TURN NINETEEN: FACE THE DARKNESS (END OF CHAPTER TWO!)
Yes, that is correct. We're ending Chapter Two and heading on to Chapter Three now. Wasn't that quite a long chapter?
I will recap the events of Chapter Two at the start of Chapter Three.
But for now, sit back and enjoy.
"Aright then." Diana then cracks her neck(the head tilt thing, not going behind someone and snapping their neck.) and pulls on the feeling to release a wide angle wave
Diana CrownStarting off without missing a beat, you raise your arms and level your hands in an arc to your front. [4+1] Trusting in your feelings, you draw the energy up from a deep well inside of you and let the energy flow from your fingertips. A wide net of crackling electricity spreads out in front of you, lighting the entire area up with an aura of power and the feeling of light. The wolves begin drawing back, clearly discomforted by your display of power. You take the opportunity and flick your fingers outwards, allowing the energy to fly in all directions.
[5+1-1][5+1-1][6+1-1][3+1-1] The electricity courses through the wolves with incredible results. Most of the wolves howl in unison as you feel their darkness dissipate, and three of them disintegrate completely in front of your eyes. The good news is that these wolves don't seem to be organic, as they left no remnants after your shock. The bad news is, there is still one wolf left, and he is enraged now. Despite his slick, black fur, you can now see that you've scorched the left side of his body and caused him to walk with a limp now. Oddly enough, the part of his body that is scorched does not seem to have anything beneath it. That is, he seems to be almost...
empty.[
4-1v
4] The wolf begins to retaliate with his own powers. He howls into the darkness and draws vines of pure black ink out of the ground, shooting towards you. Being alert, you see the vines coming for you and dodge to the right side, the vines shooting past your face. You draw up a little blade of electricity and cut most of the vines away, leaving them dead on the ground and dissolving, just like the other wolves. You can now hear a high shrill from the remaining wolf, who now has bleeding red eyes and an open jaw full of blood.
"Oh, you've angered my puppy! Be careful, now. He isn't so cute when he's mad..."[color]
Continue trying to stop their fighting. Fill their heads with nonstop messages about the benefits of peace, and if that still fails, images of kittens doing kitten stuff.
RuneYou begin trying to send them even more messages of maybe not breaking the island into microscopic little pieces now. Unfortunately, your failing is even more apparent this time. You don't even get them to stop and take a moment to think where this voice in their head is coming from: they just keep going at it, exchanging blows of fantastic flames of fire and projectiles of ice.
It doesn't seem that your messages of love and peace matter, however. The fiery, emaciated one has decided to retreat into the volcano and escape the storm of crystals made by his opponent. He seems to be one step away from death, having cuts and deep wounds all over his body. He is even losing his electric, red-tinted wings, failing to keep his level of flight while escaping. For now, it would seem that their fight has been finished, which means you're at a lesser risk of death. You're pretty far from the lava flow anyways; most of the lava has either moved down to the shore or into the forest surrounding Aecrocia. No longer entertained by the fight, you order your golem minions to walk you to the center of the Magis Kingdom, and arrive in no time at all.
You wish you hadn't.
Bodies. Bodies, as far as the eye can see. It was a massacre. You don't know if it was from the two elemental wizards who fought above or the invading army, whoever they were. Everyone seems to be either dead or gone now. As far as you know, the Magis Kingdom is dead now. Gone. Extinct. Merely decomposing corpses and dust inhabit the great Hermit Kingdom, whose secrets shall never be known now. You never had much interaction with society, but now you can feel a slight tinge of pain for the people who died here. It must have been at least a thousand, maybe two or three thousand people who perished in the Magis Kingdom alone.
There are a few stragglers here and there, but none of them really look alive. You can't tell the military invaders apart from the survivors of the Kingdom. They all look no different from the bodies lining the gray streets.
Hum along with the child. Watch what's happening outside, unless things are getting overly heated out there, in which case drag children and their mother away from any windows.
Eh AhYou keep the child company in his lonely worry for his mother. Without much to do, you take a bit of time to study the faces of the two children. The older of two, the one who is humming, has somewhat long, jet black, and unkempt hair that nearly blocks his eyes. Speaking of his dark eyes, they seem to harbor an extraordinary sort of intelligence and curiosity. He is pale overall, but doesn't seem to be sick or dehydrated. He looks innocent for the most part, but he also seems like he calculates everything he does. Quite odd for a kid who is currently humming to a simple tune with you.
The younger child is a girl with very light hair that drapes down to her waist area. She also has light blue eyes and similarly pale skin, but her eyes are what set her apart from her brother. Rather than being dark and intelligent-looking like her brother, she looks like she has a certain creativity within her and a carelessness of the situation at hand. This might just be because she is young, but she still presents a stark change compared to her older brother.
An odd pair of children, they are.
As you are studying the children, you are startled by a sudden cry.
"STOP IT, STOP IT, DON'T HURT HIM! ARTEMIS!"The woman sits straight up, with eyes wide open and tears streaming down her face. She breaks down and begins crying into her hands, the children merely staring up at her.
Even though you cannot see it, the windows let in a dim, dark blue light which covers the roof.
Additionally, despite not being able to see her either, a ghostly girl sits at a bench in the backyard of the house, watching the events unfold, taking in the situation.
Freeze all air in a ten mile radius, except for the air around me
Alex Raman[6x
3] You draw in power from the surrounding waters and bring your hands close to your mouth. Instead of trying to hit him using sheer force through spikes of ice, you decide to try something a little unorthodox - if there is even anything that would come close to being "orthodox" within the scene of elemental supercharged fights in the air. You make a cup with your hands and blow cold air through your hands, creating a small ball of incredibly dense ice crystals, all packed closely together. You then spread your hands out and let the ice crystals out, said crystals now flying freely around you and incredibly far away. In a matter of half a minute, the entire sky is covered by tiny crystals of ice, the air being heavily closed out by the ice itself. You look towards your opponent, and the ice is having excellent impact on your opponent.
He is caught up within the heart of the ice cloud, coughing and gasping for air with the fire around him already put out. It even seems like he is losing his energy, with his red wings already dissolving behind him. It isn't too long before he begins falling towards the volcano, grabbing the air for anything solid that he could hold on to. He seems stunned that a simple trick like that could entirely disable him, though that might also be because he's lost quite a lot of blood beforehand.
You feel as if you are slowly losing out on your energy, too. It takes a lot to keep you flying in the air, let alone to be covering the sky in ice crystals like snowflakes. You have to look for somewhere to land safely soon; you do not feel that you have enough energy to keep you in the sky.
"Liri, and I'll check for you. My friend will stay here instead."
In truth, Lirian was quite wary of helping or giving her name to the child--but after all, he was a child, and from what he had just experienced? She didn't see much from concealing anything from him.
Though she was interested in this friend of his. Where was he at this hour? That and the ideas of what that kitten said earlier was interesting her.
Tilun?
Keep to the shadows to inspect those papers. Watch and examine the house for any descriptive ornaments or idea of how the culture is, or probably anything to give a better idea of the place.
Examine Cromwell's kitten.
LirianYou exit the small house while Cromwell keeps Deon busy. To your left is the opening that you came through in order to get to this block. In front of you is the house that the boy was in earlier, and to the right of you are two other houses. Between these two houses is an alleyway which leads farther into the town-village hybrid. Since it is possible that people may enter from the alleyway, you position yourself next to the house on the right and peek into the alleyway. As far as you can tell, there is no one there except for a small dog sniffing around in the trash receptacles. You begin crossing over to the other side... and the dog begins barking at you. Slowly at first, but then he picks up and barks at a steady rate, and loudly. You try to get the dog to go away, but he persists and remains near you. You don't want to attract any attention and get the three of you in trouble, so you pick up the remains of a small fruit near the trash bins and throw it over the opening where you came from. The dog, fortunately enough, follows and begins barking elsewhere. As long as it's not near you, it's good enough for now.
After crossing the alleyway, you crouch near the window to the house that the boy was talking about. After making sure that the surrounding area is clear, you take a look inside. The decor seems to be mostly taking advantage of the wooden structure's brown color by adding different carvings and intricate decorations, either made out of wood or fabric with different shades of brown. Other than that, the house seems to be relatively simple and efficient in design. As far as you can see, there is nothing electronic here; yet you can see some complicated-looking mechanical devices on various counters and on the walls. There is also a pile of clothes folded neatly on a tabletop. The clothes seem to look plain and functional - almost like
hakamas, but with more purpose than formality.
The final thing you see, and probably the most important to you, is a stack of papers on top of a small plastic box. The box has a warning label printed on it:
WARNING: TYPE IV DANGEROUS SUBSTANCE
ESTHENIS; DO NOT CONSUMEAssuming this is what you are supposed to bring to Deon, you hop through the window, carefully look around, and take the box and papers. It is merely a short walk back before you get back to Deon and Cromwell.
Alright. Not much to work with. Just my two bare hands, miles of desolate wilderness, and vaguely-defined but presumably mighty and versatile supernatural powers. Not looking too good.
Attempt to turn the iguanas back to normal. If that fails (okay, when that fails), run and try to get the local flora to ensnare the monstrous "lizards".
Warren DrakeYou turn around and
face the darkness once again. You hope to all that might or might not be sacred and holy at this time that you're able to make something happen here, and you're not about to get eaten by ravenous flesh-eating reptiles. Raising your hands, you take deep breaths and begin to think about a place with more life than here. Something that will charge your mind, give your spirit hope here. That voice did say you were the Guardian of Life or something, so it's worth a try.
"Ah, accepting your fate, are you? SHADOWS, CONSUME HIM!" You ignore the voice and focus on your inner core. You can feel the heat within your mind now, fighting against the cold darkness emanating from the iguanas and their dark spirits. You can hear them now. They shriek, one after another, and begin pacing towards you. They shriek even louder now. You open your eyes and see that they are all writhing around on the moist, marshy floor, and seem to be... flashing?
Yes, they seem to be switching from their empty darkness to their old selves again. It seems as if the iguanas had their minds taken over by this darkness, but you can't tell why this was necessary. Why now? More importantly, why you? You focus harder and try to get them to switch fully, but they seem to have difficulty fighting off these... Shadows, the voice said? Speaking of the voice...
"Ohhh... I understand now, Guardian of Life. I shall seek you out another time, but for n-"Just before you can contemplate some more on what the heck these iguanas were possessed by, a figure streaks by and jumps into the darkness.
"RRRRUUUN!"Darzenis. Oh, Darzenis. You can tell that he's fighting something within the darkness, but you can't tell what it is. You look back to the iguanas and they seem to have been pacified, still fighting between their two states.
"RRRUN, SSSTUPID!"Oh, yeah. That. What Darzenis said.
Cromwell returns Lirian's glance, and nods understandingly.
"Yeah, don't worry, she knows what she's doing."
Cromwell settles in and gets comfortable.
"So who's your friend that you mentioned? Oh, and you can call me Jack, by the way."
Cromwell JacksonDeon shifts around and pauses for a moment before talking once again.
"Uhm, my friend is a nice person overall. Works and lives up at the biological studies outpost at the other side of the town, I think. I'm sure that my friend would give you somewhere to stay, don't worry."Lirian enters and closes the door quietly, with a labeled box and some papers in her hands. Deon's face lights up when he sees what Lirian has, and lets out a sigh of relief.
"Oh, thank you, thank you so much! I really needed to get this to my friend, it is important." He takes the items from Lirian and inspects the box before looking back to the two of you.
"Alright, we'll leave for my friend's place whenever you two would like. Um, do you need anything else before we leave? I could get you guys something from the town. Just... thanks for everything. I 'preciate it, thank you."' Deon smiles up at you and sits back in the chair, ready to leave when you want.
Cecil shivers unconsciously, replying out loud to the maleficent voice around him, "H... Hello. Who might you be?" He asks, trying to keep his cool.
Cecil G. Palmer"Actually," the voice begins in a soothing yet creeping tone,
"I do believe that it is not who I am that would interest you, but what I am."The wind swirls around you and wraps you up in a sort of cool melancholy. It is both reassuring and frightening feeling, just like a Siren's call. You feel a presence behind you and you whirl around to see what this voice comes from.
In front of you, you find the Empress of the Theyin Empire staring right at you. Well, it
seems like her, but not so at the same time. It seems like it is a mere shadow of what the Empress actually is; her face is dark and empty-looking, and her clothes are pitch black. She smiles a vampire's smile and has one hand on her hip, one hand holding her pistol nonchalantly. There is one thing that you can tell with certainty: this is not Seira Theyin.
No, this is something much, much worse.
"Would you oblige me in one teensy eensy request? I would like to show you what your home looks like now... what the glory of Aecrocia has become. Oh, because I know it all... I see it all, just like you see it all, Guardian of Fortune. You are simply waiting for your time, and I shall give you a sneak peek of your fate. Your oh-so glorious fate, intertwined with the fate of your own home island.
"So, shall we... Mister Palmer?"
Author's Note: Well, I hope that most of you are getting well acquainted with the certain darkness that seems to be bothering some of your characters now. Other than that, not much to say.
So, good luck and good morning/night for all of you,
Artemis.
Author
Topic: Roll To Medium: Awakening [Chapter VI] (Read 145864 times)