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

[pathlit]

A spark of incredulity gusts past his throat. A beat later, it’s followed by the mirthless exhale of a laugh. No, not really, says the thrumming of his nerves, the fading sting in his temples, the fear of utter blindness chasing each blink, but what other choice do they have?

They must move forward — but they can troubleshoot. Attempt to, anyway.

Reaching for the fallen torch, he holds it high to assess the path. Stone and metal. Still no apparent pattern. They’d started, roughly, in the center.

During this quiet assessment, his palm settles on the other man’s arm. A brief moment later, he offers him the torch and says, “I’ll start from one side and work across.”

There has to be a path. They must have crossed it to get here. They just need to find it. (Unless they hadn’t and simply cannot remember the terror, but—)

[grindset]

It helps, that hand. Steadies his course. Stills the water. Through renewed calm he can see down to the stone sunk deep in his belly, this small, cold thing, impossibly dense. That's what the dark gave him, what the rustling rush and scratch left him with. They were in it for only seconds, and that was plenty long enough—and this man is about to submerge himself willingly.

As he takes the light, an unthinking bump of fingers knocks something loose, and without applying a moment's care to whether or not he should, he says,

"I saw her. Your mother."

The butt of the torch stick sits on the ground by his leg, tilted away. By the way it leans, the looseness of his arm, his light grip, it appears he'd rather drop it. A grim stare scans across the floor ahead of them; he's sure his brain is consuming information, but it's stuck in processing. He can scarcely focus.

"She was untroubled. She was... happy to see you."

[pathlit]

All efforts to galvanize himself against the dread of onslaught cracks upon hearing the initial admission. He frowns, doubting himself; perhaps he’d heard incorrectly, perhaps the man is so weakened he now speaks nonsense.

Then, more. His grip tightens a fraction. The crack splinters. His attention flickers over him, as if he might find clarity anywhere else, as if he might find some smaller thing on which to solve rather than the pressing matter. This person who displayed such moxie just a minute ago now looks so frail — as if the darkness had stripped what little reserves he’d possessed.

It tugs at the heart in a manner different from his words. It prompts him to support the hand that barely supports the torch; to wrap his warmer palm around that colder, thinner hand in unspoken concern.

“In that?” he asks, referring to the jaded corridor. Nothing good has come from that — not for either of them, he’d thought.

[grindset]

As he shakes his head, he darts a look aside to their nested hands.

"At the fountain."

To touch an arm is one thing, but hands are familiar enough to be distracting. More evidence for some subconscious inclination, perhaps—people simply don't touch strangers like this, do they?
Maybe he does.

"In light of the risk you're about to take," and that moment of misery over a piece of news that likely wasn't his, "I thought I should mention it." A shallow shrug lifts, lingers, falls away. "In case you might find that knowledge fortifying."

[pathlit]

Hopeful curiosity swells between his ribs. With notable effort, he swallows it down to inquire later, but the sentiment -- the care behind it -- lingers in the wry smile on his lips.

After a gentle clap of his arm, he rises, hands withdrawing. "Didn't happen to catch my name, did you?" he asks lightly, stepping to the left side of the hall. The distance ebbs some of his guilt in withholding the admittance that he'd seen a moment from the other man's life as well. Later, he tells himself. This isn't the time.

[grindset]

"There were no introductions. One can only presume you already knew each other."

One last shred of humour before it begins. The weary bluntness of tone only heightens his deadpan delivery here.

Stirring where he sits, that spot still glowing on his arm, he begins some effort to scrape himself out of this listless sprawl he's put himself in. He can't see the floor from down here, and if this is some kind of trial, the variation in tiles might become relevant. It may also be a misleading detail. Either way, he ought to be looking.

"Call out the results as they... as you feel them. Good or bad."

Not only for his own observational benefit; call and response may be grounding for the both of them.

[pathlit]

The deadpan quip earns him a snicker in return. A fraction of it, inevitably, is due to renewed nervousness. He's doing this. He's going back into that.

As it just so happens, he needn't call out the results when he steps onto stone. Psychic assault is immediately evident to the onlooker in the rigidity of his stance and the air sucked in through clenched teeth. Blindly, he staggers laterally; each step feels harder to make, as if pushing through the lactic build up in drained limbs. One, two, three.

The sudden hush of the fourth.

He waits another second, anticipating, but hears nothing more than his own labored breath and feels nothing more than the thudding of his own heart. He ignores the innate desire to collapse into a crouch, to kneel just for a moment's rest, because it is always harder to get back up again.

They need him back up again.

Instead, he lifts his hands to his face, fingertips pressing into closed eyelids, to ground himself. Exhaling, he holds his breath for a beat, then deeply inhales. "Good!" he exclaims, perhaps a little louder than necessary, because the absolute darkness makes existence feel questionable. Beneath him lies the closest of the tarnished gold tiles.

[grindset]

As foot touches stone, he's waiting to see if it triggers a visible change in the light. The first time wasn't merely a case of that strange overhead luminescence winking out—had it been so, the torch would have made up the difference, but it was as though there was no torch. While he could feel it there in his hand, to his eyes it was simply gone.

So as foot touches stone, and the light changes not at all, he sits right up, ready to announce what he sees—but likewise sees the strain involved, and dares not compromise it. To accomplish something even as simple as this while under so much psychological pressure, to weather it without giving in to the instinctual urge to flee it, must take incredible effort.

The first standout tile is coming. His attention flits between feet and head, question and answer. The resultant pause is all tension, all but silent—and then relief for that decisive report. More than relief, though, is the spark of eager restlessness that propels him to rise.

"Fascinating," he says, as he begins his own comparatively trifling, but still unpleasant, trial of climbing to his feet. "I can see you. You've stopped on one of the," scuffing, scraping, a breath hitched in effort, "one of the metal squares."

[pathlit]

A beat passes as he listens to the sounds of scuffing, scraping, and hitched breath. Then, "Yeah?"

Indeed, when he takes a large step back and finds himself at the edge, vision restored, it is a metal tile before him. Sucking in a breath, he takes a step forward onto the tarnished gold again; blackness envelopes him, but no assault comes.

"So we try the metal ones," he says, stepping backwards again, regaining sight. There's a slight invigoration in his tone, hope daring to rise. Automatically, he holds out his hand to help steady the other man if he chooses to take it, eyes scanning the path, trying to commit it to memory. The first two are certainly doable, but after that, he's not confident that he'll possess enough awareness of his body in space to blindly follow the path.

But first, confirmation. Lets the other man go, if he'd taken his hand, and steps onto the path again. Darkness, again. Another step diagonally and still is the voice racing in his skull only his own.

"Still good," he says. "Guide me to the other side. I'll look for the control stick."

[grindset]

Assistance is refused with a perfunctory shake of his head, a likewise gesture to the path. That instruction in regard to priorities of worry doesn't cease to be in effect simply because he sat down one time, guy. Please join him in ignoring how terrible he looks and feels. He's on his feet, he's found his balance: good enough.

"The majority are spread out too far for a single stride. Unless you want to risk your ankles in a blind jump—please do not—you'll need to weather some of the affected tiles." With uneven scuffing, a few gingerly taken steps bring him to the path's margin. What will work as a rough and ready course guide, requiring little thought? What might they both know? "From the direction you're facing now, the next one is at, eh... eleven o'clock? Does that mean anything to you?"

Please remember clocks.

[pathlit]

Unless you want to risk your ankles in a blind jump--

Yeah, not a big deal.

--please do not--

Oh.

He rubs the back of his neck, a little deflated, and gestures with his other arm in the general vicinity one familiar with clocks might suspect the position of eleven.

"How many tiles away?"

[grindset]

"I count four between your safe tile and the next one. If you take big strides, maybe one and a half of those."

It's strange to watch someone who only thinks he can't see—the uniquely hesitant body language, the eyes focused on nothing in particular. A striking vulnerability. He doesn't particularly enjoy the voyeuristic position it forces him to occupy.

[pathlit]

Four. Right, four. Okay. Four tiles. He can do this. The fourth tile was the first safe tile. What's one more?

Taking a deep breath, he steels himself, the resolve writing itself across his body, readily visible. The absolute darkness is still exquisitely bizarre to his senses, but he tries to imagine the pathway from memory.

The first stride is, indeed, big. The second, however, does not complete; he buckles to one knee with a grunt, the sharp pain of impact an afterthought to the mental onslaught, as if the latter were a physical weight crushing him. Trembling, he hits the ground with his palm, trying to feel the surface; the rough porousness of stone scrapes against his skin.

The accusations are relentless. Who are they to judge? To know? Do they speak the truth? No, it has to be another trick. Another enchantment -- and yet their words pierce the back of his neck, tighten around his throat, snatch the life out of him. The next attempt to move is pitiful, a sort of lurch that sends him tumbling wayward with a whimper. It would disorient his sense of direction had the magic not already done so.

Blindly, his palms search the ground for a change in texture.

[grindset]

They steel themselves together. Whatever unnamed secrets this man carries with him, whatever sensitivities might be conjured by a misstep—if they're anything close to those whispers bearing down on him all at once, like a flurry of cold shears, snipping and tearing, each darting in and out for a piece, ravenous—

Suffice it to say, while he hasn't predicted it, the collapse of that first step is no great shock.

"Don't panic," is raised to carry, too fraught for his own ear to be convincing; a smart jerk of internal effort puts his disquiet in check. "You're not far off course. Move directly to your right side. It's close—it's right there."

He'll have to get up, get his feet on it; the stone is merciless.

[pathlit]

The accusations threaten to drown out the sound of the other man's voice, but this only fuels his desperation to hang onto every syllable. He throws himself toward the right, a graceless lurch to his feet that nearly sends him toppling right back down, but then the sole of his boot strikes metal, followed by the other, and then--

--just his ragged breath, just the scuff of his palm against earthy debris.

Pride is not currently present to conceal his afflicted state. He collapses onto his knees, arms tightly wrapped around himself, and simply tries to recover. It feels like ages, this miserable cold draining from his skin, but when his heart no longer hammers quite so alarmingly, he sucks in another breath and rises beyond the protest of his legs, audibly wincing.

Still clutching himself despite the dull ache of his wound in response to the pressure, he says, hesitantly, "Would you... Would you keep talking? It. It might help."

Maybe it's a silly request -- it certainly makes him feel just a little smaller -- but maybe he'll be humored. Maybe he won't be openly judged for it.

[grindset]

Up, moving,

"Yes, there!"

Found it. A small island of relief for the both of them. Even before he's asked, he doesn't leave his colleague to wilt in silent uncertainty; all he has to offer now is a voice, rough and gentle, solicitous and steady, persisting through the dark.

"Good... that's two down."

A request fills the next pause, and indeed, maybe is true: there's no trace of judgment in his reply.

"Well, yes, that's the idea: you do all the work, while I provide commentary." Even with a stolen memory in his pocket, he can't know how truly and entirely incorrect that statement is. Wry edge dropping away, "You're doing fine. One step at a time. The next one is straight ahead of you."

[pathlit]

Relief visibly washes over him, shoulders and arms slackening. "Oh, thank the gods."

For the easy next step (and the lack of audible judgment).

Curiosity tinges his voice as he follows the directions given, crossing onto the next tile without a shred of doubt. "What did you see?"

Of his forgotten memory.

[grindset]

Well. His first choice would not be to discuss the particulars of the souvenir in question while either or both of them are being assaulted by flocks of vicious neuroses, but this trial demands a ready reserve of morale, and if he's carrying around a headful of details that may very well shore it up, why should he keep all but one to himself? It is a borrowed memory, after all—he's only holding it for safe keeping.

"It was a... a kind of technological exhibition. Warm weather, noisy, exuberant crowd. Brace yourself, this next one will take at least four strides. It's situated," a pause, a scuffing step, "between one and two o'clock. Forty-five degrees."

He goes on,

"You were regretting the number of sugary festival foods you'd eaten that day—enough to give you a bellyache."

[pathlit]

Minute movements of repositioning echo his words, false steps to gauge the feel of a would-be stride, back and forth. Shoulders angling with the shifting weight of his arms, back and forth.

"Sounds like the complete opposite of what we're dealing with now," he says with a faint laugh, carefully edging backward, tip of his boot tapping the tarnished metal beneath. "Straight shot?"

Forward, he means, to the next safe tile. A straight-shot if he were to, say, try a running start from the extremely limited path he can utilize given the size of the tiles and the target direction. A little desperate? Yes.

[grindset]

He can't find enough humour to laugh, himself, but from his companion, even this exhausted, ironic wisp of a thing is good to hear. Anything to indicate successful distraction—so long as it doesn't detract from the task at hand.

"Turn back just a bit— there. Straight shot." Off some indicative body language, he's compelled to add, "Try not to overshoot."

He wonders if the dark makes it easier to forget you're being watched.

What else? "You'd finished out the day. You were supposed to join your mother for supper..."

[pathlit]

Indeed, he fails to appreciate the weight of attention fixed upon him. Were it not for the tangible ground beneath his feet, he'd feel utterly lost in space.

Positional adjustment made, he nods to himself, going through the same steadying motions as before. So he'd finished out the day. He was supposed to join his mother for supper, and he supposes that endeavor had been successful if the other man had seen her.

Suppose he manages the leap successfully, too?

"Supper sounds great!" he exclaims, and then immediately launches into a hopeful impossibility. The attempt is decent, but a failure; he stumbles and buckles beneath the weight he can, unfortunately, appreciate -- the relentless accusations swarming in his skull, pecking at the nerves descending his spine.

When he staggers onto metal again, he drops to his hands and knees, catching his breath and trying to ignore the innate desire to curl in on himself. Between breaths, his voice is pitiful despite the forced normalcy attempted when he says, "Please tell me there's only one left."

[grindset]

That burst of delusional resolve, as if simply denying the situation aloud will make it so, maybe even fool the trap itself—how endearing it is—crumbles into a harrowing miss. Fraught redirection comes to him through the black, repeating louder to pierce the private tumult of criticisms. It sounds too loud in the empty hall—must sound faint and far away in his head, he thinks—

Another little island of calm achieved.

"Ah... if I told you that, I'd be lying." A mere four tiles spaced so near one another would be a kindness. This trial wasn't meant to be kind. "But you're very close."

He isn't lying about that. The remaining squares don't have much distance between them, but he can see what it takes to drag a body rendered leaden through even these shorter intervals of delirium. He hardly thinks relating the last few evasive details of the dream will make a dent in such a vicious enchantment, but supposition nonetheless becomes arrival, and mother takes shape: her smaller stature, her hair pulled back, her two metal fingers lovingly wrought, the enveloping warmth in her heart. The other guest is barely sketched out—no trim silhouette, no sidelong vulpine glance, no folded hands or fleeting smile—

"You're there! Jump!"

The next stone slab imparts nothing but merciful silence.

Just like that, there he is, small in the distance now open between them, still clenching pale fists, breathing his own momentary relief. And there, just a few empty metres away, stands the machine. On the apparatus bolted to its back, facing the wall, a crutch is hooked. (It's an auxiliary model; he wouldn't dare bring his own.) Beside it hangs a lather satchel, and inside, among Viktor's effects, is the control rod.

"Is there a bag? Look inside!"

[pathlit]

Inevitably, merciless accusation drowns out his words, makes him doubt-- doubt the worth of persistence, the worth of his own peace, undeserving as the onslaught hotly suggests. Failure is universally inevitable, but betrayal of a loved one? The weight of death by his decisions-- by his own hand? War?

They cut sharp despite the lack of recognition. Cut him down, cut him small, and he would crumble beneath the cold and despair if that voice across the pathway had not cut through the assault in turn, shouting salvation. Blind and desperate, he latches onto that sliver of hope and throws himself forward unceremoniously, stumbling--

--into the faint glow of jade amongst the orange light of torches beyond, dark shadows dancing behind every little rock and broken statue on the ground. As he lifts his head, the lighting grows cooler with the soft blue of the construct. Abruptly, he leaps up, heart leaping with him, and stumbles to the construct, adrenaline roaring, restless. A bag, yes, there's a bag-- items he doesn't recognize, amongst them a book; it piques his interest for all of a second before he finds what he assumes to be the control rod, color-coded as it is.

"Got it!" he exclaims, turning and holding the rod up high, cheeks flushed with the hammering of his heart, still catching his breath -- but when his eyes meet the other man's gaze, his giddy smile falters.

He remembers.

The overwhelming worry that Viktor might endure even a fraction of what he'd just gone through twists his insides, consuming every other would-be thought. Lips pressed into a thin line, he nods to himself and utilizes the control rod to instruct F.R.E.D. to cross the cursed pathway.

[grindset]

With the heartening sight of that smile, and the blue gleam in that raised arm, Viktor's posture sags gratefully. This isn't simply a ride he's being sent, it's a reprieve from the battle between physicality and persistence. Crossing on his own steam would be excruciating on every level—and of course he'd have tried it anyway. Some things don't require self-knowledge to remain true.

In the shadow of the machine, now spinning up to movement, triumph's yield to worry goes completely unnoticed. He is particularly interested in the state of the construct as it steps on the tiles, toggling his attention between the hinged feet and the helm high above, the glowing suggestion of eyes within, just as he'd observed his companion's first experimental steps.

"It's unaffected," he says, though it's obvious enough without his commentary. The construct obediently and steadily crosses to him, treading upon stone and metal plates alike, not a single twitch out of stride. "That's promising." Exemption on a technicality? It won't be his feet on those tiles.

Mounting up takes a little coordination, necessary commands back and forth. Call and response has worked for them so far—that and they oughtn't risk a botched toss putting the rod in the middle of the evil floor—

"OK." At last, he's up. "Call it back."

[pathlit]

Jayce would hope the tiles make no mark on F.R.E.D.; it isn't supposed to possess regrets or fears. Ever greater is his hope that Viktor's journey from there to here on F.R.E.D.'s back is altogether boring, though he's still nervous to see him on that path. Whatever the magic behind the enchantment this time around, it knows.

Knows where to dig, what to unearth and fling upon the psyche like a thousand needles.

Fidgeting with the control rod, he nods again and directs F.R.E.D. to take its first step on the metal tile.