Patrollogs
(Naraleas's decursing attempt)
[Thu Aug 15 2024]
On the Secluded Sands of Willow Cove
It is night, about 81F(27C) degrees, There is a waxing gibbous moon.
Naraleas laughs that discordant laugh again, "Our pact. Bring me a piece of jewelry that is a magical focus, I will teach you how to put ghosts into a new body, as much as able."
Aimee nods dumbly at Naraleas. "I agree," she says, her voice low. She turns as if she might sprint into the night in search of a focus, but stumbles over something in the sand, nearly wiping out. She lifts the object, shaking it clean. It's a simple, nondescript wooden dagger.
Aimee tries to drop the strange weapon, but it doesn't fall from her grasp. It sticks to her palm as if glued. She shakes her arm, trying to fling it free. "What...what is this?!" She looks helplessly at Naraleas, as if the thing would actually help her. Now she grips the dagger with her free hand, trying to wrench the item loose, but her efforts are in vain.
Naraleas tilts its skeletal head, "It is accursed. Stuck to you. Embrace it," the lich suggests, "When evil presents itself, use evil to do good."
"What?" Aimee 's eyes dart between the dagger and Naraleas. "I don't know how to do that!" She stops trying to tear the thing from her skin and looks down at it. "Tingles," she murmurs, her gaze now fixed on the wooden blade.
Naraleas drifts closer to Aimee, "Give me your name, so I may help," the creature says.
"A...A...Aimee," Aimee stammers. "Aimee Marie Lehane." She holds the dagger out toward Naraleas, a pleading expression.
Naraleas moves cold, porcelain-like hands over the ones holding the dagger, "Focus on me. I cannot see what the item js doing to you, tell me, I will use my power to minimize all of it. But after, you MUST bring me the focus."
Head bobbing frantically, Aimee steps toward Naraleas, letting the dagger almost touch him. She looks at him, concentrates all of her attention on him.
Naraleas keeps dead, white eyes on Aimee, fingers closing, willing to take the item if she can give it still. "Speak, tell me, mortal."
"Tell you what?" Aimee pleads. "Yes- yes, please just...make it stop. I'll get you a focus. I'll get you two focuses."
Naraleas hisses, a discordant sound of many voices. Blue mana swirls around the both of them, "Yes, bear with me, mortal, I will help you break this curse."
Naraleas says "Company... Tell them I will not attack them if they must enter the Nightmare, I cannot... reach them."
Aimee looks over her shoulder at the two figures standing on the other side of the Nightmare. Seeing that one of them is texting, she turns back to focus on Naraleas. "I don't...I don't think they could hear me," she tells him. "Like I couldn't hear you."
Naraleas gestures at Emmanuel and Fayad vaguely, its limb trailed by bright blue burns of mana.
"..Well." Emmanuel mutters under his breath as he squints through the nightmare and toward Naraleas and Aimee, "I have not been seeing someone in the nightmare with the cursed things before- but don't enter it, oui? The monster is there."
Naraleas says "They cannot hear me, can you hear them."
Fayad says "I, uh, have mandrake tea if it'd...be useful. But .... ah, this...this does seem to be where we were warned about NOT being, s-so...why..?"
Naraleas uses that hand to cover over Aimee's again, covering the cursed item.
Aimee blinks in surprise when Emmanuel speaks. "Hey," she calls at him. "Hey, can you hear me?!" She looks back at Naraleas. "Yes, I think....I think they can see us."
Emmanuel raises a hand, finger extended, and jabs toward the cursed item in Aimee's possession several times, "Come out. Of the. Nightmare!"
Fayad says "Do you see a man-sized mirror around here, or are you planning to just force them to crawl through a handglass?"
Emmanuel pauses, glances aside to Fayad and shrugs, "I thought they would be crawling out of your butt, hm?"
"I don't know how!" Aimee yells to Emmanuel. She is still holding the dagger in one palm, near Naraleas's skeletal hands.
Fayad says "Is my butt that shiny???"
Naraleas keeps dead eyes on Aimee, "Focus on me, let my power shield you."
"Non. Fragile. Like a mirror." Emmanuel quips back, without taking his eyes from Aimee and Naraleas.
Aimee swallows and turns her gaze back to Naraleas. "How can they see?" she asks. "I thought- I've never met anyone who could except for Nan-"
The artifact emits a flash of blinding light.
Well, that was unexpected, Emmanuel is mid-text when the artifact manages to blast him right in the eyes, through the nightmare. "Ack!" He cries out, stumbling backwards, and likely into Fayad.
"Aaagh!" Aimee takes the flash from the dagger right in her eyes, shutting them and whipping her head to the side.
Naraleas lowers its skeletal face to Aimee's hands and its own skeletal ones holding them, the dagger stuck in the folds, "They use mandrake tea from the goblins. Them and sensitives can see. Focus on me, look at me and tell me what is going on around you, don't break our eye contact," it says, yanking Aimee back as she whips her head, "Focus on me so I can shield you, mortal."
Naraleas says "Company, they may want to destroy me."
Aimee blinks repeatedly. "I can't see," she says softly. "Everything's all..." She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes, but her head is looking in Naraleas's direction now. "It's...got an aura," she says. "Purple. Dark. Oily." Her eyes haven't opened as she starts to describe it.
Fayad gets staggered into and nearly stumbles over, the massive golden claw-gauntlet on his arm preventing him from fallign to the ground entirely as he uses it to stand back up.
Growing air pressure makes your ear's pop uncomfortably and deadens all sound.
Naraleas lifts its face, white pupils and irises scanning the others through the nightmare as it holds the hands of Aimee, "I was hoping that I could get a focus beforehand, before they came at me," it laments, before its gaze looks to Aimee, "Inky, like a squid? Like words on a page? This item is cursed by a powerful fae, look at me!" It demands, maggots literally popping from its earholes and tumbling down to the shoulders of its tattered robes, "Open your eyes and I can make it hurt less, mortal."
"I am thinking that we are not able to be helping with this, hm?" Emmanuel chirps aside to Fayad, as he does his best Viktorin impression and texts through a crisis. The phone is tucked away then, and he reaches over to offer a steadying hand to his friend, "Come, let's get out of here, hm? We can't do much through the veil."
Aimee cries out again as this time her ears are assaulted by the cursed relic. Her hands tremble, but of course the dagger is still stuck fast to one of her palms. She flinches at Naraleas's command, but she opens her eyes anyway, looking at him.
Fayad frowns. "Yeah, we really can't. Sort of...suicidal to try," he comments, agreeing. He takes Emmanuel's hand and steadies himself to head off. "Where to?"
Fayad says "There's people, like, northeast out in the sea, but it's Novel and Savannah so they probably should get...privacy."
Aimee's breathing begins to steady, her attention focused on someone. At this point, the telepathic contact doesn't phase her much. Her hands steady somewhat, but they still tremble. "The Other?"
Aimee's breathing begins to steady, her attention focused on Naraleas. At this point, the telepathic contact doesn't phase her much. Her hands steady somewhat, but they still tremble. "The Other?"
"Elsewhere." Emmanuel allows simply, affording Naraleas and Aimee a final glance before turning and scurrying away.
Naraleas says "Cowards, heh."
"Who were they?" Aimee tries to keep her focus on Naraleas as she asks. She almost turns her head to watch them walk away, but she forces herself to ignore the instinct.
For several seconds the room grows painfully cold.
Naraleas keeps its horrible dead eyes on Aimee, holding fast to her hands with its own like a nightmare despite that they are IN the nightmare. "I suspect one of your mortal societies." As long as Aimee focuses on his dead eyes she won't feel the horrific coldness- but the second she looks away, it is brutal and unforgiving.
Aimee begins full on shivering as the summer humidity is suddenly replaced with the ghostly chill emanating from the relic.
Aimee locks her gaze firmly on Naraleas. Her gooseflesh calms down. "Societies?"
Naraleas most assuredly doesn't let go of Aimee's flesh-covered hands, "Yes. The big three are Hand, Temple, and Order. They have existed sjnce before I have died a thousand years ago. Do you not know societies? What do you know of the unaware," it genuinely tries to distract the girl, its blue mana swirling around the pair to lessen the effects of the curse, whatever may come. So long as the girl keeps her eyes locked on the lich's.
"The aura is starting to unravel," Aimee reports to Naraleas. "I'm...I'm not sure if that's the right word. It's...no, it's bleeding off..." Fascination begins to replace terror in her voice. "I see things," she says. "I have nightmares. I...I've always been like this. My Nan was, too. I just...I thought she was insane and that I'd somehow inherited it."
Growing air pressure makes your ear's pop uncomfortably and deadens all sound.
Naraleas obviously is not affected by sound, but it is a being over a thousand years old- a cursed item is nothing. Protecting Aimee That is his struggle. Any time she breaks eye contact, she would feel that horrible consequences, and he'd yank her hands back to look him. "Sensitive? I cannot tell with you, I assume mortal. If you saw me without tea, a human sensitive. That was me, so so long ago, before the forbidden arts," it hisses in a discordant multitude of voices and tones. "I conquered death. You can too. I can teach you, but you must not fall to this thing- focus on me."
The lich's talk of ancient societies and forbidden arts seems to go in one ear and out the other. "I think...I think the aura is disappearing," Aimee reports to Naraleas. "It's so faint now."
Aimee says "Human..I..I am human. I'm..."
With a final burst of power the curse on a wooden dagger is broken.
Naraleass Decursing Attempt 240828
(Naraleas's decursing attempt)
[Thu Aug 15 2024]
On the Secluded Sands of Willow Cove
It is night, about 81F(27C) degrees, There is a waxing gibbous moon.
Naraleas laughs that discordant laugh again, "Our pact. Bring me a piece of jewelry that is a magical focus, I will teach you how to put ghosts into a new body, as much as able."
Aimee nods dumbly at Naraleas. "I agree," she says, her voice low. She turns as if she might sprint into the night in search of a focus, but stumbles over something in the sand, nearly wiping out. She lifts the object, shaking it clean. It's a simple, nondescript wooden dagger.
Aimee tries to drop the strange weapon, but it doesn't fall from her grasp. It sticks to her palm as if glued. She shakes her arm, trying to fling it free. "What...what is this?!" She looks helplessly at Naraleas, as if the thing would actually help her. Now she grips the dagger with her free hand, trying to wrench the item loose, but her efforts are in vain.
Naraleas tilts its skeletal head, "It is accursed. Stuck to you. Embrace it," the lich suggests, "When evil presents itself, use evil to do good."
"What?" Aimee 's eyes dart between the dagger and Naraleas. "I don't know how to do that!" She stops trying to tear the thing from her skin and looks down at it. "Tingles," she murmurs, her gaze now fixed on the wooden blade.
Naraleas drifts closer to Aimee, "Give me your name, so I may help," the creature says.
"A...A...Aimee," Aimee stammers. "Aimee Marie Lehane." She holds the dagger out toward Naraleas, a pleading expression.
Naraleas moves cold, porcelain-like hands over the ones holding the dagger, "Focus on me. I cannot see what the item js doing to you, tell me, I will use my power to minimize all of it. But after, you MUST bring me the focus."
Head bobbing frantically, Aimee steps toward Naraleas, letting the dagger almost touch him. She looks at him, concentrates all of her attention on him.
Naraleas keeps dead, white eyes on Aimee, fingers closing, willing to take the item if she can give it still. "Speak, tell me, mortal."
"Tell you what?" Aimee pleads. "Yes- yes, please just...make it stop. I'll get you a focus. I'll get you two focuses."
Naraleas hisses, a discordant sound of many voices. Blue mana swirls around the both of them, "Yes, bear with me, mortal, I will help you break this curse."
Naraleas says "Company... Tell them I will not attack them if they must enter the Nightmare, I cannot... reach them."
Aimee looks over her shoulder at the two figures standing on the other side of the Nightmare. Seeing that one of them is texting, she turns back to focus on Naraleas. "I don't...I don't think they could hear me," she tells him. "Like I couldn't hear you."
Naraleas gestures at Emmanuel and Fayad vaguely, its limb trailed by bright blue burns of mana.
"..Well." Emmanuel mutters under his breath as he squints through the nightmare and toward Naraleas and Aimee, "I have not been seeing someone in the nightmare with the cursed things before- but don't enter it, oui? The monster is there."
Naraleas says "They cannot hear me, can you hear them."
Fayad says "I, uh, have mandrake tea if it'd...be useful. But .... ah, this...this does seem to be where we were warned about NOT being, s-so...why..?"
Naraleas uses that hand to cover over Aimee's again, covering the cursed item.
Aimee blinks in surprise when Emmanuel speaks. "Hey," she calls at him. "Hey, can you hear me?!" She looks back at Naraleas. "Yes, I think....I think they can see us."
Emmanuel raises a hand, finger extended, and jabs toward the cursed item in Aimee's possession several times, "Come out. Of the. Nightmare!"
Fayad says "Do you see a man-sized mirror around here, or are you planning to just force them to crawl through a handglass?"
Emmanuel pauses, glances aside to Fayad and shrugs, "I thought they would be crawling out of your butt, hm?"
"I don't know how!" Aimee yells to Emmanuel. She is still holding the dagger in one palm, near Naraleas's skeletal hands.
Fayad says "Is my butt that shiny???"
Naraleas keeps dead eyes on Aimee, "Focus on me, let my power shield you."
"Non. Fragile. Like a mirror." Emmanuel quips back, without taking his eyes from Aimee and Naraleas.
Aimee swallows and turns her gaze back to Naraleas. "How can they see?" she asks. "I thought- I've never met anyone who could except for Nan-"
The artifact emits a flash of blinding light.
Well, that was unexpected, Emmanuel is mid-text when the artifact manages to blast him right in the eyes, through the nightmare. "Ack!" He cries out, stumbling backwards, and likely into Fayad.
"Aaagh!" Aimee takes the flash from the dagger right in her eyes, shutting them and whipping her head to the side.
Naraleas lowers its skeletal face to Aimee's hands and its own skeletal ones holding them, the dagger stuck in the folds, "They use mandrake tea from the goblins. Them and sensitives can see. Focus on me, look at me and tell me what is going on around you, don't break our eye contact," it says, yanking Aimee back as she whips her head, "Focus on me so I can shield you, mortal."
Naraleas says "Company, they may want to destroy me."
Aimee blinks repeatedly. "I can't see," she says softly. "Everything's all..." She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes, but her head is looking in Naraleas's direction now. "It's...got an aura," she says. "Purple. Dark. Oily." Her eyes haven't opened as she starts to describe it.
Fayad gets staggered into and nearly stumbles over, the massive golden claw-gauntlet on his arm preventing him from fallign to the ground entirely as he uses it to stand back up.
Growing air pressure makes your ear's pop uncomfortably and deadens all sound.
Naraleas lifts its face, white pupils and irises scanning the others through the nightmare as it holds the hands of Aimee, "I was hoping that I could get a focus beforehand, before they came at me," it laments, before its gaze looks to Aimee, "Inky, like a squid? Like words on a page? This item is cursed by a powerful fae, look at me!" It demands, maggots literally popping from its earholes and tumbling down to the shoulders of its tattered robes, "Open your eyes and I can make it hurt less, mortal."
"I am thinking that we are not able to be helping with this, hm?" Emmanuel chirps aside to Fayad, as he does his best Viktorin impression and texts through a crisis. The phone is tucked away then, and he reaches over to offer a steadying hand to his friend, "Come, let's get out of here, hm? We can't do much through the veil."
Aimee cries out again as this time her ears are assaulted by the cursed relic. Her hands tremble, but of course the dagger is still stuck fast to one of her palms. She flinches at Naraleas's command, but she opens her eyes anyway, looking at him.
Fayad frowns. "Yeah, we really can't. Sort of...suicidal to try," he comments, agreeing. He takes Emmanuel's hand and steadies himself to head off. "Where to?"
Fayad says "There's people, like, northeast out in the sea, but it's Novel and Savannah so they probably should get...privacy."
Aimee's breathing begins to steady, her attention focused on someone. At this point, the telepathic contact doesn't phase her much. Her hands steady somewhat, but they still tremble. "The Other?"
Aimee's breathing begins to steady, her attention focused on Naraleas. At this point, the telepathic contact doesn't phase her much. Her hands steady somewhat, but they still tremble. "The Other?"
"Elsewhere." Emmanuel allows simply, affording Naraleas and Aimee a final glance before turning and scurrying away.
Naraleas says "Cowards, heh."
"Who were they?" Aimee tries to keep her focus on Naraleas as she asks. She almost turns her head to watch them walk away, but she forces herself to ignore the instinct.
For several seconds the room grows painfully cold.
Naraleas keeps its horrible dead eyes on Aimee, holding fast to her hands with its own like a nightmare despite that they are IN the nightmare. "I suspect one of your mortal societies." As long as Aimee focuses on his dead eyes she won't feel the horrific coldness- but the second she looks away, it is brutal and unforgiving.
Aimee begins full on shivering as the summer humidity is suddenly replaced with the ghostly chill emanating from the relic.
Aimee locks her gaze firmly on Naraleas. Her gooseflesh calms down. "Societies?"
Naraleas most assuredly doesn't let go of Aimee's flesh-covered hands, "Yes. The big three are Hand, Temple, and Order. They have existed sjnce before I have died a thousand years ago. Do you not know societies? What do you know of the unaware," it genuinely tries to distract the girl, its blue mana swirling around the pair to lessen the effects of the curse, whatever may come. So long as the girl keeps her eyes locked on the lich's.
"The aura is starting to unravel," Aimee reports to Naraleas. "I'm...I'm not sure if that's the right word. It's...no, it's bleeding off..." Fascination begins to replace terror in her voice. "I see things," she says. "I have nightmares. I...I've always been like this. My Nan was, too. I just...I thought she was insane and that I'd somehow inherited it."
Growing air pressure makes your ear's pop uncomfortably and deadens all sound.
Naraleas obviously is not affected by sound, but it is a being over a thousand years old- a cursed item is nothing. Protecting Aimee That is his struggle. Any time she breaks eye contact, she would feel that horrible consequences, and he'd yank her hands back to look him. "Sensitive? I cannot tell with you, I assume mortal. If you saw me without tea, a human sensitive. That was me, so so long ago, before the forbidden arts," it hisses in a discordant multitude of voices and tones. "I conquered death. You can too. I can teach you, but you must not fall to this thing- focus on me."
The lich's talk of ancient societies and forbidden arts seems to go in one ear and out the other. "I think...I think the aura is disappearing," Aimee reports to Naraleas. "It's so faint now."
Aimee says "Human..I..I am human. I'm..."
With a final burst of power the curse on a wooden dagger is broken.