# 🎠 JAKEY > -# he/him // 14 yrs // horse (large) > -# lvl 3 black soul > -# iw: Team Hades The crow Pam had given him trills and caws softly as it rests on the top of his head. Jakey wonders, rather grimly, if the creatures summoned by the little mouse could die. He still hasn’t named her. **“Jakey.”** He introduces himself to the group, rather simply. He recognizes the tabby cat, Horizon, and is surprised that they had kept the tiny fishing lure. It does look nice as a little pendant, he supposes. **“Nice to see you again,”** Jakey murmurs to him, politely. Jakey also recognizes the panda bear, Atlas, and something in his chest hurts as he says *two halves made one*. Back at the observatory, he had asked him about the god stones, insisted that the dark, blade-shaped stone didn’t really belong to him. But Atlas had said since Hans wasn’t holding it as the world ended, they were gone. It was his stone, now. Jakey shakes his head and moves forward. That’s what they would do, too. -# Action: sadly look around (Nat 1) # 🎠 JAKEY > -# he/him // 14 yrs // horse (large) > -# lvl 3 black soul > -# iw: Team Hades Jakey’s vision has been getting worse, clearly, and he feels a little useless as the others point out their observations that he could barely see in the darkness. He nods towards where he thinks Diane is as she points out the scattering of items, hums as Horizon reads out the engraved prayer to Ys. He looks to Alula as she greets him back, blinking as his eyes finally adjust. The tiny cat had called herself a prophet of the goddess. She gives her opinion about the offering they should give, then moves towards the statue. She’s touching it with her paw, eyes shut in concentration. His brows furrow together. *Is she praying? What use would that be, now?* He’s feeling polite enough to not say it out loud, but if anyone were to glance at him, his expression is pretty clear. Snorting softly, he leans down to pick up the bone with his lips. He might not believe in Alula’s connection to the goddess, but what she said about the offerings makes sense to him. Carefully, he maneuvers the bone into one of the outstretched paws. -# Action: Put the bone in one of the statue’s paws (DEX: 13) # 🎠 JAKEY > -# he/him // 14 yrs // horse (large) > -# lvl 3 black soul > -# iw: Ambrose, Alula, Striga, Horizon He’s acutely aware of Ambrose’s gaze following him as he places the bone. It sort of creeps him out—why the hell is he just sitting there?—so he gives the big cat a bit of a side eye. Jakey forgets about it quickly as the mechanism clicks. He huffs proudly as he steps back, lets Alula do her… thing. But whatever she was doing, it doesn’t seem to work. Jakey barks out a sharp laugh when the statue cracks further from Alula’s touch, snorts softly when Striga chides her to be more careful. But when he sees the clear frustration on her face, his amusement quickly drops into a frown. There’s a strange, prickling, slightly acidic sensation on his tongue. Guilt materializing psychosomatically, he supposes. And now that he thinks about it, Alula reminds him of… He clears his throat, bites his lips softly before he dips his head to her level. **“Sorry, I don’t mean to mock you. It’s just…”** *Ironic*, he wants to say. *Been there before*. Jakey sighs instead. **“Shit, this must be really weird for you, huh? Being her… prophet, I mean.”** The doubt is still clear in his voice, but he’s trying his best. Then he looks to Striga, the masked lemur, who’s currently eyeing a vial of some strange substance. He flicks his ears towards them, wary. **“Hey. You be careful, too.”** He sees Horizon trotting to the half-lit bridge, and his gut tells him to follow the little cat, suddenly anxious for their safety. **“I said be *careful*,”** he grumbles, his shadow reaching for them. -# Action: Watching out for Horizon (DEX: 16) # 🎠 JAKEY > -# he/him // 14 yrs // horse (large) > -# lvl 3 black soul > -# iw: Diane, Atlas, Neoma / m: Horizon, Pontia, Ser, Pam, Cher Jakey’s shadow trots back to his side after Atlas pulls Horizon off the ledge, melts back into the dark stone floor. He blinks, surprised at what he had just done. He’d assumed that the surge of Death and Darkness after putting Pontia to rest was from the goddess, not from… within himself. So he is death and shadow, it seems. How depressing. How fitting. Jake sighs softly. He flicks his ears as Diane speaks–he’d honestly forgotten that she was there for a moment, lurking in the shadows and not introducing herself. Even though she’s a stranger and he doesn’t know her name yet, Jakey finds himself stepping next to the dog in support, nodding along to her words. They were reasonable questions. What *is* down that pit? What *is* at the center of the earth? And if that’s where they were going to make the new world, a paradise, will his loved ones be there waiting for him? (And will Ser’s brother be there? Pam’s sister? Cher’s family?) He gazes at the constellations, eyes tired, chest dimly aching. Two halves of a soul, they said. He wonders… -# Action: Soul read Neoma and Atlas (LUCK: 14 / Spark of Inspiration used) # 🎠 JAKEY > -# he/him // 14 yrs // horse (large) > -# lvl 3 black soul > -# iw: Atlas, Neoma … The fuck was that? Was that really what a whole soul looks like? *Two as one,* the thought echoes in his mind. He frowns rather deeply. Does that mean the Godling has no soul? He’d only seen a reflection of himself when he peered into her, darkness and grief and... well, he was half expecting the constellations to be the same. *Half*, huh. **“Are we not… whole souls by ourselves?”** Jakey asks Atlas and Neoma, though he already knows the answer. He has not had a whole soul since his world ended. -# Action: Ask the constellations about halves. # 🎠 JAKEY > -# he/him // 14 yrs // horse (large) > -# lvl 3 black soul > -# iw: Atlas, Neoma He’s unsure how to respond to the constellations’ words. *Your other half is still here,* Neoma says, and he glances down at the gem sitting on his chest. Right. Of course. The next room appears to be yet another puzzle. Jakey grumbles softly—he didn’t expect there to be more. He marches straight to the closed door at the opposite end of the room and kicks it. -# Action: Kick the closed door (STR: 14) # 🎠 JAKEY > -# he/him // 14 yrs // horse (large) > -# lvl 3 black soul > -# iw: Ambrose, Atlas, Neoma Jakey huffs, annoyed. He glares back at Ambrose. **“Worth a try,”** he mumbles, shaking out his now-sore hoof. He ruminates on the constellations’ words. They seem to imply that they’ll surpass the Godling in power, once their souls are whole. **“Did you two also go through all of this?”** Jakey asks the constellations, motioning vaguely at the puzzle. He then gazes at Neoma, buzzing around. **“And… can all bees speak like you? I mean, I thought that insects weren’t…”** Jakey pauses, unsure of how to phrase it. **“Sapient?”** # 🎠 JAKEY > -# he/him // 14 yrs // horse (large) > -# lvl 3 black soul > -# iw: Striga, Neoma He snorts softly towards Striga, then hums at the poem they recite. **“A weather forecast?”** Jakey offers, though he’s unsure what that has to do with bottles of… something. It’s not even his colorblindness this time, they all look identical. Atlas and Neoma’s voices turn his attention away from the puzzle. And Neoma speaks about how the gods can choose the dying. A shadow falls over Jakey’s face as guilt and grief stab him, square in the chest, right where Hans’s stone rested. They should be the one standing here, not him. It must be a mistake. But he’d already insisted that to Atlas, and the bear had already told him that he’s chosen, not Hans, whether he likes it or not. He swallows the lump in his throat. He looks to Neoma, repeats their words. **“The… cycles? This isn’t the first time?”** Jakey’s ears droop slightly, tail flicking in agitation as he considers the implications of what the little constellation had said. His voice is strained, desperate. **“Why the hell are we making a new world if it’s just gonna *die* again?”** (The crow nesting in his bag grumbles softly.) -# action: question Neoma # 🎠 JAKEY > -# he/him // 14 yrs // horse (large) > -# lvl 3 black soul > -# iw: Neoma, Atlas Jakey sighs. He’s not sure if he believes the constellations, but again, he wasn’t sure if he believed the Godling when she’d first promised to make a new world. He’s far too deep in it now to bail. Besides, it’s not like he has any other plans. **“…Okay.”** He dips his head and accepts Neoma’s little touch, their pinky promise. His gaze remains critical, though. **“I’ll believe that you’re *trying*, sure, but how will this time be any different?”** His attention is momentarily pulled away when Horizon says something about a storm coming soon and Alula mentions the weather. Jakey’s unsure if it’s just confirmation bias or him kicking the door earlier, but now that he thinks about it, his joints are aching a bit, like they tend to do when a storm’s approaching. Or maybe he’s just tired. Jakey sighs again. *All good things die eventually*, he thinks. It’s a thought that often comes to him. *But if this new world has no end, what the fuck are we actually making?* -# Action: Further question and discern if the constellations are hiding something (WIS: 13) # 🎠 JAKEY > -# he/him // 14 yrs // horse (large) > -# lvl 3 black soul > -# iw: Neoma, Atlas He’d expected a more clear answer from the badger-bee. Now, he was pissed. It doesn’t matter how sincere they were, what the fuck did they *do*? The worst is over now, is it? The hardest part? Jakey’s heart drops into his stomach. Or perhaps it was his star, threatening to leap out his esophagus again. It’s that same feeling of sickness, of dread, when he first laid eyes on Pontia’s decaying form. She was angry, in grief, in pain, he remembers. *What have you done? How could you?* **“So you…”** he starts, but the accusation struggles to form on his snarled lips. Were his teeth always this sharp, his jaw this wide? The stone on his chest feels like it’s burning. **“You killed everyone for this new world.”** -# Action: Intimidate the constellations into coughing up more info (CHA: 15) / Quirk activation - Looming Gloom: Attempts to INTIMIDATE are rolled with lower difficulty # 🎠 JAKEY > -# he/him // 14 yrs // horse (large) > -# lvl 3 black soul > -# iw: Horizon, Godling Neoma’s answer is frustratingly vague, still. What others? Why even agree to help if you don’t know the full extent of the plan? But to be fair to them, that’s exactly what he had done as well. There was nothing else to do. Nowhere else to run. The Godling had a plan while nobody else did. Jakey shakes his head, looks toward Horizon as the tabby cat pleads to the constellations. His expression is full of pity and worry at their apparent fear and confusion at Neoma’s response. Perhaps they’d also been duped into this whole new world plan being without costs. Jakey closes his eyes and sighs. He thinks of the Godling, wondering what the hell she’s actually up to. Wonders why she’s not being transparent about what this plan is to make a new world. There was no talk about higher beings who perpetuate the oppressive world cycle. No talk about some unknown others being involved. Just flowery language about making paradise. *Friends should tell each other about their plans,* he thinks, pointedly. -# Action: Reaching out to the Godling (WIS: 20)