Personification Life OOC IX [CLOSED]

[The BranRiech]

Ermahgerd! I can't wait for Swith to come back!

[Mincaldenteans]

Ermahgerd! I can't wait for Swith to come back!

(Image)

O_o she never left...?
-gives dork badge-

[The BranRiech]

Ermahgerd! I can't wait for Swith to come back!

(Image)

O_o she never left...?
-gives dork badge-

Char!Swith

[Mincaldenteans]

O_o she never left...?
-gives dork badge-

Char!Swith

dorkbadge still stays, if only for the picture

[The BranRiech]

dorkbadge still stays, if only for the picture

Fair enough, then Swith gets it before me.

She used it back when Naomi was brought back to life.

[Mincaldenteans]

dorkbadge still stays, if only for the picture

Fair enough, then Swith gets it before me.

She used it back when Naomi was brought back to life.

Every time a post shows depth or past history for chars in PL, I wish I had links to direct me to the rest of the story/development. As it stands reading hundreds of IC pages not the best method. Like one big giant compendium of links to the specific char.

Screw it, I might just do name search filtering and find go from there tonight.

[Giovenith]

Fair enough, then Swith gets it before me.

She used it back when Naomi was brought back to life.

Every time a post shows depth or past history for chars in PL, I wish I had links to direct me to the rest of the story/development. As it stands reading hundreds of IC pages not the best method. Like one big giant compendium of links to the specific char.

Screw it, I might just do name search filtering and find go from there tonight.

I wish people could learn easier. I think this is why we should work more on the wiki together.

The whole Swith return kind of reminds me of "Re-Birthday." In a way.

[Mincaldenteans]

Every time a post shows depth or past history for chars in PL, I wish I had links to direct me to the rest of the story/development. As it stands reading hundreds of IC pages not the best method. Like one big giant compendium of links to the specific char.

Screw it, I might just do name search filtering and find go from there tonight.

I wish people could learn easier. I think this is why we should work more on the wiki together.

The whole Swith return kind of reminds me of "Re-Birthday." In a way.

An extensive bio of each char's past doings in PL would be really nice. But its a lot work. -nodnod- Datsumdedicationritethur

[Giovenith]

I wish people could learn easier. I think this is why we should work more on the wiki together.

The whole Swith return kind of reminds me of "Re-Birthday." In a way.

An extensive bio of each char's past doings in PL would be really nice. But its a lot work. -nodnod- Datsumdedicationritethur

I could probably do it fairly well for all my stuff. Then again, out of all the people here, I probably have the least eventful life.

[Thade Invicta]

Every time a post shows depth or past history for chars in PL, I wish I had links to direct me to the rest of the story/development. As it stands reading hundreds of IC pages not the best method. Like one big giant compendium of links to the specific char.

Screw it, I might just do name search filtering and find go from there tonight.

You won't find much of the character's death for back story. The rest of the back story is odd. It involves a war between the avatars (GT's characters are a small part of it). Atosh (God of War) vs Charumati (God of Perfection/Lust). The God War is still going on but the details are woven into our IC posts. Most people are totally clueless about it because they don't read long posts. We discovered this bad habit during the first few Drone Invasions. Dani snuck much by players in that time (but not by me).

And now, the results of keeping posts in context as well as collabing behind the scenes:

---

Incense smoke hung in a low cloud about the ceiling, obscuring the light fixtures and casting the room in murky haze. The men gathered within were a dismal lot. A mixture of young and old, they clustered themselves towards the walls and corners to avoid the wrathful scrutiny of the Avatar upon his throne.

The chair had been heavily damaged in the prior encounter with Charumati but stood proudly at the far end of the hall. Atosh had restored the haunt. The floor once again gleamed without any stain from filth or gore. The pillars still bore chips from Charumati’s skull but were gleaming once again. The chains that once held Cornelius still dangled from the ceiling. It was an adequate secondary base. It was almost beautiful.

Atosh’s gaze roamed the room but it brought him no joy. His will was bent upon other things. Loathe as he was to leave the Ruins and thus miss out on seeing his sister’s suffering, it was better to relocate here; let the fools deal with Bane. Charumati would assist them, of course. Poor grieving widow. Poor unfortunate little wastrel. My, but her heart must surely be distraught?

Atosh sneered. It wasn’t distraught enough. She wasn’t suffering enough. Thus had he once again summoned the strange creature who had vowed to assist his cause. His ears detected footsteps passing through the outer chamber.

His lips curled into wicked delight and he looked towards the man who had single-handedly handed Charumati’s heart to her on a gilded platter. He had done what Klaus couldn’t; Atosh held no regrets for slaughtering Klaus for his failures. Yet Atosh wasn’t satisfied yet. This man, who had crossed the threshold and stood before him as a champion, was the ticket.

He wore a black brim hat and an eye patch over the left eye. A bandana covered his mouth and was tucked neatly into the man’s shirt. A shadow from his hat covered over his face while the black, ragged trench coat he wore covered him enough to look as if he were levitating off the ground. Upon reaching a close distance of ten meters from Atosh and his throne, he stopped.

He pulled down the bandana from over his mouth before placing his right fist over his heart, giving a slight bow in the process. In his usual deep, groaning voice he said, “So, Atosh, what has you bring me, Arelius Dante, to your most high...presence?”

“Ah, Arelius,” Atosh’s eyes narrowed in delight. “Apparently my dear sister is still seeking Thriller’s soul. She’ll eventually track it down. I want to put it someplace safe. But that’s not why I summoned you.”

“Oh trust me I knew this well before your arrival.. Lets say I have a source...From the inside.” Arelius grinned as his yellowed, sharp teeth showed. He then went on to say, “So I can guess you want me to find a way to: A: bring her here, B: Bring her kids here, C: Kill her kids, D: Kill Thrille... Or maybe all the above? That is just me, but you are the summoner...Lets hear what you have to say...Atosh.”

“I couldn’t care less about Thriller. Kill him now if it pleases you. I don’t foresee his return.” Atosh leaned back. “I want the daughter dead. The boy is part of destiny. Killing him will change too many things in too many unpleasant ways.”

“So in other words... You want me to go kill the girl and leave the boy?” He asked as he raised his only normal eyebrow. “Details please. I maybe able to carry out plans past then what is expected, but I can only do so well as to what I am told.”

“Far distant future, my friend.” Atosh’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “His existence satisfies my bloodlust. The girl is superfluous.”

“Right...Well then, I have a feeling that this kill and run will be more complicated than it sounds… As in, there will be issues I might have to face... Any you wish to tell? You know, about the kids, the area...What...What gives this mission to me?”


“There is nothing to tell,” a feminine voice said from her position in the doorway. The cloaked figure took a step into the room. “Absolutely nothing. You, whoever you are, have until the count of three to leave or I’ll scatter your atoms across the Warp.”

Her head tipped upward although her face remained in shadow. “Hello Atoshmatu. We have business, you and I.”

Leviathan turned and looked at the woman standing there. He then lifted up his eye patch; a little grin came upon his face as his licked his sharp teeth. He clasped his hands together and replied, “Why most certainly, I shall remove myself from this... Hall...This once... Yes.. If I am ever needed again, Atosh... I’ll be busy getting out this task with the help of some fellow...colleagues, back home.”

With that, he pulled his patch over his deformed eye and his bandana over his mouth before placing his hat on. As he stepped back into the darkness and gave his parting words, “By the way, I know I told you my name, but please, call me... Leviathan.” He then vanished.

Atosh eased back into his throne and pursed his lips at the new arrival. "And now tell me whatever business you think you have with me. I have none with you."

Incense smoke hung in a low cloud about the ceiling, obscuring the light fixtures and casting the room in murky haze. The men gathered within were a dismal lot. A mixture of young and old, they clustered themselves towards the walls and corners to avoid the wrathful scrutiny of the Avatar upon his throne.

The chair had been heavily damaged in the prior encounter with Charumati but stood proudly at the far end of the hall. Atosh had restored the haunt. The floor once again gleamed without any stain from filth or gore. The pillars still bore chips from Charumati’s skull but were gleaming once again. The chains that once held Cornelius still dangled from the ceiling. It was an adequate secondary base. It was almost beautiful.

Atosh’s gaze roamed the room but it brought him no joy. His will was bent upon other things. Loathe as he was to leave the Ruins and thus miss out on seeing his sister’s suffering, it was better to relocate here; let the fools deal with Bane. Charumati would assist them, of course. Poor grieving widow. Poor unfortunate little wastrel. My, but her heart must surely be distraught?

Atosh sneered. It wasn’t distraught enough. She wasn’t suffering enough. Thus had he once again summoned the strange creature who had vowed to assist his cause. His ears detected footsteps passing through the outer chamber.

His lips curled into wicked delight and he looked towards the man who had single-handedly handed Charumati’s heart to her on a gilded platter. He had done what Klaus couldn’t; Atosh held no regrets for slaughtering Klaus for his failures. Yet Atosh wasn’t satisfied yet. This man, who had crossed the threshold and stood before him as a champion, was the ticket.

He wore a black brim hat and an eye patch over the left eye. A bandana covered his mouth and was tucked neatly into the man’s shirt. A shadow from his hat covered over his face while the black, ragged trench coat he wore covered him enough to look as if he were levitating off the ground. Upon reaching a close distance of ten meters from Atosh and his throne, he stopped.

He pulled down the bandana from over his mouth before placing his right fist over his heart, giving a slight bow in the process. In his usual deep, groaning voice he said, “So, Atosh, what has you bring me, Arelius Dante, to your most high...presence?”

“Ah, Arelius,” Atosh’s eyes narrowed in delight. “Apparently my dear sister is still seeking Thriller’s soul. She’ll eventually track it down. I want to put it someplace safe. But that’s not why I summoned you.”

“Oh trust me I knew this well before your arrival.. Lets say I have a source...From the inside.” Arelius grinned as his yellowed, sharp teeth showed. He then went on to say, “So I can guess you want me to find a way to: A: bring her here, B: Bring her kids here, C: Kill her kids, D: Kill Thrille... Or maybe all the above? That is just me, but you are the summoner...Lets hear what you have to say...Atosh.”

“I couldn’t care less about Thriller. Kill him now if it pleases you. I don’t foresee his return.” Atosh leaned back. “I want the daughter dead. The boy is part of destiny. Killing him will change too many things in too many unpleasant ways.”

“So in other words... You want me to go kill the girl and leave the boy?” He asked as he raised his only normal eyebrow. “Details please. I maybe able to carry out plans past then what is expected, but I can only do so well as to what I am told.”

“Far distant future, my friend.” Atosh’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “His existence satisfies my bloodlust. The girl is superfluous.”

“Right...Well then, I have a feeling that this kill and run will be more complicated than it sounds… As in, there will be issues I might have to face... Any you wish to tell? You know, about the kids, the area...What...What gives this mission to me?”


“There is nothing to tell,” a feminine voice said from her position in the doorway. The cloaked figure took a step into the room. “Absolutely nothing. You, whoever you are, have until the count of three to leave or I’ll scatter your atoms across the Warp.”

Her head tipped upward although her face remained in shadow. “Hello Atoshmatu. We have business, you and I.”


Leviathan turned and looked at the woman standing there. He then lifted up his eye patch; a little grin came upon his face as his licked his sharp teeth. He clasped his hands together and replied, “Why most certainly, I shall remove myself from this... Hall...This once... Yes.. If I am ever needed again, Atosh... I’ll be busy getting out this task with the help of some fellow...colleagues, back home.”

With that, he pulled his patch over his deformed eye and his bandana over his mouth before placing his hat on. As he stepped back into the darkness and gave his parting words, “By the way, I know I told you my name, but please, call me... Leviathan.” He then vanished.

Atosh eased back into his throne and pursed his lips at the new arrival. "And now tell me whatever business you think you have with me. I have none with you."

“Directly, no,” she replied sternly. “Indirectly, yes. We have unfinished business. I’ve come for Thriller’s soul.”

She crossed the floor, ignoring the cultists clawing about the corners. Her eyes discerned daemons in the darkness. It was the proverbial lions’ den but she was no Daniel.

Atosh barked laughter. “Really, now? Have you come? One of Charumati’s puppets! Perhaps her face still stings from the last time, Messenger?”

The figure stopped before him and tipped her head back further. He was scary. Everything about him reflected sinister power. Naturally, he had every right to boast. Atosh was the former avatar of War. Every violent act in the universe fueled him and his framework was anger, hate and rage. He wasn’t omnipotent or omniscient, however.

“I’ve come for Thriller’s soul,” she repeated levelly. She clasped her hands loosely in front of her and adopted a sense of humble patience.

Atosh growled. “Who are you that you think you could just saunter in here as if you belonged? Who are you to stand before me? Worthless cunt, I’m a god.”

“I am everything that you are not, and all that Charumati was afraid to contain.” Naomi lowered her hood.



The former avatar was speechless. Naomi. Nafuckingomi. He could easily strike her down yet there was a certain honor to be upheld; killing the weak and timid was dishonorable.

Fuck honor. He’d struck out from his Being long ago. Naomi’s death would cause Swith further suffering. But why had she sent the vessel? What purpose? Did that silly cunt actually anticipate adherence to former ethics?

“You are nothing,” he sneered. “You were nothing to begin with and to nothing you’ll return. Fluff in an organic shell. A child pretending to be a woman. Nothing. Bran killed you before. Fucking Bran. There’s no Eva here to help you, Naomi.”

“Omimati,” she gently corrected him.

Atosh mocked her with laughter. “You gave yourself that title. I won’t recognize it.”

He rose from his throne and extended a hand into which appeared a cruel blade.

Naomi’s expression didn’t change as he advanced although the robes concealed her tightened muscles.. In a contest of physical strength, she would automatically lose. She hadn’t even brought a sword. Naomi was naive but not foolish… she knew she’d only end up slicing her own leg off with a blade.

“Atoshmatu, I’m not here to fight you,” she replied, “and I’m not here to establish any title for myself or for any glory. I’ve come for Thriller’s soul. Nothing more, nothing less.”

He didn’t hear her words; she could die like countless others. The sword slashed towards her and struck - nothing. The clean sound of air whistling over the blade echoed in the throne room.

Naomi stepped from behind him, a few severed strands of hair riding the turbulence left in her wake. Her demeanor hadn’t changed and she bowed her head in humble acceptance of his determination to eradicate her.

The former avatar of War stared at his blade and the empty space before him before wheeling around to face her. He’d sensed nothing; there were no traces of magic or enchantment. She’d moved. Impossibly fast. Impossibly.

“You can’t dodge me forever, silly bitch,” Atosh’s lips twisted into a cruel smile. “You’ll eventually tire.”

“I’ve come for Thriller’s soul,” she whispered.

“Stop demanding that!” His grip on the blade tightened and then it danced in the light, slashing towards her with determined speed.

Naomi bit her lip as the honed edge sliced through her cloak and into her bicep. She willed herself to not cry out. The fingers on her left hand quickly opened and closed, and then she drew her arm up to clasp her cloak closed, seemingly tucking herself in tighter. The muscles worked, so the damage was minor although exceptionally painful to her. She simply needed to pay more attention, to move faster, to not allow him another chance to strike.

“Atosh, listen to me. You don’t have to do this,” her voice remained patient, as if negotiating with a child over the end of playtime.

Naomi’s expression didn’t change as he advanced although the robes concealed her tightened muscles.. In a contest of physical strength, she would automatically lose. She hadn’t even brought a sword. Naomi was naive but not foolish… she knew she’d only end up slicing her own leg off with a blade.

“Atoshmatu, I’m not here to fight you,” she replied, “and I’m not here to establish any title for myself or for any glory. I’ve come for Thriller’s soul. Nothing more, nothing less.”

He didn’t hear her words; she could die like countless others. The sword slashed towards her and struck - nothing. The clean sound of air whistling over the blade echoed in the throne room.

Naomi stepped from behind him, a few severed strands of hair riding the turbulence left in her wake. Her demeanor hadn’t changed and she bowed her head in humble acceptance of his determination to eradicate her.

The former avatar of War stared at his blade and the empty space before him before wheeling around to face her. He’d sensed nothing; there were no traces of magic or enchantment. She’d moved. Impossibly fast. Impossibly.

“You can’t dodge me forever, silly bitch,” Atosh’s lips twisted into a cruel smile. “You’ll eventually tire.”

“I’ve come for Thriller’s soul,” she whispered.

“Stop demanding that!” His grip on the blade tightened and then it danced in the light, slashing towards her with determined speed.

Naomi bit her lip as the honed edge sliced through her cloak and into her bicep. She willed herself to not cry out. The fingers on her left hand quickly opened and closed, and then she drew her arm up to clasp her cloak closed, seemingly tucking herself in tighter. The muscles worked, so the damage was minor although exceptionally painful to her. She simply needed to pay more attention, to move faster, to not allow him another chance to strike.

“Atosh, listen to me. You don’t have to do this,” her voice remained patient, as if negotiating with a child over the end of playtime.

Atosh glared at Naomi but his mind wasn’t completely enraged; he studied her in an attempt to discern how she’d managed to avoid death twice in a row. It was impossible. His mind refused to believe that she had somehow gained power overnight.

“Naomi, you don’t have to do this either. Go back home. Go back to your little child and live out your life. Pay this no mind. After all, it doesn’t involve you. It’s Swith’s role. She should be standing here, yet she sends you to die? For what? To demand something that she’s too weak to obtain? Naomi, she sent you here to die. Maybe she did it in the hope that you’d tired me so she could ride in triumphant? You’re like an Imperial soldier sent as fodder so as to lessen the chances of losing a more expensive Space Marine.”

Naomi tilted her head to the side and furrowed her brows. What a strange analogy. Of course she’d thought about Eva before coming. Eva needed her, naturally. But she’d come for Eva, so that the child could grow up unmolested by the constant threat that Atosh posed.

Her head righted and she shook it. “Swith didn’t send me, Atosh. I came because I needed to. For Thriller’s-”

“Soul,” Atosh sighed. “Yes, you’ve said that several times. Don’t you get tired of saying it?”

“Nope.”

Atosh shrugged and lifted his blade, allowing the flat to rest against his shoulder. He studied her further, casually, as a lazy dog would regard an annoying moth. Poor, misguided girl. “Naomi, life doesn’t always give many opportunities to learn from mistakes. Do you really want to take that risk here? Wouldn’t it be better to live?”

“Living is always preferable,” she admitted. “I suppose I will but I didn’t come to live. I came for a purpose.”

“As you like it.”

The sword streaked towards her again, launched from a resting position and, as predicted, she moved to avoid it. The slash wasn’t his goal however. At the last moment he altered his motion and swung the opposite arm around, landing a backhanded blow to Naomi’s head.

She flew to the side and lost her balance, slamming into the ground with a sickening crunch of bone. Thousands of stars erupted from nowhere and blotted out the world around her, and then the edges of her vision began to close in. There was an oceanic roar in her ears which increased in pitch until it was a ringing whine. Naomi coughed. Blood and a broken tooth splattered the ground in front of her.

She planted her tiny palms on the floor and lifted her torso up, swallowing coppery-tasting fluids mixed with a sickly bitter slime. The high-pitched noise increased to painful levels.

“See? Are we learning our lesson, Naomi?” he asked.

She barely grasped the words. His blow had rattled her brain and damaged the cochlea in her ear, rendering her deaf on one side. Her mind attempted to piece together the lack of stimulus and compensated by producing a ghost tone. The tinnitus was maddening and the concussion painful. She wretched and forced her world to come into focus again.

This is nothing. There will be much worse to come, she reminded herself. Naomi’s legs gathered under her and she pushed herself off the floor to stand in front of him again. “I’m made of star stuff and cobwebs.”

“What the fu-?”

“Exactly.” Naomi lifted her arm and gently blotted the blood trickling from her ear. “I’m something you can’t understand.”

“Now you’re just annoying the fuck out of me,” Atosh spat. “You really, really annoy people. Did you know?”

“I know,” Naomi replied simply. She’d known for a very long time. Oddly enough, that knowledge had governed her life since the beginning. The only one who wasn’t eternally annoyed by her was the old cyborg. She loved him all the more for it. She never loved him more than at that moment. She hoped he knew.

Naomi brushed hair from her eyes with a pale hand. “We’re not solving anyth-”

The strike came from nowhere. She’d been distracted and Atosh seized on it. Naomi found herself on the floor again and this time the pain caused her to black out.

The failed avatar kicked her head out of spite. “Stupid cunt.”

At least he was no longer annoyed.

---

Not much was said about Char!Swith's death or even her involvement during all this. Minerva alludes to it a bit later:

Minerva regarded both men. There are many different ways this could go. Wisconsin had nothing to do with it. The cultist leader's hands pressed against her eyes and she rubbed them.

"Atosh has been defeated," she began simply, with a person only Bran was aware of. "He's vanquished but most certainly not dead. The battle was on two fronts with the majority of our forces remaining in the Bielefeld dimension while Naomi alone took a stand against Atosh himself in the Void. Atosh's number were fewer but they were better armed and had tricks up their sleeves. It was a brutal encounter. Klaus and I lost men. In the final battle, at the very end, we'd discovered that Atosh had opened a rift from which he was prepared to send a great many daemons into the dimension. The only thing that had kept that plan in check was the unexpected arrival of Bane."

She breathed in and shook her head. "The numbers were overwhelming. Few cultists could have made a stand against the host. Swith and I stood our ground and she worked to close the rift to seal off further daemon incursion. In the end, the enemy proved too potent. We were driven back and sought a retreat but were overtaken. Klaus and his men were able to reach our location but Swith fell before they could reach us.

"We brought her to Serenity in the hopes that perhaps we could repair her ragged essence, but the damage was too extensive. Swith passed beyond this morning. I'm sorry. There wasn't anything anyone could have done. This isn't like before. We have matrix. We don't have what matters."

(I need to find the battle scene itself.) Nine threads have passed and the "end of the world" was foretold in the very first one. Nobody caught it. I love that. One wrong move, one wrong thing done by an unsuspecting character, and BOOSH! there goes the game. That's part of the reason why I'm so anal/assholish when players want to run characters with specific powers, and also why they need to run stories by me.

[Mincaldenteans]

An extensive bio of each char's past doings in PL would be really nice. But its a lot work. -nodnod- Datsumdedicationritethur

I could probably do it fairly well for all my stuff. Then again, out of all the people here, I probably have the least eventful life.

I'd have it pretty easy myself. Slap the fae in, sprinkle a faction there, put an oversize Klingon in the mix - done.

[The BranRiech]

Hah, Cer, I actually read that post when it was posted! Or something similar at least.

[Mincaldenteans]

Thanks Cer ^_^ gonna read that when I'm home chomping on dinner.

[Giovenith]

Whoa, Cer! For a moment I thought you posted in the wrong thread.

[Thade Invicta]

Char!Swith's death.

---

Part One

The little wooden bird in Klaus’ cuckoo clock appeared eight times from behind his little door. Each two-tone treble softly echoed in the bedroom where Minerva lay fast asleep, but they didn’t rouse her. Her eyes darted from side to side under her eyelids and her breathing remained rapid, punctuated by the memories haunting her dreams.



The notes blended with the throaty bark of heavy weaponry discharging lethal rounds. Ash and the stench of vaporized bodies chocked the sinuses and lungs and Minerva coughed and spat out a blackened glob of phlegm before covering her mouth again with her respirator mask.

“Will, SITREP?”

Her second in command crawled over bleached, brittle bones, head low to avoid the constant barrage of fire that was literally boring a new tunnel into the bedrock at their backs. They’d been suppressed behind for nearly an hour after gaining the first subfloor of the old Vafflehelm city hall. Nothing stood between them and their enemy except the armor-encased corpses of their fallen companions and the heavy, bloated bodies of dead plague daemons. Yet the defensive assault against them never let up, never gave them room to breathe, never stopped ringing in their ears and chipping away at their mental fortitude.

“Klaus has taken the east wing upstairs.” Wills’ voice cracked as he shouted over the madness around them. “His forces are making for the shafts as planned. We’ve lost twenty three lads since my last report. Captain, we’re dying here.”

A low growl escaped her and her mouth curled into a sneer beneath her mask. “I’m well aware that we’re being slaughtered, Will. We’ve got to keep them entertained until those shafts are secured.”

“The lads don’t see it that way. If only Charumati-“

The back of Minerva’s hand connected with Will’s temple and rocked his head to the side. “Pass that along to the lads. We can’t afford to lose faith now.” She turned her face away, leaving Will to groan as the cruel sting slowly metamorphosed into an arousing surge of energy that left him hard and sent scintillating waves through the mental tether to the rest of the lads. Pain is pleasure.

A distant explosion shook debris from the ceiling. It was followed by another, and then another, each growing closer to the current battleground. The deadly rounds pinning Minerva and her lads sputtered and then settled to a trickle as their enemy attempted to determine the source of this new noise. The final explosion sundered the far wall. Heavy stone pierced the daemons closest to it, dispelling them from the dimension. The remaining host screamed in terror as the flaming corpse of a Bloodletter hurtled towards them. The burning thing struck the ground and crushed a hundred men before skipping across its path of flight to topple those mutated Marine knuckle-draggers foolish enough to gape at the change in their fortune.

The battle-scarred form of Charumati Thriller emerged through the haze and momentarily became silhouetted by the harsh white light pooling into the room from behind her. No one dared to fire at so handy a target, however; the bitch avatar of Lust had arrived and would soon stretch out a feral claw to claim their souls.

There was no levity in Charumati’s expression, nor mercy in her eyes. Her heady emotional state claimed the memory of her fallen husband as its genesis and the sorrow and despair within her had mutated into a blinding hatred for her brother, Atosh. These were that turncoat’s men. These were his daemons and the last of his Astartes.

Her tiny form descended from the rubble. Skulls crushed under her armored feet. Her helmet was gone as were her weapons but Charumati paid little heed to her compromised state. Her eyes only saw the filth which dared to bring harm to her cultists and to assassinate her mate in cowardly fashion.

“Fuck,” Minerva gave voice to the horror that had momentarily seized friend and foe alike. Her hand clasped onto Will’s mask and she used it to drag him down to the bloodstained floor.

“You sons of whores,” Charumati growled. Her tiny breasts heaved and her body shook. “You sons of whores and depravity. You took him from me.”

Her fists curled into balls. “YOU TOOK HIM FROM OUR CHILDREN!”

It was her cultists who first felt it. The wave of misery assailed their hearts and caused tears to emerge from dusty ducts. Their voices rose as one into an anguished wail and they clutched their chests to ward off the pain. Charumati fed on this reverberated grief; it doubled, then tripled, then became magnified beyond measure by her factions’ despondency. She sculpted it into a blistering pulse that tore flesh from bone and smelted the metal around her. Brains boiled within skulls until the pressure blew the craniums outward in a red and grey spray of cooked tissue. Dust settled. Silence reigned.

“You will all die,” her lips murmured the words as gently as a lover would whisper promised dreams in the dead of night, “I loved him, you see. He was my heart’s song.”

Minerva rose and peered over the now-cooked carcass of the plague daemon which had served as cover only moments before. Charumati had been merciful and spared her lads. She bowed to the avatar, a gesture she seldom did in the thousand years of service to her. “What are your orders, Mistress?”

Charumati closed her eyes. Her face, grime-coated and wet from freshly shed tears, lifted towards the ceiling. She gathered her thoughts and listened to the echos along the tether. “Klaus has reached the shafts.”

Her delicate brow furrowed. She turned her head towards her cultist leader. “He won’t make the lower levels in time, Minerva. It’s up to us to close the portal before more of Atosh’s daemons gain entry to this dimension.”

“A suicidal mission if ever I heard of one,” Minerva quipped. She quickly relieved Will of his extra magazines. “Will, take the injured back to the surface. The rest of you lot, come with me or go with him. I won’t demand your blood spilt over futility.”

Will left with very few men in tow. The rest made their peace with the world and soon fell in line behind Minerva.



The little wooden doors shut fast and the cuckoo came to rest inside his clock. Minerva groaned and turned onto her side, the pillow quickly absorbing the beads of sweat that had blossomed upon her brow.

KNOCK, KNOCK

Minerva gasped and bolted upright, the blankets scattering as she flailed and thrashed her way out of her dream. She clutched her chest and felt her heart pounding deep within. Her fiery mane was a dank bird’s nest of sweat soaked hair and she pulled stray strands from her face with a trembling hand.

“Wait a minute,” she called, “Just… wait.”

She plucked her bathrobe from a chair and slipped it on as she crossed the darkened apartment. The door opened to reveal Bran on the doorstep.

He felt a bit regretful upon noting Minerva’s appearance; she looked dreadful under the bright foyer light. Her eyes were entrenched by dark circles which stood out against her deathly pale skin. Her face, normally flawless in beauty, seemed careworn now with small wrinkles adorning her brow and the corners of her eyes.

She assessed him equally in kind as he stood there in his normal attire, a red trench coat that had somehow made it with him through all these adventures and times at the apartment. He smiled, but just barely.

Minerva could practically taste the sorrow that hung about soul in a persistent cloud. He was grieving. Here was a young man who knew Charumati only as Swith, and he loved her for her simplicity and kindness. That bright light had been stolen from his world, even as it had been stolen from Minerva’s. She sighed in understanding.

Bran, for his part, wanted to see if his friend wanted to share a drink or two.

“Come in, Bran. I’ll put on the kettle.”

“Much thanks,” the former conscript replied. He wasn’t really expected anywhere, so he’d decided on staying in.

She stepped aside to allow him through the door and then she bustled about the kitchen while he respectfully removed his shoes to not track any dirt upon the carpet. She emerged moments later with a tea tray.

“Alright, what’s on your mind, luv,” Minerva poured out the bitter brew and settled into a chair. “You normally don’t come all the down here looking for me.”

Bran bowed his head as the woman presented the tea to him. He sat across from her in a chair he happened to find his backside in once she sat down too. He looked around the room, confirming that they were alone, not knowing if he was barging in on a party or something.

“Just . . . Just wanted to talk about some stuff,” he sighed, looking down at himself.

“I’m all ears,” she replied. Truth be told, his arrival had awoken her from the haunting memories of that final battle. It wasn’t something she wished to revisit again any time soon. Visiting with Bran was a perfect reason to stay awake.

“About Swith,” Bran said, shrugging sadly as he watched the walls of the room, looking off into space as he imagined what he wanted to say. “I’ve - I’ve just been depressed as of late. I mean, I know my family is there for me, but there’s a hole in my life now.” His mind reflected on his biological mother and the loss of another parent. To him though, and maybe not Yoshi, Swith wasn’t a mother. She was his best friend.

Minerva’s cup clattered back into its saucer. Her head bowed. “It’s not right,” she retorted bitterly. “It’s all Atosh’s fault. Fucking bastard. She should have lived longer, outlived us. She hadn’t any choice. It was the only thing that could have stopped him. She wasn’t willing to die for nothing, but her desire to protect us all outweighed even her quest to restore Thriller.”

The words had tumbled out in a rush. Minerva folded her hands and settled them into her lap.
The peculiar gesture, so different from her normally assertive body language, made her seem like a lost child. “I don’t know what he’ll think when he wakes up. Thriller, I mean. It’s… just not fair. Not to you, not to him. Not to any of us.”

“Well, I see Thriller as my friend too.” Bran nodded, open to the idea of getting through it together. He took in Minerva’s sudden outburst too, nodding at the idea. He remembered Atosh a bit from the recent excursion to his homeland. Atosh was the bad guy though.

“Klaus said she went out in a way we’d all be proud of, and I want to think that she was thinking of us all through it,” he folded his hands in his lap, still somewhat beat from the whole thing. “I just feel . . . Worthless? I know I shouldn’t, with my family, but I do.”

“How on earth can you feel worthless?”

“Eh,” Bran verbally shrugged. “I . . . She was my first real friend, almost a year and a half ago.”

“Have you ever wondered what it was like to be long-lived?” Minerva poured out more tea. “To be like a cultist or a conservator? Some say that longevity or even immortality is good. It’s not. The hardest challenge is knowing that the people we befriend today will age and die long before we do. Some cultists choose to remain isolated to avoid this pain. Others accept that nothing and no one lives forever. They go out and befriend people because they crave that interaction in their lives. They enrich those people’s lives and their own life is enriched. You enriched her life, Bran. She’d hate for you to be depressed over her passing.”

Looking up at this, Bran nodded slightly in understanding. Minerva made sense and it was something that he thought Swith would tell him had she still been around.

“It’s just hard, the first few days of knowing. I’ve been feeling shitty, but I guess it’s going to get better now, now that I know that,” he said, taking a quick sip of his tea.

“You also didn’t get much closure,” Minerva advised. “No one has, really. We still have to go through probate, although I was hoping Thriller would be revived by then. The will needs reading and some things need distribution.”

“I’d much rather not know,” the former conscript shrugged. The knowledge that Swith was dead, and had died in battle, was much more simpler than knowing each and every detail. “But yes, the will won’t be easy for me, I guess.”

The harsh bitterness of the tea coupled with the memory of her nightmare caused Minerva’s lips to form into a thin line. She set the cup down again and surveyed the man. “You’re made of stern stuff, Mr. Nikanor. You’ll get through this and be a better man for it.”

That was the real thing Bran needed to know, and now that someone else had confirmed it, he smiled, painfully though; his heart still ached from the realization that Swith was gone forever. She wouldn’t see Tolya’s first steps or be there to watch Rachelle blossom into a woman.

“At least she got to be a grandmother, eh?” He chuckled.

“Aye,” Minerva laughed in kind.

A moment of silence passed between them, although it wasn’t uncomfortable or strained. Each reflected on their inner thoughts as they sipped their tea.

“So, I don’t know if I ever learned, but when did you first meet Swith?” Bran wanted to know at least that much. “We could grab a drink at Chaos over it if you want.”

Minerva lit one of her odd cigarettes and blew out the match. “I won’t be going to Chaos, mostly because I’m in a dreadful state, what with my hair and all.”

She settled back in her chair. “I’m not certain how much of my history you know, and you might know very little. I don’t even know where to begin, unless it’s at the very end, which was my death. It wasn’t pretty and I’d rather not go into particulars except to say that Purna had been keeping her eye on me for a while and had been drawn to the violence behind the circumstances.

“Purna is my inner daemon, of course. She was formed by Swith and contains a fraction of her essence. I wasn’t prepared to receive her, however. It was Klaus who conducted the bond, and for years I thought he’d done it to torment me. Actually, it wasn’t until recently that I found out he did it because he was in love with me and couldn’t stand the thought of losing me.”

She pulled a draw from the cigarette and tried to sort out a few more pieces. “I suppose I met Swith through Purna. She used her true name back then: Charumati. She hadn’t much experience with the modern world and relied upon her cultists to be her eyes and ears. She called to me not shortly after Purna settled into me, and I went. I didn’t have much of a choice.

“I suppose you could say that she and I have had a long relationship. We’ve spilled blood together, and shed tears during times of sorrow. I loved her. I miss her. I dream about her.”

Minerva stubbed the cigarette out and brushed stray hair from her face. There wasn’t any sense in drudging up those dreams.

She regarded his sweet and gentle face. He was an innocent soul, so mild natured. There were mysteries about him. “What about you? I’ve heard bits and pieces from Swith, but how did you meet her? I can’t imagine she was too collected back then. She frequently dipped her toe in the world when she was bored, often posing as a scientist or healer but, from what I’ve gathered, she wasn’t expecting to return to this dimension anytime soon. We hadn’t even realized she was here until months later. Did you really summon her and bind her to a promise?”

How did he meet Swith? That was one of his oldest memories of the apartment, besides being tied down to his bed by one of the Bones brothers, since he really didn’t know what else to call them. But Swith was one of the first happy memories of his time here, in the very building he was standing in right now.

“I was a paranoid asshat back then. First words I exchange with Swith were “Come in, please don’t kill me.” and that was that, but I’m trying to recall the time we became real friends, unless it did start with those paranoid words.”

She brought poptarts and scotch, enough to garner the trust of the conscript way back then, and he eventually let her in after she claimed she was too tired to kill anyone. If that was a joke, Bran never caught on to it, and was a bit worried his entire time.

“Don’t rightly remember much after that, although I do recall saving the life of a good friend that day with her, and then the rest is history? She bunked with me for a few months, and that’s where we became friends.” He said, smiling at the blissful thoughts of the years passed, dredging up the fun times, and eventually, the bad, like getting hit by a train . . .

That wasn’t fun, but Swith was still there for him. Her home was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Minerva laughed. “That sounds just like her. I’m surprised she didn’t eat your liver on the first night!”

The cultist leader held up a finger as if to say, wait and disappeared into a bedroom. She emerged moments later with a small bundle wrapped up in a purple silk scarf.

“Here it is,” she set the bundle on the table. “It’s not much, but she’d set it aside for you should anything happen to her. I was supposed to wait until the will was read, but maybe this is the better time for it.”

Inside was a small snow globe set on a humble silver pedestal. The scene captured inside was very simple as well: two figurines, one curled up in a bed while the other sat at the foot with her chin propped on her hand. Minerva gave it a shake and the glittery snow swirled. However, accompanying that snow, if not part of it, was Swith’s silvery laughter mixed with Bran’s deeper chortle. The laughter died away as the particles settled and then, ever so softly, a hum came from the globe. It was the lullaby she’d sung to soothe away his nightmares every night for so very long. The figure rose from the bed and knelt beside the sleeping form, gently brushing his hair from his face before resuming her protective watch at the end of the bed. The song faded and the globe grew still once more.


Minerva didn’t understand the scene but the activities within awoke her own memories. These were the good ones shared between two females who had overcome much in their lives. Minerva trembled and, for the first time since Swith’s passing, allowed herself to sob.

“Oh god, I hurt so much.” She wrapped Bran in a tight embrace as if holding him would blight out all the wrongs in the world and hold the nightmares at bay. He understood her sorrow, and shared in the same heartache.. She knew he wouldn’t think less of her for it.

Telling himself he wouldn’t shed any tears over Swith’s death was a big fat lie. There was no getting away from tears after Bran saw what Swith had left for them.

Minerva might not understand the meaning of the whole scene, playing out in the snow globe that immortalized the friendship between them. It would last longer than Bran was around, he thought. Maybe even longer than Swith. The sheer simplistic scene held so much emotion, so much memory.

The nightmares were gone.

“I know,” he sighed, failing to hold back tears himself. “I know,” the conscript repeated, rubbing his friend’s back.


They remained that way a while, two companions unburdening their hearts without worry of being thought of as weak for their tears. It was cleansing and necessary.

At last, Minerva pulled away and apologized for the snot on his shoulder. She wiped her tears, chuckling. “You know, I’ve kept you far too long. I fear we’ve missed midnight. Happy New Year, Bran.”

“I suppose you have, and I’d rather not deplete your supply of tea, Miss Minerva,” Bran replied cordially. He supposed it was about time to get out of the place and head home, or wherever the apartment would see fit to take him to. “It’s alright, I’d spend all night talking about Swith, midnight or not, you know? Well. I guess I’d better be out.”

With the last words, Bran moved in for one more tender hug, holding back a few straggling tears as he did, before withdrawing again.

One last nod indicated his exit, and he donned his shoes, picked up the snow globe that he felt oh-so-lucky to have received, and left for bed.

Minerva leaned on the door jamb and watched him make his way up the stairs.

“Happy New Year, Bran,” she murmured. She closed the door and retired to her bedroom.


(The memories continue once Minerva falls back asleep)

The pyroclastic cloud ripped through the narrow passage, feeding upon the oxygen and consuming everything in its wake. Charumati and her forces were far enough back to avoid the flames but the rolling heat withered the lungs and cooked the flesh of the men on point and they collapsed. Those who were fortunate enough to be further behind faced mortal peril as bits of plaster and wood tore away to crucify them where they stood. Fine ash shrouded the fallen in white blankets, committing them to the fate shared by those unfortunate souls of Pompeii nearly two thousand years ago. The corridor darkened to midnight hue and several of the lads behind her cried out in fear.

Charumati was all too aware of her surroundings. The sweet- stale sweat rising from the lad’s dead bodies and the surreal coppery taste permeating the air to caress the sides of her tongue, causing it to curl back to stem the flow of saliva gathering under it. Her eyes didn’t need to pierce the darkness, not when her nose and ears hissed dark tidings of what lie ahead.

“Minerva,” scant light reflected off Charumati’s cheek as she turned it towards her cultist leader, “Tell the lads to fall back. This is no place for flesh and bone.”

Minerva set her jaw and relayed the order through the tether. It was Christmas Eve. How many lads had already died? How many wives and lovers and children were standing by their drains in anticipation of a cheerful greeting and warm embrace that would never arrive? The lads behind protested their dismissal but Captain Blackwater was not to be disobeyed. They retreated, begrudgingly, to hold the entrance.

Charumati progressed forward and Minerva fell in step with her. “You need to fall back as well,” the god growled.

“All that I am and all that I’ve seen are because of Purna,” Minerva replied.” You fashioned her from spider webs and dandelion tuffs, or so she teases me. We won’t abandon you now. I’m more than her host. I’m your eternal friend.”

“A friend I won’t have die beside me. Return to Klaus. He-“

“It was Klaus who insisted I see this through with you. And it was Ogoti who blessed me before battle. Don’t banish me, Charumati; don’t dishonor the promise I made to them.”
Charumati opened her mouth to protest but both females’ heads swiveled towards the blackness. A harsh churning sound echoed down the passageway. It wasn’t the heavy tread of a Dreadnaught. It was the foreboding knock of heavy talons striking the ground with each step taken by a Greater Daemon. There was more than one set of feet, however. Minerva closed her eyes, drew in a bolstering breath and steeled herself.

“They come,” Charumati whispered.

The hairs along the back of Minerva’s neck stood on end as the footfalls thudded nearer in the dark. These were the final moments. This was the pause before the crushing press. The cultist leader studied Charumati’s face, which was thrown in profile as she stared ahead of them. Minerva wanted to whisk her away, to tell her that she didn’t have to do this, to beg her to let Bielefeld and the world fall.

The footfalls became a death knell.

---

Swith later recounts some of the story to various characters. This is one with Prim:

Primordial looked up just as she began to weep, his eyes a pale brown color that had no warmth or light to them. Yet they were calm and tranquil as if he was half way in a trance. As he gazed at her he reflected on her as a creature, one which he had seen a great transformation take place in since his appearance in this universe. It was that transformation and that evolution of spirit that made her so interesting. Secretly and privately he had written much on the subject of this godling, he had transcribed her words and her feats, her pathos and her ethos, as part of his ambassadorial work.

He had a duty to record everything about this reality but for some reason he always found a way to make new entries in her tome before anyone else’s. Deep down he felt conflicted about the matter, as it was like writing a biography and examination on a close friend without their knowledge. Sometimes he worried that their conversations were more like and invasion of privacy, even though he record everything about everyone it was only her history that made him question his motives.

Primordial waved his hand to cut of the godling from her sobbing trying to comfort her as best he could. “Naomi you worry about such trivial and uninteresting things. Why must you feel blame and despair for everything that occurs around you? You are a creature of positive emotions why do you always resort to feeling this way?” He doesn’t let her answer the question, it was not a rethocial one but it was one he didn’t want her to answer without thinking about it for a long time first. Instead he changed the subject “Tell me what has transpired since we departed, I believe you all were on the island a pity we could not join you.”

Naomi wiped away the rest of her tears. She had taken his first question as rhetorical but only because it was one frequently asked by Charumati. Primordial just expressed it better than the usual, "Knock it off."

"The island," she replied, grateful for the topic change. "You missed some exciting things and some very sad things. The Raptors left. They took their house with them as well as the chicks. There was a typhoon right before Christmas. It wiped out just about everything, but it passed and we were able to rebuild. I got married and we're expecting. Oh! But you don't know!"

He didn't know! The Luxans had been gone when it happened, and so they hadn't heard to news or even the remnant gossip. Naomi found herself in a difficult situation. She chewed her bottom lip for a moment and then took a steadying breath.

"I'm no longer a godling." Naomi's hands rubbed together worriedly. "You see, I had to take over Perfection's forces. I had to ascend and be named by the Four, and accepted as a true avatar of the Fourth. I didn't want to, but I had to because... Atosh. He opened a gateway and was going to allow Greater Daemons to pour into this dimension. So Klaus and his Men and Minerva and her Lads assaulted the Ruins to close the gate while I went to the Void and distracted Atosh. He would have killed me if Minerva hadn't shown up and murdered him. Well, his matrix. He's still around somewhere. She was only able to do that because she was filled with wrath. You see, the Ruins were overrun by the Greater Daemons. They had gotten through and only Charumati and Minerva were left to destroy the ones who crossed over. Klaus was busy destroying the gate, you see. And it was dreadful. It was a final stand and all of them Thirsters. Minerva released Purna from within her just as Charumati fell. Purna is a Keeper, and deadly, and seeing Charumati fall... and knowing it was her essence torn from this dimension and scattered into a million bits... and she just raged and tore those Thirsters to shreds. She left the body with Hans and entered Minerva again and they came to my aid. And that was Christmas morning. Swith died on Christmas morning, and they brought her matrix back to the island, on the boat, before sending it to the grave in the vale, and that's when Ogoti told me I had to ascend."

Naomi had spoken in a hushed voice but she was breathing as if she'd just run a race. "I saw her fall, and I felt her fall because we were connected, and I've had nightmares about it. Gods are cruel. My gods are cruel. Your gods are cruel. I lost Neil, and I lost Swith, and now I'm going to lose Aegis. All I have left is Ceril and Ogoti. If I lose them, too, then I've lost everything. I'm very sad, Primordial. I've been very sad lately. It happens."

A small, apologetic smile flickered to her mouth but melted away again. "Such is life."

---

(And then Swith tore me a new asshole for procrastinating. She and GT couldn't post their collab until we finished ours.)

This is the Threshold, the old cyborg had explained to his companions long ago, This is the part of Infinity where Swith's pantheon resides…not even Swith is powerful enough to withstand them.

Years had passed since that group had crossed there. The Maelstroms had long since obscured the footprints made in the sand, and all the plain seemed empty but for a single, blind figure. His hand was thrust upward to offer a remnant of tattered fabric to whatever divinity would dare cross through to claim it. None would come. The winds howled and his fingers let slip the fragile substance. He faded back to whence he came, leaving the morsel to tumble towards the ground where it would become nothing but ash.

It landed, but in the palm of an outstretched hand rather than the rancid ground. The hand closed, sheltering it with sinewy fingers and harsh talons; this was the second to last piece. This creature had traveled the Void to find her, to restore as much of her essence as possible. His sojourn had wiped the humor from his heart and carved his flesh into scars and twisted skin.

“My work is nearly done.”

There would be no response. There was hardly anything left in that small remnant, but it was enough that he’d found it. Black wings folded around red flesh. The mastiff-headed Greater Daemon nodded to himself.

A second being emerged onto the plain, her lavender skin in stark contrast to the blood tones around her. Her eyes scrutinized him but she bit back her rancor at the sight of his war-torn body. “You’re not allowed to do that, Krieger. You aren’t a god.”

“It’s enough that I kept one alive for a time,” said he. “It’s enough that I still serve that god. I take what I wish.”

“Why are you here?”

Krieger’s laughed. “You are beautiful, Kapatapurna. Granted, most of your kind aren’t but some are formed to be so. How fortunate for you that Charumati favors perfection. But there are matters you needn’t be privy to, despite your nature. This is one of them. This is War’s business.”

“War’s business?” The Keeper of Secrets was insulted. “You take things you aren’t permitted to, Krieger. Tell me, did Chanpreetmati send you?”

“War’s business.”

Purna bared her fangs even as her hand sought her whip. “No. You meddle with what belongs to me.”

The Bloodthirster’s head slowly moved from side to side and a sigh escaped him. “Honor’s business. Hold back your whip. Rache pleaded with me. He blames himself. Hans blames himself. It is a matter of Honor. I take because it’s my duty to.”

“And what would you do with all you take?” she growled. “Give it to Klaus?”

“No. Klaus is unaware of my activity. I’d give it to you.”

Purna balked at the notion. What he said would be impossible to believe, not after so many centuries of strife between their factions. “May I ask why? Why me? If I were to trust in the veracity of your words, which I do not, then give me a reason to even think that you’d do such a thing.”

Krieger drew a small bag from his belt and tucked the fragment into it. “Why? Only you can access the Vale. Your business is your own, but War’s business is mine. I know the movements of all warriors. I see the paths they take. The time is now. I found all but one piece.”

He met her gaze and held the bag out to her and Purna’s skepticism dissolved. There weren’t any tricks to be seen within him; there was only brutal honesty. It resounded between them as she took the bag from him, and she comprehended things the moment their fingers made contact.

“I understand. I must hurry, then,” Purna drew the bag to her chest to shelter it from the winds. “Krieger, I have spoken many harsh things to you-“

“Well deserved words.”

“-and I shall speak them no longer-“

“I’d weep if you refrained.”

“-and you’re not making this easy.”

“I never do.” His lips lifted into a sneer. “And before you say it, you owe me nothing. I did this for Rache and Hans.”

Purna rolled her eyes. “Very well.”

The mists rose to claim her, and Krieger found himself once again alone on the Threshold.

---

Swith tied that scene in with her collab with GT:


The ring’s odyssey was nearly as fortuitous as the one made by an unlikely daemon intent on righting the same wrong. And so it was that both daemon and ring, unrelated except by love, arrived at the same time. But it was the summons made from the heart which bound the fragments in the bag and gave them purpose, much as the first summons had been so very long ago. The spirit that came was weaker by a piece, but the call couldn’t be ignored.

And that is why continuity is crucial. All of that couldn't have happened without Bran and GT's collabs, or without Tilt having Chrys talk to Hans in his ship's cabin on Christmas day (which prompted his daemon to approach Krieger to beg him to retrieve the soul), or without Gio's kind words to Klaus much earlier in the threads which prompted him to consider her nature and reflect upon his own. It was a team effort by many, many people. I doubt many realize that we went full circle back to Oct 2012 and the Deus Ex Machina thread.

[Thade Invicta]

Whoa, Cer! For a moment I thought you posted in the wrong thread.

I live to confuse!

[Monfrox]

Char!Swith's death.

---

Part One

The little wooden bird in Klaus’ cuckoo clock appeared eight times from behind his little door. Each two-tone treble softly echoed in the bedroom where Minerva lay fast asleep, but they didn’t rouse her. Her eyes darted from side to side under her eyelids and her breathing remained rapid, punctuated by the memories haunting her dreams.



The notes blended with the throaty bark of heavy weaponry discharging lethal rounds. Ash and the stench of vaporized bodies chocked the sinuses and lungs and Minerva coughed and spat out a blackened glob of phlegm before covering her mouth again with her respirator mask.

“Will, SITREP?”

Her second in command crawled over bleached, brittle bones, head low to avoid the constant barrage of fire that was literally boring a new tunnel into the bedrock at their backs. They’d been suppressed behind for nearly an hour after gaining the first subfloor of the old Vafflehelm city hall. Nothing stood between them and their enemy except the armor-encased corpses of their fallen companions and the heavy, bloated bodies of dead plague daemons. Yet the defensive assault against them never let up, never gave them room to breathe, never stopped ringing in their ears and chipping away at their mental fortitude.

“Klaus has taken the east wing upstairs.” Wills’ voice cracked as he shouted over the madness around them. “His forces are making for the shafts as planned. We’ve lost twenty three lads since my last report. Captain, we’re dying here.”

A low growl escaped her and her mouth curled into a sneer beneath her mask. “I’m well aware that we’re being slaughtered, Will. We’ve got to keep them entertained until those shafts are secured.”

“The lads don’t see it that way. If only Charumati-“

The back of Minerva’s hand connected with Will’s temple and rocked his head to the side. “Pass that along to the lads. We can’t afford to lose faith now.” She turned her face away, leaving Will to groan as the cruel sting slowly metamorphosed into an arousing surge of energy that left him hard and sent scintillating waves through the mental tether to the rest of the lads. Pain is pleasure.

A distant explosion shook debris from the ceiling. It was followed by another, and then another, each growing closer to the current battleground. The deadly rounds pinning Minerva and her lads sputtered and then settled to a trickle as their enemy attempted to determine the source of this new noise. The final explosion sundered the far wall. Heavy stone pierced the daemons closest to it, dispelling them from the dimension. The remaining host screamed in terror as the flaming corpse of a Bloodletter hurtled towards them. The burning thing struck the ground and crushed a hundred men before skipping across its path of flight to topple those mutated Marine knuckle-draggers foolish enough to gape at the change in their fortune.

The battle-scarred form of Charumati Thriller emerged through the haze and momentarily became silhouetted by the harsh white light pooling into the room from behind her. No one dared to fire at so handy a target, however; the bitch avatar of Lust had arrived and would soon stretch out a feral claw to claim their souls.

There was no levity in Charumati’s expression, nor mercy in her eyes. Her heady emotional state claimed the memory of her fallen husband as its genesis and the sorrow and despair within her had mutated into a blinding hatred for her brother, Atosh. These were that turncoat’s men. These were his daemons and the last of his Astartes.

Her tiny form descended from the rubble. Skulls crushed under her armored feet. Her helmet was gone as were her weapons but Charumati paid little heed to her compromised state. Her eyes only saw the filth which dared to bring harm to her cultists and to assassinate her mate in cowardly fashion.

“Fuck,” Minerva gave voice to the horror that had momentarily seized friend and foe alike. Her hand clasped onto Will’s mask and she used it to drag him down to the bloodstained floor.

“You sons of whores,” Charumati growled. Her tiny breasts heaved and her body shook. “You sons of whores and depravity. You took him from me.”

Her fists curled into balls. “YOU TOOK HIM FROM OUR CHILDREN!”

It was her cultists who first felt it. The wave of misery assailed their hearts and caused tears to emerge from dusty ducts. Their voices rose as one into an anguished wail and they clutched their chests to ward off the pain. Charumati fed on this reverberated grief; it doubled, then tripled, then became magnified beyond measure by her factions’ despondency. She sculpted it into a blistering pulse that tore flesh from bone and smelted the metal around her. Brains boiled within skulls until the pressure blew the craniums outward in a red and grey spray of cooked tissue. Dust settled. Silence reigned.

“You will all die,” her lips murmured the words as gently as a lover would whisper promised dreams in the dead of night, “I loved him, you see. He was my heart’s song.”

Minerva rose and peered over the now-cooked carcass of the plague daemon which had served as cover only moments before. Charumati had been merciful and spared her lads. She bowed to the avatar, a gesture she seldom did in the thousand years of service to her. “What are your orders, Mistress?”

Charumati closed her eyes. Her face, grime-coated and wet from freshly shed tears, lifted towards the ceiling. She gathered her thoughts and listened to the echos along the tether. “Klaus has reached the shafts.”

Her delicate brow furrowed. She turned her head towards her cultist leader. “He won’t make the lower levels in time, Minerva. It’s up to us to close the portal before more of Atosh’s daemons gain entry to this dimension.”

“A suicidal mission if ever I heard of one,” Minerva quipped. She quickly relieved Will of his extra magazines. “Will, take the injured back to the surface. The rest of you lot, come with me or go with him. I won’t demand your blood spilt over futility.”

Will left with very few men in tow. The rest made their peace with the world and soon fell in line behind Minerva.



The little wooden doors shut fast and the cuckoo came to rest inside his clock. Minerva groaned and turned onto her side, the pillow quickly absorbing the beads of sweat that had blossomed upon her brow.

KNOCK, KNOCK

Minerva gasped and bolted upright, the blankets scattering as she flailed and thrashed her way out of her dream. She clutched her chest and felt her heart pounding deep within. Her fiery mane was a dank bird’s nest of sweat soaked hair and she pulled stray strands from her face with a trembling hand.

“Wait a minute,” she called, “Just… wait.”

She plucked her bathrobe from a chair and slipped it on as she crossed the darkened apartment. The door opened to reveal Bran on the doorstep.

He felt a bit regretful upon noting Minerva’s appearance; she looked dreadful under the bright foyer light. Her eyes were entrenched by dark circles which stood out against her deathly pale skin. Her face, normally flawless in beauty, seemed careworn now with small wrinkles adorning her brow and the corners of her eyes.

She assessed him equally in kind as he stood there in his normal attire, a red trench coat that had somehow made it with him through all these adventures and times at the apartment. He smiled, but just barely.

Minerva could practically taste the sorrow that hung about soul in a persistent cloud. He was grieving. Here was a young man who knew Charumati only as Swith, and he loved her for her simplicity and kindness. That bright light had been stolen from his world, even as it had been stolen from Minerva’s. She sighed in understanding.

Bran, for his part, wanted to see if his friend wanted to share a drink or two.

“Come in, Bran. I’ll put on the kettle.”

“Much thanks,” the former conscript replied. He wasn’t really expected anywhere, so he’d decided on staying in.

She stepped aside to allow him through the door and then she bustled about the kitchen while he respectfully removed his shoes to not track any dirt upon the carpet. She emerged moments later with a tea tray.

“Alright, what’s on your mind, luv,” Minerva poured out the bitter brew and settled into a chair. “You normally don’t come all the down here looking for me.”

Bran bowed his head as the woman presented the tea to him. He sat across from her in a chair he happened to find his backside in once she sat down too. He looked around the room, confirming that they were alone, not knowing if he was barging in on a party or something.

“Just . . . Just wanted to talk about some stuff,” he sighed, looking down at himself.

“I’m all ears,” she replied. Truth be told, his arrival had awoken her from the haunting memories of that final battle. It wasn’t something she wished to revisit again any time soon. Visiting with Bran was a perfect reason to stay awake.

“About Swith,” Bran said, shrugging sadly as he watched the walls of the room, looking off into space as he imagined what he wanted to say. “I’ve - I’ve just been depressed as of late. I mean, I know my family is there for me, but there’s a hole in my life now.” His mind reflected on his biological mother and the loss of another parent. To him though, and maybe not Yoshi, Swith wasn’t a mother. She was his best friend.

Minerva’s cup clattered back into its saucer. Her head bowed. “It’s not right,” she retorted bitterly. “It’s all Atosh’s fault. Fucking bastard. She should have lived longer, outlived us. She hadn’t any choice. It was the only thing that could have stopped him. She wasn’t willing to die for nothing, but her desire to protect us all outweighed even her quest to restore Thriller.”

The words had tumbled out in a rush. Minerva folded her hands and settled them into her lap.
The peculiar gesture, so different from her normally assertive body language, made her seem like a lost child. “I don’t know what he’ll think when he wakes up. Thriller, I mean. It’s… just not fair. Not to you, not to him. Not to any of us.”

“Well, I see Thriller as my friend too.” Bran nodded, open to the idea of getting through it together. He took in Minerva’s sudden outburst too, nodding at the idea. He remembered Atosh a bit from the recent excursion to his homeland. Atosh was the bad guy though.

“Klaus said she went out in a way we’d all be proud of, and I want to think that she was thinking of us all through it,” he folded his hands in his lap, still somewhat beat from the whole thing. “I just feel . . . Worthless? I know I shouldn’t, with my family, but I do.”

“How on earth can you feel worthless?”

“Eh,” Bran verbally shrugged. “I . . . She was my first real friend, almost a year and a half ago.”

“Have you ever wondered what it was like to be long-lived?” Minerva poured out more tea. “To be like a cultist or a conservator? Some say that longevity or even immortality is good. It’s not. The hardest challenge is knowing that the people we befriend today will age and die long before we do. Some cultists choose to remain isolated to avoid this pain. Others accept that nothing and no one lives forever. They go out and befriend people because they crave that interaction in their lives. They enrich those people’s lives and their own life is enriched. You enriched her life, Bran. She’d hate for you to be depressed over her passing.”

Looking up at this, Bran nodded slightly in understanding. Minerva made sense and it was something that he thought Swith would tell him had she still been around.

“It’s just hard, the first few days of knowing. I’ve been feeling shitty, but I guess it’s going to get better now, now that I know that,” he said, taking a quick sip of his tea.

“You also didn’t get much closure,” Minerva advised. “No one has, really. We still have to go through probate, although I was hoping Thriller would be revived by then. The will needs reading and some things need distribution.”

“I’d much rather not know,” the former conscript shrugged. The knowledge that Swith was dead, and had died in battle, was much more simpler than knowing each and every detail. “But yes, the will won’t be easy for me, I guess.”

The harsh bitterness of the tea coupled with the memory of her nightmare caused Minerva’s lips to form into a thin line. She set the cup down again and surveyed the man. “You’re made of stern stuff, Mr. Nikanor. You’ll get through this and be a better man for it.”

That was the real thing Bran needed to know, and now that someone else had confirmed it, he smiled, painfully though; his heart still ached from the realization that Swith was gone forever. She wouldn’t see Tolya’s first steps or be there to watch Rachelle blossom into a woman.

“At least she got to be a grandmother, eh?” He chuckled.

“Aye,” Minerva laughed in kind.

A moment of silence passed between them, although it wasn’t uncomfortable or strained. Each reflected on their inner thoughts as they sipped their tea.

“So, I don’t know if I ever learned, but when did you first meet Swith?” Bran wanted to know at least that much. “We could grab a drink at Chaos over it if you want.”

Minerva lit one of her odd cigarettes and blew out the match. “I won’t be going to Chaos, mostly because I’m in a dreadful state, what with my hair and all.”

She settled back in her chair. “I’m not certain how much of my history you know, and you might know very little. I don’t even know where to begin, unless it’s at the very end, which was my death. It wasn’t pretty and I’d rather not go into particulars except to say that Purna had been keeping her eye on me for a while and had been drawn to the violence behind the circumstances.

“Purna is my inner daemon, of course. She was formed by Swith and contains a fraction of her essence. I wasn’t prepared to receive her, however. It was Klaus who conducted the bond, and for years I thought he’d done it to torment me. Actually, it wasn’t until recently that I found out he did it because he was in love with me and couldn’t stand the thought of losing me.”

She pulled a draw from the cigarette and tried to sort out a few more pieces. “I suppose I met Swith through Purna. She used her true name back then: Charumati. She hadn’t much experience with the modern world and relied upon her cultists to be her eyes and ears. She called to me not shortly after Purna settled into me, and I went. I didn’t have much of a choice.

“I suppose you could say that she and I have had a long relationship. We’ve spilled blood together, and shed tears during times of sorrow. I loved her. I miss her. I dream about her.”

Minerva stubbed the cigarette out and brushed stray hair from her face. There wasn’t any sense in drudging up those dreams.

She regarded his sweet and gentle face. He was an innocent soul, so mild natured. There were mysteries about him. “What about you? I’ve heard bits and pieces from Swith, but how did you meet her? I can’t imagine she was too collected back then. She frequently dipped her toe in the world when she was bored, often posing as a scientist or healer but, from what I’ve gathered, she wasn’t expecting to return to this dimension anytime soon. We hadn’t even realized she was here until months later. Did you really summon her and bind her to a promise?”

How did he meet Swith? That was one of his oldest memories of the apartment, besides being tied down to his bed by one of the Bones brothers, since he really didn’t know what else to call them. But Swith was one of the first happy memories of his time here, in the very building he was standing in right now.

“I was a paranoid asshat back then. First words I exchange with Swith were “Come in, please don’t kill me.” and that was that, but I’m trying to recall the time we became real friends, unless it did start with those paranoid words.”

She brought poptarts and scotch, enough to garner the trust of the conscript way back then, and he eventually let her in after she claimed she was too tired to kill anyone. If that was a joke, Bran never caught on to it, and was a bit worried his entire time.

“Don’t rightly remember much after that, although I do recall saving the life of a good friend that day with her, and then the rest is history? She bunked with me for a few months, and that’s where we became friends.” He said, smiling at the blissful thoughts of the years passed, dredging up the fun times, and eventually, the bad, like getting hit by a train . . .

That wasn’t fun, but Swith was still there for him. Her home was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Minerva laughed. “That sounds just like her. I’m surprised she didn’t eat your liver on the first night!”

The cultist leader held up a finger as if to say, wait and disappeared into a bedroom. She emerged moments later with a small bundle wrapped up in a purple silk scarf.

“Here it is,” she set the bundle on the table. “It’s not much, but she’d set it aside for you should anything happen to her. I was supposed to wait until the will was read, but maybe this is the better time for it.”

Inside was a small snow globe set on a humble silver pedestal. The scene captured inside was very simple as well: two figurines, one curled up in a bed while the other sat at the foot with her chin propped on her hand. Minerva gave it a shake and the glittery snow swirled. However, accompanying that snow, if not part of it, was Swith’s silvery laughter mixed with Bran’s deeper chortle. The laughter died away as the particles settled and then, ever so softly, a hum came from the globe. It was the lullaby she’d sung to soothe away his nightmares every night for so very long. The figure rose from the bed and knelt beside the sleeping form, gently brushing his hair from his face before resuming her protective watch at the end of the bed. The song faded and the globe grew still once more.


Minerva didn’t understand the scene but the activities within awoke her own memories. These were the good ones shared between two females who had overcome much in their lives. Minerva trembled and, for the first time since Swith’s passing, allowed herself to sob.

“Oh god, I hurt so much.” She wrapped Bran in a tight embrace as if holding him would blight out all the wrongs in the world and hold the nightmares at bay. He understood her sorrow, and shared in the same heartache.. She knew he wouldn’t think less of her for it.

Telling himself he wouldn’t shed any tears over Swith’s death was a big fat lie. There was no getting away from tears after Bran saw what Swith had left for them.

Minerva might not understand the meaning of the whole scene, playing out in the snow globe that immortalized the friendship between them. It would last longer than Bran was around, he thought. Maybe even longer than Swith. The sheer simplistic scene held so much emotion, so much memory.

The nightmares were gone.

“I know,” he sighed, failing to hold back tears himself. “I know,” the conscript repeated, rubbing his friend’s back.


They remained that way a while, two companions unburdening their hearts without worry of being thought of as weak for their tears. It was cleansing and necessary.

At last, Minerva pulled away and apologized for the snot on his shoulder. She wiped her tears, chuckling. “You know, I’ve kept you far too long. I fear we’ve missed midnight. Happy New Year, Bran.”

“I suppose you have, and I’d rather not deplete your supply of tea, Miss Minerva,” Bran replied cordially. He supposed it was about time to get out of the place and head home, or wherever the apartment would see fit to take him to. “It’s alright, I’d spend all night talking about Swith, midnight or not, you know? Well. I guess I’d better be out.”

With the last words, Bran moved in for one more tender hug, holding back a few straggling tears as he did, before withdrawing again.

One last nod indicated his exit, and he donned his shoes, picked up the snow globe that he felt oh-so-lucky to have received, and left for bed.

Minerva leaned on the door jamb and watched him make his way up the stairs.

“Happy New Year, Bran,” she murmured. She closed the door and retired to her bedroom.


(The memories continue once Minerva falls back asleep)

The pyroclastic cloud ripped through the narrow passage, feeding upon the oxygen and consuming everything in its wake. Charumati and her forces were far enough back to avoid the flames but the rolling heat withered the lungs and cooked the flesh of the men on point and they collapsed. Those who were fortunate enough to be further behind faced mortal peril as bits of plaster and wood tore away to crucify them where they stood. Fine ash shrouded the fallen in white blankets, committing them to the fate shared by those unfortunate souls of Pompeii nearly two thousand years ago. The corridor darkened to midnight hue and several of the lads behind her cried out in fear.

Charumati was all too aware of her surroundings. The sweet- stale sweat rising from the lad’s dead bodies and the surreal coppery taste permeating the air to caress the sides of her tongue, causing it to curl back to stem the flow of saliva gathering under it. Her eyes didn’t need to pierce the darkness, not when her nose and ears hissed dark tidings of what lie ahead.

“Minerva,” scant light reflected off Charumati’s cheek as she turned it towards her cultist leader, “Tell the lads to fall back. This is no place for flesh and bone.”

Minerva set her jaw and relayed the order through the tether. It was Christmas Eve. How many lads had already died? How many wives and lovers and children were standing by their drains in anticipation of a cheerful greeting and warm embrace that would never arrive? The lads behind protested their dismissal but Captain Blackwater was not to be disobeyed. They retreated, begrudgingly, to hold the entrance.

Charumati progressed forward and Minerva fell in step with her. “You need to fall back as well,” the god growled.

“All that I am and all that I’ve seen are because of Purna,” Minerva replied.” You fashioned her from spider webs and dandelion tuffs, or so she teases me. We won’t abandon you now. I’m more than her host. I’m your eternal friend.”

“A friend I won’t have die beside me. Return to Klaus. He-“

“It was Klaus who insisted I see this through with you. And it was Ogoti who blessed me before battle. Don’t banish me, Charumati; don’t dishonor the promise I made to them.”
Charumati opened her mouth to protest but both females’ heads swiveled towards the blackness. A harsh churning sound echoed down the passageway. It wasn’t the heavy tread of a Dreadnaught. It was the foreboding knock of heavy talons striking the ground with each step taken by a Greater Daemon. There was more than one set of feet, however. Minerva closed her eyes, drew in a bolstering breath and steeled herself.

“They come,” Charumati whispered.

The hairs along the back of Minerva’s neck stood on end as the footfalls thudded nearer in the dark. These were the final moments. This was the pause before the crushing press. The cultist leader studied Charumati’s face, which was thrown in profile as she stared ahead of them. Minerva wanted to whisk her away, to tell her that she didn’t have to do this, to beg her to let Bielefeld and the world fall.

The footfalls became a death knell.

---

Swith later recounts some of the story to various characters. This is one with Prim:

Naomi wiped away the rest of her tears. She had taken his first question as rhetorical but only because it was one frequently asked by Charumati. Primordial just expressed it better than the usual, "Knock it off."

"The island," she replied, grateful for the topic change. "You missed some exciting things and some very sad things. The Raptors left. They took their house with them as well as the chicks. There was a typhoon right before Christmas. It wiped out just about everything, but it passed and we were able to rebuild. I got married and we're expecting. Oh! But you don't know!"

He didn't know! The Luxans had been gone when it happened, and so they hadn't heard to news or even the remnant gossip. Naomi found herself in a difficult situation. She chewed her bottom lip for a moment and then took a steadying breath.

"I'm no longer a godling." Naomi's hands rubbed together worriedly. "You see, I had to take over Perfection's forces. I had to ascend and be named by the Four, and accepted as a true avatar of the Fourth. I didn't want to, but I had to because... Atosh. He opened a gateway and was going to allow Greater Daemons to pour into this dimension. So Klaus and his Men and Minerva and her Lads assaulted the Ruins to close the gate while I went to the Void and distracted Atosh. He would have killed me if Minerva hadn't shown up and murdered him. Well, his matrix. He's still around somewhere. She was only able to do that because she was filled with wrath. You see, the Ruins were overrun by the Greater Daemons. They had gotten through and only Charumati and Minerva were left to destroy the ones who crossed over. Klaus was busy destroying the gate, you see. And it was dreadful. It was a final stand and all of them Thirsters. Minerva released Purna from within her just as Charumati fell. Purna is a Keeper, and deadly, and seeing Charumati fall... and knowing it was her essence torn from this dimension and scattered into a million bits... and she just raged and tore those Thirsters to shreds. She left the body with Hans and entered Minerva again and they came to my aid. And that was Christmas morning. Swith died on Christmas morning, and they brought her matrix back to the island, on the boat, before sending it to the grave in the vale, and that's when Ogoti told me I had to ascend."

Naomi had spoken in a hushed voice but she was breathing as if she'd just run a race. "I saw her fall, and I felt her fall because we were connected, and I've had nightmares about it. Gods are cruel. My gods are cruel. Your gods are cruel. I lost Neil, and I lost Swith, and now I'm going to lose Aegis. All I have left is Ceril and Ogoti. If I lose them, too, then I've lost everything. I'm very sad, Primordial. I've been very sad lately. It happens."

A small, apologetic smile flickered to her mouth but melted away again. "Such is life."

---

(And then Swith tore me a new asshole for procrastinating. She and GT couldn't post their collab until we finished ours.)

This is the Threshold, the old cyborg had explained to his companions long ago, This is the part of Infinity where Swith's pantheon resides…not even Swith is powerful enough to withstand them.

Years had passed since that group had crossed there. The Maelstroms had long since obscured the footprints made in the sand, and all the plain seemed empty but for a single, blind figure. His hand was thrust upward to offer a remnant of tattered fabric to whatever divinity would dare cross through to claim it. None would come. The winds howled and his fingers let slip the fragile substance. He faded back to whence he came, leaving the morsel to tumble towards the ground where it would become nothing but ash.

It landed, but in the palm of an outstretched hand rather than the rancid ground. The hand closed, sheltering it with sinewy fingers and harsh talons; this was the second to last piece. This creature had traveled the Void to find her, to restore as much of her essence as possible. His sojourn had wiped the humor from his heart and carved his flesh into scars and twisted skin.

“My work is nearly done.”

There would be no response. There was hardly anything left in that small remnant, but it was enough that he’d found it. Black wings folded around red flesh. The mastiff-headed Greater Daemon nodded to himself.

A second being emerged onto the plain, her lavender skin in stark contrast to the blood tones around her. Her eyes scrutinized him but she bit back her rancor at the sight of his war-torn body. “You’re not allowed to do that, Krieger. You aren’t a god.”

“It’s enough that I kept one alive for a time,” said he. “It’s enough that I still serve that god. I take what I wish.”

“Why are you here?”

Krieger’s laughed. “You are beautiful, Kapatapurna. Granted, most of your kind aren’t but some are formed to be so. How fortunate for you that Charumati favors perfection. But there are matters you needn’t be privy to, despite your nature. This is one of them. This is War’s business.”

“War’s business?” The Keeper of Secrets was insulted. “You take things you aren’t permitted to, Krieger. Tell me, did Chanpreetmati send you?”

“War’s business.”

Purna bared her fangs even as her hand sought her whip. “No. You meddle with what belongs to me.”

The Bloodthirster’s head slowly moved from side to side and a sigh escaped him. “Honor’s business. Hold back your whip. Rache pleaded with me. He blames himself. Hans blames himself. It is a matter of Honor. I take because it’s my duty to.”

“And what would you do with all you take?” she growled. “Give it to Klaus?”

“No. Klaus is unaware of my activity. I’d give it to you.”

Purna balked at the notion. What he said would be impossible to believe, not after so many centuries of strife between their factions. “May I ask why? Why me? If I were to trust in the veracity of your words, which I do not, then give me a reason to even think that you’d do such a thing.”

Krieger drew a small bag from his belt and tucked the fragment into it. “Why? Only you can access the Vale. Your business is your own, but War’s business is mine. I know the movements of all warriors. I see the paths they take. The time is now. I found all but one piece.”

He met her gaze and held the bag out to her and Purna’s skepticism dissolved. There weren’t any tricks to be seen within him; there was only brutal honesty. It resounded between them as she took the bag from him, and she comprehended things the moment their fingers made contact.

“I understand. I must hurry, then,” Purna drew the bag to her chest to shelter it from the winds. “Krieger, I have spoken many harsh things to you-“

“Well deserved words.”

“-and I shall speak them no longer-“

“I’d weep if you refrained.”

“-and you’re not making this easy.”

“I never do.” His lips lifted into a sneer. “And before you say it, you owe me nothing. I did this for Rache and Hans.”

Purna rolled her eyes. “Very well.”

The mists rose to claim her, and Krieger found himself once again alone on the Threshold.

---

Swith tied that scene in with her collab with GT:


The ring’s odyssey was nearly as fortuitous as the one made by an unlikely daemon intent on righting the same wrong. And so it was that both daemon and ring, unrelated except by love, arrived at the same time. But it was the summons made from the heart which bound the fragments in the bag and gave them purpose, much as the first summons had been so very long ago. The spirit that came was weaker by a piece, but the call couldn’t be ignored.

And that is why continuity is crucial. All of that couldn't have happened without Bran and GT's collabs, or without Tilt having Chrys talk to Hans in his ship's cabin on Christmas day (which prompted his daemon to approach Krieger to beg him to retrieve the soul), or without Gio's kind words to Klaus much earlier in the threads which prompted him to consider her nature and reflect upon his own. It was a team effort by many, many people. I doubt many realize that we went full circle back to Oct 2012 and the Deus Ex Machina thread.

I remember that. Klanov tried to play Squad Leader and felt so horrible when people started disappearing left and right.

[Thade Invicta]

I remember that. Klanov tried to play Squad Leader and felt so horrible when people started disappearing left and right.

Klanov (and everyone else) had their asses handed to them.

[The BranRiech]

Wasn't that when Natiya was abducted?

[Monfrox]

I remember that. Klanov tried to play Squad Leader and felt so horrible when people started disappearing left and right.

Klanov (and everyone else) had their asses handed to them.

Yep. We tried our best, and failed miserably. The important thing is never try.

[The Carlisle]

So I'm playing Rune Factory 4 and I meet this character Amber. When I first looked at her, I was reminded of Kale. The two looks similar. But I realized she looked batter, more Kale-ish.

Damnit Rune Factory 4, why didn't you come out sooner?! Now I have to do something to steal Amber's look for Kale

I got something planned though in regards to that.

[Cerillium]

Just be aware that we ~might~ have some stories coming up that are character focused (not certain on timeline due to schedules, order of events, but you guys know this already since the last SITREP announcement). I know we've free formed the last 2 weeks, but be prepared in case these focused plots come into play during the week, and if you want to be a part of it just means you'll need to be fluid and ready to jump to -nodnod-

Yeah, we could use one of those.

SITREP CURRENT CONDITIONS: Bielefeld Time: 6 PM Weather: 70*F/21*C Forecast: Rain overnight Stuff: NEW PLAYERS who haven't had Characters in Bielefeld before: please read city data and Building information to familiarize yourself with the normal game setting. We're still in freeform but some stories are beginning. GM's, make certain you broadcast your stuff in the OOC so people can sign on. Do not offer to run a story if you can't post at least once per day or if you don't have someone who can post on your behalf. Period. We have several new players. Please don't leave them out of things. Drop a character in so they have someone to interact with. GAME EVENTS: Allspice. (ongoing) Daemon/Demon/Angel Book quest(ongoing - closed) Aegis Story (ongoing - open?) - waiting on Prim Natiya/Aleki trip (ongoing - closed) Charumati story (ongoing - closed) - Heads up: the character has a new name and isn't exactly like the old Char!Swith Tribblehorror (ongoing - closed) - waiting on Tilt to post for Chrys Mab (ongoing - closed) - waiting on me to post Copycat (ongoing - semi-open?) - Fvaar, straight up, PL doesn't handle slow-boilers well. Players will lose interest and not post at all and that will ruin your story. I know you're all working on a collab but Roco and a few others only have one character. They're stalled as players. OP/CoOP STUFF: We're going back to player-run stories. Some things on the table: Kei story GT's story Swithwardian trip - she needs to know who is interested. It might be just three or so people chosen based on performance during Fallout: Bielefeld. Branriech revisited Froxian trip A note on nation visits: Figure out exactly what you want players to experience. It should have a plot (adventure) or have an II feel where players function on a diplomatic level. It can have both if you're willing to take the extra time. I'm very open to players opening up a closed thread in P2TM just for a "nation" visit; it really doesn't belong in II (IMHO) because you're inviting PL characters from places other than other players' nations.

[Tiltjuice]

1. Probably available for posting late tomorrow night (unless I get dragged to something by my coworkers and/or my sister).

1A. Also probably mostly free weekend, unless my parents decide to come down to install curtains or whatever.

2. I forget what was 2.

3. Min, that actually would be fun.

4. for totes no reason and also san pellegrino aranciata

5. goodnight zzzzzzz

[Cerillium]

1. Probably available for posting late tomorrow night (unless I get dragged to something by my coworkers and/or my sister).

1A. Also probably mostly free weekend, unless my parents decide to come down to install curtains or whatever.

2. I forget what was 2.

3. Min, that actually would be fun.

4. for totes no reason and also san pellegrino aranciata

5. goodnight zzzzzzz

That was a drive-by Penguin Fairying.



@GT and Swith. That was a beautiful collab. I entered it in the Exceptional RP Posts thread.

Can those in private conversations (who aren't actually in one of the stories above) break off and greet Esty's new character, please.

[The New Velociraptor Empire]

I remember that. Klanov tried to play Squad Leader and felt so horrible when people started disappearing left and right.

Klanov (and everyone else) had their asses handed to them.

*shudders*
Never again will I type with an icepick up my nasal cavity.