Lemons

Lem's Stash

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Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

---

For a second, Alja just...stared. A Denizen had just...used magic. Touched her. Interacted with her. Moved her. Scolded her. Something absolutely insane was happening, apparently. So she stared blankly until Seele arrived, bringing with her a semblance of sanity, and Alja's mind clicked into gear again. Just...roll with it, I guess.

She dropped her head, sighing. "I'm sorry," she offered to the innkeeper, whose name was unknown to her. "I've had a bit of a...long day," She motioned at the table where she'd been lying in a drunken daze since late last night, swallowing a lump in her throat that had formed for some reason, "but that's no excuse for disturbing the peace. It won't happen again." She listened to Kalie speaking as the assassin went on, but her thoughts were already far away.

Kelly wasn't very good with people. She'd never learned to read their body language, go by the unwritten rules, figure out what she needed to do. But Alja was. And she had done all those things. She was good at social perception. And Rael's body language had...well. It had shut down. Something Alja had said had touched a nerve deep inside of the smaller woman, it seemed. And she felt horrible.

As Siegfried came to sit down on Kalie's other flank, it all grew too much for Alja. She knew that Seele was better at this kind of gentle touch than she was. Rael wouldn't be keen to listen to her just then. So she bolted to a standing position and strode rapidly--if a bit unsteadily--over to the more crowded table, where some of the other survivors of the dungeon raid had begun to congregate, pulling a chair up and plopping herself down into it as their voices escalated, much like hers had. When she spoke, her voice had largely returned to normal, though there was still a touch of Scot in it.

"I'm sorry y'had to see that. 'S not like me to lash out like that." Another heavy, tired sigh. "So then, what're ya discussin', and can I possibly convince ya to calm down?"

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

---

Rael just...

How dare she?!

Alja murmured to Kalie: "Sorry about this."

Then a growl began to build in her throat. She did her best to swallow it back down, but her voice was still burred by it. Her control over her accent slipped as she spoke, and it rasped out in an aggressive, guttural Edinburgh brogue:

"Oi, Rael. Bitch. Quit'cher shit-talkin, ay? Jes' cuz ya don' seem to feel emotion like the rest'a us don' mean ya gotta take yer sociopathy out on someone who's clearly no' gonna respond to it well."

Her brows furrowed and she stood, getting into the smaller woman's face as her frustration and fear began to boil over. She had a headache, god damnit, and she didn't want to listen to this shrimpy little bitch talk shit for one second longer. "I mean, come on! LOOK at her!" She motioned to Kalie--Dawn--in the beginnings of a full mental breakdown. "What're ya tryin' to accomplish? Makin' her feel even worse? Or ya think yellin' at her like that is gonna make this BETTER somehow? Ya seem ta forget, Rael," she continued, voice steadily rising in volume even as she tried to clamp down on it, "this has never been real. How old d'ya think she is, hmm?"

Eventually, she couldn't do it anymore. Couldn't hold herself back. And she thundered at Rael: "It's always been a game ta her, goddamnit! D'ya think she's ever seen a man die violently? Been in the same room when it happened? Heard his loved ones screamin'? She wants ta be a teacher, for Chrissakes! I dinnae what kinda pampered life you've lived out where ya think it's alright to yell at someone for that!"

With some effort, she crushed her voice back down and sat heavily, this time on the opposite side of Kalie, between the two of them. "I dinnae--I just don't know what you're trying to accomplish." A heavy sigh. "So piss back off, ay? I'd rather not have any more bad blood between us than there needs ta--to be."

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

---

The snow was still falling.

Kelly was standing underneath it, letting it come down upon her. She smiled. It had been a long time since she'd been up in the Grampians; not since she was just a little kid. It was beautiful. She stuck her tongue out and caught a snowflake on it, giving a little giggle.

But didn't that snowflake taste weird?

Oh, that's right. It was red. She wondered what caused the red coloration; she didn't know enough environmental science to ponder what kind of weird meteorological phenomenon might have caused that. Her mouth quirked, and her brow furrowed slightly. It felt like she was forgetting something. The taste of the snowflake stayed on her tongue.

She was no longer smiling. The snow fell faster. Harder. It poured down upon her in almost a rain, staining her cardigan red. The tang on her tongue was even stronger now.

It tasted like iron.

---

Alja jolted upright, eyes wide, and barely held back a scream. Everything tasted like blood.

A moment later, she slouched down, letting her head rest on an elbow. At least her head hurt less than it had, and the world was no longer wheeling around her. Thanks to Seele, probably. She looked languidly to the side. She was still there. And, a bit further on, so were the rest of their dungeoneering party. Good. At least they were staying together.

She mumbled a quick "thank you, Seele," then gathered her strength and pushed herself up from the chair, stumbling a little bit as she rose to her full height. She stretched her arms, her face fixed in a frown. No more drinking. Not that much, at least. She couldn't be this nonfunctional in a game where things mattered.

I need to get some different clothing on. The lining of her armor was soaked with sweat, and that really didn't help the uncomfortable Thorinn heat. She considered for a moment. What else do I have to wear?

With a quick aside to Seele saying that she'd be back, she picked up her backpack and headed to the bathroom at the back of the tavern. She vaguely remembered being here a lot last night, and shifted uncomfortably before she doffed her armor and slid on whatever was the lightest clothing she had. It wasn't comfortable--nothing was right now--but at least it was less awkward to move around in.

Awkwardly distributing her armor between her backpack and her hands enough that she could carry it somewhere--she didn't know where exactly, but she couldn't keep sleeping in this tavern--she walked back out to the main floor, dressed in a pale blue tunic made of something like linen over a pair of brown trousers and high leather boots. It weirded her out seeing herself in it; for most of Pariah, she'd only worn her armor. But Thorinn was so overpoweringly warm, she was sure if she'd kept wearing it she would have had a heat stroke.

With the bits of her armor she couldn't fit into her backpack awkwardly balanced in her hands, she made her way out to the table, putting it down with a grunt. She felt oddly vulnerable outside of her metal shell. Giving Seele one last grateful look, she clomped her way over to the bar where Kalie sat, feeling kind of weird that she wasn't clanking as she walked.

"Yo. Hell of a night, huh."

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

---

Alja groaned loudly, planting her head on the table, after drinking whatever it was Seele had given her. Her head was pounding. She wasn't sure if she'd slept, or if she'd been in a drunken stupor all night. Either way, she didn't feel rested in the slightest. And given that what she'd said to Seele--"Bha mi ro fhadalach. Tha mi duilich"--had come out so slurred as to be nearly incomprehensible, she was probably still drunk to some extent.

Not as much as she was last night, though. Bits and pieces of laughing with Graves--and crying? She thought?--floated back to her in scattered fragments. She pulled herself upright, grinding the balls of her hands into her sore eyes, and wondered what she'd told him that would have her crying.

But then again, she thought grimly, it's not like it would be a particularly strange reaction.

She wondered where Luci was. And then, strangely, she found her thoughts wandering to Leaves. She hadn't put a ton of thought into where she'd ended up; was this her patron city? In Alja's addled state, she couldn't quite remember.

Belatedly, she realized she'd been rude, and turned her bloodshot eyes to Seele. "Th'nks, Seele," she mumbled out. Now that she thought about it, her headache was slackening off a bit, and the room was starting to slow its spinning. She slumped down again, resting her head sideways on the table as she met the other woman's eyes. She went silent for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and bitter.

"'S my fault." She heaved in a shuddering breath, casting her eyes downwards. "'F I'd been faster with th' bat--if I hadn't fucked it up with th' totem room--" A sob began to creep into her voice and she broke off. She needed...needed...

Sleep. She needed sleep. But...she had nowhere to go. So instead, she just planted her head back down, and let her exhausted guilt carry her off into blackness.

When she dreamt, it was of falling snow on the Grampian mountains.

Red snow.

Snow like blood.

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

---

As the incandescent rage left Alja's body, the stress of One Thousand Shining Teeth struck. She though that she'd felt tired in the totem room. She thought that the dire bat had left her feeling drained. Even the spikes, she'd thought she was exhausted.

On the other side of the divide, Kelly thought about the two days and two nights she'd stayed up for an exam last year. Running miles in gym class, back in high school. The time when she thought she was being attacked--how she'd sprinted as fast as she could for minutes on end, collapsing on her hands and knees at her home's doorstep, barely able to breathe.

But she had never--never, in either world--felt as singularly weary as she did then.

She tottered, one knee buckling, and leaned against a stalagmite next to her. Don't you fall, she thought grimly to herself, battling to keep herself conscious. The battle isn't over. Don't you dare fucking fall.

A burst of guilt shredded through her as she saw Graves on the ground, needles of ice sticking from his body as he lay in the bloody snow. He's dead. He's dead. And it's all your fault. You didn't protect him. You didn't keep him safe. You failed.

She tried to walk towards him--tried to run--but all she could manage was a limp hobble. Above her, the demon was being pelted with an apocalyptic show of magic. Arrows that struck like bombs seared through the air. Priscilica's fire magic heated the air so warm she could watch the snow beneath the demon melt. Kalie's darkness blades that seared through the light lik gashes straight through reality itself.

Her knee buckled again, and she went down, barely keeping herself awake. She bit her upper lip hard enough to draw blood. Don't you fall. If you do one thing right in your entire life, Kelly--Alja-- she wasn't quite sure anymore, but grit her teeth regardless. She struggled to her feet and resumed her hobble towards the barely moving Graves, --let it be this one.

The blazing lights above her refracted through the needles of ice still present, spiraling her near-delirious mind into a dizzying kaleidoscope. All she could focus on was Graves. Her throat hurt. She must have been screaming, but couldn't quite remember. Her neck tensed as she struggled forwards, tendons standing out in high relief as she finally stood above Graves' prone, ice-needled body. This close, she caught the movement of breath. She'd never been one for religion, but still...she looked up, past the demon, past the dungeon, into a sky that wasn't there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Then, with a groan, Graves opened his eyes and stood, leaning against her. She nearly fell over right then and there, but sucked in a harsh breath. She would not fall. "Hell of a haymaker you got there."

She laughed lamely, but her breaths were wheezing too hard for her to get a word out before he continued, and some of his blood magic flowed into her. She felt...not well. Not at all. But well enough to stand straighter. As he bounded up towards the spire, he left one parting thought. I guess we'll get that drink after all. If we live. She threw him a lopsided salute as he left, watching him climb the earthen pillar as she moved backwards to a safer place.

Not bad for someone who looked dead, she thought. Then the world went black. She felt herself falling. And, just before she passed out, she felt only a bitter hate for herself.

---

When her eyes creaked open again, it was to Kazuki's rejuvenating music. She groaned, peeling herself from the rocks she'd fallen into. She felt better. More energetic. But Christ, she had a headache fit to split the earth. Then, the fight rushed back. Her half-crawl to Graves. Her fall. She jackknifed up into a standing position, wincing as her headache worsened. She nearly fell again, but caught herself this time, her eyes slamming shut as she forced herself to stay upright. Then, the aches began to slowly abate. Kazuki's music was doing work for her.

They're okay. They're okay.

She opened her eyes again, looking at the party. They were in a sorry state, the lot of them. But she didn't dwell. She couldn't dwell. She had something to do. It wasn't going to be pleasant. But since when had whether something was pleasant or not stopped Alja Frostguard from doing her job?

She took a cautious step forward. Towards the near-catatonic Luci.

I'm sorry he's dead.

No. Another step.

I'm sorry we took so long.

No. Another--smaller--step.

He didn't deserve this.

No. Even worse. One more step.

I...

Step. She looked down at herself.

Since when had whether something was pleasant or not stopped Alja Frostguard from doing her job?

But you aren't Alja Frostguard anymore, are you? she thought bitterly. Alja Frostguard doesn't fear anything. Never needed to fear anything more than time being wasted. She never feared death. Never knew it. You're not Alja. You're Kelly. Kelly Mackay. The loser. The friendless. The hermit. The fuckup. She suddenly remembered with perfect clarity what she'd thought in the spike room:

You finally have a chance to do something. Something that really means something.

And she'd fucked it up here too.

No more steps. She stopped.

She looked at Luci, screaming in tears with Leaves holding her. Alone.

She looked at the newly open exit; at the people there. So many people. Companionship. She turned towards them, hating herself for it.

You finally have a chance to do something. Something that really means something.

Kelly--Alja--heaved in a deep breath. Turned away from the light. Turned back to Luci and Leaves.

Step.

I'm sorry. For everything.

That sounded good.

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

---

Alja was still reeling from their discovery of Enos' body when the demon's glare was fixed upon her, and she froze on the spot. The way it had just...tossed Aag aside like so much trash...she wondered then, in a rare moment of total fatalism, if that was the fate that awaited them all. She would've been prepared to fall back to the party again, regroup, come up with some kind of plan for the thing, honest. But something had grabbed hold of her mind when they were just outside of the demon's chamber and wouldn't let go.

A shriek.

Luci's shriek.

Her eyes had widened fractionally for a moment. Her stomach had leapt into her throat. She'd thought her heart stopped beating. And she'd took off running, and searching.

THERE! On the other side of the chamber, she could see Luci. Just faintly--kneeling over Aaginim's broken, battered tin can of a corpse. Alja's lips parted and a faint gasp floated out.

Luci.

And following her gasp was a scream at the top of her lungs; a scream to bloody her throat; a scream to rend the world:

"LUCI!"

No response. And she was galvanized into movement, dashing straight for Luci. She didn't know what she would do. She didn't know what she could do. More than likely? Nothing. But still...the image of Luci she'd etched into her mind back at the start of this whole thing--how happy she'd looked--she fixed that in her mind. Maybe Luci would never be person again. More than likely, she'd fall into a deep depression without Aag. And she might never come out. But Alja would be damned if she let her go down that dark pit without a fight first.

She was maybe halfway, scrambling across the jagged stones of the chamber's floor, when the demon lumbered in front of her, cutting her off. Her eyes snapped open, and her throat bulged. But what emerged wasn't a shriek, like when the administrator had announced...death. It wasn't a cry, like when she'd attacked the dire bat. It wasn't a scream, as it had been just a moment ago. No. What emerged from Alja's mouth was a laugh. A curtain of red fell in front of her eyes. And her stride didn't break. Glacier Chain came off her back. She knew, in the back of her mind, that she was certainly going to die, as the demon's hand pulled back to strike her. But in that moment, with fury boiling in her blood, she didn't even care.

And then the claw, so close to her, bounced away, and Graves emerged at her side, pushing it back as she stared for just a moment. Then, the red curtains returned. A wild grin came to her, and she laughed again in the demon's face.

"Nuke it! Nuke it with everything you've god damn got!"

The laugh grew louder, then abruptly cut off. Her voice radiated a cold deeper than anything she'd felt. "You got it."

A bubble of purple light wrapped around her, and at the same time, she felt her strength grow. Her muscles were reinvigorated. It felt amazing. Tundra Glass wrapped her flail, and it hummed a killing-song around her as she whirled it and struck. The THOOM reverberated through the room. Shards of broken ice, sharp as glass, sliced across her skin, but she paid them no mind. She ducked under the hand as it came back, slid underneath it, then struck again, Glacier Chain rising and falling with the force of a meteor. Another whirl and crack, and a wave of ice slashed up the demon's side. It shattered on its skin--it didn't even seem to damage it--but she laughed madly all the same, even as exhaustion began to nip at her heels. It felt good. It felt right.

Nuke it.

Leaping back, she began to spin her flail above her head. Slowly at first, then faster. And faster. And faster. Her throat swelled again, and Alja unleashed a guttural, bloody-spittled roar of pure rage as the vibrations of her flail began to split the air. It shivered, and all around her, great needles of ice began to form. And though they started small--a crown of frigid swords around her head--they soon swelled, until the air around her grew cold, filled with the chilling sound of growing ice.

One.

The crust of ice continued to grow, and her feet left the ground, suspending her in the air. She rose until she reached a height at which she could look down at the demon instead of up. Her eyes began to gleam a frigid pale blue.

Thousand.

With a blur of frantic motion, the fractured needles of ice hovering through the air suddenly solidified, arranging themselves into a dizzying array of spears that glecamed with a fragmented and terrible light. The glow in her eyes grew brighter, now; enough to notice from down on the ground as a swelling nova of icy light.

Shining.

Another blur of motion; as one, the spears pulled back, taking up position behind her. Her eyes were entirely blotted out now, and the light that they cast ricocheted among the floating shards, casting Alja in a blazing corona. Her flail still spun.

And then she dropped as though carried by a thousand pounds, slamming her flail into the stones hard enough to crack them with a sound like thunder.

TEETH.

And all at once, the spears descended.

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

---

A bitter prayer formed on Alja's lips as she ran over to the small group by the edge of the ravine, face stinging, out of her mind with worry for Rael. They were incredibly lucky that Seele had been paying attention; otherwise, they could have lost something--someone--very important. And maybe they might anyway; those careens into the wall of the chasm looked painful. And maybe lethal. And her own Tundra Glass shards seemed to have slashed Rael up a bit, too. A burning guilt began to dig into her stomach. If, somehow, she was at fault for Rael's death--

What was she THINKING?

The thought came out of nowhere, searing through her head. Glacier Chain was replaced firmly on her back, the weapon buff from Seele having long expired on it. Her mouth was pressed into a thin, pale line as Rael lay on the ground, unmoving. No. Rael was just doing what she'd always done. She couldn't be faulted for playing the game like she always had, relying on instinct. Alja still was, and look where that had gotten them--

What, so she just FORGOT that this isn't a game anymore? There's no place for risk-taking like that!

Graves made it to Rael before Alja did, and he looked just as worried as she did. That wasn't good. Her heart jumped into her throat as she hammered her way over to them. Rael was doing what she needed to do. The bad needed to die for them to advance. And the sooner they got out of this dungeon and to safety, the better--

She should have WAITED for it to land! It could barely fly! It would have had to come back! Oh god oh god Rael--

Then she saw Rael's head lift, and her knees nearly buckled with relief as she slid to a stop near them, breath heaving. She's fine. She's fine.

Her mouth opened for admonishment. You aren't THINKING. You can't take RISKS like that. You should have WAITED. That was STUPID. But the words caught in her throat as she looked at Rael's injuries, and after a moment, all that came out was: "I'm sorry about your arm."

---

Eventually, they managed to gather again, having made it through another encounter, and Alja sighed as she felt the slices in her face disappear. She looked over at Rael, concerned. She was worried. Incredibly so. Who knows what kind of internal damage she might have sustained from those cracks against the wall? But she forced it out of her mind for the moment, walking up to Kazuki after the healing song. "You might want to take a look at Rael," she murmured. "She got knocked around in the chasm by the bat, might have some internal injuries."

Then she moved on, walking over to Benkei and listening to the tail end of Kalie's conversation with him. "I'm with Kalie. Pretty much all of my damage abilities are AoE in some way. I'll defer to you--you seem good at this leader thing--but I think I'm better off tankin'. Don't want to risk blowin' up our backline by mistake if enemies get too close, right?"

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

---

For once, as she faced down the dire bat, there was no smile on Alja's face in combat.

She'd seen other flail users occasionally in Pariah. They weren't as common as spears, or swords, or maces, but they did exist. She wasn't unique in that. But what she was unique in was her particular approach to combat with one. Most she'd met stood back, swinging their flails in slow, almost hypnotic circles, waiting for an opening. Alja, though...well. As soon as Seele dropped a buff on her weapon, she compounded it with her own: the unstable shards of Tundra Glass coalesced, forming a jagged shell around the weapon. Then, with a deafening bellow, she plowed down on the injured dire bat, swinging her flail overhead with all her considerable strength.

THOOM

It dodged far faster than a creature its size should've been able to and Glacier Chain barely clipped it in the leg. Still, even a strike on a limb was enough: the impact triggered the Tundra Glass, and it exploded in a burst of razor-sharp ice needles. Most of them bounced harmlessly off her plate, but a few swarmed towards her head. She barely averted her eyes in time to have avoid having them skewered, and the jolt of pain than ran through her as her skin was slashed by the passing shrapnel brought a furious snarl to her face. She saw red, and her vision tunneled on the bat. At least it hadn't gotten off totally unscathed; the impact of her flail and the spreading shards of ice had completely mangled its left leg, shattering it in several places and reducing the skin to a bloody pulp.

She brought the flail back again, whirling it over her head a few times, before it cracked again into the floor. A claw of ice tore up from the ground beneath the bat, gripping it in place as she dashed towards it, weapon whirling for a kill-strike. But just before she reached it, the ice released under the strain and it pitched backwards, taking clumsily to the air. She spat bloody saliva and swore at it, teeth clenched in pain, fatigue and frustration.

Then, rolling her fatigued shoulders and accepting the introduction of even more exhaustion, she shrugged a suit of Tundra Glass armor over herself. It wouldn't be able to stay up for long with tears like those in its wings. It'd need to come down sooner or later. And she'd be ready.

She winced as the cuts stung. I need a helmet. Dealing damage would be a lot harder now, it seemed. And if her abilities were hurting her, then they'd probably hurt her allies as well. She couldn't risk that explosion near the backline, no matter what. And using something like Be The North? Pfft. Forget it.

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

---

Thump-thump
Thump-thump
Thump-thump

Kelly couldn't hear anything over her own panicked heartbeat, and the voice that kept replaying:

You will die.
You will die.
You will die.
You will die.

Then she jerked as she felt something touch her knee. At an unknown touch, Alja would probably be fine. She was balanced. If it was a particularly strenuous situation, she might punch the touch. But on the whole, she was pretty hard to shake.

But Kelly was not. Kelly was in a state of perpetual shaken-ness. And so instead of looking sharply up at what was on her knee--her eyes still staring listlessly into nothingness--she only cringed away from the touch, burying herself further into her knees.

“Alja, sweetheart."

Alja.

"Shhh, shh. It’s okay. Look at me.”

Kelly lifted her--lifted Alja's--head from her--Alja's--knees. Her eyes--Alja's--still streaming tears, met Seele's, and a moment of utter shame ripped through her. She closed her--Alja's--eyes. You're disgusting. Less than nothing. Weak, selfish, useless coward. Who are you to think that you could help these people? Any people? Anybody? Any situation? You can't even help yourself. You lock yourself away in a video game--you neglect your studies--you neglect what few friends you have--you neglect your family. All to fulfil this fantasy of a world where you mean something to somebody. But you don't. You never have. And now you never will.

“Right here, hey. You’re okay. You’re okay, you’re going to be okay. I promise.”

I promise.

The two words slashed through the chains of self-pity that were holding her in place. And in front of her in her mind's eye--was Alja.

Oh, shut up.

I...

No. Shut up. You listen to me. You have a chance here. You finally have a chance to do something. Something that really means something. Something that will help people. Isn't that what you always wanted, Kelly? To help people? Why else are you going into medicine? Why else did you roll a tank in Pariah? You finally have that chance. You're good at what you do. And if you die--if--then you'll die in service of helping other people. So get off your whiny ass and do some good, huh?

Then she opened Alja's--her--eyes, and looked around. Seele was comforting her. Rael and Kalie--she almost laughed. She slowly pulled her hands away from her head, and began to uncurl. She met Seele's eyes. Her voice, when she spoke--"Thank you, Seele"--was tiny. It was fragile.

But it was her's.

Then Kelly breathed deeply. And Alja stood.