Re: Intense Struggle! (Round 6 - Frozen Destinies)
12-01-2011, 10:39 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.
Erecting a spirit ward wasn't difficult; when you're in a line of work and magical tradition like Clara's, it's one of the first things you learn to do, and one of the most important things you learn to do well and reliably. It was the sort of thing she could do blindfolded and distracted by now; although more exotic or complex ones would take her some time, they never required much headspace or concentration. The one that was taking shape under her careful fingers would take some minutes, but when finished should move with her and guarantee no incorporeal entity should be able to approach her, regardless of its nature or intent. Until then, she was somewhat vulnerable; mostly though, she just had time to think.
It was a luxury not much afforded her since her abduction save for while trekking through a heat-blasted desert or locked in a mana-draining hole, neither of which were truly ideal situations for introspection. Besides, the last round had given her quite a bit more to think about: she had been certain that B was the traitor; every fiber of her being had thrummed with hatred for such a cruel thing that wore the guise of a child, for a mortal that chose to lie with the Grandmasters and sow distrust and death. And then a hail of bullets had reduced that child to an unrecognizable mass of flesh, and she'd seen the betrayal and fear in his eyes as he died and proved himself innocent. Her word had cut down a frightened babe.
She tried to dispel the image of B's fading eyes and the sound of his jawbone clattering against the wall, tried to focus on what could be changed and who could be saved rather than lamenting how thoroughly she had failed and how gravely she had sinned. How could she have been wrong? How could it not have been him?
B and Bae had both been shapeshifters: she'd seen Bae disguise himself as Aegis and that presumably that Cabaret person, as well as his display in the swamp; B on the other hand had turned into a bear and ostensibly that dragon, but had never seemed to change to anything humanoid but himself. If the Monitor's word could be trusted – ha! – then he could only turn into "beasts". What did Clara know about polymorphism? ... Not much at all, and she couldn't even be sure the rules of her universe's magic applied. If what they did was even magic. But if she assumed that Bae could like like anyone while B could only look like any animal, then Bae could have imitated B and blown the dust in Aph's face! ... Except that just before he'd been killed, the real B had claimed to have killed Bae in the swamp. Why would he lie about that?
This kind of thinking went around in circles for some minutes before the nun finally drew some conclusions: either Aph had somehow managed to resist or distort the truth spell, or Bae wasn't the monitor's only agent. Or that rock man had been wrong and Bae had remembered to feign unconsciousness as Aph when the mana-dampeners had approached. Then again, she doubted Bae could imitate magic, which meant that Aph probably was Aph. So! Aegis could potentially be Bae she supposed, and B might have also been a traitor. But was that more likely than Aph being unaffected by the spell? It couldn't have been that she'd resisted it; that was always visible. It would have had to be completely ineffective for some reason.
Clara sighed as she finished her spell. There was simply no way to know, and without any way to know, she couldn't trust anyone. She pulled a cynical face as it occurred to her that if the Monitor had arranged this all to prevent any effective rebellion, he had certainly done a good job.
She paced slowly across the length of the stony room-conglomerate she was in. So what would she do? Try to take out the Monitor herself? How? All the necromancy in the world wouldn't make a fighter of her, and she didn't even know to get to him. She knew she had to do something about this bloody spectacle. She knew her destiny was to make a difference in these Grand Battles, one way or another. It had to be. But destiny provided few answers, and knowing the indeterminate future was little help when one didn't know the present.
Clara sighed again. For all her pondering, she had no answers and no plan. All she had was a heavy conscience and the knowledge that she had to do something. At a loss, and well-aware of how well this had served her before, she grabbed her book and dropped it on the ground, reading the first passage that caught her eye.
He looked upon the approaching armies and knew that his forces could do nothing against them. And his heart wept.
But his wife said to him "Look not upon the armies, but at the legions."
And he shook his head, for even one legion could overtake his city.
But again she spoke. "Then look not upon the legions, but at the cohorts. Look upon them neither, but see only the centuries. See not the centuries, but only the man in front of you and his sword."
And his heart was lightened. "I will look not on the armies but on the men; I will engage not their forces, but their spears."
And though the siege continued for near thirty moons, he emerged victorious, for he was able to divide the tyrant's armies and destroy each, man by man.
Tackle things one at a time. Surprisingly relevant, she mused as she picked the book back up. She still had no notion of what to tackle or how, but at least she had the perspective to see she was overwhelming herself. And then it occurred to her.
Aph.
She had become a monster. If nothing had proven it before, the last round had. She was a callous personification of death and calamity, and she had to be dealt with one way or another. If Clara couldn't restore her to her innocent self, she would have to be killed. She'd attacked unprovoked, and had almost certainly killed many in the prison; she was a danger to every still-living soul on this plane, including herself and Aegis... if he really was Aegis. She would certainly be of no help against the Monitor in her current state. Sister Clara would have to be the one to exorcise her of whatever had caused her sea-change, or destroy her if that was what was required. With a heart weighed on as much by her complicity in B's murder as the monstrous task she had before her, she wove through the statuary and stepped into the street.
It occurred after only a few moments of walking that she had no inkling of where to find the nymph. Fortunately, directions at least were one thing she was good at; a simple divination and she'd be lead straight to her. Fingers wove the spell and syllables shaped it, and...
There was a flash of light and Clara was thrown backwards. The spell had exploded violently, leaving behind a scent of burnt stone and the faintest of screams at the edge of hearing. Nothing but the nun herself seemed to have been affected, but the tips of her fingers were scorched and her nails rendered ragged, to say nothing of the ringing in her ears. Most confusingly, there seemed to have been no reason for it.
On a hunch, Clara muttered a few syllables that an alternate version of herself had used shortly after its creation. Her eyes tingled and the world of spirits made itself seen.
She screamed, an ululating cry of shock and terror that floated over the silent city that only failed to alert Aegis and Aph by dint of the great distance between them, and went on screaming until her lungs were empty. It was some seconds before she had the presence of mind to refill them and stand up.
Surrounding her on every side, pressed against the invisible wall of her ward, were innumerable souls; they blended together in sickening masses of spectral flesh and broke apart again only to intertwine with others, they wept and laughed and chattered and tried to reach for the nun, tried to enter their stone bodies, tried to play out the destinies that had been stolen from them. As much as they were intertwined with each other, they permeated the very spectral fabric of the plane; no-one would have any luck casting divine magic that affected much beyond themselves as long as all the mana in these worlds were tied up in the ghosts that filled it.
Shaken, Clara blinked and deactivated her spell. The faces and fingers and limbs faded away, leaving her with the feeling of being watched on all sides and the intimation of whispering just beyond the edge of her hearing.
With another sigh, she shook her head and trudged along the uniform-yet-patchwork ground, hoping luck or fate or coincidence would take her closer to her target.
Erecting a spirit ward wasn't difficult; when you're in a line of work and magical tradition like Clara's, it's one of the first things you learn to do, and one of the most important things you learn to do well and reliably. It was the sort of thing she could do blindfolded and distracted by now; although more exotic or complex ones would take her some time, they never required much headspace or concentration. The one that was taking shape under her careful fingers would take some minutes, but when finished should move with her and guarantee no incorporeal entity should be able to approach her, regardless of its nature or intent. Until then, she was somewhat vulnerable; mostly though, she just had time to think.
It was a luxury not much afforded her since her abduction save for while trekking through a heat-blasted desert or locked in a mana-draining hole, neither of which were truly ideal situations for introspection. Besides, the last round had given her quite a bit more to think about: she had been certain that B was the traitor; every fiber of her being had thrummed with hatred for such a cruel thing that wore the guise of a child, for a mortal that chose to lie with the Grandmasters and sow distrust and death. And then a hail of bullets had reduced that child to an unrecognizable mass of flesh, and she'd seen the betrayal and fear in his eyes as he died and proved himself innocent. Her word had cut down a frightened babe.
She tried to dispel the image of B's fading eyes and the sound of his jawbone clattering against the wall, tried to focus on what could be changed and who could be saved rather than lamenting how thoroughly she had failed and how gravely she had sinned. How could she have been wrong? How could it not have been him?
B and Bae had both been shapeshifters: she'd seen Bae disguise himself as Aegis and that presumably that Cabaret person, as well as his display in the swamp; B on the other hand had turned into a bear and ostensibly that dragon, but had never seemed to change to anything humanoid but himself. If the Monitor's word could be trusted – ha! – then he could only turn into "beasts". What did Clara know about polymorphism? ... Not much at all, and she couldn't even be sure the rules of her universe's magic applied. If what they did was even magic. But if she assumed that Bae could like like anyone while B could only look like any animal, then Bae could have imitated B and blown the dust in Aph's face! ... Except that just before he'd been killed, the real B had claimed to have killed Bae in the swamp. Why would he lie about that?
This kind of thinking went around in circles for some minutes before the nun finally drew some conclusions: either Aph had somehow managed to resist or distort the truth spell, or Bae wasn't the monitor's only agent. Or that rock man had been wrong and Bae had remembered to feign unconsciousness as Aph when the mana-dampeners had approached. Then again, she doubted Bae could imitate magic, which meant that Aph probably was Aph. So! Aegis could potentially be Bae she supposed, and B might have also been a traitor. But was that more likely than Aph being unaffected by the spell? It couldn't have been that she'd resisted it; that was always visible. It would have had to be completely ineffective for some reason.
Clara sighed as she finished her spell. There was simply no way to know, and without any way to know, she couldn't trust anyone. She pulled a cynical face as it occurred to her that if the Monitor had arranged this all to prevent any effective rebellion, he had certainly done a good job.
She paced slowly across the length of the stony room-conglomerate she was in. So what would she do? Try to take out the Monitor herself? How? All the necromancy in the world wouldn't make a fighter of her, and she didn't even know to get to him. She knew she had to do something about this bloody spectacle. She knew her destiny was to make a difference in these Grand Battles, one way or another. It had to be. But destiny provided few answers, and knowing the indeterminate future was little help when one didn't know the present.
Clara sighed again. For all her pondering, she had no answers and no plan. All she had was a heavy conscience and the knowledge that she had to do something. At a loss, and well-aware of how well this had served her before, she grabbed her book and dropped it on the ground, reading the first passage that caught her eye.
He looked upon the approaching armies and knew that his forces could do nothing against them. And his heart wept.
But his wife said to him "Look not upon the armies, but at the legions."
And he shook his head, for even one legion could overtake his city.
But again she spoke. "Then look not upon the legions, but at the cohorts. Look upon them neither, but see only the centuries. See not the centuries, but only the man in front of you and his sword."
And his heart was lightened. "I will look not on the armies but on the men; I will engage not their forces, but their spears."
And though the siege continued for near thirty moons, he emerged victorious, for he was able to divide the tyrant's armies and destroy each, man by man.
Tackle things one at a time. Surprisingly relevant, she mused as she picked the book back up. She still had no notion of what to tackle or how, but at least she had the perspective to see she was overwhelming herself. And then it occurred to her.
Aph.
She had become a monster. If nothing had proven it before, the last round had. She was a callous personification of death and calamity, and she had to be dealt with one way or another. If Clara couldn't restore her to her innocent self, she would have to be killed. She'd attacked unprovoked, and had almost certainly killed many in the prison; she was a danger to every still-living soul on this plane, including herself and Aegis... if he really was Aegis. She would certainly be of no help against the Monitor in her current state. Sister Clara would have to be the one to exorcise her of whatever had caused her sea-change, or destroy her if that was what was required. With a heart weighed on as much by her complicity in B's murder as the monstrous task she had before her, she wove through the statuary and stepped into the street.
It occurred after only a few moments of walking that she had no inkling of where to find the nymph. Fortunately, directions at least were one thing she was good at; a simple divination and she'd be lead straight to her. Fingers wove the spell and syllables shaped it, and...
There was a flash of light and Clara was thrown backwards. The spell had exploded violently, leaving behind a scent of burnt stone and the faintest of screams at the edge of hearing. Nothing but the nun herself seemed to have been affected, but the tips of her fingers were scorched and her nails rendered ragged, to say nothing of the ringing in her ears. Most confusingly, there seemed to have been no reason for it.
On a hunch, Clara muttered a few syllables that an alternate version of herself had used shortly after its creation. Her eyes tingled and the world of spirits made itself seen.
She screamed, an ululating cry of shock and terror that floated over the silent city that only failed to alert Aegis and Aph by dint of the great distance between them, and went on screaming until her lungs were empty. It was some seconds before she had the presence of mind to refill them and stand up.
Surrounding her on every side, pressed against the invisible wall of her ward, were innumerable souls; they blended together in sickening masses of spectral flesh and broke apart again only to intertwine with others, they wept and laughed and chattered and tried to reach for the nun, tried to enter their stone bodies, tried to play out the destinies that had been stolen from them. As much as they were intertwined with each other, they permeated the very spectral fabric of the plane; no-one would have any luck casting divine magic that affected much beyond themselves as long as all the mana in these worlds were tied up in the ghosts that filled it.
Shaken, Clara blinked and deactivated her spell. The faces and fingers and limbs faded away, leaving her with the feeling of being watched on all sides and the intimation of whispering just beyond the edge of her hearing.
With another sigh, she shook her head and trudged along the uniform-yet-patchwork ground, hoping luck or fate or coincidence would take her closer to her target.