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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The shadow is a bit more concerned with the Ranger that'd just pretty much taken her knee and snapped it backwards like a twig. Funny thing about knees. They're oddly vulnerable things, when you get right down to it.

"You bitch!<" the woman snarls, electricity beginning to build up all around her.

"You're one to talk," Yuuna retorts, drawing her sword and pressing it against the shade's throat. If nobody says anything, or the Luggage doesn't intervene? It's...probably going to be lights out. "Nobody has the right to attack people under my protection. And you're no exception. Because I would never attack my friend."

Rincewind's alignment was lawful cowardly. He had no qualms with the dispatching of someone trying to murder him. All the more power to her. Death happened all the time in Sanctuary. The Luggage, however, had worked up a consistent trundle and didn't look to be stopping anytime soon. Rincewind widly flails, attempting to attract the Luggage. Yuuna had this handled. She didn't need a Luggage to go and start mucking everything up.

"Bugger you, let them be!"

However, it's a bit late. The Luggage trundles into the melee and rather handily knocks aside the double, bowling the prone woman over...and reminding Yuuna of where she is. And what she's sworn not to do.

"The...gods, what am I...I'm not you!"

The Luggage is happy to be of service. It lumbers on. Maybe, even, making a point to snap moodily at the Hitmonchan. The Luggage looked to be in a complacent mood and would even take an order to, say, firmly clamp its lid on an ankle to stop the prone woman from considering anything beyond being prone.

Rincewind, on the other hand, scrambles to his feet. "We ... can see that. For one, you're younger."

Edited (icon oop) 2015-07-25 16:11 (UTC)

Given her shattered knee? It's unlikely that the Luggage will need to do much of that. When it came to hurting people, Yuuna was pretty good. Which may only have proven the point.

"And weaker. You should have killed me. I know you don't have the stomach for it yet, but you know that I could come back to take care of you later, right?"

"Wot? Come back from the future? Not likely, on accounts of ... I think we're still in a cave." It doesn't feel like it, but he knows the sense can be tricked. It's hard for him to accept the vague possibility that they'd been whisked out the cave and into open air. From a magical perspective, it was much easier making something out of light than something out of real things. Weight and mass and all the other physical stuff had to go into making tangible, real things, and that was hard.

He ventured a few steps closer.

"Yuuna, can we go now? This place is giving me the jeebies."

The statements from Rincewind, the sheer...weirdness of all of this. It serves as an important reminder. That she is, in fact, in a cave. She was in a cave, looking down at an illusion. A very convincing one. But it made everything start to slot into place. The arena begins to fade out, because there was just no way any of this was possible.

"You know what. I think yes. Let's leave. I've heard enough from...whatever...this thing is. Enough to know that isn't me."

Those were the best words he'd ever heard. Well, that he'd ever heard within the last few minutes. He shuffles over to her, tripping as the sand shifted back into the natural cave floor. He watches her, trying to gauge her expression.

He wrings a piece of ragged cloth between his fingers before resting on something safe to ask.

"You all right?"

Yuuna lowers her sword and looks down at the Luggage before reaching into her pack and pullout out a Pokepuff and dropping it into that maw. Unintentionally, perhaps, the thing had stopped her from breaking a vow. She'd just been so angry, so...furious.

She sheathes the weapon before slumping back down onto her backside, a tired expression crossing her features before she manages to answer.

"I...have been better. That was the second time. Shouldn't have let it get to me as much."

"Sorry? Second time? Was it also in a cave?" He watches the Luggage happily devour the offered treat. As much trouble it gives him, he's glad it's usually around when he needs it. It saved his life a couple times in Sanctuary and has a good, head-start in Union. Sans the whole ... rampaging business. He'd rather forget that.

"She must have bothered you. Never seen you upset like this."

Yuuna slowly reached out a hand, offering the Luggage the opportunity for a pat. The slightest indication of hostility, though...and not only is it moving away, but a Tyranitar is being dropped on it.

"No, that time was in the Dream World. A test from Darkrai, I think. But wouldn't you be a little...bothered? Seeing yourself like that? I mean, I'm afraid of that. Of becoming anything like that..."

He toes a stone across the ground. "Can't say I've ever given it a thought. It's not me I'm afraid of," he says, despondently. "It's everything else."

The Luggage blankly stared at the hand.

The Luggage receives a pat, then. And another Pokepuff before the hand retreated. Good monster.

"Well, I'm actually just...glad to know I'm not going to turn out like that. But it's freaky seeing it all the same."

The Luggage accepts both the food and the pat. The former because it was food and the latter because it recognizes a friend of its master when it sees one. It does understand what they're saying, after all. It just opts to feign deafness a majority of the time. Stubborn thing, that Luggage.

"Don't know why you're afraid of that. You're nothing like her." He just kind of, stands near her. He idly fiddles with a loose sequin on his robe. "Well, not that I know of," he reluctantly adds.

"Well, see? Power corrupts. And...I really am more afraid of becoming Enhanced than that..."

That's the truth. She's seen what it did to her best friend from school...

"Enhanced ... that's that Gigan thing, innit? Where they take people and 'improve' them?" He frowned. "Can't see the point. It's just asking for trouble." Rincewind, after a brief deliberation, settles onto the ground next to her. He rests his back against the broad side of the Luggage. He raps his knuckles against the lid a couple times and the Luggage yawns obligingly. Rincewind hooks his arm over the lip and blindly fishes for something.

"Why would they want you? Do you have a history with Gigas?"

Yuuna chuckles drearily at that and nods. "A bit. I fought them in Sanctuary. I've fought against the Enhanced that came down too. Not to mention I'm part of what passes for Union's military, and I've won awards for martial arts and swordplay."

She shakes her head, looking down at her hands after a moment.

"They took my best friend, presumably because he was exceptional. Every single person I know of who's become Enhanced was, in some way? A bit more than normal. Maybe it's arrogant to say, but I'm not exactly boring."

Rincewind gives her a look that could read as either, 'boring? who needs boring?' or 'that wasn't humble at all'. Knowing Rincewind, it was more likely to be the latter.

"I'm guessing you haven't seen him again." He had a good guess. When Gigas was involved, the answer to any missing persons case was almost always 'over there', meanwhile pointing a finger in the rough estimate of the damned civilization and wondering who'd go missing next. "Funny, them being behind almost everything."

"Actually. He escaped," Yuuna's answer, while dry, is full of gratitude. She's eternally happy to have Takeshi Hongo back in her life. Even changed, he's a good friend.

"He's back in Union, now. Thank the Savior."

"Right. Thank the, er, wossname." He seems to consider something, and finally caves. Yuuna might know. She's been in Union for a while, right? Rincewind, with a stick, draws occult symbols of dead languages in the sand. Without looking up, he begins.

"About that, this whole Union thing, what's so special about it that makes everyone here think it's safe?"

She was born there, so.

"Honestly? It's the walls. They've stood for five hundred years. And until a little over a year ago? We didn't ever leave them, really. Couple that with the fact that we've got a forest surrounding us, skilled trackers and trainers, and Enlightened? we're about as safe as anyplace else."

"Must be old then, the walls." As if the observation alone was enough to stand the test of time. He doodles another symbol. "Time, as a siege weapon, would be dreadful. An' five hundred years of it, well ..." Doodle. Doodle. "I wouldn't put much faith in your walls if I were you."

"Rincewind. They're rebuilt and repaired in sections and have been regularly for the last few centuries. You really don't need to be so worried about that. But I have faith in the people, really. It's not like I've been let down yet."

'Yet' teeters on the tip of his tongue. Fine, so she'd remain strangely optimistic. Who was he to be a wet-blanket? Rincewind sighs and swallows the despairing word down with the sad, dejected look of a moping dog. Let her hope. He'll pray nothing gets dashed anytime soon.

A lot of good it'll do though ...

She would. She's got a lot of faith, only moreso after meeting the literal founder of it.

"Let's...get out of here. Before anything else crazy happens."

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Descent into Darkness

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