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@onechaotictrio
welcome to the chaos :>
This is a character lore and headcanons blog for 3 of my brawlhalla legend inspired characters.
The Arson Murder Jaywalking Trio are Caspian, Jiro, and Kaya. (I know that the name isn’t quite perfect but it’s funny so shush.) Basically, 2 dangerous criminals who’re now stuck with a wholesome 14 year old child. Chaos will happen because… why would you leave them unsupervised?
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
Videns keeps 'reading', but eventually looks up, head tilted as if listening to something, before closing the book and tossing it onto the table. she leaves the library, door left open behind her.
seems Jiro and Caspian are free to explore when they want to, now.
Caspian doesn’t really want to let Jiro get up right now, though Jiro sends a shadow clone to explore the library and infest it. He’s not as focused on leaving the library because it is Very Bright outside.
it's a pretty decent sized library, and has some darker spots due to the paint dimming the glow.
The shadow clone checks the books *just in case* there’s something useful (aka not in a language he doesn’t know). If there’s nothing he can actually read it’ll just infest a corner, preferably one near an exit. How many doors in/out of the library are there?
There's some English books that seem recently translated from the others, a couple being half-written still. Most of them are about the rise and fall of kingdoms such as Magia Titulari (randomly got vaporized), Amist Memoriam (conquered by Solis Cantus), and Regnum Deos (fell in the Deorum War).
There's two doors in & out of the library. the other door is on the same wall as the one they came in through, but is across the library.
Jiro focuses on controlling the shadow clone to “read”, he’ll look zoned out and he won’t notice subtle things happening around him but he will be able to pick out anything he can regularly perceive around the shadow clone. Caspian notices and pulls him closer so he looks more like he’s “asleep” with his head resting on Caspian’s shoulder.
He tries to figure out more about the Amist Memoriam book first, because he vaguely knows that Videns and Vizerxa are connected to that place. (He doesn’t have as much connection to Menda, so he’s not going to investigate the Regnum Deos book. Also, he’s somewhat interested in seeing how “propaganda-ized” the books are because pretty much everything back in the Twilight Realm was heavily propaganda-ized.)
The book on Amist Memoriam goes over most of the history of the Kingdom. It was one of the first Kingdoms constructed after a 'Final War' hundreds of thousands of years ago, which had also resulted in the creation of the Pantheons. Amist Memoriam was created by the second leader of the Celestial Pantheon, Eclipse Ventus Mortem, the goddess of Vengeance and the Afterlife.
Amist Memoriam was also the final resting place of the Original Pantheon, as Sine Nomine, goddess of Mystery, had killed the other gods and vanished from history. Eclipse died honorably, having gone back into the flaming palace after ensuring the safety of her subjects, and died in battle alongside the rest of her Pantheon. She, strangely enough, was never seen in the Afterlife despite all of the Original Gods still being technically Mortal, just granted immense power.
After the Original Pantheon's fall, the Descendants created the new Pantheon, though it had less power than the original, and rebuilt what had been lost in Amist Memoriam. At this point, the Deorum Pantheon (descendants of the Deorum Family) had split off from the others for unknown reasons.
Up until 20,000 years ago, the Celestial Pantheon continued to live within Amist Memoriam, before moving to another continent out of fear of Solis Cantus (also known as Light Song by her enemies), who declared war upon them. Since then, the Celestial Pantheon has been unaligned from the Kingdoms.
After the Pantheon's departure from Amist Memoriam, the non-deity descendants of the Mortem family continued to rule the kingdom, and it became known as the birthplace of most medicines and sculpture arts. Most of the residents followed Nocte, the Ancient God of Darkness, and study of the stars was quite important to them.
590 years ago, Solis Cantus declared war on Amist Memoriam after Queen Fractal refused to ally with her. Solis manipulated the Royal Court to turn against Queen Fractal and kill her and Prince Arctos. Soon after, the kingdom started to crumble without a Ruler since Fractal's daughters, Vivere Umbra Mortem and Enigma Ventus-Mortem, were both too young to take the throne, and the Court distrusted Phoenix, the Royal Advisor who took the throne temporarily.
Solis hired an assassin to kill Vivere and Enigma, blaming it on Phoenix, and the Kingdom was finally weak enough for her to invade and destroy. Vivere and Enigma supposedly joined Solis's Pantheon as Souls, similar to most young Royals of Kingdoms she overthrows.
Jiro decides to put the book back and report the information to Caspian. ”…So… Vizerxa, if she’s alive in this timeline, should be here, according to the library books. Also, we’re in Light Song’s palace, which kind of explains why everything’s kinda messed up.” Even though there’s no one else in the library, he’s still basically whispering so you can’t clearly hear what he’s saying unless you’re standing right next to him. It’s an instinctive paranoia thing he does all the time. He also finally realized that yes, Solis Cantus is Light Song, but he still has no idea what the other Draconics’ latin/original names are. He recognizes “Mortem” as Vizerxa’s last name but he doesn’t known that Vivere Umbra Mortem IS Vizerxa because he doesn’t recognize her birth name.
“Alright. Do you want to stay here? Is it easier on you if you monitor through the shadow clones?” Caspian knows Jiro’s going to have a hard time in this place. It’s just way, way, way too bright for him.
“I don’t know if I can even monitor you with the shadow clones, since the glow’s coming from all directions. It’ll definitely be easier if I can, though.” Jiro replies.
Both of them get up, Caspian goes to check outside the doors while Jiro goes back to the shelving area to explore and hide.
The door that they'd entered the library through leads out to the hallway, and the other door leads to a small, similarly painted, storage room of shelves, empty books, and writing utensils. There's also a couple Elovuxen books open on a small table, beside mostly-blank books in English. Seems Tenebris is translating the Elovuxen books due to it being a mostly dead language.
There's also a few translation books, some from Elovuxen to Latin and some from Elovuxen to English.
Does the main hallway have carpeting or some form of flooring that doesn’t glow?
Jiro decides to figure out wtf elovuxen is, he kinda knew that the Draconic realm used latin but he does not know what elovuxen is. He flips through one of the translation books- provided it’s like a normal book and not a dictionary, he knows from experience that those are almost always actually mostly pointless for trying to figure out how other languages work.
It has white carpets/rugs down the center, stopping a couple inches from the wall, so while it technically doesn't glow it does reflect light.
The books are set up with the assumption that the reader already knows the definition of at least one, so it's just divided into categories of words (times, places, animals, adjectives, titles, etc) and (english)alphabetically (numbers are listed numerically), and a few pages at the from explaining grammar rules, how some words are just combinations of other words' prefixes & suffixes so might not be written down, and a loose history of the language (it grew popular in an Ancient large Kingdom, and started spreading when kingdoms started forming and needed to communicate with each other). The translations themselves are just the Elovuxen word beside the English word, so... more or less a dictionary, maybe?
there's also several pages with simple sentences, gradually getting more complex, to show the words & grammar rules in use. (as well as sentences below them translating the full sentence)
(kinda like my Elovuxen thing on Q ↓)
look if the floor is not actually glowing then he technically would cast a shadow: it’d just be a drop shadow (ie a circle under him) instead of a normal cast shadow (silhouette going behind). Also if the carpet is floofy then it’d be easier for the shadow clones to hide inside the carpet.
Caspian will go explore, Jiro puts the elovuxen book back but decides to check the Magia Titulari book, he vaguely remembers something about Videns vaporizing a kingdom because of Sidera and Sid’s a timewalker right? He wants to check how much the draconics know about how he possibly got here and how he can go to a different realm. (He doesn’t quite want to go back to the tournament, but he does want to go somewhere “safer”… by which i mean more comfortable because they aren’t trying to trap him in an incredibly bright palace.)
Fair. it's not fluffy, pretty short carpet.
Magia Titulari is a kingdom founded 40,000 years ago on a large island with abnormal properties, such as more potent poisons and healing, larger animals, and seemingly random mutations in those who have been on the island since birth (such as the Feriv residents being more wolf-like than fox). Several Kingdoms somewhat close to it, such as Amist Memoriam, Sevi Cullix, Vesca, and Imnux sent teams of researchers to investigate and learn more about the Island. Upon the discovery that living on the island for extended periods of time amplifies one's magic capabilities permanently, more Kingdoms sent teams, and permanent settlements began to be built. Before even being declared its own kingdom, Magia had over 200 residents.
With Solis Cantus of the Fallen Pantheon and Lux Aura being a rising threat at the time, all Kingdoms involved agreed it would waste too much time, resources, and be too risky to gather for negotiations on who actually owns the island, as well as risky to send more of their citizens and soldiers to guard the island, and the residents were declared their own kingdom; Magia Titulari.
The residents democratically elected the Ruler, a feriv-draconic hybrid named Lucens Carmine, and the first Council, and it was decided the Ruler's descendants would remain the main political power.
Study of the Island remained the main focus of the Kingdom, as well as documenting what the island does to the inhabitants. Common abnormal genetic mutations include; a second set of wings (often nearly unusable), gills and/or webbed hands and feet in families with distant Syren blood, feathers one ones neck and body instead of scales, two tails, all teeth being razor sharp and thin, forked tongues, second eyelids, unhingable snake-like jaws, severely deformed vocal chords or inner ears, and a metallic appearance to spines, claws, or rarely teeth.
Although some of these are rare genetic mutations outside of Magia as well, they appear much more commonly in the island.
After 7,000 years of inhabiting the island, the genetic mutations of those born on the island stopped being as extreme, and it's believed that higher magical powers and capabilities than what one can easily handle are what caused the mutations. As the Draconics of Magia evolved to utilize the magic capabilities they gained, their bodies no longer needed to go under such extreme mutations just to survive. As long as those born in Magia had at least one Magian parent, the child likely would not go through the extreme mutations due to the genetically higher capacity for magic.
Magia Titulari became known for impressive scientific advancements, incredibly potent poisons, and powerful Zypherins and Vicleres.
During year 1535 of the Valaraen Universal Calendar, or 39635 Magia calendar, an unexplainable event happened. The Kingdom was completely leveled to the ground, and the magical properties of the island went completely null, in fact reversing their previous effects. Magic is completely and totally cancelled out on Magia, even to this day.
There were only about 40 survivors within the main city, including Videns Mortem of the Fallen Pantheon who had been there on a trip to seek more scientific knowledge for her own purposes, and 120 outside of the main city. None of the survivors can remember anything of what happened that day, reporting that their memories are foggy, distorted, or generally odd.
Survivors were taken in by the Kingdoms closest to the island, and reported that it took a month to regain the ability to use magic and that it is much weaker than before. The cause is still uncertain.
eh it’s ok the shadow clone will manage. Caspian walks down the hallway opposite the direction they came in.
Jiro decides that these books seem to have enough “context” but nothing truly useful, and goes back to the seating area to focus on monitoring the shadow clones.
For now, the halls are empty..
He continues to follow the hallway until he either sees a door/crossroad or notices signs of beings nearby ie approaching footsteps.
Eventually there's footsteps, briskly walking down the hall towards him.
If there’s a close by side path or door, he’ll go there to avoid the footsteps. If not, he’ll continue to walk towards the footsteps- best to not act suspicious and he can undo time if it goes really wrong.
There is a door, but it's locked.
The approaching person turns the corner, seeming very uninterested in everything. They have long pale grey-blue hair with sidebangs with darker tips than the rest of their hair, and their wings and the fluffy end of their tail have the same coloring. One of their back curving grey horns is broken across the top of the highest curve near the base, and the tip is broken off. Their pale face has black web-like streaks going down from their eyes to their jaw, and they're wearing plate-and-chainmail armour.
Upon finding out that the door is locked, he quickly moves away from it and continues to walk down the hallway. The footsteps are approaching too quickly for him to have the time to go pick the lock and then escape without attracting suspicion. (He probably can get through the lock, it’ll just take him longer if it’s more complex, and if the circumstances were right he would definitely try.)
“Hello there.” Caspian is nice by default. As this is a strange new place, he’s going to be careful enough to check if others are friendly first.
"Hello there. You're one of the new ones Tenebris mentioned, then?" the tall Draconic tilts their head. Their voice is familiar...
”…uh-huh, yeah. I’m Caspian.” He seems to take a moment to remember who Tenebris is. It’s unclear if this is due to actual carelessness, fake stupidity, or both. After another slight pause, he follows up, deciding he should get to know who he’s talking to. “What’s your name?”
If the voice is familiar, why? Is there anyone it’s similar to? Otherwise, he’s not making guesses on who this is.
"As expected. I'm Mendacium Deorum," the Draconic half-bows, "pleasure to meet you."
It's Menda– the one I used to throw into the Tournament the most often–
(Felicity: okay so. uhm. how different does this Menda look from tournament/current time Menda. sorry but please let me rewrite out my own embarrassing stupidity, laziness at fact-checking, and inability to remember descriptions.)
(I mean - she looks the same since it's only been 30 yrs and she hasn't been in scarring battles from this timeframe to current, I just vaguely-recemtly changed the direction her horns curve. if it makes you feel better i didn't remember who she was until i read the "spiderwebbed black marks" / greifstruck tearstains)
(Felicity: look- i dont even remember who has the griefstruck tearstains. also ngl i prolly only remember the details for the brawlhalla legends because they’re all characters from a game I played pretty actively for a good 2-3 years, the main stuff was there for me and everything I made up is like backstory/personality stuff and tiny details. because when I had my own OCs to manage in the form of City of Glass, I kept forgetting what half of them looked like too. Edited replacement prompt time for my last actual reply:)
”…uh-huh, yeah. I’m Caspian.” He seems to take a moment to remember who Tenebris is. It’s unclear if this is due to actual carelessness, fake stupidity, or both. After another slight pause, he follows up, deciding the situation is worth hazarding a guess. “…wait, Menda? You’re here?”
The shadow clone Jiro’s using to monitor him whispers something to him, but Menda and anyone else around wouldn’t be able to hear or notice it. Caspian seems to randomly answer “Yeah, I guess…” a few moments after realizing it’s Menda.
(fair :,) )
Mendacium tilts their head, "Of course I am. I've been in Light Song's Pantheon since Regnum Deos's fall."
she's mildly judging Caspian.
”Okay- yeah- well- whatever. I don’t really know who to expect seeing here.” Caspian is part genuinely confused and part trying to handwave that he’s clueless and as a result probably being kinda stupid.
he’s used to being judged he does not register that
"Hm." Menda tilts their head, analyzing Caspian.
”I suppose I’ve just gotten a bit too used to being in the tournament realm.” He truly had never fathomed that he’d be able to leave, the whole premise of the Grand Tournament was that it was a forever for the rest of eternity thing. He’d never dreamed of “going home”, because while the tournament system is flawed, it’s still “better” than his home realm and he’s content in the tournament.
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
Videns keeps 'reading', but eventually looks up, head tilted as if listening to something, before closing the book and tossing it onto the table. she leaves the library, door left open behind her.
seems Jiro and Caspian are free to explore when they want to, now.
Caspian doesn’t really want to let Jiro get up right now, though Jiro sends a shadow clone to explore the library and infest it. He’s not as focused on leaving the library because it is Very Bright outside.
it's a pretty decent sized library, and has some darker spots due to the paint dimming the glow.
The shadow clone checks the books *just in case* there’s something useful (aka not in a language he doesn’t know). If there’s nothing he can actually read it’ll just infest a corner, preferably one near an exit. How many doors in/out of the library are there?
There's some English books that seem recently translated from the others, a couple being half-written still. Most of them are about the rise and fall of kingdoms such as Magia Titulari (randomly got vaporized), Amist Memoriam (conquered by Solis Cantus), and Regnum Deos (fell in the Deorum War).
There's two doors in & out of the library. the other door is on the same wall as the one they came in through, but is across the library.
Jiro focuses on controlling the shadow clone to “read”, he’ll look zoned out and he won’t notice subtle things happening around him but he will be able to pick out anything he can regularly perceive around the shadow clone. Caspian notices and pulls him closer so he looks more like he’s “asleep” with his head resting on Caspian’s shoulder.
He tries to figure out more about the Amist Memoriam book first, because he vaguely knows that Videns and Vizerxa are connected to that place. (He doesn’t have as much connection to Menda, so he’s not going to investigate the Regnum Deos book. Also, he’s somewhat interested in seeing how “propaganda-ized” the books are because pretty much everything back in the Twilight Realm was heavily propaganda-ized.)
The book on Amist Memoriam goes over most of the history of the Kingdom. It was one of the first Kingdoms constructed after a 'Final War' hundreds of thousands of years ago, which had also resulted in the creation of the Pantheons. Amist Memoriam was created by the second leader of the Celestial Pantheon, Eclipse Ventus Mortem, the goddess of Vengeance and the Afterlife.
Amist Memoriam was also the final resting place of the Original Pantheon, as Sine Nomine, goddess of Mystery, had killed the other gods and vanished from history. Eclipse died honorably, having gone back into the flaming palace after ensuring the safety of her subjects, and died in battle alongside the rest of her Pantheon. She, strangely enough, was never seen in the Afterlife despite all of the Original Gods still being technically Mortal, just granted immense power.
After the Original Pantheon's fall, the Descendants created the new Pantheon, though it had less power than the original, and rebuilt what had been lost in Amist Memoriam. At this point, the Deorum Pantheon (descendants of the Deorum Family) had split off from the others for unknown reasons.
Up until 20,000 years ago, the Celestial Pantheon continued to live within Amist Memoriam, before moving to another continent out of fear of Solis Cantus (also known as Light Song by her enemies), who declared war upon them. Since then, the Celestial Pantheon has been unaligned from the Kingdoms.
After the Pantheon's departure from Amist Memoriam, the non-deity descendants of the Mortem family continued to rule the kingdom, and it became known as the birthplace of most medicines and sculpture arts. Most of the residents followed Nocte, the Ancient God of Darkness, and study of the stars was quite important to them.
590 years ago, Solis Cantus declared war on Amist Memoriam after Queen Fractal refused to ally with her. Solis manipulated the Royal Court to turn against Queen Fractal and kill her and Prince Arctos. Soon after, the kingdom started to crumble without a Ruler since Fractal's daughters, Vivere Umbra Mortem and Enigma Ventus-Mortem, were both too young to take the throne, and the Court distrusted Phoenix, the Royal Advisor who took the throne temporarily.
Solis hired an assassin to kill Vivere and Enigma, blaming it on Phoenix, and the Kingdom was finally weak enough for her to invade and destroy. Vivere and Enigma supposedly joined Solis's Pantheon as Souls, similar to most young Royals of Kingdoms she overthrows.
Jiro decides to put the book back and report the information to Caspian. ”…So… Vizerxa, if she’s alive in this timeline, should be here, according to the library books. Also, we’re in Light Song’s palace, which kind of explains why everything’s kinda messed up.” Even though there’s no one else in the library, he’s still basically whispering so you can’t clearly hear what he’s saying unless you’re standing right next to him. It’s an instinctive paranoia thing he does all the time. He also finally realized that yes, Solis Cantus is Light Song, but he still has no idea what the other Draconics’ latin/original names are. He recognizes “Mortem” as Vizerxa’s last name but he doesn’t known that Vivere Umbra Mortem IS Vizerxa because he doesn’t recognize her birth name.
“Alright. Do you want to stay here? Is it easier on you if you monitor through the shadow clones?” Caspian knows Jiro’s going to have a hard time in this place. It’s just way, way, way too bright for him.
“I don’t know if I can even monitor you with the shadow clones, since the glow’s coming from all directions. It’ll definitely be easier if I can, though.” Jiro replies.
Both of them get up, Caspian goes to check outside the doors while Jiro goes back to the shelving area to explore and hide.
The door that they'd entered the library through leads out to the hallway, and the other door leads to a small, similarly painted, storage room of shelves, empty books, and writing utensils. There's also a couple Elovuxen books open on a small table, beside mostly-blank books in English. Seems Tenebris is translating the Elovuxen books due to it being a mostly dead language.
There's also a few translation books, some from Elovuxen to Latin and some from Elovuxen to English.
Does the main hallway have carpeting or some form of flooring that doesn’t glow?
Jiro decides to figure out wtf elovuxen is, he kinda knew that the Draconic realm used latin but he does not know what elovuxen is. He flips through one of the translation books- provided it’s like a normal book and not a dictionary, he knows from experience that those are almost always actually mostly pointless for trying to figure out how other languages work.
It has white carpets/rugs down the center, stopping a couple inches from the wall, so while it technically doesn't glow it does reflect light.
The books are set up with the assumption that the reader already knows the definition of at least one, so it's just divided into categories of words (times, places, animals, adjectives, titles, etc) and (english)alphabetically (numbers are listed numerically), and a few pages at the from explaining grammar rules, how some words are just combinations of other words' prefixes & suffixes so might not be written down, and a loose history of the language (it grew popular in an Ancient large Kingdom, and started spreading when kingdoms started forming and needed to communicate with each other). The translations themselves are just the Elovuxen word beside the English word, so... more or less a dictionary, maybe?
there's also several pages with simple sentences, gradually getting more complex, to show the words & grammar rules in use. (as well as sentences below them translating the full sentence)
(kinda like my Elovuxen thing on Q ↓)
look if the floor is not actually glowing then he technically would cast a shadow: it’d just be a drop shadow (ie a circle under him) instead of a normal cast shadow (silhouette going behind). Also if the carpet is floofy then it’d be easier for the shadow clones to hide inside the carpet.
Caspian will go explore, Jiro puts the elovuxen book back but decides to check the Magia Titulari book, he vaguely remembers something about Videns vaporizing a kingdom because of Sidera and Sid’s a timewalker right? He wants to check how much the draconics know about how he possibly got here and how he can go to a different realm. (He doesn’t quite want to go back to the tournament, but he does want to go somewhere “safer”… by which i mean more comfortable because they aren’t trying to trap him in an incredibly bright palace.)
Fair. it's not fluffy, pretty short carpet.
Magia Titulari is a kingdom founded 40,000 years ago on a large island with abnormal properties, such as more potent poisons and healing, larger animals, and seemingly random mutations in those who have been on the island since birth (such as the Feriv residents being more wolf-like than fox). Several Kingdoms somewhat close to it, such as Amist Memoriam, Sevi Cullix, Vesca, and Imnux sent teams of researchers to investigate and learn more about the Island. Upon the discovery that living on the island for extended periods of time amplifies one's magic capabilities permanently, more Kingdoms sent teams, and permanent settlements began to be built. Before even being declared its own kingdom, Magia had over 200 residents.
With Solis Cantus of the Fallen Pantheon and Lux Aura being a rising threat at the time, all Kingdoms involved agreed it would waste too much time, resources, and be too risky to gather for negotiations on who actually owns the island, as well as risky to send more of their citizens and soldiers to guard the island, and the residents were declared their own kingdom; Magia Titulari.
The residents democratically elected the Ruler, a feriv-draconic hybrid named Lucens Carmine, and the first Council, and it was decided the Ruler's descendants would remain the main political power.
Study of the Island remained the main focus of the Kingdom, as well as documenting what the island does to the inhabitants. Common abnormal genetic mutations include; a second set of wings (often nearly unusable), gills and/or webbed hands and feet in families with distant Syren blood, feathers one ones neck and body instead of scales, two tails, all teeth being razor sharp and thin, forked tongues, second eyelids, unhingable snake-like jaws, severely deformed vocal chords or inner ears, and a metallic appearance to spines, claws, or rarely teeth.
Although some of these are rare genetic mutations outside of Magia as well, they appear much more commonly in the island.
After 7,000 years of inhabiting the island, the genetic mutations of those born on the island stopped being as extreme, and it's believed that higher magical powers and capabilities than what one can easily handle are what caused the mutations. As the Draconics of Magia evolved to utilize the magic capabilities they gained, their bodies no longer needed to go under such extreme mutations just to survive. As long as those born in Magia had at least one Magian parent, the child likely would not go through the extreme mutations due to the genetically higher capacity for magic.
Magia Titulari became known for impressive scientific advancements, incredibly potent poisons, and powerful Zypherins and Vicleres.
During year 1535 of the Valaraen Universal Calendar, or 39635 Magia calendar, an unexplainable event happened. The Kingdom was completely leveled to the ground, and the magical properties of the island went completely null, in fact reversing their previous effects. Magic is completely and totally cancelled out on Magia, even to this day.
There were only about 40 survivors within the main city, including Videns Mortem of the Fallen Pantheon who had been there on a trip to seek more scientific knowledge for her own purposes, and 120 outside of the main city. None of the survivors can remember anything of what happened that day, reporting that their memories are foggy, distorted, or generally odd.
Survivors were taken in by the Kingdoms closest to the island, and reported that it took a month to regain the ability to use magic and that it is much weaker than before. The cause is still uncertain.
eh it’s ok the shadow clone will manage. Caspian walks down the hallway opposite the direction they came in.
Jiro decides that these books seem to have enough “context” but nothing truly useful, and goes back to the seating area to focus on monitoring the shadow clones.
For now, the halls are empty..
He continues to follow the hallway until he either sees a door/crossroad or notices signs of beings nearby ie approaching footsteps.
Eventually there's footsteps, briskly walking down the hall towards him.
If there’s a close by side path or door, he’ll go there to avoid the footsteps. If not, he’ll continue to walk towards the footsteps- best to not act suspicious and he can undo time if it goes really wrong.
There is a door, but it's locked.
The approaching person turns the corner, seeming very uninterested in everything. They have long pale grey-blue hair with sidebangs with darker tips than the rest of their hair, and their wings and the fluffy end of their tail have the same coloring. One of their back curving grey horns is broken across the top of the highest curve near the base, and the tip is broken off. Their pale face has black web-like streaks going down from their eyes to their jaw, and they're wearing plate-and-chainmail armour.
Upon finding out that the door is locked, he quickly moves away from it and continues to walk down the hallway. The footsteps are approaching too quickly for him to have the time to go pick the lock and then escape without attracting suspicion. (He probably can get through the lock, it’ll just take him longer if it’s more complex, and if the circumstances were right he would definitely try.)
“Hello there.” Caspian is nice by default. As this is a strange new place, he’s going to be careful enough to check if others are friendly first.
"Hello there. You're one of the new ones Tenebris mentioned, then?" the tall Draconic tilts their head. Their voice is familiar...
”…uh-huh, yeah. I’m Caspian.” He seems to take a moment to remember who Tenebris is. It’s unclear if this is due to actual carelessness, fake stupidity, or both. After another slight pause, he follows up, deciding he should get to know who he’s talking to. “What’s your name?”
If the voice is familiar, why? Is there anyone it’s similar to? Otherwise, he’s not making guesses on who this is.
"As expected. I'm Mendacium Deorum," the Draconic half-bows, "pleasure to meet you."
It's Menda– the one I used to throw into the Tournament the most often–
(Felicity: okay so. uhm. how different does this Menda look from tournament/current time Menda. sorry but please let me rewrite out my own embarrassing stupidity, laziness at fact-checking, and inability to remember descriptions.)
(I mean - she looks the same since it's only been 30 yrs and she hasn't been in scarring battles from this timeframe to current, I just vaguely-recemtly changed the direction her horns curve. if it makes you feel better i didn't remember who she was until i read the "spiderwebbed black marks" / greifstruck tearstains)
(Felicity: look- i dont even remember who has the griefstruck tearstains. also ngl i prolly only remember the details for the brawlhalla legends because they’re all characters from a game I played pretty actively for a good 2-3 years, the main stuff was there for me and everything I made up is like backstory/personality stuff and tiny details. because when I had my own OCs to manage in the form of City of Glass, I kept forgetting what half of them looked like too. Edited replacement prompt time for my last actual reply:)
”…uh-huh, yeah. I’m Caspian.” He seems to take a moment to remember who Tenebris is. It’s unclear if this is due to actual carelessness, fake stupidity, or both. After another slight pause, he follows up, deciding the situation is worth hazarding a guess. “…wait, Menda? You’re here?”
The shadow clone Jiro’s using to monitor him whispers something to him, but Menda and anyone else around wouldn’t be able to hear or notice it. Caspian seems to randomly answer “Yeah, I guess…” a few moments after realizing it’s Menda.
(fair :,) )
Mendacium tilts their head, "Of course I am. I've been in Light Song's Pantheon since Regnum Deos's fall."
she's mildly judging Caspian.
”Okay- yeah- well- whatever. I don’t really know who to expect seeing here.” Caspian is part genuinely confused and part trying to handwave that he’s clueless and as a result probably being kinda stupid.
he’s used to being judged he does not register that
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
Videns keeps 'reading', but eventually looks up, head tilted as if listening to something, before closing the book and tossing it onto the table. she leaves the library, door left open behind her.
seems Jiro and Caspian are free to explore when they want to, now.
Caspian doesn’t really want to let Jiro get up right now, though Jiro sends a shadow clone to explore the library and infest it. He’s not as focused on leaving the library because it is Very Bright outside.
it's a pretty decent sized library, and has some darker spots due to the paint dimming the glow.
The shadow clone checks the books *just in case* there’s something useful (aka not in a language he doesn’t know). If there’s nothing he can actually read it’ll just infest a corner, preferably one near an exit. How many doors in/out of the library are there?
There's some English books that seem recently translated from the others, a couple being half-written still. Most of them are about the rise and fall of kingdoms such as Magia Titulari (randomly got vaporized), Amist Memoriam (conquered by Solis Cantus), and Regnum Deos (fell in the Deorum War).
There's two doors in & out of the library. the other door is on the same wall as the one they came in through, but is across the library.
Jiro focuses on controlling the shadow clone to “read”, he’ll look zoned out and he won’t notice subtle things happening around him but he will be able to pick out anything he can regularly perceive around the shadow clone. Caspian notices and pulls him closer so he looks more like he’s “asleep” with his head resting on Caspian’s shoulder.
He tries to figure out more about the Amist Memoriam book first, because he vaguely knows that Videns and Vizerxa are connected to that place. (He doesn’t have as much connection to Menda, so he’s not going to investigate the Regnum Deos book. Also, he’s somewhat interested in seeing how “propaganda-ized” the books are because pretty much everything back in the Twilight Realm was heavily propaganda-ized.)
The book on Amist Memoriam goes over most of the history of the Kingdom. It was one of the first Kingdoms constructed after a 'Final War' hundreds of thousands of years ago, which had also resulted in the creation of the Pantheons. Amist Memoriam was created by the second leader of the Celestial Pantheon, Eclipse Ventus Mortem, the goddess of Vengeance and the Afterlife.
Amist Memoriam was also the final resting place of the Original Pantheon, as Sine Nomine, goddess of Mystery, had killed the other gods and vanished from history. Eclipse died honorably, having gone back into the flaming palace after ensuring the safety of her subjects, and died in battle alongside the rest of her Pantheon. She, strangely enough, was never seen in the Afterlife despite all of the Original Gods still being technically Mortal, just granted immense power.
After the Original Pantheon's fall, the Descendants created the new Pantheon, though it had less power than the original, and rebuilt what had been lost in Amist Memoriam. At this point, the Deorum Pantheon (descendants of the Deorum Family) had split off from the others for unknown reasons.
Up until 20,000 years ago, the Celestial Pantheon continued to live within Amist Memoriam, before moving to another continent out of fear of Solis Cantus (also known as Light Song by her enemies), who declared war upon them. Since then, the Celestial Pantheon has been unaligned from the Kingdoms.
After the Pantheon's departure from Amist Memoriam, the non-deity descendants of the Mortem family continued to rule the kingdom, and it became known as the birthplace of most medicines and sculpture arts. Most of the residents followed Nocte, the Ancient God of Darkness, and study of the stars was quite important to them.
590 years ago, Solis Cantus declared war on Amist Memoriam after Queen Fractal refused to ally with her. Solis manipulated the Royal Court to turn against Queen Fractal and kill her and Prince Arctos. Soon after, the kingdom started to crumble without a Ruler since Fractal's daughters, Vivere Umbra Mortem and Enigma Ventus-Mortem, were both too young to take the throne, and the Court distrusted Phoenix, the Royal Advisor who took the throne temporarily.
Solis hired an assassin to kill Vivere and Enigma, blaming it on Phoenix, and the Kingdom was finally weak enough for her to invade and destroy. Vivere and Enigma supposedly joined Solis's Pantheon as Souls, similar to most young Royals of Kingdoms she overthrows.
Jiro decides to put the book back and report the information to Caspian. ”…So… Vizerxa, if she’s alive in this timeline, should be here, according to the library books. Also, we’re in Light Song’s palace, which kind of explains why everything’s kinda messed up.” Even though there’s no one else in the library, he’s still basically whispering so you can’t clearly hear what he’s saying unless you’re standing right next to him. It’s an instinctive paranoia thing he does all the time. He also finally realized that yes, Solis Cantus is Light Song, but he still has no idea what the other Draconics’ latin/original names are. He recognizes “Mortem” as Vizerxa’s last name but he doesn’t known that Vivere Umbra Mortem IS Vizerxa because he doesn’t recognize her birth name.
“Alright. Do you want to stay here? Is it easier on you if you monitor through the shadow clones?” Caspian knows Jiro’s going to have a hard time in this place. It’s just way, way, way too bright for him.
“I don’t know if I can even monitor you with the shadow clones, since the glow’s coming from all directions. It’ll definitely be easier if I can, though.” Jiro replies.
Both of them get up, Caspian goes to check outside the doors while Jiro goes back to the shelving area to explore and hide.
The door that they'd entered the library through leads out to the hallway, and the other door leads to a small, similarly painted, storage room of shelves, empty books, and writing utensils. There's also a couple Elovuxen books open on a small table, beside mostly-blank books in English. Seems Tenebris is translating the Elovuxen books due to it being a mostly dead language.
There's also a few translation books, some from Elovuxen to Latin and some from Elovuxen to English.
Does the main hallway have carpeting or some form of flooring that doesn’t glow?
Jiro decides to figure out wtf elovuxen is, he kinda knew that the Draconic realm used latin but he does not know what elovuxen is. He flips through one of the translation books- provided it’s like a normal book and not a dictionary, he knows from experience that those are almost always actually mostly pointless for trying to figure out how other languages work.
It has white carpets/rugs down the center, stopping a couple inches from the wall, so while it technically doesn't glow it does reflect light.
The books are set up with the assumption that the reader already knows the definition of at least one, so it's just divided into categories of words (times, places, animals, adjectives, titles, etc) and (english)alphabetically (numbers are listed numerically), and a few pages at the from explaining grammar rules, how some words are just combinations of other words' prefixes & suffixes so might not be written down, and a loose history of the language (it grew popular in an Ancient large Kingdom, and started spreading when kingdoms started forming and needed to communicate with each other). The translations themselves are just the Elovuxen word beside the English word, so... more or less a dictionary, maybe?
there's also several pages with simple sentences, gradually getting more complex, to show the words & grammar rules in use. (as well as sentences below them translating the full sentence)
(kinda like my Elovuxen thing on Q ↓)
look if the floor is not actually glowing then he technically would cast a shadow: it’d just be a drop shadow (ie a circle under him) instead of a normal cast shadow (silhouette going behind). Also if the carpet is floofy then it’d be easier for the shadow clones to hide inside the carpet.
Caspian will go explore, Jiro puts the elovuxen book back but decides to check the Magia Titulari book, he vaguely remembers something about Videns vaporizing a kingdom because of Sidera and Sid’s a timewalker right? He wants to check how much the draconics know about how he possibly got here and how he can go to a different realm. (He doesn’t quite want to go back to the tournament, but he does want to go somewhere “safer”… by which i mean more comfortable because they aren’t trying to trap him in an incredibly bright palace.)
Fair. it's not fluffy, pretty short carpet.
Magia Titulari is a kingdom founded 40,000 years ago on a large island with abnormal properties, such as more potent poisons and healing, larger animals, and seemingly random mutations in those who have been on the island since birth (such as the Feriv residents being more wolf-like than fox). Several Kingdoms somewhat close to it, such as Amist Memoriam, Sevi Cullix, Vesca, and Imnux sent teams of researchers to investigate and learn more about the Island. Upon the discovery that living on the island for extended periods of time amplifies one's magic capabilities permanently, more Kingdoms sent teams, and permanent settlements began to be built. Before even being declared its own kingdom, Magia had over 200 residents.
With Solis Cantus of the Fallen Pantheon and Lux Aura being a rising threat at the time, all Kingdoms involved agreed it would waste too much time, resources, and be too risky to gather for negotiations on who actually owns the island, as well as risky to send more of their citizens and soldiers to guard the island, and the residents were declared their own kingdom; Magia Titulari.
The residents democratically elected the Ruler, a feriv-draconic hybrid named Lucens Carmine, and the first Council, and it was decided the Ruler's descendants would remain the main political power.
Study of the Island remained the main focus of the Kingdom, as well as documenting what the island does to the inhabitants. Common abnormal genetic mutations include; a second set of wings (often nearly unusable), gills and/or webbed hands and feet in families with distant Syren blood, feathers one ones neck and body instead of scales, two tails, all teeth being razor sharp and thin, forked tongues, second eyelids, unhingable snake-like jaws, severely deformed vocal chords or inner ears, and a metallic appearance to spines, claws, or rarely teeth.
Although some of these are rare genetic mutations outside of Magia as well, they appear much more commonly in the island.
After 7,000 years of inhabiting the island, the genetic mutations of those born on the island stopped being as extreme, and it's believed that higher magical powers and capabilities than what one can easily handle are what caused the mutations. As the Draconics of Magia evolved to utilize the magic capabilities they gained, their bodies no longer needed to go under such extreme mutations just to survive. As long as those born in Magia had at least one Magian parent, the child likely would not go through the extreme mutations due to the genetically higher capacity for magic.
Magia Titulari became known for impressive scientific advancements, incredibly potent poisons, and powerful Zypherins and Vicleres.
During year 1535 of the Valaraen Universal Calendar, or 39635 Magia calendar, an unexplainable event happened. The Kingdom was completely leveled to the ground, and the magical properties of the island went completely null, in fact reversing their previous effects. Magic is completely and totally cancelled out on Magia, even to this day.
There were only about 40 survivors within the main city, including Videns Mortem of the Fallen Pantheon who had been there on a trip to seek more scientific knowledge for her own purposes, and 120 outside of the main city. None of the survivors can remember anything of what happened that day, reporting that their memories are foggy, distorted, or generally odd.
Survivors were taken in by the Kingdoms closest to the island, and reported that it took a month to regain the ability to use magic and that it is much weaker than before. The cause is still uncertain.
eh it’s ok the shadow clone will manage. Caspian walks down the hallway opposite the direction they came in.
Jiro decides that these books seem to have enough “context” but nothing truly useful, and goes back to the seating area to focus on monitoring the shadow clones.
For now, the halls are empty..
He continues to follow the hallway until he either sees a door/crossroad or notices signs of beings nearby ie approaching footsteps.
Eventually there's footsteps, briskly walking down the hall towards him.
If there’s a close by side path or door, he’ll go there to avoid the footsteps. If not, he’ll continue to walk towards the footsteps- best to not act suspicious and he can undo time if it goes really wrong.
There is a door, but it's locked.
The approaching person turns the corner, seeming very uninterested in everything. They have long pale grey-blue hair with sidebangs with darker tips than the rest of their hair, and their wings and the fluffy end of their tail have the same coloring. One of their back curving grey horns is broken across the top of the highest curve near the base, and the tip is broken off. Their pale face has black web-like streaks going down from their eyes to their jaw, and they're wearing plate-and-chainmail armour.
Upon finding out that the door is locked, he quickly moves away from it and continues to walk down the hallway. The footsteps are approaching too quickly for him to have the time to go pick the lock and then escape without attracting suspicion. (He probably can get through the lock, it’ll just take him longer if it’s more complex, and if the circumstances were right he would definitely try.)
“Hello there.” Caspian is nice by default. As this is a strange new place, he’s going to be careful enough to check if others are friendly first.
"Hello there. You're one of the new ones Tenebris mentioned, then?" the tall Draconic tilts their head. Their voice is familiar...
”…uh-huh, yeah. I’m Caspian.” He seems to take a moment to remember who Tenebris is. It’s unclear if this is due to actual carelessness, fake stupidity, or both. After another slight pause, he follows up, deciding he should get to know who he’s talking to. “What’s your name?”
If the voice is familiar, why? Is there anyone it’s similar to? Otherwise, he’s not making guesses on who this is.
"As expected. I'm Mendacium Deorum," the Draconic half-bows, "pleasure to meet you."
It's Menda– the one I used to throw into the Tournament the most often–
(Felicity: okay so. uhm. how different does this Menda look from tournament/current time Menda. sorry but please let me rewrite out my own embarrassing stupidity, laziness at fact-checking, and inability to remember descriptions.)
(I mean - she looks the same since it's only been 30 yrs and she hasn't been in scarring battles from this timeframe to current, I just vaguely-recemtly changed the direction her horns curve. if it makes you feel better i didn't remember who she was until i read the "spiderwebbed black marks" / greifstruck tearstains)
(Felicity: look- i dont even remember who has the griefstruck tearstains. also ngl i prolly only remember the details for the brawlhalla legends because they’re all characters from a game I played pretty actively for a good 2-3 years, the main stuff was there for me and everything I made up is like backstory/personality stuff and tiny details. because when I had my own OCs to manage in the form of City of Glass, I kept forgetting what half of them looked like too. Edited replacement prompt time for my last actual reply:)
”…uh-huh, yeah. I’m Caspian.” He seems to take a moment to remember who Tenebris is. It’s unclear if this is due to actual carelessness, fake stupidity, or both. After another slight pause, he follows up, deciding the situation is worth hazarding a guess. “…wait, Menda? You’re here?”
The shadow clone Jiro’s using to monitor him whispers something to him, but Menda and anyone else around wouldn’t be able to hear or notice it. Caspian seems to randomly answer “Yeah, I guess…” a few moments after realizing it’s Menda.
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
Videns keeps 'reading', but eventually looks up, head tilted as if listening to something, before closing the book and tossing it onto the table. she leaves the library, door left open behind her.
seems Jiro and Caspian are free to explore when they want to, now.
Caspian doesn’t really want to let Jiro get up right now, though Jiro sends a shadow clone to explore the library and infest it. He’s not as focused on leaving the library because it is Very Bright outside.
it's a pretty decent sized library, and has some darker spots due to the paint dimming the glow.
The shadow clone checks the books *just in case* there’s something useful (aka not in a language he doesn’t know). If there’s nothing he can actually read it’ll just infest a corner, preferably one near an exit. How many doors in/out of the library are there?
There's some English books that seem recently translated from the others, a couple being half-written still. Most of them are about the rise and fall of kingdoms such as Magia Titulari (randomly got vaporized), Amist Memoriam (conquered by Solis Cantus), and Regnum Deos (fell in the Deorum War).
There's two doors in & out of the library. the other door is on the same wall as the one they came in through, but is across the library.
Jiro focuses on controlling the shadow clone to “read”, he’ll look zoned out and he won’t notice subtle things happening around him but he will be able to pick out anything he can regularly perceive around the shadow clone. Caspian notices and pulls him closer so he looks more like he’s “asleep” with his head resting on Caspian’s shoulder.
He tries to figure out more about the Amist Memoriam book first, because he vaguely knows that Videns and Vizerxa are connected to that place. (He doesn’t have as much connection to Menda, so he’s not going to investigate the Regnum Deos book. Also, he’s somewhat interested in seeing how “propaganda-ized” the books are because pretty much everything back in the Twilight Realm was heavily propaganda-ized.)
The book on Amist Memoriam goes over most of the history of the Kingdom. It was one of the first Kingdoms constructed after a 'Final War' hundreds of thousands of years ago, which had also resulted in the creation of the Pantheons. Amist Memoriam was created by the second leader of the Celestial Pantheon, Eclipse Ventus Mortem, the goddess of Vengeance and the Afterlife.
Amist Memoriam was also the final resting place of the Original Pantheon, as Sine Nomine, goddess of Mystery, had killed the other gods and vanished from history. Eclipse died honorably, having gone back into the flaming palace after ensuring the safety of her subjects, and died in battle alongside the rest of her Pantheon. She, strangely enough, was never seen in the Afterlife despite all of the Original Gods still being technically Mortal, just granted immense power.
After the Original Pantheon's fall, the Descendants created the new Pantheon, though it had less power than the original, and rebuilt what had been lost in Amist Memoriam. At this point, the Deorum Pantheon (descendants of the Deorum Family) had split off from the others for unknown reasons.
Up until 20,000 years ago, the Celestial Pantheon continued to live within Amist Memoriam, before moving to another continent out of fear of Solis Cantus (also known as Light Song by her enemies), who declared war upon them. Since then, the Celestial Pantheon has been unaligned from the Kingdoms.
After the Pantheon's departure from Amist Memoriam, the non-deity descendants of the Mortem family continued to rule the kingdom, and it became known as the birthplace of most medicines and sculpture arts. Most of the residents followed Nocte, the Ancient God of Darkness, and study of the stars was quite important to them.
590 years ago, Solis Cantus declared war on Amist Memoriam after Queen Fractal refused to ally with her. Solis manipulated the Royal Court to turn against Queen Fractal and kill her and Prince Arctos. Soon after, the kingdom started to crumble without a Ruler since Fractal's daughters, Vivere Umbra Mortem and Enigma Ventus-Mortem, were both too young to take the throne, and the Court distrusted Phoenix, the Royal Advisor who took the throne temporarily.
Solis hired an assassin to kill Vivere and Enigma, blaming it on Phoenix, and the Kingdom was finally weak enough for her to invade and destroy. Vivere and Enigma supposedly joined Solis's Pantheon as Souls, similar to most young Royals of Kingdoms she overthrows.
Jiro decides to put the book back and report the information to Caspian. ”…So… Vizerxa, if she’s alive in this timeline, should be here, according to the library books. Also, we’re in Light Song’s palace, which kind of explains why everything’s kinda messed up.” Even though there’s no one else in the library, he’s still basically whispering so you can’t clearly hear what he’s saying unless you’re standing right next to him. It’s an instinctive paranoia thing he does all the time. He also finally realized that yes, Solis Cantus is Light Song, but he still has no idea what the other Draconics’ latin/original names are. He recognizes “Mortem” as Vizerxa’s last name but he doesn’t known that Vivere Umbra Mortem IS Vizerxa because he doesn’t recognize her birth name.
“Alright. Do you want to stay here? Is it easier on you if you monitor through the shadow clones?” Caspian knows Jiro’s going to have a hard time in this place. It’s just way, way, way too bright for him.
“I don’t know if I can even monitor you with the shadow clones, since the glow’s coming from all directions. It’ll definitely be easier if I can, though.” Jiro replies.
Both of them get up, Caspian goes to check outside the doors while Jiro goes back to the shelving area to explore and hide.
The door that they'd entered the library through leads out to the hallway, and the other door leads to a small, similarly painted, storage room of shelves, empty books, and writing utensils. There's also a couple Elovuxen books open on a small table, beside mostly-blank books in English. Seems Tenebris is translating the Elovuxen books due to it being a mostly dead language.
There's also a few translation books, some from Elovuxen to Latin and some from Elovuxen to English.
Does the main hallway have carpeting or some form of flooring that doesn’t glow?
Jiro decides to figure out wtf elovuxen is, he kinda knew that the Draconic realm used latin but he does not know what elovuxen is. He flips through one of the translation books- provided it’s like a normal book and not a dictionary, he knows from experience that those are almost always actually mostly pointless for trying to figure out how other languages work.
It has white carpets/rugs down the center, stopping a couple inches from the wall, so while it technically doesn't glow it does reflect light.
The books are set up with the assumption that the reader already knows the definition of at least one, so it's just divided into categories of words (times, places, animals, adjectives, titles, etc) and (english)alphabetically (numbers are listed numerically), and a few pages at the from explaining grammar rules, how some words are just combinations of other words' prefixes & suffixes so might not be written down, and a loose history of the language (it grew popular in an Ancient large Kingdom, and started spreading when kingdoms started forming and needed to communicate with each other). The translations themselves are just the Elovuxen word beside the English word, so... more or less a dictionary, maybe?
there's also several pages with simple sentences, gradually getting more complex, to show the words & grammar rules in use. (as well as sentences below them translating the full sentence)
(kinda like my Elovuxen thing on Q ↓)
look if the floor is not actually glowing then he technically would cast a shadow: it’d just be a drop shadow (ie a circle under him) instead of a normal cast shadow (silhouette going behind). Also if the carpet is floofy then it’d be easier for the shadow clones to hide inside the carpet.
Caspian will go explore, Jiro puts the elovuxen book back but decides to check the Magia Titulari book, he vaguely remembers something about Videns vaporizing a kingdom because of Sidera and Sid’s a timewalker right? He wants to check how much the draconics know about how he possibly got here and how he can go to a different realm. (He doesn’t quite want to go back to the tournament, but he does want to go somewhere “safer”… by which i mean more comfortable because they aren’t trying to trap him in an incredibly bright palace.)
Fair. it's not fluffy, pretty short carpet.
Magia Titulari is a kingdom founded 40,000 years ago on a large island with abnormal properties, such as more potent poisons and healing, larger animals, and seemingly random mutations in those who have been on the island since birth (such as the Feriv residents being more wolf-like than fox). Several Kingdoms somewhat close to it, such as Amist Memoriam, Sevi Cullix, Vesca, and Imnux sent teams of researchers to investigate and learn more about the Island. Upon the discovery that living on the island for extended periods of time amplifies one's magic capabilities permanently, more Kingdoms sent teams, and permanent settlements began to be built. Before even being declared its own kingdom, Magia had over 200 residents.
With Solis Cantus of the Fallen Pantheon and Lux Aura being a rising threat at the time, all Kingdoms involved agreed it would waste too much time, resources, and be too risky to gather for negotiations on who actually owns the island, as well as risky to send more of their citizens and soldiers to guard the island, and the residents were declared their own kingdom; Magia Titulari.
The residents democratically elected the Ruler, a feriv-draconic hybrid named Lucens Carmine, and the first Council, and it was decided the Ruler's descendants would remain the main political power.
Study of the Island remained the main focus of the Kingdom, as well as documenting what the island does to the inhabitants. Common abnormal genetic mutations include; a second set of wings (often nearly unusable), gills and/or webbed hands and feet in families with distant Syren blood, feathers one ones neck and body instead of scales, two tails, all teeth being razor sharp and thin, forked tongues, second eyelids, unhingable snake-like jaws, severely deformed vocal chords or inner ears, and a metallic appearance to spines, claws, or rarely teeth.
Although some of these are rare genetic mutations outside of Magia as well, they appear much more commonly in the island.
After 7,000 years of inhabiting the island, the genetic mutations of those born on the island stopped being as extreme, and it's believed that higher magical powers and capabilities than what one can easily handle are what caused the mutations. As the Draconics of Magia evolved to utilize the magic capabilities they gained, their bodies no longer needed to go under such extreme mutations just to survive. As long as those born in Magia had at least one Magian parent, the child likely would not go through the extreme mutations due to the genetically higher capacity for magic.
Magia Titulari became known for impressive scientific advancements, incredibly potent poisons, and powerful Zypherins and Vicleres.
During year 1535 of the Valaraen Universal Calendar, or 39635 Magia calendar, an unexplainable event happened. The Kingdom was completely leveled to the ground, and the magical properties of the island went completely null, in fact reversing their previous effects. Magic is completely and totally cancelled out on Magia, even to this day.
There were only about 40 survivors within the main city, including Videns Mortem of the Fallen Pantheon who had been there on a trip to seek more scientific knowledge for her own purposes, and 120 outside of the main city. None of the survivors can remember anything of what happened that day, reporting that their memories are foggy, distorted, or generally odd.
Survivors were taken in by the Kingdoms closest to the island, and reported that it took a month to regain the ability to use magic and that it is much weaker than before. The cause is still uncertain.
eh it’s ok the shadow clone will manage. Caspian walks down the hallway opposite the direction they came in.
Jiro decides that these books seem to have enough “context” but nothing truly useful, and goes back to the seating area to focus on monitoring the shadow clones.
For now, the halls are empty..
He continues to follow the hallway until he either sees a door/crossroad or notices signs of beings nearby ie approaching footsteps.
Eventually there's footsteps, briskly walking down the hall towards him.
If there’s a close by side path or door, he’ll go there to avoid the footsteps. If not, he’ll continue to walk towards the footsteps- best to not act suspicious and he can undo time if it goes really wrong.
There is a door, but it's locked.
The approaching person turns the corner, seeming very uninterested in everything. They have long pale grey-blue hair with sidebangs with darker tips than the rest of their hair, and their wings and the fluffy end of their tail have the same coloring. One of their back curving grey horns is broken across the top of the highest curve near the base, and the tip is broken off. Their pale face has black web-like streaks going down from their eyes to their jaw, and they're wearing plate-and-chainmail armour.
Upon finding out that the door is locked, he quickly moves away from it and continues to walk down the hallway. The footsteps are approaching too quickly for him to have the time to go pick the lock and then escape without attracting suspicion. (He probably can get through the lock, it’ll just take him longer if it’s more complex, and if the circumstances were right he would definitely try.)
“Hello there.” Caspian is nice by default. As this is a strange new place, he’s going to be careful enough to check if others are friendly first.
"Hello there. You're one of the new ones Tenebris mentioned, then?" the tall Draconic tilts their head. Their voice is familiar...
”…uh-huh, yeah. I’m Caspian.” He seems to take a moment to remember who Tenebris is. It’s unclear if this is due to actual carelessness, fake stupidity, or both. After another slight pause, he follows up, deciding he should get to know who he’s talking to. “What’s your name?”
If the voice is familiar, why? Is there anyone it’s similar to? Otherwise, he’s not making guesses on who this is.
"As expected. I'm Mendacium Deorum," the Draconic half-bows, "pleasure to meet you."
It's Menda– the one I used to throw into the Tournament the most often–
(Felicity: okay so. uhm. how different does this Menda look from tournament/current time Menda. sorry but please let me rewrite out my own embarrassing stupidity, laziness at fact-checking, and inability to remember descriptions.)
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
Videns keeps 'reading', but eventually looks up, head tilted as if listening to something, before closing the book and tossing it onto the table. she leaves the library, door left open behind her.
seems Jiro and Caspian are free to explore when they want to, now.
Caspian doesn’t really want to let Jiro get up right now, though Jiro sends a shadow clone to explore the library and infest it. He’s not as focused on leaving the library because it is Very Bright outside.
it's a pretty decent sized library, and has some darker spots due to the paint dimming the glow.
The shadow clone checks the books *just in case* there’s something useful (aka not in a language he doesn’t know). If there’s nothing he can actually read it’ll just infest a corner, preferably one near an exit. How many doors in/out of the library are there?
There's some English books that seem recently translated from the others, a couple being half-written still. Most of them are about the rise and fall of kingdoms such as Magia Titulari (randomly got vaporized), Amist Memoriam (conquered by Solis Cantus), and Regnum Deos (fell in the Deorum War).
There's two doors in & out of the library. the other door is on the same wall as the one they came in through, but is across the library.
Jiro focuses on controlling the shadow clone to “read”, he’ll look zoned out and he won’t notice subtle things happening around him but he will be able to pick out anything he can regularly perceive around the shadow clone. Caspian notices and pulls him closer so he looks more like he’s “asleep” with his head resting on Caspian’s shoulder.
He tries to figure out more about the Amist Memoriam book first, because he vaguely knows that Videns and Vizerxa are connected to that place. (He doesn’t have as much connection to Menda, so he’s not going to investigate the Regnum Deos book. Also, he’s somewhat interested in seeing how “propaganda-ized” the books are because pretty much everything back in the Twilight Realm was heavily propaganda-ized.)
The book on Amist Memoriam goes over most of the history of the Kingdom. It was one of the first Kingdoms constructed after a 'Final War' hundreds of thousands of years ago, which had also resulted in the creation of the Pantheons. Amist Memoriam was created by the second leader of the Celestial Pantheon, Eclipse Ventus Mortem, the goddess of Vengeance and the Afterlife.
Amist Memoriam was also the final resting place of the Original Pantheon, as Sine Nomine, goddess of Mystery, had killed the other gods and vanished from history. Eclipse died honorably, having gone back into the flaming palace after ensuring the safety of her subjects, and died in battle alongside the rest of her Pantheon. She, strangely enough, was never seen in the Afterlife despite all of the Original Gods still being technically Mortal, just granted immense power.
After the Original Pantheon's fall, the Descendants created the new Pantheon, though it had less power than the original, and rebuilt what had been lost in Amist Memoriam. At this point, the Deorum Pantheon (descendants of the Deorum Family) had split off from the others for unknown reasons.
Up until 20,000 years ago, the Celestial Pantheon continued to live within Amist Memoriam, before moving to another continent out of fear of Solis Cantus (also known as Light Song by her enemies), who declared war upon them. Since then, the Celestial Pantheon has been unaligned from the Kingdoms.
After the Pantheon's departure from Amist Memoriam, the non-deity descendants of the Mortem family continued to rule the kingdom, and it became known as the birthplace of most medicines and sculpture arts. Most of the residents followed Nocte, the Ancient God of Darkness, and study of the stars was quite important to them.
590 years ago, Solis Cantus declared war on Amist Memoriam after Queen Fractal refused to ally with her. Solis manipulated the Royal Court to turn against Queen Fractal and kill her and Prince Arctos. Soon after, the kingdom started to crumble without a Ruler since Fractal's daughters, Vivere Umbra Mortem and Enigma Ventus-Mortem, were both too young to take the throne, and the Court distrusted Phoenix, the Royal Advisor who took the throne temporarily.
Solis hired an assassin to kill Vivere and Enigma, blaming it on Phoenix, and the Kingdom was finally weak enough for her to invade and destroy. Vivere and Enigma supposedly joined Solis's Pantheon as Souls, similar to most young Royals of Kingdoms she overthrows.
Jiro decides to put the book back and report the information to Caspian. ”…So… Vizerxa, if she’s alive in this timeline, should be here, according to the library books. Also, we’re in Light Song’s palace, which kind of explains why everything’s kinda messed up.” Even though there’s no one else in the library, he’s still basically whispering so you can’t clearly hear what he’s saying unless you’re standing right next to him. It’s an instinctive paranoia thing he does all the time. He also finally realized that yes, Solis Cantus is Light Song, but he still has no idea what the other Draconics’ latin/original names are. He recognizes “Mortem” as Vizerxa’s last name but he doesn’t known that Vivere Umbra Mortem IS Vizerxa because he doesn’t recognize her birth name.
“Alright. Do you want to stay here? Is it easier on you if you monitor through the shadow clones?” Caspian knows Jiro’s going to have a hard time in this place. It’s just way, way, way too bright for him.
“I don’t know if I can even monitor you with the shadow clones, since the glow’s coming from all directions. It’ll definitely be easier if I can, though.” Jiro replies.
Both of them get up, Caspian goes to check outside the doors while Jiro goes back to the shelving area to explore and hide.
The door that they'd entered the library through leads out to the hallway, and the other door leads to a small, similarly painted, storage room of shelves, empty books, and writing utensils. There's also a couple Elovuxen books open on a small table, beside mostly-blank books in English. Seems Tenebris is translating the Elovuxen books due to it being a mostly dead language.
There's also a few translation books, some from Elovuxen to Latin and some from Elovuxen to English.
Does the main hallway have carpeting or some form of flooring that doesn’t glow?
Jiro decides to figure out wtf elovuxen is, he kinda knew that the Draconic realm used latin but he does not know what elovuxen is. He flips through one of the translation books- provided it’s like a normal book and not a dictionary, he knows from experience that those are almost always actually mostly pointless for trying to figure out how other languages work.
It has white carpets/rugs down the center, stopping a couple inches from the wall, so while it technically doesn't glow it does reflect light.
The books are set up with the assumption that the reader already knows the definition of at least one, so it's just divided into categories of words (times, places, animals, adjectives, titles, etc) and (english)alphabetically (numbers are listed numerically), and a few pages at the from explaining grammar rules, how some words are just combinations of other words' prefixes & suffixes so might not be written down, and a loose history of the language (it grew popular in an Ancient large Kingdom, and started spreading when kingdoms started forming and needed to communicate with each other). The translations themselves are just the Elovuxen word beside the English word, so... more or less a dictionary, maybe?
there's also several pages with simple sentences, gradually getting more complex, to show the words & grammar rules in use. (as well as sentences below them translating the full sentence)
(kinda like my Elovuxen thing on Q ↓)
look if the floor is not actually glowing then he technically would cast a shadow: it’d just be a drop shadow (ie a circle under him) instead of a normal cast shadow (silhouette going behind). Also if the carpet is floofy then it’d be easier for the shadow clones to hide inside the carpet.
Caspian will go explore, Jiro puts the elovuxen book back but decides to check the Magia Titulari book, he vaguely remembers something about Videns vaporizing a kingdom because of Sidera and Sid’s a timewalker right? He wants to check how much the draconics know about how he possibly got here and how he can go to a different realm. (He doesn’t quite want to go back to the tournament, but he does want to go somewhere “safer”… by which i mean more comfortable because they aren’t trying to trap him in an incredibly bright palace.)
Fair. it's not fluffy, pretty short carpet.
Magia Titulari is a kingdom founded 40,000 years ago on a large island with abnormal properties, such as more potent poisons and healing, larger animals, and seemingly random mutations in those who have been on the island since birth (such as the Feriv residents being more wolf-like than fox). Several Kingdoms somewhat close to it, such as Amist Memoriam, Sevi Cullix, Vesca, and Imnux sent teams of researchers to investigate and learn more about the Island. Upon the discovery that living on the island for extended periods of time amplifies one's magic capabilities permanently, more Kingdoms sent teams, and permanent settlements began to be built. Before even being declared its own kingdom, Magia had over 200 residents.
With Solis Cantus of the Fallen Pantheon and Lux Aura being a rising threat at the time, all Kingdoms involved agreed it would waste too much time, resources, and be too risky to gather for negotiations on who actually owns the island, as well as risky to send more of their citizens and soldiers to guard the island, and the residents were declared their own kingdom; Magia Titulari.
The residents democratically elected the Ruler, a feriv-draconic hybrid named Lucens Carmine, and the first Council, and it was decided the Ruler's descendants would remain the main political power.
Study of the Island remained the main focus of the Kingdom, as well as documenting what the island does to the inhabitants. Common abnormal genetic mutations include; a second set of wings (often nearly unusable), gills and/or webbed hands and feet in families with distant Syren blood, feathers one ones neck and body instead of scales, two tails, all teeth being razor sharp and thin, forked tongues, second eyelids, unhingable snake-like jaws, severely deformed vocal chords or inner ears, and a metallic appearance to spines, claws, or rarely teeth.
Although some of these are rare genetic mutations outside of Magia as well, they appear much more commonly in the island.
After 7,000 years of inhabiting the island, the genetic mutations of those born on the island stopped being as extreme, and it's believed that higher magical powers and capabilities than what one can easily handle are what caused the mutations. As the Draconics of Magia evolved to utilize the magic capabilities they gained, their bodies no longer needed to go under such extreme mutations just to survive. As long as those born in Magia had at least one Magian parent, the child likely would not go through the extreme mutations due to the genetically higher capacity for magic.
Magia Titulari became known for impressive scientific advancements, incredibly potent poisons, and powerful Zypherins and Vicleres.
During year 1535 of the Valaraen Universal Calendar, or 39635 Magia calendar, an unexplainable event happened. The Kingdom was completely leveled to the ground, and the magical properties of the island went completely null, in fact reversing their previous effects. Magic is completely and totally cancelled out on Magia, even to this day.
There were only about 40 survivors within the main city, including Videns Mortem of the Fallen Pantheon who had been there on a trip to seek more scientific knowledge for her own purposes, and 120 outside of the main city. None of the survivors can remember anything of what happened that day, reporting that their memories are foggy, distorted, or generally odd.
Survivors were taken in by the Kingdoms closest to the island, and reported that it took a month to regain the ability to use magic and that it is much weaker than before. The cause is still uncertain.
eh it’s ok the shadow clone will manage. Caspian walks down the hallway opposite the direction they came in.
Jiro decides that these books seem to have enough “context” but nothing truly useful, and goes back to the seating area to focus on monitoring the shadow clones.
For now, the halls are empty..
He continues to follow the hallway until he either sees a door/crossroad or notices signs of beings nearby ie approaching footsteps.
Eventually there's footsteps, briskly walking down the hall towards him.
If there’s a close by side path or door, he’ll go there to avoid the footsteps. If not, he’ll continue to walk towards the footsteps- best to not act suspicious and he can undo time if it goes really wrong.
There is a door, but it's locked.
The approaching person turns the corner, seeming very uninterested in everything. They have long pale grey-blue hair with sidebangs with darker tips than the rest of their hair, and their wings and the fluffy end of their tail have the same coloring. One of their back curving grey horns is broken across the top of the highest curve near the base, and the tip is broken off. Their pale face has black web-like streaks going down from their eyes to their jaw, and they're wearing plate-and-chainmail armour.
Upon finding out that the door is locked, he quickly moves away from it and continues to walk down the hallway. The footsteps are approaching too quickly for him to have the time to go pick the lock and then escape without attracting suspicion. (He probably can get through the lock, it’ll just take him longer if it’s more complex, and if the circumstances were right he would definitely try.)
“Hello there.” Caspian is nice by default. As this is a strange new place, he’s going to be careful enough to check if others are friendly first.
"Hello there. You're one of the new ones Tenebris mentioned, then?" the tall Draconic tilts their head. Their voice is familiar...
”…uh-huh, yeah. I’m Caspian.” He seems to take a moment to remember who Tenebris is. It’s unclear if this is due to actual carelessness, fake stupidity, or both. After another slight pause, he follows up, deciding he should get to know who he’s talking to. “What’s your name?”
If the voice is familiar, why? Is there anyone it’s similar to? Otherwise, he’s not making guesses on who this is.
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
Videns keeps 'reading', but eventually looks up, head tilted as if listening to something, before closing the book and tossing it onto the table. she leaves the library, door left open behind her.
seems Jiro and Caspian are free to explore when they want to, now.
Caspian doesn’t really want to let Jiro get up right now, though Jiro sends a shadow clone to explore the library and infest it. He’s not as focused on leaving the library because it is Very Bright outside.
it's a pretty decent sized library, and has some darker spots due to the paint dimming the glow.
The shadow clone checks the books *just in case* there’s something useful (aka not in a language he doesn’t know). If there’s nothing he can actually read it’ll just infest a corner, preferably one near an exit. How many doors in/out of the library are there?
There's some English books that seem recently translated from the others, a couple being half-written still. Most of them are about the rise and fall of kingdoms such as Magia Titulari (randomly got vaporized), Amist Memoriam (conquered by Solis Cantus), and Regnum Deos (fell in the Deorum War).
There's two doors in & out of the library. the other door is on the same wall as the one they came in through, but is across the library.
Jiro focuses on controlling the shadow clone to “read”, he’ll look zoned out and he won’t notice subtle things happening around him but he will be able to pick out anything he can regularly perceive around the shadow clone. Caspian notices and pulls him closer so he looks more like he’s “asleep” with his head resting on Caspian’s shoulder.
He tries to figure out more about the Amist Memoriam book first, because he vaguely knows that Videns and Vizerxa are connected to that place. (He doesn’t have as much connection to Menda, so he’s not going to investigate the Regnum Deos book. Also, he’s somewhat interested in seeing how “propaganda-ized” the books are because pretty much everything back in the Twilight Realm was heavily propaganda-ized.)
The book on Amist Memoriam goes over most of the history of the Kingdom. It was one of the first Kingdoms constructed after a 'Final War' hundreds of thousands of years ago, which had also resulted in the creation of the Pantheons. Amist Memoriam was created by the second leader of the Celestial Pantheon, Eclipse Ventus Mortem, the goddess of Vengeance and the Afterlife.
Amist Memoriam was also the final resting place of the Original Pantheon, as Sine Nomine, goddess of Mystery, had killed the other gods and vanished from history. Eclipse died honorably, having gone back into the flaming palace after ensuring the safety of her subjects, and died in battle alongside the rest of her Pantheon. She, strangely enough, was never seen in the Afterlife despite all of the Original Gods still being technically Mortal, just granted immense power.
After the Original Pantheon's fall, the Descendants created the new Pantheon, though it had less power than the original, and rebuilt what had been lost in Amist Memoriam. At this point, the Deorum Pantheon (descendants of the Deorum Family) had split off from the others for unknown reasons.
Up until 20,000 years ago, the Celestial Pantheon continued to live within Amist Memoriam, before moving to another continent out of fear of Solis Cantus (also known as Light Song by her enemies), who declared war upon them. Since then, the Celestial Pantheon has been unaligned from the Kingdoms.
After the Pantheon's departure from Amist Memoriam, the non-deity descendants of the Mortem family continued to rule the kingdom, and it became known as the birthplace of most medicines and sculpture arts. Most of the residents followed Nocte, the Ancient God of Darkness, and study of the stars was quite important to them.
590 years ago, Solis Cantus declared war on Amist Memoriam after Queen Fractal refused to ally with her. Solis manipulated the Royal Court to turn against Queen Fractal and kill her and Prince Arctos. Soon after, the kingdom started to crumble without a Ruler since Fractal's daughters, Vivere Umbra Mortem and Enigma Ventus-Mortem, were both too young to take the throne, and the Court distrusted Phoenix, the Royal Advisor who took the throne temporarily.
Solis hired an assassin to kill Vivere and Enigma, blaming it on Phoenix, and the Kingdom was finally weak enough for her to invade and destroy. Vivere and Enigma supposedly joined Solis's Pantheon as Souls, similar to most young Royals of Kingdoms she overthrows.
Jiro decides to put the book back and report the information to Caspian. ”…So… Vizerxa, if she’s alive in this timeline, should be here, according to the library books. Also, we’re in Light Song’s palace, which kind of explains why everything’s kinda messed up.” Even though there’s no one else in the library, he’s still basically whispering so you can’t clearly hear what he’s saying unless you’re standing right next to him. It’s an instinctive paranoia thing he does all the time. He also finally realized that yes, Solis Cantus is Light Song, but he still has no idea what the other Draconics’ latin/original names are. He recognizes “Mortem” as Vizerxa’s last name but he doesn’t known that Vivere Umbra Mortem IS Vizerxa because he doesn’t recognize her birth name.
“Alright. Do you want to stay here? Is it easier on you if you monitor through the shadow clones?” Caspian knows Jiro’s going to have a hard time in this place. It’s just way, way, way too bright for him.
“I don’t know if I can even monitor you with the shadow clones, since the glow’s coming from all directions. It’ll definitely be easier if I can, though.” Jiro replies.
Both of them get up, Caspian goes to check outside the doors while Jiro goes back to the shelving area to explore and hide.
The door that they'd entered the library through leads out to the hallway, and the other door leads to a small, similarly painted, storage room of shelves, empty books, and writing utensils. There's also a couple Elovuxen books open on a small table, beside mostly-blank books in English. Seems Tenebris is translating the Elovuxen books due to it being a mostly dead language.
There's also a few translation books, some from Elovuxen to Latin and some from Elovuxen to English.
Does the main hallway have carpeting or some form of flooring that doesn’t glow?
Jiro decides to figure out wtf elovuxen is, he kinda knew that the Draconic realm used latin but he does not know what elovuxen is. He flips through one of the translation books- provided it’s like a normal book and not a dictionary, he knows from experience that those are almost always actually mostly pointless for trying to figure out how other languages work.
It has white carpets/rugs down the center, stopping a couple inches from the wall, so while it technically doesn't glow it does reflect light.
The books are set up with the assumption that the reader already knows the definition of at least one, so it's just divided into categories of words (times, places, animals, adjectives, titles, etc) and (english)alphabetically (numbers are listed numerically), and a few pages at the from explaining grammar rules, how some words are just combinations of other words' prefixes & suffixes so might not be written down, and a loose history of the language (it grew popular in an Ancient large Kingdom, and started spreading when kingdoms started forming and needed to communicate with each other). The translations themselves are just the Elovuxen word beside the English word, so... more or less a dictionary, maybe?
there's also several pages with simple sentences, gradually getting more complex, to show the words & grammar rules in use. (as well as sentences below them translating the full sentence)
(kinda like my Elovuxen thing on Q ↓)
look if the floor is not actually glowing then he technically would cast a shadow: it’d just be a drop shadow (ie a circle under him) instead of a normal cast shadow (silhouette going behind). Also if the carpet is floofy then it’d be easier for the shadow clones to hide inside the carpet.
Caspian will go explore, Jiro puts the elovuxen book back but decides to check the Magia Titulari book, he vaguely remembers something about Videns vaporizing a kingdom because of Sidera and Sid’s a timewalker right? He wants to check how much the draconics know about how he possibly got here and how he can go to a different realm. (He doesn’t quite want to go back to the tournament, but he does want to go somewhere “safer”… by which i mean more comfortable because they aren’t trying to trap him in an incredibly bright palace.)
Fair. it's not fluffy, pretty short carpet.
Magia Titulari is a kingdom founded 40,000 years ago on a large island with abnormal properties, such as more potent poisons and healing, larger animals, and seemingly random mutations in those who have been on the island since birth (such as the Feriv residents being more wolf-like than fox). Several Kingdoms somewhat close to it, such as Amist Memoriam, Sevi Cullix, Vesca, and Imnux sent teams of researchers to investigate and learn more about the Island. Upon the discovery that living on the island for extended periods of time amplifies one's magic capabilities permanently, more Kingdoms sent teams, and permanent settlements began to be built. Before even being declared its own kingdom, Magia had over 200 residents.
With Solis Cantus of the Fallen Pantheon and Lux Aura being a rising threat at the time, all Kingdoms involved agreed it would waste too much time, resources, and be too risky to gather for negotiations on who actually owns the island, as well as risky to send more of their citizens and soldiers to guard the island, and the residents were declared their own kingdom; Magia Titulari.
The residents democratically elected the Ruler, a feriv-draconic hybrid named Lucens Carmine, and the first Council, and it was decided the Ruler's descendants would remain the main political power.
Study of the Island remained the main focus of the Kingdom, as well as documenting what the island does to the inhabitants. Common abnormal genetic mutations include; a second set of wings (often nearly unusable), gills and/or webbed hands and feet in families with distant Syren blood, feathers one ones neck and body instead of scales, two tails, all teeth being razor sharp and thin, forked tongues, second eyelids, unhingable snake-like jaws, severely deformed vocal chords or inner ears, and a metallic appearance to spines, claws, or rarely teeth.
Although some of these are rare genetic mutations outside of Magia as well, they appear much more commonly in the island.
After 7,000 years of inhabiting the island, the genetic mutations of those born on the island stopped being as extreme, and it's believed that higher magical powers and capabilities than what one can easily handle are what caused the mutations. As the Draconics of Magia evolved to utilize the magic capabilities they gained, their bodies no longer needed to go under such extreme mutations just to survive. As long as those born in Magia had at least one Magian parent, the child likely would not go through the extreme mutations due to the genetically higher capacity for magic.
Magia Titulari became known for impressive scientific advancements, incredibly potent poisons, and powerful Zypherins and Vicleres.
During year 1535 of the Valaraen Universal Calendar, or 39635 Magia calendar, an unexplainable event happened. The Kingdom was completely leveled to the ground, and the magical properties of the island went completely null, in fact reversing their previous effects. Magic is completely and totally cancelled out on Magia, even to this day.
There were only about 40 survivors within the main city, including Videns Mortem of the Fallen Pantheon who had been there on a trip to seek more scientific knowledge for her own purposes, and 120 outside of the main city. None of the survivors can remember anything of what happened that day, reporting that their memories are foggy, distorted, or generally odd.
Survivors were taken in by the Kingdoms closest to the island, and reported that it took a month to regain the ability to use magic and that it is much weaker than before. The cause is still uncertain.
eh it’s ok the shadow clone will manage. Caspian walks down the hallway opposite the direction they came in.
Jiro decides that these books seem to have enough “context” but nothing truly useful, and goes back to the seating area to focus on monitoring the shadow clones.
For now, the halls are empty..
He continues to follow the hallway until he either sees a door/crossroad or notices signs of beings nearby ie approaching footsteps.
Eventually there's footsteps, briskly walking down the hall towards him.
If there’s a close by side path or door, he’ll go there to avoid the footsteps. If not, he’ll continue to walk towards the footsteps- best to not act suspicious and he can undo time if it goes really wrong.
There is a door, but it's locked.
The approaching person turns the corner, seeming very uninterested in everything. They have long pale grey-blue hair with sidebangs with darker tips than the rest of their hair, and their wings and the fluffy end of their tail have the same coloring. One of their back curving grey horns is broken across the top of the highest curve near the base, and the tip is broken off. Their pale face has black web-like streaks going down from their eyes to their jaw, and they're wearing plate-and-chainmail armour.
Upon finding out that the door is locked, he quickly moves away from it and continues to walk down the hallway. The footsteps are approaching too quickly for him to have the time to go pick the lock and then escape without attracting suspicion. (He probably can get through the lock, it’ll just take him longer if it’s more complex, and if the circumstances were right he would definitely try.)
“Hello there.” Caspian is nice by default. As this is a strange new place, he’s going to be careful enough to check if others are friendly first.
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
Videns keeps 'reading', but eventually looks up, head tilted as if listening to something, before closing the book and tossing it onto the table. she leaves the library, door left open behind her.
seems Jiro and Caspian are free to explore when they want to, now.
Caspian doesn’t really want to let Jiro get up right now, though Jiro sends a shadow clone to explore the library and infest it. He’s not as focused on leaving the library because it is Very Bright outside.
it's a pretty decent sized library, and has some darker spots due to the paint dimming the glow.
The shadow clone checks the books *just in case* there’s something useful (aka not in a language he doesn’t know). If there’s nothing he can actually read it’ll just infest a corner, preferably one near an exit. How many doors in/out of the library are there?
There's some English books that seem recently translated from the others, a couple being half-written still. Most of them are about the rise and fall of kingdoms such as Magia Titulari (randomly got vaporized), Amist Memoriam (conquered by Solis Cantus), and Regnum Deos (fell in the Deorum War).
There's two doors in & out of the library. the other door is on the same wall as the one they came in through, but is across the library.
Jiro focuses on controlling the shadow clone to “read”, he’ll look zoned out and he won’t notice subtle things happening around him but he will be able to pick out anything he can regularly perceive around the shadow clone. Caspian notices and pulls him closer so he looks more like he’s “asleep” with his head resting on Caspian’s shoulder.
He tries to figure out more about the Amist Memoriam book first, because he vaguely knows that Videns and Vizerxa are connected to that place. (He doesn’t have as much connection to Menda, so he’s not going to investigate the Regnum Deos book. Also, he’s somewhat interested in seeing how “propaganda-ized” the books are because pretty much everything back in the Twilight Realm was heavily propaganda-ized.)
The book on Amist Memoriam goes over most of the history of the Kingdom. It was one of the first Kingdoms constructed after a 'Final War' hundreds of thousands of years ago, which had also resulted in the creation of the Pantheons. Amist Memoriam was created by the second leader of the Celestial Pantheon, Eclipse Ventus Mortem, the goddess of Vengeance and the Afterlife.
Amist Memoriam was also the final resting place of the Original Pantheon, as Sine Nomine, goddess of Mystery, had killed the other gods and vanished from history. Eclipse died honorably, having gone back into the flaming palace after ensuring the safety of her subjects, and died in battle alongside the rest of her Pantheon. She, strangely enough, was never seen in the Afterlife despite all of the Original Gods still being technically Mortal, just granted immense power.
After the Original Pantheon's fall, the Descendants created the new Pantheon, though it had less power than the original, and rebuilt what had been lost in Amist Memoriam. At this point, the Deorum Pantheon (descendants of the Deorum Family) had split off from the others for unknown reasons.
Up until 20,000 years ago, the Celestial Pantheon continued to live within Amist Memoriam, before moving to another continent out of fear of Solis Cantus (also known as Light Song by her enemies), who declared war upon them. Since then, the Celestial Pantheon has been unaligned from the Kingdoms.
After the Pantheon's departure from Amist Memoriam, the non-deity descendants of the Mortem family continued to rule the kingdom, and it became known as the birthplace of most medicines and sculpture arts. Most of the residents followed Nocte, the Ancient God of Darkness, and study of the stars was quite important to them.
590 years ago, Solis Cantus declared war on Amist Memoriam after Queen Fractal refused to ally with her. Solis manipulated the Royal Court to turn against Queen Fractal and kill her and Prince Arctos. Soon after, the kingdom started to crumble without a Ruler since Fractal's daughters, Vivere Umbra Mortem and Enigma Ventus-Mortem, were both too young to take the throne, and the Court distrusted Phoenix, the Royal Advisor who took the throne temporarily.
Solis hired an assassin to kill Vivere and Enigma, blaming it on Phoenix, and the Kingdom was finally weak enough for her to invade and destroy. Vivere and Enigma supposedly joined Solis's Pantheon as Souls, similar to most young Royals of Kingdoms she overthrows.
Jiro decides to put the book back and report the information to Caspian. ”…So… Vizerxa, if she’s alive in this timeline, should be here, according to the library books. Also, we’re in Light Song’s palace, which kind of explains why everything’s kinda messed up.” Even though there’s no one else in the library, he’s still basically whispering so you can’t clearly hear what he’s saying unless you’re standing right next to him. It’s an instinctive paranoia thing he does all the time. He also finally realized that yes, Solis Cantus is Light Song, but he still has no idea what the other Draconics’ latin/original names are. He recognizes “Mortem” as Vizerxa’s last name but he doesn’t known that Vivere Umbra Mortem IS Vizerxa because he doesn’t recognize her birth name.
“Alright. Do you want to stay here? Is it easier on you if you monitor through the shadow clones?” Caspian knows Jiro’s going to have a hard time in this place. It’s just way, way, way too bright for him.
“I don’t know if I can even monitor you with the shadow clones, since the glow’s coming from all directions. It’ll definitely be easier if I can, though.” Jiro replies.
Both of them get up, Caspian goes to check outside the doors while Jiro goes back to the shelving area to explore and hide.
The door that they'd entered the library through leads out to the hallway, and the other door leads to a small, similarly painted, storage room of shelves, empty books, and writing utensils. There's also a couple Elovuxen books open on a small table, beside mostly-blank books in English. Seems Tenebris is translating the Elovuxen books due to it being a mostly dead language.
There's also a few translation books, some from Elovuxen to Latin and some from Elovuxen to English.
Does the main hallway have carpeting or some form of flooring that doesn’t glow?
Jiro decides to figure out wtf elovuxen is, he kinda knew that the Draconic realm used latin but he does not know what elovuxen is. He flips through one of the translation books- provided it’s like a normal book and not a dictionary, he knows from experience that those are almost always actually mostly pointless for trying to figure out how other languages work.
It has white carpets/rugs down the center, stopping a couple inches from the wall, so while it technically doesn't glow it does reflect light.
The books are set up with the assumption that the reader already knows the definition of at least one, so it's just divided into categories of words (times, places, animals, adjectives, titles, etc) and (english)alphabetically (numbers are listed numerically), and a few pages at the from explaining grammar rules, how some words are just combinations of other words' prefixes & suffixes so might not be written down, and a loose history of the language (it grew popular in an Ancient large Kingdom, and started spreading when kingdoms started forming and needed to communicate with each other). The translations themselves are just the Elovuxen word beside the English word, so... more or less a dictionary, maybe?
there's also several pages with simple sentences, gradually getting more complex, to show the words & grammar rules in use. (as well as sentences below them translating the full sentence)
(kinda like my Elovuxen thing on Q ↓)
look if the floor is not actually glowing then he technically would cast a shadow: it’d just be a drop shadow (ie a circle under him) instead of a normal cast shadow (silhouette going behind). Also if the carpet is floofy then it’d be easier for the shadow clones to hide inside the carpet.
Caspian will go explore, Jiro puts the elovuxen book back but decides to check the Magia Titulari book, he vaguely remembers something about Videns vaporizing a kingdom because of Sidera and Sid’s a timewalker right? He wants to check how much the draconics know about how he possibly got here and how he can go to a different realm. (He doesn’t quite want to go back to the tournament, but he does want to go somewhere “safer”… by which i mean more comfortable because they aren’t trying to trap him in an incredibly bright palace.)
Fair. it's not fluffy, pretty short carpet.
Magia Titulari is a kingdom founded 40,000 years ago on a large island with abnormal properties, such as more potent poisons and healing, larger animals, and seemingly random mutations in those who have been on the island since birth (such as the Feriv residents being more wolf-like than fox). Several Kingdoms somewhat close to it, such as Amist Memoriam, Sevi Cullix, Vesca, and Imnux sent teams of researchers to investigate and learn more about the Island. Upon the discovery that living on the island for extended periods of time amplifies one's magic capabilities permanently, more Kingdoms sent teams, and permanent settlements began to be built. Before even being declared its own kingdom, Magia had over 200 residents.
With Solis Cantus of the Fallen Pantheon and Lux Aura being a rising threat at the time, all Kingdoms involved agreed it would waste too much time, resources, and be too risky to gather for negotiations on who actually owns the island, as well as risky to send more of their citizens and soldiers to guard the island, and the residents were declared their own kingdom; Magia Titulari.
The residents democratically elected the Ruler, a feriv-draconic hybrid named Lucens Carmine, and the first Council, and it was decided the Ruler's descendants would remain the main political power.
Study of the Island remained the main focus of the Kingdom, as well as documenting what the island does to the inhabitants. Common abnormal genetic mutations include; a second set of wings (often nearly unusable), gills and/or webbed hands and feet in families with distant Syren blood, feathers one ones neck and body instead of scales, two tails, all teeth being razor sharp and thin, forked tongues, second eyelids, unhingable snake-like jaws, severely deformed vocal chords or inner ears, and a metallic appearance to spines, claws, or rarely teeth.
Although some of these are rare genetic mutations outside of Magia as well, they appear much more commonly in the island.
After 7,000 years of inhabiting the island, the genetic mutations of those born on the island stopped being as extreme, and it's believed that higher magical powers and capabilities than what one can easily handle are what caused the mutations. As the Draconics of Magia evolved to utilize the magic capabilities they gained, their bodies no longer needed to go under such extreme mutations just to survive. As long as those born in Magia had at least one Magian parent, the child likely would not go through the extreme mutations due to the genetically higher capacity for magic.
Magia Titulari became known for impressive scientific advancements, incredibly potent poisons, and powerful Zypherins and Vicleres.
During year 1535 of the Valaraen Universal Calendar, or 39635 Magia calendar, an unexplainable event happened. The Kingdom was completely leveled to the ground, and the magical properties of the island went completely null, in fact reversing their previous effects. Magic is completely and totally cancelled out on Magia, even to this day.
There were only about 40 survivors within the main city, including Videns Mortem of the Fallen Pantheon who had been there on a trip to seek more scientific knowledge for her own purposes, and 120 outside of the main city. None of the survivors can remember anything of what happened that day, reporting that their memories are foggy, distorted, or generally odd.
Survivors were taken in by the Kingdoms closest to the island, and reported that it took a month to regain the ability to use magic and that it is much weaker than before. The cause is still uncertain.
eh it’s ok the shadow clone will manage. Caspian walks down the hallway opposite the direction they came in.
Jiro decides that these books seem to have enough “context” but nothing truly useful, and goes back to the seating area to focus on monitoring the shadow clones.
For now, the halls are empty..
He continues to follow the hallway until he either sees a door/crossroad or notices signs of beings nearby ie approaching footsteps.
Eventually there's footsteps, briskly walking down the hall towards him.
If there’s a close by side path or door, he’ll go there to avoid the footsteps. If not, he’ll continue to walk towards the footsteps- best to not act suspicious and he can undo time if it goes really wrong.
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
Videns keeps 'reading', but eventually looks up, head tilted as if listening to something, before closing the book and tossing it onto the table. she leaves the library, door left open behind her.
seems Jiro and Caspian are free to explore when they want to, now.
Caspian doesn’t really want to let Jiro get up right now, though Jiro sends a shadow clone to explore the library and infest it. He’s not as focused on leaving the library because it is Very Bright outside.
it's a pretty decent sized library, and has some darker spots due to the paint dimming the glow.
The shadow clone checks the books *just in case* there’s something useful (aka not in a language he doesn’t know). If there’s nothing he can actually read it’ll just infest a corner, preferably one near an exit. How many doors in/out of the library are there?
There's some English books that seem recently translated from the others, a couple being half-written still. Most of them are about the rise and fall of kingdoms such as Magia Titulari (randomly got vaporized), Amist Memoriam (conquered by Solis Cantus), and Regnum Deos (fell in the Deorum War).
There's two doors in & out of the library. the other door is on the same wall as the one they came in through, but is across the library.
Jiro focuses on controlling the shadow clone to “read”, he’ll look zoned out and he won’t notice subtle things happening around him but he will be able to pick out anything he can regularly perceive around the shadow clone. Caspian notices and pulls him closer so he looks more like he’s “asleep” with his head resting on Caspian’s shoulder.
He tries to figure out more about the Amist Memoriam book first, because he vaguely knows that Videns and Vizerxa are connected to that place. (He doesn’t have as much connection to Menda, so he’s not going to investigate the Regnum Deos book. Also, he’s somewhat interested in seeing how “propaganda-ized” the books are because pretty much everything back in the Twilight Realm was heavily propaganda-ized.)
The book on Amist Memoriam goes over most of the history of the Kingdom. It was one of the first Kingdoms constructed after a 'Final War' hundreds of thousands of years ago, which had also resulted in the creation of the Pantheons. Amist Memoriam was created by the second leader of the Celestial Pantheon, Eclipse Ventus Mortem, the goddess of Vengeance and the Afterlife.
Amist Memoriam was also the final resting place of the Original Pantheon, as Sine Nomine, goddess of Mystery, had killed the other gods and vanished from history. Eclipse died honorably, having gone back into the flaming palace after ensuring the safety of her subjects, and died in battle alongside the rest of her Pantheon. She, strangely enough, was never seen in the Afterlife despite all of the Original Gods still being technically Mortal, just granted immense power.
After the Original Pantheon's fall, the Descendants created the new Pantheon, though it had less power than the original, and rebuilt what had been lost in Amist Memoriam. At this point, the Deorum Pantheon (descendants of the Deorum Family) had split off from the others for unknown reasons.
Up until 20,000 years ago, the Celestial Pantheon continued to live within Amist Memoriam, before moving to another continent out of fear of Solis Cantus (also known as Light Song by her enemies), who declared war upon them. Since then, the Celestial Pantheon has been unaligned from the Kingdoms.
After the Pantheon's departure from Amist Memoriam, the non-deity descendants of the Mortem family continued to rule the kingdom, and it became known as the birthplace of most medicines and sculpture arts. Most of the residents followed Nocte, the Ancient God of Darkness, and study of the stars was quite important to them.
590 years ago, Solis Cantus declared war on Amist Memoriam after Queen Fractal refused to ally with her. Solis manipulated the Royal Court to turn against Queen Fractal and kill her and Prince Arctos. Soon after, the kingdom started to crumble without a Ruler since Fractal's daughters, Vivere Umbra Mortem and Enigma Ventus-Mortem, were both too young to take the throne, and the Court distrusted Phoenix, the Royal Advisor who took the throne temporarily.
Solis hired an assassin to kill Vivere and Enigma, blaming it on Phoenix, and the Kingdom was finally weak enough for her to invade and destroy. Vivere and Enigma supposedly joined Solis's Pantheon as Souls, similar to most young Royals of Kingdoms she overthrows.
Jiro decides to put the book back and report the information to Caspian. ”…So… Vizerxa, if she’s alive in this timeline, should be here, according to the library books. Also, we’re in Light Song’s palace, which kind of explains why everything’s kinda messed up.” Even though there’s no one else in the library, he’s still basically whispering so you can’t clearly hear what he’s saying unless you’re standing right next to him. It’s an instinctive paranoia thing he does all the time. He also finally realized that yes, Solis Cantus is Light Song, but he still has no idea what the other Draconics’ latin/original names are. He recognizes “Mortem” as Vizerxa’s last name but he doesn’t known that Vivere Umbra Mortem IS Vizerxa because he doesn’t recognize her birth name.
“Alright. Do you want to stay here? Is it easier on you if you monitor through the shadow clones?” Caspian knows Jiro’s going to have a hard time in this place. It’s just way, way, way too bright for him.
“I don’t know if I can even monitor you with the shadow clones, since the glow’s coming from all directions. It’ll definitely be easier if I can, though.” Jiro replies.
Both of them get up, Caspian goes to check outside the doors while Jiro goes back to the shelving area to explore and hide.
The door that they'd entered the library through leads out to the hallway, and the other door leads to a small, similarly painted, storage room of shelves, empty books, and writing utensils. There's also a couple Elovuxen books open on a small table, beside mostly-blank books in English. Seems Tenebris is translating the Elovuxen books due to it being a mostly dead language.
There's also a few translation books, some from Elovuxen to Latin and some from Elovuxen to English.
Does the main hallway have carpeting or some form of flooring that doesn’t glow?
Jiro decides to figure out wtf elovuxen is, he kinda knew that the Draconic realm used latin but he does not know what elovuxen is. He flips through one of the translation books- provided it’s like a normal book and not a dictionary, he knows from experience that those are almost always actually mostly pointless for trying to figure out how other languages work.
It has white carpets/rugs down the center, stopping a couple inches from the wall, so while it technically doesn't glow it does reflect light.
The books are set up with the assumption that the reader already knows the definition of at least one, so it's just divided into categories of words (times, places, animals, adjectives, titles, etc) and (english)alphabetically (numbers are listed numerically), and a few pages at the from explaining grammar rules, how some words are just combinations of other words' prefixes & suffixes so might not be written down, and a loose history of the language (it grew popular in an Ancient large Kingdom, and started spreading when kingdoms started forming and needed to communicate with each other). The translations themselves are just the Elovuxen word beside the English word, so... more or less a dictionary, maybe?
there's also several pages with simple sentences, gradually getting more complex, to show the words & grammar rules in use. (as well as sentences below them translating the full sentence)
(kinda like my Elovuxen thing on Q ↓)
look if the floor is not actually glowing then he technically would cast a shadow: it’d just be a drop shadow (ie a circle under him) instead of a normal cast shadow (silhouette going behind). Also if the carpet is floofy then it’d be easier for the shadow clones to hide inside the carpet.
Caspian will go explore, Jiro puts the elovuxen book back but decides to check the Magia Titulari book, he vaguely remembers something about Videns vaporizing a kingdom because of Sidera and Sid’s a timewalker right? He wants to check how much the draconics know about how he possibly got here and how he can go to a different realm. (He doesn’t quite want to go back to the tournament, but he does want to go somewhere “safer”… by which i mean more comfortable because they aren’t trying to trap him in an incredibly bright palace.)
Fair. it's not fluffy, pretty short carpet.
Magia Titulari is a kingdom founded 40,000 years ago on a large island with abnormal properties, such as more potent poisons and healing, larger animals, and seemingly random mutations in those who have been on the island since birth (such as the Feriv residents being more wolf-like than fox). Several Kingdoms somewhat close to it, such as Amist Memoriam, Sevi Cullix, Vesca, and Imnux sent teams of researchers to investigate and learn more about the Island. Upon the discovery that living on the island for extended periods of time amplifies one's magic capabilities permanently, more Kingdoms sent teams, and permanent settlements began to be built. Before even being declared its own kingdom, Magia had over 200 residents.
With Solis Cantus of the Fallen Pantheon and Lux Aura being a rising threat at the time, all Kingdoms involved agreed it would waste too much time, resources, and be too risky to gather for negotiations on who actually owns the island, as well as risky to send more of their citizens and soldiers to guard the island, and the residents were declared their own kingdom; Magia Titulari.
The residents democratically elected the Ruler, a feriv-draconic hybrid named Lucens Carmine, and the first Council, and it was decided the Ruler's descendants would remain the main political power.
Study of the Island remained the main focus of the Kingdom, as well as documenting what the island does to the inhabitants. Common abnormal genetic mutations include; a second set of wings (often nearly unusable), gills and/or webbed hands and feet in families with distant Syren blood, feathers one ones neck and body instead of scales, two tails, all teeth being razor sharp and thin, forked tongues, second eyelids, unhingable snake-like jaws, severely deformed vocal chords or inner ears, and a metallic appearance to spines, claws, or rarely teeth.
Although some of these are rare genetic mutations outside of Magia as well, they appear much more commonly in the island.
After 7,000 years of inhabiting the island, the genetic mutations of those born on the island stopped being as extreme, and it's believed that higher magical powers and capabilities than what one can easily handle are what caused the mutations. As the Draconics of Magia evolved to utilize the magic capabilities they gained, their bodies no longer needed to go under such extreme mutations just to survive. As long as those born in Magia had at least one Magian parent, the child likely would not go through the extreme mutations due to the genetically higher capacity for magic.
Magia Titulari became known for impressive scientific advancements, incredibly potent poisons, and powerful Zypherins and Vicleres.
During year 1535 of the Valaraen Universal Calendar, or 39635 Magia calendar, an unexplainable event happened. The Kingdom was completely leveled to the ground, and the magical properties of the island went completely null, in fact reversing their previous effects. Magic is completely and totally cancelled out on Magia, even to this day.
There were only about 40 survivors within the main city, including Videns Mortem of the Fallen Pantheon who had been there on a trip to seek more scientific knowledge for her own purposes, and 120 outside of the main city. None of the survivors can remember anything of what happened that day, reporting that their memories are foggy, distorted, or generally odd.
Survivors were taken in by the Kingdoms closest to the island, and reported that it took a month to regain the ability to use magic and that it is much weaker than before. The cause is still uncertain.
eh it’s ok the shadow clone will manage. Caspian walks down the hallway opposite the direction they came in.
Jiro decides that these books seem to have enough “context” but nothing truly useful, and goes back to the seating area to focus on monitoring the shadow clones.
For now, the halls are empty..
He continues to follow the hallway until he either sees a door/crossroad or notices signs of beings nearby ie approaching footsteps.
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
Videns keeps 'reading', but eventually looks up, head tilted as if listening to something, before closing the book and tossing it onto the table. she leaves the library, door left open behind her.
seems Jiro and Caspian are free to explore when they want to, now.
Caspian doesn’t really want to let Jiro get up right now, though Jiro sends a shadow clone to explore the library and infest it. He’s not as focused on leaving the library because it is Very Bright outside.
it's a pretty decent sized library, and has some darker spots due to the paint dimming the glow.
The shadow clone checks the books *just in case* there’s something useful (aka not in a language he doesn’t know). If there’s nothing he can actually read it’ll just infest a corner, preferably one near an exit. How many doors in/out of the library are there?
There's some English books that seem recently translated from the others, a couple being half-written still. Most of them are about the rise and fall of kingdoms such as Magia Titulari (randomly got vaporized), Amist Memoriam (conquered by Solis Cantus), and Regnum Deos (fell in the Deorum War).
There's two doors in & out of the library. the other door is on the same wall as the one they came in through, but is across the library.
Jiro focuses on controlling the shadow clone to “read”, he’ll look zoned out and he won’t notice subtle things happening around him but he will be able to pick out anything he can regularly perceive around the shadow clone. Caspian notices and pulls him closer so he looks more like he’s “asleep” with his head resting on Caspian’s shoulder.
He tries to figure out more about the Amist Memoriam book first, because he vaguely knows that Videns and Vizerxa are connected to that place. (He doesn’t have as much connection to Menda, so he’s not going to investigate the Regnum Deos book. Also, he’s somewhat interested in seeing how “propaganda-ized” the books are because pretty much everything back in the Twilight Realm was heavily propaganda-ized.)
The book on Amist Memoriam goes over most of the history of the Kingdom. It was one of the first Kingdoms constructed after a 'Final War' hundreds of thousands of years ago, which had also resulted in the creation of the Pantheons. Amist Memoriam was created by the second leader of the Celestial Pantheon, Eclipse Ventus Mortem, the goddess of Vengeance and the Afterlife.
Amist Memoriam was also the final resting place of the Original Pantheon, as Sine Nomine, goddess of Mystery, had killed the other gods and vanished from history. Eclipse died honorably, having gone back into the flaming palace after ensuring the safety of her subjects, and died in battle alongside the rest of her Pantheon. She, strangely enough, was never seen in the Afterlife despite all of the Original Gods still being technically Mortal, just granted immense power.
After the Original Pantheon's fall, the Descendants created the new Pantheon, though it had less power than the original, and rebuilt what had been lost in Amist Memoriam. At this point, the Deorum Pantheon (descendants of the Deorum Family) had split off from the others for unknown reasons.
Up until 20,000 years ago, the Celestial Pantheon continued to live within Amist Memoriam, before moving to another continent out of fear of Solis Cantus (also known as Light Song by her enemies), who declared war upon them. Since then, the Celestial Pantheon has been unaligned from the Kingdoms.
After the Pantheon's departure from Amist Memoriam, the non-deity descendants of the Mortem family continued to rule the kingdom, and it became known as the birthplace of most medicines and sculpture arts. Most of the residents followed Nocte, the Ancient God of Darkness, and study of the stars was quite important to them.
590 years ago, Solis Cantus declared war on Amist Memoriam after Queen Fractal refused to ally with her. Solis manipulated the Royal Court to turn against Queen Fractal and kill her and Prince Arctos. Soon after, the kingdom started to crumble without a Ruler since Fractal's daughters, Vivere Umbra Mortem and Enigma Ventus-Mortem, were both too young to take the throne, and the Court distrusted Phoenix, the Royal Advisor who took the throne temporarily.
Solis hired an assassin to kill Vivere and Enigma, blaming it on Phoenix, and the Kingdom was finally weak enough for her to invade and destroy. Vivere and Enigma supposedly joined Solis's Pantheon as Souls, similar to most young Royals of Kingdoms she overthrows.
Jiro decides to put the book back and report the information to Caspian. ”…So… Vizerxa, if she’s alive in this timeline, should be here, according to the library books. Also, we’re in Light Song’s palace, which kind of explains why everything’s kinda messed up.” Even though there’s no one else in the library, he’s still basically whispering so you can’t clearly hear what he’s saying unless you’re standing right next to him. It’s an instinctive paranoia thing he does all the time. He also finally realized that yes, Solis Cantus is Light Song, but he still has no idea what the other Draconics’ latin/original names are. He recognizes “Mortem” as Vizerxa’s last name but he doesn’t known that Vivere Umbra Mortem IS Vizerxa because he doesn’t recognize her birth name.
“Alright. Do you want to stay here? Is it easier on you if you monitor through the shadow clones?” Caspian knows Jiro’s going to have a hard time in this place. It’s just way, way, way too bright for him.
“I don’t know if I can even monitor you with the shadow clones, since the glow’s coming from all directions. It’ll definitely be easier if I can, though.” Jiro replies.
Both of them get up, Caspian goes to check outside the doors while Jiro goes back to the shelving area to explore and hide.
The door that they'd entered the library through leads out to the hallway, and the other door leads to a small, similarly painted, storage room of shelves, empty books, and writing utensils. There's also a couple Elovuxen books open on a small table, beside mostly-blank books in English. Seems Tenebris is translating the Elovuxen books due to it being a mostly dead language.
There's also a few translation books, some from Elovuxen to Latin and some from Elovuxen to English.
Does the main hallway have carpeting or some form of flooring that doesn’t glow?
Jiro decides to figure out wtf elovuxen is, he kinda knew that the Draconic realm used latin but he does not know what elovuxen is. He flips through one of the translation books- provided it’s like a normal book and not a dictionary, he knows from experience that those are almost always actually mostly pointless for trying to figure out how other languages work.
It has white carpets/rugs down the center, stopping a couple inches from the wall, so while it technically doesn't glow it does reflect light.
The books are set up with the assumption that the reader already knows the definition of at least one, so it's just divided into categories of words (times, places, animals, adjectives, titles, etc) and (english)alphabetically (numbers are listed numerically), and a few pages at the from explaining grammar rules, how some words are just combinations of other words' prefixes & suffixes so might not be written down, and a loose history of the language (it grew popular in an Ancient large Kingdom, and started spreading when kingdoms started forming and needed to communicate with each other). The translations themselves are just the Elovuxen word beside the English word, so... more or less a dictionary, maybe?
there's also several pages with simple sentences, gradually getting more complex, to show the words & grammar rules in use. (as well as sentences below them translating the full sentence)
(kinda like my Elovuxen thing on Q ↓)
look if the floor is not actually glowing then he technically would cast a shadow: it’d just be a drop shadow (ie a circle under him) instead of a normal cast shadow (silhouette going behind). Also if the carpet is floofy then it’d be easier for the shadow clones to hide inside the carpet.
Caspian will go explore, Jiro puts the elovuxen book back but decides to check the Magia Titulari book, he vaguely remembers something about Videns vaporizing a kingdom because of Sidera and Sid’s a timewalker right? He wants to check how much the draconics know about how he possibly got here and how he can go to a different realm. (He doesn’t quite want to go back to the tournament, but he does want to go somewhere “safer”… by which i mean more comfortable because they aren’t trying to trap him in an incredibly bright palace.)
Fair. it's not fluffy, pretty short carpet.
Magia Titulari is a kingdom founded 40,000 years ago on a large island with abnormal properties, such as more potent poisons and healing, larger animals, and seemingly random mutations in those who have been on the island since birth (such as the Feriv residents being more wolf-like than fox). Several Kingdoms somewhat close to it, such as Amist Memoriam, Sevi Cullix, Vesca, and Imnux sent teams of researchers to investigate and learn more about the Island. Upon the discovery that living on the island for extended periods of time amplifies one's magic capabilities permanently, more Kingdoms sent teams, and permanent settlements began to be built. Before even being declared its own kingdom, Magia had over 200 residents.
With Solis Cantus of the Fallen Pantheon and Lux Aura being a rising threat at the time, all Kingdoms involved agreed it would waste too much time, resources, and be too risky to gather for negotiations on who actually owns the island, as well as risky to send more of their citizens and soldiers to guard the island, and the residents were declared their own kingdom; Magia Titulari.
The residents democratically elected the Ruler, a feriv-draconic hybrid named Lucens Carmine, and the first Council, and it was decided the Ruler's descendants would remain the main political power.
Study of the Island remained the main focus of the Kingdom, as well as documenting what the island does to the inhabitants. Common abnormal genetic mutations include; a second set of wings (often nearly unusable), gills and/or webbed hands and feet in families with distant Syren blood, feathers one ones neck and body instead of scales, two tails, all teeth being razor sharp and thin, forked tongues, second eyelids, unhingable snake-like jaws, severely deformed vocal chords or inner ears, and a metallic appearance to spines, claws, or rarely teeth.
Although some of these are rare genetic mutations outside of Magia as well, they appear much more commonly in the island.
After 7,000 years of inhabiting the island, the genetic mutations of those born on the island stopped being as extreme, and it's believed that higher magical powers and capabilities than what one can easily handle are what caused the mutations. As the Draconics of Magia evolved to utilize the magic capabilities they gained, their bodies no longer needed to go under such extreme mutations just to survive. As long as those born in Magia had at least one Magian parent, the child likely would not go through the extreme mutations due to the genetically higher capacity for magic.
Magia Titulari became known for impressive scientific advancements, incredibly potent poisons, and powerful Zypherins and Vicleres.
During year 1535 of the Valaraen Universal Calendar, or 39635 Magia calendar, an unexplainable event happened. The Kingdom was completely leveled to the ground, and the magical properties of the island went completely null, in fact reversing their previous effects. Magic is completely and totally cancelled out on Magia, even to this day.
There were only about 40 survivors within the main city, including Videns Mortem of the Fallen Pantheon who had been there on a trip to seek more scientific knowledge for her own purposes, and 120 outside of the main city. None of the survivors can remember anything of what happened that day, reporting that their memories are foggy, distorted, or generally odd.
Survivors were taken in by the Kingdoms closest to the island, and reported that it took a month to regain the ability to use magic and that it is much weaker than before. The cause is still uncertain.
eh it’s ok the shadow clone will manage. Caspian walks down the hallway opposite the direction they came in.
Jiro decides that these books seem to have enough “context” but nothing truly useful, and goes back to the seating area to focus on monitoring the shadow clones.
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
Videns keeps 'reading', but eventually looks up, head tilted as if listening to something, before closing the book and tossing it onto the table. she leaves the library, door left open behind her.
seems Jiro and Caspian are free to explore when they want to, now.
Caspian doesn’t really want to let Jiro get up right now, though Jiro sends a shadow clone to explore the library and infest it. He’s not as focused on leaving the library because it is Very Bright outside.
it's a pretty decent sized library, and has some darker spots due to the paint dimming the glow.
The shadow clone checks the books *just in case* there’s something useful (aka not in a language he doesn’t know). If there’s nothing he can actually read it’ll just infest a corner, preferably one near an exit. How many doors in/out of the library are there?
There's some English books that seem recently translated from the others, a couple being half-written still. Most of them are about the rise and fall of kingdoms such as Magia Titulari (randomly got vaporized), Amist Memoriam (conquered by Solis Cantus), and Regnum Deos (fell in the Deorum War).
There's two doors in & out of the library. the other door is on the same wall as the one they came in through, but is across the library.
Jiro focuses on controlling the shadow clone to “read”, he’ll look zoned out and he won’t notice subtle things happening around him but he will be able to pick out anything he can regularly perceive around the shadow clone. Caspian notices and pulls him closer so he looks more like he’s “asleep” with his head resting on Caspian’s shoulder.
He tries to figure out more about the Amist Memoriam book first, because he vaguely knows that Videns and Vizerxa are connected to that place. (He doesn’t have as much connection to Menda, so he’s not going to investigate the Regnum Deos book. Also, he’s somewhat interested in seeing how “propaganda-ized” the books are because pretty much everything back in the Twilight Realm was heavily propaganda-ized.)
The book on Amist Memoriam goes over most of the history of the Kingdom. It was one of the first Kingdoms constructed after a 'Final War' hundreds of thousands of years ago, which had also resulted in the creation of the Pantheons. Amist Memoriam was created by the second leader of the Celestial Pantheon, Eclipse Ventus Mortem, the goddess of Vengeance and the Afterlife.
Amist Memoriam was also the final resting place of the Original Pantheon, as Sine Nomine, goddess of Mystery, had killed the other gods and vanished from history. Eclipse died honorably, having gone back into the flaming palace after ensuring the safety of her subjects, and died in battle alongside the rest of her Pantheon. She, strangely enough, was never seen in the Afterlife despite all of the Original Gods still being technically Mortal, just granted immense power.
After the Original Pantheon's fall, the Descendants created the new Pantheon, though it had less power than the original, and rebuilt what had been lost in Amist Memoriam. At this point, the Deorum Pantheon (descendants of the Deorum Family) had split off from the others for unknown reasons.
Up until 20,000 years ago, the Celestial Pantheon continued to live within Amist Memoriam, before moving to another continent out of fear of Solis Cantus (also known as Light Song by her enemies), who declared war upon them. Since then, the Celestial Pantheon has been unaligned from the Kingdoms.
After the Pantheon's departure from Amist Memoriam, the non-deity descendants of the Mortem family continued to rule the kingdom, and it became known as the birthplace of most medicines and sculpture arts. Most of the residents followed Nocte, the Ancient God of Darkness, and study of the stars was quite important to them.
590 years ago, Solis Cantus declared war on Amist Memoriam after Queen Fractal refused to ally with her. Solis manipulated the Royal Court to turn against Queen Fractal and kill her and Prince Arctos. Soon after, the kingdom started to crumble without a Ruler since Fractal's daughters, Vivere Umbra Mortem and Enigma Ventus-Mortem, were both too young to take the throne, and the Court distrusted Phoenix, the Royal Advisor who took the throne temporarily.
Solis hired an assassin to kill Vivere and Enigma, blaming it on Phoenix, and the Kingdom was finally weak enough for her to invade and destroy. Vivere and Enigma supposedly joined Solis's Pantheon as Souls, similar to most young Royals of Kingdoms she overthrows.
Jiro decides to put the book back and report the information to Caspian. ”…So… Vizerxa, if she’s alive in this timeline, should be here, according to the library books. Also, we’re in Light Song’s palace, which kind of explains why everything’s kinda messed up.” Even though there’s no one else in the library, he’s still basically whispering so you can’t clearly hear what he’s saying unless you’re standing right next to him. It’s an instinctive paranoia thing he does all the time. He also finally realized that yes, Solis Cantus is Light Song, but he still has no idea what the other Draconics’ latin/original names are. He recognizes “Mortem” as Vizerxa’s last name but he doesn’t known that Vivere Umbra Mortem IS Vizerxa because he doesn’t recognize her birth name.
“Alright. Do you want to stay here? Is it easier on you if you monitor through the shadow clones?” Caspian knows Jiro’s going to have a hard time in this place. It’s just way, way, way too bright for him.
“I don’t know if I can even monitor you with the shadow clones, since the glow’s coming from all directions. It’ll definitely be easier if I can, though.” Jiro replies.
Both of them get up, Caspian goes to check outside the doors while Jiro goes back to the shelving area to explore and hide.
The door that they'd entered the library through leads out to the hallway, and the other door leads to a small, similarly painted, storage room of shelves, empty books, and writing utensils. There's also a couple Elovuxen books open on a small table, beside mostly-blank books in English. Seems Tenebris is translating the Elovuxen books due to it being a mostly dead language.
There's also a few translation books, some from Elovuxen to Latin and some from Elovuxen to English.
Does the main hallway have carpeting or some form of flooring that doesn’t glow?
Jiro decides to figure out wtf elovuxen is, he kinda knew that the Draconic realm used latin but he does not know what elovuxen is. He flips through one of the translation books- provided it’s like a normal book and not a dictionary, he knows from experience that those are almost always actually mostly pointless for trying to figure out how other languages work.
It has white carpets/rugs down the center, stopping a couple inches from the wall, so while it technically doesn't glow it does reflect light.
The books are set up with the assumption that the reader already knows the definition of at least one, so it's just divided into categories of words (times, places, animals, adjectives, titles, etc) and (english)alphabetically (numbers are listed numerically), and a few pages at the from explaining grammar rules, how some words are just combinations of other words' prefixes & suffixes so might not be written down, and a loose history of the language (it grew popular in an Ancient large Kingdom, and started spreading when kingdoms started forming and needed to communicate with each other). The translations themselves are just the Elovuxen word beside the English word, so... more or less a dictionary, maybe?
there's also several pages with simple sentences, gradually getting more complex, to show the words & grammar rules in use. (as well as sentences below them translating the full sentence)
(kinda like my Elovuxen thing on Q ↓)
look if the floor is not actually glowing then he technically would cast a shadow: it’d just be a drop shadow (ie a circle under him) instead of a normal cast shadow (silhouette going behind). Also if the carpet is floofy then it’d be easier for the shadow clones to hide inside the carpet.
Caspian will go explore, Jiro puts the elovuxen book back but decides to check the Magia Titulari book, he vaguely remembers something about Videns vaporizing a kingdom because of Sidera and Sid’s a timewalker right? He wants to check how much the draconics know about how he possibly got here and how he can go to a different realm. (He doesn’t quite want to go back to the tournament, but he does want to go somewhere “safer”… by which i mean more comfortable because they aren’t trying to trap him in an incredibly bright palace.)
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
Videns keeps 'reading', but eventually looks up, head tilted as if listening to something, before closing the book and tossing it onto the table. she leaves the library, door left open behind her.
seems Jiro and Caspian are free to explore when they want to, now.
Caspian doesn’t really want to let Jiro get up right now, though Jiro sends a shadow clone to explore the library and infest it. He’s not as focused on leaving the library because it is Very Bright outside.
it's a pretty decent sized library, and has some darker spots due to the paint dimming the glow.
The shadow clone checks the books *just in case* there’s something useful (aka not in a language he doesn’t know). If there’s nothing he can actually read it’ll just infest a corner, preferably one near an exit. How many doors in/out of the library are there?
There's some English books that seem recently translated from the others, a couple being half-written still. Most of them are about the rise and fall of kingdoms such as Magia Titulari (randomly got vaporized), Amist Memoriam (conquered by Solis Cantus), and Regnum Deos (fell in the Deorum War).
There's two doors in & out of the library. the other door is on the same wall as the one they came in through, but is across the library.
Jiro focuses on controlling the shadow clone to “read”, he’ll look zoned out and he won’t notice subtle things happening around him but he will be able to pick out anything he can regularly perceive around the shadow clone. Caspian notices and pulls him closer so he looks more like he’s “asleep” with his head resting on Caspian’s shoulder.
He tries to figure out more about the Amist Memoriam book first, because he vaguely knows that Videns and Vizerxa are connected to that place. (He doesn’t have as much connection to Menda, so he’s not going to investigate the Regnum Deos book. Also, he’s somewhat interested in seeing how “propaganda-ized” the books are because pretty much everything back in the Twilight Realm was heavily propaganda-ized.)
The book on Amist Memoriam goes over most of the history of the Kingdom. It was one of the first Kingdoms constructed after a 'Final War' hundreds of thousands of years ago, which had also resulted in the creation of the Pantheons. Amist Memoriam was created by the second leader of the Celestial Pantheon, Eclipse Ventus Mortem, the goddess of Vengeance and the Afterlife.
Amist Memoriam was also the final resting place of the Original Pantheon, as Sine Nomine, goddess of Mystery, had killed the other gods and vanished from history. Eclipse died honorably, having gone back into the flaming palace after ensuring the safety of her subjects, and died in battle alongside the rest of her Pantheon. She, strangely enough, was never seen in the Afterlife despite all of the Original Gods still being technically Mortal, just granted immense power.
After the Original Pantheon's fall, the Descendants created the new Pantheon, though it had less power than the original, and rebuilt what had been lost in Amist Memoriam. At this point, the Deorum Pantheon (descendants of the Deorum Family) had split off from the others for unknown reasons.
Up until 20,000 years ago, the Celestial Pantheon continued to live within Amist Memoriam, before moving to another continent out of fear of Solis Cantus (also known as Light Song by her enemies), who declared war upon them. Since then, the Celestial Pantheon has been unaligned from the Kingdoms.
After the Pantheon's departure from Amist Memoriam, the non-deity descendants of the Mortem family continued to rule the kingdom, and it became known as the birthplace of most medicines and sculpture arts. Most of the residents followed Nocte, the Ancient God of Darkness, and study of the stars was quite important to them.
590 years ago, Solis Cantus declared war on Amist Memoriam after Queen Fractal refused to ally with her. Solis manipulated the Royal Court to turn against Queen Fractal and kill her and Prince Arctos. Soon after, the kingdom started to crumble without a Ruler since Fractal's daughters, Vivere Umbra Mortem and Enigma Ventus-Mortem, were both too young to take the throne, and the Court distrusted Phoenix, the Royal Advisor who took the throne temporarily.
Solis hired an assassin to kill Vivere and Enigma, blaming it on Phoenix, and the Kingdom was finally weak enough for her to invade and destroy. Vivere and Enigma supposedly joined Solis's Pantheon as Souls, similar to most young Royals of Kingdoms she overthrows.
Jiro decides to put the book back and report the information to Caspian. ”…So… Vizerxa, if she’s alive in this timeline, should be here, according to the library books. Also, we’re in Light Song’s palace, which kind of explains why everything’s kinda messed up.” Even though there’s no one else in the library, he’s still basically whispering so you can’t clearly hear what he’s saying unless you’re standing right next to him. It’s an instinctive paranoia thing he does all the time. He also finally realized that yes, Solis Cantus is Light Song, but he still has no idea what the other Draconics’ latin/original names are. He recognizes “Mortem” as Vizerxa’s last name but he doesn’t known that Vivere Umbra Mortem IS Vizerxa because he doesn’t recognize her birth name.
“Alright. Do you want to stay here? Is it easier on you if you monitor through the shadow clones?” Caspian knows Jiro’s going to have a hard time in this place. It’s just way, way, way too bright for him.
“I don’t know if I can even monitor you with the shadow clones, since the glow’s coming from all directions. It’ll definitely be easier if I can, though.” Jiro replies.
Both of them get up, Caspian goes to check outside the doors while Jiro goes back to the shelving area to explore and hide.
The door that they'd entered the library through leads out to the hallway, and the other door leads to a small, similarly painted, storage room of shelves, empty books, and writing utensils. There's also a couple Elovuxen books open on a small table, beside mostly-blank books in English. Seems Tenebris is translating the Elovuxen books due to it being a mostly dead language.
There's also a few translation books, some from Elovuxen to Latin and some from Elovuxen to English.
Does the main hallway have carpeting or some form of flooring that doesn’t glow?
Jiro decides to figure out wtf elovuxen is, he kinda knew that the Draconic realm used latin but he does not know what elovuxen is. He flips through one of the translation books- provided it’s like a normal book and not a dictionary, he knows from experience that those are almost always actually mostly pointless for trying to figure out how other languages work.
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
Videns keeps 'reading', but eventually looks up, head tilted as if listening to something, before closing the book and tossing it onto the table. she leaves the library, door left open behind her.
seems Jiro and Caspian are free to explore when they want to, now.
Caspian doesn’t really want to let Jiro get up right now, though Jiro sends a shadow clone to explore the library and infest it. He’s not as focused on leaving the library because it is Very Bright outside.
it's a pretty decent sized library, and has some darker spots due to the paint dimming the glow.
The shadow clone checks the books *just in case* there’s something useful (aka not in a language he doesn’t know). If there’s nothing he can actually read it’ll just infest a corner, preferably one near an exit. How many doors in/out of the library are there?
There's some English books that seem recently translated from the others, a couple being half-written still. Most of them are about the rise and fall of kingdoms such as Magia Titulari (randomly got vaporized), Amist Memoriam (conquered by Solis Cantus), and Regnum Deos (fell in the Deorum War).
There's two doors in & out of the library. the other door is on the same wall as the one they came in through, but is across the library.
Jiro focuses on controlling the shadow clone to “read”, he’ll look zoned out and he won’t notice subtle things happening around him but he will be able to pick out anything he can regularly perceive around the shadow clone. Caspian notices and pulls him closer so he looks more like he’s “asleep” with his head resting on Caspian’s shoulder.
He tries to figure out more about the Amist Memoriam book first, because he vaguely knows that Videns and Vizerxa are connected to that place. (He doesn’t have as much connection to Menda, so he’s not going to investigate the Regnum Deos book. Also, he’s somewhat interested in seeing how “propaganda-ized” the books are because pretty much everything back in the Twilight Realm was heavily propaganda-ized.)
The book on Amist Memoriam goes over most of the history of the Kingdom. It was one of the first Kingdoms constructed after a 'Final War' hundreds of thousands of years ago, which had also resulted in the creation of the Pantheons. Amist Memoriam was created by the second leader of the Celestial Pantheon, Eclipse Ventus Mortem, the goddess of Vengeance and the Afterlife.
Amist Memoriam was also the final resting place of the Original Pantheon, as Sine Nomine, goddess of Mystery, had killed the other gods and vanished from history. Eclipse died honorably, having gone back into the flaming palace after ensuring the safety of her subjects, and died in battle alongside the rest of her Pantheon. She, strangely enough, was never seen in the Afterlife despite all of the Original Gods still being technically Mortal, just granted immense power.
After the Original Pantheon's fall, the Descendants created the new Pantheon, though it had less power than the original, and rebuilt what had been lost in Amist Memoriam. At this point, the Deorum Pantheon (descendants of the Deorum Family) had split off from the others for unknown reasons.
Up until 20,000 years ago, the Celestial Pantheon continued to live within Amist Memoriam, before moving to another continent out of fear of Solis Cantus (also known as Light Song by her enemies), who declared war upon them. Since then, the Celestial Pantheon has been unaligned from the Kingdoms.
After the Pantheon's departure from Amist Memoriam, the non-deity descendants of the Mortem family continued to rule the kingdom, and it became known as the birthplace of most medicines and sculpture arts. Most of the residents followed Nocte, the Ancient God of Darkness, and study of the stars was quite important to them.
590 years ago, Solis Cantus declared war on Amist Memoriam after Queen Fractal refused to ally with her. Solis manipulated the Royal Court to turn against Queen Fractal and kill her and Prince Arctos. Soon after, the kingdom started to crumble without a Ruler since Fractal's daughters, Vivere Umbra Mortem and Enigma Ventus-Mortem, were both too young to take the throne, and the Court distrusted Phoenix, the Royal Advisor who took the throne temporarily.
Solis hired an assassin to kill Vivere and Enigma, blaming it on Phoenix, and the Kingdom was finally weak enough for her to invade and destroy. Vivere and Enigma supposedly joined Solis's Pantheon as Souls, similar to most young Royals of Kingdoms she overthrows.
Jiro decides to put the book back and report the information to Caspian. ”…So… Vizerxa, if she’s alive in this timeline, should be here, according to the library books. Also, we’re in Light Song’s palace, which kind of explains why everything’s kinda messed up.” Even though there’s no one else in the library, he’s still basically whispering so you can’t clearly hear what he’s saying unless you’re standing right next to him. It’s an instinctive paranoia thing he does all the time. He also finally realized that yes, Solis Cantus is Light Song, but he still has no idea what the other Draconics’ latin/original names are. He recognizes “Mortem” as Vizerxa’s last name but he doesn’t known that Vivere Umbra Mortem IS Vizerxa because he doesn’t recognize her birth name.
“Alright. Do you want to stay here? Is it easier on you if you monitor through the shadow clones?” Caspian knows Jiro’s going to have a hard time in this place. It’s just way, way, way too bright for him.
“I don’t know if I can even monitor you with the shadow clones, since the glow’s coming from all directions. It’ll definitely be easier if I can, though.” Jiro replies.
Both of them get up, Caspian goes to check outside the doors while Jiro goes back to the shelving area to explore and hide.
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
Videns keeps 'reading', but eventually looks up, head tilted as if listening to something, before closing the book and tossing it onto the table. she leaves the library, door left open behind her.
seems Jiro and Caspian are free to explore when they want to, now.
Caspian doesn’t really want to let Jiro get up right now, though Jiro sends a shadow clone to explore the library and infest it. He’s not as focused on leaving the library because it is Very Bright outside.
it's a pretty decent sized library, and has some darker spots due to the paint dimming the glow.
The shadow clone checks the books *just in case* there’s something useful (aka not in a language he doesn’t know). If there’s nothing he can actually read it’ll just infest a corner, preferably one near an exit. How many doors in/out of the library are there?
There's some English books that seem recently translated from the others, a couple being half-written still. Most of them are about the rise and fall of kingdoms such as Magia Titulari (randomly got vaporized), Amist Memoriam (conquered by Solis Cantus), and Regnum Deos (fell in the Deorum War).
There's two doors in & out of the library. the other door is on the same wall as the one they came in through, but is across the library.
Jiro focuses on controlling the shadow clone to “read”, he’ll look zoned out and he won’t notice subtle things happening around him but he will be able to pick out anything he can regularly perceive around the shadow clone. Caspian notices and pulls him closer so he looks more like he’s “asleep” with his head resting on Caspian’s shoulder.
He tries to figure out more about the Amist Memoriam book first, because he vaguely knows that Videns and Vizerxa are connected to that place. (He doesn’t have as much connection to Menda, so he’s not going to investigate the Regnum Deos book. Also, he’s somewhat interested in seeing how “propaganda-ized” the books are because pretty much everything back in the Twilight Realm was heavily propaganda-ized.)
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
Videns keeps 'reading', but eventually looks up, head tilted as if listening to something, before closing the book and tossing it onto the table. she leaves the library, door left open behind her.
seems Jiro and Caspian are free to explore when they want to, now.
Caspian doesn’t really want to let Jiro get up right now, though Jiro sends a shadow clone to explore the library and infest it. He’s not as focused on leaving the library because it is Very Bright outside.
it's a pretty decent sized library, and has some darker spots due to the paint dimming the glow.
The shadow clone checks the books *just in case* there’s something useful (aka not in a language he doesn’t know). If there’s nothing he can actually read it’ll just infest a corner, preferably one near an exit. How many doors in/out of the library are there?
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
Videns keeps 'reading', but eventually looks up, head tilted as if listening to something, before closing the book and tossing it onto the table. she leaves the library, door left open behind her.
seems Jiro and Caspian are free to explore when they want to, now.
Caspian doesn’t really want to let Jiro get up right now, though Jiro sends a shadow clone to explore the library and infest it. He’s not as focused on leaving the library because it is Very Bright outside.
Seems like Sidera has gotten a new idea.
Your characters get yoinked through a pale blue portal, accompanied by mischievous giggling. When the disorientation from unexpectedly traveling through space and time wears off, the surroundings become clear.
Your characters find themselves in the nearly-empty main hall of a large mainly-quartz palace that's illuminated despite there not being any visible light source, and a soft white carpet leading through the room, from the large silvery doors that presumably lead outside, across to stop in front of a polished dark oak table with a white tablecloth and seven elegant chairs evenly spaced on the side facing into the hall. The carpet splits off to either side to doors that lead to other parts of the Palace.
Two more dark tables are in the hall as well, in the rectangles left between the carpet and the walls, though they're both bigger and have less elegant chairs, but more chairs in total.
The only two other entities in the Hall currently are two Draconics sitting across from eachother near the middle of the table to the left side of the main doors.
One Draconic was almost ghostly pale, their long hair being pure white other than black streaks in their bangs framing their face, similarly colored bat-wings folded neatly, like their hands on the table. Their eyes were a bright light blue, and they had three sets of thin grey horns going back and up; the top pair was the longest, while the other two pairs were significantly shorter. They pause what they're saying to stare in confusion at the newcomers.
The other had their back to you, but based on how they were sitting they probably had their feet kicked up onto the table. Their wings were feathered, unlike the other Draconic, and the feathers gradiented from black to dark blue, small silver flecks scattered throughout. Their long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and had black streaks at the end 3-4 inches of the hair. Their long and thin tail swished and tapped against the quartz floor, the almost metallic serrated end quietly scraping and clicking against the floor.
( @the-fallen-collective , @onechaotictrio :3 ygs will be doing the threads separately/ as diff timelines basically, so it was easier to just make one post than send the ask to both)
(Felicity: It’s time for Chaos Duo to Chaos :} Kaya’s mostly not going to be in this and only appear as the occasional mention.)
”WAIT WHAT THE-“ Caspian tries unsuccessfully to make whoever’s doing this (Sid?) let go of him, but he can’t really do that much when taken by surprise.
The tournament has deeply ingrained a sense of “FIGHT” into every legend when surprised though, and Caspian’s method of trying to get an attacker off of him happens to be “punch in vaguely the direction of their head”. Jiro unhooks the two switchblade cases hanging from his belt, but doesn’t immediately extend the blades because he realized accidentally stabbing Caspian while disoriented would probably be very very bad. (Felicity: I’m assuming they got grabbed while standing next to each other or something, so if Jiro extended the switchblade swords he has a reasonable risk of them clipping into Caspian. Also because I have a rather well-established design right now I will use it, so Jirai Danshi Jiro :} )
Caspian adjusts to the sudden switch reasonably quickly, and immediately goes to stand behind Jiro- as close as he can get without the risk of accidentally being stabbed. “How is it? …I know it’s really bright… Okay, I think we’re in the draconic multiverse, whatever that place was actually called.” Caspian doesn’t really care enough to figure out where Brynn’s been getting the “guests” from, but he can conclude that they’re now in one of those realms because hey conveniently nearby beings look sorta like Vizzy/Menda/Aella.
Jiro is much slower to adjust, and appears to just blink near non-stop for ten or fifteen seconds. He still seems to be having trouble seeing well after, even though his pupils have narrowed into tiny slits and he seems to barely open his eyes anyway. He immediately wants to get out of here, sending a shadow clone to hide under the larger table without draconics sitting at it and then tugging on Caspian’s arm to guide him towards the door. He doesn’t say anything and ignores the two draconics in the room- probably intending to hope they didn’t notice or don’t care enough about them spawning here, especially because he’s going to try to get them out to somewhere with a more reasonable light level for him as soon as possible. Caspian goes along with what he seems to be trying to do, though he glances back at the two draconics sitting at the table every now and then while Jiro is very much fully focused on getting out as fast as possible.
The white-haired one stands up quickly, snapping their fingers. The doors rapidly freeze-lock shut, the small spaces between the doors and the frame freezing over as well. "Apologies, but I can't exactly allow unknown entities to leave."
The other Draconic looks over, seeming completely bored with Caspian and Jiro. Their eyes are a paler ice-blue than the tall white-haired one, and there are thick silver-ish stripes going up from their jaw to a couple inches below their eyes, "It takes a while to get used to the light, I know. However, we can't risk ya running away. there are darker rooms in the Palace, but those're the only doors out that wouldn't kill you."
Jiro stares down the brown-haired Draconic and would try to infest anywhere he reasonably could with shadow clones. (Felicity: so anywhere with shade, that isn’t too lit up by the fact the fact the palace is literally made of glow.) Jiro thinks there’s a good chance that whatever makes “the doors kill you” could be bypassed by swapping out since technically that might now be using the door? He’s also never going to outright say that he has a problem seeing because it’s too bright, even though he can’t truly hide that he would really prefer to be somewhere dark and shady. Oh and he thinks this brown-haired Draconic is Videns, but he won’t guess because he’s scared of embarrassing himself if he turns out to be wrong.
(Felicity: I know it seems like Jiro hates talking and hates the plot but trust he’s just super unnerved because it’s too bright. But also to be fair he also does generally not talk a lot.)
“Oh great. Please don’t take us prisoner, because then we will have a reason to be against you. And please at least let us go someplace darker while we need to stay here or else I don’t think I can convince Jiro to not want you dead.” Caspian is upset that they’re trying to trap them in here, he sees every attempt to catch/trap/imprison him as a dare to be more chaotic due to being an anarchist and his general criminal past. He’s trying to be their diplomat, but he sounds incredibly done with this.
The Draconic stares back, unblinking. For just a moment, the entire room seems to shimmer and distort ever so slightly, but only for Jiro. They don't respond, though, just waiting.
(fair lol)
"I'm just doing my job. Tenebris is already aware since he can tell when someone new is here. You won't be taken prisoner, as long as you stay calm and not piss off the Queen. Or the Elites, actually," the white-haired one frowns. They're warning Caspian, not threatening, and seem concerned at the idea of angering the 'Queen' themself, "If we let you go or just don't guide you two to Tenebris's Library, we'd get in trouble and quite possibly killed since he always reports disturbances to the Queen."
Jiro continues to stare at the brown-haired draconic and while he is unnerved by stuff happening to the room, he also doesn’t want to tell the draconics that he knows something weird is going on, in case it makes them react badly. He’s still holding onto the two switchblade cases, keeping the “hilt” where the blade would come out pointed at the Draconics, with his index fingers resting on the “hilt” part so he could slide his finger down, hit the button in the grip, and extend the blade at any moment.
“Your Queen sounds like she could use a chill pill. Actually, no, she sounds like she needs to get better at making people not hate her. What’s keeping you here?” Caspian has no filter so he’s probably going to get them into trouble with Light Song so fast lol. If he gets a bad impression of someone he will say that he hates them, while Jiro would at least shut up instead of cause chaos. Caspian also seems to only say “Queen” sarcastically, he has no respect for monarchs (or any form of authority tbh) due to first hand experience of a really bad one.
“Wait- Jiro, what’s wrong?” While Jiro really barely reacted to seeing the room distort, Caspian’s generally used to having to treat every subtle action from him as “something could be wrong” or else something could indeed be very wrong and no one would know because Jiro wouldn’t speak up about it on his own but is more likely to answer him. He’s also very gentle when he talks to Jiro, even when the draconics have managed to trigger him enough to not even try to be nice with them.
The brown-haired Draconic glances from Jiro to Caspian for just a brief moment, and the room starts to distort for him too. There's some kind of illusion over the room, which means that, technically, either of the Draconics could be anywhere in the room, not just where they appear to be.
"I don't hate her, she's my Ancestor. We stick close to our families, even if they can be somewhat questionable," the white-haired Draconic frowns, almost offended by the thought of leaving. To be fair, if the Queen's her Ancestor, it means she probably can't go anywhere without getting recognized and possibly reported to said Queen for leaving for long periods of time.
”Alright, what kind of funny things are you trying to do with this room?” Caspian decides that “illusions” are the most reasonable surface level guess, though he truly suspects that there’s more nefarious things going on, and now also wants to get out as fast as possible for his own sake. Oh and the only thing stopping him from calling the white-haired draconic skill issue is because then he won’t get to tease Jiro about using skill issue as a default reply when there is a problem. He thinks they certainly try their hardest to leave and never return, because he did exactly that- ditch his dying kingdom and horrible family situation at “16” and never look back.
“Hm. Seems like your Queen is careful enough to have subjects without critical thinking skills staff her palace.” Jiro finally says something… and it’s to double roast Light Song and Snow Sky. Like Caspian, he also has no sense of familial attachment- at the end of the day, he’s only loyal to those who pay the most or treat him the best.
"Can't get yourself killed if you don't know where the doors are," The brown-haired Draconic shrugs. they also mildly scrambled Caspian and Jiro's memories so they can't remember what the room looked like before the warping distortion thing.
"..I suggest you follow us before you end up getting yourselves killed," The white-haired Draconic says, walking away. The space directly around her goes normal.
"I do suggest you stay close and stay quiet; the rest aren't as peaceful as us. Don't forget how dangerous the Gods are," The brown haired Draconic adds, saying the last sentence in a quiet sing-song tone.
("Don't forget how dangerous the gods are" is a music lyric lol)
Jiro whispers something to himself, barely audible, most certainly not intelligible, probably not in English, and probably very rude.
“Alright, let’s go somewhere, that preferably isn’t so bright.” Caspian decides to try and keep them on the “easy route” aka cooperating a reasonable amount, because Jiro is not going to.
The tournament legends can and will fight god(s), due to the nature of the tournament making it so you can and will fight gods, so they’re not scared of it.
The White-haired Draconic leads them to the door to the left, which apparently is three feet to the left of where it appears to be. The Brown-haired one doesn't get up yet.
Caspian runs ahead this time and leads Jiro along, while Jiro seems to be somewhat zoned out and still trying to infest wherever he can with shadow clones so he can try to bypass the illusions a little bit and throw off pursuers easily in an emergency.
There's really not many shadowy places in the hallway the white-haired Draconic is leading them down, since any nooks/shelves in the walls have the same weird slight-glow that made everything look unnatural and unnerving.
The brown-haired Draconic follows several feet behind them.
Jiro’s very visibly more paranoid than usual, upset that he can’t randomly infest corners with shadow clones, and frequently checking behind him.
The two of them are stuck following Snow Sky.
Eventually they get to an oak door, and the white haired Draconic opens it and goes inside.
A male Draconic slightly taller than the tall white-haired one looks up, slightly messy short black hair swept out of his face, his one wing folded neatly against his back and his clawed hand reaching for the door, probably having been about to head out to meet the small group. He chuckles softly, shaking his head, "Thank you, Sivuru. Videns."
Sivuru nods and leaves with a wave, but Videns stays, leaning against the doorframe.
The room is entirely painted with a few thin black washes except for the ceiling, making the quartz look closer to normal stone. There's also tall bookcases reaching to the high ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. there's also a couple small round tables scattered around the library.
Jiro blinks again to adjust his eyesight, though nothing seems to change- his pupils don’t start to dilate until it’s almost “lights off” dark anyway. Asides from adjusting his eyesight when the light level changes, he seems to not blink at all.
“…It”s about time you explain where the f*ck are we-“ Jiro recognizes Videns’s name, as he guessed her correctly. He doesn’t know that Snow Sky’s other name is “Siviru Cantus” though, and he doesn’t know enough about her to recognize it’s Snow Sky. He hasn’t figured out that he’s with the fallen pantheon, but he doesn’t really care- if there’s a problematic queen, he’ll probably try to murder them regardless of their affiliation.
Caspian sighs, he’ll just let Jiro do his thing even if he’s going to cause problems by existing and being who he is.
"You are in the Bright Palace of Lux Aura, Salha. I do wonder how you two ended up here, considering you don't know the Bright Palace..." Tenebris frowns.
"Their recent memories are of a different Realm entirely. a weird Realm, at that," Videns adds with a shrug, "I'd say TimeWalker shenanigans, if it hadn't been centuries since a TimeWalker visited Salha at all."
”The f*ck is a timewalker? I don’t know why the f*ck we’re here, some f*ckass pulled us through a portal. It didn’t seem like something from the tournament so it’s probably from this place, even the Valkyries are nicer than that.” Jiro kinda needs to chill but also is kinda processing what to do about the fact they’re in “Salha” which he knows as the “very poisonous realm Vizerxa is from”. Except Vizerxa also described it as cold and dark as well, which is the exact opposite of this place and making him even more irritable than usual.
“If you can’t tell, the best thing we can probably do is just leave.” Caspian mutters.
"TimeWalkers are entities who travel through time and are able to freely walk between Realms. The last time one came here was the destruction of Magia Titulari a couple centuries ago," Videns explains with a shrug.
Tenebris sighs softly, and gently waves a hand in front of Jiro's eyes. It's like a veil falls over his sight, since everything looks darker now, and doesn't have the slight distortion that Videns was causing. It may just be an illusion, but it does still take most of the strain away from his eyes, "We're not made for the brightness either. I usually darken my sight with illusions.. the range of my power is far enough that you should be able to explore the Palace freely for a while without it disappearing."
"If you leave, Solis would just hunt you down and kill you. Regardless of who you are or where you're from, you did randomly appear in her Palace during an important time, so fleeing would make her assume you're spies. This Realm doesn't have the power cap that yours does, and Solis is capable of mind control. If you can convince Solis you mean no harm, or better yet, want to join – regardless of your true intentions – you'd have a much easier time leaving once you can," Videns points out.
”Why’s it an important time? Also, Solis sounds like just a rather bad leader in general. Why build a palace out of bright when you guys aren’t made for it, does she have something against her own subjects? If she wants to control and weaken those that should be her allies, her mind control must not be strong enough to stop a rebellion. Are the vast majority of beings here just incapable of growing a spine?” i genuinely dont think Jiro’s even scared of Light Song, he just sees her as disappointingly bad at being the big bad. Oh also Jiro really really doesn’t trust Star Seer for Doing Something To Him. Even if it’d helpful he’s still very suspicious and it doesn’t really comfort him more than just struggling to see because it’s too bright.
Caspian just genuinely doesn’t care what Jiro does, he’ll probably only intervene if he starts a fight or is directly likely to get himself hurt.
"It's important because we just successfully managed to get Luna Oritur to ally with us. She's not the one that built the Palace; it was created 50,000 years before she took the throne at all, and wasn't meant to be lived in. It was built as a beacon of hope at the end of a catastrophic war," Tenebris answers patiently, "it's not about weakening us. it's about controlling Hope. You wouldn't quite understand the control she has over Gods until you've seen her single-handedly bring down major kingdoms and commit crimes you didn't know existed. Multiple gods here are immensely powerful and have repeatedly tried to kill her, by failed and were forced into servitude in her Pantheon. There are also countless past Deities she gave a merciful end to their attempted fight by killing them instead. The other Gods are 'spineless' because it has been proven that they cannot win no matter how powerful they are; even immensely powerful Gods of Magic, capable of shutting away everything she has except physical abilities, have failed."
”… … …If you have such a powerful god of magic capable of completely shutting down others’ abilities and still fail, you actually have to be doing something wrong.” Jiro thinks for a while, but continues arguing back.
“Okay, okay, can you guys stop arguing?” Caspian’s bored now and also knows that nothing is ever going to change Jiro’s “im so above everything it’s never my problem im not scared of anything” attitude.
"Or perhaps you shouldn't underestimate an enemy you don't know, Jiro," Tenebris calmly warns with a frown.
"Jiro's the only one arguing, Tene's just answering his questions. but yeah, it's boring. If you guys get yourselves killed with idiocy it's your own fault," Videns shrugs, "no point trying to save someone who won't listen."
”Okay, I’m going to not go against what I just said and not argue about the technicalities of this.” Caspian seems somewhat unable to truly take things seriously- saying he won’t continue because he doesn’t want to be teased as a hypocrite. “I trust you to get yourself through this.” He shifts closer to Jiro and leans back towards him, forcing Jiro to put away one of the switchblade cases to support him- indirectly encouraging him to not fight now, and also trying to get some attention out of him. “You don’t need anyone but me.” Something says Caspian really doesn’t care whether they live or die, he’s going to cling to Jiro no matter what to try to live out his romanticized dream.
"..I'll tell Solis you two are safe. You should be allowed to wander freely soon, as long as you don't disprove me," Tenebris sighs.
”Alright then.” Jiro leads Caspian towards the nearest seating area (or corner if there aren’t any), deciding to deal with Caspian being clingy for now. He’s going to plan for now, and probably would still try to kill Light Song and do similar timeline disrupting things eventually, just not immediately.
Tenebris leaves the room, presumably going to meet Solis. Videns stays, standing by the doorway. At some point she got a book, and is just idly skimming through the pages.
Jiro leads Caspian to a chair, but Caspian decides to sit down before him and force him to sit on his lap by tugging him along by his necklace. “Why are you like this.” Jiro yanks his necklace free, but doesn’t get up and instead settles himself to sit sideways in Caspian’s lap- legs kicked over one armrest and leaning back against the other one. Caspian sneaks Jiro’s other switchblade away from him and slips it back on Jiro’s belt, then plays with his hair. “Your surprised face is so cute. You’re like a grumpy cat.” “Shut up…” Jiro’s annoyed, but not fighting back.
