5211/Astral Flux: Palace of the Mind

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Astral Flux: Palace of the Mind
Date of Scene: 20 August 2018
Location: Astral Plane
Synopsis: Emma and Jean investigate the Astral Plane.
Cast of Characters: Shadow King, Emma Frost, Phoenix
Tinyplot: Astral Flux


Shadow King has posed:
    Reaching the Astral Plane is unusually difficult. Previously, to powerful telepaths, it is a place of consciousness and mental connection, a heightened place. It is less that it is unstable, so much as that the rules of the place have been twisted around. Arriving is like suddenly being sideways on a stairway that wraps around itself into an impossible loop. Many that try to come in simply fall, as reality bends and their minds just can't handle it. A few of the first attempts result in that: in that the rules of the place are so radically wild and unpredictable that 'visitors' find themselves flung right out again. Perhaps it is their own minds keeping them safe from the distortions of the plane.

Yet suddenly Emma is able to gain access to the labyrinth of twisting passages and structures. Many are broken and torn, others twisting into nowhere: or what appears to be nowhere. Appearances are deceiving, and the twisted finesse of the place is like the elaborations of a bad liar: desperately random, to where they aren't truly random. A path through 'nowhere' may indeed lead somewhere.

Emma Frost has posed:
The disturbance had left Emma shaken. It's not as if she wasn't shaken before, but now she was well and truly terrified on a level she was unaccustomed to feeling. She knew. She knew exactly where her feeling stemmed from, and given the disturbance, she also knew exactly what she had to do to deal with the matter.

The pushback of the astral plane was a bit of a surprise. Then again, she told herself, she wasn't her usual confident self - not that she'd admit that to anyone. She'd go down lying through her teeth before she admitted that she'd been having doubts about herself.

When the 'reality' of the plane suddenly gave way and responded to her, leaving her fully ensconsed there, she breathed a mental sigh of relief, and gathered herself with something more of her usual apolomb.

She's not looking for a path. She knows her destination on a much more intimate level. That's what she's looking for. That's how she's driving her thrust over the too long and too short spaces of the astral: seeking the flayed essense of mind that had been left there as a warning for others.

Shadow King has posed:
    The injured THING is still there, there is a vibe throughout the place that has the same clammy horror to it. Whether the place itself will let Emma find it again is probably another story. There's a heaviness to the place, an unusual quality to the style of thought. And an intent. So much of the astral is made up of all of the consciousness as a whole that access it. This is more that someone or something has changed the rules, how things function at all. And there are some echoes from the creator of the rule set present: one can't create something like this without leaving pieces of oneself in it. There are rips, there are broken places, and there are zones that feel like they would welcome her visit to devour her essence. Yet they are also subtle, quiet about it. The beauty and surreal quality of the plane are still the main pillars.

Is the 'victim' soul still where she left it? No, it has been moved. Or rather, areas around it have been moved. There's an eerie loneliness mixed with a sense of the walls themselves being aware. Or perhaps they were, and are, people. Assuming the rules of the place from before apply now is the greatest folly.

But travel and perseverance will lead onwards. There is a palace, a structure that should have been seen from a distance, but with 'vision' not even being as expected, it wasn't. There are fields around it, where space is bent, where shells of armor and broken flags dot the landscape. And a sensation of the war that was fought here: the 'air' (such as it is) is ripe with loss---- and magic.

And Jean will end up appearing roughly in this battlefield zone, as the rules of the unstable and twisted plane skew where her access point is. Dropping into a field of shadows of memories, of a richly brutal battle fought barely days before. Psychic shadows of the fight dance through and around. The power of Cerebro has shoved through to force purchase here, yes, but the plane is revolting against Jean's presence in a manner like an ocean, trying to slowly pull the sand out from under her feet.

Phoenix has posed:
As Jean appears on the Astral Plane, powering through and claiming her stay by means of Cerebro's enhancement of her already considerable powers, she can sense what a chaotic vortex had gone through the plane. Not so much broken it, as altered it, no doubt what normally works is no longer applicable. Though one key truth remains, the most powerful minds, coupled by the keenest of creative imagination, usually winds up ruling the Astral Plane. That is how Cerebro empowers her to stay, even when the very plane itself seems so keen on spitting Jean back out.

Surveying the area, Jean notes to herself, "looks like M.C. Escher had his way here..." in order to best navigate the area where up is down and down is sideways, Jean transforms her astral projection from that of herself, to one that has been long lingering in her mind, without specific explanation, that of the fiery raptor form of the Phoenix. In flight, there is no falling, making it less of a struggle to maintain footing where she goes. Always easier to make things simpler for oneself, rather than brute force your way through opposition. A student of Xavier would know that.

But just when she thinks she was the only one to breach this new gateway to the Astral Plane, thanks to Cerebro, she senses a familiar mind. <<Emma!>> She calls at her colleague, <<how did you force your stay?>> She tries to approach Emma not by flight through the Astral Plane, but rather by a vivid illustration of herself standing next to Emma in her mind. The general rules may have shifted, but the core essence, Jean expects remains the same. Otherwise, how is the Astral Plane still existing?

Emma Frost has posed:
For a time, Emma drifts in the inbetween awareness of the place. How the surreal and teh beauty of the place mix and mingle with the battlefield of it. The Esher-ness of it all. It's how black and white photos take the stark of horror and turn them into something nearly palatable - how the mind looks upon greyscale and narrows it down into distance. How the reality of blood and gore do not enter into the thing.

Only here is it not blood and gore, and it isn't greyscale. But that's where Emma sits for what is and is not an eternity of thought, almost her usual self, her mind enjoying one placid moment. A mind's blink of time where the paranoia and fear bow down to her mastery of this place.

But it's only a blink. A blink that is shifted into a startle with the presence of an unexpected, but familiar, mind in this place of solitude. This place of personal horror - Emma having no belief or certainty that she is not alone in viewing the devestation of the here and now as it is.

Emma's startle erverberates in her response to Jean <<Jean?>> along with a sense of pushing her away. A 'keep back' even as there is a cautious welcome. << I followed a thought. >>

It's an answer. Not a complete truth. But close enough.

Shadow King has posed:
    The fragments in the battlefield die. They are torn apart by the shifting reality of the plane. Jean is correct, there are still rules. The rules that hold the place together at all, and that determine that if one is killed here, they do die elsewhere. Yes, those rules are in place, and new ones have been tweaked, more than just destroyed. There isn't a sense of 'nothing', here, just a remaking. No insanity, there's too much deliberateness to the whole thing.

The battlefield is full of rich information, really. It plays pieces of what did happen. Something powerful had a last stand here, and did not survive. Still, it left many things. Things that are slowly being pulled into that undertow that Jean will still feel lapping at her, as it adapts it to a breeze, to dampen the strength of feather to 'air'. As if it knew. The eyes of the rule-modifier are on them.

Phoenix has posed:
What puzzles Jean about this new reality in the Astral Plane, is that the likes of Xavier, and possibly the Shadow King could never affect such a change to the underlying rules of the place. What is the being that was powerful enough to cause such a shift? Hopefully it is a who, rather than a what, but she usually prepares for the worst while hoping for the best.

<<The thought that enacted the changes? Or some other thought?>> Jean inquires of Emma, before feeling the tactic of what is trying to push her away adapt to her form. "SHOW YOURSELF!" She demands, knowing full well she is being watched, whether by eyes or thoughts, that adaption to tactics couldn't occur otherwise. The plane never responds on its own. <<Have you discovered anything thus far Emma?>> Jean asks, while looking at the visions of which transpired playing on, wondering if she could recognize the person who took a last stand here, likely trying to guard against the changes that came to pass.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma has felt those eyes. They've been prying at her sanity for weeks now. Unavoidable. Inescapable. They're like picking at a scab. You know you shouldn't, but you can't help doing it anyway, as though the reality of the pain of that healing scar informs the healing. Only here, it's not her own scab she's come to pick.

Jean's questions have Emma drawing her presence to a caution. Guarding herself. <<I've felt this mind before. Once.>>

A lie. It was more than once.

<<The disturbance. It comes from here. I am tracking a thing that should not have been allowed. I believe it responsible.>>

Not quite a lie. A partical truth. Not that Jean is tracking such things, but still. What Emma seeks is a product of what has wrought this destruction, not the instigator. The semantics of it all matter little: if she can destroy the THING, Emma believes she'll be freed, and that, above all else, is a thing she desires.

Shadow King has posed:
    The focus on the images does two things. The residual magic there flares to life around Jean, and in Emma's vision as well. It is a beautiful, glowing show. Wisps of memory, shimmering and strong, full of the life they had. It has a fiery heart of bravery. Yet the one that fought? Her identity was shredded, suppressed. As if her very memory itself was devoured, the whole of who she was obliterated, even the memories of her directly.

    Still, the FEEL of the battle won't be held back. A strong mage held her footing here, refused to be pushed out of the plane the way so many were. This mage held her ground. Shadows of alien minds, the structured directness that is so familiar from the fungal minds, built a cage from their awareness, and continued to force her out, to turn back.

Instead, she fought, and the might of the strange web of minds closed in around her and her power. She was consumed during the onslaught, but not before she could lay this message out to those who came after her.

The response to Jean's demands is the magical battle left for them to view frays, and then truly dissolves. This is what caused the flux: it was the battle itself! The instability to connect to the plane was an aftermath of that. Rules were re-written during that battle, and are continuing to be adjusted at need. The spires of the strange castle-structure still sit there in the center of where the decaying battle images are, though pressing to look too hard at it makes it feel more distant.

Phoenix has posed:
<<This was a powerful mind behind this...Emma, you ever dealt with cleansing a sacrifice?>> Jean has to at least ask, but she expects the Professor might have a better understanding of it. Her instinct is to patch up, to heal, in order to undo the reverbrating changes across the Astral Plane, but how to achieve that? Maybe even Dr. Strange would need to be consulted in this case. Then again, if she knew better, she may have found a good advisor in herself. But as of now, manifistation are still a thing of dreams and nightmares for her.

<<Two fought here, Emma, one remains...I think...do you recognize the influencing force, Emma?>> Jean tries to navigate her way to the very spot the memories still shine through, there has to be an injury present here, even if an ethereal one. She tries to empathicly sense the region, see if anything registers off the scale.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma hadn't looked the way Jean had. She'd been too caught up in her own problems and machinations for this place. For this visit.

When Jean speaks of a battle; another mind; a cleansing... Emma can feel it. It takes effort to drag her mind presence back to those things, and away from her own thoughts and fears, but it is doable, and when she reaches out as jean has, she can feel those things as well. Of especial insterest is that of the powerful mind that was obliterated, and the battle that has rewritten the rules.

Is still rewriting the rules.

Emma knows a certain pulse and draw of fear unlike any she's known before, but steels herself to her usual confidence; further, still, to arrogance meant to cloak and hide the fact that her doubts are beginning to win, her mind peppered with fears that she'll be nothing more than that flayed being she'd encountered before; worse, even, because she'd come here to detroy it... And what if *that* were the battle that were already lost?

<<I've seen what you speak of. However, there are two of us. Cerebro. We should be sufficient.>> Even if a saner portion of her brain is suggesting that Dr. Strange would not only be welcomed, but perhaps they'd wish to invite Charles as well. <<I believe I know what force is in play. It left a warning sign before. I came to release its victim.>>

She sends the barest of images of what she'd encountered before. Not the full impact or horror of it - just enough to convince Jean to help her, but not enough for Jean to draw back and insist they tackle this another time.

Shadow King has posed:
    More than ever, the eyes of the castle are on them. It is starting to truly burn, as if it were a true eye of Sauron. Yet it has no actual representation. The eyes are the land under their feet. The 'air'. The tide. The awareness is one with the current reality they are in.

Yet that's probably what it wants them to think. There are things that nag. Like there is a thin web of all of this that is stretched in a few places when too much is demanded of it. A web that grows just a bit thin when sharp blades start to protrude from the floor of the battlefield, growing longer and longer, reaching out. The air shrinks, as gravity also responds, trying to pull all invaders down into the glistening, horrible spines that arch out of the ground.

The webs do come from the castle (which is the main suggestion that the victim Emma saw before is there, it is that SAME web, though there are fewer links), but not all of them do come from the castle. They come from various places over the plane. Emma's memory of the layout from months before, it feels similar. So much of the plane was put in a blender, yet those threads are the same pattern. Perhaps the plane is not as changed as it seems.

No matter what, though, those spikes are real enough to murder the investigators. The air is getting tense. Not with fear, but with that devouring hunger. Is it luring them in with all this? It might have accidentally showed its hand early. Greed can do that.

Phoenix has posed:
<<Nothing can expect Cerebro, that is a fair point, Emma.>> Jean is quite confident for that aspect alone, a telepath wielding Cerebro registers several levels stronger on the Astral Plane after all, without knowledge of the physical world, one would be hard pressed to guess there's technology involved. <<What was the warning sign, Emma?>> Jean asks, concerned about the magnitude of what they're dealing with. When she gets the images from Emma, Jean notes she'd better join forces with Emma just to be safe.

As Jean makes her way towards Emma, she taunts, "why hide in fear? You cannot face two when you cast out all before?" But to Emma, she thinks, <<perhaps best to return with the likes of Xavier or Strange?>>

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma has no actual desire to leave and come back again, even if it not only makes more sense, but will give them more firepower to attack the entity that lingers here, bending the astral to his will. She's fears she won't be able to make it back in. Worse, she fears she'll be too frightened to return. That her bravado will fail, quite possibly in front of others.

Still, she pretends to contemplate the idea. <<Perhaps. It does have some sort of sense about it.>> Meanwhile her brain is screaming: Both! and friends. More!

Shadow King has posed:
    The taunt gets a response. Absolutely it does. The very ground crawls with the amusement of it. The bugs that they hadn't even noticed were there, that were PART of the very ground, think the situation is funny. They lap into the darker places within the visitors. Seeking out their anger, their fears, their resentment. An emotional touch. Before suddenly that laugh gets louder, and they are flung back towards their bodies and out of the plane, as the reality spins in a kaleidoscope of power.

    Hide in fear? It doesn't have to. They're rude? Well. Out they go.