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Arc II Final Log A: Therapy

Who: Everyone who goes to the Mediation Center
When: September 24
Where: Underneath Region 5
What: Rescues, bossfights, and decisions
Warnings: Manipulation, mindfuck, brainwashing, violence, and any trauma you might bring. Label your headers!

Running. Fighting. However you've spent the last few weeks, it's been a busy time. The overwhelming force brought to bear against the reclamation depot was successful in re-arming most combatants, and those targeting the network hub managed to safeguard your communications, disrupt the Savrii's, and download no small amount of data on the side. Soldiers and noncombatants alike have built defenses and helped each other stay safe against the killers that tried to intrude. A few individuals have even tried to sway the public.

Still, there are those who haven't been successful. And whether in death or in captivity, a select few of your number are no longer by your side.

Both before and after the disappearance of their friends, a subset of those fighting the Savrii have made it their mission to track down a certain lair. Streets were scoured. Mediation centers searched. Some turned their focus to interrogation, others to following traces left by those who disappeared. Analysis of the communication data turned up a secured relay in Region Five, and as the pieces start to come together, those who promised Mother aid will hear from her again. Two minds that she formed bonds with have filtered back to her awareness. Shadowed—changed—but... not so far. Under the ground.

As convenient as the sudden re-emergence is, you have little choice but to pursue it. And with the added vector, a way beneath can be turned up. Past Region Five's sewers, in a transfer point linked to the EN-line, lies a set of tunnels wide enough to hold a single car that end in a plain, unassuming door. A chokepoint? Kill zone? The assumption wouldn't be unreasonable, but no matter how long you prepare outside, no one will come. It's even unlocked.

The path to understanding is one everyone must choose to take.

explore

One goal of this trip will be met at its beginning. A few adjoining passages off the entrance lead to a control room with a unique console: one capable of shutting down the Artifixx device locking the Ingress Complex off. Once this is done, the team waiting aboveground can embark on their own mission. Those exploring the center will find their own uses for the room; a map of the complex can be turned up, and the console also offers control over the doors. No monitoring devices appear to be included, though. Apparently, those in charge saw no need.

Saw being the operative phrase. The entry passages give ways to halls and rooms, styled similarly to the temporary residences placed in Region 6. This complex is far more extensive, however—even if now, as then, you seem to be the only persons present.

A small infirmary with soft blankets and warm lights. A set of classrooms and meeting spaces, with circular tables designed to foster unity among a group. The library, full of books and datafiles about the Savrii's history, ready and waiting to educate those in need. There's even a small garden. It's all solid and real. All comforting and kind. A place of learning. Of rest. Just waiting to be filled.

And, perhaps, not recently abandoned. Those who search the rooms in depth will turn up recent indentations on the beds. A hair or two, from restless sleepers, or a residual scent. Your friends were here. They weren't alone. And if you search enough halls and passages, you can find the way down.

reflect

At the bottom of the complex lies a stair. At the bottom of the stair lies a passage, and it's around here that communications to the world above cut out completely. Shaped stone progresses to an unshaped cave, and while the stairs down were illuminated, this chamber glows only with a dim silver light—produced, it seems, by something on the ground. Water?

A pool.

Its light illuminates robed figures, standing in the space ahead. All wear the silver cloth that marks the intermediaries. All regard you silently, features muted and distorted in the dark. For once, at last, the intermediaries of Thisavrou have no words for you and yours. But as you step forward, as your weapons raise, the light from the pool flares up.

Reality mirrors, and then melts away.

The Protected:

While all parties present will be affected by the pool's reflections, those who took the link with Mother will be shielded to a degree. For you, perceptions blur and shadow, replacing the sight of those around you with a myriad of ghost-forms. Some turn on you. Some move away. Some wear the robes of the intermediaries, while others look more like those you know—as allies in this place, or enemies back home. While characters who fall within this group will have trouble discerning illusion from reality, it is clear to them illusions are in play. It will also be clear, however, that some attacks are very real. Are the attackers your friends, distorted and confused by simulations? Or your enemies, using them as cover to strike out? You're in the best position to sort one from the next, but it still won't be easy.

The Affected:

Those without safeguards will find the simulations much more solid and complete. Is there an enemy you failed to defeat? A friend you wronged, or lost, or were betrayed by? Or perhaps your focus truly is single-minded, your greatest enemy the intermediaries you came to stand against. Whoever you fear most; whatever you failed or want to confront, you'll find it here beside you, by the pool. This vision threatens your life, your friends, and your purpose. Fight, be killed, or run out into the darkness, but your nightmares—and your enemies—won't stand idle.

The Controlled:

There are those you came to rescue. There are others, who lived in this place before you came. The intermediaries do not fight, not with fists or weaponry, but they have followers still ready to risk their lives on their behalf. And they have captives who have been given no choice at all. Mixed in among the ghosts and nightmares are the Savrii loyalists and the player characters they have taken. Each has their own reasons, but they will attack you, and the harm they do is very, very real.

As is yours.

For all individuals, in all categories of effect, the light from the pool remains the one fixed focus. Silvery and warm, clear and vibrant: a glimmering center where all reflections coalesce. To break the illusion, its power needs to be blocked—through literal obstruction, or destruction at its source. Contact with the water holds great risk, and can bring you further into the simulations, but once the pool is dealt with, all effect will disappear.

choices

You stand in a natural cave of unshaped stone. Without the pool, the only lights are what you brought, but all of them at least show you the truth. The companions who came with you, and the ones you came to save. The handful or so of other bodies mixed into the fight—barely a dozen individuals in total. And at the back of the chamber, a group twice that in number, arrayed in robes and silver cloth.

The intermediaries do not repent.

With the focus broken, their powers are too weak to alter your minds here. Still, if you allow it, they will speak. They insist their actions were for the betterment of Thisavrou. They insist they saved it from the harm dealt out by you and yours. Converse as long as you would like to—or as long as your allies will wait.

But in the end, it comes to your decision.

[For more information, and to participate in the vote regarding the intermediaries' fate, check out the OOC post linked above. The setting transition will occur immediately after this log; you're welcome to thread smaller-scale aftermath things, but please avoid dating anything more than an hour or so forward.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He lets out a blast of magic, a last, desperate act of resistance. The effort knocks another gasp out of him; it's all he has. He can barely keep himself upright. He won't survive another attack.

But maybe he bought enough time to reach through, though it takes him yet another moment to find his voice again.]

Do you... do you remember when you helped me realize my memories were wrong? That the intermediaries had altered them?

[His voice falters even now. He still hasn't managed to convince himself it's completely true.

But seeing Chara like this makes his heart break. There's no telling what the intermediaries did to them to make them act like this. Is there even anything left?

He has to believe there is. That's all that's keeping him going, now.]

Please. Whatever they showed you, it's a lie. I can prove it.

[He has no idea how, but they'll think of something.]

[A sharp blast of air, sharp and concussive, blows them back several paces. They stagger but catch their trajectory with one hand braced against the ground. It knocks them off balance. They sway on the spot. Wrench themself upright. It's an immaterial, brief gust of an act. It won't hold them back for long.]

[The slightest hesitation marks disloyalty. The slightest disloyalty marks the need for further processing.]

[And they won't be the one processed, should they fail.]

[Press [x] to skip dialogue.]

[It doesn't matter if it's a lie. It doesn't matter what it is this thing, this recreation, can show them. They know what happens if they hesitate. They know they'll get what's coming to them, if they dare.]

[Another blaze of red.]

[They are not aiming for the capture.]

[It's lengths away when she sees it start — really start, in last dying lights of the pool. Lights flicker on from various sources, her own omni-tool flashlight blazing to life as she runs. Lavellan, who shouldn't even be here, spilling his own blood on the cave's floor, was attempting to talk sense into Chara — knife and all.

The slash is swift, fast — the arc, low, promising a fatal finish. There's no time to disable, now. Only time enough to block.

And so Chara's blade comes down squarely on Shepard's armored gauntlet, cutting deep, impossibly deep into her vocation stripe, still going — through silicon carbide and ceramic plating, hitting her own heavy weave with a grunt of a grimace that she barely contains. The trail of the weapon fades, blood pooling around the blade.

But now at least, she can disarm them. Twisting her body, wrenching it free of the knife, she pins Chara's arms in a style familiar, so familiar.

It wasn't so very long ago.]

[It sinks far deeper than any blade should. The Real Knife, a flaring 99 ATK, does not stop for flesh or bone or any augmented barrier. It bites through everything ruthlessly, as easily as if it were passing through butter. But the mass blocking their strike slows its impossible arc, cuts it short - cuts it. Ha ha.]

[Red hair, and an expression bared with a determination they won't deny.]

[They cannot hesitate. To hesitate is to be disloyal. They cannot hesitate.]

[To hesitate is to be disloyal.]
[To hesitate is to be disloyal.]
[To hesitate is to be disloyal.]
[To hesitate is to be disloyal.]
[To hesitate is to be disloyal.]
[To hesitate is to be disloyal.]
[To hesitate is to be disloyal.]
[To hesitate is to be disloyal.]
[To hesitate is to be disloyal.]
[To hesitate is to be disloyal.]
[To hes̯̜̩͇i͎͍t̲̼͚̳̭̦á̪̹t͍̱͝e̘ - ]

[Stop.]

[Rip the Knife free. Brace one foot against the ground, try and pivot, swing. Try and work their way free from the grip. (Familiar grip. So familiar.) (She held them down until they stopped struggling.) (They'll kill you.) (They SAID they would KILL you.)]

[Stop.]

["Commander Shepard is dead."]

[Resurge. Commander Shepard is alive.]

[RESET.]

[Commander Shepard is - ]

[Stop.]

[Once the knife is out, nothing hinders the blood flowing free, washing over rent skin synthetics, over hardsuit plating, dripping in rivulets and drabs on to the packed earthen floor. Still, she grapples Chara, working to get a firm grip, a solid lock.

There's desperation here, too, mixed in with their ever-present determined advance — but this was not the false shadow of Chara. You could not rebuke or banish the source when it came from inside your head.

They swing out of her grasp — but she catches their wrist on the arc's downswing, one knee on the ground anchoring her own position.]

Chara!

Where's the coin?

[The cut is throbbing, like a precision scalpel cut. She can feel the pulse. See the blood.]

Do you still have it? Did they take it from you?

[The attacker is skillful. They will have to grant that much. Bigger and stronger than they are, as most adults tend to be. They must rely on their ability, their diminutive size, the fact that most may initially hesitate to strike a child, to strike quickly and without remorse. To take advantage of a hesitation, they must ACT swiftly.]

[But this one - this one is faster. It has them in a grip inescapable, no matter how they FIGHT. A hand locked around their wrist won't sway them. They cannot bite her. They need - ]

[They called for - ]

[Stop.]

[The words hum in their ears with an intensity that should be significant. Should be. Isn't. The words are just words, a meaningless collection of noises. None of them truly register.]

[One hand free. Dig into their pockets in search of something else. Something sharp.]

[No reply—but they're digging in a pocket, and maybe it meant something. Maybe something snuck through. Still, she watches their free hand, warily, in case of the opposite, breath measured.]

Chara, It's Shepard. We're okay. We did it. The center is cleared — all we have to do is leave. Walk out of here.

I know it's hard right now. I know where you are. You haven't done anything to me.

[Out comes the improvised knife - a shard of glass wrapped in tape, something simple and rudimentary. But sufficient. They start to work silently, back and forth, straining to get a good point of entry with a blade that is far from the efficiency of the Real Knife, but will serve, adequately enough.]

[Words mean nothing. Protests, silver-tongued insistences, promises of a better life - all of it means nothing.]

[False figures in a false crowd.]

[Soon to be rectified.]

[The knife comes out, and her stomach falls. Nothing.

They search, zipping the shiv back and forth, for an attack, a hole, a weakness — and her free hand follows theirs, blood still shiny through the impossible cut.

There's a pause — and a lunge, as she attempts to keep her grip on one wrist, and grab for the other.

Actions would have to speak louder.]

[It catches their wrist. They are now constrained utterly - with no HoPe of escape.]

[No. No.]

[They won't be held back. They won't be tied down. They won't lose them again. They won't lose the only people in their life that have not fallen away, that are still fixed. They won't lose this. Not now. Not ever.]

[All I can do is FIGHT.]

[And so they do.]

[In the only way they can.]

[Bucking, twisting, writhing in a foreign grip. Anything that will make them impossible to hold. Anything that will make them harder to contain. Anything that might let it slip and release them.]

[The struggle is enough of a distraction for Lavellan to heave himself to his feet, catch his breath, find some stability again. But he still doesn't have much, and he'll only have one shot at this.]

Shepard. Get back.

[He doesn't have time to wait, and he pulls from his wells immediately, impulses sorting themselves into a familiar configuration. Sweat pours off him already with the effort. And the space around Shepard and Chara begins to slow.

If she lets go of Chara and steps out of the area quickly, she shouldn't be caught up in it for long. If not, well, he'll use the rest of his energy to haul her out.

It should give them enough time to figure out what to do with Chara without them trying to kill them both. But it won't last forever.]

[At Lavellan's voice, she turns, watching him pull... something out of himself. As the perspiration drips down his face, she feels the air strain with tension, as if she's moving through molasses.

At the last possible moment, she lets go of Chara's wrists, rolling out of the situation, panting at the sudden effort it takes to move.

Pulling herself over to Lavellan, she takes stock of his injuries, supporting his weight with her own.]

What did you do?

[Trust of an ally in a tight situation is one thing — but she still wants an explanation.]

[Time crawls in the space around them. From the external perspective, they still appear frozen, their small face knotted into that hard, implacable, determined look of someone unafraid to make their kills and move on.]

[Perhaps, if they were more aware of themself, they may have perceived the stretching and wobbling of time as it pulled to a tenuous halt. They may have seen it for a mimicry of a SAVE, that glimmering gold light.]

[As it is...]

[Nothing.]

[He leans against Shepard heavily, exhaustion suddenly settling in bone-deep. He can't keep doing this, using magic at the end of his rope. It takes more out of his every time. Still, he keeps his eyes trained on Chara, and his voice steady.

Mostly.]

Slowing... magic. [Yeah, that's eloquent.] We need to decide what to do with them. Won't last forever.

[Because talking isn't doing anything. Fuck. This is worse than he feared. What exactly had he allowed to happen to them?]

[Slowing magic — or, at least, a field that triggers time distortion. Time was on their side for only a sliver longer: any power that manipulated a dimension so strongly was bound to snap back in no time at all.

As for what to do...

She's already peeling off her gloves, gauntlets, as he speaks, unclipping the torso half of her hardsuit with a release as he draws note to their lack of time. The chestplate comes off in two pieces — revealing a much more casual outfit underneath, kept on in the rush.

The right gauntlet comes off with a marked grunt — the black hoodie underneath is cut, soaked, the red of her of blood soaking in to the signature stripe.

She's struggling out of that, too, as she speaks.]

Soon as it wears off, I should be able to knock the knife away, and restrain them.

[Uncovered, the blood flows openly from the cut, dribbling in trails down her hand. Nevertheless, she uses it to hold the jacket out: the proposed restraint.]

We don't have anything else. Or any other choice.

[He can't help but glance at Shepard's injury, even as she's squarely going on around it.]

I'm not a healer. I'm sorry. [Well, no shit. Otherwise he wouldn't have a major injury problem of his own. But he follows it down to the jacket, which he eyes dubiously.]

What do you need me to do?

[It rushes out; he can feel the spell coming to an end, and he doesn't have the energy to renew it.]

[The healing comment is waved away like so much noise, and she tucks the hoodie under her arm, gesturing Lavellan forward, jaw squared, expression ashen.]

This isn't going to be pretty, but it's going to work.

Get around behind them. As soon as you see me disarm them, I need you to bring their attention towards you in any way possible. I'll take it from there.

[The conversation elapses quickly, in their eyes - they hardly see it at all. One moment, everything is in relative order, if a poor one. One of them holds them down, the other cries out - and the next, everything's skidded several steps ahead. There are lost seconds, precious seconds, of disorientation - a firm blink and a shake of their head as they stumble.]

[Whatever just happened, whatever points in time slid past...it matters little.]

[Perhaps another test. Perhaps reality coming apart again, at the seams. They've always favored blatant dissociation as opposed to actual reality itself - why should this have changed?]

[Ha ha.]

[They've never been on this side of a RESET.]

[Lavellan almost protests--maybe he should be the one to disarm them, in that case--but he doesn't, because they're out of time. It's this plan or nothing.

It takes all his concentration to keep the field together as he gets in place, it's lasted for far longer than normal as it is, and no sooner does he get in position than is Chara released.

Better move fast, Shepard.]

[It's smooth, slick—a hand-to-hand combat technique passed through various special forces. As soon as Chara's time reasserts itself, she's on them, wrists slamming down, around their knife hand in a double cross-block, then, twisting.

The move itself is not necessarily painful—until, as the twist turns, it suddenly is. With luck, enough to loosen the knife from their hand for Shepard to remove it completely.]

[It's faster than they have time to register in the moments allotted. Their recovery is startled and their balance is off, and there are hands on them working deftly to disarm them and drop the Knife, clattering, from between nerveless fingers. A muted cry worms up from underneath their tongue.]

[No, no, no, no, no, no, no - ]

[They're wrenching in her grip, desperate. Trying to claw, kick, bite any inch of her they can.]

[At their feet, the Knife's scarlet gleam abruptly fades to a worn silvered-gray. A Worn Dagger once more, now that it is parted from them.]

[His turn. Distract Chara. Right. Easier said than done, with the way they're struggling against Shepard with all their might. He doesn't have the energy for another spell, not one that will only hit Chara and not Shepard.

So instead he does the only thing he can think of, even as he hates himself for it.

He picks up the Dagger.]

Chara. Do you want this back?

[He flips it around, careful of the blade, and offers it back to them handle-first--just out of their reach.]

[They're not stupid enough to fall for the ploy. But the Knife - ]

[They will never let that go. The first time they misbehaved they took him away; took him away for days, long days in which they had nothing but a Locket to cling to and a Knife to turn over and over in their hands and the low, quiet murmurs they tried to utter to Frisk's ear, as they cried.]

[They'll never let it go again.]

[They'll FIGHT all the harder to keep it. To keep him.]
[For I'm forever missing him.]
[Despite their best interests. Despite their common sense.]
[Despite everything.]

[They lunge for it.]

[Chara is no giant, but size is hardly an issue when someone is fighting to win, or die. Without the top half of the hardsuit, every flailing kick, scratch, punch and claw poses new threats. One arm pulls free—but a rake of fingers and a snarling bite is a low price to pay for staying mostly in command.

It's only once Lavellan is speaking that she lets her grip loosen minutely. With both hands free, they lunge--

--And the jacket comes down, over their head, a sea of muffled darkness, the roaring stench of iron. Outreached hands are pulled back, restrained with tied sleeves, and they're on the ground. In the blackness, there's only the sensation of the pressure, tight and secure, and the weight of the hands performing it.

For all their professionalism, they shake, slightly.]

Arc II Final Log A: Therapy

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