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Messages - YOLF

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16
Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town
« on: September 06, 2021, 05:52:49 PM »
Headmaster

Her fingers drummed the table, one after the other, as if the Headmaster was playing piano one-handed. She raised her gaze, responding with candour like a quiet furnace. "The aid of someone who enacts such works for personal gain and has already played a part in weakening the district is neither desirable, not reliable in the first place."

Her drink was no longer producing richly bitter steam, and she pushed it to the side, resting her cheek on her raised palm.

"Why do you care to stop this?"

17
Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town
« on: September 04, 2021, 03:16:37 AM »
Headmaster

It was her turn to shake her head. "Ideals and principles are as irrational and senseless as whims," she said. Her golden lashes fell slightly as she cast her eyes to the table. "Ah, so the deranged child and the merry beast. And what was your compensation?"

18
Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town
« on: September 04, 2021, 01:13:45 AM »
Headmaster

"Quaint nonsense," she replied. The heat of the mug was still comforting against her palm, but a mere human would have wondered if the temperature of the room did not fall with her tone. "No one does anything without a reason, even should that be a mere whim to act. There is a root to all deeds that bear fruits, regardless of who or what planted them. Arbitrary actions predetermined to one's self are only inherent to machines. If you like repeating excuses, I would be glad to engage in a contest of them with you at a different time."

The headmaster tipped her drink and sipped loudly. The wobbling of her throat, the slurping through her lips and the breath of relief once she was done all echoed into Costin's skull.

"Did you come looking for him? Or was it opportunistic?"

19
Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town
« on: September 02, 2021, 02:12:32 AM »
Headmaster

If he had working sight, he might have taken note of the minute twitch of her lips. She allowed herself the reflex only because she had realized, and it would be funny if it were more tasteful. What did this arbitrary division make Costin himself, then? A warrior with no right to live? Perhaps that is what he would answer, with pride in his voice.

"Your care is merely self-serving," she said, dragging her drink close. "You give me no reason to sympathize, and even less to be impressive. You could not leave me in pieces even with a thousand years to try, Mister Costin."

She sipped at her mug, and set it down with a clack. "So tell me. Why did you go out of your way to kill my employee, instead of spending your remaining energies pursuing that worthy foe you were having so much fun with?"

20
Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town
« on: August 30, 2021, 09:45:44 PM »
Headmaster

Not from this world. A group of elite vampires. How elite? He could have been saying only what he wished her to believe. Costin was the only issue she faced at this moment, not these hypothetical peers. There were more pressing factors to peel away.

The Headmaster inhaled patiently of the steaming drink. The scent was mellow but robust, and the blend lingered on her tongue from the first sip. She looked up from it with an unfriendly bent to her brows.

"Are you in the habit of killing interesting fellows shortly after meeting them?" She asked. "Doesn't that rather defeat the point?"

21
Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town
« on: August 28, 2021, 08:27:16 PM »
Headmaster

With a slight smile that showed no effect on the rest of her face, the woman rested an arm on the table, and with the other pulled her hot drink closer. "You're under a misunderstanding, Mister Andrei," she said. "You were the guest in my house, and an exceedingly rude one. That you are now a prisoner is the consequence of your own conduct."

The headmaster inhaled deeply of the coffee, permeating her nose with the scent, and took a sip. She let out a steaming sigh of satisfaction and set the mug down once again, leaning forward.

"Apostles of who?" She asked.

22
Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town
« on: August 26, 2021, 09:55:22 PM »
Headmaster
Clocktower, 700 Feet Below Ground
At a later time

It hadn't been difficult to remove the vampire from the bottom of the lake or to restore the basic shape of the street he'd helped ruin. Acquiring the right measures to keep him safely restrained had merely been a matter of making the right calls and demands. Transfering him to the appropriate location had been more logistically complicated. It was a welcome surprise that he seemed unable to move effectively within water at all, but passing him through a door to his new holding place and placing the bindings without risking his release set a nervous mood upon everyone who had made themselves available to help. The Headmaster had smiled firmly with a severe bent to her eyebrows through the process, betraying no sign of turmoil until it was done.

Which brought them here. This grey and onyx room deep into the foundations of her home, where the vampire sat on a simple chair. His ankles and wrists were weighed down and bound together to the other with thick electronic manacles, red-tinted chains wrapped around his waist to connect to pillars equidistant from the center of the room, and multiple magic circles that limited his movement and vampiric might shone dimly on the glazed tiles of the floor. Entangling and self-devouring knots were engraved along the arches above his head and the variable width of the pillars every few feet, and orbs mounted upon the mid-point of the walls illuminated the chambers.

The two parts of the black iron door slid shut behind the Headmaster, forming once more an undecipherable sigil in relief on its surface. She came in with a steaming cup and a chair, and saw about setting them both down, one on the utilitary table in front of her prisoner, and the other on the floor, unfolded, before she proceeded to sit.

"Now. I don't believe I caught your name," she said. After a moment, she pulled the hood down, revealing the slightly unkept bun and pinned braids of her hair. "What do you say we begin there?"

23
Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town
« on: August 25, 2021, 03:41:30 PM »
Headmaster

She watched her hand stretch towards the summoner too late to matter. "Professor!" She called out, tone pallid from disbelief. But the Headmaster could only stand witness to the sudden sacrifice, with irises as dull as stones, and be left with the sounds dissipating in the air like the echoes of a ghost.

Her weapons made of the city itself floated above the lake forgotten, for as long as that instant stretched.

"Fool... did I read you wrong all along?" She asked the emptiness. Not once, but twice he'd protected an immortal guardian over himself. With a last breath. What of the plans in his head, the hopes in his heart, now that he was gone? Perhaps the schemes she hadn't yet uncovered had brought this along. She looked away through a shivering breath. "Could you just not let go of your dignity?

The instant ended. Something different overlapped the shock and questions, as the Headmaster launched her senses beyond. She could see him, the sinking vampire, and without further delay her commands came into action. The surface of the lake rippled and thundered. Not just the dark depths, but stone, sand and buried stone also enveloped him, entombing the warrior.

"Stay there," she said, giving the waters a withered glance. The squirrel girl could fly herself out. It wasn't her concern right now. The headmaster crouched on the last place Lawrence had stood, and connected her telepathy to colleagues coordinating the evacuation of the area. While she updated herself, a flurry of bricks and steel began to flow back to the street that was stripped bare.

24
Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town
« on: August 18, 2021, 02:21:48 AM »
Headmaster

What was reflected in those golden eyes that watched the mirth of an inhuman warrior swell through the gauntlet of obstacles? As though pain and evisceration were nothing more than fulfilling refinements to that gigantic passion, the vampire broke free of the arena she'd painstakingly made, and offered his taunt as a gift. If the Headmaster had any response she would bother to give, it was only this: he wasn't done falling either.

In turn, she raised an arm, closing her hand into a fist but for her raised thumb... and then pointed the thumb down in a firm swipe.

Every remaining piece of the dome split apart on its down, and in the blink of a superhuman eye, amassed into a single, hardened shape. It rose higher than him, and bereft of the ability to manuever mid-air, the vampire was slammed down to the water as by a meteoric club.

25
Areas / Re: Little Russia
« on: August 14, 2021, 02:38:33 AM »
Lubei

Lubei's expression stretched wide, and frost that adorned his cheekbones and brow crumbled to the ground.

"Shit," he said, quickly bending down and gathering Ivanna into his arms. Why did she have to pass out now? Was someone conspiring to make things even more uncomfortable for him? The demon lord shook his head as he kicked the dome of ice he'd raised around them for privacy, and hurriedly ran back the way he had come.

Lubei would push on, but sometimes he couldn't help but feel reality was more ridiculous than any cheap words on text conceived for amusement.

26
Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town
« on: August 12, 2021, 02:16:05 AM »
Headmaster

The whole thing shuddered like jelly that threatened to have even more holes put into it, such was the intensity of that violent dissonance. Even with the support of the professor's spells, the two warriors seemed to have vanquished anything but the contest from their brains, and all their ability was empowered to the same purpose. If the Headmaster could afford it, she might have graced Lawrence with a sympathetic glance.

But closing her jaw in hard decisiveness, she clenched her free hand into a fist, and thrust it into the air above her head. The immense mass slaved to her enchantments responded at once, and the dome that surrounded the fighters rocketed into the sky in a cloud of dust. Every loose piece of upturned terrain followed it, slamming into the near-spherical shape and joining the outer shell, as its walls flowed and hurried to shut the jagged hole.

The dome slid on its axis as it accelerated in an arc over the streets, and squirrelgirl and vampire could see the rapidly blurred scenery pass them through the gaps, before it closed them in the privacy of darkness.

If either was paying attention, they would see the sonic motion of their arena was propelling them towards the central lake.

27
Areas / Re: Little Russia
« on: August 08, 2021, 07:11:42 PM »
Lubei

Lubei did not have what it took to hide his mouth-twisting wince. His delicate advice went through Ivanna like air. Maybe it was his fault, whether for lacking or for inadequacy. He understood the roots of her doubts, but he couldn't know what she was experiencing. What could he do now but keep by her side and watch over her?

"Even if you are alone, you have me," he said. His voice was a deep sigh, but Lubei rose from his crouch as a solid tower next to the seraph.

The request he had lay silent in the snow. There would be other opportunities, soon, he promised, but for now he supposed they should return to the palace. The demon just hoped that her people wouldn't take note of this sharp change and misunderstand just because he was with her...

28
Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town
« on: August 08, 2021, 05:06:17 PM »
Headmaster

As she listened to the tale, the Headmaster's hold on the professor's body stilled, and then reasserted itself. She focused on the devastation still singing before them, but some tension bled from her grip as she made sense of something.

"Fascinating story, but have you considered he is an alternate self from the man you allude to?" She asked. "Such things are not unprecedented here."

The battle waged, and before the situation could change again, a final boom hammered the dome sealed. But the rain didn't cease. The Headmaster brought her foot down, and the strengthened debris continued to fall like a precipitation of nails, making the walls thicker and thicker.

29
Areas / Re: Little Russia
« on: August 06, 2021, 03:41:33 AM »
Lubei

Lubei shook his head slowly. "No decision that is deeply and solely yours is unsuited to your person," he said, but a dark burden slipped into his tone. "This may lack persuasion, but I have trodden a like path before. To overturn the foundations of woe demands sacrifice, and guarantees nothing. Those who are not prepared to carry this karma will become no better than beasts, and lose all sight of their aspiration. To those who carry on will fall the demerit of drenching steel in their blood. These are the wages of rebellion."

The Ascendant Heretic Sunray had not been alone when he rose from the dirt to purge evil, and raised his blade to the celestial dome. He had companions who followed him in his grudge against the heavens, and whether by sharing his impurity, or aspiring too purely to the same deeds, lost themselves and became monsters of karma. Hollow of conscience or restraint, catastrophic in power, it fell to him to kill them. Lubei did not wish that on anyone else.

At least, the figure of Ivanna hiding herself from him stoked images not just of these times, but also of lighter things that taught him again what fondness was. He would keep this to himself, but she reminded him of his younger sister's tenderness. Perhaps that made giving this advice easier.

"If you are willing to fight for your freedom," he continued, "Then think carefully and calmly on what must be done. Consider the costs to others, and determine what you want to achieve, and who is your real enemy. Reflect patiently, think over your conclusions, and then come up with your plan."

30
Areas / Re: Little Russia
« on: August 04, 2021, 02:22:36 AM »
Lubei Sang

He could not help but feel the change as a tremble in his blood, holding her arms with a resolved expression. "You speak of rebellion against the divine."

It was a natural extension of what Lubei had been asking Ivanna all this conversation, to recognize the good and ill of her place in the world in its own merits and make her decisions accordingly. But the demon was ordained by his dharma to be in conflict with heaven; the seraph was turning her back on that she had been born to. Their standings were not equal. But from where did dharma flow, and what decided their obligations when they were put upon the earth? Lubei had seen that which rose above and that which fell below, and in this life he lacked an answer. But at last here, his shade made its voice heard.

'It is righteous to turn against evil, but it is not yours the right to upturn the heavens. Remember that even gods are subject to judgement.' So it spoke, and the demon lord knew it to be true. But he would not turn away from Ivanna now.

"What will you do?" He asked.

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