Mokley

Where the Sky Meets the Mountain

For Nemaisare and me! I have no plotty ideas, at least not much and not yet -- will see what your character does.

Lantern

Uh oh I feel a team rivalry brewing. Ha!

Is anyone waiting on me? I don't think anyone's waiting on me -- I'm waiting for the rest of the mean green team to post before I respond to the cocoon-coffin.

Lantern

Jedly said
The one I'm writing. Well. Written. Just waiting for the last teammate to post.

Ooohh! Hmmmm well you're certainly welcome to try and open it however you like, but I think I did mention that it's locked. ;)

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Jedly, I'm not sure I follow? Do you mean in your latest post or in the one you're writing?

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I'll see if I can edit and clarify it in my post too!

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Hey drewccapp, just to clarify, the egg is still very much inside the lantern casing. In fact, it would take a great deal of effort to pry it out of the lantern. :)

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Arin said Arin slammed his fist into the trunk.

"SHUT UP! PLEASE! BE QUIET!"

cccrrrrrreeeeeeaaaaaaakkkkk.....

The tree shuddered, and the ticking sputtered.

whirrwhirrwhirr TOCK CLACK whirrrrrr CLACK CLINK whirrrrrrr whirrwhirrwhirr

The leaves above shuddered, branches snapped. The lantern swayed. The owl hooted pompously, spread its great downy wings and soared away over their heads; it stopped to perch on a stone at the edge of the light, and turned to watch with a bored expression.

Hania said A faint screaming was heard, seemingly from a young girl. It grew steadily louder as it's source picked up speed before the air above Anise gave way and the third arrival made herself known.

Hania -- who had until now been unconscious and balanced precariously in the branches of the tree -- fell from her perch when the tree shuddered. She crashed into the lantern first: the thread snapped, and the lantern tumbled down with her and clattered and crashed into the metal platform below, barely missing Randold's head. The glass was cracked, and the green weathered copper was slightly bent -- but it was still glowing a strong blue.

In fact, it wasn't fire at all that gave off the light: lodged tightly inside the glass was something smooth and oblong that glowed brightly from inside -- it looked almost as if it could be an egg, almost the size of a dinner plate, protected by the metal and glass of the lantern as if the lantern had been built around it. A rune was carved delicately into the side of the glowing egg, which was still stuck tightly inside the glass and metal of the lantern. There were no hinges, no doors, and no possible way at all to touch the egg -- let alone take it out of its enclosure -- without destroying the lantern entirely.

Hania, meanwhile, would find that most of her clothing was covered in a sticky, messy, slightly yellowish goo that smelled like rotted flesh. Her robe, as well, was punctured a bit with fang-sized holes -- but she was not injured save by the fall and the points of the warm lantern poking her in the back.

WHIRRRRRRIRRRRRRRIRRRRIRRRRRRRIRRRRR
CLATTERCLACKCLICKHISSSSSSSSSSS

There was a tremendous commotion inside the tree as metal tumbled and clattered inside -- and then everything was quiet.

For a moment there was an eerie stillness. The ticking had stopped. The reach of the lantern's light had been severely diminished as it lay cracked underneath Hania. Something was moving in the forest all around them. A shadow hissed.

The metal platform groaned and shuddered beneath them.

Lantern

Exceptional posts, all of you!

Yandere, I hope you don't mind if I post to provide an explanation as to why you're falling from above. ;)

Edit: Wait, Yandere, did you change Hania's name? I'll use Hania for now but please correct me if I should edit.

Edit again: Edited my post for clarification.

A Cold Wind Blows...

I have to agree that all of these posts and characters are wonderful (and heartbreaking) to read! I do wonder what is up the mountain path though. ;)

In my post I sort of rearranged the order of characters entering/exiting the tavern so it worked a little better in my head, I hope you don't mind!

A Cold Wind Blows...

Chiudka tightened the cloth around her head and tucked in the trailing wisps of hair with shaking fingers. She leaned over an injured youth -- Faina, who always loved her stories -- and stroked the child's pale face while she murmured prayers to the ancestors. But even as she pleaded with the spirits for help, an anger was beginning to knot in her stomach. How was this allowed to happen? Weren't they protected?

A hand rested on her shoulder, and it took Chiudka a moment to realize that Vasily was kneeling beside her. She stared at him, wide-eyed, unsure whether he was a spirit, for she'd assumed in her stricken state that everyone else had perished. As he offered to help she let out a slow breath and nodded, gathering strength from his steady voice, from the fact that he trusted her with this, as no one had truly trusted her before. She thought of Antonina, and she dreaded to ask where the child was -- but then there was a shout outside the door, and he was gone. Soon he might return with more injured. She struggled to move young Faina closer to the fire in the back of the tavern.

At that moment Tjasa burst through the newly unblocked door and Chiudka rose to receive her. "Thank you," she said breathlessly, taking the bag and giving her niece a reassuring kiss on the forehead. The moment the bag's weight fell onto her arm, Chiudka's fear and sorrow were locked tight into the back of her mind. Only the anger and the sense of duty remained, fueled by Vasily's confidence. Her eyes were firm when she looked into Tjasa's face. "Please stoke the fire and boil some water. A little so we'll have it quickly, but we'll need more as the night goes on. Adrian --" She looked up, but Adrian had gone without so much as a glance at the injured around him. The anger boiled into her stomach -- but the final snap was the blubber of sobs from the corner. Over a dog.

"Bogdan." Chiudka reeled on him, standing taller than she had ever seemed before, and her eyes flashed. "Help me move the injured closer to the fire -- take the dead to the side. Move the tables." She didn't care anymore that it wasn't her place to order a man around. It was going to be her way or no way from now on. "I need blankets," she told Bogdan and Tjasa together, even as she leaned over Faina and splashed vodka in her wounds, followed by a thick salve. She opened a bag of herbs from her father's satchel and shoved them into the girl's mouth. "Now chew. It'll help with the pain." Tea would be better, but they needed hot water. She moved to the next, touched him, and discovered that it was only a corpse. She kissed the dead face, murmured a heartfelt prayer and motioned to Bogdan that this one should be moved out of the way. Immediately she was stooped next to another injured one, and pressed her hand into the squelching blood of a deep wound. There was no way she could cure this -- but her eyes were calm as she looked into the dying man's face.

They needed her. They needed her to be calm. Everything was falling apart -- she would be a stone, steadfast and trustworthy for the first time in her life, for them.

And still, the anger boiled.