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 Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2025 12:49 pm
He didn't do it tomorrow. Rather, Faustite thought if he looked at another book, if he so much as glimpsed a word on a page, he'd set the damned thing on fire just to be free of the reminder. He'd had about all he could stand of being pent up in the bowels of the castle while he pored over books that offered no leads. He hoped that, for all the dead ends he encountered, Albite or Ilmari or anyone else on the team would find some promising lead.
But Faustite knew he shouldn't join them. Couldn't join them, unless he wanted to make any reasonable White Moon entity hostile with his existence in their general vicinity. About the only one of theirs who could tolerate him was Murikabushi, and perhaps Kerberos, so he thought it better to give the books a rest for the night and search the park for one of the pair.
Wouldn't hurt to see what else they might've learned. Even if he looked obvious doing it.
The park was well remembered — he'd been there recently with Heliodor. Even as winter gave way to spring, he expected little to have changed. Most easily remembered was a private little alcove of bushes that had grown unruly under a branching oak tree; it wasn't far from the bench that Kerberos often claimed and Murikabushi frequented, and Faustite remembered it fondly from the long-ago times when he was human and utterly oblivious to the war.
In a blink, he was there, and his firelight burned brightly through the budding foliage. Stepping out demanded a little care, lest he set a twig alight, but he finagled his way out with only the slightest singeing of a bush.
Once he'd extricated himself, he caught sight of movement — and as he looked toward the distant figure, he had to study it. Was that Almadel? Here? What was that deplorably cute merchant doing skulking about now?
So he summoned Headache, and urged the damnable bunch of fireflies to use his voice and call out to the lilac hoarder.
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Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2025 5:42 pm
At first, Almadel hardly seemed to notice he wasn’t alone. He’d seemed to have a destination in mind but as he walked, chin cupped thoughtfully in one hand, it was clear that his attention was elsewhere. He walked at a brisk pace, though there was little sign of urgency. He paused, midstep, just before Faustite took any steps to capture his attention. He spun to face him just as Headache took action. “ Faustite!” Almadel greeted, as if he’d been expecting him all along. The surprise quickly washed away, and whatever destination Almadel had in mind seemed quickly forgotten as he redirected his path and charted himself towards his unexpected guest. “Fancy meeting you here! And to think, I almost didn’t pass through at all. Perhaps it’s fate? Oh, but it could have been under better stars. How have you been?”
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Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2025 1:08 pm
Leave it to a troublesome boy to melt his heart in a single welcome. Struck dumb as he was with the plainly delighted smile on his face, he'd nearly forgotten why he came out this way at all. Whatever world-ending destruction that awaited them could have its turn after they'd had a conversation or two.
"Been fine," he signed and Headache narrated. "Busy enough with some ancient thing looking to eat the earth. Was going to ask some of the local senshi about what they'd learned but it all seems…" He shrugged. "Cut and dry."
Wings called it a fairytale. The murals told their history straightforwardly enough. The single scrap he unearthed from an archive of irrelevant data indicated that it had happened to some other planet previously, about twelve hundred years ago. Storms were a precursor or a portent, or maybe how it got around. It was a paltry sum of information with which to arm themselves, and far beneath what Faustite would have liked to supply the Negaverse.
But, Almadel was a wayfarer who had been far and wide in his personal pursuits. Who better to ask than him when it came to looming threats that visited other planets?
"We can walk and talk if you've places to be. Was wondering — have you encountered talk of a world-eating snake? Or seen its aftermath in your travels?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2025 4:56 pm
Almadel’s eyes briefly trained from Faustite’s hands to Headache and then back to his face. “Oh, always about that ‘serpent’. Yes, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about it–I’ve been hearing ‘The Calamitous Hollow’ echoing in my dreams,” he sighed, a bit dramatically, but he was so animated that it was hard to think he had any intention to avoid the topic. “Now that I’ve stopped for a moment, I think I don’t mind a little break. I don’t actually remember the last time I slowed down. We’ll walk in a moment, for now I think I’ll just enjoy the breeze.” While there were no storms crackling nearby. “There hasn’t really been any ‘aftermath’ so to speak, not that I’ve witnessed. There have been storms out there,” he nodded to the sky, “but I haven’t seen a wake of destruction. I’ve been trying to avoid it, honestly. I don’t want to be in the way of something like that. Makes my skin crawl. I’m not an expert on it but so far as I can tell, I haven’t seen it going after any worlds. But I’ve heard that it’s headed straight towards Earth? What did you do to put a target on your back?”
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2025 12:46 pm
Faustite sighed wistfully. The horned boy was terribly cute, putting up this front about trying to stay away from their new adversary's potential warpath. Particularly since he was spending time on the very planet that, by his own admission, was the first on the list to see its wrath. A sweet boy, really. As much a treasure as the universe' worth of s**t he traded.
"Sounds right," he replied with Headache's help once he ceased his daydreaming. "Murals suggested humans put it away. Probably pissed about that.
"Assume they were people." He motioned in a spiral, and Headache formed into a copy of himself by his side. The creature could guess where Faustite was going with this; it summoned the tablet without express bidding and began indexing the photos of the murals that had appeared. Then it turned the tablet's display toward Almadel, though its attention remained on Faustite for further signs.
"Problem is, we were in a chamber underneath where it was imprisoned. But we don't know where that chamber is or how to get back to it to install these spikes. To be honest, I don't know that I trust the information I have. But if it's true, then we need another one of these —" Faustite paused in signing to summon one of the few spikes, "— and a way back to that chamber.
"You're more traveled than anyone else I know. Know how to break in?"
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Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2025 5:07 am
When the tablet was offered for inspection, Almadel cupped his chin thoughtfully and leaned in to inspect the presented images. “Oh, yes, I see.” His eyes darted to the spike quickly, briefly, but he didn’t seem as interested in that as the pictures. “You’re very brave to want to go back. Now, I appreciate your sweet words,” and he must have, because he seemed quite pleased with himself upon hearing them, “but even I have my limits. I don’t like prisons, I hope you understand. I’ve heard others describe it as such, and I just,” he grimaced, and drummed his fingers on his cheek, “Yuck.” He peered at the images again, twisting his head as if seeing it from a new angle might offer some impressive new insight. “Those spikes have a bit of a cosmic element to them, yet? Oh, I can feel it from here. It makes my skin crawl. And yet, you hold it without any discomfort? You’re quite special, Faustite. But then, I’ve come to expect that from the people of Earth.” He spoke quickly but with no shortage of charm and delight. “I have heard that items born of stars can be used amongst them. And, considering what you are up against, hm.” He gestured to the tablet with his finger, as if asking for the images to be cycled. “I do not think you should return to a broken prison. I think you will make your own. But, that does still leave the issue of getting into space. Hm,” he cupped his chin harder and his tail twitched behind him as he squinted at the images. “There are storms all over, you know. They spread like mold spores, you never know where one might crop up next. Theoretically, it could be in any of them. I mean, obviously the one with the most power is where it’s hiding, it’s definitely in a storm. The others are just extensions of itself and its travel. Planning to return isn’t impossible but this thing ‘moves between dimensions’. Are you willing to be caught in a realm beyond worlds to confront it? What if I could only get you there, not back?”
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Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2025 1:18 pm
He fell contemplative for a time. Almadel's blatant disgust at prisons earned him a sharp look — as if preference outweighed the fate of a world that, frankly, gave him a lot of business — but as the boy went on, the utility of revisiting that place sounded nil. He kept his arms crossed, hands stilled while Almadel examined the images and began weaving through what was much more his expertise than Faustite's.
Initially, he felt lost. It showed in the furrow of his brows when Almadel spoke of items born of stars, or that the spikes produced such a terrible reaction in him. What did that even mean? What was Almadel, their strange space-faring hoarder?
But the boy remained animated as he continued and Headache paged through image after image for him, up to and including photographs of the spike discussed. What came from him next was most ominous and perplexing; Faustite was no stranger to teleportation, but space travel sounded needlessly complex by comparison. He had no measure for understanding it, either — not even the barest idea of how it happened beyond rockets and cosmonauts and cell phones.
"Back up for a moment[", Headache said as he signed. "What do you mean, 'born of stars'? Was this spike made out of stars? Does it only work in space?" If so, that would be ******** abysmal. But if Almadel was being more figurative about it, the might have a chance.
"Don't feel anything from the spikes, though. Guess I'm not born of stars. Need you to explain that to me like I was born yesterday. Why the aversion to it?"
What the tailed boy explained matched what Faustite had gathered from his few desperate sources. At least, as much was implied in all that he had witnessed or read. Worse, though, was the added mention of dimensions which immediately had Faustite glaze over for how he completely detested science. Still, he supposed teleporting to Negaspace might be like moving through a dimension. If not that, then perhaps their transport through the storm that fateful day was moving through dimensions.
But that last question was a poignant one. Faustite pondered it for a time. Part of him wanted to say that he'd simply send Headache, and if the youma got stuck out there, nothing of value was lost.
It would be like living in the Rift for the rest of his days. No more society, no more people, no more food, no more boys, no more books, no more familiarity. Assuming he could survive in such a space. It would mean giving up his boys for the sake of sparing them, sparing the team. A sacrifice, an irrevocable change.
At last, he signed and Headache picked up the translation. "Suppose so. Won't much matter what my preference is if it eats Earth.
"Makes enough sense for me to go. Don't know how long I'll live like this — with this fire in me — and I doubt I'll see rebirth out of it. Oblivion could be right around the corner. Not much of a waste if you send someone like that, right? Waste of Metallia's power, but —" Faustite shrugged, "— she's got ways of recouping it. Best you remember to visit sometimes." He almost smiled wistfully.
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Posted: Tue May 27, 2025 8:41 pm
“Oh, Faustite.” Almadel’s head tilted to the side and his tail drooped. “You’re cute when you’re melodramatic. Fret not. Earth and all its little miracles have yet to disappoint me. Naturally, I’m always up for a good visit. But let’s keep you somewhere a bit more cheerful, please? You know what you need? A nice visit to a theme park, or something fun. You should have your friends throw you a party. Lots of cake and presents.” He patted Faustite’s shoulder as if he meant to reassure. “Truthfully, I don’t know if the spike will ‘only’ work in space. It seems the best area to attempt to use though, doesn't it? I mean, away from the world it’s trying to eat? It’s a pity you have so little information to work with. Very impractical, I might say. What’s the point of a tool if no one’s there to teach you how it works? Ah, well. When I say ‘born of stars’, I mean that. There are a great many items in the universe crafted in some celestial way. There are stories about ancient starcrafters, who could harness the raw energy of any star in the universe. There were some who used the stars as a forge, I’m told. Every corner of the universe has its own legends, of course. I’ll have to see if I can find some books for you. No tutorials, unfortunately. I’ve looked. I thought it would be lovely to learn, but either it’s a deeply guarded secret or just a fairy tale.” He shrugged, but in good enough spirits it didn’t seem as if he was going to give up the search any time soon. “But it would take more than any old net to capture something as powerful and ancient as a world-eating calamity. For all of time, we’ve looked to the stars for answers. Sometimes, we find them. And, when we can’t find answers,” he shrugged and gestured vaguely towards the spike. “We make our own.”
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