This is an old revision of the document!
Table of Contents
Distortionist's Utopia - 07/31/20
Into Darkness
[Novine]
Novine opens the door to the house with an annoying amount of enthusiasm, clearly in high spirits as she slams the door behind her and makes about just every loud noise she can possibly make. She has her lyre tucked lovingly underneath her arm and manages to calm down enough to lean it carefully against the wall out of the way so it would not fall, before making herself comfortable on the cushions by the fire of her family's home, a little pouch of gil in her hand. She opens it up and dumped it out on the floor before her and begins to count it to herself while humming, arranging the various coins in robotically precise stacks, rows, and columns as she counts, grinning all the while.
[Raziel]
There is a slow pattern of feet behind Novine as Raziel descends the stairs from the second floor, muttering under her breath. Her eyes flickered and flashed like a dying lightbulb, and her above her head purple mist swirled and glittered strangely, she stopped at the foot of the stairs, and a series of strange glyphs began to appear from the mist surrounding her head, like an incantation that had kept to life.
[Novine]
Novine, not looking up from her little treasure trove, begins to excitedly jabber away.
“Look! I went and bought a lyre with my Spellstone winnings and I've been seeing how much more money I can make with it instead of just trying to sing. This is crazy! Like, not that I use it for anything important really, but it's nice to know that–”
She looks over her shoulder and her cheery demeanor fades. “Raziel? You… you okay? Um, should I get Father or something?”
[Raziel]
Raziel does not respond, continuing her muttering as aether begins to swell and gather around her, slowly but surely becoming visible to the naked eye in its density.
[Novine]
Novine pushes herself to her feet and cautiously keeps an eye on Raziel while reaching for her linkpearl, not knowing if Eligor was in the lab or not. “Father, something's wrong with Raziel. Her eyes are going crazy and there's this strange… I dunno, a mist or a cloud or something around her head. Some symbols floating around. Is this supposed to be happening?”
[Raziel]
There is no response from the linkpearl. The aether has grown so thick it is now jamming the frequency. Raziel’s muttering grows into screaming, but her words are foreign and jumbled. The glyphs begin to swirl around her faster than before.
[Novine]
Novine cautiously approaches her, looking quite worried now that she started screaming. “Raziel, what's happening to you!? I… I dunno how to help!”
[Raziel]
The aether goes still, and the screaming stops. Raziel’s eyes stop their dangerous glow, and the mist seems to thin out a bit. Holding her forehead, she wobbled a bit on her feet, stumbling forward.
“S-sister?”
[Novine]
“Yeah, it's me, Novine,” she says, not sure if Raziel can actually perceive anything properly. She moves foward and holds out her arms as if to catch her, witnessing her sister looking quite unstable at this point.
[Raziel]
“I couldn't stop them.”
Her face goes a ghostly pale, and she looks as if she might faint.
“I-I have to go back. I have to save them!”
[Novine]
“Stop what? Save whom? What're you talking about?” She steps close to intercept her now, moving to wrap an arm around her to support her and ease her more carefully to the floor in front of the steps if she is able.
[Raziel]
She begins to hyperventilate, her eyes quickly coming to a glow again as she attempts to thrash away against some hidden threat.
“I have to go!”
[Novine]
“No! You should stay! Father…Father will be worried about you, and… you've… you've gotta see my treasure I got today! It's really impressive,” she says a bit desperately, clearly trying to stay a bit calm and not be too dramatic for her sister's sake.
[Raziel]
Raziel’s crystal comes to a burning glow on her forehead, and in mirror fashion Novine would have felt a tug at her head as well. A strong pull, yanking at her consciousness.
[Novine]
Novine attempts to resist the feeling, releasing Raziel and attempting to back away from her, not wanting to be pulled into whatever this is. This sharing of memories, these invasions of her mind, whatever they are - they are becoming too frequent in the latest days. “No, I don't want to!” she yells in an attempt to ground herself and keep herself where she belongs.
[Raziel]
| With a wet pop, a light slides out of Novine’s forehead. It was the selfsame light that had left Eligor during his recent rampage. Within moments, the glyphs and mist returned, seemingly being sucked into the light. It grew larger and brighter, pulsating like a heart. |
[Novine]
Novine backs away from the light, crawling backwards on the floor until her back presses up against the wall to the door of Eligor's lab, watching everything in a stunned sort of terrified awe.
[Raziel]
| The world goes black in an instant, and all senses with it. There is only darkness now. |
The Mess
[Eligor]
| The first sense to return is smell. A series of strongly offending smells all mixed and curled together in a horrifying fusion of disgust. Blood, vomit, and the powerful scent of ammonia flooded all other scents into obscurity. |
| The next sense to return was sound. The wet schlops of meat being discarded in chunks on a wet surface, leaving a strangely disconcerting splash behind as the weight splats upon it. This was followed by pained and horrified screams, echoing together in a cursed symphony of unpleasant sounds. |
[Novine]
Novine attempted to move within whatever space she was in. Without being able to feel just yet, it was simply a willed thought floating in the void that she hoped woukd result in something concrete, but she was scared out of her mind. Did her body get destroyed? Was she at home? Where was Raziel? Would she be stuck like this? The questions and what-ifs raced through her mind as she endured the awful sensations.
[Eligor]
| Feeling returned next. Novine was on her hands and knees in whatever filth this was. It was warm to the touch but also quite grainy. Novine was also clothed in something moderately heavy, as the weight of it was bearing down on her arm. This was followed by taste—along with the distinct flavor of blood running through the inside of her mouth. |
| Finally, sight…somewhat returned, but seemed flawed, as everything was red. The dirt and mud beneath her, the corpses surrounding her, the rapier nearby—the very sky above was tinged a blood red. Nearby figures in shadow were moving just out of view. |
[Novine]
Novine wiped at her eyes and examined what was making her arm feel so heavy, examining her body to see what state it was in.
[Eligor]
| She was wearing metal banded armor that had clearly seen overuse. It was nicked with clear indents from blades and other trauma, as well as marked with viscera. Novine’s dark red hair was stained on the ends with blood as well, and along with this realization was the overpowering feeling of having been kicked in the stomach hard enough to floor her. |
[Novine]
She groaned a bit as the feelings wash over her, the sudden change from perfectly fine to being in a state like this mentally and physically jarring. She attempted to push herself up to her feet, to see if she was capable of it as her eyes focus on the shadowy figures, trying to make them out.
[Eligor]
| As she stood up, she would be able to see another lalafell nearby with short red hair, freckles, and ominously glowing green eyes. She held a lalafellin man up by his hair, with a rapier of her own to his throat. He seemed to be begging, but whatever words he had were cut short but the contents of his throat suddenly spilling forth onto the ground in front of him as a very sharp rapier slides across it. The woman looks to Novine, a snarl present on her face. |
“Come to your damn senses yet?”
[Novine]
Novine regards the scene without reaction other than a slight suspicion, not knowing the dynamics of the situation. “Mostly,” she starts as her eyes drift from the pool of blood below the man to his assailant. “Memory is a bit fuzzy though. Care to fill a girl in?”
[Eligor]
The woman ran a hand through her hair, revealing a crooked crystal housed in her forehead, and the fact that her own red hair was quite thoroughly drenched in blood. Hearing Novine's proclamation, the glow left her eyes, and an eyebrow raised curiously instead.
“What's your name?”
| The scenery was still one of carnage now that the full view of the area came into focus. The sky and the ground were still red, but they were clearly on a mostly barren field–almost definitely the field of battle post some great massacre. There were bodies littered everywhere, and in a chain gang behind the red-haired woman was a group of lalafell, each with their heads down and clearly downhearted. They were being pulled along by a rather large looking troll with an equally unpleasant looking club in it's hand, and every so often the creature yanked at it to laugh and scream at whoever fell into the meat soaked ground. |
[Novine]
Violet eyes catch on the crystal, always finding them beautiful and striking, before her eyes shift the tiniest bit downward again to make proper eye contact. She tests out moving her body, seeing if anything other than her midsection was broken or damaged in anyway as she stretches and swivels.
“Novine. Yours?”
[Eligor]
The woman dashed into Novine, grabbing her by the throat and slamming her into a nearby rock, a glare returning to her eye.
“That's not your name. Your name Is Alia. Say it.”
[Novine]
Novine does not gag or choke, but she winces and groans at the unexpected violence, unprepared to react. “Who decided that?” she retorts back, making to push the woman off of her. “Sounds stupid.”
[Eligor]
She tightens her grip.
“You still haven't learned. Seems it'll take another roll.”
When an armored backhand, she strikes Novine's temple. Within moments, the world goes dark.
| The world snaps back. Novine is suddenly in her house again, and Raziel is nearby on the floor, hacking up what appears to be some purple liquid. |
[Novine]
Novine looks around in a panicked sort of way, not sure if this was actually home or not. She looks down at her sister as she struggles and she moves to her, trying to soothe and calm her with a hand on her back despite her own panicked state.
“What.. what's happening? What was that?”
[Raziel]
I can't stop–I have to go back!
| She does not speak with works, hacking and coughing as she was on the floor, but there is another flash of light. Another pull, and darkness resumes again. |
| Novine awakes in much the same manner as before, her senses coming to her slowly in sequence. Unlike before however, she was clearly resting in a metallic chamber, lying upon a rug near a fire. Not far away on a chair sat the same red-headed woman as before, gnawing idly on what appeared to be chicken. |
[Novine]
Novine tilts her head and looks into the fire, opting to just lay there for now.
“So what was that for?”
[Eligor]
“Come to your senses yet?”
| Novine might have bit her tongue by now, saying words now with a mouth full of sharp teeth like Eligor's. |
[Novine]
Novine winced a bit as she touched her tongue to her teeth, following the contours of her ivories carefully, taking her time in answering as she did not want to damage herself in such a stupid way by simply talking.
“Not sure yet,” she responds at long last. “What's your definition of having come to?”
[Eligor]
“….What's your name?”
[Novine]
Novine - “Pretty weird assessment if you ask me. What's it matter anyway?”
[Eligor]
She snatches a large chunk of meat from the bone of whatever she was eating, taking time to chew it slowly before swallowing it down in a loud gulp.
“Your name is Alia. Say it.”
[Novine]
She hated lying. She hated stating untruths. But perhaps if she found a justification, she could play by the rules. This wasn't at home. She wasn't her usual self. This was just an alias, just as her father told her. She could be an alias, after all. She'd been practicing for this sort of need, to be someone else and convince others. She could be Novine in mind, and Alia in body. At least she would try.
She sighs a bit and says the phrase a bit begrudgingly. “My name's Alia. Happy now?”
[Eligor]
“Good. Finally one that understands how to adapt to the situation. I've had to retry far too many times now. You'd not believe how many of you are utter fools.”
She finished the potential chicken and tossed the bone into the fire, leaning forward in her seat.
“Now listen up. You're my little sister. Your name is Alia, and your true name is Hecate. Never forget these things–especially in front of father. He will cut you down. As a matter of fact, if you ever hear your true name, you should probably consider yourself dead anyway.”
She pointed to her left, where there were a pair of rapiers resting against the wall.
“We will have to kill. It does not matter how much you dislike it. We cannot stop, or all of this will have been for nothing.”
[Novine]
Novine pushes herself up into a sitting position looking about the room and taking in the rapiers.
“Why? What're we doing it for?”
[Eligor]
“Because if we don't we will stop existing.”
“I know you'll have questions, but I'm really not sure how much this version of you is even capable of understanding. Most of you have been idiots.”
“A short version is that we are in a….hypothetical reality. An alternate existence that is just barely qualified to be called real. But uh….it's threatening to become that. We need to stop that from happening.”
“But we have a sister that's been interfering–she's been trying to help, but she doesn't understand that she's making the situation worse. I keep kicking her out but unlike us, this one can breach this place even without a ready version of herself here. It's exceedingly annoying.”
“Worse than that though is what we are SUPPOSED to be fighting. Our father is in control of this reality but he isn't….him, right now. Some kind of creature has taken hold of him. And it's what made this place a nightmare.”
[Novine]
Novine sighs heavily. “Here too, huh? Can't even get a break from that reality wherever I go I guess.” She winces as, sure enough, she does manage to nick her tongue with her teeth.
“So what's your name then?”
[Ilia]
She almost says a name that starts with an 'R', but glares at the floor and gives a growling sigh in return.
“I'm Ilia.”
She reaches behind her and fumbles around with the back of the chair before having apparently gotten hold of her prize, returning with a hand mirror. She turns it towards Novine, allowing her to look at her features.
“…I see you aren't used to the teeth where you're from somehow. Must be nice.”
[Novine]
Novine takes the mirror and greedily looks into it, eager to see what else has changed about her, studying her features carefully.
“Yeah, I don't normally have 'em. I always thought they looked cool though, but they do kinda suck.”
She tilts the mirror around some more. “Anything else I should know? Like how to act, stuff to say, whether we get along or not? Not really sure how deep I'm s'posed to go with this.”
[Ilia]
| Finally Novine would be able to see the full scope of her own face. Her skin was a bit lighter than her normal self, and replacing her hair were somewhat unkempt red dark red locks, hanging in a bushy mop down past her shoulders and down her back. Her eyebrows were slightly bushy as well, having been allowed to grow out naturally and without much grooming. One of her eyes were now a bright yellow, and as if to mirror it there was now a rather large ruby shaped crystal in her forehead, with two pebble sized horn-shaped crystals framing it on the sides. Her eyelashes were now thick as well, and there was a small spread of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Unlike normal freckles however, some of them sparkled with the same lavender of her other eye like small jewels littering her face. There were similarly colored tattoos on her neck, but they seemed to extend around behind her head and out of view, seemingly forming a glyph of some sort. Interestingly, her ears sported piercings in the same places, but were now adorned with what appeared to be polished and carved bone instead of proper golds and silvers. |
“Long as you keep what I said in mind we should generally be fine. He won't notice as long as we don't break the sequence where he can tell.”
“Right now the other sister is attracting most of his attention anyway. As long as you don't act like a total maniac and try to change everything we should be fine.”
[Novine]
Novine clearly was very enamored with herself, reaching out to touch her freckles, to touch the crystal, to touch the little horns, to fiddle with her piercings, to fluff her hair.
“Kay, I'll try my best to not be too crazy. Not really sure how things'll hit me in the moment but… Hopefully nothing too crazy.”
“What's the other sister look like? The one causing all the trouble? I guess I'd know her if she acts real weird but, I dunno, in case I see her.”
[Ilia]
“Glows a lot, flies around–you'll know when you see her. She kind of breaks everything.”
“You tired? Should probably get to bed.”
She points behind Novine–now Alia–towards comfortable and entirely too large bed covered in pillows.
In the same motion, she fluidly reaches in to flick her forehead, a light clink sounding as her fingernail nicks the crystal in Novine's forehead, causing immediate and immense searing pain. At the same time, it was as if suddenly having a blindfold removed. Suddenly and now more than ever, she would be able to FEEL the aether present around her. But it was not so simple as simply sensing it any longer. She would be able to literally see it, feel it- almost taste it really. Ilia's soul under her flesh was as clear to see as her skin, a deep and flaring pink that seemed slightly frayed at the seems. Her soul seems to be much older than her body would suggest, and her power besides quite something to behold. It was as if the room was her territory, staved off only by Novine's own soul which flared back, lashing at her aether like it were a harmful invader. The circulation of aether in the air and about the area in turn was far clearer now. It was no longer simply an extension to be turned off, magic was no longer this concentration that needed to be worked at–it was quite simply at Novine's fingertips, as easy and natural to access now as breathing. This was what it was like to have a crystal, to have the power of magic flowing through one's veins like blood.
[Novine]
Novine let out a cry of pain that descended into a soft sustained noise of discomfort as the sensation washed over her. But as she blinked and took in the surroundings, she gasped audibly. It was beautiful, powerful, awe-inspiring. She was floored by it all, how simple, how obvious it all was. As she looked around for aether sources, examining the flow, a single tear even escaped from her eye that she quickly brushed away, cheeks actually flushing, growing warm, biological weaknesses that she'd once abandoned that she'd grown accustomed to living without.
“I…..y-yah. Yeah, I'm tired. I think sleep. Feels like it's been a big day and all.,” she confessed, still looking around idly.
Novine followed the gesture and tilted her head, considering the idea and realizing that yes… Yes she was tired. For the first time in a long, long, long time, she felt compelled to rest in a way that she didn't normally. She stared at the bed in wonder and set the mirror down on the floor before pushing herself to her feet and making her way over, sitting on the edge and kicking her feet lightly for a brief second before she pushed herself up onto it, crawling into a far end. She sunk into the pillows, the light nightgown she was wearing allowing her to snuggle comfortably within the cushioned paradise.
She lay there with her eyes open, watching the aether move about like a kaliedoscope.
“You see things like this too, Ilia? The aether and stuff, that is.”
[Ilia]
Ilia seemed confused for a moment, but eventually placed what was being asked, snapping her fingers as she got it.
“Yeah, all the time. Do you not?”
[Novine]
“Nope, not at all. It's normally just… completely invisible. Like I can feel it and all but, seeing it when it's not being channeled? Not a chance.” She grins and hugs a pillow close to her as her eyes just swivel around, watching the flow of the colors. “Makes me not wanna sleep.”
[Ilia]
“You must have come from a weird place then. Was aether so thin there you couldn’t see it? How scarce were the resources of your origin?”
[Novine]
“Oh, well… it's there and everything, just, I dunno, I guess our eyes don't see it. It's everywhere though. Maybe not as dense as it is with us. I think it's a thing with the bodies. I wonder now that I've seen something like this if I can make some modifications to myself to see it like this…” she muses, following a little wisp of aether across the room. “I'm a bit of an outlier as far as people's bodies go, so I might be able to do it now that I've experienced it. It'd be hard going back!”
[Ilia]
“It’s just a part of you, I’m not sure what you mean really.”
[Novine]
Novine - “I think it's the crystal that does it though. I think I can only make myself look like I have one but… I dunno, guess I've never tried. Even Father – um… my actual father I guess? Haven't met this one yet to know if they're all that similar, but he always said things are easier with a crystal, and never really expanded on it at all so I figured it was just something that was impossible for me. But ah well, I'll enjoy it while I can. Y'know, bright spot in this weird hallucination you've brought me into I guess.”
[Ilia]
She stares for a long time before turning and heading towards the door nearby, not really saying anything in response.
“Your servants should wake you up early, so get some sleep while you can. We’ve another suppression tomorrow, and having you get used to things in the middle of battle is just going to make everything more of a pain.”
[Novine]
Novine hugs the pillow closer and nods. “'Kay… I'll do that then. Goodnight, I guess,” she mumbles, feeling weird saying such familiar greetings to such an veritable stranger.
[Ilia]
| The door closes behind the woman as she leaves with a heavy clunk, and silence fills the room. The aether however continued to flow through the room endlessly. Novine would slowly be able to differentiate aether quality, as well as being able to tell how thick or thin it was, or how quickly the flow shifted. It was all of the same source, but distinct in ways that could only be understood in this manner—it would not be false to call it a sixth sense. |
[Novine]
Novine watched the aether as she lay there in this unfamiliar place, things feeling strangely akin to her first day in Eorzea all over again. She moved to bite her lip as her thoughts moved to Raziel, and then quickly regretted that choice, hissing as she tasted blood on her lip. She sighed and put the pillow over her face, letting out a huge noise of frustration and annoyance.
Against her will, however her eyes began to droop on their own, fatigue taking its toll on her and forcing her into the sweet submission of slumber.
Home –> Roleplay Scene Index –> Discord Roleplays
Home –> Character Index –> Novine — Raziel — Eligor