Dear Mr Curly, I have done little travelling lately because I have been so dreadfully weary. Can it be true as the old Ecclesiastes said; that all things lead to weariness? Surely not. Perhaps the opposite is true: that all nothings lead to weariness. I have a peculiar feeling, Curly, that I am worn out from something I haven't yet done and the more I don't do it, the more exhausted I become. How strange. Could it be something I haven't realised? Perhaps it's something I haven't said? Something I haven't finished! It must be very large and true whatever it is and a lively struggle in the doing but I look forward to it immensely. I know I need it. First, however, I must curl up in my chair and sleep deeply with the duck. Perhaps I'll dream of this thing and wake up refreshed and do it. My fond wishes to you Mr. Curly, and to all Curly Flat. Yours sleepily, Vasco Pyjama xxx P.S. Not having breakfast can make you weary. That's for sure!
Fendros had not been as particular about his breakfast. On his plate was some cut of horse meat, no doubt the cheapest on the menu. He took a swig of water and leaned his elbow on the table to rub his eyes. "I'm sure he'll have the opportunity to see them another time."
For a moment, Fendros stared at his food and sighed. "I was expecting him to be more upset, to be honest. He's...been getting mature this last year or so." He huffed a laugh. "I know it's a cliche, but I keep losing track of his growth. Julan's, too." He cut himself another mouthful.
Janius looked to the sky to think on Julan's proposal. His first impression was not favourable, turning his face to a concerned tension. However, his brow lifted as a thought came to him. "It really depends. At any rate, we could come home to visit you regularly and give you updates. As for you coming to us..."
He turned to Meesei. "You are the one doing the transporting. One question is how workable it is." He glanced to Kaleeth, Ahnasha, and Fendros. "Another is whether it's worth the risk in the first place."
"I don't like it," Fendros answered. "I would rather have you children away from the general as much as we can."
Rhazii laid his welling eyes up. "I want to help. Aunty, mother, Julan's got a good idea. Can't we at least be around some of the time? We don't know the general is around yet. We can protect ourselves from some kidnappers!"
Rhazii was apparently distracted by a sound in the distance that was probably a musical street performance. He turned his attention to Ahnasha upon his name being called and his faint smile melted away.
"Oh..." His brow tightened and his ears lowered back. His despondency flooded over his demeanour enough to make him look away and breathe uneasily in an effort to keep his tears back. "But if Do'rhajul won't attack us in the city, we would be safe here, right?"
"Do'rhajul is not just dangerous in a fight, son," Fendros said. "He would recognise you and your brother as young and untrained. That means he will target you to get to us. If we're separated in the city, he might find a way to capture and hurt you two. We cannot risk that."
Rhazii bowed his head. "That's not fair. You said we would get to see the Redguard fighters and military. You said we could help you with the search."
Fendros sighed and placed a hand on Rhazii's shoulder, looking more sympathetic. "I know it's disappointing. I wanted to go with you to do all that we said, but this is new information. We have to adapt."
There was little Rhazii could say to retort. He pursed his frowning lips and clenched a fist. He didn't like crying in public.
Janius crossed his arms and looked to Julan. "I hate to fear it, but Ahnasha and Fendros are right. You and Rhazii will have to take care of each other safe at home while we finish this mission."
Janius turned down his eyes and licked the front of his teeth in thought. "I don't imagine this situation being good. We have to wait, we have the end of our lead is murky, and going to a certain village after enough time makes it less than safe." He shook his head. "Is there any further investigation we can do in the meantime?"
In contrast, Fendros appeared more optimistic. "I had been thinking about that. On top of any other friends Cyrus may have had that turn up in the tavern, there may be some East Empire Company presence in Sentinel." He shrugged and turned his head to glance at everyone. "If we're lucky, we might ask and find out which villages have the company within them. There cannot be too many."
"We should check with the other carriage workers if what Matami said is true." Sabine said. "I don't think she lied but she might not know everything."
"Indeed," Fendros agreed. "We aren't at the point of waiting around doing nothing yet. Do we have any other ideas?"
A half written post concerns him. Beyond that, @Rtron and I had plans way back that could still come to fruition if he's willing.
I imagine that everything else I'd planned will be cut. I only anticipate myself making 3-4 more posts and to get through everything that I need, it'll be pretty tight.
I don't want to cut too much. If there's a 'fail forward' situation for Xos, it can probably be done. Besides, Toun doesn't have to track down Xos instantly. He'll be on the hunt. That in itself can be its own substory.
Sabine conceded with a nod. She did not wish to press the issue for the sake of curiosity.
"We do not know him well enough, I think, to guarantee that. But we will keep it in mind." Fendros spread a small smile. "Thank you again. We shall be on the lookout for the driver."
Fendros peered to both Meesei and Sabine either side of him. "Is there anything else?"
Sabine took her wrapped fish with one hand and shook her head at Fendros.
That just left Meesei, if she had any further questions.
Time for the first exchange between the Lawfulest brothers since the beginning!
@Cyclone Do you have more Xos shenanigans in the works? I have at least one more collab to do on Toun's prep before a showdown.
EDIT: I thought I would bodge together a wiki page for Clockdog the clockwork dog (made by Kinesis and Conata ages back). Then I realised I would either have to make yet another infobox template or learn how to create one inline.
Whatever, I found an image. It'll do for now:
I tried to find the origin of this. I think it's buried in a furry site somewhere and I didn't need to spend those extra hours trawling there, either. At any rate, I wasn't going to put the image up on the wiki without knowing for sure.
From the colourful trees of the Valley of Peace, where angels lounged and wisps danced, a foreign breeze blew over the grass. Some stilted thought brushed over the backs of it all, chilling. Tense. The Valley of Peace had itself a shadow of fear.
The shadow compelled a space for, Toun to appear on the grass in a step. His hands were at his sides and his posture was a pillar, holding the violent world of angry gods atop his determined head.
His narrow blue eye scanned the landscape. Little had changed here since the ancient memories that saw him previously present. The familiarity comforted his mild anxiety risen from leaving his work in Cornerstone. Or perhaps that was simply Niciel's aura over the place. The same aura that had stayed his wrath before.
The errant thoughts were cast aside easily. Toun was not here for Niciel or nostalgia. He had more than enough to occupy his mind. He settled in a certain direction and walked.
Just as Logos had no doubt noticed Toun's droningbirds, Toun noticed Logos' eyes as well. Flat, orderly shapes winking in and out of the corner of his eye like rotating panes of glass. Their frequency increased as they neared, to the point where they no longer hid. They floated about, ready for whatever purpose they had, until their greatest numbers found themselves converged around one figure. One severe, contemplative, grey figure. Sheltered under the engulfing shadow of tall, closely held wings. He had not changed either.
"Logos." Toun looked up at the pins of light in his brother's eyes and slowed to a stop.
"Toun," Logos acknowledged. He looked into the myriad forms that orbited his form. Each flashed a thousand images of Galbar. Burning mountains, smoking seas. Most of the buildings had taken extensive damage, and terrains were naught but ash. Flashes of light could be seen where the myriad Galbarians fought amongst each other in the chaotic aftermath.
"Our siblings," Logos explained, and had he been capable of it, it would be been with contempt. "Even now, I am weary of their attempts attempts to resist. They had forgotten the power of their King. I do not hold it against them, of course. Even the Divine may forever struggle through infancy. They are blameless; their fault rests with their architects."
Here the King was silent, and the shapes grew dark. Logos remained staring off into the oncoming future. "I did not wish to harm them, Toun, but they are lost, and they cannot show themselves the way. Direct intervention was necessary."
Toun listened on, still and with his blue eye boring. As his eye narrowed into judgement, only then did he make his impression known. "Is that your excuse?" Toun muttered. "I would not count the eons of your absence, Logos. I would not count the shirks of your imposed responsibilities as a 'king.' I would count the slain." He opened an arm. "You are weary of resistance? I am weary of death, brother! Where was your direct intervention when Vowzra drew Vulamera, imploding, into the Codex of Creation? Where was it when Jvan threw Vowzra into the gap for vengeances unwatched?! Where was it when yet more essences of our family were abandoned to madness and mutilation!?!"
Toun jabbed a finger towards Logos' imposing form, words lashing. "I did not come to hear excuses, brother! I did not come to teach you your failings, nor to hear where blame should be pushed, for it is worthless!"
"Where were We," he answered softly. The dying whisper of a solar flare graced his eyes. The barest of creases in the Eldest God’s otherwise perfect mask.
Toun's brow twitched in anger. Logos left no room for his response.
"When did you become so naive?" Logos silenced his immediate with a raised hand. "Allow me to educate you," he said. "There is a doctrine in the Natural Order. It states that every creature alive owes me its life, its will, and everything it possesses."
And suddenly Logos was there. Toun did not even see him beat his wings. A hand, impossibly cool touched the fractured porcelain face. "I would have," Logos said, referring to the loss of their kin. "But they instead sought their own forms of rebellion. Each of you have. And while all the things in the world are mine, I have no use for such rebellious subjects."
Toun hissed. "How can you say such things?"
All of those things were swallowed up in an instant by the empty dark, devoured by a vast blackness that rivalled the void before Toun's very birth. It encompassed him, drowning him in the unrelenting will of a mind that had killed stars and created worlds, and now turned its sights upon the irrevocable implantation that made Him.
Logos stood before him, a beacon of light in the emptiness that permeated even his porcelain form. A realization struck Toun: this was how Logos felt all the time. He moved through a world that he helped created, and no matter where he stood, he could destroy anything and everything he saw. And everything he could destroy, he knew he could replace. He was not Teknall, who forged and crafted. Nor was he Vestec, who shifted and warped. He was a constant.
And there were mortals. Some of which he helped create. Each of them was barely more than a collection of proteins, fats, and sediments, a weak reflection of the gods' own magical might. They died in so short a time, all of them, that as individuals they hardly mattered. But as a race they were resilient and whole. Killing a mortal was like putting a scratch on his own creation. It would heal.
But it wouldn't learn. Every hundred years the entire race would die and replace itself, and so mortalkind was perpetually young, always destined to repeat the mistakes of its predecessors. And always so fragile, such small things compared to mountains and cities, and so meaningless when taken as individual.
Thought they would steal the focus of his siblings. And in doing so they had sealed the fate of his brothers and sisters. Real beings. Immortal beings. True companions in a world made entirely of ever-changing mist. A world that he'd lived in for eons of years. How could he not act the way he did by now? Toun balled his fists as the transfer of memories abated.
"A garden of perfection awaits your hand, if you but swear once more." Logos gave the barest of gesture to the sculptor. "Bow before your King."
Toun lifted his angered face. His one blue eye, pinched between raw red flesh, flicked to Logos' hand, and then up to the points of his eyes. He spent a time staring, exuding a defiance that was not followed through by any movement, instead abstracting a thought of approach.
Toun spoke. He was holding something back. "If usefulness is the extent of your sense of value, brother, where all the ephemeral matter of the universe condenses to its end, excepting only our family..." He paused to swallow a passion reserved for a later time. "What does a king that I would swear to say about a force powerful enough to shatter his sword and see him and his subjects knelt to the mortality that he so avoids?"
Levelling his brow while keeping his eye intense, Toun's voice lowered. "That is what I came to hear, brother, for such a force exists. I have seen it commit fratricide already. I would see it subdued before any more gods fall by its hands. And neither you nor I can subdue it alone."
Logos regarded him, his face a neutral mask. He hid his emotions well enough to bring doubt to his capability for them at all.
"You claim he intends to fight me for control," he said.
The words drew Toun back into the present. The words were said as if Logos was observing the final protocol in some immortal game.
"Not control, brother," Toun clarified. "Your life. See for yourself how little he cared for Kyre's jurisdiction."
Toun raised one arm, hand splayed. The oppressive theatre of Logos' imperious audience was swept aside like a curtain. An illusory landscape took its place. There was no artificial sense of dread, rather it was built from the cold facts conveyed by the golden djinni, Aihtiraq.
To Logos and Toun's side were another pair of gods on the brink of conflict.
"You will know me by three words:" Three words. Three offensive, wretched, bloody words in a sentence were produced by the god with the pearl of dark power in his slithering form: "Your oblivion, this world's ruination, and retribution."
Kyre's execution played out. Always the same. Toun was all but numb to the gruesome display of power by now. He lowered his hand to his side. The memory folded back like an eyelid around them, revealing the Valley of Peace. The usual passive comfort of the flora seemed sullied now.
Logos’ impassive expression did not change. The air before him rippled and churned, then turned to an inky black. Nearby, fragments of starsteel lifted themselves from the ground and were drawn to his body like iron to a magnet. The writhing darkness coalesced into a glossy black breastplate, which affixed itself to his chest. "Then I will meet him."
Another fragment of the king’s armor was wrought from nothing and attached to his back with an echoing clang. "Toun." Logos covered his legs in the conjured warplate. "You will kill this usurper," he said simply. The arms completed the set, forming a seamless suit of black armor etched with white. The Pleroma Plate. Armor before the memory of the world.
It was all Toun needed to hear. "...It can be done provided you weather its assault," Toun added, crossing his arms. "I shall hunt it and call upon you when appropriate. Do we have an understanding, brother?"
Logos cast his blade, a plain, polished length of pure black. Toun remembered Logos having announced, long ago, that its name was Singularity. "It has been some time," Logos mused, "since I have had reason to use excess. Let us hope that I am still capable of the performance that has become expected of we gods."
"Hope?" Toun questioned. Some inflection in his tone expressed cautious surprise. "Do you foresee a chance of failure?"
He pursed his lips, obviously debating whether or not to give him the information they both knew he was after. The answer that came from the Lord of Order was surprisingly soft. "The first rule of immortality, brother, is that one day we will die. Our time is limited, and this gives it value. I would spend mine as King." A tilt of the head. A question that defined a God. "How will you spend yours?"
Toun stood statuesque. Logos' question forced a contemplation deeper than the surface of it demanded. Two further, lengthy seconds passed. The answer came as devoid of humour as the last: "I shall spend it performing as expected for we gods."
In his pursuit of getting back at Xos for killing Kyre, Toun seeks out Logos to complete his posse and ruin the Zephy-shard's day.
Ever the tactful chap, Toun walks into the Valley of Peace and almost immediately starts his conversation with Logos by insulting him for Logos' comments on his actions. Toun is rather miffed that Logos is going on about being all cool and controlling when some gods have died.
Much chest-puffing was had. Logos asks for Toun to bow.
Rather than kowtow, Toun uses this to segue into why he came in the first place: Xos is a thing, and he could (in his current state) kamehameha Logos through the sternum.
Logos lifts his eyebrow (except he doesn't, because he's got a constant poker face).
Toun shows the memory of Kyre vs. Xos to prove Xos' power.
Before saying a word, Logos mighty-morphs himself a set of hyper-mighty OP edgy black armour, the Pleroma Plate. No less than 30 might was poured into this artefact.
This has implications.
Logos tells Toun to kill Xos.
Toun says he'll call upon Logos' help to do just that as soon as he tracks the bastard down. Notably, he mentions nothing of Teknall's hyper-dimensional-donut god prison.
Logos waxes a bit about flexing his gainz.
Toun wittily jabs at him with a deadpan comment. The following exchange also has implications.
The scene ends before the homoerotic themes rev up any further tension can build between the two brothers.
Might Summary: Logos: -30 for OP armour - The Pleroma Plate
"I appreciate it, thank you," Fendros said. "What can you tell us about this carriage driver? What is her name and where might we find her when she returns?"
Sabine waited until a lapse in the answer to speak up. "May I purchase a fillet of bass as well, please?" She asked, producing her own coins to put forward. She had been eyeing the bass for some time, and if they were going to have fish for lunch, she wanted to take the opportunity pick one out for herself.
While Matami was wrapping the fish, Sabine asked one more thing. "You say he is engaged to marry. Is he betrothed to you or another?"
[center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPjJCVylFBo[/youtube][/center]
[quote=Michael Leunig. The Curly Pyjama Letters.]
Dear Mr Curly,
I have done little travelling lately because I have been so dreadfully weary. Can it be true as the old Ecclesiastes said; that all things lead to weariness? Surely not. Perhaps the opposite is true: that all [u]nothings[/u] lead to weariness. I have a peculiar feeling, Curly, that [u]I[/u] am worn out from something I haven't yet done and the more I don't do it, the more exhausted I become. How strange. Could it be something I haven't realised? Perhaps it's something I haven't said? Something I haven't finished! It must be very large and true whatever it is and a lively struggle in the doing but I look forward to it immensely. I know I need it. First, however, I must curl up in my chair and sleep deeply with the duck. Perhaps I'll dream of this thing and wake up refreshed and do it. My fond wishes to you Mr. Curly, and to all Curly Flat.
Yours sleepily,
Vasco Pyjama
xxx
P.S. Not having breakfast can make you weary. That's for sure!
[/quote]
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><div class="bb-center"><iframe src="//youtube.com/embed/HPjJCVylFBo?theme=dark" frameborder="0" width="496" height="279" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><br><br><blockquote class="bb-quote">Dear Mr Curly,<br>I have done little travelling lately because I have been so dreadfully weary. Can it be true as the old Ecclesiastes said; that all things lead to weariness? Surely not. Perhaps the opposite is true: that all <span class="bb-u">nothings</span> lead to weariness. I have a peculiar feeling, Curly, that <span class="bb-u">I</span> am worn out from something I haven't yet done and the more I don't do it, the more exhausted I become. How strange. Could it be something I haven't realised? Perhaps it's something I haven't said? Something I haven't finished! It must be very large and true whatever it is and a lively struggle in the doing but I look forward to it immensely. I know I need it. First, however, I must curl up in my chair and sleep deeply with the duck. Perhaps I'll dream of this thing and wake up refreshed and do it. My fond wishes to you Mr. Curly, and to all Curly Flat.<br>Yours sleepily,<br>	Vasco Pyjama<br>	xxx<br>P.S. Not having breakfast can make you weary. That's for sure!<footer>Michael Leunig. The Curly Pyjama Letters.</footer></blockquote></div>
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