stuffhappeneddontworryaboutit

Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> *Oh look, a certain Brendan is looking for a certain Exalt™*
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> *It's Lake, he's looking for Lake*
	Lake	has been known to exist. She's in the training area, launching hadoukens of acidic flame at training dummies.
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> *Ahhh, he's arrived at something completely absurd looking again today-*
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> ... Morning. *He greets, stepping into the training area after saying hello properly*
	Lake	stops and turns to Brendan. "Good morning. Did you need something of me?"
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> So I've been hearing a lot about your dealings with things related to the dead and death and I wanted to ask if there's something you could help me with. There's someone I...
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> ... Well, I want to make sure that a certain someone's passed on properly.
	Lake	Hm. That would depend on who that someone is and what you mean by 'passed on.'
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> ... A friend, lets say.
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> And by passed on, I mean, I want to make sure, that their soul moved on and didn't get stuck here.
	Lake	Do you have a bone of theirs?
	Kagumob	Hm. I partially want one of these Shambler pelts.
	Kagumob	They would make a good blanket.
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> *He shuffles through a small pouch he had tied to his gi that contained his belongings, pulling out what appears to be... an /inro/ of all things? It's old, heavily time worn, with a design that's completely worn out. He holds a thumb to his mouth and BITES hard enough to break the skin, smearing his blood on it and allowing it to open, revealing... a perfectly bleached, dry finger...
	Tom_Atlus	...bone.*
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> *he, with his uninjured hand, offers it to Lake with a blank expression*
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> Will this one do?
	Lake	took it.
	Lake	That will certainly do so. The spell that I intend to perform was the first I ever learned as a Necromancer.
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> *He sucks on his thumb for a few moments, nodding and letting Lake do whatever it is she needs to do. It's obvious that he's /violently/ nervous to hear what the answer was.
	Lake	summoned Barthin and had him grab Brendan, before she teleported them a good distance. Roughly between Cat Town and Civitas, but still closer to the former.
	Lake	We will be doing this out here.
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan>  /Ngh/ -
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> *He looked almost disoriented by the teleportation, but, seems to calm down after a bit*
	Lake	drew a spiral on the ground with a chain, lacerating it before going through a short ritual. She'd then drop the bone into the center and step back before a large, blue bonfire erupted. It was easily visible for miles around, but rather than threatening or warming... it simply looked sad.
	Lake	Peer into the flames and you will see your loved one's ghost, should they still wander. If not, then you will know that they've moved on.
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> Loved-
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> *He grumbles for a moment, closing his eyes and deciding not to protest-*
	Lake	shrugged.
	Lake	That is what this spell is normally used for.
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> *He gazes long into the bonfire, getting dangerously close to plunging his face into it entirely just to make sure he could see, but, as the flames dance and flicker he and Lake would see... A ghost. Dormant, almost, and trapped, /bound/ , /stuck/ in place, holding a twisted pose of a dance unfinished.*
	Tom_Atlus	** For a few moments, he was frozen, before, breaking out into a laugh. The kind of laugh you'd only hear from someone that's been so hurt they can't even process how much the pain stings. The ghost itself is "Damaged", and facing away, but, she can tell it's of a young man, though its features have "Degraded" somehow.*
	Lake	eyed the ghost, then looked to Brendan.
	Lake	Who is this, exactly?
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> *He stops laughing as Lake speaks to him, shoulders shaking*
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> Someone who got too close before... before all of you started showing up, back when we were still mostly operating under "secrecy" rules
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> ... I fucked around a lot as a kid when I could, snuck out, went to arcades, messed around near schools, that kind of thing. Despite how much of a fuckin' shit I was someone managed to become friends with me, but, I used my magic in front of them by accident and my parents got involved with trying to maintain secrecy without embarrassing the family.
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> ... *He closes his eyes, pressing his hands into his face* I knew what they did to people that they needed to "get rid of" and stop being problems, and, I didn't have anything else I could do to help them, they were just- they were too influential y'know? I didn't want him to end up like that, he was one of the only people that I felt I could relax around, he was too fuckin' good...
	Tom_Atlus	...for something like /that/ so I...!
	Lake	So you? *She raised an eyebrow.*
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> *He finally lets loose a breath he'd been holding the whole time, hands pressed against the sides of his head*
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> ... I killed him. Killed him as painlessly as I could and ran for my fucking life. I wasn't going to be head of the family anymore anyway. Not after /her/ . Not after it got revealed what the current bitch in charge was capable of. I didn't have a future, I didn't have any reason to withstand it anymore. So I just. Gave up. Took everything I could with me, and ran. Lost track of...
	Tom_Atlus	...myself cause I wasn't ready to deal with what I'd found. Pathetic, right? Hypocritical, right?
	-->|	Nic-mob (~androirc@AB1B0123:F9858A42:3408BFF:IP) has joined #SheolApoc
	|<--	Lake has left irc.rizon.net (Remote host closed the connection)
	-->|	Lake (~Lake@26CA873D:6D19DEE1:590857C1:IP) has joined #SheolApoc
	Lake	considered the state the ghost was in, then looked to Brendan.
	Lake	. . .
	Lake	You kept it from passing on.
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> And because he didn't pass on fast enough my family's...
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> ... They've /bound him/ like that anyway- what, is this supposed to be some sick way of enticing me to come /back/ ?!
	Tom_Atlus	*hurls* a handful of dirt at the fire
	Tom_Atlus	*<Brendan>
	Lake	considers this silently for a few moments.
	Lake	Where is this person being kept.
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> *He closes his eyes, slowly getting up to his feet*
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> ... I'd need time to look. We had multiple estates when I was still around and I need to see if the same aliases still own the same places.
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> ... This time I'll make sure he passes on right.
	Lake	considers this, and looked down at her hand.
	Lake	clenched it into a fist and went to try and punch Brendan in the gut.
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> *He, with his training under meridian, and perhaps some experience he had before meeting her, barely managing to bring up a knee along with using both of his arms to barely, /barely/ withstand even a casual blow from someone like Lake, his reflexes still intact despite how emotionally /fucked/ his headspace was*
	Tom_Atlus	*manages to
	Lake	How confident are you that you could keep that up?
	Lake	flexed her right hand, popping her knuckles in the process with a number of loud cracks.
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> *His expression darkens, as he lowers his hand and takes a slow breath, entering Orbit Stance as easily as he breathes*
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> /Very/
	Lake	Then, allow me to take you seriously. Don't regret it.
	Tom_Atlus	<Brendan> *He grits his teeth and growls, for a moment, taking the initiative the moment he could and straining one of his eyes, binding his existence to a space behind Lake to come in for a distinctly /sneaky/ surprise attack, twisting his body to deliver a slicing *chop* that swipes his fingers across her spinal cord in an attempt to disable her, already going as fully lethal as he can...
	Tom_Atlus	...knowing that she would likely handle it all too well*
	Lake	responds with a simple move. Aggressively building itself around her, just at the moment of impact, her shadows and deathly essence become black-iron armour, binding to her flesh as the eyes glow green, the rightmost blazing with a green flame. Her voice comes out, deep, filtered, and carrying the essence of death itself. Needless to say, the attack is turned aside.
	Lake	Show me more of that resolve, /boy/. *She'd say, turning swiftly, pulling a hand back and going for a punch with some actual effort behind it.*
	=-=	YOU are now known as Brendan_Atlus
	Brendan_Atlus	tenses his face for a moment, as the punch comes in, his mind racing with possibilities before simply cutting at all the extraneous thoughts. If that punch hit him at full force like that, he'd die. Simple as that. He attempts to bind her fist to its current position, using his mystic eyes to do so. Only a fool would try to tackle a situation like this with only their beginning martial arts....
	Brendan_Atlus	...That said, it's likely that for an Exalt like Lake, Shaping Resistance being a thing would merely make the punch feel like it was being weighted down by a sudden invisible force, giving him just enough time to sweep underneath it, slicing at her arm pit as he passes around her to go for the vulnerable joints of her armor with a swipe of his hand, only focused on the simple, pure action of...
	Brendan_Atlus	...*cutting*
	Brendan_Atlus	** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds0mC5Mh6p8
	Lake	didn't really have much in way of 'vulnerable' parts at this point, given the full-body shadow-plate being more or less a second skin at this point. Still, there were sparks, and that accounted for something. Even so, it was artifact armour, so getting through that was going to be an effort.
	Lake	responded in kind by following up behind Brendan, that armour not slowing her down in the slightest as she went to grab him by the face and simply throw him into the ground in a masterfully-performed and executed dunk. By now, her caste mark was glowing through her armour. She didn't mind using a bit of peripheral for the asethetic.
	Lake	Don't die, or you won't be able to make sure of /shit/.
	Brendan_Atlus	snarls in pain as he's grabbed by the face, his eyes being covered making him unable to use his existence bind teleport technique as he simply swings an arm behind him as he's dunked, slicing into the dirt as he impacts to make the landing soft enough for him to cope with without being knocked instantly unconscious. " /Fuck you/ !" He shouts in fury on reflex, keeping her hand bound to his...
	Brendan_Atlus	...face as he brings his other hand swinging down on her hand in a furious but well trained strike to attempt to sever it from her body completely, armor or not, along with a sudden sweeping kick aimed directly for her shins. If sparks are all he gets, then that's fine. Sparks are what he'll send flying. He'll swing and swing and attack and attack and avoid whatever he can avoid even if he...
	Brendan_Atlus	...has to drag out every dirty trick he has in the book.
	Lake	pulled him back up letting him squirm and cut and kick as she just held firm in place, relaxing her grip and waiting for him to fall. "Hm. Your tenacity is certainly there."
	Lake	But you need to train more before going after something like that on your own.
	Brendan_Atlus	hits the ground, entering his stance against almost instantly. There's a maddeningly /furious/ expression on his face, eyes ablaze with hatred and anger that seems all too directed at *her* for no good reason before he grits his teeth hard enough to make an audible creaking sound and forcing himself to calm his shit down, burying his frustration *deep*
	Brendan_Atlus	Kkkrrrrrghghhhhkkkk...
	Brendan_Atlus	puts his hands down and drops his stance
	Brendan_Atlus	has at least a dozen things that are bubbling, boiling, *rolling around in his head that he's trying to get out all at once* but he's holding every single one of them back because, damn it, Meridian trained him better than that
	Brendan_Atlus	can't help but fucking *think* them though
	Lake	pressed a finger to Brendan's forehead. Her armour dispelled, ripping her body apart enough to cover every inch of her flesh in blood.
	Lake	You need more of an outlet than simple training.
	Brendan_Atlus	You got a suggestion then?
	Brendan_Atlus	's brow twitches at the touch, kinda. Reaching up and scratching the spot on reflex because itching
	Lake	seems to regenerate in mere moments, but doesn't bother cleaning the blood just yet..
	Lake	There is much more to life than simply fighting and letting your anger fester. If you can't channel it towards your training, find some other pursuit. Art, perhaps.
	Lake	Have you been to my city yet?
	Brendan_Atlus	shakes his head, scratching the back of his neck with a tired look on his face. Getting that anger out like that in the fight for a moment was a little emotionally harrowing
	Brendan_Atlus	No, not yet. Heard that it's nice at least, if you can make food like /that/ with stuff from it.
	Lake	I believe a change in scenery is due, in that case.
	Lake	teleports the both of them again, and... they're in Civitas' main plaza area where much of the city is visible, alongside that beautifully-sculpted statue of herself and Crim and the plaque below it.
	Lake	*The university is also clearly visible.*
	Brendan_Atlus	shudders, finding himself disoriented by the teleportation again but getting his bearings relatively quickly after a moment of stumbling*
	Brendan_Atlus	...
	Brendan_Atlus	** It just hit him that this entire city was only built a relatively short time ago considering he only heard of it relatively recently-
	Brendan_Atlus	braces himself against a nearby bench if possible as that realization hits him
	Lake	I built that statue myself yesterday just before coming to the Base to cook everyone food- and I intend on making a mural for the University, soon.
	Lake	In short, I'm no stranger to artistic pursuits.
	Brendan_Atlus	grunts in that sort of teenage pretending to be disaffected but actually kinda fucking impressed but not sure how to express it sort of way, pressing a hand to his forehead as he stares at the statue as he still tries to process how fucking /fast/ this place came about
	Brendan_Atlus	Some days I wonder if I took a weird turn one day and walked into a different timeline when I see something like this...
	Lake	It would be the other way around. We come from a whole other world entirely.
	Lake	That being said, should you wish to pursue anything less combative, my university is always open to new students. I doubt Meridian would dislike the idea of you studying and learning something in your spare time away from training.
	Brendan_Atlus	already knows it sure as fucking *shit* won't be anything related to dancing
	Brendan_Atlus	... *That said, he kinda, fidgets in place for a moment, as if a little embarrassed to talk about it-* ... I'll think about it. But. Uh. You got a brochure or anything for the options? What's your music program like?
	Lake	As good as you need it to be. Thanks to Lavender, our school offers whatever course you might want to study, and you can take as many or as few classes as you want.
	Brendan_Atlus	... I'll talk to master about what my schedule's gonna look like and figure it out from there. How much we talking for tuition? I'm not gonna take advantage of something like this without dumping something for it.
	Lake	blinked.
	Lake	Why would we charge for educating our citizens and allies?
	Brendan_Atlus	...
	Brendan_Atlus	presses a hand against his face and starts cackling his usual evil sounding cackle
	Nic-mob	Cier: *might be at the school today, doing a lecture*
	Brendan_Atlus	Haaahhhh fuck me.
	Brendan_Atlus	You people are god damn crazy. God /damned *fucking* / crazy.
	Brendan_Atlus	hadn't even thought of that as an idea, frankly. Why *wouldn't* you try to get as much as you could for something as important as education? You could make so *much money* out of something like that-
	Lake	People are poor. Economy is nonexistent beyond credits. The more intelligent minds we're able to produce here, the better-off Civitas and the entirety of the Unconquered will be.
	Lake	I will, after all, need those minds for my plans later for the Unconquered. A capital worthy of being called as such. But, to do that, Civitas is needed.