Author Topic: The Great Northern Forest  (Read 23901 times)

SINIB

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Re: The Great Northern Forest
« Reply #420 on: February 01, 2021, 08:32:43 PM »
Eruraviel

Eruraviel's eyes trailed down to his half clenched fist and his uncomfortable body language—This won't do. She thought to herself. I'd be a terrible host to simply ignore this and allow his discomfort to grow. It would leave a stain upon my people's honor, as well as leave him with a sour taste in his mouth regarding me.

It was better not to carelessly make enemies, in her experience. Wanton, careless disregard for the feelings of others had lead to the destruction of her kingdom and the slaughter of her people. She would not be making such mistakes this time, not when they were so easily avoidable. "Really now? In my experience, putting your feet up is a sign of relaxation. It means that you won't be attempting to attack the other or flee from the scene in a hurry." She responded to William with a curious expression. I would think no such thing, and isn't it more rude to hold a side-conversation that he's not privy to? Eruraviel asked with a pointed tone. Only a fool couldn't tell that he's a powerful mage worthy of being my ally, and you're no fool, Will. It would be good to know something of what he's doing, don't you think?

Her eyes then landed squarely on Longirsu. "I have an inkling of what you may be referring to, but I must ask you a question first. Are you aware of what I am and that which I represent, or did you simply come here searching for a powerful ally?"

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Bern

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Re: The Great Northern Forest
« Reply #421 on: February 03, 2021, 12:14:25 AM »
William

"It would do you good to not refer to my wife like she was a golem." Autonomous and frees willed? Really, this stranger had some nerve to refer to her a machine, or a tool of sorts. William's tone shapened significantly, gone was the wonky delivery boy of the hats. He was regarding the scientist in a very different light now, like one would look at an annoying stain on the wall.

He may not have any real interest in this transaction, deal or whatever it was. But he definitely wouldn't allow his Elf girl to be conned or used by anyone else than him.

« Last Edit: February 03, 2021, 12:16:58 AM by SINIB »

YOLF

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Re: The Great Northern Forest
« Reply #422 on: February 03, 2021, 12:36:29 PM »
Longirsu

"I meant it only in the context of my research data, nothing more." Crossing William's gaze with an unfond look, he secured the cup meant for him solidly in his right hand and raised it to his mouth. A calm sip was taken before he lowered it again, breathing steam against the surface of the tea. Longirsu fixed his expression on his host, then.

"I came here seeking information, and an asset. I do not yet know you, but if your being and goals are amenable to me, then I am willing to be an asset to you as well."
[13:38:37] Helligator: Depends on the god, but gods by definition in Nasuverse are strong because they have divine authority.
[13:38:48] Kat: Even the toilet god?
[13:38:56] Helligator: No one worships toilets.
[13:39:00] Helligator: Don't be a shitlord.

[04:32:08] Helligator: I can't make dragons in power armor like this

[19:50:12] francobull III: [...] why are you being all assive aggressive?

[23:32:37] Helligator: use the narrative as a means to convey an interesting story and cool conflicts with the openness you're allowed
[23:32:43] Helligator: not to CHEAT stories and conflicts

SINIB

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Re: The Great Northern Forest
« Reply #423 on: February 03, 2021, 11:14:10 PM »
Eruraviel

Eruraviel tapped her heel against the strong hardwood table with an inscrutable poker face which one could only acquire with decades of careful training and practice. It failed to betray any significant feelings whatsoever, and indeed, she hadn't been terribly bothered by his choice of words.

It was clear, Longirsu was some sort of magical engineer. One whom had entrenched himself in his research to such a degree that it had seeped into how he spoke, nothing more. There was no reason to be offended when such little offensive intent had been communicated. Still, she truly did appreciate William's quick and confident defense of her honor. It reminded her of her royal guard, as if he were taking the role of a dark knight. An arcane circle began to scrawl in the air in purple runes, opening up a line which the elven princess began to scroll through.

"We have similar problems with the other, it seems." Eruraviel sang out in her musical voice ringing of a whimsical world. Of course, she wasn't telling the full truth. She knew far more about him than he seemed to know about her. "Tell me, my guest. What are your goals? I must insist on being informed of them before we are able to discuss anything further."

She leaned forwards and brought the tips of her slender fingers together underneath her chin, glowing with avid curiosity.

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Re: The Great Northern Forest
« Reply #424 on: February 04, 2021, 06:23:25 PM »
Kore

Lunch-ish???

Petty conjurers who make their living on a small talent for seeing the future wake up sweating, an inexplicable terror roiling in their  guts at the already half-forgotten image of great pillars, shattered, of a world of gravestones.

The learned curse as great scrying mirrors shatter, a terrible shining crown burning into their eyes as it shatters. In the pattern of the broken glass, they read that something terrible is approaching -a  demon slouching towards a holy city to despoil all the sacred places of the world...



Kore spreads jam on her toast as her kettle whistles, the fragrant smell of tea (it took her a century to get the correct flavour) filling the kitchen. Her side aches, as it always does. Out of her window, she can see her crops - fruit trees, wheat, fields of vegetables, bushes of strawberries - beyond them a border of trees. All is as it has been for - centuries? Millenia? But-

The sun is shining down, bright and cheerful. Like she had never seen it gutter and die.  And beyond her small grove of trees - impressively large, in her opinion, given what she had to work with - she can see taller trees towering in the distance. She did not plant those. Which means they should not be here.

She takes a bite of the toast, and chews. She pours a cup of tea and lets it cool as she considers.

She had felt something in the space below her skin.  A skein of space-time in disorder. 

Wherever this place was, it was not where she had lived. Had been living for a long time.

As she sips her tea (she almost spits it out, it hadn’t cooled as quickly as she expected) Kore wonders - do people live here?

In tall towers of glass and steel, in earthen mounds fortified with wood and stone, travelling on animals, or plying rivers? The form of their living doesn’t matter to her. What shape they are.

Only that they exist.  That people exist. Not a hollow shell reaching for her throat - but... People who live and laugh and love-

She hisses as still too hot tea scalds her hands. She had been shaking, tremors slowly rippling through her body.

The more important question is - should she check? Does she have the right to try and pretend to be one of them? After everything?

If they exist. If they exist, she tells herself, as she finishes the tea and toast, she can ask herself that question. Consider it.

She packs a small bag of... provisions isn’t the right word, since she doesn’t need to eat.

Maybe she can use them for barter, she thinks, as she picks up, with careful reverence, the branch of not-wood that was once part of her parent. She takes a few steps, using it as a walking stick. It’s not remotely necessary, but this way she can look more normal.

Humans used to use sticks to walk through forests, she vaguely recalls, smoothing out her skirt as she steps out of her house. 

She picks a direction where she see’s less tall trees, and starts to walk.
« Last Edit: February 04, 2021, 06:32:13 PM by Who? »

Bern

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Re: The Great Northern Forest
« Reply #425 on: February 04, 2021, 08:25:10 PM »
William

The introduction of this scientist came to mind, and with that in mind it was all to easy for his old mind to wander to darker places. He was being far too guarded for his liking, speaking pleasantries yet taking so long to even convey why he was truly here. He could think of a few things that would require That and none of them were good.

"And what kind of weapon requires you to gather several unending energy sources?" It was a shot in the dark, but he had a feeling his coming here had something to do with that or at least something close to it. The carefulness in this man's words as well as his introduction gave it away.

YOLF

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Re: The Great Northern Forest
« Reply #426 on: February 04, 2021, 09:42:34 PM »
Longirsu

His attention fell easily on the sigils she called upon, adding them to the threads of information that his eyes began to dissassemble. But his expression curled with dim displeasure to the man's question. He was sharp, and not to be underlooked. It pulled at something ugly inside that this was the kind of inquiry that Longirsu himself would have posed, in his place.

He was not naive. He did not expect this elf sorceress to tell him everything she had ever planned, or the dreams that she wove in the loom of her power, and he had no intentions to tip his entire hand. Weapons? Yes, after a certain fashion, that wasn't wrong. What would this William think if he knew of the artifacts he kept? Too soon for that. He did not relish revealing any weakness, yet Longirsu sensed that neither could he get away with a bold lie. Not underneath Eruraviel's gaze. Not yet.

"They are useful for that," Longirsu said, and lowered the teacup back to its place with a faint clack. "But it is the means to manipulate physical laws which I care for. There are... errors I must correct. I want to find the method to restore something that has been indelibly broken, and I believe in such power sources lies the key."
« Last Edit: February 04, 2021, 09:44:01 PM by YOLF »
[13:38:37] Helligator: Depends on the god, but gods by definition in Nasuverse are strong because they have divine authority.
[13:38:48] Kat: Even the toilet god?
[13:38:56] Helligator: No one worships toilets.
[13:39:00] Helligator: Don't be a shitlord.

[04:32:08] Helligator: I can't make dragons in power armor like this

[19:50:12] francobull III: [...] why are you being all assive aggressive?

[23:32:37] Helligator: use the narrative as a means to convey an interesting story and cool conflicts with the openness you're allowed
[23:32:43] Helligator: not to CHEAT stories and conflicts

SINIB

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Re: The Great Northern Forest
« Reply #427 on: February 05, 2021, 03:58:12 AM »
Eruraviel

"Oh, how interesting." Eruraviel immediately interjected without missing a single second. "You wish to gain the power to manipulate physical laws? Pray tell, which ones?" Eru raised a blond eyebrow and cocked her head a few degrees to the left. "I have met many such adventurers with such goals in the few centuries I've been alive—very few of whom which I'd classify as beneficial to my health. Some wanted power, some desired the power to recreate the universe from scratch in the form of a 'better' world out of a sense of idealism. Some others wished to kill gods—and a few, well, they simply wished to have the ability for the sake of sating their own mystical curiosities." She had been forced to risk her life many times, and oftentimes her ephemeral friends had been forced to take the ultimate sacrifice themselves. Her, well, she'd bound herself to the material plane, so she hadn't been whisked away to the afterlife like the rest. However...

She knew. She was fully aware of what sorts of catastrophes might be unleashed were she to blindly aid him in his quest. And she was wary. Eruraviel seemed to have finished playing with her magic, tapping on what appeared to be a button before swiping right with her hand, dispelling the interface.

She looked carefully into his eyes, into his soul. "So, I shall ask you again. What are your goals? What sorts of errors are you seeking to correct? How would my aiding you result in me helping myself?"

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Umbra of Chaos

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Re: The Great Northern Forest
« Reply #428 on: February 05, 2021, 01:01:17 PM »
Fu Hua

The forest rots. Corruption pours through it, infecting the life within. Maggots spill from the earth. They fester in the ground her feet trample on, as if they were feasting on the dead soil itself. Ancient trees groan in agony as their trunks splinter. Blood red sap drips from them as their leaves visibly age and fall. Fu Hua's face twists into a slight frown, but neither her putrid surroundings or her expression mar her loveliness.

No, even that is insufficient. Surrounded in decay, she appears even more beautiful.

But she is frowning nevertheless. She clicks her tongue in irritation, and she gestures towards the death around her in mild distaste. Honestly, was it any surprise that she preferred the city? This was not so bad, but it was hard to have pleasant company like this. These old places always seem to have it out for her, forcing only the most brutish acts! Well, again, she didn't really dislike that. But it just wasn't convenient all the time. She was looking for someone after all. It'd been so long since anyone had put out such a loud and broad call.

So she gently shepherds her target towards her. Fu Hua's will shapes the forest, sculpting dense woodlands to guide the strange girl to her. All to bring the girl to the clearing she had forcible emptied and forced to bloom, a cornucopia of flowers and fruit feeding on and concealing the devastation.


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Re: The Great Northern Forest
« Reply #429 on: February 05, 2021, 07:31:02 PM »
Kore

As she... strolls? No, rambles, she’s rambling along.

As Kore rambles through the forest, she pauses every so often. She stares at trees she only faintly remembers from her time on Earth. She starts when she hears the twitter of bird song - and stares up as... she doesn’t know what this one is called, if it was native to her Earth. But there are living things here. Living things.

Kore leans against a tree and sighs, tension coiling through her body, pulling taut like steel wire.

Living things. 

She breathes slowly and deeply, regular breaths.

Living things.

She swallows the slightly manic laughter that starts to crawl up her throat. She doesn’t know why she’s here, or where she is. But here, surrounded by life she has not had to raise by hand, she feels content in a way she has not in a long, long time. It is a verdant land, full of life (and death, she thinks to herself wryly, smelling the scent of decay and death in the distance) and she is in it.

As she straightens up and starts walking forward again, even the  root she nearly trips on can’t dampen her mood.

Kore walks forward with more focus now, her steps filled with purpose.

She only stops when she sees...Rotted trees.  Great redwoods, with decaying cores, gnawing at dead soil. There not a clear demarcation, but interspersed with still healthy, living trees - it’s odd, to her mind. Some odd illness, an element in the soil? She can see more dead trees beyond them, a forest of wooden corpses held up solely by inertia. The scent of rot is thick in the air, and after years of smelling only the sterile, lifeless air of her home, even this is somewhat welcome.

If disgusting.

But her curiosity has been piqued - a vice, admittedly, but harmless compared to everything else she’s done. The corruption, rot... It affects everything. And some of the flowers - oozing sickly sweet nectar, bloom as she passes.

The most confusing thing is that nothing is actually breaking - with this many rotten trees, at least some should have broken, especially with such advanced stages -  they must have been like this for weeks at least, and been blown down or just crumbled, dry, rotten roots unable to hold their ground.

But if this is a new world, who knows what could be happening? Ores, water, illnesses she has never seen before - she lets herself indulge in a brief fantasy of helping people here heal, if people exist, of fighting strange illnesses - but discards it. If  the people hadn’t figured out how to fight this, there was no guarantee she -  a foreigner from another world, and one with no talent for medicine would. Her plants had never had to deal with illness. There was nothing left to cause it.

Trees fall, out of nowhere as she steps forward. She looks up with narrowed eyes as they collide so they lean over her together, forming an arch. In front of her, more and more trees do the same, and the effect is something like the crossed spears of soldiers, showing respect to a visiting dignitary to a royal court.

And at the end of the pseudo-corridor formed by the leaning trees, she sees a clearing of flowers and fruit, and in the middle - a short, lithe figure. Even from this distance, she can see training in their shape, in the way they hold themselves.

Even from here, she can sense what they are - more an evil spirit than a person, formed from corruption and negative emotions.

She thinks, for a moment, of a very long time ago, when she gave mortals parts of her power, to make themselves into monsters, forms twisting as they were armoured with their hatreds and sorrows.

They pale to this, whatever it is.  It is like a dragon to a carp.

Kore rests her hand on the belt that now wraps her waist - sleek and angular, petrified wood that is not wood cold under her fingers.

She has many questions to ask this being. They want to tear out of her mouth. But she masters herself and says:

"What are you, and what do you intend?"

Umbra of Chaos

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Re: The Great Northern Forest
« Reply #430 on: February 06, 2021, 01:12:45 AM »
Fu Hua

"Hmm~, you're smaller than I expected." The voice didn't come from the figure in the center of the garden. Instead, an identical copy of her pulls itself from the ground and surveys the green haired girl with an almost gleaming focus. A tree behind them shatters into chips of wood and decaying pulp as another Fu Hua emerges from it. This one walks right up to the curiosity and holds the girl's free hand, giving a few thoughtful squeezes.

"With the call you gave, I was suspecting a calamity," says the one in the clearing.

"This isn't quite the same, but I can't say that I'm disappointed," says the one but a few steps away, framing the stranger with her fingers.

"You do have very soft hands for a monster, after all. But there's a good firmness there," says the one holding her hand.

The woods surround the clearing close in on themselves. The branches and roots warp together, trunks bend and do not break, and with a pulse of malice it cuts them off from any direct voyeurs. Though, if that were not enough she could impale any interloper with a thought.

Then the two copies sandwich the green haired girl between them, gently trying to pull her towards the garden as the original holds her hands out. "I, Fu Hua, have come to acknowledge you. I made this garden only for you. Take whatever you want from it." Fu Hua was not so vain that she would pick any common trinket to adorn her. To acknowledge was to desire; to desire was to attain. Even if only to peel apart the mystery, her whimsy had left her with no other choice but to take ownership of this stranger.

"Though," she sighs, "I am not unwilling to answer your questions even if you spurn my gifts."

« Last Edit: February 06, 2021, 01:27:11 AM by Umbra of Chaos »

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Re: The Great Northern Forest
« Reply #431 on: February 06, 2021, 04:18:21 PM »
Kore

Kore looks at both of the Fu Hua’s at her side, mind whirling. She had expected a scream of rage, or a silent, murderous advance. Those... subjects she had seen at the highest levels of negative emotion were not rational creatures - powerful, but in a way humans were never meant to be. And they did not look like - they did not hold hands.

Or compliment said hands. Was she blushing? She might be blushing.

She lets herself be pulled towards the garden - where what must be the original stands, surrounded by flowers and fruit, almost sickly in their sweetness. But there is rot underneath.

Rot that she now knows must emanate from Fu Hua - this strange, beautiful evil spirit. Or - perhaps not evil? Negative emotions, powers that shaped the world - she was not in a position to cast judgement on anyone. In this strange new world, she had no frame of reference for who was what. Fu Hua might be some hero who isolated herself away from society in fear of what her unctrolled powers might do to those around her.

But she keeps her parent’s branch in the crook of her arm, and one hand rests on her belt. (The other, out of politeness, remains holding Fu Hua’s hand.)

"I am still much taller than you." She says to the original. She frowns. That was probably the wrong way to start a conversation.
 
And call? What had Fu Hua meant - no, it must be some effect of her weight on the world. Making her presence clear to those around her - like the arched trees. Worrying.

But a concern for later. How to recover from her faux pas?

"I have - food of my own to offer?" She says, but one hand on her belt, the other in the hand of one of the Fu Hua’s all she can do is gesture at the bag she carries with her head. Gift exchanges seemed like they had a certain universal appeal. "And I’ll take some fruit?"

As she speaks, a branch is is suddenly dangling over her. From it hangs an almost too-ripe pomegranate, it’s juices seeping through the skin to drip onto the flowering earth. It look delicious.

Kore lets go of Fu Hua’s hand, reaches up and plucks the fruit from the branch. The juice is sticky on her hands.

It had been  a long time since she had eaten anything she had not grown herself.

It looks sweet.

And when she bites into it, it is.

YOLF

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Re: The Great Northern Forest
« Reply #432 on: February 07, 2021, 01:11:37 AM »
Longirsu

He looked clinically upon her. His enhanced eyes seemed to hold a searching shine, as though she was not an ancient sorcereress whose frame contained unimaginable adventures and undeterminable power, but rather a repository of knowledge and learning, a fountain of secrets to unveil. The things he could gleam from her history, if she was willing to tell it in detail...

Longirsu held his breath before becoming lost in fanciful ideas.

"And you have never held such desires?" He asked. His fingers drummed on the table, forgetting the elegantly prepared tea, and a sigh underlined his next words. "To be plain, I want to move the axioms of life and death. Perhaps temporal progression, if those are an inadequate approach. And now, space and correspondence, I suppose. To allow individuals that ought have died to resume their lives uninterrupted. And to... return whence I came. To fix things there."

That was not all, but it would have to do. How would Ib have answered? Not the one who served him, but his sister? Longirsu did not care for a world without her regardless; but if she were here, if she willingly shared in his undertakings, she would want him to use the results for the same reason that they set out from their home, all those years ago.
« Last Edit: February 07, 2021, 03:29:41 AM by YOLF »
[13:38:37] Helligator: Depends on the god, but gods by definition in Nasuverse are strong because they have divine authority.
[13:38:48] Kat: Even the toilet god?
[13:38:56] Helligator: No one worships toilets.
[13:39:00] Helligator: Don't be a shitlord.

[04:32:08] Helligator: I can't make dragons in power armor like this

[19:50:12] francobull III: [...] why are you being all assive aggressive?

[23:32:37] Helligator: use the narrative as a means to convey an interesting story and cool conflicts with the openness you're allowed
[23:32:43] Helligator: not to CHEAT stories and conflicts

SINIB

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Re: The Great Northern Forest
« Reply #433 on: February 07, 2021, 10:14:59 PM »
Eruraviel

"Keh!" Eruraviel chuckled, rubbing her sharply angled chin with her softly-calloused fingertips. What scary thoughts he's having about me! I wish that he'd simply covet my body like a normal lechor! This is advanced lechory, far greater than any I've experienced before!

Well, it wasn't as if she was unused to such thoughts, so it'd have been pretty hypocritical to call him out for it. The fact was that they were almost two peas a pod. He'd sprouted out of a need to right the wrongs of his past. An understandable motive, to be sure, and one she'd encountered time and time again. She could see devotion roiling throughout his body, dancing hand-in hand with regret, merging into an unhealthy idolatry of someone-his sister?

Eruraviel shook her head. She couldn't tell yet. Nor did it particularly matter to her whom his devotion was the object of.

"I have similar ambitions myself. For the past five-hundred years, I have been searching for knowledge absolute, the sourcebook of reality. I wish to read it, and claim its contents for my own. I wish to create a new utopia for elvenkind, one which shall stand the test of time that learns from the mistakes of my ancestors."

That way, I'll never have to lose anybody ever again.

Her red eyes gleamed with interest. "In my studies of forbidden artes, I have gained possession of some techniques which allow me a level of control over such simple things as life and death." She snapped her finger, and a busty elven woman with white hair dressed in a maid costume walked through the door. She carried a glass vial filled with a whisping, white liquid—the copy of a soul of a human woman her daughter had harvested earlier in the day. She picked it up off of the pedestal and swirled the priceless object around her fingers, alternating from one side of her hand to the other in a display of inhuman dexterity.

"What do you think, Will? Is he trustworthy?" She cocked her head, staring up into her man's deep purple eyes.


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Bern

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Re: The Great Northern Forest
« Reply #434 on: February 08, 2021, 03:21:28 AM »
William

"Ah....Aha.....Hahahahaaahaaahahha..."

The rumbling laughter did indeed come from the mage of darkness, it buit of deepest of dark depths. It was an ominous warning, but for what only those who dared to gaze into the abyss would know.

"To think... To think that you'd actually.... How amusing....YOU!" He didn't even acknowledge Eru's question, no for his laughter all of it was directed at something else, it was the guest, no that wasn't true either...

It was himself.

He was laughing at himself...

"You're walking down a dark path, the answers awaiting at the end of your journey are not the ones you want... You remind me of someone boy, so young and so foolish, yet so stubbornly determined, too determined. And when it was all said and done, only regret remained. When the time times comes and you finally realize, no I should say no more..."

It was already too late.