World Tree MUSH

    The journey into the chaos-filled Wyld spaces surrounding the world simply known as Home is short, though the borders are ever-shifting and it only becomes clear that the search party is in it when they realize it is so. Thought and reality intermingle, giving rise to half-formed visions and beings flitting about the only truly real things for countless steps: them.
    Beatrix follows an unseen direction, waving a hand adorned with an intricately wrought moonsilver ring set with a flecked deep blue stone to sense where to go. The magical silver that forms the whorls and patterns over her skin glows faintly, guarding her against alterations to her self made against her will. Each of the party members has a pockwatch-shaped device, glimmering faintly with traces of shimmering silver and rainbow glinting steel, proof against the corrupting influence of the Wyld chaos. 
    "This way..." Beatrix softly intones as she takes careful steps on a ground that doesn't look the same way twice after one blinks or doesn't look at it.
    (Scene music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFcf8XUQknE&list=RDBFcf8XUQknE)

    "Nnnnnneeeeat tats." Rebecca comments on Beatrix's tattoos. "I got ink too but mine ain't like silver, it's just a neon dyejob." Says the shorty smart-aleck solo.
    She's once again deep into the fairy lands here and she has a bag FULL of guns on a quest to save a choom.
    "So like where d'you think we'll find Syd?" She asks, cradling an assault rifle in her arms as she follows along and pauses.
    "Whoah I got like the heebie jeebies just now." Muttered as she glances around. "I was thinking about some new tats and like... I swear I felt like my old artist was around." ... "Good memories, heh heh heh."

    It's been a long time since Belle worked with Rebecca, but rescuing someone in a weird fae-world is something that the schoolgirl actually has some experience with. Maybe not a place like this, exactly, but she's quite familiar with the faerie realm in her own world.
    "You should try to stay focused, I'd bet there's a lot of stuff here that can give us a bad day but looks innocent," she notes to Rebecca. She has her bow out, just in case they run into trouble.

    "Yes, staying focused is vital in the Wylds. What is real and fantasy are often the same..." Beatrix says, squinting as she tries to find the next pathway forward. A passing vision gives Beatrix pause, inhaling sharply as her eyes unfocus and stare.
    Visible in the hazy chaos is a well-groomed blonde man dressed in robes and armored with some kind of well-made breastplate. "You should smile, Alma. It won't do for our peers to see you unhappy in the face of celebrating a victory." The man's voice is smooth and demands Beatrix' attention. It fades away, leaving Beatrix shaking, though with rage or sorrow is unclear.

    "Tch! I'm focused! I'm focused, yo!" Rebecca says while tearing herself from looking at all the weird wyld stuff all around her. "I am like. The EPITOME of focus, I am a bastion of focus." She says waggling a mechanical finger at Belle.
    "Look, I know we're in the crazy fairy lands, but I can handle a few crazy fairies." She says before the party runs into the blonde man.
    Instinctively, Becca raises her rifle. But then lowers it. Just another vision.

    Belle casts a skeptical eye at Rebecca, but keeps following. She tenses slightly at the vision that appears, but when none of the others attack, she lowers her bow and mutters, "Stupid faeries..."
Fortunately she has some good advice for Rebecca. "I guess you can be. All you have to do is think more about guns. You believe hard enough you probably can just shoot them."
    She's not actually sure if this place runs on belief the same way the fae realm does in her world, but Rebecca's belief is strong enough she has confidence.

    A quiet melodious voice comes oozing out of the mists. "Did I hear somebody talk about *faeries*?"
    Just coalescing out of the mist is a figure vaguely human-shaped, but gaunt and hidden behind a blood-red hooded cloak that flows like water about it. It has a mask, bright as a full moon, that changes expression to match the voice. The eyes hidden behind the mask are a glowing turquoise. And all around are more figures like this, passing with a sacred silence along an unseen road, will-o-wisp lanterns hung from gnarled walking sticks.
    The mask grins as the figure dances and bobs around the trio. "Are *you* looost, poppets? Looking for direction? Maybe you've misplaced something important?"

    And as though on cue... There's a fairy.
    Probably. That's proabbly a fairy.
    Now, Becca's experiences with Raksha are limited. She mostly shot at them in the past, so she tries to lower her gun and seem as non-threatening as possible-- which for her is uh.
    She's pretty threatening by nature.
    "Ayyo. We're looking for someone." She says, trying the... Gasp! Diplomatic approach for once.
    If that doesn't work, she can jusrt start shooting.
    Rebecca believes.

    The good news is that Belle is not undiplomatic and wanting to punch things all the time. So she keeps her bow down and just eyes the newcomer. She also leans in toward Becca and whispers, "Be careful agreeing to any deal."
    She's going to treat this 'fairy' as a fae all right!
    The problem is she's not much of a planner, so she doesn't actually have any idea what to do beyond that. "Yeah, point us to the dude and we'll be outta here. It'll be fine." At least, she hopes.
    She glances over at Beatrix, but figures the woman is busy being a reality anchor or something right now.
    Sigh. Fae.

    Beatrix is in fact, gathering herself, wiping tears from her face. That vision clearly shook her badly.
    The raksha produces a glass heart in odd talons, a ethereal fire dancing about within it. And just as quickly makes it disappear back into his sleeve. "*Find* someone! Have mercy! Find somebody in these shallows? Well..." It puts its talons on its hips and regards Rebecca, Bell, and Beatrix each in turn with unnatrual eyes.
    "... It wouldn't be Syd, the Breaker of Infinity?" There's a sly, knowing tone to its voice now. The landscape seems more solid, less prone to changing when one isn't looking, revealing a forest of graceful silver trees with ultraviolet leaves. The horizon is dominated by a massive mountainous crag, atop which is a winking frost-blue light.

    'Be careful agreeing to any deal', Belle says...
    "What? Why?" Becca asks, utterly cluelessly. "They won't like... Ask to take my name and then frickin' TAKE my name, will they?" She whispers back. "Shit yo, I need my name. For name-related things..."
    This urgent insistence about not wanting to LOSE HER NAME makes Becca clam the hell up for a moment.
    But then the Raksha namedrops Syd.
    "--Yeah him, dang how did you know?" She says before glancing around at the newly forested surroundings.

    Hmm.
    Belle wouldn't have confirmed so quickly, but she also isn't going to get upset at Rebecca. She shrugs, "I dunno, maybe? Fae are weird but this isn't my world. Just keep ahold of your name, yeah?"
    Since the cyborg is chattering, she turns to Beatrix. "So, this thing seems a little sus, if they turn out to be too punchable and can't help us, can we punch them?"

    Beatrix inhales, finally getting ahold of herself and addresses Belle. "Oh yes, but be careful not to play into their story or they'll win." She points to Rebecca. "She has steel. They're very punchable for her." The fae hears this and the mask changes to a rather groveling expression while talking with Rebecca.
    "Oh that's because I heard he was captured by Prince Balor of the Eye. Very choice gossip that, since the Breaker of Infinity humiliated Balor at the Dawn of Time." It jerks a talon at the mountain on the horizon. "The Old Man in the Wandering Mountain knows everything going on in this realm. Why don't you talk to him?"

    'She has steel'.
    Why yes Becca has steel. Rebecca has a LOT of steel as she holds up her hands in a boxing stance. "Gorilla Arms, baby."
    But then the Raksha points them to the Old Man in the Wandering Mountain.
    "... That mountain doesn't look like it's going anywhere." She points out.
    "Aite, bet. We gonna go see the old man?" She asks turning to Belle and Beatrix. "Sounds easy right?"

    Belle stares at Rebecca. "Weren't we just warned not to play into their story so much?" She sighs heavily, then knits her brow.
    She turns to the being, "This guy just knows stuff, then? Friend of yours, or is there some kind of task you expect us to do because you're too lazy to do it yourself?"

    The raksha hems and haws dramatically, touching pointer talons together nervously. "Well no. I just don't want to be punched by your friend here." There's mumbling of realizing what time it was and excuses to be Somewhere Else as the crossroad wanderer flees the scene cartoonishly.
    Beatrix peers after the fleeing raksha, who is assuredly not going the direction the other red robed white masked figures are going. "Almost like a bit part in a play."
    The ascent up the mountain is ardous and rough, but the peak is nigh, bathed in frosty blue light emanating from an archway set into it. There are warnings written in words that slide and change when looked at, speaking of the dangers of omniscent knowledge of the realm, presented with the fuzzy certainty of a dream.
    Beatrix had changed her shape into that of a mountain goat of unusual size, in order to carry Rebecca or Bell should they need it, for a goat knows the grace of a unicron in a mock fashion.
    The words are spoken, or perhaps written upon the air itself, in a stenorous voice. "COME AND KNOW ME BETTER, OUTSIDERS."

    "Weird-ass fairy." Rebecca mutters as the crossroad wanderer ditches. But then she shrugs at Belle.
    "Whaaaaaat? I mean... What other leads do we have?!"
    For the record. Rebecca totally rides on Goat-Beatrix' back.
    "Oh man you're some kinda GOAT goat! This is awesome!"
    And then the voice.
    "AYYO. I CAN BE LOUD TOO."

    Belle bulks up into her more feral form to climb, so she doesn't need the offered help. Nice, but not needed. She doesn't talk much as she climbs, but does grunt agreement at the lack of leads.
    "I guess you can't blame them for not wanting to get punched."

    The voice makes her wary though. "Man, buy me dinner first. Though that's a friendly greeting I guess."
    She glances at Rebecca, then decides not to say anything else she's thinking of.

    Beatrix pinches the bridge of her nose at the theatrics of whomever is within the mountain peak. "Such drama queens and kings." Somehow she gets over her disgust of raksha antics and leads the way.
    The interior is decorated in tapestries that are knitting themselves, endlessly spilling downward into holes leading into the heart of the mountain. Braziers that cast cold white light illuminate the study, cabinets overflowing with scrolls and tomes of all stripes. At the center is an old man writing constantly in a volume as big as he. There's an oppressive feeling of being watched here, the scritch-scritch of the quill against the vellum like the ticking of a metronome. The sense that something is examining itself as events unfold to it can't be shaken.
    A tapestry weaves a greeting from the old man, fluttering and flicking as it does, asking the names of the Old Man's guests.

    The Raksha sure do love their antics. But when faced with the old man, the book, and the tapestry asking her name...
    Rebecca is NOT giving her real name. Not if these fairies can straight up and steal her name.
    Instead she looks at the tapestry and gives... *A* name. ... It's the same name she gave the crowd in Ot when she was trying to pass herself off as an Alchemical Exalt.
    "Resplendantly Glorious Assbeater, yo. That's me. So like. Sup old man? What do you know about my bro Syd?"

    Yeah this is all a lot of fancy stuff. The Raksha definitely have a flair for the dramatic. This is not quite what she expected, though. Belle scratches at her head.
    "Yes, we're here for some information. You can call me 'Fifi' if you want." Belle is not great at improvisation apparently.
    "It's uh... nice to meet you, though. My friend here can be a little blunt."

    The writing on the tapestry explains how Syd was tricked by Balor into forging graces for the raksha prince under the guise of helping the less fortunate who were suffering. That there was an atelier along some esoteric paths requiring heroic deeds. However, the old man's scribbled words explained, there was a way to trick the Wandering Mountain itself into transporting the rescuers to the atelier. One only need artfully weave a story about the journey into one of the tapestries and it would be so.

    "Okay, I have to admit, the whole talking with the tapestry thing? That's pretty darn cool..." Belle mutters. "I haven't seen that one before. Seen journals but not tapestries. Respect."
    She looks at Rebecca... and sighs. "All right, let's get started on this very violent journey with lots of bullets flying. The geeks in the video gaming club talk about a way to travel fast..."
    She cracks her knuckles. "How do I represent a 'rocket jump' anyway...?"

    So they need to trick the mountain to get where they need to go. But to do that... One must artfully weave a tale...
    Resplendantly Glorious Assbeater draws a slow breath...
    "So there we were, on the way to this Atelier place... when suddenly... Guys. So many guys. Guys to the left of me, guys to the right of me, and I had a bullet for each of them. Fighting awesomely like a super mega ultra badass for THREE DAYS STRAIGHT I fought off all the guys on the almost endless seeming journey, fighting even long after I ran out of ammo only to reload at the cool parts because of dramatic appropriateness."
    A pause.
    "Fifi was there too, she was super cool with her bow shooting trick shots like motherfucking Hawkeye and stuff."