#solanus

[bitesizedart]

birthday gift for @lupeni whom is my beloved frien hehehe and whom i have like 28359395 ships with! these blorbos? They kiss after the slowest slowburn ever actually

[sketchbloom]

alright yall i’m HYPED to announce that i’m working with @jessepinwheel, @sphor-art and @kawaii-sparkle-draws on a project called Something Wicked. Long story short, it’s about a group of 3 friends going on a journey to kill the witch that cursed them.

More details to come in the next couple months :DDD

Aaaaand for once i did something completely traditionally! i used mostly microns and prismacolor markers for this one

[pumpkin-bread]

Solanus: Aftermath

So, just touching back on the groups mentioned thusfar.

·         Sinvyn and Bianca joined up with Sibella and the rest of the clan formerly known as Dovesong, and moved to the Gladewilds after a considerably long ambling journey. Bianca has recently been trying to reconnect with her blood family, and to this day is still struggling with just how she feels about Father Tobrun and his death.

·         Tobrun, as I just mentioned, is hella fucking dead. He got blown up with the rest of the denizens of the ruins.

·         This includes Clay and Nettie.

·         Wilhelmina and the brothers hid within the ghost town for a short while, until Mae and Telyn regained consciousness. When the two shadetouched dragons did wake, they both mentioned that a certain “heaviness” in their minds seemed to be gone – presumably the link Tobrun had had to them via shade.

·         The group traveled together until Clay and Nettie’s eggs hatched into a clutch of three girls, and then agreed Wilhelmina would take two of them to find homes for as she headed back with Telyn to meet near in Ever-Autumn. Mae kept the remaining hatchling, sensing she was shadetouched and would likely be killed if brought to any new settlement.

·         Wilhelmina and Telyn make it safely back home, but it will be a long time before Telyn fully recovers mentally or physically.

·         The brothers, Mae, and the baby girl (Yttria) search for a safe place to live. They eventually need to settle for a particularly shitty town in one of the Northernmost portion of the Sunbeam Ruins, where there is basically no regulation – and thus no shade detection. Mae apologizes that they need to hide in such a way. She says she feels incredibly guilty that three princes needed to live in such squalor because of her, and that Tobrun had only deemed her a queen because she was so obedient and survived so long.

·         Vasig and Mareth decide this is the perfect time to admit none of them have any royal lineage. Vadim is shocked and mortified, but after the initial surprise wears off Mae admits she’s relieved in a lot of ways, and hopes they can one day live a normal life together. Mareth and Vasig are fairly surprised by Vadim and Mae’s choice to stay together, but accept it, and later set off in search of a paladin that could help with Mae and Yttria’s shade infection.

·         Far, far off, the few Wayfarer’s that still remain notice Tobrun’s connection severing as well, in various degrees. They, however, don’t know exactly what happened or why. Lutorias is cautious, but begins searching for any news of the death of a priest. Some members begin to celebrate.

Anyway that’s... about it. If I missed something just lmk really.

[pumpkin-bread]

Solanus in a Nutshell, Part 1:

(Prologue type stuff [X] [X] )

·         A young, inexperienced, and very poor wildclaw (Sinvyn) is hired as a bodyguard by an aged priest (Father Tobrun/”The Father”). He is informed they have a long journey ahead of them, which tends to scare most others away. The priest also has a very young ward (Bianca) who Sin is told is a princess from an Arcane kingdom.

·         Though the priest is polite and unassuming, Sin finds something about him unsettling. However, he bonds quickly with Bianca and they end up having a brother/little sister relationship.

·         They travel through several Flight territories, with The Father searching high and low for something, occasionally leaving Sin with Bianca for weeks to even months. Bianca grows from approximately the age of 2 to the age of 5 during this time. The Father grows frustrated and occasionally shows destructive anger/desperation, damaging property.

·         Sin pushes The Father for information of just what he is searching for, and why so many others before Sin himself have left his side.

·         The Father finally confesses that they are searching for who he explains is the deific leader of his people, who had been stolen when their previous temple was destroyed and presumably tortured from that point on. He had searched for decades while his allies began to rebuild a vast holy temple within the lands of Light.

·         Sin is confused, but continues to search with him.

·         They reach the Arcane lands and The Father somehow finds a lead one night while Sin and Bianca were sleeping in their camp. He takes them deep into a thick and bizarre forest mere days later, and has Sin wait with Bianca as he heads deeper still.

·         He returns hours later with a bundle in his arms and blackness staining his arms, clothes, etc. He sets the bundle in the wagon Sin is pulling and they hurry out of the woods.

·         This happens next [X]

Snippet of abandoned WIP: They had reached the border to Light territory, but Sinvyn could hardly tell.

The air was just as dry and cold as it had been in the nights they’d spent traversing the Expanse, and there wasn’t a single trace of the flowing wheat, grass, and pines he’d expected.

At the very least, there were indeed ruins.

The castle the Father had lead them to was overwhelming, in a way; fractured columns and collapsed stonework formed a vast wall that the wildclaw couldn’t see the end of. The absolute disarray the structure was in was obvious even in moonlight, so much so that Sin could hardly fathom that anyone lived there.

And yet, in the deepest, most solid portion of the collapsed fortress, he could see firelight. As they continued forward, two figures emerged and hurried to their caravan, their armor and spears glinting once they cleared the castle’s shadow.

·         The guards wave Tobrun, Sin, and Bianca in and after reaching the most rebuilt section of the ruins, Tobrun takes the wagon and opens a hatch to a lower level. He instructs Sin and Bianca to go to the rooms that had been set up for them. The guards that had initially seen them inside join Sin and Bianca and guide them to their rooms. Bianca’s room is properly outfitted for a child to live in, and Sin’s is extremely barren.

·         Sin waits until Bianca has fallen asleep and then slips out of his room, only to run immediately into the two guards. He is surprised to find them to both be pleasant people, a married couple by the name of Helios and Raya. The three converse until a bit later into the night, and Sin is put at ease from his time with them. He asks about the three kings he had heard of, and is quickly told they’d all retired to bed. However, the queen was likely downstairs praying.

·         Curiosity drives Sin to head downstairs, but sees no sign of the queen. However, he notices the trap door Father Tobrun had used was unlocked, and thought perhaps that was what the guards meant by “downstairs”.

·         He opens the hatch, only to be greeted by horrific screaming.

·         Below, he finds something similar to a chapel or sacrificial altar absolutely steeped in shade corruption, attended by countless people dressed in rags. At the far end at a podium, The Father is speaking calmly to the bound fae – the source of the screams – as tendrils of pure blackness seep into his pores.

·         The congregation sees Sin. He hurries back up and knocks a statue over on the hatch, blocking it for the time being.

·         Sin rushes upstairs and past Helios and Raya, initially hostile to them until it becomes clear they genuinely had no idea what was going on beneath the hatch. Sin grabs Bianca from her bed and the two guards promise to do what they can to hold everyone else off so the two can escape safely.

·         Sin runs off into the night, carrying Bianca in his arms. Helios and Raya wait behind, their spears pointed at the hatch as it begins to break open.

Cut to the village.

·         Sin and Bianca make it there as dawn begins to break. Bianca has no real idea of what is going on, and Sin is far more focused on raising alarm in the town than explaining it to her gently. It’s not long before she’s crying hysterically and Sin is trying to calm her down.

·         A group of people soon surround them, and Sin is informed very little of what he’d been saying made sense. A woman named Sibella says that she and her group had come to investigate Shade corruption in the ruins, and he was certainly backing up what they’d come to suspect.

·         The townsfolk rally, many of them taking up arms and heading off to aid the guards Sin spoke of.

·         Sibella and her group stay behind and speak with Sin, and it eventually comes out that Sibella is a psychic who specializes in Shade detection, and they all have been wandering since the loss of their homeclan.

·         Sibella, and a few others from the group, help calm Bianca down, and Sin confides that The Father is her true guardian – and he desperately needs to get her far away from him and this place in general.

·         The group invites him and Bianca to travel alongside them, and he accepts. They leave immediately.

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

[pumpkin-bread]

Kinda wanna write

brain stuck in Even mode

it not time to write Even

scream

[pumpkin-bread]

Okay do I need to go to sleep now but I’ll do an aftermath/”where are they now” post tomorrow in regard to the surviving characters.

Also need to touch on The Wayfarers.

But yeah that’s Solanus! Hope it’s enjoyable.

[pumpkin-bread]

Solanus in a Nutshell, Part 2:

·         The three kings are in actuality three adopted brothers of no notable lineage at all. Vasig and Mareth, the two oldest, were conmen who survived by convincing people they were displaced royalty. Vadim, the youngest, was raised fully believing this to be true.

·         Father Tobrun was seeking royals to marry his “Queen” and thus strengthen Solanus as a whole, alongside provide a proper “face” for the public.

·         Their act – and in particular, Vadim’s genuine earnest desire to become a fair ruler – caught his attention. The Father propositioned them, and they agreed to travel to the ruins to meet this Queen.

·         When they completed their journey to Solanus, at least some of the upper structures of the main building had become habitable.

·         Tobrun introduced the three men to Maestus, a frail and unfriendly young woman who briefly spoke with them before retreating to her bedroom and locking the door.

·         Vasig and Mareth leave Vadim alone for a moment, agreeing with each other that Vadim should be the one to marry her, as it was impossible for him to let their ruse slip. They return to Vadim and push him into the marriage, citing that he and Maestus seemed to be closest in age and most likely to get along.

·         Vadim is not keen on the idea, but accepts, and The Father marries him to Mae. He is moved into Mae’s room, and his brothers are given residence on the same floor.

·         Vadim finds Maestus is just as uncertain and nervous as he is, and notes that she seems to be in constant pain she doesn’t wish to elaborate on.

·         Time passes, and he begins to notice she seems absolutely terrified of Tobrun. His brothers as well begin to grow restless, as Solanus is not being rebuilt in the way they were promised. They start to push Vadim to pack up and leave with them, but he’s become unwilling to leave Mae behind with Father Tobrun like they’re insisting on – and besides, guards are watching them.

·         As the brothers quarrel, Father Tobrun leaves to reunite with his search party far away.

·         Vadim begins to notice Mae’s health improving in his absence. She tells him she wishes to get as far from Solanus as possible, and hints at something insidious going on within the ruins. When Vadim presses for more information, she clams up, but soon urges him to warn his brothers to keep their doors locked.

·         The Father returns, and soon after hell seems to break loose in the lower levels of the ruins. The brothers and Mae are kept in the dark, and new guards are posted at their doors. The brothers are not allowed to leave the floor. Father Tobrun soon comes to take Mae, bringing her down to the lower floors for ceremonial duties in spite of her protests.

·         She returns a day later, looking absolutely haunted. She tells Vadim that she’d seen god, and he wasn’t what she’d expected.

·         Her illness returns, and starts to progress rapidly.

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

[pumpkin-bread]

Solanus in a Nutshell, Part 5

·         As much as she wanted to hurry to her charge’s aid, Wilhelmina could tell it was a suicide mission to go in as she was – armed with only her old sword, and alone. She spent several nights carefully watching the goings-on within the ruins as best she could, and then travelled back to the closest inhabited village.

·         They knew of the ruins, and what had befallen the now-ghost town just outside it as they had been trade partners. They refuse her requests for help, stating there was no hope for anyone who went near that place.

·         She travels much farther, seeking and eventually finding a place that sells explosives. When she finally returns to the ruins, they are in noticeably worse shape, and multiple shade-consumed husks of dragons now roam the unforgiving desert sands.

·         To carry her arsenal, she needs to stay in her bulky quadrupedal form, and so fights her way through any creature that may raise the alarm before taking flight and then making a considerably loud landing on the only still-intact balcony: the one on the level the three brothers and Mae resides on.

·         Vadim is the first to see her and she immediately attacks him, preparing to crush him under a single massive talon. She recoils in shock when he pleads for mercy, realizing his mind was still intact unlike every other entity she’s come across in the area. His brothers – and the guards – hurry to the main landing, only to look on in shock at the new arrival. Wilhelmina demands to know what was going on, and they do their best to explain – hurriedly, given what the guardian was carrying.

·         Wilhelmina states she needs to find Telyn, or who they may know as Mind. None of the brothers, nor the two guards, know of him. Mae, however, pushes the door to her room open and staggers out, saying that she did – and he was being held in a room beneath the ruins.

·         The two women talk as everyone else looks on. Mae says that threats aren’t going to work on anyone down there, as Telyn was their everything. To everyone’s surprise, she mentions recognizing Wilhelmina from when she had first taken Telyn, mentioning she was one of the vessels who didn’t run off with the others.

·         Mae offers to help her, as all Telyn had been begging for was to be let go, and all she’d seen from The Father was cruelty. Wilhelmina remarks she has trouble seeing Mae making it out in her current shape, and Mae responds she doesn’t expect to. This greatly upsets Vadim, who insists she’s leaving with him and everyone else. He insists on going with her, and Clay and Nettie promise the same.

·         Mareth and Vasig bid Vadim a nervous goodbye before taking the eggs and flying off the balcony, safe to do so now that all eyes outside had been dealt with. Everyone else heads downstairs, Mae and Vadim in the front, and Clay and Nettie on either side of Wilhelmina just behind. It’s not exactly an easy descent, with the only respite being that a few of the less-consumed cultists still recognized Maestus as their queen and let her aside – and in some cases, held the less-reasonable members off for her group.

·         It doesn’t take long for Tobrun to notice them – and recognize Wilhelmina – when they make it through the hatch, but he refuses to move away from Telyn, instead sending the rest of his congregation after the group. Clay and Nettie immediately begin to fight them off, and when it becomes clear they can’t win, clay breaks away and drives his spear through Tobrun’s neck, pinning the priest to the wall and holding him there as shade begins to seep from his wound.

·         The entire congregation, alongside Clay, Nettie, and Mae, react, evidently feeling pain from Tobrun’s injury. Vadim dashes forward and grabs the now unconscious fae, rushing him to Wilhelmina as she drops her explosives and sets the fuse alight. She yells for Vadim to put Telyn on her back and get on quick, and he hurriedly grabs Mae’s hand and pulls her aboard as well.

·         Wilhelmina turns to speak to Clay and Nettie, who are recovering – alongside Tobrun and the rest of the congregation – but they hurriedly tell her to run as they hold everyone else off.

·         Wilhelmina hurries out of the ruins and takes flight the moment she can, making a beeline for the village/ghost town to the West. The explosives detonate, illuminating the night with searing light and fire. Mae immediately falls unconscious, and Wilhelmina bitterly states that Tobrun must’ve been able to track Telyn through shade that entire time.

·         They touch down in the empty city, and soon find Vasig and Mareth  hiding in one of the buildings, the clutch of eggs safe with them.

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5