World Tree MUSH

    The Wyld is a strange shifting place, harmful to the senses and self. It is fortunate that the savants aboard the Starstriding Engine had devised small protective devices to keep in a pocket; pocket watches whose rythym was synched with the Loom of Fate, keeping the deleterious effects of unwilled physical change at bay. As per the briefing, with the press of a button on the device, the wearer can be rip-corded back to the island of stable creation.
     The kaleidoscopic churn of matter, sound, smell, and sight envelopes the intrepid group as they push through the literal tracklessness of unformatted reality. And then...
    A summer wind blows lazily across the moonlit grass, the soft susurrus ebbing and rising in time with it. Above in the cloudless sky hangs a moon that is perfectly round, luminous white, with a subtle shifting aura of colors. A hillock rises near the apparent center of the endless field of barley, with a covered stone well atop it.
    Syd looks above through suspicious eyes. "It doesn't seem... *overtly* hostile?" The man quietly takes the great hammer from his back and into his hands, wary of how unassuming the vista before the adventurers is.

    Primal chaos isn't something that is common in Cagliostro's world, but it is at least something she has passing experience with. She knows roughly what NOT to do! The cute blonde scritches under her pet 'snake's' chin, looking over everything. "Given the close proximity to primal forces, it's better to assume- er. I mean."
    She clears her throat and in a more high-pitched voice cheerily states, "Oh, gosh, it's so pretty! But that's just when the monsters want to come get you! Better be careful, mister!"

Daisy's tread is, due to her unslung cannon, heavy as she follows Syd, the aim sweeping around slowly as the possum scans forsigns of trouble. "Yeah and I seen enough movies to know it's when it's calm and placid and lovely that shit goes down." She chuckles, following Syd's gaze up to the moon. "Yeah but it's too perect. Too pretty, y'know?"
Her pocket watch is in one of her utility belt pouches, marked with a little tab of reflective tape the same bright orange as all of Daisy's other safety gear which somehow manages to contrast with the pink and yellow of the rest of her suit.

    The last time Rebecca had travelled into the Wyld, she had been promised fairies. What she got was a giant flaming monster of burning conflagration and two sweet new Samurai jackets made out of behemoth hide.
    All in all it wasn't too bad a trade.
    And sure, while they're technically 'Fair Folk' and not 'fairies', that doesn't change the fact that Rebecca didn't get to see ANY fairies.
    So she's back, with a duffel bag FULL of guns slung on her shoulder, big mechanical hands stuffed in the pockets of her jacket as she follows Syd.
    Rebecca WILL see a fairy this time or someone is getting shot.
    Someone is likely going to get shot.
    "Yo, Syd, my man, what's with the spooky-ass moon?" She asks after they make it through the unshaped craziness of the Wyld.
    That's when she pauses and looks at Cagliostro.
    "Aw man don't jinx it, we had to deal with this big flaming fucker last time I was here."

    Syd opens his mouth as if to answer Rebecca. "I don't..."
    He's cut off by a feminine but raspy voice that echoes from the direction of the well. "What, pray tell, do the Pattern-Born want with my wishing well? What heart's desire, so long forlorn, warrants parlay with Yhesha the Norn?" There's a blue light now illuminating the mouth of the covered well, a strange beckoning beacon amidst the wind-swept field.

    Cagliostro smiles at Rebecca and Daisy, saying nothing about jinxing it. The rasping voice really shows how they're all right that something is up, but at least this is a bit of a different encounter than she expected! "Oooh, a wishing well!" Bright and cheery, with her voice still childish.
    But in this case, Cagliostro doesn't try to maintain the facade. There's a more serious matter to mention, and she isn't going to try to tiptoe around it. "I wonder, then what the price is for this. There is always a price, sometimes worth and sometimes not..."

    THERE, SEE? CAGLIOSTRO JINXED IT.
    Regardless of flinging blame in prose though, Rebecca halts in ner tracks.
    "Uhhhhhhh... Shit. Moon's haunted." She declares. Before something clicks. She has to ask this Yhesha the Norn one burning question deep in her heart...
    "... Are you a fairy?"

Daisy nods in agreement "I think we watch the same movies." She agrees with Cagliostro, looking over at the wishing well. "Plus there's the whole poem that went with it, that's not concerning at all is it? Plus it's a wishing well. Always gotta throw something into one to make a wish and I doubt cash is going to suffice."

    Syd approaches the well cautiously. "She's not-"
    Interrupted by that voice again. "A figment of one greater than me, no mere fairy. But if one draws closer to see, my form I shall reveal to thee."
    Making good on her promise as Syd reaches the well, a feminine figure with diphanous butterfly wings emerges from the well, casting a cold deep blue light across the grasslands. She is fair and statuesque, her floating gossamer-like hair and eyes both inky black and dotted with stars like the deepest reaches of the night sky.
    The Solar exalt looks at the strange being. He decides Cagliostro is probably right, and so asks the obvious question. "So what /is/ your price?"
    The unreadable void-black eyes turn their gaze on Syd and Yhesha smiles. "For the Pattern-born lack any grace of the heart, all I ask is from your mind a piece, a speck, a part! With joy and glee, I would choose but a single cherished memory."
    At this, Syd looks very very suspicious.

Daisy blinks "I got to give up a memory for a wish?" She shakes her head "Nah fam no deal for me I'm afraid." She stick with Syd on guard, not trusting the shifting chaos lands. "Sorry."

    Even Cagliostro frowns at that. "Oh, that could be bad... but for some, quite worth the trade." For her, the girl's ego is far too great for her to want to trade something like that, but she is self-aware enough to realize that not everyone has her self-confidence.
    She looks at Rebecca and Daisy, because Syd's already got a handle on this being a not so certain thing. "Be very careful what you ask of this being, but..." She eyes the fae. "Is the memory proportional to what is asked of thee? Er, of you?"

    A memory for a wish? Some people would kill for that kind of deal sure, but... Rebecca looks to Daisy, Cagliostro, and Syd, before she makes her decision.
    "I'm good."
    You see, Rebecca is a simple creature. She has what she wants most in life at the moment. And she has gotten something else out of this experience...
    She has gotten to see a fairy.

    Syd looks at Yhesha, leaning on his hammer much like one would a staff. "I'm willing to bet that what I want is not in your power to give."
    There's a brief flicker in Yhesha's expression, a moment where it feels like the facade has slipped and the terrible visage of an unnamable horror replaced it. But then the fair and unnaturally symmetrical face is there again, composure regained.
    "The nature of the wish determines appropriate recompense, all determined by my good sense. Perhaps I would prefer to taste more bitter fruit, hatred for an enemy might suit." She then gives Syd a withering glare, and a demand is made, without the rhymes she has employed so far, burning with curiosity at what Syd would want that she could not grant. "//Name// |Thy| +Desire+, =LAWGIVER=." These are not words so much as explicit symbols of meaning that manifest into the flesh of this pocket domain.
    At this, Syd pauses, taken aback by the sudden supernatural effect that attempts to pry an answer from him. Haltingly, the words dragged out from him, he answers. "A Home."

Daisy blinks and steps back, both at that momentary flicker of the horror, and the power of that demand. Of all the things worth sacrificing a memory for, that's... "Woah." She mutters, doing a pretty good 'awed Keanu Reeves' impression. "Syd, be careful. I'm not going to tell you what to do it's your mind, your call... but think carefully before y'make any decisions fam."

    Cagliostro tsks, and hops forward, looking over Yhesha. "Hmm, I'm not familiar with this sort. So my advice is not the best. But in cases like this, usually you get what you want, but maybe not the way you want it. It's never exactly what you want. Whether it is worth it, well... sometimes people can be happy. Like Meg." She tsks.
    She's also observing carefully, then steps back and speaks in a low tone to Daisy and Rebecca, "I'm especially wary because it seems like this is rather personal for her, don't you?"

    "Oh so the price is determined by *your* sense huh?" Rebecca asks the Fair Folk, cybernetic eyes narrowing. When that facade vaguely slips and something about Yhesha makes her skin absolutely crawl, her hand twitches towards her trusty duffel bag.
    It's still completely full of guns.
    "Yeah." She replies to Cagliostro at first, right before Yhesha *demands* to know what Syd could want.
    "Hey, fairy. You're pushing it with the scary shit."
    It's the only warning Yhesha the Norn is going to get.

    Yhesha smiles with apparent mischief, eyes boring into the still-shocked Syd (who has covered his mouth in surprise after the answer was dragged out of him). That raspy, whispery voice explains. "Though a coerced bargain you all might fear, acceptance or denial of my offer must be free and sincere. So tired of the universe through which you roam that all you truly desire is a place called home?"
    Syd stares at the faerie for long long moments, glancing at Cagliostro, Daisy, and finally Rebecca. He thinks for a moment, face lost in thought.
    Finally... he looks directly at Yhesha and says "No. I think you'd take all my memories that remind me why I want a place to call home. And that'd be all of them. All the people I've shared my life with, gone. Friends. Family. My wife. What's more, we're *making* that home. We're building it together. So go back to whatever hell you crawled out of, Yhesha." He spits on the ground near the wishing well's stone rim, hefting his hammer with an easy motion in preparation for violence.
    But the violence doesn't come. Yhesha screams, a piercing owl-screech wail, as her form melts back down into the well.

Daisy tracks the retreating Yhesha with her cannon, almost firing simpyl at the volume of the screech; she's a possum and those big radar-dish ears are sensitive and it hurts, even if it can't do any damage anymore thanks to augments. "Motherfucker...!" She yelps. "She was dodgy."

    The screech makes Becca draw iron, a pistol snapping into her hand from the duffel bag almost instantly as she aims at the retreating Fair Folk. But that's it. Yhesha retreats.
    "Yeah I gotta agree, she was sketchy AY EFF." She concurs with Daisy's assessment.

    Cagliostro clucks her tongue. "In a way, she would have granted your wish. Perhaps you'd have been happy. Or perhaps you'd have figured out something was missing and be all the more miserable." She grins, "I like your style though. Much more satisfying to make what you want yourself, isn't it? The easy road is often hollow."

    Syd says quietly, towards Cagliostro. "I forged a world from chaos itself. I'm pretty sure I can make anything I put my mind to."
    He nods to Daisy and Rebecca. "I'm just really glad nobody took her up on her offer. I'm... not sure anyone I know can put memories back." He rubs the back of his head, grinning.
    The vista shifts rather suddenly to a black space, our adventurers ankle deep in crystal clear water, the sky filled with stars and nebulae. At the center is a kind of throne with a hooded figure, both stark white with equally stark black shadows.
    The vision in white sighs. "Oh. It's you again. I suppose you want something for your new daystar?" There's a second, heavier sigh as a shield that has a perfectly polished mirror surface emerges from the water in front of Syd.
    The figure regards Rebecca and Daisy. "Something for your jackets, I'd wager. And did you want a boon this time, madam... rat? I apologize, I have not seen your like before."
    Then it regards Cagliostro. "You are new. For defeating Yhesha the Norn, I grant a small boon, a token of some sort. I do not grant one's heart desires, however. That, as you all know by now, is a fool's game. Yhesha's gifts would have been all shadows of the mind."

Daisy looks down at the water aroind her feet, then up at the vision of the hooded figure. "Woah... hey!" There's a brief moment of indignance at being caled a rat, quelled by the apology. "I'm a possum, sir." She says. "A Virginia opossum to be exact. I thought of something this time, but I dunno if it's quite... your thing." She cycles her cannon, catching the shell that spits out of the breech. "I want firework shells. Something I can use to put on a show, make people smile, like. But like, proper showy innit fam? Not just boring mundane fireworks with black powder and fancy chemicals I can do that myself." 
She offers the round towards the figure so that it can be examined if desired. "I got most of the stuff I need. And I like entertaining people so..."The little winged possum beams happily. Cheerfulness like that could almost light up this void on its own.

    Cagliostro scritches under the floating snake's chin, as it hovers beside her. She smiles, hearing the offer. "If I needed anything, I may not have been able to help, but I suppose there is something I can ask for..." She taps her chin with her other hand's index finger. "Yes, something that I think you would not mind giving me at all."
    The blonde grins, "I seek interesting new knowledge. Rather than gift it to me, I ask that you point me toward a place where I can find it for myself. Knowledge of creation and manipation of life and the elements, preferred, but anything new and interesting and unique is acceptable."

    Oh this is familiar. The ankle deep water and spacey vista. And then there's the figure in white.
    "Oh hey, sup choom. I remember you." She says, stowing her pistol and folding her hands behind her head.
    "Nah I'm good this time, broham, the jackets are like the slickest most nova thing ever. Actually, 'cause Daisy was super cool last time, double her boon-thingy with mine."

Daisy blinks and looks at Rebecca "Nice one fam." She says with a happy smile.