The Twofold Houses 5: Rebuilding

[Murkus]

[Not So Quiet Night]

"I'll ask him politely to take his gross butt elsewhere," Adir says promptly. He smooths some hair back from Laurana's head. "Your dad can be very convincing when he likes. Alright?" He pulls back from them. "Goodnight, babies. I'll see you in the morning."

[Spooky Encounters]

"Uh-unh," she shakes her head. "I just saw them go outside and the door shut itself."

[Reinholdt]

[The Mithar Keep]

"If you were crazy enough to pick one without researching, you would have other problems." Ilpholin waves it off. Cessie has enough other problems. "I have a map back home of Seaside marking the snake god's temples. And you can go to the Black Dragon Den and talk to Raril about Eilistraee. I can be there if you want. Since he might be cagey about his answers because you're not supposed to get involved with her."

But when has that ever stopped a Xar'cha?

Ilpholin makes sure to put the orb she almost forgot Bastion had given her down in a safe spot. It's a wonder she didn't break it by accident. "I should go, you have a lot to do. And Cessie? Try to get this taken care of before the baby arrives," Ilpholin says, with quiet resolve.

[Shadowcaller]

[Sweet Dreams]

"Who did? The spirit that, ah, joined you?" Cessie inquires as she looks away from the mysterious pool in favor of Sakura for a moment.
Things were changing around here so rapidly that asking for clarifications, even if she might not get one, always seemed like a good idea. "What was their name again?" She fully intended to explore the pool once they reached it but for now it couldn't hurt to ask a few questions.

[The Mithar Keep]

Cessie seem to carefully consider the options. None of Ilpholin's seemed too interesting at a casual glance. She barely knew anything about Ilpholin's family and had only briefly met Raril a couple of times. And this serpent entity was completely unknown to her. It felt like it would be better to bet on something she and Jezzy were more familiar with. Whatever that could be.

However, Ilpholin's last words brings her out of her revery. Was that a- no, she couldn't assume that. Nothing would become better if she did. She just acts ignorant and nods. "Mm. Do you know the gender yet?" She asks, but makes no motions of stopping the nymph from leaving. She too felt like it was high time for Ilpholin to make her farewells.

[Reinholdt]

[The Mithar Keep]

"It's a boy, actually," Ilpholin says thoughtfully, glancing down. "I suppose I should call him a prince."

Ilpholin shakes her head and starts heading for the exit, but pauses in the doorway, adding one last thing without turning around. "I really do hope it works out for you Cessie. Good luck." That said, she continues on her way, awkwardly walking out.

[Shadowcaller]

[The Mithar Keep]

Prince? Well, that certainly wasn't the weirdest thing she had heard someone call their child. She couldn't help but to wonder just how high up on the social ladder Ilpholin sat now. Though if she had any kind of resources like that she shouldn't run around on her own trying to slay demons. Nobles were to aid their society which certainly did include disposing of dangerous creatures, but they should do it with their society rather than running around alone.

"Good luck yourself, Ilpholin." Cessie calls back with a nod, though she couldn't feel as much as enthusiasm she normally would for a mother to be. "Farewell."

[Gullara]

[Sweet Dreams]

"Yes." The very same spirit. The dryad furrows her brow, but then just shrugs. "Her name is Sakura. She was a part of me." Is? It's hard to say if it's more or less clear now.

[Spooky Encounters]

"Yeah, and the door locked. We were stuck inside." The door must have unlocked at some point, but they didn't know that.

[Shadowcaller]

[Sweet Dreams]

Cessie imagined many people were called "Sakura" around here. "Is it safe to met her? I'd like to speak to this other part of you if that's okay." She proposes.

[Spooky Encounters]

It was the same door Cessie entered through so it must have been unlocked at some point. She nods in response as she glances at the door. "Okay, girls. I want you stay close to me, alright? Your dad should be here soon, Lucy. We just need to find your sliblings now." The sorceress then starts heading outside to look for clues of the older kids. Lucy and Jillian can help if they want to, there might be some clues to where the three musketeers have gone.

[Gullara]

[Sweet Dreams]

"I don't think you can. Not since she went in there." She looks at the pond again. "But I don't know for sure."

[Murkus]

[Spooky Encounters]

Lucy will do like her Auntie says! And even if there are more material clues on the ground, her eyes go straight to the portal. Is it still open? If not, she can tell... "Something's wrong here..."

[Gullara]

[Spooky Encounters]

Jillian grabs Lucy's hand as they go. "What's wrong?" She asks, looking toward the portal as well. "Hey, there's something on the ground over there!" Jillian points closer to the portal. If Cessie looks closer, she'll find the staff from Bastion's costume near the portal.

[Shadowcaller]

[Spooky Encounters]

Cessie is quick to find the staff as soon as Jillian points it out and immediately feels her heart sink. Bastion couldn't just have thrown away this could he? Had they gone through the portal? But then surely Sakura would have called home by now, right?
The sorceress quickly turns to Lucy, fully knowing that she had in part created the portal. "What do you mean, Lucy? What's wrong?" She asks while kneeling before the little girl.

The portal is currently under an enchantment that takes anyone entering it to VIGIL instead of Mithar Keep. This enchantment will expire in a few hours.

[Sweet Dreams]

Cessie kneels down in front of the pond. She knew the danger of trying to free aspects of the mind that were closed off like this so she wasn't going to attempt to free it. However...
"No chance at all that I can speak to her at least?" She carefully touches the surface of the water of the pond. What could it mean? Sakura didn't have any connection to water or ponds. Hidden underneath the surface perhaps. Something mentally supressed...

[Gullara]

[Sweet Dreams]

Now that she's looking directly into the water, she can clearly see the reflected night sky. However, it's not the night sky of the Nexus. The stars are different. It might take Cessie a moment to realize, but these stars are familiar. They're not positioned quite how she remembers them, but these are the stars from her home world. There's a constellation that stands out brighter than the rest of the stars, and it certainly never stood out so clearly back home.

Cessie's fingers dip into the water without any notable event. It just feels like cool water. "I'm not sure. I don't think so." Sakura crouches next to her. "I can't go in and find out." Sakura touches the water as well, but unlike Cessie her hand is stopped as though the water's surface was solid.

[Not So Quiet Night]

"I'll ask him politely to take his gross butt elsewhere," Adir says promptly. He smooths some hair back from Laurana's head. "Your dad can be very convincing when he likes. Alright?" He pulls back from them. "Goodnight, babies. I'll see you in the morning."

[Not So Quiet Night]

Laurana nods, but she has one more request. "Can you leave the light on?"

"It'll be hard to sleep that way... But how about we leave the hallway light on and crack the door? Then it won't be so dark." Sakura suggests.

Laurana nods and Sakura kisses the top of her head. "Goodnight, sweetie." She whispers and makes to leave. She'll leave the door cracked as promised. The dryad leads the way back to the bedroom where they'll certainly promptly fall back asleep. Waking up in the night is exhausting, even if they are veterans at it.

Soon the house is quite once more.

[Murkus]

Spooky Encounters

Lucy squeezes Jillian's hand as a matter of instinct, but she doesn't reply to either of them right away.

"...It doesn't go to the right place. I'm not sure where it goes."

[Gullara]

[Spooky Encounters]

"But what if they went through? Mommy you gotta get them!" Jillian says. This is getting scary now. Of course, this might be when Cessie receives Wenomir's message.

[Shadowcaller]

[Spooky Encounters]

Cessie shudders but knew she couldn't leave her mind to consider the possibilities. She had to act.
Either she had to go through the portal right now to get the kids, or she had to wait for Adir to arrive first so she wouldn't leave Jillian and Lucy alone here with more potential enemies.

Thankfully, she won't have to take that decision today as the phone inside the house suddenly starts calling. "...that must be Sakura or Adir. Maybe they've have some information." She certainly hoped so but it seemed unlikely at this point. "Follow me, children. We'll investigate the portal afterwards."

The sorceress of course didn't have her communicator within her vog form, but she had agreed with Sakura that she would use the landline to communicate with her in case she needed anything.
After answering the phone, Cessie looks considerably relived which likely the two picks up on. "Looks like they're in VIGIL. Wenomir just messaged Sakura with the news. That's where the portal must be ending up." She kneels down before the girls to give them both a hug. That experience leaving her slightly shaky.

[Sweet Dreams]

Cessie glances at Sakura, or at least this Sakura, as her hand touched the water. That was somewhat comforting at least. The barrier would still be there even if she passed through it as it only seemed to stop the representations within Sakura's mind. She didn't like the idea of diving into the lake though. She knew it was just a dream but even the sensation of starting to run out of breath scared her a bit and she had never been the best swimmer. Hestopia's closest source of water was the river Gnorn that ran through the city, but that wasn't exactly the ideal place to swim so she had only had a few chances to practice.
"She's at the bottom of the lake?" Cessie inquires as she considers her means to reach it. Most of her eldritch was actually nullified by water. While she could probably easily evaproate the lake itself after a while, that seemed rather crude and thoughtless.
She looks into the water, trying to determine just how deep the lake was. Perhaps all was nessecary was a quick dive?

[Gullara]

[Sweet Dreams]

"I don't really know." Sakura says. She pulls back her hand and sits on her legs.

The pond is somewhat odd to try to look at. She can see her fingers when they're in the water fine, but it's impossible to see anything past the plant life in the very edge of the pond. It's just that mirror reflection with the strange sky. It's floor and its depth are a mystery.

[Murkus]

[Spooky Encounters]

Lucy hugs auntie Cessie's proxy hard. "You're warm," she says, and giggles slightly. Still nervous. "Should we go through together?"

[Shadowcaller]

[Sweet Dreams]

That wasn't very satisfactory. But perhaps she could cheat a bit.
She will conjure a elemental hand, much like her own, with appears in front of her own hand as lava-colored light is ejected from her hand with a sudden spark. This hand will simply attempt to reach into the water to see if it, like her, could reach down there. It was simply an extension of herself so she didn't know why it wouldn't.
If this works, she will unmake the hand which disappears in a glitter of sparks as it no doubt react to the water around it. Then she sit down in a meditiative position. "I'm going to attempt to communicate with them. I will be gone for however long this takes." The sorceress will then close her eyes and conjure a hardened magma avatar of herself that will be sitting in the same position right behind her as the eldritch energies are drawn from her mark on her back. Shifting through her clothes without leaving even a single mark as they gather into a solid clone of Cessie.

This avatar will nod to respectfully to Sakura and then start to descend into the water. It's far heavier than the sorceress herself though so swimming wouldn't be an option but it could easily walk along the bottom. The water would no doubt hiss and bubble a bit, and it's presence would make this avatar more temporary than the sorceress would like, but hopefully it would last long enough for her to communicate with this other Sakura.

[Gullara]

[Sweet Dreams]

Sakura simply nods and watches for the time being.

Cessie's little test seems to yield the results she was expecting, so she can continue with her plan. When her elemental form evers the water there's a brief reaction like she expected, but then she's overwhelmed with a disorienting feeling. Rather than sinking through water it feels like she's floating up into the starry sky. Then before she has any time to make sense of this her elemental form ceases to be. Not like it was stifled by water, but as though it simply could no longer exist in that environment.

[Spooky Encounters]

Jillian hugs her mom tight. "Yeah, let's go get them!" Of course, they don't really have a way to get back to the keep conveniently. Cessie must get there somehow, though.

[Shadowcaller]

[Sweet Dreams]

Interesting. Perhaps it was not actually a lake at all?
The water still felt wet but this was a dream so at least her actual clothes wouldn't be soaked.
She gets up from her position and slowly starts to enter the water. She doesn't intend to go down far if the same thing didn't happen once she went under but it was worth a try.

[Spooky Encounters]

Cessie hugs the two girls back again. So immensly relived that she had to stay like that for a moment and calm down before they moved on. "Yes, let's see how they're doing. And you girls get to see VIGIL for the first time, don't you?" She inquires before slowly getting up and heading to the portal.

((My next post will be in VIGIL, but the two can always answer Cessie's question.))

[Gullara]

[Sweet Dreams]

As soon as Cessie slips into the water, the same disorientation will come over her again. She's not under water, the whole world got flipped around her, and gravity is all wrong. Much like her elemental representation, she's drawn upward above the water's surface and toward the starry sky. Below her she can see the pool, and through it the mirrored plane she just came from, get further away. It's hard to look at the trees and surrounding landscape on this side. Her eyes don't want to focus on them. Before long she won't be able to see them at all anymore as the starscape consumes her vision.

[Spooky Encounters]

Jillian gasps, just realizing the implications now that the stress is gone. "I wanna see where you work!" She follows along eagerly.

[Murkus]

[Spooky Encounters]

"I haven't seen it before, but daddy's told me some," Lucy says wonderingly. She'll follow along with her friend and auntie.

[Shadowcaller]

[Sweet Dreams]

Her first instict is panic, but her training combined with her experience quickly takes control and she closes her eyes for a moment and finds her inner focus before looking out at the scenery again. Asking herself the question what looked significant here. The constelations were quickly important but she couldn't quite figure out why. A memory from her time at the university connects to her however, weren't some types of spirits connected to constelations? She didn't recall why or how but perhaps this was the symbol of the spirit which had helped Sakura out? No clear answers could be had until she had a chance to talk to it though so what else was important?

She looks around for anything other than the same starry sky that she had seen before descending into the waters.

[Gullara]

[Sweet Dreams]

As most of the rest of the world fades away, the image of the other side of the pond the only thing standing out from the starscape, she can see even more stars than before. Some constellations the she's more familiar with come into view, and others she's never seen before are visible from the other direction.

There's not much else to take in, but before long she can feel a presence. It's perhaps an uneasy feeling, like there's something absolutely huge over her, looming. Like she's under a mountain and she just knows there's all that mass just overhead.

[Shadowcaller]

[Sweet Dreams]

"Hello? Sakura?" She calls out into the empriness. Not sure what else to do.
The spirit here was a part of her, though she couldn't quite figure out what part. "Please give me a sign. I just want to understand." Indeed, she wasn't even sure how to get out of here...

[Gullara]

[Not So Quiet Night]

When Adir wakes in the morning he'll find that he's overslept. Really overslept. The day is already bright, Sakura isn't in bed, and he can hear the typical activity of the house through the walls and floor.

[Sweet Dreams]

There's no verbal reply to her question, but neither is she ignored. There's the feeling of being watched itching at the back of her neck. She can start to pick up vague feeling of curiosity, then warmth. Through this Cessie will notice a pressure in the back of her head, like the beginning of a headache.

[Murkus]

[Not So Good Morning]

"Oh, gods..." Adir rubs his nose, his eyes, sitting up a little bit. That was weird... usually Sakura would have gotten him up if the kids or his alarm didn't first. He figures she could probably take care of the little ones all by herself, but that's an awful lot of trouble to put on her. Still, he thinks warmly, it was nice of his wife to let him rest. Had he really needed more sleep that bad...?

The stag folds his hands behind his head and stretches his legs under the sheets. His mind begins to correlate its contents... and in a sudden sharp stroke he remembers.

Now he's bolt upright, digging around in their bedside, pulling out a notepad and pen. Now he's scribbling something down as fast as the details will come to him. The dream. Everything from the dream...

Were that Adir were a more mundane man living in a more mundane world, he might err more towards the side of forgetting this peculiar dream. Thankfully he is not, and even where he comes from, one ignores dreams, visions and portents only at their own peril. Still, details would need to be verified... and he'd have to try to explain what he had seen to Sakura.

[Gullara]

[Not So Good Morning]

Adir remains undisturbed for the time being. He can hear the rumbling of an engine as the school bus rolls into the yard, followed by the chorus of voices saying bye as the eldest five pile out of the house to go to school. In time the bus will pull away and things are quieter than usual.

[Shadowcaller]

[Sweet Dreams]

She turns around and touches the spot where the feeling seems to be coming from as if expecting to find anything. As more nothingness surely greets her she closes her eyes and tries to focus on that feeling instead. Spirits could often communicate mentally, it was even said that they could communicate better with people that were asleep than awake so closing her eyes might help somewhat.

[Murkus]

[Not So Good Morning]

Adir finishes checking all the details and decides it's time to head downstairs. He's a little sorry he missed saying bye to the kiddies, but he feels a little better now they're gone. Less chance of them asking a lot of uncomfortable questions while he figures out how to deal with this.

The stag emerges from the master bedroom and heads downstairs, still pulling on a shirt. "Sakura?"