Serious Plots 7: Why so srs?

[Deathkeeper]

Mei’s Ship

Mist takes this opportunity to make sure his instrument is properly cleaned for the occasion.
”So the ship does things for you? It doesn’t have a crew?” he hasn’t exactly seen anyone else.

[Recaiden]

"Just me, yes. The ship can handle most anything themself. They need only a pilot to manage the main helm. Plus I can help with repairs and negotiation." The ship turns, and they approach one of the lights, slowly resolving into a gravity-less palace of irridescent stone and colossal size, orbiting the vast blackness that now lies to port.
"And there might sometimes be a gunner and guards - but we're not violent sorts, us two."

[Morty]

[Underground Laboratory]

Sophie breathes out a sigh of relief.

"That's good to hear. I was worried... well, terrified... that I'd brought her here to die. Now we can finish clearing out this place on our own. Hopefully nothing here is quite as bad as this poor creature was. We need to sweep this place for anyone or anything that might still be alive."

[Deathkeeper]

[Mei's Ship]

Mist nods, packing up his instrument and slipping it back into his case, and his case into his coat.
"Fair enough. I'm guessing we're almost there?" he asks, looking out at the glass display.

[Recaiden]

"Yep. This is the place."
Mei puts on her human disguise as the ship first matches speed with the orbiting palace and then slowly closes in, aiming to land in a courtyard near the center of the tangled architecture.
"Stay close, don't touch anything."

One one side, Mist sees blackness, emptiness, a nothingness vaster than many universes, which is of course how the Sultana appears to most eyes. It is not recommended to look any closer.
On the other, coming up below them, is the cyclopean palace where music is performed in her honor. Some of the towers and archways are merely splendid, rainbow-hued stone shifting color in an always-changing abstract mosaic. Others seem to have sprung from an Escher painting, and make the eye water to look upon. And it's not an empty place. Tentacled toads shout from corridor corners, robed soap bubbles dance in the courtyards, screaming mouths peek out from windows, scarred rabbits in black robes hurry through the wider windswept places, men gather and laugh (softly and nervously) among themselves, and so on. The courtyard they're landing in contains several other 'ships' of greatly varied styles as well as a temporary marketplace of stalls and streamers.
And beyond the palace are the lights of dying stars and broken worlds, eternally approaching. Are they saying something? Do they have a message for you in particular, Mist?

The ship touches down.

[Deathkeeper]

[Mei's Ship]

Mist looks at all that, and quickly makes the decision to stop doing that. He briefly considers if he ought to blindfold himself on top of it. For now he'll avoid that. Maybe when he performs.
"I don't think I'd want to touch anything if you were paying me."
Mist realizes that Mei's description of all this is getting worse all the time.

[Recaiden]

"I am paying you." Mei adds quizzically as she heads to the ship's hatch.

And they do sell blindfolds in the market. Is the universe too much for you? Block it all out!
Merchants shout this and other sales pitches across the market.
Stargazers point the approaching ruins out to each other.
A Chrysanthemum heretic, covered in scrolls, tries to press pamphlets into Mist's hands.
In an alleyway, something is screaming.

Mei ignore all this and heads for a broad corridor that leads towards the darkness. From that direction, distant drumbeats echo through the air. Her pace is quite slow. If one were distracted by something, they could probably still catch up.

[Deathkeeper]

[Mei's Ship]

"You're paying me to play, not to touch things."
Off they go!
If there's anything Mist is good at, it's dodging crowds in a city. Could probably pick a few pockets if he wanted to, but he'd really rather not. He has no need, and every risk of horrible consequences.
So instead he just hangs as close to Mei as he can get.
"This place is kind of messed up." he whispers.

[Recaiden]

Mist slips through the crowd like a fish through butter.
"Well, it's a big city. Is Inside any different?"

They approach the gate of teeth, where the guard crosses all eight arms over his chest and bows.
Beyond that they are properly indoors, the shifting rainbow walls replaced by green metal carved with dazzling geometric mandalas. The room is filled with howling winds, and one is intended to cross the hundred yard of it in silence. Statues with glinting diamond eyes watch from every angle.
Mist could attempt some burglary; no one but the statues is watching him.
But since he was so law-abiding earlier, let's just look at what they find on the far side.

Beyond the far door is their destination, and somehow without heading upwards they have found themselves at the very top of the palace, on a balcony platform painted in textureless black, whirling soundlessly along a mere dozen meters from the black horizon. A ragged sackcloth outfit (which judging by the shape has nothing humanoid inside) welcomes them, and waggles its three-fingered hands at Mist. Play now, and let your music honor the Truth.

[Deathkeeper]

[Palace of Truth

Mist nods and takes out...oh, he did have a blindfold this whole time. That is tied securely over his eyes. Then he takes out his case, removing the instrument, checking it, and placing the case on the ground next to him.

He plays three long, held notes as he tunes.

Then his fingers fly.
Dark wilds of the heart? Mist can do that. Mist flutters over the notes, powers through triplets and stanzas. He plays a song of dread, a song of escape, a song of hope. Mist steps and swings, because standing still while playing isn't something he can do, not while he pours out his heart and soul. And not once, not for even a single eighth-note, does he let the tempo change. For eight minutes and fifty-seven seconds.
Only when he holds his last fermata, holds it as long as his breath will hold out and tapers off into a slow, slow fade, does he stop and slump, finally tugging the cloth off his face and letting it flutter to the floor.

[Purple Eagle]

[Underground Laboratory]

Sophie breathes out a sigh of relief.

"That's good to hear. I was worried... well, terrified... that I'd brought her here to die. Now we can finish clearing out this place on our own. Hopefully nothing here is quite as bad as this poor creature was. We need to sweep this place for anyone or anything that might still be alive."

[Underground Laboratory]

"Following your lead, Sophie." Ruth replies, and will follow Sophie out of the Chimera's chambers.

Along the way, the only thing of particular note is one door that's much more heavy duty than the others they've seen. The kind of metal door you can seal shut from the outside with a circular handle. It didn't show up as one of the four other locations though, so checking it out would be a little detour.

"We should check the heavy duty door out, I could force it open. I suppose it could contain something useful, or something that requires purging." She suggests.

[Recaiden]

Thirty-seven seconds into the song, Mei emerges from the darkness before them, tears in her eyes, truths tangled around her horns and wingtips.
At 8:20, the original Mei steps forward, vanishing into the tides, from which it would take a miracle to return.
For those of you keeping score, that means that for seven minutes and forty-three seconds, there are two of her here.

They whisper, the original consoling the newcomer and in turn being informed, but obviously not of enough.

At no point does the darkness react, but the few-fingered sackcloth servitor dances around Mist as he plays, at least until the song turns hopeful. Then he retreats, seething, to an invisible corner of the room.

"Y-you did it, Mist!"

[Morty]

[Underground Laboratory]

"Seems like a place to start," Sophie agrees. "A door like that is built for a reason, so there might be something important or dangerous there."

With that, she'll head back to the door in question, stop in front of it and try to listen in. Can she hear anything on the other side?

[Reinholdt]

[Underground Laboratory]

Sophie cannot hear anything from the other side. Might be soundproof though, given the nature of the door. If Ruth checks, there is no spiritual signs of the living or dead either. There is a switch by the door, kind of like a light switch kept on the outside of a closet. So long as the door is closed, nothing seems to happen if they choose to flick the switch.

[Deathkeeper]

[Palace Of Truth]

Mist starts a bit; for a moment he hadn’t been expecting Mei to be in her dragon shape, even though it makes sense that she would have changed while he was blindfolded. He shakily picks up his case and cloth and packs his things.
”It seems like I did. Did you get what you wanted?” he asks.

[Recaiden]

Mei nods, gathering the bits of truth into a little bouncy ball of rainbows that she can put away. For those few moments, she looks very old and tired. "Yes, I have it."
The sack-cloth servitor approaches, three hands raised, but at a glare from Mei it just flees the room.
"I'm starting to think, just maybe, this wasn't a good idea."

While he's packing, out of the corner of his eye Mist might see that the blackness isn't as black and featureless as it first seemed. There are colors and secrets there, if you just look.

[Deathkeeper]

[Palace Of Truths]

Mist stares off into the void as he puts his flute case into his coat.
”Well it’s too late now, isn’t it? What’s done is done.” he tells the dragon absent-mindedly.

[Recaiden]

The void, as it is wont to, stares back. It isn't paying Mist any attention, but it sees him.
And drifting in it, he can see what will be, what might be, and what is in worlds where things went a little differently.

The Dancing Fox Inn, empty and unlit, a crumbling ruin. No one has been here in years. Soon it will be totally overgrown by the woods.

Meteors are raining down on the city. Mist is holding a demon hostage with a knife to its neck, while the elf has a gun in each hand, pointed at both of them. The mission has gotten a little out of hand, but if he can just get back to his motorcycle-

It's Thanksmas Eve. The three of them are gathered around the dinner table in the Skullfort. Mist is carving the Thanksmas turkey, and all dressed up: nice jacket, dyed fur. But his figure's not what it used to be. One of the kids is tugging at Lyra's scarf, which she still wears after all this time. Anchor is telling a story about her latest battle with the undead to the other two, who listen in amazement.

He stands in the forest, looking down at the body, blood running off the dirk and onto his hand.
"The King is dead; long live the King!" A cheer goes up among the gathered animals. "Long live the King!" Behind her sunglasses, Leah's eyes flash with the light of Message's presence. Things are about to change.

Your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter walks into the bar. She doesn't recognize you, of course (you're pretty different nowadays from the red-furred vixen whose pictures are in the genealogy files), but you recognize her. As one of the five incarnations of god, you know pretty much everyone on Sentus. You don't know what she's going to say; everyone is full of surprises. But you'll do your best to help.

It's just a few hours later. Back on solid ground in the Nexus. But Mist is still thinking about what he saw in the void. The possibilities he saw clearly, and the ones he didn't even quite glimpse. He's gotta go back.

Mei shakes her head. "I'll have to, uh, make the best of it?"
"Let's get out of here."

[Deathkeeper]

[The Palace of Truth]

Mist wheezes, trying to stagger to his feet. His mouth is dry. His head is spinning. He can barely focus.
"I gotta, I gotta, it's...need to, look..." Mist's garbled brain and eyes hastily looks around for the void portal, though it's likely much too late to catch another glimpse...

[Recaiden]

The portal must be there, but the sackclothed entity bars the way, waggling its juicy fingers disapprovingly.

"Hey, Mist, take it easy. You don't need to anything; it's done." Mei says, trying to take his hand and lead him back past the statues.
Don't get crazy, Mist. She can't take that on top of the things she just saw.

[Deathkeeper]

[The Palace of Truth]

Mist shakes his aching head and leans on Mei. Good thing she's so big and supportive.
"Thanks, I...what even happened to you? You went in."

[Recaiden]

"Well, I'm more used to this kind of thing. Weird time stuff is part of the job."
"But I don't want to go into details. And it probably wouldn't do you good to hear them."
Mei shakes her head as if to clear it.
"Hey, if you don't mind-"
Then she goes to pick Mist up, increases in size a bit, and ZOOM back towards the ship.

[Deathkeeper]

[The Palace of Truth]

Mist puts a hand to his mouth as they fly, currently not in the state to fly without risking losing his lunch. He manages to hold onto it for now.
"Well, if any of them were things that I should be warned about maybe. But I doubt any of them involved me and anything I could influence, you at your level." he says weakly, trying to talk about anything.

[Recaiden]

It takes a bit for her to notice, but Mei eventually slows down and smooths her trajectory so that her passenger isn't as motion-sick.
"Warned about? It gets very meta. There's things that only happen because you saw here things that might happen, potential coiling in on itself endlessly."
They dive under an archway and sweep through a vast courtyard. This isn't the way they came.
"You could stay here and join the Sultana's court, or come to see my conceptual project when it's done. You and/or your wife could become good customers, or we could actually be friends. There's a thousand ways you can influence things, big and small."
"Don't do that, by the way. Joining the court. It wouldn't end well."

[Deathkeeper]

[Palace Of Truth]

”Well being friends is certainly on the table. If you want.
Um, where are we going?” Mei does seem like a decent person. Though they did just meet.

[Recaiden]

"We're going to my ship. Just also avoiding cultists. There's like a 90% chance of running into angry cultists on the way back from the Horizon, and I'd like to not." Quick, up this staircase, where Mei touches down on the ground and runs like a cat for a stretch.
"Great! Friends."

[Deathkeeper]

[Palace Of Truth]

Mist thinks about this.
”So...
...we did something we weren’t supposed to didn’t we?” He burps, not a good sign.
”Ugh. Let me know if someone needs a knife thrown at them.” he mumbles.

[Recaiden]

"Well, it depends on what you mean by 'supposed to'." Mei says, starting to sound cheery again. "You saw how the steward was upset by part of your song, right? Plus they want to know what everyone saw in the dark."
They burst back into the market square.
Mei's ship is surrounded by figures in tattered black clothes, and held down by more ropes than it used to be. It looks quite pitiful.
"Damn. They're already here."

[Deathkeeper]

Palace Of Truths

”Can those ropes actually hold it down? If you need to get rid of them you can toss me at the front door and I can try to clear the inside. Though I mean you’re a dragon can a crowd slow you down?”
She’s not just a dragon. She’s a big dragon.

[Recaiden]

"I don't really like, you know, overpowering small people."
Looks like she's got to, though. Mei narrows her eyes.
"They can keep it from getting any momentum if they're tough enough. Here, you go cut the ropes."
She swoops down over the ship, twirling around and dropping Mist off.

An angry shout goes up from the cultists, but it's drowned by the crack of thunder as Mei just disintegrates one of them with an eruption of lightning. You might think this would frighten them, but these people, they have nothing to lose. A hobbit with a baseball bat lurches towards Mist, swinging wildly. A couple are prying at the ship's main hatch.