[hr][hr][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/IYSKmaa.png[/img][/center][hr][hr][center][h2][color=848484]M A R C E L I N E   ||   [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baDTeQdqdZE&list=PLPJny5xpzQqS0uk4bb_Q5wPjnsQRaFKgW&index=15][color=848484]♫[/color][/url][/color][/h2][/center][hr][hr][center][color=848484][i][b]Present:[/b] Yalen Castel [@pantothenic], Ayla Arslan [@Ti], Evander Fino Synesti [@RezonanceV], Tku Pictor [@dragonpiece], Fiske Flachstrauch [@jasbraq], and Zarina Al-Nader [@YummyYummy], Desmond Catulus [@Th3King0fChaos][/i][/color][/center][hr][hr]
[color=#848484][color=c4df9b]"The door, Ayla! Help me with the door!"[/color] We get it closed just on time but, already, more of those tiny, metallic, flesh-eating beetles are pouring through and a moment of doubt takes me. I can't outrun them. I'm not fast. I've [i]never[/i] been fast. One leaps at my face, tracing a [color=f7941d]glowing orange line[/color] through the sky, and I can hear that awful snapping and clicking they man. The air boils and distorts with heat and I draw as much as I can in and hammer the bugs back with a kinetic wave. 

Ayla's trying something sonic and I feel my ears ring, but then I'm turning and running, disoriented by her careless attack. For what it's worth, she drops a couple dozen, but there are thousands now. More come for me. They're vicious and uncannily smart. They go straight for my head and my legs. If I raise my arms out of instinct to protect the former, they slip in and go for the soft bits around my sides. Brilliant, multicoloured streaks of light, they'd be entrancingly beautiful were they not vile hellspawn bent on my murder.

A bunch are in Ayla's hair and she tries to crush them with that prehensile trick she does, but they're [i]tough[/i], too! A handful land on her midsection and I scream for her to watch out, flicking a couple away while she crushes a third, but the fourth one [color=92278f]flares[/color] and she's hurled away, a great big smoking burn all along her side. She lets out a pained cry and sprawls across the ground. [color=c4df9b]"Nine lives, Kitty Cat! Come on!"[/color] I spare a few seconds and disintegrate some bugs to heal her, but they're [i]fast[/i] and she's not quite good as new. She's on her feet, though, thanking me, and we're not cooked yet. Five months ago, when my tethering was out of control, I'd have been dead, full stop. I still might be. This is bad. Very bad.

I hit them with Arc Lightning once there are more, and it must fry upwards of a hundred, [color=fff79a]lighting[/color] up the dark and ruined halls of Zarfan like the middle of the day for a moment, but this is a straightaway and, even as we thin their numbers, more just pour in, and they gain on us.  

Dimly, we can sense the others. I reach out as Ayla tries another of those pulses and it seems to placate the leading edge of the swarm, but more just overtake them. I know, vaguely, where Zarina and Tku are, fighting something insidious that I can't quite detect. I can feel the bursts of Desmond's gun and Fiske's Chemical Magic as swarms of something fiendishly fast envelop them. A colossal atomic [i]something[/i] from Benedetto complements Evander's lightning, similar to my own, but their enemies are a pair of huge and stout I-don't-know-whats. Finally, there is the awe-inspiring power of Jocasta and Yalen. Whatever the couple that slays together is facing, they make quick work of it. Yet, they seem to have no more luck than Ayla and I in breaking through this weird magical fog that lives in the walls. 

Ayla shouts at me to jump, and I do. Moments later, we're sliding down some kind of steep slope, the demon scarabs receding into the back, their burning, chittering mass still [color=fff79a]lighting[/color] up the path behind us. She saw one of those arrows, she explains. It's our working theory that Jocasta's been able to break through just enough to put them up. She's trying to direct us all to a meeting point by the temporal heart. I'm skeptical, but Ayla believes in her and I know my mother does, so I have to do what I'm worst at and trust. It's not like we have options.

The ground comes up fast, just as I try to [color=fff79a]brighten[/color] our way with a basic [color=f7941d]Arcane[/color] skill. I brake hard and fill myself with [color=00aeef]Kinetic[/color] force, but I can still feel an unwelcome twinge in my ankle. My Torragonese partner lands more smoothly and we find ourselves in a truly [i]vast[/i] chamber. I [color=fff79a]brighten my light[/color] as I try to heal my ankle, and the great dim outlines of houses, palaces, and ziggurats loom, tenebrous, in the cavernous depths.

Then, there's the sound of the swarm again, and the tunnel entrance begins to glow like the mouth of a dragon just before it belches [color=ed1c24]fire[/color]. [color=c4df9b]"Run, Ayla!"[/color] I scream, but she's already doing it, slowing herself just enough so I can kind of keep up. I draw again, slowing a bit as I do so and converting on the spot. Wicked forks of [color=fff200]lightning[/color] whip and spit across the ruined city and spider up the swarm until hundreds of scarabs ignite, but I spend too much time admiring my handiwork. The vanguard is already upon us. I feel a burst of impossible heat right behind me and the trailing hem of my dress - or the tattered edge of what's [i]left[/i] of it is on [color=ed1c24]fire![/color] Ayla's hair cracks and swishes, batting scarabs away, but then three blow themselves and the area around her glows [color=fff200]gold,[/color] [color=00aeef]blue,[/color] and [color=92278f]purple[/color] for a moment. She's hurled away, hair fried up to shoulder length, and hits the ground, picking herself up as I push another wave back and she unleashes a [color=fff79a]blast of light[/color] to stun the onslaught. There has to be an arrow. [color=c4df9b][i]Please, Jocasta! There [b]has[/b] to be![/i][/color] I try to do something about Ayla's scrapes and bruises, but I can barely see, much less run and fight and try to find the arrow. It's too much! It's all too - 

My foot catches on something. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm flying, and then falling, and that's when I see the arrow. It's [color=fff79a]illuminating[/color] a set of great double doors and beyond them I can sense the familiar swirl of temporal magic. Then, the ground is there and the bugs are surrounding me and I realize that I should've focused on staying on my feet. Then, I wouldn't be about to die.

[hr][hr][center][h2]L A D Y   D E A T H   ||   [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W1uDR9EOx0&list=PLPJny5xpzQqS0uk4bb_Q5wPjnsQRaFKgW&index=7][color=848484]♫[/color][/url][/h2][hr][hr][/center]
It is at this moment that we find our ten heroes separated into pairs and fighting for their very lives. Yes, I say 'ten heroes' because Yalen has decided to remain yet longer and Isabella is not among them. She is, at this very moment, back at San Agustin, courtesy of the Jocasta portal that brought Manuel Escarra and his rangers back and Marceline through to unite with her friends: a decision that, in retrospect, has proven to be her worst in some time.

As the Goddess of Death, I take no pleasure in people's suffering, much as I look forward to their entrance into my realm. Marceline is in grave danger and so are a couple of others. Is it their time? I cannot, in good faith, answer that question right now. Desmond has been drained of a good deal of his power and he does not see the Demon Bat coming up from behind and below. There are oh so many and Fiske cannot seem to successfully hide from them. They... detect him somehow, even with his magic in play. Benedetto has been hammering at the Sandy Threshers for some time, but they seem impervious to his atomic blasts and grounded against Evander's lightning. Both appear too proud to give any ground and I feel that I will soon be able to reel in their threads if they do not make a change. As for Zarina? She finds herself against an enemy that no armour will protect against and no amount of power repel. A sentient fog: quick, swirling, and endlessly reforming if dispelled, follows herself and Tku, its very presence blunting their senses, slowing their reactions, and draining them of their vitality. From it emerge skeletal monkeys, horses, and frogs, piling themselves at the pair, the dust created when they're destroyed or dispelled deadening the very magic in the air. Oh, and as for Yalen and Jocasta? They find themselves in the Hall of Needles, where the air itself burns and melts upon contact with them and small needles of obsidian launch themselves from the walls, floor, and ceiling by the hundreds.

It is said that the Dead City is a cursed place, so how is it that these ten fools ended up here? An investigation. After leaving a content and slightly bemused sand wyrm behind them, they followed a ranger's direction, their own magic senses, and consulted the message in the tube. It began glowing with an arrow to point them inexorably towards the city and inside of it: one that Jocasta replicated as a sort of signal. As the light of the outside world faded and they traveled ever deeper, strange energies swirled, for this was an ancient and cruel place and they could feel the weight of temporal energy at its very heart, beckoning to them just beyond a familiar challenge: mundane and not dissimilar to one already encountered by Zarina and Jocasta in another ancient place a good ways distant. A simple puzzle of colours and fives and splitting up for what was [i]supposed[/i] to be mere seconds, it was spoken of in grateful terms, almost dismissive ones by some. 

Their reward for solving it, however? [b][i][u]THIS.[/u][/i][/b] Will they escape? [i]How[/i] will they escape? For most, the arrows beckon. Are they Jocasta's work or someone else's? There is something familiar about them, for what it's worth. Do the other eight dare trust their only lead? What awaits on the other side of the doors they all now approach?

I cannot, in good faith, answer these questions. Only [i]they[/i] can.

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[center][h2][i]Primitive, Chapter Three: End of the Tunnel, begins!   ||   [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU8gSz8EZNw&list=PLPJny5xpzQqS0uk4bb_Q5wPjnsQRaFKgW&index=8][color=848484]♫[/color][/url][/i][/h2][/center][/color]
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