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 Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2015 5:02 pm
The loft condominium looked uninviting in the dark, as it always did. A flip of the light switch on entry left the dim canister lights coming to life, and they sprayed luminance down on the hardwood floor in shiny jets. Isaiah tossed his keys at a metal display bookshelf that displayed a distressed finish and housed a few knickknacks - books, their related collegiate diplomas, some photos of Isaiah with various individuals, a couple face-down picture frames, and expensive-looking pen sets - before he sauntered toward the kitchen. The only dividers set up in the large space were a pair of glass-face bookshelves and a privacy screen, with the other modes of the room remaining as mere suggestions.
But Isaiah was interested in the small alcove space that housed his appliances, and the rolling cart with fashioned cutting board surface on which he often mixed drinks. The cupboards themselves had metal surfaces with a mesh grating as a center panel, through which a few bottles were barely visible. Pulling one open by the knob, he seized a bottle of Three Ships single malt whiskey and then rifled the fridge for a half-empty container of what looked like homemade lemonade. Both bottles retired to the rolling counter while he pilfered another cupboard for a completely straight, cylindrical cooler glass with a band of frosted finish near the base. He paused, then looked to his accompaniment for the night.
She looked young, foremost. Young enough that he didn’t outright ask for her to come in, but offered that she could if she wanted to. Young enough that if he questioned a potential prison sentence in inviting her in, then asking her if she wanted anything alcoholic proved a far worse choice. But he had other nonalcoholic beverages, right?
Hazel eyes narrowed thoughtfully while he recounted. The lemonade, obviously. And a few cans of coke that he only ever used with blended whiskey. And milk that he usually just used for white russians. And…
Water. Yeah.
“Did you want something before we go on that trip to Candyland?” He asked with the glass still in hand, tipped horizontally. His remaining hand rested on the bottom shelf of the cupboard near the next glass. He looked tired under the can lighting, he knew. Long years of remaining underweight offered no favors with overhead lighting. But she didn’t look all that bad by comparison. Tired, perhaps, but nothing more. The lights didn’t accentuate every bone in her body and have her looking like a skeleton.
Well, he thought bitterly, that makes one of us.
Orah would have remained outside if he hadn't offered her the option of coming inside. Someone's house felt like a private thing, she would have been loathe to intrude when he was already obviously... Not upset, but close to, maybe. She didn't want to push his limits when the facts of their powered life were so hard for him to stomach.
She wasn't used to people disbelieving her. Usually, the fact they magically powered up was enough to open that door. He was proving stubborn. Hopefully, a trip to her planet would help. It was hard to argue with teleporting to another planet... Even if Ida wasn't as different from Earth as one would imagine of another world. The trees the size of skyscrapers should help that.
Inside, his apartment had modern lines and an abundance of metal. It's wasn't really to her taste, though it fit his industrial image. She preferred wood and natural tones, things with curves and rounded edges. She was still looking around without appearing to stare when he started rattling around in the kitchen, pulling out what appeared to be... Whiskey? That drew her attention.
had he come here... To get a drink? Confusion faded to exasperation that she carefully kept off her face. It wasn't -that- bad, was it? Or was he an alcoholic and needed his fix before he spent a few hours out of access to booze?
"No, but thank you for the offer." She lifted a hand between them to wave him off. Hopefully this wouldn't take long... It felt awkward standing in his kitchen. "What sort of business was that you owned? Has it been doing well since you opened?"
The needs and functions of a small business was familiar territory. Something she could talk comfortably about.
He pressed the rim of the glass to the ice dispenser in the fridge and shot her a sideways glance. Was she really intending to talk business with him? Immediate reaction urged him that she was digging for some angle here, but he doubted she really knew anything of finances and small business ownership. He himself was only training for managerial duties at her estimated age; the actual business never fell into his hands until he hit 23 and even at that he felt unprepared. She couldn’t possible have owned her own business at that age unless she was extremely lucrative or abandoned all interest in college.
With a few cubes in the glass, Isaiah set it on the counter and added two fingers of whiskey and a fair splash of lemonade over the top of it. A few swirls helped integrate the mixture and the remaining beverages were returned to their respective places. He felt like an amateur by preparing a mixed drink from a cooler glass, but with all his rocks glasses still sat in the dishwasher. “It’s a pawn shop,” he added after a delay. Her second question was left unanswered.
“So show me the way to this planet. Should be fun to see. Couldn’t possibly convince me that I completely lost my s**t.” Was there some kind of launch pad she needed to get to? He couldn’t even begin to figure it; with the way they both suddenly became completely different people with magical superpowers, he expected that the method of transportation was anyone’s guess. Not like I slept with a demoness or anything. Could be worse.
“Oh, and I can take this with me, right? Or do you have a no-open-beverages rule?” He asked while he shook the glass gently by the rim. Downing it all in one go often sucked; he mixed it to sip it, and he wasn’t keen on taking shots.
Pawn shop? That was moderately interesting. It no doubt offered some of the same challenges as a florist and a whole mess of new ones. Buying things seemed more challenge than she'd care to take on. The sob stories would get her, she was sure.
It had been small talk, so there was no regret from moving on from it. She eyed his glass askance, but shrugged.
"You can take it if you want, I don't mind. You can't hurt anything there." Her hands were busy digging her pen out of her bag and while he waited, she lifted it to her chest.
"Ida Eternal, make-up!" She commanded it, the phrase committed to deep memory. Her clothing dissolved into light and a swirl of petals swept up to surround her. They coalesced into folds of fabric and when the light faded, she was Ida again.
"Alright... I need contact to take you with me." Her hand was already reaching to rest lightly on his arm as she reached out with the other and a phone appeared in it. Her thumb swept across the surface to call up the home screen and from there sought out the app marked with a star. Thoughts about him, about the war and everything else faded for a moment under the anticipation of home and Ida hit the button eagerly, reaching out with her soul for the place that completed her.
The condo blurred and changed, going from fluorescent artificial light to the bright, cheery sunlight of day. Overhead, the sky arched in endless, aching blue, the sun a smaller than normal beacon over the tops of trees. The grass they stood in was knee high and as Ida dropped her hand from his arm, she glanced around them in surprise.
"I've never been to this part before..." She murmured as she stepped away from him, heading through the grass to the stately trees they'd landed facing. They were smaller than the ones around her Tower, but they still outclassed the redwoods of Earth. The smallest could have functioned as a lighthouse on the coast, easily. Closer inspection revealed arching doorways cut, or grown, into the wood and sweeping staircases that curled around their sides. Everywhere, vining flowers curled around pillars and Ida knew at night they would glow bright enough to provide light for the people who once lived here.
It took a moment for her to think past the warm flush of energy that came with arrival here and her fascination with the new place. When she finally did, the senshi stopped and turned, looking back for her guest.
"Welcome to Ida." She said, belatedly, and spread her arms.
Isaiah had no expectations per the method for reaching this so-called planet - he expected that Orah would need to become Ida, yes, but he also expected that mechanic to differ little from his own. Instead, what he found consisted of an incredibly girly, borderline pornographic lightshow of twirls and petals and other euphemistic joys. Unable to contain himself in watching the spectacle, Isaiah started to laugh while he took a sip of his drink, and in moments his glass was hastily set onto the counter while he pinched his nose with his free hand. Isaiah doubled over, nose still pressed shut, while he groaned painfully. A few stray drops of whiskey and coke ran down that hand while he tried to recover from the immense, pervasive burn that now cursed his nose.
And he hadn’t quite recovered from it when Ida then transported the pair to a completely alternate scenery. He wasn’t certain if she noticed or if she simply didn’t care, but that soon grew far from his mind in light of witnessing impossibilities on earth.
Apparently those impossibilities became actualities on other planets.
Isaiah still gingerly treated his nose with the back of his sleeve when they arrived, and temporarily his attention drew from the pain to the surrounding area. Firstly he noted that he couldn’t see the ground, or anything past his thighs really. Someone obviously hadn’t mowed in quite some time, and this grass probably wasn’t terminal. Secondly the trees grew unconscionably tall and looked quite healthy for their composition. They also sported some kind of doorway, wooden stairs, and other unusual characteristics that rendered the place as a hippy’s dream. And lastly, perhaps most impactfully, the sun looked significantly smaller than the usual searing globe he witnessed on earth. If nothing else, if the teleportation could only be guessed as to a different area of the earth, the sun proved otherwise.
As another interesting note, he didn’t suffer the lurching nausea and disorientation when they arrived here, unlike what he endured with Cinnabar’s treatment. Apparently teleportation was another skill owned by powered life.
Isaiah took to fanning himself furiously with his free hand to prevent mascara runs from the pain in his nose. As he spoke, his voice sounded markedly different from the nasal inflammation. “This is quite a trick,” he asserted, and promptly took a swig of his drink. Idly he considered that he should’ve mixed two - Ida’s planet was definitely worth two drinks of disbelief suspension, if not three. Probably three. On second thought, he should’ve just brought the bottle with him.
Yes, that sounded right.
“Yes, well, if this is actually a planet then I expect it will take a count of years to explore it all. Decade or so at least. I don’t suppose you’ve been at this for that long?” He looked to her, furiously trying to ignore the sudden, impromptu fear that cropped up at the prospect of being on another planet entirely.
He should’ve brought two bottles.
Apparently she had missed something in her anticipation of being here. Isaiah was flapping his hands around as though trying not to cry… which confused Ida greatly. The sight of another planet shouldn’t…. reduce someone to tears.
“A-are you okay?” She said as she dropped her spread arms, her brow creased in concern. Dang it… she didn’t have anything to offer him, so there was little she could do, but stand and watch, waiting for him to recover. Her fingers curled around the smooth shape of her compact as she stood awkwardly, opting to answer him while she waited. “Ida is a small asteroid between Mars and Jupiter, in the Asteroid belt. Its one of a family of asteroids and has its own even tinier moon. I looked up what scientists on Earth knew about it, and they claim it has a surface area of 3,100 kilometers, squared. I haven’t seen all of it, but there shouldn’t be that much to see either.”
The senshi shrugged lightly. “I’ve been at this for two and a half years, or so. I’ve been coming here regularly for the last year. Its comfortable here… it feels good and relaxes me. I’m the only one with the power to come here, with whomever I choose to bring. Your Wonder is the same, though since you’re a knight, your Wonder would be on Saturn. Have you been there yet?”
Well… probably not. He was so new he didn’t believe most of the things he could see with his own eyes, it was unlikely he’d used his oath to travel to his Wonder. It was something she should probably push him towards doing though… the knight ring there was a very useful artifact, from what she had seen. It would be a good step towards getting him prepared for his powered life.
The breeze that swept by them was warm, but there was the faintest hint of… ashes in it. Ida frowned at the smell, half her attention diverted. The only fires she had ever seen on Ida were the ones she had made herself of the camp variety, contained and controlled in the stone circle she had made for it. There was never any weather, that she had seen, so no storms that might have produced lighting with which to start a natural fire. Did plant life spontaneously combust? Or was this something else?
It nagged at her a little, but she pushed it aside. Maybe they could investigate it later.
”I wasn’t expecting some fabulous, floral transformation sequence when you became a senshi.” Isaiah continued to fan at his eyes furiously, which narrowly prevented a mascara run. “Whiskey and coke don’t belong up your nose, either.”
Once his face slowly started to recover from the intolerable burning, Isaiah took a drink and started through the impossibly tall grass. Most of his instincts warned against stepping more than lightly - he could find potholes, snakes, or other disasters - but he also wasn’t terribly interested in hanging back and playing passive to what was supposed to be an entirely different world. Sights and sounds awaited him, and beyond the curious look of the civilization in the trees, he expected there were trinkets that might be worth a pretty penny to the right collector here. And the idea occurred to him that he might use powered life to expand his business - to make trades of trinkets or secrets to the highest bidder and supplement his prosperity.
3100 kilometers still left quite a lot to see, and unless Ida came daily to scout this place for hours on end, he doubted she would have discovered all its secrets by now. Still, he wondered at the similar assignment of name to person and planet. Ida the senshi, Ida the planet - which came first? Did she conquer this place and name it after herself, or was ida a title, much like knights of old? Isaiah imagined that if she ‘awakened’ at all similarly to him, then inheriting the name seemed more likely.
“Two and a half years is enough time to discover some things. Anything of note? And can you see earth from here? There’s so many trees in the way that the skyline is crowded.” He frowned while he looked toward the sky, then very nearly tripped on a tree root.
He recovered without spilling his drink, thankfully. “And no, I’ve never been to any Wonders. Is that supposed to reference the seven wonders of the world? I wouldn’t know how to get there, anyway. I don’t have a fancy cell phone to teleport my besties and I to some offworld clubhouse. I’m not certain why I’d go, either - I can’t imagine that camping out here is of any use when the ‘battlefield’ to this ‘war’ is in Destiny City. Which is very, very much not here.” He paused to drain his drink to half before he started again in the trek through encroaching grasses.
“Also, did someone start a brushfire out here? Smells like it. There aren’t other people living here, are there?”
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2015 8:01 pm
"Ah, well... all senshi transformations are like that. I don't know why, really, but each one was the glow and sparkle somehow related to their sphere." Ida said as she reached to push her bangs back. She watched him start to take in their surroundings and she found herself wondering what he thought of it. There was very little reverence to it... not like some of the others she had brought here.
But they had understood that this was a whole other planet they were visiting. He still seemed like he needed convincing. It was, really, a little bit frustrating... Did he need to be smacked in the face with something before he'd believe it was real? This was about as close as she could get to it... he was literally standing in the soil of another world, that hadn't seen living creatures in hundreds of years. As he walked, she trailed along behind him, her attention split between him and the new, smaller 'town' they had arrived at.
"I've found a lot of interesting things here. The people who lived here a thousand years ago left a lot of items, artifacts and technology, and the more time I spend here, I accumulate memories of my past life. I remember playing in a garden as a child, and the ceremony I performed the day I became Sailor Ida. There are other things... like how the technology here was powered by radiation that the planet gives off, and based on plants." She said as she stepped over a root, tilting her head to glance through a doorway that hung open, knocked off its tracks. There were some things scattered about inside, but it was hard to see what they were without going closer. "Its a very complex and strange place, but I find it very beautiful. I'll probably spend my whole life learning about it, and I don't think I mind."
The angle of the doorway cut off view inside and Ida turned back to her guest, picking around a patch of cobblestones that had been forced up and apart by a questing root. "I don't know if the Seven Wonders have anything to do with Knight Wonders, but your Wonder is the place you were named for and its where you get your power. Just like I'm named for this place and its where I get me power. We're the guardians of these places. I think Knights use their weapons to teleport to their wonders and it involves... some sort of Oath you say. I went with two other knights to their Wonders and if I remember correctly, both said similar phrases to activate the magic. As for why you'd go... I don't know why you wouldn't."
The pair circled around a large tree home that stood in their way and Ida had a sense they were moving towards the center of this town. If was like the one where her tower stood, there should be a Wishing Tree there, and she wondered if it would look the same. Would it have any long lost items hanging from its curling branches?
"Its a world that belongs entirely to you. Its safe and inaccessible to anyone else. You are literally named for it and it gives you power. Why wouldn't you want to explore it? Besides, I think the Wonders are where Knights get their signet rings, and at the very least, you'll want that. They're useful bits of magic." Ida passed Scholomance as he paused to drink, coming out into the clearing to stop and stare across the 'courtyard'. His question answered itself, at that point... because a hundred yards from where they stood, the land looked as though someone had laid a shroud over it, it's dividing line cutting straight through the heart of the town.
One one side, lush green spread back beneath their feet, all the way to the tower Ida knew of as hers. On the other... the earth was blackened, the trees charcoal pillars with skeletal limbs. Grass bled over the line, but thinned and died out quickly in the waste. Ida's shock was complete, enough to render her speechless.
What is this? Is this new? Why didn't I see it sooner? What happened here? She had thought the magic of her transcendence had woken up the whole of the planet, but it looked like it hadn't even touched this place... ash lay heavy on the ground, no buds curled on branches. It felt... wrong. Oily and gross against her inner senses.
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Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2015 12:07 am
"That sounds really suspicious." He shot a pointed look over his shoulder. "The only time you ever find typical items from a civilization like this is when something terrible happened to it. Think of Pompeii, or Chernobyl, or the Minoans. I actually own some bones that were stolen out of Pompeii but that's a story for another time." He took another careful sip of whiskey and coke before starting again through the veritable forest of grass. "But even in situations where some kind of slow calamity occurred, like climate change was a common negative factor in defunct civilizations, they typically moved with some element of care dedicated to their items. So the fact that they left all these artifacts and items suggests a very, very quick departure.
"And I say departure because otherwise you would've mentioned bodies." Which called for another drink.
"... And the fact that you mention radiation makes me wonder if Chernobyl is a very real comparison and we should definitely be wearing lead-lined HAZMAT suits and breathe through respirators before our eyeballs explode with monstrous tumors. Are you even sure it's safe to be here? What if half your body has already become riddled with tumors? Maybe your kidneys are failing right now because all the nephrons in your body have erupted into malignant tissue but you just haven't shown symptoms yet. Seriously, radiation. Think Manhattan Project. Think lungs full of UF6 here. Think SCRAM. You know what that means, right? Safety Control Rod Axe Man? As in sabotage the s**t while everyone else gets the hell out? The whole reason that exists is because of the exciting and wonderful afflictions produced by this fabulous thing called radiation.
"As in don't stand in it, don't breathe it, don't even ******** fart in it." <******** radiation. She brings me to a goddamned irradiated planet like it's a trip to the park.
Oh right, sociopath. Almost thought she was a human being.
"Sure, it looks gorgeous here. But you know what? Bikini Atoll did too. Don't eat the ******** coconuts."
Suddenly discussion of knight wonders took on a far greater precedence to potentially avoid. He never previously considered that any given planet could be heavily irradiated, beyond the simple yet incredibly jamming realization that he could visit other planets. Mostly he only considered instant suffocation from lack of air or having his insides become outsides due to a vacuum that offered a literally mindblowing b*****b. But what if Saturn was heavily irradiated? And she never volunteered any particularly compelling reason to go, either. A 'signet ring' offered no implied worth via its name and she never explained what applications it served.
"So Ida," he pointed toward the charred trees and barren landscape, "was that your nuclear testing ground? Because that looks like a nuclear testing ground. And before you decide to saunter on into it, someone should tell you about half-lives and exponential properties of irradiated objects and I assume protective measures so your organs don't melt is probably another hot-button topic about now."
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Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2015 9:21 am
Ida didn't understand what she was seeing...
This wasteland was not what she had come to know as Ida, with its lush grass, tall trees and abundance of flowers. The senshi approached the dead area with a careful step, a shiver running down her spine as she stepped across the line. The grass here crunched and broke into powder when she stepped on it, smudging her white boots.
Isaiah was talking about something, but it was hard to attend to it. Something about radiation and Bikini Atoll. She shook her head as she pulled herself out of her horrified thoughts and cast a glance backwards, her brows drawn together in a frown.
"The radiation isn't harmful to plants or animals." She said. She might have been a little exasperated, if she had been able to pay his words the proper attention. "Its not the kind of radiation you're thinking of... The scientific explanation for what it is and what is does is kind of high level, more than I really understand. I used to know... I remember learning about it in a class setting, in my past life, but its all above my head now."
The senshi braced her hands on her hips, her eyes on the ground as she toed a plant and watched the stem snap and fall apart. Her frown remained, pulling a line between her brows.
"Its... just energy, that comes up from the planet. In some ways its like sunlight... the plants can absorb it and use it in their biological processes. It makes them grow really fast and extends their lives. Absorb enough of it and you can manipulate it like electricity. The only side effect it has on fauna is stimulation of melanin production... absorb enough and it brings out different colors and patterns from normal. Darker stripes on the skin, for example. It does that to plants too."
"Look..." She said as she straightened up. "I know I brought you here to show you around, but this is something I haven't seen before. I get the feeling you think I'm some kind of idiot with the assumption I have no clue how dangerous radiation is, and that's fine, but I need to look around, because this... whatever it is is bothering me, and I'm supposed to be the guardian of this planet. You can stay here and look around if you like, and I'll come back and get you when I'm done, or you can tag along, whichever you prefer."
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Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2015 10:17 am
Then it's not ******** radiation, you moronic child. Scholomance stared at her with blistering anger for her misleading label on this purported energy that emanated from the planet. Did she really know what she was talking about? Likely not, or she'd understand that radiation of any form is harmful by nature of the volatile elements involved. Isaiah could not restrain his seething dislike for the woman long enough to try to parse out what she actually meant from radiation - instead, he decided that most of what she said concerning scientific properties held no actual value and should be viewed as word salad.
Easy enough.
"How can you be expected to 'guard' an entire planet by yourself? ... Actually, nevermind that." Isaiah paused only long enough to sip through half his drink before he swallowed hard and tried to redirect himself. "From here, it looks like someone got really damn good at burning tracks of land. I'll look around and see if I can't at least... Decipher a point of origin for this. It's better to split up and cover more ground if the cause is obvious." Which assumed a lot, but simply splitting away from her to look meant that neither one would have to tolerate the other's presence while poking around. Besides, from the sound of the options provided, she had no intent to send him back home before embarking on this search.
Isaiah finished the remainder of his drink as quickly as he could, then focused thoughts on the smooth bone that shaped into an impeccably fitted ring. He remembered how the divots felt against the pad of his thumb, how the spiny protrusions dug deep but held no promise of breaking the skin. He recalled the peculiar weightlessness as it rested on his hand. And absent the pomp and circumstance surrounding senshi transformation, in Isaiah's place now stood Scholomance.
And for the first time, he found himself incredibly perplexed at the sudden disappearance of his glass. Only a few moments were spared in searching for its whereabouts, but the promise of leaving faster if he deduced the source of this scorching steered him back to the objective.
And, most important to the act of splitting up, his cell phone disappeared. Did that happen before?
"On second thought, I'll come with you." Scholomance started beyond the tall grasses, stepped on the ashen remains of what was once a plant, witnessed the crunch, and furrowed his brow. "I imagine, if this were a perfectly normal world, the ground here would've been scorched by superheating. Or a gamma ray burst, but I don't know much about those. This line seems too clean for a typical fire." The edge of his boot brushed against the grass line before he left it behind.
But, going forward, it looked as though anything they touched might dissolve into a pile of dust.
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Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2015 11:49 am
Well. As per usual, it seemed, her explanation met disfavor and anger with him. It was honestly perplexing, that she could offer up facts as she knew them and he'd react as though she had said something offensive. Maybe the only solution was just... not talking at all, since nothing she said made him happy.
Whatever. She had bigger things to worry about right now than a persnickety Page. Like half a dead planet. Was it spreading, or stationary? Recent, or did this happen sometime in the last thousand years? Ida couldn't remember anything like this, but then, she was still missing huge gaps of her past life. It hadn't seemed like a problem, until now.
Dark eyes watched the man power up and she drew a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Scholomance was a problem, but they were going to have to put up with each other for a while longer. If she took him home it would mean putting off the investigation for another three days and that didn't bear thinking about. What if this was a traveling infection or something? What if it reached the city before she could get back and figure out some way to stop it? The thought of the whole of her planet ending up looking like this nearly sent her into a panic and Ida had to force herself to breathe deeply and slow her heart rate.
"Maybe..." She said as she turned and headed towards one of the buildings in the dead zone, feeling a creeping unease just being in this area. It just felt wrong.
Shoving the sliding door open revealed something Ida assumed was a home. It lacked a lot of the official lines of the buildings she'd come to know in the main area, and there were bits and bobs scattered around that suggested habitation. Couches and chairs with flowing, organic lines. A blanket, draped over the back of one. Something on the floor she had the feeling was a child's toy, tipped over on its side as though the owner had knock into it without thinking. There were pictures on the walls too, faces she didn't recognize.
The pictures were the greatest surprise, peering into this piece of life someone had abandoned. It felt so much like Earth in that moment...
There was nothing to suggest what had happened there, though, and they were forced to move on. The house proved much the same, though the flavor changed. Houses were not, then, what they needed... As they walked deeper into the devastation, Ida cast about for something different. There should be some sort of common area, or public building, or something... Maybe in the center of the community? That was a conventional thing, right?
In the middle of this community, when Ida let them there, was not the Wishing Tree she had assumed or expected, but rather a low building with arches every few feet that doubled as window and door. Unlike the houses, which suggested one singular tree hollowed out, this seemed like a ring of smaller trees that hand grown up and together, branches weaving through and around to form the roof.
The senshi headed for it with a determined step, trying to ignore the unease that had plagued her from the moment she had arrived here.
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Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 9:51 am
Stepping into the valley of gloom offered no overt side-effects to its trespassers - he witnessed no adverse changes in himself, and perhaps more importantly, none in Ida who was more directly related to this planet. Still, his concerns lingered on radiation and its imperceptible ability to kill. And do you remember how you became a Page? I doubt death was such a concern back then. Has something changed? No? Then stop whining over the potential to get cancer from this. The reprimand came quietly and rarely tread upon his countenance.
A surfeit of now unrecognizable shrubs collapsed underfoot while he walked throughout the desecrated area. His glance strayed toward the trees themselves, the great giants that spoke of shelter to a civilization wholly foreign to him. Scholomance tried an adjacent 'house' when he first witnessed Ida leaping over a set of steps, so he tried his hand at investigations by ascending the steps. Only when he reached a flight's worth did the thought occur to leap the rest; he wondered how long it might take for him to get used to his newfound mobility. A quick leap landed him distinctly farther ahead, and a second led to the top of the building where a rounded wood outcropping offered both porch and welcome area.
It looked as though vines used to taper down the carved banister at this point, which layered more winding organic curves to the already whimsical and looping shape to the banister itself. He paid it little heed while he pushed past the wooden sliding door that allowed him into the abode. Inside he found a few objects of note, but nothing to indicate an explanation for this dearth of life. A pair of walking shoes sat near the exist, books lay atop an ornately carved wooden sideboard, and pictures adorned the wall of an unusual-looking native specimen. He noted the stripes that Ida mentioned; he started to wonder if remaining here might grow some on his own body, but Ida's marked lack of the things beyond her tights suggested that he'd need far longer exposure.
Wandering through the small, rounded rooms provided few answers from present objects. As he searched, Scholomance found the place increasingly reminiscent of Chernobyl and its stories. Checking the assumed kitchenette area confirmed the presence of long desiccated foods while others rotted away to infinitesimal and blackened size. Sometimes he found articles left out as if discarded for a second, though no one returned to their usage. Other times he found personal effects that he assumed would've gone with a more forewarned individual - hair brushes, rings, children's toys.
I don't know what to make of this. As much as I'd like to parallel it to Chernobyl, there's nothing to say something of that nature happened here. It could've been another Pompeii, but... Scholomance's jaw tightened as he realized that he looked at the scene in an entirely incorrect light.
The page left briskly and started down the stairs until he felt he could dismount safely to the ground. Catching up to Ida proved more difficult when she started trotting toward some kind of interwoven centerpiece to the town, but he persevered for what his Page strength would lend. "Ida! Consider thinking about what's missing here; examining the leftovers doesn't offer much insights, at least not to me. I don't know anything about this place, either - can you think of any reason why there would not be any bodies present? These personal effects look left behind as if everyone simply got up and left, and there are no bones to suggest a catastrophe. Have you..."
Scholomance trailed off when the senshi left without paying him much heed. He suspected she wasn't listening, but he couldn't be surprised now. Did she suspect that the denizens for this small area hid within that arched borough? The structure reminded him somewhat of a sheltered colosseum. Nevertheless he approached behind her, lacking the pervasive wariness beyond his own logical conclusions.Whimsical Blue i know you're at work so if anything i listed doesn't fit the bill for your planet, let me know!
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Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 4:49 pm
She'd been so engrossed in the growing sense of wrongness of this place that she hadn't noticed he'd left her to search separately until she heard him calling her name. By that time, she was at the... gazebo? chapel? whatever it was, and passing through one of the door ways. The senshi paused then, coming back to herself a little with the thought that it was terribly rude to have forgotten she wasn't alone here.
"Hmm, what?" Ida said as she half-turned, forced to drag her eyes away from the interior of the building. The woven branches let through lances of light, splattering the ground with spots of light. Something sparked as she did it and she turned back with a frown. This place felt... empty, but important. It nagged at her mind and for a moment, her vision was overlaid with another place, another time.
The arching structure was new, or relatively so. Not whitened with the brush of years or blackened by some tragedy. Inside, the carpet of green grass spread to a graceful, curving shape in the center. There, a living rainbow spread across the faces of hundreds of Orchid flowers as they grew in three shallow troughs that grew and twisted upwards in a triple helix shape, enough room between the bands for someone to walk through. They coated the ground inside as well in an abundance of blooms, their scent as heavy as the profusion of colors.
The senshi blinked away the image as she stepped inside to see only char and ash. The triple helix was in place, stretching from floor to ceiling, but the flowers in it had lost their color, looking wane and grey. Past the doors, she could see that the Orchids had grown in niches up the insides of the walls as well, but those were as dead as the rest. As dead as the small community around them.
"I don't know what happened." She said to her companion, her voice lifted in assumption that he'd followed her here. "Its been this way for hundreds of years, as near as I can tell, but I don't know what caused it. I don't know where the people went, all I remember is a flourishing culture... I've never seen any bodies, but in a thousand years, what would be left? Something that happened a very long time ago destroyed everything I remember and Ida has been slowly recovering. But..."
This wasn't the way Ida was supposed to be. This wasn't recovering. This was still dead, and even if the whole of the planet had once looked like this, why had this part not healed? Was something wrong with it? The senshi shivered, trying to fight off the creeping dread. Whatever irritation she'd felt at him had been forced out by this new feeling and now, standing here in this creepy dead place, she was actually rather glad he'd come along. At least she wasn't alone.
"Your guess is as good as mine. I've never heard of anyone finding living people on their planet or Wonder, or any evidence of where they went."
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Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2015 12:53 am
"This looks like s**t," Scholomance stated matter-of-factly when he strolled to a halt next to Ida. Discerning eyes crawled over the interweave of orchids and their constituent stems. They traced the whorled branches forming the ceiling, their leaves obscuring key connections from one plant to the next. How the structure remained cultivated so perfectly stood as a testament to the civilizations' skill in horticulture. He couldn't guess the generational knowledge required to attempt such a feat.
Perhaps, he thought, if there grew grass from the ground, he might walk barefoot among this shaded enclosure.
"And it's right in the center of things, isn't it?" The page spun in a slow circle while he glanced out beyond each of the arches. On every side, he spotted more of the peculiar tree-buildings. This 'town' did not strike him as terribly large, and by Ida's words, the population to this planet could not grow great. "Thirty-one hundred kilometers... That would make this what, an average-sized town? If inns were the gathering place for small villages and community centers for towns, maybe this... Thing," he paused to gesture wildly at the building they now stood within, "is like a city hall?" He couldn't quite rifle his brain for objects necessitated in a city hall, and even if he could, he found no guarantee that this building was intended as such.
Scholomance reminded himself that he now stood in a completely different culture. A different world. The same old, primal fear crept up his bones and he tried to swallow it down, but it crawled his throat like a thousand spiders.
I think you'd be surprised at how much can survive a thousand years, Ida. King Tut might not be the most well-preserved mummy, but he was one of the most famous. If these people were buried, you might find bones still intact. Bodies left to weather don't normally survive well, but George Mallory's corpse survived pretty damn well in Everest conditions. I recall another corpse of a thousand-plus years being found with the skin still looking pristine, save for where it was naturally decomposed around eyes and mouth. I actually bought a dead-... Nevermind," he waved the thought away abruptly.
"I have no idea how planets recover. It doesn't make sense that a planet should be considered a living entity - I imagine the plants would simply overtake these dead spots over thousands of years. But that's logic, and this is magic. Knowing what you know of magic, why do you think it's still desolate here?" As he asked, he started slowly toward the interwoven centerpiece. A single gloved hand reached out to touch the triple helix band and trace down one of its graceful, perfectly mirrored curves. "Is this like middle age? Planet-pattern baldness? Do you think something instigated this? Or is something missing here?"
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Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2015 9:05 pm
The senshi frowned at his frank assessment, but there wasn't anything she could say. It did look horrible. It just stung a little to hear someone else say it.
"I agree with you." She said as she followed him in, wandering closer to the structure in the center. "Its centrally located and that usually points toward something important, usually a gathering place. I suppose it could be a hall or something."
Ida rolled her shoulders loosely, listening to him talk about preserved bodies. It was kind of creepy, to think about bodies here. Ida had always felt clean, pure and safe. The thought of all the corpses of all the people who had lived here still lingering around was enough to turn her stomach. She'd much prefer if they had all quietly returned to the soil.
Dark eyes lifted to watch him run a gloved hand down the curving side of a planter, her lips pressed into a thoughtful line. His questions were good ones... they prompted thought and consideration of what she knew and what she felt.
"I consider Ida a living thing." She said after a moment. Her voice was firm, hiding no bit of uncertainty. "I can feel it all around me, when I'm here. I've felt it ever since I bonded with it and became Transcended. I don't know, or understand really, why this part of the planet hasn't come back. It should have, by all rights. During the ritual I performed, I felt energy surge in Ida and it set all the trees bursting into leaves. It should have happened here, or at least, something should have. That it hasn't just doesn't make any sense to me."
Reaching out, she laid her hand on the smooth, almost polished, bark beside him. The grain felt almost soft under her fingers, as though sanded to a fine degree. Strangely, there was suddenly some other sensation, like a tickling on her palm. Started, Ida drew her hand back and watched with parted lips as a tendril sprouted from the bark. Eyes suddenly wide in surprise and wonder, she made a low sound of astonishment as she reached for the small vine.
The bit of life reached for her in return and coiled around her fingers, traveling higher to wrap around her hand like a bean sprout seeking support. She was surprised enough by the odd action that she stood still as it wrapped around her, curling it's way up her wrist. This was new... she had never seen anything grow this quickly... was it a hopeful sign, here in the dead zone? Suddenly, small protrusions formed across the surface of the vine, as though goosebumps flushed down the soft green plant. It was curious... but before Ida could do more than wonder at all of it, the little growths surged outwards.
Pain flashed up Ida's arm as bumps became thorns and then spines, sharp and long. The young woman cried out, jerking in sudden panic. Pressed to her skin as they were, the spines sank into her flesh with the ease of a needle, piercing her hand and wrist everywhere the vine had curled. She struggled as blood welled up around the thorns, grabbing frantically at the vine to grip the still moving end and pull it away from her skin. It came reluctantly, pulling out of her flesh to leave a small dot of blood on her skin. The freed spine waved about, as though searching for her.
"s**t... oh god..." She gasped out, digging her heels into the soil as she pulled at her trapped hand. "What is this?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2015 5:51 am
Half of what she referenced went in one ear and out the other as sheer abstract information. He knew nothing of 'transcending', or planetary recovery, or planets as living entities, or whatever intrinsic tie that Ida felt with this chunk of rock. All of it sounded entirely implausible, but perfectly belonging in a science fiction novel. Having never been a fan of them himself, Scholomance felt he was terribly unprepared for this life and all the strange happenings that formed his alter ego.
He tried to listen, tried to deduce what he could from her response. Truly he found next to nothing, and while he wanted to wonder if Ida was psychologically stable, he felt more inclined to believe that either he himself had lost his s**t or that he failed to adapt well to his changing circumstances. Mystery still remained in the world, hadn't it? A host of events had occurred in his life and others' that resolved with no immediate explanation. Puzzling out what he couldn't understand fell by the wayside after he rediscovered sobriety, and ever since, he placed hands to ears to block out what lacked an easy solution. Was that not the case here, when faced with so many abject 'impossibilities'?
Here he stood on a planet he could plainly see wasn't earth, and of its structure there stood wondrous houses and gazebos in a kind that he would never see on Earth. Even the sky offered a markedly different display from the usual single sun traveling across the sky. The strange centerpiece turned to stone had never found presence on earth, either, and yet he wanted to desperately to call the lot of it a hallucination - some backwash from a high he never experienced.
And perhaps the planet decided he needed additional proof of living presence, for an unnerving tendril shot from the bark to encompass Ida's hand and wrist. Initially he simply stared at it, questioning its legitimacy in his mind, and at first he considered it a figment of his own imagination. But once Ida reacted adversely, once she dug nails into the tentacle and tried to wrench its thorns from her skin in fresh capillaries of blood, Scholomance realized his disbelief was allowed to span too far.
"What the ********?" His immediate reaction held little intelligible quality but Scholomance abandoned the art of quips to search frantically for some sharp weapon. None appeared outright - he found no carving knives, no chisels, no chainsaws to tame back the unruly foliage. His own person offered no useful weaponry - until his mind carried back to the drink glass he took with him. But where did it go? Last he saw, the glass simply disappeared once he became Scholomance. Without a second thought of it, he abandoned his Saturn heritage to the form of Isaiah, reclaimed the glass he looked for previously, and broke it against the stony bark to jagged edges. Afterward he took a jab at the tendril in hopes that its exterior was soft enough to suffer injury.
Part of him wanted to reach out and assist in freeing her hand, but he didn't want to wind up in a similar predicament. Or did he? "I don't know, Ida, but I think your planet's trying to turn you into a hentai."
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Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2015 3:50 pm
Ida whimpered as she pulled at the vine, the thorns painful where they stabbed into her hand. Panic made it hard to think about what to do beyond getting the thorns out of her skin. Scholomance's concern helped to pull her out of it enough to start thinking again. The broken glass he waved at her was a good idea... once she was able to pull herself out of it, she realized she had something better.
Like the knight, she dropped her power and dropped the vine to dig the bag that hung on her hip. She knew it was there, she always had it with her. Her fingers closed around the chipped surface of her switchblade as he sawed into the tendril. The glass marked the wood, but at the speed it worked at, it was going to take far too long. She needed it off now...
"Here!" Ida gasped out as she shoved the closed blade into his hand. The steel inside was sharp and well cared for... it would make short work of the woody stem. Freed of the knife, she went back to tugging at the vine, pulling it inch by small inch out of her flesh. Blood made little beads on her skin, bright red against the tan.
"I don't know what it is!" She burst out, exasperated and scared. Ida had never, ever been dangerous before... there was nothing here but her and the plants, nothing threatening. But then, suddenly, something that look important was attacking her? This wasn't right, it wasn't how her planet was supposed to be. Everything felt wrong.
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Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 10:43 am
Isaiah scowled in receiving the switchblade, having little experience with one, and fumbled with pressing the button a few times before he realized the safety was on. The lever took little time to pull out of the way, and the blade deployed almost immediately. "You have two hands," he complained in a hiss, "so why am I doing all the work here?" Were he less stressed over the event of cutting an alien vine off the girl, he would've issued a much more carnal comparison.
While not serrated, the blade cut through the fibrous core well enough. The vine grew thicker and more difficult to cut as the blade passed halfway on its width, and Isaiah had to grip the tentacle near its surrogate surface for better purchase. Sawing through demanded enormous force now, and Isaiah struck the blade into the bark of the post and shifted to Scholomance once more for added power. Afterward he sawed into the brilliant pale green sinews that throbbed with a perceptible width, and once penetrating their core, flinched away at the sudden spray of muculent, equally pale liquid. For the remainder, he kept head turned and eyes shut while the writhing, revolting vine gushed its payload in a great, pressurized arc. Finally the blade bit through the last tenuous fibers that connected the vine to Ida herself, leaving the thick stalk exposed in a dribbling maw.
The page dropped the switchblade as soon as he was able. Gloved hands retreated to his face in an attempt to wipe off the sticky fluid, which felt like it left some sort of residue in its wake. No amount of scrubbing away with the backs of his hands helped; too much of it saturated his hair and crept down his neck.
His groans of disgust and emphatic shaking of hands continued for half a minute. "It's ******** disgusting, that's what it is. What the hell's wrong with your planet? Seemed like it wanted to eat you, or blow you up like a blimp with whatever that damned fluid was. I don't know why you'd want to keep on visiting a planet that wanted to stab you half to death and liberate your veins of their burden." He spoke with derision and continued trying to wipe away any of the viscous mess that remained.
"Do me a favor and don't suddenly turn into some awful horror movie gimmick. Visiting your planet was bad enough without more surprise attacks."Whimsical Blue lmk if you need changes to this one!
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Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2015 11:46 am
Busy keeping the vine from crawling its way further up her arm, Ida didn't notice his troubles with the knife until he'd figured it out for himself and released the blade at last.
"If I let go, its going to keep growing!" She protested as he set to cutting through the woody stem, her voice strained with pain and anxiety. Did he really expect her to deal with this on her own? He'd been trying to help, why did he protest something with a better edge to it? Stress ratcheted higher mixed new self-doubt.
Why had she brought him here? What had she been trying to prove? This had gone so far the opposite of what she had intended it was laughable. As if she needed even more evidence that she was completely useless as the mentor she had been striving to be for over a year now.
Ida watched him shift to his powered form to add strength to his motions, startling as sudden fluid exploded from the rupture. She made a noise as he took it full on, leaning out of the way until he had cut the vine completely. As soon as it was done, the plant ceased moving, allowing her to rip it free from her skin. Pain flashed raw up her nerves and blood welled up in the punctures, but she was free again and mostly undamaged. He was saying something acidic again, Ida wasn't listening to it. She felt bad enough... did he enjoy heaping more on her?
A soft sob broke from her and she stifled it as she dropped quickly to retrieve her knife. It was going to need cleaning, but Ida didn't stop to take the time. Not here. She wanted out of here and back into the safe areas she knew, where the most danger was from being stupid and leaning too far out of an upstairs window.
"C-come one." She tossed over her shoulder as she rose and beat a quick-stepped retreat, never looking back to make sure he followed as she struggled to keep from just breaking down into tears right then and there. The senshi headed for the green line again, her injured wrist held to her chest and cradled by the other, gooey knife in hand. There was water at the tower, if they could make it there... she could clean the knife and put it away then. And she should really get Scholomance home... he didn't need to be dealing with... whatever this was. He was still so new and disbelieving, she was making the worst of the worst first impression.
Story of her life, lately, it seemed.
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Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2015 1:03 am
Orah departed rather quickly, but Scholomance spared no thought to it. Instead the page tangled with the sticky fluid caked onto half his face and hair, while it slowly ate through all feeling in the affected areas. Wiping off on clothing only offered so much relief - the viscous fluid entrenched itself in anything it touched, leading to a wet soak against his arm that soon grew to the same tingling sensation as harbinger to numbness. Inwardly Scholomance cursed himself for his stupidity in allowing the spray to hit him. And what was it going to do? Would it wear off like a dentist's novocaine, or would he find himself faced with rotting flesh or permanent paralysis? His mind threatened to spiral out of control with ceaseless ******** it. I'll deal with what happens as it comes. I'm not getting left behind in TentacleLand if they're not even going to make it worth my while. With a huff, the page started after the now-civilian Ida, who clutched her hand to her chest so protectively. Her voice quavered when she called to him, and he imagined there was quite a bit of bite to be had in an injury like that.Those thorns grew long, and drew a lot of blood.
He'd probably be in tears himself, if he were honest about that.
"Okay, okay, but half my ******** face feels numb," he started as he caught up to her. They pushed from the barren dirt to the waist-high grass again, that peeled away some errant flecks of the liquid while he passed. "I don't know what it sprayed on me, but it definitely did something to my nerves. I can't feel anything." To prove it, Scholomance flicked his own cheek. It felt impossibly fat.
And, naturally, he wanted to chew the inside of his cheek since he could not feel any pain from it. She walked quickly for their height and speed differential, which provided an additional flag to her upset. "Do you have any first aid kits here? Bandages, neosporin, anything? I can't imagine visiting an entirely different planet without some preparations..." Further speech proved difficult when his lips refused to function on one side. His speech came clumsy and blubbering. "If you don't, I have some s**t at my condo. If we can just... Get off this planet."
Which he considered ideal.
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