Chap 3: The Discovery

[Ponic]

The shadow then shot up from behind Arianna, and grabbed for her. It was infected with Irate energy and attempted to grab onto her like a sticky wave. Each piece of it moving a top Arianna bit by bit to overtake her.

[Arianna]

Unfortunately, she was in such a focus that she didn't notice the shadow at all until it actually grabbed onto her from behind. Startled, she screamed for a split second and her connection with the Irates faltered. Turning her attention onto her shadow now, she spun around and tried to blast a part of it not sticking to her away from her with Dimension Energy. She then tried to detach herself from the rest of it (if any remained) by creating a Rift in between her and her shadow, careful to get it right in between, and then moved it away from her. Why can't anything just happen like in fairy tales! Peter Pan had the opposite problem as I recall!!

[Ponic]

The shadow, however was infected with Irate shadow and began to pulse and move around Arianna's strikes, even taking the blasts head on but still moving. It didn't function like a normal shadow anymore. Arianna would feel the body parts that the shadow was touching begin to go numb as it continued to move closer to her, devouring those parts of the body. The shadow did take her strike from dimension blast, and even some of it was peeled away from the rift, but there was still some remaining on her body that was seeking to spread across her.

Moreover, the Irates began to shout and destroy the wall. Keera and Ponic were busy hurtling shadows into their midst and try to keep pushing them away non-lethally. Even if they were Irates, neither Ponic or Keera relished the thought of Shadow Wielder on Shadow Wielder violence.

[Arianna]

Even after all that, some pieces of shadow clung to her like chilling wet fabric, causing her to have to restrain herself from running around shaking like a crazed hokey pokey dancer to try and get it off. A good chunk of it was on her left shoulder, her muscles beginning to feel a searing cold as the numbness spread deeper and deeper, she felt the pain tracing along her scar lines. She took a deep breath, clearing her mind with Love Energy, and restoring the connection to the Irates that she'd lost moments ago.

Reaching over her shoulder with her right hand, she gathered small, concentrated bulbs of Dimension Energy around each of her fingertips, pressing her fingers hard over her skin and then trying to move them between herself and her shadow, as if to pry it off. "Get.. off of me.. stupid.. shadow!" She grumbled to no one in particular as she did this.

Meanwhile, once she had restored a connection with the Irates, she began to try to send them larger amounts of Love now to calm them down.

[Ponic]

"HEY I HAVE FEELINGS!" said the shadow

Arianna gripped the shadow and ripped it off. The shadow pulsed against the dimension energy and then slowly dissipated. Arianna, however would find that her mind seemed to have been affected by the shadow. It would be like a fog had clouded her thoughts, and by extension her powers. She would be trying to push love energy through it, but it was severely hampered and Arianna's love energy was, as a result, getting nearly overwhelmed by the angry Irate emotions.

"Get down," shouted Ponic, a group of Veluts retreated from the wall. Suddenly there would be a massive explosion of shadow that would cover the area in dust as the gate was broken down and Irates began to pour in. The explosion was powerful and knock Arianna and any nearby Shadow Wielders away. It would feel like a massive smack to their abdomens and their ears would likely be ringing from the loud bang.

[Arianna]

Her mind felt like it was filled with London fog, or pea soup, instead of a brain, and so her reaction was slow to Ponic's warning. She'd ducked par of the way when the explosion slammed her sideways and finished the job for her. Boiling pea soup. Now her head felt like gross, frothing, boiling pea soup. Resisting the urge to lie down and fall asleep, she propped herself up and quickly started pushing Love Energy through her and filtering Hate Energy out. After her head was just about clear enough to sense Ponic and Keera, she did the same with them as well. She couldn't help all the Veluts though, because of time, energy, and the simple fact that she couldn't get as clear of a connection as with Ponic and Keera.

Standing up amidst the chaos, she tried to pick out the Irates from the Veluts mentally, then sent a powerful wave of combined Love and Hate Energy to try to knock them out by taking away their energy/motivation [Hate] and bringing on a sense of calm and peace [Love]. It would work better if she could individually get inside of each mind, as what she was sending them was against the grain of what they were already feeling. However, at this point they just needed to stop the commotion and thin out their numbers, so hopefully going for a power play would have some effect here.

[Ponic]

The Irates were pouring all through the area, firing at Veluts and infecting them, or outright killing them, while some of their numbers were going down as well. Arianna's energy was still somewhat dampened but she would suddenly feel a hand on her shoulder. Keera was behind her, coughing in the dust, but sending shadow through Arianna so the love and hate energy would move through the shadowy fog in Arianna's mind more easily. "We can do this," she told her. Some of the Irates appeared affected and began to back off, but there was still a large crowd.

Ponic was high up on a shadow that the Irates were attempted to infect. He shot off shadow from around him in a large wave pushing them back, and then held out his hands. Glaring at them, Ponic nullified the gravity on the Irates, lifting them up he hurtled them away, although he wasn't completely unscathed. He was banged up a bit from the explosion and some Irates had struck him, but Ponic was able to expel their shadow, despite it. He spun and sent tendrils into the ground, loosing shadow on more Irates that would overwhelm them and forcibly teleport them away.

[Arianna]

Her mind was suddenly clear, she nodded to Keera and began to feel much more strengthened as she was able to send stronger and clearer waves of Energy. She targeted a small group of Irates that seemed to be leading the charge forward and focused her attention on them. She tried to push into their minds and find anything that might help her, like tiredness, pain, or any desire not to get hurt or die--if found she would attempt to have their minds focus on these things, and she aided in exaggerating those emotions using her own Powers. This is taking up too much energy, it's taking too long.. Wouldn't it be better just to go to sleep? I'm sure those simple-minded Veluts would agree to be infected once they saw how reasonable your offer is. Why, I'm sure they'd be honored to let you kill them all, nice and easy! Then you can be done with this place! But first, you just have to stop fighting.. It's so simple.. see? She made herself sound as persuasive as she possibly could using Love and Hate to manipulate their emotions accordingly for each and every syllable--even to the extent that she herself almost began to believe it and started to feel tired. She shook her head to snap herself out of it, it wouldn't be any good if she put herself to sleep.

[Ponic]

Arianna would still be pushing through many twisted thoughts, but she had laced her emotions in a way that would appeal to the Irates need to infect other species. Keera had further cloaked the emotions in a way that would make it seem more authentic to the Irates. There seemed to be a pulse through the battlefield and a single name once again pulsed through Arianna's mind. Rickta...

Suddenly the area seemed to be awash in a black shadow mist that dissipated and with it, the Irates vanished. The battlefield was awash with many Velut and even a few Irate bodies. Shadow pulsed and flicked, as well as oozed around the area. Despite many Velut attempts at being non-lethal there was still some carnage remaining. Ponic landed on the floor and looked at the girls. "Are you both well?" he asked them.

[Arianna]

Well that's not really what I meant but...

She nodded to Ponic, "I'm fine." Her head was still swimming, and she'd suffered from scrapes and bruises from being blasted back by Shadow, but other than that she was alright. She looked to Keera, "thanks, you really helped me a lot!"

[Ponic]

"You did most of the work," smiled Keera giving Arianna a final pat on the shoulder. "Thank you, for all you did, you prevented a lot of bloodshed." Even if they were Irates, Keera could not condone killing, to anyone at anytime. She simply didn't have it in her to end a life, so she seemed very relieved of Arianna's help.

Ponic was standing looking at the carnage, staring at it all intently, particularly the Irates. Creating shadow in his hand, just in case he touched the Irate blood, he knelt down and examined the corpse. He was very carefully gazing at the corpses. "It means something, I can feel a familiarity," he muttered to no one in particular, but Keera and Arianna would probably have heard.

[Arianna]

"But not enough.." she murmured, gazing at the bodies. Despite everything being gray-scale here, she could tell there was a decent amount of blood. She then noticed what Ponic was doing and saying, and crouched down next to him. "What is it?" She'd only heard part of what he'd said.

[Ponic]

"There's a familiarity," said Ponic. He paused and looked at the Irates and the infected Velut's, particularly the infected Veluts. They looked deformed, with blood leaking from their bodies and their shadow beginning to look like it was rotting. Their eyes seemed to take that soulless Irate look. Ponic then stood up and looked to the South, he began walking in that direction quietly. "It's not far," he said.

[Arianna]

She was still confused. What was a familiarity? The infected Veluts and Irates? But.. wasn't that the point of the infection? He must have been talking about something else, she decided. She hurried up after him as he began to walk away, and asked Keera, "Do you know what he's talking about..?"

[Ponic]

"I can hear you," said Ponic, before Keera could reply to Arianna's inquiries. "It's the infection, I can feel a slight familiarity, something is coming from..." Ponic paused a moment while he looked around and then pointed, "there!" Keera paused and her eyes widened. "Ponic, you can't be serious?"

"I am," said Ponic, "we need to go there." Ponic was pointed at the ruined remains of the former Ulter castle. It was once an imposing fortress, meant to strike fear into the Velut's hearts. After the Ulter's were expelled, the castle was raided and destroyed. It still stood but it's spires were now ruined columns, with a single barely standing spire breaking out among the din, and overgrown plant life taking the stone walls.

"The former Ulter castle," said Keera to Arianna, "where they used to rein over our people when they occupied our village. Ponic, what makes you think there will be anything in there?" Ponic paused and nodded to the castle. "The Irate infection, it gives off a certain frequency that I can feel through the shadows. There's a similar feeling coming from the castle," said Ponic, "but it's weak, barely alive. I'm wondering if this has to do with the cure your parents seemed to be close to finding. Aren't you both curious?"

Keera sighed and shrugged. "I suppose," she said, "the place is abandoned, so it should be safe." Ponic nodded, "let's go then." Ponic opened their shadows and sent them to the inside of the castle.

They arrived within the large corridors of the castle. It was as ruined on the inside as it was on the outside. Ulter banners were shredded, and their remains strewn around the floor. Large stones were across the ground and many stone pillars were collapsed or wrecked. The area, was also quite dark, with only some moonlight coming in from the window. Being that they were in the Shadow Realm there was little light to begin with. "We need a torch, or something," said Keera. She could see, Shadow Wielders were quite adept at seeing in the dark, it came from living in a somewhat dark realm. Keera was imagining that Arianna might be having an issue.

[Arianna]

It felt like puzzle pieces coming together as she was beginning to understand more and more of the situation and what Ponic had meant. She nodded to his question, "It could be important."

Once in the castle, she did have a hard time seeing, as Keera imagined. Unfortunately, her eyes were never very good at adjusting to light differences, so she had basically zero night vision. "Yeah, I second that.." she agreed, looking around with wide eyes [as if that would make her pupils dilate faster] and still seeing mostly all black. Being that they were, as far as she could tell, alone, she created a small Rift in front of them that opened to a sunny sky on Earth, so that the sunbeams might come through and light up what was in front of them. As they walked she would move the Rift with them as necessary.

[Ponic]

LIVE WITH THE DARKNESS!

Keera looked at the rift, "impressive, Arianna, I wouldn't have thought of that." Ponic nodded his approval as well. "Come on," he said, "I can feel it stronger now, it's this way. Down beneath us." As they walked Arianna would see some differences in Velut vs. Ulter architecture. Velut's tended to create modest dwellings. There were some points, but they were mostly simple structures that stood with many curves and arches. Ulter's in contrast used a building type that seemed to really make itself known to the viewer. The walls were made of a rough stone and the architecture of the castle indicated a race that preferred to make themselves known, very known.

They walked through the corridors and Ponic paused for a moment, his fist clenched by his side. "This was the throne room," he said lowly. The room was vast, and indicative of a king. It was quite, ruined, but it wouldn't have been hard to imagine the stonework being draped with dark grey runway rugs and Ulter decorations around the walls. The throne still sat in the middle of the room, although it was robbed of its former glory and looked very ill-treated. "This was where their tyrannical warlord lorded over us..."

[Arianna]

She shrugged, shy of the compliment. "I just didn't have a flashlight on me.. But thanks." She smiled at Keera appreciatively before heading down to the throne room that Ponic led them to. She didn't notice the difference in architecture quite at first, as she wasn't so familiar with Velut buildings and also wasn't looking specifically for those differences. She did, however, notice that the building in general gave off different vibes than those they'd previously been in in this Realm. She'd chalked it up to the eery, silent darkness, but when they got to the throne room, she was finally able to put her finger on what it really was.

She stared at the vastness of the place around her, it was hard not to be impressed but she tried to repress it anyway considering Ponic's feelings towards this place were more so disgusted than amazed, as far as she could tell. About then, when she was looking around at the details of the room, was when she realized how indicative Ulters' architecture was of the differences between them and the Veluts'. The place seemed to be screaming that it was better than them, she felt like it was designed to make you feel as small and worthless as possible. She didn't like it.

"Is this where it's coming from? The familiarity?" She asked, still not quite understanding what that even was, but hoping that it wasn't here so they could leave.

[Ponic]

Ponic walked into the room slowly. "No, but we are close, it's not far from here." Keera entered as well and nodded. "I can feel it too, there's a pulsing sensation, whatever the energy is its close," she said. They would look around the room, but overall find nothing but wrecked wood pieces and dust. The room appeared devoid of anything impressive.

However, as Arianna walked through the room she would hear something, the floor beneath her feet would sound different. When she was walking elsewhere in the throne room her foot falls sounded normal. Behind the throne, however, they sounded echoed, meaning there had to be an empty space under the stone work. If Arianna used a portal or any kind of sensing spell she'd sense another room, underneath them. It was on the medium size in terms of size, not too huge, but if it was important enough to put somewhere secretively, it would probably be important enough to look in. Question was did they risk trying to find a door, or would it be safer to teleport in?

[Arianna]

It took her a moment to notice the echoey sound of her footfalls coming from under the floor behind the throne, and when she did sense it, she walked back and forth over the space several times to be sure. "Guys," she said, beckoning them over to her, and jumped on the floor. "Does that sound hollow to you?" She looked around for some kind of a door or passageway into there, but she may have been missing minute, important details due to being used to seeing things in color. After some looking around and seeing nothing, she decided to mention, albeit quite doubtful, "Well.. Chuck has begun to train me to Shift just recently... But I've never tried to do it with somebody else before.." And I've never gone any direction other than horizontal.. And I've never had amazing aim with anything... And if I Shifted us halfway through the floor that would probably be slightly life-threatening.. She had an absurd image of someone walking by and seeing three heads and shoulders sticking out of the floor, while someone underneath was quizzically looking up at three pairs of butts and legs dangling from the ceiling.

[Ponic]

If Ponic and Keera could read minds they would've laughed at that mental image. Ponic tested the ground as well and heard the same sound, it was hollow. "Hmm, must be another room down there," he said looking at the floor for any sign of an opening. "I'm worried about going through the 'front door' though. The area has hardly been used, so it might be in disrepair, or if there is anyone down there, then there's a chance that they'll be watching the standard entrance. I think we should risk a teleport." Keera looked at Arianna and nodded to her. "You can do it, Arianna, just concentrate, doesn't have to be fancy. Just get us through the ground here, it probably isn't that thick, and to the floor down below."

[Arianna]

Here lies Ponic, Keera, and Arianna. They survived raging Irates, only to die by being severed by the floor due to Arianna's general incompetence in the Shadow Realm, she thought ruefully. She sucked in a breath, however, and said, "Okay," to try and convince herself Keera was right. Let's see.. I can't tell how deep the chamber below is, but Ponic is about 6 foot and let's say the floor is maybe.. uhh.. a foot thick? Crap I don't know anything about construction. Well let's say try to go straight down about 8 feet, that should do it.. I hope... She didn't want to go too far down and get them all wedged into the next floor underneath. She took both of their hands in hers--hopefully they would't judge her hand sweat--and closed her eyes to try and imagine appearing exactly 8 feet straight down. It was much easier when she was actually familiar with her destination, but it would have to do.

In an instant, they were gone, and then they were somewhere else. For one brief moment, they would all hang in the air, and then they fell whatever the remaining distance was to the floor below. Hopefully the chamber was only about ten feet tall instead of thirty, but whatever it was they'd have to deal with it.

[Ponic]

They would fall a few feet, and would land on the stone floor. Not far enough to hurt themselves severely, but enough to be a bit of a pain in the bottom (pun fully intended) The room was, compared to the throne room, quite simple. This room was just a stonework all around, with no decorations as well as being on the smaller side. Arianna would see it was about the size of an average size living room and dining room of an Earth house. It was barely lit, as soon as they entered, however, there would be a large creature waiting for them. It was dark, and shaped similar to an Earth scorpion, however it had 2 stingers and eight legs. Also it was far bigger than Ponic, Keera, or Arianna. It was grey with black segments, and burning red eyes, with a mouth that showed four fangs, two angled down and two angled up. It roared at the trio and swept its two stingers at them...

[Arianna]

Arianna fell hard and felt pain shoot up her shins, but she would have to deal with the shin splints later, because they had company...

"Ponic.." she said in a small voice, fighting the overwhelming urge to immediately Shift right back u, "Please tell me that this is not where the familiarity is coming from and we can leave. Now."

As the beast swung it's stingers, she quickly blocked it with a wall of Dimension Energy, intending for the stingers to bounce off it and then have the energy dissipate. She then blasted it with Dimension Energy, still hoping they might be able to escape.

[Ponic]

Ponic dove backwards from the stinger, growing on tendrils and shooting up toward the ceiling where he landed to the side of the large creature. Keera used a shadow blast to propel herself backward quickly. For Arianna, because she tried to intercept the stinger with a shield, while it would work it would feel like someone had dropped a massive bowling ball upon her shield and she would feel the force ripple through the shield, despite the stringers not striking her.

"No, unfortunately, it's here," said Ponic, "I had no idea that this septolopod was here." Keera said, "the name basically means giant scorpion. They're very territorial, and extremely poisonous, we'll have to get past it."

The septolopod in response swung its stingers again, trying to hit them again, but meanwhile from its legs leaked shadow. The shadow moved across the ground and would be like a sticky substance to root Ponic, Keera, and Arianna to the ground to make the strike all the easier.

[Arianna]

Arianna absorbed the weight of the stinger's strike and was almost knocked down to the ground, but she quickly scrambled back out of its range. "Great.." she muttered. Well, on the bright side, at least there was only one and not a colony of them. Did scorpions have colonies? Who knows, that's not the point! She looked around them, but the room was just.. open. There was no where they could drive the thing back to, which meant.. She already felt sick thinking about scorpion guts everywhere.

"If only we could just send it off to the Irates.." she said, half-jokingly. She their goal was to save them, so it was out of the question anyway. Still, she wished they could just pick it up and put it somewhere else. She sighed, knowing they were all too good to send something as monstrous as this to anyone, even if they'd tried to kill them, as it appeared many have. As she was considering all this, the scorpion started oozing something that looked like tar everywhere, and Arianna guessed it wouldn't be wise to step in it. She opened a Rift to a desert, hoping the sand would absorb it, then had an idea...

This place was dark and secluded, which is probably what attracted the overgrown bug here. So if darkness attracted it... She opened a Rift right in front of its eyes that opened to the desert sun, bright in all its glory, including the reflecting rays off of the blinding white sand. Waves of heat rolled out of the Rift. Perhaps if she could blind it, Ponic and Keera could do some damage to it!

[Ponic]

The shadow on the floor began to fall into the rift, but there was a lot of it, spreading out like a carpet and was beginning to cover the floor around the rift as well. The septolopod moved towards them and struck with its massive pincers. These pincers let loose large strings of shadow that shot toward Arianna, Keera, and Ponic, and would feel like a nasty blade striking wherever it hit them. Arianna's strike blinded the creature for a moment, and Keera and Ponic both seized the opportunity. Keera ran at the creature and shot shadow at its legs, trying to cut them off, by wrapping the shadow and pulling hard.

Ponic meanwhile came down from above, having nullified gravity on himself, and then dropped on the creature's abdomen, the one place it couldn't sting as it would risk striking itself. Shadow shot out from Ponic like a gale that spread around the septolopod, making cuts and gashes in its skin. The septolopod, however, was not done. With a screech it blasted everything off it with a large pulse of shadow. It then swung its stinger again, this time spraying poison around the room, despite the damage inflicted upon it.

[Arianna]

Arianna managed to dodge the blade-like shadow, but not the poison. It sprayed her hand and forearm, causing an immediate burning reaction! She immediately closed the Rift--no longer blinding the creature--and stumbled backwards, shaking her hand and then coming to her senses a bit and opening a Rift of running above it to rinse it off (she hoped). Was rinsing off poison even a good idea? She felt like she heard something about that in a chemistry class... unless that was acid. This is seriously not the time Arianna..

She gritted her teeth and focused, blasting it with a Dimension blast, then attempting to use Hate energy to make it go insane and cripple its ability to fight.

[Ponic]

The poison bubbled as soon as it touched Arianna's skin and began to immediately get absorbed, due to its shadow properties. Arianna would now feel the burning sensation within her body as well, but not only that, those limbs would slowly begin to go numb as the poison worked its way through her system. The creature was struck by her Hate energy, but the septolopod was an angry territorial animal, it was already fighting with attacks that seemed more random than co-ordinated. Keera blasted shadow at the creature but it seemed to just take the strike against its carapace as if it was nothing and then with its large pincers struck out at Keera, Ponic, and Arianna. Keera dodged the pincer aimed at her, when it struck the stone there was a loud crumbling sound as the stone was destroyed. However, in the distraction, Keera was hit by one of its legs and fell backwards, hammering against the wall with a grunt.

Ponic quickly jumped in and used his abilities to try to manipulate the shadow within the septolopod itself, causing it pain. The creature roared a loud roar and struck at Ponic with its stinger. Ponic jumped backward, but felt the stinger cut across his arm. Ponic shouted out, instantly feeling his arm go numb from the poisonous shadow. "This isn't working," said Ponic, "and we can't risk using our bigger attacks in here because the castle could fall down right on our heads. We need another strategy." Keera slowly stood up and spun shadow around the creature, creating a wall, and trying to box it in for a moment. Ponic looked at Arianna, "can you try to open a dimensional portal into the septolopod? We'll launch attacks into the portal and kill it from inside."

[Arianna]

She clutched her forearm as her left hand and arm went numb, and continued trying to shake it to get the feeling sensation back before deciding the poison would have to run it's course. She did wind up dodging the scorpions next attack, thankfully, as she couldn't spare another arm (or, heaven forbid, a leg), ending up facing Ponic and Keera.

She tried not to look too surprised or overwhelmed at his question. That didn't even occur to me at all.. is that even possible?? "I.. don't know.." she said, "I've never tried anything like that before, but I can try. I was thinking maybe I could Shift it somewhere else, but then some other unfortunate person would have to deal with it, so that's no good.."

She turned her attention back to the scorpion, trying to decide how to go about this. I need to get closer.. Steeling her nerves, she concentrated hard and tried to Shift herself to the exact place Ponic had jumped onto its abdomen, where it couldn't reach her. She tried to stay on for as long as she could, keeping both her hands in contact with its exoskeleton *shudder* to be able to sense its internal workings a tad better than before. When she either couldn't hold on much longer, or was done, she jumped off and Shifted away from it, hoping to be able to avoid any more attacks, and trying to dodge any that may have come her way! (Though if she were to take any damage, she'd try to focus it all onto her already hurt hand and arm).

"Alright, I think I can do this now." She closed her eyes, and for a moment--nothing happened. But then, in the space between her hands, opened a Rift that was about 2/3 the diameter of the scorpions abdomen where she'd been seated. As soon as it opened, blood and guts and other vile fluids likely began to spill out on the floor, and she jumped back away from it to avoid it getting on her shoes, involuntarily gagging at the sight and smell of it.