Void Rift (rp) - Intermission

“I can’t speak for the others, but I try to limit the group from swiping whatever shinies they lay eyes on. Mostly it’s food, clothing, or getting back at someone trying to blackmail or abuse another kid. Some of the other like to play hero so we’ve sort of been a mock resistance force, but really there’s not much we can get away with in that regard.”

 

Praecantatia sighs.

"It was a foolish move. I was worried she'd opened the rift to the Hive Master, and she was acting like she didn't know me. I thought...maybe I could jog her memory, or at least scare her into sealing the rift again." Praecantatia says.

 

“Open the rift to- okay, hold on just a minute. You definitely jogged her memory, just not in the way you hoped. I was out studying rifts with Virei’tus, so I’m not sure how things got started on this steep downhill slope. Would you be okay with stepping back and explaining what all exactly happened?” Emerald asked, seeming shocked. “I thought we were all in this fight together, I warded Xlentia to not be able to manipulate that rift without me! I know she occasionally slips into these childish fits, so I’m not sure where I went wrong here.”
Pause.
“Okay... no, I’m sorry. I need to take a breath. Please, Lady Praecantatia, would you be willing to help me figure out how exactly we got to this point?”

 

"What do you mean you were out studying?" Praecantatia asks, puzzled, "You were with Xlentia when this happened. I remember you trying to calm her down before she attacked me, was Mortius too hard on you?"

 

“I... I hope you can forgive me for this. Do you remember when Xlentia erased Tenebrae and Lux’s child? She did so because he ignored her warnings to stop opening rifts. He opened three - one of them to a version of mine where the Hive Master had won. I thought he would kill me, and I hoped to finish my work regarding rifts before they discovered my home. Clearly I was and am too late.”

 

"So that wasn't you?" Praecantatia asks, sounding guilt-stricken.

 

“You’re telling me she was in my library?!” Emerald asks, sounding panicked. “Shit! First torture, then losing my research on sealing new rifts, and now my library’s vandalized?! Wonderful, absolutely wonderful...” Emerald groans. “I’m sorry, I need to go see just how bad the damage is. Please don’t mind control me again, alright? Whatever it is I did to piss you off I’m sorry and I’ll fix it, just not right now!”

 

"I'll have something arranged for you when you get back. In the meantime, take this." Praecantatia says, sounding guilty.

Emerald suddenly feels like she's got a shot of adrenaline coursing through her body, her senses stronger and more acute, and her magic feels a lot stronger with a lot more to spend.

 

“If it’s another bout in hell, please postpone it until next week!” Emerald says before warping off.

It takes two days before Emerald tries reaching out to Praecantatia again.
“Okay, you wouldn’t happen to know where Xlentia went off to, would you?” Emerald asks, still sounding fairly scattered.

 

"Stephanie said she saw her in Atavul's palace when she was there. If you have the time though, the gift for you is ready." Praecantatia explains.

 

“She what? No, no gift. No time. Please tell me what happened leading up to you triggering my ward that transfers a suggested mind control attempt on Xlentia to me. I can’t let Xlentia recover while she’s in the Hive Master’s hands, I need you to make it quick!” She says frantically.

 

"Temporus and I created a new set of armour for Xlentia to better protect her from harm and any psychic interruption from the hive master. She threw off the armour when she recovered, acting like she didn't know me and saying that she allowed the hive master into our reality. I pretended to mind control her through telepathy, trying to scare her into 'fixing' the rift. She attacked me, and Gaia came through the rift after I had told her Xlentia wasn't acting normal. She saw me laying on the ground after being attacked and got incredibly angry, before taking me back to my islands." Praecantatia recounts.

 

"Okay, so that explains the armor in her chambers. And all of Xlentia's blood everywhere. She shouldn't act that extreme, even after that much isolation. Did something happen to Kiin?" Emerald asks, starting to collect herself.

 

"Yes, she was killed quite a while ago. We had to gather her soul from the spiritual plane before Xlentia would let us take measurements for the armour in the first place." Praecantatia says, thinking back.

 

"There you go. A body can recover from a rejoined soul much faster than the soul itself or the mind can. She felt different, she was recovering from a fragmented soul, and she didn't even recognize the way she looked. A gift of a jeweled helm is how the Hive Master mind controlled her in the first place, and what happened sounds extremely similar to that. If you showed her her face in a mirror, that would've brought back the trauma full force." Emerald says.

 

"I did, to show her the new armour," Praecantatia explains, "However, she was already given a weaker version of the armour a while ago. It's why we thought to upgrade it."

 

“Was the new armor painted like her old armor? Even a cosmetic difference could trigger it.”

 

"Silver, covered with runes and mage crystals." Praecantatia describes.

 

"So... changing the appearance of someone in a way that's different from what they remember is super dangerous and leads to amnesia, panic, or both. In Xlentia's case, panic. The armor is still intact, it looks like Xlentia cut it at the seams. I can arrange what little rare metals she has left be sent to Temporus since I'd rather not have all of you at my throat, but the entire palace has been sacked."

 

"That would help, Temporus was rather angry when Xlentia shed the armour he spent so much time on." Praecantatia says.