video; un: white pawn

[chosenbylight]

[Anduin is on the 12th floor of Zenobius' tower, his mirrors, lights, glass panes and telescopes visible in the background. The lighthouse keeper himself is nowhere to be seen.]

There is a ship.

[Anduin does not waste time with niceties. There is no time for niceties. He frowns, a troubled look on his face, as behind him Lily and Joker converse with one another beside one of the telescopes.]

It's caught in the storm and headed this way. Zenobius -- signaled them over?

[He shakes his head, as if to clear a thought (they don't have time to question that now but also what is the purpose of this lighthouse?) and strengthens his resolve.]

They'll never make it to shore. The three of us -- Lily and Akira are with me -- we saw Zenobius leave his post. He seemed... Distraught. Without any way to guide their boats through this mist, the storm, and those creatures in the water...

[His expression draws tight with concern.]

We must save them.

((ooc: this post is in regards to lily, joker, and anduin's plot roll. threadjacking is more than welcome for all!))

Comments

[chosenbylight]

[Wow don't make that face at him Wangji.

Look, he knows how it sounds, but he's a priest, what do you want from him.]

Yes.

The man was inconsolable once he realized the mermaids had been summoned by the light as well. You cannot falsify that pain.

1/2

[downswing]

All can be artifice.

[downswing]

You believe him compelled?

[chosenbylight]

I do not think his mind is wholly his own, so. Yes. I suppose so.

[This is a strange, new, unsettling thought to Anduin. He wonders what might happen if he tried to clear the lighthouse keeper's mind through his own means. Whether it would help, or harm him further...]

[downswing]

We take risk with him.

[chosenbylight]

I do not disagree. It is dangerous, the fact that he does not seem to be within full control of his own capacities.

[downswing]

Of own or another's design, he acts against us.

[chosenbylight]

What makes you say so?

[Or do you simply just find it so difficult to trust?]

[downswing]

He brought a vessel to its doom. Did he not?

[chosenbylight]

He signaled a vessel to shore out of a storm.

If the mermaids were not in the water, this act would have saved them.

[downswing]

You believe he did not know them in wait?

[chosenbylight]

I believe that the man is hardly aware of his full surroundings at the best of times, let alone in a crisis.

[downswing]

He alone is unaffected among the land's curses.

[chosenbylight]

I cannot say he is not affected by something. He hardly seems to remember his own name, at times. Though this tower has been spared from the cycles of death and rebirth of the surrounding land for one reason or another...

I cannot help but wonder what purpose this place truly serves.

[downswing]

Haunting grounds commemorate.

Faced with the nothingness of death, spirits embrace vestiges of their suffering.

[chosenbylight]

You think this place is haunted?

[downswing]

( Random instances of bleeding and voices. )

Likely.

[chosenbylight]

[Well that is. Not a friendly thought...]

This place grows less pleasant by the day.

[downswing]

Yet you survive it.

[chosenbylight]

I do what I must. We all do.