Azura’s rescue attempt was only momentarily successful before she too became a victim of the turbulent birthing of gods as a auburn haired firebrand fell from the heavens like a meteorite to impact right next to the bird. The ground cracked asunder at her coming, startling and destabilizing Azura causing her to topple over with a squawk, losing chopstick eyes in the process. Landing gracelessly on her side she was left stund there for a moment, staring wittlessly at the ceiling, before rolling over away from chopsticks and Seihdhara, talons briefly raised in the air as a result, to right herself a little way away from the danger, having completed a barrel roll in the process.
Her head snapped round to look at who had hurt her and how chopstick eyes was doing, only to see the former helping the latter up who subsequently ended up cussing up a storm. Any anger of resentment was quickly relinquished as Azura quickly found the humor in the situation, letting out a short laugh as a result, for despite her prodigious size she had fallen foul to the same fate she had attempted to save chopstick eyes from.
Sadly the fun did not last long as Seihdhara decided to hurl stones and insults at the architect, which ended poorly, to say the least. The subsequent horrific act by their eldritch lord greatly disturbed Azura. The imprisonment may have only lasted a scant few moments but it left a lasting impression on Azura even as its intended target brushed it off like it was nothing. While Azura was reminded what fear felt like the titan of fire had no such reservations, and more or less picked up where Seihdhara had left off. He however was given answers by the water given life, who encouraged her fellows to leave this place and begin their assigned task.
Azura was inclined to agree with her. She could do with some air, the room and its increasing number of residents where making her feel increasingly claustrophobic. She also needed space to contemplate the situation she had been reborn into: the architect had shown themselves to be a cruel, powerful and aloof master and that made them a problem, one who’s solution she needed time to derive.
”I’m out of here. See you all on Galbar.”
She told those that remained before she followed the lead of some of the others, launching herself the small distance between the ground and the nearest crystal, claws gripping her new perch as she urged it to take her away from this place. Obey it did, rushing to free her from the architects palace and sending her hurtling towards one of the spheres that drifted just above galbar. Azura could not help but enjoy the ride, and by the time the crystal plunged into the sphere itself her mood had improved significantly. Her mount eventual came to a halt in the featureless dark void and Azura was left atop it to contemplating the possibilities, right up until the point that her perch ran out of power and dropped like a stone. She gave a shriek of surprise as it began to drag her after it, letting go quickly after she released what was going on.
”Hay. No! don’t do that.” She ordered it while flapping wildly to halt her decent. At her command stone structures burst from the crystal, rapidly melding together as they grew into a massive temple that defied gravity atop which the parrot landed. A perch fit for a goddess. With space and time to think acquired she put her noggin to work on what to do with this place She’d be calling home.
one sphere renovating montage later
The black void had been painted Blue and a flat prevailing light suffused the entire place. The sphere had grown as the goddess had flown to its edges and them thrown herself against them, dragging and stretching it till it had no end and instead wrapped entirely around Galbar. This space was now littered with floating temples that she had used to pause and rest, the later ones had various mechanism to have them move on their own while she rested and now drifted onwards on their course even after she had stopped using them. Below Galbar was painted on the lower edge of the sphere, flat like a map and hazly like a mirage it was nonetheless the world Architect had created, contorted such that she could see every part of it. She had examined every inch of it from above by this point and it was, in a word, lacking. A lifeless ocean speckled with dull stone islands. It was dark and, even though she could see regardless thanks to her godhood, that was still a rather sad state of affairs. One that the gods would need to rectify.
Azura launched herself from her final perch, wrapping the light she had infused the Sphere with around her as she plunges to Galbar. She punches through the bottom of the sphere, causing ripples to ebb out across the mirage, and emerges into the skies of Galbar that is finally blessed by light from her now softly self illuminating feathers. A smudge of blue exploded across the sky from her entry point, briefly revealing the Blue and its temples to any below, which then shrunk as Azura descends towards one of the few islands found in the endless sea. Light had come to Galbar, or at least to a very small patch of it, and the arrival of the Wind goddess also stirred the stagnant air of the planet as wind from both her wings and the temples above began to force motion and life into the dead atmosphere. She after performing a lazy looping decent looking for a landing site until she eventually selected on a small craggy hilltop overlooking the rest of the island and the vast sea. Vast talons griped this stone outcrop, bringing her to a stop. Folding her wings to rest comfortable at her side the goddess took everything in with her no binocular vision.
”Hmmm. How to begin.”
Starting points. 20FP, 5 MP
Azura gets wrecked, but brushes it off
She decides the architect is bad
Azura leaves the party
Azura makes her sphere, sans any life. 8FP Its massive, but mostly empty.
2 MP for an aura, one that causes her feathers to softly illuminates a relatively large area around her as if it was day there, and brings blue skies when she flies through the air.
Azura arrives, bringing light and air to the stuffy old place, before landing one one of the small islands to do some planning.
@Lmpkio google reverse image search has provides: https://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/Shaman+Bone+Blade relevant part "Used to turn enemies hostile towards other enemies" presumably the dungeon hero were more like rabbid Luigi before stab stabs with the spinal fluid knife.
Just as the evening was setting in an antique and haphazardly maintained royalist spaceforce cargo hauler came in for landing in one of the spaceports on the city's outskirts. Not made for planetary landings, the steam powered ship creaked and groaned in protest as it was gingerly set down by its pilot. Standing just behind that pilot was the captain of the ship, Piper Faraday.
“An excellent landing Wonkey”
“Thank you Captain. I’ll be honest t’was a bit touch and go. Never had a chance to land on a planet before af’er all. You make sure to tell me all about what it's like down there when you get back, ya hear” responded the pilot, who’s legless body was welded to a chair dangling before the wheel of the ship.
“I’ll do just that, so don’t you worry” she assured him
Piper bade farewell to wonky and climbed down the ladder at the far end of the bridge that lead to the level that featured the crew quarters and main airlock. There the rest of the small ships crew was gathered.
“Alright gentlemen, the rest of you get shore leave while I go deal with this council business.” she addressed them, referring to the message they had received earlier that day. “Enjoy yourselves, but please, try not to start any trouble” With that said she opened up the hatch leading to the outside and stepped out into platform city, a chorus of aye ayes following her followed by the resuming of discussion of plans that would definitely get the bot’s into trouble, just as the Captain knew they would.
After a brief walk through the strange city the she arrived at Tetris castle. Piper wasn’t one for architecture, but she had to admit the castle was impressive, dwarfing even the royal palace/space station of the red queen that she and her crew had stormed some time ago. Hopefully this once contained no ancient threats to accidentally unleash. She was lead through the grand halls by a small creature of some kind that seemed to be wearing a green mophead as a hat. She liked its style.
After receiving something called a vaccine from one of the fleshy scientists who specialised in robots Piper joined the others for their briefing. What she heard left her somewhat pensive. It was clear that the council had very little information for them to go on because they were the ones who where going to be doing the scouting into the unknown to rectify that situation. This wasn't her first time going into a fight with an ancient evil however, the hive mind Vectron that had slept behind the moon certainly fell into that category, so hopefully that would prepare her for the trials to come. She was also a little disappointed to have not been chosen as a leader but if the the green shelled creature’s introduction was anything to go by, then a lot of them where leaders and strategists back home.
“Don’t worry about it Bently. Heists are definitely my style. Smugglings my trade but its my crew’s scraping of undead pirates, voltbots and the royal space force that make us renowned back home. So if you need any gunslinging done” The steam bot patted her belt of antique firearms with her left hand “I’m your gal”
Once everyone was doen chatting Piper made her way through the portal to the forbidden lands, wondering briefly why they were called that before the place came into view. The temple and great bridge might have been impressive to the space farer mear hours ago, but they were mostly comparable to the architecture of platform city and the tetris castle. The vast landscape surrounding them however was a sight to behold. Piper, who had grown up eching out a living on and around the shattered and fragmented remains of steamworld, wasn't sure she had ever seen so much land all in one piece before. While the bot marveled at the sight of it all something had clearly spooked Bentley, and his warning brought her focus sharply back to the mission.
“mmm. Sure is peaceful looking for a place that's supposed to have an ancient evil lurking around” she commented, drawing her blacksmith sniper from its holster before detaching the scope and it to take a closer look at the temple and surrounding landscape without pointing a gun around.
Up and away it had been drawn, past the clouds, past the sky, past the stars, past the black of the void itself and into what lay beyond. Into chaos and madness so all encompassing that it looped back around into being stagnant. Un-interesting. Mundane. Familiar. Boring. Its travel barely affected the everythingness. It had journeyed for an eternity to get there and perhaps had traveled several more since. Time. Distance. Direction. All had lost their meaning. The spirit had a vague memory of home, of blue skies and company. Perhaps that was where it was going. Or where it had come from. The spirit did not think of such things. It did not think at all. It had long since exhausted the possibilities of such an exercise.
'Open.'
Change. A hole opened into a realm that began to suck souls into it. Innumerable souls where drawn in by the vortex, passively accepting their fate. Some answered the call dutifully. Some like the spirit fought to reach it. It’s mind groggily awakening to be gripped by simple purpose: Escape.
The spirit burst into the new reality along with countless others just in the nick of time, their entrance way sealed almost as soon as it had opened. The spirit revealed in a few scant moments of unabashed joy that were swiftly swept away along with most of the souls it had arrived with. This realm had a master and it imposed its will and knowledge upon the spirit. Of purpose. Of duty. Of the names and faces of its fellows. Chains and burdens that weight upon the spirit, and yet they could not overcome the elation at the spark of life it felt once more. Above those earthbound a wind whipped up into a storm, air from all corners of the room being drawn towards a single point where it spiraled and swirled for several moments before bursting outwards once more, a shockwave and a squak announcing the spirit’s rebirth. Above the assembly a macaw hovered, one titanic in scale and resplendent of feather, and her name was Azura. The god’s plumage reflected the light of those gods who produced it, taking their singular shades and reflecting all the colors of the rainbow across the room.
Feeling as though her thoughts were racing at a thousand miles per hour Azura glanced too and fro, trying to take in everything and everyone. Scattered among the giant crystals where the most interesting things where found, her fellow gods. Gargantuan be-tentacled monsters, titans in the shapes of men and smaller beings skulking among the others or caught helpless in the face of the chaos caused by the waking of those greater than themselves. One was faring particularly poorly, a human sized and shaped figure with sticks in place of their eyes was sent stumbling to and fro and was eventually swept away by a wave of water caused by the laughter of one of the titans. Feeling a pang of pity for the creature the rainbow bird swooped down from her loft observation point to land in the path of the wave. Setting herself perpendicular to the incoming wave crouched down so that her back was angled towards it. When it hit her the wave washed over her and deposited the blind person on her back, just in between her wings, her soft feathers making the impact rather painless.
”I have you small friend. Are you alright?” she asked, here voice was loud, though it not quite so loud as to be shouting, and she spoke in a kind of sing song manner. The parrot righted themselves as they spoke, trying to prevent Chopstick Eyes from falling back into the water, her head turning so that one of her large eyes could see her new passenger. The event had left the parrot dripping wet, but this seemed to do little to affect her radiant appearance, the small water droplet merely adding to her reflective splendidness.
Made mainly for habit forming purposes Azura arrives Azura attempts to stop Chopstick Eye’s chain of misfortune.
Bowser's simple plan ended up going perfectly as his brawn and the Courier's brain combined to create chaos within the enemy ranks that left the bots wide open to a attack by the rest of the team. They pounced on the opportunity and their combined might scraping every last robot with relative ease. They were so efficient that bowser didn't even have to retreat very far before the firepower chasing him was silenced, a which point he turned and stomped back up the hill. The king took a moment to scoop up all the slightly sickly looking robot souls, transporting them by piling them up between his crossed arms and his belly, before returning down to the pit-stop proper, at which point he dumped them all unceremoniously into the spiritual mess they had made there so that everyone could prouse all of the loot they had acquired at their leisure. By the time he had done this it was likely the crossroads group where either dead or had been saved, so he paid them little mind. For himself the king initially tested out crushing an Eradicator, wondering what affect the robots and how it would affect the quality of the equipment they produced when compared to the rabbids. Then he turned his attention to the rest of the group.
“YOU GOT MY HAT BACK. AND KIRBY’S SAFE. GOOD JOB” The king congratulated Ratchet. The rabbids were lucky they had skuled off before he returned or the king would have followed up on his implied death threat. As it was the day as theirs and kirby was back among them once more. However, it seemed that until the kirbster was up and about again they’d need to pay closer attention to him than they had in their first fight. “HMMM. MAYBE THAT STRIKER THING THE HOODED GUY MENTIONED” the king pondered loudly before fishing the jar of hammer bro souls out of a pocket and emptying the pair into a claw. “ALRIGHT YOU LAZY GOONS” the king yelled at the two sprites “IT’S TIME TO QUIT FREELOADING, SO GET UP AND SERVE YOUR KING!” he ordered them, focusing his attention squarely on the pair, his face scrunching up in concentration as he did so, to try and form a connection.
(M)(E)Damage: + 1 (M)(E)Defense: + 2 Dexterity: + 2 General Ability: Nature form: after singing a tune Naija transforms into a defensive form. Her cape transforms into one woven with leaves and featuring a coif that covers her neck and head. Small bits of wooden armor decorate her forearms, lower legs and shoulders. Her skin loses its slight blue tint going fully green and her belly is marked with a swirling tattoo. The cape part of this form can be used to gran some basic protection, primarily too nature attacks. She can also produce seeds from it that can be thrown. Small seeds will produce only rapidly growing flowers and other small pants however if she charges the seed she can cause it to spround a massive Thorny cactus that grows with such speed that it will launch anyone/thing in the path of its sudden growth skywards. These cactuses can then be used as cover or be used to restrict the movement of enemies.
In the early morning after the attack, as part of the decision had been underway in the lab where Guile had been healing, Dr light had offhandedly mentioned that Mario could be resurrected during an explanation of how pixels worked. Naija, who had not known of this possibility, had more or less assaulted the good doctor while demanding answers, answers she had received once she had been subsequently calmed and detached from the poor man’s lab coat. It seemed that there existed certain items in some of the universe beyond her own that could bring back the dead, including one that she had on her person: the Phoenix Down. The short lived bubble of hope this gave her that she would soon be able to undo her failure burst shortly afterwards when she met up with the returning Kirby and found out they had not been able to retrieve the hero’s soul. Her wings were returned to her as had been asked, but the infected king Dedede had apparently given Mario’s hat to a shadowy figure who had spirited it away long before the team would even have had a chance to intervene and neither they nor Dedede knew not where the receiver of the soul had gone off to after claiming their prize.
Finding herself emotionally stuck in wanting to both cry her heart out while simultaneously murdering the King she had quickly remove herself from the castle to avoid such a disastrous outburst. The rest of the day had been spent as productively as she could manage. She had wandered the gardens outside Tetris castle to try and clear her head and in the process and rediscovered her nature form. She then spent some time in mama’s kitchen helping out during the busy lunch period while doing a bit of solo cooking on the side to replace the magical dishes she had used the previous day to fight in the smash arena and prevent Guile from dying to the annihilation sword wound. She finally visited the Wikia library during the afternoon proper and there, with the help of the friendly wizened scholar who ran the place named Deckard Cain, had learned a little more about this strange world she had found herself in. As evening was approaching duty called however and so the fish lady bid farewell to the storyteller and returned to the castle, her mental and emotional state perhaps the most stable they had been since she escaped her mother’s clutches using the Lakitu’s letter.
After returning to the castle Naija was lead through its halls to the Ragnarok’s hanger by a lemming, and then joined the others to receive their briefing, sitting on the floor to do so while conspicuously wearing Fox’s old jacket over her usual swimwear and stolen belt. As per usual a lot of it went right over her head, particularly the rundown of the ships specs. A scant few hours of study had not been enough it seemed, but they did help a little, particularly because the ship’s attack on the castle was all anyone could talk about out in the city and as a result she had picked up some of the basic nomenclature surrounding such things. Naija subsequently trimmed the briefing down in her mind into a simplified priority list:
1. Get Mario’s soul 2. Don’t get stabbed by the annihilator sword 3. Get/destroy the annihilator sword 4. Get/destroy the corruption bag 5. Capture/Kill everyone inside 6. Loot ship for souvenirs 7. Get ship? 8. Destroy core
The hows where not exactly something Naija focused very much on as she had more or less abstracted the ship into a dungeon with puzzles, enemies and bosses that could be dealt with when they were come across. This was primarily because she was, thankfully, not assigned a leadership role this time. Once the briefing was over the hero's headed for the ship dragon shaped ship. As she traveled towards its boarding ramp, her hip wings hovering her upright just a few cm from the floor, the fish girl took a few moments to take stock of the team, both present and absent.
Fox she knew best, they had fought side by side in the squad she had lead on the first mission, the one in which they, in which she, had lost Mario. Their squad leader was absent however, but she hoped for all their sakes that he would do a better at the job than she had. She recognized Slayer, he’d been on that first mission in a different squad and the two had spoken during Mario’s funeral but that was about the limit of their interactions. The pink blobby Kirby she knew from the events of this morning, though saying she had spoken with the fellow would be a sketch with their inability/refusal to speak English. Cloud and Alicia she had seen before and after the dreamland mission but that was all. King Dedede she did not trust one bit, even if he was now corruption free. Their last teammate she had not seen before however. A dark haired human with dark clothes colored only by a few splashes of red.
After thinking for a few moments she decided it would be wise to get introductions in order. The woman fluttered to the head of the group and then turned to face them, meaning that she ended up flying backwards. Making sure she was kept herself at head height, as per some previous advice she had gotten from Slayer, she attempted to inject some conversation into the proceedings.
“So...” she began, stumbled at the starting block momentarily before continuing “If we’re going to be fighting together we should get to know each other a bit, right?” before anyone could respond to her accidental seeking of validation she soldiered on “I’m Naija. I’m going to make sure you all get in and out in one piece this time. I’ve got a few healing items for light injuries and if your get really hurt I’ll try to get you back to the ship as fast as possible. I’ll probably also be one of the people making sure we get in past the bats.” Naija explained before continuing “Now I’ve met most of you, briefly at least, and I’ve been on a team with Fox. He’ll make a good leader, I think. But I don't think we’ve met before?” She directed this last part at Akira, turning to face him specifically and smiling politely at the teen before asking him.
“What’s your name?”
Just as she did so the spikes of her winged heels clicked against the boarding ramp itself, which the woman took as her que to stop heading up the group. She moved off a little to one side to fly up the ramp beside those ascending it, keeping her focus on Akira as she pulled off this little maneuver in an attempt to avoid coming across as rude.
In my opinion the detrimental effects of a lack of soul juice on the living, namely sickness, weakness etc. is reason enough for Katharsos's soul recycling plant, as dust is needed for life to thrive on Galbar. Removal of soul decay produces a conflict with sides: the selfish old dead, the suffering living and diminished young dead. Burning oneself becomes a selfless act rather than an unfortunate inevitability, Gods can chose sides, have competing solutions to the problem or can simply be apathetic to the entire affair etc. In contrast to this Soul decay as an isolated problem away from the soul crisis only really has two solutions, keep mercy killing or stop soul decay.
With the amount of detractors soul decay has atm it's likely that we/they will want to take actions to prevent soul decay pretty early on IC anyway if it remains a feature. How and why this is done and by whom could be interesting questions to answer but overall the entire affair is mostly a forgone concision as nobody but demons and death benefit from preventing the cure. I also feel like the answers to the questions are mostly answered by starting parameters as any god who cares about mortals is going to have to face this eventually. The only real thing standing in the way of the cure is the MP hit that the god/group who solve the problem will take and the subsequent burden of guilt for any disasters that result from the cure. I feel that the combined cost and inevitability of solving soul decay would be detrimental to the mustering of motivation to write it in the first place. So it could end up just sitting ignored in a corner with no one wanting to deal with it while the question of "why are none of the gods doing anything about this" and "why aren't mortals asking for something to be done about this" endlessly nag at them. I could be wrong about that ofc, maybe someone is hyped to cure soul decay, hell maybe I'll end up begin that person, or maybe some has a god willing to die on soul decay's hill which will add conflict, but that is my prediction based on my limited rp experience.
In summary, soul decay's days are likely numbered and the decision that I feel needs to be made is do we want to end it now, or do we want to see it's death play out IC?
I think your going to have to go and write up exactly what: Function souls perform in making something alive which would normally be done by meat irl How those functions degrade due to soul decay How demons and the like are affected by not having souls, tying this too the above to points Separate the soul system explanation from Katharsos's solution to the problems the above cause
Level 1 EXP: //////////////////// (11/20) Location: Ancient Gardens wordcount: 863
Success! The kings intervention gave his allies an opening to deal with the kirby-napper as the hat was dislodged from the Smasher’s head and moments later a well placed shot, on that narrowly avoided striking either of the other large targets in the melee, reduced it to ashes. As he recovered from his clash with the now defeated smasher the king glanced first to his hat, relieved that Kirby was in fact inside it. A glance in the opposite direction, prompted by Blazermate, revealed less fortuitous news, namely a final set of robotic opposition. The king promptly realized that his initial analysis of the forces in the junkyard had been incredibly wrong. The robots were in fact working together, omnic shield bots lining up to protect a set of engi bots that where rapidly assembling smaller versions of one of the turrets guarding the previously seen distant menacing figure who they themselves resembled. The Rabbids meanwhile where cowering before him, as they well should, but they and kirby where both exposed to fire, and the king was unsure as to the odds of him successfully extracting the pink puffball from their and the bot’s line of fire. Unable to formulate any particularly good/complex plan under pressure the king fell back on two old faithful problem slivers. Intimidation and aggression.
“PROTECT MY HAT AND YOU GET TO LIVE” he roared at the Rabbids before charging up the hill at the bot’s rapidly forming entrenched position, steel toed boots pounding across the asphalt of the pit stop. though they had been temporarily stalled by the hack cannon fire soon began to pour down from the omics as they attempted to slow the charging juggernaut's advance. The king grunted in pain as the first volley of shells struck him, the explosions searing body and face guarding hand. Bowser was slowed slightly by this volley, and if they were capable of emotion the bot’s might have been heartened by this, along with the knowledge that their elevated position and the king’s weight might make ascending the junkpile under fire next to impossible. Sadly for them when he reached the foot of their fortification the lizard tyrant did not climb but instead leaped high into the air over the second wave of cannonfire before crashing down halfway up the hill-side. Where his foot impacted there was an almighty crunch as his wight crumpled metal like paper along with an electrical zapping sound as a slow moving ring shaped shockwave emanated from the impact sight. Right after the king threw the remains of the warrior car straight at the shield wall, the impact with the barriers throwing off the aim of the closest bots. Before he could lose footing due to a junk avalanche or the bots could work out how dangerous the energy shock wave the king cleared the rest of the way up the hill with a second leap, arriving right as the sentries were completed. They immediately locked onto the incoming colossus but their knock-back effect was not enough to halt his impact in the middle of their formation.
Those caught at his immediate landing sight where crushed by his bulk, those right next to it found out what the energy ring did as a second ring emanated from his new landing site, striking a small number the nearby engineer bots. The struck targets convulsed wildly as the electrical ring zapped them before moving on, passing though the foes as if they where not there. The slow speed of the ring meant that those further away had plenty of time to respond after seeing the fate of their comrades, and the remainder of the bots mostly managed to make a short hop over the shock wave. The sentries however where unable to do this and one by one their gun’s when silent as the ring struck them. The omnics at the front then had to deal with the initial shockwave, taht ws only now cresting the top of the hill, and the second one almost simultaneously and a number of them were paralyzed. Those that were not had their formation broken by needing to turn to keep track of the attack on their rear, shields turned inwards or unaligned as they tried to watch their back and block the front-line simultaneously.
The King did not stand idle as his impacts rocked the bot’s world and a number of bots and disable sentries were engulfed in flame as he took advantage of the chaos he had created. However though he had created an opening and disrupted their formation their focus was now on him and Bowser was not in the best of shape thanks to the beating they had leveled against him during his change. Pistol and shotgun fire from the engineers joined the cannons, as did the chirping of a few repaired sentries. This firepower drove the king off of the hill, his majesty turning tail and retreating at a right angle to the direction he had come his shelled back protecting his wounded front as he drew their fire, hoping that his disruption of their lines would give his minions all the opening they needed to inflict some serious damage or get to a better position.
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