View source for 2020-02-24 - Get in the Tree.

{{Logsummary|
Title    = Get in the Tree
|Summary = Liyara (briefly) kidnaps Rayne and John to explain the dire straits she has found them all in.
|Who     = [[Rayne]], [[Liyara]], [[Constantine]]
|Date    = February 24, 2020.
|Where   = MCPD Courthouse Entrance
|Log=

It's another fine day in Twisted.  The birds are singing, the simulated sun is shining, and the chief of police is stepping out of the courthouse looking like she's not had a chance to relax in weeks.  Geeze, she even owns her own hot tub, you'd think she'd be able to decompress better in her apartment.  She looks off to the north, so perhaps that's something she's hoping to attempt to do shortly.



For the last five minutes, a red-headed dragonborn woman has been bleeding on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse.  This might sound alarming, and it should be, but not for the reasons one might assume.   The blood is a controlled drip, coming from a cut in her hand, and as it lands on the sidewalk, it is dispersing through and powering up a magical circle that Liyara has seared into the top layer of the surface.  People haven't reported this properly yet, as residents do weird things in Twisted all the time, but at some point, blood magic rituals have a way of getting people off the fence and talking, so it's only a matter of time. 
 
As for her part, Liyara has been waiting impatiently in front of the courthouse, some might say expectantly.  When she sees Rayne exit the building, she looks pleased with herself, and her tail swishes once.  There ARE better ways to get the police's attention than just... bleeding ominously outside.  She knows that, right?
 
...Right?



Rayne stops at the odd scene in front of her, gawking with her mouth open for a moment before shaking her head and asking, "...What are you doing?  That'd better wash off easily, or I might have to charge you with graffiti."  She looks down at the arcane looking pattern with a frown, but doesn't make any assumptions.  Oh, let's be honest, she's making plenty of assumptions, but she's being a good impartial servant of the law and not acting on any of them yet.



Of course, noone in their right mind should be pleased to see Liyara waiting for them, and even those in their not-so-right mind might hesitate upon seeing the ever expanding circle of ... is the circle made of blood, or just powered by it? It's kind of hard to tell with those magic types, but Jack has probably filed multiple reports explaining that Liyara has been burning circles into the very top layers of various street surfaces that vanish after she's finished.  Rayne might have seen them - but the chief is obviously busy.  Always busy. 
 
The dragon woman doesn't actually answer Rayne at ALL, which is a good way to get on anyone's nerves.  Instead, she affixes the woman with a piercing stare, those super-green eyes glowing brightly even in the simulated daylight. "Get in the tree first." Ignoring the 'brand new sentence' quality of that command, there isn't a tree nearby. Well, until there is.
 
The instant her words leave her mouth, Liyara lets the rest of the blood in her hand fall into the magic circle, and sure enough, a tree springs up right there in the sidewalk from the magic circle. It seems to spontaneously grow through the entire cycle of life in an awful hurry, going from sprout to sapling to full twisted gnarled plant in maybe six seconds.  The plant grows outward and away from the courthouse so as not to collide with any structure, and as if it wasn't defying all expectations already, there is one of those gnarled holes right in the middle of the trunk.  The hole is larger than most, almost five feet around, and the tree itself is only a couple of feet thick other than that.  Without even waiting for a reply, Liyara starts walking along the trunk to the hole.  She actually steps into it and ... disappears completely from view for a moment, before her head suddenly pops out at an angle that can't possibly be supported by the inside of the plant.  She looks impatient. 
 
"What's the phrase you humans adore? Oh yes.  Now."



Blood magic rituals also tend to attract the attention of, well...people who have been known to perform them. Striding down the street, his trench coat flopping around his legs, he approaches the dragonborn woman, the circle. The police chief. A cigarette dangles from his mouth, caught between his teeth. No doubt the lung cancer will catch up with him eventually. More likely somebody will kill him first. Get in the tree? He arches an eyebrow. "My dear friend Liyara..."



When Rayne isn't acknowledged, she doesn't wait long before she glances back to the courthouse.  Do something now?  Damnit, she's off duty.  She's trying to be MORE off duty when off duty.  She's not dumb, she knows she's stretching herself far too thin already.  She turns to the north right as that odd sentence is said.  She raises an eyebrow, then opens her mouth to say something about her usual position when attempting to relax in the park, but never mind all that.  Tree in the middle of the sidewalk.  She facepalms, the grumbles something about more work for Jack.  She looks over to Constantine and asks, "The hell is this?"  She then looks back at the tree again as Liyara pokes herself back out again.  "'Oh, hello Rayne.  Nice to see you again.  Hey, can you step into this tree for me, please?'"  She sighs, then, not really having the willpower right now to counter what's going on, she just goes ahead and steps through.  Really, it can't be any worse than that time she got hunted down, ripped apart, and eaten alive by a predator on Cevernal.



Liyara's head turns to look at John as she hears her name; any egomaniac is a sucker for it, after all. "Ah.  Good fortune.  You can join too, if you like." As if anyone is particularly excited to follow a dragon into a tree.  One of those things you have to be a certain kind of crazy to be pleased with.  There's a lot of that in Twisted, though.
 
Stepping into the tree ... of course doesn't take anyone into the inside of a tree.  What a ridiculous assumption that is.  Instead, there's a clearing of about twenty feet around in an enclosed forest that looks very thorny, but not altogether unpleasant.  Colors are MORE in the clearing, and the greens in particular pop.   Liyara is standing in the middle of the clearing, and if Jack WAS aware of the tree growing out of the sidewalk, wherever he is, he'd also be aware that as soon as people step into the tree, they're no longer in the city.  Anywhere in the city, actually.  There might be a reckoning for that sooner rather than later, but that's '''future''' Liyara's problem. 
 
Present-Liyara looks to Rayne as she enters, and puts a hand on her hip. 
 
"I actually do apologize. But I'm not saying a word out there, and I made you a promise to tell you when I learned more." Even the sound of her words doesn't make it to Twisted.  It's just a tree on that side.  But if Rayne (or John if he comes in) looks back out the hole, one can still see Twisted and the courthouse, and even hear muted impressions. The sounds and light are merely magically reproduced; nothing else comes in besides Rayne and John - not even a fly or a mote of dust. "...And I had to find an unusual edge-case spell if I wanted to talk to you securely, as I don't have any anti-scrying magic." ... Sure.  Because something is so important she can't talk in front of the courthouse? 
 
Just as Rayne might be ready to point out that she STILL hasn't explained anything, (and possibly just as John is entering) Liyara waves a hand dismissively, looks suddenly exhausted, and says two words. "Medical Mechanica."



There is no way Constantine is missing this. He strides into the tree, utterly unconcerned by where they might be going. "Ah. Pocket dimension. Variant on a bag of holding spell, if I don't miss my guess?" He shoots Liyara a look which just dares her to throw him out, but he *does* at least put out the smoke.



Rayne was half expecting something to go horribly wrong as soon as she stepped into the obvious portal.  An apology instead actually surprised her.  "Uh...  you did?"  She has to wrack her brain for a moment to remember that one.  Too much going on for her to remember every little...   oh.  That.  "Right.  Hence the secrecy."  She sighs and looks about for a convenient rock or stump to sit on.  Because she's not doing her usual branch sitting if those trees are covered in thorns, no thanks.  She blinks as John follows her in, then looks to Liyara again.  "Um.  Hrm.  Well, find anything interesting, then?"



Constantine's comments draw a warm smile from Liyara. "I knew you were one of the smart ones.  This is my Solace Bole.  The last time I tried to open it, I got no tree, and accidentally summoned a displacer beast." ... That sounds like the opposite of a good time. "I got better." Apparently.  For what it's worth, there are several stumps and rocks present that are surprisingly flat.  They're even comfortable to sit on, which is nice.
 
Liyara looks to the pair of them, and crosses her arms, her brows furrowing.  She looks... rather concerned.  This is a fairly new expression to those present - she has handled everything since she got here with a remarkable amount of aplomb, even her extra-special anti-human racism slipping out only caused her to look a bit sorry.  This looks positively worried. "...I was 'attacked' by Medical Mechanica over my interdimensional cartography.  Or to be more precise, they placed the invisible entrance to a localized demiplane in front of me and I wandered in blissfully unaware." 
 
Some of those are words that make sense to non-casters! Liyara glances to Rayne, and then gives a heave sigh. "...They stuck me in a pocket universe like this one, but under their control.  I didn't even notice the transition." Ok, so that's grounds for filing a complaint, maybe.  "...And were surprisingly forthcoming after they were done torturing me.  Which I think was an accident on their part?"



John Constantine casually sits on one of those rocks. "I suppose you were bound to piss *somebody* off with that." Torture? He's not pleased with that idea. "Wankers," he adds, with some feeling.



Rayne blinks, doing her best to /not/ look completely lost.  She's not doing a particularly good job.  Most of what Liyara said went right over her head.  But her eyes narrow as she gets the gist of it.  "I'd ask what you were doing with 'interdimensional cartography' but even if they had a legitimate complaint, they're clearly stepping over their bounds.  Think they run the place, do they?"  She glances to the side and sighs.  Damnit.  She's going to need to get out of that apartment, isn't she?  She knows she needed to get out from their view in there for a while, but house-hunting can be so much work and she already feels completely exhausted whenever she gets off her actual job.  She raises a hand to her face, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose between thumb and middle finger before taking a deep breath and sighing.  "I'm going to assume the accident was the forthcoming, as much as I'd prefer it to have been the torture.  What happened?"  It's only now that she finally actually sits down.



Liyara moves to a small stump of her own after a moment, moving to take a seat.  Sharp-eyed observers might spot it shimmer a little, and there is the rather distinct sound of metal on metal clinking and sliding as she sits.  The sound that a pile of gold makes when someone sits on it? That's the sound it's making now.  Weird stump.  The others don't do that.
 
The dragonborn crosses one of her legs over the other as she sits, and just continues looking tired and concerned. "...The construct they sent to communicate with me attempted to alter the parameters of the dimension to suit my needs, but wildly and ridiculously overcompensated.  Heat so vast I '''''felt''''' it..." Apparently not a normal thing. "...and the bitterest cold I've experienced outside of wyldspace." That's just space, here, Liyara.  Just space. 
 
"...But when she was done trying to accidentally kill me, she answered my questions to the best of her limited ability - which was perhaps worse than the torture." The dragonborn takes a deep breath, and then cranes her head back to let out of a puff of smoke and sparks upward in a heave sigh.  When she lowers it, her eyes are lidded. 
 
"And they certainly do think they run the place.  In fact, I had to go and look up several primers on various laws and corporate bylaws to fully process what they told me.  But it's all in here now." She taps her temple thoughtfully. "...They specialize in dimensional monitoring, creating artificial realities, and stealing artifacts from OTHER realities." So really they sound like they and Liyara would be friends.  Except noone likes competition. 
 
"...And I guarantee you they're watching all of Twisted. Or at least, near enough to warrant this little excursion." Ok. None of that explains why she looks haunted.  And she does look haunted.



John Constantine ahs. "So, they didn't actually intend to torture you, just didn't know what the hell they were doing." Constantine makes a face. "Think they run the place, do they?"


Rayne takes a deep breath in again, trying to process this.  "At least I was wrong on which was accidental," she mumbles.  "That /would/ be what she just said, yes.  And it makes me wonder.  It fills in some blanks."  Finally, she opens her eyes, though her hand is still there on her face, thumb and middle finger still pinching the bridge of her nose.  "You say they steal artifacts from other realities.  It makes me wonder...  do they consider /people/ to be 'artifacts'?"



Liyara looks to John and nods, then back to Rayne, waiting for a moment before responding to the chief. "They certainly treated me like little more than an object." She recalls the scene entirely too vividly - magical memory is not always a blessing.  She closes her eyes, then. 
 
Well, here goes.  In for a copper, in for a gold - this is the safest she's going to get, and she's got to tell SOMEONE. "...And you won't thank me for sharing this.  Because I don't think you can share it with anyone else safely anywhere but here.  Or maybe in someone else's pocket dimension that doesn't exist until they create it, I suppose." Yes, yes, get on with it, dragon!
 
"...But she told me what this place is. And it's... honestly it's pretty bad." The redhead lifts a hand up and rubs at her temple for a moment, casting her eyes to the ground for the duration. "...This place isn't a central point for all time and space. It's the opposite.  It's outside of time and space - a singularity.  A uh..." She searches her memories for a fraction of a second. "I believe you call it a black hole." This would be the appropriate place for swear words. "...And we're already inside." 



John Constantine doesn't flinch. Maybe he's already worked it out. Maybe he doesn't feel it makes that much of a difference. His lips quirk. "No wonder it's easy to get in and hard to get out."



Rayne opens her mouth into a slight sneer at the mention of being treated like an object.  She stands up suddenly and starts pacing, but doesn't say anything yet, not while Liyara is still talking.  "That makes no sense.  I mean, the singularity part.  I accept outside time and space.  I don't get what that has to do with black holes, though I'm not exactly an astrophysicist.  I just learned about them in astrogation classes."  She's still pacing about, however.  "But I'm beginning to wonder if they...   If Twisted is entirely their creation.  Their little experimental viewport to see how all these 'artifacts' from different universes interact with each other."  Her meaning is fairly clear.  The people are the artifacts that are being stolen.  Medical Machinima is responsible for everyone being here.  At least, that's the theory as it is in Rayne's head.  She sits down not /on/ the rock again, but on the ground next to it, pulling her legs in to her chest and burying her face in her hands again.



"Funny." Liyara says, in response to Constantine.  Well, he's not wrong. She looks to Rayne. "I don't think they created it? She said they found it when they looked in the singularity. Said it was ... created by someone's hand.  The construct was glitching, I didn't fully catch the name.  Started with a T." That's helpful. "Maybe they are doing the rest, though. They were talking about experiments, and 'adding time' to Twisted.  And if that were the worst of it, I wouldn't care much." Really? That's not alarming, still?
 
"I've figured out how to come here, after all." Liyara makes some motions behind her, tracing a magic circle in the air within a few seconds, and as simply as that and a tap of her finger, an image of a tiny, adorable Liyara caricature appears, static, in the air.  It's breathing fire and looks proud of itself.  "No problems with ritual magic here.  I'm safe here.  Anyone is safe here." Handy. And not even a drop of blood needed.
 
"...But they said if I don't stop trying to figure out how to get people home, they'll do worse.  And that if I happen to view the *wrong world* with my sensors..." She glances off to one side, then reaches across herself and grabs one arm with another.  The dragon looks meek - or guilty. "...They claim to be able and contractually obligated to take measures all the way up to voiding all life in Twisted." 
 
Nevermind, that's where the swear word should be.  That sentence right there, officer.



"Hell." But from Constantine's tone, it's not a swear word. It's an understanding, a revelation. Wait, does he think the literal, actual DEVIL is involved in this. It's Constantine. The answer is probably yes.



Rayne listens on in silence.  'Adding time'?  What's that supposed to mean?  "They're literally kidnapping people.  For some sick voyeuristic experiments," she says quietly.  "And then threatening people trying to get them back where they belong."  She winces quite visibly, and moves her hands from her face to her legs, hugging them tightly against her chest, burying her face in her knees instead.  . o O ( Damnit, stop crying!  Don't let them see you crying! )  But there's nothing Rayne can think of that she can actually do.  There's no way into or out of that giant...   clothing iron of a building.  And they'd just wipe out /all/ life if someone accidentally looked at a certain dimension?  This is completely overwhelming to her.



"Not any circle of it I'm familiar with." Liyara responds to Constantine, also apparently viewing the word as a place, not a curse.  Though she has certainly heard it used that way before.
 
The dragon lady lowers her arms, then puts them behind her back. "...I assume they have the ability to view anything in Twisted if they care enough. Not because they do, but because paranoia is healthy, here." It is? Great."...And so I think spreading this information is unwise at this time.  So." She gestures to Rayne and John, not noting the chief's reaction, at least not verbally. "You're welcome, and I'm sorry. Now there are three of us." Come to think of it, how dare she? Indignance would not be unfair in this situation. 
 
"...Of course you're not prisoner here.  But once we leave, the tree will wither away.  I can only do this once a day or so without risking my health." How much blood did she ''use''? "...Currently.  Now that I can get here, I'll train myself in scrollwork." In the scope of things, a dragon learning to make magic items is probably not the worst problem, but it could pose one down the line.  But she's a nice dragon.  Right? 
 
Sure she is. 
 
The nicest.
 
She looks to Rayne again after a moment, and her gaze softens. "...It's not something we can do anything about yet.  Not any more than we could this morning before you knew.  But I promised to tell you." She really does look sorry.



Apparently Rayne isn't getting what Constantine's view on this is at all, nor what Liyara means by 'circle'.  Or she just wasn't paying attention to that part of it.  But she ''does'' have an odd outsider's perspective on a lot of things.  "Yeah," she says with her voice muffled by her knees.  "What point would it be, anyway?"  She pulls her face from her knees, moving an arm up in an attempt to surreptitiously wipe the tears from her face.  It's kind of hard to be subtle about that, however.  "Scrollwork.  Yeah.  That would be good."  It doesn't sound like Rayne actually has a clue what she's talking about.  No, she's just talking to talk right then.  "Well, I mean, yeah.  I guess thanks.  I...  yeah, I guess there's nothing to really do about it now."  She looked physically drained before.  Now it looks like she's emotionally drained, as well.  "I guess I'll leave you to your, uh, scrollwork."



"Once you leave, almost no time will have passed." Liyara gestures back to the hole in the tree they came from. "...This is a good place to recuperate - time passes more than eight times faster here than the place it grows from." It does WHAT?!? Why on any earth did she not mention that before? "I often used to come here to sleep or study." She pauses, glancing pointedly at John rather than Rayne, because calling attention to it is rude enough without highlighting who it's intended for. 
 
"...Or to cry, a few times. Don't tell anyone that, though, or we're not friends anymore." She threatens John playfully to distract from the comment, but she probably doesn't mean that.  Everyone cries, right? It's no secret.
 
She offers a smile with pronounced incisors. It's disarming, warm, and probably sincere.



Rayne blinks a few times at the mention of time going by eight times faster here.  Well, at least it's not the other way around.  "Wait, you can get more sleep in less time?"  The desire for that from poor, overworked Rayne is clear as day for her.  She winces at the mention of crying.  Yeah, that was a subtle but polite way of saying, yes, she did notice that Rayne was crying there for a moment.  Well, Rayne won't say anything if Liyara won't.  Though she can't honestly imagine Liyara crying.  Of course, Rayne can't just summon this external space like Liyara can, so she's not sure how she could take advantage of it, herself.  Really, just the idea of curling up against her body pillow and letting her cats curl up against her still sounds like a wonderful idea as it is still, anyway.  That and Rayne isn't one to attempt to invite herself into places.



"Of course." Liyara nods, gesturing to one of the stumps, which ... rather spectacularly grows out into a (still wooden) double bunk bed. "That's the original point of the spell.  I used to bring my adventuring party here.  Back when I was young, foolish, and went out on adventures." Her green eyes twinkle, and if Rayne has any perception left, she'll see that Liyara has clearly spotted her interest. 
 
"... I suppose technically, if I have a party now, I've conscripted you.  So if you need it - I can arrange for it to grow anywhere you like.  But..." She gestures to the cut on her hand. "...Until I have a few scrolls, it's powered by my blood.  So you'll have to ask." Such a simple thing. 
 
Probably still hard.



Rayne actually jumps backward at the transformation of the double stump-bed.  Stump double bed.  "That is...  useful.  Very."  But would Rayne actually be able to sleep here?  She's honestly not really certain.  She looks at Liyara with an unsure expression.  Is she trusting Liyara more than she should right now?  Rayne isn't sure.  But she's picked up on Liyara's clear sense of draconic superiority, and perhaps the fact that Rayne told her that her mother is a dragon has made Liyara see her in a friendly light.
 
Rayne really does wish she could read people better at times like this.
 
"Um, yeah.  I'll, uh, wait until you have the scrolls ready then.  Don't want you to, um, bleed out on my account," Rayne manages to say.  She's not sure how she feels about being conscripted into Liyara's 'party'.



"The limit to once a day is to prevent precisely that," Liyara begins, raising an eyebrow at the comment about her bleeding out, "but if blood rituals make you uncomfortable, I won't press the matter." She should probably press the matter. "I would recommend perhaps a good oneiromancer, however.  You don't look like you get enough rest as is." A good what now? "...I suppose maybe that one psycho therapist could help." That's psychotherapist.  ... Although, maybe the mis-speak is appropriate.  She's talking about Harley Quinn. 
 
"...At any rate, I'm keeping you from curling up into a ball and going into a catatonic stupor, just as I did shortly after I escaped their custody." Was hurled from their custody by the universe exploding.  Details are unimportant.  It's like escaping, except less intentional. Therefore, it merits some careful wording. "...Go.  Sleep.  You can decide once you're rested some if you're going to forgive me, take me up on my offer, arrest me, whatever else it is that phoenix dragon police do." There's probably not a standardized set of things they do, Liyara.  There's probably just the one.



Rayne shakes her head.  "I won't say they don't," she says in regards to blood rituals.  She then blinks.  "A what-o-mancer?"  She's guessing that has something to do with sleep?  She's /really/ unsure about that, though.  "There are not enough therapists in this...  dimension.  So I don't worry about that."  She should totally worry about that.  "Well, like you said, it'll go away, so I don't see any reason to arrest you.  Don't worry bout that.  Even if it wouldn't, that wouldn't be more than a fine, anyway."  She's not saying anything about forgiving or taking her up on the offer, though.  She really doesn't know that, herself.  Nor is she arguing against the phrasing of curling up into a ball and catatonic stupor.  "And I only have the /potential/ to be a dragon," she manages to correct as she looks around.  "Uh, where was the exit, again?"

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