Welcome to Gaia! ::

The mystic realm that is separate from our world. It is where all magic comes from. It is also where human dreams, emotions, and many other aspects of our personalities come from. When a person has a dream at night, they are here. Not physically, but mentally. Their avatar, the picture of themselves they create, enters the Fade and interacts with a combination of the magical forces here, and the deepest recesses of their mind. No one has ever physically entered before.

What you see is what you want.

OR

What you see is what you fear.

What do you see?

(((I too, shall post later. Currently getting the house ready for my sister's arrival from college.)))

(((OoC: Edit: Lol. Gear as a child. That's hard for me to imagine.)))

Xeg stepped into the swirling portal of the Fade, and blacked out. Opening his eyes once more, he found himself standing in the Aft of a massive ship, holding the wheel, turning ever so slightly to make up for variations in the wind. This ship was made of wood, being sleek, and although it moved fast in the water, seemed to never move at all with how gently it glided over the waves.

Xeg was dressed in mostly the same clothes, except they were much finer than the ones he wore everyday at the league. His cloak was embroidered with golden thread, giving it a shining hem at the bottom. His pants were nicer also, more neatly pressed with less wrinkles. His belt buckle was solid gold instead of metal, and he wore a tri-tipped hat upon his head. His eyepiece, which he almost always wore, was missing, along with his pistol. This immediately disturbed him, but then he remembered where he thought he was, and shook his head. There's no pistols here.

He brought up his right hand to the wheel, and noticed his armband. It was still there, silver inlaid with two intertwined dragons, with their snouts touching a sapphire gem set in between them. The Insignia of Destiny Ship. It felt good, being back where he belonged.

A sound of footsteps brought him out of his momentary reminiscence, and he looked over to the stairs to the right of him, where a black figure was walking up. It stood around six feet tell, skin pale white but covered in most places by black clothing and long black hair. It's eyes were a reddish-white but had pupils that were blue. From the back of it's jacket emerged two black bat-lke wings which it could use to fly. A long katana was strapped to it's waste.

"Hello Yami." Xeg said calmly. "How's our heading?"
"We're on course still. With this favorable headwind, we should be at that village that requested our help within the next day." Yami said. His voice was deep and dark, tinged with a slight evil. He continued, "I also tested that new kid, Terrin. His swordsmanship is a little sloppy, but he has some definite room to improve."
"So, how dangerous is he?"
"Bah, he's still a D. He's recovering in the medical wing right now. I got a little... rough... during the sparring."
"A D on our scale or a D in the Traditional scale? That makes all the difference in the world."
"Our scale of course. Why? Should I have used Senya's?"

The two shared a laugh for a moment, a private joke that only they could understand.

"Yes. It's what we still hire people by."
"Oh don't worry, He's a B or so on the Traditional scale. Nothing to worry about."
"You keep on telling me that, but I'm still never sure..." Xeg said, trailing off. Something unsettled him again.
"Heh, by your leave, Captain." Yami said, and walked off down below again.

Xeg stared at his armband absentmindedly. The sapphire glowed, reflecting off the sunlight of the open sea. New noises came up the stairs, this time a metal clanking sound.

Up the stairs came a humanoid figure, with Dark blue hair like Xeg's, but with different clothes and hairstyle. That wasn't the first thing you noticed though. The first thing most people noticed was that this person was missing several chunks of skin from him, showing a robotic interior beneath synthetic skin. Half of his face was gone, along with some of the skin on his arms and legs. One eye's covering was torn off, revealing a red, robotic bug-eye.

"Hello KZN." Xeg said again, greeting his first mate.
"Xeg." The cyborg said quite simply. His voice was grainy, like it was coming from the other end of a bad cellphone connection. "I used my laser scanners to detect large amounts of fish five knots west. We should stop and stock supplies for dinner."

The alarms started going off in Xeg's head. Laser Scanner. Cyborg. How could he know that KZN was a cyborg? Future, Past. Never Explained. Laser Scanner. Magic? Not Magic, Science. Not in his world. Past. Past. Past. Swords and arrows. No guns, no science. No cyborgs. How could he know? The future. Portal. Wielder. Gear. The GML. Balance. Upset Balance. The battle. Demons. The Fade.

The Fade...

The information flooded through his brain, causing him to realize what had happened. Raising his right hand, the image of KZN02 the cyborg faded into nothingness as the sapphire on his armband grew bright enough to dim the sun. THe sun was indeed fading, the entire world melting down around him into an inky blackness, until all that was left was him, holding his outstretched hand, glowing with a blue light from he sapphire. His clothes were back to normal, his eyepiece and pistol returned to him. No, not returned, they had never left him. They were there the whole time.

Xeg woke up, forehead sweating, his body sitting up with his hand still outstretched. The glow from his sapphire, which was blinding a moment ago, was already fading into darkness. He turned and saw Wielder staring at him. Gear, the Queen ,and the two captains of the guard were still asleep.

Xeg said nothing to Wielder, his look of fear turned to one of grim determination. His mind was still full of thoughts from the life he once had, before he had fallen. But now he was rising again. Or at least he would be, if they got out of there alive.

Wielder was happy to see Xeg wake up. He said nothing, but gave him a friendly-slash-determined smile.

Traeus
Captain of the Nieadian Guard

Traeus was alone... Alone in the darkness... Floating... No sense of direction, of gravity... No sound could be heard... "HELLO?!" He shouted. It echoed all around him, but no reply came. "Commander Gear? Queen Kara? Eran?" They too echoed. And, just as before, no reply punctuated the blackness.

He seemed to float about endlessly. An eternity seemed to pass before his feet hit something akin to ground. Outwards from his feet, a scene began to unfold. He was at the gates of the Fortress of Niead. They were open. The smell of blood was in the air. There was no one around him. It was a ghost town. He followed the stench of death into the castle.

Soldiers everywhere. Spears and swords scattered on the ground. A river of blood flowing into the center of the room, pooling. This was the scene of the castle. Terror filled Traeus' mind. Terror and horror. Who did this?

Who did this?

"Momomomomomomom!" the boy yelled as he ran off the school bus and into the house. She had to restrain herself from screaming after he left massive mud tracks on the floor she'd finished mopping not fifteen minutes prior. "You won't believe what happened!" he yelled, jumping up and down. Their dog stood from the corner where he lay, and walked off, tired of the mud spatter he was being hit with. "Okay, we were in the planetarium, and there was a star I couldn't see very well because the person in front of me was with this huge hat and stuff, and I moved the dome with my head!"

His mom, who wasn't paying that much attention to anything but the mud on the floor just sighed. "Whatever, honey. Take off your shoes."

He continued to talk while he took off his shoes. "The guy was all confused when I did it! I didn't even touch the controls or anything! I just moved it!"

His mom stopped cold for a few moments, as if slowly taking in everything he'd said. It was several minutes later before she spoke, long after the boy had lost interest in watching her space out, and had run to his room to play computer games.

In the more physical manifestation of the fade, Xeg and Wielder noticed Gear start to struggle in his "sleep."

"I don't want to hear it!" his mom screamed at him from in his room. The 16 year-old boy remained silent, staring at the floor. He'd been a good kid. Always gotten along with everyone else, worked hard to help others, things like that. But being beat by his dad every day for fifteen years eventually begins to take a toll on the mental stability of the boy. Now he seemed to unleash some kind of...power over machinery, one that his mother did not take kindly to. "You're one of those...creatures! Those things that parade around in costumes and act like some kind of saviors or evil villains when you're nothing but demon-possessed trash! I want you out of my house!"

The boy was holding back tears. He was not going to give her the satisfaction. "About time," he grumbled, keeping his voice just loud enough for her to hear. "It's about time I got away from you and that sociopathic thing you're married to." He wanted to cut her deep. "You're some piece of work, you know that?!" he demanded. "You've spent my entire life telling me to love others, and yet you hate everyone who isn't part of your family, you're shunning me now, and that so-called father of mine has hated me from the beginning. Yeah, you're a great judge of character."

"How can you say that?!" she demanded. "Your father and I did nothing but love and care for you!"

"Ha! Because all that love and care normally culminates in the beating of one's own child, trying to pass it off as falling down stairs or something equally ludicrous."

"We were inexperienced parents then!"

"He still does it to this day!"

"Only because he loves you!"

The boy paused, closed his eyes, then had a nearby robot he'd built pack up his bags, much to his mother's horror. "I'm done here. If by that statement, you can't see how deluded you are, I'm going somewhere to be with people with an actual IQ. You don't belong in Beyon. It's reserved for people with at least the common sense of a sponge." He was going to have the last word one way or another. Before she could open her mouth to reply, Gear, all his bags, his robots, and his furniture disappeared in a flash of light. His mother stood there, still convinced that she had only love for the boy she'd stabbed in the back, and began to make plans to try and turn all his friends and family against him.

Gear began to struggle more and more, occasionally getting into violent fits.

Eran
Sentinel of the Citadel

He was in the throne room. The king was nowhere to be found. The queen was the same. In fact, there was no one around. No one at all. No one...

Eran still had his armor on. His sword was slung on his hip. He could still feel the pulsing of the magical energy within him. After determining all of these things to be true, he set out to find someone... anyone... He walked through the halls of the metal fortress, his footsteps echoing long and far. His nose picked up the scent of blood, coming from the kitchen. As well, he failed to notice it was snowing. Only, the snow was not outside, but within the Iron Bastion in which he wandered. No mental warning blaring in his mind, his curiosity led him. As he drew closer and closer to the kitchen, crossing the built-in cathedral to Revres, he picked up the smell of food. As he passed the midpoint, the smell suddenly disappeared. In fact, all smells vanished. The smell of blood, of food from the kitchen, and of the Steel Sanctuary were not to be detected.

It was then that he noticed the snow, because it had stopped. It was hanging in the air, all around him. Not a single flake moved. He reached out his left hand, and held one of the flakes. The moment he had touched it, it had fallen from it's immobile point, with a sound like a very high bell, like music. Mind as a child's, no fear or doubt, he was pleased greatly by the music that the fallen flake had made. He quickly touched another, and it fell with a different tone of a similar bell. More and more points he touched, more and more tones were heard. Eventually, he was spinning around, arms outstretched, touching as many as he could. The tones, by coincidence or purpose of the Fade, were playing Eran's favorite song, Beethoven's "Eroica", Symphony No. 3. However, lost in his own world, he failed to notice the fallen flakes turning from white to black.

Kara
High Queen of Niead

Her home. It was burning.

Her leg. It was broken.

Her neck. It was bleeding.

Her savior. He was lost.

All the Kara could do was cower in the corner, like the eight-year-old she was. How did she get into this position? A man had come to the house and told her that he had killed her father. Her mother was with his friends. "Are you going to hurt her?" She had asked nervously. He had dropped down to his knees, and put his hand on her shoulder. "Not just her," He said with a voice that, in any other context, might have been comforting. She had gasped a little, anticipating his next words. "You too, little queen-to-be." He had punched her. He had slapped her. He had hurt her everywhere, beaten her to the brink. And then, he had stabbed her in the throat, and broken her leg in the shin. She was in so much pain. Tears poured from her face. He left, and moments later, the house was on fire. All she could do was crawl away from the fire, into a corner, one hand on her bleeding neck. She curled into a ball and sobbed, her back to the corner, her hand on her neck. Her shin was in so much pain. And her father... and her mother... She cried. She couldn't stop crying. The flames encroached on the corner. Amid the sound of the crackling flames, a small girl sobbed.

Wielder
Warrior of the Flame

"Xeg," Wielder said. He was leaning against the rock face of the rock alcove in which the group had appeared. He saw Gear begin to toss and turn a little, a look of emotional pain on his face. Eran had a gleeful smile. The Queen had tears streaming down her face. Traeus had fear. "I grabbed a couple of scrolls before we left. Magic may be blocked here, but scrolls might not be. One of them is for illusions, both mental and physical. It's good for one person and one use only." He pulled out of his dimensional pouch an old scroll. Handing it to Xeg, he instructed his ally, "If any of them look like they're in serious trouble, use it. Meanwhile," He looked out towards the direction where he had spotted a mysterious figure appear moments ago. "We may have company." His fire skills might not work, but his blades were still available. They weren't magically summoned, they were inside his soul. "I love loopholes," he said to himself as he started walking to meet the mysterious figure.

Xeg nodded and took the scroll. An idea was formulating within him... Magic may be blocked here, but could he not just extend his consciousness and try to touch the minds of those who lay around him sleeping? It was not magic in pretty much any of the various forms, just the ability to send a mental tendril of thought into the heads of others.

However, he was nervous. He had never tried to do this before. Mindbreaking was a costly skill. Doing it in the Material plane could nearly kill you with how much mental energy it took just to see in the mind of a sleeping person with lowered mental defenses. Wide awake and thinking... you would need an entire squad of people with the skill... Besides, the Elves had forbidden him to use it.

Doing it in the Fade... He couldn't even think of what it may or may not take. On one hand, there was the possibility, that because this sleep was so induced and that Gear and the others seemed to be so raptured (for better or worse) into their dreams that their mental barriers were lowered completely, their state of turmoil making much less costly to enter their heads...

On the other hand, their state of turmoil might make it impossible, and he would waste a good portion of his energy for nothing. Then there was the fact that things were approaching. If they were anything like the Terixxdarrick that they faced back in Niead, then Wielder would need all the help he could get, in which case he might as well just use the scroll now and wake Gear.

But then a couple of the others looked like their dreams were driving them on the edge of insanity. Eran was a happy kind of insanity, just as dangerous as the looks of fear and pain on the Queen and Traeus. Agh! This thinking is going to drive ME insane! He thought. Too many decisions, too many variables.

He finally cleared his head. He would stand from a distance and watch Wielder meet with those that were approaching. If they turned out to be friendly, then Xeg would go ahead with his expirement and try to touch the minds of the sleeping, starting with the Queen.

(((Gear... would my mindbreaking theory 'work?'

As in, would you allow it?)))