Muttonhawk — Roleplayer Guild

It was to be expected that Toun's mind was clouded by nought but anger at Vulamera's fate. Nothing could sway him if it was present to try. Without thinking, he stepped after Vowzra's trail with no solid intention. It crossed his mind to attack the god of time, though his grief also pleaded for a rationalisation for Vowzra's actions.

In any case, his eye burned with an overwhelming push of upset confusion. Vowzra had apparently murdered their sister. A sister Toun was going to make this world a paradise for, just like every deity in his family. It did not matter whether they would help or hinder him; it was his objective to do so. Now he never could.

A few occurrences took Toun's attention for fleeting moments as he stepped. There was a wave of blazing power in the sky, far away from Galbar. It was a bellow from Zephyrion, no doubt proclaiming his arrogant power all over again. As well, the presence of Jvan spat into his peripheral senses. She was flying away. Toun had neither the time nor space in his mind for either.

More apparent was the grand ruin that Toun approached near the end of Vowzra's trail. He slowed his legs to a conventional length to stand and behold it.

Toun's head rotated to his left. "What great struggle scarred this place?"

Encased in a gargantuan ethereal structure was the settling dust of spent godly power. Jvan's impression was everywhere -- spread across every surface and in every nook -- though her influence had been purely destructive, if incidental. Vowzra was underneath, having created everything within. If only he was there in the wooden flesh.

Toun's head rotated to his right. "Has Jvan stolen my vengeance? Was Vowzra's previous pleadings in the presence of the battling avatars not for the world, but for his life?"

There was only one apparent ingress to the strange structure. A stone gateway. Vowzra's footprints calmly strode in. Toun cautiously strode in after them underneath curious little spider. Absentmindedly, Toun trod on a bone, crushing a bearded and bloody jaw into the ground. He had neither the time nor space in his mind to wonder who it belonged to.

Beyond the lonely gateway was yet more rubble. Or at least, the rubble of a little world. Grass stalks prevailed from upturned earth as if it were not upturned for centuries. It was an outwardly quiet and tranquil landscape, but not quite peaceful. Traumatised. A whirling gust of wind blew by, carrying a cloud of detritus speckled with cherry-blossom petals. Bits of flesh were left behind, Jvanic waste. It was almost lonely. Almost. Toun could perceive lonely souls wandering in their own sorts of grief. They were terrified enough for the porcelain god to infer what happened to this torn ground without needing to read their minds. Pitiful creatures.

Where is that rotten timbergod that I might have him explain this disgusting place?

Onward Toun paced, blinking his eye left and right as he traced the footsteps of his quarry. All manner of strange artefacts laid dashed across the place like they were interrogated for secrets. The frustration of their displacement told of no secrets being revealed except those that were most unpleasant. Now they laid bare for Toun to read at face value.

Toun stopped when he came to the last secret. The end of Vowzra's trail had not ended in divine gore as Vulamera's had. Rather, it tapered into a now-sealed aperture. Toun reached forward with one hand. "Did you think you could esc-?"

PgErReFeEtCiTnIgOsNw!r?eFtOcOhLe-dTcHlIaNyGt!hHiAnHgA!!

Toun retracted his hand as if it had been burnt and stopped to look on. With a wide, twitching eye, he murmured to himself. "How foolish I am. You escaped after all..."

Shock kept Toun transfixed at the end of the trail. This was beyond any annoyance of fate that set Toun back.

Another sibling consigned to death.

There was nothing that he could have done. At once, his rage boiled to a breaking point and dissipated into a realisation of depressing futility. A hollowness become torn into his heart. He knew neither whether he should feel catharsis from his brother finding comeuppance, nor whether he should feel rage at Jvan for sealing his fate, nor simple grief for the loss of another sibling. His head bowed and he stepped around to turn to leave. He didn't need to decide what to feel; the grief was always going to be the strongest.

"So much death." Toun found the leaden flow of the combined loss filling the recent chasm in his heart. He began to wander the upturned little world for lack of anything else to make sense of it. He passed yet more creatures, lost and confused as he was. He ignored every one of them. Perhaps it was a coincidence that he began to follow the strums of a haunting lute on the wind, perhaps it was the only thing he had to follow at the time. As he did, little red droplets found the ground beneath him, falling from a solid rivulet that pulled down from beneath his eye.

Whatever was strumming away, it helped to focus Toun's mind. The best thing he had to hold on to that made sense was his purpose. For that, he could not allow his brethren to continue murdering. He didn't have the motivation to confront Jvan just yet. She could wait for her judgement. For now, he would do what was in his power at present. With an almighty muttering, he spoke across the entire universe. Or, at least as far as he could. Only the divine could hear it, for all its energy. His words were subdued, though they carried a sincere weight of emotion that his frustrated rages never did.

"Siblings. A great tragedy is this day. I ask us all to convene, to stop and witness.

"Vulamera is dead, ground and devoured in essence by Vowzra. Vowzra, in turn, was cast into the Gap and sealed from escape by Jvan. I do not know Jvan's current whereabouts, but her judgement can be deferred. I instead call for a cease to all this madness for the sake of our immortal souls.

"Two siblings are vanquished. Let them not be joined by any more of us.

"The meaning of this convention lies in two purposes. The first is to pay respects to the memory of the lost, casting aside conflict so that we may do so together in peace. The second is to sign a pact. A pact wrought of grief to ensure that this mourning never has a need to take place again. You shall find the pact penned at the gate at the shattered mountain near where I stand. You need only write your essence upon it to let it hold you to its oath. There is nothing it will hold you to but what is currently written on its surface. Nevertheless, I shall not force such action upon you, though you are all wise enough to know its purpose.

"If any of my words are not believed, it will not be with Vowzra's insulting assertions that I counter your protest. Indeed, I shall not counter it at all. I invite any to find out what happened for themselves by following the trail away from me and see what I have -- without the reverence required of proper nouns -- seen."

* * *

The promise that Toun gave in that moment took shape exactly where it was specified. In front of the Gate Unguarded silently rose a pillar of white porcelain from the ground. It ascended from the stone as a sharp cylinder, fifteen human arm-span fathoms tall and three fathoms in diameter, perfectly smooth, and inscribed with red Tounic calligraphy that read in a helix from the top of its length to the bottom. Beholding even one facet of it instilled overwhelming sadness and loss. Those without the context of the death of the gods could be brought to tears without reason.

It was not a malevolent effect to pour grief into the hearts of those present. It was a side effect of the inflections of the calligraphy. Though they conveyed the meaning of a pact upon them, it was indeed wrought in the reaction to the tragedy that prompted its creation.

Here lies the memory of our sister of knowledge Vulamera and our brother of time Vowzra. Here in their tragic deaths, we swear an oath to never seek the death of any sibling of ours signed onto this pact. We do this for the sake of our souls as well as the integrity of our hearts, for death begets death, and grief begets grief. May this place within the gate be a place where no god sets foot to do battle. In sacred remembrance of this, we declare: Fate shall no longer toy bloody games between our bodies into this timeline.

* * *

Toun only looked up from his meanderings when the strings of the lute were silenced. Had he not stopped to look, he might have run into the great cube before him. It was a filthy thing, spattered with dirt and Jvan's excrements. Intricate, perhaps. Toun tilted his head at the puzzle that it promised.

With one gliding hand, Toun reached out and touched the cube's surface. With a tactile glance, the patterns and crevices shifted and wended as if eluding him. It was a focus for Toun's mind, if anything. Even as he failed to solve even a portion of the cube's puzzle, even if its purpose was just as enigmatic, he came to distract much of what left him despondent.

A demigod was nearby. No danger to Toun, really. He had neither the time nor space in his mind to worry about it.

Toun continues sleuthing and finds the aftermath of Jvan and Vowzra's stoush.

He realises that Vowzra is sealed in the gap and his rage finally gives way to overwhelming grief.

After finding nothing but familiar faces, worn out places, worn out faces, Toun decides that he should probably form a let's-not-try-to-kill-one-another pact to serve as a memorial for Vowzra and Vulamera.

With a broadcast to all the gods, Toun lets everyone know what's going on and invites them to mourn and sign his pact.

The pact, known as the Oath of Stilldeath, is a might-bound pact that prevents all who sign it from causing the death of any other god that has signed it, as well as ensuring that no one will fight within the dome of the ruins of Chronos. (Yes, I am aware how easy it is to skirt around the whole 'killing' bit. Just about everything else is fair game because Toun's not the most morally litigious god.) Anyone who wants to do otherwise while having their name signed on the pillar must either destroy the pact with a wad of might or do something more creative and awesome to break it. Only Toun's name is on the pact right now. I'll put the pact on Toun's character post later for reference.

Looking at the pact makes people inexplicably sad with grief and loss, by the way.

After that, Toun follows the Bard's music to the cube and begins to poke said cube to distract himself from his grief and loss.

Might Accounting:
Before: Toun - L6 - 29 MP - 2 FP - 6C/6D <Holy site available> 

-1 MP to broadcast a message to all gods everywhere.
-15 MP to scribe the Oath of Stilldeath. (Calligraphy domain feeds into this by...let's say an extra 5 might on top of the 15? That'll make it a 20 might artifact. Toun is not pulling punches with this.)

After: Toun - L6 - 13 MP - 2 FP - 6C/6D <Holy site available>

The encouragement Peiter was given to go out with the warriors did not take long to relent. Uthri had already volunteered to stay behind to watch the children and the wamasu, with Tzirret kindly asked to do so as well. That would just leave Gallus to go with them. Instead, Gallus opted to also stay behind to teach Peiter how to throw knives for something to do. However, it was clear that Gallus wanted to watch over him while separated from Sabine and perhaps try to help him. The least he could do, he confided to Meesei, was make sure that Peiter wasn't sleeping all day.

That left Meesei's pack free to participate fully with the warriors. The northern weather was even worse off the plateau of the Rift, turning to snow and rocks more similar to how it was around their old clanhome in winter. Few enough had even an inkling of what to expect from this Dwemer ruin.

Janius stepped out in his full suit of steel armour with his shield over his shoulder and his axe on his belt. No doubt he had needed help to don his armour over the furs he needed underneath to keep the cold at bay. Although, with Kaleeth desperately trying to keep her body heat up and Lorag snorting and remarking on his being a 'personal' problem, he had to manage on his own. There was no longer the desperate tension that he had while travelling from Bruma, instead replaced with a sort of quiet determination. He gave Kaleeth and Meesei a nod and a smile. "So, remind me again," Janius asked as he took a seat next to Kaleeth and pulled her close. "Saras, Meesei, how do we deal with these...automatons, they're called? Things made from dwarf metal, how do we take them down?"

Fendros and Ahnasha had completed their preparations as well and were about to emerge as Janius received his answer.

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