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The Lost City



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Tue Feb 11, 2020 12:56 pm
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soundofmind says...



Bo reached out and grabbed Kartiel’s hands with an iron grip. Words escaped him as the others came up behind him, but he demanded an explanation.

He hadn’t had full vision in almost ten years, and it was bugging him out. It felt right, yet wrong. He’d gotten used to having one eye and learning to live with it.

A remark he’d made earlier - what felt like ages ago, but was probably only a day ago, maybe hours - came back to him. How he’d poked at Kartiel for making a clone body of him but still giving him the one eye, when the least he could’ve done was given him two. But the moment he remembered that it hit him: this was only temporary. The full sight would only last as long as he was in this body, if he survived long enough to see the end of it.

A part of him felt like he should be grateful. Say thank you. But that would’ve felt like a bitter, blatant lie if he let himself say that. Frankly, he didn’t know how to feel. The sensation was overwhelming, and his memory kept recalling that this was how it felt before almost everything about him and his life got turned on its head. It brought back memories of a different time, a different face, and a different Bo.

His hands were tight around Kartiel’s wrists. That probably hurt, but he was more afraid of letting Kartiel go than holding him a little too tightly.

He needed to know why all of this was happening. He was so tired. So, so tired. Why couldn’t all this just be over? Why did things have to keep happening one after another?
Pants are an illusion. And so is death.






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Sat Feb 22, 2020 3:24 am
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TheSilverFox says...



When the rest of the group turned back and made their way around a corner, Aegeas felt a pit in his stomach. That pit grew a little deeper once he followed them, peeked around the edge of the corridor, and caught sight of Bo holding onto a wraith. Or, some fuzzy gray blob that looked sort of like a wraith, next to some large, human-shaped blob. And nobody seemed especially nervous about that wraith, nor did he get the impression that anyone was dead. Which meant that was probably Kartiel. Ugh. Aegeas would've been happier with death.

"Great going, genius," Aegeas said, glaring at Kartiel. "You managed to get somebody to betray us, and it looks like that didn't work the way you wanted it to. Are going to do your dirty work yourself now?"
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Inferno, Canto 27, l 61-66.





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Sun Feb 23, 2020 2:27 am
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Mageheart says...



Kartiel seethed at Aegeas's comment, but he hid his irritation well.

"I never had to get Boris to betray you," he said. He looked over at the man in question. Boris was covered in burns, now - had he done what Kartiel thought he had? "Boris was the one who approached me first. I was just the one who agreed to it-"

"What are you doing here?" Codix interrupted. He wasn't looking in Boris's direction; it was like he was pretending he wasn't even there. "Are you planning on making this worse?"

Kartiel resisted the urge to groan.

"I'm here to rescue you," he hissed. "I've seen how you react to getting captured. I could leave you all here, but you're all more useful alive."

No one said anything.

The break in the conversation was only for a few seconds, but Kartiel still glanced over at Boris. He narrowed his eyes as a thought suddenly struck him.

"...How did they know you betrayed them?" he asked.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Wed Feb 26, 2020 2:07 pm
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SirenCymbaline says...



"Son, of a bitch," Boris whispered vacantly, upon recognising Kartiel from a short distance.

"Son of a bitch," he repeated experimentally. "He actually came."
_________

Why did Kartiel feel the need to disclose who had proposed the idea to whom? Present company already knew they had been betrayed, there was no need to give them more salt for his many, many, mainly self-inflicted wounds.

But Boris, a practiced champion in the field, swallowed it and recomposed himself.

"The telephone relayed your concerns." said Boris dryly.

And then he smiled for a few seconds, a tiny, frozen, ghastly little arrangement that belonged only on murderers and country club hostesses.

"I never thought you'd come." he said almost wistfully, meaning of course, something more along the lines of 'about bloody time,' but the subtext in his disgustingly polite delivery was quite clear.

"I'm invested in the narrative of staying alive, so I'm grateful that you did, but if we ever meet again in more liberal circumstances, I'll kill you. I will kill you."

Saying this seemed to soothe him. Once he had said it, all tension slipped away from his face, and the twinkle returned to his eye. Softly he added, "Thank you, by the way. For healing Bo."

Boris attempted to pass off the second comment as an afterthought, but in his weaselly heart he meant both sentiments very seriously.
Bad souls have born better sons, better souls born worse ones -St Vincent





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Thu Feb 27, 2020 3:18 am
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soundofmind says...



Bo's hands let go of Kartiel like stiff claws, retracting slowly at the word "rescue," and pausing briefly at the word "useful" and "alive."

What did that even mean, now? More useful alive?

The drama unfolding between Boris and Kartiel was like background noise. Bo straightened up, put his hands in his pockets, and looked down the hallway, and all around them. He didn't see any other wraiths around but they got lucky when it was just Maahes and Codix last time. They might not be that lucky again.

So what if Boris voluntarily decided to lead them through a dangerous forest? That was over. They needed to get through this now.

"We're going to escape," he announced quickly, quietly, right after Boris said his name. He didn't really care that he was changing the subject anymore. With the urgency of the moment, it was justified.

"We already have a plan. Unless you have a better, safer one, then help us with it so we can get out of here. Since you want us alive."
Pants are an illusion. And so is death.






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Thu Feb 27, 2020 11:45 am
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Mageheart says...



Kartiel scanned the group. No one had outright said what the plan was, but he had guessed it the moment he saw what Maahes and Codix looked like. Their plan was admittedly better than his plan.

(Kartiel would never admit it, but he hadn't exactly had a plan. He had his magic, and he knew his way around a wraith ship, but he hadn't thought of how he was going to get everyone off. The farthest he had gotten in coming up with a plan was finding everyone.)

"Your plan is a good one," he said, "and I have the added benefit of being wraith right now. I also know the layout of the ship."
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Wed Mar 04, 2020 9:59 am
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soundofmind says...



Bo, who was still trying very hard to focus and not freak out at everything looking very different only nodded.

"Great," he said. "Awesome. Okay. Can we go now? I've only been looking at these skin walls for a minute but I am already sick of them."
Pants are an illusion. And so is death.






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Mon Mar 23, 2020 5:32 am
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TheSilverFox says...



"Yes, let's go," Aegeas said, gritting his teeth and squinting his eyes to keep the blobs around him from getting any blobbier. "Kartiel, since you know the layout of the ship, and it's really hard to kill you, why don't you take the lead?"
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Inferno, Canto 27, l 61-66.





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Mon Mar 23, 2020 11:05 am
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Mageheart says...



Kartiel nodded and did as requested. He didn't bother to tell Aegeas that it wasn't nearly as hard to kill him as he apparently thought - if he was killed now, he would be as good as gone from this reality. He didn't have any other bodies to hop into.

But that didn't matter right now. What mattered was getting everyone off of this ship.

He led the group through the seemingly endless maze of hallways. The combination of Maahes, Codix and him made any wraith that might have tried taking the "prisoners" think twice about even approaching them. It was only when they reached where the darts were stored that Kartiel started being a little more cautious.

The prisoners, after all, had no reason to be in a place like that.

He turned to the rest of the group.

"We need to be careful here," he said. "We could get away with our plan earlier, but it won't work now that we're so far away from the cells. We all have to be on high alert."

He glanced at everyone. Bo was healed up. Nadira, Codix and Maahes all lacked injuries. But there were still several members of the group that had injuries that could be disadvantageous in battle - a few healing spells later, and everyone was in the same shape they had been in before Boris had (stupidly) led them through that forest.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Thu Mar 26, 2020 6:53 am
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soundofmind says...



Bo's eyes fluttered, looking down at the others as they got healed instantaneously, just like Kartiel had healed him.

He could hear Kartiel's reasoning in his head. They were liabilities when wounded. They needed to survive for entertainment's sake, or whatever excuses he made up. But he could tell... this wasn't how Kartiel envisioned this whole thing going. With how mad he'd been at Boris for leading everyone through the dangerous forest, and with how quickly he'd somehow made a way into the wraith ship to find them, he was having a hard time believing that Kartiel was as evil as he was trying to make himself out to be.

Of course, Kartiel was responsible for bringing them all here in the first place, and maybe he was just really good at manipulating, but Bo didn't want to believe he was all bad. Still bad, but not all bad.

He inched up beside Nadira, who he knew was still clinging to Codix's side and vice-versa, and put a hand on her shoulder. Just a little pat of encouragement, before he walked forward to the front of the group, ready to lead the charge again now that he was healed and functional, with (concealed) weapons and a way out being so close.

"Got it," he said to Kartiel.
Pants are an illusion. And so is death.






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Fri Mar 27, 2020 6:03 am
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TheSilverFox says...



Well, he was okay now. For a certain value of okay. Thanks to the casts, Aegeas couldn't exactly move his arms (which was probably for the best, since he was fairly sure trying to strangle Kartiel would put them all at risk). The otter was still nearsighted - nothing he could do about that - and everything still overwhelmed his nose. He was also starting to figure out just how exhausted he was from all the running around.

"Okay," Aegeas said, stretching his legs. He tried his best to look away from Kartiel, in case his temper got the best of him. "How do we go about this?"
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Inferno, Canto 27, l 61-66.





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Sat May 09, 2020 6:13 pm
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Mageheart says...



Kartiel mulled over Aegeas's question. Codix was starting to get the suspicion that he had only planned up to this point - and he wasn't sure he felt comforted like that. Nad was already holding his hand, but Codix moved even closer to her now. Their shoulders were practically touching at this point.

"I can cast an illusion spell," he finally said. "It can cover everyone who can't change their forms - either to make it so they don't exist, or so they look like a wraith. It won't last long, and it won't be able to disguise your voices. But it should give us enough time to get to one of the ships and store you in it. I'll fly us back to Atlantis."
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Sun May 10, 2020 3:40 am
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TheSilverFox says...



Aegeas nodded. "I'm down with shutting up and not existing," he said. "Not really confident in your plans, but it's not like we've got any other options."
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Inferno, Canto 27, l 61-66.





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Sun May 10, 2020 3:52 am
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soundofmind says...



Bo nodded along with Aegeas. "I can be quiet. Let's do it."
Pants are an illusion. And so is death.






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Mon May 11, 2020 9:37 pm
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SirenCymbaline says...



Boris nodded. They had already spent too much time.
Bad souls have born better sons, better souls born worse ones -St Vincent








Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.
— "Hamlet," William Shakespeare