izunia lucis callout

[founderinglight]

you will pry twinzunia from my cold dead hands let's do this

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Meanwhile, in Pitioss

[misanthropicprinciple]

--aaaaAAAAAAAAA, SHIT DAMN MOTHERFUCKER, are you kidding me?!

[Some detective espers just can't leave other people's memories well enough alone. Or something. Who knows what's going on here, or how a man long-dead can be meeting all these hip youths.

Either way, send help, this is not a nephew-friendly zone and it sounds like Junpei's maybe been having fun here for a while.]

aka 'meanwhile, resting in fuck'

[founderinglight]

[It's not as though he has anything better to do than wander around a dream of Lucis, in which time occasionally does not make sense.

Really, the afterlife is considerably oversold and quite boring. He revisits old haunts, finding little of interest but ruins -

Aside from young men screaming as they attempt to jump up onto moving platforms, fail, and hit the dirt.

Have a somewhat familiar face in an unfamiliar hat poking out at you from above, Junpei, he's kind of. Concerned about your yelling.]

Are you quite alright?

[misanthropicprinciple]

Yeah! I'm goddamn peachy! I love tumbling into the spike zone in this Escherian dungeon, why aren't there more of these across the universe? This is really filling a void in my life! Thanks!

[Junpei pulls a chunk of broken rock from his jeans pocket and hurls it at the platform he just fell off of, because he is an #Adult. Pitioss remains unmoved.]

Doing great, Da--ad?

[He has seen The Hat.]

...What the hell ass alien creature's skin are you wearing on your head?

[founderinglight]

[Oh wow he has got a mouth, this one. Immediate favorite, doomed to be spoiled.

Izunia reaches up and touches his hat as though deeply insulted, frowning before turning his attention back down to the would-be explorer.]

...Considering that I've never seen you in my life nor any other post-mortal vision, and I am quite capable of recognizing my own children, I fear you're mistaken.

[Who allowed Ardyn to breed and/or adopt?]

[misanthropicprinciple]

Wait, what?

[Junpei squints up at him, then crosses his arms moodily.]

Have I jumped a bunch of timelines, or is something else going on? ...Ardyn?

[He sounds unsure of the name, at least. Boy does catch on quick.]

[founderinglight]

...Afraid not.

[What's the point in pretending? He's got no reputation of his brother's to defend to the long memory of history here.]

[misanthropicprinciple]

...Uh-huh. [O...kay. He wasn't expecting the family resemblance to be the family identical-ness, but he can work with this.] So you're the shitweasel brother.

[Hi, Uncle Izunia! :D]

I'm going to punch you. That's fair, yeah?

[founderinglight]

...Absolutely, but I'm afraid you'll have to get up here first.

[Yeah anyone who calls Ardyn 'Dad' without the slightest hesitation is allowed a free shot.

Doesn't mean he's going to jump down there just to take it though.

Enjoy that newfound motivation, Junpei, he's going to sit down and swing his legs over the side. It's enough to reveal that he has better fashion sense than Ardyn, hats aside very different clothes from his brother, though, perhaps predictably, he's still dressed to the nines in Lucian blacks with high boots and a Nice Coat (tm).]

[misanthropicprinciple]

Ugh, fuck. This place isn't designed for normal people who can't tele-sword everywhere, you know!

[He's turning around, though, looking at the paths he's tried and the tricks he's already figured out. After a moment, he calls up again:]

Do you have any string? Don't tell me you don't have a hoard of random garbage in your inventory.

[founderinglight]

Actually, it was, but it was designed to be used in teams of three or four. It's a training ground from the late Astral War.

[So, okay, he can afford to give you a handicap, just a bit. It's malfunctioning anyway, no surprises given its age in this memory-place.

A coil of rope and a ball of purple yarn drop out of the Armiger in twin blue flashes to land on either side of Junpei. One of those will do, right? One or the other?]

And for the record, I do not keep garbage, I keep only potentially useful items and snacks.

[misanthropicprinciple]

[Like a true video game veteran, Junpei grabs the rope first, shoulders it, and then snatches the yarn too lest Izunia think he won't make use of anything he's given.

He holds it up first, though. The yarn, that is.]

What. You knit?

[He's quick to find the end and start unraveling the ball, freeing up a length of yarn to leave behind as a trail, labyrinth-style.]

Funny you call it a training ground, though. It's almost exactly the kind of thing in my world used to torture promising kids into awakening their psychic powers. But with less math. More creepy statues, though.

[Let's just start laying down this yarn.]

[founderinglight]

No. My son's wife did.

[He watches with interest, feet occasionally swinging, and also while sipping on what appears to be a glass bottle of some summoned soda.]

It was designed to hone reflexes and teamwork - the sort of thing that people needed most, if they were going to be on the front lines against daemons several times their size.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Why's it called the Astral War if you guys were fighting daemons? Hold that thought, it's going to be hard to talk and find my way up there at the same time.

[There he goes again, spooling out the yarn as he trots, watching for traps and waiting for gravity to shift again. There's got to be a way that favors cleverness over athleticism. And if not, well, now he's got a rope.

As an afterthought, he calls back:]

Or keep talking, that's fine, too! You'll make a great auditory landmark!

[founderinglight]

[Hello Junpei you have given him the chance for exposition? like he's going to turn that down?]

It's the difference between soldiers and generals. The Astrals fought each other, and humanity fought everything it had to in order to survive, until the Infernian was defeated and, so they hoped, the Scourge with him.

[He... probably doesn't need to tell Junpei what a vain hope that was, does he.

After some consideration, Izunia won't just be an auditory landmark - a bright white light, some kind of magitek something-or-other lamp, takes its place from the Armiger to stand next to him.]

According to the histories I've read, the daemons weren't even a problem until well after the war began. From everywhere His blood spilled came black tar for humanity's final pyre and so on. A plague takes time to build, even one formed of a god's curses.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Huh. Well, not always. Depends on the disease vector and type of infection and all that. Viral shit tends to go faster.

[Okay, here we go. If he ties the rope to these bars while the room's oriented this way, and then climbs down quickly once it's rolled over...

Junpei drops down next to Izunia and punches him in the face with a surprise robot arm.]

Fuck you two thousand years retroactively, Uncle Shitweasel!

1/2

[founderinglight]

[Oh the kid's good.]

Bloodborne infections tend to take a while to build, though of course they're difficult to stop once -

[founderinglight]

[WHAT THE FUCK IS IT WITH PEOPLE AND ROBOT ARMS THESE DAYS yeah hey thanks Junpei you straight up knocked him off his perch to down where you were earlier.

It's not the worst landing but it's not a great one either - he kind of hits the ground on his side and stares back up for a moment.

Ow.]

...Oh, that's going to swell.

[misanthropicprinciple]

[Junpei's turn to sit like a smug asshole and dangle his (admittedly less long and fancy) legs over the edge.]

How does that even work? Do dead people bruise, or are you some kind of immortal, too?

[He tosses what's left of the yarn ball up and down, pleased with himself. Izunia can follow the thread if he likes, or be a cheating cheater who cheats, aka a Lucis Caelum.]

[founderinglight]

Technically, the spirits of kings past persisting through the ring of the Lucii isn't living...

[Yeah no fuck you he's cheating? Just let him get up and dust himself off a little and... ouch yeah his hip is going to be feeling that. Don't get old, Junpei.

A black bladed dagger embeds itself a few paces away, and then Izunia follows, pulling himself up surprisingly well. The warp-flash is the blue of crystal-declared kings, or perhaps the blue of crystal-declared kings is Izunia's.

Either way, he resumes his seat with a wince.]

This place seems to work based on expectations of how reality works. I expect to bruise, so I probably will.

[misanthropicprinciple]

...

[Junpei glances around at the nonsense geometry of Pitioss Ruins.]

Well, I'm glad I don't come from a place expected to work like this. You got anything stronger than soda?

[Beer him up, man.]

[founderinglight]

...How strong do you want?

[He should probably not enable your bad decisions Junpei but fuck it you're Ardyn's id not his.

Anyway beer is disgusting.]

[misanthropicprinciple]

Do you know how many times I was crushed by a spike cube today?

[How strong do you think he wants?]

[founderinglight]

Touche.

[Here is an entire bottle of brandy. Who needs an alcohol cupboard when you're a Lucis Caelum?]

So do I ever get your name, considering that you already know mine?

[At least, he assumes that Junpei actually knows it and is just using 'uncle shitweasel' out of deranged preference.]

[misanthropicprinciple]

Hell-o.

[Okay, there's no way Junpei can finish this off by himself, but gee whiz, what a Christmas present. He's perfectly happy to introduce himself now.]

Junpei. Junpei Tenmyouji. Dad decided he'd rather take on that mouthful of a surname than carry "Izunia" around forever.

[founderinglight]

[Enjoy that, Junpei, he's going to stay sober for the time being. Not exclusively because you may need a designated warper to get out of here.

He resists the urge to comment on the matter of how he was usually the one giving piggyback rides as a child, and instead takes a sip of his soda.

It's one of those stupid fancy organic ones, for the record.

Instead, with typical Lucian morbidity - ]

I've heard it said that people only truly die when their names are spoken for the last time.

[He pauses to swirl his soda as though it were something alcoholic.]

I suppose he has every reason to want to hasten my demise, in that sense.

[He never thought he'd find that painful, of all things. And of course he's happy that Ardyn can move on, in any way, but - ]