Mokley

Lantern

YandereNoodle said
Ay Mokley. Ay. Respond to my stuff too. K, love you.

I did! Though it's only a sentence, I didn't quote you though I probably should've. It's your fault the platform is tilting. ;)

Lantern

Hania said Hania beamed with delight at receiving a response from the metal platform. She gave it one last look before running her fingers over the other markings in hopes that she'd continue to make progress. Once she'd run out of grooves to clear out she stood up and gave it a final looking over and nodded, content with how things turned out.

As Hania touched each of the runes it began to sparkle and glow very faintly. The metal platform hummed delicately, while the clinking and clanking beneath them grew just a bit louder.

Randold said Under his breath Randold muttered, perhaps to no one, or perhaps to the owl itself, "You know something don't you? Maybe you could give us a hand..."

The owl shifted and blinked. It turned its head all the way around to stare and blink at Anise, who was hiding behind Randold. It studied her for a long while, silent and thoughtful, as if it were studying her very soul.

Finally, the owl shifted again and looked up at the golden eyes in the darkness -- for those golden eyes stared down at them from a frightening height. Whichever monster they belonged to was at least as tall as an elephant.

Arin said "Who are you?" The boy spoke in a curious tone, intrigued by the pair of eyes he walked along the metal surface with the lantern in hand, approaching the lingering shadows. "Did you bring us here?"

The eyes remained steady, focused intently on Arin and on the lantern. As the light cast upon the figure, a long black muzzle came into view -- a shaggy black pelt, pointed and alerted ears. It was a gigantic black wolf with narrow eyes and sabre fangs, and its hackles were raised.

Those bright yellow eyes snapped to Randold -- or maybe it was looking at Anise behind him -- and the great wolf lowered its stance and snarled. The noise that rumbled in its throat was like distant thunder, threatening and deadly. Its eyes flashed with the desire to kill.

The owl flapped its wings hard -- smacking Randold in the head in the process -- sank its claws into Randold's shoulder and struggled valiantly to drag him away from the wolf and toward the path in the woods. Its wings flung feathers everywhere as it pulled on his shoulder, urging him with growing anxiety.

TICK . . . . TOCK . . . . . TICK . . . . . TOCK . . . .

The platform under their feet -- its runes glowing a little brighter -- shifted and suddenly dropped two inches into the ground.

The wolf tensed, lowered its head, and stepped forward, completely ignoring everyone who stood in the way between it and Randold -- or Anise, whichever one it was looking at, it was hard to tell.

And then, after another moment, the platform began to tilt. It made a groaning and grating sound, and one half of the disc sank deeper into the ground while the other half raised up over the edge. The angle of the floor they were standing on slowly and methodically grew steeper and steeper, tipping all of them toward the wolf.

The owl redoubled its efforts in anxious urgency.

edit

Anise, not Ania! Also added Hania's quote and added a few things to make everything else make sense.

Lantern

Jedly said
Alright, glad you were able to clear it up. But it's nice to keep your RPers informed, rather than just saying it has huge ears and a striped tail. We have no idea what its teeth are like, its size, or anything of the sort. So, we went straight to rat. I'll read up on the IC soon, been busy with homework.

You might find that "everything is not what it seems" will be running theme here. Feel free to have your character be shocked at the power of this rat-looking thing -- because it doesn't look like it should be capable of what it's done. And I did say in the very beginning that there will be unexpected consequences. But I also said that everything can be significant to the plot, including the injury, farther down the line.

Lantern

Damiann47 said
Hmm feels like we need some action from you Mokley before blue should continue, although guess I'm fine with waiting for the other two teams make some progress first.

Gotcha! I'm on it!

Lantern

To your comment on the rat, I never said it was a rat. I said it's a rodent with huge ears and a striped tail. There are now two of them in the RP -- one in red team, and one in green -- and they are not simply rodents. I understand the power required to break bone, and trust me. They have it. You're lucky you kept your hand. ;)

As for the logic of the woman's lack of reaction to half a missing finger, do read up on what's happening to the green team right now. She lives in this forest that eats people. I honestly think it's more illogical that she's not more surprised that half a missing finger is the ONLY injury you've sustained.

Lantern

Ok, red team -- I respect your wish to wait for Tatsua, but in the interest of giving her something to actually respond to I went ahead and posted anyway. :)

Lantern

Hato said With a quick toss of the box, it landed in his free hand. . . . Hato pressed the silver box against the forehead of the rat, adding a little force.

The moment the box was transferred to another hand, the ticking inside began to change pace -- it was faster, like a quickened mechanical heartbeat, but it remained methodical.

And when it was pressed against the rodent's head, the ticking became even faster. The box began to hum in Hato's grip, as if something were spinning furiously inside.

Somewhere deep in the woods, a flock of birds began to sing sweetly.

Hato said ”Well, given our current location, we’re in the midst of taiga biome. We must be on the edge, as its snow consistency has dwindled exceptionally. As for how we got here- well, I believe I was knocked out while treating myself to a warm cup of coffee. But given the fact that we are here, we were of course moved to this area. By what, you may ask? We don’t know. I can’t properly calculate the trajectory of us in comparison to the constellations above, since we’re on too low terrain. Now, if you would take a look at this…”

The astronomer trailed off, he tapped his heel on the metallic surface, then pointed the teeth-sunken hand to the rim. ”In case you haven’t notice, much like us, this plate of metal was put here. It was dug into the ground, covered around its edges, and left to nature’s whims. Carriages are too large to weave between the treeline, and traveling by horseback is too risky. That means this sheet was carried or lugged here. This would lead me to believe that there is hopefully a village nearby, which can give us our relative location in juxtaposition to our village. Or villages, if we derive from separate homesteads.”

"The boy makes a clever deduction," a ragged voice spoke out of the shadows of the trees, from the direction of the singing birds. The weeds swished. A rather short woman scuffled into the light, one foot at a time. Her age was unclear in the soft glow of the lantern; her hair was gray and spindly, her long warm dress was stitched from coarse brown cloth, and she moved with the assistance of a walking stick.

She stopped a few feet away from the edge of the metal platform, and she lifted her head to examine them -- or, rather, her dead-gray eyes seemed to gaze through them. After a few moments of turning her head, it would become clear that this woman was completely blind. However, when she lifted a finger she pointed directly at Hato.

"You're half-right," she said with a small amused smile, "I'll give you that. You would've been a little more right a century ago, but it's not a terrible train of thought." She paused a moment, then frowned. "I wouldn't tease the blood-rat if I were you, boy."

While Hato was thus distracted, the rodent -- its beady eyes flashing -- reached up and dug its claws into Hato's hand, to give itself leverage. With a wild fling of its tail and a tension of its entire furry body, it snapped its jaws shut with an impossible force. Suddenly it fell to the metal floor and disappeared among the vines and weeds -- along with the tip of Hato's finger lodged in its mouth. The animal had generously allowed the astronomer to keep the bloody stump of his previously perfect appendage.

"Oh," the woman sighed. "Well, then. You'll need something to put on that." She waited a moment for the shock of the injury to die down -- an expression of I told you so on her sightless face, though her warning had come too late -- and she shuffled forward and lifted a hand toward Alexander in greeting. "Lord Argen, I presume. And you've brought your daughter!" Her smile broadened. "Miss Rine," she addressed Annabel, "Good to see you. Hah!" Her head tipped toward Simon, then to Hato. "And these are your brothers? Wonderful. I had hoped you wouldn't come alone, Lord Argen. The trees have a nasty grudge against you."

She pointed to the sealed silver box. "Have any of you brought the key to the music box? You'd best open it before it goes off, or we'll all have missing fingers." Her smile was eager, tantalized by the idea of what lay within the trap box.

Lantern

Thomas said Whipping back around towards the cocoon, he hastily plunged his hand through one of the holes, aiming to grab the knife and cut the root.

Just as Thomas' hand clasped around the sheathed knife, a rodent inside the cocoon began to squeak and screech in alarm.

hkssssssss

A snake had been lying in wait within the darkness of the cocoon. At the very moment that Thomas had found the knife with his fingers, the snake lashed out and sank its fangs into the side of his palm.

It immediately let go when the rodent attacked the snake, and there was a flurry and tumult of biting and thrashing among the bones, while Thomas retrieved the knife and his bloody hand.

The sheath was of red velvet, nearly new, with gold-embroidered flowers curled around it. The hilt was silver and wrapped in neat black leather -- and the blade itself was etched with ornate geometric designs. But of course, there was no time now to examine it. The offending root had curled halfway up Quin's leg, squeezing almost tight enough to break it.

With Thomas' effort, one fierce blow of the knife against the root barely caused a chip in the solid bark -- but the root jerked fiercely as if bitten, and it yanked Quin's feet out from under her, throwing her onto her back. With one more strike of the knife, the root suddenly let go and slunk back into the shadows.

But while this was happening -- while Thomas and Quin were thus distracted -- there was a sound of rumbling and cracking, and a smell of turned soil: the cocoon of roots very suddenly snapped open wide like hungry jaws, the tips of the roots like teeth, displaying for Kituo's plain view the chalky skeleton dressed in silk, with a bleeding dead snake in its lap.

The ghastly image paused for a brief moment, and then -- just as Quin had been freed -- the jaws of the roots surged forward with a sound like thunder and crashed down again, devouring Tubal whole.

The minstrel had disappeared, and the roots roiled and turned and sealed together to the sound of squelching, cracking, and muffled screams.

The little rodent had leaped out just in time, and now clung to Thomas' back just behind his shoulder, shaking and matted with blood.

Where the Sky Meets the Mountain

"It's a good thing, too." A couple of sailors were sitting on stolen folding chairs on the dock, eating funnel cake and coffee. One of them made a dismissive gesture. "If the capt'n can't get his head out o' the bog long enough ta set off the dock, I can't say I'd trust him ta get us ta port alive." The speaker was tall and lanky, with a crooked nose and a careless smile.

His companion swallowed coffee thoughtfully. "I don't think he's hung over. He's drunk more than that in a sitting without a blink. But you talk like you're telling me you'd rather stay here." He was only as tall as his fellow sailor, but bald and powerful with a sharp, young face.

"Hah, and not get paid?" Crooked-nose sat forward with a squint and frown. "What'll I do here besides get flayed by my wife? Nah, I'd rather die in a blaze of glory when our captain drives us into the side of a mountain."

"A hero's death," baldie agreed with a wry smile, and they saluted each other with their coffee cups.

The crowd was dispersing in a murmur. An eldely man wheeled a squeaky bin around and picked up trash morosely, swatting at seagulls. The food and souvenir vendors -- the only happy faces in the crowd -- packed up their empty stalls and rushed off to count their earnings. The band was packing up while the winded tuba player waited for the first mate to count out a handful of money appropriate for the delay. The tuba player accepted a generous doubling of their agreed fee and the band bumped and shuffled off the empty stage, leaving the first mate standing solemnly alone.

The first mate turned and peered up toward the deck of the Annabella, where several bored soldiers were leaning on the rail and waiting for more orders or for permission to go home.

The ship itself was still securely tethered to the dock by thick ropes. The gangplank still allowed sailors to move freely between the ship and the dock, though the cargo door had been shut and sealed long ago, while there had still been an assumption that the ship would set off.

Lantern

Right! Yes! Sorry it was 1 am.