World Tree MUSH

    The fight from the other day is all over the news in New Donk City; an elf named Vanguard from another world kidnapped and cursed a young woman named Lex Brando using a sword called "Lightshard 18". After Vanguard was fought off, the visiting Princess Peach declared several people as heroes (which annoyed Mayor Pauline, but that didn't really get into the newspapers). The site of the battle is uncommonly clean, even for New Donk City, due to Peach's attempted purification.

    Meanwhile, in the hospital, Lex is sitting up in bed, looking miserable. It's hard to be cheerful when you've just lost your left arm and leg, but even though she's gotten several different kinds of healing, the pain hasn't disappeared completely. At the moment, she's getting examined by her usual doctor from work, Dr. Daheru Goldenhair, who is standing beside the bed with a tablet computer in one hand, and with his other hand held above her, glowing green.

    Just beyond the foot of the bed, there's a greasy-haired young man with a toolkit and several gadgets and crystals, which he's using to fiddle with Lightshard 18 itself. It looks very similar to Lightshard 17: a high-tech curved sword with a gleaming white blade, and a black edge which would probably be glowing if it was activated; there's a couple more running lights (currently also deactivated).

    Oh, and there's also a chunk broken off from the blade's edge.

    The short young woman knocks on the entryway door, not sure if she's really allowed to visit somebody she doesn't know very well. "Hi, I was one of the people who helped fight that... youma I think she called it? I saw on the news you were in the hospital because of some crazy elf with a glowing sword and I thought I'd visit to see if there's anything I could do?" Aurelia musses nervously with her platinum-tinted hair.

Lucianne is... likely frustrating the local doctors a bit. She's got her own room, but besides checking on her, she seems to be a medical enigma not in need of assistance. She's wearing the eyepatch again, left arm shoved into a pocket, and has decided to come by Lex, only pausing when she spots Aurelia. "Hey." She greets, smiling before opening the door without any concern and going in. "Hey Lex." She greets.

    Lex perks up slightly. Just not much, is all. "Oh, hi Aurelia, Lucianne," she says, without much enthusiasm. "Oh, uh." She frowns, looking down at Lucianne's hand. "How's ... how's everything, and all that?" she asks uncomfortably.

    Dr. Goldenhair nods in greeting, and focuses for just another moment further before the glow in his hand fades. "Hello, there," he says. "I'm Dr. Daheru Laurefindele, or Dr. Daheru Goldenhair. I'm Lex's usual physician at her day job. This young man is Ewen Miller, an expert on Atlantean swords." He pauses. "That is, in our homeworld, Atlantean Earth."

    The young man pauses, regards Lucianne and Aurelia for a second or two, then gives a little wave and immediately turns back to the sword.

    "If you're wondering about the curse," Dr. Daheru says, mostly directed at Lucianne, "it's impressive. It literally partially merged Miss Brando with the sword." He pauses. "That's the short version. The long version would probably be the length of a decent novel. But among other things, it means that we cannot move the sword too far away from Lex, or else it will dematerialize and teleport back to her."

    Aurelia, from empty air, pulls out a massive teddy bear that's nearly the size of the five-foot nothing and sets it near the window, since Lucianne and Lex's doctor are occupying the chairs. The high-schooler herself sets herself on the window ledge. She listens to the doctor. Looks over at Lucianne.
    "Would it help if you had the other sword to examine?"

"I seem to be getting better?" Lucianne answers, pulling her arm out of her pocket. There's still a stump rather than a hand, but she's got a wrist and she even moves the bit beyond around to make the point. "Doctors don't understand a thing, but they can't explain the eye either, so I'll chalk it up to 'same thing as the eye' and not worry about it." She shrugs, clearly not too worried.

The thing about the sword makes her curious, and she takes a look at it again, "Well that can't be good, right?" She offers with a shrug, "Hope it's not too bad. How are you feeling, Lex?" She smiles to Aurelia, "We've met, haven't we? At the youma thing."

    Lex giggles at the sight of the teddy bear, and gives Aurelia a thumbs-up with her good hand. But as soon as she brings up the subject of the other sword, all three immediately turn to look at her. "What other sword?" says Lex. "Like ... one of the seventeen others the Dawnfall's apparently been making?" Evidently she didn't hear about Vanguard attacking Aurelia's world.

    "I wouldn't mind takin' a look," says Ewen in a languid drawl.

    Lex peers at Lucianne's wrist, and shrugs. "Okay, that's ... better than what I've got." She lets out a nervous laugh, and gestures with the stump of her left arm. "Uh. Well, my entire left side is in pain, and, I mean ..." She points directly at the sword, even though it's in a position where she can't possibly see it from the hospital bed. "One of the other effects of being 'merged' is that I feel like I have a blade with a chunk broken out of it, kind of thing. Dr. Daheru's been working on the first part, and Miller is trying to figure out the second one."

    Aurelia smiles and nods. "Yes, we both helped deal with that awful youma thing." She nods her head towards Lex. "You were there too, right?" Aurelia is pretty sure, but there's some fuzziness surrounding her memories of the event.
    Aurelia ahs... "Yeah, there was a crazy elf that attacked an area in my world where the magical society I belong to tries to keep the peace. It's... not so peaceful right now, but..." A sideways answer to Lucianne's question. She produces Lightshard #17 from her hammerspace, holding it across her lap. "... it's not like my world's 'swords of light'. Those have blades made of diamond and have anti-magic properties."

"I'm a lady of many mysteries, apparently." Lucianne shrugs a bit, and puts the wrist back into her pocket to keep attention away from it. She takes a look at the other sword as well, "Well, I don't know anything about this." She shrugs a bit, "But, uh... if you need help dealing with these 'Dawnfall' people, I will bring them to justice." She sounds dead serious about it.

    Lex blinks. "Uh, yeah," she says. "You guys rescued me from the youma?" She furrows her brow. "... Would that crazy elf's name by any chance have been 'Vanguard'?"

    Ewen carefully sets down Lightshard 18, and goes to peer over the one Aurelia just produced. "Ooh, this looks niiiiice," he says. "'s in better shape than number 18, too. This 'Yumi Tachibana' has one hell of a punch. Yeah, I wouldn't mind having a look-see at this one."

    Dr. Daheru shrugs. "It's more that our world needs help bringing the Dawnfall to justice than Lex herself," he remarks, "but I don't imagine we'll object to having help from outside, if you're a skilled fighter." He glances down at the tablet. "... The deeper curse-analysis is almost finished, by the way."

    Ewen turns back to the gadgets around Lightshard 18. "Hokay, so ..." He glances between Lucianne and Aurelia. "Oh yeah, basically, the Doc and I got the curse as 'out' of the sword as it's gonna get, and I won't be ready to start repairs 'n' kill more of Brando's pain until I turn it on so's I can have a look-see at the diagnostics." He gets out a control-grip with a big red button, which he positions his thumb directly over. "Gonna shut it down at the first sign o' trouble. We ready?"

    "Yep," says Lex.

    "Yes," says Dr. Daheru.

    Aurelia hands the thing over to Ewan. "I thought maybe the Society's spirit mages could fix the spirit inside it so it's a more complete being, but I haven't had a chance to show them. Yeah, it was Vanguard, how'd you'd know?" 
    Aurelia clears her throat. "Vanguard was really outmatched and outnumbered. About six people turned up where she was. Kind of a mistake even if most of the people fighting were outworlders." She looks at Lucianne and Lex and sighs.
    "Sorry, here I am going on about my world. Did you want some help with your... injuries? I don't know if they can fix everything, but they could look. The Beacon Society's all about protecting people and helping where they can."

"Vanguard was there spouting nonsense too when she was trying to turn Lex into her tool." Lucianne explains, and she ponders a bit at what the doctor says, "I'm not a skilled fighter, but I'm tough and I'm practicing." She offers, before clarifying. "But when I say bring to justice, let it be clear that I don't mean 'murder.' Justice is about making things right. Judgment is about reward and punishment. A debt in blood cannot be repaid in blood." A pause, "So executing them would fall under the domain of judgment, and I try not to do that; not my place."

She glances to Aurelia, "Can't hurt to look." She offers taking out her left arm and pointing two inches before her wrist, "That's where the cut was, but I seem to be recovering." She shrugs, "But hey, if you can speed it up, that'd be nice."

    Lex nods along with Lucianne. "Yeah, Vanguard jumped me on the way from another Blossom to Atlantean Earth, then set me loose on this city with a curse that made me try to attack people," she says. She sighs softly. "I mean, I've already got like two different kinds of healing magic going on, and ... I don't think I'm getting my arm and leg back, kind of thing. And beating up the Dawnfall won't change that."

    Ewan accepts Lightshard 17. "Thank-ye-kindly!" he says. "I dunno if the spirit is independent from the sword itself enough to 'fix it up' independently, but that's good to know." He turns back to the gadgets. "In the meantime," he says, "here goes nothin'."

    He hits a switch, and Lightshard 18's running lights flicker on; instead of being the orange of the curse, however, they're a shade of mint-green. "Error," it says in an electronic girl's voice which Aurelia might recognize as being similar that of 17, but different. "Error. Error. Error. Major system -- Major system error. Unable to access curse. Rebooting." The lights turn off for a few seconds, then switch back on again. "-- cent," it says, in the same dazed tone it had in the last moment before it was hit by Peach's purification. "... Central memory recovery failed." A pause. "This is clearly not this unit's first activation ... but ... Where ..."

    Lex raises her eyebrows, and gestures with the stump of her left arm.

    "... ah," says the sword. There's a hint of actual emotion in the voice now: namely, awkward nervousness.

    Aurelia looks embarassed as Lucianne holds out her injured arm. "Ah, I'm... not that kind of mage. M-my specialty is metal. I can tell you about your blood flow because most people's blood has iron in it." She gestures at the broken Lightshard 18. "I can probably fix that if you had the missing piece and gave me a lot of time, because it's got a lot of metal in it and that's how I messed up Vanguard's game with the other Lightshard. Tried to yank it out of her hand."
    Aurelia watches as Lightshard #18 gets activated. She notes this one seems less impersonal. "Are... you bound to Lex?" She asks the spirit.

"What do you know about the organization that calls itself Dawnfall?" Lucianne asks the spirit, focusing on the important things; before glancing back to Aurelia. "Oh. No problem." She puts her arm back where it was previously. To Lex, "I think I'll try tracing down Vanguard first."

    "Nice," Lex murmurs in Aurelia's direction as she describes how she beat Vanguard the last time. She hesitates, and nods to Lucianne.

    "This unit is not bound to ... Lex," says the sword, an ever-so-slightly guarded tone in her voice. "This unit is connected to the human in the hospital bed over there via body-soul morphic mass unification." There's an odd mixture of robotic terminology and an occasional more casual turn of phrase. "Further information on the subject ... is ... unavailable." To Lucianne, she replies, "This unit is not authorized to answer ..." A slight pause. "This unit does not possess sufficient information to ..." Another hesitation. "The purpose of this unit ... my purpose ..."

    Horror and disgust starts to creep into Lightshard 18's voice. "... They created me solely to see how ... Lex ... and I would explode."

    Aurelia makes a face. "Sounds like the Obsidian Cabal's kind of people. Doing things to people just to see what will happen." She can only watch with concern as the spirit reacts to its surroundings.

"They what?" Lucianne asks, frowning as she hears that. "Well, I am most glad to hear their attempt failed, even if it was a bit messier than I'd have liked."

    Lex frowns, and holds her hand out towards the sword. "Hey, uh ..."

    "Yes," says Lightshard 18. "I do not possess enough information on the Dawnfall to provide tactical information at this time. The purpose of the test: to demonstrate the self-destruct capabilities of the Lightshard line of swords when wielded by one who is unworthy. That is, those who are not Elves, and Elves who are not part of the Dawnfall."

    "... The sword's AI is correct," says Dr. Daheru, peering at his tablet. "It's the same kind of energy as the curse which caused the Atlantean Catastrophe, which ravaged our world more than two and a half millenniums ago." He gestures to Lightshard 18. "The purpose of this curse is to grant wings to anyone who wields it, and to kill anyone designated as 'unworthy', regardless of which end of the blade they're on. That purification blast destroyed any chance of the merger continuing, but ..."

    He looks at Lex gravely. "... The curse is now permanently inside you, in a dormant state," he says. "If it takes control of you again, and the wings grow big enough, it will kill you."

    Lex suddenly looks like she's feeling ill. Her head droops, and she just stares at her lap.

    "Even worse," Dr. Daheru continues, "your death will trigger a cascading destructive effect, wielding the connection we elves of Atlantean Earth have with the World Tree, and could potentially damage the very Blossom you are currently --"

    And just like that, Lex is suddenly sputtering incredulously, and Ewen is struggling not to laugh.

>> SUMMARY[Lex Brando] >> Dr. Daheru believes that elves of his world have a strong connection to the World Tree. This does not convey the intended effect.

    Aurelia listens. "That's a heavy thing to carry; maybe causing an apocalypse or dying? What kind of things can limit it?"
    She ers and assumes Lucianne wants a bit more explanation. "They think that non-mages are there to use however they want. The Obsidian Cabal, that is. They use these magical coins we call black obols."

Initially, Lucianne is is simply listening to what's being explained with a look of faint horror. But Daheru's last words before Lex explodes into laughter causes a raised eyebrow, and for her to get out a notebook and pen, delicately balancing them on her lap and writing down 'Dr. Daheru, maintaining delusions bordering on megalomania matching the profile of dawnfall. Investigate further.' She nods to Aurelia, "I see."

    Dr. Daheru frowns. "This is no laughing matter!" he says. "Look, I know it's an unpopular stance these days due to the new Dawnfall deriving their whole noxious philosophy from that premise, but ..." He lets out a frustrated grumble. "Look, just take care of yourself, all right? Whatever the connection, you'll still die." His voice has a level of concern which is simply nowhere near what the Dawnfall offers; either he's a true believer, or he's a phenomenal actor.

    "That is the intended purpose of the curse," says Lightshard 18. "I ... am still reeling from all this. This is ... Simply put, I do not trust my creators. I will have to rethink ... many things." She hesitates. "At the very least, I can assist in suppressing the curse. Controlling it is one of the central subsystems of the Lightshard swords, after all."

    Lex sighs. "Well, I mean, yeah," she says. "This run-in with Vanguard is turning out it cost me an arm and a leg, kind of thing."

    "... A Ainonya," says Lightshard 18.

    Lex looks up at Dr. Daheru. "... What's that mean?"

    "Literally, 'oh my god'," Dr. Daheru says wearily.

    The young woman smiles. "At least Lightshard 18 seems to be alright with helping you out, Lex."
    Then, Aurelia seems to be doing math on her fingers. "Wow, I wonder what my world would've been like if Atlantis had been around an extra two thousand years. H-how did your world's Atlantis doom itself?"

"No I didn't have anything to do with that." Lucianne answers when Daheru translates Lightshard 18, the smile on her face suggests that she's joking. "By the sound of the things Dawnfall and Dr. Daheru's believe, it seems likely to hubris induced by severe delusional megalomania is a likely culprit."

    "Lex and I are stuck together," says Lightshard 18. "It's the least I could do to help her out."

    Dr. Daheru makes a face at Lucianne's pronouncement. "Well, thousands of years ago, the world was connected by an ancient network called the Atlantean Grid, an unparalleled blend of magic, technology, and nature," he says. "In 577 B.C., ah, two thousand five hundred ninety-seven years ago, a virus caused it to turn against everyone and everything."

    "My creators," says Lightshard 18, in a tone of voice that she clearly particularly believe this, "claim that the original Dawnfall that was active at the time created the virus. I don't know what they were actually doing with it, though."

    Dr. Daheru nods. "In any event, Miss Brando and I work for one of the many adventurer's guilds which are dedicated to reclaiming and purifying the facilities of the Grid."

    Lex slumps back down again. "'Worked', past tense, probably, in my case," she says softly. She points the stump of her left arm at the outline of her lack-of-left-leg under the bedsheets. "I don't think I'm gonna be walking through a dungeon any time soon anymore, and all that."

    Aurelia nods and listens. "Sounds like the Dawnfall are jerks no matter what year it is, huh?" She gets up and stretches. "So hey, Lex, Lucianne, and Lighshard 18... I guess if you need help you can call me... do you guys have cell phones or...?"

"Cell phones?" Lucianne asks, tilting her head sideways. "What's that?" Well that answers that. She rolls her eyes at Daheru making a face, but otherwise listens. Then stifles a yawn, "I'm tired. I think regrowing a limb might take a lot of energy, so I'll be heading back to my room soon."

    Lex frowns. "Mine got crushed when Vanguard nabbed me," she says. "Or possibly in the fight, I dunno." She shakes her head. "But, uh, g'night, Lucianne!"

    "I just have Wifi," says Lightshard 18. "... Also I just had an idea. It should be possible for me to create prosthetics which you can control as if it was the real thing."

    Lex brightens. "Really?"

    "What's the catch?" asks Ewen, poring over the devices.

    "I cannot produce my own magical energy for any reasonable length of time," says Lightshard 18. "It will effectively be a magical effect which Lex is maintaining with her own energy."

    Dr. Daheru hmms. "Well, that would be exhausting ..."

    "But it's better than not having an arm, let's do this," Lex says quickly.

    She holds out the stump of her arm. Mint-green light extends from the stump, accompanied by pixelly effects and what looks like some sort of Elvish computer code, and coalesces to form a mint-green and white robotic looking arm. Lex flexes it, waggles her fingers, then gives a thumbs-up, grinning with relief.