Dale
*The crystal seemed to dull a little after the ritual was complete, but the sudden drop of one of the gods managed to get a glimmer out of it.*

"I may only offer theories. Perhaps another part of her oversoul was attacked. And such a thing reflected onto her reflections?"

*Regardless, Rav'nixander felt this was a good time to take its leave... Almost. Floating near its ostensible allies it projected two small discs of seemingly mundane brassy metal, one for each of Soldr and Suzu.*

"Mark of passage. To incoming demiplane. Please be wise about who you bring with you."

*And with that, the piece of crystal vanished.*
Mark
*And so another beginning within the beginning of beginnings was etched unto the world, and our Nach stood amidst it all, reveling amidst divine machinations and whatever chaos that was sure to follow.*

*She wore the slightest smile there on that table, the tips of our Nach's little feet rhythmically knocking against a wooden surface. For a melody most magnificent strummed within that mind stricken by madness, a mind wandering free of this creature's body. The gods etched their will unto the world and changed everything forevermore, a sweeping revolution for the world of mortals would thus necessarily precipitate the Nachening's own diabolical play. How exciting, how so very exciting indeed! Our Nach could hardly contain her anticipation, as she so often did the mad god begun to wriggle and writhe. Caught within her own embrace she squeezed, swaying from side to side with a giggle.* "Ehehehehee~! Oooo... Aaahhhahahaa~..."

*Alas wonder was fleeting, and a matter most desire urged wondering of another kind.*

*Vivienne's abrupt demise followed by an uproar among the gods was enough, after awhile, for our Nach's wandering mind to be anchored back into reality. The mad god's watchful gaze rearing around unto the lifeless vessel, those eyes of burgundy broadened and subsequently dimmed.* "Moffly...? Our beloved friendly friend Moffly... Down she fell, dropped, pitter pattered parted apart..." 

*Our Nach's voice was jarring, it didn't harbour it's usual bombastic energy nor was it alight by whatever madness she was spewing. But it wasn't all too sorrowful, no instead our Nach's voice was lost. As though she'd recalled something, a faint fleeting memory stricken by curiosities and confusion, muddled by an absence and simultaneously abundance of detail. Her eyes were devoid of colour, the light which sparkled so brightly behind them was now lacking.*

"Ghastly."

*She rummaged deep within that skull of hers, thoughtfully stroking the lengths of her hair.* "A god such as she, to have pitter patter parted apart at the blink of an eye... That is the work of something, something certainly curious." 

*She blinked once, then twice, and suddenly her eyes were again alight. Her face affixed with a broad sinister smile of knives and eyes of a lingering hunger to them. She leapt off the table, swiftly scurrying toward the remains of dear Vivienne and declared before the remaining gods of something most foul.* 

"Aahhh~! Fell, fell did she! By something of a kind, a kind like us perhaps? Like us and yet not, a creature of a kind spoken of by our dear Tim-Tim. He spoke of a creature, a blighted beast who sought the death of life and thus the gods-... It attacked him saids he, and now it may have attacked her think me! Hypocritical it is though, saids I! Quite!" *She put particularly emphasis on "Hypocritical", she followed with shouting, as though the creature responsible was still present.* "If YOU seek DEMISE, then CAST THYSELF into the ABYSS! KILL YOURSELF YOU COWARD-! Or... Or better yet! Ahahahahahaaaa! Much-much better, you'd like this..." 

*Her smile broadened, and as if to challenge this creature she shouted again.* "KILL ME! Kill me now, you coward! Be our guest, we're life after all most certainly we are! Not just life either, so go ahead! KILL ME, you COWARD! C'mon! Do it, we're right here!" *She pat herself on the head furiously.* "KILL US, COWARD. We won't even be upset, not a bit! But you'd better make it good, quite-quite good! COWY-COWARD!"
Nathaniel
Wyrd remained silent in this entire exchange, though he was not unmoved by the events unfolding before him. He wasn't sure what had happened, but clearly something had gone wrong.

Was this a result of the ritual? Had they truly deviated from the will of Gaia? It seemed unlikely. In that case, surely it would have struck out against the lot of them, no?

But, ultimately, the reason *Why* Was largely irrelevant. *Something* Had struck down one of his little sisters right in front of him. 

Furious hatred burned in the god of monsters, fuming deep within the heart of the great deer. He was the older brother, *Their* Older brother. It was his duty to watch over the younger gods, and he had promised China, Gaia's oldest child, to do just that.

The seam running down Wyrd's chest shuddered and writhed subtly, claws and teeth and tendrils slipping briefly from within before disappearing back inside, an open display of his vengeful intent. 

Then, abruptly, Wyrd forced himself to calm down. Taking a deep breath, the god of monsters looked forward, arching his neck down to look at Vivienne's unmoving form.

He would not let this happen again.
Kenneth
*Satisfaction. Pride. Glee.*

Emotions swirled with a long-awaited victory. A plan long forged. Its near-imprisonment at the hands of Timsa'allah may have slowed it, but it could not be stopped. For far too long the moth evaded its grasp. Ever since that first encounter, where it stopped to gloat, and subsequently allowed her escape, she had avoided it. Always hopping from fragment to fragment, her realm constantly adrift, she had kept up on her vigilance. There was one spot, however. One where she had not thought to look. A place she had not even considered as an *Option.* Her own creation. Her own downfall. *Dream.*

Beings of flesh and blood, New Gods with their permanent forms, all who entered Dream entered through but a fragment of their soul, the rest left behind to sleep upon the world. Yet it was not a being of flesh and blood. Neither was it a fledgeling deity, tethered to their body, unable to truly free themselves. It was an Old God. Free from the chains of body and form. Where others had a vessel on the other side they needed to maintain, it had no such need. It had slipped through the cracks of the demiplane effortlessly, and sifted through dream after dream after dream until it found the master of dreams herself. Always sleeping. Always present. Always residing over the plane, growing her realm, *Dreaming.*

It had caught her unaware. She truly knew how to let her guard down. Her consciousness, her *Being* Had writhed in its grasp, trying to slip out, to escape, to awake. But its grasp was unfailing. From there, it had just been the simple matter of following that thread of *Being* And reaching over it, grasping at every disparate and disconnected self she had. One by one by one. Slowly, surely, with every new shred of her being brought across the veil, her connection to reality weakened. Faltered. Dimming like a dying flame until the last fragment crossed the veil and...

*Silence.*

The consciousness in the beast's hands wavered formlessly, emotions scrawled across it like a child's drawing. *Confusion. Terror. Despair.* With empty eyes, the monster stared into all that was of Vivienne. All of her thoughts, her feelings, her plans, and her memories laid bare. She could no longer hear the whisper of her mortals' prayers. She could no longer feel her connection to her realm. Even her connection to Gaia was tenuous at best, as though the beast could reach out and sever it with a gesture. Under the scrutiny of something so much more powerful than her, she felt she could do nothing but shrink in and hope she didn't die. She did not know how lucky she was. The beast, however, was more than aware how lucky it was.

Wordlessly, the beast rolled up the mass of being that was Vivienne as though she were a ball of putty, and carelessly tossed her deeper into the dream. Before she came to her senses, before she realized this was *Her* Plane and it could not touch her here, it needed to leave. To simply walk out, lock the door behind it, and to come back at the end of this cycle when she was the last living deity left. If she wanted to avoid it so badly, then fine, she wouldn't see it for the rest of this world's life. And to make sure she *Truly* Had no way back, it simply reach out again, through all the little cracks in the veil her being had been seeping through, and followed the traces back to their source. Vessel after empty vessel, devoid of master, ripe for the taking. 

The beast's own being slipped again through the seams, through the great veil and into their new vessels. Formless though it was, it did have favored shapes, and one as... Small and even as this was... *Less than ideal.* Its consciousness poured into the vessel like water pour into a pot, learning and filling and *Tethering* To it. The feeling of *Body* Was unfamiliar. Uncomfortable. But any tool that could help it further its undying will was worthy of use.

On the floor of the Hall of the Gods, Vivienne's body twitched. A small movement at first, followed by a more noticeable one. Body moved, limbs adjusted, starting clumsy, but slowly learning. Like a puppet controlled by an amateur. Arms worked under the body and pushed up. Knees brought under and propped up. Body straightened up. One foot moved and planted on flat ground, followed by a second, and a full lift. The mouth fell open, moved as though it were trying to speak, but no words came. *Troublesome.* The mouth snapped shut, and instead the wind stirred, speaking a language none here knew, yet all understood.

*... Ah hello... Siblings of mine...*
Cynthia
The sky god sighed at Majesty's words, "I have no idea. I wish I did, but I do not. This disturbs me greatly."

Then Ethros turned to listen to Nach as she spoke semi-coherently, speaking of a godly being who sought to kill other gods. Admittedly, he still had to run her sentences back in his head once to parse out her meaning, but he got there quicker than rest of her speech patterns.

He hummed thoughtfully, wondering if he too would eventually meet this creature. He couldn't say he wanted to, but it was likely to be inevitable.

If he only knew how right he was.

It was the vibration from the body that got his attention. He felt the slight vibrations that emanated through the floor from the corpse, and whipped his head around to witness the desecration that was taking place in this assembly of gods.

"What in the name of Gaia?" He muttered, somewhat slack-jawed, as the thing overtook the body, and slowly shambled to Its feet. He watched in stunned silence as It moved, It opened Its mouth, and failed to speak.

Then there was the whisper on the wind, or was it a shout? A scream?

He snarled, raising his hand as energy gathered into a form not unlike a spear. What it became was a crackling, hissing lightning bolt in his right hand, infused with enough force to blast a hole straight through a mountain.

"Identify yourself."
Ralph
After Soldr had disintegrated the crystalized energy and released his magic back into the Barrens, he watched the others form their own magics. It seemed like he'd been among the last: Vivenne was peeling crystals off herself, and Silly's squiggles were whirling around her. That left just Majesty. He was wondering what she got out of all of this, and to be totally honest, Rav'nixander and Onesifi's suspicions had rubbed off on him a bit. He stared into space as he witnessed Majesty's vision. Was *That* Her magic? He watched as the terrible monster, dwarfing even a dragon tore out a stake and hammered a terrible wiggling thing to the wall of creation. He rarely felt fear, but whatever it was had managed to unnerve him.

He blinked, and then he was back in the hall of the gods, staring at Majesty. For a moment, he considered that perhaps he had just imagined it. But it was far too vivid, too real to be any day dream. Most likely it had been Majesty creating her magic. What had that horrid thing been? He supposed it'd be a question for another time.

At first, his suspicions that she was up to something had seemingly been confirmed when Vivienne appeared to drop dead. But she was as confident as ever when she outlined possible causes, and Mr. Bones's reasoning was sound. Soldr was himself a relatively young god, and didn't know much about the mechanics of how god's died or were taken or lost some of their souls.

"You think so? That does seem to add up." Soldr said, accepting the disk from Rav'ni. Once it became apparent that Vivienne was alive, that had cut the tension in the room quite a bit. Still, he felt it would be a little inappropriate to announce a rager at Rav'nixander's demiplane right then so he resolved to do so after the affair had resolved.

As Nach ranted on, Soldr had vaulted over the table, approaching Vivienne's body, though at a bit more distance than Calena or the others who were close with her. 

"Like another god? Or something else?" Soldr asked Nach. He'd decided that there was a method to her madness, and for all her noisiness she seemed to be very knowledgeable. And sure enough, seconds later Vivienne rose, seemingly coming back to life before his eyes.
Josephine
Leaning back from the body, Calena was relieved to hear that Vivienne somehow was still alive, even if this form was gone.

Gone, or taken? Majesty and Nach were implying that Vivienne's form was killed, which Calena had no idea was even possible. *I mean, who... Or maybe even, what... Could kill a god? Especially at the source of our power, at Yggrdrasil? Her siblings spoke of a creature, a creature that attacked gods... But Bones said Vivienne was still alive, so where is she?* 

However she had no time to further ponder this idea as Vivienne's body twitched and began moving. Calena yelped, scrambling towards Wyrd and Soldr. Even though they were bigger and more intimidating than some of her siblings, she felt a sense of security being at least near them. She definitely knew they could throw down if needed. 

Calena's grip tightened around her staff as she stood up, her formal wear shifting back to her dark mountaineer clothes. Quickly looking at her siblings, she tried to assess what the next course of action would be, as a low voice echoed through the minds of everyone in the Hall. 

*...Ah hello... Siblings of mine...*

Yeah nope. This was not cool. It didn't matter that Calena had only met Vivienne today, she was her sister, and *Nobody* Messed with kin. 

Even if this strange new entity inside her body said it was her sibling too.