Video: UN - Runeseeker

[onerthes]

Be very careful, sleepers...

[Vira-Lorr looks angry, though it's hard to tell what it is that is affecting her. She's squinting and gripping the table in her shop. There are cards there in front of her, and the card 'Justice' shows prominently in the feed. She's breathing heavily as she speaks up, and she's still recovering from having seen what she saw in Wesker's footage.]

Pthumerians do not understand things the way that we do. They are absolutes given flesh. [She swallowed hard.] I tried to explain it to a friend before they departed. They are living beings, but they are also more avatars of what it is that they care about. The Moss King... avatar of chance, fate, and deals. The Doorway, who watches over the bonds that tie us together. Mariana, who presides over the depths of the sea. Cynthia, the Moon Presence. Each... more alien and more a concept. And with each passing month, their influence is felt. Mariana's vision comes soon enough, but first there is one more.

The Reckoning, it comes. [She held up the card and looked at the screen pointedly.] They are absolutes, and she is justice. Justice does not care about mercy, does not care about redemption, does not care about forgiveness. It sees in black and white. It cuts.

Be prepared for things to get... dark, as if they were not already.

Comments

[survivalthroughhate]

People keep saying I need to understand my actions have consequences. If this is the month those are rained down upon me--

[He gives a small shrug.]

--so be it.

[He may not always admit to all his wrongdoings but Maul's left a big enough trail of bodies in Deerington and here in Trench to know people might come for him.]

But if anyone comes for me, I will not passively let them punish me.

[onerthes]

Well, I think you already understand that as I say this? It is not the same as actions having consequences. What I think will come to us this month? Is not the same thing. It is the forced will of a would-be demigod who has chosen "Justice" as her archetype. You have always known that your actions have consequences. I am more warning you... out of concern that people may be afflicted and seek to harm you.

Though... I did not expect you to say differently, honestly. Try not to escalate, but ... I will only ask you to try. I certainly do not assume you will simply put your saber down.

[survivalthroughhate]

Sleepers can try to come for me if this Pthumerian decides to infect them with her will. But they will find I don't go down as easily as all that.

[After all, fighting is what Maul was made for.]

I won't go looking for trouble deliberately but I will do what I must to defend myself.

[onerthes]

That, Maul, is all that I would truly ask of you. I'm not expecting this to be a pleasant month for you, but you have my sympathies in the midst of this. I fear that there's a limitation to how much of an impact I can have on events other than to warn people.

[She sighed, reminding herself not to think like that for long. Dangerous road with her.]

[survivalthroughhate]

Sometimes, that is all that people need in order for them to be on guard and steel themselves against what may come.

[He has enough tact at least not to mention all the times that didn't work here in Trench but they're both well aware of that fact enough as it is.]

[onerthes]

It is sometimes enough. Just knowing can help, though there... will be apologies when this month is done. I'm sure of that.

[survivalthroughhate]

I wonder if it's going to be like October was in Deerington.

[One of the worst months to spend in the dream town as far as Maul is concerned.]

[onerthes]

I think... it is closer to other months, but it would be best to assume it could be one of the worst, conceptually, of the things we deal with given her nature and how we can all be at times.

[survivalthroughhate]

Worse? I hate to tempt fate but how could things possibly get even worse around here?

[Famous last words right there.]

[onerthes]

Food shortages, death games and global amnesia plagues come to mind as possibilities, but I really shouldn't be giving the Pthumerians ideas, should I? [Ahem, aheh.]

cw: child abuse by food deprivation

[survivalthroughhate]

[One of those three definitely gets a strong reaction out of the Sith Lord.]

If the Pthumerians cause food shortages, I will make them hurt.

[Maul's always been a bit cagey about food ever since he was a child and denied anything but bare scraps by his Nightbrother caretaker. Sidious hadn't exactly been one to make sure he got enough to eat if he thought the punishment of withholding it would get his young apprentice motivated enough to do what he wanted.

Subsequently, Maul tends to freak out a little when there's not enough to eat, as he had during the last days of Deerington when food started to become scarce. He and his brother were eating lizards by the end of it.]

Re: cw: child abuse by food deprivation

[onerthes]

I definitely have no interest in returning to those games from the nightmare. I'd be with you in trying.

[She scowled and shook her head, frowning visibly. Folding her arms, she grumbled and sighed.]

Still, that hasn't been something yet. The events of this place are horrifying, but they feel less... guided?

[survivalthroughhate]

Yes, I have noticed that. I wonder if it has something to do with the Pthumerians being older and dividing power amongst themselves, as opposed to just having a single little girl who had no stability in mind but every reason to try and hurt those brought into Deerington.

[onerthes]

Or those surrounding her viewing us with little other than suspicion. That situation of animosity is not present, which may explain why the horrors are more ... random, or occasional "Morals" we're supposed to learn from. They're not pro-active invasions and aggressive attempts like Roderic and Superior in the old days when both were threats, out to kill us all.

I suspect it really might be as simple as these supposed godlings are simply not intent on one particular position regarding us. They do not hate us. Superior did, and Roderic was delusional.

[survivalthroughhate]

Yes, it seems some Pthumerians here view us with anger and the intent to torture us, some are more ambivalent in letting us just live our lives, and then there are some which seem to be motivated by watching us react to what they throw at us as if we are little ants they are viewing through a magnifying glass.

[onerthes]

and, at the worst, those who are enraged seem to not even have that much personal at stake. Most of them are truly ambivalent but extremely hazardous. It makes them a very different, almost surreal sort of threat to deal with.

[survivalthroughhate]

Yes, it is far easier to fight foe when you know that they have malice towards you and have the desire to see you suffer for whatever reasons they have in their own minds. Some of the patrons seem to enjoy watching us suffer simply for suffering's sake.

[onerthes]

I think that seems true of Mariana and the Moss King, personally, whereas I would almost say Bauphomette and Mother Generosity seem to wish us very little harm. They're extremely unpredictable all things considered.

[survivalthroughhate]

The moment it seems we have finally figured one of them out, they end up changing things around on us to keep us on our toes.

[onerthes]

With a couple of them, I am dead certain that's quite intentional. With some? Not so much. The Moss King is a little imp if you ask me, but the Tower seems incredibly distant to the process of all that goes on here.

[survivalthroughhate]

It almost makes me miss Julia. Things were random there in Deerington but even the randomness had a pattern once you viewed it through the eyes of a child.

[onerthes]

The lack of randomness here has a cyclic feel, but we don't know yet the nature of the cycle in the first place. And, by the same token, so much of it all really did feel like the eyes of a scared child. It made it easier to understand.

[survivalthroughhate]

Perhaps we'll discover it if we wait it out another year.

[Maul figures there's a good chance he'll still be around by then and so will Vira-Lorr given their histories with the Pthumerians.]

Yes. Children with fantastic powers who are traumatized and scared often have certain patterns they follow.

[Maul knows he has anytime he's been turned into a child here he definitely has had them.]

[onerthes]

I suppose that when they really do not follow that pattern, it hints that they are not exactly a child anymore, even if they still are in some ways. In Julia's case, we only saw that the times when it was her power itself that manifested to act on its own.

Normally she was very much just a child.

[survivalthroughhate]

I like to think, if nothing else, her life's story taught the Pthumerians how to treat their children who are only half-Pthumerian kindly.

[Maul can't stand to think that the little girl died in vain, no more than cast as the villain in the story of Deerington, a role that she never wanted.]