Post by Joliette Thorne on Feb 13, 2009 2:15:03 GMT -5
--On Board The Labyrinth--
Two bodies lie upon the floor of the Captain's Quarters, their figures cast with the basking glow of candle martyrs, their light swaying like grass in the wind against them and the walls; one set of eyes flutter in appal. The room is suddenly spinning, held in a that daze a'shifting, bringing an ebony hand to the forehead amidst silver streaks of hair. Memories come rushing forth in the awakening like feral waves, crashing about his mind as senses regain what craves, the sound of some piano's melancholy soundtrack to open graves. Diiroehn sidles as if some sort of person in daze, breaking himself in the moment of phase, sidling further from Darrien in each passing hesitation to further his body from this hell-forsaken daze. A tear finds itself welling at the corner of a crimson eye, broken this tie, severed like a lie, and he just has to fix it; he just has to fix it, reveling to breaking writ.
How many hours she passed, fingers seeking knots and fissures and seams in the planks for some sort of 'secret door', she did not know, but Tene was now very tired, her shoulder hurt like hell, her left hand's fingertips were full of splinters and still there seemed no way out. She knew the Labyrinth's capabilities, but Caedan had not walked through solid timber. Probably. So there had to be a way through. It was then she realised Maladroit had gone, too... a hasty check of the space proved him as vanished as the psychic. A rough sigh heaved from her lungs, and the necromancer started her search all over again, at the corridor's entrance, working back to the dead-end through which Caedan had walked.
Rowen is completely overcome by the illusion of her alternative life as a sweet innocent child. The brief memories she does have of her real life as one who loves torturing the helpless, seem to be just the memories of nightmares. She runs along happily behind her real parents, she was never kidnapped by that foul smelling dwarf in this reality, she is flying a bright yellow kite, and giggling with joy.
Diiroehn continues slumping away, towards the wall; his hand moves to wipe that tear from his eye, the corner marred before releasing the flood that follows -a dam crashing like a tidal wave. Soon rivulets run silently down his face, and that head drops back, lying flat upon the floor. Naked and shivering, weeping and full of sorrow.
Satoshi found herself crouched upon the Eternity's main deck railing, slit-pupil eyes fixated on the deck of the ship across from the one she currently occupied. The eerie vessel forced shivers down her spine, the very air around it felt wrong. The others could go over there. She wasn't about to risk her tail further than she already had this trip. The feline had gotten this far in her life by avoiding sticking her nose in dark hollows to find what lurked inside. Yet, when the shimmer of white wings caught her eye from the other ship, she couldn't tear her eyes away. From the Labyrinth's deck MDF crooned, serpentine head bobbing in greeting to his until now missing Master. Satoshi rose slowly from her crouch, a single boot stepping to one of the planks that linked the vessels.
Making no note of the passage of time, aimless wandering has found Anshera alone - though Leo had slipped off as she'd been busy with her own illusion. What a strange place, to make her feel this way; Melancholy and joyful all at once. She was close! So close, but she could feel her Creator's torture, like a dull ache at the back of her skull, polymorph no longer able to process the full depths of it, "Diiroehn... Diiroehn..." She calls, addressing her Creator by his name; something she's never done. Her hand drags along the wall as she traverses down this corridor and that, talons leaving the barest of furrows in her wake, "Diiroehn!" Subconsciously a bit of will presses into that third calling of the Lich's name, straining to reach him through the bond they share.
Diiroehn cannot hear his beloved Creation, even with the bond they share; the Chaos Lord's own hellish illusions entrapping his isolation like the cell of some tormented beast. Eyes begin fluttering, consciousness slipping...
Rowen skips along still flying her kite, her parents have gone home, but left the child to play a little longer. She almost trips over a pile of white objects, the girl begins to examine them curiously, then drops one in horror as she realises that they are human remains. Turning away from them, she sees a door, smelling of tar, she has no idea where she is, but she is suddenly cold, and a little wet, the air is very damp, she pushes at the door. "Is anybody in there? Do you mind if I come in an shelter from the cold?" She asks trustingly.
"Wh...." Was Tene hearing things? The door cracked open, a small voice piped a request... "Hey you, kid, don't shut that... no, don't shut...." Damn. The girl slipped through, the door creaked shut and once more there was blank walls, in blink as seamless as the other boards. "..the door. Never mind." It was a grumble, unhappy, and the necromancer eyed the 'cabin boy' darkly. She was not yet washed with the other's illusion, and so saw only Rowen, skipping about like an idiot. "Stop your prancing, kid, and help me look for a way out." Desperate times call for desperate measures-- one of the swords gifted her by the Bosun was removed from her aching back and Tene squared off against the wall, the weapon wielded awkwardly in one hand. "Stand clear. I'm gonna chop us a damned way out." The jagged blade hit the boards with a dead 'thunk', barely leaving a dent in ironwood.
Rowen is startled by the strange lady, and her rough words, but keeps well back, she search through the pack she is wearing, though has never remembered owing for some warm clothes, she is shivering in her frock.
Rhian watched as Satoshi went across the planks, dark brows furrowing as she gazed upon the ghost ship. She edged towards the railing as she watched the feline and she shook her head, hands gripping the gifted bow in one and a cutlass in the other. Suddenly, almost as if ghosts truly had dwelt on that ship a flash of wild red hair and a pale hand waving from the deck of the Labyrinth belonging to a man in modest leathers. Almost as if beckoned she follows Satoshi across the planks, nearly sprinting if it weren't for her unsteady footing.
Rowen is amazed to find an assortment of tools and weapons in her bag as well as food and clothing and even...foul smelling ...spirits. She tries to offer the tools to the strange lad trying to batter at the door. "Er ....are these any good to you miss?"
Rowen wraps a blue flowing cloak, far too large for her, around her shoulders to try to keep out the cold and the damp.
Tenebrae lofted a brow. "Got a new arm in there for me too?" No that she was ungrateful.. She studied the 'cabin boy'. "What's got into you?"
Satoshi 's own wary pace increases with the closing distance between her and her precious companion. A thought in the back of her mind, a bit of still aware thoughts of recent company with canine folk, notes Rhian's approach as nonthreatening. MDF is perched beside a man but through the fog Satoshi can only catch wavy glimpses of him. A shock of red hair all that seems distinguishing of him, but it is no one the feline knows so his image passes without much thought. "Oi! Where've you been, you little monster?" she calls out to the dragon, a finger curling to beckon him to her. The dragon only trills and shakes his head, snout pointing insistently to the pathway to the underbelly of the [Labyrinth].
Rowen is puzzled the lady is speaking as if she knows Rowie, yet the child has no memory of ever having met her before. "Are you a friend of my parents, milady?" she asks politely.
Tenebrae sheathed her sword, leaving the tools for Rowen to hold until her hand was thus freed. She took the pickaxe, then, and experimentally tapped its sharper end on the wood.
Tenebrae stopped mid-swing, the axe continuing its momentum to bounce awkwardly off hard wood. "Uh... what? You got parents?" A frown furrowed her brow. "..Milady? Did y'get conked on the head in that fight?"
Rowen rubs her head all over, but it seems just fine. "My mummy says it is naughty to fight." She comments primly "I am a good girl I don't get into fights."
Rhian , once she disembarked from the planks connecting the two ships onto the ruined deck, stumbled over some remains, yet she seems unphased as the arms of the red-haired companion upon the deck catch the dark woman before she falls face first into the ruined wood. She stares up towards the man, black eyes wide with mute disbelief. If anything went on around the woman she seemed blind to all else but the man who she seems to nearly cling to.
Tene's lips hung open a moment. "Uh... huh. Well, y'ain't fighting the bloody wall, it isn't gonna cry if you hit it. Grab one the swords off m'back and get to work." Arming the assassin further would probably be a bad idea in normal circumstances, but since the woman seemed addlepated, the necromancer figured she wasn't in for a shifty stabbing right way.
Satoshi passes Rhian with only the shortest look toward the girl and the oddly unclear red head, her intent on the dragon now eagerly prancing at the entrance to the [underbelly], shrill chirps and clicks coming from him as he turned circles like a pleased dog. The feline reached out to scoop up her pet only to have him hop just out of reach, the motions repeated by the pair and leading Satoshi below deck.
Rowen is pulled in two directions, her mummy has always told her it is naughty to play with sharp objects, and yet she has also always been taught to treat adults with respect and obey them, after hesitating in indecision, she begins to pull at one of the swords on the lady's back, not sure how to get the strange object lose.
Tenebrae winced as the girl's tugging tore at her wounded shoulder. "Gerroffit..." She'd turn back to the 'cabin boy' with a grim look. "Just.. stand over there, in the corner, til I make us a hole in this wall. alright?"
Anshera had been subjected to near as many years of life - or unlife as the case my be, for her Creator. So many lives, so many fanciful acts of domesticity before the true killer came forth, giving the final curtain call to an untold number of victims. No, she'd never felt remorse; she was made for this, an instrument of Death. In her mind, these lifetimes were jumbled, years blending with one another to form a soup of falsely intertwined lifetimes. It didn't matter most of the time, polymorph not inclined to think thoughts of the past. However, the mind is drawn upon in the creation of personal hallucinations, and it is one of the few clearly recalled, one of her earliest memories that is twisted and warped then presented to her. Without realizing how, or perhaps not even noticing she was no longer in that corridor which had just a moment ago held her. A vision of her Creator, in his study, body no longer rotted and decaying; strong and healthy, the very same drowic form he held here, in the Labyrinth. He noted her presence, scowled at her, berated her. "Worthless Creature!" He'd cry at her, "Useless, disobedient Creature!" On and on he'd continue, cruelly driving on until she's overwhelmed. Trembling. Tears. There were tears streaming down her face, leaking from wide eyes. Had she found him? He was here. Here in a form she keeps a tight hold of in her mind, refusing to let that one image fade, no matter the passage of time. But he was so cruel to her, so impatient with her; where in reality he had the patience of a saint, when it came to her. Struck numb, somewhere in the Labyrinth, the polymorph stands statue still, staring blankly forward with a torrent of tears to dampen her face.
Satoshi tails the dragon wearing the slightest smile on her face at his excitable nature. He seemed so very pleased with himself. And truly, he should be. He'd found a gem of a beauty here. Who know what she had thought was a spooky ship before was actually a small manor of the purest ice? Such a clever little dragon. And now he wanted to show off his find to his master. There were so many rooms to explore! Although, she did have to complain of the oddly shaped snowdrifts upon the floor. Bit too curved and strewn about like fallen bodies for her liking, really.
Rhian stood there, slack jawed, bony fingers digging into the very firm skin of the arms about her before they unwrapped themselves and a smile graced the face of the man. His hand took hers and with a few words of a foreign tongue he took her hand and the two made their way after Satoshi and her dragon into the underbelly of the Labyrinth.
Satoshi stops at the first door she encounters of her new manor and a frown mars her expression. Someone was in that room. And knocking? She was only just made master of this building, how could she have visitors so soon? Such loud knocking! Like a damned lumberjack was hacking at stone! Lightly she raps on the frozen door. "Who goes there?"
Tenebrae paused in her feeble and unfruitful chipping away of ironwood splinters, tilting her head. Green eyes shifted Rowen's way. "Did y'hear that?"
Satoshi knocks a little louder. "Oi! You're trespassing, you know that! Best answer me!"
Diiroehn stirs, moving one of his dark-skinned arms to slide across the dirtied and debris-filled floor. Crimson eyes fixate upon the door, stains of those tears down his cheeks. "Someone..."
Tenebrae shouted, "Who's... Satoshi?" The necromancer glanced in the direction of the voice. "That you? Open the door, will you?"
Satoshi grumbles to herself of trespassers daring to make demands of her, but nonetheless the feline throws the dividing door open and scowls at the room's occupants. "Who invited you in here, hmm?"
Rowen heads over to the corner, she has always been an obedient child, for some reason the girl cannot fathom, there now appears to be a oak tree growing in the corner of the room, she is almost certain it was not there a few moments ago. There is a pink ropeladder dangling down from the branches above. The child climbs curiously, and to her astonishment soon finds herself in her own treehouse in her garden an home. Though her treehouse has always been in the old apple tree, indeed there is no oak tree in the garden at all. She peers at the tree's leaves and they are indeed, now, those of an apple tree. She looks down, and the ropeladder and the strange lady battering at the door are still faintly visible.
Diiroehn shouted, "Your minds! It's your minds! Ahhh!!!"
Diiroehn flails wildly, he can sense their sense of hopelessness and lack of direction; appendages striking scattered furniture with the frustrated violence.
Rhian wandered through the (underbelly's) entrance, led by the red-haired companion. Soon the two came across Rowen and Tenebrae as the beat at the wall, searching for holes in the wood. The red haired man turns to face Rhian, speaking a few words in that lilting language and Rhian looks towards Tenebrae, "M'lady, Aid’s wants t'know if y'need any 'elp'r is th'lass good 'nough?"
Anshera remains dumbstruck by this cruel vision of Creator, the polymorph retreating to her thoughts. The berations echoed around her, slipping and slithering in to add doubt to her reasoning. He loved her(didn't he?), how could this be him? How could she be home? The place of her conception. /It no longer existed/. Yet, here she was being yelled at by a version of her Creator before she'd killed him and brought him into an endless death. No, no. This couldn't be. He loved her. He was patient with her. She was his beloved Creation, despite what she'd done. Wasn't she? A low whine resonates in her throat, one small step taken backwards.
Rhian 's brows squinted as a dull, faint cry speared through the area, something she could make no sense of before she returned back to Tenebrae.
Satoshi 's ears flick back and forward again once. The only indication that she'd felt anything of Diiroehn's shout.
Rowen does not hear Diirohen's shout at all. She is happily playing with the toys she keeps in her treehouse.
Diiroehn struggles to stand, failing to a kneeling position. Alone, so alone; utterly alone and hopeless; homeless and lost in the haze of the mind. 'Pon hands and knees he crawls, toward the door that keeps him barred in this vision -barred in this hell. Hands curl to fists, before striking the door relentless; he just has to see them, he just has to see them. O', he knows it will break him two. The feral pounding continues, until exhausted, he slumps against it in an awkward angle, pressing his face to it and showering the mien with his tears.
Rowen winds up her clockwork snake, and giggles as it slithers jerkily across the boards of the sturdily built tree house her daddy made for her.
Tenebrae was very still, just for the split second conjoining the following onset of oddnesses: Firstly, Satoshi was imperiously present, soon followed by Rhian, who was trailed by some half-visible, smoky shadow. Secondly, there was suddenly no Rowen, but a tree in the corridor with a pink rope ladder leading up to its branches. "Don't shut the....!" Too late again, the timber smoothing over of its own accord. Tene made a soft, strangled sound in the back of her throat. Were Maladroit still there, she might have muttered to him that they obviously weren't in Kelay anymore. "Thank gods... you two, grab hold of one another..." That was spoken to the feline and Rhian, "Don't let go. And follow me." She'd head for the tree then, a chill breeze from nowhere ruffling its leaves to a sinister susurration. "Mindsssssssss," it seemed to say. Okay, now the tree was talking. Time to get going. "Hurry up, too, who knows how long this'll be around." She pointed the pickaxe toward the tree.
Satoshi scowls at Tenebrae's orders, but somewhere in the back of her mind she felt a simple obedience for the woman, and with a look at Rhian the feline offers her hand.
Satoshi said to Tenebrae, "How -did- you get in here, Lady? We are no where near the swamp I last saw you in, are we?"
Rhian looked over towards Satoshi, when Tenebrae's orders enter her ears, when she next looked upon the former vampire she was headed for the strange tree sprouting up in the place. The red haired man, apparently known as Aiden, wrapped an arm about her shoulders and her waist, enclosing Rhian's arms within his grasp. An arm wraps about his torso, whilst the other snakes its way out to take that of Satoshi's, just as solid as the man she took refuge in. The pair started forward with Satoshi hopefully in tow. Aiden leans down, whispering into the woman's ear that makes her cheeks gain a somewhat rosy hue, along with his.
Satoshi eyes the woman she is linked to, her gaze always going to the male but ever slipping away as if he weren't truly there. Odd man. Odd couple, really. The feline shakes her head and allows herself to be towed along after the Lady Tenebrae. What strange visitors she's found in her home today.
Anshera finds sudden revelation whirling within her mind; whispering at her thoughts and driving her further down an already steep slope. /This was the day she'd killed him/. Minute details trigger the recollection, the lay of paper strewn over his desk, the particular combination of components and ingredients. This was when she'd killed him. The image drove her down, relentlessly tearing at a psyche that had little sanity to grasp at in the first place. Kill him. Killhimkillhimkillhim. It echoed in her head just like it had that day, but the sentiments attached to it are acutely different. She was not enraged this time, was not determined to be free of someone she'd refused to acknowledge being devoted to. She /did/ love him. She'd loved him from the start, favouring him over the other three who'd been involved in making her into a reality. Nay, she was afraid now, hesitant despite the continual assault; brought to timidity by the only person who could fully suppress her. No, she couldn't kill him this time. She had to /save/ him. That's why she was here, wasn't it? Like many of her memories, her reason for being here was starting to fade, and get lost in the sea of an eternity of events. Run. Flee. Get away. These instincts still pull at her, trying to get her to move and trying to prevent her from being pulled further into this mess of delays and entrapments. And so it was that she fled, tearing past the illusion of her Creator. Not watching where she's going, the image of Diiroehn's study fades, once more revealing the twisted corridors of Labyrinth's depths. She fled blindly, drawn closer to Diiroehn, and consequently the rest, only by grace of the bond that eternally connects them.
Rowen sits her dolls all around her and begins to tell them a story, A story about pirates and a ghost ship.
"Um... " A flatly incredulous look was what Satoshi would see on the necromancer's face. "Let's just go..." Rhian and her shadow.. was it vaguely man-shaped now?... soon had the feline gathered up, so Tene stepped closer to the tree trunk, glancing up. The leaves seemed to glimmer, darkening even as she watched them. "Up here. And don't..." A glance back to the women and the rapidly solidifying man-shaped shadow. "... don't listen to the tree." She even blinked at herself. Of sudden, she felt as though her very heart had been frozen and struck with a hammer, splintering into a thousand shards. The pickaxe was dropped with a 'thud' to the boards. "The Admiral... " A panic-struck Tene wheeled on the others. "Where's the Admiral? Where's my...." She couldn't speak of Luc, lest the boy had come to harm. "Have you seen my family?" The rope ladder dangled invitingly. Tene might even have climbed it, after she calmed a bit, had she not rested her back on the trunk in her grief, and promptly fallen through it, vanishing.
Diiroehn whispered, "Where are you all...? Please... hurry..."
Satoshi blinked, staring at the spot that the vampiric woman had occupied mere seconds ago. The mage's gaze flicked frantically from that empty spot against the tree, the tantalizing rope ladder where from above she could hear a child laughing, and her hold on the couple standing beside. So many choices... Eyes hardening suddenly, the feline released her hold of Rhian and stomped toward the tree. Of all her guests, she only knew Tenebrae and wanted some answers from her, if possible. She'd follow the disappearing one, whether her other companions came as well of no matter to her. She lowered her head as the tree come closer and flinched as she walked headfirst into its barked surface. Nothing came from the impact, and she looked around her curiously. This didn't look like an ice mansion at all. Rotted planks surrounded her and that disconcerting feeling was back again. "Where in hell...?"
Rhian stops in her tracks, brows furrowing towards Tenebrae and her orders, not only that but talk of her family. Of course trees couldn't talk, even among the oddities of this land. She leans up, speaking a few things in his lilting language, before her statement was cut off by the woman vanishing. She made to run forward towards the tree, when her wild haired companion takes her arm and prevents her. She glances back towards the tree, lips pressing into a line before she lets go of Satoshi's hand and returns back to the embrace of Aiden. He whispers something once more into her hair and she turns towards Satoshi, "Aid'n t'inks w'should split up t'find 'er...th'place can't b't'at big, we c'n find 'er."
Diiroehn vanished before your eyes, perhaps never to be seen again.
Rhian 's eyes widened as Satoshi dove through. Still restrained by the man's embrace she bites her lip and firmly nods, muttering, "Alrigh't...w'll try f'some stairs..."
Tenebrae told Rowen, "we can keep track of each other through the 'rigging' - maybe ro can help em find a way through the maze.."
Rowen is interrupted from regaling her dolls with the tale of adventure on the high seas... by a movement over to her left. She looks up to see a beautifully patterned flying carpet, its singular occupant an old man, who is doing cartwheels. "Take care you don't fall sir!" Rowie calls.
Anshera comes to an abrupt halt as she slams into the very door that keeps Diiroehn trapped in this hellish place, the polymorph tumbling to the ground. Dazed in her current state, she only seems to sense that she's so tantalizingly close, the dishevelled woman crawling up to the door and pressing against it, low whine once more rising in her throat.
Rowen is feeling quite hungry now, she knows her parents, have invited several guests for the evening meal, and they will not eat until the visitors arrive, she begins to peer around to see if she can see anybody. Indeed one guest appears to be lost in the garden below, a dark skinned woman is wandering around between the broad bean poles and the compost heap. "You need to head over to your right!" Rowie called down the house is that way.”
Rowen turns back to check on the old man who was turning cartwheels, she is quite worried for his safety, but as she watches both the man and the carpet seem to dissolve into a multitude of beautiful butterflies.
Tenebrae was every bit as astounded as Satoshi. How she'd come from the parapet of their fortress to the dungeons in the wink of an eye was beyond her. "I must find the Admiral..." It was a hoarse whisper, spoken through a sharply-fanged mouth. "I must..." Was Tenebrae getting bigger, there in the maze? For they'd fallen into the very reason for the ship's name, not that they'd know it, unless they got a bird's eye view of the wending, twisting structure leading inevitably toward the Captain's Quarters. For now, they were in a wooden-- or stone, hard to tell anymore-- dungeon of a corridor, branches forking left and right. A child's voice piped something, apparently from above, but the Queen Vampire.. or so she had seemed.. merely shuddered. The eyes that greeted the feline mage then were no longer jewel line peridot, but a more livid, feral green. "Must." The necromancer's voice was gruff.
Rowen waves her hands to clear the thousands of butterflies out of the way. She looks down again, she cannot see where the dark skinned lady has wandered to now, but she does catch sight of the lady with the swords who was trying to knock the door down earlier, she is walking along as if in a dream, and seems about to trample her mother's flower beds. "Please stop" Rowie yells. "That is the wrong way... the house is half a turn to your right, along the garden path."
Satoshi showed the barest hint of recognition at Tenebrae's reappearance. The feline's own eyes carried their normal sapphire hue but they looked out at the world with a far harsher glint. A feral growl answered the necromancer's gruff voice and a wide grin, the picture of insanity, broke across the cat's face. Satoshi, or rather her secretive persona Jelko, swept past the vampire. The little assassin had a job to do and did not need to waste time playing with a confused vamp. Her target was somewhere up ahead, and her employer was impatient to have the contract completed. The faint call of a wisp--or was it a child?--directed the killer that much closer to her prey. Behind her no longer trots the white dragon, the apparition becoming that of a medium-sized, red furred dog.
Rhian and her strange, apparently shadowy companion, though in her eyes he seemed to hold a subtle glow, wandered the room, searching everywhere around the tree, yet all the time connected by the hand, and oh how those bony fingers clung as if for reassurance. With all options exhausted, she's leads Aiden into the tree, the red haired man always lingering close as they made their way into the illusion and vanished just as the others to fall into the maze with her companion. A smile quirked the man's lips and he said something towards the woman in still more of that language. She cracked a crooked grin towards him in return only to go seek out Tenebrae with her black eyes. They were left in her charge, so with her companion in tow she made for Tenebrae's side, "M'lady, y'know wh't's 'appenin'? I 'aven't seen 'yde 're 'air o' y'mate."
Tenebrae's jaw unslung into serrated maw, as glittering eyes tracked the assassin. Her shoulders, one sightly lower for its injury, rose to hunch sharply by her lengthening neck, while the one hand visible and not bound up below strained leathers crunched and cracked into clawed version of itself. From out of a tangle of ebon hair that seemed to sprout like spreading grass along her skin, the twin points of dark ears emerged, to twitch flatter against her narrow, elongated skull. "Must... " Tenebrae, whatever kind of blasphemous hybrid she had become, made a three-legged bestial lope after "Jelko", the being's sharp scent rich with blood and redolent of meat, with a confusing hint of canine thrown in.
Rowen sees the cat wandering past the lady with the swords. "Tiddles!" she calls to it "Hurry in to the kitchen, I saw mummy putting some nice scraps of meat aside for you." Rowie loves her cat, she has cared for the affectionate creature since it was a kitten.
Anshera claws uselessly at the door separating her and Diiroehn, silver beginning to streak as her fingers are gifted with splinters to tear the pale flesh. Long, achromatic hair shrouds her naked form as she whimpers and cries, still not really knowing just how close she really is. Reach for the knob, open the door! Such a simple solution is beyond her at the moment, mind still rattled and reeling.
Tenebrae wheeled back toward Rhian and her companion, a snarl trembling lips still recognisably humanoid. "Find!" The word was slurred through hooked fangs.
Rowen stares at what appears to be a vaguely woman shaped mass of quicksilver, seemingly trying to knock on the back door. Mummy and daddy have certainly invited some strange guests today, the child thinks to herself. "Try calling my mummy to let you in, she advises her, if she can't hear you, try the front door.
Both Rhian and her companion take steps back before the man takes Rhian's arm and begins sprinting in the opposite direction of Tenebrae into an open passage of the Labyrinth surrounding them, however veiled it was with all the strange shadows that made up Rowen's world.
Diiroehn blinks, someone is at the door; someone! Hope, hope! O', the hope, salvation abound; he would open the door, he would allow his would-be savior to reach him and take him from this infernal wasteland. A hand reaches for the doorknob, before realization dawns... What if it is just another skeleton? Meekly, weakly, and whisperedly, he speaks: "Who's out there?"
Satoshi 's eyes snap back to the not-quite-woman stalking after her, a low rumbling growl coming from her throat. "Hunt elsewhere, half-breed," the assassin hisses out between clenched teeth. The dog echoes her growl, taking a step toward the departing Tenebrae before pointed canine ears perk up and he looks back to 'Jelko'. The dog begins barking excitedly and he races past his master and further up the corridor. With one more glance back at the hybrid-Tenebrae, the assassin scoffs and hurries after her companion, still yapping happily at whatever scent he'd caught. Rounding a corner of the rotted-wood/stone dungeon wall, 'Jelko' froze. There her dog stood pawing at a woman clawing at what seemed like just another section of wall.
Rowen said to Rhian, "Not that way milady, that side path leads to the herb patch. You need to go further to your right along the main garden path. My mummy has cooked a delicous meal for us all, don't let it go cold please."
Anshera sobs, trembling as she allows bloodied, torn hands to drag limply down the door. Silver paints the door in a macabre vision, as if she'd been buried alive and desperately trying to escape. A whisper, almost unheard reaches her ears, the voice familiar, beloved. Fear holds her silent for a moment, memories of the last, false vision of her Creator causing her to shrink back before she offers an oddly timid, childish reply, "M-my name is Anshera."
Anshera turns her head to stare at the dog pawing her, wide eyed gaze wavering on the animal, as though she were dizzy.
Rowen shouts at the dog "Hey you! You leave my tiddles alone! She's my little kitty-witty-bitty-kins.”
Diiroehn chokes on his joy; Anshera! His beloved creation! The doorknob turns almost on its own accord, and half-through the threshold does that naked Drow collapse upon the ground. His body shivering, weak, and trembling. "Anshera..." He hardly ever used that name...
Rowen said to Tenebrae, "You are wandering off the right path milady, take care you don't become entangled in the washing line, please."
Tenebrae whined, a high-pitched sound of frustration, as prey scattered in all directions. The apparent hybrid snuffed the dank air once, muscles shifting in preparation for a bestially-oriented mind to make a decision. Satoshi/Jelko's taunting words, trailing back through the dark to reach canine-sharp ears, were the deciding factor. "Hunt..." It was almost a grin, the way her maw widened, before the Beast Tenebrae buckled her haunches under her, and sprang into an unevenly-gaited, tri-legged gallop, a wounded "paw" held tightly against furred ribs. Hunt.. she could smell the blood pulsing, the sweat lacing tender, mortal flesh. She hadn't eaten in a very long time.. Whether her ravening snarls or the mere sight of this horrendous half-creature, vast for a hybrid vigour, barrelling toward the door scared her off her not, Satoshi simply was not there when the chimaeric necromancer dug her nails to boards, skidding to a halt, predatory gaze fixed upon Anshera.... and the Lich. Her snarl was ferocious, half-screamed through her partially-human throat.
Rowen looks very worried as her 'mother' appears to collapse after opening the door to the silver lady. "I'm coming, mummy, she shouts, heading for the ladder her father has affixed to the side of he tree to allow his dear daughter easy access to her favorite place of play.
Anshera remains still for a long moment, staring in disbelief at the Drow collapsed before her. Could it really be true, this time? A shaking hand reaches out as she leans forward, settling down gently, hesitantly to brush a bit of hair back from Diiroehn's face. She could touch him, but... she could touch the other one too, couldn't she? She remained unclear on that point, joining her Creator in speaking a name she hardly spoke, "Diiroehn... My dearest Diiroehn..."
Tenebrae snapped at Anshera, a vague memory of a beloved mate and the claws of a cat piercing the animalistic fog of her mind.
Diiroehn struggles forward, "Creation..." Darrien could be seen unconscious in the room behind them, though Tenebrae's visage clouds the Lich's mind. Chaos. Utter, Chaos. "Tenebrae... No..."
Rhian stopped just before the two would disappear into the labyrinth as she looked back, the girl speaking of paths was still in danger of the beast. Firmly taking hold of the stubborn grip of the man she remains ever connected to she dashes with him in two towards Rowen as he seems to plead in that strange tongue. She shakes her head towards the man as they race towards the girl as she nears the strange bunch, but certainly the unsafest of those gathered. "Lass!" Rhian hollers as she nears.
Rowen said to Diiroehn, "I'm coming mummy, I'm coming!"
Rowen said to Rhian, "I have to help my mummy, she has just collapsed .Can you run for a healer, please?"
Rhian said to Rowen, "I am a 'eal'r, y'got t'get 'way fr'm th'beast!"
Rowen climbs down from what she believes to be her treehouse and is in reality, the remaining rigging of the decaying hulk. She runs over to her mummy and the silver lady. then pauses, suddenly unsure whether the person collapsed on the ground is her mummy after all.
Anshera shrieks as jaws tear into her flesh, catching the crook of shoulder and neck to release a spray of silver 'blood'. Never had the polymorph cried out from being attacked, never had she hesitated before offering some form of retaliation when not restrained. She did now, however, shrinking back and clutching at Diiroehn. Darrien remains unnoticed in this moment, her gaze too filled with visions of Tenebrae.
Rowen wonders what beast the healer lady is talking about, but is far too worried about her mother to give it much thought.
Rowen screams in high pitched terror as the lady with the swords bites the silver lady. She kneels beside her ‘mother'.
Rowen said to Diiroehn, "Don't worry mummy the lady with the strange accent is a healer, she will soon have you right as rain. " The child looks suspiciously at Anshera and Tenebrae, as she cradles Diiroehn's head. "Please don't hurt my mummy!"
Diiroehn allows those tears to run rivulets down his face, too blinded to see Rowen, or Rhian. "Tenebrae... Stop... Please..."
All about this sorry gathering of mind-torn individuals comes the terrifying crack and splinter of timber, a shriek and groan of sundering wood; the air grows so thick and dank as to be almost suffocating to those who need breath, and cloying to those who do not. A wicked snicker of creaks comes as, from within the room, the prow of the ship seems to buckle inward, wood curling and splitting into the shape of a colossal hand, planks for fingers, nails and caulking scattering across Darrien's fallen form like a hard rain. There is no escaping -this- "illusion" .. because it isn't one. Like the sound of a thousand souls weeping comes a voice, bleeding black illness into the ears of the beleaguered crowd, "The Lich is Mine!" And from what lips came the words? The horrendous features the pressed outward from the ship's hull seemed to move in time with the sound, though its features were blank as the wood they were formed by.
Diiroehn allows his head to be cradled now, though calling him 'mummy' has little effect; he is far too weak, far too disoriented.
Tenebrae the Beast managed only a small bite out of her nasty-tasting 'lunch', before the vast horror rising in the ship's prow had her scuffle back from her prey with a terrified yelp. Something in her lurched, the pleas of the others falling on her senseless mind. The chimaera of human, lycan and vampire shivered like a wet poodle as the great, plank-formed hand reached toward the fallen Drow, and let out a panicked howl, lurching as though struck.
Rhian and her companion finally reach the gathering and as blood sews from one of the members, to her own eyes the man's hands alongside her conjure up a flame in each hand. Both illusion and dark skinned woman dart look about the wood as it creaks groans, forms into a hand, and this is the breaking point where half a scream breaks loose from the woman's lips before she manages to stifle it and stare, dumbstruck as instincts drove her closer to the tangible illusion of the red-haired man. The voice drove her even closer to him.
Rowen screams once more as the 'kitchen wall suddenly grows a malevolent hand and a voice cries "The Lich is mine!" Rowie has no idea what a Lich is. She tries to drag 'her mother' away from the terrible hand, but she is just too small, too weak, she called to Rhian, "Please healer, come help me get her out of danger!"
Diiroehn grasps hold of Rowen with one of his hands, clutching tightly to her back, "Free your mind, child. Free it!" The last word is offered with a hellish cough and groan; weakness is here. Set in. His other hand grasps with clutching horror at his Creation; back to the hand, eyes upon Tenebrae the Beast. "Tenebrae... Help me..."
Trey wavered uncomfortably on The Eternity. Something had made Satoshi and Rhian board the ghost ship pretty damn fast, and that left her, McCoy, and the crew as the only guards. Plus, she just got an eerie feeling from that ship. It looked normal enough, the ghost ship; she saw nothing too out of the ordinary except that it seemed to be completely deserted. Deserted except for that man. He was tall, and wore a black robe. She wasn’t sure if she was seeing him at first, his back was to her, and he was far off. He seemed to be walking away from her, and then she noticed the symbol on his back; a vine-wrapped cross encircled by gold. That was all it took for her to change ships and get entangled in the illusion.
Rowen is puzzled by 'her mother's' strange words and even more worried by the terrible cough, but try as she might she just cannot pull her mummy to safety on her own, she calls again to Rhian for help, crying in terror and frustration.
Anshera clutches in turn to her Creator, supporting his upper body beneath trembling arms upon her lap; clinging as though she'd never let go - and right now, she'd make a damn fine effort not to. She shakes her head frantically, avoiding the monstrous vision of ship timber, moaning lowly, "You can't go again. Nonono."
Rhian pulls against the entreating grip of the man, the woman finally separating to the side of the small child. Mother or not, she'd wriggle past Anshera if the polymorph would allow and take the man's arm to pull, to assist the child. She paid no mind to the quivering beast for now, counting it a blessing despite the sudden sentience of the ship itself.
Jelko, for once in her life, faltered. Hadn’t a woman been kneeling at the wall a moment ago? She’d seen it with her own eyes, the one thing that never betrayed, and yet now the assassin found herself standing with only Sawyer in a corridor. All the assassin had done was lean against a wall… Where had that crying woman gone? The assassin growled again, her grin widening further. What a tricky little bit of prey she’d been hunting. A howl echoed down the hall, a sound that made her whip around and lower into a crouch, Sawyer barking madly before the dog dashed off after the sound. Hands flexing on the katars she armed herself with, the feline darted down after the canine.
Tenebrae's bestial face, snout wrinkling, might yet be half-recognisable as the Cabal's leader. To her founding clansmate, this strange face was thrust, jagged teeth licked, a voice that sounded pained spilling over fangs, "What... am I...?" This agonised whisper is followed by a violent twitch, and she seemed to abruptly become a thing of mercurial form herself, only no silver-- only flesh and hair, knitting and unknitting. "Let him... " It was cried, in between the horrors of her changes, the agony of the loss she believed herself to be experiencing leaving the necromancer unwilling to stay live for her own sake, without her beloved Leo, without her son. "Let it have me!" Whatever else she might have said was made a moot point, courtesy of the brown dog who flung itself at her back-- luckily in the moment she shifted to human, between vampire and lycan-- and sent Tene sprawling on the floor.
"Come, come now...." From the Captain's Quarters came a reasonable voice, somehow rising clearly above the rabble of the frightened gathering. The timber hand flicked Rowen and anyone else close to Diiroehn aside, enclosing both the Drow and his Creation tightly, whence it grew utterly still. The face in the wall reduced itself to crackling murmurs, while the figure of Darrien floated across the floor, feet suspended inches above the boards. His eyes were sheerly black, his face bearing a beatific smile, hands held palm-up as if in supplication. "Let's be civilised about this."
Diiroehn is trapped! Hands clutch tightly to his Creation now, the naked Drow shivering; he is surely doomed. "Help..." So pitiful. So weak. Damn him.
Rowen shouted, "Mummy!"
As she neared him, he turned down the next street, the building blocking her view of him. Without running Trey sped up, desperate to catch him. She tried to call out for him, but her voice refused. The same corner, she turned and caught sight of his robes as he turned again down another dirt alleyway in the town. It was all she could do to keep herself from running. So many questions were unanswered, and so many times she had tried to contact him, yet he ignored her and refused her.
Rhian was flung aside a brief ways from the girl, the woman frantically looking about the place. "Aiden?" she called, black eyes growing wider and breath quickening in her chest. No, he must have run away for help. The woman turns now to the strange presence floating before them, bony fingers clutching at the floorboards beneath her and body trembling with the ominous fear her very environment exuded, civilized was hardly the aptest of terms.
Anshera too, is trapped! Her grasp around him only tightens, the woman almost glad that at least she was going with him. That melancholy would not be overcome, however. They were undone, it seemed, "I'm sorry. I failed you." She whispers pitifully.
Maybe it was the timber hand clenching a drow and that odd polymorph, or the little dog throwing himself against the hybrid, or the little girl’s scream for her mother. Satoshi wasn’t entirely sure. But one of those things tripped something in her clouded mind. Something snapped, and a candle flickered back to life in there. Jelko and all her bloodlust vanished as the mage stumbled to a halt beside Rhian. Blue eyes widen and questioning as she watched the handsome man floating before them.
Again she turned a corner and slammed into the back of a nearby woman, for she had found herself running. The woman all but ignored her and Trey didn’t care. There was a huge crowd of people gathered in the square, yet they didn’t matter. Her eyes scanned for him, but instead they met others. Men dressed like her quarry came towards her, judgment and cruelty in their eyes. She turned to escape the way she came, and they were there too, closing her in...
Rowen shouts through her tears "You just let my mummy go, you nasty Mr Hand you! Or I'll.....I'll the girl thinks of the worst threat she can imagine...."I'll tell me Daddy!"
Diiroehn allows a soft smile, for the comfort of his Pygmalion; a brief twinkle in his eyes. And they sit, under this wooden and broken hand, disguised from the view of all -he sees her. The room's suddenly spinning, he can smell her scent, he can see her beside him. So there's a change, in his emotions, and all these memories come rushing like feral waves to his mind; hopeless and homeless, and lost in the haze of their sights. "You have never failed me, my Creation. You are perfect..."
Tenebrae's cries were greeted with a soft smirk from handsome features, an oily glimmer from obsidian eyes. The figure of Darrien, still hovering, gave the necromantic 'shapeshifter' a sympathetic look. "Well, that's very generous of you..." The next word was spoken with a tone that might've caused flesh to shiver. "... Joliette." A broad smile. "But.. you see, we don't want you anymore. You failed us. And none here..." An arm was swept grandly about the crowd, its hand flopping almost lifelessly at the end, "... are strong enough to take your place. Except, of course for our friend, here." The figure swept across the air toward the Lich and Anshera, in their timber prison.
Tenebrae was writhing, the changes coming thicker and faster now. "St..stop.. him..."
A tuneful peal of laughter came from Darrien's throat, the unconscious doppelganger unaware of how his body was being used. "Haha, oh how precious. Now shut up." Tene was suddenly muted, her able hand, made of claws... no fingers.. something in-between, clutching her neck. To Diiroehn, the Chaos Lord now turned his vile attention. "You only need to choose.. vast power, a world at your feet or...." A sneer now, soiling the good-looking demeanour. "... rot, with this rabble."