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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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 Posted: Fri May 05, 2017 8:15 pm
Encke found himself outside that night not because he wanted to patrol, necessarily, but he needed to go outside and clear his head. He, even though it shamed him just a little bit, had purposefully avoided any of the auras that he had gotten used to feeling on the way to the park, or at least, he made sure to avoid any of the ones that made his stomach flop unhappily and his arms prickle like he jumped into a nearly frozen lake. At least it was nice out, so he didn't have his arms actually feeling cold on top of that. The skies were relatively clear, at least for the moment, and that was why Encke, once he arrived at the park, attempted to find some high ground. He found a dirt hill that he could climb up onto, likely just some remnants from some recent landscaping. It was a little steep, but he dug his heels in and easily made his way to the top. He patted the top of the hill down a bit with his feet, attempting to flatten it down a bit more, before sitting down on it ... and then laying himself back. It wasn't that high up, ultimately, but it gave him an isolated spot to lean back, dirt in his hair be damned, and face up at the sky, looking at the stars and planets above. While he couldn't entirely relax, mind alert for any auras for monsters or, even worse, one of those agents or senshi with the cracks, being up a little higher at least gave him some time to react to anything that came by. Maybe flee the scene. Encke didn't really feel like a fight today. Not that he really felt like a fight any day, but... Hopefully no agents of Chaos would show up.
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Posted: Mon May 08, 2017 3:27 pm
Nights continued to pass, the world unchanged by his recent brush with corruption. Even in breaking up with his girlfriend, the sun continued to rise, the streets continued to fill with rush-hour traffic, and the coffee shops continued to serve to all of the sleep-deprived city. His own private world felt overblown with exhausting drama, and yet the lot of it existed in a vacuum - where it could no more touch another unrelated life. That jarring juxtaposition left him a little unsteady in moving forward, but he tried nonetheless - Scholomance knew he could not lean on Scylla or Hy-Brasil or Quenton or even Kavinsky any further if he wanted to prove his own autonomy now.
So it was with a clouded mind that he departed into his patrols, weaving through a complex lattie of different auric energies while he waited to discover chaos. He knew his normal route well enough by heart, but sticking to normalcy felt asinine when framed against the consternation in his life. Instead, he segued far beyond the outer reaches of the business district to reach the more residential areas, where often a smattering of parks attracted the powered crowd with their privacy. He wasn't certain what he wanted beyond wanting someone. He wasn't certain it mattered who that someone was, or what they thought - just that he could distance himself from unwanted thoughts.
With pleasant surprise, his wanderings uncovered a familiar signature - a senshi, most basic by the strength of the energy, lingered somewhere nearby. His senses gave him no direct indication beyond an inclination in a certain direction, but he took to it with fervor. Fresh sprigs and leaves whipped by his bone-wrought uniform as he passed beyond the trees without pause. A clearing crossed, a small pond rounded, and bone heels dug through the fresh loam of the earth as he peeled by new groundskeeping.
And surely enough, he discovered the sensation's origin. There, atop a pile of dirt, laid a man so clothed in saturated purples that Scholomance would swear he could spot the uniform long before he felt the signature. At that, he relaxed somewhat, and continued his approach to hail the lounging senshi.
"Feeling a little dirty, are we?" He asked coyly. A brow quirked, offsetting the garish rictus of his half-mask. "You senshi are quite the crowd. I don't suppose you've time for a chat?"
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Mon May 15, 2017 7:34 pm
The sensation that washed over him initially was ... odd. The signature wasn't entirely familiar, though he didn't recognize it as something that was obviously bad, like an agent or those senshi with the cracks. (He really disliked the senshi with the cracks, honestly.) The way he was addressed clearly showed this man wasn't a senshi, either, considering that he said that the senshi were quite the crowd. The first thing he noticed, though, was the coy comment, to which Encke wasted no time shooting back, "I can always go for a bit of a roll in the dirt." It took him a few seconds to convince himself to do so, but he pushed his back off the ground and moved to a sitting position, leaning most of his weight back on his arms, so he could get a better look at what was in front of him. Lots of dark purples. A mask? He squinted a bit, attempting to make out a few things in the darkness, but shook his head out of it after a few more seconds. "I'm definitely open for chatting. Better than fighting any day." The laugh that followed was a bit ... odd, but he moved past that. "Sorry, dumb question, you're a ... knight, right?" Strickenized awesome! also, sorry for the delay, been a bit busy orz ;;
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Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 11:57 pm
"Oh, I could think of a few more pleasant areas to go for a roll." Scholomance wondered, then, over the senshi's age and preferences. So many of them looked terribly fresh-faced and young, with Jada being one of the oldest he ever met. Really, he often felt like he was playing a game of 'guess which one is legal' when looking at the lot of them. "To each his own, though."
Scholomance himself showed some hesitance in simply squatting in the dirt, so he remained standing and instead stepped down from the mound of dirt. With the other senshi sitting up, they maintained a fairly easy eye contact. They lacked the physical proximity that Scholomance preferred, however. "Yes, I'm a knight," he answered just as easily. "Of Saturn, actually. All dull and droll and full of dead people, that planet. You wouldn't believe how many charnel houses there are up there. I think I've been to at least three, counting my own. And I'm sure the state of my uniform suggests Saturn as the ideal body dumping ground these days." Each comment came with a certain quality of wry humor well-practiced by the knight.
It felt almost too easy to lapse back into his devil-may-care attitude about the business, but he considered it a side-effect of that very same lack of change in his recent survival. And while his simmering rage continued to thrive beneath the surface, he hoped that biting it back with a veritable vehemence might yet be the solution to its bother. If not, then the least he could do was put it off for a while longer, and present to his new comrades a face that wasn't entirely objectionable.
He did, after all, need to earn his place as an ally - both to this boy, whom he never met prior, and to those with which he had a working relationship.
"My name is Scholomance. I like long walks in heavy fog, not using my magic, and my clothes have a nasty habit of falling off whenever I drink whiskey. Now that we've got that little introduction out of the way, might I ask with whom I'm speaking?" seiana_ZI it's okay! it's been a rough week for me
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu May 18, 2017 10:59 am
He snorted. "Oh, don't worry. There's definitely preferable places to dirt, but whatever is available." Encke had started to notice that he seemed to be one of the older senshi around, despite the fact that he seemed to be weaker than a lot of them. (Not that he had really done anything to deserve any extra power, so he wasn't exactly mad about it.) The knight seemed to be a bit closer to his age, which was admittedly a relief. The more teens and children he spotted involved with this so-called war, the more uncomfortable he grew with it. Saturn? Encke noted in his head that the knights seemed to belong to planets, and vaguely wondered if other Sol System planets had other knights for a moment, but buried that down to hear the explanation of Saturn. He glanced over his uniform at the reference, sitting himself up a little further to get a better look at it. "Nice golden bones," offered Encke, with a bit of a laugh, gesturing at his outfit. "Was Saturn the grave yard of the Sol System or something? Must mean people are nervous about messing with you, though." At least, he'd hope so, but the Negaverse seemed inclined to mess with everyone. At Scholomance's introduction, Encke laughed aloud. At least he had a sense of humour. "I'm Encke," he offered, deciding to move himself a bit off the dirt pile so perhaps they could talk a bit more face-to-face. He kept talking while he did. "Senshi of plasma, if you're wondering. Mostly lots of shocking magic I try not to use unless I have to. And don't act too crazy, or it may end up on the internet." He flashed a distinctly devilish, but clearly not entirely serious, grin. He wasn't that mean. Mostly."What brings you out here?" Strickenized i'm sorry to hear that! hope it gets better ;;
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Posted: Sun May 21, 2017 12:06 am
Scholomance cocked a brow at the comment of his bones. The statement offered plenty of opportunity for lewd remarks, though he sidelined such antics to address the more serious question of heritage. If the senshi before him lacked the information to recognize him specifically as a knight, then he was new - and living allies were harder to come by than ********. "As far as I can tell, it was. Or it had a terrible history. Mont Blonc was a mountain with scores of bones beneath its ash. Ploutonion was another charnel house by my ascertation, though I've never been. Its knight is… No longer among our count. And Scholomance has its own ossuary, even if its intended purpose had very little to do with storage of the dead.
"You'll notice that with the other knights, though - that they each have marked characteristics of a kind. Saturn is possibly the dreariest of the planets, with dark purples and blues and other drab fare. You can spot us by this lovely symbol." Scholomance gestured to his lapel pin, thin and gold, and spun of ancient magic. "There are knights for the nine Sol system planets. There are also knights for a few outer planets - Polaris, Ganymede, and Chronos. Cosmos knights also exist, though they don't quite have a planet to call home so much as the entire galaxy. But that's all boring exposition, really."
Scholomance offered a bow, slightly stilted as it was with a missing appendage. "Regardless, it's a pleasure to meet you." I'd say it'd be a pleasure to meat you, but those little double entendres don't quite hit the mark through speech.
The question eased him out of his normally laissez-faire demeanor, and his features sobered up from their prior conversation. Hazel eyes drifted somewhat as he plotted how to frame his explanation - how much to provide, how much to conceal. When he was certain of it, he ceased his impromptu study of the ficus tree behind the dirt mound and focused instead on Encke. "I've had a rough go of things lately, in uniform and out. Seemed like a good idea to catch some fresh air and possibly beat some Negaverse agents into a stain. Nasty lot, them. That's about it, really - just trying to evade all the nagging thoughts that keep trying to rent space in my head.
"And yourself? Can't imagine you went out specifically with the intention of lying on the biggest dirt mound you could find, but I've heard of stranger fetishes." Looners, for one.
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Mon May 22, 2017 2:45 pm
Encke wasn't so much new as he was inexperienced, but the information Scholomance gave was useful to him either way, considering his run-ins with knights were near nonexistent. Sure, he had known they existed, but beyond that, his knowledge was cursory at best. He had to wince at the descriptions of Mont Blonc, of Ploutonion--and his apparent defection or death--and at the fact Scholomance had an ossuary. "Honestly, I have to agree with you. That definitely sounds, well, dreary." He rubbed his neck awkwardly, not entirely sure what he could say to make it sound better. It seemed like Scholomance at least accepted these circumstances, though, considering he didn't seem to be particularly bothered by it. He noted the symbol with some level of relief -- his sense had gotten pretty good, but at least the knights seemed to have easy markers to identify them with too, like how the senshi had these collars... So there were knights for thirteen different places, at least that Scholomance knew of. That was interesting. Why thirteen? Encke chuckled at the bow and offered his own playful sweeping one in turn. "Pleasure to meet you too. And thanks for the info, seriously. Might be boring exposition, but it's useful to know more about the other factions." He nodded in understanding about the explanation of his circumstances, and he gave a grim smile of agreement when Scholomance specifically cited the Negaverse. "I honestly can't stand them. Pure evil. The faster we can get rid of the Negaverse as a whole, the better." That felt harsh to say, but nothing he had seen from the soul-stealing monsters had made him inclined to think otherwise. Individuals may have been savable, but the whole organization was corrupt. "But," he snorted, "nah, I didn't come here to roll around in the dirt. Just provided a nice place to lay down where if I felt anything come up I wouldn't be immediately reached. Just wanted to kind of relax really. Look up at the sky and observe. Listen to nature and close my eyes a bit. Li'l cheesy but." Encke shrugged. It worked, at least.
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Posted: Sat Jun 03, 2017 8:19 am
Scholomance smiled, though the exact reason of it remained obscure. He smiled during the admission to derision for the Negaverse. When he shifted to his reasoning on rolling around in the dirt, the smile widened a hair. At least, he supposed, the kid had sense about him enough to distrust the Negaverse and remain steadfast to his own side of the war. That was more than he could say for himself in the early days.
A very costly mistake, that was.
"I won't knock that idea. Not my choice of places to look at the stars, but… Well, not everyone's a borderline hypochondriac." Scholomance shrugged, casting his gaze toward the stars. The park offered more of a view of them with so few lights to pollute the sky, but the surrounding city left them dim and struggling to break through the darkness. It felt like an unwanted metaphor, he figured. "There are better places to do it, though — if you're looking to do it with a little power in the arms still. Like… Your planet, for instance. Bit safer there. You probably don't have any Negaverse agents or youma rolling around in your planet's backyard. Saves you any unwanted trips to the hospital." Or worse.
There are worse ways to lose your life, certainly. Burning it away with stargazing sounds almost dreamy at this stage. Instead we've got shitty, anonymous deaths where families have to claim their John Does by rotted tattooes, or their loved ones just drop off the face of the earth to pretend to be someone else. Always missing some crucial fragment of their lives, those ones.
Smart of him to put a bit of distance between himself and incoming disaster.
Scholomance crossed his arm over his chest, the white glove coming to rest where his right elbow would have been, and collapsed the empty fabric into folds. "If you're not busy, and you're feeling interested in indulging an acquaintance's curiosity, I'd like to see your planet. For as much as I get around, I've not seen but three or so of the places - and they're all so different from one another."seiana_zi so sorry about the wait! life killed me
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Sat Jun 03, 2017 11:03 am
At the borderline hypochondriac comment, Encke offered a small laugh. "Not very much of one, if that wasn't obvious." There were things that made him nervous--for one, the senshi with the cracks in their chests--but germs? Eh. He knew they existed, but of all the things that bothered him, that was probably pretty close to the end of the list. He had a lot of other things to worry about, these days. Everything involved in this whole senshi nonsense, for one. Scholomance made a good point about his planet--or comet, as it were. He glanced up at the sky, as if looking for it, though he knew Encke's Comet wasn't exactly visible in the sky at the moment. "You're right, there's no youma on my comet. Or Negaverse. Thankfully." ... Were there planets that had youma or a Negaverse presence? He knew the Earth had this problem, obviously, and the existence of other planets implied there might be others with similar problems, but... That was uncomfortable. There was a brief moment where Encke followed Scholomance's arm. Part of him wanted to ask if he had always been missing the other arm, but he didn't want to be rude. So he didn't. "My comet?" He asked, sounding a bit surprised. He didn't seem offended by the question, though, and his expression brightened a bit. "Hey, three's more than I've seen." Considering how much he loved space, that was a bit depressing. Maybe he should ask Gelria about his planet-- "But I could certainly help up your total a bit. I love Encke. Have been working on cleaning it up, actually." It was something of a long-term project. "It was definitely a bit ... damaged, from lack of use or whatever happened there in the past. But I think it's looking better now."
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Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 12:27 pm
"I don't think I've ever seen a space place fully repaired," Scholomance replied. "Mostly they're some form of destroyed, one person's work be damned. My ancestor was never worth much in the cleaning department, and even when I had two arms and his dead a** to haul around, I wasn't interested in taking on a task that daunting. Fallen stone weighs a lot, you know?" He quirked a brow at his conversant, his lids low with sass.
He found some excitement in the other man's easy acceptance of his request - he knew that asking to visit a stranger's planet meant a great deal with the constraints paid to interplanetary travel. And for some, their homeworld remained a very intimate part of themselves that spoke of shame through its destruction, its old cultural habits, or its very existence. Not all learned to divest themselves from their source of power and what it meant to them, like he did. The gesture was well-received, nonetheless - he could ask for no better turnout to his question than that. And such a result showed in his face with a light smile - for he couldn't wholly hide his apprehension for all the unexpected surprises that may result in such travel.
"I'm game when you are, then." But even Scholomance had his limits - he hesitated in stepping onto that mound of dirt to join the other man. Heels were unforgiving by nature, he found, and the loose dirt spoke of disaster before disaster happened. No, he much preferred the far less dirty surrounding grass.
A pause was swept onto the wind, then he offered further declaration. "And if you decide by the end of it that you still want to visit a few more parts of the solar system, I can show you around Scholomance. The place, that is. But the person's none too shy about it either."seiana_zi close on your post with them shooting into space?
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2017 8:37 am
So he did used to have two arms. Sounded like the loss of the second one was fairly recent, too. He wouldn't ask about that right now, though. Encke imagined he didn't want to talk about it. Plus, there was space to see! It admittedly both came as a relief that the disrepair was common and alarm that the disrepair was common. He supposed it shouldn't have been that surprising. They had to all somehow end up on Earth, after all. Maybe it was because the majority of the planets were literally uninhabitable. His comet certainly wasn't really permanently inhabitable at the moment, though Encke would like to fix that, if possible. "Noted," replied Encke, grimly. And then, with an amused grin, "Can't imagine bringing construction tools up to a planet to help is particularly easy." Most of what he had managed to bring to his comet had been minor things, cleaning supplies and industrial glues and shovels. That still had managed to make things look considerably better, but he wasn't a miracle worker. His eyes lit up at the offer to visit Scholomance. The place sounded positively dreadful, but it was also in space, and honestly Encke would probably be interested in it even if it was literally dangerous to his health. "All you needed to do was offer, I'm definitely interested." He laughed, before offering his hand while grabbing at his phone with the other one. "But we should go in order..." Strickenized fin! assume I should probably start the next one, hah. I'll try to get that up soon!
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