thousand dreams, lotus boats upon the waters

[promittere]

NEW MOON ADAGIO

Between the constant requests from the North and the sense of tension that pervades the manor, Sage Tatara makes an executive decision: we're going North, baby.

Of all the things that have happened thus far, let this be the ultimate test of your magic. Even as we near summer, it's frigid. Protect yourselves and your allies from the cold. Protect yourselves while also fighting off monsters (or other territorial wizards, should you make the terrible mistake of wandering into another's territory), flying through the vast wilderness, or protecting the poor humans who need your help to survive. Time to blow off some of your steam. Just be sure to obey Tatara's one rule: don't kill each other.

One particular problem of note is in the Forest of Dreams. Without its guardian, many of these rogue monsters and dangerous predators, displaced from their normal habitats, have found their way into the forest. Many of them, however, are unable to survive against the fatal toxin, and there are plenty of animal corpses and mana stones that litter the forest. It might be best to clean these up before the forest guardian returns...

That said, the toxin is yet another thing you must protect yourself against in addition to the cold. While you can likely keep yourself from dying from the toxins, you may not be immune to its effects. This deadly toxin causes anyone who breathes it in to dream and hallucinate vividly, be it images of the past, imagined futures, thoughts of the present processed and warped...

Strangely enough, those nearby may end up sharing in your dreams... Did you want the darkest recesses of your thoughts, hopes, and fears unearthed for others to see?

Those who decide to venture far past the more populated (in relative terms) parts of the North may find themselves stumbling upon what looks to be an abandoned bandit hideout. It seems it's been abandoned for quite a while—nothing to loot here, sorry!—but there sure are a whole lot of monsters that have decided to make this hidden corner of the North their home.

While you're at it, you may find a nearby cave. Beautiful crystals dot the walls and the floors, and there are small pools of hot spring water free for relaxing. It seems to be relatively free of monsters, too. So maybe this wouldn't be a bad spot to relax, away from everything else?

However, there's one thing that makes this cave truly unique, and it isn't the vistas or the springs—it's the bats. These bats hear echoes of the past and replay them for visitors. Should you stay a while and listen, a bat may pay you a visit. And when it does, it may play for you the voices from the memories of visitors past, whose stories may hold a clue or two to your circumstances...

While the Forest of Dreams is a memory/dreamshare free for all, the aural memories replayed by the bats in the Cave of Time will come from one of the original wizards only. If you'd like an audio replay of a perhaps significant moment either in their personal life or a clue as to what happened to them (it will be randomized), then please reply to this comment!

JOB BOARD

Clean-up and repairs. While thanks to the hard work of your Eastern friends the worst was prevented, the City of Rain emerged from their short ordeal a little worse for wear.

Buildings need repair, blood needs to be cleaned off the streets, the injured need help. This is, perhaps, the only time you will be allowed to use magic openly in the city (you've been given permits and everything!), but you still are not allowed to talk outside of designated zones. Please, please don't get arrested...

As for the scrap that litters the streets? Unfortunately, you'll have to take it back to the scrapyard. But this time, there's a big, roaring bonfire out there. Just chuck all the scrap and debris in the fire. The city isn't taking any second chances—extreme situations call for extreme measures.

Reverence. Several Northern villages are currently outside the protection of a wizard, and have requested the sage's wizards' presence. They're terrified of the monsters and worried the barriers for their villages will fail sooner than later. They don't simply ask for help for free, however, and these smaller villages are steeped in their tradition—they'll pay you their respects, praying to you, offering you gifts, groveling at your feet, in hopes for a modicum of your time and protection. Do their offerings please you? Then assist them with what you deem appropriate for their worship to you: kill a few monsters for them, or a lot if you're pleased. Strengthen the barrier a lot, or not at all if you're displeased. It's up to you! You have the power here. What's it like to be a god for a day?

Ladies' night. The monthly lady officers' gathering is coming up in the City of Affluence—it's an exclusive meetup for the women involved in and related to Western military and bureaucratic affairs. Anyone is welcome, so long as they meet two requirements: they are outwardly presenting feminine, and they have an invitation to the gathering. Here's your chance to flex your transformation and glamour spells! Infiltrate the meetup with a disguise and a fake invitation, mingle, enjoy the drinks, the jazz, the entertainment, and find out what you can... What's the Western army up to? Be careful, though—don't get caught and kicked out!

The attendees seem to be excited about the new phantasmagoria technology and the upcoming display, and many whisper about the upcoming Venator meteor shower...

G'RAHA TASKS

Greetings, new friends! I am G'raha Tia, and while I hesitate to call myself a mentor or a replacement for the one you had, I am eternally grateful for the assistance I received and will do my best to help your cause in any way I can. To that end, I feel I may need to be caught up to speed on the events and get to know all of you.

We can have some tea and sandwiches and have a discussion! That's the best way to learn, sometimes.

TATARA ACTIVITIES

Even if we're not here for very long, I think we should leave our mark (not literally! Don't paint on the walls!). I got paint and big paper in the dining hall, but no brushes... Do you know what that means? Finger paint! Finger paint a portrait of yourself with your name and I'll hang it up in the library when they're all done!

Thanks to Cid and Khun, my camcorder works now. The thing is, what's the point of filming anything if we have no way to watch the film?! Could you guys work together to make some kind of projector? Or like...VHS player? We could have a movie night together!

OOC NOTES

🌙 Welcome to your fourth event! It's your dreamshare and memshare event! Ready to open up with your deepest and darkest secrets?
🌙 We're halfway through the game. How do you feel?
🌙 Back at the manor, Kurapika and Maya have set up a bulletin board! Leave comments, argue with your neighbors, have fun. Be nice. Don't set it on fire.
🌙 On the admin side of things, Lav has swapped out Wanderer for G'raha! Please say hello to your new mentor NPC.
🌙 Your OOC plotting post is here! Remember to keep all wider plotting to the post, and remember to check back frequently, since not everyone checks plurk or discord all the time.
🌙 The next country to go on their mission is North. Do you think a PVP-enabled mission will go well?

» NAVIGATION

Comments

yay... ha ha ha... yay!!

[jokey]

[Temper? Don't start with him. Akira laces his arms tight across his chest, eyeing those stones that Solomon's slipping into his pockets. It isn't the biting cold that has the hairs at his nape standing on end, a spell wrapped around him to ward off the pervasive chill.

He'd feel better if he could merely blame the snow and the ice for the unease that pits in his throat, hardens like stone. The smell of smoke, acrid, stings his nostrils and propels him forward. Faster and faster strides, the distant screaming compelling him into motion.]

Stay right there. We're going back.

[They can't stay here. They can't. Akira knows the smell of death on the air, a scent that brings to mind the sound of chains dragging along the ground. Run, they have to run, and he isn't running away alone.]

[impacter]

You may go back, Akira. But last I recall, I do not belong to you.

[He attempts to step back and away but I rolled a (1) so he's immediately stumbling, a side effect of the exhaustion, of the cold.

Akira's body will feel like a phantom of itself for a brief moment. Pained. Exhausted. Powerful. Powerful. It radiates like the heat of the sun in waves off his body.

He feels distress, not his own, but of a phantom, stumbling and bleeding and desperately trying to will something, something in him, something innate, to stop.

As the sensation rolls through the air, nauseous and dreadful, Solomon flinches with a deep exhale, hand running by reflex at the ring against his middle finger - the one he'd shown Akira during their first conversation, the one he had never explained. It brings no comfort.]

[jokey]

Like I need your permission.

[He told Bruno he would not give chase. He would leave this man to commit his sins and reap the consequences all on his own, and true to his word, Akira hadn't gone to lengths to seek him out. Had Solomon the strength to run, Akira would have let him.

As he is, Solomon isn't running anywhere. He's exhausted and fatigued and he must be in pain, so much pain, razed by a heat that burns from the inside out.

...No, no, this pain is his own, and Akira stops short of bridging the gap between them and taking Solomon's hand. He's driven to his knees by that creeping dread and shudders in its wake, but he can't stop here, he can't run away, because he can't go back alone. He can't abandon another friend to death.]

Stop... Stop! I'm not leaving you here—!

[They have to run, as far and as fast as their legs will carry them. Akira manages to stumble upright and take Solomon's hand (11), trying to jerk him upright. Come on, come on.]

Cw: mass death

[impacter]

[Akira yanks, and yet Solomon resists, pulling free in opposite momentum (17). His expression is pained with the ripples of the memory, the things he's seen over and over as he walks through these woods, and he stays against the ground, as though bracing despite the brassy eyes that stay trained on Akira.

The picture grows clearer, in bits and shades, with the sky coated orange and thickly coated with ash from roaring fires. Buildings have been completely flattened. The cliffsides that face the distant sea are crumbling, clean holes carved straight through them by an unnatural force. The bodies are still fresh, still bleeding. But not moving.

All blown outward from a single point.

Where you now stand.]

[jokey]

[The smell of death, of wanton destruction, has never been so sharp. It stings his eyes and overwhelms his senses, nausea crawling up his throat and lingering there. Where is he? Who is he? And Solomon... Is he still here? Trapped with him in this apocalyptic hellscape?

Who, or what, could have caused this much destruction? Akira ambles towards a person, the first one he sees, and falls to his knees in search of a pulse. Please be alive. Please tell him his eyes are playing a cruel trick on him, that he'll wake with a start from a single pinch back in the world he belongs in. Tell him this is all a lie.]

[impacter]

[Solomon sits right where he had been, still braced against the ground.

The nearest corpse is of a young woman. The body is still warm, but pale, bloody, and covered in debris. There is no pulse. Several more can be seen on his direct vicinity. None appear to be alive.

You can hear more scream in the distance. Your distress climbs. No. No, no, you tried so hard. You were trying so hard. And yet your magic bubbles ferociously in your limbs, in your throat, no matter how you keep trying to press it down like you've tried for years. But it hurts. It hurts, and you feel what little grip you have over your own power slipping.

They had died because of you. And you want to scream until your throat goes hoarse. There has to be something you can do, something, something something.

Akira will feel the urge to double over, like his magic is trying to burst from his skin if he doesn't pull himself together.]

[jokey]

[It can't be, it can't be. One dead, two, ten, a thousand, the bodies countless and innumerable, but they can't all be dead. There's no way, no accepting the sheer amount of death and destruction at his feet. All the while, something's festering in Akira that he can't ignore, the feeling of something more powerful than him threatening to claw its way out and overtake him.

In the corner of his eye, Akira sees Solomon there. He fights to reach out a hand and his body refuses to cooperate. He can't possibly reach Solomon when every cell in his body is screaming out in pain, his sense of self pushed down, crushed, suffocated. Some part of him, the will and the ego and the self, is going to die.]

You can't- You can't do this—! Satanael!

[He calls for his Persona knowing it won't come, knowing he's dying out to the power threatening to overwhelm him, but there has to be something, something, something he can do—]

Solomon...! Hey! Help me!

[—Even if that something is calling out for help like he seldom has before.]

[impacter]

[It's the call for him by name that has Solomon's attention immediately snapped towards Akira.

Swallowing thickly, Solomon stumbles to Akira's side, a sharp inhale and shaking exhale at the contact. In Akira's mind, in his ears, like it's him and yet not, he hears the dry and pained gasps of a phantom; a young man, a pained man, a desperate man, not him and not his fellow wizard, but of a fledgling sorcerer hardly in his twenties. Yelling. Mourning. Gasping for pain against the ground, the ache of utter tragedy. The magic exists regardless.

It hurts, and from how Solomon physically shudders along with Akira at the waves of power, it's affecting both of them. But he grips the boy by the shoulders, pulling him just enough away from the corpse to focus on him instead.]

I'm here.

Breathe. Follow instinct or it's just going to keep happening.

[The death. The destruction.

"Please------- Please, let me take it back!!!!!"

Hoarse words to the dead. Pointless crying from the wolf among the slaughtered lambs. Heaven won't hear you.

So call for help. Make them come from elsewhere. The mind rushes in desperation. To make a circle, a spell, a pleading. Drawing from phantom memories, phantom theories, the mystical and dark and forbidden.

Instinct says a circle is possible. Logic says you will die. Fear smells the blood in the air and feels the burn of your magic like bile in your throat.

Solomon keeps his touch firm. He's here. Even though the phantom, the memory, has no one at all.]

[jokey]

[This pain isn't his to endure — that much, Akira is aware of — but it hurts just the same. Solomon's voice is a salve, the relief temporary, but it grounds Akira enough to keep him from losing himself entirely.

He's never felt this hurt, this lost, this pained— or maybe he has, just once, during the time he awakened to the second self within him. If he'd lost control then, his Shadow would have swallowed him whole. This is the same, and yet it isn't, because everyone is dead, gone, and it's his own hands that caused this.

...No, no, no. He didn't do this. The man beside him did. Still, still—

Pulled aside, Akira's vision swims in and out of focus, but he measures every inhale, every exhale, until he can see more than just the fuzzy outline of the man in front of him.]

Instinct? What do you...?

[Disembodied voices scream and Akira violently jerks, but he can't escape them. He can't ignore them, and he certainly can't save them, right?

Right?

No, no, no. Akira's hands scrabble along the ashen ground, giving into the impulse to do something, anything, to turn the tide of destruction and bring this nightmare to an end. Logic is thrown out the window in favor of burying an incisor in his thumb and biting down until blood gushes from the tip. He'll draw that circle, he'll make that sacrifice, because his life is nothing in comparison to what's been lost. Instinct will draw the shape, and Akira's blood will follow.]

If no one can help, then—!

[Then it isn't people he needs. It's those beings that lie in the realm between the waking and the dead.]

[impacter]

[Your heart beats rapidly in your chest.

The memory provides the knowledge, and so long as you follow instinct, it makes sense. Ingenuity out of desperation. A space for protection. A space for the vessel. Written incantations that feel like a mockery under the bitter rolling of your stomach. Sanctuary, sanctuary, protection against that which devours man.

There's not enough of a catalyst with only the thumb. You don't have to even think twice. There's pain, sharp and vibrant against the palm, and though neither of them find an injury, it can still be felt, blood dripping and coating the fingers. Tracing, writing, with no finesse.

The shape of the pentagram, the curves of the serpent, the directions and their marks. Time, Time, you need more time. The start of the seal splatters under heavy breathes. You need more time. You wipe mud and ash and sweat from your face, so focused that you can hear nothing but the heart beating in your ears and the begging need of your soul.

Let me take it back.

It's as he finishes the last draw of the circle, an attempt to close it, that Akira will feel Solomon's grip tighten, his own face pale with the effort. He is here to hold Akira up, but not to write this for him.

He knows his place.]

Don't hesitate. You are not something to be devoured.

Demand what you need.

[As the lines draw close with a startling ice to the veins, as the depths open against the pull of your overwhelming magic like a hungry beast, like falling into the bottomless pit of the sea. Hell stares into you, demanding what your soul is worth, what you desire, what you will die to eternity for.

He's out there. He can reverse this. He can turn it back.

Barbatos.]

[jokey]

[No cost is too great, no sacrifice too extreme. Take it back. As the blood in Akira's veins begins to freeze, numbness settling like a heavy fog over his senses, that desperation becomes its own sort of strength.

Demand what you need, was it? Akira's lips curve into a smile, something jagged and broken, the look in his eyes frenzied and inhuman. He doesn't need to be told twice. Blood and ash and mud filthy him, but he doesn't care one bit. Take it back. All that matters is fixing what's been broken.

The words come to him of their own accord, but the manner in which they rip from his screaming mouth is oh so familiar. Like second nature, the words speak themselves.]

Come forth! Barbatos!

[It is not a prayer, nor an ask, not a request and certainly not a plea. It's a demand, one that stirs and bursts forth from the sea of his soul.]

cw: demon stuff, death

[impacter]

[Akira rises, crazed, confident, power in his tone and in his stance. In his minds eye, the same words echo from 5000 years prior, with an outstretched hand and desperate determination in the strength of it, throat aching. The call goes out, a demand for an answer without a pact to bind it, a blind but brilliant shot through the depths of hell.

Something grabs up immediately in return.

Into the space between the mortal and the non, an icy claw digs into the soul, a grip that tears in deep and yanks. Payment, payment, payment, the spiraling of hell demands its payment of humanity. Is this the vessel, this frail one with the brilliant soul? They grip, and grip, and grip. They pull at you. At your soul. Feed them. Serve them. One more into the fires, one more into the flies, one more into the mouth.

Even with such a tremendous amount of magic at your disposal, you can already feel that a piece of this portal you have made is missing. And you, yourself, are making up the difference, as your body starts to deteriorate under the payment. It all happens within a moment, the taste of blood hot in your throat as your chest burns for air.

Then the connection settles, a brief and brilliant pause, before a rippling blast explodes outwards in a swirling of demonic smoke.

Solomon and Akira are both sent tumbling in different directions. And the phantom, the young man, now clearly a much younger Solomon, rattled and bleeding and broken, crumples backwards into a heap next to the haphazard circle.

In the middle of the seal stands a creature. It looks down, with dark and cold eyes, at the man crumpled. Its gaze narrows. It doesn't speak.

He splutters. His breath is so shallow, fists gripping tight as though the sensation is leaving them.

--P---power...

A choking wheeze, an attempt not to cough.

He's dying. You feel it, in the weakness, in the cold, in the way the surroundings seem to blot. But every drop of energy he has is spent in locking eyes with his prize, in a confidence that shouldn't belong to a dead man, that shouldn't echo in his battered voice.

Barbatos...

Obey me... that whomst hath summoned y-you...

Lend... me your power...

L...

Lend me your power...

There's the quietest of chuckles, smooth and sinister, even as Akira is finally let free of the bitter connection. The demon slides to the crumpled man, the lightest of touches to his shoulder.

A beat, in which the air flashes brutally cold. And the two vanish completely.

And as they vanish, so do the colors, back out into the snow where both wizards now lay prone in the brush of the forest.]

[jokey]

[The colors bleed and fade, the air loses its acrid scent. The smell of blood, of pungent death, flees Akira's sinuses. Everything swirls like dishwater down a drain, his own body left lighter, as if his soul's been emptied, and he's next to spill into nothingness.

In the moments before the death of himself, the death of the ego, Akira wakes in the real world with a scream. He jerks upright and is immediately toppled by the pain in his muscles that have been strained well past their limits. He was tense the entire time, wasn't he? Fighting and struggling for a life that wasn't his. How much better would he have fared if he didn't care, if none of those lost lives mattered?

Pain grips him, throbbing in his temples, but Akira pays it little mind. It's not so overwhelming that he can't manage to claw his way over to Solomon and shake him, forcing his hoarse voice past his lips in an effort to stir him.]

Solomon! Hey—!

[He slaps the man's cheek once, twice, the second time hard enough to leave his palm stinging. Tell him you're alright. Tell him you're fine, even if it's a lie.]

[impacter]

[Dazed but still very much alive where he's been unceremoniously tossed down into the snow, it only takes the one slap to rouse him, and the second one to force out a choke, a hand reddened from the cold reflexively moving to try and guard his face from further hits.]

I'm-- Akira, Akira, I'm fine... [A second hand lifts, shaking, trying to placate with his palms out despite the adrenaline that still courses through him.]

[jokey]

[It's fine, it's fine, the temptation to slap Solomon into wakefulness leaves him the moment he hears his name rush past Solomon's lips. Whew. Thank god.

Relief, however, turns out to be a temporary feeling. Something settles in its place, a sort of discontent, or maybe it's anger. An emotion too hard to place when the situation demands he ignore it.]

Like hell you are. What was that about? That... dream?

[impacter]

[He rubs the sore spot left behind on his face as he painfully pushes up to a sitting position.]

Not a dream. A memory.

It's the forest. I wouldn't be surprised if something is making us hallucinate.

[jokey]

[Akira sits back, allowing Solomon the space to sit himself up. As for Akira, he's settled on crossed legs, back hunched, elbows on his knees bearing the brunt of his weight. He's tired, but he's felt worse.]

...Your memory.

[Let's be specific here.]

All those dead people. The ruined buildings. What caused it?

[Akira knows the answer in his heart. He needs to hear it from Solomon's mouth.]

[impacter]

...Mn. You know the answer to that.

It was me.

[He's too tired to fake a smile, though his eyes are soft and pained.]

Did you know there's only so much magical power one man can hold before the world starts to crumble around him?

[jokey]

[Good. It's better that he can't manage to fake a smile. Unlike Solomon, Akira has just enough strength left to throw a punch.]

Makes enough sense to me. Were you aware of that when your powers started growing?

[impacter]

[He shakes his head, a shallow motion.]

No. I didn't know anything.

I wasn't much older than you when that happened. Maybe five years your senior. I'd only had my freedom for a few years. But all I knew was that my power frightened people... and that the more that time passed, the harder it was for me to hide it around normal humans. It grew inside me faster than I knew what to do with. No matter what I looked into, I couldn't find a way to contain it, or to stop it.

Eventually, I lost control.

[jokey]

...So it wasn't really your fault, huh.

[It doesn't sound like Solomon was intentionally seeking to gather as much power as he could with no mind for the potential consequences. To cause such a calamity without ever having intended to, without knowing when or how to stop his powers from growing... Akira sighs. It would be easier if he could blame Solomon for what happened, but he can't.

With concerted effort, Akira staggers to his feet. He holds his hand out to Solomon.]

Well, it's over and done with.

[Yeah, right. There's no forgetting something so painful, so destructive. Maybe they can simply pretend this never happened.]

Let's go back.

[impacter]

...

[He takes the outstretched hand long enough to gingerly right himself to his feet, shaking out his cloak. But he pulls the hood back up, not bothering to turn to the exit.]

...I can lead you back to the entrance, or to one of the towns. But I can't go back just yet.

I'm sorry.

[jokey]

[...Ah.

It stings, as it always does. It isn't the second or even third time Solomon's rejected him, pushed him away, but it still stings as if it were the first. Akira's hand stills in the air, empty, for a long, long moment.

Eventually, he smoothly tucks it away into his pocket. Any trace of hurt in his eyes is swept away just as cleanly. The rejections never stop stinging, but he's gotten better and better at hiding how much it hurts.]

Don't say you're sorry when you're not.

[That isn't an ask. That's a demand.]

Why?

[Why can't he go back? Rather, why won't he?]

[impacter]

I am. But I will accept if you don't believe me.

[He had hoped he could have finished his work and come back immediately. But things hadn't worked out quite to plan.]

I have something I need to finish. A word I gave to someone in need that I need to see through.

Once I'm done, I will be back.

[jokey]

[Something, he says. Someone, as if it's of great import that he keep their identity a mystery. That, or he doesn't trust Akira with the details, and that would be nothing new. Akira acknowledges with nothing more than a snort, as if to say of course, because this is Solomon he's dealing with. If he wanted Akira to know the particulars, he'd tell him.]

Must be pretty important if you don't care who gets hurt in the process.