Serious Plots 7: Why so srs?

[Reinholdt]

[Underground Laboratory]

The shutter starts to open, not quietly, but not excessively loud either. The Ultimate Chimera gets to its feet. One of its heads looks a little sleepy still and another is quirked quizzically. It was unusual for the shutter to open without the sound of the ringing bell to accompany it. The last head was excited though, as was most of the rest of it, the creature salivating from numerous mouths, its tails wagging and swishing in an animated fashion. An angelic wing flaps with anxious eagerness as its body wiggles with fresh energy.

Oh boy! Food time!

[Morty]

[Underground Laboratory]

After opening the shutter, Sophie stands ready with her gun drawn, but otherwise lets Ruth and Baccata handle things. Ruth is clearly more combat-capable than she is by a large measure.

[Earl of Purple]

Underground Laboratory

Baccata would argue against being called a 'mortal'; technically, she will live and die like one, but she's more than that. And for a psychopomp, does dying even hold meaning, when she can cross that border at will? But this isn't the time, so she walks into the room and covers her body with thick bark, growing gnarled claws and twiggy fingers from her hands whilst lesser branches and spurs of wood sprout from the back of her head.

She'll keep back a little, circling to one side to seperate from Ruth and Sophie.

[Purple Eagle]

[Underground Laboratory]

As the shutter opens, Ruth's skin turns fully silvery and she starts to take slow dramatic steps forward. "I am Eliora, Celestial Nephilim, an overseer of the cosmos, and I will free you from this horrid body, poor little one." She declares, her voice echoing in multiple languages, both human and all the animals that make up the chimera. "You'll only feel a slight pinch if you just let it happen."

Regardless of what happens next, she'll blast forth a torrent of white-hot fire into the shuttered room and at the Chimera, aiming to trap it in a fire box and incinerate its body until nothing is left save spirit(s) that need calming and then guiding, possibly.

Ooh, this is an opportunity to say a one-liner she learnt in the living world some time ago! "When you are ashes, then you have my permission to die."

Did she say that right? She hopes it sounds 'cool' to the others, at least.

[Reinholdt]

[Underground Laboratory]

The Ultimate Chimera is neither poor nor little and it certainly doesn't want to be free! At least, from this body. It would appreciate a large field to romp around in maybe. The various mouths bay, yip, chirp, and meow. It would not just simply 'let it happen'.

The tune changes from one of guarded protest to one of agony however. And while the fire is certainly damaging to parts of the Ultimate Chimera, other parts don't care at all; immune, resilient, or entwined enough with the former. The creature leaps forward out of the white hot box, landing with enough force to cause the room to shudder violently, sparks flying from a monitor falling loose and hanging by its wires. Patches of the Ultimate Chimera are still on fire and it gives the creature an even more hellish appearance than before. One of the heads is flopping about like a possessed demon moving a dead body. The Ultimate Chimera howls in rage, purely in flight or fight mode now, and there's nowhere to run.

The gigantic fiery abomination twists, its two functional heads looking to come down upon Ruth and chomp her into smaller pieces while a poisonous stinger tail attempts to jab Baccata.

[Earl of Purple]

Underground Laboratory

Well, Ruth's attack was pretty impressive, but doesn't seem to have helped much. Just set the gigantic tortured beast on fire a little. That's... Even scarier, for the wood-woman. She backs away a little, but doesn't see the stinger coming and it hits her belly, puncturing her jumpsuit and the bark underneath.

The neurotoxins don't do much; her nerves are made of plant tissue, and her receptors are the wrong shape to be targeted. Baccata gasps and grabs the stinger, and begins to hum a lullaby. There's magic in the song, slight death magic, to deaden nerves and put those that hear it to sleep and drift off painlessly. It might not work against the Ultimate Chimera, and it's also indiscriminate, affecting everyone that can hear her.

[Purple Eagle]

[Underground Laboratory]

Ruth smile slowly drops as the Chimera chooses to attack her, and after refusing to leave the body, too! Unaffected by Baccata's song, Ruth sighs as the petulant creature charges at her, stretching her hand and waiting till it's almost upon her to swing with both hands, holding an ornate sword of golden light wreathed in cosmic power. "I'm trying to scale reasonably back for my friends here, but if you fight, I shall have to be more brutal." She says, aiming to sever at least one of the two other heads. Depending on how close it is, she'll try and sense the location of its hearts by looking.

"It doesn't need to hurt this much. Imagine your spirits being loose, allowed to romp and play in the field. I shall even create a small slice of paradise for you to play in while Baccata guides you to your afterlives." She suggests, trying to encourage the Chimera to choose death and a spiritual/ghostly/ethereal existence rather than a horrific, living one.

[Morty]

[Underground Laboratory]

Sophie steps out of the booth, pointing her gun at the chimera but not shooting just yet. Ruth is trying something and Sophie is just ready to shoot if it fails. The mark on her forehead glows brightly as she pours her power into resisting Baccata's song.

[Reinholdt]

[Underground Laboratory]

The Ultimate Chimera felt a lot less tortured when people weren't lighting it on fire and singing murder songs to it. It wants to live! Living is life. The unnatural creature follows the natural laws and each of its pieces, fully united for the first time, beg for only one thing: survival.

How effective it is at that is slightly more questionable as parts of it just fall numb and die. Particularly the parts connected to the ability to hear Baccata's pitch. One of the heads also has its jaw lopped in half, the lower part disconnecting and stretching gruesomely away from the upper half. That head rears back briefly before falling limp. The entire creature in fact limps backwards, away from all three of them. The last head stretches upwards, neck extending improbably, impossibly. From on high it opens its mouth and spews heated plasma at the attackers, twisting in the air to target each of them in turn like an aerial bomber. Meanwhile sharp spines on its body emerge and shoots outwards, a hail of sharpened needles trying to keep them away.

Ruth can see the location of the three functioning hearts still remaining out of the fifteen.

[Earl of Purple]

Underground Laboratory

Plasma? Plasma's really hot, and that's not good. Baccata turns and runs, though she's still burnt quite badly just by the proximity of it. This does stop her singing, though, long before she got into the swing of it. The hail of needles also drive her back, thunking solidly into her bark-covered body. She's badly hurt and on fire, so she sees only one hope. She disappears, leaving a burning yew sapling in her place, as she dives out of Life and into the river Acheron.

[Purple Eagle]

[Underground Laboratory]

The Ultimate Chimera felt a lot less tortured when people weren't lighting it on fire and singing murder songs to it. It wants to live! Living is life. The unnatural creature follows the natural laws and each of its pieces, fully united for the first time, beg for only one thing: survival.

How effective it is at that is slightly more questionable as parts of it just fall numb and die. Particularly the parts connected to the ability to hear Baccata's pitch. One of the heads also has its jaw lopped in half, the lower part disconnecting and stretching gruesomely away from the upper half. That head rears back briefly before falling limp. The entire creature in fact limps backwards, away from all three of them. The last head stretches upwards, neck extending improbably, impossibly. From on high it opens its mouth and spews heated plasma at the attackers, twisting in the air to target each of them in turn like an aerial bomber. Meanwhile sharp spines on its body emerge and shoots outwards, a hail of sharpened needles trying to keep them away.

Ruth can see the location of the three functioning hearts still remaining out of the fifteen.

Underground Laboratory

Plasma? Plasma's really hot, and that's not good. Baccata turns and runs, though she's still burnt quite badly just by the proximity of it. This does stop her singing, though, long before she got into the swing of it. The hail of needles also drive her back, thunking solidly into her bark-covered body. She's badly hurt and on fire, so she sees only one hope. She disappears, leaving a burning yew sapling in her place, as she dives out of Life and into the river Acheron.

[Underground Laboratory]

"Baccata!" Ruth calls out, ignoring the harmless shower of plasma, spines unable to pierce her body, probably even breaking off. She'll fly towards the Chimera, reaching out to phase her hands through its skin and hearts, then solidifying so the parts of its body that her hands occupy turn into ludicrous gibs. "DIE!"

[Morty]

[Underground Laboratory]

Sophie feels her blood run cold and panic grips her thought. Did she bring Baccata here to her death? No, no, she can't think about this right now. She has to make sure the chimera doesn't kill her and Ruth too. She keeps moving, trying to flank the chimera and firing bullets at it. Just to give it something else to focus on than Ruth.

[Reinholdt]

[Underground Laboratory]

A mournful cry rises up, less chaotic than before, fewer voices in chorus. It... It doesn't want to die. Why?

Nothing can stop it now, of course. In the last moment of defiance as it dies, the Ultimate Chimera collapses forward, using its heavy girth to try and smoosh Ruth. The overextended floppy neck and head flail out of the air, falling on Sophie if she can't or fails to maneuver out of the way, the misshapen mouth drooling leftover plasma.

[Earl of Purple]

Underground Laboratory

The yew sapling has stopped burning, now the plasma has passed over it. In fact, it's putting out new leaves to replace the ones that burnt. It doesn't look very healthy, but... Considering it was just blasted with plasma, which may have melted and burnt the concrete around it, the fact there's a tree there at all is miraculous.

Baccata's still not here, however.

[Purple Eagle]

[Underground Laboratory]

"Will you not learn? You're several hundred years too early to scratch me." Ruth says, harmlessly phasing through the body and walking away from it.

"Spirits of the Chimera, you're free from your tortured existence! Come out and frolick to your hearts content, and I swear no harm will come to you anymore... unless you're malicious, that is." She addresses any spirits left to be seen. "Come here, and we will lead you to your afterlives." She waves her hand and creates a small grassy area around the Chimera's body.

As for Baccata, Ruth rushes to her yew after addressing the Chimera, and surrounds it with her hands. "Sophie, can you help me heal her?" She asks, shining some of that same light that made the yew able to open the door a bit, on what's left of Baccata's physical form, willing the plant to heal itself and repair its damages. "You will not die today, Baccata. Not on my watch."

[Morty]

[Underground Laboratory]

"I... can't," Sophie says, in a clipped, trembling voice. "My powers don't seem to extend this way."

[Earl of Purple]

Underground Laboratory

The yew responds well to the healing, but... It's not Baccata's body. It's the remains of a portal, created by Baccata diving head-first from the living world into the river Acheron. She took her 'physical form' with her; not much point diving into a river known for its healing properties if you leave your injuries behind. It put her out of the fight, but Baccata's a psychopomp- death is as much her domain as life is. She'll return when she's fully healed, emerging either from this yew, or her Yew, back in GLoG.

[Reinholdt]

[Underground Laboratory]

The spirits of the Ultimate Chimera don't want anything to do with Ruth! It's understandable given how she set them on fire and murdered them for reasons they will never be able to comprehend. They flee in the other direction, off to the afterlife following their own path in death.

Regardless, nothing will bother the group further here.

[Recaiden]

It probably has a name, this ship, but no one has asked it yet.

The ship heads up and up, keeping a shallow enough angle not to trouble Mist, and he may notice he's not feeling all the acceleration that they seem to be undergoing (based on looking out the viewscreen). Try not to be seasick about it.

"Any questions while we're on the way?"

[Deathkeeper]

[Mei’s Ship]

Mist has managed to sit down and mostly stop feeling queasy.
”Well you could tell me who I’m playing for, what I need to play, and any possible horrible consequences for playing a wrong note.”
Because Mist is starting to suspect this isn’t just a performance Mei needs to impress someone with.

[Recaiden]

"You'll be playing for some of the soul-children who attend the Sultana of Truth."
Mei starts. Doesn't sound too bad.
"They're not really particular. You can play anything you like as long as it's on a flute and has a consistent tempo, but they prefer pieces that speak to the dark wildness of the mortal heart such as a love song or jig."
The ship keeps speeding up. Sparks dance along Mei's claws and into the controls as they zoom past the moon.
"And I guess if you mess up you might be cast into the unlighted chambers beyond time, but probably they'd just give you new fingers to try again."
Now that, that might be of some more concern.

[Deathkeeper]

Mei’s Ship

Mist stares at her.
”Okay.
That’s fine.
Except.
New...fin...gers?”
Mist quite liked his current fingers. They’re fuzzy and can play the flute.

[Recaiden]

"Right. If you mess up with your current mouth and fingers, they might see them as holding you back, or something."
Mei engages the main engine. The ship stops accelerating - in terms of inertia, anyway. Outside the viewscreen, the pinpoint stars stretch out into beams of light as the ship shoots towards the edge of the solar system at an outrageously impossible 'velocity'.
"So do your best and the attendants won't think that's necessary!"

[Deathkeeper]

[Mei’s Ship]

Mist stares at her.
”I don’t even want to know how that works. I’m going to practice.” he grumbles and takes out his flute, starting with an easy slow piece, one of his favorites that drips sadness and gratitude. Though he’s not feeling especially grateful right now.

[Recaiden]

Mist will have plenty of time to practice. They have several kiloparsecs to cross.
Or they would, if distance were real.
Either way, plenty of time.
"The ship likes that one." Mei reports.
There's a slight tremor as the ship lowers its tail, and there's another transition. A gate opens up in front of them, a crackling metallopink gap, and once they're through that, the entire field of view is filled with starlight of all colors, constant and untwinkling, growing brighter and brighter with every moment.
The windshield darkens to protect the passengers.

[Deathkeeper]

Mei’s Ship

”Well your ship has very good taste.” Mist wonders if the ship is simply a sapient machine or if Mei carved out a creature to add all these metal parts. He doesn’t think he wants to know. This is already sounding like Boojum.
And then warp thing! That’s pretty mind-blowing to say the least. Of all things he’s done, space travel is not one of them.
”My god. It’s full of stars.”

[Purple Eagle]

[Underground Laboratory]

The spirits of the Ultimate Chimera don't want anything to do with Ruth! It's understandable given how she set them on fire and murdered them for reasons they will never be able to comprehend. They flee in the other direction, off to the afterlife following their own path in death.

Regardless, nothing will bother the group further here.

[Underground Laboratory]

"I... can't," Sophie says, in a clipped, trembling voice. "My powers don't seem to extend this way."

Underground Laboratory

The yew responds well to the healing, but... It's not Baccata's body. It's the remains of a portal, created by Baccata diving head-first from the living world into the river Acheron. She took her 'physical form' with her; not much point diving into a river known for its healing properties if you leave your injuries behind. It put her out of the fight, but Baccata's a psychopomp- death is as much her domain as life is. She'll return when she's fully healed, emerging either from this yew, or her Yew, back in GLoG.

[Underground Laboratory]

Ruth's a bit disappointed by the reaction, but understands. "In that case, I wish you all eternal peace."

As for Baccata! The yew is growing well, but there's no sign of Baccata's energy signature. Rather, this feels like... "It's a portal. She probably went away to remake herself. Wise choice." A moment's silence. "Given how we met, I'll assume you can return from your Yew, if not from here. Thank you for helping, Baccata. I hope we'll get to know one another after all this." She's talking to herself, as Baccata probably can't hear.

Rising to her feet, she faces Sophie. "Let's continue cleaning out this place. I'll follow your lead, as the greatest threat has been eliminated. I hope I wasn't too 'OP'."

[Recaiden]

It's a creature, and it hasn't been hollowed out at all. It's just more metallic than most of its kind due to some nexus weirdness. Like an acacia tree for its ants, the ship makes space for its passengers.

"Uh-huh! Beautiful, aren't they?"
Eventually a dark spot appears amidst the endless light, directly ahead of them. First it's just a dimness, then a black speck, then a definite lack of light growing larger and larger as they approach.

[Deathkeeper]

Mei’s Ships

Mist closes his eyes and focuses on practicing. Something ominous for the occasion. Mist starts with a low tune, of dark magic and howling wind, which flows into a more rousing battle tune. He’s too far into this to turn back now. Probably. Whatever This even is.

[Recaiden]

The ship doesn't like that one so much. You can tell by the subtle clinking of metal outside the room, on its wings.
But Dark Magic is appropriate to what they're here for.
The darkness grows and grows until it encompasses half the sky, and suddenly they are slowing again, swooping down towards the black horizon along with countless other lights.
"Almost there! Great work." That second sentence is addressed to the ship itself as Mei pats the dashboard.