2334/Search and Recovery

Search and Recovery
Date of Scene:	27 January 2025
Location:	Dusk Boundary
Synopsis:	After being contacted by those who knew what happened to Molly, Riventon, Norie, and Glimmer head into the Dusk Zone to attempt to find the missing mahou...
Cast of Characters:	Takashi Agera, Norie Okana, Glimmer Brightmoon

---

Takashi Agera has posed:
    The Dusk Zone. A place of strangeness and Dark Energy, where everything is at best a distortion of reality, a funhouse mirror analogue, the world as reimagined by a goth LLM art tool.

    Riventon, Norie, and Glimmer had all arrived here - Riveton and Norie got the information that a civilian was stuck in the Dusk Zone at about the same time, and Riventon had grabbed Glimmer on the way in.

    Even for most of Obsidian, the Dusk Zone was a place you stopped between Duskports, the strange nature of the world being disconcerting unless you were truly an entity of darkness. Of course, if you didn't wield Dark Energy at all, the Dusk Zone was something worse; it was lethal. Not just dangerous, but lethal. The Dark Energy that suffuses the place, along with the quasi-alive denizens, snuff out the light of those from the normal world in moments. Perhaps a mahoujin could last longer. That's all Riventon, Norie, and Glimmer have to hope for as they look - that Molly, much like how Glimmer had her crystal, had found some way to survive the energy of the place for long enough for the three of them to effect a rescue.

    Riventon shakes his head. "Axion's got nothing; but it's hard to get proper sensor readings on stuff here anyways. All of the ambient Dark Energy, it throws things off. Like trying to find a needle in a tar pit." he says. "Doesn't mean she's not around. Just means we have to keep looking."

Norie Okana has posed:
Norie Okana knew where Molly has poofed in the real world thanks to Rashmi and Riventon most likely had the same information of 'The Beach in Yumegahama.'. Thusly. the Dusk Zone's version of the beach was probably spooky and watery aswell and Norie Okana was pondering what could be in the ocean waters of the Dusk Zone--- Cthulu!? She bet Cthulu. Just vibin down there. Bothering no one. Better to continue that.

So she's extending her senses and trying to sense food. Well that's creepy. But not really. If Molly is a valid target for draining. She'll feel it. But so far. Nothing. She's floating along as she keeps her hands in her pockets.

"Yeah. We gotta find the needle and then thread it out." she says as she takes a short breath.

"I met this person. She said I could feed off her whenever I needed it. I wanna find her." she says quietly.

Glimmer Brightmoon has posed:
Glimmer Brightmoon had paled when she heard before she quickly started rummaging through the assorted... things... she'd been gathering in her room. "I'll be there, five minutes tops! I need to grab something!" she said firmly. And it hadn't taken her long...

She arrived just a little after Riventon's scanning had finished. And well, when he had no success, she decided to turn to... other means. She'd brought a little... bowl?

And then filled it with dusk water, kneeling by it and beginning to toss in different ingredients, mumbling softly to herself as she worked. "I know a scrying spell. It ummmm... has been a... long time since I used it, admittedly. And I've had to kind of... make-do with earth's ingredients, but... I... think I can use it to find her."

She also left out that the last time she'd used it, she'd done it WITH Shadowweaver's help. And wasn't entirely sure what ingredients were needed... As she... got to work.

Soon, the water was a dark purple and she drew some arcane runes in it with her finger, the magic forming and...

Maybe it was because while she had the potential to be the greatest sorcerer Etheria ever knew, it was something she had barely practiced.

Maybe it was because the dusk zone didn't like this kind of magic, with its innate strangeness.

Maybe it was because Molly was dead.

Maybe it was because she was disconnected from her runestone and was trying to use Etherian magic through the lens of dark energy.

Or maybe it was because she was trying to use takanotsume instead of fire root.

Either way, the scrying lens that appeared rippled for a moment, showing darkness.... then exploded. Leaving her drenched in soot and sighing.

"Fine. I guess not. You two are the experts in this area, where would she likely be? From there, I imagine a grid search?" she asked. "Ugh, if only I could teleport properly. I could survery entire miles in seconds. How colorful is she? Is she likely to stick out from the rest of the dusk zone bleakness? No offense, Norie-chan," she said quickly.

She, at least, seemed to be taking this entirely seriously. A far cry from how she normally behaved.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon had some ideas about what was in the water of the Dusk Zone, and they were all things he felt were better off in the water. Also, don't drink the water, that's a good rule too. Oh right, Glimmer's here with him. "Hey, just in case it wasn't obvious, don't drink the water here." Riventon advises Glimmer.

    "There's more than one person out there like that, trying to let you feed off them." he says, quietly. "Some folks trying to help me save you, too. I need to sit down with you about that. Nothing bad, just need to spend the time." he says, slowly, solemnly. It's not exactly a great time for talking, but it's also been a while since they were all together and focused on the same thing.

    "I don't want anybody to die that doesn't deserve it. She wasn't anymore of a pest than any of the other sparkles." he says.

    Then Riventon turns as he watches Glimmer's experiment, and then watches it go awry - and just shakes his head. He's taking this seriously enough Glimmer doesn't get any hell from him for the failure. "Not like it really matters. The Dusk Zone isn't really continuous like our world. It moves, the terrain moves, the where and what move. That's why the Towers are so important, they anchor this place." he says. "She should be in the general area though. The Four Wards are kind of... stable...ish." he says. "Trouble is most of the things around here want to eat and kill survivors. Including the air and the ground and the light." The purple-red light that infused everything.

Norie Okana has posed:
Norie Okana looks to Glimmer. "Purple. So basically she blends in and it'll make it harder." she frowns. "At least visually. Hey..." she says as she winces as the bowl explodes. "Yeah that stuff is probably useless here. Up is down and left is west and west could be up there somewhere." she says motioning to the sky.

"Have you tried reaching out and draining energy? Not yet, but like from people. Can you do that? That's the best way to get power if you need it for things." she says.

She then looks over as Riventon explains things she knows to Glimmer as Glimmer does not.

"Oh, defiantly do not drink the water or make cookies from it. Or anything. It's even a bad idea for me to drink it. I drank it once and I woke up hours later in a strange field in the Dusk Zone. Just don't do it." she advises.

Pause. "Right. Not here for science lessons, hey lemme just... try a trick. Passed down from my mother..." she says, eyes narrowed, before turning and yelling out.

"MOLLY-CHAN WHERE OVER HERE, CALL OUT IF YOU'RE AWAKE!"

Glimmer Brightmoon has posed:
Dark Glimmer glanced down at the water. The strange, somewhat black, somewhat... dusk... water. Then back at him. "Who in the world would drink this water?."

Ugh, she swore. What kind of idiot would look at that toxic sludge and go 'Oh, yes, I'm going to drink that?' ... Norie. Apparently. She gave the girl a very, very concerned look. Which only grew more concerned as she heard about someone making COOKIES with them.

"... What kind of person would make COOKIES out of that?! I can barely cook and even I know don't make... ugh..." She face palmed. "Let's... let's go find this girl. I swear some of my coworkers are basically just Kyles."

Norie tried her plan and... Pause.

Pause.

Pause.

"... You know, my mom used to try that too," she said to Norie. "Whenever I snuck out." ... She fell for it a distressingly number of times.

Then she just ran off, putting her hands together and leaping into the air, before pointing her hands down and forming an etherian circle beneath herself, to try and give herself more of a view below. She still struggled a bit with the flight, but was... getting there.

"To answer your question, no! I haven't drained energy from other people for personal use!" she yelled back to Norie. "Just to meet my quotas!"

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon shrugs. "I didn't think you would, but I've been surprised on that very aspect before. And yeah, it's basically just liquid Dark Energy, or something. Reminds me of the slop that comes outta the reactor back at the Tower." He doesn't advise against drinking that, because that one's personal experience.

    "Hey, draining energy for personal use is how some of us stay alive." He says. "Don't judge." It's not just Norie he's talking about here either; though his own situation is vastly different.

    "Normally I'd say not to make a lot of noise here, but Norie-chan and I are baasically citzens and most stuff leaves us alone. And if it gives you trouble, blasting is an option."

    "Hey! WE'RE HERE TO HELP - SHOW YOURSELF AND WE'LL SEND YOU HOME." Riventon yells. "I DON'T WANT THE DUSK ZONE GETTING INFECTED BY WHAT THE BRITISH CALL CUISINE." he adds. And then shrugs. "If the offer to help doesn't get her attention maybe the dig will, I don't know." he says, sighing. "We should... probably start looking for... traces, too."

Norie Okana has posed:
Norie Okana looks to Glimmer. "You'd be surprised. And when you experiment you always use yourself first. It's ethical." she insists. "Using others for experiments is the cowards way out and I'm gonna give Viluy a wedgie for this. Somehow." she says with a harder frown.

She nods. "We're citizens. You not so much but you're using dark energy, so you shouldn't alert anything easily. You gotta go out of your way to get attacked." she says.

She frowns when the calls are met with silence or the odd sound of weird waves against black and purple sand.

"Yeah...if she...she's.... unconscious..." or worse. "...we need to still find her." she frowns a little and reaches out again with senses and tries to seek food again.

"Glimmer. It may seem uncouth. But if you want to do things with your power, you'll need to drain it from other humans. I don't like it either. But I need it to be a rational being and not..." she eyes a duskpalm. (She didn't name it.) as a duskmonkey (SHE DIDN'T NAME IT EITHER) crawls back into the tree on oddly shaped limbs and ooks. "Like that." she says.

The Duskmonkey seems offended.

Glimmer Brightmoon has posed:
"Not judging! Just informing!" Glimmer called back. They drained because they needed to, it wasn't something she blamed them for. She didn't need to, so she just... didn't. Until she needed to... until she needed to, she didn't want to go down that path.

She knew how those temptations started. She was already using dark energy, which she promised not to. And she knew that if she wasn't careful, it'd be just like back home. When she almost destroyed Etheria. Where she was captured by Horde Prime. She needed power, but for now she needed control. The ability to manipulate her power. Once she understood things more... when she needed great bursts of power, then maybe she'd turn to draining everyone around her. Until then? No. More power wouldn't help here.

She dropped back to the ground. Before glancing towards Riventon and Norie. "If she's unconscious, how long would she have?" she asked. "Is there a way to communicate with each other, when we get out of range? Establish some kind of like... communications? It'd be easier if the three of us could split up without getting lost or worse... And I know it'll just slow you two down if you have to focus on me."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon turns to Norie. "Well, I don't know about 'always' - it depends on what you're doing. It's hard to be an impartial observer when you're part of whatever you're testing." He explains without an iota of self-awareness. "But that's still different than throwing around crazy magic nonsense at random civilians because you can." He says, his derision for the Witches Whatever in his voice.

    "Look, if you want to get at Viluy I'm sure we can come up with something." He says. "She's already gotten off easier than the last time I saw someone playing with Dusk Portals and... anyways, skip that." he says, his voice turning far less casual and a lot harsher.

    "She should be pretty close by. It's... kinda hard to look for tracks here, so don't look for traditional things like shoeprints. Look for things that feel out of place - not to you directly, but to the energy you're in tune with. I don't know if it'll work as well for you, Glimmer-san, but..." Riventon closes his eyes and starts walking. "If there's any energy here that's not native, the Dusk Zone's energy should be fighting it. Dark Energy is like... antimatter and matter. They should seek each other out for destruction if anything foreign to the place is here."

    "I don't know that it'd be a good idea to split up. Who knows what's around here. Just because most things leave us alone doesn't mean everything does." Riventon argues. "Plus one of us would have to stay with you to make sure any of the wildlife doesn't pick up on you and at that point we might as well stick as one. Or at least stay in visual range of each other." he says, before he floats up, much more casually than Glimmer did. "Maybe let me stick to the eye in the sky stuff though."

Norie Okana has posed:
Norie Okana is trying to peek around both visually and magically, trying to find anything any sign of Molly and she stops a moment and just relaxes and let herself become one with the Dusk Zone... she can....

Smell the sweet fizz of a nearby duskfruit. On that tree.... she can smell the sand...

She can smell the odd smell of the dusk oceans water, and feel a windy spray...

She can smell something metallic...

Her eyes open and she suddenly veers to the right and starts floating towards the direction. She blinks. "I think. I smell. Blood?" she asks. She looks up as Riventon floats upwards.

She looks to Glimmer and frowns. "Normal humans don't fare well in the Dusk Zone. It is in fact, deadly. Something slow and awful I'm sure." she says grimly.

Glimmer Brightmoon has posed:
Dark Glimmer just... gave Riventon a bit of a side-eye look when he mentioned being 'impartial'. Oh, she very much doubted he was, ever. But, well, he'd helped her enough... "I, for one, am all for helping give this Viluy girl a punch in the face. But after."

She held back a bit with them. Ugh. She loathed this. Normally in a situation like this she'd have five or six teams doing a grid search... Instead, it was just the three of them. Alone. Trying to find a girl in a haystack. Looking for some, for ANY, sign that she was here...

And they were unlikely to find it. Ever. "Yeah. I... remember when I was stuck in here. It felt like I was here for weeks trying to hold back that energy. If not for the Moonstone..." She trailed off.

"Blood? Right, where is it? Can you tell the direction?" she asked, BARELY suppressing the urge to say 'girl'. Catra would be useful right about now... If only they knew where she was.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "Believe it or not, blood might be good." Riventon notes. "Blood is something you gotta be alive to bleed. Means the Zone didn't like, break them down." he says. "Or something slow and awful but not normal. Blood's normal for injury." he adds.

    "Also due to the nature of her magic Okana-san may be able to track blood better than we can track anything else in here." He muses. Magic, who knows how it works? Sometimes, he did. But only sometimes.

    "Well, let's make sure she's not stuck in her for weeks." he says, starting to make low loops in the air. "Point out the direction and we'll head that way till you can't sense it." He pauses.

    "If it's blood maybe Axion can trace it. There's elements in blood that are rarer here... like copper..." he muses. "Assuming she's not a weird space alien like Chrono or... Glimmer, do you know if YOUR blood has copper in it?" He questions.

    "Well, I think the girl's just British not Etherian. Lead on, Okana-san."

Norie Okana has posed:
Norie Okana eyes Glimmer, then Riventon then back to Glimmer. "...How'd you two meet again?" she asks.

She tries to imagine being stuck in here as a normal human and it sucks. She shivers. Ugh. Still, she then blinks points in the direction she'd started and says. "This direction. Away from the shore a little." she says as she mutters. "I think..." she says as she starts floating.

"I think she's a normal human. From Earth. Earth human. Ugh. That's weird I have to specify Earth human." she says as she scowls.

'I hate it here.' she thinks a moment before she worriedly hurries forward.

Glimmer Brightmoon has posed:
Dark Glimmer followed the two of them, her arms wrapped around her chest as she tried to keep out a chill that had nothing to do with the actual weather.

"I don't know why my blood would have copper in it. Why would any blood have copper in it? I'm not a robot, I'm a..." Pause. "Etherian. Well, half-etherian-human, half-etherian-angel. All princess. All queen. And none robot. Do humans have copper in their blood? Why do you have copper in your blood? What else is in your blood? Iron? Granite? Wood? Is there wood in your blood?"

... So she didn't have high ranks in the 'biology' score. It wasn't her fault. She'd been distracted.

"I got stuck in the dusk zone, with the Moonstone. I thought Riventon told you all about it."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "Found her in the Dusk Zone. She was trying to move that huge crystal from wherever it was to somewhere else and it got wedged in the Dusk Zone." he says, doing Glimmer the favor of VASTLY undertelling the story and the way. "Seems different to how Catra landed herself here, and probably the rest of the people from her world. All dissonant weirdness." he says, slowly.

    "Yeah, people have copper in their blood. It's what makes it look red. If you have red blood, you probably do too - maybe. I don't know. It's wierd, having to wonder about that. Actually, some animals have blue blood but that's because of the unique way the copper is used - anyways, it's part of how our bodies operate." he says. "Just standard science. The stuff that actually makes sense." he says, grumpily comparing it to magic.

    "You're half angel, Norie's the recipient of an ancient curse that changed her, and I was born with Dark Energy. None of us here are normal." He says. "Molly might be the most normal of the four of us. Hopefully we can find her." he says.

    "It's hard not to think the more we look the worse the chances are, but magic's involved so for all we know we'll find her holed up in a magic shell eating a vegimite sandwich." Vegimite was Australian, not British, but Riventon either didn't know or more likely didn't care.

Norie Okana has posed:
Norie Okana deadpans. "Bovril." she syas. "Bovril is British, Vegimite is from a different but related country. Don't... ask me how I know that. It tastes awful it's like what if salt beef by saltier and a slurry." she says as she shivers. "Uggggggggh."

She listens to the talk about blood and how the two met as she 'ahs!'. "Well, you accidently ended up in the Dusk Zone? Strange." she says.

Then she blinks and suddenly comes to.... well it's a big site of what was a battle between mahou and some monster trees. Looks like some trees lost. There's at least one really dead one there and she walks over to it and frowns. "Ah. They we're here." she says as she sniffs the air, scent of not-Dusk zone energies probably fading in the air slowly.

That's when she floats over the carcass of the dead tree beast to come across... "Oh... Oh no." she goes.

It's a pool of blood. Way too much blood. She winces as she huffs.

"No wonder I could smell it so far away there's just so MUCH..." she goes.

Sitting at the head is a pair of glasses and she remembers these glasses.

She carefully floats over and daintly picks them up as she winces, holding them up to look through the lenses. Cracked.

"I... where is she!? MOLLLLLLLY!" she calls out again, ignoring the other trees in the area that could also be more youma for the moment.

Glimmer Brightmoon has posed:
Dark Glimmer gave a small nod as Riventon talked. Yeah... they were.... weirdos. All of them. But you know what? Weirdos stuck together. Weirdos beat Horde Prime. Weirdos were going to find this girl. She didn't say that, though. She, more than anyone... knew what it was like to lose people. To see friends... perish in battle. And she didn't know if it couldn't happen here.

And dead trees. Yay? She supposed? How bad was it...

Oh...

Oh that was a lot of blood. She stared at it, gulping. "So.... the blood looks... fresh," she said softly. "It's... still here, right? So... she's in the area. Riventon, try flying up, see if there are any tracks leading here?" she asked.

If there were any more youma, they... they'd be wise to stay put. To not move. Because Norie and Riventon knew this area. And if anything decided to interfere, that meant Glimmer would be on 'deal with threats' duty. And she didn't feel like holding back even a little bit right now.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "Whatever it is, it's not sushi, or ramen, or okonomiyaki. It's some sort of horrible food spread of sadness." He says. "Like something that'd come out of It's Fo-" he continues, before being cut off by the scene before him.

    It's not a good scene. It's not the news he wanted to deliver. Riventon wanted to bring a foolish sparkle back to the other foolish sparkles... not have to deliver someone's 'killed in action' notice. But the blood - the glasses - the fact that it's the Dusk Zone and he senses no barrier energy... it's looking like that's what this is.


Norie screams. Riventon doesn't see anything moving, though, no more animated trees, just the strange wind without form that makes up the Dusk Zone.

    He floats up quietly, and looks around. And sighs again. "No, no signs of a trail. I think this is where she ended up entering the Dusk Zone, based on the data Axion's giving me. It's hard to be certain." he admits.

    "We can keep looking..." he tries, and then shakes his head. "But... with this much blood lost even if she had a way to survive the Zone itself, I'm not sure she would be able to call on it, on any energies she had." he says.

    He's a little crestfallen here, but that probably pales in comparison to the anguish of Norie.

Norie Okana has posed:
Norie Okana starts to feel a pit in her stomach. She's pretty sure if there's enough blood left to constitute a body this is pretty close. She calls out again. "MOLLY-CHAN IT'S NORIE REMEMBER.... YOU WE'RE GOING... to help me..." she says with a quieter tone as she sulks. "There's nothing left. Maybe she got eaten... maybe her body dissolved in the dusk energies... she isn't... she isn't here..." she says quieter.

She looks down a moment and frowns and gently and carefully closes the glasses up and places them into her jacket pocket.

She looks to Glimmer, she looks to Riventon and frowns. Her eyes glaze a little bit but she takes a breath and fails to put up a brave front. She knew Molly on for a little bit, but still hurts.

"W..what do we tell them?" she asks. "I have to give the glasses over. At least." she says quietly.

Glimmer Brightmoon has posed:
Dark Glimmer was silent for a long, long time as the others said what she was already suspecting. This was where she perished. But... "We... should keep looking. Keep... just in case. As long as we can," she said softly. "I know... there's not a huge chance. But.... even a one percent chance might be worth... should be worth looking for a bit longer."

... Wait, she knew about 'percentages'?

Still... "And if we can't... we tell them the truth. She died. There was nothing here when we arrived. Whatever.... Viluy did... killed the girl. Riventon, you wanted to avoid escalations? Just... let them know exactly who it was who killed the girl." Was it a bit... calculating to throw all the blame on Viluy? Yes. But, well, if this was a war...

"... I'll do it, if need be. Not like I haven't done it before... but..."

"... We should keep trying."

She didn't understand the dusk zone, not like they did. She knew she was... less... useful here. But the one thing she could do, the ONLY thing she could do... was keep trying. Just push herself to keep going. Regardless... Until they knew for certain. If the blood and glasses were still here, maybe... she... was? Somehow?

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon sighed and shook his head. "What do we tell them? I don't know. Glimmer's probably right, make sure they know who did it so they can get revenge and not on the whole org." he says, rubbing his forehead. "If she fell here the Dusk Zone probably did get rid of the majority of her. Not Dark Energy based. Blood probably won't be here for long, either." he adds.

    "I know it's a war, a battle, all of that, but I really hate seeing people die over it. It shouldn't have to be like that." He says. "Like this. Any of it. Everything was fine when we fought without anyone being put down for good." He says.

    "I think it should be Okana-san. Because I can't say it as Takashi, and they already distrust Riventon and you, too, Glimmer-san." he says, bluntly.

    "So that leaves Okana-san. And you found the glasses. But... Glimmer's right. We should probably look for a little while longer. Just in case. Maybe that's just us looking for a miracle. Everyone else does it, I guess."

Norie Okana has posed:
Norie Okana gives Riventon a look, and says, carefully. "Can't rule a kingdom if there's no one in it to rule over, when it's all said and done. Killing people just leads to escalation and other stupidity." she says as she looks to Glimmer and then to Riventon and Glimmer and she sulks.

"I guess it is on me to tell them." she says. "You've..done it before? Huh?" she asks Glimmer. "Do you have advice for me telling them?" she asks. "And why don't they trust you?" so many questions, but maybe she's trying to distract herself.

To keep from trying to cry.

She continues looking. Floating over and circling a tree as she frowns a little softly. "Keep looking..." she says quietly.

Glimmer Brightmoon has posed:
Dark Glimmer gave a small nod, though she admittedly didn't want Norie to have to tell them. But.... he wasn't wrong. She then shrugged. "... Only... that it's going to suck. And hurt. And it'll never get easier to tell people. And if it does? You're... probably doing it wrong. Since it's not something that should ever be easy," she mumbled softly.

"And... I don't know. Because I work for Riventon, I guess? Unfortunately, they know about my stone so... I thought they'd be more understanding. But even Bow's mad at me for it. I guess they'd all just prefer I... don't even know. Apparently me working here is bad. But apparently I don't work hard enough, too. So who knows what they want? Because they certainly have no intentions of telling me. About the only one who IS actually giving me good advice and support these days seems to be Catra and Riventon and the former is horrifying in its own right." The latter is, too, but she doesn't SAY that...

"... Also, get ice cream after. It doesn't make it better, but it... might help the recovery go smoother."