now." After another moment, "I don't think I know enough about it yet to say what we can make it into. I don't know how much it's changed."
Daina
"Well at the very least we can try eh?" Daina tries to gather some sense of hope in the outcome..
Slavina
Slavina smiles, and looks to Stu.
Fate
Stu hears them all out, then nods. "Alright. If it works for you, then it works for me."
To this, Kelly speaks up. "So we're disregarding its agency unless it answers correctly, then." There's no judgment in his voice. It sounds like he's just trying to get it straight.
Janin slides a shocked look Kelly's way. "We're what... ?"
Vievka pipes in without skipping a beat. "We're brain controlling it to get what we want." Her eyes slide to one side to consider. "A moral quandary."
Janin blinks. "A what... ?"
"Puzzle," Kelly offers.
Aaren
Aaren huffs out, heavily. She'd been kind of hoping no one would bring that up. "The other option is leaving it here to eat other people, or killing it. I think brain control has a greater benifit for the community than the more violent option."
Slavina
"I don't really see the problem. We'll give it something it wants to get something we want." Slavina shrugs. "It might just not know it wants that unless we present it the right way."
Daina
Daina perks up and points out. "Also it's not like the being started out being all spoopy and unhappy.. it was different and circumstances changed it.. we're helping it get back to what it was"
Aaren
Aaren nods to Kelly. "So, yes. That is the plan."
Fate
"Okay." Kelly seems satisfied.
Vievka's brow furrows. "But... but we're deciding what it wants and then behaving as if that was the best outcome without letting it have any input, and then forcing it to believe that that's what it wants based on lies of omission regardless of what it would normally have wanted. And we're planning on changing its basic nature to reflect our worldview."
Janin shakes his head, eventually deciding to let the thoughts reel around instead of parse.
"Look, if we have to do that to one spirit thing or whatever that is to get everyone out safe—your brother included—I'm for it. And, I mean, bonus points if the thing is happier in the end and can return to its... ah... its family and friends, right?" Stu sighs. "But I'm open to other ideas." He spreads his hands and waits, regarding Vievka directly.
Vievka's eyes flick to him, then to Kelly, who says nothing, then to the side again. "I—I—" She regards the part of the string that leads out, still limp. Her expression twitches and she swallows. "Okay." It's not a concession. It's firm acceptance.
Aaren
Aaren nods to Vievka, pursing her lips. "Yes. I do hope we get a chance to get some imput if we go that way. That would be better." She sings her thinking song for a moment. After all, they aren't in a big hurry, they can spend a few minutes trying to preserve the Lurking thing's right to choose. "What do Bakersfieldians normally do with dissenting spirit beings?"
Fate
Stu spreads his hands. "I'm afraid my expertise is just sewage. Maybe one of the Drowned King's priests would know? Or She-Who-Hungers?"
Janin shakes his head. "I can't answer that either."
Aaren
"Alright." Aaren sings, with a little bit of Auntie Jordan corraling the children's thoughts in her voice."Do you know if this is time sensitive? I can't hear any digesting. Are they likely to dissapear or anything?"
Fate
"Honestly, I'd rather not find out," Stu says. "I've been trying to treat this as time sensitive."
"And not being digested doesn't mean not dying. Maybe they're suffocating or something," Kelly suggests blandly.
At this, Soheila closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and then has a seat.
Slavina
"In my experience, people in Bakersfield don't. They're generally insulated from and unaware of the spirit world except for in very limited ways. You're not going to find a normal way of dealing with spirit beings here." She pauses for a moment and adds, "I don't know how time-sensitive this is, but I doubt being inside that thing is good for them. I'm not willing to wait indefinitely to get Emmi and Dietrich back while we find a perfect solution."
Daina
Shaking her head a bit Daina smiles a little and offers her hand to Soheila. "Time to rest when we're home and feeding everyone eh?" a scant bit of warmth tingling the tips of her fingers ment as a soothing balm of warmth not an infusion of energy. Sort of dancing over her skin and not being absorbed. if I can do that?
Fate
Yep!
Aaren
Aaren nods sharply at Stu's words. "Well, I suppose we'd better go on with what we have then."
Fate
Soheila pats Daina's hand. She doesn't seem comforted in the least (maybe talk of her daughter and husband being possibly suffocated to death has something to do with that), but the warmth soothes some of the tension in her narrow frame, at least. "Thank you, habibti."
Stu squares himself, then looks to the task force as a whole, particularly the newly designated leader of the group. "I'm ready if you are."
Daina
Daina smiles and tries to seem reasuring, hopeful, maybe even confident of the outcome. The plant now root wrapped around one hand leaving the other free. "Anytime"
Slavina
Slavina turns to Soheila and gathers her up in a hug. She holds her close for a long moment, then lets her go with a kiss on the forehead and a small smile. "You'll get them back. I promise." Slavina gives Soheila's hands a quick squeeze before returning her attention to Stu.
"I'm ready."
Fate
Soheila takes another deep breath, then nods, summoning up a smile and a squeeze and a blessing in Deutsch.
Stu heads for the door under which the thread runs. Janin waits for Slavina. Vievka lingers behind briefly to give the thread to Kelly and Soheila.
Aaren
Aaren steps up to where Stu is, following him, singing quietly.
Slavina
Slavina hooks her elbow around Janin's and follows close behind Stu.
Daina
"Should I hang back a little once we're close?" she questions as she holds up the flower. "Could seem.. suspicious"
Slavina
Slavina turns back to eye the plant. "Nah. It's pretty."
Daina
Daina shrugs some and will trail along behind the group, talking to the new plant baby.
Slavina
Once Vievka's caught up with the group again, Slavina eyes her and the spindle and the thread. Curiosity practically glows out of her eyeballs. "Vievka... I've been wondering. What's your thread made from?"
Fate
"Fate," she says, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "I think."
Slavina
"Really?" Her eyebrows climb up and eyes widen, making her look even younger than usual. "Does that change things? To pull bits of fate onto a spindle?"
Fate
Vievka brightens. "No!" She stops and thinks. "Yes." She regards it, intent. "I mean, both, maybe. It's a paradox. I don't actually know. But, assuming there are infinite worlds and infinite possibilities, then whenever I choose to spin a thread I may well essentially be creating another parallel world. But also assuming that Fate is infinite and defines the course of... of being in the parallel world in question, I'm just doing what was already Fated for me to do!" She looks up, mischief glittering. "I almost asked the right question to get Grandma to tell me what's actually going on. But not quite." This doesn't seem at all a deterrent. "But Nikukas and I are gonna have a lot of time to brainstorm. So when we get back..." She goes quiet and regards the thread again, thoughtfully.
Daina
Daina chuckles a little to herself 'sounds like Lita" still moving along the path.
Slavina
"Wow!" Slavina grins. "That makes sense. So when you stop spinning the thread does it become intangible again?"
Fate
"Mmhmm!" Vievka returns to her brightness. "Oh, and the thread can't be cut or pulled apart either. Unless you have special scissors, but there are only a few of those in existence and they're all being used." She slides easily into making Daina's comment into a conversation. "Who's Lita?"
Stu shakes his head. (This kid is something else.) Janin, on the other hand, is silent, but strung tight.
Aaren
Aaren has turned her attention back to the world around them, still trying to get a grasp on the strangeness of the songs. "Does anyone want to be calmer?" She asks, in gentle, flowing tones. She's already singing her own song, the Vir-Like-Calm-Song.
Fate
"A little," says Janin. "Please."
Slavina
"No, thank you!" Slavina chirps. Then, in response to Vievka, she says, "That's incredible. And useful." She bends in to get a closer look at the thread-and-spindle. She reaches out tentatively then stops, and looks up at Vievka. "May I... touch it?"
Daina
Daina sings a note of 'no thanks' to Aaren before answering. Vivi "One of my grandmothers. Uh The Mother of the Lost .. how a bunch of people know her."
Aaren
Aaren turns one of her voices to calming Janin. But just, as he said, a little. "Let me know if you want to learn your calm song. I'd be delighted to teach it to you."
Fate
Vievka's eyes flick to Slavina's hands and then back up. "Sure. But it's just going to be a normal spindle if you hold it." Then she pauses, glances Daina's way, and says, "Ohhhh!" Curiosity sated, apparently!
The tension strung through Janin eases, just a little. "Is that going to require me to stick around for a few weeks?"
Daina
Daina smiles a little at the girl and then resumes chatting to the new plant buddy. Filling it in on it's current job and what it might be doing but also what it could do once we leave. All will be well plant friend.
Fate
(To Daina) Plant Friend has every confidence that all will be well!
Slavina
She acknowledges Vievka's warning with a nod. Slavina doesn't take the spindle in her free hand, just the thread. She feels its texture and ply, and tries to feel beyond that, inside that. It's not often one gets to literally run one's thumb down the fiber of Fate.
(Mystery wayfinding to see if she can feel anything in particular from it?)
Fate
Sure! Roll away!
Slavina
8
Fate
(To Slavina)
You can feel your consciousness extending down the thread even as it mostly remains in your body, as if you were Between while dancing. You stretch farther and farther, and feel the resonances humming along the thread...
At the other end of this thread is suffocation. That's the closest you can call it. Whoever is at the end of this thread is being steadily crushed by this warped, twisted hungry love so heavily that it's like the person themself is being squeezed out. And, as if they were being suffocated, they are struggling, thrashing, trying hard to be free, each moment of reprieve only granting a fraction of that "air" back as needed.
Aaren
"Only one way to find out!" Aaren smiles, the edge taken off her grin by her calm, contemplative, listening mood.
Fate
Janin tilts his head, conceding to Aaren's point.
Daina
Daina skirts a person or so if need be and gets into step next to Aaren, holding her arm up where the plant has wrapped roots around her arm. She smiles big. "Hey Aaren meet our new friend I think I'm going to name them Galimybės, or Gal for short" The plant looks sort of like a small canabis plant but the leaf shapes seem to vary a little.
Fate
Janin sends a surprised look Daina's way. "Is that Kalba?"
Aaren
"Hello Galimybės!" Aaren sings the plant a little sunlight song. She asks Janin, "What is Kalba?"
Fate
Janin glances between Daina and Aaren. "The national language of Išganymas."
"Not many people around here speak it."
Daina
Daina's expression mimics Aarens question and then she pauses "uh.. it's well.. Babushca with the smoking mouth uses it.. " she huhs softly and then smiles. "That's pretty neat I wonder if she visits there or maybe sends her wolves there a lot"
Slavina
Slavina's expression shifts in quick succession from enthusiastic interest to trancelike concentration to horror. She stops walking suddenly, and jolts back to herself when Janin's arm yanks on hers. In an instant, she smoothes her features back into a semblance of calm. She can't quite manage to put all the color back in her cheeks though, or stop the hand holding the thread from trembling.
"You can feel that?" She asks Vievka, not quite enough breath in the words to give them the proper weight.
Fate
Vievka grows solemn herself, but eager. Her lips part a moment, and then she asks:
"Feel what?"
Stu asks this at the same time, a little startled by Slavina's falling behind and subsequent catching up.
Janin quickly shifts gears and follows this up with, "Are you alright?"
Daina
can I send out some warmth sensors?
Fate
Warmth sensors?
Daina
like extend my warmth perception to feel out anything janky nearby
Fate
Oh yeah, sure.
Daina
5
Fate
(To Daina) You've all drawn closer to that strange pattern of warmth and not-warmth that you sensed earlier. A lot closer.
Slavina
"Yes." Slavina clears her throat and smooths the folds of her cloak. "Sorry. Yes, I'm fine." She starts walking, picking up the pace to the fastest walk she can manage.
When she speaks again, her voice is its usual rich, even tone. "I felt down to the end of Vievka's thread, to where her brother is. It was not a good experience. We should hurry."
Daina
She steps faster as well "man that thing feels so weird" she grumbles as she gives an all over shiver and the plant wrapped around her arm does the same, leaves trembling. "Welp quicker then" she gives a small smile to some folks and starts hopping and dancing over the path and anything in the way.
Fate
The blood drains from Vievka's face. Her expression goes straight and still. She picks up her own pace, pushing just ahead of the pack.
"Double time. You got it." Stu lengthens his stride in response.
In short order, the group makes it to a door. Beyond are the echoes of... something. They're distorted, distended. But it sounds like it might be... people talking? Things being smashed?
Stu quickly slips through, putting himself at the head and halting them all before they go further. "It's trapped in the room beyond this one. I've locked them both up. So before I unlock this one and we go in..." He levels Slavina with a look. "Did you want to talk through the door, or... ?"
Slavina
"We're not going to get very far with that in the way, right?" Slavina quirks a wry smile. "I'll go through. Renina, can you sing me bigger? Not taller, just... bigger in spirit?"
Aaren
"I can make you look bigger, sure!" She turns to Daina, Stu, Vievka and Janin. "I'm going to make you guys help, okay? We're going to sing Slavina's song. I'll teach you your parts."
Daina
Daina gives a thumbs up and holds up Gal, moving one leaf in what one assumes is an afirmative
Fate
There is some kind of affirmative from each of them, ranging from a nod to an eager and focused, "Okay!"
Aaren
Aaren closes her eyes.
There are holes in the world, and she can't hear around them. Even her own body, normally so present, is segmented and... elided. Simply missing. Eaten by the strange, twisted silence which sang no song of its own.
Silent silence? Silenced silence? Maybe Real Silence, only real silence had been ringing with emptiness, whereas this was just—-
Aaren let that thought go, and turned her voices to focus. Turned her voices to the misty, shimmering, mirroring song that was Slavina's body and mind and soul. And then to the songs in front of her. To weaving these disparate sounds into one symphony.
Deep bass, swelling in and out of crescendo—the rythum of blood around bone.
High, fluting peeps, sprinkled along the edges of the stillness of empty lungs.
Soft, light twangs, standing against the flow of muscles moving in endless patterns.
And Daina. All hard, rythmic claps broken into glittering laughter by the ringing bronze of the accompanying flame—
"Janin," Aaren sang into the silence, with one of her voices "follow this voice." She shifts it, to make it darker, lower, and sings his name, over and over, so he knows what notes are his. "Stu—"
And on through all of them.
??1
Fate
They comply, each taking their melodies. Bravely, unselfconsciously. Janin's inexpert contralto melds well with Stu's untrained bass weaves with Vievka's well-practiced and wide range.
+3 dice from Vievka, +1 each from Stu and Janin.
Mel, roll Wits + Art (Singing)
Every 2 successes = +1 dice to Aaren's roll
Okay, so that's a 4, which makes it +2 dice
Aaren
((I got an 18, so 3 dice for Slavina.
No extremity.))
Slavina
As Aaren sings her song, Slavina makes small adjustments to herself. The tilt of her headdress. The drape of her cloke. Which strands of hair curl out of her braid. The exact amount of straightness in her spine. All tiny details, but when she's done, Slavina looks entirely different. She would not be out of place in the Tsarbog's palace or the Governer's banquet hall, like this.
She places a hand on the door. Glances back at Stu. "I'm going to do my best. If it eats me, your best bet is to have Daina kill it. Or maybe tie it up with Vievka's threads. Whatever you do, don't wait long." In spite of the warning, Slavina doesn't sound like she thinks failure is even a possibility.
Fate
In the presence of such dignity, Stu straightens himself, unconsciously. He nods briefly, continuing to sing.
Then, he puts one hand on the knob and one hand on the door itself, palm flat, fingers splayed. It's like the grains of the door pulse. And then it springs open, almost eagerly.
The room beyond is empty. A suite, all told. And a large, double-shuttered window, tilted at an odd angle.
oh? OH? oH?
no No nO
pAiN AnD lOss i FEel it th ICk
CH ild ReN A bRoTHer A F rieNd a FaM ily aN ID EntiTY
oH i am so SO rrY
PlEasE aL LOw me To EaSE it loVeS
it HURTS to SeE YOU aLL lIkE This
It's not a voice, not quite. It comes up through the feet, slithers through the belly, twists its way into hearing.
"Fuuuuuck," sings Janin, somewhat off-tune.
Stu motions for everyone to keep a distance from this place. But when he turns, Vievka slips behind and to the side of him—not hiding, not on purpose, it seems, but unseen and unheard regardless. In any case, she keeps a good distance, quickly raveling more and more thread.
Then he approaches the window shutter, reaches up to put a hand on its knob, but waits to put his other hand on its surface, looking to Slavina for his cue.
Slavina
If the sounds from beyond the shutter bother Slavina, no trace of it shows in her bearing. She crosses the room, barely pausing when she reaches the far side.
Slavina throws the shutters open and strides into the room with slow, rolling steps. When she reaches the center of the room, she stops. Slowly turns until she sees That Which Lurks, but pays it no attention. Instead, she pushes her arms to the cieling and rolls her shoulders in a languid stretch. She doesn't say a word to it, ignores That Which Lurks completely.
She doesn't need words yet. Look at me, says the motion of her neck, because I'm not interested in looking at you.
I want to get the thing's undivided attention. Does that need a roll?
Fate
Actually, I do need a roll so it won't immediately charge into the room. Presence + Art (Performance) versus its Wits + Knowledge: Self + Rapacity channel for a total of 11 dice 5 autos.
Slavina
that's a 13
Fate
A tie!
Okay. I'm gonna have Rolz do a coin flip. Pick 1 or 2, Loral.
Slavina
Ummmm. 2!
Fate
Welp. It's charging you.
Slavina throws the shutters open, unexpectedly. Stu scrambles to regain control over them.
There's only a glimpse of glossy black, save for a ripple here of... some kind of light or color?
And then it oozes into the room, quick as a blink. Towering. Bulbous. A tiny mask set into the massive body (?), a look of yearning carved forever into its eyeless features.
tHAnk yOU THanK You THAnK yOU
Somewhere below the mask, the black splits open and spreads, giving way to something darker. Deeper.
Okay! Turn order will be established by a Wits roll. Just so y'know, you cannot botch this roll. :)
Slavina
4
Aaren
8 XD
Daina
2
Slavina
4 for stu also
Aaren
2 for Janin
Fate
8 for Vievka
Tick 0: Vievka and Aaren
Everything dreams.
In-in through the nose... out through the mouth...
Vievka reaches for it, through something, through nothing, into the something beyond nothing, and pulls its fabric out... and out... and out. Then, when she draws enough of it, she throws it over everyone as if throwing a sheet. Dreaming them somewhere else.
Illusion + Art (Dreams) at Diff 18.
19
It's like everyone's suddenly changed position in the room. Somewhere nowhere near where one actually is. It's like an out-of-body experience.
Aaren
The world squezes and narrows for a moment, the songs constricting like that let out breath.
And now Aaren can hear her body. Twice. Once around her and once across the room from her.
Aaren closes her eyes. (They aren't good for much here anyway. The only colors are the ones she brought with her. All the chairs have the deceny to make noise. Mostly.)
The song of the Hungry One pounds into the room. Low and buzzing brass underling the crackling high pitched vibrato, a broken voice issuing out of a broken throat, rimmed with the raw edges of acid rising through a tube of muscle and bone.
The Hungry One spreads out its song, the notes flowing around the edges of the hidden music. It reaches out with notes that aren't eyes, could never be eyes, and baulks at something (although what, Aaren cannot hear).
Aaren lifts her voices, breaking them away from Slavina's song. One after another they change, slipping into the rubbed-ragged sound of the starving song. Her own throat burns in sympathy, and her heart begins to drain as seven voices sing of endless, depserate need.
Aaren sings its Never-Eyes, sings them turning back to the defiant strut of Slavina's song, laid across the room like the growing warble of a wobbling sting. Piercing, grating, unavoidable.
SingingSinging to draw the things attention back to Slavina.
??2
Fate
Diff 14
Aaren
:( 13 twice
Fate
><
Okay! Next turn: Slavina, Thing Which Lurks, Stu
Slavina
Slavina reorients herself and her motions to her mirror across the room. Through it's lens, she reclaims her spot in front of That Which Lurks. Its shadows split the air above her, its fractured whispers fill the corners. She stands just as tall - just as confidently - as before it blew past her. No... more confidently.
It needs a better show? Fine. It will have one.
Slavina tugs one small gourd free from her hip. With a quick jerk, she dashes it against the ground. Silver clouds the air, both blocking and giving light. Swallowing That Which Swallows. When the silver clears, it does so slowly, inching away like morning mist with Slavina as the sun. She stands like a statue of polished redwood, one arm thrown back, the other raised up toward That Which Subsumes. Clenched in her hand is a chain. Strung on the chain is a small mirror.
"Look."
Her voice rolls through the room, that mix of thunder and silk that Grandfather (the first Grandfather) wove and treasured.
"Look at what you could be."
The mirror rotates gently on its chain. Every rotation throws light across Slavina's face, across the emptiness of That Which Wants. Limns the curve of a bared shoulder and the arch of a crooked maw in potentials, in possibilities. Tantalizing glimpses of strength and power and control.
"We can do this for you. If..." She smiles like a cat, "...you will do one thing for me."
?2
'kay, I'm gonna roll Illusion plus influence to get it to work with us
Fate
Okay! That's an opposed roll. Same as before, in fact! But it won't get the benefit of Rapacity because Slavina's appealing directly to its hunger.
11 dice, by the by
Slavina
18
Fate
DANG! IT ROLLED 12 SUCCESSES ON 11 DICE!
Still failed though
The Thing Which Lurks whirls on the mirror-Slavina in a mess of strange appendanges and lurching, burbling movements. Though there was nothing to indicate an exchange or a shift, the mask is now carved in an expression of openmouthed awe and naked desire.
wHat WH at whaT
jUsT asK LOVe j uSt ASK
Turn order suspended for the time being
Slavina
"Give them back to me." Slavina motions to the ones at the end of the string. She says it so casually - this is no big deal. It can always find others later, when it is strong.
Fate
what
no
i I i
i LoVE tH EM i I I
It's caught. Uncertain. Would it be actually be giving them up? The mirror shows...
One more opposed roll. Of your choice. I'll give it half its Rapacity, rounded up, to its roll.
Slavina
Can I get some help folks?
Daina
Daina frowns a little and makes a slight motion with her hand, 'warming' it and catching Aarens eye. She looks to the copy of herself and with a bit of focus and effort she pushes warmth through the ground and up into the mirror, making the shiny of the glass surface more warm and sunlight like . A plaint energy source for Aaren to fit it to it's purprose.
Aaren
Aaren hears the laughing, ringing music of Daina's warmth. She turns her voices to it, and shapes it into something that sounds like admiration, subservience, or maybe affection. The illusion sings warmth, breathing out itself—breathing out promises of total unity.
Fate
What y'all rolling?
Aaren
((... SingingSinging. XD
I gots me a 12))
Daina
warmth and fire maybe?
Fate
Works for me!
Go for it, Mel!
Slavina
Slavina shifts her weight slightly so the mirror sways and glitters. She lets out a small, scoffing breath. "You won't need them. Will you? Not when you can have this." She looks up at it from beneath hooded eyes. "But if you don't want it..."
Fate
Charisma + Relate (Influce)?
Slavina
10
Fate
Okay. Its turn...
Wow. That's all 11 successes out of 11 dice for a total of 14.
Buuut y'all still beat it.
Like that, the mask is now that of eager anticipation, wide-eyed, the kind of anticipation reminiscent of an addict.
It opens up again, revealing that deep dark, then ripples...
And then, with a thud, an unfamiliar fellow drops to the floor, curled on himself, so drenched in sweat that his clothing sticks to his skin and his hair smears over his head. His eyes fly open and he takes in a deep gasp of air.
Another thud, another unfamiliar face. She unfurls, rolls, and scrambles to her feet to the other side of the room, looking around, wild-eyed.
Another, and out comes a boy, red-haired, who jumps up and looks around, dazed. He's still clutching tightly to the thread. His eyes follow it, to Vievka (or at least her image) and then he lets go as if it'd burned him and backs up.
One-by-one, each of the consumed emerges... including a gentleman enfolded protectively around a small girl, who part from each other as if repulsed.
Stu carefully moves around—haltingly too, as he tries to coordinate his mirror's movement and his own—and begins to corral people together, towards the exit.
As the last person emerges, the Thing Which Lurks, whose mask has remained unchanged throughout this process, edges a hairsbreadth from Slavina's image with frightening agility.
GiVe LoVE gi Ve IT to mE