FoE RPG G0 - #035 Boop

[19:51]<SpiritOfFate>	Before you realize, Liberty flaps closer to you, looking at you very closely.
[19:52]?	Royal_Lace is looking down at her hooves, absentmindedly flicking her tail. Glancing up she looks at Liberty without saying anything, unsure how to interact with a spirit. -
[19:55]<SpiritOfFate>	Liberty boops Royal_Lace
[19:55]<SpiritOfFate>	A warm feeling runs through her body and she hears a faint hiss as the village disappears from her sight.
[19:56]<SpiritOfFate>	She now stands on a shining cloud, over the nightly sky. Strangely enough, the stars seem to be under the cloud.
[19:56]?	Royal_Lace eeps and twitches her muzzle. Looking around in bewilderment she scans the unusual suroundings, "Ah! where am I?"
[20:02]<SpiritOfFate>	Her voice echoes with no response. Hey eyes, though, see a number of strange things. Under the cloud, she sees pony shadows moving far below in the shadows. Some stars seem to flicker. Lines of blue light seem to sprout from her, to stars that float above her, closer, but beyond her reach, and one of the lines, fainter but broader, seems to form a crystal bridge away from the cloud.
[20:03]?	Royal_Lace blinks and waits for a moment for an answer before giving up and inspecting blue light that appears to be originating from her own body. "This is so... surreal"
[20:11]<SpiritOfFate>	The lines spread around her, some fainter, some brighter, towards what she notices to be little constelations, one seeming a tornado surrounded by lightning, another a vial and a leaf, and one, flickering, that looks like a sorter toy. One of the lines connect to the cloud to form a bridge into the dark distance, and another star is further that way.
[20:13]?	Royal_Lace looks at the bridge and around the cloud, "well it sertainly seems like there is only one way to go...". Pausing before trying a hoof at the bridge she glances over the edge at the pony shapes bellow.
[20:21]<SpiritOfFate>	The bridge is solid.
[20:21]<SpiritOfFate>	Looking to the shadows gives you a sinister shiver. The move sluggishly and seem without spirit. Others seem savage. The movement of the shadow guides your eyes over what seems to be a twisted wall of black metal where these shadow ponies are weighed down by this heavy blackness itself. But among them, you see the stars, or rather what they are, the shine from the eyes of ponies who still smile
[20:21]<SpiritOfFate>	. Sometimes strong, sometimes faint... sometimes vanishing. One of them disappears into the shadows, and you see a wisp of the shining cloud flying away and disappearing.
[20:22]?	Royal_Lace quickly moves to make her way across the bridge to whatever destination awaits her on the other side
[20:25]<SpiritOfFate>	It gets darker as she goes, but her footing is still solid. She finds the silhouette of a known zebra standing there, one branded with a starry constelation of a tentacled being. It stares through the dim light of a floating rift
[20:26]?	Royal_Lace blinks and moves closer to the silhouette, calling out. "Sotho?"
~~~
[20:55]<SpiritOfFate>	Even through all that goes on in the village Sotho's thoughts can't leave the dream he saw. Even now he can still picture his filly, starving as she was.
[20:55]?	Sotho feels the sadness from the dream, his guilt and fears welling up
~~~
[20:27]<SpiritOfFate>	The ears of the silhouette move, but he seems entranced by whatever is seen through the rift
[20:28]?	Royal_Lace glances to the rift
[20:30]<SpiritOfFate>	She sees the sight of a silent at a strange land, very different from the one she just left. There, a small zebra filly lays against the wall of a dilapidated hut. The filly looks bony and frail. Royal Lace's muzzle itches.
[20:31]?	Royal_Lace twiches her muzzle and glances down at it.
[20:33]<SpiritOfFate>	As she twitches her muzzle, the image seems to blur for a short moment. For a moment she sees the faint shine of strings coming from the filly and going above.
[20:33]?	Royal_Lace gaves moves upwards following the strings
[20:37]<SpiritOfFate>	The rift seems to flicker. She sees the shape of the dark alicorn towering over the landscape, which now looks like a set made from blackened scraps. The alicorn sprouts a tentacle and moves it down to the filly.
[20:38]?	Royal_Lace watches in horror, mouth open wide. Was this creature some sort of puppeteer?
[20:42]<SpiritOfFate>	Royal Lace sees the filly moving, or rather, something moving. It looks unnatural, as if the filly was just... something assembled to a zebra shape. Something seems to pulsate from her, flowing out of the rift through a pumping filament, going directly into Sotho's chest.
[20:43]?	Royal_Lace trots on her hooves and looks about for a bit, "whatdoIdo whatdoIdo whatdoIdo?"
[20:47]<SpiritOfFate>	The rift's glow covers a stunned Sotho's face.
[20:48]?	Royal_Lace bites her lips and dose the only thing she can think of, channeling her magic into her horn and preparing to teleport. If Sotho was so intently focused on that rift she would have to go in there and show him how fake this vission really was.
[20:52]<SpiritOfFate>	She flashes into the rift. The ground is certainly not dirt. It feels like rusted chunks of metal and it moves slightly. You can see Sotho's eyes facing you through the rift
[20:53]?	Royal_Lace steps in front of the false filly, facing Sotho. "Sotho, can you hear me?"
~~~
[20:57]<SpiritOfFate>	Through the grim thoughts in his daynightmare, he feels a strange shiver, and another figure shows up, stepping in front of his daughter. "Sotho, can you hear me?" Royal Lace says in his wandering thoughts
[20:58]?	Sotho tilts his head, confused and thinking. "Yes. I can." He thinks.
~~~
[20:59]<SpiritOfFate>	Sotho's silhouette tilts his head. "Yes, I can." He says.
[21:00]?	Royal_Lace looks around her at the hut and the fake filly, her hooves motioning to her suroundings, "And you know who I am, If this is where I think it is then is it at all possible for me to be here?"
[21:03]<SpiritOfFate>	The ground rumbles under you, a feeling of dread grows and you see the rift getting smaller.
~~~
[21:02]<SpiritOfFate>	She gestures to your daughter. "And you know who I am, If this is where... is it at all poss... here..." Her voice gets quieter.
[21:03]?	Sotho thinks. "W-what? I can't hear you much."
~~
[21:04]?	Royal_Lace eyes open wide as she looks about, trying to figure out what is going on
[21:04]<SpiritOfFate>	Sotho's silhouette mutters. "...what... can't..."
[21:05]<SpiritOfFate>	Royal Lace quickly finds the eyes of a gigantic dark alicorn staring straight at her.
[21:05]?	Royal_Lace shouts at the zebra, "Its not real Sotho, its a nightmare created by some... THING that is pulling on the strings. Snap out of it!"
[21:08]<SpiritOfFate>	The rift gets even smaller. You can feel the twisted grin from the being staring down at you.
[21:09]?	Royal_Lace look up at the thing and gives it a serious and peterved look before blinking out of the rift.
~~~
[21:07]<SpiritOfFate>	Royal lace seems panicked, trying to shout, though you still can hear little. "....its... nightmare... thing... snap out..."
[21:09]<Sotho>	"Nightmare?" He asks, thinking to the dream, the beast was there, but... he... he had never even seen his daughter in almost two years now, how did he know how she looked like? What she sounded like... It didn't add up.
[21:11]<SpiritOfFate>	The Royal Lace disappears. Now the whole memory of the dream seemed blurred. You aren't quite sure what the filly sounded like, now that you think about it.
~~~
[21:11]<SpiritOfFate>	You find yourself back at the bridge
[21:11]?	Royal_Lace looks for the siluet of sotho again.
[21:14]<SpiritOfFate>	There's a look of confusion in his face. He shakes his head and sighs. You can see him mouthing "it isn't real," though you can't seem to hear him out of the rift. The filament is still attached to his chest, but it's now still, like a thread.
[21:16]?	Royal_Lace nods, "Ok.... so, that worked? Gah, im no good at this metaphisical spirtual whoplah". Stand on her back hooves and shouts, "SOTHO IF YOU CAN HERE ME I DO HOPE YOUR NOT UNDER A SPELL OR SOMETHING!". Landing back on her hooves she smiles and looks around for more cosmic unjustices to deal with.
[21:17]<SpiritOfFate>	She feels her muzzle itching again. Everything gets brighter.
[21:18]?	Royal_Lace scrunches up her nose again, looking down at her muzzle. "This again?"
[21:20]<SpiritOfFate>	Royal_Lace can see the daylight again, and she wakes up,  still standing on her place, looking at Liberty)
[21:20]?	Royal_Lace blinks, her face regestering a simple message of WTF
~~~
[21:12]?	Sotho thought harder and shook his head. "It doesn't make sense. None of it does." He sighs and thinks hard. "Then... it isn't real."
[21:19]<SpiritOfFate>	Sotho thinks back about Royal Lace, and about the grim gamble he made. Then his focus returns to the present.