first verse Augury: Ten of the Void

[BringerofShadows]

Entropy was frustrated. Probably because Archer’s posts tended to be too long and complicated, so all she took from it was that it looked like she had thrown the knife. Anyways, back to the story.

 

Entropy decided to roll with it. “I wanted them sedated.” She said to the Captain. Captain…Viseoul? I think…? “And they are extremely tricky. But make sure that the stab victim is taken care of.” He nodded. “And Captain, make sure they are all sedated properly.” He gave his final nod, and told his men what to do. Entropy left the tent, really wanting more sleep.

 

 

[+Sorana]

32 minutes ago, I think I am here. said:

“I’ve tested every Instinct in that time. Even my own, though I’ve never tested on myself.”

Sagitta eyed the water, but didn't ask if she could have some as well. It felt too much like begging, but still she was hungry. Maybe drinking some water would help. Two years, that was a short time, but then she knew how a short time could stretch into eternity easily. When the days blurred, when the work became more important. When you poured everything you had into that one thing.

"But did you train your instinct? That you can control it?"

She asked curiously. She never had, but he knew that already. What she could do, was what she'd learned the hard way - use your instinct or die. And so she figured she was good at it, in certain situations. Definitely not when it came to jumping down ladders.

[I think I am here.]

1 minute ago, Sorana said:

“But did you train your instinct? That you can control it?"

Price looked at her, his eyes flickering over to the other people in the carriage, especially the formally dressed man. Price was never keen to talk about his instinct, Entropy was hardly becoming of a scholar. For a soldier, Entropy was helpful. For a soldier, Entropy was great. But Price wasn’t a soldier and his Instinct only ever served to remind him of his failure, what he could have become.

Besides, talk about the Instincts and the topic would inevitably shift to the sudden and brief cravings Price got to use it.

“I didn’t train it much,” he said. “I don’t use it very much either. It is not very useful to my situation. But I did try to understand it, tried to see how it worked.” He’d even tried praying to Entropy themselves, his patron god. But of course, like most acts of religion, there was rarely answer. Sometimes one wondered whether the gods were even real.

[+Sorana]

2 hours ago, I think I am here. said:

“I didn’t train it much,” he said. “I don’t use it very much either. It is not very useful to my situation. But I did try to understand it, tried to see how it worked.” He’d even tried praying to Entropy themselves, his patron god. But of course, like most acts of religion, there was rarely answer. Sometimes one wondered whether the gods were even real.

Strange. She'd expected him to be an expert when it came to his own instinct. How did he expect to learn about others, when he didn't understand his own? But maybe it wasn't about understanding how to use it, but more about the limits, about the possibilities.

"Honestly, I thought Entropy would be useful to anybody. Especially to someone with your profession."

She told him earnestly. There were so many options, possibilities he had with Entropy, that he rarely used it was almost sad. Especially someone who studied instincts, should be comfortable with his own. At least that was the way with a weapon. When you studied a weapon, you had to wield it, you had to know everything about it, and only then you could truely know its nature.

[Lunamor]

Zura stood on the side of the road, watching the carriage quickly approach her position. Subconsciously she knew that her instinct was lowering the chances that she would be noticed by anyone in the vehicle, but she didn’t think about it too hard. Thinking about her instinct, she found, often made it less effective.

Flipping one of her knives into the air, she watched it tumble end over end back into her hand, handle first. She often did this when bored, finding it reassuring that her instinct was able to protect her in this small way. Of course, she didn’t dwell on that fact. She already had a few scars from accidentally doing so.

She had been standing there for quite a while, for no other reason that the fact that it had felt right. She knew that a good opportunity would pass her way, if she waited long enough. Again, she didn’t think about it too much. 

As the carriage got closer, she could hear the jingling and creaking of the horses’ harnesses. Idly she wondered how much one of those nice looking animals would fetch in a nearby village. She decided to capture one of them after this was all over- she was running pretty low on funds. In the middle of this thought all of the straps and poles connecting the horses to the carriage simultaneously snapped. Subconsciously she knew that their chances of breaking had been greatly increased. This spooked the horses and sent them galloping off the side of the road, leaving the carriage to skid to a violent and quick stop. Silently Zura waited, seeing how the occupants would react. It was unlikely they would assume the stopping of the carriage to be natural; the very unlikely chances of this event made it more than obvious of her Probability instinct. 

@I think I am here.

@Sorana

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Please let me know if I made her too OP or if anything doesn’t work.

 

[AonEne]

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Maybe just a slight bit OP?

I'll RP after I see whether Tion is helping me get Truth out.

 

[Archer]

On 8/18/2019 at 8:32 PM, AonEne said:

the forest is on a different three borders. However, we can retcon their meeting place too, and say it was in a different, smaller forest where the other three borders meet instead. It works for Entropy's camp to be close to Ílaní or where Archer said then too.

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Whoops. Who knew there were so many places were three borders met? I’d be in favour of changing the location to be closer to the other party. It’d be nice to meet up with them.

14 hours ago, AonEne said:

whether Tion is helping me get Truth out

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Tion would like to help Negation get Truth out. He’d also like to try angering Entropy, but his priority at the moment is ensuring he isn’t merely captured (again). Unfortunately, I do need to acknowledge the NPC zerg rush, so it would be more in character to go this route: (sorry)

The General’s Camp. The Infirmary Tent. Noon.

A dozen soldiers burst into the tent. Half of them surged directly forward to confront the gods, while six of them briefly clustered around a hastily summoned doctor who began to distribute syringes.

“Be careful with these,” the elderly medicine man was trying to say as the troops snatched the needles from his hands, barely audible over the din of the alarm bells. “You can’t just go stabbing them anywhere you please, oh, please be careful!”

Tion looked over to where Truth had been standing when he threw the knife, but a number of uniformed bodies blocked his view of the god as they approached, cracking their knuckles menacingly.

“Time to go!” he shouted, looking over his shoulder for Negation. As he did, he felt a beefy hand clamp down on his right forearm.

“Do you mind?” he screamed, twisting sharply to wrench his limb free. However, two more hands latched onto to him, pulling him into the growing throng of soldiers. Tion spit in their faces, but held back from physically returning their blows.

You will die for this, mortals. The God of Sensation reached inside himself to tap his Power, preparing to decimate the assembled transgressors by overloading their senses.

He couldn’t do it. As he tried to strike out in anger, he felt his Power suddenly slip away from him. It was as if he was locked out of his own mind. In the tent, all of his illusions began to crumble. The bells slowed their toll, the flashing light sputtered out, and the last remaining dinosaur in the camp blinked out of existence. In seconds, he was reduced to helplessness.

Tion felt a sharp pain in his waist. He looked down to see a needle sticking out of it, its plunger being depressed by an unapologetic grunt.

“Negation,” he hollered, his words already starting to muddle. “You can not leaf me. Get me oot, and Tooth too eff, if you…”

His vision began to blur at the edges. As he slumped into the eager arms of the soldiers pinning him in place, he tried desperately to warp their sensations, but his Power wouldn’t cooperate. Similarly, his limbs felt heavy and sluggish, and his neck refused to stop his chin from sliding down into his chest.

As he felt the familiar grip of mere-semi-consciousness encroach upon him, two distinct thoughts entered his blankening mind, identical in wordage, but distinct in meaning.

I could have killed them, said the first. That was accompanied by the equally worrying, I could have killed them.

What if I killed them?

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I have lost track of the number of times Tion has been knocked out in this story. That’s either lazy writing on my part, or a well thought out motif, you be the judge. Fortunately, this time, I’m going to say he’ll remain on his feet for the time being. Due his enhanced godly healing factor and his subconscious diverting some of his Power to negate the effects of the drug, he’ll be in a state similar to drunkenness: mobile, but slow and in need of a shoulder to lean on, for so long as the serum is in his system.

 

[overlord stick]

Truth was annoyed, this was taking too long! As he stood there, wishing that Entropy and Tion would stop antagonizing each other, he looked over to Tion, who was readying a knife. Fine, I'll play along. He thought. Tion threw the knife at Truth, while making an illusion of Entropy, making it look as if Entropy was attemptig to stab him.  As the knife flew at him, he moved slightly to the side, so it wouldn't hit him, but close enough for it to look real. Truth doubled over, gasping. "Entropy... Why..." He fell to the ground, and hoped his performance was convincing enough.

@Archer @AonEne @BringerofShadows

[+Sorana]

On 19.8.2019 at 11:19 PM, Lunamor said:

As the carriage got closer, she could hear the jingling and creaking of the horses’ harnesses. Idly she wondered how much one of those nice looking animals would fetch in a nearby village. She decided to capture one of them after this was all over- she was running pretty low on funds. In the middle of this thought all of the straps and poles connecting the horses to the carriage simultaneously snapped. Subconsciously she knew that their chances of breaking had been greatly increased. This spooked the horses and sent them galloping off the side of the road, leaving the carriage to skid to a violent and quick stop. Silently Zura waited, seeing how the occupants would react. It was unlikely they would assume the stopping of the carriage to be natural; the very unlikely chances of this event made it more than obvious of her Probability instinct. 

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I like that intro! Do you have a plan for the guards/ is your character alone? Otherwise this could end badly for you... Itiah mentioned some dangerous animals, maybe we could use them to force our characters to flee together. Just an idea

The carriage jerked to a halt, the horses running away. For a moment Sagitta was quiet, listened, no shouting, only the guards redying their weapons.

"You don't happen to have a long sword here? Or anything else like that?"

She asked Price, most her attention still outside with whatever was happening. Whoever was responsible, they didn't plan to eliminate all of them. Otherwise they would already be storming towards them, would try to get rid of the guards. That was - if tactics were the same than in Ta'e'ilo. So it was maybe better to expect anything. Slowly she unlocked the door, opened it a tiny bit and glanced outside.

"There might be someone, behind the bush over there. I'm not entirely sure."

Her voice was low when she reported. A lone attacker that, was unlikely. So either this was accident, or there were others hidden as well, waiting for them to step outside. If this was her trap, she'd have some guys with crossbows hidden some distance away to shoot everybody stupid enough to step outside.

@I think I am here.

Edited August 21, 2019 by Sorana

[I think I am here.]

Price cursed. He shook his head ‘no’ at the mention of a long sword, peeking out of the door and looking to the bush Sagitta mentioned. It wasn’t long before the horserider came rushing to the carriage door.

“My horses,” he said. “The ropes snapped all suddenly, they ran off. All of them.”

“How is that possible?” The formally dressed man said and stood up.

But no one answered, because everyone knew what was going on. The fact anyone would try a raid on a carriage in the middle of the wilderness showed to Price whoever was doing this was either really dumb .org knew nothing about the Tühine wilderness nor its adamant police force. Price doubted anyone native from Tühine would dare try a crime as outgoing as this.

Finally Price peeked outside more and raised his hand, a small piece of the bush blasting away in small black flame. It was a weak use of Entropy, hopefully a warning, and hopefully they wouldn’t know this was as strong as his Insticnt could get.

[+Sorana]

1 hour ago, I think I am here. said:

Finally Price peeked outside more and raised his hand, a small piece of the bush blasting away in small black flame. It was a weak use of Entropy, hopefully a warning, and hopefully they wouldn’t know this was as strong as his Insticnt could get.

Sagitta nodded back to show, that she understood regarding the weapon, then she took a deep breath and positioned herself next to the door. Her eyes rested on the bush and the person she figured that had to hide behind it. Without looking at Price she showed him a thumbs up, when he used his instinct and moved her leg slightly. It hurt, but there was no changing that. She had no clue how good Price' guards were, but she knew, that she was good. Injured or not. She was good, most likely better than the guards. There was no way she would end up captured by another party.

@Lunamor

[Lunamor]

Zura smiled softly when a Tühine man peeked his head out and attacked a bush with Entropy. That instinct was always fun.

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My character is alone, and probably isn’t going to come out on top of this. I like the wild animals idea.

Question: I want to have her approach the carriage and be noticed by only one of the guards, is there a way I can do that without godmodding?

@Sorana

@I think I am here.

 

Edited August 21, 2019 by Lunamor

[+Sorana]

6 minutes ago, Lunamor said:

Question: I want to have her approach the carriage and be noticed by only one of the guards, is there a way I can do that without godmodding?

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Difficult.

But you could maybe sneak around the carriage and attack the guards. But Sagitta will act as soon as  guard dies.

Itiah, can you rp the monsters?

 

[AonEne]

On 8/20/2019 at 6:57 AM, Archer said:

I’d be in favor of changing the location to be closer to the other party. It’d be nice to meet up with them.

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Agreed. I'll try to get the rest back there involved.

Gati stopped trying to pick up Truth and backed away slowly from encroaching soldiers. She reached mentally and shoved at the ones coming near her, undoing their movements, making them walk backward. She went to do the same with the ones holding Tion and whatever they'd injected him with, but couldn't. I'm weakening, she thought. In bursts. She settled for the only thing she could, Negating anyone who approached her.

***

It hit Izzy with the force of a sledgehammer to the face. She buckled under it, actually falling to her knees. TRUTH IS IN DANGER. Most of the time, using her instinct was a conscious decision. She didn't control what she got, but when she got it was up to her. Every now and then, though, if something was really important - well, except for that time the etymology of the Cahayan word for 'blue' punched her off her horse - it came to her hard and fast and without warning. She shook her head blurrily, replaying that sentence in her head. Truth was in danger, so Negation probably was as well. And they'd gone to get Sensation - was he, too?

She thrust herself to her feet again and stared at the other deities, who'd been remarkably quiet, even when she tried to start up a conversation. "Danger," she shouted at the top of her lungs, hoping that this time they would listen, even if she was just a mortal and just a teenager. "The ones who went after Sensation, they're in danger!"

@John Flamesinger @Dr. Dapper @Blessing of Potency @RayOfSunshine @Truthless of Shinovar @xinoehp512

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Potency, Truthless, if you want to join now would be a good time. And Xino, you should probably get involved somewhere too - following Infinity, maybe?

 

[Lunar Blessing]

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Alrighty! I’ll join in as soon as someone tells me what’s going on

 

[AonEne]

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Gods are convening for a meeting except some of them aren't there and a human is freaking out because the gods who went after the kidnapped god are being attacked.

 

[Lunar Blessing]

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... okay. Where are you wanting me to join in?

 

[AonEne]

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Your character is on her way to the meeting, right?

 

[Lunar Blessing]

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About to be, yeah. Where is the meeting?

 

[AonEne]

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Where Archer's map on the penultimate page has a circle and an arrow. I think. It's a matter of some debate.

 

[xinoehp512]

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One moment, sorry.

I don't really have time to write stuff right now.  Suffice it to say for now that Thomas will warp Infinity to wherever the other gods are- but won't follow yet.

 

[I think I am here.]

13 hours ago, Sorana said:

Itiah, can you rp the monsters?

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Sure.

Also, Lunamor, the guards are NPCs so it’s fine if you want to godmod.

The guards stepped out, walking around. They didn’t carry especially large swords or weapons: Tühine’s military specialised in light but very mobile troops, with all the heavy hitting being done by seige equipment such as ballistas and catapults.

One of the guards was decked in light leather armour and he carried a bow and a quiver of arrows. The other was holding up two tomahawks. They separated, each trying to examine and protect an end of the carriage.

Price looked out again at the bush. No reaction. Sagitta had given him a thumbs up and he raised his hand again, stepped a little more out of the carriage, ready to use his Instinct.

The formally dressed man stayed where he was seated, and the plainly dressed woman looked around curiously.

“Don’t worry,” she said to Sagitta in Ta’e’iloan. “If these are insurgents trying to ‘free’ us, they will likely only kill the testers, and let us go free.”

The crazy man took no notice of the stop, still muttering. “There are still 12 undiscovered breeds of horses.”

And meanwhile, a large distance away, a predator pounced at a runaway horse. With claws it ripped the creature to bits, and fed. But it was still hungry. Growling it looked in the direction the horse had run from.

[+Sorana]

4 hours ago, I think I am here. said:

One of the guards was decked in light leather armour and he carried a bow and a quiver of arrows. The other was holding up two tomahawks. They separated, each trying to examine and protect an end of the carriage.

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*has hoped to be able to steal a weapon*

Sagitta looked at the woman for a moment, then she chook her head, didn't reply. She was right, an yet, there was a chance that she was wrong, that this wasn't an attempt to free them, but instead something else. She followed Price outside, covered him and looked around for anything she might use as a weapon. She felt vulnerable without a weapon, without her armor, knew that she would have to adapt her fighting style. She was used to rely on the armor to ward of lighter blows, without that advantage she would have to focus on speed.

Her leg throbbed and reminded her that speed was one of the attributes that wasn't standing high on her list at the moment, but she pushed the thought away. You never knew. Maybe it was just an accident.

[Archer]

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Two low-level soldiers under attack in a carriage: *hypothesize about the threat, brainstorm a plan, prepare their defense*

Three gods under attack in a tent: *two of them immediately collapse and the other uses their powers to invent moonwalking*

When we meet up with the others, perhaps they could give us some tips.

The General’s Camp. The Infirmary Tent. Afternoon.

“Beat it,” Tion growled at the soldier who was trying to maneuver him into a headlock. “I want you back.”

The man ignored him, and managed to slip his arm through the throng of bodies and drag Tion to the ground by the neck.

“Lucky grab,” the God of Sensation wheezed, his vision starting to blur. The colours of the world around him were melding into a hazy mess of black and white. “Your instinct wouldn’t happen to be Probability, would it?”

The burly man smiled at him as he pushed a knee into the god’s chest. Tion took that as a yes.  

“Well, this is a thrill… er, Negation?!” Someone had pinned Tion’s legs, leaving only his left arm free to pathetically slap at his assailants, although that looked likely to be restrained soon as well.

This, is bad. And unsporting, calling in reinforcements like this. Curse that dastardly lass. She’s such a, a smooth criminal! Why is it that she hates me so much?

Something was leaking from one of his coat pockets, but Tion was unable to shift his head to see what it was. All he could do was twist his neck a little bit to the left of right, where he had an uninspiring view of the cloth walls of the tent’s rear corner. They gave him an idea.

“Hey,” he cried at the other deities, “remember that citystate they had going back in the day - would you please move your knee? – where Deicen is now? Samsongrod, Samsongrad, something like that. It would be really great if we could recreate the ending of that Star Festival party we went to there, wink, wink!”

He reached his unrestrained hand awkwardly out behind him and curled his fingers around the exposed tent pole that stood there, holding up a quarter of the tent. With as much might as he could muster, he pulled on it, hoping that with help, he could drag the entire structure down upon their heads.

Edited August 22, 2019 by Archer

[AonEne]

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16 hours ago, I think I am here. said:

“There are still 12 undiscovered breeds of horses.”

And meanwhile, a large distance away, a predator pounced at a runaway horse. With claws it ripped the creature to bits, and fed. But it was still hungry. Growling it looked in the direction the horse had run from.

*tucks this away for reference, as Izzy is the daughter of horse breeders*

What are the details of this predator? Unless you want to keep that secret for dramatic purposes?

3 hours ago, Archer said:

“Hey,” he cried at the other deities, “remember that citystate they had going back in the day - would you please move your knee? – where Deicen is now? Samsongrod, Samsongrad, something like that. It would be really great if we could recreate the ending of that Star Festival party we went to there, wink, wink!”

Are you thinking of anything in particular or should we improvise?