It's early in the morning. Bianca's fingers trail over the spines of the books in the library, her eyes tracing the embossed letterings. Some of them were familiar to her, certain classics by certain authors who had existed in her world; others, of course, were less familiar, hallmarks of the setting of the game of Callisto.
Her fingers stop at one book, which she seems to faintly recognize. She pulls it free from the shelf, her fingers pulling it open so that she could read some of its contents.
Lance has tracked Bianca down again. This isn't a surprising turn of events by any means, but has been more infrequent in the more recent days. Of course, without Lance there to question, there was no way she could know why - not unless she too was susceptible to the oncoming temporal anomalies in the same way as the pair of Spirits. Or perhaps, /the/ spirit, as by the day Lance and Baihe become ever closer, their souls devouring each other until inevitably they simply... combine.
Nevertheless, the pair have been scurrying about, setting up preparations for their inevitable exodus, and now the time has come for Bianca to hear of it. The door to the library opens, calling the chime of bells to announce his presence. The Librarian moves to greet him - though a single look sees her rendered silent. Blind to his presence as the darkly robed man makes his way across the floor to his pet human.
Bianca Amorosi felt a prickle in the air - it was something that was difficult to describe, only that she was intimately familiar with it. Even as Lance silently approaches her, something seemed to cause her to stiffen a little, her lips to part as if in anticipation.
She could not quite feel what was going to happen with time. Callisto II had been announced before her 'transition' into this world; but it hadn't yet been released.
She only knew that the limit date for Callisto I, where one of several endings might be achieved, was approaching.
Even so, she had noticed the more infrequent visits by her owner; she could only guess at what storyline he was setting into play, but more than that - she'd lain awake at night, waiting some days; was it this that brought her to the library today...?
She'd felt lonely without him.
Lance's call comes slowly, as the man behind her simply stares for a moment - studying the way at which she has suddenly stiffened, ceasing movement. Was this normal for her? He didn't remember doing anything to her. Other than all the times that he did something to her, of course. But this wasn't one of these things. Perhaps it was some sort of supernatural sense that she'd developed. Dangersense? Well, he wouldn't deny it if it was.
"Bianca," is how the man announces himself, reaching out to set a hand on her shoulder - hopefully snapping her out of whatever reverie she had wandered her way into this time. She did seem to be particularly susceptible to it. Actually, perhaps that was it? Perhaps the hypnosis he had enacted on the librarian somehow made it over to her - paralyzing the woman in fear from the base intuition she could no longer see him? The serpent's human lips pull into a thin smirk, staring down at the woman before him with sadistic amusement. That would be funny if so.
Bianca Amorosi let out a small sigh of relief as she felt the familiar touch of a gloved hand on her shoulder, looking back with a flushed and dazed look and smile. "Hello, Lance..." she half-whispers. Her eyes seem to dance across his torso, as she turned around to face him.
There's still a certain tension there - the tension of the kind in which a woman is visited repeatedly in the dark hours of the night, but never knowing exactly when.
"It's been... A while," she says, looking hopeful for... Something. She seems almost shy about it, though it's hard to say what she'd possibly be shy about in front of Lance anyways, at this point.
Lance nods, and lets his hand slip off of her as the woman turns around. It would be difficult to maneuver with his hand on her like that, after all. When she does come to a stop though, the man reaches up with that same gloved hand to take the woman's chin into his hand, guiding her gaze up and towards him.
"Quite," he agrees, "Though not without reason, I assure you." He trails off here however, looking back at the woman, studying her in return. Assessing that shy, almost hopeful gaze of hers as she seems to stand there, waiting for /something/. Something that he can't quite tell what it is, given the woman's utter lack of common sensibilities.
Or perhaps it was that whatever her common sensibilities were, his were simply too far removed.
"Though before I speak of that..." the man murmurs, raising an eyebrow as he returns her gaze again, "Do tell. Is there something you would ask of me first?"
Ah, branching dialogue. This close to the finale?
Bianca Amorosi shivered as Lance's glove again traced and grasped her jaw, her chin, tilting her gaze up to his. Her eyes seem to flicker back and forth for a moment as he studied his gaze.
She takes a step in closer, almost unable to stop herself; as he murmurs, the woman takes a deep breath, reaching out to take hold of the hem of his coat and trying to press in.
"I don't know where you're going... Please take me with you..." she murmurs back to him. She's almost holding back tears. "I... I can't go on without you," she admits. The period during which Lance's visits had left her wanting had also only further cemented his enchantment over her; just as Lance's own self-integration occurred, the woman's own integration had been happening on its own, as less and less magic was needed to adjust her mind and self-internalization to Lance's desire, and the more she wanted it naturally.
She needed his touch. She needed the swallowing ownership he had over her, needed his attention.
It had been a long time since she'd looked at a status window.
Lance blinks, not having expected that. Of all things, not that. He hadn't thought that he had let anything slip regarding his plans, and his preparations to leave were far from conventional... So how had she understood?
Or, perhaps, was there another meaning? Did she mean to ask him to carry her away from this place, to live with him fully? Racking his brain, he was sure that at some point he might have offered it, though to what effect was clear enough had it happened.
The man opens his eyes, and wraps an arm around the woman's back, giving her a comfortable, affectionate squeeze. He still retained that level of humanity at least.
"Come with me," the man says after a moment, releasing her as he starts to turn away.... And walks upstairs.
Bianca Amorosi hadn't really meant anything by it, of course. It was less about knowing the end date of Callisto I and more about the panic and anxiety of thinking that the man who had become her everything, whether by coercive manipulation or not, might have lost interest in her.
She almost seems to crumple with relief when he squeezes her around the back, but when he lets go, she almost dashes after him so that she could at least hold onto his coat as he went upstairs.
She felt like she was back in high school again, like she'd been consumed by some silly crush; but this was far more important to her than just any crush.
She's almost grinning if he looks down at her, as if being told to come with him was the best thing in the world. "Yes, sir!" she responds eagerly.
Lance ascends the stairs quickly, and then all but falls back onto the low couch, sinking into the comfortable cushions. As Bianca trails after him, the man reaches out and points directly down, near his feet. "Sit," he instructs, letting that be followed quickly by a flash of mental coercion.
Once the woman is settled, he clears his throat, and this time without any hint of hypnosis orders, "Now. Tell me everything about yourself."
Bianca Amorosi lets out a grateful, needy whine as the man sits down amidst the cushions and points at the ground in front of him - like she was nothing more than a dog, a bitch.
She sets herself down on the uncomfortable hardwood nevertheless, a cheery flush on her cheeks. She shudders as she feels the pressure on her mind that directs her to spill all of her secrets.
"I don't... Come from this world, master. I come from a world about... I think almost 80? years ahead of this one..."
She shivers. "But it's a very different world, sir. There is no aetherite there; factories are powered with coal, or sometimes a metal called uranium... And there isn't anything supernatural like in this world, at least nothing that wasn't just a hoax or a fairy tale..."
She bites her lip. "I was - 29 years old, I think? I... Callisto was the setting of a game in that world. "Skies of Callisto." It was like..."
She gesticulates vaguely with her hands, as if trying to think of how to express what she was trying to say. "Imagine... Silent films, but not silent - they have sound. And it's not really a film? Because you could actually interact with the film - with the things that happen and the characters in it..."
"I, um - I was something they called a 'streamer'? I would play that game and commentate it while they watched it on... I guess, imagine a theatre, except it was a theatre that could be fit in someone's home, and that would show the same thing to thousands of people synchronously across the world...?"
She pauses for a moment, as if to recollect what happened next.
"I was - streaming, I mean - I was playing that game for everyone to watch. It was a 'marathon stream', so I had played for I think... close to forty-eight hours by then...?"
Lance frowns, and chides the woman as she attempts to describe the concept of a game to him, "I understand the concept of a game," he replies, seeming to accept everything the woman says as absolute fact. Which, reasonably, he should probably not. Everything that she's saying sounds like she dragged it straight up out of her ass and presented it to him like some kind of cat presenting its owner a desiccated rodent.
However, whether by simple trust in her, or the belief that he's conditioned her to never lie to him, the spirit accepts everything she says in its entirety.
"I don't know how far advanced you see yourself - or perhaps, how primitive you see us... see /me/, but I understand the concept of a game. Perhaps not in the same terms as you, but you need not labor yourself to describe it to me in such arcane terms."
Having given her a lecture thus, the man then deigns to listen to the rest of her explanation - taking a moment to process the information - and then repeats it back.
"So, in short, you are from a far flung world in the future, similar to this one in most ways save for the metaphysical. You made your living by broadcasting games over something similar to the Aethernet, and literally worked yourself to death?"
Bianca Amorosi quickly gives her owner an apologetic nod and looks down repentantly. "Yes, sir, sorry, sir," she says quickly. She takes a few moments to pause, and then nods again. "Yes, sir. But - I didn't exactly... Die? I fell asleep and I woke up here... I wasn't quite dead, since the death god who met me when I first arrived didn't try to reap me?" she tells him. "I'm not... Entirely sure what triggered the transition? I was sure I was dreaming until - until my first owner started to cut and stab me to experiment with my regeneration."
She bites her lip. "I never told him anything like this, just you. He thought I was just casting spells. My... Abilities? Are linked to my home reality, somehow. It's the same UI - the same, um, board? And I have the stats I gave myself when I found myself here..."
Lance nods once, and gestures for the woman to continue, "Tell me more. Or, if that is all, tell me about these abilities of yours. I can't say that I've seen you do anything much out of the ordinary, after all."
Bianca Amorosi nods back to Lance. "I have an advanced level of regeneration. It's be very difficult to kill me with any kind of direct damage. There's also some basic poison and disease resistance."
She pauses, then looks up towards the corner of her vision.
"Open Inventory," she says. Like usual, there's a brief moment when she uses her abilities that her self-image seems to distort, crystallizing into a mosaic of tiny squares of colour - and it grows stronger when she reaches in and pulls out a bundle of clothing, presenting it to Lance before putting it back..
"I have the ability to store items of a small size inside an inventory only I can access with this command..."
She pauses again for a moment, seeming to tense and grimace before she says, "Open Character Creation."
At this moment is where her soul seems more distorted, by far - far more than when she activated the inventory, than when she looked at the UI, than when she had first looked at Lance's status screen.
Whereas every previous time, Bianca had remained recognizably Bianca, the character creation menu seems to put immense strain on her sense of self - it blurs, flickers, becomes an amorphous shape of colours and pixellated static. Her fingers reach out to something unseen, and swipes right; her index shifting something that then suddenly changes her.
Her arm, then, suddenly is no longer an arm, but a bony spike of a blade, reminiscent of an insect's; she waves it through the air, and it whistles as it cuts at nothing.
She swipes her fingers back through the air, letting out a sigh as her arm returns to normal. "Close Inventory. Close Character Creation." she says. Her self-image returns to normal.
Lance frowns, visibly upset as he watches the woman distort like this. It seems painful to him, and hurts his eyes besides. But, at least he is aware of what it is... and with familiarity he can... grow used to it. Hopefully. Moreover, realizing that he had been forbidding her to access her own abilities now weighs on the man's souls.
Instead of apologizing, he instead focuses on fiddling with the clothes he's been given, inspecting them before folding them neatly and passing them back to Bianca - his player is of course assuming that these clothes are women's clothes, and not a gift from the serpent's pet to her master.
"I see," he says, after a moment, "Is there anything else you would tell me?"
Bianca Amorosi nods slightly, putting the clothing away again. It was, without a doubt - painful, if not physically, then existentially, to use the character creation menu. The others weren't quite so taxing as they were simply dissonant.
"Just a few more things... I can tap into the Aethernet to send messages directly through the mind, like the game's messaging system...
[beeA]: like this
are the words which somehow seems to appear in front of Lance. It hovers in front of him, a square of blue light he couldn't ever quite seem to touch, which seemed to move with his vision, but which closed the moment he waved it away or stopped thinking about the message itself.
"And the last thing are my status screens. I can... Assess life force in the form of a percentage and a filled bar, I can assess combat levels as being either 1 star, 2 stars, or 3... And I can assess relationship levels. I haven't used it since you told me not to, though, sir."
Lance is quiet for a moment, letting his gaze slip off the message... and not even noticing as it vanishes. Then, after a moment, he nods, and waves his hand at her in a gesture, "I will permit you to access the full of your abilities," he says, slowly. Then, after a moment, he continues, "I understand that it must have been difficult to have such limitations placed on you."
He's not apologizing though, the act seeming somewhat difficult for him. To acknowledge that he's hurt her is effort enough at the moment... Though, truthfully, he's not even doing that. He's acknowledging that she's been hurt, but is dodging the question of who inflicted that hurt upon her.
Bianca Amorosi shakes her head. "How could I blame my master?"
She smiles up brightly to him, getting low down on the ground as she bows her head again. "I will use these abilities for your sake, Lance. As long as you keep me by your side."
Her lashes flutter. It does feel like there's a weight that's been lifted off her shoulders.
Lance nods, end extends a hand to the woman. Should she take it, the man would pull her up and onto his lap where he wraps his arms around her and gently strokes the woman's face with a finger, "Then, shall I assume that that is all you have to tell me?"
Bianca Amorosi 's breath catches in her throat as Lance pulls her up and into his lap, her body cradled in his arms, her face gently caressed by his finger. She nods again. "Yes, sir," she whispers, leaning into him, waiting for his next move, his next word.
Lance smiles and then pulls back, reclining on the couch with Bianca in his arms. "Then, I suppose it is time for me to tell you my plans. The reason I came to see you in the first place today."
Bianca Amorosi seems to relax into Lance's chest as he pulls her up against him, the woman smiling and nodding as Lance said he'd begin to tell her his plans.
"Yes, sir... Please tell me what to do..." she murmurs as she turns her head halfway against his chest.
Lance nods once, and then clears his throat, "I plan to leave this place," he says. It's a flat statement, leaving no room for objection or protest. "Perhaps not... This place as you think of it, this separate world where you find yourself trapped away from your home. Though I am now aware of the possibility, I am afraid that no one - save for the deranged - has attempted such a feat as escaping from the bounds of this very universe. To my knowledge at least. No, instead I will journey beyond the bounds of this mortal plane into the Spirit World, where I shall wait out the oncoming changes to Callisto. Have you sensed them?"
Bianca Amorosi listens quietly to Lance as he begins to describe what he plans to do. Her fingers curl into fists around Lance's coat hem, almost possessively. "I... Did not, sir. But I do know that the end-date for the game is approaching, which means any number of possible endings for the storylines I know about," she replies to him. There's a faint trace of anxiety in her voice that accompanies the bunched fists in Lance's clothing.
Lance shrugs, and removes his gloves slowly. Peeling them away from his skin so that he can caress the woman's cheek with his bare hand. His touch today is tinged with a drug which causes euphoria, the giddy sensation spreading through her cheeks before going elsewhere.
"Baihe and I can feel something coming. Something deep and primeval. We know not what exactly, but the eddies and currents of this world are changing... and we plan to have no part of it. So we will withdraw to the world of spirits, where we may complete our metamorphosis. If you wish, we will bring you with us, but first I must warn you. We do not know how long we will be there. The people we - you - know here may be long dead ere the time we return, and it is possible that you yourself may grow old and die there as well. As such, this is not a decision that we bring to you lightly."
Bianca Amorosi groans quietly, rubbing her thighs together as she feels the man's otherworldly poison sinking into her cheek, travel down her spine, to her core. She shivers in his embrace. "Please bring me with you," she whispered. There were few others in this world she'd been particularly close to. There wouldn't have been a point for her to stay in Callisto one way or another. "I will tend to you while you complete whatever it is you need to do."
Her lashes fluttered, and she finally sank back into Lance's arms again, relaxing at knowing he would bring her along with him.
Lance nods, simply holding Bianca in his arms, "If that is your decision, then you must begin saying your goodbyes... Gather what resources you need, make what inquiries you must... In short, begin your preparations, and when they are complete - or such a time has come that we can no longer afford to wait - we shall venture together into the Spirit World."
Bianca Amorosi let out a long, contented sigh. "It won't be much. I have most of what I need in... Here."
She idly waves her hand around in the air in front of her. With his new understanding of her abilities, it was obvious she was referring to the same system she'd used to materialize the clothing she'd shown him earlier.
"You can find me at any time, sir..."
She smiles, turning her lips to press against his lapel. She'd close her eyes and rest there for as long as Lance would let her, and then it would be time to prepare what little she might need for her new adventure.
She was going to be somewhere beyond the game, soon enough.