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~Strange Aeons~
Chapter 1 - In search of Sanity
You stand alone in the streets if a strange city. A wall of sickly yellow fog swirls about, tumbling through canyons of buildings made from crumbling, gray brick. A battered bridge arcs overhead, nearly blotting out a bruised twilight sky. From the silent swell of mist, approaching at a steady pace, echoes the sound of shuffling footsteps...
Catching a sound nearby, Fifteen rounds the corner of the building in front of her to see a man seemingly yelling at the mist in front of them.
"How does shouting help you?" Fifteen asks, tone as conversational as if she were asking someone to pass the salt. "Are you in danger?"
The moment she woke up, a kind of panic jolted through Regina's body. She couldn't explain it, any more than she could explain the way she knew how to breathe, but it very nearly crippled her. One of her fingers twitched slightly, then another - and light itself bent around her, veiling her from sight and making it easier for her to hide. That didn't stop her heart from pounding a million times a minute, though, or stopping her from jerkily looking around to see what was going on. More than anything else, she really just wanted to run, and it was taking most of her self-control to try and get any more information first.
...
She did take a moment to look down at her own invisible body, though, and a jolt of uncertainty ran through her. How... how exactly had she managed to do that? The movements had been instinctive, but something had definitely responded to her - a strange power that had emptied out of her and was even now surging back in to refill what was lost. There didn't seem to be any time for questions, though...
In a blur of motion, a young woman in fancy dress and with pure-white hair and skin , snatches onto Saturday's hand as she rushes along, dragging him with her. "I don't believe that's a question that I can answer! Well, at least I can provide my name. Jacqueline Artorias, at your service. I would be performing at extravagant bow, but I don't believe it's a good idea to stop long enough to let that fog catch up to us. Let's leave the introductions for later and RUN!"
Fifteen just stands there watching as the white haired woman appears out of nowhere and drags the man away. Curious... She turns back to examine the fog, peering at it intently certain, for some unknown reason, that there were answers in there, just out of sight.
Era stood, wondering, how she had come to arrive here. Her silver-blue eyes bounced from object to object as she tried to glean from whence she'd come. Had she walked here in her sleep? Had she slept? She didn't feel tired, certainly not tired at all.
As her eyes traced the lines of the architecture, she realized she couldn't remember when she'd last studied her spellbook, either. But there were spells she'd never forget to memorize. 'Prestidigitation, Detect Magic' she thought. She was certain she'd have memorized others, but didn't have the time to try to figure out which.
So, instead, she intones "Tu Esti," moving her two fingers to the middle of her forehead, touching the inner portions of her eyebrows, and dragging down. When her hand moves away her irises are glowing with a dull yellow light, as her eyes dart around, trying to make sense of where she was, and what exactly was going on.
Beatrix knew streets, she'd spent her whole life living on them -she thinks, memories are hazy, fractured- but these streets were strange. Wrong.
She could hear voices. They conjured warring instincts: Trust no one. No, trust them.
She curled in on herself, trying to hide from everything around her.
"Where are we?" Almost a whisper.
"Who are you!?!?" Much louder than a whisper.
Beatrix can feel a delicate hand pulling her up from her ball. "I don't know, and again, I don't know. What matters is that we need to stick together. C'mon!"
Quinn stumbles out of an angry daze striking at the nearest object with her hand, which unfortunately for her was a rather sturdy wall, her Gauntlet protects her from any real harm but the regret is still instant.
Coddling her injuried hand she tries a new approach and actually looks around before swinging. The place felt wrong almost corrupt, even the shadows seemed to be trying to hide she moved forward slowly ready to fight incase the worst happened as she did so.
Some twenty or thirty seconds after she'd drawn the veil of illusion over herself, Regina's heart hadn't even started to slow down, and cold sweat was trickling down her body as she listened to the other people talk. She wanted to show herself, to take comfort in the presence of a group... but she still didn't know what else was out there and making her so afraid. Instead, she slowly edged around, gesturing to reset the veil over her once her energy had returned. She could say hello if... when it was safe. Because it would be. Wouldn't it...?
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Jacqueline barely flinches as she keeps on sprinting. "Yes, indeed, that's why we should keep moving!" She blinks. "Oh dear. We're all women except for you. If I turn out to be a figment of your twisted fantasies and we end up in an anatomically improbable situation, I am blaming you."
"Your confusion seems to indicate that the situation I have just described has become less likely than us actually having complete memory loss, without any sort of knowledge lost, while running through a strange city with an abnormal atmosphere, pursued by something in a yellow fog. Oh well. To be honest, I was somewhat hoping for the previous scenario. My brief existence would have been entertaining, at the very least. Now my brief existence is currently filled with panic, which will most likely be followed by terrible, painful, bloody death."
"Hysteria often leads to creative and unconventional solutions. Apparently, I have a tendency to think out loud and think very quickly, therefore leading to rapid speech. Your ability to parse my babbling during a stressful situation indicates that you are at least somewhat familiar with me, or were."
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I would DEFINITELY remember being familiar with you... am I familiar with you? Thinking on it for a second and getting nothing he shakes his head. "Okay, get us somewhere safe safe and I promise and will leave a fine outline of your back in sweat on the nearest wall, since that's what you seemed to have on your mind, but until then think very quickly on we're we're going." he says to her.
"Oh. Me? I have no idea where we're going. I have no idea where we are, or who the poor soul we're dragging along with us is. Right now, I'm attempting to come up with a plausible solution to not getting eaten by fog, and that is taking up all of my mental capacity." Jacqueline turns and looks Saturday up and down with intense, almost frightening, scrutiny. "No. Sorry. No offense, not my type. At least I don't think you are. I was born-or at least this iteration of consciousness was born-approximately two minutes ago, and I can't rightly say what my romantic and sexual inclinations are, or even if I have any at all."
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Conversations seem distant in this place, as if muffled by the encroaching cloud, hungry for whatever piece you it can acquire.Whether you stop to talk, hide, or run, the dense fog surges forward, cold and menacing. The city offers many twisted alleyways patched with cobblestone paths, but only two seem lit enough to venture down without being swallowed by darkness, one wide and one narrow. The unfeeling jaundiced moon hangs low in the sky peering down through the ruins and lighting your options as the shuffling seems to gain pace, piercing the mute of the mist.
Shhhhh-nk
Shhhhh-nk
Shhhhh-nk
"I don't feel that it would be optimal to go down the narrow path. It can pick us all one by one, like how Taldane nobles gobble up all of the hors d'oeuvres by going down the line. Or something like that. The wide alleyway gives us room to fight at the very least."
Regina wasn't saying anything, given her focus on remaining hidden - but she didn't disagree with Jacqueline's sentiment, either. Every instinct she had was telling her that they were not alone, and she wasn't about to go charging into a fight she didn't understand. Not when her hands were shaking and she didn't understand anything about where they were. She could barely even remember who she was, aside from her name.
[For just a moment, memories flickered - violence, fear, pain. Then they were gone.]
Jacqueline furrows her brow. "If we do have to make a stand... A crackle of crimson and midnight energy appears next to Jacqueline's hand. "I may have a few tricks up my sleeve." With the sound of lightning striking cobble, a blade of fiery, crackling energy appears in Jacqueline's hand. She looks at it wonderingly, then whistles. "So that's what that psychic trigger does."
Beatrix reluctantly takes the woman's hand with hers, but once she is on her feet quickly snatches it away.
"I know how to run, thank you very much." She says angrily, but at a volume not much above a whisper. With the way this hellscape seemed to be dampening their very voices in it's endless malaise, she wasn't sure even the sharp-eared among them could hear it.
At the junction of two lit paths Beatrix has seemingly rediscovered a sense of determination, or at least self-preservation. She moves past the rest towards the large alley. "This one it is then! You don't use words to run! If whatever is making that noise catches up with us, you can debate it to death. I'll be busy trying not to die."
"I would stand here arguing with you about who gets to out-noble the other, but if we work together we may buy even more time. Are you ready?" Jacqueline asks.
Saturday and Jacqueline's inexplicable nobility elicits a brief, stunned series of blinks from Beatrix. "Brief" being the key word, however. Shaking the sensation off, she throws up her hands with indifference.
"Excellent, get yourselves killed. Since you're being such good friends, I'll be sure to use those extra few minutes to keep running."
Looking towards the others, she makes a motioning gesture: "Let's not waste their time!"
With that, Beatrix is down the wide path as fast as her feet will carry her.
While the three converse over which path to take - or not take, Era walks quietly by, eyes still glowing.
At the moment her hair is dyed periwinkle blue, and each of her nails is a different color, mostly bearing pale yellow hues.
She'd realized in short order that going at the speed of walking away was much preferred to waiting until it was close enough to her spell for her to glean what it was.
"If you would, throw a rock at the yellow tide when it nears, I'm curious as to how it reacts." she offers, before continuing onwards, eyes moving from point to point on the people at the crossroads, quickly. Eyes stopping on any obvious armaments, or features that stood out - like white hair, bear jaws, glowing tattoos, weaponry. But just as quickly, she continued, stopping at each door as she passed to check the lock, before moving on, towards the narrow path.
"Though the wide path offers room to stand side by side, that's more a boon for an impossibly large enemy than us. I don't know what awaits, but the road less traveled seems safer." she then finally stops concentrating on her spell and picks up her own pace.
Quinn, being much less organized than the others, was lagging behind the others but finally manages to catch up. Still favoring her hand as she spots them she stops. A small pull in the back of her mind warns her of the dangers a group can pose but with the fog closing in she didn't have many options. "Victims of circumstance I take it?"
How strange.. . there is no wind and yet this fog keeps moving. Without quite knowing why Fifteen turns slightly, expecting... something. Brushing aside a momentary pang of sensation she can't interpret Fifteen stares forward into the mist again. There are answers here, but how do I find them? What are the questions?
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Jacqueline gestures for the rest of the women to keep on moving while she settles into a defensive stance. "Move! Move! Mr... Man and I will hold it off!"
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"Nice to have known you for the brief, panic-fueled minutes of my life, Saturday," she says, a roguish grin on her face.
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A gleefull scream of anguish sounds above all other muted noises as the first trails of mist wash over your stationary group.
"Iä! Iä!"
A cloying oily scent burrows into your pores as the wisps flow past, leaving a suffocating rot aftertaste in your soul. Those waiting for the onslaught of the billowing mists hurdling toward them are overcome with hair raising dread as they begin to make out massive shapes illuminated by silent lightning strikes. Outlines of huge lumbering figures wielding inhuman church sized limbs which branch off at unfathomable angles, follow at the heels of a much smaller figure.The source of the footsteps is finally revealed to be a humanoid silhouette seemingly formed from the mists approaching your group slowly. The voice torturously cries out again, its hollow wail stabbing at your ears as the figure peers almost past each of you with alien intent.
"Iä! Iä!"
As you move down the wide path and seemingly begin to make progress, the sounds of your brief companion's conversation diminish into the fog behind you. The city before you lies in ruins, towering structures remain as skeletal frame works of what must've once been an inspiring and impossible sight. Though as you run onward, you notice almost every step seems to catch on cracks, or is snagged by dead vines stretching across your path. Obstacles that would normally never hinder you, now appear larger. A frantic glance toward the mindbending structures around you reveals that their bulk and height seem to almost grow in size as you watch. The alley you've chosen looks to be widening by the second, where once four man could walk abreast, now eight can fit. Even the cobblestones at your feet appear to be stretching larger and larger. A nearby iron lamp, similar to ones you've seen before now appear to be three times their previous height and ruined doorways dwarf you more and more with every moment.
A thunderous cry of tortured adulation breaks through the silence of the unatural night.
"Iä! Iä!"
Moving into the narrow path alone, odd doorways and bronze iron lamps that twist with an unsettling organic quality dot either side of the illuminated alley which begins to sharply slope downward. As you progress, cobblestone street becomes more and more patchwork with missing rocks creating an irritating pothole ridden alley. The alien lamps become less frequent as well, seemingly ripped out of the ground, leaving even more holes in the earth. You get the impression that something in Normas move through this area, scraping gouges in the sides of the building that remained in leaving from bold rock and twisted metal in its wake. Navigating the troublesome city artery you run onward, but your limbs suddenly seem clumsy and sluggish. An impression of rigidty assaults your joints, causing every movement to painfully ache. A deep nausea sets in as your stomach flips over and over again spurning you to gag and dampening your eyes with tears. An odd amount of tears in fact seem to wet your face, and laboriously wiping any measure of it away leaves trails of a dark coppery liquid on your sleeves and hands.
Above the sounds of your wretching, a deafening whisper desperately fills the windless night.
"Iä! Iä!"
Without hesitation, Regina began to move away from the other figures as best she could. If it was one figure, maybe she could have found a bit of courage inside her... but that? No. Fleeing was her only option, and for now, that meant trying to do so as carefully and quietly as she could. She could only hope her veil of illusion would hold...
"Move move move MOVE!!" Jacqueline yells as she charges what appears to be leading the unnatural congregation. "Run while Sad and I hold this bastard off!"
Jacqueline leaps upward, an expression of fierce concentration on her face, as the arcane flame in her hand grows brighter and brighter. She brings all of her might down upon the lead figure.
Fifteen just waits, the strange other people left some time ago and this is the first person she's seen since they left. Head cocked to one side with a quizzical expression she speaks...
"Who are you?"
As Jacqueline lands, she doesn't even look towards Fifteen. "Not important now. Important: you getting out of here before giant behemoths arrive and kill you. Holding them off right now. Go."