LastLight

Stello's desperation had less to do with a baby leviathan loose in his home and more to do with the mess that came with her invasion. She lathered wetness across the floor as she inched along. The subtle slick he could hear with every motion forward confirmed and compounded the understanding that the cleaning he'd done earlier in the day had been ruined. The only thing that dissuaded the shock was a powerful shudder that rippled across his whole body when he felt the slimy yet rough texture of Stephen's tentacle wrapping around his ankle. Though uncomfortable, the feeling distracted him and afforded him a brief moment of clarity to spy Stephen's head, then her face, snout, and finally, her eyes. "Ohhh . . . ," he gave pause while maintaining eye contact momentarily, ". . . so that's watcha look like." After several seconds of peering at her, gaze focused and sharp, he caved and leaned in, "You handsome little beast you you're going to have all the lady krakens wanting a piece aren't ya?" His hand passed down along her snout and right back up to the side of her head. His thumb brushed across her lower eyelid and he watched in glee as she blinked in response to the gesture. The delighted purr that she released earlier changed. Although Stephen couldn't understand a single word that the human was saying, the eager and energetic touching paired with the elevated tone of voice conveyed pinpoint affection in all languages. Though tolerable at first, she didn't seem to like it for very long. Her body shook and he heard a sound similar to what he'd heard when he first met her and she was in want of grapes that were disappearing into someone else's mouth. When Stello's touching softened, so did she. After watching with a smirk as Ioreth's motherly instincts took over and ended with Stephen back in her little pot, he waved his hand dismissively at her apology before noting the wet floor again. He had already resigned himself to cleaning it after taking care of Ioreth's prowler. When he was given the keys, he turned towards the door and began to walk. The warning about Beans made his eyebrows tighten instantly, however. "More like I'll give him a shiner on his eye . . . with the torchlight." The door was then slammed shut behind him for emphasis. He arrived and at first appeared as an outline of a tall human being darkened by the light behind him as he stood in the alleyway leading to Ioreth's prowler. Beans himself scurried into hiding the moment he heard those unfamiliar footsteps coming closer, evading Stello's notice. There he lie in wait, on the other side of the vehicle and in perfect position for an ambush. His hands nursed the wrench maliciously. "I can smell your stink, imp. Come out. And lose the wrench." Aware now that his presence wasn't a secret, Beans emerged from the other side of the prowler, his eyes lidded and a mischievous smile showing. Though he continued to hold the wrench, he eventually dropped it when Stello took a decisive step forward and sat there smugly until suddenly the human's arm was raised high in swinging position and there was a flashlight in his hand. Beans flinched away and held his hands up in futile defense only to realize he'd not actually been attacked. Instead, Stello was raising his leg over onto the seat. Without warning, he turned it on and hit reverse hard enough that the engine's growl could be heard across the block. Beans jumped out of the way and then followed quickly behind him into the warehouse. Once inside, Stello followed the mess Ioreth had left behind and his heart dropped as he was going up the stairs. He spotted a pair of panties on the railing. He couldn't believe that idiot decided to leave them here in plain sight. Stello liked a naughty parting gift from the casual lady friend as much as the next guy but he never would have thought she would leave it here. How'd he miss that? He snatched it up immediately and squeezed it angrily before tossing it into one of his drawers in the lobby to deal with later, never realizing that it actually belonged to Ioreth and not the store clerk at the spell component shop further down the block. Never mind the thought that he might come out looking like a panty thief. When Ioreth was finished with her shower, she found him upstairs. The lobby, the smithy and the warehouse had all been closed down, lights off and Beans ordered to remain downstairs while Stello plotted out the mother of all showers. The kitchen was warm and the scent of Ioreth's hot toddy ranged wide. There was a lemon peel on the edge of the glass, whole cloves resting lazily at the bottom and a thick stick of cinnamon resting upright inside of it. If she picked it up to smell it, the bite of whiskey was noticeable in the steam emanating from it. He recognized the topaz as soon as she walked in. It came close to resembling the color of the drink he'd brewed for her. "For me? You shouldn't have." Upon receiving the stone, he glanced it over. "I kind of want to make a sculpture out of it . . . but it feels like it'd be a crying shame to cut it down from its current size." Then he looked at the book, recognizing immediately what its contents would be. He looked pleased. "This'll give me more to keep my mind busy. You know, if you ever need some making of something, let me know. I think you'd look like a badass swinging around a massive axe, or a hammer." The jovial energy pouring out of his voice seemed to fade as he digressed. "Maybe those . . . shitty catastrophes would think twice about happening in your area." @KittyvonCupcake + @Fennis Ursai ( Feel free to join in on this, Fen! )

I'll drop on in pretty soon as well! I have a few threads to catch up with though that started before this one and I feel it's only right I get to those first. I tend to post to the stuff that's been waiting on me the longest and go down the list. I should be caught up real soon!

Since Carlos and I completed a military assignment with our military characters recently and have them free again, we've decided to join up! Right @supernal ? I really like the set up by the way. Could make for some interesting moral questions. By the way, how will you be handling the opposition? I'm open to all sorts of options ( MOBS, for example ) as long as story line is the priority, which it certainly seems to be in this case. 💪 @Thotification Looks like we'll write directly at each other this time. 😆 My only regret is that my character in this one doesn't seem the type to highlight the Ravenbush surname in any comical manner.

Just like that, Stello was left alone in this strange place. With Momentum gone, he was given time to survey the pub in greater detail. He had been given the freedom to raid what was in stock and he didn't need to think twice to rise from his seat, walking in the direction of the counter that would have separated a bartender from a patron. Upon reaching it, he almost instinctively hopped over it in the very same way he often hopped over the counter at his own shop. He was light on his feet with long legs and he particularly enjoyed making sport of barriers like this. On the other side, he was greeted with an altar of bottles lined up along wooden shelves that glistened as he walked by them. Some of them were marked with unknown letters and words that he had seen in one of the books that he had spent time reading into recently about weapons from the lost lands of Elendaron. It was beginning to get to the point that he didn't even feel the need to ponder any further. By now, he felt safe in believing that Lexicus was a demon and that his body as it persisted in Terrenus might be a vessel. There was always room for error, of course, and so he placed very little weight on his theory so as to avoid disappointment. Eventually, he glimpsed a bottle with lettering upon it that he fully understood, Merlot. Stello generally shared a hate hate relationship with alcohol but during the extremely rare times he decided to indulge, wine was his choice. The atmosphere was just right for cultivating a drinking mood and he did just that, plucking the enticing bottle from its perch before pairing it with a resplendent wine glass with a spiraling stem separating the base from the bowl. He had to stop for a moment to appreciate the aesthetic of the glass. It felt just perfect to sit down in front of the bar, the only thing keeping him company a bottle of wine. Upon drinking from it, he allowed the drink to sit on his palate for quite some time. Not to discern the differing notes that lingered within it, because he wasn't that type of wine drinker, but simply to fully savor the taste and to satisfy the craving. And satisfy it did. He even paused a moment to fully peruse the label, wondering where it might have come from. @Fennis Ursai I'll be posting to you very soon as well @KittyvonCupcake! In different places actually! 💪👍

The only thing that separated Mark's awareness from Stello's was simple context. From the very beginning, the term craftsman had been taken in its simplest form, meaning a person who builds. So when Mark mentioned that they didn't have crafstmen in this world, an expression of brief confusion crept across his face. Of course they had builders here, but before he could point that out, it dawned on him that there must have been another meaning behind it. Lawyers, it would appear. Valucre had those as well but by then, the matter had begun to feel muddled enough that he thought it best to leave it at that. Before moving along completely, however, he did ponder the pairing of two words like craftsman and lawyer. Should he believe that mark was a man who built law? When he allowed the thought to slip from his mind, not to be scrutinized further, he went on to consider what remained. That being himself, his reason for being here and the truth that he knew he should be facing. It was always easy to come up with excuses for the sentiments one resonates with most and he was blessed to know that the difficult choice was often the correct one. For quite some time, he was silent and unmoving. Though his body was as a stone carving it was clear that his mind was aflutter. "Good talk," he finally said, glancing sideways towards Mark. "Thanks. You wouldn't know where a guy would sign up in hopes of eventually becoming a knight, would ya?" @Fierach

Cadmium's exact handful of words sent invisible waves rippling through the hive mind before him. They attempted with great effort to assess him but his very conscious manipulation of his own energy left them empty handed, making them rely only on words to decipher what was unfolding. He is uncertain of the consequences. Uncertainty was what compelled us before. I feel remorse. A small price to pay for the safety of our people. We should have vanished this entire camp. So that we might negotiate on equal footing? It isn't wise to waste time upon unobtainable desires. There is nothing equal to loss of life but loss of life. Were we not chosen for this role because we all would willingly forfeit ours for the safety of our people? We are guilty. We are responsible. The cascading waterfall of thoughts and ideas would have continued for some time if not for the Ulway that Cadmium had approached. He lifted a hand and all the others went completely silent. Though none were entirely certain of what was about to transpire, they knew that it revolved around this idea of responsibility. What they didn't know was what shape this call for responsibility would take. His tiny hand slipped into Cadmium's larger one with strange awareness, as if already familiar with the foreign gesture of shaking hands. "Then we will talk of responsibility. What happened here was our decision. We are guilty and we are responsible. If your people must take action, let us be the ones the punishment falls upon, but not our people." Nur lowered his gaze as he listened. Their resolve reminded him of the devotion of soldiers, only he was certain that it had to be a rare circumstance.

Inside, they found what they had been expecting to find all along. The smell of death as it swirled in Nur's sensitive nostrils, however, evoked a rare sensation of loss on his behalf. How many, he wondered, would suffer the absence of these able bodied and sharp minded soldiers? Although there was no way to truly know, Nur was certain that it would be many. Meanwhile, there was protocol to follow, things that were ingrained enough in them not to merit any form of mention, only doing. Cadmium sought out the highest ranking officer in search of log entries while Nur counted bodies and did some preliminary identification work. These bodies were to be sent back home to their family members, their cause of death archived and then honored for their service. It wouldn't have been difficult for that notion to grate against his thirst for simplicity and the highest level of practicality but it felt right and it showed in his diligence. It showed that he wanted to get these people back to where they belonged. After coming to a stand next to Cadmium, he listened quietly to the log. His expression showed nothing until the screaming started. His head dipped, a part of him genuinely wishing he had been there to help, or wishing that someone had suggested allowing the Ulway to find them rather than the other way around. His eyes focused on Cadmium as he commented, shaking his head before a twitch of his left ear caused him to raise one hand to signal immediate pause. A second later, he lowered his hand and turned, beginning to make his way back outside knowingly. When he stepped through the opening, he again found what he already knew was there. Several Ulway were scattered around the area, the tips of their spears glinting with the moon's glow and watching completely in silence, wondering if there would be consequences for their actions. They were recognizable, the same exact group that they encountered back in camp. "Why. Did. You. Kill?" There was no hesitation in the response. One of the Ulway answered decisively but calmly, as if there was a genuine desire not to aggravate the matter. "They witnessed our home. It was decided we would be safer if nobody knew." After a long pause, another added, this time with the intent to understand the gravity of the situation. "Will there be conflict over this?"

Cadmium and Nur both viewed the Ulway hivemind juxtaposed to the society in which they had been raised. Nur noted the potential for hunting while Cadmium contemplated the potential for industry. Maya and Itylra may have been stewing on the same ideas, using their own experiences with the societies they had inhabited to find something breathtaking about this collective intellect. While all of them theorized correctly about the different forms of potential that awaited therein, there was no telling what exactly the Ulway had adapted the hivemind towards but one thing was for certain, the island wasn't host to vast advanced city structures. If they weren't a particularly young civilization, that meant they didn't use their hivemind to build. Perhaps not even to venture into science. At least not to the highest possible potential. Conversely, they had just encountered a collective personality with what was clearly a singular identity. They were named Leaf That Hangs at the End of the Branch, likely formed from a group of minds and personalities that somebody from within their society had decided were suited to reside far from the tree. Curious then, what other forms of collective identities had they formed? Or experimented with? What types of identities had they decided were necessary or even interesting throughout the ages? After Cadmium agreed with the next plan of action, Nur began to gather his things to set off before pausing momentarily to watch as he put his armor on manually. While his expression didn't appear confused, it at least conveyed that he was noting it, and stared into Cadmium's eyes for a few moments until the silence between them assured him that he should remain silent about it. Anybody watching might have guessed Nur had simply withheld a question before moving on. It was hours before Nur picked up a scent and the decision to travel along the river paid off. Its winding path across the land eventually led them to what remained of one of the previous excursions by the Terran military. Several tents lay flat on the ground, covered with dirt, dropped to the ground either by the wind or by wandering animals. However, one of them remained upright, although severely worn by its time here. It was the tallest, widest and clearly the sturdiest of them all. Not much intellect was necessary to know that it was probably the HQ at the time. As they approached, dark stains inside came into view and through an open flap, they could see the remains of the corpses, none of them whole. Scavenging beasts had been here. "Think. Ulway. Felt. Threatened. By. The. Big. Tent?" Pondering for a moment, he digressed. There was no purpose to speculation. Regardless, they were going to have to rummage around. As per military protocol, they would have to have kept logs. It was just a matter of finding them, and hoping they weren't damaged. Lowering, he slipped in through the tent and looked around, stepping further inside to begin his search.

As Stello listened and paid mind to the way Mark separated the custodes from the knights with hand gestures, he recognized that somewhere along the line, he had misunderstood something. Namely that the custodes appeared to be a caste apart from the knights, although he had to guess that knights were drawn from a pool of custodes. There was always room for error, of course, and it wouldn't have been very shocking if the Order didn't fit neatly into his idea of common military structure. Not that he had ever even been in any form of military or had done any reading on it to have anything resembling an informed theory. Regardless, he had learned something. The custodes had a certain road to follow and knights had another and those roads led to a different destination. These destinations in turn still served the Order, albeit from different angles. From his point of view, it sounded like the custodes represented the sails and the knights represented the compass. It was typical of him to gravitate more towards the role the knights served, being that at the end of their journey, they were encouraged to be independent. Last thing he would want for himself was to be one of the cogs, sitting in one place and ensuring that the machine continues to churn. Moments before the thought coursed its way to the tip of his tongue, he gave pause, the machinations of his mind suddenly caught on something before he turned a very inquisitive expression towards Mark himself. He wasn't a knight and he didn't belong to the custodes, either. "What about you? Where do you land in all of that? Somewhere between the two? How's that come to happen?" @Fierach

Sounds good! And look, you already picked someone up. Honestly hub threads are probably my favorite thing to see on Valucre, of all types ( my earlier jab at other types of hubs was very jk just in case that wasn’t transparent ). Good luck out there! If you ever need any advice on how to get something done around here, there’s no shortage of people to help.

Awesome. Every hub thread should be a smithing shop tbh. Tea and books and beds and breakfasts and military outposts are cool and all but they're no comparison. By the way, this seems a little bit like an interest check. I recommend posting in the water cooler for would be visitors! That's how I did it when I opened up a shop. The funny thing is that I also did it with the intention of doing chit chat, slice of life sort of interactions and ended up in adventures.

Interesting topic! I’d probably find out what lizard meat in real life is like and maybe tweak it a bit to describe what dragon meat tastes like. But maybe that process lacks all the magic of creativity

The excited reverie that erupted among the others after the Ulway were gone somewhat startled him. With a pair of focused eyes, he glanced left and right to Maya and back to Cadmium, many times failing to understand what exactly they were getting at. It took the words one mind to get him in the loop. "One. Mind? Like. Wolves?" After listening to Maya's in depth explanation, which was thoroughly simplified so that a simpleton could understand it, it was the first time in a long time that Nur felt that sense of wonderment again since departing from his home. Magic was powerful, that much he knew, but until now no single magical trait had spoken volumes to him the way a hive mind did. The perks of hunting among a pack where all the minds were linked as one was rather gripping. "Must. Be . . . Good . . . Hunters." Cadmium's question evoked a highly instinctual answer from him. "I. Think. That's. A. Bad. Idea." Although, he didn't feel particularly uncertain about venturing around. Maybe as long as they left behind clear evidence of their path for the Ulway to find them again if necessary. "But. We. Don't. Have. To. Stay. Here. We. Can. Study. Wild. Life. In. The. Area. Or . . ." There had been something troubling him since their arrival here, and that was Maya's mention of previous adventurers who had, as he put it, become sick with hysteria. "We. Search. For. Terran. Military. Camps? Maybe. Find. Out. Why. They. Got. Sick. With. Hysteria? If. We. Do. We. Should. Start. By. Looking. In. The. Places. That. Would. Make. The. Best. Camps."

Perhaps it was because there was no other choice, but Zeph listened to Lilith's story in silence. When her hand squeezed tightly, he didn't even reach up to grip her arm in protest, rather suffered the pain with barely a grimace. But when it came to an end, he closed his eyes and would have turned away from her in disagreement if her hand wasn't there to keep him static. What he could see translated as a fruitless and empty existence, and equally fruitless and empty end in her eyes translated as a display of the complexities of human thought in his. The weight of responsibility and guilt resulting in a very human end. After being cast against the ground and his shadow could be seen emerging inside a cloud of dust, he stared at her through the veil, blood thickened with dirt covering the majority of his face. It isolated the steely resolve that continued to linger in his eyes. "Why . . . if I told your story with such flippancy . . . it would sound no more grand than that of the child you knew. Do you realize that?" The twitch in Lilith's hand, at least from his point of view, didn't appear to be from frustration. Rather it served to subdue him further, to show him that he only spoke because she allowed it and to ensure that utterance of his own words didn't send strength spreading through his body again. She had given him a minute to decide but within the next second, he knew his answer. The remaining amount of time that he spent there quietly was used to search deep within himself. To pinpoint the reasons behind his choice and scrutinize them. Peruse them for signs of weakness or cowardice. When he asked her if she ever felt pain or emotion, in a way, it was as if he had been asking her if she was like him. In his world, it was pain and emotion that made him human. It was despair, regret and guilt that tempered his resolve. Both of his lips flared to reveal bloodied gums and teeth. His eyes burst open and searched out her gaze. If the eyes truly are a portal to one's soul, in Zeph's case, they were portals to the souls of many. The one that projected itself from his body and reached out for Lilith with skeletal fingers and a startling shriek was female. He did always have a preference for the way emotions manifested in women than in the way they manifested in men. There was something raw about it, unapologetic, genuine and pure. Like smoke, she dissipated onto Lilith's skin, escaping from view but not long thereafter, her visit displayed its meaning. The presence of a second entity within was an unmistakable sensation. At first, thoughts of violence, the ones that Lilith was ripe with, were eased. Then upon realizing that she held a man by the throat, rather than tighten, she would instead free him. All of those neurons that were black as death from lifetimes of wickedness were flooded with emotions Lilith habitually looked down upon. Where there had been an absence of attachment, there were now great loves. Where her motivations of power once resided, there were now familial ones. Once all of these little branches and leaves had grown to form a tree symbolizing just one of the many human beings she had erased from this world, the one true and final reality was dropped squarely upon her. Everything and everyone she cherished was dead. What remained was grief compounded by powerlessness. Then despair followed.