A Dream of Quiet (IC)

[Rhyvurg]

Pyrus watches all of this silently. Necromancy made his skin crawl.

[Leliel]

"...Okay, artificial eclipse. Very practical.

Wing, could you help me hold it out? Less ungainly."

[Recaiden]

Wing presumably hands a corner of the cloth to Leliel, who was offering to help with the task, and the shade is kept in place for several moments.

The last word is spoken, and Masque touches the surface of the water lightly. The reflections of the group visible in it vanish.

"Fifteen seconds. Come quickly." Masque sets a foot on the water and falls into it, vanishing from sight before appearing gracefully in the reflected image, where she steps aside and beckons at the gathered people 'below'.

[Scarlet Dragon]

After passively watching Masque work for a few moments, Dancer's body takes on several changes. His ears get a little bigger and sharper in appearance. His eyes seem to take on an unusual shape similar to that of a falcon's. Though the most striking of changes is that his body grows a foot or so larger, and his skin toughens taking on a thick scaly layer.

By the time Masque is done making the portal, all the changes have taken place.

Barely hesitating Dancer hops through the portal to join her on the other side.

Spoiler

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Dancer activates Hybrid Body Rearrangement to add Enhanced Senses (Sight & Hearing), still having Enhanced Sense (Smell) up from before.
He also adds the pox Large to himself, as well as the blight Armored Hide.
3 Poxes (1m each) and 1 Blight (2m) total for 5motes spent from his personal pool.

Figured I might as well go in prepared for anything and these enhancements last until dismissed.

[Leliel]

"Okay, here we go here we go!"

Raziel runs through, quickly followed by the agata. For protection, don't ya know.

[Tavar]

Wing dives through as well. He's never been to the underworld: it should be an interesting experience.

[Drascin]

Drake had been watching the necromancy with a fair amount of interest while massaging his cramped legs back into functioning, in the same way he'd look at slug patterns - icky, but the patterns are interesting.

So when Masque calls out, he's pretty much ready. "On it" he sighs, and walks into the rift closing his eyes on instinct - going through sanctum doors always was a bit dizzying if you didn't close your eyes, and he has no reason to think underworld portals would be any different.

[Recaiden]

The passage is dizzying. Experience compresses to a single grey point, and there's a long moment of falling before gravity inverts itself and the view of the Thousand asserts itself. Luckily everyone is agile enough to keep their footing instead of tripping and tumbling into a heap.

It is an interesting place, as expected. It doesn't look any different, not at first. Then one notices the colors have changed; they sky contains more red than it should, and the stones more grey, and everything is washed out. Our heroes stand as the only visible spot of any much color (not Masque, of course). And far to the northeast, where in reality one might make out no a clear day the slope of the Imperial Mountain, there is air, and a ...thing, glowing and indistinct, hanging far in the air, pieces of it branching out until distance hides them from you.

These are not the changes that would concern them. This place, regardless of how it looks, feels wrong. Only Drake was likely to have appreciated how the flows of Creation's essence moved around them at all times, comforting and protecting them and assuring them all of their place in the world, and then, Yu-Shan is not so different. Here, a faint force pushes and tugs at you, a cold, nonexistent wind sweeping constantly by. It is not hard to breathe, but it is hard to draw a breath that gives you energy. You do not belong here.

The agata is fine. Creation lacks Cecylene's essence nearly as much as this place it is no additonal trouble to exist in this place. It is not as though he is a metody.

((Pyrus: ))

Spoiler

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You're not a Shadowland Dragonblooded, are you? Now would be the time to mention in if that's your dark secret.

Once Pyrus makes his way through, Masque snaps her fingers and the portal vanishes in a burst of steam, leaving only a circle of disturbed soil where they entered. She, for her part is grinning and standing tall, not even trying to hide her obvious joy at returning here.

[Leliel]

"...Huh.

It's actually kinda pretty, in a melancholy way. I could do without the impending sense of doom, but still, you have to admire the Neverborn's artistic ability."

[Drascin]

"The air feels sticky as hell, though" Drake says, shaking the dizziness and starting to look around for any sign of "life" - they're here loking for shipyards and even ghostly artificers need a bunch of buildings for a functioning yard, after all.

[Rhyvurg]

"Well, this is everything I expected it to be. Maybe a little worse. Which way is the ship?

[Scarlet Dragon]

"It feel cold, not here" Shadow Dancer waves at the air "here" he taps his chest right above his heart.

[Recaiden]

"It's through the pass to the north." Moving quickly, you might manage to see before she even points, that there's now a path cut into the rock at the end of the canyon. "I couldn't bring us directly to it, but we're very close. Now, no sense in waiting, is there?"

[Scarlet Dragon]

Shadow Dancer follows behind Masque. He figured the sooner they got there, the sooner they could stop the Lion's plans.

[Rhyvurg]

"Wait, was that path there...?"

[Leliel]

"Yeah...

...What's up with that? Don't tell me this is going to be one of those weird mind screw semi-spiritual journeys through surreal horror?"

[Drascin]

"God, I hope not. I've already lived enough surreal to last me three lifetimes"

As they move, Drake is going to discreetly turn on his precognition charm and ready his Guardian essence pattern. They're in the Underworld, there's bound to be ghosts, or nephwracks, or hungry ghosts, or **** knows what else.

(Activating Prior Warning and the Shadow Throne form, since it's one of the few forms that isn't obvious or visible. Mostly because it allows me and all my shadow fingers to strike at immaterial freely, in case ghosts try anything weird)

[Recaiden]

"It was not. On the other side, in the Flamepeaks, this canyon is empty, abandoned. Here, in the Thousand, it is little used recently, but was the main conduit with Merciless. Now the tunnelling machine have reached out here."

Masque keeps moving along, setting a quick pace.

"I cannot say that it will not be a surreal journey through horror. This place is more mutable and more dangerous than the old lands."

[Leliel]

"Old? What do you mean?"

[Recaiden]

"Old? What do you mean?"

Masque's answer is short and to the point, if slightly annoyed. "What you call Creation. The Underworld, the new world, was not made until the war."

[Rhyvurg]

"I heard this story in the Cloister. The Underworld was made when the Primordials were killed."

[Recaiden]

"So it was." Masque smiles slightly on hearing Pyrus know of it, and tells a bit more. "The details are lost, but this is the account I know. When Cytherea created the mythical first world at the dawn of existence, He Who Holds in Thrall shaped it and grew it to be what it was. He was the first full casualty, and when he, in dying, drew near to the abyss, he shaped it with his question-magic the same way, in memory of the world he had left. When the others fell, they shared their memories, and he in sleep made them real, until it was a perfect inverse of the Creation."

[Leliel]

"Oh. I thought you meant that this part of the Underworld was new.

Given how it's built from memories, I wouldn't be surprised."

[Drascin]

"I cannot say that it will not be a surreal journey through horror. This place is more mutable and more dangerous than the old lands."

"Yay" Drake's voice is deadpan. "Just great. <I always hated horror movies. And the sarcastic jerk always dies first. Well, second, after the black dude>" he seems to be mostly just joking, though.

"So it was." Masque smiles slightly on hearing Pyrus know of it, and tells a bit more. "The details are lost, but this is the account I know. When Cytherea created the mythical first world at the dawn of existence, He Who Holds in Thrall shaped it and grew it to be what it was. He was the first full casualty, and when he, in dying, drew near to the abyss, he shaped it with his question-magic the same way, in memory of the world he had left. When the others fell, they shared their memories, and he in sleep made them real, until it was a perfect inverse of the Creation."

"Well, I've heard like other three different versions, myself. Being a traveling stoyteller gets you a lot of legends. But well, hard to say. It's not like there are a lot of records from that age. But yeah, the Underworld being affected by the memories and passions of those in it is pretty common knowledge. I imagine it gets more interesting in areas populated by ghosts instead of this deserted"

[Leliel]

"Yay" Drake's voice is deadpan. "Just great. <I always hated horror movies. And the sarcastic jerk always dies first. Well, second, after the black dude>" he seems to be mostly just joking, though.

"<I don't think you're a jerk...>"

[Recaiden]

"It is most different where there are people. I will have to show you...someday."

The walk to the end of the canyon is just a short hike. It is not unbearably hot, and the air is still. As they approach the pass, they see it is less a road and more an area worn down, year by year, through long passage. From the worn shoulder, they can see the destination. The valley stretches out a long way, a bed of white sands piled up on the slopes of the black mountain ridges. The construction yard dominates the area.
None of you, save possibly Drake in Yu-Shan, have seen a construction of such size as the jagged black monstrosity that fills the valley, stretching thousands of meters long and reaching a height that would ordinarily be dizzying on its own.
It is overhung by cranes and encased, in a few places, in scaffolding. In most places, it is covered in a grid of featureless black armor plates, but under the scaffolding the bone and metal structure is still visible. Around the machine, buildings lay in all directions, low long housing for the workers, expansive warehouses for components, small buildings that enclose the tunnel entrances drilling into the mountainside. The ground around the ship is covered in movement as people, just perceptible at this distance, work at its completion.

[Leliel]

"...Um...Wow.

I've seen bigger buildings, but never ones that were built."

[Rhyvurg]

Pyrus takes a moment to take it all in. "Okay, bigger than I expected. I think we should sneak in and get on board and see if it's flight capable. If it is, we take off before we clear it of hostiles so they can't get reinforcements so easily. If it can't fly, we find a way to destroy it and get the hell out of here."

[Drascin]

"Welp" Drake is rather deadpan, as he usually is when he's bothered. "We have to sneak into THAT. While being very distictively alive, mind, which might make us a tad conspicuous unless my guess about the bulk of the Lion's work force is wrong. And somehow I don't think the workers down there get lunch breaks".

"If anyone has any idea, now'd be a pretty good time"

[Tavar]

"How many of us are accomplished at sneaking, though? We might have to simply do a more open attack to get most of us in.

I mean, I might be able to get inside without setting off an alarm, but alot of that depends on what resources they have guarding the place."