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[Chase]

Sending this message was important to us.

We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture...

 

 

Tera Mikami, the Countess of New Dementia and Insana's top agent, stood next to Lady Lierra, the Embodiment of Love. She had transported them both outside of a large monolithic structure surrounded by a barren wasteland. It seemed foreboding and ominous in nature, though such things were unlikely to phase another Embodiment. Several obelisks circled around the structure, but not much else was visible to them from the distance they stood.

 

 

This place is not a place of honor...

no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here...

nothing valued is here...

 

 

"Tis not Lady Justice I fear." Tera answered and turned to the structure. "This is the Vault of Madness. A place forbidden to enter, even by me. Whatever is in there is what I fear, Lady Love. Whatever it is that Insana hides away from everyone is what truly terrifies me."

[Nisorin]

As she looks out over the Vault, she shudders. Her hands ball up into white knuckled fists and her clothes stiffen, the fabric shifting to metal from an instinctive sense of danger. "...there is much to fear in this place, Tera, but one thing that must never be released. Even if it causes the deaths of billions it must not be released.I can feel them from here, only because I've seen them. I've seen them used twice, in fact... Both times to completely eradicate a species already capable of rewriting fundamental laws of existence. I'm not surprised even you aren't allowed." She says, eyes locked on the Vault, memories of tragedies and genocides rushing through her mind. Yet again she looked old, and older still the longer she looked. Then she laughed, manic and near crazed. She suddenly slams her eyes shut, biting her lip to stop herself as she takes a ragged breath. "...Damnit... I'm sorry... Why, did you bring me here?"

[Chase]

What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us.

This message is a warning about danger...

 

 

Tera was a bit lost, as not even she knew exactly what Lierra spoke so cryptically of, but it was obvious that she knew something was in there that could scare even the likes of her. It only served to cement her own terror. She had walked amongst the obelisks and read their ominous warning, written in Embodiment and Common. It warned whoever approached of its danger, and ever since she had heeded its warning... until now.

 

 

The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.

 

 

"Insana has taken much care in making sure this place is never found, and that no one knows its contents. What is in their in its entirety, I cannot say for certain, but..." she paused, hesitant to continue. "I know that is where the Scales of Truth lie." she admitted. While not saying that Juris was indeed incarcerated there, she had made it known that his totem was kept in Insanity's domain, a serious implicated in and of itself.

 

"There are other things in there as well, but they are unknown to me." she added, silently.

[Nisorin]

Leirra looks to her, eyebrow arched as she watches Mikami. "...are you asking me to go retrieve them? I'm not even sure it's possible for me to get in, considering this isn't my domain. Even if I can get in, the, presence, of that may complicate things." She asks, turning back towards the Vault. She shudders, but doesn't go into hysterics.

[Chase]

The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place.

 

 

Tera shook her head. "I do not wish for you to enter this place on my behalf. It is likely, as you have said, impossible to enter so long as Insana controls this domain. I sought only to warn of what is to come, and ask that you help him." Tera said. "All of this time of lying, hiding, and deceiving.... One can only go on for so long with the guilt of it all. Even an Embodiment. He needs to move past it, but..." she paused. "I feel that he may have gone past the point of no return, as does he."

 

 

This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

 

 

Tera looked back to the structure as a wall of black dust slowly obscured it from their view.

[Nisorin]

Leirra sighs and looks back to the fading view of the Vault. "...Why did he take the Scales in the first place? What wrong is he trying to undo? Is he haunted by his use of the Scrolls? Or further back even, to his so-called crimes that got him sentenced to become the first Embodiment?" She muses, more to herself than anything, before turning back to Tera. "...what is it you need me to do, Countess? Or Mrs. Tyris, for that matter?"

[Chase]

"The situation with the sage, Hikaru Tyris, is more of a personal matter to Insana. He sees a dark path she is heading down and fears it may be a similar one that he himself traveled." Tera said. "Though we know now that she seeks the Scrolls of..." she paused, mid sentence as if trying to say the last word, but unable to speak it. The artifact was something so shunned by Insana himself that those in his domain were forbidden to speak it.

 

She took a deep breath and sighed. "The scrolls. His holiness is determined that she abandon that line of inquiry, but it seems unlikely considering the reason she seeks them. A mother's love is a force to be reckoned with, yes?"

[Nisorin]

Leirra's eyebrow arches at that, looking to Mikami. "Well now, that is interesting... I wonder how it is she even found out about the Scrolls. Though I can't fault her motivations, certainly... Though I noticed you avoided my other two questions." She says, looking to Mikami. She sighs and looks back towards the fog. "I understand Mrs. Tyris was the one who called me, but what can I do?"

[Chase]

"Show her what is to come." Tera looked to her. "Show tell her of the lessons you have learned. Tell her of the paths and where they all will lead. Wisdom is a gift and a rare one that has slowly dwindled away like a fading flame since your kind vanished."

 

"The sage seems to have a deep connection with you, and perhaps you are the best messenger to deliver her final lesson." she looked to her right and the clopping of horse's feet could be heard approaching from the darkness.

 

"What say you?" she asked.

[Nisorin]

Leirra thinks that over a while, looking over the expanse. "I say, I will want my queries answered... But as for Mrs. Tyris, it would seem we share the same goal. I will help, but to do so I'll need to bring her to my own domain. Do you truly intend to return to her, her magic after?" She asks, slowly turning to face the incoming beast.

[Chase]

"Unfortunately releasing her into another's custody is not within my authority to do." Tera frowned. "As for her magic, I cannot say whether Lord Primoris intends to return it or not. I suppose it all likely depends on his judgement at the end of her trials and how," she paused and brought her hand up to her chin in brief thought. "Receptive she is. These two things are something which only he has the ability to do or answer."

 

 

[Nisorin]

Leirra nods, thinking all of that over. She steps up to the horse, turning to look to Mikami. "Let's finish mincing words here, Mrs. Mikami. If you cannot allow her to leave that likely means she's currently under Juris' custody, is that right? Does he know I am the one he will be sending her to next?"

[Chase]

"My inability is not one of power, but rather authority. The Sage is here at the behest and authority of Lord Primoris, and as such is in his custody to do with her as he sees fit. Because it is by his own authority, I as his most loyal of followers, am bound to his will." Tera explained, not trying to be unhelpful, but rather trying to explain her precarious situation she has found herself in.

 

"Leirra, I have not brought you here in defiance of my duties, or the law. My master is in a state of grief and distress, of which he is in much pain. Lately, perhaps due to recent events, his soul has become more and more consumed by this, but it seems he wants closure from something, yet simultaneously fears some sort of consequence." she told her, sounding in a state of genuine worry for Insana. "To that end, I seek only to help him, and I hope you do too. "

[Nisorin]

Leirra looks to her, looking into her eyes as she listens closely. She sighs and thinks for a long moment. Suddenly she walks right up to Mikami, looking directly into her eyes. "...you love him, don't you, Countess?" She asks gently, gradually smiling a bit. "Of course I'll help. Truth be told, I've been helping."

[Chase]

"I do, Lady Leirra. I am his most humble and loyal of followers." She admits. It was a unique type of love. Not one of romance, but one of complete and total dedication. Mikami, as Leirra would have likely felt, was a widow after all. Her life long love having died a few years prior.

 

"That being said, I am whatever his holiness needs me to be. A strong ruler to his followers, a humble servant, a close confidant, a best friend, and if he so wished; a lover." she explained to Leirra. "Though we both know his love lies forever with Lady Skye." she mused.

 

There was a brief moment of pause before she continued. "If you are willing to help, it will be both a simple, but complex task. I take it you are familiar with an old tale of the Four Horsemen?" she asked.

[Nisorin]

Leirra's eyes gloss over as she remembers both Mikami's experiences, and her master's experiences with both Skye and her sister eons ago. At the mention of the horsemen however, she blinks and looks back to her. "Those four champions of common legends? More or less, though I'll admit I never much delved into the details of their mythology."

[Chase]

"If you'd hear Insana tell it, it is a legend that says whenever a great change in history is imminent, oftentimes a catastrophe, 4 being appear. Each one embodying some sort of harrowing suffering. Conquest, War, Famine, and finally Death." Tera explained. "While its never actually the same people, its as if the universe calls upon people to take up the mantle in one way or another. Insana said that he had personally witnessed what he believed to be the realization of that during the great war that destroyed East and West."

 

"He, for one reason or another, has decided to embody this legend in his lessons to the Sage we share a mutual interest in. So far he had called upon men he knew could accurately embody these traits; a Conqueror, a Warlord, and an Oppressor. Now he finds himself at an impasse. Who embodies death? Not just in general, but who could embody her death? Who could help show her that her path leads to one result and that result is not a kind one... That's where you come in."

[Nisorin]

Leirra takes a moment to think that all over, staring off into space in silence. After a long pause, she looks to Mikami at last. "She seeks the Scrolls in order to use its power to rewrite history into a kinder form...one where her torment never happened, her lover never gave of himself, and her children never stolen... On the one hand, there is no grieving mother who would not wish they had such a chance, and she actually has the power to get that chance. But the Scrolls, like any truly powerful relic, enact a price. Insana may not like it, but I will demonstrate that price to her..." she says at last, patting the skeletal horse again. "My peoples' sins must not be repeated..."

[Chase]

"A child is not something my husband had blessed me with before his death... So i would not know a mother's pain." Mikami admitted. "But I have seen Insana's. I know of a burden he carries surrounding that artifact. So much so that he has forbidden its mere utterance. He wishes that burden on nobody else."

 

The horse lowered its head in contentment, wanting more affection/ Mikami looked towards the sky again. "I will not try to dictate what you should do or say, but I only ask that you read the declaration imprinted on this scroll when you greet her." she said. She held out her hand and a small scroll appeared. She held it out, offering it to Leirra.

[Nisorin]

Leirra blinks as she takes it, unfurling it with one hand as she continues to spoil the horse. "Is it something that will further bind her, or inhibit what I will try to do?" She asks, watching Mikami before actually trying to read it.