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 Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2012 3:11 pm
Quintus frowned. "Aelzwyr? Never heard of it." It wasn't familiar, but it was a step toward understanding where he was, and any step forward was a step in the right direction. And once again, at least he could say he tried.
"I dunno," he added wryly, "seems like 'not-dead' is a general improvement." Not that it was self-evident, but anywhere above 'dead' meant there was a chance to keep moving, however slim.
Quintus gestured at the skeleton. "Ever seen anything like that?" With two people, investigating it might be... well, not easier, but certainly safer. Of course, not like there was anything to hurt him, so really it had no meaningful impact, but it'd just be nice to have someone else. Especially if those visions came back. If they did, well, maybe this guy knew something.
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2012 3:28 pm
The merchant waved dismissively at the bones. "Some dragon probably. They die like Elephants." Sam had never seen an elephant but had heard the term "elephant graveyard" once long ago. When he asked Gingoth about it, Gingoth explained the concept of a boneyard, a big patch of land with bones all over it.
He ruled out they were dead, now all that remained was where they were being not dead. He went towards the bones. "I have rarely seen a dragons of this size, it might not be a dragon."
The lack of decision and knowledge on the matter frustrated Sam, so he set off to find the skull around the skeleton.
"If it is a dragon, it would mean Aelzwyr is a strong possibility."
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2012 8:50 pm
Alana accepted the buns gratefully and nodding her head at the woman, unknown of the proper way to thank someone in this strange place. She unwrapped the top of the bun gingerly before taking a small nibble. Appreciating the taste she took a larger bite. Actually it tasted pretty good and before she knew it a whole bun had been finished. She didn't realize she was that hungry, and the one bun only felt like an appetizer, but she wanted to save the other one in case she needed it later.
Alana watched as the man reached into his pocket, eyeing the gold he promptly pulled out. Gold. . . it looked valuable. How was she ever going to get that?
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 1:17 pm
Dragons did sometimes get quite large in Aelzwyr but this, this was bigger than anything even Sam had ever seen. Bones reached high into the starry sky like struts of some ruined cathedral. The spine was easy to follow through two dunes and to its end where Sam found what he was looking for - a giant skull, five of them to be exact.
Sharp teeth, reptilian features, and arching horns made them dragons. The number of heads, configuration of horns, shape of the skulls, and immense size of the skeleton made it unmistakably the Serpent Goddess, Nammu. But that was impossible. The Serpent Goddess was one of the Nine, the caged gods trapped in their ancient temples that held the magics of Aelzwyr together, protecting her from the Nothing beyond. For one of the Nine to be dead would be cataclysmic. And yet, there she was - the decayed faces of the Serpent Goddess in an endless sea of empty sand.
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 8:46 pm
Seeing as the paladin was far too distracted by Linda (see: young woman) to entertain the rest of his guests, Rüd rose from his seat to collect the pair of drinks he could only imagine were meant to for him and the boy. He set one mead before the magician's apprentice then resumed the uncomfortable sitting position in the undersized chair.
After just one sip he decided he liked this bar. The Abwehran was a man of simple tastes, and that mead sure had a simple taste- like how he had imagined beer would taste when he was younger (and boy had he been disappointed to discover the truth).
Only after settling in did he realize just how much of a kid in a candy shop Linda was. She had what he called the "vapid gaze of awe" on her face, and perhaps a trail of drool on her chin. He smirked, almost a laugh.
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 8:57 pm
Sam went over the dunes gracefully and reached the skulls; big monsters that matched the skeleton it was attached to. The reptilian look of them was unmistakable, so much so that Sam mistook it to be a five headed dragon. His knowledge of the Nine was menial and the impossibility of one of them being out in the world, let alone dead, allowed him to shrug his shoulders.
"I can not say that I have seen something this large in my life."
The merchant felt compelled to touch it. He felt compelled to try its teeth that a few could break off and he could sell them. Sam felt like this was a goldmine.
"This is important." He breathed to himself before making a decision.
He reached his left hand towards one of the fangs of the middle head.
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 9:44 pm
Linda had no ******** to give for what anyone else was doing. She was sampling little bits of every food she could get her hands on. The food paste she'd known all her life hadn't been badly flavored. It had been flavorless. Here, each and every one of the flavors flavor - even the ones she didn't like - was unlike anything she'd ever experienced.
Having tried everything she could justify sampling, having unlocked unending worlds of flavor, scent, texture, and delicious (the worlds of delicious were her favorite), and having spent a great deal of time trying to pin down what it was that made cheese taste so good (and failing), Linda took the offered mead and went for a cautious first sip.
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:05 pm
Quintus watched Sam go, too tired and thankful for this reprieve to stop or interrupt. The skeleton was, on closer inspection, a dragon of some sort. So he had managed to not escape dragons, which was... fantastic. Quintus drained the rest of the liquid from the fruit, then laid back onto the sand. With any luck he wouldn't see a dragon flying overhead. That would be... bad. Very, very bad. He'd had enough dragons for one life.
Glancing over his shoulder, he watched Sam approach the skull. "Important?" he asked, controlling the urge to shift away from the skeleton. It was dead. Dead things couldn't hurt him. Of course, that meant there was something out here that could kill it, and in Quintus' experience that meant something insanely large, insanely deadly, and probably inescapable. He probably only had so long to rest. This... well, they'd have to leave quickly. However that was to be accomplished.
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Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 9:17 pm
Alex grinned wide at the woman's brazen sampling and her cautiousness with the mead. It was a strong and unique flavor, one that bit and burned unlike the others. It filled her nose with a tingling and burned her throat but the flavor, the flavor was sweet and heady with something sour, maybe slightly bitter to it.
The paladin didn't wait for her to appreciate the taste before flopping into one of the chairs at the table and turning that grin on the others. “Don't think I've ever seen three come through a breach together” he spoke casually, “Pan and I got a good bit of attention comin through a pair. Three's somethin else.” Alex shook his head and seemed to ponder almost thoughtfully, “Suppose the breaches have been getting busy lately.”
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Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 10:13 pm
The tooth Sam reached for was nearly as long as he was tall and ice cold to the touch. It burned his hand and pulled the warmth from his body leaving him chilled. He saw his breath fog in the empty night of that endless desert and Quintus felt the sudden cold as well. The snow drifted again in both their peripheral visions. Quintus felt the aching pain of the bloody wound in his chest, the click of blood filled lungs struggling with every breath. Sam felt a burning freeze ice his lungs and still his muscles as the shifting sands swirled about their feet, uncovering more of the bones without the push of wind to move it.
In the sky above a black shape slid across the stars to block the light of the silver moon. The stars winked out, the sky went dark as if a curtain had been drawn over it leaving them in a pitch blackness with the crippling cold and fatal wound. Somewhere in the dark they heard a sound, a screaming of a hundred thousand dying voices crying in desperate pain before the nothingness swallowed them whole. The sands fell away underfoot and there was nothing.
That empty night was truly void around them now. There was no sky, no sand, no lazy wind, no bleached bones, no cold, no wound, no beating heart to fill their ears, no ears to fill. It was a strange realization, the lack of existence and it did not last long before they felt even that begin to slip away into the nothingness. The void consumed all that was, without thought, without purpose, without mercy or prejudice.
But the nothing was not all and in that moment before they lost themselves to it there came a light. A flicker in the dark that grew brighter with each beat of a restored heart, each breath of lungs now remembered. They were whole again and both sprawled gasping on a cold marble floor by the time the light grew to illuminate the strange new place they found themselves in.
Tall columns reached high into a vaulted ceiling, carved statues and reliefs adorned marble walls, silk curtains draped in languid curves as uncounted candles burned in a circle on the mosaic patterned floor where they were sprawled. Shadows hid the true dimensions of the strange chamber and a salty dampness to the air weighed their lungs as something very large moved, slithered in the dark around them.
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 10:22 am
Linda's eyes went wide at the taste. It was sort of like being kicked in the face, but good.
That analogy, though it's generous to all it that, doesn't make any sense, her brain reminded her.
"What's a breach?" Linda asked before bracing herself and downing more of the mead. She physically recoiled after, shaking her head, and adding, "And what's it mean for one to be busy?" She eyed the mead tentatively, then shrugged and took another swig.
If Linda knew what alcohol was, she might not be drinking so much so fast, though if she'd ever ingested alcohol before in her life it might not have mattered quite as much.
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 10:40 am
Rüd was simultaneously entertained and curious. He had questions, but Linda had essentially covered them; furthermore, she was setting herself up for quite a ride. If she continued to chug the mead at her current pace, she was going to be throwing it all up again before the food even arrived. The Abwehran considered warning her but decided not to; in what world was there not alcohol after all? She must know what she was getting into. Perhaps, he pondered, she's like the Nekos. Just flush it whenever she wants to.
If that were not the case, Rüd was intrigued about the near future.
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 11:21 am
Traveler took a few broken cigs off the inspector in exchange for a handful of gold then he turned away leaving the man to buy his own clothes and food. "Come join us when you're done shopping" the hooded stranger almost teased as he lead Alana toward a small group of tables nestled in a corner of the street market near the food vendors.
A few varied people sat at the tables chatting and eating casually but they moved away as Traveler approached with the girl. Again it was like the crowd, as if by coincidence they had merely decided at that moment to leave on their own and it had nothing to do with their approach but it was starting to get a little weird. Not that Traveler seemed to notice, or at least not care, as if it were only natural that the universe would yield itself to his presence.
No, he just held out a chair for the girl with a subtle bow and gentle smile on pale lips below a shadowed face hidden in a deep hood. As if nothing at all were amiss, as if this were just another day.
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 11:31 am
Alex watched Linda with gentle amusement but none of the Abwehran's anticipation for the inevitable consequence of the woman's sudden intake of alcohol. It was hard to tell if he didn't warn her for reasons similar to Rüd's or if it was because he didn't realize that was a possible consequence at all. He just answered her questions with a friendly smile and overly simple explanation. "Breaches are how most folks get into Aelzwyr. Some sort of wild magic or other. An' they don't usually spit more than one or two actual people out every few months. Lately there's been a lot more. So the breaches've been busy."
He gave them a slight nod for emphasis then tilted his head briefly looking the mixed group over, "So. . . what sorta place you come from gots four armed giants, battle witches, an twiggy mages?" he asked the three curiously.
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 11:43 am
umbraja Nyaahhh! Notice and stuff
"Ika du jaah glu! Smee cho waah..." Alice stopped to try and take everything in but it was too much to do in such a short time. What she did take in, even if she didn't know it herself, was the words floating to and fro between extravagant vendors and odd customers. In much the same way as she had absorbed some words off the hobos the background chatter of the market was unconsciously seeping into her mind.
She had to try and concentrate though as Bill was hard to lose amongst the chaos, his small furry body wasn't the easiest thing to keep track of as people walked past and stared up at Alice floating above their heads.
"Haalo~!" She strained trying to greet a passing Orc of some sort, a large, bulky, greenish man with a circle of horns surrounding a slick black ponytail sticking out the crown of his head, or was it a woman? Alice couldn't be sure, Alice couldn't even be sure if she herself was male or female, but she knew there was a difference somehow, which what what was unknown though. Cautiously Alice stared back towards the hulking green figure as she floated away after Bill. If there were more strange and wonderful people around like that, Alice was in for an interesting adventure.
"Bill~! Gahh fro dre quo... Big Green!!" She called out chasing the small mammal out of the crowds and into a clearer area of the street, trying to keep an eye out over her shoulder for the large Orc as he disappeared fro view into the waves of people.
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