Luxuria Intro Log

[cancrymods]

PROCEEDING...

With the real super power of teamwork, the Executors have successfully managed to make their way through the Gula Underside and defeat the previous Authority there. With Gerda now freed from her past regrets and given the power of an Executor, Gula and its inhabitants seem to be in safe hands... for now at least. More interesting – or concerning, perhaps – is the tentative ally you've gained in the form of Birdie, the mysterious girl who attacked some of your number in the Superbia Underside. While she seemed to be nothing but an enemy back then, a surprising connection has been formed with who you now understand to be the Authority of Purgatory itself. While she doesn't necessarily believe the Executors will be able to repair Purgatory, she is at least willing to admit that she shares their goals of wanting to see Purgatory restored... either to its former state, or to something new. But what does that mean for the Executors? And what does that mean for Rei supposedly born from the Authority's discarded heart? There are still many questions the Executors need to answer and as a blast of dry, hot air blows up from the next layer, you can only hope that Luxuria holds the key to at least some of them...

LUXURIA

♪♫ Wet & Dry – Sakuzyo After the humidity and noise of the Gula Underside, passing down to the Lust Layer of Purgatory initially seems like a relief. The air here is dry and sharp and though you hear noise drifting up to meet you and see a whole rainbow of lights clustered together in the dark, it doesn't seem as though it'll be quite as overwhelming as some of the bustling Layers you've had the pleasure of exploring before. But as you set foot down into Luxuria and feel the heat of the ground under your feet, you begin to wonder if you might just have hopped out of the frying pan and into the fire...

Comments

[schardynfreude]

You don't exactly look like a manta ray, either. [just SAYING]

Though I suppose if they all forget, then... [He shakes his head, shrugging his arms dramatically.] What is the point of all this? If they are not even cognizant of the weight of their sins, if they have forgotten their lives in the process of becoming something new, then why not simply have the Cogs and that be the whole of Purgatory?

[cancrymods]

[ That gets a laugh out of her, with the bitter undertone of someone who's long since asked herself the same question. ]

Just what makes you think there's any point to all this?

[ real cynicism posting hours ]

Perhaps our creator thought it necessary to have souls prove themselves before passing through to the next life. Or perhaps it's for entertainment's sake.

[ Her sour smile turns to something a little more thoughtful. ]

... or perhaps... perhaps this place has been broken long before the Cogs ceased functioning.

[schardynfreude]

[Somehow, he wasn't expecting that. He thought she might have an answer, but even as a being of Purgatory, she can't find a reasonable explanation. That...is troubling. And enlightening.]

Perhaps a certain creator needs to be shown that the souls of people are not playthings.

[casually suggesting Kill God, as you do]

Did she break the Cogs, such that she could have friends that don't leave her?

[cancrymods]

[ She says nothing, not right away. She just stares at Chiron for a long time and her expression is unsettlingly hard to read. ]

What makes you suspect that she might have?

[schardynfreude]

You yourself suggested that someone may have done it, deliberately, when we first met.

Which rather distinctly narrows the pool of suspects that I am aware of to you and her. I could certainly understand you doing so, but after parting with your heart, I'm not convinced that you would have felt the desire. And with her being so much emotion and care, all the humanity you wanted to dump, why...the mere thought of knowing so many people only to lose them would hurt her all the more.

[He brings forth in a shimmer of pink crystal a facsimile of Phoenix's cane and leans on it heavily. The first aid station has its very own gargoyle.]

It depends on how much she truly remembers, I suppose.

[cancrymods]

I see.

[ Her hard-to-read expression is starting to look distinctly carefully so. ]

Let's suppose this was true. What course of action would you take?

[schardynfreude]

It doesn't change the end goal. We reach the Cogs. We attempt to make repairs. Where that leaves her...is entirely up to her at that point.

[cancrymods]

Not the end goal. But the path you take there, perhaps. You would really trust anything she had to say about all this, should your suspicions be warranted?

[schardynfreude]

Surely not. But I'd like to give her the chance to come clean, to everyone. This can at times be a tremendously forgiving group.

[He eyes Panta Birdie carefully.] This feels like a rhetorical question, dear, but should the worst come to it--rather than fight her directly, would you be able to take her back?

Not willing, that's not what I'm asking. Physically capable of.

[cancrymods]

[ Her inscrutable expression softens a bit, turning a little more thoughtful and a little less stony.

After a moment's thought, she shakes her head. ]

No. I don't think so. Perhaps long ago, I might have been able to take her back – before the hole had healed over, so to speak. And before she had become quite so... herself.

As we are now? I think it would tear us both apart. She has her own soul now, separate from my own. We would reject each other.

[schardynfreude]

The ends of magnets repelling one another. You have become too different. [He gives a thoughtful hum.]

I would prefer her to come around on her own, tell us whatever she perceives is the truth, and to make decisions from there. It might hurt her to let us go, but it would be kinder than forcing us to stay. I don't want to fight her. But I have no issue with taking up arms against her if she chooses to be an enemy.

...Do you find yourself lonely even now, with no one moving forward? It must be something of a vacation to you if you don't need to escort anyone down and down.

[cancrymods]

Lonely?

[ She blinks, with an expression of sincere surprise on her face that makes it all too clear the thought has never entered her head. Even the way she says it sounds off, like she's never even said the word out loud before.

Eventually, she shakes her head. ]

I certainly wouldn't call it... loneliness, in that sense. The absence of others is to be expected, for me. [ The explanation is clumsy. It comes off like even she isn't sure how to get across what she's saying as she says it. ] Perhaps, rather than an absence of people... the sense of isolation originates from having no one to consider an equal, at least in this place.

[schardynfreude]

[The look he gives her is...complicated. She has stated exactly what he meant while mistaking his concern as something else. Aha, but he should expect that. Given her brand of loneliness. And perhaps she wouldn't call it that when she has excised the majority of her emotional capacity. And it's pity. And it's understanding.

He sighs and sits on the edge of the building properly, legs dangling, dismissing the cane.]

Yes, dear, that's the loneliness I had meant. To be in the middle of a crowded room and not seen. To be surrounded by people and be unable to connect to a single one of them.

[cancrymods]

. . . I see.

[ She sounds uncertain – as if she wants to argue, but isn't quite sure if she can refute what he has to say. ]

Well. Regardless – things have, at the very least, been more interesting since you and your companions stumbled into my path.

[schardynfreude]

We can be counted on for that much, if nothing else. I daresay our little, mm, friendship? [is that allowed] Has confounded all the others, but I've learned I can't let a little thing like being run through with a blade get me too down.

What is it made of? That it hurts to even behold it and possesses such unique power.

[cancrymods]

Ah. That.

[ She folds her arms across her chest and goes quiet for a moment. This is obviously a question she has to really mull on to give a proper answer. ]

If it has a name, I don't know it. Nor do I know how it was created - it is just as much a part of me as your own weapons are of you. That being said...

It is the same materials that make up the Cogs.

[schardynfreude]

...Hm. That does track, I suppose. Similar properties, then. But--if it's a part of you in a similar nature to the rest of our weapons, I have to wonder what that makes you.

You've indicated that your job, as it were, is something of a guide, a companion to lead others downward to their destination. What would be the point of you even having such a weapon? If someone particularly doesn't want to go, you just give them a taste of oblivion first?

[cancrymods]

On occasion. As I've told you – those who awaken to a state like this won't find any peace so long as the Cogs refuse to turn. It's kinder for them to be returned to a dream, with no sense of time passing. For others... or rather, before the Cogs...

That, too, is a kindness. On occasion, memories that caused them pain would resurface on their journey down to their next lives. Painful enough to stall them and keep them in place – and risk them becoming a Revenant. On occasions such as that, it served to help them continue their journey.

[schardynfreude]

So under normal circumstances, specters could be just like us, but without the particular abilities.

What gives her that power, I wonder... You mentioned her taking us into her heart. But, you've some selfsame abilities. Do you think you could grant anyone such power?

[cancrymods]

Elevating you to the role of Executors? Yes, I imagine so. Purgatory is my domain, after all – the Executors are its wardens. It falls to me to ensure there are enough of you to manage the proper flow of this place. ... or it was, when it was in any fit state to function.

[ She purses her lips in distaste, making the sour expression she always wears whenever Rei comes up. ]

That she should retain this power still upon being separate from me... a mark of her origin, perhaps. As if some small sliver of the Authority that created her still remains, somewhere deep inside.

[schardynfreude]

Wait.

So Executors are meant to be a natural part of this world? Who are meant to exist at your will to be something of prison guards?

Whatever happened to the rest of them?

[cancrymods]

I'm sure you can guess.

[ She doesn't quite smile but the corners of her mouth twitch up into a bitter sort of expression. ]

Most of them moved on. Some of them are still here but... changed. It's possible you encountered a few of them yourselves along the way, without being aware.

[schardynfreude]

Some of the Authorities...have taken an interest in being granted the power of an Executor. Do you suppose, in some other life before they embodied all that a sin is, they could have been...?

[Hm. He's not sure how much he likes that train of thought.]

[cancrymods]

[ She shakes her head. ]

Not that I know of. Perhaps further down, but I find it unwise to stray too close to the Cogs without purpose. The other Executors...

[ She gets a look on her face as if realizing belatedly that this might be a bit tactless given that she's talking to, you know, an Executors but– well, no going back now. ]

I imagine that you may have encountered a particularly powerful Revenant or two on your travels down here?

[schardynfreude]

[Oh. Oh actually that's worse than his train of thought.]

Those ghastly beasts we've slain, the ones that weren't Authorities transformed? It's been that long that the remaining Executors devolved into them?

...My, we're all in a bit of trouble, aren't we.