Armstrong's Garage

~~Narration~~

As the pieces are examined more closely, it appears that each Ananke only held part of a person, not a whole person. All the parts seem to have the same flesh tone, albeit pale from dribbling blood for several minutes -- and that flesh matches the face of Invictus.

"This whole conclusion is fallacious. Contradictions, false logistics. Doesn't make sense, there are 11 inherent metaphoric parallels already there. Eleven. Important number. Prime number. One goes into the house of eleven eleven times, but always comes out one." Armstrong starts rocking back and forth.

Animus looks more than a little uncomfortable, but maintains control of himself.

He looks around. "Who has the other stones?"

"I've put in my four. Ensign, check Ruby, I'll watch Armstrong; I don't think the paradox treated her nicely. Leftenant, make sure theo and fiddler have gotten rid of theirs."

Armstrong continues to rock back and forth, sobbing quietly.

Animus shakes his head. We don't have time for this. He whispers in the Atlantean Tongue, focusing on adjusting the balance of Armstrong's hormones in an attempt to calm her down.

Spoiler:

((Resolve + Gnosis to resist))

Spoiler:

Armstrong's stops sobbing. She stares at the remains of the Space Ananke for a long while. She finally speaks, her voice coming out without any inflection. "i can't see out of my left eye."

(( Sorry guys, I'm going to have to nix that spell. Calming hysteria or coming to grips with a Derangement is nowhere near instinctual response. Perhaps Emotional Urging could be used. ))

Like a baby polar bear at first sign of spring, or a chestburster cuddled by a heart, Ruby begins to stir.

"Did they kill us?" She asks, concerned and groggy.

"Considering we were putting stones in any random order at all during the fight, order shouldn't matter anymore. Just get the damn things in."

Captain looks at Armstrong.

"Calm down Armstrong, everything will be fine. I'm here."
Attainment: emotional urging

04-28 11:53:01

Captain rolls 10 dice to Presence+expression+force

2 successes 8,6,2,6,8, 1,6,6,2,3

(( Armstrong rolls Comp+Gnosis to Resist ))

Theo shakes himself out of his stunned suprise of having torn off the thing's arm. Pausing for a few seconds to resort his thoughts into the proper order he addresses the issue of the keys.
"Well, not being in a fight for our lives changes the situation somewhat in regards to solving this puzzle rather than trying to stop abysall creatures of magic.
"From your description of events at the mound before this I'm fairly certain there is a proper order to put the keys in. Here, I'll show you." he goes over to direct where to put the keys.

Armstrong rolls 3 to Wits + Composure -3 (10 Again)
8,2,1 (1 successes)

Something's wrong. I need to...

"...distance myself." Armstrong barks out three buzzing words in high speech and squashes her mind with the last dregs of her own willpower. She squashes all emotion and flatlines her hopes and dreams. After a moment, she stands up and pulls out the stone in her pocket, handing it to whoever takes it or dropping it on the ground if nobody takes it right away.

"Here."

She walks over the the man's head and looks down at the meat, dispassionatly.

"Did someone know him?"

Spoiler:

Animus looks at Armstrong in wonder. Did she just pull herself back to sanity? He he takes the stone and, after a brief moment to discern its resonance, runs it over to the appropriate obelisk. Who has the last one?

Spoiler:

((there should be a stone lying by Ruby))

Armstrong shrugs and strips off her bloody windbreaker and starts collecting pieces of the Space Ananke, picking up a hand, an arm, a piece of the chest and putting them all into her makeshift sack. It's not a perfect solution, but it'll work. She moves back over to the head and picks it up, trying to salvage as much of the stone face as possible.

~~Narration~~

Armstrong continues to collect pieces of Space as the others locate the final stone. Fiddler rouses from his fainting spell, but looks shell-shocked. Theo outlines the sequence of the Banishing Cycle for everyone.

During all of this, the next obelisk flickers to life, activating.

!!!
"Did you feel that? What was that? Is something happening?" Ruby groans, sprawled in the ephemeral dirt of the Shadow Realm.

"Another one just activated. This thing's still running."

After a brief moment of concentration, Animus surveys the scene across the gauntlet.

Spoiler:

"I think thats right. Lets get this done." Captain and those who helped put the stones in the banishing cycle.

~~Narration~~

As the keys are re-inserted in the Banishing Cycle, the obelisks begin to hum and resonate. Pieces of the Ananke bleach out, and become extremely brittle to the touch. Various Sights show the conclusion of the obelisk ritual, as the threads begin to dissipate, and the Fate contingencies which bound them are undone. Each Ananke remains become hazy, and the blurred remnants of Blackfire's soul waft away into the Shadow, forever shredded into ten pieces.

With the final key inserted, the spell is ended in a flash of multi-Arcana ripples, and the obelisks return to plain, dormant stone once more. The eggshell remains of the Ananke reveal the dismembered remains of Invictus, the corporeal counterpart to Blackfire's soul.

Peering across the Gauntlet reveals the park slowly returning to normal, and the resonance of the area seems to be slowly changing as well, as if a fog were lifting.

There's still that question of getting home, though, on some people's minds.

"Well done lads, well done!" Captain shouts out, and the crew cheers.

Armstrong just stands there as her windbreaker-turned-makeshift-bag starts filling up with dust. She can't even throw her hands up to the sky and shout NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! because of the massive weights of apathy she has chained to herself.

Animus looks around. "We did it. The park's returning to normal. If no one minds, I'd prefer to head back to our sanctum to cross the Gauntlet. I can heal everyone once we get there."

"Thanks. We could really use that." The crew and captain are really really not looking well.

Armstrong responds with a monotone "Eh". She idily wonders if she'll ever see out of her right eye again, because now her only keepsake of the Space Ananke will be the dust that's mixed with her blood on her windbreaker.

~~Narration~~

Using Animus' familiar as a guide, the group slowly makes their way back to Animus' Sanctum, where he slices through the Gauntlet and they leave the Shadow behind.

(( Begin new thread; Scene ends; Armstrong is over Paradox effects ))