World Tree MUSH

    The procession of hollow souls marches, leading to a sort of ravine or hollow in between the void black mountains of this strange place. The only color visible emanates from things touched by the light of Aurelia's blade, revealing only rust-red rocks and the brown of dead grass that crunches underfoot. The ravine ends in a depression that falls inward to a hole in the world, lit by the deep ruddy light of a bloated star directly above. The hollow souls throw themselves into the hole with no ceremony or hesitation, soundlessly, wordlessly.
    Aurelia's armor appears in a painfully bright flash and thunderclap, the orichalcum plate colored with the palette of sunsets and sunrises in contrast to the monochrome and darkness. "I've got a bad feeling about this..."

    Tirsiak continues to look just as she does on the surface, become more and more distinct from her surroundings as the group continues. She definitely does not belong here, her nature asserting itself even as reality tries to tell her different.

    "Then leave," is Tirsiak's response to Aurelia's 'bad feeling'. "This is no place for mortals. No one would fault you."

    Serrah grimaces, slapping her cheek a few times. She's starting to look increasingly in need of coffee.

    "Great, now you've jinxed it, Aurelia," she says dryly. "... I mean, I already had a bad feeling, but that was mostly from, y'know." She gestures vaguely towards Aurelia's sword. "Sun. Wait shit, I know!" She stands up straighter. "I should get. A fucking." She snaps her fingers a few times. "Umbrella. Parasol. I mean. Use that to keep the sun out, so I, uh. Can gesture vaguely towards sleeping better?"

    She gives Tirsiak a look, but doesn't comment. Ancient And Powerful Spirits are handy to have on your side, and even if that wasn't the case, Serrah still doesn't want to antagonize her on general principles.

Holly follows the march of the dead curiously wondering it would lead. "What about me?" Holly's technically mortal but it's complicated. "Maybe I can help with that!" Her attention turn towards Serrah hearing her request for a parasol. "Solis Ombrella!" She points her candy shaped staff at the half-vampire and there's a poof of orange smoke before a pink umbrella covered in red hearts appears in her hands. It's not quite what she had in mind but is a parasol.

    Aurelia gives Tirsiak a look. "It's my job to deal with this stuff. You know, so it doesn't hurt more people." She approaches the hole, the light revealing the blood-soaked nature of the dirt around it.
    Something, sounding for all the world like the hushed voice of a dying star, speaks. Like the groundskeeper, it isn't sound, but the impression of words impinging on the senses.
    //The living.. shadows... and a kami...//
    There's a moment of deafening silence before it goes on. //Have you come to make a bargain with ++Ulaht++?// The name is roughly translated by the mind; Reaper of the Void Within. Something within the hole stirs, a subtle shift felt by the inner ear, then an oppressive sense of being watched settles into the small area.

    Tirsiak either does not notice the Looks she's getting, or doesn't really care. As Aurelia approaches the hole, Tirsiak does as well. She floats up off the ground again, to her full flight ceiling of two feet off the ground.

    "Something is draining essence from shades, taking their nobility and leaving their hostility. They are attacking this living. This will end."

    Serrah is startled by Holly's offer! "... Huh. I mean, it's not gonna be the most useful thing right this minute, but." She accepts the parasol. "I mean, thanks!" she says. "I'm just gonna assume that the hearts weren't on purpose and this wasn't like a flirt or whatever --" And then she clams up before she puts her foot even further in her mouth.

    ... "A kami".

    Oh. Well, that's one mystery about Tirsiak explained. Serrah's brain transliterates Tirsiak into katakana before that oppressive sense from Ulaht washes over her.

    She ... does flinch back slightly. Almost immediately, though, she rights herself, and takes a position ... not quite behind Tirsiak, but basically flanking her. She lets the god and the magical warrior here handle negotiations; Serrah knows her own limits, or at least has a general sense of them, and talking is not one of her strong suits.

"A flirt? Why would I be flirting with you?" Holly looks a bit confused as she says that.

 Servis looks at Serrah's rainbow skort and is about to explain it to her, "Holly, I think Serrah is a...nevermind it's not important at the moment." He figures the witch might get even more distracted if he points it out.

 Holly's attention has already turned away from her friend and towards the being calling itself Ulaht. "A reaper of the void within? Is that someone who harvests people who no longer have souls? That would explain why these people are here. They're trapped in a void between life and death and waiting to move on."

    //They -asked-. Begged. Mercy! Mercy! They cried.// The hushed voice mocks. 
    //No wealth, no ruin, no silver, no gold. Nothing satisfies but the dark within the soul.//
    //So no. I will not. The misery of the living is as satisfying as the misery of the dead. Unless you offer a better bargain?//
    Aurelia emphatically shakes her head, definitely wanting to discourage any deal-making with this dark thing. She side-steps to put herself in front of Holly and Serrah, getting the sense that an attack is impending.

    There is a smirk on Tirsiak's face, showing off that her inhuman features do include pronounced canines. "The bargain is simple. If these Shades stop their attacks on the living, you get to live." She points her makeshift spear at the hole.

    Yeah she's picking a fight. What? Diplomacy isn't exactly her strong suit.

    Serrah's face is going slightly red. "YesthankyouServiscanwegetonwithitnow --"

    She clears her throat, and reaches into the baseball bag. "Okay, right," she says. "I'm with Tirsiak and Aurelia on this. Deals, in this kinda situation ... are a no-no."

    And she hopes really hard that baseballs will actually work on this guy, or she's going to have to get creative, and creativity isn't one of her strong suits either.

"Yes, I agree with Tirsiak! You can't just keep those who are alive like this. There should be peace between the living and the dead! Return these people to where they belong and let them rest!"" Holly doesn't really have any way of backing up her demands if the reaper is in fact another ghost but she has no idea what she's up against here.

    //What are -you- compared to -me-? I am -fear-. I am -despair-. I am -oblivion-. I am ++a monument to all your sins++...!//
    Aurelia looks around as shadows begin appearing around the defiled hole. "We should go. -Now-." The shadows all look familiar to at least one of those present; those who have died at the hands of Serrah, Aurelia, Holly, and Tirsiak. The hollow between the mountains begins to fill with the voices of these new shades, accusations hurled, lit by the dying light of the dark sun above. 
    From the hole, a black tar erupts, lit from within by a hellish red light as it parts to reveal a black skeleton. The faces of hollow souls peer out mournfully from the tar cloak with whispered regrets.

    Tirsiak's eyes widen very slightly as she sees forsaken shadows begin to climb out of the hole. "...What? What is this? Those are MY shades!"

    Oh God there are so many. Animals, people, animals, SO MANY ANIMALS - lions and tigers and bears and elephants and wolves and IS THAT A FUCKING TYRANOSAURUS

    Tirsiak snarls. "No. NO. You do not have the right! THESE ARE MINE!" Her screaming shout echoes across the landscape, divine power forming a visible sheathe around her body. She holds one hand forth imperiously, and WILLS the shadows to obey her, their rightful owner.

>> GAME >> Tirsiak spends an Edge for: Summon Shades: ASSERT AUTHORITY

    Serrah furrows her brow. "Uh ..." She's never killed anyone, and doesn't even blame herself for anyone's death. When she was dead, killing anyone would have had direct negative repercussions -- she probably wouldn't have been able to get resurrected if that had happened. She's just never kicked the habit of not killing.

    Besides which, Tirsiak has everything covered. "Whoa, what!?" exclaims Serrah, adrenaline once again cutting through the sleep-fog. "That's ... that's a lot. A lot lot! Yeah, y'know what, Aurelia has the right of it, c'mon, guys, time to make like a tree and ... a thicket of, of four trees -- and get the fuck outta here --"

    A single humanoid shadow lunges for Serrah. "Youuuuu," he says, in a voice which manages to sound extremely punchable despite being a mere ghostly memory. "You biiiiiiitch!"

    Serrah furrows her brow. "What?" she says. "Oh for fuck's sake, you're permanently dead!"

    The shadow of Duke Vincent D'Ambrosio levels a finger at Serrah. "You ..." For a moment, his finger is pointed at Holly. "And youuuu ..." His attention is mostly on Serrah, though. "I was goingggg ... to spend lots of moneyyyyyyy ...."

    Serrah frowns, backing away. "Okay yeah, this is definitely from my memories, not the real deal," she says. "I'm not creative enough to come up with something as fucking stupid as what the real Vincent would've said, 'specially on this little sleep."

Holly's never personally killed anyone but she's scored a few assists then again Vincent would show up regardless because Serrah killed him and she was controlling Serrah. There was also the random vampire she had helped killed and a few victims of the parade floats. Granted with all Tirsiak's victims it might be hard for her to notice them.

 "Maybe we should get out of here Holly, I don't think you can pull the control trick again right now."

 Lavaux suggests among all the chaos that's going on right now. She merely nods in agreement and makes a break for it hopping on her broom an attempt to get away from the chaos.

    Genuine fear crosses Aurelia's face as two overly familiar shadows rise above the throng of animals and people screaming for vengeance against Tirisak. The former Metallia Luna, resplendant in shadow and starlight, rises with a banshee scream and fires that moonlight bow, an arrow streaking across the air as fast as any shooting star.
    "Oh-!" Aurelia tries to hit the dirt, remembering her brush with death the last time she faced this incarnation of Luna, and is struck through the shoulder with a deafening boom. The impact lifts the young woman off her feet as it did before, hurling her through a throng of hollow souls at the entrance and tumbling over the rocks in the ravine.
    The shades don't respond to Tirsiak, pressing forward en mass, intent on tearing their pound of flesh from the hunter spirit. Instead, the myriad ghosts and spirits of the beings Tirisak controls in actuality begin appearing. The noise is tremendous as the two opposing forces tear into each other. Whatever passes for the blood of shades and spirits flows freely upon the ground of the hollow.
    The shade of Metallia Noctis should look familiar to Serrah as well, having been present when Mona killed her. The crescent line of her bow somehow manages to be dark even in this place, and then the rain of metal bolts begins, flowing from the weapon as smoothly as water, aiming for Holly, Serrah, and Tirsiak.
    Things that were already creatures of nightmare and shadow begin climbing out of the hole. Monstrous nightmares with scytheblade claws, dagger teeth, and shaggy shadows that cling to them. The grendel snarl, loping forward towards where Noctis' arrows land to do the bidding of their creator's shade.

    As her Shades begin to appear, Tirsiak is very confused - and hurriedly amends her summoning so none of the HUMAN shades are summoned. It's always a pain when she summons something that used to be sapient. They tend to remain sapient and willful.

    Instead, she just jams her spear into one of the fake human shades instead. And just kinda leaves it there, as she suddenly has to avoid some sort of... metal bolts.

    This gives Tirsiak an idea.

    She snaps her fingers, and suddenly it gets very, very cold. Snow begins to fall... and what few plants live in this desolate place actually begin to seem more vibrant and healthy, transforming into the sorts of plants one might find in a taiga than what they were before. Aurelia finds her armour's padding becomes warmer, while Serrah and Holly are given fuzzy jackets and trousers to protect them from the cold.

    This wasn't the idea Tirsiak had, of course. Just the conditions she needed to meet before her idea could be put into practice.

    Her idea becomes obvious when she bends down to dig a... McMillan TAC-50 anti-materiel rifle out of the snow.

    It looks sort of ridiculous being held by such a tiny person. The heck did it even come from?!

>> SUMMARY[Tirsiak] >> Tiri grabs a gun

    Serrah's eyes widen. "Uh, okay, cool, at least half of those are on our side," she says in a hollow voice. "Uhhh, shit!"

    At the rain of bolts, she freezes up for a split second, and then ... suddenly she's a little ways away, zipping between the falling bolts with near-vampiric speed, and there's a few baseballs flying towards the ghostly Noctis, with another couple headed towards Vincent. There's no transition between the two states; one proverbial frame of animation, she's gawking at the death from above, the next, she's moving. She doesn't have any hope of seeing those baseballs again, though.

    ... And then she's suddenly wearing ... winter clothes!? And there's snow!? She's starting to get the uncomfortable sensation of lots of life-energy in the vicinity, and tries to spare a glance for Tirsiak, who ... has a gun now.

    "What," she mutters.

    She shakes her head. "Okay, that makes sense," she says. "Fine. Whatever. Holly! You doing all right!?"

"Crap, this is like something out of one of those nature documentaries gone horribly wrong. Holly, look out!' Lavaux does his best to warn Holly about the metal bolts that are incoming.

Before Tirsiak's fuzzy jackets and trousers appear on Holly, one of Noctis's bolts managed to hit Holly in the shin managing to draw blood and making her lose balance on the broom. Her magic doesn't protect her from spiritual weapons after all and she starts to spiral out of control.

 Trying to make her unaware of the pain, Servis quickly climbs inside of her in attempt to help her regain her balance.

    The old Luna spares a glance towards Tirsiak, seeing the gun. There's an invisible struggle as she mimes grabbing the gun in a hand and pulling on it, attempting to rip the metallic weapon from the huntress' grip. But... this is an imitation of the real thing. A phantom. A memory stolen from Aurelia. It struggles to remove the anti-materiel rifle from Tirsiak's hands.
    Noctis forms a barrier of metal, deflecting a baseball even as the others cause her to flinch. Seeing Aurelia get flung out of the hollow, the black metal figure swoops over the chaos, new bolts of dark steel flung from the bow towards Tirsiak specifically, directing the monstrous grendels to harass and distract.
    Vincent makes some grunting noises as he gets pelted by vampiric fastballs. "Bah." He whips the Blackheart Scepter out, commanding a flock of birds of prey to surround Serrah and Holly, inadvertantly taking some pressure off of Tirsiak. Then, he begins running towards the dhampir, features running together as he transforms into a great hound known as the Baskerville Hound. The details are different than Serrah remembers; the form is more menacing, more nightmare-like. In short, something torn from Serrah's nightmares instead of the real deal.
    //Struggle all you wish. Drown in your sins.// Ulaht taunts.

    Tirsiak's conjured facsimile of a gun that isn't even entirely composed of metal barely budges in her hands as the facsimile if Luna tries to use her powers to tear it from her grip. Tirsiak just growls, and turns the barrel on her - but is then forced to duck and weave as she comes under sudden assault from flying metal, animals and weird monsters.

    Keeping a firm grip on the weapon, Tirsiak drops to the floor and races toward the metal-controlling menace - she's sure to foil her aim if she tries shooting anything. Leaping into the air, Tirsiak grips the weapon by the barrel and swings it like a club.

    But it's a feint. The spirit has already demonstrated some control over metal. So Tirsiak barely puts any forced into the blow, and follows up with a wicked, claw-footed kick with enough force to demolish a wall.

The Servis-controlled Holly does her best to try and punch the birds away. Casting a spell wouldn't likely be the best idea while they're still trying to stay balanced on the broom. "Hey, it looks like physical force works on these guys after all! Maybe you should land that thing and let me take over!" Punching things is one of Lavaux's strong points after all.

 "And all those animals would likely turn Holly into a snack if we did that." It sounds a bit odd hearing a man's voice coming out of the witch but one's in control of the witch at the moment.

    Serrah gulps. "Holly!" she exclaims, and she takes off and flies up towards the stricken witch to try to catch her in mid-fall. Crap. Okay. Okay, good, Servis has things ... handled. Ish.

    But then she suddenly has birds attacking her, and she jerks in surprise, corkscrewing through them as she tries to avoid them. "Oh shit, he's got the damn Scepter," she snarls, just in time for one of them to hurt her arm. "Augh! Wait, did he put a Blackheart Mark on all of these bitches!? He's -- OHGOD!!"

    She'd only seen Vincent transform once, and that wasn't on one of their "missions." But this is ... much scarier than even a regular Baskerville hound. She lets out a yelp of alarm, and chucks another few baseballs Vincent-ward.

    And then she frowns. "Wait," she mutters. "Why isn't he using it on me? He's never hesitated on that before."

    Being a ranged combatant, Metallia Luna tries to move away from Tirsiak. She catches the claw-footed kick across the torso, the lunargent armor making a horrid wrenching sound as shrapnel tears from it and embeds itself into the rocks. The shade bleeds inky darkness rather than blood, underlining its unreal nature. A silvery shard lances out from Luna's armored glove in retaliation even as she flies backwards to put more distance between herself and Tirsiak.
    Vincent takes some baseballs to the face, slowed down by them. Annoyed, he transforms back to his humanoid form and flies towards Serrah, face contorted with rage. "I'm going to tear you into little pieces!" The details of this Vincent are similarly more menacing and darker in aspect. He won't hesitate to use that hideous strength. As if Vincent's attention wasn't enough, the grendels seem to be converging on Serrah as well, loping along in their shaggy hides. Holly seems to only be harassed and menaced by the seemingly endless swarms of animals and humans brought forth from Tirsiak's victims.
    The ghost of Noctis looms over Aurelia, more nightmare-like in the same ways as Vincent is for Serrah. The glistening black metal armor seems right at home in this place, unchanging even near the light of Aurelia's armor and blade. "Don't you know me, Aurelia?" The shade says, sounding amused. 
    "You're Metallia Noctis? Why are you even-?" Aurelia starts, propping herself up on the ground as she tries to pull the arrow out of her shoulder.
    "Oh no. No no. Wrong." The shade crouches down and faces the young woman, masked face to masked face. "I'm your worst fear." The black metal mask retracts, revealing Noctis' face. Aurelia's face screws up in horror and confusion, for the face behind Noctis' helm was her own. The crystal blade is summoned to her hand with a crack of displaced air as Aurelia screams and attacks the phantom, a flash of light bursting from the blade as whatever magic that was animating the phantom is attacked.

>> GAME >> Aurelia Argent spends an Edge for: Anti-Magic Blade

    Serrah grimaces. "Yeah, no, this ain't a real Vincent," she mutters irritably. "You don't even have class." He's still a clear and present danger, of course, but ...

    Yeah she's gonna have to eat another time-stop to deal with this faker. She grimaces as she catches sight of Aurelia's doppelganger, too. Time to bring out the big guns, just as soon as she can figure out what said 'big guns' actually are --

    ... Big guns.

    Oooh.

    "E-excuse me, Tirsiak!" she says, trying to put as much of a smidgen of deference into her tone as she can given the circumstances. "I have an idea! If you'll ... allow me to share my time-stop power with you? Which ... would require physical contact, uh ..."

    If allowed, she will touch Tirsiak's arm. And then from Tirsiak's perspective, it looks like a ripple of light erupts from Serrah, the world takes on a faded and slightly purple-tinted appearance, and everyone and everything becomes frozen in time except for Serrah, Tirsiak, and Tirsiak's gun.

    From everyone else's perspective, of course, what happens next goes by much more quickly.

    Tirsiak is growling quite loudly. She's sure that killing the skeleton spirit will make the rest of these weird not-shades vanish, but with thbis metal controlling apparition in play, she has no hope of actually lining up an accurate shot no matter how skilled she is.

    Which is 'very', by the way.

    But then the former dead person is suggesting using her sorcery to aid Tirsiak. Tirsiak considers for a moment - and then she's weaving between the Lunar apparition's attacks and making her way to Serrah to accept this help. She's not too proud to accept help from a sorcerer.

    "Work your magic, then, sorcerer!" she calls, as she gets within reach and...

    Everything stops. Tiri's left ear twitches. She looks around at the frozen combattants...

    She grins a grin that is frankly disturbing even for someone who used to be a vampire.

    She leaps up into the air, levitating at her full height, and brings the weapon to bear. She rests the receiver on one arm, tucks the stock in against her shoulder, takes aim...

    Ulaht's skull head is clear as day in the telescoping sights.

    She pulls the triggerand the timestop ends as a .50 calliber bullet is halfway through the air, aimed directly at Ulaht's forehead.

>> SUMMARY[Tirsiak] >> Bang.

Holly does her best to try draw some aggro away from Serrah and Tirsiak as she flies., it's about all she can do in this situation without getting chewed on. Fighting spirits isn't one of the witch's strong points after all and she's not much more durable than a normal human against them.

    The giant black skull shatters. There's a pause in the action. The phantoms start winking out of existence one by one. Ulaht seems surprised by this turn of events. But very much not destroyed.
    There's some grumbling from the void reaper as it waves one skeletal arm, banishing all the rest of the phantoms with the gesture. //Go home then. I'll eat the hollow souls.// It sounds extremely annoyed, not defeated.
    //Humans will always create more misery for me to feast on.//

    Tirsiak's finger is still on the trigger. She regards the skeletal figure for a few moments... and then slowly takes her finger off the trigger. She drops the gun, and it shatters into snow as the surroundings begin to warm again.

    "I can't eat spirits," she says, as if this explains why she accepted the void spirit's surrender.

    Serrah heaves a sigh of relief. "Well, you shot the sunovabitch in the face, so I'm not gonna complain about your diet," she says wryly. She manages to stop short of slapping this Minor Spiritual Goddess on the back.

    She looks around. "Aurelia, you doing okay?" she says. "Uh ... Holly, how's your leg?" Without seeming to notice she's doing, she clutches her arm, where she got slashed by a bird-spirit Vincent had "controlled" ...

Servis has Holly land now that it's safe for her to do so and exits her body. The witch looks a bit confused and exhausted after all the fighting. "Huh, we won?" She wasn't expecting that but she's not going to push the issue any further. She's limping a bit due to her injury to her shin but she should be able to make it out of there at least.

 "Maybe you should find somewhere closer to crash for the night, Holly." Lavaux knows she's been pushed to her limits before attention turns towards Tirsiak, "I'm glad for that, losing my body was bad enough. Ending up in someone's stomach isn't how I want to spend eternity."