[Nexus] The Black Dragon's Den XIV

[CosmicHobbit]

Bar Fight!

Oliver puts his hands in the air. "Yes! I did i-" he says, getting cut off by Violet's clothesline. He gets back up to his feet. "Come on! I thought we were a team!"

[KerfuffleMach2]

[Cherub Talk]

Alysha thinks for a minute, going over what she learned at the arena before choosing her questions.

Is this something we can expect to be happening more often? And what can be done to stop it?

Those seem like good questions to start with.

[Earl of Purple]

Cherub Talk

Alfred and Ben are nearby, but not yet asking questions. "We are talking about the thing in Inside with the four-faced baby-things, right?" Oh, there's a question. But that's really the only one. All he did was panic and run around like a headless chicken, but he's going to be headed to Pokemon Park soon to catch some more.

[Rebonack]

[Cherub Talk]

"To answer your question, Alysha, we-"

Then Zee pauses, leaning to the side a bit to avoid a flying barstool.

She frowns at this, levels a hand now roiling with Glory at Violet, and utters a single word.

"Υπνος"

A flare of living crystal like a halo will suddenly pulse around Violet's head. This may result in the part of her brain that controls the sleep cycle to suddenly get poked, causing her to slump into a deep catatonic slumber.

Zee coughs a bit. "Anyway! To answer your first question, Alysha, yes. Maybe not specifically another arena. It might be a fae incursion, like enchanted groves popping up. Or goblin slavers making raids. Or it might be a copper host empyrean cropping up and forming a cult around itself. I'm really hoping nothing my size or bigger shows up, because I've been really careful not to spread my Glory around and I don't think someone else would be so considerate."

That sounds pretty bad.

"Your second question... I don't know. My instincts are telling me that something is at the root of all of this. Usually both sides of the Eternal Game aren't quite so active in the Nexus. Something must have drawn there attention here. If we can find it and fix it, then hopefully they'll lose interest and look for a more strategic playing field," Zee explains. She sounds... hopeful. Not certain. Not resolute. But hopeful.

As for Alfred's question?

Zee nods.

"I think I remember seeing you. I recognize the bellsprout," Zee says, then offers a friendly smile. "I was the giant weird alien looking dragon that yelled at you."

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cherub Talk]

At some point Xeni tripped over a chair. Somehow, he smoothly transitions this trip into a collapse into the chair that slides it close enough to everyone else that he can totally pretend to have done that on purpose.
Totally.

More relevant to the discussion at hand, it looks like Alysha asked the question he was most interested in: how does one stop this from happening more?
To which Zee has supplied a very unsatisfying "somehow!" answer.
Not really her fault, perhaps, with how potentially massive of a problem this is...but still...
"So, I suppose the question becomes: what sorts of things would be drawing the attention of your kin here?"

[5a Violista]

[Cherub Talk]

The tall fairy-woman drinks more of Raril's wine.
Better be careful, or it might all run out!

She sighs. With all these people around here - some powerful, in fact - it's going to be really hard for her to consume someone's being, soul, face, or even their voice. Especially if she wants to target one of the people sitting right here.

So, instead of that, Cerridwen asks her own questions to Zee. "I understand that all these soulless monsters need to go," she says with a voice that actually isn't her own. "But how can you know you're not also a pawn used by someone else in this game?"

She asks one more question: "How can we know you'll continue to be 'really careful' around us? If something as big as you comes, would you even have the option to be 'careful'?"

[bc56]

Cherub Talk

Tethrik suddenly appears adjacent the table, waving the fancy silver sniper rifle animatedly. "Did you just say four faced baby monsters? I was just thinking about those!"

[Artemis97]

[Cherub Talk]

Fortunately for Cerridwen, Raril owns the bar and all the liquor in it, there's plenty more wine where that came from. Especially the Spiderblood wine, which was a favorite of his growing number of drow clientele.

"I heard about goblin raids happening not too long ago. And those Bhargests that I got into a fight with." The drow frowns. "What's this glory thing you're talking about?"

[Rebonack]

[Cherub Talk]

"Nice save," Zee whispers to Xeni. "And really, that's a good question. Usually hub realms like the Nexus aren't that high on the list. But they still hit us for That Day in spite of that fact. I'll admit I'm... not really an expert on the finer details of the Eternal Game. I've mostly just been winging it so far with good results. It helped that there were nearly three thousand of me to begin with. Putting myself back together again took a long time and a lot of effort."

She ponders a bit. "If I had to wager a guess? There's probably a McGuffin of some kind. It's always a McGuffin. I know the code for really rare or special Icons are hidden in hub realms sometimes, just to make them more enticing. Or... I guess the prevailing hypothesis is that it's to make them more enticing. We didn't make the Eternal Game or the rules for it. We just kind of... found it."

Which makes it all the more mysterious.

Then Zee frowns at the fae. "You shouldn't call Alysha a soulless monster," she says in a firm tone. "That's rude. And besides, there are some vampires that still have souls."

Even if souls are terrible faerie nonsense. Zee understands that they're important to lots of people, even if they're awful things to be stuck with.

"And I'm not a pawn. I'm a player. I'm on the leader-board and everything," Zee retorts. "And you can't know that I'll continue being careful. Nothing I can say will convince you. But ask around Town. Ask if Zee the barmaid from Trog's did everything in her power to help keep the Nexus a safer, better, more joyful place. Because I have a reputation. If you won't take me at my word, then at least let my actions speak for me."

She frowns at question number three. "If another bronze host shows up in the Nexus intent on causing trouble then any damage I would cause by cutting loose while unbound would be incidental compared to the damage an actively malicious Glory, Dominion, Hymn, or Season would wreak."

Raril's question is a lot less nettley.

"I learned a bunch of stuff while I was the Empyreum for the last... um... seven years of your time. I learned what I'm supposed to be. A Glory of the seraphim. It's my rank, sort of. It's also the name for my power manifest. Imagine my lifeshaping ability for a moment. Now imagine that it would be leveled against not only everything in proximity to me, but everything that can perceive me. We dodged the bullet on that one, actually," she says somewhat sheepishly. "I've been growing into my new rank. Stomping all over those cherubs was the last little push I needed for the final spurt of growth. Even seeing or hearing me while I'm unbound is hazardous, now. My power manifest is relatively benign, helpful even if you don't mind weird mutations. But imagine for a moment, say, a Season aligned strongly with time and entropy dropped into the Nexus. You catch a glimpse of it and you decay into a heap of dust and bones."

She lets that sink in for a moment.

[billtodamax]

Bar Fight

Violet laughs in Oliver's face, before reaching for another bar stool. They are the best weapons.

I'm the winner baby! That's how it... the halo springs into existence around her head and she staggers forward toward Oliver. How it gooo... She slumps forward, likely colliding with Oliver as she falls stone cold asleep.

She snores.

[Artemis97]

[Cherub Talk]

"A Season?" Raril echoes. "Something bigger and scarier than you?"

[KerfuffleMach2]

[Cherub Talk]

Alysha sticks her tongue out at the fairy. Definitely not soulless. Can't have a Keyblade if I don't have a soul.

And she does have one of those. Not visible at the moment. But several people saw it!

She turns back to Zee. You keep mentioning a game. What is it? And why is it being played?

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cherub Talk]

"MacGuffins and Icons, huh?"
Xeni ruminates on that a bit, while Zee explains her way through everyone else's questions.
All the general info they're asking about is interesting in a general sense, but he's been of mind to get to the core of problems lately. Skirting around the edges just leaves more people to die.
Usually people you care about.

"You may want to elaborate on that Icons thing. Or at least, how they are in any way recognizable. If we can find it ourselves, I would assume we can either destroy it or deposit it somewhere less dangerous for the general populace.
Like a black hole."

[bc56]

Cherub Talk

"If something is attracting those things, we could throw it even further than a black hole. I've got a ship with a dimensional drive, we could throw it into another universe. Maybe a dead one, so there'd be no one for them to kill." Tethrik suggests.

[Earl of Purple]

Cherub Talk

Alfred blinks when informed Zee's the giant dragon he saw, since she looks nothing like that now. "I headed to you because of panicked logic." He admits. He doesn't have any other questions, since all he really wants to do is avoid this sort of thing in the future. And fetch a few cool pokemon to help him if that proves impossible.

[CosmicHobbit]

Bar Fight

Oliver just pushes Violet off of him, then stares down at her on the floor. "Like I said, I did it." He looks around the bar, and sees a different fight going on. He just shrugs and goes back to his spot. "I'll have another whiskey please."

[Rebonack]

[Cherub Talk]

"Something the same size as me, but in a different order," Zee replies to Raril. "Probably scarier, though. They can manipulate things like time and space and motion and entropy the way I can manipulate life. It's really hard to fight something that can lock you in a closed time-loop."

Very, very hard.

Next question!

"Okay, yeah, the Eternal Game. That's probably important," Zee says with a nod. Zee came equipped for what's about to follow! She pulls a little container of bubble fluid out of her pocket, unscrews the top, and blows a soap bubble. It begins drifting lazily through the Den, iridescence dancing on its surface. "Okay, so, bubbles. We'll say the inside surface of the bubble is the Waking World, where we are right now. And the outside surface is the Dreamlands, where souls go when they dream. Those are the two faces of the world. The space inside the bubble is the Empyreum, where I've been the last seven years. A place of absolute reality. The space outside the bubble is the Dreamheart, the realm of primordial formless creative potential."

She holds out the little bubble wand and catches the drifting bubble.

"The Empyreum and the Dreamheart are too fundamentally different to ever interact, so where they meet there's a sort of... mingling. Kind of. Without actually touching each other. It's weird. But from this confluence arises something that's less real than the Empyreum but more real than the Dreamheart. A place where possibility grows and changes, but where reality holds it in shape. A physical world. A world with rules in place we didn't make. The Eternal Game. Now the next question is, why play it?"

Zee gives the bubble wand a deft flip, causing the bubble to shrink ever so slightly. "Whoops, looks like the Dreamheart just won that session. It gobbled up the Dreamlands, pulled the Waking World down into a new Dreamlands, and just bit a chunk out of the Empyreum to make a new Waking World." Then Zee flips it again, this time the bubble growing a smidgen. "Victory to the glorious Empyreum that time, the Waking World just got pulled into the heavens, the Dreamlands became the new Waking World and form was imposed upon the Dreamheart to birth a new Dreamlands into existence."

She glances around the table, making eye contact with each person in turn. "There are other reasons. Everyone has their own reasons for being here. But the big reason? This is a battle for survival. The Dreamheart doesn't want to get forced into permanent form, or at least it sure seems that way. I'm not certain if it can really want anything. And people in the Empyreum don't want our home getting yanked out from under us. It doesn't help that this is less a tug-of-war and more a race to the finish line. Once a certain threshold for otherworldly weirdness is met, this session of the Eternal Game ends and the next session begins."

Then she holds up a hand to belay any suggestions on how to stall the game.

"And those 'other reasons' are why just leaving the Game alone isn't an option. 'The only winning move is not to play' doesn't work here because the Game is full of incentives. The Dreamheart can live in reality vicariously through fae and faeries, adding new souls and experiences to itself. Empyreans can only grow and change by getting involved with the Game and the creative potential it embodies. And all it takes is one fae or empyrean messing with things and any semblance of a truce is broken. I know we've tried it in past sessions, but it never really works. Someone always spoils it and then the race is back on."

Zee offers Alysha a small smile. "Probably not want you wanted to hear, but it was a good question."

Then she nods at Xeni. "They're distilled ingots of the purest essence of the Empyreum or Dreamheart. They just kind of... pop up inside the Eternal Game. I'm not sure if anyone really knows why. We use them as currency back in the Empyreum. I think they get used like that down in the Dreamlands, too, among the fae. You can trade them for other stuff, or you can use them yourself for the power they hold. I don't think I would be able to describe them in any way that makes sense, but if you find one you'll know. Believe me."

They're some serious otherworldly mojo.

"Maybe someone found out there's a big trove of them in the Nexus somewhere, and now jerks are doing awful stuff to uncover them," Zee suggests with a shrug. "Usually sudden interest like this suggests a treasure hunt is going on." Then she nods a bit more. "They could be moved, yes. A black hole probably wouldn't be a great plan. It would be pretty easy for an ophanim of the Season host or higher to just pop in and grab it," she taps her index fingers together a bit, looking vaguely sheepish. "Umm... I could probably use them, of course. For stuff."

Yes.

Stuff.

Surely to be used for completely wholesome stuff and things.

"Or mortals can, too. They can be used for some pretty amazing magical doohicky crafting. That doesn't actually use them up, though, and paints a giant bullseye on the head of anyone wielding them. There might be a way to destroy them, though. Cast them into Mount Doom?" Zee gives her head a little shake at Tethrick's solution. "Heat death never actually happens," she says. "I mean, it's hypothetically possible. But it never actually happens. A universe without observers comes unwound and the Dreamheart gobbles it up. That would just be feeding a HUGE trove of power to the fae."

Zee catches Alfred's look and grins. "I lost a lot of weight since yesterday."

[KerfuffleMach2]

[Cherub Talk]

Alysha thinks on all of this. It was a lot to take in. She was used to multiple worlds. But this was...different.

Does each side come from one single world? Like, do the fae have one world, and the Empyreans another? Because I could probably lock their connections to other worlds. Might not he permanent, but it should last a while.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cherub Talk]

Ah. The Icons will keep reappearing.
That doesn't help.

And seems complacency will doom the world to one side anyway.
"Troubling information."
Gee whiz, Xeni comes in with the understatements.
"Zee can't take the artifacts either, even as a self-declaring neutral, since she's an Empyreal creature. It would probably still be a power balance tip."
Nothing against Zee, but she is technically part of the problem here.
Not that any other fantastic ideas are immediately presenting themselves.

So he thinks, quietly, for a bit, considering this information and Alysha's next question.
Brainstorming random ideas. Silly idea. Crazy ideas. Impossible ideas.
Anything.

He'll be quiet for a bit.

[5a Violista]

[Cherub Talk]

The fairy looks back at the tongue-sticking vampire. "I wasn't talking about you," she says, returning the gesture.

Anyway!

The fairy has a solution to Xeni's problem!

"There's an obvious solution to that, you know," she says. "Since the only way for reality to continue is if the game keeps on being played without either side dominating."

"Whenever objects are found, half of them go to this thing," she says, gesturing at Zee, "and the other half are given away to the fae. It's the only way to keep one side from dominating."

Obviously, the woman has no ulterior motives, and it's a reasonable solution that makes sense.

[bc56]

Cherub Talk

"We can use the ingots to create super potent magical weaponry, right? Couldn't we use that to fend off the attacks?" Tethrik suggests.

[Rebonack]

[Cherub Talk]

"Not really worlds," Zee replies after a few moments of though. "You're thinking like... universes? Settings? Kingdom Hearts stuff, right? Lock the heart of the world to keep the gooey black gribblies out?"

Wuh.

Another person who knows about Kingdom Hearts?

"The Dreamheart and the Empyreum aren't really worlds. They're more like... oh! Remember the bubble analogy? How much of a bubble would you have if you took the space inside it and outside it away?"

Then Xeni makes his declaration. "I am and it would," Zee confirms. "But that would put me on better footing to help, too. If the trove were rich enough it might boost me a big jump toward the next host advancement. The stronger I am, the more I can help. And if worse comes to worse, the more people I can invest in so they'll survive the world burning." She looks really uncomfortable with that idea, though. "That would be a last resort, though. I don't want to see my home burn."

The fae is given a rather sour look. "Like I said before, it's a race. Not a tug of war. One side getting half of the loot would still shove the world two steps closer to disaster instead of four."

Also? She doesn't trust fae.

At all.

Especially fae that may or may not be looking for an excuse to eat the souls of one of her friends.

Then another suggestion from the four armed demon!

"That would be possible, yeah. And it could really help. But anyone holding those weapons would be a prime target," Zee explains. "Did anyone hear the cherubs use the term 'creep' to refer to you after you tried fighting back? That's the term for anyone inside the Eternal Game that actively resists. And as awful as it sounds, the Game incentivizes those people being eliminated. So not only would you be a prime target, you would be carrying around a valuable Icon, too."

She gives a little hum. "If it is some giant trove of Icons, then finding a way to destroy them might be the safest bet. There might be something about them at the Philip Memorial Library. Barring that, I can log out and search around a bit up in the Empyreum to see if anyone has ever tried destroying an Icon before. I doubt it's a common thing to do, since it's basically like tossing money into a volcano for giggles."

[KerfuffleMach2]

[Cherub Arena]

Alysha seems slightly confused by Zee's question to her.

Wouldn't the bubble still be there? Just, like, in a vacuum? Or something? Cause you're taking away what's around the bubble, not the bubble itself? And I wouldn't be taking away anything. Just cutting off access. Like shoving them in a room and locking the door.

At the mention of creeps, Alysha nods a bit. Yeah, they called me that. I figured they were just being rude.

[Rebonack]

[Cherub Talk]

Zee kinda titles her head to one side, looking puzzled. "Vacuum? But I didn't say anything about the-"

Then she shakes her head.

"No, sorry, that was my mistake. Bad analogy. I need to remember that I don't think about this stuff the same way you do," she apologizes. "The short answer is that there would be no bubble anymore, or at least nothing that would be recognizable as a bubble. Even if you somehow could dissect existence like that, I don't think you would be doing anyone any favors. The Dreamheart is the source of all dreams in both a literal and figurative sense. The Empyreum is the source of the four Ideal Forms that give definition to everything that's real and concrete. If you sealed those away, what would be left? A world without imagination slowly unwinding with nothing to hold it together?"

Zee pauses for a moment, allowing Alysha to consider that.

"Even if the world didn't start coming apart, there would still be consequences. If you sealed the Nexus off from the two sides of this conflict, then everyone who's asleep? Their souls would be trapped in the Dreamlands. They wouldn't ever wake up. And the people who are awake wouldn't ever be able to dream again. Someone who's soulless like me? That's normal. I don't dream. But you keep a soul trapped inside of a meat-brain for too long and it starts crawling up the walls."

That sounds pretty bad.

"And sealing off just my side? Well, what happens when the universe doesn't know what the gravitational constant is supposed to be anymore? Really bad stuff."

[bc56]

Cherub Talk

Tethrik responds to the claim that ultrapotent magic weapons would just make someone a target. "They would if we made swords or something, but that's thinking too small. What we should do is make nuclear missiles."

[5a Violista]

[Cherub Talk]

This time, the fairy-woman talks again, to another speaker here.

"And how would you hit them with a nuke?" she asks Tethrik (with the voice that was originally not hers), because it's a very important question. "Just have this thing here carry it in to The Empyreum?"

I mean, not that that's a particularly bad idea...but she doubts Zee would go along with it.

"On that matter," she adds, "aren't nukes just used best as a deterrent rather than an actual weapon? As is, these things are only currently interested in warring with the fae. Would you risk adding all of us as a war-target as well?"

[KerfuffleMach2]

[Cherub Talk]

Alysha nods her head a bit at Zee's explanation. Yeah. That does sound really, really bad.

And then nukes!

Alysha gives Tethrik a horrified look. Nukes!? No! Way too dangerous. Nu-uh. That's not happening.

[Artemis97]

[Cherub Talk]

Raril, who's been listening and digesting for now, latches on to something Zee's said. "What do you mean, you're soulless?"

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cherub Talk]

So no world divorce.
That's worth knowing.

The nuclear weapon discussion is somewhat interesting, but there's going to be a bunch of logistical problems with sending an item from our reality into two places of fundamentally different realities. Would it work at all, let alone stay in one piece?
But it at least goes in the direction that Xeni suspects this is going to have to go: violence.
"If you have an example of an Icon, or something akin to whatever energy they have, I could look into trying to divine some locations."
Without looking too closely at them and replicating a Hastur situation, preferably.

And another thought.
"Are there moderators, or organizers for the 'game'?"

[Rebonack]

[Cherub Talk]

"I would rather not be a delivery device for weapons of mass destruction since I like remaining un-exploded," Zee points out. "And the process of apotheosis, translating something from the Eternal Game into something that can exist in the Empyreum, is kind of tricky on that front. The Empyreum isn't the sort of place you can just plane-shift to. It's different on a very fundamental level. Like... hmm. Kind of like a character from a book leaping out of the book and into the real world."

Sounds like no one is a big fan of the magical nukes scenario.

Then Raril asks a really valid question!

"Empyreans don't have souls. That's a Dreamheart thing," she replies. "I'm conscious. I'm self-aware. I have a will of my own. I have coded information that specifies my memory and personality. But those things are all consequences of my composition. What I don't have is a metaphysical, immaterial and yet with all the properties of energy, fantastical ghosty thing with will and consciousness and personality information all imprinted on it somehow piloting me around like a meat-mecha. Because that's impossible. And impossible is the realm of the faerie."

She gives a little shrug. "It isn't a big deal. It just means I get booted out of the game when I die. I can get back, but it's expensive for something as big as me. That's way better than getting all of my personal information wiped for reincarnation or absorbed by a god or tormented forever and ever in a lake of fire and brimstone or tossed into a pit full of spiders or left to wander a misty expanse of gloomy darkness until I forget who I am."

There are plenty of undesirable things that can happen to souls.

Arguably there are some nice things that can happen to souls, too, but Zee figures the risk eternal torment kinda outweighs the potential benefit.

"Hmm?" she hums at Xeni's question. "Oh, sure, hold on a sec."

And then she reaches into her pocket and pulls out nothing.

Nothing that could also potentially be anything.

A roiling mass that gives a vague impression of water and darkness, flickering images dancing across it of all possible things and more than a few impossible things. It could be the size of a softball. Or the size of an ocean. Physicality doesn't appear to be one of its strong suits. Looking at it for too long gives that warm, fuzzy, heavy feeling of being at the edge of a dream. It is without form and void.

"Tohu wa-bohu. An Icon of the Dreamheart," Zee says, balancing the object on one finger. "I picked it up earlier after vaporizing a bunch of barghests. Not sure what I'm going to use it for, yet."

There's a nod to that last question. "Soooort of? There's a... umm... something. That the Watchers discovered. Watchers being mortals who are in the know about the Game and are working to forestall the end of the world, which is something I can get behind. So! The thing. They call it Koth. Or it calls itself Koth. It's... definitely something. You probably noticed Mister Mop Guy invoke it if you were around him long, Xeni. Whatever Koth is, it's hidden from prying eyes. You can't find it on the outside of the Game looking in. But if you're in here and someone who knows what they're doing invokes it at you? Oof. You'll feel it for sure."