descent

[cancrymods]

growing heavy for the vintage

Like flakes of snow, the days spent in the Sloth Layer slowly but surely begin piling up. Life here is quiet and easy, even with the anxiety that comes with needing to move onto the next layer. But as the days drag out, so do the mysteries at play here – with the gradual uncovering of the odd doppelgangers and the seeming lack of any way to proceed to the next layer, it leaves the Executors at a loss for what to do. Until one day, everything changes. It comes entirely without warning – the ground lurches under everyone's feet in a sickeningly familiar way as a brief but violent earthquake rattles through the town. Then all of you feel it; a snapping sensation deep from the very foundations of Purgatory followed by the most cataclysmic impact any of you have experienced in your lives – or unlives. Snow explodes up from the ground, houses creak and lurch and the whole layer seems as though it might shatter apart under your feet. It seems like it's going to last forever. Then, finally, it stops. The silence that follows is even more pronounced in comparison to the hell-rattling noise from before, but as some semblance of calm starts to return, you realize several things. First is how eerily quiet the town is. Surely after all that, you'd hear a Specter or two... but there's nothing. Secondly – a splash of something wet strikes your cheek. Then again. Until it becomes clear that the weather has taken a sudden drastic turn and in place of the gentle snowfall from before, the heavens have opened with a torrential rainfall. Why? Possibly because of the steadily growing heat you suddenly feel burning up through the foundation of the layer and radiating out through the town. Will you investigate?

Comments

[discutio]

...

[He couldn't see the change of surroundings, but he felt it. Felt something achingly familiar and yet near completely forgotten, felt some disconnected memories screaming at him to fight, to destroy the inhuman thing he knew to be in front of him-]

[But that voice belonged to someone who wasn't him anymore, didn't it?]

[His Executor transformation dissolved, and instead of a royal advisor who had failed and more than likely died to his own resultant self-destruction...there stood only Phoenix in the memory of a city that was only memory now, lost to darkness in more ways than one.]

Ardyn.

[The name felt like something he'd spoken as a curse a dozen times before, but now it just left him as a quiet confirmation. He stepped forward--without fear, without aggression, without any hesitation save only that which gave him a second to process what had just happened. Phoenix already knew exactly what he was going to do. What had to be done. So he reached out...]

[...and placed a hand on Ardyn's arm to steady himself on newly reformed terrain.]

...Must you be so dramatic? One would think you'd had enough theatrics, after such a late entrance.

[schardynfreude]

Mm.

[Phoenix lays a hand on his arm, and Ardyn puts a hand on top.] I think we both know I must be as dramatic as possible. I'm afraid it's in my very nature. [Even when he had been memory-less Chiron, has he ever not gone for dramatic?]

This desolate layer seems to have created a version of the Citadel for us. Do you recall how it looked?

[discutio]

...I remember bits and pieces of it, I think. Enough to recognize the layer already feels...familiar, to a point.

[schardynfreude]

It's mine now. Ours, even.

[discutio]

A terribly tempting proposal, my dear. But you do know we can't remain in this layer terribly long, I'm sure.

[schardynfreude]

Oh no? And whyever not?

[discutio]

Ardyn.

[Really, now.]

You know we still have things to accomplish here. Staying here won't help anything.

[schardynfreude]

Do jog this old man's memory. Just what is it, precisely, that we are to accomplish?

[discutio]

...

[At this point, honestly, he couldn't say he knew what the hell actually awaited them at their original goal. What the truth was, what could even be done or if this afterlife was doomed to be stagnant for all of time.]

[Exhausted from the fight and momentarily unwilling to examine the potential futility, he just sighed and leaned his forehead against Ardyn's shoulder.]

[schardynfreude]

[Ardyn seems to hesitate for a moment, but he nestles a hand in Phoenix's hair. Holding him with a tenderness not befitting the man whose name he now wields.]

As I suspected. Perhaps a spot of rest will do everyone some good.

[discutio]

You're right. We need to recover before we do anything else. And...well, having a layer to ourselves isn't the worst thing.

[Then he paused, putting a hand on Ardyn's other shoulder. Hold on a second.]

...Really, you're wearing all this again?

[schardynfreude]

Have any of our Executor ensembles been of our own conscious doing?

[discutio]

I think claiming it as unconscious choice is not helping your case.

[schardynfreude]

Says the blind man.

[discutio]

Says the blind man who knows enough to criticize your fashion. At that point, one's simply too far gone.

[schardynfreude]

You weren't seeing what I had scrounged up before!

[discutio]

My dear, I didn't need to see it to know this is worse.

[schardynfreude]

And now I want to know what you'd prefer me in.

Other than 'nothing', at the moment.

[discutio]

Really.

[he is in fact intensely concerned, but Acting Normal seems like the wisest course of action until we can unpack literally any of this.]

If you think arriving late and slaying a dragon is some form of flirting, I might have to disappoint you.