Click This

-FV-

“Well,” she smirked, taking the opportunity to tease the two younger members of the group, “Kyouko and Runa are also kiddos, no?” Covering a light chuckle with her hand, she nonetheless nodded. “I’ll keep it in mind. As for the hype… I dunno, I think any hype you’ll feel will be ruined if you hear me belt out my attempt at any pop song…”

Thankfully, Mason saved Iphie from karaoke hell with timely directions to the nearest DIHOP. Since there was a little bit of time before their engagement at the waffle house, she excused herself to take care of some business at her company offices.

It wasn’t Iphie’s style to bother with a disguise, but when she arrived at the Denny’s, it was via a nondescript black corporate vehicle, and with a pair of nice black shades. The purple-haired girl only removed them when she slid into the booth with the rest of the Final Five; it wasn’t quite a disguise, but it worked enough to not be immediately accosted between the street and their table at the restaurant.

It was certainly a trip to see Kyouko plastered in clothing ads out in the street. Really, she was still worried about the younger girl being taken advantage of by her father or others.

“Looks like I made it on time,” she greeted, taking up a seat across from Tian-Gui, and just in time to order. “I’ll have what he ordered,” Iphie decided, thumbing towards Jin-Sun. “The spicy honey butter sauce instead of buffalo, though. Oh, and a nice cold milk tea if you have that here, too.”

She sighed at the two apparent whales of the group once she was done ordering. “Seriously? Pulling for gacha? Scam aside, you known I can just zap your phones and give your accounts the stuff you want, right?”

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist @Crusader Lord

“Oh? Interesting… Can’t say knowing you can mess with memories isn’t a bit disconcerting, but I’m curious what you mean in regards to ‘inspiration.’ Suppose your skillset takes after your father, eh?” She shrugged. Narkissa had taken the information quite well, but then again, with the absurdity of things ever since arriving here, combined with her own knowledge of… petty… godly things, she wasn’t exactly about to go 180 on Lazhira.

She scrunched her face at her reply. “There’s not really any particularly good answer to the dilemma, isn’t there? Still, having all your cards in one place…” She paused, caught just as off-guard by Leannah’s sudden and dramatic appearance as Lazhira had been.

“Leannah! Where have you been?” Narkissa echoed after Lazhira, although she avoided shouting. “I was afraid the Illuminator had snatched you up alongside the temple,” she admitted, slightly guilty that she had stayed to mess around with paper and hadn’t been more proactive in searching for the wayward catgirl. Narkissa set aside her axe and plank and got up to help the fallen girl.

“Anyway, are you alright? You look miserable.”

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

<Snipped quote>

So is love. If it's the oldest profession, was it Aureia's first job?

@Raineh Daze

My, but that's beneath the dignity of a goddess~

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Didn't want Aureia to be left out of the fight, so I made an extra, small post! Hope y'all don't mind.

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Aureia, of gold, commerce, wealth,

and the far less important, trivial aspects of travel and luck

Ah, there it was, the response from the two gods she anticipated. With the obvious displeasure the god of the sun had been nursing going into this engagement, Aureia would have expected no quarter from O’Menus after even the slightest of slights, let alone the blasphemy the arrogant mortal had levied to their faces. The sun god had been grating on her ever since their awakening with his own arrogance, but she wouldn’t interfere with his justifiable bloodlust, especially when the goddess of judgement jumped into the fray and did her thing.

Aureia’s little proposal had always been nothing more but polite theater. “Ahaha… well, the god of the sun and the goddess of judgment have spoken. Offer’s canceled,” she shrugged, as the two gods jumped forward from her flanks. The innocent smile on her face hardened. Not to be left out of the inevitable melee, with some panache, she gave her umbrella-turned-weapon a twirl, shooting forward into the fray. She was just in time to fight alongside Ashte, it seemed.

However, her annoyance flared up when she realized the sun god snatched up the fallen knight’s blade. It was shiny and looked expensive, she wanted that for herself, dammit!

Clicking her tongue, she took out her anger on the nearest soldier. Following the goddess of war’s example, she shielded herself from the projectiles of the future-weapons as they came. Snapping open her parasol, the divine fabric ate up the strange arrows before Aureia snapped it back, slashing with it like a sword to cut into the man. She then moved to accompany Alasayana in her judgment against the remaining peons.

It was never Aureia’s style to directly punish mortals.

After all, war was bad for business.

Yet war was also good for business.

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Aureia, of gold, commerce, wealth,

and the far less important, trivial aspects of travel and luck

The door at the top of the staircase was a very sturdy looking barrier. The fact that it had been dented meant that whatever the mortals were using to try and breach it was a very powerful weapon, indeed. More intriguing, though, was the way the doors slid open as she approached it, but even that became of little interest compared to what the open door revealed.

Like the mortals before her, Aureia had to take a pause to take in the enormity of the scene in front of her. Her eyes narrowed as she observed the blood and gore, the number of dead and living, and their equipment. It seemed, even ten thousand years later, there would always be armor and swords, however unusual. The strange tube-like devices in their hands were another thing entirely, though. They had been shooting volleys at the door—where were the siege engines that could do damage to such a strong door? It was entirely possible that what they wielded were strange staves, and they had been firing volleys of spells at the door, though if that were the case, then she must be very weak indeed, if she couldn’t detect the magic.

Her eyes drifted to the carnage on the ground. A lopsided battle and a heroic stand had occurred here. In the past, the knowledge of such parties would have been trivial to her, but here, she only had her eyes to work with—who are these two parties of mortals, and more importantly, which group was affiliated with the priestess or had otherwise summoned the gods? By color palette alone, she had to assume the white-clad priestess was more likely to be familiar with the fallen knight than the crimson-armored soldiers.

As the patron of commerce, though, she knew better than to assume, and instead contented herself for the moment to observe the exchange between the commander and his subordinate, finding it amusing.

She took the time to pick her own brain on how she’d introduce herself, vocalizing her thoughts at the same time. “Hmm… what should I say? It’s been ten thousand years. Maybe something quick, since there’s so many people. Maybe ‘Hello, mortal’? But that’s so uninspired,” she muttered, before realizing she was being addressed, and rudely, at that. “Oh. Ahem. Greetings, mortal. Oh. Oh my, oh dear. You mortals can’t be serious. You wouldn’t mind repeating that again, would you?” Fake friendliness filled the tone of her voice as she processed the gall of the man’s statement. She’d give him the benefit of the doubt, it was ten thousand years and all, maybe it was some strange slang, because she was pretty sure the man had just tried to order around the divine under the authority of some mortal pretty boy. A pretty bad first impression, all things considered. Surely they weren’t…?

Oh, they were doubling down. Aureia had been in a good mood from being reawakened, but threatening her and insulting a fellow goddess –one that she respected-- in such an impudent way was a very effective way to ruin that.

“I am Aureia, goddess of wealth and commerce. And travel and luck, but that is far less important. That ‘beastkin’ you see there is the Goddess of Hunting and Judgment. By what insolence do you and your ‘holy’ emperor presume to make a mockery of the divine and order us around?” She shifted her umbrella forwards, pointing it directly at the face of the red armored commander. It had taken on a dangerous appearance; the tip had morphed into a golden spike, and a single spoke along the edge had transformed into a long, thin razor along the length of the umbrella.

She gave them a polite smile. Still riding some of her good mood, she gave them one last chance. She doubted the rest of her fellow gods would be as forgiving and wait for their response, but whatever.

“How about I offer a counter proposal? Surrender and submit to our judgment, or die.”

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

@VitaVitaAR

Is the simple white dress in the picture all that the priestess is wearing, or are there any other potentially identifying features on her attire?

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Aureia, of gold, commerce, wealth,

and the far less important, trivial aspects of travel and luck

“Eh? Ah, well,” Aureia looked down at herself. She should have expected it, but she was caught off guard by the question from the goddess of love. An awfully leading question, at that. It was hard to deny that somehow her appearance had changed; she was smaller and shorter than she once was. Her clothes didn't help much with it, but at least when she groped her own chest, she did still have it, even if that too had gotten… smaller. It didn’t seem like there was anything she could do to change her appearance; at her prime, it was not a problem at all to redo her own likeliness on her own whims. Now, even spontaneously changing clothes seemed to be harder than it formerly was. Annoying, but it was still something she could work with.

She’d eventually regain her power and do whatever she wanted; maybe she’d even choose to keep this form, who knows. Rallying, she smirked back, lightly bapping Ashte on the head with her parasol. It was still a rude question, after all. “Eh, not really. It’s annoying, but there’s nothing wrong with being cuter, especially when I’m still beautiful. Who knows, perhaps I might receive even more worshippers this time around?”

It didn’t seem like O’Menus was simmering down at all, though. That said, it was hard to get the sun god to simmer to begin with, with that inflated ego of his! She sort of understood why he was taking this poorly, but the fit he was throwing was really putting a damper on her reawakening. Really, if she had the supplies, Aureia would already be holding a rebirth celebration party right here, with the other gods and the mortals all invited. Maybe sans sun god.

She was sorely tempted to use her parasol again and give him a good, much harder whack with it, before the mortals started banging on the stairwell doors. An interesting development.

The mortals of ten thousand years past had a very strange dialect and manner of speaking, but she understood the voices well enough. There it was, the girl was clearly someone to be protected. Aureia did wonder what god she was a priestess of, though. Maybe the entire pantheon, considering the diversity of the sadly small segment of deities that had been reawakened.

Aureia was content to remain as she stood and let the mortals come to them. It only seemed natural, a fitting away for the returned gods to receive mortals once more, except the sun god once again thought differently.

“This dummy…! He’s going to ruin it all, the mortals come to us, not the other way around!”

She huffed, and moved after him. Having O’Menus as the mortals’ first interaction with the gods was going to bring nothing but trouble.

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist

“Uh… huh. Indulge my curiosity, what is the full extent of your abilities?” So not quite the same as the Greek gods after all. She’d always heard about gods creating this and that person or thing in earth mythology, but Narkissa really had to wonder how that looked like when they were doing it, or how it worked. On second thought, it was probably something that she didn’t necessarily want to know. Especially with the things she had seen, the god she had spoken to.

“Oh… I see. Sorry to hear that,” she frowned, offering her brief condolences. Well, that explained why somebody that was as young as her –if she was created by a god, how old was she actually? —was living by herself. “Well, that makes sense. The Kyrnith is just the local god… entity that just wants to be left alone with the village to its own devices, if I understand it correctly. I’m afraid I’ve only heard bits and pieces of this all, so my knowledge is slightly fragmented.” Either way, Narkissa was starting to get the big overall picture here, although it felt like there was still a piece missing, somehow.

She sat down on another stump across from Lazhira, picking up a half-transformed plank as she did so. “Okay. First thing’s first, though; what is the first key? How was it destroyed, and how exactly do the mechanisms work? I’d have thought you’d want to preserve the key to open the seal, rather than destroy it,” she frowned, before taking the axe to try and reduce the wood down to a proper plank of her specifications.

“For that matter, what does the fog, or the seal, have to do with the fact that the temple has disappeared?” Mildly distracted, Narkissa tried to work out her questions in her head. What Lazhira was asking was a bit of a tall order, especially when she didn’t have all the pieces. “Well, I’ll certainly help. I’m not sure if keeping the orb with you, if I find it, would be a good idea, though. Your father’s specifically still going to look for you, and if he finds you together with the orb, then doesn’t that accomplish his goals in one fell swoop? Ideally, I’d split the orb up, send it off somewhere distant, or with another person, somewhere where he won’t think to look, as a contingency. Keeping it on yourself would be too obvious, and risky, I’d think.”

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Aureia, of gold, commerce, wealth,

and the far less important, trivial aspects of travel and luck

“Hmm.” Aureia seemed unimpressed with the sun god’s answer, but that he stopped moving to war against the mortal and her fellow gods protecting her was good enough for her. Nonetheless, she fixed him with a glare at his persisting threat. “Tsk tsk. If you haven’t already noticed, you’re hardly in a position to dictate terms. Let’s settle this productively, okay?” It was obvious if they let him have his way, he was more liable to destroy the sources of any answers than to get them through violence. If it came down to it, she would physically intervene as well; while she might not have had the sheer force of will in a fight as Alasayana, or the warlike prowess and passion of the god of Love and War –Both aspects of Ashte that she was intimately familiar with—she had her own tricks up her sleeve.

Her attention drifted to the unconscious maiden, and then Alasayana, her interest in the god of the sun already at an end. “Oh, Alasayana! Good to see you again. Mm, a pity, though. I was hoping that somebody would have an idea of this place. Suppose we’ll have to find out for ourselves, huh?” It seemed her attention was still on the young girl, together with Trineon, the god of rivers, lakes, and oceans. Apparently, he had quietly stepped in while everybody’s attention had been on the Sun God. As a god closely aligned with mortals and their development, she did not have a very high opinion of the god of water –too many times had the god interfered with her interests by sinking, destroying, or otherwise disrupting the great instruments of commerce of the mortals that prayed to her for protection with his aquatic whims.

She let them tend to the girl, preferring to more closely inspect the room they were in. As she examined the strange inscriptions, noting their glow, it was because of that close affinity to humans that she was the first to notice the unmistakable signature of more mortals nearby. Above and beyond the waiting stairway, perhaps, and no doubt connected to the girl. Aureia was quick to announce her findings.

“Ah! I can sense more mortals… just above us. Hmm... Perhaps they will have suitable answers that pestering our poor sleeping maiden cannot provide. Please refrain from lavishing punishments upon her, mind, I for one appreciate being awoken rather than resting in slumber in perpetuity, you know.”

It didn't hurt that she had a suspicion it would be far more profitable to work with tentatively friendly mortal summoners than to intimidate or threaten them. Especially given the clearly weakened state she and her fellow gods were in, from lack of followers after eons of slumber, no doubt.