#experimenting with my style: yet again

[revelisms]

Emeritus Bros 🦇

[psychomusic]

oc time again! + her town & culture (heavily inspired by pre-roman italic populations)

she is suri sauthon (she/her). her story is linked to my swtor imperial agent, tar'x, but most of her life except for the one year away where she meets him, is spent in a town in the mountains of mirial.

despite mirial being cold and desert, and many cities developing underground, her town flourishes thanks to a force nexus, venerated in the form of an ancient, sacred, alive crystal. the ecosystem of that mountain depended on what "the horned crystal" was capable of giving them, but mirialans couldn't live off of that alone, so they developed trade and some rudimental technology, even if oftentimes it was bought thanks to the highly profitable trade of a plant used to make medicines that slowed down aging and had overall healing properties.

note: everything that's generated by this nexus has these healing properties BUT they have to be processed, except for those who bathed in the waters of the cavity under the crystal - the "real" nexus, but not the worshipped one. the waters were sacred but they were not thought to be miraculous, unlike the crystal, who instead was thought of as the keystone of the ecosystem: without it, everything would fall apart (and that is partially true: the cavity was the "real" nexus but thanks to the crystal, also strong in the force, the properties were spread all over the mountains). those who bathed in the cavity's waters - so, all of the town, who had a sort of baptism there - could eat the plant, make whatever food with it, and not only that plant, but everything generated by the nexus, that, again, had similar properties. this allowed people to live up to normal life-spans without advanced medicines or, much, really. to those who didn't live there, though, after the processing, had incredible effects, slowing down aging - for those who took it regularly - and making people able to live up to half a century more than the average]

originally, there were four tribes of nomads that lived thanks to horned farm animals that decided to settle down into one bigger town and other smaller settlements, to live off of transhumance. this division of the tribes stayed into the political and social organization: every person belonged to one tribe specifically, and had slightly different rituals and culture. for examples, each tribe had their own priests and healers, with different techniques and traditions. the town, tho, was guided by a group of people in the high priesthood, a position you could reach only by having earned the trust of all tribes. those high priests had many roles: they guided the people into sacred processions common to all the tribes, they managed the trading with outsiders, they did the maintenance of the temple of the summit (the one that functioned as casket to the crystal) and created a special liquid to offer the crystal that helps it grow.

this particular temple was important because 1. it was very visible, from every angle of the town, and it became an important identity symbol; 2. it stored the venerated horned crystal; 3. it had the altar where sacrifices were made for the crystals. that altar had a hole connected to the cavity, that allowed the liquids to reach the underground; 4. it had various symbols: statues representing each tribe + the high priesthood, and typical mirialan tattoos carved into the wood of the trees that served as columns for the temple, symbolizing 8 values that who dared to enter HAD to have; 5. it was on the way to an important lake (called "mother lake" because the lake the town was built around to depended on the waters of that other lake) where they traveled to in important processions; 6. it was said that a the wizard who unified the tribes made it with its magic, making the plant grow to hold the temple's roof. this wizard was, actually, a force user, obv.

BACK TO HER THOUGH: she's daughter of one of the high priests, who was in charge of managing the trades with outsiders, and lives in a house on the mountains with her mother and him. her parents are from different tribes (that's one of the things that earned him trust from the 4 tribes): when a child is born from two different tribes, they don't pick one to allign to, but they're usually linked automatically to the one with more relatives in it (in her case, the father's tribe: she had many uncles and aunts on his side while her mom only had one sister).

later, though, she got quite tied to her mother's tribe due to a mysterious illness that only her mother's tribe healer was able to cure. she spent 4 years (from 10 to 14 years old) living with the healer and learned her secrets. to better study, she wrote them down. when she returned home, she studied to become a priestess with her father. at 22 (the average age: you can't become priest before your 20s), she was supposed to take a test and become a priestess, but the healer of her mother's tribe died and the tribe asked her to take her place. she couldn't technically do that, but both tribes estimated both her and her parents and she was allowed to become both. she then decided to try to become a high priestess, and became one at 25 (a quite young age). being part of the council, she tried to convince the various tribe healers to unite their knowledges and write them down, and eventually made it. healers still remained tribe based but they now had an "upper, inter-tribe level" similar to high priesthood.

years later, the sacred horned crystal is stolen from the temple by some Hutt mercenaries looking for a profit. given the trust she has earned from all the tribes and the fact that her father is the high priest that deals with outsiders (and she's been hearing stories and advice about it since she was little), she is the one tasked with getting it back. without the growing crystal, the keystone to their ecosystem, the village would have lasted only a few years. in hrr quest, she meets imperial intelligence agent tar'x laran and, as they "solve the mystery" and fight to have it back, they get closer. they'll get married and have a daughter, Vegoia (who's the only one who actually will get to the plot of my story. this was all background)

[brian-kinney-apologist]

this came to me in a dream last night and I needed to draw it immediately, so here we (finally) are ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

[f0rgetf0rgetting]

some of the character sprites on that fuckass hetalia yaoi vn ft. illustrations to prove that is still in my queue of things to do but like. im planing to redo them becuase they are genuinely ass. i might do them with other art style or another type of lineart

shrugs

[liquidchocolatecake]

currently captive audience to a knock down drag out fight in my brain between desire to respect the wishes of the creator and not look for anyone redistributing the comic and god i fucking miss wonderlab i miss wonderlab so much you have no idea i want wonderlab back so bad

[echoheart0324]

They got lost on their way to the lab or something.

[perilegs]

i cut several inchess of my hair off (it reached past my shoulders now its back at like. chin/neck length) and no one at work has said anything bc it still looks the exact same

[fadedflora]

i'm sure no ones shocked to find out i am yet again downloading more sims 3 cc

[katyspersonal]

ALRIGHT LET’S TALK ABOUT BLUBBORNE!!

Here are a list of things to choose from <3

Chat about Logarius or Alfred!!

Ideas for Bloodborne 2 👀

What do you think about Hemwick being connected to Cainhurst?

Talk about Gilbert!! I never get to see you chat about him! Lil guy!

Ideas on Arianna’s backstory!

Ideas on Adella’s backstory!

What would a Discord with the original Byrgenwerth scholar gang look like?? xD

—

Choose one or all! It’s up to you!! <3

Oh my GOSH fjdhfds Good to know you all headed my warning to never give me a choice because I answer EVERYTHING, huh -_- xD But in all seriousness though, these topics just happen to be those I do not have 20 pages essay ready for, so my answers will be short(ish) and I think I can discuss all this stuff in compact manner!

Chat about Logarius or Alfred!!

Well, they're complicated characters for me. You know I am physically unable to 'hate' a fictional character because no matter what they did, they aren't real and can't hurt me and if all else fails they exist to make the story better. But because of some events and reflection on life and society, these two in particular put a pit in my stomach on the notion of being trademark catholic-coded purists. There are so many things that can be speculated about complexity of Laurence's or Adrich's situations, but these guys feel pretty plain for me? The black-white thinking bastards that got so tempted with the idea of abolishing all evil that it made them ruthless, blind to nuances and purist that can't see how they become the REAL evil in the end.

I think Logarius/Rogeriusz is fairly underrated though and it cannot be blamed on him being unlikeable from moral standpoint, because we've all seen how popular Alfred is despite graphically killing a defenceless woman! But Logarius has a lot to like as a villain - he is noticeably tall and menacing, he was a powerful leader figure in Healing Church like Ludwig, he has a lot of mystery to his character as to why he uses Pthumerian magic and shares theme with Queen Yharnam (and as follows, why would he turn against a kindred clan/bloodline?), and what he discovered that made him gatekeep it? Besides, there is a translation mistake calling an item 'Skull of a Saint' something else - 'Sage's Hair', and when I discovered the proper description ( x ), I realised there is a big implication that following Healing Church's saints were wearing crowns after his raid on Cainhurst - both to honor him and to boast about having thrown the local monarchy!

This is just very odd that Logarius was a pioneer of the delusion about exterminating 'impurity', and managed to hit da briks before he became hated and showed true nature of his pursuit - unlike poor Ludwig that presumably had better intentions and less freedom to see through WHAT was guiding him, yet fought long enough to become accursed by everyone. It is UNFAIR. But Logarius is such an important element in the system, as a trend-setter rather than people brainwashed into following Church's agenda! Willem is never addressed for messing with unknown too, Logarius is never addressed for being ideal inspirer of hate and murder... Guess the REAL martyr here is Laurence every time! xD

Alfred is also a hard one for me, as for someone from the country that actively fabricates history facts, encourages distrust to outer information and ignorance, and just straight up lies with agenda. Like, sure, I am familiar with how easy average person can fall for a narrative - and how easy it is to discourage any skepticism and critical thinking before it formed. If anything, I pity him.

But I've grown to feel even more tense about this character when I reflected on the fact that he is SO eager to exterminate the 'enemy' that he goes after ones who can't even CAUSE any harm (he wants to kill Annalise who is absolutely defeated and defenceless, and he is the only summon in Old Yharnam where beasts that won't go outside live). There is a difference between trying to protect people from the possible threats (since whether vilebloods DO have cursed magic effect is up to interpretation) and "cleansing" the world from anyone affiliated Just Because. I've been doing Adella dirty for a long time calling her 'female Alfred' and I had since took it back because she at least gives Arianna a 'chance' as long as she doesn't share her blood that Adella's religion forbids. Not even one - she did the "three strikes and you're out"! Alfred is ruthless tho, in a very uncomfortable way, but it took me some unpleasant experiences to SEE truth about him. I think that no matter how far up you are in a religion, but whether you have a braincell to extend minimal reasoning about WHY you are fighting the 'bad guys' is on the individual and not on the source of this brainwashing, and Alfred fails this test.

That being said, he is still an interesting character, and I really love his unique appearance! His nose is a whole BEAK xD /pos I also headcanon that Alfred never met Logarius in person and his bond with him is parasocial, based on admiring the great person of the past upon feeling like he 'knows' him! The same applies for my versions of Amelia/Emilia and Laurence!

The rest of the topics are going under cut!

Ideas for Bloodborne 2 👀

Honestly, I think the best one I've seen executing the concept was HollarityArt in their contribution for Vaati's Bloodborne 2 concepts contest! Here is the link on Twit with their concepts: ( x ).

I have very little ideas on this but I agree that part 2 would be the best placed in sea/ocean setting! But the MOST tricky thing about the sequel would be that one of the potential Bloodborne endings is our Hunter becoming the new Great One that governs the cycle, instead of Flora. And another one is them replacing Gehrman. So the sequel must deal with addressing how no matter WHICH ending player had in Bloodborne, it didn't matter! Basically, something should happen with Hunter's Dream or the current Moon Presence that would leave any ending still palatable. So, addressing the current 'queen' Great One would result in the cycle still ongoing (aka our Hunter as Great One inflicting the same cycle, so it is not possible to pin whether Flora is still active or Hunter is). And, sure, for some reason, the Hunter's Dream is broken, just so we could not see our Hunter from previous game. This is extremely depressing, but feels in the spirit of From's games.

What From would need to do with Bloodborne 2 is to add information that doesn't quite confirm or deny exist fan theories, but instead adds more to WORK with! And creates MORE questions. So, reveal extra details about what we see in Bloodborne, but in a way that didn't answer the question. As in 'yeah there was a Great One counterpart for Flora', 'yeah there was someone in Isz that did birth Ebrietas as little celestial larvae many centuries ago, here is her statue and nothing else', 'yeah look at the ruins of the waking world version of Fishing Hamlet' etc. Some characters I think should reappear but in a way that feels expected while also not REALLY telling us anything new. So, Queen Yharnam not in the wedding dress, Gehrman functioning like his hunter self (like I said, Hunter's Dream should get broken), Maria having her recollected memory from when she was a caretaker of Research Hall, Adeline in a Kin form somewhere in a secret nook of Sea location (presume she ascended with or without Paleblood Hunter).

I like the idea that Yharnam in the sequel is a ghost town that has no messenger lamps or huntsmen, only rare NPCs and enemies who are largely people and/or Kin of the type we haven't seen before. Yharnam would have a bigger layout that makes much more sense geographically, some buildings and areas would look notably different if not more civilised. So that'd return the question whether Yharnam we play in even WAS real or this sequel Yharnam simply the same but changed from the last time, so people can argue whether this Yharnam is "real" and not "dreamed" one or developers simply improved their mapping and designing skills xD Maria would be able to travel there with us by waking up in the body of the Doll that still stayed in Old Workshop, and many people in Yharnam would act hostile towards both her and the player; later in the plot turns out that Hunter's Dream breaking was the result of external powers, and roaming people and unfamiliar Kin work together and target to remove the traces of influence from Stars and Moon! They'd be more alien Kin that urged to help with grasp of Flora and Fauna had on the Earth and its mortals, but in reality more or less want to establish their order. But protesting them would restart the cycle of vices of humanity, so... yeah, again, the game would be depressing and point out how there is no choice, only diverse ways to suck.

I also think the next game should extend beyond Yharnam, and using a ship to travel between locations would be a cool idea! Maybe getting to visit Valtr's home, or whatever Loran is now. @val-of-the-north had an idea that there is a legit country known as New Loran, but it would reveal more about history and heritage than just a bunch of electric beasts and sand. If I try to describe more concepts I might get really sucked into this swamp, so I'll leave it be here, but meeting relatives of some characters we've known would be great too! I always have this image in my head about Valtr's niece that heard he chased some monster and never came back, so we meet her when she is an adult that wanted to investigate on the mystery of her uncle. Also learning more about the fuckery Micolash and Laurence did do in the past through item descriptions; again, in a way that actually doesn't disrupt anything, more like 'well we already knew they had to commit a lot of crimes, we just now know the details'. The war criminals are still here in spirit! xD

What do you think about Hemwick being connected to Cainhurst?

Well, I said that sometime before, but I do think that both Cainhurst nobles and Hemwick are mixed human+pthumerian (and sometimes just human) descendants that preserved a lot of practices from ancient Pthumerian civilisations... and matriarchal traditions, too. They have different practices, as Vilebloods use blood magic and consume blood for power, whereas Witches use magical binding rituals, necromancy and disturbing tools as well. Ironic that they had 'Blood vs Eyes' conflict of Blood vs Arcane Healing Church factions before it was cool, don't you think?

Yharnam used to be monarchy but so many foreigners and neighbouring cities rubbed in on the area, that they became practically equal with higher class Yharnam citizens, and had to count people like Willem as equal. Maybe if Healing Church didn't form so swiftly, Yharnam would never have a mayor. But yeah, basically, Witches were something of peasants in relation to Cainhurst nobles. But they cooperated enough, and Witches would often offer medical help to the nobles who entered trouble with the curse living within their blood, or struggled to control pyromancy upon first periods. Witches maybe lived in poverty and dirt without much convenience, down to having to pay taxes TO Cainhurst, but they have unspoken knowledge within themselves that they are, in fact, superior to the nobles, as they have better grasp on the arcane secrets and are waaaaay less helpless before supernatural. I believe Iosefka and Fauxsefka are from Cainhurst, and Witches were how Iosefka studied ways to purify the blood from Frenzy + Beasthood inducing effects. Why that practice never picked up? Because we live in a society, indeed.

Talk about Gilbert!! I never get to see you chat about him! Lil guy!

Ahhhh right! I just didn't have much reason I guess? I do have a face design for him, that features some facial skewing like many Yharnamites have!

Like his beasthood form suggests, he was afflicted with Ashen Blood, which I believe was not a planned action but an honest mistake by using the blood of a poisoned beast (Blood-Starved Beast crucified in Old Yharnam). However, back in the day where Yharnam was not quarantined away from the rest of the world (to the point you are not supposed to SURVIVE being there if you never had holy blood transfusion), there were plenty of people picking stuff up and illegally selling it abroad. @val-of-the-north has an idea that Valtr and his friends caught one of such groups, just when one of them transformed into a beast upon getting too much of his own "medicine" and I stealeded it xD

But Gilbert I think was a victim of one of such things, contracting Ashen Blood by consuming a poisoned "medicine". He never was able to connect the dots between getting worse after it as someone who already had his own illnesses. The more I learn about Victorian era, the more I realise how shockingly ignorant they were about medicine. I mean, they were having mercury pills for god knows how long! So, yeah, he saught Yharnam, and naturally had his strange sympthomes sustained by consuming the blood as someone who got beasthood 'activated'.

I like to think that he used to be a hatter, and it WAS what made him sick initially; they were number 1 victims for mercury poisoning, because of the materials used in their craft. However, it were not just hats that he could do well, and after arriving in Yharnam, he gladly worked to produce more clothes, sewing mostly Yharnam Hunter garbs obsessively! And is one of the rarest people who met Ludwig in person and is still around AND sane! Hence how he had his Flamethrower - the Healing Church shared one with him to help him to self-defend. But, he was out of use and got too sick before he got to kill even one. Being bedridden, he used to read books a lot, until his eyesight got afflicted too (apparently beasthood attacks the eyes the most), so he mostly entertains himself with fantasies and reciting memories.

Ideas on Arianna’s backstory!

Heh, like I said already, I love the idea that her mother ran with her from Cainhurst when Arianna was still a baby, so she never GOT to know the noble life. But, she did inherit her mother's noble dress, and vague idea about their blood being special enough to offer to the hunters. I entertain the idea that Alfred was Arianna's brother but had to be abandoned since he was older and their mother could only care for one child in the hard situation, but it is up in the air.

In either case, Arianna's mother died soon(ish), most likely from violent death. But instead of some Church fanatic killing her in "righteous" wrath, it was that her mother went insane unable to consume queen's blood or find any management for it, so she, like... had Vileblood version of becoming blood-drunk and was shot before she transformed into a bloodlicker completely. When she was about to turn on her own daughter to drink her blood dry, no less! The hunter that saved Arianna was Henryk, who picked every other orphaned child under his protection because he was aware Choir takes orphans and they are never seen again. I swear, at least once Choir had to confront him about whether his children are all 'really' his, and Valtr had to wear a dress and pretend to be their biological bother dsjfhdsfdsh

But for the most part he was not able to properly care for his adopted babies; Viola was exceptional case that stayed close enough. Most of the orphans under his protection were wandering around looking for their purpose, and Arianna was like this. She clinged to Crow of Cainhurst, trusting him as the only remaining hook with her Cainhurst past, but he did not feel qualified or interested enough to play a dad for her - something he regretted upon meeting Arianna again years later and seeing WHAT she has to do to survive.

I also think that Arianna reacting on female Hunter differently is not a homophobia (?) internalised in Yharnam, but remains of her mom teaching her that women are "superior"; she speaks from the standpoint that she doesn't pity men all that much, but would dread to 'dirty' a woman with something as questionable as a loveless sex. It is not something beyond her that men will be like animals, but she feels inferior compared to other women, and it really gets to her.

Ideas on Adella’s backstory!

Likewise an orphaned person. When she reached puberty, she was this 👌 close to attempting to sell her body, like Arianna, before she managed to get herself a place in the Healing Church. It happened on the rift when Choir fell from uhhh... "grace"?, as well as the daughter of the current Vicar, Norbert/Herbert, turned into a celestial kin together with the children she was overseeing there. As result, he was compensating by picking up every other child/teenager and raising them within the Healing Church's walls like an actually good dad figure. He saw how Adella was doing and basically dragged her in (punching the old bastard that did want to use her on the way).

The decision to become a Blood Saint and not just part of the staff was her own, though; she bought the narrative about hunters being brave and protecting people while it was choking out its dying breaths but still existing. So, she wanted to help people.

Localisation slightly messed this up, by making it sound as though Adella has severe insecurities regarding the quality of her blood, but that's not quite the case:

Whereas the religious 'we all must admit we are sinful by nature and should bash ourselves all of our lives' vibe might apply, within the original context it seems to be that she is insecure about having to do it in 'battlefield' conditions rather than in the setting of great religious reverence it SHOULD be. Like, all she does is extracts her own blood in a vial. She only talks with us in Yahar'gul if we convince her we are Healing Church staff too; so, she still thinks we ARE one of their hunters. It seems like internal Healing Church rules about 'proper' blood sharing are what makes her feel "vulgar", not her blood overall.

Adella mentions a friend she could possibly turn to during the night of the hunt if we refuse to tell her of the safe place, and I made it be a person you pick black church garb from in the alley where Arianna is. It is a shrodinger character, of course, because it is a gendered set, but I default all sets to 'male' because default Paleblood Hunter is some guy with grey hair and I love using this as "official" option! The window NPCs in this area mention "thanking" the Church in a rather passive-aggressive and fake manner, that makes me feel like the guy was killed here out of spite. I think he is Adella's EX that she still keeps clinging to, and... well, he was in this area because he wanted to help Arianna by telling her of a safe place, as he had a bad feeling about this night. Again, irony.

What would a Discord with the original Byrgenwerth scholar gang look like?? xD

Pfffft you mean if they made a small group Discord server for familiar people only? Laurence would be a moderator, that nobody asked for, because it is a small (mostly) closed Discord group and not an official server... But he'd insist on bringing some discipline and civility anyway.

Server would have expected standard channels for drawings, research notes, general chat, jokes/memes, debates, Rom's (daily) pictures of the bugs and spiders, vent and announcements... Except, they would have to create more and more debate channels all the time, because every time it'd be either Caryll and Laurence, or Micolash and Julie cluttering the debate channel so much and refusing to stop. xD Like, they'd have to spawn new debate channels just so other people could have a talk too sdfhhdfds

Damian would share health / self-care advices regularly, like "don't forget to hydrate!" or "10 advices to avoid studying burn out!" and tell others to stay safe and not overwork. Unfortunately, nobody follows his advices. He also always answers everyone in vent channel.

Rom tends to overwhelm any channel when she is online by spamming whatever she is thinking about, but nobody tries to stop her because she tends to accidentally drop something useful, like a solution to the homework, or a significant breakthrough. They have a locked channel accessible for everyone except for Rom and Yurie/Julie, where they discuss Rom's ramblings as they happen and decide what to take from her without credit :(

Micolash sometimes has mad ramblings, similar to Rom but HIS are unhinged and genuinely creepy and disturbing. They have a locked channel accessible for everyone except for Micolash, Damian and Rom, where they laugh at his wording or mock how weird he is :(

Patches is only active in the server to promote the shit he's selling or questionable links, but if anyone gets scammed and calls him out on the server, he gaslights them that he did them all a favour and showed with a concrete example how important it is to know basics of the internet safety xD And might accept their apology for getting mad at him, if he's feeling nice fhshfdhsfds

Thank you for asking! It was a trip dshfhds

[maraschinotopped]

explosion sfx. bomber shitennou pmv!

aka first ever pmv baby!!! i started working on this back in february and finished it. today! not jawdroppingly good by any means (probably bc all the drawings were made via my phone without a stylus and was worked on in between school stuff lol) but by god i feel like i am now unstoppable. i know how to make pmvs now. i have so much power.

i already have 2 other ideas for pmvs you people will never see the end of me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[zenjestrr]

the benefit of downloading a skyrim modpack knowing very little about what's in it barring the broad strokes graphical and gameplay changes is that you run into all sorts of new shit you didn't expect. it's the closest I'm gonna get to playing Skyrim blind

[discoreptile]

Wee ha

[kayden-i-guess]

Was doodling and accidently made Rachel.

[gailynovelry]

It's kind of incredible, noticing how many scenes / moments I cut from Shadow Herald and yet still remember as core pieces of context for how the story works.

[fdragon-art]

Day 131 - Map Madness

"...how the hell should I make this look??"

[zylev-blog]

Batman opened the door, catching the falling body that had come out of the tube. Glowing green Lazarus water flowed around his feet, but he didn’t care. He gently laid the boy onto the ground, listening for breathing sounds. But he wasn’t even sure if his species could breathe. The boy was no older than Tim, with stark-white hair, and pale green skin. The boy wasn’t human, that was for sure, but as to what species he was, Batman had no clue. The teenager hadn’t even opened his eyes since being removed from the tube.

The Lazarus water didn’t smell quite like the pits he was used to. The water smelled cleaner, stronger. Less like battery acid and more like a strong-scented cleaner that he couldn’t give a name to.

He grasped the boy by the shoulders as he picked him up bridal style. He needed to take the boy to the cave, and figure out if he was even alive. A regular hospital wouldn’t be able to do anything for him.

“Batman, we’ve apprehended the last of the men in white suits.” Red Robin said over the comms.

“Good,” His voice was gruff, “Make sure they don’t escape before police arrive.”

Tim didn’t bother saying anything else to him. Neither of them were in the mood for jokes. Not after what they had seen tonight. They had stumbled across a lab in Gotham in an abandoned warehouse. They had thought that it was a Joker hideout when they first arrived, but they had quickly found out that wasn’t the case. After they had began to investigate, they had found corpses of many people that had been thrown into a pit. The bodies had evidence of vivisection, torture, and experimentation. The bodies had ranged from children to adults, but the results were all the same. They were all dead.

They had found tubes like the ones used at Cadmus. They held a few humanoid-species, but most of them looked like they were in varying stages of death. The only tube that looked like it held someone living had been the teenage boy he now held in his arms.

The worst thing about all of this were that they had no idea what this place was, what they were doing, or why they were in Gotham. They had stumbled in by mistake.

He had a lot of work to do.

“No survivors.” Nightwing’s voice sounded. Not even Dick was in a good mood anymore, and he had been joking around for the last few hours.

Batman looked down at the boy in his arms. The boy hadn’t stirred once, hadn’t moved, and hadn’t breathed. He might be carrying a corpse for all he knew.

“And the files?” He prompted.

“Downloading.” Red Robin’s voice was grim. “You’re not going to like it.”

He didn’t like anything about this situation already. How could it get any worse?

“From what I can tell from skimming through the files,” Red Robin continued, “They were experimenting with people’s souls. They killed all of these people because they wanted to catch their ghost.”

“Hrrn.” He looked away from the teenager in his arms. Maybe he didn’t have a corpse in his arms—but a ghost. A ghost of a teenager he failed to save.

What if it had been Tim lying in his arms? Dick? Jason? Damian? Did this teenager have parents before he died, or were his parents in the pit?

The boy stirred, whipping Bruce’s attention back to him. The boy moaned in pain, starting to writhe in his arms.

“You’re safe now.” He said to the boy. “You’re saved.”

“Nnnngh.” The boy opened Lazarus green eyes to look at him. The eyes were hazy, as if exhaustion plagued them. “Batman?”

“They won’t hurt you ever again.” He promised.

“Where is my sister?” The boy asked. “They took her.”

Dick’s words played on repeat in his mind. No survivors. But the boy didn’t need to know that. Not yet.

“We’re still searching the base. She’ll be here somewhere.” He lied.

The boy closed his eyes, letting out a deep sigh. But even with Bruce watching him, the boy did not breathe. Maybe he didn’t need to anymore. Tears leaked down the boy’s cheeks, as if he knew Bruce’s lie.