JohnSolaris

Cradle of Divinity (signups always open)

So... are we going to move forward?

@ravenDivinity

Sorry, I was busy with a university project in the past few days. I should be able to move everyone's groups forward tomorrow.

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@ravenDivinity (Darius); @Laue (John)

"'Your home world'?" The elven leader stares at John with an incredulous look on his face. "What in the Goddess's name are you-"

"So you're saying you're from beyond the Great Barrier?!" The long-haired elf, the one who had warned his leader of the "Blightmother's taint" earlier, scoffs. "Did you think we're gullible children?! There is no world past the Barrier! Not even the gods themselves-"

"Wait a minute..." the third elf says. He looks at John, and his eyes narrow. "You say the Blightmother gave you power; that much is plausible, given her twisted experiments. But what about your friend? Unlike you, he shows no signs of corrupted Life magic, as far as I can see."

"Yes..." The leader murmurs. His expression becomes hesitant, as though he's unsure whether to attack or not. "I feel pure elemental magic from you... boy," he says, looking at Darius. "And we all know that if the Blightmother had gotten her hands on you, your magic wouldn't have been pure. She'd have turned you into one of her demons..."

"Captain, they're just trying to fool us!" The aggressive, long-haired elf hisses. "The only good demon is a dead one, and we should just shoot-"

"But the boy isn't a demon," the third elf says. "Shouldn't we-"

"Yes," the leader says, and nods, seemingly having made up his mind for now. "And they haven't attacked us, unlike every other demon we've seen in the past weeks." He slowly lowers his weapons, but his muscles are still tense, his body language suggesting that he's ready to draw his weapons again at a moment's notice. "So we won't attack you, creatures, if you do as we say," he says, looking at John and Darius. "You can start by telling us what you are, and where you're from. Your clothes aren't like anything we've seen before, that's for sure."

Cradle of Divinity (signups always open)

Does John think Darius is a lawyer, or is that a mistake?

@ravenDivinity

@Laue probably mistook Darius for Grant. I already PM'd him about this.

Cradle of Divinity (signups always open)

This is moving real slow, for my group at least.

@Laue

As I already said before, I can't make you head into the woods or do any other sort of exploration unless you do it yourself. For all I know, John won't necessarily head toward the same direction as where Darius found the elven village, or even follow Darius at all. I also don't want to throw another encounter at you so soon.

If you want things to move along quickly, you should at least make a post saying where John wants to go. Maybe also have him ask Darius what kind of village he saw, what kinds of creatures inhabit it, etc. Do some more character interactions while you walk toward your destination.

Cradle of Divinity (signups always open)

Sorry for the late reply. Had a power outage (no electricity = no power for modem = no internet) that lasted for a day and a half, and I generally wasn't in a writing mood lately. But I wrote something yesterday, so hopefully I'll be getting back on track.

So our third group member isn't showing up huh...

@Laue

Crap, I forgot to reply to this post.

Uh... @Dephaistos hadn't logged on for 19 days. He didn't post anything, and no one really noticed his character. So you and @ravenDivinity should just pretend that he doesn't exist, and carry on with your interactions as usual. He'll be retconned out of existence, and will only show up again if Dephaistos comes back.

Cradle of Divinity (signups always open)

@gammaflux (Azorel); @Flora (Nathaniel); @Minnakht (Angela); @Blackmist16 (Vestus)

[@Raptorman hasn't posted in a long while, and didn't reply to my PM, so I'm going to retcon his character out of existence for now; he hasn't really interacted with anyone anyways. If he comes back, he'll be treated like a new arrival.]

Before Nathaniel and Vestus have decided on their next course of action, they hear the sound of rustling leaves and shrubbery coming from deeper within the woods. Moments later, a figure emerges.

At the first glance, the figure resembles a young human woman, maybe barely more than a teenager. The first sign one may notice that hints at the woman's non-human nature is a faint, sea blue tinge to her otherwise fair and smooth skin, the coloration appearing entirely natural rather than some kind of sickly pallor; her shoulder-length wavy black hair has a similar tint. Upon further inspection, one can observe that the woman's ears have prominently pointed tips, and are far sharper and thinner than normal human ears. Gills can be faintly seen on the sides of her necks, a set of small fins protrude from the backs of her forearms and lower legs, and her fingers and toes have slight amounts of webbing between them. She is lightly dressed, wearing a midriff-baring sleeveless top and what resembles a pareo or sarong wrapped around her hips, both made of some strange, dark green leafy material and decorated with simple blue patterns; the clothes complement her tall and slender figure and make her look quite attractive by human standards. Not knowing what kind of being she calls herself, a human will likely label her a "sea elf".

However, the elven woman carries a runed hunting knife in one hand, and a wooden rod resembling something halfway between a torch and a magic wand in the other hand. And her fiery red eyes are full of alarm and hostility.

"Who're you?" The young woman hisses, trying to keep quiet and sound menacing at the same time. The language is comprehensible to all of the transhumans, but strangely doesn't sound quite like English or any other language they've heard. As she speaks, he tip of the rod in the girl's left hand bursts into flames, and the metallic blade of her dagger begins to burn red hot. "Are you with those damn pirates?! Answer me if you don't want to get cooked alive!"

---

@helltank (Alison); @Eklispe (Rina); @Grimoire (Emeka)

"Thank you, stranger!" One of the orcs shouts as he sees Aron blasting one of the spiders with cold energy. "We-"

"Ziz's dung!" The second orc curses, as he struggles to get back up and recover from the spider's earlier attack. "Now we've got a demon on our hands too?!" He mutters, while looking at Alison, specifically at the wings of black energy emanating from her back. "Yes, Ghorzak! Reinforcements! Now!"

"On it!" The first orc, apparently named Ghorzak, answers, then promptly leaps into the air far higher than even something of his strength should be able to. A gust of wind howls behind him, and he seems to glide further into the village despite his great physical bulk.

The spider that was struck by Aron's cold ray is now severely chilled, shivering and suffering from frostbite all over. However, this has caused the other five spiders to turn their attentions toward the three transhumans. Moreover, the orcs are looking at the transhumans too, tense and ready to attack; they definitely weren't particularly pleased by Alison's words.

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@gammaflux (Azorel); @Raptorman (Ethan); @Flora (Nathaniel); @Minnakht (Angela); @Blackmist16 (Vestus)

As Azorel steps outside the shrine, he is immediately greeted by a smell of the ocean, carried by a pleasantly cool breeze. The sound of splashing waves can be heard. The shrine seems to be at the very edge of a forest, where the trees have taken on a slight watery blue hue; the pear-shaped blue fruits hanging from the trees appear to be particularly moist. One low-hanging fruit is even being slowly chewed on by a tree-climbing fish of some sort.

But no, that's not the most noticeable feature in the vista; the most notable feature is almost always the most dangerous. In this case, it is a large pirate ship docked roughly some distance away on the beach. Admittedly, the culture on this world may be different, and it may not actually be a ship owned by pirates... But any ship that has a large black flag depicting the bleached skull of some kind of horned lizard, and a pair of crossbones, is bound to be not very pleasant. And that's not even mentioning the series of cannons that can vaguely be seen protruding from one side of the ship's hull. On the other hand, the ship is docked next to what appears to be a peaceful little village, with ordinary-looking houses that decidedly lack any macabre skull motifs. A few other boats can be seen, but they also look normal and not the least bit intimidating; the large ship looks completely out of place next to them.

Nothing else notable can be seen, unless the group of transhumans are to go deeper into the forest, walk along the beach in the direction opposite of the ship, or go into the sea somehow.

---

@helltank (Alison); @Eklispe (Rina); @Grimoire (Emeka)

As the three transhumans approach the village, they begin to see more webs of bluish light hanging in the air, like the ones they've seen earlier from the white spider. In some places the webs are sparse enough to be walked through safely if one does it with care, but in other areas, there are extremely dense clusters of webs that form almost solid masses of light.

Then they spot the villagers. One can instantly tell that they're not human, from their dull, pale, bluish green skin. Each of the creatures is around two meters tall, possessing musculature rivaling those of the bulkiest human athletes on Earth. Tufts of black and dark brown hair can be seen on their heads, and a pair of relatively dull tusks jut out from each creature's mouth. Their eyes have shades of blue, green, and gray, showing more intellect than the creatures' brutish strength may suggest. Overall, aside from their more exotic bodily features, the creatures' physical builds are similar to humans, and even display the same type of sexual dimorphism. In fact, they bear a not insignificant resemblance to orcs in many fictional fantasy settings from Earth. However, none of them are in armor; their clothes are mostly made of furs and leathers. They do appear to be genuine farmers, at least on the surface.

At the moment, a group of three orcs are doing battle against six of the white spiders the transhumans have seen earlier. The battle is taking place at the border of the village; the orcs are presumably fighting to prevent the spiders from entering. With a bellow, one of the orcs raises her right hand, and unleashes a cone of pale blue frost, which seems to rapidly freeze a section of the glowing webs. At the same time, two of the spiders spew jets of luminescent silk from their mouths, toward the second orc. The silk seemingly passes through the orc's body, but he still lets out a choked cry of pain, and falls to his knees, muscles twitching. He then grits his teeth, and wills a burst of fire to emanate from him, burning away all the webs. But his face still doesn't look like he's feeling very well at all.

"Shit!" The third orc growls, in a language that isn't quite English but somehow still understandable by the transhumans. "Olaghog! Should we call for reinforcements?!" It's clear that none of them have seen the transhumans yet.

[I used an online generator for the orc name. Sue me.]

Cradle of Divinity (signups always open)

My laptop fan is breaking down, and it takes three weeks for the new fan to get shipped (it's only available from Hong Kong, apparently). I'll need to rely on an iPad and/or my old laptop in the meantime, so I apologize in advance if my activity suffers as a result.

Cradle of Divinity (signups always open)

@helltank (Alison); @akje (Libé); @Eklispe (Rina); @Grimoire (Emeka)

As Allison places Libé into the futuristic pod, the pod's magic immediately begins working on the petrified man. Greenish white energy sweeps over him, slowly causing the stone that coats his skin to dissipate. Very, very slowly. He is going to be stuck here for a while.

[Guys, I can't make you start walking toward the village unless you decide to do that IC. Or do something else. No more plot developments are going to occur if you just stay near the shrine.]

Cradle of Divinity (signups always open)

I also had one last question. In your document you mention electrokinesis as a part of the psionic tree. How do his aether (mind, and thus electrokinesis) cores affect his ability to control elecricity (air and life, which he has only 1/6th of a core in)?

@Dephaistos

Aside from how magic works in general, the document describes another setting in my fictional universe entirely. Magic is the same, but the Worldsphere uses a different system to classify it, compared to the Cradle of Divinity. Long story short, you still need masteries in Air and Life to be good at any magic that is related to electricity. Due to your two Aether cores, you have a mastery of 1/3 in both Life and Air, so you can still use minor lightning abilities with a decent amount of skill. Don't worry about how the other setting classifies such abilities.

Your character is now accepted, but there are still two things I think you should know. First, some attacks may be able to pierce through your kinetic barrier, meaning that you might take damage, but won't have all your mana drained. Second, two Aether cores give no masteries in Light or Dark, so your Nullify and Synergy abilities will be much less effective when used on Light or Dark magic.