Jubei had regarded the pillow with a raised brow for a few moments, before he carefully sat down upon it. He listened, then nodded. "Indeed, we for our part seek no quarrel with your colony. I have no intention of picking up... sport of my ancestors.", he spoke with a tad of disdain there. "That being said, what do you wish to discuss about the... I assume it is the conclave citadel that resides upon the moon? Has there been an incident?"

    The umbrean was quiet still and looked thoughtful for a moment before she spoke again. "You are of course free to leave at any time now that the Gathering has awakened.  If you wish to travel to the Conclave Citadel there are some things you should know.  As for our diplomatic concerns with the outside world this will be contingent upon what you-" she looked at Willa pointedly  "-will share with the Gathering.  The request you made for Immersion is not dependant on that of course but some exchange of knowledge, memory and experience is a natural course of events during that process."

  "Forgive my impertinence but what has become of your human companion, the I one you called Amare?  The Caretakers memories do not hold his fate nor the existence of this Volon and he-you disturb me.  You're like an abyss into which all sound vanishes."  she frowned as she looked at Volon, something she found difficult to do by the strain that showed in her face.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:17, Mon 04 Feb 2019.

Jubei listened and nodded, before he made a bit of an inviting hand gesture. "Then please, do tell about what needs to be known about the Citadel.", he spoke, as his headcrest of feathers raised a bit in anticipation.

"Willa also try to answer questions!" The oozeling cheerfully piped up, a lot more optimistically and more like her old self than she had been for a while now.

    The umbrean gathered herself as she looked at Jubei.  "I will say what I am allowed to until we have come to some arrangement regarding your visit there." she folded her hands in her lap.  "After the War a great many consciousnesses drifted in the communal awareness of our Gatherings.  The Great Gathering was disturbed and divided by some conflicting ideas about what to do with ourselves.  Many wanted to return to their lives before their unfortunate deaths in the War and in the Gathering had become aware of our means to manufacture creatures of such sophistication as the dragon effigy you faced.  We could perfectly reproduce the functions and abilities of any living being with a mechanical facsimile." looking across the room at this revelation she returned to Jubei.

  "As you have heard me say, those of us who remember being dragonkind long ago collectively made the decision not to return to an approximation of our former flesh.  We are were little different from ghosts, only caught and reproduced by the quirk of umbrean nature."

  "But the influx of so many new psyches into our fold turned the balance of power into the favor of the Restorationists and when we destroyed Phazion they set about their plans to restore themselves through mechanical bodies.  Those older ones of use who remained and those among the new ones who saw the folly of the Restorationists plans tried to dissuade them but that was not so effective as we'd have hoped.  Madness had gripped the Restorationists and everyone else fled.  The Citadel became theirs as a consequence while the rest of us split up and gathered in the outposts we had made of the old weyrs." she gestured at the area around her.

  "We had planned a countermeasure.  We suspended the Citadel and its surroundings in a single moment of time until we had found some way to defeat the Restorationists." looking at Willa then she added "This is where you are most likely descended from.  After a few years here we realized we would not be able to come up with a solution on our own.  So a third of the Gatherings chose to go out into the greater world and seek a solution to our conflict while the rest of us remained to maintain the magic which kept the Citadel suspended."

  The umbrean swept a hand behind her, in the direction of the spire's center.  "We wove a great dream, shared by all in the Gathering.  A world of our own design where we could be whatever we chose to be.  Restrained only by our own imagination.  In those dreams we at first hoped to find a solution but in time it became a way of life and has remained such to this day.  Awakening has taken a great force of will and most cling to the Dreaming even now." she chuckled.

  "I guess you could say we are only half-awake." she smiled her eyes downcast.  "If you wish to travel to the lunar citadel you will have to fight the Restorationists, we've resigned ourselves to this outcome now.  We don't want to kill our own kind over a philosophical disagreement.  But the threat of the derangement they can bring into the world through their folly is something we've seen first hand in early instances of the Dream.  That can not be allowed to be and if we must ask you to be our instrument of destruction." she sighed, closing her eyes.  Bringing up her hands to her face to wipe away ichory tears.

  Breathing deeply she said finally "So be it."
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:52, Mon 04 Feb 2019.

At the end of all that, Jubei was silent for a few seconds, before he made a sound that was a strange mix between the click of his tongue and some kinda hiss.
"That explains the vision I had. I saw a flood of... goo that tried to take the shape of a dragon. Either way, that seems like a considerable task to undertake. We will need to know more about the Restorationists. How many there are and how to take care of them. And who or what is this Phazion you mentioned?"

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Willa started bouncing excitedly, finally understanding something.  "Willa remember!  Vito friend tell.  Lich Phazion attack Appirga!  Was beaten.  Then curse Appirga with Nemesis!"

"Also," She stops to think, "not really understanding.  Is all umbreans ghosts of dragons?  Or only is some of?  Are umbrean umbreans?  Which Willa is?  Also, reser...serva...other trapped umbreans...is wrong?  Sounds want be Ehuron.  Ehurons also bad is?"

Jubei blinked for a moment, looking between Willa, then that other Umbrean, before recoiling a little on his seat. "You mean that Phazion?", he asked as if there was another one, then made that clickhissy noise again, only to have it be followed by a snort. "Alright. How do we beat them?"

    Willa's flurry of questions seems to cheer up the other umbrean somewhat.  "Yes Jubei, I can imagnie your surprise to learn that an undead army is no match for an umbrean one.  Though our success was due to two reasons.  Everyone Phazion killed was usually reborn among us.  So as his army grew so the ones he had slain gained a new voice and a means to assemble into a fighting force.  Furthermore, we can't be twisted into undead abominations because our flesh never truly dies.  A strong enough will in an umbrean can restore itself from the ether no matter how many times it is broken.  The blaze of determination born among us in that war was something to behold.  Though it comes at a steep price.  Once their purpose was fulfilled and Phazion was fallen they could not maintain their existence for more then a few days.  Even immersing themselves in a Gathering, a thing which has sustained other umbrean minds for tens of thousands of millennia, could not save them from dissolution.  Only their memories and persona remain now.  Memorialized in a way within the whole of the Gathering."

  She frowned a bit thinking something over.  "Phazion didn't curse Appirga, some one else brought about that bloodless massacre.  We buried those spiritually desiccated bodies ourselves by sending them out to sea." she shivered as though remembering.  "Our ships were stacked with bodies." there was a tremble in her voice then.  "I'm sorry we'd rather not talk about that, that horror lingers too near to memory."

  A long moment passes before the umbrean continues.  "Ehuron are spirits.  Who wear their crude mechanical bodies like you or I may wear clothing.  As long as they remain wholly separated from the material universe they will never truly be alive.  The Restorationists sought to craft a thing that would make an Ehuron's body look like a crude puppet made from sticks and stones.  To the uninitiated-" she looked over towards Phelan "-it would look no different from living flesh."

  She turned back to address you all and looked very uncomfortable.  "There is a way for an umbrean to take other creatures, be they living or dead and use them as a host.  Not too different from possession by spirit or daemon but in a physical sense.  It is not something that comes naturally to our kind, but it is a technique which can be learned.  Its inventor and their motivation is lost to the shrouds of history but we've only ever really employed it as a means to...keep an eye on things.  Once we were no longer under threat of isolation or extermination so long ago we found the idea of robbing another of their will to be disgusting."

  "Willa, I can't say for sure where you come from.  We don't represent the whole of all umbrean kind.  We are a small population who gained our ability to retain our sentience during dissolution by means of the Great Gathering which itself was a project undertaken by the long dead dragons out of curiosity.  Since those times we looked for other umbrean civilizations and found none which were recent.  Though there are signs of on.  Ancient vaults hidden far beneath the bottom of the seas where our kind lies dormant in cities so old we dare not disturb them for fear of what we might awaken."

  "As for how you might defeat the Restorationists we can't begin to guess.  They number well over a million.  But we think you may be able to come up with a solution that we haven't been able to realize.  Furthermore you'd have the element of surprise and, stealth along with being a small, highly mobile force.  Unlike this weyr there is no organized resistance in the Citadel.  It can only be accessed from select teleportation circles secured in a dozen weyrs across the world.  After all you defeated our security measures which has defeated every other group of explorer into our weyr.  You literally came in through the front door, the most secure part of our defenses!" she laughed.  "And until we had asked to parlay you were on your way here!  What did you even imagine you would find or do when you found us?" she wondered in amusement.

  "You take incredible risks for great rewards and have demonstrated a tenacity and capacity for solving problems far in excess of anything we have observed outside of what you might consider myths and legends.  Therefore we believe you can do something like this which seems nigh impossible and has left our society dumbfounded for centuries specifically because you can conceive of and engage in activities we would not even consider." she finished.

There was an 'Uh huh' from Jubei as he listened, but he couldn't help and chortle at the 'praise' they received for waltzing right in through the front door. "My teacher once said that the baggage of the past can affect us in more ways than we think, including the way we think. But speaking of front doors and past baggage, the machines we faced were all caretakers, yes? Do they have individual names? At the gate a 'Temper' received instructions for my capture by... someone. I presume it was not you?"

    The umbrean looked confused, "We don't have any Caretakers by that name.  Allow me to clear up a middunderstanding.  The Caretakers are umbreans like myself we serve a period of years away from the Gathering and the Dream maintaining the defences and devices of the weyr.  It was the Chief of these Caretakers who was obsessed with capturing you when you penetrated the defences.  Their continued failures to do so over the last few days, and the steady trickle down of information about the precarious state of things from the Gatherer was what alerted the Dreamers to the situation and began waking us up.  As the Gathering has supreme authority over everything that is part of the weyr.  We deposed the Caretaker and had her taken into custody.  She joined with the Gathering this morning as part of what you would call a trial on multiple charges of misconduct."

  She smiled "I realize now I haven't told you my name.  I honestly haven't chosen one yet.  I was only born a few minutes before we met."

"New friend has no name?"  Willa shuffled about awkwardly in her seat, looking down out har clasped hands,  After a moment, she whispered, "Willa know good name, if friend like..?"

OOC
If asked, Willa will reply "Aviana" and explain that she was a child who was tragically taken from the world by Darkness.  Willa could not save her, even though she promised to do so.
She thinks, at least, it would be nice to remember and honour her memory.

Jubei once more gave a nod, slow this time, before his head recoiled in surprise at hearing that their 'host' was only minutes old. "That is... remarkable.", he uttered, followed by a little and very brief chuckle. It was more of a snort really.
"That was a lot to take in. I may need a moment to... ponder things.", he spoke and looked to the others to see if they had any questions or remarks to make.

There is a moments pause as Drex considers his thoughts, before ceased on Jubei's opportunity  "We technically still don't know that to expect on the moon. Other that there are mad umbrians how will most assuredly do anything in their power to stop us and escape of the moon. What safeguards can we use to stop them from reaching any of the weirs and do you think we could maybe ask for a map to the citadel?"
He paused again, he seems torn "Well, going to the moon seems to be our next obvious choice, but I would like to go to the meeting first. I is my duty and I would like if you my friends could accompany me?"

    The mediator nodded towards Jubei.  "Don't worry yourself about my name now Willa, if your companions would allow us to take leave while they discuss I think that should give us enough time for you to immerse yourself in the Gathering as you had desired."

  She then looked over towards Drex "You are welcome to join us but we do understand that the camp outside our walls are simply a small expeditionary force sent by the returned narayan peoples.  You may observe if they choose to give their consent, I must consult with the Gathering myself about such a request.  So while you discuss amongst yourself I would like to accompany Willa to the Gathering and join her in the rite of dissolution.  It should take no more then a few minutes."

Drex knods politely. "Thank you. We would like to discuss our next steps. It will only take two minutes."

Jubei gave a nod, before he looked over to Drex. "We may ought see to the expedition. From the sound of things, there is nothing for us to do at this Gathering other than witness an exceedingly large amount of goo and be pretty."

Ceba perked up at Drex's statement. Having listened keenly to the conversation around him, he felt dizzied by the inaction. It would be good to be moving, or at least active, and his fur-crystals scratched at the chair regardless.

"I agree with you,
We are all but pointless here.
To the gathering?"

Ideally, he hoped he would soon get a chance to report back to his operations manager, and felt the idea of visiting the moon to be terribly exciting. The next great adventure, and a place he had never explored before. Now, to find a way out of his job...

Phelan had remained quiet but had looked deeply offended at the implication that he would not recognise the difference. He then sighed. "Cebaka'ala, I think it would be a good time for you to request permission from Expedition Leader Soinr on behalf of Jubei, Drex, and Volon for their attendance while we wait for the opinion from the Umbrean Contingent. I imagine you yourself would be attending under the command of the Expedition. Willa can probably attend as part of the Umbrean contingent."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:20, Fri 15 Feb 2019.

    The mediator rose from her seat and motioned for Willa to follower her.  As Willa fidgeted, Drex, Jubei, Phelan and Willa spoke at once but it wasn't exactly their own voices.  "Hold for a moment, you shall not go alone." the towering frame of Volon walked over to Jubei and put down the statue he held.  "Keep Him safe." the four adventurers spoke again in unison in that not-quiet-their-own voice.  Then Volon strode over to stand before Willa and said with your voices "Hold out your hand."

Phelan stumbled slightly after his voice was borrowed and looked a bit reproachfully at Volon. "I don't recall accepting a contract..." He grumbled.

Willa still hadn't really accepted Volon - it had appeared as Amare petrified and that seemed a little too convenient.  Still she tentatively held out an open hand, whilst looking to her friends for assurance.

    The black armour glowed.  The mediator had stopped dead in her tracks, her brow furrowed and her gaze intent on Volon.

  As though a sudden pyre had been lit Volon was ablaze in light which quickly vanished as Willa felt something press into her palm.

  Looking over at it, and the brilliant light gone now, she held a red ball.  No larger then a man's fist.  It scintillated with an inner light and its interior seemed to be a slowly churning liquid with faint embers rising and falling from the equal dim blaze at is core.  It felt soft and warm to your touch with a tingle spreading out into your hand from where the ball touched it.

  "We will go with you into the Gathering." Willa, Jubei, Drex and Phelan said aloud as one.

  The mediator looked bewildered.  "What?" then shook her head then breathed deeply, closing her eyes for a moment "How exactly do you intend to do that?"

  There was a moment of silence as four people dread being someone else's voice then they spoke together again "The methods are not your concern nor are they harmful to you.  Query your Keepers if you doubt this claim."

  She narrowed her eyes a little at the red ball.  Then looked at the rest of you.  "I asked you before about your peculiar companion, now I politely repeat that question.  What is he?"  While awaiting your answer she asks one of her bodyguards to examine the ball and judge if it is to join with the Gathering.

  The spindly black humanoid she had looked at walked over towards Willa and knelt down beside her.  Carefully swept some mechanism attached to the upper half of its staff over the red ball.  Took up the staff to its side and stood.  Turned to the mediator and said in a growling, groan of a voice "This flesh is familiar and unknown to us.  It both like us yet also entirely different.  If it so choose it could sing with the harmony though it certainly possesses capacities beyond us."

  "Familiar in what way?" she asked.  "It fought along side the Whole at the end of the War as both Kendall and his construct." the Keeper answered.

  The mediator burst out laughing.

Ceba's fur stood on end after each of Volon's forced vocal expulsions. Nevertheless, he agreed that he should contact Soinr, and would do so as soon as he felt free to speak without his voice being stolen.

Willa had no idea what was going on.  She gently squeezed the ball, to see if it was squishy.  Then held it close to her face, trying to peer inside, before poking it with a finger.