"Maybe the rules don't apply to you, but I don't trust was the Dweller has to say anyways. Look, Shiver and you obviously have something going on, but I get the feeling he wouldn't have done what he did if it wasn't totally nessisary, and I'd think you'd know him better than me. Besides, whatever damage was done can be healed by Bakatare, I'm sure."

Paladin's comments brought back her attention to her injury, which she had forgotten about in the numbing cold. But the physical sting was nothing to the sting of betrayal. "That's not the point. It's the fact that he went on over my objections even after asking."

"I know. But how is walking off on your own in an unknown world going to fix that? We're all in a pickle here and he acted rashly, I agree, but seriously... think about how you want to handle this."

As much as she hated to admit it, Paladin had a point. "I guess you're right." she responded with a sigh. "Still doesn't I approve of this whole turn of events..."

Paladin nods somberly. "Come on, lets get back to the group."

Wow. That was a big fire to put out.

Desdemona sullenly followed Paladin back to the others, pointedly ignoring Shiver when they arrived.

The choice was made, it was made the way it had to be made. A cost was spoken and the price was paid, a pound of flesh. My own flesh could not open the door, so it had to be Angel--Desdemona's flesh. She pushed through to take control and didn't want to live with the consequences. Now her pride won't let her back down and surrender control until the manasphere forces her to.

Damn you, Mynce. You knew the price this would exact to watch over a ward and know that I may have to kill her to keep another secret threat hidden from the world at large.

The large troll watched Paladin give pursuit, he almost wished that Desdemona had simply hit him back for the pain he cause her. That would have given clarity to the situation, now surrounded by bleakness he must stave off his own thoughts as well as the sapping nature of this place.

Questers
The area around seems to be an endless grey. Your eyes strain to pick out details in the never ending wash of non-color. The tension seems to bleed out of the area as Shiver and his ward struggle with each other. You slowly begin to make out some of the land around you.

The void seems to hold slivers of silver and dim light. They hang in the area, all different sizes and shapes. They ring out in the land. No sound comes to you or smell, just the strange windows.

Murrey
The area seems pretty mild and non-threatening. The regular scans sweep out and catch nothing out of the ordinary. Rigger traffic is non-existent in your area. The slim woman stays at her camp and seems to have a lengthy and lively conversation with the small artic fox.

Murrey has Mr. Fix-it open a box of Nerps (Now with more Blue goodness!) and occaisionaly has it drop one in his mouth as he watches the feeds.

"Let us not linger in this place for too long."

Shiver moves forward towards one of the windows that hang in the air. Trapezoidal and the size of an adult's chest, he glances through the sliver of light.

Bakatare glances around the landscape with interest, seemingly unconcerned with the exchange between the troll and the changling. As Desdemona returns he reaches out into the unfamiliar weave and flow of mana in this world, visualizing and locking the hermetic icons into place in his mind, the signs for healing and repair. He lays a hand lightly on Desdemona's chest, releasing the locked flows into her.

He glances at Shiver afterwards, gaze moving out again to the windows that dot the landscape.

"Agreed. This is your land, you choice. Lead on."

Murrey
As you sink deeper into the network, you notice a distortion pop up on your sensors. It seems too small to be another vehicle and it's movement is odd for a drone. All the readouts are strange. The heat signature is low and indistinct.
You focus in and soon notice at least 10 distortions in all. They appear to ring out around your area and are slowly tightening inward.

A quick burst over the radio channel Bogies incomming and Murrey marks targets for the drones.

Questers
As Shiver moves around the opening, you see a room on the other side. It looks to be a dingy rent by the hour motel room. There is a single bed, the window seems to be placed at the foot of it. You can see a grey light come through the color worn curtains. As your eyes adjust to the gloom, you make out two bodies engaged in sex. The man appears to be in his late forties and his skin shines with an unhealthy sheen. His violent hip motions rocks into a woman's body. Her head off to his right side and her eyes dead and glazed. Her too thin body jerks from the force of his motions but she doesn't seem to notice. Her hair lies plastered to her skull and her breath low and shallow.

Murrey
The sensors build a picture of the landscape for in in digital detail. It appears these distortions are roughly split in two groups. One closing in on the van and the other around the woman. You seem to have one approaching the front of the van, and then two on either side of the vehicle.

You quickly bring up the combat and tactical protocols of the network. Your system quickly begins scanning the area to acquire targets and you lay out a series of commands. The network responds smoothly. In a din corner of your mind you watch it unfold before you. The computer informs you of an inability to acheive an active lock through the TADS as does the van. The Lynx unloads but fails to make contact with it's intended target. The one solid hit comes from the grenade launcher, as one of the distortions are thrown back from the blast.

Outside the sensors continue to feed you info. The woman is startled to her feet from the sound of the combat beginning. She rises drawing her weapons, as she does so her body becomes wrapped in gold flames.

"She looks drugged beyond hope."

Shiver turns away from the window, pitying the woman for the choices she made to reach this point and the choices that were made for her. The large troll continues forward, glancing in several of the windows along his path. Half turning, he looks at his demon-touched ward whose appearance is similar to his own.

"Thank you sister for taking this pain. You may choose to ignore my words, but I appreciate your choice nonetheless. This realm is much more suited to your temperament than your other half."

Continuing on, the last words of Locket ring through his mind. 'She knows your coming...' Voice raised to project his words, he calls out.

"Aponoia mistress of this realm, we have paid the price for admission to your realm and now seek passage. I humbly request audience that I may lead our group safely on to the realm of your kin."

Questers
Each portal offers a similar view. A man slowing bleeding out in a tub, a woman drinking herself into oblivion, or a child huddled in a corner and weeping uncontrollably.

The troll's voice echoes out through the area. The sound rings out and goes flat. A grating and husky chuckle answers. The sound seems to come from all around you.

"Very few seek me out and survive the experience. Who are you and why do you disturb my realm?"

Paladin glances around at the windows, his hackles rising. These are the types of things he has spent his life trying to stop from happening. The shear number here reminds him of how futile his efforts are...

Despair...in all it's myriad forms

Bakatare glances around as the voice speaks, not expecting to see anything but curious none the less.

But for duty, go I...

Turning to track the source of the voice or at least ensure that his own carries equally across the barren landscape, the scaled troll calls out.

"Many call me Shiver and I travel through your land because Necessity has laid it in the path before me. Those who have traveled before me and perished met the final stroke of the pen in your brother's book. If such is meant for me than it shall be, otherwise I would ask what trial must be faced in this land before we can return to the threshold and step again into another realm of your kin."

Pity flickers across electric blue eyes as Shiver glances into each window along the path of his turn.

Desdemona glanced at the scenes of despair, and passed on by without a second thought. Bringing despair to others was in her nature. Shiver had indeed been right in saying that she was more suited for this realm. She just hoped that whatever test was here didn't require more pain on her part. Causing pain was one thing. Feeling it was another.

Questers
The same grating and husky laugh echoes out. "For something so small you have quite the sense of drama. Your kind no longer travel here freely, how did you make the pilgrimage?"

Murrey
You watch the battle unfold through the sensors of the van. The woman seems to take a completely defensive posture as one of the cloaked figures approach her. You watch as a single sword emerges from a back sheath and takes a measuring strike against her. The blades clang from contact, both seem skilled and seasoned.

The computer informs you of a power surge as the electric shock system registers a contact. Puling up a seperate screen you see a body convulse from contact with the exterior of the van. A small bundle lays on the ground near the attacker's feet, dropped by his spasming hands. The cloaking tech seems to be disrupted by the electrical shock.

As you glance back to the other sensor feed, you see a second figure has engaged the woman. This one appears to be using a thin, whip-like weapon. Her body contorts as she works to keep the monofilament from her body.

"We were brought unto the threshold of your Kin's realm by the aid of an ancient spirit. If we trespass, you have my humblest apologies. Your realm was not chosen by our group with purpose, but it seems to be what has been written. What is to be the next step on our path lays in your hands."

What the heck is all the stuff anyways. None of this matches up with anything I've ever been told about the Metaplains...

Hot drek, guess their intel wasn't so hot after all. Murrey thinks to himself as he guns the van viscously forward towards the olympic class grenade catcher to finish him off, as the van is just starting to surge forward he issues orders into the system. Double burst visible target, offensive grenade on previous van position.
Sneering, he thinks These slitches will learn not to come near this van, or at least their employers will. Now, is the creepy sword lady a spirit or just a very boring phys-ad? If I can at least corral these guys i can help her/it in a moment.

Questers
The grey expanse around you seems to constrict slightly as the voice echoes out from all around. "You should choose your words more carefully. Nothing living stays long in my embrace. They pass to one of my sisters after too long. If it is your will, what remains to you in this, then travel this place. You will find me after a time. All things come to me here."

Murrey
The van lurches forward, slamming into the prone body effortlessly. The vehicle shudders slightly at the impact. The sensor feeds overlay in your mind as the Lynx registers two solid contacts with the target, all aimed for center of mass. You recieve a flare of thermographic activity as the heat from the gunplay and split blood wash over the form of the agressor. A second later a grenade detonates where the van once was. It clearly catches the figure gunned by the drone but as to the others, the sensor distortion makes it hard to tell.

"As you wish."

Lowering his voice, not to hide it from the misterss of this realm but to signify that he is addressing his companions rather than the world at large.

"Is there a direction any wish to head? If not I shall lead on the same direction we have walked. The images as far as I can tell are those of people who have lost their way or been unable to cope with the path laid before them. Has everyone seen the same thing in the windows or is this yet another trick of these planes and we each have our own vision?"

Murrey
The sensors show another distorted figure entering the fray with the woman. She moves as much as possible but seems to take a shallow cut along her side. As she rolls to avoid blow you watch as her body unflods and her blades sing out. She whirls scoring a hit on her first attacker. Using the the momentum from her strike she pivots and lands a slash to chest of the second. She locks blades with the last agressor but fails to score a solid hit. As she stands once again in a defensive stance, a patch of air ripples as mana pours into it and the sensors register a shift from one of the distorted figures. The cimputer shows no movement.

You are ripped back to your fight as someone unloads on your back right tire. Another person opens fire on your driver side window. The last combatant opens fire along the side of the van.

Bakatare takes a moment to describe what he sees in a nearby window, and confirm with the others.

"It appears each window is unique, and we are all seeing the same thing. Please, lead on. This is your test, after all."

"You might as well lead...this place is a total drag."

Shiver nods and leads on. Scanning the realm around him for evidence that others have been through here or the possibility of a trail to the mistress of this realm, he leads the team in the same direction they have been walking. At random, he looks into the windows he passes by trying to determine where they are looking in on.

Questers
The scenes as you pass all show souls giving up and being crushed under the weight of their own lives. The sea of faces swallow you whole as you see person after person dead inside. A numbness begins to eat at the edges of your thoughts. The place seems to feed on the lack of feeling, the absence of violation. The heavy pull of darker feelings and impulses.

As the group moves along the air seems to grow danker and soon your skin crawls with a layer of moisture heavy with iron and bitter. You soon find the taste lining your throat.

Murrey
You see the woman twist and turn as you assume another attack is launched against her. A blossom of heat registers on your sensors, a new cut along her right side.

Questers
You make out a glimmer ahead in the distance. As you move forward, you begin to make out a woman squatting in the grey expanse. She is naked and her body bloated. Her skin glistens with thin trails of blood from small wounds all over her body. She is starting intently into a small window, crooning to herself as she works a barbed hook on her right ring finger into the meat of her cheek. The stench of blood and body odor assualts your senses.

Waving his hand in front of his nose in a subconscious effort to purge the scent crawling insidiously through his body, Shiver steps forward.

"Aponoia, I presume. I have crossed your land to stand the trial so that my group may return to Locket."

The large troll twists the ring on his hand, a matching pair to the woman before him.

Paladin stays back a step, trying to keep away from the stench, but then realizes it may mean he'd get left behind, so he joins the group once more with a grimce.

Bakatare sighed internally as Shiver continued to use the name that had aggravated the twisted Dweller in the the little girls skin. He fights the morbid urge to look over the window Aponia was looking through, keeping his eyes on the bloated figure instead.

Malicious as she was, the facade was perferrable to the naked, obvious displays of the concepts these gods? were personified from.

Frag!
As Murrey maneuvers the van away from attacks and the impending blast he spots some puddles of mud, or at least a reasonable proximity thereof; crossing his mental fingers as he fishtails through the soft spots, revving the tires past what is needed for the terrain, flinging mud like so much paint, hoping that at least a few of these bastards will wind up dirty enough to be picked up.
TADS, rescan for targets

Questers
The naked hunger and lust on her face repels you as she glances in your direction. "Locket? It appears age does not grant wisdom as it once did. It has borne no name for centuries and I doubt it would want one from such a small being as yourself." She turns from the portal, still digging the barb through her cheek as she speaks. "As for a trial, you have little that I want or need." The moist noise of her breathing flls the air while she speaks.

Murrey
The van whips around and sprays out loose dirt and mud as the vehicle does a tight doughnut. You feel the strain of the van through the cybernetic connection of the VCR.

"Each moment of life brings us what we need and takes what price is demanded. She cares not for the name but has made no request for me to not call her such, everything in creation must have a name, including those wicked shadows that crawl in darkness whose names are best unspoken."

Shiver twists the ring on his large finger, looking to the sharp points and edges. The hook had torn flesh and been quenched in blood twice this day.

"If you have nothing which you desire from us, please allow us to return to the threshold that we may come upon a new experience under the tender mercies of your brothers and sisters. Though, a question if you will answer it. Why is one of the Mirrors upon the threshold dark and a land closed to all?"

Questers
Her eyes take on a deep emptiness. "One of our number has left us and no longer answers our calls from the Gallery. He has barred his realm to our passage. Olethros has long been absent from my thoughts and I miss him deeply. I find myself incomplete though the others do not seem to care as much." As she speaks she pauses the digging into her flesh and the weak flow of blood begins to diminish from the wound. She seems to return to herself and with a grunt digs the barb in deeper.

"Naming things is a dangerous game, if you do not understand what you name you could free something dark and terrible in the process. Or worse yet, not capture the entirety of the thing and leave it wounded and dying." Her eyes begins to gleam and glow with frank greed when she describes the anguish of such a situation. She drags the barb deeper down her cheek, renewing the river of blood and tissue flowing down her face and neck.

"As for leaving, I must regrettably inform you that I too am bound by rules in this. Since you were not invited to this realm by my will alone I cannot allow to depart without a tithe to my office. I assume since you carry my sigil you were the one to open the door?" She looks back to the portal as she speaks the last part, her desire to watch whatever was unfolding overriding all else.

Murrey
As the van whips around you are rewarded with a bloom of sensors contacts around the vehicle. Your system registers three distinct targets in the area around you. You watch as two of the three targets begins a rapid retreat from the van, each taking a different vector of escape.

On a smaller screen in your mind, you see the battle unfold around the swordswoman. She appears to be holding her ground but not making significant strides in reducing their numbers. She appears to be shouting something at them in Japanese as she battles to keep the blades from her body.

A smile creeping across his dead to the world lips notes the deep satisfaction with the thought that these fraggers will meet the Great Ghost shortly.
Hot drek, a break! All Lynx: Fire at newly aquired targets.

Crossing his digital fingers for luck, Murrey opens up into the blurry areas near Onna, hoping to assist her in some small way.
Lynx #1 opens fire, 1 double burst for two targets close together.
Lynx#2 opens fire with it's MP-5, double burst into the third.

"I was a part of opening the door, though it took the sacrifice of another to complete the task."

Shiver's glance flickers over to Desdemona. He had the feeling that things were about to get worse.

Paladin's guts tightened as he prepared for the worst.

:: Through their journey in this new realm, Moira has remained utterly silent. Her gaze into each macabre setting jars her spirit to the core. In each desolute window she sees not just the pain, despair and detacted numbness of the particapants of each scene but her own emotional deadness reflected back at her. She too experienced tragic events in her life, and like these broken people, she retreated within, hoarding the saddness and despair around her heart like an iron shield instead of releasing it and embracing the life those she loved had lost. ::

:: Unable to see anything but her own face superimposed on every actor, she began to shiver uncontrollably as the brutal relevations assualted her. The truth, undisguised and painfully clear, is that this is her current destiny. An eternity of empty emotion, a heart dead and poisoned against caring for fear of reliving the pain, yet forever trapped within that pain as a result. She didn't know how to turn back, away from this dark and wretched future, and nothing had ever scared her more. ::

:: Thinking back to the realm of Potmos, she remembers her path. She knows that she cannot choose a different path then the one she has already traveled, but she remembers the spiderweb of choices that had laid before her. Up until this moment, she didn't care which path was chosen before her. The pain of her loss was so tremendous that she had remained convinced that the destination at the end of each path could never rival the hell she had already lived through. This realm said otherwise. Oh how wrong she had been. ::

Questers
"So being the one that opened the door, you must pay the price of passage back to the Gallery." Now her interest has been caught. She turns from the small portal and begins to look over each member of the group. As her gaze settles on each of you, you feel a dark weight press around and a moldy taste fill your mouth. Your skin crawls as your feel moist hands grope over your body and something push around in your guts like writhing worms. A small smile plays across her lips as she goes from member to member.

Desdemona
You hear a voice laughing in your mind and a woman's urgent whispering. As you struggle to make out the words all you make out are "......she must not know...."

Bakatare
"All things carry a price Michael." Potmos appears to be addressing you directly. "For denying me and forcing your passage to this realm I bind you to tell no lie about yourself or your magic since it was that vanity that lead to this. Bear my judgement and remember well the lesson learned here this day." This moment is dragged from your mind and played over and over again.

Paladin
You hear a voice, wounded and pained. "I'm a freak and he knew it. I was an idiot. All I wanted was someone to want ME but it was clear he didn't. I threw myself all over him. I'm such a fragging idiot." As you struggle to place the voice it snaps into place. Izzy, the changling child you found outside the scene of the massacre. The sound of pain drips from every word, and the self loathing seems to choke out everything else. "What's wrong with me......."

Moira
The smell of smoke chokes you and your eyes sting. You hear his screams, going on and on. You smell the burning flesh and hear him call for you.

Shiver
She ends with you, you watch each companion stiffen under her gaze. You feel nothing as she looks at you. A sickly sweet smile rests on her features. "My price is simple." As she speaks she digs the barb deep into the side of her neck. "I require the presence of the one within her." She spares a glance in Desdemona's direction.

Shiver waits expectantly until Aponoia's gaze falls upon him. No pain is wrought from her gaze, nothing dredged up out of his past as he had been expecting--blood would have been to simple for this being's tastes.

The words coil deep within him, he can almost feel his will turn against him. The price must be paid, Necessity demanded it.

She would hate him for bringing her here. This world was not meant for her, pain and despair would weaken her--better to let her other half revel and sulk.

There will be a price that each must pay...not paying it will hurt more than the payment...

Shiver looks down to the ring with the sharp barb, each crisp edge gleaming wickedly in the endless twilight of this place. His gaze locks with Bakatare.

"I thought I knew your pain before. To be caught adrift in the world without direction, I believed that to be the worst feeling I could ever know. I was wrong, accept my apologies for thinking your pain so simple and not feeling the depth and breadth of such a price."

The troll crosses to stand before Desdemona, sliding the large ring off his finger as he moves.

"Tender Angel, I do not know if my words can reach you. Please, come home to your body of flesh and bone. Push this dark demon aside and smile upon my face one last time. Remember our walks in the park, long nights sitting across from each other while we read. Remember the blueberry pancakes."

Weary with age and the numbing cold that has sunk into his bones throughout the journey across this realm, Shiver sinks to his knees.

"Please forgive me Angelina. This was never my intention, she told me to watch you, talk with you, understand you. She never thought about what our proximity would do, or where memory would take me. Please little sister, forgive me for loving you."

Electric blue irises shine out from Shiver's black scaled face, wet with tears.

Murrey
The system comes alive around you as the drone all acquire targets and the sound of chambers spinning fill the air. You watch the gunfire from the network cut down bodies in rapid succession. Their bodies spasm from the force and trauma of the barrage. You focus in the sensors, hoping to catch some of the conversation occurring near your ally of the moment.

".......what does the Ito clan dogs want here?" You pick up no reply from her attackers.

Desdemona was bored. She had figured the realm of pain and sorrow would be a much more interesting place. Perhaps it was the fact that she wasn't the instigator in all this suffering. That there was another mistress of this realm.

She had been doing amazingly well in curbing her acidic tounge towards Aponia. Unlike Locket, she could tell here just where she ranked, and as much as it stung, it wasn't at the top. She was just ready to complete the challenge here and be on to the next realm.

Desdemona didn't quite understand the price, though. The one dwelling within? But...she was who she was. How could she be anyone different? Walks in the park? Blueberry pancakes? What was that drivel? But...it did seem strangely familiar...and the voice that she had heard while under Aponia's gaze...

Memories of her other self started to melt away at Desdemona's stony heart. Paired with Shiver's plea, a rare occurance took place: the demon ceded power before her alotted time.

The transformation back to her angelic self was far less traumatic than the transformations the others had previously seen. When it was done, Angelina stood before the group. Looking around, bewildered, her eyes caught on Aponia. She stepped backwards, wishing to be anywhere but in the presence of this mistress of pain and sorrow. Tearing her gaze from the dark mistress, she looked upon her bastion of strenght. "Where?" she asked.

As the sickness left Paladin, it was replaced by confussion. He threw himself at me? Am I that blind? I didn't mean to make him hurt like that... I didn't even know...

:: Moira crumbles under the weight of the pain that is dropped on her shoulders. She had known she would have to face the tradegy that shaped her life, but to be forced to face it by this evil cruel being was almost too much for her to withstand. ::

:: Dropping to her knees, she cries. She cries so hard her throat becomes raspy and ruined, but as she cries, she sees not just the horrid images this beast displays in her mind, but she sees herself in one of the twisted shadowboxes that litter this demon's realm. She cannot allow that to happen, cannot allow the memory of her family twist her into something that would shame them. But how can she find a way to get past this pain, this utter desperate pain? ::

Paladin shakes off what is going on in his head and looks down at Moira's sobbing form. Whatever it was that she saw, it sure hit harder than what Aponia attacked him with. He kneels down next to his companion and places a gentle hand on her shoulder. Having no idea what is going on in her mind, he stays silent, but leaves his hand there as a silent reminder that he is there if she needs him.