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[andnevermore]

I need help.

[ It's not the kind of comment one might normally expect out of Blake; usually so independant, and reluctant to rely on others for help. But there's a barely restrained panic in her voice that she's only mostly keeping under control as she tries to be clinical and informative about what she's facing. ]

My friend, Yang... some of you will know her. Lots of blonde hair, prosthetic, yellow muscle car. Likes to make dumb puns.

She-- she fell asleep and won't wake up again. I think she's turning into a Husk. There's a layer of metal on her skin and hair.

[ A pause as Blake audibly draws breath to compose herself. ]

Do we know anything about how to reverse the process?

Comments

[undyingcrow]

If I understand correctly, the transformations themselves give us a resistance. There are still gaps in the information, of course, and clearly they don't provide a full immunity.

[Setting aside Yang's situation, there's the Husk monsters as well. Something still doesn't add up.]

They claimed that stasis has always been a factor in this world, but there could be a deeper truth.

[andnevermore]

[ God, Blake wishes they could just get some solid answers. This quest for truth, this slow piecing together of clues, is just frustrating. ]

I'd be more inclined to think that stasis became a thing after the Impact. This world seems like it had a pretty thriving society until the monsters came along.

[undyingcrow]

They described the First Impact as a creation event that brought this world into existence, so you're not entirely wrong. Still, something does feel amiss.

[Missing information, details obscured with time...]

Evidently, the moon's destruction came from growing unrest due to the Silver Tears and the Steel Wardens as well. The Tears made a grand declaration, and the world descended into hell.

[andnevermore]

Well, I guess that's a big hole in my theory. If the Silver Tears and Steel Wardens contributed to the moon's destruction, then it wasn't the moon's destruction that caused monsters to appear, because their philosophies were already oriented around monsters. Huh.

[ Blake will admit, she kind of appreciates the deep lore dive here. It's nicely distracting. ]

Unless whatever the First Impact was was the very start of the moon's destruction, it caused monsters, the different groups sprang up, and then it was properly destroyed later.

[undyingcrow]

Well, in terms of timeline, the First or Dawn Impact was allegedly the result of two orbiting forces that collided, creating the aspects of the runes and and the world itself. By the sound of it, it was wild, untamed, and full of magic.

[Hmm... Piecing it together, there's the matter of the moon.]

They claimed that grief and desperation broke the moon, with the Tears swearing vengeance on the Wardens. It seems they wanted to "restore the blessings" and ward off stasis, which supposedly was the original purpose of our transformations.

[andnevermore]

So stasis was a problem even before the transformations? Huh.

[ Blake tips her head back to look upward at the broken moon. It's almost a familiar sight, just broken in different way than the moon of her own world. ]

It's kind of difficult for me to wrap my head around how much magic saturates this place, actually. If it's so strong that grief can break a whole moon-- I'm way out of my depth.

[undyingcrow]

Indeed, and my only point of comparison lies within the cognitive world, which relies more on the collective unconscious than anything more grounded in reality.

[By all accounts, this is the first "real" magic he's experienced, outside of circumstances intertwined with the Metaverse.]

What I find curious is how our sigils were refined from the aspects of the runes. There's a rich history that's been lost to time, and it's ridiculous how the Wardens wish to remove all traces of it.