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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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 Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2022 1:52 pm
Yes, this was all very, very familiar– “The Scar,” Fulgurite confirmed, glancing to Faustite when he confirmed just why it would be familiar. He remembered. It was where he met Sylvite in the first place and ended up as part of her team. It was where he had gotten nearly eaten alive. And it was certainly very much the Rift, a place that instinctually didn’t feel right. “Youma here are sharp.” And as an aside, mostly to himself, “Glad some people aren’t here...” So long as no one thought of taking their starseed out, though, hopefully they wouldn’t get ******** swarmed again– Tama’s remarks were met with an eyeroll – he wouldn’t summon the ball of water right on top of them, he didn’t exactly want to be cold and wet either – but he didn’t feel like justifying it with a response. At least he didn’t need to keep an eye on a Mauvian while he was dragged onto this mission into this place he had never wanted to be in again. Aw, s**t. The cat actually felt something. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he cautiously looked from Alkmene – and therefore, the cat – to Faustite.
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Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 5:46 pm
An unusual magic. So they had to go in.
Faustite halted altogether, beckoned the pair – and consequentially, Tama – closer. "Hunted a youma here. Needed pieces of it, Axinite's orders. When we brought its scales in, Axinite crafted them into necklaces." Faustite fished in his pants pocket, removed the rounded medallion and its long chain from the tight confines. He held it out – the chain and setting were quality gold, though at the center sat an ugly, dull, rippled stone. "Use mine. Drain the stone and it disguises you as youma.
"Fulgurite, expect you got a necklace for yourself?" Flame eyes went to the taller of the pair. "Better to use it now. Expect they'll sense both your auras, but they won't find anything.
"Tama, on me. Better we don't spoil their disguises."
He waited as long as it would take for the two to ready themselves. It proved a highly dangerous place in the past, and they were reentering a hornet's nest with only a fraction of the team he amassed upon their first venture. Youma were was sedentary as they were migratory; if even a third of the youma they encountered remained, then they may be attacked on sight. It was both better and worse for him to be the one attacked – better for his rank's authority and his nature as half youma, but worse for how he was the Supers' and Cat's ticket in and out. The Hall would not be fooled.
In the distance, their isopod friend waited. Rather, it paced by rolling in circles, kicking up dirt as it went. Faustite felt foolish, suddenly, and wondered if he looked so harried and impatient when he did it.
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Bishoujo-senshi Mahou-shoujo
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Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 7:30 pm
Tama sheathed his claws. He didn’t want much to aggravate the senshi who was holding him after all. Besides, what Faustite was saying was intriguing. They had hunted a youma and crafted something from its very body. He hadn’t ever heard of youma being used in this way. Is that what they had done to the poor pillbug? “Now I’m curious, Faustite.” He replied as he jumped onto the general’s shoulder. Best not to be held. He’d seen what the man’s firey torso could do to fur. He cared for singed fur even less than wet fur. “Even I’d like to see how this trick works.”☆
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Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:21 pm
Alkmene nodded along. Some of this, he knew—but the necklaces were new. Their ability was interesting, and he took it from Faustite, turning it over.
“That’s pretty damn useful,” Alkmene said. Maybe he would have to speak to Axinite about getting one for himself permanently, if that was possible. Or ask Faustite himself, later. For now, though, he focused, the way he’d learn to drain, and pulled from the pendant, letting it flow into and transform him. His youma form was still mostly humanoid, and he wiggled his now-green fingers with a thoughtful hum. Briars wound up his arms, seeming to grow out of his skin, and his clothes were transformed into something skintight and clingy. His hair was pulled into two pigtails, wound with vines and thorns. He reminded himself, in some ways, of Poison Ivy—a good old classic villain look.
He moved forward, towards the Scar, and frowned.
“.....Is it usually this quiet, in the Rift?” Because it wasn’t like he knew, but—he felt like something was off. Missing.
….Maybe it was the strange lack of other auras.
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2022 12:15 pm
There was a part of him that felt some wry relief–and that was the best way he could possibly describe it–that Faustite actually seemed concerned about him being able to shield himself. Out from under his collar came the pendant he kept on him, a small stone that was prepared to be drained whenever it might have been necessary. “Yeah, got it.” Because at least he managed to get something useful from that terrible trip, and at first he thought it was gaining a new general, but now the waters had been mired; she had purified, and she had gotten out, but was that really a good thing with what it had left behind? It was, as much as Chaos told him it wasn’t, as much as Chaos told him he should take from her, and he ignored it as he focused instead on pulling the threads of the energy within the pendant. And Fulgurite transformed in response, his hair lengthening and becoming more like kelp, his eyes becoming gaunt, his ears changing shape to become more like fins, his fingers lengthening and webbing together in a way that resembled fins. There was an irony in that he mildly resembled what he still had nightmares about. Fulgurite, like everything else, just went with it. “No,” Fulgurite crossed two overly-long arms uneasily across his chest. “Not in my experience.”
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Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2022 6:54 pm
"Never."
He had looked on at the Scar while the others transformed. He wondered how it must've looked, only months ago, when starseeds shifted massive proportions of the population. How it must've looked, so far out as they were, when youma uncountable descended from the latticed paths between the crags and the highest caves.
Now, Alkmene was right – it stood silent. Aurically, the Rift felt like one infinite aura to him, save for the three spots of differentiable auras in his companions. He recognized youma presence only with other senses, and from this far, they heard nothing, saw nothing. The Rift should've been alive with sound, especially the Scar. All the more reason to investigate, he supposed.
"Let's go."
He half-turned toward the others and – ah, hell. Cute boys became cute youma. Faustite turned back toward the Scar as he felt his face start to flush.
With Tama properly shouldered and the others transformed, he approached their pillbug companion. The thing had worn a ring into the soft sand that it left behind as it departed. Faustite struck up a jog. Tama could hold on by his claws if it was too much; his vest and shirt were made of heavy materials.
As they trespassed into the Scar, he learned that its quietude was no ambush. Each massive hole that they passed stood empty, each walkway unadorned with the flying youma that used them for roosts. Faustite spared a glance at his vine-laden boy, then his attention flickered upward, briefly. Ahead, their youma companion rolled ever onward, leading them deeper into the Scar.
Deeper and deeper, down its gentle slope, past the rock-laden collapses of old latticed bridges, down through its narrowest parts (which Faustite found most nerve-wracking for their emptiness), and into its epicenter.
The epicenter he remembered was a vast expanse with a meteoric dent in the center, with two ways in or out. It was shielded by the bisected mountain, and carved out of both halves. Back then, the area was flat, but for the meteoric dent in the center where a rhino-esque youma had fallen, and eventually dusted from the impact. Now, there was a crack in the eastern half of the mountain where it had begun to migrate. Now, that crack had staggered, and as it traveled toward the floor of the epicenter, it widened.
Then he realized that a large chunk of the epicenter was simply gone. And their pillbug companion rolled straight for that gaping hole.
"What the ********," he whispered to himself. Beckoning the pair to follow, he approached the hole.
As he stood at the precipice, his fire managed only a meager light in what he assumed to be a massive cavern. Crouching, he asked, "Cat, what do you see?"
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Bishoujo-senshi Mahou-shoujo
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2022 6:39 am
Tama did not know why it was quiet in the Rift, but he was glad for it. He knew youma would not like his presence and, now that his party were all either disguised as youma or half themselves, he could only imagine that this made him stand out even more. Once again, he felt a strange feeling that he didn’t belong here. Much like he had felt the first time he had gone back to Earth from Negaspace. His mind turned from his thoughts as Faustite questioned him. Whether what he saw was a benefit of the fact that his eyes adjusted to the darkness better than a human’s or his innate sense of magic, he did not know. But he could see the outline all the same. “I can see a broken building. There is an entrance. But I can’t see inside from here.”☆
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2022 12:02 am
Oh, good. The news that this was unusual was….pretty much exactly the opposite of comforting, and Alkmene found himself fidgeting with the thorny vine-growths that wrapped around his arms, tension rising with every step and the incredible lack of youma. It should not be like this.
This was wrong, and the tension in his companions absolutely did not help alleviate the stress he was feeling. Part of him thought that he’d take an ambush, just to make this make sense, but—no, that was stupid and ridiculous. An ambush meant risking all their lives, and that was not what he wanted to do today.
So he let out a wary breath between his teeth, and stuck close to Faustite, because there was at least relative safety in his General’s presence.
When they stopped, he took one more look around—still nothing, of course.
“So, any theories as to why this place is deader than disco? Something to do with whatever’s in that hole?” If so, Alkmene….would be very upset, because that would probably mean exploring the hole, and that sounded like a schlocky horror movie ready to happen. Alas, loyalty and affection were apparently the only things in his life that could trump self-preservation. Hearts were stupid things, that way.
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2022 12:08 am
Hearing Faustite confirm Fulgurite’s suspicions was… well, it certainly wasn’t comforting, and it filed under the list of things that he filed under of course this would happen, naturally. He had the misfortune of deciding that he would reflect on a place that was arguably where his fortunes had changed and where his fortunes, well, hadn’t, on the same day as these people were descending into the Scar, again– But it shouldn’t have been quiet, not the way it was, and the fact that Faustite seemed just as wary as they did made Fulgurite feel a bit extra wary. Tama was small enough to see in the hole, and Fulgurite waited for him to do that. A broken building? And an entrance? Fulgurite let out a quiet snort at Alkmene calling it deader than disco, but that was all they got as he rolled the possibilities over in his head. Considering their pillbug youma guide rolled right in there, it seemed to imply whatever they were looking for was beyond this hole – which he didn’t like. Of course, it would be beyond the hole– “Well, our guide went that way,” noted Fulgurite, grimly. “Whatever our guide is leading us to is probably in whatever building Tama can’t make out.” He didn’t like that. “Either all the youma that are usually in here are through there, or something chased them off.”
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2022 3:36 pm
"Or they're all dead."
Faustite contemplated the hole, and Tama's insight, for a long moment. He could entreat the cat to go inside, but that would be foolish if it risked the one who had the most affinity with magic and technology. Fulgurite and Alkmene, so far as he understood it, were users of magic, but they were indebted to the cats for producing technology that enabled this magic. And, more than Tama's utility – for any cat would have this affinity – the Queen would have Jet behead him if he willfully sent Tama to his death.
"We stop here," he said at last. His hand moved to his hip as he spoke. "We lack tools for spelunking buried buildings. Better that we have more personnel, too; no telling how deep this goes."
If it ever ends. The places the Rift swallows may well be as infinite as the Rift itself. They could spend days, weeks, a month descending without finding an end, and having traveled more than the width of the Earth, face an even longer slog back to the surface. That assumed no perils, and in a place like this, peril was simply part of the ambience.
"Head back," he instructed as he turned away from the hole. Faustite rolled his eyes as he added, "Have to plan a ******** excursion now."
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