JERICHO ● SEPTEMBER 2025 EVENT/TDM

[uruz]

TDM & EVENT: JERICHO

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Prologue: New Characters

You've been plagued with a reoccuring dream, as of late. Every time you sleep, the dream returns to you.

It always begins the same way: As a breath held for too long. As a pressure at the base of your spine. A silence that presses against the skin like confession, like prophecy. A ripple moves through your bones. A tide builds and pulls at your feet, familiar by now. You dream of a black, soundless wave, thick like oil and starlight, swelling across the horizon line. You've seen the wave before, countless times, always rising. With every night, it never reaches you. You always seem to wake before it does . . . That is, until tonight.

The wave moves slow, deliberate— like something ancient and alive. And when it finally crashes, there is no harsh impact. Only warmth. Only submersion. Rather than drowning, you are being claimed with saltwater that's sweet with myrrh. The darkness embracing you pulses with desire. Then, a voice envelops you.

"Come home."
It dribbles with honey-like promise, like a truth you've always known, whispered now from within your marrow more like temptation than a request.

"You are mine. You always were."
The voice offers purpose. Worship. Belonging. And when you wake . . . You wake changed, with a mask on your face you did not choose. Elegant. Sacred. Too important to remove. You have been given a gift. A new beginning.

Welcome home, new Vessels.

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Sink Down Like Precious Stones

( content warnings: drowning, body horror )

Vessels awaken within the dreamscape as the black wave recedes from their skin like velvet falling off the bone, their masks in place over their eyes and left afloat in the watery expanse. All around them, the ocean stretches infinite and lightless— so still it mirrors the sky above, indistinguishable from the void. Far in the distance, massive obsidian walls curve inward, enclosing this vast seascape like a forgotten temple basin. And there, at the far horizon, one glow pierces the dark: a low-burning fire flickering within a half-sunken structure of impossible architecture— arched, ribbed, as though built from marble and cathedral glass.

This is a test, and it begins with belief.

Those with unwavering faith— whether in Sleep, another god, or even themselves— will find the surface beneath their feet holds firm. The sea becomes glass, and they may rise, and walk. But those adrift in doubt begin to sink. Precious stone creeps over their skin. Joints stiffen. Flesh cracks. Breath slows. It is not death, but it is close and might as well be hell. Your only salvation lies in your own conviction . . . Or the mercy of another Vessel who happens to walk.

Those who drown will not die. They will loop this moment— sinking, blackness, return, sink again— until belief takes root in some way. Alternatively, they may awaken in a later dreamspace . . . Changed.

NOTES:

• Pale white fish as well as glowing jellyfish may be encounted. The fish stare at vessels as they drown, and jellyfish may leave behind a shock that could temporarily stop the process of crystalization. But only temporarily— and their stings are excrutiating.

TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Magic becomes volatile— spells flicker, overcharge, or fizzle unpredictably when cast on or near the ocean.
• When you cast, your veins glow from beneath the skin, but not with light. It's writhing. Like something trapped under glass.
• When channeling magic, your mouth may fill with brine and blood.

OFFERING EFFECTS:

• The water responds emotionally— thrashing with fury or calming with yearning depending on the Offering's state of mind.
• The sea amplifies desire and instinct, making base emotions harder to suppress— rage, hunger, longing all churn just beneath the surface.
• The black water feels too warm, too alive, clinging to the body like memory; any stillness invites visions of Sleep's embrace, both reverent and consuming.

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You Taste Like New Flesh

( content warnings: body horror, psychological horror, compulsion, unreliable reality )

The ocean path ends at a palace carved of pearl and spun silk, impossibly perched where water meets nothingness. Whether you have traversed the black sea on trembling feet or simply awaken seated at an impossibly long table, it makes no difference. You are here now, and welcomed, suddenly in attire fit for a gala. Around this table sit countless Dream-Vessels, many silent and still, faces unreadable in the flickering candlelight wearing generic, six-eyed masks. The table stretches beyond sight, arching beneath creeping vines that twist like ancient veins overhead, blooming with strange blossoms that beat with energy. Flames dance atop dozens of candles— some burn on brass holders, others hover, like fireflies caught mid-flight, their shadows flickering and shifting with an otherworldly rhythm. Around you, phantasmal forms shimmer on pedestals: Sleep's ancient Guardians are eternalized through memorial, monstrous and magnificent, lost to time yet enshrined in reverence. On the highest pedestal stands a still living One, silent and watching the feast with somber eyes. Sleep's voice whispers in your ear, encouraging a glance to, perhaps, see what you may become.

"Feast, My Dear Vessels. Until you taste like New Flesh."

The foods before you don not come unmeddled with. Each bite pulls memories from your bones to the surface— moments buried or erased, but these are not just yours. The banquet feeds on shared history, stirring secrets tangled between you and the others here. To eat is to open a door: to risk awakening something dormant, to invite others inside your buried truths, to forge bonds or betrayals that can never be unseen.

Eton Mess: Crushed meringue, tangled cream, and berries that bleed like bruises when bitten. Sweetness melts quickly, leaving your tongue cold. As you eat, a memory rises— but you don't experience it alone. The person nearest you sees what you see, hears what you hear, feels what you felt. Together, you can alter one key detail, and that change ripples outward, shifting how you both remember the event.

Deviled Kidneys: Spiced and seared, the metallic richness clings to your mouth, as if tasting old blood. Eating summons the echo of a painful or violent memory, but your partner experiences it with you.

Roasted Lamb in Mint Sauce: The sweetness of the meat is cut by mint sharp enough to sting the throat. Your act of consumption awakens a craving, but not in you— in the Vessel sharing this dish. They feel an inexorable pull toward your memory, even without knowing what they seek. The bond persists until the craving is confronted.

Honey Scouse: A thick, golden stew heavy with warmth, but beneath the sweetness, something cloying curls around the edges. Every shared spoonful spreads a slow, creeping influence between you and your partner: intrusive visions, subtle compulsions, small lapses in agency. Neither of you can tell whose thoughts belong to whom.

Starpit Fruit: Plum-sized and faintly glowing, the juice leaves your fingertips dusted in silver, like handling starlight. When bitten, the fruit releases the memory of a forgotten wish, not to you but to the person beside you. They see it clearly— and know exactly what you once wanted most, even if you had buried it.

Marigold Brandy: A golden spirit served warm, glowing faintly as though sunlight has been trapped inside the glass. When lifted, it releases a soft, floral scent. The first sip draws you and your partner into a shared burst of joy— a memory that makes you swell with happiness. The sensation is so immediate, so electric, that when the memory breaks, your bodies ache to move, to speak, to draw more positivity to light. You may feel an irresistible pull to get up and dance on the wide palace floors, even if no music is playing . . . And if others nearby drink as well, the effect multiplies.

Saints Breath Chalice: A dark, wine-thick cordial served in tarnished silver cups etched with symbols that shift when stared at too long. The liquid smells faintly of frankincense and something sweeter— blood-warm and alive. Drinking it floods you and your partner with the overwhelming sensation of being inside someone else's celebration, a memory that belongs to neither of you: a vast mass of black, with branching antlers and six, glowing red eyes. It reaches to sink its claws into your chest as she sings: One. Beloved. We were meant to be. It is impossible to tell whether you're witnessing joy or manic worship. There is chanting you cannot understand but somehow already know, drums that sync with your heartbeat until you can feel nothing else. Your limbs begin to twitch, then sway, then move without conscious thought, drawn into a dance you do not remember learning. If more than two people drink, your movements synchronize perfectly, your breath matching theirs, until the room seems stop to watch.

The table awaits.

NOTES:

• Feasting becomes addictive. The more a character eats, the harder it is to stop. Gluttony may cause physical consequences: nosebleeds, twitching fingers, warping speech, uncontrollable confessions, or dripping nectar from their mouths.
• Those who refuse to eat at all begin to starve in a dream-sense: they lose color, smell burning, and feel the weight of Sleep's gaze. Her wrath isn't immediate— but it grows the longer you reject the feast. She takes offense.

TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Each spell cast after eating releases parasitic energy— manifesting as flowers, thorns, parasitic insects or rot— either from their own body or from someone they recently touched.
• Casting warps your limbs temporarily: too many joints, fingers curl the wrong way, nerves burn like wires.
• Touching others leaves sigils burned into their skin. These will briefly carry over into the waking world during next month's event. Runecasters will get the innate feeling that this symbol has a meaning summed up as "The Night Does Not Belong To God". How they interpret that is up to them.

OFFERING EFFECTS:

• The act of devouring awakens an overwhelming desire, often physical, but sometimes emotional or spiritual. This desire clings to another Vessel at the table, creating obsessive attachment or aggression.
• The more they eat, the more their monstrous traits subtly emerge.
• Consuming another Vessel's memory (if shared or touched) grants a brief glimpse of their deepest fear or weakness.

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There's Something In The Way You Lay

( content warnings: sexual content, voyeurism, body modification, omegaverse traits, loss of agency )

Beneath its pearlescent halls, beyond the banquet of flickering candles and dream-Vessels who eat in hollow silence, a spiral staircase winds downward. Its steps are damp and velvet-slick. The further you descend, the warmer the air becomes— humid, cloying, thick with the scent of sweat, salt, and incense. The sounds reach you first: Slaps, gasps, the wet chorus of bodies and perverse intimacy. Laughter, muffled sobs, the echo of whispered names long forgotten. At the base lies a corridor of "private" rooms. Their doors swing open with dreamlike invitation. Inside, the scenes unfold: past dream-Vessels lost in tableau— arched backs, bitten lips, mouths open in prayer or obedience. Some are alone, coiled in worship. Others tangle in groups, indistinguishable where one body ends and another begins. Vines bloom across the ceilings, watching. The walls glisten with breath. You see their faces, but you can't quite distinguish what or who they are. You may not remember choosing a role, but the dream has chosen for you. α or Ω— and with the naming, your body changes. There is no shame here, only devotion made manifest. This is how Sleep is worshipped now: through cruelty and surrender, through the giving and the taking of flesh.

NOTES

• Masks may optionally offer a sort of glamour for Vessels who wander into these chambers— they will not be able to recognize each other. How much of that, whether it be appearance, voice, and so on, is up to you.
• Past dream-Vessels perform for no one, eyes vacant, movements perfect, as if only a ghost of a memory. Player characters may interact with them and even partake in intimacy with them, but be warned: they are emotionally absent and may cause symptoms of succumbence that could be remedied with a proper, player-character tether.
• Tools hang on the walls: Rods of all sizes, slick with heat. Collars that hum with low, seductive voltage. Blindfolds that intensify physical contact, There's no need for cuffs or chains when there are vines that seem to respond to the α party's mood— tightening, flowering, or reaching for skin. You are free to come up with your own items.
• α perks:: Instinctive claiming (done through biting, rubbing, branding, etc), an almost predatory focus and obsession for those who interest them, pack gravity (the ability to attract one or more vessels at once), emitting a scent that ignites heat/rut in others, darker urges surge and a commanding voice.
Ω perks: High pain tolerance, instinctive yielding, emotional synchrony with those being watched, self-lubricating, hypersensitive, scent tracking, intense need to please or be filled emotionally, physically, and spiritually. When touched, glowing runes bloom across the skin.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Spells cast during acts of intimacy may provoke a heightened sensation of euphoria for both caster and whoever is affected by the spell.
• Magic may manifest as misty appendages— extra hands, tongues, eyes, etc.
• Divine energy becomes volatile when passed through the body— ecstasy may border on agony, or vice versa, and Tethering becomes impossibly euphoric.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• Flesh becomes malleable mid-act— bones bending, jaws unhinging, skin blooming open, etc.
• Animalistic traits emerge: tails, claws, growls, tentacles, scent glands— all begging to be used.
• Feeding and Tethering are indistinguishable— hunger becomes worship, and worship becomes need.

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I am not worthy

( content warnings: body horror, violence, gore, parasitic/invasive feeding, death )

Wherever you are, the palace begins to rot. First slowly, then all at once: vines swell with black fluid, splitting at the seams. They burst from beneath marble tiles, coil up pillars, slither across frames and vacant thrones like arteries choking a heart. The candlelight flickers. One by one, the flames throughout the palace float upward . . . And die. No smoke. No warning. Just wet silence. Then the Dream-Vessels begin to fall. They do not scream as they do. They collapse like marionettes, limbs askew. Their flesh splits open along wounds that should not exist— a rip at the neck, teeth marks prying open the ribcage, a bite that swallows half a torso. Bones jut like sculpted ivory. Entrails slither across the floor like garlands. Some burst mid-air, as if the dream demands spectacle. Others fold in on themselves until all that's left of them is a mound of flesh.

"I am not worthy."

One voice. Ten. A thousand—layered, glitching, sweaty. It echoes from the walls, the bodies, the seams in the floor. The corpses twitch in time with the chant, jerking violently. Some snap backwards, eyes wide, jaws unhinged. Others explode— blossoming in gore, raining viscera. From the heaving pile of ruined Dream-Vessels, something forms.

It lurches into being: stitched from tongues, teeth, torsos. Weeping. Wailing. Worshipping. A monstrosity of raw flesh and faith: all failures made meat. Its eyes (are they eyes?) blink out. Arms claw outwards, too many to count. Its scent is of copper, sweat, and sorrow.

When The Abomination chooses to feed, it seeks not flesh, but the softest rot inside you. An appendage uncoils from its writhing mass and unhinged jaw— veined, slick, and trembling like a violated root. It drives itself into your mouth, splitting your lips with obscene tenderness, and sinks deep into your throat, locking you still.

What it draws out is not blood. It siphons your doubts, your fears, your most secret self-hatred. Your inadequacy. Every buried shame. Your hate. Your negativity. Every flinch of unworthiness. Every moment you believed yourself unlovable, unseen, too small. It gorges on what you hide from even yourself, and the more you try to resist, the sweeter your sorrow becomes. The last thing it takes is your life force, and then your viscera, leaving you wilted and shrivled like a hollow log.

This death is violating and feels painfully slow. You're drained raw of your vitality until you're but a brittle husk that breaks to dust in the wind. It seems near impossible to destroy, always reforming into bits and pieces left smudged behind. Perhaps your best bet it to run, or attempt to wake yourself up from this nightmare.

One's voice repeats in choked sobs: I am not worthy.

NOTES:

• Wounds from the beast linger. You may wake bleeding or marked.
• If devoured, characters will awaken the following month extremely fatigued during the first 3-5 days of the month. They may also sporadically rigurgitate black sludge. Characters who die and are already in the game may requesta plot clue, that will be a vision your character will dream of before awakening.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Magic recoils violently when used on The Abomination, backfiring with psychic screams or ripping into your flesh.
• Your hands glow uncontrollably, burning what you touch— even those you love.
• Magic becomes hungry; it demands pieces of your body to function. A tooth. A nail. A rib (and so on).

OFFERING EFFECTS

• The rage it stirs in you is monstrous. You begin to shift uncontrollably— flesh blooms, bones crack under strain.
• Your body begins moving before you decide to. Twitching toward The Abomination, and toward the scent of despair.
• During the chaos, you may develop a fixation with another Vessel's flaw. You can smell it on them. It entrances you . . . To the point that you may feel the urge to feed them to The Abomination.

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OOC NOTES

➤ Welcome to Somnia's second TDM, which doubles as our third gamewide event!

➤ This TDM is considered game canon. You are free to have your character remember as many details as possible.

➤ Only new characters are free to experiment with the Vessel options to your liking; this is a dreamscape, so multiple/different situations for you to really test which option you like most is possible. Current characters must remain as their chosen Vessel type unless you requested a switch, which can be done on the Taken page.

➤ All TDMs take place within a dreamscape, meaning characters can interact with the setting without needing to apply. Come have fun with us!

➤ Veteran players, I ask to please refrain from making post-event threads for the time being! We have some important information to take into account in next month's event when characters are slated to "wake up". At the very least, please wait for the information to be offered on the next plotting post. Thank you everyone for your patience!

➤ Please comment on the TDM's INVITE TL if you are a new player interested in joining the game, but don't yet have an invite. Current players or the mod may reach out to extend an invite. Once you've got one, please don't forget to comment on the Invite page so you may properly link it in your reserve and app.

➤ Questions? Please direct them to the designated questions comment linked below!

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Comments

i. I will be coming for u twice, this is a threat

[lupusxylem]

[Wolfwood is fucking drowning. He is DROWNING and you're telling him to just swim better-??

Okay well, actually. That's probably the better way to stir him back into semi-lucidity: just piss him off, intentional or no. If someone was just calling out to him, telling him that he could do it and that they believed in him or whatever, he probably would have sunk like a stone. But here...

Wolfwood can't swim, mainly because his world doesn't really have an ocean or even any lakes for him to learn how to swim in, so it just doesn't make sense he ever would have learned. Turns out, he can only barely keep his head above water in an emergency situation, and he's not sure he'd actually call what he's drowning in water. It's angry, frothing up around his head and shoulders as he struggles to stay afloat, yet as the person above reaches a hand down for him...he's not so stubborn as to reject it just to make a point.

That said, that doesn't mean Ain won't still feel the bite of his new, hooked claws gripping him as he reaches up to grab onto Ain's hand, clapping his much larger one in the other's as he struggles to pull himself up. He is...a heavy man, sorry in advance.]

:O i'm so scared...

[eidxiety]

[Ain isn't sure he likes the bite of claws against his skin like this, but in the name of rescuing someone that the El Search Party would save (which is. every person, to be clear), he'll do it. He'll tug this stranger as hard as he can in an effort to save him from drowning.

That all being said, Ain is a wiry, stick-thin little thing that boasts mostly impressive prowess in magic and not in physical strength, so it's going to take quite a lot of effort for him. At one point he can feel Wolfwood slipping and the claws gouging at his skin, and Ain only huffs as though he's annoyed before he lays flat against the surface and plunges his second arm down. It would be stupid to dive into the water again, and he doesn't even know if he can at this point. There's a resistance, a drag that's trying to keep him aloft even as he resists it to pull one man out.]

You weigh too much...! Kick your legs harder!

[And maybe grab onto his other arm while you're at it, Wolfwood.]

[lupusxylem]

[For his part, Wolfwood feels like he's done nothing but fight to keep his head above water this whole time, so he's not sure how much harder he can kick. What he doesn't realize is the fact that he has talons right now instead of shoed feet is making it significantly harder to paddle, so it's like he's expending all this energy for nothing. Still, as Ain grips and pulls as hard as he can, Wolfwood will swing his other arm up to grab on with both hands, leaving them both holding on to each others' arms now.

Now, they just have to get him up and over the lip of the glass-like floor, assuming it even holds.]

I'm fucking trying-!!

[eidxiety]

[He hates the way Wolfwood's claws tear through his skin, but Ain thinks to himself that he can just heal it, and it'll be worth it in the end just to save someone. What he doesn't realise is that this dream has his magic on the fritz, so he likely won't be able to call his own abilities to his fingertips — but that's a battle for later.

He pulls, and pulls, and pulls until Wolfwood's upper body is above water, having to stand up and falling back on his ass as soon as they get that far, but it's taxing work.]

Try harder! [Helpful! Thank you Ain!] You— really aren't all that light—! The least you could do, [he grunts with exertion,] is be less pathetic at swimming...!

[lupusxylem]

Fuck you!!

[You would be well within your rights to drop him Ain, just let him drown nobody will miss him. Though, in all honesty, Wolfwood is just too proud to admit he doesn't know how to swim. Him being pathetic at swimming is, unfortunately, both a necessity and an inevitability here.

That said, as Ain falls over in his attempt to pull Wolfwood up, Wolfwood will use the leverage Ain simply being there grants him to hoist himself up further until he can feel his chest be thrust out of the water and up onto the edge of the glassy ground like a seal breaching the water to land on an ice floe. It's not graceful, it's not pretty, but it's less "literally dying" than what he was doing two seconds ago.

From here, he can only kick his feet while Ain pulls, using his forearms to pull himself forward the more Ain pulls back until finally- finally- he falls fully onto the solid ground and collapses onto his side, coughing up the black, watery sludge.]

[eidxiety]

[No, Elsword would never drop someone even if they were cussing at him, so Ain has to follow his example. Ain has to be a Good Human (he is Not One and Never Will Be). He needs his obsessive headcanon thoughts of Elsword in the back of his brain to tell him "good job".

Ain is 100% normal, why do you ask?

Wolfwood flops out of the water like a fish, and Ain — bleeding from the scratches Wolfwood gave him while they were both desperate to save him — immediately races to prop the stranger onto his side so that the water doen't get trapped. He pats Wolfwood's back in hard, even thumps. The good news is that the man is breathing, that he doesn't need any immediate healing to Ain's eyes, and that he'll likely be fine despite this experience.

With that taken care of, Ain hovers a hand over the gouges to attempt healing them, but finds that his magic simply won't come to him. A brief flash of panic flits over his features before he simply rolls his sleeves back down.

He'll have to do laundry later to get the blood out of the fur on his sleeves. For now, instead of asking something normal — "are you okay" or "do you need help walking" — Ain decides to regress back into snark, since he physically cannot handle his own insecurities right now and has to shove his negativity off onto Wolfwood just to feel something.]

And what do we say when someone saves your life~?

[lupusxylem]

[Actually, maybe he should just roll back into the sea. Let the ocean of despair claim him so he doesn't have to be SASSED.

Wolfwood's still hacking up water even as he lays there on "dry" land, though one wonders how long the surface is actually going to stay solid for. It's solid maybe only because Ain is there, because Wolfwood sure as hell wasn't managing much water-walking on his own. He doesn't realize he's hurt Ain in his attempt to pull himself up, mostly because he hasn't realized he even has claws.

Not yet, anyway. There's a reason it felt like he had a ton of bricks on his back weighing him down, because it's not entirely far from the truth.]

I dunno. Are we supposed to critique someone's ability to swim when they're literally fucking drowning??

[eidxiety]

I don't know, [Ain answers, emphatically,] I've never met a drowning person before.

[He is genuinely serious about this too. His entire party knows how to swim, so he's never had to rescue them. There was a point where they almost drowned because they went through a rift into the demon ocean, which is full of demon fish in case that wasn't obvious, but their friend's magic prevented them all from drowning that time, and from there swimming wasn't much of an issue. This time, the swim was shorter and able to be done, though, and not "hey you're 30,000 feet underwater, good luck!"]

[lupusxylem]

[To Wolfwood, is equally likely that Ain is being a shit as much as it is that he genuinely is just. Not knowing. It's actually hard to tell, since he hasn't been in Ain's presence long enough to know he's just Like This.

Either way, Wolfwood is shaken from the experience, but doing everything he can to hide that as he stiffly pushes himself upright. Only just now finally realizing that the heavy weight trying to pull him back down is something on him. It prompts him to pivot at his waist, turning around...

Only to find a pair of heavily water-logged wings just hanging limply off of him, because he doesn't really know how to keep them held up yet. He actually boggles at the sight for a moment, and it's as if realizing they're there is what causes the neurons to activate as they fluff out and give a sudden, frantic flap that nearly knocks him over, and also almost whacks Ain at the same time if he isn't careful.]

W- what the hell is this-?!

[eidxiety]

Huh? Those are your wings— [Ain says seconds before a wing whooshes in front of his face and he has to suddenly lean back to avoid being slapped,] —and they're all wet. Are they injured at all, maybe from the stones growing on people?

[That can't be why he's confused, though. Ain doesn't see any rocks at first glance, but maybe the mottled texture is rocks? Why is Wolfwood so alarmed by them?

(Ain does not yet know that he too is going to develop monstrous bits — hooves and a tail and wings and horns, god the horns, within short order here. He seems mostly unaffected so far, other than the fact he's displaying symptoms of having goatlike pupils...)]

[lupusxylem]

W- What are you talking about, wings? I'm a human man, I don't GOT wings!!

[Birds have wings! Plants have wings(???) But him? Wolfwood? He does not have them. This is alarming to him, actually, and now he's reaching out to touch them, flinching when he finds that he can feel the sensation of his own fingers against the feathers.

Oh, god.]

This- this is gotta be a fuckin' dream. I'm dreaming.

[eidxiety]

I think you're lying to me~.

[Ain, what the fuck man.]

You wouldn't just mysteriously grow wings. [you wouldn't download a pizza] That doesn't happen unless you have some special magic powers. Haha, but it's a funny prank if you can find someone who believes you~.

[lupusxylem]

[Wolfwood's head swings around, and honestly he probably looks even more pathetic than he already would have given the way he's kindof just hunched over and dripping wet. Literally wet and sad over here.]

Why the fuck would I lie about somethin' like that? Do I look like an idiot to you?

[Maybe don't answer that-]

[eidxiety]

Haha, yeah, kind of~. [So he answered that,] You're funny, Mister. What do you want me to call you? A human with wings? I can lie for you. The next people we meet, I'll introduce you as a human who mysteriously grew wings, and we can tell lots of lies together and fascinate the masses~.

I am worried they'll put you in a zoo, though.

[lupusxylem]

[Ough. He's dealing with a guy who thinks he's funny, he sees...Wolfwood makes a face, not that Ain will be able to easily see it past his mask. He will definitely be able to feel the look via the way he's staring at him through the mask's eyeholes, though. That you can't really avoid.

Wolfwood sits back a little, reaching reflexively into his inner pockets...patting around...

Oh, fuck. Fuck. Where are his vials...?

He reaches into his pockets a little deeper, but he's realizing they're just not there. The pouch is gone too, and even though he knows he was just underwater, it seems unlikely the whole thing would have gotten ripped off his body, right?

...]

If you gotta call me anything, it's Wolfwood. Nicholas D. Wolfwood. Got it? And I'm just a normal human, that's it.

[Haha well THAT'S a lie but you know you do you.

God damn it. His smokes are missing too.]

[eidxiety]

[Ain sits there and watches this, feeling his arms burn from where Wolfwood scratched him really well now that it's been a few minutes. There's a throbbing ache there that he's doing a damn good job hiding by smiling through it, as though blood isn't dripping down his fingertips at the moment. He feels naked without his healing magic...

Anyway, Wolfwood is saying his name is Wolf Wood, which isn't an unusual name by Ain's standards — his bestest friend most importantest guy in the whoooole wide world is named Elsword, after all — but is still a funny name that Ain will never use.]

I'm Ain~. I'm a priest.

[He still thinks of Wolfwood as "a human who grew wings" right now. Time will change his opinion, but for the next hour, he's going to be very convinced that Wolfwood is some biological freak of nature experiencing the Horrors.]

[lupusxylem]

[Yeah sorry about that Ain...if it helps, he wasn't TRYING to hurt you in this case, it was a situation where if he didn't grab you he'd die, so. Maybe he'll apologize for it if he finds out later, but for now? This is the asshole Wolfwood you're getting. It's Asswood.

SPEAKING OF WHICH-]

Huh. Okay, my turn to be an ass: No you ain't.

[He huffs, resting a forearm against one knee as he rolls his eyes in the most exaggerated way he can muster.]

[eidxiety]

Wh—

[Not even Add has accused him so bluntly. God damn! Ain looks taken aback by it, as if Wolfwood just burned him, but this only makes him double down.]

Yes I am!! [Okay, too forceful there.] Haha, you've just never met a priest before, that's all~. It's okay, I forgive you.

[lupusxylem]

[It's kindof ironic that Wolfwood, Mister fake Priest himself, would be ragging on Ain about being one...but nobody ever said he wasn't a giant hypocrite!]

Trust me, I've met plenty. Why don't you prove it, hah? You got one of these?

[He suddenly reaches into the collar of his (wet) shirt and pulls out the end of his necklace he's wearing, which has a cross pendant on it.]

[eidxiety]

Haha, wow, a necklace! I don't have a necklace, and I definitely don't have one with a plus sign on it~. Where does one acquire such necklaces of mathematic intrigue?

[lupusxylem]

This is a cross, dumbass. It's a religious symbol. If you were an actual priest, you'd probably know that.

[That's!! Not how it works!!! You don't KNOW what religion Ain is even a priest of! Not every religion has crosses associated with it you asshole!!!!!!]

[eidxiety]

Mm, nope~. My friend wears a necklace like that, but I don't think he worships Ishmael. That's not even Her symbol. Nice try, though. Just admit you really like counting, haha.

[Ain is sitting there with the biggest smile on his face. Good luck Wolfwood, he thinks this is funny.]

Besides, what are your credentials? Is there a math church I'm not aware of that you worship at?

[lupusxylem]

Yaknow, just 'cause you don't believe me don't mean you have to also insist I'm wrong.

[Like who's the actual asshole here!! Wolfwood honestly is just annoyed that Ain isn't taking his word at face value, even though he's out here lying constantly.

He huffs, his gaze narrowing even harder as he finally starts to try to stand...carefully, given that the ground beneath his feet is still far more unstable than it is for Ain.]

I can't wait for you to walk up and talk like that to the wrong person. You're lucky you ain't had your lights knocked out yet.