middaeg | (Closed) Octeuril Catch All

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(Closed) Octeuril Catch All

Who: Asura + Plotted CR
When: Octeuril
Where: Various locations in Aefenglom and the Wilde.
What: Quests, event threads, domestic undertakings, and general gallivanting about.
Warnings: None yet!

Feel free to drop me a line @ the October CR and Plotting Post if you're interested in threading and would like to work out details for a starter. DM works just as well, too! o9

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[ Feeding off emotion? Huh. Maybe his first impression wasn't that far off. Some kind of succubus. (Other people might think 'vampire', but vampires in his world don't drink blood to survive, they drink blood to get drunk, and engineered all the superstitions about vampires so that they could hide among the other races easier. It's a bad canon, don't get into it.) ]

That must suck, [ is his graceful contribution. Ugh, human emotions. Gross. Just eat snails, Asura.

And it's his last contribution for a while, because he just grunts something wordless at him - that's probably admonishment for being interested, look, buddy, nothing good comes of being curious about outsiders - because there's a Cwyld-creature out here stalking them. He manages to keep them away from it for a while, but eventually the beast is upon them, going from soundless to deafening in the span of a heartbeat, crashing through dead trees and damp earth.

Maybe it had been a naga, once, or a dragon that perished before a full transformation. It's nothing, now, just an empty shell of madness.

Presumably it goes quick, between the two of them, and Geralt insists they leave the corpse and move away immediately. Fuck getting infected, thanks. ]

You might have to just take your chances. [ Another hollow, or Geralt assumes so, watching the other man inspect yet another clearing. ] This is a dead world. Probably never gonna feel 'right'.

Taking chances is fine and all, but it propels the likelihood of the magic fucking up right through the roof. [ But despite giving voice to that naysayer's sentiment, the pack slung over Asura's shoulder is swift to meet with the forest floor below, and then? Asura's given to stretching (there's been a crick in his neck, since dispatching that Cwyld-beast, however smoothly that had gone) before employing some Witchy-woo to raise a barrier around the hollow.

Marking each of the cardinal directions with a rune to stand as ward, he pours magic into the four sigils in excess, giving life to the spell and ensuring that it stays charged (and so too burning off some of the magical backlog that's manifested as an itch beneath the skin, all because he's been loathe to embrace a Bond). ] Back in the city, I've got a friend on standby, reading to slip into the realm of dreaming upon receiving word that I found a suitable place, one that I liked.

[ Only j u s t visible to the eye, Asura's exercise in abjuration glints and glimmers like something tenuous and ethereal, translucent and therefore easy to pass through, but... upon inspection (and beneath a rap of his draconic's knuckles), Asura is pleased to find the barrier sturdy as an armored wall. ]

This isn't it. [ And since Geralt's already arrived at that conclusion as well, Asura will move on right quick: ] So I'm not going to ring them up, because I've got you instead.

[ To do a test-run of the magic with. And hey, at the very least, Asura's straightforward about the proposition (much like everything else). ]

Someone like you, someone like me... [ Two fools, out for a trek in the Wilde during misty Octeuril rains. ] We're meant to shoulder the risk.

[ Unless you're going to ollie out on him now, Geralt. ]

[ The shell goes up, and Geralt has to wonder how the fuck anyone manages to get this good at magic so fast. Asura showed up around when he did, right? But he'd probably wonder the same thing at home; there was a reason he struggled to teach Ciri anything in that realm, even with his use of signs. It's impressive. Whether or not it'll hold - it sure seems like it will. Not even his overclocked senses can find an obvious weak spot.

He lets out a rough sigh. ]

Knew coming out with you was a dumb idea.

[ Because this is a dumb idea. But long-distance dreamwalking, 'nice' hollow or not, sounds like an even worse idea. What if something went wrong, and his friend was left incapacitated - all the way back in Aefenglom, with no one on hand? Fucking disaster. Better they risk it out here. If it backfires, at least no one else is in the blast radius. ]

What do you want to do? Exactly. I don't really dream on my own.

Edited (brackets lol) 2019-10-27 04:13 (UTC)

Yeah, you don't really seem like the type. [ —he hums in agreement, the notion of Geralt sleeping as soundly as a Gravewight easily conjuring a (less than) dramatic enactment in his mind's eye. But then, the guy's sleeping (and therefore dreaming) habits aren't exactly a roadblock for Asura, because each and every dream the Mirrorbound have been pulled into thus far have been constructs of another's hand. And the role of playing dream-architect? That's familiar territory for him, the ~~ruthless~~ ~~hard-ass~~ King of Summer who often flirted with the idea of putting the Court's mule squires and dust grunts through the rigors of training drills not only during their waking hours, but in the thick of of their dreams as well. ] I'll create a skeleton of a dreamscape and draw you in, how's that?

Your subconscious can fill in the blanks, and if it doesn't, well... [ Though Asura will most certainly be bored to tears, at least Geralt will be spared from sharing unwanted facets of himself in dream-land. Let too many secrets slip, and that Mysterious Air won't be so effective a draw anymore. ] Maybe it'll be easier on you, that way.

Just don't go walk around and say that I deceived you into being my accomplice. [ Because Asura's not that sort of fae, though others of his kind certainly are (and remain fond of binding mortals in fanciful pacts which are incapable of being fulfilled). Even the vow which Asura had elicited from the head of the Vallanzasca family had been bereft of frills (protect the Freehold as you would your own flesh and blood, for as long as you shall live). ] I didn't upsell or falsely advertise.

[ He heard that old-man exasperated sigh, Witcher. Guess that leaves Asura as the only one who's having a good time. ] All you've got to decide is how you want to slip into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness.

[ Whiiiiile Asura fashions a fallen bough of a tree (likely downed during one of Summer's last tumultuous storms, the season refusing to cede to Autumn without a fight) into a tool with which to mark the ground with ~~a gross eyeball of a~~ another rune, by far larger than the four powering the abjuration magic. ]

...there's a potion for that, in the pack. If you're not interested in employing a more creative solution. [ It's somewhere next to the whisky flask. ] Was planning on downing half of it, myself, to get into the right headspace for the magic, but circumstances change.

[ Like when, because of your too-sociable nature, you end up dragging someone else along right with you, well past the point of common sense in true Arcadian fashion. ]

I don't need help falling asleep.

[ He can control his bodily functions well enough. It's a simple shift of mental pathing as soon as he slips into meditation, which is easy as breathing. Not that he's looking forward to this; at least the things he might worry about at home aren't present here, haven't been present in the shared dreams. They're like stepping into another dimension - not like real dreams, and not much like the dreams conjured up by the oneiromancer Corinne, who he worked with twice in recent days at home. Though he knows that a very powerful one might be able to do something similar. Avallac'h had been able to power her enough to link five people of varying races and show them the same memory.

Dreams cannot be faked, they'd said. Sure. Whatever. ]

Your shield will hold while you're out?

[ He doesn't fancy waking up while being eaten by an infected creature. ]

It'll last just fine for a few hours. [ Give or take. Personally, Asura isn't too fussed about it—he doesn't plan to be out for anywhere near that long. From what he's grasped of the divinatory arts here, in this realm, is that every spell (be it oneiromancy, peering into reflections of the past, or foretelling the looming shadow of the future) requires a tether. Something with which to draw the practitioner back to the present. And Asura? Of course he's got one. He locked it right in with both himself and the Witcher when he magicked the barrier together.

Spoilers: it's butterfly. Once a treasured companion from back home, Tink is now (more or less) the dainty familiar to Asura's rough-and-tumble Witch. And currently? Tink is leisurely occupying a low-hanging tree-branch overhead. ] If you're dissatisfied with that appraisal, I don't have a problem with sinking more magic into the runic wards which power it.

[ He's got too much magic, as it is. Expending a bit more will help, rather than harm. ]

It's in my best interests, after all, to keep you protected. [ Because it's sort of his edict, to protect all who would call themselves outsiders. But, quite naturally, he's not going to divulge as much. He chooses the path of easy banter and amusement instead: ] Might never hear the end of it from our mutual acquaintances, if word gets out that I lost you in the Wilde.

So don't you worry, I'll see your rugged I-don't-need-any-sleep-aids self back to the city, safe and sound. [ That isn't to say, however, that Asura doesn't anticipate any hiccups along the way. ] That's a promise. And my kind? We don't break them.

[ Long story short: Fate exacts mean as hell retribution on Oathbreakers. ]

[ The way Asura barrels through everything, powerful and charismatic and with charms on full display, reminds him a little bit of walking the trebuchet ramparts with King Foltest. It's not a flattering comparison, and plenty doesn't match up, but there's something about the way he doesn't seem capable of showing any face besides a confident one. Geralt isn't sure if it's actually reassuring, because he can't tell if it's recklessness.

So: yes, he would like Asura to put more magic into the wards. Geralt will put every mental fail-safe he can into his own internal clock, to wake himself at a precise time and no later, just in case. Just because he isn't afraid doesn't mean he trusts.

He will prefer that Asura head to sleep first, do what he has to do. But if that's not the way the ritual goes, then he won't argue.

Either way, his own methods aren't as typical as laying down on a bedroll. Geralt kneels and sits back, spine straight, appearing curiously comfortable in a position that most would find uncomfortable. His hands rest on his thighs, and his breathing evens out. His heart, already beating four times as slow as a human's, slows just a little bit more. With his eyes closed, he slips into a meditative trance.

It's easy, from there, to push himself into real sleep. The witcher's head tips forward, his shoulders sag, and there he stays. ]

[ Well, at the very least, the Witcher's body will stay there, rooted on one side of the rune which Asura had engraved into the wet earth while the draconic King himself occupies the other—the mind, however, is a different story entirely.

When Geralt's consciousnesses blinks into awareness on the other end of the spell, he'll rise only to find himself in the depths of a tunnel. Behind the Witcher, the way is shut, but forward...? Forward's open, and with each and every step taken in the right direction, the walls of the enclosure shift in appearance, flickering into familiarities visible in the corner of the eye until Geralt makes his way out of the deep, and all those ghostly familiar things coalesce together and solidify into a setting which is very much of the Witcher's own design.

As Asura had said, after all, he planned to provide only the skeleton of the dreamscape, and he isn't one to misdeliver (or, to reiterate, falsely advertise). The thing about Asura is he's been on top of the food chain for so many lifetimes that almost nothing phases him. And maybe it's just a bit reckless (crazy) of him to have pursued the practice of oneiromancy with a near-stranger, but in many ways, it's not so very different from when Geralt decided to keep Asura company on the last night of Lùnasa. Sure, the stakes are a bit higher, and there's a whole lot of a difference between sharing a drink and sharing a dream, b u t the spirit of it is still the same. To Asura, anyway.

Speaking of Asura, his voice sounds from somewhere off to the right: ]

For someone who said they usually don't dream on their own, you managed all this [ and here, there's a wide gesture of his glittering and scaled arms, all encompassing ] without much prompting.

[ Whatever 'this' is, anyway. ]

[ Surely, Geralt still has to dream, even if he doesn't remember it - but maybe not. He doesn't need sleep the way humans do, so maybe he doesn't sleep the way they do, either. It's not like the mages who made the first witchers did any testing on them after setting them off on their Paths, and leaving them to form their own strange, isolated culture.

This.

Of course, Geralt's sleeping mind takes them to Kaer Morhen, because in absence of anything else, it's sensible to go back to the start. The first place Geralt ever knew. Home. A crumbling castle built by an unknown people, older than the elves, maybe older than the vrans; at first glance it's impressive, but any small moment of inspection betrays how ruined it is.

The courtyard they stand in is larger than in reality; the outer wall surrounding the keep and the gate to main castle are stretched far back, making the lonely, inaccessible feeling of the dream all the more intense. The mountains that surround them are merely sketches against grey clouds, hiding their faces.

It is very, very cold.

Geralt watches Asura, feeling under water. He tries to speak, but as is common in lucid dreams, no sound comes out. Mm. Not used to it just yet. ]

[ A novel sensation, the cold. Though Asura is no stranger to alpine conditions (the Winter King has long since chosen to dwell in the farthest reaches of the snow-capped mountains which stand as border between the northern Italian provinces and the valleys beyond), they have never once taken effect upon his person. But in the scope of the Witcher's dream, the air bites the skin and benumbs the lungs like Asura isn't made of fire crystal; like his chest is no longer a furnace which consumes and burns.

Now that's something, isn't it? A testament to Geralt's own latent ability to impose corporeal touches upon a dream-memory, despite Asura being the one who gave life to the oneiromancy itself. It's wicked cool, even if Geralt hasn't yet found his voice or the whole of his bearings. And to Asura's credit, when the guy opens his mouth to speak only to have no sound come out, the draconic's immediate response is not "so no different from usual, huh?".

Instead: Asura reaches to clasp Geralt's shoulder with a taloned hand in an effort to root the guy to the dreamscape without employing any further magic because... something feels off. Amiss. Maybe it's just the inherent feeling of trespass that comes along with the territory of dream-walking through another's mind and memory. Maybe, it's more than that.

In any case— ] Never seen a person who embodies so much of a place.

[ Yeah, that would be you, Geralt. Handsome in construction, but weathered and aloof. ]

These ruins are the ones you mentioned before, yeah? The school of the wolf?

Edited 2019-11-03 18:41 (UTC)

[ Perhaps Geralt should have considered the fact that he hasn't burned off magic the way witches without a bond should; perhaps Geralt should have considered what usually happens in his dreams. Those thoughts have yet to catch up with him because-- why would they? This is Asura's show, his spell, and there's no reason to believe something that tethered him back home might have an impact here.

But it is very cold. And getting colder.

Oofwoofwords. Mlem?? Bleh. He might quip something about Asura having not seen his teacher, the real heart of the keep, now dead. Instead he just makes a face, trying to hook into the right plane of existence to speak properly. ]

Yes. [ He shakes his head, as if clearing fog. His jaw feels rusted; he rolls his shoulder and something cracks. ] Something like it. Too bad you can't see the view.

[ Because it's beautiful. If you like that sort of thing. ]

What do you need to do?

[ Geralt doesn't have a bad feeling, exactly, but an instinct tells him they should get to business without any dawdling over sightseeing. It's colder, and colder, and not in a way that feels like weather. It's unnatural. He drags in a breath that's all crystals in his lungs, letting it out like a cloud of smoke from a dragon. ]

Just me, when it's been the both of us together since you decided to be my escort out into the Wilde? [ It takes at least two to practice oneiromancy, after all. And more than that, Asura's interest in the other man remains keen, sharpened anew by whatever it is that Geralt's unconsciously woven into the framework of the dream—the power which drives the temperature lower and lower and turns each exhale of breath to pluming vapours. Whatever it may be, it most definitely disagrees with Asura's Summer constitution, but he'll be damned if he doesn't at least try to see it fully actualized beyond bone-chilling cold. ] What we need to do is test some limits.

[ Because now that the Witcher's found his voice and rooted himself into the plane of the dream, it's time to shake things up; to bring a little more life to such a lonely and solemn place. ]

Sure, we made it here all right, but the bigger feat is shaping this dream's natural state into something else.

[ And knock out the first tier of the brand of oneiromancy which Asura is familiar with from home: dreamscaping. ]

Should be easy for you and a bit more difficult for me. [ Because the original architect knows the foundations best, what will hold and what will plunge such a beautiful and desolate place into further ruin and collapse. And Asura? In this scenario, he may as well be akin to a restoration artist. ] How about you try your hand at bringing up the temperature before the cold shocks us both back to waking? I'll see about redecorating the courtyard.

[ And lo: Asura saunters off (direction: somewhere over there), heading further out into the courtyard in examination of its broken stone pathways. As he walks, wildflowers and tall, reedy grasses crop up in his wake (as they would back in Asura's own realm, where the blossoms were affixed to his Mantle because yeah, Changelings are creatures straight from fairytales), unfurling from cracks within the limestone, but...! They won't last long without a fix for freezing. Are you working on that, Geralt? ]

Edited 2019-11-06 03:47 (UTC)

[ Geralt is not creative. When he daydreams, when he fantasizes, it's all about comfortable beds in warm rooms, seeing his loved ones safe and living unfettered. He tries to think about a time when Kaer Morhen isn't cold - the summer, maybe, but even then the altitude means it's nippy whenever the air isn't stagnant. Oxygen is thin this high, the mountains unforgiving, despite the fact that they were once beneath the ocean. (That's what the keep's name means in Elder Speech. Castle by the Sea.)

Why would it be so cold? So unnaturally cold?

For a moment it works and Geralt has something like control. The blooms remain, and on the stone wall before Asura is a tapestry of a happy family. A man with white hair, a woman with black hair, and a child, ashen-colored, bright green eyes.

It'd be this cold if the Hunt were here.

The flowers wilt. Behind Asura, someone walks up and stops, their gait demanding attention. ]

What are you doing here?

[ Not Geralt. Some meters back, where he'd been left, Geralt stands, hand outstretched as if in warning, frozen solid. ]

[ It isn't meant for Asura's eyes, that vivid illustration of a family—no different from the cold which ebbs, allowing for the blossoms which mark the King's steps to linger on in their beauty, the depiction had likely surfaced from the depths of a memory. A good one, unbidden but not unwanted, far as Asura can tell, because... he doesn't look away from the image (though he should; he is not an existence without reverence for that which is precious, after all, and there is nothing more valuable in all the realms than memories and the emotions attached to them), not until the temperature sinks and there is the susurration of fallen flower petals against stone.

That voice...? Definitely not Geralt. A Sandman? No, were that the case, it'd want nothing to do with an interloper (Asura) and everything to do with the dreamer. A Kindly Stranger? Nah, not a chance, Asura would've felt one long before the creature spoke. So then what? Well, Asura guesses he can spare a glance back, over his shoulder, to gauge this new, imperious presence which—

(Is a figure evocative of the Wild Hunt that Asura knows.)

—has encased Asura's escort in ice. Well, how about that? The source of the cold which Asura had wondered at has finally decided to introduce itself. ]

Me? I was invited. [ More or less, anyway. Asura wouldn't be here if Geralt didn't want him to be. And speaking of Geralt, Asura knows that the guy—Witcher or not—won't last long in a second skin of ice, and so (in the interest of maintaining the oneiromancy for as long as possible), Asura makes the attempt of thawing him out.

But the temperature doesn't budge beneath the press of Asura's magic. The flowers at the King's feet do not unfurl again. Asura has no draconic fire to shield against the cold. Still: ] Though it looks like you weren't.

[ Not intentionally, that is. ]

Why attack the Witcher first? [ Because Asura's the anomaly here, isn't he? ]

[ Geralt doesn't dream on his own because he's a mutant, but when Geralt does dream, it's because of someone who isn't. Someone whose destiny is linked to his, whose fate he accidentally sealed before she was even born. He dreams of his daughter when she's in danger, just like she dreams of him. He saw her racing from the Aen Elle and she saw him scrambling out of the swamps with the Scoia'tael, over and over, linked subconsciously even when they thought the other dead, even when he had amnesia.

But this is not one of those dreams. This is something else, crafted deliberately, and rapidly moving from dream to nightmare - entirely out of Geralt's control. Hamstrung in his own head, because even if she's just a figment, he can't hurt his daughter.

Ciri is a fixture in his dreams, and just because she isn't the cause this time doesn't mean she's not present and forefront. Never harmless in the first place, the conflicting brands of magic twisting in on themselves that are making this dream into something unpleasant have warped her into someone truly menacing. Bright green eyes only barely visible through dark red and black armor, the figure - only barely recognizable as female - draws its sword. ]

What are you doing here?

[ The same question again. (Geralt isn't creative, even when his mind's being hijacked, it's still his mind.) She darts forward, attacking, twisting, zipping from place to place in flashes of light. ]

[ So there's good news: the dream remains intact, despite the incongruity of the building blocks holding it up. It means Geralt's a better anchor than either Witcher or Changeling realized, even when immobilized by ice. And to think that Asura felt a twinge of concern for guy, when it turns out that Geralt's still very much driving the narrative which unfurls about them—it can't be comfortable, standing in frozen vigil over a dream gone awry, but the Witcher hasn't blipped out, into wakefulness just yet, and that paves the way for...!

A problem: Asura likes to fight, and in this landscape of a deteriorating dream, he's been gifted an opponent swathed from head to toe in ebon plate, their sword drawn ("what are you doing here?") in one instant and put to use in a barrage of advance in the next. The figure—a woman?—with eyes the same, vivid green of the child depicted in a tapestry of memory (there are no coincidences here, there can't be, every variable is fixed and set in accordance to subconscious design), is nimble despite their armored trappings. Too quick to track with the eye until they're upon Asura who defends and deflects blows with his twin gauntlets of dragonscale, finding himself easily immersed in the erratic rhythms of the fight.

Until he feels the barest brush of a touch against his cheek (a butterfly's wings), the ghost of a sensation refocusing his priorities. ]

...you're protecting him. [ And Asura goes abruptly still, ceasing to defend against any further attacks, heedless of what the sudden (in)action might incur, because: ] That's why you benched him immediately, huh? He's fine, underneath all that ice.

[ But unless Geralt and Asura both hightail it out of the dreamscape in short suit, who knows how it'll be in the waking world? Tink's fluttering is not so insistent yet, but ignoring that call for much longer would be careless when Asura promised to see the Witcher safely back to the city. ]

[ Ciri's projection isn't much of a conversationalist, even though in reality, she might be happy to banter, or at least scream at Asura. Much chattier than dad. Much more vicious, too, having none of Geralt's pesky inclination to neutrality. Ciri is bloodthirsty and impatient, and she launches attack after attack at Asura, attempting to boot him out of the dream - which remains intact with Geralt on pause.

But he can't just sit it out, or wait until Asura ends up chopped into little pieces by a girl with the ability to skip freely through time and space. Geralt tries to break out of the ice and the spell that maintains it - it's not real, he tells himself, and the ice begins to crack.

Each crack in the ice brings a crack in the fabric of the dream. Spinning faster and faster into an outright horror-filled nightmare realm. It grows dark and impossibly colder, the sky begins to tear open, with armored creatures and strange, dark knights looming closer like ash falling from the sky. Surreal and impossible, but this is a dream, after all. ]

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(Closed) Octeuril Catch All

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