((This takes place in the same time frame as this rp))
Given what he had planned for the weekend, Arian hadn't bothered to go home after classes - after all he'd already told Orah, Liryn and Liam that he was going to be away on a visit to his asteroid until Sunday.
Well okay he'd let Liryn and Liam know - he hadn't actually had the chance to catch up with Orah - however he had slipped a note with the information under her door and left another note for her, Liryn and Liam three.
It had made sense for him to meet with Thraen relatively close to DCU given they seemed to have the place in common and their joint plans for the weekend, a part of him a little nervous as he wondered whether he'd be able to take himself and Thraen and the stuff that they'd bought the previous week because although he was pretty sure he could take Thraen given that he'd been able to take Polaris, he wasn't so sure about the rucksack given that the heaviest thing he had carried prior to this evening was a satchel.
Still there was no way of knowing without trying and even with them both taking only what seemed reasonably needed there was still more than could fit in a satchel.
Well okay technically the cookies that he'd slipped into the rucksack last minute probably didn't count as reasonably needed but they were only six and even if Thraen didn't want any Athene reckoned that they would still get polished off same evening.
He settled in for a wait, whilst figuring at the same time figuring it wouldn't take long before the other eternal met up with him - because they'd had to match schedules when trying to work out timings.
Ivynian
very belated start finally up, sorry it's taken so long and let me know if I need to tweak anything
Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2015 8:00 pm
Quenton left a message for Faust, only it involved more pictogram than anything else. Sighting the giant fluffbucket wasn't apparently on the schedule for the day. The Mauvian had never shown any of the other Mauvian skills like reading, interest in technology, interest in anything other than a**-kicking. It worked out, but it made anything except verbal communication hard. And the cat was often out about his own business as any regular human roommate would be. At least coming from the street, he didn't seem nearly as unsuited to their vagrant life as Quenton was.
Packing in the safehouse was chilly and dim, and and something of an exercise in survival anyway with some of Ash's left over bits and bobs about. Everything was roll-stowed and small folded to be as compact and travel-able as possible. A glance at watch showed he was going to be a couple minutes late, but Athene would feel him if he was already waiting. Quenton scooped the strap to crawl out the window and away from the place to the nearest close, henshined up- Athene was already plain in auric feel. There was one other eternal on campus and in direction of their meeting place. Thraen jogged.
It didn't take long to see the other's distinctive white and green. He lifted a hand, then the gear satchel he'd been charged with preparing. "I tried to leave Faust a note, but he doesn't read so it was a little more time intensive to try to Pictionary it. Hopefully he'll get the gist. Rested up and ready?"
He'd turned out to be right, picking up the flare of another eternal's aura about 5 or so minutes into his wait. It could have been another eternal, but given the timing and proximity Athene thought it unlikely, something borne out when Thraen came into sight view.
At the taller eternal's question he nodded "I am, thank you" taking up the rucksack as he spoke and settling it on his back. "I already let my house mates know that I was going away this weekend and where, but I left them a reminder too."
It was easy enough to summon his senshi phone to hand, his right, whilst holding out his free hand to Thraen.
Time to see if this would work.
Ivynian
Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2015 5:29 pm
All in readiness then, Thraen gave a nod and took the other eternal's hand as he moved near. The ferries had offered a good deal of practice, at least.
I've never been to another senshi's world, I don't think? No. Not that I recall. I brought Medea once to mine, but she is long since vanished. As with so many. And leaving so few. It was all the more reason to work with those who were available, past differences and into something. Athene, of all senshi save Ida, was probably the picture perfect start of getting over differences.
The archeology is the important part. The research. We can do this.
Athene had made the trip to his asteroid enough times for the process to have become familiar, holding Thraen's hand with one hand and his senshi phone in the other, his face scrunched slightly in concentration as he focused on trying to catch the wisp of melody that he had come to associate with the travelling - a sound out of place from the other night time sounds.
He wasn't sure if it was just him or he was just getting better at focusing on the strand of melody, but it didn't feel like too much time had passed before the melancholy snippet of song wound its way through his mind, soft and sad - a sadness he'd never understood.
He used the hand holding his phone to select the star app and the surroundings shifted, the night time sounds of the city fading away to be abruptly replaced by quiet.
The muted yellowish light that seemed to pass for day was starting to fade - but it was still bright enough to see by - bright enough to show the dusty ground beneath feet and the odd shrub-like plant here and there.
There were a few trees too - rarer than the shrubby plants - leafless but with what looked to be large bud-like things along otherwise bare branches.
They'd made it. Bags and all they'd made it.
Athene let go of Thraen's hand with a slight smile. He hadn't been entirely certain that it would work - not until the last when their surroundings had shifted.
He felt more tired than he did on the occasions when he'd come with Liryn and his satchel.
He set the rucksack down and swivelled slightly, hand pointing upwards towards what looked to be some sort of circular structure "The city lies in that direction" he said quietly, adding "There's a path leading to what looks to be some sort of building along the way, but I haven't explored that way."
The building in question was in the relative near distance, the ground forming a path that appeared to wind in that direction.
Ivynian
[ this pic gave me some of the inspiration for the general feel of Athene and in particular where they currently are, but with less vegetation :3 ]
Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2015 5:35 pm
Thraen took in the surroundings for a moment, trying unsuccessfully to gauge if there would or should be adverse expectations for the 'night' to come swiftly with the dying light. The gear was bought with extremes of cold, heat, wind and water in mind, but the extremes of Earth weren't the same promised by worlds light years away. "I'd suggest we set up basecamp first while we're the freshest. Someplace you're familiar with and could navigate to again in an emergency. You'd mentioned you'd not overnighted...did you have any feel or prediction at all on the day night cycle? Since it looks like were at cusp hours, it might be helpful to try to time it. "
The eternal of garden's fished out a small journal with multifunction digital device for timing, temperatures and such. He started one timer even as he mentioned it, and then jotted the 24h time and temperature read out. Baselines were how they were going to gauge expectations and readiness. After that, he stuffed the thing into the top of his cincher and shouldered half of the gear he had. "It might take an hour all told to get the tent set up, perimeter safety lights and barrier line. But that won't be too bad? Will it get darker than this, or is this about what night will be like?"
While Athene may not have overnighted, that didn't preclude having arrived inadvertently during a night cycle during one of his visits about the place.
Athene nodded in agreement to Thraen's suggestion to first set up the base camp. "That makes sense" he said quietly "That structure up in the distance is actually a set of arches. They're up past the path that leads towards the building thing over there" as he spoke he pointed to first one and then the other. "But not too much further up and the city lies below them." As he spoke he moved to pick up the rucksack again as he continued "It's wide enough that we can set things up there" adding "Actually it doesn't really take long for the path to widen so we don't have to go far to find a space wide enough to set up."
Settling the rucksack on his back he admitted "You know how the primer mentions that sometimes we see visions when we're on our home worlds? Well I've only ever seen the one - but it was about this place - this path" he thought about it "Well I guess maybe I should call it more road than path since there were wagons travelling along it and lots of them."
At mention about day night cycle Athene frowned slightly "To be honest this is actually the latest I've been here - with the light starting to fade like this - I've not actually been here when it's been night so I don't know how dark it ultimately gets or what nights here are like."
It was perhaps not that surprising given that Athene could count the amount of times that he'd visited his asteroid on one hand - this trip was his fifth.
Ivynian
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 1:32 pm
Space both was and wasn't an element to the camp. The tent that had seemed the best fit to their needs- length for his own height, space for two people, high weather, wind and temperature resistances even to arctic levels, as well as quick and easy to set up had been the lightwave t25 arctic. The sales associate at the hunt/camp store had assured it was completely multi-pitch- able to be erected fly-first, inner-tent first, or integrally. Integrally, supposedly, Athene or he should be able to pitch and trim the thing in less than five minutes. Thraen expected for either of them it was going to be more like a 30 minute ordeal. He'd already played with the thing himself on one of the campus ovals, pitching and unpitching it so that he wouldn't get hung up on reading origami-folded directions. Practice, in this case, had not been enough to make him perfect. There were also the perimeter strips, that increased the 'camp size' a few feet with reflectors and twine around the tent itself. It would account for space to set up proper eliminations, safe fire making if there came a need, and a general buffer in case the homeworld still had some sort of boggarts or snarks that might trip such wires to alert them a second or two earlier than as it was tearing into the tent.
"Best to make notes of things as we go then. You'll know better than I what you have and haven't already seen. Basically anything that would go into a theoretical wikipedia entry if this were a ruin or vacation spot on earth- climates, time tables, I don't wonder if it might help to make such a thing alongside the primer. Photos could be provided via our senshi phones directly into the system. I wonder if I could convince ash for an app that takes video as well. "
Walking was no hard feat, since it was his daily, primary mode of transportation. Once they got to the proper spot, he posed the division of camp labour, "I've practiced with the tent- do you want me to work on setting that up and you can mark out the perimeter strips and external camp necessities? We might finish about the same time and can stow the main packs in the vestibule while taking the rope, first aid, lamps and other travel goods to get on our way?"
The light had continued to fade as the two of them made their way towards the arches that he'd pointed out and whilst it was still enough to see by, the yellowish light in the sky had been joined by pinks and purples.
The temperature had stayed relatively warm - a little cooler - but not sufficiently so for Athene to feel like he needed to stop and dig out the fleece packed in his rucksack.
They hadn't quite gone all the way up to the arches by the time that they'd stopped, but they were close enough that they could be seen up ahead, the normally yellowish stone appearing dark in the fading light.
He nodded at Thraen's suggestion of dividing up the camp set up, "That works for me" particularly as it meant avoiding being in charge of trying to struggle with the tent - especially since he really didn't think his abilities at tent set up had improved in the five years that had passed since he'd done his D of E.
"And if we don't finish at the same time then we can pitch with the other tasks. I brought a couple of notepads with me so once we're done I can draw a quick map of where Liryn and I have explored in the city down below." It wouldn't be anything fancy - most likely nothing more than a crude sketch with boxes indicating the few landmarks he and Liryn had come across before they had stopped for the day - but hopefully it would be better than nothing.
Ivynian
apologies for taking so long Ivy
Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 4:57 pm
The eternal senshi of gardens accented with a nod, not actually worried about the quality of sketching when it came to maps. As long as the information was conveyed, squiggles with some names was enough. Predictably, Athene was finished first, but the tent wasn't far behind. It should turn out fairly cozy, with two people.
Tasks done, Thraen crossed to Athene's side to look at what sketches he'd managed, "So what are these landmarks? And is there anything specific that we're looking out for or trying to find? That you've seen in visions at all?"
Athene had gotten done with his set of tasks, but Thraen had looked like he was mostly done with the tent and so instead of pitching in he had instead dug the notepads out of his rucksack and worked on sketching the promised map.
Actually he had ended up drawing two. The first had shown their currently location and the path down to the city with the camp site marked with a blob and cross, followed by the arches and eventually a line down to a rectangle which he marked as gate.
It was the second that showed where he and Liryn had managed to explore, although he had had to stop early on and get the flash light so that he could continue working, the light from earlier having faded into the purple of what Athene had decided to assume was what passed for evening here.
He was finishing up the second sketch, when Thraen came over, the second sketch as rough as the first one and he added on the final label before tilting the notepad up to allow the taller senshi to see.
"The first sketch is a kind of where we are currently" he said as he pointed out the 'camp site' blob and the rough semi-circles labelled arches. His finger moved to the line "It's pretty much a straight path down from here to the city walls - well what there is of them because there's a fair few parts that have crumbled..." a pause "The path down leads to an arch of sorts, but it was once a a gate" he'd seen it in the vision.
He moved onto the second sketch "There are buildings here, in varying condition - some better than others but..." his finger moved to where he had put an 'x' in a box "I remember one them looking like it was in really, really bad state."
Finally he moved to where he had drawn a strip "Liryn and I got as far as here - it's" he thought on the best way to describe it. "There's nothing there - a big area of there being nothing there but the odd bits of rubble and it goes on for quite a way" certainly he and Liryn hadn't managed to get to the end of it on their last trip here together.
He thought about it and then added "About the only thing else I can mention is that everything seems to be built of the same yellowish stone that the arches up there are made off" he pointed to the arches, dark against the evening sky "And there's a fair bit of carved patterns in it - in better condition in some places than in others."
Finally Athene thought on Thraen's final question for a few moments "Maybe see if we can find out something about the senshi - the former Athene" he said as clarification. "All I know is that his name was mentioned" he thought about it and then corrected it to. "Well the name Athene was mentioned in my vision - but it sounded more like a title."
Ivynian
Posted: Sat May 02, 2015 8:10 pm
Thraen nodded, following the indications on the map while intermittently looking up to overlay the positioning to the landscape around them. "Do you think we can get rubbings of the markings? Even if its just hoisting you standing up on my shoulders and you could use the paper and charcoal. Other than that, I'd suggest the best way to go about looking for information on the last Athene would be to follow the steps of the vision you had? "
"Look for the locations it happens in and retrace the steps of it to start. Then move out from there and check adjacent locations for anything significant. "
"We can bring in the rubbing equipment, our senshi phones if we want photos of anything, water, climbing gear...sound like a plan? Do you have the vision clear in your mind, or should you meditate? " He'd not much been to his own asteroid, had never encountered visions of his own that the primer spoke of. Curiosity piqued at the edges of his mind what could wait there, among dead gardens for himself, and here in the strange stones for Athene. Would other visions come during their stay and dilute the previous? Or enhance it? When did vision of other life come? Would meditation help it to?
Athene nodded at Thraen's question "I don't see why not" he said quietly, admitting "I'd actually wanted to try taking some last time round but I didn't have anything to use - Liryn's the one that suggested using the senshi phone camera - so that at least there'd be photos."
He flipped the cover back on the notepad "We're much better organised this time round."
He nodded again at Thraen's suggestion that they try to follow the steps of the vision "We can do that" admitting simply "Yes I remember, although..." he hesitated before continuing "I'm not sure how relevant it was."
He pointed towards the arches "The first time Liryn and I came here we only got as far as up to there - we didn't make it down to the city." He let his arm drop, remembering the notepad and tucking it under his arm as he continued "I was touching part of one of the arches up there when I saw the vision. There were wagons" he thought it over "A fair few of them, being pulled by what looked sort of like" he hesitated as he tried to think on the best word before finally settling on the word goat. "Like goats I guess - although they were closer in size to a pony and had much longer necks. There was a man and a boy both with beads braided into their hair and wearing sashes round their waists."
He frowned thoughtfully "I remember the sashes - the boy's one was white and unadorned whilst the man's one was red and patterned and I remember being able to see the gates of the city too - remembered them being large enough to be visible from the arches." He paused for a moment, then another before admitting "But I don't know how significant any of that is or what caused the vision," a pause and then he added "And I haven't had another one since that one time but by going to the city we're kind of following what I saw in the vision because that's where the wagons seemed to be headed."
He looked back towards the arches for a moment before continuing "And I could try touching the arches again - see if something happens this time round." It hadn't the last time he'd tried but that was last time - mayhaps this time would be different.
Ivynian
Posted: Mon May 04, 2015 9:17 pm
"We can definitely make it to the city and around a bit. We have time. Hours and enough supplies for a full camping trip. " It didn't take much to grab together a travel pack with what was needed for occasion of samples, record, emergency and mobility. "Do you have any theories of the significance of the sashes? That's strange, specific feature of dress to be in focus of a vision of the past. Old cultures, well, even modern ones, base power, wealth and other caste-type divisions into some form of worn hierarchy. Amount of jewelry, the colors worn, length of fabric worn. Maybe the sashes indicated standing of some sort?"
Thraen fell in beside the other eternal, sidestepping in hope to instigate the Senshi of Beads to start walking, start leading the way along in accordance with the vision.
"To be honest I haven't thought of any" Athene admitted as he followed Thraen's lead in putting together some stuff for the trip down into the city. "I guess they stuck in my mind because of the contrast between them," a wry note slipped into his quiet voice "And because..." for a moment he hesitated before admitting "I thought the red sash was pretty." It was a silly reason he knew - but the patterned red sash had been pretty - at least he'd thought it so. "One vision isn't really much for a comparison though."
He'd found himself thinking on the lone vision as he and Thraen made the walk up to where the stone arches stood above them, the walk a short one given the relatively close proximity to where they'd set up the camp.
And he'd still been thinking on the vision as he'd tried touching the part of the yellowish stone on each arch first with his left hand and then with his right as he waited for a few moments before moving on to the next.
Nothing had happened. Not at the first arch or the second arch or the last and after the third time of having nothing happen Athene had taken it as a sign that he was not going to get any visions and suggested pushing on to the city.
Nothing had happened on the walk down either, although Athene had been glad that he'd thought to grab the fleece when they had put things together for the walk down as it was quite a bit cooler than it had been when they had first arrived, even if the overall effect of stuffing the long detached outer sleeves that made up his senshi outfit into the fleece sleeves did look kind of silly as it gave the fleece sleeves a bunched up look.
And then they were at the archway leading into the city and Athene found himself struck once again by just how big the walls were, at how they loomed high above them, torch light revealing the same yellowish stone as the arches that were now up and behind them, large blocks of stone curving away to the left and right.
He looked at Thraen "Do you have a preference for direction? Liryn and I went left last time - the stretch of nothing that I mentioned lies that way."
What lay right was unknown to him - Liryn and him hadn't managed to go that way on their trip and the one and only vision that he'd had to date had shown the wagons heading towards the city - not what came after.
