Heya. Getting back into text based RP after a long binge of DND/Pathfinder as it's more schedule friendly and I happened upon this lovely site.
Down for most roleplays as I'm looking to improve my writing ability and connect with other cool people. Only really draw the line at erp as that's just not my cup of tea.
If you wanna chat, shoot me a dm! Would be more than happy to entertain anyone who stumbles upon this.
If you've got any recommendations about the site, that'd also be lovely to know! I'm very new here after all!
Yuliya awoke on an old mattress. The sheets had decayed into just a few patches of fabric and the foundations of the bed rusted into nothing. Somehow, the material used for the bedding itself had survived the test of time, albeit barely. She was in a bedroom where a nightstand still held up, perhaps due to the strange white material it was made of.
Xiuyang awoke on the skeleton of a couch, the springs still holding up despite the rest and the metallic mesh at the base was robust enough to withstand a woman of her build. The living room wasn’t particularly big, and the first thing she saw was a hollowed out box made of similarly peculiar material as the nightstand Yuli would find and a big hole on the side that faced her. It stood on a broken down wooden shelf that had since collapsed, but the box itself had survived.
Seviin was in a ceramic bathtub. Once white, now mucked up by dust and other accumulations of dirt. The bathroom was the least decayed due to what composed it, though it also looked to be the dirtiest. The latrine had an interesting design, being a seat a tad too small for a Yasoi like her, or even the average human. It reeked of metal along with the usual dust and dirt all could taste.
The speaking box was in the dining room connected to the one Xiuyang was in, on top of a table that seemed better maintained than anything else in the interior.
The living room connected to a balcony with a vantage point of about fifteen metres. The platform itself was … Flimsy to say the least. But they could see the city just outside of the shattered glass just fine. There were other buildings like this one, and they seemed to be at the top floor of this residential building. Many of the other buildings had collapsed into themselves and condemned many roads. The tower was quite far too, suggesting they were near the outskirts, much like the industrial district.
The radio buzzed again.
Seviin rose from the tub with some modicum of grace, though perhaps less than she'd intended. She stretched and strode in the direction that the voice was coming from. First, however, she stopped in front of the others just as they were stirring. She felt a burning tingle all over her body and vaguely registered the words. If she felt bad, they could very well be worse. She took, first, Xiuyang's pulse, and then Yuliya's. She checked for any obvious damage. Then, she stopped in front of the strange pills.
This was a place cursed of the Gods, or perhaps blessed by the devils. She could not be certain. All that she knew was that Mother Oirase would watch over her no matter where she was, so long as she was worthy. She picked the three small objects up and slipped them into her sleeve. "I trust that you will help us," she announced to the voice in the box, even as those of people she knew - or was at least acquainted with - came through. "But what is it that you want us to do? What do you consider a victory?"
Yuliya awoke with a yawn and a large carefree stretch, before realizing she had company, and did not exactly remember where she was. The last she recalled, there was a tavern... and now she was in a tattered bedroom with naught but her clothes and the strange static of a sirrahi-adjacent device. She heard a voice coming from nearby, and the sounds of movement, a distinctly yasoi accent. Not one that she particularly recognized, but alas, she didn't feel the need to press further.
She rose to her feet and barely acknowledged the yasoi girl, choosing instead to focus on the radio. It was then that she recalled some familiar voices. Yvain and Leon? Juulet? The fact they'd ended up in this mess too spelled trouble. How could they capture four of the strongest people in the world and put them in a situation like this? And why did the voice go through the trouble? She felt a tinge of annoyance as she too began to speak into the radio.
"Why the wild goose hunt, Mr Shithead Voice? If you can be placing us in random spot in this shitpile city, why not just go yourself? You are lazy fat man?"
Darkness. Xiuyang was calmly floating through the infinite void that sometimes returned to haunt her in her nightmares ever since the incident at Mano e Mano. It had become almost banal, now, as she immediately fell into her routine. Her focus was on her breathing, on the beating of her heart, the pumping of blood and the tingling of her nerves as they heightened their sensitivity, trying to find something, anything in this vast emptiness. Eventually, in due time, the real world would find its way to her eyelids.
A sudden jolt, as she began to hear voices. They were distant, muffled, indistinct. She was in a dark room, on something crude that she imagined might be in a jail cell. She tried to reach out with the Gift to see who had entered the room, but she could not find her Gift. The intruder, or kidnapper, smelled like a homeless person. They grabbed her forearm. Xiuyang struggled, but her body couldn't move aside from her eyes and the tips of her fingers. Though she was awake, she was still paralyzed. As the voices became clearer, she would listen, and what she heard frightened her. Ironshaper couldn't manage? She was in over her head. How could she have been so foolish? Did Ciro know? Had he... no, he wouldn't do this to her. If he wanted to call the whole thing off, he'd just say so. He wouldn't toss her to the wolves like a piece of meat!
The voices, they were Seviin and Yuli. She also thought she could hear Juulet, but she wasn't in the room. She couldn't hear that infernal hopping she would do as she threatened someone. It gave her enough confidence to open her eyes and look around, but she wouldn't go anywhere. Without the Gift, she was utterly defenseless. But she felt the Second Chancer poke into her hip as she rolled over to look at the other two. Then, she had an idea. A completely awful idea. If Juulet was in the same boat as her, she was vulnerable, and Xiuyang had a gun. She just needed to watch her ammo and powder, since she only carried a little as a backup.
Xiuyang sat up and made a shushing gesture with her finger. She seemed to want to pretend that she wasn't here, and theirs was the group of two.
But Xiuyang would not remain quiet for long. She listened as the voice mocked Yvain with how much control he allegedly had over them, and she lost her temper.
"Can such a convenient magic really exist? Even a humble merchant like myself can alter their voice, make shit up as they go, and claim to hold all the cards.
If you want us to believe in your expertise and sincerity, how about offering up some practical advice: how to protect ourselves against these 'ghosts' of yours? And this mysterious fog? Show some goodwill, and maybe we'll act favorably."
Her voice trembled almost imperceptibly, and would come across the indistinct radio as something close to calm, cool and collected. But her face plainly showed terror, fury, and even disgust at what she was hearing.
<I. CAN. WAIT.> came a brief pinch message, meant only for Xiuyang. Then, Yuliya came and took one. She spoke bitterly. Seviin tilted her head, not sure what to make of matters. She had learned lessons at the seminary beyond the ones she was supposed to learn, however. She used one of these now. <HIDE. YOU. TRUE. FACE.> she messaged Yuliya, not so much as looking at her. <WE. NOT. KNOW. HE. CAN. DO.> It occurred to her that the Vossoriyan might not know whose words these were. <I. AM. SEVIIN. HURT. LESS. I. WAIT.>
She took one pill and made as if she were swallowing it, though she did not. "She is right. We have little choice but to follow. Trust in Mother Oirase. Trust in your instincts." They had a direction of sorts. Seviin did her best to shoot Xiuyang a sympathetic look. Eyes wide and morbidly curious, she stared out the balcony as she began to move.
Xiuyang regarded the other two with eyes that might've been calculating if she weren't among friends. At least, Yuli had been friendly enough to her at Queen Hylaenii's reception, but now... was it her she was displeased with, or Seviin? She decided that it didn't matter. They were forced to work together anyway, and if anything she felt a little relieved upon seeing how strong Yuli was, even with her Gift suppressed. There were only a few reasons why that could be the case, she reasoned, but it didn't bother her. She knew all but formally that Ingrid was one, and her blood type would protect her from Yuli's appetite, if it happened to strike her.
Additional comfort came from Seviin. Xiuyang knew she could trust her, and if there would be one of them who wasn't thrall, it was an advantage she would eagerly select Seviin to have. So, seeing as Yuli neither immediately perished, nor made any moves to force the drug down Xiuyang's throat, there was only one thing left to do. She grimaced in disgust and swallowed it, entrusting her safety to these two, the sanctity of her mind and body to her blood, and should its effects prove stubborn, entrusted her future to Ciro's bag of tricks that ever exceeded her humble merchant's expectations, and which she had all but convinced herself could do just about anything.
"We go," she agreed.
They were in the sixth floor of a tall building and the balcony's integrity was questionable at best. There was, however, a stairway just outside of the apartment's door. Decayed paint on walls revealed an architecture mostly made of stone and rusted metal, should they not forget their lanterns on the way out. The ceiling was very low on the stairs, very low, especially for Seviin. Plumes of dust accumulated with every step as they descended down, every floor looking the same with the occasional broken down door. The perpetual darkness made it all seem grayer than it really was. A truly colorless world.
The exit door was gone, leaving only a rectangular door frame for them to cross through into the cold and murky air of Halge Larchelon. A paved path stretching about two hundred meters passed through patched of empty and dry earth. Perhaps there had once been greenery where children could play and adults to enjoy strolls through. Perhaps it was mere decor. Parallels between one's own cultures could be drawn, speculations infinite in their contents. One day, one may think, what they held dear may one day look like this too. For some it may even feel like an inevitability. If a city so developed and well structured fell to such a decrepit state, what chance did other places some called home have?
As they found the road, one bigger in width than the smaller connected ones on different streets, they also found rows upon rows of metallic, throughly rusted chassis. Most of them hollowed out with holes on all sides. Some still had barely functional doors to them, some even had a wheel or two still inserted. The biggest catch would be the first trace of what was once life: A group of skeletons in one of those metal boxes. One on what remained of each seat at the front, and three sets scrambled in the back, with only skulls really distinguishing the numbers there. Most of the bones had withered, but the heads had remained resilient to time. Two were particularly small.
There was a light bit of tension in the air - palpable tension. Like they had just entered a thunderstorm or a thunderchild's range. Yuliya was particularly sensitive to it given her own affinity.
Xiuyang looked around, taking in the sights for pragmatic reasons more so than curiosity. Reminders were all around them that though civilizations outlived generations of people, they too would one day perish. Nothing was immortal, perhaps not even the gods. After all, cheating death always seemed to come with conditions. Not even memories or stories or legacies could last. Entropy would claim all one day. Would even the gates of the heavens stand against it? She had to believe that they could, or her heart would give in to despair. What she considered a "normal and happy life" could only occur due to her mind's ability to ignore the constant threat of its sudden and inevitable end. The gods were a hope which protected both the present and the future she was building with Ciro. Nihilism was the death of hope before its time. It was both a friend she knew well and one she refused to entertain anymore.
She inspected the bizarre metal box on wheels. Cultural familiarity would dictate a carriage of some kind, but why made of metal? Did they possess wealth beyond her wildest dreams, or were they dangerous prisoners—and, what had killed them so abruptly?
There was a strange pressure, and Xiuyang's skin crawled. Remembering what the voice had said about ghosts, she backed away from the skeletons and made the sign of the Pentad, to... show that she came peacefully? Morbidly, she wondered if this place was so old that any restless spirits that were here wouldn't even know how to interpret or relate to that. "Let's... move on."
It began to hurt. At first, it was an intensifying burning numbness in her fingers, toes, and hands. Then, it was nausea. Her thoughts became cloudy and the Gift - it was barely present. Seviin shook her head to clear it. She tried to call on the healing energies of Mother Oirase, but those were mostly beyond her.
Then, the priestess stumbled. She stumbled and nearly fell and that was it. With fumbling fingers, she reached into her robes and extracted the pill and swallowed it. She had slipped to the rear of their group when she caught sight of the... wheeled prisons? Covered wagons? Instinctively, she looked for the remains of some kind of draft animal, but there were none. She did not understand and could not dwell, even as her body began to recover.
Something or someone had done this. These people - they were hegelan, by their stature and the shapes of their skulls - had been killed, and rapidly. It had been long ago, though - centuries, most likely, the remains of their remains preserved only because of the extreme cold. Maybe that was what Esuul and Cascal were after: the thing that had been able to do this.
The issue was... She had listened to the various voices and had not heard a Tarlonese accent among them. There was an agent. She had been warned that there would be, but they were either separated from the others, laying low, or not actually Tarlonese. She could not let them succeed. She could not let a weapon like that fall into the hands of the tyrants. Blood would spill and it -
Seviin caught herself. There were three moons and the creature stirred beneath her skin. She knew it for what it was. Was Yuliya, perhaps, something similar? That strength she had displayed earlier had been unnatural. This entire situation was bad, and she knew it. She was helpless, at least for now, and it made her -
Seviin caught herself. Anger came easily, even on three moons. Anger was occasionally justified, but it could shrink into violence all too easily. Instead, she began singing. "Aloi lor nash thal joi chel Seviin, suum elo nash cal saluuv." The dust and snow swirled about her as she walked through this garden of ancient decay. "Loaz joilii tesh rey coi joi'luungex, taxen joi siist juu loaz 'uuv."
She didn't get to finish. There was a feeling - it was not what she had felt before. It was new and it was worse. Immediately the priestess cast about for its source.
The sight of death was not new to Yuliya, but decay was. It was strange, seeing something that had been built to withstand almost anything look so downtrodden. A place even the gods had forgotten, but apparently not the storms. She could smell it as much as she could sense it, the sweet scent of ozone, almost like soap. Perhaps it was another presence, or simply the tricks of the mind in such a deserted place. Alas, she took Seviin's advice through her strange pinch-speak and covered her face with her cloak, nodding at the others.
There might be... another? I don't know if friendly, but I assume not. At least Leon and Yvain don't use magic like this.." a brief pause took hold before she turned to Seviin. "Crazy one-legged yasoi... did she have tendency for lightning? You were on her team in trials." she asked, continuin to move at Xiuyang's behest.
Seviin furrowed her brow. "She could use almost anything, to be honest. She was... very strong, but..." The priestess appeared uncertain. "Could she be weakened like us?" She followed up with pinch language. <MAYBE. SHE. FRIEND. BOX.>
Seviin reached out with her muted senses, casting about for the source of the disruption.
Seviin, even after taking in the pill, recognized the immensely diminished range she had to work with. About a third of the normal with the primary cause being the visceral sensation they were still feeling from the very air around them. The origins of the tension were still unknown, but she could determine that it existed all around them where it hadn't about two hundred meters behind them. There was nothing their senses could pick up that would indicate an interloper or something unnatural beyond what they had already witnessed. The only way to go blindly forward.
The electricity in the air never subsided, and as they progressed they would find more of these withered carriages lining the road with some of them pilled up. If a cataclysm had occurred here, it stands to reason that panic had taken the inhabitants. And with exponentially more vehicles, there were more corpses littered all over. Some better preserved than others, though all were skeletal and their clothing mere rags with no distinguishing feature. By the little bit they could determine, they had some superficial similarities to traditional outfits found in Hoagh Ahaghivan. Yuliya, in particular, could likely see the patterns.
It would be Xiuyang that would sense a change first. She was, after all, a Devourer and her range was just marginally bigger. Between two totaled cars was a white humanoid figure. It glowed as if it was wearing something that radiated light all over its body. With a squint, one could determine it had a feminine allure and was gingerly walking toward them without a single sound. The being flickered in and out in a constant state of flux. A heavy focus on any sort of energy signature yielded the same result: One uniform signature. No chemical markers, no heat fluctuations. Everything, everywhere on this entity was one same thing.
Yuliya paused, squinting as her eyes came into focus on the brightness. A clear imaged formed for a moment, and it immediately became apparent to her why she could feel what she felt. It was... her? She did a double take and turned to Seviin, shaking her head at the pinch message. "You seeing what I am? It is... me, no? Not quite as pretty though..."
"There's... nobody," Xiuyang replied, shaking as though she felt a chill. Maybe she did. She was smaller than the other two ladies. "There's no body. It's got no body!" she kept saying. "It's, it's a... f-familiar spirit!" she decided, remembering the term from one of her many books on the strange, dark and mysterious. "Don't be led astray by it! Run!"
She took off, but she did manage to remember the direction they were headed in before. "Shune... beacon... my footsteps... led not... arms of Eshiran..." her disjointed prayer continued as such while she fled.
More than anything else, Hermannus looks like the human equivalent of a cluttered workshop. His build is short and slight--just clearing 5'4" and 115lb--and his hunched posture makes him look even smaller than he is. However, his long hair and whiskers are dark, coarse, and except for the occasional brushing mostly unkempt; round, lightly tinted glasses cover the small portion of his face that his hair doesn't, and the whole arrangement gives him an owlish demeanor.
His typical outfit consists of a simple but serviceable tunic and leather breeches suited for traveling, but he adds on to that a great leather coat meant for someone taller and wider, whose pockets are stuffed with wands, crystals, nuts, bolts, screws, and other bits of bric-a-brac. Looking closely, one may be able to see thin copper wires threaded into the stitching. Leather pouches ride on his belt, holding more of the same, with one dedicated to a small selection of tools he finds frequently handy. He also carries with him a large backpack for his traveling gear, as well as larger items which don't fit in his coat pockets.
His left leg is gone below the knee; he uses a magical prosthetic made of polished wood and brass, which is usually hidden underneath his clothing. It has no special features, except that it responds to his unconscious commands to act with most of the dexterity of a natural limb.
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Herman is: - Not a particularly warm person; though he's not unmoved by the suffering of others, he's often too practical a soul to attend to their emotions in the way they might like, and despite being creative when working on his creations, he is frequently too literal-minded in social situations - Scatterbrained and absentminded; once he locks in on a task he often forgets tangential matters, like grooming, eating, and keeping previous obligations - Determined; despite his tendency to forget about "trivial" matters when locked into a task, he is willing to power through hardship and pain to achieve his goals
B A C K S T O R Y
Herman was born the son of a manor servant in Port Marian. His family--father, mother, and two older siblings--were comfortable, if not wealthy. As a child, he was attentive but quiet, and often faded into the background. Though he showed signs of a precocious intellect, he had few interests or hobbies, and generally preferred to sit and read quietly rather than chase his fellow children down the halls of the house. Yet, when the lord of the house looked to his staff for someone who could serve as a lab assistant for his arcane experiments, those same qualities were all the qualifications he needed to be recommended for the position above the other children his age.
For the most part, that position involved sitting on a stool in the corner of the room, waiting for the master to call out over his shoulder something he needed. Though most 10 year olds would have considered that torture, Herman was delighted. The first couple of weeks had been awkward, but once the master had gotten used to his presence, he resumed his habit of narrating the experiments to himself, and Herman absorbed that information like a dry sponge. Five years passed, during which his life followed a simple pattern: House chores in the morning, school in the afternoon, attending to the master in the evening, and--if the master dismissed him before the hour grew too late--nights in the library, pouring over whatever texts of magical theory he could get his hands on.
His quiet demeanor meant that few realized what he was up to, and they mostly let him be, except where his personal studies interfered with his duties around the house. The master certainly didn't realize that his able assistant was beginning to follow his experiments--at least until one fateful day, when Herman spoke for the first time without being directly addressed, to let him know that one of his solutions was unstable. The master's initial reaction was a mixture of surprise and irritation, that a common servant would speak to him as if he knew the craft. His second reaction was shock and outrage, as the slight teenager tackled him to the ground. His third reaction was terror and shame, as the flask exploded and took several other items on the workbench with it.
The study half-collapsed around them, and everyone--especially the master--agreed afterwards that only Herman's quick actions had saved them both.
The master escaped mostly unharmed, but the same was not true for Herman, whose lower leg was crushed in the wreckage and had to be removed. In recognition of the debt owed--and of Herman's now obvious intellectual ability--the master of the house made the young man his apprentice, and hired a tutor to oversee his arcane study.
For a time, Herman occupied a position of importance and respect in the household--though true to form, he seemed to barely recognize it, and focused mostly on his studies and work. Before his 20th year, the apprenticeship had become more of a partnership between the two men, and the master of the house--Baron Damien Erkens--became his first close friend.
Unfortunately that idyllic existence was shattered when General Guanyu's forces launched their attack. Both Herman and the Baron threw themselves into the defense of their city, but when the conflict ended Port Marian was under the boot heel of the invaders, and the Baron--along with most of Herman's family--were dead or captured.
With his hometown crushed under the weight of the General's occupation and everyone he knew either in a grave or scattered to the winds, he was at a loss of what to do next, and spent most of the six months idling in the manor house, while the occupying administrators tried to decide what to do with it.
Then, as if by serendipity, he received the letter from the Arnmagne City Academy alerting him to his admission. The Baron, it seemed, had enrolled him and paid his way prior to the fall of the city, then perished before he could spring the surprise. Letter in hand, Herman gathered what objects of use and significance he had left and set off from Port Mariam, intent on making the most of this last gift.
S T R E N G T H S
High analyical intelligence and creativity
Strong grasp of magical theory and mechanics
Talented and experienced at creating and using magical artifacts
Tenacious and determined; high tolerance for his own discomfort and pain in pursuit of his goals
F L A W S
Short and scrawny; will lose a purely physical contest to most people
Bad at people; can sometimes read them ok, but consistently fails to identify what they want, or how to get what he wants from them
Not a trained combatant; he has some "military experience" from the fall of Port Mariam, but that basically amounts to logistics and supply work, with one or two frantic back-alley confrontations near the end
Abilities are mostly dependent on his equipment; he has a couple of useful cantrips under his belt but given his training, anything more complicated needs to be channeled through a focus or a pre-prepared magic
Determination paired with physical frailty often leads him to exceed his own limits
A T T R I B U T E S
C L A S S
Artificer.
P R O F E S S I O N
Artificer/Arcanotech researcher
A B I L I T I E S
Has the ability to cast a couple of minor spells on his own (mage hand, prestidigitation-style effects)
Can produce magical items that create larger/more powerful effects, given time and materials
E Q U I P M E N T
Battle Coat - Leather coat designed and crafted by him; incorporates channels for magical energy that increase its protective effect, and can allow him to control the movement of the coat
Staff of Fire - Arcane implement he "borrowed" from the defense forces during the fall of Port Mariam. Primary purpose is offensive, but allows a skilled user to manipulate heat and flame, within reason.
Journeyman's Wand - Arcane implement used for creating magical items. Provides a variety of useful functions, including magic detection (to help diagnose issues with items), heat (to fuse or cut small pieces of metal), steam (to help put out fires), electricity (to energize items), and so on. Can also be used as a general-purpose magical focus, though not as effective in this role as a dedicated focus.
Miscellaneous - Herman carries with him an assortment of small magical items intended to produce specific effects, including: enchanted feathers (to slow a fall), salves (to heal minor wounds), talismans (to defend against magical attacks), and so on.
N E N
Emission type; final ability would be focused on remote sensing, maybe with a focus on sensing and understanding magic effects
N O T E S
Baron Erkins - former master, partner, and friend. Paid Herman's way to the academy.
Hermannus Hoenemaeker uses 7ca4ba.
Ok thanks, I'll just put this back then. Feel free to let me know if anything needs changing!
Big fan of this character sheet! Very grounded, fits right within the setting and has a lot of potential to move forward. Looking forward to seeing what he cooks up when we go live. Accepted!
It seems you have come to an impasse. Do your ambitions and goals outweigh your current capabilities? Do the avenues presented to you prevent you from becoming the person you envision? Whether by the recommendation of others, interest from the administrators, or the payment of entry fees, this letter has been granted to you as an opportunity to succeed where others simply accept their place in life.
From the point of receiving this letter, the gates of our Academy in Arnmagne City are open to you but will close in exactly 20 days, disqualifying your entry. The exam has begun, good luck!
Signed - Headmaster Guillame Yeol, Chief Councillor of Arnmange and the 13 Scholars
The State of the World
This world is in a tumultuous time period, only abated by a treaty signed 6 months prior to our start date following the war for Port Marian. A succession crisis looms over Jianghu as the last emperor had many, many children and did not deem to name an heir. These children, backed by various factions, eunuchs, generals and peasant militias sought to claim the seat of heaven for themselves, but when all have the same idea, none can achieve such a lofty goal. Alas, it is the bastard son of the last that currently resides in the capital, whilst the other seek to consolidate their strength.
But these are not the only political squabbles and problems that plague the world at current. To the south, the 'Lawless Continent' is plagued by greed, corruption and an infestation of company towns, monsters and brigades of 'Ashen' mercenaries that serve the highest bidder, all in service to try and achieve total economic dominance over the various port cities and most importantly of all, the Great Shard of Water, left behind after the planar convergence.
Of course, that's not all. An iron fist looms from the northwest, crusading on armoured horseback with a great host to conquer and subjugate the sinners, and secure the shards of the world for themselves. And to the east, a greater darkness looms. Some say it is a continent of predators, being ruled by literal fiends who seek to farm and feast upon mortal flesh and blood. Others say that it is somehow worse.
Alas, there are those that would seek not to remedy the great political strife of the realm, but secure fame and fortune for themselves by dealing with the unseen problems of the world. Adventurers, as is their formal title, have been given a license by the free city of Arnmagne to operate and assist those they see fit around the world, utilizing their great abilities to the benefit of many, or perhaps just themselves. Many people feel as if the governments of the warring states of the world have forgotten about them, but most still believe in the travellers that come their way to assist the great perils they face in such an unforgiving place.
Setting Summary
This world is one of magic, with various strange creatures and beasts being found throughout various lands and climates. Micro and megafauna that vastly differ from what we might find on Earth, and abilities that push humans and others to far greater heights than would normally be possible granted through the use of magic, 'nen' and technology that can utilize strange and wonderous materials that again, we would not find in the real world.
Despite the level of technology increasing throughout the world, it's still in a great state of divide between various warring nations and states. Outside of the usual political disputes that would dictate state-level behaviour in our world, there are two more motivators - "Shards" and "Ashen"
'Shards' are gigantic megastructures formed from the world itself, and in various religions, came about as a result of a great calamity that occurred hundreds of years ago that saw the elemental planes of the world sundered. In doing so, the world became 'whole' and rejoined, granting abundance to the continent and several other places. From these 'Shards', elemental crystals are yielded that allow far easier access to magic as casting foci, as well as boundless energy corresponding to the affinity. These can be used for a multitude of purposes i.e the crystals from the Shard of Wind allows the ships of a fleet to maneuver far greater due to air currents and the like.
Ashen are both a people and a resource to many nations and companies, for they have been forsaken by the world and by the shards. They possess zero elemental affinity, almost as if they do not belong, and if many religions and scholarly types are to be believe, blight in their wake. Still, they are a people apart given as they possess abilities beyond the mortal ken. These have been named psionics, for the abilities are usually akin to people such as psychics, or espers. Telekinesis, telepathy, and many other such strange abilities manifest in them. These are often utilized by the highest bidder on the lawless continent.
Lore of Nations
To the north of the great Empire of Jianghu, lays a river that forms the basis of an ever-growing, hungry nation. Since their founding, they have spread their reach from the Shard of Light to wherever the great Sveta river flows. So much life does this river give the name that the people saw fit to name their nation after its almost crystal clear waters, paradoxical of such a geographic landmark. Once they had finished the end, an expulsion of rampaging barbarians brought them to another frontier - the mountains, where the fort and city of Oreyev was founded to hold the current frontier. But they are not close to done.
Instead, this nation founded their principles on a war against dragons for control of this land long ago. Some local legends say that Bahamut himself disavowed his draconic subjects, and allowed the Svetoyans mercy by granting them the arts of the Dragoon, warriors who dive from the sky and impale the back of the skulls of their winged opponents. Others say it was simply an ingenuity of smiths and the people, to be able to use the bones of the slain to make great weapons to take them down. Regardless, a strict military tradition shows that nobody should take an Imperial Dragoon lightly.
But that is only one such principle that governs this nation currently. The other two - are the Church and Crown. There is an uneasy tripartite between the Tsar(itsa) and the Cardinals for the direction of the nation. Where there is godless barbarians to the north and east to civilize, the ruler sees a land divided, ripe for conquest and vengeance for the many times they were on the receiving end of a Jianghuan army.
Hao Shun currently occupies and rules a sizable portion of the east of Jianghu from the city of Mianzhou. Once a major flourishing agricultural sector, the area came into less repute when the fertility of Cao's Basin was seen for what it was, a bread basket for the entire kingdom. Since, the area has developed an identity for the production of fine silks and porcelains, trading these precious goods to the Svetoyans for fine metals in order to build up a military strong enough to take the kingdom. Of course, a fear lingers that perhaps they will be on the move and the northern generals will not feel the need to stop them should they come through Krehvbana Pass.
In the center of the empire lies a great swamp that had previously been the realm of many goblins, orcs and other such races. Studies were conducted upon the place and many scholars of the nation found that the soils properties were far greater than the rest of the kingdom. Small fiefs were set up and harvests grew exponentially, as did the population of humanoids in the area. Of course, these 'monsters' did not adapt to the new lifestyle and were summarily expelled from the nation, and a vast breadbasket grew in its wake.
What the ruling class did not anticipate, however, is that civil strife was the perfect excuse to the millions of peasants living there. For too long had they given their grain for nothing, and now, they were free. Many pretenders to the throne came, but the peasants hid in the swamps that they'd known all their lives, and the armies got lost, drowned mysteriously, and were unable to hold such a vast amount of land. Plus, with no peasants to till the fields, there was naught they could do but leave. Shortly after, they would return and continue to feed themselves.
Somebody is behind this, of course. A genius? Or a madman? Who would resist the power of armies with pitchforks, scythes and not much else?
The capital of the empire, and currently held onto by a man known as Cai Zhelan. In his early 20s, he came out of hiding in the midst of the succession crisis, winning the favour of the Eunuchs as the promised heir and has been declared as by such, but given as he was unknown, many doubt the legitimacy of this claim. Still, holding the capital and surrounding lands has proven to be quite an effective recourse for the man, and his grip on power grows by the day, regardless of the many dark rumour surrounding him.
Alas, the capital itself is a tremendous metropolis, hosting people in the millions with a direct path to the Shard of Earth. Great walls protect it from invaders and it is almost self sufficient with the surrounding fiefs, providing quite a sizeable obstacle to overcome.
Wei Jian, considered the most legitimate child by many has taken up residence in Jinyang, a city that comes close in scale and opulence to the capital. Unfortunately for him, he had the downside of being away on a state visit when the news of the Emperor's death came, and he found himself unable to claim the crown jewel, but on the word of his many advisors, he captured the surrounding area. Unfortunately for him, however, many others had the same idea and he finds himself boxed in on all sides. Still, he continues to be aggressive, using his vast personal fortune to make plays across the nation and recruit himself foreign mercenaries, wherever he can find them.
The last wife of the emperor, Empress Dowager Yuhan Mei, has claimed the western portion of the nation following her late husbands death, in the name of her son, who is currently age 4. She has proven to be a wise and capable leader, managing to assemble many portions of the military to her side, and proving to be perhaps the most pragmatic of her counterparts, ruling from the city of Karahar. So far, she has been the most active , having positioned her armies northward across the border to perhaps... Expand in the midst of a succession crisis? Little stays her hand, not even the recent treaty that has most of the other contenders standing still.
The greatest living general of the military has decided to stake his own claim, or perhaps he no longer wishes to listen to the perfumed class of the south, he has rallied the northern banners and rides where his whims see fit, which now is far away from Krevhbana pass and the nation of Svetoya. Instead, it is to the west as of most recent, where a large raid taken on Port Marian saw his army enriched and his position with his men and fellow generals secured. Now, he waits patiently, perhaps to back a real candidate or perhaps to march on a weakened opponent. Still, the riches of the city have bought him plenty of time...
Once part of Jianghu, the governors saw very little of interest in the peninsula, especially one so close to the lawless continent. There are many who did though, merchants, mages, and captains from Eshire and abroad. The peninsula of the city was purchased on a lease of one hundred years from the ruling dynasty and before long, a metropolis sprung up. Vast amounts of foreign gold was poured into the city, titles sold and it became a place of vast opportunity. Quickly, it outgrew its borders and a second, smaller settlement of Tseraviche came into being. Still, the government did not move, for the massive amount of wealth that these places brought to the nation outweighed a minor loss of prestige. The clock on the lease ticked closer and closer to the finish, and when it did, the empire happened upon a troublesome succession crisis. How fortunate indeed, for the city of opportunity to expand its borders further north, and declare itself a free state. And that is what they did.
A nation that while small, strikes fear on the high seas. Their fleets are second to none, and they possess significant knowledge of the arcane. The people of Jianghu declare them to be a nation of devils, and they would not be entirely incorrect, as there is a significant tiefling populace on the isle, famed for their grey-white skin. They deal much like devils too, extracting many treaties at sea from lesser powers some would consider vastly unequal. As for how they're able to accomplish these feats, well, having the Shard of Wind on their isles is a good start. Their fleets move faster than any other, and with the addition of airships into their arsenal, their capacity for war only grows.
They have found their home isles to be quite full as of late, and new lands are needed. But crisis as of late certainly provides opportunity...
Far to the east of the world lies the continent of Ixtaya and the various 'nations' that inhabit it. Entry from outside is usually prohibited, but occasionally, the black galleons of their trade ship make port across the world, most typically on the isle of Saricheon. They purchase people and not much else, and give much in return. None have returned from their sale. Some say they are slaves, others say that they are sacrificed in dark rituals, and the worst rumours state that perhaps they are being fed upon by a predatory species. Yet, the merchants of the black ships are rife with smiles and unusually polite. Perhaps a little pale, given the supposed climate and rainforests that dot the nation. Perhaps, a little too charming...
Often cited as the nation of progress, the craftsman and thinkers of Eriul are second to none. Their nation was the one to pioneer the airships that dot the skies of this world, and many more such inventions. Alas, the nation was not outfitted for war, and a two pronged assault from their neighbours and the infamous Guanyu Xieren took and sacked the city of Port Marian, imposing heavy tariffs upon it in a treaty and departing. The nation lies wartorn and has recently overthrew their monarchy in a fit of protest. What lies next for the country is uncertain, but there are those that would seek to restore it to its once former glory.
The many nations surrounding the lake of Pijevo west of Jianghu have been in a constant feud for land and rights, claiming ancestral ties to a few kilometres of land to achieve their dream states. Alas, there is a constant feud between the nations, only held together by a flimsy peace pact and a overwhelming fear of their northern(and now eastern) neighbours given the latter's recently aggressive moves. Still, if there is one bright side, the city of Atheli thrives from trade to the lawless continent and the arrival of merchants from Port Marian, but that has dwindled of recent times and the barons of the various nations have found other ways to fill their pockets, primarily through chemistry and bio-engineering, a recently discovered field.
A land shut-off from the main continent outside of heavily restricted trade policy. This place has been the war ground between two major shogunates in recent history. In the current technological stage, this place has fallen behind due to excessive caution on foreign imports. However, there is a mysticism unspoiled by global advancement. It has become a point of interest for scholars when rumors spread of New World creatures finding home in the reclusive lands.
An array of small islands to the western reaches, they stand as the closest ports to the New World. The population is an odd mix of native islanders, smugglers, pirates, and races who migrated from the New World long ago. They live in odd harmony at large because of the strict rules put in place by the pirate class.
A kingdom divided in two by religious and cultural lines. In their mountainous homeland lies a religious centre where no weapons are allowed and proven warriors can find rest. The plains are a place of war and stretch out to the conquered lands beyond. Every soldier of the Eisereg horde has their weapons and armour passed down from the generation before them and has a horse to ride. They view it as their divine right to conquer neighbouring lands, recruit more to their army, and send tributes of food and resources back to the homeland. The Ashen once had a presence in these lands. They resided in the western reaches of the homeland. When the Ash had caught up and began blighting the lands, the Eisereg quickly began to see the Ashen as little more than a corruption and removed them by sword. It was one of the only times blood was shed in the homelands. Since then, however, there has been a phenomenon where portions of their populace have shared a lesser form of the Ashen’s psychic ability. The Eisereg see these abilities as a blight and shunned those afflicted from their society.
A barren land barely capable of supporting life conceals valuable resources beneath the sand with the crown jewel being a Shard in the centre of it all. It is a hotly contested land pulled at by the whims of Middle Eastern companies who wanted sole dominance over the deserts. The Ashen have called this place their home and have become valued soldiers in the corporate war due to their inability to benefit from the shards and dependence on the companies’ food and water imports. In recent history, there was a company that had the potential to unite the lawless lands. A massacre staged in their headquarters brought an end to that dream and the potential of peace for the Ashen.
A nation with immense wealth pouring into it from the lawless continent and other corporate objectives abroad. The companies hold immense sway over the republic and have been granted rightful respect and influence for the golden age they have brought. Excessive wealth has also allowed for a great leap forward for culture and art as many have been given financial ground to pursue such feats. However, an emerging religious group has denounced the companies. Known as the Dreamers, the higher members of their sect have foreseen that the actions in the lawless continent with the Ashen devils as the downfall of the Carmaduur. They seek an end to the republic, a retraction from the lawless continent, and the crowning of a king.
A smaller nation caught between major powers of the world. It has a large demographic of ‘monstrous’ races who were historically ousted by Jianghu from east the but flee the Eisereg from the west. The current nation holds strong due to a considerable military force and a highly regarded tactician leader known as president for life.
Welcome
Welcome interest checkers! I'm here today to invite you to an idea that's been floating around my head for quite some time and inspired by a number of my various favourite pieces of fiction including but not limited to - Hunter X Hunter, Dungeons and Dragons, Final Fantasy and innumerable pieces of fantasy literature.
Speaking of such - the main borrowers I've taken are Nen given its versatility as a 'power system' and 'classes' from D&D. These provide a rough framework of your characters skillset as a potential fighter(and magic/abilities exist in tandem with Nen, not as an extension of it. If you have not seen the show, here is a brief video that explains how it works.
I've decided to use this powersystem because A. Coming up with my own is a lot of unnecessary work that I'm not interested in pursuing and B. I think it's something that will be interesting for me as the DM and allow people to create the characters/abilities they'd like to experiment with. I also find it's hard to powergame with such a system in place, as abilities are often very conditional in a rock/paper/scissors kind of way.
As for DND classes and such, do not feel limited with your options. If you have a direction for your character that exists outside of the scope that can be modelled, feel free to simply write as such and explain what it is.
Here is an example character sheet to work off.
John Hunter
Quote
O V E R V I E W
N A M E
x
A G E
x
G E N D E R
x
A P P E A R A N C E
x - There is a preference for fantasy style art, but anime art can work if you're struggling.
P E R S O N A L I T Y
x - A brief overview is fine, I find people tend to find who their characters are when they are in the roleplay itself.
B A C K S T O R Y
x - It doesn't have to be long, but try to make it contain relevance
S T R E N G T H S
x - What are some things your character is good at?
F L A W S
x - Everyone has faults, and no-one is perfect. Try to put at least three, as it tends to make a more interesting character
A T T R I B U T E S
C L A S S
x - Think DND classes i.e Fighter, Paladin, Wizard. If you have something in mind that isn't that, feel free to place it and explain it. It's simply an overview of what sort of archetype your character would fulfill in battle.
P R O F E S S I O N
x - What did your character do before they accepted the invitation?
A B I L I T I E S
x - Beyond the Nen abilities that your character will develop, do they have any unusual/hidden talents? Are they far stronger than an average person? Do they have an excellent sense of smell? Perhaps they're incredibly sneaky?
E Q U I P M E N T
x - Thing!
N E N
x - Your character will develop their abilities throughout the roleplay, but this is moreso what archetype are they, and what do you suppose would a completed ability look like? The sky is the limit, just be mindful that you're not stretching the limits of the system/world.
N O T E S
name - description.
John Hunter uses FFCC55.
I hope my interest check has tickled your fancy, and if it has, feel free to join the discord here --->
Involved: Tommy, Ailet@Force and Fury There was a hammering coming from the inside of one of the morgue cabinets, and Ailet rushed to go answer it. She blinked in the darkness and cursed under her breath. "I'm coming. I'm coming!" She picked the latch with her magnetic magic and it slid roughly open to reveal a bedraggled but otherwise unharmed Tommy, breathing heavily and wiping some hair from his face.
Blinking twice, she helped him out, hopping a step back and looking him up and down. She averted her eyes after a moment. "You... ahem." She glanced over for just a second. "Might want to put on some clothes." She gestured at a sheet that had been in there with him.
Before Tommy could do much, however, there came the sound of authoritative footsteps on the stairs and thump against the door. Without thinking, but very much thinking, Ailet rushed into Tommy's arms, her eyes pleading.
This... didn't feel right. He'd come through that portal adequately clothed, Desmond had seen to that after all. He'd lost some in the fight, mind you, but he wasn't stripped bare before the gods as he was when Oraff granted him his first breath. That being said, his sense of touch was also disconnected. Everything was wrong, and he was sure of one thing in that moment - this body was not his.
He reached for the sheet to pick it up, and he was sure he grasped it, but it did not rise with his hands. He tried again, only to be met for a second time with failure. Tommy Kavanaugh was a proud man of Enth, not one too weak to pick up a sheet of cloth, and he did not feel his muscles strain, because he had no muscles to strain. And were he a learned man, he would know that this was akin to the ghost stories many children in Barrowton, Dunvern and Harrowend read before a night of sleep. In fact, some of the students of the illustrious magical school may have been reading them on the night he'd come back.
Still, she rushed into his 'arms' and there was nothing there. He heard the banging on the door and looked to the girl that'd came to him. "Ailet, you knew me yeah? You think I'd ever struggle to pick up a fuckin' bedsheet? Why can't I feel anythin?" he paused, a little annoyed. He figured his return would be more fulfilling than this. "And I don't mean that in the weird fuckin' emotional sense. I was buzzin' to get back, but I mean my hands can't fuckin' touch anythin', you feel me? Well, you don't feel me?" he muttered, confused and seemingly mad. Again, he wondered why he was naked.
She went right through Tommy and stumbled, nearly falling over and twisting about to regard him strangely. Tommy spoke and... it seemed normal, but it wasn't. Ailet tried imagining him not there. Terribly scientific in her approach, she closed her eyes and plugged her ears. You're not real, she thought, you're not real, she thought, you're not there.
There was another loud knock on the door. "We can sense you in there! Open this door or we will open it!"
Ailet's eyes fluttered open in alarm. "Cud," she muttered, "Spax," she muttered, "Poca!" However, Tommy was... no longer there. You are in a state of limbo, she thought at him, Your soul is freed but it has no body.
She began moving as quickly as she could and was over by the evidence cage in three great bounding steps. I didn't pay much attention in theology class. I considered it all bunk, but the Gods are real, it turns out, and my entire worldview has just gone up in flames. She made no further pretense of stealth. She drew a massive amount of energy - everything that she could with her 8.5 capacity - and busted the lock open. Immediately, a thick cloud of sickly green chemical paralytic began to pour out of multiple nozzles and, at that moment, the door burst open as well.
Ailet'yrash'andarii could hold her breath for two minutes and twenty-four seconds. Her attackers could not. Massive bursts of kinetic magic forced the gases into their every orifice and they dropped. She hurried through into the evidence lockers.
He was there, and then he was not. A figment of her imagination? Had he ever been real? Did it matter? Tommy Kavanaugh did not care, for he found this terribly thrilling, and did not entertain the darker philosophical questions that would have whirled around a greater mind. Perhaps they were in hers, for he could see in hers? It was a strange thing - to share thoughts with another and he understood everything. The words she spoke in a foreign language were as real to him as the Enthish cusses he'd used regularly at the markets in Barrowton, or the banter he'd shared with mates at bars near the great dockyards.
"This is wild, Ailet." he laughed into her consciousness, having no material body. Even the act of 'speaking' felt strange. Then again, he'd been in hell for a month and a half, and this was better. "There's way too much goin' on up here though. How'dya know how long you can hold your breath?" he wondered, realizing that his thoughts too would reach her. He saw what she was after, not because he had eyes but because he knew what she'd think, and it was all terribly confusing. Visions of a thousand year plan rushed through his head and it clicked, but he didn't seem to mind or care. Besides, he'd gained an understanding of another language and the wonderful expressions that seemed to permeate it.
'yash duul spax' he thought, before a resounding chuckle played in her minds eye. That was a good one.
"What's the plan though, sweetums? Gonna pop their heads? How're we gettin' outta this sticky situation, my personal fuckin' limbo aside? Maybe my bodies in 'ere somewhere?" he asked, overcrowding her already overstimulated mind with more stupid questions, for it was his nature.
Dear Tommy, she thought, as she rifled quickly but methodically - and definitely not frantically - through the locker's possessions, I like your boundless curiosity. I like you, in a strictly platonic way. Please shut up for a moment. He had the image of a heart in his mind's eye - a disturbingly anatomically accurate one, mind you.
Then, Ailet's hand seized upon the apple. Unceremoniously and yet with paradoxical reverence, she slid it into her satchel, sparing a glance over at the two downed figures. She pulled out a few more items that looked valuable. Yours? she presumed, even as further energies approached. She was already drawing temporal energies. There were no clever quips, no words or speech. She simply triangulated space and time and then...
There she was, sitting in a spare room in the Ever Tree. Teleportation, Thomas, she explained to the presence in her head, following a caper and some associated skullduggery. Almost immediately, Ailet was moving, pushing open the double doors and striding out onto the balcony. Crickets chirped while moths and crane flies buzzed around an eclectic plethora of lanterns such as befit a residence of the yasoi. The air was cool and fresh and a light breeze stirred the leaves and her hair alike. The Tarlonese agent pushed her glasses up her nose and checked her pocketwatch, satisfied.
Spreading out before her was a starburst of branches and, below that, a drop of some twenty yards. She pressed a pair of little buttons at the tips of her crutch grips and the walking aids retracted. She flipped them back and clambered out awkwardly onto the branch for lack of a right leg. She crouched there for a moment, gripping it with both hands, took a deep breath, and prepared to drop.
He pretended to be hurt as he tried to quiet the thoughts for but a moment. Both their necks were on the line, and as she dug through the posessions of the locker, he metaphysically nodded in confirmation, that they were in fact his. Of course, it didn't matter if they were, he would have claimed so, regardless. In fact, as she looked at the bodies of the two fallen assailants, he too, felt a need to claim a rather nice pair of boots one was wearing, but they were whisked away in a flurry of magic to... somewhere else?
"Ain't that some bullshit. Schmovin' around like that? No wonder only that old fucker caught you, eh?" he laughed in her head, as he saw the memories that brought her here. He couldn't understand the workings of it, but he'd seen it be employed numerous times by the yasoi, and it was an impressive art. Many of his friends had these amazing gifts, and he couldn't help but feel slightly envious.
Then, she began her secret mission and he recognized where they were. Near the Arboretum? Memories of the room came flashing back to him as he recounted an encounter with Tyrel, in which he'd gone back to her room expecting a 'fun' time and received instead, a delightful friendly experience where the two played cards in their pyjamas and made shadow animals on her walls. It made him smile, in the metaphysical sense. Still, he had curiosity and didn't wish to delve too hard.
"Can I talk yet. Who're ya meetin'? Is it important?" he asked, slightly bored and restless, but mostly curious.
Oh, sorry, she remarked, you could've for a while. The statement was straightforward enough and she played it with such a deadpan nature that it was hard to tell if there was anything mischievous behind it, even if he was inside of her head.
With that, she dropped, hair fluttering about her, and landed gently in a crouch on all threes, courtesy of some kinetic dampening. In fact, you can go on about anything, she informed him, within decorum, of course, until we reach my destination.
She began moving, then, winding her way through the quiet streets under the light of five partial moons. It was just her, her foot, and the sidewalks before her - and Tommy. Yes, Tommy. In her head. Constantly.
Yasoi were naturally fidgety, and they had a tendency to get distracted and lost on strands of thought and conversation. Ailet, composed and dignified as she was, was no exception on the inside. However, the man sharing her headspace currently was twice as bad. The conversation never stopped, and perhaps she might have found herself losing nerve at the end of the night, but he continued to press, tease, jab, and ask everything he had on his mind, for it's all he could do. He didn't have a drug to consume, tasty food to eat or the pleasures of the flesh - nay - he had only his hyperactive mind and a conversation partner.
"You're a bigshot, aren'tcha? Thought you were strong n' knew stuff, but you're meetin' with some important fellas n' ladies." he thought, smirking in her head. "Do ya really believe in this stuff? Ersand'Enise bein' former yasoi lands? I mean, there's a lotta you guys there, but I thought it was between the prenchies and the pasta eaters, y'know? Stuffs wild..."
Thomas? Ailet said, as she turned a corner and cast about for other people's energies.
"What's up, sugar?" he replied smoothly, before there was a brief pause and he continued. "If this is some snarky way to tell me to shut up, you just gotta tell me and I'll do it. Just be nice, y'know. It's not easy in 'ere. You're too fuckin' smart and it hurts and I feel like I'm invadin' ya privacy."
And you haven't even reached my traumatic childhood memories yet, she remarked. You're still too happy.
There was a pause as she approached the door of a tavern that... appeared to be closed, and she took a moment to hitch up her tights, straighten her collar, and fix her hair. I know it isn't easy. I think I'd go insane without a body, but we'll get you one. I promise: as good as the original or maybe better. Now, she concluded, I will need you to quiet down, however. You can plumb around and know my innermost secrets, I suppose. It's nothing I wouldn't tell you if you asked anyhow.
With that, she bounced up and down once on her toes, swallowed and cleared her throat, and took a deep breath. She pushed the door open.
He stopped and listened to her with consideration, and then he spoke, materializing as opening the door for her. "After you. But, before I shut the fuck up so you can go about your secret agent shit, can you see my shit too? Cos if I'm diggin' around, you're welcome to do it too." he winked at her, looking at her enter and vanishing. "If ya need my help, I'm just a thought away. I'm a renown diplomat, after all." he joked, as he began to settle in and pry only slight. He begun with the traumatic childhood memories she'd referenced earlier.
An open book, Ailet remarked, managing something like a curtsy as she slipped through the door. I like books.
Then, she was in the meeting and he, in her head. They lay before him: the childhood memories of this strange girl, and his curiosity was not sated by the obvious, like how she'd lost that leg.
Tommy was standing there, but he was Ailet and she was perhaps nine years old and in her bed, trying to pull every inch of her covers over every inch of her body so she'd be safe from something called the erachenmuul. She tried to lie there on her legless side. She tried to tuck her arms in and pull her knee up to her chest. She kept her blanket over her head and breathed in only small bursts, so as not to alert the beast. It was irrational, she told herself. The erachenmuul was not a real thing; it was a story that people made up to scare each other but, with all of the horrors that were known to live in Tarlon, and the many others still unknown, could she be utterly certain? In her head, she imagined erachenmuulex all about her room: leaping out of her closet, creeping out from under her bed, dashing forward and springing out of her rug, dangling above her from the ceiling on gossamer threads. Energy beams leapt from her eyes, and slicing kinetic magics sliced them up.
Then, in her mind's eye, she sliced the leg off one and she felt bad for it, because that had happened to her. The moment of weakness allowed it to land on top of her and she screamed, sitting up in bed, thrashing her covers loose, and bounding out across the floor until she was halfway to the door, standing in the middle of the dark room in her nightgown without her crutches. The shadows moved and twisted and there was one on the floor. She was halfway between the bed and the door and she hopped for the door as fast as her leg would carry her. People were always surprised at how fast she was over short distances.
Her father came bursting into the room and scooped her up. She knew that she was too old. Shame burned at her cheeks. "It's okay, semprii. It's okay. What's wrong?"
"I..." she trailed off. The erachenmuul was not acceptable to say. She wasn't supposed to be scared of it. Now that there was some of the big room's lamplight spilling in, she could see the shapes clearly for what they were: everyday objects made indistinct in the darkness and transformed by her imagination into dangerous monstrosities. "...had a bad dream and then I saw some shadows and...I'm sorry for my weakness."
Father regarded her skeptically, and she yearned for him to just believe her. She was already damaged, she knew, and if she did not turn out to be the avatar of the goddess, she might be discarded to the frontier when she was older if she proved unfit mentally as well as physically. He set her back down and leaned in, pressing his forehead to hers. "Your weakness is forgiven. You are a child and still learning."
She twisted on the spot, hopping once toward her bed, and looked over her shoulder at him for reassurance. "Three seconds, kiddo." He began to count her down. "Three..." With something between a terrified squeal and a giggle, she hopped three great bounds. "Two..."
"Nooo!"
"One!" He shut the door and she leapt onto her bed, scrambling under her covers and preparing her psychic defenses. The room was pitch black, but she sat there, for a moment, only partially covered, and calmly took stock of where everything was and what it was. She managed not to be scared for the next hour and ten minutes. She counted it all out in her head until sleep took her.
"She's a strange kid," mother was saying, not sharing in Ailet's triumph. She'd snuggled under her blankets like they were used to, pretending to be either asleep or too terrified to pay attention to anything, and they'd left her be. "There's no getting around it. She's not going to be chosen, and then what?"
"She's a bright kid too. They might train her at the academy." Her father was her defender.
"But there are others just as bright, and she's... was she like this before?"
Ailet knew what 'before' meant: it referred to a time earlier than something else but, when people that she knew said it in that particular kind of voice or situation, it meant something else: Before I lost my leg. She'd lost part of her hip and most of her butt on that side too and she took a moment to sense it. It just... wasn't as weird as it had been at first. It didn't really feel like a part of her was missing unless she really thought about it. Was it that big a deal?
Her parents continued to speak and she reviewed the evidence and concluded that it was. She concluded that people would like her less because of it. She saw them stare at her. She perceived the way that their voices changed to be higher pitched and 'sweeter' when they spoke with her. She noticed how they seemed shy and awkward around her and spent less time with her unless other people were watching.
This, however, was not about that. "She counted her number of steps to school the other day," mother was saying, but didn't everyone do that? "She always hums the exact same tune when she bathes and if you interrupt her, well..."
"I've seen it," father admitted. "Listen, she's a little bit odd, but..." He, too, trailed off.
"And that covering her ears thing when there are noises she doesn't like?"
"She's not incapable, Meryen."
"Ugh. I know. I know," came her mother's voice, and Ailet stood there against the wall, slowly pushing up and then easing down against it as she listened. They hadn't even noticed her big victory against the erachenmuul or the hours of research she'd done on the shipwrecks of the Strait of Medlac, but she supposed she hadn't told them either. "Just... I'm worried for her. Between that and her poor leg..." There was a pause. "She's such a longshot. Why is our poor daughter such a longshot?"
Ailet was a longshot. That meant that she had little chance of winning. What was she a longshot for, though? That eluded her, and she felt like it shouldn't have.
"We'll train her up," father reassured her. "She's a smart girl - one of the smartest I've seen. We lean into her talents and all of her little obsessions and let her talk their ears off. Shiin knows she can rattle on for hours about some esoteric thing and you might actually learn if you listen."
Mother chuckled faintly and Ailet wanted to feel proud, like she was noticed, Like all of the cool stuff that she'd learned that adults should know too was worth something, but she wondered if the chuckle wasn't a happy one, or if she thought that it was stupid. Maybe mother loved her less now that she had one leg and was weird.
"Did you know that the wreck of the San Jacinta de las Palmas contained exactly three-hundred-fifty gold bars and that was also the number of its crew?"
"Did you know that the male deep sea anglerfish has no proper digestive tract and is parasitic to the female?"
"Am I, now?"
Her parents laughed and Ailet didn't know what to think. She shimmied back across the floor, not even hopping because it was noisy, settled into bed, and couldn't sleep.
Tommy saw these memories and they couldn't be more different than his own. Yet, her mind was similar to his. She too saw and imagined things that weren't there, and he empathized with her on that. Still, the way she saw things were was strange. It was like a scheduled routine in the way she observed them. Still, there was priveledges to this place. She had her own room, and her own bed, and her own blankets. Her room was well decorated and the signs of a loving family was there, even if the tone of judgement came in.
It was harrowing though, to be singled out. He knew of this too, when he was born. He was one of the few members of his family blessed with ability with the gift above common parlour tricks, and expectations weighed heavy on him from the moment he was a youngster. He'd looked for escapism from it, but it still weighed him down. There was love and shame there, but he'd never felt alone. In this space, he truly felt hollow and empty. It was a fear for him, to be so divided from the world and the people around him that the only thing he'd be surrounded with were the things in his head.
"You're enough, Ailet. Doesn't matter what they think of ya, or all the lil weird quirks you have, doesn't make you any less. If anythin', it makes ya more." he thought, trying his best to smile at the better parts of these thoughts.
Ailet paused, a hitch in her bearing. "I know they were," she responded to some question that Tommy hadn't quite perceived, so lost was he in her memory. There were a few more words exchanged with a shadowy hooded figure across from her and he struck Tommy as... vaguely familiar? Like a face he'd seen in passing before?
Then, there was something about Torragon and her being needed up north and she strode out of the tavern and back into the cool, clammy nighttime air. The air hummed with humidity and clouds were rolling in over the moons. You can talk again, Tommy, Ailet thought at him, feeling a bit insane but, then again, she'd always been 'weird'. We're going somewhere soon, but you can talk... as much as you want.
"Appreciate it." he muttered, manifesting beside her as she walked in the night air. He whistled a tune and actually was surprisingly quiet for a moment, before he thought to her. "Torragon, huh? You really get around for a girl with one leg." he laughed slightly at the joke, but then he realized it maybe before she did. She was hungry, tired, and unclean. Not that it was his body, but the girl needed to take care of herself.
"Before then, you should fuckin' eat somethin. And drink. How longs it been, eh? he paused, and looked at her mischievously, giving her a wink. "And a bath too. That wouldn't hurt."
Ailet tilted her head and regarded him. "Oh, I've blocked my abdominal pain receptors," she said out loud, since there was nobody here to watch her talk to herself. She smiled with a hint of her own mischief. "Tapas en Torragon?" she chirped. "Then, you can bathe." She winked and held out her hand, as if his would not just sink right through hers, as if he would be brought along with her anyways. "Oh, and one surprise first!"
"Para mí? You're too kind, senorita." he remarked, smiling and wishing he could feel her hand, but the sentiment was enough. He was sure he didn't know those words, but hey, she did, so right now, he did.
With that, they reappeared not in Torragon, but on an enormous circular platform on a windswept seashore. Enormous deep grey waves beat against a rocky coast and there was a chilly nip in the air as it swirled Ailet's hair about her. Every once in a while, ocean spray would burst up over the lip of the platform and rush across it in a fast thin wave no more than an inch or two deep. Home, the yasoi thought at Tommy, and then tapas. She strode across the platform and it was hard to miss its faded brown colour and the thousands of concentric rings around it. Nearby rose a series of buildings in a stout but stylish compound, almost entirely carved out of a single colossal piece of wood. Beyond was a forest of impossibly tall trees.
That was not where they were headed, however. They were headed for a large vertically-sliding door that had been left partially open. Above it flew a black, white, and silver flag with a red starburst.
He took the sights in, for he'd never been. The architecture was certainly interesting, and differed from the constantian neighbors, but what took him by surprise was how maritime it felt. It wasn't too dissimilar to his own home. It was harsher, but not worse. He took a breath of air he didn't need, for he didn't exist, and turned to her, leaning over the platform. "Not what I expected, y'know. It's harsh and cold, kinda like where I'm from." he smiled as he followed along presumably to her abode. "Seems cozy, though. How'd ya normally get warm?" he asked, curious in his tone as he followed along.
Ailet blinked, twice. "Firewood." It was only then that it hit him that what he was standing on was a massive tree stump, far larger than any he'd ever seen. "Fuck me..." he thought, looking down. He wished he could touch it. "Was this around when you was a young'un?"
Ailet nodded, dimly aware of how crazy it must've made her look. "This was the aloi'hax, as we call it, the first of her grove and nearly five thousand years old. She fell to the Ai'meda when they attacked," she confirmed. "Burnt too badly for us to save her, so we preserved what was left and gave her a new life, of sorts."
He too nodded, for he didn't have to fear looking ridiculous. "All you can do, I s'pose. Can't say we got these in Enth." he smiled, thinking of home. "Where I'm from, used to be a big forest apparently. King had em' hacked down for longbows in some war against the prenchies god knows how long ago, and they never really grew back." he looked outward to the vast forest. "But it seems like you still got plenty of 'em here. Maybe there'll be another big fucker in the far future, hm?"
Ailet smiled faintly. "There will be," she agreed, with something strange in her voice, "as long as we win."
Then, however, they were approaching the door and there were figures moving about inside, opening it. I love you, Tommy, she thought quickly in a voice that made it sound offhanded, but you need to get back in my head now until I explain things to them.
One of the figures waved at her. "Well, if it isn't Yrash'andarii!" it exclaimed, resolving itself into a particularly tall and rangy-looking woman with black hair in a ponytail, knifelike features and glasses that matched Ailet's. "Back in one piece after being stolen by the warmongers!"
"Emyuulen!" the one-legged girl exclaimed, putting on a burst of jogging speed, "Haven't been too bored without me, have you?"
The flat-chested awkward-looking woman came to a stop in front of her and held out her arms. She bounced up and down from foot to foot. "Suuuuuuunei!" she squealed, and they embraced each other. She was tall enough that Ailet's face was somewhere around her shoulders.
What exactly did she mean by that? By all of it? He laughed, and retorted. "They can't see me, right? But I s'pose you mean to shut up. No worries. I gotcha. Don't keep me waitin' too long." He ceased to exist and returned to her headspace, and simply observed her familiarity with this other girl. He watched, for a moment, and wondered whether she truly meant what she said. And if he had to be silent and wait for her to explain, then he'd simply dig around some more. He wondered truly, what was going through this girls head.
Instead, he saw through her eyes and heard through her ears. This was a complex of some sort, with airy stained-glass windows in a light abstract style, gently curved walls, and grand rooms with sweeping vistas. It was all constructed of a single great tree stump, with towers carved and fluted so that the wind would play different notes as it whistled through the gaps. They call this place the Seasong Tower, Ailet remarked in her head as she followed Emyuulen deeper underground.
The windows became long shafts, strategically placed to spill columns of light where they were most needed and most aesthetically pleasing. Dust motes sparkled under the beams and, everywhere were atriums rising up two, three, or four floors, with benches and tables occupying nooks in their further reaches, and compact spiral staircases carved from the single unified piece of wood that made up everything here. In the darker corners, glass bubbles protected fungi glowing with bioluminescence and they cast a soft light over those areas. It was... art, but it was highly functional.
The two girls made nondescript chitchat as they walked, speaking about Ailet's mission, but it was nothing Tommy couldn't access already from living inside of her head. She checked in at various desks and was directed onwards until, eventually, she picked up another escort - Badren - who had a colourless uniform and a keyring, and went ahead of her, opening doors. The light down here was all bioluminescent, sprouting in bulbs from the walls and hanging in globes from the ceiling. Different areas seemed to have their own unique colours.
Finally, they came to a waiting room labeled [CREATION & RECONSTITUTION]. Everything was antiseptic white. Ailet was given a cup of water and told to sit and wait. The 'department head' would be with her shortly.
He felt some sensory experience like this, akin to her memories but very much in the moment. It was better, but irritating. There were so many things that she was keeping track of that were completely arbitrary, and he felt himself distracted numerous times. Even so, he spared his gaze around the complex they were inside, and he felt interest at everything at play here. It reminded him of Johann's place, just more... brutalist? Everything had a place and purpose, and he looked down with Ailet at the cup of water she'd been given only to be annoyed.
"Get yerself a pint, lass! You literally just crawled outta fuckin' hell!" he felt himself enraged at the circumstances. "Even Big J the Kerreman knows when to work and when to play!"
In Tarlon, we practice going without food and drink for weeks and days on end, respectively. Waiting a couple more hours will only make the feast sweeter. Restrainedly, she sipped from the cup and, had she two knees to press together, she would have. All about was the hum of energy, most of it blood or binding or... it was difficult to tell the two apart, in truth, and that was the dirty secret of most human magical practice: one that the yasoi did not avoid.
Then, finally, a tall thin man in spectacles and a white smock emerged from one of the doors and inclined his head in Ailet's direction. "I salute professor Andarii's service to our people," he said, and Ailet placed her cup aside, rose, and bowed more deeply.
"I salute premier Tazath's accommodation in seeing me on such short notice. I understand he is a busy and important man."
Premier Tazath nodded and gestured for her to follow him. With a flick of his wrist, the door before him folded back as if it had been made of many pieces of paper. Ailet stepped through and the pair soon seated themselves in a small well-lit room. Beyond a large curtain with the label [CREATION ROOM 1] people were moving about and there was the undeniable energetic stench of blood magic. The premier crossed his legs and arms alike, leaned back, and nodded for Ailet to begin.
"Yeah, yeah. I think you've already done that, you delightful fuckin' nerd. 'Ave a drink." he spoke, and she could see his eyes rolling in her minds eye. He ceased his talking when another gentleman walked into the room and began to share titles of respect. Protector, provider, premier, there was a funny theme going on here. Then they were inside a room that felt like magic that wasn't to be touched at Ersand'Enise, but not something he'd disavowed himself from looking into. In fact, he was a push away from applying for those oogly boogly edgy blood magic classes right before the revolution, and yet, here he was.
"Y'know, this sorta shit's outlawed at Ersand'Enise. There's only a couple of fuckers who teach it. I was interested before I got my head mulched. What're we doin' here, nuumi'ensa?" the language rolled off his thoughts almost naturally, creepily in fact, for one who'd likely spoken maybe 10 words of yasoi in their life.
Candy Apple
Ailet blushed fiercely, unable to adequately curtail the biological reaction. In the middle of his sentence, Premier Tazath stopped and tilted his head. "You just blushed, my dear," he observed, and she swallowed and nodded. "An entirely inappropriate reaction to the act of observing something about a tree."
"That is the matter about which I wished to speak, Ailet replied. "The individual I've been covering in my account has been appearing to me in a series of intense hallucinations over the past day since my return." She pursed her lips. "One cannot discount the possibility of my having had a dissociative episode, but given my previous indicators of mental stability, it would appear unlikely." She blinked. "Why would I be imagining him and so vividly?"
"Your biochemical indicators tell a certain story."
Ailet fixed her glasses and cleared her throat. "He was a traditionally attractive - if somewhat rough-looking - young male, by huusoi standards." She blinked a few more times. "A purely biological reaction that was by no means particularly pronounced."
Premier Tazath shrugged. "And you said he was Enthish, correct?"
"Correct, premier." She bowed her head slightly.
Her senior tapped his quill against his chin pensively. "I see..." he remarked, uncrossing his legs and furrowing his brow. "Fair complexion? Crooked and discoloured teeth?"
"Correct, premier." She bowed her head slightly.
He rose all at once. "Come with me, professor Andarii. We recently had something quite interesting stumble into our arms and we weren't quite sure what to make of it." He turned and motioned for her to follow with a flick of his fingers. "Perhaps you'll have some insight."
He listened, and they went on and on, until he heard something that made his heart break, that he simply could not countenence. "Crooked and discoloured?" he exclaimed, covering his mouth in shock. He was standing right beside Tazath, scowling at the man. "I've got the best in my family, y'know. Brushed em' every day. And you... traitor!" he accused Ailet, pointing at her, before shaking his head and realizing her earlier words. "Traditionally attractive though? Heh. Hehehe. You think I'm hot?" he grinned, showing off those not so pearly whites.
It was as if someone was grabbing and pulling her from inside. Midstep, Ailet's hands shot to her mouth and she stumbled, nearly falling. She hopped to save her balance and then her arm, of its own volition, went and started pointing at... herself? Incongruously, she grinned before tamping down on it.
It took Tommy himself a moment to cue in that something was amiss, and the premier was - by then - facing his junior. "Fascinating..." he murmured. Then, louder: "Are you quite alright professor Andarii?"
Ailet's eyes were wide. Her heart pounded and her breaths came quickly as theories raced through her head. There was only one that she could settle upon. "Uh... I'm not so sure, to be honest."
Tommy didn't quite clock what was happening at first, but he felt it. His actions and hers were linked, because currently, their minds were. That was the premise he'd settled on, because he didn't understand the deeper connection or science at play here. "Alright, that's a lil scary, don'tcha think?" he remarked to her, before pondering for a moment. "I'm no bodysnatcher, but we oughta test this out when I'm not in front of your sciency premier colleague or whatever the fellas called."
I think we should bloody well test it out this very moment while the experts that might help us are here! Ailet retorted.
"Miss Andarii? I say, are you experiencing a loss of bodily control?" Premier Tazath seemed particularly fascinated.
"You're even fuckin' talking like me. When've you ever said bloody... fine, fine. Didn't wanna make ya lose your job or whatever sorta bullshit you're in 'ere." he waved off her retort and attempted to assume control. He imagined himself in her body, and forced his will for but a moment. It felt invasive and he didn't at all like the feeling, but when he was there, he felt a complete lack of balance. Everything seemed to move slower, and he felt himself tumbling to the ground as he barely caught himself from dashing her face across the clean room.
"Yeah... how does one walk on one leg... n' why is everythin' so fuckin' slow..." Tommy remarked from Ailet's lips in utter confusion. He touched her skin and felt something, and there was a grim sensation in finally being able to feel something, but at the cost of controlling another. He shook his head. He wouldn't betray this girl.
Premier Tazath pursed his lips as he watched the display. "With great fucking difficulty, Tommy!" Ailet called back, "and I'm plenty fast for my needs, thank you very much!" She was only in his head, however.
"Mr. Kavanaugh, I presume?" the premier inquired in perfect, though accented, Enthish.
Aye. N' you're the uh... premier? I think that's what she called ya?" he.. she? responded, struggling to rise to his foot. He leaned on a nearby wall for support, and nearly fell another time but managed to steady himself through a very improvised hold on a crutch. He responded in Enthish, but it didn't feel right coming from her mouth. "Didn't know you lot spoke my tongue in this part of the world, but I guess it's only natural for the learned folk." he found himself saying, and the voice just didn't sound right to him. He cringed slightly, and even his vocabulary had adjusted slightly. He thought to AIlet for a moment. 'This fucker's looking at me like he wants to kill me. Are we alright? Props, for the record, for getting around like this. I'd be on one of those chairs like Issy, I'm tellin' ya.' before he switched focus back to Tazath.
"If I'm to be honest, it's been over twelve years and I don't know if I could even get around on two anymore," Ailet admitted in his... her? headspace. "And no, he's analyzing you. He's seeing if there's any truth to this or if it's a hoax or I've simply lost my marbles. I don't speak Enthish, though I'm getting a sense of it as you speak. That was a test and I do believe you've passed it."
"Just so, Mr. Kavanaugh. That'll do for now. Perhaps you'd be willing to hand back control so professor Andarii might move again. Her... locomotion involves a great deal of muscle memory and I shudder to think of what it might look like without her in the driver's seat, so to speak." He paused. "I believe there's something just beyond these curtains that might interest you both a great deal."
"I will not." he paused, and his expression went stone faced. "With this powerful body, I will conquer the world. Bwahahahaha!" he tried to put on a menacing air and evil laugh, but it just fell flat into giggles as he waved his hand and nearly fell over as a result of it. "Kiddin, kiddin'. This girls a treat. Give her a meal n' a bath when this is done, yeah?" he winked at Tazath with a playfulness that couldn't be attributed to the young scientist, before handing her the 'reins'. 'Don't say I've never walked in your shoes now, sweetheart. he remarked in her head, continuing to laugh at his horrid attempt at movement in her body. Still, it earned a certain degree of respect for her, being able to move and adapt under those circumstances.
It was a good thing that Tommy was in charge of Ailet's face at that moment, for her reaction would've been... shock? Horror? A blush? A deep and almost painful cringe? Then, all at once, as if someone had just dropped her there, Ailet was herself again. She found her arms wrapping about her form almost - but not literally involuntarily and pulled them back to her sides and her crutches after a moment. Shoe, she corrected Tommy inwardly, Singular.
Premier Tazath took it all in stride, pivoting once more on his heel, hands clasped at the small of his back. He led them through the curtains and into the room beyond. It was... both a wonder and a horror. A dozen or more yasoi of all ages and genders moved about between various operating tables, and there were all sorts of glass and copper... tanks, the former with what appeared to be blobs of flesh in them!? Large spinning reservoirs of energy were spaced throughout the room, and further yasoi in grey jumpsuits seemed to be maintaining these. There were tubes, pipes, and vials with various liquids, slabs of various odd types of minerals in a variety of sizes, and an entire wall full of what appeared to be various body parts in jars.
Most strangely, however, Tommy felt something from Ailet that he'd only felt a handful of times before: nervousness and... was it shame? This is where I work, she told him in her head. We try to find ways to make the yasoi - and human - body better.
'Dear fuckin' lord, that's a sight. There's a big tubby kid at my school, charmin' fella but he dabbles in this sorta shit. Nothin' quite so grand and organized as this though.' he remarked in her head. It wasn't disgust that framed his thoughts but merely surprise that something like this could happen on such a large scale. 'You alright though? Hunger hittin' ya? Or is it the work?' he prodded, wondering why she was feeling so nervous, even though he somewhat knew the answer, for right now, he was her.
It's not exactly... normal people work, she admitted, filing away that bit about the... obese student for later. Some are squeamish. Some think it's.... creepy.
They continued through and there, behind a second set of curtains, a few more people moved about. Premier Tazath held up a hand and Ailet came to a stop. "One moment, my dear, if you please."
He disappeared through them and then Ailet was alone, but not really alone, for she had Tommy in her head. She made her way quickly to a set of pegs, grabbed a white coat and gloves, and hurried back just on time for the premier to poke his head back out. "Do come in."
"So, is this him, then?" asked a familiar-sounding voice. Yet, it was wrong. It was all wrong. Sitting on the table, grinning at Ailet and - by extension - Tommy, was... Tommy.
'For the record, it is kinda creepy. But it's useful, y'know? Like a spider. That's what me mam used to say. No creepy spiders n' the house gets filled with flies in the summer, and that's way worse than bein' a lil offputting.' he remarked, giving her a metaphysical reassuring pat on the shoulder.
'You gotta be shittin' me... is that Anje? I guess it makes sense, huh? But that's me! he thought to Ailet, absolutely bewildered at this series of events. Honestly speaking, it could hae honestly been one wild and wacky dream, and he'd have been set to wake up in his pyjamas back at his dorm room. Alas, it was not, and he was face to face with himself. This was by far the most disorientating sequence of the day, and he felt his mind grow somewhat unsteady. His grasp on reality and fiction was fading faster than he could really comprehend, and so, he asked a final question to Ailet.
'If... if I get stuck inside your head, touchwood I don't, you'll be nice to me, right? he remarked, resorting to baseline humour as a last resort for his own stability. Still, the experience was terrifying to him.
Ailet seemed, for what it was worth, almost as uncertain as Tommy. She reached out for him in her head as if to embrace him and then the anxiety hit, the aversion hit, and... she made herself do it. I'll do everything I can - and I mean 'everything' to get you back in a body - she assured Tommy, It just might not be yours, exactly.
"Ah, yes," interjected the premier, back in the world outside of her head. "This is apparently Anjeluun'asaan'tenjaxii, a figure from our history, having been on quite the adventure with yourself and Mr. Kavanaugh." He pushed his glasses up his nose. "I do admit to some skepticism at first."
"Hah!" laughed not-Tommy. "You thought I was some stark raving mad yanii. Anyhow..." Her eyes returned to Ailet. "So, you're him, then?" she snorted.
Ailet bristled as she turned to address the assumption. "I'm still very much Ailet." Her voice betrayed only a hint of the massive boiling hatred that Tommy would've felt inside of the yasoi. It was like nothing he'd ever experienced from her. Were she a dog, her hackles would've raised and her fangs bared. A low growl might've emanated from her throat. Instead: "But some version of Tommy has been... existing in my mental space," she admitted.
"More than that, dear," Anjeluun rejoined, "Try drawing, since you likely haven't yet, or you'd know, as a competent researcher. Tell me what you notice."
Tommy was surprised at the rage. He knew that she did not like Anjeluun because of some twisted past between their people, but they seemed to make amends in Hell. Perhaps that'd been a momentary truce, because were she him, she'd have leapt across the table and kill her on the spot, if she could. This was Ailet though, and she maintained control.
'I know you didn't like her, but damn. Sorry I made ya work with her, I shoulda known better. You're too good at keepin' yerself in check. he remarked, patting her on the shoulder.
And in response to Anjeluun's backhanded comment, Ailet drew, for she was more than happy to. There was something that she noticed immediately upon reaching her capacity, was that it was higher, not drastically so but by a noticeable margin. Was this a product of going through hell? Or was there something more at play here?
"He's more than a mental artifact. His capacity has materially added to my own." Ailet addressed the premier. "I assume it's the same for her."
Premier Tazath nodded. "She reported something similar." His eyes darted between the two and narrowed momentarily, as if taking note of something. "We'll be looking for verifiable quantifiable data later on, of course." There was a hint of a smile on his face, and his glasses gleamed under the artificial light. "The implications of this discovery, if we can find a way of harnessing it, are sea-changing."
Ailet nodded. "I am at your disposal, premier Tazath," she replied, bowing her head.
"As am I," replied not-Tommy. "But also my own, naturally." He-she cracked a lopsided grin and looked so very much like the real thing that a wave of intense revulsion rose up inside of Ailet. Tazath, for his part, let out a mirthful snort. "Naturally," he replied. "Now, if we can get you to lie down on the other table, professor Andarii, we might begin running some tests?"
You owe me no apology, Thomas. Ailet finally addressed him, having a moment as she stripped down and covered herself with a towel. Your course of action was levelheaded and correct in all ways but the needlessly emotional. It got us out of hell, after all.
'Emotions are important too, Ailet. It's what makes us who we are, y'know?
They lay flat on the table, and the experiments were conducted, Most of them were mundane, a testing of reflexes, bodily function, vitals and the like. It was all terribly mundane until a swap was once again requested, and Tommy occupied the body of Ailet once more. At least this time, he wasn't forced to attempt to stand in the much unfamiliar body, but the methods of testing were probing and uncomfortable. He too, conducted under the same series of tests as Ailet and performed wildly differently, obvious given that they were two different people that currently shared a body. Some time during, he was naturally distracted by the drawn out scientific process, and incredibly uncomfortable occupying something that wasn't his, so he began to converse with Ailet whilst notaries wrote down the specifics of what was occurring.
'Don'tcha think it's weird we got such diferent skillsets?' he thought, smiling. A yasoi in a white coat chastised him and his expression quickly returned to normal. 'Seriously though, these fuckers are thorough. I know it's part of the process, but I feel gross for forcin' you into your own head. Any ideas how we can make this shit go faster? he remarked, as the next series of tests began and his attention was once again recalled to the team of scientists. This one was related to magical aptitude, and they too remarked on how different their skillsets seemed to be. The only shared note was that they both shared a high aptitude for Kinetic, but the sensibilities and practicality of those skills were vastly different, and the process took a considerable amount of time considering Tommy's inability to explain how he conducted his own spellcasting ability. Not to mention that he accidentally destroyed a piece of lab equipment from his capacity being several times higher than usual. That sort of power was intoxicating to him, and he understood why the nobility flaunted their power so openly and eagerly in that moment.
Well, you pay attention and it'll go faster, which would be... optimal, Ailet replied. But I would love to just be able to shut myself off for now. They'd moved on to a study of mana and nervous mapping and there came a sigh from Ailet. How about I take a dive into your deep dark mind? I've nothing better to do.
'Help yourself. I owe it to ya since I saw a piece of your head.' he remarked in her head, as he heeded her advice and paid attention. She wasn't wrong after all, and to get things right, they had to be intrusive and scrupulous. Ailet drifted through the mind and memories of Thomas Kavanaugh, and in a weird coincidence, found a memory of his 13th birthday. A strange coincidence, considering today was officially his birthday. An auspicious timing to re-emerge from hell.
She found herself in the body of the young boy sat outside on a warm Dorrad's morning, for it was the height of that season after all. A rare occasion for Enth, but the sun was high in the sky and there were no clouds to be seen. He'd walked from his crowded townhouse as many of his family had left for their various jobs and enterprises in the morning, and none had wished him well on the day of his birth, but he thought perhaps that they might have remembered later on. He'd learned to expect nothing, for times were tough and the family was large. Still, a walk in the sun helped ease the tension in his mind and he found himself staring at the waves from a bench near the Barrowton docks.
Oftentimes, he found himself here whether rain, sun or snow. There was a peace in the rocking of the boats and the talk of sailors, dockworkers and construction. He sat there for a while, maybe a couple of hours. His stomach rumbled in hunger, for he'd had no breakfast but he simply observed how the sun moved across the sky, how men moved across the ships and how some came and went. He had thoughts about life, and an innumerable amount of regrets swirling around his mind.
One that particularly stood out was a fight he'd gotten into around a month prior, that he'd never stopped thinking about. He'd been at a bar with a bunch of older kids, for he often kept their company. Tommy made a point of keeping rougher company, and around the rough and tumble families of Moat's End and Dunn Street, his family name held a degree of respect among the gaggles of street gangs and ruffian children that roamed. One of his friends, Lewis Wynter, had gotten a rather unusual 'lucky' streak at a gambling table, and a raucous fight ensued between a gaggle of kids and older gentleman.
It was a whirling memory that he didn't have much recollection of. The adrenaline had spiked and many had gone for weapons in their haste. Tommy had no such need of those implements, and employed the gift as instinct, where he'd never shown it to the majority of his associates before. An arm of a man who was about to stab his friend went clean off with no interference, and a stool-chair was reduced to splinters, but he remembers grabbing his buddy by the arm and running out of that bar through a variety of alleyways in the dead of night. He remembers the sickly sweet coppery smell that came from the wound. The way it was so easy for him to mortally wound someone. He remembers that the man died that night, not only of that wound but of numerous stabbings that came after, and how 5 people died in a fight at The Jester's Folly. More were wounded. Hugh Sharman lost an eye to a dinner fork. Timmy Mugge had to have his left arm amputated from a gangrene infection.
He thought for so long about how fragile and weak mortal lives were, and then about how his mother had described the rich. They probably laughed at the idea that someone could die of something so... inane, but it was life. The hours passed like minutes to Ailet, but the memory picked up once someone came and sat next to the boy. His Aunt Deborah, or Debby, as she went by. A one eyed woman who'd worked at the docks since she was a girl, and his favourite relative besides his mother. "Happy birthday, Tommy." she smiled, and ruffled his hair. He remembers that she was missing a good deal of her teeth, and how she had a burn mark on her right hand from when she hadn't been paying attention ironing clothes. How those fingers never seemed to move properly. How she walked stiffly from an accident at the docks. She reached into a satchel she often had at her side, and handed him a sheathed knife, with a more ornate handguard. "Even if ya got yer magic, shouldn't be unprepared. I don't wanna be goin to yer funeral. You gotta die after I do, ye troublemakin' lil shit." She winked at him with her one good eye, and he took the gift in his hands. It frightened him how nice it felt to hold, and that feeling of safety it gave him.
He said his thanks but the words weighed heavy on him as he began to walk. He didn't want to show her that his stomach was rumbling, because she'd have bought him food. He did not want to be a burden on someone who actually cared about him, even if she showed it in a weird way like buying him a knife. Still, it remained strapped to his hip and he went about his merry way back to his house. He passed through a long running alleyway of Dunn's End, that ran dangerously close to that tavern he so often thought about. Tommy knew the streets well, and he ducked through another passageway toward the back end of a bakery. where they threw out the scraps from the night prior.
He smelt it first. Then he heard the buzzing of flies gathered around a carcass. He flinched slightly before looking, and there was a sense of relief when it wasn't a man he saw, but a dead pidgeon. It made it no better when he rifled through the trash near the carcass and took what little remaining unspoiled stale bread that was there, but it filled the hole in his stomach as he began to stroll home. The only thing he felt was an immense gratitude that it wasn't a corpse, but he'd suspected it might have been. He'd seen more than one in that same spot.
The day had been like any other, for him. Many celebrated their birthday, but he did not. There was no cake or celebration when he got home, and only his mother remarked on it when she said good night to him. Only his Aunt Debby had gotten him a gift, and he treasured that blade for as long as he had it. Still, he slept better that night knowing at least one person cared about his life.
For a long time, Ailet said nothing. She did nothing. She simply processed: the casual poverty - in Tarlon, they fasted, but it was a choice; the assumption of indifference - it had hurt Ailet when her parents hadn't seemed to support her; the casual violence - in Tarlon, the environment was the ever-present danger, not people. She stood out, forever marked by an act of exceptional violence that had taken nearly a quarter of her body, but that was exactly what it was: exceptional.
The pause extended. The tests were finishing up, on both subjects. I care about you, Tommy. It just came out of her. She wasn't sure why, but it did. She found herself wondering if he still had the knife or if it had been on him when he died.
The examination was over and she took control of her body back. I want to see if we have your knife.
What followed was an hour or more of technical discussion and a teleport to the upper levels of the complex, where steam boiled off from a set of large aromatic cauldrons, and people broke bread from a singular great loaf to dip in a piquant stew. There were strange, airy sweet fruits, and cold fresh water. Ailet ate deeply and eagerly. This is piqash'thenii'mang, and the bread is tang'qit'vuud. We all share it, she told him in her head. The fruits are pereh'olii and silora. Can you taste it? She prepared to hand him control so he might.
He smiled in her minds eye in appreciation. He knew that well enough now, for people had gone to hell for him and she'd risked her own skin just to get him a body. He was grateful, truly, and any lost faith he'd had in his fellow man had long since been restored from that experience. 'Might 'ave been in the evidence locker. They mighta tossed it out though, was old n' barely holdin together.' he remarked fondly. Then, testing continued and so did discussions. He asked her some questions, but he remained quiet for a moment. He'd not failed to notice how hungry or fatigued she was when he'd occupied her body, and when they finally went to eat, he was glad. He knew what it was like to live on an empty stomach, and perhaps that's why he was so insistent on fulfilling those urges when given the opportunity. Part of it was greed, sure, but there was an acute awareness that each meal might be your last.
He occupied her just for a moment, to taste the myriad of flavours that came about the food. He enjoyed the communal style of eating, and he partook of everything. Perhaps his sloppy manners stood out more than when Ailet had eaten, but he did not speak out loud, only remarking to Ailet with a short 'Thank you. This shit's good. Different, but I like it. You'll 'ave to make it for me sometime, eh? And I can treat ya to a full Enthish. he remarked, smiling as he sampled the last of the variety, handing her body back to her. He was content to watch her eat and fill her stomach, for he could feel her satisfaction, but he did speak up when she'd finished sating her hunger.
'Y'know, it's a shame you weren't enrolled at the school. I guess you got this sorta shit to do, but d'you think we woulda been friends? Would you 'ave given me the time o' day? he thought, softer this time.
Ailet stopped to consider, midway through floating her tray back to the counter with magic. I probably wouldn't have, she admitted. My focus has always been on the mission. There was a pause as she let it down and began walking. Would you?
'Bein honest, I don't think so either.' he thought, laughing slightly at the irony of it all. 'But I'm glad we met. Thank you, Ailet. Heh, that rhymed. Think I'm gettin' wittier bein in your head.'
Ailet smirked, heading out into the atrium and starting to pull on the threads of space and time. Not something anyone's accused me of before, she laughed. I might do 'smarts', but 'wit' isn't usually a strong suit.
They were soon back on the other floor and in a boardroom. Normally, Ailet would've been part of the study, but her bodily needs had taken precedence after so long without.
"Simply put, this line of research shows great promise," Premier Tazath was explaining, "and we're interested in trying to recreate it."
"And if that item you recovered serves the purpose we were hoping for, this could be the start of something truly mighty." It was Emyuulen.
"We would do well not to get ahead of ourselves," advised another figure whose name both Tommy and Ailet had forgotten. "First, the proposed operation."
"Yes, precisely. We've been able to draw invaluable data from this study on the continuing nature of manas following biological death and how they map to the body."
What followed was a long-winded explanation full of terminology that Tommy struggled to grasp though, apparently, Ailet did. She explained the odd bit to him but, essentially, it boiled down to a half-dozen of Tarlon's most skilled binders in a secret department using the biological map from Tommy's manas contained in Ailet to essentially 'heal' a new body for him. Then, it was a matter of coaxing them into that new body...
Some time had passed since the pair had visited the eclectic clothing stall that lay in the heart of Zengali. Following this, the two had pranced from place to place across the port city and participated in the Festival of Eshiran. The sun had begun to set, and the two had found themselves upon a beach where much revelry had begun to occur. Yuliya herself was more than a few drinks deep, and she'd returned from a nearby bar with a pair of exotic, fruity-looking girly drinks. She winked at Leon playfully, handing him one of the two and lay down on a nearby primitive beach-style chair, reclining and taking slow measured sips.
"You know, this 'mission' seem very relaxed. Last time I sent somewhere, I never got moment like this." She chuckled to herself, eyes dancing between the Sun King and the festivities occurring on the beach. Her pupils dilated at the sight of a juggler tossing several flaming torches, and there was no obvious sign of the gift. For a moment, she wondered how anyone could risk such harm to themselves, but she realized how captivated she was by the performance, and simply smiled. Times like this made her glad that she'd come to the school, even if she'd bore witness to an equal amount of horrors since attending.
A night of dancing, a night of drinks, a night of fun threw the White Thresher once more to the back of his thoughts. A hangover wouldn't be good for the fight, but it would be easy enough to get Roslyn or another chemical mage to solve the problem for him, so why not throw his troubles away for the evening? Good drinks and good company made the sunset best as he accepted the former from the latter with a smile and a nod. Leon gave Yuli a wink back as he took a long sip, he too was a few drinks deep.
Leon chuckled heartily. "It's a surprise to me too. Last time I was on a mission, the ship exploded and started sinking into shuckodil-infested waters." It would only have been a few years ago that the prospect of such a thing would shock him, but now it seemed just about commonplace with the going ons of Ersand'Enise. If anything, Zengali and the peace he enjoyed tonight was the surprise now. "If the opportunity arises, it would seem a shame to spend it toiling over worry."
Yuli’s mind wondered for a moment though, lost in alcohol, festivities and friendship, about the man she was spending time with here. Kaureerah was someone very dear to her heart and mind, given the moments they'd shared together, and this was the man she'd chosen. She could see why, certainly, for he was a handsome lad and held many traits women would find desirable, but there was an oddness to it that she couldn't quite place. Yuliya had a discourteous view of Ashon and his relationship with Penny, but she felt surprisingly content with this man taking another close friend of hers in his arms. Why was that? She pondered for a moment more, taking a long sip from her drink before speaking up again, turning her head to meet his gaze and offering a cheers of their drinks.
"You mind if I ask something personal? I want know something."
Leon raised his drink and the two glasses gently clinked. He looked off to the shore in admiration of the continuous beauty Zengali had to offer. But the girl's question turned his head back and he raised a curious eyebrow. He hadn't seen himself and Yuli being close enough to answer personal questions or for her to ask them. But what was booze for if not making fast friends? The thought of answering gave him no strong anxieties.
"Go ahead." The performer gave a playful shrug.
She took another sip from her drink, letting out a sigh as the cool drink battled against the humidity of the port city. Alcohol had a special place in her heart, and it often brought the strangest circumstances to pass. Normally, she wouldn't have bothered to ask this question, but a genuine curiosity remained in her heart: who was this man that had entered her friend's life, and why had he done so? Her eyes met his, and she began to ask her question.
"Why are you Sun King? Why not just Leon Solaire? It is not often we give ourself titles, you know?" she smiled, letting out a breath exhale as her mind wandered. She too, was pretending to be someone else at this school, and perhaps that's why she felt compelled to ask. What drove him to take this persona, and why? Because from what she understood, and the conversations they'd shared, she didn't believe they were the same person.
Leon's head almost snapped back around to Yuli with a smile. He set his drink down, rolled to his side, rested his head in a hand, and one knee went up as if he were spreading idle gossip in amusement. "It's fitting, isn't it? I originally made it as a secret identity for the trials but it seems to have just stuck."
He sat up and raised his hands out toward Yuli as if giving some grand pitch. "From nowhere, a man appears bathed in sunlight to bring light to the trials. He cares less for the competition itself, but spends the time saving others, even on other teams. Together the trials are elevated by the Sun King, light and joy for all." He chuckled away at the whimsicality. "It sounds cheesy when I say it out loud... But I like it."
She laughed along. It was whimsical, and something straight out of a fairytale, but it was a comforting thought. The idea of being a hero was a nice one in such a dark world. The events of the trials and the revolution had left a sour taste in everyone's mouth, and the fact he could go about with a smile and follow his dreams was something that resonated her, at least in spirit. "Cheesy doesn't mean bad, Leon. I like it too." A genuine smile graced her lips and she gazed his way. It became easier and easier to see why Kaureerah had fallen for him. But there was yet another question that met her mind, why did he like her? Not as in, she had no likeable traits but what would make a celebrity fall for a girl like that rather than attempting to climb the social ladder?
Leon raised an eyebrow at Yuli, his demeanour more formal. "I'm glad you like it Yuli, but I'm not sure you fully understand. I stand now as your equal but Vasilieva, Hohnstein, de Berbignon are all noble names with history and positions to be inherited. Solaire is something I made up." He took a sip of the girly drink while contemplating the matter further. "I mean no offense to you or others I call friend, but you were born a Vasilieva, raised a Vasilieva, and will always be defined by a Vasilieva. I was born without any earthly claim to call my own and now I have the reputation of a small king, kings from backwaters like Yarsoc or Blaaarth, but comparable to kings nonetheless."
"I'm still young though and if you were to measure the trajectory to where I climb. Well, I wonder where it will end." Leon pointed upward to the sky before letting his arm drop, he didn't have the exact words to answer it, he didn't need them. "The Sun King from nowhere who changed the world for the better." He gazed into the sky daydreaming. "If he could do it from nothing, why couldn't anyone else."
Her head cocked to the side in contemplation, because quite frankly, she hadn't gotten it. The idea of a hero was nothing new to her, but the idea of reaching for continuous heights in terms of political power was something she couldn't really comprehend for she'd never had to do it. In fact, she'd spent a good chunk of her time at the school hiding her status, pretending to be someone she wasn't in order to be treated similar to the rest. To try and gain an understanding of that sort of life. And here she was, confronted with an opposite. In her somewhat tipsy state, it made her laugh. She'd encountered so many viewpoints and ways of life, but this one was entirely fresh. An altruistic attempt to climb the ladder.
Leon was a little surprised that he made Yuli laugh, but he joined her quickly. "I thought you said cheesy didn't mean bad." Half of him was playing into the joke, the other half a little embarrassed at the unexpected reception. With the influence of alcohol, it was an incredibly honest response.
"Leon, there's a top of the ladder." She shook her head and smiled at him. "You have best intentions. But I think you don't understand as well. The higher you climb, less you see below." She took a long sip of the drink and breathed a sigh of relief from the coolness. "I came to school as less, and it let me see more." There was a pause, and she wondered if she was about to deliver some unsolicited advice that was hardly warranted, but she decided to speak anyway. Her inhibitions were too lowered to care. "Try not to lose sight of little things on your way up, or story of Sun King could have a bad end, you know?"
Leon adjusted himself and rose from his lying position. "But the ladder will always exist, Yuli. I saw what it meant to climb once and ran from it, but where does that leave the world? If those who care run from the ladder, from the responsibility, it leaves the climb to those who either don't know or don't care." Leon looked back to Yuli with a close-lipped smile but his eyes looked sadder. "But I suppose you’re right. All I see is the end of that journey and think I'll be the same at the top. Maybe I don't know what I'll lose as I climb each rung."
Yuliya listened to the words he spoke, and they brought a more sombre mood to the discussion. She was all too familiar with those who'd fled from responsibility, and in a way, she was one of those people too. Her people needed her - to the point they'd attempted to coup her dynasty once more - and she was here, playing games, singing songs and playing dress up with other noble children, studying magic without a care in the world. It stung, even if it was true. Someone had to climb that ladder, for better or worse. At least Leon Solaire was conscious of what he stood to lose, and for that, she hoped he would succeed.
Leon retreated to his thoughts for a while as he contemplated something. He picked up the girly drink, took a considered sip, and then looked into its fruity colour. "Maybe I need someone like you looking out for me, help keep me in check to make sure the story stays good. Along with some good drinks of course." He joked as he looked back to her cheerfully with a smile, wink, and a raise of his glass.
When the rest came, Yuli couldn't help but smile. Perhaps it was the flirty nature of the way the man talked, or perhaps it was the alcohol flowing through her system. She finished her drink and slurped the scraps away with her straw before setting it down on a table and meeting his gaze. His eyes were pretty, but also lonely. She knew why Kaureerah had fallen for this man, for the girl had felt the same herself. She blushed slightly but knew that what she had interpreted from his words was not likely what he'd meant. Still, it was an opportunity ripe for teasing the lad.
"Is that proposal, Mr Solaire? You dog, you. What would Kaury think?" She smirked and winked at the Sun King, before patting him on the shoulder, giving it a much gentler touch than she'd displayed at Mbita and Chikas. "I do like drink though. Good drink. Next round is you, Sunny. What we drink next?" She chuckled, but had more thoughts on her mind. She wondered if their lives had been swapped, whether they'd have ended up on the same paths.
Leon looked confused for a bit, before a slight blush took him and he began laughing. "Oh, no, I think we come from different places indeed." He said with an amused smile. "I like you, Yuli. But I'm not about to get down on one knee over it." He joked with a friendly tone and a wink.
"I grew up on the road with a line of caravans. Travelling performers and travellers in general were all to keep us company." He took the hand Yuli placed on his shoulder and put it in his. He guided her toward the central beach fire and then took her other hand to dance. It was a twirl and a twirl, in a drunken waltz for two. The drinks could wait. "There would be plenty we pick up on the road. They could be funny, charming, and easy to love. In a single night, you could feel as if you've known them for years. But then, as soon as a week from when they'd arrived, they'd be gone. Only an empty bed to remind us that they ever existed and we wouldn't see them again." His tone grew sadder as he spoke.
He brought Yuli in before letting her out to the span of their arms and back in again. He seemed in a brighter mood after that. "What I'm saying is, I hope you are one that stays along for the ride. I could use the advice, and you... well, what are you looking for?"
She was surprised when the man took her hands, but it wasn't unwelcome. Dance was an expression of the self, of the goddess she wished she embodied - that of Ipté, and she took to revelry like a fish to water. She whirled around with Leon in a dance that was uncomfortable close to the fire, and she didn't seem to mind. Her eyes wandered there for a moment - to the flickering flames. Once, she'd been afraid of it, but that'd long since passed. Her heart had been in and out of the freezer for as long as she could remember, and when it had been allowed to thaw such as now, she was unsure whether it was her true self, or what she wished to be.
His story touched her. It reminded her of the things she couldn't have, of the responsibilities that she'd eventually have to face upon arriving home and it annoyed her. She couldn't help it, even if his words and motivation was one that was genuinely good. It was idiotic to sacrifice freedom, the winds that Dami granted them to sail upon. She wished she could simply roam the country road and dance, and drink, and party with whomever she pleased. Perhaps it was ungrateful to the station that she'd been given, the gifts of her birth, the vast wealth and power.
But perhaps that's why she craved what this man once had - the freedom of choice. They were opposites, truly, but in a sense, equals. Not by birth but because they didn't know who they truly were - or at least that was what the Vossoriyan girl thought. She flicked her head and her hair cascaded in a mop as she let the thoughts rest in the cooler, and let her heart continue to warm for now, as she looked in the eyes of the Sun King.
"It sounds stupid, but I'm looking for friend." she laughed, her eyes wandering between him and the dancing fire. "I can laugh, dance and play pretend, but I am different. I am too high on ladder for them to see and understand me, you are knowing?" she paused, before resuming her hearty chuckle, this time over her obviously broken Avincean. Alcohol never helped that. "Sometime, I want slide down and join everyone else. Go on caravan ride with not care in world. And sometime, I do. But I can't stay." she whispered wistfully, her attention shifted from the flame to him fully now.
"I don't want be alone, Leon." she confessed, holding his hands tightly. "I feel my friends leave me behind soon." her voice was choked, and her eyes began to tear up. Penny would bear the children of that wretched yasoi and leave her station. She'd barely spoken to Zarina since Miret had gotten her claws into her. And Kaureerah, sweet girl, was off risking her life. As strong as she was of spirit, her body was weak. She was not Penny, or Zarina, let alone her. "I'll stay for ride, just let me know when it is time to jump off." Yuliya muttered shakily, and her cheeks became damp with tears.
How long had it been since she cried?
And when did she ever let anyone see it?
When had she grown this soft?
Leon thought for a moment and gazed into the flames. What she had said about the ladder, not being understood, it spoke to his soul. He had never thought himself the type; raised among those who had as little as he did. But now reputation, prestige, and the weight of expectations had slowly taken those freedoms. He could sit back and say to this girl that she could join the common man's dance and forget about her worldly worries. But then, when had he last joined the caravan he owed so much to? When had he returned to the orchard he considered home? He could do it at any time, but when would it not cost him so much more than it is worth? Those were questions he preferred to ignore because they made him feel lost. He had chosen the path ahead even above the chance to understand his mother.
Yuli snapped him out of his daze with as he heard the Vossoriyan choke on her words and noticed she was shedding tears. His face snapped back and he was no longer smiling, the booze and the emotions at play stripped that facade from him. He simply listened and sought to understand her. It was easy for Leon to mistake Yuli as older than him. She carried a coldness to her that he had only seen before in the older nobility. But there was no doubt in his mind now, he only saw a girl still finding her way in the world. A girl who had shed a front that had been held up too long. Perhaps they were very similar indeed.
Leon pulled her in for a comforting hug, swept aside her hair, and gently kissed her on the forehead. "You make an easy request but not one that is stupid. If it is a friend you look for, you can find one in me." He came back out from the hug and Leon smiled warmly. "Join my caravan and you shall never be alone, I swear it." He crossed a hand over his heart. "No one deserves to be alone in this world." What was alcohol for if not to bind yourself to lifelong vows with a person you've met twice? Who knew if Leon would actually keep it. As genuine as he spoke the words, it had not been the first time he had done this. A vow made from two nights of drinking and they left by the week's end all the same. Only time could reveal the truth, but he hoped for the best.
Yuliya stood in silence for a moment as the man hugged her. His skin was warm, and the kiss on her forehead was gentle. It was an unfamiliar feeling she'd had, especially since attending the school. So close, yet so distant at the same time. She hung on to that moment though, and found herself smiling by the end, even if the tears that streamed down her face tasted bitter. She wondered, deep down in her heart, if Leon Solaire would have spoken to her this way if she knew what she was, and what she'd done. Whether he'd look at her with scorn as she stood atop a veritable mountain of bodies who'd attempted to yank her down from that high place. Whether he'd realize the folly of the climb? It didn't matter in this moment though. She simply accepted it for what it was.
And so, as Leon finished his words, she pulled him in for a second hug. A tighter one, of thanks and apology. "Thank you." she uttered, sniffling a little as she rest her chin on the man's shoulder, wiping her eyes. "I didn't mean to make night emotional." she laughed, slightly forced as she pulled back again. Slightly dizzily, she sat back down in her beach seat, looking at the fire and then the waves of Port Zengali. She reached for her glass and saw it was empty, and sighed.
Leon was somewhat surprised at being brought in for a second hug but reciprocated and gave the girl slow, comforting pats on the back. "It's alright Yuli, there's no shame in it. I hear it's great for the skin, to let tears loose every now and again," he tried lightening the mood.
"Maybe is the drink, huh? Brings out good and bad in me. You better not tell them I cry." she pouted at him, running her hands along her face to clear the loose strands away. In that moment, she wondered some more. How long did she have with them before everything kicked off? These people she called friends knew little of war, death, battle and bloodshed beyond what the missions had offered them. She'd grown up and lived it. Would they come back the same? Would they come back at all? She hoped - nay - she prayed in that moment to the gods she'd both met and hadn't yet, that the war to come would not destroy them all. That they'd come back safe and sound, happy and whole. A selfish prayer, but a heartfelt one.
Leon returned toward his beach chair a little later with a sway to his stride, half in a performer's swagger and half a drunk man who let the sway of his body take the wheel willingly with delight. "Now that's something I can't promise Yuli." He remarked with a mischievous grin. "I am simply dying to tell the whole school that ice melts on occasion and even a princess of snow can shed tears... So you'll have to keep being nice to me." Leon gave her a wink before he bent down to pick up his drink and assessed the remains of the fruity beverage. Barely anything left. He tipped the glass up and savoured it to the last drop, how very few there were.
He looked back to Yuli and clapped his hands together with announcement. "So, have you decided yet? What you'll be drinking when you see me slay the White Thresher? The next round was on me or so I recall." His smile was wide and eager for the next round. The last drink was good, but he doubted it was the best Zengali had to offer. Yuli shrugged and giggled. She looked back to her empty glass with confusion, as she thought of a variety of drinks, yet none came to mind for such a momentous occasion. She turned to Leon, tapping her head in a grand revelation. "I think we need sample more." She grinned before continuing. "We try everything in bar, and I decide after?"
Yuli shrugged and giggled. She looked back to her empty glass with confusion, as she thought of a variety of drinks, yet none came to mind for such a momentous occasion. She turned to Leon, tapping her head in a grand revelation. "I think we need sample more." She grinned before continuing. "We try everything in bar, and I decide after?"
Leon thought back to the selection of drinks. It was quite a long list, she surely wasn't suggesting they drink all of them. Of course not. They would maybe drink 5 more and choose to retire. How could he say no to that? "Let the cup runneth over." He remarked with a smile before taking her hand and helping her up.
After around 3 more hours of drinking, Leon Solaire would find out that Yuliya did in fact, mean all of them. Not some, but all. The cup did runneth over, especially for the poor Sun King. So much was he invited to drink that he puked his guts out on the beach of Zengali, while Yuliya held his hair back. It was not something she'd expected to do that night, but she'd done the same for plenty of friends, and quite frankly, she found it hilarious that his bile had taken on a myriad of colours from the cocktails they'd consumed together.
If Leon's sway had been a question of intention or intoxication at the start of the night, it was obvious now. He had tried to keep up with Yuli drink for drink but was simply no match; not that he realised that until it was too late.
The search for the perfect drink reminded Leon of a Perrench tale he heard about a glass slipper. A prince and a common girl share a romantic night at a ball. But at midnight, the woman needs to flee, leaving only a single glass slipper behind. The next morning, the prince goes on a tireless search for his love whose foot would be the only thing to fit the shoe perfectly. Their shared goal tonight was equally noble and tireless.
He had thought to make mention of it. Then he realised that Yuli would be neither the prince or princess in that tale, she would be the shoe, which made it a truly stupid analogy to make. The realisation of this made him spit out some of his drink and burst into spontaneous laughter. Perhaps in a sober mind, it would only be a passing thought. But it was the funniest thing to him at the moment and made it hard for him to catch his breath. Yuli asked what he was laughing about, to which the performer refused to answer. Not only was it a stupid thing to laugh at, but how could he explain it? Tell her that she reminded him of a shoe? That was a bold risk to someone who crushed his hand with a greeting and he would deserve a slap for the comment. Some things you simply had to take to the grave.
As late as the hour had gone, the people behind the bar of the establishment had gone home. Yuliya, in her insistence that they continue drinking and find this perfect beverage, had decided to outright buy the beachside bar in the moment. It would be a decision that she'd regret in the morning given that it was around half of her allowance, but it allowed the Vossoriyan to continue her quest for the perfect beverage. The first few mixes were far too strong for Leon, and not quite right. Yet, the fourth drink that she made was exactly what she was looking for - a margarita coloured blue with some strange liquor from Huulendam, Tequila from Xochi and Triple-Sec from Perrence. Of course, the freshly squeezed juice of a Zengali lime was added. She sipped it, and for a moment, she figured she'd found it. She made one for Leon too, of course, wandering over to him stumbling in a drunken stupor as she handed him a glass.
"You are knowing..." she paused and hiccuped, shaking her head at the words. "I am good friend. I bring you drink even when you don't tell me what is funny. I want to know funny!" she hiccuped, pouting as she lay back down on her seat and lounged, sipping it through a straw. Perhaps she would have found a new hobby that night, for mixing drink sturned out to be a delightful time, but she'd be far too drunk to remember what fun it was in the morning. She swirled it around the glass for a moment and the colour reminded her of something she wanted to ask earlier. Blue, like her good friend Kaureerah!
Leon may have had some objection to a noble purchasing a community-gathering establishment such as a bar for the whim of alcoholic pursuits. But his faculties were not entirely with him. He simply thought that the bar's owner was nice enough to leave them the place for the night out of the kindness of his heart. A sober Leon would have thought the idea ridiculous but it made sense enough to a drunk one. Yuli and himself were nice enough people and you get given a lot of things when you are rich, hot, and popular.
He was smiles, smiles, and more smiles. Despite being on the verge of passing out multiple times during the evening, his positive demeanor never faded. It grew brighter if anything. When Leon was pressed again about his sudden outburst, he simply smiled wider and rested his head down with his arms on the bar's surface. He didn't look at the girl but shook his head to silently say 'no, its not gonna be that easy'.
Sluggishly, he raised his head again and kindly accepted the girl's perfect drink. "I might tell you one day, Yuli..." He picked up the drink to sip. "Maybe when the shoe is on the other foot." He put down the drink and tried to stop himself laughing, to which he was somewhat successful this time. But before Yuli could react, he lifted a hand to playfully dismiss the matter while he took a sip. Was it the perfect cocktail? It could have been, it could have not been, the performer couldn't tell anymore. But it did taste nice.
"You won't tell me that so you have tell me this. What..." Yuliya paused again, cursing under her breath in Vossoriyan as she struggled to find the words in her mind. "Why Kaureerah? You can have nearly any girl you are wanting, but why my friend?" she asked, curious. She looked at him all the while, sipping her drink innocently.
When Kaureerah was mentioned, Leon's entire demeanour shifted. It was subtle and difficult to tell exactly how or what emotions had caused it. But there was no doubt that the mentioned name was a powerful one to invoke in the performer's mind. When he looked back at Yuli, his smile was softer. He didn't show his teeth anymore but it seemed sweeter and more genuine. The glimmer behind his eyes was gone, those that constantly peered to the horizon brought all too close to the ground. When Yuli danced with him on the beach earlier, it was very easy to see him as someone larger-than-life, a figure who defied the logic of this world and carried winds of change few had seen before. He wasn't that now, he was grounded. He was just some guy named Leon. The alcohol had brought him halfway there, but the change in subject matter brought him all the way.
He chuckled. "You're a crafty woman, Yuli." He teased. "Getting me well past the point of drunk before questioning me." For a moment, he tried to look coy before he relented.
"The truth is Yuli: I don't know. I've had my fair share of ladies, and men, and all of them have been beautiful in their own right." His delivery was struggling under the booze but heartfelt to no end. "Some were taller, some were shorter, some with bigger tits." He brought his arms up to cup in front of his chest for emphasis, then threw them back down. "And yet, with all of them, I would have been perfectly happy to jump into that 'bush party' we heard back on the beach. Love is meant for everyone equally, after all... But it's not the case with her."
He looked forward to the bar, rested his face in his right hand, and looked lost in a daydream. "Sure, she has a beautiful voice, a sunny personality, and a cute butt. But there is no one thing I can point to that explains it, as hard as I try." Leon turned back to Yuli and looked her straight in the eyes. "She makes me happy, Yuli. Happy in a way I haven't felt in a long while. As much as I want to, I can't put it into greater words than that."
In her chair, Yuliya crossed her legs and took a long sip of her drink as she listened to Leon Solaire talk. Not the Sun King, not the celebrity, but the man. She was content that she'd finally broken the shell, and a smile crept up on her face as she finally found someone she approved of. "Is good answer, Leon." she laughed heartily, glad that at least one friend of hers had a decent partner to rely on. "She does have nice butt. But if that was main answer, I was ready to be beating your butt" and she began to laugh even harder, as the words weren't even forming coherent sentences anymore. She finished her drink with that, and waltzed over to the bar with a stumbling walk, regaining clarity as she rested her hands on the counter and poured herself another. "I'm glad for you, though. You and her. I wish you speak my language so you know how smart I am and I can make poetic statement or something." she turned, winked at him and sat up on the bar, raising her drink in the air.
"Well then, I'm glad my ass remains unkicked tonight." He raised his glass in turn and clinked it with hers as he chuckled. "I don't find poetry to be a strictly vocal art form. Sometimes words aren't needed." They drank to the final, perfect drink.
But afterward, a silence set in. Not one from awkwardness, just neither finding a need to speak in the moment. In that silence, Leon's mind wandered and he grew visibly more dour to the conversation of his inner thoughts. It wasn't long until Leon set the glass aside and looked to Yuli sadly.
"You are her friend, no? Yuli... do you know why Kaureerah joined that mission?"
She too dwelled on that silent, deep in both her thoughts and her cups. The sanguinaire swirled her glass around and looked down, smiling in a realization she just had. They truly were similar. "Same reason why you are here, I am think... she want make difference. Tired of running. Wants to change world for better." Yuliya's eyes met Leon's, and there was a recognition there. A feeling that he didn't want to lose this person he loved, but it was for the wrong reasons. "She's weak. But sometime, is not about being strong or weak. Is simply about doing what you think is right, no?" she asked pointedly, pouring her second helping of this drink into her mouth. She stuck her tongue out at him playfully, filling up her glass once more and trying the concoction with a cherry garnish.
Leon smiled back at Yuli, happy to have his thoughts somewhat settled. "Thank Yuli, you're a true friend." To change the world for the better. He wondered if he had even asked Kaureerah what ambitions drove her. It sounded so simple but he couldn't even recall asking about the change she dreamed of bringing into the world. He had only talked of his vision. "Perhaps I'm a fool, Yuli. I had thought I alone could make her happy. I thought her only a girl who wants to sing and perform and that I could give her everything she wanted. Maybe I didn't listen to the words." He joked grimly. "I don't mind that she did it, its just that I don't know why. I thought she was happy but people happy with the world don't do this kind of thing... I want to know she will come back safe, but I'm not there and I can't answer that question."
He was tearing up a little. "I'm scared, Yuli. Scared that one day I'm going to wake up and she'll be gone, like so many before. And it won't even be that shes gone, but that the person I hold in my memories won't even be her." Yuli could see it clearly now. It wasn't just a passing sadness but an intense fear that went beyond anything she had seen from Leon in the Forked Tower. Was it as simple as he said it to be or was he afraid of something else too?
She said not a word as she strolled over to Leon sitting in the beach chairs that they'd been drinking in all night, and gave him a hug. So many times in her life, she'd been heavy handed with her grips and jabs and whatnot, but there was an astonishing gentleness to the embrace she gave, yet it was still tight. She'd become awfully human this night beneath the starry sky, and for a moment, she said nothing, and only smiled at him with care and consideration. "It's good for skin. Don't worry." She ran her hands through his hair softly, humming as she did so. There was a part of it that figured it was wrong - that this wasn't her place - and that perhaps Kaureerah might have been mad at her for such an affectionate gesture.
She cast it aside. Her friend had been there for her moments ago, and she had the chance to repay that kindness. She finally spoke more, hushed and calm. "You forgot to look down, didn't you?" she remarked, hugging him a little tighter. "Talk to her, little sun. Before is too late, and your voice won't reach down. She will change, and you will change, but you will still be Leon, and she still be Kaureerah."
"Thank you, Yuli." He hugged her back and simply accepted her affections for what they were. He let the tears he had to give flow. "I will."
It was about ten minutes later after Yuli had returned to her seat and they were both enjoying the night sky that Leon came upon a realization. He sat up and looked at her with eyes of momentary clarity. "Yuli, I almost forgot I have a Thresher to kill tomorrow." He slurred out, coming to the latter end of a drunken daze. "I'm not going to be any use if I'm passed out on this beach chair for it. Please use some of your chemical to fix me up, I've really got to go."
There was a moment of silence that fell after he made his request. She could sense the desperation and fear of disappointment in his eyes, and yet, her face grew into a larger and large smile until she began chuckling harder than he did at the shoe thought. It was so beautifully ironic that this was how they were going to end the night, and she'd practically keeled onto the floor in such intense laughter. She pound her fist into the ground and none of that gentleness was there as the sand was pulverized until after a minute, she was finally able to speak.
"Leon..." she managed to get out before the laughter resumed, and another 30 seconds passed. It came to a stop, and she panted as she sat back in her chair and wiped the sand from her hands and hair. "I haven't taken a single chemical class."
Leon laughed along with her. Then his laughing slowed. "Come on, Yuli. Don't joke around. Just fix me up." When his response was only answered with even more laughing, he stopped and his smile dropped. She wasn't joking.
With all the speed he could manage, he leapt out of his chair and stumbled up the beach, out of Yuli's view. Then, forgetting something important, he returned back and hugged her goodbye with a Revidian kiss on each cheek. Even if they would struggle to remember all the details when tomorrow comes, not all will be forgotten.
This time, Leon left for good. Yuli watched him shamble up the beach, almost falling over twice, in a grand pursuit of a chemical mage to fix him. The Sun King disappeared over the dunes and it was the last Yuliyah would see of him for the rest of the night. Who knew if he would succeed in his suddenly presented quest.
Yuliya did not finish her drinking that night, for she'd found the perfect one for the scene. She tasted it and imagined it, and drank far more than a girl her size should have. She'd passed out onto the chair that night, and if the day were not so intense, perhaps she would have been a victim of thievery. Alas, she slept, and snored the day away in a bar she paid for, until her slumber was rudely interrupted by the sounds of explosions and a blinding flash of light. She squinted as she woke up, figuring she was still dreaming, but the hangover she had said otherwise. She realized she'd made a promise, and knew that light could only belong to one man, so hastily, she leant to the side of her chair and picked up the remains of one of the drinks she had and sipped it. It was warm, and the flavours had been diluted by the ice, but it was perfect. She smiled at the sun and raised her glass, before another blinding flash of light hit her eyes.
Involved: Tommy, Ailette@Force and Fury, Anjeluun | Current Location: Oraff's Hell, Inner Layer. Tommy and Ailette soon found that theirs was a fool's errand. One hill looked very much like another in this hell, and they perceived these differently on top of it all. They spent the better part of what both assumed was about a day and a half pursuing an idea that sent them in a wide, looping circle. While at it, they ran through the remainder of the yasoi's first flask.
As bad a state as Tommy was in, Ailette was still technically alive, with all of the bodily needs that entailed. She began falling off the pace, stifled a couple of yawns and, then, some indeterminate time later, simply stopped. "I need to sleep or I'll be inefficient," she sighed vexedly, making her way into the shade of a large tree that, even to Tommy's perception, had not completely withered yet. "I would be perfectly content to simply die in this place, but there are too many variables. I'm not entirely sure what that might entail, given how I ended up here." She laid her crutches on the ground, set her back down, and sat, untying her shoe. "I need only a few hours," she advised. "We cannot afford longer, and we need a new plan. We're just hypothesizing and not testing."
It hadn't occured to Tommy that there was a difference, even if she'd probably said it several times on their journey so far. I mean, beyond her being a yasoi chick, and him being a proper Enthish lad, they were both living beings. But he didn't need to sleep now, and perhaps it was the perpetual sunlight that made him not quite aware of that fact. But there was something about watching someone experience those day to day moments that he took for granted. Sleeping, eating, drinking, yawning, even going to the bathroom were things he had been unfamiliar with for over a month now. To see them again reminded him of what it meant to be alive.
"I'll stand guard then missy. Wouldn't want the dead birds sneakin' up on ya n' pokin' yer eyes out." he spoke, a pessimistic laugh following his words. He looked directly at the sun that would have normally burned his eyes away, and felt a deep sense of annoyance. His mother, for the longest time, had warned him that staring at Lor would make him go blind like Aunt Maggie, but here he was, basking in the glow, challenging it and it would not come ace to face with him.
Because it wasn't Lor. It was fake, treacherous and cruel, unlike the real thing.
But he had to use the time she slept, and be useful. She'd proven her worth twice over at this point. It was his time to step up. Primitive as it was, he grabbed a branch from a tree that his one-legged companion wasn't sleeping under, and began to draw a map of the landscape, of what they'd traversed so far, trying to figure out if there was a key. There had to be something they were missing, a place they could still go to.
For all that she looked little and peaceful and snuggly as she slept, after about twenty minutes, Ailette began to snore like a foghorn. She shifted to sleep on her side and the snoring stopped. Then, a little while later, she shifted again, onto the opposite side, and it started back up. Could Tommy realistically stay focused in the midst of such a racket?
Yet, drawing the map, in fits and starts, a little ways away from his partner who was louder in sleep than in waking, helped to focus him. The girl's bag - which she was currently using as a pillow - was almost comically large. Exactly how she carried its weight - and on a single leg - without complaint was something of a marvel. What might it contain? Might there be anything they could use?
Tommy was so focused that it almost crept up on him: movement in the distance, amid some dying shrubs. Something had moved. Had it just been a dull lick of wing, or more than that? Would it be wise to investigate? To wake Ailette?
He startled at the movement in the distance. So focused was he on the snoring, and the map, and the bag that he had forgotten his original duty. He had sworn to protect this girl from dead birds, and there was one afoot. Or at least, seemed to be. He heard how loud the girl snored, and knew waking her was a fools errand. Even if he managed to wake her, he imagined she was not a pleasant morning person. He brandished his stick like a sword, the smiling wolf that had been in his hands not too long ago and began to sneak forward, keeping an eye on the sleepng girl and her position to make sure there wasn't another. Slowly, carefully, he crept upon the movement.
It was, all things considered, a truly pathetic attempt at stealth. His would-be ambusher was a fellow undead, though in far worse shape: it's skin had mostly sloughed away, as had buch of its muscle. A few of its fingers had outright fallen off. Its hair was thin and strawlike, and an entire leg seemed to have been lost at some point. If he had to guess, it had been female in life, but it was hard to tell at this point. All that seemed to be holding it together was tattered clothing and willpower. It was more or less crawling, its single remaining eye fixed unerringly on the sweet rich prize of Ailette and her healthy living body. It did not even seem to have noticed him yet.
Seeing this... didn't make him have the reaction he would have had in life. He'd gotten used to blood, guts, gore and grisly sights there, but this was a stark reminder of what could be. Ailet was alive, as he'd come to realize, but she could very easily be this girl the moment they begin to run out of rations. One legged and all. It made him shiver in a grim sense of urgency as he snuck closer. He'd give her a quick, quiet end. Maybe the suffering would come to an end, but if this person was in here with him, perhaps there was no end to it all.
[color=gray]Not my place to judge ya, chick, but I need her just as much as you. N' I don't wanna eat 'er, least not in the way you wanna. At least, I'm assumin' as much. Don't know what ends up 'appening if I kill ya here, but I hope you end up somewhere nice. Atoned or somethin'... wait... where do you fuckers go when ya die... he mused to himself, thinking back to his conversation with Ailet and now. Was that a clue to their way out?
He took the stick, sharpened slightly by his magic and prepared to drive it through her like a javelin. For her sake, he hoped it was a quick end. But he paid close attention, to the point that drool had begun to spill from his lips. His focus and intent were locked onto one thing and one thing only - a testing of his hypothesis, or whatever that plucky lil' nerd called it
The cadaver noticed him moments before he struck. "Waii," it rasped, with something that sounded almost like a voice. It held a tattered hand up. It broke his moment of concentration, hearing it speak. Maybe he'd zoned out too far. Tommy paused, holding the sharpened branch in place, ready to strike but intent on giving this poor soul a chance, just as he had with Ailet. "Gh-" it choked. "Gir..." It tried to shake its head, but struggled. "In... danger," the desiccated thing rasped.
There was a moment of clarity, as he scowled. He'd gotten too far from his duty, but in their travels, they'd not saw anything of value. She went for a nap, and the vultures came out to play. He took a rapid step back from the crawling cadaver, and turned his head toward Ailet, hoping that it wasn't too late. "If this is a trick.." he spoke, worry clear on his tone as he readied the trusty stick. There was nothing there, however: nothing but a sleeping Ailette, still snoring away. "Noh... here.... yanii." rasped the cadaver. "In... life. When you make ih bah...ck"
Much about this place was confusing. He stuck his makeshift weapon into the ground and crouched down where he was, a comfortable spot where he could respond to danger and talk to the remnants of this person. "An' why's that, lass? She's a strong'un, an' quite fuckin' clever y'know." he paused in his speech, putting a finger to his temple in contemplation. His eyes went over to the only discernable feature of this near carcass, and then to his compatriot. Was there a link? Was the likelihood of meeting this one legged ladies really that high?
"Unless there's somethin' to the story I'm missin. That lovely girl o'er there nagged my brain off about statistics an' hypothesis n' all that other shite, an' I didn't really get most of it, y'know? But...."he pointed at the near-spectres missing appendage. "Not that I'm against it or anythin', all of you lot 'ave been lovely, but I've met more people like you lot in the past year than most do in their lifetime. Is there some cabal of leg thieves, or are you lot just unlucky?" he spat out, genuinely curious as to what was causing this new phenomena in his life.
It was an awful, rasping sound, this cadaver's laugh. Perhaps it was the first time she had laughed in years. "We..." A hacking cough interrupted her response. "We'hh use...ful. High RAS, sso we geh... around." She struggled to properly shake her head. "Your little... girr loses a... lehg." There came more of that bitter laugh. "Very trhagic. You pum... pum...p her full of aberr...ation so she cah be the avatah of... fuckin' F...Vyshta."
Weakly, she rolled over, managing something like a lopsided sitting position. "I was s'poset-t-t be a goddess." She hacked again for a bit and a glance over at Ailet showed that she had not stirred even a little. "For fif-heen years they treated me... like one." A lone eye regarded him from an almost-bare socket. Her shoulders made an awful scraping as she shrugged. "Then they killed me." She sat there, staring at him, and raised a bony arm. "Thah... girr. Iss she the avatar?"
Tommy smiled in knowing that his theory was somewhat right. There was something fucking weird going on with this people, and so his triumphant expression was marked on the corners of his mouth with the beginnings of a frown. It could have been coincidences, but it seemed oh-so specific and brutal. To mark and maim children, train them, use them and toss them out when the process was over had a mark of undignified cruelty to it. Beyond anything he'd ever really done, or what most people had. Even for those who'd stepped beyond the moral event horizon. children were usually off limits.
He shook his head at the later remark though. He supposed it was a lucky thing that she wasn't, or maybe she'd be marked for death the same way. "Nah. I met the avatar 'fore I died. Lovely lass, honestly. Kinder than that one, but not quite as sharp as 'er. Still plenty smart though." he reminisced about their encounter, a dinner and conversation that they'd shared after their farce match in the trials. "What a way to fall, eh? Goddess to hell. I won the fuckin' trials, y'know. Next thing you know, bullet in my head n' I'm here over some bastard I shivved 5 years ago." he retorted, slamming his fist into the ground in a moment of heartfelt rage, for hers had brought his out.
"Sorry. I've got no right to complain when you're tryna save my saviour. I'd love to 'elp you as well, but I don't know if there's a way out for ya in that state." he muttered wistfully, turning once more to look at the snoring, cozy sleeping Ailet, turning back to face the decomposed former avatar. "I'll 'elp her, n' the current avatar. They're lovely chicks, n' even if I don't 'ave the pointy ears you lot have, you lot 'ave treated me right."
"Every...time," the former avatar rasped, "You stop... moving here longh enough. You 'die' an... c-come back." Her jaw twisted and clammed shut and she was silent for a moment as she fixed it. "Iss diffren. The wor- worl iss diffren."
Her single eye stared at him, unblinking. "I'fe... beehn back twenty-eigh timeh. " There was a hint of a smile, though there wasn't very much tissue. "Hun-dhed of yearh." She was visibly struggling to speak. "T-thih iss my -" She coughed and hacked and one of her ribs cracked and fell away. "S-s-secoh time here - ih-ihn thiss one." Her voice was growing fainter and, with agonizing slowness, she gestured him closer. "Pleease."
He walked and knelt down next to her, seeing that she didn't have much time, but her words of warning were beginning to weigh on him. Stopping of movement. Stillness. Sleep. How much time did Ailet have? It was a conscious thought in the back of his head, ticking away as he took time listening to the girl. He didn't have an internal clock like the mad scientist, but he had a overractive anxious mind that continued to tick, as he tried to focus on the now.
"I'm 'ere. In case everythin' gets fucked up, tell me your name, n' whatever else you got on your mind. I need to move 'er sooner rather than later." he spoke with a sense of urgency, but also pity for this poor soul. Whatever crimes she may have committed, eternal suffering was not right, nor was it just.
"F-fuck that. I-I'fe spenh thiss... lo-lonh an I fuck-fuckin' cracke ih!" She rasped a triumphant laugh. "T-hhis bohy'sss done." Weakly she twitched her more-or-less skeletal toes. "I t-tellh hyou how you cah geh ough-tt o' here. You...rip this heahd... off a-ahn t-take ih wiff hyou. We'h aww gonna h-hl-live aghain." Her bony hand grabbed him by the collar with what strength she had left. "C-comprende?" It fell back and her head lolled a bit to the side. "T-they c-caww me An-ch- Anjeluun. I fuckin' f-foundehd L-Lhuuntiil."
Tommy's look of caution and concern quickly shifted to a wicked grin. "You fuckin' bet. We're gettin' outta here n' I've never said no to receiving head." with a semblence of respect for the girl, dirty joke aside. All this time, she'd never given up. Never stopped hoping, believing. He would carry her hopes and dreams out of this wretched fucking place, not just for her but to spite the bastards that had put them there. He grabbed her head and swiftly detached it from the rest, beginning to tie it to his waist like a bag. "Tommy. Similar to yourself, I'm a bit of a fookin legend as well. Let's go move the scrap horn 'fore she vanishes, n' we can talk all about it." he gleefully spoke for a man who'd just decapitate another. He began walking back to Ailet, informing this hundreds of year old woman with tales of his triumphs along the way, and with yet greater appreciation for the Yasoi. They were different, and they were a little weird, but they were his kinda people, aside from the leg-thievery.
"T-then you've never beehn to... Luuntil," she rasped by way of reply. After that, she was subjected to his barrage. "May...be someday, hyou can hear abouh the t-t-time I k-killeh a D-death p-arroht wiff my ba-bare hh-ahnds."
Ailet was no longer sleeping, however. The moment that she'd heard the bit about 'dying' if she remained still for too long, her eyes had fluttered open. In exactly one-point-four seconds, she was on her foot and moving, hopping a few steps before twisting to notice Tommy. Quickly, she grabbed her crutches and hurried over. "Who's the... head honcho?" she inquired, tilting her head to one side.
"Another piece of charmin' one legged tree candy. Anje, meet Ailet, Ailet, meet Anje." he smiled, shifting to the side so that the two ladies could face each other. "She's a smart cookie, like you. Says she's got a plan, so I think you two'll hit it off somethin' fierce." he strode up to Ailet, second head in tow and raised her from his belt so she could speak to his compatriot with a little more dignity.
Ailet immediately dropped into a crouch. "Anjeluun'asaan'tenjaxii?"
"What's... leff of her." The head seemed to be speaking better now that it no longer needed to support a desiccated body.
"Honoured predecessor." The young woman bowed her head. Then, abruptly, she stood. "Thomas, there is something I must show you," she said simply, starting to unbutton her blouse, "and only you."
She crouched back down. "Surely, Lady Anjeluun, you will not disappear if we leave you for a few minutes beneath this tree." Ailet stood.
For all his words, confident remarks, dirty jokes and general confidence about the matter, it crumpled completely when Ailet began to take the initiative. Truth be told, he was not over his feelings toward Edyta Laska, even after a month apart. They were never a couple, even if he'd pined for her without her knowledge. There was something about the situation that felt intrinsically wrong to him
But, he was still a man. He was still sleazy, cheap and easy to barter with. Both his conflicting emotions, as well as his unease at the prospect of her suggestion in HELL of all places made what would have been an awfully easy decision at an earlier point in his life terribly complicated for him.
"Aite, aite.. I shoulda picked it up earlier that you were into that kinda shit, and believe me, I fuckin' like it... but is right now really the time? I mean, y'know, I'm fuckin' down... but she's here..." he spoke, gesturing to the head. He didn't want to do something crude, like turn her away the same way a young couple shifts the stuffed animals on a bed before getting freaky "Actually, scratch that, I'm sure she'll be fine." he spoke, reluctantly, his base urges winning his battle of morals, before untying Anje and setting her down. He looked to her with an expression that conveyed both his conflicted excitement and a semblence of silent apology, before he began to stroll toward Ailet.
"I was relying on your biological urges," Ailet said, leading him behind a tree. "I know that I'm asymmetrical and not particularly attractive, but your struggles indicate something less hormonal in nature." The statement itself was more matter-of-fact than questioning, but she did seem to be questioning Tommy, in a sense.
Once he had joined her out of both sight and earshot, she pulled him close with one hand and did her buttons back up with the other. "We will follow her advice," she remarked. "We will use it." She let him go. "But there is a reason you were condemned by only one God and she by all five." She was marginally taller than Tommy, but they were nearly eye-to-eye, though she did not look at him directly. For a moment, her unsentimental facade cracked. "Anjeluun'asaan'tenjaxii knows about the entire unsavoury system in Tarlon because she pioneered it. I will not take her back into the living world."
Betrayal. He'd resolved himself to make this decision at the invitation of the woman, and he was immediately blindsided by sudden morality. It was jarring to him, to be faced with precarious bullshit reasoning such as 'being condemned by a god' or more. What did it matter? "I don't fuckin' appreciate that, y'know. I took your invitation quite seriously, n' for the record, you're plenty attractive. Least to me." he sulked out, his feelings on this being quite plain.
"Use 'it'? She's a person too, y'know! Like me, or you, or any of the other bastards down here. We're all fuckin' sinners, Ailet. Does that mean we deserve eternal fuckin' torture cos we pissed off some big bastard at the top, or five of em? Nah." he pinched his brow to avoid getting too frustrated with the girl, and the situation at large. "The only reason I spared her to begin with was cos she was concerned for you. She thought you mighta been the avatar, whatever the fuck that means.".
He took another moment to compose himself, but he took a deep breath and let himself cool own. "I'm not gonna pretend to know your struggles n' systems n' all the other complicated convoluted leg thieving cabal shit." he paused as he got in her face, eye to eye, resolute in his viewpoint. "But I'm not also gonna condemn someone who's helpin' us get out of here off of, what, knowing about something? Morality? I know you're not of that mind, Ailet. We make that decision at the end of our journey, together. Do I make myself fuckin' clear?" he put a hand on her shoulder and emphasized that word. Together. He wasn't here to be her lackey, and she wasn't there to be his. They were individuals united by common cause.
Ailet recoiled from his touch. She backed up a step like a cornered animal. "You mistake my warning for sentimentality or emotional involvement." She tilted her head to the side. "That monster is manipulating you, the same way she manipulated our entire society nine-hundred-thirty years ago, and the same way there is a high probability she will do exactly that again." She regarded him doughtily, knuckles white around the grips of her crutches. "I have no desire to see her suffer. I am, in fact, perfectly indifferent. What I desire even less, however, is for her to escape and cause further harm to the world and to people such as myself." She narrowed her eyes challengingly.
He saw the way she recoiled from his touch, and pulled his hand back, looking shamefully to the side. No matter how angry he was, speaking to someone like that was uncalled for. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten ya." he muttered, before she continued to speak further. But again, the way she described the situation bothered him on a personal level. It was easy enough to see that it bothered her as well. As much as she pretended this wasn't personal, he could very much tell it was, at least in some way. For however smart this girl was, human emotions were not something even the smartest people could fully wrap their heads around and comprehend.
"And we base that on what, exactly? She manipulated me by bein' concerned for you on our first meetin'? I'm a sucker for pretty girls like you, not for fuckin' withered husks." he gestured wildy, trying to wrap his head around her thought process here. There was a lot he didn't know about these people. "Again, you call 'er anythin' but her name, but how much do you know her? Neither of us lived back then. Do you honestly believe some fuckers in the Oriflem managed to tame a fuckin' dragon out in the wilderness? Or that there were one hundred thousand Eskandr fuckin' raiders? They even told me in the classes that the past is all a perspective thing." he continued to rant to put home his point, because he was frustrated, but his tone remained softer than before. He still felt remorseful about prior.
This girl could have been him. "Wanting to see her suffer, and not wantin' her to get out of here are the same thing, Ailet. I could be as much of a monster as you think that chick is, but because some twat's not written a book about deeds I did 10 years ago from his own viewpoint, y'don't know that, do ya." he paused, out of breath and a little teary eyed from this whole conversation. He wished it was what he thought it was before he went into it.
Ailet just stood there for a moment, utterly wordless. She blinked.
She blinked again and her fingers constricted.
"The manipulation is emotional, not physical."
She blinked, fingers loosening and tightening around the grips of her crutches.
"She likely does not care for anything but herself if her behavioural patterns from life carry over. Any concern that she appeared to show for me was likely strategic."
She blinked.
Ailet would not meet his eyes. Again, her fingers flexed. "But whatever," she sighed. "Maybe we have incomplete information." She shrugged, pointedly relaxing her grip. "She's your responsibility, though." She pushed her glasses up her nose. "So I genuinely hope you're right." She began to turn. "I'll play nice. Don't worry."
With that, she reached up, tousled her hair, and undid a couple of her buttons until her tits were all but hanging out. Looking back at Tommy's face momentarily, her eyes went to the ground. "I'm... sorry if I did... stuff like her. I hadn't considered, and I will in the future."
Then, she let out a loud giggle, rushing around the hedges and stopping as if to fix her belt. "Tommy, stahp!" she called out, grinning back at him. "We need to get serious! Why don't we go talk to her now?" She took a few large strides, swinging jauntily back on her crutches with an almost-enviable lightness and joy. For a moment, her face wasn't visible to the skull beneath the tree. She shot Tommy an apologetic look.
"Ailet... thank you." he paused, before interjecting once more. "If you truly believe she's the same person they say she was, then I'll heed ya words. I don't wanna be made a fuckin' fool of." he nodded, as she begun to undo a button. His eyes focused toward it, and then another button came undone. He'd almost forgotten about that, but then, again, she spoke and it struck a pang in his heart. He simply shook his head and smiled.
This girl was special. Not at all like Edyta, but she had a certain charm that he couldn't help find endearing. And then she began to play the ruse, and he felt obligated to play along. He pulled his pants down a couple notches, undid his belt, tussled his hair and ruffled his shirt so it looked as if it'd been pulled on. At least, what remained of it. "I thought you said if we were quick, we could sneak in a round two or three, y'know? I don't normally finish that fast! Promise!" he laughed back at her, He returned that look she gave with one of his own, with slightly more contemplation in it. He hoped they were who he thought they were, who they might have been pretending to be rather than what they could be. Her and Anjeluun both.
But maybe he was just being hopeful. People were shit, after all.
hey found their way back to the skull that was all that remained of Anjeluun and Ailet played her part... quite well. "I... think the gods do ih as a m-mocking thingh." the skull proclaimed. "The world that you see is a bit withered, Tommy." She could not turn to look at Ailet, but she addressed her nonetheless. "Yours looks pretty fresh, though. Right?"
The Osaian nodded.
"Mine is a barr-hen w...wasteland, but I canh sssee it as a result. Beneat-th the grass, every once in a while, there is an ou- ouh... outline of an h -arrow. I hwas f-following them when... my leg s-seized up." Her single bloodshot eye flicked between the two as best it could. "T-those aren' hh- in there j-just for... laughs. I th-think they lead to the way out."
"Then they oughta lead to the sun, right?" he spoke, before thinking for a moment. Why would they leave arrows in the ground? In order to see them, you have to had been here a while, and those are the people that are fully condemned to this place. Why give them a way out? Maybe they were there just for laughs. "We can give it a go, but I don't think they'd do it outta the kindness of their hearts. By my mind, god's wanna keep us nasty fuckin' sinners away from an exit, not put conveniently placed arrows leadin' there. Unless they're dumb shits." he snorted with a chuckle. "Whadd'ya think, hot stuff? Wanna try it, or reckon it's a ruse?" he grinned at Ailet and gave her a wink to sell the act.
Ailet's cheeks turned red, but she did nothing to acknowledge what was - of course - a purely biological reaction. She considered. "Do these arrows lead in one solid trail or do they come from all directions?"
"I.... wasn't ec-c-xactly the most mobile," Anjeluun allowed, "but there ss-eemed to be m-multiple... trails thah con-f-verged."
Ailet twisted. "They lead to the place where one's perspective allows her - or him - to 'walk into the sun', so to speak." She pushed her glassed up her nose and furrowed her brow. "That must be it."
Her fingers loosened and tightened on the grips of her crutches a couple more times. "I hypothesize that, given the manner of the repetitive cycle in this place, someone needs to come in and 'reset' the 'dead'. That's their entrance and exit and it's only viewable once an instance of reality has degraded enough to make escape all but impossible for the unfortunate soul."
She glanced at Tommy and even at... the head, and grinned triumphantly. "I could be entirely off-base and even making an utter ass out of you and me by assuming, but I believe that this theory is our likeliest chance." She slipped the glasses from her nose, reached into her pocket, and pulled out another pair: tinted. Then, Ailet raised both of her crutches in a single smooth motion, pointing them in the same direction with a flourish. "Let's fuckin' ride."
This girl was impossible to read. Whether she actually liked him and the advances was a mystery, but he'd always been clueless when it came to women, just like most men. Regardless, that occupied his mind for their hypothesis and conversation. He was largely out of his depth here, and very glad to have two smarter ladies along for the ride with him. Still, he interjected about a 'resetter' becausse it was an earnestly good point. "So, like a janitor right? I mean, makes sense n'all but it also kinda frightens me. If they're cleanin' the place, there's usually a lock and key. You think we gotta jump this hypothetical motherfucker?" he laughed, a little proud of himself for using one of the many big words that Ailet seemed to spout.
"Still though, that's why yer the brains. Couldn't 'ave figured it out on my own. Good shit, sunshine. If you're wrong, I won't 'old it against ya." he went to pat her on the shoulder, but hesitated, and quickly pulled his hand away, instead settling for a finger gun her way and a wink.
Ailet smiled back and made her own finger guns. She hustled over to her backpack, picked it up and, after a brief detour for Tommy's sake that left him looking hale and hearty, they were on their way.
"Twenty degrees left!" called Anjie.
They walked.
"Right!" called Anjie.
They turned.
"No, no! Wait!" called Anjie. "Backtrack to the last one." Sorry."
There were huffs and groans.
Gradually, they made their way there. Gradually, Ailet ran through her second water bottle. She stopped to nap, snuggling into Tommy's shoulder beneath a great oak tree that, to her, was still beautiful but, to Anjeluun, was nothing more than a dried husk.
When she was woken, for they could not afford to linger too long in one place, they continued. Their only real gauge of time was their one living member's water consumption and an attack by a maddened corpse that had no chance of succeeding. Tommy got to use him for sustenance.
Gradually, they made their way there. Gradually, Ailet's third water bottle dwindled. Still, they walked, Anjeluun dutifully calling out directions, but her voice was growing weak and raspy again. It was after waking from her third nap that Ailet shook out the last drops from her bottle and shot Tommy a concerned look.
The 'head' of their expedition assured them that they were close, though: very close. The arrows had converged, and both could see plainly that the area was hilly.
They walked.
Then, in a moment filled only by the sound of their footsteps, came the raspy voice of Anjeluun. "I..." she grated, barely above a whisper. "I'm... s-sorreh. I c-can'h s-s-see."
Involved: Tommy, Ailet@Force and Fury On and on stretched Tommy's abyss. On and on it went. His skin grew sallow and his tendons stiff. The world around him, as well, began to die. The grass yellowed, birds lay dead beneath trees, and smaller plants wilted, crumpled, and browned. The water burbled as always in the streams, but it was a fool's gold: the worthless sustenance of an increasingly dead and empty world.
How long this carried on, he could not say, but eventually, even the trees' leaves began to crumple and fall away. Tommy's senses seemed to dull, but he held onto some degree of hope. As macabre as it had been, he'd seen one soul here consume another and be mostly restored.
He almost didn't notice it, or at least not right away, when it finally happened. There was someone else there. He was lying on a hillside, in between two rocks, and he sat up and peered over. It was... it took him a moment to make sense of what he saw, but it was a woman with one leg: tall and thin and probably yasoi. She hadn't seen him yet, or at least gave no indication of such to his hazy senses.
The punished of Oraff were destined to rot, and rot he had. So disheveled he had become that the very beautiful scenery that had surrounded him had also begun to change. The intense hunger and thirst he had felt in the opening days had grown to dull throbs in the back of his conscience, an itch he could never scratch. But still, he persisted in existence though not of his own volition. It helped his mindset to think it was though, for he'd seen a potential way out earlier. The consumption of another. And as barren and desolate as this place had been of souls, one had the misfortune of walking into his midst.
Or did it?
He'd seen three one legged girls in his time in Ersand'Enise, a few more back in Enth though for undoubtedly different reasoning. What caught his eye was the specifics here. A yasoi, reminiscent of another, Was that Tyrel? Or Juulet? Could he eat that? He knew that woman was destined for this hell if he was here, but they were undoubtedly strong, and in his current state, he'd begun to doubt his odds. Still, there was no choice or chances. He wouldn't let the only company he'd seen, or perhaps the last glimmer of hope slip away.
He stumbled and groaned to his feet from lying in the grass, his bones and muscles barely functional at this stage. He wasn't even sure it was them moving, or if this place operated on a different spectrum. He felt as if he was being stealthy. He was not. The grass around him wilted away. The flowers turned to rotted husks. His bones creaked, his flesh squelched and his blood gurgled with every step he took. There was a moment of hesitation. He felt as if he could leap and take her out now. But something made him ask, his voice gravelly and dishevelled from the lack of moisture.
"Tyrel? Please tell me it isn't you." his voice croaked. If it was Juulet, he'd at least feel better about what he planned to do.
The woman whirled at once, a curtain of brown hair swirling about her. "Tyrel? You know Tyr..." From behind a pair of large round-rimmed glasses, her eyes widened and she swallowed. "...el. There was a pause. "Mother Oirase." She had to work to keep her mouth from gaping open, and she was not entirely successful in this endeavour. She took a cautionary step back, drawing energy all the way, and it was clear by now that she was neither Tyrel nor Juulet. She was shorter than either - quite petite for a yasoi - and, where both of the others had a visible stump, she had no trace of a right leg at all.
"You are dead but not," she observed shakily. "And this isn't an illusion," she added after a moment, pushing her glasses up her nose. There was both an instinctual fear and a wondrous burning curiosity to her bearing. Her hand snapped back to the crutch it had momentarily left and her eyes flicked over Tommy a couple of times.
She seemed to have decided something and it was like a switch flipping. "So we are in a place where the laws of nature do not apply." The woman's face lit up and she smiled. "Magnificent," she concluded, "You wouldn't know where, exactly, we are."
She knew her. That was enough for him to hesitate from jumping at her immediately when she turned, and then she drew. It was strong, but not insurmountable. And the sheer amount of time that he'd had down here taught him a lot about the fundamentals of magic. Input was fine, output was... shaky at best. He wasn't the scientific mind this chick seemed to be, glasses and nerd outfit in tow, but when all he had was his own thoughts and body, trial and error was a way to stop him from going insane. Perhaps that was why he was here and not in Shune's hell.
He could win.
As she rambled, he barely listened, getting closer and closer until he was in range, that was, for a sucker punch. If the output was softened, then he could turn this into his favoured terrain. This could be his chance for a getaway. And as the last syllable left her mouth, he lunged and swung at her face, hitting her square in the jaw and knocking her to the ground. Her glasses flew off, cracking from the impact of the blow. It might have been half as hard as he could have hit in his prime, before the rot had set in, but it was more than enough to catch a loudmouth unawares. He stumbled to the ground himself, landing a couple of inches from her before he scrambled to try and prevent her from getting away, grabbing hold of whatever he could reach. Her one leg, a crutch, anything.
He didn't pay attention to whatever one of his hands caught hold of, for he just looked at her and spoke, before rearing his fist back. Something caused him to hesitate. Was it that the sound of another persons voice filled the ever growing loneliness he held? Was it her connection to a friend(and something of a crush) of his? Or was it perhaps that something didn't sit right about this situation. Either way, it made him hesitate before throwing another punch. He waited, to see what reaction would dawn on her face.
"You're right. We're both dead, and I'm pretty sure we're in Oraff's neck of the woods. But, y'see, there's a way out. I just gotta eat ya, and I'll stop rottin'." he choked out, desperation and ego filling his tone.
The situation was not ideal. In fact, it may have rated in Ailet's bottom three, just marginally above the loss of her leg. She had hit the ground hard and now there was a zombie man on top of her, about to punch her again because once, apparently, had not been enough. Her assailant reared back, but then he hesitated, and she forced herself to regard him. She was near-sighted without her glasses, but he and his death-breath were near enough to be seen and smelt clearly. Might this have been the one? He was about the right age. He had the regionally-appropriate accent. He had responded with the expected violence. She decided to take the calculated risk.
"I don't think I've ever had a man offer to eat me, Tommy Kavanaugh, but if you do, I don't think you'll get what you're hoping for." She regarded him, deadpan. "I didn't get here by dying."
As he was about to throw his second punch, he felt a shiver at the words that this strange woman spoke. Again, he hesitated and in fact, his fist came loose. He stopped, and began laughing. The first that wasn't from madness, but from genuine amusement at her 'joke'. It wasn't particularly funny, but he was so starved of human companionship that he smiled. He let his hand rest on the ground a moment. Either this was a trick of Oraff, or she was telling the truth, and by the gods he hoped it was the second. This was punishment enough, right?
"That was too funny to be a trick. And if I wasn't bitter n' dead, I'd 'ave a hell of a response for it." he smiled grotesquely at the girl, and leant back. "Now. If ya not dead, which is probably you copin' to tell the truth, ow'd you get here? And how'd ya know me and Tyrel, but I don't know ya?" he spluttered out, coughs and raspy voice in combination. It was getting increasingly harder to speak, but the fact he still had the stomach for the conversation was promising. And as the words left his mouth, he was content to back off, and give her some space.
V for Victory Ailet had gambled and she had won, though it hadn't really been a gamble at all, now had it? That had instead been an educated guess and she had simply been correct... as she usually was. She could not be smug yet, however, as this disgusting, decaying huusoi was still far too close to her for her liking.
The yasoi scooted back the moment she was released, still holding onto most of her energy, but she didn't get to her foot and try to run. For a moment, she scrabbled about, looking for her glasses, before encountering them, more or less beyond repair. She scowled, examining them for a moment, and her darted warily Tommy's way. Then, the tossed them over her shoulder, sighed, and pulled out a second pair, settling them across the bridge of her nose.
Pulling her singular knee up and looping her arms around it, Ailet worked her jaw about, never completely removing her gaze from Tommy. "Well, now that I'm not on the menu," she began, clearing her throat, "I suppose we should trade questions and answers." She shook her head. "I won't deign to speak for you," she allowed, "but I've no plans on staying here any longer than I need to." The yasoi pursed her lips. "I had theorized this might be one of the heavens or some form of purgatory but, based on the look of you, it can only be hell." She nodded, digesting her own conclusion. "Oirase's hell."
She grimaced and reached absently for one of her crutches, pulling it in towards her, before deciding to answer one of his questions. "As for how I know Tyrel, suffice to say that we were childhood companions." She shrugged. "They stick all us little monopeds together every couple of decades and have a pageant to decide which to bless with the title 'Avatar of Vyshta'." She blinked. "Of course, they murder her before she's twenty-five, but that's poor Tyrel's problem and utterly besides the point. We've our own to solve." She twisted, then, and pulled a flask from her satchel. Eyes flicking Tommy's way, she took a careful sip before screwing it shut. "I theorize that I'm not dead for two reasons: the first is what you just saw: I came here with my items intact. The second is that I got here by biting a black apple of Exiran and, no, it wasn't poisoned." She shook her head. "It was instant. I'd have at least felt poison work. Even the most potent magical sort takes a few seconds." She went to tuck the flask back in.
Tommy listened. He liked to talk, but it was nice to listen to someone after it'd been so long down here by himself. Multiple sets of glasses was a funny gimmick. He muttered a 'my bad' under his breath about it, but he didn't really want to show weakness to someone who could still be an adversary.
The story was interesting though, truth be told. One legged bootcamp sounded like a hell of a ride, far removed from the noble children he'd interacted with at the school. Perhaps that was why Tyrel had that sense of sadness about her. Poor chick. The girls story seemed to check out, and if she was that confident, maybe there was some truth to it. There was the very real possibility again that it was her coping with the situation, but she seemed to have her wits about her, and they'd come here under very different terms.
He let her finish before speaking himself "Since we're exchangin' questions and answers, again, how'd you know me? I'd remember a girl as unique as you, n' I'm not quite rich and important enough to be remembered. Was it my dashin' victory at hte trials?" he smiled, but a cough fought its way out. Damn thirst. Then, something in his brain clicked. Abruptly, he held out his hand and gestured to the flask she drank from "Lemme 'ave a sip. Got somethin' I wanna test." His theory was that if this was water or something else from beyond, then maybe he could actually have a drink and not feel like death. He hoped it was liquor of some kind, but he doubted it with the way this girl seemed to be.
"I know of you, I guess you could say." The yasoi made a face of consideration. "It's been over a week since you died and both Sister Laska and Desmond Catulus disappeared. Word reached me that there were some interesting circumstances." She shrugged. "I'm something of a scientist-in-training. I did my research and went to go find out for myself."
Then, he asked about water, and the one-legged girl regarded him warily. "You're... dead," she advised. "Yet you still crave sustenance?" She held the flask tightly because it was her lifeline. "If I don't drink, I die and start rotting." She went quieter. "Like you, no offense."
She pushed her glasses up her nose. "I have, between this flask and that in my bag, enough to make it through four days, suffering from only acceptable levels of dehydration. My aim is to get out of here - past the demon barrier - by then."
Carefully, she unscrewed the flask's cap. "If theologists are to be believed, the only way to escape a hell is to fight your way through the layer of demons that surrounds it." She poured some water into it. "That should restore you, in theory, to your full abilities, but we'll be hard-pressed to make it there before I start to die and even harder pressed to defeat those kinds of enemies." Finally, tentatively, she held the water out to Tommy. "But I have a theory." She smiled, and he was her lab rat, unequivocally. "I'm willing to lose a bit of time to test it out."
Tommy cocked an eyebrow at her. She'd certainly been prepared for the endeavour, which raised a number of questions in his mind. Desmond and Laska had disappeared? So, they'd lived through the encounter? If he was pronounced dead, and the two had 'disappeared', then, had they also come? If so, where were they? Had he found this girl first by an act of happenstance? Also, there was something valuable to be learned here that his ears did not miss. A week? A joke, surely. For he'd been down here for at least a month, if not three. It was hard to tell, but his perception of time was surely not so damaged? Or perhaps time moved differently here.
Alas, his overactive brain was cooled by her continuous conversation, and reasons not to give him the water. He shrugged at first, but then she offered it to him and he took the cap with a confused smile and very steady hands. He was determined not to spill even a drop of this stuff, even if his joints were rotten and achy.
"The water here's a fookin sham, y'see. You can drink as much as you like, but it won't make the thirst go away. If this is from the outside though, then..." he spoke, drinking from the cap in one straight gulp. He felt the urge to cough and splutter, but he kept it down and he felt a portion of his thirst quenched. Goodness, how long had it been since he'd had that sensation? It felt like years. He would have thanked the gods, but they were the reason he was here, so he directed it to another, this nerdy one legged girl with a thumbs up and a smile. His hands and skin had some colour in them again, and he felt so much better. Not back to 100%, but better.
Then, he had the realization that they were on limited time. He'd been scoping this place out for an inordinate amount of time, and found nothing of value, but he figured he'd share what he knew. "Since we're lookin for a way out of this rotting, stinking, festering fuckin' shithole, I'll key you in. Magic here works badly. Drawin's fine, but expending it is so much weaker. You've got that big ol' yasoi magic, but it's still muted I bet. I've tried walkin' around everywhere, but it's all rotting and stinky. Eatin' and drinkin, as I mentioned before, is fuckin' worthless. And everythin' seems to go on forever, so either there's some illusiony shit, or hell is fuckin' infinite. Would explain why I've seen maybe like 3 fuckers in here." he rambled his findings to the girl, hoping for some sort of scientific discovery from a brilliant mind, but he doubted it'd help. Still, he had an obligation from the water.
"How do you feel?" the yasoi asked, pulling on a pair of gloves. "Does it match the appearance?" She leaned in very interestedly and reached out to touch his arm.
"Way fookin better after that, lemme tell ya." he spoke, the cheeky smile of the man who once was returning to him again. Then she leaned in and touched him, and he felt an all too familiar tingle of something he'd damn near forgotten about. Even in hell, his lechery had not gone away, but he did not act. He merely enjoyed the view, and responded to her second question. "Sorta. Not as painful as it looks, but that might be because I'm a 'ard bastard, or cos it's a slow process n' all." She blinked. "Well, I'd mean in terms of the restoration, not the decay." She pushed her glasses up her nose. "Your skin pigmentation and firmness." He blinked right back at her, but only with one eye, before reaching out to touch his skin himself. He felt pleasantly surprised by the results. "Yeah, feels 'bout right." he smirked, succesfully holding in the dirty joke that was racing through his mind. He was back, at least for a litte while. "Should it not?"
She glanced up at him and grinned. "No, this is an optimal result." The girl pursed her lips. "But, say, you mentioned this place being 'stinking' and 'rotting' a moment ago." She drew back. "That is not at all what I perceive, unless we have vastly different standards for such." She considered. "You're from... Brindland, correct?"
"That's good news." he responded, smiling in his own right. Then came the next part - that there was something strange going on here that he had no idea how to wrap his head around. And then, she had to hit him where it hurt - his homeland. A pang of shame came from his voice, but also resolute defensiveness. "Yeah, and? I'm an expert on the fuckin' subject, doesn't mean ya have to say it. It's not thaaaat bad... and anyway, how the fuck would ya know different parts of Enth?" he ranted on and on, but in his mind, he came to the same conclusion as her. It was very much a case of different perception, which meant that could be a clue on how to find the way out."I believe in assiduous preparation," the yasoi replied, "and the power of knowledge." She waved dismissively. "But on the point of what we see." She sniffed. "That tree over there." She pointed over her shoulder. "What does it look like to you?"
"Yeah, yeah." he said, waving his hand at her initial response, but then he gazed upon the 'tree'. Hardly a fitting word for it at this point. It looked like shit and it smelled like shit. So, that's what he'd describe it as. "Like I picked up a story book, and that big ol' black dragon from the Oryflam flew out n' took a shit. Fuckin' disgustin', and it reeks too. If this is an illusion or somethin', it's a damn good one because I don't know how you ain't smelling it." he went on a bit too long, and a bit too vividly just because of how fed up he was of being here.
"Yeah, yeah." he said, waving his hand at her initial response, but then he gazed upon the 'tree'. Hardly a fitting word for it at this point. It looked like shit and it smelled like shit. So, that's what he'd describe it as. "Like I picked up a story book, and that big ol' black dragon from the Oryflam flew out n' took a shit. Fuckin' disgustin', and it reeks too. If this is an illusion or somethin', it's a damn good one because I don't know how you ain't smelling it." he went on a bit too long, and a bit too vividly just because of how fed up he was of being here.
"It's green and vibrant for me. There are birds in it, too." She regarded him evenly. "I can hear them chirping, though they seem rather... distressed." She scowled thoughtfully at the end. "There's not a hint of that for you?" "Nah. They're fookin dead... poor buggers can't even rot. Well, are they even poor buggers? If they're alive on your side, then... nah. I don't get it." he spoke, scratching his chin, utterly puzzled about how this would even work. "Nah. They're fookin dead... poor buggers can't even rot. Well, are they even poor buggers? If they're alive on your side, then... nah. I don't get it." he spoke, scratching his chin, utterly puzzled about how this would even work.
The yasoi closed her eyes, as if she was concentrating. She was reaching out to sense energy and, after a moment, she opened them again, satisfied. "I can sense no illusion here," she concluded, "so that either means that there is none to sense or that whoever's behind it is simply too far beyond us to comprehend." She considered. "We sgould test this," she decided. "The grass is all green for me. You?"
The yasoi closed her eyes, as if she was concentrating. She was reaching out to sense energy and, after a moment, she opened them again, satisfied. "I can sense no illusion here," she concluded, "so that either means that there is none to sense or that whoever's behind it is simply too far beyond us to comprehend." She considered. "We should test this," she decided. "The grass is all green for me. You?"There was a small pause. "If we're pickin options, I prefer the second on that one. Otherwise, why even try?" he gestured with his hand to the side. "Can barely call it that at this point. Looks fuckin' wilted and sad. If grass could be sad, that is?"
"In Mother Tarlon, grass can be sad," Ailet replied, deadpan. She pushed her glasses up. "There's sad... and then there's whatever the fuck that is. Even where you're from, that can't be grass." he paused, genuinely evaluating if there was a place that he too could make fun of as an Enthishman. Then, he figured he'd play along as well in this strange game of I spy.. "How 'bout the stone over there? Used to be mossy for me, but now it's dead n' bare." Ailet nodded. "Tarlon is a... very special love child of Mother Oirase and lord Exiran," she replied, but then she furrowed her brow. "Well, actually, it's due to the unique climactic factors of its position in the prevailing winds, the presence of an inland sea, and the high rainfall it experiences. The combination of these factors has triggered a cascade effect leading to greater energy availability and, consequently, a significant increase in the density of manas such that they even inhabit the vascular systems of flowering plants and trees." She reached down to toy with the grass beside her knee and, for a flicker of a moment, as it was wrapped around her pale, slender fingers, Tommy could see it: fresh and green and living. Then the yasoi girl shrugged. "Oh! And to answer your question, the rocks are quite mossy for me. It appears, in fact, that nothing is the same..."
Tommy shrugged and let the girl rant. There was nothing wrong about loving your hometown, and it kept his brain quiet as it atttempted to keep up with hers. Then, he saw a clue to the situation. When she'd touched the grass, he saw it the way she did. "Hold on a fuckin' minute. It changed when you picked it up, just for a sec. Look at me, does it do the same thing for ya?" he spoke, kneeling down and grabbing a handful of the 'grass' that remained.
Ailet stiffened for a moment, eyes narrowing as she observed. "The phenomenon you're reporting: I'd assumed it was just some sort of halo of death around you or something else suitably hellish." She rose all at once, bolting to her foot, and hopped three bounds towards the tree, not even bothering to gather her crutches. She placed her palm against the trunk and, before Tommy's very eyes, the tree was green and verdant. She had only to regard his reaction and her face lit up with a smug curiosity. "I fucking knew it!" she crowed. "Tommy boy, get over here and touch the wood."
He grinned at her. Halo of death sounded cool, but it was somewhat adorable seeing this nerd hop around. Then she touched the tree, and his eyes went wide again. More testing was necessarily, and some more things came to mind in regards to this little game they were playing, but then she walked, or rather, hopped right into a joke. He'd held his tongue for the first one, but he couldn't on this. "I'll touch the wood if you touch mine." he spoke with a smile and a hint of a giggle, before going over and laying his hand on the tree.
Ailet blinked. "Mr. Kavanaugh," she stated, "if you wish to have sexual intercourse with me, I'm amenable, but perhaps it might wait until your equipment is in slightly more pneumatic condition." She glanced up at the tree. It appeared to her as it usually did. The moment that Tommy touched it, it reverted, for him, to its dead state. Then, the yasoi removed her hand and she gasped. "How exciting!" She clapped. "How ghastly." She turned his way. "I now see it as you do."
His giggle was interrupted by her comment. Then, his eyes went wide and both eyebrows went up. I mean.... no, Laska was searching for him right? And what was that response? There was a sense of utter confusion until it clicked that she was not quite right of mind. But he didn't need someone right of mind right now, he needed a smart crazy person. And that's just what he had on his hands. "My mother warned me about women like you." he spoke, chuckling to himself as something immediately came to mind. They'd only considered things that they could touch. He looked up and pointed to the sky. "What about the sky? The sun? Look the same for ya? We can't reach up there at the same time, unless my equipment's 'new-magic' condition somehow gets to top form right now.""
"Your mother was right to warn you," the girl admitted. "I am not in high demand as a partner." She shrugged and wrapped an arm around her midsection, waving the comment off with her other. Then, he came up with the most intriguing proposition. Her hand snapped to her chin and she stroked it. "Hmm." Paradoxically, her eyes widened and narrowed at the same time. "Yes!" she exclaimed. She hopped a couple of steps and, then, with a pull of magic, her crutches snapped to her hands. "That might be the key here."
She nodded slowly and began pacing. "If the Gods made this place, or the demons, or whoever - pick your religious fancy." She rolled her eyes. "Why, then they'd have given themselves a way in or out, just in case, right?" She grinned, still pacing, turning unpredictably on her heel. "An entrance to this hell's demonic layer." She stopped abruptly and fetched a second pair of glasses. These were large and tinted. She looked at the sky: right at the sun, in fact. "You're either a genius or an imbecile, Thomas Kavanaugh, but I've just had the most absurd notion..."
"Nah, she was wrong. Bad taste on her part for sure." he offhandedly commented, not staring into the sun directly. That was one that she was right about. He then shut up as she began to think of something. It wasn't answering the question, but perhaps he'd given her the fuel to do that for him as she pranced around, crutches in hand. Then, she changed the glasses and he laughed again at the absurdity of it all. Admittedly though, they looked pretty fucking cool and he wanted a pair himself. Still, he saved that thought for a more appropriate time, just like the invitation for a fun time.
"Whaddya think I am? And what're you thinkin right now? Is the sun some sorta entrance? Even if it is, doesn't make me feel brighter bout the situation, y'know. It's pretty fuckin high up, no? Don't think we got the output to fly that high."
"From a strict perspective of physics, we've no chance in hell." She shook her head tightly, but then she smiled, twisting to face him. "Fortunately, we've already established that this place has some very unique rules." She switched out her glasses and began pacing once more. "They wouldn't want to have multiple entrances. That leaves more room for things to go wrong and bad boys like you to escape." Finding a large pebble, she kicked it his way. "You've been here how long, you'd say?"
"Fuckin' months at this point, maybe two?" he spoke, and then he paused and comprehended what she was saying. It began to click. "Don't need that same question for ya, yer a fuckin' genius. Make it seem impossible and no-one'll try." The yasoi winked. "Now, Tommy-boy," she continued, "What happens when you're on low ground and the sun is near the horizon?" She appeared almost giddy at the notion she was cooking up. "No fuckin' shot... I'm a dumbass. It's been sitting in that same fuckin' spot the entire time. Why'd I... ahhh, fuck it." he spoke, biting his rejuvinated knuckle a little in frustration. But, this is exactly what he needed. "I get what'cha sayin. We just gotta head that way, right?"
"Yes! You've been here long enough to get the lay of the land. You know it all!" She grinned and flicked some hair. "We need to find the highest, steepest hill and approach it from a direction where the sun perches just perfectly on its crest."
She started moving at once, all manic, excited energy, but then she paused midstep, swinging back onto her foot. "Wait. Say, I haven't even told you my name, have I?" She tilted her head. "Come to mention it, yeah, you 'aven't. Thought you were embarassed about it or somethin', y'know. Had a mate named Herbert and he fuckin' hated it. Went by a nickname for a few weeks, we 'eard his mom call him it and that was it for him. Poor bloke." he ranted, putting his less decayed hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "Can't be worse than that, and I owe ya one for the quick thinkin', so I won't rip on you if it is."
She blinked. "Oh, I just viewed you as a potential enemy before, and expendable, and then I forgot." She blushed. "It's Ailet. Ailet'yrash'andarii." Ailet shrugged and went to collect her backpack again. "Anyhow, you have a spot in mind? We should probably head there - maybe look to pick up some other useful souls on the way. I can't imagine we've an easy task ahead of us." Tommy crossed his arms and pretended to be upset. "Expendable? Thought we had somethin' special from first punch!" he laughed, and then she said the name. "Oh, is the middle thing somethin' special? Cos Tyrel had the same name I think, and you one legged chicks are a fuckin delight." he spoke with genuine admiration. He let his hand go, and gestured to a place he'd ventured around three weeks back, a little before he became despondent with the situation. "That-a-way, I think. Wouldn't get ya hopes up about others though, you're like one of three other people I've seen, and the only one that's been any conversation."
Ailet shrugged. "Oh, it means 'one leg', literally." She shouldered her backpack as she crouched. "We yasoi aren't terribly creative with names, to be honest." When Tommy gestured, she rose and her eyes followed. "Any idea how long a walk it is, or have you lost all sense of direction?" She adjusted the backpack's straps. "Any landmarks?" She took an abortive first step and pursed her lips. "Dare I ask what happened with the others..." she remarked. "Everythin' looks the same, but there was points that were higher. Think it was in this direction, and as for time, no fuckin' clue. I didn't think to keep track, just know that it's a while away." he paused his speech, but his legs continued to move. "As for the others, well, I got that idea to eat'cha from one of em. That fucker ate the other that I saw, n' then ran off. Didn't get the chance to ask, nor did I particularly wanna." he remembered the grisly details of the situation clear as day.
Ailet grimaced, but then she nodded, businesslike. Slipping out of the cuffs of her crutches, she propped them against her legless side for support and freed her arms. She reached up and began gathering her hair into a ponytail. "Well, doesn't look like we have much choice anyway, unless we're totally wrong. We need to get there and daylight's..." She let out a snort. "Well, not exactly, I suppose." Then, when she was done, she gripped her crutches again and started moving. "You lead me and I've got your back. We trust only each other, and not any others we might see."
Mentions: Tommy, Zast - @Jumbus Who knew when this was? There are plenty of rowdy pubs in Mudville, none moreso than this one: a quaint shithole - the type of place Tommy is more than familiar with. Somehow, he's gotten roped into a card game with a bunch of locals he'd honestly rather not be playing with. Blokes damn near twice his size and a record of gutting anyone who pissed them off. Yet here he is, 8 pints deep and 10 magus in the hole. He shivers slightly. Did someone leave the door open?
The only thing in his sight is the table and the fellows at the other end that he really didn't want to be on the bad side of. Tommy Kavanaugh was not a scared individual. He's rowdy, confident, and collected. But for some reason, these individuals make his skin crawl. The gnashing of teeth, the gargling of salt water and chugging of pints is a cacophony of noises that drowns out his confidence as he looks at his unrevealed hand, face down on the table.
Yet, behind him, peering over his shoulder, is an individual he swears he knows - and in some ways considers a friend - but cannot remember the name of.
The small, green hand of this friend was placed on the boy's shoulder comfortingly. His grinning face just behind the boy's line of sight and yet he somehow could perceive it regardless.
"Play your hand, Tommy." The friend encouraged him further. "You have a winning hand and, even if you lose, you can always leave the table and run. They're strong, but they don't look very fast." The goblin didn't whisper, but spoke normally such that the entire room could hear. And yet, his words fell short of the ears of bad company.
Tommy hesitated, a lump formed in his throat. He wasn't used to stakes like this before. He didn't know why he cared so much about what he'd put down and what he'd lost. Maybe he could run again? But he felt this sense of attachment to the chips that were down on this grubby table. The others seemed to eye them hungrily, as if they so craved to take them away from him. Perhaps that's why he didn't want to lose them.
But when had he grown so sentimental? They were just coins? Right?
He lifted up the hand, the table slightly sticky from spilled ale. It was a good hand. A two pair. Any smart man would bet on it. He pushed another two chips forward. He tried to turn but he couldn't, yet it still felt as if he was talking face to face with that green hand of reassurance.
"I don't wanna lose, y'know. I fuckin' hate losin'." he spoke, pinching the bridge of his nose, before exhaling and pushing more chips forward, the last of what he had as he raised once more. "I'm not scared. I c-can take 'em." he spoke, the lump still in his throat, causing him to stutter. An obvious lie. "I'm poor. I need the money." He thought of spoiling someone, of giving them a gift so they'd love him back. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead, yet the room was so cold at this point he was shivering. Who'd left that damn door open?
The hand on his shoulder grew firm, giving him a sense of certainty but pressure as well. "No Tommy, no one ever needs the money. You want it and there's nothing wrong with that. Want drives us Tommy. It's the reason you sat at this table, not because you want to keep what you have, but because you want to get more."
"I know you hate losing Tommy, I do too. If you don't care about the chips on the table, you can't lose, no matter how the cards fall. Heavy pockets, weak knees."
He cracked his neck as he exhaled deeply. The others were shuffling about, moving chips across the table but his eyes were stuck on the ones that were there in front of him. His chips. In a way, the hand on his shoulder spoke the truth. He wouldn't lose if he didn't care. But, oh how he did. He'd won those chips through great trials and tribulations. They were... precious to him.
"If I lose this, it's like the rest of the wins didn't matter. What's the point of winning if you don't get to keep it?" He spoke a name, but he never heard it. "What's the point of even sittin' down? I get whatcha sayin', but if it's all for nothin', what's the point?" he slammed his hand down onto his cards. They were good cards. The best he'd gotten since his last win that had earned him his chips. He'd folded the rest, and started to play the game like everyone else. Close to the chest, afraid to risk.
And for what? Hadn't he been risking everything since he'd grown up? His teeth were chattering, as this room was so cold. Why didn't he hear the others shivering? The same noises as before. Swigs of ale, the crunching of bones and flesh beneath their vile maws. Just how long were they going to keep eating?
The friend chuckled as if speaking to a foolish, foolish man. "It's the thrill of winning and the knowledge that you have won that drives you, Tommy. You could try to sit on those winnings but the joy won't last long. Its stagnancy, the monotony, the antithesis of who we are. You could try be happy for a time, but you'll think about where you could have been. That will bring you back to the cards, but by that time the chips will have their claws in you and you will no longer be able to run."
"Gamble those chips, Tommy."
All he could perceive at this point was low, guttural chuckling. Both from the man behind him, and the several faceless horrors in front of him. How he hated it. The mockery of the powerful to the powerless. He'd lived by the philosophy - to never take less than everything from people. He'd cheated, lied, murdered, scammed, anything under the sun to get a win. But now that the prospect of that happening to him was on the table, he was shivering. Was it the cold or was it fear? Would somebody shut that fuckin' door!?
'How did I get here?'
'What did I put up?'
'Why does it matter? I've never been one to cut losses.'
He looked down at his hand again. A sinking feeling, as if he knew he’d lost. The laughter came to a close and the room got colder still. His teeth chattered together in a desperate attempt to stay warm, and he found himself hugging himself. Even with that hand on his shoulder, he felt so lonely and cold in this place.
"They're already on the table." He paused, and melancholy filled him. "I've finally gotta piece of the pie, and they're about to take it from me. Fuckin' help me, man! Aren't we friends?" he lashed out in shallow anger at the figure behind him, as if it was somehow the cazenax's fault he'd put those chips down.
The others lay their cards down on the table. The first was a two pair, the same as his but a lower suite. He'd managed to dodge that bullet. The second was a straight. The third was a flush.
How had they all been luckier than him? How had he misread? It was then, and only then, he remembered that he never once looked at their faces. He peered up, and he saw them. There was Chad. There was Juulet. And there was Riu Kai-tan. Insurmountable enemies, terrifyingly so. But, why were they in a bar in Enth, or Mudville, or wherever they were now?
He desperately clawed at the chips on the table, raking in what was his. But it was so frigid, and his hands were shaking. He couldn't let them go. But he didn't want to go either. He could barely piece them together before they began dropping on the floor. He flung himself down there, desperate to keep them to himself, to protect them from the other, hungry gamblers.
"You could've run, Tommy." The friend had a tone of disappointment in his voice. "You would have been fine if you just left the chips. A nun and an ex-mercenary: too many of those in the world to count, and yet you stayed for these ones."
"The truth is, Tommy, that this isn't the first time you've lost, not even close. You ran every time before; you had no problems then. But now you decided to stay, and because you stayed, you let it all catch up with you. You were complacent, Tommy, and now you have to face the weight of your actions."
Family
The world was often kissed by Lor’s light, but it never seemed to shine upon Barrowton. Enth was a land of clouds and rain, unloved by the gods and perhaps that was why the inhabitants didn’t quite love the gods as much as they should have. And just like any other day, it was raining.
Tommy Kavanaugh was a man who wanted to come up in the world. Fourteen years of age, and still a resident of the city, he found himself ducking through alleyways to steer clear of the sheer cold that came in the months of Somnes. It was not so much the temperature as it was the frigid winds that blew between the tall townhouses and apartments that housed so many of Barrowton’s citizens that caused this. His mother had warned him of the dangers of being wet and cold. The old baker Gregory, on Moat’s End, had been thrown out of the house one night for being too drunk, and had died of the fluid by the time the morrow came.
But he couldn’t die. He had a family to go home to, and a room to sleep in, even if he shared it with four other siblings. The Kavanaughs never seemed to move out of the nest, and he’d never known the feeling of having his own personal space save for nights like this. The streets were dark and quiet, and he’d long since learned how to hide the sounds of his footsteps, even in the squelching wet mud that filled the city when the rain came.
It was a job, after all. Some petty noblewoman's estate on Coral Lane. The lanes were nothing new to him, but these were fancier footsteps than he was used to taking. Alley to alley before he was upon his mark, and it was easy as cake. No latches, just simple reliance on a good lock. Jimmy had done the scouting prior and saw the woman's relatives visit a couple of days ago, with no sign of any higher security. He’d earned that name for that particular skill, and Tommy had learned it from the lad, which was why it was no surprise when he was in the door in 20 seconds flat.
And, immediately, a sense of emptiness hit him. Inside this room was just as cold as the outside. There was no roaring hearth as he’d come to expect in these months. Obvious places where paintings and heirlooms had been placed upon the walls were now empty, only dustmarks remained. A place where he imagined a plush carpet once sat was no longer there. The place had been cleaned out before he’d even gotten to it, but the intel had been good, from what he’d remembered.
It was as he stepped through the house, dark, empty and seldom cleaned save for the valuables that he forgot to muffle his footsteps. A giant audible creak was heard that elicited a muffled noise from another room he couldn’t quite make out. He gripped a knife on his belt and continued to survey, moving to the kitchen. He opened the drawers and even the silverware had been completely cleaned out.
‘Fucker must’ve been hungry’
Every room in the house seemed to be in the same state, and the edge from hearing that sound never left him until he settled upon the last room in the house of interest, presumably a living quarters, or some kind of repurposed office. “Toby? Have you come to visit again?” He heard the voice of an older woman muffled through the thicker stone walls of the house. Slowly, he opened the door and found a very old woman, wrapped in bundles of blankets in an old rocking chair. Even here, the room had been emptied. His heart sank immediately looking at this shivering old woman. She turned to face him, and smiled, missing many of her teeth. ”You’ve gotten thin, Toby. Should I fix you some supper?”
A whirring of the cogs inside his brain began, followed shortly by the strongest emotions he’d ever felt. He wanted to cry for the lady, to smash the wall in anger at what they’d done to her, to yell to the sky in hypocrisy about how the world was an unfair place, as if he hadn’t been planning to do the same thing. As if he wouldn’t have taken everything if it were there. But most of all, was a deep, empty pit in his stomach that had taken the place of the trust he’d given to others.
This wasn’t bad intel by Jimmy. If he’d cleared the place out, he wouldn’t have wasted time relaying it to Tommy. That’d be a way to end up with bad blood and broken kneecaps. No, the only logical explanation was… whoever this ‘Toby’ was, had already taken everything from his own family.
He sat in stunned silence as this old woman shivered in the cold, underneath all that was left, a few blankets, a wooden rocking chair and a hearth devoid of fire. He knew not her story, of whether she’d been a loving mother to her children, a loving grandmother to their descendants, a good daughter to her father or what she’d accomplished in her life. All he saw was a woman who undoubtedly loved her family, and received nothing in return.
Was this how he’d end up? He knew he wouldn’t live long given the symptoms were already starting to show, but he’d kept that a secret. At the age of thirty or so, he’d probably sound exactly like this woman who couldn’t even recognize her own grandchild from a robber. Would his family and friends do the same? Leave him in the cold and take everything he’d worked toward at this age?
The gears stopped turning as the woman coughed, reminding him of where he was. He wouldn’t end up like this woman, not if he could help it. He would spend every penny he got when he got it. What was the point of building for a future if it was taken gratuitously from your hands the moment you became unable to protect what was yours. He knelt down by the unkindled fireplace and used a touch of his magic to light the hearth and what little firewood remained inside.
It was done out of pity, but he felt a sense of disgust. Not just for the people that’d done this, but for her. They must have had a reason beyond desire for material gain. He’d stolen from plenty, deserving and not, and he’d never done so from those he’d treasured. There had to be some semblance of justification? A survival of the fittest perhaps?
”Thank you Toby. It was getting cold in here… I don’t remember where I left my flint… she mumbled to herself, shivering and tucking herself further in her blankets, her fingers red from the frigid atmosphere. Once again, Tommy’s stomach turned in knots and he felt like puking. But he resolved himself, slapping his cheeks to bring him to. Were he generous or kind, he might have left her with that sweet last memory of her darling grandson. But spite and resentment was all that filled his heart, as he turned and retorted: ”That’s cause I took it, and everythin’ else in this house. You didn’t need it anyway, right?”
And although his words held venom, the grandmotherly woman simply laughed, her chuckle eliciting a deep throaty cough that followed, probably due to bad lungs and the frigid air. “That’s a mean joke, Toby.” and he laughed in turn. It was a mean joke, after all. Tommy turned and shut the door without replying, clenching his fist in anger on the other side. He didn’t care about this woman, but his heart was filled with a desire for a vague sense of vigilante justice. The next step would be to find Toby.
The next two days were to mark his prey. He’d relayed to Jimmy that the mark had been cleared out already and he’d already bought in to help with this operation, so the pair got to work on finding out more about the situation. Information gathering about the Mistress Cossale they’d fully intended to clean out. Toby Cossale was her grandson, and had been looking to prove himself a worthy suitor for the lady Avis Faylare, a junior branch of the Maycots. They held good standing in the city given the Ashdales’ relatively fresh betrayal.
He hadn’t been sneaky about his robbery. Flaunting a gain of recent wealth was the mark of a young, arrogant noble and he’d done as much. Expensive gifts paid for with treachery, and Tommy grit his teeth in hypocrisy. Deep down, he knew why this angered him so, but he still pretended in his heart that he was going to perform this act out of some sense of honor or compassion for the woman he didn’t know the name of.
The third day came: a crisp night that the rain hadn’t taken hold of quite yet. The would-be couple went from street to street, chatting and walking. Again, an arrogance of the nobility to walk about the streets that the gangs knew so familiarly. They held pride in the fact that they had an aptitude with the Gift, but money talked, and their purses were heavy. A slight jingle to their step as Jim followed behind Tommy, an accomplice in the crime.
And although the night had been dry and the lamps of Barrowton flickered, at some point, it came pouring down. The couple ducked for cover in an alley while the lady Avis reached for an umbrella that she held on her person. That moment of distraction and hesitation was all it took for a blade to find purchase in her body. Nobles held the gift in high regard, and it was unthinkable for a commoner to possess it to a degree enough to close such a distance, but there he was, a knife plunged in her back. Jimmy had already begun moving to secure the coin pouch.
There it was, though. He’d consciously wounded a third party to secure money. This pretty noble girl with her frilly dress and braided hair turned and regarded him in horror and panic as she tried to scream, but the air had simply been taken from her lungs and all that came was a raspy final gasp before the collapse. Tommy’s hands shook slightly as he retrieved the blade, and the dark thoughts would come later.
Tobias, or Toby as he’d been known by his grandmother, reached out in panic and drew with magic of his own but the moment he’d begun to cast, a slash formed from condensed air came from the young Enthish lad. A left hand that had been reached out to cast was flung further into the alley and a scream of pain followed. A swift punch to the jaw silenced it as Tommy began to rifle through the body, blood mixing with the rain and flowing into the gutter. The two would most likely die, and he didn’t feel anything about it. But he didn’t get the joy he’d anticipated from liberating their belongings, or from delivering this vigilante justice.
The pair of commoners walked away, a bag of coin to their name each. He didn’t go and return it to that grandmother, that Lady Cossale. In fact, she died perhaps a day after her grandson, to the sheer cold. Avis died for gratuity and perhaps earned Tommy his greatest sin, a pair of potential lovers who’d never reached their potential, snuffed out for money that was gone in a matter of days.
For Tommy knew to keep his pockets light. And he taught himself to never trust or love another. A betrayal like that, coming from your own flesh and blood to an affliction all too similar to his own was enough for him to be scared of attachment and love. Why then, had he abandoned his principles so quickly when shown kindness at the school?
In the moment, perhaps too consumed by his own ideals of what the world should be like, he never considered the late Lady Avis. It crossed his mind once or twice that she was a pretty, clean looking girl but he hadn't considered anything about her. Was she like him? Did she do anything wrong, save for courting a man who he’d had a problem with? How many others had he dealt this hand of fate? But he could still remember her face, even now. That look of anguish and ‘why?’ splattered across her face. The roles could have been reversed. Perhaps she wouldn’t have responded so violently? Was it because… he wanted Toby to suffer? Or was it a spur of the moment decision. So many questions that he didn’t have answers for.
And why was he seeing this scene before his eyes now? Was it because the prophecy he saw had come around? He’d trusted, and he’d died and been left for the ravens and the rats.
Just… who was he?
Left to Rot
That question was answered by a trial of the gods. Every event in his life had been recounted in great detail, and this is what he had to show for it. He wasn’t well read in religious textbooks, but hell had always been described as fire and brimstone, filled with demons and lava and punishment. Yet, somehow, this felt crueler.
A life with no substance or meaning. Water that could never sate your thirst, no matter how much you drank. What was there to do in a place like this. He could run in the grass but there was nothing, nary a soul and the sun never seem to set, nor did it seem to rise. Night never came, In such a beautiful place, he’d never felt so empty. His brain rattled and he slept and awoke only to find himself in the same scenery, more and more parched and hungry and desperate.
And with nothing to do, or hunt, or see, there was only his memories to dwell on. He begun to remember the last images of what he’d seen. A bullet, spinning toward him at a speed he’d never comprehended, even faster than that mans punches. Had Desmond died too? Maybe so, but he doubted that guy would end up here. For all he’d probably done, he still had a true sense of goodness to him. And Laska, had she made it out? If anyone was unlikely of hell, it was probably her. Maybe they’d reunited in Eshiran’s heaven. Or maybe they’d both made it out alive.
Without him.
He’d been left alone, as foretold. Perhaps it was his destiny for them to leave him for dead. He doubted they’d host a vigil, or a funeral for him. Perhaps they’d take his belongings and sell him. Maybe somebody would do him the duty of throwing his corpse in a pit and covering it with soil so the crows didn’t feast on it, but he doubted that too. It’d all come true and it made him furious. He ripped at the soil, he blew the dandelions away and pounded his fist at trees and foliage. For how long is uncertain, but eventually, he stopped and gave up.
He didn’t know how long it’d been, but he’d begun to decay. His body had begun to rot in the open. Little pieces of flesh withering off his form. Maybe it was related to his body on the surface, probably being eaten by scavengers. Or perhaps it was rotting in the sun. He’d all but given up when he finally found other life in this place. It was hard to distinguish at a distance, and his knuckles had gone bloodied and scabbed from his prior fury, and his feet barely wanted to move. But… he saw someone in a similar state as him eat another, and begin to rejuvenate. He left as quickly as he came into eyeshot. He didn’t know if it was a test, or futile, but a hope had been re-ignited in him to try and stay existing.
Heya. Getting back into text based RP after a long binge of DND/Pathfinder as it's more schedule friendly and I happened upon this lovely site.
Down for most roleplays as I'm looking to improve my writing ability and connect with other cool people. Only really draw the line at erp as that's just not my cup of tea.
If you wanna chat, shoot me a dm! Would be more than happy to entertain anyone who stumbles upon this.
If you've got any recommendations about the site, that'd also be lovely to know! I'm very new here after all!
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Heya. Getting back into text based RP after a long binge of DND/Pathfinder as it's more schedule friendly and I happened upon this lovely site. <br><br>Down for most roleplays as I'm looking to improve my writing ability and connect with other cool people. Only really draw the line at erp as that's just not my cup of tea.<br><br>If you wanna chat, shoot me a dm! Would be more than happy to entertain anyone who stumbles upon this.<br><br>If you've got any recommendations about the site, that'd also be lovely to know! I'm very new here after all!</div>
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