capeandcowllogs | Where your eyes don't go a part of you is hovering

Where your eyes don't go a part of you is hovering

WHO: Everyone who's signed up for the Shadow Märchen plot and the people who get involved with them.
WHERE: All over the City.
WHEN: February 1st through February 9th. Specify the dates when you tag in.
WARNINGS: Probably a lot, since this is a festival of dark sides.
SUMMARY: The City plays host to a twisted theater of the mind as numerous imPorts become darkened, monstrous versions of themselves.
FORMAT: To be chosen by the thread-starters.

The start of a new month shouldn't mean anything special for the City--but this time, it does. Even if it's only because of an accident.

The pull of despair within each victim might come from nowhere, or it might seem like the most natural extension in the world of their current circumstances. However it manifests, the results come quickly: one living shadow all too eager to broadcast its nature far and wide, attached to a monstrous witch that warps the world around it in order to feel at home.

Where once there was an ordinary building, there now might lurk the entrance to a distorted dimension controlled by one of those witches. Where once there was a friend, there's probably now a monster. Can't find the friend that's become this monster? Don't worry too much about missing the chance--the familiars of their witch roam the streets looking for those who can be dragged into the labyrinth.

But take heart: what's within is still the same familiar person...in its own way.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Where are you? Why, if you entered Feferi's apartment in Trollhaus (or were even in the vicinity and got absorbed in her barrier), you might find yourself...

...on a little boat in the middle of the ocean. There is nothing around you for miles.

Except that giant golden palace right in front of you, actually. That seems to be your destination.

(ooc: Threadhopping welcome, I know there were multiple people who expressed interest in confronting Empress Feferi, so. Here y'go!)

What was she to think, after speaking with the shadow? Feferi's in danger, she was being threatened by this...imperious and doomed whatever-she-was. It wouldn't do if the threat was less metaphysical and psychological, and that seemed like something worth double checking.

Which is why she was surprised to find something very notably not Feferi's room when she opened the door.

Nepeta needed a few moments to calm herself down after that disaster of a talk with the empress shadow, but once she'd collected herself there was nothing stopping her from preparing to go out and scratch that smug smile off the shadow's face. Nobody talked about her friends like that, and they most certainly did not threaten them.

She hadn't intended on peeking into Feferi's room before going out and hunting the shadow down, mostly because she'd assumed that if the thing was still in the house she wouldn't have been able to disengage herself from the conversation that easily. But the door was open as she stalked down the hall, and for completion's sake she paused to check in on it.

"What," she said very eloquently, gaping at the limitless ocean sitting comfortably inside the door. When she spied Kanaya already taking in the scenery her confused gaze turned onto her, hoping the other troll had an answer at hand.

Interestingly, though the door was opened to the ocean beyond, no water spilled through into the hallway - it was as though there was a barrier holding it all in. What did spill through, however, wasn't something tangible or even all that visible, but rather a strange warping of the hallway and walls around it. It was almost as though the ocean itself was trying to draw the two trolls in.

They might be able to hear faint laughter.

"An astute question," she said to Nepeta, and she actually meant it. Not exactly poetry, but she had very succinctly described Kanaya's exact reaction to the phenomenon in a single word. "Stay close, if you're following. You never know what you'll encounter with magic like this, but she may very well be in danger. Not going in simply isn't an option for me, I'm afraid."

Kanaya didn't exactly give in to the pull just then, she didn't trust it. But she began moving in the same direction it wanted for now, trying to keep her footing in case it tried to spring any surprises on her. Instead, as her foot crossed the threshold of the barrier, it met the floor of a small boat. She grimaced and tried to steady herself, it wouldn't be much of an entrance if she suddenly capsized it and fell right into the water!

"Fur eifur of us! Did you see that thing on the network? We can't let it get to her," she exclaimed, pausing a moment to send a very irate scowl in the direction that the bodiless laughter was emanating from. Laugh while you can, fishbitch. Feferi's friends were coming to fuck your shit up six ways to Sunday.

Mental threat issued Nepeta turned her attention back to Kanaya and the boat, watching her carefully tread across the barrier. She hated water and wasn't exactly looking forward to this, but it wasn't like she had a choice this time. Taking care to keep her claws sheathed (what a disaster that would be if she ended up tripping) she followed her friend's lead and cautiously padded onto the boat. Her expression made it very clear that if she had anything to say about it there would be no rocking.

The moment the two were inside the door and on the boat, the water closed in behind them - if they turned, there was no longer a door, but just a wide-open expanse of sea beneath Alternia's two moons. No way back.

And without them paddling, the boat began to move towards the great golden palace of its own volition. Where there might have been guards along the walls, though, there were only cages - each filled with a troll skeleton.

A loud, low creak heralded the opening of a massive gateway at the base of the palace; two gigantic doors - each fifty feet high if not more - swung inward, granting access to the palace interior. This entrance was clearly meant to fit a warship, judging by how it dwarfed Kanaya and Nepeta's dinghy.

Come to play, have you? I'll keep you here with me forever.

As the boat began to move, Kanaya changed her footing to make sure she was kept steady. With the path behind them blocked, she took inventory of her threads. Everything seemed farther away, but she could still find those that would lead to the world beyond the barrier. "Don't worry," she told Nepeta once hearing the taunt ended, "we aren't as trapped as she'd like us to think. She isn't as familiar with Space as I am."

She didn't like staying on the boat. The feeling of being on a fixed course determined by something that likely had no kind intentions for them set off a dozen alarms in her mind. She wondered just how deep the water was, but swimming wouldn't likely be their best option, either. Nepeta probably wouldn't take to it.

Kanaya was right in that assessment - as soon as the boat had begun its journey Nepeta had lowered herself into a half-crouch, staying low to the swaying ground and dividing her attention between the palace and the dark water. She doesn't like anything about this, but she has a friend and her weapons and a hell of a lot of determination. There's no way she was letting a little discomfort slow her down.

"Yeah? That's good. I'm purretty sure she's not going to let us go so easily, even when we do beat her up."

When, not if. There was definitely going to bee a fight here.

As might have been expected, the moment the little boat slid through the cavernous doorway into the darkness beyond, the two of them could hear the gigantic doors begin to grind shut behind them - displacing water in the process to create a sudden flowing rush that picked the dinghy up and carried it forward. Hang on tight, guys!

The doors slammed shut, leaving the two in utter pitch-blackness for several long moments before golden lanterns flared into life in front of them, illuminating a long, ornately decorated dock. As it happened, the boat was headed for this exact spot, and gently bumped up against the wharf before coming to a rest - almost as though someone had tied it to its moorings invisibly.

If they cared to look in the water around them, they might see things bobbing on the surface - thousands upon thousands of dead cuttlefish, floating belly up.

But if not, climbing out on the dock would cause more lamps to flare to life one by one along the path, leading to a grand golden staircase that led upwards.

This is my space now. You are out of your domain, little midbloods.

The darkness never has to reach full pitch when there's a jadeblood nearby, and Kanaya switched on the moment the doors closed. She knelt down as the boat picked up speed, still afraid of capsizing, but keeping her attention around them.

She looked ahead at the lamps as they stepped out onto the wharf. Still a set path, but what was beyond it boundaries? The whole palace seemed dead, like more of a crypt than a place for a Hero of Life.

Nepeta couldn't jump out of the boat fast enough, more than happy to trade the lapping waves for the unknown dangers awaiting them at the top of the stairway. Her relief didn't last long at all, melting away practically as soon as she became used to standing on ground that isn't rocking. The eerie silence was enough to prompt her to unsheath her claws with a muffled snikt - no need to take any chances here.

"Kanaya, did you see what was in the water when we pulled up?" Nepeta asked quietly, eyes trained on their surroundings. She hadn't been able to help herself, concerned with the water as she had been. "I have a bad feeling we're not going to see anything else alive in here."

Alive? Little purrbeast, death is just a part of life. All that live must die someday, don't you know? It just requires a different point of view.

That staircase seems awfully long, now that you're looking up at it. It might just be because the torches don't extend that far up, but you can't quite make out a top.

"I saw," is all she had to say in answer to Nepeta, and she certainly didn't acknowledge the voice that seemed to echo in response to them, but coming to a similar conclusion about the environment disturbed her. This wasn't right, none of it. This wasn't what any palace fit for Feferi should look like. She didn't make any similar movement to draw her weapon, however, her attention is instead on the staircase.

It was too far up, and staying on the path determined for them had raise Kanaya's ire. She wasn't inclined to walk into a trap. She wasn't fond of all of this darkness.

It took some work to estimate the angle of the incline, as she would have to largely take a blind guess, but she wanted a shortcut. She reeled in a portal from somewhere in the darkness, somewhere higher up the stairs. She could see the other side, so she pushed a hand through to test if she might have hit a wall or not and to cast some of her own light across whatever was waiting.

Nepeta chewed her lip worriedly, just barely resisting the urge to make another face at that horrible voice following their every step and slinging some insults of her own back at it. This was a dangerous enough situation as it was; she didn't need to go exacerbating it just because of her first impulse.

Her attention was quickly drawn from the malicious echoes of the palace (and what a horrible palace it was) to Kanaya and her actions. Nepeta only had the most basic understanding of what she was doing but hovered close behind all the same, ready to strike out if the portal yielded something decidedly more threatening than a dead cuttlefish.

What Kanaya saw would be... more stairs; how anticlimactic. However, there was more to these stairs - they were more ornate and inlaid with gold, and the walls were painted a richer, more tyrian purple. There were also dark torches laid into golden sconces every few feet; if only she had some way to light them.

She was afraid of that. She didn't have any patience for torch puzzles, and her purse was still outside the barrier if she wanted to get any matches. Pulling it in might be possible, but it felt so much farther away than when she last checked.

She stepped through the portal, digging her nails into her palms to brighten her glow so Nepeta could see, and waited for her to step through behind her before letting it close. "I suppose that saved us some time, but not as much as I'd like. The climb could be endless from here, and aside from that obnoxious voice, this entire palace seems dead. Almost as if it's been forgotten. Or simply the inevitably isolating product of very unfriendly architecture."

"Or we're just the only people silly enough to want to come in here," she offered back with a small grimace. Nepeta had about as much patience for this whole thing as Kanaya did - she was tired of taking boat rides and climbing stairs and just wanted to find the shadow empress and get this over with. She didn't like feeling as if she were someone else's plaything.

Her gaze wandered up this new staircase, trying to gauge some sort of end to it. With nothing like that in sight she merely sighed and gave Kanaya a shrug. "I guess we should climb until we figure out something better to do."

It's awfully adorable that you two think you're here of your own free will.

The moment the two crossed the threshold, however, those dark torches suddenly burst into life once more, illuminating the stairway - and, as it would seem, the top... or at least something much like it. The light didn't quite reach into the darkness thirty or forty steps above them, but the room seemed to stretch out into something much larger than the relatively confined staircase...

...which was lined with statues of trolls, each unique, their faces contorted gruesomely as if in death.

Kanaya shielded her eyes at the sudden flare, sneering at the taunt of the voice. She was half-tempted to leave right then, just out of spite for its insistence of control, but she couldn't well leave Feferi here. Perhaps she was right on some level, but it was only duty to a friend that robbed Kanaya of her options.

"There's no other direction for us, really. See if you can't remove one of those torches for your own use." Kanaya had her own light, but it wouldn't do to leave Nepeta without in case something unexpected happened. Slowly, she continued her ascent.

"I'll grab one of the ones near the top," she replied. It would be wiser to try and remove a torch burning near them now, but Nepeta is finished waiting around. She darted ahead of Kanaya, ascending the stairs at a fast clip, not enough to tire but enough to speed up the climb. At this point she'd almost welcome some interference.

Be careful what you wished for, Nepeta. The whole stairwell was filled with a resonating, deep laugh - and as soon as she passed one set of statues (or were they statues?) they moved, grasping the weapons in their hands and swinging them down at the olive-blood. For the time being, they weren't moving from their alcoves, but swords were coming at your head either way.

Kanaya felt her heart skip a beat when the swords started moving. Quickly, she dashed up the stairs, making a dive for Nepeta to knock her out of the way before the trap came down.

Nepeta barely had the time to look up at the sudden movement in the alcoves before she was shoved out of the way. Her instincts kicked in as she rolled into a low crouch, claws brandished and ready for the statues to make another move. At this point she couldn't really rule anything out.

The statues kept moving, swinging swords wildly with stiff, creaking joints - until the stone at the base of their feet began to crack. Then one wrenched free of its alcove, stepping into the stairway and beginning a slow, relentless approach towards the two trolls. It raised its weapon to strike.

No! Stop! You have to leave them alone!

The statue attacked.

Feb 3-7, open

Feb 3

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