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Post by โโะพฯ on Jan 17, 2022 16:27:43 GMT -5
[ inky and *โข.ยธโก๐ฅ๐ข๐ธ๐ฏ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ด๐ฆโกยธ.โข* let me know if you have any characters you're interested in interacting with. I obviously already have that Les starter up but could write something for someone else if either of you would like. And I'm always happy to plot c: ]
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Post by *โข.ยธโก๐ฅ๐ข๐ธ๐ฏ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ด๐ฆโกยธ.โข* on Jan 17, 2022 16:47:06 GMT -5
(Honestly, I can have Isolabella or Orion try to interact with anyone)
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Post by *โข.ยธโก๐ฅ๐ข๐ธ๐ฏ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ด๐ฆโกยธ.โข* on Jan 17, 2022 16:54:09 GMT -5
(Aras and Isolabella would be interesting!)
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Post by โโะพฯ on Jan 17, 2022 17:44:13 GMT -5
[ Brownie Yaas welcome. And of course Zanh can have a sister! Love that. ]
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inky
I'm a free woman again! At least until the semester starts up :D
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Post by inky on Jan 17, 2022 18:37:36 GMT -5
MaewenAs quickly as her life had ended the fiery red-head sat up with a sharp gasp. Instinctively she covered herself, knowing she probably wasn't alone and definitely wasn't clothed. She blinked adjusting to her surroundings for only a few seconds before a fit of coughing ensued. Breathing in her own ash was almost as bad as becoming the ash. The last thing she remembered was running off, her brother yelling at her in the distance and then the searing pain of her dramatic explosion. At least she'd taken a couple Selvans with her. She assumed at least, she couldn't really see through the blinding light she'd created. Speaking of her brother though, he was going to be so mad when he found out she was awake. She distinctly remembered the "Get back here!" That faded into the distance before darkness encapsulated her.
Now that she was done coughing she grabbed her blanket that was near by, so Calar had been there recently. He must have stepped out to talk to someone or something, but that meant he'd be back soon as well. Time to go, he would need time to cool off before she was able to talk to him again. "What is going on right now?" She asked, not that she'd bothered to look around if there was anyone there, she just assumed. Once her question was answered she wrapped the blanket around herself, a makeshift dress so she didn't have to hold it, and stood up. She was hungry, she always was after dying. Maewen had barely noticed the soot the dotted her skin, she was more focused on the other pile of ash. It looked like she was going to have someone to talk to. Now who it was that died around the same time as her? She didn't know, nor did it matter Mae talked to anyone. Sometimes annoyingly.
Once she got all her answers, to the several questions she had she left and headed to the tent that had been set up for them. The woman walked on the balls of her feet since the snow was cold against her toes. It was supposed to be spring, she hated the cold. Her body was sore as per usual, in fact it was hard to move her shoulders everything seemed to creak as she made her way to what she hoped would be warm food and some warm clothing. Once she walked in she greeted the younger man with food with a big grin. "Thanks kid. I'm starving!" She looked around the tent and her eyes landed on one of her fellow phoenixes. Everyone in the tent looked tied and beaten up. It looked like the battle hadn't gone the best. Well, at least they had each other and the people who were here were alive. Even if they were missing their arm.
Sitting herself near Les, the woman offer a small smile. "How long have you been up for? I'm hiding from my brother who is likely to tear me a new one since I went out not listening again."
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Post by Brownie on Jan 17, 2022 18:56:06 GMT -5
- - - Ik the Selvans aren't rp'd often but I love making those npc characters to fill the gaps~ - - - Ori Traeterra camp -- open
The forest was calm until it wasn't.
Within moments, the birdsong and hissing wind had been overtaken with the screams of war as the Traeterran soldiers tumbled down the hillside encampment like water, colliding with the Selvans and quickly overwhelming them. Ori startled as a man fell from the sky like a thunderbolt, his dark dragon wings steaming in the frosty air when he landed only twenty meters from where Ori himself hunkered down. "Letโs show them what weโre made of, gentlemen," he said, his voice ringing over even the sounds of combat, and Ori watched with cautious eyes as the prince --for he must be royalty with the dragon's blood raging in his viens-- launched himself back into the air and into the fray.
The Phoenixes were easy to spot, each stronger and more fearless than the normal foot soldiers as they wreaked havoc in the Selvan line. Sometimes Ori was assigned to follow one of them onto the battlefield, armed with nothing besides a large sac to carry away their ashes once they fell, but this time he'd been ordered to stay back. He knew he'd be one of the first to let blood, since he hadn't braved injury in the field and sometimes, that uncomfortable churning in his stomach as he worried over the future bloodletting was almost worse than the fear of being impaled by arrows, even though he'd done it many times before and knew he would not be in any danger. It was just the idea of the knife in his hand that shook him to his core, and he found himself brushing his fingers over the long, pale scars, a bad habit he couldn't seem to break when he was forced to watch, wait, and worry.
Maybe no Phoenix would die today, he thought, watching the tide of the battle. The Traeterran's seemed to be having no issue routing the small Selvan outpost this time around. Perhaps the foot soldiers would handle the fight and his services wouldn't be needed. He nodded to himself as he hunkered behind a bush, as if wishing hard enough would make it true.
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Post by Brownie on Jan 17, 2022 19:06:06 GMT -5
[[ go for it! I haven't used rekh in Years ]]
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Post by Hushabye on Jan 17, 2022 19:09:05 GMT -5
[ ooh that's great! I'm also interested in writing a Selvan. The boys will be late to the party so I can slide them in later- ]
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Post by โโะพฯ on Jan 17, 2022 19:44:28 GMT -5
LES Les entered the tent, rolling his shoulders in an attempt to work out the kinks. He hated regeneration. Supposedly they were meant to feel fine soon after, to shrug off the pain of death and charge into battle with renewed vigor. But it always took longer for himโdays, weeks sometimesโto return to normal physically and mentally. Now, for example, he still felt the tickle of ash in his throat. He supposed that night when he tried to sleep, he would relive the memory of burning alive. How did Kaiva do it so nonchalantly? Sometimes he wondered if she got some kind of satisfaction from dying on the regular. But he had never had a death wish. He had stumbled into his fate head first, and to this day he wondered how he arrived in the place where he stood.
โExcuse me,โ a blood donor murmured as he slid by. Only then did Les realize he had been taking up the entire doorway.
โSorry,โ he said. He ran a hand over his fuzzy scalp and walked over to the wooden table that perched in the middle of the small room. It was warmer there than outside, though the winter winds seemed to claw at the small gaps in the tent walls. A small fire was burning in the middle of the room where a young woman was tending to a pot of some nice-smelling liquid. There were other phoenixes there, as well as their various attendants (ash collectors, blood donors, priests, among others). He recognized all of them, and nodded his head in a distant but friendly way whenever they met his eye.
As he sat, he nursed his bowl of mystery food between his large hands. It appeared to be some kind of gruel. Food stores must be getting low, he thought to himself. But he was not one to complain, especially having subsisted off of military food for most of his adult life. The main thing was that it warmed his belly.
Soon another came to join him. Maewen entered his peripheral vision as he was eating. He recognized her before he even saw her face, such as the familiarity of the phoenixes.
โHow long have you been up for?โ she asked as she sat down. โI'm hiding from my brother who is likely to tear me a new one since I went out not listening again.โ
Les glanced at her across the table. She was smiling. As her conversation starter had implied, he could tell she was also fresh out of the ash pit. Her freckled skin was marked with black and her red hair loose around her shoulders.
Instead of answering her question, he looked down emphatically at his own ash-marked and barely-clothed body. He held his cloak closed at the waist, of course, but his chest and legs were mostly exposed.
โIโm sure Calar will be glad to see you in one piece,โ he offered between bites. He knew she spoke in jest, but he could not imagine her older brother would scold her much for dying. Perhaps if Calar was even colder than he let on. Even still, he envied Maewen for having a sibling to rely on on the frontlines. He hadnโt so much as laid eyes on his own family since he joined the war efforts a decade prior. He scanned the face of the woman across from him, however, and realized that it might be for the best not to have someone he cared about deeply on the battlefield. Fighting is dangerous when oneโs heart is split in two.
โIโm just glad to have earned a hot bath,โ he stated. And then he confessed quietly, โI usually feign sickness for a few days after coming up.โ
As if on cue, Pelter entered the tent. The slight manโs pale eyes were drawn to the two phoenixes like magnets, and he approached with his hands folded in front of him. โLes, Maewen, when the two of you are fed and dressed will you find me in the alchemistsโ tent?โ Without waiting for confirmation, he excused himself.
Lesโ eyes were jaded when he looked back at the woman. โWonder what thatโs about,โ he murmured. Perhaps he was becoming a cynic, but he felt a twinge of dread in the pit of his stomach.
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Post by โโะพฯ on Jan 17, 2022 19:48:31 GMT -5
[ inky Also idk where I'm going with the ending there. I figured Les and Maewen could be swept up in some new experiment or idea by the alchemists? Since they've got a short hiatus from fighting I figured it might be a way to keep them busy, but I'm totally winging it lol so plotting might be good ]
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Post by Brownie on Jan 17, 2022 20:14:35 GMT -5
- - - Idk what to do with Norris quite yet, but I want to start doodling around with personalities so imma throw something out that isn't really a starter, but just... a scene I guess?? That happened sometime in the past. He'll be somewhere else now; I'll throw him somewhere that it's relevant and/or someone can just write him in where an alchemist might be needed and I'll hop on.
**Just for future reference, I'm totally okay with people "godmodding" my characters around where they're needed for narratives; I'm not very attached to them and they don't even have personalities or motives yet, so it's not like anywhere would be odd for them to be placed, I'll come up with some reason. So yea, feel free to attach your characters to mine in any way needed, be that in present scenes or backstory, no permission needed. - - - Norris Harkkon's Lab, Port Craig -- three weeks prior
An experiment can never be a failure, Norris reminded himself as he watched the mouse burn. He recorded everything in a notebook: the temperature of the flames (1142 degrees), their color (orange, like the throat of a lily, with dark sparks), the time it took for the mouse to stop moving (25 seconds), and when it finally died (27 seconds). His pen moved quickly and messily over the page. His eyes never left the mouse until it was a pile of ash with a pulsing, red coal at the center. It took another minute and fourteen seconds for the ember to gutter and fade.
He sighed and used the back of the pen to scratch at his cheek, finally checking over his written notes. They'd be transcribed, later, into a more formal record that would be legible to the others; one of the many lab assistants would do the transcription, probably Gina, since she was one of the few that could decipher his writing. He went over a few of the numbers with dark ink now, while the record was fresh in his mind, fixing a few ones that could be mistaken for sevens or a lopsided two that didn't look like a number at all, but a looping scribble.
Norris had hoped the alchemy would have protected the mouse from combusting at all, or at least slow the process significantly, but to that end, he had failed. He'd done enough similar experiments that even before running the calculations, Norris knew they would be statistically irrelevant compared to the control. And this mixture had seemed so promising. "Dragon's Breath," he said to himself, "so stubborn."
The long-stemmed lilies were scattered around in pots all over the lab, shrouding the air in their sweet fragrance that had a hint of bitter char at the edges. The flower itself was, amazingly, immune to fire, but the alchemists have so far been stumped on how to extract and use that bewildering power for themselves. Norris himself had a list of mixtures that hadn't worked, a list that was growing alarmingly fast.
It would be key to the Phoenix project. So far, the Phoenixes could only use their explosive power once a fight before turning to ash; the alchemists hoped that Dragon's Breath would dampen the fire's recoil and give the Phoenixes more opportunities to use that powerful weapon in battle. The fact that the Phoenixes couldn't die was amazing itself, but now that the army was growing accustomed to these immortal soldiers, they were starting to realize how the recovery period could spell disaster in a drawn-out fight. The loss of Valmont in the northern reaches was testament to this, and though the Traeterrans only lost a few Phoenixes, they were forced to give up the fortress when it was clear they couldn't stall for days or weeks for those that had gone to ash to rise again.
So now it was Norris's job, and the other alchemists in Harkkon's lab, to try and harness Dragon's Breath and tame the Phoenixes' fire. If only the damn flowers weren't so stubborn.
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Post by Brownie on Jan 17, 2022 20:16:13 GMT -5
[[ Oh hey yall are talking about alchemy haha I had Norris on trying to figure out something just for that ^^ Since glass cannon one-time use fire is probably enough to win skirmishes, but not wars
I had them working it out cuz I didn't want to make it overly easy at the get-go, but having an experimental thing with first time human trials could be interesting. ]]
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Post by Brownie on Jan 17, 2022 20:24:45 GMT -5
[[ totally! we can even throw him in there; he'd be super uncomfortable being on the front lines and out of the lab it would be fun ]]
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Post by โโะพฯ on Jan 17, 2022 21:28:07 GMT -5
ZANH Nothing ever goes to plan.
Zanh knew this to be true, but it did not mitigate the sting when her ideas fell apart.
โMy lady, another squadron is under ambush near the gorge. I suspect itโs already too late to intervene.โ
She was looking out the window at the vast expanse of white hills and blue mountains. Trails of smoke could be spotted if one knew where they were looking. Camp fires, pyres, phoenixes vaporizing into ash and soot. She had heard the man enter, his boots harsh on the stone floor of the abandoned fortress, but she showed no sign of having heard him.
โMy lady?โ
โThank you, Grigor,โ she said softly after a long pause. โWeโll reconvene soon. I only need a moment.โ With that, she heard his footsteps retreat and the heavy wooden door shut behind him. Zanh stood at the window a few moments longer, deep in thought. She did not like to admit that it affected her when men died. As a strategist, she was meant to view them as pawns on a chess board. It was all about protecting the queen and the king. Pawns would be lost, yes, but that was the nature of war. So long as the monarchy held, the game was within reach. But humans are not chess pieces, no matter how much she wanted them to be. At night sometimes she was haunted by the faces of those she had killed, of the screams that rose when she used her powers at full strength.
But she owed it to her family to remain stoic. Hesitation, mercy, diplomacy were the stuff of fairy-tales. In the middle of a decades-long war, the only choice was to bare oneโs teeth and move forward, no matter the cost.
She set her shoulders and inhaled deeply. Sometimes she liked to imagine she could turn her whole body to stone, beginning with her heart and expanding to her ribs, her throat, her legs. It was a fortifying exercise, one which gave her the strength to do what she did every day with no outward complaint. Heart stilling, back straightening, muscles strengthening. Mind clear.
And then her feet were carrying her away from the window. She needed to find the others. As she walked toward the door, she grabbed her sword which had been propped against the wall. She held it steadily at her side, the tip held just a few centimeters above the stone ground. Her people had put down some rugs to make the fortress feel more comfortable, but the scent of dust and drafts hung in the air. They had been camped there for a week and a half. More accurately, generals and commanders had been camped at the fortress. Their men were scattered about the moor in camps both large and small. One such, as she had just been informed, was in the midst of being razed to the ground.
So plans needed to change. The smaller camps were not yielding the results she had hoped. Instead of dividing Traeterraโs focus, they were being methodically targeted. And by the time she was notified each time, it was too late to intervene.
Her heavy blue skirts whipped around her legs as she walked swiftly to the war room. Stone-hearted, chin held high. Now was the time to act.
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inky
I'm a free woman again! At least until the semester starts up :D
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Post by inky on Jan 17, 2022 21:41:19 GMT -5
Maewen She had already started eating the mush when she sat down with Les, she wasn't kidding when she'd said she was starving. Of course she'd paused long enough to talk, she had some manners. Not a lot of them, but enough to swallow her food before talking. He never did answer her questions fully. She didn't mind though, Maewen was usually less abrasive when she came back, too tired to be annoying. That was fine though, he hadn't cleaned off what remained of his previous shell off the new one, it hadn't been very long. She was dense but not that dense. She smiled softer this time at the man's comment about her brother being glad she was in one piece again. Calar cared deeply for the woman, sometimes too much for her liking. He'd gone from being behind the scenes finally after years of earning that position to being pulled back to front lines simply to be near her. Her brother had the choice to stay, in fact most insisted he stay back and help plan battles, but his reasoning had been that he'd be better at planning if he was right there seeing things going on. The real reason was to watch over Maewen. So he put himself in the line of fire to keep her from setting on fire. But, as this recent revival would have it, she did it anyway.
She didn't want him protecting her, she had lives to spare now, he didn't. It was part of the reason she rushed into battle and was so reckless with her power. If she was off the field so was he. If she died, he wouldn't have to. "I'm sure he will be, I'll get a strong hug and a scolding for not listening." The girl laughed ever so slightly. More pushing air out then anything else. She knew Calar came from a good place in his heart, but would they really be siblings if she was super nice all the time?
Feigned sickness huh? She knew how that felt. His confession made her laugh, "You and me both. I can't wait to take a bath and a nice nap. My shoulders can hardly move anyway, wouldn't be very helpful on the battlefield if I can't even lift my sword yet ya know?" She ate some more of her food, it was warm, unlike the air outside and too far from the small fire inside. "I won't tell anyone if you d-" The freckled woman paused as a familiar voice spoke to them, fed and dressed? No time to soak and enjoy her time off it would seem. She pouted a little as the thin man left as quickly as he had entered.
"How much you want to bet we just happened to be the most readily available test subjects." She quirked a brow at him, "That or we did something wrong. With my luck it could be either one." The woman ate more of her food, "Best not to keep him waiting too long I guess?" It didn't take long for her to wolf down the rest of her food. Rather unlady like, but then again she'd never been known for that anyway. "Well. I'm going to get dressed, probably warmer than this blanket anyway. The way I see it, the faster this is over the faster we get to have a bath."
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