event: a gentle web

[thestewards]

I've lived a lot of different lives
Been different people many times
I live my life in bitterness
And fill my heart with emptiness

► The OOC plotting post for this event can be found here.

► Direct all questions to the mods at this link.

► Characters can speak with Fayura or Verim in response to her request or her web. If you would like to speak with them, please add a prompt to your top-level or as a comment to your top-level. A thread with Fayura can be requested here. A thread with Verim can be requested here.

STRANGER SUMMONS
In the morning
You wake to a feeling of unease. It’s not the room, which is comfortable and well-appointed, if plain—much like the guest room of a hotel. A note rests on the nearby bedstand, inviting you to breakfast with Queen Fayura, her court, and the Strangers who make their home with her, and it lets you know you can ask the many footmen in the twisting halls of the Queen’s Residence for directions.

That isn’t what leaves you uneasy, no.

There’s a strange flavor in the air to those both new and already present. Some of the Strangers who have been in Draega for a month or more will recognize this unease as the psychic flavor of the Queen’s emotions. Fayura’s dark presence fills the residence, and while it is normally calm and steady (if a bit wrinkly around the edges, like an exuberant young woman rumpled from her activities), now it is outright unsettled. Because her presence is so strong, because it permeates the very rocks of the bizarre building, it changes the mood in air.

Breakfast is lean: little more than thin porridge, glasses of milk and water, and carefully rationed cups of fruit preserves. The Queen’s Court, those of her First Circle, look wan and hungry. There is as much unease between them as in the air.


In the afternoon
Around midday, a psychic call touches the minds of each Stranger in Draega. Fayura’s mental presence slips along your own, quietly seeking permission to speak to you mind-to-mind, and when she has it, she says: Come straight to the Residence if you are not there already, close your minds to every thought but the beacon I leave for you, and speak with no one, not even your friends.

The beacon is a mental loadstone calling you to the Queen’s Residence. When you arrive, you’re ushered not into the Great Hall, but into a little used room. Here, the Queen holds formal court, something she rarely does.

Though witchlight and candles fill the room with light, a psychic darkness creeps across the floor. Tendrils of ice fill the spaces between the old, hardwood floorboards. Frost spiderwebs across windows and over the walls. In spite of this, the room itself doesn’t feel cold.

At the end of the room, the Queen of Hayll sits on a simple stool. Gowned in black spidersilk, she looks like midnight come to life. To her right stands a frame two feet by two feet: a tangled web simply woven. At its heart sits a Jewel chip. Should you probe it, you find its color and rank difficult to determine. Red, but not. Something darker, something strange, something that isn’t quite right. Her Consort stands just behind her, his golden eyes glazed.

“A coven of Black Widows has come to my city,” the Queen of Hayll tells you once all the Strangers are assembled before her. “They broke a young girl who had the potential to be a Queen when they tried to kidnap her last night.” A wave of fury ripples through the residence, something dark and dangerous—a dull roar from the abyss in the mind from which the Jewels’ power springs. “I have never directly asked you to put your lives in danger, but I ask you now: find these Black Widows. Bring them to me or bring them to Grand Master Niall or Lord Grejor, whomever you trust more to mete out justice, but bring them.”

She gestures to the web beside her. “A Black Widow rarely shares the webs she weaves, but I will share this one with you.”

Fayura's web Trigger warnings: mental assault against a child
Webs of dreams and visions are not concrete things. To weave them, a witch steps to the side in her mind, looking through the veil of madness to read possibile futures. But Fayura’s web doesn’t tell of possible futures. It recounts a single past, a vision pulled from walls that echo with a child’s agonized cries of pain and fear.

Three spiders crawl through the night. They chitter and clamber. They weave their wicked webs in dark corners of the city, ensnaring minds. They search, they search, they look, they seek, seek, seek, probing dreaming minds, peeling back shields around vulnerable minds, tasting the air for the earthy flavor of a Queen. (this one this one take this one to rip and rend)

They find her— is that her? —a girl that is a Queen but a girl who is not a woman— too young to have her adult strength it makes her sweet so sweet —young enough to be woven into a new shape— CON­SUME HER DE­STROY HER

They sing to her from the Darkness, but she doesn’t want to go, she doesn’t want to leave her dreams or her family her home this place this city it’s not dark but it’s Dark and it feels right and good there’s more right and good in the Darkness than in the dark corners and she fights and she pulls and she won’t go, she won’t, and she—

White
Yellow
Tiger Eye
Rose
Summer-sky
Purple Dusk
safety that's safe
it's safe there it is
it's safe it's safe
it's safe it's safe
it's safe it's safe
it's safe it's safe
it's safe it's safe
it's safe it's safe
it's safe it's safe
it's safe it's sa

She flees into the sanctuary of her mind, where the Darkness is a caress around her. She plummets past the White and the Yellow, and the Black Widows give chase, thrilling to the scent of fear.

One peels off with a shriek of rage.

Deeper, darker darker, where the abyss is quieter (quieter still deep below in the frigid depths of the BLACK and she reaches reaches for a presence deep below her) and full of Summer-sky power—she can’t go much further, her web is made of Purple Dusk, but the other doesn’t slow. The little girl slams through the web of her mind, shattering it, collapsing the abyss with a scream of power, flooding her body with more power than it can contain.

The spiders withdraw. Their prey is no good to them like this, but maybe they’ll feed on the corpse of her mind later, filling it with nightmares until not even the Black Widows of the Lady’s court can piece the little girl back together.

beneath them far beneath them a quake of power a profound fury a silent song of rage and sorrow that spirals and shivers

TANGLED WEBS OF FEAR AND LOATHING
This Black Widow coven has left tangled webs throughout Draega. These webs snare the minds of light and dark Jeweled Blood and Strangers alike. In many of the webs, the mind of a captured victim assumes an active role within the vision contained inside the web, forcing them to live through the vision. Landen minds can’t be trapped by tangled webs, but their moods and actions are certainly affected. Until the webs are cleared, they will radically alter the behavior of landens throughout the city, twisting their behavior.

Fayura has tasked you with not only finding the members of the coven but with removing the tangled webs the Black Widows wove throughout the city. The events in the web can be changed—much like with lucid dreaming, you need only realize you’re trapped within a tangled web to change the course of its vision or to escape it, and then, when you understand it, you will be able to destroy it.

A Web of Violence Trigger warnings: female on male rape, sexual violence, impending death

run

run

run

RUN

breath burning run faster faster legs aching heart hammering pulse pounding throbbing throbbing throbbing

She’s behind you, you know she’s behind you, hungry for your body and your mind, but you can’t slow down. Your sister, you think about your sister, who just barely wears the White. You need to be there for your sister. She could be a Healer, she could be more that what the Blood have become, she co—

An acrid psychic scent hits you, sour and sharp and seductive. You want her and you hate her as her power slams into your back and throws you into a wall.

A second later, she’s on you, her nails ripping through your skin as she tears off your clothes. You try to shield with your Purple Dusk, but she’s stronger than you. Shields shred like butter beneath her hands. Skin parts and opens and burns. She jabs the snake tooth under the nail on her right ring finger beneath your skin (the rough edges of all her rings cut into your bleeding flesh, and you scream before she muzzles you with an aural shield) and pumps poison into you.

Your panic spreads it faster. You feel the poison in your limbs. You’re going to die. You know you’re going to die. She’s climbing onto you, and you’re going to die like this.

A Web of Desire Trigger warnings: dubcon, sexual assault, assault, sex work, abusive relationships

You were pretty, once. You paint your lips with red paint made from the venom you milk from your snake tooth during your moontime, and you smile. Your face is hazy in the mirror, but your lips are red red red (he wears the Red, and one day, he’ll see how much you love him and he’ll love you, too) and males love red lips. Red mouth, red body, red between your legs when they ride you too hard.

You were pretty, once, but that doesn’t stop them from pushing you down. You watch the ceiling as they pant and groan and heave above you. This will keep you safe. This will keep you alive and fed. There’s nothing left in the wilderness except dead, dry desolation. Same as the desolation inside you. You’re not a Queen, but you feel it, too.

You were pretty, once. You remember what it was like to smile and watch a male’s blood drop from one head to another. You remember the power you had before they used you up and left you dry, before they wrung the joy from loving someone else. You love him, and you wear him close to your heart.

You were pretty, once, and then you told him no, not tonight. You were pretty, once, until he held you down with Summer-sky power. You railed against the Darkness for letting him be just one rank darker than you as he took your beauty from you. A blade over your eye and down your cheek. Sharp edges in your arms, across your breasts, cutting new roadways of pain all along your abdomen.

You were pretty, once. With red, red lips and a smile that drove males to their knees before you, but now red repulses you and your love never came for you. But in this memory, things are different. You are not you. You are someone else, and you can escape the one who wants to cut you.

A Web of Innocence Trigger warnings: domestic violence, violence against women, blood, implied medical torture

You’re five years old, on a ship that rides the waning waters of the Heartsblood River. Your face to the wind, adventure on the horizon. Papa calls out to you, and you turn, running barefoot across the deck to him. He holds his hands behind him, and you jump around him to see what he hides. A shield hides your prize, but Papa is kind, and once you close your eyes, he puts something soft and warm in them. You cry out with delight, opening your eyes: a stuffed animal in the shape of a puppy. From Draega, he tells you, where the landens make amazing things.

You’re 12 years old when you meet him. He’s landen but he’s smart and he makes you giggle and blush, and you give him the stuffed puppy you’ve cared for all these years and he gives you a blue ribbon. You wear it until it falls off your wrist, and then you go back to Draega and buy another.

You’re 20, at the altar in Draega. You want to wear the Sapphire, because Sapphire reminds you of the landen boy, but no one gets Birthright Jewels that dark anymore. Still, you squeeze your eyes shut and hope and hope and hope and hope and pray and pray and pray until you bite your cheek and taste blood. A wish offered with blood is a prayer to the Darkness. That’s when you smell the smoke. You know you should run, but you have to finish your Birthright, you have to succeed, you have to complete it, so you struggle and struggle and struggle. The fire takes your eyes but you take the Sapphire.

You’re 21 and you’re with him now. Your family disowned you, but you don’t care. At last, you’re happy. “Can you tell me our future?” he asks, and you weave a web that shows you with two Sisters but no husband. You lie and tell him something pretty.

You’re 27 years old, reading fortunes not just for your husband but for the hypocrites among the Guild. The Guildmasters come to your husband in the dark and pay him for your visions. He trades the money for drink and comes home stinking of alcohol. Even their Grand Master comes to you, the young prodigy they all adore. “Tell me how to ensure the Blood don't destroy the landens,” he tells you, and you give him a vision of Ebon Askavi and a song that resonates deep within the mountains, growing louder with every passing year. He strikes you hard across the face, but you know he’ll go to the Black Mountain within the year.

When you’re 29 years old, your husband drags you to the Medico Guild and leaves you there. “Weave, little spider,” their Guildmaster says, and you weave because they hurt you when you don’t, turning on their muters and cutting into your skin to see what color you bleed. You weave and weave and weave, pressing deeper and deeper into the sanctuary of your mind until at last you break yourself when you drift down below your inner web.

You’ll kill them all one day. You’ll leave them broken on the floor, eternally sleeping in puddles of their own blood. But you need to find a Queen, and the Queen you want is here but she isn’t ready, not yet, so you’ll wait ten years or find another. You’ll make her understand, you’ll make her see what you no longer can.

AIR TIME
Whether you catch the news on a Far-caster in the city or you're spinning the dial on your own device, you'll hear…

etiquette with evandra and aren
[Today, Evandra speaks softly and slowly. Sorrow thickens her throat and stretches her words into brittle filaments.] How do landens deal with Black Widows, Lord Aren, when even the Blood can be destroyed by them?

[Aren, too, is quiet.] Trust is—

[Evandra, sharply:] The Blood always speak of trust! What good is trust so often broken?

[Aren stumbles over his words.] I… that is, as Blood, we… We rely on Queens… [He trails off.] You are right to be furious. Nothing can be said that repairs a shattered mind.

the weather
[A soft-spoken man’s voice rumbles out of the Far-caster. He’s pleasant to listen to, with a soothing cadence to his voice.] …flooding along the banks of the Heartsblood River to the southeast. The river walk will be unsafe for the next week, and pedestrians are advised to take great care if they want to walk it. Interested in sailing? The Transport Guild…

the news
[Garret speaks with his usual briskness, but his temper snaps behind his words in a way it never has.] The Ebon Council and Guilds have spoken out against Queen Fayura, demanding to know what use a Queen can be if she can’t keep “undesirables” out of the city.

[Wilt sounds hollow.] While the Ebon Council demands the Queen's Court do more to guard the city’s gates, the Guilds have announced their intention to build a large-scale muter that would suppress the power of the Blood within a two-mile radius of the city. A spokesman from the Tinker Guild says they’ve already begun work on this device.

[Garret:] Indeed. The Strangers’ support for the Guilds the past few months…

Comments

[garmr]

For Zita & Lalli (cw; canon depictions of severe torture, violence, and gore)

[garmr]

[Guts is a mercenary, not a watchman, but hunting down the scent of a Widow is not unlike finding apostles with the Brand. Navigating the dark, tugged to and fro only by vague pains and tugs through the astral plane - that, he knows quite well. It isn't the most straightforward path, but he could tell when a scent was getting stronger. Couple that with some asking around, and with the aide of his companions, and they were soon on a solid trail through a decrepit quarter of Draega.

Solid enough, in fact, for him to move ahead on his own, only to be frozen in his tracks at what he was seeing through the alleyway ahead of him.

Between the stone walls, a withered shell of a man is sitting in a pool of water. He is barely more than skin and bones. His entire body is wrapped in bandages, hiding the flayed skin beneath them. His hands lie uselessly between his legs, with scars at the wrists where his tendons were cut. His head is encased in a thick iron helmet, hiding the disfiguring wounds that peeked through the metal eye holes. Parched lips mouth wordlessly, only be able to speak in tongueless, weak gasps.

The man's eyes are a brilliant blue, despite being weighed down by their deep sadness. Silvery wisps of pale hair fall over his eyes beneath the mask. They were last remaining vestiges of someone once incredibly proud. A miraculous person right out of a fairy tale. Now, he wallows in his squalor, utterly ruined.

Guts doesn't find himself filled with rage when he sees this, and he doesn't know why. All that pain and hate and dark anger inside him, and all he can do is stand there, dumbstruck. Despite everything, despite knowing this could very well be some witch's illusion, he can't stop himself from reaching out to touch him, to at least make sure he's not real.]

Griffith?

[Griffith looks even smaller with Guts grasping him, only able to meekly reach up to touch him back. Entangled in his limp, bandaged wrists is the round form of a Crimson Behelit. This egg-like stone was shifting, its facial features rearranging to form an unearthly scream of pure despair. As Guts sees the cursed artifact comes to life, an engulfing wave of blinding light seems to drown out the city around him, pulling his mind deeper into the web.]

[ilves]

[Tracking? Lalli is good at that. Lalli is very, very good at that, which is the only reason he agreed to come along on this mission with someone he barely knows and someone he doesn't know at all. He doesn't understand everything that's going on, it's true, but talk of Black Widows and the webs they weave reminds him of—well. There are enough uncomfortable similarities to things he does understand to actually stir him into action, because the sooner this is all over—the sooner things are back to the new version of "normal" he's grown accustomed to—the better.

Still, though, working with others feels... strange. It just isn't a thing he's used to, and thus he frequently zips ahead, or falls behind, or darts away to look at one thing or another, all without saying much of anything; he simply assumes the other two can and will do the same, which is why he isn't too surprised to spot Guts, like, disappear into an alleyway. He isn't particularly concerned—until, of course, he feels that odd, almost heavy magic bearing down upon him as he approaches.

...Ah. Not good, he thinks. Bad. His jog turns into a sprint, and soon he's there in the mouth of the alleyway, watching Guts wander closer to something—someone?—that may or may not be there at all. Lalli isn't sure, but Lalli knows better than to look approach it, to look straight at it; he keeps his eyes on Guts instead, gritting his teeth before directing a biting telepathic message right to him.]

What do you think you're doing? Idiot!

[Can he hear him? Maybe, maybe not, but Lalli follows this message with a sort of sharp mental... jab. A small, pointed thing, meant to sting Guts back to his senses.]

Come back!

[garmr]

[Guts' stubbornness works against him as Lalli's calls go unheeded. It's as if the messages have hit a solid stone wall. Any slightly less potent memory would have had him crashing back - but this, what was being drawn out of him now has him seized in a vice the moment he's lured in. A hand shakily reaches up to grip the brand carved into his neck, as if it were causing him intense pain. Beads of sweat start to form over his face as it contorts into a mix of agony and bone-chilling dread. His eyes were open and his teeth are clenched - but he wasn't there. He wasn't in Draega anymore.

If Lalli punctures any deeper into the web, he'll find the first flashes of that memory: scenes of an utterly surreal landscape. Endless, massive undulating mounds of dormant faces. Pools of blood. A sky filled with wailing screams of despair. A black sun glaring down to the puny inhabitants below like an ever present cosmic eye. The largest feature is a massive, risen fist, constructed of that strange, soft ground-flesh that constituted the mouths and eyes and noses beneath their feet.

[ilves]

[Lalli shouldn't delve deeper into this... whatever it is. He knows that he shouldn't, because it's a bit like stepping outside the safety of his own dream and plunging headfirst into those incredibly dangerous waters, but—mmph. Lalli is many things, but he isn't heartless; he knows that the longer Guts' mind stays wherever it's been taken, the more difficult it will be to pull it back. Could Guts do such a thing on his own? Will Guts realize what's ensnared him and fight against it? Probably not, Lalli thinks, and even if he did... well. He's fairly certain that Guts is just as good at this whole magic-business as Emil, which is to say: not very.

So it's up to him, then. Gods. He takes a second to breathe, to grab hold of that mental link he shares with Emil—an ever-present reminder of what's real and what's important—before he allows himself to follow Guts into what is presumably a... nightmare. Ah. This one is weird, and uncomfortable, and Lalli doesn't like it at all, but as a mage in his world, he's dealt with similar things? On a smaller scale, perhaps, but the way trolls and spirits try to slither into his mind is not unlike this; he's seen all manners of horrifying things, which is why he tries to ignore everything around him and focus on what's real in this particular space. Where is he... where's that dumb giant...]

Guts!

[He (mentally) shouts this as loud as he can, tinging it with magic so that the force can be felt.]

[garmr]

[The Promised Time has come!

A voice emerges from the colossal fist, where four unreachable figures float above. One of the shadows spreads its dark wings, and hundreds of light-threads emerge from them, spooling from the monument's palm like worms.

The threads slither through the hill-faces of the odd landscape to find their targets. None are intended for Lalli, and they rush past him towards where he'd find not Guts, but a horde of colossal demons crawling out of the crevices of the giant facial features around them. Fetid, swollen, twisted corruptions of the human body, with gnashing teeth, eyes and claws in all the places they shouldn't be.

Beneath them, a small company of cavalry is trapped in a whirlwind of chaos at the base of the tower. There is a thread for each one of them, burning a brand onto their bodies. The demon horde, given the invitation, begin to ravenously devour the men and their horses - regardless of the steel armor they wore. It is a Feast. A unilateral slaughter. Head first, blood and flesh spilling on the ground, the entire company is quickly reduced to lifeless meat in the jaws of the monstrosities around them despite their futile struggle.

- To the last drop of blood. To the moment of agonizing death -

A group of the demons break away and begin to crawl up towards the giant fist - presumably, to look for one that had somehow managed to make it to the top.]

[ilves]

[...Ah. It's not like Lalli doesn't know what the trolls in his world do to any and all humans they catch; it's not like Lalli has never heard tales of this type of, mmm, horror, but there's something distinctly different about actually... seeing humans...

It's a dream. A web. This isn't real for him; none of this is real for him, which he repeats to himself over and over again as he scans the area for any sign of Guts. Simply calling for him... isn't going to get him anywhere, it seems, and time is ticking. How long have they been here by this point in time? He doesn't know. He's not sure that he wants to know, because all that matters is... getting out. Soon.

But with Guts in tow. That is, without a doubt, the most important thing here, which is why Lalli brings a hand to rest against his chest, why Lalli closes his eyes and whispers something that only he is meant to hear. A prayer? A plea for help, directed to the deepest, most powerful part of himself. Väki, voima, ainoseni... Vankka, vakaa haltijani...

It's... different, here? In this place? With this new magic? And yet Lalli's Luonto still comes forth when summoned - a large, bright lynx, who takes one look at Lalli before loping off in search of its target. It doesn't matter where Guts is, and it doesn't matter how deep this web goes, because this lynx is... the purest form of Lalli's magic, really; it will find him, and it will force its way into whatever vision Guts is currently living through.

So... hi, Guts? Hello?? There is now a large, magical catte by your side, and it's giving you a very reproachful look. Snap out of it, punk!]

[garmr]

[Mouths. Mouths and teeth and claws and flesh. Screaming and roaring pits and throats. For longer than he can keep track, Guts was fighting the writhing mass of apostles on the palm of that massive fist. Soon, the claws would rip free the leather straps holding his knife, his tunic, they’d already broken apart his weapon. He’d managed to snap a horn off one of the beasts in the chaos to use as a makeshift spear. Even then, he felt his body battered to and fro on the undulating ocean of gnashing jaws. His weapon finds purchase, puncturing skin and hide and wrenching out cries of pain from the monsters, splattering his body in blood.

The Hundred-Man Battle, the Siege of Doldrey - none of it compared to the ravenous, chaotic nightmare at his heels. He was dead. He was inches from instant death the moment his limbs would start to fail him. But he had to keep fighting, even if it was with the metal stump of a broken sword.

He collapses on the ground, knocked away from the main mass by one of the demons, and struggles to get to his feet. But in doing so, he sees something glowing - a searing light through the aching darkness. A lynx?

He stares at it in a moment of confusion, too deep in the illusion to even spit out a question. ]

[ilves]

[This lynx is just as impatient as its human, which is why it lets out a quiet, annoyed sort of whuff as it continues eyeing this dumb man. Get... up! Get out. Can't you tell this isn't where you're supposed to be?

...Obviously not. Somewhere far, far away, Lalli sighs, but the lynx only lowers its head and takes a cautious step closer. The chaos going on all around them doesn't seem to even phase this thing; it's focused entirely on Guts, which, mmm, should be a sign? Maybe? Pay attention to what's real and important, stupid!!]

[garmr]

[Through the cloud of his own battle trance he does manage to focus, if only because the apostle horde is reacting strangely to the lynx as well. They weren't trying to rip it apart as they did all the others. In fact, the light seems to be keeping them a bay momentarily.

He gets back up on his feet, and it is only hesitantly that he lowers the broken horn. He could recognize that it wasn't an enemy, at least, even though a violent tension still knotted up the muscles of his arms. What do they do now?]

[ilves]

[Up at last! The lynx rumbles in apparent approval, continuing its slow, cautious approach. The sooner they leave, the better, but—hmm. There's a way to do these things? A way to, like, properly introduce one's self, which is why—if it's allowed—it will just barely brush against Guts' leg as it passes on by him. A cat's gonna cat, even if it's magical and wild and all that jazz. This is its way of saying... hello.

And its way of reminding Guts where, exactly, he is, because as real as everything around them seems? Something about the lynx seems much more... solid. Vivid. Other things just... pale in comparison...

So Guts can think about that, perhaps, as the lynx pauses, as it looks back at him in an expectant sort of way. Well? Are you going to stand there all day, you dumb human, or are you going to do the smart thing and follow?]

[garmr]

[Soft.. Its fur is soft.]

[Guts swallows hard as he considers what to do. In the chaos around him, this glowing lynx seemed like the most real thing in this entire nightmare. The ethereal wailing in the sky above him, the strange and pliant ground, the sticky wetness of viscera all hovered like a hazy dream. Through it all, the basic message seems to be able to puncture his consciousness. Follow.

So, not entirely understanding why, he moves one foot in front of the other to clumsily walk - and later run - towards him.]

[thricefold]

[ this is different.

distressingly so.

zita nearly loses sight of guts when they both become briefly separated from each other. it was almost too easy as well: something draws his attention while she focuses her attention on a family who stumbled upon a web. by the time she finishes warning them to be more careful and telling them what places to avoid, guts is out of view and it forces zita to break into a sprint to try and catch up with him.

by the time she manages to catch up with him, she's out of breath and almost can't call out his name in an attempt to stop him from going deeper into the web's trap.

almost. she forces the words out, just as she gets to his side and tries to reach out to him and tug on his arm to draw his attention back to the waking world, not the webbed one. something about this makes her skin crawl. her senses, her intuition, her everything is yelling at her and guts to leave. now. ]

Guts— Guts— [ she isn’t sure what to do, what to say. time and again she's found those already trapped in the web and knows how to handle that by now. but stopping someone before they enter? this is new and she hates how she's floundering. ] Do you hear me? Guts! Please—!

[garmr]

[It's too late. He's gone. Worse than that, it's like a torrent of emotion had broken all sense of composure the moment he touched the illusion. Burning rage, bone-chilling terror, and black hatred rush through his body. A hand reaches up to grasp at his missing eye, and his skin quickly becomes slick with sweat. Heavy breaths tumble out of his lungs, as if he were under some great exertion.

He stumbles forward and falls, arm trembling as he rises up to support himself. From there, he is frozen in place. Gone. Whatever memory was being pulled out of him was strong enough to rip him from the physical plane and drag him deep into his own mind.

I...Sacrifice.

Images that flash from the memory are roiling chaos: fields of gnashing teeth, crushing mandibles, ripping claws. It was a battle - no, a Feast. A unilateral slaughter. His neck burns and bleeds where it is marked. He is surrounded by mockeries of the human form, humans twisted into several monstrous things, and they eat voraciously. Head first, bones crunching, blood and viscera splattering onto their bodies. A dark festival in which the monsters were the men - and the humans were the lambs.

He loses his grip on the wall of faces. He loses count of how long he has spent fighting them as desperately as he can. Now, he is falling, falling, falling to the bloody pool below.]

[thricefold]

[ she doesn't hesitate to follow after him, using her jewel to protect herself upon entering the web and its memories.

some part of her wishes she had when she sees what's inside, feels what's inside. the fear. the shock. the helplessness of what's happening around her and the poor victims that were involved in this memory's creation.

one, as penelope would say if she were here (and zita glad she isn't, given penelope's own history): what in the ever loving shit fuck. what the fuck. holy fuck.

two, as nikolai would encourage her if he were here (and zita is even more glad he isn't, given nikolai's own history: hurry. ]

Fuck- [ zita uses a mixture of protection and conjuration magic to try and slow his descent into the bloody pool. she doesn't think it'll end well for him if he ends up there.

it's exhausting to try and slow his decent while conjuring a rope of light from nowhere but, by fuck, does she give it her all. she tries to slow his descent to a crawl, tries to throw the glimmering rope of light and safety to him. all in hopes of grabbing his attention, of getting him to snap out long enough to recognise her and the inconsistency of her being here. ]

Guts! Grab the rope! [ she raises her voice higher. pushing it to its absolute limit that her voice cracks at the end. ] It's me, Zita-! Grab the rope-!

[garmr]

[He grasps the end of the rope out of instinct alone, but begins to slip, as if the weight of all that soul-crushing despair was strapped to his body, straining the thread til he was pulled free.

Guts falls into the pool of blood, but doesn't sink to the bottom. He manages to thrash back to the surface soon after, coughing the liquid out of his mouth and desperately getting air into his lungs. He crawls to the shallow end, closer to the soft flesh-ground that made up the earth of this wretched place. Grasping a sword off one of the corpses, he shakily stands to his feet.

Zita does manage to snap him to some form of awareness, even drenched and surrounded by the limbs and viscera of the poor souls that had been eaten. The ones irreplaceable to him. Gone. All of them gone. Dead for no damn reason at all.

Two hands. He reaches up to touch his face. Two eyes. He shouldn't have either, he realizes. He looks for the source of that voice, blood-drenched and stripped of all his armor as he was in that moment, too shocked to even call back. A part of him knows that he’s in a web - that this is just a woven waking nightmare - but what are far stronger are the currents of sorrow and rage making his limbs and eyes shake.]

[thricefold]

[ he's responding.

he's responding and that's all that matters to zita as she tries to use her magic to anchor the rope to the edge of the hole, tying the rest of it around her waist to ready a climb down. there's a sort of franticness to her actions and her thoughts now, an urgent need to hurry up and hurry guts out of here before he was pulled further into these memories.

she knows the longer she stays here, the stronger the chances both she and guts will become ensnared. and while she has no idea what will happen if they stay too long in this web, she hazard a guess. with how the young girl is being treated so carefully by her mother and the guards back in the residence, how angry and shocked they learned the girl was broken through these webs.

so she secures the rope around her waist with a strong knot and begins the ignoble slide down to the pool, landing in it with no grace or finesse.

she feels her dress and cloak cling to her skinny frame and barely holds back the urge to purge her meal from this morning. she does her damnedest to ignore the smell and taste of cooper flooding her senses, to ignore her own memories. they're beginning to creep and haunt her from the back of her mind and that only motivates her to get out of here.

but not without guts. ]

Guts— [ zita stumbles to guts side, grabbing hold of his arm and shaking it hard as she can to keep his focus on her. ] None of this is real! They’re just your memories. They- [ can't hurt you is a lie and they both know it. she tries something else. ] We can leave this place. We can leave but we need to hurry.

[ she doesn't like using brute force to snap someone out of situations like these but desperate times call for desperate measures. ]

Do you hear me? Do you hear anything I'm saying? Please, answer me!

[garmr]

[He jolts at the touch, surprised to find another living thing here with him. He listens to her, barely cognizant of anything beyond the fact that he was still alive. He could still breathe and he could still swing a sword. He wasn’t done yet.]

Casca’s still alive. I can’t leave without her.

[It made sense in his head. Flooded with the totality of the horror of the Eclipse, emotions ran high and whatever magic training he was given was tossed into a pit. Casca - she was the only bright thing left in this wretched bloody festival. The last remaining flicker of that old campfire. And perhaps, Zita could perceive some of that light - in the unending darkness it would be strong enough.

The Hawks aren’t dead. They still had their leader, they had him and Rickert. He had gotten so caught up fighting the demon horde that he left her behind. He let her be consumed by this hell. The guilt entering that maelstrom was more recent, but it doesn’t drag him down any further.

It's time to climb out of that pit, Zita.]

[thricefold]

[ zita resists the urge to yell, knowing that this isn't guts' fault. the webs' hold on him is a strong one. and, frankly, she's not surprised by the sheer terror and horror that can be found at every corner of this memory.

she feels her jewel and magic buckle under the weight of staying aware in this atmosphere and knows they need to climb out of the pit. but the question is how to use the information she has now to make sure guts come out of this alive.

so- the first question to ask: who on earth is casca...? she isn't sure, but maybe casca is someone important to guts, enough that he'll look for them, and maybe, just maybe, zita can use that. ]

Guts- Guts-! Please listen to me: Casca is up there. [ zita points towards the direction of the pit's opening, trying to look confident as possible. ] It's why I was trying to get you to come up with me. Casca is waiting for us and we need to go.

[ zita does her best to avoid using pronouns, unsure of how casca would be preferred and knowing she'll shatter this lie if she uses the wrong one. she can only hope the lie is convincing enough as it is. because surely it's a better alternative than a pool of sticky, sickly sweet scented blood. ]

Tangled Web - for Maellan (cw for canon violence, gore & bodily injury)

[garmr]

[The floor is cold - or, is it? It certainly isn't warm, but the temperature doesn't entirely make sense. Something in the air is wrong. Up and down exist in every direction. The impossibly linked architecture around you shouldn't be there. But it is. Perched among all those rows of impossible stairs are five figures - godly in the same way a deep ocean abyss could be considered godly - watching you and another pathetic soul ensnared here.

You're nothing but a squirming sacrifice.

A vortex of hands and bodies emerges from the swirling void to begin to drag away the decapitated head of the other soul. The only part of their body to make it to this realm.

The threads of fate have been tied.

You are lying on the ground. You can't move. Your fingers are twisted in ways they shouldn't be. The pain from broken bones lance up your body, but more than that, an inferno of hatred consumes you. It is focused entirely towards one of the figures in particular - you would do anything to give them an unspeakably painful death. With blood spilling from your body, you keep trying to move. Your sword is right there! Right within grasp of your teeth.]

"Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Sacrifice."

[Visceral terror seizes your broken body.

The hands are coming for you now. Grasping your legs and lifting you up(?). The mark on the back of your neck bleeds and burns - yes, that's where you were branded - by them. And if you don't do something soon, you're going to be dragged into that infernal abyss, too.]

Sorry for the lateness!

[strikingtwice]

[Despite the warnings, Meallan hasn't much of an idea of what to look for with these 'webs' or what to do about them. Understanding them and subverting them sounds all well and good but doesn't really tell him much. He's still trying to figure it out when he feels something tug at him and--

--he's somewhere else, watching the nightmarish scene unfold before him and he wants to scream and run, terror gripping his heart in a hand of ice that squeezes and makes it hard to breath. This is so much worse than the nightmare realm of the Fade, worse than anything he could have imagined on his own, and for a few sickening moments he's trapped, frozen in place and staring.

His whole body lurches as he jolts himself out of it and shoves his hand out ahead of him, launching a desperate blast of lightning towards the grasping hands.]

Don't give up!

NEVER GIVE UP

[garmr]

[The vortex of souls all wail in despair as the lightning hits them, making some retreat but not quite losing their hold. Guts looks and sees Maellan, and the continuity of that memory breaks.

That's right. He made it out of that cursed pit, just like he made it out of all the others. It's agony - all of him hurts so badly - but Guts shakily reaches down to the leather pouch containing roundshot and black powder and flicks open the barrel of his iron prosthetic. A cannon was built in, and he was going to reload the thing while being dangled above the floor, no matter how much his damn fingers complained about it.

This isn't going to be the end for them. Not by a long shot.]