Fixing Rovena's Bee Part 2.2
It takes a little time for the dreamers to dream, though a little faster if any or all are willing to take medication to speed their slumber. The circlets and other sensors apply a slow and steady mix of anima pulses intended to calm and relax them.
Jessica refuses the medication, and eyes the circlet with obvious suspicion. Relenting, she sets it across her brow and does her best to smooth her expression into one of concentration.
Kyle doesn’t get to sleep easy so he’d taken the medication and set about relaxing himself.
Rovena had taken medication and has a small, bird like, artifact resting on her chest. Those who knew her London flat might recognize it from her walls. She falls asleep first.
And then as they one by one fall asleep, within a few minutes of each other once the first of them sleeps, then they’re on their way into Rovena’s dreamscape.
Once they are asleep and the connection is established they get into the dream state representation of Rovena’s mind. She does not seem to be having a straight dream just yet, there are only images and emotions flashing up and both will realize that a lot of the memories she seems to go back to are connected to them. Them, Sophie, Sandrijn. The important people in her life. A few go back to her family but it are only short flashes, hard to make a sense of them. But the overall feeling is that she did not exactly had a happy childhood.
Both of them look differently than before, most likely dream versions of how Rovena’s subconsciousness sees them. Jessica is dressed in what looks like a mix of dominatrix outfit and a tight black combat armor. Her eyes are glowing as they do when she is angry.
Kyle on the other side is wearing a suit in the colors of the Phoenix but had a bit of shiny protective gear in addition. on his back is a shield, like if she thinks of him as her knight or something.
They might be able to change their looks and that of the other. It is a dream after all. For Kyle and Jessica there’s a sense of deja vu and unease then that sensation of something having been forgotten. For Rovena the dream is much like any dream, all of a sudden it simply is, springing into life as if it had always been there.
The Dream-Jess looks down at her outfit, and rolls her shoulders. She appeared to slip into the trance-state with odd ease - as if this wasn’t a new experience for her. The dream-strate vision waves a hand and the clothing and accessories disappear. In their place burst forth glowing, otherworldly sigils - strange runes and glyphs, as if carved from lightning. On her brow sits a tiara, and on her breast a red, glowing gemstone. The rune-girl-shape looks down and nods. Apparently this is better. Lightning crackles around her in a corona.
It takes Kyle seconds to adjust to the dreamscape, and that feeling of deja vu and unease. This isn’t exactly a new thing for him, either He glances over at Jessica and amusement flickers in his eyes before she changes outfits. And then he looks down at himself. He seems satisfied with his outfit so he doesn’t bother changing it.
The rune-girl rolls her glowing eyes and flicks a wrist at dream-kyle, derisively, before looking around to get a sense of the surroundings.
He rolls his eyes at wrist flick then and says quietly, “We’re going to work together in here, whatever that entails for Rovena’s sake. Agreed?”
Once they go used to the environment, they can make out many interconnected memories, thoughts and emotions. Guards appear and patrol the mind of the sleeping German. They take notice of the two but instead of fighting, they welcome them.
The rune-girl cocks her head, mockingly. She waves a hand again, dismissively. Around her fingers concentrates energy, taking the form of a pale image of the firearm fetish she carried in the lab. Melding the energy of the gun with that her arm, holding it loosely at her side. Then looks to the two guard.
His eyes raise towards the ceiling of the dreamscape as if calling on patience. They drop down towards the guards. A faint smile forms and without waiting for Jessica he heads forward towards the entrance he’s guessing they’re guarding.
There are 6 nexi containing memories that are special. They appear to be individually sealed off by old fashioned wax seals. They bear the symbol of the inquisition of the Templar order. Some of them look old, other new and polished, the lasted two even as is made of modern composite materials. Hard to break. There are shattered remains of a 7th but the memories wrapped in it have been freed already. The oldest, still working seal looks badly damaged already and another has a few cracks. From those two a honey like substance seems to pour into the room..
The rune-girl ghosts along next to Kyle, feet barely touching the floor, motes of energy sparking in her wake. She inspects the great seal, drifting around it to complete a circle.
He slowly examines each one. “Locked memories,” pretty much said to himself.
The rune-girl shrugs, expressively. Pointing at the damaged seals, and making and sweeping, clawing motion.
Kyle clucks his tongue. “Two down, four to go.” He looks at rune-girl. “Where do you want to start?”
She shrugs again. She waves a hand in a grand circle, pointing at Dream-Kyle, then at the seals. She points at herself, and shakes her head, and gestures with the spirit gun.
#####SYNC POINT 0#####
The dream scape starts to shake, to vibrate and everything seems to be flushed with energy. Both of you feel more powerful and a yellow glow comes from every connection. The scent of honey is in the air. They feel the energy rising further, there is a painful scream in their heads, Rovena’s voice.
He gets the gesture and nods. “Right. Got it.” He’ll walk over to one of the seals that appear to be old, not as strong as the two newer ones. And then the shake. He steadies himself, jaw set as he feels the rush of energy and then the scream. “Easy Rovena. Easy. Hang on, Angel.” He reaches onto his back for the shield he’d been given. He looks it at the shield and then at the seal he’s inspecting.
The rune-girl rolls her eyes once more and drifts a little further into the air on currents of gravitic energy, looking for the source of the scream.
There is no source for the screams, they feel like they come from their heads. The seal kyle is inspecting is made out of red wax. It is old and hard but pure force might shatter it. Heat might melt it. The shield has an Angel painted on it, the same angel that is hanging in her living room. His gift to her.
Again, the glowing girl-shape continues to watch and listen, scanning the room from a better vantage point.
“Let’s try the HIVE way first.” He does something very simple, he touches the shield against the seal.
Sadly it is not a shield to break Templar magic. The energy levels rise and the most battered seal crumbles, loud cracks can be heard. If the energy keeps rising like this, it will be bursting, exploding soon.
“Never the fucking easy way.” He pulls the shield back, with some minor concentration in his hand appears a sword, it has a faint blue glow to it, as if it’s chilled. “Little bit a time here.” He pauses a second, and then he rears back, using the extra energy he feels coursing through him and uses the sword to try and puncture a hole in the seal.
She claps, mockingly. Finally. The man does Violence.
The chilled sword connects with the seal and it makes the room shake even worse. He needs to use full force to punch it in but once he does, cracks appear close to the entry point. Honey is leaking there as well. That and a split flash of a memory. Rovena bound in the Temple Hall Crucible and in pain.
Ignoring the clap, he’s focused on the seal and what’s happening when he punctures it. A short pause as the memory flashes and his eyes narrow. He waits another moment to see if the cracks around the entry point get any bigger on their own, of he’s got to swing again.
he girl-shape winces in pain, gritting its teeth past the splinter of memory in an effort to try and discern anything from the vision. Faces, shapes, images. Anything. She slashes sideways, throwing out a glowing net of spiderweb thin lighting in an effort to trap and slow the barrage of memory.
#####SYNC POINT 1#####
Kyle’s next hit breaks of several pieces. And at the same time, the anima levels rise. More of Rovena’s screams come to their heads as do longer flashes of memory. The German is bound in the crucible, whipped by a inquisitor and a group of recruits seems to be watching. Given their clothing style this is about ten years in the past. The cuffs on her arms are covered in ice.
She catches fleeting images, like silvery fish, in the net of energy. Allowing a few moments to inspect them before they wriggle free. She glares down at the man and shouts some wordless exhortation of impetus.
He watches the memory swing by like a video on the TV set jaw setting again. “You don’t know what security measures they’ve put in place,” To rune-girls glaring. “Me swinging at these fucking seals could hurt her more.” He doesn’t swing again, with the anima levels rising the cracks in the seal already he’s waiting to see if more breaks on it’s own.
She snorts, and folds her arms tyhe net hanging beside her. Apparently they’re just going to sit here and hope it all goes okay then.
The memory flash is just over, when the most damaged seal break, explodes. pieces fly through the room like shrapnel. They have a moment to react, then more images float their minds. Kyle recognizes them instantly, it is one of the nightmares Rovena was having and told him about.
Rovena enters a garage, a dark place, a lot motorcycles around. And a gang. The German is young, clearly in her late teens still. The camera is in first person view now, it shows how she catches the gang raping a young man, her friend, not a boyfriend, but friend. Then the fighting begins, frostbolts fly, other frost effects. After less than a minute the gang is dead in a bloody mess.
There’s a brief smile when the seal shatters on it’s own, and he hunches down quickly holding up his shield to protect against the majority of the debris. Then he rises and simply watches the memory.
A shard of memory catches on the next, some frozen tableau of icy combat. A young Rovena tearing into a gang. Jessica’s projection inspects it, lifting the shard up to turn it this way and that. Looking to see if she can catch the expression on the memory-Rov’s face.
Rovena seems to be angry in the memory with the biker gang. But during the fight, it turns into a concentrated, maybe even joyful expression. It changes again when she realizes what she has done. Guilt, disgust and worries for her friend. Since the rune girl did nothing to protect herself, she gets hit by some of the wax shards. Kyle is fine, he got the shield.
The shard burn and sizzle against the rune-girl’s glowing anima. A sneer etches onto her face as the wax runs and drips down her form. Blow back a little by the impact, she drifts back towards the center of the room, discarding the shard of memory. She nods at Kyle.
#####SYNC POINT 2#####
He flicks his gaze over rune-gril, and returns the nod before he turns his attention back to the status of the dreamscape.
One down 5 to go. Or two down and two damaged if you count the 7th. The energy levels seem to stabilize. The seal he was hitting is breaking further apart. They see more of the scene, cruel violence against the women. The man shouts “Remember, you can tell me to stop but in that case you keep the scars.” Then she breaks free from her shakes. The flash stops but soon the whole memory will be available.
Rune girl gestures at the damaged seals. She waves at the damaged seals again, and rolls her eyes.
He rolls his eyes back at rune-girl. “Out of everyone you could have brought me into your mind with, Rovena.” He walks over to one of the damaged seals inspecting the cracks. He brings up the sword and using as little force as possible he’ll attempt to puncture a hole near one of the already damaged cracks.
She mimes a shot with the spirit-gun.
#####SYNC POINT 3#####
A short flash of guilt but also love runs through them at his words. His swords damaged the other damaged seal even further and it will crack soon. But first the seal that contains the crucible memories breaks apart and they are consumed in the new dream, living through Rovena’s full tortures again from her point of view, feeling her pain. They can separate from her to get away enough to only mildly feel the pain and get different angles of the scene. The inquisitor is a master of his trade and gives her all kinds of pain. Then guards appear before she is able to get loose. They have an odd look to them, the uniforms, their skin. Then they realize. It is wax from the seal.
The rune-girl lets cry an anima-flecked scream as the weight of the memory of torture hits her. Buffeted by the winds, she flickers around, bright arcs of light escaping from her. She pulls back, away, to get a better vantage of the memory and to try to reduce the pain.
He didn’t except the crucible seal to crack so abruptly and he releases a harsh grunt of pain as he feels it, his dream-body tensing. Likely his real one too. He grits his teeth watching the scene. For the moment he stays where he is so he can watch it from Rovena’s point of view, his hands tighten around the sword and shield he’s holding. In the real world his hands will clench into fists at his sides, his face contorted in shared pain.
The inquisitor and the students don’t seem to be affected by the guards or the two dreamers. The Guards however draw their weapons and one each approaches Kyle and Jessica. One of them heads for the helpless Rovena.
“Interesting,” he says of the guards. “I’ve got this one,” called out to rune-girl as he focuses on the one coming towards Rovena. He moves to block his path, sword and shield up in a defensive stance as if he’s fought like this before.
She looks at Kyle. Shrugs again.
She shrugs. Then realizes that one of the dream-guards is actually coming for her. She looks … surprised? Outraged. It’s hard to tell past the crackling lightning. The girl-snape -sneers- and drags violent power up from the well of her soul, throwing a hand out to simply rake at the ongoing wax-guard with a slash of actinic talons.
Kyle easily blocks his path in time his sword connects with the shield and Kyle parries the attack of the other with his sword. Sure he can defend against them but they are good and if he wants to attack, he will have to lower his defenses. The other one lunges with his sword to cut Jessica in half but instead of completing the motion the lighting shatters it apart.
#####SYNC POINT 4#####
She laughs. The sound is high, and cold and filled with vicious glee as the wax-guard is obliterated under the assault. She drifts, looking down to see how Kyle is faring with the others.
In a relaxed dreamstate like this, he can do a lot more than he could outside of it. That’s evident as slowly he looks chilled all over, and then a frozen version of himself, like a kyle made of Ice steps out to the side and attacks the second guard flat out with an icy sword. The real Kyle swings his word around, watching wax boy in front of him but hasn’t attacked back yet, he remains in a defensive stance. In the real world, likely the temperature has dropped another notch and so has his body temperature.
Clearly, Iceman has this under control. Electing not to be his wingman, Jess’ projection returns to drifting and watching and waiting. She’s not throwing peanuts from the gallery, but it’s not far off.
Kyle shatters them as well, good move. The memory goes on without interruption. Rovena freezes the shackles, frees herself and slams her fist into the inquisitor. “This is torture resistance training. I freed myself, guess that is a pass.” She yells at the man. He shakes his head. “No, you will just have to do it again and the scars stay.” A second later his head explodes in a bloody mess. Never let a non-bee train a bee. The dream sequence ends.
#####SYNC PONT 5#####
Once the guards were done, the icy version of himself stepped right back into him. Kyle canted his head, his eyes on the scene. He whistles low. “Hardcore, Angel. Good for you.” He turns back to the seals. “You going to break this other one open?”
She shakes her head. And flicks a wrist, dismissively, at Kyle. She spins, eying the dying memory and nods, thoughtfully.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” he says to rune-girl. He looks around at the dreamscape, indicating he was talking to Rovena.
The one remaining seal is about to crack when they return. Maybe kyle should bring that shield up again.
“Heads up, incoming.” He does call out to runegirl and gets his shield up again.
The floating, crackling, glowing rune-girl peeeers down at the dying seal. And holds up both hands in front of her, summoning an arc of coruscating power to shield herself from any imminent explosion.
Both are well protected from the impacts and sucked right into the dream. It starts with Rovena in university, failing at a test because her mind is on a breakup. She leaves, and gets home to kill the roommate who stole her boyfriend. It is not her she hit with the magic, it is him. He was still there in the bedroom. The painful and tragic feelings wash over them but this time, there are no guards.
He sighs quietly at the memory, he’d heard about it already so he wasn’t surprised to watch it flash by.
She watches, staring. This memory seems to catch her interest far more than the previous one. The spirit gun hovering in spectral form near her right hand seems to twitch.
(( This post has the full story starting at A long gone Summer heading https://rovena.ghost.io/frozen-rage/
But her hand doesn’t come up further than her hip, and the rune-girl turns away from the guilt and the sadness. Her expression is - briefly - wracked with sympathetic pain before falling back into icy, sneering detachment.
They get back to the overview. Back into Rovena’s calm sleep phase. The pain of this memory casued the blips that fy by to change, more of Kyle and her appears. oddly mostly the good parts.
She casts a look over the remaining seals and he does the same.
Three are still undamaged. One normal and the two hard ones.
He briefly watched a memory fly by, and then turned his attention back to the seal. He focused on the normal one. “Brace yourself.” He warned rune girl. Sword in hand again, he lunges forward, point first to see about poking a hole.
She nods, dialing down the crackling corona in a vague effort to conserve energy.
Kyle’s attack finally succeeds and a new crack appears. The flash shows Rovena on guard during a lager exorcism. If he keeps working on it eventually he will get more cracks open and it will become apparent, that the exorcism is not going well.
Jessica’s projection stands off a little, waiting to catch any of the fleeting memories as the emerge from the damaged seal.
He works on the seal slowly. He’ll make an attack, and then wait a few moments to see if she’ll break the seal the rest of the way on her own.
Working the seal slowly is definitely a good call and it opens the memory eventually and they dive into another dream. They watch the ritual from her view. No guards appear but when the ritual seems to fail the demon slips in two, one wax version and one ‘real’ the wax version starts to attack Jessica, Kyle and Rovena with a fire breath.
This time she saw it coming. The rune-girl darts away from the fire breath, taking a few moments to watch and assess the wax-demon’s motions. Then she flickers to one side and aims a slash of fuschia-and-violet talons at a leg, if possible.
#####SYNC POINT 6#####
Trusting rune-girl to be able to take care of herself, he’ll slide in front of Rovena holding up his shield, to block the fire. It has that faint blue glow around it, chilled, the same glow surrounds his sword.
Kyle keeps the harm from Rovena and him. Mostly at least. His arm gets burned as the hot fire heats the shield up until it glows. Jessica makes it out in time, not a problem for rune girl.The violet drives into the demos skin, rips it apart on its side. The glow of hellfire exposed now, but it still looks odd and wax like. It keeps burning Kyle though.
Pain contorts his face as his arm is burned. “Now you’re just pissing me off.” He splits again, so his real self can stay in front of Rovena just in case. His real self let the sword disappear and grabbed the shield with both hands. He closed his eyes and the shield began attempting to glow again, staying cold underneath the attack. The chilled version of himself has a pair of icy daggers in his hands that he flings towards the Demons mouth.
She flits around the thing. Pausing, backing away and summoning another blast. She takes her time to bring this attack to charge, building up a white-hot potential between her outstretched hands. As Kyle holds off the demon, she aims the spear of plasma at one of it’s legs - preferably the injured one - in an attempt to bore through and melt the wax of its structure.
The attack hit the demon badly. The leg melts, some wax even vaporises. Thank Rovena’s mind for being physically far too accurate as times. They smell it and the creature falls over. This time it screams at Jessica and breathes fire at the rune girl. It tries to hit Kyle with his waxy, extending hand.
What? No. It’s supposed to be dead. It’s certainly not supposed to breathe fire. She was clearly unprepared for the attack, and flame sheets around her, sparking off her anima like fireworks. She screams.
#####SYNC POINT 7#####
The icy daggers Kyle had thrown, connect with the demons face, hurting the creature even more. The take the demons attention off rune girl again.
To combat the fiery onslaught requires drawing yet more anima. Smoke wreathes her as she emerges from the fire, glowing. Angry. Wobbling on gravitic wings.
The icy version of himself moves right into the extended hand. One ice hand grabs the waxy arm, the other hand tries to drive its chilled fist through the back of the creatures head. Real Kyle is breathing hard, concentrating, the shield no longer glowing, but he doesn’t move yet.
That is a good finishing move and some teamwork from the two. The wax demon dies a long and painful death. In the mean time, the Templar have succeeded with the ritual but with great loss. It look like instead of exorcising the demon from the child, a young, raven haired Templar put a bullet through the child’s head. They can feel the grief of the woman, Rovena.
He blows out a cold visible breath as the demon dies. Slowly that ice version of himself slides back into him. Kyle takes a knee, watching the scene. His brow creases. “You don’t always win, Angel.” Quietly. And then he flicks his gaze to rune-girl. “You all right?”
She flicks a wrist again in irritation. Clearly, even if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t admit it. She motions at the remaining seals.
#####SYNC POINT 8#####
The two remaining seals are still like when they left. The memory flick changed again. Moments of loss, Simone, Kyle’s mom, Sasha, Sandrijn’s assistant Lucy and a lot more.
He rolls his neck around, standing up. The sword reappears in his hand and he walks up to the two remaining seals. He examines one closely, looking to see what it appears to be made of again, how it’s different from the others.
The images of Lucy’s funeral seem to distract Jessica’s projection. She bats at the images, the dead memories away and behind her, leaving Kyle to check the seals.
The seal seems to be made out of wax, but it is a really hard one. He can see that something is woven in, probably a metal fabric.
He clucks his tongue, and then he looks up around at the dreamscape. “Rovena, we’ve broken through a lot here, is there anything you remember about these.” He motions at the seal.
They hear a sad “no”. But then a feeling runs through them. One of betrail and anger.
“Fuck.” He bends low, examining the metal fabric woven into the seal. He runs his finger over it, trying to see if it’s any kind of live wire or something similar. “What’s pissed you off?” he asks, while examining.
There is no more help she can give them. “I don’t know. Something Templar”
“All right.” He sets the sword down, and replaces it with knife. “Hang tight Jessica we’re going to do this one really fucking slow.” He tries get his knife underneath one of the fabric threads.
She rolls her eyes again and drifts closer, inspecting the seal.
He manages to get the knife in there and slowly is able to cut through the hardened wax and the metal fabric. Each time he cuts through metal he is electrocuted. Even the insulation on teh knife does not seem to really work. It is a dream after all.
She siiiiighs, pantomiming some kind of amusement. She holds out a hand, attempting to draw the currents of electricity away from Kyle. She is, after all, lightning. This is something she knows.
“Youch!” The first time he gets shocked. “Mmm, thought so. One of these fuckers had to have a security system.” He keeps going, slowly he’s watching the dreamscape after every cut, to see how and/or if it affects her. He jerks a bit the shocking, wincing a bit too. “You’re going to…” shock, grunt. “Owe me, so much food after this Rovena…” there’s no heat in his tone, just a bit of amused pain.
She drifts closer close enough to physically touch the seal if needs be, to open a path to channel the electricity away. Or better yet, absorb it.
And it works, even charges up Jessica without hurting her. Together this could go rather quickly. A first burst of the memory escapes. Rovena on guard watching over one of the very high Temlars. Jessica may know him from profiles and Kyle as one of the inquisition leader.
#####SYNC POINT 9#####