Heat Sick (9) : The temperature is unbearable. Heatwaves have made it impossible to enjoy some of these otherwise perfect days–and they seem to be having as much of an effect on the City as they are on the people. Strange tears are appearing throughout the city, as though something has clawed right through reality. Sometimes you can’t see them, but you can feel them–and the sweet relief of a cold gust of air billowing through the crack. The rifts mostly appear transparent but if you peek in at just the right angle you might see a terrifyingly dark realm. Sometimes items vanish near these weird tears, and sometimes people do as well. Items might be found thrown across the room or across town, or not at all. Thankfully, nobody seems to disappear for long; they always wake up unconscious somewhere else. Sometimes, they don’t remember anything except for a cold breeze. Sometimes they say they were stuck in a strange, dark realm where they heard monstrous wails and saw strange little imp-like creatures scurrying around them. Thankfully, they are ejected before harm can come to them, but the realm is frigid and frightening. Doctors are saying it’s heat exhaustion and that delusions and wandering are common, so they advise staying indoors and staying hydrated.
A sharp scream cut through the darkness as Melody fell through the tear into a realm of utter darkness; the sound of which was cut off abruptly when she hit the ground with enough force to expel what remaining air she had in her lungs. She struggled to draw a breath, gasped, then finally began coughing as she rolled over onto her hands an knees.
Something sharp jabbed her palm causing her to wince as she groped the ground for the phone she’d been holding onto. Where is it? Fear of having lost or broken her boyfriend's phone sent her thoughts into a spiral as she struggled to stand.
“H-harvey?” her voice, laced with fear, shook with uncertainty. “Harvey?” her volume rose a little louder but rather than a voice or an echo as an answer, she heard a monstrous wail that sounded too close for comfort.
If she was still in the cave then this definitely wasn’t funny.
But there were no glow worms to illuminate the pathway, and the ground she stood upon was solid with, as far as she could tell, no puddles of water. Just cool air and darkness.
Again she heard another wail and this time she summoned her weapon and powered believing this creature to possibly be a youma like the one that had attacked her the day she first learned she was a Knight. The tea light lantern that hung from the golden chain glowed softly and with that light she spotted the reflection of the phone’s screen and quickly picked it up and stowed it away in her subspace pocket.
Now, all she needed to do was avoid the monster, which had no aura she could sense, and find an exit out of this frigid dark realm.
He'd followed the cold, and that had been his first and last mistake of the evening it seemed. His abortive attempt to get out of the heat in the shadows of an alleyway filled to high heavens with stinking refuse; how even the smelly shade the climbing walls of the city cast were better than walking amidst the blazing sun down a sidewalk that felt like it should've been melting beneath his heels.
Syrus told himself it'd just be for a little while, just long enough to power up and teleport home after work. He'd closed his eyes, blinked for a second, and when he opened them again--The world of the alley was rushing away as he was falling back through the wall behind him; phasing through it like it'd never been there to begin with. He pulled on power with a yowl, hit the ground--
Wandered.
Ran.
When the world filled with screaming, and the distant howls began to grow close enough to make his skin crawl. Cryolite was cursing himself, getting his wish monkey-paw style, for it was infinitely colder here. Colder, more deadly, more filled with. Someone shouting for someone named Harvey. Someone with a signature---
A light!!
He winced for the tiny brightness of it, even at this distance, but it was the first bright thing he'd seen in who knew how long, keeping track of time had seemed pointless to him in the face of fleeing whatever creature was making that noise.
"I'm afraid I'm not Harvey," Crisply cold and casual as someone who looked out of breath from running could be, and Cryolite tried to pull some confidence on, to make himself look like the kind of threat not to be trifled with. In his environment, as it were. Even if he was feeling anything but. "But that is a very nice light you've got there."
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Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2024 11:55 pm
Einhornhöhle felt an aura flare to life at the edge of her senses but she was too scared of the sounds she’d been hearing to discern who or what it belonged to and just assumed it was one of the Negaverse Youma’s. But when the form came into view and a man dressed in something befitting a Cirque du Soleil performer.
Under any normal circumstance, she might have looked at him with a supremely unimpressed expression but given the situation they were currently in, the best she could do was just gimace. “Like a moth to a flame, of course, I’d attract a corrupt…”
It had been a good day until it wasn’t and this just made everything a whole lot worse.
She’d been about to comment how he’d be free to stay here when something small skittered in the dim light behind him. “And perhaps several other things…!” If the snarling or shuffling footsteps weren’t an indication that they weren’t alone, then the wide yellow eyes and toothy grin was all the evidence she needed that the creatures of this ream were closing in.
Not considering the full effects of her magic, since she’d only used it once in the last year, Einhornhöhle raised the lantern. It began to glow with a brighter light that grew in intensity and warmth, illuminating a larger area than the soft glow the candle had given off. She heard a hissing snarl as something larger than the handful of imps quickly back peddled away from her and the corrupt.
Shiningamisgirl
Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2024 12:20 am
"Like I chose to be here--" his words paused, sixty-zero of a brick walled silence. Cryolite holding his breath and holding stock still, watching the agent of orders reaction. His gaze darting rapidly between her and the skittering shadows around their periphery; he couldn't tell whether or not the creatures liked the light or not? If maybe it was too much for their dim-adjusted eyes, the same way it'd hurt him to stare at it after so long wandering in the near nothingness.
"Tsk, ********--" and his curse felt loud even amidst the echo's of the seemingly cavernous spaces entities, he hadn't been able to discern its dimensions, the depth to which one end or another ran. Everything was pitch black, shadow soaked, a mess of dropping temperatures. "Maybe we should--ah!" he reacted as the brightness flared, threw his arm up in order to shadow his eyes. It wasn't the light that got him so much as it was whatever heat came from it, the power so juxtaposed to his own that he was already sweating, feeling the whiplash of hot to cold in flashes that made his every sense ache...
He hadn't missed the way the monsters ran though, the way they snarled and careened off just out of the lights reach.
"Augh--I hope that nasty little trick of yours holds long enough for us to find an exit." the words held a wilted threat, a panted breath, Cryolite told himself he could hold out a little longer at this distance. That he had options -- could maybe, even, pull on his own abilities linked to his most distant, dead moon. He simply wanted to save every ounce of magic until he needed it most. "Quickly, if at all possible."
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Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2024 12:34 am
“I’m looking,” she snapped back at his irritation. Would have felt guilty for hurting him but she knew if they were in Destiny City instead of here, he would have attacked her without a second thought. Why he didn’t here was a thought to consider later but for now, she took several steps away from him, holding the light up, willing it to grow brighter until she saw what looked to be a shimmer maybe 20’ away.
“I see something!” like a mirror shard the size of a door but rather than her reflection, Einhornhöhle saw what looked to be city lights from a rooftop or high hill, it was hard to tell the perspective from this distance. “It’s not too far.”
“I know I’ll regret this later, but come on!” she turned, looped an arm through the Corrupt’s and pulled him along with her. “Walk quickly,” her tone scolding like a mother chastizing a child for sitting in the aisle of a grocery store when trying to get to the checkout line.
Granted his pained breath was her fault but if he wanted out of here they only had a few seconds to get their asses out of this dark realm before her magic diminished and all they’d be left with would be the soft glow of the candle again.
Shiningamisgirl
Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2024 12:48 am
Ugh, how terribly the little lantern burned as she turned it's wattage up by ten more notches. He didn't know how she could see anything at all beyond it's light---
"Glad you can see well enough to look through all of this," And he normally would've put a lid on his unexpected cold-snap of pissiness and snark, was willing to trade verbal blows with her instead of physical ones. His hissed ire tapered off into hopeful surprise, bathed in her heated light, stale and sluggish to catch up for the way it made him feel like he was right back in the fire-steady warmth of the city he'd leapt from not long ago.
But then she saw something--- maybe the same thing she'd seen, maybe not?!
And then she grabbed him. A bad move on her part, for the way he startled poorly. It was almost instinctual, to gasp as she pulled him along, to reach for something like power out of fear. His magic hissed alive over his skin, coated his body in ice against the incessant heat and what he'd perceived as an attack. Just because she knew what she was doing didn't mean he did! A little warning would've been nice!!
All too late the pathway forwards became clear, the reflective shard that shown back something like hope. Like a city, their city?
"I'm moving!" and he swatted at her grasping hand as if it'd save her from the brunt of the bits of flaking frost that warred against her heated lantern. "Please let that be a way out--" and the lingering panic in his tone was for the way he looked behind, ever so briefly, and caught the shadows of the creatures at the lights edge growing ever more bold and ever more massive a crowd.
Sailor Scout Attack: "Sublime Shroud!"
Cryolite says the word, and his body temperature magically drops to below freezing. He is not affected by this, but anyone who comes in contact with him will feel as though they are touching dry ice and will feel as if they are suffering mild frostbite for as long as they are touching him, and for up to twenty seconds after they break contact. While he is channeling his magic, it will appear as if he is sublimating into a chilly, foggy vapor. The illusion of the cascading fog that bleeds off of Cryolite serves as a visual warning sign to any who can see it: it screams 'Super cold - Do not touch'.
No physical or lasting damage is done in this magic, only the very uncomfortable mental sensation of such. However, players can choose to sustain any lasting damage in the form of chills or up to mild frostbite.
Range: Touch/Grapple Duration: 30 Seconds Number of uses: 3 Number of targets: Whomever touches Cryolite
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Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2024 1:08 am
Her eyes narrowed at him in irritation, partly because he’d used her magic to attack her instead of the monsters that were eager to bite at their heels if it wasn’t for her light holding them at bay. She would’ve swore at him and snapped back some pissy remark but instead Einhornhöhle pulled her hand away from him and kept moving.
“Fine, I won’t help you then.” If he fell too far behind well then, as the saying went, you don’t need to be the fastest person in a group running from a bear, you just had to be faster than the slowest person. “I just hope for your sake it doesn’t close after I step through it.”
She could wait. Should wait, probably.
The sounds of snarls and teeth gnashing were louder and closer than before and as they got closer to the tear, Einhornhöhle could feel her magic nearing its end. The light’s brightness began to gradually dim and with it, her panic rose. “Hurry!” she snapped back at him, pausing a second for him to catch up while she wrapped the fabric of her long sleeve around her hand and grabbed the corrupt’s arm one more time.
So much for not helping.
Damn conscience
Shiningamisgirl
Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2024 2:44 am
‘No!’ and why was it always him these things happened to?! Magical voids and demon filled holes and spaces beyond the stars choked to the brim with star-seed stealing alien robots!! Cryolites panic in the moment was real though. For all the ways he hadn’t considered whether or not the portal would close on him if she made it through first—
He tried not to consider it at all, not as she let go, not as she scolded him like an angry matron at a diner. It wasn’t as though they owed each other anything in this thankless, lightless void of a death trap!
But then the creatures were on his heels as much as they were on hers, growing bold, getting close.
Everything was running out — time was slipping away — the light!!
“Damn it!” fearful bark of a phrase as she grabbed him, his gaze full of shock, because he hadn’t expected her to try so hard and help him a second time. He certainly hadn’t earned it!
And as the lanterns final light sputtered dimly Cryolite made the choice to fling them both forwards, kicking off the darkened earth with his long legs and throwing them both through the glassy hole, something they looked like a wide, wonky piece of mirror shard.
It spat them both out amidst evening sun and city lights; atop the hard, heat-baked gravel of some distant rooftop. There, he’d helped, he hated it! But he’d helped, decide she could be forgiven for owing her one in the moment. At least owing her the chance to try and—And I’d he looked back in time to watch the portal snap closed with dizzying ferocity? The kind that made the air sizzle and left a vanishing thunderclap of sound in its wake. If he collapsed onto his back afterwards and heaved exhausted sighs while catching his breath instead of trying to pick a fight with the woman who’d saved him? He thought he’d be forgiven this one time.
“That was so— horribly distressing. Ugh, why does everything in this city have to be like this!”
He was so done with summer shenanigans. Never again!
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Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2024 11:09 am
Einhornhöhle staggered towards a wall where she turned to lean her back against it and slowly slid herself to a seated position. Her attention remained focused on the doorway into the dark realm that had spat them out unceremoniously in yet another random location. If only actual travel could be this instantaneous then we wouldn’t need planes. A little bit of dark humor slipped through.
Slowly but surely the tear began to close, like someone zipping up a tent flap. She could still hear the monsters snarling, could practically see them salivating, but the soft glow of city lights, closed neon signs and street lamps below seemed to be enough to keep them at bay.
Then- it was gone.
She turned to the corrupt who had collapsed on the rooftop a few feet away. “Don’t suppose you’re willing to consider a truce?” Part ways here, or maybe at least take her to the ground so she wouldn't have to jump off the ledge in this dress and with unsteady legs. I can hope... but given his aversion to her touching him, she doubted he’d be so kind.
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Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2024 5:52 pm
"Only because you helped me," and he refused to look her in the eyes, to thank her properly. Decided that, this? This would be thanks enough; all the effort it took to haul himself back up onto his wobbly heels, to reach for her as his sublimate powers simultaneously became harmless ice melt and mist at once.
"And only this one time..." he grumbled as he reached for her, non-threateningly, and took them both---
Some distance away, city street level, behind a small shop that sold tourist type coctchtkis and was clearly closed due to having its AC out during this horridness heat wave.
"Don't thank me, you aren't welcome, have a good day!!" he was in the foulest mood, felt the mother of all headaches coming on. Thought it best to leave, and to do so quickly. In a blip of dourness and crackle of energy.
