Kingdom Hearts: Recollect

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Nothing about what Ria had said left a particularity good taste in his mouth. Despite hearing that the others were nearby, it didn't do much to alleviate this feeling of his. For all he knew this could somehow play right into Rias plan and Chrono could only hope that that wasn't the case.

 

It seemed that Chrys barely had time to question the girl or their new objective, everything had happened rather fast. It seemed though that they were ultimately set to fight the heartless anyway.

Although, hadn't the others gone this way? Had the girl seen them? Were they alright?

All Chrys could really think to do was mutter to Marley:

"Do you think I could hang on to that page for awhile?"

With everyone shouting about it, he had decided he should give it a read himself.​

 

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Finally arriving with Relli, Daeni saw the situation that Cerdic was in. She sighed and stood in front of Relli, prepared to keep them safe until they broke out of their stupor. She was honestly getting worried about them, hoping they would get better soon. She had no idea what to say or do to try and make Relli feel better, but she knew one person who might. Alder.

A couple of the heartless started to wander towards Daeni, looking at her curiously before swiping at her keyblade. She decided to swing back and managed to take out two of them. Although, more started to come.

"Cerdic." she said. "What's even going on? Have you seen any sign of the others?" she asked.

 

Mora looked around at the heartless and she tugged a bit at Cerdic's sleeve and said, "I can get the door open, just make sure nothing jumps at me." and she shifted back towards where the trap door was and began opening it. Though she looked like she was struggling a bit before it was finally up and she looked at the others and said, "Come on!"

Marley had handed over the letter to Chrys, and looked a bit skeptical at Mora before looking at horde and deciding it was probably safer in there and they ran over and went down the ladder. Mora continued watching others, waiting, though her eyes looked down at Marley watching them go down the ladder, almost with a look of thought before looking up at the others.

You can either fight the heartless, or go down the ladder to move the plot along.
There are two days left before those who have not signed the contract will be considered out of the roleplay.

 

So that's how it was, huh? To be so easily be dragged into this mess simply because of the majority vote? Nothing was different between then and now it seemed: His voice was little more than just background noise to these people. Was it too late for him to find some other ragtag group of adventurers?

Well it was, but... was it really?

Slicing through a heartless as Cerdic ran off he wondered...

Was it?​

 

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Fighting off the heartless was easy enough, since, well, Daeni was used to it by now. When the girl that Cerdic was guarding spoke up about some kind of escape hatch, Daeni's ears perked towards their conversation. She looked and nodded before rushing at a few heartless and dealing with them. She made enough of a commotion to keep them of of Cerdic and the others that she barely noticed Cerdic had slipped down into the passageway. Daeni took Relli's hand and carefully guided them through the mass of heartless before letting them go down first. She then followed and landed beside Cerdic, noticing he was trying to be quiet. She ducked down and stayed back, watching him creep forward.

 

Head still fuzzy, the bleak colors of the world still float in and out of Relli's vision. The only grounding they can find is Daeni's hand in their's, and the solid ground beneath their feet.

They feel Daeni push them down slightly, and the young prince feels out in front of them to find the cold metal of what they vaguely recognize as a ladder. Were they... going down the ladder? Best hope so, because Relli slowly climbs down, still nearly blind, and then sits at the bottom to wait for what will come next.

 

Ria heard the noises of the welcome intruders and vanished quickly into darkness, as if to hide. Not really paying attention to Alder and Chrono at that point. Once he had, the darkness almost encouraged Cerdic to try and come closer, as well as the rest of them.

Mora had stared at Chrys, watching him fight, and knew she didn't have time to a slowpoke. She shifted to go into the ladder and slammed the trapdoor down, leaving Chrys alone with the heartless. She slid on down the ladder with practice, getting down to the rest of the group fairly quickly but staying in the shadows so Alder and Chrono could not see her.

Marley looked out a little bit behind Cerdic's shoulder and said, "Hey... it looks like Alder, Chrono, and Kara are having fun." they said it pretty loud too, so the words echoed towards the other three.

 

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With Ria now gone and Kara still sleeping, there wasn't a whole lot for Chrono to do at the moment. Talking to Alder was an option and if not for all that had occurred prior, he might've done just that. As of right now however he did not have much to say to the only other person who happened to be awake right now.

First he had heard Marley's voice, next he saw the group surprisingly being lead by Cerdic of all people. Chrys was missing from said group, hopefully a sign of him just lagging behind. Then came the onslaught of questions from Cerdic, some he did know the answers to and some he didn't quite know how to answer. Chrono held up his hand in which four of his fingers were outstretched. "Dunno, some dark circle that's keeping us stuck here, she collapsed and has been stuck like that and yes, Chole and Xen are dead." There was a slight paused as he gave the final answer, the scene in which they had died came rushing back to him. Each finger went down as each answer was given and nothing was said when Cerdic had brought up Aevum. "They vanished into the shadows, probably watching from someplace near."

 

Chrys gave a slight jump as the hatch slammed closed behind him. He turned only briefly to see that indeed that was the case before turning back to fight the heartless. Did they really leave him behind? Just like that, were they really so-

No, wait... that girl could she have been the one to shut the hatch?

Why though? He questioned himself as he sliced a shadow in two. Was she merely a coward unwilling to try getting everyone to safety so long as she herself was endangered? Or... was this all some... elaborate trap?

What should he do?

On one hand, if they were ambushed, his presence could be the deciding factor, but... what if it was a far more elaborate ruse, and merely getting them down the hatch was enough to ensnare them. His presence would mean nothing at all. But then, they pretty much already acted like he wasn't there about eighty percent of the time. He was seriously considering just investigating on his own at this point... but he couldn't just leave them to the mercy of a possible trap.

A heartless lunged for his face, only to be bashed aside: Whatever he did, he would have to do it soon, or he would be overrun by heartless.

Perhaps merely observing for now would be the best course of action?

With this in mind, Chrys cast a gravity spell to clear a path before running a bit further from the hatch. His first goal would be to find nearby cover from the heartless.​

 

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Daeni finally reached Cerdic and saw Alder and Chrono stuck in some circle with a knocked out Kara. "what...happened?" she sort of mumbled, looking to Alder and blinking.

"Oh!" she went, tugging Relli gently forward. "Do you know what's wrong with Relli? They don't...they won't make any reaction and I've been having to pull em along for a little bit now. I've kept them safe, though. I promise." she said to Alder, but she still had her doubts of what he'd think of this mess. After all, he'll probably chew her out if there's one little hair out of place on Relli's head.

 

As the group went towards the circle, Marley had also joined keyblade in hand and skirted the edge looking for something to help. They moved on over towards Kara and said, "Hey, this isn't the time to sleep, wake u-"

Just as Marley was about to finish, Mora quickly ran up out of the shadows and shoved Marley into the circle. Marley was quickly wrapped into it similarly to how the other three were. Mora had not accounted for how much space she had between the circle and the safe ground. She moved to try and run away, so none of the others could come after her for doing that. But her leg had crossed the circle and was wrapped in the same darkness that wrapped the others, and it tried pulling her in more. Mora was freaking out and trying to pull away from it and the struggling made her weak.

A laugh echoed briefly before Ria appeared on the roof of one of the houses, keyblade in hand in case someone managed to get up to them and attack, "Thank you Mora for your help."
"Let me out of this!" Mora looked scared, "We had a deal! I got the people you wanted, now let me and my village free."
"I'll free the village, that's no problem. But I can't release the traps until you five are disposed of."
"F-five?" Mora looked confused and then scared as she realized, "Wait, I thought we-"
"I never agreed to let you go, Mora. You know far too much for me to keep you around. Besides, your village will still be spared, I just need someone for this who was previously not involved in our little experiment." Ria grinned a little bit before looking at the rest.

"And hello to all of you. I have a deal for the three of you in here not in the trap. I'll let you three go, no tricks, no mess. I'll let you three leave this world and let you live a longer life. But there's only one condition... and it's a similar offer to what I said before." Ria began to propose to them.

Marley struggled a little bit in their trap. Looking around for some form of help. The closest one to them was Daeni, and they began reaching on out over to them.

"Give me that journal. Unless of course, Marley has it." Ria reached their hand towards the darkness and it swirled a little more, he moved his hand to Marley and tightened their fist. Marley began to start making a strangled noise. Struggling a little as if trying to free themselves from the darkness that took hold over them. Their hand that was reached towards Daeni immediately moving back towards their neck. Ria focused a little more and said, "Nope... not Marley." they released slightly and Marley took a gasp of air and looked tired.

Ria looked back at the group and said, "One of you... wait..." Ria's eyes widened a little before asking, "Where's Chrys?" Ria suddenly looked angry and said, "ANOTHER COMPLICATION!" the fist tightened more and Marley started to make the noises again and Ria shouted, "Is this YOUR doing?! Did you set this up in case I did something JUST LIKE THIS?" Marley had no idea what he was talking about but the air was leaving them before saying, "You're not going to be a complication for me anymore, I'm sick of you ruining EVERYTHING!"

Marley barely managed to speak out, "I-I don't.... know what... you're rambling... a.... about but.... I'm not... gonna...." Marley was losing air and consciousness before saying, "Let... yoU...." Marley managed to break out a little from the darkness grasp and his keyblade appeared in his hand. Ria's eyes widened as they shouted, "WHAT?!"

Marley pointed it at Ria and managed out as light shined from the keyblade, "W-win..." and the key shot straight at Ria and knocked him powerfully off the roof. Ria went flying and Marley dropped their keyblade and looked over at Daeni weakly before Marley managed out at barely a whisper, "...broken..." before the darkness let Marley go completely and they fell. Their body disappearing into sparkles of light.

At precisely that moment, Mora shouted, "The... there are shards that look like crystals... there's five of them powering-" Mora felt darkness wrap around her throat too, beginning to strangle her as Ria reappeared on the roof, looking quite off balance as they said, "My offer, still stands. You three will survive if you give me the journal, or tell me who has it. Then you can go..."

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The village still contains quite a bit of heartless, but there's a particular spot that the heartless seem to be avoiding. It's a tiny little house, and while Chrys does not know it, it happens to be the house that Mora had been hiding in before she began starting trouble. Perhaps, Ria put an order to not attack in that area. Maybe its a convenience the gods above made up because they never intended for people to stay with the heartless so there's no plot for you to participate in. Who knows. You can do whatever character development you want, or just... not post until after the others' event.

 

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Daeni gasped when she heard Mora run forward and shove Marley into the darkness. Daeni almost reached forward, but she stopped when she noticed Mora was now caught. Daeni turned back to see Ria proposing something to the three that weren't currently captured. Thinking about it, Daeni looked at her party and shook her head. She then slid a little closer to Cerdic and whispered, "I don't want this." she said, glancing back to Marley to see darkness strangling them. "Marley!" Daeni called out, tears filling her eyes as she watched Marley struggle.

"Stop it! Don't do it!" she begged Ria, but there was nothing she could do. Daeni watched Marley shoot Ria with light. She reached for the part of Marley that broke free of the darkness and tried to grab them, but by then, Marley disappeared into specks of light. She gripped her fist and fell to her knees, starting to cry. Then, her head started to throb as...visions started to appear in her head. Wait, maybe they're more like memories? Either way, they were flashing before Daeni's eyes and she couldn't make any sense of them.

Her head felt like it was about to explode as she felt a sweet release for a moment. She saw a figure and....no....it...it couldn't be. Tears started to flow down her face again as she started to cry out, trying to say words and make sense of what was happening. Or at least, of what had happened. Either way, whatever the figure was holding, it caused the memories to suddenly stop and Daeni gasped out, falling backwards and staring into the sky. She tried to talk again and again. Calling for Relli in her head, but she still couldn't make the come together and make even a coherent sentence.

She finally spoke up loud enough. "It..does this happen and...my...face....head....body...dark....exploding....C....C....cauliflower...???" she stopped and blinked and started to feel tears again as she then remembered Marley and couldn't help whimpering.