Ken listens. Her bony skull-face did not move, but somehow conveyed attentive fascination regardness. She raises a hand to massage her jaw. "That is... enormous," she says after a long, thoughtful pause. "If that is what is happening then the implications are unsettling, to say the least. I do not know how to even begin parsing such a concept into my perspective..."

Ken strikes a mid-air cross-legged pose. Without gravity she couldn't get it quite right and looks a little bit silly.

"Sure, if you don't mind." Josh replied to Old Bones, when she ask if she could stop his spinning. To be honest, the spinning still reflected his state of mind, so he was tempted to say 'no thanks' just to feel like something was still inside his control. But... that was silly. Proving he was 'in control' by refusing help and remaining 'out of control'? Yikes.

Listening to Aaron talk, Josh found his mind drifting in added confusion. So much of all of this seemed far more esoteric than he was used to. Josh spent most his life chasing simpler pleasures: long hikes outdoors, comfortable clothes, and a job that didn't make him pull his hair out. He'd even avoided a lot of relationships because he found them too complicated. Complicated was bad, simple was good. This had been his mantra. Now his mind was in two places at once, and he found he couldn't quite understand what the [Earthborn] was saying.

"Wow, that's really deep, man." He made the effort to float closer to get a better look at the armor that Aaron was pondering. "Hey, do you mind if I also take a look?" Once he was close enough, Josh activated his [Appraisal] and [Exosmithing] abilities to see what, if anything, he could glean from that perspective.

While he looked, he inclined his head back toward Ken.
"Ken? I might have already introduced myself: I'm Josh, nice to you meet you. Wish it was under better circumstances." He squinted as his eyes darted between her and the armor. "Neo-Kira? I don't know that I've heard of that. I've been wander the Andes for the last few weeks, so the news hasn't really reached me much. Were you a cop?"

Lunarian Bonus Post ^_^

As the group talking there, gathering together riding the void currents and working to help one another float through space, the Lunarian suddenly began to act strangely. The presence of the Void currents, and the direct unfiltered light of the stars and the mons and the planets shined upon him, which combined with his new name of "Starling" began to unlock a certain hidden potential from within the little [Lunarian].

"What?" he said as he gasped in surprise suddenly, emanating starlight all of a sudden!

The [Lunarian] evolves into a [Lunari]!

Strange angles contort, shatter and haphazardly bow around the clutter of reborn beings drifting through, and down, and down, towards the bright moon.



[. . .] the same vein as someone dislocating their shoulder to get it around a binding.

The sword-spirit found she could cast her consciousness to a particular spot - as if she were going to throw herself there to extend her awareness. The feeling was strange and uncomfortable, as it left her entirely disembodied. She felt herself all-too-easily gripped by the currents of the void when she did this, only just barely recovering before her mind was to be cast away to strange and distant un-shores.

[. . .} inspected the area with both its [Internal Oculus] and [Appraisal], seeing what it could learn in this new area as well as about the new necklace he had been gifted from the House.

They were in a room of rooms. To his [Internal Oculus] the Void was . . . plain, ordinary space. A house of many, many doors, but able and stead. He could plot the course with ease, opening this door and that door. To the other he was a juttering shadow thing leaping from contortion to warp to invisible edge as he moved. His inner eye told him the spiritual reality without tedious sensory interpretation. The necklace he wore stank to his [Internal Oculus], making it 'water'. He had to look away; his collar was just too foul.

Aaron seeks to [Appraise] the stellar runes of the bone armor. [. . .] . . . Once he was close enough, Josh activated his [Appraisal] and [Exosmithing] abilities to see what, if anything, he could glean from that perspective.

The runes on the gauntlet were incredibly detailed and precise; unlike the shadow-runes on the armor, this was masterwork. To the Earthborn's perception, the runes were a vibrant cyan that nearly jumped from the - it wasn't bone. The rest of the armor was bone, but the gauntlet was sheathed in white-gold. To force light to be hard; to lock it in place; there was a mighty philosophy, a collective will behind this magic. For the first time, the Earthborn - and he felt that was somehow linking with the large rat when he read this - he could READ the magic. "When there is peace, there is no war; when there is silence, there is no dispute; where there is still stillness, there is only truth."

Earthborn acquired proficiency in the Stellar tradition at the 0th level.

The fat rat felt a peculiar joy fill his souls. The magic here was immaterial, but the technology! This was just code. Neat, professional quality code. No spaghetti here. He could reproduce these runes perfectly, given the time and materials.

Young Dwarf acquired proficiency in Rune Inscription: Stellar. Rune Inscription proficiency has advanced to LVL 2.

The [Lunarian] evolves into a [Lunari]!

The Lunarian flashed white, then shadow, then white again - and settled into a new, taller, teenage form of a Lunari. The [Starsewn Raiment] was no longer a cloak, but some sort of head-wrapping that obscured his head and face, pooling about his shoulders as a long scarf. There was a hidden opening for the bottom of his nose and a slash of space left for his eyes, but that was it. Rather than only transmuting him into aether, the ribbon-mask would also allow him to be easily forgotten . . .

Stat Advances: SKL +5; VIG +5; ADP +10; FTH +5
Skills Gained: [Lunar Magic LVL1], [Stealth LVL1], [Survival: Void LVL1], [Feng Shui LVL0]



[The Cycle continues unbroken. Timestamp: 20:33]
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:46, Mon 29 Aug 2022.

Haloise snaps back into place. Hmm... no, this is workable. If she goes too far away from her source, she'll begin slipping away, which is annoying However, there is something else she can try. If she can't stretch herself into places she'd want to get to without flinging herself into the void, maybe she could suspend herself in between two weapons. Thinking on this, is tries to grip onto two weapons at once - the spear that she is extending out of, and the dagger that Euphoria has in her belt loop. As an experiment, she tries to utilize her [Weapon Possession] on two weapons at once. In this case, between the dagger at the hip and the spear the Shage holds, Haloise should be occupying the space somewhere around Euphoria's diaphragm. Then... it sits, and waits.

Starling's form changed here suddenly. His cloak began to sparkle and shine with light before turning into aetheric mist and floating up around his face, coiling like a snake, before solidifying into bands of cloth. At the same time, the child's body grew leaner and taller until he was more like a teenager now than a child, although his body still wasn't an adult's quite yet. By the end of it, the cloak had shifted into something different entirely and was more like a shawl-scarf head wrap of sorts, although its material and texture was still the strange star-fabric of the cloak. And it still possessed strange esoteric properties as a defining fashion piece of the [Lunarian].

"Oh...oh my!" Starling declared aloud. "I...I feel better than before! More energized, and more...in tune with the void? It's so weird. But it feels natural here. And did I grow?" he added as he looked at his larger hands, and felt the fabric that had wrapped itself around his head and shoulders. His soulbound armament had changed with him it seemed. But don't worry - none of the PCs forgot who he was.

And then he felt it. Magic. The spark of magic, and not just from his daemon-enhanced not-light either. But real magic that was all his own, different from the Shadow magic used by kitty and [Earthborn].

Starling held his hands out in front of him, and attempted to try and focus his magical power. He wasn't wishing for much in particular beyond just a general focusing of his power. To gather magic from within himself and focus it between his hands, to see if he could create light or perhaps a globe of magical energy or something similar. He just wanted to better understand how his new power worked! He used [Appraise] combined with [Feng Shi] to try and better understand the flow of his own [Lunar Magic], and its general properties and how it worked within himself and without. Under the glare of [Illuminatio] he was watchful for any secrets to his magic that would not be apparent to one of his skill and new-ness  to it all.

[Grimalkin] nodded, "Yes, Starling. You did grow."

Looked with [Curiosity] fully focused on the change in [Lunarian] to [Lunari] as well as what seemed like magic which always interested him.

His eyes shimmered as he watched.

The Callisti was thankful she'd gotten the chance to practice floating as the scenery disappeared into complete void. She was also thankful she didn't have a stomach to lurch from the momentary disorientation. "Bleh. Hope that isn't something we need to get used to." she groaned. "Wow, the house really is gone, huh..."

Azalea listened to Euphoria's explanation of events, nodding in agreement. "Maybe that's how you all go back." You all. Interesting.

Azalea noticed they Young Dwarf for the first time. The past few minutes had been such a rush through. She knew their ranks had grown but she hadn't really had the chance to see him.

"Wait. So, we're not all even from the same world?" She guessed that made sense. If there were two worlds, chances were there were others. But it also made it harder to narrow down what event brought them all here. Thinking about it too hard hurt her grasp on reality. The impossibility of anything having worth or meaning in the face of infinite worlds crept in, but she pushed it back down. Not today. She had to stay sharp.

"So... who's from normal, no proven record of supernatural events (other than this), modern 2020's Earth? Show of hands." Azalea looked around for hands, and raised her own. "I was just a waitress who tried to have a streaming career. I, uh, may have miscalculated the dosage of caffeine pills and gray market energy drinks. While on stream. I don't have any proof that I'm not... okay on that side? But I have my suspicions. But! But. I did finish the game before I... hmm." It was annoyingly difficult to say. "Things are very different in some ways from the game, but a lot of the core of it remains."

The shine of the Lunarian's transformation caught Azalea's gaze, and her reflective surfaces. She watched as he evolved into his new form. "'Grats." She gave him a thumbs up.

Old Bones took Euphoria by the hand and righted her in the void. "Oh, thank sweet Jesus," she said, relieved. "I thought I was gonna cartwheel into the abyss." She didn't trust this current they were on one bit. She liked to do her own walking when she could thank you. She was a physical being, and all this astral projection, woo-woo shit made her head hurt. She almost had an aneurism listening to Earthborn explain the fabric of their reality. Sounded more like poetry than science. Good poetry, like, back home she'd be snapping up a storm for him. But its meaning was yet lost on her.

"Yeah man, vast towers in the deep shadows n stuff. I get ya." She did not get him. She was trying to be supportive.

Young Dwarf and Callisti drifted into their orbit and she was intrigued by the former's question. Who were they before coming here? She was less interested in sharing her own history than she was in listening to histories. Putting names to faces and rodents and skeletons and orbs. Ken, Josh, Aaron, Dalton, Azalea, and Haloise. The Lunarian had chosen the name Starling for himself (at least someone was getting into character too). She didn't yet know what to call Scapegoat and Minor Grimalkin, though. Something from beyond put the name Grim in her mind...

One theme was consistent in all the stories shared: they were dead. Allegedly. Euphoria herself did not remember if she died. She remembered being in her shitty apartment, getting angry at something, and then there was pain. Oh, that's right... She had been trying to play this game. As if dying to the first boss over and over and over again wasn't embarrassing enough... he might have actually killed her. She'd keep that little tidbit to herself. Especially if Azalea, little-miss-gamer-girl was around. Didn't need a chorus of people telling her she should just get good!

"Eeeer... I'm from normal Earth, I think," Euphoria admit. "If you think rotting away in late-stage capitalism while living under the imperialist thumb of America is normal, I guess..." Oh yeah, she was super patriotic. Not bitter at all. She knew what you had to do to survive there. It meant destroying yourself to get by, then being abandoned by every system imaginable when you were finally broken.

"I was an athlete... once," Euphoria said, keeping quite a bit to her chest. "My name really is Euphoria though... it's a southern thing... Of the Golden Hands is a way cooler title though..."

Thankfully, Starling started to Digivolve and it was the perfect distraction from talking about super awful depressing stuff. "Oh wow, hey everyone, look over there! Starling is leveling up. Hell yeah, Starling! You shine like a diamond!" Shine super, super bright, and capture everyone's attention, thank you.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:43, Sat 27 Aug 2022.

Silently Dalton floated in the void that seemed unending. The wolf-man had barely had enough time to grab the effigy he now held in his arms before the attic, and eventually the entire house, simply ceased to be. After that he had simply stared into the blackness while he drifted. It seemed appropriate as his own mind felt adrift. Powerful feelings of despair lingered beneath the surface, threatened to overtake him if he dwelled on it. So much was unknown. Slowly the emotions drained into the void and he regained control of his senses. It took him a bit longer before he felt comfortable to talk.

The entire conversation seemed hard to parse. So they knew of this world because it had stained his? "This world is based off- no. The game we knew of was based off this world? That doesn't explain why we were pulled from our world into this one." It sounded crazy and impossible. Then again every minute seemed to throw another impossibility at him. What was one more?

Dalton raised his hand when Azalea listed off her description of her world. "That all sounds right. Although if there are multiple realities, worlds, whatever we might be from different versions of Earth. Multiverse theory right?" The demilupine didn't have much else to offer on the subject, no matter what world they had come from they were all stuck here now.

Finally he turned to the large rat who he now knew was named Josh. "I'm... not sure honestly. Sorry for shouting, my name is Dalton Green. Back on Earth I took care of my kids, both of them absolutely loved this game. My family is everything to me." The despair threatened to swallow him again but he forced it down. "I don't care if some of you think you died I know I want to go back. My kids aren't going to go through life without a father. If we can be pulled into this world then I can be pulled back."

Josh floated by Euphoria just in time to hear her socialist adjacent commentary, and he extended a tiny fist toward her, hoping for a bump.
"Damn straight. Just terrible enough to drain our souls, but not terrible enough to cause people to revolt over. Sounds like the 'normal' America I left behind, for sure." He shook his head after the others explained some of their familiarity with the game. "I'm aware of the title of the game, for sure... but I'm more of a strategy player myself. Never touched Godhunter."

He let the comment trail-off a bit as he listened to Demilupine's response, any mirth (though there wasn't much there to begin with) dissolved as Dalton mentioned children. "Dude. If there's a way, we'll find it." He shook his head. He would have liked to have attached a guarantee to the statement, but he knew better, and just let it settle there.

"I am with Josh, we will find a way to get you back." He said looking up to Demilupine.

Starling smiled at [Shage] and nodded, accepting the spear greatfully.

"I definitly consider you a friend now, and I will hand this back to you in just a moment. It's a nice spear, but I cannot use normal weapons in combat; that's the price I pay for my cloak-scarf-thing. And I risked my life to get us that spear because I truly believe it will somehow give us an edge in the days to come. Even if that edge is basically siccing you on stuff, [Shage]." he said with a grin. "So we gotta make the best use of it, right? Especially if it also helps Leise too."

"I'll let you and Leise know if I learn anything interesting or that we don't already know. I figure anything extra can only help team Earth or whatever the heck we are." he said as he held the spear and took a look.

Starling looked at Leise's form with [Appraise] combined with [Rune Decryption] to assess the properties of the runes, and then [Feng Shui] to better understand the mysticism and energy flow of those runes and how they related to magic.

After results of this inquiry (i.e. after the GM updates next) Starling hands the spear back to [Shage].

"By the way...since people are sharing a bit about themselves. My name is Charles. I know Godhunter as an anime that I've read which is why I know some things, but I never played the game adaptation. Mostly the Isekai elements I'm familiar with. Argentum is the name I gave you guys because it is a game I used on a play-by-post forum called Role Play Online, and I was this moon god character and when I was reborn as a [Lunarian] the stellar themes sort of resonated with me. I go by Starling now, though, because Eri herself actually named me that back in the attic when I was trying to help her. And it turns out she was helping me instead, because it helped unlock my evolution I think. So I decided it's the least I could do since she helped us all so much was to keep the name she gave me while I'm here in Godhunter." he said.

"I come from the midwest back on Earth. I didn't have the pressing life-and-death issues some of you were facing, but I was basically an office grunt that was coping with chronic depression and constant anxiety. Becoming a [Lunarian] has been the first time I felt in a long time that I had any possible control over my future, or the ability to flip the tables on those who used to bully and prey on people like us. So I'm not sure I want to go back...if we even CAN go back. This might be some sort of true reality or something. I really don't know...the anime never had this stuff in it."

A pressure began to build on those floating through the void. They accelerated, their flight becoming a fall as the gravity well of the moon caught hold of them.





It worked. Far better than she had expected; while she only possessed one weapon, her consciousness daisy-chained effortlessly between the weapons. So long as a weapon was in range of a weapon that she possessed, she could extend her consciousness through it - and speak to the wielder telepathically through any weapon she was conscious of. Had she grown stronger?

[Blindsight] has been replaced by [Swordsight].



Under the light of [Illuminatio] leavened with [Feng Shui], Starling grasped at a fundamental truth of magic; all flows could be reversed. His thoughts on his own Lunar magic flowed upstream, and grasped at the concept of [Rain Dancing]. He could call to the spirits or Spirit of water for guidance, sustenance and atmospheric or tidal alteration.

[The Cycle continues unbroken . . . Timestamp 20:44]
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:07, Tue 30 Aug 2022.

The Earthborn muses on the life he kept and the lives the others have left. An aside on professions and purpose, and a few magic tricks.



"I don't think I'm dead," Aaron said, quiet creeping through his tone. "I think if I...I mean, I still look like me. I haven't changed into anything." Yet. Images of dragons and dragonflies. The griffon on the grey moors. 'Its bones are lengths of bronze, its limbs like rods of iron.' "There were people with me. Friends, and...people. We were working on, um, this. All of this."

He spread his arms wide as gravity caught them, as the rush of what wasn't really wind raised his voice in obligate accord. "Enlightenment. Universal truths. A bridge...I did something right, I think. Which means it could be done again. Maybe from this side. Maybe someone else who was there, whatever connection I made, I - wish I could be more exact. I was - " Laughing. Laudanum on the tongue, Lianna on the mind. A perfect idiot playing at divinity - and now the universe says, 'Alright, then, idiot. Play.' He smiled, the expression somehow sorrowful. " - paying less attention than I should have been. We'd been trying for years, you know? It was just another night. The second half of my life."

The shadow to the light. As they fell, he reached out with new abilities, inspiration from the [Lunarian] rendered down into parlor tricks: drawing a ribbon of darkness, a mote of light hardened into a toothpick. He bent [stellar] and [shadow] against one another, ordering the dark into shapes edged and etched with light, reflecting and refracting the gleam of the growing moon, slowing its speed to something softer on the eyes. Sparkles of color and trails of chiaroscuro flowed around his fingers. "I think I said - in the first half, I was a magician. Stage kind. I used to teach, every now and again - apprentices, you know, like in the old traditions. Not those big soulless workshops."

A wry smile. "Didn't need the money the big soulless stuff brought in. I started out wealthy, I could afford to have principles, I guess. Anyway the occultism helped my reputation, it was part of my mystique, you know, that it went deeper for me. And so sometimes an apprentice - they'd ask to know the truth, meaning Truth. They wanted real magic. Like this. Would have killed for it.

Those are the ones I cut loose. Not just 'cause I had nothing to tell them. They were missing the point, you know? We took string and silk and playing cards and we fashioned wonder from them, from the everyday. It wouldn't have meant anything if we could do it with a wave of our hands. Funny. I never really..."

The [Earthborn] trailed off, uncertain. He bent the light into the dark, looped them into a figure eight, one flowing endlessly into the other, and then stretched the effect like taffy, shaping it with deft fingers - just a bit of theatre, but with a moment's work there was a half-mask half-there concealing the lines around his eyes and subtly mystifying his expression. A flick of his fingers and it vanished, and as they accelerated and the fear of the fall rose along with the moon in his vision, he sought to focus down into the white-gold bracer, into evoking a light that might prove sharper and stronger than his experiments with shadow and bronze.

"I could tell you I'm from normal Earth, but I don't know what normal means for you, exactly. Nothing supernatural, except magic worked for me in the end, right? I know about waitresses and caffeine pills, not sure on...streaming. But there's lots of things I didn't know. I can't even say for sure about the magic. Maybe my little club just kept missing it. The Midwest is...in America, right? You're all American?" To such ears Aaron might have sounded posh - unquestionably English, at the least. He thought about making the obvious joke, 'and you want to go back?', but looking at the [Demilupine] killed the words before they left his throat.



Aaron uses [stellar] and [shadow magic] to make himself a temporary fancy mask, then more seriously applies those principles to seeing if he can use the bracer.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:30, Tue 30 Aug 2022.

"Yep, American. From New England, actually." He glanced in Haloise's direction, and wondered briefly if he could communicate with her somehow in this 'real' space using his mimicry power. "The year was 2022 when I left it, though I actually died in Peru, not the States." Next he looked toward [Demilupine], at least what Aaron was saying would provide some hope for a return.

After a moment, he drifted toward Haloise and took out his [Murine Satchel]. Fishing around, he found what he was looking for: a carpenters knife. The he looked back toward one of the weapons he knew she was inhabiting, and activated his [Mimicry].
"Haloise, can you hear me?" He attempted to say. No words came from his mouth, instead he used the small weapon-like tool as a sort of focus. Attempting to speak with her in the same way that she 'spoke' with others. "I'm trying to experiment with this power. If you can't hear me this way, feel free to possess this knife I'm holding. I'd actually like to ask your permission for something."

If they were on land Dalton would have hugged those that had offered him reassurance. It wasn't much but the kind words tugged at his heart. Unfortunately the wolf-man was essentially adrift in an ocean of nothingness. So instead he merely nodded his head in appreciation.

The earthborn's speech however quickly captured the demilupine's interest. He knew how to come here, he could know how to get back! The realistic part of Dalton's brain told him that it was a longshot and that nothing in this new world was simple. Still it was a light in the darkness that had been his future. Enough to give him hope that he could see his wife, that he could see his kids. "If you think you have some grasp on this world's magic then I'll take it. Whatever you want, whatever you need, you let me know. When we get to solid ground I mean. Does anyone else feel like they are slowly falling?"

The wolf-man tried to reorient himself so that the moon was towards his feet. He tightened his grip on the doll he carried, unsure of what else to do. Shockingly he didn't have much practice in falling from orbit.

[Scapegoat] underwent his unusual transformation mid-jump here, as he had been utilizing the environment to move about in a natural way it seemed, finding the location they were in more comfortable to him than not. But he still kept track of the discussion, even if he couldn't add to it too directly until this point. As his form underwent a transformation, however, he stood before the group, floating with the others, but in a much larger form than the tiny goat he had first arrived in. Now, [Tchernobog] stood before the group.

Sound came from where his mouth was, but the words were hollow, perhaps neutral even in terms of gender, but it had an echoing quality to it. Almost synthetic. Metallic. But his words were clear though, in much better parsing than those who understood him before and in a language all could understand.


"Some of you may not be dead, per say, but some of you may. I know I.. probably am. I was in an American as well, in my other life.. in IT. Computers. I was married to a beautiful wife and had two children who were about ready to go to college. I remember.. pain. A heart attack I think. Or something similar enough to not matter. I awoke here, in the body I held before. I read a great deal and played so many games before.." he trailed off, shaking his head.

"Clearly we've been brought here for one reason or another. A game? A chance at revenge," he noted, referencing the discussion taking place in the Other World. "But while much of it is familiar, there is a lot that isn't. It may be possible for some to eventually go back to their old lives, but maybe not. That doesn't stop any of us from moving ahead and trying - one way or another. Who knows? If we were pulled through, maybe it will be possible to pull our loved ones over as well at some point down the road. Once we grow strong enough. Powerful enough. Wise enough. And after we have removed the threats that we - and they - would face. I don't know about anyone else, but I wouldn't want to bring my family here knowing they might be hunted as well..." he mused.


His peace finally said, in more details than he could manage before at least, he took the opportunity to look over his new body. The black eyes gazing down to his body and turning around in a small circle as if inspecting just what this new form offered. He also took a moment to [Appraisal] his form and the new skills that were revealed there.

[Private to GM: OOC: His Appraisal is to try seeing what details about the new skills he gained he can glean from his character sheet internally as well. Details about their use, etc. ]


His gaze turned to look in one direction from the Void, gesturing with a hand as he remarked in reply to [Demilupine], "The lack of gravity feels like that.. which it appears is where we are. Space. The fact there is a moon before us supports that too.. though.." he gives a chuckle at that, the thought of the group now floating in space while looking out at a moon. The quiet chuckle sounds unworldly coming from the similar starry void that is his mouth.

[Grimalkin] felt his body flip his feet now faced the moon. He looked to [Demilupine] "Yes, my feet are indicating a gravity well, that's what it is called right ?"

He looked at [Scapegoat] then as the goat began to change his fur stood up ! He scrambled his legs running in the void and then pop he himself changed. The shadows swam to him burned away then swam to him again.

He listened to the now [Tchernobog] a shiver went down his spine. It was hard being in two places at once and then hearing the spooky voice made things seem more surreal. He hung his head sadly hearing about [Tchernobog]'s story. Also pretty sure about he himself being unable to go back home.

The scarf-wrapped [Lunarian] floated effortlessly through the void, although was listening intently as the others spoke. After they said their peace, be spoke.

"Well I'm pretty sure none of you are dead. Not even those of you who seem to have undead-like traits. Regardless of what happened back on Earth, we're all here now and all quite alive." he said.

"And I intend to do my best to keep it that way..." he said as he noticed the gentle but slowly increasing tug of the Moon's gravity.

He wondered...could he do something about that? Something to slow their descent to the Moon and ensure their safety? Yes...he had an idea. "Lunar is part of my species name, yes?"

"It's the moon's gravity. We're drawing closer to it. I wonder if I can make our descent...safer?" he said as he suddenly closed his eyes and began focusing on his inner-self, and his inner - energy. He attempted to better sense the flows of energy - both the moon's as well as the gravity itself - with [Feng Shui]. If there was some mystical or deeper insight, he hoped [Illuminatio] would help unveil it in combination with [Feng Shui].

But that was just him skimming the surface. His real goal was to attempt to manipulate the energies of the moon - including its gravity - so that instead of just practically sucking them in and sending them hurtling to the ground, that he could instead cause the Moon's gravity to let them fall to the surface like downy feathers, softly bouyed by the gravity rather than dragged by it, and allowing them to approach the surface without harm. He did this by attempting to channel [Lunar Magic]+[Feng Shui] to directly influence the gravity of the moon to allow it to instead aid in their descent rather than endanger it.

Starling attempts to use [Feng Shui] combined with [Illuminatio] to help better grasp the moon's gravity and energy flow, and perhaps unveil some moon-related secrets, while also using [Lunar Magic]+[Feng Shui] to cause the moon's gravity to bouy their descent instead (basically he's trying to cast D&D style Feather Fall on everyone).

Haloise would feel an intrusion on its consciousness. Thinking it was once more under [REDACTED] by the [REDACTED], it prepares to go into shutdown mode again for safety... but then it realizes its just the rat. Ah. Not a threat. A friend.

[UNSURPRISED: it makes sense you can copy my talents, too. Your power must be quantum in some form like mine are.] It pauses its thoughts, before continuing.

[LISTLESS: not like I'm an expert on quantum stuff. I'm not a nerd. What did you need to use me for,Josh? Is it stabbing? I hope its stabbing. Can you use my Swordsight, too?] Haloise seems distracted.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:24, Fri 02 Sept 2022.

"Ah, no... I have no idea about quantum stuff either." Josh, the Young Dwarf replied, holding the small carpenters knife while seemingly talking to no one in particular in a language that no one else other than Haloise could understand. "Um, yes I'd like to get consent to mimic you, and specifically to use your Swordsight power. I'm trying to get to know everyone a bit better, and-" He leaned in toward 'her' and lowered his voice; a meaningless gesture, but also a habit. "-I have an evolution that requires me to mimic everyone in our strange little group. I wanted to ask you sooner, rather than later, because I can theoretically build new weapons. Seeing as you are one, I was wondering if you had anything in mind? I can build suits, too, and the first thing I build for you..."

He trailed off. In the other space where their minds inhabited, Josh 'felt' and 'heard' the  internal 'battle' that Haloise was seemingly fighting with another part of herself. It was a fascinating scene, and it kind of threw him off a bit. He was about to offer to build a sort of 'body' for her, but then her 'battle' ran its course, and she evolved into something that seemingly already had a body!

"Oh... is that... can also do that here? In the, ah, 'real' world?"

While waiting for an answer, he tries to use [Mimicry] on Haloise. But instead of taking her 'form' (whatever that meant for someone who had no specific form), he tries to just mimic the power of [Swordsight] with her consent.

At last, their time in the formless void comes to an end as they are drawn downward and inward . . .



Earthborn

The bracer responded immediately, creating the cipher-blade with ease. The stellar magic was anathema to shadow, however. He would need to rewrite the runes on the bracer to produce a different blade than the standard 'main gauche' form that it was currently in.



Lunari

It was all unnecessary. This moon was not a true moon. It had little if no relationship to a tide-caller or sun-keeper like a true moon. It was a metaphysical space related to the large planet behind it; a pocket dimension of some kind. The pull of gravity was an indicator of metaphysical proximity - and they were about to cross the borderline and appear within the pocket dimension, safe and sound.



Tchernonbog

His new talents allowed him to speak as the Gods did, to any living creature that had a language, and to understand the same [Supernal] and to be considered a neutral force in the grand metaphysical war [Daemonblood]. His baleful talent implied - without looking at it too closely - that he had earned some small of measure of love from a being it was a bad idea to be loved by.

His new skills allowed him to possibly safely consume supernatural drugs, to seek the intercession of higher-dimensional beings, and to call upon the Absent Scripture - which was a written companion to the Silent Liturgy. It was a bright and beautiful thing, the Absent scripture. Some verses of it came to his mind, apparently from the life of he who dwelled in absence:


When the end came, I was calm. The violence was sudden; I hadn’t seen it coming.

Was this what they called the First Door? My life didn’t flash before my eyes; it unspooled, slowly, in reverse, like something tightly wound that was finally allowed to relax.

I remembered the rainbow-serpent, the coffee house, the strange new friends. There was the tattooed woman and the man who wanted to hide in his own shadow; there was the woman with the quirky smile, and the barista, with his eyes a reflection of the coffee he served.

I remembered the journey to Melbourne, the connecting flights, leaving home, packing, waking up and deciding that I would solve the mystery that tugged at me.

I remembered my last real dream, of being caught in a wildfire in the dead of winter, slipping and breaking my ankle on a frozen pond, waiting to see if the cold would take me before the flames.

I remembered being mortal, but now I slept.

I slept, and in sleeping, woke.

I am free.

~

I hear them and they scare me, because I hear the silences between their words, the places where I don’t fit in. I want to go home and curl up in my bed and walk in mental circles again, thinking about the things I want.

This new life of mine is difficult. I have to do things I don’t know how to do. I have to think thoughts I haven’t thought before. I have to learn and listen, where before I taught and talked. I feel so small because I’m swimming into a vast ocean that I don’t understand when I’m so used to being the big fish - the only fish - in a small, lonely pond.

Sometimes, though, they give me hope in strength, because even though there are silences between their words, their is a greater silence before & after they stop speaking.

The crickets tell me the room is quiet.

~

As the world burned, I felt a wave of nausea. I was sickened. For the first time since I’d killed my mother, I recognized the enormity of what I had done. I hear the laughter of demons, the barking of hounds that stopped when the shredding started. The crackling flame was omnipresent. It fed on the earth itself, eating stone as readily was wood.

It was I who freed Fenrir; I who made Jorgumandr release his grip. It was I who incarnated the Void Dragon who swallowed the sun.

All of this, to spite my father. All of this, to put an end to suffering, to give the world a death long overdue.

As the zombies were consumed by flame and destroyed by devils, I collapsed amongst the coal-strewn earth to vomit, although nothing came up. I was immortal. I hadn’t eaten in years.

~

The City floats in a sea of lanterns;
The Seekers with their lantern heads and the bodies of men.
The Querents hold meeting under candlelight.

We shaped these things from steel and sight, to pierce the gloaming veil. High and bright came the scythe, and cut what we tried to heal.

How long until the Inquisitors learn the Name?
How long until the Scarven cast aside the Shame?
How long until the Shepherds come with their lanterns all a-glow?

All was dark until Eternity won, and there was nothing left to know.



Young Dwarf

He gained a detailed understanding of the area, as if he had a little labelled map in the back of his head. The area covered by the map was irregular, a handful of different 'circles' of awareness.



The pace of their descent rapidly accelerated,  until - rainforests - the sweet taste of mango - Xin - the eldermen - a god of vitality - suffering, death, and accursed rebirth -

They appeared within the Realm of Ilan.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:48, Sat 03 Sept 2022.

[Grimalkin] fell as a man and POP landed as a kitten among the rainforest floor.
The decomposition of fallen leaves, branches and fruits filled his sense of smell.
He could feel the soft squish and flex of the ground below him. The others were sure this was a game, and he couldn't argue it. Still, they had programmed scents and tactile sensation into it. He looked over at the others now towering over him again except Josh, [Young Dwarf]. He nodded to Josh his fellow little person errr animal.

Some people knew what they would be good at in this game. Fighting or enforcing oaths, or leading others, mastering magic or hiding and ferreting out secrets. He didn't even know the game. Thank heaven he knew games like it. Where did he fit in, why did he fit in. If this was some coma dream it lasted a long time.

He looked at the visible paths leading from where they landed and decided to nose about and try the advanced form of [Curiosity, Prophecy] to see if he could tell a little about each path.

Dalton nodded somberly as he listened to [Tchernobog] recount his tale. The demilupine didn't presume to know the, daemonic centaur?, but he couldn't help but note the similarities in the histories. Perhaps no one else could understand the pain he felt. Still he kept his mouth shut. He had already let his emotions rage briefly, reminiscing would only feed the fire.

Instead he listened to [Lunarian] and focused on the 'moon' beneath them. It seemed that they were being pulled towards the astral body. Unsure of what to do he looked with curiosity as they drew closer. If their appraise skill told them about objects, would it work on things bigger? With nothing to lose Dalton tried to use his [Appraise] skill on the moon before they were sucked in.

He closed his eyes as he prepared to slam into the surface. Instead he felt himself suddenly stop. The first thing he noticed before he opened his eyes was how humid the air around them had suddenly become. Indeed he opened his eyes to what appeared to be a rainforest, all of them now surrounded by lush vegetation. He confirmed that the doll remained in his possession before he looked around. "So, those who played Godhunter, does any of this look familiar? Are we in stage 1 or some area in the game?" The demilupine reached out with his [Familiar] talent to see if he sensed the emotions of anything besides themselves in the forest.