yeehaw
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Pickled Piper
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moved for repurposing elsewhere
[THEME]
The harpy eagle Ykka devoured his prey while Nadira performed harumancy with its entrails, exacting her divinations through subtle arrangements of tiny bones and emerald plumage. The green rain cast small ripples through the blood as it yielded its answers to her questions. The twin stars had already begun to enter partial phase overhead, heralding the shift in the Color of the World that would perturb nature and fate alike; it was not the first time Nadira would witness the Breaking. Many powers moved when causality came unmoored from its usual shoring.
Twice before she reached the edge of the forest hinterlands, her path strayed across human hunters taking advantage of new life breathed into the woodland by unseasonal warmth. Training arrows upon a vulpine shadow, they found themselves peering into golden eyes and the womanly face of a Sidereal Sister, creased by a lifetime of secrets into a wrinkled labyrinth. Both men lowered their bows and murmured their forgiveness into the tree branches in the hope the wind might carry their words back to the Witch of Midwinter on the rustling leaves.
Here in the forest that was her roh, all knew to respect the Red Witch Nadira.
In days to come there would be many sightings of foxes throughout the hamlets and small farming communities across Stakris. Children playing in the fields often looked skyward when they found themselves standing in the shadow of the great harpy eagle that soared far overhead. South and east the wind and their will carried them, though not along the usual footpaths conveying trade between settlements. Their journey passed over shrubland and into forest glades, creeping at last up the alpine slopes of the northernmost peaks of the Arrowfalls.
At night Nadira listened to choruses of toads sing to her of upset cycles across the wilderness. During the day she watched butterflies float dreamily through fields of flowers that should not be in bloom. Not even Trespassers wandered this far out beyond the edge of civilization. There was no one to drink from the crystalline streams the Red Witch followed in the forgotten world, one still smelling of moss and animal musk and humming with the mystery of the virgin earth.
As Ykka and Nadira descended towards the primordial lake that loomed pristine in the heart of the small valley, they passed a squat circular watchtower, its masonry evocative of the Age of the Gods. A crumbbling sentinel, extinct from living memory for far longer than it had ever been given a purpose.
Or so it seemed. Beneath the tower a cavern gouged the hillside, descending deep into the belly of the land. Ykka refused to enter the chthonic depths with Nadira, knowing she sought to consult another of the ancient things haunting the bones of the world. Ykka did not trust it, and told her he would seek help if she did not emerge. Afterwards, alone, the old woman's first steps carried her past primitive paintings that gave way to damp stone. The rock told its own story, one of how these caves had been hewn by a great river in a time beyond kenning, and even now Nadira felt the weight and pressure of the lake as she went lower and lower into the bowels of the cave.
The tunnel emerged into an earthen grotto, air permeated with the stench of rotting mud. A green pool of water half-congealed with slime stretched before the far wall. The lair was clearly inhabited, a squalor of rudimentary furniture and curious objects strewn throughout. A short round table occupied the center of the room and upon it rested the implements for drinking tea, two priceless cups cut from the finest porcelain and inlaid in geometric floral patterns. Leaves and herbs rested in the bottom of a vessel at the center of the table.
The Red Witch took her seat and waited. Time passed strangely so deep below the skin of the world. After a time she heard the whistling of a kettle and glanced to the side to see water heating on a clay stovetop, a fire crackling in the oven's belly as it must have been since long before she arrived. Nadira did not rise.
After only a moment, ripples disturbed the stillness of the slimy water. The creature that emerged was covered in the soft pink flesh of a being incomplete in its development, though the Red Witch knew it was older than her by far. The ancient salamandroid hauled itself on many small hands from the brackish water and onto the stone. The worm lizard possessed many segments, its distal half smooth save the long caudal fin atop its vast, coiling body. Massive gill stalks crowned its skull, each covered in filtration appendages twitching as if scathed by the air. A few shuddering gasps convulsed across its wriggling body.
For many long moments it gave no indication it was aware of Nadira's presence, lumbering slowly across the room to retrieve the hissing kettle. After several ponderous minutes its alien face regarded her from across the table, one hand tipping the spout to steep their tea in hot water.
Nadira, it said in syllables stretched long and slow over a watery, wheezing exhalation. A delight to receive an unexpected visit for tea from an old friend.
At some point it brandished an old fashioned pipe and ignited it with a singular fingertap. Her predecessor had brought her to the lair of the amphibious leviathan for the first time when she was a girl, and she wondered how many of the Sidereal Sisters had sat in the cave of the dragon-worm to drink its tea and discuss destiny.
Play the harlequin if you must, but I know you've seen it. The same dream. Nadira gestured so that the vapors rising from the tea leaves suggested the joining of two great lights, blue and yellow, and a million emerald sparks...
You know the Breaking is nigh.
── ykka & nadira ──
── •⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅• ──
── •⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅• ──
The harpy eagle Ykka devoured his prey while Nadira performed harumancy with its entrails, exacting her divinations through subtle arrangements of tiny bones and emerald plumage. The green rain cast small ripples through the blood as it yielded its answers to her questions. The twin stars had already begun to enter partial phase overhead, heralding the shift in the Color of the World that would perturb nature and fate alike; it was not the first time Nadira would witness the Breaking. Many powers moved when causality came unmoored from its usual shoring.
Twice before she reached the edge of the forest hinterlands, her path strayed across human hunters taking advantage of new life breathed into the woodland by unseasonal warmth. Training arrows upon a vulpine shadow, they found themselves peering into golden eyes and the womanly face of a Sidereal Sister, creased by a lifetime of secrets into a wrinkled labyrinth. Both men lowered their bows and murmured their forgiveness into the tree branches in the hope the wind might carry their words back to the Witch of Midwinter on the rustling leaves.
Here in the forest that was her roh, all knew to respect the Red Witch Nadira.
In days to come there would be many sightings of foxes throughout the hamlets and small farming communities across Stakris. Children playing in the fields often looked skyward when they found themselves standing in the shadow of the great harpy eagle that soared far overhead. South and east the wind and their will carried them, though not along the usual footpaths conveying trade between settlements. Their journey passed over shrubland and into forest glades, creeping at last up the alpine slopes of the northernmost peaks of the Arrowfalls.
At night Nadira listened to choruses of toads sing to her of upset cycles across the wilderness. During the day she watched butterflies float dreamily through fields of flowers that should not be in bloom. Not even Trespassers wandered this far out beyond the edge of civilization. There was no one to drink from the crystalline streams the Red Witch followed in the forgotten world, one still smelling of moss and animal musk and humming with the mystery of the virgin earth.
As Ykka and Nadira descended towards the primordial lake that loomed pristine in the heart of the small valley, they passed a squat circular watchtower, its masonry evocative of the Age of the Gods. A crumbbling sentinel, extinct from living memory for far longer than it had ever been given a purpose.
Or so it seemed. Beneath the tower a cavern gouged the hillside, descending deep into the belly of the land. Ykka refused to enter the chthonic depths with Nadira, knowing she sought to consult another of the ancient things haunting the bones of the world. Ykka did not trust it, and told her he would seek help if she did not emerge. Afterwards, alone, the old woman's first steps carried her past primitive paintings that gave way to damp stone. The rock told its own story, one of how these caves had been hewn by a great river in a time beyond kenning, and even now Nadira felt the weight and pressure of the lake as she went lower and lower into the bowels of the cave.
The tunnel emerged into an earthen grotto, air permeated with the stench of rotting mud. A green pool of water half-congealed with slime stretched before the far wall. The lair was clearly inhabited, a squalor of rudimentary furniture and curious objects strewn throughout. A short round table occupied the center of the room and upon it rested the implements for drinking tea, two priceless cups cut from the finest porcelain and inlaid in geometric floral patterns. Leaves and herbs rested in the bottom of a vessel at the center of the table.
The Red Witch took her seat and waited. Time passed strangely so deep below the skin of the world. After a time she heard the whistling of a kettle and glanced to the side to see water heating on a clay stovetop, a fire crackling in the oven's belly as it must have been since long before she arrived. Nadira did not rise.
After only a moment, ripples disturbed the stillness of the slimy water. The creature that emerged was covered in the soft pink flesh of a being incomplete in its development, though the Red Witch knew it was older than her by far. The ancient salamandroid hauled itself on many small hands from the brackish water and onto the stone. The worm lizard possessed many segments, its distal half smooth save the long caudal fin atop its vast, coiling body. Massive gill stalks crowned its skull, each covered in filtration appendages twitching as if scathed by the air. A few shuddering gasps convulsed across its wriggling body.
For many long moments it gave no indication it was aware of Nadira's presence, lumbering slowly across the room to retrieve the hissing kettle. After several ponderous minutes its alien face regarded her from across the table, one hand tipping the spout to steep their tea in hot water.
Nadira, it said in syllables stretched long and slow over a watery, wheezing exhalation. A delight to receive an unexpected visit for tea from an old friend.
At some point it brandished an old fashioned pipe and ignited it with a singular fingertap. Her predecessor had brought her to the lair of the amphibious leviathan for the first time when she was a girl, and she wondered how many of the Sidereal Sisters had sat in the cave of the dragon-worm to drink its tea and discuss destiny.
Play the harlequin if you must, but I know you've seen it. The same dream. Nadira gestured so that the vapors rising from the tea leaves suggested the joining of two great lights, blue and yellow, and a million emerald sparks...
You know the Breaking is nigh.
The realization that players and NPCs alike obeyed kayfabe provoked a profound unease in Haialark. Her body language became considerably more subdued as characters she had taken for low level trash mobs received names and even backstories, further reinforcing her belief that the usual rules of game design were not in play. The many databases of esoteric Empyrea Online lore and loot tables permanently cached in Haialark's memory reeled under the weight of all this new information. It was catastrophically uncharted, a whole new game, and she would have to improvise her strat on the fly...
Yet, how many myths discarded as EO cut content would turn out to be true? This was a neurodivergent genius tier easter egg, an entire layer of game hidden so deep within the game it would never emerge as more than rumor and legend. And the loot. Treasures unfathomable had to be waiting for them out here. Haia's head twitched and her eyes dropped to the hilt of the Featherblade. No matter how she balked at the loss of all her accumulated mastery, this was a golden opportunity to cut the name Xx_haia-the-ill701_xX permanently into the skin of history.
As the group moved towards the warehouse, her gaze swept over nearby rooftops, raptor vision keen to pluck the outline of a drone from amid the dark clouds bruising the night sky. This had to be livestreamed, Haia knew instinctively. The algorithm demanded an audience for content like this. Her best chance at confirming her suspicions about all of this would be to find one such seam in the game world, something the devs couldn't hide. She needed merely to wait. Outside, she noticed that the despawn timers hadn't expired on any of the corpses.
Her body prickled as they passed over the threshold into the warehouse and she immediately detected the massive arachnid creature sprawled over the ceiling. Excitement and bloodlust spiked through her -- she knew a boss monster when she saw one -- then died down as she realized it wasn't moving. Nonetheless, its presence and the undeniable dungeon vibe of the game assets strewn around them suggested to Haialark that they were headed in the right direction.
Permanently locked into the mindset of a gacha whale powerleveling a new account, it was practically impossible for her to focus on the dialogue of introductory quest NPCs, and Peggy's hopeful pleading slid off the smooth surface of her bird brain. When the beautiful precious shiny 017 spoke, however, she hyperfixated on the intricacy of every synthetic inflection. She nodded enthusiastially after her cherished companion concluded their speech and gestured with one taloned hand at the warehouse around them, the other never leaving her sword hilt.
"Yes yes!" she agreed in two staccato squawks, totally unaware of Peggy's warning. She took 017's dialogue to hopefully indicate the party shared her intuition that they needed to trigger some kind of gated story progression, most likely kill the spider demon unless the devs had included multiple paths through the questline, and continue on.
"We should investigate this place and see if we find any answers here." She took a few cautious steps towards the caged gravel, observing it with the predator curiosity of an eagle watching a mouse.
@Circ @Shinny @THE ADORATION @Divorarel
Yet, how many myths discarded as EO cut content would turn out to be true? This was a neurodivergent genius tier easter egg, an entire layer of game hidden so deep within the game it would never emerge as more than rumor and legend. And the loot. Treasures unfathomable had to be waiting for them out here. Haia's head twitched and her eyes dropped to the hilt of the Featherblade. No matter how she balked at the loss of all her accumulated mastery, this was a golden opportunity to cut the name Xx_haia-the-ill701_xX permanently into the skin of history.
As the group moved towards the warehouse, her gaze swept over nearby rooftops, raptor vision keen to pluck the outline of a drone from amid the dark clouds bruising the night sky. This had to be livestreamed, Haia knew instinctively. The algorithm demanded an audience for content like this. Her best chance at confirming her suspicions about all of this would be to find one such seam in the game world, something the devs couldn't hide. She needed merely to wait. Outside, she noticed that the despawn timers hadn't expired on any of the corpses.
Her body prickled as they passed over the threshold into the warehouse and she immediately detected the massive arachnid creature sprawled over the ceiling. Excitement and bloodlust spiked through her -- she knew a boss monster when she saw one -- then died down as she realized it wasn't moving. Nonetheless, its presence and the undeniable dungeon vibe of the game assets strewn around them suggested to Haialark that they were headed in the right direction.
Permanently locked into the mindset of a gacha whale powerleveling a new account, it was practically impossible for her to focus on the dialogue of introductory quest NPCs, and Peggy's hopeful pleading slid off the smooth surface of her bird brain. When the beautiful precious shiny 017 spoke, however, she hyperfixated on the intricacy of every synthetic inflection. She nodded enthusiastially after her cherished companion concluded their speech and gestured with one taloned hand at the warehouse around them, the other never leaving her sword hilt.
"Yes yes!" she agreed in two staccato squawks, totally unaware of Peggy's warning. She took 017's dialogue to hopefully indicate the party shared her intuition that they needed to trigger some kind of gated story progression, most likely kill the spider demon unless the devs had included multiple paths through the questline, and continue on.
"We should investigate this place and see if we find any answers here." She took a few cautious steps towards the caged gravel, observing it with the predator curiosity of an eagle watching a mouse.
@Circ @Shinny @THE ADORATION @Divorarel
── ykka & nadira ──
── •⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅• ──
── •⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅• ──
It took nine days for the Red Witch to finish her dream.
First she molded a heart from phosphene sparks in the black of sleep, then she hammered a body from the incoherence to house it. Like weaving rope from sand, she shaped her dream, sculpting forms out of incense that rose off censers full of burning mugwort and smoldering sage.
For more than an age it had been rare for the Sidereal Sisters to share the sieve of their dreams, but in the communality of their vision they saw themselves as they were in times older than the kenning of men, when they ran wild through primeval forests alight with their stories and song. Nadira heard many voices in those dreams, though only half-remembered. Words relating signs and portents and prophecy.
Then silence.
In the hinterland forests far to the north of Stavkat, long days of rain turned the earth into treacherous mud. Water hung in gossamer threads from pine needles and tree branches, spiderwebs glittering across every surface where the light caught them. Great conifers and other towering gymnosperms spread their arms in a canopy of spruce and fir a hundred meters high.
Precious little light broke through to the underbrush save for here or there in heavenly rays, and all was quiet in the darkness save the steady drumbeat of the storm skald whose thunderous laughter rolled through the land at intervals in the downpour. The shadow of wings swept through a shaft of light, razor talons cutting through the silence and the life of some small woodland creature too slow as it scurried to safety along the forest floor. Tiny black eyes peered out from the harpy eagle's gray-white plumage, and water slid off the black brim of its flat-topped capotain.
Mantling itself with its great wings, it tore apart and devoured its prey, a vole or some other rodent. It stood beside a tomblike niche dug in the soft mud, half-hidden by leaves and rocks, covered in the scratchmarks of fox claws. Next to the raptor a stream babbled softly as it coursed over smooth stones. The air was heavy with the aroma of burning rosemary and coriander.
A fox creature washed the smell of smoke and ritual from itself in the freezing creek, then slipped into a traveling robe. It turned to peer through the shrubs at its companion and Nadira's eyes gleamed golden in the half-light.
"Dear Ykka, my dreams leave me ill at ease. There are whispers in the Court of odd things stirring," she said. "We'll make to depart once you've finished your meal. The road to Lundros is long and, from the looks of things, wet."
additions to lore by Odium
characters played by Odium
I think I might have to get in this too!
It is said that King Khuak the Wise fell mad with prey-lust and shiny-want in the latter days of his flight,
crowing that he would hatch again from the great egg of the sun immortal, his nest eternal,
and in glory he departed from the communal tree to soar into its light,
never to return from the answers he found there
Haialark's head twitched corvid-quick from scene to scene: beautiful glowbaby shiny-shining emoji-bright; golem man, stone-strong and definitely a tank, cool cosmetics but direly in need of a better mic if he wanted to voice chat that badly; lovely symmetrical smoothface, so alluring she could hardly control the impulse to collect her perfect geometrical chassis and bioluminescent glowbaby together in her nest and polish them —
GAWK! Daydreaming, the flashbang caught Haialark totally off guard. It so happened that simultaneously she hit the first peak on the fierce cocktail of stimulants intended to carry her through the next few days of raid-grinding. Everything looked mostly okay after a cursory sweep of her limited augmentations but she sincerely hoped her endocrine mods hadn't gotten disconfigured in the jump, because otherwise she was going to be one speedy roadrunner very shortly.
It troubled her that trash mobs were fleeing from their destiny as delightful little bags of xp locking whales like herself into the frictionless dopamine loop of watching numbers go up. Haialark singlehandedly represented a full 19% of average round DPS in CTRL ALT ELITE, a guild forty-nine members strong on this highly planned raid and who were absolutely screwed without her to outpace the regen on the megadungeon superboss.
Possessed of a supremely gifted mind when it came to MMORPG number crunching and the calculation of obscenely precise loot reward tables, Haialark instantaneously interpolated a rough polynomial curve of the revised guild DPS in function of buff cooldown timers according to a new pattern designed to conserve resources without her.
Maybe if they committed to a blind speedrun of the DLC she could pull something off, but her feathers ruffled as another thought cracked its shell against her mind. No one else seemed to be recognizing they were playing Empyrea Online at all. Had Haialark broken kayfabe?
In the truly grognardy secret subquests five layers into the alternate reality game simultaneously occurring within the matrioshka doll of Empyrea Online deeplore, if you didn't embrace roleplaying with fidelity to your character archetype you could miss certain triggers and fuck up years worth of progress. Terrifying to consider what she might have put at risk.
Vision sharpened again, hawk-hunting, she watched the fleeing creatures. Their tiny little mammalian eyes, white and wide. So afraid. Noticing silverface near the warehouse, Haialark took a breath, feathered arms shifting into full streamlined wings, raven-black. Allowing her boiling thoughts of the raid to go dim and monochrome, she ran, a great bird of prey rushing towards her companion with a hooked beak built to slip between vertebrae and sever spines, violet eyes alien and unreadable.
Meaning no threat Haialark chirped, "Of course, o stunningly polished one. Clever gambit, to hunt the hunter. Slip into their nests and crack their eggs. I shall open the way." Naturally she shared their mutual understanding that this was a way of progressing the main quest to an inevitable boss encounter. 017 had shown she was going to be the utility bot stunlocking the enemy, and her support would assuredly be necessary for Haialark to optimize her DPS.
This desire to be near 017 had absolutely nothing to do with her lovely metallic gleam, the declension of light off its surface, at each instant perfectly unique, shininess ever shifting...
Haialark gently brushed the chain from her hands so it clattered against the door. She drew the breath inward, submerging herself in the divine yolk, and enacted the eleventh cawta of the wing, twenty-feathered strike of the roaring garuda (オタク面白い鳥人武道テクニック), the tip of her dark plumage thrusting forward at great speed so that its uttermost extreme rested softly against the lock. Haialark gave a squawk of exertion and her eerie purple luminescence radiated from the chain, rattling then exploding violently inward as if struck with great force, the door swinging open wildly on its hinges.
Haialark self-rationalized that she wanted to show her likely role in the party as glass cannon DPS and that this also had absolutely no relation to any of her lovely glowing companions, and waited for the rest of the group to gather.
Edited my first post to change the dialogue text color from pale green to blue to reflect my ~ a e s t h e t i c ~
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