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 Posted: Wed Dec 25, 2019 1:06 am
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tab } 𝙴𝚙𝚒𝚜𝚘𝚍𝚎 𝙾𝚗𝚎xxxxx
tab tab xxsticks and stones might not break my bones, but this tidal wave surely will
It was around here somewhere, right? Lillian kicked a fallen trunk out of her way, wiping her hand against the back of her mouth to clear the blood dribbling there from her split lip. Three weeks of wandering, without Wulfram or Masahiro by her side, fighting just about everything the dense forest had thrown at her. Freak animals, terrain that hadn’t been touched for a long time... She was in some unexplored corner of some remote island off the Land of Fire’s coast, completely uninhabited or unexplored, and completely alone— despite her brother-in-arm’s protests. Forward scouting parties would just slow her down.
Sweat dripped in her eyes, blurring her vision, and that’s all it took.
Lillian’s foot slipped, sending her skidding down a steep hill mostly blind. The redhead rolled, then struck a rock with her back causing the air to flee her lungs with a ragged exhale. Spots danced in her vision, her head spun, and she could feel the psin burning through her ribcage alerting her she had broken ribs. ’s**t, I screwed up...’ was the last thing that echoed through her mind before she lost consciousness.
Lillian was awoken by wetness on her face, but the historian groaned and tried to go back to sleep. ”Wulf, no... five more minutes... drills can wait... “ When several more drops fell on her face, however, Lillian opened her eyes. Above her the ceiling was beginning to crack, and between the cracks dripped water— the amount of which was increasing by the second. Lillian stumbled up, blinking exhaustion from her eyes as the room spun. Now that the enchantress had regained her senses she could hear the sound of cracking stone, and a quick look behind her confirmed her worst fear; she had hit and dislodged a support beam to some massive underground structure. The redhead quickly looked back up through a hole in the wall she had rolled through only to find that the incline she had fallen down was too steep to climb back up.
The drip had become a drizzle.
She was running out of time. Quickly Lillian turned and sprinted down the hall, hoping to find an incline somewhere... anywhere... Her heart was hammering in her chest, she could hear it in her ears— CRACK! The sound caused the female to stop, eyes wide, fear causing every muscle in her body to tense. The ceiling had given away, and the roar of water quickly filling the tunnel system confirmed it. Was she really going to die here? Lillian took of at a dead sprint, everything in her body screaming from exhaustion. If she died here it would be months before anyone knew something had happened to her, maybe even up to a year. Masahiro would notice first, when field agents would report her failure to check in. Wulfram would be next, Masahiro would break the news to him personally because that wad the kind of man her emperor was... her emperor.
The tidal wave of water hit her like a wall. She hit several walls and other hard surfaces as the tide swept her along, and she was struggling to hold her breath and find direction on the pitch dark. Just when she thought she was gone for she broke the surface in to a room from the floor. Lillian clawed her way up and in to the moonlight, gasping and coughing as she held herself up on her hands and knees dripping in... lake water? The historian flopped on to her side, panting as she stared up at the star filled sky, just happy to be alive.
Lillian sat there for an unmeasurable amount of time, staring up at the lights above her, thinking about how much she’d rather be in the capital taking notes for Masahiro, falling in to a fit of coughing every once in a while. Her lungs burned, her chest ached, her body was bruised. Half of her regretted coming to this far flung corner of the land of fire, but the other half was driven by the need for discovery. It took her a great bit of effort, but the Dove slowly clambered to her feet. She needed to continue on or she would die here; she would die without ever helping Wulfram find peace or to save Masahiro from the clutches of that damn jinchuriki. No, she had to continue on.
With clothes dripping with water, and her now dark ginger hair heavily weighed down, she turned and lit a torch beside her...
Torches erupted one by one quickly down a hall before setting alight a channel of fire on each side which opened in to a huge rotunda. The sight stole the breath from her.
It was gorgeous.
"I found it!!!"
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Posted: Fri Dec 27, 2019 12:54 am
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tab } 𝙴𝚙𝚒𝚜𝚘𝚍𝚎 𝚃𝚠𝚘xxxxx
tab tab xxthey walked upon the golden city, and in doing so blackened it’s halls forever
Lillian’s fingers softly trailed the huge expanse of fresco paintings marking the rotunda; beautiful murals and portraits of scenes lost to time. How many hours had been spent here, decorating every inch of these fifty foot high walls? How many people had stood here sweating in religious fervor as plaster tore at their fingers?
The art depicted many things; a glorious man standing at the entrance of a golden city, a woman in flames, seven cloaked figures with evil faces... Lillian’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, eyes squinting as she tried to make out words scribbled in the stones. She knew very little of this language, having only seen it a few more times in other ancient books to know basic words. “Golden”, “City”, “black”, and “sin” were all she could make out. The redhead huffed, setting her hands on her hips.
From what it seemed, these seven figures had “entered” this “golden city”. It had be a paradise, a place for the dead to rest eternally in peace. Such places weren’t uncommon amongst religions, people wanted to know that they had a perfect place to rest when the lights went out— but this was different, something went wrong. The translation was lost on her, but something these intruders had done seemed to turn the city “black”? Like they had ruined it, or at least that’s what the paintings eluded to. Or maybe spoiled was a better word to use. Lillian bit her lip, moving along the rotunda wall, wishing desperately she had that translation book with her.
More of the story unfolded as she moved in a large circle.
The paintings became darker, all in greyscale now, like the spoiling of this golden city had leeched the color from everything. Was this implying that colors used to be more vibrant? The thought seemed so obscene to the historian; had they not always been like they were? So many things about the ancient past were unknown, that it was impossible to assume anything was an exaggeration or truth. They might never know.
Lillian stopped in front of the last paining, her breath halting in her throat. Decorating the wall was a scene of horrific beasts, humanlike in appearance except they looked rotted and wrong. There was no word for these beasts, except that they were unstoppable. Touching or ingesting their blood made victims metamorphosize in to one of them, and humanity was nearly lost. How Lillian was standing there, and how humanity was saved from extinction was scratched from the walls... all accept...
“The Breach”, a huge rift in the sky. The words, hastily written, were hard to translate. Lillian mumbled the ancient language under her tongue, trying to sound out the word... knowledge? Key? Was it a key? A key to what? The fuin that was drawn on the wall was like nothing she had ever seen... it was extravagant, gorgeous... the text said something about opening and understanding? The preperation of the fuin was depicted below the breech in drawing— blood mixed with ink and a chant. Lillian sat there for a moment, unsure of what to do next.
Slender figures wrapped around the dagger sheathed at her thigh, pulling it loose.
Time to jump.
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Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2020 1:03 pm
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tab } 𝙴𝚙𝚒𝚜𝚘𝚍𝚎 𝚃𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚎xxxxx
tab tab xxIn the words of a very small, hairy, wise man; “Well... s**t.”
Lillian moved away from the walls to the center if the rotunda, wherein laid a chalice on a pedestal. Though they looked like two separate entities a studious eye could tell that they were both carved intricately from one giant pearl, the darker undertones of which shone behind opalescence like masked shadows, or a warning that could not be spoken in the script on the walls.
How ominous.
The historian placed her hand over the chalice, staring in to it. She hesitated. Could she really do this? She could hear Wulfram shouting in the back of her mind like he had a million times before, warning her how stupid she was being. “Think, woman!” He’d shout, then follow up with some wise-a** words about how she should be patient. But he wasn’t here, he wasn’t able to pull her back away from the strange compulsion that prevented her from tearing her eyes away. The same compulsion that lead her hand to draw her dirk across the meaty flesh of her palm, which blossomed with a thick river of blood to begin to fill the cup.
As the walls sung with an ominous tune and she knew she was in trouble. The redhead stumbled back away from the chalice as it slowly turned red, corrupted nature chakra pouring forth to outline black scriptwork on the floor in multiple concentric lines like someone pulling a curtain back. With wide tawny eyes and a hammering heart, Lillian watched as the room faded away, placing her precariously on a cliff in a strange landscape. The ground below her turned black, the sky above her was a sickly swirling green, and shadows flickered outside her vision on floating landmasses just out of her sight. Below the cliff, black ink-like water bubbled grotesquely with flittering shapes just visible under the surface.
”Oh ******** moved back over to the pedestal to look over the script embedded in the chalice. The writing must have been laced with some sort of illusion because it read fluent in her native language— mix your blood with ink and draw upon your cut hand the symbol of the Fade. But what symbol? Only when the historian looked around did she see; the circles of writing on the floor created a seal. With a grim look and a set jaw, Lillian poured the ink present by the chalice and poured it in. She dipped a finger in— as no brush was present, and wrote the symbol over his still aching wound.
Pain seared through her entire arm as the fuin activated, dropping Lillian immediately to her knees with a horrid scream. She gripped at the hand as chakra swelled in it, threatening to tear apart her hand in to bloody tatters. Lillian doubled over, gripping her hand close to her chest with a ragged gasp... She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, but eventually the pain faded to a dull ache in her hand. Pulling her hand back, still sobbing softly, Lillian stared at the almost blindingly bright seal now branded on her dominant hand.
Holy hell she had messed up, hadn’t she?
Lillian was unable to stumble up her first try, but the second and then third attempts where more successful. Her legs felt like they could give out any moment, but she needed to get home. The question became how she would go about doing so. Glowing shapes, like the outline of a person with a glowing skeleton inside began to appear and walk off down a path. With nothing else better to do, Lillian followed, her breath still hitching every once in a while.
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