[OOC] The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

[CollectorOfMyst]

@shylarah Hmm... I need to read that over again, then.

[The Angry Goat]

@Sisyphus @The Angry Goat

Sorry for how long that took!

By the way, I'm assuming that you guys aren't wearing your uniforms. Is that cool?

@Lovejoy

I was assuming as much... I’ll spend some tome on the internet to find clothing that fits stina for his casual days after tomorrow... this also means I only have my knife (and perhaps the axe too...) on me, which is gonna bug stina to no end :P

[Lovejoy]

@shylarah I don't think I ever discussed this but, inquisitors do answer to a higher authority within the Church and thus they can't just do whatever they want.

I think there are different branches of the Church, one being the clerical branch and the other being the military branch. I did use the term "lesser branches" when referring to students who were transferred because they couldn't cut it in the Red Seminary, but that's only in the eyes of inquisitors who are trained to fight. The clerical branch is actually the ruling hand of Varya, so they possess a lot of power over governance and scripture and all that-- i.e Magnus being a vicar of the clerical branch would have the role of a governor or something similar within El (once it is conquered and the first colonies are established).

[shylarah]

@Lovejoy I was certain they didn't have entirely free range, but there's usually at least a level of "acceptable casualties" should something go wrong. I mean, taking down villains (and other nations) is kinda their job. Cant' expect an inquisitor to stand aside in the face of wrongdoing past a certain point, yeah? Sure it's not really standard save for particularly lethal criminals, but if they happen to be there....

And civilian casualties is doubtless more common in unconquered territories. Heck, could be just because they get in trouble for making a mess doesn't mean they dont -- and you can't do /too/ much because they're a valuable asset and represent a major investment of time and resources. So the degree of trouble cna vary too. ^.^

It was mostly curiosity though.

>vengeful bully in the executive branch
oh /joy/.

I'm sure warpriest is a highly prestigious position, even if maybe not coming with as much bureaucratic power as someone like Magnus wields. They're the glorious heroes who take on heresy in the name of Lord Varya, and a highly visible symbol of Varyan power. That's got a clout all its own.

[Draken]

I'm sure warpriest is a highly prestigious position, even if maybe not coming with as much bureaucratic power as someone like Magnus wields. They're the glorious heroes who take on heresy in the name of Lord Varya, and a highly visible symbol of Varyan power. That's got a clout all its own.

@shylarah

And I mean... Everybody's got a line you don't cross. If you cross one of ours, we can do some damn serious damage before you get more loyal inquisitors on the field.

[Scout]

Y'all are so inconsistent with your pacing of ooc chatter/discussion. XD I think i skimmed the gist out. @Lovejoy I'll read your awesome post momentarily. Are we finishing that collab eventually as well?

[Lovejoy]

@ScoutOf course we are! It hasn't exactly ended and we can't just leave the scene like that :p

I'm still working on the response but, honestly, it's taking me a bit of time to narrow down exactly what Indira is going to say. I'll try to have it done by this weekend at the earliest.

[The Angry Goat]

i.pinimg.com/564x/da/f0/8d/daf08df97f… aight, got me some out on the town clothes.

[Draken]

Alright. I've got a 7 page paper due Monday, as well as a presentation I'm doing then, and I need to help my group complete a working model on fire ant colony interactions... Also by Monday. Please excuse me for a few days.

[shylarah]

@Draken Oh dear. Please don't die.

Fire ants, though! Very cool. Tangentially, I was a huge fan of SimAnt back in the day. Still am. <3

[Draken]

@Draken Oh dear. Please don't die.

Fire ants, though! Very cool. Tangentially, I was a huge fan of SimAnt back in the day. Still am. <3

@shylarah

It's for a class on Game Theory. My group's is by far the least concrete, so far as numbers are concerned, since it's about competition between fire ant colonies with multiple queens and colonies with one. It's very spatial, and that space is my job.

[shylarah]

@Draken This sounds really awesome. And game theory? Woo!

[Lovejoy]

Was out of town yesterday, will get back to writing today! I PROMISE THE VISIONS FOR OREN AND ILYA WILL BE COMPLETED TODAY. I'M SO SORRY YOU TWO!

Will also try to work on my reply to Viveca and Oren/Ziotea.

@OppositionJ Are you planning on replying to vietmyke's post or shall we be moving on?

@Drakey I need to think about this x-ray vision thing a bit more. I'll get back to you on it.

[Lovejoy]

The Visions of Warband Leviathan

Oren @CollectorOfMyst

Hider

Oren opened his eyes. He was back at Sydon-Mar, the impossible stone globe laying half-buried in the northernmost snows of Omestris. The memory of him standing before the titanic monolith was etched into his subconscious, he remembered everything from when he visited it as a child-- the dry cold wind, the ocean of shadow that it cast upon the snow, the loneliness of it all.

It was different this time.

Oren turned around and saw them. A thousand thousand people stretching into the horizon, their gold eyes burning like torches for as far as Oren could see. They were all smiling, and somehow, he felt their hearts bestowing love upon him. It was then that he noticed it. The sting of frost on the top of his fist. Oren looked at his right hand and there it was-- an azure circle carved upon his pale skin. He grazed it with his fingers and felt it cool to the touch.

The azure circle began to glow, brighter and brighter, its resplendent blue light like a star in that darkness.

His eyes were still half-blinded by its light when he woke.

Ilya@Draken

Hider

Ilya:

Ilya stood aboard the high spire of a beautiful white ark. He had never seen it before, but in his heart of hearts he knew that this was the VSS Karamzina.

Below him the deck was completely empty, which was strange to him. A ship needs its crew, and where else would they be but on the deck? Ilya climbed down the spire to investigate. The ship's Hearth Systems had cast its auto-aegis around the deck, forbidding the cold from seeping in and killing him. Still, even with the aegis' protection, he felt the frigid touch of the dark blizzards seeping into his blood. Such was its strength that with every step down the spire he became more and light headed. Ilya had never been so cold.

When he reached the deck Ilya looked around and saw nothing but darkness beyond the pale gold light of the ship's aegis. He realized, with both fear and excitement, that he was out there, beyond the Meridian, on uncharted ice. The Karamzina was proceeding through the darkness, cutting through the surface of the ice like a blade. The sound of the ark shearing through the frost was all-encompassing, but there was no life aboard the deck. It was as if he was the only soul on the Karamzina.

Suddenly, Ilya glimpsed a shape in the dark, standing near the edge of the ship.

It was Father Ragnar.

The young man turned to Ilya and smiled sadly. His pale violet eyes were sunken and the beginnings of a beard shadowed his jaw.

"I'm sorry," Ragnar whispered, his voice breaking.

It was then that Ilya woke up and found himself back where he was, standing before the doors of the Scarlet Shrine with the rest of Warband Leviathan.

Viveca @Scout

Hider

"She was floating on a boundless blue ocean. The waves carried her gently as radiant white birds soared through the endless blue expanse above her. White clouds slowly trailed across it, casting soft shadows on the gentle waves below. She felt... something. A pleasant warmness touching her skin. She saw a halo of light shining down at her from high above but had to turn away when its radiance began to blind her. She marveled at it with squinting eyes, for she had never seen the sun as it wa. All her life she could only glimpse its vague presence shrouded behind the white Varyan sky. But in this place it had revealed itself, shining down proudly upon the world in all its splendor.

There, in that impossible ocean, where the frost that had imprisoned her world was nonexistent, she felt at peace. There was nothing but her, the sea and the birds.

It was then that she noticed it. An ornate blue circle on her chest. It seemed to be branded directly onto her skin, and when she traced her fingertips across it she could feel the strange brand growing frigid within her chest. It was as if someone had suddenly filled her heart with ice. Viveca began to cough. Frigid air escaped her lungs. There was something in her, something cold that was spreading to every inch of her body.

She was still shivering when she opened her eyes. She still felt it. The cold unlike any other."

[shylarah]

@Lovejoy
>Ilya knew it was the Karamzina.
Before he'd been told about the Karamzina! Maybe he realizes that's where he was when he finally sees the ark? That'd make more sense.

HOLY CRUD RAGNAR! AAH! ...What does it mean?

Ooh, @CollectorOfMyst's Oren had that same blue circle! Interesting...I guess if the...wait. WAIT. Red circle is Varya's church. I was thinking maybe the red is the fire titan and blue the ice, only the fire one is the one that died -- which fits Oren's, as it's frost-tinged, and I guess even for Ziotea, because it countered the heat, but...hmmm. All I know is that the blue definitely isn't Varya, and it /probably/ isn't Omestris, and having it represent the protection of a lost deity (titan or god) might work, but it wouldn't be the titan that's still around, would it? ...Or that's around in pieces?

Oren's echoes Ziotea's, which is very interesting. Except they're sort of opposites. Love and loathing, respectively. And then the blue circle. Viveca had that same cold -- that same circle, even, only hers hurt. OH. And now it makes more sense -- the ice titan, even its pieces, does not like Omestrians and those with fire in their blood. Yet for Ziotea it came as shelter from fire...I don't even know anymore. Any ideas, guys?

BUT RAGNAR. WHAT IS RAGNAR GONNA DO?! AAAAH! *flailing so hard*

Also I'mma repeat my request for all the visions to be stuck, Iunno, in the char tab? Or somewhere easy to find. And I think there's a few chars that still need sticking there too!

EDIT: MYST MENTIONED THE METEORITE AND NOW I AM SCREECHING!

[CollectorOfMyst]

It was your mention of the 'resplendent light of a star' that made me wonder, @Lovejoy. For those who don't know, Syddon-Mar is a place of worship for Omestrians, and, Shy and I are currently of the opinion that it is a meteorite.

[Lovejoy]

@shylarah@CollectorOfMyst Haha, oh I love these theories! I will say.... the answer to the blue circle is... right there in front of you! Well, it isn't super obvious and no one will be able to guess what it is (probably), but, if you look closely at EVERYTHING, there is a certain hypothesis that can be made as to what it is. I will be giving hints and such before it's revealed though >:)

Also. holy shit. I completely forgot to post the Omestris stuff in the IC. No one knows what the hell we're talking about in regards to Sydon-Mar or anything... :o

Will do that now!

[Lovejoy]

Oh, also, @shylarah, I added the visions to the zeroth post on the first page. Will add the Leviathan visions as well.

[Opposition]

@OppositionJ Are you planning on replying to vietmyke's post or shall we be moving on?

@Lovejoy

I don't have a lot to say in means of continuation, and I probably won't be able to write up a full post until tomorrow or the day after. Feel free to proceed on.

[shylarah]

@Lovejoy I've got several theories. But it doesn't work unless I pick the "right" one. So there's some sort of representation of a Remnant we've yet to encounter, the ice titan (since it's freezing, and since the fire titan seems unlikely), something related to that meteorite, so far.

Also, it could be a representation of an aegis. The more I look at it, the more certain I am that it's not related to Omestris nor to the fire titan and such directly. This might be a vision of a possible future, or things related to what's to come (can you say foreshadowing? =P) but it was granted our chars by a fragment of the ice titan, specifically Varya, and that circle is blue (ice-related color -- though the inquisition uses red. ...Probably because Lovejoy started out with a phoenix for us, but whateverrrrr), and frigid. It seems to fit.

It's interesting that Ziotea's is protective, and Viveca's is (apparently) harmful. AUGH I'M JUST SO EXCITED I CAN'T EVEN! *explodes*