Scene #9649: Dream Land Park pt.2

Owner	Pose
Holly Asturias	PREVIOUSLY While WHITE prepares to engage a group of Horrors lurking about the MONSTER TRAIN attraction, LILIAN and PETRA have just single-handedly obliterated the handful of lesser Horrors hiding in the KITTEN'S HOUSE pet café, with the aid of the great Matilda's divination to locate the ambushers without even needing to enter their hunting grounds. Meanwhile, the noise caused the DREAM WHEEL's Horror to start shredding its way out of the cabin it had been using as a makeshift cocoon, rapidly growing in size as it does so. Now close to fifteen feet tall, the bloated, formerly humanoid figure, round, lumbering, covered in golden plates and half-fused to all kinds of pieces of metallic junk it found around (mostly reduced to slag and jagged edges), seems to be collecting its bearings for a moment, before the MASK on its face becomes sickening to look at. Imagine a golden face, split down the middle, skin layer peeled left and right like a mane to show the layers underneath. VISION-BASED EFFECT: beholding the Horror causes a constant, steady build-up of toxin in your body! Holly has informed you this is because of its BLOODLINE MASK, a trait powerful Revenants exhibit when turning into Horrors. The most striking feature of the Horror, besides the mask and its size, is its HEART. Its chest cavity is wide open, gilded gold and decorated, with thin bars in the way. Its beating golden heart is fully exposed. For now, it hasn't noticed you! But it IS occupying the vicinity of the wheel.
Holly Asturias	NOW "An Invidia bloodline Horror... Lilian, if we could get some of its blood, it would be immensely helpful, but... there might not be a need to pick that fight, either." Divination, on Petra's request, could reveal to Matilda a few different paths to avoiding a drawn-out fight: if you avoid the Ferris Wheel, the Horror isn't looking like it'll wander too far. That would result in not having ACCESS to it, though! The cliffside behind it offers a nice way to get rid of it... but the Sanatorium's down there (relatively speaking). If it survives the fall, (and it might), it's just going to become a different kind of problem. ... and then there's its heart. Rather than fight it, you could try to kill it by destroying its heart. But you'd need a precise and powerful strike to do it, and you'll need to stomach the poison to aim/get close. Luckily you do have a doctor with you, if you want to try. WHITE The old ride isn't even on its rails anymore. Half askew, broke upfront, rusted, with one wagon completely disconnected and toppled over. Dents along its surfaces tell the story of a bladed weapon that missed its mark a few times, and then a rough person-shaped impact crater (and old blood splatter) being what likely toppled the whole chunk of the train over. The bright side is that this gives White a lot of room for both herself, and her agents, to approach. The Horrors inside, the closer she gets - the more agents she gets close - are all clearly in the early stages of the corruption. There's two... wolves? Dogs? Whatever they used to be is barely recognizable, and they're accompanied by two large men...-shaped Horrors. Taller, bulkier, in tattered clothes, their skin is hardened in patches of gold here and there, their faces half-molten off to show their skulls. One has a large sword, the other a rifle similar to Holly's, a long rifle, bladed at its end. The rocks alert them; the dogs... scamper off, through the ruined train carts and hard to see. The two people-Horrors groan. The swordsman slices through the roof of the train and hops onto it, and starts bolting for White with uncanny speed. The gunner stays in the rusted trainwreck... and just pops a shot at one of the agents it can see, from the relative safety of its cover. It's a blood red shot, a bullet enhanced by... Ichor? Magic-y. It just hurts more!
White	Given White's plan is to make the horrors come to her and deal with her, it doesn't seem like she's in a rush to deal with the fleeing hounds. They could be waiting nearby to ambush, but if she stays off the ground level and comfortably upon the higher structures, that won't be a problem. The gunman remaining within the train car bothers her a little, but after losing one of her spy-ders to a gunshot it tells her all she needs to know in the short term, even with the sword-horror rushing her position. More of her 'agents' reposition, surrounding the train car to poke their little heads out from behind corners of buildings, bits of debris, windows or anything else of the sort; they've been directed to essentially turn this into a game of whack-a-spider, poking their heads out unpredictably and individually in order to keep baiting the gunner's attention, even at the likely cost of more of their number. It's not like they can take getting shot, but losing a handful of them is a convenient cost to let White focus on the other horror. The Heavy Evil Eye is directed onto the sword-horror and focused, ratcheting down its mobility and even making the damaged traincar roof bow and buckle under his strides. Once she's sure of her target-lead for the horror's new rate of movement, she begins firing Black Spear spells in an uneven rhythm; pairs launched ahead of its movement to try and cut it off, with a third shot per set aimed at the most likely spot she thinks they'll land if they evade the first two. A single hit would be like getting shot with a ballista... Though the horror does have the benefit of her trying not to hit the traincars themselves so that some of the material is still preserved. That privilege, of course, immediately becomes irrelevant if the sword-horror abandons the top of the train to actually reach her at her elevated and distant position, in which case White switches spells entirely to almost gratuitous bombardments of Black Bullets; heavy fireball-like projectiles that strike like small-scale artillery, exploding on impact and scattering that body-dissolving Rot attribute effect. It can airburst, too, if the horror is surprisingly air-capable! Assuming all goes well and the gunner is left alone after wasting all its time shooting at her spiders (which isn't necessarily a sure thing), finishing the job should be fairly straightforward. If the gunner instead has the intelligence to start ignoring the spider-distraction and begin firing at White before she's done with the swordsman... Well, even as tough as she is, it's not like she likes getting shot. She'll just have to switch things up, since it seems like the swordsman's speed could be used against the both of them, with how easy it makes it to split them up.
Foundation Scions	'...Are you a princess??' Matilda sputters. "Hein? I- well, I do, in fact, come from a quite-notable bloodline, but, 'a princess', that..." Matilda is faced with a moral dilemma- lie, so one person views her as cooler and pays more attention to her but others will think a smaller amount less of her, play it off as nothing to preserve face, or flounder along a best of both worlds outcome. "Would not be the most incorrect there could be to call me, I think, though it is also not correct! I give you permission regardless!" Great job, Matilda! '... Whatever, it's monsters. We can just kill monsters! Or avoid them!' "We should, strongly, consider avoiding this 'Kitten House', it seems to be so full of dangerous seeming critters!" Matilda cautions, unbothered by Petra deciding to interact with her hair through the little divination- and then, with Petra's silver, and Lilian's ofuda, "Ah! Or, that! That is one way to handle it!" Bye bye, fleshball, and so much else. "Well! The Kitten House is certainly not the carousel or Ferris-wheel! So!" . . . 'That wasn't there last time I came! A bloodline mask, really? Here?' Whispered, "Non! Merde! This is un-fair! Entirely-so! If nefarious monsters were to be any-where else, that is expected, but, but! Zut!" Matilda whines, before fear has the moment it needs to hit her, at the shuffling-out of the Ferris wheel horror. Still, she's not eager to see what the issue with staring at it is, and dutifully claps a hand over her own eyes, in the moments before Petra ragdoll-style whisks her away to effective cover. 'Matilda! Is there some way we can not fight that thing today?' Matilda, also, really doesn't want to fight a big monster! Under the cover of Petra's silver bubble, Matilda scrambles for a moment to not topple over thanks to the weight of her orbuculum, a little bit in a fright- hush-whispered, "I will need a moment of time!" Kneeling down, with the crystal ball in her lap, Matilda's mumbling is quick, the foggy glow illuminating her more than any of the area behind Petra's silver; she's speaking fast, and pouting, physically shaking the orbuculum when what it shows something un-helpful- then, suddenly, standing-up, "I, ought to be able to chase it off! So! Please, observe Matilda Bouanich's remarkable mastery of arcanum!" Usually, Matilda's hunting for attention when she says stuff like that! Right now, she sounds, quite tired, and like it's herself she's trying to cheer into a task, having pushed-together so much arcanum already without her proper ritual setups. What she's going to do next will be similarly, a little hard for her! Big magic isn't her thing, and the closest she can get to 'big' is soft and intangible, working illusions out from memory. Sparked from the style of the surroundings, the environment, at reminded-of by the visions in her orbuculum, the next spell off of Matilda's lips, as she ducks out past Petra's sight-barricade for just a moment, is, bravely-declared, "Oh boule de cristal, montrez-nous une terrible avalanche!" It's a half-remembered thing, watching out the car window on a drive through the French Alps, the way that snow tumbled high-up on peaks, distant and thus harmless, but with her orb aglow in hand, the display she conjures up on the park-flanking mountainsides, cascading and roiling (without truly approaching) towards the Horror, hopefully, isn't a danger it will want to take! It's okay if Matilda tuckers herself out if the alternative is no Ferris wheel!
Lilian Rook	'Hmm. I've never... Used gloves. But that... Makes sense. So it's easier... If you wrap them...' "Boxing gloves in particular are so large and so heavy that it's very hard to get around them, especially wearing your own, and the padded mass absorbs all the impact. Even if you're extremely tough, taking bare-knuckle punches to your own hands will push them back into your face if you guard like in the sport." Stop it! Stop! 'Spatial storage... Is nice.' "Fuck I've been thinking about that for ages." Lilian sighs. "I somehow never get around to it, though." Petra is possibly the reason. 'o it might try... To absorb someone... That touches it.' Lilian grimaces. "Jesus Christ. Okay." ''too many hungry Revenants in one place'. Sometimes people even blame humans for it.' "Those are the same thing." 'Even the Horrors born of humans and animals and whatever else exhibit this trait.' "Now I'd like to see what happens to an insect turned Horror, actually." Lilian says. "Or a crab. Or lobster." Stop it. "That might actually be important?" No. 'I believe MagMell Academy was researching the use of Formae to do exactly what you speak of, before it was repurposed into a shelter.' That finally distracts Lilian enough from unpleasant vampire politics to blurt "Beg pardon? Were they getting anywhere at all? That's such an absurdly serious development that-- You have to have the Concord join in on that. There are so many freak pervert scientists there." 'I'd do it for free.' Speak of the devil. "I'll have you perform my introductions once I have my royal title, then." Lilian says. Joking. Probably. Maybe. 'I'm begging to almost get killed.' Speaing of pervert freaks again, Lilian narrows her eyes at Petra and gives her a hard, analytical stare. She scoffs, then says, "Well at least you know what you want." and adds "Don't overdo it." in tones indicating that she's already given up. "What the hell does training to fight off animatronics look like anyways? It sounds moronic." 'Could be fun to make a tour around the Frontier and see how the actual people feel about it.' "Ordinarily I'd agree, but . . ." Lilian makes a sweeping gesture at the horrid corpse-totems absolutely everywhere. "You know? No Man's Land is fucked, but at the very least, it often has a sort of surreal and chilling beauty to it." 'I guess it would kind of sour the idea literally forever if...' "I thought the same thing as well. Then I realized, within ten seconds, that it dosn't make a difference whether everyone is in one city or not unless you're so high-minded about it all that you're thinking about the future repopulation of the Earth. If it happens to you in any city, you're dead anyways." . . . . . . . .
Lilian Rook	'A-ah-- y-you know, there's a lot of cat cafes like that around! This one's just a ruin and all, but places like that are sort of like foster homes for cats that you can visit and hang out with, and they're perfect places to go to find one to adopt?' Still breathing in the near-facsimile of gunsmoke, strangely sweet and acidic, Lilian's distraught expression doesn't change in the slightest, but her attention wanders to Petra, because she prioritizes her somewhat more than an ostensibly neutralized combat situation. "Really now? I'd assumed they were a little more exploitative than that." she says, dour and needlessly cynical about the whole thing; but, after a deep breath, ostensibly glad to be corrected. "I suppose . . . No, I really should. I need to replace this memory with something pleasant, or I'm going to avoid them from now on." she says, thinking nothing of how jarringly honest it is to say. Holstering her weapon, Lilian finally 'draws' Night Mist, resting the flat over her shoulder for marching without a sheath. "Am I a bad person for suddenly feeling worse about the fact that so many pets must have died than I do about the people they lived with? I hadn't considered it until now; the idea is to stay out of buildings, after all. It's just so . . . unusually unpleasant to consider." And things get even less pleasant from there. Lilian's only real purpose with being here, secretly, was to ensure that Petra and Matilda would stay safe, but when the Horror comes crawling out of the Ferris wheel, Lilian seriously revisits her thoughts on the size of this group and the Elite propensity to chase down conflict in all directions. 'That wasn't there last time I came! A bloodline mask, really? Here?' "Excuse you, but what exactly does that mean?!" Of course it takes Lilian no time at all to put two and two together when the first wave of nauseating illness hits her and then Petra throws up the Silver. Actually, looking away was her first instinct; not because it was in any way obvious, but because of a certain time she fell for something like this in a certain colonial minister's absurd manorhouse and ended up completely debilitated for fifteen minutes while Rita carried her around. Embarrassment compels her as much as survival instinct to not take the Sickened condition from a Gaze Attack a second time. 'An Invidia bloodline Horror... Lilian, if we could get some of its blood, it would be immensely helpful, but...' "What? Just like that?! Already?!" Lilian exasperates. "Do you have a special syringe on you? It's no good if I get it all over the place, is it?" She blinks, glances towards Matilda, and the expression that suddenly comes over her is . . . 'I, ought to be able to chase it off! So! Please, observe Matilda Bouanich's remarkable mastery of arcanum!' Nervous? Why would it be nervous? She isn't even looking at the illusory avalanche. "Come on. Can't we lead it off somewhere else?" Lilian stage whispers to Holly, strangely urgent. "Out of the park at least! Everyone is going to trash the infrastructure completely at this rate! I'd be happy to take care of it anywhere else!" It really isn't the infrastructure she's thinking about.
Angela	''I give you permission regardless.'' Love has to think about this one for a bit. A notable bloodline sounds princessesy, or maybe at least duchessy...? Love goes briefly crosseyed before she says, "Would Duchess be better? The Duchess of Divination?" She thinks hard. "I'll use princess! It might become more correct the more I use it!" Duchess doesn't read as cute to her, unfortunately. She doesn't mention she's a 'Queen of Hatred' though because she's worried about giving off a BAD IMPRESSION since a lot of people seem to prefer her LOVE moniker which makes her a little sad sometimes but at the same time, she's not had a lot of good times when she's in her serpentine form lately. Bad things keep happening! And she can't just forget about it!! "Princess Matilda." She settles. rAnd then there's plans! She paces around a little bit while Matilda does Divination. "I'll make sure you're not in danger while you divine!" Love says, stomping around and glowering at anything suspicious with LOOKS OF WARNING. "You better not be thinking of distracting Princess Matilda!" She tells some weeds in lieu of anything else to threaten. ''So! Please, observer Matilda Bouanich's remarkable mastery of arcanum!'' Love is in a pickle because she has to protect! But she also has to observe! She starts stepping around so she can see Matilda out of the corner of her vision, while using the rest of her eyeballs to peer out for any danger! The Dark Kingdom loves putting princesses and queens and the like into spheres and keeping them in danger!! It's awful! Matilda should look into the ball she shouldn't be placed inside one! But then Matilda unleashes the power of an avalanche!?!?! "Woah...! You knew that an avalanche would be happening??" Roland Roland, meanwhile, is sticking by holding back because he's in no rush to meet Horrors in battle. Because... Horrors... Are... Scary??? And Roland thinks he'd struggle with fighting a Blood Fiend even if he wasn't holding back. That's a serious opponent to worry about! Of course, there's the possibility these Horrors are starved and thus not quite as dangerous as, say, the Blood Red Night. But at the same time a starved Blood Fiend is still dangerous. They might not be as strong in a vaccuum, but their desperation and need can still make them dangerous enough. And these ones are probably older ones too. Ugh. But--he does get a glimpse of a heart there. And Roland does have a weapon that doesn't mean he has to charge into the poison vision field any more than he already is by looking at it. He summons his shotgun into his hand and takes three shots for the heart, hoping to take the Horror down before he has to get close.
Petra Soroka	"You have to have the Concord join in on that. There are so many freak pervert scientists there." Petra perks up as if called by name. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, no way I'm not getting my fingers into all of this shit. Not that I'm a magical type, but I'm sure there's politics around whatever it's ended up as." The implication that Petra is a 'politics type' by extension, when she would've emphatically said otherwise a few years ago, isn't mentioned. "What the hell does training to fight off animatronics look like anyways?" "Oh, no, I was making a joke--" Petra has to correct the logical assumption that Lilian could make, that Petra was building children's combat animatronics to fight for training for whatever reason. "It was a horror game that was popular when I was a teenager. It's just fun to do that kind of thing in real life!" "Ordinarily I'd agree, but . . ." "Yeah..." Petra pensively looks at the frankly very bleak environment. Still, as outdoorsy as she is, the landscape isn't exactly what's drawing her to be interested in this world, so she can shrug it off. "But honestly, the Frontier's small enough that it'd take, what, a day, to get from any one point to another in the Beauty of Ash? And between the Beauty of Ash and the Silver, it's, like, super easy for me to text and pilot as long as it's mostly a straight line." What? "So I wouldn't get bored or anything. I'm pretty optimized for road trips." "Really now? I'd assumed they were a little more exploitative than that." Eager to replace Lilian's unhappy mood with a better prospective future, Petra claps her hands together and fully ignores the (hopefully) dealt-with Horrors in the Kitten House too. "Nope! They're actually pretty nice! They take cats off the streets to prevent the problems they'd cause, socialize them with people and other cats, give them medical treatment and everything-- really, they're more ethical than pet stores are usually, and they're nonprofits. You'll see. It's like a little kitty arcology." Petra pauses in confusion at her own word choice, then shakes her head and closes her mouth. Talking about cat cafes, moving on from the Horrors, and finally getting to the big beloved Ferris wheel, Petra's mood climbs back up after the attack made it plummet, until . . . "Non! Merde! This is un-fair! Entirely-so!" Petra whispers sharply, underneath her Silver bubble-shield, "Well! Got any bright ideas, your highness?" Yeah, that one's going to stick for a while. Matilda invited it upon herself. Despite adding yet another teasing nickname to the roster, Petra's tone is entirely genuine. The bubble ripples with tiny pinprick holes to give Petra glimpses of where the Horror's positioning is without staying open for long enough for its attention to turn towards them, warily waiting to see how to approach. "Let me know if I can help with them."
Petra Soroka	"An Invidia bloodline Horror..." "Jesus. You really buried the lede on how much the Revenant bloodline influences a horror." Those fucked up cats barely counted as Horrors in her mind, so this feels like the first good look Petra's gotten at one. Which, she wanted to get, in order to understand the state of this world better, but this one hurts her if she looks at it! "That gold-- the blood is really a central aesthetic feature, isn't it? And that's a... heart? Do all Revenant hearts look like that normally?" "So! Please, observe Matilda Bouanich's remarkable mastery of arcanum!" Petra gives Matilda more credit than she seems to. That incident with the bug spray and mech isn't just something she brings up for entertainment, but a genuinely compelling piece of Matilda's legitimacy as an arcanist and an Elite in her eyes, so trusting that Matilda does have the same goals in mind as Petra means she's playing support to Matilda here. When Matilda ducks out of the Silver shield, Petra shears off a portion of it and condenses the morphmetal in the air into a spiked metal beam. It floats in the air as Petra pulls Matilda back under cover, watching intently to see if the Horror will leave in self-preservation, or simply be distracted enough for an alpha strike of telekinetically propelled Silver to hit its heart.
Holly Asturias	WHITE. Whack-a-spyder is a great distraction for the gun-wielding Horror. It keeps firing-- bullet after bullet, with a short delay between shots, and then, crucially, a reload, or what might have been one when it was still alive. It slams the magazine of its rifle, red-and-gold blood bursting out of its hand to refill the rifle with fresh rounds. It's a gap in its shots through, and maybe an occasion to refocus for it. The swordsman keeps running. One spear nicks one of its arms, slicing it right off. It adjusts its sword in its one hand, and seems to get serious, accelerating with a trail of blood behind it. It weaves between spears, leaps off the train - and then a thick red cover of blood and Ichor forms a shield around it! Bullets bounce off it - crack it - and finally shatter it, but by then the swordsman is on White, bringing the sword down! ... as another shot rings out, aimed at her heart. The spyders have lost the gunner... because the growl of the twisted animals comes out of the shade cast by the sun. Two spyders now contend with them! ... and then it might be two more. These buggers are quick to move between locations. "Now I'd like to see what happens to an insect turned Horror, actually." "The same, I'd imagine? I've even caught glimpse of a Horror that seemed to be an old mechanical Forma of some kind. Like a... tank? I'm quite unsure if it had a proper name. Some walking mechanical beast." "Beg pardon? Were they getting anywhere at all? That's such an absurdly serious development that-- You have to have the Concord join in on that. There are so many freak pervert scientists there." "I'll ensure at least one of them is there when I can get Valentin to visit. I've never actually been to MagMell, but they should be onboard with every effort to help fix the Frontier, as far as I know." "What? Just like that?! Already?!" Lilian exasperates. "Do you have a special syringe on you? It's no good if I get it all over the place, is it?" "Yes, actually. You did mention to leave it to you - would you prefer the syringes, or would you like to use my Jail? It's a little bit more reliable." AVALANCHE. "Come on. Can't we lead it off somewhere else?" Matilda projects an AVALANCHE to redirect the Horror. This... works. Obviously this thing doesn't want to be buried in snow, or take a tumble off the cliff. It begins lumbering off, away from the Ferris Wheel-- along the edge of the cliff, towards the entrance of the park. There's a real chance that, undisturbed, it'll wander off into the mountains. Higher, lower... that's a bit of a coin flip right now, unless Matilda keeps pushing it. "Jesus. You really buried the lede on how much the Revenant bloodline influences a horror." "It's quite significant, but mostly only for Revenants of notable power. Your average Revenant will just..." She motions at the scuffle ongoing towards the MONSTER TRAIN. "White appears to be engaging rather mundane ones. They still have most of their 'shape', and fight more like people than monsters." "That gold-- the blood is really a central aesthetic feature, isn't it? And that's a... heart? Do all Revenant hearts look like that normally?" "Mhm. Both for Revenants and Horrors. It's not hard to see why anyone with a head on their shoulder believes us connected, and... well, I think they're right, even if non-Revenants can also become Horrors. We can turn humans into Revenants, after all. And yes! Our hearts are golden. Just the heart. The rest of our organs are quite normal." Glowing weak point...
Holly Asturias	ROLAND/Petra prep. Since the Horror is getting redirected to outside the park, there's no need for either Roland or Petra to go and attack, or at least not yet. It might not be a bad idea to keep an eye on it; since the Horror is TURNED AROUND and HEADED AWAY, its MASK EFFECT isn't sickening you anymore. Or at least not more than it already has. Useful info to have! Just don't make it turn back around and it's fine.
White	Hmm. The horrors are a little tougher than expected; losing a limb hasn't slowed down the swordsman. What's more, they might not be completely self-aware but they have some amount of problem solving ability. When the gunner pauses, White doesn't miss the possible meaning. Seeing the swordsman close into range successfully, White starts to alter her plan on the spot. 'Scythe, or no scythe?' No scythe; she could fumble the guard and miss the counterattack if the sword slid or glanced off. The swordsman is airborne, swinging down with its body weight, so... White braces her feet, lifting her hands with the palms together before peeling them apart, a sheet of glinting silver threads connecting her fingers. Pulling her hands apart further, those threads squeal and creak like strained steel wire in the path of the sword-strike, tough enough to resist being cut-through all at once but flexible enough to bend. She's quick, but not necessarily enough to pull off a sword-catch with her bare hands most of the time... But if all she has to do is clamp them together on reflex when she feels the blow hit her threads, it all but automates the process, tangling silk around the blade and its gripping hand even as she grasps it and wrenches it to the side! Her hips turn her to the left, her right leg starting to lift up to deliver a kick even as her upper body drags the swordsman closer, but- BANG Mostly, White feels the wind knocked out of her chest before she figures out she's been shot. She spends a moment of accelerated thought chiding herself for taking such a rigid stance just to stop the one attacker, when she hadn't accounted for its ranged partner. A few moments go into a loose 'systems check'; arms? Fine. Eyes? Fine. Legs? Fine. She didn't black out, so it wasn't her head. Slightly dizzy, but it's passing quickly. Okay. That's fine. It's probably good that nobody's immediately nearby to see the hole in the front of her chest, her body automatically starting to fill in and push out the crumpled and broken bullet. Her original plan to basically shove her entire leg through the swordsman ends up scrapped, since she lost her balance to the gunshot; instead she secures her silk around the swordsman's wrist to ensure it can't release the blade easily and YANKS, pulling them around to the other side of her high vantage to get out of the gunner's line of sight, then jumping off entirely, straight into one of the web-strewn chokepoints she prepared before picking the fight! By wrenching the melee fighter around underneath her and bracing her knees against its chest, she's planning on simply slamming it down into the larger mass of webbing. Optimistically, maybe she'll break its spine like this from such a high drop... If not, she can spare a few seconds to finish tying it up and then finish the job. She should have a few moments before the gunner can draw a bead on her again, and by her measure that's enough to experiment with slashing the throat, crushing the organs, or simply plunging a Black Blade through its chest until it dissolves if it proves especially resilient. The spy-ders? They're disposable. They'll scamper and climb as high as they can go to stay alive as long as they can, but keeping some of the enemy busy is all White really expects of them. Better that she knows where the hounds are; now she knows they can't interrupt her finishing the swordsman. Of course, hearing Black Bullet explosions and gunshots has made this all a bit noisier than White anticipated it being. She's been quite restrained recently, hasn't she?
Lilian Rook	'Oh, no, I was making a joke--' 'It's just fun to do that kind of thing in real life!' Lilian keps squinting at Petra like she's not sure which part is the joke. "I swear." she mutters, not elaborating. 'You'll see. It's like a little kitty arcology.' "Hm." says Lilian. This means 'oh well now I have to engage with this later, when everyone has forgotten I held my previous opinion', as Petra knows. . . . . . . . . 'The same, I'd imagine? I've even caught glimpse of a Horror that seemed to be an old mechanical Forma of some kind. Like a... tank?' "And it had red-gold blood?!" Lilian shouts, forgetting to even try and keep her voice down. She glances wildly back at Petra, 'can you believe this' written all over her face. "And you never thought that was weird? That they all suddenly gain edible blood?" Lilian this is really not the time. 'Yes, actually. You did mention to leave it to you - would you prefer the syringes, or would you like to use my Jail? It's a little bit more reliable.' It really, really isn't the time. Considering any of this is frankly overloading. If the Horror were focused on her, or if Petra's bubble weren't up, or most importantly, if Matilda weren't watching, Lilian would have already gearshifted to combat brain, and this wouldn't be an issue. As things are, the detail she's stuck on is: "I'm not getting your tail, like, implanted in me?! I thought we'd have more than like a day to talk about this!" Wide-eyed, and deeply uncomfortable with how uncertain her grip on her sword feels, Lilian drops back to an inside voice. "Just-- Show me what the collection tool is! I'll figure it out from there!" And then it starts . . . walking off? For some reason, Lilian expected it to obstinately sit there and act like a dumbass gothic horror robot that would rather be buried alive than possibly miss any chance whatsoever of finding humans to eat. She reevaluates that assumption in stunned silence as it goes. Once it leaves sight, her stare drifts down to Matilda. ". . . Seriously?" She looks back up at Petra. "I was right?" She pauses. "I mean, of course I was right. I'm always right. But . . ." Then back down at Matilda. "That's scary."
Foundation Scions	'Well! Got any bright ideas, your highness?' Matilda, in the midst of it, still spares the needed moment to pout just a little at the nick-naming, though dampened. "A few, yes! But, but I will have to consult what fate has to say! I will settle on only the correct one!" Mid-divinations, mumbly, under Petra's guard, clutched-at little charm gemstones get held to the orbuculum, whispered-out little pleas in French, painting out the shape of her descision-making, running through a few 'if-then's' and 'show-me's', before something of a eureka moment indicated only by Matilda's reaction, the dancing light in the ball to vague and unclear to make out without complete focus. Frankly, Petra might have a little fun watching her go! It doesn't really matter to Matilda in the moment whether the monster wanders up higher or lower down the mountain, there's only so much she can even push the magic. She's a real trooper but she's not the world's most used to this! That it worked, is the extent she could hope for (her confidence in her divinations is absolute, but, she's still surprised! A little bit out of breath, once the horror is out of sight, and then a lot longer just to be safe, "Hein..? It worked- hah! Of course it worked! Yes!" Matilda, still holding her orbuculum, as its glow fades out, wobbles a little on her feet. "Yes!" She repeats, finally going back to look at the mostly-ruined Ferris wheel. 'I mean, of course I was right. I'm always right. But . . .' 'That's scary.' Matilda blinks Lilian's direction, hugging at her heavy orb, "What's scary..? OH! Er, Mrs. Rook, the avalanche, it was only an illusory phantasm! See? It is gone now." She tries to wave to indicate, but it just ends up as a tiny little wiggle of her orb in the direction of the park-bordering mountain peaks. Then, Matilda yawns, and nods strange-emphatically- "I've never had cause to do exactly like that before!" "Petra? I, think I may need a few moments before being ready to climb such a towering structure! It is still, stable enough in structure, yes?" Well, there's probably not immediate time pressure to clambering right now, but, the monster is still alive, and theoretically worrying. Still, as she stuffs her ball clumsily back into the carry-bag, struggling with the fabric for a moment, tongue-biting concentration, really what Matilda would love to do right now is sit down on a bench and have some of her packed-in-advance snacks. So, she does just that. Packaged granola bars are an important part of any adventure! Being sure to dust it off of snow, and dust, and, picking one without rock-bone horror nonsense all over it, Matilda just sits down cross-legged, wobbly, and starts to Have A Snack. Distant (but not that distant) scuffle noises drag her attention away, worried- "Is, Ms. White to be fine, off where she's wandered...?" Not that tuckered-out Matilda can do a lot to ease any of that!
Petra Soroka	"Like a... tank? I'm quite unsure if it had a proper name." "What the fuck?" Petra mumbles under her breath, trying to integrate that into the concept of Horrors she already has. When picturing a tank with legs, what comes to mind immediately is the Ekanamsha, and turning it into a 'monster' just means calling up the image of the Kana splattered in broken pearlescent glass, this time dripping Silver and gold. It's so easy to imagine it lurching out of the pool of muck in the Maw that she left it in, like a zombie. "And you never thought that was weird? That they all suddenly gain edible blood?" Huddled behind the Silver bubble lit with Matilda's orb's glow, Petra gestures frantically like a conspiracist with red string. "It all comes together! No way they're not connected! Now, like, I'm not saying there's some inherent evil in your blood, Doctor, but I'm getting more and more certain that this was engineered either successfully or badly by a Revenant somewhere. I swear to god I'll hunt them down." "would you prefer the syringes, or would you like to use my Jail?" Petra's brain mentally overwrites the J in Jail with a T. It even looks like a tail! Slightly distractedly, she suggests, "You can use mine. I can make a special syringe." Then she shakes her head, peeking around the Silver to check whether the lumbering footsteps are actually headed away. The floating Silver spear shivers and tightens, compression ripples twisting across its surface, then it breaks into a cloud of floating droplets that absorb back into the main mass. "But-- not the time at all. That's a problem we can deal with when we're prepared for it, instead of just, like, stumbling across it. It's leaving." Then she double takes as Lilian does, but her stare goes over to Matilda. "Hey, it's leaving! Look at that, Matilda! Fucking, really clever idea!" The post-threat cortisol drain rubberbands into giggly goofiness, a cold flush through her system. To Lilian, as the Horror passes out of view, "Of course you were right! You're always right!" "Well, that's that! Back to the park! Good job!" Petra grabs Matilda on the shoulder, shaking her a bit like a ragdoll with her exhaustion. "Long live Queen Matilda, right?" And just like that, she's moving on. With a running start, Petra jumps, then double jumps, to land on top of the carousel, Silver trailing through the air lazily after her. Standing up there, Petra gives the roof the carousel a few stomps to see if the metal's rusted enough to fall apart, and then surveils the park from her high vantage point. Which, leads to her seeing that White is still being shot and harrassed by the Horrors that Matilda didn't scare off with her powerful arcanum. "Oh, shit-- er, White! Point me at the one that's shooting at you!" With the help of White's little helpers, Petra repeats her tried and true artillery tactic that she used against the kitten horror earlier. The spotter-spiders point out the gunner, and a second later, a meteoric crash of Silver slams through any obstacle to reach it, exploding into a storm of shrapnel on impact. Petra dusts off her hands, which are covered with rust from the clambering, and not any blood from the Horror.
Petra Soroka	"I, think I may need a few moments before being ready to climb such a towering structure!" Petra calls down from the roof of the carousel, not at all exhausted herself. "'Course! I've got snacks if you wanna sit and rest a moment? Just come and get them." She'll watch as Matilda tries and fails to pathfind her way up to the overhang of the carousel for a bit, but then a Silver staircase drops down beside her, pouring like a waterfall over invisible angular rocks.
Holly Asturias	WHITE. Threads wrap the swordsman's blade, stopping it in its (airborne) tracks. The Horror's partner saves it by shooting White, but then it turns out... that's not good enough. The swordsman is slammed down with full force... webbing? It struggles against the trap, its body battered and still missing the arm. At least it confirms something: Horrors either regenerate much slower than Revenants, or not at all. Or at least, the small ones don't. It's still moving though. It may not be regenerating, but it's not cripplingly impeded by a missing limb, or a broken spine. Plunging something through its chest sure does the trick, though. White finishes off the swordsman, as the gunner takes another shot for her heart to stop her - likely too late, or without much effect this time either. On the other hand, it's had to relocate to the roof of the train to get its new angle on her. Those poor little spy-ders though!! They're keeping the hounds busy at least. "And it had red-gold blood?!" "Oh, yes, it did. It was mixed in with all the lubricant and hydraulic fluids though. Quite gross." "I'm not getting your tail, like, implanted in me?!" "What? No, of course not, that would be ridiculous. Besides, you're a human, or so you claim. Installing your own Jail would require not-insignificant remodeling of your back, moving your lungs forward a bit, an entire replacement of your upper spine... quite unwieldy for even a day's work. No, rather, I could assimilate myself to your blood and bequeath you use of my Formae." That's probably going to go over swell. And so Holly offers the alterative: red-gold blood splashes out of her hands, congealing into three large golden syringes, with a roughly 100ml capacity each. They're all nice, gold and intricate, so one can presume 'enchantments' to help keep the contents fresh a bit longer. Long enough to get back down, at least. It's not like Lilian doesn't have her own tricks she could layer. "But if you prefer to do it by hand, I understand." "You can use mine. I can make a special syringe." "That works, too. As long as it isn't contaminated." "Hein..? It worked- hah! Of course it worked! Yes!" "Phantoms... I've never seen something so wondrous. That would be so useful to avoid needless battles. But it is a little bit scary, yes." "Now, like, I'm not saying there's some inherent evil in your blood, Doctor," "I couldn't say, but... you seem determined, and however unpleasant the answer, I'd like to face it. There's no fixing this without understanding it first." Petra's shot. The gunner is so focused on White that it isn't hard at all for Petra to line up a snipe of her own. Shrapnel shreds the gunner, much more fragile than its swordsman counterpart, and it tumbles off the train, inert. "Oh my, you're all... incredibly efficient, aren't you? Have you all been fighting for that long?" Perhaps Matilda gives that impression a touch less, but she still knew what to do and snapped right to it.
Holly Asturias	With only a handful of hounds chewing on spy-ders left, the park's as safe as it'll get, as long as you keep an occasional eye out for that big one. For now it's just... slowly walking off. It'll probably keep doing that for quite a while, at its pace. The CAROUSEL is rusty, but mostly intact. There's no power though. Most of everything is still plugged in, so you'd have to head into the administrative buildings out back, towards the rear of the park - the haunted castle looking bits, to see what's up with the power situation. It might just be a matter of replacing a blown fuse or five, and then bracing for the noise when everything turns back on. The FERRIS WHEEL is missing a few of its little gondolas, especially the one torn apart by the Horror, but it's miraculously in one piece too. It just needs power. And... Holly shuffles along, with Petra and Matilda, now that the path is clear. 'The view' she insisted to Petra, and she certainly intends to deliver. It's a bit past the Ferris Wheel, off to the side, hugging the cliff and looking down the long fall towards the foot of the mountain and the paths alongside it. But there's a patch of snow, a little clearing, and... "Ah, here. Come see." A small field of azure spider lilies. Same kind she gifted Lilian. "You see? The view."
Lilian Rook	'You can use mine. I can make a special syringe.' "Freak behaviour." Lilian spits under her breath on reflex. "I know what you are and god help me." 'Hey, it's leaving! Look at that, Matilda! Fucking, really clever idea!' 'Of course you were right! You're always right!' Lilian feels less uncomplicated about this than she'd like. It's an obvious victory regarding the objective most of them care about and she expended no resources to do so, but this entire time has been one where she hasn't been able to get in gear and into a proper fighting mindset at all. Constantly wobbling on the edge of readying her sword or putting it away, never able to let herself relax enough for amusement park urban exploration or sharpen up to a comfortable level of resting vigilance, everything about this situation feels awkward and incomplete; her heart rate is up but she still feels cold; her sword needs putting away and its still sparkling clean. "It was." she says, in the general vicinity of queasy. She blinks slowly several times, presses the heel of her palm gently to her face, then breathes out. "I noticed her competence right away, of course. But I had no idea in what form it'd come here, I admit." She sounds a little better, but the malaise has just moved to fingertapping the hilt and shifting her weight side to side. 'Hein..? It worked- hah! Of course it worked! Yes!' Well. Lilian is reassured by the fact that Matilda is surprised too. 'What's scary..? OH! Er, Mrs. Rook, the avalanche, it was only an illusory phantasm!' "I-- What?" Lilian isn't really the type to sputter, but the sharp-blinking cutoff habit of hers may as well be one sometimes. "Obviously! I can see that it's gone, thank you!" She points huffily at the mountain, where she assumes it must be gone because Matilda said so. "I am expressing my surprise that you're able to do this!" says Lilian, in annoying alternating-speak. "It's very large! And lifelike! And it worked! That's it!" Despite her huffy posture screaming 'don't take me for an idiot', she still diligently hews to the fact that she was being somewhat respectful, rather than straying off into arbitrary insults. She's trying so hard. 'Petra? I, think I may need a few moments before being ready to climb such a towering structure!' "Oh wow. You weren't exaggerating, were you." Lilian comes to a halt on her weird fussy tirade on a dime. "That takes more out of you than I was expecting, even taking you at your word. Do you have one of those little candy things? Or is this a metabolic concern instead--?" 'Long live Queen Matilda, right?' "--Your majesty." Yeah okay, back to normal. 'Besides, you're a human, or so you claim.' "Excuse me?!" Alert: Lilian has lost interest in Matilda. Alert: Holly has aggro. "Hey Doctor Asturias, why did you feel the need to add that, hm?" says Lilian. It has that barely repressed semi-shrillness of severely tried patience. "If my being obviously human has to do with why you think it's a bad idea, then why add more? What was the purpose of suggesting the possibility that I could be wrong?" There are about a million things she could say about radical invasive surgery being so casually listed off like this, but what Lilian decides upon in her minor histrionics is pointing her sword loosely in Holly's direction and saying "Off limits! My wife likes my back just the way it is!"
Lilian Rook	'I could assimilate myself to your blood and bequeath you use of my Formae.' Lilian dismisses Night Mist into another swirly ink-trail of darkness, mostly to spin the pendant back around her hand and then throw up both into the little X posture Tamamo uses sometimes. "Nope! No way! You're not doing anything inside me! Off limits!" She just has to make a theatrical little huff about snatching the syringes up; ridiculously beefy things that they are. "I'll hunt the bloody bastard thing down myself later." 'Oh my, you're all... incredibly efficient, aren't you?' God she feels so fucking lame. She didn't get to show off at all. . . . . . . . . And yet, still . . . 'You see? The view.' "Oh my goodness." Lilian gasps. She lets the words hang as long as she needs, walking straight towards the flower field so that she can crouch down and touch the stem of a lily, as if to assure herself that they're real. "I'd forgotten." Having completely forgotten everything prior, she sinks all the way down to her knees, smoothing out a skirt she isn't actually wearing by habit, and leans down to breathe in the smell. Her fingertips wander down the stalk, pinching near the root, and for a moment, she considers picking one. Then Lilian releases it instead. "So I'll have to come up here every time I want to study them . . . What a pain."
Foundation Scions	'Look at that, Matilda! Fucking, really clever idea!' Yes! YES! That's all Matilda ever wants (amongst other things that are all Matilda ever wants!) It's impossible, decently-drained as she is in the moment, to not just giggle happily at that! "Well, please, do not be so hasty! So many of my ideas are really, really clever!" And, to hunt for more praise, obviously. 'Phantoms... I've never seen something so wondrous.' "Well! I am uniquely wondrous- but, but! Please, it is not very-scary! It is a helpful incantation, to, to-" She just kinda, stops there and pouts, wobbly-stern. 'I am expressing my surprise that you're able to do this!' That gets Matilda to nod, and look towards Holly, as if to say 'See? Not scary!' To Lilian, nodding again, "It was very life-like and successful..." Matilda obviously can't take Lilian for an idiot when she's saying something praise-y for Matilda! That'd be impossible, because anyone who praises Matilda can only be entirely smart and correct! Rest assured! It's right there in how she's kind of bounding up on the balls of her feet to mutter a little about how well she solved that little issue! 'Oh wow. You weren't exaggerating, were you.' Matilda shakes her head, a little more exaggerated than her usual, "No, unfortunately not. It is a lot!" She pauses, then decides that's not enough of an explanation, "Without establishing the correct conditions, it is so very-tiring. A, bit of picrasma sweets, would not be amiss! I have some somewhere!" But her stomach does grumble as well, so, probably both is the answer! Patting down a pocket, a brightly-colored little Picrasma lollipop emerges, the cellophane only somewhat of an annoyance to peel. 'Long live Queen Matilda, right?' "I do plan to!" Matilda says, while being Woobled. "Three digits, is a better number for a final age than only two! It is tidier!" '-Your majesty.' Weird giggle-pout "-Hey!" Watching Petra double jump gets a "Ah! Wow!" out of the lagging Matilda, actually going so much as to clap, and then, because she's gotta, add, "I, I can get up quickly, too!" This, is not really true! She can't double jump, without clamberable stuff near the edge of the rim, she's forced to quickly scamper up onto the deck, towards the central pylon, to investigate it for a moment for a little wriggle-hole upwards; to not find one quickly, to tut about a little, and, finally, with a not-making-it vertical jump, give up for Petra's Silver staircase. The topic, of course, is immediately dropped to, "Hah! What an excellent sitting-spot!" She does in fact want snacks, but, hand-shielding-her-eyes, she has to scan the horizon, and wander, arms-stretched balancing, around just a little before wobbling down. "I wonder how much it would take to return this to working order..?" Matilda adds, only after having munched through a Snack Unit, and recovered a little bit. Giggly-scoffy, "The horses, their decorations, they could use much re-painting of details!" Of course, it's gonna be Ferris Wheel time soon, and, it's good that it does seem stable. Staring at it from the carousel is exciting! "Look, Petra! You are right, it does look as if it would be not too precarious to climb-up!"
Petra Soroka	"No, rather, I could assimilate myself to your blood and bequeath you use of my Formae." The eyebrow raise that Petra silently gives to Lilian across from Holly somehow fully communicates, unambiguously, the entire sentiment of: 'I know you said that a pervert doctor is better than a normal doctor because at least they're predictable but good lord this woman is such a pervert and she's shockingly shameless about it in a way that's weird even to me'. This unspoken thought is somewhat undercut by the fact that, when her eyes flicker off of Lilian to the syringes that Holly's made, she swirls Silver over her palm to mimic making her own, just to see if she can. "But if you prefer to do it by hand, I understand." The Silver syringe's plunger depresses telekinetically, metal sliding against metal. A droplet of Silver is slowly forced out of the needletip, growing until its weight drags it to fall, dripping onto the ground and flattening a blade of grass under a perfectly unblemished dime-sized circle. The tip of the needle, around the pinprick hole, is polished gleaming-smooth from friction. "Off limits!" "Yeah," Petra agrees, nonspecifically. "There's no fixing this without understanding it first." "Right," Petra nods, Silver melting back into a formless blob. "Though, even if it doesn't help you get any close to curing it, I think understanding's worth it in itself. The world only exists where it's observed. Giving up on observation as something that's good in its own right is basically just, er, a philosophical lobotomy that lessens the world as a whole." "Not that I don't want it to be cured. I think it's bad when people turn into monsters and start indiscriminately killing." Rare thing for Lilian specifically to hear from Petra! "Oh my, you're all... incredibly efficient, aren't you?" "Maybe?" Petra toggles between 'efficient' and 'performative' based on her personal interest and goals out of a scenario. She can't call herself characteristically efficient when she gives herself costumes and restrictions half of the time when fighting. She has to reconcile with the fact that 'climbing a Ferris wheel' is enough of a motivator to make her efficient, though.
Petra Soroka	"Three digits, is a better number for a final age than only two!" "Nine hundred years! Nine hundred years of Queen Matilda!" Petra's slightly-mocking cheers are accompanied by still woobling her around, like a cat being made to dance on two feet. "Hah! What an excellent sitting-spot!" Petra loves so dearly, to jump around and be praised for jumping around, and find an ally in approving of her sitting-spots. In this way, she and Matilda aren't very different at all. She swings her feet off the side of the carousel roof, humming happily, and digs through her little backpack. "Right??? This place fucking owns. If I had somewhere like this around when I was a kid, I would've-- died of tetanus before double digits. But still. That thing looks climbable as hell." RThen, for snacks, Petra does have a bag of chips to offer her, but something else as well. Matilda is given a bag of THC gummies with a slightly anxious little goading shoulder-bonk from someone who is only slightly older than her and also has not consumed weed ever before. Petra pops a ten milligram gummy in her own mouth, therefore forcing Matilda to do the same or else have failed a social ritual. Good thing this is Earth! "The horses, their decorations, they could use much re-painting of details!" "Wanna steal one and bring it back? You could repaint it yourself." "You see? The view." Hopping off of the carousel, Petra follows along with Holly with genuine interest. This is whatever it was that makes it justified for her to come to this monster-filled amusement park regularly, and Petra chose to take her seriously at that claim, and so she will. The cliffs, the dilapidated but holding-together ride equipment, it's picturesque in the same apocalyptic animal way that Petra admired in the hot springs, with the same hedonistic freedom to cross whatever lines she likes for her own enjoyment, and when the field of flowers is revealed.... Fuck. Petra wasn't paying attention to what Holly said about the flowers last time. She said they were important to her because of a member of her family, right? Well, obviously it can't be her dad, because no one ever gets sentimental about a flower because of a dad. "Oh, pretty... you said these were your mom's favorites, right?"
Holly Asturias	The view from the Ferris Wheel cliffside, especially since the fencing that used to stop people from possibly wandering over and falling off has crumbled down along with chunks of the cliff, gives a nice look at the landscape of the Undead Forest. Nature does its best, where humanity (and Revenantkind) fell. There's a lot of ruined buildings, wind turbines that aren't working anymore, the ominous Sealing Spire that refuses to ever not be a reminder of the apocalypse it's keeping at bay, and a slightly better view of how the Undead Forest is a higher plateau of land compared to the Spire's, which is evidently coming from much further below, down a valley or canyon or... hole, most likely. The roads are a mess, unusable in the best circumstances and gone in the worst, in the wake of quakes and jutting earth chunks that have reshaped the land. In the far, far distance is a large city, definitely early-to-quarter 2000's, metropolis style. It's ghastly. Most buildings are half-gone, drooping, or reduced to almost skeletal frames. "Well! I am uniquely wondrous- but, but! Please, it is not very-scary!" "Well, maybe a little bit scary, as a treat?" Holly laughs, before nodding to agree. "The art is wonderful. Not scary at all. The effect simply looked scary for a moment, that's all. The illusion was very convincing." "A, bit of picrasma sweets, would not be amiss! I have some somewhere!" "Ah, are you exhausted from that display? If you need some recovery, I have Formae that aren't very taxing to use and will help restore your pep and energy in a jiffy." Holly stay away from the slang!! You can't!! "... that is how you say it, yes?" "Right??? This place fucking owns. If I had somewhere like this around when I was a kid, I would've-- died of tetanus before double digits. But still. That thing looks climbable as hell." "Do you need your shots?" It's instinct, she has to ask.
Holly Asturias	"Excuse me?!" "Hm?" Holly blinks, the full extent of the landmines she just stepped on completely lost on her. What she knows is that she's got a sword (loosely) pointed at her right now, and Lilian seems more agitated than she's ever seemed before. "I'm sorry, I should watch my wording around poor-taste jokes. I'll leave it at the apology." She's certainly not going to insist. No matter the long list of little things that keep making her muse(/joke) how decidedly closer to not being human than being Lilian seems, there's nothing to gain by forcing it! "Besides, I wouldn't want to ruin that gold on your back by putting a big hole there. That'd be absolutely dreadful." "I'll hunt the bloody bastard thing down myself later." "Wonderful then! Please let me know if you need treatment afterwards. That Horror's poison could be deadly at high enough exposure, and I have the means to treat it. I'd really rather you not go home with something I could have handled." "So I'll have to come up here every time I want to study them..." "There's a few other places I grow them, but this was one of the first, and it was alongside my mother. Back when this park was still open. I was nine." She bends down, next to Lilian, to pass her hand through the flowers. "I couldn't say what it is. The soil on the mountain, maybe, or just the cold. It can't be the snow or the frost, I've managed to grow them in a small cave too, further up from here. It's quite frustrating." It's something else entirely. She's just not equipped to sense it. But Lilian? It's spiritual. It's... 'Pathos'. It's an imprint, here, at this park, and probably at those other places too. It's sadness. "Oh, pretty... you said these were your mom's favorites, right?" "Mhm. And mine. It's a mutation we discovered on the way here one night. There was only one of them. We worked really hard to save its seeds, and keep planting them over and over again until we could get the blue ones only. There's red ones too, further down the mountain, but these ones..." Holly smiles. "It's like she is still with me."