Outside: Grass touch place

Locales abroad of the city centers, from out of doors to the outer planes.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

Post by bc56 »

Shrine of Doom
"It's like an amount of time," Sele tries to explain, "Except it continues even if time freezes or runs backwards." That's probably not even remotely correct, but it's at least a workable metaphor.
"Tiqvael has left you a puzzle," she adds, in reference to the door. "Looks like you need three objects of some sort."
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Shrine of Doom]

That gets a somewhat skeptical look from Cat.

How could an amount of time pass when time is frozen? That doesn't make any sense. But she's quickly realizing that anything having to do with the Saints doesn't make any sense. These messengers from the heavens are all weirdos.

As she's tracing her fingers along one of the depressions Catherine perks up at Selekhael's OTHER statement.

"Wait, I think that's one of the Saints mom has a shrine to. The Saint of Hope?"
Catherine says thoughtfully. "Wow, what are the chances? The map didn't say who made this temple thingy, just that it was here."

She looks up at the door again, heaving a sigh.

"I think all us Magical Girls could use a bit of hope. Real hope, though. Our ideas keep falling through or getting ruined by fuzzbutt."

Fuzzbutt! Destroyer of hope!

"Maybe something that represents hope? Or... something. Hmm..." Nekohammer hums, glancing around at the buildings colored in weirdly alien pink passion flower vines. "Okay Mittens! We're going to figure this out. Something about grasping, maybe. Or moments. Or thoughts. Or maybe a rope? C'mon I think that looks like a hardware store over there under those vines."
"Mrow"

Thus she sets off across the street toward the ruined store! And wow is it ever ruined. She uses her hammer to shove some vines out of the way of the door and-!

The inside is strange.

"Wowsers. The pink flower theme sure is consistent,"
Cat mutters as she moves inside, the head of her hammer glowing with prismatic light. Every wall of the interior of the building has been transformed into a lattice of bronze with vines weaving through it. Weirdly the shelves and items inside the hardware store are untouched.

Unlike the people who were in here.

There are a couple...

Heaps.

Tangles of vines and metal and dark colored jelly. They're vaguely indicative of humanoid shapes but... only vaguely.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Shrine of Doom
Sele's seen what empyreans can do to people if they don't care or aren't careful before, but it always makes her grimace a little.
"They're passion flowers," Sele adds, "Fitting symbolism, I, uh, think."
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Cloud Nine]

"Father Sky doesn't make much sense, either. It'd make a lot more sense if both the sky and the earth were mothers. 'Cause then, you could say the people with wings are daughters of the sky and the people without them are daughters of the earth or something like that," June says, as if it's something that goes without saying.

June would also prefer if Dizzy didn't stall while they were flying.

"To be honest, never heard of Pluto. Nobody's mentioned it before. But my planet definitely has an atmosphere and only parts of it are annoyingly cold." As someone not from Earth, she is completely unaware of the names of the Roman gods.

Once on solid ground, June feels a bit relieved that they actually made it. Especially because she wasn't looking. She actually looks around - and back to see the progress Nina is making (the eye is gone, just a handful of hands to clean up now) and taps the ground with her foot in case the castle tries escaping from under her. "Um...let's see. How to explain it. Vampires are real, but you're unlikely to run into one unless you're in that one vampire city where they blocked out the sun, or you're somewhere spooky. Like, you know how you'll find tropical animals in the tropics, right? You'll find vampires in the whatever-the-tropics-for-vampires-is-in-this-metaphor." She waves her hand dismissively. "But there's also, like, a bajillion different kinds of vampires anyway. So don't worry about it. If you meet one you might not even know until they say "hi I'm a vampire nice to meet you"."

It's June's turn to shrug.

She crouches down by the trapdoor and tries to lift it up. Being sixteen times heavier than usual, she has a little difficulty lifting it up. "I mean...maybe? you can find? it? somewhere? Multiverse is pretty infinite, I'm sure anything you can think of might exist somewhere out there."


Nina, figuring she's done enough (she's only taken care of half of them) starts flying towards the castle.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Shrine of Doom]

Comparing it to the sun probably isn't too unreasonable.

A little bit is good.

Too much results in burns.

WAY too much results in incineration.

But yeah! Passion flowers! Cat has no idea what the symbolism is there but whatever!

She edges around some of the more obvious heaps and begins searching for-

ahHAH!

Rope!

That's a thing you tether stuff with, right? Something you really hang onto? Sure that probably works. Maybe they've got a clock around here or something for moments, too. "So hey! If you can't help me how come you decided to follow me around? You're one of these Saints, right? The Messengers? And... I mean I guess if this works out then I'll be one too. And come to think of it, you're all the Saint of SOMETHING, right? So what's your gig?"

This isn't a very respectful way to talk to a Saint, Cat.


[Cloud Nine]

"But couldn't you just say that if the sky and earth were fathers, too?" Dizzy suggests. "Eh. Not like it matters. God created humans and he isn't the earth or the sky or any other part of the world."

Dizzy is very certain of this.

But then planets!

"Wait, you haven't? But you HAVE heard of Eris? That's kind of weird. Why would someone want to name their home after the goddess of spite, anyway? I don't think she's usually very popular."

Not even a little bit.

But now!

Castles.

And vampires.

"Okay so it sounds like blocking the sun out is a bad idea here,"
Dizzy notes. "I'll have to remember that in case I'm in a situation where I'm weighing the pros and cons of killing the sun for a bit. Pros. No idea. Cons. Vampires like it."

Dizzy decides to help with the trap door. Since Dizzy is pretty runty for a giant the door is STILL oversized but between the two of them they have no problem! There's a groan of hinges desperately in need of some oil (which Dizzy provides by squeezing a fist above the hinges and black sooty stuff getting dumped all over them) and then it's open! A spiral set of stairs descends into the dark flanked by the occasional bottle of lightning that doesn't glow NEARLY as bright as someone might expect bottled lightning to.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Cloud Nine]

"No, we can't say the sky and earth are fathers," June claims, and then gives her very obvious reasoning: "You already said angels are a bunch of single fathers. If the sky and earth are also single fathers then that sends a pretty weird message. Like, what about the fantasy species that don't have fathers? Do they not get to be included?" One could arguably say the same thing about mothers, but that's not really something that crosses June's mind. "God's pretty cool, though, I agree."

June realizing the verbal sparring that they're doing, counterattacks with her own question. "Why would someone name a goddess of spite after my planet? That seems weird. It's like they're trying to start a fight, or something."

With the trapdoor open, June doesn't quite enter yet.
She glances back, trying to find where Nina is. Still needs a few more moments for her to catch back up, so rather than entering and possibly getting her lost she just decides to wait there at the trapdoor and come up with a delay distraction. "That soot power thing you have is really cool," June says. "Actually, look! I can do something pretty similar! We must be long-lost twins or something."

She holds her hand out, away from the sun, and closes her eyes.
Black inky oily gunk starts pooling in her hand, then falls to the ground.

Once down on the steps, the black inky stuff forms a mouth and starts moaning. "See? Pretty cool, right? Basically twins."
Rather than let it continue moaning and growing, though, June steps and splats it. It's gone.

Nina is, of course, flying her hardest to get to them.

"What do you think's in here, anyway?"


Eventually, Nina does catch up and tries to sneak back onto Dizzy's shoulder without being noticed.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Shrine of Doom.
"It's, uh, that obvious?" Sele asks. She was hoping to just seem like some random adventurer. "It's Forgiveness." That's good right?
Although, given that Tiqvael is demonstrating that Hope isn't always great, maybe not. And why would Sele try to discourage Cat from ascending?
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Shrine of Doom]

"You already said you're Kara's sister and her MOM is the barmaid at Trog's so I figured it out,"
Catherine replies as she stows the rope inside her little top hat in spite of the fact it shouldn't be able to fit in there.

Standard Magical Girl stuff, really.

"Forgiveness sounds nice," she says just under her breath.

It would be nice if she could forgive herself for getting into this mess to begin with.

"So I guess the people in here smoked way too much hopium, huh? haha..." she laughs awkwardly as she scoots around another heap to examine a shelf full of hammers.

Not nearly as cool as her hammer, though.

"Mom always said the Saints were good. Just... sometimes real good isn't good for people. Since people aren't all good," Catherine reasons, trying to grapple with the reality of the corpses everywhere.


[Cloud Nine]

"Well, I mean, I have a mom,"
Dizzy retorts. "The angels that broke the rules are just a bunch of deadbeats who don't pay child support. The worst kind of father. The kind that isn't ever there for your birthday. Doesn't teach you how to ride a bike. Only interested in having goats sacrificed to them. Complete flakes."

Obviously they're terrible people.

Since Dizzy really isn't sure what to make of a planet named Eris that isn't named after the goddess of spit it is concluded that he best reply here is to shrug.

Then goop happens!

"Huh."

That's a pretty good reply.

"What's with the mouth? Seems kind of weird."


And totally unlike anything Dizzy has ever encountered.

"Eh, well, probably giants. Or maybe something weirder. Who knows? This is an adventure in a castle in the clouds, right? Could be anything in here. Like a bunch of alligators playing bridge."


Dizzy is so busy thinking about card-playing alligators while descending the stairs Nina's sneaky return isn't even noticed.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[The Tower of Oujet]
Shadowcaller wrote: Jun 30, 2023 9:41 pm [The Tower of Oujet]

Good questions, Laz!

For the first one, she's actually about the same size as her humanoid form but appears a lot larger because of all the feathers.

As for the other question, well, she's gonna attempt to grab onto the falling ghoul knight with her talons. Or more accurately, grab onto her armor since she's pretty sure she'd end up with bits of Laz if she tried to dig her talons into her flesh.
If that fails, there's always plan B (as in Bear!).
Well, on the bright side, Saint Lazarus is caught by a really big bird!

On the not so positive side, her armor isn't really built with any comfortable places for bird talons to grip it, so hopefully Anika has a plan to land soon! It would be a real shame to go to all of that trouble to catch her just for her armor to slip right out of the druid's clutches and send her plummeting to the ground again.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Shrine of Doom
Sele remembers Neshiyahel. And Batsael.
She replies to Cat's comment sadly, "That's not true. We're not all good. But we're not all evil either. We just are. A powerful Saint like, Tiqvael, or mum, or myself, is so utterly alien to this world that reality around us is remade in our image... And that includes people."
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[The Tower of Oujet]

Laz is just having a heck of a time, isn't she?

This was a problem on that island, too. She needed Geneva to make those psychic platform things for her to fight on. It sounds to me like what Laz REALLY needs is a jetpack. Laz the jetpack knight! How cool would that be, right?


[Shrine of Doom]


"Oh."

Heavy.

Cat pokes at one of the heaps with her toe. The motion causes several of the pink passion flowers to open and turn toward her. She flinches briefly, expecting them to do something nefarious, but they just sit there being flowers in a way that's subtly alien and difficult to put a finger on.

"Like a force of nature," Cat reasons. "Oh oh! Or like GODZILLA!"

Raaawr, Godzilla!
"Mrow."
"Oh shut up Mittens, Godzilla is cool," Cat retorts. "Sometimes he's a bad guy but not REALLY. Like how a big storm isn't bad it's just there. But sometimes he IS a good guy! Even though he's a good guy stuff still gets broken since he's ginormous. Maybe Tiqvael was doing something helpful. Or hopeful? And the people here just got in the crossfire. And it's sad and it sucks. It just means... I'll have to be careful. I know Zee must be careful, right? If she can be mountain size when she feels like it then it would be easy to squash people."

Hmmm.

There we go!

A little kitchen timer!

That counts for the moments part, right? Cat puts the clock into her hat, too.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[The Tower of Oujet]

Don't worry, Laz!
Just a small part of a larger operation!

Since now, as she couldn't looked like it was time for plan B.
Anika looks down as she prepares herself-

And decides that perhaps it was better to commit to a hastily invented plan C instead. Considering she just recalled that:

A: Laz was tough.
and
B: That if they were moving at the same velocity then she wouldn't be tearing off a chunk of her flesh once she grabbed onto her.

So hopefully the zombie knight wouldn't mind to have a pair of talons sinking DEEP into her flesh as Anika grabbed onto her properly this time before trying to slow their combined descent with her wings.

Plan B would have involved reducing the impact of the fall with her bear-body but after seeing the ground she became a lot less confident in that plan.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Shrine of Doom
Sele doesn't know what Godzilla is. "Yes, a force of nature." It's a good way to think about it. "I don't know the history of this place." But she can find out. She slides her awareness back along the timeline. "Mum and I are both careful, but we've also both made mistakes. And hundreds of people suffered a fate worse than death." That's a little overdramatic, but it gets the point across. A good Empyrean should be responsible with their power.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Shrine of Doom]

Not knowing who Godzilla is happens to be a dreadful misfortune, in Cat's opinion. She has already resolved that if she manages to pull this off and any important part of herself survives the process Godzilla is going to be her role model.

"That sucks. What about Kara? Has she blown up any towns by mistake?"

That would be a no. Since Kara is only iron host her reach is quite a bit less.

Checking back along the worldline reveals that a horrible evil was stirring under the town. Servants of dark god had descended on the place and were rounding up citizens for a mass sacrifice to awaken the god of blood and conflict.

In desperate hope the faithful called upon the Saint and he manifested himself in the midst of the town. The faithful to his Path were blessed and the worshipers of false gods were judged.

Still defiled by the old blood, the acolytes of the Saint departed.

"Do you think a crossword puzzle book would count for thought?"
"Mrow."
"Yeah, probably not."
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Shrine of Doom
Oh. How sad. Sele isn't about to mention this to Cat, but it confirms what she suspected. "Kara is still too small to be much of a danger," Sele explains. "But we can grow very quickly." She remembers her own abrupt ascension to Bronze. "As long as I remain bound in human form you're perfectly safe around me." Well, until she starts blasting things with her powers or weapons.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Rebonack wrote: Jul 11, 2023 3:34 am[Cloud Nine]

"Well, I mean, I have a mom,"
Dizzy retorts. "The angels that broke the rules are just a bunch of deadbeats who don't pay child support. The worst kind of father. The kind that isn't ever there for your birthday. Doesn't teach you how to ride a bike. Only interested in having goats sacrificed to them. Complete flakes."

Obviously they're terrible people.

Since Dizzy really isn't sure what to make of a planet named Eris that isn't named after the goddess of spit it is concluded that he best reply here is to shrug.

Then goop happens!

"Huh."

That's a pretty good reply.

"What's with the mouth? Seems kind of weird."


And totally unlike anything Dizzy has ever encountered.

"Eh, well, probably giants. Or maybe something weirder. Who knows? This is an adventure in a castle in the clouds, right? Could be anything in here. Like a bunch of alligators playing bridge."


Dizzy is so busy thinking about card-playing alligators while descending the stairs Nina's sneaky return isn't even noticed.
[Cloud Nine]

June laughs at the thought of a deadbeat dad wanting goat sacrifices. That's not usually something she'd associate with them.

"It's got a mouth because it's trying to become sentient. But when that happens, things get a little annoying, so..." June shrugs. "Whatever."

She glances over at Dizzy, and descends the stairs. She touches one of the bottled lightning jars, and mentions, "They should probably replace these soon, they're getting a little dim." Maybe could even replace them with LEDs or something.

The pixie Nina, however, makes her presence on Dizzy's shoulder known! Not that she needs to, because she's clearly been here this whole time, if you trust her. "I'd like to see alligators playing bridge! It sounds funny. I've never heard an alligator talk: do you think they just play in silence?"
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Morty wrote: Jul 02, 2023 7:59 pm [Well Training]

"Hmm. Well, I couldn't fire it either," Thariza says as she weighs the gun in her hand and points it into the distance. "Making big guns for the sake of it does fit some engineers I know. But it applies to both genders. Maybe it's just how Charr are with weapons."
Halae wrote: Jul 05, 2023 7:54 pm [Well Training]

"I have to admit, there's something viscerally satisfying about pointing at something and having it completely explode from the raw force. Especially when you can feel the impact; guns are especially good at both of those things," Emily lets out a little laugh, "I try to avoid using this one much. It's mostly for intimidation and shooting down flying enemies."
[Well Training]

"I suppose I could see that." Ambrosia remarks, referring more to her own breath weapon than any sort of gun, but she guessed it was a similar feeling. Even if a extremely brutal one.
"I see you understand that such power requires restrain though. Both for your own sake and others." It did bring an interesting subject to mind though. "Fear is after all a double-edged sword and I have a feeling you're both used to others fearing you." She looks to Thariza. "Since didn't you say that your people have a fearsome reputation?"

She didn't even feel the need to ask Emily. She already seemed to have admitted it. Fear was a weapon she was used to wielding.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Well Training]

"We do, but... I'm not actually very used to people being scare of me. Before coming here I mostly dealt with other Charr." Thariza lowers the gun as she thinks. "I did meet some Norn in Diessa Plateau, but they're even bigger than us and not many things scare them. I mostly remember human visitors to the Black Citadel being really on edge. I wonder if they still scare children with us in Kryta."

[Ruins of Oparul]

The exploration will proceed slowly, but without much danger. The city, or what's left of it, has a strangely ethereal quality to it. As if it really belonged to a different world that is now gone. Many sections of it were powered by sorcery that doesn't work anymore and indeed can't work anymore, according to Silent Feathers Drifting.

The old fey himself and his elves will stay away from the ruins, which aren't friendly to the fair folk or their relatives. The elves will instead focus on supplying the cultists and maintaining the camp. Silent Feathers will instruct his elves to defer to Sekhmet when they can, in a rather clear effort to increase her authority in the eyes of her followers.

As they narrow down their search and head to where the cage Silent Feathers Drifting needs might be held, they will find other items and inscriptions that might be of great value to historians if they feel inclined to share them. The city clearly held sorcerous knowledge once, but it's not likely to be any kind of magic that the cultists are familiar with.

During the second day of the expedition, Hiep will approach the priestess who caught her eye, wearing the same hat and poncho as before.

"Looks like your goddess is on speaking terms with you now. Mission accomplished."
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Cloud Nine]

Goat-sacrifice demanding dead-beat dads are objectively the worst kind of dead-beat dads.

Anyway!

Talk of sapient goop mouths.

"My sooty stuff doesn't grow mouths," Dizzy points out. "Don't think it tries to become self aware, either. That seems kind of odd to me. Random goop becoming little goop people?"

DOES it become little goop people?

Dizzy may never know. Depends on whether or not June says more on the subject.

But now they're talking about lights instead. "Are those bottles full of lighting? Haha that's crazy. Maybe impossible but here we are, right? Just getting some regular lightbulbs would make more sense."

Dizzy tries touching one of the wires the jars are just to see if they'll shock someone who touches them. Dizzy does not get shocked.

"Oh. They aren't novelty bulbs at all. Are these ACTUALLY bottled lightning?"


Yes.

Yes they are.

But onward!

Soon our heroes will reach a big door but there's a problem. It's really big. And there are some low voices coming from the other side. "Bet those are the alligators talking," Dizzy whispers.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Well Training]

Emily huffs out a breath, "Probably. The progressives almost certainly try to get past it, but then you've got people who are so invested in the status quo that you can't really deal with them at all if you're not a part of that status quo. It's a problem I encountered a lot in my own home, since people like me aren't rare exactly (even if I'm an extreme example), but the 'blunts' outnumber us by quite a lot."

The word "blunts" is said with a mixture of derision and wry humor, as if Emily is mocking the people who use the term. It's almost certainly derogatory.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Shrine of Doom]

"Well, that's great then! If I can pull this off then I can just stay disguised like you are and it'll be like nothing had changed! Except I won't be under contract to Fuzzbutt anymore," Catherine replies cheerfully. "Oooh, a Sudoku book! That's GOT to count for thought."

It would appear as though Cat is radically underestimating just how radical of a change this will be.

She'll have goals and responsibilities. A Path to tread. The ever-present drive to complete quests. To spread her influence.

It won't be the same.

Nothing will be the same.

"Okay I've got the rope, the timer, and the Sudoku book. That's three things that are maybe kind of like the puzzle door inscription? I'm sure this will work!"
"Mrow."
"Why do you have to be so negative, Mittens, of course it'll work."

She begins heading out of the hardware store and back toward the mysterious door.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Shrine of Doom
"No. You don't get it." Sele blocks Cat's path. She needs the weird magician girl to listen to her. "You need to understand what you're getting yourself into. Nothing will ever be the same. Do you hear me? Nothing." This is important to her. She didn't know what she was doing when she apotheosed. She doesn't want Cat to suffer the same fate. "Even becoming an Aspirant changes the way you see the world. It opens up an entire new perspective, an inhuman perspective. It brings responsibilities, to your Path and the Tower. An Empyrean can never remain stagnant in this world. We must grow. No matter what. I literally eat hopes and dreams, do you understand that? I look human and I act human but I am just hiding myself for your safety. Do you understand? I didn't get a choice in my apotheosis. You do. So I want you to be absolutely sure you want it."

Ruins of Oparul
Many artifacts have been collected, catalogued, and stored in crates brought along for the purpose. Anything might be useful, and this is a semi-professional archaeological dig.
"Right." the priestess is wearing a woolen cloak over her "vestments" to protect against the cold. "She's not what I expected.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Shrine of Doom]

For a moment.

Just a moment.

That up-beat, can-do expression endures. Between herself and her best buddy Mittens there's nothing Catherine can't overcome!

But then there's a crack. Like a fissure splitting its way across a porcelain mask. Flakes of white falling away. The real face below revealed. Tears welling up in the eyes of a girl who has stared into the eyes of the abyss and got snatched away from the hungry jaws.

Not because of her own magic. Or her own cleverness. Or even because of her buddy.

Because a pair of people just happened across her and yanked her free.

"I'm scared, okay?!" she yells back at Sele. "I was almost gone! I almost exploded into a crazy people eating ghost so Kyubey can keep his evil game running! I won't go back to there! I WON'T! I looked into my soul gem and all I saw was darkness forever. Nothing has worked! Everything has fallen apart! But this is a chance, okay? It's SOMETHING. I have to have faith that this a way forward because there's nowhere else to GO. If everything has to change to stop me from becoming a Witch and letting Kyubey win then that's a Sacrifice I have to make."

There's a fire in her eyes.

A clarity of purpose.

A spark Sele will probably recognize.

A spark that can be fanned into a blazing star.

From behind Catherine there comes a single crystalline tone as the doorway slides open.

"Mrow."
"Huh?" Cat mutters, sniffing and rubbing the tears away with her arm as she turns around. "It opened? But I didn't use any of the keys yet!"
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Shrine of Doom
Sele sets her hand gently on Cat's shoulder and smiles sympathetically. "You're right, this is a way out of that trap," she motions towards the soul gem, "But I didn't want you to think it would be easy." She glances back at the door. "It seems Tiqvael has judged you worthy. And I agree." she steps aside. "Go, with my blessing." It's pretty clear to Sele that Cat's outburst matched the riddle, but she's not intending to point that out for fear of encouraging the supplicant to make similar outbursts without really meaning them.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Shrine of Doom]

"W-well yeah! Of course I'm worthy!" Catherine replies, standing up a little straighter and putting her hands on her hips. "I'm Nekohammer! The bravest magical girl that there ever was! Because bravery is doing what you have to do even if you ARE scared."
"Mrow."
"No, YOU'RE a big ham."

Right.

Now she just has to...

Go in there.

Out of the weird alien garden and into the shrine proper.

Just take a deep breath-
-and walk through.

What meets Catherine inside is a wide foyer that absolutely does not look like it should be able to fit inside the narrow tower. Everything's bronze, glistening in the light. More passion vines creep up the columns, wrapping around braziers shaped like cupped hands, orbs of smokey colored gel floating above them and humming with muted white light as if there were little stars inside each of them.

The pews make it look kind of like a church. Or maybe a temple? Just standing in here, Catherine can feel her hope that this is a real solution swelling. She had read about how this is supposed to work. It's a dungeon sort of thing, right? The big door at the back of the shrine leads to the trials. And if you make it all the way through there's an Icon. And once you've got that you can ascend.

"This is it, Mittens," Catherine says as she approaches the door to the trials proper. "The last step. No turning back."

In she goes.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Shrine of Doom.
Sele's not sure if she's allowed to go in there.
It's certainly a tight squeeze even if she is - most buildings aren't constructed in a way that constrains her additional dimensions, but Shrines are.
Even if she can't go inside, she's confident Cat can handle this. She's already got Hope, and that's the most important part, right?
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Shrine of Doom]

Hope is always important.

But is it true hope? Cat sure hopes so.

As soon as Cat crosses the threshold things get weird.

Not... like... Witch's Labyrinth sort of weird. But still weird. A maze made of interlocking bronze components. Of vines and smokey colored gel. Or hand motifs everywhere. There are a few monsters here and there. Manifestations of wildlife consumed by alien purpose. Some of them are pretty tough! But for the most part it's just strange and alien and it really doesn't help that time folds back on itself a few times.

It's all confusing and strange.

There are signs of the dark god locked away below the shrine. Shapes and inklings of hopeless, pointless carnage. Those creatures Cat destroys with relish. They're like the Witches, sort of. Broken things that only know BAD STUFF. Really she's just putting them out of their misery. They're infecting the shrine though. And maybe that's why Cat was drawn here?

To purge this Witchy infection from the place that should be about Hope.

Not about nihilistic destruction.

She meets four horrible monsters along the way, like a horse and a rider oozed together, each with a fragment of the broken Icon lodged in their face. The hopelessness of violence. The hopelessness of want. The hopelessness of disease. She strikes them down each in turn and retrieves the relics they're corrupting. And once that's done she climbs to the top of the shrine and reunites the Icon upon its alter with the one last undefiled fragment and-

Time is strange in all of the shrines.

But in shrines that have an alignment with Time especially.

The sucking, oozing decay of darkness clinging to the shrine here are there abruptly vanishes as soon as Catherine walks in. And as soon as she walks in she walks right back out again. She looks... pretty roughed up. Her once bright soul-gem is muddied with darkness. She expended quite a bit of magic in there. Mittens is absent. He burned through all nine of his lives over the course of the trials and it'll be a bit before Cat can summon him again.

"Hoo," she whistles. "Wow those guys were serious! But no match for Nekohammer! I think some sort of dark god was oozing up into the shrine but now I've kicked his butt so everything is probably okay!"

She's pretty happy with her work.

"And I got this thing!"
she says, holding out one hand to display the Icon of the Cherubim that she retrieved. She grins a triumphant grin, her face strangely illuminated with its light. "So... what do I do with it now? I feel like I'm looking at a drop-menu from a video game."
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Shrine of Doom
"You did it!" Sele exclaims on seeing Cat return. "I knew you could!" Of course no time appeared to pass but she's used to time weirdness. "That's, uh, normal. If you still want to do this, select Absorb." Then Sele will probably have to walk a newborn Empyrean through everything.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Shrine of Doom]

Cat beams with pride because of course Sele knew she could do it!

We've been over this already Cat is amazing in the opinion of Cat.

"Okay, absorb, so I just sort of... decide that I want to do that or-"
She totally just decided that she wanted to do that.

A light brighter than the sun envelopes her as Catherine feels a searing pain greater than anything she could have every imagined and then nothing. And when the light passes there's a pile of ashes and a patch of earth turned to bubbling glass.

And, of course, a new empyrean.

Something like a brazen alter full of flames, the sacrifice tied to its horns.
Something like a lamb upon the coals, pure and innocent, spilling her blood for another.
Something like a vine of scarlet blossoms, red as blood, embracing everything around her.
Something like a pair of doves, one divided, the other anointed in blood and set free.

The Mighty Sacrifice.

The experience hits Zavakhael like a tidal wave. Like she just started existing. Like she just woke up from a dream. Like all of a sudden the world is in sharp focus when before it muddled and indistinct. She feels... bigger. Not quite like physically bigger but more like... more. There's more of her but that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense okay but here she is.

The soul gem, black as pitch, lays in the ashes below her.
General wrote:>The Servant: The Aspirant Zavakhael has just attained Apotheosis. Please welcome her to the Eternal Game.
"Haha... what?" the currently very abstract Zavakhael laughs, tears welling from
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Shrine of Doom
"It's finished. How do you feel?" Sele asks, knowing full well that the answer is going to be something like "more."
Slowly the Saint of Forgiveness begins to unfold from her humanoid form. She didn't dare do this when a human was around, but now that Zavakhael has ascended, she doesn't need to worry about that. Gentle paws reach out, eagle's wings shelter the child in the bewildering early stages of her new existence. "Don't worry about anything right now. Just take deep breaths and try to get your bearings, okay?"
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