Private Orphiad: Unto the Breach

[Sargon Vynea]

Hope was the strength of the light, and Spencer had been without it for too long. Reaching out his mind towards her essence he added her to the meld and did the only thing he could. He showed her the light where Asha waited on the other side at the exit, and peace. The race was there's alone, so hungry was the beast for it's meal it seemed to ignore all others. So he showed the path through the gate, past the river and the light at the end of the tunnel to them both.

His legs pumped as he tried to keep up, but he knew he couldn't, not even the short term. So instead he stopped as they reached groups of Sith who were fighting to keep the path open and shouted out orders to retreat back to the gate as he moved. He was becoming torn though as they carried on farther ahead, his vision split between the group and each growing more distant from each other. He simply charged ahead only trust in the force keeping him from falling on a body or twisted root.

He didn't focus on any of it though Ashin had his strength and his Queen would find victory with or without it. Instead he focused on the essence of Spencer Varanin and simply tried to pour peace into her. To survive such a dark place for so long would damage anyone, but he had faith in her. She was a quiet strength that most forgot besides Ashin, but Sargon had seen it time and time again in her. Anyone who believed Spencer Varanin weak compared to anyone, even Ashin simply misunderstood strength.

Ashin Cardé Varanin Kaalia Pavanos Noelle Varanin Arcturus Dinn Kal Seydon of Arda

 

[Arthos Vynea]

The damn fool was going to get himself killed, and as much as he wished he could claim he didn't give a damn he still did. He followed behind them blindly like a whipped dog to foolish to know he was already forgotten. With a lunge Arthos barely cut off another blackened arm as it neared his brother's side, and the fool charged on as if unaware. The man was a fool who trusted too much in a tool that should be controlled.

It be useless to tell him again though, he'd simply say the force knew he'd block the blow so there was no reason for Sargon too as well. How do you argue with such insanity. Turning his eyes ahead though he knew he couldn't afford to stay back here if he wanted to get out. That door closed with Ashin and his prize. He didn't know how it worked, but he knew the power of that one, if it could be done they'd be the ones to do it.

Sending a thought out to Ayvari Dorian he pressed on to keep pace with the race to the gate. He would not be left behind in this purgatory any longer, even if the alternative was simply to cease to exist. Glancing behind he damned himself as he sent another telekinetic blast to clear Sargon's rear again, the man would be the death of him yet. Laughing at the irony of the thought he continued onwards, freedom would be his.

Ashin Cardé Varanin Spencer Varanin Noelle Varanin Kal Kaalia Pavanos

 

[Noelle Varanin]

Noelle movements stood still as her parents burst through the bubble she had struggled towards. Her breath left her, every thought crystallizing to to one poignant sensation.

Joy.

"Mom!"

She didn't hear her own ear-shattering exclamation. Instinct took over. Muscles moved, fighting to follow after her parent's path. Ashin would leave her behind, the knowledge dropped like a stone in her gut. She didn't acknowledge it, focusing on trying to keep pace.

Holding one's own in the Netherworld was a trial in itself. Noelle quickly found herself at the back of the pack, where the creatures descended upon the hardest. The battle slowed them. She felt the space between her and her mothers draw distant.

Keeping pace turned into simply staying alive. Her form remained solid now. She moved with deadly grace, fueled by her own desperation and determination. "Help my mother!" She ordered to Kal , ducking the blade of one of their peers as they caught a creature at Noelle's side. The backline stood bundled, a knot of bodies protecting all sides. They were moments from being cut off from the pack.

It didn't dawn on the girl to leave them behind.

 

[Lief]

A change came over the group.​

​

Even from her place on the edge of the chasm, Asha could feel it. Her intuitive connection with Sargon bridged that gap, a gap which could have spanned a hundred thousand stars if necessary. Her meditations grew deeper, all thoughts of tea and lost friends pushed to the wayside. She was being drawn upon, by the Iridonian, by whomever else he saw fit to lend that strength to, but it was not enough to just idly sit by.​

​

The deeper she sank, the more her will expanded. And by virtue of the bond they'd temporarily formed, so too did her presence shine from Sargon. It was his eyes, his senses, which allowed her to hone in on the group, she provided boon to their cause. Ordinarily, the art of battle meditation would have had adverse effects upon their enemies too... But what could one truly do to demoralize vacuous shades of nothing?​

​

Either way, if nothing else she would continue to be a beacon, that which Sargon had asked of her, no doubt they would need that soon enough.​

​

Sargon Vynea Ashin Cardé Varanin Spencer Varanin Noelle Varanin Kal Kaalia Pavanos ​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

It all happened at once.​

​

Their slow trudge through was turned back on its head as another was pulled forth into their strange grouping, and their focus became the way they had come from. All at once, seemingly at the drop of a pin, the haunting voice which accompanied the orchestra of his mind was gone. All at once, out like a light. But he did not feel disconnected from it all the same, nothing had been severed. There was simply no further use.​

​

Had she been the cause?​

​

He didn't have time to mull on it. Didn't even really have time to look at the one brought forth from that seeping, unnatural darkness. They had to get out.​

​

They had to get out now.​

​

It wasn't immediately that he realized she was lagging behind. Somehow, some way, Noelle was being forgotten by those who charged on ahead. And as soon as he took note of it, Thesh - despite every damn instinct screaming at him to just rush on ahead also, to get the heck out of there - pulled back. He wouldn't let her be lost in this place.​

​

Wouldn't let her be forgotten.​

​

"Come on," he said to her, and the others who were also lagging, "You need to get to the gate..!"​

​

He held a hand out toward Noelle, hoping that if she took it they could ward off some of that creeping darkness for a little while longer. That she would not simply succumb to the sickly lullaby which fluttered up around his senses and threatened to suffocate the very breath from his lungs. He was the nobody here, the link in the chain that was replaceable. Nobody would mourn his passing.​

​

But that couldn't be the fate for her.​

​

Noelle Varanin Kal Ashin Cardé Varanin Spencer Varanin Sargon Vynea Kaalia Pavanos ​

 

[Ayvari Dorian]

He had called.​

​

Sheer force of will alone brought her to his side. It was different here, for those who had wondered as long as they had. For those no longer beholden to some earthly body. Not better, oh certainly not better, it was a constant fight not to lose oneself, to be dragged into the shadows until all that remained in their wake were more shades, but different.​

​

As she materialized alongside him her vibroblade was already in hand, as though she had anticipated this very thing. In a way she had. The two of them spent far too much time together in this place. It had been different before he arrived, lonely, so many of her memories had been ripped from her mind already. Fed to the void.​

​

She said nothing as she joined the line. Said nothing as her blade cut through same as theirs. Didn't even look at the one named Arthos. She had followed him through hell, what was a little more of that between friends?​

​

Arthos Vynea ​

 

[Kal]

Just like that, Ashin found her wife and pulled her from the clutches of the darkness that had been consuming her... but she was not clear yet. Deeper in the shadowy reaches of the Dreaming Dark, whatever strange beast that had sought to consume her called out. No thank you.​

Ashin would gladly abandon them all to save her love, he suspected - including her own daughter. A daughter that was once more lagging behind and ordering him to help her mother. Fortunately for her, he was under no obligation whatsoever to obey her commands. <Do you want to know the difference between heroes and idiots? Heroes survive to tell the tale.> At the same time, the redhead from earlier had the same idea.​

Only unlike Arcturus Dinn Kal did not care overmuch what happened to the other stragglers. Especially Ashin's pet Adepts.​

"He is right. Hurry." Disregarding the tact most seem to apply to conversations with royalty, he prodded her along even as he projected his observations directly into her mind. <Your mother will abandon you in her quest to save your other mother. Will prioritise her over you. Move it.>​

Alright, so maybe there was just a bit of suggestion in there. She was in a vulnerable state, after all.​

Noelle Varanin​

 

[Sargon Vynea]

Mom. One simple word changed everything on the map again for him in a single moment. Of course, a child they had a child he'd never met and of course that child would be brave enough to test this hell for her parents. He should have realized this before now and not been so derelict in his duties. There was no point wasting thought on the error, it was simply time to correct it.

Leaving the path clear for his Queens he pulled back some of his awareness as he turned back and ran to the rear and the small group trying to hold it. Count a Varanin to try to hold the impossible, just don't be shocked when they succeed. Taking up a place between the violence and Noelle Varanin he glanced over the situation quickly and knew it was already done. Moving his eyes over those who aided her it seemed the Varanin talent for creating bond hadn't been lost on this one.

"My lady, apologies but they are right. You will be needed when your mother revives also, she's rested too long in the darkness. She will need her families strength and love to escape that completely. It's a noble heart that seeks to save all her soldiers, but they can't retreat while you're still here. Please head to the gate so they can retreat after you."

Kal Arcturus Dinn Spencer Varanin Ashin Cardé Varanin Kaalia Pavanos

 

[Seydon of Arda]

Gouts of dark fire poured from the air between his fingertips. The conflagration surged outward in a roiling tidal cone, cremating foulness, blasting to charr and ash hellish things writhing on recurved hind-legs. Forestry recoiled at the black heat, before the earth bugled tremulously, knots of undergrowth roots that colour of dead flesh and swollen with watery lodes clawing out from the stone and pale dirt. Further bestial things emerged sprinting from mists of stridulating scarabs that beat a terrible off-rhythm of chitinous winging. The Dreaming Dark rebelled against the scent of victory as the battlers slowly extricated towards the seething, iridescent gate. The ground was awash with un-blood soaking so thickly into the broken earth that brackish, bubbling puddles steamed in the chilled air. Overhead, the storm worsened. Living winds shrieked and howled. Great shadows of great deathlings stalked behind the cover of blood-red clouds, their steps reverberating, trembling the un-world. Punishment unlike anything dreamt of in the minds of the worst Dark Lords would unfetter soon.

Seydon withdrew; pulling Razorlight from the stones, he plied away from the portal. Down the steady slope towards the great treeline wall of grotesquely knotted woods. Stepping into spinning strokes, controlling the flood of unreal bodies through low slashes and high cleaves that rent bone and ragged sinew. Step, guard, pirouette, parry-and-counter-stroke with the same motion, alternating between clockwise and counter-clockwise slices that were baffling to follow and even more difficult to fend off. He utilized strictly the very sword tip and his swords’ point-of-percussion, negating tremor and shock, controlling, alternating, warping and alternating attack lines until he was insulated in a eddy of liquid steel. He cocked one wrist, severed an antlered skull, twisted the other and parried a blow clawing at his haunches and caved the offending thing’s rib-cage in. Guarded high and slipped Winterfang round, stepping out of the assault line, gnashing the sword edge down through shoulder-bone and spinal grit. Seydon lashed out with Razorlight, knocking over skulls with the blade-flat, pirouetting and gliding the frigid sword-edge through exposed midriffs and backbone trunks. The slope was awash, fountaining cataracts of pouring gore. There was no counting the undead falling.

Seydon reached the edges of the damned forest, cutting through a dozen hellthings that peeled free from the bark and tried dropping onto his shoulders. Dark blood, his own, ran hot and free from a score of rending lacerations carved deeply down his scalp, torso trunk, and legs. A portion of the chase gnawing at the heels of Ashin’s cadre had diverted to follow. He snagged a small phial from his harness, swigged the alchemical draught, felt his nerve-endings light up with pain as the concoction took effect. Surface capillaries across his face and exposed skin swarmed black, throbbing. His cat-eyes went slit as stilettos, bright as harvest moons in the unholy shade. Seydon cut and struck Razorlight through a cavorting body, whirling and loosing the blade in a throw. It speared a braying cervine off its feet and trapped it fast in the living wood of a twisting elm. His hands gripped Winterfang, executing a whirlwind velocity of shearing cuts that dismantled limbs, hewed skulls free of throats, and bissected bodies from brow to scrotum. The steel glowed with arctic light, gore steaming and melting off its sheen. He spared a hand and reached overhead, teeth gritted in rictus; a pike of lightning fell into his touch, held rapt by dark Force power. Seydon grunted, shifted his heels, and plunged the rippling, spidering beam into the forest floor.

White-hot fire cascaded up through rents in the forest floor. Light seemed to blink. Darkspawn haunting too close burst where they strode, wracked by arcs of thirty-thousand amp plasma. Seydon enjoyed an all-too brief moment of breathing room, before the Dreaming Dark ceased flinching and loosed bowel-churning roar akin to the roar of opening graves. Seydon counter-hacked a goat-horned thing through its belly, reversed the edge and cleaved up through skin-draped ribs and the bridge of its collarbone. He spun, loosing a wall of crushing Force Push, tossing Winterfang to his off-hand and discharging a pyromantic stream. More dark fire, devouring, speeding up the writhing trunks of un-boughs and sentient leaf canopies, torching the goblins leering from where they thought the Dream’s shadow insulated them. Whatever still living that capered and fell off their perches, Seydon minced before they struck the ground.

Ashin, he thought. Have your good ending. I don’t want one. I know what I deserve and its this. See you around.

And the last anyone saw of Seydon for a time was a back-lit figure disappearing into the forestry, casting flame and sparks, snapping a bright sword through body and bough. Hands of shadow reached and snatched him back into the deeper cradles of the Dreaming Dark, where the struggle went on unseen as concussive tremors wracked through the earth and cracked open ichor-draped stone…

Ashin Cardé Varanin Sargon Vynea

 

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Noelle Varanin //: Kal //:

​

Quinn was late.​

Quinn was always late, especially to this. She didn't know how to properly mourn their mother and had covered the emotions she had been feeling with an attempt at love. Being abandoned once more by someone she cared about only destroyed her once again. Forcing her to feel her mother's death and Vesta's abandonment.​

Numerous times Noelle reached out for the girl; every time, Quinn refused. She was angry with their mother, both of them. That anger prevented her from being with her family. Still, reluctantly she followed along but refused participation. It was then, she heard in the back of her mind the panic in Noelle's voice. She shouted to something - someone she had never met, and they had spoken back.​

They had found her; they had found their mother. Wistful hope blossomed, but Quinn felt the creeping sensation of loss once more. She knew their Mother Spencer was Ashin's focus. Quinn knew this because, like Ashin, Quinn's focus was always on her Paramore. As much as she wanted to keep her nose out of this, hearing Noelle's struggle was tormenting the echani's heart. Thought of losing her sister filled her mind until she moved where she stood and headed straight for Noelle.​

As much as their parents care for one another, Quinn couldn't lose Noelle. That loss was far more significant than losing a parent or a lover; Noelle was her better half - someone that was with her from the moment life was conceived.​

"NOELLE!" Quinn shouted, moving past the others as they tried to escape. She watched her sister become swarmed by the creatures that were following their parents. She didn't care anymore - nothing else mattered besides her sister. "NOELLE!" She shouted again, summoning the Force from a place she had never tapped into. Being the child of a Master once regarded as the Chosen One, Quinn gathered everything she could and leaped forward, crashing in the middle of where her sister was. The blast of the Force shot outward, pushing back the enemies as the bright yellow of Ashin's old lightsaber shined through.​

"Let's go." Her voice stressed, but Quinn did her best to sound hopeful. Even if they did get left behind - at least they were together. The creatures moved, getting up from their shock, lunged at Quinn, who whipped the yellow ion blade so quickly the color bent and sliced through the nearest creature. "Run, Noelle, I'll cover you." ​

 

[Spencer Varanin]

//: Ashin Cardé Varanin //: Sargon Vynea //:
​

This all had to be a dream. To see her wife fighting monsters and demons to save her, it all had to be a dream. The ethereal shape that was the soul of Spencer Varanin began to take the form of the woman she once was. Blonde hair, amber eyes, delicate porcelain skin, all of it becoming more and more real. Looking up, Spencer saw the age of the woman she loved, her better half. War and worry weighed upon the features she felt she only dreamed about. ​

Lips moved, but no sound echoed against Ashin’s ears. The roar of the beast clawing at the savior’s heels made the only sound. Spencer didn’t dare look, knowing that if she did - Ashin’s journey would be all for nothing because it meant to save the woman. Spencer would do anything, even give up her second chance at life. ​

Was it selfish to hold on? The pair was probably anything but selfish, continually needing the other - demanding what was rightfully theirs. Spencer wouldn’t have lived her life any other way. A hand reached up and caressed gently the face she couldn’t quite feel just yet. ​

A soft smile. “Just like old times.” her voice echoing in the Sith Lord’s mind. In an instant, Ashin would feel the boon of the Force - Spencer feeding her savior with the purity of the Force that she embodied. Through the Force she continued to feel Sargon Vynea , he like always sacrificed everything he could for her, he was a brother - family. His strength along with the others, helped the woman. Everything together, it was enough for Spencer to keep the Ashin moving while retaining the ethereal form of her soul. ​

She was selfish; she wanted to live; she wanted her life back. Spencer Varanin wasn’t done with the Galaxy - even if it thought it was done with her.​

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"Just like old times," Ashin whispered back, and crashed through the soap-bubble rift.

The real Netherworld - the uttermost featureless Void - came as a tangible relief as they left the Dreaming Dark. This side of the portal was dead silent in a way she found self-destructively relaxing. Far off, she could see the ferrymen waiting to take back everyone who'd come here in their physical forms. Spencer, however, would be coming back another way.

She tried to kiss her wife and found the shredded spirit intangible; holding onto it, feeling Spencer's touch, had been an exception and not the rule. Instead Ashin touched Spencer's face with the red glove over her missing hand. She'd had the Aksifas alchemists of the Pomojema make that glove so she could grab spirits and other intangibles, and it was the glove that had let her carry Spencer free of the Dreaming Dark. Now it let her make a brief contact, droid hand to naked soul, no nerves or sensation on either side - and yet fulfilling.

"See you soon."

With all the power that Spencer and Sargon had given her, with every scrap of strength she'd sacrificed to gain, Ashin invoked the essence transfer. Sith magic gripped Spencer's ghost and yanked her entirely out of the Netherworld.

Spencer would wake up in a clone body, in a Spaarti cylinder aboard the Pomojema. Medical staff stood ready to decant her and give her whatever she needed. The effort ripped power out of Ashin, near exhausted her.

Sword in hand, she turned back to the portal to the Dreaming Dark. "Zhol kash dinora," she mumbled to herself in High Sith: It is finished. And for a contemptible moment she pondered just walking away. Spencer was, after all, everything.

Madness backed off. Quinn was in there, and Noelle, and trusted allies like Sargon and Kaalia and Seydon, and plenty of others. If she'd had her full strength at hand, she'd have spent it all and ripped them out of the grasp of the Dreaming Dark. Instead she drew Entropy again, the greatest sword that Rave Merrill ever forged, the one built to cut nearly anything. And with her off hand she drew the Waythorne, built to cut nearly anything in a completely different yet compatible way.

She cracked her neck and did a terrible thing. Stepping right up to the rift, the portal, she poured all her will into the two blades - Merrill's bastard sword and Dissero's little knife - and slashed through it in a broad, asymmetric X.

The soap-bubble distortion warped and bulged. The creeping gloom of the Dreaming Dark poured out like a lanced boil and took a tenacious hold on this little part of the Void. With it poured out many - not nearly all - of those who'd gone in. Ashin sheathed her blades again. Behind the ripped portal, dark things rippled hungrily. She looked at Noelle Varanin , and Quinn Varanin , Kal the construct, Sargon Vynea , Kaalia Pavanos , Arcturus Dinn , the strangers Arthos Vynea and Ayvari Dorian, a dozen from the Pomojema. No Seydon, and other known faces were in there too, lost for now or forever.

The gaping portal settled down to its normal soap-bubble state, but larger, more distinct, and surrounded by the Dreaming Dark's tangible gloom. Whatever that twisted place really was, she'd given it a much greater foothold in the true Netherworld. The consequences could be eternal.

Without a word to the allies who'd risked so much, Ashin turned and limped for the boats.


OOC/ My profound thanks to all of you who've participated in this months-long quest to resurrect Spencer. Good times were, I hope, had by all. Better believe there'll be treats to follow.

​

 

[Noelle Varanin]

For all of her efforts, it would be the hands of others that would see Noelle out. Kal's words were cruel, but true. Faces she didn't know turned heel-- stopped to offer her the same consideration she tried to show the acolytes at her side.

But it wasn't the Acolytes they cared about escorting out, it was her. Daughter of the Varanins. Eldest. Matriarch. Even if it was just for a moment more-- she was the head of the Echani line. She watched Ashin's back dip out of the portal, her mother not looking back.

Her pain brought forward a familiar figure, her sister's soul felt before it was seen.

"Run, Noelle, I'll cover you."

In a reversal of roles, it was Quinn who stood tall over Noelle. War scarred and without fear, it was Quinn who possessed the skill to drive the creatures back. There was no time for Noelle to gape. For once, the stubborn girl listened--

Realty ripped out from under her, dumping her back onto the solid grit of the Netherworld. Noelle panted on her hands and knees, her peers left in similar states around her. Her fingers reached out, groping until it found a set of slim fingers.

She let out a shutter of relief, her fingers squeezing over her twin's. She did not look Ashin's way, shame mixing with anger inside her chest. Everything was different now. But for the better, or...

Manners be damned, she let herself fall onto her back, welcoming the tangible embrace of the ground. One thing was certain--

Hell never felt so good.

 

[Kal]

Evidently, Arcturus Dinn and he had not been alone in noticing Noelle's plight, as the sudden stream of assistance made clear; Sargon Vynea made quite the striking figure, for one, as did the newly-arrived Quinn Varanin - had he not seen her since their first encounter he might have been surprised, but everything he had observed since had indicated that she was quite the up-and-coming young Sith.​

Not all that surprising, given her parentage; mortals were oh-so-fond of their bloodlines, weren't they?​

Before he had the chance to react to these changing circumstances, he felt a distinct sense of impending change and then he and most near him found themselves ripped from the Dreaming Dark's icy caress and planted firmly back in home sweet home, the greater Nether.​

"Well. That's certainly one way to leave. I hope you are all in one pi-" Voice trailing off as his gaze fell upon the expanded presence of the Dreaming Dark, he let loose the telepathic equivalent of a sharp intake, his concern quite evident. "No no no, what did she do?"​

Eyes glowing just a bit brighter, he glared at the retreating figure of Ashin Cardé Varanin - had the woman gone completely mad?​

Noelle Varanin​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Others flocked back to ensure Noelle's safe escape, some of whom he didn't recognize from the excursion.​

​

Their pace became hurried once more, as the Dreaming Dark sought to sap the very will from within them. Any longer and he felt certain he'd have succumbed along with many of the others, those nameless allies who were dragged into the darkness, who never made it to the bubbling portal.​

​

He was one of the last to come through. He practically leapt through it as the others left and fear welled up within. That he'd be left behind too. The stranger amidst so many who knew one another.​

​

There was a relief which seemed to wash over each of them when they stepped out into the Netherworld, it might have seemed as though they had been returned to the Galaxy. They hadn't, of course, the journey was far from over... But it was safer here, surely.​

​

Back to the boats... Back along that river... Did they have a way out? The one heading the expedition didn't seem to care, didn't look back to see if anyone else had made it out, though who could blame her. The object of her affections was recovered, but they were not yet safe.​

​

His gaze fell upon Kal as he expressed frustrations, though Thesh could not immediately understand why it was. He followed the shade's gaze to the portal, noticing something slightly off about it. "What?" he asked, turning back to the shade, "What's wrong?"​

​

Though he had no intentions of remaining by the portal, he began to head to the boats alongside the others. The last thing he needed was to end up back in there again...​

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Kal Noelle Varanin Ashin Cardé Varanin Spencer Varanin Sargon Vynea Quinn Varanin Kaalia Pavanos ​