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 Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 7:05 pm
Valelldia saw the limp dangle of the little boy's hand, and although the sight of it nearly turned her stomach, she knew it could be easily repaired- and that he still was free of pain. So instead, she put a smile on her face, and came forward to comfort his mother.
"It is a magical wound- brought upon by dark meija- dark magic of a very sacred kind. It journeyed with him through his transformation. ...Right now, you need fear not for his physical health- the boy still isn't in any pain... watch how he ignores his hand, as if it's not even there. But the sooner you fix the wound, the better. Kale has had... truly, a remarkable change for a Fortunette.'
She paused, wondering how to explain the nuances of the magic that made up the Fortunettes to Marissa. ...However, she knew there were not enough words or time to explain it all- so she took a selected string of the wonder that was this legacy of magic, and explained to the gypsy in dulcet tones.
"Every Fortunette, as you know, has a very difficult journey ahead of him or her, in that they have such a will to live, that it drives them to become real, from objects... and then to grow, and to become... if not human, something more. Something magical. And with that intensity of will comes a very heavy price- for the only way to create this sort of magic, which goes against nature... is to tame the very heart of dark magic itself. In fact, the transformation from an animal to a Fortunette infant is perhaps the blackest of all. ...However, Kale has transformed under such miraculous circumstances. He sacificed himself for his friends, and has struggled through with the consequences," she indicated with her hand the paw that still hung limp from the new infant's wrist, "and he was born again, like a phoenix amongst the flames. ...He is so selfless and giving, and the fire transformation purified him of most of the darkness that comes along with the change. ...Basically, Marissa... I'd say that your son is right now on the smoothest past to being a Fortunette, White Magic adult... than any other in the caravan. ...So we want to protect that."
She guided the woman and her son to the door of WhistleStick, and whispered to them as they descended into the night, "If you need any help with the quest, feel free to come back and haunt this door." She smiled. "For you are always welcome."
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Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:03 pm
Marissa listened, and her heart ached with the most peculiar of feelings. She coveted her son with all of her soul, and hearing the gypsy's words filled her with such a passionate determination, such a raging will, that the embers of the emotion almost glowered in her eyes. All the while, her fingers brushed along Kale's brow in a silky, rythmic motion.
Witout a word, Marissa rose from her position and strode pointedly to the door, not stopping to turn until she was flushed with cool night air.
"I won't fail you. Either of you. Thank you, Valleldia."
And with that, the wagon door shut with a decisive click.
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Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 8:52 pm
II. Into the Forest: To Complete a Quest...
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Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 9:03 pm
This time, Marissa was prepared. She had strapped to her back her leather carry-pouch. It was beautiful, soft and maleable from wear yet still incredibly durable. On the front was an intricate design; A rose vine growing beneath a willow tree, branded to the matierical with the accuracy of an impeccabley careful master craftsman. In it was: A hand-lamp, a small flask of oil, a blanket, a small pouch of seeds and berries, and her box of enchanted seeds. She hoped Emelyn would provide the weapons.
The gypsy stepped outside and knelt beside her wagon, peering at a small plot of dark topsoil, from which protruded a twisting vine laced with plump flowers.
It had grown even faster than she thought. Reaching with gentle finers, she plucked the plant from it's root.
Poppies, she repeated to herself, or, as she preffered: Opium.
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 12:31 pm
Em saw Marissa as soon as she'd put Pierre to sleep and walked down the steps of Daggerheld. Phoenix Song wasn't moored too far off the side of her own wagon, and the light of the lantern that swung from the roof set a glow at several paces- Marissa was visible, in her element with the plants. Em made her way down the stairs and skipped a little as she came up to the other gypsy.
"Hello darling," she said fondly to the woman, and looped a grass-woven bag off her shoulder and into the elbow curve of her arm. With her other hand, she dug through it, shifting things to the side as she spoke.
"Let's see... we've got a measure of rope, some flasked water, a bit of cloth in case any of us need bandaged up..." she looped the bag back up onto her shoudler, and pulled a length of her belt free to expose a line of two daggers and a folded over bit of worn leather. "And we have a regular old highland gelm dagger, the medicinal dagger, and my bolero. I was going to bring Pierre along, but he set one of the wagon wheels on fire today, and he's being punished." She sighed, rolling her eyes at the memory of it. "I can't believe it sometimes. You have the fire element, and yet I'm the one that has to deal with the pyro tendencies. Go figure. ...We set to go?"
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 2:34 pm
Studying the poppy blossoms carefully, Marissa checked off the items in her head as she listened. Nodding, she lifted her eyes to meet that of her friend's. "Sounds good. Look at this," she said, stepping closer to Emelyn and holding the vine into the lantern light. "This grew in less than 20 hours, and there are no signs of soaking or drying, overfeeding or malnutrition. Each petal is flawless. It's amazing." She didn't fully expect Emelyn to share her awe, but she thought she'd make the point, anyway.
She chuckled at Em's mention of Pierre's antics. "Kale's been an angle all this time," she said, "But then again, it's been three says since he grew. He's still adjusting to his body, I expect, sleeps most of the time."
Marissa started walking towards the woods as she spoke. Hoisting the lantern to light their path, she lead Emelyn through the treeline and braced herself for the sudden, consuming darkness.
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Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 1:30 pm
"Erm... well, that's nice," Em said, not quite knowing what to say about a vine. She smiled though, and nodded encouragingly to the woman who was so much more in tune with nature than she was. She also found it funny- ironic in a magical sort of way, that the one woman with such a strong fire element Fortunette was the one who was so in tune with nature- something that was so consumed and threatened by fire.
As they moved into the woods, Em was very aware of all the various sounds that accosted her ear.
"Oi!" She said, as some strange noise came out of a bush, not long after they'd traversed a segment of woods, "What's that?" Her hand went to her bag, waiting to see whether her bolero would be needed.
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Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 4:41 pm
Marissa stopped coddling her plant and stopped dead. "I heard it too." She strained her eyes to penetrate the surrounding black. In the distance, nearly fifty yards away, something caught the glint of her lantern light. A very many somethings, actually. It was the reflection of light against eyes, she realized, recognizing the way the light swamped and turned the shape a luminescent yellow. It was similar to what Kale, when he was a fox, looked like when he sat next to the fire at night. In that instant, ten, twenty, fifty distant eyes blinked and Marissa knew what they faced.
"Emelyn, it's a Panoptes," she whispered urgently, grabbing her friend's hand in anxiety, "It's like a salamander, only it reaches to your knees and it's got eyes covering it's body." She towed Emelyn backwards, slowly, as silently she she could. "We need to get into the trees."
As she talked, she snapped three poppy pods from the vine.
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Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 4:45 pm
"Covered in... eyes?" She said, whispering to herself. "Um... ew?" Just then, she saw Marissa's furtive motion, cracking off what seemed to be pods from whatever plant she'd been nursing. She moved with Marissa deeper into the trees, and tugged at her companion's skirt to get her attention.
"How do you know what that is? ...And what on earth are you doing with that plant?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 4:58 pm
"Eyes, yes. Somewhere between fifty and a hundred of them, wrapped around their back and neck and legs and all along their tail. They're nasty ferocious things, both because they can see you from any directions and they bite like the dickens. Poisonous, too." She explained all of this in a fervent whisper. "My parents...they had to fend one off, once. I was only a baby, and it was coming after me and my mother. Papa had to kill it, he used the gun he swore he'd never fire and killed it with a shot." She looked at Em. "But we don't have a gun."
She backed herself into the trunk of a twisted, gnarled oak tree. She had an idea. "Climb it," she said suddenly, "Emelyn, climb it, they can't climb." All the time she said these things, the monster was advancing with ferocious speed.
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Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 6:12 pm
"Still ew!" Em said, nearly screaming as she scrambled up the tree. She was lucky there was a handhold branch- else she would have been prey to an animal she only just learned of ten seconds before.
After a flash, she was up in the gnarled oak with Marissa. She looked drolly over to the woman, and was silent a moment.
"You couldn't have said "there will be climbing involved", could you? Oh noooo, you have to bring along the girl who can barely climb a bush." She looked down to where the Panoptes stared- quite literally- up at them, and hissed down at it.
"Not today, Mr. Pan... Panty thingy. And didn't your mother ever tell you it was rude to stare?"
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Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 6:31 pm
Marissa was barely listening, but caught sarcasm and laughed. "Next time I'll warn you when we're about to be attacked by something I havn't seen in more than twenty years." She was working fervently at preparing something in her lap. Contorted into an odd position, with one leg pressed against a branch and the other hooked uncomfortably against the first, she was crushing poppypods. With tools that appeared mysteriously and silently, she was using a blunt handle to powder them against a flat wooden slate. When she had finished, she scooped a chunk of sweet-bread from her rucksack and, balling it in her hand, stuffed the blocky powder into it's center.
By this time, the Panoptes was hissing loudly, spitting poison at the tree trunk and foaming at the sides of its hinged mouth. "Oh, did I mention?" asked Marissa, winding up to toss the dough ball over onto the ground, "They're awfully territorial."
The ball thumped to the ground. Marissa hoped against hope that it would take the bait. What the bait was, she had lacked to quite explain, but it seemed important enough.
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Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 6:35 pm
"Um... no, you actually didn't," Em said, wanting to stretch her arms out, but wanting even more not to go tumbling into the Panty-critter.
"You also haven't said why you're feeding it. You could have given me that. Was it sweetbread? I love sweetbread. ...Oi. Your Panty thing is eating it..."
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Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 6:51 pm
Marissa grinned. "Perfect," she muttered. "That, dear Emelyn, is pure powdered opium. One of the strongest and fastest-acting sleep inducers ever discovered." She watched as the "Panty thing" approached her offering cautiously. It sniffed it first, then darted forth it's tounge to touch it. "Not to mention," she mused haughtily, "Odorless and tasteless."
Finally, the concoction was swallowed whole. The Panoptes, promptly forgetting the food, continued to spit and howl at the women, it's eyed wide and crazed. Soon, though, the eyes began to change. The lids lowered, the eyes unfocused and glazed. All sounds halted, and the woods became deathly silent as, one by one, the eyes dropped shut. Fist the ones nearest the ground, between its toes and on its ankles and wrists and flanks, then lazily closing from the end of its tail to its rump.
There was a small sound of protest that led to the final act. Swiftly, like the sudden flapping-shut of venetian blinds, the eyes along the Panoptes' back swooped closed and it dropped to the gound in a heap.
There were a few moments of silence before any of them spoke. Then Marissa raised her voice.
"You probably didn't want any of THAT sweetbread."
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Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 6:54 pm
She blinked at the creature's quick demise to a little heap.
"Well, you never know," she said, easing herself out of the tree with some caution. "I do so love a good nap. Oof." She exhaled, falling the last few feet to the earth and coming up close to the sleeping Panoptes. She bent down to get a closer look at it, her hands oustretched on bent knee, and looked up at Marissa.
"Let me guess. I get to kill it now."
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