deercountry | june catch-all

Who: viktor and others, open to all with some closed prompts in comments
What: june catch-all, some tdm prompts
When: june
Where: various

content warning; terminal illness, arcane season 1 spoilers

misc lab stuff and various fruits.

[viktor's lab in the willful machine is usually left unlocked when he's working inside. friends or acquaintances have likely been told they're welcome to stop by if they like, either to say hello or to get help with whatever a vaguely sketchy lab could handle. of course someone he doesn't know can just walk in too or knock. maybe there's a sudden downpour and that ajar door is tempting? go for it.

the lab has been slowly filling with all sorts of nonsense on the various tables- lasers! tasers! some weird machine hooked up to a blood gem? it is not unlikely to be walking by and hear some minor booming noise and either a curse in czech or a satisfied 'a-ha!' feel free to investigate.

this month there's something else too, a bowl full of fruit. all the fruits mentioned in the tdm in fact, there to be tested on though it looks more like they're just for guests if people are unaware there's some weird shit going on.]

Just a moment, make yourself at home. [he might say to guest. that would include eating some fruit, right? enjoy. probably not the raw lemon though, that's weird.]

[ooc; if you want to memshare i am game, my only hard limit on memories is no suicide stuff please. self sacrifice is fine! feel free to ask to make sure one is okay. if you'd like a viktor memory let me know any hard limits and what sort of memory you might prefer!]

gaze and time loops.

[having lungs mostly working for the moment is pretty great, in viktor's humble opinion. it means walking around the trench doesn't come with the risk of coughing up blood and attracting beasts and generally having a bad time, along with added perks like not getting so easily winded and going for longer. it also means he finds himself out longer than he usually would, which maybe isn't the best, as it turns out.

for example, making his way home through gaze and hearing the chilling cry of a beast, sighing and trying to make his way around what turns out to be the wrong corner. maybe that's where he sees your character before the snarling of a too close beast starts in earnest.

and then snap! they're both back about an hour, where they passed on the street. the look viktor gives is somewhere between resigned and 'fuck this, actually.'] There is a term for this. 'One of those days,' I think.

[ooc; if you'd like to wildcard or do something else you can pm me here or find me at

dichotomy]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Without love? What do you mean by that?" Viktor asks, curious. In some ways he thinks he can understand, at least the aching loneliness of the memory pops to mind. Poetic, he imagines, if a lonely and quiet world is called a place without love. Maybe apt, in a way.

He's ready to dismiss the sight further when Varré recoils, his lips twitching to a frown as he moves over to glance through.

"... possibly. At worst it is a beast on the hunt, though other oddities can occur. Nightmares and ghosts seem to be the flavor of this month." Dry, though with some level of concern in how he furrows his brow. "And we are both awake, so I would hope it is not actually a nightmare."

He drew away from the window. "A ghost, then. Or a revenant." That could have been what he saw, briefly rising up before returning to whatever otherworldly pit they crawled from.

He might be able to take one on--he was as light on his feet as ever, and he still had some spark of flame he could call on. But they were awful things, best observed from a distance, or attacked in force with the aid of other devoted. He rather doubted that Viktor, dear though he was, could take the place of a sanguine noble.

"I'd advise we stay indoors, then, and converse quietly." Just in case, he reached into a pack on a nearby table, pulling out a large bundle wrapped in that strange, indestructible cloak granted upon his arrival.

But he hadn't forgotten Viktor's question. "The Lands Between were abandoned by the gods that ruled them. Left to rot in heartbreak." Much like the Carian queen. Her husband's faithlessness should have been taken as a sign. "Most have gone mad in their absence."

"A good plan, at least until we get a better idea what we are working with," Viktor says, squinting through the glass but speaking quietly as directed. There was very little he could do in cases like this, unfortunately, not without research, not without tools to work with. Certainly not against ghosts or the like, matters he did not believe in only months before.

He stifles a sigh and turns his attention to the bundle, head tilting. "What is that?" he asks, but ah, that answer is curious.

And a little familiar. Did Zaun not have a goddess who vanished when they needed her most? Not that he was ever a believer in such things, but still. "Why was it abandoned? Was the land not a duty to them?"

"No one truly knows. The eternal queen's children fought over what remained, until none cared for anything else but the conflict. That callousness and waste of it all irks the most." It was a similar tale to the one he'd told promising Tarnished. Oh, Viktor knew less, of course, needed more explained. But that didn't change the arc of the story, or its inevitable conclusion.

"But my Lord still cares." The cloak pulled free, revealing his bouquet. "He has a vision for us, to not simply restore the old order, but to grow something new and beautiful from its ruins."

The roses were clean, now. The blood seemed to have washed away in the sea. But the steel was still spotless and lovingly cared for, every fine detail of the handle restored to brightness, and every edge was razor sharp. Ready to be painted red once more.

"How could one possibly turn away from such a calling, even here?"

Viktor's lips thin. "Ah, isn't it like the entitled to treat what is real as a toy." He has quite a lot of feelings about that, though he imagines it is all far more complicated. Then again it was an old tale, power and the people with it, the games they played and those they crushed underfoot.

His attention stays on the bundle, surprised by its contents when the cloak is pulled away. A piece of art, yes, but one of dangerous, sharp lines, thorns in more than name.

"This is a land begging for revival," he muses, tempted to reach out and touch but so far keeping his hands to himself. "What remarkable craftsmanship, this is. From your home?"

He's always appreciated metal more than the organic.

His voice swells with pride. "A gift from my Lord, and a symbol of what we hold dear." There were others bedecked with horns and talons, fine clothes and symbols of their nobility. He needs nothing but this, a beautiful sign of Luminary Mohg's love.

As he holds it out for Viktor to take in the details, the polished steel is suddenly clouded with a murky reflection. Something moves behind him. Distorted and broken by the myriad petals, but he glimpses a piece of it all the same. The shape of a massive arm that swings loosely as if profoundly broken, and a glimmer of gold. He spins, falling into a ready stance with an instinctive speed. But there's nothing. "I saw that thing again--reflected in the steel." It had seemed to be inside the house with them, despite its horrible size. Is that the trick of it? A shade that lived in reflections?

"It's not a revenant, then." If revenants could do this, he'd have seen it already, in the glassy surface of the lake that swallowed Liurnia. "One of those ghosts you mentioned--Oh heavens." He's making sense of what he saw now. The arm isn't broken. It's jointed. And the wretched thing wears gold. "Oh, if Godrick's been brought here as well... Can demigods come to Trench?" And if so, what to do, then?

Viktor is very happy to be offered the chance to look closer, head tilting as he takes it in, melancholy he doesn't have access to the same resources he did to bend metal so expertly. He was never an artist in this way but the technique is still familiar, a pleasant distraction until he too notices something off in the reflection of the petals.

He raises his head, looks around with a frown before his attention is on Varré again. "It... as sleepers yes, it's possible. They are often far less powerful but still dangerous in an incredible way."

But if it's a ghost- "You know this figure? It looked... why did he have so many limbs?"

"Godrick the Grafted, Lord of Stormveil. Demigod scion of the Golden Lineage, and only recently among the ranks of the dead." At least this plague of ghosts must mean no poor little sea beast had been so unfortunate as to become Godrick.

But that was the only pleasant thing he could think of about this turn of events. "I'm not surprised that an amalgam of stolen flesh would live in death. Are these ghosts causing harm?" Spirits could be docile, though he doubted they were so lucky here.

"Stolen flesh." Well. Viktor is putting together why someone would be called 'the grafted' and resisting the urge to sigh. That's a lot. Elden Ring is a lot, as it turns out. Who would have guessed, with the blood roses.

Still it is alarming, Viktor's face going grim to answer, "They can, though it usually takes time. I'm afraid to say they seem to get very violent given enough time.

"Which is the last thing I imagine we want to see with a 'demigod scion.'"

june catch-all

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