Michelle – Citadel #1 ‘Keep Out’

When she came to, Michelle had screamed.

She screamed and screamed until her throat had become sore from the outpouring of shock and grief at the realization that not only were her friends and allies dead but now she had to spend eternity locked immobile in a white cocoon in an equally white room.

It was only after the emergence of Kivar’s amazed, yet concerned face made an appearance through a an opening in the fucking wall did she think to give pause to her unbridled hysteria. A resolute embrace later coupled with repeated words of soothing allowed Michelle's distraught minds to discover she was in point of fact, not only alive and not in an all white version of purgatory...But perfectly hale and whole...

Naturally such an occurrence led to the obvious question; ‘WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!’ To which she received the thoroughly unsatisfying rundown of everything that had occurred in the past weeks.

First and foremost of which was that she had been in a coma the whole damn time and Kivar had set her up in a vomit inducing-ly expensive [Ahman's Bed of Immobile Recovery] in a spare room above his shop. After Michelle had gotten over the price tag of the bed she had just been freed from and begun to digest the rest of Kivar's ramblings,  apparently there hadn’t actually been anything physically wrong with her, at least as far as the healing classes who had checked her over could tell....So it had been left to him to oversee her care. Especially after she had been unceremoniously deemed his responsibility, by way of being deposited off of a makeshift stretcher onto the floor of his storefront.

Supposedly Oksana had checked in on her every three or four days during her infirmity, but seeing as there was little else she could do then sit and talk to her unresponsive form, her visits were apparently rather one sided and sad affairs.

The other more important development was there had been a shift of power. One Michelle was still trying, and failing, to come to terms with. As it appeared that in her absence, the fucking asshole Benjamin had apparently taken over everything! From the opposed factions to Siphon clearing, during the time she was out, that monster had swiftly gained control of all the major City’s and deftly maneuvered himself into a position of political numero uno.

Another jarring fact was that everyone she had fought beside, spilled her very blood with and worse, counted as friends, now in some way or other was either dead or under his freakishly grey thumb. It wasn’t just ‘The adventuring’ teams or disparate mercenaries either. It was everyone from the conniving Councillors right down to the fucking manamote thieving city guards themselves!

According to Kivar there had been some resistance initially, by way of small groups of people rallying together despite the major factions falling in line. But when they had marched up to the Citadel in which she apparently now resided, the monster had walked out to meet them and offered them all a 'free shot'.

When the rebels had done just that and failed to singe a freakishly white hair on his grey head. More bizarrely, instead of killing them as he'd fucking done to nearly all her friends!... The mind warped psychopath had sent each and every one into a myriad of delta zones so they could ‘Make themselves useful’!

After such bullshit display of power and the story having been syndicated throughout humanities still less then united survivors, the dissent she yearned to stoke into a raging fire had became a thing only spoken of after a few too many drinks, or in dark and baleful tones situated in hard to reach locations, where his sickeningly loyal eyes and ears might hopefully never reach.

The most disheartening revelation since her resumption of consciousness however was that Oksana was now second only to the monster, in the new tyranny that had befallen mankind. And when she’d stopped by to check in on her and found her longtime compatriot conscious and healthy, the older Russian was completely unrepentant of the fact. Worse still, she seemed almost proud of her part in Benjamin’s new despotic regime.

When she had finished screaming her insults and throwing Kivar’s precious wares at the completely innocent wall, instead of at the shameless traitor as she so deserved, lest she be unfairly teleported away for such righteous actions! Michelle had vowed red faced, that she would do all within her power to kill their new overlord straight to the to face of the burly and traitors woman...Yet, to her even greater surprise and horror, the older Russian burst into laughter at her threat and informed her through tears of mirth ‘You would be better to try tellink sun not to rise’.

Crestfallen and betrayed, Michelle had fallen into a deep chasm of depression about what kind of good she could achieve in this new and tainted world. With her allies either dead or turned traitor, it was all she could do to summon up enough courage to open the next bottle of overpriced liquor as the days until the great unknown of Phase 2 ticked bleakly down.

So it was, during one of her fits of rage as she smashed more of Kivar’s recently replaced glassware whilst ranting to the uncaring white walls of his apartment, that something unexpected happened.

Well, if she was being completely honest it wasn’t that unexpected to start hallucinating after the third consecutive week of drinking herself into oblivion, even when she did account for her increased Vitality. None the less, surprise miss Rodriguez it did. It began with an ethereal blue face of a painfully beautiful woman, who was trying to say something…But it was all garbled and Michelle couldn’t make out a single fucking word of it!

Despite continuing to drink the night away, her perfect recall incessantly managed to dredge up the nagging sense of wrongness to the event amidst her minds splitting hang over. So vivid was her recalls clarity that she couldn't deny the blue face had actually existed. Needless to say she stopped, all be it temporarily, her impressive yet uninspired attempt to drink herself to death, if only so that she could get to the bottom of the source of the annoying apparition once and for all!

As she finished downing an [Improved poison removal potion] she had procured from the terminals auction house, she diligently put to use her [Mind Vault] passive. Again and again, Michelle replayed the memory as she spent days in vain effort, to decipher the incoherently mouthed words. And while she was amidst her futile task of learning to read ethereal lips the face showed up a second fucking time!...This time however the speech of the translucent visage, although faint, provided her with intelligible words at last, in a soothing cadence of a tone.

“Fear not little lost one, I mean you no ill...”

Just as Michelle was about to ask its intention, it preempted.

“I merely wish to relay my condolences for the blight that has taken root on your world.”

Again she was about to let her opinion be known on the good she thought some stupidly attractive apparition’s words would do her when once more, she was answered before she could even ask.

“Maybe I can even provide you with a route of recourse.”

Merely thinking of her wish to know the identity of the ephemeral speaker managed to bare further unsolicited conversational fruit.

“My identity...Consider me a generous patron if you will.”

Thinking of what good a talking translucent head could provide her, earned her a lilting laugh, followed by a chagrined.

“While I am unable to intervene directly due to certain…constraints…I can provide you with guidance on where to go and what actions you are to take.”

Wanting to know how she could trust someone or something that wouldn’t even show up in person, earned Michelle a deadpan look for but a moment before an enticing smile was followed by the lilting statement.

“Should you continue to put your faith in me little lost one, I can guarantee by the knowledge of Wisdom Incarnate herself, that the one you know as Benjamin shall be obliterated down to the very last of it's unnatural mote's.”

Both her minds remained blank for a time and the speaker took on a perplexed look as she started to fade, causing Michelle to shout in panic.

“How will can I contact you!?”

The translucent visages features smoothed into a coy smile as it offered in an almost whisper.

“Fear not little lost one…I am always watching…When the time comes we will speak again so I can aid you in en…”

Then the speaker vanished completely. Leaving Michelle in Kivar’s recently cleaned and refurbished apartment, with only her magically altered minds and the new blinking notification as proof that anything at all had taken place:

[You are now the Lesser Chosen of Intelligence Incarnate.]

Sitting in relative silence and as the drumming of her heartbeat filled her ears, a smile crept onto Michelle's face for the first time in what felt like years.

The candle of hope was lit anew, within the Initiate Fire Mage Michelle Rodriguez. And though it sputtered in its flickering.

All her minds now knew in her heart.

The fires she'd once so delighted in casting.

Would once again roar.