Between yesterday and today, I've posted more than in the last year combined I think. The future bodes well. In other news I'm finally beginning to read each and every post in a detailed manner. Having finished Uni, my deranged ape brain has so much more space for new stuff!
Edit: Why can't I like my own posts? :(
Also, I haven't forgotten about drawing the Hain, I just did some legendary procrastination. They really are tough to imagine for a mammalian like me
Edit 2: I'm particularly proud of this new stage in Astartian history. I think it'll go places! Non-sad, non-death inducing places!
A good while ago I sprouted and joined life with so many of my family near me, all of them growing on these plains.
There were beings that could eat us. There were also beings that cherished us. During the day we basked in the loving embrace of our Father, whose light caressed our petals and stems. During the night we communed with our mother, who let us take root in her and connect with each other.
It all ended.
I don't know why it happened, but I remember feeling my family leave me. Every departure felt like a torn petal. Even my smaller friends, the short ones with no petals, were going away with no notice.
That's when I felt it. A presence which overpowered everything else. Such a toxic presence that by being close to it a shiver went down my stem and I felt my petals shrivel. My connection to our Mother was the next to go, and for the first time in my short life, I felt alone.
I wanted to feel my family, I wanted to be with my Mother and I wanted to feel my Father's love, but I felt nothing.
The ground that had been my home since my sprouting was turning dry and my roots felt like they were on fire.
I asked for help so many times, but no one answered. No one was there.
So, as I felt the presence coming closer, I steeled my dying body as much as I could and prepared for death. At least my body would eventually be used as nutrients by new members of my family.
Then I felt it. Another presence. While the first one made everything seem bleak and hopeless, this one was like a shining light. It wasn't close. Oh, it was quite far. Yet the moment that it appeared, the dark presence took note and began moving toward it, away from me. The ground was still coarse and I was still dying, so I chose to focus on the battle for what little time I had left. The farther away the dark presence went, the more connected to things I felt once more.
My family was dead, my friends were dead. Our Mother was crying and our Father tried desperately to reach us. I tried to comfort my Mother by telling her that my body would heal the land once I passed, but she kept crying.
My petals shriveled up more. One fell to the dead ground.
Eventually, the dark presence met with the light presence, and some kind of struggle happened. I couldn't understand it.
Their struggle came to a close and both presences vanished, giving way to a new one which had grown quickly over the course of the battle.
Some time passed, and the presence grew stronger. Soon, the plains were covered in it, and I felt it.
Life.
It was so quick how new members of my Family sprouted, how my friends were growing again. The soil healed and next was my body.
Mother cried no more. Father managed to reach us. All was well. After a short time, the presence introduced itself as our Mother.
I asked the presence what it meant since our Mother had been with us since before the presence existed. It said that it was the part of our Mother that could think and act, and therefore we could call it Mother as well.
We agreed on this and accepted her into our lives. Over time, we grew accustomed to having two Mothers. One for the Body, which was the Old Mother, and one for the Heart and Mind, which was the New Mother.
The more connected we grew with the New Mother, the more we found out about her. She was great and powerful, a tree of unseen proportions. We named her body the Great Tree.
Our reverie was broken when another presence showed up. This one resembled the Presence of Light that had unknowingly saved us some time ago, but it was... Tainted.
Upon its arrival, the New Mother put all traces she had left of the essence of the previous Presence of Light into a material object and we observed as the new presence kissed the object. The kiss sent shockwaves through our Mother, who started weeping.
Then the shockwaves reached us, they reached me.
This presence was broken. My new Family may not have understood what the presence was feeling but in some deep part of my memory, I knew how it felt.
Back when I was alone, and the dark presence was threatening to undo my world. When I felt my Family leave me with no notice. That is what she felt.
I didn't weep, much to the surprise of Mother. When she asked me why I was not weeping, I told her that we should give the presence a Family, that she was alone in the world, much like I was before Mother healed my world.
When the Presence laid a hand on our Mother's bark, we showed her our world. The simplicity, the interconnectedness, the family. It was normal for us, but the presence changed almost immediately. It was so malleable.
We learned it was called Astarte and through her, we learned of a world much bigger than ours, a world where beings like her made the Old Mother into their playground.
We felt small, yet we received Astarte into the Family either way. Feeling her essence begin to heal was enough for us.
Life for the plants living in the plains south of the Deepwoods changed when the beast between the Beast and Brown happened. The rise of the Great Tree changed life for the better and brought with it a new generation of strongly connected plants. A lavender flower, a survivor of the Beast's passage through the plains prior to the battle, recounts what their life was like and how it was affected by the events.
Dude it's already been over two years since we started this iteration. How did time move so quickly?
Also, as with anything that has to do with Astarte, her current whereabouts are an open timeline, whoever wants to interact with her just shoot a pm my way and have your character show up at the huge, 300-meter high tree that popped up overnight directly south of the Deepwoods.
It feels so good to post an unedited and barely proofread post, dudes.
Astarte's now a treehugger. PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR THE HIPPY REVOLUTION. I think it may not be too clear on what she experienced when connected to the Tree, but over time and more posts I'll try to give more context and explain it better. if not, you can ask me anythin you want.
Astarte, Goddess of Magic and Soul Manipulation. L6 - 30 MP - 9 FP
The world cared not for what had happened here. Blades of grass swayed gently in the wind every few moments. The moon shed her light down on the plains which were painted over with recent craters and canyons. Yet, while the battle had taken place the same day, nature was already on its way to reclaiming what had been lost.
A Great Tree stood proudly over the horizon with its canopy meeting with the gods above the clouds, far beyond what a mortal could see. Thick roots dug into the ground and took over the deep canyons, creating natural bridges which animals used as homes and for convenience when traversing the terrain. Grass on the plains had begun spreading into the craters, reclaiming what was once devoured and burned.
All life was drawn to the Great Tree. Squirrels climbed up to its lower branches, birds flew up to the distant canopy and snakes and horses slept under its shadow.
At the foot of the Tree was a small stick half-buried into the ground, jutting up as some kind of forgotten marker. A brown mouse was sitting on top of it, cleaning itself.
The mouse froze, its little eyes doing their best to scan the area.
The woman came out of nowhere. One moment she just appeared there, wearing white and with lavender hair. The mouse squeaked and in a blink of an eye, disappeared into the grass.
The woman was Astarte, Goddess of Magic and Soul Manipulation.
She looked down at the stick and after a moment of contemplation knelt down on the ground in front of it. She sighed and felt her lip quiver. The stick was emanating a familiar kind of essence, but in a different way than she remembered. This was no longer the essence that seeped into all her senses, the essence that walked beside her all the time.
"It is a memorial..." She muttered.
A minute of silence.
She kissed the stick and stood up, looking at the Tree. She didn't see just a Tree, though, she saw it for what it was. An immensely powerful being that was helping nature move on from what had happened, and was doing so with its great amount of willpower. So much that it was bending reality to its whim.
She went up to the trunk, which was at least as thick as two human huts, and laid her hand on it. At that moment, Astarte felt connected to it and connected to the world. A wave of warmth washed over her chest, tears welled up in her eyes and suddenly she started sobbing. She felt loved.
Every last part of her essence felt the Tree's embrace, whisking her into a world full of just... Being. She didn't understand it, but she didn't have to.
Eventually, Astarte began flying up, never taking her hand off the Tree, until she reached the top, going through several canopies and making sure she didn't interfere with the life that had made the Tree its home, because now more than ever, she felt them as if they were herself.
From the top, she could see a sea of clouds, stretching as far as the eye could see. It was a cloudy night, but even then there were spots where she could see down onto the plains she had been on just a few moments ago. She could see over to the nearby forest, where humans had taken residence just a few decades ago, and she could see the thick impenetrable canopies of the Deepwoods.
From here, it all looked so different... So beautiful.
She let go of the Tree and felt the connection vanish. Still, what she had felt was still within her. The love, the life...
Finally, she thought, I am.
She turned towards the Tree and smiled warmly, "I love you." She muttered. Another breeze went through the leaves, making the only sound beside her voice.
She then flew down and saw nests of birds, parents sleeping soundly around their hatchlings. Astarte got close to them and kissed each of them, waking them up and getting her face pecked gently by the family. "I love you too." She chuckled.
Then she flew further down and saw more life. "I love you," she said to moths and caterpillars. "I love you," She said to squirrels and mice.
"I love all of you!" She yelled as she reached the bottom, grinning like a child.
Then a bird dropped a present on her head and she rolled her eyes. With a flick of her wrist, it was as if it had never happened. "I know you love me too but I'll shut up now so you can sleep."
"Now," She turned toward the stick she saw first, "I will never forget you, you know. And as far as I know, you're still alive, Brownie."
She carefully bent down and picked up the stick, cleaning the dirt off it with her hands and kissing it again. "I think the Tree had something to do with your essence now coating this stick, but hey," She shrugged, "If you're a stick now, then we'll roll with it. Let's get you somewhere safe... Or at least safer than here-"
In a flash, she was up above the canopy, where she carefully let the stick levitating, protected by a small bubble made of her essence. "That should do it. Now, if you can hear me, say something!" She said, grabbing the bubble in her hands.
"Come on Brown, I didn't get to see you turn into a stick you know, and you were ignoring me back then so you owe me an explanation."
No answer.
"Huh," Astarte forced a smile and preemptively wiped her eyes, then hugged the bubble. "I miss you Brown, please come back. You have been so absent lately..."
She spent all night like that, hugging the bubble containing the stick with an ounce of Brown's essence, in hopes that her avatar would somehow come back to comfort and scold her.
The battlefield where Brown, the Beast and the three heroes fought is in the process of healing, a process accelerated by the Great Tree's presence.
When Astarte arrives, she takes note of a stick that has traces of Brown's essence, then she touched the Tree and feels connected to Galbar in such a way that she can't help but tell all critters in the area that she loves them, ending up with bird poop on her head.
Finally, Astarte takes the Memorial Stick and leaves it levitating on top of the Great Tree, above the clouds, protected in a bubble of her essence. She then spends all night hugging the bubble and talking to the stick.
Used 1 FP to make a bubble around the Memorial Stick to protect it from harm and time-related deterioration.
@Frettzo@Antarctic Termite I read the start of that post, and thought, 'So that's what Astarte has been doing all these years.'
Also, does Tira still have the Godkiller? If so, why didn't Astarte notice (an item which projects an aura of anti-divinity is something a god would notice at such close proximity)? If not, where is it? Or is this just a plot hole?
Not a plothole. Astarte just doesn't pay attention to anything :p Especially since she's spent like what, dozens of years pranking kids in the arctic circle? She doesn't even know there's a Godkiller. She isn't sharp just yet, give her a few posts and she'll get better again.
Member
Lord Zee
LokiLeo789
Enzayne
Squad 404
Thayr
Vec
WrongEndoftheRainbow
ActRaiserTheReturned
Dezuel