The Lantern Festival (10) : Scientists have been hard at work trying to understand the strange, glowing qualities of the luminescent caterpillars found in the caves by the reservoir. The caterpillars still shrivel up if they are taken out of the caves but their glowing secretions have been processed into an organic paste that can withstand the outside world. The city is selling paper lanterns infused with various seeds. The glow paste is full of minerals to support healthy plant growth without risking damage to the environment; all lantern purchases come with a small packet of activating power that will heat the paste up enough to mimic the effects of a candle without the concerns of flammability. When the glow paste loses its heat, the lantern will return to the Earth and upon the first rain (or any contact with water) the paper will dissolve and the seeds may begin to grow. All proceeds from the lanterns are put right back into the community to support local conservation and environmental protection efforts.
Same as the last time she’d brought the Lieutenant to her world, the two arrived on the surface.
A cold barren wasteland of nothing more than ice, much like the arctic but without the snow. Massive jagged stalagmites jut out in every angle, some even looking like a water droplet frozen in time but at a much larger scale, and more deadly looking.
To Alcor, this was a second home; a place that called to her whenever she powered up. To everyone else, it was little more than an arctic tundra, and it was wise of them to stay well away from it. Now more true than before with the dark areas that recently appeared.
“It’s this way,” the Senshi nodded in the same direction they had walked last time he’d visited; not that he’d remember since several months had passed.
Shiningamisgirl
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2022 6:26 pm
From the wavering heat into the brisk jolt of a freezer! Lovely. Joy. Mier was less than pleased with the extreme temp swap, prepared as he was with coat wrapped firmly around his form; he could already feel his face becoming splotchy, wondered if he'd inevitably chip a tooth with all the shivering he did on the damnable ice ball.
"Ch-c-coming--" bitten off over a puff of frosty breath, he watched it become steam amidst snow, and wondered vaguely if it was always the same place every time - of if this Senshis world simply looked the same all over. Every spike of ice and trench of snow looked the damn same to him.
All looked dead as before -- so whatever she'd been talking about - some sort of chaos taking a bite out of her world, causing new death and decay.
He just couldn't see it happening....
"Yh-you know, while you're up here? Consider some signage for guests, maybe a clear pathway? Hh-how you find your way around here's be-beyond me!" nervously chuffed as he did his best to keep up behind her, preferring to follow in her footsteps rather than weave off on his own and wind up some frostbitten nega-pop.
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Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2022 11:10 pm
“Honestly…” Alcor looked back over her shoulder at the lieutenant. “Only when I bring you does my world make me walk this far.” He was chaos made and as such it was as if her world made it so he’d get lost; not that she was going to share that theory. So long as she was with him, he’d be fine.
“Actually, that’s not quite true. The first time I brought my sister here, we started off at the same place.” Eleonora was less than pleased and Alcor had to sacrifice her coat to keep her twin warm until they got to the staircase. “Every other time I’ve brought her here, we’ve appeared in some other place we’ve explored.”
“Then again…” she took a moment to consider their purpose for coming. “I brought you here to show you the corrupted area and it’s safer to approach from the surface than it is to approach from below.” So perhaps their arrival destination was determined by what her reason was for visiting. More often than not, since her upgrade, Alcor had felt a distinct calling from her world to return; something Eleonora had yet to experience since she hadn’t visited hers yet.
While he might need welcome signs to point him in the right direction, Alcor knew this area like the back of her hand and even if she came across an expanse that was unfamiliar, memories from her former life would guide her to where she needed to be. The same thing happened the last time she had brought him here; sounds of children playing had led her to the house that had well-kept clothes for him to wear and the skates that she took home with her.
As they trod through the snow the wind began to pick up speed and Alcor lifted her hood to protect her ears from frostbite.
“The spire is ahead.” To keep from being blown over sideways, she kept close to one of the clusters of ice that speared upward and in all directions like an open lotus flower. Honestly, it’d be quite unpleasant to fall into but, for now, it would serve them as a barricade; if the lieutenant truly wished to see it up close well- they’d cross that path when they got there…
For now-
“See what I mean? Six months ago this entrance would have been considered fortress worthy. Now-” Of the two great doors, one hung precariously from its hinges. Chaos splintered through the cracks like frozen webs while darkness pooled at the base like a welcome matt but she was more than wary about approaching it. With the size of the door, one minor disturbance would likely see it come falling down, and given the weight it must be, Alcor was certain that it would slam through the surface and cave in the stairwell beneath it.
Shiningamisgirl
Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2022 12:51 am
“Oh, really, does it? Does your wonder only do this especially for me! It’s oh so very sentient like that — this—this haunted piece of too cold ice and its ghosts?” Dia had absolutely no proof that it was haunted, could’ve probably blamed it all on the shrieking winds and twisting glacial ravines that creaked just so — but he was small and cold and hugged himself tight against the slightest breeze.
Such a shame, because he loved snow! But not mid July or temps below forty! Of course even if the wonder did it to everyone, even if the place had a mind of its own? He was brat enough to whine and pretend no such privileged sister existed and that all of this was his own special sort of folly to endure. He preferred it that way. Dante’s trials of ice just for Diasporite.
“You say below…” ominous, Dia wavered slightly, then trudged in, ever alert with his head in a swivel darting too and fro. The place seemed beautifully disparate as always. The spire high and aglow — until she pointed it out, the obvious way the ichor splintered through all the clean lines and white bursts. The way decay had set into a place which should’ve been forever entombed and timeless.
“Eww….this is…nothing looks like this where we go. Not the rift, or the citadel…There are youma, yes, but there isn’t this?” hissed quickly over chattering teeth, pink eyes wide as he reached out to touch — trailed cracks, watched the hinge squeak at the slightest disturbance to the foyer. “When did this start?” Hushed suddenly as he stepped back, because no more did Dia trust the structural soundness of it all — “And also where? What’s infected below?”
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Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2022 11:14 am
“I only noticed this when I came to visit after bringing you along. The damage at that point wasn’t this bad.” Alcor gestured towards the door. “I didn’t approach it then, and I don’t plan on getting any closer to it now.”
Unfortunately, in the last two visits, she hadn’t had any new memories puppet her movements or pull at her curiosities. Nothing to guide her to another secret entrance to the city below the surface. It was very off-putting to be essentially locked out of her primary place of exploration and be stuck up here.
“I’ve been to your Dark Kingdom once. I remember those purple crystals everywhere. But this ooze, the corrupt nature of it, reminds me of the black marks on your senshi’s forehead and chest.” A fractured piece of self… a dark empty void that splintered and spread, consuming and destroying. She’d never touched a corrupt mark before, just as she had no inclination to in approach the spreading stain on her world.
“I’ve never brought one of them here, but the same aura that resonates from them is what I get from you.” Slightly different since she can tell the difference between an Agent and Corrupt, but close enough to still be identified as part of the Negaverse and not the Dark Mirror Court.
Shiningamisgirl
Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2022 12:02 pm
All Dia could think as he stared on was a resounding, echoing, 'ewwwwww' - the idea of head holes and sprawling ooze that vaguely resembled his own peoples 'auras' as she chose to describe them.
"Maybe we should get closer to it?" curiosity over-riding the squick of admiring everything above, Dia listened carfully, pursed his lips and slid out soft plans that sounded almost incredulous. "How do you know if its... like...taken over..If you don't poke it properly with a stick or two?" Clutched his winter coats close and spiraled in a small little circle, as if changing the angle of his view would spit out more answers than gazing at this distance could give them. That she'd been to the dark kingdom once? Ancient, he had to remind himself all these Senshi were older than the rift dust that slipped round the halls, had already been everywhere it seemed, their old corners of space -- the 'Dark Kingdom' too, apparently.
"Actually, maybe if I'm the one to poke it, we can get some proper answers?"
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2022 1:34 pm
“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” she replied with a shred of sarcasm lacing every word. Still, he’d been the one to suggest it so who was she to deny him the opportunity to wake a potential sleeping bear?
One thing was for sure, Alcor was not about to touch it herself, not even with a ten-foot icicle in hand since the last time she got that close to something with this much chaotic energy, she had nearly been turned into a youma while her sister, Eleonora, nearly became a Corrupt. Facts she chose to keep to herself least it spook him out of going over there in her stead.
“Lead the way,” she clapped him on the back with an open palm and gestured with her other hand. Last time he had followed her to the entrance, and since he’d been there already- and there was a large black door now making it all the more obvious, he could be the guide and set their pace for them.
Shiningamisgirl
Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2022 7:33 pm
Was he being ladies first'ed?! Fine, he was very fine with that, if anything Dia ruffled like a slightly miffed bird, prudishly puffed before he flippantly tossed his long ombre'd braid over a shoulder with a head shake. "Naturally I should lead the way, since this is all 'my peoples' chaos, according to you. Especially since I'm the one coming with up with all the bright ideas while you're just -- flailing at it from all the way down here.." and he didn't stare at the looming doors, or startle like a spooked horse when she smacked him forewords.
Except maybe he did.
But he'd never admit to the tiny bit of fear that crawled up the back of his neck as he approached the ancient looking fortress doors, "H-have you gone through here this way in awhile.." and maybe if he only dipped a heel in the welcome mat of ooze, and grimaced less obviously..
Maybe then it wouldn't all come down on him.
"This is sooo ---" gross gross gross, he nearly slipped in the ick and caught himself barely against the cracked frame, felt it give in with an ominous creak, "Nothing, nothing at all, is this gross down in the Citadel. It's all dusty, and craggy, and dry. This is not that at all!"
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Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2022 12:14 pm
Alcor’s lip curled in disgust.
“I’m not entirely certain how far it goes down.” She looked up at the door warily, clearly uncomfortable being this close to something that could easily break and come crashing into the sheet of ice that separated them from the caverns and city below them. To be crushed by ice or skewered by a frozen stalagmite
“If this isn’t some parasite, or disease, that you brought to my world when I last saved you then I think it’s best I take you back.” Again the door creaked, a sound reminiscent of a world in agony. I’ll have to find some other way to get rid of it if you can’t help.”
Shiningamisgirl
She can take them back in my next post and I can close the RP. I apologize this took so long to circle back to.
Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2022 12:39 pm
"If I learn anything useful at all...I'll...I'll maybe share it with you...Just this once, and only because this is clearly a--a problem that threatens us both." Certainly Dia felt threatened by the thing simply by standing underneath it, the ominous sound caused him to jerk away, ever so slowly, and pace back closer to Alcores grasp, the way the ooze burbled like it was ready to become something alive -- all sorts of 'no thank yous' and 'not to be trifled withs', so far as the lieutenant was concerned.
There was a database worth looking into, however, sightings, postings, listings of things -- Diasporite wondered if he could dredge something up, and maybe, just maybe? Alcore could fill in the blanks whenever they had some new unfortunate rendezvous.
"Yes I...I think it'd be good if you took me back. Hopefully your planet gets cold enough again that this, gross thing, just freezes off and dies. Not that I care if you live -- or whatever -- but I'd rather you be up here than on Earth...You know what I mean, yes? Of course you do!" and he hedged even further back, till he was nearly behind her as before they'd started this little treck, his eyes trained ever upwards and on the swaying dangle of barely held ice.
Nothing good could come of it falling while he was there...
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Wonderful! And it's absolutely perfect, don't apologize at all for either~ I've loved all the posts!
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2023 12:28 am
“Yeah yeah-,” Alcor rolled her eyes at his fumbled words over her preferred distance and death. Comical really when taking into consideration that she was his only means of transportation back to Destiny City. “You’re so cute when you try to sound threatening,”
Patronizing? Probably. But true nonetheless.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take you back so you can crawl into your nice warm bed and forget about this horrible frozen world.” She’d have mentioned something about returning the clothes he borrowed but at this point, he may as well keep them. Despite his feistiness, he seemed rather delicate, especially with how he retreated back away from the ooze and hid behind her like a child.
Alcor held a hand out to Dia and once he finally took hold of it she whisked them away from the desolate world that seemed as if it preserved a precious moment of time that was only now reawakening but in a way that foretold ruin with the slow destruction of the ornate door.
In place of ice was soft grass that flourished around them as they were greeted by the warm summer air and lanterns that spotted the sky above them. “Good night, and don’t let the oozes bite,” Alcor smirked, turned on her heel, and with a departing wave she walked away without a second glance over her shoulder. Leaving Dia to find his own way home.
