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The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist @PKMNB0Y

Perhaps it wasn’t one of her best decisions, but they were committed now, and the hunters had to be stopped regardless.

With Lazhira acting as the distraction, Narkissa watched from her cover as she approached and opened the box… only for the slime inside of it to launch the smaller girl away. Not what she was expecting, but it seemed she hadn’t been overly harmed, and the hunters were very distracted now.

The fact that they had been looking for Lazhira after all had been concerning, though.

“Misaki, see if you can’t get that slime to keep its focus on the hunters somehow. I’m going after them,” she whispered, drawing her sword while still in cover before quickly maneuvering to a better hidden position to act against the hunters. She had selected one of the archers on Lazhira’s suggestion. Taking a deep breath, she gathered all that she had learned about magic and focused her energy on the bow-wielding hunter. Recalling her water-jet based attacks that she had used in the temple, she prepared a similar spell, lancing out at the back of the distracted enemy with the edged burst of water.

Taking advantage of the chaos created by Lazhira and the freed slime, the white-haired girl would keep this magic fire up from her position of concealment, changing targets if and once the hunter was incapacitated, and making sure to take advantage of any of the slime’s attacks. Nonetheless, she was fully prepared to spring out with her sword if her position was compromised, or if her two companions fell into trouble.

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist @PKMNB0Y

“Hmm…”

Between the three of them, she supposed the situation wasn’t quite as ideal as she initially thought. Lazhira seemed competent enough fighting back at the temple, but then again, she’d only seen the girl fight when it came to beating up some minor slimes. Misaki, she had no idea how much she could do. She herself had her sword and basic proficiency in the magic that she’d been lucky to learn, but how much of that could she leverage in this situation?

At the very least, it seemed Lazhira had some sort of illusion magic that could provide them some extra cover.

Narkissa wasn’t the type to throw caution to the wind, but at the moment, it seemed proactive movement was required to intervene, and it seemed Lazhira partially agreed at least. She stared out at the hunters and their movement. It took her several moments to make a deliberation before she spoke up again.

“Well, they say fortune favors the bold. Let’s give it a crack.”

Qualia: Mission Sub Rosa

Nazca Whitehall

Clockwork Autumn

There was a slight twitch in her eye when the jumped-up student assigned her and the other secondary volunteers shared responsibility and consequences. Really, she had been offering to do a favor in keeping watch over the implicated technologist, with her being a direct neighbor and all… her own personal interest in the strange Frenchwoman aside.

At her male counterpart’s leave, the crowd of students began to disperse, leaving the few students that had taken responsibility or had otherwise stood up for the alleged arsonist. She took to the stage with the others, sparing the mesmerologist a glance before turning to the others. Nazca had yet to form a true opinion on her fellow Abya Yalan, but she afforded him a more respectful nod than her first target.

“Nazca Whitehall,” she responded simply, offering her name by way of introduction to Inti, and then the same to the Japanese egoist once the horned girl’s attention had also fallen on her. Having already announced her relation as her dormmate during her stunt in the crowd, she felt no need to repeat it again now. “It seems that we’re all mostly in agreement that there’s something particularly unusual about the matter of Jeanne and the library last night,” she agreed, nodding yet again at the mutual desire to work together. They would all have to, or her scholarly career and more would already be at stake just for sticking her neck out.

Her attention then finally turned to the accused, a tick of annoyance flaring up within her at the girl’s blasé attitude towards her capture and the morning’s charade. She stared at her hard with a deadpan expression as the girl freely admitted to her destruction of the library.

“I would hope that our intervention is not wasted on you,” she sniped at the confessed arsonist. That she had so terribly misjudged the nature of her peer left a sour taste in her mouth, not to mention the loss of any respect she might have had for the technologist upon her admission of destroying a center of learning. Had the situation only been that, she would have simply turned on her heels and left, but the allusions of a fight between a rogue egoist inside the library both concerned her and roused her flagging interest.

“So you say,” she smiled wanly at the blunt insult leveled at the students that weren’t Higashiakemi Ryuuko, but otherwise ignoring it. “I intend to investigate this monster of yours, if only to satisfy my own curiosity. I do have some means to look into the events of last night,” she continued, allowing some minor insight into some of her own abilities. “As unconcerned about your fate as you seem to be, we would hear your story.”

@Jumbus @Yankee @Medili @banjoanjo

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

Well, those were certainly some strange looking creatures within the shrubbery. Sort of cute, if Aureia had to say so herself, although she had enough experience with certain animals in the past that she knew that cute didn’t necessarily mean harmless…

She was pretty sure they were harmless anyway, especially when you had the goddess of hunt nearby, and oh dear, it looked like Alasayana wanted to hunt the strange looking deer. Were they edible, though? “Hmm… that does raise a question though, cute as the local fauna may seem… can we actually eat them? Will they taste good?” At the very least, even in their reduced state, Aureia was positive mortal poisons or inedible fauna wouldn’t hurt gods. The question of whether they’d find the meat tasteful, on the other hand…

Well, at least she knew some good recipes from her time hanging out in mortal cities. It was only a shame they didn’t have a full palace kitchen, and they would have to settle for field roasting any meat they hunted.

The goddess of commerce rolled her eyes at the sun god, but she did at least half agree with him. She still didn’t want to dally for much longer in the forest, but she recognized the need to hunt, if only to give their new mortal friend some sustenance.

She yawned. “Come now, O’Menus. I dislike this forest as well, but I suppose we will need to make camp at some point… why don’t we scout ahead to find a suitable spot while ‘Yana does her thing?”

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist @PKMNB0Y

“Great,” Narkissa groaned. It seemed like she hadn’t gotten a break ever since coming to this world. There was more conspiracy and intrigue in this little village than in her research department back at the university, and that was saying something. There were just far too many undercurrents to keep track of, to know of what was going on… but there wasn’t much she could do about it.

At the last moment, she just barely remembered that Leannah had passed on a message while she had been shopping at Mie’s. She was retrieving something beyond the village, was it? She’d also added something about ‘where it all began’ which was something vaguer than what she needed to hear. But was she referring to this obelisk? She clicked her tongue.

“It’s possible Leannah was messing around with that monument before the hunters showed up,” she muttered to Misaki and Lazhira. “Something about getting something from ‘where it all began.’ Seems clear enough that whatever the hunters ar doing regardless, it’s nothing good.”

She squinted at their preparations. “They’re hardly prepared. If I may be as so bold to say… but how about we counter-ambush them? We’d have the element of surprise…”

Qualia: Mission Sub Rosa

Nazca Whitehall

Clockwork Autumn

It was at ten bells, as Nazca was about to draw her bath, when the Clocktower rang, and with it, the surge of energy and the flurry of locks clicking and doors slamming shut. Having long since honed her skills of stoicism, she didn’t jump at the sudden noises, although she found herself very cross with it all. The noise of the bells, while irritating, were alright, but the locking of the doors for curfew, in her mind, was insulting the honor and intelligence of the students it hosted. Especially so, with its implementation of the Starsteel Formation.

…Not that Nazca would have always adhered to the curfew anyway. There were certain things in the night that required her investigation, including the fog, which she was instantly reminded of as her windows were covered by the pervasive opaque mist. Was the mist simply another means to keep the student body inside? She hadn’t inspected the doors or windows of her dorm thoroughly, but it was obvious that could be easily forced open. Of course, it would leave evidence of such an act, but a resourceful enough person could simply repair a window or a door the old-fashioned way, with enough skill. It was perplexing.

Having a clue on the nature of the fog, though, made her think of the hawk she still had in the sky. Could she still get through to it? She was confident her drone was loitering high enough in the sky to not be affected by the fog, but if she couldn’t send out or communicate with any drones during curfew, that would be… less than optimal. Normally, she could control her clockwork drones reasonably well without any large and cumbersome devices, but when it came to long-range operations…

Nazca hastily pulled out a trunk –or more properly, and advanced wireless set in the shape of one—and set it upon her desk. She quickly went through the motions of setting it up, hooking up its battery, extending its long aerial, power up the device. Since she’d last used it right before the airship had landed to launch her hawk, it was still tuned into the right frequency. Using a switch that looked quite familiar to any wireless operators, she keyed out a command in her own proprietary code.

Scout One. Acknowledge test signal.

She paused to listen to a reply. The clicks that came in response came in strong—short click, long click, short, short, long, modulated long—the correct identification code for the unit. That was good, it meant it was still in the air, and she could communicate with it by radio. She tapped in another pre-programmed command.

Scout One. Execute diagnostic test and report.

She waited patiently for the machine to test its servos, gyros, gears, and onboard equipment before reporting back. The full power test would significantly draw down its remaining power and flight time, but she was bringing it back in the next morning to collect its data anyway. After several minutes, the encoded beeps and clicks filled the airwaves again as the bird reported back its current altitude, speed, axes of orientation, rough position by dead reckoning, and other basic data—all indicating it was functioning correctly.

Satisfied, she gave it a few more tests—simple commands to increase and decrease altitude, and then moved on to more advanced commands, including proper formula-encoded ones. To her mild surprise, they executed fine, with a proper acknowledgement, although she didn't risk allowing it to descend enough that it might get caught in the fog. She wasn't sure what it would do her instruments yet, and it lacked the proper sensors to navigate blindly in a fog. Nonetheless, she would have to conduct experiments later.

She shut down the wireless set. Nazca would bring in the bird in the morning as planned. Her attention then wandered over to the locked door. Cracking open yet another trunk for more equipment, she brought out a set of tools. There really was a lot of overlap between a jeweler’s, watchmaker’s and a locksmith’s toolkits. Equipment in hand, she headed over to the locked doors, keen to find out its mysteries, the hard way or the easy way. Either way, she would have that door accessible—even if she had to fit a tungsten plate shim over the mechanism before curfew.

---

Unlike a certain other white-haired girl, though, Nazca wasn’t an extreme autist. Success or fail, once the night drew on for too long, she took her bath and then turned in for the night, only to be rudely awakened in the morning by the sounds of a public school announcement.

With a mild bit of irritation, she rose and went through her morning routine –including brewing tea and bringing her bird back—before she headed over to the Central Monument Library for the curious ‘examination,’ piping hot tea in a thermos in hand.

By the time she arrived at the library, she had a good inkling of what had happened. Even before arriving on sight, the lingering smell of burnt wood and the wispy remains of ashes rising into the morning sky was more than evident, and half-burnt, singed pieces of parchment and paper littered the streets and floated through the crowd on the occasional gust of wind. It hadn’t been a day, and a vast repository of knowledge was already gone—one that Nazca had fully intended to make use of. Her mood continued to sour.

Nonetheless, she remained curious at what had happened here. Unfazed at the youthful appearance of the school official with the unnecessarily fancy name, she frowned at his speech. Wouldn’t he get to the point?

The news of the Ottoman collapse was an interesting enough footnote, though, even if its imminent demise had been predictable.

Far more interesting was the restrained and slightly singed form of Jeanne Du Bordeaux up upon the platform with her overly pretentious countryman. That girl had built quite the reputation for herself, and a controversial one, at that. She had been one of the ones that she had looked forward to speak to or observe—neither of which she had done, ironically, despite knowing that she had been assigned to the same dorm building as herself.

The evidence on-site seemed damning. A burnt library, and a Frenchwoman with a reputation for arson. Nonetheless, she found herself agreeing with the Austrian fraud of all people. Guilt was determined in a trial, not established as pseudo-fact before one, even if all facts pointed towards her destruction of a library, and the lack of intervention of a mysterious witness was strange. Furthermore, even if she had a reputation for arson, what was her motive for burning a building down? On her first day? If anything, her reputation would make it less likely to be her-- the ideal candidate to frame. She wondered if the bird was able to manage to pick up any useful data during the night despite the fog.

It wasn’t her direct mission, but she decided to intervene. She raised a hand.

“I may not be an egoist, but I believe it would be only proper for some of her fellow dormmates to participate in her supervision alongside the volunteer.”

She gave a nod towards Ryuuko. The Japanese egoist, was it?

There was something more to this than meets the eye, and Nazca needed to know.

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist @PKMNB0Y

Narkissa slowly made her way towards the scene of the commotion. Carrying all the new stuff was still a bit cumbersome, even with two bags to hold all her stuff and her sword awkwardly holstered in a makeshift belt, but she managed. It did make her a little less than stealthy, though, so she approached carefully.

It seemed she wasn’t as good at making herself unseen as she thought, though, when she heard her name called out by none other than Lazhira. Raising an eyebrow at the waving girl, she made her way over. Hopefully Lazhira was the only one that had seen her, as she would soon find out.

By the time she reached the girl, Narkissa realized they weren’t alone, in more than one way—Miksaki was there, shushing the other girl, and it was also evident there were hunters down in the darkness. Hunting something, obviously.

“Hello,” she greeted simply, keeping her voice down. “I’ll confess I’m out of the loop, seems a lot has happened since we met at Mie’s,” she shrugged, peering over at the scene. She crossed her arms. “Considering their track record over the past couple days, nothing good. Lazhira, they aren’t after you, are they?”

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

Heartened a bit by the priestess’s response, she stood up, letting the girl take the lead. Nonetheless, she paused for a moment to shoot a look towards the sun god, shaking her head in disappointment at him before continuing on.

Before long, she found herself in a great forest together with the others. It was a strange one, with trees and fauna so great –at least by the sounds they made—that it seemed like this place had been so bereft of human touch that it had probably been left unmolested for millennia. In direct contrast to the goddess of the hunt… such a forest disturbed her. As a goddess born from human influence, the complete lack of it only left her feeling hollow and incomplete as they traversed through the thick foliage and uneven pathing of the wilderness.

“Nnngh… I for one would prefer if we left this forest sooner than later. Preferably, straight into a human city so that we can get a proper fix on the state of the world rather than taking the words of some zealot at face value,” the goddess of commerce and wealth grumbled.

-FV-

Iphigenia didn’t stop sipping her drink. She only raised an eyebrow when Victoria suddenly ‘attacked,’ not doing much but to tap Runa on the head, really. Maybe they were all jaded at this point, but nobody really reacted at all, really.

What was she trying to do, anyway? If this was the equivalent of her pulling up her bootstraps and walking into a business with her resume to get a job, she wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

She made a shrugging action as her companions all chose to completely ignore what had just happened and continued to sip on her shake.

“As I was saying earlier, don’t knock the robot chefs. Most of what they make is pretty good.” She showed an index finger to the girl, letting it spark. “Did you know they also have a secret menu?”

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist

Narkissa gave Mie a thumbs-up before rummaging through the tools. A cheap cloth bag did well for keeping the basic ingredients all together, but together with that and all the various knickknacks she’d procured over the past few days, she needed a proper bag for the rest of her stuff as well, so Narkissa picked out a leather knapsack looking bag where she promptly shoved her books and the godly blueprint thing (that she still wasn’t entirely too confident on.)

A nice pestle and mortar was a given, together with a few miscellaneous tools, she also needed a flat press of some sort for the corning process—she found a tool used for another purpose as a stop-gap for the time being, but she’d probably have to fashion her own later on if she wanted to be more efficient about it. It was probably better if she fashioned some of her own specialized tools, anyway… She didn’t want others deducing her own formulation and methods from the ingredients and tools she picked out.

Thinking about it further, she’d nearly forgotten a minor ingredient, and ended up asking the Oni for a bottle of distilled alcohol –not a required ingredient, but one that would make creating corned powder far easier than just using random impure water.

Finally equipped with the basics for recreating boom boom powder, she thanked the Oni and Mie if she was around once more, before glancing curiously at the odd display over at the Obelisk. Well, fixing up the powder could probably wait just a bit… she still needed to get an idea of what was going on, after all.