THE HORRORS OF OBLIVION | [@]MERIDIAN

[damnpire]

[D's communion into Meridian aligned minds is like a very polite knock at the door, except when the door is finally opened, a rush of icy wind blows in. No warmth or mirth can be found in the space of his mind, though it's a surprisingly gentle, dark void despite the chill. It's familiar for anyone who has had a communion with him, but probably kind of eerie for those who haven't.

It's also pretty quiet now actually.]

I made an attempt to Reincarnate the late Tribune. [He delivers this all very clinically, very factual.] It failed, but not because he hadn't been willing.

Something else had been inside him. [Can Nothing be something?] It had cleaned his soul out, if he had one at all, and left him as a husk. There was no soul to shift into another body.

It spoke through him. It said, "We never would have been able to Enter without the Choices that have been made."

[:wooper:]

Comments

[lockedon]

[ hol' up ]

Have you always been able to [ ... ] 'reincarnate' people?

[damnpire]

[ur killing him, dad]

No. [On the contrary, he has put so many people in the dirt (not innocent).] It's an ability I recently learned when I Harmonized more with Meridian.

[lockedon]

I see.

[ That's actually kind of relieving to hear. He can only handle so much OPness from the various other members of the house. And now that that's out of the way— ]

Were you able to get a sense of what had been inside Cyrus's body?

[leicesters]

That's... [Claude has so many questions, but he'll start with the most pressing.]

Is it still inside him? Did it say anything else?

[damnpire]

[Yeah, same.]

That is the only thing it said. It pushed me out of him, but it seemed as if it was still there. It felt hungry.

[sheezit]

[ (D)amn you, advocate connection... This is the kind of Communion he'd love to ignore, what with everything he's already trying to process, but-- ]

What do you mean, if he had a soul at all? And how can you just shift one soul into another body? Does that--

[ A beat. This may be an answer he won't know how to handle. ]

... does that mean that body doesn't have a soul of its own?

[ He may not be asking for Cyrus's sake only, either. ]

[damnpire]

It is an ability I learned after Harmonizing further with Meridian.

[HE REALLY CAME ON STRONG WITH SHEZ THIS MONTH!! Sorry, buddy.]

I can't say about the soul. I did not know him very well. It may have stolen Cyrus's body, or he may have already died, and it used as a vessel.

Or it could have been a disguise. Cyrus may not have ever existed at all.

[hauntedking]

...that is incredibly disturbing. There must be-

[ There's turmoil in his mental voice. ]

What about the dreams...?

[damnpire]

[D is patient beneath the turmoil. Like a doctor delivering bad news.]

Which ones?

[fishfearme]

[...leaving aside attempted resurrection as Byleth himself has been resurrected via dubious means and his father taught him not to throw stones in glass houses:]

This Something... can you describe it...?

[Was it similar to what he had seen in his Vision when he had died during the last Oracle trial? That great expanse of nothing, consuming and devouring, stretching out like a smothering veil of entropy...]

[damnpire]

[BYLETH. Fair.]

Do you know what entropy is?

[Maybe that is too technical. So he tries:]

It felt like Oblivion.

[appeale]

[ Ruby's mind is always an anxious, fearful place, but this is reaching a point of hysteria. ]

Hang on, isn't the choices part also a concern here? Is this something we did?

[damnpire]

[D at least offers a buffer od a detached wall to bounce against.]

I don't know, but I can only assume it a choice we or those before us may have made.

[wolfish]

[ This is a lot to parse.

Yuri was there for an attempt at reviving the dead, though that individual had been gone far longer. It did not end well, and he doubts that was owed entirely to his sabotage,cthough he did indeed do just that. That case would have required bleeding four specific people dry and he was one of them. ]

Well that's something.

[ He starts, not particularly willing to stroll down memory lane. The dead person in his little tale is Byleth's mother, after all. ]

So I'm guessing this is another facet of all the lovely, disturbing things we're getting accosted with. Fantastic.

[damnpire]

[I want to 🤲 all these poor Femblems.]

Moving forward, we should be careful. If his body was inhabited by something as dangerous as that felt, it could potentially do the same to others.

[sterngaze]

[This is a grisly thing to have to ask, but given the icy dread that immediately pours down his spine at this news, Liem feels like he needs to. He has too much experience with the undead to feel comfortable about the implications.]

Something else was inside him? Was the body... still "dead" after you cast the spell?

[This thing isn't walking around somewhere now, is it...?]

[damnpire]

[D gets it.]

As far as I'm aware. It would be good if it was burned.

[As usual. To be sure.]

[kaientai]

[ Well. This news is deeply uncomfortable, but at least it isn't an emotional gut punch like many other things have been this month. He's not very sentimental, and he'd already gotten all that out of his system on the first day. Mostly, it's a lot to consider — and Ryouma will need time to mull all this over properly — but he can't help but ask what feels like an obvious sort of question: ]

Is there a reason you needed to Reincarnate him?

[ It's funny how he knows that's a capital R kind of reincarnate, too. ]

Why didn't the Tree revive him?

I mean—... [ nervous laughter. ] I'm still pretty new here, so maybe I'm missing something?

[damnpire]

[D's mind churns, but with thoughtfulness, not offense.]

He was a native to this place.

[But given the things Cyrus purportedly could do? D did not inspect the body, not there in the Church in front of mourners of all places.]

Did he have a Shard?

NOT HERE.

[redsoil]

[ :smad: ]

[damnpire]

[SEEEEEET]

[gravings]

[ There's a faint impression of Gray stewing in the background. Talk about souls and husks is weirdly relevant to her, but not because of anything that's happened to her in this world or even the last. She isn't certain she should say anything lest she just confuse things, but if there's even a chance it will be helpful... ]

In magecraft, there's the principle of the mind, body, and soul being distinct components in a human body. Under the right circumstances, they can be interchangeable, or exist independently. In my homeland, there was even a dagger that could precisely separate the three of them.

[damnpire]

[Thank god this is business and there is no time to spew out a wad of soft feelings in the mindspace to 2948928 people. He is glad Gray is speaking up, though.]

Claude suggests we continue testing the Reincarnation. Should I be looking for something in particular?

[warmare]

[Other people have been latching on to what it might mean, that D had seen and felt what he had when he tried to... to "reincarnate" the slain Tribune, what it could spell for their future or what the being had been, but Hayame-

A surge of disgust and anger roils in- but it's not... it's not solid or strong, a wave that begins large but breaks and crashes weak on the shore, like the sender isn't actually awake or sober, something about their state rendering them weak in the mind. But despite that-]

You made an attempt to what?

[damnpire]

[Oh........ Hi, Hayame. (sweats)]

When I Harmonized further, I learned an ability which lets a soul inhabit a former or new body, whether they are a Shard-bearer, or a native.

I tried to transfer his soul into a new form, but there wasn't a soul inside him.