EVENT #10: AFFLICTION - IC POST

[abraxasmods]

Event #10 - Affliction

go to the OOC event info & plotting post

---

With tensions heavy across Abraxas and all the destruction that's happened, it's no surprise that the dark shadows which sweep over the land go unnoticed...at first.

Winds initially stir in Solvunn, where the influence of the Old Gods remains the strongest. Slowly each Herald infects Thorne and the Free Cities, as well. The Summoned are the first to feel its effects and are the most heavily impacted.

Though no one will realize it until well afterwards, Nocwich remains unaffected. After all, the Summoned don't reside there.

NOTE: This event will deal with themes of death (people and animal) and horror imagery.

Emergence

It begins sometime in mid-October, around the 18th. Not everyone will experience it at the same time. You might even believe you're spared until days afterwards when you're visited by an unusually vivid dream.

The dream starts the same for everyone: you are going somewhere, anywhere, walking to your bedroom or enjoying a stroll on the beach. You might be driving down a familiar neighborhood. Wherever you're headed, you eventually come upon a stone tablet engraved with your Arcana. Laid on the tablet are three objects:

◎ A dead moth trapped inside a wilted rose, symbolizing Koth of Festering Lands
◎ A teacup inside which sits a single nightshade berry, symbolizing Adlewyrd of Poisoned Tongues
◎ An ornate cracked hand mirror that contains no reflection, symbolizing Sannleikr of Many Faces

Make a choice. Something inside your soul will be drawn towards one of the objects. Maybe you spend hours in the dream deliberating, but sooner or later, you'll pick one of the items up. The moment you do, the other objects vanish and the chosen Herald appears before you. Where one might expect a god to seek subservience, the strange figure instead extends a friendly hand towards you - as though it's greeting you as an equal.

Whispered around you, you hear its name. Then it fades and with it the dream. You awaken.

Affliction

You go about your day as usual. That's when you realize something isn't right. Creatures and people around you behave strangely. You begin to sense that you are the cause.

Depending on your chosen Herald, you'll experience at least one of its afflictions. The effects might start small, then grow. They might rush you all at once. You can't shake what haunts you, though you can try. Spells, potions, and willpower can help keep the afflictions at bay but you won't ever be completely free.

As the afflictions seep into your mind, you start to find shadows of it following you: a dead moth here, a nightshade bloom there, a cracked mirror elsewhere. You may even wonder if it's following you in the first place. What if instead, you are the one leaving these signs behind?

Corruption

The first time you inflict your ability on someone else, you don't mean to. It might be a stranger, some unsuspecting soul, or it might be another Summoned. Regardless, the afflictions that ail you seem to spread through you into another. Someone falls down as if in the throes of an invisible death or secrets spill. You brush by someone and they're suddenly upset and confused.

The more this happens, intentionally or not, the better you feel. You may grow full of life and energy, gain a renewed strength of heart, or radiate a charm that turns heads and garners compliments. The afflictions haunting you could even start to fade or completely vanish. And if you use your newfound power deliberately? You'll feel better even faster for longer. Of course, these boons are temporary, lasting at most an hour or so. When the feeling wanes, you might miss having it.

You are not possessed. You can't control this power that spreads through you, but how you respond or behave is up to you. You could be attracted to the allure of power, enjoy the boons you are granted, or realize you can gain relief from your afflictions if you choose a victim. Not everyone will fall headfirst into the pull. Some are not easily swayed by power, some struggle to overcome their dark impulses, and others would rather endure their suffering than inflict it on someone else. But others still might succumb to temptation and turn on those around them with purpose: once, twice, multiple times. The choice you make is yours alone.

Blight

With the call of the Herald at your fingertips, the world around you twists. No one knows whether this stems from you and your newly imbued afflictions, or if the Heralds are exerting power on their own. It's for sure easier to think of what occurs as the influence of something monstrous beyond your control. No matter the cause, the earth is changed all the same.

Omens

The omens arrive shortly after the initial Summoned receive their dreams, but they don't come to every faction at once. SOLVUNN is first, being home to the Old Gods' shrines, before THORNE and the FREE CITIES follow only days afterwards. Depending on where you are, the omens will affect things a bit differently.

Solvunn

In Solvunn, the ground stirs. A desiccated hand breaks through the grass, a cloven hoof. Human or animal, they crawl forth, animated against their will. Some might attack, but most do not. At the same time, crops around the settlements begin to fail. Some chickens lay rotten eggs while cows produce spoiled milk. Any livestock that perishes overnight will surface in the mornings with empty eye sockets - pecked out by crows or gnawed on by rats. From a distance, the ocean can be seen bubbling as leviathans beneath thrash.

Worth noting is that many of the dead are concentrated around the shrines, especially the ones deep in the woods. They're too decayed to recognize, and some might not even move from the site, as though they are waiting for the earth to take them again...or as though they once chose to give up their life at this very spot.

Summoned can assist by helping to cast spells or place warding charms around shrines, farms, and gardens to protect crops and livestock. As a commune, the Solvunnites will share their resources as much as possible and would appreciate those who might lend a hand bringing supplies, herbs, and offerings to neighbors who are lacking. The Summoned can also brew a common herbal remedy to aid any animals who have fallen ill or to help purify the well water.

Free Cities

In Libertas, the dead buried under the rubble dig themselves out. More crawl forth from graves in Cadens' cemeteries. Beasts and bandits slain in the desert wilds rise, hungry or searching for the ones who killed them. At the same time, dead fish wash up onto the shores of Aquila while birds fall dead from their perch, dropping like flies from an unknown illness. Vultures and other scavengers begin to prey upon the eyes of the dead, leaving behind hollowed-out corpses.

Worth noting is that in the Badlands, a few very old and skeletal corpses rise with a metal plate or two screwed onto their bones, which are also oddly elongated. Only one or two make their way near the city. The army is quick to dispose of them before many can notice. They will not disclose any information about this and will claim these are just monsters like anything else.

Summoned can assist by going on patrol with the soldiers to put down any risen dead. Merchant caravans are also hiring escorts for their journeys. Additionally, they can help look through any received supplies and packages to make sure the food isn't rotting or worse, use a special dissolving compound to purify the waters, and donate staple food items to refugees and the less fortunate who can't afford the rising prices.

Thorne

In Thorne, the dead emerge only from the outskirts of the castle city. Thanks to information from one of their Summoned and their recent monitoring of the Singularity, Thorne was able to act swiftly and was able to ward any royal or otherwise significant burial sites. Graves and tombs of less importance, though, will not be protected in the same way. There are fewer encounters with eyeless corpses, though some animals might appear outside the castle in such a state. Normally extravagant dishes from the Castle's kitchens use simpler ingredients as they struggle to ration their food stores.

Worth noting is that a few unexpected corpses make their way up from deep under the castle in places beyond the dungeons. These are twisted and mangled, missing limbs, heads, fingers. The castle guards are quick to dispose of them before they get too far into the rest of the castle, but one or two may be spotted.

Summoned can assist by contributing to the wards around Castle Thorne and the city, using spells to put down the dead without mangling the corpse, and taking inventory of food stores. Further, in Nott the situation is more dire for anyone who is traveling there to continue assisting with repairs following the attack. Nott will welcome help with any problems caused by the omens. It'll be clear the kingdom has neglected the city somewhat. Thorne will claim the Castle takes priority, of course, due to King and Queen residing there along with the entire royal court.

Apprehensions

Across the factions, locals are beginning to catch on that something isn't right with you, the Summoned. No one will say it outright, but there's an air of caution and wariness around you where you go. Merchants might be quick to hand you your wares so you'll leave or locals give you a bit of space when they walk by. Chatty innkeepers are more reluctant to hold lengthy conversations.

Much of the time, it may not be conscious. The natives might simply sense something off that instinctually makes them want to put some distance between them and you. The only exception? If you've chosen Sannleikr of Many Faces, you'll continue to exude your charm towards people you encounter. At least for as long as you continue to inflict that ability you've been gifted.

Displacement

Everyone responds differently while in the Horizon. You might exert better willpower over your afflictions or you might feel its effects more strongly. It all depends on the individual and their mindset. Regardless, the Heralds are only one part of the equation. There's a much bigger disturbance going on.

It could happen as soon as you enter or it might be as you're stepping over the threshold into another's domain. Whatever the case, you are suddenly not where you're supposed to be. Instead, you're in one of two places depending: transported into a domain you never meant to go into or in a foreign setting altogether.

Visitation

Whether you're the one transported or someone teleports unexpectedly into your space, the Horizon becomes unpredictable for the next little while. Rooms normally locked to strangers, areas you yourself may not even realize exists - you and your fellow Summoned continue to pop in and out despite your intentions.

The effect isn't painful, just disorienting, like missing a step you didn't see or stumbling through a door into a too-bright room. The person whose domain you've inadvertently visited might sense an unwanted presence, whether they're inside the Horizon or not, or they may be completely oblivious. This will depend on the strength of their connection to the Singularity and the Horizon.

Not to worry. You won't be trapped or anything in these cases...unless the domain you land in happens to seal from the inside. You might stumble on secrets you weren't meant to find, though, locked away in someone else's mind.

Ensnared

The less fortunate will be pulled into a space that they've never encountered before. The bizarreness of it resembles the glitchy visions that flashed through a few months ago, but rather than an image flickering by, you are now inside the space itself.

Trapped between minutes to hours, you can't use the Horizon's creation magic as normal. Attempts will falter or go sideways: trying to fly out might cause you to tumble, tools and objects are broken or not quite right, wounds don't vanish or heal completely, etc. More significantly, you can't seem to send or receive messages through your connection. Anything that manages to come through will be garbled and distorted. It's as though the place you are in is just out of the reach of your control.

Luckily, you may not be alone. Someone else may have gotten lost alongside you. They might already be there when you stumble through or they might arrive after you do. They might even fade out sooner than you, unintentionally leaving you behind.

Eventually, you'll be released back into the Horizon proper, spat out in a random place in the Horizon. While you're stuck, though, you can try to survive, explore, sit and wait it out, or make friends with your fellow trapped partner. Each area has its challenges and quirks that you'll need to deal with.

Scenes to Explore

JUSTICE ◎
FULL IMAGE

High in the clouds, these snowy peaks are as cold as they look. Giant marble hands reach out, though their sheer scale means you might not recognize them as hands from up close. You can scale the mountain, but if you try to go down, the hands will flip the mountain, which sends you tumbling to the top again.

It's up to you whether you can be injured when you fall. Maybe the snow will feel like marshmallows, or you'll break a bone on the jagged rocks. No two experiences are the same. If you have a partner, they could end up faring better than you despite being in the same place.

Conjure some warm clothes or a log cabin even if you wish - they might not manifest perfectly, but it'll be better than nothing. At least the view's fairly nice...while the sun is up. A blizzard will come through by nightfall. With it arrives a strange hovering light that entices you or your friend to follow it into the frozen darkness. What draws you out depends on you. It could be a familiar voice, an image, or a simple compulsion. If you're lucky, the person with you is unaffected and can try to stop you. Or maybe you're the one desperately chasing after the other person?

---

THE CHARIOT ◎
FULL IMAGE

From a distance, it's hard to tell if they're shipping containers or houses stacked atop each other. A gooey mess covers the ground below. Oddly, the smell isn't as unpleasant as the goo looks. It smells like bubblegum or cotton candy, artificial and sweet. When you first fall in, you might land inside one of the homes, on top of the stacked structure, or the ground. You can try to reach anyone else who's there with you, but be careful: the ooze is spreading. Climb if you must or move from room to room. If you don't keep moving, you risk getting sucked into its sticky mass.

Each block of a home is different. Some are furnished, whereas others are empty or filled with strange knickknacks. Some might even have subconscious creations spawned by you. Keep ahead of the gloopy substance, and you'll be fine, probably. Or you can try to fight it back or block its path by sealing yourself in a room or otherwise, which can slow it down significantly. Mostly, you'll have to hope you fade out before the pink mass completely consumes the landscape.

---

THE WORLD ◎
FULL IMAGE

The hazy neon glow obscures a nothingness that seems to extend forever. In the middle of the wet ground are several stacked television sets with wires plugged into nothing. Inexplicably, there's also a cat. At first, it appears perfectly normal, but keen observers will notice that its behavior is on a loop where it will walk a certain path, pause at specific intervals to lick its paws, and meow at set points. It does not acknowledge any of its intruders. You can break its loop by picking it up, at which point it'll go limp as a ragdoll. As soon as you set it down, it'll resume its actions as before.

While you can see the same images as someone else on the screens, it's also possible you'll each see something different despite being in the room together. What you see is up to you. It could be an old fuzzy movie, home videos of your childhood, trivia questions you have to answer correctly, or even a memory or vision you wouldn't want to share. Words or faces taunting you could appear between staticky flickers, or maybe your very thoughts are projected onto the screens for anyone with you to read.

Break the televisions if you want, but given a few short minutes, they'll reform between one blink and the next. Looks like you'll have to keep watching until you're released.

---

THE FOOL ◎
FULL IMAGE

Sprawling and massive, you're unlikely to recognize at first that you're trapped in a labyrinth. Stone walls rise around you, and your surroundings are pitchblack. Manifest a torch or a flashlight if you can, though these will be prone to going out at inopportune times. Escaping over the walls will only send you into another section in the maze.

As you navigate the twisting corridors, you'll encounter any variety of trials and troubles: gaps in the ground, spiked traps, haunting whispers, monsters, decaying corpses. Some of these might've formed from your mind, others might've spawned from anyone else who's trapped with you.

If you aren't alone, do your best to locate your fellow Summoned. Voices do carry and echo over the walls, and there could be landmarks that help you find each other. Finding the exit, however, is another matter. Walk and climb all you want. A way out is impossible until the Horizon chooses to set you free.

Players can pick any scenario that interests them from the four choices above. Unlike the visions from before, characters can accidentally be trapped in as many of the scenes as you want, as many times as you want. Another option is that they can stay trapped in only one scene while a variety of characters fade in and out to join them, or some combination of the two. Choose what works best for your plans.

Each scene will once again carry an associated Arcana etched somewhere inside it, which can change from person to person or instance to instance. It might be on a wall, a table, or on the ground. Characters with a stronger connection to the Horizon are likely to be trapped for longer but the extent of this is your choice and it won't ever exceed a few hours. It's also your choice whether the afflictions continue to haunt them or not. If you want characters to deal with both problems while stuck together, you're welcome to!

Generally speaking, there are no restrictions other than that they won't be able to communicate with anyone outside the area, they can't escape it until the Horizon chooses to release them, and their creation magic will go wrong just enough that it'll make things tricky.

Comments

[gynvael]

She doesn't answer that part, though he's not expecting her to. Probably for the best. His own personal lines are a complicated matter, occasionally mutable, and it's a large reason why he often does not explain himself. He knows who he is. Whether others do, or are willing to know, is not something he chases after.

He starts to wipe the blood off his dagger with a scrap of cloth. Habit, and for something to do while he listens.

"You saved him."

He remembers what Dean said. So I went and got her killed.

Yeah. He can fathom why Dean sees it so. When it comes to things like this, truth has no bearing, in the same way he both understands Renfri's death was her doing as much as his, and yet he still feels a certain weight from it decades later.

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo doesn't answer immediately. Trying to figure out what she even thinks (feels?) about that word. Saved. Had there even been a handful of seconds to think that? A few? Even one? She hadn't stopped firing. She hadn't listened to Dean. Then she was slammed into by a hellhound that felt like a train and looked like nothing, falling hard before everything was a crescendo of red-hot and screaming. There was not much looking back after that.

Jo doesn't know what to say to that. If there is anything to say to that.
It's written in blood. It's written in stone. It's etched itself inside her head.

( I'll see you on the other side,
probably sooner than later.


Make it later. )

For someone else, anyone else, she might have a line, spun golden with sparkling attitude. But Geralt's never gotten more than the flat bluntness of her at her edges, she doesn't lie and smile for him, hasn't ever, and she doesn't want to know if she can plunge her hand into the center of herself, find her spine, and squeeze hard enough until her mouth makes itself something else to remember instead.

When it's this real, this close, this bare.
What she will do, and why she will do it.

[gynvael]

The impermanence of death in this place is an odd thing. He's aware for Dean, it isn't unusual. For Geralt, it is. He's not ever known death to be anything but the end. She takes you by the hand and that's all. There are no other realms to speak of where souls go to continue their existence. People do not return.

Then this world came along.

Jo is not the only who he's aware met their fate. Julie was first to confess it to him a year ago. And more and more, he suspects something similar lies in his future years ahead. Something Ciri is reluctant to speak to him about and which he has learned not to ask.

What does it mean when grieving comes to an abrupt halt?

He falls silent again, conversations with him rarely extending past a scant few minutes. There are things he could say—about the nature of death, about the age he learned there are worse things that await and yet somehow the fear of death lingers strongest (because you can survive the worst; you can't survive death)—but he's said too much about himself as it is.

So he sits. Tries to think if there's another option instead of endless walking. They've tried going forward. What if they go down? Up?

[righteously]

There aren't many things that make Dean's blood run cold in an instant, but a certain kind of howling definitely does the trick. It's a ways off, and he's tempted to steer them in the direct opposite trajectory — until he hears the sounds that follow. The snarls, the whines, the tussle of something dying. That's not the kind of ruckus he can ignore.

They move closer, and closer — and then the sounds go silent.

He murmurs a soft wait here to Ciri, complete with a gently appealing, pleading look if it doesn't seem like she's keen to listen, and then heads off down a dark corridor as silently as he can manage.

The blood comes into view first, the carnage, the animal corpses, the otherwise invisible body he only notices because of the way blood clings to something where there should be nothing — and then the exhausted duo slumped against the wall. It's knee-jerk panic that has him scoping out Jo before he says anything, tracking his eyes over her stomach just to make sure it's not-

But she's fine.

They both are.

They're both fine, and sitting in companionable proximity? On... purpose. What the hell.

That's a weird enough realization to prompt him into ambling forward again, and he announces himself with a grim, "You two look like crap."

[gynvael]

The last thing he expects to hear are footsteps. Geralt freezes, attention snapping up immediately. Over the stifling smell of blood and gore and wet fur, he catches a familiar scent—relaxes again even as his expression takes a flash of surprise.

How the fuck—?

No. Forget it. The Horizon being what it is, he can't expect any rhyme or reason as to who arrives when or why. Instead, he looks back up at Dean: equally grim, an edge of wryness beneath. He can't decide if he's relieved to see Dean or not. Three of them trapped in this place can't bode well for their chances of leaving, but...

Another hunter couldn't hurt.

"Someone's late to the carnage."

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo doesn't think to question it. The steps, the appearance, Dean being Dean, even in this place where everything has been fucked upside down against them for hours. There is no stop, no pass go, no collect two hundred dollars. One second it's the faintest shuffle of steps, and she's tensing, and the next, it's Dean's voice, and Jo's pushing up off the ground, a straight shot in his direction before he's finished those words. "Dean."

If she took a second, she might have checked a lot of things, including the sudden blossom of relief too big and broad and overwhelming or that strange current of something too sharp, too tragic to compare it to the candle-flicker shadow that was 'sadness.' But Jo doesn't. All Jo knows is one moment, she's scrambling up, striding fast past piles of bodies, and the next, she's nearly collided into his chest already.

Like, somehow, he's the one that isn't real,
more than would make sense about her.

[righteously]

For a second, the bodies on the ground don't matter. The toothy, bony, viscerally uncomfortable blade in his hand doesn't matter. The mark on his arm, his bad attitude, the way things have been going to shit, the fact that they're in an impossible maze, none of it matters.

What matters is her sprinting at him, and the mindless, automatic response of winding his arms around her tightly, and full-on lifting her off the ground an inch or two. A moment passes, and he pulls back to cup her cheek, to get a better look at her close up. Scanning for any injuries that he might've missed from across the distance.

"Hey. You okay?"

[tobeclosetohim]

Oh. That's all her brain seems to have once she's inside Dean's arms. Oh. The least profound, yet overwhelming, yet relieved, feeling. Solid. Warm. Safe. In one piece. Her fingers ball into his shirt without caring if it is in any better, worse, or similar state. Like maybe she could ball the entirety of herself into the space of Dean Winchester's arms.

When he pulls back, she has a second long enough to feel an odd stroke of déjà vu—about his face being this close?—before his fingers cup her cheek. She has only half a millisecond to feel the battering ram that pushes through the edge of her, about to drag her with it. Even as the last ditch understanding sirens behind it, and Jo tried to make her hand let go of him, it was already too late.

Her eyes go wide, and then her back contorts with a shudder. And then another.

( It's a weird overlap this time.
Jo's not utterly obliterated by the unknown.

She knows it now; even still bleed-burned from the first time, it's not foreign. Her weight doesn't free fall, and her legs don't plummet out from under her right after Dean yells for her to get back like that was a skill Jo was ever going to learn. Retreat. She doesn't lose the texture of that shirt knotted under one set of her fingers when Dean sweeps her off the ground and goes running off with her down that street.

She can still feel the weight of her body on her feet, even when she's unable to do more than half-situp. Everything is the same, and it's not. Or it is, but it's like Dean's in starker relief. The fear in his eyes inside the store. The inability to argue that her plan was a good one. When everything is fuzzy, except her refusal to be made useless, worthless, capable of at least this much more before the darkness swallows everything.

Except it is coming, and the memory catches up with the déjà vu.

With Dean this close. With the joke, that isn't funny. That she won't have, even as she tries to push through it for a smile. The detonator. The gun. The cup of his hand against her face and her hair, and the press of his lips against her forehead, just the strike of too long, decimating that last few inches of will that have kept her eyes mostly dry and her chin up for hours. More exhausting than bleeding out and almost more necessary than that blood.

Dean kissing her until he wasn't, until it was just his forehead resting against hers, the pressure of both of them leaning into each other, tears in her eyes, and the feeling of something so much bigger than her dying between them, too. )

[righteously]

For one single second, it seems like everything's okay.

And then she shudders, and shudders again, and his hands drop to her biceps to hang on tight — ready to catch her if she drops, unfiltered concern plain as day on his face. He doesn't even hear the blade he'd been carrying hit the stone floor.

"Hey hey hey-" Followed immediately by a look shot at Geralt, not accusatory but rather confused, urgent. "What's wrong with her?"

Full through with the assumption that Geralt's been looking out for her, if something happened he'd know.

[tobeclosetohim]

It's cratering fast toward the end, and she can't think it through, but it's a white-knuckled burst that somehow, fucked as all get out, has a desperate will and relief to knowing how little left there is to get through. It's the hiccups of only a matter of seconds, most of a minute all together.

Pieces fading even (Dean jerks away. Her mother stays. They leave over her shoulder. Her mom's voice. And when it got too hard to lift her head, to open her eyes.) as the feeling was coming back to her. As Dean had shifted to grab her arm, and something about that movement shattered free the wired lock on her bones, and she threw that arm out, slapping up to hit his arm with her hand, to break that grasp no matter how well meant, at the same time using her other to shove herself back with a hand in the middle of his chest.

"Fuck." That's. "It's—" She can't. "Don't touch me." It's too sharp. Snapped hard. She nearly tripped on a corpse behind her in that quick retreat. Panic both stringent anger and the draining drop wrapped. Wrong person; no reason; it's this place, it's not Dean. (She's not dying here.) Like Geralt said. "I'm fine." Nothing is fine. "Just living it up through my fucking death again."

Jo can't apologize. Yet.
She's too busy finding a wall.

"New rule," comes as a hand finds the wall finally.
The brick rough and solid and cold. She leans against it.

"No one touches me again until we're out of this fucking place."

[gynvael]

As always, everything happens quick. And as ever, Geralt watches—not interfering in an already fraught situation when Dean's here to step in.

He picks himself off the ground. There's a look in return to Dean, one that says he has the answer but that it is not his place to give. Jo will either say or she won't; what he feels about her has no bearing on his basic desire to not involve himself where he's aware he isn't wanted.

They might have made tentative ground. But he has not forgotten what preceded between them before now.

(Though perhaps it says enough he appears not at all surprised when she mentions death.)

He steps over the fallen wolves. If Jo or Dean need a moment, he'll grant it to them, but eventually:

"We should keep moving. Where did you come from?"

[wiedzminka]

When Dean tells her to wait, Ciri begins to protest. She wouldn't have obliged if it weren't for this stupid maze, and the fact they've had to keep an eye on two sides of the same hallway at the same time before they shifted. Rather than simply waiting, Ciri compromises by telling him that she'll check the other corner (though they're both probably beginning to realize there's no real way out through the twisting, nonsensical corridors).

She spends some time making sure a door to the outside world hasn't magically appeared. Only a short few minutes before she gets antsy that Dean hasn't reappeared. When she makes her way into the direction he'd gone, she hears the voices.

But not well enough to hear Jo's new rule.

Ciri rounds a corner and sees the other woman grabbing for the wall, too pale, blood-spattered and wobbling. She reacts on instinct, grabbing Jo by the arm to steady her.

"Whoa! What's going on here? You all right?"

[righteously]

For a long series of seconds, he's too thrown by everything going on with Jo to even properly hear Geralt's question. Definitely too thrown to think about calling out for Ciri.

It's like whiplash, the hug and then immediate repulsion that follows it. That don't touch me which instantly spears him harder than it ought to, harder than she intended surely, harder than any healthy person would take it.

And then it's just living through my death-
-again.

That one's a two-parter.

"Again as in- again?" Which is a stupid question, and it sounds stupid, but it falls out of his mouth anyway.

Ciri steps in, and it makes for a fine excuse for him to step away in turn, to pass a hand over his mouth.

Okay.

You know what?

He can't deal with this right now. He can't. He needs to compartmentalize, he can't afford to lose his grip in the middle of something like this. Mission mode. Save the feelings for later.

"He's right," he mutters, nodding in Geralt's direction. "Either we move, or this place makes us move, and I'd like to keep the illusion of choice alive for another twenty minutes."

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo's jaw is still so hard set it's like her molars are sliding into whatever base is after married-and-conjoined. She can't look at Dean. She can't. Can't—doesn't want to explain. Not when he says again, and she wants to swear at her own mouth. But she can barely breathe around something so big it's beating the edges of her head and also curled up, dying in the cage of her ribs. And she can't do that here.

She can't look at that any harder than she was just forced to.

She can't look at him again just yet.

This leaves only one option, which means her eyes focus on Geralt, and there's bitter determination in her copper eyes, and words materialize, beating the back of her teeth. Even when she's not going to say them, she can feel them too clearly. What they would be. What her expression is. Still haven't thrown up.

Like it's some dick-measuring survivalist bravado,
right through the broken glass of her shattered teeth.

(You had one empty room, one tiny closet, and your own personal potpourri catalog ghost, and you lost your lunch; I've had my guts ripped out without warning twice, so wholly it killed me, twice, and I still have my breakfast.) Like that's something she'd imply a score card on to anyone but other hunters.

Jo swallowed, "Yeah, we should—" Breaks as a hand catches her arm, and she swings a little too fast, "Fucking da—" is as far as the words for Dean get when it's not Dean who decides to get in on the killer queen movie party in her head again, but Ciri. And that makes her sway back. It catches her flat, and she stiffens, bracing for the slam: but it doesn't happen. It nearly makes Jo sag, and beyond instinct and relief, Jo's other hand settles on top of Ciri's. "I'm, I'm okay."

There's no other acceptable answer, is there? They're still stuck here. There's no time for anything but being able to move. But that off-kilter swell of relief that it's not everyone (and no, she doesn't look at why them) makes her take a breath in, lightly squeezing Ciri's hand. Warmth slipped gently, and utterly unnoticed, through her fingers into the hand beneath it.

[gynvael]

There's a moment where he looks back at Jo with a certain acknowledgment of something only they both know, but his attention is diverted in a split second once he hears Ciri coming their way. What visible exhaustion is swallowed down—the air around him shifting.

He moves towards her immediately. Looks her over to see if she's wounded. A protective instinct flares inside him, already present distrust amplified tenfold by a cold grip, and he steps half between Ciri and Jo without thinking twice.

Ciri does not know the things that have crossed Jo's mind and passed her lips, and he realizes that. Jo does not know, either, that Ciri is—to most—capable of far more destruction than any one Witcher. And he does not, despite the past few hours, yet trust what that knowledge may change and where Jo's razor sharp line between monster and human will sit when it's turned on his daughter.

What secrets this place may reveal about Ciri, he will not wait to find out. Dean is the only one who knows the truth. That's how he wants to keep it. He takes Ciri's arm, already quietly pulling her to his side. He's gentle with her, but the lines of his shoulders are hard.

"Let's go."

[wiedzminka]

"Jo--"

Her hand settles over Ciri's fingers, and though Ciri's attention had already been on her, had caught on her as the first person she saw when she realized there was something wrong, suddenly it's like she can't look away. There is a warmth to the touch, reassurance in the press of Jo's fingers atop hers like a caress, tingling all up her arm. It should feel strange, but it doesn't.

"You're not hurt?" She's still addressing Jo, voice softer now, private. Like she doesn't even hear or notice Dean. Nor anyone else.

"The blood--"

[wiedzminka]

And that's when someone else grabs her arm, and jerks Ciri out of her focus on Jo in a way that feels unnecessarily harsh (it doesn't matter that the touch wasn't rough at all, not when it's pulling her away). Instantly, instinctively, she wrests free of the grip and puts distance between them, placing herself in front of Jo with hands up and teeth bared.

She hasn't been able to get her sword to manifest properly. But if it's needed, she might be able to manage something fairly sharp.

[gynvael]

His medallion shivers against his chest. He reaches for it, automatic, his eyes fixed on Ciri. She doesn't answer him—pulls away from him so violently he lets her go without a second thought, startled.

He doesn't step back, but he doesn't move forward.

"Ciri—"

His gaze cuts to Dean. It isn't accusing, though there's an edge to it beneath the obvious question: worry, trepidation, uncertainty. Dean was the last one who saw her, has been with her this entire time. And if there's something Dean knows which he does not, he expects to hear it now.

[righteously]

Color him two for two with being taken aback by first reactions here in about as many damn minutes. The answer to Geralt's question is probably immediately obvious on his face before he even glances at the guy — when he does, he flashes a telegraphed I have no idea, this is new.

Between Jo experiencing her death (again?) to the things he's been seeing, the way he's been feeling, now this? The idea sparks, and he flings out quickly.

"This place is messing with our heads," followed by a gently placating palm out toward Ciri. "Take it easy, kiddo, you're okay-"

Like that's gonna help. Maybe with a civilian it might've.

[tobeclosetohim]

One moment Ciri is talking to her with more sincere concern than Jo think is warranted for the stupidity of not being able to act like she's just fine moments after being gutted and dying, but then Ciri mentions the blood, and Jo only has the glance of looking down—and, right, okay, maybe there's more blood, and black sludge all over her clothes and skin, and not all of that came from the wolves—before Ciri whirls, fast enough Jo pulls back at first.

It's easy enough to label Geralt's tension in looking between, to remember exactly what he snapped at her about Ciri not knowing. Still, Jo doesn't know what happened more than the other two, why Ciri is suddenly positioned like Geralt struck her instead of leading her away. Jo hesitates only a second before tentatively touching Ciri's shoulder, half expecting her to snap around again. "He's not wrong. Geralt and I have been dealing with a shit load of the same since the moment we fell in here."

Literally.

[wiedzminka]

Ciri shoots Dean a look at the word 'kiddo,' one that says everything she thinks about him calling her that without needing a single syllable, but her icy stare doesn't linger; her attention snaps back immediately to the threat.

She's seen all sorts of shit in this endless maze while wandering around with Dean, but he'd always seen it too. Now, she's suddenly unsure -- and that uncertainty multiplies, worms its way through her mind and grips her with a barbed and clinging paranoia that makes all the muscles in her neck and shoulders tense up. Her palms itch for the feel of a sword hilt snug against them, and she falls by habit into a braced stance, standing her ground to fight.

"Shit like this?" she asks Jo, jerking her head toward the stranger. The thing. The monstrous manifestation with the shape of a man and skin the color of a corpse, the jaw opening, flesh and sinew visible through rotted cheeks.

Despite her failed attempts before, Ciri focuses on pulling any sort of weapon from the erratic fabric of this warped Horizon. A sword. A knife. A fucking stick, even.

"Stay back, Jo."

Jo, specifically. Ciri can't help but be aware of her, the desire to defend her friend while she is shaken, possibly injured, the overwhelming desire that underlies all that anger and aggression spilling over in her blood.

What appears in her hand is inspired in part by Dean's own blade, a last-ditch attempt at summoning something that isn't what she's been trying for the last few hours or however long it's been. Ciri's grip tightens around the piece of bone -- long, carved and sharpened to a fine point on one end. This time, the weapon doesn't dissolve or malfunction. It feels solid in her grip. Right.

"I'll take care of it."

[gynvael]

She sounds like Ciri, but it is not. It can't be, because he's seen her look at him with so many expressions that have wrenched his heart: fear, rage, frustration, disappointment, shame. But she has never looked at him with such emptiness.

Except the once. When Voleth Meir invaded her mind.

The blade forms in her hand, bone and ivory. His gaze grows sharp. (Where—?)

No. That's not possible. And why should a demon give a shit about defending another human? Dean is right. This place. It's fucking with them. Nothing about it is meant to make sense beyond that. Logic tells him none of this is real, and yet it is. The sting from the reminder of that night, when so much of his fucking world fell apart, is real. That ever-present fear he will lose her is real.

He looks at Dean, and slowly shakes his head: whatever is happening, he doesn't think either Dean's nor Jo's interference will help.

Instead, he crouches down, gently laying down his dagger and sliding it away.

"Ciri, look at me. I'm not going to hurt you."

[righteously]

He gets the look. Gets the intent, gets the scenario — he's been here before, on both sides. Mostly with Sam. There wasn't a single voice outside of their own that could get through to them.

It's gonna be the same here.

He edges back slowly, quietly, until he's just behind Jo. Wraps a discreet hand around her forearm, and gently tugs her back. If she looks, he'll shake his head at her gently.

He doesn't love it, but... they're on the bench for this one.

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo doesn't know what in the world to make of the things Ciri keeps saying over that shoulder at her, while looking at Geralt, and if Ciri weren't taller, Jo'd probably be making a bewildered expression at Geralt over that shoulder. But she is taller, and she's starting to head into really fucking weird territory — while sounding like Ciri's trying to protect her?

Ciri, who knows well and truly Jo can take care of herself,
and that in what she can't, Jo's learning that from her.

Jo looks to her side at the tug, and there's a pinch to her expression that collides with not abandoning them and the realization that Dean Winchester is still fucking shit at listening to what anyone else tells him to do. But her eyes linger on that hand on her arm, and when it doesn't happen again, she nods uncertainly. A little slow. A few steps away, but not leave them here. It's a cold relief, the solid touch on her arm—like Ciri's hand; that hug right before—and the Rolodex she's not swinging through.

It seemed that the labyrinth had shifted roulette on who to fuck with more now. There's no gratitude in that. They don't deserve it, either. There's a part of Jo that would have rather kept being at the fucked up, circle-spun center, rather than whatever this was turning into.

[wiedzminka]

It's a trick, her mind whispers. A trap. None of this makes sense.

Jo and Dean move away, but she is aware of them only out of the corner of her eye; the majority of her attention is on the unknown factor, the man who looks like he shouldn't be able to stand, shouldn't be able to speak her name. She'd think it was an illusion, but Dean was looking at him too. Jo could see him.

(Jo had said a name a moment ago, a name that rolled off the edges of her mind like rain on wax.)

His dagger slides with a scrape across the stone ground. Ciri's suspicion grows, stoked rather than eased, her conviction that there's something worse about to happen rising.

She doesn't wait. Doesn't let herself be lulled into believing there is a peaceful way out of this. Too many experiences otherwise have taught her better.

Without warning, Ciri lunges at him, thrusting her makeshift dagger forward swiftly and precisely, aiming for the throat.