The Temple of Falis: Barton Town ● Gaia Mainstream Thread

Welcome to the Temple of Falis. The Sanctuary is trashed and stuff is burning inside.

Time is dusk. Season is Early Spring	16.7%	[ 2 ]
PEOPLE SCREAMING EVERYWHERE AT THE GATES	25.0%	[ 3 ]
At least there aren't anymore dragons.	58.3%	[ 7 ]
Total Votes:			[ 12 ]

[Sey]

"A game? OOOH, are we gonna play horsie? I don't think I can lift you though Mister Athan." Illy turned around again as more screams echoed in through the doorway, unseen Priests barking commands as the first of the injured were brought to the medical ward from the Temple's northern grounds, mud and vegetation covering their boots and shoes as the quickest way between the hospital and the injured was straight across the Western ground's vegetable gardens.

"It's really loud out there... Was it a big accident? My mommy always yelled at me whenever I had an accident. She'd yell and put me in the bathtub while she cleaned the bed." Obviously the memories were disturbing to the little girl as she ran up to the large man and hugged his leg.

"I'm scared."

[Designated Hero]

As Illy turned to look at the source of the screams, Athan let out a light sigh. So much for making this a perfect escape.

"Yeah...it's a pretty big accident Illy. But I have a surprise in store for you when we get outside, alright? That's why I want you to wrap this around your eyes."

He held out the bandage and offered it to the girl. It was about that time that she ran up and hugged his leg, and his heart sunk even more. She was scared, and even though she was a kid, she wasn't dumb. He doubted he'd be able to fool her forever.

"I'm scared too."
Scared I'm gonna mess up your childhood.

"But since scaredy cats like me can't make up their minds, I'm gonna leave it up to you. Blindfold or no blindfold? Either way, we're gonna get you some place safe until everybody settles down. Does that sound good?"

[The Hanging Man]

Priests and clerics could be seen hauling charred bodies from the blast site. No doubt there were a great deal more survivors and several great deals more lifeless corpses. Tombs was looking for a middle ground.

The blast site would be a smoldering crater with fire still burning rampant throughout the area. A two hundred foot area full of burning debris and bodies alive and dead. Clearly a lot of debris and bodies, with the rescuers quickly claiming those furthest from ground zero where it was somewhat less dangerous.

The necromancer in Tombs could see both the living and the dead. And not only with his eyes.

This commotion of wounded being shuttled out and rescuers risking possible burns to find wounded was an excellent distraction. Why would anyone notice Tombs now? Their friends and family members were either dead or very quickly on that path. Rushing people, screaming burn victims, and the smell made it hard to notice anything other.

Fun fact: human flesh smells like cooking beef. Fat smells like pork. Burning blood smells a metallic copper. Organs smell like cooking liver. These, save for maybe one, were the familiar smells that everyone present had enjoyed at one point. Probably no longer.

Tombs paced his quick walk straight at one side of the blast area, choosing if at all possible a place not yet reached by the rescuers. As before, Tombs was difficult to notice on his own through some supernatural means, without help from screaming and burning eight-year-olds. Regardless, through a like supernatural means, flames and smoke sprouted from the ground and air around the walking corpse-like elderly person.

The fire and smoke would blend easily into the burning and smoking temple grounds. This fire and smoke, however, was entirely counterfeit. There was no heat to the flames and no smell to the smoke, but there was plenty of that all over the area to mask the deficiency. All these illusory effects could do was be seen and mask the path this necromancer was on from any eyes that would have serious issues for what he was about to do.

Being a necromancer, he could find a recently dead body easily. This was not what he was looking for.
Likewise, he could scent nearby living things. This wasn't exactly what he was looking for.
In some cases, a necromancer could feel death's hands on the living.

That razor's edge in the dichotomy of life and death in an organism. That's what he was looking for. And that's what he was going to find here, in this hell-on-earth. A bomb landed on a yard full of people. Many dead, many wounded, many soon to die of their wounds.

Tombs was looking for a dying clergy member. A cleric, a priest, a young acolyte, any student of the light that he could come across.

[Sey]

"Okay..." She said, agreeing with him mainly because he asked a question and not because she understood it. Taking the bandage and wrapping it around her head, she giggled and did a piss poor job of actually wrapping it around her eyes, big blue orbs looking up at him past the bandage and blinking innocently.

"Did I do it right?"

It was a blessing that Illy was looking at Athan then as the chaos finally swept into the medical ward. Behind her priests were running up and down the hallway carrying screaming children in their arms and men and women with peeling, cracked skin were being wheeled quickly around in gurneys or transported between clerics in makeshift slings of blankets, the scenes visible through the glass wall and the noise echoing inside the room through the open door.

There were roughly six hundred eighty Gaians who called the Temple their home and countless hundreds that visited the holy site daily to attend services and pray, and it'd be safe to say that at least three hundred of them were being brought to the medical ward for treatment... Or to be declared dead.

[Sey]

The Hanging Man

Tombs was looking for a dying clergy member. A cleric, a priest, a young acolyte, any student of the light that he could come across.

A low, mournful moan would sound at the necromancer's left as a boy - or what looked like a boy - groaned, half his body covered in flames and the other half bright pink as he smoldered on the charred grass. Glassy green eyes would stare up at the man without seeing him as the former High Priestess' star pupil took short labored breaths of the blackened air.

Soltis was dying and his God and his teacher were nowhere to be found.


(( I can't believe I'm giving you him. ))

[The Hanging Man]

False flames surrounded the boy and the necromancer, birthing illusory smoke into the sky and blocking vision in and out. They weren't going to find this one.

Tombs nonchalantly scooped a shovelful of loose non-burning soil and tossed it to the boy's burning half. It'd smother the flames, probably, and do very little to help the boy's situation. The necromancer was basely amoral. He didn't feel bad or empathize with the loss of a life, because death means little to a necromancer. To what Tombs basically was, flesh was flesh, alive or dead, suffering or no. But sometimes flesh was the vessel for something more.

The ancient walking corpse dropped to his knees without ceremony and surrendered his shovel to the dirt next to him. One pallid, boney hand landed on the boy's head. That physical bridge would spark a connection between the two. Tombs would know the boy physically as he was and as he currently is. The side-effect list to having a bomb dropped on you was a big one, but Tombs wouldn't read it as a diagnosis for injury. Tombs could see the world without bias.

This wasn't a boy. These weren't injuries. This was a series of elaborate structures and patterns made from the basic components that was the same as the ground the boy lay on. Organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry were not different. Soltis the boy was an idea and a label invented by the living and applied to an extremely complex organization of the same elements that made up every other living being and every other nonliving object. What made up Soltis now was once something else, and was now about to change again.

Macroscopically, through the eyes of the living, this boy was hurt. The pressure wave from an explosion would do bad things to all the soft parts of his body. The fire would naturally incinerate anything it touched, and the heat alone probably scorched the boy's lungs beyond use. This boy was dying.

If he could, he'd probably be screaming. Inside the acolyte's mind there'd be a presence; the psychic equivalent to a person walking up to another and leaning their full weight against them and intruding on anything they were doing. Being all kinds of scared shitless already all the irrational parts of Soltis' mind would be screaming and crying. Tombs would lean in on the rational part of his mind, the part that would hear--

"What do they call you?" A conglomeration of faceless voices so vast and different that all at once created a symphony of one that was neutral; void of inflection and tone.

Even with the boy soon to die, the speed of thought was relative. Tombs could speak into the boy's mind and manage a conversation of some length while a bare moment passed in the world around them.

[Sey]

The Hanging Man

"What do they call you?" A conglomeration of faceless voices so vast and different that all at once created a symphony of one that was neutral; void of inflection and tone.

"S-Soltis." The boy would answer, his inner voice trembling. "Who are you? Lady Sey? Falis? What's going on?"

Fear filled the boy's mind as his thoughts raced, mind flickering through memories of his mentor and the moments of loneliness that was the past year of the boy's life as he taught what he knew to the younger members of the clergy, burdened with being the most knowledgeable in white magic during his teacher's absence. He was supposed to be the Temple's protector and yet he was lying here in his death throes and waiting for Falis to take him up. A memory of a conversation flooded the teen's mind as the image of a woman with luminous gray eyes haunted his thoughts.

Soltis Annari ~ In the Temple of Falis

"When you got your pendant... What was it like? Did you see Him?" Soltis heard his voice as his vision centered on the stained glass of the Chapel of White Mages and not the woman before him.

"I always see Him, Soltis, or hear Him anyway. And how many times have you asked this question, silly? You can't be sitting around and waiting for Him to show up, it's not like that at all. Getting a medallion's an act of faith - of faith for Him, and His faith in you." In the memory, Soltis' eyes snapped back to the woman and focusing in on the platinum pendant resting on her chest, a pang of longing stinging fresh in the boy's mind.

"And He has faith in all of us. Do you have faith Him Soltis? Real faith? Once you find out what that is, you'll see Him. Don't worry kiddo. I have faith in you."

"Really? Thanks Lady Seyumi!" The memory fading as he looked into the woman's grey, almond shaped eyes as they crinkled with a smile.

"Tell me what's going on! I can't move..." Sadness and fear washed over the boy in a wave, the drowning feeling of uncertainty filling his psyche.

[Designated Hero]

There was a moment, albeit brief, when he looked away from Illy to take notice of the chaos no more than fifteen feet away. Once he saw children being hauled in, which didn't take long, he snapped his head back down and refocused on the matter at hand.

"Hmm. Something's not quite right..."

He put a finger to his chin and pursed his lips, looking real inquisitive for a moment before he reached up, carefully undid the blindfold, then redid it, making sure not to fasten it too tight. Once he was finished, he reached up and patted her on the head.

"Alright, I'm gonna pick you up now."

And he did, lifting the girl up by her armpits and placing her squarely on his shoulders, careful not to place her near the bladed portion of his sword as he was setting her down. Once she was up, Athan readjusted his right hand so he could guide her hands to the hilt of his sword, which could easily be used as a handle to keep her firmly on his shoulders.

"Okay, you all set up there? 'Cause it might be a bit of a bumpy ride."

[The Last Pedigree]

Kalek had been preparing for meeting with the council when he felt the ground shake, and black smoke erupt from the Northern grounds. Surprise took Kalek's eyes, but only for a brief moment. He had been in battles before, and his reactions were sharper than those of the priests or clergy. He was consequently the first one on his feet heading towards the disaster zone.

Despite his heavy armor weighing him down he moved surprisingly fast for a man that might be so tired. He was heading directly for the stables, his battle instinct kicking in. Who knew what had caused the attack on the temple, if there was any sort of danger to run in without a weapon in hand would be to run into a trap. That would mean death for potentially himself and anyone else he would be unable to protect.

Kalek, however, had no idea where the stables lay. As he ran across the grass this thought occurred to him, and he slowed his run and grabbed one of the fleeing members of the clergy. He was rough with the man who was clearly possessed by shock and fear. With firm hands grasped tightly around the priest he gave him a slight shake before speaking slowly and clearly.

"The stables. Where are they?"

The priest could only offer a hand pointing in the direction Kalek wanted as an answer. Kalek released the man and made immediately off in that direction. Usually the smell of horses would have given away the stables, but this day the air carried the smell of death on the air, and it took Kalek longer than he thought to find the stables, and consequently his weapon.

When he arrived the stables were practically empty. A lone man remained watching over the horses, although when Kalek found him he was simply on his knees praying, his face tied deep in concentration. Kalek walked around for a while searching for his horse, until finally he found the animal. Kalek quickly unstrapped his hammer from the horse and strapped it back into place on his own back.

As soon as the hammer was secured enough that it wouldn't fall off, Kalek quickly turned and began to make his way towards the scene of impact, before turning on his heels again quickly, and heading back towards his horse. It might be of benefit to bring the animal to the scene, those injured, of which there were sure to be plenty, would be easier carried on a horse.

Kalek quickly mounted the beast, his heart racing in his chest, and quickly released the steed, before spurring him onwards towards the blast scene. It was a welcome break to running, to ride on the horse, it lessened the weight of his armor it seemed.

It took Kalek less than a minute to reach the Northern grounds on his horse. As he neared he saw more and more of the clergy praying here and there, fear or disgust gripping them too much to get any closer to the blast zone. Kalek however spurred his horse on closer, getting to the very edge of the blast sight.

Kalek was in a spot where practically no one had ventured to begin the rescue, and so it was here Kalek began searching for those who could be saved. His eyes passed over many still-living bodies, but Kalek's battle-experience told him their wounds would never allow them to survive the journey out of the flames, and he passed over them. Eventually he found a pair close to one another, with minimal enough wounds to survive.

Kalek took the heavier one, and gently placed them over the back of his horse, and taking the lighter one himself, began to walk back out the crater towards those priests who were praying on the edge of the zone. They would have to care for survivors while Kalek returned back into the zone to get more people out. As Kalek walked he could have sworn he saw an old man tending to a dying boy, in the middle of the flames. His robe didn't seem to match those of the clerics though, but Kalek took no notice. Perhaps the flames and smoke were distorting his vision. The irritable particles in the air certainly brought a tear to his eye as he moved the survivors towards safety.

[LuvMonke]

Off in the distance, too far for even the stench of the blast to reach, sat a man. A man garbed in what one could only guess was a Halloween costume, for his attire was decked with shade of polluted green and skeletal iconography. Green vapors obscured his head and floating towards the sky above, seemingly clouding his vision but in reality, they were enhancing it. Enhancing his vision to the point that the sudden blast of light and bad juju had all but blinded him. Recoiling in pain and horror, he threw himself upon the ground and oblivious as ever, ended up sending himself on a head over heels tumble a short distance down the mountainside.

[Fengrading]

((Oops, wrong account.))

[The Hanging Man]

((There we go.))

Sey

"Who are you? Lady Sey? Falis? What's going on?"

Each of the legion of voices answered differently at once, created a dull roar of incomprehensible babble.

Tombs merely watched as the boy's mind retreated inward to more pleasant memories. It was an easily traceable path to Soltis' memories.

Sey

"Tell me what's going on! I can't move..." Sadness and fear washed over the boy in a wave, the drowning feeling of uncertainty filling his psyche.

There were a lot of answers to that. His body was returning to where it came from. The Cycle was reclaiming what belonged to it. The boy had reached as far as his fate was written in this place.

Most simply;

"You are dying."

Not harsh and not kind, simply stating a fact in the one way the boy could understand it. Tombs wasn't going to wait for the inevitable shock and insurmountable despair that usually lands with that kind of news. Instead, Tombs made a solid grasp at Soltis' memories. This was usually a psychic arm wrestling match between either party's psyche and ability, but the boy was just a boy, weakened physically and emotionally, and likely had little natural defense against something so invasive.

It wasn't painful or cruel, but certainly uncomfortable. Another being rifling through the entirety of your mind, not with a seemingly dark intent to discover all the boy's deepest and most coveted secrets, just ignoring any and all pleas to cease with a careless and mechanical disinterest one might exhibit when thumbing through a series of books trying to find a certain subject. That could only make it all the more intrusive as the psychic hands groped throughout his mind, treating him like some cold object storing simply smaller and equally cold objects.

Tombs was going to learn what it was to be an acolyte or cleric as Soltis had learned it. The necromancer wasn't after the qualities of the experience that Soltis had seen that made it uniquely his; personal memories were looked over and passed on. Information about life as a servant of light, a boy's place in the temple, things he had read and was taught, all he had learned without what he had experienced.

If the boy had learned skills and magic of the light, Tombs would also learn. While Tombs could mimic all of the parts he would be inherently incapable of producing the sum. He'd know the magic and what it required, but he couldn't gain any abilities Falis bestowed his followers. This old necromancer wasn't going to become a healer or a paladin; only a fly on the wall for every lesson the boy was privy to. Fortunately for Tombs, it appears Soltis was quite a student.

[Sey]

Designated Hero

"Okay, you all set up there? 'Cause it might be a bit of a bumpy ride."

"WHEE~!" Illy squealed, grabbing onto the swordman's hand and holding onto the sword for a moment before flailing her hands around more to explore, ruffling his hair as she got a feel for her perch. A the feel of his hair the girl's tiny hands poked around the man's face and grabbed his ears and nose.

"Got'ed your nose!" She exclaimed, kicking her tiny legs and giggling. She was feeling a bit disoriented with her vision gone though, and her tiny hands held tightly onto Athan's head for security.

"Kay. Can we get my present now?"

[Sey]

The Hanging Man

"You are dying."

At that Soltis was silent for a long moment, his thoughts flying back to his teacher's descriptions of their God's voice. Whatever was in his head didn't sound like Falis... So...

It was then the boy felt something in his head pulling at his memories, the sensation so foreign and strange but so utterly wrong that he couldn't help but cry out.

"Stop it!" He'd yell in his head, trying to cast something, anything to protect him. The kid never learned from his teacher how to make barriers for his head though and while Tombs was going to find some resistance he'd eventually get to what he was looking for.

The memories would flow unbidden with the boy unable to do anything but relive each one.



The image of a dank stone classroom flashed to his mind's eye, the perspective much shorter then the boy's 5'10" vantage point as the high pitched laughter of children filled the memory, the boy's vision focused on an old Priest who had a sheet of paper in his hand as he stared at the boy over his spectacles.

"Name?"
"Soltis Sanguine, Father."
"Well then, let's see how you can do."

Walking to the front of the classroom the little boy was filled with jitters but stepped into the circle of sunlight that the trainees were supposed to use and closed his eyes. He was only 8 years old but since he had shown promise and was an orphan, people kept telling him that he had an opportunity to become something great and that he had to take it. They kept saying that he could be something much better then just being a dead woman's b*****d child.

A White Mage.

"Start whenever you'd like." The old man said as the chattering classroom became quiet, the Priests' stern glance quieting the noisy children.

His child self nodded quietly, noting that all eyes in the room were on him and feeling a little queasy because of it. Closing his eyes and facing the light, the boy held out his palms and felt the warm kiss of the sun on the exposed skin of his arms and face. While they had already started their theology classes and began to learn of Falis, the Priesthood sorted through all the children in their care to look for a rare potential, the proverbial diamonds in the rough. Children that were especially gifted and blessed to walk the honorable path of the Oathsworn. They just had to show some magic first.

And standing there in that circle of light, Soltis felt something different as the light hit his hands, something that felt like strings of yarn at first but as he moved his tiny palms they felt thicker, stronger. Moving his hands in the stream of sunlight and trying to capture the ropes that he felt, Soltis reached upwards and opened his green eyes, tugging on the light as he tried to capture it, cupping his hands together like he was holding a bug before turning to look at the spectacled Priest.

"I caught one," His child self explained, walking out of the light and to the Priest's side. The old man stared at the child's hands closely, eyebrows raising as a soft glow of light peeked out from between his tiny fingers.

Reaching down and taking the top of the child's two hands and separating them, the Priest stepped back as a tiny sphere of light floated free from the boy's palms, the bubble circling the child's head. It felt right to pull at the rays of light, to manipulate the energy into whatever he could weave it into.

"Helga!" The Priest yelled, taking Soltis' arm and guiding him into the hallway. "Helga I have one for you." Looking up at the Priest in confusion "Your first White Mage trainee in years."



"GET OUTTA MY HEAD!" The boy yelled at the interloper, thrashing out mentally as best he could.

Memories of the years he spent refining his gift surged through his psyche despite his best attempts to purge the necromancer, the arrival of Seyumi Kaikou at the Temple when he turned 11 sticking out in the kid's mind as he saw the medallion at her neck. The classes that he suffered under her as she taught him and his peers how to weave the light into the foundations of their spells came back to the boy like a sudden slap to the face, the sting of the gray eyed woman's hand tingling on his left cheek as he focused on maintaining the barrier on his classmate, Seyumi trying her best to break the boy's concentration.

"You have to look deep inside yourself and project your power! Light doesn't just bend to your whims just because you want it to - it's a force of nature, a source of pure energy. Use your mind to feel for it and structure it into your spell." The admonition was one that he had taken to heart. As the head of his class he held himself above his peers in skill, wanting to be the first to impress his mentor.

"Now do it again."

"Who are you?!" Soltis yelled mentally, fighting to keep the necromancer out of his thoughts. Attempting to calm his thoughts and reach out to the weave the light, the young mage fought desperately at the entity in his mind. If he was dying he didn't want to go out like this.

[The Hanging Man]

Sey

"GET OUTTA MY HEAD!" The boy yelled at the interloper, thrashing out mentally as best he could.

"Stop resisting and I'll send you to Him." Well, that had to be some kind of threat. It wasn't a lie, either. And maybe it would have been best for the student, to free him of his tortured mortal shell and to see the face of the one he had devoted himself to for so long.

Sey

"Who are you?!" Soltis yelled mentally, fighting to keep the necromancer out of his thoughts. Attempting to calm his thoughts and reach out to the weave the light, the young mage fought desperately at the entity in his mind. If he was dying he didn't want to go out like this.

A complicated question. Again, all the thousand thousand voices spoke a name and each contradicted the next. The necromancer's physical self was victim to a number labels and ideas. Voices within screamed and cried.

"Monster!" "Ghoul!" "Wight!" "Abomination!" "Skindancer!" "Murderer!"

There was also a wide range of obscenities in more languages that could be counted. These were all names given to Tombs by those kin to Soltis' kind, who feared and hated everything Tombs was and did.

But the mind was a tricky thing. Each memory was attached to another as strings in the rope of continuity. Emotions and feelings could bridge any number of memories together and tie one idea to a thousand of others. Every memory Soltis had that Tombs could read was a map to the rest.

Don't think of a green chair. Despite the nature of the warning and the effort of the mind, trying to conceal or avoid an idea was to acknowledge it. Whatever fleeting thought Soltis tried to hide and avoid, invisible hands would take hold of that thread and collectively pull the rope of recollection. Tugging at details of the boy's foremost memory would yank free more and more. Seyumi, his teacher, his gift, his studies, all would lead to more and more memories.

Mind to mind, this alone would not harm Soltis. It was a singularly alienating and horrible experience, but it would not kill him. Tombs would pull and collect what he could and use the boy's mind against him.