bravenewworld | Descent into Darkness

Descent into Darkness

As the characters arrive, they will find what appears to be a rather deep cavern. Upon entering, the caverns are quite narrow, with twists and turns everywhere and different tunnels that all seem to be interconnected. As characters travel deeper within the caverns, reality around them will start to warp, they will start to see and hear things that aren’t necessarily there - images of old enemies, past failures, voices of condemnation, visions that strike at the soul and core of the characters. Once this begins, it will only increase in power and volume, demanding it be confronted, lest they be trapped within these caves forever.

[OOC: This event will run for a week. All characters who enter the caves will be subject to some of their deepest fears, darkest demons, and most abject failures. To overcome them, characters must help each other out, finding their purpose through strength of character and resolve to move forward. In general, these visions should require characters to come to grips with themselves. Illusory images and voices can and will appear and can take any number of forms, depending on what is most appropriate to a character. Additionally, characters may thread with each other and are encouraged to help each other out to overcome these personal demons. For those who wish to take part, they are able and encouraged to narrate their own personal demons, which will be on display for everyone who enters their thread. IC threads may be made in this post.]

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[ Jack startles a little, remembers he isn't alone - when he hears that man's voice it's like the whole world narrows down to this tiny thread that goes straight from himself to the Moon Man. but there are other people here, people that would— would help him if the Mage tried anything. people that he has to be careful not to hurt. Baby and Duskull are here, too, and he had even forgotten them. he needs to be more aware of his surroundings, or all of his efforts at self-control will be for naught.

pulling himself together under a veneer of bravado, Jack scoffs. ]

Yeah, and someone that's meant to have those answers. If he was the real deal, anyway. [ he raises his voice to the tunnels: ] If I'm so stupid, why don't you just tell me, huh? Enlighten me!

[ a man steps out of the shadows off to the side, and Jack whirls around, scrambling back so quickly that he nearly trips over his own feet. ]

Enlighten you? That seems a poor choice of words.

[ there is something wrong about the man as soon as he is given more than a cursory glance; he lacks... detail. he is dressed in white, draping material with a hood that obscures his face - but it shouldn't be that obscured. everything unique that a person would be able to use to identify the man with is absent. it's hard to pin down anything about him, a visual effect similar to trying to catch smoke with your bare hands; whatever observations the eye tries to make simply slip away before they can register with the mind. even his clothes are bizarrely plain, nondescript. it is a reconstruction torn from the most vague of pain-addled memories, after all.

this doesn't seem to matter at all to Jack, who takes a breath of air so harsh it seems like the gasp of someone who has narrowly escaped drowning. ]

It's not him, [ Jack insists, frantic and croaky. he backs up until he hits the cave wall, staff clutched like a lifeline. ] It's not, there's no way. So what the hell is happening here?!

[ Totsuka likewise startles as the stranger takes shape, but he's got no reason to be as frantic as Jack. Kotori flaps her wings and screeches at the figure, which might translate as You better stay away from them!, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

Totsuka looks from Jack to the man in white, and steps toward the stranger, tilts his head to see a little further under the hood. ]

It's not. I'm not even sure he's got a... a real face under there. [ And any seriousness evaporates for a moment. ] You know, you actually look a little ridiculous dressed like that.

[ Jack's smile is strained, tension in every line of his body, but he appreciates the humour. ] Mages, man. I guess nobody told him that the whole "mysterious" look isn't really in.

Ah, and here come the jokes. Avoidant as ever. But let's not get distracted, hm? Tell me, Jack, are your answers going to save you? Really. [ the man tilts his head with a smile. ] Why would a puppet need any sense of self?

[ just like that, it doesn't matter if this man is the real thing or not; the line between them disappears. any questioning about what is really happening here stops dead. Jack gives a full-body jerk and makes a wounded noise in the back of his throat, as if the words are a physical blow. it isn't the reminder of what he could have been, a puppet. it is the sense of self. it is the gaping hole inside of him that he has always turned his mind away from because it's too much, if he looks at that it will swallow him whole. there's a high-pitched splintering sound, like ice cracking underfoot, and then Jack lunges, throwing ice spikes and freezing wind at the Mage. ]

Shut up! If you hadn't taken it— [ but he can get it back, he can get everything back, it's right there ] GIVE THEM BACK!

[ the Mage retreats down the tunnels and Jack runs after him, heedless of his companions' cries. ]

[ Totsuka is lucky, very, very lucky that his pokémon friends have the sense to drag him back. He still falls, cuts his hands open as he does and lands gracelessly on his behind, but it's the far better option than ... well, ice spikes and freezing wind. Kotori screeches at him what he was thinking, but he doesn't pay her much mind. Instead, he looks off in the direction where he can still hear Jack shouting at... well, nothing but a memory, probably.

He picks himself up off the floor, asks Lady, his zubat, to follow after the homunculus if she can. He's trying as well, but... he's getting a feeling this place isn't going to help him much.

... That could've gone better. ]

[ although the caves may not have much intention of Totsuka being there to defend Jack from whatever is tormenting him, it's easier to follow than he would expect; there is a glowing trail of frost and ice clusters left to indicate Jack's path through the tunnel, occasionally in bursts on the walls where he has thrown an attack at his spectre. however long it takes Totsuka to reach the cavern where Jack has stopped, he will hear the argument echoing in the caves, and eventually he will find Jack and the illusory Mage circling the cavern.

each of Jack's steps is a careful mirror of the Mage's, to keep his distance, but occasionally he will make a swipe at the Mage and there is a scuffle - Jack hurling ice shards, making jabs with his wooden staff, and the Mage simply dodging each of his attacks with ease like he's leading Jack along. ]

Tell me how to get my life back! My memory!

[ the Mage's voice is gentler than it was at first, no longer mocking but genuinely inquisitive: ] You can't stop being a Homunculus, even if you remember. Why do you need them, Jack?

What the hell do you mean, why?! Because I want to know! [ for all that Jack's rage is a storm, there is also a desperate edge to it; something lost and frantic, a strain in his voice that rises as he goes on. ] You created me and I don't know what for! I don't have anything, I don't even know how to be a person now!

Do you really want to be a person? [ Jack's anger gives way to confusion and horror with a high-pitched, strangled noise in the back of his throat and he goes still, his bare feet scrambling against the rock as his legs buckle mid-lunge. ] Don't you get so angry when they try to treat you like one? When they pretend that everything is okay?

[ everything in the chamber is still for a moment. Jack and the Mage stare at each other across their distance, the Mage impassive and Jack shocked, wavering on some thin edge between panic and outrage. his breaths come out in puffs, thick with frost, and his hands clench uselessly. the tipping point comes slowly, but it comes through the ice at Jack's feet, which begins to spike up around him. Jack brings his staff across his chest, clutched in two hands like a lifeline, a last defence, and he says with quiet conviction (but still that taut thread of desperation, something in him that is close to snapping and fraying more and more with every one of the Mage's words)— ]

Everything will be okay when I get my memories back.

[ the Mage tilts his head and gives Jack a sad look, almost like a disappointed father. despite the mildness of his expression, the calm and passive stance... both Totsuka and Jack will be aware of a definite feeling that Jack gave the wrong answer there. it is something more than intuition; it is heavy, dark, foreboding. ]

[ Lady arrives in the cavern before Totsuka does, fluttering around the pair before returning to her partner. She doesn't entirely understand what's going on, but she can tell it's bad, and it doesn't take the concern she can feel from her trainer to drive the point home.

Totsuka stays on the sidelines. He's no fit for a fight, and there's no good time to interject here before... before such a solid sense of unease sets in over something that's not even his choice or his life. Never the less it's that clear pit-of-his-stomach feeling of oh, no.

He steps closer. Makes himself known by the scuff of his sneakers on the stone, perhaps, and he doesn't want to be the naysayer here. Doesn't want to point out the obvious. If he were to find out, he'd still be who and what he is. ]

[ as if he had forgotten that Totsuka had ever even been there, Jack startles at the sound of someone else's footsteps. he turns, eyes wild for a moment before it is consumed by horror, mortification, an overwhelming fear about something - a look directed at Totsuka, and the realisation that the argument just then had an audience. ]

Tatara. This isn't— [ oh gods, Totsuka hadn't even known that he's a Homunculus. ] The things he's saying aren't true, he's just messing with me! No, I mean— I am a Homunculus... but anything else isn't real!

[ this is said with poor timing. suddenly, there is another voice coming through the tunnels of the caves, echoing as if from a distance but still very clear and very loud. but it isn't a new voice, as such - it's easily identified as Jack's.

even though all it does for the first, long moment is scream. the voice screams in what could be nothing else but pain, because it keeps going even when it cracks, when it must hurt to continue; sometimes it chokes, and always starts again before long. after some time without any words, there are breaks where Jack's hoarse voice begins to speak, desperate hysterical shrieks of: ] Stop! STOP IT! It hurts, it hurts! Stop stop stop, let me go! Please! PLEASE!

[ the real Jack makes a wounded noise, a strangled whine of grief and pain, and he whirls on the shadows; the ones that darken the tunnels, the corners of the cavern, anywhere. he blasts snow and frost at them to no avail. the screaming carries on regardless, and Jack flinches at every crescendo, every bout of frantic babbling and begging. with his attacks proven useless, he covers his face with his hands instead, shaking terribly. ]

What did the people of Union tell you? That what happens to Homunculi is "unfortunate"? "Troubling", they said. Not a single one of them understood, not at all. Did you hate them for it? [ Jack can't muster anything more than a furious groan through his gritted teeth. the Mage sighs. ] I'm not trying to hurt you, Jack... but you always have responded better to pain.

[ Jack tears his hands away from his face. this is too much, too much. aren't the nightmares enough? now he has to hear this with some— some stupid fake construct of the Moon Man, something that he's never had to deal with in his memories or his nightmares because he doesn't know any of this! he's only heard two words from his maker, he couldn't know his voice this well, and he never saw the Mage's damn face. barely saw him at all beyond those pale eyes always looking down at him. why is any of this happening to him? ]

What does this have to do with anything?! If you've got a point here, then I'm not seeing it!

I'm not surprised. You are rather wilfully blind. [ for the first time, the Moon Man turns his pale eyes on Totsuka. ] Can your friend help you, perhaps?

[ It's terrible, and it jarrs him to hear. All that pain... more than he's ever been through, more than almost anyone he knows has been through. He watches, looks around for the origin of the voice only for his eyes to return to Jack, keening, cowering. Sometimes, he's had to pull himself together to face something more powerful than himself with no fear - he pulls from that same place now, too. Picks his way carefully into the cavern, towards Jack and the magus, and only looks at the latter when spoken to.

The suggestion gives him pause, but he also thinks he... it? may have a point. Sometimes people have difficulty seeing what's right in front of them. Sometimes they don't want to see. Totsuka finds he picks his words as carefully as his steps. ]

I'm not sure I can. But I can try.

[ And he doesn't continue until he's past the first ice spikes, frost crunching under his sneakers. ]

I think what he's getting at is that... well, that knowing won't make what you've gone through un-happen.

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Descent into Darkness

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