@Deleted
Message Deleted
likes
0
posts
Deleted
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2018 23:48:34 GMT -5
Endless darkness spanned for as far as Stella believed she could see. Her eyes would slowly blink, and with a gasp, a dark city sprang to life before her sights as they reopened. Pale lights illuminated her features as she forward to traverse these unknown depths, this abyssal netherworld she vaguely recognized. The glass towers that stretched to the sky, the city streets, the very essence of this place in of itself resembled home in all accounts. Though it was darker, beyond any feasible comprehension. An eclipsed, hollowed shell of what was once Elysium City. Everywhere she looked, spires of darkness slowly ate away the environment, and the ghosts of things and people that occupied it. They spiraled upward into a blackened sky, into a seeming nothingness into a destination none could fathom. Stella moved about the boulevard with a cautious hesitance, trying not to get too close to any of these anomalies.
What happened in her absence? Had she failed to protect home after all? Did the suffering of her loved ones and herself amount for naught!? The very idea was unnerving, maddening. How could this have happened!? Teeth gritted against one another as a sharp breath seeped between them. Tears streamed and rained upon the shadowy concrete beneath onyx boots. Steps continued onward, til the queen found herself standing within Capital Square, recognizing the street of White Horse Run that lead to the Imperial Palace. A breath of earnest, of hope was made as she burst forward into a sprint down the road. If there was any place Cal, Moira, or Vir could be in the city, the palace was probably the best place to look. The run felt like it would stretch on forever.
Stella came to a halt as she neared the end of the pavement near the palace approach. Where asphalt met marble and ornate cobblestone, before the grand flight of stairs, stood a figure with their back to her. The young queen’s brow furrowed at the sight of the one armed, eloquently sewed jacket this raven haired man sported. Elton! What is he doing here!? She was met with those familiar, yet no less sinister golden orbs that twinkled about the shadows around the palace. A smirk of the man broke the queen’s silence. ”Are you responsible for this!? Answer me, DaVoe!” An unsettling chuckle rose in volume from nothing, with a chill that made Stella’s skin crawl.
”The world is broken. We are the last checking embers of a fire waiting to burn out. Long before our grandfathers and their fathers before them, we started pulling our planet apart in the name of progress and blind ambition. The greed of man has devoured this earth, until there was nothing left. We watch as time eats us alive. A generation born to witness the end of the world.”
The amber eyes of the Elysian queen narrowed and rolled at this tirade. Elton DaVoe, always the one for the dramatic theatrics. Always one for a speech to undermine her family’s name and credibility at any given chance. There was no mistaking nor forgetting Elton’s lost love for the Lux Verum bloodline. In fact one could have almost considered the hatred hereditary to a DaVoe, as the families had been feuding for several generations by this time. The man raised his chin with a confident smile, raising a hand as though to hail the royal on ceremony. ”Where are my friends? Where is Cal!?” she demanded, as eldritch rainbow fire surrounded her form.
”You knew this day would come Stella.”
She felt her temper flare at the words, a kinetic pulse as the aura surged with brightness, light consuming her sword hand as the rapier appeared in her grasp. If Elton wasn’t going to give her any answers outright, then she was going to beat them out of that smug mouth of his. Stella would aim to make certain of that as she charged forward. The man made no motion to defend himself, but only smiled with all the cruelty he was known for. Darkness encroached around DaVoe’s form, before it surged forward with wind and fury. Stella threw up her arms and the sword in defense, her sprint was suddenly halted as she was suddenly fighting to keep ground. Onyx boots began to involuntarily skid across the cobblestone beneath them. The brunette would grunt with frustration for every inch lost.
Before she knew what was happening, the aura of the Light and the rapier vanished, and Stella felt herself falling as the ground gave way. Onward she tumbled into an abyssal darkness, losing track of direction and time as the world around her, and DaVoe, faded into the shadows. What in the world was going on? For what seemed like an eternity Stella felt lighter than air, as though she could float and sail upon it. Then there was a searing pain in her cheek, as though something granulated and hot pressed against it.
The young queen slowly blinked open, just in time to catch the exhale of her breath push a small cloud of sand away from her face. Stella grimaced as the pain in her face throbbed, before wearily attempting to push herself up off the ground. Sand? The hell-? she thought, brushing the residue from her reddened cheek. A glance around her surroundings revealed she had woken up in an alleyway of some kind. Weathered and sand blasted boxes and urns lined the high walls; a single path through a stone threshold appeared to be the only way out of here, wherever here was. A shake and rub of the head later, and Stella found herself cautiously wandering into what appeared to be a marketplace. Stalls and vendors filled the square for as far as she could see, beyond which appeared to be streets into a massive city. The bustling crowds and noise from all the chatter and bleating farm animals was a lot to take in, prompting the queen to stall with hesitance.
”Outstanding…” she muttered to herself with a melancholic air. The last thing she really remembered were the dim lights of the control console in Chronos’ gummi ship. Had she lulled off and taken a nap? She didn’t think the mechanist would be mean enough to just dump her here and leave. No, it wasn’t the kind of thing she could see Chronos doing. Regardless of how she wound up here, there was no ignoring she needed to find out what and where this place was. Taking a deep breath to prepare herself, Stella would wander into the bustling marketplace with a soft exhale. Chronos Ti'era (optional)
|
|
@Deleted
Message Deleted
likes
0
posts
Deleted
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2018 0:47:09 GMT -5
Agrabah was a bustling urban hive of activity, a sweltering crush of people and multifarious animals all sweating under the desert sun. On every side of winding alleyways were multilayered houses of agate colored adobe and and pale sandstone, honeycombed with portals darkened with the invitation of sheltered shade within. Conical spires and tipped domes evoked a field of bulbous stalagmites piercing am azure sky so dizzyingly clear that looking up too long brought on agoraphobia shortly before blindness. The heat came in several local varieties. The flat rooftops with their circus mazes of precarious elevated pathways and the few wide open concourses allowed in the metropolis sported a searing dry heat, the sort that suggest the sun was trying to scrub your skin off with wire-brush made of fire. The second, prevalent anywhere where perspiration soaked bodies were forced close together by narrow streets and the demands of mercantilism, was a muggy heat redolent with the biological humors that make pre-industrial cities an aggressively multi-sensory expeirence. Last was the shade, only able to be called ‘cool’ by virtue of context, in the manner that putting your hand in boiling water is frigid when compared to a flamethrower.
But the Bazaar of Agrabah, jewel of the Seven Deserts, beguiled the imagination even as it assaulted the senses. Wares from across an entire world were brought here for accounting and exchange. Silks fluttered in the stale breeze, a spectrum of gauzy hues that veiled faces and nubile forms while obscuring doorways with swathes of gorgeous gossamer. Tapestries hung from ledges and across tables on every spare meter of space besides the road, spinning the eye with prismatic kaleidoscopic patters, each unique by necessity in a world without textile mills. The stench of dusty travelers was overpowered by the rich musk of spices and myth emanating from entire street-markets comprised entirely of stands sporting exotic powders of every conceivable texture, hue, and scent. Tinctures, gems, scrolls, and delicacies to quench hungers a shopper didn’t even know they possessed previously, all these were just the surface impression, the wares obvious to casual shoppers. The Bazaar was a jungle of commercialism, possessing its own canopy, understory, and forest floor. Truly anything and everything could be purchased here if one knew only where to look and was not overburdened with scruples.
Naturally trouble came free of charge.
“wwwwaaaaaaaiiiiiHHHHHHHTTTT!!!”
The word trailed off into an incoherent sound of panic as a young man turned with skidding brinkmanship onto the far end of the street, turbaned city guards in hot pursuit. Trinkets tumbled from a sack over shoulder while the other arm pinwheeled with wild abandon, evoking a larcenous chimpanzee attempting a hundred yard dash while clad in a billowing blue overcoat.
"Stop in the name of his Excellency the Sul-"
"Oh no Oh no not the duuuunngeons! What if the rats burrow into my sockets! My thoughts dwelling in rat bellies aaaggghhhh-flooop." The shrill speculation in matters of starvation and transitive consciousness was cut off when the young man proceeded to vomit several gallons of briny sea water onto the dusty street. Urping up more tidal surf with hacking coughs, the mage turned to face his pursuers and opened his mouth wide. As if that orifice were some portal at the bottom an oceanic trench, a river poured outward in frothing quantities that defied all laws of momentum and pressure. Within a calamitous few seconds a sandy shopping square became inundated with a blue-green flood. Screams and panic echoed though the marketplace as wares, tent poles, and merchants were swept up and away by a current that crashed through the lower levels of stucco buildings.
A headlong sprint carried the blue wizard away from the still unfolding scene of his unnatural disaster, still coughing up puddles of kelp and sea-foam as he staggered across burning cobblestones. He seemed content to flee conjured calamity until something about Stella caught his manic cerulean, or rather, something about her accoutrements.
“Woah woah wait, Auracite? No not quite, Diamond in Rough? Ahah!” A sidelong tackle into young monarch attempted to wrest the royal rapier from Stella by sheer force of forward momentum.
1) Blaise uses Aqua Breath to shake pursuit with massive water damage (0/4) 2) Blaise, unaware of its soul-bound properties, attempts to take Stella's rapier in a hit and run.
@stella
|
|
@Deleted
Message Deleted
likes
0
posts
Deleted
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2018 20:01:36 GMT -5
The young woman remained lost in her thoughts, contemplating the rather disconcerting dream as she continued to wander through the market to the inner city. They had drawn so much of her focus, that Stella had not bothered to take into account the various wares and trinkets adorning the numerous stalls that dominated the sandy square. She did her best to avoid letting anyone into her personal space, yet given the nature of the size of the passing crowds, it was an effort that became more futile by the growing minutes. A city in darkness, a rival still believed to be dead- What sort of dream had that been? More importantly, why was she having it at all? There was that fear for the safety of those back home creeping up again. What dangers were they facing without her there to help Cal protect them? Did his Light recover from the experiments? Could he even manage the feat of safeguarding the throne against the elites? Gritted teeth were bared as she fought back the urge to cry in penance for her inability to return to them. As if tears could even muster in the swelter of this sun’s unrelenting blaze.
The heat of this place was unbearable. How anyone could stand to live in this hotbed was beyond her guess. A brief squint betwixt fingers toward the sky told her there were more than four hours, give or take, before an anticipated sunset. With it would hopefully come a joyous reprieve from the intensity of a proverbial inferno. For now, all that could be done was to find some form of shelter from the sun, and hydration of any form. A rumble of what sounded like thunder would prelude the sound of the ocean. It was so sudden, the unexpected crashes of aqua against the various vendors and their merchandise would startle the queen, so much that Fas was instinctively summoned to her grasp. Stella paid the surprise summon little mind as she looked for a source of the flood.
A sudden, unexpected pain ran through her, as she felt herself tackled into a collection of boxes. Sharp snaps of wood and upheaval of sand filled her ears, serenading a voice whose words were indiscernible among the shock. Before Stella knew what was going on, she found herself rolling onto her stomach among the debris, casting a scowl down the street in time to see some buffoon in a blue overcoat dashing away with her rapier in hand. In all her years of possessing these inherited gifts, never once did anything so ludicrous like this occur. The very thought of it all was almost laughable, were it not for the discomfort of a sore shoulder that began to pick at her. Certainly a story for Chronos or Vir to get a jab in at her over, if this ever came up in the future.
The thief would get no further than twenty or so feet from the queen, before she would push herself into a kneel. Extending a palm out toward the direction of the thief and her property, her fingers would coil into a fist, which would prompt the sword in the pickpocket’s possession to vanish in a brilliant flash of sparkles. Fas would return to Stella’s grasp instantaneously, the familiar weight of the weapon pulling on her arm, before she stabbed the earth, leaning into it as she helped herself to her feet. When composure was found, she threw out her sword hand to the side, prompting the weapon to vanish yet again in the same fashion. Silently cursing the pain as she gripped her possibly bruised arm, the young royal skimmed the crowd for any signs of the thief. She took the time to brush the sand off her pants before starting down the street in an earnest march, before pausing as she heard hasty footsteps approaching from her flank.
Stella paused as a collection of burly, soaking wet men with sword, whom she could only presume to be the local guard, would approach the scene she had been part of. ”You there, girl! Have you s-“ She interrupted him abruptly by pointing a finger down the street in the direction she had last spied the blue overcoat. The lead guard made a grunt of thanks before the repetitive sounds of Squish! Squish! Squish! faded down the street into the parting crowd. Stella looked on after them, then cast a look back to the subsiding flood that had devastated the far side of the marketplace. Something about that thief told her those guards were in over their heads. It wasn’t really her obligation to help, but it was then that she recalled the intent behind this adventure Chronos had brought her on. Odds are he’d want to know why she didn’t lend a hand if she chose not to. Stella was almost content with such a decision, yet she wasn’t going to abide by it. She shook her head out of frustration, an exasperated sigh escaping her lips before starting after the thief and the pursuing guards.
This was already turning out to be some kind of day.
@amal
|
|
@Deleted
Message Deleted
likes
0
posts
Deleted
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2018 23:15:24 GMT -5
The dusty chase zigged and zagged until the options ran low. Surrounded, Blaise found himself channeled like a harried fox into a dead-end alley. The wall unyielding against his back, the blue adept regarded the advancing scimitar edges with a wincing grimace. “Don’t make me do this!”
“You are to stand down and…”
“This’ll be all you’re fault, don't blame me if I...”
“This is not a debate theif, still your tongue or…"
A hacking cough proceeded a violent gale that howled through the narrowed causeways, bringing with it a thick almost liquid green haze that drowned out sight and sound. This noxious stillness lingered for a time before wafting in slow ephemeral strands up into the stark cerulean welkin.
The alley walls, normally a muted tan stucco, were now covered in nearly a foot of of porous grey stone. This unnatural sediment caked every solid surface. It’s contours vaguely evoked grooves that’d have been formed by tentacles, like impressions of some antediluvian organism fossilized by pressure and time. The sandy floor had become almost warped cement, sepulchral smoothness evoking a sinister alien landscape broken only by tide-pools of sizzling brackish acid. Bulbous protrusions jutted up from alley floor, a petrified forest whose trees were revealed to be inconvertibly humanoid upon closer inspection. Faces frozen in terror and the pain of sudden calcification stared blankly towards the pathway’s far end, still obscured by wafting billows of dark emerald vapor.
“Dawnless Night, stir in the placid tomb of unbeing”
More guardsmen sprawled further along, huddled and shuddering amidst the alkaline timberland of their comrades. Some lay in puddles of their own coagulated spittle, toxic virulence oozing from their pores in green trickles that left scaled tracks of sallow skin in their wake. For others the fever was different, a malarian inflammation that tinged the eyes with red-veined jaundice and the mind with madness. Amongst those stumbling in mumbling delirium were more grotesque afflictions. Half rotted figures lurched in the somnambulant stride of undeath. Ragged croaks rattled in the panting throats of malformed wretches. Their limbs flailed uselessly in a repulsive space between salientian and primate, like tadpoles and men caught in some cruel forced union. Tiny shapes lay broken and twisted on the petrified floor. Reduced to a few hand-spans in height, the shrunken soldiers had been helpless as their panicking and manic co-workers trampled them to death underfoot.
“Formlessness, my Heart is the ewer of your vastness, my Will the chalice fit to decant twilight…”
After a few yards more the poisonous clouds yielded to a stranger vapor. The tendrils staining and snaking from the alley’s dead-end wall were so unnaturally black they evoked underworld ink dripped by accident onto the caves of reality. While vaporous, the pitch inundation assaulted the senses like a scentless liquid, a horrible numbness without any physical frigidity. At the epicenter of the stygian tide stood Blaise, wading up to his waist in flowing shadowstuff towards a gaping wound in the otherwise solid structure of the wall. This rip in reality seemed almost to breath on its own accord, the throat to some great leviathan once mercifully beyond the reach of sight.
“and with this shall a Ga-,” blue eyes flicked up to spy the newcomer, “-AAATE-AHHHHHH-WHAT?” His concentration broken, the Corridors of Darkness slammed shut, leaving the fuming and perspiring mage once again in just a petrified alleyway.
“You? The sullen-faced maid with that slippery artifact!” The fierce glare became suddenly more petulant. “Blasted blade burned me!” he winged with the wide-mouthed frown of a wet puppy, palm uplifted to show a mild burn at most, but with unmistakable imprint of Fas’ filigree. “Branded me with the banal heraldry of your house!” This indignity apparently enough to muster an uncharacteristic fighting spirit, Blaise drew his own weapon. “Stand aside or I’ll have to play the cad and-gah! gods-dammit,” the threatening saber dropped as Blaise had apparently forgotten the burns to be on his sword-hand. The saber traded hands with the sack of loot. “Yes um well,”’ Blaise predicated wearily. "The warning still stands!”
1) Blaise became cornered by the guards, panicked and used Bad Breath, dealing massive Earth damage and afflicted the guards with numerous status ailments.
2) Blaise attempted to use the Dark Corridors, but it frizzled whaten he was startled by Stella.
3) Blaise is wielding his saber with his offhand, reducing accuracy @stella 1/4 Aqua Breath 0/5 Bad Breath 0/2 Dark Corridors
|
|
@Deleted
Message Deleted
likes
0
posts
Deleted
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2018 12:43:36 GMT -5
For those that knew her, she was rather nimble even without the abilities via the Light of Libra. Though Stella quickly came to find that despite the husky size of these guards, they moved with a speed she had trouble keeping up with in this heat. Trained conditioning in their native atmosphere, and an apparent disregard to care for the safety of anyone whom got in the way, would make one guess on first impression these soldiers an unstoppable hunting force. Stella wandered through the flank of this proverbial storm, witnessing several offended civilians picking themselves up out of the ditches into which they had been cast. The last few guards of the group, of which she made her mark and quarry, vanished into an alley. Stella stopped abruptly as the air filled with screams, indiscernible sounds she found too grotesque to describe, until she rounded the corner.
An abhorrent sight met the young royal, as brave hunters so valorous, reduced to petrified and crippled messes. Those whom had not been stilled by the stone, either rolled about in fear, ran headlong into barrels, walls, and each other alike- Some screaming they could not see, others trying to scream only for their voices to fail them. One guy in particular kept asking the crowd what the hell was going on. Another was busy trying to replace a petrified comrade’s broken arm he had so clumsily dislocated. The list went on, yet among all of these frenzied, afflicted stalwarts of the sand stood out a figure Stella recognized to be the thief- revealed to be an apparent magi. Her focus shifted among the crazed guards in disbelief, before resting on where the failed darkness dispersed, eventually wandering up to the disappointed magi’s bright cerulean orbs. The reactionary yell would indicate he was upset she had followed- What a pity.
Stella crossed her arms as she looked upon the magi with an indignant air when he spoke to her, bleating on about the burn suffered unto his hand. Served him right- suited him well. A reminder to never try something so foolishly absentminded again. Though judging from the way he handled himself, Stella doubted it was a learned lesson that would stick. She cocked a brow and shifted her weight when the enigma drew then dropped his sword, rolling her eyes when only then- when pain struck a cruel reminder, did the thief abandon the sack of loot in favor to wield the weapon. Stella fought back the urge to scoff when he threatened her, like this was a scene ripped from some cheesy two decade old fantasy film she and Moira would watch sometimes on the weekends.
Looking him up and down with a royal air that could only be summed to utter the internal thoughts of You’ve got to be kidding me- Stella would debate how to handle the situation. She peered passed the magi to look upon what remained of the guards, those still afflicted having somehow found relief in unconsciousness among their petrified brethren, and found the urge to laugh instantly dashed from her mind. Focus returned to the threatening spell-sword with an understanding of what she stood before. A well of potential power masked within an unassuming guise of an obnoxious fool. Though was he really to be so easily taken at such a value? This man was dangerous. She kept her guard up with this one regardless of how harmless he appeared, standing there so flustered, a shade of embarrassment, with his little man-made craft pointed her way.
”I will admit, I have never met anyone stupid enough to try something like that,” she noted, nodding to the afflicted hand with a small tug at the corner of her lips. An amusing and satisfying penance in her opinion. Though the situation still begged the question of what to do with him. The authorities had been momentary downed, scattered, hopefully with any possibility awaiting reinforcements. For now it stood to her, the bystander that had been into the chase after this lunatic simply by her desire to see rightful justice done. He was hurting and stealing from people, this buffoon in blue needed to answer for the crimes committed. To Stella, she didn’t care whether she got an apology for the transgressions against herself from this man, only that at the very least, such a courtesy could be done for those whom he had harmed today.
”So here’s what’s going to happen- Thief. You’re going to give all of that back, and apologize to those you stole it from-“ she would nod at the sack of loot by his feet. Arms would uncross, a familiar flash would gleam as the rapier returned to her grasp, raised to point at the magi’s nose. ”Or I send the Sultan your ashes in a jar with a pretty little blue bow. Your call, Charming.”
@amal
|
|
@Deleted
Message Deleted
likes
0
posts
Deleted
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2018 20:53:48 GMT -5
“Heeeey,” Blaise began in a held tone of juvenile protest that climbed an octave near the end. Soft boyish creatures creased into a wounded expression at the swordsman’s questioning of his intellect, as if Stella’s retort had truly taken things too far after just a mild case of theft, manslaughter, and threatened assault. However the beginning of further dumurral was cut off with a strangled sound when the Queen stated her terms. His open mouth formed into an outraged but silent ‘What?!’ at the quite unreasonable command of reparation. “Madam there’s a diamond in the rough I need to-,” the not-so-firm interruption whistled off into a throttled ‘eeeeep’ sound between his teeth when Stella threatened to carbonize and entomb him in pottery. Uncharacteristically blessed silence followed for a moment as Blaise cocked his head at the daughter of Elysium with a look that might’ve called coldly calculating if not accompanied by a mien that better suited to a kitten in a trash compactor. As a clansman of Ivalice the young man had seen far more then the average share of dangerous folk and beings. When two clans reached a disputed stake, there was a hushed moment as each side sized up the other after delivering their bawdy boasts and competing to level the most gruesome ultimatums. Clan wars were something neither side really wanted, being both unprofitable and bloody affairs. An inability to discern who was bluffing and who was ready to let loose the Firagas resulted in an early grave, and Blaise was still quite alive. Whatever he saw in those amber eyes brought on a slow adams-apple bobbing swallow. “Y-you …,” the mage’s absonant rambling dropped in pitch as if struggling through a thick throat. “Your’re g-going t-to regret that,” he stammered, body now visibly trembling with an adrenaline soaked rush of petulant anger and stark fear. “ No-no one p-pushes me around!” Though warbling and tremulous, Blaise’s teeth gritted in an almost canine fashion, even as perspiration left slick trails down his dust covered face. “Your mistake,” preceded the Blue Adept's eyes opening well beyond what was physically possible for human eye sockets, gaining a glassy doll-like blankness. The blood vessels of his sclera swelled grotesquely until they writhed with worm-like thrashing, forming spidery symbols around the irises that pulsed with scarlet light. The spell-circles wrought in capillaries thrashed with feverish parasitic intensity. Blaise’s Stare sought to hold Stella’s gaze, invading through the proverbial windows to her soul. Stare Effect Roll |sEJErLW1-4Blinking and blurry eyed as if waking from some unwholesome sleep, the sorcerer advanced towards justice’s defender. His lips moved in a building rhythmic chant, but the words were completely inaudible even when Blaise appeared to be shouting the incantation’s crescendo. Instead of physical sound there just came an unnatural chill. Blaise’s words were for the ears of the dead alone and life itself recoiled in revulsion as the necromantic malediction reached completion. Upon barreling up towards towards Stella, Blaise reached out with his weaponless hand. The burned skin was slickly sallow and riven through with contusions and patches of pallid transparency that made the tendons and bones unwelcomely visible. Blaise’s Draining Touch lunged towards the young woman’s shoulder, seeking her quintessence if he couldn’t have her blade. Blaise HP: 19/20 1) Blaise used Stare dealing medium Dark Damage to Stella and afflicting her with a random status effect if she doesn't look away in time {Spoiler} {Stare}Stare: After an inebriated dare led to Blaise losing a starring contest with an Evil Eye, he has to be careful not to lock eyes with someone too long or they might take medium Dark damage and become afflicted as determined by a 1d4 if they don’t look away in time. (Cooldown 4)
1: Hallucinations cause the victim to be Confused for (1 Post)
2: Nightmares cause Sap: victim takes minor Dark damage each post (3 Posts)
3: Thoughts slowed by Fog: prevents spell-casting (1 Post)
4: Drowsy from sleepiness: Evasion and Hit-rate slightly reduced (3 Posts) 2) Blaise used an action to move into melee range 3) Blaise attempted to Drain Touch Stella, dealing medium Dark damage and healing minor wounds if she doesn't evade Aqua Breath 2/4 Bad Breath 1/5 Dark Corridors 1/2 Stare 0/4 Drain Touch 0/2 @stella 1-4
|
|
@Deleted
Message Deleted
likes
0
posts
Deleted
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2018 17:33:58 GMT -5
It wasn’t often that the young woman found herself playing the authoritarian, at least in this sense of the matter. Stella almost felt like that one girl in class, who was standing up to the bully or class clown for taking their antics too far. The attempted theft of her sword had been the proverbial gum in her hair, and this obnoxious magi, the insubordinate whom had all the hall patrol chasing him to and fro. It would stop now though, and with any luck she could try to talk some leniency into the authorities over his punishment. Though not many people who weren’t familiar with her face would never take the threat of incineration seriously, there were few who would. Even back home, there were people in Libra who believed the Light was nothing more than a myth, a folkloric bedtime story meant to aid the young their dreamscapes. These new places were bound to laugh at such an idea. As far as this boy was concerned, she intended to lock him in a furnace of sorts by all she had said. Were she in possession of all the memories pertaining to the inherited gifts, it wasn’t that far beyond the realm of possibility.
The reaction to the magi’s tirade of courage attempting a resurgence surfaced in yet another eye roll, though the young woman would yell in pain as darkness clouded her sights. W-what the hell-!? Her freed hand raised, attempting to fruitlessly wipe whatever had afflicted her eyesight, as for the moment all she could see was shadow. A knee found itself pressed into soft sand in the momentum, a gasp seething through clenched teeth as Stella tried to fight the annoyance. She didn’t see it coming, but another surge of dark would course through her body as a hand was rested on her shoulder. It almost burned like fire, stung like acid, chilled like ice- All these things and more. Not life threatening by any means, but enough to tax tolerance, to stress stamina in a means to potentially test her ability to withstand what it could throw at her.
”Aggghhh!” she cried in pain. The coil wrap of Fas hilt would dig into her skin as she tried to refocus her attention on something self inflicted, to try to numb out the real cause, and attempt to somehow push her determination passed it. She could feel energy being sapped from her by some means, doubtlessly through the magi’s contact with her, it was the only explanation. She breathed heavily as a result, wincing as the osmosis took what it could from her. Though his last words before he touched her came to mind, which prompted a chuckle to rise from the depths of her throat. She would seize Blaise’s wrist, look up into his eyes, and smirk as eldritch rainbow embers would burn away the expiring darkness.
”Touching me...was yours.”
Embers would become wild fire that overtook her form, and ate its way around the magi through her contact with him. The multi-hued force would surround them both, until a flash would overcome them before the pair would vanish. Another flash but a few feet away further into the alley, and Stella would aim to use the disorientation to help attempt to push Blaise away from her personal space. The suddenly freed hand was brought up, before a trio of mana orbs would coalesce before firing at the magi. Whatever it hit would result in a hefty explosion of non-elemental energy, a cloud of sand being thrown up with the commotion as clothes and hair billowed away from the blast against their volition. Stella brought a hand up to her eyes to shield them from the oncoming sand, grimacing only briefly before the momentary gale subsided. Did any of it work? Did she put a clamp on that mouth of his by some grace of charity? Stella lowered a hand, and stared hard down the alley to find out.
@amal
|
|
@Deleted
Message Deleted
likes
0
posts
Deleted
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2018 3:54:08 GMT -5
“A-alright,” Blaise finally managed. He coughed on another heavy mouthful of dust from where he’d just been made so ignobly recumbent in the alley dirt. “Mayhaps… some people erm.. do push me around on occasion.” The young man winced as he lifted himself to his feet, ribs protesting with sharp shooting pains after taking that unfamiliar spell full on. The mage was now more sepia then blue. Granular residue practically formed a second skin on his spare frame. Brightly dyed wool clothes with leather inlays well suited to the dreary frigid Fovoham highlands had proven a liability in the desert heat. Employing hydromancy before becoming some vigilante’s rag doll had clearly done them no favors, to say nothing of the high octane mana spheres that’d just punched three still-smoking holes right through them.
A harsh bark of a cough seemed to be Blaise’s chest cavity's protest to this whole standing thing. “Soooo you’re more then just a waif with an enchanted blade,” he admitted with a weak rueful smile. A hand went to the livid bruised skin visible in Ruinga’s wake, seemingly worrying at the wound until his fist opened. Sapphire spheres, a perfect miniature of Stella’s spell, orbited above his opened palm. “Not from this World either,” large blue eyes narrowed at his ‘attacker’ before flicked back down to the replication. “Hells, this World Heart signature doesn’t match any world i’ve been to.” The bandit’s normally querulous voice was even and unfaltering as he became enraptured by the alien dweomer in his hands. For the passing moments, Blaise gained a healthier assurance then his general panicky mania, a dimming reflection of a court mage alight with wonder, rather then the petulant prodigal who’d taken his place.
The mage’s fingers began to make a series of minute counterpoised somatic movements, like a watchmaker tending to his delicate craft. Ruinga’s reflected orbs expanded and began to unravel in the manner of precise machinery, revealing swirling vortices and dizzying geometries of folded space.“I’ve actually never beheld an Unaspected evocation with this stream-lined a structure before,” Blaise mused, rotating the holography with a motion akin to spinning a globe.”The matrix is as efficient as primary Black Arts, yet it doesn’t rely on catalyzing chemical reactions in order to manifest from the Mist.” The Ivalician paused, contemplating how that could be possible. “Pure mana, like a Flare detonation but simpler.” Blaise let out a long appreciative whistle before looking up and blinking a bit at Stella, as if suddenly reminded that she was there. “Its… very impressive,” he intoned with an emphatic nod.
It seemed to reoccur to Blaise that he was supposed to be the daring thief here and a flick of the thumbs dispelled the replicated spell harmlessly “Look stranger,” he began, apparently in more negotiable mood after having to eat dust at Stella’s hands. “You’re not from here. You don’t own these people anything.” A low sibilancy came with the saber sliding back into its sheathe. "I’ve a treasure to find and half of it to offer to the daunting swordswoman who assists me rather then taking up the slack for the local despot’s muscle." The blackguard sough to meet the Queen’s gaze, quiet for a moment before voicing his gut intuition.
“…and if you are lost,” he ventured cautiously, “I could open a path to your Brithworld given more clues.”
@stella Blaise is Warped, takes heavy non-elemental damage from Ruinga, and is knocked down from Stella's push in combination with the spell's impact 1) Blaise stands from Prone 2) Blaise uses Learning to replicate and analyze Stella's spell, nerds out, but discharges the spell non-violently 3) Blaise attempts diplomacy CDs Learning 0/3 Drain Touch 1/2 Stare 1/4 Aqua Breath 3/4 Bad Breath 2/5
|
|
@Deleted
Message Deleted
likes
0
posts
Deleted
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2018 22:32:15 GMT -5
The dust would clear and with it came the sound of the spellcaster’s voice, prompting a faint yet prominent sigh of relief in Stella. As irritating as he was becoming, there truthfully wasn’t any part of her that wished the Magi with a Mouth had died in the blast. Hurt? Most definitely. The families of the guards not going home tonight deserved something if he were to get away. She looked him over, noticing that the spell had taken its toll on the now thickly dusted coat, yet the man’s body was standing as though it hardly fazed him. At least at first glance it would appear that way. Her guard would instinctively go up, readying herself for an oncoming attack, as Blaise would begin to wave and twist his hands to and fro. That was when the unlikely happened, as Stella witnessed him conjure a replication of her Black Magic right before her very eyes.
Disbelief became concern as she heard the tone change in his voice; a tone much more accurately expected from a scholar of the arcane. He was able to sum up that she wasn’t from this world, as if it wasn’t obvious by her accent or manner of which she dressed. Though she felt her curiosity piqued when he made mention of something called a ‘World Heart’ signature. Exactly what did he mean by the term? The literalism of the phrase itself? Was this the subject of his studies- hearts of worlds? How the hell did one examine the heart of a world? The very concept was abstract, yet certainly not alien nor lost on Stella. The Light of Libra enabled her to do an all number of other worldly things, ironically enough examining the hearts of others happened to be among them. Though what the magi did next, truly bewildered the young queen.
The illumination of this replicated spell grew more intense, as the orbs and the mana of the conjuring itself was unraveled, contorted, and manipulated to the magi’s liking. Where he would look upon the ornate machinations of magic with wonder, Stella remained on edge as he babbled on scientific spiel about what he had evidently learned. A spell learned from her. The very idea that she had possibly handed him another tool to harm more innocents, brought about an unsettling, yet fleeting sense of nausea to the young royal. She suppressed it the best she could, even as he complimented her, would she seek to retain a mask of indifference. This guy was all over the place. Less than a minute ago he was trying to win a staring contest with her, then blind and sap health from her. Now here he was complimenting her spellcrafting? Someone was hitting the Ghysal Greens a little too much.
A flick of the thumbs dispirited the spell in his hands, yet even as it vanished from sight, Stella stood firm in her ground. The rapier was lowered ever slightly, yet the hardened expression never wavered, even as negotiations were attempted. He tried to sway her disposition, pointing out again that they were both foreigners to this world. Stella immediately disagreed with the statement. She may not hail from these soils, but it didn’t mean she favored thievery or the petrification of men whom were only doing their jobs. The frozen stoney faces of pain and shock stood ever present, even as the blue magi put an offer on the table that would intrigue most adventurers. Stella had no interest in material gain, yet the curiosity surrounding this treasure piqued her intrigue. What was so important that this young man would risk life, limb, and coat to find?
The spellweaver would sheathe his sword, before cautiously venturing with another offer. A means to return home, provided enough information. Eyes snapped and narrowed venomously upon cerulean orbs. She barely trusted this flippant snake as it was. What possible idea had he been given to think she’d entrust the location of Libra to the likes of this enigma? So he could take his pickings of whatever he desired? So he could return to his college and inform his brethren of a new world to study? She stared him down coldly, before spitting to the ground at her feet.
”I can find my own way home.”
Another dramatic pause of silence filled the air.
”Why is it so dire you find this treasure?” CDsFlux (1/2) Ruinga (1/3) @amal
|
|
@Deleted
Message Deleted
likes
0
posts
Deleted
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2018 22:37:17 GMT -5
Sandy eyebrows became distressed slants as Stella made her position on Blaise’s most reasonable offer abundantly clear. Accustomed to dealing with those of similarly ‘flexible’ disposition as himself, the spoliative sorcerer met moral resolve with nervous incomprehension.
The simple fact was, even if he could overcome this swordswoman, of which Blaise was no longer entirely confident…doubting perhaps, it was only a matter of time before the Sultanate’s forces were renewed. He had maybe ten minutes till this place was swarming with fellows unnervingly handy with scimitars. Scions, he needed to concentrate! It’d gotten so far to focus of late, sleep came even with even more difficulty. Dreams and empty minutes were filled with that place, the last dark shore before a stygian sea where deathly gentleness intermingled with infinity…
Focus…what was he doing just now?
Cobalt eyes refocused as Blaise considered the woman’s question. While more personal that’d he normally cared to share, no other appeal had elicited a positive response. Besides, what’d it matter if some stranger worlds away knew his errand? It wasn’t like she’d turn canary for the Inquisition and it didn't looking like there was anything he could say that'd make her more opposed to letting him leave these diamonds. “Across the Worlds there is a spreading plague that afflicts a person’s Anima…their Heart, soul, whatever term you prefer,” Blaise added briskly in clarification of his culture’s religious jargon. “My birthworld, Ivalice, proved no exception. My entire Clan is afflicted, slowly turning into elementals known as Heartless. It’s my duty as a clansman to find a cure, but not even the most esteemed sages seem to know anything."
Knowing he’d just wasted a precious minute giving information to a probable adversary, Blaise shifted his weight between his feet in evident growing discomfort. “The jinn of Agrabah are the most powerful of their kind,” a frenetic sweeping gesture encompassed the World in which they both stood, “able to reshape reality to their master’s desire.” Feeling his time waning, the mage picked up the verbal pace. “Within a nearby cave resides the Black Lamp, the vessel of an efreeti above all others.” Figuring his adversary was canny enough to mentally conjoin this fact to his purpose, Blaise stuck a thumb over his shoulder where the ill-gotten gains laid. “A ‘diamond in the rough’ is the key.”
Hearing it come from his own mouth, the lordling was surprised. The sheer monomania of this plan seemed alien from himself…yet, the corpses, madmen, and stone figures cluttering the alley beyond were unmistakably his own spellcraft. Yet something stirred Blaise to steel himself, an insistent whisper from a place of tenebrous inner silence that numbed horror and shame.
“I am no warrior,” said Blaise, coping to the obvious. “But hinder me at your,” large eyes looked Stella up and down before breath and words came faster. “perhaps-n-necessarily-mortal….ish…peril,” the young man stammered. Though seemingly running low on gumption mid-threat, violacious light built in the his hands, casting unnatural throbbing shadows along the adobe walls. “J-just,” the sorcerer made vague anxious horizontal wave at Stella, "stand aide.”
@stella 1) Blaise explains his quest to recover Jafar's lamp 2) Blaise readies Mantra Missiles
Leaning 1/3 Stare 2/4 Bad Breath 3/5
|
|
@Deleted
Message Deleted
likes
0
posts
Deleted
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2018 23:09:49 GMT -5
Where Stella had hoped to accept whatever simple, if certainly short answer Blaise would have to give, she got more than she bargained for as the magi spieled forth a rather informative origin behind the nature of his antics. While she certainly did not expect this level of uncharacteristic, yet sudden profound honesty, the young royal lent an ear to all said with intrigue. The tale was one she could sympathize with, knowing full well how hard it stung to lose people she cared about. Oddly enough the source of the problem were described as elementals, or at least what she believed was his description of whatever these Heartless things were. The thoughts of the Horde that Chronos and herself fought in Traverse Town came to mind; the disturbing image of the hundreds of smaller creatures combining to form a lifelike snake. There was no indication these were the same creatures Blaise mentioned, yet there was something in her instinct that told Stella the two might be connected.
It was not enough to ignore the quickening pace in which the magi continued his tale. Either he suspected she was biding time for the local guards, or simply wished to end this inquiry to his motives, Stella could only guess which of the two prompted the test of his patience. She remained calm, rooted to the spot, as she took in the gravity of this young man’s intentions. It had been spelled out plainly enough for her. Find a keystone of some sort, a diamond in the rough as it were, possibly to gain entrance to wherever this cavern lair of the sealed Djinn would lie dormant. As he finished his informative blurting, Stella would catch a glimpse of Blaise’s momentary pause. In that moment she wondered if he, like her, was weighing the severity in the words he had given. There wasn’t much practicality behind such a plan, in fact she found it nothing short of ludicrous, a desperate gambit of an even more desperate soul. Misguided, no doubt. Was this perhaps a plan of his own conception? Or was this a path he had been guided down by one of his clan? Even now she could see this was heading nowhere good.
Stella glimpsed downward to the rapier now at her side, a small tug forming at the corner of her lips as she regarded the gem within the coiled guard. A small glimmer of humor found in Blaise’s mistaking a wyvern’s eye for a diamond at all. Vir would never let her hear the end of this story, she could see it now. Her focus shifted back to the youth as more frail threats were made. Stella’s gaze wandered betwixt the aberrations about his hands, and the pulsating shadows readied to burst forth from the adobe walls in her peripheral. She could still feel the inertia of the Light’s last pulse, a sensation in her chest similar to the burn of needing to catch her breath. The fleeting discomfort was there, yet it told her enough that a quick warp out of the alleyway wasn’t an option. Weakened powers certainly put a wrench in her tactical thinking, and they were certainly doing her less favors than in the past right now. Though even as he threatened to snare her within this proverbial vice grip, there was something about this magi Stella took to consideration.
He was no true villain, at least not in her eyes that now bore some understanding to his motives. Sure he was going about saving his clan a bad way, yet she looked on herself in this light. Had she truly been the saintlike paragon the people painted her in the crusade to return the Orichalcum? Was she so infallible as the Elysian people might choose to see? Or would she return home, and be seen as the Queen that had abandoned her kingdom upon fulfilling the prophecy? Stella was unsure what the people would make of her if a way home was ever found. Whisper your grief. Scream your sorrow. Proclaim your love. Just don’t call me your hero. It was all she could think to tell those she cared for, if ever she was to see their faces again. She considered what Blaise might tell his own loved ones if he were successful in this maddening ploy. There was no certainty the fabled Djinn of this Black Lamp adhered to its myths, nor anyway of knowing if it would take on orders, let alone a master.
Stella acknowledged the determination in Blaise, suspecting he would never let this endeavor rest until he had seen his options exhausted. If even he should succeed, there was no telling what might become of this Agrabah if he unleashed this Djinn from what sounded like a prison. The intentions of his radicalism were noble, if they were indeed true, yet the consequences of these actions would be nothing the people of this city could live with. He possessed a rather unsettling awareness of the arcane, so much that Stella pondered if he possibly knew things the Sorores might not. If the earlier display of his replication was any indication, perhaps she could coax some insight into her weakened powers out of him. It was certainly worth a thought. Therein existed the possibility of returning to Chronos and the ship with a clue to their mystery. Stella would affirm in the decision to, for the time being, assist Blaise in his search. The rapier would vanish once more, before she would gesture to the magi to use his spell if he really meant to harm an unarmed woman. CDsFlux (2/2) Ruinga (2/3) @amal
|
|
@Deleted
Message Deleted
likes
0
posts
Deleted
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2018 23:42:55 GMT -5
Runic circles had winked into existence across the alley as the mage’s will became writ in shinning geometries. Yet, despite all the annular vectors being primed and ready in the air, turning like pieces of celestial clockwork, Blaise himself remained frozen.
A whispering tenebrosity coiled within Blaise, briefly shrouding him in a flickering black haze. Like a tickling breath against the ear, Darkness spoke of how this woman took him for a weakling, not man enough to back up his claims. Wasn’t she right, murmured the lightless spaces between the stars. What a coward, how he bear to see that wretch reflected in her unblinking brown eyes? Prove her wrong! These bolts could punch through ten-inch iron and barely be slowed…what was the tensile strength of her stubborn skull? ———
“I believe you Blaise,” Antoine assured, voice soft as the green and white silks of his vestments as they swished with his cautious steps forward. “You’ve been through much…”
“It’s the truth!” Snarled Blaise, sensing a physician’s tolerant placation in his brother’s tone “T-That place… we were there! Hell…Hell’s not fire Antoine…gods its so cold, just goes on forever. …”
“Cease this, you are hyperventilating, let the Sisters tend to you.”
“It changed my clan,” he managed after a lapse into blinking disorientation, “they need me. I’ve got to save….”
“Blaise,” the bishop breathed in exasperation. “They were brigands at best even before this incident you describe…”
“No! Not like this,” Blaise insisted gesticulating towards the barred window. “We d-didn’t kill people, they didn’t have gold eyes before...please I need to"
“Blaise!” Antoine snapped before dropping several octaves back down. “Sister Abélia lies on what may prove yet to be her deathbed!” After a long moment of looking into his feverish brother’s uncomprehending face, the cleric coaxed further. “Do you remember this morning Blaise?” A slow shake of the head elicited another step forward and gentle elaboration. “You immolated the abbess with demonfire brother,” Antoine hissed with bitter emphasis.
“No...no no no I didn’t,” Blaise stuttered as the room seemed to spin. “Shadowflare? You know I wouldn’t...”
Blaise’s eyes implored his brother to agree, to affirm such was act was beneath and beyond him, but was met by a gaze that contained only his own reflection, disheveled, manic, and covered in telltale ash.
“You are very sick brother.”
Don’t…
———
“Don’t look at me like that.” Blaise lowered his gaze from Stella’s. Spells shattered as if the young woman’s reminder of his selfhood were a rock through tinted windows, letting in the light and fresh morning air. Arcane diagrams washed away like beach patterns before the tide, harmlessly dispersed in a heady rush of compressed air and crackling mana.
The sorcerer shuddered. Despite the evocation being an elementary one, he felt like he’d just sprinted uphill. Gods, his skin was so cold and clammy. What he’d just thinking about? It was so hard to concentrate…
The heavy of booted feat and sound of men shouting bespoke the sultanate’s reinforcements closing in. Blaise de Beaulieu gave a tired rueful smile as he raised his hands, surrendering to an unnamed women. A new low perhaps, but something numinous reminded that it was better then the alternative he’d contemplated for longer then a gentleman should ever admit.
“My baptized name is Blaise de Beaulieu,” he said, intonation uncharacteristically serious for second, “and I am your prisoner.” The solemnity faltered a second with an inquiring cock of the head. “What are your terms Lady Knight?”
@stella 1) Blaise dispels Mantra Missiles
2) The Sultan's guards are approaching in the distance
3) Blaise puts himself a Stella's mercy
|
|