[To Throw a Spanner in the Loom of Fate] The Dawning of Hope

Reaver

Reaver

One Thousand Club
With barely restrained panic you tear down the halls to the front of the manse. Hopefully the guards have already left to the center area.

This is for those who chose to run to fight another day.
 
Jacquelyn hadn't started the flight in panic. It was a calculated decision based on who knew what she was doing versus making educated guesses and weighing the team's response to the sentinels earlier and the numbers which were descending. It was the largest blessing her shard gave her; the ability to remain calm under the small variety of insane situations they found themselves in. More than the certainty of her powers -which she did not trust in the least- that feeling was what Jacquelyn associated with being an Exalt. It was wondrous and valuable. Alas, some situations shook even the quasi-divine. For the Night Caste, it seemed being grabbed by a friend turning giant bird person was one.


"Wha-aaaoooooh! You've got feathers!" Fortunately, she retained enough sense to be an easy passenger.
 
Generally when people take to the air under their own power for the first time, there is supposed to be a musical number of some sort, possibly with lyrics about defying gravity.


In this case, all Aileen can think is, Oh great. How am I gonna get this shirt and jacket fixed? even as her huge wings spread and begin to beat, lifting her and Jackie off the ground and propelling them down the corridor.
 
Somewhere behind the mass of feathered wings, Jacquelyn saw Gabe running after. Oh good, oh good, oh good, people were following after. She was afraid that everyone else would stay behind to meet their untimely death. Hopefully others were coming as well.
 
As Gabe runs he sees Aileen pick Jackie up and start carry her to safety. He feels a brush of fur before Ammy now as large as a horse push up from between his legs. With brush in mouth she starts leaping from shimmering panel to shimmering panel following the two ladies. The panels fading out in the dying sunlight.


Even as the three of you flee you see the four golems closing in on the central area. The haze of ash blotting their exact posistion from view. It is seconds before the golden light of your allies shines through.


After fleeing for some distance you alight into another clearing. The ash no longer visible as you rest from the flight.
 
Once free with her feet upon the ground, Jacquelyn glanced about, "Is it only just us four? Five, sorry, Pegasus. Did no one else come?"


She turned her attention back towards the manse. So the other three members of their group plus Ismael's tiger were still inside? Jacquelyn'd misjudged their earlier reactions if they stayed to fight. Rian's made a stupid remark about holding the line -as if she wanted someone to stay behind- but she figured the others would leave and Rian would follow suit. It was only a heroic death if the people benefiting declared it so, and Jacquelyn only figured it foolish to die covering an easily accomplished escape. It was much more important to get out and live!


"Aileen...I hope you don't mind me calling you that, do you know how long it will take for the defenses to reset? You looked as though you had more personal info about that place than the rest of us."
 
"He originally programmed them to reset ten minutes after the intruders are...not a threat anymore." Aileen rubs her temples. "Of course, that was before he became a she and went batshit insane." She looks at Jacquelyn. "As for how I know...it looks as though by one of those amaaazing coincidences that happen all the time in Dickens novels and Creation, I wound up with the shard of the necromancer's Lunar." Aileen shudders. "What she did to her mate in the end...it was just...it was horrible. Seriously, it's like someone went through my head and picked out one of my oldest phobias and then grafted it onto me...sweet Goddess!"
 
"Ah." She remembered Aileen yelling at James, "Would... you like a hug?"


There was nothing else she could do to comfort the Lunar. Of all the Exalted, she knew the back story for Luna's shape shifters the best, liking them the most. Luna's move to bind the Lunars to the Solars was a clever one, but as the First Age wore on, the bond proved an inescapable trap. Now, Aileen started with a necromancer for her Mate and short of offing the deranged Solar, there was not cure. Jacquelyn added the name to the mental list though it was a situation she might never get a chance to remedy.
 
"Ummm..." Aileen has never been very good at physical contact with others. Except Rebecca, of course.


"...no thanks. But I appreciate it. Really."
 
Raising a hand to stop any more awkwardness, "No, I understand. One of my best friends doesn't like hugs or anything like that. I'm not always the best with paying attention to that stuff, but I try."
 
In the distance the next level of defenses seem to start to activate. A time after that a third layer followed by the final barrier shutting it off from entry or exit. The fate of your companions lost to the swirly ash and blood.
 
Aileen looks sick. "I...I don't think so. I just remember bits and pieces, mostly stuff that went down in that room."
 
With a grim look, Jacquelyn looked at the activating defenses, "Once the defenses are down... we need to go back in again. That room is what controls the manse, including the protections against the Wyld, isn't it?"


There was also the hope that 'not a threat anymore' didn't equate to 'dead'. If intruders were stored for spell components or ritual sacrifices there was the chance to go back in, disengage the lesser tests, and steal their companions away. Perhaps the others could pretend to no longer be a threat. Blasted idiots, if they'd just let Aileen finish her work-!


Jacquelyn threw herself to the ground with a frustrated sigh. Nothing to be done about it now, or their choice to remain behind. Now was the horror of the waiting game. The night caste leaned into the giant Amaterasu.
 
(@Arynne) Your glasses show you a massive spike of essence in the shape of what looks like a door.


Even as that happens you feel the earth shake. A flash of darkness as one of the black blades falls outside the ash field twelve blue lights racing off.


From Aileen's bag Perseaus speaks up. "If those behave like what I think they should I don't think any of our comrades are still alive within. We should move before anything is sent out for us. It is to important that we live to creation to let their falling fall us."
 
Aileen swallows, really, really hoping she wasn't just imagining it.


"Let's go," is all she says.
 
A creeping dread and helplessness stole up Jacquelyn's back. She couldn't quite process the idea of the other three people dying. Some should have come out. The golems were too slow to stop their group, and being Exalted... shouldn’t that let them rip through the ash defense? What exactly did it do? The golden ouroborus shifted above Jacquelyn’s head. She couldn’t get over the idea that she needed to go back in; to verify their deaths, to trigger that manse’s destruction, to make this situation something other than a complete failure.


The heat of anger flowed through her. One minute things were under control, the next they were fleeing for their lives and the moment after that was standing outside with half of their party dead! All of those changes hinged on one act, but the rage only buoyed her for a moment before cold distress returned.


“Yah.” Jacquelyn held fists at her side, slowly relaxed them only for them to become fists again. “If we’re lucky, Queen Telaren will still allow us safe travel through the Wyld, maybe even some supplies.”


They still needed to spend the time in the Wyld to ditch their fate-ninja hunters, and perhaps at the same time, a set of Lunars would find them. Getting Aileen connected and tattooed was going to be important. Whether or not the Lunars would be interested in leaving their new recruit with her two travelers was something to deal with later. Jacquelyn doubted flashing their golden forehead night-lights would do anything but harm their chances there. Jacquelyn was certain that flashing their caste marks was likely to make any situation worse. Their circle didn’t even have an Eclipse anymore.


She rubbed her face with one hand. This looked grim, and they didn’t even have the proper time to grieve. What to do, what to do. The idea of wresting anyplace from dominated by leech-gods with just the three of them seemed unlikely.


“Anyone want to kick one of those border markers on our way back to the Court?”
 
The night wears on as you walk back towards the Fae queens castle. The next day you feel you are being watched when two men and a women drop around you. The men look like tribes men. Except one has a lizard frill on his head. The other has a pair of mandibles like a spider. The women appears as if she is from the realm. Blue hair and blue eyes. He hair seems almost translucent. In the end the most telling thing is the silver tattoos they are have inscribed on their bodies.


"Halt, we are searching for one of our sisters." The man with the lizard tell barks out.
 
Ah. Wow. When Jacquelyn assembled her mental time table, it'd put Lunars after meeting with the faerie queen, not three of them ambushing them on the way back to report their drastic failure. Still, it was a welcomed break from vacillating between wrestling loss, attempting to construct plans for their groups survival and having to maintain her ever cheerful and determined expression. To hell, well, to the Underworld if she was going to add to mental strain of the other two. She'd figure out her own mental health when doing what she could to comfort the others were taken care of.


Now she looked at Aileen, "What say you? Ready to do that Lunar initiation?"


It was imperative their Lunar make her connections and get those tattoos, but Jacquelyn was worried that once Aileen went to do that they'd never see each other. What would Lunars care about her and Gabe? They might specifically want to severe their connection so they didn't taint the Lunar with their...golden wrongness. Course, there was also the day long painful process of getting those silver tattoos followed by the trials to determine caste, but unless Aileen wanted to run around casteless, those would come regardless.
 
Oh wow.


Aileen had known, intellectually, that this would probably happen. That was a long ways off from the reality of seeing it. She reaches out and squeezes Jacquelyn's hand clumsily, then steps forward.


"That would be me. I'm...Aileen. You're with the Silver Pact, right?"
 
Gabe seemed very quiet during the trip. Losing half the party was one thing, even though those three had been stupid enough to think a fight would do them any good. Bloody idiots. Fucking James. Fucking Ishmael, Fucking Rian, who couldn't even accept in his heart how real this was.


When the beast-men approached - or Lunars - Gabe let his hand drift to his sky-cutter, even though his heart wasn't in this fight.
 
The man smiles at Aileen. "We are. We are here to bring you to your new home."


The other two are turning and scanning the area around in case of any threats that might be coming.
 
Uhm, Jacquelyn raised her hand slightly, "Are we allowed to come too?"


She seriously doubted it, but it never hurt to ask and look like hopeful little mortals.
 
"We are sorry but personal retainers are not to be brought with to the sanctuaries. It is not that we don't trust you it's just that our foes have the ability to become other people." A sad smile as he speaks.


The women then speaks. "I will escort you to a town where you can rest and recover as your lady is taught what she needs to know."
 
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