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Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Aureia, of gold, commerce, wealth,

and the far less important, trivial aspects of travel and luck

If her decision to rush the mortals had been questionable, Aureia didn’t stop to recognize it. A large part of that was probably because she was getting away with it, unlike the sun god, who had gotten checked for his arrogance. Despite her earlier assessment of weakness, the fact that the commanding mortal could and had blocked a strike from a god was the best wakeup call that the gods could receive of their own weakness.

That, however, was something to reflect on down the line.

Right now, Aureia and the other gods had to mop up the remaining soldiers, and with all of the mortals distracted with the other gods, the goddess of commerce was in a characteristically lucky position to capitalize on that. With O’menus still dueling the commander with Ashte’s aid, and Trineon and Alasayana decimating the back line of the mortals, Aureia had the free reign to reposition and circle around to slam into flank of the soldiers’ line, but not before quirking an eyebrow at the time goddess’s attempt to restore the human construct… and do whatever it was she was doing with its remains.

She quickly snapped her head back to focus on the mortals, though, sweeping out with a wide arc at their legs with her umbrella to knock them off their feet before slashing out at their unprepared forms. Despite the danger that they had risked in closing the distance, it now meant that the larger bulk of the soldiers were pincered between the goddess of the hunt and the aquatic god in the front, and Aureia at the rear. It was a miniature hammer-and-anvil, and that meant it was time to wreak havoc.

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist @Crusader Lord

“Well, if half your body is burned and you’re more or less about to collapse, I’m more impressed that you were able to get here and talk to us,” Narkissa frowned, as she gave her body a quick look over. “Let me take a look at you… I’m not sure if cat-being-girl physiology changes much, but I think basic first aid knowledge still applies.” Having cat ears and a tail didn’t change things up that much, did it? Well, whatever. Leannah seemed intent on spilling the beans of her adventure, no matter how beat up she looked, so Narkissa decided she’d just listen to her recount her adventure.

She nodded along, until she raised an eyebrow at hearing how she’d also gotten the ‘opportunity’ to meet the Illuminator, and in a far more intimate way, it seemed. Hell, she’d even met his mother? What?

“I… see. I suppose we made it out in better shape. Can’t say I was too impressed with our male companion, but Lazhira and I were attacked by rogue slimes before we followed you down to search for you,” she replied, recounting their own little adventure. “We also met the Illuminator. Barely got ourselves out, all things considered. Novak –that’s the man that followed us—made a bad deal with him to look for a stolen artifact in exchange for letting Lazhira go… but we ended up being hunted by cultists anyway. It was pretty much luck and a bit of help from a lady named… Mie, I believe? Either way, we got ourselves back to the village after that. The Japanese girl, Misaki, needed my help on a project to make paper, so here I am now. Far less interesting than your tale, all things considered, but somehow I’m starting to feel ‘interesting’ is more of a curse…”

She shrugged as Lazhira began to help Leannah head back to her house. “I’d feel remiss not to help, with how much of a sorry state you look in.” Glancing at the injured girl, after putting the axe back where she’d found it, she tucked the small set of planks that she fashioned underneath her arm before using her free arm to also help Leannah back. “I’m essentially done here anyway.”

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Yeah, I might have to take a day or so for this one. Hurricane hit and flooded the house of one of my relatives, so I've been helping with the cleaning work, which is hella tiring.

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Aureia, of gold, commerce, wealth,

and the far less important, trivial aspects of travel and luck

The gods had been weakened, but mortals were still mortals, in spite of whatever new toys they armed themselves with. The judgment of a god was as damning as it had ever been, although these future mortals definitely made them work for it. The projectile weapons were very interesting, and Aureia would have liked to gets her hands on some of them, if only to see how they worked and to piece together how the societies of the mortals had developed over the eons.

That would have to wait for later, though.

Aureia had to admit, with all the bluster from the sun god, she was disappointed he hadn’t already cleaved the offending mortal commander in half. Instead, he lived for a little longer, to spew more trite commands. “I don’t know who these Knights of Klois you speak of are,” she drawled, taking care to not get blood on herself as she speared her umbrella through the chest of a hapless soldier, “but if they’re the enemies of mortals as stupid and arrogant as you, then they can’t be too bad in my books.”

By the time she had finished dealing with a third mortal, she noticed the bulk of the survivors had retreated into the semblance of some type of line formation and raised their tube weapons. It was nothing her umbrella-shield couldn’t handle… until the ground started exploding around her, forcing her to ungracefully dodge, the hems of her robes a bit blackened for her taste.

“Wah! You dare call gods simple mages, but you attack with that sorcery!?” She charged straight at the line, angered by their apparent hypocrisy. As surprising as the attack had been, it meant that they had already shown their weakness. All she had to do was to close the distance, smash directly into their lines and wreak havok, together with Alasayana… and the god of water and other aquatic things.

Well, she’d had stranger allies in the past.

-FV-

“Well,” she smirked, taking the opportunity to tease the two younger members of the group, “Kyouko and Runa are also kiddos, no?” Covering a light chuckle with her hand, she nonetheless nodded. “I’ll keep it in mind. As for the hype… I dunno, I think any hype you’ll feel will be ruined if you hear me belt out my attempt at any pop song…”

Thankfully, Mason saved Iphie from karaoke hell with timely directions to the nearest DIHOP. Since there was a little bit of time before their engagement at the waffle house, she excused herself to take care of some business at her company offices.

It wasn’t Iphie’s style to bother with a disguise, but when she arrived at the Denny’s, it was via a nondescript black corporate vehicle, and with a pair of nice black shades. The purple-haired girl only removed them when she slid into the booth with the rest of the Final Five; it wasn’t quite a disguise, but it worked enough to not be immediately accosted between the street and their table at the restaurant.

It was certainly a trip to see Kyouko plastered in clothing ads out in the street. Really, she was still worried about the younger girl being taken advantage of by her father or others.

“Looks like I made it on time,” she greeted, taking up a seat across from Tian-Gui, and just in time to order. “I’ll have what he ordered,” Iphie decided, thumbing towards Jin-Sun. “The spicy honey butter sauce instead of buffalo, though. Oh, and a nice cold milk tea if you have that here, too.”

She sighed at the two apparent whales of the group once she was done ordering. “Seriously? Pulling for gacha? Scam aside, you known I can just zap your phones and give your accounts the stuff you want, right?”

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist @Crusader Lord

“Oh? Interesting… Can’t say knowing you can mess with memories isn’t a bit disconcerting, but I’m curious what you mean in regards to ‘inspiration.’ Suppose your skillset takes after your father, eh?” She shrugged. Narkissa had taken the information quite well, but then again, with the absurdity of things ever since arriving here, combined with her own knowledge of… petty… godly things, she wasn’t exactly about to go 180 on Lazhira.

She scrunched her face at her reply. “There’s not really any particularly good answer to the dilemma, isn’t there? Still, having all your cards in one place…” She paused, caught just as off-guard by Leannah’s sudden and dramatic appearance as Lazhira had been.

“Leannah! Where have you been?” Narkissa echoed after Lazhira, although she avoided shouting. “I was afraid the Illuminator had snatched you up alongside the temple,” she admitted, slightly guilty that she had stayed to mess around with paper and hadn’t been more proactive in searching for the wayward catgirl. Narkissa set aside her axe and plank and got up to help the fallen girl.

“Anyway, are you alright? You look miserable.”

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

<Snipped quote>

So is love. If it's the oldest profession, was it Aureia's first job?

@Raineh Daze

My, but that's beneath the dignity of a goddess~

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Didn't want Aureia to be left out of the fight, so I made an extra, small post! Hope y'all don't mind.

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Aureia, of gold, commerce, wealth,

and the far less important, trivial aspects of travel and luck

Ah, there it was, the response from the two gods she anticipated. With the obvious displeasure the god of the sun had been nursing going into this engagement, Aureia would have expected no quarter from O’Menus after even the slightest of slights, let alone the blasphemy the arrogant mortal had levied to their faces. The sun god had been grating on her ever since their awakening with his own arrogance, but she wouldn’t interfere with his justifiable bloodlust, especially when the goddess of judgement jumped into the fray and did her thing.

Aureia’s little proposal had always been nothing more but polite theater. “Ahaha… well, the god of the sun and the goddess of judgment have spoken. Offer’s canceled,” she shrugged, as the two gods jumped forward from her flanks. The innocent smile on her face hardened. Not to be left out of the inevitable melee, with some panache, she gave her umbrella-turned-weapon a twirl, shooting forward into the fray. She was just in time to fight alongside Ashte, it seemed.

However, her annoyance flared up when she realized the sun god snatched up the fallen knight’s blade. It was shiny and looked expensive, she wanted that for herself, dammit!

Clicking her tongue, she took out her anger on the nearest soldier. Following the goddess of war’s example, she shielded herself from the projectiles of the future-weapons as they came. Snapping open her parasol, the divine fabric ate up the strange arrows before Aureia snapped it back, slashing with it like a sword to cut into the man. She then moved to accompany Alasayana in her judgment against the remaining peons.

It was never Aureia’s style to directly punish mortals.

After all, war was bad for business.

Yet war was also good for business.

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Aureia, of gold, commerce, wealth,

and the far less important, trivial aspects of travel and luck

The door at the top of the staircase was a very sturdy looking barrier. The fact that it had been dented meant that whatever the mortals were using to try and breach it was a very powerful weapon, indeed. More intriguing, though, was the way the doors slid open as she approached it, but even that became of little interest compared to what the open door revealed.

Like the mortals before her, Aureia had to take a pause to take in the enormity of the scene in front of her. Her eyes narrowed as she observed the blood and gore, the number of dead and living, and their equipment. It seemed, even ten thousand years later, there would always be armor and swords, however unusual. The strange tube-like devices in their hands were another thing entirely, though. They had been shooting volleys at the door—where were the siege engines that could do damage to such a strong door? It was entirely possible that what they wielded were strange staves, and they had been firing volleys of spells at the door, though if that were the case, then she must be very weak indeed, if she couldn’t detect the magic.

Her eyes drifted to the carnage on the ground. A lopsided battle and a heroic stand had occurred here. In the past, the knowledge of such parties would have been trivial to her, but here, she only had her eyes to work with—who are these two parties of mortals, and more importantly, which group was affiliated with the priestess or had otherwise summoned the gods? By color palette alone, she had to assume the white-clad priestess was more likely to be familiar with the fallen knight than the crimson-armored soldiers.

As the patron of commerce, though, she knew better than to assume, and instead contented herself for the moment to observe the exchange between the commander and his subordinate, finding it amusing.

She took the time to pick her own brain on how she’d introduce herself, vocalizing her thoughts at the same time. “Hmm… what should I say? It’s been ten thousand years. Maybe something quick, since there’s so many people. Maybe ‘Hello, mortal’? But that’s so uninspired,” she muttered, before realizing she was being addressed, and rudely, at that. “Oh. Ahem. Greetings, mortal. Oh. Oh my, oh dear. You mortals can’t be serious. You wouldn’t mind repeating that again, would you?” Fake friendliness filled the tone of her voice as she processed the gall of the man’s statement. She’d give him the benefit of the doubt, it was ten thousand years and all, maybe it was some strange slang, because she was pretty sure the man had just tried to order around the divine under the authority of some mortal pretty boy. A pretty bad first impression, all things considered. Surely they weren’t…?

Oh, they were doubling down. Aureia had been in a good mood from being reawakened, but threatening her and insulting a fellow goddess –one that she respected-- in such an impudent way was a very effective way to ruin that.

“I am Aureia, goddess of wealth and commerce. And travel and luck, but that is far less important. That ‘beastkin’ you see there is the Goddess of Hunting and Judgment. By what insolence do you and your ‘holy’ emperor presume to make a mockery of the divine and order us around?” She shifted her umbrella forwards, pointing it directly at the face of the red armored commander. It had taken on a dangerous appearance; the tip had morphed into a golden spike, and a single spoke along the edge had transformed into a long, thin razor along the length of the umbrella.

She gave them a polite smile. Still riding some of her good mood, she gave them one last chance. She doubted the rest of her fellow gods would be as forgiving and wait for their response, but whatever.

“How about I offer a counter proposal? Surrender and submit to our judgment, or die.”