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August Kohler EVENING
CITY OF EXODUS

The city of Exodus isn't much different during the night than it is during the day, besides the lack of sun. There's still an eerie sense of silence and a light thrumming of psychic energy, as the formerly plague-ridden city, now a psychic-ridden city missing all of its inhabitants, hides treasures and secrets within its midsts. Last time, the group found what we will call the Painted Tree, the 'domain' of a local artist named Rosa Marino who both somehow still remains within the city and seems to be projecting immense psychic energy. Full of violent servants who fight among themselves, the colossal tree likely is one of the 'Seven' indicated by the strange multi-armed creatures, and Marino is likely the face indicated by their thoughts.

Inside one of the branches of the tree, in a display of crystalline blood and gore, Priscilla had impressed the artistic sensibilities of the tree, gaining them entrance to the interior of the tree proper. The expressionist painting of a tree, colorful and so unrealistic, yet placed against reality nonetheless, beckons.

When any member of the group enters the tree, the sounds of more sparring and fighting among the servants can be heard inside, a pair duking it out straight at the 'base' of the Painted Tree, as winding growths of wood provide footholds inside the massive interior, allowing those agile and willing to try navigating to scale the tree by leaping from branch to branch where they don't connect, climbing the walls of the tree, flight, or other tricks to bring them upwards. Eventually, they'll have to maneuver to the far walls as a 'ceiling' approaches of nestled together branches, squeezing through to traverse into the next floor.

It's pretty plain, despite how colorful it is, with various displays of imagery floating along the walls, random and vague 'pictures', and strange bulbed flowers providing light like lamps, in various colors, but there's clearly some stuff to focus on. First and foremost, there's a decently sized pillar, like the type you'd find at an art museum, holding a single painting. It's an expressionist art, titled prominently 'Memories of a Better Time - Rosa Marino'

Getting a better look at it is difficult, though, due to the spectral servant bleeding out various shades of scarlet against it. Along the walls, growing, are various flowers, and spiky vines stretch from them, 'feeding' on the servant as it soaks in the colors. They change focus and attack anyone who gets too close to the body, lashing with thorns.

Upwards mobility is difficult, because there's nowhere to go - above them, the branches are way too clustered and thick, and there's no 'holes' like before. It seems they'll have to deal with this and investigate the painting to go further.
Sanary Rondel      After the last round of investigating at the empty city of Exodus, Sanary's brought some supplies that might aid in gathering info on the tree that the mysterious Seven are connected to: A hammer, a nail, and several clear plastic bags of varying sizes perfect for analyzing samples of weird stuff!

     Not that she has any intention of doing that analysis herself, of course. There's bound to be nerdy science or magic types around, though, so she's at least prepared to do the lifting part of it. Even with her axe, however, she wasn't expecting to have to do much climbing or gardening, but climbing and gardening she'll have to do with the hungry flowers blocking the path after she ascends the Painted Tree.

     "That's a whole lot of... Y'know, I have no idea what I'm even lookin' at here." Sanary squints slightly at the bleeding servant and the plants, holding a hand out to direct some healing magic his way. She's not even sure it'll help in this instance with his situation being what it is, but if it doesn't seem to alleviate his pain or actually result in anything, she'll opt for plan B: Walking right towards those flowers and hacking at them with her axe.
John Rizzo      Rizzo no longer looks like the Invisible Man. Now he looks like the Visible Bum. His weathered trench coat hangs upon his gaunt frame like a funeral caul, and his rumpled dress shirt and slacks aren't much better. Now that there's no gauze covering his face, well, he should look 'healthier,' but instead, he just looks 'malnourished' unhealthy instead of 'burn victim' unhealthy. His short, vibrant red hair is a mess, and his stubble does nothing to recommend him to any of Exodus' abandoned high-society roosts.

     He approaches the tree and enters it on foot, leaving his car nearby. As he's not the most agile amongst those here, his way of scaling the tree is simple, and somewhat indicative of his supernatural strength. His fingers dig into the painted wood as he literally claws his way up, making use of footholds where he can to conserve his strength. When he reaches the area with the pillar, he sighs at the sight of the spectral servant being bled.

     Getting too close, he earns a nasty cut upon a hand outstretched to help. Rizzo withdraws his hand, the wound slowly knitting itself closed. Never the type to resort to brute force unless absolutely necessary, Rizzo begins searching for some sign of Rosa's mind, extending his psychic senses outwards.

     If he can reach her--or any presence at all--he telepathically sends a message. The message is pretty hard to misinterpret. It's an image of the tree from the outside, with the word WHY? superimposed. In other words, why is the tree here? He'll ask the tree /itself/, if he can find it.
Flamel Parsons     Flamel has a deft agility, leaping with levitation and latching onto handholds with big psychokinetic hands. He swings from them using long, thin strands of psychic link before reeling or flipping away. "None of it makes /sense/," He mutters. "It's like an astral mindscape vomited up onto reality. Like someone unloaded their skull and spilled their mind out of it. How does this /happen/?" He fails to explain precisely, and then squeeeeezes himself through the gap.

    "What you're looking at here is the inside of someone's mind. Remember! I'm the guy whose deal is going inside minds. But the thing is, we're inside someone's mind without astrally projecting into it. It's like someone's brain turned inside out and their thinking is on the outside now." He checks around the paintings, peers at the bodies, sees what's happening...

    Last time, his clairvoyance helped. This time, he wants to see if it can help more. Art tends to be a trail of creative work. If he can pulse his clairvoyance into the gallary of sorts, maybe he can find signs of which have the most investment, and if those are of use in finding Rosa. Perhaps even poking them might do something useful!
Priscilla     Getting up the tree isn't tremendously hard for Priscilla. She takes it slower than she needs to though, because it reminds her of getting *down* a specific giant tree that was an absolutely goddamn nightmare. Considering she slips in invisible, right past the sparring couple, and ascends to the next tier like that, it's not really plausible to tell what method of locomotion she's using, but it probably doesn't matter.

    Upon arriving at the painting and dying 'person', she reveals herself around the same time she stops to read the title. She doesn't do anything like mouthing it out, instead only issuing a shortened sigh, and saying "I wouldst hope such not to be referring to 'before the plague', both for the pithiness of such a work in the same period as this tree didst sprout, and for the likely hypocrisy of what the artist hath to do with it."

    With plant stuff feeding on 'the colour scarlet' moreso than blood, Priscilla takes it upon herself to resolve that nonsense, slipping the long, single-piece, organically silver 'dagger' from her sleeve and into her fingers, twisting it through two swift revolutions and then promptly using it like something between a machete and a scalpel, slicing away thorns and stamens with quick, deft strokes, clearing the space of pesky, pointy weeds in such a way that they sure as hell aren't just obnoxiously regenerating back.
Korra Last time, things were complicated. Not-Spirits communicating some vague distress. An empty city, struck by exodus or disease or vaguely Rapture-like disappearance. A distortion, like a migrane, in multiple directions.

Complicated, Complex, Confusing.

"Alright, so, let's break this down. We need to climb the big tree, find the source of the distortion, who's some weird girl, deal with them, and then climb back down." Korra repeats, both to herself and the rest of the group. Clapping her right fist into her left palm with an audible 'smek', the Avatar nods firmly, ducking a treebranch to enter. "Simple enough."

Climbing up the tree is simple enough, and Korra's casual athleticism helps her just leap and lope across the broken and arboreal terrain until they come across the canopy.

Cocking a fist back, Korra is about to let loose when Flamel drops his 'remember, we're inside someone's mind' line.

"So... I shouldn't just blast this stuff? Or, I should, and it's all fake? It's not really clear to me."

Dropping her hands to her hips, hooking thumbs into the lip of her folded-over 'belt' as she leans towards Parson. "Give me the simple version?"
Lezard Valeth Lezard Valeth is present, moving with the group to begin investigating the nature of this environment. The painting and the strange rendition of how it operates doesn't seem to move the cynical man, the sorceror callously calculating and estimating things as he passes. Even in a world like this, form often follows function... Perhaps even moreso, really. Crossing the gaps is no real problem for him. He simply teleports from place to place as needed.

"The creator of this painting has a certain predilection, doesn't it?" Lezard asks offhandedly as they reach the blood-drinking flowers. He raises a hand, preparing to marshall his magic, but drops his hand once he sees Priscilla engage in some gardening. If that isn't enough to solve the problem, his initial plan certainly wouldn't either.

"You do have a flair for summation." He asides to Korra. "That appears to be the long and short of it." He nods, approving for the moment.

He does, however, regard Flamel. "Considering the unusual nature of this incursion, could it be that the inversion of this mental landscape might result in some cross-contamination with the outside? Besides us, of course."
August Kohler Sanary's healing magic flows through the servant, which should stop him from immediately dying unless someone changes that. Her axe chops through one of the flowers, spilling light green ichor, but there's more than one, and the vines of others lash to rip into her flesh. She's luckily aided by an invisible force, unnoticed by the plants, slashing through their vines and rendering them in pieces, the pair able to easily slice them apart.

Rizzo decides to try and talk to Rosa directly. It's easy to find a 'link', sort of, because this entire place is a part of Rosa's mind. But talking to /her/ directly is harder than talking to her presence. Regardless, he's able to send the message. His response is shown for the entire group in the tree slightly shaking from the question, and is responded to directly to Rizzo with a flash in his mind.

It's a brief, incredibly fast, flash of pure 'bad memory'. Something someone wants to repress. What this means is that she /does/ know what happened, and moreso, this tree is directly linked to her thoughts and emotions. There's a feeling of 'don't ask that question' in the flash, and a feeling that Rizzo's not talking directly to Rosa, but more her subconscious-as-the-tree.

Flamel uses his clairvoyance to investigate. The various pictures in the gallery are old, minor things, he'll find, and the big painting that the guy is bleeding against is one of Rosa's most important. However, looking at the pictures is helpful - they seem to go 'chronologically', some sort of memory gallery, ending at the big picture. This does, indeed, seem to be before the plague, but it's not an 'immediately before the plague' comparison painting. It just seems to be a happier time than...something.

Thanks to Sanary's healing, the spiritual servant is able to speak up, turning towards whoever gets close, still bleeding but able to survive, not that it seems it matters much, since last time they killed some of these guys, the Tree was okay with it. "The painting...they were trying to destroy it...if you want to get to the mistress, you'll need to use it."

And then, he falls 'unconscious', but stabilized. The painting doesn't appear to be a trap to any of the experts, but it's radiating with the same psychic energy as everything else, and Flamel's clairvoyance would indicate that this is the right path. If and when someone eventually touches it just to see what happens...

The area shifts, as they get a good view of the painting. It's expressionist art, of a woman in dark hair with light skin, with a dark-haired, dark-skinned man, reading a newspaper, sitting together at a couch in the fire, cuddled up together. A golden dogs lays at their feet. This would normally be hard to see all these perspectives in a painting...but that's the thing.

It's three dimensional, and has taken up the entire area of the canopy. They can walk around this living room (though any doors and windows don't open), they can circle around the couch and see all realistic perspectives (the couple barely have faces, due to the art style), and they can see some key things they'll need to examine closer if they want to read them. Namely, the newspaper, and a plaque on the wall, which seems to be some sort of award.

The unconscious 'man' and the dead plants still lie there. They haven't been teleported somewhere - the tree has changed. It seems this will only last for a few moments, but long enough for the group to make a plan of attack and investigate what they want to in here.

Though, the plants seem to be an issue. The ones that are dead are dead...but more roses start to grow throughout the tree, avoiding the fire (which might rankle Rizzo slightly, but is unlikely to set off the Beast), and this time, they're more like carnivorous flytraps than vine-y roses, trying to snap at anyone they can get to and stop them from investigating!
Sanary Rondel      The axe-wielder hisses painfully as the plants' lashing vines dig into her, drawing blood that would undoubtedly be reason to flinch for a normal person. Between being naturally tough, cheating with healing magic flowing through her already, and wanting to show off, though, Sanary stands her ground as the plants start falling apart before her for no apparent reason!

     Clearly, it's herself and not an unseen creepy dragon lady. "... Psh. These things weren't so tough. Just one touch and they're already breakin' apart." She laughs derisively at nobody in particular, although it's probably more directed towards the creator of this place than anyone else. Turning to the servant, she raises an eyebrow as he mentions a 'they'.

     "There's other visitors in here? Huh. But if they wanted to reach this lady, then wouldn't...?" She trails off as their view inexplicably changes to that of the three dimensional painting, her grip on her axe remaining steady as she takes a moment to just process what just happened.

     "Flamel! Lezard! If their brain's on the outside, does that mean what we do can get inside their outside brain?" A beat, then a followup. "... Will their thinking be changed by whatever we're doing here?" As she speaks, Sanary's axe starts to frost over as she channels magic into it. She lashes out at the flytraps as she heads towards the dog in the picture, trying to get some clearance for herself and whoever's investigating it for clues. If she can get close enough, she'll even work on trying to move the dog to see if there's anything hidden under it.
John Rizzo      "You're /one of/ those guys," Rizzo says, gently correcting Flamel. "But there's enough room in this racket for the two of us." The vampire points affably at the other psychic as Sanary hacks away at the vines. He doesn't bother stopping her, or Priscilla, for that matter, since he's not especially fond of what they're doing to the servant, real or otherwise. He has a stranger opinion of what's real than most.

     "It's symbolic, kid," says Rizzo to Korra, offering his own advice in addition to whatever 'Mel may have to say. He nods towards the thorny vines, as Sanary and Priscilla hack them up. "Place is a big tree. So look for stuff that could do a number on it, and give it the bum's rush." He tightens a fist a little aggressively. "Savvy?"

     The vampire stuffs both hands into his pockets, head bowed slightly as if 'listening' to something. The rumbling of the tree is received with a further tilt of his head to the right, and the knee jerk reaction causes him to furrow his brow. That burst of emotion, coupled with the name of one of the paintings, gives him some idea of what's going on. This is escapism.

     Rizzo gives a deep, knowing sigh, looking up at those around him. "I know what this is," says the vampire with a somber nod towards the unconscious servant. "No other way but that way." He steps through the painting without any further hesitation, arriving in the--

     A brief wave of heavily stifled fear runs through the vampire like a shiver, a primal but controlled reaction to the fire. 'Mel can feel it rise up from Rizzo, then feel it get promptly snuffed out.

     Rizzo fixates on the plaque, reaching out and touching it. He focuses on his connection to Malkav, keeping a figurative thumb on this page in the book, as his mind flips through it for further references. Who was awarded with it, and why? What sort of emotions are connected to it? It might be something they can use to reach Rosa more meaningfully than simple conversation, something that could pry her out of this fantasy.

     At risk of injury, Rizzo ignores the plants, even if their thorns pierce his skin and draw blood.
Flamel Parsons     Parsons takes his correction good-naturedly, with an interested smile and a tilted head. Stepping through the painting makes a great deal of sense here. For his part... the best path forward he can find is one that focuses on opening further paintings. If paintings are the way forward here, the best thing to do is to explore how to use that mechanic. Perhaps the painting they're inside right now neighbors another? Is there something here that looks like a path to the next painting back in the chronology?

    He tries to look around for the newspaper, himself. It might give some insight, though it's likely to be too pointilized to read. It might, also, be host to another picture. Perhaps something that might get them into another painting, or further through the tree? As he does, he answers Sanary. "If we can /find/ them, I might be able to figure out more about how astral phenomena work! I really want to try. But-- Well, everything you do can change howpeople think to some degree. I wouldn't worry about it too much, anything terribly important tends to be strong in an astral projection. I'm sure you can handle it well!"
Korra "I know it's a bunch of symbols. That's, like, all spiritual stuff." Korra retorts with a hint of smugness. Yeah, of course, weird Jazz Guy, I'm hip to the spiritual... Totally.

At his summary, though, Korra nods firmly. "Sure. Uh, 'savvy'." She agrees, as the group climbs in to the strange living room area. The 'painting'.

"Now, I'm pretty sure we're in the spirit world at this point, but it still feels wrong... Someone painted this? With a brush?"

Rizzo starts getting involved with the thorny plants embargoing interaction with the various Key Items, but being the sort of person whose key items have largely been 'big martial arts fights' and not 'the deep lore hidden behind the painting, requiring you to not use hint coins to find all the Picarats' variety.

"Hey, guy, watch out!" Korra calls, as Sanary goes chopping at one set of maruading vines and plantlife, broadening her stance and bringing her lead foot down rather hard onto the ground, as if expecting --

Something to happen. Shaking her head in a 'stupid, should have known' feeling, she aims a straight punch at the air, and following the hook of her arm is a crackle of heat that bursts into an arc of flame to scorch back the plants near Rizzo.

Good news! It's really hot, really fiery fire, and that means plants hate it!
Bad News! It's... really hot, really fiery fire. Rizzo... might hate it.
Lezard Valeth Lezard observes the behavior of the plants and frowns. "They are far more persistent than I expected, if even that does not dissuade them." He turns, choosing to add his own sorcery to the efforts to prune the plants back and /keep/ them back. He doesn't use fire, however.

"ICICLE EDGE!" He calls out, and a large spray of razor-sharp ice begins showering into the plantlife on one side, working to mulch it and freeze what's left to keep it from coming back so quickly. Korra was, of course, right. Live plants burn poorly.

When the painting projection surrounds the area, he observes the painting, looking over at the plaque and the newspaper as objects of interest, as much of the rest is too abstracted to make a proper deduction from them.

"That was actually one of the thoughts I had myself, though not... expressed in such a manner." He replies to Sanary. "The relatively open nature of the mindscape here presents a high chance of things within it affecting the world outside, and vice versa. That said, the state of the actual /mind/ within such a scape is likely already quite... unusual." He looks to Flamel and Rizzo. "Though the local mental experts are likely a better estimate of such. I rarely deal with the mind directly. I prefer to act through the body and soul."
Priscilla     "And who, precisely, art 'they'?" Priscilla asks, but is too late to be answered before the servant slips into unconsciousness. The answer is at least partially obvious, however. She continues in the form of talking to herself. "I assumeth not the creatures that mill about the roots in the empty parks and streets. They fear these seven --seven places and seven minds-- too much to wish to approach. I can only estimate that one of the other six is to blame, if they art not all out for one another's heads already. Such is a strong possibility of shared godhood."

    The scenery shifts. Rosa's pleasant memories given just enough substance to wallow in. A husband and a dog and a comfortable home, without doubt. Priscilla takes one look around it, and then remarks with some audible disappointment, "What vulgar and self-indulgent purpose to paint a world." Still, they're currently using this painting, checking it for details. Priscilla spreads crackling white frost, aglow with its unstable energy, crawling over the floors and walls outwards into the vines, fit to instantly inflict hideous frostbite, before it breaks apart into carpets of tiny explosions anyways. She keeps it up as a ring around the living room, walling the biting plants out. Rizzo has the plaque, Flamel has the newspaper, so Priscilla begins looking for windows; this is a home, so there must be a view outside.
August Kohler Sanary's attempt finds two things: the dog doesn't really budge - it /could/, but it's Extremely Difficult, as if the reality won't let it happen without a fight. Good news is, there's probably not anything under there, and she's able to help clear the newspaper area for those investigating it.

Massive icicle blasts freeze the plants and fire from the Avatar herself help keep the plants off Rizzo and burn them to cinders, but concentration's going to be difficult with all the flames, so he's only able to sort of make it out. It's an award for excellence, to the 'Governor', but his name is already slightly difficult to read due to some sort of effect on the plaque, and the lack of concentration's making it even harder. Though if anyone saved the newspaper from last time...they'll be able to find that at the least, the most recent governor was 'Damon Drake'.

The newspaper, meanwhile, has a very simple headline.

'ROSA MARINO - THE MODERN MONET'

It talks about how her art, predominantly of plants and flowers, is being praised throughout the art world, and a lot of metaphors (that probably weren't written in a real newspaper and are instead some sort of memory of it) for happiness and excellence. The painted woman seems to be so into this, so excited about this information.

Priscilla creates a wall of ice, killing or blasting out the plants. She glances out the window, and spots a beautiful city view from a hill. At first, it doesn't seem useful, until she'd be able to notice that it's a perfectly /normal/ city. There's no temples on the top of skyscrapers. There's no weird military bunkers near hospitals. The buildings they saw before, the strange ones, must be like this one - something new. There's also a clear sign of a state building, which they hadn't seen before, and some landmarks near it, if they'd want to navigate towards that later.

Flamel's investigation for a way forward finds that slaying the plants is the key. The 'mind' they're inside seems to respond favorably, but at the same time feels disappointed. It's weird. Nonetheless, a staircase opens up, suddenly dropping from the ceiling. Climbing up it takes a bit, and midway, you can feel the bark of the tree branches underfoot, as if you're traversing through the tree again. But instead of another gallery, you start out already inside another painting - getting out is now the key.

It's kind of a split screen, this one is. On one side, a high-rise office, probably an agent or a publisher or something. Rosa Marino (if she is the dark-haired woman from before) is holding a newspaper, angrily berating a mousy man in glasses at his desk, shoving it in his face.

On the other side, a maid on her knees, cleaning up what appears to be a red wine spill. Rosa Marino stands over her, spitefully yelling at her as well, holding a glass of red wine. Several other glasses lie nearby on a mantlepiece. This part doesn't seem to have as many clues...because there's a monster.

It's a massive treant-like creature, and it's trying to tear apart the painting, branches ripping holes into it, and every second you witness it, the psychics can feel a 'twang'. Like this is damaging the Painted Tree, like it's causing a problem to the memories. But the source of the creatures will need some more investigation to figure out where they come from.

The good news is, this is probably the last painting. It feels like they're very close to the source of the psychic energy. Rosa is probably not far.
Sanary Rondel      Luckily, Sanary did indeed save the newspaper! It's just piled in with the rest of the crap in her bag filled with other bags and also tools. She'll bring it out if anyone asks, of course. Otherwise, it won't really occur to her to even pull it back out.

     What's more startling is a combination of Korra just punching fire out at those plants. She stares at the Avatar blankly, opening and shutting her mouth a few times before casting her gaze aside and muttering in irritation to herself. It's distracting enough that she doesn't even flinch so much when the stairs comes down from the ceiling. She heads up those stairs, still muttering to herself until she realizes her new surroundings.

     It's a weird office with several people in it. Also, a tree monster. She snorts once and spits some debris off to the side, then rushes for that tree. "Get outta the way, jerkass! We got work to do!" She shouts angrily, already moving into to chop away at the treant with little regard for her own safety.
John Rizzo      Korra's use of fire gives Flamel something else to observe from Rizzo. There's that primal fear again, as well as the figurative boot stamping it out--but the effort to stamp it out is a lot more concerted with /actual/ fire being thrown around. 'Mel can sense a primal, animalistic fear escaping from the vampire, in uneven bursts, like the beams of a strobe light creeping out from the cracks of a tightly clenched fist.

     Rizzo nearly drops the plaque, his efforts to concentrate forcing most of his attention on suppressing the Beast rather than peering into the past of the plaque. The pages are snatched away from his mind, any deeper meaning fleeing as his darker side rattles its cage. He bears the weight of his mind upon it, placing the full weight of his crushing, fragmented mind upon the top of that cage. Shut up. Shut up. "SHUT UP!"

     The plaque drops against the floor, both hands now pressed firmly to his temples. He retreats, pacing away from Korra's fire, from the fireplace, from the snapping plants. One hand is wrenched away from his head to press against the wall of the room. His eyes are locked on the floor, practically boring a hole into it. Anything to keep his mind off of the fire. He doesn't bother clarifying that he wasn't addressing anyone present--they wouldn't understand. Rizzo takes a breath.

     Priscilla thinks the painting is self-indulgent. "Grief often is," shakily says the vampire in response to her. Now that he's not done up like King Tut, she might remember him. Or she might not--the Union was a long time ago. His free hand trembles, as Lezard and Sanary opt for much more vampire-friendly ways of clearing the plants. "The plague... even if they didn't catch it, it must've hit 'em. Here." He taps a finger to his chest. "Or here." Against his temple. "This is how Rosa's dealing with it. Escapism." As more plants are slain, he offers a further thought on the matter. "The vines, the plants... they're hurting her, but the hurt... maybe it's comfortable to her. It's easier than letting go. Less risky." He gives 'Mel a look, a silent 'what do you think?'

     With the threat of frenzy put to bed for the moment, he tries to decipher what he saw. The plaque is for the governor... an award for excellence. "Who's the Governor?" This, he asks, as he begins to ascend the staircase with the others. That question will have to wait--there's a monster on the loose. The treant appears to be harming Rosa's subconscious more than any other creature has so far--and this is one situation that doesn't look like it'll be talked away.

     Rizzo tosses his coat off, rolls his sleeves up. The lanky beanpole of a vampire doesn't seem like he'll be able to do much... until he shoulder checks the treant and attempts to wrestle it to the ground, using his vampiric strength to try and lock its limbs in place with a bear hug.
Lezard Valeth Things proceed as determined by overwhelming firepower and the powers of a dense cluster of gifted Elites. Lezard expected basically as much. It would take a hell of a plant to inconvienience this group.

He smirks as the stairs come down, and they proceed on into the next area... Which is very unusual. Lezard stares at the split tableaus, trying to consider what is going on. "This seems to be a mark of the woman's descent from her previously pleasant situation, perhaps?" He says aloud...

But then there is the matter of the treant. Oh, speaking of a hell of a plant. "TCH! GET THEE HENCE, YOU MISBEGOTTEN SPAWN OF A DRYAD!" He proclaims, stretching his hands forth and proclaiming, "LIGHTNING BOLT!"

As one might expect, a moment later there is a crack of lightning that crashes right into the tree, hopefully splitting this oak. "Sanary, hold back, there is no need to attack it like a fool Norseman."
Priscilla     Landmarks are exactly what Priscilla had hoped to get, both to navigate to anything that stands out in the before/after juxtaposition of the two Exodus Cities, but also because she'd like to know where this house originally was as well. She commits what's there and what isnt to memory as best she can, helped out by the fact that most of it is 'weird stuff one wouldn't expect to find in a city like this at all'.

    Upon seeing the tree-beast, Priscilla stops for just a moment to silently reconsider whether it really is one of the other seven's efforts to sabotage Rosa. Something is attempting to destroy these paintings, almost certainly the collective representation of her broader memory, isolated in moments of painted reality, as Flamel has put it, from 'a brain turned inside out' like this, but her servants have protected the fond ones and not these, wherein the artist is presented in unflattering pride and anger.

    "If this is indeed, all of it, mentally constructive of Lady Marino's thoughts, then escapism is not the only force at work. The desire to forget made manifest, put at war with the part of her that wouldst defend those memories too precious to. Her painted servants may not quite be so literal." she contemplates aloud, before brandishing her scythe in a streaking black whirl from nowhere.

    "Unfortunately, we cannot afford to let Lady Marino forget quite so soon. There is that which we hath yet to do. This ugliness cannot be covered up now; not once one hast already exposed their soul to the world." Priscilla approaches, twists the scythe once around herself, then brings it up from under the treant's arm at a diagonal, cleaving into its midsection and then ripping up and through, pulling the long, curved edge of the scythe blade to the up and opposite side of the creature with a forceful, vicious twist.
Flamel Parsons     John's take on it is something Flamel thinks about, but can't seem to put his finger on. "The plant imagery was something she made, something she enjoyed... Hmmmm. Hmmmmmmm. She seems kind of disappointed." He presses on, heading up as well, taking care on the stairs through levitation.

    Once he reaches the top, he surges into action! "Woah! Hey! Take it easy, this mind might be delicate!" He shouts, not to his allies, but to the treant. "Come on! Listen, I /love/ the craftsmanship on you, there's clearly a lot of skill and a lot of pain in your design! But you need to work /with/ this mind, not /against/ it!" He surges about, zipping and flanking, a pair of fingers pressed against his temples.

    He unleashes a sort of machine-gun burst of orange sizzling psychokinetic bolts, trying to down the beast or force it back. But, as he does, he's probing and experimenting. That disappointment, does it feel any lessened when Rosa has some /appreciation/ for her old work? It clearly seems like she's been lacking it lately, and she did seem far more at ease when she had it. Is it perhaps the philistine-like nature of their dungeoneering that was putting off her consciousness?
Korra Slinging around earth and fire is Korra's go-to technique. Earth is strong, immutable, unyielding - and generally readily available. Fire leaps to her call, the pulse of life and heat searing into the sky with her tight, powerful, or acrobatic motions. And yet, both aren't usable - earth, because they're in a painted tree. Fire, because...

"Hey, are you alright?" Korra worries, reaching forward to put a reassuring palm onto his shoulder, which stops, jerking in mid-air at the 'feeling' she gets from the wiry vampire.

"Hey. I'm sorry. Don't worry, though, yeah?"

Korra lets her hand drop, with Lezard's icicles in play. "I can do something else. Okay?"
"Savvy?" She finishes, the upturn of her tone a transparent attempt to smooth the issue she caused over. The investigation passes her by pretty simply, becuase Korra is ill-suited for investigation: the person's name, highlighted. A cityscape like the one they just left, changed. It washes over her like plot points meant for another sort of character, a different sort of hero. One minding the little things, deeply invested in the subtle tweaks of the past, born out in an image reflected in the present.

Korra instead spends her time sweeping her palm through the air, her lower hand rotating around the motion as if holding a large sphere with her palms. Lezard's ice buried in the wall (or the plants) after being expended changes state, flowing back towards Korra in a large ring about her midsection at a diagonal.

Which becomes IMMEDIATELY relevant as they come across a giant treant!

"Is this a metaphor too?" Korra asks Rizzo, shortly before he goes in for the 'hold my coat' shoulder-tackle-into-armbar'ing of a living tree.

"No? Giant monster tree? Cool."

Channeling the water around her into a surge, Korra steps forward once, sweeping blades of the borrowed liquid through the air like bladed whips or rather wet swords, before drawing back the remainder and thrusting it all forward, the tip forming an icy lance--!

And, clawing her hands apart, 'splitting' the lance on contact, to burst the ice for internal damage - or to tear apart.
August Kohler The group goes up against the treant. Sanary hacks into it with her axe, and the group can freely attack it as Rizzo grabs it and pins it with superhuman strength, leafy limbs and branches held back, though trying to scrape through his skin regardless.

Lightning blasts forward, striking into the treant and making the smell of burnt wood and acrylic, while Flamel's psychic bolts blast it backwards and Priscilla's scythe almost kills it outright, carving into the wood, but it's a bit tougher than the rest, requiring the whole team's work to finish it. Indeed, Korra gets the final blow, her icy lance impaling and exploding into the treant, with the scythe damage making it easy to just split the thing apart from the inside. It falls apart...

And they only have a few moments to scan the headline of the newspaper, 'ROSA MARINO - FROM HAUTE TO HACK' and finish their investigations before the painting's going to start opening for them again. Flamel can feel something interesting about the disappointment. While, yes, they're definitely phillistines, it seems more that /part/ of her wanted the painting to be desttroyed by the plants, even if not as much as this one. Like part of her wanted that good memory erased. It'd remind him of a classic mind fighting against itself, a problem he must have seen countless times. But then, at the same time, her appreciation for her old work did make it more difficult for the plants to just destroy it, and Priscilla might be on the right track.

The painting disappears around them, and they're /much/ further up the tree. The painting, now behind them, reads 'Spite Is A Downward Spiral'. Rosa is up a 'spiral staircase' of branches, they can feel it, but as they start ascending, a female painted servant blocks the path. "Please, I must insist you not bother the mistress! She is in the middle of her /masterpiece/."

The servant is easily bypassed, killed, or kidnapped, though if she's ignored she just dogs after them, harmlessly but annoyingly. The light starts to dim with every step they take, as the 'tree' starts to disappear and be replaced with a void of strange colors. Despite the lack of light, you can 'feel' the colors, knowing they're there, and thus giving an idea of where to go.

At the center of this void, when they reach the top of the tree, with a sort of dramatic lighting on her, is a woman  painting, hunched over. She's in a red dress, worn and damaged, at an easel. Dark brown hair, brown eyes, a generally attractive woman who's not taken care of herself in quite some time, furiously taking paint to easel. If one moves to just approach her, though...

There's a clash, and the void starts to light up, slightly. With the color of eyes. Monsters don't necessarily come at the group, but they're there, all throughout this 'room' which feels, for a moment but probably not in actuality, infinitely large, the center of her power. All sorts of hideous plant creatures, with tendrils of vines, and such, fighting against her painted gladiator servants, while she ignores it all around her. She's numb to it.

If the group isn't careful in their movements, the fighting may turn on them, especially if they get too close to Rosa, though at the same time, if they can get to Rosa /quickly/, before being blocked, the creatures won't get too close to her as to threaten her.
Sanary Rondel      In-between swings, Sanary actually gets enough of her brain going to answer his question about the governor! "Eh? It was... Damion Drake, I think." Indeed, she's already starting to calm down a bit after venting her frustration out on that treant, although Lezard's call to hold back falls on deaf ears.

     Figuratively deaf. "A Norseman? Are they strong?" She slows down finally once the treant breaks apart, although the frustration still lingers after she's already seen so many displays of elemental and physical prowess from the gathered Elites. As their locale changes once again, she doesn't spend much time loitering before stomping her way upwards.

     "So what's with these plants, anyway? Is it her own mind makin' it all... Break itself, or is someone else trying to mess with her head?" The servant that appears to block their progress gets a brief glance from the healer before she moves to just haul 'her' up onto her shoulders, and Sanary keeps on moving until she spots the painter and even more of those accursed plants.

     "Oi! Are you Rosa Marino? In case you haven't noticed, there's all these plant things around messing up the place!" She sets the servant down as she calls out to Rosa, then moves to join the servants in hacking away at the plants. "Or are you some weird... Brain image of the real Rosa? Or are you really... Damion Drake instead?!" That attempted revelation is punctuated with Sanary pointing dramatically at Rosa, and then she whirls back around to focus on fighting.

     It's a good guess, right?

     The pain goes largely ignored as far as visible reactions go, but Sanary is quick to go quiet once she's forced to focus some on actually healing herself and maintaining a steady flow of magic to keep too much blood from coming out. The servants themselves get some healing support as well, likely due in some part to the healer being told that this Norse man isn't strong.

     She can at least be more strategic than him.
Korra There's no rush of victory as Korra sends her ice explosion through the ent. It's just a tree. Really, it was just in the way. And...

It sort of felt like a spirit, which left any lingering sense of accomplishment low. That, and the fact that she had been almost entirely set up for it by everyone else. She wasn't even showing off! Everyone was so...

...Competent.

So then it's just climbing up stairs and ignoring people - these are things Korra is pretty good at. She hops up the stairs two at a time, glancing like a bored child the various visions and paintings. It's meaningless. Korra's already made up her mind about the best way to deal with this.

At the top, the pinnacle of eyes and monsters, servants and spectres, Korra cups both hands to her mouth. "HEY! Could you stop all this?" When the inevitable 'lack of just doing what she says' happens, Korra widens her footing.

"Show's over. Wake up!"

Digging her heels into the dark 'tree', Korra squares her shoulders, clenching her fists and pumping them parallel to the ground, before holding that stance momentarily.

Her mind reaches out. She can grip it, feel it. Finer milled and mixed than she was used to, but the feeling of it was close enough. Hewing it, shearing it, she brought it towards her.

From the inside, it's probably hard to see, as Korra brings her fists back, drawing some intangible rope or large object backwards with heavy steps.

From the outside, one of the nearby concrete buildings lose two and a half stories off the top of its structure, coming hurtling towards the 'other end' of the tree, towards Korra's 'pull', and probably totally smashing this little Writer's Attic straight to hell.

"There's a point at which you stop, and we're long past arts-and-crafts time!"
John Rizzo      As everything disappears, and they find themselves further up the tree, Rizzo finds himself prone on the ground, no longer grappling with a treant. He gets up, dusts himself off, and calmly retrieves his trenchcoat. "Drake," says Rizzo to Sanary after a long pause. "Maybe him and Rosa were an item. That plaque was his--awarded to him."

     "I'm fine, kid," he says to Korra, belatedly. She receives a mental image--she can tell that it isn't a thought of her own design. It's a cage, with a padlock and chains, keeping a dangerous animal locked up. It prowls, features hidden in shadow, save for eyes the same color as Rizzo's. At the presence of fire, it becomes agitated, rattling the cage and the chains distressingly. The image fades. "That's why," says Rizzo. It seems a nonsensical statement to most--but likely not to Korra.

     "Nothin' doin', sister," brusquely replies Rizzo to the servant attempting to bar their path. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, a dismissive gesture. "Blow." He continues past her, all the way up the staircase, until he can see Rosa. Well--this'll be their best chance at getting some answers. A few questions burn in his mind. Where has everybody gone? Why haven't they come back? What's here that's worth all this fighting between the Seven?

     "Rosa," says Rizzo, approaching slowly. As usual, he isn't mindful of the plants. It might start to annoy the others. "What happened? Why all the commotion with the tree? What's so important that... you and the other six wanna fight over..." He sighs. There's no nice way to put it. "Over a graveyard?"
Lezard Valeth The immediate problem is dispatched thanks to the united murder power of the Elites present. All's well that ends well. Of course, a cursory glance over the environment before it vanishes tells Lezard all he needs to know: The inevitable fall. This is the beginning of it, not the likely tragic end... Or did it even reach an end before the plague?

Something he will have to find out later, perhaps. Lezard doesn't bother approaching the artist, simply standing there and staring at the woman. "What kind of travesty is this that you seem to be unable to make up your mind whether you wish to live or die? What pain are you allowing yourself to suffer? Is oblivion truly so preferable to the alternative?"
Flamel Parsons     Flamel surges up. He flashes a Psychonauts /badge/ at the servant. "Agent Parsons, work for the government." He assures her, with a firm and authoritative tone that's hard to bar. "Just need a moment of her time." Once they get up there, and start seeing the state and nature of things... Parsons quickly snaps into invisibility. "Gah! Lot of conflict up here, sheesh!!" He whispers, tensely, and telepathically. "Be careful about this!" He moves in, inwards... And speaks to Sanary. "Kinda hard to tell the difference between your mental image of you and yourself, isn't it?"

    Korra's response is what gets hidden eyes going wide behind sunglasses. "What the-- Oh shit! Hey, watch out, who knows what's going on with all this internal conflict! Concussions are a dangerous kind of reset button." He tries to join up John near Rosa. John takes things more down to earth, while Parsons seems to... have quite a different approach. He's more about the causes. "Woah! Hey, Rosa." He speaks up as he gets nearer to her. "You're still really dedicated to the work, huh? Jeez, you must love this stuff! Hey, I don't want to overstep my boundaries, but just as someone who really admires creative work, it seems like you might be hung up on what people are thinking about your work. I can actually completely understand! Since they're the only real source of perspective that isn't based on you staring at the flaws all day."

    "But, /wow/, hard to find people who love their work like you do! I really want to know, I've seen what other people thought, but can I see what you love about what you're doing here?" He really wants to get a look at that painting, but more specifically, he wants to shift Rosa, as hard as he can, as fast as he can, towards harvesting the psychological high-energy fuel of love to stabilize things.
Priscilla     A scathing newspaper line, lambasting Rosa for trying to outlive her period of designated fame, is about what Priscilla had expected from the context of this image. Famous long enough to become rich and proud, but brief enough for a fragile ego. Priscilla isn't tuned into the world of reviews and critics, but she knows art --and fame-- that much.

    Priscilla reads the words: Spite is a Downward Spiral . She dismisses it with the barest glint of cold, intense, unwarranted anger in her eyes.

    Dealing with the poor servant girl trying to do her job by walking past her and then icing up a wall at the base of the stairs to block her out, Priscilla continues on, and ascending into the void of colours-that-aren't is the most harrowing part of the whole journey for Priscilla. Where she had slaughtered the offputting and emotionally fragmented gladiators without a second thought, waded through the mess of horrible carnivorous plants without flinching, and barely blinked at the heavy-hitting surreality of changing painting worlds, where the light and the colours cease and become something dark and full of only implied monsters --that's where her shoulders stiffen, her tread slows, and her tail puffs up a bit, ceasing its constant motion.

    It reminds her too much of something that always seems to go wrong with these painter gods. A sort of faint tv-static of chromatic aberration seems to follow her the higher she goes, essentially invisible at first, but becoming a nagging semi-sight by the end. When she actually lays eyes on Rosa, she seems uncharacteristically hesitant to approach. In fact, she refuses to at all, instead peering past her to see what it is exactly that she is attempting to paint.

    "Escaping into a new canvas, even if thou burn the old, will not allow thee to escape from all of this. The mirror does not alloweth one to hide behind it."
August Kohler The servant gets kidnapped and presumably dumped off into the void-room somewhere. Sanary starts shouting at Rosa, who only sort of replies. "Yes...yes." It's totally out of it, as if she's forcing herself into a trance...but the name Damon Drake causes her to stir. Not enough to snap her out of it, as the yelling also fails to do more than a "I'm busy, can't you see?", but it might work. It'd probably take some effort, though, in the midst of all the fighting...

Or, alternatively, dropping a building on the tree would work too.

Korra yanks a chunk of building nearby, pulls it up, and smashes it into part of the tree. There's a loud crash as a hole in the void opens up, disrupted by the sheer force, and revealing the moonlit sky out there, even if the void tries to repair it. Unless Korra maintains the building chunk's structure and stability, pieces will fall onto the plants and servants, crushing them, and the tree will absolutely shake, taking severe structural damage. So much as a sharp breeze could knock over the entire 'tree' if it's not given time to repair itself.

The painting and Rosa are only safe from Rosa snapping out of her state, shielding the painting with her body, and preventing it from getting destroyed. The good news is Rosa is now snapped out of her state. The 'bad' news is there's now a collapsing tree and Rosa's subconscious is too distracted to focus on maintaining it.

Luckily, those talking to Rosa can now get her attention during all this chaos. "Wh...I heard Damon's name, did he send you? Are you his creations?!" She doesn't believe you're real, yet, and she seems panicked. "A graveyard? You know what happened! You know what we did...we were supposed to help them, and look at what we have left!" If anyone approaches the painting, she gets bodily in the way. "I'm not losing anything else...if we can't save them, then I'm just going to hole myself in here, like the rest of you did!"

Lezard's comment gets a sharp frown from Rosa, though she actually answers it. "Die, you think I'd die? I've survived for a year, Damon...a year since you started this. I just...I just want to forget, okay? Wrap myself in a coccoon and paint my life away. We're never going to die with how we are now, not needing to eat or drink or sleep, so I'll just stay here until one of you kills me. Is that what you're here to do? Then do it!"

She's freaking out, and also doesn't seem to genuinely want to be killed or to forget. But they might be able to puzzle a quick solution to calm her down (or just kill her, which will probably solve the problem too).

Flamel's take at least seems to be working. It doesn't seem to be exactly the right angle, but it's a good one - she loves her work. "My...of course I do, Damon. It's how I met you, it's how I got anywhere in life, and now it's all I can do to forget what we did." Priscilla's cold voice gets harshness in return, but that actually...might be the right tack, because Rosa responds to being told she cannot escape in a weird way. "Why not? Didn't you escape? Didn't we all escape? We can't revive the world like this, with power we can't even control, can we?"

She moves away from the painting enough at that to get a look. It's a utopian world, with animals, and people, and plants, on a hillside, in the city of Exodus. It seems like it's been scrapped and recreated over and over and over again, painted on for a long time. Like she can't bring herself to finish it for whatever reason. But it's important to her.

The tree is collapsing, though. Whatever the group's going to do, they should do quickly. At the least, Rosa doesn't appear to be a combatant on her own. Killing her would probably be extremely easy.
Flamel Parsons     Before anything gets done here, Flamel looks over to Priscilla, and immediately gives her a sort of a Look. It's not clear if it's something like, "Look, here's your opportunity." Or if it's something like, "Hey, please don't stab her if this is an obscure offense against the honor of painting-kind." Or even if it's, "Seriously, are you seeing this?" It can be interpreted a dozen ways. But then he gets to actual work, speaking to her.
John Rizzo      Rizzo steps closer. "Rosa..." He locks eyes with her, looming over her. There's no slang to be found in what he says, none of his usual rakish affectations, either. "What is it you think you have here?" A... sort of force flows from his mind, numbing her panic and warding off the gnawing anxiety. It's an effort to get her to consider what he--and others--have to say. "You used to be happy. You had a good life, and I know it hurts to have lost that. But holing yourself up in here isn't gonna save anybody--I know that, and you know that. Come with us. Help us understand, help us save them."
Korra Korra proceeds to HIT THE BIG THING WITH ANOTHER BIG THING, thus doing the thing that all Protagonists Of Means engage in: doing a cool move and getting the other guy to go 'masaka!!!'.

As the tree destabilizes around them, Korra presses down-down with her palms, settling the building chunk against the tree and turning her hands 'out' as bits of the concrete latch onto the surrounds like clamps. "Alright, let's just skip the fight then!" Korra calls, powerjumping up the broken tree's "void" up into her building and hanging off a broken window with a hand and a foot.

Swinging herself out, she creates a ramp out of building-mass, gesturing towards the group.

"Hey, come on! We'll take this down to the bottom like one of Mako's elly-vaytors. You can talk to her outside of the crumbling tree."

Korra even stays on station dangling off the side of the building like a buccaneer and helping people up the ramp or into safer parts of the bulding chunk.
Sanary Rondel      Flamel addressing Sanary directly gets a confused look from the healer. "... Eh? I.. Guess? Is this one of those re-torn questions?" He might have to slow it down a bit/lot for her, as she doesn't quite seem to get what he's going for there.

     Granted, she'd probably freak out looking at a mental image of herself. Maybe even get into a bloody deathmatch out of paranoia or something.

     Whatever the case may be, Sanary keeps her head down as the building starts falling apart in the tree. She can only guess at how Korra's managed all that, but the effects of it are understandable enough. She hurries about in the rapidly dwindling tree space, stopping once Rosa finally speaks up.

     She quickly rules out the possibility of the painter being Damon. No, there's definitely some kind of deeper connection between Rosa and Damon, and they with the goings on in the ghost town.

     Alas, Sanary's not the best equipped to figure any of that out, and she waits for the rest of the group to finish asking Rosa whatever questions they may have, possibly even waiting for someone to give her a vague signal that they're ready to leave. Either way, Sanary's next move is doing the one thing she's apparently been pretty good at lately:

     Kidnapping people. She moves over to try and haul Rosa Marino over her shoulder, then books it. This painter's their best source of information for figuring out what's going on here, and Sanary might as well keep her alive long enough to get as much of that as possible.
Flamel Parsons     "Hey. Hey." Parsons says, trying to gently put a hand on Rosa's shoulder. His intent is to calm her, and her mindscape, before things get too bad. "Listen. Love is how you got anywhere. So get where you need to with it. Here, look at this." He gestures at the painting. "I want you to tell me what you love about it. You've been working on it for ages, I can tell, and I know you've put your heart into it. So tell me what you /love/ about it. And don't say anything about what people used to think, or what you think people will think about it. Tell me what you loved making. I want you just to tell me what you loved about getting to make this."

    "You got where you needed to go by loving what you do, not by riding trends or appealing to people, or painting away bad things, or by making deals with whoever you made deals with, or anything like that. So I want you to love what you're doing. Listen, you're a bit caught up in your own head right now. And we all get like that! Built-up insecurities, regrets, things like that. I bet a break would do you wonders. Some time to rest, relax, and let your love for what you do surge enough that you /have/ to finish this. You don't need to forget, you just need to love it. It looks /gorgeous/, that's for sure, and I can't wait for you to finish it. Then it can save them. Using the kind of thing you know will work."

    The moment when Sanary gets Rosa over her shoulder, Parsons handles what he expects to be the larger issue: He telekinetically grabs up the painting, and the supplies, in an array of large translucent telekinetic hands, taking them along for the ride and hopefully making sure Rosa can complete her work.
Lezard Valeth Lezard sneers. "Hiding from your power and your destiny is just weakness. If you can't control the power, learn how to do so. You can't very well do any more damage than already has been inflicted, can you?"

He doesn't stop the woman from getting picked up, simply going along with it as they begin taking everything and exiting the psychic environment.

This is going to be very weird.
Priscilla     Rosa is confused enough to somehow believe they're all (collectively?) the governer. This at least quickly answers who one of the other seven is. It makes quite evident that the artist knows plenty of what will take them forever to find out otherwise. Priscilla still won't approach her though --still won't step into that maelstrom of painted men and monsters internally at war. She makes a quiet sound at the question she is asked in confusion instead, as if the asking is ridiculous in of itself.

    "Escaping the world outside is anything but safe. In absence of anything else, forgetting is impossible. Thou shalt wall thineself in with thine grief and guilt and only be driven mad in the process. Of course thou art unable to control it, wallowing in self-pity and indulgence here all alone."

    Korra slams a *fucking building* into the giant tree, rocking even Priscilla on her feet as the sudden tilt of the room forces her to re-balance. It's at least reassuring to know that they're somewhere pretty physical, in the sense that she too had started to wonder if they hadn't ended up in some mental non-space without realizing it like Flamel keeps suspecting out of habit. He has the painting though, and someone else has the painter herself. Nabbed in her window of vulnerability, Priscilla caps off the extrication of Rosa from her little fortress of guilt and has-been regret by simply following up the rest of the group, laying down killing frost on the way to the hole busted in the tree as they escape, and then, with a moment's regret to take in the last sights of the crumbling artwork-monolith around her, she disappears as well.
August Kohler Flamel and Rizzo handle the talking part of this, while Korra makes the 'elly-vator' escape outside the crumbling tree and Sanary moves to do the physical abduction. Rizzo's up first, and his words are /highly/ effective, telling her that she can't do anything while she's holed up here and that she knows that. It's true. The numbing of the pain and the memory of the love of her art helps, as she does truly want to finish it. The tree starts to...unfold, more than collapse, as this happens. There's a reduction of psychic power swelling, as if calming her down is an effective way of reducing the insane psychic power she can't control, but they'd need more time to fully talk her out of it. A few words aren't enough.

Luckily, that's what Sanary's there for, grabbing the woman and hauling her over her shoulder! "What are you-" She doesn't have the physical strength to resist against the warrior, despite struggling, and is easily grabbed down Korra's elemental contraption. The killing frost prevents any of the surviving combatants from following.

Next time, they'll need to talk to her and find out what they can learn, probably in somewhere held by the Concord. For now...the psychics will notice that the thrumming becomes ever-so-slightly more clear. A node is down.

Six to go?