Mokley

Wings Askew

@Ebonsquire Excellent. If you feel like making a dramatic exit post, please do PM me, we'll cook up some ideas. Otherwise I'll write you out in the next story post.

@tex How far do you think Gaius got before the crash?

@Acromantula Do you have an intention on what's wrong with Lee's legs? Poison? Spinal injury? :)

Wings Askew

@Ebonsquire Aw, sorry to see you go! But definitely focus on what you need to right now. :) Congrats on graduation, and good luck with college stuff! :D

Absolutely feel free to lurk. Maybe we can make your character mysteriously disappear, so that if you want to eventually drop back in we can do so with 100% more drama! xD

Wings Askew

Just finished catching up with the posts, and damn it's a great read so far!

I might have to delete Sera. I really really like her, but I think she might be too passive for this RP. I feel like just an observer who is commentating on what the others are doing...

@PyroDash888

She seems quite the opposite of passive to me -- not sure what you mean! If you really like her, definitely hang onto her! :)

@mokley Where are we supposed to be landing btw?

@tex

Following the next story post, hopefully that'll be made clear. It's a long way away, though! Assume a sea of trees below and the mountains etched in the distance, and beyond them the star.

Moonfiend

@rechonq@Tojin@MsChimeric@Eodwyn Aether

pssst! Hey! Hi! Hey listen! You guys still lurking? ;)

Lantern

"Peck," She said brightly. "Thank you. Do you know where I could get some food? I'm not sure I can go much further without it."

Peck glanced back at her, sniffed, looked up at the leaves overhead, eerily silhouetted in the combined light of the white and blue eggs.

"Yeh, sure." He dropped the lead on the sledge, and Anise came to a halt while he traipsed a few feet into the thick brush. The trees creaked and swayed -- one of them sounded like it was chewing on something both squishy and crunchy -- and the bushes rustled with a flock of small birds that thought they were hiding from the intruders.

Peck reached up and plucked a few ripe blue fruits from low-hanging branches. A blood-rat happened to be waiting on a bough; it dropped on his shoulder with fangs bared. "Not today, little shit!" Peck snapped, and a flare of electricity snapped from his gauntlet; the blood-rat went skittering away with a singed tail.

He returned to Anise with a few fruits in his arm. "These taste like cabbage, but they're filling. At least until we get to the outpost." He dropped the fruits into her lap, then leaned against the chewing tree with his arms crossed. "You're really thinking of bringing back the Dragon, huh?" He'd had a lot of time to think while he'd been dragging her through the forest, and the effects of the blue egg had worn off completely. His skepticism was clear in his voice -- but he still believed Anise meant well.

---

"Yeah? That'd be very kind of you."

"Yeah it wouldn't wouldn't it?" Oseely grinned, pleased by the idea of being kind for once. "Well, don't expect me to make it a habit." He gave her a wink and hopped to his feet. "C'mon then, let's see about summoning the dumbass."

He ducked out of the cave and into the open air, where he took a deep, smiling breath. He scanned the bleak burned landscape, the brittle dead trees, and the clear starry sky. "Summoning the Lord of the Breeze is the easiest thing because he can't understand anything more complicated," he said confidentally to Artemis over his shoulder. "Just a few whistles, and --" He pressed his tongue to his teeth and let out a piercing whistle -- a short and simple tune.

"Who's a dumbass?" The voice came from behind Artemis, where a man stood frowning deeply. He was skinny to an unhealthy degree, and he stood a full foot shorter than Artemis, though he was clearly a few years older than her; his hair was mousy brown with a few feathers tied in, and he wore simple loose clothes and bone-charm bracelets. Like Oseely, he was barefoot.

"You're the dumbass, Dumbass," the Lord of the Flame piped immediately. "This is Artemis. Show her how to steer a gryphon, won't ya? She nearly got killed on the way here. Artemis, this is the Lord of the Breeze."

The Lord of the Breeze squinted up at Artemis. "Reckley. Hello. Don't fall off. You'll be fine. Are you a Kith?"

"Sun-child, Dumbass."

Reckley's mouth pressed to a thoughtful line as he studied Artemis. "This gryphon won't obey you completely unless and until you give her a name. It's binding as long as you're together. If you're not using a saddle, take off your boots. You know, a sun-child got ahold of the white Lantern." This last was directed at Oseely, annoyed and pessimistic about what the future might now hold.

"Not this one, not our problem," Oseely assured the Lord of the Breeze. Reckley eyed him skeptically, but eventually looked back to Artemis.

"Have you ridden a horse bareback? Same concept, only you steer with your feet and knees. Where do you plan on going with a stolen gryphon?"

Oseely smirked and went back to his tree over the bonfire, a perfect vantage point.

The gryphon, meanwhile, was hopping and prancing in excited circles around Artemis and Reckley, slobbering and huffing and flapping with swirling gusts at the very prospect of a proper flight.

---

"Is that real...?"

"Of course it's real!" Cod laughed. "What d'ya think, it's stuffed?"

Rhea ruffled his hair. "Maybe there are no gryphons where Miss Aslynn comes from."

Cod's jaw dropped, and he stared at Aslynn in complete inability to comprehend a world where there were no gryphons. "But how d'you fly? How d'you even get anywhere? You'd be stuck!"

The boy absolutely could not bear to let Aslynn continue on without gryphons for a moment longer; he took Aslynn's hand and dragged her toward the great beast. "This is Rex. He's old and he stands guard against the Kith. Go ahead, pet 'im!" Cod leaned over the gryphon's neck and rubbed his hands in its feathers. Rex tipped his head toward Cod, and his yellow eyes drifted lazily open.

Rhea went to the community fire to grab a bowl of chicken stew for Aslynn; while she was gone, the other Pirates noticed that a stranger had been brought to the outpost, and soon Aslynn was surrounded with curious faces.

"Hi! Where'd you come from?"
"Aren't you from the east fortress?"
"Did you see that bright light earlier?"
"What's your name?"
"Please have some of my flatbread!"
"And some flipberry tart! I made it myself!"
"Thank you for protecting Cod."
"Are you going to be staying long?"
"Let me get you some proper armor."

Rhea squeezed through the crowd with the bowl of stew, which she offered to Aslynn. "Everybody, there'll be plenty of time once Miss Aslynn has had a chance to rest!"

"She can stay at my house!" an old woman piped hopefully, waving her wrinkled hand in the air. Rhea laughed and shook her head.

"Please rest," Rhea said to Aslynn, grinning.

Lantern

Post is being written!

Not sure how long it'll take. But it's gonna happen!

Edit: my excuse now is that I've been sick. X.x

Unquiet

"Come on! Lets go! Come on lets get away from the scary 'god' demon thingy."

"Last one downs ogre food?"

"Sorry, go on ahead without me, I think I'm too heavy for that climb."

"How do we fix it? Keep them away?"

Any questions?

Rain and Rose were, quite simply, far too slow. Or maybe the ogre was much faster than they had anticipated. In either case, the two had only made it part of the way down the vine-crossed wall when the beastly giant showed up, huffing from the effort of loping halfway around the Stone. A rainy mist started falling again, and the ogre's breath huffed in pale clouds in front of its mangled mouth.

The ogre's hand shot out toward Rain, but she managed to slip out of its grasp -- and fell ten feet to the muddy ground below. It took the ogre a second to register that it had not, in fact, captured the girl, and it stared at its open palm in confusion. While the gears were turning in the ogre's thick head, Rose had the chance to climb safely to the ground.

The ogre lifted its hands in the air and looked down, surprised to find that both women were still free. "Hah!" it breathed in dumb frustration, and it reached out to grab Rose by the arm.

There were three ways to go from here, if they wished to run. To the left was the fresh path the ogre had just made through the sapling trees and scraggled brush that led back around the rear of the Stone; behind the Stone were high rocks and cliffs that were near impossible to climb with any sort of efficiency, but following the path would bring them to the back room of the Stone. To the right they could make it to the front entrance of the Stone, and the broken remains of the drawbridge that had once been the only safe means of reaching the mainland. Or, they could attempt the climb down over the cliffside, using the rocks and small trees as hand and footholds.

---

"HA haha! Wouldn't you rather live and see what I'll do, rather than die and waste a perfectly good opportunity for chaos?" Rshalogg was positively thrilled by Nali's restrictions, and he had no intention of remembering them. "I'll use you as I please. In exchange, I'll lend you my power. Everything you want. Desire is a beautiful thing." He was thinking of blood and of making masses of people bow in fear at his feet when he spoke of desire.

It would be a bit of struggle over rubble and along the crumbling pieces of what was left of the floor, but eventually Nali would find her way to the double doors at the front of the Stone, forced open and broken on their hinges. The misty rain outside billowed in; tall grasses waved gently, and weeds had grown over the rotting pile of wood that had once been the bridge to the mainland, an imposing distance away. From here, the cliff was a sheer drop into a deep ravine. To the left were the sounds of struggle between Rain and Rose and the ogre; to the right were trees and shrubs and a hike around the side of the Stone, which was situated alone on a mountaintop.

"Let's find the nearest city," Rshalogg suggested eagerly. "We'll rule it before the other gods realize the girl's stopped singing."

---

At the end of the hallway, in the room full of pipes that had gone quiet and cold, the girl had stopped singing, her light dimmed.

She stared at Amuné, her eyes barely focusing as the child spoke and touched her hand, and she shook her head slowly.

"Җȿɖɷɹʘ ʃ♦ ɘʥʯͼӿ₰◊ⱷ."

Through her power and the touch of the girl's hand, Amuné knew she had said I can't die. She meant immortality: she was incapable of death, no matter how many centuries she'd seen, no matter how many pipes had been stuck into her skin and fastened to her bones. The girl squeezed her eyes shut, flexed her fingers, and began to pull with her arms against the tubes that held her fast against the wall.

"∞ⱷↄℓ₹ ᾣᵷᵠ." < Help me. >

There was no longer a reason for her to stay here: there were no more living people feeding her power, and the pipes and clockwork that had fueled her song had gone cold and dry. Now that the Stone was only filled with corpses and rubble, there was nothing left to prevent the Old Gods' return. Rshalogg was only the first. She was not shocked at this: she'd only prevented the inevitable for as long as was possible. Now, all she could do was free herself from this place.

With a firm tug, each of the lines would release from the girl's skin without blood, though with a wince of pain. It would take a great deal of strength and effort, however, to lift her out of the web of pipes -- strength that Amuné alone did not possess. She stared around the room, sad to see that her dear ogre friend had gone -- and she caught sight, dimly, of Grace in the doorway.

Unquiet

Ok I'm having trouble with figuring out what's happening, so I'm breaking out a couple of D10s.

So if anything bad happens it's not my fault. xD

Mirror, Fox, Key

@c3p-0h You especially, feel free to cut me off halfway and take a different route -- I wrote in a lot of assumption. :)

Mirror, Fox, Key

“We need to—we need to head downwards, see where the sewers empty out, it might get us out of the city—”

"We need a plan- even if we get outside of the city it's not like we'll be much safer, there's just as many of them outside as there are in. Maybe there's somewhere inside that's still holding out?"

"Heh outside may not be any safer but do ya really think a city so sealed away from the outside like it is will have anythin' to stronghold yerself in. Not like havin' walls would help ya any against whatever the hell those were. On the other hand there ain't any way out in these sewers. Anyways I think it's about time I got that explanation ya owe me, eh?"

"The explanation of everything is that reality only exists in your own mind."

A voice echoed ahead of them, where -- as their eyes adjusted to the dim light -- a shaft of smoky sunlight highlighted the worn edges of a rusting mech. It was sitting on a bent leg, tilted sadly in a pool of brackish water. The cap that usually protected the driver was missing, and all the knobs and levers were exposed.

"Your senses are all just triggers for your brain, and your brain interprets them to mean what you call 'reality.' So really, reality is anything you want to make it. A way out, for example. Maybe these sewers really smell like cotton candy and lavender. Maybe those demons aren't real. It's all in your head."

A young boy -- a few years older than Scarlett -- poked his head out of the mech and folded his arms on its edge, grinning. "Money's just made up, too. It has no inherent value other than what people give to it. So you might as well pay up." He reached out a dirty hand and crooked his fingers for cash. There was a sigil drawn on the back of his hand. "I'll tell you how to get out."

---

"What in the bloody bollocking hell piss is happening?!"

Small, frightened hope flickered in her chest, that this would be some sort of help, that it wouldn't be just her trying to survive in a world more harsh than she was prepared for.

She turned and hurried up the fire escape.

The fairy hovered high and watched as Meryn made quick work of the old fire escape. Rusted metal skiffed and snapped into place.

And then, there was the dirty one that smelled like happyroot.

The fairy flashed in anger and buzzed in front of Ronken's face. "What's happening is you're going to die if you stand here yabbering." It grabbed a fistful of Ronken's hair and yanked toward the fire escape, though this did nothing but cause a bit of discomfort on Ronken's part.

The infected tree-demon that was skittering like a rabid dog toward Ronken's heels, though, promised a very different sensation were it allowed to catch up.

The fairy let go in a huff, spiraled in the air, and whizzed upward after Meryn -- just to narrowly avoid being sprayed with musket shot. The fairy screeched and hid behind Meryn's shoulder just as a tree demon behind Meryn toppled head-over-heels to the street far below. The woman on the roof peered down at Meryn over the sight of a smoking musket, her sooty face as expressionless as stone.

After a moment, the woman lowered her weapon and offered a hand to help Meryn up onto the roof. "You're lucky, street performer," she said, making an assumption about Meryn's mask and acrobatics; she reloaded the musket and set her sight on the demon that was chasing Ronken.

Behind her, a younger boy stood at another side of the roof with a quiver of arrows and a bucket of burning coals at his side. He took careful aim and let loose a fiery arrow into the alley.

"How's the road to the palace?" the woman asked Meryn. "Could we make it through without wasting ammo?"

The boy-archer waved a fiery arrow and smirked. "It's a fine day to overthrow the government."

The fairy lighted on Meryn's shoulder. "What we should be doing is getting underground before that portal opens." It pointed to the sky, where the beam of light disappeared into the clouds. "Or we could be sucked up along with the demons."

The woman stared steadily at the fairy. "What's that, a mosquito?"