you need a bloody shower [post-event mingle]

[bloodyashes]

Characters: Any and all!
Setting: Floor 77, sauna
Format: Action-mingle - start your own threads!
Summary: The event is over and everyone who was stuck in the dorms needs a serious bath.
Warnings: Post-event shenanigans? Also baths so p much everyone is at least partially naked.

And so now that you've made your way free of the hell that is the dorm rooms -

This floor mimics a sauna--there are three entrances: one for men, one for women, and one for mixed. Inside each room is the wooden interior one would expect. Outside each area is a small changing room with lockers--if you look, you'll find one with your name on it. The locker will only open up for you. It might be a good place to store things, actually...

- it's time for everyone to take a bath! There's both hot, steamy stalls and large hot spring pools - but you'd better hurry! It's gonna get crowded in here kind of fast.

And hey, keep that towel closed, there's children in here!

Comments

[seekinganswers]

[He'll hear footsteps as Sheba approaches the spring - not loud, because she's barefoot and mostly just padding along, but they're there nonetheless. She's another who's died and whose arrival here was delayed, but -

Even though she's woken up with a brand-new body, she still remembers -

But she doesn't want to. She wants to wash the memories of what happened in there away along with the (now nonexistent, but still too easy to remember) blood. She's keeping her eyes on her feet as she walks and then lowers herself into the water, so she doesn't really notice Asch is there until she's already submerged and looks up.]

Oh... hey. [She chuckles a little weakly.] Looks like we had the same idea. [She had a longer wait before she could move again, though. But that's to be expected.]

[bloodyashes]

[Thankfully, Sheba, Asch is a Polite Guy Who Doesn't Look. He waits till after he's heard the water stop splashing around her before so much as glancing in her direction.]

I can't imagine we were the only ones, but I think we missed the worst of the rush.

[Because they were dead. Yeah.]

[seekinganswers]

...yes, we probably did.

[She tries not to shudder as she thinks about why they missed the rush, but she's not quite successful, and after a moment she sinks lower into the water. Now the water is just about at her chin.]

I'm sorry I couldn't be there when you... you know. [When you were trapped. It's hard to run for someone else's room when you're trapped in your own body for longer than they are.]

[bloodyashes]

[And here he averts his eyes and shivers despite the warmth of the water.]

It's fine. To be honest, I kept thinking Van would show up; it's probably better that you didn't.

[Because he might have hyperresonated anyone who wasn't Luke on the spot; the subtle sameness of their connection was about the only thing he could have recognized quickly enough once panic set in.]

[seekinganswers]

That's part of why I wanted to be there. If he'd tried anything...

[She would have sealed his abilities and then unleashed everything she had on him. It was his fault they'd all died, after all - or at least that's what she wants to tell herself - and she honestly wouldn't put anything past him at this point. Better to get rid of him quickly.

But she doesn't think she can kill him every day. She'd like to, just so the others won't have to risk running into him - but she can't do it.]

I wouldn't have let him do anything. As long as I was able to stop him, I wouldn't have minded what came next.

[bloodyashes]

You idiot.

[He leans back against the wall of the bath, his hair billowing around his shoulders.]

He's one of, if not the most capable person on Auldrant. And unless I'm mistaken, he's still carrying the power of Lorelei from absorbing the entity in the core.

[Even if it was just glamour - as long as powers were on, Asch had an instinctive sense of the Seventh Fonon and there was simply too much of it in Van to be anything else. Even if Lorelei the consciousness hadn't come along, Van still had that power.]

He's not someone it's possible to take on alone.

[Just like the rest of Asch's problems in the Tower, really - at least he's capable of admitting, now, that he couldn't have taken down Van by himself. Another him in another world tried, he's sure, and Asch knows that he never got that far. Maybe for the better.]

[seekinganswers]

All I would have to do would be to survive until you woke up.

[If she sounds a little petulant, it's because she is. Van isn't someone she should take on alone and that's true, she knows it, but she still wants to think that if something happened she would have been able to last long enough to buy Asch some time to regain control of his body and handle the rest of it.]

I'd just have to use Bind, and then all I would need to do is dodge if he came at me with his sword. [She smiles a little.] I'm faster than I look, and sturdier, too. I think I'd be able to last long enough to keep him from doing anything to you.

[And really, that's what's important to her - that if Van try and get at Asch in some way, he's stopped from doing whatever it is he wanted. Getting hurt or killed by Van, or hyperresonated by Asch in the resulting chaos when he could finally move again, isn't as much of a concern.]

...I don't think I could kill him alone, but I don't think he'd be able to kill me right away, either. I could buy time.

[bloodyashes]

Given what I know about him, I doubt he'd wait. He'd go immediately for the helpless target, then chase you down.

[Why waste his energy when there's someone in the room who can't run? Asch knows Van well enough to imitate how the man thinks at least that far - it's what he'd do too, after all.]

I don't think he knew that people come back from the dead here, though. That probably kept him confused enough to stay out of our hair.

[Certainly Asch didn't tell him anything. He doubts anyone from Auldrant would save perhaps the original Ion.]

[seekinganswers]

...do you think he might come after you when he's done being confused?

[Terrible odds aside, if that is something that might come to pass, she still wants to try to prevent it. The fact that Asch won't be caught in the throes of sleep paralysis if he comes doesn't matter - if Van comes at all, she wants to be there.

Some of that determination is fairly obvious in her eyes. It's too bad her head is bowed and her eyes aren't easy to see, though.]

[bloodyashes]

I doubt it. If nothing else... He knows I have allies, now.

[It's relieving and worrying all at once. He's not sure he likes it - working alone was so much simpler. But going it alone in the Tower was for idiots with too much pride, and Van might be proving himself to be one.

As for Asch, he still remembers blank faces and his body being a puppet. Never again.]

this reply is late and i am sorry

[seekinganswers]

Good.

[To Sheba, it's a relief - if Van knowing Asch has allies will keep him from trying anything, she really doesn't care if it potentially paints a target on Asch's allies. They know what Van is. They can take steps to keep him from being a problem, if it comes to that.]

And, who knows... maybe this took him down a few pegs. He might be a little more bearable, now.

[Possibly not, but as Sheba has been discovering - even if death isn't permanent here, it does still have lasting effects on one's psyche. Just because Van wasn't six feet under didn't mean he wouldn't change. Though... maybe he's the type that will have to rack up the deaths before they start getting through to him.]