cancry | Superbia Underside Log

Superbia Underside Log

SUPERBIA DUNGEON LOG
Third time's the charm for the Executors, it seems. Their confrontation with Miss President ended peacefully and with the Superbia loop ended, the school was finally able to enjoy its hard earned festival. But it's not quite a straightforward happy ending – the way back up to the previous layers is still sealed and regardless, if the Executors want to progress, they'll have to make their way through the Underside. Finding the entrance isn't too hard. After all, it's where all of this began. At the spot in the gymnasium the previous Student Council President was corrupted, a familiar stairway stretches down, down, down into the darkness. It's been a long time coming, but it's finally time for you to graduate Superbia.
THE UNDERSIDE
♪♫ Maze Fortress – Sakuzyo ... or so you expect, anyway. Entering the Superbia Underside is just as disorienting as always, but for totally opposite reasons to the other Undersides. While the other Undersides have been vaguely recognizable distortions of their Layers, this one is so similar to Superbia that for a second it's almost unclear whether or not you really are in the Underside or not. It almost feels like a repeat of heading down to Superbia for the first time as you descend the stairs but as you get closer, your intimate familiarity with the Layer allows you to pick out the subtle changes. It's more run down than the school itself and you can see Revenants flitting around to and fro in all directions. A few locations seem to have been switched around and warped but for the most part, Superbia stands as you've always known it, frozen in perfect stasis, just the way a certain someone would have wanted it. AREAS OF INTEREST ⚝ SUPERBIA LOCATIONS: As mentioned above, many of the locations from the Pride Layer are in place as you know them here, carved into place by the repeating loops. They're run down and overrun by Revenants but assume that any locations not mentioned below seem to be the same below as they are above. ⚝ STUDENT COUNCIL ROOM: Given how things started, it seems like the logical place to go. The Student Council Room isn't a big place, so it shouldn't take long to examine, right? Or so you might think. The instant the door opens, dazzling light pours out, blinding you for a second. It takes your eyes a moment to adjust but when you do, you'll see the reason for that is that the walls of the room have been replaced with thick, almost perfectly transparent glass with the summer sun pouring in aggressively from the outside. As you follow the curve of the glass up, you realize this isn't just a room – it's a giant glass birdcage. And... I don't have to tell you it's occupied by a bird, do I? ⚝ CLUB BUILDING: Once a monument to the delightful inanity of high school life, the club building has been completely taken over by Revenants. To call it an infestation would be an understatement – the instant you open the door, you find yourself utterly swarmed by them and in the confusion, you'll be chased away from the exit! All you can do is keep climbing and fighting your way up to the third floor, and from there the roof, which is made a litttle hard by the fact that the Revenants seem happy to weaponize the equipment of the club rooms against you. Watch out for that falling piano!! Make your way to the top roof and you'll find a particularly grouchy Revenant on top who doesn't seem eager to let you go! ⚝ GYMNASIUM: See for yourself. HAZARDS ⚝ Structural Damage: Similarly to the Avaritia layer, many of the buildings around the city have fallen into disrepair due to the presence of the Revenants here. While some of the bigger structures are fine, Revenants may burst through walls to get to you and letting them go on a rampage in an enclosed space could bring the whole building down on top of you! ⚝ Revenant Types Present: Charles, Metrodorus

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The ceiling explodes part 2 cavalry boogaloo, and the girl-creature is...cowed? Not subdued, but it's an impressive display by their would-be rescuer.

But it's not his fight, not anymore. Taking in everything at once seems very difficult, but he can focus on what's in front of him - who's in front of him. A wounded man who needs help, no matter what shape the sage healer is in.

"Stay still." Quietly, with a wet rasp. Can he heal something like this? Doesn't matter. His hands start to glow, gently, to begin what he can of the healing process. Should he...go get that hand? Mmmmayhap at some point. Let's at least stem the bleeding first.

Phoenix's hand is still solid and in one piece, at least. The healing takes hold enough to stem the bleeding at least and he should be fine, assuming Medic arrives soon and the mystery girl doesn't turn her attention to them again.

Thankfully for everyone, it seems Ariel's arrival has drawn her ire for the time being. Her hand– claw– whatever it is remains pinned by the cutlass and fluctuates around the blade. It seems to be struggling to take shape and the girl grits her teeth. The sound she makes is closer to animal aggression than human frustration and she shudders violently.

Black smoke spills from her wounds, her mouth. It's thick enough that it almost threatens to envelope her. But then, in a voice that sounds like it's just barely managing to keep itself together–

"enoυgн. enough now. That's enough."

It's not entirely clear if she's talking to Ariel and the others or herself. She takes a moment to collect herself and slowly, shakily straightens up just a bit.

"... So. There's more of you."

Ariel stays firmly in place, grip tight on the cutlass in her hand. Ready to move if necessary. She can't help but smile, a little cocky, at the comment. Swinging her blade idly, before pointing it at the enemy.

"And only one of you. Guess it's not easy finding any friends with your attitude, huh?"

Meanwhile, there’s these guys.

”I’m…alright, Chiron.” He wasn’t, considering his voice barely worked, but he was functional. “What about you, are you…?” Talking was admittedly not the easiest thing in the world, Phoenix forcing himself to sit up and reaching his remaining cracked and ashen hand to touch Chiron’s face to reassure himself neither of them were dead again.

”L…look after the others. I can’t…hear Etoile, and Ariel is the only one…that stands any chance.”

After a few very long moments, Etoile's eyes blink open. She winces as she manages to sit up, one hand cradling her head for a second before she gets to her feet, wobbling before she's sure her feet are under her. She's not going to run back into the fight - she's in no shape to do that - but she can still work on breaking the door open.

"Watch your eyes," she says, voice shaky. It's with a pirouette that's probably ill-advised given her injuries that she fires another star at the door, trying to burn off the rest of the crystal.

She falls as soon as she's fired her shot, but she's done what she can to make things easier for all four Executors.

This is still all a lot happening, and the effort of healing a major injury while himself bleeding from a major injury takes a good deal of effort. He makes calming shushing noises, given how much speaking seems to hurt his companion, and that seems to be all.

Why their attacker isn't being further assaulted, well, given the pounding they just got, he can hardly fault them, but seems their savior has got her on the back foot.

Etoile stands, gives a warning, and Chiron ducks his face against Phoenix's shoulder, shuddering against a new blast of blinding light that does not hurt to feel and yet seems to him like it should.

Even behind her bandages, you get the impression that her eyes are sweeping over the crowd of Executors in the room before finally settling back on Ariel. Etoile's final blast has succeeded in blowing the gymnasium doors open, so the others will be arriving soon enough and they'll come charging right in. And who's to say how many of them will arrive?

That thought very visibly goes through her head and she sighs before reaching over and with a gruesome crunch, she pulls the cutlass from her hand and with a dispassionate throw, lets it clatter to the ground at Ariel's feet.

"Go, then. Tend to your wounded. I can only hope that next time we meet, we are able to bring things to a kinder end."

She takes a wobbly step back and looks to be only a moment away from swooning into a faint. Then, in a flurry of smoke and feathers too thick for you to make any sense of...

The girl is gone and the Executors are alone in the gymnasium.

Ordeal Suspended

Phoenix coughed in a way that was almost possible to mistake for a laugh--they lived, or at least didn't die again. The sound of the doors crashing open was reassurance enough that they would have better help than him; it was almost familiar, like the sound of rushed footsteps on the rain-slicked stone altar and voices calling a name he no longer knew or answered to.

They'd done all they could for now. That was enough, and the rest could come later once they'd regrouped and shared what they all knew. It would be alright, for the moment--he didn't have to hold so desperately to consciousness now, tilting to the side and falling unconscious against Chiron.

"Did we...is she..."

Etoile takes a deep breath, steadying her nerves as best she can.

"What I'm trying to ask is that she's still out there, right? And probably out to kill us for the second time. I guess technically third time?"

Her words are still rushed, and she's looking at the holes in the ceiling as if expecting their foe to descend for a second time, but she's at least processing, or trying to, before she stops in a sudden surge of panic.

"Chiron, he's not...Phoenix didn't..."

Didn't die protecting me, she wants to say. She can't get the words out. Instead she gets up on wobbly feet, wincing before she's down again.

[The second that crystal seal is loosened, the doors slam open as Medic comes charging through.]

[She doesn't even slow down as she enters the scene, just sprinting across the floor and sliding to a stop next to Phoenix and Chiron like a baseball player sliding into home plate, at which point she immediately puts a hand on each of them and channels enough healing to wake the dead.]

[Not that the dead are particularly restful around here to start with...]

Anyone who can move, please help anyone who can't over to me!

[With all the clatter, Wolfsbane picks up the pace on her escort mission, tearing over to the door with barely a glance behind to see if her companion made it okay. She stops in front of the door and stares, taking in the half-dead Executors, the traces of smoke, two large holes blown into the gymnasium, the remains of crystal and feathers, Ariel's back, one of their healers bringing the other back from the brink and --]

What did you do?!

Is ev---

[ The words die in the not-quite-Spectre, not-quite-Executor's throat as he rushes up on Wolfsbane's heels. His own steps slow more quickly, however, and he hangs back. These people - is that some of the faculty? - and they're hurt, badly...

His own fingers are slicked with the mysterious substance he's been bleeding instead of blood, and there's a dried crust of it around a makeshift bandage on one arm. Charles had a snack. But he's upright. Please, triage accordingly.

And a different question. ]

How can we help?

Edited 2021-10-29 23:48 (UTC)

[Lion charges in after the first wave, weapon out and dripping with gore from his and Sword's own battle]

Where is she?!

[he may or may not know the enemey is actually a girl or just be Freudian Edelgarding. Either way he moves to secure the room from further attack]

Ah--I've got him...I've got him. Just, perhaps, require the...rest of him.

[But Medic's timely arrival and ability to help save him from himself are quite welcome. Still, as everyone files in from the newly blasted open door, and their foe vanishes as though she were made entirely of insubstantial scourge, his frown becomes one less of pain and more of consternation and even some confusion. Chiron looks down at Phoenix, over at Etoile, and then at Medic.]

Perhaps...you can help. I'm terribly curious, [even with the awful if healing hole in his middle] why did they call me Chiron?

[Sorry, did I say Chiron looks at Medic? Apparently that's not quite the case anymore.]

I thought I'd determined my name was Your Majesty.

[Calling back over her shoulder:] Also bring me that hand, please!

[Either she'll reattach it or she'll find something else to use it for. Waste not want not.]

That's- the name you picked... hm. [She frowns.] Possible confusion and short-term memory loss. That's a new symptom, not entirely consistent with normal pneuma loss.

Do you remember the last thing you were doing?

[Everything just... happens so much, so quickly, all of a sudden. Yep. That's about how she remembers it being.]

...Um, I did a heroic rescue, so not it on touching any severed body parts.

[Please.]

[Veil's been in no particular hurry since she has no relevant-seeming abilities, but if everyone else is gathering here then of course she'll come over too, and--]

Gracious, did you say memory loss?

[Like... more memory loss than they already have?

Listen she will react to things one at a time as her poor brain processes them. This is a Lot that she's walked in on. For instance:]

--Dame Ariel?!

“…how did you know we were fighting a girl, Lion? And yeah, Wolfsbane, it was a rough fight. The girl we were fighting was like some cross between a Revenant and an Executor. She came close to killing all three of us, despite all of our best efforts. She was the one that sealed off the door with that crystal. It took me two tries to get enough of it off the door for you all to break it down. One of those holes in the ceiling was me; I hit the ceiling trying to hit our attacker.”

Etoile’s voice is still weak, but she manages to try and make herself heard.

“And what happened, Chiron, did you hit your head that badly on your way down from up there? I knew you took a hard fall, but…”

She tries yet again to get onto her feet, this time using her sword as a support. It helps a little, but only a little. “I…don’t think I can walk all that far just yet. Can someone give me a hand getting to Medic?”

... I did not?

[Yeah he was totally Edelgarding]

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