Bastion: Bastion

Demiurge
It felt different, this time - the jump. Each time it was different. There was something about the way the darkness passed. It wasn't quite like being unconscious. It was more like... flying. And there were these bright flashes of light that came and went, and almost each time it woke them into consciousness. Almost, but not quite. And when Grace once more fell into her own body, she would remember the journey the way that one remembers a dream. She would remember that it felt warmer, somehow. That it seemed as though they'd traveled further.

She'd remember that there had been something there with them.

And then she opened her eyes and saw the stars. It was like standing in space, looking out into the dark, sparkling infinity of all that ever had or would exist.

She was standing in space. But not precisely. There was a hard floor beneath her feet. The air was climate controlled - warm and slightly humid from the press of living, moving bodies. She couldn't actually see the glass that lay between her and the frozen vacuum beyond, but surely it was there.

People. There were people around her. Maybe fifty of them, all told, dancing together to the beat of some music that only they could hear. After a few moments of silence, that same music began to flood into her senses. It wasn't any kind of music she had ever heard before, but underneath the unusual sounds and composition lay the same primordial heartbeat that had been driving human-kind since the dawn of existence.

She was in some kind of club. The people around her looked young and fit, their bodies decorated with intricate, unusual designs that might have been paint or tattoos or maybe something else entirely. (Some of them moved and changed before her eyes as she watched them.) The were dressed in minimal clothing that looked almost... painted on. Soft fabric in different shapes and patterns that clung to the skin. Thankfully her own clothes were a bit less revealing. She had on a pair of fitted navy-blue pants, white boots and a white fitted t-shirt of some impossibly velvety, touchable fabric. Patience had on a similar outfit, but she...

She was lying near Grace's feet, her eyes closed. Breathing, but unconscious. (Like there was some kind of lag in the system and her mind hadn't yet made it into her body.)

Beside Grace, a tall boy was staring at the two of them in confused awe. He looked like the boy in the arena back in Rome. Like the woman from Sulis who'd ridden a white dragon. This version of Atreyu was cleaner-cut, with short hair and agile muscles and... that same tattoo of a two-headed ouroboros emblazoned across his bare chest.

It was still glowing, though no one here seemed to be paying it much mind.

Grace Evans
Grace opens her eyes, and the feeling is so strange -- having eyes, losing them along with her body, having a new one again.

Space. There's a starfield out there. It's the first thing that registers, and after that -- the bodies.

There are people all around her, suddenly, like being dunked in water. If it had been her choice, she probably wouldn't have entered a place like this. But assuming she had, she could have prepared. As is, the tension rises inside. Alien music starts filtering into her mind, and she has the impression that this whole scenario is utterly wasted on her. Should have brought someone else.

Lena would have liked it here.

She looks around, notices Atreyu with his glowing tattoo, and even though she's fresh and new in this body, she reaches out for him. "Stay! Stay this time!"

She tries to reach him, but there's something near her feet, in her way. She looks down to see Patience, and that stops her. She crouches down next to her friend, to make very sure she's still alive.

This place eats people. It's already taken two of them. She can't afford to lose Patience too.

Demiurge
When Grace reached out to Atreyu, they music faded to a low murmur. The boy tilted his head as though trying to process what she was saying, but he didn't leave. And this time nobody came to take him away. He pushed out his hands toward the crowd and said "hey, we need some room..." and the nearby dancers stopped to look down at Patience, their eyes registering concern. They pulled back out of the immediate space, giving the newcomers room to breath, and Atreyu crouched down beside Grace on the floor.

The room around them was domed, with that transparent front wall that looked out into space. The lighting was dim and tinted with cool tones, though it seemed to brighten around them subtly as Grace inspected Patience for signs of life. (Maybe that was just her eyes playing tricks on her, or maybe Grace would be too distracted to notice at all.)

The glow of Atreyu's tattoo faded.

"Here, let me help..."

He made a motion to try and lift Patience from the ground, but would hold back if Grace asked him to stop.

Demiurge
[edit: the music faded]

Grace Evans
She looks a bit worried at Atreyu, but nods an assent at him. She couldn't lift Patience if she tried.

Which way is North in space? She almost wants to grab hold of him and speak the magic words, if it wasn't for the sense that they could be headed in the wrong direction.

"Do you know where we can take her to rest?"

Demiurge
"We should take her to the med-bay," he offered, frowning softly as he pulled Patience's unconscious body into his arms. Atreyu wasn't especially bulky, and though he had an easier time than Grace would have, it still took a bit of effort for him to lift Patience and push himself back to a standing position. The boy had on a similar pair of navy blue pants, and unlike the rest of the dancers his body had no elaborate markings aside from the tattoo.

He was sweating a little. Everyone here was.

When Atreyu had Patience settled safely in his arms, he nodded toward a door that must have been the exit and began to move through the crowd. By the time they got to the door, the low hum of the music had silenced entirely - at least for Grace. The other dancers appeared to still be listening to... something.

The door slid open of its own accord when they drew near, and Atreyu led them out into a tall corridor. Here the left wall was transparent (just as it had been inside the club) and looked out into space. If Grace happened to peer out the glass, she'd be able to spot the edges of different parts of the space station.

Once the door closed behind them, they were alone. For now.

"You're... Grace, right?" Atreyu asked uncertainly as they walked. "I don't... I mean, I swear you just... appeared. Out of nowhere. And then... was I somewhere else? I can remember your face."

Grace Evans
Grace pushes her way through the throng of people, mostly because they make way for Atreyu but don't seem to notice her nearly as much. She runs into people as they dance, and it's a singularly discomfiting experience. She mumbles out 'excuse me' and 'sorry' along the way, if they can even hear her over the music.

Once they're out of that, the tension she's been carrying in her shoulders seems to slacken a bit.

"Yeah, Grace. And you're Atreyu. And that's Patience. We do have a tendency to drop in like that," Grace says, her speech quick, as if she's just getting through this minor bit of annoying chatter in order to move on to the real topic at hand.

"Which way is North? It's very important."

Demiurge
"I... what?"

Atreyu shifted Patience's weight in his arms and shot Grace an odd look. They were coming up on what looked to be some kind of glass elevator.

"We're not... I mean I guess if you want to define 'North' as up?" He glanced toward the ceiling. "But that's all really just a matter of perception. Shift the station's gravitational field and up would be down. Why are you..."

He didn't finish the question, because a moment later he blinked and said, "Oh, that's how you got here."

Then suddenly he stopped and looked at her. "You're not from here. Not... anywhere here. Where did you come from?"

Grace Evans
Grace walks next to Atreyu-in-a-new-body, taking in the sights of a space station. It would choose to dump them in a place that has no North, right?

"It sounds like you're remembering. That's good... I think," she says, and stops along with him. She shifts on her feet back and forth, though, as if anxious to get moving again.

"We're from Denver, Colorado. United States of America. Earth. 2014."

She doesn't add that they're from another universe too.

Demiurge
He ought not to have believed her. Not even the people of Sulis had believed Grace's story, and they'd lived on a planet with telepathic dragons. But what registered in Atreyu's eyes was not disbelief. It was... dawning wonder.

(Perhaps it might remind Grace of her own experiences once. Of the first time she'd really opened herself up to the vast possibilities of the universe.)

"You know, I keep thinking lately. About time and space. How everything is connected. How..." He cut himself short when he realized that they were standing there in the corridor with Patience's unconscious body hanging in his arms, and then he began walking again, picking up the pace to a purposeful stride.

"I'm sorry."

When the neared the elevator, it opened for them just as the door had. Once they were standing inside, the glass door slid shut and they began to move upwards. Atreyu hadn't pressed any buttons to indicate where he wanted to go, and none seemed readily available, but evidently the elevator knew where it was heading.

"I hope your friend's alright."

Grace Evans
Can someone like Atreyu Awaken? The way he talks about the connectedness of all things, the way he himself is a living portal, it makes Grace wonder if that's what he's doing every time -- opening his eyes and connecting. "Don't be sorry. That kind of thought is perhaps the most important."

She waits until they're in the elevator to start saying anything more, because what she's about to say might very well sound quite off to anyone else.

"Time and space are figments of our imagination. Everything is connected, because everything is all at once, everywhere at once. You can take two particles of matter and 'separate' them by millions of miles, and they'll still act like they're right next to each other. That's because they are. Location is just a thing brains made up because it made sense to at the time. It's easier, not having to process everything."

She looks to Patience, and what self-assuredness she had vaporizes. "I hope she's alright too. I need her."

Demiurge
"Patience Mason's vital signs are healthy. She is in good physical condition and health, but mental activity is limited to lower functionality. She is not conscious."

The voice was female - not Atreyu's. And Grace would not be able to accurately pin-point its source. It seemed to speak within the walls of her mind (everywhere all at once) like a telepathic link. Atreyu uttered a little sigh.

"That's not very useful, Bastion."

"You wish to know if she is alright. Unfortunately that is the only answer I can give with certainty. I'm sorry."

The elevator stopped and opened its doors, and Atreyu stepped out into another long corridor. This one had a handful of people walking through, most of whom were dressed more conservatively than the young dancers downstairs. When the nearest people saw them coming, a couple of them jogged over to see if they could offer assistance.

"Do you need any help?" A middle-aged man asked, and Atreyu shook his head. "She fell. We're just trying to get her to the med-bay."

After some hesitation, the man nodded, and he and the others stepped out of the way so they could pass.

Grace Evans
Grace starts, looks left and right for a speaker, but there is no source other than inside.

"Bastion? You're talking to Bastion?"

Have they reached their destination then? Is this where they needed to go? Is this the center? Maybe that's why there is no North.

The elevator stops, and Atreyu steps out with Patience in his arms. Grace follows behind, a little skittering thing in Atreyu's wake. "Hello? Bastion?"

She doesn't know yet whether the mental link goes both ways, but it would make sense. How else would the elevator just know where to go? How else would Bastion know the medical status of her friend?

She lets Atreyu, with his knowledge of the place, deal with the people in the hallway. She's not going to open her mouth and say something strange to them.

Demiurge
"I'm here." The voice registered again in Grace's mind. This time Atreyu didn't appear to be listening in. His focus was on a door up ahead marked with a white symbol shaped like the rod of aslecpius.

"That's the station we're on," he said. "Bastion. You don't have to speak out loud to talk to her. I just didn't want to exclude you."

"My name is Bastion, but I don't believe that I am precisely what you seek. You are imagining... God? I am certainly not that, though it is... flattering."

They reached the med-bay and the door opened. Inside was a white domed receiving area with a desk and a row of soft, ergonomic seats. Hallways led out in three directions to various rooms for treatment and care. A young blond man behind the desk nodded in their direction and said, "a doctor will be right with you."

And soon enough a group of nurses came out with what looked to be some kind of hovering cot. They pushed the cot toward Atreyu, and he laid Patience out on it carefully while the doctor (an Asian woman in her fifties with short hair and an interesting tattoo by her eye) ran some kind of device carefully over Patience's skull.

"There's no sign of trauma here. Can you tell me what happened?"

Grace Evans
If you are not what I seek, you're at least an echo of her, Grace thinks, hoping that the focus with which she does so is enough to 'speak' to Bastion silently. Can you read my mind?

They walk, and reach a place that looks much like a med-bay. It seems that even in the far future, the creator of this place decided to array it with ancient symbols. Snakes wrapped around a staff, like snakes wrapped around each other, eating their tails.

The doctor wants to know what happened, and Grace has to fight back the knowing smirk. She wants to explain how they were dumped here from another universe, really. But that wouldn't advance their cause.

"I don't know, she just fell."

[Manipulation + Subterfuge, because that's a total lie]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4) ( fail )

Demiurge
The doctor looked at Grace, then at Atreyu. There was a kind of tired skepticism in her eyes, like maybe she'd heard these kinds of lies enough times now to almost expect it. Especially when the patient came in with a nineteen year old boy who'd obviously just been clubbing (and still wasn't wearing a shirt.)

"I need to know if she consumed any drugs or alcohol recently."

Atreyu shook his head. "Not that we saw."

The doctor fixed him with another skeptical look and said, "I'm not the police. It's important that you don't keep anything from me."

"We're not. I promise. Truth is we don't really know what happened. We just found her like that."

That much at least was not exactly a lie, and the doctor seemed to accept it, despite her suspicions. She nodded and let the nurses take Patience back into one of the rooms. "I'll take a look at her and see what I can do. We'll keep you updated."

Then she followed the nurses, and Atreyu turned to look at Grace. "I hate being in here. There's a garden on the next level if you want to wait somewhere nice."

Demiurge
In answer to Grace's question, Bastion replied: I can feel the surface of what you think, yes. Emotions and questions. Needs. As I can everyone.

Grace Evans
"No. I should be here. For her. Just in case something happens, you know?" Grace just keeps looking in the direction they took Patience, like she's family -- not just some random person who happened to fall into the world with her.

Bastion speaking in her head will never not be creepy. She closes her eyes, and instead of words, what comes next is focused impressions -- pain that won't be silenced. She thinks of Sid, Kalen, Ian, Lena, even Maddoc. She sees the latter two's deaths in her mind's eye. She envisions home. She wants to go back. She wants to know how. And though Maddoc said that turning this into a fight was a sure way to lose, there is blame, isn't there? Why did you do this?

Even if the space station's Bastion isn't the real one, the fact that she can read their minds means the AI in charge -- the one which is not an echo -- can as well.

She opens her eyes then, and looks to Atreyu. "Thanks for dealing with the doctor. Do you know where I could... might find a computer interface? Or is it all just Bastion?"

Demiurge
Atreyu looked tense. Fidgety, even. He rubbed his thumb against the dip in his palm and looked for a moment as though he might leave her there to wait for Patience alone. But instead he just nodded and moved to sit down on one of the chairs in the waiting area.

He didn't know about the conversation that Grace was having with Bastion. About the flurry of memories and emotions she was offering up to the ship's computer, desperately in search of some kind of answer.

Something. Anything. Why?

And for a long moment Bastion was silent. Perhaps Grace had tripped up its algorithms somehow. But then she spoke again, softly.

"There are many stories in this world, Grace Evans. Some are heart-breaking. Some are beautiful. Many are both. You came to this place without an invitation, but now you are as much a part of it as I am. Perhaps when you reach the end, you will find the answers that you seek. Many people call this place 'the edge of the universe.' If there is a place where God can be found, you must be very close."

Atreyu glanced at Grace when she asked her question, but he seemed to know that Bastion herself would provide an answer, because he didn't reply, and a moment later a visual layout of some kind of computer display appeared in the air before Grace's eyes. Not unlike the holographic interface back on Sulis.

"I can provide a visual display if that is preferred."

Grace Evans
"Thanks for staying with me. I don't want to lose you either," she says to Atreyu, and goes to sit. "Every other time, we've lost you somehow."

For a moment, Grace wonders what the station computer would think to be used as a focus, to funnel the raw Data of this place into answers. She wants to know if a map of the station might include Atreyu-the-portal outlined the way he truly is. Or whether she might be able to ask the simulation itself how those portals are arranged -- how to get to the center. There's only one way to do that that she knows -- magic.

But first, she needs to know the computer she's using. It looks similar to Sulisian tech, but similarities can be deceiving. She starts using it in an attempt to familiarize herself with the programming in a way that doesn't echo inside her head.

If there is a place where God can be found, they must be very close. But, like she was explaining to Atreyu, distance is illusory. God is in the machine, and the machine is everywhere. It's not a matter of close or far, but how to reach her.

Demiurge
God is in the machine, and the machine... is everywhere.

Perhaps then, she has been with them all along. But if so, what was the point of the journey?

Grace began to teach herself to speak to the ship - this space station named for the very universe itself. And meanwhile Patience lay unconscious in an examining room while they all waited for something like an answer. Grace and a boy who was also a gateway (who understood about the connections between things because he himself was a connection.) Grace and a boy named after a person in a story that was itself about... stories.

And meanwhile, outside the walls of the station, the stars and the blackness of space marked the end of the man-made world and the beginning of something deeper.

Bastion: Sulis #3

Demiurge
In the aftermath of the attack, there was a change in the people of Winter's Edge that was more than just the devastation of grief. It was a kind of subtle sharpening. First shock, then loss, then a new awareness. They'd dealt with hardship before. Death was a part of existence. But this kind of war was new to them. Now they knew what it was that human nature could be capable of.
But they also knew hope and joy. They knew what it meant to be among family - community. And this was their home. This beautiful place that they had shaped and adapted themselves to. They would not sit idle while the land and the people were destroyed. And so it was that the shock and sorrow of loss turned to steadfast determination. To planning and action. For the first time since contact with Earth had been re-established, the people of Sulis were taking the fight to the enemy.
It was the morning after the attack when the riders showed up. Not just some. Not just many. All. Every single dragonrider the planet had to offer, and even a handful of riderless dragons who remained for their own reasons. (This was their home too.) When Grace and Patience woke up that morning (if they managed to catch any sleep at all after their harrowing experience and after the loss of Lena) they'd be greeting with the vision of a landscape blanketed with dragons.
The air around them was alive with the hum of anticipatory tension. In the center of the village, a temporary tent had been erected to serve as Council chambers, and the remaining members of Council were there now, speaking with the leaders of the dragonriders. It wasn't long after the riders' arrival when Lita found Patience and Grace to give them the news.
"The Council wishes to speak with you."

Grace Evans
Grace didn't sleep much that night. The memory of war is just too fresh. Every time she closed her eyes, it just gave her time to replay the events moment by skipped moment.
So, it's with bleary, red-rimmed eyes that she finds the dragons have arrived.
They're a welcome sight. Grace doesn't want vengeance for Lena exactly. What would it accomplish? The 'enemy' is a creation made to be their enemy anyway. The one responsible for all of this is the AI, right? The one they will have to beg to let their world go.
It's all bigger than Lena. Bigger than Sulis. And she has to remember that.
To keep on going is the only path Grace can ever take.
Lita finds them staring out at the dragons and riders, and though Grace is glad to see them, her face shows only fatigue.
"Okay. Lead the way," she says, her voice a dragging monotone.

Demiurge
Sara and Lita had mourned Lena's loss with them. As all of the villagers had. Mourning for them was a thing to be shared, and despite their initial distrust, most of the people who met Lena had grown to like her. But it was not the same as the way that Grace and Patience mourned. For them, Lena was a friend. Someone they knew. Someone from home. Someone they'd been traveling with for weeks.
Just as Grace and Patience could not truly comprehend the loss that Lita and Sara felt for Brandon.
It had been a long night. And now an even longer day lay ahead. Lita was quiet as she led the two women to the tent, and once they arrived she bowed out to return to the side of her remaining partner. Inside the tent, Grace and Patience would recognize Olga and the elderly healer from the day before. Both of them looked exhausted. Likely they'd been up all night tending to the wounded. There were others there as well. People from the village, and a handful of dragonriders. Each of the riders had an insignia sewn into their jackets of a pair of wings stretched out over a star. (Something to do with their rank, possibly.) It was one of these women who stepped forward to greet the two mages. She was in her thirties, with green eyes and light brown hair cut close to her head. Scars from some kind of animal attack showed on her neck and collar bone, like raking claw marks.
She held out her hand to both of them. "Catlyn Redstone. First Wingleader of the Dragonriders. I heard about what you did yesterday. The two of you saved a lot of lives. If you're still interested, your assistance in the attack would be welcome."

Grace Evans
Catlyn sounds like a soldier. It puts Grace's teeth on edge a bit. They wear uniforms over a rather uniform culture, at least what she's seen of it.
Insignias and ranks and uniforms and stone-hard speech patterns do not impress Grace. Soldiers, in her experience, do not bring freedom. How could they? They are almost the definition of oppression. Even Sulisian soldiers, with their happy pretty villages and happy nature dragons -- all a bit too happy, no? There's a reason why the concept is called Utopia. Who knows what the Dragonriders fight when they can't find earthlings?
She glances at the outstretched hand of Catlyn Redstone, but doesn't move to shake it.
"Grace Evans. Grad school dropout. Nice to meet you; I don't shake hands. And yes, we're very interested in assisting."

Patience Mason
Perhaps it was a callousness that the other magi had yet to see, or perhaps it was simply the fact that Patience had burned the candle at both ends for the last three days in an effort to prepare for their assault, that she slept like a stone.
She to was haunted, she too had felt the loss of Lena and shared in the tragedy that was the loss of so many lives...but for Patience, it was a drop in the bucket. But that is a story for another time.
On the eve of battle, upon the arrival of the dragon riders Patience stirred late, she slept until summoned and only then did she try to put her hair to rights, to fix her clothing and her appearance, only then did such things matter. When they arrived and were greeted by Wingleader Redstone Patience doesn't seem at all surprised by their desire to bring them along.
They had after all, truly fought fire with fire, levelling the playing field for the Sulisian's in a way they may well not have encountered before. But Patience looked about at the many dragons arrayed and looked disturbed, because as she took the womans hand and shook she said.
"Assistance shall be assigned, actualized and rendered in effect. Factual data point dissemination inquiry, are these atmospherically movated genus of frotean reptilians capable of sustained and efficient flight with a suitably capable general broad band transceiver attached to their bio-structures? If the direct and equivocal answer is in the negative....a reproduction of our previous aggressive noospheric degrative loop will not be efficiently possible."

Demiurge
Catlyn surveyed Grace with a clinical eye when she refused the shake hands, but the Wingleader didn't force the issue, and if she took any offense, she didn't show it. She was young to be ranked as high as she was. Likely there was a reason for it. People didn't end up with positions like hers without developing a cool head.
Although... a quick look around the tent would reveal that all of the riders present were around the same age. Some of them even younger. How long had the riders been acting as a military force? How much real experience did any of them have under their belts?
The question was moot, at this point. These were the people they had.
Catlyn gave a light nod of assent to Patience. "Don't worry about that. We've got it covered. We'll be keeping the two of you at the back when we make the assault. Once we clear a path, we're going to attempt to break into the ship. The work the two of you did to bring down their firewall yesterday was invaluable. They're bound to have strengthened it by now, but we have a team of technical experts who think they might be able to accomplish something similar... long enough at least to give us a window of opportunity. If the two of you can find a way to use that neural device to get inside the ship, that might get us in faster then trying to melt a hole through the hull. I'm assigning you to my wing. We've got a couple of dragons saddled up for you."
At this, she collected some fresh riding clothes and what looked to be a couple of futuristic firearms and offered these to Patience and Grace. "You'll need these. Go get ready, then meet me on the field. We leave in half an hour."

Grace Evans
Grace nods, but then gives Catlyn a weary glare. Maybe they needed more than thirty minutes to prepare? But did she ask? No. Asshole.
Grace takes the offered gun, even though half an hour is far too short a time to learn how to use it. No matter, really. If it comes to a gunfight, they've probably already lost.
"I hope your dragons are easy to stay atop. We're real good at falling off of them," Grace says, and marches off to change.

Patience Mason
They'd already planned to work around Patience and Graces original plan, this time asking them to use their technical capabilities to break open the shell of the companies ship rather then attempting to disrupt them. It seemed like a great gamble all to rescue one rider, but then perhaps it had become something else entirely, a rallying moment, a great defence of their lifestyle and land.
For her part Patience simply nodded to Redstone, not wanting to bring up the simple fact that to defeat one of these carriers might simply mean the arrival of more. But she took the clothing offered and returned to their room, dressing so that she might somehow ride one of those beasts out in the fields, and at the same time work the sciences required to help the Sulisian's gain victory, and the freedom of Atreyu.
When that was done she gathered what equipment she might need, anything that could be useful in the battle to come, from spare parts, to various computers to the all important neural uplink.

Demiurge
Catlyn was there to meet them at the edge of the field. The rest of her Wing was already saddled up and ready, with riders perched atop dragons who'd been fitted with the same weapons as those that Grace and Patience had seen upon their arrival. The saddles hooked into a metal crest that fit over the dragons' breastbone, and this seemed to serve a dual-function as both armor and weapon, with two large white orbs inset into the plate that hummed and glowed with some kind of power source. Catlyn's dragon, a large gold female whose hide shimmered gloriously in the sun, greeted the Grace and Patience with a blink of her iridescent eyes and a soft croon of curiosity.
There were two other dragons beside her: a coppery red male and an emerald green female, both of whom sat riderless. Catlyn directed the mages' attention to these dragons as they walked together through the grass.
"Hopefully you won't have to shoot anything, but in case you do, I've gone ahead and linked you in so you can control the guns. Tap the bracelet to activate the controls, then they'll follow your hand gestures." She demonstrated with a few quick motions of her own hands. "The firing command is vocal. Just say 'fire left' or 'fire right.'" After a pause she added, in a serious tone. "Don't shoot unless you know you can hit the target. Otherwise, leave the combat to us."
But there were still introductions to be had, and Catlyn smiled fondly as she looked up at the two dragons. "The red one's Rai. Green is Tally. They're pretty good with strangers, so they shouldn't give you any trouble. They know where to go. All you need to do is stay on."
When the dragons greeted them, the mages would feel it like a soft note of warmth blossoming in their minds. There were no words, but somehow it still felt like hello.
If either Grace or Patience needed any help in getting onto their dragons, Catlyn and a couple of the others riders would offer it to them. They also explained how to use the guns they'd been given, and how to properly sit in the saddle. Then each of them mounted their flying companions and got ready to leave.
All around them, the air was silent. Everyone was awaiting Catlyn's command. Then the woman lifted her arm and said, "to the air!" And a sea of wings spread and beat the air into great gusts of wind as they lifted into the sky.
To the North, the tall peaks of those snowy mountains rose up out of the ground to meet them.

Grace Evans
The warmth of Rai's hello fills her synapses, and she looks the red dragon in his large eyes. "You are an interesting one, aren't you?"
Telepathic animals. What will they think of next?
She climbs up into Rai's saddle, hoping he knows what to do, because she certainly doesn't. From up in the saddle, she looks to Patience, the only other left. They lost Maddoc and they lost Lena. Will this Bastion take them down one by one, then? And who's next? She's worried, and her red-rimmed eyes speak of the loss.
But it's time to move.
At least this time, even with a living, moving being underneath her, it's easier to stay on. It's also deeply uncomfortable. Let's face it, Grace was never the equestrian type. She's not used to her transportation being alive. But when they rise into the air together, it's hard not to stare in wonder at the ground's retreat.
It's not every day you get to ride a dragon.
Lena would have loved it.

Patience Mason
Patience looks a little concerned as she looked over the assembled riders, looking for signs of a technical team, with a transmitter or anything that looked like it would be powerful enough to breach the security systems that the company would likely employ on their carrier.
But the commander had said they had it covered, said that they were prepared normally it would not be enough for Patience, but she didn't know their world, did not know their technology intimately and to be truthful, some of it was beyond her. So she moved to the other dragon, the bright green dragon named Tally and tilted her head, offering a smile to the dragon as it spoke to her in her mind.
Thankfully she could offer it impressions and ideas, rather then words...for patience it was likely the most straight forward conversation she had been involved in outside of the Sons of Ether in over forty years.
But then they were aloft, then they were FLYING in a way that Patience had never imagined would be possible.
It was a very unique sensation.

Demiurge
Seated atop the dragons now, Grace and Lena would be afforded proper time to appreciate the experience in a way they had not upon their arrival, when everything around them was chaos and all they could think to do was to try to hang on to whatever was in front of them. This time, they were strapped comfortably into their saddles, and the ride was noticeably less bumpy. Rai and Tally soared into formation with the rest of Catlyn's Wing, hovering at the rear of the group as the other Wings flew ahead. As they flew higher, the ground beneath them shrank until the people in the village could no longer be seen. Until the trees and the buildings looked like tiny models. The air up here was brisk and cold, and it bit into their faces sharply. If Grace had been tired before, she would likely be quite awake now.
It was an impressive sight, all those dragons. Up here in the air, in their natural element, they looked beautiful. Majestic, even. And the riders would have a unique bird's eye view of the clouds that was much more immediate than what one might experience on an airplane.
Beneath them, the mountains rose up, and the dragons soared over the tops of them, until the rugged, rocky landscape beyond came into view.
That was when they saw the base ship. A massive black ship surrounded by squadrons of fighter jets - ready and waiting.
There was no turning back now. And the army of dragonriders moved into battle formation and dove in to meet them. At first, the situation looked grim, as the fighters shot forward and fired with everything they had. But then something happened. Their formations broke, and the jets began to scatter. And the riders took their cue and made their attacks, swooping in to fire on the handicapped enemy.
Catlyn's wing pushed forward toward the base ship, swinging around the worst of the chaos as they fired at any planes that got in their way. The air was filled with the sound of laser-fire and roaring dragons, and Grace and Patience would be able to feel the tense energy of their own dragons' thoughts on the edges of their minds.
"Look out!" Catlyn called out over the comm link. "Incoming attack!"
A handful of jets were hurtling toward them from below. They'd been hiding in the clouds.

Grace Evans
[Wits + Firearms! + WP]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Grace Evans
[Damages!]
Dice: 13 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 7 )

Patience Mason
[Wits+Firearms]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

Patience Mason
[Damage]
Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace Evans
The sudden ambush has Rai on edge and, well, so is Grace. But she's also very good at sharp edges.
That tenseness serves to focus her, making the task ahead of her a little easier. Her wrist comes up to eye level, and she flits her way to the firing command menu.
"Fire Left."
It is the first time Grace has had to stare down an enemy with the full intent of killing them. Certainly there have been other times where she has watched death happen, or helped in the process of eliminating a threat -- but these were all indirect results.
And now, she's cooly calculating attack vectors in the span of split seconds, wasting no time in burning a hole straight through a sleek fighter jet like it was made of paper.

Patience Mason
Patience watched as the fighters began to balk and lose their lethal cohesion, any hope of a coordinated assault by the fighters lost to individual dog fights...dog fights that the pilots of the jets would lose without their neural uplinks.
For her part Patience fired as the ambush fell upon them, some cohesion remaining in the enemy battle plan. 'Actualize Right." She would utter, hoping that it would understand her desire before with a satisfying blast, it sent of a shot that wounded a fighter, and left it momentarily disengaged as the pilot regained control.
"Closer geo-spatial locality will be directly and acutely necessary to actualize entrance protocol's and deactivation of the primary, secondary, and tertiary defenses of the primary inter-planetary structure." She called out.
She could do nothing from this distance.

Demiurge
One of their dragons - a heavy blue male - got hit hard in the wing, and he half-fell, half-soared out of formation, dropping down toward the distant ground with an angry cry.
There was no lake there to break their fall. Only hard earth and stone. The rest of the wing could only hope that the dragon had enough control left to survive the landing.
"We're working on it!" Catlyn responded to Patience's warning. The plane that Patience clipped in the wing shot a few rounds at her, and Tally narrowly dodged out of the way, tucking in her wings in a controlled fall before she spread them again and caught them with a sudden jolt. If Patience hadn't been strapped in, she likely would have fallen. But they were alive and unharmed. For now. And a second later Catlyn's dragon dove in and took the wounded fighter out of the air.
Back in the thick of the fray, the odds were beginning to lean in the dragons' favor as the fighter pilots struggled to navigate and aim their weapons without the use of their wired software.
And meanwhile the base ship loomed ever larger as Catlyn's wing took out the attacking jets and continued toward the ship. Another couple of plans shot out in their direction, but they were quickly taken out.
Ahead of them, the thick black hull of the base ship blocked out the sun. They were near enough now to see the outline of one of the docking bays, its door closed against entry. Catlyn ordered the dragons to fan out in a half-circle around Grace and Patience, protecting them so they could work.
"We'll keep an eye out. Try to work fast."

Grace Evans
[Int + Computer, Diff 8 - 1 (Ability Aptitude) Specialization: Creative]
Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

Patience Mason
[Int+Computer, Diff 8 Spec WP]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (4, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Grace Evans
Try to work fast, Catlyn says? Well, Grace's fingers shuffle words into the air, and in the readout on her holographic interface, text scrolls by faster than most could read in the effort. She's not reading it all, just the parts that count.
Using the signals generated by their captured neural interface worked the last time. Something like a password built into the device helped sneak them in. This time, it's not working.
"Patience, can you modulate the frequency on this thing? Cycle the passcode around a few million times, and brute-force it?"
Hopefully neural interfaces don't come with a '3 tries and you're locked out' policy.

Patience Mason
A few bits of code here, a few pulses of electricity along the neural links pathways, and a few high frequency bursts saw the device purring as well as one could expect.
The exchange began, and thought it was tenuous at first the computers began their work. Soon they bore fruit and Patience and Grace were rewarded for their work with the sudden and heavy release of the door seals.
"Internal handshakes 100% complete, internal and external movation portals now available for all unathorized personnel!"

Demiurge
When the bay door began to open, the surrounding dragonriders let out a chorus of whooping cheers, and Catlyn radioed into the other wingleaders to announce their success. Her dragon dipped toward the entrance and hovered there, giving slow flaps of its wings while Catlyn unstrapped herself from the saddle and hopped down into the ship, giving the motion for the others to join her.
From this point on, the dragons could not follow. The riders were on their own.
Inside the docking bay, Grace and Patience would be greeted with the site of a large, domed room. The floor was laid out with long, digitally lit runways. The look and feel of the base ship was much more traditional science-fiction than what the two of them had seen back in Winter's Edge. Sleek and cold and technical in design. As the riders scoped out the room, they drew their guns and pressed forward, advancing toward a set of metal ladders that led up to the second floor, and what appeared to be a doorway leading further into the ship.
"Keep an eye out," Catlyn said quietly. "They're bound to figure out we boarded soon."

Grace Evans
[Corr 1: Attempting to generate a map of the base-ship, looking for likely prison-holds.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace Evans
[Extending!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (8, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Grace Evans
The riders cheer for them, but Grace does not seem to register it. Joy is an emotion missing from her repertoire at the moment. Above all, she must keep moving, keep going after the real goal of their mission: Atreyu. To do otherwise would invite memories of terror and grief back.
She watches the doors raise with the same tired stone face she's worn all day.
When her dragon lands in the bay, it's like stepping into another world (and by now, Grace should know). She again readies the wrist computer, and begins doing things to it that the Sulisians have probably never before considered.
For a short while, the holographic display fills with what looks like static. It's actually the Code of Bastion, and Grace works at refining it into a map of the place. Bits shift as she filters out the spacial data from the rest, and soon she has a working three-dimensional display of the entire thing.
And there, on the map, a glowing beacon. It looks like a hole, and makes Grace think of a simpler time in her apartment with Gadfly, looking for wormholes. Atreyu.
She takes the map data and shares it with the dragonriders. Through the comm, she says: "I found this in their computer. I think I know where we need to go."
It's a lie. But at least they might not question it too much.

Demiurge
Grace was right on that count. The riders didn't think to question how she got ahold of the ship's blueprint, or why Atreyu would be especially marked out. It had seemed as though she was well-known among the people of Sulis. Perhaps she'd been targeted as a high profile prisoner? It had to be the reason they yet kept her alive.
(Hostages, all of them. But for what? These were clinical tactics. They use a show of brutal force to frighten the enemy, then threaten to kill their remaining prisoners if demands are not met.)
The riders looked at the map and pressed forward, climbing the ladder in single-file to get to the main level of the ship. When they reached it, Catlyn looked at the solid door for a moment, taking in its construction. She was about to ask the mages if they had any suggestions toward opening it, when the barrier slid aside of its own accord.
Behind it was a line of soldiers in black and red uniforms. When they saw Catlyn's face, they raised their weapons and fired.
The Wingleader had quick reflexes. She got hit in the shoulder, but managed to duck out of the way of any lethal damage. A couple of the riders behind her weren't so lucky, but the rest of them fired back. It was so fast, the way it happened. Patience and Grace would barely have time to register that they were under attack before people started dying. And when it was over, the size of their group had been dropped down to five, including the now-injured Catlyn.
She stood up from her crouched position against the wall and spared a final look at the dead riders, then nodded toward the hallway. They knew where they needed to go.
Stepping over the bodies of the dead soldiers, Grace, Patience and the remaining riders made their way down the long corridor. They turned a corner into another section of the ship. Then another.
Finally their destination loomed ahead: a hallway lined with heavy doors marked with cell numbers.

Grace Evans
[Int + Computer, diff 8-1, Specialty: Creative!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1

Grace Evans
[Extended action!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7) ( fail )

Grace Evans
Walking through the ship is a tense affair. They're interlopers here, and every corner could hold a nasty surprise. The trained soldiers take the lead, and Grace is thankful for that, until it brings the word 'meatshield' to mind.
They stay quiet until reaching that door, and Grace is going for her wrist computer to try to do something about it when it flies open on its own.
With a jolt, she presses herself up against the wall, almost a reflex reaction, trying to make herself a hard target. Almost as soon as that, it's over.
So much death these past couple of days, and all of it happens so suddenly and quickly and noiselessly. There is the hiss of laser fire, but it's not like a gun, that. Just one second you're alive, and another your insides are cooked. Grace could have done without the designer of this world going so far as to come up with realistic burnt-flesh scent.
She swallows down the sharp fear inside, looking at the newly departed, and then reassuring herself by looking to Patience. Still alive. They're both still alive.
She nods at Catlyn. "We'll get to her," she whispers, unwilling to let any further enemy teams in on their location.
Grace has to step over bodies to get to the cell blocks, but finally it seems that the destination is at hand. This is what they sacrificed so much to get to, right?
She starts working on the doors, mundane hacking this time. Using their technique of using the enemy's neural network signals to interface with it's computers, she gets in. She gets in, and then tries to open the cell block doors. But there's a hitch. Whoever their stolen neural wetware belonged to? He didn't have security access.
"Oh shit."

Demiurge
Oh shit, Grace said. And at roughly the same moment, an emergency alarm sounded throughout the ship. There ought to have been guards here. Perhaps those men and women they'd taken out at the entrance had been left behind to do just that.
Maybe the enemy had never really expected the possibility of a boarding party. The whys didn't really matter now. What mattered was that an alarm had gone off, and there they all were trying to figure out a way to get into a bunched of locked cells with no time to think. Patience was likely to try and use her skills to warp the door's pattern, while Catlyn looked as though she was about to start firing her weapon at the latch until it blew open (if that was even a possible outcome.) But in the end, none of them needed to do any of those things, because just then all of the doors... opened.
All on their own. With no obvious source.
(Like someone was helping them.)
All around them, prisoners broke out into the hall, running to hug their dragonrider friends in relief and gratitude. (They thought it was them who'd released them.) And standing in front of Grace and Patience, the target of their search: Atreyu. She looked like she was in bad shape. Her leg was bandaged cleanly, but the rest of her was bruised and exhausted and thin from hunger. Still, she was just as relieved to see them as the others were, and she let out a rush of breath.
"I thought they were coming to kill me this time."
And in a heart-beat, she rushed forward and pulled Catlyn into a fierce hug. But there was no time to exchange stories or pleasantries. No time to do much of anything but try to run. Atreyu broke the hug and looked at Grace, then Patience, and something seemed to light up in her eyes. This sharp note of confused recognition.
"I remember you," she said quietly. Almost as though she was not sure she ought to believe the memory. "On my dragon. And... from somewhere else. A dream I had of Earth. And of... Gladiators? She laughed at that, like the very idea seemed so ridiculous, and Catlyn eyed her like she'd gone insane.
"We have to go," Catlyn said, and she ducked out of the cell to see to the other survivors and make sure none of them needed help escaping.
But Atreyu didn't go. Not yet. Instead she grabbed Grace and Patience's hands like she had something very important she needed to tell them. Perhaps it was only a trick of the light, but it seemed as though a pin-point glow had suddenly appeared in the center of her pupils.
"It's coming again," she whispered. "You have to go."
Something creaked through the ship's hull. A low, dull sound like warping metal.

Grace Evans
"You remember?" Grace says, breathlessly. "Right. Right. North is..." she says, trailing off as she aligns herself with Patience, to stand facing North.
Goodbye, Sulis. Goodbye, Lena.
"Tu, was du willst."

Demiurge
Things fall apart. First in Rome, then here. The chaos, the violence. And then the storm.
Maybe they were right. Maybe it was the hand of God reaching down to punish them. Or maybe it was something else. Entropy. Paradox. None of them knew. But they could feel it now, even beyond the barrier of the ship's hull. They could feel the current in the air. Could hear the sound of metal being ripped apart. The entire ship vibrated with it like an earthquake. It was breaking at the seams.
Atreyu took their hands, and Grace pointed them North and said the words to activate the portal. And then the symbol on Atreyu's chest glowed once more, and light struck down through the ceiling and enveloped them.
It was the last the two mages would ever see of Sulis. Of the people they'd spent the last few days with. Who they'd fought beside and mourned. The people that Lena had died for. Perhaps this time the loss would be felt more keenly for all that.
But they wouldn't have much time to contemplate it before their minds were pulled away and flung into that now-familiar darkness.

Bastion: Sulis #2

Demiurge
"Welcome to Winter's Edge."
After their release, Lita offered to house the guests in her home. Perhaps the mages might feel some mistrust toward her after the manner in which they were welcomed, but she seemed to genuinely want to make amends, and as of yet no one else had stepped up to offer the same. The villagers had heard by now about the origins of their mysterious guests, and while many were curious (and few seemed anything close to openly hostile,) very few felt safe welcoming them into their homes. Lita's house was of a moderate size, with a single guest room that Grace, Lena and Patience would have to share. But there were enough beds for all, and plenty of food, and the house had an elegant and rustic charm. Lita resided with a man and another woman, all of whom appeared to be in a comfortable polyamorous relationship. The man, Brandon, was a tailor, while Sara, the younger woman, seemed to be some kind of artist. A number of her paintings hung on the walls of their home - beautiful abstract creations full of wild, vivid colors. Of the two of them, she was the most warm and welcoming, but Brandon was cautiously friendly.
All told, it wasn't a bad place to spend time while they regained their strength. Lita even managed to procure a few of those digital bracelets that everyone seemed to wear, and left them for Grace, Lena and Patience to use if they wished. A thorough inspection combined with trial and error would reveal the bracelets to be some type of computer-slash-communication tool. To access its menus, an interactive holographic display would appear in the air, and could be interfaced with via both voice commands and hand motions.
The day they'd been released, Olga had told them about the Company's base ship. They if Atreyu was still alive, she would be there - airborne behind the tall, snow-capped mountain range. There was no chance of them getting there by foot. But by air? Perhaps. The locals were already planning a rescue mission.
It was three days later when Lita came home from a hunting excursion to seek out her guests and give them the news. Wherever they were, she approached with a grim and excited expression.
"The dragonriders are attacking tomorrow."

Demiurge
[Edit: "That if Atreyu was still alive"]

Grace Evans
[Int + Computers, Diff 8 - 1 (Ability Aptitude) Specialty: Creative/Analysis]
Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 3, 3, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1

Grace Evans
Grace has been much happier since being released from jail. Which, really isn't surprising, exactly, but the people of Winter's Edge will find her to be much less full of snark and sarcasm, and much more utterly gleeful. She also spends nearly all of her time glued to her wrist computer, and telling her compatriots everything she finds out about the way those computers work.
For a person who has never seen a holographic bracelet computer in her life, she's quite a quick study.
And that is where Lita will find Grace, peering into holograms and waving her fingers like a kid who's gotten the toy they wanted most at Christmas.
"Tomorrow? Are they coming by the village, or should we go out to meet them?" she asks, the excited grin on her face fading into something that more respects the gravity of an immanent attack.

Lena Reilly
For her part, Lena isn't distrustful of Lita, because she understands.  Putting herself in the shoes of those at Winter's Edge, she completely gets why they would be cautious, wary and even directly hostile to outsiders, especially ones who talk about things that don't seem normal to them.  Lena's just glad that they listened to reason at all, and Lita had been level-headed and smart throughout.
So she's friendly to the woman, and grateful for the offer.  She takes the offered bracelet with the same gratitude and leans the ins and outs of working with it.  She's no technophobe obviously and she's curious by the holographic technology, though probably not as keenly as her fellow Awakened.
She speaks with Lita and her partners, seems comfortable around them.  If they end up trapped somewhere in the end, this would certainly not be the worst place to be trapped.  Of course, that's not her goal, and she's focused on finding the next way out of here, which brings them to Atreyu.  She listens as Olga explains about the ship, frowns thoughtfully and nods.
When it's almost time, Lena turns to hear the news from Lita and nods.  "All right.  Well, no time like the immediate future then."  She smiles a little, even if it's faint.  After all, this is an assault and there's danger.  She takes a breath, running her hand through her hair.  "What do we need to do?  Find someone to ride with, I'm assuming, or is that covered?"

Patience Mason
Freedom was theirs and there was certainly no time to waste. The trio were housed, given a home away from home by Lita and Patience harboured her no ill will. She had performed her duty, protecting her people and her loved ones. It was impossible to be unhappy with someone for such an act.
But with freedom there was no time for idle chit chat, no time to sit back and enjoy the hospitality [great or small] that the village had to offer. No after learning of the nature of their enemy, this so called 'company' Patience had set about working, her methods would no doubt seem strange to the people of Winter's Edge, and she took whatever space she could to begin her work. Much of it centered around the device she had extracted from the company pilot. The neural interface which allowed them the ability to communicate with their machinery on a neural level.
Such technology was formidable...but also bore deadly weaknesses. Ones that Patience now sought to exploit.
It would be early  on the third day that Patience would approach her companions wherever they were, already looking tired, perhaps a little manic, but through it all she seemed alive, almost bursting with an energy that was raw and vibrant.
"Potential thesis!" She would declare as she strode up to the two. "Utilizing a data trans-sublimation pulse wave on a integral frequency generated by the neural cerebral data transmitter and integrator unit, I theorize that a reciprocating and degenerative temporal neurokinetic loop may be integrated into the companies individualized personage relativistic perceptions. Thus reducing successful reaction times and computational processing by all opposing amalgam operatives!" She would seem to indicate it was so simple, so easy to do.
"Grace, Lena, project and disseminate potential data integration and program actuality...potential?"

Demiurge
Grace and Lena were already there in the living room, with Grace manipulating the holographic images in front of her like a kid who'd just been given a new toy. Lita seemed fondly entertained by the group's fascination with everything they came up against, and although she'd likely never fully believe the story of the mages' origin, she did at least believe that they were not intentionally lying to her. After that first night, she hadn't asked them many questions about their past. Perhaps she assumed they didn't wish to discuss it, or perhaps it was more that she didn't want to hear the answers.
As she gave her news, she set her things down by the front door, hanging her jacket and placing her weapons and hunting tools in a locked alcove on the wall. She was about to answer Grace and Lena's questions when Patience came striding in with her announcement. The idea seemed to give Lita a moment of pause.
"Do you think you could achieve something like that?"
Because if they could, it was certainly worth trying.
To the others she said: "The Wingleader said she'd make a stop here to talk to you. I think she's interested in finding out how useful you might be. But no word yet when she'll arrive. I think they're pretty busy preparing."

Grace Evans
"Slowed reaction times while piloting a jet would be pretty catastrophic," Grace says, pondering Patience's 'thesis'. "Like drunk flying. How many do you think you can hit? Do you think I could help?"
Grace's eyes flit back to her holographic display. "If they're networked, I could try to bring down whatever firewalls they put up to stop you. Keep the effect flowing, maybe even spread it virally. What do you think?"
To Lita, Grace just shrugs. "It's not really a question of can and cannot, more a question of how. Everything is possible. I think I could probably hack into their computer and bring it to its knees and call me Mistress, except that I don't know their tech very well yet. Could be tricky. All we have is that implant. But you know... I have seen the weaknesses of those kinds of things firsthand. It gives you some benefits sure. It's also the very opposite of pretty when one explodes."

Lena Reilly
Patience's thoughts on a potential plan put a smile on Lena's face.  She has no idea how that would work (she's not THAT savvy with such things), but it's certainly worth a try and her expression suggests as such.
"Great idea," she says with a nod, and Grace is already talking about ways to assist, and offering her own ideas.  Lena, for her part, is a little less confident in a situation like this, but that doesn't mean she's not willing to try.
"I'm no computer expert," she says, turning to Lita.  "But I have a few tricks I can pull.  Get inside their heads on a limited scale, person-wise.  Nothing huge, but enough to give them some very detrimental impulses."  She shrugs.  "Outside of that, I'm pretty incompetant when it comes to fighting but that doesn't mean I won't try."

Patience Mason
Patience nods repeatedly to Grace's words, happy that the Virtual Adept had no trouble understanding her in moments like this. "Degenerative data packet transmission is in theory relatvistically simple, primary variables associate with strength of transmitter and integral systemic failsafes, potential extrapolation curve forcasts potential actualization in ninety eight point nine nine nine percent of alli individualized personages currently integrated with the afformentioned neural cerebral network integrator."
Lena offers her own thoughts as well and Patience nods. "Potential assimilation and utilization of the afformentioned transmitter may allow for a greater geographical range and numerical affliction ratio." She offers, before looking to Lita in particular.
"Are direct luminous field generators readily available within your socio-political amalgam?" She inquires. "Or, more effective, general high frequency data transcievers?"

Demiurge
"Oh," Lita looked at Lena in surprise. "Are you an empath? I didn't think..."
What was she about to say? That she didn't think the people of Earth had that capability? Perhaps wisely, she chose not to complete the thought. Instead she smiled sadly and said, "I wish I could go with you."
"Maybe you can, Lita. I heard they were looking for anyone skilled in combat to help in boarding the base ship." Sara walked into the room with a smile and stepped up to kiss Lita hello. Her arms and clothes were covered in drying paint, and Lita ducked out of the way after returning the kiss.
"Careful. You'll ruin my clothes. Where did you even hear that?"
"Eric, Hestor's kid. He was telling me about it."
"Ah," Lita replied, as though this was all the information she needed to complete the picture (not just of how Sara had heard it, but of why she herself had not.)
Patience asked Lita a question, and Lita cocked her head in silent contemplation. "Of course. All of the villages do. It's how we communicate."
She looked as though she was about to say more, but just then the air outside the treehouse came alive with the low, wailing echo of a siren.
Like a weather warning. Or worse: an incoming attack. Lita immediately snapped to attention and pressed her hands to Sara's shoulders. "Stay inside." Then she kissed the other woman on the forehead and ran out onto the porch.
In the distance, beyond the treeline: a wave of fighter jets was heading their way.

Grace Evans
Grace follows closely on Lita's heels to see what's the cause of the siren, as if she wasn't fairly certain already. She then looks back to Patience and says, "How soon do you think you can get your thesis operational? I know our wrist computers have a comm system built into them, could you use that as your field generator?"
From her vantage point on the porch, she watches the behavior of the villagers. Assuming they seem to know what to do, she will follow suit. When on Sulis...

Lena Reilly
If they hadn't already confessed to everything they had, Lena would have gone about her skills discussion differently.  Made something up and quietly done her Mind work under the guise of something else...distractionary work, perhaps.  But they've already shown their hand, what's one more card?
She smiles a little when Sara comes in.  In truth she's a little envious of the two.  There's nothing wrong with Envy, when not allowed to grow out of control and fester; it helps us recognize the things we value.  They talk and Lena tilts her head, listening for a moment, before the alarm sounds and one of their hosts is running out onto the porch.
Lena follows suit, looking at the jets.  "What can we do?"  It's her first question, help offered without reservation.

Patience Mason
"This theorem would require a data sublimation and transceiving locus of significant transmission strength, amplitude and frequency in order to be efficient on any large scale deployment." Patience looks at the row of fighter jets streaking towards them, their arrival imminent, likely even sooner then that.
Good science required time, careful planning, revision and accumulation of data to make said revisions. The mere seconds available to Patience at the moment...did not even remotely allow for 'good science'. Thankfully the Etheric scientist did not entirely rely on good science. When it came down to it, she could play dirty in a pinch with a lot of elbow grease and a bit of luck. Necessity was the mother of invention after all.
"Direct and immediate assembly of a functional and actualized prototype will require several temporal cycles in the standardized temporal unit identified as minutes to the layman. Addendum, necessary programming and data architecture is not concurrently available for appropriate field testing, further addendum, utilization of the afformentioned weaponized cerebral noospheric disruptor may gestate an innate and detrimental immunity should any individualized personages afflicted survive."
It was a warning...a very grim one at that.  But Patience started to move, running headlong towards whatever space she had commandeered for her work. She had much to do...and very little time to do it.

Demiurge
In the face of imminent threat, the mages' thoughts were not toward their own safety, but rather whatever assistance they could provide to defend against the assault. Lita told Sara to remain in the house, but of course she did not (because she was not a child, and she had her own mind.) So she followed the others onto the balcony to look up through the trees at the approaching squadron. When Patience left the group to get to work on whatever it was she had planned, Lita spared her a glance, but little more.
There were no bomb shelters here. No underground space... at all. The village had not been built with defense from air attacks in mind. The truth is, the people here had nowhere better to hide than inside their own homes, or perhaps out in the woods, if they spread out enough not to draw individual attention. Lita's home at least was far enough back that they'd escape the first wave of the assault.
"We have to get people to shelter," Lita answered Lena's question. "If you see anyone, especially children, tell them to fan out and get to the woods. The thicker the trees, the better."
She looked at Sara. "Where's Brandon?"
"He's in the market. I'll get him. You go help the other hunters."
Lita nodded, and this time when she kissed her lover, it felt like a goodbye. (Like: I love you, and stay safe.) Then Sara ran down the spiraling steps that led to the ground and Lita ducked back inside to get her gun. Weapon in hand, she made for the center of the village, where other armed citizens were pooling together.
Everything was happening at once. The sirens blared their warning, and all around the village people shouted and ran, confused and afraid. Perhaps they'd never thought that an attack would hit so close to home. But it had. And now their more leadership-minded members were herding the others away from the front lines while those in charge of defense raced to enact what little help they were capable of providing. Near the front of the village, a couple of metal turrets rose out of the ground and began to fire bright bolts of electricity at the approaching jets. One of the jets was caught and crashed into a grain field. The others kept coming though.

Patience Mason
[Int+Tech Spec WP diff 8]
Dice: 8 d10 TN8 (2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 1 [WP]

Grace Evans
When Patience left, Grace went with her. The two of them have worked on projects before, and perhaps she can be of some assistance. At least she probably won't be in the way.
In theory, they should be able to use their wrist computers to connect to the village's comm hub, using its power to funnel a powerful signal straight up those jet pilots' wetwares. But it's that power boost that's needed, isn't it?
"You deal with the implant, I'll see if I can't get the comms on full blast," Grace says, and starts waving her fingers at the holographic interface on her wrist.
[Int + Tech Spec WP Diff 8]
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Lena Reilly
There's a quick nod when Lita says it's about getting people to shelter.  She can't do a lot, but that she can definitely do and without hesitation she sets off, heading to handle crowd control.  She's scared...this is important to mention.  She's been very specific in her mind that this is all a simulation, and that's all it is.  It does not mean that she doesn't care about her person.  And besides, it's like the mercenary told his captain about the undercover Alliance agent:
Pain is scary.
And yet the fear doesn't stop her.  Pain is just pain, and if she is actually to die...well, if she dies, then she died saving people.  That's her best-case scenario anyway.

Patience Mason
Patience ran, felt her lungs burn as her legs drove her onward and her mind began to consider the plans required, the connects necessary, the theorems that would need to be computed. To her benefit, and her gratitude Grace had elected to join her, the pair running first to her small work space, and then towards the village's communications hub.
Patience simply nodded, not having the time to agree verbally, every nano second spent in conversation was several noospheric computational allocations lost to more important endeavours, because every full second could mean the difference between life, and death for the villagers, and themselves.
She worked quickly, having already been fairly aware of what needed to be done with the neural link...and it only took her a few moments to get it operational, she was over to Grace then, ready, waiting.
"Noospheric uplink and data dispersion capacitator operational and suitably augmented." She said as she waited for the necessary connection to bring it all together.

Demiurge
Grace and Patience set to work on finding a way into the enemy's neural network, while Lena ran to ground level and joined the other villagers in getting the people to safety. There wasn't much she could do, true. There wasn't much any of them could do. But they had to do what they could - and they did.
When the attack hit, it came hard and fast. The planes let loose a rain of red-hot laser-fire at the fields and farmhouses beyond the trees. One of the houses caught fire and lit up in a brilliant plume. Then the attack hit the front of the village proper, decimating trees and buildings. The sound of it was almost terrifyingly clinical. Not the harsh echo of bullets but the near-silent rush of air and heat followed by the tearing and sundering of wood and stone.
A lot of people died. You could see them falling, their bodies torn and smoking from cauterized wounds. Some of them were beyond recognition by the time they hit the ground.
The planes shot upward, hurtling over the tree-tops to make a pass at them from above. (Then it really was like rain.)
As Lena drew near the center of the village, she saw a ground of children sitting on the ground, crying and confused, beside the body of a woman who had likely been their mother. There were five of them, at varying ages between 5 and 13, the oldest of which (a boy) was trying desperately to get the others to move.
"Come on, we have to go! We can't stay out here!"
As Grace and Patience broke out into the fray, heading for the communication hub at the front of the village, they'd be confronted with the full vision of the attack - and the destruction left in its wake. They'd have only a few moments to reach their destination while the squadron doubled back and went in for another pass at the front. Enough time to reach the massive tree where the Council chambers (and their former prison cell) lay, but not enough time to climb to the transmitting device without putting themselves in harm's way.
When they got there, the tree was already a patchwork of scars, the ground littered with smoking bark and broken limbs alongside the dead villagers.
Then the next attack hit. And this time a few of the jets dove straight through the trees. Lena could see the plane coming. Could see the twilight sun glint off of its opaque black surface. There was a person in there. She couldn't see him, but she could feel his mind.
Those kids were going to die if she didn't do something.

Demiurge
[Edit: "she saw a group of children sitting on the ground"]

Grace Evans
When the lasers start, it's almost surreal. The relative quiet in which the village burns only serves to highlight the sounds of the dying and afraid. But with a goal ahead of her, Grace has to block it out. There are things to focus on that are not the dead and dying.
It's almost comforting, isn't it? To have a purpose in all the chaos? To keep one's mind off of the terror for as long as is necessary?
In between strafing attacks, they run their way through the village. But when taking cover, Grace works on boosting the signal of the transmitting device from her wrist computer. It's technology on a whole other level than what she's used to, though.
She huddles behind the council tree, trying to hold on to breath that threatens to go a bit too rapid. Sweat drips down the wild hair at her neck. And she's got her face firmly planted in that holographic interface -- joyless. She looks to Patience to know when to move and when to hide.
[Int + Tech Spec WP Diff 8 again!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (3, 4, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1 [WP]

Lena Reilly
Real or not doesn't matter.  These are people and in here, they matter.  The horror of war is real in the most visceral, violent and traumatizing way and they have the most immersive experience with it ever right now.  She keeps an arm up to protect her eyes from debris as she runs, trying to get to someone and help.  Try to get to anyone and help.
She sees the kids, sitting there and needing to run but afraid to do so.  She sees the plan, bearing down on them.  It's like some kind of slow-motion scene of tragedy about to unfold where the hero can't do anything about it.
But Lena can.
She has two potential targets for her magic.  And they speak to her two sides, the two sides in everyone.  Her Wrath tells her to send the impulse to the pilot and force him to veer away, maybe crash into the ground somewhere safe.  Her Empathy tells her to save the kids.  It's a battle in her mind of which takes hold.
In the end, her Wrath holds sway for one simple reason: she can't target that many kids at once.  But she can try to get them to run as she affects the target in the plane.  And so she runs up to the kids, already starting to hum so that she can get in sync with the Lakashim.  The kids will never get why she's singing, and it doesn't matter.  All that matters is that she get them to safety.
"Go with him," she says, indicating the boy, and while she's not doing lyrics it is that her voice that taken on a melodic tone.  "You'll be okay..."
And with that, her eyes are targeted on the plane, Correspondance expanding out to locate him and affect his mind:
Veer away.
[[Mind 2/Corr 2, specialty focus!  Exending as much as needed, Quint to lower diff to 3, WP]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (6, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Patience Mason
Horror's were unfolding all around them, lives were being destroyed in all the ways one could imagine. This was not a territory dispute, this was not an act of vengence, this was systemic and total elimination of another ideology.
Genocide was likely the best way to describe it, albeit on an inefficient and piece meal scale.
Patience became all the more certain of her intended course of action as they ran through the burning, dying village, the lives of the pilots in those jets no longer a concern, if they fell and died or suffered brain damage...that was not her concern. Anyone who systematically bombed a village from above..deserved such a fate.
But they had to wait at the base of the tree, sheltered in its roots as they waited for the wave to pass, it would do no one any good if they were caught in the wave of destruction and killed before they could even make an attempt at Patience's plan.
When the planes past, and they were still alive the assent began in ernest, they would hook up the device, they would send the signal...they WOULD kill those jets.

Demiurge
As Grace and Patience were forced to take shelter from the attacks, Grace continued to work diligently on her device. It was difficult work, trying to focus on an alien technology while so much chaos erupted around her. But instead of letting the distraction overwhelm her, she used the pressure as a focus. And finally everything fell into place.
When a lull in the attack came, she and Patience made their way up those spiraling stairs. Going up and up and up...
The source of their plan was located high on the tree. A small enclosed room with an antenna on the roof. Somehow it was still in one piece.
Meanwhile, on the ground, Lena got to the kids and worked her effect, focusing all her strength and Will on the pilot of the jet that bore down on them.
Those words she offered the children, and the soft lilt of her song, were the last things she would ever utter in this realm. Veer away, she thought. And the jet suddenly slowed and veered to the side, but not before sending a spray of weapon-fire right at her. The beams tore into her body, burning and lacerating, and as she dropped to the ground, the world glowed with a strange kind of firelight. It felt like she was dreaming. Burning. Dying. Floating away...
And the world went black again.
But the kids, they got away. And the jet? A moment later it crashed headlong into a tree, killing its pilot in a bright explosion.

Grace Evans
"I've got it!" Grace yells over the screams of others. She doesn't know yet that the latest plane to crash was the one that dragged Lena out of this world.
"We should be ready for you to run the shit out of your thesis, Patience!"
But, it should be noted that Grace has not disengaged from her holographic interface just yet. She is preparing to assist with the thesis in play.
[Corr 2: Bring the Firewalls Down -- Attempting to weaken the defenses of the enemy tech to attacks from a distance. + WP]
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (4, 5) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Patience Mason
This was it, the moment of truth, all this dirty science would either result in something spectacularly chaotic as planes crashed down out of the sky like giant bolders of hail. Or they would continue unabated until nothing of the village stood but burning tinder and desiccated stumps.
Patience plugged in the neural uplink, hoping that it would hold the amplitude that was about to coarse through its circuitry and in that moment she began to deploy what counter measures she could slamming interference, high gain noise, and all manner of unpleasant frequencies along the neural uplink.
Anyone on the receiving end would..in theory, be rendered insensate.
Time would tell.
[Forces+Life 2: base diff 5, +1 for quick cast, minus one for quint WP]
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (3, 4) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Grace Evans
[Wits + Computer = 7; Diff 8-1 (Ability Aptitude)]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (4, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Patience Mason
[Wits+Computers WP]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (5, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Demiurge
High up in the comm tower, Grace and Patience had no idea yet that Lena was no longer with them. And that was probably for the best, because they might not have managed to do what they'd gone there to do if they'd been so weighted with grief. Perhaps it was not a real death, and she was already awake somewhere else. But they didn't know that for sure. And either way, it was only the two of them left to finish what they'd come here to do.
Somehow, in the midst of this war, and the destruction of this beautiful place and its people, two women from another realm managed to do something that many would have though impossible. With the neural implant back online and the device on Grace's wrist linked into it, she and Patience were able to pull down the firewall and hack the device's code to use the transmitter to send a bolt of raw neural feedback into the minds of all the pilots.
It was going to hurt like hell.
The planes broke formation in the sky, veering and dipping and spinning out of control. And for a few brief, glorious moments, the rain of fire ceased as the pilots struggled to keep their jets under control.
That was when the dragons came. Not many - not enough to defeat the entire squadron if they'd been fully functional. But enough. Just enough to finish them off while they were reeling from Grace and Patience's attack. The great beasts let out an echoing chorus of roars and swooped down, spitting mouthfuls of acid and wrenching the jets out of the sky with their clawed limbs. These dragons had no riders. They'd come of their own accord to help protect the village.
Back on the ground, the people realized what was happening and began to come out of hiding, looking up at the sky and crying with relief.
They would not all die tonight. Many of them already had - but not all. Thanks to two strangers who they'd all thought insane, and a handful of wild dragons.

Bastion: Sulis

Lena Reilly
No pause.  No hesitation.  Lena fears a lot, and make no mistake--getting caught in the unmaking of this world is one of them.  But what helps her is that she can sometimes (not as often as she likes or should, but sometimes) use it the way it should be: to warn, to motivate.  She has a lot of motivation here, and she shouts as she races.
"It's not him!  We have to get to him NOW!"
She doesn't know that last part.  She also doesn't what to do once they get to him.  But that's not even the point.  The point is that she knows that staying behind is the end, and she fights too damn hard in order to end here.
And so she pushes herself, sandals kicked off at this point by the kinetic energy of her legs pumping in time.  Souls pound on hard earth as she rushes at the boy, dodging anything that might be in the was as an obstacle to her and her destination point: the living portal.

Grace
Grace falls to the sand with a whump that feels like it should have been a crack. At least she knows to roll a bit on a rough landing to spread out the force a bit, but it looks about as controlled and graceful a dismount as one performed by a drunken emu.
It's not him! We have to get to him NOW!
Lena's on her feet and running, and so Grace follows, not really understanding the 'it's not him' part. What isn't him? Doesn't matter. Get to him. That's what matters.
She tries to ignore the sight of Rome dissipating into nothingness around them as she chases after Lena, and after a boy standing in red sand. He's surrounded by the dead.
There's some tragedy for you -- being slain right before one's world is deleted. But they're the only ones at peace in this place.

Patience Mason
In any other situation this moment might have fascinated Patience, to behold the unravelling of an entire plane of existence was not something one got to see everyday, and if it weren't for their impending demise, Patience might have taken the time to watch.
But they needed out, they needed to get to the young man on the sands. If they did not...one could only imagine what an unravelling such as this might do to their minds. So Patience ran, ran as fast as she could in the confines of the clothing not at all meant for such activity. Sweat would gather, muscles [even imagined ones] would complain but such things were small in the face of annihilation.
"Are any efficient and adaptable theorems concurrently actualizing within each respective neuro-chemical network associated with out individualized personages in this precise temporal framework for manipulating the trans-planar portal system?"

Demiurge
Distracted as he was by the vision of their very reality being torn apart, the boy on the sand (the one the crowd had called Spartacus) did not immediately comprehend the fact that Lena, Grace and Patience were running toward him. But when he saw their forms hurtling toward him in his peripheral vision, he swung around and put up his sword. He'd just been fighting for his life. Perhaps he thought he would die. Now the sand around him was red with the blood of his friends and combatants.
To have survived so much, only to be confronted with the almost certain possibility that death would yet come - not by sword or spear but by this inescapable force of entropy - was almost heart-breaking in its unfairness.
And now three people from the crowd were hurtling toward him as though he might somehow save them all from this apocalypse. The boy's left arm still hung useless and broken at his side, but his good arm was yet capable of damage, and he shouted a warning to them in a language they could understand.
"Get back, Romans! Or do you want to die with your gladiators?"

Lena Reilly
She likes Patience quite a lot, and she appreciates her way of speaking.  There's something to be said about the joy of translating her sentence structure and definitions into common parlance.  Moments like these--rushing toward an ally who may want to kill them with adrenaline flowing through her like nitrous oxide--is unfortunately not one of those times and she doesn't have a response for the woman because frankly, there isn't time to do the translation.
"We're not Romans, and we need your help to get out of here.  We want to free you," she says, the words coming as fast as she does--because she's not slowing down.  Lena is a woman who lives life on the safe side of things because she has to in order to live.  Having spent a week here in Rome, being able to breathe and be who she might have been if not for a twist of immunological fate--this has allowed her, at least right now, to shed that safety for the sake of a calculated risk.  If he stabs her, so be it, but she's not going to slow for him.
When she gets close enough, she reaches out to him.  "Take my hand, please."  She doesn't push the words on the man mentally, because her Will is nearly exhausted.  She just hopes to Ananda that he'll listen to reason.  And if not...well, she's always wanted to be stabbed.  That's not true, but better stabbed than unmade.

Patience Mason
"This individualized personage is not heritalogically or genealogically disseminated from the gestalt base data of roman stock." She says as she hurtled forward as well, unperterbed by the blade held before her. Could the man named Spartacus kill her? Quite possibly, infact in her mind Patience gave herself a twenty three point three two two percent chance of surviving the next twenty minutes...but that was just how things worked.
She would reach for Grace's hand in that moment, as well as Lena's free hand, hoping that perhaps by association of skin to skin contact that any transdimensional travel would be transferred to the whole group, rather then simply to Lena.
Her gaze was fixed upon Spartacus, an imploring look spread across her features as she caught the surrounding sights of destruction that was unfolding in the stands, and beyond the walls of the Circus Maximus, one way or another, this man was their only hope.

Grace
"Patience, right now I would settle for a theorem called Don't Die," Grace yells back. She hasn't a clue.
'Spartacus' raises his sword just as Grace leaps over the body of a gladiator, and the gesture has her off balance. Her hands fling up in the air -- no weapons.
"We're not Romans! We're--"
She blinks. Oh shit. What do you say? What would make sense? 'We're interdimensional travelers from another reality' just doesn't seem like it would work here.
Lena fixes it by saying the truth in another, better way, but she's still moving onward, courting death by challenging the armed soldier's personal space.
"Lena, be careful," she hisses.
Then, with a scared smile, she addresses 'Spartacus'. "I'm Grace. That's Lena, and this is Patience. We're not here to hurt you," she says, trying to see if a bit of diplomacy might help. We're people with names. Not going to hurt you. We're nice.
She takes Patience's hand when offered, more because she gets the hint that this contact has a purpose behind it than anything.

Demiurge
Perhaps, given a different set of circumstances, the Thracian prisoner might not have been so ready to accept what the three women had to say. But they were watching the world being torn apart. What was even the purpose to fighting any of it, at this point?
And he was exhausted. You could see it in his eyes.
Around them, the storm drew ever closer, tearing up and dismantling everything in its path. The sound of it was terrible. Like some great, yawning abyss. As it neared, the daylight around them dimmed.
The boy hesitated, then looked at the sky and shouted his rage at the Gods. When he was through, he tossed his sword on the ground and reached out to take Lena's hand.
"Atreyu," he said. And that was not a Thracian name. Nor a Roman one, for that matter. "Whatever your plan, you'd better hurry."

Lena Reilly
Atreyu.  Lena looks like she could almost laugh at the name.  She's seen The Neverending Story...the warrior boy on a great quest.  It seems oddly fitting, somehow.  And she can't imagine that this was some accident of naming, the boy that exists here, now while the world is being unmade around him.
"Hello, Atreyu."  She reaches back and grasps Grace's hand, holding tightly.  For as little as she touches people in the real world, she might be making up for it now with how strongly she takes hold of the Adept.  And then she reaches out and takes the boy's hand, and tries to focus on her friends.  "Sid, Kalen, Ian," she says out loud, in the hopes that it signals to the others what she's attempting.  If they have another idea, she'll go with it.

Grace
"Jesus fucking Christ," Grace says, even though Jesus isn't slated to be born for a few hundred years yet. "Atreyu? You don't think we have to hold him in our hand and think of a new world, do you?"
Lena starts chanting the names of their friends, and Grace follows suit. Don't think of a new world, think of the people in it. Although mentally, she adds another word to the list. 'Computer'.
They might just end up stranded here turning to nothing while chanting strange names under a consuming sky. Bet it looks weird. But who cares? It's the end of the world.

Patience Mason
[WP]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Patience Mason
Patience takes the hands of her fellows, forming a circle, or perhaps a circle around the man who was called Atreyu. For her however the providence of that name is lost, because unfortunately awesome 90's movies trivia were not apart of Patiences skill set.
In truth she almost laughed at the actions the others took, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and so she joined them, even as her mind whirled in an attempt to discern another possible manner of egress from this dying universe.
"Sid, Kalen, Ian!" She shouted this now, trying to break through the tumultuous cacophony that  was the end of this world.

Lena Reilly
[[Wits+Enimga]]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 4, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Patience Mason
[Wits No Enigmas]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (2, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

Grace
[Wits + Enigmas!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 4, 6) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Demiurge
In the midst of all the chaos, the three travelers could be forgiven for forgetting the advice that Maddoc gave them. They formed a chain, each taking the hand of the one beside them, and fanned themselves out in a circle, with Atreyu at the head. The boy grasped Lena's hand firmly within his own, waiting to see what kind of odd witchcraft these three strangers had in store. But then... nothing happened.
And the storm kept getting closer.
And now he looked at them with a sense of dawning panic and said, "Whatever Gods you pray to, I don't think they're going to answer."

Demiurge
North, Maddoc had said. Face North to go toward the center. Each link connected to the four closest worlds. So one had to assume that South would take them backward on the mandala, and East and West to either side.
But they were facing these directions now, and the gate had not opened. Was there something else they had to do?

Lena Reilly
She remembers and then speaks.
"Everyone, turn this way."  She's looking at Atreyu when she says it, making it clear she means him too.
And then she speaks again.  "Tu, was du willst."

Lena Reilly
[[Oh yeah and she turns north]]

Grace
"North! Right! Have to face North!" Grace yells over the noise of panicked Romans and a darkening sun ready to wink out.
"North goes to the center!"
She aligns herself with the others, shifting along with the others' hands held tight.
"Tu, was du willst."

Patience Mason
"Tu, was du willst."
Patience followed suit, her gaze shifting north with the others as the stadium itself began to fly apart, ground into dust by the end of the world. People, even if they were not people of their own universe were dying in their untold numbers and Patience, despite their own goals...vowed to see this right.

Demiurge
Did he know, this boy? Was some instinctive memory buried deep in his head? Or was he really ignorant to his own place in the universe? He moved when Lena shouted her directions, turning to face North (at least, what was left of it,) but he did not seem to understand why they were doing this.
But then the three women uttered those words, and Atreyu blinked as though startled. As though he was recalling something. (Memories, places, lives.) He blinked as he gasped, and the ouroboros (the Auryn) on his chest suddenly lit up. The white snake glowed, and the black snake turned to shadow. And then streaks and tendrils of light struck down like electric current from the sky, weaving between the three of them - linking them together.
Linking them to somewhere else. There was a sensation of being pulled forcibly from their own bodies and flung out into the sky, and then... that darkness.
It was almost violent, this time, the sensation of being reborn. Of waking up on the other side. The world did not drift softly into focus as it had on their entry to Rome. One minute, the world was nothing but a void. The next, they materialized back into their bodies with a visceral snap. And there was the sky, wide and blue and endless, and the wind was rushing past them in tumultuous gusts, buffeting them from side to side as the great best beneath their legs gave a roar and bucked backwards, sweeping its wings in a wide arc.
Lena, Grace and Patience would scarcely have time to comprehend the fact that they'd fallen atop what looked to be a white dragon (or some similar beast) before they found themselves tumbling backwards. Ahead of them, a female rider sat perched atop the beast's shoulders in some kind of saddle, her long brown hair flowing wildly in the wind. She looked just as shocked as they were, and was holding on for dear life as she bent over and gasped.

Lena Reilly
Time, it can be endless in the right circumstances.  It's an immutable thing, elastic and (to some) by no means linear.  As they're pulled away, as the light on Atreyu's chest shines, as all this happens...time seems to slow for Lena.  She looks around the disintegrating world one last time, and she shuts her eyes as she feels them get pulled.
Of course, shutting eyes when you aren't in your body isn't action.  It's intent.  But what are they but creatures of intent made reality, and choosing not to see is a thing no matter what.
And then, like that, they're jerked into their bodies and she's scramgling to hold on.  "WHAT THE FUCK."
Yep, that's all Lena's got.

Lena Reilly
Wits+Ath
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 3, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )

Grace
The only thing that Grace could comprehend was the sensation of being. Not floating exactly, because there was nothing to float in, and nothing to float. There was only her -- an I Am that she held onto until she was again in a more material sense.
Snap, crack, and her oh-so-very-new body slams into another, larger thing.
"Woah! shit!" said the newborn Mage. Fitting first words for what just happened.

[Wits + Athletics!]

Grace
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (3, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 1 )

Patience Mason
Their first transition into this system of worlds had been strange enough, traumatic in its own way. This transition worse by far, not only for the manner in which it took place, but also by the manner of the place they found themselves within.
Here be dragons...
It seemed that the deeper they went, perhaps the more esoteric and unearthly the locale they might find themselves within, as if the mind at the center of this place had allowed itself to roam free, creating stranger and stranger places with which to defend itself.
So a ride upon a dragon should not seem out of place, infact it should seem downright pedestrian compared to things they  could have been riding on [inside out space crabs perhaps?] But it was enough, enough for Patience to try and grasp the scaly surface as best she could, as she cried out her frustration and disapproval of this new reality.
"Egregious reatlivistic translation!"

[Dex+Ath]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (1, 7, 9) ( success x 1 )

Patience Mason
[Wits+Ath]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (3, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )

Demiurge
Somewhere in their wake, another world crumbled into dust - into nothing. Unwoven and unmade. And every single person there - whether they were real or not - was now dead. The mind could scarcely comprehend that kind of tragedy. That an entire reality could simply cease to exist. Who was left to mourn the people there? The monuments of human will and civilization? All that work. All that life. Erased.
And what of Atreyu? Was he with them? Or had he been left behind to die on the sand as his Roman captors had intended?
From what little the three travelers could discern as they scrambled to keep hold of the dragon beneath them, the Thracian boy was nowhere to be seen.
(The woman though - the dragonrider. Her features held a cast of vague familiarity.)
It was difficult to comprehend much of anything right that moment, though. When all their force and energy had to be channeled into the act of not falling. What was beneath them? How high were they? What sort of world had they come to? The woman riding the dragon was dressed in what looked like white and brown leather, with serviceable but elegantly crafted boots and a riding riding jacket trimmed in white fur. The materials were natural, but the style... was not precisely what one would expect of the arcane. There was nothing primitive in their make.
Lena and Grace barely managed to keep hold of the dragon as they dipped and fell through the air, scrabbling at the warm, soft hide beneath their hands. (Warm. Soft. Not a reptile. Not scaled.) Grace slid backwards and only just caught herself by wrapping her arms around the beast's back leg. Lena actually did fall, but managed to catch hold of the dragon's long, lashing tail. Patience was the only one of them to actually remain on the creature's back.
Then the air above their heads cracked with the sound and the sensation of something flying past. Not another dragon, but some kind of futuristic jet, sleek and black and glimmering in the morning sun. It rolled on its axis and doubled-back, firing at them with laser-hot bolts that shot overhead, just barely missing the dragon's beating wings as it dove to the side.
It wasn't just them, up here. There were more of those fighter jets. And more dragons too, in brilliant array of colors. Each of them sporting a rider and what looked to be some kind of metallic crest strapped to their chests. White and red laser beams shot through the sky, firing from both the aircraft and the dragons.
They'd fallen right into the middle of what looked to be a rather heated battle.

Lena Reilly
There might be another time when Lena would be holding on tight with a manic laugh and leaning back to enjoy the wind in her hair.  Indeed, that time could even be now.  But it isn't.  There are places she needs to be and she doesn't have the patience (pun unintentional, Madame Etherite) for this.
Also, there is a good chance of them getting blown up.  Or eaten.  Or blown up and then their appendages eaten.  So she doesn't keep herself grasping to the tail with all her might.  When she was a girl, Lena wanted to ride a dragon.  When she was a teenager, she always dreamed of flying.
So she lets go.  Sure, she can't forget how to land, but for a few moments...she will be flying.

Grace
Grace doesn't notice Lena's fall. She's too concerned with climbing the leg of a white... whatever this is. All focus is arrayed upon surviving, and she digs in, even as the thought registers that the beast she's falling off of is unreal. Unreal, and in the middle of a battle.
The shock is hard to deal with, going from one chaos to the next. She digs in with her fingers into the hide, trying to hold on for dear life. For dear lives, actually. If she doesn't survive, what will happen to their friends? To the world they left behind?

[Wits + Ath!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

Patience Mason
The fear of falling is not something that Patience knows all that well, she has spent much of her life high in the clouds, on their native plane and others besides, and so the thought of falling from the dragons back is not something that grips her mind.
She simply does her best to hold on, as dragons and jets vie for dominance of the sky, her gaze turning this way and that in an attempt to make out some objective, some destination that might get them out of this mess.
Sadly behind her is not a place she can look so easily, and so she does not see Lena slip from the bakc of the dragon, falling into the depths of that great blue abyss.

[Wits+Ath]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (3, 3, 4, 4) ( fail )

Demiurge
[Bashing damage to Lena]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Demiurge
[And to Patience]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Lena Reilly
[[Soak!]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 5) ( fail )

Patience Mason
[Soak]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 2) ( fail )

Demiurge
Lena made a choice to release her grip on the dragon's tail, trusting her fate to luck rather than remain in the air where she might be shot or burned. It was a risky choice - she might very well fall to her death from this height. But fall she did, and for a while, yes, it did feel like flying.
Patience did not fall so intentionally, but she did fall. Moments after Lena released her grip, the dragon roared and bucked as something scalding and red tore through the membrane of its left wing. It reared back its head and spat something onto the attacking jet - a thick glob of some kind of acidic slime that almost immediately began to eat its way through the hull of the ship. But there was no time to savor this victory, because the world tilted and spun out of control, weaving and whirling as the dragon half-soared, half-fell through the sky. That was when Patience lost her grip and went tumbling back into the air.
She and Lena fell for what seemed an impossibly long time. And then the earth rose up to meet them, and they crashed into something cold and wet with a terrible, bruising force that knocked the breath from their lungs. They sunk beneath the water's surface, swallowed by the lake they'd just landed in as the water churned around them.
It hurt, and they'd be wounded after, but they were alive. A lucky break.
Meanwhile, Grace managed to hang onto the dragon's leg, clutching on for dear life as the rider shouted something incomprehensible to her.

Demiurge
[Lena takes 2B, Patience takes 3B]

Grace
"What!? What did you say!?"
It's hard to tell in the tumult whether the words she heard were in another language, or just garbled in the wind and noise around them. The dragon's lurching and spinning threatens to cause her to fall, but she hangs on, oblivious to the fate of her friends.
It seems they're in for a rough landing soon. And it would't do to get stuck in the landing gear, so to speak. So she tries to get into a bit of a safer spot, as the world spins around her in laser-filled flashes.

Grace
[Wits + Ath!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 5, 7) ( fail )

Demiurge
[Bashing damage to Grace +1 because botch]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Grace
[Soak!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )

Patience Mason
Patience hits the water with a heavy, bone jarring splash, the hit enough to knock the wind out of her and make her simply float there beneath the waves for a few long seconds as her body and mind fought to recover.
But then breathing became necessary, and simply floating was no longer an option. So she swam, pushing to the surface with lungs burning. She drew in breath raggedly as she looked skyward to the battle continuing around them watching as the dizzying battle of magic vs technology raged.
But she needed to get out of the water, and so she looked this way and that, seeking land.

Lena Reilly
Choice.  There's something to be said about the importance of taking control of your destiny.  And they'd all done that--Lena, Grace and Patience.  Lena wouldn't fault them for holding on; it was the sensical thing to do.  What anyone with half a brain would do.  And in truth, while she might be very reasonable sometimes, there are times Lena doesn't have the sense that the Tellurian gave a moth.  She doesn't get a chance to experience pure, unmitigated sensation like this often in the real world.  And she knows it could well mean her death.
Here though, she doesn't mind so much, as long as she gets the chance to feel something she's long denied herself.  Living without a net.  Grace will probably curse her for it, but she was smiling as she let go and went limp, allowing herself to fall through the air.  The rushing sound in her ears, her hair flying over her face, the way her clothing flaps...she may never admit that this was part of why she let go, but she could die happy right now.
And even when her body collides with the surface of the lake and brings the shock of pain, the agonizing feeling of cold water rushing into where air just got forcefully ejected...she doesn't regret that.  She's feeling, and it feels terrible.  And that's amazing.
A lucky break.  Lena would call it a fateful one.  And then she's pushing with agonized and bruised limbs form the impact with a hard watery surface, getting herself to the surface and gasping for air, looking around.  She gasps and sputters, and sees Patience.  She's okay.
Lena's not looking for land right now.  Lena's looking up as she tries to tread water.  She's looking to see if Grace is still hanging on.

Demiurge
Grace called out to the rider over the roar of the rushing air, but her words fell on deaf ears. The dragon was hit with another barrage of weapon-fire, its flesh flayed and torn open, and the rider screamed in agony as if she felt the pain herself. Grace hung on as long as she could, but it was a losing battle. The dragon roared one last time, dropped its wings and fell. And Grace fell with it, until she lost her grip and went hurtling back into the empty air. The last thing she saw before she hit the water was the shot of some kind of harpoon as it buried itself in the rider's thigh and yanked her forcibly from the dragon's back.
Then the breath was knocked from her lungs, and her body wrenched from the impact of the lake's surface. She was pulled underwater, so she wouldn't see the dragon hurtling after her, but the others did. It hit the lake with a tremendous crash, sending plumes and waves of water fountaining up into the air. The force of the tide yanked and buffeted Grace beneath the water, and when she finally managed to resurface, she'd be desperate for air. But she, like the others, was still alive.
Lena and Patience were far enough out that they escaped the worst of the splash, treading water as they looked up to the sky. What they saw was one side clearly winning the battle, as dragons dropped, bleeding and shredded, from the sky. Already a few of them lay draped, broken and mangled, on the grass nearby. The others (perhaps a dozen, all told) were soon to follow. A few of the ships had crashed too, their wreckage smoking in the nearby treeline where the field met the woods. But they were the minority.

Lena Reilly
Lena sees Grace fall, and for her, Lena loooks worried.  Worried for herself?  Nah, she wasn't for one moment.  For her friends though...that's a different matter.  She sees Grace hit the water, sees the forme of the massive dragon crashing down after her, and she calls out and starts to move in that direction.  She's too slow, she knows...but it's the trying that matters as much as the result.
And yet she is too slow, and shoved back.  She sputters as the water comes up a little, hitting her mouth, and spits it out.  She's waiting there until she sees Grace, at which point she breathes out her tension and the breath she's holding in a sigh.  And then she starts swimming to the shore.
"We have to get away from here before we get crushed by something," she calls out.  "Looks like magic is losing to science."
There's a chill in her bones at that.  She doesn't hold anything against technomages, but this looks more Technocratic than anything else.

Grace
Upon falling, Grace begins to scream. It's a thing of frustration and fear wrapped up into the idea that the next few seconds are really going to hurt.
She's right about that part.
When they all get back, this is one part of the story she will not be telling Kalen about in any great detail. Her body bruised from slamming into water, and being dragged under by the wake of a dragon, her breath sucked out by the scream -- the world is pain for the time it takes to reach the surface. And she gasps in when she gets there, almost choking in the need to breathe.
The surfacing provides her the first good look at what's really going on, and it's not much of a comfort. Lena's voice, however, that is comforting indeed.
"Yeah, get to the land!"
With that, she starts swimming.

Patience Mason
They were alive, wet, bruised and short of breath, but they were alive. The same might not be said for the men and women battling above their heads, some crashing to the ground in a blaze of fire, or being snapped up by a harpoon much like their fellow dragon rider had been.
Patience watched as well as Grace is almost crushed by the falling dragon, and is equally thankful when she surfaces, relatively unscathed. She follows Lena towards the shore, and when at last she reaches the water's edge she would pull herself up onto the edge and rise.
After a moment of steadying herself she would start towards the ships, interested to inspect them, at the same time...it was an opportunity to get out of there, disappear into the trees and escape this battle.

Demiurge
The lake was wide and deep, and by the time the three of them reached shore, the battle above their heads was all but over. The handful of remaining jets hovered for a moment (perhaps surveying their victory,) then streaked off into the sun toward some unknown destination.
At least they hadn't though to scan the ground for survivors (or maybe that simply didn't matter to them.) From what Lena, Patience and Grace could tell, they might well be the only ones left alive. A few of the other dragonriders lay broken and lifeless on the ground with their dragons, but others, like the rider of the white dragon, were missing. Prisoners now, more than likely.
The rider - she'd looked familiar. She could have been Atreyu's twin. They had the same nose, the same mouth, the same eyes, the same dark hair. But there was no chance now to ask her name. Or anything, for that matter. She was long gone.
Now that they were on dry land, the three survivors would have a moment to take in their surroundings. It was like earth, but not. Similar in its look and feel, but the specifics were different. Around the lake was a field of tall grass and wildflowers of varieties that none would find familiar. And to the East and South, a verdant forest stretched out into the horizon. To the West, beyond the field, were rolling hills of scrubby grassland dotted with rocks, and beyond that, an arid mountain-range made of red stone. North lay more hills, and more mountains - these ones capped with snowy peaks.
There was no immediate sign of civilization.
Patience moved to investigate the wreckage of the closest fighter jet, passing beneath the overhanging branches of a large tree. The ship was mangled and cracked, its hull partly dissolved from the acid the dragon had spat at it. The surface still smoked and hissed as it eroded beneath the layer of slime. Patience would be able to make out the dead pilot through the hole in the domed cockpit, his head cracked open from impact. He looked as human as the dragonriders.

Lena Reilly
She gets out of the water, takes a few minutes to catch her breath.  She's trying not to smile too widely from the experience they just had.  Short of the death of the dragons and Grace's plunge, she was exultant.  Of course, that chill doesn't help.
She reaches up and pulls her hair out of her face, letting it fall along her back in wet ropes as she looks around and takes in the landscape.  Patience is looking over the wreckage of the fighters, so she's not concerned about that part.  If they can get any intelligence from that, than she's not going to be able to help.
"North got us where we needed to go with the portal.  Unless you got any other ideas, I say we head that way."

Patience Mason
[Per+Invest]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Grace
Grace follows Patience to look at the jet when she gets to shore, even though she's still reeling from the adrenaline and shock and death. Her heart's beating faster than it has any right to, pounding in her ears as she drags herself out of the water and runs to the sleek black dead thing.
There's a flinch in her when she sees the pilot, dead as the jet he rode in. But then, she's seen so much death today, if days can even be counted anymore.
"Toward where those jets flew off when they left. Our key and portal are in that direction, I almost guarantee it," Grace says, her voice gravelled from almost choking in the water. "The dragonrider was Atreyu, I think. They took her."
And then, she started doing her own investigation of the jet.
[Perception + Investigation!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Demiurge
Grace can see that the ship will be difficult to pry open - at least by mundane means. The hole in the cockpit is large enough to crawl through (barely) but the edges are still slick with that acidic slime, so attempting to go in will require some skill and cleverness on her part. Inside, what she can see besides the dead pilot is a board of controls that are no longer lit up. There don't appear to be any obvious devices lying around. The pilot himself, however, has something wired into his head, just behind his ear.

Patience Mason
The ship was a cornucopia of technology, and if she had more time [oh she was always wishing she had more time in this place] to examine this device she might well spend days working away on its components.
But time was, in some sense of the essence so Patience simply went for what was necessary. She would pry open the cockpit carefully working to gain access to the instrumentation and any other intel that might be available.
"Affirmative Lena, the geo-magnetic positional force and sensate identified and indexed as north would be a scientifically viable direction in which to movate our bio-physical structures." She nods slowly as she looks over the plane, her attention split between the conversation at hand, and her investigations into the ship.
"Aurally disseminated request to maintain this geo-physical locality for several temporal units ranging from .5 units to 5 whole units of a singular rotation of this relativistic celestial body. I hypothesize that actualizing entry into this self contained atmospheric movation control pod will yield sufficient advantages in direct and quantifiable comparisions to those allocated temporal units."

Demiurge
North was as good a direction as any, and it was the direction their rider had likely been taken. So a decision was made, and soon enough they'd be on their way, marching through the field and over hills toward a colder climate.
But first, Grace and Patience had their eyes on the ship and whatever technology lay inside. So they set about investigating as the bodies of the dead lay around them as silent audience.
It was a gruesome affair, but they could use whatever help they could find. And it seemed likely that they were facing a long trek.