It is a perfectly normal evening, the sun set an hour ago, the frigid cold of the Arx winter ensuring the windows are tightly closed, the fire in the hearth is burning merrily. Anouk and Anais are both present, each sitting at opposite ends of the couch, quills scratching away at their parchments as they take notes. All is well within the Mother's Den. What is Sophie doing?

Sophie's not in her office, but the door between her bedroom and office is open. There's white aeterna cushion before a small brazier and Sophie is kneeling there in meditation. Anouk and Anais chatter quietly, and otherwise it's quiet in the suite that Sophie usually inhabits inside the House of Solace, as it has been lately. Sophie has been meditating much more than usual lately, and as a result there hasn't been a whole lot of activity in her life, save the few people she's closest with.

Sophie checked perception at difficulty 15, rolling 5 lower.

Despite the brazier and the hearth within Sophie's office gets steadily colder. It's hard to say when it got so cold, but the temperature grows increasingly chill. The light from the brazier seems to dim. The retainers are still at work, though their voices have fallen silent.

There is a slight ripple through the air, a wind with no window, and as that gust moves past Sophie, there is an almost imperceptible voice, "I seeeeeeeee youuuu."

Sophie glances over her shoulder, looking around her bedroom. Her brow furrows, and she shifts to look through the entiredly of her bedroom. She rises slowly, and reaches for the robe that's hanging on a hook near her door, pulling it on, and wrapping it tightly around herself. She shakes her head, murmurs to herself, "Great, now I'm hearing things..." and she makes her way toward the window to make sure it's closed all the way. When she finds it sealed tightly she hmm's quiet and calls out to Anouk and Anais in the next room, "The temperature outside must have dropped quite a bit. Do you feel that?"

There is no one visible in her room and when she arrives, the window is tightly closed. When she turns to call out to Anouk and Anais, she finds them both standing in the doorway, staring in, at Sophie. There is something inherently *wrong* about them, something in the body language, the way they hold themselves. Each has their head tilted at an angle opposite one another. Their eyes are faintly blue, their lips slightly parted.

Sophie looks at them oddly and she takes a step toward them. "Anouk? Are you ok?" Another step toward them.... "Anais... what's wrong?" She stops just out of arm's reach and she studies their eyes, their lips... and she reaches up slowly. She pulls the hairpins from her hair, sending the braid hanging down her back and she says, "Snap out of it, Ladies... we have work to do..." She has no idea how to actually use the hairpins in her hand, but she's gripping them tightly. Her free hand reaches for the Lantern of Lagoma that's sitting on the corner of the small table next to her bed.

The stance of the twins shift, one shoulder lifted, heads tilting further in the opposite direction. "Don't look." This from Anouk, her voice a low, raspy hiss. Her sister repeats the phrase, "Don't look." Their bodies move unnaturally, shoulders ticking, joints working in odd angles. "You will be a fool if you look. Stay away." Anouk rasps, "Let it go." Whispers Anais as they move into the room, slowly starting to approach Sophie, covering either flank.

Sophie steps back away from them, holding up the blessed Lantern of Lagoma toward them. Her nostrils flare and she lifts the sharpened hairpin in their general direction, murmuring, "Stop... don't come any closer." She takes another step backwards, there's a little whimper from the Mother Mercy as she utters a quiet prayer, "Lagoma.. help me. Please.." Her eyes flit toward the door of her bedroom and then back to the twins. "Anouk, fight it... Anais.. I know you can hear me... fight it.. whatever this is.." She's wielding the lantern like a weapon as she sways it back and forth between the two of them.

The change to their faces happens slowly enough to see each stage, see the lesions form on their faces, growing, spreading until their skin looks as thin as paper, bleeding and raw, their eyes shift to a milky white with a subtle blue glow. Their noses sloughing away as the cartiledge breaks down. "This is what awaits you, Mother, if you dare press." Anouk's voice is raspy, wheezing. "Mercy, what a joke." Anais says. They both continue to creep closer, lips melting into sneers. "You must give it up. Don't keep looking. We see you. We will always see you."

Sophie steps back again until her back bumps against the wall. The lantern is held further in front of her now, shoved toward Anais. "Looking for what?" Her voice is hesitant as their faces seemingly melt away and tears come to her eyes. She calls out more loudly now, "Lagoma... help me!" Then she's shouting more loudly, "Guards! Guards!" They might not hear her, of course.. there's an office between her and the Knights of Solace, the Templar guard, and the Valardin guards that are stations just outside, but that doesn't stop her from trying. One slash, poorly timed and aimed, of the hairpin is given in the direction of Anouk, but she doesn't touch her with it. The lantern, though, that she thrusts toward Anais like it's somehow a weapon too.

As the Lantern is thrust at Anais, the features of her face return to normal in a ripple pattern, drawing a scream and recoil from Anais before her face returns to the corrupted version. There is the sound of fists slamming on Sophie's office door, someone heard Sophie's shout. As the Lantern is thrust at Anais, Anouk lifts a hand and scratches Sophie, her nails elongated, raking the Mother Mercy's skin, drawing blood.

10 inflicted and Sophie is harmed for moderate damage.

Sophie recoils from the scratch and this time she doesn't stop when she's thrusting the lantern toward Anouk, she presses the hot glass of the lantern against her cheek roughly, screaming for the guards, "Guards!" She twists to get away from them, still wielding the lantern and the hairpin, but at least her back's not against the wall. She backs toward the small brazier she uses to meditate in her bedroom, the one lit from her lantern, which is lit from the enternal flame. The fire in the brazier might have gone low when this started, but it's still warm, and Sophie skirts around behind it as she tries to get away from them, putting it between her and the twins. She calls again, more loudly, "GUARDS!"

The pounding is getting louder, sounds of shouting from outside the office. When the Lantern is thrust against Anouk's face, there is a hiss and sizzle as the flesh begins to burn and smoke. The image of corruption fades, even as one final gasping snarl is made, "LEAVE ME BE!" Once that roar is made, the corrupted image in both the twins faces fades, and their bodies fall to the floor. Anais's right cheek is ruddy, blistered, but Anouk's face is a ruin of burns, the flesh seemingly melted on the left side. Both appear to be unconscious.

As the twins fall to the floor Sophie rushes through the doorway from her bedroom to her office, and she unlocks the door, flinging it open. Her first order is barked out harshly, "Don't hurt them!" Then she's calling loudly, "I need Mercies with burn salve and bandages!" To those Mercies that are currently on duty inside the House of Solace. Her own wound, while it drips blood down her arm, seems to be the last of her concerns, her attention instead returning to the twins to treat their wounds. "Something... was here." Her hands are trembling as she sinks to the floor next to Anouk and Anais. She leans in to start examining their wounds, but she doesn't touch them, either of them...

The wounds on Anouk's face are horrific, far worse than they should be for such a brief contact. The scars are likely to be quite damaging, still, the twins are out, pale and ice cold to the touch. The rooms are still cold, colder than they should be.

Sophie lifts her hand tentatively, breathing hard as she does, and she lifts her eyes to look around the room before she lifts a trembling hand and rests her palm on top of Anouk's burns. Tears start to spring to her eyes and she shakes her head. "I don't know what happened... I was meditating..and they.. and.." she flails with her free hand toward the wall where they had her trapped for that brief moment.

The guards hover near Sophie, a pair of them pacing the room, checking every corner, ensuring that nothing is out of place. Anouk's cheek is hot against Sophie's palm, the rest of her face icy. There is a flutter of Anouk's lashes, a stir and a whimpering groan. She comes close to the surface of consciousness, but does not wake. One of the guards checking the room picks up the ledgers the twins were working in, bringing them over to the Mother Mercy. Each one has the same phrase scrawled in increasingly erratic script, covering two pages. Written over and over, "I see you."

Sophie's nostril flares as she looks at the ledger, and she looks around the room, which still feels unseasonably cold, especially with the fires that burn in her office and her bedroom. She's angry, that much is clear and she calls out venomously the room at large, "Good! Take a good look because I'm coming after you! I hope you hear me too!" She lifts her hand from Anouk's face as Mercies arrive with salves and bandages and she starts to see to their wounds. It's not until one of the Mercies take her by the arm and pulls her away from them and starts to doctor her own wound that she even looks at it. She gives a little huff as she does.

All of the windows in the office and bedroom suddenly shatter inward, glass flying everywhere as a gale-force wind sends stinging snow pouring inside. There is a roar within the wind, an actual, echoing roar of sound. Every object within both rooms that is perched on a shelf or table is swept to the floor, jewelry boxes hit the floor, wardrobes teeter, desks threaten to flip. The sound is pure rage, making all of the guards whip around, staring, swords drawn.

Sophie screams and ducks behind a nearby Knight of Solace, pulling the Mercy that was caring for her wounds with her. Sophie looks around her room, full of shattered glass, and detritus. Her office is perhaps the hardest hit, because there's much more to land on the floor in there, countless shelves of books, ledgers, and journals, chairs toppled, papers related to Mercy business blown everywhere. The entities rage is mimicked in her own eyes as her hands ball up into little fists and even through all the chaos her voice rings loud, "I'm not afraid of you!" Which, from the sound of the tremble in her voice isn't completely true.