Thrice-Great Blessing: Atavism, Animism, Automatism

[Redium]

Thrice-Great Blessing: Atavism, Animism, Automatism


​

The wheel turns, history withers, and the Spark ignites.

Those words were spoken nearly seventy years ago during the end of the Second World War. It is likely something most of you have heard. Poetic and poignant words often are repeated, endlessly and mindlessly. What was spoken of then wasn't new, but a curtain pulled back to reveal the light.

The truth of the world.

Magic.

Thaumaturgy.

Blessings of the Thrice-Great.

In modern parlance; Automatism, Atavism, and Animism.

The current scholarly consensus in the literature was that the Spark actually ignited some time between the French Revolution, and the Wars of Napoleon. And it is critical to remember that it remained but a spark at that point in time. The Thrice-Great arts were nowhere near as ubiquitous as they are today. If you look around the room, you'll likely see people with Animism totems grafted to their flesh. That particular art didn't develop, and even then only primitively, until after the American Civil War.

Over the nineteenth century, the Thrice-Great were whispers and shadow. Most didn't even know they existed. The few who did practice, did so mostly in secret. The Thrice-Great arts were mostly unknown, superstitions rendered real. They were quite unwelcome among Enlightenment scholars and the strongly religious. It was only with the dawn of widespread communication; the telegraph, telephone, and, today, the internet, that these Sparks start to gather into a greater conflagration.

Communication was the single most important development of the Thrice-Great arts. Analogous to many subjects in the regular sciences, as I'm sure most of you are aware. Communication made the world smaller, in a sense. No longer was it one individual tinkering away their idle time in their workshop, but many. Ideas were exchanged, tested, replicated and flourished. The Sigil Societies were founded among those with the means and the knowledge.

Still, at this point, the Thrice-Great arts were below the notice of most. Secret societies like the Freemasons, the Skull & Bones, and others were extremely common at the time. In fact, in America, it was believed that as much as half of the population was a member of one secret society or another at the dawn of the 20th century. Given all of this, it makes sense that the Sigils of Dragon, Skylark, and Cloud, stayed below the radar. They were simply another club that people with means attended and toyed with during the heady time of the Gilded Age.

Then the Great War, what we now call World War One, happened.

Men were drafted from all over the world to fight, and perhaps even die. Men from the Steppes of Siberia fought side-by-side with those from the Caucasus on the Eastern Front. Chinese peasant labour built endless infrastructure on the Western front. Indians were mobilized to fight in the Middle-East. Colonists from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, were called up to fight, and did so with distinction. None of that even touches on the war in Africa.

The scale on which that war was fought was unimaginable. Industrial slaughter on a mass scale, resources and soldiers from all of world were brought to bear, just to kill and kill and kill. The war will be over by Christmas, many thought. Perhaps they thought themselves confident considering the speed of the Franco-Prussian War. Either way, they were not. When the Archduke of Autria-Hungary was shot, that echoed over six years into the death knell for millions.

Thankfully, that type of tragedy was only repeated once.

Regardless, the First World War brought people together from across the world and thrust them head first into danger. It forced those who had studied the Thrice-Great to use their abilities like never before. If you looked back to before WWI, you'll notice countless folk legends and tall tales that were simply impossible. Beyond human.

In WWI, each and every one of those tales was forced directly into the limelight. And they thrived. People talked about the ones who just seemed to avoid near death by the slimmest of margins. Rumours swirled, and, eventually, those rumours started to seek each other out. Special Forces units were commissioned, and, eventually, the truth became widely known. Sparks had grown into fire with the invention of the telegraph, but now they ignited everything.

That was when the first governments started to become involved. Thrice-Great artists were drafted into the Warmages of the British Empire and Stormtroppers of the Second Reich. Money, resources, and learning was thrown at these early practitioners like water. Everyone knew that the war was stalemated, all were desperate for that simple silver bullet that would end the war.

It worked. Along with breakthroughs in armoured vehicles, artillery and infantry doctrine, early Stormtroppers paved the way for a German victory and the subsequent subsumption of central Europe. From there we have the rise of Hilter on the backs of the disenfranchised Slavic peoples, and subsequently, World War Two.

Most of you already know this as it's covered extensively in high school, so I'll skip the material.

Still, all of those subsequent changes masked something vary important: the Thrice-Great arts came to the attention of governments. The Thule Society was tremendously important in the Greater German Empire leading up to WWII. American and British exploration into the arcane became hidden megaprojects, critical military secrets, throttled down only in the midst of the worst of the Great Depression.

From there, the Thrice-Great arts came into their own during the early ethno-partisan conflicts that started the Second World War. In some ways, we have the Thrice-Great arts to thank for that discord. The Blessings are not like many other tools of war. A gun and bullets requires precision machining, organized labour, and factories. It's not something that can be produced on a budget.

However, their artisan nature renders Blessings particularly valuable to dissident and subversive groups. A simple workshop is often enough to get started, and most of the materials required are relatively commonplace. The monopoly of power slowly slipped from disorganized governments wracked by ethnic and economic strife and into the hands of revolutionaries.

After the shackles of government were cast off, the Thrice-Great matured on the battlefields of the USSR, North Africa and Italy. Partisan groups had become adept at cultivating the Thrice-Great power. With all of the resources of centralized government, they plumbed the secrets of the Thrice-Great, the keys to their success, like never before. Powered on by plunder secured across Europe, the SSA were able to truly devote themselves to the study of the Thrice-Great. They were not wracked by civil strife, they had ended the crises first. France had yet to end its civil war and the British Empire still shed colonies water. The less said of America, 'Home of the Free', the better.

After the Second World War ended, and the resultant theft of information from SSA, the Thrice-Great were refined in secret labs around the world. It was only with the dawn of the internet, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union in 2001, that the Thrice-Great became truly understood.

The twentieth century gave humanity nuclear power, the microchip, and the satellite. The twenty-first is in its infancy and it has already given us the internet. You may not appreciate it since many of you were but children when it started to revolutionize... everything, but the internet has changed things. Right now, the internet is serving as lowly midwife to the Thrice-Great arts. How will things change in the coming decades.

It may very well be impossible to know.

However, I understand that many of you are paying good money to attend Thrice-Great 101, so I will do my best to theorize and explain. It seems that we've come to the end of our lecture today, but I will be available for fifteen minutes to answer any questions.

Good day.

Introductory lecture of Dr. Keerat Bhal; Professor of the Thrice-Great Arts, Triarch, Vox Draconis.

[X] Stay and ask questions.

Themes: The Unknown, Forbidden Knowledge, Self-Discovery

The Thrice-Great Blessings have always fascinated you. They've been around for ages, either in academia or secret military laboratories. Growing up, you'd been inundated with tales of magic. TV, video games; it was involved with everything from spy games to modern fantasy. You'd followed and obsessed over every single bit of it.

Gods Within, you were such a nerd. Still, despite what your parents said that's why you were here. There was, ironically, not a lot of money in the study of the Thrice-Great, they'd said. Outside of research, military or government work, there weren't many options. The tuition was ruinous, three times the cost of something like business or engineering. Pick something where you'll get a job, they'd suggested.

Still, you needed to know. You had questions. Both about how to develop Blessings and... other things.

[X] Answer your cell and rush out.

Themes: Government, Mystery, Conspiracy

Time waits for no man, as the old saying goes. It waited for you even less. As a the junior member of the Emergency Response Team, it was your duty to get your ass to the station as quickly as possible once the call went out. The ERT was only brought out in the worst situations. Hostage crises, terrorism, high-level criminal bullshit. People died on your missions. Frequently.

Still, it was your dream job, and lucrative as fuck. Ye though I walk though the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for I am the most badass warrior to ever grace it! Uh, that grammar was absolutely tortured. Maybe you should report yourself to your superiors for that war crime.

Either way, you were a magic cop and you got to solve magic crime.

[X] Stand only to have your vision waver.

Themes: Fantasy, Alienation, Taboo.

The lecture was finally over, you thought, as you closed your laptop screen with relish. The fact that Careers wasn't a gimme made you cringe every time you thought about it. You were supposed to show up for half a semester, get lectured by someone old and out of touch on how to get a job. It should've just been time you were allowed to talk with your friends. The fact that it was only half a semester proved it was useless; they could barely come up with half the stuff necessary to fill the time.

Standing up, you felt a moment of vertigo before suddenly pitching forward, flat onto your face. Instead of cold linoleum, it was warm water you hit. Breaking the surface and gasping for breath, you realized you were in a dark, crystal studded cave. Instead of light, all you could see was pale... Aether pulsating through the crystals. Getting out, you dismissed the slight sensation that the water was fighting you, pulling at you as you got out. It was just viscous.

That's when you saw the hooded figure slowly turn their gaze upon you.

Spoiler: Compiled Vote Options

[X] Stay and ask questions.
[X] Answer your cell and rush out.
[X] Stand only to have your vision waver.

 

[Redium]

Character Sheet: Under Construction

Character Creation is ongoing.

Known Characters

"Sylvie"

A blue-eyed blonde woman who lives in a cave. In the dark. Apparently only speaks French. Seems to have some idea what the heck is going on.

 

[Redium]

What is This?

Thrice-Great Blessing is, ultimately, an Urban Fantasy world where the Masquerade doesn't exist and history is not inviolable. The discovery of magic has had widespread impact on history, only some of which is evident in the OP. Countries that exist in reality do not here. People who might've gone on to greatness died in obscurity as the ages churned. Others rose up, granted new opportunities by the world.

Magic is different, so Things are different.

Character Creation

Is an ongoing process that will be decided organically over the next few updates. All three of the protagonists presented have a different view of the Thrice-Great Blessings and how they have affected society. Some people are inherently positive, some see the negative aspects, and others just don't care. Trinity is an important theme of this quest and will be explored throughout. The protagonists that you do not pick will still exist, to compare and contrast your choices.

The Thrice-Great Blessings: Automatism, Atavism, Animism

Automatism

Automatism

The magic of the mind. Users of this school of magic are often called Carvers for the mutilations they willingly do to themselves. By carefully carving channels of unreality into their minds, they became able to active those patterns of unreality in specific, known, and calculated ways. Each unique, controlled activation of unreality is known as a Blessing. Uncontrolled activation are known as Maledictions and are depressingly commonplace.

One of the most widespread magics, Carvers are often widely distrusted. One of the most common side effects (other than immediate death) for Carvers who make mistakes is insanity. The human mind is a very intricate thing and its controlled destruction for more power is very difficult. The art is often compared, by masters, as trying to write with a book and a torch. You need to be extremely careful to burn away the dross, parts that don't matter, in order to render the remains into a coherent story.

Despite that, Automatism remains the most popular form of the Thrice-Great Blessings. The shear breadth of action possible through a Carver's self-cultivation is theoretically limitless. Everything from telekinesis, to precognition, to elementalism is possible. Practitioners are merely scratching the surface of what's possible in this discipline.

When dealing with Automatism, expect a large number of esoteric abilities with clearly defined limits.

Atavism

Atavism

Reversion to the ancestral form. Magic of transcendence. Practitioners of Atavism, often colloquially known as Delvers, explore a plane of unreality that differs from the current Prime reality. While often cloaked in insufficient metaphour, Delvers can be thought of as people who explore the reality that exists 'beneath' the one that is commonly understood. As a Delver gets 'lowered' into unreality, the laws of physics as they are known slowly start to bend.

On the first level of unreality, things are little different; minor feats like a fit person performing things out of an action movie. As a Delver moves deeper, though, things become different. Physical form becomes malleable. A disliked cell phone could reform itself into a wrist-locked shock collar. A knife that's never cut becomes like rubber. One that's killed starts to whisper in the mind of their wielder, telling them of the purest sweetness of lifeblood. The world itself changes, becoming virtually unrecognizable.

Even human beings are subject to change. The human body can be twisted, forcing hidden sins to be laid bare. People of weak will become exaggerated caricatures of themselves. You can often be your own worst enemy, according to master Delvers. If the walls could talk is another saying, one often spouted by Delvers who've lost their conflict with unreality.

When dealing with Atavism, look out for movement related abilities, or tools invested with unreality.

Animism

Animism

Magic of the body and sacrifice. People who use Animism are known as Totemists for the creations which they graft direction to their flesh. Made of unreality and other, more common materials, these Blessings grant feats of impossible physicality to the Totemists who make use of them. Everything from flight to supersonic movement is easily achievable. Indestructible bones and limitless blood capacity are practically standard issue.

The sacrifice of a Totemist, is very physically apparent. Limbs are often exchanged for functional facsimiles. Internal organs can be removed and replaced in somewhat regular surgical procedures. There are even rumours of Totemists who have sacrificed their face, although for what power, the rumours never quite say.

Unlike with Carvers, Totemists often sport supernatural abilities related to the sacrifices they've made. The connection may be immediately obvious or it may appear quite distant, but it is related. In blood and bone, it is known, is a popular sayings among masters of the craft. Regardless, of this truth, it appears more common among certain types of Totems than others and it isn't known exactly why.

When dealing with Animism, except supreme physicality with a few highly flexible supernatural tricks on the side.

 

[Redium]

Spoiler: Winning Vote

[X] Stand only to have your vision waver.

The Depths

Coughing and spluttering, you desperately tried to kick towards the surface of the water all around you. It clawed at you, seeming to almost pull you down with the force of the tides. The water itself was dark, almost black, like the wind tossed surface like on a cloudy day. It was cloying enough, that telling up from down was impossible. Even when you managed to crush down the burning panic in the back of your mind, trying to stay still as possible despite, second by second, coming closer to drowning, you couldn't even tell which way you floated.

It was like you were in the void of space, devoid of even the stars. That couldn't be right, you felt the faintest of warm water currents sliding along your flesh. Everything was reduced to a warm, dark, quiet embrace. Something almost pleasant, like a lover pulling you back into their embrace.

All the while it crushed the life out of you.

Lungs burning, you barely managed to keep your mouth shut, keeping the death-dealing black just outside. You were at the point where reflex was forcing you to take a breath, even if it would mean death. You had to get out of the water. You had to.

There simply was no other option.

Grasping forward, trying to get just one inch closer to a surface that was invisible, your hand suddenly breached the air. Every breath of air you greedily gulped down brought strength to your limbs. Pushing down, using your returning strength to try and get out of the water, you stopped cold. You were still in the water, but on your hands and knees; the water didn't come up above your elbows. It was shallow, uneven, but shallow. A foot deep at the absolute most.

You'd nearly drowned in that? How was that even possible?

Looking around you realized you were deep underground. There was no light, either natural sunlight or normal lights. Instead, crystals were studded into the walls. Some were small, akin to grains of sand but others were nearly as large as your head. Each crystal seemed to glow with an inner iridescent radiance. The light was mostly blue, but had the slightest tinge of green to it. Slowly swirling and spiraling along the edges of each crystal.

One of them twitched, drawing your attention.

A robbed figure sat there, watching you.

"Where... where am I?" you manged to croak out.

"Qui et-vous?" she responded. "La convocation était erronée?"

"I..." you started. The black figure didn't speak English. They looked like a mish-mash of someone out of an old folk tale. Blackened robes with solid gold brocade decoration for contrast. Long blonde hair spilled out one side of the hood but her face was almost completely hidden. Only a slender chin poked out from beneath the voluminous robes. "I... Je ne pas parle français?"

"Mes chiens parlent mieux," the golden haired person responded. "Anglais?"

"Yes! Anglais!" you responded. Where in the devil were you that people were speaking French? You'd learned something of the language in school, but didn't really remember it. "Je ne pas..." You held us as soon as the blonde held up her hand to get you to stop. Somethings were quite universal, despite language differences.

Charades seemed to be the game of the day with the blonde. She made a shooing motion, when that failed to get a response, she seemed to hesitate."Au revoir."

"Where am I supposed to go?" you asked. "Back into the water?" Now that you thought about it, when you looked back at the pool, it seemed even more out of place. Hadn't it been wider than three feet across?

When several more barked commands to leave were met with resolute silence, the blonde woman huffed. "Mon tabarnak j'vais te décalisser la yeule, calice." You hadn't the faintest idea what that meant.

"Très mal?" you asked. Very bad?

The blonde looked slightly offended. "Très mauvais."

Instead of continuing the conversation further, the blonde turned away from you and gestured towards the wall. You didn't quite catch the symbol she made with her hand, but the wall immediately crumbled inwards. One of the large crystals clicked before the entire opened like a gaping maw. It wasn't like a door, more like everything splitting apart peeling back like with a banana.

The hallway beyond was the same as the room behind it, long and dark with scatterings of crystal studding the wall. It wasn't straight but slowly wormed its way drunkenly to one side.

"Suivre."

Did she say survive? Fuck no, you'd enough with this! "Wait up!" you shouted.

But she was already gone.

Racing down the new hallway, you desperately tried to catch a glimpse of the blonde woman. She'd taken a single step across the Threshold and then had disappeared! Breaking into a full out spring, going full tilt to the point that your body ached, you still couldn't find her. Energy drained out of your body, the water in your clothes weighing you down, but you still kept going. Even past the point where your throat burned and your temples felt like they'd burst. You continued.

When you finally stumbled, something hauled you up and you were suddenly face to face with the blonde, staring directly into blue eyes. She physically lifted you as the peeling banana door behind you slammed shut on an empty stone room.

"S'habiller." She gestured to two alcoves cut into the side of the hallway. They looked lib rib cages stretched out. Numerous prongs came from each edge of the alcove and joined together at another crystal centre.

"Doesn't that mean to live there?" you asked rhetorically. After all, she didn't understand you. "Like Hell."

"S'habiller," she repeated, this time pulling at the neck of her robe. When she realized you didn't get it, she gestured at the alcoves and they popped open. Clothes, accessories, and even old fashioned armour poured out and landed on the floor. "Vos vêtements... toxique."

"Toxic!" Your shirt suddenly itched. When you tried to pull it off, it felt like lead. Closer to one of those leaded vests they have at the dentist's office for X-rays than a simple cotton shirt. By the time you finally wrested it off, it felt like it weighed twenty times as much and hit the floor like a brick, not damp cotton.

Riffling through the clothes on the floor, the first thing you grabbed was...

[X] A good pair of pants.
[X] A solid skirt.

[X] What other clothes do you grab?
(Write In Appearance or supply a picture.)

The fact that you weren't going to get arrested for public indecency any more, you turn back to the blonde woman. "Do you have a name? I can't keep thinking of you as 'Hey, you! or 'Blondie', any more." You sighed, "Nom? Err... Prénom et nom de famille?"

"Sylvie," she responded after a hesitation that was far too long to be comfortable. "Vous?"

[X] Write in Name

Spoiler: Compiled Voting Options

Gender:
[X] A good pair of pants.
[X] A solid skirt.
Appearance:
[X] What other clothes do you grab?
Name:
[X] Write in Name

 

[Redium]

Spoiler: Winning Vote

[X] A solid skirt.
[X] Morgan

Image is going to be left unset for now. I just don't feel there were enough votes to decide.

Spinster



"Morgan," she told the other girl. "Where are we?"

Sylvie shrugged and pointed directly at the ground.

"You know where we are, then? Or what I'm saying? Why are you doing this?" Morgan'd met lots of people that could speak French before. The problem was that most of them were super snooty about it. No matter how bad your French and how good their English, they insisted on speaking French.

"Arrêt. Non," she said. "Vous... êtes prévisible. Tout ce que je parle est inutile. Avez-vous compris un mot? Duex? Je n'aime pas votre désespoir autant que vous." She paused for a second in her torrent. She didn't sound angry, as far as you could tell, more exasperated. If you had to name the tinge the infected her words, that's the one you would use. "Vous n'êtes également pas en difficulté."

Her piece said, the blonde girl neatly pulled off her long back robe and left it in the alcove. Underneath it was a formal gown, like she had just stopped out of some noble's ball centuries ago. The feeling of dysphoria suddenly redoubled as everything wavered. Morgan staggered, kept from falling to her knees only by landing on the wall and being unable to slide down it.

It was like ants were crawling on the inside of her skin. Morgan knew she'd been impaled. She couldn't see what had wounded her, but her stomach churned. It was like the organ was trying to rip its way out of her body and pull the rest of her guts with it. Her bones burned, scalded.

"Morgan?" Sylvie whispered. Her voice was like a shotgun going off in the ear.

"I... I..." Morgan stuttered. She was dying, she knew it. Drowning, being pulled apart at the seems and cooked from the inside out. The agony was so intense, she could even scream. Her lungs would just spasm harder, stealing more breath from her.

"Ah..." Sylvie sighed.

Without hesitation, she calmly raised her hand and then rammed it as deeply in Morgan's chest as she could. Morgan felt it squirming inside her. Fingers slowly curling through flesh and blood and bone before drifting through her. Sylvie carefully pulled back her sleeve so that it didn't get caught when she finally thrust her arm arm up to the elbow.

Morgan finally managed to scream when Sylvie tore her arm back in a spray of blood. It was agonizing, but it felt good. Relief. She couldn't move, she was on the ground. Things were hazy.

"Vieille fille."

Sylvie... she was staring at a... shadow was the best way to describe it. The thing looked like twin pieces of twine, wrapped around itself endlessly. Morgan didn't have to look closely to know instantly that each fiber was twined and entwined again and again and again. The mass quivered and then rose as one. The figure was human-like, but the proportions were wrong. The entire thing looked stretched out and its head nearly touched the ceiling far above Morgan's reach.

The fibers loosened, allowing dark clouds to gather between the wrapped shadow. The entire thing rattled like old rusty chains before bending double at the middle. The ends of the doubled helix flicked up, cocking like a boxer's fist or a scorpion's stinger. The clouds between the helices condensed into black venom. The stone itself hissed where errant drops stuck it.

"Fulgur!" Sylvie shouted. Lightning sparked from her outstretched hand, crashing through the corridor. Glowing crystals shattered as the bolt jumped like a snake, striking erratically. Morgan couldn't track it at all, only try to shut out the afterimages flashing through her eyelids and take cover as each bolt exploded the air and sent chips of stone and crystal tearing at her.

The shadowed helix barely seemed to realize it was under attack. The creature twirled and lashed out. It was heedless of the fact that it stood against a girl wielding what was once described as deific power. Step by step it came closer. Even when it was struck and links exploded into shadow and black venom, it continued.

"Don't..." Morgan whispered. There was blood everywhere. Sylvie was retreating under the force of the onslaught.

Pulling back, Sylvie thrust her hand forward. The air wavered. When the doubled rope being whipped around and slammed into it, it echoed like a gong. Iridescent waves rippled out from each strike. The sight as the ripples crossed and crisscrossed, settling into bright fractal patterns that hurt to look at.

The iridescent shield pulsed, starting to spin in time with Sylvie's gestures before surging forward and blasting the twined ropes as far down the passage as Morgan could see.

Sylvie wasted no time in stepping forward, pushing against the stone below. It responded, a massive pike rising and rushing forward until it slammed into the ceiling ten feet distant.

Then, it bloomed. There was no other way for Morgan to describe what happened. Hundreds of briers erupted from the pike, creating a veritable wall of stone thorns. Nearly solid stone stood between Morgan and the thing that was attacking them. Only the tiniest of cracks and gaps remained.

It returned with a vengeance. Stone collapsed, chips and chunks carried through the defense on a shock wave of dust as the entire construct shuddered in protest. The twined shadow crashed through two feet of stone in the first second of its return. Within three seconds it had twined through the next half and flexed. Tearing itself almost in half, the twined shadow exploded in a cloud of caustic venom.

Five more seconds for that thing to cut through and she could be dead, Morgan shuddered.

Sylvie didn't gesture this time, merely spoke: "Strike turbine."

Morgan went blind after that. There was a rush, a flash of light, and suddenly fire, white hot and hungry.

Nothing was left of the twined shadow. Nearly nothing was left of the stone defenses either, they'd been reduced to running slag sagging under their own weight. Everything was gone in that single torrent of fire. Only a thin waver in the air betrayed the presence of another shield that had likely saved their lives.

"What...?"

"Vieille fille," Sylvie responded. "Vous ne comprenez pas. Supporter?" She offered a hand, the same one that she'd used to tear that monster from Morgan's being. It was pristine.

Her own hand coming up to the middle of her chest, Morgan didn't know what to think. There was no blood, no stickiness, no aching, gaping wound there. She had seen Sylvie's hand crash through her breast bone, seen it go in all the way up to her elbow. She'd felt Sylvie rummage around through her insides and then tear something out of her. It hadn't been her heart, but it had been something close. Morgan knew she should be dead. Instead, she sat there completely unharmed.

"Tell me how," Morgan almost ordered. She'd had enough, fuck this noise. There had been enough times in her life where she'd been lead around. She hadn't even been here ten minutes and she was already sick to death.

"Apprendre le français," Sylvie responded. "Je ne parle pas anglais. Vous devez apprendre le français."

Morgan allowed the other girl to get the last word it. What could you say to someone who told you to: 'Apprehend the French?' Charlotte would know. She was the one that always knew exactly what to say to get a laugh. Thinking about her friends made her stomach roil. Later, Morgan said to herself, you can deal with it later.

Instead, she tool Sylvie's hand and let herself get pulled to her feet.

"Excellent." Sylvie's hand snapped forward and the shield sealing off the still molten corridor flexed, driving itself deeply into the wall. Stepping forward seemed to drive it forwards. Sylvie never got any closer to the shimmering shield regardless of how quickly she moved or how much molten stone was scrapped off the walls ahead of her. Morgan didn't have the faintest idea how much lava — or magma, they were underground, weren't they? — was pushed aside by the shield, but it had to be tonnes. It didn't look like it took any effort.

What really got to Morgan, though, wasn't the impossibility of what was going on, of being kidnapped away or having a monster ripped from her, but the crystals. They didn't move. Whenever Sylvie's shield brushed past them, whether they were as large as her head or as small as her fingernail, they didn't move. She'd mad the mistake of stepping on one and her shoe still smoked from the brief contact. They were red hot yet didn't radiate heat. Even gravity didn't seem to affect them. Some crystals literally hung in the air, forcing her or Sylvie to step aside.

Stopping abruptly, Sylvie turned back to Morgan. "La ville de Pyxis," she said simply. Lava burst from the tunnel and revealed the so-called city.

It was beautiful, Morgan thought. It was located in a cavern dominated by a massive central fissure dropped far away into the dark. Above that were two butterfly wings wrought in crystal. They looked like stained glass, shards of colour connected by thin-spun webs glinting in the gentle not-light, throwing off all the hues of a rainbow. Below that, a massive plateau held countless buildings. Most were made of cut stone, but Morgan could also see the glint of steel, glass and crystal.

The entire cavern was shaped like a giant horseshoe with the city, Pyxis, at the top. Twin bridges seemed to connect the main city to the pathways cut into the corners of the cavern.

Morgan realized that they weren't quite at the bottom of the U, but they were far out. "You live there?" Morgan asked. She added a sleeping gesture to get the point across.

"Oui."

"Salué, Sylvie!" a stranger called out.

Flinching and turning slowly, the other woman faced the newcomer and responded with a long torrent of French. There were two of them, twins. For a second, Morgan thought they were identical, but a hint of gravel in the one's voice hinted that he was male and the lack of it in the other's voice betrayed her femininity. She could see more differences as they got closer, a tiny scar across the boy's eye and a difference in eye colour, but the resemblance was extremely uncanny. The two of them looked far closer to clones than any brother or sister Morgan had ever scene.

Regardless, both were beautiful. Hair so blonde it was silver or white, and piercing blue-grey eyes marked both of them. They were on the feminine side of androgynous; they looked elfin. They even had the ears like something out of Tolkien or The Legend of Zelda.

Looking back at Sylvie, Morgan hesitated. She didn't know what was going on and she hated that. Among her friends, only Charlotte had been better dealing with people. Ava might've been better dealing with people who wanted to slam their heads together and beat their chests, but Charlotte had an undeniable charm.

Sylvie looked like she was walking across broken glass. Barefoot. Everything about her was brittle.

And Morgan couldn't tell why. The two twins sounded nothing but polite, as far as she could tell, but what use was that if she didn't know what they were saying? Charlotte had always said that you could call someone a filthy rotten whore and as long as it was said lightly and with a smile, they'd take it as a joke. Tone meant nothing.

Finally, they turned to her.

"...est Morgan," Sylvie finished.

"Morgan?" the boy responded. "Fair maid, I has't the f'rtune and wh'rewithal to beest nam'd Sigmund. Beside mine own p'rson stands mine own belov'd Sigline." He reached down and gently kissed your hand.

"You speak English?"

"I wouldst dareth desire so. T's not oft yond I receiveth to speaketh the language of kings, barbarians, and conqu'r'rs. "

Your eye drifted over to Sylvie. As far as you could tell, she was trying very hard not to telegraph her emotions. Sigline wasn't much help either. She just seemed as amused as her brother.

"Alas, mine own sist'r doest not speaketh the grand language. The lady doth feel t unw'rthy f'r the tongue of the Thrice-Crown'd. Fain, I doth not bethink samely. Setteth yond matt'r aside, who is't thee careth to joineth us in hospitality?"

How do you respond?

[X] Accept
[X] Reject

How do you convey your message?

[X] Forcefully
[X] Cleverly
[X] Diplomatically
[X] Write In