The Mage of Mind

Entirely and utterly confused. Oh, and Kaeri may use this account from time to time, she'll sign her shit with ~APdox.

[disastrousshenanigans-blog]

==> AP: Finish up the tale.

Your name is Kaeri, and the most important thing in the world, the only thing you haven’t let the shadows take away from you, lies dead before you—under you, you suppose, since you’re weaving around in the air like an invisible madwoman. An apt descriptor, that. It’s a good thing you have never claimed to be particularly sane. Indeed, your brand of madness is partially why you and Darien came out here to begin with on this foolish suicide mission.

Your name is Kaeri, and, at the moment, you are a Queen. The Void Ring’s powers keep you hidden from sight, you think. You would look down to see, but unfortunately, that process requires the eyes you ripped from your own face long ago, and again in a particularly bad fit of madness shortly after you’d Ascended a god. The Whispers come to you all the time, now, but you remember after Ascension there had been one blessedly brief moment where you were free- but that matters not now, for you are being a savior Queen, letting the shadows tear you apart from the inside out as you struggle to wield overwhelming power you were never meant to have.

You’re giving yourself over to the madness in order to take the power that gives you and thrust it through the Ring burning hot on your finger, to fight off the devastation the Red Miles would cause, the devastation you See in so many timelines when your resolve wavers (you lose what remains of your ever-shakier control) or you die. The girl, Alex, is to take the Ring from you if you do, and you hope it won’t come to that before the monster who killed your world has died. You have never been important. Never gotten the chance, not really, to protect and shield Darien the way he always would you. It is admittedly selfish of you to want to protect him through this, in the only way you now can, by making sure the cause he died for isn’t torn apart by Miles. You cannot attack effectively and still wield the counterpoint power, you are certain of this, and so you stick to evading attacks that have stopped coming—you can’t focus enough to See why. You’re concentrating utterly on the Ring and the powers fighting inside it, and that is good, because it makes the yawning, tearing, terrified void inside of you be less noticeable, at least for a bit.

That all changes very suddenly with two words one word hyphenated you hear even over the Eldritch voices. “MIND-BREAK!” the monster howls; you think he is dying, but cannot spare the Time to See. Suddenly, you cannot spare the Time for anything anymore, as a rush of ideas decisions terrible horrible choices is brought inescapably to the forefront of your mind, and you smile through the tears you haven’t realised are soaking through your bloodied blindfold.

A Seer, in your experience, has to live through a multitude of terrible futures every single waking moment (you haven’t let yourself sleep, or dream, in so horrendously long). You are well aware of how greatly the most insignificant details can throw everything off-course. And more importantly, you are well aware of all those hideous things you’ve ever done wrong, because you See them all the time, and much worse besides. The horrorterrifying monsters you gave yourself to grant you what you ask, now: you are numb, completely all over numb, except for that ache where Darien being alive should be (you felt him die, you swear you did) and that hollow sort of scared rage against the world.

You are able to function only because the world currently needs you to fight against the visions you have all-too-frequently anyway and stay alive. And yet that functioning does not necessarily mean you need to be moving, and it is quite possible to be kneeling in midair for the simple reason of you don’t trust your legs to support you even when they aren’t, the tears of ashes and ink you haven’t cried in so long spilling through the cloth that binds your ruined sockets, so painful. So strangely calming.

Your hand hurts, and you don’t know why. It feels as if there is a strange sort of fire creeping its way up your arm, burning you alive, and oh- that would be because there is, you think, but it stops all at once and your name is Kaeri and you’re no longer a Queen, just a pathetic, broken little girl who built up her mind around one thing and no longer knows how to function with that thing gone. A common theme, except in this case it wasn’t uncaringness that will kill you.

Curling into yourself, you fail to notice the loss of most of your arm. It doesn’t matter now, anyway. Someone is trying to shield your mind, and there are many people talking, but your mind is an Eldritch wasteland horrorscape that was broken beyond repair so long ago, and you don’t quite understand the language they’re speaking now anyway. Everyone has something they care about, you think you pick up on. And oh, isn’t that true. Hang onto that something, protect that something at all costs, and oh, again, you have that, you do. It’s just that he’s lying dead beneath you.

The universe will be exploding soon, and with that knowledge, you are able to sit up and toss a little broken dreamer girl the Ring that fell from your nonexistent hand. That sick fire is still eating away at you, and your blood is shadowed and thick, but you don’t mind. Better to die here and now, a monster, than spend one more day in a world your protector and love (you hate that word, you always have, it’s so confusing and painful and you don’t like those sorts of things, but you can say it now that there’s nothing to stop you, even yourself) is gone from. You say a few things without paying attention to what you’re saying, and then…

Once you’re certain the other Players have evacuated the area, or at least are no longer paying any sort of attention to you whatsoever, you reach up and pull your blindfold away. You’re not leaving Darien’s side, come what may, because once he promised you that you would never have to. That you would never again be so tearingly alone. You decide to hold him to that promise, and so you sit at his side, blood dripping like tears and real tears both choking your voice. But he loved your voice, your weak, soft, wavery voice that can’t hold a pitch for more than a few seconds without breaking, the moment he heard it. He always wanted to know what it would be like if you sang.

Now, he cannot hear, but you pretend he can somehow. And with the Eldritch whisperings thick in your throat, you force your voice out, force it mostly under control, and raise it in song. An elegy of sorts, as you sit and burn and wait to die. The universe itself will be your funeral pyre, and this dangerously codependent relationship really is turning out like Romeo and Juliet in the end, isn’t it? How funny. How very, very, oh-

Your name is Kaeri, and now, you are just waiting to die.

[disastrousshenanigans-blog]

==> DS: Belatedly recall events.

You been on Amity for a while now, but you ain’t never done nothing much. You failed to protect your girlfriend’s Mind from a psycho bitch, possibly endangered an entire universe, almost got turned to the dark side without even fucking realizing it until you met said universe and remembered what the hell it is you was supposed to be fighting for all along. You helped the little guy too, ran with him and accidentally got him even more in danger. Kinda still beating yourself up for that one, actually. You should’ve known.

And then littlest psycho bitch wouldn’t stop pestering you until you unblocked her brief and let her explain all this shit, you think she was gloating, made you feel so much fucking better about yourself, fixated on this a bit with your Mind picking apart all the warning signs-! Ain’t never still for an instant, no more. You always gotta be thinking about something, and if you ain’t it hurts, but you can’t never think about enough to make it quit. Kaeri’s not too better off, them monstrosities she made a deal with to try and remove her visions (clawed out her own eyes to remove her sight, scars still ain’t properly healed and you always worry so bad about that) always Whispering to her now. She don’t think you hear her at night, when she scream. She don’t know in turn how you’s always trying to create just a bit of calm inside her Mind, but you like to think it helps, cause of how her panic attacks aren’t coming as quick as they did.

… You ain’t never gonna be able to thank DA enough for lettin the two a you crash in the Library, neither. You been trying to read damn near everything. Admittedly, you ain’t done, nowhere even close, cause of how the time be running out, but Kae’s been reading ‘em all too. Alchemized her sheet with the Braille alphabet with several shelf’s full, curled up in a chair with her blindfold covering where her eyes used to be, looked so fucking beautiful with how happy she was. Uh, you know you’re rambling now, yo, just so hard to stick to one subject and one time with your Mind branching out in all ways at once and tearing you apart behind it… you’re just gonna keep rambling, actually, tell your story. Point’ll come out eventually, you’re sure. And this was probably real impolite of you, but you and Kaeri spent a bit looking through timelines to see what DA’d react to best, when you could find these visions. Wanted to leave her something she’d like, yo.

Finally you figured out that she likes dragons. Ain’t no way you could get her one, a course, but you could sure make weapons. She got a good bow and you’d’ve done jewelry but wasn’t sure it was real appropriate, so settled for figuring out how to make arrows where the heads look like deadly sharp little dragons’ heads and catch on fire automatically when they’s shot. It ain’t much, but you was running outta time when you thought of it, so you made a sheet of gold paper and wrapped the thirty things in it, tied it up real pretty and set it by the series Dragonriders of Pern. Note in it just says thanks. You figure on her finding it eventually.

It ain’t too long after that till you hear of The Choice and the littlest psycho bitch’s desperate strike team and you neaten everything up in the Library and scram to LOSAM. Your future’s going dark like it ain’t since you saw Deiwos, and the both of you’re more often dead than not.

--: 〽 I’m not going to lie, I never do :) I could really, /really/ use you two. I can’t combat his Mind, all Mind Players are /automatically/ useful, and… I think Kaeri could use a Ring…?

Littlest, no, Laika, bitch has a name, messages you. Cause you ain’t never felt like running away… cause you want to do something important, cause your Mind is turning on itself and Kaeri’s already batshit mad in pain you can’t do a thing about, cause you can be hella more useful attacking evil incarnate than in tucking your tail between your legs and running the fuck away. And she knows it.

DS: Who else have you got?

--: 〽 … Navi and Alex…

Oh god damn it, one of ‘em’s Amity and your fault in the first place for letting Kaeri tell her future, drive her nsane, and the other’s whose dreamself you think mighta got killed cause you couldn’t do a damn thing. You just fucking can’t sit back now and let ‘em go die. Your Mind’s already made up. Ask DA a simple question, get a furious answer, you’re sorry, yo, but ain’t a snowflake’s chance in hell you’re gonna make it out alive so if there’s any way you could make less Players dead…

DS: I ain’t going corrupt, yo. DA says it’s a fucking terrible idea, an I trust her.

AP: i already a m yes i c a n use the r i n g

--: 〽 It’s okay, it’s okay, you don’t have to!!! I only need one other Construct anyway, to fight the Miles, and I kind of think a Seer would be /really good/ for that anyway so…

She knows you’re in without even you having to say it, and she knows Kaeri’s in because the two of you are a pair in everything. Your girlfriend’s the most important damn thing in your life and like hell you wouldn’t be there if she ever needed you, like in this fucking stupid fight, no way in hell you’d leave her alone…

--: 〽 Oh!!! We should /totally/ unlock fraymotifs though, I /love/ those things :O

AP: that would be a v e r y good idea

DS: Uh, sure, okay.

So then she’s over on LOSAM looking halfway to being an illusion herself and she smile in the same way Kaeri do most times, always so fucking sad, and you kinda want to hug her and say it gonna be okay cepting you can’t without touch her without being burned, but Kaeri say nothing and do exactly that so you figure it works out really. Ain’t so evil now, even if she glow like fuck, or at least Kae thinks she’s trying not to be.

The three of you go into one of the mirrors and you ain’t a clue how you unlocked your motif with Kaeri but you’s fighting alongside Laika not nearly so powerful but keeping up, playing little attack melodies what turn to tiny blades of energy pulses then going back to treating your razor-edged bow as a sword. Kaeri ain’t telling you when to dodge the worst hits so things get a bit sticky there for a time and the Demilich boss monster… Well, you read up into its Mind to see if you can create a decision or two where it don’t attack you at the same time Laika attacks with corruptive fire and it screams. You ain’t never heard that sorta sound before and it looks like its Mind is being burned and…

“<Discordant Divertimento>,” Laika says. You can hear the brackets. She makes a pleased little noise and wires you a few million boonbonds so you can buy the new listing what just appeared in your fraymotif store. You’re shooed back with a few health items and holy shit, you ain’t got the chance to appreciate just how deadly beautiful your girlfriend is when fighting. She be as graceful as anything with her parasol, always seeming to know just when and where to step, murmuring quiet warnings to Laika, two little blind girls whose feet ain’t touching the floor and look perfectly belonging amidst the smoke and mirrors.

“<Forethought Fantasia>,” Kaeri says all at once, thin tendrils of black curling nervous up her hand, and you pull her to you, hold her close, don’t mind the shadows what be reacting so bad to Laika’s glow.

“No offense,” you say quick-like, wincing a little as one of the shadows skims along your arm and leaves a trail of black that slowly seeps in and stings like a bitch, “but you got what you come here for, so now I think you oughta leave.” Kaeri’ll get better once she’s alone again, or rather when she’s alone with you, she really will. Always does. You just have to get this bright-glow angel-thing outta here.

She pulls a face and tosses something at you, which you catch out of instinct. It’s a nice enough ring, plain gold band, but it seems real familiar somehow and your Mind recognizes it quick enough for you to near drop it. That’s okay too, cause Kaeri takes it from you, and of course, her grimdarkness is as controlled as you could get it but still there, fucking over her code, makes sense she’d get a Ring, Laika even said so… You nod, then frown.

“Uh, why’d you go and give her that now?” You answer your own question quickly enough. It don’t matter if you just run off with a power Item cause she ain’t got hardly no one to follow her anyway and you’re probably her best bet of anything cause damn it all you’s as loyal as fuck, to each other and Amity and the Players in that order exactly, and now that you gave your word ain’t a chance you can retract that offer. So you nod again and shoo her away, holding Kaeri tight to you so she don’t have one of her attacks; you kinda like this world undestroyed, yo.

Anyway, it’s a bit of waiting and training, practicing fighting together as the seamless pair you really are, Kaeri’s voice soft and wavery over your headset as she tells you just when to jump out of the way. You protect her in turn, slashing around you with your bow and taking a break after a bit to pick up all the assorted grist that’s scattered across the ground. And then your headset pings alert, so you head back to her place, booting up your chat program to be sucked into a group chat about this little strike team you agreed to be a part of, and then Katy comes over to unlock your joint fraymotif (she’s a Seer of Rage, Laika thinks this’ll be useful and to be honest you don’t much care either way), and it’s pretty cool, but she nips on back home (you think, not sure where she goes actually), and it’s back to waiting.

Waiting for a few more momes before being pulled into another chat where there’s all sorts of frantic last-minute strategizing, you got this shit, though, you ain’t got a clue what you’re doing or a hope in the world you gonna make it out alive, so you’s ready and holding Kae tight to you while you still can as you wait for the co-ords to be revealed for the final epic fight.

They are and she step away immediately, bracing herself and going rigid all over as the creeping shadows ooze out, twisting themselves up pale skin and staining it ashy grey, dying her long hair into a curtain of white, the blindfold she always wear the only thing unchanged about her. Her simple white dress is tattered and shadow-tainted, and most people’d be running away from the monster in the form of a girl, but you just think she’s as beautiful as ever in a horribly vicious way you can’t touch without hurting, looking ever more like she’s made out of smoky illusions. She slides the Ring on, tests it a couple times (blinking in and out of existence, you wonder how to tell if she still really exists), and forgetting, she reaches out to you and then-

- well, and then you’re both on the battlefield, surrounded by carnage and confronted by a monster. The Queen at your side immediately flickers out of visibility and goes over to help a dying Player (she hates death, can’t stand it, absolutely terrified, you can’t imagine what she’s going through now just surrounded by it, of course she gotta help where and when she can), and you play a simple melody of knives instead, littlest psycho Laika’s (looks like a hideous fucking mishmash of a monster, cept you’re used to dealing with a monster and at least this one’s on your side too, she’s got to be or you’re even more screwed) only allies extant on this field. You won’t let her down. More importantly, you won’t let Amity down. Even though you hurt ‘em in the past, and you gotta have, you gonna make up for it now. Both of you are.

There’s two others you recognize, Katy and the girl Alex who’s got a Scepter and seems kinda familiar, you think she’s the only you let die, but if you pay attention to your teammates too much you’re gonna stop paying attention to the fight, and Dynast’s coming right atcha, a whispered warning from Kaeri all that allows you to drop to the ground and move away, a move the two of you’ve practiced a time or several hundred. You play another quick tune as he goes for Kae, but you figure that’s okay since she’s invisible and can totally See him coming anyway, fucking bastard. Even you don’t know where she is. And that’s saying something.

Laika calls across the name of your fraymotif and you nod, yelling the words yourself (like some sorta cliché anime, gotta call your special attacks, or at least it’s hella fun to do with this one) and focusing all you got on recreating that same effect what happened to the boss monster before.

… The Dynast screams.

You grin before you can help it, and so’s she, cause you did that. Working with a girl who oughta made your enemy, you set this monster’s Mind aflame and made him scream, and that kinda feels way more fucking awesome than it should. Uh. It’s okay if you’re liking wrecking the villain’s shit, right?

But even so, it ain’t all good, cause now he’s really looking like a monster and’s got a Ring of his own, like Laika warned you lot earlier, and Alex’s attack is just bounced back like it was nothing as he takes in all the prototyping power. There’s two total monsters on the field now, one clutching a Sceptre in a handlike appendage and glowing like fuck, the other’s mind having just been set on fire again, hot damn.

And then fuck, there’s reddish energy shit coming down towards you like so many veiny tentacles (you’re oddly reminded a something called hentai but you ain’t quite sure why), and then Kaeri, your wonderful beloved dear girlfriend, she’s speaking up for the first time and the Miles are going right back at the Dynast, or at least staying away from the strike team of you. It’s an unsteady tug of war over what you think is the most powerful and unstoppable attack in the whole arsenal of attacks this Game’s got to throw at you, and you’re so fucking proud of her for even trying. There’s no other Queen except for the two a them, so it’s her saving the entire damn world right about now. Heh. Ain’t never thought it’d come to this when you said you thought you were minor characters.

From what she’s whispering to herself in a language you don’t understand, only you do, you so totally do and you’d never tell anyone cause you ain’t sure if this language is the one of madness, only that Kae speaks it and you speak Kae, she’s knowing exactly what’s gonna happen if she loses control of these Miles. She’s Seeing it without even trying, and there’s that little hitch to her voice that say it hurts so fucking much but she’s gonna do it anyway, even if she don’t give a fuck about most of these people, cause them all dying (would be evil) would mean you died, too.

Everything’s going mad around you, there’s a hurricane at Kaeri and someone new… what’s his face, Raz’s showed up, there’s a shield around Kaeri now too, you gotta remember to thank him for that later.

Only that shield’s making her less than invisible, making her all fucking glowy just like littlest- Laika, and her shadows ain’t liking this one bit, roiling all almost-invisible across her skin, that can’t be fun, but if you can see her other people can see her, more specifically Dynast people can see her, and he’s launching himself through the fire shield (gotta hurt like a bitch; you make it hurt that much more as you and Laika set his mind afire again). You’re the only one who be close enough to possibly protect her.

And it don’t even matter that the only way you can do this is by flinging yourself through the shield of flames, Kaeri’s precog abilities only helping her to duck backwards only barely in time to escape an attack she ain’t got no right to survive, and then you’re there between them. It’s not just because she’s the only thing keeping this world from being torn apart, and you know damn full well this is a Hero’s death if anything, but you love her more than anything in this world and would gladly give your life a hundred (thousand million countless) times over if it meant she’d survive just a bit longer.

“Leave her alone!” you scream fiery defiance at a monster, and you’re burning alive, but she’s invisible again, outside of the shield that hurt as much as helped, and flying away, won’t let herself be caught. “Kae… fucking… keep her safe, damn it! Bastards!”

The sword connects with your midsection, slicing clean through, ain’t in no way as painful as the fire, but you have time for what you think may be some of the best last words you could’ve ever thought of. “<DISCORDANT DIVERTIMENTO!>”

The only thing you regret is you just left the most important thing in the world to you all the fuck alone…

[heroes-are-forever-gods-blog]

qsvidyagames replied to your post: Additional Information

C✖rrect. As ✖f this p✖siti✖ning y✖u have a straight sh✖t past the defense line and at least ✖ne ship has had its like ✖f fire bl✖cked. N✖w y✖u have b✖ught y✖urselves time t✖ get int✖ p✖siti✖n.

It is at this m✖ment...

[disastrousshenanigans-blog]

==> DS: Figure out what the hell's going on.

No, I don't care what you say. None of this makes sense, dammit. The Game is real? I'm a part of it? There are villains and spies and clusterfucks of who the hell knows what else and everything is trying to kill me? Fuck it, I'm getting a team, and fast. Maybe then I can figure out what's going on. Helloooooooo Amity.

Thank god for Kaeri having enough sense to make me figure out I actually had to join, and not letting me just give up and think she was joking again. Because hey, we're not dead yet. She's a Seer of Time and I'm a Mage of Mind and I live on a planet where everything is on a floating platform and almost everything else is actually just made of cards-- even the fucking water-- and she lives in a Land of illusion, which so totally suits her, and...

Dude, I can't even fucking not believe that this is happening.

And that means I'm actually gonna die.

This fucking sucks.