It’s been a few days in the jungle now and hopefully you haven’t managed to die just yet – after all, the fun’s just begun.
On the seventh day of trekking the wilderness, each character who has Fire in their heart will suddenly find themselves pausing in the middle of the day. Something in their chest feels warm and it’s heating up quickly. It spreads from their chest to their fingertips, down their legs to their toes. There’s a bark of laughter against their ear, but it seems that it’s one that only they can hear.
Then without warning, there is a bright light that encompasses their sight entirely and the ground beneath their feet seems to suddenly open. At least they don’t have time to be scared as they suddenly lose consciousness after falling for a few seconds.
Don’t worry. It’ll get better. When they wake up, they hear the following message – and then they hear it again, and again, and again as it echoes echoes echoes.
 You’re all spirited, aren’t you?! You wouldn’t be one of mine if you weren’t.
So c’mon, look alive, look alive! I’ve got something I want to show you all. Stay close, stay close, I can't wait until you see where you'll be living!
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PHASE I [ day one ] It’ll admittedly be hard for Ardeo to show you anything though. When you wake up, you see darkness. Blink a couple times and it’s – yeah, it’s still darkness. Oh, that’s not good. But after some mumbling around in the dark, perhaps you’ll find another. Better hold on so that you don’t lose each other as the steps on smoothed rock, the resounding quality of the noise you make, and the faint sounds of dripping make it clear that you’re in some kind of cave. Probably.
All you have to guide you is the occasional glimmer of light as Ardeo flicks his flaming tail and then pads off in one direction.
But try not to run too fast after him since it’s dark and that’s danger--holy shit. Follow Ardeo enough and finally you'll reach the edge of a cliff with no indication of how deep that drop goes. It won't be a fear of tripping in this cave, but rather a fear of running straight off the path Ardeo set you on. Hope you're good at cliff scaling because, good luck. You're now stuck on some very high cliffs, and if you peer over the edge, deep, deep down in the darkness, there's the faint, warm glow of what might be lava. You probably don't want to fall down there.
Of course in response to your yelps of fear, there’s only the same bark of laughter. Damnit, where the hell did that fox go?
PHASE II [ day one ] Who knows how long Ardeo has been playing this crazy game of hide and go seek, but eventually you hear a faint buzzing. It’s fine, probably. No one ever said that you were alone in this cave but it’s better to be dealing with a fly than a bear, right?
So you see a firefly. Or maybe a firefly sees you. That single hope of light and not being doomed to eternal darkness comes over and says hi, floating around you for a moment. It really is quite dazzling, isn't it? Then, apparently deciding that you’re an idiot safe to land on, it settles itself on your clothes and-- ow.
That burns. Maybe you even caught fire a little.
But before you know it, more of them are coming. Little specks of light all ready to land on you and warm you up a little. You must be cold in this cave. Try not to die from their thoughtfulness, because they're really all over the place.
It’s like this happens a lot or something.
PHASE III [ day two ] Maybe you threatened him or maybe you asked nicely, but it seems that Ardeo is willing to take pity on your poor souls. Every few steps, there is now a will-o-wisp conjured to guide you away from the sudden, steep cliffs and keep the insects away.
However you’re deeper in the cave now and it seems to be getting… hotter? You hear the water more and more now. Eventually you reach a flat surface and see an arrangement of craters in the ground. The surface beneath them glows with heat, apparently reaching high enough temperatures to emit a white glow.
The brave may wander close, curious about what lay inside the craters – and they may lose their faces as the water suddenly shoots up without explanation, a geyser erupting suddenly and burning anyone who got stuck in the splash zone.
However, there are signs of people here. Small housing constructions made in tucked away corners, built of stacked rock and supplies clearly from this very spot. However, there's...nobody here to greet you.
In fact, it seems as though a certain event has been reported to them, and so the natives who clearly are still living here won't be making an appearance. You may feel them watching you, and if you poke around in their homes, Ardeo will make a quick appearance to warn you away, but they're far too wary to step out and say hello.
PHASE IV [ day three ] Finally, after however many miles, Ardeo’s done walking. He walks up the steps of a shrine – or the remnants of one. Broken statues of animal-like creatures lay in shatters and he wanders around the area once, circles quietly, and then lays down, curled in on himself. A second later, he disappears in a flash of smoke.
However the will-o-wisps remain as you’re free to explore. You’re now able to see that the walls of the cave are decorated with paintings. However unlike those of Earth, the humanoid-type people in these images all have different modifications on them. Some appear to have fins, others are plant-like themselves, but the most prominent ones all appear to be on fire. It’s kinda creepy, especially since they’re still smiling – and upon further inspection, you’ll find that some of these images aren’t made with paint at all, but rather they’re intricate scorch marks left on the wall. Oh.
However for the children exploring with us today, Ardeo seems to have pilfered some things from the colony that he liked. There’s paint lining the cave walls, as well as the occasional bundle of sparkly puppy stickers.
Seems this is where he lives, and now you can join him here too. It's a great reward! It's really just too bad about the difficulty breathing and the general difficulty finding food in a place like this that won't spit fire back at you.
Welcome to your new home.
[ Remember to apply proper warnings on threads with sensitive or inappropriate material and do let a mod know if your thread careens off into maiming or canoodling so we can lock the log. ] |
Welcome to Cerealia's October event! Please visit the OOC information here, and should you have any questions, feel free to ask them here! You can also check the FAQ for more general inquiries. This event will last for the month of October, or IC 3/15 to 3/30. This log will last from 10/15 to 10/22 or IC 3/22 to 3/26. Should this event log hit Captcha, there is an all-purpose overflow here.
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[And hey look civility. Let's see how long that lasts.]
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Same here. The more I learn about other worlds, the more I really doubt their story. How is there something that powerful, that can even take out your demigods, and yet there's this colony on this world that's perfectly safe?
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And if is not the Burning Legion they speak of, then I doubt the demons would willingly let their pet project fall victim to some brazen outsiders. I think they seek to keep us complacent here, if we have no where to return then we shall not resist the situation.
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[on the complacent bit. The rest makes sense, too, but that thought. It's the same one that nags Zoro at the back of his mind from time to time.]
There's a lot that don't add up. But right now it's probably not the main thing to worry about, considering we've been kidnapped to a cave.
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[He looked around, straining his senses to get a better idea of where they were in relation to the outside, but having little luck.]
I cannot say for certain, however we are very deep underground. I only see sparse forms of life down here, at least in the immediate vicinity. If this is their idea of a reward, I must say it's rather lacking.
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[see two can play at that game. But aside from the life of seventy people up and down the length of the cave corridor, Zoro can only sense the salamanders crawling on the walls]
Reward. Hah. For what? What'd we do to earn this?
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[Whup, there's his ego again. Bet you missed that. And he's feeling extra self important about this topic.]
After the floods, a select group was sent in to explore the wreckage of the establishment's base. There one of the groups found one of these elemental beings imprisoned there. It was rescued, and thus we are brought here. I did not see the incident myself, as I was sent to a different part of the building, but a trusted ally of mine relayed the news.
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That so? No, I didn't hear about that. I'm not exactly the hero type, volunteering to go on rescue missions like that. Spent more time close to home picking dumbasses out of the water.
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[Illidan stops at what seems to be a dead end, the path giving way to a steep drop. However, the little fox creature can seen on a ledge on the other end of the chasm. He took a moment to look around, unless he missed some narrow path earlier, the only way across that seemed over.
At least the only way he had the patience to look for.]
So, mortal, can you back up all your big talk earlier?
[Because clearly if he had any sort of power he could utilize it here to get across right?
Or just use it to solicit a piggyback ride on an unsuspecting demon hunter]no subject
Zoro squints into the dim dark but can't really see the other side. The flame, yes, but...]
If you're asking me to fly, the answer's no. I might need more of a running start to jump that, though. [looks up at him] Or you could toss me, if you can aim at something you can't see.
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You wish for me to throw you? I would be happy to oblige, but I have to wonder why you would trust me enough to do so.
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[he steps up at Illidan's shoulder and cocks a cool look up at him, even if he can't see it.]
You could have killed me at any point from the moment I ran into you. So far you haven't. We're both carrying weapons, so there's no reason for you to cop out and chuck me into the ravine when you could just as easily fight me.
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Didn't mean he wasn't going to at least try and give him a small heart attack while complying. Without any warning, he grabs the back of the human's shirt, and with a powerful beat from his wings, shoots up over the crevice.
He remained aloft for a moment, then gave Zorro a good toss to the other ledge. He probably could have just flown him there, but that would have hardly been any fun. He subsequently lets himself glide down and land next to him. Still smirking like a jackass, but he's just going to continue the conversation like he didn't just use Zorro as a human dart.]
I would easily best you in a fight mortal- but how are you at hunting?
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But he manages to twist so that he lands more or less on his feet, boots skidding on the cave floor for about five feet until he comes to a stop in a crouch. He can definitely feel the difficulty breathing after that, but when Illidan lands next to him, he's already standing tall and pretending like nothing's wrong.]
The Marines call me the Pirate Hunter, so I'm gonna say, I'm not too shabby.
[though he's still of the opinion he can totally take Illidan if they weren't in a cave and struggling to breathe. That can be settled later.]
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The human's profession caught his interest .]
An interesting choice in prey you have. They sound as though they may provide at least some sport.
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Why, what are you hunting?
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[ said the pot to the kettle.
When asked about his choice is prey he smirks, clearly, he feels like kind of a badass ]
I hunt demons.
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Something tells me you're gonna be hurting for prey in a place like this.
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I could say the same to you. This place doesn't exactly have the most impressive collection of ships, unless I've missed something.
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I don't even know if this damn world has an ocean. If not for Vegeta I'd have thought there wasn't even anyone to fight.
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Vegeta? I have encountered that one. He's decent.
[Decent in the way that he gave Illidan a nice lesson in what dirt tastes like. Bit he's got a plethora of excuses why it didn't count.]
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So you've fought him, too. Sounds like we're all on that level.
...if we get out of this intact, I'd be up for crossing blades. You definitely sound like a lot of fun.
[clearly from his tone 'fun' means 'involving pain and blood and one of us getting really pissed at not winning']
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I hope you know a good swordsmith. You will need one when we are through, and I would recommend a healer as well.
[it'll be like a slumber party, only instead of doing each other's nails they'll be hitting each other in the face until they bleed! And instead of snacks, one of them will get a nice dirt meal.]
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[Or he assumes so. He really can't see your swords. The whole not magic thing. That may suck for him later.]
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