| It is within the ephemeral nature of the soul to contain within itself trace essences of the lives we have once lived. We know it to be true that the cycle of reincarnation, a continuous dance of life and death, exists. Throughout the generations of scholarship, study, and contemplation that have come to the forefront of the world on the matter of this topic, only one answer has remained dominant in its time to the question of why the gods would create such a system to begin with. That answer is, of course, the gestation of the base, deeper soul. There must be something that life gives us, something that we take with us back into the crushing depths of the well of souls once we leave our bodies behind. Some tinge of our days here on this world must remain within the heart of our immortal essences. This leads us then to ask, to what end could this lead? To some form of ascension? Are we, as individuals, destined one day to ascend towards the rank of godhood? Or is that question simply stemmed from the ego, and are we simply things that the gods enjoy watching change and grow, as would a gardener take pride in the blossoming of a row of beautiful flowers? Perhaps we will have the chance to ask them after our deaths. But it is certain that, by the time we return to the world in our next bodies, we will not remember the answer. |
~ Director Essel of the creative academy of magical arts while presenting his latest sculpture
| ~ [Witch Perchta] ~ |
| ???, Female, Witch of the Blackwater |
| Location: The City |
Life is also so hard, isn’t it?
It seems like no matter what she does, there’s always some annoying, stupid person out there ready to ruin her hopes, goals, and ambitions. It doesn’t matter if she’s living by herself in the forest, if she’s in the city with everyone else, or if she’s with her friends. It doesn’t matter if she’s knee-deep in a twelve step plan or simply quietly sitting in her once-home, enjoying a cup of tea made from herbs from the forest, some stupid, annoying jerk like that damn bird or the cardinal is always going to be there to make sure she’s miserable.
Witch Perchta arrives back at the cathedral spot, looking at the tightly bound strings of fate that coil through the limp bodies of the men and women here, the soldiers of the crusade.
The woman bends down, takes hold of the string, and yanks on it.
A hundred and some bodies twitch at once, a ripple of movement spreading out across the pool of bodies that she has disturbed as smaller, interconnected strings move all of the others around the center mass.
They wanted to host a crusade against the tower anyway, right? Perchta smirks, channeling a little magic into her fingers.
— Well, who is she to stop them?
| (Perchta) has used: [Curse] |
The heavy, red rope that she’s holding onto shifts, its hue turning to a darker brown, as if its lifeblood were coagulating and drying. The color continues to shift, darkening, until the fate that ties these people together is nothing like what it once was. The red, crimson bond of life has been altered.
She yanks on the rope.
A thousand bodies, soaked through, lurch in sudden, sickly movement as she moves them with another tug. Then, all by themselves, now that the spark of anima has been brought to them, they rise.
Metal clamors and rattles as suits of armor, waterlogged, press themselves up off of the ground. First the inner circle, then the outer circle, and then all of the bodies lying in the crevices and cracks of the cathedral square begin to twitch as thousands of feet plant themselves firmly against the soil.
The mass of corrupted souls turns all at once, looking her way.
Perchta nods her head back towards the light in the sky.
“March,” she orders, letting go of the rope. The soggy, limp thing falls against the stones as thousands of boots begin to shuffle towards a place they were going to go anyway before she stopped them.
But Anderwal is right, that bookworm. It’s smarter for her to make them go than to just let them go as they would have. If they had gone off on their little crusade, as much as she would have enjoyed watching the humans and the bird kill each other, there’s a chance that it could have turned them, converted them.
She’s been leaving too much up to chance. Her plans always have too many open spots that can be countered, whether it's her plan for retirement or her plans for revenge.
It may be best to reduce. To simplify.
Witch Perchta turns her head, watching as thousands of shuffling crusaders drag their banners of war, their swords, and their bodies behind them as they move towards the light on the horizon, mindless, merciless, and godless.
That stupid bird wants to rescue and save everyone. Well, she’d like to see it try.
Perchta smugly looks down at Cardinal Schweig, who marches at the back of the corrupted horde.
“Good hunting, Cardinal,” says Perchta. “Oh, I mean, Bishop,” laughs the witch, cackling as the soulless man marches off with all the rest.
Maybe she really is going to keep Anderwal around when this is all done. He seems useful. She can really use someone who knows how to be perfectly quiet and completely out of her way but also has fantastic ideas for her to use when she needs them.
Maybe life is turning around for her after all.
| ~ [Isaiah] ~ |
“There will be no more excursions,” says Isaiah, turning its head toward the fae-gate guardian and nodding. The guardian nods back, and the portals to the spirit world close as it resumes its position there at the door. “Those who could be saved have been saved,” says the entity, looking back at its flock and then down at the monk, whom it's holding. She’s frozen inside her own body, which is perhaps a little frightening, but if there is anyone trained to handle the experience, it’s her.
Besides, it’s for her own good.
“Thank you, all,” says Isaiah, carrying the monk past everyone else. “For your efforts. Had I lost a single one of you, I may never have forgiven myself.”
They got away easy this time. There are some broken bones, some loose joints, and some rattled hearts, but unlike in past disasters, the price of death has not been paid by anyone it attributes personal value to.
The universe, the witch, they will be sure not to oversee this. The counter-force is coming.
“Prepare the tower for war,” says Isaiah. “We won’t be leaving the island again any time soon,” it finishes, flying up into the air and then up towards the healing hot-springs at the top of the tower, where the others who have been hurt already are.
| ~ [Tulsi] ~ |
| Human, Female, Classless (Child) |
| Location: The Hills, North of the City |
Tulsi turns back, looking over her shoulder for any traces of light dancing through the darkness, which would betray a hint of her sister’s presence. However, she sees no such thing. The city is dark. The fires, unquenchable by the rain, have mostly burned through their sources of fuel. The night is silent, as there are no longer any screams, yells, or cries audible in the air.
The only noticeable source of light in the region is the glowing star, high up in the sky, above the flying island. It is a light that shines with heavenly conviction amidst the total void that is now present here.
But even from the island, there isn’t any sound that reaches her all the way out here in the wilds by herself. It’s dangerous to be here alone, at night, and especially as a child. But she has to get to the north.
Tusli watches as silhouettes break through the gate of the city.
They don’t carry any torches or lights, and their eyes don’t shine as would those of hungry monsters and fiendish ghouls. Instead, they simply shamble forward, lurching, creeping, and crawling as they move towards the east, towards the tower, as if drawn to its mind bogglingly present light.
Her hair stuck against her skin, clinging to her together with her dress, the girl feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand up in defiance of these facts, and then turns to run away from this.
She doesn’t know what’s awaiting her in the north. But she knows that she can’t be here. She can’t ever come here again. The mushy ground, soaked from the constant rain, even here in the hilly regions, feels as if it is sinking downward. It feels as if it were just waiting to swallow her whole, waiting for her to stop and to rest, so that she can become one of those shambling creatures of the night that she sees in the distance.
Tulsi runs to the north, never looking back behind herself at either the light of Isaiah or the darkness of the dead city.
She escapes, hoping only that her heart’s feeling about the north proves to be right.
| ~ [Witch Gauden] ~ |
| ???, Male, Witch |
| Location: The City, An Old House |
“Make yourselves comfortable,” says Gauden, looking at the members of the witches’ sect. “Between you and me, this is all going to take a while,” he says, shaking his head. “Pipi gets caught up in things, you know? She’s not going to stop until this is settled.”
“Yes, Witch Gauden,” replies the man from the sect, lowering his head and then walking away.
Gauden watches them work, drumming idly on the table before himself for a while, until eventually something scratches along, catching his attention.
The man turns his head, looking at the dented, wobbly suit of armor that isn’t holding itself together quite right any longer, dragging itself along towards their house. He gets up, laughing. “Shamrock, you look like you had a rough night,” says the man, picking up the gloopy helmet. A wet mass flops out of it, into his hands, and then runs itself over his arms. Gauden laughs, looking at the creature, which, in contrast to the battle-scarred armor it was hiding in, looks rather pitiful and scared right now. “Life is scary, isn’t it?” he asks, feeling the quivering slime wobbling around his grasp. A pair of yellow eyes look up out of the mass at him. “Good job,” says the witch, looking proudly at his creation.
The slime wobbles, dripping out through his fingers and down towards the ground, where it begins to take on a loosely coherent shape. It pools together and then rises upward into a spire of sorts, trying several times over before it gets the hang of it. After a minute, it has risen to his own height, forming a mockery of the human image, with arms and a body like that of a person.
“Strong,” says the slime, looking at him.
“Damn right,” replies Gauden, patting the entity on the back. His hand goes through its body. The two of them laugh about it as thousands of mindless, pseudo-undead monstrosities shamble down the street past them.
Razmatazz
So ends the Tulsi arc. Jizalia is currently MIA
Looking forward to the soon coming tower invasion arc. Really excited to get back to the dungeony meat of the story! *-*
| It is within the ephemeral nature of the soul to contain within itself trace essences of the lives we have once lived. We know it to be true that the cycle of reincarnation, a continuous dance of life and death, exists. Throughout the generations of scholarship, study, and contemplation that have come to the forefront of the world on the matter of this topic, only one answer has remained dominant in its time to the question of why the gods would create such a system to begin with. That answer is, of course, the gestation of the base, deeper soul. There must be something that life gives us, something that we take with us back into the crushing depths of the well of souls once we leave our bodies behind. Some tinge of our days here on this world must remain within the heart of our immortal essences. This leads us then to ask, to what end could this lead? To some form of ascension? Are we, as individuals, destined one day to ascend towards the rank of godhood? Or is that question simply stemmed from the ego, and are we simply things that the gods enjoy watching change and grow, as would a gardener take pride in the blossoming of a row of beautiful flowers? Perhaps we will have the chance to ask them after our deaths. But it is certain that, by the time we return to the world in our next bodies, we will not remember the answer. |
~ Director Essel of the creative academy of magical arts while presenting his latest sculpture
| ~ [Witch Perchta] ~ |
| ???, Female, Witch of the Blackwater |
| Location: The City |
Life is also so hard, isn’t it?
It seems like no matter what she does, there’s always some annoying, stupid person out there ready to ruin her hopes, goals, and ambitions. It doesn’t matter if she’s living by herself in the forest, if she’s in the city with everyone else, or if she’s with her friends. It doesn’t matter if she’s knee-deep in a twelve step plan or simply quietly sitting in her once-home, enjoying a cup of tea made from herbs from the forest, some stupid, annoying jerk like that damn bird or the cardinal is always going to be there to make sure she’s miserable.
Witch Perchta arrives back at the cathedral spot, looking at the tightly bound strings of fate that coil through the limp bodies of the men and women here, the soldiers of the crusade.
The woman bends down, takes hold of the string, and yanks on it.
A hundred and some bodies twitch at once, a ripple of movement spreading out across the pool of bodies that she has disturbed as smaller, interconnected strings move all of the others around the center mass.
They wanted to host a crusade against the tower anyway, right? Perchta smirks, channeling a little magic into her fingers.
— Well, who is she to stop them?
| (Perchta) has used: [Curse] |
The heavy, red rope that she’s holding onto shifts, its hue turning to a darker brown, as if its lifeblood were coagulating and drying. The color continues to shift, darkening, until the fate that ties these people together is nothing like what it once was. The red, crimson bond of life has been altered.
She yanks on the rope.
A thousand bodies, soaked through, lurch in sudden, sickly movement as she moves them with another tug. Then, all by themselves, now that the spark of anima has been brought to them, they rise.
Metal clamors and rattles as suits of armor, waterlogged, press themselves up off of the ground. First the inner circle, then the outer circle, and then all of the bodies lying in the crevices and cracks of the cathedral square begin to twitch as thousands of feet plant themselves firmly against the soil.
The mass of corrupted souls turns all at once, looking her way.
Perchta nods her head back towards the light in the sky.
“March,” she orders, letting go of the rope. The soggy, limp thing falls against the stones as thousands of boots begin to shuffle towards a place they were going to go anyway before she stopped them.
But Anderwal is right, that bookworm. It’s smarter for her to make them go than to just let them go as they would have. If they had gone off on their little crusade, as much as she would have enjoyed watching the humans and the bird kill each other, there’s a chance that it could have turned them, converted them.
She’s been leaving too much up to chance. Her plans always have too many open spots that can be countered, whether it's her plan for retirement or her plans for revenge.
It may be best to reduce. To simplify.
Witch Perchta turns her head, watching as thousands of shuffling crusaders drag their banners of war, their swords, and their bodies behind them as they move towards the light on the horizon, mindless, merciless, and godless.
That stupid bird wants to rescue and save everyone. Well, she’d like to see it try.
Perchta smugly looks down at Cardinal Schweig, who marches at the back of the corrupted horde.
“Good hunting, Cardinal,” says Perchta. “Oh, I mean, Bishop,” laughs the witch, cackling as the soulless man marches off with all the rest.
Maybe she really is going to keep Anderwal around when this is all done. He seems useful. She can really use someone who knows how to be perfectly quiet and completely out of her way but also has fantastic ideas for her to use when she needs them.
Maybe life is turning around for her after all.
| ~ [Isaiah] ~ |
“There will be no more excursions,” says Isaiah, turning its head toward the fae-gate guardian and nodding. The guardian nods back, and the portals to the spirit world close as it resumes its position there at the door. “Those who could be saved have been saved,” says the entity, looking back at its flock and then down at the monk, whom it's holding. She’s frozen inside her own body, which is perhaps a little frightening, but if there is anyone trained to handle the experience, it’s her.
Besides, it’s for her own good.
“Thank you, all,” says Isaiah, carrying the monk past everyone else. “For your efforts. Had I lost a single one of you, I may never have forgiven myself.”
They got away easy this time. There are some broken bones, some loose joints, and some rattled hearts, but unlike in past disasters, the price of death has not been paid by anyone it attributes personal value to.
The universe, the witch, they will be sure not to oversee this. The counter-force is coming.
“Prepare the tower for war,” says Isaiah. “We won’t be leaving the island again any time soon,” it finishes, flying up into the air and then up towards the healing hot-springs at the top of the tower, where the others who have been hurt already are.
| ~ [Tulsi] ~ |
| Human, Female, Classless (Child) |
| Location: The Hills, North of the City |
Tulsi turns back, looking over her shoulder for any traces of light dancing through the darkness, which would betray a hint of her sister’s presence. However, she sees no such thing. The city is dark. The fires, unquenchable by the rain, have mostly burned through their sources of fuel. The night is silent, as there are no longer any screams, yells, or cries audible in the air.
The only noticeable source of light in the region is the glowing star, high up in the sky, above the flying island. It is a light that shines with heavenly conviction amidst the total void that is now present here.
But even from the island, there isn’t any sound that reaches her all the way out here in the wilds by herself. It’s dangerous to be here alone, at night, and especially as a child. But she has to get to the north.
Tusli watches as silhouettes break through the gate of the city.
They don’t carry any torches or lights, and their eyes don’t shine as would those of hungry monsters and fiendish ghouls. Instead, they simply shamble forward, lurching, creeping, and crawling as they move towards the east, towards the tower, as if drawn to its mind bogglingly present light.
Her hair stuck against her skin, clinging to her together with her dress, the girl feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand up in defiance of these facts, and then turns to run away from this.
She doesn’t know what’s awaiting her in the north. But she knows that she can’t be here. She can’t ever come here again. The mushy ground, soaked from the constant rain, even here in the hilly regions, feels as if it is sinking downward. It feels as if it were just waiting to swallow her whole, waiting for her to stop and to rest, so that she can become one of those shambling creatures of the night that she sees in the distance.
Tulsi runs to the north, never looking back behind herself at either the light of Isaiah or the darkness of the dead city.
She escapes, hoping only that her heart’s feeling about the north proves to be right.
| ~ [Witch Gauden] ~ |
| ???, Male, Witch |
| Location: The City, An Old House |
“Make yourselves comfortable,” says Gauden, looking at the members of the witches’ sect. “Between you and me, this is all going to take a while,” he says, shaking his head. “Pipi gets caught up in things, you know? She’s not going to stop until this is settled.”
“Yes, Witch Gauden,” replies the man from the sect, lowering his head and then walking away.
Gauden watches them work, drumming idly on the table before himself for a while, until eventually something scratches along, catching his attention.
The man turns his head, looking at the dented, wobbly suit of armor that isn’t holding itself together quite right any longer, dragging itself along towards their house. He gets up, laughing. “Shamrock, you look like you had a rough night,” says the man, picking up the gloopy helmet. A wet mass flops out of it, into his hands, and then runs itself over his arms. Gauden laughs, looking at the creature, which, in contrast to the battle-scarred armor it was hiding in, looks rather pitiful and scared right now. “Life is scary, isn’t it?” he asks, feeling the quivering slime wobbling around his grasp. A pair of yellow eyes look up out of the mass at him. “Good job,” says the witch, looking proudly at his creation.
The slime wobbles, dripping out through his fingers and down towards the ground, where it begins to take on a loosely coherent shape. It pools together and then rises upward into a spire of sorts, trying several times over before it gets the hang of it. After a minute, it has risen to his own height, forming a mockery of the human image, with arms and a body like that of a person.
“Strong,” says the slime, looking at him.
“Damn right,” replies Gauden, patting the entity on the back. His hand goes through its body. The two of them laugh about it as thousands of mindless, pseudo-undead monstrosities shamble down the street past them.
Razmatazz
So ends the Tulsi arc. Jizalia is currently MIA
Looking forward to the soon coming tower invasion arc. Really excited to get back to the dungeony meat of the story! *-*
