[Game Thread] Prelude (Creation)

[The Fool]

In the middle of a vast forest on the Eastern Borderlands, strangled by vines and rotting to pieces from the neglect of millenia, sits a manse.

The manse is an ancient, fossilized thing, devoid of power and cracked by roots. Its stone facade, once covered in Orichalcum and brilliant as the dawn, used to be a glorious monument to the Unconquered Sun. Now it is a pile of rubble, the echo of a dead kingdom's faltering wail.

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.

It has been a thousand years since this place has seen human life. In powerlessness, it has found rest. In surrender, it has found solace. In desolation, it has found peace.

But not today.

Eighty yards away, there is a thundering explosion. Birds scatter from the treetops as the earth shakes. Loose mortar and bricks shake loose from the old ruin, scattering like mice before a looming tornado. There is a clamoring of distress, the animals of the forest shouting their warnings as they flee from the noise.

High above, the Daystar drifts lazily across a cloudless blue sky.

[Ehlana]

Golden Whispering Sands is running, or at least trying to. There are so many trees and...little trees and vines and what she'd swear are giant mushrooms, all in the way. They keep catching on her bronzed limbs and snagging at her dark brown hair. Used to life near the desert, she's not used to this much flora all tangled together. It's a pain. Of course, the six or seven spectral zombies, the giant walking pile of corpses and the freaky guy with a permanently bloody forehead chasing her are -great- incentives to become very good at forest running -very- quickly.

So...think of it as an opportunity, Whisper.

"Go away and leave me alone!" She hisses over her shoulder at the bloody guy, stretching the limits of the volume her malformed vocal chords will allow. He doesn't reply. He and his buddies don't stop either. The creepiest thing about him isn't the fact that he wants to kill her, that seems to be a popular occupation these days. It's the fact that she has a nagging feeling that she ought to know him and like him. Given that he was clearly a necromantic psycho, that she was even thinking she should like him is enough to make the hair on the back of her neck stand up. He's getting closer too...

As she turns on heel, Whisper's shoulder rams into the side of a tree. She doesn't know what kind, they all looked the same to her, big, with lots of leaves that are unnaturally green. She ignors the sting, lifting the exquisitely tooled firewand and aiming it at her pursuers. She is, of course, out of firewand range. But that doesn't matter anymore. Flames shoot outwards from the barrel, billowing towards freaky man, stretching and extending further than any firewand should allow. Whisper isn't waiting to see, she's running again. The Solar girl clears several more yards before she dares look back. On the bright side, one of the glowy corpses is gone and the mobile corpse pile looked a little singed. On the not so bright side, not a single hair on the freaky guy's head appears damaged.

"Drat." Whisper hisses to herself. That was the last charge on the firewand... she'll have to load it up with fire pearls from now on. She keeps running, heading towards the heap of stones she can just see through the greenery. If she can get up there, get some elevation, she can get some good shots off.

[jj_wolven]

Broken Halo Reforged in Blood had been shadowing the Solar for several weeks, avoiding too much direct contact with her as he opposed the Abyssal forces that were haunting her. He had followed them to this distant place, but had lost track until the explosion drew him to their current battle field.

Just in time it seems. he though to himself, snapping his helm shut as she shot her last round.

He pauses for a moment of concentration before blurring with speed as the flashes through the trees. Just before reaching the undead creatures, he uses not only the trees, but their branches and leaves to build height and power. Finally he launches himself off of one of the trees with a knee at seven feet. The knee catches the Abyssal in the jaw hardly doing more than causing his head to whip to one side, but that wasn't Halo's goal anyway. He uses the resistance to perform a midair flip, drawing a matched pair of orichalcum short daiklaves in a fluid slash to leave a cracked and bleeding "X" on one side of the Abyssal. The armored man lands sliding some ten feet past the Abyssal, but can't even be said to have stopped as he is immediately off in another blur of speed, this time chopping an arm off the corpse creature.

[The Fool]

The Abyssal staggers for a moment, stumbling like a swatted marionette. Suddenly, he stands upright, grinning daggers as his wounds seal and fade away without a trace. "Another...toy...." he hisses, his voice hoarse as steam and filled with malicious glee.

The enormous necrotech golem turns, glowing green eyes fixing themselves upon the newcomer. It raises its arm, revealing a hidden essence cannon. There is clap of thunder and Broken Halo is only barely able to avoid the blast of black essence, which hurtles past him and explodes, disintegrating a tree and causing the plants around the impact point to wither and die within seconds.

Further away, Golden Whispering Sands manages to fight through the undergrowth into the clearing, which is covered in vines and thick roots. Before her is a pile of rubble topped with a cracked circle of dark granite, looming tall even in its ruination and strangled by choking weeds. Sunlight streams down from above, illuminating the old ruin and causing to glow, an island of light in a sea of canopied shadows.

[jj_wolven]

It seems that its only the non-stop movement that saved the armored man from the blast of Essence as he continues to dart around, moving at unnatural speeds. His feet hit another tree, launching himself at the Abyssal again.

This time the Abyssal is ready, using Halo's own momentum against him and he slams his weapon right into his midsection, seeming to blast through Halo's body with ease as the armored man seems to split in half then shattering into millions of pieces. It is only a moment before this is revealed to be nothing to him as the sands draw back together to quickly reform Halo's still moving body. He continues past the Abyssal, unleashing and amazingly fast barrage of accurate strikes on the necrotech creature in a spray of bone and flesh bits.

[Ehlana]

Reaching the wall, Whisper doesn't hesitate. She jams the firewand into it's holster at her waist and starts climbing rapidly. The vines and roots and rough stone make finding handholds easy enough. The question is whether or not those handholds will actually support any weight. Whisper tries not to think about this, and concentrates on keeping her weight spread out without slowing down too much. After all, a fall might kill her, but whatever the undead squad behind her has in mind almost certainly will.

Reaching the top, Whisper pulls herself up, scraping skin off her forearms carelessly. It'll heal in a flash, one of the few advantages to being a Solar. Scrambling to her feet, she whirls around, grabbing her firewand, slotting a fire pearl in and taking aim. The barrel of the flame-piece wavers as she recognizes the armored form engaging the pile of corpses. Even at a distance, he's recognizable. She's seen him a fair few times, after all. He keeps jumping in on these battles, though he runs off afterwards...and gives her almost as creepy a feeling as the things he fights. Given that everyone wants to kill her now, Whisper feels she's justified in finding that highly suspicious. Still, suspicious doesn't justify shooting in the back. She shifts her aim, for the guy with the perpetually bloody forehead.

Again, a jet of flames shoots out, this time tipped by an incandescent sphere of glowing red. Again, it's out of the range for a firewand and again, that doesn't matter. If only the freak will stay -still-, he's in for a very uncomfortable time. Maybe it'll be enough to keep him off her back for awhile, if she's really lucky.

[Arion Wind]

A short distance away from the battle, a lithe form skulks through the wood, praying he isn't seen by anything. He seems tired and scared, but somewhat confident -- at least until he sees and hears the explosion. With a quiet curse, he abandons all pretense of stealth and breaks into a run. As he goes, he privately laments, {So much for a clean getaway, she'd have to be blind not to notice that.}

He takes several scrapes and bruises from the branches in his haste, but reminds himself that if his pursuer catches him, he'll suffer far worse. He shouts over his shoulder as he runs, "Why did you let me kill her, fool thing?" and is unsurprised to hear his scythe respond, "Had I intervened, you would not have learned." Before he can shout back a retort, the Lunar known as Shining Echo of Immutable Truth runs almost headfirst into the wall. As he gets his bearings and begins to climb, he sees a jet a flame blast from atop the wall and illuminate another battle. Repeating his prior curse, the circle tattoo on his forehead begins to shine softly, and his body melts into that of an osprey. The change completed, he takes to the sky to get a better view -- and to make sure he won't jump the wall and land in the middle of an encampment.

[The Fool]

The necrotech construct staggers back, but Broken Halo can only do some superficial damage before it suddenly fades, leaving him clawing and striking at nothing but smoke. It reforms behind him, turning to strike back, when the Abyssal is suddenly blown forwards, the shot from Whisper taking him by surprise. His entire upper torso and head are flayed by the jet of flame, stripping the skin away from muscle and bone. He screams, fire pearl searing him from the inside out.

Then there is a brilliant blast. It hits no one, only succeeding in destroying a number of trees, but whatever shot it had done so from above. Whisper and Echo, from their higher vantage point, see in the distance an approaching shape. Echo, his eyes keener than those of the others in his osprey form, can see that it is an immense vessel that resembles a ship, only most ships are not constructed from Soulsteel and yellowed bones. Also, ships do not usually fly.

Even as the two watch, an immense ball of essence hurtles from the flying ship. This one comes perilously close to hitting the clearing, completely disintegrating another patch of trees. Even without being able to see it clearly, Whisper knows what this is: Eye of Seven Despairs' personal Skyreme. The Necrotic Essence Cannon was only missing them because they were not yet within its effective range. Soon, it would be upon them, free to pound them to dust from the air as they slowly run out of essence.

Then, behind Whisper, the enormous ring begins to shine with blue light.

[jj_wolven]

With the distraction of his immediate enemies, and the nearby explosion, Halo takes off at his supernatural speed (running 40+ mph) to the base of the wall. He follows the lead of the girl he has been helping from the shadows, and begins to climb the wall. He is halfway up when his punishment arrives sooner than he expected.

Not now..., is the last cohesive though he has as panic takes over and his skilled climb turn into a blind scramble.

The knowledge that he can't outrun it doesn't stop him from trying as a cyclone of sand tears out of the ground at the base of the wall. In less than a second, the swirling sand catches up with the fully armored man and tears him from the wall. It continues to lift him in the air while assailing him like a ragdoll. In only a few seconds that feel like an eternity to Halo, he is dropped at the top of the wall only a short distance from the girl though he doesn't realize it yet. He lies there flat on his back as blood gushes from the seems of his armor to stain the stone.

[Ehlana]

Oh, like everything else wasn't enough! Whisper cannot scream the words to the uncaring sky, but her mind shrieks them. She hesitates, then darts forward, grabbing hold of the nearest armored limb. She hauls the limb, bloody body up, draping it over her back and bending nearly double.

Before we do this next time, you lose weight!

Laboriously, she moves forward across the stone, looking for any sort of doorway, crack or crevice into the heart of the ruined structure. It's a slim chance, but maybe the stone will be enough to protect them from the giant essence cannon. She keeps as far as possible from that glowing ring. Whatever sort of magic it is...she wants none of it. It probably wants to kill her, like everything else.

[The Fool]

As Whisper hunts across the stone, she feels something underneath her shift, sinking down as more bits of rubble tumble off the pile. Another shot from the Skyreme lands short of the clearing and clears out another copse of trees. He is getting closer; it is only a matter of time before he gets in range.

The glowing ring has now dulled slightly. A bright blue glyph on the rim lights up.

[Ehlana]

Looking down as best she can, with Halo's limp arm flopping over one shoulder, Whisper tries to see if whatever's sinking beneath her is a way into the ruin. She throws another glance at the glowing ring, noting the glyph and wondering if she should touch it. Given the fact that she doesn't have a lot of options... It's even possible it's some sort of weapon that'd blast that floating ship out of the sky. Watching that happen would make Whisper -very- happy.

[The Fool]

Whisper sees the edge of what looks like some kind of pressure plate, which is probably what caused the sinking. A second glyph lights up on the ring.

[jj_wolven]

Halo groans as he is carried/dragged along, his head raising a minute after his landing. His weight shifts on Whisper's back, letting her know he's awake.

"I'm fine now, you can let me down." his voice rings through his helmet as he sets his feet on the ground. He grunts a bit as he places weight on his feet, though he appears "better" as the blood flow leaking through his armor has stopped. The helmet scans the glyphs and plate before looking back the direction they just came, staring at the ship.
"Huh, looks like he's pulling out the stops now." he says as he readies his two short daiklaves, his moonsilver armor glinting dully in the sun.

[Ehlana]

Rather than argue, Whisper slides the man gently off her back. It's too hard to argue, especially in a noisy situation like this. Even in the best of situations she tends to avoid arguments since it's so easy for the other person to win, simply by talking over her. With no apparent entrance to the ruins up here, it looks like the glowing circle may be their only chance. As the armored creepy guy draws his daiklaves, she gives him a look that inquires sarcastically if he really thinks those are going to be any use against an -airship-. Emphatically, she points at the blue ring and then at the pressure plate, then taps her eyes. Then, leaving him to bang his blades against the sky if he really, really wants to, she goes hunting for more pressure plates.