TURN THIRTY: GHASTLY HORIZONS
Eh Ah
"Well, to be honest, Your Majesty, perhaps purple hair is not the detail we should focus on, since it is in all likelihood a poor dye job or, failing that, sinister magic at work. And the child did not seem very unusual, apart from the rather obvious fact that he seemed to be up to something, which fits the general description, I believe."
As he regards the Atisi village, he finds their general spirit invigorating. People rebuilding, working.
"I suppose the first thing to do, ma'am, would be to look for the village elder, shaman, or similar person of authority, and then speak as equals on this matter."
Eh AhYou watch as the various guards from the Empress' group spread out to, presumably, secure the area. You can see that most of the Atisi people are still apprehensive about interacting with the Theyin guards, but they do not show any noticeable amount of resistance. At the very least, you do not see any armed Atisi soldiers anywhere, which may or may not be a good thing. Nevertheless, the Atisi villagers still carry on, despite the presence of the troops.
You look back towards Seira, who is kicking up some dirt from the forest floor. She seems to be processing your words of advice. She chuckles and begins to speak once again.
"That is indeed very much a possibility. Despite that, I would still need to see this kid before I'm convinced that he's the other half of my dreams. If he is that freak, however, then I have a lead to follow." She looks toward the tall, wooden house on the edge of the village circle. You follow her gaze and see nothing out of the ordinary with the house. However, its size and the strange closed look of the house does seem to hint that this may be where the village leader is.
"Search the village center. See if you can find anyone important, Eh Ah," she orders to one of her guards and to you.
"The rest of you, follow me. I've a little more than a blind feeling about that tower over there."
Warren Drake
"I see. Show me these books, if you will. And maybe a little more food."
Warren DrakeShe nods excitedly before hurrying back inside to retrieve her stuff. You notice that she is quite energetic and very kind, despite not having known you for more than half an hour at most. What's even more intriguing is her odd choice of living space. She doesn't seem to be much older than a teenager would be, though she is living on her own among the trees and the wild animals. You wonder if she does indeed actually have someone else to be with, or if she's lived here her whole life. Either way, you're glad that she was able to provide food and water for you, even though your chances of survival were pretty low at the time.
You see her emerge back from the tree with a couple of aged books and some nuts and berries mixed into a bowl.
"These are for you," she says quietly. Not wanting to disturb you anymore, she sets the bowl and the two books down in front of you and returns into the base of the tree. By the sound of her footsteps, she has not gone any farther than inside of the door itself, waiting to see what you do.
You look down at the two books and examine their faded, stained covers. They almost seem like they could crumble if you breathed too hard on them. One has a brown hue and a faded yellow trim around the sides. The other is a deep navy blue and is in better condition than its sister book. The titles, as far as you can decipher them, are
"Urus to Raccoons: the Guide to Jaudian Animals!" and
"Windows to the Sea of the Soul." Peculiar title choices at that, though considering you have not read these books yet, it would be best to hold judgement 'till a later time.
Above you, gray clouds stretch from one end of the sky to the other. The entire world would seem to be brooding at this time.
((Sorry for missing a turn! D:))=
Eleri
You feel the warmth of the sunlight running softly on your face. There is a cool breeze running up from the ocean today. You hug your tail close to your body and open your eyes to the dawn outside. You are sitting on the right side of the doorframe, just inside of this small house. There are some wooden window-frames with no panes in them. The dirty, old, wooden floor beneath you creaks at every small movement. This is not your home, and you know that. You get up to your feet and lean on the doorframe, examining the ghost town outside. The building you woke from is on the side of a dusty brick path that slopes downhill towards the ocean. You can see a couple of familiar, beige-colored brick houses on both sides of the path. These houses are also windowless and have empty doorframes, save for the occasional broken window or rotten door. The brick path gradually peters off and stops completely after winding up the hill and into the forest for a few meters past the treeline. In the opposite direction, the brick path continues down into a circle that contains an old, dry fountain. This circle is lined with several additional brick houses, all similarly unoccupied and worn-out. The path ends with this circle, as there is a steep drop from there into the small strip of sandy beach and the ocean tide below. This path of buildings lasts about two-hundred meters or so from the treeline to the ocean. It is completely abandoned, except for one particular girl who has been misunderstood and alone for the longest time.
You, the stowaway. The one who constantly tried to interact with other humans, yet was always treated as a freak of nature. As far as you could see, no one else was born with a tail and had fox ears. You were feared by any village that you tried to visit and hunted in vain, as you escaped from them time after time. Yet, that was the extent of your interaction with other humans - always escaping. Instead of letting the cycle take you over, you wanted to have peace and quiet on your own. You boarded a ship leaving the port of Kharo. It didn't matter where you went, as long as you were able to live without fear of others. When you arrived on the island, you sneaked off and traveled through the forest, ignoring the research outpost on the island. If they found you, they would treat you the same way as the others had treated you. It took you several days, but you found your way to this ghost town, and now, it's the only place that you may actually call home.
This is your eighth day on the island.
You've gathered some dry fruits from the forest around the ghost town. It's not much, but it's enough to sustain you for a few days or so. You have a nice source of water uphill, as there is a small spring near the top of a hill not too far from you. Seeing as you don't have any fresh water with you currently, this would be a good time to fetch some water from the spring. As for supplies, you have a bucket, a couple of long branches, and a bowl of fruit that you've stored in a house nearby. It's not much, but it's certainly a good start, despite your new arrival on the island. This is your opportunity to begin your life anew. No one will hunt you down here. No one can be afraid of you, now that they can't see you.
Your name is Eleri. You might not belong with other humans, but one thing is for sure:
You will create your own future now, and no one can stop you.
It was a multitude of creatures that passed by Eleri as she sat by the seashore. Some were calm and docile, while others were hesitant, and hurried in their movements. There were some that were calculative, taking strides of quick movement before stopping and adjusting their stance--all thoughts, dressed in the skins of images, ones which breathed life through meaning and were characterized by their value and impact on her. Eleri was a kitsune, as ascribed by lore she once heard, once read, but never held in tangible form. She was introspective at these times, and saw her thoughts as she sensed the world around her. Sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch; her thoughts coursed through her mind like a waterfall, but words were not enough to describe where the thoughts were going, nor where they came from. Each passed in turn as Eleri focused on the skies, the waters and the clouds; heard the crash of the subtle waves and the soft breath of air in and out of her mouth. Eleri pondered upon that which was, and from that came which was to be. She looked at the present, and wandered her memory through time immemorial.
A soft touch fell upon her hand. She turned to look at her tail, sometimes forgotten on where it went in these moments of contemplation. She wondered how ordinary women would feel without it--would it be so normal that they would both feel it and...not feel it? Her hand traveled towards her head, and she felt her ears--how would it feel for these to be only a few inches lower, and a couple times less sensitive to the wind and rain. It was like touching the back of your hand, they said, and not like a touch to the neck or the nose.
The trivial nuances presented themselves every day, at a time unprecedented--she only needed to pay attention to one or the other 'creatures' which passed her mind, those which were exotic yet...disfigured. She did not understand why people, though probably not all, would not accept her. She could speak in the common tongues. She could read, though it was rough and self-developed. She could walk and jump and run and tumble like anyone else.
She wondered why people were like this, despite the teachings of one of their own.
Eleri stood up and turned around, trying to make sense of these tranquil times. A time of reflection and the abundance of thought and words; it was a jumble and a mix, though with direction all throughout.
She made a decision. It was another day to see what she missed before. The path to the spring brought untold amounts of beauty--though easily described as 'everything off the path'. Such a sight had much more meaning to her, though she was unsure if this was due to her loneliness, or to the lack of visual attraction elsewhere. She remembered the person who had taught her philosophy and humanism and their inherent values, despite the seemingly...contradictory name. He had taught her to look around the path she will take in life.
Is this where I go? Continuous? Cyclic?
The woman cast her gaze along the shore and spotted several bricks sitting aside. She chuckled to herself. Such a creation made to house and keep people safe, could also be cast onto others and inflict pain, yet only away from its original purpose. Alone.
Such reflection and metaphysical understandings. How alone will I be before-...ngh.
Eleri bent down and picked up her bucket, focusing her thoughts by taking a deep breath. It was time to fetch water once more.
To the Spring! Admire the scenery around me! What do I see along the way?
EleriAfter your reflection on the waking hours of the morning, you set off to the task of collecting water. It's rather convenient to have the spring of water nearby, helping you to be able to survive on your own like this. In reality, however, you are not truly alone. The animals that occasionally stop by the ghost town keep you company for a short while every day, and the ocean waves resonate the everlasting song that the wind delivers upon the water's surface. Yet you have known no human companion to date, and the way your life seems to be heading now, fate does not seem to favor you in the grand scheme of things. Despite this, you still carry on, bucket in hand, to keep your life going.
Even if there's only a small chance to experience true life, where you will not be distanced due to your form compared to other humans, you will chase it to the end.
You climb up along the side of the hill at a diagonal path, taking your time and admiring the environment around you. The low, grey clouds have moved in and blotted out most of the blue sky, though there are some open spots here and there. Today is not as warm as the last few days have been, which is welcome in your eyes. The trees become higher in frequency as you make your way farther inland. Occasionally, you come across some wild squirrels or insects searching bout in the dense grass, though it is relatively quiet, you have noticed. As you move up the hill, you finally hear the quiet running of the freshwater spring that is located under an overhang on the other side of the hill. You become so entranced by the sound of the water that you almost don't spot the small patches of red on the ground, and the displaced dirt and mud beneath your feet. Something was here, and it bled.
You notice that the red stains on the ground are in a very loose line going around to the side of the spring. You're currently on the hill below the spring. About forty meters up is the spring itself. That is also where the red trail is leading towards.
raise my hands, but secretly move and lift ice so that the soldiers will trip and get injured.
Alex RamanMuch fun will be had in tripping the soldiers over the own feet, using the snow and ice to block their path. They won't even know what hit them. You back up a few feet and put your hands up in a show of surrender. As they begin to approach you, you see your opportunity to put your powers to use. Without giving away what you are about to do, you make small twitches with your fingers upwards, focusing on the ice and snow in front of you and willing it to move from its current position.
At first, you notice that a few of the ice crystals are beginning to force their way upwards in small, fragile spikes, which signals to you that your power is at least partially functioning still. Your breath is still a bit heavy from forcing yourself under the ice, but you do believe that you'll be fine. You can see the soldiers struggling a bit to navigate around the ice spikes and beginning to question why these spikes are popping up. Unfortunately, however, you are not collecting enough ice to make a noticeable difference in the troops' actions. They're almost on you now, questioning why you are out here in the first place. Your spikes didn't seem to slow them down at all, really.
"State your name and your house of residency. Civilians are not allowed outside of the wall at this time!"
Quickly set up a magma-forge using the lava from the cooking area, and any chunk of smooth rock as an anvil. Smelt some hematite using the magma, then quickly hammer it into the shape of an axe. Repeat this two more times. Give the axes to 3 golems, and command them to go chop trees to make supports. And instruct them to be careful not to crush themselves when the tree falls.
RuneSPD: 6
Set up the magma-forge using smooth rock: 2, speed units 6/2
Smelt hematite: Danger priority, speed units 4/1
Smith iron into Iron Axe: No suitable material!, speed units 3/1
Smelt hematite job cancelled, danger priority
Dodge: 5
No injuries sustained.
((Please do bear in mind that I do not have access to my computer at this time and I will not be able to view your stats. If you notice anything out of the ordinary with the rolls, please let me know and I will take a look.))
Now its time to set up the intricate parts of your factory production. First, you'll need a decent fuel for your forge, and since you have magma on hand, why not use what comes naturally from the ground? You move to set up the forge near the magma bed that you've already created, which will hopefully provide you with the energy you need without needing to transport the magma in unnecessarily complicated ways. You make your way over to the magma bed and you notice something that you didn't notice before. Due to the golems' continued mining, they have accidentally opened more of the magma chamber up, allowing a dangerous amount of it to continue flowing into the magma bed. Since the magma bed under the stone is quite shallow, it is beginning to overflow and seep out of the side door of the magma bed, arriving on the floor that you are currently standing on.
You leave the hematite atop of the magma bed and make your way over to the exit. Your golems are stationed on lower levels within the mine, so you begin checking on all of them to make sure none of them leaked any more magma. As far as you can see, all of the golems are fine. However, you have to work fast to stop the flow of that magma before you lose the progress you've made on the magma bed so far.
The magma continues to seep out of the hole, covering a small area of the factory with shallow magma. It is seeping at a relatively slow pace, so you should be able to handle it, but it is a danger nevertheless.
"Okay, since you seem so interested, I will give you a quiz, to see if you truly are listening and truly interested in my class. 1. Write an essay of all we've talked about in this class. 2. Describe to me what you wish to do with my knowledge in the future. 3. Describe to me an alternate universe which does not exist, but could very well exist, and come in contact with us, without us knowing. Answer these, today, right now, and I will allow you to access my books and studies of paradox. Seem fair?
After her answering the questions, tease her by acting unimpressed, then let out a smile, and let her study more on paradox, with a ten page essay due on it by the end of next month, of course.
Cat SchrodingerWithout missing a beat, you respond to her query by asking her three different questions about the paradox. It seems that you've gotten her even more excited than before.
"Absolutely, professor! Name your questions.""Write an essay of all we've talked about in this class.""Oh, of course, later-""Describe to me what you wish to do with my knowledge in the future.""Of course, I wish to follow in the footsteps of great philosophers like Sir Anders, who worked towards discovering the origin of different astronomical anomalies within our universe. That is something I can only hope to ever match in my life.""Describe to me an alternate universe which does not exist, but could very well exist, and come in contact with us, without us knowing. Answer these, today, right now, and I will allow you to access my books and studies of paradox."You can see her hesitation to answering this question. She stammers for a bit before recovering her thoughts.
"Well, I would assume that a different universe could very well have the same circumstances that surround our universe today. Maybe we'd still be humans, but we would have evolved with different physical and mental traits in order to appropriately adapt to the situation. Maybe we would be able to access certain abilities that we don't have now, or maybe we would have wings or fins to suit flight or diving. I'm not sure how modern situations and social norms would apply to these different universes, however. It all depends on the parameters for the creation of the universe."You hear the ringing of the bell behind you. It's time to leave the college, at least for now. You permit her to borrow a few of your books until the end of the month, where she must provide an essay on the theory of the existence of paradoxical universes and their interactions with one another. She immediately runs behind your desk and selects a few books with no hesitation at all.
"Thank you so much, professor! I promise I will return these in pristine condition!"You are left alone in the room after Reyna leaves. You are able to wander around the college and the town for now, as you don't really have anything to attend to at the moment.
Immediately outside, the hallway leads down to two different halls that further split down into different rooms for research and auditoriums. If you go straight down the middle hallway, you will eventually reach the outside of the building.
something's off here...
Step outside and look for Artemis's mode of transportation. include the possibility of him knowing the same trick I do of moving via shadows.
afterwards step back inside and ask if there is a task for me right now.
I need to prepare
If there is no task, then take my leave and go look over the town, familiarizing myself with the layout. After that, go into the woods outside of town and build myself a shelter someplace secluded. keep it small in size, using a lean-too design, the opening downhill to avoid the nighttime mountain breezes, and camouflaged to the surrounding environment by making it out of natural materials. after that build a safe firepit just a short distance outside the entrance.
(If you want I can go into more detail about shelter design, but it seems pointless right now)
I need to master this as soon as I can. It seems to be tied into how events are moving so rapidly
After that, practice using my abilities some more until it nears nightfall, then take a break and rest, waiting for full-dark.
And time to draw things out. This entire town feels like a trap. Everything has been too convienent, too easy. Someone or something is trying to lead me by the nose. Time to bring things to a head, before they manage to trap me.
Then once it is fully night, return to town and patrol through it once or twice, before returning to the Dr.'s place and searching the place over, attempting to figure out what he's hiding and why.
LirianYou know that you have to find out what this Artemis person does. You quietly exit the Kito Complex and stick near the forest line to the right of the hill itself. This will provide you a good view of the downslope leading down to the town itself, which should be where Artemis would be heading. You can see Artemis walking down the hill on the path that you predicted. He doesn't seem to be doing anything out of the ordinary, though he walks with a particularly odd step. You move to the left side of the forest line in order to follow him as he makes his way to the town.
You do this until he enters the town and disappears behind a line of buildings. As far as you observed, you did not notice any special behavior that would strike you as out of the ordinary. However, there are two things that you did notice about him: the first is that he has an oddly specific focus within his eyes, as if he is concentrating on something all the time. You can't tell if it is a look of stress, anger, frustration, planning, or just focus. The second thing that you notice is that you see the occasional flash of metal beneath his coat. By your guess, you think that he might have a blade of sorts under his coat, but you would need to get closer to confirm that. You try looking around the town for him while at the same time memorizing the layout of the streets. Unfortunately, you can't seem to locate him anymore after he vanished beyond the entrance to the town. However, you do get a good look at the buildings and the streets of the town. It's a rough memorization, but it should suffice until you get acquainted with the area.
((In a day or so, I will give you the visual map representation of the area that you have currently looked through and memorized. Different types of commercial and residential buildings will be marked.))
Finally, you make your way out of the town and decide that you need a place to stay outside of the Kito Complex. For this, you will create your own shelter in the treeline between the Kito Complex and the town itself. This treeline has a nice view of the town while keeping close to the Kito Complex. You manage to collect some brush and light leaves from the trees within the treeline, consuming much of your time in the afternoon, though it pays off. You also obtain a few branches and some dry pine needles that may be used for kindling later on. Hastily, you set up a small camouflaged shelter beneath a cluster of trees that masks your position quite well. Unfortunately, your shelter is little more than some branches holding up a light covering of leaves and brush, but it will have to do for now. You set the dry kindling down near base of the shelter and crouch at the edge of the treeline, observing the town below you.
The sun is beginning to approach the horizon now. You still have some time before night falls, but not much. You have no idea where Artemis went, but judging by some of the words that you caught during the end of Dr. Kito and Artemis' conversation, he may very well still be around the area.
UUUH
Go investigate boats. Do they look like the ones that blew up my radio station? Ask people what's up. If I don't get any answer I really like, see if I can actually read the mind of someone important at the docks.
You walk slowly along the water routes, looking at the small ferry boats making their way in and out of the grid pattern. Looking back up at the boats, you figure that these boats might be related to the same ones that targeted your island. One of main things that you identify about the boats is that they all carry the same symbol - the Delta Cross. You know that this is the symbol of the Jaunatne Coalition, so does this mean that the Jaunatne attacked your island?
You need to do some more investigation in order to find out the truth about what happened there. You approach the edge of the dock and will yourself to pull some thoughts from the people who are chatting and milling about, watching the ships prepare to either leave or dock on the far side of the city. Unfortunately, you get nothing but static. It seems that no luck was to be had with your ability to tune into the minds of other people. You do seem to feel a little tired, but you don't think that that should be affecting your mental performance now. Ah well. Looks like you're going to have to extract this information through conversation and charisma.
Hey, that's two things that you excel at. Why not give it a try?
Above you, gray clouds stretch over the entire sky, covering the sun and giving the whole city a moody feel now. You can't tell the exact time right now, but it seems to be sometime in the afternoon. You notice that a crowd is beginning to gather around the dock now, and people are starting to wonder why the boats docked at Makoi. You would also like to know that information soon.
Author's Note: Oh, how the evening sky is lovely today, is it not?
Well, we'll see what that means for us later. There is still much to do, too much IRL work to finish, and lateness to make up.
Anyhow, I hope you all have a great week,
Artemis.
Author
Topic: Roll To Medium: Awakening [Chapter VI] (Read 145688 times)