EVENT | INTERMEZZO | Palace Exploration Log

[ironwood]

Characters: ALL!
Date: Sept 28 and onward
Location: Palace of the Landed Sky, Keeliai
Situation: In the wake of Malicant's bold taunt, and the death of the Emperor and five hatchlings, the Palace is left abandoned and open for the Foreigners and kedan alike to explore.
Warnings/Rating: CONTENT WARNINGS are noted in the various subject headers, please take note of them!

---
zwischenzug | (ˈzvɪʃənzuːɡ) | intermezzo | n. (in chess):
1. A tactical move interpolated into an exchange or series of exchanges to improve the outcome.
2. "in-between move". An unexpected move tossed into an expected series of moves. (German)
---

Where once the Palace of the Landed Sky was a majestic and beautiful thing to behold, it now seems to pulse with negative energy. The outer walls are crumbling in most places, unsteady and fallen into disrepair. The walls of the Palace itself remain for the most part sturdy, minus a few fallen stones and the ruins beside the Courtyard.

The Palace is empty. Though some bodies can be found scattered haphazardly about the halls, most of those who were working in the building have disappeared entirely. There’s no question as to whose doing it was.

Small groups of kedan have also ventured into the Palace in order to loot whatever rooms they can get into, feeling confident that the reward will outweigh the risk of facing off against Foreigners who may feel the need to repel them. Mostly they'll be in groups of 3-5, though individuals or larger can be encountered as well. Some will engage the Foreigners in hostilities and some will grudgingly be sent on their way without challenge, depending on how bold they feel.

No banners, rugs, lanterns, or furniture within the Palace remain in pristine condition (with the exception of Eshai’s room). Everywhere one looks, items are torn, scratched, or smeared with blood. Even the interior walls are often cracked or caked in what one hopes is only blood. Perhaps more unnerving are the ‘veins’ that run through the walls, floor, and ceiling. These thin black tendrils, equal parts within and without the surface they spread across, are textured and feel like pine needles to the touch. These veins run throughout the Palace, yet never seem to thicken, intensify, or coalesce in any one room or area.

Though the walls are still made of white marble and the floor remains interlaced with rose quartz and mother-of-pearl, the shine has gone from them and something of the life and light they brought has withered away. Though the structure remains intact, it feels in some areas as if the walls have closed in, making the previously grand rooms now seem shrunken and constrictive. An air of eerie calm and discomfort can be felt from the first step on. The building is not the Palace anyone remembers.

---

LINKS
Throne Room | Eshai's Room | Storage Armory | Library
Ritual Chamber | Prison | Courtyard | The Turtle's Head

OOC NOTE
The Palace becomes available to explore as of the 28th, but will remain accessible until further notice. Please direct any questions regarding this log to the QUESTIONS section in the original OOC post.

There will also be a State of the Shell post coming soon to address the current status of the city and its key players. Thank you!

Comments

RITUAL CHAMBER - [content warning: blood, brutal death, torture/deformation (involving children)]

[ironwood]

The secret passage from the Library leads down a long and dark path which sinks lower and lower as it continues. When at last someone steps out of the hallway of sorts and into the chamber itself, they will find their feet firmly planted directly on the shell of the turtle. Most noticeable is that the Ritual Chamber is the only room whose walls and ceiling are constructed solely of obsidian, a stark contrast from the Palace’s otherwise white marble walls.

Emerging at the top of a large and roughly triangular room, the walls stretch away symmetrically at widening angles. The far right side of the room houses an enormous pit, its contents hidden from a distance. At the far left end of the room, a portion of the triangle is taken up by a separate and enclosed room whose door is visible from the chamber’s entrance.

As characters approach the pit, the stench of blood, death, and rot will assault their senses until their eyes sting and they will begin to make out vague and grotesque shapes. Upon closer inspection, the shapes separate and the sheer size of the mass grave becomes apparent. Comprised almost entirely of the native population, though there are a few forms that are not from Keeliai, the slaughtered pile of corpses displays a clear preference for young kedan, particularly those of noble bloodlines. Some are missing limbs, eyes, or tongues; some are missing clothes. All seem gaunt, faces contorted with agony. All show signs of injuries and blood loss. There is nothing good or redeeming about this place.

Beside the pit are roughly a dozen cages stacked on top of each other along the wall, most caked with layers of dried blood and the bottom row housing sporadic puddles of urine. There’s no question as to where the prisoners were kept while alive, even though some of the cages are so small it’s a wonder that anyone could fit within them. The stench of rot and death extends here as well. Two cages still house kedan bodies; a middle-aged man and a young girl, respectively.

In the remaining “point” of the triangular room is the separate room. Through the door, which is easily opened, are rows upon rows of shelves in what was likely an alchemical storage. Most of the glass jars and vials have been shattered, their contents spilled and burned. The room reeks of oil and it seems unwise to test an open flame. In mocking, the only ingredients left intact are a small collection of local poisons: Fool’s Valor, from the local fauna; Drowning Embrace, another plant-based poison; venom milked from Lumps; and so on. All have the same effects of killing the person who ingests it and a couple will even cause burning or stinging upon skin contact.

In the main part of the triangle, separate from the pit and the storage room, characters will notice that there are grooves carved into the floor, allowing whatever blood is spilled in this room to travel down into the greater depths Asti’s shell. The shell also features an assortment of symbols written in blood, clustered in small groups. In the center of the room is painted a circle whose diameter is roughly the length of a man; the symbols specifically drawn around the circle will, for those educated on such matters, be familiar as resembling those of portals to the other Realms. The same circle, with an overlapping but different collection of symbols, is also painted on the ceiling directly above the floor circle.

Anyone versed in anything to do with blood or death magic will immediately become noticeably more powerful (within reason) upon entering this room, though that power will immediately diminish again upon leaving.

spoiler content: SP book six

[gistful]

As promised, Anton hadn't gone downstairs until he met back up with Skulduggery, and to his relief Skulduggery had kept his promise not to do the same. Sometimes, when the skeleton got caught up in an investigation, he tended to think of promises as 'guidelines'; and although Anton disliked it, his perception of the skeleton had, of late, shifted. He no longer trusted the skeleton to take the wise and rational course of action, and still wasn't entirely sure Skulduggery understood or even wanted to change that.

Right at this moment, it mattered very little. Anton still trusted Skulduggery with the most important things; it was just that he insisted on going first down the stairs.

The stench rose up before Anton reached the bottom, and Anton grunted and fished out a handkerchief, and tied it around his neck to cover his nose. When he reached the bottom he stood there for a time, surveying the scene and blocking Skulduggery's way down the stairs, and letting the gist roll with anger (but no true righteousness).

"There is death down here," he said, low but carrying so Skulduggery could hear him. "Can you endure?"

[skeletonenigma]

It was difficult avoiding the secret passage in the library after Skulduggery found it - especially after he realised how far down below the Palace it went. But he'd resisted, and waited until Anton was with him. He'd made a promise, after all. He'd made a promise to one of only three people on the turtle who knew the truth about Vile and accepted him nonetheless; he wasn't going to break it simply because he was curious.

He waited impatiently a quarter of the way down the stairs, debating the wisdom of lighting up the area with a flame in his hand. For Anton's sake, of course. But something about the smell made him refrain, and Anton's verbal confirmation of Skulduggery's suspicion a moment later banished the idea from the detective's mind. It was never a wise idea to add fire to a scene of magical death.

He was tempted to answer Anton's question flippantly - of course he could. What did Anton think he'd done every time someone died within the last two years? Gone off the rails? - but given the situation, he didn't believe it would be appreciated. So he kept his answer simple and direct: "Yes." Without then waiting for an invitation, Skulduggery floated down to join Anton, and looked out into the large dark chamber.

Not for the first time, he wished he could turn off his inexplicable sense of smell. The stench was already overpowering.

[gistful]

It was dark and Anton didn't like the shadows. He found the stick of wood he'd stuck into his belt and closed the circle on the set of light-sigils carved at the top, and light bloomed at its head. Then he stepped further into the room, holding the torch aloft.

Even through the handkerchief the smell was powerful. Anton breathed through his mouth and blinked away the water at the corners of his eyes, and he went first to the cages to investigate the bodies. Both were dead. He didn't look toward the grave.

Instead he went to the ritual circles, and made sure not to step into it. He just examined it from outside, glancing up at the circle on the ceiling. "These are sigils," he said, "but I haven't seen the sort before. Have you?"

[skeletonenigma]

Anton moved off the moment his torch was lit, but Skulduggery hesitated before joining him. He wasn't quite sure why. An impending sense of doom, perhaps? Maybe it was how the colour of the stone in the walls had changed to black. Maybe it was the idea of so much death so close by, even if Skulduggery wasn't currently capable of feeling it the way a necromancer could.

Then he stepped onto the curve of the shell, and suddenly he was.

The atmosphere seemed, to Skulduggery's nonexistent skin, to grow cold and intense, somehow invigorating. His presence bent the shadows around him like he was a metaphorical heat sink. The feeling of the lingering deaths in the chamber rushed in to fill the empty spaces between the bones in Skulduggery's frame, causing him to stop and bend inwards, fighting back an audible gasp. Without his will, without his permission, without so much as a stray thought, Vile's armour solidified around that death, drinking it in and reaching solid tendrils of shadow greedily toward the pit. It took all of Skulduggery's strength to rein it in and keep it contained, and still the armour rotated very slowly around his body, impossible to dismiss and impossible to ignore.

Another moment of concentration, and Skulduggery managed to retract the helmet. It disappeared smoothly into the rest of the armour.

"This," he said, his voice layered with the effort his control took, "shouldn't be happening."

[gistful]

It wasn't the least bit an answer to Anton's question and he turned with a frown toward Skulduggery, and then stopped. Adrenaline rushed through him and he nudged Daisy off his back to slide into his hand, at his hip, ready to fire at a moment's sign of hostility.

Then the helmet slid back, and even though Anton knew what that meant, the sight of Skulduggery's be-hatted skull on top of that black armour still made it difficult to lower his shotgun. After a moment, he managed it. And he had to ask, again: "Can you endure?"

His voice was tense. He felt that was understandable. Not many things could make the Dead Men actively afraid. Lord Vile had been one of them.

[skeletonenigma]

That was a much more interesting question than it appeared at first. The obvious answer was no, because the armour had manifested, and there was so much violent death smeared across the walls of the chamber and the Palace above that it was physically impossible for Skulduggery to de-manifest it again. The wrinkle in that assertion was also obvious, however - it wasn't often Skulduggery could wear the armour and still know, quite firmly, that he was Skulduggery. In fact, this was the only time he could think of.

But it was taking everything he had to keep it that way, and Skulduggery knew better than anyone what the consequences were if he slipped for even a moment. If it were possible, he needed to leave, to avoid the risk entirely. If Anton wasn't right there, he would have.

"Yes," he said again. "But let's not stay here long. Which sigils?"

[gistful]

"These." Anton nodded at the circles on the floor and ceiling, and even though he couldn't quite see them properly he couldn't bring himself to turn his back on the armour. Five years. Five years spent fighting the bogeyman Lord Vile had become. Five years never knowing which shadows were benign and which weren't, whether fallen comrades would remain either fallen or comrades.

Years of hearing Ghastly wake screaming for his dead mother.

"Have you seen these sigils before?" Anton asked again, evenly, because he wasn't sure whether Skulduggery had heard him the first time.

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery walked over - slowly, carefully, keeping the shadows from forming a wave under his feet to speed his tracks - and considered it an achievement that the helmet remained dispersed when he reached the other end. He wasn't right next to the mass grave, but he might as well have been. Every facet of the armour, and several facets of Skulduggery himself, were screaming to be let loose over the kedans' corpses.

Sigils. He was interested in the sigils.

He could barely see the sigils. The grave, the bodies in the cages; they kept stealing and holding the entirety of his attention.

"Yes," he managed eventually, looking up at the ceiling - or rather, through the ceiling. "On the roof. There's an identical circle directly above these, fueling a portal." Skulduggery moved just as slowly as before over to the grooves cut into the floor, and knelt down to run a hand over the jagged stone. A moment later, he changed his mind and withdrew that hand so he didn't have to look at the shadow-gauntlet encompassing it. "They collected tainted blood and poured it into Asti."

Spoilers for SP book 6 | Solomon and Raine

[skeletonenigma]

"I should probably mention," Skulduggery added as they picked their way down the stone steps, "that death magic is heightened tenfold the moment you cross the threshold. It's startling, but it doesn't replace anything."

All of which was a subtle apology for what would happen to Skulduggery the moment they crossed over the threshold. But certainly where Wreath was concerned, he didn't need to explicitly say it, and Raine was clever enough to put the pieces together once they were in the chamber itself. By then, hopefully, there'd be plenty to distract them. Skulduggery himself was already mentally mapping a beeline to the circle symbols in the middle of the room, because if he paused for even a moment while the armour was forming, he wasn't sure he'd be able to start up again.

[peacefullywreathed]

"Joy of joys," Solomon muttered. He wasn't looking down, partly because with the dim light he didn't have to and partly because he didn't particularly want to. The place smelled, for one, and looking into it, thinking about it, would only make the smell worse.

'Startling', Skulduggery had said. Solomon had been expecting him to understate things, and still wasn't prepared when he followed the skeleton down off the stairs. It wasn't like walking into a wall; it was like walking into an all-encompassing tub of pressure. He stepped down and felt everything in him--his heart, his blood pumping, his organs working. He felt it all, and the power in the room, and knew that the human body wasn't mean to contain this sort of power--not without extenuating circumstances. Not without their true-name, or without being a skeleton.

His vision blurred and his body started to shut down, and with a distant sort of calm Solomon took hold of his death and looped it around himself like a shield, cocooned himself with magic to keep his body his own and animated, if not ... entirely ... alive. He'd be fine. It was the same thing the Dullahan did with their carriages, and that was perfectly reversible for someone who knew what they were doing.

It was a good thing Raine was there, however. He was going to need her to heal the damage once he stepped out of the room.

At least it wasn't painful--or cold. The feeling went past that, to a sort of detachment that Solomon knew would let him work without the interference of emotion. Even when Skulduggery's presence lit up as concentrated crystal ahead of him, that presence was at least controlled. It was also, after a fashion, inconsequential, which Solomon would have found amusing if he could have; people never found Lord Vile inconsequential.

"You were understating again," he told Skulduggery anyway, because he felt it needed to be said, and when he stepped into the room the shadows followed him, and his eyes were red. His flesh, to the touch, would be deathly cold, and he wasn't breathing.

[ruinsprofessor]

The mana in the space felt oppressive, heavy and dark, such as she'd felt only very rarely before, and Raine shivered involuntarily as they descended. She'd known there would be... unpleasantness, had been informed when asked to accompany the two of them, but even so it took her aback a little.

And then, of course, there was the problem of her companions. The smell caused her to take shallower breaths, and she could already tell she was going to hate everything she saw in the the chamber proper, but the dead were beyond her help. She might also be beyond help, honestly, she realized, processing armor and crimson eyes in conjunction with how much death must have taken place here. She was now in a room with two Necromancers of immense power, both certainly treading some sort of ragged edge.

If either of them lost control, she wouldn't even know what happened. With that in mind, Raine exhaled heavily, and pushed that worry from her mind. With nothing she could do, fear would serve no purpose.

...Was Solomon even breathing? She took a quick couple of steps and reached for his hand, feeling her way to where a pulse should beat in his wrist. Nothing. Unsettled despite her resolution, Raine let go and turned her gaze to the rest of the room instead. "Will you need medical attention later?" she asked, striving for calm.

The center of the room, where Skulduggery seemed to be headed, was certainly the point of most interest, and after a moment to survey the rest and and firm her grip on her staff, Raine moved that way as well, mindful of where she stepped. She very much hoped it wasn't what she thought it was. "This is what you wanted to take another look at, correct?"

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery was immediately grateful Wreath had spoken. Not because it meant Wreath was still conscious, though he had felt the man's instant unnatural death; but because he'd been instinctively reaching out for control of the reanimated tissue without thinking, without realising, aware only that there was a second force in the room capable of doing so and Skulduggery was more powerful than it was. Wreath's words stopped that instinct in its tracks, forcing Skulduggery to be aware of what he was doing, and then it was all the armour-clad skeleton could do to keep walking forward.

He might have tried to apologise for understating, if he thought it would do either of them any good.

"It is," he confirmed for Raine with a nod as the shadow-helmet, just like before with Anton, vanished smoothly into the rest of the armour. "This is where all the tainted blood was collected. You can see the grooves where it soaked into Asti's shell. There are symbols carved all over the place, probably facilitating that. But here, in the center..."

He spoke out loud not for Raine's benefit, but because if he wasn't constantly reminding himself of what he was doing, all Skulduggery would see would be Wreath's death, encompassed and protected by the formidable power of Wreath's magic. Power he wanted to test. Magic he wanted to battle.

"This was what I wanted translated," he finished softly, gesturing to the painted circle.

[peacefullywreathed]

When Raine reached for his wrist Solomon wordlessly lifted it to give her access, unmoved by her reaction. Everything was clear and sharp--just divested of pesky emotions to get in the way. "Yes," he answered, mildly as though chatting about the weather. "The strength of the magic here was causing my internal organs to shut down simultaneously. There's been some damage you'll need to repair once I leave the room."

He felt Skulduggery reach out for him and looked at the skeleton, and saw his form as a white silhouette in the centre of the crystal that was the armour. Like this, the shapes of the walls and the room, the physical dimensions of the area, were all shadowed. Raine's presence was like a burning heat; Solomon could still feel her fingers against his wrist.

The sigils, at least, were bright enough to see in spite of his shift in visual spectrum. Solomon moved deeper into the room and his step felt smooth, almost liquid, as if he was unrestrained by issues relating to muscle or blood or chemical. He wondered vaguely if this was what it felt like for Skulduggery, and glanced at him, at the way the armour's spikes were pointed to him. Solomon looked away, to the symbols.

"How deep does the groove go?" he asked "They're similar to the ones on the Dreaming portals," he noted with what might have been surprise if he'd currently been capable of feeling it. "Not the same, but similar. These ones seem to facilitate transport." He pointed to some. "These ones I've seen on portals into the Dreaming, and into Death when I learned to sense the taint." He indicated some others. "The rest I'm not familiar with." That was a good half that he couldn't recognise at all.

[ruinsprofessor]

He hadn't been nearly this vocal last time she saw that armor forming. Still Skulduggery, despite it. Just like it was still Solomon, though detached and at least partially dead. "Please give me ten seconds' warning, if at all possible," she told him, firm, and crouched to examine the central circle more closely.

Raine was more or less oblivious to the interplay between them, and she had no sense for death to distract or otherwise compromise her, so the symbols could have her full attention. Those that looked familiar, however, only did so for the similarity to the ones she'd seen in experimentation with Solomon. She wasn't going to be particularly useful to the translation effort, and so instead she studied the shapes present with an eye to memorizing them. She still had the drawing Annabeth had reproduced for her, of the previous blood magic the Foreigners had encountered, and should compare them when she could.

"I wonder if it leads all the way beneath his shell," she added, scrutinizing the aforementioned groove without touching. Softer, almost to herself: "...it would fit, wouldn't it. How long has this taken...?"

[skeletonenigma]

Raine answered Wreath's question before Skulduggery could. By posing another question, yes, but it was still something. He confirmed the answer he had for Raine's question before speaking, by reaching his magic - not his awareness, his magic - down into the groove. There was a rush of shadow, and then silence, and the shadows went far enough down that Skulduggery nodded. "All the way beneath the shell. Months, I'd guess. Ever since Mali - "

Force of habit made him stop. His mind caught up nearly three seconds later.

"Ever since he first took the Palace," Skulduggery amended, taking a single step back towards the stairs and away from the pit. He really shouldn't be here for any longer than was necessary. "There's a similar portal directly above us on the roof. I didn't get the chance to find out where it goes."

[peacefullywreathed]

"Your mouth is running away from you again," Solomon murmured, and rose, glancing up at the ceiling. "These circles are the same. The one on the roof might not be related." The location was suspect and it might draw power from this room, but that didn't mean it and the portal these circles generated were intertwined.

Skulduggery's movement made him glance toward the skeleton again, and this time Solomon studied him. He'd never seen Skulduggery like this before, and even if he'd cared he couldn't have been sure whether it was a result of his current state or the presence of the armour as a contrasting force. Either way, Skulduggery's skeleton read differently to the armour, to the presence of pure Necromancy. In fact Solomon could almost see a bloom in the heart of him, like a spider-web of fractures which kept him bound.

He'd been killed by the Red Hand. It scoured away a person's soul until they were no longer bound to their body, separated them thread by thread. That hadn't happened to Skulduggery. There was, still, a connection there.

"I need to see the other portal," he said, but he was still staring, with his head slanted. Skulduggery looked, he thought, as though someone had shoved his soul out instead of properly cutting its ties. However did the Red Hand work? Interesting.

Continuation, backdated to before Raine's reveal.

[royalguard_style]

Dante had no idea what he was in for when he entered the room, and that became apparent immediately. He stopped in his tracks the moment the smell became too much to bear, and once he gathered the courage to take a few more steps, he dropped his gun in shock. After that, he said nothing; anyone who knew him knew that this was a very bad sign.

The demons and even some of the humans of his world were depraved, but not by this much. He was far more familiar with human sacrifice then he ever wanted to be, but this was too far over the line, even considering the things he's seen. It was finally starting to sink in after all of these months; he was in over his head.

"You were right." He finally spoke up, fists trembling. He wanted someone to blame, someone to take this all out on. But there were no mad scientists or monsters down here, the sight of just what they were truly up against. It was no wonder he didn't know, if anyone had been down here before, there was no way they would be ready to talk about what they saw here. And yet, he knew he couldn't turn back. He tried to tell himself that it was all part of the job, that if he turned back now he was nothing but a coward, and it worked. He kept walking forward numbly, hoping that he'd notice something useful and quick.

[redlightgreenlight]

To her senses, the scent of death and decay hit her long before it struck Dante. She stopped, allowing him to move ahead while she gathered herself. Once she had gathered herself for what she knew they would be facing, she followed, almost running into him when he stopped suddenly. His shock became evident when his gun clattered on the ground. He was struggling with what he was seeing, she could tell from his body language.

"Sometimes I hate being right," she replied when he moved into the room. She didn't have to see it to know that it was bad. The moment she stepped across the threshold of the room, everything changed. It was worse than in the prison, for the effects were instant instead of gradual. The angry souls reared up to look out of her red eyes.

She should have felt disgusted, horrified and angry at what she was seeing, but she didn't. The death filling the room felt good, The lingering angony was revitalizing, the old blood smelled sickly sweet, the power filled her entire being and it seemed as if the magic holding her soul would break beneath the pressure.

It took her a moment to realize that she was trembling, not with fear, but with the barely restrained desire to consume that power and wreak havoc as she once had. The thought that Malicant's power was absolute crossed her mind, along with the brief realization that perhaps she was on the wrong side in this war. If this was just a taste of what Malicant could offer, then why did she stand alongside fools who did not realize that the war was so one sided?

"I've never seen anything like this," she whispered, her voice low. The darkness rose as she released it, the souls taking an almost visible form, their whispers and laughter just barely audible in the silence. "How can we win against such contempt for life?"

[royalguard_style]

Dante was struggling with what he saw, but he wasn't inexperienced. If anything, he's so shocked because he knew the deeper implications of this. He's dealt with human sacrifice on a smaller scale a multitude of times. The sickest man he's ever met had once sacrificed his own wife to gain demonic power, and it worked far, far too well. That was one life. One. Malicant just outdid that man in one fell swoop. And worse, he might have all of that power. He knew just enough to understand just how sick, twisted, and horrible this all was.

He was still trembling, but his fear had turned into anger by now. This was nothing but pure contempt for life and pure lust for power, and Dante was offended to the very core of his being. He was mumbling under his breath for a while, telling someone not to worry. He only snapped back to reality when Valdis spoke up.

"We can win because he's weak." Dante refused to look away from the scene, and straightened up. His voice was laced with anger and hatred then confidence, but he honestly believed what he was saying. "Why do you think he sacrificed all of these people? This is the last desperate act of a sick and twisted coward who knows he's cornered."

[redlightgreenlight]

The shadows seemed to dance as the souls she had stolen continued to whisper and laugh. She remained still, watching the half-demon as he moved about the room. She could sense his anger, his confusion, his hatred and she began to draw upon it, allowing it to feed the power she already felt coursing through her veins. What they were seeing should have terrified her, but with each passing moment the feeling of respect for her enemy grew stronger.

"No," she replied, finally moving deeper into the room, "If you could feel what I feel..." She laughed and the souls echoed it, "The anger, agony, death, hatred and power." In essence, everything that her darkness thrived on, "Then you would know."

[royalguard_style]

"You're right, I don't know what you're feeling." Dante turned around immediately. He recognized that tone of voice immediately: The demons from his world lived in a might-makes-right society, so the sight of someone losing control because they were enjoying the newfound power was easy to recognize. Especially when one of those someones was his brother. God, that was something he didn't need a reminder of, especially not at a time like this. He'd do just about anything to avoid repeating the mistakes he made there, and that meant he needed to stop Valdis from doing something stupid before the thought crossed her mind.

"But I sure as hell have seen what that kind of power does to people. Screw the investigation, we're getting out of here." Maybe it wasn't too late to turn tail and run. He could always come back later, after he's had time for what he's seen to settle in, and without Valdis acting the way she is. Better yet, without Valdis around at all. He turns back and picks up his pistol.

[redlightgreenlight]

How could he know what she was feeling? He didn't have the same senses, the same powers or the same past. She watched him, sensing his lack of calm. She honestly didn't blame him when he decided that they should leave, but she had come too far to leave now. He picked up his gun, amusing since bullets couldn't stop her, but...

"There's no need for that," she said, pushing the darkness away and walking deeper into the room, "He doesn't get to use my power again and no matter how good it feels..." She shook her head, "I have not given in yet."

[royalguard_style]

"Fine." Dante was starting to calm down, at least enough to more or less act composed again. There were more important things then his shock going on, and he needed to be focused. He had to keep telling himself that this was no different from the jobs he faced back home. "But just so you know, the second you laugh like that again, I won't let you stay another second. I'll shoot you if I have to."

With that out of the way, he skipped past the worst of the scene and onto the actual altar itself. Unsurprisingly, there were more writings and symbols, and none of them resemble the types he's seen in his world. "If what you say about power is true, then you-know-who might be trying to make himself more powerful. The particulars were different on my world, but people have tried doing about the same thing. Just on a smaller scale."

[redlightgreenlight]

"As if your bullets could stop me," she said, resisting the urge to laugh again.

She knelt to examine the symbols that were written in a circular pattern, but she had to admit that they made no sense. She looked up to see similar symbols painted on the ceiling above them. Blood symbols were scattered about the floor of the room, no, not floor, it was Asti's shell that they stood on.

"In my world, human sacrifices were made to honor or please the gods," she replied, moving toward the door at the far end. She could still feel the power that resided within the room, could still taste the desire. She pushed open the door, regarded the shelves, broken vials and jars and, finding nothing immediately interesting, backed out and closed the door again.

"Strong enemies, the best warriors, the purest maidens..." She looked back to see Dante examining the writings. "There are numerous writings and myths in the histories about human sacrifice. But nothing like this."