You fight me / flat on my lonely face I fell

[reconjunction]

Characters: Irvine and you.
Date: 1-5 August 2015 (2016 in-game)
Location: All over the city
Situation: This situation looks awfully familiar, and Irvine is convinced that this is all a trick/imprisonment by his canon’s big bad. The solution? Find the ‘people’ that don’t fit the setting and kill them to unlock the exit.
Warnings/Rating: Almost certainly violence.

A: He who fights and runs away … [1ST OF AUGUST ONLY]
The buildings and street faded up from white blankness like a staticky connection – at first in black and white, then in colour, then with sound. It wasn't the place he meant to be. Nowhere near. What was this? They beat the sorceress, why was he walking out of that damned whitespace and into some city he’d never seen before?

Irvine’s heart pounded as he scanned the area, walking long-legged down the street with his coat flapping behind him and his hat shading his face from the sun. Most of the people on the street were humanoid, but some of them have … things, scales and wings and horns. Monsters? Some new junction? Was this the sorceress’s endgame in case she lost, just shoving them into some space filled with monsters crossed with people, as if that would stop them from fighting back?

Damn. In Irvine’s case, she was probably right.

One of them came at him and Irvine’s shotgun jerked up, and they backed away instead. But it drew attention; some of the others started eyeing him, and Irvine decided that discretion is the better part of valour. Even if they were all just constructs, like the fake sorceresses right as the time-compression began, the last thing he needed was to turn the whole setting against him.

And he didn’t even know where the others were, either. Whether they were following. He hoped they made it out. He’d call, but what if there was something else nearby, something that couldn’t see him in among the constructs, and he called attention to himself?

Dangerous. It was all dangerous. So Irvine didn’t yell, and stuck to walking by the sides of buildings, watching and looking for portals. It took about two hours before he realised why he felt so weird — because he didn’t have access to his junctions, just like in the castle. It had taken one of the others pointing it out before he noticed then, too. He wasn’t used to having junctions on the whole day, every day. He wasn’t used to feeling weird about not feeling them.

That definitely meant he couldn’t shout for the others. He had no way to defend himself, except Exeter, and Exeter was a wonderfully advanced gun but she wasn’t made of magic.

So he walked on, not drawing attention—or trying not to, anyway—avoiding anyone who spoke to him, to the point of running if necessary.

[ooc: Irvine will retreat from any prolonged interaction, but feel free to chase him! I would like for him to escape no matter what, before he finds out too many details about Keeliai, for continuity purposes.]


B: … lives to fight another day.

Finding a place to sleep wasn’t too difficult, for Irvine. He made use of the heights, because not many people had a tendency to look up. For all that it was easier to fight on the ground, alongside comrades, he’d always felt safer when he was higher than everyone else. It still wasn’t ideal and he woke up fitfully every couple of hours, but that was good. He didn’t have comrades here. That was fine. He was used to that. Used to waking up every two hours like clockwork, waking up in an instant at the most threatening sound.

It sucked, that kind of schedule, and he hadn’t missed it. But it worked and gave him time to put together the details, and not go nuts from exhaustion along the way. It kept him safe enough until his junctions came back, which was frankly a surprise. A welcome one, but a surprise. Wasn't going to stop him from using them. If he couldn't use his junctions, he was screwed no matter what.

He still didn’t know a couple of things. Didn’t know where the exits were. Didn’t know whether the local were real and transplanted, junctioned, fake. Didn’t know whether this was a city from the past – maybe Centran – or a city from the future he hadn’t experienced. Didn’t know whether he’d meet the sorceress herself here, from some point in her timeline before they killed her.

But Irvine knew about the Foreigners. They were the ones that didn’t fit, the ones with powers, like the seal guardians in the sorceress’s castle who kept the GFs and all their bestowed powers contained until they were dead.

It was pretty obvious, after that. Killing the seal guardians had released the GFs’ powers, one by one. The so-called Foreigners didn’t fit, so they were the ones that were real and keeping this whole place together, whether leftover time-compression or something else. Prison, maybe. Maybe the others were all locked up in whitespace and relying on Irvine to get them out, and this was the final gateway.

Irvine couldn’t let them down. He wasn’t very good at a lot of things, but he wasn’t going to let his comrades down. So he watched. Tracked. Waited. When timing was right, he struck.

[ooc: Skulduggery’s thread in (B) will come, date-wise, before any others, but feel free to tag in whenever. I’d prefer Irvine didn’t die, which is fine because he’ll run away if he’s overpowered, but he’s definitely aiming to kill others, so lemme know if you’re prefer that didn’t happen and we can arrange for some method of escape on the part of either him or your character as needed!]

Comments

B | Morning of the 2nd

[skeletonenigma]

After over a year in Keeliai, Skulduggery had developed a very good sense for picking newcomers out of a crowd. Granted, this wasn't exactly a crowd, and he couldn't actually see the newcomer, but he knew he was being followed. And he knew whoever was following him couldn't possibly be one of the impaired kedan from the earlier Foreigner muggings, because Skulduggery would have seen that kedan by now.

So his follower was most likely a Foreigner, a skilled Foreigner, who didn't know what to make of a living skeleton.

Skulduggery led them through market streets for almost half an hour trying to pick out the main offender, the hiding places they were using, or any possible accomplices. Nothing panned out. Eventually, he pulled away from the crowds of the markets and walked alone down an empty alley behind a warehouse. Whoever was following him, they would be forced to either abandon the hunt or make a move - or possibly follow along up high, along the rooftops. Wouldn't that be interesting.

[reconjunction]

Irvine had to give the sorceress kudos. This construct was bigger than the castle, and it was so much more difficult to tell who was 'Foreign' and who was just part of the scenery. The whole skeleton thing did it. Skeletons were always a target. What could you say about dead men who were still bound to their skeletons, up and walking around and stabbing things, or summoning Death to have others join them?

They were kind of rabid, actually. They weren't like most of the other monsters. They'd been human once. Irvine never had figured out, and tried to ignore, what made them come back. He really hoped when they got properly killed they went somewhere good, though.

Either way. The skeleton didn't fit here, was something Irvine actively recognised, and even if it wasn't a seal of some kind chances were it had to be taken out. Usually they didn't dress so well, but this was a weird place. Maybe the sorceress like well-clothed skeletons.

By the time the skeleton went into the alley, Irvine was pretty sure he'd been made. It worked in his favour, anyway; there was nothing to be gained by turning the setting against him because he killed the locals, and Irvine needed a clear line to cast Revive. Recovery magic on undead monsters--easiest kills ever. Quick and painless, too, which was better than shooting at them until they fell apart. Could undead things feel pain? If it was anything like being a zombie, which Irvine had been before and was not fun, they could.

He didn't follow right away but found a way onto the roof, where he'd definitely have a clear line and be safe from any stabby things the skeleton might be hiding, and hopefully would hide the glow of his magic-use. Irvine kept low, crouched along the roof-line and taking cover behind the raised edge until he'd reached the corner of the building and the skeleton was at the cross between backstreets.

Right. Best time he had. Irvine breathed out and touched his forehead, opening the line between him and Alexander, sitting in the back of his head. He wasn't summoning the GF, though, just borrowing its power, and it always felt like touching a live wire, this one. It made him feel his heart thudding, lungs squeezing, veins pulsing.

Irvine exhaled and pointed at the skeleton, and blue light bubbled around it.

[skeletonenigma]

Nobody obvious followed him down the alley. Skulduggery began scanning the rooftops as he walked, waiting for someone to drop down on top of him, just as the kedan muggers had done over a month before. But nobody did. No one took the prime opportunity to attack him.

When he reached the crossroads, he slowed down, and turned in a wide circle with his eyeless gaze on the tops of the buildings around him.

Then someone took the prime opportunity to attack him.

There was, out of nowhere, a sudden deep-seated ache in his bones. Bearable, but startling, and enough to drive Skulduggery back a step. He drew air in through his jawbone and straightened, summoning fire into his palm to face whatever was causing it, but then the ache abruptly intensified and the fire vanished. Skulduggery staggered back against the corner of one of the buildings, trying to gather his focus long enough to move the air, but the pain began thundering through his bones and his skull and his very being and then the cobblestones were suddenly centimetres away from his eyes and he couldn't see straight, couldn't think straight, couldn't -

Then it felt like his frame was being pulled apart. Skulduggery couldn't do much more than exist and scream.

An eternity later, whatever gripped him let him go. Skulduggery fell gasping against the ground. For one dizzying moment he thought he was with the Faceless Ones again, back in that dimension of white desert stone and death and pain. But when the fog cleared, the sounds of Keeliai filtered in to his consciousness. He managed to groan.

His voice sounded odd. Muffled. Raw. Familiar, in a very distant sort of way.

[reconjunction]

The moment, the very moment, Revive connected Irvine knew something was wrong. Revive wasn't a spell, it was a power. It made a connection para-magic couldn't. Irvine had once asked Squall what it felt like to junction Leviathan's Recover, and use it, and Squall, always thinking, had actually answered multi-syllabically.

Revive, in that instant when it connected to its target, felt like that moment after a full night's sleep, knowing that nothing was pressing, nothing was wrong, all was good in the world and everything was bright and refreshed. Unless he was killing something undead. Then it felt like relief. Just that, and nothing else. And it was only a moment. Just a moment, because a touch of Alexander's power was more than enough.

Except now. Except now when Irvine was a live wire, with Alexander's power running through him, touching that skeleton and the link wasn't dropping, because there was no simple release, just reaching back and back and back through years and years encompassed in that single skinny frame. If Irvine had had the slightest idea how, he'd have cut the link.

In the back of Irvine's head Alexander felt vaguely surprised, which was a feat for a hundred-foot-tall robotic fortress currently contained as a slip of energy in a teenager's brain. The fear though--that was all Irvine's, and it rushed through him hard and hot because Alexander's presence was draining through him into Revive. Irvine couldn't tell whether the link was pulling Alexander out or Alexander was forcing it because it knew something Irvine didn't, that breaking that link was worse than the alternative. Within seconds Alexander's presence had dimmed to that quiet half-sense of a GF hibernating to regain their strength, and what in hell could do that?!

Irvine hit the roof of the building with a gasp, his hand and knees stinging and head reeling. It wasn't any worse than usual GF-summoning backlash, but hell, it threw him for a loop.

That's one hell of a new one.

With a groan Irvine pushed himself to his feet, squinting in spite of the hat shading his face. There had been a ladder near here, right? Yeah. There it was. Irvine hauled himself over the ledge and slid down one-handed, his fingerless glove rasping as he went. He hit the ground and stepped back, pulling Exeter up at the figure on the ground, two-handed to compensate for any lingering unsteadiness.

It was a man. The skeleton had turned into a man. A groaning man with a nice suit split along the shoulders and other seams. That wasn't right. Recovery magic didn't heal the undead, it hurt them. Resurrection magic didn't revive the undead, it set them loose. This wasn't right.

C'mon, Kinneas, it's still a seal and still a target, and you still have to kill it to get anywhere.

Exeter was already primed. Irvine's finger touched the trigger and he meant to squeeze, he did, but the skeleton-turned-man was unarmed and just collapsed on the ground. Hell, his back was to Irvine. Could he do that? Shoot an unarmed man in the back while he lay on the ground?

Even as he asked himself the question, Irvine knew the answer.

[skeletonenigma]

Breathing was strange.

It felt a little like when Skulduggery was still getting used to being a skeleton, and breathing felt so impossibly light that he didn't bother with it until he'd gotten used to everything else - except this time it didn't feel light. It felt heavy. It felt wrong. It took a concerted effort, and it still didn't come nearly quickly enough.

Come to think of it, his whole body felt heavy.

Skulduggery turned his head, put his hands flat down on the ground so he could push himself up. The stone was rough beneath his palms. It cut. It hurt. It shouldn't have been able to do that. He shouldn't have needed to work so hard just to breathe. His vision shouldn't have been blurring and, somehow, physically painful.

He pushed himself onto his knees and blinked up at the man pointing the shotgun at him.

It was, Skulduggery reflected faintly, one of the most bizarre situations he'd ever found himself in. Not being on the other end of a gun, no - that happened often enough that Skulduggery was almost comfortable with it. It was being on the other end of a gun right after being attacked with foreign magic which, as far as Skulduggery could tell, constituted an extremely efficient way of throwing him off his guard and not much else.

"Hello," he managed, and almost immediately coughed. Coughed. And his voice, still so odd to his own ears...

He looked down at his suit jacket. It was torn right across his shoulders. Every button on the shirt was gone.

"You ruined my suit," he said forlornly.

[reconjunction]

When the man stirred Irvine tensed and sidled, ready to dodge or bolt if need be, prepared for an attack. Except that didn't happen. The man said hello, in shades of an accent Irvine had heard around the Timber area, said hello just as if they'd met on the street instead of Irvine bringing him back to life.

Did he realise he'd been brought back to life? Had he been aware, before, as a skeleton--right. Yes. He was complaining about his suit. It was so very ... human, and even if he hadn't still been lying unarmed on the ground, Irvine couldn't have killed him anyway. Irvine could never kill someone once he'd thought this much about them.

Coward. You are a coward, Kinneas, you can't even kill something keeping you trapped just because it wears the right face.

"Damn it!" Irvine didn't turn, but he pulled up Exeter to his shoulder and backed away down one of the alleys, keeping an eye on the man. The moment he was clear of retaliation he turned and ran.

[skeletonenigma]

Well, on the bright side, the threat of the gun was gone. Skulduggery didn't know if he would have been capable of avoiding a shot, whether through magic or just getting up and running - right now, he could barely keep his head up. Phantom pain sparked through his limbs, his senses, his head; the man who attacked him blurred even further as he backed away.

That gun could have put a hole in Skulduggery's skull, and he was backing away.

Maybe it had. Skulduggery raised a hand to check, and found instead that his cheeks were wet.

His cheeks were soft and wet.

He tried to stand up and fell backwards against the wall instead. The sharp corner cut painfully into his back. His throat hurt when he cried out. Hundreds of different familiar, alien sensations vied for attention all at once, but Skulduggery couldn't pay attention to any of them because his strength had vanished and it was impossible to take in all the air he needed. He couldn't breathe. Not being able to breathe was hurting him.

For twenty minutes Skulduggery sat there and let all the physiological reactions run their course. For twenty minutes he stayed still and tried to remember how to be a living man. Tried to remember how to stop crying.

Then he used the wall to lever himself to his feet and tried to remember where Solomon Wreath lived.