The cast has grown to twice its size.
What... Whats going on? he said, somewhat dazed and quite confused.
The duck twists its head, focusing a single eye on you. Staring into it, you realize that this is no duck at all.
"The cycle of life continues, child," it murmurs, its slotted eye constricting to reveal more of its blue-green iris.
"Every thousand years, the little ones find all that they can of the outer world,"You observe ducklings over a cluster of lichen, carrying twigs and stones in their beaks. Each one has a flower bud growing out of its head.
"And then the miracle of life enters the world. Behold!" The duck uses its bill to thrust aside a blanket of leaves covering a little den under a tree. Inside are cocoons of odd shapes and all sizes. The cocoons each glow with a white light, and inside you see the colored shadows of carved gemstones obscuring the light source. One contains a purple amethyst, another a red ruby, and the third a black diamond.
"Our world begets its children!"The lights cut out, and the cocoons lie motionless.
"Hmm.Name: Jarrah
Trinket: A Pale green rock. It looks as if someone started to carve it into the shape of an acorn, but never finished.
Wing Color/Style: Pale green luna moth wings.
Hair Color/Style: Pale green
Outfit: Tunic and pants made of furry mouse leather
Fairy Alignment: Surprises
Natural Element: Viridium
Trance - Can suppress a creature's higher thoughts, while amplifying others
Deep Magic - Can speak to animals and inanimate objects in the mortal realm
Immortality - Can grant immunity to ageing and disease
Regeneration - Can speed healing (but not directly alter flesh)
Metabolism - Can vastly increase or decrease a creature's strength and speed (x2)
Artem shakes himself awake. Hey, what's going on? Who are you? Big fishes?
"It talks!""Better than nothing, right?"
"Hmm, but he doesn't look the right way. Somethin's off about the feathers...""Should there be feathers at all?"
The figure shrugs.
"I guess not!"The fairy in charge, whose wings are made of glass, and the assistant, whose wings are ice, help you to your feet.
"Look," he says to you.
"We're looking for more of us. If you see someone invisible on your way out, let us know.
We don't really have anything for you to do. But you see up there?" He points to the sky, which looks like a murky pool.
"That's where the fishes are. It's raining now up there, but when it stops, they're gonna pick you up and pull your head off if you're not careful."Name: Artem
Trinket: A piece of firey-red nevermelt ice.
Wing Color/Style: Feathered red and purple wings
Hair Color/Style: Red, with a long haired mohawk that falls to the side of his head
Outfit: A vest made of the same feathers as his wings, with a metallic pauldron on his left shoulder. Purple skintight pants.
Fairy Alignment: Laughter
Natural Element: Epimethium
Dazzle - Can emit a disorienting burst of light
Ignite - Can ignite a small fire
Electricity - Can emit a small electric shock that causes pain
Featherweight - Can rob an object of most of its weight through contact
The Four Winds - Can bring rain, fog, snow, or hail
The future is a wonderful guide. Peering forward, determine if someone will come and find me here. The spoon too.
If no one is to come take a flight into the tunnel, ferrying my spoon along with shadow hands. If someone is to come hide myself and watch them.
The stars below you scatter as you plead to them, leaving you in near-darkness. Seems like a negative answer.
The lack of a stable boundary between light and dark makes it difficult to project any shadows. The spoon is heavy, so perhaps leaving it here would be the best--
As your mind entertains the thought, the stars re-emerge out of the darkness. Billions of them, countless like grains of sand.
Name: Hermia.
Trinket: A silver spoon.
Wing Color/Style: The wings of a crow.
Hair Color/Style: Black as night, long with flow, strong bangs. Complements silver eyes.
Outfit: Tight leather pants, some masculine leather boots, a deep red wool sweater with good volume and a silver necklace. She wears black gloves.
Fairy Alignment: Confusion
Natural Element: Lykathium
Night's Gaze - Can reduce the temperature of substances
Blindness - Can negate a creature's senses
Illusion - Can replace a single thought or object at a time in someone's mind
Shadow Hands - Can project limbs out of darkness within a short range
Astral Knowledge - Can lift the veil of the future (divination)
Somewhere in a rock tunnel, there was an old mirror. It was covered in a mesh of cobwebs, whose practical geometric patterns gave way to twisting spirals and winding helices, the further away they were from the mirror.
In the mirror was a rack of old robes, dark blue by the looks of it, though the only light illuminating the passage came from sunlight pouring into the nearby entrance.
At some point, a ball of yarn had migrated past the mirror into the tunnel, bringing with it piles of lint. And there happened to a fairy wrapped inside, who came to at this very moment.
As you awaken, you hear sounds from the mirror. The robes on the other side muffle what sound like voices--voices from a tongue that isn't quite the same as yours, but you seem to understand its meaning.
"If it's from that closet, someone must have been in there," says a girl on the other side.
"You're right..." an adult says with a tone of caution.
Name: Yuktuk
Trinket: a ball of blue lint grown fat over weeks upon weeks of neglect.
Wing Color/Style: white, stringy and plantlike, like somebody's stuck two flexible dandelion parachutes into her back.
Hair Color/Style: blue and uncannily reminiscent of a troll doll's plumage
Outfit: an oversized, loosely woven silvery dress, no shoes, a black sooty bead on a string around her neck
Fairy Alignment: Excitement
Natural Element: Aurium
Electricity - Can emit a small electric shock that causes pain
Featherweight - Can rob an object of most of its weight through contact
Codex of Knowledge - Can answer questions about the sciences
Transmutation - Can transform substances into inert metals
Atom Clock - Can halt time for short periods
There was a cave up in the mountains, somewhere far away in the Mountain Which No Man Can Climb (but fairies fly, so it's not a problem). It was sunken into the ground, but the bulk of the cavern was open to the sky. Many exotic grasses lived at the bottom along with dandelions, and whenever the sun was up, a rising air column would take up seeds like a geyser, sending a great cloud of them to the surface.
Stashed in the wall, in an alcove raised at human waist height, was a pile of trinkets from beyond the mirror. There, a fairy awoke under a rock. All around, there were random articles: a tiara; a gown made of purple silk, spread out like a mat upon which the other items rested; a rock sculpture made of sandstone, having been chipped slightly with a piece resting nearby; a box with a wooden snake inside; and a human sword, like a mighty tree trunk to a fairy's tiny hands.
Out on the grass, someone was watering the dandelions. A young woman in a blue dress, human-sized, with no wings to speak of.
Name: Hildegard
Trinket: A small lump of sandstone.
Wing Color/Style: Brown, speckled owl's wings.
Hair Color/Style: Long beige hair tied in a flowing ponytail.
Outfit: Practical work outfit in shades of tan, with trousers, a long-sleeved shirt, and a jacket over it.
Fairy Alignment: Wonder
Natural Element: Cthonium
Soulsteel - Can coat objects in a thin layer of iron
Earthblight - Can inflict a slow, petrifying disease on living objects
Crystalize - Can cause minerals and rocks to reorganize themselves
Tremors - Can create a minor earthquake, cause an avalanche, or trigger a rockslide
Earthsoul - Can animate puppets out of sand or pebbles
A fairy woke up inside an empty ink jar, unscrewing the top from the inside. She emerged, only her black dress stained with black ink residue, finding herself in an empty cabin, on a desk with a round face mirror propped up near the wall.
Strewn across the desk were hair decorations of all colors and kinds: ribbons, flowers, pins, and scarves. But what stood out was a pair of ribbons: one violet, one silver, perched identically across both sides of the mirror. There was a mismatch.
On the far side of both rooms--the one in the mirror included--the fairy saw portraits of a young girl with four ribbons in her hair: two violet ribbons wrapped around her pigtails, two silvery ribbons tied around her side locks.
Name: Lilth
Trinket: Violet and silvery matching pair of ribbons for wearing.
Wing Color/Style: Two pairs of violet silvery, flower like.
Hair Color/Style: Violet and silver flowing hair, in a celtic braid.
Outfit: A elegant black dress with matching heels, red twin flowing ribbon traveling length of her dress to her arms.
Fairy Alignment: Suprise
Natural Element: Enkorium
Trance - Can suppress a creature's higher thoughts, while amplifying others
Deep Magic - Can speak to animals and inanimate objects
Mindreader (basic) - Can sense emotions from a distance
Animation - Can control inanimate objects that are wrapped in wire
Shapeshift - Can take the form of a similarly-sized animal, and grant the same power to a human.
"She can't be helped, it looks like,""What if you just believe?""Belief is how they got like this, stupid..."Those thoughts circled in your head for a while. It took a while to realize they were coming from outside. The murky glass made it difficult to tell, but the way the sound bounced around inside... it all seemed like it was coming from your head.
Slowly, but surely, you managed to tip the jar over the edge. And down you went, shattering your prison into a million pieces on the wooden floor. You land next to a leather book.
A massive foot grinds the glass next to you. A voice comes from above.
"What's this journal..." his eyes, magnified by the glasses he holds against his face, shift over to you. "... Oh?"
Two fairies come down, formerly hovering over the patient's bed.
"You're sneaky, stowing away in our medicine like that," one of them scolds you.
"That jar wasn't marked, stupid," the other shouts.
"Oh I get it! Someone must have set the journal on top!"The doctor, looking down from above, looks positively puzzled.
"Are you sure this isn't one of the Ruler's toys?"
Name: Bors
Trinket: A grey leather journal, the last three pages blank, save for a large winestain.
Wing Color/Style: Bor's wings seem more mechanical, made up of a combination of paper and wire.
Hair Color/Style: Black, with streaks of grey and white.
Outfit: A dark grey leather cloak.
Fairy Alignment: Curiosity
Natural Element: Enkorium
Trance - Can suppress a creature's higher thoughts, while amplifying others
Deep Magic - Can speak to animals and inanimate objects
Codex of Knowledge - Can answer questions about the sciences
Transmutation - Can transform substances into inert metals
Animation - Can control inanimate objects that are wrapped in wire
Author
Topic: False Illusion - Step Past the Mirror - IC (Read 15235 times)