Ruins of Khazan - Part 1: All Things Among Fallen Leaves

[Nik Hasta]

GM Note:

Having used their Mastered ENR Recovery Technique, the levels of Jane are as follows:

Jane: 185/200 (92%)


Jane Specific Note:

spoilers:

Jane notes that their internal chronometer is giving slightly weird readings. The deadline for Nekro's countermeasures was routinely listing as a year away but, intermittently, the readout would glitch and give her differing results: [Deadline: 1 Year(s)] **** [Deadline: 3 Year(s)] -*-*- [Deadline: -830 Year(s)] ~-~- [Deadline: 386 Year(s)] >+>+ [Deadline: -4,059 Year(s)] **** [Deadline: 1 Year(s)]

end of spoilers

[Sharpandpointies]

Krys blinks, smiling slightly as the being - Jane - offers an assessment of their reasons for eschewing conflict. The pale-maned head turns, eyes casting their gaze over the endless abyssal sea. "Small Things avoid battles as well," they murmur, the words joining the faint whisper of the leaves. Jane, it seems, has experience with many things, many different beings herself. And conflict, though that comes as no surprise; her chassis, her platform, her body is clearly made for such, with its hidden weapon...likely not the only one. Before - the word having more and more meaning to Krys as time 'passes' - Jane had employed pistols; those, too, are no longer in evidence, no holsters at her hips or chest.

Their head and gaze return to regard Jane as she speaks of 'Nekro'. "A...god." Krys tests the word, nodding slowly. 'God' will have many meanings in All Things, but all of them boil down to one perspective from the societies that spawn those meanings: 'Something that is beyond us all.' I seriously doubt that we're talking about something like those gods Kris knew. Not if this being before her considers Nekro beyond hunting, this being who speaks of eliminating the god's servants as if it were no import. That said servants would ignore Krys brings them no joy; if Krys were to intervene, it is likely the servants would change their minds. Quickly.

And intervene Krys would; always on the side of the hunted, barring information or perspectives in greater detail.

The other's voice lowers, almost musing. Introspective? But the words are chilling; this 'god' holds a 'means to compel' Jane, due to her 'state of existence'? This, this does not hold the sound of hostages, or threats. Krys's lips tighten at the thought, their eyes narrowing. Their information is scant at present, but the broad picture it sketches grows abhorrent. And worse, as Jane continues. Some form of controls or systems lie dormant, perhaps within her, perhaps affecting her even now, for the being fears she grows irrational. Even so, there comes another change to her tone, now forged by a new emotion into a jagged diamond blade: angered determination, refusal to submit.

Oh, does Krys know that feeling well.

Then a distressing transformation occurs, Jane's body rending itself - no, cracking along established lines, opening - to expose her innards, and the obvious guess is proven correct: she is some form of mechanical life, be it created or arisen. Power pours from the source, bleeding from it to sink like water into the faults in her platform. But her words hold off Krys's concern; instead, they watch with grave interest as the gaping wound exposing the heart closes. The process seems to leave Jane sharper, more aware. Not, Krys considers, that she was dull before.

Jane studies the gate; Krys again chooses the endless ocean. It flickers in their vision, overlaid at times with a shifting, ever-twisting and changing sea-foam of intersections: one truth at the heart of what is apparent. Raising their hand before their eyes, Krys watches the digits, the palm, the forearm dissolve into that foam as well, breaking down, mingling with All Things around her. A trick of perspective, nothing more; their arm remains apparently solid to all observers. It is only to Krys - to the echoes of their perception while outside of All Things, in Time out of Time - that this occurs. They perceive the flows around them, the changes within all seemingly solid objects - some slow, glacially so, others more swiftly - and how the bands and tiny fields of energies that make up their apparent solidity might/will/can interact with their own. Again, it proves child's play to mesh with these changes, to encourage the transfers, the shifts, the back-and-forth trades and exchanges*.

All invisible, but Krys feels it nonetheless.

"I am no great warrior of repute, I fear." They laugh quietly. "I ran from a two-headed storm demon, after all." But that whispering voice in memory speaks again.

~ 'Says the girl who took a scissors on a stick to fight that thing.' ~

At that recollection, they grow more pensive; Kris had always been a prodigy, masterful at a young age and surpassing her uncle's teachings. Now, after standing outside of All Things in Time out of Time, Krys knows the truths of conflict throughout many civilizations. The memories are nothing more than impressions, of course; their mind cannot hold such information and perspectives now, limited as it is by the body they inhabit and the fall from Svātantrya into the bondage of Rules. But still...the use of intrinsic energies to create fantastical techniques, the honing of skill to produce implausible effects, these things are not merely fictions. Sadly, Krys's own intrinsic energies are not trained for such things, but skill...ah, skill. After Time out of Time, after bathing in the knowledge of All Things, Krys finds that echoes of that knowledge remains within her.

And that other, whispering voice has reminded them that bravery isn't a lack of fear.

Their head snaps around, locking their sharpening gaze upon Jane. "But I'm not exactly without resources," they assure, the musing, philosophical tones all-but gone from their words, emotion bringing memories of more casual speech to the fore. "And I find slavery appalling. Curtailing someone's freedom...? No." In this, perhaps, Krys remains the Sword of the Goddess; but it has always been their way, as Kris, as...whatever they had been in Time out of Time, and now as Krys. Something Durga and I can agree on, they consider. For a moment, a rush of gratitude toward the goddess spirals through Krys; Durga had asked for nothing, had refused to manifest in Kris, had freely offered the key to Svātantrya. All for freedom: freedom of priorities, of choice, of existence itself. Can Krys do any less? "And these plans, these countermeasures this Nekro has for you? Disgusting." The thin lips sharpen further, into a razored smile, a familiar one from another life. "If you aren't too badly injured from your travel here, I'd like to hear more of this. Chains, I feel, are meant to be broken; if I can help, I will."

Her brows draw down slightly, surveying the damage to Jane's body. For a moment - and to Krys' perceptions only - the woman dissolves into a spinning whorl of intersections, shifting and changing with bewildering rapidity, but holding their overall form of 'Jane', distinct from the intersections and threads around her while still connected to them. Concentrating, Krys sees that form blur further - not in depth, width, or height, any of the three dimensions, but extending 'back' along a completely different axis. Heat-death, Krys concludes, drawing upon one of those impressions, those echoes that remain after Time out of Time. That fourth dimension in which entropic beings - and me, now, I suppose - exist.

Time.

"If the...'difficult method of transport' has damaged anything important, it might be that I can help with that, as well. Fix some of the damage." They grimace, rolling their shoulders within the over-large jacket. "I'm a little worse for wear, myself."

* OOC: Stacks PRE, CHA, BRA, SKI, holding that for the time being. Krys employs "All Things Are But Foam Upon The Waves." on Themselves two times (note: PRE stacked, can use twice per round, so...). As always, there is no overt effect.

[Nik Hasta]

GM Note:

Having used their ENR Recovery Technique Twice, Krys' ENR Mastered ENR Levels are as follows:

Krys: 180/180 100% (Total ENR Capacity reduced by 40 for 4 Stack Assumed)

[Postmania]

Jane looked over at Krys, for a moment setting a secondary investigatory process relating to her chronometer on lower priority.

"Your offer of assistance is...appreciated," she replied, surprised.

"Though I am not entirely certain why you would place yourself in danger for this reason."

On this line, Jane's voice took on notes of mild confusion.

"What you say about slavery," the word sounded odd in Jane's mind, an unused term for her, "does seem accurately placed, however."

Jane again mimics Krys' shrug.

"The topic never previously crossed my sights. All I knew was the hunt."

For a moment Jane once again seems to be elsewhere, elsewhen. Memory banks spill open, and a steady stream of recollections flood her mainframe, and she finds herself repeating pieces of them in a staccato voice.

"Preparation. Positioning. Voice of my guidance personnel. Chase, or lack thereof. Final shot. Relief, a job well executed. Return to base. Maintenance to my chassis," Jane's fingers trace along the arm that her rifle had folded into. "Maintenance to my software by engineers to patch out irrational emotion spikes." On this last note Jane seems most...relieved? Or perhaps, at ease.

"All I've known since activation. Countless worlds, times, and targets."

Jane turns back to the Gate, considering.

"In terms of Nekro's," her head cocks, "chain, the method is simple. The software that makes up my being is being steadily overwritten with code corresponding to Nekro. My systems cannot expunge this malware. Ordinarily, such an attack would have below 1% chance of success, due to my nature as a being that is not only mechanical but bolstered by my power source."

Jane taps one of the cracks in her face, where the emerald energy shone.

"Energies relating to death, which tether me to an afterlife, a spiritual realm. Code cannot overwrite something not of this world. Most unfortunately, Nekro is the one who rules this realm. Death holds no far from me. It is part of my nature, and I know that in the event of this bodies termination what powers me, what makes me will continue, and with enough presence due to my nature to maneuver and find a location where I may be born again, or", Jane tilted her head "continue to some afterlife, if I were so inclined."

Her tone did not indicate she found this very appealing or even understandable.

"Nekro's malware introduces a possibility supplanting this security. If his countermeasure achieves success, I will face not merely the expiration of this form, but complete cessation. No spirit will be left to wander. It will be as if I had never truly existed. All that will be left will be him. And then I assume he will make use of the remaining shell for various tasks. In fact, he already has. He acted through this program when he used this body to destroy the facility where I had been manufactured and operated out of since activation, including all occupants within. I woke from sleep mode to find his work and a command of servitude."

Despite a casual tone, Jane's hands curl up slightly, tighten, and suddenly there is a pistol in one of them, the weapon slotting out from her wrist and automatically transferring to her palm.

"But he cannot maintain such connection with any consistency without spending inordinate amounts of energy currently, so he'll simply have to wait until it is convenient energywise to assume full control. The only fortunate aspect of this is that there is one flaw in this plan: relating to connection. My very existence was created as an experiment with connection to these energies, which Nekro holds sway over. I estimate that if it is possible to cloud this connection, Nekro's 'upload' will be disrupted and the corruption will be halted. It is with this objective that I have been hunting for artifacts of Nekro that are said to hide the wielder even from Death."

At this Jane lips curve upwards slightly.

"Currently, it is a plan in progress. Though truthfully, it is either this plan, or finding some way to cut my connection to Nekro entirely, which would kill me anyway since no spirit would be left to roam. It is my nature, after all. Although at very least this shell would not belong to Nekro, which is some comfort."

Jane considered Krys' last request.

"I suppose if this were a trap I still retain the ability to function even in maintenance phase. But I do not see any tools or machinery with you. How would you even perform any repairs?"

[Sharpandpointies]

A good beginning, Krys assesses; no pride, no offense taken. Jane does not lack in self-confidence; contrary to what one might think, this makes it easier for her to accept assistance. Bewilderment at the offer, perhaps, and at Krys' own assessment? But no refusal.

Unfortunately, things spiral downhill from there.

They listen with mounting horror to the litany of crimes. Guidance personnel. Hunts. Killing. Expulsion of unwanted emotion, and there, there the cold voice falters, something that may even be the warmth of relief spilling into it. And why not? Who would wish for their emotions in this appalling situation? Worse still, the revelation of this 'code' of the god, a cancer within Jane, slowly consuming what she, herself might be and replacing it with an alien spirit. The god's spirit. And why? Because those who made Jane somehow connected her to a dimension of death itself, ruled by this god. Of course the master of what empowers Jane will have no difficulty circumventing whatever security a mortal mind might have implanted. They are, after all, a god, whatever that means in Jane's reality. A god of death.

~'Masterson, Ashley Masterson.'~

But this god of death seems far from benign, and Krys reads Jane's feelings on the matter in the appearance of her pistol, seemingly unnoticed by the woman.

The story sounds mad, and P erhaps another would not believe. But after standing outside of All Things in Time out of Time, Krys grasps that anything is possible. Even this tale of horror.

Jane, however, has a plan. A plan she at least feels has some chance of success, and, as a certain someone might have said, Jane's plan is the only game in town. Krys nods along with the idea. "I would rather not have any plan kill you to free you," they slowly begin. Now Krys faces the gate, staring over the scree of bodies at that distant maw, opened the barest crack. "You've been cruelly used already; it would be good for you to find some satisfaction in a life of freedom." They nod, turning to face Jane directly. "Why? Freedom is a right to all beings, as much as possible. You may have been made for a purpose, Nekro may believe it owns you, but you - Jane - deserve to find your own path, whatever that path may be. I've been given that freedom myself; why not wish for the same for you? Because I do."

A small smile graces their lips. "I have skills, I may have the ability to help, and I appear to have a surfeit of...of 'time'." This drags a snort of amusement from them, who stood outside of such things so...'recently', if one can say that. "But most importantly, because you do not wish for this chain, because you struggle against it, and because I believe I see what it costs you. And as I said: you deserve your freedom. And so I will help, as best I can. And if need be, I will fight, as best I can." Blowing out a breath, Krys relaxes further, their eyes slowly closing and opening like a cat's. A shake of the shoulders relaxes the tension in their arms, and they nod a third, final time. Decision made.

"As for repair..." Their hands sketch the air for a moment. "Tools are unnecessary. We are beings of three dimensions existing by passing through a fourth. But that fourth dimension can be accessed with effort; the records of our passage behind us and before us exist within it, simultaneously. The wave-patterns and intersections that make up our discreet forms carry those records as well; we see that as a linear flow, but that is due to our own dependency upon heat-death, upon entropy. Again, with effort those records can be accessed." One corner of their mouth twitches upward in a wry smile. "With a great deal more effort? It's possible to...convince those wave-patterns to remember a state that creatures of entropy would regard as 'previous'."

Their head cocks to one side, the tone slipping to a more casual one. "Which is a long and fancy way of saying I believe can encourage your body to remember a time where it wasn't as broken." One hand extends, open. "If you wish. All it requires is for me to touch you. Or you to touch me."

No need to grasp, to hold, or to risk.

[MrSandman]

By the time Ella reached the apex of her climb, an empty(though not entirely) street was all the awaited her. Where the smaller rat had scurried to was anyones guess, and for a moment Ella was left in a state of confusion...glancing this way and that in an effort to catch even the smallest glimpse of red. There were...unfortunately, plenty of red things in the immediate area.

Where was she?

But moments ago she had been standing at the boundary of the world, her world. That small, small world. It hadn't been the first time she had passed through that door, but she was never meant to leave....such was her existence, to vanish like a wisp no sooner then her body left the range of her emitter.

The seconds lengthened as Ella slowly began to take stock of her situation beyond the immediate concern of her tiny friend.

This was...Outside? THE Outside? The place Johann and Otto spoke of so many times in the past, where they could walk freely, with more open space then could ever be imagined. A roof so far beyond sight it may not even exist. Light that wasn't her own....but rather from the sky. Somehow, in the moment, it all both exceeded and fell short of her expectations. She had wanted to see it with her family one day....a personal wish she had kept to herself.

Was this.....wreak....the world she had been sealed away from? Where Otto and Johann had been trapped? How long had she been underground? Her internal chronometer had stopped functioning ages ago. She was sure there would be.....nothing left...but this place at least slightly met with the descriptions of what was a "city".

Her gaze fell to one of the bodies nearby. In the aftermath of her emergence, the setting had nearly overloaded her attention span...but now that it had settled, she realized their were bodies on the ground.

...dead bodies...

Perhaps something intrinsic to her AI code triggered, or the empathic side she earned from her interactions with her faux family, but Ella was overcome with a feeling she couldn't quite put her digital finger on. She approached the closest body, almost nervously...and then announced. "..Excuse me?"

Ella learned in closer to try and examine the body. If it was dead...and nothing truly could be done....maybe she could learn more about the people the outside called home.

[Postmania]

Jane nodded slowly at Krys' words, though still with a somewhat dubious air, as if unsure if she was hearing a story or not.

"Yes, it was most unpleasant to be used by Nekro in this way. I was perfectly designed for this routine. Going on missions, returning. He seized this from me, made it impossible."

Jane's voice rose slightly with the last few words, but more noticeable was the distortion, as if listening to metal scrape on metal. She paused for a moment, as if to calm herself down.

"I admit I don't fully understand your reasoning still, but I appreciate your help in this. All my missions were solitary, but I was never without aid in my time at The Facility. There was always a handler speaking in my mind, or to pacify me after a more difficult mission, to maintain me."

"Nonetheless," Jane continued, "it was stressed most keenly that I would surely perish quickly without aid from base. Although," she frowned slightly, "now that I reassess my circumstances it appears that my survival length has surpassed considerably even the Facility's best case estimates. Perhaps they were overly cautious. Either way..."

Jane processed Krys' last statement.

"Entropy. A concept cousin to death, according to my indices. Fascinating. The researchers at the Facility looked to extend my own abilities in this range, reversing death although my usage was to be more tactical. They never quite achieved success in this matter. This entropy reversal prospect agrees with me. As for the rest," Jane's voice took on a suspiciously deadpan tone, "I would also prefer not to die, so that section of the plan also is optimal."

Jane slowly held out her hand, suddenly watching Krys with increased attention.

[Sharpandpointies]

Krys offers another of their small shrugs as Jane begins. It's possible, of course, that by freeing this being from the god's chains, they will be damning many lives to extinguishing. Possible, but...there's a feeling, an impression, a sensation when Jane shows the briefest hints of emotion. A hint that perhaps in experiencing true freedom, she might find a purpose beyond the hunt, find targets more...appropriate than those chosen by men in white coats worshiping a vile god through science. "Well, I don't intend to pacify you, either," Krys notes, that lop-sided smile appearing again. "For myself...I believe you should feel what you feel. Experience it. Understand it. And as for your Facility's best case estimates...?"

They raise an eyebrow, roll their shoulders within the jacket. "Maybe you only received the estimates they wanted you to receive."

Then their voice grows more solemn as they begin picking their way closer to Jane; after all, they still stand at a distance. Close enough to speak, but not close enough to touch. "Entropy is indeed linked to death; energy can only truly flow in one direction, from high to low, in universes that depend on such. Ice can never become colder to heat a warm stone warmer, after all." A simplistic example, but it makes the point. "Stars produce energy through fusion, that energy leaves them and travels to a planet. It is captured, used to create, what is created is eaten, eaten again, possibly further, until it dissolves and gives life back to the planet, but with each iteration, each step even, a little of that energy is further lost to heat. Heat that radiates forth from the planet, possibly to be captured by the atmosphere, but eventually to escape. Into the void, where..." Krys raises both her hands helplessly. "And the stars are finite. Someday, each universe that carries the concept of entropy will perish; the stars will burn out, the heat will slowly dissipate, and in the end, there will truly be nothing. On this scale, in any case." They indicate themselves. "Entropy - time's arrow, creating the only equations that define the world around us that can only run in a single direction. Entropy, in a way, IS time."

They stop before Jane, studying her.

"Because everything that is us depends on entropy, even our thoughts, we see time as an absolute. A truth that flows in a single direction. But that is only our perception, limited as it is...as creatures of entropy."

Now another tiny smile appears, this one different: clever, almost mischievous.

"But I've been free of it."

Outside of All Things. Time out of Time.

They've never done this before...Krys has never done this before, but outside of All Things, this was/is/will always be. And they recall this, in impressions, broken and flawed as those impressions might be. As they walked, they had extended their perceptions, pushing harder while blurring their focus. And there, again, had come the vision of Jane, her height, her width, her depth, her spacial being as defined by the interactions of the fields making up the particles making up her body as it is. Always in flux, but for the instant, for this section of entropic time, holding a form. And those fields, they hold the echoes of what was and what would be in their ceaseless dance and interactions with All Things surrounding them, as if Jane somehow - in an indescribable fashion - forms a chain of herself stretching forward and backward through that unseeable dimension.

"Form," Krys murmurs, reaching out, "is a brief phenomena that nonetheless exists." Her own fields and intersections begin to interact more stridently with those about her - the air, the ground, the bodies, the stars and the ocean themselves...the fields of all of the seemingly discreet objects connected. A collection of those intersections and fields - their hand - reaches out to touch Jane's, one finger landing atop a crack in the chassis. "What you are can be altered during slices of entropic existence," they continue, staring at the damage the journey has done to this slice of Jane. Then their head rises, eyes faraway and unfocused.

Staring through the life of Jane, echoed in her fourth-dimensional form.

"But entropy," Krys finishes in a whisper, "can be denied."

A choice - that slice of Jane, there, so recent - is all Krys can reach, and reach they do.

To Jane, none of this is apparent; instead, the damage simply disappears, her body reverting to as it was before, or - if any wounds remains - as if whatever caused the damage before halted partway through the infliction.

OOC - Krys employs Form Is A Brief Phenomena That Nonetheless Exists on Jane - with PRE stack - and All Things Are But Foam Upon The Waves on Themselves.

[Siriel]

It's a cage, always a cage. A fetter around her limb, a spike punching through her mouth. She can vaguely remember what the real thing felt like sometimes, even if it's been so long. The impression of it was imprinted on her very being, along with the feeling of the greatest self that she's ever been. The cage has been different as of late though, in this latest body and incarnation of hers. The fetter now is one called responsibility, the spike a terrifying blade called friendship and appreciation that pierced into her heart. All of it rather more pleasant than she made it sound, but still agonizing when she was at her high points.

It was the curse that her soul carried the most deeply that made it all so atrocious. The desire for greatness, for glory, for more. Always more. What did it change that she had friends, that she was fairly popular as such things went, or was particularly talented with the blade? So what if her strength was in the upper echelon of the monastery even when she tried to restrain herself to being just another human? It simply wasn't enough. In her greatest life, she had desired fame, recognition and glory beyond measure. Now she was a lesser existence, but that desire had not dimmed even a little bit, leaving her struggling to contain her reckless ambition.

The last night that she spent in the monastery was a particularly strained one. She could feel it snaking its way through her stomach, raising her internal temperature to the point that it really felt like she ought to be on fire. The monastery was an austere place where she rarely got to interact tih more than a dozen people a day, and she wanted more. More. More. More. More. The word resonated in her mind without any invitation, mercilessly pounding into her ears like a blacksmith's hammer. Her muscles were tense, her entire self ready to lash out like a coiled serpent. The demands of her inner self were starting to overcome the flesh that she was living in, outgrowing the reality of her human condition. It was the desire of one who had lived among gods, and it paid no heed to little things like context or even her own will.

She understood all too well that things wouldn't last long now. The delicate balance that was her life was falling apart entirely because of her inner turmoil, the one enemy that she couldn't even try to fight. And so, she made her decision. To wander out into the courtyard that night. To lash out and howl under the moon. To finally shatter the last fetter that had been placed on her countless lifetimes ago. To destroy her current self, before she ended up destroying what she had come to enjoy about her life in the world.

Crash and break, that was the feeling that filled her. She abandoned her human life, but that also meant that she embraced her true self. Forward, forward. More, more. At a pace that no one could follow. With a ferocity that no one could stand before. She ran and ran and ran. The world had lost its meaning and been left behind, and it was wonderful. For a delicate few moments she was truly free, surrounded by no one that she could see. Heedless of the obstacles around her, of anything she encountered. Forward, forward. A thousand obstacles and a thousand paths crossed, but none of them registered to her. It was finally what she yearned for. Free to run and howl, free to not hold back. A wonderful sense of exhilaration filled her soul. It was a feeling of omnipotence like had never filled her before. She couldn't do any more that she had ever been able to, but the feeling of being held back had vanished. It was satisfaction incomprehensible and unfathomable. It was...

Not enough.

More. Witness. Extoll.

It was meaningless. Because there was no one to witness it. There was no one to sing songs of the glory of that moment. Her howls were not ones meant to satisfy herself, but rather to be heard. The world exploded around her again and she found herself crashing down unto all too physical ground, her all too human form rolling on the ground. Her ears popped, her limbs cracked, her eyes were blind, but all of it was real and tangible. Her overflowing desires retreated, for now pushed back by reality's return and she found herself sitting up with a groan, shaking her head to try to gather her thoughts and figure out where she had ended up. A sliver of her awareness that was always directed outward told her that there were others nearby, but she didn't feel the usual reflex to take a fighting stance. it was, probably, because of the simple exhaustion that she was feeling in her soul after the overwhelming experience.

[Nik Hasta]

Her gaze fell to one of the bodies nearby. In the aftermath of her emergence, the setting had nearly overloaded her attention span...but now that it had settled, she realized their were bodies on the ground.

...dead bodies...

Perhaps something intrinsic to her AI code triggered, or the empathic side she earned from her interactions with her faux family, but Ella was overcome with a feeling she couldn't quite put her digital finger on. She approached the closest body, almost nervously...and then announced. "..Excuse me?"

Ella learned in closer to try and examine the body. If it was dead...and nothing truly could be done....maybe she could learn more about the people the outside called home.

The nearest body that she investigated was not human, it was the remains of some kind of insectoid creature with a large chunk of its lower left jaw and upper left shoulder missing in what looked like some kind of huge bite mark from a massive creature. Its robes were very damp, Ella's senses detecting the water was saline and therefore salt water.

She also detected a lot of smaller lacerations and, curiously, burns in other places on the creature's body. She could tell that the creature had died fairly recently but could see no wet footprints to indicated how it had reached this spot nor any blood trail from its horrendous wounds beyond the pool of blood that lay beneath it.

It seemed like it had just been dropped here.

Perhaps it to must have gone through the same intense transition to this place that she had gone through and had not survived.

[Nik Hasta]

It was meaningless. Because there was no one to witness it. There was no one to sing songs of the glory of that moment. Her howls were not ones meant to satisfy herself, but rather to be heard. The world exploded around her again and she found herself crashing down unto all too physical ground, her all too human form rolling on the ground. Her ears popped, her limbs cracked, her eyes were blind, but all of it was real and tangible. Her overflowing desires retreated, for now pushed back by reality's return and she found herself sitting up with a groan, shaking her head to try to gather her thoughts and figure out where she had ended up. A sliver of her awareness that was always directed outward told her that there were others nearby, but she didn't feel the usual reflex to take a fighting stance. it was, probably, because of the simple exhaustion that she was feeling in her soul after the overwhelming experience.

Vánagandr appears a short distance from where Jane and Krys are currently interacting, the gates stand before her and the wind picks up just a little, disturbing the leaves that litter the ground.

She has been hurt, but not significantly, by the journey but the transition has exhausted her mentally and spiritually.

GM Note:

Vánagandr has taken 10 Core HP DMG and has lost 50% of their total Mastered ENR.

[Nik Hasta]

To Jane, none of this is apparent; instead, the damage simply disappears, her body reverting to as it was before, or - if any wounds remains - as if whatever caused the damage before halted partway through the infliction.

OOC - Krys employs Form Is A Brief Phenomena That Nonetheless Exists on Jane - with PRE stack - and All Things Are But Foam Upon The Waves on Themselves.

GM Note:

Jane is restored to full HP, and is now at 80% Mastered ENR (200/250)

Krys is at full ENR, albeit reduced to (180/180) due to having 4 Stack Active.

[Postmania]

Jane frowned for a moment, cycling what the other could mean at their comment on the Facility's estimates, but set that thought process aside when they continued speaking.

Form. Entropy. Impermanence. But also, freedom from entropy. Time flowing backwards, making whole what was once broken, restoration. Jane devoted as much of her processors towards recording this information, although in truth, Jane was designed to record every moment by default, so this was relatively pointless. Still, she paid as much attention as she could. For once in a decent while, Jane's focus was on something she saw as more than a target.

She watched, fascinated, as the scrapes and dents on her being reversed themselves, straightened out, her core systems working better, improving.

"I am unable to even detect this process's methods with my sensors," she remarked as it happened, looking at the hand that was not clasped by Krys, bending the digits forwards on to her palm, and in an inhuman manner, backwards, bending them backwards in an identical fashion onto the back of her hand. Her eyes had intensified in luminosity, as they had once before in the encounter.

She looked back at Krys.

"This is one of the most interesting conversations I have been a part of for as long as I can remember," she appraised with a slight smile.

Then suddenly she simply stopped. Her fingers stopped mid motion, her smile dropping after. Wordlessly, a pistol slid into the hand she had been studying, and she seemed to stare past Krys' shoulder.

"Do you know that being?"

[Sharpandpointies]

With the shift in perceptions comes a shifting, a rising, an exaltation for Krys; for an instant-an-eternity they find themselves within All Things but stepping into Time out of Time. But with that realignment, impressions and memories lain dormant since they donned the jacket leap into clarity. And their mind plummets from enlightenment into despair.

For they are alone.

[We/Us/Together]!

Grief is too small a word; a void opens within their chest, a desolate abyss of screaming, howling bereavement. No, no, nonowherehaveyouwherehaveI where-wherewhere - They were everything, outside of eternity, within one another, experiencing existence in a together that defies rational, mortal thought, and now in Time out of Time Krys fully remembers and comprehends exactly what they have lost. And their universe crumbles, for love seems like too small, too human a word.

Then done, perceptions falling back to follow the path of time's arrow, leaving only the shattered heart and hollow wound again.

Their face twists for an instant before control reasserts itself, the bleeding rent in her spirit covered by a mask of shallow feeling; a mask, Krys realizes, they have worn since their recovery, here, in this empty, silent place. A mask to maintain sanity, to enable function, to allow Krys to continue; nothing more. The pain, the all-encompassing loss, it remains...but held back, even from themselves. Which, their staggering mind admits, explains why they're so placid right now, so accepting, so..calm.

There is no other choice.

Jane speaks, though, and Krys continues to pull themselves together. "I wasn't entirely sure it would work," they state in a mockery of cheerfulness. "But it did, and I'm glad." Their voice trails off as Jane twists and turns her hand, her fingers. It's somewhat disturbing to watch, to say the least, but Krys shakes the feeling off. Different races, different construction, different ways. And now Jane's eyes have taken on a greater shine, familiar from before, and this time Krys' smile is genuine, lighting with pleasure. Perhaps Jane will learn something new with these experiences, something new about herself, something new her handlers have stolen from her in the past...over and over again.

For an instant, blinding rage swamps Krys' placidity; had those men and women stood before Krys in this instant, it might have proceeded very poorly for them.

A blink takes them away from that, the pleasant mask carefully in place. "I'm also glad you're finding this interesting, and pleased to have met you," they state, truthfully as it happens. "I admit, I'm..." A pause as Jane's pistol - one of them - slides out, and Krys grows aware that another has joined them. Slowly turning, they raise a hand to Jane's other wrist, pressing gently in the hope to bring down the weapon barrel. "Shall we offer them some help, first? It seems likely they're like us: victims of this place, or of whatever brought us here. The same..." Their free hand now arcs to the countless dead. "...as those."

It's...a woman. Krys' pale eyebrows rise in surprise; human-form, from the look of it, and therein lies the shock. Tall, between Krys and Jane in height, in pale clothing and oh, yes, that's a sword. And a very interesting shade of hair.

"Excuse me," she quietly calls over the distance to seated woman. "Do you require assistance? Are you injured?"

OOC - Krys' 'Deception' is pretty high - it's not something she'll be using much, but in terms of hiding her feelings, it's solid.

[Siriel]

Ván let out a groan as she shook her head, trying to refocus herself. For a brief moment there was the worry that she'd just undergone a strange and bothersome hallucination, that the overwhelming experience had just been a particularly odd dream while falling off her bed. The sound of unfamiliar voices, the feeling of a foreign wind and the temperature shift that was far too drastic to be explained by an open window put a stop to those thoughts. Her attempt to depart and reach a mysterious new horizon had clearly worked. A few seconds later, her mind caught up and reminded her that she was supposed to respond when she was addressed. A habit that she'd been trying to take in her current life after losing it over previous ones.

"I'm fine, thank you."

The response came reflexively, but when she stood up she found her feet not quite as steady as she'd expected them to be, her head throbbing and her vision blurring for a second. She brought a hand to her temple to try to refocus herself. Not a very effective motion, but one that had been popular at the monastery and that she'd acquired through osmosis. Her eyes fell on the speaker that had addressed her. A young adult by the looks of it, and not one that shared many traits with the people of the kingdom. No surprise there. A young... She settled on woman for now, though it was purely a guess. The clothes that were presented were in an unfamiliar style for the kingdom, but they at least resembled some of those she recalled in previous ages. A local inhabitant? But no, she didn't feel like that was likely. Her surroundings were lacking the familiar scent of civilization. An explorer of some kind? More probable, if not a wanderer like herself. She couldn't sense any hostility at any rate, so it was better to err on the side of polite caution.

"Fine might have been an overstatement." She corrected herself, her normally strong voice a little hoarse. "But I should be fine soon. My name is Ván, might I know yours?"

It was a rather clear sign of how shaken she was at the moment that she hadn't even noticed the weapon pointed at her, or the fact that she was in the presence of another individual. Her vision had tunnel-focused on the first person to talk to her, leaving her unguarded to anything else. She'd always been a little on the careless side, a bad habit she'd never shaken off, but this was on another level from her usual self.