[RP] Death of a god.

[Embri]

The world fire was growing cold. Deep below the surface of Blackstar, wrapped in a cocoon of molten lava, a soul once known as Embri slept fitfully. Her dreams were filled with fear, a palpable, dark swirling marisma that left chill fingers along her flanks. Her own. And theirs. So many emotions, they flitted about colored moths. Crimson pain blended with splotches of chartreuse greed and purple determination, but the blackness of fear shadowed over all, a twilight cloak drawn fast over the realm.

~Even here... there is... no peace...~

The grey fog that swirled inside her mind thickened, a deep pool of sorrow that never seemed to ease. Part of her wanted nothing more than to wait for the end, another clung desperately, ineffectually, to the unraveling threads of AuMarui's presence in his realm.


I cannot. I am too weak, too small... the distance, to great; but there is no one else. ... Or is there?

She could feel the world shaking, trembling to its very core. A death rattle ... time was short, so very very short. Desperately fumbling through the frayed weft and weave that had once been the tightly bound tapestry of landscape, sky and ocean, the mare grieves sliently for all that is being lost.

The mare reached out with her senses. Energy had many names, many forms. Ki. Laren. Mana. Power. Magic. Chakra. Lifeblood. Nexus. The mare chanted the slient mantra in her mind, feeling blindly for something, anything, that might serve as an anchor for the deed she was about to attempt.

How can you call back a god? There is no point strong enough!
....
No one point strong enough.

Had she been above ground, breath would have caught in the mare's throat.
Perhaps... perhaps...

She reaches out towards the tomb in which Au'Marui's corporeal form had been laid to rest, a tiny glimmer against a sea of shadows catching her attention. The mare draws in the small fragment, examining it closely.

... A... cookie?

Confused, she tries to make sense of the motley assortment, for there are more.... a sapphire? Sticks of Pocky? A strange slip of paper with twisted characters. A bright yellow rubber duck. Several sandwhiches, quite past their prime. And many, many more. What kind of anchors are these? Bewildered, the unisus tried to understand. She had never seen such a great variety of seemingly random objects paired with such potential. In the end, it hardly mattered, here was part of the answer. She winced in pain as more tremors rumbled from the depths. Now, or never....

Embri's spirit reached out and grasped the potential from Au'Marui's funeral offerings, carefully weaving the thin strings of power into as sturdy an anchor point as she could manage. Hoping, praying it would be enough to hold, the unisus threw herself out into the Void, focusing all of her will on seeking the lost god.


Au'Marui~Dark Psycho~Dau'Pay~God of Insanity~
I name thee.
You are needed still.
Blackstar is dying.

If you are gone... all hope is lost.

[LordPsycho]

Darkness - the darkness was constant. Where ever he was, the darkness was impregnable. Without outside help, it was sure he was stuck

What an end for Au'Marui, the GOD of Insanity.

Then, he saw it. A point of light, then others. Something-someone was opening a way for his...whatever he was to return.

He traveled towards the light, willing himself to it. As he approached it, he saw that it was an odd assortment of items. Cookies, parchment, pocky, jewels....all forming his ticket back to the Corporeal world.

He touched the anchoring point and was transported instantly.

It was a wreck of a world. Blackstar was tearing itself apart. He was still too weak to bring it back together, being less than a ghost...but he could give them time.

But had they followed his plan. Had they looked for her?

He flung out his conciousness, searching for Blackfoot.

-------------------------------------------

Blackfoot was about to enter the portal when he heard it. A whisper, carried on the wind - but so familiar.

~Don't go through~

Blackfoot stopped - listening.

~I'll give you time - find Shalim. Find the Gold Dragon. Present her with the Blade~

Blackfoot looked at the others.

"Did anyone else hear that?" He said, looking at the others

[Embri]

Something had taken the anchor, the spirit mare knew not if it was the one she sought, or something else. She was beyond caring, beyond feeling anything anymore.

Stars whirled around her, pulsing lights in time with the song of the universe. Timeless, peaceful, she wanted nothing more than to stay out here forever.... but it was not to be.

With a sigh, more felt than heard, Embri turned her back on the swirling, cold cosmos, falling back down towards her point of origin. Sadly, she watched the stars recede back into the blackness.

Stay with us they seemed to say.
I cannot. Regretfully, the mare floated away.
Why? It is peaceful here.
This is not my place... not yet.

There was no further reply, weather from the stars or simply her own mind. The mare paused a moment, gazing down on the tiny world she had last called home. Even from this distance, the world's distress was plainly clear. Great tracts of land had simply vanished, the edges of the ocean boiled and rocked.

So what now? I am of little use to this poor world. I should at least seek whatever was called from the darkness... though few things could do worse harm than what has already befallen.

Embri resumed her fall from the sky, streaking down through the troposphere, atmosphere and clouds. It was doubtful any below saw or cared about the tiny orange pinprick of light that descended from the sky. Psychotopia, the vast sprawling metroplex spread out before her, the patch of green near its center beckoning. Embri's intangible, almost invisible spirit self stood next to her mortal form, an indeterminate expression on her face. She glanced down at the plaque, something that had not been there when she had left.

Fire of the Dojo?

I sought peace by running away... but I found none. I cannot retreat from the world, this world, not now. I was wrong... but there may still be time to rectify my mistake.

A silent wind whipped around her, and the mare closed her eyes. Her spirit self dissolved into tiny sparkling motes that whirled tigher and tigher around the stone unisus. For a long time, nothing seemed to happen.

The faintest shiver turned to a crack, then several more. Like a gargoyle newly bathed in night's darkness, the unisus shed her stony skin. Feathered wings flexed, her forelegs spread for balance, Embri once again walked in the realm of Blackstar.

[Cirrial]

Station Zero

In one of the many multitudinous chambers of Station Zero, the entire room is aglow with light cast by hovering intangible displays.

One of the saa-kru in the room throws their arms into the air, their antennae raised. More and more stop, hesitant, and look around the room as the displays flicker and shine.

501 and Ak-tse both run into the room, the assembled saa-kru quietly stepping aside while not breaking their attention from the increasing storm of light. A loud wooshing noise begins to build up, louder and louder. Loose pieces of paper start to fly around the room.

Ak-tse yells at 501, his eyes clamped shut against the rising wind. "See! I told you! Look! We need to get to the vector clamp right now! This world's lost to us!"

NIDS' voice rings out. "Would all Maratix personnel immediately evacuate immediately as immediately quickly as you immediately can? Immediately? In case you haven't grasped it immediately, that means right now. Immediately."

Throughout Station Zero are the echoing screams and frantic shouts of Maratix personnel, and the sounds of many, many shoes clattering across metal floors.

501 peers carefully at the whirling light storm while chaos rages around him. "...I don't remember that happening before--"

Sparks fly out from previously concealed machines behind the walls. Wall tiles fly off and join in the whirlwind flowing through the whole of Station Zero.

"What in the five feathers?! Okay, now I'm even more confused!"

A comparatively quieter series of noises resounds from the direction of the central chamber of Station Zero, where a large vector clamp hangs on the wall furthest from the door.

"Wait. ...Ah, no, I don't want to just evacuate now and potentially never return! That's it, screw protocol and screw evacuation! I'm going to DO something!"

After picking up a wall tile and examining it, he drops it to the ground. "I'm going to do something BETTER!"

He races to the elevator room. Upon arrival, he jabs at a large blue button, to be rewarded with the text "Please Use Main Vector Clamp To Exit Facility" floating across a nearby light screen.

"Don't have time for this!" 501's wings snap open and whine, glowing intensely with energy. 501 grabs the edges of the elevator doors, and with tremendous strain, pulls them slowly apart, before leaping into the elevator shaft and flying up.

---
Kaz's Lab

As soon as 501 flies out of the entrance of a dilapidated shack, across the road from Kazumaru's lab, the shack begins to quiver and rattle. As 501 gently floats to the ground, his wings beginning to fold away, it tremors violently.

"...Uh oh."

501 slowly turns around and holds his arms up, bracing himself. The shack abruptly explodes in a shower of light, glass, wood and bricks, swirling around an invisible vortex, before it is sucked down into the bizzare storm that Station Zero had so rapidly become.

Clumps of earth and grass around the vortex fly down into the gaping hole left by the shack's unpredicted destruction. As abruptly as the shack disappeared, the storm fades, leaving nothing but a hole in the ground and damage around it.

"...I'm going to have fun explaining THIS one to labguy."

He slowly turns around and marches off to Kaz's lab, before pausing hesitantly. "Wait. I have the feeling I've forgot something. ...Eh, it was probably nothing..."

He walks up to the front doors of Kaz's empty lab and knocks politely. "Labguy? Are you in there now?"

[Danikat]

[Embri]

Embri turned her head carefully, glancing around at her surroundings. The Palace Garden had changed little. The trees were a bit larger, the season differed, but mostly it remained the same. With exaggerated care, she stepped off the small platform, promptly tripping and burying her nose in a pile of loam.

This... will take some getting used to. Gritting her teeth, the winged mare righted herself, snorting and shaking her head. At least there's no welcoming committee to see my ungraceful entrance. In fact... there seems to be no one around.

Spreading first one wing, then the other, Embri flapped experimentally, stretching muscles long unused. She crowhopped across the cobbled path, not yet confident enough to rise far from the ground. Approaching the edge of the garden, she peers over the short fence and down towards Psychotopia City... or what remained of it.

A sick twisting feeling in her gut accompanied the devastation below. Large holes had rotted through the City's core, even as she watched a small building tipped over the edge and simply ceased to exist.

I hope you have safeguarded my foal, Au'Marui... ready or not, this world has dire need of him. Embri seemed to lapse into non-responsiveness as she sought the familiar mental touch of her own progeny. With a growing sense of alarm, the mare sought, fruitlessly.

Wherever Ajaxon was, he was not on Blackstar.

Uncertain how to proceed, she turns towards the Palace only to catch the briefest, tantalizing wisp of thought.

~Don't go through~

Her mind made up, the unisus snaps open her wings and she jumps the fence, gliding over the City and unerringly towards the faint voice, and hopefully, answers.

[Kazumaru]

Sentinel's deep voice responded to 501. "Identify!"

[Angel]

Aa... cold... Why's it so da*n cold?
Supposed to be nii~ce and warm... but now? cold, cold, cold cold COLD.
Feathers are all on end...

High on Mnt. Neverrest a silvery white building is perched on an outcrop, blending into the snow and granite of the mountain. Its intricate shape gathers the ice and snow into natural camouflage, leaving only one area clear. A wide, flat ledge, projecting unnaturally far from the top of the outcrop, provides an ideal point to watch the world slope away into the planes far beyond the icy clutches of the north. Directly below the platform, the mountain drops far into a fjord of icy water, fed by a glacier to the west and draining into the swamps to the east.
The building gives slightly to the wind and keeps its snow shell intact under the unseasonal buffeting. The boards of the walls show through in places, a dark red-orange, a darker black on the floors of the many walkways ringing the walls.
From the skies, it has a circular shape, dipping down to a sheltered courtyard in the centre. Dim white shapes flutter and prowl here, and darker ones hide from the cold in stables and coups. A circular railed walkway runs round the perimeter, with hallways leading down into the building proper.
Warm air shimmers on the boundary between courtyard and the inside, heat emanating from roaring fires that produce no smoke. High at the front of the building, a dark and hot room hides its occupant from view, heavy drapes closed against dreary winter light. A second figure stands, breathing heavily at the open door, letting in an unwelcome draft.

"Zed~ come in, get out, either way, close the go'ram door!" Angel mutters grumpily, unused to being awakened in the middle of the day, much less on the rare occasions when she makes it back to the Dojo.
However, once concious enough to feel, in the true sense of the word, she sits bolt upright in her bed/more-like-a-nest. Causing the young vampire considerable discomfort until she gathers her wings about her.
"Where is he?" She searches for the heavy weight of Dau'Pays power, "What happened?!"

He's... he was killed, I don't know what could have.. but, there was a funeral... and he's dead

The building falls oddly still, its occupants shocked to silence.

[Coolpikaaa]

Coolpikaaa sat back in his chair, staring down at the slowly vanishing planet floating before him.

What was he doing up here again?

A console beeped. He ignored it.

Oh right, finding Ajax.

He wondered why they wanted him.He had heard something about being the next in line after DP, but last time he checked, wasn't he still really a kid?

The console beeped again.

That kind of pressure...."Use these powers or the whole world gets it".
Poor kid.

He finally looked down at the persistent computer.Picking through the tech mumbo-jumbo, he found two very important words.
"MATCH FOUND."

He was in The Palace Garden, wait... now moving over the city.

"Jack how fast can you get me down ther-"

-coolpikaaa

[Embri]

Embri glided over Psychotopia, superstitiously avoiding the airspace above the voids. There was no telling how far up and down the effect had spread. She descended cautiously, clipping a tanglevine tree (which earned itself some minor burns for its trouble) before coming to an uncertain and rather abrupt landing. The streets were eerily silent.

There was no further trace of the faint, familiar voice. Disappointed, the mare headed towards its point of origin, as near as she could manage. Her sensitive ears picked out the sound of an active Warp Gate, the powerful generators thrumming deep in the sublevels of the city's bowels.

Ahead, she could make out several humaniod forms, and at least one larger draconian. Pleased to at last have found someone who was still alive and kicking, Embri increases her pace to a slow canter and approaches the group.

"Mhhrrrreee-*coughcough*" With a snort of surprise, the unisus clears her throat and tries again. "Mwree, fair greetings, Psychotopians. By any chance does someone know what in name of the thousand Hellions is going on?"

(If I've gotten the setting and/or participants wrong, please advise me and I'll correct for it. It would be Redwing, Iman al-Rashid ibn Aali, and Blackfoot, I believe?)

[Swix]

((Them and Danikats invisible unicorns, yes .

Also declaring my last post with Redwing as not counting since I and I'm sure DP would rather not have a young dragon walking around lost in that main chamber. He'd probably break something))

Redwing had one clawed forlimb up in the air when Blackfoot suddenly stopped and asked everyone if they'd heard something. As far as the horse-sized dragonling had heard, the voice was barely even a whisper.

"I heard it" Redwing said, setting his forefoot back on the ground. He was however unable to ask the next question as a fiery unisus approached them on foot.
'At least she's not humanoid' the Dark Fire Dragon thought to himself, suddenly realising he'd been feeling left out.

"Au'Marui is dead, and the world is falling apart. So we are looking for ways to stop it. That is about it" Redwing answered, before narrowing his eyes at the equine "How do you not know this?"

[Coolpikaaa]

"-re"

Blinking the intense light from his eyes, the electric mouse found that Jack could get him there actually fairly fast.It was refreshing to be outside again, being cooped up in the cave, then the station had started to wear on him.

Coolpikaaa looked around, wondering if he should even be here.It was on royal grounds...

Making sure no one would immediatly see him, he scanned the area.

"No winged equine shaped creatures around here."Coolpikaaa started, leaning against a tree that smelled oddly like barbeque."You wouldn't have seen a flying horse around here would you?"

"Nah, didn't think so."

-coolpikaaa

[Embri]

(Yes, I only mentioned those that would be visible to Embri, I haven't forgotten about Danikat's unicorns. )

Little swirls of dust spiraled out from the mare's hooves as she trotted up to the group, turning to face the draconian who had answered her. He seemed small for his race, but then the mare had long ago learned that few things were exactly what they appeared to be.

My draconic is a bit rusty, but here goes... thanks be praised to One Eye.

jaci ui ti lowaar, isohon darastrix. sjek coi jahus zyak, wer "treskri di wer vutha isk" ornla qe bihainwor. coi confna loaw, shar mobi ui charis sjerit.

The harsh gutteral consantants weren't easy to get out, nor was she sure that the generic dragon address would be met favorably, but Embri did not know this one's age so it was the best the mare could do with limited information. Draconic also lacked a word for Psychotopia, so "world of the black star" would have to do.

si tepoha coanwor... persvek vi jennu vdri. wer treskri tlushana ekess ulnot, vur jaka mobi ui thric gocahel ssifisv ihk ve. si confni ekess letoclo, sjek si shilta. vi ivah soves ve wer idol tenpiswo, shafaer wer suaco di wer shishin. si voran nrah erthe-vrak, ajaxon.


Highlight below for the translations, if needed.
Translations:
He is not dead, honored dragon. If it was so, the " world of the black star " would be gone. It comes apart, but there is hope yet.

I have been... in a great sleep. The world began to cry, and now there is no more rest for me. I came to help, if I can.. A voice guide the way here, on the wind of the mind. I also seek my child, Ajaxon.

[LordPsycho]

Blackfoot stepped away from the portal and deactivated the portal.

"Lady Embri, it is an honor to have you with us during this most troubling time. Do you anything about that voice? It was quiet unlike the one that spoke to us a few minutes ago - but it's directions seem more...trustworthy. And for Dojodian's sake what is the Golden Dragon?"

[Dr. Gustaf Brackman]

((Your soon-to-be Overlord, Dr. Gustaf Brackman, would like to firmly remind you all of the many Sentinal-like robotic lifeforms roaming both near the ground and in the sky of the Dojo, dispatched by the Mothership for recon purposes. You will see them, but they will avoid you and not make any attempt to approach. At the most you will find it unnerving that they seem to be everywhere, watching your every move.
I apologize for my multi-page disappearance, I will make an official post soon.))