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 Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 9:23 am
Steep Path Home
"Mm." A short acceptance, neither exalting his behavior nor condemning it. Just accepting, and understanding. Was it wrong to say she felt somewhat relieved knowing he at least felt regret in one form? Perhaps it was unfair of her to be so one-sided, considering her next question would have been would you miss me?
Whatever she was feeling, she pulled him somewhat closer as they walked, for fear that he might just drive himself off the edge.
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Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 9:27 am
Good Night
Chel's stomach sank as she could see the tents, lit up by the fire that Emil sat next to. It seemed to solidify the moment's end, making their predicament all more real. Emil twitched and his head snapped hearing Chel's boot crunch a twig underfoot, but he relaxed when he saw it was just them.
"Thank you Emil, yer a peach~" Chel told him, relinquishing her hold of Jack's hand, lest he feel embarrassed for holding it in front of others. Chel approached the smaller sun and pinched his cheeks, to which he made a soft whining noise.
She straightened herself out and looked at Jack, unsure of how to end whatever this was without being awkward. "Uh ... night I guess?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 9:37 am
Good Night
He might have slowed down the closer they got to the tents. Jack was just tired, but he was also acutely aware that every step forward put them closer to reality.
Yawning, he looked to Emil and gave him the slightest of nods before stretching his arms behind him. "Hey," he said as he turned to Chel. "Thank you for showing me." He wanted to say more about it, but he wasn't sure he should now. "So, ah...Sleep well."
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Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 9:58 am
Good Night
Emil was staring as though a swarm of bees had entered the camp. Showed him what?
"Yeah," Chel responded. "Maybe now you can write something less shitty," she joked, handing him his notebook back.
While Jack went to his tent, Chel crouched next to Emil. She was tired and it sounded in her voice, but she said, "Wipe it off your face nerd. How's Jerome?" She's exhausted, her voice cracks, but she stays up a few extra minutes to hear "Okay. Sleeping now. Mild concussion, but otherwise stable."
"That's good," she said with a calm, relieved smile. "That's real good."
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Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 10:00 am
Before Sleep
Chel sleeps well that night, but she wishes she hadn't because there's a lot to think about. But before she does, she unzips Jack's tent flap and throws the shoes she bought in. She doesn't care what he does with them, she's just tired of looking at them.
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Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 10:05 am
Skittles
"Payment due. Promised."
Chel's so bleary eyed she barely recognizes Emil's hand there. "Wha...?" She says into her morning cereal.
"Promised candy."
"Uhn." Chel digs in her MRE until she finds it, the brightly colored package buried deep. She mentally jerks at the package, overcome with a wave of embarrassment. Skittles. It had to be skittles didn't it? Like sole cosmic power above thought her life was hilarious.
Chel has never heard Tenebrae laugh, but she does that morning for the first time. It's low and it echoes through every corner of her brain.
She hands over the candy to wipe herself clean of it. Then she puts her head on the table and groans. The group assumes it's from lack of sleep, because they know Chel doesn't sleep well. It doesn't stop Aly from whispering to Serah, "Something wrong with her?"
"Hell if I know."
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Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 10:31 am
Before Sleep
There is a dull thunk as one slaps his sleeping bag, which sends him thrashing into bleary action where he locates the dagger under his pillow on instinct. He can barely see what the object is, but he makes out a shoe shape with his free hand and growls a long and foul curse at Chel for waking him up that he hopes she hears. He might have actually skewered them out of spite if he hadn't been so tired—but the weapon is slipped back into his pillow case, the shoes pushed away for now, and he collapses back down once more.
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Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 2:29 pm
Skittles
The aura of hating everything was back. One day without coffee, fine. Two days without coffee, start to get headaches. Three days without coffee and a broken sleeping schedule? It was as if that scowl had always been etched into Jack's face, as permanent as a sculpture.
He had his sunglasses on early that morning as if hungover, squinting down at his food distastefully. Its existence offended him. Everything offended his delicate senses really, from the presence of people to the bright and clear sky. Wren was thankfully giving him distance as she checked on Jerome with fresh new bandages and a somewhat drowsy smile.
Ripping into his MRE, he glared at what was available and tucked in. Noting his candy, he snatched it out and tossed it at Chel in retaliation for last night. It wasn't like he really ate sweets anyway (and it wasn't as if this was the first time he had given her some).
"What are we doing today?" he asked no-one in particular as he stabbed his fork at his grits.
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Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 3:37 pm
Skittles
Chel just let it hit her in the head and fall to the ground.
There seemed to be a mutual feeling around the breakfast circle that everyone was grouchy we've been out here for two goddamn weeks stop asking questions Jack-
"Well!" Jordan's a morning person, she was happy to be awake, and even happier because she's been looking at maps and talking with Wren- just one more day of active research, and they'll be out of here. "We're going to make the final assault on the central point, so to speak!" She cheerfully took a bite of the dried bananas she's been eating. "We took all the readings we needed yesterday, so now we're going to metaphorically poke it!"
Chel threw Jack's skittles at Jordan. Shhh.
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Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 3:43 pm
Skittles
So this was the last day then? Huzzah.
"We'll let you trainees handle the daggers this time," Wren added with a yawn as she patted Jerome's shoulder. He was as good to go as they could make him here. "There's nothing quite like that experience, and you'll need to know how to activate them for future missions anyway. Let's say in an hour then?"
Jack grunted and went back to nibbling his meal, his hate aura mitigated by the prospect of using the daggers and finally getting off this damn mountain and all the craziness it spawned.
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Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 5:49 pm
Graverobbers
Today they tried a different strategy. Instead of spreading their forces thinner, they shot straight for the anomaly. Jerome stayed back at the camp for obvious injuries, Talia stood guard over his body (she was upset- she wanted to come for the big finale, but they drew straws and she lost).
It was a short trip once they allied together actually, and eventually their path opened to a small clearing. It was mostly unremarkable, a small field with grasses and roots overgrown from centuries of abandonment. It was the air that held a strange feeling to it, almost suspended. It was hard to breath, like the air was a thick pudding that limbs had to wade through.
In the center of the field stood a singular small tree, branches barren from winter and ferns twisting at the bottom. There was also a stone slab, with no writing or descriptive factors- in fact, had it not been the source of their anomaly it might have been completely unremarkable.
Aly was the first to speak up. She was poking around in some ferns and found that some of the tree roots had sickly green runes trailing up their roots and etched deep within the grooves of their bark. Then came Emil, who pointed at the sky and said, "Clouds not moving. Very strange." Indeed when Chel turned her head skyward, the sky was stuck in a standstill.
Something was wrong.
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Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 7:07 pm
Graverobbers
Wren's machine was at work trying to keep the portal from fluctuating too much, but the straining hum seemed ominous. Experimental runic technology was what Wren was studying in depth for her specialty, and so the device was probably as likely to rip another portal open as it was to keep this one under relative control. She decided not to mention that part when she chattered.
Along the way, the four trainees were given a basic summary of what to do (stick the knives in these exact places, say the magic word, brace for any discharge from the portal, say a few more magic words, bam you're done), a runic knife, and their particular word to activate the runes: Jack's being orientalis, he muttered, "Racist," under his breath just to mess with her. What it netted them was an additional explanation of how the words were in Latin and in fact described the cardinal directions which they needed to be paying attention to as the closure wouldn't work without them being properly positioned, and also shut up, Jack.
It was one thing to be researching it from afar and another to be this close. Even with his sunglasses on, Jack felt like something was faintly pressing against his eyes like sour light. There was a subtle tang in the air that unsettled him for a reason he couldn't out to words, in the same way he could feel someone watching him but not from where. He looked up as Emil pointed out the clouds, then down at the runes Aly uncovered; he skirted around them, curious but wary.
"All of these are normal signs of distortion exposure," she told them. Wren was used to the heady and charged atmosphere, and other than a slight twitch she didn't seem affected. "It'll pass in an instance after the portal's sealed, but until then be careful. Jordan, Chel, watch the tree line for us in case our friends from the other side decide to show up? I'll go with the others to set up the ring."
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Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 7:55 pm
Graverobbers
Chel pulled her goggles up onto the crown of her head. "Why I gotta-" Jordan shot her a don't sass me girl look and Chel's mouth snapped shut, but she was grumbling to herself about a "Bullshit busywork ********' bullshit" the entire time she walked away from the group.
She complied and took the far end of the field, wanting to be as far away from Ms. Bossypants as possible. There was a whole lot of nothing and a whole lot of unsettling nothing. "Doesn't feel right man," she muttered to herself. "Feels like we shouldn't be here."
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Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 8:14 pm
Graverobbers
"Emil, right...here," Wren went on over Chel's indignation, indicating a spot by the stone marker. "Remember: borealis. Aly—Oh, excellent find! I have a theory that it's some form of horseman alphanumeric language not unlike Old Norse—anyway Aly, this spot right here is yours opposite Emil's: australis! Jack, you—yes, there you go a little but more to the right—sorry, my right. There we go. Serah, where'd you go now? I need you over in occidentalis—"
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Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 9:00 pm
Graverobbers
It's a few hours of boring slaughter (two words that should really never be side by side) for Chel. She watches as the others disarm the portal, picking at the grass with irritation. Every once in a while an enormous wave of ghosts hits the camp and she gets some entertainment there, but it dies down and she's left to sitting in the grasses or on a boulder or in a tree or bugging Serah or whispering with Aly or doing anything but letting herself think and drift elsewhere.
One such wave of enemies is particularly overwhelming. They've gotten the australis portal closed (Aly looked somewhat darkened, almost diminished afterwards), but this wave is so immense that it puts a temporary clamp on productivity as all hunters are called in to cull the remaining ghosts.
It isn't her fault, really, but part way through the battle Serah's body is smashed through the unmarked grave. The stone crumbles and every green rune in the clearing lights up, like a signal flare or a beacon. The sky grows dark and Serah's sitting up rubbing her head and moaning something fierce. Her eyes are illuminated with the same green light and from her comes a voice that is not her own.
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