idolpro | TEMPTATION OF ANGELS, which is named KHRYSAOR: A Heart Game (I)

[ she indeed goes to speak to quentin.

things are about to get very silly, I am sure. ]

As you head towards the forested edge of the clearing, you can see that there's smoke rising in the distance—thick plumes of it, as though part of the forest is burning. No one here seems the least bit concerned by it, though...?

Quentin himself is particularly worn-looking in person, with the beginnings of stubble shadowing his chin. The centaur he's talking to is in... some kind of poncho, which he occasionally fidgets with and which is entirely out of place with his frankly medieval feathered cap.

The centaur keeps staring at you as you approach, but Quentin himself doesn't seem to notice until you're practically on top of him.

"Ah! You're... a visitor?" He sounds friendly enough, but also a bit... airy, almost; like his mind is still half elsewhere.

It seems so, anyway. A friend of Kiri Hellfire's.

I'm looking for her, in fact.

"Oh–! Ah. Ah... did she go off somewhere?"

...shouldn't you know? You're her... people, aren't you?

The centaur slaps a hand over his face, slowly dragging down. Quentin scowls at him, but turns back to you, still friendly.

"Well, ah... you see. I just got back from some travels myself, so... I'm taking the time to catch up on... ah, what I missed."

Slightly muffled from behind his palm, the centaur adds on, "He means he was off making doe eyes at Ananda."

I have no idea who that is but I already regret asking.

If she's not here, and she's not in our dormitory, do you have any ideas where she would be, though? Or places one could go from here?

"Oh, you need to get somewhere, then?" Quentin perks up. This is his Moment.

He extends a hand to you.

"I'm Quentin, Power of The Quest. And I think it's safe to assume you're a friend or, to be honest, there'd just be a faint red smear of you left, after talking to Adalet and Harlowe, ahahaha!"

[ she pauses, and then gives him a very brief, very perfunctory handshake before crossing her arms over her waist. ]

I'd certainly call myself a friend, yes. Nothing to be unfriendly about here.

So you're—

...you give people quests? Is that it?

"Usually I'm on a Quest—" (The centaur mutters under his breath: "For Ananda.")

"—but." Quentin clears his throat, then stands up a bit straighter, voice finally taking on a more certain tone.

"From one seeker to another, I can surely point you in the right direction. Those bridges—" He indicates the crumbling structures that half-cross the various ponds, "—take us where we need to be. Based on your Quest..."

He studies you carefully a moment. "I'd say your options are the Vengeance Room, Heaven's Garden, or back to Chancel BAD END=DEAD END."

...all right, what's "the Vengeance Room."

"You know... the room where you... get vengeance?"

He smiles, almost apologetic. "Everyone else always loved that one."

[ pfft ]

Well, that does sound like it would be popular with this crowd.

"Heaven's Garden," though... is it that place above the chain, in the sky? Or somewhere else?

"I'm... honestly not sure about the thing with the chain. It was different, you know. From what Kiri expected. But I think it must have been the same place, in the end. You know... on a kind of... spiritual level? Or at least the garden she found at the end felt like was connected, even if it was... more Bleak than before."

He shrugs. "Sorry, there's a reason we usually have Harlowe or Adalet explain that sort of thing."

I see. It makes a sort of sense... I think, anyway. Sympathy, maybe.

Perhaps I'll investigate there, but is there anything else I ought to know, first?

"Um."

He fiddles around in his knapsack without really looking at what he's doing, then frowns to himself when he comes up empty-handed.

"...Guess Kiri never really cared about how my bag worked, ahaha." A pause. "Well... do you... know what an Abhorrent Weapon is, miss?"

Well, I can guess, but I suspect it means something much more specific than would come to mind. Certainly, I am familiar with humanity's weapons of devastation, but I get the impression that the scope of Hellfire's world goes a bit beyond that.

At this point in the conversation, the centaur makes a kind of... :T ...face, though from the look in his eyes, that might actually be his polite substitution for a full-on grimace. He glances over to Quentin once more, then turns and just short of gallops to the woods without so much as a "bye."

Quentin looks a bit like he might envy him.

"Well... that's... sort of the problem, actually. Kiri's from the world, but she's not.... really..... of it, you could say? She's got a whole lot of Excrucian in her."

I admit she was never quite able to explain some of that to me in a way that made sense. Is that to say she's—of Hell, or...?

He smiles, a little soft and sad at the edges.

"Hell is part of the world too, you know. Just like Heaven. Just like... Beauty."

A Hell that loves everything that's part of the world...

Then—is abhorrent something from outside the world?

"I don't know if Adalet and Harlowe got to telling you about the Valde Bellum, but it's... why we're here. Um—us, I mean; the Nobilis, not you.

"It's the war for all of reality. That means every world on the World Tree. The Excrucians are from outside all that. Or, well... we call it 'outside' since there's the blue flame Wyrding Wall and everything, but I don't know if it makes sense to even talk about it like a place. It's just, you know... N͟o͇̰͔t̟̬̪̗̲̠h҉͚͈i̟̻n͙g͔͎."

For a moment there, his voice doesn't sound entirely his own, instead overlaid with something that might be Hellfire's, or... someone with a far deeper voice than either her or Quentin.

...could you—say that again? Just—the last part.

"Ah... sorry, I know it's rather a lot. I imagine this is fairly overwhelming to wrap one's mind around for the first time, right? It's been..." His expression goes distant again; his words back to half-distracted and almost airy. "...such a long time since I was taught about it."

There's a too-long pause, then he comes back to himself and smiles another apologetic smile. "What the Wyrding Wall does is it separates reality from non-existence. Nothingness, that is."

Whatever that strange effect was, it's gone. If you ever even heard it at all...?

Ah.

[ hm. that's unsettling. ]

...how does "nothingness" make a sword, though?

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