27 Descending Air.
Only a scant few days remain before the massive armies of the Red Lily descend upon Creation.
As the brilliant sun rises above Creation, the Solars begin gearing up for an expedition to recover some of the numerous components necessary to create their own Exalts -- and hopefully stop the oncoming tide.
Nagging at the back of Zahara's mind is Rovash's warning that Tevezst, the fae who slew her family, will soon attack from the east....
<Zahara> "I propose we go together into the Deep Wyld. I imagine there will be many fae there who will take issue with our intrusion on their domain. If it can be called a domain."
<Markuran> "I had thought we were sending Serenal to collect the Wyld Essence?"
<Zahara> "We spoke of that, but I am unsure whether that would be wise. There are Fae, also, who wish our empire harm."
<Serenal?> "Markuran had not thought to ask me before deciding I would perform his errand."
<Markuran> "I asked you back in your city if you would consider it, Serenal."
<Serenal?> "It is dangerous to journey into the Deep Wyld."
<BirdsOfTrinity> "Danger? Ha! We laugh in the face of danger! Hahaha!"
<Cerin> "That is why we travel together."
<Zahara> "I have heard tales that the Chosen of Luna do not fear the warping effects of the Wyld." She looks at Birds, "Yes. Ha ha."
<BirdsOfTrinity> "It is easier to laugh at, you know, when we have our big sticks around." She vaguely nods at the other four.
<Serenal?> "We do not. I am speaking largely of the danger to you."
<Zahara> "I can take care of that."
<Serenal?> "Good. Shall we begin our journey?"
<Zahara> "Serenal, have you heard of the Fae, Tevezst?"
<Serenal?> "Why do you ask of him?"
<Zahara> "Well, I thought we could kill two birds with one stone - no offense, Birds - and pay him a visit before he pays us one."
<Markuran> "Also he attacked Zahara as a young child and stole her heart."
<Markuran> "Cerin and I have sworn to return it to her breast."
<Zahara> "Well, there's that."
<Zahara> "That is not the primary objective, however."
<Zahara> "He will not be alone."
<Markuran> "We are aware, Zahara. Let us begin our quest to return the heart that was stolen from you!"
<Serenal?> "I have fought the Wyld creatures before. I do not fear to fight them again."
Some hours later, the six Exalts stand in a thick eastern forest. The trees grow up almost utterly normally... excepting the fine tracery of gold and red on the leaves, which perfectly spells out the names of thirty-seven long dead ladies.
<Zahara> "Thirty-seven of them."
<Serenal?> "Yes. It's something of an odd number."
<Zahara> "Can any of you, aside from Serenal, protect yourselves from the Wyld?"
<Kai> "Not unless you can stab it..."
<Cerin> "No, my love."
<Zahara> "Hmmm I see. Then it is a good thing I have been improving my Mastery of the Wyld due to a long-ago incident." She calls her Essence into her palms, where they glow with barely-contained power. Exerting her will over it, she blows a long breath, and the essence takes on the form of petals and leaves, swirling through the air and settling down to merge with their skin, four on each of her unprotected companions, four on herself.
<Serenal?> Each of the other Solars feels a slight shift in energy as the petals settle upon them -- a slight edge is taken off the air.
<Zahara> "The form differs, depending on which Direction you are in." she offers, seeing Marku's reaction.
<Serenal?> "Have you all prepared?"
<Zahara> "Have you further suggestions for preparation?
<Markuran> "No, let's go."
<Serenal?> "Other than gaining the blessing of the divine moon, no."
<Serenal?> After a few moments, she begins to walk eastward, into the jungle.
As the Solars advance, the trees begin to shift and change in unusual ways. The patterns grow more visible, then begin to change, turning into abstract drawings of fish or elaborate lists of monetary figures. The trees' bark shifts to stone, to opal, to meat. The air begins to smell unusually of cloves and babies.
<Serenal?> The tree moans unhappily as Markuran struggles with it, and strange green liquid begins to flow out of it in numerous locations.
<Zahara> "Marku, why don't you pick one up on the way out? No sense dragging it through the Wyld. It looks a bit heavy."
<Kai> "Ew."
<Zahara> "Well we should leave before it shits."
<Kai> "Ew."
<Markuran> "It might not be here on the way out." Tugtugtug
<Kai> "Marku. It's a tree."
<Zahara> "I suggest we carry on. Marku can follow if he is able." she strikes out in a forward direction.
As they journey further, the area becomes even stranger -- birds made of human ears flap between trees that seem to be simultaneously made of water and fire. The air starts to get thick and congealy, while the ground becomes light and difficult to walk upon.
<Serenal?> "What precisely does the list say again, Zahara?"
<Serenal?> "We will have to journey further, then."
A strange, ethereal music begins to waft through the air.
Cerin's ears prick up. Clearly it seems to be emenating from the northeast.
<Zahara> "Yes...wish I knew it, I'd sing along."
<Cerin> "It's coming from over there, if you wish to see what is making it." he points, to the NE.
<Zahara> "Ah, I think we better stick to our mission. We'll never come back if we go haring off after every pretty thing."
The music grows louder, and yet, somehow, even more appealing.
<Zahara> "Come on, My protection only extends to physical effects." she urges. "We have things to do."
<Cerin> "We do."
<Markuran> "Yes...mustn't stop for *every* pretty thing."
<Zahara> "Especially not more TREES."
<Markuran> "What's wrong with stopping for trees?"
<Zahara> "They're TREES."
<Kai> "We can only carry so many trees..."
<Markuran> "I can carry as many trees as I want to."
<Kai> "I'm not sure that's true. Unless you don't want to carry more trees than you can."
<Markuran> "Why would I?"
<Zahara> "How many CAN you carry?"
<Markuran> "It depends on how much they weigh."
<Zahara> "Well start picking opal baby trees.
<Markuran> "Now they're flaming water trees."
As the Solars begin to advance on, something odd happens -- the strange music grows louder, as if they are moving toward it.
Zahara finds the tune oddly familiar.
<Zahara> "Hmmm I think I know this tune."
As the Solars continue to sing and walk forward, they notice something a little ways off: ringed by a perfect circle of trees composed entirely of purple smoke and elaborate silken brocades, sits an oddly mundane sight: a large wooden table, set with a sumptuous banquet.
The smell of the banquet wafts over to the Solars, overpoweringly strong.
<Zahara> "You sing pretty."
<Zahara> "Anything for you."
As the group walks on further, a dark green mist begins to rise up out of the ground, obscuring all vision.
Even Cerin's essence-powered sight is no match for the strange green gas.
<Zahara> "Hmm this is annoying." Zahara steps up into the air to see if she can rise above the stuff
Zee walks up far into the air. For some distance, it doesn't seem to disperse, but eventually she finds herself amongst a set of leafy branches, with a thick layer of green fog covering the area below.
Markuran's bluster doesn't seem to produce any obvious effect.
Zahara can't see an obvious end to the fog from where she's standing.
<Kai> "Z? If you're going to float, maybe we should set up a tether or something?"
<Markuran> "Serenal, can you turn into a giant bird that can carry two men, a woman and Zahara?"
Of course, the end cannot be seen through the complete darkness caused by the fog.
<Kai> "Uhm... Maybe we shouldn't seperate too much."
Markuran and Cerin both locate climbable trees.
<Cerin> "Now, I'm going to pick you up, then we can get out of here, ok?"
Markuran's skin tingles unpleasantly from the touch of the tree, but he is able to begin climbing up it nonetheless.
<Kai> "Alright."
Markuran crests the fog line just in time to see Serenal pop out of it nearby in roc form, flapping about rapidly. However, Zahara is absolutely nowhere to be seen.
Similarly, as Cerin leaps up, he finds himself only standing upon an unassuming branch.
Zahara sees neither other group emerge from the fog.
<Zahara> "Hey, what's taking you guys so long? This can't be THAT hard to see."
<Markuran> "ZAHARA?!"
<Markuran> "GET BACK HERE!!"
<Kai> "We lost them, didnt't we?"
Zahara does not hear Markuran's words, either.
A flaming BDSM device suddenly flops onto Birds' head.
As she does so, the fog seems to lift; she sees the other end, still attached to Zahara's wrist, high above.
<BirdsOfTrinity> "Hi Zee!"
<Zahara> "Well hello, Birds. I thought you'd never find the end. You're a bit on fire though."
<BirdsOfTrinity> "I am pleased to hear that."
<Markuran> "Do you see them?"
<Zahara> "Where are the others?"
<Serenal?> "I can't see anyone else. And I can see a considerable distance." She shifts into a human again and continues to look around.
Zahara and Birds -- but no one else -- begin to hear the strange music again, louder than before.
<Zahara> "Maybe they followed the song."
<BirdsOfTrinity> "It's worth a try."
At this point, the fog has almost completely dissipated for everyone. However, the three separate groups still cannot see one another.
<Markuran> "ZAHARA! CERIN!" a pause as Marku things. "KAI?"
<Markuran> thinks^
<Markuran> "BIRDS!!"
<Zahara> "Where is Cerin?" she sends worry through the Unity
<Serenal?> "They're not here, Markuran." She looks around some more. "I suspect fae trickery."
The music grows louder.
Markuran notices suddenly that the banquet table they saw earlier seems to have reappeared just below the tree he is sitting in.
Cerin, on the other hand, notices something else -- a massive dagger, jet black, looking to be hundreds of feet tall; stabbed into the ground of a clearing perhaps 100 yards away.
<Zahara> "I can't feel them. This isn't good." She casts her gaze about, frowning. "I recall why I hate the Wyld."
<Serenal?> "No people, anywhere. A banquet table beneath us." She gestures. "And the forest to the west appears to be on fire." She gestures again, where bright crystalline flames appear to be sweeping over the trees.
<BirdsOfTrinity> "Hm, maybe we can find each other more easily if we do what we were doing before." She picks up the multiplication song again.
The Solars can suddenly hear, faintly, the tune of Kai's singing in their minds.
<Zahara> "Kai?" She looks around, trying to trace the source of the sound
As if on cue, Markuran's bass tones slide into the minds of the others.
With Zahara's joining of the song, the barriers blocking the Unity seem to come down entirely, and the Solars begin to feel one another within their minds once again.
As the singing continues, though, Cerin notices something -- a great deal of Essence welling up within the tremendous black dagger.
A faint whistling sound begins to sound, from far above.
<Serenal?>, hesitantly singing with Markuran, continues to wonder what exactly is going on.
Perhaps a thousand black daggers, precisely like the one which now glows with Essence, are falling down toward the area where Cerin and Kai stand, at an extremely rapid pace.
At the same moment, Zahara and Birds begin to hear whispering, as if on the wind... at first, it's incomprehensible.
Cerin shoots upwards, his powerful bolts of sunlight striking against the massive daggers falling through the sky. One touch from the arrows sends them spiralling out of their previous path, crashing into the others falling nearby in unpredictable and terrifying ways. The crashes of giant metal on metal are incredibly loud -- so loud that Markuran, Birds, and Zahara hear them faintly.
Sent spinning to their sides, many of the giant daggers crash to the ground, smashing the ground mere yards away from where Cerin and Kai stand, sending massive quantities of earth and fire/water wood flying up into the air.
Zee and Birds can suddenly hear the words being whispered: "Interloper.... corruptor.... ZAHARA....."
a figure, a tall humanlike individual wearing an elaborate black and white outfit, has appeared at the table, where he is slowly sipping from a goblet.
The gentleman turns to look at Markuran and, without saying a word, gestures for Marku and Serenal to join him at the table.
Marku gets a good look at him, and can see the vicious-looking black dagger pendant which hangs around his neck.
The whispering picks up in volume a little for Zahara and Birds. "Very well. Join me for dinner...." A path clears itself out of the woods, leading off in one direction.
Zahara, Birds, Cerin, and Kai all arrive at the clearing with the banquet table at about the same time, and Tevezst gestures for all of them to sit.
<Zahara> "How could I forget?"
Tags: (:tags Rovash the Infinite, Tevezst, Wyld :) < Serenal's Tattoo | Sol Invictus Logs | About the Faith >
Stryck Wiki