Talion stepped forward upon seeing Emily... now a pale husk of herself, her vitality stolen by the Collector... a shadow in a snow white room. When she asked her question, he did not answer. He could not answer... and now they knew why.

 He closed his eyes and slumped his shoulders. For all the power he wielded, he could not answer the woman he loved. He could not save her, even though he was within arm's reach. She looked at him as understanding dawned across her face... and, in that last moment of understanding, all that she was drained away, leaving nothing more than a living doll sitting in a chair.

 Ignoring the contract and the card for the time being, he lifted her empty shell from the chair. His breathing strained, not from exertion, but from trying not to cry, to scream, to rail against everything around him...

 … because Mistral and Sal were nearby. If he let it out now, all of them would die... so he held it inside.

 He turned to his two companions, who had braved this nightmare with him and handed Emily's limp form to Mistral. She was light... impossibly so, just like the Collector said she would be. Talion's eyes were empty now, his voice broken. He could not quite bring himself to fully look at either of them, ashamed of his own weakness. "Take her to Noah. Take her to the Observatory... this will show you the way."

 He handed her a compass and hung his head as he turned away, picking up the Collector's contract with Emily. "This world is collapsing. Go. I will try to retrieve as many of her memories as I can."
This message was last edited by the player at 23:01, Sat 15 Aug 2020.

Sal placed a hand on Talion's shoulder, looked him in the eye, and gave a determined nod, but didn't say a word. Words couldn't help here, it seemed. They could only make things worse. He followed Mistral once again.

Arriving at Doctor Lennis might have been impossible, had there not been an invisible sympathetic pattern traced through the void.  Then, there she was.  Pale and drawn from whatever sufferings she'd endured since her disappearance, yet with only one contractually-bound question to speak.  Mistral's elation fell away as Emily gave voice to the question, revealing the diabolical Catch-22 in which the Collector had ensnared the both of them.  He had wanted nothing but to find her, to speak with her, but now to do so would doom all of the universe, her included.  He had no choice but to keep silent and watch her soul be drained, left devastated by the guilt of causing it by his own inaction.  He'd been given no choice, but that was cold comfort now.

Mistral was still in a state of shock when Talion passed her the brittle husk that had been Doctor Lennis.  It was like carrying a bundle of sticks, but yet some semblance of life still flickered low within.  Mistral stared from this empty doll back to Talion and muttered, "Non... this can not be how it ends, after everything."  She took the compass, then called after Talion, "If the memories remain in this realm I can help to find them, just as I found her.  After all we have endured to make it this far, I will not allow this place to have her.  I cannot allow the Collector to win."  There were tears running down Mistral's pale cheeks, yet there remained a cold determination in her eyes.

 The effort of containing his emotions left Talion numb. It was as if some imaginary or magical "safety switch" had shut his emotions down. He looked at the two of them, eyes devoid of emotion. Still, he acknowledged Sal and the comfort his gesture brought.

 He didn't speak, instead letting the sound of a crumbling dimensional boundary speak for him. When he did speak, it was softly... as if the action itself were a great strain. "Her body is fragile right now. If she dies, then all of this will be for nothing."

 He looked one last time at Emily and then at Mistral... but he could not look at them for long. Instead, he raised his hand and placed it down on the ground... in much the same manner you both had seen Grey do.

 This time a portal opened beneath him... but it was odd, very different from the portals Mistral normally opened. He fell through and rolled into a dive. Mistral had been in this between space before and knew how inimical to life it was... but the portal he'd opened did not close just yet.

 Far below them, Mistral and Sal could see what seemed to be a warehouse of boxes... but it was very far away.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:18, Mon 17 Aug 2020.

After Talion dropped into the portal, Sal said to Mistral, "Lets hurry and follow that compass. The doctor had faith in Talion, and he has faith in us. lets see that it was not misplaced."

Noah, for his part, had been sitting inside the door that was entry and exit to the Collector. If he moved it would have been able to close the way and lock everyone away forever. He had been sitting there watching with Omni sight and dragon sight so he looked blind with the starbursts behind his eyes.

But still, he waited, he knew better than to snatch Mistral away until she was good and ready.

The truth of the matter was plain to see on Talion's face.  He and Sariel were best-equipped to recover what pieces of her might remain in this place before unraveling it from within, and she and Sal would be of little help.  What's more, unless they got Emily out soon they'd be destroyed along with her.  Mistral shared a knowing look with Talion and said, "Very well.  No need to ask for a promise to destroy every vile work of the Collector, is there?  You require no permission from moi."  She nodded gravely to Sal and then said, "We shall see her safely away.  Do what you must, Talion.  Au revoir."

Mistral allowed Talion one final moment with the gaunt husk of Dr. Lennis in her arms, then turned away with Sal to find the way out.

 As Talion had never shut the doors behind him, retracing their steps was not hard. Only the room containing Emily had been warded against portalling. However, there was little time remaining to navigate the spiral, forcing them to run as the realm collapsed around them, leaping through the threshold of the first door as the ground gave way beneath them.

 The second room was much larger in comparison, but it was already breaking down, forcing Mistral to open a portal to traverse the distance safely. As she exited the other end of the portal, she could see the galactic scale graveyard dissolving into nothing behind her and Talion in freefall in the distance, finally reaching the warehouse of memories.

 By comparison, the last room was much smaller and Sal had not seen this one. It was filled with alien scents, an alien sky, and unknown flora... but, being the oldest of the rooms, was in an advanced state of decay. Planar boundaries were already beginning to dissolve, forcing Mistral to open another portal and the two of them to make a flying leap in order to carry them across the threshold.

 Talion's door was closed but dissolving quickly. With enough strength, it might be forced open.

OOC: need a strength + athletics roll to open the original entry point. 5 total successes needed to break the door. Each round you take will cause Mistral, Sal, and Emily to take 1 point of unsoakable lethal damage. It is unclear how much damage Emily will be able to sustain before she dies.

Mistral would have loved to study the structure of this realm, and the ways in which it harvested thoughts to be reconstructed into reality.  There was much that could be learned here, but knowledge would be of little use to them if their Patterns were unraveled and scattered into the void.

Through splintering memories and dissolving worlds Sal and Mistral fled with Emily in arms, leaping through portals across spaces no longer suitable for passage.  At last they arrived at an alabaster door inlaid with golden astronomical symbols, now shivering as the reality containing it fell apart.  Mistral launched herself at the door with a kick, but failed to make it budge.  She staggered back and adjusted her hold upon the Doctor's husk, then said to Sal, "This is our only exit, but it must be forced open.  If we fail, no part of any of us survives."

---

02:13, Today: Mistral failed (no successes) using 3d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 1,5,5.  Str + Athletics.

Yikes!  Let's see those muscles, Sal :P

Sal gave the door a shove, but be was more nimble than strong, and had no idea what he was doing, really.

14:25, Today: Sal rolled 1 success using 1d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 9.  Str+athletics.

Sal somehow made it this far without ever being trained in athletics :o

Next round, he'll use some vitae to boost his strength if Mistral doesn't somehow pull 4 successes out of somewhere. I should have done it this round, but I didn't think of it until after I rolled...

 The two bashed against the door in futility as reality dissolved around them. The two felt searing pain as the realm tried to dissolve them. Emily vocalized a soft groan of pain... though she was unable to do more. Looking into her eyes it was clear that no one was home anymore.

 Still, her empty shell clung tenaciously to life... but, for how much longer?

Mistral winced as the reality around them continued to fray, and began to gradually shred them along with it.  "Take her," she said to Sal, holding Emily's catatonic form out for him to carry in her place.

Once she'd offloaded their charge for the moment, Mistral reached into a space between spaces and withdrew a long knife, drawing the blackened blade from its sheath as she pulled it into reality.  With a whispered supernal word the mono-molecular cutting edge began to glow as she took a wide stance and took a two-handed grip.  Mistral raised ‘Défaiseur’, the 'Unmaker,' overhead and then brought it down in a precise, decisive slash directly at the door's apparent weakest point!

---

Spending 1 mana to empower the blade, then slicing at the door with a Willpower:

• 21:16, Today: Mistral rolled 3 successes using 10d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 9,4,6,2,3,6,10(+7),8,6,7.  Magical knife door-breach (+WP).

Gosh dang it!  That's 4 total successes :(  only 1 more needed, so give it another go, Sal!

OOC: assuming you haven't eaten any of your mana candy, you haven't recharged on Tass yet. Also, since Sal got 1 success, all you needed were 4 more :P

 Mistral stabbed into the door and, once she reached the part of the door that Sal had shouldered, the door sliced neatly in twain, allowing them to step into the new space where Noah was waiting, holding the door open.

 The group was able to escape the warehouse as it collapsed behind them, leaving Talion (and perhaps Sariel trapped beneath the rubble). The last you saw of him was that he was still rummaging through the warehouse boxes even as reality dissolved around him.

 Now you stood in front of the rubble of the ruined museum. You had defeated the Colector… You had found Emily... and, in the silence, the slight click of the compass Talion had given Mistral could be heard. It pointed the way to the Observatory.

When the trio came out Noah spread his wings to cover them as a field of his barriers dropped just encase there was some kind of odd planar backlash. A backlash that never ended up showing up. Noah tilted his head and was making measured expressions. "If you are ready then I can take you back to the truck in the real world. Or do you have other needs?" He saw a good chunk of what happened but he couldn't hear what was said.

"They key-way shouldnt do her any harm..."

The alabaster door fell away in two neatly-sheared halves, and Mistral stepped out of the threshold.  She sheathed the meteoric iron blade as she strode toward Noah, who she was relieved to see even if she tried not to show it.  As Sal followed through with Dr. Lennis in arms she said, "We must leave here and find the Observatory.  Talion is preoccupied and will not be joining us.  Explanations must wait."  Mistral urged Sal to bring Emily to the opened rosewood door, holding Talion's compass in one hand.  Mistral rested her other hand on Emily's ankle as they passed through the strange portal, in case she experienced any bad spatial interactions needing to be countered.

Noah inclined his head to Mistral and his tail reached around to touch the same place in between her shoulder blades. He held up the fea enchanted lock that allowed passage into the realm and piggybacked on her spell to ensure the hedge would not snatch her portal from her. "There is no one more able to get her there than you. No one better to protect her than you both."

 The portal led the group to a storage shed. Rusted tools were propped up around the outside and it seemed as though it had been abandoned. However, the presence of the compass allowed another portal to open, granting access to the Observatory.

 It had been powered down and the only active portal was the one they stepped through, but it promptly closed once they were through, leaving them in the dark in the large room. Without power, the group could hear the enraged howling and disturbing whispers of the Abyss on the other side of the walls.

 Emily responded to nothing and the oppressive darkness was stifling.

Noah started breathing heavy just enough to get a blue glow going. Once he had a candle worth of flame going he went into his side bag and started cracking glow sticks to pass out. "I would advise from using anything that could invoke paradox. Without power the abyss is just looking for an excuse to come roaring in."

He tapped on his chest but Greys link wouldnt get back to her main mass in between realms. "If you think I can make s few dragon stones. Adding mana to her pattern may help stabilize her pattern a tad."

Sal gently placed Emily over one shoulder so he had a free hand. He accepted a glow stick, sticking it through a loop in the front of his body armor. "Would it be unwise then, to have Mistral summon up my sword?"

To Noah's expression of confidence in their ability to protect Dr. Lennis, Mistral replied with less conviction than his, "I hope that you are correct.  Allons-y."

They passed from the fae realms that Mistral had grown to rather despise, and arrived in what had once been the Observatory, now a darkened hollow surrounded on all sides by the howling Abyss.  She answered Sal as she peered through the gloom by the dim blue glow of Noah's dragonfire, "Unwise, yes.  If you require a sword in this place, then we will have larger problems."  Mistral began to pace the chamber, searching along hidden trails of arcane sigils for any clues as to how function might be restored to this place.

As she searched she said, "Talion asked that we bring her to you, mon dragon, and to bring her here... but did not mention why.  Her memories and will were scattered into the Collector, and he now tries to regather the pieces before it that place is destroyed."

 The large hall was covered in various arcane and alien engravings upon its surfaces, laced with magic of near unfathomable complexity. There were no obvious signs of how to restore this place's functionality.

 However, minutes later, the portal leading to the Fallen World opened and in stepped Atlas with Grey in tow.

 Grey took her place beside Mistral and Noah as Atlas stepped into the center of the room and placed his hand upon a circular stone in the center of the Observatory. From there, the runes flared to life and systems began to come back online.

 As the Observatory came back online, Atlas returned to you. "I recieved a notification that the Observatory had been breached from Arcadia."

 He stopped, looked at Emily's catatonic form and at the compass. His luminous form did not seem surprised. "I see. That explains a great deal."

 He re-opened the Arcadian portal and began using it as a scrying device. Without error, he located Talion, who was still inside. Reality around him had collapsed completely. His resplendant clothing had begun to dissolve, revealing a grizzled and scar-ridden body beneath. His arms were engraved with the burned scars of searing chains having been wrapped around his flesh. Evidence of burns, fangs, claws, stabs, gunshots, and whips remain etched forever upon his body... scars of war for daring to do exactly what he was doing now... and it was likely he would earn a few more today as the hostile reality scoured his flesh away while he searched for the last reaining memory before streaking toward the surface and tearing his way through the dimensional boundary, his body smoking and bleeding from the hostile reality.

 Without displaying any reaction from his wounds, he looked at Atlas's portal and stepped through with a crate of Emily's memories. He sat down the crate and let out a deep breath, taking a moment to recover.

Sal greeted Atlas and Grey. When the lights came on, Sal dropped his light stick, looked for a suitable place to rest Emily's body, and lay her down gently. When the next portal opened, he looked at Talion, and wondered how many times he'd been through such an ordeal.

Noah shrugged, "Not sure why Talion would tell you to bring her to me beyond the holder and the operator of the lock. The hedge is about as frustrating to move through as the people it contains." He looked around at the altered golden road. "The pathway here is cut off from all outside elements. The moment the door closed to Arcadia any connection left behind by the collector to drain her would have snapped like a thread."

"Outside of that, I can only assume its because I am a walking leyline, otherwise your guess is as good as mine." He snapped the talon of his right hand a few times to let it spark before he lowered to cover the Doctors torso with it. He sllooowwwlllyyyyyy let some of his ever-present mana defeuse into her pattern. If a mage can scour their pattern for mana, it was likely mana could thicken a similar pattern. "Reintegration of memory has been done before but I have to have the memories and an adaptor."

He gave Grey a smile and gently picked her up for shoulder rides.

When Talion showed up he trundled over to the outer god and placed the same talon on his shoulder, dumping the entire volume of his own mana collection save one. "We have you. Where do you want the box taken."

Mistral turned as the way opened again behind them, wary that some remnant of the Collector and its caretakers might have followed.  She was relieved to see that it was Atlas and Grey, whose assistance would be welcome.  Mistral showed Talion's compass to Atlas and explained, "We were given la clé, and came by the fastest route."  She shared a look and a faint smile with Grey, then fondly ruffled her silvery hair.

Soon enough they watched back through the portal at Talion heroically fighting the crumbling realm until he burst through, ragged and bloody, with Emily's memories tucked under an arm.  Mistral went to Talion as he stopped to recover, and said earnestly, "Take a moment's respite, Monsieur.  We will see that these are returned to the doctor."  She put a hand on the crate of memories, giving Talion a look to get his consent before taking it.  Mistral then went to where Sal had laid Dr. Lennis's empty remnant, and set the crate down carefully near her.  She began to theorize quickly on the fly, "I may work to restore her soul, while Noah reintegrates the memories.  Sal, perhaps your powers of command might be used to encourage her to fight, and to retake what was stolen."

Mistral looked upon the memories with the second sight and searched for the remnants of Dr. Lennis's spirit, so that it might be reassembled and returned to its rightful owner.

---

Wits + Spirit + Investigation to try to recover from the memories Dr. Lennis's soul, or whatever spiritual essence may have been sapped from her:

• 00:35, Today: Mistral rolled 2 successes using 9d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 1,2,5,7,8,5,8,2,1.  Wits + Spirit + Investigation.

 Atlas took the compass and Grey received the attention from Noah and Mistral with great exuberance, hugging Mistral tightly and clinging tightly to Noah as he gave her a ride.

 Talion tore a piece off of his shredded pants to wipe the blood from his reality-scoured body as he took a moment to catch his breath. He waved off Noah's attempt to infuse him with prime, holding up the bloody rag that had nearly fully crystallized into tass.

 However, as Mistral opened the box, she found that the spheres containing Emily's memories was filled only with dust... much the same as the case she had taken from the Collector was.

 Talion had not yet even managed to stop the bleeding before he was at Emily's side. He reached inside the crate, staring emptily as the dust of her memories fell through his fingers.

 Grey had climbed down and was approaching Talion when he finally spoke. "Atlas, open the door to the second floor of the Observatory."

 He stood slowly, looking back at Mistral, Noah and Sal. His voice had no energy left. "Would one of you carry her? I need to release my seals. It wouldn't be safe if I carried her."

 Meanwhile, Atlas opened a hidden panel and entered a code, opening a sliding door that hadn't been there before. On the other side was a shimmering white-blue expanse with the same glow as Atlas himself. Even Sal, who had no sense for mana, could feel the intense energies emanating from within.

 Grey looked at the door, then at Talion. "Father? Are you going to show them the World Tree? Should I get the ship and carry us?"

 Talion shook his head ever-so-slightly. "We won't be going that far."