Mirror to Mirror
Log Info
- Title: Mirror to Mirror
- Emitter: Solar Flare
- Characters: Delilah, Donna, Ashes, Elyanna
- Place: Underground: Magus Ectra Na'Garra's Manse, the Lab
- Time: Monday, August 30, 2021, 8:46 PM
- Summary: Ectra lies dead, her skull punched in by Donna. Tessa, the Psychopomp the Valethor gang met in the Grey Halls appears and congratulates them on a well won, hard fight. She explains that the statue, all the trapped souls, were victims of Ectra too. Even Lerethil had an Illithid Larva in her head, making her controllable. They shouldn't be blamed for their actions. Tessa releases them from their various places, and even separates Ectra's soul from the human one she was parasitic upon. The shade of the Illithid has even more threats and complaining to do before it is sucked into torment. Perhaps Ectra will never learn. The host, Amelia, is aware and glad to be free and suffered the experience of witnessing everything Ectra did. The group reassure her, and also Elyanna, who feels her past will doom her to the same fate as the Illithid. Donna and Ashes tell her, she's not Ectra, which isn't much but is something. Poppy reunites with her mother in a tearful reunion and the gang turns to the mirror which holds Delilah. Ashes suggests her silvered khopesh, being in effect part mirror and enchanted to touch ghosts, might be able to be pushed through the surface to hook Delilah out. Donna suggests adding blood, which should only improve things. Tessa has no idea if it will work, but it's a better idea than she's had so far. They prepare to do this. Or they could try throwing Lerethil in.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Appearing -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Donna 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A black-haired human girl in black robes. Delilah 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A golden haired human girl in white robes. Merek 5'10" 215 Lb Human Male A black-haired, dusky male with golden eyes. Ashes 5'11" 177 Lb Hobgoblin Female A somber arvec in grey clothes with a skull face Elyanna 5'11" 153 Lb Half-Orc Female A grim, Arvek-blooded woman in raven feathers. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= All the Ghosts =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Magus Ectra Na'garren Illithid Female A octopus humanoid scholar, deceased again. Tessa Human Female A redheaded Psychopomp, bearer of Bethany's soul, deceased. Poppy Human Female A ghost, daughter of Amelia, deceased. Amelia Human Female A ghost, original body and host of Ectra, deceased. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= As the GM =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Delilah 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A golden haired human girl in white robes. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=
Moments ago
Ectra barely has a chance to scream, before Donna is granting her the most gruesome death that anyone's likely seen in some time. Her tentacles thrash as she collapses, and her legs twitch; almost as if she's about to get back up. But she doesn't.
The Statue, meanwhile, is openly sobbing. "You killed her," she whimpers. "You killed my Mistress. She *made* me. She gave me meaning. You... you savages! You... you!!!" It draws itself up to its full height, "But doesn't matter. Break through my shield and destroy me, then, it won't matter! Mistress Ectra is more powerful than you know, she has *contingencies*, she'll be back! She will! She *will!*
"No.... no she won't."
A familiar voice calmly cuts off the Statue's bluster; arriving from, well, more or less out of nowhere is Tessa, the Psychopomp resplendent in her shining armor, with her sword unsheathed and the naked blade resting on her shoulder. "We're about to take care of that." She meanders up to where Ashes, Elyanna, and Donna are all standing around the broken corpse of Ectra. "But first... I must say, I'm impressed. When Delilah wound up in that mirror, I thought for certain I was going to have to... bend the rules just a bit and help you three out, just this once. But you didn't need it. Well done indeed."
And now
"Thank you Tessa," Ashes says, in monotone although she is breathing hard. She gestures at the small group of zombies on the other side of the lab, "I have a spell for those if they keep coming."
The statue-familiar gets a long stare, "And one for that."
She looks down at the corpse of Ectra, then back at the Psychopomp, "What are we going to do?"
The Keeper watches Donna vent her wrath, not unjustly so, upon the Usurper unto her fill. Her hand, unshod by leather or steel, reaches out to clasp Donna's shoulder, not chiding, approving.
She doesn't linger overlong, for the sound of another slave's lamentation literally pricks her ears up and she withdraws, striding toward the Statue with the only half-break in stride being to stoop over between bootfalls to scoop up Maidenhead.
She continues then, coiling the braided tresses as she considers the figure, likely another soul transfigured into something unrecognizable to it's true self.
Something... is in her eye.
She ignores it. Instead, she draws up near the boundry of the enthralled being's protections, considering her trough the dark lens of her personal sins, a contemplation broken by the familiar voice from beyond and she turns on her heel. She affords Tessa a wan smile, though she can't quite meet the psychopomp's eyes for some reason, and her voice is soft as she asks, "How many souls linger here....?"
It takes a couple tries, but finally the dark twin extricates her fist from the necromancer's flabby skull, absently shaking the horrible blue-purple awful away as she looks over her shoulder, nodding to Elyanna with a wan smile. Standing, she continues to try and shake the flecks of jelly away, no matter how much is there to be removed.
"...So I'm'a have nightmares 'bout this for the next while," she says, faintly, nodding her greeting to Tessa. "An' I mean... Still donno how t'get my sister out that mirror, so... Might be as we still need a lil help?"
It's about this moment, that the statue finds its voice once more. "Murderers!" it shouts, sputtering and hissing, "You're all MURDERERS! You killed my Mistress! You are thieves, killers, you pack of lowlife slime, you... You Seditious lieing horrible BITCHES! I'll kill you all for my Mistress and she can resurrect herself again with your stinking corpses! I'll--"
"That's enough of that," Tessa interjects, pointing her sword at the statue; and at the sight of the blade, the automaton recoils as much as something permanently rooted to the floor can manage to do so. The Psychopomp looks back to the group, and offers a pleasant smile. "There are no shortage of souls here in need of release and rest," she replies. "Some linger in the zombies that you felled, or the various other undead servants." She glances towards the zombies that are still standing upright; but without their mistress, they seem to be entirely without direction, and are just standing there... drooling.
"The Statue contains another, so you mustn't blame her for fighting you. But, you may save your spells for the moment, Mourner; you have all definitely earned a little help, and maybe a rest of your own." She pauses, and nods to the brawler, "Don't worry Donna, we will get your sister back in a moment." She pauses, "Oh, and don't blame Lerethil, either. Ectra put a stunted illithid larva into her brain almost thirty years ago; not strong enough to change someone, but enough to... influence them."
Tessa looks down at the corpse of Ectra, and holds out her free hand; the world around the Psychopomp ripples outwards, taking on a softer, misty white quality; and standing over the corpse of Ectra is, well, Ectra herself; or perhaps more accurately, her soul. Standing in a circle around the group is a large collection of other souls, of various age and ancestry, all glaring with grim expressions.
Ashlee stands still, staring and listening as Tessa elaborates on the situation. She feels a moment of guilt, having not considered that the statue was in a similar state as Poppy, despite acting very much like she did on their first encounter.
That Lerethil was compromised by a stillborn Illitid larva is a mitigating detail. She's uncertain what her feelings regarding the half-elf are.
So, she watches, as Ectra is drawn out, as the spirits gather from Tessa's summons. This may save her a lot of work as a Mourner, and she would not interfere with her Goddess' will being enacted by a servant. It is more a thing to marvel at.
She looks through the circle for one that might be Poppy's mother, and also Poppy.
"Nightmares are dreams with bad events," the ashen Arvec comments, "Wouldn't a dream of beating Ectra be a good one?"
"I have a favour to ask."
"Yes." Elyanna begins, turning back toward the transfigured slave, "Though I resent being called Seditious."
A lady must have her standards, even for her self recriminations, after all.
There is a low sigh and a nod and she looks back toward the others at the description of Statue's nature, "I'd guessed as much, though... Lerethil I had expected to obliged to more..."
'More' can wait till later.... things just slipped into higher planes of consideration, quite literally and the Keeper, on sight of the lingering spectres can't help but check over her own shoulders, already certain what she would see as Ashes addresses Vardama's Hand.
"Bitch lived in brains," Donna explains, scraping the last gory remnants off on her scaled tassets. "'F I know how my mind works, gonna be dreamin' about brain bits wakin' up an'..." Trailing, off, Donna shakes her head. Now is absolutely not the time to make prophecy of her nightmares.
"...Well I can't *really* blame her for havin' brain-worms for real I guess," the brawler muses, then sighs. "Well... let's get this mess cleaned up then, an' back to the search. Still ain't much found what we came here for."
The gathering of specters, something Donna trains a suspicious eye on. Perhaps they're here at the behest of the psychopomp, but recent history has shown that *nothing* in this buried manse goes quietly into the Grey Halls.
"I am not defeated," Ectra asserts. "This is just a setback. I will return to my place in the Eternal Library, and continue my research, and there is nothing any of you can do to stop me! I will return *again*, and when I do my vengeance will not be avoided! I WILL REND--"
"No," interrupts Tessa. "You're finished, Ectra. Properly. And it's time for you to go."
The Psychopomp steps forwards, and touches her fingers to Ectra's forehead; there's a bright flash of white light and the illithid shudders throwing up her hands to claw at the armor on Tessa's arm.
"No," gasps the illithid, as the intensity of the light builds, "No, No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
For a brief moment, the light is blinding; and when it fades there is a human woman of advanced years standing where Ectra was a moment earlier (or rather, the soul of one). The necromancer herself is sprawled out on the floor behind where she'd been a moment earlier; and where she lies the ground splits, and an arm of rotted flesh reaches out to seize hold of her, followed by another, and then more. Ectra screams and claws at the ground, but her struggles are worse than futile, as she's dragged down into the pit.
As the hole seals behind the soul of Ectra, Tessa turns her attention back to the party with a smile. "Torment will suit her, I think," she muses. "Or perhaps not. I've no doubt that by the time I have to come and take any of you, she'll still be there, so you can check on her if you want. Or perhaps not." She shrugs her shoulders lightly. "So," she adds, glancing to the newly revealed soul of the elderly woman. "This is Amelia. Amelia, meet the people who have freed you from Ectra."
Elyanna stands watching Ectra's fate, hand frozen in the middle of returning Maidenhead to it's place on her belt, a column of ice running from tailbone to brainstem.
There are parts of her, scratching, clawing, ripping, tearing at others, in blind animal panic trying to seize the neural strings of her corporeal form. Desperate to turn the steely pools of her eyes away from the horror playing out for the necromancer; a preview of what awaits the Keeper when her own span is for naught.
Dignity...
Vengeance...
Penance...
All demand the show continue, unyielding to her dread of ending up apostate in Taara's embrace, heedless of the banshee-like quailing of fer emburdened conscience.
Numbly, as the Illithid is drawn to her own personal Hell, the Lady von Diesel's voice echoes the monster's own words to the necromancer in the Grey Halls, "Ecta Na'garren, your song is sung..."
It takes some seconds for the weight of Otilla's sins to allow Elyanna's eyes to transom from the aftermath of the grim tableau, but she does, seeing the figure left at Tessa's side in it's wake.
Troubled beyond measure, but bound by the internalized tenets of her 'noble' heritage, she offers a hesitant bow and a polite if ungently shaken, "Hello, Amelia."
Never let it be said that Donna Valethor does not repay kindness. It does not escape her eyes, the effect that Ectra's judgment has upon Elyanna. Knowing what she knows of the tormented Hobkin, Donna muses privately why the closing drama might garner the reaction it does, and with a few swift motions, her gauntlet is unbuckled and removed, so that the hand she places on Elyanna's shoulder be flesh, warm and gentle.
"She never wanted to do better," Donna murmurs into her friend's ear. "She never tried. You're already different, an' you'll be more different every day you keep doin' better. Don't know much, but I know that *matters.*"
Straightening, she turns her eyes to the newly-freed Amelia, and merely smiles. "Good t'meetcha, Amelia."
The Mourner watches silent and still as the Psychopomp performs her duties and separates the entwined souls. Ectra's taunts and threats wash over her, finding no purchase. It was hard fought, but Ashlee and her friends defeated her, and in the future they will only be stronger and the shade of the Illithid lessened.
Should she come back. Which, she will not. Her Grey Mistress' indulgence of the Molusc will not be repeated a second time. Ashes watches the necrotic hands clutch at Ectra's soul, then drag her down to well deserved torment.
If she feels elation, satisfaction, a cruel triumph, none of it shows on her placid face. The skull-tattoo obscures all, remains focused in silence on the vanishing foe. She deserves no words, she has received the last she will ever get from Ashes.
"You're not her." The ashen Arvec says, placing her hand on the more noble-born hobkin's shoulder. Elyanna deserves words, assistance, support. Her mistakes were not her own, she was influenced by outside factors.
Perhaps Lerethil needs forgiveness also.
Ashlee's teeth clench tighter. She gives Elyanna's shoulder a squeeze, and echoes< "Hello, Amelia."
Tessa sheathes her sword, and clasps her hands in front of her. "You have wise friends," she observes, nodding to Elyanna, before she steps past the group to address the assemblance of souls. "All of you have suffered, more than enough." She adopts a position where she can address the assembly of the dead. "But you are free now, and there are people waiting for you in the next world who can soothe your wounds, both of mind and soul. I will help you to cross, when you are ready. I will not hurry any of you. Take your time."
The Psychopomp turns her attention back to the group, and steps back into their midst. Before she can speak, Amelia pipes up on her own. "Thank you for saving me," she murmurs, with a voice that quivers with age. "I've been inside that... creature. Trapped, for... for decades. It felt like eternity. I was forced to watch everything she did, everyone she hurt. I felt every sin. Please just let me go, now. Please. I want to move on, to whatever awaits me, but..." She stops, and sucks in her breath. "Where is Poppy? Is she alright?" She looks up at the group, with eyes brimming with tears and hope in equal measure. "Do you... think she might forgive me?"
The silky luster of Elyanna's fine carmine veneer pops like a bubble under the gentle touches that alight upon the layer of cold sweat.
Her eyes close at Donna's reassurances, the ambrosiac whispers in her ear. You aren't irredeemable.
Hope, like candy for a soul struggling to escape it's blackened shell.
Ashes words, balming, but at odds with others, a life mislead, but still a monster by choice, a monster that went beyond it's limits through her human ingenuity.
A monster choosing another path, struggling at the cusp of nature and nurture but, at the very least:
"I... am not... her." there were no off notes in her words, simply lingering tricks of the acoustics of this forsaken place.
Candy....
Her eyes reopen to seek Amelia and the former slaver swallows, confronted with another victim of a slavery, blessedly well beyond her mortal talents and the resonance of her own sins echo cavernously once more, but she musters her noble bearing and replies, "She is freed, Madame, though the defenses of this place dissuade her presence." There is a look to Ashes, "My friend did the deed..."
"She was imprisoned and suffered also. Poppy will understand." Ashlee addresses Amelia, a hopeful tone slipping into her normally flat words. She always sounds warmer when speaking with the dead. Acknowledging Elyanna's referral, she explains, "I was determined to reach her."
"She's been helping us." Ashlee continues, then looks at the assembled spectres, "She wants to apologize. She failed you through no fault of her own."
She was just following orders.
This is an important moment, giving the dead a measure of peace to let them rest easily. Important enough that Donna does not even *risk* puncturing it, simply standing behind her friends in mute support. If her eyes keep straying to the mirror, well... Perhaps she can be forgiven that.
"Poppy, sweetheart," Tessa calls, "You can come in. it's safe, now. I promise I won't let anything happen to you."
From the door back to the Manse, Poppy peeks in, and then enters the room with great trepidation. She pads forwards very carefully, picking her way through the increasingly devastated lab.
"...Mom?" she whispers.
"Yes, it's me," answers Amelia. "And I love you."
Poppy rushes forwards, and the two souls embrace tightly; and as the tears flow, Tessa watches them and smiles, just for a moment.
"Let's give them a minute," she suggests, as she meanders towards the mirror. "Afterall, we still need to do something about this, hmm?" She walks up to the mirror where Delilah is still trapped, and still laying slumped in the bottom. She stops in front of the mirror and clasps her hands behind her back, letting her eyes wander all over it, with a disapproving curl of her lips. "Well. This is a pickle."
"...Yeah," Donna murmurs, drawing in a shuddery breath, then following behind the psychopomp. "Somethin' about someone's gotta go in, so someone can come out? That was it, right?"
What remains unspoken is the obvious; Donna would unquestionably walk right in, if it meant her sister could emerge. But spinning in a circle doesn't make for forward progress.
It's somewhat cathartic to see the family reunited again, even in death, though the Keeper, like Donna can't keep her eyes upon the spectacle for reasons of her own.
As the Psychopomp moves them on to the lingering problem at hand, she finally manages to resling her weapon.
Her anchor.
She whispers a quiet, "Thank you." along the way, and in the doing finds her center as the quandary of the mirror is left before them.
There is a look to the women at her either side, and she proceeds glassward to make the most logical exchange. Intentions aside, her friends are likely more valuable to the world than she, herself, after all.
Ashlee watches as daughter is reunited with mother. She stares, not having a proper maternal relationship to compare with. She's never known her own mother, and Nan Mochtrath wasn't motherly.
More like Ectra, working on a project.
Her fingers grip at her robes, worrying the cloth. She needs new clothes. That random thought crosses her mind.
It's easier for her to turn her attention to the mirror, to Delilah's prone form, and the problem that is a pickle.
"Will Delilah starve in there?" Ashlee asks her food related question. "Mahuikaa, might have a solution."
"I can think of one that doesn't involve one of us going in, potentially."
Tessa raises one hand to hold it in Elyanna's way. "Value yourself more highly," she murmurs t the Keeper. "Your friends need you... and besides, there is nothing to be gained from trading one problem for another, identical problem. Also, Delilah is..." she pauses. "Certainly not conscious. I don't think you can just push her out, at least not with the way the mirror is *supposed* to work."
She quirks an eyebrow upwards, and tilts her gaze towards Ashes. "Ideas are good, certainly. What is it you are thinking of?"
When a Goddess's emissary scuttles your self-sacrificial ambitions, you watch the bubbles for a few moments, then ease back on the pier.
Ahem.
Seeming suitably admonished in the wake of Tessa's intervention, she nods and turns toward Ashes in wait for the answer.
"Lerethil might be also." Ashlee says, gesturing at her form. The Mourner didn't check to see how well the wasps did their inadvertent job. She didn't stand up with others, suggesting her soul is still in the body. "We can get her back out later."
She draws her khopesh, the strangely shaped blade which is part sword but more axe. It is silvered, like a mirror, and she turns it in her grip so it catches the light. It's also enchanted, "This is Ghost Touch. It can reach across the veil." She points it at the mirror, maybe it can reach into that being part-mirror itself.
Donna's eyes move from Tessa, to Ash, to the mirror, brow furrowing. "...So uh... If she's, like, stuck between... what would happen if part of her were out here, an' tried to reach her? Cos I mean... we're twins, an' all, would puttin' some of my blood on that sword help at all?"
"Yes." Ashlee startles to attention, how could she forget that? "Yes. Blood is needed to interact with the spirit world."
Elyanna glances at Tessa a moment, then, to her friends as things get to the juicy side of planning stages, and she wonders, "Will that be enough?"
Immediately, Donna extends her ungauntleted hand. "Here," she says, voice unsteady with gratitude at having something to *contribute* to this puzzle. Then, her gaze darts to Elyanna at the Keeper's question, one eyebrow rising. "If twin blood ain't enough, bet me that you both'd help. We ain't *got* better friends than you two, an' that's a fact."
"The tentacle whip's." Ashlee says, glancing at Elyanna, "if Donna's isn't enough, maybe it is enough like Ectra to work."
She holds the strange, bent sword blade out to the brawler, "You shouldn't have to cut yourself more, blood from the fight is fresh enough."
Probably really warm too.
"We can help too." She nods, of course.
Elyanna looks to the dark twin and gently clasps her arm, nodding in affirmation of her words. They very likely would.
The suggestion about the whip brings her back to the problem with a shake of her head, "The whip is back at the cottage, but... you are right, it is of the other planes at the least."
Donna snorts, flushing at the reminder that she has bled quite enough today. Smearing away some of the blood from around her still-open -- but thankfully, no longer weeping -- wounds, she draws a thick line down the curve of the hooked blade, and steps back to allow Elyanna space.
"Let's try ours then." Ash is hesitant about cutting herself, or her friends, so she holds the khopesh it can be done. She touches at her breastplate, "Feiu of the Tears, let me see magic."
Her eyes glow darkly, she stares at the mirror, looking for symbols to duplicate on the blade.
The Mirror doesn't really embody any magical symbols, it's just... solid magic. It's bizarre to look at.
Elyanna nods, lifting a hand to collect the weepings of her own wounds to carefully smear along the flat of the Khopesh. While being as careful as she can, she still, likely brings her vitae of two worlds in peripheral contact with Donna's in a spot or two.
She steps back then, and looks to the supine form of Delilah behind the prison of glass.
Tessa has been watching and listening, while the plan takes shape. She hmmms, and pokes the mirror with one fingertip; along the side, where it's safe.
"Well, I dunno if it'll work," she muses. "But it's worth a try and you all went ahead and got yourselves, well, bleeding and whatnot. So I suppose it probably can't hurt to try? I don't really know much about this mirror. Strange magical portals aren't my thing, and... Ectra hid her assets well."
"I don't know that it will work, it just might." Ashlee explains. Her Khopesh is silvered, making its edge soft, so it's hard to cut herself on it. She has to press and drag her arm with a little force. Sadly in the fight she was burned and electrocuted, but wasn't cut. Which is a good thing, as Elyanna was trying to do that, and it would have been bad.
Successful, finally, she bleeds on the blade and draws a little symbol of Vardama with her blood. "It's easy to trip people, hook them with the back of the curve. Get it under an arm, we could pull Delilah out. I hope."
"Worse comes to worst," Donna says, "I'll haul the damn mirror back myself. But if this don't work... Maybe now the library's clear o' souls, we can give it a better lookin' over?"
Elyanna nods, "I expect Lerethil had some means to ferry back her plunder. We can probably use that, if this doesn't work." she replies. She looks to the Mourner, considers the blade, then steps aside to let her at the mirror to the fullest extent she may need.
