Fear and Loathing in Excelsior

[portolan]

Who: Balthier portolan and anyone else!
What: A mysterious object leads to a horrific week of fear and misery
When: May 21
Where: Excelsior
Content Warnings: death, violence, phobias, memories of characters worst traumas – this is fear based; please tag specifics for your threads.

CWs: death, violence, phobias, memories of characters worst traumas – this is fear based; please tag specifics for your threads.

OPT OUT OPTIONS: Don’t be in Excelsior or don’t be hit by a spell yourself. Players may also limit to smaller scale fears, or avoid specific fear topics they don’t want to play out.

FEAR AND LOATHING IN EXCELSIOR

An ancient artifact releases three pixies intent on spreading as much fear and chaos as possible. When they hit someone with their spell, their fears manifest, with effects worsening the longer the pixies are free. To escape the spell, characters must face their fears or be trapped in the fear cauldron. Once the pixies are captured, the captured souls will be released and the manifestations will fade, though the damage caused will remain.

ANTIQUES ROADSHOW —

Downtown Excelsior may seem like an odd location to open an antiques store. One wouldn’t think that the chic youth of today would be interested in dusty relics of the past. Yet ask anyone and they will tell you this shop has been around for decades. Rue Moore once reported that it's particularly beloved by the Society and that was how it was able to stay afloat through the changing times, speculating that they use it to move black market goods.

Step inside the high end building and find yourself disoriented by the clash of differing time periods. French Rococo chandeliers, a pristine settee owned by John Adams, an honest-to-god suit of medieval armor, and a few framed sketches by Rembrandt and the like. There’s an electric thrill, as if you could reach out and touch history - though some of that may be the high number of protection magicks being employed.

Whatever you touch is probably worth more than your annual salary. You break it, you buy it.

Balthier is standing at an antique desk plucking away at a laptop as the first few volunteers arrive. He gestures for them to head to the classy bar tucked in the corner. You’re free to enjoy a glass of rich wine and high end appetizers, chatting amongst yourselves about the task at hand while the host finishes his work. As the crowd gathers he shuts his computer and ushers them into the back room, where even more antiques are carefully stacked. Among them are the offenders from the network post and a stack of additional concerning items.

A Little Bit Of Pixie Dust

The biggest puzzle of the night is a medieval cauldron. Intricate carvings depict great tales of monsters and magic. The most notable carving of all is three human faces engraved next to three creatures: a fae, a shade, and a troll.

Search as they might, there’s no record of this object in any database. At the end of the day this one is the only one left identified. As the last remaining investigation team members turn away to pack their things, they miss three small lights slowly rising from the carving’s open mouths. As the door shuts behind them, they may miss the sound of giggling. Or the soft swish of a tricky spell hitting you squarely in the back.

Pixie Magic is unfortunately difficult to detect, after all.

But the first spell cast is a sign these fickle spirits are picking up an old game. Who can create the most chaos? They're powered by human suffering. All fear that they collect returns to their cauldron, making them stronger and increasing the distance they can travel from it.

They are not discriminating and their targets are random. Anyone hit by their spells will become the victims of their fear manifestation spells. Each pixie specializes in a different kind of fear.

The first specializes in internal conflict. Think you have a face like a horse? Well now you might be Bojack Horseman. Worried you’re annoying? Well now you can’t stop doing every annoying habit you’ve ever had. Terrified you might be stone-cold and heartless? Congrats! You're turning into a statue.

Afraid of being ignored? Day 1 you might notice more people are ignoring you. As the spell progresses, no one is returning your calls or texts, people are avoiding you, and you are having trouble being served at coffee shops. By the end of the week, congratulations, you are no one can see or hear you!

These fear spells may be defeated by the character facing their fear or someone where someone helping them see they are still wanted or safe despite their flaws.

---

The Second Pixie specializes in interpersonal conflict. Maybe your love life explodes. Maybe your worst nemesis returns to harass and humiliate you. Whatever it is, you’re having trouble with others.

EXAMPLES: One day 1, you might be increasingly aware of your significant other's flaws or the health of the relationship. By midweek, you may find yourselves hitting each others buttons and fighting constantly. By the end of the week, you both may be compulsively playing out every flaw the other person perceives you to have.

If you have a nemesis from your past who haunts you, you may find yourself having more memories and dreams of them on Day 1. By Day 3 you might start seeing their face or signs of their work around town, or impacts of their presence. By the end of the week, they may full-on appear in this world, with all their powers, threatening to repeat that terrible memory if you don’t stop them.

These fear spells may be defeated by literally defeating the other person, or by reconciling with them. They could also be defeated by accepting reconciliation is not possible but removing the person's access to you (or to destroying the city, RIP).

---

The Third Pixie specializes in person versus environment conflict: packs of angry chihuahuas. The weather. The sidewalk opening up to swallow your ankles. Awakening dormant magical creatures. A super volcano going off.

EXAMPLES: You hate the cold and can't shake a chill. By midweek, the temperature around you is literally 10 degrees colder than everywhere else. By the end of the week, you are the eye of a blizzard.

These fear spells may be defeated by overcoming the physical obstacle through whatever means necessary.

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter...

Perhaps you failed to overcome this challenge. Just as you succumb to your worst fears, your eyes open and you find yourself standing in an empty space. Others are there with you, looking equally as forlorn and lost.

And then it transforms.

You and your fellow victims are now trapped in a HELLISH LIMBO. You’re living out one fear after another – whether it’s yours, or that of one of the others who failed to overcome their fear in the world outside.

In this hell your very worst fears are realized. And there’s no way out. The pixie’s magic brings things in, but it doesn’t let them out.

Those who have not succumbed to their fears may be drawn to the back room of the antique shop, finding the cauldron abandoned but overflowing with power. The magically inclined may be able to find the seam on this pocket dimension and ATTEMPT A RESCUE.

But more concerningly, the carvings on the cauldron appear to be glowing. What was once a fanciful depiction of ancient battles now appears to be a warning that the worst is yet to come.

These powerful creatures need to be defeated and returned to the cauldron. They have fanned out across the city and will be encountered separately, so teams may wish to form. They cannot be killed, but wounding them will bleed out their power until they can be re-sealed on the cauldron.

The only trouble is you need to find them.

Transformation

As the pixies amass more and more power from the fear they’re generating, the range they can travel from the cauldron increases. The further they can travel, the more fear they can inflict. And where better to feast than a city built upon consumerism, where fear isn’t dealt with but bought off. Perhaps you may spot the flickering light of a pixie out of the corner of your eye, but it’s gone in a flash.

Eventually though, they trade speed for power. As their power crescendos the pixies begin to change shape. By the seventh day, all three of them have shape shifted into much larger and more imposing forms.

The first pixie will become a beautiful and terrifying fae. They make themselves at home in the city’s enormous man-made park and offer fae bargains to those foolhardy enough to trust them. Strength won’t overcome them, but a quick thinking mind might.

The second becomes nothing but a shade. It slides under cars and along walls, hiding in people’s shadows and whispers their darkest fears. This entity can’t be held down or stopped with physical force, but it recoils from the light.

The third rampages throughout the business center in the form of an enormous troll. Like the other two, this entity cannot be stopped with force. Excelsior’s artificial weather systems may be needed to slow this beast down.

AFTERMATH —

Once the pixies are restored to the cauldron, their fears in the city fade away and trapped characters are released, physically unharmed but mentally shaken. The damage any fear manifestations did to the city remain, but any people or objects they conjured fade away within the day.

The cauldron cannot be destroyed, so something will need to be done to keep it from wreaking havoc again.

IN SUMMARY...

• Balthier asks for help identifying magical objects. Characters interacting with one object in particular awakens sleeping magic inside.


• When the pixies first awaken, they must stay close to the cauldron to sustain their power.


• Each pixie's fear spell works on a different kind of conflict (though characters can be affected by more than one, or cured and then affected by another). As the week goes on, the manifested fears will worsen.


• Characters can defeat the fear spells by facing their fears or by someone else helping/interfering.


• The pixies must be defeated and returned to the cauldron.


• Comment HERE if you'd like to be involved in taking out the pixies!

Comments

Balthier | Final Fantasy XII | OTA

[portolan]

I. Storeroom

[ Any volunteers (paid or otherwise) will be ushered into the back room to help test, sort, and store objects. It’s a long day of work, but they make their way through the inventory. One item, of course, eludes identification.

Strange things start happening toward the end of the day. People are snappier or more fatigued than they realize or may experience random inconveniences seemingly from nowhere. Unbeknownst to them, the pixies have gotten free, and anyone in or near the shop has been hit by their first spells. Including Balthier. ]

At some innocuous comment, he snaps, “I’ve always done it that way.”

II. Bedtime Stories
CW: reference to narcissistic parent + prior abuse, derealization, self dead-naming of non-trans identity

[ It’s not uncommon for objects to simply surface at the shop. Discretion is of the highest value, and old clients have their ways. But this delivery is particularly strange: a pair of old books, bound in a style that seems distinctly, well, Ivalician. Or at the very least 18th century Earth, but in much too good of condition for that to make any sense.

Anyone who comes into the shop today will find Balthier pouring over these books, unable to stop reading. If they don’t catch him there, they might find him at a coffee shop, the set grown to four or even six, and he can’t stop reading. This is his whole life, exaggerated, yes, but there it is, like some story. Not like his adventures were memorialized, no -- Like he can’t be real. Like everything he remembers about himself is just a lie, a bedtime story spun to make himself feel better. The worst part is the author: Ffamran Mied Bunansa. A member of the Archadian government and high-ranking but unremarkable official who mostly acts as a pawn of his father’s. The person he was supposed to be. The person he’s increasingly cetain he actually was. ]

“Have you ever heard of these before?” he demands. His hands are shaking, but he hands you the book.

[ The cover is very clearly a stylized version of him as a sky pirate. Which by comparison is making the real thing look dull and lackluster. His clothes don’t seem to fit quite right, and his usual grace and charm are replaced by an awkwardness that is unsettling fitting on him. He’s entirely unimpressive. ]

III. I Was Never the Leading Man – Closed to David
CW: reference to narcissistic parent + prior abuse, derealization, self dead-naming of non-trans identity

[ The house is a disaster, every cabinet and drawer open and contents strewn about. He’s been looking for anything that came through with him, anything from Ivalice. But there’s nothing. He can’t even remember what he arrived with.

What he does have is a house full of memories and relics of his time with David: their gifts and letters, the framed poem with David’s illustrations on it, furniture David’s helped move a hundred times, the contents of the emergency migraine kit, and a slew of items either purchased for David or left here by the other man.

As they pile up, the twisting feeling in his gut that he’s been fighting all week slowly gets the better of him. They’re fighting. They’ve been fighting since that night Tommy arrived, since David chose Balthier, and the truth is he chose wrong.

Balthier doesn’t exist, and Ffamran is nothing. Everything David loves is a lie, a dream made real for far too long.

He at least owes it to the other man to come clean, to let him go. But he’s too much of a coward to call, and so he sends a text. ]

I never meant to lie to you, but I know that doesn’t fix anything. I’m letting you go. It’s the least I can do.

I’m sorry.

IV. Like Father Like Son
CW: reference to genocide/leveling of a city; narcissistic parent + prior abuse, possible violence, references to patricide, possible second patricide, reference to loss of mother

[ Late in the week, he’s gotten free of the fear that he’s Ffamran. Well, the truth is, he is Ffamran. And he’s also Balthier. Both of those are true. They always have been. But he is an evolving narrative, one he gets to keep shaping.

That does little to shore him up for the next fear manifestation. He literally runs into the man, things scattering around them, and for once in his life he can’t find his voice.

His father. A man who should be dead. Balthier tries to have it out with him, months of things he should have said coiled on his tongue. Cid only laughs, flashing Nethicite before heading for the center of town. That’s the material he used to raze a city and kill two million people. Including Balthier’s mother.

That isn’t going to happen again. Balthier won’t let it.

But the worst part about being on this world is that Balthier is, essentially, useless. Magick that once ran the gambit of combat abilities is now just illusions, stories spun as expertly as he is, but only stories. So he flags you down, because what is pride in the face of perishing? ]

“I need your help. That man is my father and he’s going to blow up the city if we don’t get that stone away from him.”

V. Beware the Fae
CW: manipulation, gaslighting, possible violence

[ They have to stop the three pixies. Balthier knows he’s not much use in combat, so he goes after the fae; maybe his tongue will be a useful enough weapon here.

He’s taking backup, though; he’s not an idiot. That’s where you come in. So here you both are, entering the largest park in Excelsior, where a being so beautiful it freezes the words in your throat waits on a jungle gym that’s somehow become a throne of tree branches and metal. ]

“What a long week,” [ they say in a voice so soothing you feel your whole body relax. ] “We could trade that for something much sweeter.” [ Visions of whatever your heart desires, the remedy to all this pain, creep into your mind. ]

“Careful,” [ Balthier warns you. ] “It’s not real.” [ But the conviction in his voice is weak. ]

[ OOC: I will match brackets or prose! If you want something else or want to chat about any of the above, portolan ! ]

i

[doctopoda]

Don't snap at me, it was a simple question.

[On another day, Otto might have been able to react a little more calmly. He's not one to take things lying down, but normally he'd have tried a little harder not to snap back. Right now, though, an ill mood seems to be permeating the room - Balthier's ill mood, he thinks, somewhat uncharitably.]

[portolan]

[ The indignant rage that moves through him is a palpable wave of heat. But he has two decades' experience not acting immediately on that emotion, and so instead his face and voice go flat, the only suggestion that he's irritated the way he clenches his thumbs between his middle and ring fingers.

still, there's hurt in it. he'd expect this from his father, but not from Otto. maybe age made all men callous and arrogant. ]

With all due respect, I have significantly more experience with magical artifacts than you do. [ yeah, it doesn't sound respectful ] So yes, we'll be storing those together and seeing if anything reacts. And don't touch it with bare skin.

[doctopoda]

[Otto narrows his eyes, turning to face Balthier while the actuators pluck up several of the artifacts in question. He knows he doesn't have much experience with magic, so usually he's just fine taking direction from others in that field. He'd be fine with it now, he tells himself, if Balthier weren't taking such a snide tone about it.]

I'm here doing you a favor. And I'm perfectly aware not to touch these with bare skin.

[In contrast, his manner's cold, far colder than normal. It would frighten him, if he'd really clocked it at all yet.]

[portolan]

[ lovely just what he needs. Echoes of his father and being treated like he’s nothing in his own god damn domain. It’s like he never left Ivalice.

Except it’s worse because in Ivalice he had so much magick and understood the rules. He’d rather chew his own hand off than admit it to Otto, but he can’t do anything if the man sets off some sort of curse. His best course of action would be asking one of the Lokis or Billy or Strange for help, and wouldn’t that be peachy? Someone else to point out how small and useless he is here. No matter he’s trying to prevent that.

Why does no one ever listen to him? How much more brilliant and reliable and well studied does he have to be to get some respect? ]

The door’s right there, old man. No one’s keeping you here.

IV

[rehandle]

[ It's becoming increasingly evident that he shouldn't have come back here. The people of this city are succumbing to whatever it is that set the world off its axis here and here alone, effects by now enough that the city itself is taking hits. And here he is, empty of the power that usually protects him and everyone he chooses to fight for, hands aching their way through every clenched fist, nothing much standing between himself and serious injury but the cloak at his back (still magic, thank god) and his assortment of magically infused weapons he can barely stand to hold.

And, suddenly, a familiar face. And a message that is far from reassuring.

Stephen's not unfamiliar with stones holding far more power than they ought, so he doesn't question the statement out of hand, instead turning his attention out to seek out the man in question, get a good look at him before he has chance to get lost in the crowd. ]

We're going to need more backup.

[ But all the help he knows is who knows where, and without his magic he can't bring them here in his usual blink of an eye. So he says it, but there's no time to hesitate or act on it. His hand drifts toward a sheathed dagger at his waist, but he doesn't draw it yet. ]

What is he capable of?

[ Razing a city aside, what are they up against? ]

[portolan]

[ It's honestly a relief to see a familiar face. And a capable one who doesn't seem to have entirely lost his regular comportment. It's been a long and unnerving week, made worse by the fact that the particular afflictions people are suffering seem able to change day to day.

at least Balthier has his mind and his powers today. not that his magic is going to be much use. but wits have always been a better tool with his father. at least he'll tell himself that as he tries to steel himself for what he suspects is coming ]

Presuming he's the same as home, combat magick, military training in sword and dagger. Last time he destroyed a city my mother was in it, so I wouldn't hold our breath on any sort of mercy.

[ he follows after briefly but Cidolfus disappears into the crowd. at least he doesn't have a hovercraft. ]

I presume he's heading for the city center, and he's vain enough he'll want me to be an audience. That buys us a little time, at least.

[rehandle]

[ Oh, great. Just a city-totalling guy with no qualms murdering his own family bearing magic, arms and the means to destroy the city. Exactly what he was hoping to hear.

There's an awareness in there somewhere that Balthier's just shared a loss, but given the context Stephen doesn't have the time to either touch on it or feel relieved that he can leave that for another day. They have a job to do. One he's woefully under-equipped to take on. ]

Fine. Good. If you see anyone else on the way, grab them.

[ They're going to need all the help they can get, though everyone they pass by seems wrapped up either in the own lives or the chaos of a myriad other small personal crises unfolding seen and unseen. No metas that he recognises, no more familiar faces.

It'll be just his luck if they have to take this one alone.

They follow on through the crowd, heading in what Balthier's supposition suggests is the right direction, and Stephen ventures: ]

And you? Anything on hand?

[portolan]

[ Yes, well, Balthier's just as thrilled, he promises. Add in the inevitable personal stabs at his dignity and worth as a hume and it's going to be an absolutely lovely Saturday.

He nods to Stephen's suggestion, but he's not holding his breath. Truth be told he's most skilled working in a pair, but usually his counterpart is his partner of seven years, and normally they both are armed with weapon and magick.

This-- this is not ideal. ]

Illusions and a quick tongue.

[ His sigh betrays his nerves even if nothing else does, even if he's still pushing toward the city center. He can't die, can't leave David or Peter or any of them. But there will be no one to leave if they don't get the nethicite from Cid. And if it's them or Balthier well, he's already made that choice once. And he hasn't changed at all. ]

If I think pretending to join him or assist him will help, I will. If you have to injure me to get to him, I understand. So long as we get the stone away, he's not any more dangerous than a mid-level meta.

[ Presuming he's the way he was at home, but Balthier isn't going to lose himself to anymore fear than he has to. ]

ii. bedtime stories

[soulmakingsound]

River takes the book, though keeps her distance. Not letting so much as their fingers brush. Careful, careful.

She can see some resemblance in the illustration to the man handing her the book, but perhaps it's incidental. Don't jump to conclusions. She flips through the pages, glancing over the stories.

"We have nothing like this in any library I've been to."

[portolan]

He watches her as she pages through it. He doesn't know what he's looking for, but her answer isn't reassuring. It's a book from Ivalice, after all; how is anyone here going to be able to tell him if it's real or not?

He takes a deep breath, trying to center himself. This is absurd. He never gets rattled, and certainly not over something that could be a simple trick. But it isn't quite working.

Balthier doesn't get rattled. Ffamran does.

But why would he think he was Balthier for the months he'd been here? Were those memories fabricated? Round and round and round, all day, this thoughts consuming him.

"The events are all feasible," he says more to himself than to her. "But the tone is so exagerrated." Doesn't mean they're false, but certainly doesn't mean they're real either.

While she looks at that one, he'll look at another, eyes catching on a drawing of Fran, his tall rabbit-eared partner and dearest friend in the universe.

Scions, was she real?

[soulmakingsound]

"You're considering the possibility that they're nonfiction?" she asks, reading rapidly through one of the stories out of pure curiosity. "This is based in the world you came from, I assume."

[portolan]

"I'm concerned it's fiction," he counters. "It should be an embellishment of my actual life but..." Something is wrong. The details don't add up. And there's the fear that the author page is correct, that he's still the boy under his father's thumb, except he stayed there for ten more years.

"But yes, from my world. I can't -- I can't remember if these were popular there." If they even existed.

III - Somehow I never noticed this and I apologize

[helpdesk_hero]

[It's been a hard week. Far harder than he perhaps deserves. But David has always been hard on himself, hasn't he? A week where he hasn't bothered to reach out to others, where he was flippant with those who had reached out to him, where he isolated and planned and knew that what he always was, was always meant to be, was coming out.

Then the visions had started. Belasco at the corners of his reflection, a voice telling him that it's really not surprising, he was never whole after his death. But it's okay, the demon could release him, for a price.

And now this. A text. If it weren't for the spell, it would break his heart, especially after his decisions. He considers the message and sighs. This is just a speed bump to his work.]

Actually, the least you can do is nothing. But of course you'd just walk away. That's the coward's route, isn't it? Like your mother took. Suppose you truly are alike.

I was such pudding this week you’re probably getting better responses this way

[portolan]

[ He knows they’ve been rocky since that night David came over rattled over Tommy and Balthier handled it miserably. He’d tried to correct after, tried to believe David when he said he wasn’t going anywhere. And then they’d had that terrible dinner and all this happened and he hadn’t heard from David in days.

it still hurts, quite a lot, that he goes for a sore spot like that.Ffamran was already stepping away. ]

If you thought so little of Balthier why in Ivalice did you stay so long?

your tags are always lovely

[helpdesk_hero]

Referring to yourself in the third person now? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you take after your father.

[There is a special sort of ego in people who go and talk like that.]

iv

[tinglesense]

Peter — Spider-Man, in this instance — has been having some trouble of his own, which shouldn't surprise anyone. For one, he's always having some kind of bullshit at home. For two, everyone is having some kind of bullshit this week. So there's a weird little army of spider drones following him. They may or may not be under his control. He's terribly worried that they aren't, but that is kind of beside the point right now.

Balthier hasn't really spent any time with Spider-Man, and there are several of them around here now, but he's spent a good deal of time with Peter, and he's seen the costume (if not the mask). So while Peter's secret identity is a big deal, it's not a secret at all to Balthier, probably.

He swings down to the ground out of a cloud of spider-drones just before Balthier flags him down.

His eyes go wide behind his mask, but this isn't the fancy one where the eyes react to his facial expressions, so it's not obvious. But he remembers some stuff Balthier said about his dad. He's not sure if this is a trick or illusion thanks to whatever's going on, but he sure as hell isn't going to take the chance.

"Oh. Uh. Jeez, right, okay. Do you trust me? I can get us there faster than we can run, but you might not like the solution."

yessssss

[portolan]

He's met two of the Peter-Spider-Mans, actually, and honestly he lived with this Peter long enough that he generally knows the way he holds himself. And his voice is pretty unmistakable. And honestly, it's a relief to have someone he knows by his side; this is going to be so much harder without Fran and without his magick.

The spider-drones are new, but Peter doesn't seem concerned so Balthier is not going to worry about them; clearly anything catastrophic this week has people losing their wits. Which he's trying exceedingly hard not to do. It doesn't matter if his father is conjured by this spell; until he's gone he can do real damage.

All that said, he doesn't really know anything about Peter's answer, but the question is an easy one. "Yes." Entirely. And he's probably done stranger things to get into or out of a tight spot before. "Just tell me what to do." And-- "I'm glad to see you."

[tinglesense]

Peter is absolutely concerned about these drones, but he's a good person to have in a crisis: he doesn't think about himself and his issues if he has someone else to focus on. Balthier has seen Peter just on his own falling apart, but not in a real crisis. Spider-Man isn't a bad person to have on your side.

He holds his arms open.

"Okay. Grab onto me and hold on tight." Balthier is taller than Peter, but that doesn't matter. He can pick up a car; he can sure as hell swing after Cid with Balthier.

The smile is obvious in his tone, even if it's obviously hidden.

"I'm glad to see you too. We'll get through this!" He sounds so much braver than he feels.

V

[a_gaggle_of_ghosties]

[Despite appearances, Nox was actually quite capable of handling...whatever all of this was. Most of the damage he'd taken up until now was relatively minor--some severe burns here, a few shattered bones there--but well within his power to ignore until the current matter was settled. The Dark Side was a powerful and welcome ally in that regard.

The unfamiliar voice was enough to give him pause, but any expectations he'd fall sway to the temptations on offer would be bluntly dealt with. Because the moment he'd felt the attempted intrusion, the Fae would find her efforts immediately repelled. But they hadn't gone unnoticed. For now, however, Nox would only acknowledge Balthier's warning. The repelled effort to influence his thoughts was going to remain his secret for the time being, given their present company.]

The grandest promises never are. A lesson that seems particularly relevant here...

[It wouldn't be long before the Fae would find the tables had turned. Not dramatically so, but even if they weren't at all accustomed to warding off mental intrusions there would still be the accompanying headache caused by an uncomfortable and unwelcome presense in the mind. Not that Nox had any high hopes for what he'd accomplish in doing so. If he was lucky and it lacked the ability to fend him off, he'd still only be able to suss out just what the Fae's immediate mental and emotional state was, maybe its intentions.]

Apologies in advance [he warned, though he still kept his eyes fixed on the Fae lounging in front of them], the moment I think you're under its sway I'm going to shock you. Nothing personal.

[Well, it was much of an apology, but it was about as close as a Sith usually got.]

Re: V

[portolan]

[ Balthier had fared better in the physical category this week if worse in the emotional. Nearly losing the man he loved -- and himself -- was followed almost immediately by having to chase down and kill his father, again, only to realize this entire mess was in no small way on his hands. He'd plunged into the cauldron to try recover a friend, and now he was here dealing with this.

Scions did he need a vacation.

He's glad for Nox's assistance, though. With his magic so severely depleted here and no idea if his wound transference skills will work on a fae, it's good to have some muscle and greater magical know-how on his side. And as a pirate and god-slayer, it's not the first time Balthier has crewed up with someone others may find unsavory or a risk. ]

So long as you leave me alive and mendable, I won't hold it against you and neither will the people expecting me home. [ A tiny bit of a threat, though there's no real heart in it. No one really has any reason to want the pixies running loose, and Balthier has the best chance of getting them stopped by virtue of the most access to information. ]

Same to you though.

[ Maybe not a shock, but certainly an effort to shake out of whatever the fae may be able to do. Balthier is wary, but bottoms up. He nods to Nox and steps toward the Fae. They haven't seen Nox and Balthier yet, but that will only be true for a few more moments. ]

[a_gaggle_of_ghosties]

It won't be a problem. Ideally, she won't even know I'm here.

[Not that he'd explain just how he intended to manage that feat. Largely because Balthier seemed to have his wits about him, so surely he'd figure it out on his own. After all, it wasn't every day that your conversation partner just up and vanished.

Literally.

The last sight of him would be something similar to a shimmering mirage, but a beat later and he'd be completely invisible, right down to his footprints. Something that should prove just as effective against this Fae creature as it did everyone else in his galaxy...Jedi and Sith included. Unless she had some magical means of interfering with his abilities, they should prove just as effective here. Provided Balthier didn't do anything to make her question if he'd really gone hunting for her alone.]

In case she tries anything. Better for her to think you're the only threat.

( wildcard )

[exasperation]

[ ripley hates everything about this, but balthier made it clear he had to show up. this is why he doesn't let people know him. it generally comes to bite him back. he hugs himself, waiting. ]

[portolan]

[ Balthier does his best not to make Ripley wait long. If nothing else, the less time the Fae has, the better.

So he shows up at the park not too long after. It occurs to him this might have been a good time to wear a supersuit, but he doesn't really want Ripley to know either of his identities. He's brought his gun, though he doesn't know how much good it will do. ]

Ripley. You made it. Good man.

[exasperation]

[ ripley shivers. ]

Uh, sure. What do you need me to do?