No place has ever been recorded to be more horrific than this. Here, where nothing even needs touch you to burn; here, where the most powerful and most despicable criminals of the ages have been sent. Here where even infernomancers, immune to hellfire, find punishment, and where any horror within the imagination can be brought to its grandest fruition.

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Lord Vayen's Fortress
Istan Aiga

Cocytus I

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Felina's eldest is covered with something like a black oil as she gradually regains trembling awareness on a cold, smooth surface in a clearing, which beads and runs off rather like mercury. Finally forces her eyes up.

Oh...hell. So this is why her mother had insisted on summoning Moorn herself.

When Ting looks up, there's a fair chance she'll see the horrendously burned trio of ogres standing on all sides of her, clubs of granite dangling from each of their bowling-ball-sized fists. One, black and marked with green war paint, glares down at her and growls commands to the others.

"Female," it croaks, bushy ogre beard waggling over thick, stubby teeth and a wide black nose. "Ours."

The kitty wrinkles her nose. "You're sweet! But fuck you." Sits up, sitting on her feet--still dizzy, feeling faint from the sudden, intense drop in her energy.

"That is the plan," a second one chuckles, this one deep red. It lifts its club a choked, dehydrated roar heralding a massive, horizontal swing at Ting's head.

She covers her head instinctively, still too out of it to jump away or catch it...though she tries to turn herself intangible so it just goes straight through her.

Which it does. The ogre growls, but the others are quick to join in, one swinging horizontally, the other vertically -- they could not care less how conscious she is when this is over.

Ting yelps when one slams into her left arm--likely to a hairline fracture--though this is more or less lucky as it throws her tumbling off to the side and out of the way of a club slamming down towards her head. "Hey...knock it off! I've got such a headache...seriously, just go away, I don't feel much like fighting...."

Ting's standing about five hundred feet from the edge of a canyon, boiling with black stuff at the bottom. The land lies mostly flat in any direction, and dusty, and dry. 

Of course, they're not listening. The three thunder after her in step - they've been here for a while, after all - jogging in tremorous ogre-steps towards the edge.

The kitty-thing sniffles at her hurting arm as she stands up carefully...and tries to spring back onto a tree branch, and then land higher in a tree behind it. She was telling the truth about really not feeling like a brawl.

Of course, the tree is full of asps. These should not pose a threat to Ting, though.

The ogres immediately set to work smacking at the tree with clubs, howling at her.

Ting should be able to feel a familiar, Dewei's-teacher-taskmaster-Mara's-bitch energy source welling just above and behind them.

They shouldn't, no, unless they can bite through the skintight shield she's settled against her skin. She sits on the branch and gazes down at the ogres, noting the snakes and wondering what kind of hellaciously bad mistake she's made this time. Until the tired kitty's ears perk a bit at something more familiar, and she looks up.

The ogres don't turn. They don't have.

The scene could be a peaceful one for the little sound it makes. Just behind the lead ogre, a gray and black flower blooms in the air. It blooms until its bleeding petals turn inside out and close again, pushing a white-haired, black-eyed ghost from its center.

Radivish Moorn lands without a sound, bending at the knee just long enough to lower and raise his hands again. A warm breeze becomes a gale. A gale becomes a cyclone.

And a moment later, three ogres become stars in Cocytus's sky... all without much more than a sound.

Moorn looks into the tree, unblinking.

Ting blinks. Then manages a little smile, though it's more like her brother's than her bright ones. "I'm really glad to see you," nods a little, voice a touch quiet.

The ghostly sorcerer tilts his head - for all the world like Mara-kuru - in consideration of Ting. 

"The feeling is not mutual," he says, and his voice blooms in doubles, a built-in echo and octave effect like Phenhine's. "At least, not here. Come down from there."

She nods. Takes a few moments to heal her arm--she's not so much dangerously drained of energy, as her energy's still orienting to the dramatic drop and she's messed up as a result--and slips out of the tree, landing neatly next to him though she has to catch her balance.

He waits for her to steady herself - no point in damaging her pride by offering assistance. He was plagued with vertigo on his arrival in Cocytus, just like her.

"Why have you come here? I cannot imagine you've come to set me free."

"I tried to! But...I think I did it wrong. Mom had the spells to do it all set up but she hasn't been able to use them because she's near Mi'ehna and Drianis and she was trying to make sure they didn't blow everyone up if she did? So she didn't yet, even though I think she was going to try to get tough on it soon? And then they all got sealed in Ansendul's maze and I figured they were all sealed off anyway and also there's this really like scary strong sorceror running around and I tried to do the spells myself and summon you back but I had to rewrite them think I messed up or forgot something and did something wrong." Blinks. "Also, I think I broke your ceiling."

The ghost stares at her. Opens his mouth. Closes it.

"Where did you come in, dear." Yeah. No way he's unraveling that mess of speak in short order.

"I dunno...I think I blacked out? I was in one of the rooms in your tower, and had a summoning circle. And then the circle turned black and jumped up and grabbed me, and then I woke up there." She points to the flat granite slab she's come to on.

"And those idiots were surrounding you. Well. They probably carried you, but here they would not get far. Physical bodies likes theirs tire easily in this place." Moorn looks to the side, towards the granite. "We can leave if we can find the area you entered within an hour or so."

Ears perk again. "We...should do that, then!" Turns to do this. Pause. Turns back around. "What am I looking for now?"

"Shreds of your energy signature will likely remain." Moorn hides his excitement pretty well, considering how long he's been here. Three times he's been in hell now, and he's had just about enough soul-rending agony for one lifetime. "Follow the trail."

Ting happens to be really, really, good at picking up on positive emotions, though, and smiles a bit. Nods enthusiastically. Breathes out, setting her hands in front of her face and closing her eyes. Although her mother and brother don't employ any sort of formal posing like this, they help her since she has such a bloody hard time concentrating, just feeling the air. Perks, eyes popping open, and points. "That'a'way!" And scampers off in that direction.

"From one hell to another," Moorn sighs, and floats along after her. An observant Ting might notice, if she ever looks that way, his feet never actually touching the ground.

The way turns out to be pretty clear. By now, most of Cocytus has learned to steer clear of Moorn and, even though the curvy, moist-looking kitty creature entices many monstrosities from their dens, the beasts keep back.

This isn't something she fails to note, either. Giggles, though still sleepily--increasingly so, actually, rather than improving. "Wow. Everyone around here is really scared of you." That as she feels around as they home in the spot, ears a'twitch.

"There were more of them," the ghost notes. He does not elaborate. "How close are we?" Moorn can tell she's fading, understandably so. This place has that affect on the living.

"We're really close." She nods. "Rilly close! But it's...confused?" She blinks. Looks at him. "It feels almost swirly. Or, like...coming from more than one direction, right in this little area."

"That is probably the place." Moorn looks around. This is Ahriman's land, and a bad place to be even for him. Not that he fears an antiquated deity, but taking wounds here is all but a death knell.

The sorceror holds out his hands. Passes them over the spot, and the Spot. 

"Glorious," he hisses. "Prepare yourself, Ting. We'll return to Istan Aiga..."

She brightens a bit, though sleepier by the second, and nods nonetheless enthusiastically. She'd screwed up, yes, but at least she has someone around to fix it!

The flower blooms open behind them. Gray and ashen, and colder than the coldest snows, it wraps around the two of them to bloom open at Istan Aiga.