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 Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:19 pm
This Quest is for Dyakida who is striving to become a Artisan.
 OOC
||. The quest prompt must be answered with a 2000 word reply (can be more).
||. Respond to the prompt given with an adventure of your own creation as long as it meets the requirements of the specific tasks.
||. NPCs may be used as long as they advance the quest in an interesting manner.
||. You cannot include any playable characters other than the quest taker.
||. Your responses will be graded on a letter grade scale: a grade of D or F will result in repeating the quest process, C or better will result in passing and possible rewards.
||. Questions about quests can be asked here.
IC
Another day started with the rising of the sun and another customer came to knock on Dyakida's door. They wanted a custom weapon, uniquely suited to them, and it had to be on a particular type of wood. Wood that could be found in the northern forests of Jauhar. The wood and forests here were older, more solid, with more time to bulk out. There were also unknown dangers that far to the north of Jauhar.
Dyakida could get into a lot of trouble while trying to get the wood and it would be up to her to be able to navigate away unseen and unheard from the site. When out to find wood, strange clicking could be heard from what seemed to be a meeting.
Quest Tasks
||. This quest is to test Dyakida's ability to get away from trouble undetected even without her sight.
||. The quest should begin with the acceptance of the commission for a weapon.
||. The quest should include the bug mages that have plagued so many other quest takers in the past. It is up to Dyakida whether there is an encounter or she gets out without being caught.
||. This quest should end with either the acquiring of the wood or Dyakida returning and turning down the client.
||. Any questions about the bug mages can be made in the questions thread linked above.
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Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2014 10:36 pm
Dyakida grimaced as her newest customer walked away. She caught it quickly and tried to hide it. She was not happy with her newest commission, but it was not her way to show it outwardly.
They had requested that she use a rare wood from a dangerous part of Jahuar, and they had not offered assistance or provided the wood. Which would have been a very decent thing to do. Dyakida ran her hands over the carvings of her stave, remembering the last time she'd had to venture out for a piece of rare wood. It had been a success, and she had gained acceptance in the tribe, but it had been a lot of trouble. That had been the Tale, though, which was not so much dangerous as large and unfamiliar. The sweet-scented wood she had found had been pleasant enough to carve, soft and willing under her knife.
The Nyeugadi tree was a whole other story. It was a long-lived tree that grew only in the ancient woods of the North, where few of even the most courageous sisters dared to tread. Its wood was prized for its strength and elegantly dark color. Though it did not take magic well, weapons crafted from it were said to last an eternity. It was so solid that it was said to rival even that new metal coming from Sauti. There were a few composite weapons with Nyeugadi wood in them, for aesthetics and added strength but the most valuable were made wholly of it, because it was such a rare wood. There were rumors that weapons made of that wood thirsted for the blood of its wielders enemies, giving it the disturbing nickname of Bloodwood.
Dyakida was not afraid of the Bloodwood itself, and did not believe the legends around it. She was, however, afraid of the Northern woods. Many a grisly legend had been told about those dark parts of the jungle, and Dyakida did not wish those terrors upon any of her sisters, especially not those she cared about, and certainly did not want to meet them herself. She was not a coward exactly, did have an aversion to danger, especially unnecessary danger caused by a lack of preparation. Unfortunately, she could not prepare for this: Monsoon season approached, and the Northern Forests would soon become impassible due to the heavy rains.
She wondered if it would not have been more prudent to decline the commission, and wished she was more comfortable taking coin from her sisters. Then, she could have charged more for the danger. Unfortunately, the deal was done. She had traded her services for a well made, pleasantly textured dagger sheath (which was, her sisters assured her, beautiful to look at) with more crystals to come on delivery.
Besides, Nyeugadi wood was said to be the most difficult wood to tame to a craft. As a specialist in her profession, she felt - as a matter of pure and admittedly foolish pride - she should attempt it. She would have to go herself, of course. She couldn't trust her sisters to know what they were looking for, and Peyla – who knew exactly what Dyakida wanted - would not assist anybody else reliably. She was having second thoughts about it now and cursing her youthful impulsiveness, but she had no real choice. She would have to acquire the wood and craft this weapon.
She would not go alone, however. She needed guards who could protect her and Peyla as they collected materials from the forest. She decided to speak with her sisters about coming with her that night.
~~~
Dyakida's sisters thought she should go. They knew the personal trials and frustrations - mostly self inflicted - that Dyakida had worked through over the years, and being supportive, enthusiastic, and adventurous close sisters they thought she should definitely do the commission. They wanted her to show those less supportive sisters that she was no less competent and intrepid an Alkidike, despite her lack of sight. They also agreed that she should not go alone.
After some discussion, it was decided that, of the sisters that called their tree home, Markai, a warrior, would go with her, as well as Summai and Jiina, two blades. Two prentices, Da'Atyi and Da'Mna - twins born from the same lotus - would also accompany her. Dyakida had offered to give them compensation for their trouble, but they all had refused, saying that it was nothing, that they couldn't very well leave their blind sister to wander alone in the dark and terrible woods.
Dyakida thought - with an internal chuckle - that her sister's reasons were not entirely that of noble protectiveness, but actually born out of a similar desire to her own: They wanted to prove themselves before the war. She understood, but said nothing, smiling quietly at how alike they all were. But of course, they were sisters, after all.
~~~
They set off early a few days later, wanting to get out of the darker reaches of Jahuar before the rains cut them off. Dyakida felt more sure about her journey than she had when she had accepted the commission. The presence of her sisters was soothing. She was safe in a way that she had not been in the Tale, with only her sprite for company. She was protected and guided, the vibrations of their movements and the soft sound of their steps making her confident about the path ahead.
Her antennae twitched as vibrations reached her. They were faint, but even and regularly paced – a person's footsteps, the first vibration she had learned to recognize. Someone, she determined, was nearby, or perhaps following them. She was not worried, however. This was a well- traveled road on Alkidike land, there would be very little danger here. The vibrations soon blended into the background dynamics of Jahuar, and nobody commented on it, so she thought nothing more of it.
When the path became thicker and more overgrown with rough vines and roots - the more northernly path, she had cause to remember the vibratiosn again. She had forgotten it during the hours of walking, but when the twins exclaimed in unison, she remembered. Peyla jerked in her flight, startled, and chimed in alarm.
”Yitzah?! How in Aisha's name did you get here?!” they cried.
”I followed you.” said a child's voice, ”I wanted to go on an adventure too.”
Dyakida tapped Markai's shoulder. ”What is going on?”
”I think that's their little sister, Yitzah.” said Markai. She sounded more amused than upset, ”How much do you want to bet that she's been following us since Emeka?”
”Yitzah, you have to go home now!” She heard the blades laughing off to the side and wondered how the twins’ faces looked at this moment. She couldn't tell which had spoken – their voices were far too alike. ”Its too dangerous! Go home.”
Dyakida agreed. Where they were going was too dangerous for a child. Of course, knowing children, the little brat would probably insist on following them anyway.
”No. I won't go back.” said the girl, and Dyakida gritted her teeth at the stubborness in her tone. She was not fond of children, especially the ornery ones. Somehow Ilyra had become an exception. This girl was not.
To her surprise, she heard Markai laugh. ”Well then, come along, girl.” she said, ”Its too late to dump you back home, and you can help Peyla guide Dyakida.” there was a slight pause, ”Oh come on, 'kida.” she said, and Dyakida realized that her annoyance and disgust must have registered on her face. ”Peyla gets tired sometimes, doesn't she, and don't you want to free her up for finding things?” Dyakida heard a chime, and knew her sprite agreed. ”Besides, we have a good-sized group of sisters. We can protect you both... so long as neither of you run off.” there was a hint of a wink in Markai's voice, and Dyakida had nothing to say to that. Her previous idiotic forays alone into the jungle were common knowledge.
She felt Peyla alight on her shoulder, resting, as a soft, small hand took hers. ”Okay then! Come on!” said the youngling, her voice smiling and sunny. Dyakida sighed and arranged her face into something far more neutral than she actually felt. Still, despite her reservations, she allowed herself to be led by the girl as they continued forward.
~~~
The girl somehow managed to keep Peyla from being jealous as she energetically guided the artisan along the path. Dyakida suspected bribery by fruit was involved. She had to admit that it was nice having Peyla free to find materials. She would find something, Dyakida would be led over, and then she would harvest it. This was the sort of delegated efficiency that she liked. The Northern forests were a wealth of components, and she figured thatshe had better stock up on them, since she had no intention of returning regularly, if at all.
She had no idea what the forest looked like, of course. From the way the youngling's hand squeezed hers almost bone-crushingly tightly, and from the sense of breathtaking oppression that weighted down upon her, she could, however, tell it was not a good place. The sounds were different here in the ancient forests. There were no vibrant calls and countercries, but instead chilling shrieks and roars that brought back memories of twisted nightmares and childhood night sweats. These were interspersed with eerie silence, where only the soft whoosh of wind and the creaking of ancient boughs met her thirsty, desperate ears. The forest here felt of darkness and poison and hunger, of silence that waited and hunted the unwary. She held the child's hand equally tightly and listened close to the sounds of her sister's footfalls, grasping onto those reminders of life and company.
~~~
”Oi. Kida.”
Dyakida's feet had long gone beyond feeling every sharp stone and root, and now just hurt dully. They hadn't stopped to rest very often after they entered the northern forests, and it was starting to wear on her.
"Hmm?"she murmured as a piece of wood was pressed into her free hand.
"This what we're after?"
She felt it. It was a hard substance, like crystal, but she could feel the porous veins and texture of wood. "Yes." It was the wood she sought.
"Allright." Markai said. Dyakida could hear an edge in her voice that she had never heard before, a sort of raw tension that spoke of half-drawn blades and wariness. Even the strong warrior, Dyakida realized, was unnerved by this place, and it did not make her feel better to know that. "Lets get all that we can carry and get ourselves out of here."
Dyakida sat with Yitzah and waited as the more able members of their team began collecting what they could of the hard wood, passing it on to her as they found it. She let them work – they seemed to want her to stay put with the child. She rested her aching feet, all too aware of the impending march home.
"Shh!" Markai saidsuddenly, and all the motion around her stopped. "Do you hear that?"
Dyakida had been listening to her sister's jokes and banter, and the little girl's occasional chattery story, welcoming their attempts to chase away the dread quiet of this place. But now that the silence was all that remained, she listened, and became aware of a faint, but distinct, clicking sound.
Clik clik... Clikclikkkt...
She nodded.
"Lets get out of here..." whispered one of the blades and she felt someone push her back the way they had come, the youngling's hand slipping from hers as Peyla alighted again on her shoulder.
The clicking became alarmed.
Clikclik... Clikkktclikclik! Clikh!?CLIKKKTK!!
Suddenly, heat blossomed nearby with a roar. She could feel it, dry and malevolent, trying to hurt and burn.
Fire? she wondered, shrinking away, Here?
"Hurry!" said a voice behind her Dyakida was shoved forward, "Run!"
The air tingled her antennae, and she felt the fine hairs on her back stand on end. There was a horrible crackling sound, like the universe was being rent asunder, and she heard one of her sister's scream with pain.
Dyakida ran.
~~~
Dyakida hid by the side of a tree, too tired to climb it and seek safety above. She had been running for a while now, along the path. Peyla had gone missing at some point, and she was moving on memory and direction sense alone now, both of which had failed her before.
Peyla she wasn't worried about, but what of the others? She was far away from whatever had happened, back in the comforting embrace of her homeland now, surrounded by the smells and sounds of Jahuar's dynamic and vibrant verdance of life.
Dyakida was far from comforted, though, as she huddled, gasping for air, by the tree. Were they alive? Were they dead? She feared the latter.
If they had died - Aisha's petals, she hoped they hadn't died – who was to blame? Her, for having them come with her? Their fault, for volunteering? The customer's fault, for not providing the wood in the first place? Or was it far simpler, that whatever monster had made the clicking noises was their killer? She mused on this as her heart slowed from its panicked, rushing beat and her eyelids drooped in exhaustion.
Suddenly, she became aware of something moving nearby. There was a gentle, timid tap on her shoulder and soft hands slid something into her own. She felt it: it was a large piece of the wood she had sought. It felt wet, and she hoped it was just from the damp of Jahuar.
"Who is it?" she asked, but got no response other than a gentle tug at her elbows. She was being pulled up... someone was pulling her up. Someone small. "Yitzah?" she asked as small hands guided her forward, "Yitzah, is that you?" She got no answer, only a gentle pressure to Move. She was joined by a series of quiet chimes. "Peyla?" this time there was a response, a soft chime. The pull of small hands became urgent, and she followed. There was nothing else she could do.
~~~
Dyakida rested her aching feet on a piece of cloth wet with a tea blended from certain herbs - a remedy her mother had taught her when she used to hurt her feet playing on the rocks of Chibale. She was home, in her downstairs quarters: one of the advantages of the new tree was that she had her own space for sleeping and a separate, well-equipped space for crafting. She and Yitzah and Peyla had made it home, though the sprite had been unusually quiet and the previously chatty child had said nothing at all. The tree was empty. The other sisters – the ones that had stayed behind - were likely out hunting. They would return. She hoped the ones that had been with her would as well.
It was so lonely in the empty tree, and the delicate pattering of the child's feet in the nearby kitchen somehow made it far more desolate.
"Dyakida?" called a voice, and Dyakida perked up, moving to the entrance. "Dyakida? Are you there?"
It was Markai's voice, unmistakably so. Dyakida broke into a relieved smile, touching the doorframe briefly to orient herself before she approached.
"I'm here!" she said, holding a hand for Markai to take. She felt the warrior's rough, calloused fingers brush her palm.
"Thank Aisha." the warrior whispered, squeezing her hand. She sounded relieved and very tired. "Summai and Jiina are a ways behind. Let’s go inside and eat something." She guided Dyakida back to the tree. Dyakida was not hungry, but she let herself be directed, relieved for the break in the silence.
The two blades came shortly after. Dyakida waited, giving them water, which they drank gratefully. After a long, patiently awkward silence, she was forced to come to a disturbing conclusion:
The twins were not here.
"What happened?" she asked, steepling her hands to hide her unease.
Silence at first, then movement, the shifting of hands on the hard wood of the table.
"They were mages of some sort." said Summai, her voice grim, "They blasted us with fire and lightning and earth and water and wind, that was for sure."
"Earthlings?" Dyakida asked, surprised. That far to the North? The Shifters lived to the South, and the Leaf tribe rarely ventured far into Jahuar. Obans? she wondered briefly. But no, they were to the south, too, and were not likely to be equipped for the terrible depths of the jungle.
"No... None that I've ever seen." said Markai. She had been with the expedition to Sauti and Zena, along with Maya. She had seen a lot of earthlings, more than most other sisters, and certainly more than Dyakida had. "They looked like..." she hesitated. Dyakida felt the fruit bowl on the table shift as her sister took something out, "Bugs. They looked like bugs. Clicked like them, too."
"And...?" Dyakida asked, holding her breath.
"They attacked fast and hard. After you ran away..." there was no implied shame in those words, though Dyakida felt it. But what could she have done? "We were able to fight them off." of course. They could focus on fighting, not on protecting their weaker members. "There were too many - we had to retreat." Dyakida could almost hear Markai bite her lip.
"Yeah. But I got a few trophies out of it first." laughed Jiina, though her laughter trailed off into an awkward and ashamed murmur. This was not the time for trophies or bragging.
There was a silence, an awkward one. A sister coughed. "The twins... didn't make it out, Dyakida." said Markai, finally, "They were covering with their bows and they got hit with a fireball... Several, I think." she said. "They're gone."
Dyakida was quiet. She turned to the pitterpatter of little feet in the room nearby. "Yitzah's here." she said.
"Yeah. I saw her as I came in." said Markai, "Is she... okay, do you think?"
"She..." Dyakida lowered her voice. The grim reality was still filtering through her mind and into her soul. "She hasn't spoken. Not this whole time."
"Mmm..." Markai sighed. Dyakida heard her stand up, the fabric of her clothing brushing against itself with a soft hiss. "Well, you'd best get on that commission, then." she said seriously, giving Dyakida a little shove. Dyakida was all too happy to leave that pained silence.
~~~
The Nyeugadi wood was a challenge to craft, as promised. It resisted the blade and her will. But once she got past these barriers, it carved cleanly, taking on the forms she could 'see' in her head. She was surprised at how readily the ability to craft this wood came to her and how easily she understood how to make it's shape reflect its value, rarity, and also honor the sacrifices that had gone into its creation.
Her customer came, and it was with some bitterness that she handed over the item and accepted the remainder of the payment. She hoped the sister who had ordered the weapon would use it well. Blood had been spilled to acquire it, and the twins were owed no less.
Afterward, she was emotionally exhausted. She retreated to her internal, private room and lay on her sleeping blanket, stretching out to embrace the air of her room. She wondered what the twins would have accomplished had they not come with her. She wondered what sort of women they would have grown up to be had they not died.
A soft, small presence cuddled up against her, and she hugged it. "I'm sorry." she said, unsure what else to say.
Yitzah pressed closer, silent still.
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Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:44 pm
Class Quest Result
B-
Dyakida has passed and received a rank of Artisan!
Congratulations Dyakida!
Due to the finesse shown in the quest, Dyakida will be able to choose one non-battle item from the shop to put into her inventory.
(Does not include fairground or rare items, quote Suhuba here when chosen)
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Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 2:17 pm
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