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 Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2012 1:01 pm
 "Well, that is rather neat." As she crossed the bridge her awareness was split in between inspecting Glyph's handiwork and looking out for new sprouts so she did not step on them. It took a little while to reach the other side, having found out like Ankou that minding the sprouts was not as simple as it first seemed.
"Well, a long walk never hurt any of us." Her gaze slipped to Xun, only now noticing he had shifted back. "Back to two legs, are we now?"
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Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2012 11:24 pm
 Glyph nodded at Cosine, "It looks like an entrance hall. Maybe it'll lead into the library Ankou mentioned..." He watched as Xun climbed up the stairs, shifting back into a bipedal form as he did so. Cheeky, Glyph pinched his lover's rear and winked as Xun rummaged through his clothing.
However, his not-so-stealthy appreciation of Lifewater was cut short by Ankou's efforts to not step on the new life. Still, some of it browned or shied away and Glyph puffed out a loud sigh, "You certainly are of Nergal's line, Ankou. At least you don't kill them outright..." Forest shook his head, his tone mildly teasing, as he descended after Ankou to tend the new growth, the roots and vines shifting so that Tien's way was not blocked and Glyph could move freely around her, creating a trick of the eye that made it difficult to follow just what Glyph was doing.
A few moments later, he returned and the forest morphed back into normality behind him. Making his way forward, Glyph chuckled as Tien spoke, "You want to fit a dragon into a hole?" He frowned, considering Ankou's remarks, "Is it very far underground then?"
He didn't like claustrophobic spaces much either... no sky, no space, only soil. "I hope the ceiling's high..."
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Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 2:34 am
As they stood contemplating the distance Cosine smirked at Ankou's estimation. Nothing had been close by on this trip.
"What's another couple of days or week?" She smiled, watching Xun change back and hopped down the stairs after them.
Unlike Glyph she wasn't too bothered by confined spaces, she was small after all, though the idea of going far underground in this place did not appeal too much. Thus far they had come across nothing pleasant and with the size of the city and the population she imagined a great deal of bodies lay in this makeshift hospital.
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Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 8:08 am
Xun Jiang yelped, surprised when his rear end was suddenly pinched - and playfully batted Glyph's hand away with the flat side of his tail. "Maybe I should teach you how to fly." He teased. Naughty Forest !
He had been about to cheekily ask Tien how else she planned to fit him inside smaller areas when his lover beat him to it. "Lovely as this city might be... It seems like it's creators did not build it with dragons in mind."
Quite an oversight, really, but for not he busied himself with putting his pants back on before any more shameless attack could be conducted onto his rear end by mischievous, overgrown bonzais.
Okay, that was funny. Ankou gave Cosine an amused look that was more or less Ankou-ese for 'They have no self-control, do they ?'
They had not been naughty.
...Much...
...Not around everyone else anyway.
Well, that was until Glyph spoke and he looked down. Meant in jest as it was, it still made Ankou bolt - that is, take to flying with nothing even resembling a second thought.
That... was not good, for many reasons. "You know, I was hoping I would not end up doing that." He muttered to himself. This was something he'd teased Nergal more or less endlessly, and well... It was not very good when subtle and stealthy was the name of the game, as it so often was for him. Leaving a trail of plantstuff that had seen better days in his wake was not exactly good for blending in.
He would have to find a way to reign it in, really, but that was neither here or there.
"Not that far down, no." He shook his head, his three pairs of wings ever-flapping to keep him more or less immobile. "We can follow this slope and stay on ground level for most of it... And it is not that far down, really. Not quite underground, just at the bottom of the rock formation." Glyph did not like underground places ? Well, that made sense. No sun for trees to thrive down there. "From the impression I got, the room was large... But I do not know how accurate my impression of scale was." He was only just started to truly control and experiment with not only using the dead as his eyes and ears, but literally being in two places at once.
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Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 1:42 pm
"Well there is no reason you could not be a tiny dragon." Tien giggled and shrugged. It was an amusing notion since Xun always teased her about being tiny as a dragon. Tian Yue had been able to, so the other dragon kings probably could as well? Though, Worldshield had also admitted it was something he had never thought to try doing.
The trip was a bit easier once the roots and vines shifted from her path, she joined the others and glanced up at Ankou who had taken flight to avoid wilting anymore plants. "Even if it isn't entirely accurate it is more than we had before. Even some idea is better than none." She did not like walking into places blind if it could be helped, but usually any place that was a concern was particularly risky.
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Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 11:32 pm
Glyph merely smirked at Xun and rolled his shoulders, "Not unless you want splinters, love." Slinging an arm around Lifewater's shoulders, Glyph got to hug the other for the first time in days and their height different now was much apparent.
He blinked, however, as Ankou took wing in a flurry and frowned but held his comments. Really, he took little to no issue with the Deities associated with death - so long as they didn't decide to sucker punch him. He still remembered the accidental beating from Nergal... and rubbed his chest as the thought.
"Well, let's get in first and see what Ankou says," he announced at large, padding towards the entrance still with an arm around Xun.
When they finally got there, the sun had reached its zenith and the canyon was bathed in sunshine - warm, scented, beautiful. The cliffs had sheltered it from too strong sunlight and had protected it from most of the blights that had raged across the prairies above. The entrance itself was carved out of the bedrock, in similar motifs to those seen in the other settlements they'd encountered. Pillars rose above and the cave turned out to be massive - wide and at least twice Glyph's height. He was relieved at that.
Inside, multiple stones were inlaid into the floor in elegant designs, mirrors that were partially rusted and crooked reflected the noonday light about the room in the place of torches and revealed a trade dock with ramps for wagons, a rotted lift to one side where skeletons and mostly decomposed bodies lay in a heap. The stables held animal remains well, some equine others bulky and massive, pushed into a corner as if the act would sweep away whatever contagion had claimed them.
A wagon, missing a wheel, sat rammed up against one of the loading docks, its burden tumbled over the side. Mostly fabrics and other luxury items, one crate held rugs wrapped around grain sacks indicating a smuggler... and the scene told a tale of a man leaving with a fortune in food only to be stopped and his wagon torn to pieces. Indeed, a skeleton lay half under the wagon itself.
It was sobering contrast to the life outside and Glyph took to a moment to take it all in. There was the mild smell of mould and decay, of the process of death, wafting in the air. The city was underground... the air would be polluted by the decomposition and the decay if it hadn't continued to circulate. "Be careful..." he murmured, stepping forward.
Even here, in the shadows and the bones, grasses had blown in and taken root, their leaves swaying occasionally in the drafts that whispered through the halls leading off this trade dock.
"Ankou?" He prompted, crouching by the smuggler to leaf through his ragged clothing, looking for clues.
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Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 1:54 pm
Cosine smirked atthe look Ankou gave her. Nope, though, some people were just able to express themselves more freely. She watched him take to the skies and turned her attention back to climbing down the branch steps to the ground.
The walk to the library was quite pleasant and did not seem to take as long as they predicted. The atmosphere was light and jovial, perhaps because they knew they were about to reach their goal.
Cosine stepped inside the cave and breathed in, she soon wished she hadn't the scent of decay was thick in the air. Sorrow clung to every inch, every crack. The Hopelessness of those that had given up any chance of help.
She looked at the bodies, strewn without ceremony throughout the hall, the animal and sighed. It was hard for her to see them as just bodies like Ankou, or chains in a cycle as Glyph did. They had been people once, mortals with thoughts and feelings. They deserved better than this.
"Hundreds died here, I can feel the numbers," She turned away as Glyph rummaged in the man's clothes and walked across the grimy floor towards a doorway. Perhaps this would lead to the makeshift hospital they suspected might be within the building.
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Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 3:23 pm
The imagery as they had made their way had been quite lovely, quite unique - a sight he was quite certain he would never forget, the play of the bright, natural light on the rocks and flowers.
The sight within was... quite different. A sight he would not soon forget, for entirely different reasons.
This place had seen war.
Not a war in the most common sense, not truly even war as the word was most strongly anchored in Illisia's psyche, no, but... War, nonetheless. War for survival... A war that this planet as a whole had lost.
The scent, above even the imagery - he had seen imagery just as bad, or even worse, if only by association with his host - was what got to him to much, and for a moment he actually feared he might puke, but he managed not to, thankfully enough. Given their current location, there was little airflow to clear the stench away, so it had built up over time. The night elves had been quick to bury their dead, if only in mass graves... It seemed like these people did not even get the chance to do that.
Still, he could see in those remains very similar images as to what Illisia had seen, what she had endured, what she had survived - and it hit him that he truly was lucky that the woman who was now part of him had survived Gehenna.
The fate that had happened to this town could have so easily been the fate of the night elves. Even more so if Ilisia and Glyph had not returned when they had. It was... uncomfortable to think about that, really, and he had to push it aside, to remind himself that it had not happened.
No matter how much devastation he saw, it never got easier to see it. It only got easier to deal with it. They were here for a reason, and he had to keep his focus on what was important. He nodded at Glyph's mention to be careful and took a few steps within, ignoring the corpses for the most part as he looked for anything that might stand out.
The sight was neither new or startling to Ankou - he had seen it when he had sought out the gem, and had seen many a scene similar to these. He saw it differently than the others did, thanks to his nature. For him, most of the souls were whole, they would be reborn, and the lives that had ended there would live once again elsewhere. the fears these people might have as to what would happen if they did not properly bury their dead - the fear of a true end - was unwarranted, and with his presence here, the dead seemed to simply know
It was important, yes... But not important enough to stop the cycle. This was, perhaps, a point where he had differed from his brother - and a point where they might always differ.
Glyph saw it in his own way, and from the dragon's reaction he had learned to at least deal with it, if he did not see it in a similar way than Forest did. Tien had always seemed level-headed even in the face of scenes like this, and this kind of self-control would likely serve her well in whatever it was that she would do in the future.
He knew that Cosine did not see it like that. She saw the immense loss, saw the sorrow, saw the pain. Saw numbers that were set in stone and could never be changed, for all he knew. "This way." He started to head in the direction his beloved had taken, quickly catching up with her.
And, in what had been a somewhat rare public display of affection, slid his cold hand into her's,, squeezing it slightly to try and bring her comfort. He was not usually good at it... But he had to at least try.
"They will not linger long." He told her. "I will make sure of it." It was not like Nergal was keeping tabs of whatever he was doing, anyway. He'd had to take the dead up to Yggdrasil for rebirth more than once, and he could certainly do it again.
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Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:03 pm
Had Tien not been through the battle in Zrath's mausoleum in the Underground she probably would not have fared as well with situations like this. Her nose wrinkled and the stench of death turned her stomach. She tugged up her headscarf from around her neck, covering her nose and mouth. It would not stop the smell entirely, but hopefully it would lesson it enough so she could breathe more freely.
She stepped inside behind the others. Her gaze, like Xun's, skirted away from the remains. These people had suffered greatly, between the sickness and everything else that had come along with it. It seemed a terribly cruel way to to die. Trickery frowned beneath her scarf. Maybe Ankou could do something for the spirits that still lingered before they left?
She headed Glyph's advice and treaded carefully, not wanting to disturb any of the new grass or the remains.
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Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2012 6:31 pm
He nodded at Cosine's estimation, "Inside is likely to be worse... steel your nerves." Glyph found nothing of use in the body he was rummaging through and settled the fabric back on itself, the body more a husk of dried skin and bones then a corpse now. Sighing forest straightened up and surveyed the room once more - the Gehenna weeks had crippled this place, much like the royal city they'd recently visited, but the underground nature had trapped many.
"Come, we might as well get this over with..." he murmured. Death was neccessary, yes, just one part of the cycle, but this was not a natural collapse. Such loss of life saddened him and he hoped the remains would allow life to creep back into the rocks.
Crossing the dock area, he trailed a hand over Xun's shoulders, squeezing one in silent support as he passed, and inspected a large, ornate door. It was slightly ajar.... there were other doors too, wrought of gold but the places where gems would have been set in had long been picked clean of their riches. Ankou and Cosine were already there so he stood up on his toes to try to look beyond the Spirit Guide's wings. "What's there?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2012 2:29 pm
Cosine smiled at Ankou and squeezed his hand. She was fine really, it was just a lot to bear. Carefully, Cosine stepped into the room, just one step. The stone and wood around them was crumbling and rotten, she wa not sure how safe it was for them so they would move with caution.
"More bodies." She answered, these were not pushed to one side. They lay in neat rows, not on beds though, they were set out on the floor, some had been covered with rotting cloth, others, likely the last to die lay as they had died. Cosine breathed in, ignoring the stench of decay and walked down one side, her hand still in Ankou's. There were a couple of bodies slumped to the side. Nurses? Healers? or had all the patients been abandoned.
"I imagine there are many rooms like this. The others tombs perhaps." She knew how many bodies were in the cavern, the number echoed deep in her mind.
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Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2012 3:39 pm
It did not take a wild guess to know that Xun Jiang did not like this place. At all. Long ears were stood nearly vertical, alert to the slightest sound. More than the stench and the fact they were surrounded in what had become a tomb, there was the very tangible danger of everything falling down on them... with no escape route.
He did not like this at all.
He nodded at Glyph's touch, but did not relax into it at all. "...They kept their sick here." That much was evident. The Night Elves had done much the same, settle their sick aside with any healer brave enough, in hope that many would pull through...
Good thing that his vision in darkness still held up well enough, and blue eyes narrowed slightly in concentration, trying to pick up anything that might look unusual, anything that might stand out.
Ankou seemed just as aware of the danger as everyone else was - the feel of his mana seemed oddly tense, as if he was just barely restraining something, keeping it ready to use with the slightest hint of anything not going the way he intended.
That had not been a problem when he had sent part of his awareness here, earlier, but now it could definitively be an issue.
"This way. The gem is in the next room." If they could simply get there...
They were about halfway there when it happened. It was a barely audible crack at first - enough to make Xun Jiang stand all the more rigid and look like he was about a second away from bolting in whatever direction seemed safe.
Well, that certainly was enough of a warning for him. It started with a weird tinging sensation, as if they had sat on their limbs for too long and they had fallen asleep, only gaining in intensity as the cracks became much more pronounced.
By the time the whole ceiling came crashing down... Well, it crashed through everyone, and not on everyone. The dust more or less took over the room, however, only making the shining points of Ankou's feathers visible to the others.
And, well, he kept his relief to the fact that this had actually worked the way he hoped to himself.
The first crack was indeed enough to make Ti Lung reach for the two closest to him - Glyph and Tien - and attempt to hightail it toward what looked to be the most solid pillar weither the other two deities agreed to the idea or not. He certainly did not go far, through, before he lost hold of them both and the ceiling collapsed completely.
It took a moment for the dragon king to register that he actually had not turned into a pancake. As the dust and debris cleared, well, Xun Jiang would still be standing here, wide eyed and completely and utterly confused.
"What the hell ?"
Also, it seemed like he had misplaced his english somewhere.
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Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2012 4:51 pm
Tien's vision did not fare so well in the dark so she stayed close to Xun, listening for anything out of the ordinary. The sound of a sudden quiet cracking made her jump and before she knew it Lifewater had grabbed her arm aiming to pull herself and Glyph toward safety. She was thoroughly confused when he lost his grip on her arm about halfway to a safe spot.
Trickery threw her arms over head when the roof started crashing down, belatedly realizing that none of the debris was actually hitting her. It was going through her as a matter of fact.
"Vel'bol l' vith?" What the ******** Xun was not the only one who had lost their english. She lowered her arms, staring at her hands once they came into view. They were an odd sort of transparent...almost ghostly. An eyebrow quirked. "If I were to guess I believe we owe Ankou a thank you for saving our asses."
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Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2012 6:24 pm
Glyph had meandered in after Cosine and Ankou, senses on high alert as he looked the new room over. Bodies were laid out in rows, the dust thick on the blankets that covered them... and occasionally dust would sift down from above.
The creaking went unnoticed by him when Xun suddenly grabbed him and Tien and he stumbled, grunting as he tried to run backwards at an angle, "Xun! Wha-" And then the ceiling was collapsing, dropping tons of rock on their heads as two floors above finally gave way. A torrent of water came with it, sour and dirty.
However, Forest as blinking in confusion as the rock slid through him and then the water passed harmlessly through as well. Huh. A variety of curse words resounded about their group and he looked first to the rather astonished Lifewater. "Are you alright?" Reaching out, he put a hand through Xun's shoulder and blinked, then chuckled, unable to help himself. They were alright... if rather ghostly.
"Are you alright?" Glyph repeated, speaking in the same tongue as Xun. He'd picked up the language of the night elves during his visit and while it was still rough, he was at least understandable.
"What happened?" He asked at large, scratching his brow as he frowned deeply, "Are we all whole?"
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Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 2:05 pm
The sound of the crack drew Cosine's attention up to the ceiling, before she could speak it was coming towards them. Fast.
Then it was through them ... as though they were made of nothing. It felt strange, tingling and cold. Like the others she was shocked, though no words escaped her lips. Instead she glanced to Ankou.
"I think you're right there Tien." She replied finally. "Thank you Ankou." Stone lay all around them, though, thankfully the power from the crash seemed to have blown then already fragile doors in across the room.
"That room?" She asked Ankou.
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