Fool's Adventures: A Demon's Souls/Buffy the Vampire Slayer Quest

Your words leave a hollow silence in the room, falling between the two of you like embers. You have never spoken of the Old One. You have never thought of it in detail. Not even before you came here. You have never had the need to. But you know about it. All Fog Demons of import do.

Annie's eyebrows are scrunched, her eyes wide, chewing on her lip. Fearful, concerned. Primordial terror lurks in the depths of her eyes. Your words die and in her posture and her face you can tell that she understands the shape of what you are telling her. Though the context is missing that empty shape makes her shudder quietly in her seat like a frightened mouse.

"My ultimate progenitor. The malevolent font of Fog Demons." Your words are sudden in the silence that had fallen. Annie startles.

You could almost be mistaken for reminiscing, but your voice is flat and unlike what it was when you told her of your creation. This is no story of the past. Then you continue speaking, filling the silence against the weight settling on you. "The Old Monk may have forged me and gave me purpose. But it was in turn spawned from the Fog of the Old One."

You trail your gaze around the room, watching and measuring the magic you see and noting how it is nearly quiescent. Then you land on Annie. "The Old One was… Extant. Before the First Coming, what the nation of Boletaria calls the First Scourge. And it brought the Soul Arts with it. But," You gesture with one hand, outward, as if casting something away. "The Old One was not truly there until the First Coming. "

"It slept, hidden away from the world. Until the power of the Soul Arts, used by the dreadful Monumentals who styled themselves as benevolent caretakers of man, woke it. And our god awoke in the world, with the cry of babes on its lips. A great malevolent tree wearing the shape of a serpent. The Deep Fog came, expelled from the creature's Soul on its first breaths."

Annie's expression has now forgotten the fear and become considering. You pause, for you can see she has a question bubbling behind her eyes. She asks it. "What is your Fog?" Her question is innocent and guileless, though insightful. It spears one of the things in your mind, making it squeal. You ignore it and answer.

"My own exhalation. It always was. That is our gift from our god. Our hunger, our nature, our Fog, our Demon Souls. Our progenitors fed the Old One during the First Coming, where it devoured half the world. Instruments of the Old One are we." You pause here, the weight on your mind forcing you to stop. There is silence for several moments.

"Then, it was lulled to sleep by the Monumentals at great cost. And they stitched together the broken world with the six Archstones and buried the Old One beneath the Nexus." You say, and shudder, instinctual revulsion shaking your body. Your voice rises in intensity as you continue and lock gazes with the woman beside you, but remains blank of animation and emotion.

"A… cycle began with the Nexus, a place where the dead go to cheat their deaths and play at life and from whence the Slayers would emerge. Later. Time, no longer made sense at the edges of the world. Slowly, humans forgot the terrors of the First Coming and the Soul Arts grew and spread throughout all the land. The fool king Allant awoke the Old One with his lust to help his kingdom with the Soul Arts."

" Then the Second Coming shattered what remained of time in the great Kingdom of Boletaria. And in the Kingdom of Latria, a tiny shard of the great Kingdom."

You see Annie's eyes widen, the light of realization burning through her thoughts. "Do you understand the meaning of this?" Your voice carries a sliver of real curiosity. She nods slowly, her red hair falling forward around her shoulders with the motion.

"It… warriors, to slay the Demons. It would be inevitable, human nature. And they were spread across time. But time was broken and so… they could meet each other, even when they were separated by the gulf of different times. And they could not die, not without being consumed, linked to the Nexus." Her voice is sure, emotions fluttering around the edges.

"Indeed. Many a time I killed a Slayer of Demons more than once. And many a time they killed me. But in truth those Idols who died were not the one you speak to now. Fragments sprinkled across time." You raise your hands then, and spread them, encompassing the vastness of the world with your gesture.

"But. Where did our god sit in this?" You see her eyes widen with the beginning of deeper understanding. "Yes. It existed in all fragments, in all times. But that was not the source of it. Nor its immutability. This fragmentation merely meant that the cycle of the Second Coming would play out again and again and again with no end but the endless revelry of choice."

You dip your head briefly before meeting her gaze again. Then you speak, voice bereft of anything but the bare words, cold in the air. "It. The Old One. Our god, and not the False God of the humans. It had always been beyond life. A being of the immortal Soul alone. The only thing it shared with the living was that it could sleep. It is not within its nature to die." When these words pass your cold lips, they bring back all of that fear in Annie's eyes. She shudders.

"Oh god…" She whispers, her hands rising, shaking, to hide her face. Her voice is tiny, a scared little girl, leaking out from around her hands. "It… couldn't die...so whenever a Slayer found it, they could only lull it back to sleep or," She shudders in fear. "Become part of it."

You nod, solemnly. "That is the cycle. A choice at the end of a road of broken time." You feel your expression warping, in… something you cannot even name as you ponder the consequences of that choice.

There is more you must say.

"A perversion of the cycle birthed a monster beyond God. A third choice was carved in the Old One's corpse." As you speak, you feel the weight unfold then. Into terror. A thing has come. And its name can only be, Death.

Then the feeling passes, and the illusory spectre releases its grip on your Soul. The weight on your mind lifts. The only sound in the maligned silence after this declaration is Annie's frightened breaths. Fear has overtaken her expression. Fear for you. You soften your posture, consciously, dropping your hands and relaxing. This cannot continue.

"Annie." Your voice is sharp, quite unlike any tone you have used with her before. She blinks, and lurches in her chair with a gasp, escaping from the trap of thoughts eating at her.

"I...Christ." Her voice is steadier now, as she leans her elbows on the table and covers her face with her hands. Satisfied that she has snapped out of her fear, you wait. There isn't really anymore for you to say. Slowly her breathing calms and her Soul settles. Rubbing her face she then straightens in her seat and looks up at the distant ceiling.

Pushing her hair back with her hands she lets out a loud breath before letting her hands flop into her lap. You can tell she is thinking furiously. You simply wait, turning your attention back to the energies which flow around you. You will stay close to her for now. Time passes, filled with the quiet sounds of breathing and waiting. You wait, with no patience or impatience and sit still in your seat.

Annie you can tell is still thinking through the ramifications of what you have shared with her. Several times you see her out of the corner of your eye opening her mouth to speak and then closing it before any words come out. Sighing, she leans forward and runs a hand down her face before balancing her chin on a hand, turning her head to look at you. Your expression is blank, though your mind is still troubled. You tilt right in a silent acknowledgement.

"Okay, putting aside the… utterly terrifying thing," She waves her hands at this,"with the Old One, what happened to you my Lady, beyond the obvious? You were screaming for hours. And your injuries..." Concern laces her tone and her posture and expression reflect it. It is probably the most direct and non-deferential she's ever been with you. You let it pass.

You tilt your head to the other side, before straightening. It does deserve an answer, and ties into what you have been thinking about.

"As you have likely surmised, having my connection to the Old One severed damaged my mind." Her expression flattens out in shock and concern, but you continue on, waving a hand to forestall her response. "I was able to stop it. Now I no longer give Souls to it." You raise another hand, waving it slowly as if to encompass multiple possibilities. "The outcomes of that should be obvious from what I have taught you."

"Okay…" She says, and then sighs, "...so what will we be doing?" She hunches inward, body trying to become small and her voice dipping almost to inaudibility. "How will we fight the thing?"

You look at her, and consider that for all her sight she sometimes still thinks like a mortal.

"We will hide, much like I have been. And then we will return to Latria and kill the thing." Her eyes snap up to look at your impassive decree. You rise slowly. "But for now, I must...rest."

"O-okay?" Annie says, confused.


What do you do for a few days while you recover?

[] Focus on re-evaluating your mind. There are things in there you don't understand.

[] Focus on learning from Annie. Your servant has shown loyalty beyond your expectation.

[] Focus on the indefinable feelings you have been plagued with since the event.

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Mmmm, so that's that, mostly exposition over with. Now onto the rest of this stuff!
As usual I'll have my saturday break and the vote lock will be on sunday.

Lock 6:00 pm UTC, July 22nd.