In to the Grey Halls

Log Info

• Title: In to the Grey Halls
• Emitter: Delilah
• Characters: Delilah, Donna, Ashes, Elyanna, Merek
• Place: In the Grey Halls
• Time: Monday, March 15, 2021, 8:30 PM
• Summary: The Valethor gang and Merek, having completed their funeral preparations, cross over into Vardama's Grey Halls. The attempt to bring Bethany's shade to them fails, and an avatar of the Grey Lady takes them deeper. They find Bethany in the Alley she was murdered in, repeating a mantra of "Nothing, Nothing." She is pulled from her Torment, at which point she and Delilah are pulled into a wishful reenactment of that fatal night, where Delilah shoots Bethany.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  Appearing, in Order  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Donna        5'4"     106 Lb     Human             Female    A black-haired human girl in black robes.
Delilah      5'4"     106 Lb     Human             Female    A golden haired human girl in white robes.
Merek        5'10"    215 Lb     Human             Male      A black-haired, dusky male with golden eyes.
Ashes        5'11"    177 Lb     Hobgoblin         Female    A somber arvec in grey clothes with a skull face
Elyanna      5'11"    153 Lb     Half-Orc          Female    A grim, Arvek-blooded woman in raven feathers. 
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  NPCs of Note  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Mahuikaa     Friendly            Sith'Makar        Female    An elderly greenscale with grey tips matron
Bethany      Hostile             Human             Female    An noble murder victim
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  As the GMs -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Delilah      5'4"     106 Lb     Human             Female    A golden haired human girl in white robes.
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=

The Ashen Arvek has completed her sacred task. Five have surrendered the trappings of life, shedding all possessions down to their very skins, and been cleansed in the cold waters of the stream and lay upon a barren rock; and now they cross back, over to the shore where they started. Among the flowers, Mahuikaa waits for those who must journey to the Grey Halls, apparently choosing the path among the flowers as the best place for the portal she must conjure. She waits, while the living don the robes of the dead; aside from the crowns of flowers, only Delilah has anything else, in the four manacles on her wrists and ankles.

Once it seems like all is in readiness, Mahuikaa wordlessly holds up the cube. She turns it over in her hands until the bone colored side is on top. her forefinger touches its center and pushes, until it depresses with a soft, almost whispered click; and then the cube tumbles from the aged Sith's hand, landing in the middle of the path. Above it, the air tears itself open as a wreath of gray, warmthless flames erupts into being, with pale mist obscuring the other side.

With the portal summoned, Mahuikaa turns without a word and meanders back to the cottage, leaving the portal for the five who must traverse it.

Ashes, the Mourner Ashlee Ciaradh, the one stillborn who lives in between the light and the darkness stares at the portal. A single finger was placed upon her lip before she crossed the streams. They must not speak, not here, not this side.

She's in no danger of that. Chippen, her oversized centipede familiar that currently is tightly encircling her neck like a leggy choker, has paralytic poison. When he took her last words, he took a bite, and while he didn't inject much it was enough to swell her tongue and numb it thorougly.

She couldn't speak now if she wanted to. When she can, she'll know she, everyone, has crossed over. Wordlessly she moves her hand, making the marks of Vardama's blessing around the portal then takes her last breath. A gesture, follow me.

She halts, mid step, and looks at Elyanna, then Donna. She extends a hand to each for them to take. Altogether at one, yes. That would be best.

Elyanna's eyes widen some to the kiss. She wasn't expecting that, clear from the knit of her brow, but she doesn't protest, nor overtly respond. She doesn't know the ritual, and this could be normal. Still, it throws the mix askew a touch, something that demands a proper conversation once this is settled.

The red woman makes the return trip in contemplative silence, yet trying to allay her baggage that the immediate task can be managed without distraction.

Her eyes seek the Sith woman, observing her introduction with the cube and the formation of the portal, steel pools glittering in it's light before she looks to Ashes, their guide and accepts her hand without hesitation.

Following the blessing, Donna has been utterly without words. It's clear that Ashes' response, as well as her sister's unburdened secret, has eased a long-tightened knot in her heart... but there's something haunting about the entire order of the day; escaping death for the both of them, only to walk in Vardama's halls of their own free will.

Thus it's why she takes the priestess' hand with a nod, then wraps her free arm around Delilah's shoulders. If something is going to take Delilah this time, it's going to have to pit its strength against hers.

As her twin's arm rests on her shoulders, Delilah wraps hers around Donna's waist in kind, leaning against Donna in wordless, sisterly affection. She takes Merek's hand with her other arm, as together the group approach the portal, that waits before them, grey and misty and, in a way, oddly tranquil, despite the silently blazing flames that do not burn.

Stepping through the mists brings a flash of cold, almost searing in its suddenness, but it is gone just as quickly.

Trudging through the mists might seem to take forever; or perhaps it was only a moment. Presently, the mists part; and together the group of travellers enter into a hall of grey stone. The roof is collapsed, but despite the roof being vacant there is, inexplicably, no sky either. What should be above simply is not. Knee-deep water fills the floor of the hall, shimmering and cool; and overgrown along its sides are trees, with grey bark and black leaves.

At the far end of the hall is a stand with a silver bell; but other than this, all is still. All is silent, broken occasionally by a whisper, a shout, or a child's laughter, each gone again almost as quickly as they come.

The mists are known, their touch like an old friend's, the first sensation Ashlee ever knew buried deep in her memories. Underneath them all it stirs, resettling the foundation of her life. The flames lick over her. The cold, a shock, but she does not flinch, even if the chill lingers in the marking of the bones across her body.

Each step she takes makes a small splash in the water. Her robe drags through it, leaving a small wake behind her, as the wet soaks up to her knees. Her eyes are on the trees, seeking something which doesn't seem to be there. A marking? A bird? A squirrel? It's unclear. The noises are ignored, even if one of them is familiar.

A glint among the grey draws her over. The ashen Arvec walks towards the tree. One of the branches among the many is different, silver, like the bell. Small and short, it bifurcates and has five leaves, also silver but tarnished dark. Ash breaks it off, it snaps easily like the dead twig it is, she holds it carefully as she approaches the bell.

"We each ring the bell, say her name, and hope our voice brings her. If she will not come, we may have to go further in." Ashlee has her voice again. Her words are still monotone, and she speaks in quiet reverent tones, "That will be harder."

>Ding< "Bethany Alenthor."

The transition sets the hobkin's frame to a certain tension, the slip between realms more lingering than her last jaunt with the Mourner, though there to much more... verdant environs.

Elyanna casts her gaze about to the various breaks in the silence, though after some seconds, she stops, coming to reconcile the sound with the peculiars of their current location. The chill of the place, of the water she wades through brings a shiver, but her Arvek upbringing draws rein on her responses, and keeps her moving in Ashes's wake. She listens, watches assimilating the rote though the ephemeral possibilties are left to the wayside. She accepts the branch with due care, and in the wake of her friend's example...

>Ding!< "Bethany Alenthor."

That done, the branch is returned.

The step from the world of the living to that of the dead is... more of a shock than Donna expected. One doesn't really grasp how *loud* the living world is, until one crosses over into the world of the dead. No birds claiming territory, no rabbits screaming as they become food for the hawks, no wind whispering secrets through the swaying leaves... The silence very nearly falls like a hammer.

And it's not a silence she really wishes to break. If speaking Bethany's name alone might have the power to summon her, *what* could happen if she voices her fears?

But she watches closely, as Ashes and Elyanna ring the bell... Then guides Delilah up to the bell, and after taking a long, steadying intake of breath, she reaches out to pick it up.

>Ding!< "Bethany Alenthor."

She can only hope that if it's Delilah who ends up summoning her, Bethany's talkativeness is a good thing.

The Golden Sorceress tugs backwards on Donna, just for a second, as they pass through the mists and the brief stab of cold, but leaning on her twin she manages to step forwards, and end up in the flooded hall with everyone else. She walks with Donna to stand before the bell, water sloshing around her legs as she moves; she goes carefully, so as not to offer any greater disturbace than necessary, but really what can the living do but live, even in this place? She takes the branch from her sister, and lingers for a moment, looking at the little bell.

>Ding!< "Bethany Alenthor."

Gingerly, she sets down the branch before the bell, and turns her head upwards to gaze about herself in the ensuing silence.

The waters become still.

It is cool, in this place, but not cold.

Somewhere, a child cries.

A rope snaps taught and feet kick in the air.

A breath leaves an aged man's lungs.

"She is not here," speaks a voice, quiet but deafeaning; standing in the water is a woman of orcish bearing, green skin beneath a diaphanous white robe, stabding with her hands clasped before her. "Bethany is... elsewhere." She tilts her head, and gazes at each of the living in turn. "You were expected to join her, but you did not," she adds, gazing briefly at Delilah. "Why do you seek Bethany Alenthor?"

Ashlee Ciaradh picks up the branch, holds it clasped between her hands and low against her belly. The slight pressure pulling on her funerary robes, wrinkling the cloth. She returns the gaze of, she suspects, the aspect of her Goddess Vardama that she calls on the most. She speaks, carefully, in monotone though with reverence in her own way.

"Feiu of the Tears, you know how she was sent to you, why Delilah was to follow, and why she is not here." The Mourner hesistates, struggling to pull the best phrasing together. Speaking was never her strong suit, and to her Goddess' fragment, it causes even more reluctance in her. Best, to be direct.

"The events would leave her restless. I... we want to fix it for her. So she's at peace."

That has an effect on the landscape.

Knowing someone from beyond was expecting you sooner is a mixed bag. Discovering there's a definate plot against your life lets you know you're getting somewhere, though there's that mortality thing. Finding out you've somehow thwarted it, and in so doing, tinkled in your enemy's champagne, is in contrast a solid win, though missing the fine details mostly means the plan is still in play.

Troubling.

Elyanna gazes wide eyed at the Oruch woman, spirit, or....

Avatar.

Swallowing, becase that suddenly became important, Elyanna listens to the framing of Ashes's answer and turns new eyes on what stands before them. She does not speak until spoken to, she has no such grace here, but, at the pause in the ashen Arvek's words, the carmine fingers of the halfbreed alight at the small of her back.

It's hard to know what to *expect* from the Grey Halls, beyond 'it will be nothing at all like the material world.' With the background noise of their surroundings being, it would seem, 'the sounds of people making their last sound,' Donna may be forgiven for being on edge.

Sudden Oruch, however, makes her start... though no fists are raised. Not here. Instead, she simply squeezes just a bit more on her sister's shoulders, and tries to keep her eyes focused on the newcomer's knees.

Knees are safe to look at when your guide is addressing a bit of the divine, right?

Delilah, for her part, keeps her eyes more or less in the same place as Donna does, and has gone uncharacteristically quiet. Apparently, when one is faced with a divine representative of the Goddess of the Dead, telling you that you were 'expected', it's hard to come up with an answer.

The Orcish Woman clasps her hands in front of her, regarding Ashes with soft gray eyes. She moves forwards, and the water does not swirl about her as it does around the travellers, but remains utterly, soundlessly still. "Brave," whispers the woman. "Bethany Alenthor is not ready to go before Verdama. She was expected to go at the same time as Delilah Valethor. She still could, if you were ready." She stands in front of the golden sorceress, and reaches out one hand to cup her chin and lift her gaze, so she can look into those soft blue eyes. "but you aren't ready, are you?"

"Bethany is in torment," she whispers, moving past Donna and Elyanna to stand before Ashes once again. She holds Ashes' chin in kind, looking into her eyes. "Torment of her own making," she adds. "But you would understand that, Mourner. And so perhaps you can help. It is Delilah who must ease her pain... but it will be you who must tell her how."

"Are you ready?"

Ash's head is lifted. She feels the fingers gently on her chin, cold. She looks back into those eyes which can see through to her soul and know her better than anyone. She feels herself judged in this moment, and the stillness of the grave embracing her. The cold water seeps up her funeral dress, which clings to her legs. No fear. She's at peace. She's home.

Ashes presses against the warm touch in the small of her back. Is her body cold, is she as dead as she was born? In the in-between, what is her essence? Will the Feiu of the Tears bring her along or send her back once again? Her fingers tighten on the silver branch, her eyes drop for a moment to ensure there are still five leaves, even if one seems darker than the others. What is the measure of a life, and how long can one be that was cut short before the first day.

Ashlee will stay if her Goddess asks her, and return if that is her wish. She looks deep into her desires and can't tell which outcome she would prefer.

The warm touch lingers in her awareness... the cold one draws her to her duty.

"I am. I accept."

She's waiting for Delilah.

Elyanna's eyes narrow slightly as she contemplates that, gazing sidelong toward the sisters, hand still at Ashes's back.

The half-Arvek turns back toward the Divine agent, muddling through the possibilities. The answer Ashes gives, for reasons she doesn't understand, sends a chill along her spine, and her eyes immediately flit to her friend. What does that mean? There's a moment, when the Oruch lays a hand on her sister, that Donna honestly contemplates punching a spirit serivtor of Death.

She immediately reconsiders, but can't help but wonder what would have happened afterward?

Instead, she simply tightens her grip on Delilah, not looking the woman in the eyes but trying to radiate 'no, she's not ready, so hands off' energy without... being impolite about it?

Questions for later.

Delilah practically shrinks into Donna; but with her chin cupped and her gaze lifted, she has no choice but to look up into the eyes of the divine, and just kind of freezes, holding her breath like her lungs won't work.

The Orcish woman walks past Elyanna, brushing her fingers over her shoulder, and coming to a stop in front of Donna. You are alike in your differences," she observes, "And you differ in your likenesses. Balanced... but only together. Without her, you are nothing, and everything."

Water fills a set of lungs.

A howl of agony rises with billowing smoke.

An axe harshly falls.

Poison, willingly and fatefully swallowed.

"Bethany awaits."

Existence shifts around the travellers; and the journey, most of the way, is like passing through an oil painting that's gotten wet, except when it isn't, and it is like lightning being pulled harshly over a rasp instead, and then the living ones arrive.

It is the city streets, in Alexandria, but everything is dark; the lights are dark, and it is silent, as no souls are present here. There are no people, birds, or rats. The buildings are without form, somehow; they lack windows or doors, and an open alleyway yawns open, wheezing smoke into the one person kneeling in front of it. Bethany stares into the alleyway, bereft of all she might've been seen with before. Hair hangs unkempt about her shoulders, and her bare skin seems at odds with the darkness.

"Nothing," she whispers. "Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing." She takes a breath, and repeats her chant; and again, and again. "Nothing," she whispers. "Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing."

Delilah remains close to her sister; instinctively, she shifts to stand behind her, peering over one shoulder at the soul of Bethany. So far, she hasn't noticed the pistol clutched in her own fingers.

The alleyway looms wide, smoke wafting forth, the beginning and end of this. Ashlee knows it, the memories of how she and Elyanna examined it minutely. The cold stone against her back when she laid where Bethany fell and tried to envision what happened.

Unnecessary now. The woman who can answer that is here. She needs only to be asked.

Ashes turns and hands her silver branch to Elyanna, meeting the noble hob's eyes. It's a moment of strange recognition, the ashen Arvec's skeleton tattoo is gone, her features fully revealed and oddly familiar. Elyanna has seen that face before, almost...

And then the Mourner turns and approaches Bethany, silently, like a ghost. No. Not like. Her real skeleton is a dim glow shining through flesh that is mists and a dress that is cobwebs. She kneels beside Bethany, rests a hand on her shoulder, takes her chin. In the breath between chants Ashes turns her head towards herself and echoes the mantra with Bethany.

"Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing."

Then.

"Speak through me. Use me. Free yourself. Show us what happened."

How often does one get touched by Divinity, really?

The contact thrills the half-Arvek's spirit in overlapping shades of mortal judgement, and animal terror, and it sets her rational mind on the back foot for some moments, even stilling her 'breathing' at the enormity of Death itself being so casual... so close to hand.

By the time Elyanna's regained her equillibrium, or, better said, she can see it from where she is, the group has arrived in the narrows of the Lady Alenthor's singular Perdition.

She imagines her own accomodations will be no more welcoming.

The Blarite scion turns then, to Delilah, the shadow in Bethany's mind, and the key to her trancendance. Then, there is the movement beside her, under her lingering touch, telling her that Ashes is turning to face her and so she reorients to meet the woman breathing beneath the memento mori, awareness beyond her ken yet unable to pierce her own veils stir in recognition of those features. The truth is lost to a vague, gnawing ache, a splinter in her mind as she almost automatically accepts the branch. She can but nod, then, and pivots on a heel and edge back to stand beside the Sisters Valethor.

To. support.

To witness.

To be addressed by the... avatar? Spirit? Goddess? ...is its own special kind of horrifying, in its way. To have the being remark on the special strangeness of her and her twin... unsettling.

To move without moving, through the background hum of a death with every heartbeat and into a ghostly recreation of the place that started it all...

Privately, Donna is quite relieved to have surrendered decision-makin to Ashes, because the brawler knows that she would have foundered the moment she set foot here. And then Ashes steps forward, apparently shedding her mortality to communicate with the dead soul... Donna has no words. No *idea.*

She does, however, intend to find a bar when they return, and drink it.

"Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing." Bethany repeats her muttered chant over and over again, until Ashes sits beside her and rests a hand on her shoulder.

Bethany recoils as if struck, and flattens herself against the wall behind her, almost stumbling into the smokey darkness. "Who... who?!" she gasps. "Never met... don't know... I HAVE NOTHING!" She screams; a plaintive, terrified sound. "I am nothing! I did nothing! I mean nothing! I *have* nothing!" She sucks in a breath, and turns to face the other travellers. "But... but you!" she gasps, pointing at Delilah. "I rememb--"

The gun in Delilah's hand snaps up, levelled at Bethany. "What the--??" gasps the sorceress, even as the gun fires.

>BANG< the bullet rips into Bethany's chest, blowing clean through the other side and leaving a little cloud of red mist on either side of her.

>BANG< almost immediately, another shot rings out, blasting a hole in Bethany's shoulder.

"But I'm not--" >BANG< a third bullet leaves a grizly hole in Bethany's sternum, against the golden sorceress' wide-eyed protests.

>BANG< a hole appears where Bethany's right eye used to be; Delilah grabs the gun with her free hand, trying to wrestle it out of her grip.

>BANG< the bullet rips along the side of Bethany's face, tearing away her cheek and leaving teeth exposed. "STOP!" screams Delilah, "STOP STOP!!"

>BANG< a bullet shatters Bethany's skull, cleaving chunks away on the side and leaving her brain exposed.

>BANG< A bullet hits the noblewoman in the elbow, severing her arm beneath that point and leaving the forearm on the ground, with fingers twitching.

"STOP!" screams Delilah, her voice rising to a pitched squeal, "I din't do this I DIDN'T DO THIS! I didn't!!"

>BANG< the bullet catches Bethany in the neck and she finally falls over backwards, landing with a wet sound on her back; and the pistol finally tumbles from Delilah's grasp, as the sorceress staggers backwards and collapses to her knees.

"But you wanted to," gurgles Bethany. "And maybe I wanted you to."