TURN FORTY-FIVE, PART ONE: LEARN, REACT, SWAY
Quick, before the day grows too late!
Seriously though, it's been a ride for me for these past few weeks. Fortunately, however, it's also that time of summer that allows me to write much more freely. Expect updates to be within the timespan of a week or less, if things go to plan.
(Though, as we know, Murphy's law is always in full swing.)
Hope you enjoy c:
~Artemis
THE FIFTH GENERATION
((You don't need to update all the time if you have things to do. Players will stay!))
Alex would carefully assess his situation. Alex would shoot the doctor with little hesitation. He had killed enough of these disgusting people who would attack and destroy his home. But he would think back. No. He destroyed his home. Nevertheless, he would drop the rifle to head to the back door.
Alex RamanYour aim is shaky. You can feel your hands moving unsteadily as the blood pumps through your head, sounding off with every beat of your heart. You try to keep your breathing as rhythmic as possible to feign confidence, but even that is uncertain. If the doctor was not a doctor, and instead was a guard or other professional, he would quickly notice your unsteadiness and might take that as a cue to disarm you. However, this doctor fears for his life more than he is willing to say right now. It looks like you still have the upper hand. You hover your finger over the trigger, still deciding whether or not you should dispose of this single witness.
For all you know, he is part of the Theyin Empire. They are the ones who invaded, who picked up your little island and shook it around, crumbling its soft foundation into a thousand little pieces. He may not be directly part of the combat, but he is contributing to the Empire's growth nonetheless. Still, something itches at the back of your mind. A faint memory is popping back up, surfacing out of murky waters. Ever so slowly, you begin to remember that part you played in the destruction of your island.
Your power is both a blessing and a curse. You don't know how exactly you were gifted with it. You don't know why you were tossed around and moved to this part of the world. But you do know that you took that power and used it with your anger. You saw how the volcano was bursting, lava flowing over the island. You weren't sure why. But you did know that there was another presence like yours - someone else had the same ability that you had, only reflected. Instead of ice, he dealt with fire.
In order to defend your island, you had to kill him.
But, in the midst of your anger, not everything went as you had planned. Inevitably, what ice you brought up to the skies had to fall down at some point. Additionally, the fire and lava thrown towards you also came right back down, on top of Atis. For a brief few moments after your battle, you laid eyes upon the wreck of Atis. It was in ruin. Your village had suffered. The entire island was dying in front of you. Before you could do anything, however, you lost control.
Now, you contemplate the life of someone who may not have even had anything to do with the expansion of the Theyin Empire. You think long and hard. For a few crucial seconds, your finger lightly skims the trigger. You can sense the fear coming from the doctor. Maybe he has someone to come back home to. Maybe he has a girlfriend or a wife and kids. Maybe he's lived a good life, or maybe it is not his time yet. That is something you do not know.
Sighing quietly, you back away and out of the door, taking your aim off of the doctor, but not saying a word. As soon as you are out of the room, you sprint to the opposite end of the hallway and begin searching for a way out.
The hallway splits to your left and right coming up. Behind you, you could go back to the front entrance, but you risk being seen by the guard. There are some rooms that are interspersed in the hallway you are currently in, but they don't seem to have any alternate ways to exit the building.
((This is being considered a half-turn due to not really having much in the way of physical movement, instead being replaced by a muse.))
"Erin, if I'm wrong, and your father doesn't know what I'm talking about when I speak with him later. I'll tell you. You deserve to know, and are wiser than your years... and don't call me ma'am. I like it when you call me Liri.
Sorry I was so harsh with you. It's... kinda a touchy subject for me. I wasn't much older than you are when it happened. I mean..."
I sigh
"Ok, I'll tell you what I can. Just... this could take a while. Lets go somewhere we can sit down."
her room would be good, might help me clear my suspicions of her. Why does she bother me now? before she felt normal to me, but...
LirianAs you begin apologizing to her, she turns around and approaches you once again. She listens to you with interest and a slowly-returning brightness in her eyes - perhaps from excitement, perhaps from curiosity. After you finish your statement, she spends a few moments quietly thinking to herself before looking directly at you and forming a slight smile on her face. With a tidbit of unsteadiness in her voice, she responds to you, saying,
"Don't worry about it, m- L-Liri." She seems to be a little uncomfortable with calling you "Liri" at this point, but not in a particularly bad way. She seems to be saying it slowly, letting it roll off of her tongue.
"I don't really understand much of what's going on, but I trust that my father will talk to you about this with honesty. He probably knows a lot more about these affairs than I do." She tries to widen her smile a bit more, though her eyes don't show the same emotion that her face does.
You suggest that you tell her a little about the situation, or at least some context surrounding it. However, she puts in front of her and waves, replying,
"Oh, no, don't worry about me for now. I don't have much to do with this, I think. Well..." - she appears to be fighting herself as to whether or not she should accept your offer -
"...maybe later, after you talk with my father. But I don't think it concerns me very much. If there is something for me, well, I would be glad to hear it. For now, though, I don't want to keep you waiting any longer. Please, go enjoy your meal for now. I have to prepare some things anyways. If you need me, just knock on the door to the hallway next to the dining room." She nods to you and turns around to start walking again, but catches herself and turns to speak to you again.
"I do appreciate that you considered me, though. Thank you. Is there anything else that you might need at the moment?" This time her smile seems to be more genuine than it was before. That feeling that you had before - of something that was off-putting - seems to have diminished a little bit. Still, you keep that feeling in the back of your mind. Instinct usually doesn't come up for no reason. However, she hasn't hinted at you that she might be involved with anything sinister. In fact, she's been rather hospitable since you arrived here.
Unfortunately, you're not able to find anything that would cause the unsteadiness. Instead of dwelling on it, however, you continue about your day.
((This will be pretty much a half-turn like with one of the turns above because it was just a dialogue response.))
"All right. Good to know."
Cromwell sighed, and looked at his food. He then looked over to the door that Lirian had headed through with their host, and thought about the idea of training more.
"We'll figure something out."
He went back to eating for now. Sometimes the best thing to do was to just bide your time.
Cromwell JacksonHaving ended your talk with the mysteriously-coherent cat, Tileno, you continue to eat quietly and think over your situation. Despite having received very vague answers, you feel like you understand a bit more now. At the very least, you now know that you have the support of Tileno and whoever follows along with him. You wonder to yourself: Is there a network of animals that works together to fight these Shadows? Maybe it involves humans, too. If there is indeed such a network, how would you go about finding where it is and where you could connect with them? You already have the ability to talk to felines, apparently; why not talk to other animals and see if you can get them on your side, too?
You stop your train of thought as you realize how stupid that would have sounded if you said it out loud.
Shaking your head, you continue to eat your breakfast. It's actually quite delicious, all things considered. After being thrown in the middle of nowhere, seeing your home come under assault by a foreign military, and experiencing your world being turned upside-down in the span of a day, you'd like to think that this turned out
okay. You're still very confused, but the information that Tileno provided, however small, was helpful.
Hopefully, you'll be able to find a way back home, and find out what your purpose is here all the same. Obviously, you weren't just dropped here randomly. The existence of dialogue between you and the cats proves that.
((You have freedom to move around if you want. Once again, pretty much a half-turn until I can catch up with some organization and time-sync stuff.))
Eh Ah
It was odd seeing Magis. Eh Ah hadn't been here before, at least not that he remembered. It looked... distressingly unbombed.
Shout for a gate guard to let me in, assuring that I am entirely harmless. If there's no reply, start walking along the length of the wall, looking for a spot where the artillery might have blasted into a more passable state.
("It looked distressingly unbombed..." Well, from what you can see, anyways.)
Eh AhYou spend a few more moments admiring the surprisingly clean state of the wall - at least, in comparison to the rest of the island. You would have imagined that the wall, or at least some parts of it, would have fallen during the bombardment. Still, you're only seeing one part of the wall. Perhaps there was more damage to be found at the other ends. Wishing to make your presence known to whoever resides here now, you shout out and announcing yourself as an unarmed visitor. As your voice bounces off of the wall and becomes lost behind you, you wait for a response to arrive. Several seconds pass by. Ten seconds more. Thirty. A minute. Nobody is walking on the top of the wall, nobody is calling back to you vocally, and nobody is opening up the gate. You call out again, repeating what you said before. Yet again, a minute passes without a response. Two minutes. Three. Still nothing. You listen carefully, but there is nothing there except for the ambient sounds of birds overhead, the swaying of trees, and the hollow sound of wind passing over you, almost like a soft whistling.
This goes against your previous thought of this place being occupied, and instead drives you to think that this place might indeed be abandoned. However, you're not so convinced yet. Instead of hanging out at this section of the wall and waiting for something to happen, you begin walking along the wall to the right and looking for an alternate entry path. It doesn't take long before you find what you're looking for in the distant part of the wall. In fact, this is what you expected to appear before.
In this part of the wall is a massive hole where the gray slabs used to be, with rubble falling down the side of the wall and onto the forest floor. As you draw closer, it appears that there are some scorch marks around the edges of the hole, signaling to you that this is probably the result of either the bombardment or the direct invasion attempt by the Theyin Empire. No matter the cause, it is low enough that you might be able to climb through it. If there is indeed anyone on the other side, you can simply explain that nobody was letting you in, so you had to invite yourself. Though you struggle to climb up the rubble a bit, it doesn't take you all that much effort to hoist yourself up and climb through the wall.
From here, you see... nothing in particular. At least, nothing that seems alive. Bombed-out buildings, decaying in their shells, stand with caved-in interiors. They stand as stark contrasts to some of the buildings beside them, completely fine and healthily constructed despite what occurred a few days ago. You don't see anyone nearby, but you think that you can hear footsteps and voices in the distance. Perhaps they are Theyin Empire soldiers, perhaps they are commoners of the Magis, perhaps they are guards of the Magis. You won't really know for sure until you explore a little bit more.
((Same from above, half-turn because you didn't really move all that much.))
Warren Drake
Liquor is liquor, clearly. The objective here was to get drunk, not ask questions. And that is exactly what will be done.
Head inside the shop and get some fine rotgut from Jeb. Have a little bit to start off if all goes well.
Warren DrakeWell, no sense in making sense of the senseless.
Time to drown yourself in sweet bliss. Later, you can figure out what this all means. For now, a little bit of cloudiness here or there wouldn't be so bad. After all, it's not like there's much else you can do in this blasted place.
You saunter into the liquor shop with not much care in your step. Examining the place, you find that it is a modest but functional store. There are a few bar stools lining the counter at the back of the store. On the walls to the sides, cabinets filled with a variety of fine alcohols display their wares proudly through glass windows. There are a few wooden tables with chairs here or there, but the store mostly seems to serve for the purpose of selling the liquor, not for acting as a bar. The tables are unoccupied and only one attendant stands at the counter at the back, mindlessly flipping through a deck of Eloisian playing cards (60 cards to a deck, five suits of twelve cards each). Deciding to be straightforward with your request, you walk up to the counter and ask the single attendant if there might be any sort of cheap liquor for sale here. He puts the cards down on the counter and rubs the back of his neck, having sat in the same position for what seems to be quite a long time.
"Now, are you looking for something entry-level in terms of liquor, or just something quick and dirty?" He asks you. You respond frankly and tell him that something uncomplicated and quick to intoxicate would be fine. He shrugs his shoulders and moves quickly over to one of the cabinets on the right side of the store. He taps his fingers on the glass as he hums, looking for a liquor that would do just the trick. After a few moments, he finds just what he's looking for: A medium-sized, dark-colored green bottle of liquor with a dirtied label on it that says: "JACK-QUAIL ROUGH ABSINTHE .750 L," along with a few other descriptors indicating its place of origin, alcohol content, ingredients, and the like.
He retrieves the bottle from the cabinet and displays it to you, saying,
"Eighty-six hita for this bottle of absinthe. Should do you just fine." You dig into one of your pockets and look for some money. Pulling out some coins from your pocket, you frown as you find that you have 240
era, the currency of Atis. Doing some rough calculations in your head, you find that about 180
era should cover it. You give him some of your coins to cover exactly that cost. He examines the coins and raises an eyebrow, saying,
"Era? I haven't seen these coins in a very, very long time. You come a long way, sir. But I'm sorry, you won't be able to pay with these." He hands you the coins and keeps the bottle with him.
"Do you have any other way to pay, sir?"Well, this has turned out to be somewhat of an annoyance for you.
((AAAAAAAA))
"'Thanks, ma'am, you've been wonderfully helpful," Cecil says as he bows a little, turning to leave the library.
He steps outside, blinking his eyes under the sun, ruminating over what exactly happened to him...
What was I supposed to take from last night?
He looks for a road sign before taking off to the town his betrothed was to be. ((I remember this was told to me earlier.)) Might as well try to find someone I know.
Cecil G. Palmer((You would be correct on that.))
You still find your circumstances of location to be very strange. At this point, you're very uncertain as to whether you are fully sane or not at this moment. Perhaps you went into some drug-induced stupor and ended up wasted in the library? Wait, you would never do such a thing like that. That still does not explain the appearance of that room, the peculiar man from last night, and your apparent arrival here. It's all so strange. You hope that you can find some sort of answer to this conundrum very soon. Maybe someone you know can help. Someone who arrived here with you. Someone whose circumstantial meeting with you was also quite an awkward one, considering the events prior.
The lovely Diana Crown, who was, apparently, your wife-to-be, in accordance with an arranged marriage.
She arrived with you on this strange new place in the same boat that was used to escape Atis. Your father, for one reason or another, decided that it would be a wonderful diplomatic move to have you paired with one of the heirs to the Magis Kingdom. The Magis and the Aecrocians, in the past, had more than a few territorial disputes and scuffles when it came to culture, economy, and military power. A number of small issues or bouts of bickering were spawned here or there, but nothing to really amount to full-blown fighting. There were a few military incidents in the past, but the sizes of the two city-states were too small to continue in lasting fights. However, recently, that had changed with the expansion of the Magis Kingdom's territory further north and west as they sought to gain more land to accommodate their growing population.
Perhaps you and Diana Crown were considered bargaining chips - gifts to one another's city-states as olive branches to secure the welfare of the cities. But does that even count anymore, considering the destruction of Atis? Are you even to hold yourself to the bargain anymore? Maybe not. Nobody would know, considering that you are totally out of contact with Atis right now. However, what would come about after that? You don't know where you would go.
You shake your head as you put those final thoughts in the back of your head. If you keep thinking on like that, you're going to drive yourself insane. It's best to just keep moving on and discovering what you can from there. From what you know so far, the only person that may even be in this town that you know is Diana. Maybe she's around here somewhere? You walk down the sidewalks, looking around for her. Maybe she's near the dock? You would imagine that all of the commotion last night might have attracted more than a few people. Maybe she went to go see what went down, too. Hopefully, she knows something about-
"Hey!"A familiar voice calls out. You look all around you. To your left, nobody. To your right, there are people moving about, but nobody that you recognize. To your front, still more strangers milling about, but no Ms. Crown. Finally, you turn around and your eyes widen as you find Diana Crown, standing not too far away from you on the sidewalk. She seems to be happy to have found someone she knows, also. She waves and jogs over to you, her brown eyes bright with exuberance and morning energy.
Well, that didn't take too long to sort out.
((I exist! Don't worry!))
Enough experimentation for now. Now, I must train my brain. Get all the golems to do menial tasks, like move ores to be smelled, or chip at rocks with picks. While I do this, quiz my mind to increase my multitasking ability. What was my mother's name? What was my date of birth? What date was I exiled? How many shots from the attacking boats nearly murdered me?
When that's done, release control of all golems except a worker and my big iron plated protector golems. Focus control on both of them, and have them do a little training "fight." Just experiment with how well I can control directly multiple golems while fighting. Aim to not injure the smaller golem.
So sorry I forgot to put my action in!
((S'all good. Much better than my timing on turns, right?
Also, no roll log for now, will return next turn.))
RuneNow that you have tested the limitations of your powers, it's time to see if you can further increase the potential power of your mind. Your mental abilities seem to correlate with the strength if your various interactions with the golems; therefore, it should seem reasonable that mental exercise will help improve your control of the golems. To exercise this ability, you set the golems to do different tasks all at once: mining away at a wall, moving stones around, navigating the tunnels, and the like. Additionally, you do some quick information recall to improve your mental strength in a different way. What was your date of birth? You can't remember the exact day right now, but you know that it was something like twenty-two years ago, maybe twenty-three now. You do know that you were born near springtime, so your birthday probably passed already.
You were
self-exiled about six eight years ago or so. It was after your mother died, when she used to take care of you and you used to live on the outskirts of the Magis Kingdom. You used to create ceramics and other clay figures, and your mother would sell them so that the two of you could live independent of the Kingdom itself. After her death, you attempted to integrate into the Magis community and attended school for a little while, but eventually headed out on your own, traveling between the Atisi and Magis communities. A month later, you found a home after you discovered the abandoned cave on the side of the volcano that watched over the entire island. There is where you made your craft and your life.
Oh, and in terms of boats nearly vaporizing you with artillery strikes, you were pretty safe, all things considered. At the very least, the mountain protected you as if you were in a bunker. The only problem was that the volcano started spewing lava and nearly incinerated you as you were escaping. Ah well. Nothing you can do about a few high-degree burns, right? You'll be fine in a few days or so.
Now that you've completed your meditation and exercise of mental connection to the golems, you cut off all of your connections to the golems and bond with only two of them: one of the workers and the protector. It's time for a different test - one that involves the combat abilities of multiple golems fighting together. If you can improve this ability and make it work so that two or more golems fight in tandem with perfect synchronization, you could have a very potent fighting force.
Just for a bit of entertainment value, you set up the other, non-participating golems in a ring around the two fighting golems. With one golem clad in iron armor and towering over the other, unarmored golem, it looks as if you've just organized the first golem fight in the world. Congratulations, you! Too bad nobody else is around to witness this once-in-a-lifetime event. Taking control of both golems and giving slightly more mental priority to the smaller golem, you begin to have them both fight each other using your own thoughts. The Protector heaves the warhammer in position and takes a swing at the smaller golem. The worker golem reacts by dodging out of the way to the right and sprinting forward to strike the Protector using one of his sausage-fingered hands. Testing the dodging skills of both golems at once, you have the Protector walk back and out of the way while also bringing the warhammer back to the right this time. The worker golem is tapped by the warhammer, yet is unfazed by this action and stomps down on the hammer, attempting to remove it from the hands of the Protector. The Protector yanks the hammer up and out of the way of the worker, causing the worker to trip under his own feet.
You continue in this manner for twenty minutes, having the golems fight each other. It's a rather pleasant experience; almost like a playground game, but with giant figures fighting instead of real people. You notice that you are becoming a little exhausted by exercising your mind in such a way, so you deactivate the golems eventually and sit down to rest. All in all, you're confident that the golems can be used to fight together with great effectiveness. However, you also know that using more and more golems at once debilitates your mental prowess. That is something you're going to have to keep in mind when fighting with these golems.
You are improving your skill of Intelligence.