catchall, early November

[ruinsprofessor]

Characters: Raine Sage and OPEN
Date: first week of November mostly, some flex if necessary
Location: various around Keeliai, including her suite (Tu-Gai)
Situation: also various, mostly involving catching people up to the situation as it stands and seeking possibilities for dealing with things under the shell.
Warnings/Rating: violence/gore in Anton's thread; probably all-over discussions of mind control etc.



While the suspicion of someone willingly working with Malicant is something that never quite leaves her mind, for the most part Raine's of the opinion that dispersing information can only help right now. Not via the network, of course, but she spends much of the first week of November seeking out people she knows to catch them up to how bad things are, to make sure the vision Wan and Valdis had gets shared out, and to see if anyone has any helpful input at all. She's done about as much as she can within her own head; now it's time to get outside points of view.

When she's not busy doing that, she can mostly be found in the Earth sector, either at her suite, which she hasn't made a significant effort to hide, or in one of the assorted nearby parks, running through artes over and over in an effort to improve her casting time and focus or simply swinging her staff in the most basic of forms.

Comments

[royalguard_style]

"I'm helping to keep them on their toes." He justified. No, he did not have a survival instinct. "You'd think they'd be even worse with the war, but I guess some people are just that dense."

[ruinsprofessor]

"Unbelievable," she said, shaking her head. The man had no sense. "You're lucky you haven't been more grievously injured."

Well, he could heal it, she supposed, so it wasn't much of a deterrent, but injury was rarely pleasant. Raine folded her arms, fixed him with a flat stare. "What did you want to know?"

[royalguard_style]

"Eh, it's not like it would matter much."

Oh good, the nagging's over. Time to actually get to business. "Everything. The visions, what that would mean for us, anything that gives us an edge."

[ruinsprofessor]

It's not like it would matter. He'd missed the point. He'd completely missed the point. Raine crossed the space between them, reached up, and cuffed him upside the head, not particularly lightly.

That handled, Raine leaned against one of the chairs and settled down to dispense information. "All right, the vision. The stone in the vision is presumably the one from the ritual that was used to create our enemy, and it seems to maintain a tie to it. At the least, it doesn't want us getting to it, and has thus hidden it beneath the shell, in an environment which is decidedly hostile to living beings."

[royalguard_style]

And, to nobody's surprise but Dante's, he was smacked hard. Ah, now that was a familiar feeling. He grabbed his forehead, and rolled his eyes. "Hey! Was that necessary?"

Yes Dante, yes it was.

"Hostile? I'd ask if it's something we could take care of, but we're not that lucky, are we?" Things always have to be complicated.

[ruinsprofessor]

Raine didn't even bother to dignify the first question with a response beyond a flat look. It might not have been strictly necessary, but in this case it did make her feel better.

"No. It's nothing that can be fought, and testing hasn't revealed any effective defense yet." She paused to consider the fact that Dante laughed off being stabbed through the chest, and added, "Psychic pressure, or something to that effect, which overloads the mind, likely to the point of death. Could you survive that? It doesn't appear to be strictly magical or physical damage, rather something purely mental."

[royalguard_style]

"Don't know. If it's just mental, then I have nothing to go off of." Strictly speaking, it would take rather extreme measures to permanently kill Dante, but that didn't mean he couldn't be made a vegetable. "Can't hurt to go find out, though."

[ruinsprofessor]

It would be worth investigating, and she did have a mostly unkillable test subject. And he was volunteering. "It might," she said, only a little reluctantly. "But if you're willing, I'd like to know what you discover. The other key part of the vision is the arch; were you here when we made landfall in Valishaera?"

[royalguard_style]

"Nope, sorry." Dante had heard something about 'landfalls', but it's not something that actually happened during his time here. "So what's this arch got to do with anything? More importantly, how the hell are we going to get to wherever it is?"

[ruinsprofessor]

Raine shook her head. "I don't think it can be the location which is important. We left Valishaera some months ago, after all. Rather, it's what the arch means: it's a portal to the Dreaming. We saw those constructs first there, but it's entirely possible to reproduce them. Most likely that was the easiest way to tell us that the Dreaming would be important." A pause, to think, and she realized she probably couldn't count on Dante to know what that is, either. "Do you have any experience with the Dreaming?"

[royalguard_style]

"So all we have to do is make one of these portals? I don't suppose we're lucky enough to know how to do that, are we?" Information sharing was clearly terrible even before everyone stopped using the networks.

"But no. Like I said, I came here a few months ago, and I haven't gone anywhere else."

[ruinsprofessor]

For once Raine smiled at him, a satisfied little expression. "We are," she said, "and even if it's not exactly what's needed, the parameters can be shifted, and I believe there are also other methods for entering the Dreaming. As I said, I don't think it's the arch specifically that matters; it's the Dreaming."

Things were certainly dire, but they had a chance.

"The Dreaming itself," she added, tone shifting slightly toward lecturing, "is another plane of existence, safely accessible to living beings, which has qualities we would think of as being dream-like, including, as far as I've observed, malleability of the surroundings and a tendency to draw from that which is familiar to the people in it."

[royalguard_style]

"So in other words, we can get something close enough here." Was this chick smiling? That's a first, and that's probably not just because he doesn't know her that well, considering the way she smacked him. If he wasn't sure that they could kill this thing before, he is now.

"Great. So all we have to do is think happy thoughts and charge in?" God, Dante hopes that this will be that simple. "I mean, once we get the stone and all that."

[ruinsprofessor]

"Yes, we should be able to engineer something 'close enough;' however, I believe it will require a little more than just happy thoughts." The smile faded, though she was still tolerantly amused by Dante. Complete lack of self-preservation aside, his heart was probably in the right place, and there were likely worse people to stand behind in a fight. "My hope is that once we've acquired the stone, it will be clearer what can be done with it. There's also the fact that the vision showed us a corporeal form for our enemy. We may be able to confront it on a more solid level once we have the stone-- but this is all conjecture so far."

[royalguard_style]

Dante is an excellent person to stand behind in a fight, partially because he is, in fact, a decent warrior, and partially because he's so flashy that he draws most attacks. "Well, that's a hell of a lot better then what we've had so far. So when is this little shindig going down?"

[ruinsprofessor]

"Soon," she said, "necessarily. Some details still need to be worked out, but rest assured I'll make sure everyone who remains is kept informed. We're going to need everyone, I think. All of us will need to work together if we have any hope of winning."

Sometimes it was worse than herding cats, but they had a goal, now, something concrete and doable, and Raine was sure it was growing closer to the time when an end would be required, one way or another. "Did you have any other questions?"

[royalguard_style]

"Given what his cronies can do? I'd have to say I agree. I guess everyone better round up the troops, then."

"That just about covers it, unless you planned on hitting me again." He nodded, and turned for the door.

[ruinsprofessor]

"No such plans, no." Then again, she rarely planned to slap people. "Try to be more careful."

Raine watched him go with some annoyance, and once he was gone closed the door properly behind him, looking for structural damage. Honestly. Teenagers she expected this lack of forethought from, but a man grown should have more sense.

At least he genuinely wanted to help, and that counted for something. There were worse allies to have.