Liber (Jaela, Moore)

[Corwin]

Please.

[Anastasia]

Aurora is safe. It is a refuge that you and the soldiers return to, obtaining sanctuary within. From here you can watch the apocalypse unfold.

The ground bubbles and boils, becoming a rainbow-colored slurry that shifts into strange geometric patterns. The skies rain fire and blood, cascading down on the broken ground. Gale winds blow that howl with diabolical fury and the ring of battle. Snow and ice erupt from the ground like veins bursting through skin, melting into sizzling purple fire. Earthquakes, semi-constant and varying in intensity. The sound of trumpets blast across the world, answered by roars of infernal wrath.

Mirajane watches this raptly, as does Sylvie.

"Mother," Mirajane says, "The world is terrified. Nature is terrified of the spirits fighting for the fate of this world. It is torn between being what it should be and what Semyaza forces it to be."

"Could be worse. You could be seeing what I'm seeing. All the sins committed on Benfal are being shed like pus from an infected wound." Sylvie speaks weakly, voice ill and shaking, "So many of them are Semyaza's. It's burning the diabolical sickness out of the world."

[Corwin]

"I don't suppose either of you sees anything we can do?" Jaela asks, wondering if their own world would require direct divine intervention to truly be saved.

[Anastasia]

"I draw some comfort from imagining Taelfagn stuck in that mess," Sylvie says, eyes locked on the disaster outside. "Right now, no. We did our part."

"...I'm not sure. I see...something. Spirits," Mirajane frowns, "Unclean spirits."

[Nephrite]

"Well, when you clean an infected wound... the infection is still there, just removed from the wound, right?" Moore says. "It sounds like this is the same sort of thing -- the embodiment of this blight." He rubs his chin for a moment. "I think we'd need some sort of magic, if one even exists, to protect ourselves if we wanted to go out and try and deal with it..."

[Corwin]

"Can 21 manage this, if it didn't have someone like Semyaza to oppose it? For an entire devil-tainted world, I mean?"

[Anastasia]

Sylvie bows her head several moments. "Yeah, probably. I can't do it with 21. I bet the Incarnations could've. I've barely scratched the surface of what 21 could do."

"Circles of protection from evil may help, but I doubt it. I'm not sure anything can help in this disaster," Mirajane says rather quietly as well, the four of you staying close together.

[Corwin]

Whatever else, it's her second front row seat to the apocalypse of a Prime, and this time Jaela isn't forced to fight for her life. She might as well use it as an opportunity to study the heights she needs to reach to actually force the devils off Lifasa for good.

[Nephrite]

Is what's currently going on kind of a scaled up version of spiritual wounds? Or is it actually on the level of alter reality and that sort of thing so it's not even comparable? I'm just looking for a possible spell or something that might be able to make a zone we could stand in to avoid the effects for a while.

[Anastasia]

K:P check here, Moore.

As the four of you watch, Afina flutters on up.

Go ahead, Afina.

[Corwin]

Jaela waves at Afina in greeting, before returning her attention to the apocalypse outside.

[Nephrite]

Let's go all out on this then! Take 10 for 79, using Divine Insight (and some more of my Improvisation pool) for it.

[Ebiris]

Having already given the rapid response unit their orders to sally forth, Afina approaches Jaela as the leader of the main bulwark currently present in the courtyard. "Jaela," she speaks up in greeting. "The fight between deities is stirring up malign spirits from the ground that will be drawn to beacons of righteousness such as Aurora. I've sent out some forces to hunt them and thin their ranks, so those of us here will need to take positions to defend Aurora for any that get past or prove too much for our hunters. Is everyone here still able to fight?"

[Corwin]

"Morale's pretty high and everyone's raring to go," Jaela responds with a slight smile. "We took no meaningful losses in the Liber assault, so there's no need to reorganize anything." The smile is gone as she says, "We can only account for one spot on the entire world, though, unless you want to start teleporting officers around on solo missions."

[Anastasia]

Moore thinks so, but on a far larger scale. It's basically the end result of multiple spiritual wounds left unchecked - reality is revolting, unraveling. This is to a typical spiritual wound as a lion is to an ant.