Seaside 6: Six at the Beach

[Purple Eagle]

Silver Sand Stretch

"Oh, uh, they're, uh, for a project." Sekhmet doesn't elaborate. She's being much more guarded of her information than normal, in case something she says sets this angel off. "We can make a sand castle, if you want. I, uh, haven't done that before."

[Silver Sand Stretch]

"Projects can be fun! Can I help? What is it?" Zabb asks, seemingly excited. "Just think, Sekhmet: this way we can get to know each other better! You'll prove to me even more that you're good, and I'll prove to you that I won't hurt you. Maybe later, if you're in danger from another angel, I can put in a good word for you. Deal?" He says, trying to convince her to not be so guarded, even though he understands why the feeling.

"Really, you haven't? Let's do one, then! It's fun, and you get to say you've made a sandcastle! We'll make it reaaaally big, too!" His wings sprout, and he flies over to a nearby spot. "This place looks good."

[Earl of Purple]

Found Beach

Prumathe answers his phone! "Hello? Uh... Sekhmet? What're you on about? I saw you a moment ago. Whose phone is this? I didn't recognise the number." He was about to leave and get some shopping, but now he's turned around and is headed back to where he came from. This is a weird conversation, and it's going to get weirder.

[bc56]

Silver Sand Stretch

Sekhmet is glad the talk of sand castles distracts the angel. She'd rather not talk about her project. "Okay, uh," She bends down and starts piling sand, trying not to look at her new companion too much.

Found Beach

"Uh, what? I've been gone for a week!" Selekhael asks, confused. She's actually been gone far longer than that, but she doesn't know yet. "I'm in Inside, by the beach. I, uh, borrowed this phone, because I lost mine."

[Earl of Purple]

Found Beach

"I think I'd notice if you were gone that long, dear. Our bed would be cold for one. Hang on, I'm at our cabin now." Prumathe puts the phone to his chest and calls for Sekhmet at GLoG, which Selekhael can likely hear since he's being loud and not trying to not be heard- only trying to not deafen her by shouting down the phone at her.

[bc56]

Found Beach

"Uh, wha, what!?" Selekhael bursts out, "OUR BED!? But we never, uh, uh," She descends into confused gibberish.

Meanwhile, Sekhmet answers Prumathe. "You're back already, honey? What is it? What's wrong?"

[Earl of Purple]

Found Beach

Prumathe looks straight at Sekhmet in GLoG and puts the phone back to his ear. "You're on the phone. I'm looking straight at you, and you aren't holding a phone. Hold on, I'll put you on speaker. Where did you say you were again?" Prumathe takes the phone from his ear and presses the loudspeaker button. Things are going to get confusing here, he can tell. Oh, man. Has the Hive cloned her again? And given the clone the real Sekhmet's memories? Why'd they do that?... Why'd they do anything, for that matter.

[bc56]

Found Beach

"I said I was in Inside. Near the, uh, beach." Selekhael manages. Sekhmet stares at Prumathe dumbfounded. That's her voice, but she's not there. "Uh, who is this?" Meanwhile, Selekhael looks shocked. "Who are you?"
"I'm Sekhmet."
"But I'm Sekhmet!"
"Are you some trick of my mother's?"
"Your mother? I don't have a mother, I'm adopted! Who are you, really?"
"I'm Sekhmet! Prumathe's wife!"
Selekhael sputters.
"Wife!? Are you some duplicate of me? Is this a, uh, prank? What's going on?"

[Purple Eagle]

[Silver Sand Stretch]

"Did I say? I'm Zabb, that's short for Zabbaiel. Hi Sekhmet, nice to meet you!" He says, noticing how she refuses to talk about her project, but letting it slide... for now. "So, tell me about yourself, Sekhmet. Who are you? What do you like? What's your favourite food? What's it like, not being a malevolent demon? How old are you... you look 18-ish?" He fires off his rapid-fire questions as he produces a bucket and shovel from thin air.

He giggles as he watches her pile sand. "Promise you won't run away if I go and fetch some water? A promise is a debt you have to pay!" He says the last part like one admonishing a child.

[Earl of Purple]

Found Beach

Prumathe speaks to the phone. "This is why I was confused when you said you'd been away for a week. We've been married for months now." And Earl should have a better idea of how long ago that was. "When was the last time we met, Sekmet-on-the-beach? Where were we, what was the date, anything like that." Maybe he can figure something out from all that, because the time discrepancy here is much more than a week.

[bc56]

Silver Sand Stretch

"Uh, I'm 19." Sekhmet says, a bit wary still. "I, uh, like shepherd's pie. I'm a blacksmith. I have a husband, we've been married a few months. I, uh, live at GLoG." She sighs. "Okay, I, uh, won't run." Would she even be able to escape before this powerful being returns?

Found Beach

"It's..." Selekhael gives a date. "Uh, that was over a year ago." Sekhmet replies. "What happened to you? Who are you?" "I got stuck in a town called Marlick Bay, and, uh, some strange things happened." At this, the Sekhmet gasps. "Oh, no. I thought you were dead."
"What? No I'm not!"

[Earl of Purple]

Found Beach

"Um, could you fill me in on this? I've never heard of Marlick Bay. What happened there, why do you think she's dead?" That's said to the Sekhmet at GLoG, not the one on the phone. Though likely both Sekhmets could do with the clarification.

[bc56]

Found Beach

Sekhmet looks at Prumathe. "Remember when that paladin brought me back to you, and, uh, I was covered in ice and hallucinating? Someone had told me that something terrible had happened to me at a town called Marlick Bay. So, uh, we went down into Hell, and I, uh, found my soul. But, uh, not me-me, another me. I, uh, absorbed it. I remember dying. Burning up from the inside when I was tricked into, uh, collecting some magic relics."
"I didn't die! I changed! It made me, uh, an angel!"
"Uh... That, uh, makes some sense, actually. But, uh, you probably shouldn't, uh, come here. Go talk to Zee at, uh, Trog's Tavern. She knows more about what happened to you than, uh, I do."

[Earl of Purple]

Found Beach

"...What kind of magical relics so I can make sure I don't collect some and lose my soul as a result?" And also ensure that Sekhmet doesn't fall for it again. Because that would probably be bad for everyone involved.

[bc56]

Found Beach

"They're, uh, hard to explain." Both Sekhmets say simultaneously. "No, uh, you first. Uh..." Once they get over their stumbling over each other's words, one of them speaks at a time. "They were like, uh, fragments of different concepts. The first one I found was, uh, entropy. And then, uh, time, motion, and space."
"And when I became an angel I inherited some of their powers."

[5a Violista]

[Coast Crawling]

With the sword removed, nothing happens at first. Just stillness, silence, calmness. No song, no fog, nothing. Not even a drop of water falls. After the ropes splash to the ground, it's just...nothing at all.

Then, everything seems to start at once. The feeling of dread centered on the altar suddenly intensifies. The mummy dissolves into a white nothingness. Water pours from the ceiling: no longer water dripping, but instead more like a waterfall. The cavern quickly fills with water to the point that if Anchor hadn't been kissed by a mermaid then she would have to begin considering countermeasures.
Possibly important, the obsidian sword feels like it's trying to either pull Anchor towards the altar, or that it's trying to pull itself out of her hand. Both of those would feel like very similar sensations. And, incomprehensible red text lights up along the entire obsidian sword's blade.

An invisible being (that displaces the water, making it somewhat visible in that way) - human-shaped, but too tall to be human - claws its way out of the walls directly across from Anchor. A roar that feels like tangible despair instead of a sound comes from it. And three ribbons of cavitating water come flying at Anchor - if it hits her, it'll be very...cutting.



[Found Beach]

June stands by and does her best to not pay attention to the phone conversation.
Hearing only half (a third?) of the conversation is pretty strange, but from what she can tell it's pretty awkward, probably. Kind-of weird.

So she stands by and does her best to not overhear.

[Recaiden]

[Coast Crawling]

Okay, it seems the sword was definitely holding back the blankness.
This was probably a mistake. Can something like this even be stopped?
Yes, she has to continue. The despair is so thick it's like a physical thing, but it is just a thing, she reminds herself. She has no reason to give up.

It's been so long without any whips of water coming towards Anchor - they boil away into puffs of steam like the first ones. Although as the room is filling up with water, that's probably not going to work again no matter how long the danger might last.

She lets the sword pull her towards the altar, wading through the water - after all, that shape is on the other side, isn't it?
As she goes, she spits a spell at the shape, her most practiced one, that causes no harm but terrible pain.

"p̢̢̻̩͐̄ͤ ͦ̓ͩ̀͏̠s̎͐ͤ͂͏̰͎͚̰͙̜͖ ̴̶̼̣̣͉̔͞l̝̝͖̹̗͍̎͛ͨ̕͝"

[Earl of Purple]

Found Beach

"So you became an angel and gained a bunch of supernatural powers, but lost your soul in the bargain? That's... odd. I was always told it's the soul that powers and manipulates magic. I guess it's a different method of using magic." Although Prumathe's biotheurgy is very physical, it still draws mostly upon his soul. It's why he can potentially run out of power and energy without depleting his physical body.

[bc56]

Found Beach

"Uh, I don't really know."
"Really, you should go talk to Zee. She knows more about this."
"Okay, I'll try, uh, that, uh, uh, bye." Selekhael hangs up. As she returns the phone to its owner, tears are streaming down her face, tears she held in through her whole phone call.

[5a Violista]

[Coast Crawling]

As long as it turns out well, it's probably not a mistake. In order to prove she made the right decision, all Anchor has to do is hold off this thing long enough for the mermaids' ritual to start and finish. Speaking of which, Anchor's shadow could notice several mermaids quickly swimming upstream. (Not all of them, but Zophiel decided, in the interest of getting this done as quickly as possible, setting up the environment and starting the ritual can begin while he's still working on how to best finish it.)

Water continues to pour from the ceiling, and the water on the ground swirls around as if there's a whirlpool-like current moving it around. The current is weaker closer to the altar, so Anchor (having moved towards the altar) shouldn't be that affected by it.

The pain spell doesn't seem to be quite as effective against the creature as it would against a normal target. The most notable thing it does is make the creature feel more tangible. Still invisible, but - just like what happened with the woman-void out on the river - more physical and more real. Less of an idea, and more like it's physically there and could be directly interacted with.

The empty-space-of-a-creature moves towards the center of the room. It swings an arm (visible only because of the parted water around it), which causes another claw-shaped void to circle around the room, coming at Anchor again - this time from behind her.
(At this time, the obsidian sword vibrates and instead of pulling her towards the altar, it tries to spin her around to face the incoming void-claw) Cut! Sacrifice! Devour! Bleed! is what it would scream if it weren't just a sword.


[Found Beach]

June isn't entirely sure what the conversation was about - she only heard a third of it, after all! - but she definitely did hear enough! Her boyfriend already moved on - so quickly, too! Way too quickly. What an awful boyfriend. Not only that, but he already got married. To an evil twin or something, too! or something. Probably not a twin, since they had a different mother. She wasn't entirely clear on that part. Actually, thinking about it, if Selekhael was adopted and this other one knows her birth mother then it's probably more of a separated-at-birth identical-twin scenario. And then her boyfriend saw her, thinking she was her, then popped the question and then got married on the spot.
Regardless...
it sucks.
June has literally had nightmares about (almost) this exact scenario happening to herself. It wasn't a long-lost twin, but instead just some random faceless person but otherwise was exactly like this.

She goes up to grab and hold Selekhael into a tight hug. "I'm so sorry," she says. "What happened?" She chooses to not admit that she overheard how Selekhael's long-lost twin showed up and stole her man.

[bc56]

Found Beach

Selekhael grabs June and weeps onto her shoulder. "I've been gone a year and there's another girl and she's like a copy of me and he married her!" She keeps crying uncontrollably. "I don't even... What do I.. How..."

[Recaiden]

Well at least it's not the worst mistake she could have made, then.

Anchor's shadow notices the mermaids going by. Oh, that's good, right? Can't be long now until the ritual is in full swing.
She decides to stay here and make sure the bottled song finishes smoothly. Or maybe just to listen to it.

Meanwhile, Anchor is also moving towards the center of the room. Just like the big void creature, she parts the water around her. But unlike it, you can see her anyway. Moving through the rising water isn't so easy for her.
Luckily this sword is here to help. She moves with it, spinning through the water to meet the void claw with the edge of the blade.

She would like to agree with the sword whole-heartedly, but...it's not quite time. Better try to talk before she's completely underwater.
"You can't win! Even if you get past me, it's too late to stop the resealing."
"Unless..."
"You can convince me. Why are you doing all this?"

[5a Violista]

[Found Beach]

Even as June's shoulder gets soaked, she still keeps up the embrace.

She doesn't really know what to say: in the first place, she doesn't really know Selekhael well enough to know what is the best to say.

Ultimately, she says, "Anyone who goes after a long-lost twin just because you disappeared is awful. He's really the worst and doesn't know what he's missing out on."


Coast Crawling

As the mermaids begin praying and setting the stage out in the river, the cavern is altered by their actions. Along the walls of the cavern, glowing pictograms appear on the stone, in sets of two.

When the blade meets the claw, the blade cuts through the void. Steam(?) comes out of the wounded claw, which annihilates the water that touches it. (Just water, though. Not anything else.)

The creature reacts to what she's saying by not following up with an immediate attack, showing that it can clearly understand her.

However, like a child throwing a temper tantrum, it wails in response and throws random attacks all around that aren't even directed at anything. Claw marks gouge into the ceiling and into the floor and the altar (notably, not the glowing walls), water is diplaces in random areas around the room, and a flailing attack even -by chance- goes at Anchor.
Since the attack was random and flailing and had no direct bloodthirst behind it, the obsidian sword doesn't assist this time. Anchor will have to find her own way to dodge this attack.

The ritual preparation then gets to the point that something within the altar starts glowing with a white empty light, with light escaping from the cracks and gouges.

[bc56]

Found Beach

"She tricked him into thinking she was me! And she said something about eating souls and he didn't seem to care!" Selekhael seems to be realizing something. "I think he might be in danger!"

[5a Violista]

[Found Beach]

June isn't entirely sure that blaming her long-lost evil twin for this is very healthy.

"It would definitely be good to talk with him," she agrees. "But you should probably find out exactly what happened, right? I think at the end of your call he told you to go do something, so whatever it is, that might help." Unfortunately, June only heard this half of the conversation. "Did he give you any secret message saying that you needed to go straight to him and rescue him immediately? Or did he want you to come up with a better plan first and that he'd be fine for now?"

[bc56]

Found Beach

"He didn't... She did. She wanted me to talk to someone? He just seemed, uh, confused." Selekhael sniffs heavily. "I don't know what I'm going to do. What do I do? I have, uh, nowhere to go. I need to think."

[Purple Eagle]

Silver Sand Stretch

"Uh, I'm 19." Sekhmet says, a bit wary still. "I, uh, like shepherd's pie. I'm a blacksmith. I have a husband, we've been married a few months. I, uh, live at GLoG." She sighs. "Okay, I, uh, won't run." Would she even be able to escape before this powerful being returns?

[Silver Sand Stretch]

"See, we're getting to know each other well! Isn't that nice, Sekhmet? It is, oh my, yes!" Zabb declares happily. "I'm 9 years old, I like every food, I help look after GLoG and my island, I have friends in GLoG!" He lists off, then gasps in happiness and approval. "I'm happy you're married, I hope your life together's happy!"

When she says she won't run, Zabb smiles at her and claps his hands happily. Still, he decides to be quick just in case she does decide to run after all... so he makes 3 back-and-forth in a little more than three seconds. Two of them get splashed in the sand mound, and the third left in the bucket for now. "You're doing great, Sekhmet! So what design are you after? How about a big castle? I'm letting you decide because it's your first time, and I want your first time to be memorable. Oo, want us to do your matrimonial home? That might be perfect, oh my, yes!"

He sure asks a lotta questions.

[5a Violista]

[Found Beach]

"I...I don't know," June says. "I don't have anywhere to go yet, either."

She thinks. "Maybe you should talk to that person? If she is your long-lost twin, then maybe she's trying to look out for you or something." Like, she's thinking, 'sorry i stole your man and your life but everyone thought you were dead and i know i can't make it up to you so you should go talk to this person and they'll be able to help you' or something.

[bc56]

Silver Sand Stretch

Sekhmet shakes her head. "I, uh, don't know. I've never done it before." She looks very worried when Zabb starts talking about her matrimonial home. She's not even sure what that means. "Uh, okay?" She looks nervous, as usual.

Found Beach

"I, uh, I don't know. I don't know who she was talking about. Uh, and I don't know if I should, uh, trust her." Selekhael looks around nervously. "I think I need some time alone, to, uh, think. But I also might need to talk, uh, to someone."

[5a Violista]

[Found Beach]

"Don't worry, I can both stick around and give you space, whichever you need," June says. If she needs space, June can just practice flying or whatever.

June finally releases the hug. That's been long enough, probably.
"But! You're justified to be mad!" she says dramatically. "Mister Boyfriend didn't seem to be in danger, so there's no urgency. Which means you can be as mad as angry and sad and everything that you want! Make everyone realize that you're definitely the better twin. And when you feel better, then you can decide whether or not you should trust your long-lost evil thieving twin." She laughs a little. Maybe this long-lost twin isn't an evil twin, but thinking of her that way might help Selekhael out for now until she feels better.

[bc56]

Found Beach

"Yeah, uh, he's mine. She stole him!" Selekhael starts to look mad. With a soft pop, her tail and wings emerge from her back and a ring of coral appears around her head. A bit of her angelic presence leaks through. She doesn't seem to notice. "I should, uh, I should do something about it!"