Welcome to Gaia! ::

The pathway out of the dungeon had not been easy to navigate through, but after a short while the Dark Mirror Senshi managed to follow Taran’s directions; they traveled through a hidden passage in the ceiling and dropped out into a hidden nook in the foyer. The passage had been concealed by a portrait before, but it offered no cover once they began to exit the passageway. The exit of the secret tunnel was easily eight feet off the ground—not a painful drop by any means, but it was clear that it was so high to ensure that no one accidentally found it.

Once they exited the passageway and the tiny nook, they reached the foyer they were already familiar with. It looked the same as it had when they first arrived, only now the crystals seemed to have grown larger and spread wider. Parts of the wall and floor were encased in slowly growing shards and they seemed to be actively spreading. Slowly, but fast enough that it was noticeable. Perhaps in a few hours, this room would be entirely encased within the crystals.

Taran was undeniably right about one thing, at least: they didn’t have much time.

A quick exploration of the area would yield a complete absence of servants and Altea, though a trail of strange, spiky crystals seemed to guide them. The trail began on the outside of the dungeon’s door. There was no opening it; it was now completely encased in crystals. Though the path started at the dungeon, it lead them down the hallway before it twisted around the corner—to the library.

Though there were no guards at the base of the stairs leading to her private quarters, a giant wall of crystal—impenetrable—prevented anyone from ascending to explore.

The group followed the crystal trail towards the library. The library was in an entirely different state than it had been before; books were strewn across the ground and shelves had been torn down. Pages littered the floor and, like in the foyer, crystals were growing here—on nearly everything.

The Queen had been here—looking for something. If she had found it, it was unclear, but it seemed that crystals appeared to grow wherever she touched. Vibrant crystals grew on some discarded books on the floor—and small, thin crystals grew on what appeared to be papers torn from their book. They were clearly old but still had legible, worn text.

Handwritten text.

A path of crystals led up the stairs of the library and over the hidden door on the second floor. The door itself was still crystallized, but even if they couldn’t get through it, one thing was obvious—she had been here, recently, and must have only just fled.

Sailor Kiuchi


The trip to the foyer had been long, and it had left his leg hurting more than he really thought he could handle especially after the fall to the ground. His leg, from crawling through the air duct, had rubbed wrong and dug bits of glass in deeper and resulted in a thin trail of blood down the vents length. The landing had been jarring and had caused his knee to buckle under his weight before he was able to stand up, slowly, and move his head around to get a look about them. Nothing...nothing was here.

As they followed a tail of crystals, his pace slow and limping, the dark haired male was looking around for Crocus or Avior to clutch at, if all else failed he did have a pillow in subspace now which he could summon. Arriving at the library, having fallen to the back of the group, he moved around the others silently. Dark eyes peering at the destruction before he went to investigate. He really needed the break anyway so finding a place on the floor to sit and glance over a paper was a good idea - a really good one.

Sailor Sadalsuud

Taran's directions had had them backtracking back to the second cell on the left from the dungeon entrance, the mentioned ceiling tile as loose as promised.

Reaching it had been an awkward scramble, but crawling along the passageway - whilst not exactly pleasant - hadn't been too bad.

At least not compared to exiting–

Especially compared to exiting.

She tried to bite back a pained hiss as she landed, stumbling awkwardly as she did so. It was hard to tell just how successful she was though.

But Sadalsuud was taking it as successful given that no one appeared to be coming to investigate.

Green eyes glanced back looking for Sinope as she tried to catch her breath, although she was sure that the Super senshi was doing better than her.

But the the others were moving on, which meant that she needed to as well, Sadalsuud following the strange trail of spiky crystals that seemed to paint a trail - to lead the way right to...

To the library?

And it was the library - she'd spent enough time in there to recognise it - but unlike the last time that she'd visited it was in disarray with book strewn all across the ground and torn down shelves.

And whilst Sadalsuud knew that chasing after Queen Altea was important, she couldn't help but stop and reach for one of the many pages littering the ground - one that had handwriting - because something or someone had stopped to tear the library apart–

Which maybe, just maybe there was something there - something that could...

Well make that might help.

Eternal Sailor Remarque

A part of Remarque was torn to have left Taran, not for any moral reasons but because there was a man within their sight, who claimed to be old enough to have known Altea—who lived a thousand years ago? At least, a thousand years by Earth standards, but that was no amount of time to scoff at. The information he must have had, the resources he could have provided them…

But that information was a luxury, not a necessity. The necessity was stopping Altea before she did something to Earth. Before she destroyed something irreparably and they were left trapped out here, or dead—or watching their planet be drained of life.

He wouldn’t stand for it.

He had left with the rest of the group, keen on staying together and making sure no one got left behind. If things hit the fan, he wanted to make sure they had all of their resources pooled together. Besides; he didn’t like being caged in, so it was easy to want out of the dungeon.

Now that they had decided Altea was some sort of enemy, he didn’t even feel bad for pilfering so much of her stuff while he was here. He had mentally argued that he’d ‘put it back’ before (yeah right), but now? Now, he could justify it.

Once the group had reached the library, he was almost insulted to see it in such a state. He might not have been able to read the books before, but seeing so many of them strewn about or mangled meant that it was just one more resource they’d lost.

Thanks, Altea.

He had no doubt that the mess was her doing; usually the crystal servants had cleaned up any messes that the Dark Mirror Senshi had left, but perhaps their absence was also of Altea’s accord.

Still, she had gone out of her way to look for something—at least, it seemed. There was no other explanation for why she’d made such a mess of everything. He wasn’t certain what she could have been looking for, and while he assumed that if she’d found it, she wouldn’t have left it scattered on the floor, he hoped there was at least some sort of clue about what she’d claimed.

He began to sift through the mess, scouring pages as he searched for anything interesting or informative.

Diadem

The Senshi of prisms had to be a little more careful, less practiced and unwilling to land hard on high heels, but she was more than impressed at the chaos, joining others in trying to pick up as many papers as possible, scanning them rapidly as she did so. Although had she known of Kibrev's duplicity, she might have been less calm about the other girls retrievals.

"All these crystals... it seems as though she's loosing control." She suggested, through tightly pursed lips. "If Taran's right and this is something that's happened to her, that could be a bad sign, we don't know what happens when something this potentially dangerous reaches critical mass, but I'm going to assume it's terrible. And I for one don't want to be one of her staff, and I know no one back home does."

This was a choice they increasingly looked like they were going to have to make, a form of quarantine procedure, even if it made her feel a little ill.

"...After we figure out make sure this doesn't get to earth, then we... worry about the rest."

Like their own crystalization, and if it didn't go away, how to handle it.

Sailor Logos

There was a feverish urgency in the air, with various members of the Court beginning to crystallize slowly. The battle left many of them injured, herself included, but the blood had thankfully clotted during their rest. Logos' arm had dried streaks of red that soaked her black fuku. She didn't mind, and she wouldn't let Lesath worry about her.

Digging through the books, Logos went looking for anything of note. Something must be here!

Eternal Sailor Avior

Avior was so very worried when he watched Kiuchi travel down to the library, eyeing his limp carefully and was prepared to catch him, should he stumble.

"If you need my help, Kiuchi, please let me know... I am here..." He whispered to him, giving his shoulder a slight squeeze before letting him continue on into the library itself.. He remained close to Crocus' side, however, worried about his condition as well, and ignored the shards of crystal still embedded in his own chest.

"It's so much different than before..." Avior softly murmured to Crocus as they entered what was once a cozy library... He remembered their adventures here, their soft whispers and laughs. He remembered the fluttering feeling of his heart as he expressed ideas of love stories or of Crocus' inspiring words while they poked and prodded around the shelves.

Briefly, he thought of that book they had touched before, with the flower with the faintest sweet scent still clinging to it's petals... He wondered if that book had been affected by the queen's crystalline touch. Though he wanted to explore and see... Well, there were pages on the ground that he needed to pick up first.

Chione glanced around the library, smirking slightly at the look on Elsa’s face. Sure, they were in a horrible situation, but Elsa looked as though the mess was about to make him start crying…she knew that she shouldn’t laugh at him…but it just felt good to find something funny after being so wrapped up in apprehension for so long.

“It’s…pretty messy in here, isn’t it, Elsa? Maybe when we get back I’ll help you dust off the things in your apartment…I mean, I kind of owe you, thanks for helping me out back there, seriously.” She reached down and picked up one of the papers that littered the ground and glanced at her brother for a moment, offering a sheepish smile. “See. I know how to clean up too, I’m not just a mess maker. Most of the time. Sometimes.”

Her eyes slid down to the paper, wondering if it had any interesting information written on it. She sort of hoped so. Maybe it would contain a way home.

Doubtful but…hey. A good thought all the same.