Asuras — Roleplayer Guild

@OwO

"Place can always be cleaned up," Hideji said, realizing a moment later the implication of his words. He said nothing of it and continued eating as Macaron read the letter. The safehouse neither exploded nor was slipped into a pocket dimension of horrors, and so his heartrate decreased by a marginal amount. There was always an elevated base-level around Macaron.

"Ah, same bitch as another before? Who were those two you promised to kill, what, two weeks ago? Ever follow up on them?" he casually spoke. The increased speed of her macaroni-eating told him all he needed to know -that Macaron was making neither a fake threat, nor only mildly annoyed by this nameless bitch, and content to saving the punishment for later.

"Whoever it is, you're on your own tonight. I've got somewhere to be in a few hours," Hideji said through a cheek-full of cheese and carbs.

*******************************

With neither car nor mule, Macaron's navigation through the Bluegate City realspace was cursed to either half-day-long walks or public transportation. Her clipper card -a fray-edged laminated pass smudged with dirt- granted her reprieve from the relatively cheap cost of busses and trains, if only by a dollar or so each ride. Still, she could get away with not paying from time to time when hopping onto a bus and judging the vibes of the driver as 'apathetic' or 'tight-ass', or jumping over the turnstile at a station.

Falloway Street was several miles down one of the three major streets of Bluegate, tucked away into a triangle of mismanaged single-lane roads that surrounded a historic office space. Jebby Tim's was a convenience store that the public largely considered "less fancy than 210's and less ghetto than Markstop". A truly middling establishment, with an anthropomorphic elephant featured on the neon nameplate hovering over its doors.

Surely enough, an open rift was sitting plainly in the alleyway behind the Jebby Tim's, barely lit by a streetlamp on its last legs. Even so out in the open, such phenomenon were rarely ever witnessed by normal people. Even for independent mages, unbeholden to an unspoken rule of the Dark Sphere's collective Houses, it was in their best interest to keep the arcane out of public knowledge. Lingering rifts like these tended to come with a host of enchantments to redirect the attention of non-mages away. For mages, it required a keen eye.

Given how easy it was to identify, Macaron got the impression that whoever made this one didn't actually protect it from mortals, however. Laziness.

Once within, Macaron was spirited into the Dark City. A step brought her from dark alley onto a brightly-lit sidewalk. The nondescript reflection of Bluegate was as familiar to her as a mage as was the Realspace it cloned. The 'tags' mentioned in the letter offered Macaron little to go off of initially, but she quickly found her target.

A torso-sized rectangle of glowing blue was embedded into the corner of a nearby building across the street. It surrounded two runes -meaningless to Macaron- but evidently enough a 'tag' that made itself obvious. As proscribed by the letter, following it led her further from the rift and elsewhere in the Dark City. Each tag in succession was as visible as the last, pasted upon various structures like signposts, storefronts, and benches shaped vaguely like bus stops.

As Macaron crossed another street to the next tag, a sound caught her ear, faint as the beat of an owl's wings. Much like the bird, too, it came in swooping from above. Instinct guided her to dodge out of the way of something which threatened her back. Within a split second, something impacted the ground where one she stood. The street did not quite buckle as it split, large splinters snaked through the fake asphalt and converged into one point where a single woman's hand was embedded.

Green eyes peaked out from behind blonde hair and round spectacles, and a fanged smile peeled back. Werewolves normally sported much more obvious patterns of permanent modification, but the sharpness of her teeth seemed just as unnatural. The woman pulled her flattened hand from the hole made in the street, pulling up a puff of dust and gravel, before suddenly shifting her demeanor. She clapped her hands together and swayed playfully.

"Ah! Just kidding! You passed the test! I was just going to pounce you and make sure you listened before jumping at me, but I guess you're too fast, boo..."

@ERode

"I don't get followed," Roland said, then pausing. He took a drag, and with breath strained by the forced presence of burning smoke, he eked out words as smoke left behind them, "as far as I know." At her second and final question, he chuckled.

"You tell me, Miss Amaya. I'm not the particularly confrontational type." There was no knock, as such traditions were meaningless for safehouses, and the handle of the door turned. Swinging into the interior, the heavy fire door revealed perfectly within frame a well-dressed man whose tightly-tailored sleeves, waist, and leg revealed a lanky and tall physique. The white-haired man, with a faint smile, tapped his folded umbrella onto the concrete square just outside the door, shedding a splash of rainwater for someone else to slip on in the future. As he entered, he set aside the umbrella near the door and habitually fixed his outfit. His right hand, unlike the left, was shrouded by a black glove.

"Good evening, fellows," he said. His voice was sharp and clear, but carried within it a subtly threatening tone. Roland was still as ever. The man cast a glance his way before looking to Amaya. His eyes were platinum teetering upon gold, as piercing as the words he spoke. "I hope you are not too settled in, miss. I'm in need of some assistance. Your assistance."

His attire, and the lack of any symbology otherwise, exposed little of his potential identity save for the potential that he was, like Amaya, an independent mage. She certainly didn't recognize him either.

"My name is Gerome. I was recommended to you... by a certain Leonard Forrst. An urgent matter, and one that requires your... armory." The man moved closer towards the center of the room, but unlike Roland's aura of apathy in approaching others, this man's was one of certainty -of arrogance. He held no fear not because he was unafraid, but because he knew he didn't have to be.

"I hope that the direness of my request rouses your interest and assuages any reluctance. I assure you I come with no ill will."

@Estylwen

To those of the Dark Sphere, whose knowledge extended into the supernatural, the existence of deities was a given. These things which the mortal realm had come to imagine existed in part or in full within the Labyrinth, shaped by belief and superstition; but they were mere reflections to what lay beyond. A mage understood that a god represented in the magic of the Labyrinth was but a painting, and that the true being may very well live beyond what the arcane offered.

Even that host which had cemented magic law in aeons past was not a true 'god'. Not of Realspace. Not of everything.

Reina knelt within the chapel dedicated to something beyond the greatest in the Labyrinth -a thing which was master of Realspace as much as it was a governor of the Labyrinth. To many mages such a dedication felt strange, as the depth of their being and persisting was focused upon a triumph over the Labyrinth alone. Why care for elements which they never cared to see or realize? For others, perhaps, the Labyrinth was merely that stepping stone into something greater.

Cygni and Erina were dressed in decorated ensembles of cloth and jewelry -an attire that was wholly out of place in the modern world, but expected in a household such as the Asher's. Delves were ventures of thought and story, as much a metaphor as it was a physical experience. For many mages, presenting themselves in a highly tailored fashion only served to strengthen their presence and power within the Labyrinth. Cygni and Erina were two such characters.

Adopting a regale of blacks and reds, and with a crown of horns, Cygni took on the appearance of a devilish king, whilst Erina sported a starkly contrasting robe of white, whose feathered ends terminated into a black gradient -the faint, threatening approach of darkness upon a canvas of light.

After Reina, the two followed in suit. Reina stepped through a veil of black, and arrived on the other side surrounded by a maelstrom of red.

Unlike the Dark City, whose familiar but 'off' nature was like a dreamy recollection of Realspace, the Labyrinth was a place of true imagination warping around the skeleton of a city in memory. Immense spires with facsimiles of windows stretched into a twisting sky of shimmering clouds and lustrous rings. Yusei's domain was painted crimson and its streets misshapen by coagulated orbs. It was already an unnerving place, but upon entering this night Reina was battered by fell winds. Spectral lights darted through the air carried upon unseen gusts, and a malevolent, ominous feeling nestled into her stomach like a parasite. What had felt abnormal in Realspace became a tangible anxiety twisting within. Cygni and Erina stepped through the portal with looks on their faces that reflected much the same feelings.

Yusei's throne lay a mile beyond, shrouded by a circle of half-toppled skyscrapers. But their walk, as usual, would not be unbothered. This night, however, it would prove even moreso challenging.

Creeping shadows slunk from behind upturned fragments of pavement, their amorphous faces wailing with silence. One, then two... Five... Twelve... Twenty two. Activity here was immense, as if entities had been birthed suddenly in terrible numbers or called from far and wide -inconveniently- to their exact location.

Even for such small-fry as these, it was evident the Labyrinth was restless. Whatever rare chances of worse Manifestations there were felt increasingly more likely.

@Kronshi

The woman tightened her grip upon the 'gun' even stronger, and lifted it an inch if only to exaggerate its presence.

"Consider it a motivator," she said cooly. As her words suggested, she had no interest in stalling his progress. Either she had no intention of harming Ozymandias in reality and simply wished to press his determination in some cold logic, or perhaps the motivator was real and he was a dead man if he failed. The woman remained silent as he sunk deep into the newest round of lockpicking. This last attempt had to work.

As Ozymandias orchestrated his precautions, assessments, and executions the door proceeded as planned each step -a mirror of the previous attempt. It was only at the final lock that he would know if it wished to see him dead or victorious. Three left. Two left. One... There it was. One moment of swift arcane executions cursed at the persistence of this simple door, and with a split-second of heart-stopping anticipation...

There was a click. No, rather, more than a click, it was like a shudder. The door wheezed, its essence of 'door' escaping if only in spirit. Before Ozymandias was a simple door in appearance, but it no longer maintained the purpose of one. It was as if for a moment that the door seemed as though it could simply be walked through.

For a moment, it was though it could be seen through.

Beyond its plain off-white coloration was a figure, small in size, with something trailing after them. He imagined wires, or strings perhaps, like the truth of the figure revealing itself as being attached to an unseen whole beyond. A groan around him pulled back his trance-like vision. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, and the door itself recoiled and rebounded. All at once it was as though the structure of the building had split itself into quarters and then recollected each part. Something about the building felt as though it was no longer the same place.

Behind him, the woman in the raincoat and gasmask surveyed her surroundings, assessing the brief phenomenon. Her gun was gone, replaced by an empty palm. The building and room were still, but Ozymandias could still feel the sensation of something in the ground -not quite a quake. It was unclear if they were reverberations of the senses alone.

"What did you see?" the woman asked. Her head was directed away, towards the singular exit out onto the streets of the Dark City. The howling outside was gone, but left in its silence with Ozymandias a sensation that whatever was calling had found its prey then.

It felt as though it was coming for him.

@Remram

Bel snorted at Mathias' joke, his eyes and head on a swivel around the truck.

"Yea, I'd heard the two candidates up for election are real strange too. 'Moaning Shadow', part of the Upside-down Hallway party is my preferred candidate though," he said. Rafael had closed his eyes, face pensive, and exercised his scrying magic to answer Mathias. Projected senses probed at the immediate surroundings, and then at the whispers and auras of the Dark City. Rafael opened his eyes and turned to Mathias, his eyes turned towards the ground.

"I believe so, but you won't like the answer," Rafael said. Dirk, Emma, and Bel turned their attention towards Rafael and Mathias, but kept their positions in the circle. Rafael spared Mathias from prodding, and continued, "Signs point towards this being a more conceptual Manifestation."

"So the answer is..." Dirk began, chiming in.

"...Everywhere," Emma said.

"Or anywhere," Rafael added. A grimness took hold of their features. Simulated static in each of their ears preceded the sound on Nina's voice coming through via spellcraft.

"Is everyone intact over there? Good. We just picked up an even bigger spike on the meter. Whatever's the cause is picking up in magnitude. What's it looking like on your side?" she inquired.

"We should hurry this along," Dirk said exterior to the spell-radio conversation. The team brought their weapons closer to their chests. "Route seems clear, lets get back into-"

The sound of steel being raked by a heavy mass interrupted Dirk. He turned around to the truck only to find it shredded. Three massive gashes had shorn away huge chunks of the trailer, and undoubtedly damaged or outright destroyed several pieces of their sensor cargo. Nothing of the source could be seen, but that didn't stop Rafael. Boots slammed on the street as the sniper broke into a sprint straight for Mathias. Rafael dove, throwing his weight into the team leader to knock him down.

Something large and invisible battered through the air, narrowly missing the two of them, followed by an explosion of brick and stone as the building next to them was impacted. Smoke poured out onto the streets, temporarily shrouding them.
Asuras Member

No spoken words, only napalm and guns

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