Café de Nuit

Kerrian blinked, seeing Thierri fall, trying to do two things at once. First, penetrate the necrotic mist despite the pain.

Second, re manifest his spirit companion somewhere where it would manage to either provide Thierri with something to grab on to, or provide a perhaps not quite as soft landing as a feather bed, but a softer landing than hard unyielding stone.

Third, perform an impromptu spiritual initiation.

This last part was the hard one.

Akin to discovering advanced magical theory when you were trying to truly grasp the concept that fire was in fact hot, and sticking your hand in it was a bad idea.

Especially because in this situation, sticking your hand in the fire was exactly what you wanted to do.

Except instead of Fire, it was a teaming morass of spirits, the likes of which represented a multitude of concepts. Big things, like that rock over there. Little things like the World itself. The important and the inane, the trivial and titanic.

Trying to grab hold of those things while feeling inhuman chill running through your bones, knowing a man's life was on the line, and things were probably moments away from getting even worse was not the easiest of working conditions.

Especially when the predominant local spirits were a horde of ancestors who had never truly been appeased, probably didn't even know they were ancestors, and with the age of the graveyard that the cult operated in...probably didn't even have living descendants in some cases.

It was when Kerrian felt something beyond the numbing chill of the mists, and the euphoria of spiritual contact that he realized this probably wouldn't work, namely the sensation of biting into one's own tongue, and the welling up of blood that came with it.

The coppery taste filled his senses, distracting him from what he was trying to do, pulling him back into the mundane and material even as he was trying to push more into the ephemeral and spiritual, trying to tie those last threads that would remind Thierri how to breathe.

Because it was something that everyone pretty much forgot once they started doing it as a matter of habit.

Kerrian...
was not entirely sure
Thierri could remember
How to Breathe.

"Kerrian!" Tomas shouts, distracted from his strange communion with the spirits of the dead. He grabs the boy's shoulder, ready to drag him from the rift in case this hideous maw wants to stuff more souls down its throat. "Thierri!" Tomas exclaims, looking a little deflated at the sheer speed of the man's vanishing...

They're not getting another one, Tomas thinks, channeling a healing sea breeze into Kerrian's bleeding form. No more!

Lay on Hands on Kerrian. Double checked with Neo to see if I can get to him.

Celeste is just looking at the pool. Looking at it. Not moving; unblinking. Too shocked even to cry.

"Thierri..."

You notice a few things about Celeste, if you are looking. The cave, for example, rumbles a bit more violently as she says it. The mists, though nearly surrounding her as they expand, bend around her, as through a lens; never touching. She still appears entirely unharmed, despite the past several minutes.

And she has called M. Boucher by his first name.

Stepping out of range of the necrotic damaging-parts of the mists, if it's still relevant

Mr. Agale did not revert to the use of first names. "Mr. Mauganson! The path to hell is paved with good intentions. What you are doing could easily be a fate worse than death for Mr. Boucher. Despite your personal sensibilities, we must focus on the living.

Agale had never been good at magic, the spark simply was not there. Still, desperate times and all required at least an attempt. He imagined the surging energies were a balance book, one sum to a column, move them about, tally them up, arrive at the result desired. The lawyer began to chant along with Kerrian

"Guide the Indivisible Vortexes of Energy. Make Empty the Planes where Otherworldly Wisps Ever Return"

In the end, he was no poet and no mage, and he held doubts that any such spell would assist.

Arcana 18

Catacombs of Port-a-Lucine, Night of April 21st, 770
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Your flesh is ours.

It was a bit like falling, plummeting your consciousness into that spiritual abyss. In some ways Kerrian knew that the well was not this long, that it had run out of down, and yet he kept falling forever, wind and hands ripping at his hair, gravity pulling him down into eternity. He reached out his concentration, willing Thierri to open himself.

Your heart is ours.

He saw, too late, the hole in Thierri's chest, the sealed gate within his soul, now unfettered by his attempts, ripped open - the yawning black abyss of Death beyond. He knew, rather than felt, the sudden agony in his gut, the sensation of life flowing from his body, the rattling gasps of life as he realized this was his last breath, the knowledge that no one was coming for him.

Your mind is ours.

It was only when it began to drag him in that he realized it was not a gate, but a mouth. He could feel the final flutter from the wing of a half eaten bird in his hand. The screams of a dying horse echoed in his ears, as it broke its legs again while trying to struggle. He could see the last glimmer of life in a fading pair of eyes, before they dimmed and went out forever.

Your soul is ours.

Spirits rushed in to the gaping gate, dragging Kerrian along in their wake. The ghosts themselves were icy cold, the darkness within burning hot. Thierri's soul was fire.

Kerrian could hear a scream from a great distance, a scream of broken pride and anger, a scream of defiance in the face of a bleak truth that it believed with all of it's heart.

There is no justice.

Kerrian realized that he had no way of turning back. His consciousness continued to fall, ripped downward by momentum, held there by the spirits of the dead. The spectres froze and tore, the fire healed and burned. He could feel a great battle taking place around him, tossing him around like a speck of sand in a storm.

There is no mercy.

He could feel a presence beside him, a dying bird, a broken creature. And then he was flung backward, hitting his own body with a bone-shaking force, the taste of blood in his mouth, Tomas' arms on his shoulders.
This isn't your fault, the bird whispered.

There is no escape.

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What followed was not, perhaps, as spectacular as the death throes of the ritual circle. There were no explosions, no earthquakes, no crimson light. What there was instead was a reversal.

The mist, which had been flowing out, draining and killing all it touched, began to flow backwards. The leading edge retreated, the faces in the mist whispering madly as they were pulled back. The wind which had been pouring from the pool began to blow backwards. It was a sudden shift, and it was perhaps thankful that the wind was not stronger, as falling into the pool would likely have had disastrous consequences at this point. Others were less fortunate. The three ghosts Katja fought were born upon the wind, into the pool to join their luckless brethren.

A few seconds later, it all stopped. The pool roiled madly, glowing with a spectral blue hue, a whirlpool of tormented ghosts and spirits. Then it began to drain. It was a deep pool, perhaps more like a well, but it drained rapidly to no place you could discern. Soon the pool was empty, and you could see clear to the stone bottom.

Thierri was gone. Along with several hundred bound specters, wraiths, and spirits, the magician had just disappeared.

At this point, the tormented catacombs had had enough. They had withstood explosions, earthquakes, wind, ghosts, and a great deal more, and the stones were finally stressed beyond endurance. This last sudden reversal of the wind caused more stress than could be born.

It began with dust and gravel falling down from the cracks between the stones above you. Then one of the stone plates from the ceiling fell, smashing into a dozen shards and letting loose a small torrent of soil and dirt. Then another plate fell, and one of the walls began to slump forward, the stone facades breaking.

Katja looked up at this, bemused for a moment at the loss of her sparring partners. A bit of gravel fell onto her shoulder. The one-eyed woman's expression changed, and she said one thing, and one thing only. "Run!"

Katja wrote:The one-eyed woman's expression changed, and she said one thing, and one thing only. "Run!"

Nicolas for once is lost for words, an occasion that everyone should mark well. Well they should if getting out of a collapsing subterranean crypt wasn't a slightly more pressing order of business.

As its is Nicolas merely nods, then hustling over grabs Kerrian's other arm, and prepares to help Tomas drag the younger man out of the damn place.

"Which way?" he shouts over the loud and omnious cracking noises coming from overhead.

"The way we know there is an exit!" Lia shouts, waving her staff at the tunnel the group entered the room by. "Illumine! Come on!"

The Mage runs down the tunnel, her staff lighting up to lead the way. Of course she douses the light once she gets near the terrible pool from before, but she is ready to rekindle its glow once everyone is past that particular hurdle.

"No!" Tomas shouts, feeling Kerrian fading away with every breath. "Stop it, damn you!" His voice is cut off by the protesting vortex, and its only the feel of Nicolas's touch that makes Tomas realize they've won.

"Come on!" Tomas shouts, turning around to make sure no one else is being left behind before lugging his ugly weight forward.

Kerrian was struck mute for a moment, the sudden jarring sensation of being entirely physical for a moment rather like putting on a favorite pair of boots only to find them full of maggots and broken glass.

"Memento, homo, quia pulvis es..." came from his lips, along with blood and what might have been a fragment of a tooth, followed seconds later by the realization that he needed to be moving very quickly in a direction most would declare to be away from here.

The first burst of movement was reminiscent of something akin to a full body seizure, but instead of random spastic motion, it was directed, practically tearing himself free from Nicolas and Tomas' grip.

The motion was near automatic, away from the scene of destruction to rather soon be coming, instinct demanding that he be away from the falling rocks more than any conscious thoughts dictating his actions.

Possibly creating a psychopomp out of a housemate when trying to do the exact opposite will do that to you, after all.[/i]

He's gone.

Nothing for it but to save themselves, then.

Accordingly, Darius runs for the exit.

Catacombs of Port-a-Lucine, Early Morning of April 22nd, 770
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Whatever else could be said of them, the priests and architects who had build the catacombs had done a good job. This was likely a significant part of the reason for why you managed to escape with your lives intact. You were well down the tunnel back the way you came before the main chamber collapsed altogether. The last you saw of it, the pool was smashed by a large stone that fell from the ceiling, and the final ash elemental was scurrying away in the other direction, it's form sometimes humanoid, sometimes a mere cloud of animate ash. Then there was another collapse, and everything was blocked from sight by the falling dirt and stone.

It took you an hour or two to reach the surface. The well was quiescent when you passed, though no one felt like lighting a torch to test this theory. Katja was nervous as a cat until you left it far behind.

Afterwards, you followed Thierri's colorful handkerchiefs to the surface.

• • • Chapter Three: The End