Augury: Hate’s Creation

[AonEne]

17 hours ago, Sorana said:

Looking down at her hands she sighed before continuing to speak. "The wars are bad, just as they have been the last couple of years." 

Quote

You’re fine! 

Edit: I’m now wondering if Infinity can slow down time for herself to track how he moved the cups  

“The Reality Power,” Last murmured when she listed them being transported in a moment. After a moment it added, “I am sorry that the wars are still happening. I must admit, I had expected that they would have quieted by this time...” It tapped two fingers together idly. “Could you tell me, which one is Tion? And who influenced your memories?” 

Edited February 24, 2020 by AonEne

[+Ark1002]

Quote

ooh.

I wanna come back.

We'll see

 

[AonEne]

13 minutes ago, Ark1002 said:

I wanna come back. 

Quote

There are fun things happening!  

 

[+Ark1002]

Quote

Explanation of plot please?

 

[AonEne]

Quote

It’s in the OP. 

@Ark1002 

Edited February 25, 2020 by AonEne

[+Ark1002]

Quote

Any suggestion for where I should jump in?

@AonEne

[AonEne]

1 hour ago, Ark1002 said:

@AonEne

Quote

Sorry for the delay. Creativity could come find one of our groups? On the previous page Tion, Gati, Infinity, and Izzy ran into a traveler. 

 

[Archer]

On 24/02/2020 at 6:45 PM, AonEne said:

Edit: I’m now wondering if Infinity can slow down time for herself to track how he moved the cups

Quote

That's one possibility, but I think it'd be easier if Sam simply waited until he stopped, paused time, and looked under all the cups to see which one has the coin. That is, assuming the coin is under one of the cups and not an illusion created by Tobias the Tempster that he cleverly switches out under the table for a coin from his pocket if he wants you to win.

 

[+Sorana]

On 25.2.2020 at 0:45 AM, AonEne said:

“The Reality Power,” Last murmured when she listed them being transported in a moment. After a moment it added, “I am sorry that the wars are still happening. I must admit, I had expected that they would have quieted by this time...” It tapped two fingers together idly. “Could you tell me, which one is Tion? And who influenced your memories?” 

"I don't know." Sagitta frowned. "Price maybe would, but how am I supposed to know?" She made a vague gesture with her hands. "Like I said they influenced my memories and they didn't leave their signature." She remembered the way Price had looked at her, how he had tried to protect her, to save her and sudenly she wished that he was here. He would know what to do, what to say, how to behave. She was the wrong one for this situation, the wrong one to deal with it. Shaking her head remained sitting, although she wanted nothing more than to get out of this house and back to things she understood.

"And I don't know who Tion is. Maybe I knew, but if that was the case I forgot."

 

[AonEne]

On 2/27/2020 at 11:41 PM, Sorana said:

"And I don't know who Tion is. Maybe I knew, but if that was the case I forgot." 

Last nodded. “That does make sense. Thank you.” It stood up and nodded again. “I wish you a good day, Sagitta.” 

Without any other signal that it was about to do so, it left her dream, and the dream ended. 

[Archer]

Meanwhile, Tion proceeded to lose his life savings to Tobias the Tantalizing. And also his horse. As well as three of his honorary titles, Arch-thane of the Thomes, First Fire Chieftain of Ixalar, and Reserve Stone Arranger of the Monastery of the Pebble (Second Class), respectively.

“I think you may be cheating,” the god supposed, unbuckling his sword from his belt.

Tobias the Tenacious shook his head, rearranging the cups on the table in front of him. “Just put that rapier on the ground there, that’s a good lad. And no! No, no, no, no, no! Everything here is on the level- say, what is your, well, my horse doing?”

Tion looked at Jessic. They looked up from their grazing to glare back at him.

“Right, round and round atop my board, who will win your shiny sword?” The magician's hands blurred once more, spinning the cups hypnotically. 

Tion clapped his hands together. “Who indeed! This is very exciting.”

[AonEne]

Gati glanced at Infinity. 

Quote

Ladies and gents, I’m sorry I don’t have time for more but I wanted to say something before I forgot 

 

[+Sorana]

Quote

I'm not sure what to do now and where everybody is...

 

[AonEne]

Quote

You can be anywhere you want, including there already. We don’t have a set time in the journey right now (at least, that’s what I gathered of our decision). 

 

[Archer]

Quote

I'd like to get to the epicenter of the earthquake soon, I'm out of ideas how to stretch this travelling scene much longer. 

Cahaya. Near the Straight Path. A little after dusk.

“Agreed, Alar. I believe my Lord will find that acceptable. The boundaries will stay as they are until the harvest in complete, then move to align with the river, upon delivery of the prisoner and the promised monies.”

Two men sat in a private room at a non-descript tavern on the outskirts of Quartz. The boisterous hum of travelling patrons seeped through the walls, but the scene was otherwise peaceful as they sat on opposite sides of a table covered by papers with scribbled notes and a large, annotated map of the region. The one who had spoke, a bald man in his seventies with jaundiced skin and a trailing grey beard, leaned back in his chair, smoking a pipe. The second, a career civil servant twenty years his junior whose hair and closely trimmed beard were dyed a youthful shade of brown, downed the last of his drink.

“You got yourself a deal, Jom, but somehow I can’t shake the feeling that you’ve gotten the better of me. Again. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to throw in a freebie from your Truthers for my troubles…”

The older man smiled toothlessly. His right hand slowly reached into his breast pocket and came out with a small deck of cue cards, each meticulously marked with a few lines of perfect handwriting. “I have recorded some interesting premonitions since last we spoke. Which one would interest you, I wonder. I have thoughts on cold fires, coming storms, shared dreams, a mysterious death, a magic-”

Alar clanked his tankard onto the table, his knuckles taut around its handle. “Give me the dream one.”

“Curious,” Jom crooned, delicately picking through the stack in his hand. “The prophecy is yours, if you tell me, why the sudden interest in that particular subject?”

The younger bureaucrat narrowed his eyes, then broke into a laugh. “I am much too drunk to be talking to you. Why do we always do this in this pub? I swear the ale here is twice as strong as it should be.”

“It is a meeting place equidistant between our two respect counties. Now tell me, why this Truth?”

Alar stared at the bottom of his empty glass, suddenly solemn. “Now this stuff, I’m not drunk enough for. Not yet... But here goes. My Master’s been complaining recently. About a reoccurring dream. I know it means nothing, right, but he seems worked up about it.”

Jom sat quietly, stroking his beard. “Mm.”

“It had something to do with rocks. He’s walking through a this endless sea of stones, sharp little things that poke at his feet. For some reason he feels the need to stack ‘em. So he starts arranging them, making little piles and patterns. But there’s so many, right? Too many. So eventually he gives up. And when he does, within the dream he wakes up, and is back in the manor. Then there, standing at the end of his bed-”

“Is a figure,” Jom murmured, as if reciting from a script. “Dressed in robes of black, cloaked in folds of shadow. He is tall and leering, with obsidian eyes that peer into the soul. He reaches out to grab at me, so I cover my face, and when I finally look back, he is gone.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly it.” Alar’s brow furrowed. “How in the world did you know?”

“It seems your Master’s thoughts are not as private as you think. Perhaps it is that great minds think alike.” Jom slowly sucked on his pipe, then opened his mouth to blow out a wispy ring on smoke. “Independently, my Lord too has had nightmares, for the past six days. Always the same scene. The exact same scene as you have just described.”

They sat in silence for a minute, listening to the distant chords of a drinking song.

“I would like to see the premonition you brought.”

Wordlessly, Jom drew the top card from the stack and slid it across the table. Alar looked down at it, his lips moving slightly as he read it to himself, then read it again.

“Dear gods.”

*********

Meanwhile, near a different road.

Tobias the Tipsy examined the bottle he had just won from Tion. He uncorked it and took a whiff. “Smells plenty strong to me. Got any others of these? I could go one more round.” He cocked his head back and downed it contents in a single gulp.

Tion shrugged and produced two identical bottles from his trench coat. “Sure. Ready when you are!”

The gamemaster happily complied, spinning the cups on the table once more. But this time, his movements were slower, more jerky. Eventually, his hands came to a complete stop, locked in place in mid-turn.

“Finally,” Tion muttered, jumping up and flipping all of the cups on the table over one by one. Tobias sat unmoving as he checked each one, then double checked. “Don’t worry, the paralysis will wear off in an hour. It was strong stuff, just not the kind you were thinking of.”

The god flipped the table over, just to be sure. “No coin here either. I guess that means you were cheating. Glad I was right about that. Would’ve been awkward if I had genuinely lost sixty-two games in a row. I was rather exciting though!”

“Also, I’m taking my stuff back. You didn’t earn it. Okay, let’s go!” He looked up at the other gods as he stuffed his belonging back into his pockets. “I said I’m ready to go, come on. Wasn’t that enough of a rest for you guys?”  

Tion was flush with energy now, but inwardly something was bothering him. If he was using illusion magic, why didn’t I sense he had the Sensation instinct? Like most things he didn't understand, he chose to ignore it and move on. 

[AonEne]

On 3/18/2020 at 9:30 AM, Archer said:

“I said I’m ready to go, come on. Wasn’t that enough of a rest for you guys?”

“I was wondering how long you were going to keep playing,” Gati said wryly. “I’m ready to keep going if you are.” 

[+Sorana]

Quote

Any ideas how I could (re)meet your characters?

 

[Archer]

Quote

We're both going to the same place, right?: The earthquake's ground zero. We could bump into each other there. Or on the sidelines of it, checking in at the same hotel or something. Do gods do hotels? I feel like Tion would love stealing the soaps but also replacing them with identical replicas made of limestone that no one would notice until they tried to use them

Tion's brief adrenaline high wore off two minutes after the gods started riding again. His eyelids became heavy, and his head slumped slowly towards his chest. He vaguely remembered hitching his reins to the back of the horse in front of him, but it felt more like a dream than reality at that point. He promptly fell asleep after that, only re-awaking when Jessic's regular canter came to an abrupt stop. 

"Stone him," he mumbled as he came out his stupor, rubbing his eyes to adjust to the sunlight. "Hey, how long was I out? And where are we?"

[AonEne]

10 hours ago, Archer said:

Do gods do hotels? 

Quote

That would be up to the god. Gati certainly has. (I don’t think hotels is the right word, though - bit futuristic ) 

Maybe we arranged a place to meet up with you guys? 

“A couple hours, and we’re a couple minutes’ ride away from the city,” Gati informed him. Izzy was staring ahead at the buildings approaching them. 

[Archer]

The buildings stared back. From the taller structures, the cold gaze of rooftop gargoyles took stock of their approach. The stone statues seemed weather worn, but they sat stoically in their poses, wings tucked back in their crouch, almost ready to dive into the streets and feast.

Closer to ground level, Tion’s keen eyes saw decorations of a different type on the smaller buildings: wooden hoops hanging in windows and from the overhangs over doorways. Lithe spiderweb-like patterns were made inside of them using string, then at their center, lines and lines of thread were sewn together in a mass to create the distinctive shape of a human eye. The hoops ranged in size, but most were about the size of a head. As they twirled gently in the wind, their eyes seemed to look back and forth in front of them, nothing escaping their notice.

“Those are new,” Tion remarked. “I liked the statue aesthetic better.”

As if on cue, their horses passed a small pile of rubble by the side of the road. A few of the larger pieces were still recognizable as being the remnants of a chiseled bear. One paw was still intact, its blocky claws outstretched. Based on the sharpness of the new edges, it seemed to have been smashed recently.

Tion pulled on his reins to slow Jessic to a walking speed as they got closer to the city limits. “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Tiska.”

[+Sorana]

Quote

So I'll just have Sagitta show up where Tion is.

Post will come either this evening or tomorrow. I need to think about it for a bit.

Sagitta squinted her eyes together against the bright sun, coughing when some dust flew into her face again and she couldn't stop herself from inhaling some. Tiska. She had asked around, wandered through this foreign country, for once thankful for the cloths and Price had given her. She didn't look like a Ta'e'iloan anymore, and while her accent hinted at someone from a different country, she used vague answers to divert them. The nomands had been cool, but none of them had tried to attack her, and she herself had tried to keep their contact to a minimum. She was a travel, and when they asked for a reason, she namened the travelling itself. It wasn't the best one, but surprisingly it was something they could understand. So far, whenever she had stopped to buy food or replenish her water supply she had found someone who spoke at least a few words of Tühine, or maybe Cahayan and when she combined that with her alrightish Tühine and her meager Cahayan they had managed to converse.

It was warm around here, warmer than she had expected and certainly warmer than anyplace she was used to. The air was dry, not moist, not smelling of raind soon to be come, and the sun was hot and relentless. It suit the nomads, suit the cloths she had seen them wear and when she - Sagitta shook her head, turned her thoughts away from her captivity.

She wasn't alone on the street, there were other travellers, people moving towards Tiska and even here she could see the signs of the earthquake, of the terror had passed over these people. One figure drew her eyes and she found herself steering her horse towards him. Or her. Or them. Whatever they were in real.

"Tion." She greeted them, keeping her mount at some distance. "I didn't expect to meet you here."

 

@Archer

Edited March 25, 2020 by Sorana

[Archer]

Tion raised a hand in greeting. His horse stopped in the middle of the road a few meters in front of hers, under the shadow of a single-story building on the outskirts of the city, likely a storage hut of some kind. Its base structure was akin to a log cabin made of driftwood-like tree trunks, but one of its walls had been created out of a pile of incongruous mud bricks of varying shades of red, brown, and black, giving it the look of a mosaic.

“The buildings here are stolen,” Tion mused, pointing at the homes in front of them. “The current residents built on top of another city, when its previous occupants abandoned it. Apparently, they left some solid foundations, better than the nomads had had before. So, the Tiska tribe settled down, and added their own flair to the place.”

He paused to take in Sagitta’s appearance. “You look like a spy. Slouch your shoulders more, and loose the intensity! I’m amazed no one’s run you through yet. You’d probably be better off not even trying, like us. At least then people think you’re being honest.”

He nudged Jessic to move closer, so he didn’t have to raise his voice as much. “You’re a smart girl, I’m sure by now you’ve found where the local watering hole is. Some place to chat people up, we’ve got questions that need answering. How about you lead us there. Safety in numbers, right?”

[+Sorana]

Frowning Sagitta slouched her shoulders, and then straightened again. It felt wrong. A curved back made you slow, and she needed to be fast, ready. Someone would attack her, and soon. Realizing the fault in her own thoughts she gave a slight nod and forced herself to loosen her tight muscles.

"I'm not a spy." She hissed back, although, maybe she was? She was here, she didn't even know why. It had felt like a good idea but right here and now, it just seemed stupid. "I'm just a foreigner and I'm travelling." It sounded weak, too weak for her liking, but in the end, there was nothing she could do. She had no idea how to do all of this bleding in part, the being harmless part. She only lived because she wasn't harmless, because she was strong, stronger than everybody else. Because people prefered to avoid a fight, instead of risking to loose it. Her hand opened and closed unconciously, as if opening and closing around the handle of a sword. "There should be a waterhold on the western side of the settlement."

Switching topics she tried to turn her horse, frowned when it didn't move and tried again. Her mare snorted, as if amused by her skills, but started to trott along a narrow path leading around the different buildings. They had formed some kind of pact these past days, or maybe weeks. The mare would do what Sagitta wanted her to do - sometimes.

"How do you know they stole the buildings?" She asked with honest curiosity. It was normal, when you discovered an abandoned building nobody claimed, you used it. But stealing - stealing sounded as if they had taken them by force, as if they had erased what had been here before.

[Archer]

Tion politely suppressed his smirk at Sagitta’s horsemanship. Gently, he reached out with his Power to grant her confidence- but nothing happened. The place in his soul where the magic once resided was still an empty void.

“The old nomads weren’t known for working with stone,” he began to lecture as they rode. “They had no need for such permanence. Many of the roving tribes still prefer simple wood and thatch structures, they’re easier to build, and easier to move on from. But the, um…”

The god trailed off, struggling to recall the name of the original settlers. “But the ones who came before were drawn to this place. Something about it made them want to stay here full time. And as the generations went by, the people learned to reinforce their homes with clay and rock. They went on to make streets of beautiful buildings, myriads of different colours and shapes and sizes of stone arranged in patterns that made up their walls and foundations. I wish some of the more intricate designs had survived, this place was quite the sight to behold before the exodus.” He grew solemn at that, remembering.

“You’d meet them on the roads, for years after. Refugees, heading away from the city, as far as they could get. They were good folk, earnest and kind. But they all had a blemish on their auras, this mix of fear, anger, and this foreign third emotion which I could never figure out.” He pointed to the base of a small home they were passing, which was half made from several ancient boulders glued together with a burgundy mortar. A sizable crack ran through middle of the cornerstone. “The ruins they left behind lay abandoned for over a century before one wandering tribe of fools made their way to it. The basements were there to build on. And I’m told that the land was singing once more. It proved too much to resist for the weary men of Tiska.”

“This was all well before your time. A couple hundred years ago, if I’m doing the math correctly. They’ve had time to put their own mark on this place, blend the cultures of what they found and what they brought. There was an artistic movement of rock carving that I was quite fond of, but they must have done something to the statues that came out of it, I haven’t seen many since we arrived. You don't seem like you'd be much interested in art though, no time for that in the army, eh?"

[+Sorana]

Sagitta listened to his explanation, nearly asked how he knew, only to discard the thought an continue to listen. Hundreds of years ago. To hear him talk about so many years, about cultures long lost as if it had happened yesterday silently, quietly solidified her acceptance of what he was. A god. A weird god and one whose powers were weird as well, going awry if she believed Last, but in the end it all lead her back to the same point.

He was a god. And she was nothing but a fly compared to him.

"No." She gave a slight shrug and cursed under her breath when her mare decided to turn right instead of continuing along the path. Talk had it, that they could find water at the end of the path, and veering off it to the right definitly hadn't been part of the man's decription. She pulled on the reigns and thankfully the horse stopped. It took her a moment, and a little piece of sugar to convince her to step back on the path and she sighed in relief when they were going the right direction again. It had been more or less easy when there was only one road to follow instead of the usual maze that made up a settlement.

"And neither at my parent's house." She continued to speak to him, without giving the fact that she had just spent way too much time in discussion with her mount. "Now was I ever really interested in creating something. Drawing, whittling, all kinds of creative stuff. I never really had a hand for it." Falling silent she remembered her mother's tries to polish her drawing skills. "It was all soulless you know? I just don't add that spark of emotion, of imperfectness that is the mark of art."

Turning her head towards him, she found herself smiling, wondering why she did it. "You like art, don't you?" It was a wild guess, and she knew, she could easily be wrong but the way he had picked it out, had focused on it, something about it made her thoughts go in that direction.

@Archer