Rite Error Text & Alethic Rites

: “I observed Friend-Wolf’s cards while we were at the Ziggurat, and a thought that had been half-formed clicked for me. I have been itching for combat ever since. Not out of any great desire to do violence. But to discover the edges of things we thought we knew well.” They take some small stone tiles out and place them on the ground. “When battling and when preparing to battle, I have begun to think of the Rite as a sort of card game. Far more complicated than any played in the parlors of Queenstown, but a card game nonetheless. It helps me focus on the …words and the pictures that are sometimes there. If I said that this tile was your “Snipe,“ ability…would you be able to describe it, now that I have given it shape?”

thinks for a moment. “Oh. Yeah. I could. I can’t considered cards, but now that you say it it makes a lot of sense.”

vents more steam, audibly very excited. “Most excellent. Now, since considering the Rite so, I have been able to…exert a more fine-grained control over my strategies since then. I have also had several conversations with our friend-Glory, who talks thusly while doing so. I would like to refresh that conversation and see if you would help me rotate it. Interested in a bit of thinking while we do a bit of fighting?”

: “Absolutely. I could certainly use the outlet.”

: “Take your best shot!”

doesn’t take a shot at all, just runs at him, jumping up to smack them in the head at the last moment, then falling into a tumble, rolling past them, and returning to her previous position.

takes a step back and for just a moment, their eyes stop shining.

**”Thank the Goddess you hit them in the face. The giant bag of bolts has a remarkably tight grip on the driver's seat, so I'm not long for conversation. You're a dancer. This is a dance. Follow. My. Lead.”

for one moment, and one moment only, she’s arrested mid-movement. And then she says, “I’ll consider it. Better make it worthwhile.”

is glad, at least, you don’t seem to have any idea either.

’s eyes flash back on, and they take two steps forward, burning with (mostly feigned) [Rage!] before taking a [Swipe] at Salme.

leaps back from the hit, but not far enough, gets punched in the side for her trouble. She shakes her head at them. “Not going to be much of a dance if you keep hitting that hard,” she laughs, a little breathless, before also taking two steps forward and driving and elbow limned in radiant gnosis straight at their heart.

stumbles two steps backwards and takes a defensive posture, ready to [Weather the Storm] they know is coming.

: “Hey. You can...do that more gracefully than them if you want.“

laughs a little, and does one backflip backwards and then another cartwheel back. “Physically or metaphorically?” She asks. “Anyway, you may want to think about your next move fairly carefully.”

powers through a searing pain that cuts through their defenses andmoves to their left and raises a radiant shield of gnosis before quickly returning to their strong side and striking with a binding enchantment.

laughs breathlessly, delighted. “And me here with my quick and dirty loadout.” But she doesn’t seem that upset, not really, whirling to her left while calling up licks of burning gnosis, glorying in the heat of it around her, laughing, laughing, laughing brightly, before, twisting right, throwing one, two, three darkly tenebrous spears at them.

: “Whoooaaaa there. We're only halfway through the steps, kiddo!“

Absolutely reeling from the blow, black smoke rising off of them, Luĉja [Feint]s to the left and then awkwardly, strangely jolts and performs a [Tumbling Strike] in the opposite direction. They make two strange gestures with their hands. Barely Able to hold them long enough.

: “Come on you bucket of bolts, just one more turn and you can really start to figure this out. “

, as if in some imagined waltz, twists left again, and then back to the right.“Consider being less of an asshole to my friend then, dickbag. They’re a person, not some machine you get to talk shit to when things don’t go your way.” Her voice does hike a bit with rage, the licks of burning gnosis dancing over her flaring higher, but she takes a breath before she falls back into a defensive position. “I agreed to entertain you. I didn’t agree to your talking about them like that.”

: “I assumed they would have asked someone who wasn't going to [Superannihiliate] them in three rounds for help with this!“

: “I would’ve brought a different deck if the point was a long—oh. Oh.” And then she laughs, and laughs and laughs. “Hm.”

looks up and appears to enter a trance. For a brief moment, their eyes fade again, their gears pause, but steam still hisses.

: “`Okay buddy, now remember. Just. Don’t. Say. It. Leave. It.*

Ah, yes. I see. Very good.

’s eyes flash back, yellow and white. The gnosis around their hands…shifts.

: “Alright, now. Salme. Your turn. But yours will be different. You're not one for silence. It's time to Make a demand of your own. Time to find out what’s really going on. “

: “(Oh. Hello. Thank you),” she says, softly, and she takes one breath, two, to feel the wind here on the beast, and then she looks at Luĉja, and whatever Bird is speaking through Luĉja. “Thanks for leading, but I had figured it out by the time I entered that door.” She raises her voice, not a yell, not a laugh, but a certainty, and there is something like a gust of wind, a huff of breath in it. “So then. Tell me the truth!”

: “Did you receive the truth of yourself, Luĉja tou Teratourgeion?”

: “I have. That which is left unsaid. Apt, for my truth. You have used words that are not my name. I do not know them.”

: “Oh. I was told … a different kind of truth. Your truth, and the truth of the Beast. Do you want to know?” And then, she blinks, and says, “though the Rite is not yet over, and turnabout is fair play. You ask me to tell you the truth. I’m curious what might happen.”

: “Oh, I have heard no new truths. I would hear them from you then. I merely understand one truth that I previously did not. I think you’ll easily win but…I’ve never given up before. It would be foolish to begin now.”

burns bright, and rushes at Salme, arms open not in a hug, but in a grapple. Once making contact, they make a [Quick Hit] with their elbow, before unsteadily rising to their feet. “I. Do. Not. End. Here.”

laughs and basks in the warmth and the brightness of it, the warmth, for maybe a bit longer than is strictly necessary. “Well, perhaps. I fear I didn’t quite come prepared for a dance, but it worked out.” She steps back, and looks at them. “When I called that Rite upon you, I heard Glory speak to me. It said that you are Luĉja tou Teratourgeion, firstborn child of the Mother of Monsters. Created in her love and her desperation to communicate with the world she knows she will slaughter; radiant with their own love for the Beast and everyone on it.” ⁂

: “I stand corrected. Perhaps I do, in fact, have a surname.”

: “The Mother of Monsters….I wonder…is the woman in the bottle…she?”