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 Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2009 8:31 pm
If we discover a desire within us that nothing in this world can satisfy, also we should begin to wonder if perhaps we were created for another world.
Sudden, cold vastness.
It would be as though you'd simply stepped in. A simple jerk informs you that you must be standing now on a rotating platform, inching ever so steadily, ever so slowly. It produces an unusual effect on the mind and gradually puts you into a state of ease. The platform must be moving counterclockwise. Beneath your feet it rumbles pleasantly, the faint cranks of massive, alchemical gears creaking and groaning.
The walls rotate with you as though to produce the illusion of total stillness on the eyes. The endless stretch of bookcases ahead also turn with the platform, though to you they are unmoving. The massive chamber appears to be a grand library. There is a sense that the ceiling is domed, even if it cannot be seen, cloaked in complete darkness. The eyes are robbed of sight save for the guidance of a few candles fluttering in the crevices between books.
If you choose to advance, you will notice that navigating down the aisles between bookcases appears to be a lengthy, tiresome trek. All the bookcases are aligned in such a way that suggests the chamber is circular and they all stand surrounding an inner circle somewhere. It is simply a matter of following the linear aisles, or maybe if you wanted to you could wander off to another aisle, but it wouldn't make a difference. The same sight will meet you everywhere you go.
A little further in, you will take note of a creeping sensation on the nape of your neck. This will not be entirely unwarranted, because if you feel compelled to look up and decide to humor such an action, you will see the shadow of a corpse floating overhead. Literally. The carcass appears to be a man who has hanged himself, but there is no rope, and he floats mindlessly through the air. Perhaps he is going in circles, perhaps he is following you. But the fact remains that he is a levitating carcass of a hanged man.
Further in and from the gloom of the ceiling emerges a forest of severed heads. They just barely hang down at first, but the more you advance, the lower and closer to you they hang. Their faces are twisted with anguish and defeat. Screaming at the world, screaming why has this happened to us? It is clear no gods look upon this realm, for they cannot. This is where benevolent gods go blind. And as you (perhaps wearily) go on further and further, you may notice that the hanging heads have gradually transitioned from tormented to euphoric, their faces lifted in silent mocking laughter. Rotten teeth show through gaping grins, their widened eyes staring at nothing as they slowly rotate on their strings.
It is around that stage that more unusual sights begin to occur. It is only subtle at first, but as more and more candles emerge into view to light up more of the darkness, bloodstains on the books and bookcases become far more clear. So, too, do the severed hands that have been smashed between the endcovers of the volumes. Perhaps a curious soul or two have snuck their hands into the contents and paid for it with those very hands. Were these volumes that forbidden? Surely, you will not touch a book containing the rotting form of someone's detached appendage.
It transitions from hands smashed between the pages of books to whole arms sticking out of the bookcases. They barely intrude at first, just fingers poking out, but then they become whole branches, stiff and extending from their places and crookedly tangling the path with the stench of decay and a forest of countless, greying arms. You find that you must push through them to get any farther. Hacking through them would be better, but then you will be spraying blood over yourself.
When that occurs to you, you may hear a small taunting laugh in the candle flames, fluttering and contorting in the dancing shadows they cast.
The tangle becomes so thick that you will literally have to break through them. It is very much a wall of nothing but arms, clawing, scratching, some gripping others as if severing them will bring them to life. And because the tangle is so solid, there are suddenly no candles in this phase of the journey at all. It is complete darkness with only hands to accompany you. And somewhere above, the floating hanged man still follows, levitating in slow, steady circles, navigating between the suspended heads and making them move as he brushes along them.
When you break through the tangle, you will be met with sudden light...
The scene before you will be pleasantly tranquil. The domed ceiling is of elaborate stained glass, making no particular image but just facets of colored glass, intricately weaving in and out of one another, spilling blue and violet and purple and crimson light below. Those are the only colors you see. Blue and violet and purple and crimson. And from the stained glass dome falls a neverending supply of blue and violet and purple and crimson leaves. Autumn leaves of the other realm.
They fall lightly like snow. They glow in magnificent softness, translucent like holograms, see-through but tinted. They completely cover the marble floors but will crunch when you step upon them. Will you remember that you are still on a rotating platform? It is evident that this is the center.
There are a series of circular tables in this inner circle, surrounded by the bookcases and their walls of tangled arms and hands. The floating hanged man is no longer with you. Neither are the suspended heads. It is as though all the nightmares have been left behind you, presenting now a wonderful scene of dark, serene beauty.
The table in the center is the largest. Through the light looms a towering wall of complete darkness in the background, a curtain of total black as though hiding a terrible secret. Not a hint of a bookcase stands in that pillar of complete darkness. But your attention will not linger on that background wall for long, because sitting behind the center table is a figure, a figure who perhaps should not be here in the first place. He quietly and peacefully sweeps away another wave of leaves off of the surface, paying you no heed, his ebony head bowed and black-and-gold robes softened in the beams of blue and violet and purple and crimson.
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Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2009 9:15 pm
He hadn't seen this before, and with the crunch of the leaves being strange, he withdrew the slingshot and a green and white pellet and shot his feet. His body mass became weightless, and he walked on the air. No more crunching.
He wasn't too fond of how that rotating platform looked, either. Jasper's entrance wasn't the usual, he just poofed from the last time he used the teleport stone. Fighting that idiot; now here, but not alone. The figure didn't seem to mind Jasper's presence, however, but Jasper didn't even know what to do. First off, he had no clue what was going on with the leaves, nor how he was going to get out. I can't cut through the air on this one. Let's just say he was clueless and leave it at that.
His floating spell could last out forever, if no one tampered with him. Just as long as he didn't use the slingshot for anything else.
The surrounding areas were calm, but it was an eerie calm that didn't set right with him. It was just something about bloody bookcases and faces of distorted emotion that he didn't want to look at; thankfully he never experienced it full-time.
Jasper stared at the stained glass, its soft light letting his see the various objects. His gaze went to other lit items, reflecting a careful amount of light back, but ended at the rotating platform, mesmerizing it was. It held his sight, bewitching his thoughts; no doubt the overall composition was helping with that. Jasper stared on, until someone was to arrive.
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Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 6:09 am
A coin turned lazily through the air in the dark before clattering to a platform, making a loud ruckus in the silence.
A moment later a tall man with red hair was standing there looking slightly surprised, bending he reached for the coin and picked it up pocketing it.
Standing back up Joshua surveyed his surroundings and whistled.
"Haven't seen such a depressing place since the Demon King's..." He took note that he was the only one standing on the platform well apart from what appeared to be a long dead corpse hanging suspended in front of him.
He could have sworn that it was Caellach but before he could lean closer and inspect the body it floated away from him back upwards into the gloom.
"Must not be a people person." He laughed, the sound echoing back to him sounded sinister and evil, soon it wasn't just his laugh that echoed back to him but what sounded like an entire army of laughing corpses all wheezing through dead lungs.
Ya Joshua was now creeped the hell out.
When the laughter died down Joshua spoke to himself a little quieter than he had earliar. "The others for some reason haven't reached here yet or have gone ahead..." Joshua decided he'd wait a moment just to be safe and sat down on the platform that he now knew to be rotating and waited fiddling with a regular coin that he had removed from his pocket.
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Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 11:10 am
((Just gonna jump right in, don't feel like posting in True Motive))
The cold..the darkness, everything seemed so..calm..for some odd reason. One would think a eerie room such as this would put someone in a state of panic..wouldn't it? Everything changed suddenly, it was...different. The platform jerked a bit, and he fell forward, jamming his spear into the ground to keep his balance.
This was probably one last place he wanted to be..but the others? Did they follow through? Was he the only one that ended up here? Surely that couldn't have been the case..Alihi told them all to go on ahead but then what? "Where am I..?" Ephraim muttered, almost in a whisper as he looked around his surroundings once more. The sudden image of a man hanging in the air, looking like he had just been hanged was a little frightening. There was no rope around his neck either and this place was really starting to give him the creeps.
If anything in Ephraim's entire life, not even the battle against the Dark Gods could have gotten him to at least shiver at the mere sight of these..mocking..skulls. He muttered to himself, it was just a dream, but that was a lie. This was not a dream, it was so very real and he was going to have to go through with it with each passing minute. He couldn't move anyways..not on this rotating platform. He ignored everything, keeping his eyes closed and trying to block out the sounds as much as possible.
The sounds suddenly stopped and that was then the lancer opened his eyes and looked around once more. Stained glass? Leaves? A..person..? His sight grew hazy, no because of those horrifying images, but most likely because he hadn't had a chance to rest in who knows how long. He sat down where he was, shoulders hunched over, still gripping the shaft os his spear.
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Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 1:27 pm
(( Followin' Ephy's lead, there. ))
Rei had already entered the portal. He wouldn't- no, he couldn't wait for the others to muster up the courage to go in. He wanted to see what the force was behind these oddities, and the only thing that would stop him would be death itself!
The jerk under his feet hardly shook the boy. He'd been through worse, after all. The Druid chose not to linger in one place very long, it made him feel uneasier. His eyes only focused forward, not wandering up to the unnoticeable ceiling. But, as the sensation twinged at the back of his neck, Rei could not help but glance up, feeling shivers as he saw the levitating corpse. But, he pressed onwards. He'd seen worse, to be sure. Watching Loki brutally batter Synra's body not too long ago left him rather jaded, in terms of odd corpses. But he could only see the shadow, after all. Maybe unspeakable horrors were committed on the corpse. Maybe it's skin was peeled from its body while it was still alive. And then, the muscles, and-
Rei shuddered. Not the time to creep himself out. At all. It was then that he focused his gaze forward once more. Don't look at the creepy things, don't look at the creepy things... he told himself. Soon, it became a temporary mantra, echoing through his mind. Of course, in the face of contorted, severed heads, telling oneself to not look doesn't last too long. Rei was more and more unnerved by the heads that he passed, watching their gradual changes from fear to smiles as he got farther and farther down the aisle.
But, he managed to ignore them, in the face of another mental threat: books with arms sticking out. Rei let himself laugh an expectant laugh. Just getting weirder and weirder, for sure. Carefully, he weaved around the limbs, trying his hardest to have them touch him as little as they could. But, of course, one can only stop so much. The occasional gliding finger along his back left the Druid more than chilled. He wanted to stop, to wait for someone else to come. But then he would be standing around all of those severed limbs. And he'd sooner die than willingly stand around those things.
Then, the lights went out. If he were a little younger, he'd likely have lost control of his bowels then and there. But, this would not be the case. He was used to dark locales from all of his studying. The hands, however made that familiarity fade almost instantly. Rei rummaged through his belonging, finally pulling out the same exact tome he'd used far too many times today: Fenrir. With a small, nearly silent incantation, eight small flames appeared in a circle in front of him, as was the norm with the spell.
Rei shivered as he saw the tangling mesh of limbs that started only a few feet in front of him. He absolutely, positively did not want to touch them. At all. With a deep breath, he pulled two of the flames from the circle, and to each side of his body. The other six, however, he willed to expand, to become slightly larger. Then, he organized them in two columns of three, sending them down the aisle ahead of his path. The limbs were slowly destroyed in the face of the flames, and all that was left to touch were small droplets of blood that trickled from the shelves. Steadily, his two flames hovered by his side, faintly illuminating his surroundings as the other flames advanced.
With a gulp of his pride, the Druid began to walk down the aisle, following the flames that began to slow. He could see that the limbs had stopped. And on the other side? Darkness. Such a darkness that it quelled his spell as it reached it. With a sharp exhale, Rei hastened his pace, eager to reach the end of this ordeal. The drippings of blood, the small cackles from the flames, it didn't matter to him. All that mattered was reaching that darkness at the end of the tunnel. And when he did...
Light.
Rei found himself out of the darkness, out of the chilling void of the aisle, and into a rather welcoming abode. And just like the last time, he wasn't sold. The last welcoming abode they came across was that old lady's. And she transformed into a giant monstrous demon thing. But, there were no black flowers, no scents of cookies, no battered corpses just past the doorways. All that there was was just stained glass, bookshelves, and a certain dark-haired man amongst it all.
Curious, but not daring to interfere, Rei only stood, watching. If he was to have an exchange with this being, the being would likely approach him, not the other way around.
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Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 2:56 pm
 ...Injured with pain and sadness, the you that cannot be healed
Shoulder the burden of the past that cannot be erased; don't throw away your will to live...[ X ][ O ]Blossom[ O ][ X ] →Blossom could feel a shiver rolling down her spine as she stepped through the portal, next to Rei. She kept her balance easily as the platform was spinning, and for the first few minutes, things actually weren't that bad. Yes, the trip was proving to be quite long and the lack of proper lighting unnerved her, but she wasn't really scared. This really didn't strike her at all as the lair of some embodiment of chaos or--
Blossom looked up as she felt, rather than saw, the shadow of something overhead. Her eyes widened at the corpse hovering right overhead, her hands tightening on Vezra's hilt.
All right, starting to get really unnerved.
Blossom stuck closer and closer to her companions as they continued to walk. That damned corpse just kept following them, bobbing gently as if in a pool of water, always overhead and shading over their faces with his damn dead shadow. Then there was severed head after severed head peering out from the darkness, silent screams of agony piercing Blossom down to the core, and the young Hero had to swallow down a frightened shriek.
This is not a good place this is not a good place we have to get out of here we have to get out of here
She was hardly looking at her surroundings now, attempting to keep her blue-grey eyes focused solidly on the back of Rei's cloak and the wisps of elder flame surrounding him. She still found herself noticing decaying fingers from in-between the pages of tomes along those bookshelves, then whole hands, then entire arms, and Blossom bit down hard on her tongue to keep from choking out a frightened cry.
It was very nearly too much to make their way through the dead arms and hands. No light, suffocated by dead flesh, having to touch it and It's touching me and it's dark and the corpse is still following us and they're touching us they're touching us oh Goddess they're touching us get me out of here I don't want to be in here we have to leave NOW!
Blossom literally shoved her way through the last obstacle at the end of the hall, falling onto her knees against the carpet of leaves on the hard, marble flooring. Vezra clattered to the ground before her, and it took Blossom a few moments of deep breathing to regain her composure. The tranquility and peacefulness of the room--the complimentary, soothing colors, the translucent leaves, the sudden quiet Blossom felt--seemed... odd. There was something very not right about this place, and she didn't think it was simply the chaotic, unnatural scene she had just left.
Blossom took Vezra back into her hands and pulled herself to her feet. The point of the blade was held downwards for the time being as she watched the robed man at the center table.
There was still that silence; no one was talking. No one was asking. Why was no one saying anything? Blossom put one foot forward, then her other followed until she was standing nearer the front of the group. "Hey...! You there!" Blossom glanced down, vaguely seeing the glow of the pearl from within her boot, then looked back up, more composed now. "Who are you? What exactly is this place?"←  You'd better forget everything. Remember. . . your different Life?XXX
You'd better forget everything. Remember. . . though, we cannot returnXXXLike in times of warped memories, we can understand somedayXXX
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Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 4:18 pm
Vika strode about in silence, taking care to stay by Blossom's side always. She seemed to be the only one of the group not to appear severely unnerved by the presence around them. It wasn't the first time she'd been in here, after all.
"I want to bring Synra back."
Those were the words she'd used last time she had come here, the words that had started the whole fiasco in the desert. And her benefactor had given her, and the infernal sorceress within, more than the power to. He'd checked on them once, Vika remembered even though at the time she had been a prisoner within her own mind, only once at the spire as far as she could recall.
And there he sat, calmly, at a table in the midst of the true core of all the chaos.
Blossom's words, fierce, as afraid as the lot of them, rang out around them, startling Vika. Her words did not echo as one would think they might in such an area; instead, they died as soon as she uttered them, as though there were nothing around them for the sound to bounce away from. Vika ignored this mysterious fact and extended her hand to brush against Blossom's chest, silencing her and pushing her back. "What is this place?" she had asked.
Likely the only two who knew just how close to 'home' they currently stood were the raven and the magician before her themselves. They were in the basement of Fefga's house.
She stepped forward, away from the group that had come inside and towards the form that sat at the table. It looked like Soren, but it was not Soren at all. Vika could sense that, she could sense the same darkness that she had been tied into for the last several weeks emanating from his form, dripping from his aura. This wasn't the real Soren.
Vika's eyes moved from the presence in front of her, beyond it, to the wall behind him. The stretch of wall she gazed at was the only section that was not adorned with bookcases. Instead, it writhed a pure darkness, the strange form pulsating, twitching upon its place among the wall. And in the middle of it all, she could recognize Neros, shackled to the wall with blackened thorns and vines, hanging lifelessly.
For the first time since coming back to this place, Vika shivered.
She took a couple more steps towards the table where the apparition sat, glancing once more at him before returning her eyes to the wall once again. She opened her mouth to speak; paused. She glanced at the apparition for a brief moment.
"...Neros?" Her words were loud, directed towards the entire room rather than the specter, and they fell lifelessly among the air just as Blossom's had. She continued, however. "Neros...Neros, it's Vika. A-are...are you there...?"
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Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 4:47 pm
No time to be lazy
The journey is perfect The pace is so crazy
The race is so worth it ◄AKIHI►◄ALIHI►◄AMARA►
————————————————————
Alihi took a moment to observe her surroundings. It was dark, darker than she expected. She couldn't see far ahead of her, which reminded her of the Fog of War situations she had to deal with occasionally in Elibe. And I hated those. She clutched Amara closer to herself; there were little people around and, well, she didn't want to be caught off-guard and then have Amara get hurt!
Alihi couldn't help but wonder when things would stop being so freaking unpredictable. She began to move forward, uncertainty in each of her steps...
Akihi appeared moments later, three tomes clutched close to his body; Elfire, Excalibur, and Bolganone. He looked around for a few moments, terror filling his body. "... A-Alihi...?"
Alihi's heart jumped straight into her throat. She turned around quickly, backtracking to take Akihi by the hand. "Akihi... I'm glad you're alright." The tactician smiled slightly, beginning to trek forward once more. "... You are unharmed, right?"
"Ah... Y-yeah..." The mage stammered in response, tugging his hand free of Alihi's. It was the truth; because of his ability to maneuver well in the sand, he avoided most, if not all, danger. "H-how about you and Amara...?"
"We're fine!" Amara chirped, lifting her head to look at Akihi. The little girl grinned brightly. "Fine, fine, fine!"
Alihi nodded in agreement. "We... we should get going." She gestured down the hallway, where she saw the others disappear down. "Let's go."
Without another word, the trio were off. Alihi held her daughter tight, keeping her head down as the corpses and heads went by; the last thing the mother wanted was to have her daughter screaming in fear. "It's okay..." She whispered to Amara, the message also for Akihi and herself. The Kaua twins were genuinely afraid, but the female tried to hide it; she had trained herself too well to appear strong whenever possible.
After a long, long walk that seemed to take an eternity, the trio reached the end of a rather terrifying and freaky hallway. The three of them did not say a single word; there was nothing they could say, with one of them being shielded from her surrounds and the other two having yet to fully recover from that... interesting experience they endured.
————————————————————
I will be with you
We'll do this together
Always together
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Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 5:14 pm
He was hidden behind the curtain of inky darkness, unmoving, unresponsive. He hung from the tangle of black, metal thorns as murky as the false blood and tears that churned through his veins, tethered by the elbows which were suspended above him, ankles together and bound. If one shone a light upon Neros, it would cast away the veil and reveal an endless stretch of black metal thorns that crisscrossed along the curving wall.
Soren slowly raised his head from the table. The beams of blue and crimson light showed the tears shining on his tired face, the pale dimmed by the colored ribbons of light. He blinked sleepily as more translucent leaves fluttered down upon his form and he shook them off. The mage gradually pushed himself to his feet, shoving the chair back with a motion, and he fixed his burgundy eyes upon his visitors with something like apathy.
He stood there for a moment, doing nothing. His gaze wandered over the small collection of people before settling on Vika. Then he steadily raised his arms, his whole body slack and movements suspiciously unrealistic, very much like he was a marionette on invisible strings. His head fell onto one shoulder while he spread his limply hanging arms. Soren turned the palms of his hands upwards and snapped his fingers.
Chairs were shoved out from each table, each with a loud scrape against the marble floor. Had they been there before? Each chair was of a Gothic design, elaborate pointed arches of their backs rising above the tables, their cushions welcoming each person to take a seat. Soren flourished his arms upward and little plates with cups of tea billowed into existence in front of each chair. Warm, sweet, wafting with an aroma reminiscent of honey and herbs.
"Have a seat," he instructed. His voice, unlike theirs, rang all around in low pleasant thrums. Soren lowered one arm while wiping at the tears on his face with the other sleeve. The way he stood was odd, the knees together like he could fall over at the slightest breeze, an overly innocent and vulnerable posture. "Dear Vika, I heard about Synra. I'm terribly sorry for your loss. It must hurt so, so much..."
Slowly he sank back into the chair, a cup of tea manifesting at his fingertips. He took a sip of the concoction. "You must all be very tired," he went on. "Your trials, your ordeals. After losing your homelands, there's not much more you want to lose. Are you aware that citizens all across the continent have been losing their minds as well?"
He raised the cup, which trembled furiously with his shaking body. A small figure suddenly leapt onto the table in front of him. It made a curious thud as it swung its two heads toward the visitors, blinking eyes that shone like coals, strangely similar to the beast Cerberus. The puppy Orthrus lay down so as not to obstruct Soren's view of the group.
Soren contemplated at the cup of tea now, swishing the contents around in unearthly silence.
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Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 7:49 pm
...Injured with pain and sadness, the you that cannot be healed
Shoulder the burden of the past that cannot be erased; don't throw away your will to live...[ X ][ O ]Blossom[ O ][ X ] →Blossom was moving forward again, ready to shout again, when she felt a gentle hand against her collarbone. Blossom let the raven now calming her back down guide her back, and she watched dimly as Vika approached the robed man. Vika questioned if Neros was there, and Blossom vaguely wondered where Neros was, if Vika could clearly see him. Was he in that darkness? Blossom turned her eyes to it, but then the chairs were moving, and Blossom heard a familiar voice speaking.
"Have a seat. Dear Vika, I heard about Synra. I'm terribly sorry for your loss. It must hurt so, so much..."
Blossom hesitantly began to approach the table. She stopped, looking over to Vika, then back to Soren. He was speaking again, sipping a cup of his own tea at his own chair. At his sudden announcement, however, Blossom's spine went rigid. She didn't even notice the two-headed puppy.
"What...? What do you mean, as well?" Blossom gripped Vezra more tightly in her hands. "People have been losing their minds? When... when I was there last, everyone in the town was fine...!"
Blossom turned her eyes back to the others behind her, then back forward to where she saw Vika and Soren. The thought of how exactly they were supposed to fix things from inside here occurred to her. It was a good question; what were they supposed to do? All they were told was that they needed to go into the portal and fix things here, but... what exactly was broken?← You'd better forget everything. Remember. . . your different Life?XXX
You'd better forget everything. Remember. . . though, we cannot returnXXXLike in times of warped memories, we can understand somedayXXX
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Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 8:14 pm
"Across the continent? I can't say I have... I've never been to all the lands in the continent, you see," Charice spoke up, having traversed the narrow maze with everyone else. "But..."
She yawned. She couldn't really make any attempt to hide it--bandits followed by monsters, followed closely thereafter by some weird professional army? Yeah, she was exhausted. She was pretty sure Aph was in a similar shape. Why did I come here, again? ...Oh, right. Saving the tactician's daughter. Geez, all this trouble for one little girl? Yeah, there really isn't much more we want to lose. It was bad enough when I lost a friend...
With all the dead body parts back there in addition to the "hanged man", she'd wondered if she might've seen Katherine at some point. As she and her pegasus battled on through the arms and arrived, they'd seen nobody. But she was sure she'd heard... one lone voice. But curiously enough, instead of being all mocking and evil, it was more... more...
"You can do it. You've gotten much better. But we'll talk later, okay? You have one last errand. Don't fall asleep, now!"
...Cheerful...
"Yeah, I'm tired, all right. I'm downright sick of all this fighting. Day in, day out, and then something else comes along. This hero business, it never ends. But that's the life I chose. So people across the continent are feeling troubles too, is that so? We've decided to start fixing troubles here. So what needs fixing?"
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Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:51 pm
Another sip.
"Nothing needs fixing," he answered kindly, casually, smiling at them and showing white teeth. "Almost everything is the way it should be. All that's left is to see if you need fixing."
He again gestured to the chairs around them with a sweep of his arm, at which Orthrus got up and nibbled at the mage's fingers with his two heads. "But I'm sure you're all just fine," Soren went on conversationally. "Just a little tweaking and you're all set to fulfill your mission."
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Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 10:19 pm
→ → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → →
 Abel had made his way into the room with the others, walking just a few paces in front of Alihi and her family, the entire way there. As he entered the room, he immediately got an ominous feeling, and raised his arm, grabbing the hilt of his broadsword, just in case.
He looked back at Alihi, to see if she was okay, then continued to approach where the others stood. He listened suspiciously, as the man at the table spoke. ...What exactly had happened in Learania, while they were away? And other countries were going through this, as well? What did this fellow know, that everyone else did not?
As the conversation furthered, Abel was really beginning to get spooked by this guy. His voice was... it was just odd. Abel couldn't put his finger on it, but something about him just did not sit right. Maybe he was just getting paranoid from all the horrors they had encountered on their way to this room. But then, the man spoke again, and Abel couldn't help but be paranoid about his speech. He was unable to remain silent anymore. He stepped forward, and tightened his grip on his sword, ignoring the man's offer to sit. "What do you mean... tweaking?"
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Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 10:26 pm
Rei pondered the man's words, almost unbelieving of his knowledge of the outside world. He was sitting here, in some odd, rotating thing, and he knew what was going on in Eyris?
"Losing their minds...?" Rei said, giving quite the curious look at the man. This wasn't Soren, for sure. At least, not the Soren he knew. The Soren he knew was much less... casual, about such things like insanity. Because, you know, insanity isn't something one talks about over biscuits and tea in a spinning nightmare in the middle of who-knows-where.
"So that was your doing?" Rei's mind flashed to those twins he'd encountered before. Two young children, corrupted by... well, something was wrong with them. And if this thing had something to do with it, he'd surely pay, one way or another.
But, again, the man was beckoning them towards the chairs. And they didn't seem like they were hostile. They were just chairs, after all. Swallowing his apprehension, Rei walked across the room, and took a seat, one as close as he could be to the figure. If it came time to turn to arms, he wanted to be able to get a nice attack in, before anything else happened. And besides, he knew Soren was a mage, so his own magical defenses would more than suit his needs, if he needed to keep the man from harming anyone.
As the Druid sat cautiously in the chair, he began to comprehend more of the man's speech. He was making it seem like the world was some sort of clock, that it was off by such a small fraction that, as time went on, it would get slowly and slowly further behind, more inaccurate. And to the untrained eye, it would stay that way for quite a while. With talks of fixing and tweaking, though, he could be talking about anything. And with Abel's remark, it was good to see that the rest of them were as skeptical as he was.
"Tweaking? Mission? Just what are you talking about?" Rei said, not daring to touch the tea. Back one year ago, after all, that kindly old lady turned into a demon thing. Her confections and refreshments were likely poisoned, so these could easily be, too. Plus, tea just wasn't Rei's thing. Coffee definitely suited his studious tendencies more.
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Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 10:34 pm
Blossom stared at Soren incredulously. He was making absolutely no sense, and Blossom had no idea of how to go about doing what they had come in to accomplish. The little Hero slowly sank into a chair next to Rei, and as he did, she ignored the tea before her. She didn't trust anything in this place, not even the chair; she sat at the edge of it, Vezra lowered against the marble, but the hilt still loosely held in-between her hands.
"...Tweaking?" Blossom watched Soren nervously, suddenly quite afraid to know what exactly he meant by that. As Abel had questioned, she echoed him: "What do you mean, tw-tweaking?"
[[Smallpoast. :P"]]
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