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| Of frustrations and earthquakes; <Open> | |
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| Topic Started: May 10 2009, 11:05 AM (284 Views) | |
| Nether | May 10 2009, 11:05 AM Post #1 |
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Nether climbed out of yet another cave, panting heavily and cursing under his breath in frustration. Reaching for a flat stone, he sat upon it, wiping his forehead from the sweat and drinking a deep gulp of water from his flask. Warm.. The water was too warm for his tastes, just as pretty much everything was too hot in these damn mountains. He reached for a map in his backpack, examined it for a minute or two, and then crossed out yet another mark from it. One down, infinite more to go. The map was fairly useless, actually, since it detailed less than half of the caves he had found so far, but it was better than nothing. At least now he had a fair idea of where he was in relation to the closest villages. It felt like he'd been spelunking for months, after that first failed attempt, but in truth it had probably been less than a week or so. To be honest, he had stopped counting days, as it felt like quite an exercise in futility, considering the time spent underground, with no idea of the real passing of time. Oh, well.. Another failure meant another cave to explore, and he had to be quick about it, if he wanted to finish by the end of the millennium. Now, were was the closest dark hole to get lost in? A look at the map drew another sigh from the man, as he let his eyes wander upwards, across the surface of the mountain he was standing at the base of. Great. Climbing. Just his favorite hobby, right next to swimming in ponds full of sharks. "Note to self: hurry up and find out how to apply your newfound mastery of air magic to actual flying" He muttered to himself under his breath with a dry smile as he started exploring the base of the mountain for a slightly less sheer location to start his climb. Half an hour later, he still had no idea of where to start, and frustration was starting to take its toll on his calm. Growling and cursing, he threw the closest stone against the rocky surface, hoping to let some anger out. The stone bounced away, uncaringly rolling to the ground. A split second later all hells broke lose, as the ground started shaking and the mountains rumbling, in an earthquake that could only be described as epic. Chunks of the mountains cracked and crumbled, causing rockslides all around the man. He ran, doing his best to dodge the watermelon-sized rocks that were falling from the sky, now dark with storm clouds that were nowhere to be seen just a minute earlier. Under the hail of stone and ice, with lightings that streaked the sky and seemed to follow his footsteps, crashing to the still shaking ground and sending splinters of dagger-sharp stones all around, protecting his eyes with his arms, Nether ran. Edited by Nether, May 12 2009, 02:19 AM.
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| Jerusalem | May 12 2009, 03:29 AM Post #2 |
Explorer
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The strong stink of blood and dog clung to his clothes. It had not been an easy night in the mountains. He’d brought down the deer against a flank of rock that towered hundreds of feet above him into a sharp steeple. With only some next-to-useless shards of slate—no knife, of course—he’d tried to cut it up so he could drag it off more easily. If he’d had any way to start a fire, he would have torn into the doe and roasted her on the spot, but he’d spent his last pennies on matches that were now sodden at the bottom of the stream he’d forded. When the dogs came and cornered him against the sheer rock face, he’d thrown the torso and the head to them. Better to give up the better part and not lose the whole thing. But while the biggest males were head-deep in the guts, the other three came after him, and he’d lost the rest. It was mid-morning now, and Jerusalem was exhausted and hungry. Flies and little black-winged wasps had caught the smell of him at the break of dawn, and they followed him like an honourary train, eager to crawl down his neck and under his clothes, bite and sting him, and plague him in general. The sweat ran down the nape of his neck, stinging a scratch-mark that the black dog had given him. He wiped his forehead and blood crust came away on his hand. He was just trying to get back to civilization. He’d beg for a living. He didn’t care. The wilderness had beaten him, and there was no shame in that for a man who had no tools and no food. He was picking his way down a stony gulley crammed full of man-sized boulders, bare except for a sour-smelling lichen that covered them. Small mountain-blueberry bushes sprouted here and there among the rocks, bursting with ripe, tangy fruit, and he stripped every bush he passed to take the edge off his hunger. The weather caught his eye: suddenly tense, with thick and sullen storm clouds pooling in the sky against the mountain. The air was thick with water and electricity. Jerusalem heard the low, deep scratch of rock against rock, but before he could pinpoint where it was coming from, a bolt of lightning shook the mountain and the rocks started pour down the gulley towards him. He was a two-hour climb from the bottom of the mountain and would never make it in time. Instead, he scrambled behind a huge outcrop of granite and waited for the boulders to stop. The rocks rumbled past him, a little quieter. A heavy rain started and soaked him within moments, and little beads of ice pinged against his head and arms. Lightning forked down from the clouds, stirring the storm and whipping the wind. The rockslide seemed to have stopped. Out of the corner of his eye, Jerusalem saw a blurred, wild figure tearing down the mountainside. Uh…what? He rose and sprinted after the man, who was so filthy with mountain soil and rainwater that he could have been a mountain-man. “Hey, you! Stop!” |
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| Nether | May 12 2009, 09:59 AM Post #3 |
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Panting heavily, Nether kept running downwards on the tricky mountain path, trying his best not to stumble while the enraged ground did its best to trip him. He had no idea of where exactly he was headed, nor he cared, since it was as far away as possible from here. With his luck, the quakes would cause the volcano to awaken again.. and that would cause some other sort of incredibly devastating chain reaction. Better to avoid overthinking, and keep running. "Hey you! stop!" What the..? He heard the voice mere seconds before seeing the man and came to an abrupt stop before crashing on to him. He was.. big. That's pretty much the only impression his mind registered before he allowed himself to crash against the rocky surface, leaning against it and drawing his breath, panting heavily. At least it seemed like this granite outcropping was solid enough to give cover from some of the raining hell. Wiping water and sweat out of his eyes, he noticed a trace of red on his hand, and felt the familiar burning of a fresh wound on his forehead.. apparently some splinters did get to him. The map he had been holding when all of this started was now just a small piece of paper in his hand, torn apart by the sharp ice falling from the sky. He let go of it without regret.. probably with all the rockslides, it was now even more useless than ever. After gathering enough breath to speak, he turned his attention once more to the man. "Stop, eh? Say that to the weather, stranger!" Nether disliked having to talk like this, but between the lack of breath and having to shout to fight against the storm, he had no real choice. "Who are you, and what are you doing in this hell?" However physically fit he seemed to be, he appeared to be lacking even the most basic equipment.. perhaps he was here for some sort of silly barbarian coming of age test? |
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| Jerusalem | May 12 2009, 11:21 AM Post #4 |
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Explorer
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Jerusalem got a better look at him and immediately resisted the urge to back off fast. He’s got funny eyes… “I’m Jerusalem son of Judah,” he said. “I was hunting.” He was conscious that he had no armour, and the fingers of his right hand closed around the sling in his pocket—a laughable thing, fashioned from string and a piece of old boot—but he was as good a shot with it as any Nephil who’d ever been a boy guarding sheep. And with the hard, disciplined soldier’s muscles that linked his shoulders and wrapped over the bones in his arms, he could hurl a stone hard enough to drop a deer or crush a skull. And he wasn’t shy with his hands either, which could crack a wrist almost as easily as an egg. Hands were usually small match for spells, however, and he dared not try his luck with this man, not with the luck he’d been having lately. He’d made up his mind to just flee if the man attacked him, what with his hunger and the ache of his joints. The lightning strikes came farther and farther apart now, the better part of its energy spent against the mountain. The rain hadn’t lightened at all, and it roared down around them, heavy and blown in all directions by a gusty wind. “I was wondering if you had any food, actually,” Jerusalem shouted above the noise of the rain. The man had to be close to some sort of settlement, because there was nothing but a backpack in sight as far as supplies, and he certainly didn’t have the body type of a hunter. Jerusalem kept his mouth shut as far as any other questions. He didn’t care to know what sort of country had shaped those blackish eyes and ashen skin, all he knew was that in the simple district of the city where he spent his days, he’d never seen a man like him. Edited by Jerusalem, May 12 2009, 11:21 AM.
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| Nether | May 12 2009, 03:28 PM Post #5 |
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Commoner
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Finally breathing regularly, he took the time of giving the man a careful study before answering. As he already noticed, this Jerusalem guy was huge, not really someone whose hands he wanted around his neck. Could he take him on if he needed to? Possibly, but now wasn't really the time to go about and pick meaningless fights. Apparently the other man was thinking similar thoughts, because, while he kept his guard up, he made no aggressive motion towards the wizard, keeping his distance and talking instead. "Feel free to call me Nether. Food, you ask? I have something with me, if you don't mind wet travel rations" Yeah, travel rations. Travel rations for a week, to start with. By now, he was down to what he needed for two days, the bare minimum to get to the closest town, assuming a clear path and good weather.. if he shared his food with this strange man, he'd end up in trouble even sooner than anticipated.. but the guy did have broad shoulders, and was probably a better hunter than himself. Perhaps, he could prove to be useful. After mentally examining his options, he gave a short nod to Jerusalem, rummaging for a few seconds in his backpack and throwing the other man a lump of hard bread. "To keep at bay the first bites of your hunger. I suggest we try to find repair before we stop to make a picnic, though" |
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| Jerusalem | May 15 2009, 01:57 PM Post #6 |
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Explorer
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"To keep at bay the first bites of your hunger. I suggest we try to find repair before we stop to make a picnic, though" Jerusalem tried not to look dismayed at the meagre bit bread he was offered. He accepted it with a gracious thank-you, wolfing it down in a single mouthful. It looked like blueberries again for lunch and dinner. The rain was tapering now, and the thick, leaden storm clouds were peeling back to reveal a slightly lighter grey sky. “You must be heading for a city, then,” he said. “Do you live around here, or are you just passing through? I must admit, I don’t know the area around here very well, only what people have been able to tell me about the mountains. I followed the stars, mostly…” He was busy wondering what sort of a name Nether was. It had a round, dark sound to it, and a foreign edge as well. Certainly not from the language around here. His curiosity bettered him, and he launched into small talk despite what his manners told him. “So, you aren’t from around here, are you? I’m from a place called Arcadia. I came here when my wife died, two years ago. Haven’t been able to get rid of my accent yet. No one can place it—I don’t think I’ve met one person here who even knows what Hebrew is.” He paused. “It’s like we Nephilim never existed.” Jerusalem fell silent, listening to the sounds of the sodden birds and the occasional interruption by the faint gurgling of his stomach. “Do you know which way we’re going? I’ve just been following the Hunter stars north, but if there’s a town closer, I’ll gladly take your direction.” |
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| Nether | May 16 2009, 10:28 AM Post #7 |
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As he watched the bigger man gulp down the bread in one bite, Nether thought that perhaps his estimate for the duration of the rations was a bit off by excess. Two days.. for a normal man with a normal appetite. This guy looked like he could eat a bear and keep being hungry, with the way he attacked that bread. He watched the sky start to clean up, and what at first made him sigh with relief, just a second later filled him with worries. It hadn't been a normal storm by any mean.. and that probably meant it was going to happen again, just as quick and violent. Was this what was meant with "elemental imbalance"? He heard the words uttered in fear in a few of the libraries where he studied, and made a bit of research himself. It was not.. a pretty phenomenon, even if no one yet appeared to have the slightest idea of how it worked exactly. "No, I don't live around here.. let's say I'm a wanderer, for the time being. There is a village, a couple of days of good pace from here, to the west.. and that is the path that takes to it.." With a wide gesture of his arm, Nether pointed towards the path that was supposed to get them down the mountain the quickest.. it was small, and muddy with all the rain, but wasn't hard to follow.. except for the part where, a few dozen meters from them, it abruptly stopped against an huge stack of fallen rocks. "..and that, on the other hand, is the problem we're going to face. I have no idea of the condition of the rest of the mountain, for all I know it could be even worse. Besides, there's no guarantee everything won't start again any minute now." His eyes wandered far away as he considered how to answer the next few, more personal questions. "Let's just say I.. come from a place quite lower than here on the maps; however, I'm not exactly welcome back home, so this is where I'll be staying for the foreseeable future. Arcadia, you say? I don't think I know the place, though I think I've read something about somewhere with a similar name. But I'm fairly sure it's just an homonym, as that place is not exactly supposed to be one for men." "As for the Nephilim.. I'm finding this place to be full of surprises and strange breeds of creatures. Search hard enough, and you'd probably end up finding something. What's a.. Nephilim, anyway? You look human enough to me.. even if bigger than most." |
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| Jerusalem | May 19 2009, 04:01 PM Post #8 |
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Explorer
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A couple of days!? Jerusalem’s gut seethed. Two days was far too long. They’d have to make some time for hunting along the way, then. He glued his jaw shut and let his shoulders slump silently. The bread teased away the fierceness of his hunger but left the bulk of appetite to remain. "As for the Nephilim.. I'm finding this place to be full of surprises and strange breeds of creatures. Search hard enough, and you'd probably end up finding something. What's a.. Nephilim, anyway? You look human enough to me.. even if bigger than most." Jerusalem rubbed a hand through his hair. “Somewhat human, I suppose. I’m a full-blooded Nephil, but if you go back far enough, the histories say that we Nephilim came on the earth thousands of years ago, when angels slept with human girls. The trouble is that no one really remembers what an angel is. I’m hoping that one day I’ll find someone here who knows something about—” He broke off. Movement had caught his eye down by the rocks. He motioned for Nether to stay quiet and crept down into a crouch. He didn’t care what the animal was, he was going to kill it. Two days was far too long to depend on Nether’s backpack—he was not a heavy man, after all. It was a goat and her kid, a sleek, white half-grown thing that was already fat on the early autumn berries. And no dogs this time, he thought, and crouched down to feel for a smooth, small stone in the dirt. He pulled the loop of string around his ring finger and fitted the stone against the leather. He watched the kid, gauging the distance and the angle. The stranger was well behind him. Rolling the sling’s knot between two fingers, he rose slowly from his crouch. The sling whipped up in a loop around his head, and by the time the two goats had snapped up their heads to the sound, he had already loosed: the stone sailing straight and his body bent in the arced posture of release. The stone ripped into the kid’s jawbone—he was not quite up to his former aim, yet—but it was close enough to the brain to crumple the soft skull. The kid tottered for a moment and then collapsed like an empty bag. The mother goat hesitated for a second, bleated once, then melted away over the rocks. Jerusalem lost no time in retrieving the little carcass, slinging it over his shoulder and carrying it back up the ridge to the more solid ground whether Nether was standing. His short, worn hunting knife was already out, splitting the skin down the seams of the joints. "You ever eat goat? Also, I wonder if you've got any flint or matches on you. Mine got drowned in the river, and hungry as I am, I'm not ready to tear into the brains raw just yet..." Edited by Jerusalem, May 19 2009, 04:10 PM.
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| Nether | May 20 2009, 04:17 PM Post #9 |
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Commoner
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..Sons of angels? Great. This wasn't going to do miracles to Nether's allergy to angels and other assorted celestial beings. On the flip side, it seemed to be a thing of ages bygone, so it was unlikely the guy would prove dangerous for his bloodline. Hell, he didn't even remember what angels were.. Oh, well, there would be time to worry about all that later, after he was done with this whole "getting back to civilization" thing. But what..? The stranger had just motioned him aside, crouching and getting his sling ready. An enemy? Nether doubted that meager weapon could really be useful against real enemies, but it was better than bare fists.. probably. He stood motionless, barely breathing as he scanned the area around them, looking for potential sources of trouble. Goats? He allowed himself an half smile of amusement.. apparently, this wasn't exactly an ambush from outside forces, but a sneak attack from hunger. He shook his head.. he could kind of understand the man, he had been in a similar situation a few weeks earlier. Granted, without the whole "sky falling on their head" thing. He looked up, at the swirling clouds, trying to detect a pattern amidst chaos, while the other had his fun with the mountain dwelling creatures. "Goat? You'd be surprised at knowing the stuff I managed to eat out of hunger.. or out of curiosity. Yeah, I have some flint with me, but I'm definitely not a ranger skilled enough to light a fire in this situation. You're welcome to try if you want, though." To emphasize his point, he squeezed the last water out of his messy, wet hair, forming a puddle at his feet. Some water was still raining, but compared to earlier, it was just a joke. It was bound to finish in minutes.. or start again in full intensity. At least, this episode told him that after all his evaluation was correct, and that the man was indeed an excellent hunter. A trait he was going to need, if he wanted to avoid feeding on mysterious, maybe poisonous random berries and animals detonated by magic. Reaching for it, he handed the stranger his flint. "Here. Have your fun" |
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| Jerusalem | May 21 2009, 02:26 PM Post #10 |
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“Thank you. You’re kind to give it to me on such short notice.” With the miserable amount of rain that had just passed, it cost Jerusalem a hard, slow trek to scrounge up enough good wood for a fire—what with ducking under brambles and into thickets to get at the dry, seasoned branches that the rain hadn’t soaked into uselessness. Nether may have deferred to him as the fire-maker, but that didn’t mean he was fast, or even competent. He and Nether had a good spot atop the flat outcrop of rock, but it took him another quarter hour to light the bloody thing, fumbling around with finicky bits of flint instead of proper matches. In his soldier days, he’d never had to light his own fires, but his two years in Avalon—and the bulk of those years being in poverty and anonymity—had taught him some new humility, seasoned with a healthy dose of life-or-death desperation. But when he finally uncurled his sore back and sat in the warm glow of a decent-sized fire, drying himself in the heat and gulping down bites of hot roasted heart, he couldn’t help feeling that it was worth it. “The big joints of meat won’t be cooked for a while, but you can help yourself to the liver or kidneys if you’d like something to go with your bread rations,” he said. He settled comfortably. The rain had cooled the air considerably and clouds still dampened the warmth of the sun which would soon be going down. “So, wanderer, are you?” he asked conversationally. The fire crackled and popped with the water that had made its way onto the wood. “A hard place to be wandering, I’d venture to say, without many good roads or towns to get your food in. I hope you find what you’re looking for.” Secretly, he wondered. Nether was a man with soft hands and white skin—not the outdoors type, clearly. The mountains were a harsh place, even for those who made a permanent home on them. And yet here he was. Wandering. Hm. Jerusalem’s military mind was keener on physical traits over character, but he could easily hear that the man was well educated and probably noble. He carried himself tiredly, but with a straight back and subtle facial expressions. “…Are we camping here for the night, then? ‘Fraid I don’t have any sort of gear, but it’d be a nasty trek over those fallen rocks, and some of them might still be loose enough to break an ankle on the way down. Might pay to wait until morning, when there’s more light. Unless you're keen to get off the mountain for the night...?” Edited by Jerusalem, May 21 2009, 02:28 PM.
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| Nether | May 26 2009, 01:22 PM Post #11 |
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"How keen of you" Nether smiled a tired smile, using the fire to warm up some bread and get it back to a somewhat edible state, then started munching on it, occasionally adding a slice of cheese and a piece of the freshly roasted meat. Placing his rations between the two, he motioned the other man to pick freely, if he wanted. Between a bite and the other, he kept talking. "Yes, I've been searching for something in these mountains.. but no, I haven't been lucky in finding it yet. And perhaps I never will. Maybe this confusion will end up blocking up just the cave that I need. Lady luck hasn't been particularly smiling upon me, lately, but at least I'm alive, so things could probably be much worse." He sat on his heels, trying to get as little of the dirty mud to stick on him, and stared at the fire, his mind wandering, a deeply thinking expression on his face. "Would I like to get down as fast as possible? Yeah, and there's more than one reason to do so. But am I willing to risk the trip at night? No. That.." And he pointed upward, towards the cloudy sky "..isn't a normal storm. The way I see it, it's a byproduct of excessive and uncontrolled elemental energies, caused by the disappearance of most of the guardians. Therefore.." Noticing that he was about to turn it into a lesson of magical theory, more for his personal enjoyment than for real interest on the other part, he decided to cut it short. "..it's magical. Magical and completely unpredictable, so there's really no way of saying that by travelling at night we'll avoid another one like earlier. And on the unstable rocks in the dark with that weather, I don't foresee a bright future." Thinking for a minute, as if asking the warm fire for answers, he added something else. "Actually, there is another path, if you prefer death by suffocation and lack of direction to death by fall and lighting. The mountain is full of caves, and most of them are interconnected. With an incredible deal of luck, we might be able to find one that brings us back on terrain level. Of course, that would mean locking ourself inside a mountain with risks of earthquakes of which you've already seen the effect.. a volcanic mountain, at that. Pick your poison, my new friend." |
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| Jerusalem | Jun 1 2009, 03:12 AM Post #12 |
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“Pick your poison, my new friend." Either loose rocks and malevolent magical weather, or the network of caves that veined deep through the dank, wet rock of the mountains. Jerusalem sat and looked into the fire, thinking. He knew what bad terrain led to: one slip meant a shattered wrist—or a broken neck—and on a mountain, even a friend couldn’t do much to help. And if a strange storm like that started up again, flash floods and hail were only the beginning, most likely. The caves seemed a much more sensible option. The shallower caves could maybe collapse in an earthquake, but the tunnels deep in the solid rock wouldn’t budge unless the entire mountain budged with them. Jerusalem shuddered at the thought of being trapped between two slabs of rock with no place to go but backwards or forwards. He was more than a little claustrophobic, and caves had the pleasant tendency to be miserably tiny. Nether would be much faster and lighter in the caves than his huge, clunky body. What intrigued him more than the simple choice of caves over mountainside was Nether’s meticulous technical knowledge of how magic worked. He’d never seen magic so close at hand and certainly never on such a scale as that storm, and that fact made him intensely wary of trying his luck against it before he knew its limits and how it worked. But his companion had easily recognized it based solely on the patterns of a storm. He realized just how far in over his head he truly was. “The way I see it,” Nether had said about the storm, “it's a byproduct of excessive and uncontrolled elemental energies, caused by the disappearance of most of the guardians. Therefore…" Nether had bitten his tongue against a more complete explanation, so enlightenment would have to wait until the question of where to go had been answered. The silence spread between them, deepened by the small, furtive noises of the fire. Jerusalem thought back to the caves, his prejudice against them softening into more of a curiosity. “Have you been exploring these caves long?” Jerusalem ventured, hesitant to give a firm ‘yes’ to the caves immediately, and also reluctant to leave the conversation of magic so quickly. “Does what you’re looking for have something to do with the disappearance of the guardians?” Knowing very little about the forces at play in the magical plane, Jerusalem had no idea whether his question was a valid or foolish one, but it seemed reasonable enough to ask. |
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| Nether | Jun 2 2009, 02:56 PM Post #13 |
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Dark eyes lost in the fire, Nether rekindled the flames with a stick, enjoying the sights and sounds of the popping and cackling fire. Absent mindedly, he started to answer. "Yeah, I have been here for quite a bit, especially when we compare it to the total time I spent in Avalon. As I mentioned already, I'm not welcome back home, but I was ready for such a situation, so I had prepared certain.. contingent plans. In specific, an associate of mine, especially good at acting without being noticed, is supposed to have hidden a few resources somewhere near here. Unfortunately, his description of the place was, for lack of a better term, quite.. imprecise, so I've been here, exploring cave after cave of a mountain that might or might not be the right one. The tunnels can be labyrinthine, dark and way too hot, but they seemed to be quite stable during my explorations. Still, the wrong crack is liable to leave us with lava on one side, and only solid rock on the other." He chuckled at the second question from the man in front of him, slowly shaking his head. "I'm a theorist and a scholar of magic, and I'm not really used to the practical side of it, or its inner workings in this place. I can recognize a magical phenomenon when I see one, but that doesn't mean I can do anything about it. Guardians are.. beyond my range of influence. For now, I'm just trying to survive and learn." Moving his eyes to lock with those of the bigger man, half a smile crossing his lips. "And you, Jerusalem son of Judah, how did you get into a place so far away from your home that no one even heard of it, if you don't mind me asking? Are you on the run from someone, or just your past?" He was about to ask more question, about his story and about his reason for being there, when a bad feeling cut him short again. The sheer intensity of static electricity in the air made the hair on his neck stand up, and when he looked upwards, the clouds where swirling in a spiral pattern, faster and faster.. the wind, on the other hand, was perfectly still, and the only sounds around them were those of the cackling campfire campfire. He springed upwards, alarm in his eyes, one hand quickly getting a hold of his backpack, swallowing the food still in his mouth so fast that he risked choking on it. "We need better cover than this. About five seconds ago. I think the weather has chosen our path. There was a cave that way" He pointed, and started moving. |
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| Jerusalem | Jun 3 2009, 12:06 PM Post #14 |
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Resources, then? Jerusalem had the sense not to ask what kind, but they had to be good, if Nether was putting himself through this much trouble to find them. “And you, Jerusalem son of Judah,” asked Nether, “how did you get into a place so far away from your home that no one even heard of it, if you don't mind me asking? Are you on the run from someone, or just your past?” Jerusalem became still and quiet under Nether’s question, as though under a surgeon’s knife. “I don’t know. I was running…I’d lost my sword, I remember that. My wife—” He broke off suddenly when Nether tensed like a spooked cat. He saw it a second after his companion did: a swirl of evil-coloured cloud twisting into an angry tangle of electricity and wind. A shiver of wind blew back his hair, flattening it into a reddish-brown mat against his scalp. It was not normal weather. He felt like the weather was pushed right up to his senses, pressed against his face, and unease wormed through his gut. A pulse of electricity ran its fingers up and down his vertebrae, and he started to his feet with Nether. “We need better cover than this,” the smaller man said in clipped tones. “About five seconds ago. I think the weather has chosen our path. There was a cave that way.” Jerusalem willingly followed. The darkness of rock yawned against the darkness of the sky, and he forced himself to press forward without slowing his pace. Then they were inside the mouth of the mountain. The rock arched above them, black and irregular, sloping high above them to the reversed shape of a steeple. Jerusalem looked up and all around. Despite his prejudices that caves were supposed to be wet and cold, this one was bone-dry and almost as warm as the air outside. Jerusalem moved deeper under the hood of the cave as the storm began to break with all its fury outside, spitting lightning out of bruise-purple clouds and hurling hot rain down to earth. Green bursts of light illuminated Nether’s face in spurts and flickers. Jerusalem watched the man for some sort of guidance or comment on the storm—or at least on which direction they would be taking through the caves. It was pitch-dark, and he had no lamp, not even a match. |
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Spoiler: click to toggle JULY 09 BANNER COMPETITION RUNNER UP | |
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| Nether | Jun 4 2009, 01:14 PM Post #15 |
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Commoner
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Nether ran, miracolously avoiding stumbling on the uneven path, towards the place where he hoped a cave was waiting, the solid certainty of hard rock to defend against fickle weather. As he saw the small hole of the opening, he sprang inside, jumping with his back to the wall, panting heavily, debating within himself wether to stay and look at what was happening outside or just run inside, as deep and as far from the dangerous skies as he could. The lighting helped him make up his mind, a bolt of sickly, dark purple electricity storming down from the sky, crashing to the ground just a few feet from the cave's entrance, animated by an almost human malice, as if thirsty for their blood. The ground was charred, smoking from the heat and the violence of the bolt, and he could almost have sweared to have seen the rock melt with the corner of his eye while turning around to flee deeper into the dark cave. With his back again against the solid wall of stone, Nether heaved a sigh, and stared at his companion silently for a few endless seconds, before realizing he was expecting something from him. Brushing a rebel strand of hair from his face, he placed the backpack on the ground, kneeling next to it, and started rummaging through it, guided more by touch and memory than by sight. "As I said, magical, I think there are no more doubts about that now. In a normal condition, the energies at work should discharge in just a few hours, and the best course of action would be to just wait here until it ends. But the way things are, I really have no idea of how long we risk having to stay here, feeding of rocks Finally, he managed to pull out what he had been looking for from his backpack, torch and flint, and started to work with them, sparks of flame lighting snapshots of his troubled expression. "If you're hoping I know this cave, you couldn't be more wrong. I haven't been here yet, but it seems to be going down. If we're lucky, it'll have a second exit somewhere closer to terrain level. If we aren't, the exit will be on a pool of lava." He wasn't really in the mood for soft words and delicate metaphors, so he just spat out his thoughts as they were, a practical edge in the tone of his voice. |
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- Horror JULY 09 BANNER COMPETITION RUNNER UP - Teleport, from Vensint's Auction.
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10:08 PM Mar 18
