#prism arc

[everynendo]

066 Nendoroid Priecia

[suwanbuwan]

Mages vs Mages

A snap of a finger by a mysterious mage causes all the Agents to be teleported away but the spell-casters during a mission. Suwan, Sejad, Reks, Dylan and Louma are left standing in the ruins of the floating city of Nym. The mysterious mage laughs and summons his mage brethren. A magic fight breaks out. Suwan erects a force field around Louma as a crimson mage attempts to cut him down with a rapier. Louma counter attacks the crimson mage with ice spikes. A short scholarly mage with a codex in his hand stands next to the mysterious mage protecting him. Eldritch tendrils from Sejad’s staff strangles the scholarly mage. Suwan throws bolts of unaspected Aether at the scholar and throws him magically across the ground. A blue mage tries to use a bad breath spell, Reks deflects the incoming curse with his holy water. Dylan pumps his fists forward and impales the blue mage with earth, while Suwan curses the enemy with biolysis. Sejad runs up and punches the mysterious mage before he could cast another starlight spell.

The villainous mages are subdued by the Advent casters. However they all become silenced except for Louma as a woman appears. Further chaos ensues as the woman summons her star-globe, a Prism Stone attached to it, she starts to cast a limit break. The Prism Stone’s power radiates and empowers all the mages indiscriminately. A newly empowered Suwan levitates and encases his allies in glowing force fields, his eyes blazing white. Sejad uses his Magic to strengthen Suwan’s barriers. Reks casts a protective water dome. Louma creates ice shields. All the mages layer their magic barriers preparing to nullify the full force of the limit break. Before the limit break is cast, the woman releases the Prism’s full power which further bathes the Advent mages in its light. Suwan falls to the ground unable to stop hearing loud voices from the collective unconscious. Sejad’s Aether erupts like magma within him. Louma relishes in the Prism’s light, once again in contact with its addictive power. Reks’ magic eye glows with power. Dylan becomes base and instinctively summons a hurricane which interrupts the woman’s limit break. As she is vulnerable the other mages combine their empowered spells to cast her out. However, the woman cancels all their collected magic curses and attacks by using Reks’ protection spell as the nullifying catalyst. Then the woman suddenly vanishes along with the prism stone. This leaves the mages burnt out from the prism stone’s light. Zaius, Natja and Nhara collect the mages and they are treated in the Advent Medical Ward. Nikolai is then given a mission report.

(( TY for hosting and ss of suwan @berrodtherapscallion ))

(( Always good RP with @astraladvent ))

[astraladvent]

Fraternal Bonds.

((This piece is best read with this music to accompany!))

The well-dressed Sea Wolf who walked along the metal flooring of the Habisphere had been known by many names. Skoengryne Bloeberksyn, his birth name. Bloeberg Platzensyn, the name he adopted to run a company in Thanalan. That name had then been simplified to ‘Mountain’ for those adventurers who feared to swallow their own tongues pronouncing the rain-tongue. When he bonded with Grave, he took the other Roegadyn’s translated name as his own and became known as ‘Mountain Shadow’ -- though ‘Mountain’ sufficed outside of situations that required a full name. Through all those names, peoples’ perceptions of him changed; formed, reformed, whether they were insightful or idiotic. Yet, his identity remained static. 

Mountain wasn’t quite clear on why these thoughts occupied his mind in the foul skies of Azys Lla; forever an accursed place in his mind and soul -- especially the top of the Habisphere, the battle-scared rooftop cast in the sickly yellow-green and orange glow that filtered through the noxious clouds. Dead leaves on small dead saplings fluttered, and dust swept across the metal floor. His eyes moved to one of the storage rooms nearby. The small space had served as a prison for longer than he cared to admit...but he was free now. Free, with only the consequence of trauma to keep him company...not that he would let that stop him from achieving his ends. 

What he was clear on, however, was the reason he had gone to the top of the Habisphere. It hadn’t been necessary for him to go all that way, but it seemed like the best place for what he was about to do. It was a reminder of the danger, a reminder of the responsibility and the burden he carried to make sure that his power was exercised safely and with restraint. With that in mind, he plucked his grimoire from the holder on his belt. 

Flipping through the pages showed a profile of the offensive spellwork he was capable of -- the supportive codex he had left at home. Myriad diseases and magical maladies, cursed fire, boils and sores...things like that. Mountain was a man of attrition on the battlefield, though he did keep a small catalogue of ruinous bolts just in case some punch was needed. Eventually he came to the section on summoning -- the most dangerous spellwork he possessed. Shadow, Dust, and Spirit. 

It took a moment for him to steel himself, but he settled on ‘Spirit’, and began casting with a hand over the pages. There was no need for lengthy incantations; the arcane geometry did all the work. All he had to do was provide the aether --his own aether, and the aether of the entity he had bathed in at the moment of its defeat. 

Its summoning was always a strange, macabre thing -- complex in a manner that he attributed to his own viewpoint...and trauma. It appeared first as a white coffin floating five fulms or so above the ground. It was pure aether, but appeared as marble in texture. Soft radiance floated off of it; beautiful and sad as it stood as a reminder of both triumph and loss. 

The coffin cracked with a loud report that echoed across the habisphere. A jagged line down the middle that -poured- dark red blood onto the floor. Mountain glanced at his gloved hands then -- they were stained in red. It was a moment that always made his stomach lurch. Fortunately for him, the blood only remained for a few ticks. As it evaporated, the cracked coffin’s halves opened and disintegrated into a fluttering cloud of white feathers that revealed what had been contained within. 

Too look upon it was quite similar to looking upon a carved marble bust of a large Roegadyn man. There was nothing below the wide, cloth-draped chest,  nothing beyond the broad shoulders. Its face was familiar, so painfully familiar...a face he wished so very dearly to see alive in flesh again, but knew he never would. Where there was once green skin, there was now an incomplete white, aetheric simulacrum of such. Hair that was once seafoam was rendered now as diamond and glass. Its face resembled him so closely. His own face had caught up to the aged lines the entity’s possessed, but forever would their eyes be set apart. Mountain’s eyes were a clear teal, and the entities a brilliant blue. Those eyes fixed upon their summoner, waiting. 

Mountain couldn’t help himself. “Hello, Wolfy.”

He knew that this...thing...was not his brother. He knew it was a remnant of the aether of what his brother had summoned onto himself, naught but an Egi. He knew that Rysswilf was dead, his aether returned to the lifestream to drift and be reborn again as new life. Perhaps it had happened already. Still, this was something. 

The entity stared.

Carefully he stepped close to it and lifted a hand to stroke its cheek. His wish for flesh and bone had manifested somewhat -- even though it was agglutinated aether, it still felt like a man’s face under his hand. The heart-seizing mixture of comfort and pain that simple touch brought him was both cruel and deserved. “Grave will be a little cross that I’ve summoned you without good reason. I’m a little cross with myself. This bond we share is a perversion of the natural order of things. A man should not bear his own flesh and blood -- even the image of him -- as an Egi. Still, through this blasphemy against the Gods I can offer my apologies...and ask that you lend me your power in the trials to come.”

The entity stared -- it was obedient without question; Mountain’s words were redundant. A measure of comfort. Still, they counted as orders, and with a glow of its eyes, it provided a demonstration to assure its summoner that its power was his. 

The fluttering leaves stilled. The dust being swept around suddenly held, clouds of stained cotton suspended in the air. Outside of an area of ten yalms or so, all went on as normal -- but inside, everything save a miniscule radius around Mountain and his Egi were locked in temporal hold. Slowly, Mountain smiled at the impassive white face of his brother -- no, of his Egi. 

“Thank you.”

[astraladvent]

The Passion of Mads.

((This story is best accompanied with this music! Enjoy!))

The day was bitterly cold, and the cave was hardly free of it. The deep tunnel in the Coerthas Central Highlands seemed to gather the frigid air and compress it until every breath felt like biting ice. 

This was not a problem for the armoured man. He took deliberate steps into the icy depths, allowing himself only the leisure of observing the streaks of ice aspected crystal that marked the black walls. They cast a haunting, pale blue light that bounced gently off of the rocks to show the way. The ivory-coloured plate with gilded trimming and sigils did much and more to catch and throw even more illumination. Given that it covered him from head to toe, there was more than enough light to go around. 

Deeper he went, maintaining his pace in solemn and pious contemplation whenever he could. There was much he needed to pray about, and even more to do. What he didn’t have was time. He perceived it trickling away, like grains of sand falling through the spaces between the fingers of his gauntlets. People to protect, an enemy advancing, allies that insisted on shuffling their feet around…

...guidance. This trek was one of prayer and guidance. As he continued to descend, the ratio of stone to crystal began to drastically change. Soon it was meagre strips of stone that littered glowing blue. Eventually he reached a small cavern littered with stalactites, stalagmites and pillars of ice aspected crystal. The formations surrounded a small, glowing basin in the middle of the opening that was somehow filled with water. By all rights the six ilms of clear water should have been frozen...but it was not, and the armoured man knew it was because the waters were holy. 

Pious urgency led him to the water’s edge, where he dug into his pack while he began prayer. “Halone, The Fury, revered on high amongst the Gods…”

White-armoured hands plucked a crystal out of the pack. It was clear, yet flashed with brilliant colours that refracted and danced within. The glow of it was strange -- but even stranger was the manner in which the ice crystal formations surrounding it began to glow more brightly than before. 

“Receive of me this humble offering, even as I beg boon of you to keep it safe from the befouled hands of man.”

Carefully did he place the prismatic crystal into the water, where it glowed and refracted even more fiercely. The cavern became host to a kaleidoscope of colours. 

“Yet this is but the first. There are others that must be prised from mortal hands and delivered unto your glory. I come to pray for guidance. I...need to know how to proceed. How to protect those dear to me, even as I do what is best for mankind.”

The colours danced.

“Help me, O Fury. Help me, please.”

The colours vanished, replaced with a brilliant, blinding gold. It muted the glow of the ice crystals and flashed with scintillating emphasis off of the man’s armour. If there was ever any indication that these waters were sanctified, it was the witnessing of this miracle. The golden light spread until it bathed every corner of the cavern and gave shadows no purchase. It should have been blinding, but the armoured man perceived what was within. 

He could barely make it out, such was the intensity of the light -- but he beheld a form of purest white. A crown sat upon a head lit by potent glory. It was just as well, he knew he was not quite so sinless as to freely behold Her face. Still, he also beheld a shield and sword, as well as robes and armour of pure white. 

A vision of the Fury! How many others could count such a blessing? He had prayed, he had asked, he had begged, and now She had come to hear him. The helm of the armour scraped the floor as he prostrated himself before the glowing pool, his shoulders heaving with sobs. “Glory be to You in the highest!”  

A familiar warmth washed over him that caused him to lift his head and look into the pool once more. It was then he beheld Her outstretched hand, quite much larger than his -- though that was to be expected. A God could not be expected to be the size of a mere man...and were those wings behind her? Yes! The churches’ depictions of Her had not been keen on this detail, though that too was unsurprising. 

Of the Sky, From the Sky, For the Sky. 

Of course She would be winged. How could they have overlooked something so obvious? The thought was a fleeting one; there was a more important matter at hand. The Fury Herself was reaching out to him. To him! What else could he do but reach out toward her, toward that pool of gold that now seemed more like a window than a pond. Such brilliance poured from it. His hand shook as he found himself quite overcome with emotion. Perhaps in some later retrospective moment he would have the time to be horrified at his bawling and begging in the presence of such holiness, but for now, it was all he could manage as he stretched out his hand. She was so close, so close! How he longed to see Her face!

Her large fingers reached up toward the surface of the waters as his much smaller, armour clad ones reached down. Would the veil of the surface break between them? What would it be like to touch divinity? Six ilms…four...three...one...half...a quarter ilm before they touched --

-- and the light went out. The golden glow snuffed, leaving the pool of clear water to wet his fingers to no other effect. The cavern was plunged into darkness as well. It wasn’t total, thanks to the maintaining glow of the crystals near the entry tunnel. The dim blue was enough to show that the prismatic crystal had vanished, and that every ilm of crystal in the cavern had been rendered into clear emptiness, while the streaks of stone had been made chalky white. 

The armoured man was devastated. There was no doubt that crying was a matter of the soul, for he threw himself forward on the ground and wept bitterly for near a quarter bell. So close...he had been so close! By the time he had finished, the consolation of having his belief confirmed and rewarded was more than enough to keep him going. He would try again, and next time, he would offer unto Her his all. 

He just needed another prismatic crystal. Perhaps a larger one. 

___

Malms away, a gentle looking Hyuran man sat upright at a desk by candle light with a half-finished letter before him. He clutched his quill so tightly that the spine snapped, his eyes and mouth wide open. The door to the small room he sat in burst open and a breathless Elezen woman stumbled in. “Abraxas--!”

“Adelaide--”

“We have to warn them.”

“I know -- I have an idea. Get me some lemon.”

[astraladvent]

The Search for Hartsald.

Featuring Viktor, Dylan, Aulen, Nikolai, Cerina, Mholi’to and Jock.

[astraladvent]

The Search for Hartsald, part 2.

Featuring Iex, Milo, Suwan, Sejad, Louma’li and N’hara.

[astraladvent]

[suwanbuwan]

Suwan shielding his allies against a “Broil LV” Spell during today’s RP event.

(@astraladvent good RP. Always!)