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Aether



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Fri Jul 29, 2016 7:27 pm
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Lumi says...



Spoiler! :
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@Tortwag - @Deskro - @Caesar - @AstralHunter - @TheSilverFox - @Jagged - @Bloo - @Nutty



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The building blocks of life and all creation. In ancient science, it was believed to be the essence of soul matter. So let's roll with that theory.

You are an adventurer from the land of Mu. Your hometown and region is for you to decide--as it'll play a narrative role when we get there--but you have come to the capital city of Lemuria at the behest of an adventurer's guild that has recently opened its doors for new comrades.

However, during your stay in Lemuria, a great earthquake struck the entirety of Mu, and from great fissures in the earth seeped a dark, corrupted aether.

Our adventure will begin on Day One, as the few of us remaining and willing to venture out into the ever-darkening world face an investigation into the source of the devastation.

_____________________


You will play as one of the following Classes. There are no tanks, healers, or DPS-only classes. Each discipline yields its own utility and survival skills through time. As the meat of the classes tends to be a large burden at once to process, I will allot spells and abilities after classes have been chosen. Once profiles have been submitted, you will be given your own character sheet to manage on your own.

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The master of the longsword and voted most-likely-to-be-spat-upon-in-a-crowd-of-citizens, the Blackguard is a force to be feared, reckoned with, feared, and avoided. His magic stems from a pact made with whatever force wanted this fleshy prison in the first place, and as such provides the Blackguard with many powers over status effects and diseases, quite literally carving the enemy apart while eating him away from the inside. The mastery of a Blackguard is one of manipulating your tricks and tactics and making the most of every move...because what you dish out in offensive power may not quite reflect what you can take.

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With light steps, light armor, and light attacks, one would be soon to underestimate the Vagrant. After all--she can't take a hit, can she? One good swing of the sword and she's out! That's common thought, and statistically speaking in the Vagrant community, it's also a common final thought. Vagrants are masters of undermining enemies. Tiny blows to places the enemy doesn't expect to cause harm--but over time, after building and stacking, the enemy suddenly finds himself with a ruptured everything. Vagrants specialize in wielding knives and knuckle dusters. And smirks.

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Hello, I can build a robot. See the nice robot? I've got guns. Aren't they shiny? The Machinist tends to be a breed apart in that their eccentric behavior seems almost tactical as a distraction while they deploy machines, turrets, gadgets galore to carve down enemies. But truth be told, the Machinist is quite straightforward. Guns, machines, tactics. Schematics. Blueprints for days. Handwriting no one can read.

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Surprisingly well-adept at wielding a multitude of weapons, the Mesmer is a curious subject. Equal parts psychic wizardry and swordsmanship, it's difficult to put the Mesmer in a box. Quite masterful at replenishing mana and avoiding damage via use of duplicates, the Mesmer is capable of holding his own against anyone--as long as his wits stay about him. As such, let it be known that the Mesmer is only as good as his first hit taken--for if the enemy knows well enough to hinder him, the Mesmer's days may be well-numbered.

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A caster-type who channels the energy of light-based aether as energy, the Luminier is, without contest, the most publically-respected of adventurers. Mothers want their children to grow into respected Luminiers and priests--and for good reason. Mastering the brand of magic closest to the heart of the public naturally places you in a revered position, and this often plays out in the world of adventuring as well. All that said, the Luminier is only as good as his own willpower. How much light energy is he willing to manipulate? Is too much power abuse? And what, exactly, is the nature of the power he wields?

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The power of the living knows boundaries at each turn. The body is frail but the soul is mighty. The soul craves power. The soul craves victory. And yet the populus would have you cast your dead into the soil to rot into nothingness. No! The restless soul yearns for carnage, and the Necrolyte is the studious mage who has realized this horrendous truth. The Necrolyte excels at unleashing plagues of damage and calling the fallen to do his bidding. It's funny, he thinks, how the sweet smell of victory and the stench of death blend so well after years of battle.


_____________________


You will fill out your profile as follows. Bear in mind that you are allowed to have a minor character with lesser responsibility for entries if you so wish. I'd rather the main cast be no more than 5 members. For the profile's sake, the rough draft nations are:

Highwind, a meadow and farm nation to the east.
Caraflores, a nation to the southeast built on the wealth of oil among their plateaus.
Amani, a tropic jungle to the far south.
Redwind, a desert-faring nation to the southwest.
Svetagrad, an isolated frozen nation encompassing much of the north.
Horizon, the gorgeous coastal nation covering the western sea.


Code: Select all
[bebas]Name[/bebas]

[b]Gender:[/b]
[b]Age:[/b]
[b]Class:[/b]
[b]Home Town and Nation:[/b]
[b]Tropes:[/b]
[b]Power Level:[/b] Rate your character's power on a scale of 1 to 10. This will be important.

[bebas]Appearance[/bebas]
This should be no longer than a few sentences. Anthro attributes are allowed. Include physical habits.

[bebas]Personality[/bebas]
This should be no longer than a few sentences. Include quirks and speaking habits.


Cast


1. Anberlin Romany - Lumi
2. Aerie Romany - Nutty
3.
4.
5.

Minor Characters
1.
2.
3.
I am a forest fire and an ocean, and I will burn you just as much
as I will drown everything you have inside.
-Shinji Moon


I am the property of Rydia, please return me to her ship.





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Sun Aug 14, 2016 10:42 pm
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Lumi says...



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Eyes open, the sun's glare outrageous on the taut string that, metaphorically, Anberlin thought, represents either a.) her migraine or b.) her short temper due to c.) her migraine. Her hand wipes her brow and she makes a mental note of how hot it is. A low voice: rocky, untamed, real for what she can figure, asks:

"Annie, you said your family lives out on an island here."

Anberlin says Yes, Kibbles, directly tttthataway while she draws an arrow with her foot in the sand.

The peanut gallery is quiet and she worries after a moment.

The peanut gallery is never quiet for more than three-quarters of a moment. The string is out of tune.

"Tell me what you're thinking or I'll make you into a new plaything for Lys."

And they're quiet in a new way. A remorseful quiet. A penitent quiet.

What had she forgotten? Was it thinking that triggered them? Being murdercorpsed? Or Lys-

Episode I

Night in the Burning Land


_______________

This is your life. When you watch the trees.
The wind in the flowers. The flicker of light in her eyes.
What a time to be alive.

_______________


She sits up and cracks her neck. The desert heat is incredible--almost as incredible as the desert night's chill. Anberlin thinks about writing that down, but what kind of journal junkie wants to read about a cold desert? Fuck twice over the ones who want to read about one being eaten by darkness.

She misses the sun and how awful it is. There are people snoring in a nearby room. A room full of dudeguys. Anberlin wonders if any of them are cuddling yet. It always happens, always will happen--and she almost giggles at the picture. What did she have? A doggy, a skinny doggy, and...a lizard? The lizard's cool. She wonders if her can spit acid.

Is that all? Beside her, a necrolyte sleeps soundly, no hiccup to her breathing or shutter to her yawn. She wonders if she's asleep at all, or rather monitoring Anberlin.

Maybe she doesn't trust her. That bitch.

Anberlin slides a hand to the floor and wraps it around the hilt of her sword, and the necrolyte's hand meets hers with a soft yawn from the lady in green. "Murderate me in the morning." And back to sleep.

Impressed, Anberlin lets go and twists her way out of bed, regretting leaving her blankets just seconds after. Boots. She needs boots. She walks outside for fresh air--which is a phrase that should be revisited because air in the second floor of a desert hostel is plenty fresh and abundant; however, all that same, she wanted her air fresh. The breeze swept under the moon and took along with it their footprints, the footprints of a dozen other parties headed the other way as them. Out of the corruption, out of the void, into the refugee camps and corrals that awaited anyone who didn't have a passport.

Fuck Lemurian Bureaucracy. Anberlin spat.

There's a fox, too, she remembered. She could see Bryant's report already: Lawyer & Several Dogs Save Desert Community!

Oh, right. The scary necrophiliac chick, too. She checks her teeth. It doesn't have the same ring to it. This is a thought that needed coffee. She could go hunt for some...but what if her dogs woke up without her? Would they be afraid? Would they howl after her? She taps her toes at the thought and decides that she needs to teach them an emergency signal.

Downstairs, Anberlin ruffles through the belongings of other travelers. Most of them have their entire lives with them, running from the darkness. What the hell even was the darkness?

"You, lady with the thief in her eyes." A whisper from the lit portion of the room. "Coffee." She makes a c'mere gesture and disappears around a corner. Anberlin follows and finds a tiny kitchen alcove between sectionals. Brilliant. Like a bathroom, only much more precious. She sits, eyes on the boiling pot. Beside it, the woman has a makeshift Lemurian Press holding down beans that look like they've been crushed underfoot. This is disappointing to her, but when in Redwind..with you were in Lemuria.

"So, Government Official." She nods to Anberlin's vest with the Lemurian Government stamped on like a badge of shame at this point. "How big of a clusterfuck are the Redwinds in for when they get to the promised land?"

Anberlin exhales. "The government, before producing the recon teams, estimated that it could house approximately one-twenty-eighth of the population of Mu."

The woman nods, pours the boiling water into the press. "Figured it'd be lower, really. How mucha that percent are Redwind vagrants?"

Anberlin shifted her gaze.

"Come on, Caramel, you have to tell me. I'm sharing my coffee with you."

A nod. "The government decided that no person without a passport, regardless of age or social standing..."

The coffee sends steam up, clouds the room, maybe hides a bit of Anberlin's heaviness.

"President Torrin sure has a taste for sadism, doesn't he..."

Fuck yes he does, she wants to say. As sadistic as the clouds eating the goddamn country. But it's nothing out loud but social suicide. Maybe real suicide.

"I'm certain other opportunities will arise until the, er." Cloud? Mud? Bubbling mass of scary jello? "The void clears."

Woman pulls her hair back and pours the coffee into mugs. "I was there, you know."

Investigative jackpot!

"At ground zero?"

"In the city plaza of Suhalla. There was the strangest earthquake I've ever felt. It started out so minuscule...and intensified until it was impossible to stand. By the end of it, the city was nearly leveled. So many were dead and...this...goat."

Did she say goat?

"This goat walks through the town, nudging folks trapped under buildings. And when they didn't respond, it ate them."

Woman puts her hands firmly on the table.

"Are you saying that the void that's consuming Redwind...was a goat?"

She narrows her eyes and stands with her mug of coffee. "Promise passports for my family, and I'll tell you the rest."

Annie's eyes shoot wide. "I can't do that!"

"Then you and your pack are in for as bad a time as mine is."

She starts to walk away and Anberlin shoots up. "Wait! What if...what if I could arrange something? For more information."

Coffee Woman walks nearer once again. "You seemed to misunderstand me, Lemurian Official Capable of Bending The Law: passports."

"But I--"

"Pass."

"Please just!"

"Ports."

Anberlin slams her mug on the table and grabs the woman by the skull, locking eyes. A raging fuschia radiance drifted between them, but was broken as the woman shot Anberlin back with a gust of light.

She lay on the ground groaning as the woman neared her. "Honey, never ever assume you're the strongest, smartest, or most cunning trick in the game."

Coffee Woman steps back, drizzling the steaming drink on Aberlin's ribs, her screams only cut out by her lack of air.

She crosses her arms and exhales slowly. "There will be a way around this idiocy. There must be a way around it."

Anberlin's eyes begin to close. She gasps for air. "Border." Cough. "Patrol between the countries." She gripped for control and got dirt instead. "They shut down the outer patrols." Gasp. "Per my." Gasp. "Request."

And sometimes being dramatic pays off, because Coffee Woman lays her hands on Anberlin's burning ribs and pushes light into them, and there's breath in her lungs.

She sits up eye-to-eye with the woman.

"Elena," she says. "Because I'm certain that, in your mental dialogue, you've been calling me strange things without a name." A hand on Anberlin's face. "You're a Mentalist?"

"A Mesmer. Mentalists are reserved for the military."

"Like Elementalists." Elena grins. "You won't find a totally empty nation down here, but if the folks know you're there to help, they'll help you in return."

Anberlin nodded. "Travel the borders until you find a safe place, but stay away from Svetagrad. They're..."

"A bunch of dicks, yes, I know." She eyes Anberlin, still questioning her pain levels. "You want help getting back to bed?"

"Nah. I'll let my doggos hunt for me in the morning."

"Never thought I'd say this," she says as she walks away, "but for gods' sakes, beware the void goat."
I am a forest fire and an ocean, and I will burn you just as much
as I will drown everything you have inside.
-Shinji Moon


I am the property of Rydia, please return me to her ship.





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Thu Aug 18, 2016 6:37 am
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Caesar says...



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Lysander watches a child running through a moon-lit desert. Cacti tug at him. Flies buzz around his dirt-smeared face. He's gasping for breath, but still running. Hot on his heels, men on horses. Their faces are concealed. Dark.

One throws a spear made of darkness. The child falls, tumbling through fields of cacti. The shadowy pursuers encircle him. Horses frothing. Cold. A thud in the distance.

Lysander wakes up. The desert child dream is gnawing away at her sleep frequently. She doesn't know what to make of it. She pauses. The thud is not part of this dream, she remembers. Usually, the noises that follow are fleshier.

Beside her, there are dog-people, sleeping soundly. Somewhere in the room, there is also a lizard. Lysander knows the lizard has her eyes open. The lizard is watching her, even if she is soundly asleep. Lysander waves her middle finger in the lizard's direction.

Like a shadow in the sand, Lysander pads her way out the breezeway, down a tumble of splinter-wooded stairs, careful not to alert the dogs. Their barking would only worsen her mood. That would not do.

The hall Lysander enters is messy, as if there had been a fight. A chair, haphazardly on the floor. Scuff marks. Her eyes follow the trail of evidence to the center of the room. Anberlin is laying there -- most ungracefully -- looking sullen.

Lysander approaches and hunkers down by Anberlin, not looking at her face. She pokes her stomach a few times with a finger. Then she licks it.

"You taste like coffee," Lysander says.

"You my Necrolyte?"

"Let's not dodge the subject at hand."

"I insulted a woman who--" Definitely a flashback there, she clutches her ribs. Grumbles. "Going for a walk?"

Lysander pokes her. Harder. "I heard a sound. It interrupted my sleep. This is the second time you interrupt my sleep, Annie."

"Nobody gets to call me that 'til they've seen my boobs at least twice."

"Four times." A pause. "And a half if you count that shirt you wear with the rip in it."

Annie hoists herself off the ground, a drunken mess without the drunk. Pulls her hair back. Smacks her lips as if craving something. "Let's walk. You do some corpsey recon, I forget about Suhallan lady's suplex, and we share some--" She pats down her outfit until she finds a leather wrapping in her camos. Opened, glance stolen--whole white roots, bulbous in the center like knotted dog cocks.

"Ooh, Annie, you're so bad." Lysander giggles and takes her arm in hers. "The last time I was high, I thought the dead were talking to me!" She purses her lips. "But you see... that happens when I'm sober, too."

"Sounds like a real party in your head, lady." She bites off the end of a root. "Get to walkin'. I wanna see that scythe dig up some answers about this shitfest of a goat infestation."

Lysander walks back towards the breezeway. One hand walks down Anberlin's arm, moving towards the roots.

"We passed an old graveyard on the way here. It looked very dull, so I chose to ignore it. But if you insiiist. I bet it'll make the jackal real mad, at least. He won't have virgin corpses."

A smirk and a hand gripping her hand in return. "Now who's the dirty one, eh Lyce?"

"I'm almost sure you've not seen my boobs enough to call me that."

They reach the entrance to the motel. Anberlin stops and fishes in her pocket for a small scrap of red meat. "A treat for whoever wakes up first. I'm almost certain it'll make 'em compete."

"Their barking is so obnoxious though. I like the fox more. He seems majestic."

The desert is cold and stark as a boneyard--the sand as white as snow in the moonlight. Lysander inhales deeply. Ah, to smell air that hadn't been changed in hundreds of years. It really was no better than inside the crappy motel.

She points to her left. "There are dead people thataways." And then straight north, to where Redwind presumably is. "And lots more some ways away."

Annie pauses and hesitates, and her strong thoughts give rise to an aubergine glow in her eyes. "I need to know something a bit more southward. Closer to Suhalla than the Lemurian pass."

Lysander tilts her head. "I can't say for sure. But if you're worried, it's safe to bet there's dead people everywhere!" She smiles. "Let's get to the closest ones first."

Anberlin's hand slides up to Lysander's lips and offers a bite of the root--the bulbous part (gods only know how she'd burned through so much so quickly)--and she takes a small nibble, shuddering at first at the bitterness. "Yeah," says Annie, "closest ones first. I wanna talk to a dead emperor or someshit."

"No emperors in this steaming camelshit oasis. You'll find some poor bastard who didn't pack enough water at most."

The graveyard is, in fact, unimpressive. The tombstones are either unmarked or too weathered to make any distinctive characteristic. Nobody has left flowers at these graves in many a lunar cycle.

"Hey Annie, have you ever seen the dead rising from the grave?"

"Only if you count metaphorical grandmamas turning OVER in their graves when you walk up to the bench in the courtroom and BAM! Their grandson IS in fact a rapist, and IS in fact going to prison, and WILL in fact, unfortunately, reap what he's...er...sewn." Their arm lock breaks for a moment and Anberlin looks away, coughing. "Apologies. My main cover in the capital is a--" She stops. "Heh. You've read my file. Probably more times than I have!" Her boot twists a line of dirt around near a headstone and she exhales slowly. "I haven't seen them rise before." A grin as dark purple smoke billows lightly from her eyelashes. "Wanna show me?"

"...You're an interesting girl, did you know that?" Lysander says. "Very amusing answer. Many syllables. People generally just pee their pants."

Her hand becomes a fist.

For a few moments, there is silence. A faint breeze moves the desert sand; insects buzz in the distance.

The silence is disturbed by a whithered hand bursting forth from below. It scrabbles at the sand. Another hand, followed by an arm. The arms hoist. A mummified figure emerges. It howls, a rasping, sandy noise. With tremendous force, it surges forwards. Towards Lysander, arms outstretched. Clawing.

She catches the mummy and squeezes its face.

"Well aren't you a handsome little fellow," she says, with the voice one reserves for a dog, or a kitten.

Lysander turns to Anberlin. "How'd you like him?"

"He's a little corpsey for my taste, but I guess if I close my eyes and he doesn't kiss too much--"

"As an answer donkey, Annie. An answer donkey."

"Oh, yes, he's very nice. Good rib structure."

"Did you hear that, you cwute wittle guy? You have nice rib structure!" Lysander says. "Now talk." She pushes her face against the zombie's. "What has befallen this disgusting patch of desert you called a home in your miserable lifetime?".

The zombie cocks his head to the side and lets a few more pounds of sand issue out. A zombie waterfall, if you will. And he thinks. "Did you ever think you were gonna take a bite of a really great steak cooked just the way you liked only to taste really dry chicken instead?" His voice is a wheeze. It is an old man who demands he can live on his own well into his eighties, calling any beastman who passes by a leashless pet, despite the suits and dresses.

"Yyyyes, I suppose so. Why?"

"That's about it, really." He cracks his neck and his head falls off. "Aaaaall dry chicken around here." His animated body grabs his head and spins it around like a basketball, a real sight to behold--light-filled eyes leaking their unholy smoke into the night air. "Hey let me do something cool and I'll tell you whatever kinda dry chicken shit you wanna hear. Agreed, master?"

Lysander looks to Anberlin.

Anberlin looks to Lysander. She shrugs. "Agree, master. I wanna hear about the dry chicken."

Lysander waves a hand dismissively. "Do as you please."

With permission, the rattling and dust-dropping bone pile rattles up the fence; he turns his head like a puppetteer and grins when he finds the perfect angle. Facing Lemuria. "Hah! Now I get to watch those boogie-ass pigs burn in their own shit troughs!" He glances down to Anberlin. "No offense."

"None taken. Howwwww'd you know?"

"Heard your spat with Calvert's daughter earlier. Bitch can haul ASS, lemme tell you!"

Lysander growls under her breath and punches the iron gate, her scythe materializing in a spurt of acidic green blood.

The zombie watches Lysander.

Lysander's scythe, more specifically.

The scythe wins.

"Fine." He slaps his head down on the fence post and lets his body crumble to the ground, where it releases its life smoke into Lyce's scythe.

Lysander chuckles. "Looks like he really wanted to make a point of his existence."

Annie groans and slumps to the ground. "This is why I wanted that woman earlier to give me more info. She just went on and on about a goat of all things. Said there'd be natives to talk to. Do the dead even know about this earthquake business?"

"Depends on when they died. This one seemed pretty old. I can fish around for younger corpses... or we can head north, to Redwind. I bet there'll be lots of people there who'll have heard of it!"

Annie thinks for a minute. Her eyes gloss over the same pink tint that Lysander registers as normal brain function--and she looks up and nods. "We'll go, but in the morning when we have our fellas with us. Until then..." She pulls a small flint from her pocket. "Let's burn some shit. I'm freezing."

Lysander sits down next to Anberlin, shoulder to shoulder. "Graveyards are pretty romantic, wouldn't you say?"
vulgus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur










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