war table: strangers in the mirror.

[propulsion]

WHO: Closed to the gang
WHAT: Delving into the temple of Dirthamen in search of artifacts, Riftwatch finds that the temple demands more than they seek. But what else is new?
WHEN: Cloudreach
WHERE: Arlathan Forest, within the temple of Dirthamen, Elven God of Secrets and Knowledge
NOTES: OOC post.

You stand before it, a glow emanating from its smooth surface, a perfectly round sphere whose warmth bathes your face and hands in light. Around you are veiled faces in hoods, heads bowed in reverence, and a murmur of chanting echoes, overlapping, like the clashing of tides. Your hovered hands drift apart in a slow and elegant motion, and you can only faintly see it, the lines of magic you draw between your fingers, like faint golden cobwebs of shivering power.

They tremble between your fingers, they shiver, and they bend towards the orb. You must master it so it does not, in its wisdom and hunger, take from you what you're not willing to give, but you are well trained, you are beyond compare, and you will give only what you will.

The chanting rises, and the orb pulses with light. You focus, and the magic drawn between your fingers pulls away from it, arcs around in loops. It feels akin to reining a wild horse or mastering the lines affixed to the sails of a ship in a storm or pulling taut a bowstring.

And your control slips. Or you set something free. Either way, your hands come down on the surface of the orb, and it burns you alive.

...

The fading impression of this memory glimmers in your mind.

And nothing else. Where are you? What are you doing? Why do you wield this blade in your hand, or lay here with your bare throat offered to another's? You don't so much awake; you become aware of yourself, cold and aching and tired, and as you try to assess the situation and evaluate the motivations of the weary, filthy strangers that surround you, you wait for context to return, but it never does. You reach backwards for memory, for anything, encountering only the image of the glowing orb before you, and the way it had burned you with the things it knows when you touch it.

But there are more pressing matters to resolve.

After the initial confusion and chaos, all that is left to do is assess the place you are in, and decide what next to do. To escape, perhaps, or, some niggling part of you wonders, find the location of the glowing orb, which you know, deep down, is somewhere in this place.

The Temple of Dirthamen

Not that you know its name.

This place feels like an underground palace, sunken deep inside the earth, grand chambers that connect to one another with various passageways, tunnels, and staircases. Light sources come from your flaming torches or travel-sized lanterns hanging off your belt, or the occasional luminescence from green-glowing runic engravings on tiled walls, or the faint glow of a green miasma that lingers in hallways and chambers. There are walls set with elaborate mosaics, and great statues depicting twin figures, one of them cloaked in shadow and the other more detailed, and creatures such as ravens, always a pair, or the arching legs of a giant spider.

As intentionally built as it is, it is also half-wild. There are chambers that seemed carved directly into rock, and floors of rough natural stone. It is not, however, all intentional. You will find the frames of stone archways set directly into rough rock, or stairwells that lead nowhere but directly into cave wall, as if the earth had grown around it.

Despite this oddity, it is a beautiful and grand place, but clearly one steeped in ancient neglect, with flooded chambers, moss-riddled stairwells, crumbled stone, and the smell of rot and dust.

Traversing this place, however, is a challenge in and of itself, hostile to the strangers that crawl through its catacombs. Not only will you find whole pathways blocked with crumbled stone, or rooms that require you to swim through them to get to the other side, or a strangely angled corridor that forces you to climb up its craggy surface, the building itself is intentionally guarded against intruders in a myriad of passive ways. Traps trigger when a previously unnoticed puzzle is left ignored or incomplete, or doors refuse to open without the presence of a key in spite of there being no discernible lock. Some of these you may be able to solve, some will force you to double back.

You are also not alone. Out the corner of your eye, the presence of spirits dart in and out of the catacombs, and occasionally, you hear the ominous chittering sound of many-legged beasts that put you to mind of all those giant spider statues.

Some places you may encounter in your blind journey forwards:

THE QUEEN'S LAIR: You don't know how it happened, but the ground gives beneath you and whoever you are with, sliding without dignity down the abruptly steep angle of not-quite-smooth-enough rock. You land with a violent tumble upon surprisingly soft, spongy ground—fungus, moss, mud, deep puddles. As you look around, you see the large stone chamber you are in is lit with a sort of ambient bioluminescence of green miasma, showing up the sight of thick patches of cobweb strung between pillars, statues, hanging from loops from the ceiling. You see bundles blanketed in web, tellingly humanoid in size and general shape and, thankfully, perfectly still. The smell of dust and old decay in the air makes you hopeful that perhaps this place is more tomb than nest, until you see the way the giant cobwebs around you begin to sway. Looking up, through the miasma, the shadowy shapes of dog-sized spiders begin to pluck their way down. And you think you see, far above, the unmoving shape of a truly colossal spider resting high above. At least, you hope it's unmoving. You have two choices: take your chance in trying to scramble back up the steep incline you fell down, despite slippery rock, or brave the chamber and try to make your way in deeper in search of the gated archway on the other side that you will only know is there when you find it. Or the secret third choice of being eaten by spiders.

THE RED REVELRY: You and your companions, such as they are, find yourselves at the entryway of a great chamber. The walls glow with a faint blue-green light, only barely illuminating the wide open space. The open tiled ground is littered in debris, some of it crumbled rock, and some of it, ancient shattered skeleton, scraps of cloth, the evidence of many corpses that have long since decomposed to nothing but dry bone, dull jewelry, and the rotted remains of their clothing. Unpleasant, but unless you wish to yet again double back, the only way forward is through, and you do see another archway towards the back. However, the moment you step into the room, your mind fogs over. The room fills with golden light, laughter, music, and a swirling crowd of elven folk. You are in the midst of a revelry, and your heart feels light and joyous. One offers you a goblet of wine, another bids you to dance with them, another offers to share from a platter of fruit. The room is also surrounded by tall men and women of more serious demeanor, dressed in rich ornamental armor, dark cloaks, armed with curved blades, and you barely notice the sound of metal on leather as they all at once draw them. You do notice, however, as the screams begin, as blood begins to spatter, as the ring of guards begin to systematically cut down each reveler in arms reach. Now would be a good time to remember that none of this is real, but as you can't quite shake the immersive experience of a panicked grip to your arm or the visceral sensation of wet arterial spray spattering against your armor, it might be best to run for the next door before you find out otherwise.

Optional dice roll: A d20 roll of 16 or higher has you break the illusion, safely restoring the chamber around you to the dark dusty tomb full of unmoving skeletons. A result between 10 and 15 means you are still immersed in the illusion but you have your wits, and, with focus, are able to move through the figures as though they aren't there, but may still struggle. A result between 5 and 9 means you are too immersed, and the crush of the crowd is preventing you from running, and if a guard with a blade strikes you, you will be injured. You may need help. A result between 1 and 4: oh my god all of this is real and you're going to die unless someone drags you out of here. Otherwise, choose your own result, no dice no masters.

THE PATH OF THE SIGHTLESS: The broad hallway you approach is tiled with jade, with an atmospheric light coming down from the tall arched ceiling. Up ahead, the road is strange. The tiles are grey stone and then foot-square tiles of dull gold or similar metal. Upon stepping into the corridor, you will find that your vision is gone, cloaking you in darkness. To anyone else, standing outside of the corridor, they can see within it and you perfectly fine. What's more, any step you take that is not on one of the shining tiles, comes with a consequence: a psychic kind of torment that feels like a swarm of ravens invading your mind. They tear and claw, a physical sort of headache-like pain that becomes quickly overwhelming and paralysing, leaving you cold and shaking. What's more, this assault has things to say. Although you do not remember anything of yourself, these ravens seem to know. However, if you make it back onto a shining tile, or are close enough to one of the ends of the corridor to leave it, the torment will stop.

The idea here is that those with you will need to verbally guide your way through the corridor. If you are subjected to punishment for mis-stepping, the 'ravens' that flood your mind will pluck and claw at all the insecurities and fears you would have had if you remembered them. This is one way to get information about yourself, but as delivered through the bitchiest and harshest of critics. Your character will not be able to withstand it for long but will have difficulty hearing or moving, so feel free to assume they need extra assistance or manage to help themselves.

In general, feel free to find the kind of obstacles you might anticipate, such as ancient elven magic hopscotch, doors that only open if you pierce your hand on the knife-like protrusion where a handle should be, rooms full of wisps that taunt and mislead, platforms that require Big Jumps to get across or else you'll find yourself wet or on fire, Veilfire puzzle with tiles that ripple and shift, and so on.

There are also places of respite, ancient prayer rooms or barracks-like quarters, where you may discover the rations you have on you and get to know people who do not know themselves.

Strangers in the Mirror

Here is what you must bear in mind.

MEMORIES OF THE LIVING: Although you have no recollection of yourselves, recollection is not forever withheld. At any time, your mind may jerk towards an impression of something, clear as day. You may whole heartedly believe that you are recalling something of your own past, or it may be so incorrect that you are certain that this memory doesn't belong to you. These flashes come in moments of quiet, in looking upon the face of an ancient statue, or catching your reflection in a shining surface of water or metal or polished tile, or seeing the light in another's eyes.

If you happen to meet the person for whom these memories belong, you will know like a hook in your heart that this memory belongs to them. There is no way for you to give it the way you got it, for only the gods can parcel out memory and knowledge without the tools of language and writing, and so what you choose to do is yours to decide.

MEMORIES OF THE DEAD: There will be moments, likewise, when the memory of those long gone from this place invades your mind. However, they are not for you to know. At any point, you will find that you lose time, that a great stretch of blankness takes hold of your mind, and you come back to your own forgetful self in some other place, perhaps with entirely new company, performing some task you did not mean to begin: sweeping the floor, or kneeling before an altar, or sitting at a table prepared to eat a meal that is not there, or even once again about to slit the throat of a willing supplicant.

Use this mechanic to free up your character to pursue threads with others rather than only your home team. If you can also play out encountering someone in this fugue state or vice versa, in which they will be largely unresponsive, but seem to know their way around, completing their tasks, until they snap out of it.

And some general advice on your current affliction:

This is a fictional form of amnesia, so don't overthink it. Broadly, your character should instinctively know standard facts like what colour the sky is, even if they can't see any sky currently, or they may have an instinct towards certain skills they have practiced every day since childhood, like the yo-yo. However, knowledge of who they are, what their name is, where they've come from is completely lost on them.

More specific world facts like what the Chantry is, what a mage is, what a Ferelden is, you can be fast and loose with. If your character is deeply intimate with something like the Circle, they may roughly know of it in vague terms. Alternatively, if it's more fun if your mage doesn't even know that magic exists, then go with it.

Rifters from profoundly different worlds, like modern earth, can absolutely have a sense that they are in some kind of weird ancient world surrounded by old timey people. This is left to your discretion.

As far as what your character is like without their memories, again, this is up to you. They can be cluelessly the same, or exhibit hidden personality traits they ordinarily keep suppressed (or suppress ordinarily prominant instincts), or simply be fundamentally different without the burdens or highlights of their own lives to inform them. Are they friendlier? More vicious? Braver than usual? Less selfless, more? Whatever you like!

A Gift of Revelation

And then it ends.

Seemingly without ceremony, if you are far away from the thing that ends it. You feel a lurch and then it all comes flooding back: your name, your life, the mission, the people around you, the forward camp merely a few hours of travel outside the bounds of the temple you are in. You may be close enough to where you'd already started scouting before it all went foggy to make your way out easily, or you may be so immersed in the depths of the temple that your mission of trying to escape hasn't really changed, despite this context.

And yes, your sending crystal is still not working. Figures.

You still harbour the memories that you were given unbidden, even if they've lost their bright shine in the void, and you will still feel that sense of knowledge for whom they belong when you meet them next, if you are unable to work it out on your own.

Once out, the warmth of the Arlathan Forest greets you, and your crystal begins to flicker back to life once more. Truly, they don't pay you enough for this.

Comments

[notathreat]

Ellie's crouched down at the edge of the shining path like a gargoyle, looking out over it, hands cupped in front of her. Silver and gold and twisted threads, beautiful circles and runes... and dull tiles, less a path and more scattered. Interesting.

She's been separated from the others and can't remember how. Being alone is terrifying, satisfying, all in one. It is both indescribably lonely to be with the ghosts but in a way, she feels like one of them.

She doesn't belong in this temple, though. Nothing about this place feels like somewhere she belongs. It's what keeps her moving.

Ellie hears the footsteps before she recognizes the voice, that little fish hook tug in the back of her stomach that tells her she has something that belongs to this girl, and she doesn't know how to give it back to her.

"I mean, it's obviously a trap, right?" Ellie asks, straightening to gesture at the shining path. "You step in the wrong place, you're fucked. But the path's clearly marked, so there has to be some kind of trick."

Ellie pauses, looking sidelong at the girl. She's distractingly hot in a way that pisses Ellie off a little, even moreso because she keeps remembering the viciousness of that vision.

Destroy anyone. I like that.

There was no mistaking the intent behind those words; she liked the power, liked how it made her feel.

She's not sure she wants to trust her for this, but they're going in the same direction and it's not like she has a lot of options.

"Hold onto my cloak and I'll step on. Anything happens, you pull me back. Okay?"

[laruetheday]

Stabs keeps looking at her. Clarisse noticed it earlier, too, before they got separated—little sidelong glances, like this girl recognizes her in some way, is trying to fit some kind of puzzle together.

Clarisse isn't sure she likes it, but she's not sure what to do about it, either.

It's made her look back, a little, sizing her up. The woman's shorter than Clarisse, slimmer, with lean muscle made for darting in fast and doing damage quick. Together, she thinks they could do well in a fight. She's not sure how she knows this, she just does.

Also, she's seen her stab a guy, so.

The order makes her snort-laugh—a sort of giddy, exhausted reaction she can't stop and doesn't try to. "So I can pull your body to safety after it gets riddled with arrows or set on fire? Sure."

She takes hold of the girl's cloak and, after a second, tightens her grip. Just in case something does happen.

[notathreat]

"Exactly."

Ellie holds out her cloak to the girl, who takes it, laughing, and Ellie finds herself cracking a crooked smile. A dubious ally is probably better than none, and Ellie tries not to think too hard about her weird gut feelings or how much she doesn't want to test the weird magical path forward, but. Here they go.

She puts out her booted foot, carefully puts weight on the runed tile, and it's steady, inert. She can't sense anything. She doesn't know why she would given that she's pretty sure she's not actually magical, but who knows.

"Hm."

Not dead yet, so she puts the second foot out, resting her weight- and suddenly it's like the lights go out. Darkest dark, like someone's shut off the sunlight that had been filtering in. It's not even night, it's like being in a black hole of nothing, even though she can still feel the girl's hand on her cloak. She's in the same place, hearing the same sounds, but the effect is... disorienting.

She's breathing fast, in a cold sweat, hands out at her sides. Slowly, she reaches back for the hand on her cloak, wrapping her fingers tight around the girl's.

"Okay," she says unsteadily. "Okay..."

She's blind. She's fucking blind.

With a quick breath she pulls on the girl's hand, quickly stepping back off the tiles and close to her -- and blinks rapidly, sight suddenly back, focusing on her face.

"Okay," she says with a shuddered breath of relief. "That's fucked up."

[laruetheday]

Nothing really happens, is the thing.

There's no explosion, no trapdoor opening, no weapon flying out of nowhere. The only thing she has to go on is the other girl's body language, which is hesitant but normal with the first step and then—the second step, and there's a sudden shift.

The girl's breathing changes. Her hands reach out at her sides like she's searching for something to stabilize herself with. It's enough to freak her out, and Clarisse is about to tug her back when she does it herself, reaching back to grip Clarisse's fingers and pull herself back and out of the corridor.

She ends up standing so close they're practically touching. She's still got her fingers clutched tight around Clarisse's, and Clarisse is still gripping her cloak.

(It's fucking stupid, maybe, but—after hours of wandering around in here, standing so close to someone else, even a total stranger, doesn't feel terrible.)

"What happened?" Because something obviously did. Then, a second later, sort of embarrassed that it wasn't her first reaction: "I mean, are you okay?"

[notathreat]

Ellie's not thinking about how fucked up that would be to watch, though she'll definitely think about it later. Right now it's a shudder of revulsion and then relief.

Belatedly, she realizes she's got her hands clamps around the other girl's, and quickly lets her go.

"I went blind," she says, in the distinct tone of voice of someone who doesn't expect to be believed. "And... yeah, I think so. As soon as I stepped off the tiles I could see again."

She glances up at the belated concern, like she's surprised that she asked at all.

"Yeah," she says again, more reassuringly this time. Flustered. In her admittedly limited memory, nobody's asked whether she's all right before this moment.

"When I go back on you'll have to guide me, though."

Because it doesn't occur to her to maybe NOT try this.

[laruetheday]

"No," Clarisse says. "Let me try."

It's not that she doesn't believe her. Something obviously happened. She saw the way her breathing sped up, felt the sweat of her palm and the tightness of her grip. Clarisse just needs to know what they're dealing with here, needs to experience it for herself first.

Besides, maybe it only blinds some people. Or only does it some of the time.

She brushes past the other girl and steps out into the corridor.

When her vision blinks out, it isn't exactly a shock, but she isn't expecting the disorientation of having her eyes open but no sensory input coming through at all. Just closing her eyes, even walking through a dark room, there'd still be shadows, hints of depth and light coming through, however faintly. This is not like that. This is not like... anything.

She takes a deep breath and shuffles her way backward, until her feet leave the corridor and her vision comes back. She looks a little bit humbled.

"It was worth a shot," she mutters.

[notathreat]

For a second Ellie thinks that the girl's just being brave, maybe even trying to spare Ellie the distress of going back out, but a second later it becomes clear that she really thought it might work differently for her.

That humbled look really seals it.

"... you thought it would be different for you, huh?" she asks, a breath in her voice that's almost a laugh, and would be if it weren't also a good thing to test for, actually.

"I guess one of us needs to stay here and guide the other one, if we want to get across. Like some kind of fucked up trust fall, or something."

[laruetheday]

"Yeah, yuk it up," Clarisse mutters, even though the other girl didn't actually laugh at her. The laugh was implied, which is somehow almost worse.

She stares out across the corridor with a frown. She knows Stabs is probably right, and they'll have to guide each other across, but it's tempting to try and make a run for it—a straight shot across wouldn't take more than ten seconds or so. She even shifts back and forth on her feet a couple times like she's considering doing just that, but she stops short of committing to the idea, because if she were to lose her sense of direction and run headfirst into a stone wall and knock herself out and nobody else can grab her because they can't fucking see?

That'd Be Bad.

"Okay," she says, almost a sigh. "Let's get it over with and get out of here."

[notathreat]

The both of them consider it. Just breakneck full speed running and fuck the consequences. But she honestly doesn't know what stepping on the wrong place is gonna do, and doesn't much want to find out.

"Okay," she agrees. And she doesn't want to go first, but she's also not a coward, and she's not gonna volunteer someone else.

"Just... don't bail on me," she says softly. It sucks to put her trust in a stranger and she doesn't know why, but it's not like they have a choice. Ellie surveys the path, memorizing what she can, decides against trying too hard with that. She's going to get disoriented anyway.

With a nod to herself, Ellie takes a big step forward onto the first tile, and immediately fucking goes blind again. Since she knew to expect it it's a touch less terrifying, but the existential shit is still there. First she has no memories of her own life, despite the fact that she must have had one, and now she's completely blind. Deep, slow breath, and she takes another step, onto the second tile, and then slides her foot over to the right, where she knows the next one is. Cautiously puts her weight there.

So far, so good.

"Okay, getting closer to lost," she says to the nothingness, and hopes that she doesn't sound as pants-shittingly terrified as she feels.

[laruetheday]

It's only when she asks Clarisse not to bail on her does the thought occur to Clarisse that she could easily do just that. Turn around and walk in the opposite direction. She'd find another pathway after a while, surely. And she'd get out of having to do this.

She's still considering it as Stabs walks onto the corridor again and starts making her shuffling way forward.

It's strange, trying to decide what to do. Her only memory is of coaxing someone into a sense of calm before killing them, and it's not her memory, and she knows it's not, but it still makes her wonder why it was given to her. Is it what she's supposed to be doing here—putting people at ease and then screwing them over? Is it the trick to getting out?

Is it relevant at all?

God, she feels sick. And she doesn't want her only memories to be of acting like an awful person.

"Up and to your left."

[notathreat]

"Okay."

Ellie steps forward, and there's a glint of glass or mirror or water or shine- and suddenly Clarisse plunges into a memory that isn't her own.

The hotel room is dingy, pitch-black and lit harshly by a flashlight. It's grimy, molding, abandoned. The whole place smells like rot and moss and dust, undergrowth and loam. Standing water and things decaying. It looks like a horror movie.

The voice that rises from her throat is familiar. It belongs the the young woman she's guiding through the shining path.

"This place is giving me the creeps," she mutters under her breath, turns around.

"Ellie, here." A low voice, male, older, and the name is clear in her mind.

Joel.

Ellie swings around, jogs over towards where her flashlight illuminates an older man, salt-and-pepper hair. He's dusty, bearded, wearing a taped-together backpack. A shotgun, a rifle, and as Ellie approaches he pulls out a gas mask. "I think I see a way through, but we got spores. Put your mask on."

Ellie groans, all teenage can't-be-fucked as the man puts his mask on, makes sure it's secure. "Do I have to?" she asks. "It's just us."

"What if we run into someone?" Joel says, and Ellie grumbles under her breath, but puts it on.

They push aside an old vending machine blocking off a hole in the wall, and discover right away why it was blocked off. The lobby of the hotel is filled with monsters. People with rotting clothes, bloodshot eyes, distended faces. Both Ellie and Joel go quiet, her following him as the two of them take out the two nearest of the creatures with practiced stealth; Ellie with a switchblade and Joel with his bare strangler's hands.

The fight is both horrifically detailed and a blur -- shrieking creatures that seem to want nothing more than to tear them apart. Gunshots, shouting, the two of them dodging and praying they don't run out of bullets. Despite the horror of it, there is a sense of something known about it. These two have faced worse odds together, and have been doing so since Ellie was much younger. She has a perfect trust in this man. They watch each others' back near-seamlessly, fighting as a well coordinated team.

After the lobby, Ellie follows Joel into a narrow space between the inner and outer walls, just wide enough for a person to shimmy through. It's close and smells musty, and they can hear something on the other side of the wall. They whisper, barely breathing, and Ellie sticks close to the man's side as they shimmy down the length of a room. He ducks underneath a crumbling, rusted bend of pipe, and Ellie goes after him, automatically reaching up for the handhold-

... and it breaks off in her hand. Loudly.

From the other side of the drywall, there is a thunderous, horrific, inhuman roar, and the thing smashes through it. Grabs Ellie. Drags her bodily through like a rag doll, throwing her to the ground with such force that it knocks all the wind out of her, knocks her mask fully off to go skittering broken across the grimy ground.

"Ellie!" The man's there, unloading a shotgun into the creature's face. And it is a creature. It must have once been human, but the growths are all over it, obscuring anything that might have once been a person. It's tall, far taller than Joel, and when it charges it's all they can do the scramble out of the way.

They unload into it. Pistols, shotguns. Everything they have. At one point, Ellie even throws what looks like a molotov, but the thing keeps coming, and what's more, it's fixated on her.

Ellie manages to dodge it, mostly. It knocks her to the floor more than once, but she manages to scramble and roll away while Joel covers her.

Until it suckerpunches her hard enough to leave her staggering. Until it grabs her face with both hands, shoves its huge fingers into her mouth, grips the top of her head and starts to pull.

The pressure in her jaw is immediate, hellishly painful, and Ellie doesn't have the breath to fight, to scream, nothing.

Until the world jars sideways, and the thing drops her. From the ground, Ellie watches as Joel goes after the creature, armed with nothing more than a machete. Screaming with brutal, protective fury, he hacks the creature's skull apart blow by blow.

The thing absolutely fucking buckles. Blood spurts everywhere, over everything, splashing across Joel's front -- and when the thing is finally down he stands unsteadily, breathing like he's just had the fright of his life. Like he's about to cry.

"C'mon," He reaches out for her hand, lifts her to her feet. Ellie, still winded, barely chokes out a curse as she climbs to her feet.

"That was too close," Joel whispers at her side, a hand on her arm, his voice next to nothing, wrenching soft.

"Sure," Ellie breathes back, punch drunk with the adrenaline. With living, despite the odds. She laughs, and it hurts and it's fucked up and it's giddy. "But we fuckin' did it."

Joel wheezes a laugh behind his mask, surprised into it, his voice still catching, but warm with obvious love.

"Yeah, we sure did."

"Hey-" Ellie is saying, back in the present, and her tone says it's not the first time she's called out. "Hey! Are you there-?"

[laruetheday]

She comes back to herself, whoever that is, disoriented and reeling. One hand on the wall, breathing shaky, feeling like someone who's just had a fucked up dream and will spend most of the day trying to shake the feelings of unease it left behind.

The girl in the corridor—Ellie, her name is Ellie—sounds concerned. She probably thinks Clarisse did turn around and walk off and leave her here alone. She's not sure how long she's been standing here, unaware of anything except the memory playing in her head.

"I'm here," she calls out, and her voice sounds strange, unsure. "Sorry. Uh, straight ahead, but you need to take a big step."

She waits for Ellie to move on, still puzzling over the memory. The man in it, Joel, isn't someone she's seen before, but it's possible that he's in here, too, somewhere. But even apart from that, their clothes had a been different style, and they were carrying guns instead of swords, like what she remembers is from a completely different place and time.

She rubs her jaw, the place where Ellie'd gotten grabbed by that giant monster.

"Hey," she says, "do you remember anything? About yourself?"

[notathreat]

Ellie breathes out shakily when the girl answers her, stills the fine trembling in her hands. She's here, she didn't leave. Forward, one big step, putting her foot down when she indicates she can.

"Oh my god, dude, now?" Ellie grumbles back, her voice tight. But in a weird way, it breaks a lot of the tension. As long as she's standing still she's okay. She can breathe, and get her mind off the idea of being blind and stranded and completely dependent on this girl for everything.

"No." It's a short answer, followed by hesitation. "Not about me, anyway. But I keep getting like... flashes from other people."

And because it seems like a shitty thing to hold back:

"I got one from you. I don't know your name or anything, but apparently you've got serious daddy issues."

[laruetheday]

Probably stupid of her considering what just happened inside her own head, but the reveal that Ellie also has one of her memories is an unpleasant shock.

"What does that mean?" Her voice is higher than normal, almost shrill. "What happened?"

She'd been planning on telling Ellie that she got one of hers, and giving her her name back, but this is clearly much more important.

[notathreat]

"You prayed to your dad for help, and he gave you a ship and a crew." Prayed to, not asked.

Ellie supposes that she could just hold back information until the girl gets her through this, but it seems incredibly shitty to do that, actually.

"His name is Ares, and you said that everybody who dies in a war owes him a debt. So there were all these... undead soldiers manning this old ship. And they had to do anything you told them to do."

Ellie frowns.

"... you were young, though. Like not even most of the way through being a teenager."

[laruetheday]

She'd thought that hearing something about herself would make it better, or... easier somehow. Or she'd hear a name and suddenly the memory would flood back to her, just like that.

But the things Ellie tells her are only confusing and strange. The words don't feel familiar, no matter how many times she repeats them in her mind.

Ares. A debt. Soldiers.

Clarisse rubs a hand over her eyes. "Okay. To your right."

[notathreat]

After Ellie finishes telling her, she second guesses it. Of course, it's far too late to take it back right now.

Ellie shuffles her foot to the right, cautiously putting her weight down and taking another breath. She wishes she could see. If only to know how far she is, how far she has to go.

"Not exactly comforting, sorry," Ellie mutters, awkward. "But it- I dunno. It belongs to you, so."

She should have it.

[laruetheday]

"If I don't remember or give a shit about it, does it actually belong to me?"

Doesn't feel like it. Anyway, this has been Philosophy Corner with Clarisse, and now she's done talking about it.

She's too busy staring out across the corridor as Ellie steps to the right and settles her weight onto another tile. She doesn't feel any kind of connection to the things Ellie told her about a ship and an undead crew and a father she prayed to, but she does feel a weird connection to Ellie herself. She doesn't know herself, but she knows something about this girl, about how she felt as she made her way through a rotting old hotel.

It's one of very few things she has to hold onto right now, so she keeps it close.

"Next one is ahead of you but sort of to your left, too. About a foot away."

cw: zombies/executions/suicide mentions

[notathreat]

"Fuck if I know, but that's not my call."

Ellie... disagrees. She wants to know what she lost, feels fucking violated by the lack. This place took something from her. Lots of things. She looks at her own body and doesn't know how she lost her fucking fingers. She has so many knives and doesn't know how she learned to use them.

She doesn't know her own fucking name.

It's disconcerting, feeling faceless, feeling unmoored.

So she's distracted when Clarisse gives her next order. Ahead and forward. About a foot away. She jumps, and overshoots, her toes grazing the wrong blank tile.

The pain is immediate, but more than that is the utter, absolute terror of it. She doesn't know what's happening, or why there's a clawing, ripping sensation in her mind, like something is in there going after her brain.

Why do you want to know? says a laughing, cawing voice, a squawk and groan of croaking laughter. It feels like feathers inside her skull.

It's not like what you've forgotten is worth anything. It's not like you mattered.

Ellie swears, breathless, breaking out in a cold sweat, and stumps back the way she came, breathing fast.

"Fuck, fuck-"

And for Clarisse, there's much more.

"You see what it is?" Joel asks.

"Yeah," Ellie says, pushing something out of the way. "Okay." It's almost immediately after the last memory. Joel has the same blood splatter, though he's taken off his gas mask. The windows in this room are boarded haphazardly over, but there's late-afternoon sunlight coming through the slats.

There's a desiccated corpse in the middle of the room, bone showing through, identity obliterated by time. They're laying in a large bloodstain. It doesn't shock Ellie; she's seen far worse, and not just once. There's a solemn sadness when she walks up to it, but no horror.

"Ellie!" comes the warning shout from behind her, and Ellie dodges backward as something lurches out of the shadows at her, scrambling across the floor. The creature, fungal plates bursting out of its face and obscuring its vision, tries to get at her. Joel surges forward, puts a foot in its back, and point-blank executes it with one shot.

It's a fluid, practiced move, and Ellie catches her breath. "Thanks," she says, kicking herself. She knows fucking better.

"Yep," Joel says, quiet and relieved and worried. The exchange sounds casual when spoken aloud, like Joel's handed Ellie something out of reach. They both know she slipped, that she could've died, but this is what they do. They take care of each other. He doesn't scold her. She already knows, and tomorrow something similar will happen, and she'll save him, too.

They move on, look over the bodies, their gear. A leather tag with an embossed J is on the body's backpack, and Ellie pauses.

"Hey, Joel. I think it's them. The couple that ran away last year."

Joel turns to her, pausing, the enormity of it washing over them. These were people they knew. He kneels down next to the desiccated body, the one more easily identified than the one he just blew apart. "I think you're right," he says, steady but heavy.

Ellie casts around, and finds what she'd hoped for; a note. She picks it up, dusty in her fingers, and reads aloud:

"Jackson is a wonderful place, but we got tired of hearing the stories of people suffering everywhere else. We wanted to save lives. We had good intentions. We didn't make it an hour before running into a horde. Now we're bitten. We've decided we're going to end our lives instead of turning. Please tell our family and friends that we're sorry. Love Adam and Sidney."

Ellie's voice is low, solemn, a faint ache lacing through it. She remembers their faces. Just kids, not that much older than her. She flips the paper over, and sure enough, there's more.

"I shot her. I can't take my own life. I'm a fucking coward. Adam."

"Jesus," Joel mutters, rubbing at his jaw, and Ellie looks up from the page.

"If only they were immune, right?" she says flatly, her throat tight. There's something churning in her, something angry and helpless, like this is personal. Like this is her fault, somehow. Like this belongs to them, somehow.

Joel glances sideways at her, unsettled, and tries to redirect. "Well... let's go get Tommy, and we can get these bodies back to Jackson."

He turns, walks -- and Ellie looks after him, feels the connection stretching out between them. She should follow them. She could. It would be easier. She's been following him for a long, long time.

But this time, she's not gonna. This time, it's just too much, and she'd can't ignore it anymore. She can't do this anymore. Keep watching people die, keep finding bodies.

"After you took me out of the Firefly hospital, you said there were dozens of people like me." Ellie's voice is flat, almost too calm. Joel stares at her, too still. The both of them too still. He nods, a small jerk of his head.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's what they told me."

"I've never met another immune person before," Ellie says quietly, and it tries to climb up her throat. She's thought this through, thought of this before. It's eaten at her every time he tells her to put her mask on. Not to tell anyone new. "Have you?"

There is a damning pause, and Joel, just like she knew he wouldn't, doesn't answer. "They could be hiding it," he says, false calm. "You do."

She does, because he makes her. Ellie puts the page down.

"Do you believe that?"

A subtle change comes over Joel, a dangerous sort of pause. A disappointment in his voice that makes something in Ellie's stomach crawl, because it's cowed her every time before. "Is now really the time for this?"

"We traveled across the entire country to bring me to the Fireflies. I had so many questions for them." Ellie can feel tears threatening. She doesn't want to do this, to ask this, but she can't fucking pretend anymore. She needs to know. And today, she's decided, she's not taking no for an answer. "Why did you pull me out of there while I was still unconscious?"

"Because I let them run their tests, and when I saw that they were useless, I got us out of there-"

"How do you know they were useless?" Ellie's voice breaks, and she hates it. She's heard this before. She knows it's a reasonable question and she's so fucking tired of Joel acting like it's not. "Maybe if you just woulda given them more time, they could've figured something out-"

He walks closer, looming over her, and Ellie feels no fear. His anger is thunderous, intimidating, but not to her. Never to her. To her he is safe, he is home.

"Ellie," he says, cutting her off, speaking low and quiet and firm, shutting her down. "There was no cure." Every word is careful, enunciated, like he needs to get it through her head. Like she's being idealistic, hoping for the impossible. A child.

"There's nothing that could've helped these people or anybody else." Joel pauses, because he knows it hurts her. So many things do. "I know you wish things were different. I wish things were different. But they ain't."

Ellie holds his dark gaze, feeling herself welling up, fucking hating it, and finally breaks her eyes away from Joel's face.

"We need to get these kids back to their families. Or is there somethin' else you'd like to rehash?"

It twists like a knife, sitting in her throat. That helplessness, and that betrayal. Because she's finally realized that he never will tell her the missing pieces. He will never trust her with them. And she can't trust him to tell her to the truth. It hurts.

And in that moment, she shuts herself down. Closes the door between them, and decides. She turns to him, looks him in the eyes, and withdraws from him completely.

"No."

The relief is quiet in Joel's eyes, just like she knew it would be. She doesn't lie to him. He has no reason to suspect that she's doing it now. His shoulders relax.

"Good. C'mon."

And he turns to leave. To get Tommy.

Ellie looks down at the corpses at her feet, and there is a sense of more. Of faces, of names. Of people she's watched die. People she's loved and lost to this. Of graves she's dug with her own hands, both alone and alongside Joel. Those bodies stretch out and out in a long line between them, and Ellie decides.

If Joel won't tell her, she's going to find out for herself. But first she needs to play the part, make him believe that he's convinced her. At least until she can leave.

And she knows exactly where to go. That Firefly hospital.

Ellie steps over the bodies at her feet, numb, and follows Joel.

It turns out to be the very last time she does.

[laruetheday]

The next memory that hits—and it does feel like a hit, like getting punched with someone else's feelings and history—is like a continuation of the first one, but it's worse.

The monsters are physically horrifying, but there's a sense throughout that they're also somehow normal. But the bodies, and the notes? There's something else to that. Some context she doesn't quite have a grasp on, something about a cure, and the Firefly hospital, and the way Joel is so obviously lying. But he's been lying for years. She knows that the same way Ellie did.

Clarisse feels it, the way Ellie loves him and hates him at the same time, the way it made her feel sick to shut him out completely.

She's still feeling it when she comes back to herself, but there's no time to process. Ellie doesn't look hurt or anything, but the way she's shaking, the way she's breathing, something obviously happened. Is happening.

Without thinking, Clarisse nearly runs out into the corridor to get to her. She stops herself at the last instant, one foot in the corridor and one out, and freezes that way, not sure what to do. Shit, shit, shit.

"Hey," she says. Trying and mostly failing to sound supportive, calming. "Ellie. The tile's right behind you, okay? Like six inches back. Just go slow."

[notathreat]

The girl's voice comes through alongside the tearing derisive cackling, and that's the voice that Ellie gropes for, off-balance and terrified. She does as she says, moves back, and the painful voice and scratching claws retreat from her mind.

It takes a few seconds of just breathing before she clocks it.

"... what'd you call me?"

[laruetheday]

"Your name. It's Ellie."

Clarisse sounds almost embarrassed as she offers it up. She'd been planning on telling her, it's not like she kept it a secret for hours or something, and she's not sure why she feels defensive.

"I only learned it a minute ago."

[notathreat]

It takes her a few moments to catch her breath.

"Ellie," she repeats. A shaky in and out. "Sounds about right."

There's no great cosmic rightness to it, but it still feels good. Like something returned to her. She clings to it with both hands. She's Ellie. Girl with the knives and the missing fingers, currently temporarily blind.

A minute ago. So that's why she was quiet.

"What else did you see?"

[laruetheday]

"You were making your way through this old building that looked like it was falling apart. You and this older guy. Fighting monsters that looked like they used to be people."

Clarisse chews on a thumbnail as she considers telling her the rest of it. But she thinks she should wait until Ellie's on the other side of the corridor, at least. She's about halfway now.

Clarisse gives her a minute to process, or regulate her breathing, or whatever she needs to do. She leans against the wall and watches Ellie, who can't see her looking.

"Let me know when you're ready to keep going."

[notathreat]

As horrifying as it sounds, it's all so frustratingly distant. Something that belongs to her, that she can't quite reach. Ellie takes an unsteady breath. It's not fucking enough, of course, but at least it's something. Monsters that look like people. An older guy. She wonders who it is. Or was.

Horribly, she wonders if the voices know. The ones that seemed to know what she'd lost, when she stepped in the wrong place.

But that's fucking insane. It hurt. It would probably kill her if she let it go on long enough.

"I'm ready."