An Old Journey Blog - Rebooted!

[cryptid-artha]

Lil doodle for @bluegekk0 with my wayfarer, Ari, giving a gift of buttons to their version of PK from Hollow Knight, Vyrm! And of course where you find Ari, you also find Sandsong, so she's joined in and placing buttons on his tail! They keep falling off, though. ENJOY!

[cryptid-artha]

A War Machine bit me!

[wayfarer-ari]

More Lore Dumps!

Some lore about wayfarers, their scarves, their cores, and their life energy, and a little bit about how they reproduce! Their scarf is the conduit of their energy and life. As it grows, they can fly further, do more, reach higher. It is directly connected with their core, located in their chest like a heart, the fragment of the Mountain's life that holds everything they are. The core animates them, it powers them, it is their life. Their soul. And it is stored in their scarf. To create a threadling (A wayfarer child), two Wayfarers face eachother closely, tap into their core, and allow their scarves to unravel. The energy flows from them, and coalesces to weave their new child. They generally go to places rich in natural energy to do this, as the energy helps the process, and usually spend a fair bit of time resting and allowing their scarf to begin to regenerate. This could be compared to a form of budding, but with the ability to inherit traits from both parents. Asexual reproduction, with the benefits of having two parents. The experience is pleasant, if a bit tiring. Because the scarf is a major conduit to their energy, the base of it where it attaches to the body (Just below the shoulder area) is incredibly sensitive. A sharp blow hurts, ripping the scarf hurts like hell and staggers them for a time. Think about how your wayfarer limps, moves slowly, or stumbles into a kneel after getting hit by a war machine. A soft touch feels incredibly nice, and can be used to calm a wayfarer down if they are upset or frightened. It works on young and old since. Since the area is SO insanely sensitive, they are generally quite cautious about it. They don't like those they don't know or trust touching there. Ari especially... he will towel-whip you to the face if you insist and he doesn't know you. xD The sensation, while incredibly pleasant, can not be compared to anything sexual. Wayfarers are entirely made of cloth, they don't even have anything comparable with sex. No genitals, nothing that can even compare to such things. Not even their unique method of reproduction. Ari, on his side, is somewhat vaguely aware of how flesh creatures reproduce, and he finds it weird. xD It's more comparable to when you find that sweet spot that makes your cat relax, lean into your hand, and purr.

Rubbing gentle circles right at the base of the scarf can lull a wayfarer right to sleep if they are comfortable with you. Ari's used that method on Sandsong when he first brought her home, and still does now. The fact that her "big brother" Chirp will never come back is starting to sink in, and while she's generally very cheerful, it does bring her down and make her sad sometimes, and makes it hard for her to sleep. He brought her a piece of Chirp's scarf from his remains so she had something to connect her to her previous guardian, and she associates it with comfort because she often has it when Ari's calming her down.

[wayfarer-ari]

Lore Updates! Pardon the ramble!

So now that this blog is rebooted, time to add some lore!! A lot of things have changed. In the original lore, I kinda went with what one of the other big artists in the Journey Ask Blog scene had for their lore that a lot of others were going with from what I could tell; that the Ancestors created the Wayfarers during the war. But I was trying to think - what would they have created them for? What would be the point of them all returning to the mountain seeing visions and meditating along the way? They have no combative abilities, and while they can walk through the tunnels easily, those seemed to mostly channel the fliers and carpets. Using the mountain's energy to create life instead of just using the life that was already there doesn't make much sense to me and there were a lot of plot holes in the lore I couldn't quite patch up. But then, playing through the game again gave me an idea. The Il'hune (My take on the Ancestors) were a vast civilization. Massive cities, ruins covering everything you could see; you are only in a small part of the world in the game itself, a world that is much, much larger. The wayfarers resemble the Ancestors, especially when they gain their white robe. And I had a thought - in any war, there are numerous innocent lives that are snuffed out. Bombings, illness, food shortages, attacks, lack of availability of needed care... There are numerous things that can cause innumerable deaths, especially in a civilization ending war that ravages an entire world until nothing is left. it's not JUST governments and soldiers that die. It's numerous innocent people. A vast majority of the casualties are people who were just trying to live their lives while the world collapses around them.

That's where the wayfarers come in. They are vessels, of a sort. Holding life given to them by the entity within the Great Mountain. Perhaps a reincarnated Il'hune, who sees the regret of those who ended their world and communicates their story to those pasing by. The Wayfarers are sent out into the world by the Great Mountain to gather up the lost souls of the numerous citizens who died and lie forgotten beneath the sand. The draw to the mountain upon waking up? Is the drive to take the energy, the souls snuffed out before their time by a war that was out of their control, back to its origin. Allowing those lost souls to find peace. Each of the symbols is the lost spirit of a dead Il'hune, which the wayfarers are gathering in their journey to the mountain. The ones that communicate with you are lost spirits with unfinished business, imparting their story to those who pass by their graves. Each of them was a leader, judging by how fancy that grave is, with the statue being there in front of it. Alerted by the call of the wayfarer, awakening the spirit to pass on its tale and send the wayfarer further on their journey.

When they walk into the light, they are delivering the energy they've gathered, and the Sealed Six send them back to the sands to begin anew. Those that 'dust' are those that don't make it the entire way. In my interpretation, when a companion disconnects, sits, and turns to dust, that particular wayfarer has died. What caused it, I don't know. It can happen for any reason. I incorporated that with Ari's lore, when I had somebody dust on me in the snow when I was first getting into the game. I think they probably had connection issues, it was sad, but it's the reason Ari refuses to go to the mountain. He journeyed to the mountain with his partner and lost his partner along the way in the snow.

They are eventually reincarnated, with no memory of their prior lives. Wayfarers don't have any memory of the war or anything of that sort, they are simply... there, with this unending drive to go to the Mountain. What I need to do now is try to figure out the origin of the scarfeaters in this, since one of them from wayfarerchirp is very important to Sandsong's backstory. My idea is this - the corruption was accidental. It was not meant to be. Maybe it was the result of experimentation somewhere in the Underground, early attempts to create war machines that devoured living cloth to power themselves. It lay dormant down there until a wayfarer stumbled across the fallen war machine that had the energy in it and was corrupted, and that corrupted thread is what caused it. It still ties in with them being known as "warkin" and I think bridges the gap my new lore creates. I doubt Chirp was the first, and I know he wasn't the only one, and honestly, since he's not MY character, I am leaving that entirely to mystery. Where he came from, what lead to him being what he is and the specifics of his corruption and what it does is not going to be worked out.

[wayfarer-ari]

Ari has met a friend in the Pink Desert! The Whitecloak is a character I designed for the streamer Loggivan to make him a design he could use however he wanted... I wanna sketch him a simple character design as a warmup!

Ari isn't young. He's just smol. He's older than he looks. (Might have made him TOO smol here, but he's cute when smol so LOL)

Basically, I realized that Loggivan's favorite symbol is the one Song had, and in the couple of doodles I did after streams of his (Ones I managed to get in and play through the game with him in, was SO much fun) I drew him with his favorite symbol. Cause he mentioned it was so I thought it'd be a nice personal touch.

ANYWAY, I got the idea of him being joined by Ari and Song for (At least part of) a Journey! (Ari won't go into the snow for his own reasons)

I like the design I came up with for Loggivan! He has a very long scarf because he is very good at fancy flying and always gets all the symbols!

Maybe he and Ari have fun boosting and dropshooting and zipping all over the place for a while before he continues on his journey! ^^

[wayfarer-ari]

The little pitter patter of Sandsong’s feet through the sand as the duo arrived at the scarfeater’s memorial was the one warmth and sure thing Ari could focus on through the anxiety he felt rising.  He saw her footsteps hitch, heard the uneven step from time to time on the stained leg. She seemed to be doing alright, especially when he chirped at her to keep her energy up. But he could tell it was draining her energy, making her feel tired and cold. She seemed concerned about it too, though she tried to downplay how bad it was. 

She held a chunk of rock with some crystals embedded in it tightly in her cloak, while he carried a drawing beneath his cloak for her. The desert flower; he’d taken her to see it a few days ago during their flying lessons. Watching the way she danced and sang to the flower as it sang back was heartwarming. Now his walls were covered in little childish doodles of flowers and music notes.

As they reached the gap in the wall that lead to where the scarfeater had once lived, he looked over at the gravestone with some of Chirp’s cloak wrapped around it. Black as the darkest shadow. Even dead, the energy around it felt cold and unnatural, sending a shiver through Ari.  It reminded him of the stain that appeared on Sandsong’s leg, the way it made him feel when looking at it and touching it, trying to give her energy and help keep her healthy and stable.

That was the real reason he was here. He knew Chirp was haunting him. He knew he’d seen his ghost more than once. Always brief. Always unexpected and frightening. Maybe a single distorted chirp that reminded him of the war machines that patrolled some areas of the Underground. 

He looked at the drawing of the desert flower he held in his cloak-tips as Song bounced and sang with little flutters of her cloak. She patted the gravestone, then the wall, turning to look at him expectantly.

He chirped back, soft and gentle, before putting the drawing up on the wall with the others.

There were so many other drawings all over the little memorial. Sandsong always wanted to tell Chirp everything. Ari had a feeling, at least to some point, that his lingering spirit heard her. Maybe the restless spirit was as comforted by the child as she was by his dark presence. 

Scarfeaters were monsters, but… this one had clearly been taking care of Sandsong. She was healthy and well cared for when he found her, aside from being orphaned and confused when he didn’t come back, and sad when she learned Chirp was gone.

She seemed to understand, at least to a point, that Chirp wasn’t coming back. Especially when Ari brought her his scarf to comfort her as she adjusted to living with him. He had a theory that the ghostly sightings were due to the Scarfeater watching over her.

Almost 4 years had passed since he took her in. She seemed to have accepted her former caretaker’s death. Even if she always came back to his memorial to leave little offerings. Shiny rocks, drawings, neat artifacts, some differently colored sand from places Ari took her, packed away in little jars. Crystals… anything a child would find and want to show to her parent. 

As Sandsong admired her drawing on the wall and told Chirp about all the adventures Ari took her on, Ari started to wander the area around the memorial.

‘I know you are here… somewhere….’ He chimed softly, his long scarf flowing. His chirps echoed hollowly in the empty room, the soft paff-paff of his feet in the sand echoing along with his chimes and chirps.

‘Chirp… that’s what she calls you.’ He chimed. ‘I’m here because of her, you know.. The stain. On her foot. I feel you might know what it is? What I can do to... Help her? I think it's making her sick.'

He felt a chill race through him, but nothing else. No movement, no presence, no haunting call echoing through the darkness. 

He tried again.

Nothing.

He sighed, before returning to Song.

‘Was Chirp always this difficult?’ he asked the child. She turned to look at him, and shrugged.

She brought out several colorful buttons she had stored away inside her hollow body, brushing some sand off of them before plopping them down at the memorial. There were a lot of buttons left there. Little bright splashes of color against the dark sand.

‘Maybe I’ll find another cl-’

The shadows moved. A strange glow in the darkest corner before a shadowy figure seemed to appear, for a brief second. He heard the faint echo of a distorted call somewhere between the mournful whirring of the war machines and the distant chirp of another Wayfarer.

‘EEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!’ Ari shrieked and stumbled back, landing on his rear with a floomfh of fabric and puff of sand. The shadowy figure almost seemed to laugh, before turning to face away from Ari, gesturing with a cloak tip, before the shadows rippled and vanished. It was so quick he almost missed it entirely in his startled panic.

The air felt unnaturally cold and he swore he felt a draft wafting across his velvety face. Ari managed to compose himself, before standing. He knew he saw it, even if briefly. He thought over that brief sighting. The specter has gestured. Pointed. He started in the direction the apparition had gestured.

There wasn't anything obvious at first. A jar that had once held some of the golden energy found in the temple, or something like it. Something caught his eye. A little child's drawing tucked away, of a creature Ari recognized. It was a very simple childish drawing done by Sandsong when she was much younger, but the creature was so distinct compared to other creatures he’d encountered in the sands, he recognized what it was right away. A winged thing. It was a creature he was not familiar with, something that didn't exist in his world; a dragon. But made of cloth. He remembered something about this Thunder being a creature called a bookwyrm, an interdimensional traveller who studied different worlds, taking on a form to blend in. Though, he mused to himself, she very much did not blend in. He had met her once, soon after taking Sandsong in. She was truly unforgettable.

‘Thunder?’ He wondered, looking over at Sandsong. ‘Thunder did know you before I met her…’

He smiled at Song. ‘Do you remember where Thunder is?’

‘I don’t remember…’ she chirped. ‘But we can look!’ She bounced, trilling and floating up before her little scarf ran out and she drifted back into the sand.

‘Alright.’ Ari chimed. ‘We will search for Thunder. Maybe she will have some answers.’

He swore he faintly heard that distorted chirp as if filtered through deep water from far away, as if confirming his theory.

He was all too happy to escape the Underground and return to the old ruin he’d made a home in. The sight of the ghost and the feeling it gave him shook him up, even if he know… or, at least hoped… that it had done so to give him a clue on how to help Song.

[wayfarer-ari]

Ari decides to head into the Underground with Sandsong. She has a pretty rock with quartz crystals in it she wants to drop at Chirp's memorial, so while she's paying her respects to her previous parental figure... Ari can try to see if he can find any clues about that dark stain on her foot. He tends to avoid the Underground. He isn't fond of the war machines down there, but Song's earliest years were down there, living in a scarfeater's nest... and of course he isn't going to hold her back from visiting the memorial. The scarfeater, whose name she said was Chirp, clearly meant a lot to her. Her little steps pattering through the sand beside him gives him at least some warmth in the dark Underground as they head to the dead scarfeater's nest turned memorial.

[wayfarer-ari]

With Sandsong's scarf coming in and her learning how to fly... something worrying has started to show. Something Ari was entirely unaware of. A strange black stain has started to appear on her foot. He'd noticed her limping on that foot on occasion, but it always passed and nothing came of it. He figured maybe it was just a little quirk.

But what started as a few small dark specks on her foot, has grown into a black stain he can't identify.

And it's started to spread.

At first, he thought it was just a marking. She was getting bigger, speaking more clearly. She grew a new line of embroidery on her cloak.

But then he noticed, after a few lessons, that she was tiring more quickly than she should. Usually, when two Wayfarers fly together, their chirps and presence hold eachother aloft. But he's noticed her chirps are doing less than they should, even at her size... and that her presence actually drains his energy. It's subtle... but it's very unusual.

He keeps thinking back to how he found her. A Wayfarer... but, not. Black as the darkest shadow, markings in red, tall and dangerous. A thing referred to as a Scarfeater... said to be more dangerous than a War Machine. War Machines could be hidden from, they seemed to run on programming... but a Scarfeater was an intelligent hunter. The one he'd found was dead, fortunately for him. Otherwise, Ari was sure he'd be dead. Sandsong was in the thing's nest.

Even more surprising, Ari learned the thing had a name, Chirp, and that Sandsong saw it as her parent. She was young, had a small vocabulary, but it seemed the thing had been taking care of her. He had even gone back and gotten some of the remains of his scarf for her to help her adjust to her new home, which she still had.

But thinking back to that, seeing the stain, feeling the cold, seeing her growing tired, and needing him to give her more energy has him growing increasingly concerned.

It looks like it's time for Ari to try to do some research... to try to figure out who that Scarfeater was. What, exactly, a Scarfeater is. He swore he'd seen the thing a few times, for a moment... emerging from the shadows, but he always vanished as quickly as he appeared. Ari honestly doubts he even saw anything sometimes. Maybe it was just him seeing shadows moving and his imagination doing the rest.

He is now wondering if he really did see the Scarfeater's ghost, and if he did... he wonders if there's a way to contact him. The thought frightens him, but right now, he's the only clue he has as to what's going on with Song.

[wayfarer-ari]

Bumping the story arc to the front after reblogs!

[askthescarfedsilhouette]

Ari is incredibly cuddly with his friends, and Scarfy is one of them. Only this time, being cuddly turned to being sleepy and he fell asleep on his lap like a big ol’ cloth kitten! It’s ok, Scarfy, he’s a heavy sleeper, you could probably carry him somewhere if you lift him gently. xD

((Scarfy loves too cuddle with friends too, but even he would be both surprised and confused if someone just fell asleep on him while meditating. XDD))

[wayfarer-ari]

Scarfy has a Daia hat. Daia has a Kumari hat. xD Wayfarer Hats. All the rage this season!

[askthescarfedsilhouette]

((A wayfarer wearing a wayfarer hat who is wearing a tinier wayfarer hat?? This is the pinnacle of fashion!))

[askthescarfedsilhouette]

Scarfy was minding his own business when he suddenly heard a thump sound behind him, making him turn back only to see a cloud of flour and sand raise from the figure that laid faceplanted on the ground. (Huh? Ari?) He asked with a light chuckle as he began to recognize the wayfarer on the ground before noticing he wasn’t alone. (Oh my goodness is that you, Sandsong? It’s been so long!)

[askthescarfedsilhouette]

After being randomly poofed into being a scarfeater for a while, butts are suddenly very delicious looking to Ari. … Including Scarfy’s butt. He can’t resist the urge, and CHOMP! Next to come will be embarrassment and apologies! (And a butt baidaid)

((Omg his poor buttocks!! I can’t I love this so much! xDD))

[wayfarer-ari]

Ari has a seemingly endless supply of buttons because Best just kept feeding him buttons until he was so stuffed full of buttons none more could fit. xD It was Sandsong’s idea to get Scarfy involved in the Button-filled fun!  Ari just spit a random button onto Scarfy’s head.  Ari is a Scarfeater M!A 9/13 (Hunger Sated 3/5)

[askthescarfedsilhouette]

((Aaaaay this is way to damn cute! Scarfy isn’t too sure on what’s going on, but he’ll happily accept some buttons~ and hopefully not get his butt bitten again LOL))

[askthescarfedsilhouette]

Although it may be night, it does not mean all creatures in this world are sleeping. While Scarfy was sound asleep, his dear pet scorpion was quite awake watching over their home. He was doing his usual rounds when he suddenly spotted a dark cloaked figured entering his home. Who dares enter Scarfy’s home in the dead of night to steal from him!? Steve wasted no time to sneak up to the thieving wayfarer and just as he began to make his way out, he lashed into the scarf with his pincers and proceeded to pinch the hell out of him as he ready himself to sting him if he didn’t drop the object stolen.

[askthescarfedsilhouette]

Anons turned Ari into a baby, and I think Scarfy’s a little confused about the suddenly TEENY Ari! xD

(I’m not too sure what’s going on, but I have to say.. You look rather cute.)

[askthescarfedsilhouette]

Scarfy was finished preparing himself to head out for one of his usual walks, when he heard some noises outside of his home. Curiously, he walked towards the entrance only to see a dark cloaked wayfarer wobbling over to him? (Hello? Are you alright?) He asked as he walked outside and held the poor fellow before they could fall over. As Scarfy held them, he got a closer at them, noticing something rather familiar of them but unable to put a cloth on it. (…Have we met before?) He asked as he spotted two smaller wayfarers with the taller one. One was rather well hidden under the other’s cloak, but the second one was quite visible and just as the tall one, looked very familiar with their bright blue cloak.

[askthescarfedsilhouette]

Scarfy was rather surprised when he felt someone suddenly sitting on their shoulders, making him look up at them very confused only to see a very happy white cloak and a not so happy little red cloak who kept pushing his head away from them. (What the? Um, hi there.) He said a bit uncertain but not really upset or anything. It’s not like it’s the first time Scarfy has dealt with someone strange.