[Nysel's Temple] The Dreamlord's Challenge

[Kavala]

Timestamp: 2nd of Winter, 511 AV
Location: Nysel's Realm
Purpose: Building The Cytali
From: The Hearts of Weavers

Ronan and Kavala woke together, laying side by side in the tall grass. The sun glowed down on them, though it was not overly hot. The stars in the sky were unfamiliar but blazed even though it was seemingly midday. Horses the color of clouds galloped by in the sky, their hooves not touching the ground and their passageway causing the wind to chase them and laugh in delight.

Kavala blinked, stood up, and Ronan found that his hand was not attached to hers at all where she'd sliced the palms. Instead, both hers and his were free of blemishes. Kavala was still Kavala though, but she looked different now. Dressed to the hilt in leather armor that bristled with weapons, she was no longer Konti at all but instead was very human. Her blue eyes were the same, but her hair cascaded down her back tightly controlled in a braid that looked more like a bullwhip than human hair. She moved like a dancer as she rose, and then turned to look at him.

The Healer seemed puzzled for a moment, as if she didn't recognize him, and then lifted her own fingerless gloved hand, and frowned at the lack of webbing. She stripped the glove off in one motion, stared at the human hand, and then caught her braid with it and pulled it over her shoulder so she could look at it. He could see then the brand across the back of her neck. It was a stylized symbol with a crescent moon burned into its center.

"Very funny, My Lord." Kavala said, and then turned, as if expecting to see something there that was not. Suddenly though, it was, and Ronan could see what could be nothing else but a temple rising up from the grass where none had been there before. "I look like her. Crescent. It was who I was in another life, Ronan. You should see yourself also. You are not as you were on the mortal realm." She added, offering him a hand as if to assist him to get on his feet.

"Nysel's Temple. He's allowed us to come together. And for that I am grateful. They'll be a guardian, and you'll have to get past her to get in. I don't recommend fighting her either. I've watched warriors put in their place by the slightness of this guardian. Her name is Trelissa and she has a wicked powerful musical instrument. She won't fight you with weapons... but with sound." She said, looking thoughtful.

The she started walking forward, towards the temple that showed no entrance and nothing but a lone figure standing outside the walls waiting for them. When they reached the lone figure, Kavala smiled to her and rather than bow or issue a formal greeting, the Konti turned human embraced her. "It is good to see you Tre!" Kavala said, then grinned. "So beautiful... I never get over how beautiful the temple is." She said to the guardian, blinking at its shining looming form behind the girl.

Trelissa was a human girl in her late teens standing at the edge of the circle. She wore a black tunic and black shorts, and her feet were bare. Perhaps her most noticeable feature was her hair, which she wore at shoulder length, and which was a bright, almost confrontational metallic pink. In one hand, she held a musical instrument; it vaguely resembled a guitar, but the body was an irregular jagged shape rather than a simple curve, and it had eight strings over the fretboard, plus an extra drone string. It was entirely black, and glinted in the firelight.

(Originally written by Liminal.)

Kavala stepped aside then and beckoned Ronan forward. "This is Ronan, Trelissa. We seek an audience with Nysel." She said, then grinned, as if knowing something about that. But she glanced at Ronan, and let him make his own introductions. He was the one that had to impress and deal with Trelissa.

[Ronan]

As Ronan laid down in the bowels of Sanctuary, a darkness shifted across his visage, like the veil of night.

And when he blinked awake, a familiar landscape greeted him. Tall grasses swayed, and a bright radiance poured forth from the sky. The strangest things were the stars, glistening in the day. And then horses. Rushing past like wisps of wind and magic. It reminded him of home, in a strange sort of way.

There was a mysticism in the very air. This place was quiet, familiar, yet so foreign to him too. Nothing was as it seemed, shapes in the corners of his eyes, a landscape painstakingly beautiful.

He glanced to his side, and was taken aback by his companion. She was Kavala, but not... she was... she was... human. And the face, the hair. She was so radically different. And yet, beneath it all, he could see Kavala behind those cool eyes. He could feel her.

He watched as she moved her braided hair aside, and he saw the crescent on the back of her neck. That was her name, he remembered. Crescent, a trained assassin. When she said he didn't look himself either, he nearly gasped aloud.

His clothes had changed. Though he was not the most well dressed person on Mizahar, he was now in rags. The clothes were in tatters, he thought glumly. He touched at his face, his usual stubble had started to work its way into a beard, and his hair felt different. His face felt different, the proportions were all wrong. Who was he? Some kind of beggar? But on his back was a large, circular shield, fashioned elaborately, and a sword crossed it held in a leathery sheaf. They were unfamiliar weapons, and he felt uncomfortable carrying them.

He accepted Kavala's hand reluctantly, and climbed up to gaze out at this alien world. When he began to turn again, a temple filled his vision, beautiful and ornate. It had not stood a moment ago, but here it was, foundations firmly in the grasses.

Ronan listened to Kavala's guidance carefully. This guardian... he wondered what she would ask of him. He would not reach for his sword. And besides, the weapon was foreign to him. But if he had wielded it in a past life, would it work here?

Kavala was familiar with the girl as they got closer. The hair! The hue was so unnatural, he thought with a hint of excitement. Kavala introduced him, and the girl looked almost bemused at him.

"Uh... hello," he said, and then quickly realised he was coming across as weak. "I mean, this temple is marvellous. This world... My convictions brought me here, I think." He glanced at the once-Konti, hoping for reassurance from her. He wanted to grab her hand.

No. He didn't. That was foolish. Foolish thoughts, he thought, censures in silence.

"Kavala saw something in me, and I think I already knew. The road has led to this temple, Lady Trelissa."

[Cayenne]

It was and it wasn’t such a strange sensation to wake up in such a place. After all, horses running with the wind were in the dreams of every Drykas, old and young, who lived their lives with them. They weren’t just beasts of burden - they were family, and so much more. They were the embodiment of hopes and dreams of the future; the beautiful and sometimes painful memories of the past; and the unbridled jubilation of living in the moment. As the swift, long-maned horses raced onwards in their perpetual pursuit, they left behind them the sweet scent of horses and glittering trails reminiscent of stardust from their tails that reminded both of the Drykas-born of the Web and of home.

“Hi, Kavala,” Trelissa smiled to see her, shifting the instrument awkwardly to return the embrace. “It’s good to see you again. You’ve been busy, haven’t you?” The Guardian clearly knew who she was, despite the fact she looked radically different from the last time they had met. The pink-haired girl, however, hadn’t changed a bit. Her hair was tucked back behind her ears, and the metallic pink picked up glints of the reflection of the temple behind it. The strange building seemed to be made of pure light, the myriad of colours changing with every passing moment, flashes of red here, flashes of blue there... it didn’t stay the same for any length of time, nor was there any determinable pattern to the odd, but beautiful arrangement. One fused into the next, flickering and dancing. It was surreal. There was a gate leading to it, and it was here where Trelissa made her stand. What was contained within was concealed well - there was no way to discern its contents. There was no apparent entrance to it that Ronan could see from here - just walls.

Ronan had never seen anything like it.

She looked him up and down once Kavala stood to the side, shifting the stringed instrument back into position as Kavala-now-Crescent made the introductions. “Oh, a guest,” she smiled at him. “Hi, I’m Trelissa,” she listened as he told her that his convictions had guided him here, and angled her head slightly. “Did they, or did she? Is there a difference between the two?” Her face was bland, inferring nothing. He could take that as he wished, it seemed. What did she know? What was her role here? “Be that as it may... If what you believe to be true is so, then what you seek is in there,” she indicated behind her with a faint motion of her head. “But I cannot let you pass.”

[Kavala]

She moved aside with the grace of a cat and squatted on her heels some distance from Ronan and the Temple's Guardian. She reached up and ran her hands down the thick black braid hanging at her neck and tilted her head slightly sideways studying the two. She knew Ronan and she knew Trelissa. But what drew her eyes here and now was Nysel's Temple. Kavala let her attention drift, her intensely blue eyes moving from the duo past the massive gates and resting on the structure itself.

She felt so humble staring at it.

They were in the Ukalaks, Kavala knew, at least some pocket of it. And although there were no boundaries they could see because forest stretched out infinitely on all sides of them, it lent an aire of being incredibly vast. Here, nothing was as it seemed. Kavala concentrated a long time, shutting out Ronan and Trelissa. Her eyes took on the temple and she focused her Auristics carefully, being painfully new to the magic. She'd been told in the books she read that looking at something with auristics tended to show you things in a color scheme, black with what you were looking at lit up like a candle in multiple colors. Kavala didn't see things that way. She felt the thing she stared at using Auristics in the way that someone would hear music. It was almost colored, almost sound, almost so many other things. But it was not quite something she could explain to someone who was a non-empath.

Her gift fell towards empathy, mostly with animals, but in the aursticis it fell in waves of emotions through her. Nysel's temple was full of them. And so Kavala, taking the opportunity to do so, looked, absorbed and studied the temple as she waited for Ronan and Trelissa to speak. So she waited, balanced in a neat tucked squat on her heels, and studied the temple while praying softly to Nysel and looking with her heart.

"Give him the strength to follow through with what his mind and heart wants. if he needs patience, grant it to him by showing him where the peace inside of him lies. If he needs courage, help him find it within where his heart is. If he needs intelligence, help unlock his minds true potential. He is a good man, Nysel. He'll serve you well if you give him a chance too." Kavala whispered softly, her auristics trained on the temple.

[Ronan]

Was there a difference between the two? The guardian of Nysel's temple presented a good question, and Ronan thought carefully, knowing his every response was being measured silently by this strange being.

He glanced at Kavala only momentarily, her eyes lost in another world. "I don't think there is a difference," he began, nodding his head as if to affirm his own words, "Kavala has been a part of this road. There are a few people, a few memories - all of them are foundations in that road. They're all important."

She told him that what he sought lay behind her, in the depths of that mysterious temple, but then she refused him entry. For a moment he was taken aback, but then he realised this was not simply the soil of Mizahar. Here he trod on very different ground, a pawn in a game far greater than he could comprehend.

"Why is it that I cannot?" he asked, and then decided to change tact, "my heart is true Lady Trelissa. I can assure you of that. Nysel... he holds something of my fate, I am sure of it."

He gazed upon the strange woman, waiting for her response, heart aflutter at the thought of failing at this early hurdle.

[Cayenne]

As soon as Kavala concentrated and focused on Auristics, turning her focus to the beautiful structure before her, her very senses were assaulted. Colours radiated, pulsing, pounding in front of her eyes, rising and falling, like powerful, unforgiving waves crashing into the beach, getting bigger and brighter with each passing second that she looked at it. And yet, that was nothing compared to the crescendo that assailed her hearing. It barely started soft, but it kept on swelling in volume. What she heard was beautiful, a phenomenal, surreal harmony of such magnitude and strength as she had never experienced, and might never hear again, it was painful. She was studying a structure that was pure, unmuted Djed, enhanced and embellished by the divine. The longer she listened to it, the more her ears and temples throbbed, and she might have realized that what she was experiencing now was some exquisite version of what Hatot and Radris had found when they had first crossed with Trelissa. Her ears were soon ringing, and she felt an odd bubbling from her inner ear that was soon filled with warm, thick, wetness. If she touched her ears, she would find red blood beginning to leak out of them, and her head ached, an acute migraine growing with each moment. Using Auristics on something like Nysel’s temple might not have been the smartest of ideas, but it was definitely a learning experience. And for that beautiful moment of seeing and hearing it, who could deny it was worth it?

"You might want to stop that," a disembodied voice whispered, soft and caressing, sending tremors up her spine, the very words cloaking her in a swath of inky darkness. The words came from all about her, permeating through her. She couldn’t see Ronan anymore, nor Trelissa, nor the magnificent temple. She was looking at something quite different - pure blackness. She was still dressed, still as Crescent, as her garb had not changed, with her long dark braid and leathers. The fine hairs on the back of her neck were pricking, however, a finely-honed instinct rising in her gut to sing in a different manner. Danger, danger, danger. "Pay attention. You have done well... you have found others, which is good. You will connect with more. Do you know what they say about the spider’s web?" Before her, in the darkness shimmered, changing, lights etching a spider web with no particular pattern to it of glittering gold, all of the colours she had seen in Nysel’s temple racing through the delicate filaments in front of her. And in the corner, was a small spider, its outline barely visible but for the glowing strands of webbing in front of her. But what drew her eye was its back. On its back was a blazing red skull. "They say a spider can sit anywhere on the web and feel every part of it, no matter where you touch its trap..."

Trelissa stood in front of Ronan, listening to his answers, her face and features calm. She was guided by a strong conviction, by her own faith, and while part of her resounded with what he was saying, her heart of hearts held fast. She had her duty here, and she would not be swayed by words. Others had tried and failed. By the time he glanced back at Kavala, Crescent, she seemed to be in some form of wide-eyed meditation, looking at the temple in a far-off way. From the distance, it was hard to see the droplets of blood leaking from her ears. She was perfectly still, and didn’t seem to be paying them any attention as she appeared to be looking at Ronan’s destination and goal. He just had one problem. Trelissa didn’t seem to be affected by his earnestness, heartfelt as it was.

“Be that as it may, I cannot let you pass,” the pink-haired woman said with unswerving finality. There was nothing apologetic in her words or stance. “I am the Guardian of Nysel’s Temple. If you want in, you have to do it without my help, and without her help.” She nodded in Kavala's general direction at this. “I have been charged with letting none pass.” Okay, so maybe the time-honored tactic of diplomacy might not work so well either...

This was definitely a trial by fire.

[Ronan]

Ronan frowned. The temple guardian was not going to let him pass. With her countenance unwavering against his passion, and her eyes locked on his in a steadfast fashion, he fell back a little, bowing his head in obedience.

He turned momentarily to Kavala. But she was lost in another world, eyes staring straight. Perhaps she was meditating or such like. He turned back round. He had to do this alone. He couldn't keep leaning on shoulders, and dragging his heels along in the dirt.

Closing his eyes, he focused his djed, slowly getting the balance right as he tapped into the Web. He was not prepared for the effect. It was disorientating at first. The hues, the shades, it was all different to normal Webbing. There was almost a volume to the visual. He broke free from his body and began to move about, very slowly at first.

He began to move around the temple, past Trelissa. He wasn't sure what he was looking for. Perhaps some kind of weak spot, or another entrance. He wanted to find footsteps, of someone else, but no strands had been made here. So far as he could tell, he could feel no gentle thrum of an Origin.

If he couldn't get through the front door, and that was the only door, what else could he do? Was it a closed roof, he wondered. Could there be a back entrance?

He felt a gentle tug. His flesh was trying to reclaim his astral body. The normal rules didn't apply here, it seemed. If he was to discover something, he would have to be quick. Meandering around the walls, he began to explore the temple's exterior more closely.

A strange thought had occurred to him.

If I was a God, would I only have one entrance - the most obvious, the front door. Or would there be another way in? A less obvious way? A route that no mortal would simply 'comprehend'?

[Kavala]

Kavala had never told a single soul her auristics generated more music than color acting a lot like sonar rather than any visual stimuli. So when she looked, really looked, at the temple, the swell of harmony was almost overwhelming and definitely too much to process. Crouched as she was, she reached up and slapped her hands over her ears but it did not stop the blood from flowing where the sound waves pinged at her relentlessly until she slammed her auristics closed with a whimper.

It had been truly beautiful while it lasted, though the headache that was the aftermath made her feel weak and caused her to sway even though she was solidly planted. Her form wavered slightly, slipping from the visage of Crescent into other forms - some human, some not, even one scaled and winged and looking like an emerald velispar. Finally her wavering dream image readjusted and settled into her konti incarnation even though her hair stayed dark like Crescents which was most familiar to her in the here and now leaving her gasping as she rose to her feet.

She bowed deeply to the voice, her whole countenance asking for forgiveness and apologetic. Kavala trembled under his words, lifting her eyes.

"My Lord." The reverence in her voice was tangible. Nysel held something for her, a specialness that no other God had touched. His path and his gifts sang to her and she knew she'd serve him all of this life and well into the next.

"Yes, I have seen such things, such webs." Kavala said, her eyes carressing the barely visible outlines of shimmering silk suspended in the darkness. "If one knows the way of the spider and finds its web, one can even lure it out of hiding to see what sort of threat it will manifest as by simply touching the web and pretending to struggle within it. For all that they are clever and dangerous to the fly, if one things outside of mindless roaming, one can lay a trap for the trapper using his or her own device." Kavala said, drawing a dagger and reaching out to tap at the silken lines in front of her mimicking a fly struggling and entangled.

"Is there a spider, my lord, that needs to be lured into the light and studied or killed?" She asked softly, curious. "Or does one need to become its victim to learn lessons people can't find elsewhere?" She asked, curious and unafraid of the God before her. Nysel had brought her too much comfort, even though he walked the shadows and was both darkness and light.

[Cayenne]

Ronan
There were no Origins nor strands of Web to follow in this strange place, as solid as an attempt as it had been to try. Trelissa followed him almost leisurely when he was brought back to his body, keeping him at a respectful distance from the walls and sole entrance, her instrument slung across her torso, but there was no doubt that she could bring it up into position at any moment she chose.

There did not seem to be any other points of entry besides that front door. He could not see the roof from his vantage point, try as he did, and if he elected to move backwards to try to gain the distance necessary to see it, he would find that it looked pretty well-closed in to him. The walls, exquisitely crafted, it seemed, were immaculate, with nary a crack or ledge to be seen. Trying to climb up and make some form of an aerial entrance did not seem to be in the cards today. And as always, the pink-haired young woman blocked his path to the door. That he could not close in on, as she watched him with an expression he could not place.

But with no help from Kavala, he was going to have to use his own noggin to try to get past the Guardian.

Kavala
The more she watched the web, the more she really studied it, the colours seemed to solidify at different, haphazardly spun lines, lighting up one way and then the next. She might have even caught the “D” there. As she spoke of disturbing the web to goad the crawling creature into revealing itself where it hid, a little ball of light, bouncing and skittering through the dark before her even as the lights lit up her skin, reflecting off of her almost-glowing scales. Its flight path rather reminded her of the way a fly, after being struck by a horse’s tail, moved away, its balance disturbed. The ball caromed into web, only to find itself stuck fast. The minute spider, the skull on its back catching her eye as it made its way down to see what had gotten trapped there, only to weave more of the sticky strands and cocoon its prey. The fly vanished as Kavala took her dagger and tapped the web, the movements bringing the spider out once more on the double.

But the spider was no longer small, nor alone. It was growing, dividing into more and more...

“If you would reach into the snake’s hole, use someone else’s hand,” Nysel told her. “It would be wiser still to disturb the web with a big stick. Do not underestimate the ability of the predator in its own element. Here, you are in your own. There... less so...” there seemed to be any number of ways to interpret what the God was saying. “Crescent, too, was very good at what she did... in her own element.” All around her, she felt the darkness closing in, but it was a comfortable closeness, similar to an embrace, not provoking her claustrophobia and fear of being contained. However brief it was, it was encouraging.

“More than one,” Nyself told her. “They rest unseen, away from the senses of the bats and birds that would devour them. But they wait, and bide their time, spinning more and more webs...” the web before her was growing, expanding, as each of the little spiders continued to add to it. “Until there is no way out.”

[Ronan]

Ronan pulled out of the Web to a simpering gasp. His vision returned to normal, and his brow creased into furrows of anxiety and misunderstanding. There was no entrance, no Origin, no safe Web to cling onto. This was not Cyphrus. This was not even Mizahar.

Here, he walked a different plane.

Trelissa followed him as he acclimatised to flesh once again. They walked full circle of the temple, turning up at the entrance once again. The entrance he could not access.

What does she want of me? There is an answer here. A solution. But what am I doing? Is it so physical, so complex, or is it merely that I need to take a step forward?

"You cannot let me pass, Trelissa," he said, heart suddenly pounding. It took a moment to muster the courage to finish off his intent. "but I can let myself in. For I know my heart is true. I think the answer I was seeking is simpler than I first thought. I do not need to find a secret door, when the path I must walk is right in front of me."

With that, he walked forward, bracing himself for Trelissa's reaction. In a moments time he would either step foot into the Dream Lord's temple; or he would die trying.