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 Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 9:27 am
This Quest is for Kelina, an aspiring Archer.
OOC
||. You may not control any NPCs or other characters; Kelina must face her trials alone.
||. Respond to the prompts given as you would any other RP.
||. Your responses may be as long or short as you feel necessary.
IC
Moisture hung in the Jauhar air, giving the moon an ethereal shroud. It was a full moon out, and it had just reached it's highest point in the sky sending a glow across the entire canopy and through to patches on the forest floor. The fungi below on the forest floor glowed with pinks and purples, the crystals in the trees adding blues. The whole of Jauhar was lit up softly.
Jauhar was sleeping, the inhabitants and animals alike. Only the sounds of bellowing spitorogs could be heard, croaking occasionally and sounding like snoring in the peaceful air. A mist had settled onto the floor, filling the entirety of the forest with a milky white froth. It was soft, and it blurred the edges of object, melting one into the next, but felt safe. It was a caring mist, if there was such a thing.
Gradually a sound began to overcome the peaceful Jauhar slumber. It faded into the air, humming quietly, masking itself with the fog. It was whispering, and sounded as if it contained many voices.
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Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 10:29 am
Kelina had spent the night in the trees that night, having ventured too far from home to want to attempt to make it back before the sun had set. Lasarra knew this happened often and Kel didn't have to worry about her sister trying to come and find her. Although the night was humid, it was a comfort to the young woman as she leaned against the trunk, high up in a tree, and listened to the noises of the forest. Soft croaks of spitorogs provided an ambiance as the light filtered through the canopy layers. The milky mist was lit in different spots by the fungi and crystals, casting different hues among the mist. To some, it might seem creepy that the forest held such a mist, but to Kelina, it was home. The soft croaking and gentle glow of the moon started to lull her to a sleep but it seemed the forest had other plans for her tonight.
She snapped awake as she heard a strange noise, very much unlike the croaking. It was as if voices were being brought on an nonexistent breeze. Raising and lowering from whispering to a quiet hum. This was something Kelina was unused to in the forest and took alarm quickly. The noise seemed to contain many voices but Kelina was unsure of the origin. She stood carefully in the tree, already having many incidents in her life where she hurt herself when falling from the trees. Agilely, she jumped to the nearest tree, her bow strung along her back resting on her quiver. She grabbed it now, holding it in her left hand as she jumped from tree to tree trying to find the origin of this strange whisper. The noise never seemed to get louder, and even with Kelina's careful attention, she was afraid she was going in circles. She paused, and crouched low on the branch, listening for any and all little noises.
((PLEASE let me know if this is the correct way to do these. XD))
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Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 12:41 pm
The sounds of the forest seemed to disappear momentarily, leaving Kelina in eerie silence. It wasn't just the whispering that was gone, it was everything. The sound of leaves swaying in the night air, the sounds of the spitorogs, all of it was gone. The silence was near deafening, leaving a heavy pressure in Kelina's ears. It was almost as if she had lost hearing.
But in the midst of the suffocating nothingness around her, a small whisper broke the air. "Over here."
It was like the voice blew in on a breeze, it was so incredibly soft, but clear as crystal at the same time. Unlike the mumbled whispering surrounding Kelina earlier, this was from one specific direction to Kelina's right. When the last syllable hit Kelina's ears the sounds of the forest suddenly resumed as if they had never stopped.
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Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 12:55 pm
The sudden disappearance of all the forest's noises left Kelina feeling deaf and almost lost her balance on the branch from the sudden-ness of it. Her mind spun as it tried to figure out the sudden lack of sound. But then, there was two words, clear as the moon shining down. Her head whipped around, to her right, where the noise had come. Great, she had a direction now, she thought to herself. The forest sounds came back just as quickly as they had left and it once more left her reeling. The oddity of it all made her cautious and suspicious. She swung around to the other side of the trunk and stood, arrow notched in her raised bow in preparation of anything.
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Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 1:44 pm
A sudden caress of wind blew towards Kelina, beckoning her in the direction of the whisper she had heard. It lifted the mist that was lingering in the forest and pushed it forward like a ribbon of smoke in the wind, all but leaving a trail for Kelina to follow.
The sounds of the forest cut out again, this time leaving a murmur of whispering in the direction the mist was going. The whispers were seemingly gibberish, unable to get a grasp of anything that they were saying.
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Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 1:55 pm
With the wind providing the ribbon of smoke, Kelina followed even more carefully. But when the sound cut out again, it was becoming more disorienting as time went by. Kelina was having enough of this, she didn't know where this voice was taking her and she didn't want to get lost. "I"m not going any further. I have followed you this far now you meet me." She said into the quiet forest. Kel stood on a thick branch, she had lowered her bow but still kept it notched just in case. She was going to figure out who this was and now.
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Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 12:06 pm
The forest's whispering seemed to stop abruptly, leaving an eerie stillness to the surrounding air. The slight breeze leading the way also died down at Kelina's demand, leaving Kelina with nothing but the slight echo of her voice in the forest.
The moon above shone through the canopy, illuminating spots on the forest floor below the branches Kelina was crouching in, and bouncing off of every object there. It seemed to momentarily grow brighter, intensifying every piece of whatever it is it touched before suddenly returning to normal. It was a strange event, no doubt, and it was hard to tell if it had actually even happened.
In its wake, a slight glow illuminated from within the forest itself, further down the path Kelina was already following. It seemed to want to bring her there. within the glow, it looked like there was a silhouette of someone... the shape itself was masculine and familiar, but it faded quickly, and left the glow alone with Kelina in its wake. One thing was for sure: the silhouette and the whispering voices did not belong to the same person. The voices sounded delicate, and feminine.
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Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 12:08 pm
It seemed to Kelina that the forest did not like her command of it because the whispering stopped suddenly. Kelina didn't know what to think about this strange occurrence, never before had she experienced anything similar. But just then, she saw a figure, a glowing figure. It looked like it was male, and something about the structure and stature of it seemed familiar to her but she just couldn't remember. Before she even had enough time to think about it, it was gone. The figure had been down the path more, and Kelina wanted to figure out who...or what it was. If it was masculine, how could it be the same voices she heard? The voices she heard had been distinctly feminine and Kelina was struggling to make a connection.
The figure had been on the forest floor, and travel was quicker that way, so she nimbly jumped to a lower branch before leaping to the ground. Landing in a crouched position, she stood, bow always at the ready. With a mental sigh, she took tentative steps towards where the figure had been. The once comforting moon beams seemed to take on a different look now, as if they could be hiding this figure or those voices. She was careful with where she stood and stepped and tried to maintain awareness of everywhere that was around her. If she was to follow this figure, she would be alert and ready for anything. Kel refrained from speaking out again, it was obvious that what ever it was that was beckoning her didn't like it, although she had gotten a reaction out of it, and she supposed it had met her like she had asked it to. The girl took slow and careful steps as she followed the path some more, it meeting her was likely it's show of good faith so however foolish it may be, she followed it so she could meet whoever or whatever wanted to meet with her.
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Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 2:31 pm
As Kelina followed the disappearing silhouette and the strange glow that appeared to her, she entered into a clearing in the forest. The journey Kelina was taking continued to get stranger and stranger with each passing moment. The clearing was large and quite circular, like it was man made, though almost too perfectly round to be so. The moon shone into the clearing unobstructed, hovering in the direct center of the space. It bathed everything within the clearing with moonlight and illuminated Kelina's surroundings.
The place was almost unbelievably large and held something that few were ever able to see. There were ruins strewn about the entirety of the clearing, now covered in moss and vines, as if this place once held a thriving metropolis that now was eternally quiet. Small glowing bugs circled around the wreckage, going about their business and tossing more shapes onto the ever growing complexity of the sculptural pieces.
The ground held intricate designs and shapes, carved into the dirt like pathways, and within the larger shapes of the pathways low mounds could be seen coming up from the earth, marked with stones. It was an abandoned burial site.
The whispering that Kelina had heard earlier had come back, low and soft, letting Kelina know that she had reached her destination and she was not alone.
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Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 2:49 pm
Kelina's eyes widened and her hand relaxed on her bow as she entered into the clearing. A perfect circle, how could the have been made so perfectly? Looking up, she noticed that the moon shone directly down into the center of this clearing and Kelina began to think this was not a chance occurrence. Inside this circle, though, were things she had only heard about. Of course, she couldn't see them very well because of the moss and vines, but the shapes and some parts were still visible. This was a ruin. That was when she noticed the shapes in the dirt, they were so intricate that she wondered how they had been done. But more importantly, they brought her attention to something even more important: the mounds in the earth. It took her a few moments to realize what the mounds and stones that were marking them were. Once she realized they were graves, her brow creased and a frown was clear on her face. Her eyes were unhappy as she took in all the different mounds, and the amount of them. Kel barely even noticed the small glowing bugs as the moon illuminated most of the site.
It was then that the voices came back, reminding her of how strange this situation was. It unnerved her to know that she wasn't alone, yet, it was also a comfort in this burial site even though she could not see those that accompanied her. There was only one thing to do, talk to them again. "Why did you bring me here?" She asked to the voices, her eyes scanned the clearing as she waited for an answer.
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Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 2:51 pm
The whispering was indistinct and incoherent, unfamiliar to Kelina's ears and obviously not the common tongue of Tendaji. It sounded as if it was coming from the center of the circle, though obviously no person was there, let alone the multiple voices that were creating the whispering.
One voice came out clearer than the others over the invisible crowd, a voice sounding like her mother's. It was just babbling, combining vowels and consonants in no particular order, like it couldn't make out what it was that it wanted to say. The glowing bugs stopped their spinning in the sky and everything seemed to stop, even the slight breeze that was flowing through the open space of the clearing.
As the world seemed to stop around Kelina, another started. The space that was once vacant of all sentient life was now teeming with people. They seemed to have no idea that Kelina was there, and when looked at closely, they weren't really there. They were slightly glowing, and though they looked solid, they also looked weightless, like one blow of wind could push them far away from where they were and off into the air.
Among the moving, intermingling crowd of people was... Kelina's mother.
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Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 3:18 pm
Why wouldn't the whispering stop? It was almost giving her a headache, especially since she couldn't understand it. The origin seemed to the middle of this clearing, but she didn't know how it was coming from there because there was nobody there! A voice started to rise out above the rest, becoming clearer than the others and it was familiar to her. And that was when the world seemed to stop, even the glowing bugs stopped moving and all of a sudden, there were people around her! But upon closer inspection, they weren't really there.
They glowed like the moon and they looked so thin. Kelina's eyes rested on a figure that made her world stop even more, a figure that suddenly made her realize how that voice had been familiar, it was her mother. But how could this be? Her mother had passed on which made her think that all these people she was seeing were all dead. She knew she was in a burial ground, but her mother wasn't buried here. "Mother? How am I seeing you?" Kelina didn't know if the ghosts had the capability for actual speech but she wanted to try.
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Posted: Tue Sep 03, 2013 12:17 pm
The people that appeared in the clearing seemed to have no idea that Kelina was actually there. They walked along and intermingled with each other, talking and and chatting incoherently as if they had all known each other a long time. They caught the moonlight and seemed to shimmer in front of Kelina's eyes. It was a beautiful thing, but also something that could send shivers up any onlookers eyes, knowing that these weren't people of this earth anymore. It was as if they had no idea they were dead.
Kelina's mother was among those that had no idea. She walked with another woman, circling the center of the clearing and walking around a large piece of mossy ruins. She didn't so much as turn her head Kelina's way, not able to see or hear what it was that Kelina was saying. She motioned with her hands in her conversation and her and the woman rounded the corner and disappeared behind the debris.
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Posted: Tue Sep 03, 2013 12:25 pm
Kelina's brow furrowed in confusion. She hadn't really expected her mother to talk back to her since she couldn't understand them anyway, but some acknowledgement would have been nice! Things were starting to get more weird than they were awe inspiring. This place was cool and all, but it seemed like there was something corrupt underneath it all. But she couldn't just leave...could she? Surely she owed it to all the villages around here to find out what was behind this weird thing. Perhaps she should try talking to it again. "Who ever is doing this come out and speak to me now! I don't know what kind of....magic you're doing to bring people back from the dead as...ghosts...but I want an explanation!" She said adamantly, her arrow notched once more and ready to go just in case.
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Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2013 9:55 am
Kelina's words hung in the air. They sounded through the trees and seemed to bounce off of everything they touched, creating an eerie echo though there wasn't truly a reason for anything to be echoing.
But there was nothing to greet her words.
The people in the clearing continued on with their business, their voices muted and muffled. All of the gibberish seemed to vanish soon after it was spoken, disappearing too quickly to be normal speech. It was as if the area of the clearing was broken from the worlds around it. The people continued to move and chatter and talk, and more seemed to be piling in and out of the space, as if it were a thriving metropolis.
A man and a woman, arm in arm, walked through Kelina from behind, leaving a chill wherever they touched. A little girl, not much older than 5, ran through the crowd to meet the couple. In front of Kelina the scene played out; the child running forward and the parents stopping and smiling and picking her up to hold between them both. It was when the mother picked up the girl that the youngling seemed to look Kelina directly in the eyes.
Was this a trick of the light? Or could she really see her?
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