Dawn of the Third age/IC Logs/Session 28

@Lob: A torrent of poisonous acid washed out of the abomination's mouth like a waterfall, pouring into the crater underneath them

@Lob: Blood and bile soon followed, dribbling down it's massive chin, burning deep rivets in the skin, revealing screaming plasmic hands mixed with molten soulsteel underneath

@Lob: The claws that continued to grow and lengthen from it's eyesockets snapped and swiped as Oberashti laughed insanely

Nomoe_Hideaki: "By the Most High, you must be one of the most unsightly things I have ever had the misfortune of seeing," Nomoe voices his displeasure. "It really is beyond me how you can stand your continued existence, looking this ugly."

Bright_Snow: */Follow me, I have an idea./* Snow leaps into the air and begins to sprint rapidly down the Dragon's body.

Bright_Snow: */ When I make a gap you pry it open /*

@Lob: Spectres began to form in Snow's path

@Lob: "SENTIENCE...SAPIENCE...THE RECOGNITION OF BEAUTY...THESE THINGS I WILL DESTROY."

@Lob: They were awful things, things of teeth and warped claylike jagged spikes.

Nomoe_Hideaki: */An idea? That last one was fun, what do you have in mind now?/* Nomoe gives the burned out eye-sockets one last look - he's not abandoning that plan, merely postponing it - before leaping off the dragon's head backwards to fall toward the ground, rapidly catching up to Bright Snow.

@Lob: "I...SEEE...YOU!" it's pores screamed.

Nomoe_Hideaki: "You? Destroy all of those?" Nomoe laughs, bright and sharp. "Not even if you were ten times as powerful would I believe it."

Bright_Snow: Scanning the length of the Dragon's body, even as she sprints down its sinuous and writhing form, Snow tries to picture the creature and her relative position in her head. "That way!" She gestures with her lance.

Bright_Snow: "DO YOU?" she ripples as she ceases to be somewhere and IS everywhere.

Nomoe_Hideaki: "You are no more than a miniscule mote of errant, corrupted essence. Your intentions mean nothing to the big picture, none at all." Continuing his fall, castemark shimmering and his voice penetrating to the farthest reaches of the cavern in the maker's body Nomoe draws the dragon's attention to himself and away from Bright Snow.

@Lob: "AND YOU ARE AN ARROGANT CHOSEN WHO HASN'T YET LIVED EVEN A SINGLE CENTURY AND THINKS THAT HE KNOWS EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYTHING."

@Lob: Snow opens her senses to the unseen and feels a massive wriggling presence in the centre of the Dragon's body.

~Prototype: Pro swept around, twisting in the air to line up a strafing run on the spectres rising from the dragon's back. Seeing Snow nowhere in his line of fire, he squeezes the trigger, sending a stream of destructive Essence vortices downrange to shred the spectres into nothing.

@Lob: Spikes curled into being from Oberashti's smokey hide along Snow's path

Nomoe_Hideaki: Stabilizing his fall into a spiraling downward flight Nomoe give a long-suffering sigh. "Oh, not everything, far from it. Not even very much." He smiles with unassailable arrogance "But still enough to know that today you end."

Bright_Snow: Habing spotted the location she is aiming for Snow leaps into the air, driving her dire lance down and aiming straight for the Dragon's flesh aiming to puncture straight through.

@Lob: The spectres were hammered into bits of plasm under Prototype's assault

@Lob: Oberashti writhed in delicious agony, trying desperately to keep it's new overwhelming essence under control.

Nomoe_Hideaki: */That mottled scale, five miles down the body? If so, may I facilitate our arrival?/*

Nomoe_Hideaki: *our speedy arrival

@Lob: It was evidently losing

Bright_Snow: */ Yes do so. See if we can surprise this bastard /*

~Prototype: Prototype resumes circling Oberashti, watching for an opening.

Nomoe_Hideaki: The sunlit sphere that marks Nomoe's location winks out like a snuffed candle. Bright Snow feels the light touch of his hand on her shoulder. For a moment the world all around fractures and spins caleidoscopically, then they're there.

@Lob: The massive dragon was waiting for them.

@Lob: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" It screamed incoherently

Nomoe_Hideaki: Separating from Bright Snow Nomoe assumes a martial stance again. */So, what exactly is it we're doing?/*

@Lob: "DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" It wailed

@Lob: A scale tore off of it's body in a welter of blood, ash, and pus and grew claws.

Bright_Snow: */ We are tearing out the burnt husk it used to call a heart and I don't speak figuratively/*

Nomoe_Hideaki: Nomoe smiles viciously. */Sounds good./* He gestures. */After you./*

Bright_Snow: */Drop me above and let Gravity do the hard work, ok Nomoe. /* She says as she grabs him and they move.

Nomoe_Hideaki: Going into a sharp dive, Nomoe aims for the location Bright Snow had indicated.

@Lob: "NO NO NO NO NO NO"

@Lob: Globes of death appear out of the smoke and attempt to claw their way into the Lunar's and Solar's hearts.

@Lob: USELESS! The warstrider's monitors cried as the smoke pressed against Pro's cockpit viewscreen

Bright_Snow: As Snow lets go to plummet towards the corrupt dragon, she merely alters the lances head slightly using it to knock the orbs clear and away from them both.

Nomoe_Hideaki: sneers at the attacks coming toward them. "Too weak," he restates his earlier assessment, infusing the compressed air before him with Solar essence to brush aside all threats.

@Lob: "YOU...AAAARGH...CAN'T...HOLD IT IN!...THEY LIED!"

@Lob: Oberashti screamed in the smoke, and the smoke echoed his cries of pain

@Lob: A pus-filled bag of skeletal hands burst against Pro's warstrider

Bright_Snow: "Of course they lied, it is what the Neverborn do. They can do little else." Snow hits like a shockwave, striking the scale and sending up a plume of ash and smoke. As the silver meets the smog and burns whole sections away.

@Lob: The scale cracked noticably

@Lob: MY...HEART...IS A YAWNING...VOID...AS ALL THINGS...WILL BE.

@Lob: As the heart is no longer sealed, such is written upon reality.

@Lob: A black scream inches from the cracks, and tears into Snow's spirit

@Lob: But fails against her tattoos

~Prototype: Prototype throttles back the engines, not wanting to run into anything while he can't see where he's going, and diverts essence into the crystal capacitors mounted in his shoulders. They flash golden-yellow, and the cockpit fills with the sound of a thunderclap as a shockwave flies out from him, throwing the goo clear of his 'strider.

~Prototype: His sightlines clear, Pro pushes the throttle back up and continues to circle, watching.

Bright_Snow: gives a shriek and rolls back as the void magic covers her, which quickly turns to back into a laugh, as the black cloud of void magic dissapates harmlessly around her. She turns her attention back to the scale, and rushes forward.

Bright_Snow: Her lance strikes down, once twice, thrice as she charges past.

Nomoe_Hideaki: *a flash of concern as blackness envelops Bright Snow, the vibration of a Charm readied to come to her aid but aborted when it becomes clear that it is unnecessary*

@Lob: The scale melts and implodes like a rotton mushroom

Nomoe_Hideaki: "Void or not, it does not matter. Not to *us*." Nomoe's fist surrounded by golden flames hammers into the breach his mate created. A pulse of blinding light pierces into its depths and deep, shining cracks spread out in all directions through the dragon's bared flesh.

Nomoe_Hideaki: A second strike forces the edges of the wound further apart. Flesh burns, sinews turn brittle as glass and shatters. A third strike, a fourth, a fifth. Soulsteel ribs now gleam, exposed by the relentless assault.

Nomoe_Hideaki: Blood and worse sublimates away from Nomoe's clothes, leaving them pristine once more as he positions himself between two of the giant soulsteel arcs and with inhuman strength pries them further apart - opening a path to the creature's empty heart.

@Lob: A black void yawns before them, filled with the sound of agonized crying, despair, fear, torment.

Nomoe_Hideaki: His castemark, now fully ignited, lights the way.

@Lob: As Nomoe moves further inside (likely accompanied by Snow), the essence becomes chilled adn the air is cold and wet enough for frost to begin appearing on their clothes

@Lob: The light of his castemark revealed a path made mostly of brown filthy ice, hovering in complete infinitely large blackness.

Nomoe_Hideaki: takes a moment to shift his clothes to repel the frost trying to settle on them.

Bright_Snow: is little to Snow, having grown up in the frozen North. */ A reminder of a long gone home in the strangest of places /*

Nomoe_Hideaki: frowns at the darkness all around, flaring his anima higher.

@Lob: It is no use

@Lob: There is a platform in the distance, where the tiny figure of a man sits on the ice.

Nomoe_Hideaki: "By the aspect of the essence flows ..." Nomoe pauses briefly, a strange expression passing across his face. "This resembles the Labyrinth."

~Prototype: Prototype approaches the gaping wound in Oberashti's side, transforming into 'strider mode as he comes closer. Landing in the gap Nomoe opened, Pro takes each side in a massive gauntlet and pushes them a bit further apart, anchoring his craft firmly. Pro then pops the cockpit and drops down to join the others on foot.

Nomoe_Hideaki: */It can't have been this dark and bleak, can it?/*

@Lob: The man turns his head and stands up. It is obvious he is naked and severely frostbitten

@Lob: Even from a distance

Bright_Snow: "The underworld, how I loath it." Snow says warily. */ In the winter there were some days when the sun shone only for moments, and the dark and white landscape was all that surrounded my kingdom./*

Nomoe_Hideaki: glides forward along the only obvious path. Worrying about balance is for lesser beings.

@Lob: The man waved cheerily to them, despite his blackened gangrenous legs.

@Lob: "Isn't it beautiful?" he asked

Nomoe_Hideaki: turns his hearthstone-sharpened gaze upon the man's essence.

Bright_Snow: "No." Snow says with conviction. "As far from it as I can imagine."

@Lob: "If you say so...ah, you seem to be a chosen of my lady, yes?" the man asked Snow

@Lob: He hummed a jaunty tune under his breath as he looked around the darkness

Bright_Snow: "Why, is it that obvious?" The Chameleon made of Crystal and the shimmering refracted multi-hued light of the moon.

~Prototype: "Who are you, and what are you doing here, deep in the heart of such a beast?"

@Lob: "I only wish to be polite." The man bowed. "I am Frozen Winds of Pearl Shards. Formerly a Raksha Noble and now Truculee servant to Luna."

Nomoe_Hideaki: */His essence is moon-aspected, with some Wyld influence. I don't know what that means./*

Nomoe_Hideaki: */And he seems to be truthful so far,/* Nomoe adds, surprised.

Nomoe_Hideaki: */Can you still locate the dragon's heart or have we been diverted?/*

~Prototype: "Is that so? And if that's who you are, why are you here?"

@Lob: "Of course, this is not at all like the North. Look here." Frozen Winds pointed out, putting a snowflake on his fingertip.

@Lob: "It's Ash, you see, not snow. Makes sense. Smoke Dragon, Ash being an Underworld Element."

@Lob: "Ah, well, I was exploring the paths within the Silver Chair of my Lady Luna. They go everywhere, you kknow. Even to some places that don't rightly exist."

@Lob: "Of course, sometimes Lunas other selves show up and well...then you should make yourself scarce."

Bright_Snow: "The Moon? You were at the heart of the Lady's Sanctum? And now you are here, interesting?"

Nomoe_Hideaki: frowns, annoyed by the distraction. They are here to murder a Greater Elemental Dragon, not to chat with some ex-Raksha.

@Lob: Frozen nodded and smiled. "Yes indeed, my lady! I would gladly take you to visit her, since she does enjoy visits from her Chosen, but...well, I imagine you have things to do, yes?"

Nomoe_Hideaki: If he wasn't (at least likely to be) a servant to one of the Most High ... But there is no use in thinking too much about that.

Bright_Snow: She warms somwhat to the newcomer, "Alas you are correct. So I would ask you in aid if you have you explored here much? We seek this creatures heart and directions would be helpful"

@Lob: The Truculee smiled happily at this chance to help one of his beloved master's Chosen. "Why certainly! The path leads to the Dragon's heart, but do be careful. This place reminds me of the Wyld, just much less...well, fun." He said, with a grave expression at the end.

@Lob: "Things change. It's like that time I saw a door to the Beyond for a moment, except that everything spirals to one conclusion."

~Prototype: "Oblivion."

@Lob: "ooooooh, is that what is?"

@Lob: "I don't care for it at all. It's so very...gauche."

@Lob: The Truculee snapped his fingers, and an ice crystal fell to the ground. "Ah yes! It's like Little Mouth!"

Nomoe_Hideaki: stands still and silent, his hands hidden in his sleeves. Although he won't admit it he has no idea what is going on here. And he doesn't like it one bit.

Bright_Snow: "I loath it myself, but then you and I are much alike." Snow smiles, though it is hard to see in her current form, "It was an unexpected pleasure to run into you, Frozen Winds of Pearl Shards and now we must be off, as alas my companions and my mate grow impatient. I do sincerely hope we meet again, as I would love to see the Silver Chair."

@Lob: "Most certainly, my lady!" Frozen replied with a flourishing bow.

@Lob: A feathered hat and luxurious fur coat suddenly appeared on his body. "May I politely assume that this place will be destroyed in a few minutes?" He asked.

~Prototype: "As soon as we can manage it," Pro confirms.

Bright_Snow: bows in return, though not to low to the once-Rakshasa. "You would be correct. I suggest you make haste in making certain you explore elsewhere, outside lays Autocthonia. It may interest you." She gestures.

Bright_Snow: "Then again, it may not."

@Lob: The truculee nodded and removed a feather from his hat and handed it to Snow. It shimmered with a million colours, with an undertone of silver.

@Lob: "Here, you may burn the feather if you wish to contact me. I should probably return to the Silver Chair while the path is still open anyway."

@Lob: "Toodle-oo!" He said in farewell

Bright_Snow: nods in understanding, "Farewell"

@Lob: Suddenly a wooden door appeared behind him. He opened it onto a great starfield and walked inside

Nomoe_Hideaki: inclines his head slightly in tribute to etiquette.

@Lob: It disappeared as soon as it closed.

Bright_Snow: then tucks the feather away and leaads the others in the indicated direction

@Lob: The place seemed even more depressing now that the Truculee was gone.

@Lob: So they walked onwards, and an echo passed through as they reached a room of coffins half-melted/frozen into grey brick walls. It sounded like a gong

@Lob: They rattled and opened and shut their mouths as they passed.

@Lob: "Help...please...heeeelp..." They sighed in broken Autocthonian

@Lob: *GONG* and they fall silent

Nomoe_Hideaki: ignores those voices just like the other ones only he can hear, following Bright Snow's lead closely.

@Lob: Suddenly reality shifted and gravity started to push sideways, while the path also moved straight up, like something otu of an Escher painting

@Lob: An explosion rocked the middle of a tangle of the path as it moved in it's gravity-defying course...it expanded to a mushroom shape and then froze in time and weeped blood

Nomoe_Hideaki: Nomoe continues onward without even blinking.

@Lob: Nomoe's aura forced a compromise, and handholds appeared in the upwards-reaching path

Nomoe_Hideaki: Can't show weakness, especially not to the beings who are in charge of the Labyrinth.

Nomoe_Hideaki: Where walking is not an option he simply takes to the air.

~Prototype: Pro moves forward and begins to climb up the hand- and footholds.

@Lob: Wind begins to blow against them as they near the explosion, that and the smell of charred flesh

Nomoe_Hideaki: "The heart is still in that direction? Beyond that *thing*?"

@Lob: A starfield glows around the blackness as they approach it.

Bright_Snow: Snow walks calmly forward, vereing into her actual form as she does so. "May I repeat how much I detest the underworld."

Nomoe_Hideaki: "One of these days we'll have to do something about it," Nomoe nods, entirely serious.

@Lob: A pulsing noise is audible from inside the centre of it, as if from very far away.

Nomoe_Hideaki: "Mmh. That thing looks like some sort of breach. Unless we need to go through it to reach the heart, I suggest we go around it."

Bright_Snow: "Can we seal it." I would rather not have the underworld continuing to leak into a creature I plan on consuming

Nomoe_Hideaki: walks closer, letting the edge of his Chaos-Repelling Pattern interact with the edge of the explosion/portal

@Lob: The portal stays

@Lob: It appears to be a natural part of the area

Nomoe_Hideaki: He frowns. "This is not my area of expertise."

Nomoe_Hideaki: "If it was of Wyld origin it might be different, but this way ..."

Bright_Snow: "Then through it we go." Snow steps on through "As this is the way."

@Lob: The first thing Snow sees is a very bright light and an enormous shockwave heading towards her

Nomoe_Hideaki: follows without missing a beat

@Lob: The thunderous roar hits her ears behind the shockwave of dirt and ash

Nomoe_Hideaki: flicks his fingers, extinguishing part of the shockwave with a precisely shaped reversed wave

~Prototype: As Pro steps through behind the others, he briefly registers the oncoming shockwave... and then is no longer there.

Bright_Snow: Snow, reaches forward and blurs as the light hit her, one speck of light among many as the wave passes and is then herself again.

@Lob: "Wonderful....isn't it?" A shadow of a vaporized mortal says to them from a shattered brick wall behind them

@Lob: "My perfect world..."

Nomoe_Hideaki: ignores the speaking shadow, examining the essence of the wasteland before them to find the heart they're looking for

~Prototype: A blade slides out from Pro's forearm as he rematerializes, about as long as a straightsword.

@Lob: Ash whirls around them like a shroud as the explosion stands like a tyrant over it's brutalized subjects

@Lob: "You wanted to kill me, didn't you? But can't you see that I only did what Ku made of me?"

@Lob: The voice speaks from multitudes of shadows now.

Nomoe_Hideaki: looks to Bright Snow, relying on her to point them all in the right direction

Bright_Snow: "Ku made you betray your master, his master? I think he is incapable of that."

@Lob: "Ku made me do his dirty work. He taught me to murder and kill whoever he said went against the Maker. Does he have any to blame but himself that I should take so much joy in it?"

Bright_Snow: */We are here, this... this is not what I expected. Blasted Underworld./ Frustrating and mounting rage are building in Snow, she really hates this place/*

Nomoe_Hideaki: Looking over the devastation all around Nomoe frowns. It's an apt metaphor perhaps, but still ... */We're inside its heart, aren't we?/ tightly controlled annoyance to match Snow's rage, if only he had a Charm to shatter realities ...*

@Lob: A featureless man made of ash suddenly turned towards them from an alleyway engulfed in flames.

@Lob: "I think you should join the multitudes that have already died here. Burnt like coal to power my ascendence."

@Lob: It said while it's head tilted tot he side like a bird

@Lob: "Starting with the Arrogant Sun-Chosen."

@Lob: It pointed a finger at Nomoe and a tiny light surrounded him and crushed in towards him, like the same explosion, focused inwards upon him

Nomoe_Hideaki: is about to takes to the air but pauses a moment as the ash man shows himself. "Ah, I was just about to search for the lynchpin of this realm, but I think I've found it."

Nomoe_Hideaki: He meets the explosive light with a small smile full of the very arrogance the ash creature is accusing him of. The attack bounces off Nomoe's ego without leaving as much as a scratch.

@Lob: "Hmm..."

@Lob: "The Void warned me of this."

Bright_Snow: "You are beginning to bore me Dragon. No one made you this but yourself, you could have stopped had you wanted, you just did not want to." Snow says with a snarl, "Do not lecture us about what you can or cannot do, had you cared enough to you could have stopped. Had you really wished to."

Bright_Snow: "You can use any excuse you like, fear, arrogance, whatever. You were your own arbitor, I am just your executioner."

@Lob: "Of course I do not wish to stop murdering. When I'm done killing all of you, I'll continue to do so until al of the Maker is but a massive corpse." It replied reasonably.

@Lob: "Me? But I am all-powerful here. In my own heart."

@Lob: Another ash-man appeared behind Snow. "Yes...I am."

Bright_Snow: "Why then is the Solar still standing there, still mocking you. Why am I?" She smiles, "You have lost already, you just... don't... know... it yet."

@Lob: A third opened a steel door from the husk of a ruined building

Nomoe_Hideaki: "Is that so?" Nomoe shrugs and approaches the first ash-man until it is within the effect of his Chaos-Repelling Pattern. "But now you are in my world."

@Lob: "Then come, Chosen."

@Lob: The man stands.

@Lob: And pushes Nomoe back

@Lob: "You have about...10 minutes

@Lob: Before the Sickness takes you. I estimate."

Nomoe_Hideaki: And with that his form blurs, a small thunderclap following on the attack.

@Lob: "I can wait while my body destroys Autocthon."

Nomoe_Hideaki: "We'll see."

@Lob: "I do so like to play with my food." The voice says again.

Bright_Snow: "You expect a disease to stop the chosen. My you either are an idiot or have delusions of a kind even the Yozi managed to avoid."

@Lob: "If the sickness doesn't, then all of me will."

@Lob: As a dozen ash-men appear

~Prototype: \Prototype tenses as more opponents appear, surrounding them. and raises his blade to a guard position

Bright_Snow: "Violence, your first last and least sensible option."

Bright_Snow: She readies her weapon, "And the one you were always going to fail at."

@Lob: The ash-men ignored the Lunar as they got ready to battle

@Lob: "BEGIN!" They snarled in unison

Nomoe_Hideaki: Ash and dust fall out of the air and to the ground as the air shivers with the force of Nomoe's attack.

@Lob: The man managed to parry 2 of the Solar's attacks aside, but 3 of them caught him in the chest, sending it a few steps backwards and leaving deep fist-sized dents in it's body.

@Lob: It fell to one knee, and then slowly got up and shook it's head from side to side and slipped into a fighting stance

Nomoe_Hideaki: tilts his head slightly, and motions for the ash man to come at him. He might be an actual opponent after all.

@Lob: It responded with a vicious piercing strike to the Solar's chest, aiming right for his heart.

@Lob: The ash hardened into onyx blades at the tips

Nomoe_Hideaki: meets the the attack with an open-palm strike of his own. An explosion of internal energy translated to physical force drives both opponents back slightly, their feet digging deep into the ground.

@Lob: It got back up and nodded in slight respect for the Solar.

Nomoe_Hideaki: */These are actually somewhat troublesome opponents. Don't underestimate them./*

@Lob: Meanwhile, another's hand turned to black firey claws and swiped at Snow's head.

@Lob: A third one appeared before Prototype, this one seemed to be cockier then most and simply waved at it to strike him

Bright_Snow: Even as the ashman begins to move, Snow begins to veer, the small pale woman is replaced by a Crystaline reptile, its hue flashing with the background a flicker of burning rubble and tumbled buildings. The spear in its hands moves up to meet the blow with ease. The body of the spear held back against the creatures arm.and with a flick she knocks the creature up and away into the air.

Bright_Snow: As she leaps into the air, her hide ripples to match, the crystal making a shimmering pattern in the air where she chooses to move.

Bright_Snow: Her first blow comes as the spear lashes up and across the body of ash the head slicing across. The second is a return blow, changing the ashman's trajectory from up to down, even as Snow reaches the height of her jump. The final blow is directed downwards as Snow finds the ground again, a stab out and through the creature before her wrist snaps back and pulls her lance behind her ready to swing out once

@Lob: The ash-man fell to the ground on it's feet, barely. It stood up with a massive canyon cut across it's chest, revealing a beating heart that took the form of a pulsating agonized face. It spat out a puff of poison and rushed back to the fight.

~Prototype: "Deliberator, Snow, get clear for a moment!" Pro's eyes narrow as he sets himself, looking around to make sure that a majority of the ashmen are within 60 feet or so. "90 feet of clearance should do!"

Nomoe_Hideaki: Nomoe briefly looks over to Prototype, then his form shimmers as he disappears with trademark speed.

Bright_Snow: manages a diving roll to oneside, as she hears the yell

~Prototype: His allies warned, Pro's shoulders flash and thunder, sending a powerful shockwave both mental and physical out to 9 yards. Anything caught within that zone will be thrown to the edge, and their will and power drained.

@Lob: An almost amusing look of surprise could be read on the ashman that had challenged Prototype as it, and 2 others, are thrown into the air

@Lob: Two of them smash into a building, which collapses on top of them, and another two are sent skidding along the dust and dirt

@Lob: They got up, exploding from the building, but looking somewhat unbalanced

@Lob: Together, they fired off a series of black poisonous fire at Prototype in sync with each other.

~Prototype: Prototype smirks and moves with the grace and control that serve him so well in the cockpit, evading each blast.