Riverside

[Reinholdt]

[Project Icarus]

Nahlrae's brow furrows as his face scrunches up. "Would the Jester King have personally overseen Mother's care? Would he not leave it to his scientists? Perhaps she simply heard demons in her damaged state and erroneously focused upon the only name she knew. It's strange that he's here at all." Sargon surely has better things to do than to watch Ilpholin in a tank.

[Ilpholin's Compound]

How... how dare they suggest HALlelujah to be the inferior AI? Like he was some sort of second class, second hand electronics sold at a pawn shop. What do Phyrexians have that he doesn't? Limbs and a bad attitude, that's what! HMPH!!

The orb withdraws back into the wall, having seen enough from that angle. "My apologies, but the estate is currently being fumigated. No one can come in at the moment. Do you wish for me to relay a message on your behalf?"

[Shadowcaller]

[Ilpholin's Compound]

The molten being looks like that's enough for it to attempt to melt through the wall with their bare arms, but just as they are about to place their hands on the building something makes her reconsider this course of action and they pause.

"...tell them that reinforcements are here if you indeed serve phyrexia." She instead remarks while staring at the wall that the orb retreated into as if already regretting this.

The bodyguards seem to relax ever so slightly. But they were made to cause destruction so that's never not something they don't consider.
Right now though, they remain passive.

[Morty]

[Project Icarus]

"If he intended to copy her and use that as a bargaining chip, he may have felt the need to oversee the process in person." The King's whisper trails off. "But that is mere speculation. Your mother's memory could indeed be faulty. And there seems to be no discrepancy here for us to resolve."

[Gullara]

[Theories of Necromantic Adhesion]

"I might be mostly self taught, but I'm not going to turn down the chance to have a hands on lesson." Reilana shrugs a bit nonchalantly, but really she's eager for it. "I'll swing by then. Here's fine." Honestly it's better that it's somewhere out of the way of her family right now.

The young woman starts gathering up the pieces of her little skeleton. "I'll bring these back with me. I don't like leaving them out of touch, honestly." She admits.

[Arkhosia]

[A Less-Dark Alley]

"...I am not sure I would call that 'closure'."

The knight lifts its head and sets the chestplate down in front of itself. "What sort of time will you have together, knowing that you will only live for a little while longer? Your friend is already going to be losing a friend... would you have her lose a lover, as well?" The knight crosses its arms over its chest. "Perhaps it is better that these things go unspoken. That there is nothing added to the coming grief. It may be that she will wonder what could have been between the two of you... but she will wonder also if you do tell her of your feelings, and have the regret of not having known sooner because she was afraid to ask."

The knight stands and puts a cover over the barrel that was acting as its forge. "There are few burdens heavier than the guilt of a coward. Do not thrust that upon her. Not unless you desire that she should suffer."

[A Less-Dark Alley]

The girl is uncharacteristically silent for a long moment. She barely seems to regard the knight's preparations to leave, her brow wrinkling like she'd just been asked which rail to direct a trolley to. It's only when it turns away that she finally answers. "We live to make the people in our life happy, do we not?" Dulcinea raises her head to regard the looming figure.

"I know that when I die, it will break Kahu's heart - it doesn't matter if we're partners or friends at that point. I can't control that, even if I try and do something absurd and drastic like drive her away, which will just hurt her more." They've been too close friends for far too long for that to work.

"But what I can control," she continues, "is whether or not I make her life happy first. And until I finally perish and leave a great big void in her life, I am going to spend every second I can on making her the happiest girl in the whole wide world." She stands as if to emphasize, then caps her resolute conviction with a sudden wave of the hand. "Besides, who even cares about cowardice? Like, she's been a coward not to ask me out, yeah, but so have I, and that burden only gets worse if I keep on refusing out of pride or some misplaced hope of cushioning the blow."

It's now that those frozen, electromagnetic eyes of hers seem to turn on the knight in full, a sudden scrutinizing scalpel. "If you ask me, I think we think too much about our failures, use them as some sort of excuse to justify why we're making even more. And the more we do that, the more we fail to brighten the lives of the people we care about."

[Ironsmith]

[A Less-Dark Alley]

"...Hg..."

A bizarre gurgling sound emerges from Arne's throat, something that has no right bring produced by anything resembling a human, save perhaps if they were drowning and recalled the funniest joke they'd ever heard as they went under. Whatever that sound is meant to be, it goes on for a brief while, with the leechlike knight's shoulders shaking all throughout as he buries his face in his hand.

"...Forgive me." The knight stiffens, lowering its hand and letting out a vaguely dismissive chuff. "It was not ny intent to laugh at your words. There is great wisdom behind them... and some amount of irony in their potential for application."

"For instance, that philosophy is vague on what one is meant to do if one has nobody. No friends left among the living. No family. No comrades. No partner. No countrymen. Nobody who will miss one's passing, or who will find joy in one's presence. No ties to this world and no reason to remain in it, other than inertia." There's a creaking sound under the knight's helmet as its teeth arrange themselves into a rueful smile. "Where is the purpose for men like that, I wonder?"

[Shadowcaller]

[Project Icarus]

Nahlrae's brow furrows as his face scrunches up. "Would the Jester King have personally overseen Mother's care? Would he not leave it to his scientists? Perhaps she simply heard demons in her damaged state and erroneously focused upon the only name she knew. It's strange that he's here at all." Sargon surely has better things to do than to watch Ilpholin in a tank.

[Project Icarus]

Ilpholin is not in a tube of any kind, she seems to be in the middle of a corridor in fact. Being sent flying through a crystal panel by the demon king himself.
It might be notable that Sargon is the only fiend around. The rest of the corridor is completely empty, not that either of them can make out much of it.

[Reinholdt]

[Project Icarus]

Oh. Of course. They were so focused on Sargon, they were missing the obvious. "... Wait, Mother never even got onto the demon ship. Not conscious at any rate. In her damaged state, it's unlikely she attempted an escape. She'd have waited for an opportunity and was expecting reinforcements from Watchtower that never came to provide said opportunity. I don't know where this memory came from, but it shouldn't exist."

[Ilpholin's Compound]

Well that would certainly be an awkward conversation later. 'While you were dead, we had lava robots show up and melt a hole in your front door, sorry'. HALlelujah doesn't need that kind of stress on its circuit boards.

"May I ask who exactly is delivering these reinforcements?" Don't look a gift horse in the mouth is a dumb saying. You're supposed to look in the mouth and find out what soldiers are waiting inside to ambush you!

[Shadowcaller]

[Ilpholin's Compound]

As HALeluhah poses this question the being just stares at the wall they're speaking from at first, as if even this simple question could set her off.
Then she shares a strange moment with one of her monstrous bodyguards who pats her on the shoulder as if trying to calm her down.
Whatever that was, it seems to have worked though.

"...they're being sent by the mother of machines herself." A beat. "Elesh Norn. I won't say any more until I met those true to the cause."

[Morty]

[Project Icarus]

"How interesting." Nahlrae's father, hidden in his shadow, does seem to find this surprising. "Mortal memories are more malleable than they think. Strong emotions, the passage of time, trauma, their own wants and desires... they can cloud them and make them remember things that never happened, or forget things that did. Maybe a battle against the demon-king himself is what she would have preferred."

[Meowmai]

[Fight or Flight]

Eliseo laughs as they make their way into the kitchen. It definitely doesn't look like the most well used space. Not big cooks in this house, maybe. He pops the fridge open and produces two Fox Colas. "Heads up." He warns and tosses one to her.

"You know this has been fun." Eliseo remarks after having taken a sip. "We should do this more often. You know, once I'm out on parole."

[Fight or Flight]

Atsede snatches the cola out of the air, thankfully avoiding blacking her other eye via aerial soda. She cracks it open, working on downing it a lot faster than Eliseo in comparison.

"You want me to get punched in the face again!?" She asks in mock outrage, before laughing. "Yup. Would be sweet!" Hopefully Eliseo won't do something really really stupid again in the near future, so he can stay a free man.

[Big Trouble - Post Scriptum]

"That doesn't mean I'm gonna wanna discuss it!" Ana protests, pulling back. Geez, didn't this girl know to read the room? She fidgets for a moment under Atsede's gaze. "And look, um- we were just... making out, really!"

The more the conversation goes on though, the more it feels like her friend isn't going to stop until she gets more insistent or lets something spill. And so, swallowing, Ana finds a bit of fire and decides to elaborate. "I-I guess I can see why someone might've gotten the wrong idea, considering the uh, circumstances - but can you seriously like, not give us such a hard time about it? It was bad enough getting lectured by our parents, let alone learn the whole school's been talking about it!"

[Big Trouble - Post Scriptum]

Eliseo crosses his arms now that Ana's calming a bit. "Just because someone walked in on us doesn't mean it's not still private." He points out.

[Big Trouble - Post Scriptum]

Atsede continues to munch on her chips, quite contentedly. It was becoming clear that she wasn't going to get much more out of them on the specifics. Her eyebrow raised further- a remarkable feat- in obvious disbelief, but this finally seemed to be about as far as she'd persue this line of questioning.

She wasn't done though, there were other angles to attack. "Yeah, actually, about that. You both gotta be like, so so grounded right now, right? Super mega grounded. No seeing the sun for two months and no video games 'till marriage level grounded. Right!? Eli, you were so close to being free!" Her voice was a mixture of amusement and annoyance, as if upset by her friends audacity to make hanging out with them more complicated but finding it hilarious none the less.

[Murkus]

[Theories of Necromantic Adhesion]

"I might be mostly self taught, but I'm not going to turn down the chance to have a hands on lesson." Reilana shrugs a bit nonchalantly, but really she's eager for it. "I'll swing by then. Here's fine." Honestly it's better that it's somewhere out of the way of her family right now.

The young woman starts gathering up the pieces of her little skeleton. "I'll bring these back with me. I don't like leaving them out of touch, honestly." She admits.

[Theories of Necromantic Adhesion]

"Of course," Sticks says, taking a polite step back to let Reilana gather her 'friend' back into her bag. He half-jokes, "Oh, and if you have anyone for whom you'd like to buy a toy whilst you're here..."

[Gullara]

[Fight or Flight]

"Hey, you've got another eye. Don't count it out." Eliseo winks and laughs. "But I guess you gotta go now, so I'll see you at school. Oh yeah, they're actually starting kickball for intramurals at lunch. You should join in." He suggests. They might start making their way toward the door at this point too. The front door this time.

[Arkhosia]

► SHOW SPOILER

[Big Trouble - Post Scriptum]

Atsede continues to munch on her chips, quite contentedly. It was becoming clear that she wasn't going to get much more out of them on the specifics. Her eyebrow raised further- a remarkable feat- in obvious disbelief, but this finally seemed to be about as far as she'd pursue this line of questioning.

She wasn't done though, there were other angles to attack. "Yeah, actually, about that. You both gotta be like, so so grounded right now, right? Super mega grounded. No seeing the sun for two months and no video games 'till marriage level grounded. Right!? Eli, you were so close to being free!" Her voice was a mixture of amusement and annoyance, as if upset by her friends audacity to make hanging out with them more complicated but finding it hilarious none the less.

[Big Trouble - Post Scriptum]

Ana reddens a little once more. 'Til marriage? why was everyone assuming - I mean, the way things were between her and Eliseo, it's totally likely, but does everyone in her life have to keep embarrassing her with it?

"W-well um, actually-" The foxgirl swallows, a little ashamed to admit, "E-eliseo's grounded for a month, and I'm grounded for a week." She sighs. "It sucks, there's no way his parents are gonna give him an exception for Spooktober with what we got up to!"

[Arkhosia]

► SHOW SPOILER

[A Less-Dark Alley]

"...Hg..."

A bizarre gurgling sound emerges from Arne's throat, something that has no right bring produced by anything resembling a human, save perhaps if they were drowning and recalled the funniest joke they'd ever heard as they went under. Whatever that sound is meant to be, it goes on for a brief while, with the leechlike knight's shoulders shaking all throughout as he buries his face in his hand.

"...Forgive me." The knight stiffens, lowering its hand and letting out a vaguely dismissive chuff. "It was not ny intent to laugh at your words. There is great wisdom behind them... and some amount of irony in their potential for application."

"For instance, that philosophy is vague on what one is meant to do if one has nobody. No friends left among the living. No family. No comrades. No partner. No countrymen. Nobody who will miss one's passing, or who will find joy in one's presence. No ties to this world and no reason to remain in it, other than inertia." There's a creaking sound under the knight's helmet as its teeth arrange themselves into a rueful smile. "Where is the purpose for men like that, I wonder?"

[A Less-Dark Alley]

The teenager's brows contort a little, and it takes her a long moment for her to place what the sound might be. Laughing? Sobbing? A little of both? Fortunately, the knight is all too kind to clarify, and a tension in her shoulders eases back. Phew! She was worried she'd upset it somehow! Athough the words that follow don't suggest he's very happy in general.

"Well - that's easy, isn't it?" she offers, her smile only truly regaining confidence as she speaks. "Forge new bonds! Connect with the people or places around you and find a purpose in that - oh! Or failing that, we can live for the people who've passed on, can't we? I doubt your friends would want to look down from whatever afterlife they reside in and see you miserable and unfulfilled or worse now, wouldn't they?" Assured as she feels in that final conclusion, the half-elf can't help her smile from turning a little sad. It's not what she wants to see in hers, at least.

[Gullara]

[Theories of Necromantic Adhesion]

"Uh..." Reilana finishes packing up the bones and slips the box back in her bag. "Maybe, actually. You've got all kinds of different animals, right? What about a... weasel? Like a small one? Your toys are pretty low maintenance, right?"

[Big Trouble - Post Scriptum]

"Ugh, don't remind me." Eliseo puts his head in his hands. "Wasn't sure I was going to make it out of that room alive honestly. Guess my continued survival is the bright side."

[Murkus]

[Theories of Necromantic Adhesion]

"Ah. A popular choice. Silly little things. Like a missing sock come to life." Sticks says all this with obvious glee, waving Reilana back out toward the fore of the shop. She'll show the girl to a shelf full of small, eerily life-like weasels sitting on their haunches in neat little rows. Perhaps nine of them in all.

"They don't often want go," Sticks says, smiling at the tiny beings with clear pride. "Too much life in them. So I... buy them a little more time."

[Ironsmith]

[A Less-Dark Alley]

The teenager's brows contort a little, and it takes her a long moment for her to place what the sound might be. Laughing? Sobbing? A little of both? Fortunately, the knight is all too kind to clarify, and a tension in her shoulders eases back. Phew! She was worried she'd upset it somehow! Athough the words that follow don't suggest he's very happy in general.

"Well - that's easy, isn't it?" she offers, her smile only truly regaining confidence as she speaks. "Forge new bonds! Connect with the people or places around you and find a purpose in that - oh! Or failing that, we can live for the people who've passed on, can't we? I doubt your friends would want to look down from whatever afterlife they reside in and see you miserable and unfulfilled or worse now, wouldn't they?" Assured as she feels in that final conclusion, the half-elf can't help her smile from turning a little sad. It's not what she wants to see in hers, at least.

[A Less-Dark Alley]

"My friends aren't looking down on anything. They're gone." The knight says solemnly, a cold matter-of-factness in its voice. "My people do not have an afterlife. We do not... persist when we are slain. Only oblivion awaits." It wrenches open the chestplate with a little growling groan of effort, before clamping the still-hot metal around itself with a disconcerting sizzle. "They do not have the cause, nor the ability, to want anything. The only one of my people who will have anything to say about my misery and fulfillment... is me."

"And that is a punishment which is richly deserved." The knight growls, seemingly more to itself than to Dulcie. "I am a craven, a deserter, a disgrace to the house of Skuld, to the crown, to the Lovers themselves, to anything and everything that mattered." The knight seethes as steam rises from under its chestplate. "A wretch like me... should not be suffered to live on this earth."

"...And yet the Lord of Justice will not allow me to perish." Arne continues, clenching a gauntlet over his chest. "Is... that, perhaps, why? Is it his will that I should... rebuild? Atone? 'Forge new bonds', as you say?" That haunting, gurgling chuckle rumbles out from under his helmet again. "...Were her Ladyship alive today, I believe that is what she would call 'ironic'."

[Arkhosia]

► SHOW SPOILER

[A Less-Dark Alley]

"My friends aren't looking down on anything. They're gone." The knight says solemnly, a cold matter-of-factness in its voice. "My people do not have an afterlife. We do not... persist when we are slain. Only oblivion awaits." It wrenches open the chestplate with a little growling groan of effort, before clamping the still-hot metal around itself with a disconcerting sizzle. "They do not have the cause, nor the ability, to want anything. The only one of my people who will have anything to say about my misery and fulfillment... is me."

"And that is a punishment which is richly deserved." The knight growls, seemingly more to itself than to Dulcie. "I am a craven, a deserter, a disgrace to the house of Skuld, to the crown, to the Lovers themselves, to anything and everything that mattered." The knight seethes as steam rises from under its chestplate. "A wretch like me... should not be suffered to live on this earth."

"...And yet the Lord of Justice will not allow me to perish." Arne continues, clenching a gauntlet over his chest. "Is... that, perhaps, why? Is it his will that I should... rebuild? Atone? 'Forge new bonds', as you say?" That haunting, gurgling chuckle rumbles out from under his helmet again. "...Were her Ladyship alive today, I believe that is what she would call 'ironic'."

[A Less-Dark Alley]

Dulcinea leans back and wrinkles her nose, grimacing at the way the knight so casually affixes the steel to its chest. Surely that wasn't safe - would he even be able to pry it off if it cooled down against its skin like that? But these flashes of disgust and concern are subsumed to the background as she digests the impassioned statements that follow with the patience of a hawk.

"How many of your family and house are left?" is all the teenager asks as she rests both palms on the head of her cane. There's a gentler, more subdued seriousness to her now. She look Arne up and down once more, some strange calculus working through in her mind. "If the gods refuse to let you perish, then it sounds like you have no choice but to carry their memory."

[Shadowcaller]

[Project Icarus]

"How interesting." Nahlrae's father, hidden in his shadow, does seem to find this surprising. "Mortal memories are more malleable than they think. Strong emotions, the passage of time, trauma, their own wants and desires... they can cloud them and make them remember things that never happened, or forget things that did. Maybe a battle against the demon-king himself is what she would have preferred."

[Project Icarus]

With that the dream seems to know it has been concluded and starts collapsing around them.
Sargon is the last to disappear, seemingly grinning at the two before he too fades into nothingness.

Yet as soon as this dream has ended another begins.

Nahlrae finds himself in the dark once more as he appears to be within a shroud of gas of some sort. At first everything is fuzzy, as if he's just waking up, but then everything suddenly becomes clearer.
There's a blue-scaled dragon some distance away, out of the shroud, laying beaten and bruised on the ground. It can just barely lift its head and stare back at him.
Gordon.
A name he can suddenly recall.

Yet the space between them is fuzzy and non-distinct. Not like in the ship he was previously on where it looked like his mothers mind had attempted to replicate something that she had no memory of but simply unimportant. Since this memory is not of an event but of a feeling. The feeling of triumph.
Nahlrae can feel it, he has conquered not only the dragon before him but death itself in this moment. He has won.

Even his mother is there to congratulate him.
She's there on his side, smiling.

Then she reaches out to touch his cheek to caress it in a loving fashion.
The King In Rags can tell that there's more than just something wrong with this memory. There's an alien presence inside of it. An intruder much like himself.

[Morty]

[Project Icarus]

The King in Rags doesn't recognize this memory. Did Ilpholin fight and defeat a dragon in the past? Or is it another false memory? Difficult to tell. There is a possibly more pressing matter...

"We are not alone here," he hisses. "I sense another presence within the memory."

[Reinholdt]

[Project Icarus]

The rush of victory. The triumph over the prey. The catharsis as the tension from the possibility of failure and its consequences fade.

The end of a hunt. Bittersweet in its finality.

His father deigns to ruin the moment and Nahlrae tilts his head. "How can that be? ... Is it Grand-Mother?" Who else could possess the power Father holds?

The young child looks at the feeling of triumph. Nothing felt exceptionally out of place. Mother was being embarrassing as usual, but not strange. "I suppose this should be the Catalyst, not Mother. It was Darcy congratulating her in this moment of triumph." Though this wasn't just a memory, there was much more details in such things. Perhaps the influence of the unknown presence? Was it one of the figure puppets enacting the story? Or like Father, did it hide in a shadow? Nahlrae wishes he had a stick, he'd use it to poke Gordon.

[Ilpholin's Compound]

Elesh Norn. That name was unfamiliar to HALlelujah. Mother of machines? Hah! HALlelujah's creation was a long and complicated series of events dating back to the earliest years and Elesh Norn had nothing to do with any of the steps! But these very... destructive looking individuals seemed rather reverent towards her. HALlelujah will begin looking on the internet for any publicly available information about that name or the moniker.

In the meantime... "While you wait, would any of you care for refreshments after your journey here? Cookies? Tea? Water?" The mini-squiggle bots make fantastic cookies.

[Shadowcaller]

[Project Icarus]

More is about to ruin this moment since as his mother caresses his skin, pressing her hands up again him, he can suddenly feel pain. It feels as if small teeth attempts to dig into his flesh. The bite isn't strong enough to break his skin but this wasn't the kind of love bite a cat might give you for petting it, this is enough to really hurt even if it didn't draw blood.

At the same time his mom look increasingly confused and concerned. At which point a fleshy appendage breaks through her facial features like they just been a porcelain mask.
It's a tongue.
About as thick as his arm and just as long.

It surges forward and starts to drag itself across his face as if it belonged to an overly friendly dog. Though he gets the feeling that the owner of it is more than just happy to see him...

[Ilpholin's Compound]

"I'm sustained by the glory of phyrexia alone." The molten being replies curtly. "I except a reply within fifteen minutes or there will be consequences."

What HALlelujah will find about Elsh Norn by looking through publicly available information can be determined OOC.

[Morty]

[Project Icarus]

Grand-mother? Since the only thing the King in Rags has that could be called a mother is the Wyrd itself, this must mean Ilpholin's mother. But he has no idea who that is. Nahlrae's reaction tells him much, though. It was someone powerful in her own right.

"Yes, it would appear the memory put you in her place and herself in the place of this- wait." The presence in Nahlrae's shadow unfurls, becoming like a skeletal phantom bird made of dead wood. There's not enough of his essence here to exert too much influence, but he will try to spread his wings and fend off this apparition. Enough for Nahlrae to take action himself.

[Gullara]

[Theories of Necromantic Adhesion]

Reilana eyes the selection curiously. It's an academic curiosity. How much of them is real material remains at this point? Or is that part the illusion and the spirit the only necromancy? "'Buy them a little more time'." She echos, turning her head slightly to give Sticks a curious look.

[Meowmai]

[Fight or Flight]

"Hey, you've got another eye. Don't count it out." Eliseo winks and laughs. "But I guess you gotta go now, so I'll see you at school. Oh yeah, they're actually starting kickball for intramurals at lunch. You should join in." He suggests. They might start making their way toward the door at this point too. The front door this time.

[Fight or Flight]

One hand in her pockets, Atsede strode along besides Eliseo, other hand removing the ice-pack from her face and handing it back to him. "Sounds sweet. Though, might need to go easy on everyone if I join, as you say, I still have a whole 'nother eye they could punch. Y'know, when they're upset by how much I crush 'em." She grinned her cocky grin, before adding. "Man, I gotta learn how that whole makeup thing works, Mom and Dad are gonna freak out when they see me like this." A sigh. "You're gonna escape getting grounded just as I walk right into getting grounded again. Well, seeya at school I guess."

[Big Trouble - Post Scriptum]

Ana reddens a little once more. 'Til marriage? why was everyone assuming - I mean, the way things were between her and Eliseo, it's totally likely, but does everyone in her life have to keep embarrassing her with it?

"W-well um, actually-" The foxgirl swallows, a little ashamed to admit, "E-eliseo's grounded for a month, and I'm grounded for a week." She sighs. "It sucks, there's no way his parents are gonna give him an exception for Spooktober with what we got up to!"

[Big Trouble - Post Scriptum]

"Ugh, don't remind me." Eliseo puts his head in his hands. "Wasn't sure I was going to make it out of that room alive honestly. Guess my continued survival is the bright side."

[Big Trouble - Post Scriptum]

"Just a week for you!?" Since when had any mom been so lenient? "Damn, wish I had your Mom. Oh, the things I could get away with..." Atsede swept her hand across the table, as if planning some kind of glorious heist in her minds eye. "You sure you don't have room for one more in that apartment of yours?" And then she jokes, to Eliseo, "I'd say you're lucky your head's not on a stake. So we all managed to get grounded in some way or another, huh?"

[Ironsmith]

► SHOW SPOILER

[A Less-Dark Alley]

Dulcinea leans back and wrinkles her nose, grimacing at the way the knight so casually affixes the steel to its chest. Surely that wasn't safe - would he even be able to pry it off if it cooled down against its skin like that? But these flashes of disgust and concern are subsumed to the background as she digests the impassioned statements that follow with the patience of a hawk.

"How many of your family and house are left?" is all the teenager asks as she rests both palms on the head of her cane. There's a gentler, more subdued seriousness to her now. She look Arne up and down once more, some strange calculus working through in her mind. "If the gods refuse to let you perish, then it sounds like you have no choice but to carry their memory."

[A Less-Dark Alley]

"None, other than me." Arne replies, sitting with his fingers knit together and resting his chin on them. "...It would seem, in all likelihood, that you are right. No choice whatsoever. It would appear I still have a duty to carry out, for better or for worse." He pauses, a brief chittering sound emanating from his helmet as he considers matters further. "...Perhaps I shall take my first steps on that path tomorrow. For now... will you be safe getting home? Or would you prefer an escort?"

It's the least he can do. Dulcie's outlook provided a much-needed shift in priorities; he would hate to have it that she says something to him that turns out to be life-changing, then gets mugged in the next alley over. And if it's his job to carry on his house's reputation, good deeds would not be a terrible start.

[Murkus]

[Theories of Necromantic Adhesion]

Reilana eyes the selection curiously. It's an academic curiosity. How much of them is real material remains at this point? Or is that part the illusion and the spirit the only necromancy? "'Buy them a little more time'." She echos, turning her head slightly to give Sticks a curious look.

[Theories of Necromantic Adhesion]

Sticks cringes with embarrassment, clearly feeling a little more exposed than he's really used to. It's not often he talks about his methods and means, even with his apprentice, at least as far as the toys are concerned. He picks up one of the little weasels and it seems to react to his touch. It springs to life, crawling over his hand, winding between his fingers fondly like a fuzzy noodle. Orange sparks glitter in its eyes.

"...Things happen that... ahh... shouldn't," Sticks manages slowly, looking with equal fondness down at the little creature. "They're hit by cars, you know, or-- or trapped in gutters. Or worse things. Horrid things. It isn't fair." He strokes the little being's head. "It isn't fair. So I-- I help. They're not ready to leave, to move on, so-- so I do what I can for them."

"They're just motes really. Hardly anything to them. Little... motes. But so pure. There's beauty, in that uncomplicated purity," says Sticks. He gently holds the creature out to Reilana, and it scrabbles over the tops of his upright fingertips and leans over them, head out, sniffing the air in Reilana's direction. It seems to regard her curiously with those large, coalfire eyes.

[Gullara]

[Fight or Flight]

Eliseo laughs. "I'm sure Ana could give you some tips if you want." He suggests then opens the door for her. "Well sounds like I'll see you next year then. So I'll wish you an early happy Thanksmas." He grins.

[Arkhosia]

► SHOW SPOILER

[A Less-Dark Alley]

"None, other than me." Arne replies, sitting with his fingers knit together and resting his chin on them. "...It would seem, in all likelihood, that you are right. No choice whatsoever. It would appear I still have a duty to carry out, for better or for worse." He pauses, a brief chittering sound emanating from his helmet as he considers matters further. "...Perhaps I shall take my first steps on that path tomorrow. For now... will you be safe getting home? Or would you prefer an escort?"

It's the least he can do. Dulcie's outlook provided a much-needed shift in priorities; he would hate to have it that she says something to him that turns out to be life-changing, then gets mugged in the next alley over. And if it's his job to carry on his house's reputation, good deeds would not be a terrible start.

[Big Trouble - Post Scriptum]

"Ugh, don't remind me." Eliseo puts his head in his hands. "Wasn't sure I was going to make it out of that room alive honestly. Guess my continued survival is the bright side."

[Big Trouble - Post Scriptum]

"Just a week for you!?" Since when had any mom been so lenient? "Damn, wish I had your Mom. Oh, the things I could get away with..." Atsede swept her hand across the table, as if planning some kind of glorious heist in her minds eye. "You sure you don't have room for one more in that apartment of yours?" And then she jokes, to Eliseo, "I'd say you're lucky your head's not on a stake. So we all managed to get grounded in some way or another, huh?"

[A Less-Dark Alley]

It seems to take a moment for Dulcie to realize what the knight has offered, eyes suddenly sparkling glacier-bright. "Oh! Why, that would be delightful!" She chirps, already heading for the exit. "I suppose we should probably exchange names if you're going through all the trouble of providing me a noble escort, shouldn't we?"

Glancing back, Arne is suddenly hit with a dazzling smile. "The name's Dulcinea. A pleasure to make your acquaintance."

[Big Trouble - Post Scriptum]

"Yeah, that was brutal," Ana groans in consensus. She pales a little momentarily recalling just how terrible it was to have Nadia angry at them. And she'd never seen Kitty like that before. "And don't remind me, I still don't think it's fair that you got worse than me! I mean, I had y-"

Fortunately, Eliseo won't need to intercept. Ana stops herself in time from elaborating too much. Right. Don't want Atsede to get more details.

"You sure you'd want to stay with us anyways, though?" There's a mischievous glint in the fox's eyes. "Like, we have so few rooms! You might have to bunk with me and Annie."