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The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist @Crimson Paladin

Narkissa’s eyes flickered in annoyance. She hadn’t expected much from the strange god, but this was even more of a non-answer than she’d expected. She could have asked a leading question with some of her otherworldly knowledge as bait, but that had the potential to end… poorly. And the rest of what she was talking about was very riddle-like. Narkissa didn’t like riddles.

Intellectually, they were always a nice challenge, but she had dealt with enough riddles in her past job.

At least she answered her question about Leannah, although she couldn’t exactly verify the truthfulness of that answer.

It was becoming more unproductive the more they spoke with this strange god. She clicked her tongue. She really didn’t want the Illuminator getting her dirty mitts on Lazhira. In the end, she had no real reason not to give the girl up to save herself, but she’d already helped her so much, and it just felt wrong regardless.

“Yes, well, I don’t want to hand over an otherwise innocent girl if I can’t help it.” She let out a sigh, shaking her head at Novak. “I suppose we could help look for the lost thing, though.”

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist @Crimson Paladin

In the end, they’d agreed to go deeper into the catacombs to confront whatever danger there was as a group and rescue Leannah. There was the niggling concern that it was a danger that was out of the scope of their abilities to deal with… but Narkissa was still coming down from her high on using water to slice and explode things. Too cool. Too awesome. It felt like she could do anything.

And she was promptly disabused of that notion when they made it to the main altar.

The first thing that struck her about the scene was how creepy the entire thing looked. No matter how you could slice it, dancing in the dark with a mannequin –a mannequin made out of bloody body parts—was not something that a mentally sane, well-functioning individual did. No siree.

That wasn’t to mention the internal cringing Narkissa did when the strange girl introduced herself. Oh, no, it wasn’t just a deranged individual. It was a deranged god. She was fairly sure that none of them here could kill a god, if this girl was actually a god.

“Archeologist. Not scavenger,” she couldn’t help but to mutter under her breath. “No thieves here.” Lazhira scooting closer to her wasn’t lost on her at all, though.

“Well, if you think there’s nothing but empty space in his head, then at least we agree on one thing.”

Traitorous mouth!

… Not that she disagreed.

But it didn’t exactly give her much of an advantage in verbal rhetoric. Because if this girl was Iva’Krorh, The Illuminator, Narkissa was sure the only thing that could get them out safely at this point was talking, or hoping this god –the whole pantheon of them were starting to seem as fickle as the Greeks—was in a very good mood.

The problem was, she didn’t know how to respond, and she didn’t know how much the Illuminator did actually know about her. Surely, she didn’t know a lick about her past life, either? She could just ask her ‘what now,’ but she didn’t exactly fancy giving the god the initiative either. Since it seemed like she only had beef with Lazhira and Novak, she could simply try to just wiggle out of this herself… but it would feel wrong to do that to Lazhira, even if there was no lost love for Novak.

Right, fishing for more information it is.

“Well. Please forgive our intrusion. At this point we’re only searching for our lost friend. Forgive my curiosity, but how much do you know?” She left the ‘about us’ or the ‘about me’ hanging, hoping that either way wouldn’t be too… offensive. It hadn’t exactly been her style to address a random person dancing with corpse parts with the reverence of a god either, but Lazhira had already done worse and she hasn’t been immediately struck down by the will of a god.

-FV-

Iphigenia Courtlandt

♀
Final Violet
Board Chair, Courtlandt Group

Personality:

Iphigenia is a personable, friendly individual, exceptionally so, considering her old world, upper-class, stiff-upper-lip upbringing. A girl with good humor, high outward empathy, and exceptional social understanding, she doesn’t take herself too seriously. She’s aware of her flaws, and enjoys poking fun at them, making self-deprecating jokes at her own expense. For a girl of her social class, she has always been unafraid of diving headfirst into the gritty and grimy aspects of both the world’s crime-ridden society, as well as simply just mundane things. Indeed, she genuinely lacks the haughty demeanor that can be found among her peers, and she makes it a point of pride to be approachable.

However, she can also be described as an exceptionally self-controlled, marginally narcissistic, high functioning sociopath. Hidden beneath her amicability and down-to-earth nature is a cold, calculating, and manipulative persona under a well-crafted social veneer, and governed by a set of moral codes.

She surrounds herself with many friends and acquaintances, but only consider a small handful her true friends. Though uncommon, cracks in her façade can appear, or the veneer can be absent completely, although the latter often only in the presence of her inner circle.
Certain aspects of her personality can be quite fleeting and mercurial, depending on the environment and the company she’s entertaining. She often alternates from being reserved and polite to outgoing and energetic, although she has a predilection for the latter, which is her true nature.

Driven and motivated, with a streak of vindictiveness, crossing Iphigenia or gaining her ire is not a pleasant experience. It is difficult to draw her to genuine, open anger, but god have mercy their soul should somebody fall under her anger. After all, once she has a goal set, she will attempt to bulldoze everything that stands in its way.

Biography, condensed:

Iphigenia was born an only child to an old English family with noble roots. An almost stereotypical wealthy, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant family, the Courtlandt family resisted the changes of the past 150 years that the spread of globalization and diversity brought. Yet, nonetheless, the politics demanded of modern society found Iphie born out of a political union between the British Courtlandt head and a Japanese-Chinese former minister from Shanhu—her father and mother, respectively.

Raised to be the family’s next head, she lived a comfortable life, though groomed to take control of her family fortune and its business-- Courtlandt Group, one of the rare megacorporations in the world still privately held. One of the three influential big players in the international economy, under the umbrella of the Courtlandt name is the Shanhu-based semiconductor foundry and electronics manufacturer Shanhu Semiconductor, the energy company Standard Electric, and the industrial design and engineering company, Applied Engineering.

She had always taken to electronics, hacking, and their related sciences, and over time, her interest and involvement in the business grew, especially as Iphigenia took a personal interest in the corporation’s information security systems. It was here that she’d taken an interest in the Final Five and –by coincidence—discovered her latent supernatural powers over electricity and magnetism, after accidentally demolishing an entire rack of servers with electrostatic discharge. (With much chagrin.)

The majority shareholder of Courtlandt Group after her father’s death a few years later, Iphie subsequently took a hands-off involvement with the business to focus on herself. Wanting to be on the right side of history, and, not being in the business of particularly shady corporate dealings, she provided support and funding for the then fledgling organization of the Final Five. After all, if your big megacorp was above board, there were few things better for business than a safe and stable environment, enforced by guardian protectors. Although Iphie would hardly admit it publicly, there also existed the ulterior motive of her simply wanting to understand her newfound supernatural abilities.

She just would never have thought circumstances conspired to the point that she’d become one of the Final Five herself in the end.

Abilities, condensed:

Electromagnetism.

Iphigenia can directly interact, interface, and control electromagnetic force, and devices that use such forces. She’s a walking battery. It’s all but impossible for her to be electrocuted; rather, she’s the one doing the electrocution… and that’s neglecting the magnets. In electronic warfare, she can match the capabilities of a warship in EM attack and electronic countermeasures, jamming radio signals, spoofing missiles, and disabling sensors.

In her personal field of expertise, she can directly and remotely interface with unsecured computer systems and networks to dance to her whims. Her ultimate ability allows her to become the system, bypassing security systems to inject her consciousness into devices with sufficient processing power, but at the risk of leaving her body in a coma-like state for the duration –or worse, if mismanaged.

Screw the Rules, I have money!

Iphigenia has a controlling share of a megacorporation. If something can be done with money, it can be done. She can cut through the red tape with fuck you money or connections, hook up her friends and comrades with the newest toys and gadgets from her company, get them a reservation at the hippest new restaurant in town at a moment’s notice, or open new doors for the Final Five that weren’t open before. She doesn’t like flaunting wealth, though.

Equipment, primary:

Aurorum Handgun. Truly a testament to the arrogance of mankind. Really the only exceptionally valuable thing Iphie carries around, she has 18 rounds for this ungodly expensive weapon.
Personal Aurorum shield Unit. Personal shield generator that Iphie carries around to cover her back for her tech-inclined abilities. She recharges it herself, naturally.
Messenger bag. Filled with all the essentials a hero can need.

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist


“Without saying too much, huh,” Narkissa mused aloud. If that wasn’t a giant billboard with flashing arrows and lights saying ‘I clearly know a lot more than this topic than I want to say’, that was it. Still, it was a strange reward from an even stranger god. Maybe she would try to pry some information from Lazhira later. “Well, I don’t intend to lose it,” she quipped, before she tucked both the teardrop and core into the safety of her clothes’ inner pockets. Taking a moment to pick her weapon back up, she continued to peer down the hole with the younger girl for a moment.

Narkissa was still contemplating her options when Lazhira made the decision for her, jumping down the pit with a whee, of all things. She sighed and shook her head. Once more unto the breach, it seemed.

She took a far more pragmatic way of doing that, though. If that dungeon ended up being a big fat dead end, they’d be trapped in the pit forever. Being the smart little cookie that she wanted to be, she searched for some masonry to loop the remaining rope around as an anchor before dropping the sword down the pit (hopefully without bonking Lazhira) and shimmying down the rope to the bottom of the bit.

Or, her pathetic attempts at shimmying down a rope. She’d never done such a thing before, so although Lazhira’s landing wasn’t the most graceful, there was still an agonizing moment where she had to witness Narkissa awkwardly fumbling and swaying down the rope until she was on the ground next to her. Maybe she should have cannonballed down the hole with a whee as well.

With an immensely awkward expression on her face, she looked around, frowning at the tar at the bottom of the pit as she grabbed her weapon again. “Tar? Made from petroleum, maybe?” she wondered aloud. It was definitely a strange, if nasty substance. “Could be worth bringing back, actually…” She didn’t have any jars, though, so she didn’t press the topic.

She peered down the sole opening that the pit opened up into, a hallway of some kind. “Well, I suppose Leannah and that man went down that ways,” she shrugged, heading in that direction. She looked back at Lazhira. Now was a better time than ever to ask her just what those powers she displayed earlier.

“Say, Lazhira, what were those abilities you displayed earlier? Your secrets are safe with me, you have my word, but I can’t help but to be curious why you went to such lengths to hide your ability to fight earlier.” She recalled her having to be rescued by Leannah, but paradoxically also letting on that she was able to fend against the birds in that incident. Clearly, there was more between Lazhira and just a simple curiosity over this temple.

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist

Despite the slime’s weakened state, it was still giving Narkissa more trouble than she had expected. Through its damaged, eviscerated form, it still fought for every inch of its life –and literally—as she reached for its core deep inside of its gelatinous body. But she eventually grasped it. From its determined shrieking, she knew that this was its lifeline. Without remorse, she pulled, and pulled, until she yanked it fully out of its body, awkwardly falling backwards from the sudden loss of resistance.

Panting, she watched from the ground as the creature continued to gurgle and shriek, until it finally dissolved into a watery mess on the temple floor. Still catching her breath, she kept her grip on the strangely cool core, looking down at it, she couldn’t help but to laugh. She’d done it. Perhaps she’d been a little too bold with that, but it seemed to work out alright.

She was still recovering from her exertion when she jerked up, looking up at the temple ceiling as she heard the voice of the goddess once more. The voice was perhaps not quite so welcome as it had been after her brief ordeal, but Narkissa wasn’t going to ignore it, either.

Furrowing her eyebrows at the fight being referred to as a tutorial, she watched as a familiar drop of water fell from the sky. For a moment, she almost cringed, expecting it to be a ‘reward’ that brought yet another gauntlet of monsters, but it stopped and hovered in front of her. She looked at it apprehensively, but after a few moments, she reached out and took the floating raindrop-like gem.

With a frown, she turned it over in her fingers, wondering what it was for. Not finding an immediate answer from the goddess or from observation, she sighed and pocketed the reward as Lazhira bounded over to her, clearly having taken the lesser slimes to task already. As far as rewards went, she felt it was a strange one, but perhaps the greater reward was the newfound –if now somewhat subdued—feeling of magical power within her body.

“Ah? I’m not sure, actually…” For a moment, she thought about hiding the gem from Lazhira, considering its strange origin, but she’d helped her in the fight, and it was only fair to at least show her. “Well, I’ve got the big slime core, if that’s actually worth anything… and this gem that seems to have fallen from the heavens,” she replied, holding out the two objects in each hand. Once she’d had her fill, she pocketed both items again and stood up, dusting herself off. Feeling some pain in her arm, she frowned at the welts and scratches on her skin from her little bit of bravery. “Perhaps I overdid it a bit,” she grimaced, before peering back down into the hole.

“So, hmm. Is Leannah and that other man still down there? Should we… look for them down there?” Really though, Narkissa wanted to just go back to the village at this point and rest. Now that the issues up here were dealt with, however, she remained worried for her fellow dimension traveling companion. The other guy… well, not so much. As far as she was concerned, he was just a random stranger that abandoned her in a time of need.

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist

For all of Lazhira’s cute behavior and strange quirks, she wasn’t half bad at fighting. Whatever she was doing with that odd magic of hers, she was getting the smaller blobs’ attention and keeping them away from Narkissa, letting her focus on the big bad blob that remained the primary threat… and if the goddess was to be believed, her own little personal trial after praying to her. Either way, once she dealt with it, she could help out her villager friend.

Thankfully, her magical creativity seemed to be working. However, she wanted to shape her magic, nature and her spells seemed to bend to her will effortlessly. Doing her best to barrage the beast to prevent it from properly reforming, her bullet of water acted like an exploding shell once it entered its body, rupturing its blob structure as the superheated steam forced itself away from its body. It created a surprisingly gory mess, but it was one heck of a timely attack, as its counter lashed out but fell short of Narkissa, prompting her to jump back regardless.

With such a huge eruption of slime, she thought the fight was over, but despite all the damage, the bloody thing still seemed to be trying to recover!

“Damn! Why won't you die already!” Yelling out in frustration, she could see its blue stone core still active within the constituted parts of its clear body. It was almost dead, but still trying to claw itself to life, but not if Narkissa had anything to say about it.

Feeling emboldened by her new abilities and apparent martial skill, she charged the oversized gelatinous stain and blasted it again with another destructive water spell, just to keep it from regenerating. Then, sword in one hand, and the other outstretched, she slashed at the beast’s remaining jelly flesh, and then with the other hand, grasped for its crystalline core to rip it out of its worthless, evil body.

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist

Narkissa winced as the bone spear just barely glanced off her blade. Slightly overextending her reach to parry the shot, she stumbled backward awkwardly, feeling the strain on her body as much of the force of the blow was still transferred to her. Certainly, this wasn’t a thing that she could fight by constantly blocking.

Thankfully, her follow up was far more effective. Although she began to have her doubts fighting the liquid-like creatures with liquid-based magic, anything sufficiently pressurized was a potent weapon.

For a moment, she thought she had killed the creature completely through the way it took the hit, and was immediately caught out by the misassumption. “Oh shi—” Still screeching about Novak, she took the full force of the sudden attack and was smacked to the ground.

Lucky to not have cracked her head against the ground, she sputtered, her breath knocked out of her lungs by the blow. Surprisingly, however, it didn’t feel like anything was broken, and after a few gulps, she was able to hastily scramble back onto her feet with the help of her sword.

“Blegh… I’m okay... I think.” Distinctly remembering Lazhira having stuck around by her shout of concern, Narkissa took the risk and glanced over to the young girl, chuckling wryly when she did.
“I had a feeling you were hiding something,” she grinned. “B your secret’s safe with me. I’m just glad you have my back.” The strange silvery magic and appearance of her eyes wasn’t any sort of magic she’d seen so far, but it was useful enough. Narkissa wasn’t quite sure if she had attacked the giant slime or caused its attack to recoil in on itself, but it didn’t matter as long as it was injured further.

“Got it. We’ll talk after!” Unwilling to give up the initiative gained by Lazhira’s spell, she followed up her attack with another blade of super-pressurized water. Knowing that it wasn’t enough to finish the job, however, she tried to chain more spells on the end of it, intending to give it no reprieve. The best defense was the best offense, of course.

She reasoned that if Leannah had almost killed them all earlier in Lazhira’s house, then she could probably do better with the goddess’s ‘blessing.’ If she could instantly superheat that smallbolt of water as it broke the monster’s slimy flesh, turning it to steam while it was inside its body, then with no room for it to expand, wouldn’t it sort of… explode? Narkissa gave it a try.

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist @Crusader Lord @Crimson Paladin

To Narkissa’s stunned surprise, she found time slowing down to a near stop a moment after her prayer. Although the chaos of the flames and the slowly approaching slimes filled her vision, she couldn’t help to be affixed to a single point in the air, as a single, almost crystal-like drop of water descended from the sky. While she found it strange, the significance was lost on her as she simultaneously felt… something change.

She was suddenly ultra-aware of her surroundings. She could feel and see the flames engulfing the temple, licking and scorching the stonework. The slimes continued to inch forward, and she was acutely aware of Novak at the edge of the pit, where she could Leannah shouting from below. And to her greatest surprise, her magic was flawless. Forming a sphere of water, and releasing it as a wave towards the fire and the enemy slimes, which seemed to hold them at bay for a moment. As she summoned up some more water, she realized that it felt almost like second-nature to her, as if this was something she could always have done.

Narkissa wasn’t sure if she had natural affinity after all, or her prayer had worked. Her joy was short-lived, however, as her attention was taken by the one slime that had been touched by the falling water. Something was very strange about it as the water seemed to permeate through its body… transforming and mutating its already repulsive slime body. She immediately sensed the danger, and raised her sword just in time to deflect the bone spear that had shot towards her.

As she cursed like a sailor, she was stunned to hear the familiar voice that filled the temple. The Goddess had answered her prayer… but from the tone and monstrosity before her, in the form of a trial.

Filled with many mixed emotions, she grimaced as Lazhira panicked behind her. So, it seemed fleeing was not much of an option. It flew in the face of her pragmatic attitude, but there was the Goddess’s wrath, and Lazhira behind her… at the very least, it seemed her magic was alright.

"Shit, shit... Lazhira, and you, whoever your name is, I hope you two can fight!"

Raising her sword arm in a guard position, she tried probing the massive slime, while keeping her peripherals on the remaining slimes. Conjuring more water, she imagined a water jet, liquid compressed together by such force that it shot out like a blade or bolt in its own right, and directed it towards the roiling slime monstrosity. As she did so, she backed up towards Lazhira and Novak… only to see him peace out down the pit.

“You… coward!” she cursed, her situation getting worse by the moment.

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist @Crusader Lord @Crimson Paladin

“Hm. Hmmm…” Lazhira’s answer to her question made Narkissa even more suspicious about the nature of this temple. Although she had her mild suspicions about what Lazhira was omitting herself, even she herself outright admitted that something was up about this place. In the meantime, Novak had found some sort of mask and put it on. Narkissa was going to ask about it, but she had specifically been sticking close to Lazhira for a reason, and that was the fear of activating something bad around the idol when the stone was placed into the slot.

A fear that, as she quickly found out, was very well founded when the entire damn idol dropped from the floor like a nuclear core melting down into the ground. Perhaps that could have been okay, but her foolish companion of a catgirl was still on the actual thing, and fell through the floor with it. Perhaps that could have been easy enough to process, but the same time, strange, hostile blob-like things descended from the ceiling… and to make matters even worse on top of all that, the temple was also on fire for some reason!

It was just about the worst case in a worst-case scenario they could get, beyond the entire roof coming down on top of them, and Narkissa wasn’t sure if that wasn’t yet to come considering the fire.

Thankfully, she was very wise indeed to stick close to Lazhira, although it wasn’t much of a consolation considering the mounting chaos.

“Dammit man, we need to think about ourselves for now! Fire! Blobs! I don’t think those things are going to be friendly!” She shouted after Novak, who was simply gawking into the void where the idol was. From what Lazhira was also blurting out, she was more than a little apprehensive about what the blobs represented. She didn’t like them at all… not even compared to those birds from earlier. Something told her that trying to beat them with a sword probably wouldn’t be the most effective. Their priority should be escaping, although Leannah, if she was still alive, was down in that pit…

Then, she had a wild thought. Fire. And, slimes. Weren’t slimes supposed to be weak against magic? At least, that was what the trope was supposed to be. Maybe. She’d also always had an affinity for water, naturally as a nature of her previous profession. Could she try to use water magic to solve all the problems here? Probably not, considering she’d never even tried to cast water magic during the little training session yesterday, but she had to try.

She prayed. Not to the Illuminator, or any other god that she’d learned about the past few days –they were all so very suspicious—but to the goddess that had given her a second chance at life. Because, right now, it looked like she and the rest of them would really need some help with that second chance.

“Better bloody hope this works, or I’m just going to be standing here like an idiot too,” she muttered under her breath when her brief prayer was done. Trying to take the scraps of Lazhira’s lessons into mind, she tried to summon water. And if she did, direct them towards the fire, and the evil slimes.

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

When Lazhira spoke about her background and her relationship with the temple, Narkissa didn’t really buy it, and she was sure her fellow worldly companions from earth didn’t, either. She felt that Lazhira clearly had reasons to hide her ability to fight, or her ability to safely navigate the region around the temple. Whether or not that meant she had ulterior motives that were harmful to her guests remained to be seen, but Narkissa was of the option that a young girl this cute and innocent surely couldn’t be harmful, especially after housing and feeding her and her group for a night, and now, aiding Leannah with an injury.

Whatever it was, though, she was very knowledgeable about… the god of knowledge, and Narkissa was able to easily absorb the details and scenes in the temple after her explanation. She did find it strange that he could revoke the knowledge of papermaking from people. After all, if paper still existed, it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out what it was made of and reconstitute a method after trial and error. If she didn’t know better about the strange laws and beings that governed this world, she would have immediately discarded those words as exaggerated legend… but she wasn’t quite so sure.

Was it simply a case of knowledge lost over time due to societal collapse, or perhaps a far more violent end to a relationship with a vengeful god? Did the curse that Lazhira mentioned have to do with it? And how recent was that event, if it were true? Considering that many of the things in the temple would have deteriorated after a few mere years without care, Narkissa couldn’t help but to feel a faint form of dread building up in the back of her head that something might have gone terribly wrong in this temple… and more recently than what things would immediately suggest, if her hypothesis proved correct.

Like Novak, she pondered over the meaning of the murals, and then at the idol, the Illuminator, the Kyrinth… the fact that the answers cascaded into more questions was unnerving, and Narkissa couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that was pervading through her body.

On the other hand, she was absolutely giddy over one of the books she found. She immediately recognized the tome as a book on maritime architecture based on the diagrams and sketches within the book—cross sections of hulls, planking, and various other ship-related material. While Narkissa did know some actual methods of timber shipbuilding –she’d been involved in that experimental archaeology effort in launching the replica of that Revolutionary War-era French frigate a few years back—actually having a book like this on hand would be fascinating to decipher and see how the natives here built their wooden oceangoing vessels compared to how people on earth did, and what sort of differences there were.

She had to try very, very hard to not sit down right there in the temple and engross herself in the book. Instead, after flipping a few more pages, she reluctantly closed it and glanced at what her companions were doing, keeping the tome very close to her chest all the while.

And well, she looked up just in time to see them engaging in some very reckless and dangerous acts.

“My god, are you sure you two know what you’re doing?” Between trying to force that orb into the slot and potentially activating whatever dangerous or strange function there was to this temple, and Leannah jumping about the failing masonry, she really didn’t want to be standing in the wrong place.

Deciding that wherever Lazhira was standing was probably the safer place, she made it her business to be near her.

“So, Lazhira. How long has this temple been abandoned for, anyway?”