Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Sept 20, 2019 13:12:21 GMT -6
Mear Stamina: 5 (+2 Gym) Strength: 7 Resistance: 6 Dexterity: 7 Mentality: 5 Special Abilities: Swim, Fly Moves: Dodge, Bite, Summon Wooden Spear
- Character Profile -
The morning sun had barely crested the surrounding forest-peaked mountains and the dewy mist only beginning to lift off of the City’s gardens, when two figured pushed themselves through a thicket. By their very nature, neither of them was want to be very inconspicuous, for both her a similar tone yet different shades of golden-brown, brightly stark against the mostly mossy green backdrop of the garden. Moreover, where the two-legger had, at least, some advantage of size, to potentially hide herself among the foliage, the other of the company had no such hopes - even if he would have laid himself down flat, it would but barely helped himself hide.
It was because of this that stealth had been, decidedly, off the menu. There was another task to complete and unlike the rather covetous nature of the sarane, the two had hoped that, perhaps, the nyssa would have been one potentially reasoned with. Or at the very least, traded with.
Mear waded his way through the foliage ahead, cutting a path through the under-brush with his very bulk for the mammalian to follow in the wake of. They were travelling relatively light, most of the mammalian’s things in the tat-lung’s pack’s pockets, save for the sword scabbard across her back. Being reasonable was all well and good, but the problem with it was it rarely had a guarantee of working. Should negotiations go south, and they found themselves with need to retreat in the same direction, having clutter on one’s self in a thicket as this would have been unfortunate.
(1) Mear: 139 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Sept 20, 2019 13:13:09 GMT -6
And that was without going further into the fact that the garden they were trying to traverse was, in fact, a thicket. Copses of trees ranged in every direction and the under-brush could have been mistaken for soup. The old woman had not been exaggerating when she said the garden had grown out of hand, but the mammalian was forced to wonder if perhaps a more arcane influence had been at work along with the temporal factor. Her own patch of yard saw relatively little use and attention, something she tried to rectify every now and again, and yet it hadn’t even gotten to a fraction of the thicket they were in.
Perhaps it is simply a garden of a different nature, the tat-lung offered, picking up on her wandering thoughts.
I don’t pretend to be the expert on growing green things, origins considered, Darky replied, ducking under a branch that swung back as the tat-lung pushed ahead, But I’ve seen a fair few types of gardens on the grounds here and none of them get even close to this.
That’s true, Mear mused, pausing to let her catch up, before resuming to continue ahead, But then, none of those are home to an ancient tree.
Darky gave a snort, ducking a few more branches. It was tempting to pull the sword and cut one’s way through the thicket, but it was not her territory to do so, and it was poor form to destroy another’s home such as that. Do you really suppose this nyssa is really that old? A ‘grandmother’ doesn’t necessarily mean ancient, there’s plenty equillion who are grandmothers and yet are but a couple of years old.
(2) Mear: 139 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Sept 20, 2019 13:13:56 GMT -6
The agate lowered his head, squeezing through an opening beneath a bent over tree, careful the brush aside the leaves and branches gently enough to move them, but not snap. If this one is as large as the lady said it to be, why not? As I understand it, it is also a bit of a figure of speech among you, so even if it isn’t very old, it could certainly still be very large. The Labs have had no issue producing that, before or now.
Which meant that their job would be neither easier nor, in some ways, harder. It wasn’t harder because a creature of that size would have been relatively easy to locate in the limited perimeter of the garden, thicket or no. But then, once they did find it, it didn’t make bartering with it any easier either. A creature of that size could see them as nothing more than ants, the mammalian more-so than the tat-lung, and that's without going into what kind of personality it would end up having. If it summized to have a predisposition towards haughtiness, they were in trouble before any words were exchanged.
So, their best bet, hope and chance was to find it before it awoke, take stock of the situation and proceed from there.
They just needed to.. find it in the first place.
(3) Mear: 140 (0/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Sept 20, 2019 13:14:33 GMT -6
It was an hour into the two trudging through the under-brush when the mammalian finally called for a halt in something that would have, at one point, been a clearing, perhaps even a small fountain area, if it wasn’t overgrown with hip-height tall grass. Out of all the plots of the garden area, this thicket seemed to occupy a sizeable sum (perhaps it had even managed to swallow more than one abandoned garden in its existence), and yet they had reached the edge of it several times now, thinking they had criss-crossed through in a fairly straight manner only to realize their sense of direction amid the thicket had thrown them off.
More importantly, there were neither tracks nor clues as to where the nyssa could have been hiding among it all. Which was strange, considering the tat-lung, at only half the potential size, left a noticeable path of trod foliage in his wake. Mear point out, though, that much like Ehrata was able to repair the damage to their training yard by regrowing the grass there, then this nyssa, too, could potentially heal the ground as it walked, thus masking any tracks leading to its location. The sphinx was forced to concede the point.
However.. Mear continued, claw tapping his chin, There might be something that can be done, in a similar vein.
Regrowing plants, you mean? the sphinx craned a brow.
Yes, and no, his brow furrowed and he placed his hands flat against the ground. A moment later his eyes closed and something sent a small movement through the ground, almost as if a tickle through the earth.
(4) Mear: 140 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
|
Post by Darky on Sept 20, 2019 13:15:29 GMT -6
The sphinx observed as the grass all around them seemed to tremble the slightest bit, a little shudder centred around the tat-lung himself. She blinked, confused at first, until the sensation hit again and Mear shifted, opening his eyes.
Nothing here, he told her, eyes scanning the tree-line, But.. it might just work.
You’re going to have to be a little more detailed in that, Darky lightly poked him. What exactly is to work here?
He glanced down, then smirked, A theory. Ehrata and I share an affinity. It’s made it easier for us to train off of each other. I have learned observing her and she’s, hopefully, observed a little something from me. However, there has always been one thing that’s come to my attention during it. He reached out, hand brushing against the tall-grass. While we both are able to summon and, to a degree, control plants, we cannot take over control of each other’s summons. At least, not until the other has relinquished control.
Darky watched the grass sway in the slight breeze now, brain racking around the words, then a small dawning of understanding arose in her mind. So you are trying to search for the nyssa.. by finding where it’s power has been?
(5) Mear: 140 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Sept 20, 2019 13:16:01 GMT -6
The agate nodded, Or more precisely, where the reach of my power ends. A null spot. Something that cannot or would not yield to the arcane flow, because it is already being controlled by someone else. It was more of a long shot, he figured in earnest, since for it to be effective they had to have been pretty close to the null source already, and there might even have been any traces active if the nyssa was in a deep enough slumber as to simply be sitting there. But, it was certainly still better than simply, quite literally, beating around the bush.
Go for it, Darky nodded, If nothing else we might get at least a general direction.
There were many dissonant differences between someone grown up in jungles and someone grown up in deserts. The main one being that, while her mind was apt in mapping and cartographing along her way through any areas she visited, the habitual tendency to map things to landmarks worked better when your only landmarks existed miles apart and the rest was filled with a vast, sandy, nothing. Mapping things to landmarks when you couldn’t even properly see twenty feet in front of you, much less any large, defining landmarks, was decidedly a skill she still needed refining.
The tat-lung moved ahead, pushing into the copse of trees and trudging through a self-made path onward.
(6) Mear: 140 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Sept 20, 2019 13:16:34 GMT -6
It was some distance onward that he stopped again, pausing to place his hands against the ground and close his eyes, sending out he smallest filament of arcane power in his blood to pull on the leyline paths of the plants around them. Any more forceful use of the power could have cause bamboo to spring up from the ground in jagged spikes, or a flurry of ground suddenly becoming an ensnaring mess, but the purposes of his plant-based ping-system, he only used what could have been considered a minute drop.
The plants responses as always, seeming no different to him being there or the nyssa, so with some disappointment but confirmation that they were still on the search, the two continued onwards.
They passed through a few thickets of trees and a couple of brighter sun-basked clearings, even coming across as few beat-down paths in the under-bush, moments that sparked hope and excitement until they realized the tracks in the soil were not of nyssa but their own. It had to have happened sooner or later, for trudging through the garden criss-crossed would have sooner or later also made them bump into the said cross. Disappointments aside, though, it gave them direction - why follow a path already tread when they could take the direct opposite knowing that path was still unexplored.
(7) Mear: 140 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Sept 20, 2019 13:17:13 GMT -6
The narrowing of search field came to that, in the end - not from the use of arcane power nor any ability for natural direction, but merely by discounting previously taken paths since they yielded no results. The more paths taken, the easier to adjust when coming across an old one and making sure to cover patches and areas of the garden they had not previously ended up in.
It was in one such copse of wood, under the pitch-darkness of heavily over-grown orchard trees - apples, oranges, peaches, different in all and all haggard and unkempt - where the tat-lung tried his ping-trick once more. The undergrowth around shuddered once, twice, as the drop of arcane power was sent out like a little wave. Most of it pinged back in reflections - responses of the plants reacting to the magic - but on the very edge of his senses there was suddenly resistance.
Mear’s head rose and his eyes opened, swiftly turning towards the direction the sensing had come from. Darky followed his gaze but could see no more nor further than he could, What is it?
I think.. he began, sorting through the sensation as if to make sure he felt what he had, We -may- have a lead. It was faint, but there was some resistance from down that way.
Darky squinted, eyes used to much more brighter light than normal feline-adjacent mammalians would have thought to be possible of, but could only see shadows, flecks of sunlight, and more shadows. The distance could have been anything from twenty to a hundred feet from all they knew.
(8) Mear: 141 (0/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Sept 20, 2019 13:17:46 GMT -6
The two deliberated a moment. On the one hand, if the nyssa was asleep, there was less to be concerned about. But, if by some chance or vexing circumstance the nyssa was awake or even just half-asleep, well.. Then they would have to contend with something much more troublesome. The idea continued to be to avoid combat as much as possible, for even if they came out on top the nyssa could just as easily take its wrath out on the surrounding gardens when they’re gone. For much the same reason Mear carried a crystal cluster in his harness pockets. Retrieving the old lady’s stolen piece was well and good in the short term, but if the nyssa really wanted it what was to stop it from simply returning to get another?
The tat-lung proposed he could take a look. He could try and fly as quiet as possible, avoiding the under-brush and branches best he could, in order to get a lay of the land. The sphinx, however, told him to stay put. I may have a better way to get some scouting in, but you’ll need to stay here and make sure nothing happens to me while its going on.
It wasn’t a new trick, but if it worked with the sarane in the caverns, surely it could work with a nyssa in the forest.
Darky sat herself down, finding a more comfortable position than back then in that dark, damp cave, and closed her eyes. From the back of the head some arcane leylines were pulled forward and she slowly weaved them into a vague shape. Her hands lowered and when she opened her eyes, her body was three feet behind her, motionless.
(9) Mear: 141 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Sept 20, 2019 13:18:37 GMT -6
The agate could not exactly see her location, but he shot a faintly accusational look in the general direction of thin air regardless. A little more warning before she did that would have been wonderful.. The use of node and magic was something he had a sense of her using by now, but some of the newer spells were still able to catch him off guard. Such as the mammalian’s physical form just suddenly up and emptying. He could sense her emotional link somewhere, just not in her body anymore.
Darky involuntarily gave a sheepish shrug, despite knowing full well the scrying method meant the agate wouldn’t be able to see it, yet it couldn’t be helped. She’ll explain later, for now there was a thicket to explore and a nyssa to locate.
The sphinx’s spirit form rushed through the trees, finding it far better in navigation, and control, than the caverns had been. Admittedly, as dark as it was under the canopy, it could not, pun intended, hold a candle to the heavy, oppressive darkness of the mountain. She zipped between a few larger trees, spinning around them to try and spot a face, before continuing on. Neither brush nor truck stopped her spiritual form, making her realize, perhaps for the first time, what Amonuro was feeling every moment of his life. It was a wonderful sense of liberation, but likewise could just as easily grow lonely to be unable to interact with anything on the material plane.
Her form passed a thicket without much notice and only moments later she suddenly backtracked back to it, stopping in front of it. What she had assumed was slanted overgrown trunk seemed.. different to the rest.
For one, it wasn’t covered in fungi. For another, it had a jaw and arms.
(10) Mear: 141 (2/5)
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Post by Renathan on Sept 20, 2019 13:42:09 GMT -6
You have rolled a success! Your QP is added to the bank and your prize/s will be sent out shortly. You may continue roleplaying if you wish!
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Sept 30, 2019 10:32:01 GMT -6
The form flinched back, involuntary feeling exposed to being so close to their quarry, before a more waking part of her mind soothed her, remind her she was still scrying. The nyssa wouldn’t be able to see her, shouldn’t be able to, unless a degree of ancientness granted to it far more divine perception. It didn’t make the great lumber bulk any less imposing, however. Where ever this nyssa had come from, it certainly had something much different in it than the others of the Labs, and it wasn’t simple age.
Darky hovered a little closer, slowly making a circle around it to take in as much details and informations as she could - it was tilted, laying down on a pile of rocks, and asleep; the arms were long but gnarled, like an oak that had been pruned one too many times, but smaller sprouts of new branches still rose up all along its body regardless. Its canopy was thick and heavy, but it showed many broken branches and some blanched parts, damage from sun or fungus or simply age, she wasn’t sure. And all around the moss covered it like a blanket.
The nyssa’s location and position was stored to her memory, something she could now report back to the tat-lung on, but a thoughtful moment passed as the mammalian gently frowned.
..The crystal. Where was the crystal cluster it had stolen?
(11) Mear: 141 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Sept 30, 2019 10:34:08 GMT -6
The immediate thought was to assume it was somewhere on the nyssa’s possession - most stolen objects usually were - but from looking afar, and even daring to phase through the nyssa’s grasp, she could find nothing. Surely the cluster was still large enough to be visible, given it was such a prized object.. Then, a realization hit her. The sphinx floated about in the small clearing area searching every edge and thickets, before stopping, closing her eyes and letting her spirit rubberband its way back into the body.
The sphinx physical form awoke with a gasp, as everything spiritual quickly sorted itself back within her mortal shell to its appropriate space. Mear looked on in concern, the empathic sensations normally ones to be highly distressed about if he didn’t know this was just the consequence of the spell. Any luck? he asked, when it seemed the mammalian was mostly back to her senses.
She nodded, steadying her breathing and slowly standing up. Unlike the scrying trek down in the tunnels, with its cold and hard floor and almost an hour of searching, the body hadn’t had the time to get uncomfortable this time. All the same, she rubbed her legs and arms, trying to get circulation going. There’s a shrine. The nyssa is asleep next to it, but on the south-east corner of the clearing, between the nook of twin trees, there’s a little shrine. That’s where the crystal is.
The agate studied her face, then lowered his head towards her, But..?
The mammalian rubbed her shoulder, looking away. It’s to its owners..
(12) Mear: 141 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Sept 30, 2019 10:34:45 GMT -6
The weight of the words settled on the agate’s mind and he withdrew, a solemn nod and a pensive look. So.. it hadn’t been an act of theft for gain or vanity, but of reverence. The mammalian had translated the old lady’s words as best as she could remember, but there had been a mention of absent neighbours..
That.. maybe complicate things, yes, he eventually agreed. Then, looking to the mammalian, What colour was the cluster?
Darky thought about it, it was a little difficult to remember since her gaze as a spirit was a little different to her physical eyes. The trees were also heavily shaded, but a few details emerged. It was a little multi-hued, more opaque than normal crystals, perhaps stronger in the purple than others. A piece was missing on one of the ends.
Most likely a fluorite, perhaps even a rainbow one. If there was one thing a tat-lung would know, it was gemstones. Reaching to his side, into one of the pockets, he retrieved a cloth-covered lump, unfurling it to reveal the crystal cluster of their own. This one might not be the prized possession of a olden woman, but it is diamond. Between the fluorite and the diamond, ours would survive on the shrine for a lifetime. He looked to her, I think the nyssa would appreciate this one that much more.
The sphinx nodded, smiling a little sadly, Best of intentions for the worst of outcomes, sometimes.
(13) (261) Mear: 142 (0/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Sept 30, 2019 10:35:23 GMT -6
The swap agreed upon and the object at a ready, they still needed a plan to approach, however. There was a certain temptation to simply go in together, but between the bulk of the tat-lung and the poor stealth of the mammalian, it would have easily run the risk of awakening the nyssa. In truth, neither quite knew how deep a nyssa’s slumber could go, as Ehrata could at times wake to the sound of a rodent and yet other times sleep through an entire thunderstorm without so much as a flinch.
Begrudgingly, the mammalian eventually agreed that the best chances of pulling off the swap would be if the agate went alone - he could simply fly over the tree line and skip the noise-making step, though he could hardly carry the mammalian along with him. There were times where it would work and times where it wouldn’t and this was one of the latter times.
So, she instead described the area in as much detail as possible, making sure to note what was where and what kind of problems he would potentially have to deal with, before the agate clutched the cluster closer to himself and took off into the skies, heading for the clearing and the nyssa’s sleeping area.
(14) Mear: 142 (1/5)
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