Domitorem Corvo

Eternal Realities: Umbra

Shadowhold
Karnariel is there when Kara wakes. She is propped up against a crumbling pillar.
Karnariel holds his blade out aimed at her heart.
"Hey Kar." Kara softly greets. "I'm sorry. I was a fool."
Karnariel is stopped in his tracks. "Don't try to apologize now. It won't save you."
"I know. I'm not apologizing to try and save my skin. I've since learned that it was all for nothing. All the betrayal, murder, the lies, all of it. It didn't make a difference in the end. Kar,our parents! Our friends!" Kara is openly sobbing.

Karnariel tosses his sword aside and wraps her in his arms. She clutches his blouse and sobs into him. The comfortable nostalgia of it both quenches her emotions and brings for yet more that she had long locked away. The gentle scent of cinnamon and warm coals that accompanied her childhood tears. The quiet moments of respite afforded by Karnariel. She apologizes. Even now. After all that has transpired he's still kind enough to embrace her as tenderly as in their youth.

Kara's tears have ended. She slowly relents and loosens her grip on Karnariel. "Kar, say you forgive me. Even if you don't mean it."
"I forgive you Kara." Karnariel places his forhead to hers. "You'll always have a place by my side. No matter what."
"You're kind Kar. Too kind. I've always loved that about you." Kara confesses. "But I've made up my mind."

Kara softly pushes Karnariel away and stands. Karnariel puzzled, starts to question but his blood goes cold when Kara picks up a sword.
"It's time to finish this. Raise your sword Karnason. You've a people to avenge." Kara grips the sword in her hands.
"I won't." Karnariel affirms. He knows its a lie.
"You will. You will because you still have something to fight for." Kara pushes down her urge to relent. "That's why you've fought so desperately isn't it? Your ward yet lives. You've a duty to uphold. I won't let you falter here."

Kara presses the attack. Karnariel answers in kind. The exchange is brief. Kara hadn't the resolve to fight in earnest. Karnariel's sword finds purchase in Kara's heart. And the tricksters daughter is no more.

And with that. There is only the future left to guide Karnariel.

Eternal Realities: Umbra

Valkyrie Throneworld
As Ghaul reflects her attack Kara smiles softly.
"So it seems."
The Fate Shear unbounds her fate at the very root. Her body's bonds untangle and she disintegrates from the point of contact.

Slowly but surely the effect of her presence on the Throneworld wanes and Ghaul is left in a blank empty void.

Ghaul's Throneworld
A figure approahces from the ether. At first they are a blank featureless human. Yet as they close it is The Allfather himself, Odin.
"Hell of a fight that. Poor girl. No avoiding it though. She stood in your direct path." Odin holds up Mjolnir, turning it over in his hands. "The real question, however, do you know where that path leads?"

Odin holds the hammer out to Ghaul. "I'll answer your questions now."

Eternal Realities: Umbra

Oasis Hidden Gate
The tree lets out a soft sigh.
"The Will that is Galen is no more. The Lich has destroyed It and the Vessel It inhabited. I am what remains. The Spirit of the Oasis." The tree says.

"So you can help us?" Raydel speaks up.

"I have no means by which to aid you. Neither do I have the means to halt or even impede The Lich." The tree stops to creak and groan as it shifts. "There is a system in place by which Galen ensured that no other beings would be able to seize my authority for themselves. Only a Vessel may access my authority."

"So we just need to make a new vessel." Raydel states attempting to work to a solution.

"Were it so easy. Furthermore, only Galen may inhabit a Vessel." The tree muses for a moment. "There were plans to allow others, namely Lexianna, Azriel, and Cael, to access the Authority in the event of dire emergency. But He never got around to establishing it."

Eternal Realities: Umbra

Valkyrie Throneworld
Kara's blood goes cold. A moment from her childhood cuts through her mind.

"Fate. That's what does you in." The Old crone with milky white eyes fingers twisted like old battered branches. "A wretch you were born. A wretch will you live. And a wretch you will die. I've never seen a more cursed destiny. No matter how you struggle. In the end Fate will be the death of you."

She thought she could escape the crone's vision. When she went to help The Father send the entire worlds Pantheons screaming into the abyss she thought that it meant her destiny would go with it. Now with Ghaul here in her sanctuary she sees that none of it mattered. The betrayals, the lies, the lives she could have had, all of it sacrificed only to end up right where she had so desperately fought to avoid.

She raises her hand and focuses the entirety of her power on it. Pushing past her limits, the wish within her soul enkindles and roars to life gently enwreathing her in softly flickering black flames. Mjolnir blinks out of existence. With her other hand she raises her spear. The many heads converge into one and twist to form a drill like blade. At the same time her arm melds into the haft of spear which rotates with increasing velocity. Faster and faster in mere fractions of a moment.

Kara uses her power to cut away the parts of herself unnecessary for an attack that is made to kill her enemy. Her fear, her anger, her pride and shame and everything she carried with her until now. Until all that remains is a defiant Rejection of Fate.

She unleashes her attack with a direct path straight to Ghaul. A challenge and statement all at once.

Eternal Realities: Umbra

Karn Throneroom
The Commander
"I do have a rather large sword in the treasury. It's not something I'm willing to part with." Commander takes a moment to regard the flask. They shake their head in politely in decline. "As for what I need to know..." The Commander seems to trail off in thought.

There is a distant boom. Then another and another. Siege engines at war with the city defenses.

"Starting with the most pressing. Who and how many others are in your travel party? What are their powers? What weapons do they wield?" The Commander seems well collected but urgent. "How have they allied The Father's Hands to their side? How have they turned or captured my Lords to their cause? Why have they supported a dissident uprising?"

The Commanders hand is clenched to a fist. Though it cannot be seen on their face, their body language is tense. Stressed even. Their attention turns to Nevermore and Nel. "And why do you have two hands and corpse that wont stop singing?!"

Eternal Realities: Umbra

Castle Garden
The tree doesn't respond. Instead a vision, or rather a memory softly floats to Lotus and Omega.

Galen places a hand to the tree.
"Here should do." The world turns at an impossible speed as the tree grows larger and larger until it has eclipsed the entire world. It's infinite branches reach out in all directions to the very edges of real and its roots splay to the very ends of the minds comprehension.

"Just in case." The memory can't be placed. Somehow it comes from a time before Galen was awake but long after he had created the Oasis. Yet here it is. A back door into The Oasis hidden deep within the oldest tree in Lexianna's Garden. Were it anyone other than Galen playing with time in such a manner would be dangerous. What's more this tree possesses a sentience unlike any flora anywhere else in existence.

The world turns violently and Lotus and Raydel are there in The Oasis. The tree manifests as itself before them. There is a great creaking and groaning as though it were waking. The snaps and pops of the wooden arborous creature mimic bones as it yawns.

"So, what questions do you have for me?" The Tree asks impatiently."

Eternal Realities: Umbra

Valkyrie Throne World
Ghauls fists ring out dull metal peals against Kara's head. She swipes at him but he's nimble for his size. Kara snarls. She takes a steadying breath. This one is different. Fighting isn't just a job or mission. Fighting signifies a way of life. A true Son of Odin or one of his ilk. Aesir, vanir, any one of those she'd put to the sword. Elves and dwarves, even the Jotuns were just collateral. Just what was necessary to carve a place for herself. Now this one. From far far away. Here to reckon her sins.

She laughs. Relaxes her posture.
"I can't for the life of me remember which one you are supposed to be. I don't know you." She scrapes the hydra head of blades on the floor. " That's Thor's hammer. You smell like Odin and Freya. And I thought it was the Norns who wove fate. Who the fuck are you?"

Cutting off a response she lunges at Ghaul, feints a overhead cut, sweeps his feet, and plants a shoulder into his solar plexus. With a wave of her hand she commands the hovering hands to seize threads of the Wyrd Engine.

The Wyrd Engine is comprised of 4 rings of endlessly threading hands. The threads of fate twist and braid into a single point at the center of all the rings which folds endlessly into itself.

The commanded hands pad through the "eye" of Wyrd Engine seizing raw fate from the knot at the center and tearing free to dive bomb Ghaul.

Eternal Realities: Umbra

Seaside Village Blackout.
Omega Raydel

"Lets get moving." Omega says as she opens a gate to Lexianna's garden. Once there she approaches the tree. "I don't see anything out of the ordinary." Omega walks around the tree expecting to see Lotus but she isn't there. Omega quickly reverses around the tree to see Lotus again.

Eternal Realities: Umbra

Valkyrie
Kara reels from the attack and staggers to one knee. Had the Wyrd Engine not been in effect she very well could have died. A mass of hands had seized a tangle of pure potential energy and tied it to Kara's person. The mass of writhing threads and tangles slithers across her body as she stands. Her new opponent stands before her.

"Another dogged challenger. Come to claim my head. I was looking forward to butchering the fox thing, but I suppose you'll have to do." Kara emboldened by the Wyrd engine leaps towards Ghaul and strikes with a heavy overhead slash. As she and her attack close in the numerous hands sprout blades that snap together to form a terrifying glaive.

Eternal Realities: Umbra

Valkyrie Throne World
The machine despite the momentary setback is completed. Several floating rings hover ominously in the air. Though there is nothing there the horrifying feeling of being watched by it looms ominously. It is a Wyrd Engine. Capable of creating millions of diverging realities in which to entrap it's victims.

The hands converge on Flame from every direction at once. Instead of attacking however they grasp and claw at Flame dragging her towards the hellish creation.

"I'll author an eternity of horrors for you." The Wyrd Engine hums relishing the violence it will inflict.