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Embers Linger

Scene details

Setting: The Star Chasers venture to Hidden Hearth, the secret village of the Ankhialeans, led by their new companion Atl, unaware of what awaits.

Log

  • Character: Atl
  • 1 week, 3 days ago

We see you. We take you.

Their ways are not so different, out here in the deep jungle, that the mission and its courtesy were particularly difficult to navigate. People are people. Communication, like life, finds a way, and equally there is drive and purpose to entities lost and found. The girl, unannounced as but - with quiet pride - bearing the name Atl all the same, leads a brisk pace for our intrepid adventurers, weaving busily down through the palash trees and back into the wilds proper. Respite was allowed, to be sure; but she and her wisps remain on the outskirts of any temporal encampment, staring one another down as if in commune, the wisps dancing and weaving and the tiny, somewhat simian girl playing the straight caretaker.

She'll smile, nod, observe those courtesies on approach, and even shares refreshment at some point during the ensuing trek - her little, raggedy haversack packed with fruits and nuts foraged from the jungle basin. So fresh that little friends creepy-crawl out when she rummages for this bounty, displacing brightly-colored ants and shield-backed bugs.

They don't bother her in the least. She allows them to crawl over her, if they like. A large, horned beetle takes the invitation and with seeming comfortable delight builds a nest in the outrageous floof of her hair.

And when they're off, they are *off*, Atl ducking and diving through encroaching foliage that masks all possibility of reliable mapping. They already know the jungle is a maze, and the jungle-dweller makes navigating that maze look like a walk through city streets, occasionally doubling back on herself with a rueful little grin, only when nature has decided to consume a route once considered viable - she's at one with it, here. If nature says no, she accepts, and finds another way...

When travelling so purposefully through the dankest confines of the Oradian frontier, day becomes night for long, taxing minutes, passed beneath tangles so thickly-knotted as to block out the sun almost entirely. Here, a different kind of life takes decadent seed, fungus and all that it feeds enriching the near-pitch with flashes of luminescent ambience. Some are absurdly oversized specimens, pulsating and oozing, one particular crop giving off so much light it's almost blinding - almost neon, from no light to too much, back to none again, and then--

--the sun, bright and beautiful, burning and damning. Giver of life and drainer of tired limb. The moisture is intense, burning in that light, and through all of it Atl practically skips, twisting and turning and smiling and beckoning - waiting, when she must, but occasionally forging too far ahead for comfort. Forgetting herself, in her enthusiasm.

So it is as the group passes through that last, nearly hour-long thicket of darkness broken there and here by vibranly-engorged mushrooms. For perhaps three full minutes, there's just the slightest suggestion of a recently-beaten trail, and Atl herself is... gone. The myriad sounds of the jungle are muted, and claustrophobia and a sense of burdened loss reign.

Until, on pressing forth, the brave find themselves exploding into that light and heat. Into comforting, breathtaking scope of vision. Rapid waters churn far below, as crumbling rockface tumbles far, far into a yawning chasm over a river that flows from the mountainous expanses they've suddenly come oh-so-close to; dwarfed by the once-far vista of the jungle basin.

And before them, with one very chirpy girl and her flotilla of darting wisps perched precariously on a rotting old support that creaks even beneath her diminutive weight, an ancient bridge of braided vines and gnarled, rough-hewn planks...

Something manmade, at long and exhausting last.

'Ta-da', the scratched, bruised, sweaty, and very relaxed girl seems to say. Look at my bridge. Maybe it will support you!


Ruidosa La Crima tries to map the way towards Hidden Hearth, she fails, miserably, and has to erase and retry a few times before she gives up with a huff and just enjoys the views and travel through the jungles of her home country. She eyes mushrooms and considers picking one, so she does. Into the knapsack it goes. She probably just picked a highly poisonousness or useful mushroom. who knows.

when they get to the bridge, she eyes the bridge. She looks to Atl, she looks to the bridge, she looks to Reize and Ivo and Diaby and gives a wave. "Well, good luck everyone!" she says as she turns into a bat in a puff of smoke, and flies across the chasm instead of using the bridge.


 "I bet... Kernunnos would... like that one."
 So Ivo effortfully remarks, huffing and puffing, with a nod towards the horned beetle that has peacefully make its nest in Atl's hair. Even to point would be too much, for he, likely the least agile among the party, has dedicated himself to pumping his arms when powerwalking to keep up with this pace when he isn't spreading them wide to maintain his balance in moments where the path gets more precarious. He has been as carefully observant as he can be, but at a certain point he, like Rui, must simply give up, unwilling to carve some obvious path lest he unwittingly lead enemies to the Ankhialean haven and unable to maintain a mental map of this dizzying hike. Ivo contents himself with observing Atl instead, showing nothing but curiosity in her manner and behavior, even if he does not stand *too* close when she allows herself to be covered in insects.
 "In... credible..."
 At first he thinks the roaring in his ears is a sign that he is about to pass out, or perhaps some sort of auditary hallucination, so Ivo is genuinely taken aback at the view that at last emerges before them. Hands on his knees as he pants, he simply gazes in awe and allows the cool radiating from the restive waters below to soothe his sweat-streaked features. He thus only processes Rui's quip when it is too late for a comeback. Glancing at the bat she has become, he then glances to Reize.
 "You'd better go first, chief," he murmurs. "I'm most liable to break it."
 Ivo *probably* is actually being considerate. Probably.

Reize Seatlan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Resist trying one of the mushrooms
Roll(s): 14. Total result is 14. This is a success (by 4).



 The surroundings have been nothing more than impressive for the young explorer! The deep jungle, still unrepenting.

 The young explorer had been following their guide through. The eyes are drawn to the vibrantly mushrooms. He gives a thoughtful look, musing if he should try it. He kneels down to take the mushroom from its roots and he adds it into his satchel. There was the temptation of... eating it.

  ... Maybe he shouldn't this time. Ruidosa may scold him, considering the past experiences with herbs.

 So, he'll just store it for later.

  Once that he's at the bridge with the group, he gives a thoughtful look and he grins, "We can make it!" He eyes the rotting old support, trying to step and follow. He'll make it.

 

  • Character: Daiby
  • 1 week, 3 days ago


Hooray! thinks Daiby. We made a friend!

Daiby follows along, with good cheer. Her eyes do track over little-friends as they crawl over Atl; she does not really have room to criticize on this front, considering that she has, at this point, at least three other organisms (snakes) on her person, even if you want to ignore the luminous brand of a pain-free boa around her neck. (The boa is currently chilling out. Daiby is, at least, a light source right now. They may need to get a secondary shroud for the snake.)

"Look, Ivo," observes Daiby (quietly!) as they walk. "It's like the ecosystem has made a natural cavern despite the lack of stone. And while I'm sure it's ancient, it's known that trees grow *far* quicker than mountains, not so? And gah!!!" She had been about to bubble a bit more, but the sunlight hurts her eyes.

They reach the bridge.

Rui takes the Bat Wing express. Daiby pouts a little.

"Good luck," Daiby tells Reize. "I may have some of the snakes cross on their own too. They're not that heavy - they're like my siblings, now - but... every little bit doesn't help."

And with that, Daiby loiters. Loiters and awaits her turn.... of destiny.

  • Character: Atl
  • 1 week, 3 days ago

Perhaps in spite of her familiarity, comfort, and obvious, somewhat-instinctive knowledge, there's no sense of particular stewardship from Atl. She has a sack of foraged nonsense, after all! So as mushrooms are stolen and sampled, if she even notices she neglects to (silently) comment and she certainly won't stop anyone... the vibe is very much that this is her jungle insofar as she lives here, in some form of communion and kinship, but it's not *hers*. Nobody owns the wild.

No more than she 'owns' the little wisps, which perform pirouettes that might be read as mocking by the initial, awed-then-aghast expressions at the form taken by their perilous route ahead. A better read might be amusement, as two of them pirouette all the more ecstatically when Ruidosa performs her party trick - and the other recoils in a sharp swoop. Shock? Asserting as much, there's the second truly audible vocalization from Atl, who gasps she hard it's almost a squeal, clapping her hands as if she weren't thus balancing entirely on her butt atop one of the two things *holding the bridge up*.

Huge, carnelian eyes watch the bat twinkle in the bold daylight. And then, she hops down.

A bob of the head to Ivo, a huge, encouraging smile to Reize, and she half-turns toward the flapping La Crima scion. Dark pupils flick-flick from Reize, back to Ivo, to Daiby, and the beetle in her chair chitters and takes flight too. Nod, 'says' the strange girl, flapping her own arms helpfully and gesturing to the bridge.

As if they're somehow going to help, the three wisps twist around each other in brief commune before swooping - palpably white-hot in their proximity - to join each of the other three adventurers, buzzing and weaving around them.

There doesn't seem to be any magical effect. One of them chirrups as only a literal ember can chirrup. Moral support? Certainly, they seem inclined to accompany, one by one, unless some kind of objection is raised.

The bridge does look, uh, flammable.

Ivo Galvan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Can modern magitech in any way reinforce this bridge?
Roll(s): 20. Total result is 20. This is a success (by 10).


 Ivo, admittedly, had started to become so focused on just enduring his travails that he had hardly attended to the features of the environment that Daiby is remarking upon. The darkness of the primordial tunnels formed by the verdant flora hardly offered any respite as he teetered on the brink of heat exhaustion in any case. But now that he is catching his breath and bathing in the blessed cool of rising mist, which is a nice way of saying that he is loitering too, he reflects on what she's said.
 "You're quite right, of course," he says. "And even by the standards of the Oradian jungle, this is extreme. I recall that the Ankhialean elementals that Reize and Ruidosa and I faced beneath the Hanging Gardens fused fire with earth. I wonder if Ankhiale's presence has seeped into the environs so deeply that the vegetation itself becomes nigh mountainous in... hmm."
 Ivo looks rather askance as one of Atl's wisps begins to hover close to him, with the air of someone attempting to gloss over a cocktail party guest's faux pas. Such is his demeanor when he is in truth suppressing a surge of deeper nervousness and fear. As nice as a cool dunk in a river sounds, he would rather not perish here. He and Daiby haven't even--
 "Well, there's nothing for it."
 Ivo acts on a whim, really. The raw aether in his elespheres rarely interacts straightforwardly with organic material and it's unlikely that he'll be able to make any sort of meaningful difference if he attempts to somehow improve on this weathered bridge. But his exchange with Daiby has him wondering if, from centuries of a sapient spirit's magic seeping through these environs, he might be able to capitalize on some sort of latent opportunity. With a casually workmanlike mien, he draws his sword, Hauteclare, and loads an umber earth-aspected elesphere into its pommel, channeling the element into the blade, pointing, and launching it from its hilt. The dancing blade flies forth like a needle pulling aetheric thread, Ivo's wrist subtly twitching as he manipulates it from afar while it spirals like a missile and darts like a dragonfly, not cutting or severing a single vine, instead interweaving earth magic into them. Upon reaching the far side, with hardly a blink, he reverses his weapon and sends it back along the opposite side of the bridge, veritably embroidering the edifice.
 "Hm."
 With a satisfying click, Ivo returns Hauteclare's blade to its hilt and regards the result, basically expressionless: the magic is actually lingering there, interwoven with the bridge's vines and seeping into the planks to fill gaps without reducing flexibility, like some synthetic epoxy repairing some ancient craft. The result practically glows.
 "As anticipated," he murmurs, "more or less."
 That actually worked???

Ruidosa La Crima has a wisp following her. Great. That's what she's always wanted, an element of pure fire following her around. She turns back into her humanoid form on the otherside and watches as Ivo does... something useful!? That can't be right, this jungle is loopy!

She looks to the wisp. "Don't get any ideas." she says as she writes in her tome. Today's Date: Ivo did something useful!?

She scribbles down what happened and the results.

She also adds 'Strange Mushroom' to her running inventory. 'Try to get Madonna to eat it'.

Reize Seatlan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Resisting Temptation of that One Little Nibble
Roll(s): 8. Total result is 8. This is a failure (by 2).

  • Character: Daiby
  • 1 week, 3 days ago


Daiby watches the wisps as they bobble and flit. Their wight-hot radiance doesn't bring her a lot of comfort. She rests a hand on her fiery boa for a moment, stroking the creature at the back of its head and the front of its neck... where does the neck end on a snake, anyway

ok, the first couple of inches

"I suppose you could use fire to... heat and melt a reinforcing... something? Like the tar and caulk in the bottom of some older ships? That kind of thing? With shredded ropes?" Daiby half-guesses with growing concern BUT: Ivo! Ivo has an impulse intuition, and he pulls out a sword, and Daiby's eyes widen because while cutting the bridge *would* in a sense solve their problem--

Daiby squints. She raises her other hand to shade her eyes. For a moment she looks quite a bit like her mother, because as easy going as she is this seems dubious to her and she does have limits. But so does Ivo, and it seems he's stayed within them.

Daiby slowly brightens. "Oh!" she says. "Oh it is like caulking an old ship! Haha! That was quite clever of you, Ivo! It doesn't smell like tar, exactly, of course, but you might try that. Wouldn't that be an earth evocation?" And with that, Daiby removes several snakes from her wrists and in her hair, including several small, brightly colored, and probably insanely poisonous snakes. The fiery boa remains around her neck, because seriously, folks, we're not going to run a burning snake across a rope bridge.

"Now, once Ivo has crossed, as well as Miss -- hm -- well, our new friend: I expect all of you to follow across this, without wandering off," Daiby instructs the snakes, along with some hand gestures that are doing all the actual work, because snakes do not have external ears. "If you need to take your time, that's alright; just stay on the far side and we'll link up. Hm?"

Two of the beensy ones are flicking their tongues out.

"Oh, alright," says Daiby, extending an arm - it seems the two tiny ones in question have begged a ride from Legged Mother. And with that, and one last smile, she moves to cross!



 "Hee, thanks Daiby!"

 The good thing is that Reize is not alone in the travel along the bridge. He has his friends! In fact, one of them have made the travel easier! It is surprising to Reize to see the bridge mend itself beneath his feet, restructured and tightened to a more controlled state.

 "Whoa..."

 Reize cannot help but appreciate and be amazed at Ivo's ingenuity. It is through Ivo's efforts that the young explorer does not have to take any extra steps to safely cross the bridge.

 However, with one of the wisps passing by, Reize looks quite thoughtful. "...What's that?" It is debatable if it's personal curiosity or delusion, but the boy looks over towards the mushroom that he stored.

 "...You say that it's safe to try one of these?" He procures the mushroom, "...Maybe just a little nibble?" But it doesn't look like it was listening to him, instead making its way to Ruidosa.

 ...Reize takes the mushroom to his mouth and he gives a little nibble.

 ... What harm could one little nibble do?

 

  • Character: Atl
  • 1 week, 3 days ago

This time, there's shock from the girl that isn't so welcome, as her guest upon this dangerous trek takes matters into his own hands. She seems to read the elespheres well enough - albeit with a frown of interest that persistently drags her forward a step when Ivo interacts with his machinations - but her fingers brace into panicked little talons when he sets to upon the bridge. The wisp around the scholar-knight panics, too; it's ANGRY, buzzing like a wasp, but a seeming fear or need for comfort drives it back to Atl rather than into the conflict it's regularly been teasing.

Her itinerant, smoldering ward seems to bring purpose with it, a blink of communion all that's needed for Atl to watch the rest of the display, then calmly skip out onto the planks of the bridge. A stomp, a frown, and both hands alight on the vines. She looks to Ivo, with a frown that says, 'you shouldn't have done that', or, 'you should have asked first', but a quick tilt of the head that says, 'it's okay, we've got this,' and maybe - just maybe - a slightly begrudging, 'thank you'.

For a moment then, the ensorcelle bridge more than 'practically' glows; it does so resonantly, as Ivo's pragmatic modern magecraft meets something old, and venerable, and deeply, profoundly instinctive uncoiling - like a serpent, hiss - from within the girl. It's a concept that's been coming up frequently, but Atl looks like she's in commune - with the very air, with the mountainous precipices on each side, the bridge spanning them, and the invasive magicks reforging the link betwixt twain. The glow pulses, flickers, guttering like a candle flame, sucked toward Atl herself.

Is she drinking it? Big carnelians close, and through fleshy lips she breathes an almost wistful sigh, those protuberances puckering and then closing, sucked over her teeth as a shudder runs through her teeny-tiny frame. The air - all of it - *inhales* around and with the girl, and on the ensuing outbreath the glow fades, deeply, all that magic soaks into ancient vine and belabored, beaten planks perhaps used by few but this girl in so very long...

All seems as it was, then. But no. She's not undone the magic - she's woven it in full truth, into the natural magic that already existed. That relaxed smile is back on her lips, as she nods with childlike satisfaction, like she's set up the perfect tea party. This isn't epic, or particularly profound, nothing of real note happened - but it's right now. Everything's just right.

Ivo's wisp dances just out of her finger's reach. She notices, and gently 'boops' it, as if she understands.

"Thank."

It sounds angry, but perhaps it's the words and not their vague intent - as before.

"Bridge. We. Show. Fire."

Fire? She stops booping and frowns, shaking her head like a tennis player missing an easy shot. Was her timing off? She waits, patiently, boops again.

"You."

Bridge you? We show fire you? We show you? It's probably that one.

And then she's grinning and beckoning, tearing off across the bridge with a pitter-patter of bare footfalls memorable from that first encounter upon a giant tree. She almost catches up to Reize before he takes a nibble. Almost.

The wisp attached to him buzzes angrily. The wisp attached to Daiby dives between her legs, then over her left shoulder, whirling an insistent and excitable figure of eight toward the bridge. Go, go!


 "I've been thinking," Ivo is saying to Daiby as they cross a bridge now reinforced by his weird science, "that magitech benefits from social intelligence. I may not bend aether to my will by will alone, but if I attend to the wills of others and introduce aether into such a system, it is akin to opening floodgates to allow water into channels already entrenched. Heat *would* typically be required for such a feat... but if Ankhiale's will has shaped this land as we expect, and she permeates it, fire in earth like seams of carnelian copper... then the essence of earth might act as tar of its own accord."
 He pontificates confidently, as if all this had been pure skill and not an utterly exploratory venture far more likely to damage the bridge than anything else. But on a crit success, maybe you get to pontificate a little afterwards.
 "But even now, I cannot claim to be sure of Ankhiale's nature," he says. "We'll have to meet her ourselves... and soon, I hope, we shall. Spirits are so often full of surprises. Isn't that right, Reize? ...Reize?"
 Ivo, typically so attentive to ensuing hijinks, double-takes at their fearless leader, sensing that in his intellectual posturing for Daiby, he failed to notice his friend doing something important. Well, it'll surely be fine.
 "...Oh."
 As is too often his habit, Ivo makes it most of the way to an obvious conclusion before getting carried away by some novel idea. It should follow, after all, that if Ankhiale's power permeates this place, and thus that he might be able to reinforce the bridge in an unusual way, that someone who worships Ankhiale might also regard the bridge as sanctified, or indeed this entire realm. Ivo's breezy aplomb is punctured as he's taken aback, recalibrating first at the sight of the girl's expression, then at her miraculous act upon the bridge, and then again at her apparent gratitude. Each one throws him for a bit of a loop.
 "Thank *you*," is all he can manage to say, placing his hand upon his chest in a sign of sincerity, still reeling somewhat as Atl leads them on. No need to bombard her with words in any case. Ivo will take this time to reflect as they advance, so deep in thought he may not even be able to appreciate whatever shenanigans Reize starts to get up to, at least not right away.
 Though his approach to magitech is unusual in some ways, like most, it relies on aetheric essence that has been extracted and reduced to its most basic components, stripped of any interfering forms. But this extractive approach to magic, even if it seems to be able to complement these enchanted lands, is surely an entirely different paradigm of thinking than that to which the Ankhialeans must subscribe.
 Ivo should tread carefully, he muses, in more than one respect.