Audio

[haremtrap]

Ugh, okay I wasn't going to add to the flood of people talking about weird visions but there's this one bit of the one I saw that is really sticking with me.

The vision: A pair of dragons were fighting. They were WAY bigger than the ones you guys brought back. The smaller of the two was like the size of a bus. Then while I watch it all an evil tree spoke to me, saying something like "You aren't the only one who has a mascot!" Which, who knows what that means.

That's not the weird part.

The weird part is One of the dragons was using Liminal Portals.

[Private to *Hyun-ae]

Also being drunk is weird. Being hungover is terrible.

Comments

[leftbehindagain]

...oh. Oh no.

Which dragon was using the portals?

[haremtrap]

The little one was definitely using air and wood.

The big one was using the portals, though.

[leftbehindagain]

Great. Someone's been teaching the Dolorosan dragons new tricks. Just what they needed.

[haremtrap]

I would like some context, please.

[leftbehindagain]

I don't know how much the dragons featured in the first visit there - that was well before my time. The one I was on was focused on a dragon that was serially kidnapping and impersonating people.

Turned out that was because she'd laid eggs under the city and wanted to give them a chance to hatch. With the Illuminants gathering there again, there was enough ambient magic around for all the eggs to hatch at once. And there were hundreds of them.

Public -> Private (not protected)

[highsteaks]

Oh. Oh crap.

[She's gonna just. Try to attempt to private this to Naoki and Kohaku. We'll have to see how that goes.

(In other words, network snoops have permission to read this until someone protects it. Which isn't gonna be Chie. She can't.]

Okay. Um. Naoki, remember when Dai Malik finally contacted me after the whole Convert thing? It was to tell me about stuff he saw through one of those doors. Because Aquila, I mean Red, he and Dai Malik met in the vision in front of this temple for a guardian dragon? That maybe wasn't in Color Magic Land at all?

... also he thinks Red's gonna want me for his new vessel because he's getting old. That's why he wanted to talk to me.

let's make that Protection II until someone says otherwise

[leftbehindagain]

This just keeps getting better and better.

[Even over the network, that's positively dripping with sarcasm.]

[haremtrap]

So this is...a sign we might revisit another past jaunt, like with Harrowgate?

[leftbehindagain]

We might revisit a past jaunt that is itself being visited by people from a different world.

[haremtrap]

Tch. This is getting complicated. So there are other groups of travelers besides us?

[leftbehindagain]

Not as such. The Illuminants are more on the Arcana's level than ours, in the sense that they're powerful beings bound to the archetypes they represent. They're not nearly as understanding of needs outside their own, though, and... well, the Arcana don't always have a firm grasp on that. [Some of them try, though, and that's more than Naoki can say for the Illuminants.]

They took exception to the Arcana coming and meddling with their sandbox, so they broke into Liminal Space near the end of the dragon mess and tried to bring the fight to the Arcana. If you want to know more about that, ask Maria-chan - she seems to be the most willing of the involved Travelers to talk about it.

[haremtrap]

So then...that tree must have been one of these illuminant fuckers, and they’re gathering travelers of their own!

[leftbehindagain]

It's possible, but I really hope you're wrong about that.

[haremtrap]

From where I'm sitting, it's the only explanation that makes sense. We should probably start thinking about how we're going to fight some dragons now.

[leftbehindagain]

It can't hurt to have a contingency plan.

protection ii it is

[highsteaks]

So if the Eastern dragon belongs to the evil tree, maybe the Western dragon belongs to Red? It would come from the same place and dragons have red magic!

[leftbehindagain]

We can't rule it out.

That would probably mean the Illuminants have gotten better at portals, though - I think it took all eight of them working together to get into Liminal, which makes it unlikely they taught a dragon to portal without a lot of practice. On the other hand, if they apparently took themselves to Bando...

[highsteaks]

Then they got really good really fast. Or-- fast for us. Who knows how long it will have been for them.

[leftbehindagain]

Considering it's already been two years on our end, you have a point.

[highsteaks]

Yeah. Time for us works weird. Even if it's been two years for us it could have been way longer for them.