Fall No More

[Fall No More] Morgan awakes...or falls asleep....dreams of standing in a vacant street. The sky burns orange-red, clouds roiling and tumbling over each other like fireball explosions trapped in still-frame and moving along at negative speed ratio. Thunder would split the skyline..tear and tumble across the horizon, hot pink crackles of lightning striking and lighting the sky in white flashes. It was like the End of Days.

The buildings around here were jagged stones of cement and steel, broken windows casting hollow shadows like bullet holes in a corpse. Silence only trailed in the wake of the storm around her...nothing stirred. No life...no one but her. As her eyes cast about, she found one building loomed in front of her. It was familiar in the way a car wreck was familiar. The Church. The Church were her dreams...her thoughts had been touched...manipulated....tricked into the dwelling of a boy who was dead but not quite in her mind. The Church was like the other buildings, a vacant structure gutted away like it had been heat blasted for decades or just slammed by the radioactive winds of a nuclear fallout.

[Morgan] This is not the sort of dream Morgan has often, it must be said; usually her dreams are more surreal or more realistic, or both at the same time. This is confusing, and it takes even dream-Morgan a moment to get used to it. (Truth, where's the truth here?) But it's a dream, and without much thought after that initial look around to judge her surroundings. Curiouser and curiouser, all of it . . .

. . . and eventually, her feet lead her reluctantly to the church. She doesn't want to go there, doesn't want to see what might be inside, but does so anyway - better to confront it and get it over with than to avoid it any longer.

[Fall No More] ...she could hear glass crunch beneath her feet. Or maybe it was bones. The skeletal fragments of the building. Darkness swallowed it, absorbed it, casting everything in shower. As she stepped through and into the archway inside the church proper...it was like a twisted reflection of her memory.

The pews were untouched, still whole. Within them sat bodies...stripped to the bone, sitting in attention or others in prayer.

I didn't want to die alone...

She could hear that dying plea on Autumn's lips, still fresh, bubbling to the surface...for a moment the image imposed across this dreamscape...but it fades away like dusk gives way to night. Old candlebras sat in front, flickering and showing the figure of the emo kid not much older than herself...dressed as he had been the night he had tried to end his life. He sat on the piano bench but a guitar was in his hands....fingers stroking it, the paleness of the flesh evident. But it wasn't Autumn....it was that thing...dancing in his skin....she could see the stitches criss-crossing his flesh. Skin not quite the same tinge as his own sewed along and grafted to his body. Strips of white within the hair as if someone had tried to cover bald spots with whatever worked. The figure looked up from the guitar...staring at her, the patterns of sewing bisecting the face and down the underside of his right eye..flesh the color of marble on one side, the other like yellowed ivory. The eyes though were blood red, the pupils barely noticeable beneath the film of the eyes.

[Morgan] Truth, she reminds herself. This is a dream. This is . . . a temporary reality. And yes, she steps closer - she is hard, tall and proud as she steps forward, every inch a potential lawyer, a future judge. "It seems cliche, really, to quote Labyrinth at you. And not precisely accurate. Why are you here again? I've done what you asked."

And she has - she's used the extra skills when opportunity arose. She's just strong, apparently, and stronger than his intent at that. This is not Autumn, and even if it were, she counts him amongst those without the Will it takes to survive. Weak. Selfish. This is some thing, and she will deal with it. It will go.

[Fall No More] The creature stared and then the fingers begin to strum the guitar a little as it spoke.

"...the contract price is up....I've gotten what I've needed from you. Though...I could use a little extra."

He focused on her before speaking, the eyes flickering back and forth and then directly on her.

"This time we'll negotiate. I plan to leave this realm...I have enough energy to sustain myself...to keep the form I want. I won't disappear....I won't fade away like a dream now. So I have no more reason to...stay."

It then looked back to the strings, strumming briefly before it spoke.

"...my deal is simple. I can leave you...take way all I have given and everything that belongs to me....or...I can give the option to save one person...one soul that is bound to me....the only thing I ask of you is a piece of you...a small piece...but a piece nonetheless. A little bit of what you call sanity....if your kind could be called sane."

The fingers start to strum a song a little as he talked...the tune repetitive, like the build up of a song.

[Morgan] "Do I strike you as someone with an overabundance of mercy? Why would I reach out to save someone who wittingly made a deal with something like you, at the price of my apparently questionable sanity, even a portion of it?" She wouldn't is the answer. Or rather, she would, but the people she'd do so for are few, and but for Ashley and possibly Emily are people she's known for all her life. Not just all of 'Morgan's' life, but all of 'Enid's', too. "And why would I think it's a good idea for you to stay? You've done nothing but cause trouble thus far, at least as far as I can see. I'd be aiding and abetting, and I don't like that notion."

It's steep, her price, if he wants any piece of her. Simply saving some stranger isn't enough.

[Fall No More] "I leave either way...I go 'home'. The option to save someone is me just bargaining for a little more power for myself. I don't -need- it but I certainly wouldn't mind it. And you have professed before that you don't care...but are you so willing to let that boy spend an eternity in my care? You are after all convinced I truly drove him to that state."

He strums along, eyes closing the red pupils away...for a moment the image of the real Autumn there....the one who had confessed secrets...had laid next to her in her dreams...had even pulled her out of a nightmare once...

"I am giving you the option to save him. In return, I take a small fragment of your psyche with me. I get more power...you get to release him from the Hell he will face.....and then I leave. I go to my realm....and then I relax...and enjoy my kingdom."

[Morgan] "You should be tried for your crimes and punished for them if you're found guilty. As for 'that boy' . . ." this irks her, chafes. "He had a name. And he made his own choice, however you might have coerced it. I've no doubt that you prey on what weakness you find to get people to take what you offer, but he could have been stronger."

This is with a shrug, indifferent - sure, she pities Autumn. But that doesn't mean she's going to go easy on him, whether or not he pulled her from a nightmare. Whether or not he'd laid next to her.

"And what piece would you take? Some memory, something from Before? No, you said some bit of my sanity, which would imply something significantly more than that. To 'save' a boy who's dead no matter what I do - a boy who valued his own life so little that he took it by his own hand. It hardly seems a winning proposition on my end, I must admit."

[Fall No More] The thing just smiled, laughing a bit.

"I like you, -Enid-. You're someone after my own heart...you're strong and I can tell you will crawl over others to get where you need to be...you will not be weak. I almost pity the Autumns that will be in your life...."

He goes to stand, setting the guitar aside now.

"He is weak, you are right. They were all -weak- in their own ways...a mother who couldn't handle the loss of her children....two outcasts who could not handle being damned to unpopularity and a life forever trapped in their ways...and him. The boy. Autumn. Mmm...his weakness is he felt that he never belonged, never would....very...Buddhist. Living is suffering."

[Morgan] "Can't claim that I like you, but it's obvious that you do what you think I will. As for any other Autumns that might be in my life . . ." She shrugs, wry. "Well. One can hope they'll be able to stand on their own two feet or if they can't, they'll have the sense to find someone else to attach to. I am not soft and kind. But, you are not convincing me and you didn't answer my question. What, exactly, is it that you would take from me? And I would suggest that you refrain from comparing me to yourself again."

There'd been anger, there, a swirl of something - of [justice] judgment around her. Oh, no, she doesn't like being called ruthless for her strength, though she must admit there's a potential truth to it. (That potential truth only makes her like it less.)

"I don't sign contracts blindly, Rabbit. You should know this of me by now."

[Fall No More] "As I said...I will take a piece of your sanity."

The teeth showed as it grinned.

"I mean it exactly to my word on this...oh...you can resist it...after all, there are people who function just fine in the world and are quite crazy. Even some geniuses possessed some form of mental illness. The question is to what degree..."

He rubbed his chin.

"...think of it like an infection...if you are weak, you'll be broken. If you are strong, which you seem to be, then it might be as something annoying as obsessions or compulsory behavior. The sickness depends on how much resistance you have."

A finger reached up, rubbing the side of the scar.

"Oh....and since we're being oh so truthful....I should mention that you're at risk for insanity even you don't take the deal. After all...I do have to take back what was given....and it doesn't feel pleasant...nor can the mind always cope with having power taken from it. So...you can either have a chance for something good out of this....or you can suffer the consequences regardless of the deal. I know I know....its bad sport for me to have stacked it against you like that....but I never said the first contract was very fair. At least this time, you know full well what you are getting into. You can choose or choose to do nothing."

[Morgan] [Let's try this. Forces 2, Prime 1, hail kahseeno!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[Morgan] [extending, +1 diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 5 (Failure at target 4)

[Morgan] "Everything you touch is poison," she says, and it's remarkably calm for the danger that sparks in her eyes, for the withering of the very air as she pulls light into a ball in her hand (leaving darkness where she takes the light); it's small, this ball, about the size of one that might come out of a machine in a restaurant lobby, but it's something. And she's talking to distract, because of course there's no man behind the curtain. Of course there's nothing to see here. Move along.

"And I will survive you, as I've survived everything else. You're not the first that's threatened to leave me mad, only the most open about the intent. As for Autumn and your other victims, what happens to them if you die?"

She doesn't wait for an answer, simply throws what she's got at him . . . suddenly, and hard.

[Dex + Ath + WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 6, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) [WP]

[Morgan] [Damage 6 - 1 non-aerodynamic]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Morgan] [WP check, pre-expenditure, for magic use]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 5 (Failure at target 6)

[Fall No More] The spirit is impacted by the ball of light, akin to a plasma bolt. It knocks it back, almost pushing it flat on its ass. The not-Autumn then stood up, eying her as he rolled his neck, eying her.

"That was a stupid idea."

For a moment, as she tapped into the magic...the power instilled into her from the contract, she could feel something seep inside...like tendrils in the brain...channeling a little bit of chaos through her cerebral cortex and thoughts.

[Morgan]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Fall No More] It straightens itself, staring at her before moving on.

"...and if I die...the souls of them go with me...or something akin to the soul. Its part of their contract that they signed. You lucked out...if nothing else, Autumn prevented that fate for you when he gave you the contract....he overwrote my usual terms. Its the only reason why you aren't completely insane and dead...or might as well being dead. But yes, if I die...they still go with me."

[Morgan] "So was messing with me, frankly. Do you think I'm one of your pitiful mundanes to be manipulated and used?" This is angry and then some; she doesn't like being toyed with, doesn't like the feeling of those tendrils in her brain. It's a bit disorienting, though, and she tries to shake it off, to pull back into herself and push him out. "You won't be happy with the result."

And then it's reaching for the others, the ones he's taken rather than outright attacking. Getting them away first (not, mind, that she particularly cares about them - it's spite more than anything else) seems like a good plan.

[Spirit/mind, coincidental, extending if necessary]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 3)

[Morgan] [extending for more targets]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 5, 6, 6 (Success x 4 at target 4) [WP]

[Fall No More] The magic starts to work and build up...but as she works, she can feel nothing is pulling...nothing is being taken to her side. The thing just stands, amused before he sits back down, taking the guitar in hand....its almost as if he is playing with her...letting her do as she pleases.

[Morgan]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Morgan] [shifting effect, +2 diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 6 (Success x 1 at target 5) [WP]

[Morgan] [WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 6, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Morgan] Autumn. It's uncertain and tentative, this reaching out, and more impression or impulse than actual words, but it's something. She's not used to this much connection, has only been this close to touching another mind in two distinctly different but equally uncomfortable occasions, and quite frankly it scares her half to death. She can feel her hand twitch, the one in which she held the ball of light and fire, can feel it hurt [burn], and this makes it harder to focus, but she manages.

Come out. You can do it, I'm here. Don't be stupid.

[Fall No More] ~Hello
I've waited here for you
Everlong

Tonight
I've thrown myself into
And out of the red, out of her head, she sang

Come down
And waste away with me
Down with me~

She could hear a slow acoustic guitar playing, it was like diving from one dream into another....as if the dream were the waking world. Part of her mind would tell her that this was ridiculous..it would be dividing by zero...an infinite. She felt herself fall inwards, like falling through water only to find herself sitting there....Autumn was there...his fingers strumming a guitar...singing in the melodic voice that was filled with sadness...longing...

An Akashic would tell her that all was illusion...to fall from one dream to another...was more real than the waking world she was from.

[i]~Slow how
You wanted it to be
I'm over my head, out of her head, she sang

And I wonder
When I sing along with you
If everything could ever feel this real forever
If anything could ever be this good again
The only thing I'll ever ask of you
Got to promise not to stop when I say when
She sang~[.i]

[Morgan] "Breathe out
So I could breathe you in
Hold you in

And now
I know you've always been
Out of your head, out of my head I sang . . ."

Except this isn't real - nothing between Morgan and Autumn has been, but for that moment when he'd almost listened to her at that [this] awful church. It's all been a dream, and goodness only knows whose dream at that - the dream of a boy who wants desperately to belong somewhere, anywhere, or of a girl who wants very little so much as she wants a friend, whatever else she might say on the subject.

"Asshole up there wants me to give him part of my sanity to get you out, you know. Says I might be crazy when he's done with me anyway. So, kid," sure, he might be a little older than she, might be his same age, but that doesn't stop the hard tone that comes. "Are you worth risking more of it? I never know what to believe when it comes to hell, but what Ugly up there has in mind sounds pretty terrible."

[Fall No More] He pauses, looking up at her and then he gave a sad smile.

"...that's your choice, Enid. You said yourself that I made my choice...I buried myself. I can't make that decision for you. The selfish part of me wants to say yes...that I don't want to go...not after well...I found you."

He looked down at the guitar, unlike the thing up there, the neck and cover of it had an ivory sheen, clean, the notes pure and reverberating when he strummed it.

"I...I should have told you what this really was about....that me being here was not going to be good. But...I couldn't say anything. So...I did what I could...to make sure you didn't get the same boat as me. Its bad enough that there's already four...we don't need a fifth."

He glanced to her, giving a broad smile....but she didn't need to be psychic...she didn't even need to be able to be an empath to read what was really behind that smile. Autumn was ready..if this was it...he would accept it. It was the smile of someone who knew they were dying...much akin to the look he had before Nathan had put him out of his misery that night. Could she go through that twice? Seeing that face twice?

[Morgan] ".....you make me want to punch you in the nose. How can you be so content to . . . to this? Seriously? You're such a . . . a jerk."

She is pissed, that much is clear, and she's crossed the distance between them in no time flat. When she sings now, it's almost derisive and amusingly, she can pull off the Courtney Love voice fairly well despite not being much of a singer, or artist at all.

"Swing low sweet cherry
Make it awful
It's your life, it's your party, it's so awful
Let's start a fire
Let's have riot! Yeah it's awful
It was punk
Yeah, it was perfect now it's awful

They know how to break all the girls like you
And they rob the souls of the girls like you
And they break the hearts of the girls . . .

Whine, whine, whine. Shit. If you're so ready to die, or go to hell, or whatever the Monster Upstairs wants with you, do it, then. Same with those other idiots."

[Fall No More] "...because I can't fight it."

He sighed, fingers stroking along the guitar.

"I'm already dead, Enid. I can resist mentally...say what I want here because its still me. But I cannot...do anything. Do you not get that? This isn't me wanting to die...this is me realizing I don't have the power to do anything. I'm not like you....I was never well...a mage. I don't possess that strength you do...I never did. And its not like I can awaken now, can I?"

He glanced up and then said something...his voice different....not like the creepy different but just a spark.

"...I'm not afraid...of leaving. Not with him...but leaving...really dying and going onward. I saw something inside here...inside you...that let me know...death isn't...well..its not over."

He looked over.

"...that even if I go onwards...there's always a chance I'll come back. And maybe...maybe it will be in a lifetime where I get to meet you again...meet someone who well...makes me feel like I belonged...or that someone would miss me. I'd like to have that chance again."

[Morgan] "You could have Awakened, you jackass," she says, not at all placated. "But you have to have a Will for that. What the hell did you see in me that makes you believe in reincarnation or whatever? I don't know that I believe in it. Or hell, for that matter. Haunted by emokid ghosts and Sally Skelington demon-things." Oh, yes, she's irritable - barely likable, really, though that's never bothered him.

"What I need from you is not more Linkin Park lyrics. I need to know that I'm doing this for a reason, other than because I'm pissed off. Which would usually be enough, honestly, but being an enabler isn't my style. Hoping to meet someone else to give you reason isn't a reason. You rely on something like that, and the same thing - or some version of it - is going to happen again. You want to feel like you belong? Then do it. Make yourself someone people will miss, and they will. Don't be a dishrag. Don't be weak. Work for what you want. Can you do that, Autumn?"

[Fall No More] Autumn glanced at her and then he chuckled a little, glancing at her....no make-up, no kohl covered eyes or hair dyed colors it shouldn't be. It was just a kid, not older than her...not younger. A young man who had sang serenades in her head....had taken her hand to pull her from a nightmare to a field of wonder. And a boy who had kissed her, if only in her dreams.

"I know I'm weak...was weak. But, I think Enid, that people do need each other. Yes, people can stand on their own...but at the same time...many stand for other people. They have people behind them. And even though...I'm not alive anymore..I know if I had met you...I don't think you would have ever allowed me to be weak. I can't make promises of a life I don't know of yet...but I know...if I remember even a sliver of this...if I recall you at all...I will never make that mistake again."

He places the guitar next to the bench, her face still in his own almost before he reached up, cupping her cheek.

"...a girl who has more fire in her than the color of her hair...a girl who even as much as she yells at me...gives a shit deep down...even if I'm dead. I don't think that's something I could ever forget, no matter how many lives I will have after this. You have a Will of Fire, Enid. And once its burning, you spread that spark to others...I think...you'll be a great leader someday...as long as you never let that care for others die."

The fingers weren't cold like last time...they trailed down her neck...and before she could protest...he leaned up and kissed her softly...it wasn't a long kiss..but unlike the last time...she didn't wake up this time.

[Morgan] [WP for reasons that will become clear in post]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Morgan] There's nothing but tension there when he touches her, kisses her, and at her sides her fists clench, though she keeps them down if just barely. She doesn't plant one firmly in his nose, just glares when she pulls away, after the surprise wears off. Sure, he's cute. That doesn't mean she likes this being manipulated, having people she didn't put there running through her mind. That doesn't mean she likes being kissed when she asked him to convince her that saving his ass was the right thing to do.

"Don't. touch. me," is all she says, and there's that fire he already mentioned in her eyes, promising danger if he dares to do so again. And then, after just a moment - not of hesitation, but assessment. "Fine, then. Get out, and if you can bring any of the others with you, all the better. I'll deal with Ugly."

[Fall No More] Autumn stared at her...and then that saddened look crossed his features. He had taken initiative....had thought something completely wrong. He just nodded...

She felt the world ripple...and then she was standing in front of Not-Autumn once more....he had been waiting, just tinkering with his own guitar...the beat dischordant and the lyrics he was half-singing just bothering her a little...

~Give me a shot to remember
and you can take all the pain away from me
one kiss and i will surrender
the sharpest lives are deadliest to lead
a light to burn all the empires
so bright the sun is ashamed to rise and be
in love with all of these vampires
so you can leave like the sane abandoned me~

[Morgan] There were ways it could have gone to end up with what Autumn thought he'd be getting. There were things that could have been said, or done, but as is? He's that weak kid who ate his gun and needed Morgan to save him, who hadn't been able to muster the Will - dead or not - to do something to help himself. (Briefly, Morgan wonders if things could have happened to her to make her that way, but she puts it out of her mind. She's not particularly keen on sympathy or empathy at the moment, and instead faces Not-Autumn with the same ire she'd faced the boy's . . . ghost. Or whatever it was. And of course, she answers the lyrics - she's the pop culture queen.

"There's a place in the dark where the animals go
You can take off your skin in the cannibal glow
Juliet loves the beat and the lust it commands
Drop the dagger and lather the blood on your hands, Romeo

I've really been on a bender and it shows
So why don't you blow [him]
A kiss before [I] goes?"

It's sardonic, the tone, and then there's a moment before she adds, "He's gone. Do what you need to do." She's not the type of girl to not fight back, though. not at all. Sure, he might take something? But she also might give him more than he bargained for.

[Fall No More] The spirit smiled, mirthfully as it sat the guitar down..it walked forward..almost like Autumn...it touched her face...but then it leaned foward as if to kiss her...before she felt it start to siphon from her...she could feel it...feel something try and pull from her...chaos starting to spill inwards...trying to overtake her...

[Morgan] [not without a fight, fucker. Mind + Forces/Prime]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 5, 5, 8 (Success x 4 at target 4) [WP]

[Morgan] [extend]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Fall No More] Willpower 7: Spirit, +1 diff from Morgan's Rote - Extended - Yer Mind is My Playground! (25 successes needed) First Round
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 7)

[Morgan]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Fall No More] As the two square off...she can feel her willworking is distracting her mind...just enough to allow the spirit to worm its way further inside her mind...she could already feel the tendrils of chaos starting to saturate segments of her head...a kaleidoscope of crazy running through her mind...hallucinations...paranoia...a lack of hope...depression...voices like Autumns, a shrieking woman over her children, and even a flicker of lust inside her akin to nymphomania before quickly gone....

But she can feel her focus trying to solidify...trying to keep this thing at bay.

[Fall No More] Willpower 7: Spirit, +3 diff from Morgan's Rote - Extended - Yer Mind is My Playground! (25 successes needed) 6/25, Second Roll
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9 (Failure at target 9)

[Morgan]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 5, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Morgan]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Fall No More] ...the two square off, the spirit snarling as for a moment, her emotions create a wall...but she can feel the insanity overtaking her...trying to drown her...her resistance like butter at the moment...the will work was using so much of her reserves to focus.

[Fall No More] Willpower 7: Spirit, +3 diff from Morgan's Rote - Extended - Yer Mind is My Playground! (25 successes needed) 6/25, Third Roll
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 9)

[Fall No More] Willpower 7: Spirit, +3 diff from Morgan's Rote - Extended - Yer Mind is My Playground! (25 successes needed) 8/25, Fourth Roll
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 10 (Failure at target 9)

[Morgan]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Morgan]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Fall No More] Willpower 7: Spirit, +3 diff from Morgan's Rote - Extended - Yer Mind is My Playground! (25 successes needed) 8/25, Fifth Roll
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8 (Failure at target 9)

[Morgan]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 10, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Morgan]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 5 (Failure at target 6)

[Fall No More] Willpower 7: Spirit, +3 diff from Morgan's Rote - Extended - Yer Mind is My Playground! (25 successes needed) 8/25, Sixth Roll
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7 (Failure at target 9)

[Fall No More] Willpower 7: Spirit, +3 diff from Morgan's Rote - Extended - Yer Mind is My Playground! (25 successes needed) 8/25, Seventh Roll
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 9)

[Fall No More] ..the two are an impasse for a moment...back and forth trying to push..then she feels it...barely a nudge, but its there...its starting to win...

[Morgan]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 4, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Morgan]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Fall No More] Willpower 7: Spirit, +3 diff from Morgan's Rote - Extended - Yer Mind is My Playground! (25 successes needed) 9/25, Eighth Roll
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 9)

[Fall No More] Willpower 7: Spirit, +3 diff from Morgan's Rote - Extended - Yer Mind is My Playground! (25 successes needed) 10/25, Ninth Roll
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 9)

[Morgan] [WP, 9/25 sux]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Morgan] [Shiny temporary derangement, come to mama]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Morgan] [WP, 9/25 sux]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Morgan] [WP, 12/25 sux]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 7, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Fall No More] Willpower 7: Spirit, +3 diff from Morgan's Rote - Extended - Yer Mind is My Playground! (25 successes needed) 12/25, Tenth Roll
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 6, 7, 10 (Failure at target 9)

[Morgan] [WP, 16/25 sux]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Fall No More] Willpower 7: Spirit, +3 diff from Morgan's Rote - Extended - Yer Mind is My Playground! (25 successes needed) 12/25, Eleventh Roll
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 9)

[Fall No More] Willpower 7: Spirit, +3 diff from Morgan's Rote - Extended - Yer Mind is My Playground! (25 successes needed) 13/25, Twelfth Roll
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 9)

[Fall No More] Willpower 7: Spirit, +3 diff from Morgan's Rote - Extended - Yer Mind is My Playground! (25 successes needed) 14/25, Thirteenth Hour
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 6, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 9)

[Morgan] [WP, 18/25 sux]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Morgan] [WP, 22/25 sux]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 6, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Fall No More] Willpower 7: Spirit, +3 diff from Morgan's Rote - Extended - Yer Mind is My Playground! (25 successes needed) 16/25, Fourteen
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 8 (Botch x 1 at target 9)

[Fall No More] Willpower 7: Spirit, +3 diff from Morgan's Rote - Extended - Yer Mind is My Playground! (25 successes needed) 14/25, Fifteen
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 9)

[Fall No More] ...the contest of wills...is long. But for a moment..she felt it try to mess with her...she remembered the time that Autumn had been taken by this thing...when it had paraded in his flesh...the dream of decadence around her...the MayFly Queen who had caused such a disruption on campus...for a moment she felt this thing was trying to make her like that...that whore. It had cut at her and she had backhanded it back....suddenly, her Will flared to life...like a backlash of flame....

...and the thing was suddenly thrust across the church, slamming into the pedastal, smoking trails running up from it as her Will had overpowered it.

[Morgan] And as quickly as she'd been in Autumn's face, she's in this thing's and ready to strike again with the weapon she's forged of every insecure, lost, sad, angry feeling she's ever had if it proves necessary. "I changed my mind," she says. "I will quote Labyrinth. You have no power over me."

And yes, she strikes again. Just for good measure.

[Fall No More] It cringes, before snarling...and then it lashes out...

[Fall No More] Willpower 7, Direct Attack: Don't fuck with a Jaggling, +3 diff still
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 9)

[Fall No More] Rage: Damage
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Fall No More] The lash as it was was the form of a psionic whiplash at her own psyche...it was a creature of dreams....tormenting her with images of Autumn...but also mostly of his death....images of her in his place....like she had dreaded...that she could have been like him..her lying on the church floor, clutching her throat..fragments from an exploded handgun in her skin...

[Morgan] As she'd been using her own psyche to lash at him, it's only fair one imagines - it hits, and she stumbles back, bravado gone as she clutches at her throat, horrified. Her head hurts, but more importantly she can almost feel the blood spurting between her fingers, never mind that she knows that skin is unblemished, that she's never taken any such wound. "Go," she gurgles out. "You're done here."

[Fall No More] It just roars...lashing out again....though she can already see parts of it are starting to crumple....to give way...its power is used too much it would seem.

[Fall No More] Willpower7 , Direct Attack again...+3 diff
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 5, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Failure at target 9)

[Morgan] [WP, can we soldier on and attack again?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Fall No More] It lashes out again...her knees are faltering as she's been tapping her reserves...it takes all her strength to realize that she isn't dying...that the wounds are...not that bad.

[Morgan] [why yes, we can. Already have the weapon. Dex + Melee, +1 diff for unskilled. (Because emotions make a nice dagger/sword/spear-thing.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Morgan] [damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 5 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Fall No More] Lash again!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 9)

[Fall No More] Damage: Rage: 4 + Staging 3
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Morgan] The wounds are not that bad. She'll hurt, sure, but she can manage . . . and manage she does, sort of. She hits, but her emotion-forged weapon skids off of the crumpling spirit-thing, leaving her furious - well, she'd already been that.

[Fall No More] The spirit feels her lash out with her own strength as it falters...its weak. Its starting to fall apart. She manages to get one last attack...her hand forming around a spear as she buries it into it. But it does not harm it...instead it reaches out, hand clutching her throat....another psychic resonance inside her mind...her dying here...her being the sacrifice for Autumn's soul rather then her sanity.

Images of her being dragged to the spirit hell he would create...her suffering in Autumn's place...or maybe her sacrifice being in vain...the two 'lovers' entwined forever in suffering...as her symbol was a half heart...who is to say that Autumn was not the other? She can feel herself sinking to her knees...she can't fight...her Will is drained...her body suffering...she is...broken.

Then something starts to form...she sees it spilling from her...forming and taking a bright shining facade of the real Autumn. He looked down at her, giving a small smile.

"...you...have a Will of Fire, Enid. And it sparks something...in everyone."

The spirit roared. "This is impossible...you...you belong to me!"

"Not anymore..."

It reached up....and then there was blinding light....like a sparked flame as it the purifying fire of Autumn's soul roared across her and the dreamscape....

[Morgan] She hears bits and pieces - that is to say, she hears Autumn's voice, and she hears the thing roar something. She's considerably past the point of making it all out, though, or responding to it; that much damage more or less directly to the brain, and she's lucky if she can make her fingers and toes twitch, at the moment (it'll wear off, sure. She'll heal, if she doesn't degrade. But in the moment? She's in a bad way). Then there's that fire, though - it flares, and she (thinks she) closes her eyes against it, blocking out the heat and light as well as she can.

All she wants is to wake up.

[Fall No More] ...dreams do come true.

Its not quite dawn. Its the hour of morning that not even God was awake yet. For a moment, it feels like a dream...a nightmare has passed. Her skin is soaked, her head throbs, and she doesn't even have the scream....the flames had not burned...in fact, it was like a gentle caress...protecting her. Her eyes noticed the alarm clock showing 3:34....as she lays there...

...she hears the radio of the alarm clock click on....and its changing stations on its own...before it settles on one...and then she hears a voice...better than Autumn's but still having that sad ring to it as the lyrics rolled off the honey tongue...

~When I fall in love it will be forever
Or I'll never fall in love
In a restless world like this is
Love has ended before it's begun
And too many moonlight kisses
Seem to cool in the warmth of the sun

When I give my heart it will be completely
Or I'll never give my heart
And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too
Is when I fall in love with you

(Ooh this love feels so right...)
When I give my heart it will be completely
Or I'll never give my heart

And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too
Is when I fall in love
When I fall in love
Is when I fall in love with you

...and she knew now...she was alone...the madness was gone. But she was truly...alone. He was gone and he wouldn't come back to her dreams....not unless she dreamed him for herself.