Session 69 - Break The Gordian Knot

Previously, Across The Horizon...
The Edge of the World held unlimited answers, and our brave adventurers spent as long as they could searching through the archives of the Great Library of Alexander to find them.
Linnet's search focused on the terrible ailment that afflicted her since the Viesen-Croyle Factory ripped her winds from her, a condition that appears to be worsening as time passes. The books she received focused on the sealing of one's crystal, and the nature of a sylph in relation to their crystal, but nothing that precisely spoke to what was hurting her.
Yves asked for information regarding the Guardian Forces and what they wanted, what would be ethical and what would not, as well as information on the Logos.
With the Rising Stars descending deeper into the Edge of the World, Yves pushed for Principia to be safe by accompanying the adventurers, promising a lovely ship full of all sorts of information and opportunities, an offer Azdar Chid found interesting, an offer Principia agreed to, joining Yves for safekeeping.
Our brave adventurers followed the path deeper down, eventually coming to a massive room holding a truly titanic humanoid divine knight beset by a deep and dark corruption, a three-eyed mask setting its full attention on them all...
**
The masked flame coils around the slumbering knight, the golden mask spinning in a full revolution, its eyes locked on all seven interlopers simultaneously.
It makes no move to advance on them, but is clearly aware.
The Parasite waits.
"Huh." Bast looks closer at the nearest head. "Any ideas?"
Isa tries to remember to keep looking back for pursuers, but it gets harder and harder to pull her gaze away from the scene before them. "That doesn't look good," she understates.
"So, this seems... bad," says Yves, helpfully.
"This must be the source of your sickness," Azdar Chid says to Aurin.
Yves lowers his voice slightly. "All in favor of hitting it repeatedly with our various hitting options until it stops being a problem, say aye?"
Aurin looks up at the Parasite, red dots in the centers of his pupils.
"You poked this while puttering in time doors? I'm impressed." Linnet claps Aurin on the shoulder in solidarity, then freezes - still holding his arm - when she sees his eyes.
Orrey examines the Parasite and the Knight. "Can we do that without hurting the Knight?"
"Um, Bast, I think we have multiple problems. Like, more than we did a minute ago. Like, might-have-to-restrain-your-friend problems."
"That also seems bad." Yves, font of helpful observations right now.
Bast glances back at Linnet and Aurin, then moves to his friend's side in a few quick steps. "No. You do not pull this shit right now. You're either helping us fight this thing or sitting out, got it?" He grabs Aurin by the shoulders and pushes him to turn away from the parasite, pretty clear on which option he prefers.
Orrey checks his watch.
Aurin turns, not resisting. Azdar Chid gives them both a sympathetic look, and then turns back to the Parasite.
Which speaks.
"he can be freed, of course"
"Right. Well. Everything down here eats time magic and spits back strange things that hurt the captain and possibly also Orrey. Thunderbun used up a whole bunch of power getting us here, which was the right thing to do because otherwise we wouldn't be here but does leave us down a few megabursts. There's only so far Isa can jump from the ground onto a cloud, and I'm not sure how much I can do with a few piffling snowballs against this guy if he comes to life. So...what part of 'hit with our various hitting options' were we planning to start with?" Linnet is doing her best "chipper and efficient" voice, which means she's a few steps from panic.
Isa looks like she's been calculating those jumps. "If that's the plan, I'm on board, but I'm happy to hear options."
Orrey addresses the voice. "How?"
Yves has the slightly frozen look of someone who's currently in the presence of about three fascinating unearthly beings, and isn't /entirely/ sure which one to try to negotiate with.
Bast elbows Chid none too subtly. "If you're not joining in, you're sitting on him to keep him clear. Don't get too distracted."
"there is much to be learned, here. much to be gained. the boy has much to offer, but there is too much power here, draining him. alexander is not a kind master."
"a trade. an equal exchange."
Orrey frowns. "An exchange of what for what?"
Yves hunches slightly, flipping open the top of his satchel, and whispers to Principia inside, "Any words of wisdom before this all turns into diplomacy and/or violence?"
Principia flutters their pages. "Lance the boil!"
"another to stay behind to replace him. if not that..." The mask's attention floats back and forth between Bast and Aurin. "...you have the ship, moogle."
Bast looks somewhere between baffled and skeptical. "What about the ship?"
"My thoughts exactly," Yves whispers to the book, and straightens back up. He attempts to make a discreet so when we do we start with the zots gesture for Isa to catch.
"the ship of fools. we will take the ship of fools in place of the boy."
Isa catches Yves's eye, and flicks her quickly towards Bast, to indicate that they should follow their erstwhile captain's lead. It's a very expressive flick.
Linnet balks visibly at this, but keeps her mouth shut. But it's a very the hell you say sort of shut-mouth full-body expression.
Yves looks dubious--what, wait on the captain's orders, when the dreamy book gave an opinion?--but has at some point in the relatively recent past learned the value of letting people who understand tactics do the, uh, tactifying. That tactile (or tactful) stuff. So he waits.
Bast nods to Chid, then turns to the parasite with a smile. "Big words for a worm stuck in a ruin, desperate for something new. There's a bunch of clowns coming that you might have mistaken us for. We're not here to bargain." The twang of the crossbow's string snapping into place echoes faintly in the great cavern.
"Oh, there we go," Yves says, making sure the buckle on his satchel is firmly latched. He has no doubt Principia can chew out in an emergency, but best not to fling the book about by accident.
A laugh scrapes along the edges of the cavern. "you will be excellent additions to my library."
Linnet whispers a quick "thank you" sotto voce to Bast before shoving her hair behind her ears, raising her fists, and yelling "Catalog THIS, you humorless old relic!"
The divine knight, the Argent Defender, moves, air rushing through it, expanding its shoulders, raising its arms, drawing its sword.
"That is not good..." Orrey whispers, seeing the beginning of a battle just as he Predicted. Glowing dark grey and purple threads weave together, and he flings out a rapidly spinning circle of cloth that settles down in a Veil upon Yves.
Isa takes all this as the sign to commence the violence, and by the time the sound of "relic" has stopped echoing off the chasm walls she is airborne, a lance-wielding mote receding into the darkness above. She'll be back in a bit.
The Argent Defender brings its building-sized sword around and down for a targeted strike, thundering down at Bast. The sword strikes true, nearly flattening the moogle... and locking something away. "of course, should you want it back... I shall provide."
Orrey focuses on his watch, sending out the glowing purple clock upwards to follow Isa, hands spinning faster and faster.
"don't kill the captain don't kill the captain don't kill the captain..." Linnet recites in a frantic mutter as she flings several handfuls of powdery sugar-like magic at Bast. He stirs, at least, so hopefully he's not totally out of commission? Maybe?
Bast takes most of the force of the strike mid-leap, smashing into the floor with an audible crack and sliding several feet. He takes a deep, shuddering breath before prying himself up, blood dripping down his face as he spits in response to the worm's offer. He practically rips a canister from his belt open before rolling it towards the knight.
Yves makes a slightly startled sound at the latest sequence of events. Okay. So. Maybe something a little more... specific... than aggressive stabbing. "Hold on," he says to the book in his satchel, without looking down, as his fingers begin moving quickly. Flick-snap-slide creating that tell-tale ozone smell of incipient lightning, but so quickly they're starting to blur into a double image. "You are not welcome here," Yves says, an echo behind his voice from the after-image of a second viera mage with lop ears, motion and image slowly separating apart into something like another one of him, speaking as he does. "You are being trespassed, and you should go." He's done speaking, but the ghost of a second viera behind him mouths the end of that sentence, NOW, as a roar of thunder and crack of lightning cascades from its fingers toward the parasite-infested knight.
The afterimage of the lightning strike still leaves spots across the vision, and the sound of the thundercrack leaves ears ringing. It's a not particularly subtle segue into the sound of the air being torn apart from the force of Isa's descent as she crashes full-force into the knight's pauldron, the shock of impact visibly rippling across its bulk. Purple-hazed, she kicks off, back up into the air.
The Argent Defender's blade slams not into a person but the ground, the sheer force shaking the walls, pure power thundering up into anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in the shockwave.
Orrey stumbles as the shockwave blasts through him, but stabilizes and launch a screaming ball of green fire at the Defender.
The red at the edges of Bast's vision probably isn't just blood in his eyes.
Probably.
He loads the crossbow on the go, never stopping, riding out the shockwaves, trying to give the sword no chance to hit him again. A gap in the armor catches his attention as the knights winds up for another strike. That'll do nicely; the bolt trails a fine dusting of ice crystals as it strikes the spot.
Linnet isn't too sure on her feet either, but fortunately she can cast from her knees. A snowball splats on the edge of the armor plate as a softer one bursts over Bast's head, showering him in glitter. (But it goes away quickly and leaves behind a lemony fresh scent.)
Yves fell down with the shockwave, and just now pulls himself back to his feet, but the image behind him still stands; it mouths NOW like a record repeating, lightning pouring out again. Yves himself shouts, "You, you, you VERTICILLIUM!" as he does the same, a fraction of a second behind his own after-image.
Isa comes crashing down like a bad hangover, but her angle is off and she merely rattles, rather than shakes, the armor of Alexander. When she kicks off she does not ascend, but instead whirls around in a gainer on her way to the floor, boot and braid and spear providing a nice symmetry. She lands in a crouch and immediately springs up again, surrounded by a dim red glow as she lunges point-first into the gap between cuirass and faulds, through the pulsing black and red cloud entangling Alexander, drawing vitality and mana away from them both.
The Argent Defender leans forward, slumping... and the light in its eyes go out, and the mask tumbles down to the ground.
In a brief moment of silence, Linnet has just one question. "Verticillium?"
Bast slows down but doesn't stop pacing, eyes on the fallen armor, waiting for the next attack.
ADVENTURERS, WHO HAVE TRAVELED TO THE EDGE OF THE WORLD Isa places a boot on the edge of the mask and holds her spear ready to skewer it to the floor, if need be.
The voice is so loud it rattles everyone's clothes (save Linnet's).
Yves clutches his satchel, the image behind him poised with lightning still.
ADVENTURERS, WHO HAVE JOURNEYED TO THE MACHINE CITY TO SEEK DIVINE JUDGEMENT WITHIN THE MACHINE CITY
ADVENTURERS, WHO HAVE COME FOR THE WISDOM OF ALEXANDER "That sounds like us," Yves agrees, in a whisper.
YOU MUST QUIT THIS PLACE "Or...?" Isa prompts.
BEFORE YOU ARE TRAPPED HERE FROM THE END TO THE BEGINNING
JUST AS I HAVE BEEN
Linnet glances back toward Aurin.
Aurin is at the bottom of the stairs, far across the room.
Azdar Chid stands next to him.
THE PARASITE booms Alexander.
"Uh," says Yves anxiously.
"The offer still stands," Chid says calmly. "The ship, for you and your friends to walk out of here."
Bast's head whips over to look at Chid. After a moment, he bares his teeth. This isn't a smile, this time. "Was this-" he gestures dismissively to the fallen mask "-supposed to convince us?"
"Hardly," Chid says, smiling smugly. "You see..." he takes a breath to prepare.
Yves is still in a state of dismay. The image of him, transparent and crackling with lightning, simply turns and points, with a distant echo of the viera's voice coming from it: NO.
And the lightning pours across the room.
Chid takes the thunderbolt full force in the chest and slams into the stairs, upon which he explodes.
"...uh," says Yves.
"Anyone else?" Isa inquires calmly.
"a shame really" comes the snide, scraping voice from before. "that form was useful. one of yours will have to suffice." Orrey's eyes widen in horror.
"it will burn out in time, just as the boy's will." Isa stabs the mask with the full force available to her.
"Someone here just doesn't learn."
Linnet shuts her fish-gaping mouth and shakes her head to clear it. "Thanks for saving us the speech, Yves. Neatly done."
"then i will go to the next, and the next, and the next." The mask shatters. The voice continues.
"Shit."
"and more of your friends will come." "...okay, no," Yves says. "We're not doing that. We're gonna do something... not that."
The lights slam on, sickly red, swimming with darkness.
"and more of their minds will join."
The darkness surrounding this chamber is full of rooms, rooms that rearrange themselves, rooms that shift and shake, rooms that change position, rooms that hold countless shelves within, full of books.
The ghost-viera behind Yves is starting to fade away, even as it turns, looking for a new target.
"and more of their knowledge will come to me."
The shelves rattle and fall, the books crumbling to dust, the husks of people between the shelves, glowing that same sickening red, floating out into the chamber, leaving the rooms behind.
"Oh we're in it now, Principia," Yves mutters, clutching his satchel.
"and i will find the great crystal that was taken, that was hidden, that was stolen away."
"the great crystal that gave birth to the lie that was our imprisonment."
The rooms shift closer and closer, the light pulsing and pumping, beating in time with everyone's hearts.
"i am azi dahaka"
The Parasite, formless and scattered inside all of the floating husks.
"welcome to my collection"
End session.