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 Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 8:16 pm
A vast desert where the suns of Yyestalla beat down like a hard rain.
The capital at Edecaa is a deep subterranian maze, kept cool by its depth and hidden water beneath the stone.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 8:14 pm
Heaving breaths complimented the sound of feet touching down onto the hard-packed dry ground of southwestern Amatara. The rustling of feathers followed and died off to a whisper as the giant wings folded themselves in to Nicolai's back. Daylight had faded and the sky was a dimly glowing navy color, illuminated by the moon, the chill of a desert night coughing splotches of black across its paltry face. He had landed to catch his breath- his body wasn't as strong as it always had been now, and a straight flight from Ragefire to Ajakalia was just no longer possible.
Despite being exhausted he brought himself up, standing straight, eyes to the north where his objective lay. Now that he thought of it, it was rather foolhardy of him to be pursuing this thing by himself. He knew it was powerful. He knew even more that it was likely capable of murdering Arkiila without too much of a fight.
"Another Irikaran," he whispered to himself. "Another ******** Irikaran, and one that's being summoned by the Chaotics in Ajakalia. How lucky did we get?"
He calmed himself with a little effort and clenched his fists tightly. He knew he was in for a fight, and a big one at that. Akorigarita squirmed inside his wrist; the sword felt a fight coming, and it would rather leap out and into it than wait for its master's call.
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 8:36 pm
((I hope it to be alright if I post here))
Spooky placed herself on the hard ground, she hadn't slept in days she was to worried about the results of what would come from it. She knew that without sleep she would eventually become insane and incapable of doing anything ever again. She wearily let her body meet the rough ground as she closed her eyes to again sleep.
Inside her something boded, waiting for her to be at the highest peak of a nightmare. As it did this matter formed over Spooky's body drawing in as much as it could as it gathered it took shape into something unknown to this world, it was a deep scarlet colour it had no face except for a gaping mouth where needle pointed teeth drew themselves from the creatures gums. It carried itself on hoofs and at the end of it's hands needles filled with a liquid substance where finger nails should be. Two slits appeared in the flesh of the creatures throat. The beast wrapped it's tail around the asleep girl and began to search for prey.
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Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 8:21 pm
It was as though there was a compass in Miashiu's head. On the ompass were eight arrows, pulling him toward the inevitable. He could not have resisted them if he desired, but as yet, he desired very little. The world was a muted, distant thing; his senses were dull; he had just awakened. But still, compared to the endless steel fog through which he had drifted, it was captivating- the jagged breaking of metal, the slow crumble of stone, the ravages of fire- everything was structured differently, everything came apart in so many different ways.
He flicked his longfangs outward, cleaning them of blood in a sudden spray. He cocked his head to one side, curiously. The screams had stopped. The only sound was the slow collapse of buildings with their support beams cut, the overlapping voices of fire building in volume as they overtook the village. But there was something....
One of the arrows in his head had shifted. Six of the eight still pointed in one direction, and the seventh was fast approaching the same vector, but there was one that drifted away.
It was always easiest to cull the strays first. His instrincts were clear on that point.
He would do what was necessary.
Suddenly he was running effortlessly over stone and sand, his feet noiseless and leaving no prints. He moved like riptide, like the vibrations of an earthquake, the flash point of a fire, like a stormfront, an invisible wind. The desert flew by beneath his feet, and the arrow in his mind grew ever more taut, more prominent, the magnetic force of it stronger.
One of them was near.
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Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 8:55 pm
Instincts shot through him again. He felt a tug in his mind, a swelling, surging, high-pitched sort of static that followed his brain to the northwest. Out of Ajakalia.
..... s**t. He's coming this way.
Akorigarita would wait no longer. He flicked his fingers out and the blackish metal came screaming forth into his hand, curling into the complex winding patterns that formed the Holy Shadow Sword. There was no way to tell if this Irikaran would have good intentions, as even his name was hidden from Arkiila's reach, or at least his willpower to tell his carrier. For all Nicolai knew, this could be the end of the circle, in a million possible ways. This had to be stopped, for better or worse.
If he could do it, that is.
Nicolai's technique was his strong point; every school of fighting there was had been at his disposal to train from. But no matter how skilled he could be, he never was all that physically strong. His strength was strategy, and no strategy was ever perfect, even with Arkiila driving it. He knew he would have to call upon the others to face something like another Irikaran.
If he had time.
Conundrum.
His eyes locked on the horizon where the sensation lead. Akoriat eyes reached as far as twice human sight, but he was still out of range. The black feathered wings became mist and returned to Arkiila inside of him.
Ready? Hell no. Choice in the matter? Dream on.
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Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 9:23 pm
As he drew closer, Miashiu slowed, relaxed- the tension that had been between them, the distance, was fading. Still he was running, though, faster than an arrow's flight.
A dark shadow crested the horizon, a lone figure standing, and Miashiu lethimself slow yet further, until at only fifty paces, he was walking. The desert seemed to hold its breath.
At thirty paces he stopped, looking upon the first being he had seen that was equal to himself, taking his measure. He was stillness itself, as patient and unmoving as stone. There was a sense of something undone or unfinished before he could move forward and finish this, and besides, as the colors of the world bled in and he could feel the movement of air upon his skin, he was struck by his first desire. To know and to understand this world he would destroy, so that he could cherish it, so that he would know just what it was that he did, weigh it fully, savor its taste as it was consumed.
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Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 9:43 pm
He locked his sight on the approaching figure. The telltale signs of Irikara were there- the three dangling strands from the hairline, the glinting golden rings about the irises, and of course the aura- although this one seemed laced with the stench of rot and the maligning color of death.
Nicolai watched the being draw closer until its approach halted. It was armed. Great. Not only that but with vicious looking things, sort of like bladed tonfas, and knowing how fast tonfas could be used, he cringed at the thought of them in use by something as powerful as an Irikaran.
Number nine stood before him in frightening splendor, and now the only question presented itself- friend or foe?
Unable to leave this situation un-challenged by his cynical wit, he tilted his head back in an inviting sort of sarcasm. "What's the rush?"
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Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 9:51 pm
"You called to me," Miashiu answered, tone curious, but without emotion. He gestured out at the landscape. "All of this...calls to me. I have been listening for so long, and now I must give an answer." He paused a moment.
"You call very loudly," he said, voice more assertive now. "You have been asking after the answers I have for a very long time. The others like you, they call too, but not like you."
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Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 10:05 pm
Nicolai's eyebrows furrowed. "I wasn't aware I did any calling, but if you say so." Ha, bull. He knew very well that his search was conspicuous, to say the least. He'd been rummaging about Yyestalla for weeks looking for the person standing before him, and now here he was...
Almost seeming to thank him?
Friend or foe, he thought, I can't let him decieve me. The air around him was dense with confusion, and even Arkiila couldn't break through. Shadows betrayed his mind around this guy. His intentions, his demeanor, none of it made any sense. It was like a dull grey where others had streaks of color. The backdrop of the blackened moonlight chilled the air, and the chill of the Irikaran's gaze made his fists clench relentlessly to his sword's grip. A slow wind died about his feet and the air became sickeningly still.
"What answers are those? What are you looking for?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2006 10:58 am
Miashiu cocked his head to one side. "I am not looking for anything," he said, the stark simplicity in his voice almost pitiable. "It is not my way to search; searching will not help to find the inevitable."
He took another step forward. "You are more than you appear," he remarked, a dispassinate observation. "You wear this coil, but there is much more of you contained inside. Perhaps that is why you must look for things?" Another step. "I am no more than what I am. My shape contains only myself; all that I am is Miashiu."
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Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2006 11:31 am
Miashiu.
....... Languages bounced through his head. Names and sounds scrambled together, until at last, the Mitanese for "snake" and "death" mingled to form the word.
Oh yay. Phoenix of death.
He felt himself relax, however; this Miashiu didn't seem all that terribly much like a foe. He seemed simply... plain. Maybe not in his looks, that was for sure.... but in his manner. There just wasn't much to him, and even with Arkiila's consent there was nothing to be seen. Just a spirit, and a corresponding materialization that made him tangible.
"Well then, Miashiu. What is it that drives you, if you don't wish to search?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2006 11:55 am
Miashiu's eyes met Nicolai's gaze, flat and unsettling. Blank.
"We are all driven by what we are," he said, and nodded. "I will not withhold your answers any longer."
He moved.
With only the faintest inrushing of displaced air, he was lunging forward, low to the ground and then striking upward, all his body seeming to follow in the wake of the longfang held in his right hand as it drove towards Nicolai's chest.
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Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2006 2:37 pm
Nicolai tensed and his eyes froze on the tip of the longfang bearing towards him. Akorigarita flung up to meet it with a ting, much like delicate silverware being moved about. The movement sent the rest of him down and out, lithely grazing the ground, arching into a backbend above the sand. His hand flicked once more and Akorigarita was inversed, running along his forearm. He swung up hard, hoping to bash the blade backwards against Miashiu's head.
~'What is going on? Death Phoenix? Does this mean he's pure death, no discrimination, even for his kin?!'~
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Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2006 5:52 pm
Miashiu danced back away from reach, pirouetting and sidestepping, working to flank Nicolai rather than come at him head on. His left blade flicked out once, twice, trhee times, like a snake's tongue testing the air, while his right hand curled, retreated, waited for a clear shot.
"You called to me," he said again, no sign of exertion or emotion in his voice, for all the world as though this was still casual conversation. "Why do you resist me?"
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