Drifting Pollen
Rezod92
Izurich
Lexisheeps
xxjessicaxx
Timemaster
Eviledd1984
pkken
VitaVitaAR
They had done it. At long last, the raid of the syk pyres was completed and the Alma were free to collect the souls of the dead. Now there were but two matters remaining before it became time to address the consequences of this.
The first was unloading the vast haul of Soul Crystals they had liberated from the sky pyres. A rather arduous process, as the secluded entrance to the vault of souls did not have the most convenient loading bay for such a massive influx of souls. The great armor of Luis drifted empty above the entrance, to and from which a stream of alma and gusts flew. Up on its back the armor’s own curators began the long process of extracting the souls from the many armored tombs and then carried them outside to be collected and carried down to the vault’s own curators, who then took them down into the vault.
Acseal had also descended into the vault to see for herself the place where souls would be stored, while Luis had flown off to engage in some well earned R&R, which involved a bit of swimming and some exploration of the ecosystem Kalmar had created on and around the north of Kalgrun. The great whale was not entirely free from his responsibility however, as he ended up having to explain the broadcast to a bunch of orcas and narwhals he ended up hanging out with.
“What is fire and burning” was a pretty common one that took an awful long time to explain to the ocean dwellers.
This left Azura by herself as she planned how to protect the north. Defence wise she had already erected the walls of her fortress. A circular ring of mountains surrounded the massive vertical peak that sata above the vault, and atop this peak was the sky bastion, which acted both as a fortified keep and, hopefully, as a decoy for the vault. However, the walls sat unmanned and the gates of the castle unguarded. In that state they did not serve their purpose at all, as Ashala had so perfectly demonstrated all those years ago.
The Alma, empowered now with laser weaponry, where a good first step but they had a task that required them to go out into the world and would not make for an effective permanent garrison. She also had the Titan of Winds, but it alone could not guard the entire length of the wall.
She decided to start simply. The titan was an awesome beast, and it atmospheric control was a perfect tool for protecting a set location, so why not make more? Three shards of luft stone she plucked from the titan’s great form, and from these shards she grew three copies of the massive construct, capable of working in unison with their progenitor to command all the air in and around the tiny island.
“I together dub you the four winds,” She told them “may you stand firm against the forces of death and may your power sweep away all who dare come to the place with evil in their hearts!”
”It shall be so.” replied the 4 titans in perfect unison.
“Now sentinels, to your posts!” Azura commanded. As she instructed the titans moved apart, each drifting towards a tall mountain peak situated 90 degrees apart on the circular mountain. They touched down upon the mountain tops, crossed the massive cressend staff across their chests, and begin their watch. Their singular bright glowing eyes gazed out across the icy expanse that separated the twilight isle from the rest of the world, searching for intruders. To aid them Azura created a retinue of gusts to support each titan. These swarms of wind elementals would lay dormant, their solid stone parts piled atop their gemstone cores, until their Titan awoke their winds once more and called them to muster.
With watchers set atop the walls Azura ascended to the sky bastion. Like the sky pyres her own sphere was wrapped its way around galbar and had many entrances that lay open and unguarded. Should her emaines, whoever they might end up being, find their way inside the Blue they would have the ability to simply bypass the titan guarded walls. Taking some inspiration from the dragons found on the Foot she created sky serpents, massive beasts that where something of a cross between a snake and a mosasaurus, who drifted through the blue in the same way that Sky slugs and Luis did, borne aloft by on bones of luft-stone. With their jaws filed with serrated teeth they would tear apart those who invaded her skies. She also wanted to make it so they could also be summoned down from the blue to aid her wherever she or her companions might need aid. In-order to facilitate this she taught them a simplified form of the verse, the music she used to create, so that they could be commanded by it, either by her, Luis or the Alma. Perhaps, she thought, she could also teach this technique to others, like Asceal, or her children or even mortals?
She nodded to herself, and decided that that was a good plan. The Alma needed to be carefully controlled so that they stayed on mission, but the weapons and tools she made now? They could serve a wider purpose, to be shared with others to let them make her strength their own. Letting her delegate while also avoid hoarding all the divine power to herself.
The walls where manned, the skies patrolled. Azura felt a certain amount of relief over take her, that at long last there was no more that urgently needed to be done. Certainly there where tasks hse need to attend to, Karthos’s system needed a replacement and there were no doubt many other problems she could aid in solving if she went looking for them. But she decided she could afford to take a break after all she had been through, if only for a moment. As she watched the great sky serpents and the fluttering sky slugs an itch that she had been suppressing since she found out about the sky pyres forced itself to be noticed and demanded scratching. She wanted to create again, to craft and mold things into being to fulfil a purpose not directly related to solving the soul problem.
Energised, she tried making something for fun, spinning and weaving her power as she pulled pull inspiration from her muse, to create the perfect representation of her newly found creative freedom.
Power, magic, and music flowed together, creating a perfect symphony so beautiful it could make the most jaded listener cry until finally it made. It made!
A floating Tuna. no feather wings or frills or decorations of any kind. Just a tuna that gave zero shits about gravity.
“Glub” said the tuna, before swimming off into the Blue to go hunt sky slugs.
“Well then... That was silly. Let’s try again!”
And try again she did, to greater success. She made long necked fish-hunters, tusked manta rays that grazed upon the Blue’s now flourishing rain soaked greenery, a vicious little carrion eating trilobite and horse sized shark dragons that lurked in temples and around mountains. Then she stopped, not wanting to get quite so carried away with this. It had been an enjoyable creative outburst, but perhaps it would be best to use her power more productively. The last thing she did was dubb the Class of flying creatures ‘Tonnikala’, before descending back down to the twilight isle.
There Azura returned to the vault, checking that unleading was still going smoothly. They where, but it made her realise that there was one place left unguarded and that was the vault itself, along with the surrounding landscape. Aerial dominance might be incredibly useful, but she could perhaps do with some foot soldiers as well.
Taking into account what she had set into motion with the Tonnikala she decided that maybe she could make something that anyone could use if properly taught. And so she sang into being songs, and bound to the songs ideas, ideas of how to form Luftstone from air, to craft it into constructs and fill them with music. She knew that these creatures might be used against mortals who fought for her foes or simply wandered too close to the vault, and so she gave them the power to be able to affect their foe’s emotions to cause sadness, fear and terror with their touch or songs in order to drive away mortals without causing them harm.
To balance these negative emotions she taught them to invigorate their allies in order to lift their spirits and bring them hope and instill courage, determination and focus.
The first she made was a small one, a humanoid that was about half the height of a Selke. Most of its form was made of a blue light, the verse made into a semi solid mass that was given vague form by a heavier, semi metallic, black luft stone that, while its mass did not feel gravity as much as it should, was still pulling the creation down to the ground. Tendrils of blue verse formed its hand and legs, which were tipped with long claws. It’s face was a solid helmet/mask with holes that formed the impression of an eye hole. A long wispy tail of the verse flowed out from behind the helmet, fluttering in a non-existent breeze.
It stood before her in animated idleness, moving its body to the beat of an unheard song. She formed a small target dummy for it to practice on. The creature leapt at it, slashing at it and leaving deep gorge marks with its claws. Then it backed off, pointed its spread out fingers at the target and made them extend, wrapping the now tentacle like digits around the dummy and sending a pulse of emotional energy into it. Then it backed off and became idle again.
“Hmmm.” a gust of wind pushed the construct, causing it to stumble and its light to flicker erratically for a few moments “hmmm. Not very sturdy are you?”
She tried again, and this time formed an equally small one with a green body. It’s limbs were made of stone rather than light, and it held a small flute it its hands. This one danced around the dummy, playing an invigorating tune, before using the flute like a Blowgun to shoot a compressed wind shot at it that struck with the force of a punch. This one was also not particularly sturdy, though it was better than the last.
Purple next. It formed a body shaped like a suit of armor with only a few gaps visible where it’s verse was visible. It marched up to the dummy and struck it with sword it had inplace of a hand. It had a great deal of difficulty attempting to disable it nonlethal, eventually using its shield to pin it against a wall. It was much sturdier, but the cracks proved to be a vulnerability and it was slow to respond and less creative than the others.
Each construct was harder to form, and required a more complex song to form, to the point where Azura now had to use several of the green ones to assist in producing the finale. It was almost human in body structure, though it still had a mask in place of a face. Red Verse flowed out from behind it’s head and nowhere else. Unfortunately it seemed to be almost deaf and had difficulty performing complex actions until azura laid them out in detail. It performed exquisitely then, acting with the grace of a ballerina and speed of a martial artist as it used CQC to take down the dummy, but Azura had to sing loudly at it the whole time while spelling every action out in detail.
“ok. I think that is enough. A fully enclosed one would take far too much effort and be useless anyway.” Azura said finally. The first three all had their merits, the fourth she’d need to think about. Regardless, had what she needed
She then proceeded to make 5 armies of the blue, green and purple constructs. Some were ordered into the vault as guardians, where they would stay to subdue those who entered without permission and to raise the alarm and shoot to kill if this did not work. Others were sent to the walls, where the Titans could command them with their music playing bodies.
This left azura alone again, save for the red one.
“hmmm. I think I have an idea of what to do with you.” she told it, before plucking it from the earth and soaring back up to the sky bastion.
