Iduna eyed the roots that wound around the clearing, penning her in. It's voice was on the wind, was odd since on her homeworld it's mouth had moved. It's mouth didn't move here, just the shadows seeming to... replicate it. Perhaps it had projected itself here instead? Or it was an off shoot of the great tree.
Which ever it was, Iduna had a suspicion - even as her flight response kicked into full drive - that something wasn't exactly... right here. There was a healthy level of suspicion regardless given how her trial went, but this went further.
"You're right, I'm not so special," she said, finding her voice again. The initial shock of seeing the tree here had caught her off guard, had distracted her from why she was here in the first place. But if the Eldermalus was truly here in some form, then she knew not to trust it or its visage.
"You tried to lead me astray once. I won't fall for it again." She stepped closer to the tree. "And what job would that be? For Iduna, or Alastor?"
And then she shined the lantern straight into the shadowy 'face' of the tree.
The Space Cauldron
Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2022 4:47 pm
Eros squinted at him and held tight. “Yeah, I’ve seen what they can do. I’ve seen what they’re capable of. We’re standing on an entire world that’s been swallowed up by it–and it’s not even the Negaverse. You know they’re stronger. I’m just saying.”
Begrudgingly, she started walking again, tugging him towards the strange, chaotic signature they’d been tasked with finding.
“You can’t tell me you’ve never thought about it,” she said after a pause. “I mean, after everything we’ve been through. You don’t think it would be easier if we just said ‘Hey, sure, I’d love to join’ so we didn’t have to worry about them showing up and killing us while we slept? You’ve never thought about it?”
tatterpixie
Kyuseisha no Hikari
Crew
Dragonslaying Dragon
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OP-Yuna
Crew
Dulcet Scarface
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Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2022 7:23 pm
Kyuseisha no Hikari
[
The panic that sent waves of cold through him was very real. The threat of something invading his wonder was both chilling and stirred a protective fury in him. He had worked too hard to bring his wonder back to the state it was in now. He would never let it fall again so long as he had breath in his body. he would never let it become ravaged like this...this...
The dream like haze that the Chaos held him in muddied his thoughts, paired with his own willingness to accept that just about anything was possible when it came to this magic war. Wonders sending manifestations to fetch their protectors was not the weirdest thing he could think of, after all, but a moment of lucid thought crept in, reminding him of where he was and what he was there for...and what he was dealing with. This.
This wasn't his wonder's doing. This was a trick. He could confront it, or he could play along for some time. Toy with it as it wished to toy with him.
For as far as Hawara had come from his years of his own dark psychological tactics, it was still an easy coat to slip in to. He could still remember the 'taste' of the manipulation, the thrill of playing a game of 4-d chess, the euphoria of one sharp mind and tongue sparring with another. But then he did think of how far he'd come, the changes he'd made in not just his wonder, but himself and his environment, his relationships, everything. He was better than that. Wouldn't sink to that. So now, what was tactically right?
The manifestation clearly wanted him to leave. To get him out of the way. He could stall - see how desperate it got.
Hawara barked out a small laugh and adopted a laissez faire attitude, "Wow, all this effort to try and invite people to come see the place and something pops in while I'm not home? How rude. I would have made snacks."
Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2022 7:44 pm
The face on the tree shifted just slightly, and disgust crossed it. The roots dug under the dirt and the fresh smell of wet Earth filled the air.
And blood.
The tree didn’t seem to like the light, but there were shadows stirring behind Iduna.
The Eldermalus’ lips split into a sickening grin. “Come to your grave, child. You won’t survive this trial.”
Black ooze dripped from its eyes, but it laughed, mockingly.
“You are not worthy to carry the name Iduna.”
The crystals fogged over a bit, but some of the bodies inside seemed to move. They pressed their half-decayed faces to the crystals and clawed slowly, as if fighting to escape. Their moans were haunting, agonizing. They could do nothing but scream, and weep.
The tree shifted, and its mouth opened wide, enough to swallow her whole several times over. There was nothing but darkness within.
"Maybe they're stronger," Puck replied sharply, allowing himself to be pulled along toward their goal, "but we've got the true best interests of humanity on our side." He side-eyed his friend suspiciously. Eros was decidedly not one to actively seek out a fight, which made her presence here more than a little odd, but he'd never known her to espouse crossing over to the side of Chaos before. "I mean, if that's something you want to do, that's your choice. I'd have to punt yer arse out of my house, though – not going to have some Chaos-riddled corrupt living under my roof and threatening the safety of my parents." He almost laughed at that; as it was, he flashed her a wry grin. The mere idea was funny to him.
They walked together in silence for a short while, then Eros spoke again, and Puck shook his head. "Nope, never been even remotely tempted to go to the other side. Never even thought about it, not even once. Look, let's just get this crap over with and go home, right? I'm sure you'll be right as rain once we're out of the influence of this ******** Chaos shite."
There was something very odd and out of place about what Eros was saying. Hell, her presence here was out of place. The more Puck thought about it, the stranger it became. And the stronger the weird Chaos signature they were tasked to destroy felt.
Kyuseisha no Hikari
Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2022 7:55 pm
The air was thick with humidity, and electricity, and chaos. But, for a brief moment, there was something more.
Order. Magic. Something powerful. Something familiar, something good. A light in the darkness, Ganymede’s Purification magic surged from the Core of his world and the shadows, all connected, carried the blast throughout the Hall.
The shadowy illusions hummed, and for a split second, light shined through. It flickered along the illusion, like fire burning a thread. For a split second, there was a clarity that hadn’t been there before, an understanding–
There was a reason they were here.
They were supposed to do something. Destroy–something...
The illusion was quick to restore, but it wasn’t quite perfect. The trees and underbrush around them looked thinning, like fibers and dirt that had been sloppily put together. Some of them were lopsided, or flashed an odd, inverted color. And then, maybe there was something just a little off about their would-be companion–like looking in a mirror, or like they had a filter over them.
For a brief second, they were covered in dark, black shadows, like the world had swallowed them up–and then spit them back out without them noticing.
But, it was too late; the illusion darkening the grove had faltered for just long enough to see through the sparse trees, the true trees. They were walking in a circular path, around the swirling black chaos anomaly in the center–and each other. The illusion corrected itself quickly, but there was a brief second of truth and clarity that couldn’t be undone.
Iduna might have noticed that the tree turned black and shadowy, but it might have been hard to tell with how much it was trying to push her into its open mouth and swallow her whole already. The roots pushing her lost some of their strength–but it was still dangerous out here.
Whether it was the Eldermalus or the shadows on Alastor’s world, it still wanted to devour her.
Puck was suddenly weighed down by Eros; for a second she felt like nothing, and then it felt as though she’d shifted her entire weight onto him.
“You never take me seriously,” she said, and her nails bit into him as she tugged him quicker along the path. “It’s why we’d never work out. You only see in black and white. You’re so stubborn. It wouldn’t kill you to consider other options once in a while, would it?”
She didn’t turn back to look at him, but shadows trailed off of her like smoke. “Let’s just get out of here then. Forget I said anything. I’m kind of in the mood to hit something anyway, I guess.”
Hawara was met with a bitter scoff, and Simionce was looking at him as though he’d grown a second head. “Ha ha, very funny,” he retorted. It might have been more convincing if he didn’t lose opacity; Hawara could see right through him.
This, he realized suddenly, and looked down at his hands.
“...You’re not coming back, are you?” he asked after a few seconds.
“Did you ever really care about your Wonder? Or were you just so happy to run away from your sins that you took the first thing the universe offered you? Poor way to repay the favor, Hawara. I expected better from you.”
Quote:
Characters can use this opportunity to have a clarifying moment that allows them to break through the spell of Chaos! If you are playing your own chaos manifestation, it may turn into a mirrored reflection of itself, or may shift forms in front of you; if you have any questions or want to see if something works, please let me know! If you want to continue speaking to your Chaos character or engage it in more than one post, please let me know when you quote me and I will try to tag back as soon as possible instead of waiting for the next prompt! If your character has already broken out, they might be able to help others in their group but please make sure this works for them before posting! If your chaos manifestation is not destroyed by the post on the 16th (sometime after 8PM EST) the Chaos will be forcibly destroyed around you but you will have a prompt to attack the chaos anomaly and destroy the source of energy out here, or you can try to reunite with the others!
Staggering under the sudden weight, Puck looked over at Eros, surprise on his face. As she dug her nails into him and pulled him along more quickly, he could see shadows roiling off her. Alarm bells went off inside his head, a brief flash of what he was there for. To destroy something dark and sinister. Chaos.
And he suddenly realized – this wasn't Eros.
"What are you?" he growled at the entity wearing his friend's skin. He tried to stop, but the nails (claws?) digging into him were too painful; still he resisted as best he could. Was this a manifestation of the Chaos energy overrunning this place? He'd have to find the others and defeat it. Fast.
Kyuseisha no Hikari
Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2022 10:38 am
Hawara scoffed, and a wry smirk appeared on his face, "I'm here because I care for my wonder - one person's chaos problem could soon become everyone's chaos problem if not taken care of." And he did genuinely want to help, but he couldn't deny that helping here was also one less threat to himself.
Hawara raised his weapon in horizontal threat between them, staring down the chaos,
"You might have had me for a moment," he admitted, "but you can't hurt me in any meaningful way that my wonder hasn't already tossed at me."
A casual shrug, "At least, psychologically."
How many times had it had him end the life of people he'd one cared for? Or witness it through his own fault. And that list was pretty short, mind you, but still. He'd faced his demons and learned how to live with them. And now was his turn to help others do the same, if they'd let him. Right now, some 'demons' were more corporeal than others.
"So, what else you got?" Hawara challenged, that fiery glint in his rosey eyes that said he was no stranger to a fight. He'd make short work of this one, and see if he could find a way to help the others.
The Captain chuckled and easily stopped the sword with one of his tools. He pushed the sword out of the way. "Come one, you weren't meant to be a Knight. If you were, why would you have been let into the Negaverse? And besides, it felt good to drain energy right? To have that power over others?" The manifestation walked closer to the Knight as Drombeg hesitated.
"What can you even do as a Knight? You saw how powerful the Negaverse was. You can see that Chaos that effects this world as well. It's all pointless." He said with a grin. He was now right in front of Drombeg and they were face to face.
"Why don't you come back, it's where you were meant to be." And Drombeg felt a pit form in his stomach, the chill going throughout his body, questioning his place as a Knight once again. Did he really deserve to be one? He had already done so many awful things as an Agent. He hadn't killed anyone, but draining energy was bad enough right?
But something was telling him none of that was true. He had to be forced into the Negaverse in the first place. And did he ever feel at home there or at his Wonder? His Wonder where he had felt some semblance of peace for the first time in a while. A place that he could feel relaxed and work on his skills.
He swung his sword straight at the manifestation. "I am a Knight of Earth! I am Drombeg and I will never go back to the Negaverse!"
Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2022 8:53 pm
Something pure, something powerful surged through the area again.
At first, it was a wild blast of magic, strong and destructive.
The chaos in the air drew back significantly, like it was recoiling in pain. Stretched thin from the blast of Phantasia’s Court Magic at the West Gate, and battered already by Hawara, Puck, Iduna, and Drombeg, its hold at the Grove was weakening. The illusions faltered; the walls between everyone came down.
The chaos manifestations evaporated.
But it wasn’t just that the Chaos was losing its foothold, it was that they were getting a second wind. A Royal Senshi’s signature flared, and then Ida’s Royal Magic spread in all directions and gave every Order ally a boost of strength. They weren’t completely revitalized, but it helped restore some of the energy they’d lost.
It helped focus them.
As the Chaos manifestations lost form, it became crystal clear–they still had something they needed to do.
With the shadowy walls down, they could all see each other again. A little worse for wear, but alive. The chaos anomaly they’d been tasked to find was there, right there, only a few yards away from each of them. The chaos illusions had been trying to keep them walking in a circular path, around it but never to it. When the shadows faded, the grove became more sparse, and there was no underbrush. It was dark, but not as dark as it had been.
The wind roared above them, and the clouds were darker than ever. The world around them was dim, and all of their lighting was flickering badly. The rain was coming down in sheets, as if there was still hope to wash Alastor’s allies away.
Puck was met with Eros’ snarling face–but for seconds, only, and then her head dipped back and an inhuman scream ripped through her. She released her grip on him and for a split second clawed at her face before she lunged and him, and–
Disappeared.
She slashed at his chest with talons, but even as she made contact, her form disappeared in a plume of sulfuric smoke. Puck was free from the illusion–and he could see the others that remained. And, the chaos anomaly they’d been tasked to destroy. A smoky haze tried to obscure it, but it was there–undefended and helpless.
Hawara didn’t have to worry about defending much against Simionce; the mimic barely had time to slide into a smug grin before he lunged at the Knight and–went right through him. The plume of smoke was sickening and sulfuric, but the chaos had lost its edge–and the illusion faded with the rest of them. Now, Hawara could see the others in his group. And, the chaos anomaly they’d been tasked to destroy. A smoky haze tried to obscure it, but it was there–undefended and helpless.
Iduna was thrust towards the illusion of the tree, but before it could swallow her up, it screamed–loudly–and faded into a massive plume of black, sulfuric smoke. There was only hard ground to greet her–and from here, she could see the others in her group–and the chaos anomaly they’d been sent to destroy.
Drombeg was freed from his illusions–and now, the group could band together to defeat the chaos anomaly before it has the chance to restore itself and strike again.
Quote:
The chaos manifestations have been destroyed; if you are playing your own you can write out how you want them to disappear or assume they exploded in a burst of black shadows. A heavy residual chaos is in the area, and the chaos anomaly is in plain sight. It’s a basketball sized black gem with shadowy smoke billowing off it; it cannot escape, it cannot attack, and it cannot defend itself. They can destroy it now and strike a vital blow to the chaos. A Court Attack has been unleashed on the battlefield and done heavy damage to a wave of shadows trying to breach the wall, and Ida’s Royal magic has given everyone an energy boost; due to the fluctuations of magic in the air, it can physically restore a character or restore some previously used magic. The closing prompt will be some time after 8PM EST on the 18th and will lead to an optional closing ORP!
As easily as the manifestation had appeared, it disappeared with his sword and now there was just a large, black gem that could be seen. For a moment Drombeg could only look at it, making sure that nothing else was going to attack him. When nothing did and the gem was just sitting there, something must have happened. He had felt magic before and now was the time to strike at it. Or at least he thought it would be best. It appeared to have chaos within it at the least.
He ran up to the gem and swung at it with his sword as hard as he could! He would have used his magic, but from what he could tell, it appeared to be a type of distraction magic, so not so useful in attacking, especially a gem. Still, he couldn't help but try to use his weapon to hit it as much as possible! It also felt good to hit just to get rid of some of the anger that had built up from Geocronite.
Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2022 7:04 pm
Hawara braced for the attack that never came, as the Chaos that had manifested as his past life self fadded away - right through him - in nauseating sulfuric smoke. Then reality came back in to focus.
Everyone was still there, safe for the most part, to his relief, but also, there it was. Hawara might have suggested some sort of strategy to attacking, but it appeared the other Knight had enough residual rage from whatever the chaos had done to him to draw a hasty attack.
Hawara gave a small breath of a laugh and smirked. Alright then. He could feel the energy signature of a royal, more than one perhaps? flare, and it was something of a morale boost. Surely the disappearing chaos was due to that, and that meant there were some powerful gains being made elsewhere. He was proud for them. Now, they just needed to do their part here.
He, too, was not sure his wind magic would be of any use here, so a physical assault seemed reasonable. Haladie in hand, he joined the other knight.
OP-Yuna
Crew
Dulcet Scarface
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Kyuseisha no Hikari
Crew
Dragonslaying Dragon
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2022 7:10 pm
The force of Drombeg’s attack was powerful enough that it cracked the stone, and with the extra damage Hawara brought with his own weapon, it hardly stood a chance. A darkness descended on them almost immediately and it was impossible to see if the others had attacked and done damage, too. They could faintly make out a dark smoke lined with an eerie silver; it erupted from the stone, but it was short lived. The chaos anomaly could only take so much, and then it seemed to suddenly implode in on itself. The ground rumbled around them, like a small earthquake, but it did no damage–and then, it stopped.
For a split second, the chaos surged again. It was overwhelming and felt like it might get a greater grip and recuperate, but whatever footing it almost had was lost. A shockwave rippled from multiple locations, simultaneously. Within seconds, or a moment at most, the chaos anomalies were destroyed. The heart of the chaos was destroyed.
The natural threats seemed to lessen, too. The winds carrying rocky debris in the clouds seemed to slow; though the debris hovered in the air, they were no longer projectiles. The gusts closer to the ground no longer stung. Thunder dulled and then diminished, and the lightning stopped almost immediately.
The rain fell harder, but only briefly. It was long enough to put out the fires sparked during the storm. The river was surging, but the current seemed more controlled, and already the water level was lowering.
And then, the rain turned to a trickle and then faded altogether. The monstrous clouds thinned, and then pockets of them began to clear, and then they faded, too. Alastor’s world had been covered in dark skies for centuries--and now, the sunrise. The sky was already lighting up with pinks and oranges, not unlike Earth, but the colors were so vibrant and pure.
There were no shadows to block it. Alastor was a fresh, renewed world, thanks to them.
The great oak in the courtyard by the Hall had nearly a thousand years to grow to its immense size, and its roots had buried themselves deep into the ground. They cradled the Core of the world, and it was the greatest beacon of their success.
The liquid gold light of the Core stretched up through the oak tree and gave it a magical glow and–more than that, little golden lights bobbed through the air around the Hall like fireflies. They ranged in size from marbles to golf balls, and coming into contact with them felt like passing through soothing, warm pockets of air. There were thousands, easily–like the world was celebrating their victory with them.
It was peaceful now, and the oppressive, hateful chaos that had been smothering them before was gone. Now, the only thing left to do was take a moment to catch their breath, and then meet up back at the Hall.
Quote:
This is the last prompt based post for the roleplay! If you would like to continue writing you can, but this can also count for the close. All characters should head back to the Hall; the following roleplay is completely optional and players don’t have to post but their characters can be handwaved as attending. If your character would rather teleport home or otherwise leave Alastor without attending, please let me know! Thank you!
