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Post by ParamountKeymaster on Feb 22, 2020 12:36:10 GMT -5
"I guess whatever she's doing out there, it isn't really my place to question it," Paul sighed. "El would certainly know this desert better than I do."
He briefly disappeared into the kitchen, crouching down and opening a cabinet on the floor. When he did, he was quickly taken aback by the sight of an open, bulk case of bottled water. Sure, he was grateful to finally find some water in this dry, dusty hovel, but this modern-day method of packaging seemed starkly out of place. El-Sayal struck Paul as a warrior type, hardened by the harsh conditions of the desert. What was this luxury doing here?
Well... it was probably another thing not worth questioning.
Halting that train of thought, Paul reached in and grabbed two bottles, shutting the cabinet behind him as he stood back up. He then reentered the living room, setting one of the waters on the couch next to Jordan. "Well, I hope you can take your mind off of things until you have free reign to head back to Void City. I know things are rough right now... but it can't last forever, can it?"
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Post by DanteMGalileo on Feb 23, 2020 18:26:07 GMT -5
"Human existence is suffering, my dude. It's just a matter of whether you let it drag you down, or if you keep going," Jordan replied, opening the bottle of water placed in front of him, taking a long drink. Ah, that felt good. After he had his fill, he wiped his mouth with his arm. "Too clean."
He shot a glance at Paul. "Maybe I lack the ability to grieve for the dead properly. But I just don't see the need to go into mourning. Even if it was Will or Leanne... Look, I have this feeling that you're gonna see their true colours soon. I have this hunch I'm not gonna be able to restrain them myself. Especially Will."
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Post by ParamountKeymaster on Feb 23, 2020 18:49:37 GMT -5
Paul could only respond to Jordan's statement with dejection. Part of him strongly wanted to disagree with the notion that life was suffering, but he held his tongue on the matter. He wasn't about to tell Jordan what to believe, as long as he was getting by on his philosophies.
His comments regarding Will and Leanne, though...
"I think I can brace myself for just about anything at this point," Paul sighed, his head hung low. "I won't be mad if it comes to that. I won't judge. We've all had to resort to some pretty drastic measures lately, after all. As long as we can get as many people through this ordeal as we can... without losing ourselves completely..."
Paul slowly tightened his hand around his water bottle, an electric gleam in his eyes. Maybe Jordan wasn't one to grieve, but it was clear that Paul had taken every death he had witnessed up to that point personally.
He loosened up slightly and turned towards the door. "I should probably get back to Kelsey. Holler if you need anything else. I'll listen." He crossed the living room and stepped outside, departing to continue his duty.
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"Hck... Hgh..."
Kelsey leaned over the garbage can. She knew there was more coming. Her stomach was heaving, but nothing was coming up. She didn't dare risk getting back into bed feeling like this, so she remained crouched on the floor, waiting for the storm.
Paul hadn't returned yet. When she wasn't staring into the wastebasket, positioning herself for the onslaught of sickness, Kelsey was staring at the door, wondering where he was.
Her memories were growing progressively less hazy. For the past couple hours, she had simply been referring to the dragon man with the name she had overheard, not because she remembered him specifically. Perhaps as a result of having a name to associate him with, his identity was starting to come back to her. Perhaps because she was having an easier time remembering herself now, it was easier to remember the people in her life. Either way, the emotions Kelsey recalled as she thought more and more about Paul were... complex... but strangely comforting.
She hoped she wasn't being a burden to him.
Oh crap, there it is...
"HRK... BLAAAAAUUUGGGHHH...!"
Kelsey lowered her head as she finally expelled the vomit. By now, her stomach was so empty that she was coughing up more spit and bile than anything else. Any traces of blood were distinctly minimal, but the chalky white fluid was still pouring out in excess.
"COFF... Coff... HCK... HRRRRRLLLGGGHHH..."
THUNK
She tensed up slightly, her body weak but her stomach gradually settling. That was a very uncomfortably solid sound in the wastebasket. For a moment, she fretted that her constant puking might have dislodged a tooth, a worry proven false after a quick inspection with her tongue revealed no gaps in her gums. Warily, Kelsey took a peek inside the pail...
Mixed in with the sickly cocktail of bodily fluids, something bright red was lying at the bottom of the bin. A simple glance was inefficient in discerning what it was, and to Kelsey's dismay, her curiosity was trumping her disgust. As such, she grabbed the towel off her nightstand with one hand and gingerly reached inside the wastebasket with the other, plucking the solid object out with her index finger and thumb, the slimy sensation having enough of an influence on her gag reflex to make her vomit one more time once her hands were extracted.
With that revolting ordeal out of the way, Kelsey wiped her hands and mouth off, then took a closer look at the object lying in the towel. It appeared to be little more than a small, scarlet, uncut gemstone, only barely bigger than her thumbnail. Despite its benign appearance, she could sense something abnormal about this little crystal, and not just because it apparently came out of her mouth, but she couldn't adequately put to words what was so strange about it. It just felt... blessed.
An uncomfortable whine escaped her as she wrapped the crystal up in the towel and set it aside. She knew she wasn't going to figure out what it was anytime soon. There was a distinct possibility that Tri would know, but she couldn't ask him now. She was alone.
Alone...
With a heavy sigh, feeling mentally unsettled but at least physically relaxed, Kelsey climbed back into bed, burying herself once more, trying her best to distract herself from the stone and focus on reorganizing her mental faculties again.
She was worried about Tri. She had long since remembered that his current silence wasn't deliberate, which at least gave her hope that he wouldn't be angry at her when their connection was restored... but she wasn't holding her breath. For that matter, she was starting to worry about the souls within her too. She remembered Jamie... Flint... the angels... Their presence became clear the more her own sense of self was restored, and she dearly hoped that the Essence wasn't as damaging to them as it was to her.
How she longed for an escape. A way to free herself from her bodily torment and truly be herself again. Maybe the Essence poisoning would've felt worse if she still had her demon powers, but at least they would've provided her a way to keep herself busy.
Wait... Didn't Tri say that anyone could access their soulscape?
Kelsey's eyes widened. Everything she needed, everything she was looking for, everything she was... it was right there the whole time, waiting for her to access it.
She had to know. She had to be sure.
She closed her eyes, relaxed her mind and body, and focused on her core.
Kalth...
---------------------------
Waves slowly rolled across the beach. Soft white sand curled between her fingers and toes. An ambient hum filled her ears.
Kelsey slowly opened her eyes and sat up, looking around at the familiar landscape of her soul. The beach hadn't changed, and neither had the forest that bordered it. The sky above her was still an overcast silver, but as she took a closer look, she found that various patches of the atmosphere had changed. In every direction she looked, the weather was different; the sun shone in one corner, a storm raged in another, wild winds howled in the distance, so on and so forth.
Most curiously, a pure white aurora bobbed and weaved in the heavens above with a brilliant glow. Every now and then, the atmosphere surrounding it seemed to distort like glitches on a broken monitor. It didn't take much thought to deduce what that white light was.
Glancing down at herself, Kelsey was startled to find that her spirit looked blotchy. Parts of her form were faded, smudged, or outright missing, and white mist subtly flowed from those hollow sections. As she studied herself, acknowledging the slow recovery process her astral body was undergoing, the emotion that dominated her was shame. She had no one to blame besides herself for this mess she was in. For this mess her familiars were in.
She had to know if they were sharing her pain.
The weakness and fatigue that plagued her physical form had only slightly abated, but Kelsey sat up and started running despite it. She finally knew what to do with herself. She wasn't going to let this Essence slow her down now.
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Post by Pink Moon Wolf on Feb 26, 2020 19:10:46 GMT -5
Jamie sat alone on the beach, staring out at the waters with his head in his hands and every other breath exhaled as a sigh.
He had no idea what to do anymore. The expansion he had witnessed to the soulscape was fascinating at first, but it didn't take long for the vast amount of new souls to completely overwhelm him. So many new faces, so many grandiloquent personalities, so much tension; it was all too much to absorb in such a short time, and Jamie's efforts to help everyone settle in and get along had proven mostly fruitless. He was tired of his existential loneliness, sure, but this was ridiculous.
And then there was that sudden spike in external energy. Jamie was still shaking from the storm that had ravaged the soulscape, shaking him and everyone else to their cores. After a while, though, things started to settle again, and the white light conglomerated into a simple, albeit haunting aurora looming over them. Watching it slowly fade away didn't make him feel a great deal better.
He wondered what was going on outside... what Kelsey was thinking...
And right at that moment, Jamie looked up and spotted his aforementioned host walking his way.
"Kelsey!" Jamie quickly stood up, excited and relieved to see her. Then he tensed up when he noticed just how literally broken her spirit was. "You- Kelsey, w-what happened?! What's wrong with you?!"
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Post by ParamountKeymaster on Feb 26, 2020 19:53:34 GMT -5
"Jamie...!" Kelsey briskly dashed ahead, grateful to see that her first familiar was still in one piece. His reaction to her fractured form quickly put a damper on that mood, however, prompting Kelsey to slow to a halt and sadly stare down at herself.
"Oh... this...?" She grimaced at her one-and-a-half hands, then at the aurora dancing above them, then forward at Jamie, then at herself again. "I made a mistake. Pissed off the wrong kind of angel. What's happening to me, what's happening to this place... it's all because the purest forces of reality are trying to smite me. I-I'm getting better, though. I want to believe this Essence will be gone and I'll be whole again by tonight."
Kelsey looked back up at Jamie, placing her hand on his shoulder. "What about you? Are you okay? A-And Flint and the others? I haven't worried you too much, have I?"
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Post by Pink Moon Wolf on Feb 26, 2020 20:04:42 GMT -5
"I-I'm okay," Jamie worriedly insisted, his vacant eyes full of sympathy. "Things got a little shook up around here when the... smiting... happened. I was kind of hot and dizzy and forgot who I was for a moment, but I think we're all okay now. I'm just glad that you're not too worse for wear despite this. I was really worried about you."
He turned his head to stare into the forest, then meekly glanced back at Kelsey. "All that aside, it's been... kinda crazy in here. New lands have popped up for all these new souls. I've been trying to get to know them and keep them under control with all this chaos taking place, but most of them are kinda... loud?"
Jamie gently grabbed Kelsey's hand, slipping it off his shoulder and holding it in a low, comfortable position. "If you're feeling up to it, I could show you. It would take my mind off of some of the heavier matters going on right now."
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Post by ParamountKeymaster on Feb 26, 2020 20:12:49 GMT -5
Kelsey nodded, pitying the position Jamie was in. She hated the idea of leaving him at the mercy of all these angel souls, but she was glad to know that he was holding up in light of the circumstances. On top of that, the fact that he and the others had briefly experienced the pain she was going through... it hurt. It hurt her to know that her rash decisions had caused so much discomfort.
When Jamie took her hand and offered to show her around the expansions of her soulscape, Kelsey had to smile a little. His motivations for doing so were absolutely the same as hers. "Y-Yeah... Might as well acquaint myself with the new recruits. Thanks for holding down the fort for me while I was off being a dumb*ss."
Her grip locked with her first familiar's, exchanging a meek, humbled grin with him, Kelsey followed Jamie as they walked into the forest at a slow, comfortable pace, peering through the shadows of the trees to observe the new lands beyond...
"Whoa..."
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Post by DanteMGalileo on Feb 26, 2020 20:25:57 GMT -5
"FUCK, that hurts like balls, ya skid!"
"Stop squirming, fishface. You're just gonna make it hurt worse."
"FUCK YOU!"
"You ain't really my type."
A snow-covered forest flanked the beach, the contrast between the two landscapes quite noticeable. A mountain peak rose above the forest, covered in flags and what seemed to be small shrines. At what seemed to be the entrance to the forest, a tall, dark-skinned man clad in green winced as a shorter angel with pale yellow-grey skin and wild black hair pulled into a ponytail applied what looked like bandages and healing magic onto him.
"This ain't how my days usually go. Usually, I don't expect to be dead and suddenly in somebody else's soul, spit out to fight, then suddenly absorbed back in. That fuckin' hurt, by the way," Flint complained, wincing as the bandages were suddenly quite a bit tighter.
"Well, I guess we're the same. I'm usually alive when I finally do that thing where you close your eyes and..." Lobo suddenly trailed off, seeing something. "Oh, uh, hi, Kelsey."
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Post by Pink Moon Wolf on Feb 26, 2020 21:14:38 GMT -5
Jamie parted the branches, ushering Kelsey along to the other side of the forest. The sudden change in temperature didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. He remained cool and level-headed, though the anxiety was ever present. His only concern was Kelsey.
Well, her and the duo sitting just up ahead.
"Oh boy..." It was still difficult for Jamie to discern who would be the most amicable among Kelsey's new familiars. Everyone intimidated him equally. "Uh... Hi, guys. W-What happened here?"
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Post by ParamountKeymaster on Feb 26, 2020 21:24:34 GMT -5
Kelsey glanced around in awe as the warm, temperate forest turned cool and frosty, and yet the frigid air didn't deter her either. Beyond the treeline, she could see a sprawling mountain range decorated with a wide variety of weather patterns, castles and ruins, rivers and canyons, and who knew what else? The mix-and-match biomes were enough evidence of the fused soulscapes within her, the union of her familiars' inner selves with her own.
And to her relief, the first two that she and Jamie encountered were the ones that she could tolerate the most.
"Lobo! Flint!" Kelsey awkwardly smiled despite herself, waving to them with her half-smudged right hand. She dashed over to the angel and the dragon pelt, worriedly looking over the latter in particular. "A-Are you guys okay? You didn't get hurt too badly, did you?? I'm sorry, guys, I wasn't thinking when I..."
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Post by DanteMGalileo on Feb 26, 2020 21:51:34 GMT -5
"Hey look, it's dinner! Augh!" And that earned Flint a flick from Lobo.
"To answer yer question on behalf of my idiot... friend here, he's in pain. Probably somethin' about his pissah wing being broken or some shit."
"... That's not how yer supposed to use the word, ya skid. But yeah. My wing slash arm's kinda effed up from that whatever the fuck green boy shat out." Flint held up his arm, bandaged by cloth and healing magic. "Whatever the hell he did, it did some pretty big damage. I ain't smart in this field, but I'm pretty sure not-fully-corporeal forms generally don't sustain lasting damage."
"... I wonder if... no, that can't be right, that's supposed to be a myth..." Lobo muttered to himself, reaching for his hairtie. Pulling it loose, black locks fell down past his waist, running a hand through the green part on top. "Didn't mean t' leave you out. Just thinkin'. ... Yes, I can think."
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Post by Pink Moon Wolf on Feb 28, 2020 19:06:23 GMT -5
"Aw, come on, we don't even need to eat...!" Jamie whined, recoiling from Flint. He stood by idly as Kelsey approached the two, watching her tend to the weak and wounded spirits with quiet empathy. After a moment, he spoke up again, "I-I'm still not entirely clear on what happened. I remember everyone disappearing all at once, then gradually returning just as the chaos ensued. What happened to dragon guy? What's this about being smited?"
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Post by ParamountKeymaster on Feb 28, 2020 19:21:28 GMT -5
Kelsey let out a heavy sigh, sitting down next to Lobo and Flint, staring at the latter with sorrow. "I'm sorry... I-I'm still so new at this, I don't know how to help. I can't ask Tri what's happened to you right now, and this... infection definitely isn't helping."
She rested her arms on her knees, watching as the Essence was expelled from her spirit and her hand slowly stitched itself back together in its wake. "I wasn't in my best mindset during that fight. These other angel souls are one thing, but I never want to reduce you three to cannon fodder. I feel terrible for putting you in this position in the first place."
When Jamie made his confusion known, Kelsey sadly glanced back at him over her shoulder. "Paul and I clashed with the leader of the angel army. He killed Lobo... cast some sort of magic that injured Flint's astral form... and then I lost my cool and summoned Tri to the physical plane. An angel... a heavenly one from my universe... he banished Tri and exposed me to his true form, infecting me with pure, holy Essence. I'm still recovering from it... and it wouldn't surprise me if it was having some sort of long-term effect on you guys too."
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Post by DanteMGalileo on Feb 28, 2020 20:58:10 GMT -5
"So, I'm apparently not a light creature anymore. At least, not fully. Whatever. Probably a result of now bein' bonded to you from now on. ... Eh, beats fadin' into nothing, so thanks f' that." Lobo still seemed bothered by something. "Okay, so whatever my asshole brother did fucked up Flint-"
"Why yes, I'm aware that I'm a bit effed up, there's no need to point it o-"
"Shut the hell up for once, Flint." With a quick glare, the dragon pelt went silent. "Whatever the hell happened, it seems like I got off better. Maybe because I'm also some kinda angel, maybe because I am... was... whatever, light creature protection against this Evanescence thingy." Lobo brought a nail to his lip, biting it slightly. "I can think of a few things that coulda fucked up Flint even in this state, and none of 'em are pleasant."
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Post by Pink Moon Wolf on Feb 28, 2020 22:04:18 GMT -5
"Oh geez..." Jamie mumbled this line several times over as Kelsey and Lobo offered their explanations, twiddling his thumbs all the while. He cautiously approached the group, keeping his gaze away from Flint while ensuring that the other two were rooted between them. "I know you mean well, Kelsey... I just wish there was something more that I could do. I know I'm probably the most useless soul in here when it comes to battle... or really anything... but if something's threatening to tear us down, there's gotta be something I can do to help."
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