for we all have our own twilights

[lord_wizard]

Who: Felix Harrowgate, Tyrion Lannister
Broadcast: none
Action: somewhere on Drade
When: about a week after this

After a few days of tinkering on the prototypes that Tyrion had begun work on some time ago, he and Felix have at last assembled together in a shuttle to test the product of their designs. Descending to a island that skirts the upper level of the mists, they stop just outside of the reach of the dark, twisting tendrils of the strange fog. It gives Felix a vague sensation of unease to look at, the slowly drifting banks of mists recalling in the strange way the progress of a river he'd left behind long ago.

Instead, he purposefully directs his gaze back down to his lap, where he's double checking the fastenings and seals on his own mask. The design seems to be, on paper, a significant improvement over those available on the island - a melding of their concept and Atroma's knowledge. But it's the source of that which still troubles him.

"Are you ready?" he asks, glancing across to where Tyrion sat, as he ignored his own worries in favor of the possibility of discovery.

Comments

[tallasaking]

Tyrion himself was still fiddling with his own mask - making sure all the seals were airtight and the straps wouldn't suddenly come loose. He felt fairly confident in them - it was the matter of the filter that he was truly concerned about. He knew his design was ... well, amazing. Materials, however, were going to remain in question until they had done more significant testing on Felix's designs of the filtration system itself.

Which, really, was why they were here.

He glanced up with his own mis-matched eyes, before he snorted, "Am I prepared to go into a fear fog that may or may not take us on a rambling ride of madness?...Certainly." He smirks, "I'll take any reason to drink myself into a stupor later."

[lord_wizard]

"You require a reason?" Felix teased lightly, lifting up the mask to inspect the inner seals for any gaps. The view through the eye-pieces is tinted slightly, giving the mist beyond a sepia cast.

He knows what madness feels like, though the kind he's experienced is specific to himself. It's difficult to prepare for it. The nature of the beast is to be overtaken by it. Worse, the list of his fears are myriad.

The wizard swallows minutely as he continues, "In either case, I'd rather drink in celebration."

[tallasaking]

"...Well no, not normally, but then I have never really needed an excuse to be a drunkard." Tyrion smirked faintly, before he frowned, adjusting his mask to make sure it was tight on his smaller face.

His voice comes out muffled, "You are not the only one."

[lord_wizard]

"I'll start preparing a toast," he replied, smoothing the last of his nerves under a crooked smile, then slid the mask on. The straps tugged at his hair as he tightened them, making him wince slightly, and he was briefly thankful his face was covered. The feeling of it is strange - almost like being smothered, but not enough to actually inhibit breathing. Felix draws in a long breath experimentally, and though there's something strange about the quality of the air, there's no trace of any of the strange odors the ship engines give off. A good sign.

"No more dallying, then. The sooner we finish this the sooner we can drink." Gesturing forward, Felix leads the way into the mist.

[tallasaking]

"Please do make it as florid as possible. I want to be be able to boast about this with the other engineers." Tyrion slipped the strap a little more firmly into place before he nodded his head.

"Very good." He follows after, hobbling at his own speed, but still hobbling.

[lord_wizard]

The fog wraps itself around them, obscuring the landscape around them in mere minutes - the buildings in their vaporous sea disappearing by increments until it seems like they're entirely adrift in it. As the sunlight also dims, Felix casts a muted array of witchlights around himself, lighting up the fog around him with swirls of pale green. Fascinated, Felix walks steadily but carefully forward, taking experimental deep breaths to test the strength of the mask. It's almost like being untethered from reality.

He forgets, briefly, that he's not alone. His long-legged stride was a struggle to keep up with for his own brother, and for Tyrion it may be doubly true. Without meaning to, he disappears into the fog ahead, lost in his thoughts.

[tallasaking]

None of this is helped by the fact that Tyrion himself is lagging behind, pausing every ten or so feet into the mists to write notes. So far, so good. The mask straps were holding - there was no serious breathing issus - and the filters seemed to be working up to speculations. Of course this was just the first test run, but so far, so very good.

... well it was until he realized he couldn't see Felix anymore, and he was all alone in the mists. He turned this way and that, before he called out, "Fellix?"

[lord_wizard]

Felix has always been about being methodical in the planning but rash in his execution. Nearly every step of mending the Virtu had been that way, and nearly every step of which might have killed him if it had gone awry. But his feelings on the matter had been that exposure to the darkest fog he could reach would have been the only true test of their engineering work. It's almost the only thought he clings to as he walks.

And in a way, he's right. It doesn't take long for whatever it was in this insidious fog to do it's work. It overwhelms the single stage filter, causing one of the second hand gaskets he'd used for the internal pressure seal to leak, just slightly. Enough.

The dread creeps in along with it - a chilling feeling that slides itself down his spine. He's present enough to realize, for a moment, that something has gone wrong at about the same time he begins to realize he's alone. It cannot stop the panicked inhalation of breath that only makes things worse. At almost the same moment Tyrion calls out, a different voice from ahead of him does as well.

"Felix. What are you doing? You cannot protect yourself from this. The same way you could not protect yourself from me..." it says, low and perfectly condescending. There's no visible source to it yet, but the sound of it is enough to make him choke on his own air.

He doesn't answer either voice, but at least he's stopped walking, the will o'the wisp glow of his witchlights still visible in the fog.

[tallasaking]

Tyrion lets out a sigh as he hobbles off towards the dim lights in the distance, shaking his head a little. Felix always seemed to him the jump in first and think about it later, types, and he was not pleased to see this assessment to be true. He hobbles into the deeper mists warily - because he is certain they were not supposed to go This Far.

Well, he was happy he was smart enough to tell people where they were going.

Especially when he started to hear whispers on the wind, and he knew their voices all too well.

He sighed, as he finally caught up with Felix, "Just out of curiosity, are you hearing the voices of the dead?"

[lord_wizard]

He takes a wary step back, bumping against Tyrion's shoulder by accident, his wide eyes fixed on the space ahead of him.

"One in particular," he answers, as a cold kind of dread grips it's hand around his throat. Mentally, his guard is slamming shut every crack it can find, body still and waiting to try to counteract anything his old master might try to throw his way as he loses grip on the notion that it's nothing but an illusion.

He glances surreptitiously down at Tyrion, afraid to tear his gaze away for too long.

"We should go, I think," he says, and the voice lets out a low, rumbling laugh.

[tallasaking]

"... yes. Yes I think that would be best." He stated, as he eyed the path in front of them. "We were on a grade, correct? So going up would, ah, keep us from facing our worse fears."

He paused.

"Again."

[lord_wizard]

"It won't help if he follows us," Felix hisses down, trying to glance back at the way he'd come. He takes a few hesitant steps backwards. Meanwhile, ahead of them, a shape begins to resolve itself in the mist, a slightly stocky dark-haired man striding lazing forward.

"Lost again, darling?" the voice calls out calmly, and the fog around him lights up with orange pin-pricks.

Telling himself that Malkar is dead goes Felix little good. Even in Paradisa the idea that such things were not prohibited, and anything could return from the grave to haunt him.

[tallasaking]

"How can it possibly be a 'he' when I am clearly hearing a 'she' - oh yes of course, we fear different things." Tyrion stated, even though he could hear the swish of red velvet across stone floor. He gripped the weapon at his side, peering into the shadows where he could just make out Cersei's form.

He took a few more steps back up the hill, and grabbed at Felix, dragging him with him.