LastLight

The cutting continued. Thus far, he had already learned that he could control which way the trees fell by deciding the angle of each of his cuts. This time, he was trying to get a big one to fall in the direction of another, hoping that the weight of one might knock the other down as well. It was to no avail. The next tree that went falling dashed itself against a neighboring tree before sliding down along its side, grinding bark away and ripping branches off before finally hitting the floor with a thud that reverberated through the ground more than a hundred yards away. Clearly, it wasn't a success but it hadn't caused any type of inconvenience either so it was right back to work. Slowly but surely, the motions all became mindless. It didn't take very much focus at all to leverage his strength on these enormous pillars and get them to start falling. Each time they did, he watched as the drones crowded the trees and cut them into smaller pieces for transport, waves of them leaving the area back towards the construction site, bounty in toll. As his work endured, he eventually watched a tree swing to the side and come smacking into the ground before nothing happened. Nur's red irises dragged left and right, searching for workers but saw that none came rushing in to drag pieces of it away. His guess was that he had worked quickly enough to get rid of them all momentarily and turned his attention to the enormous clearing he had created thus far. They'd be back soon. After nearly ten hours of absence on the part of the laborers, he had resorted to cutting the downed trees into smaller pieces so that by the time they returned, most of their work was already prepared for transport. By the time he was finished, there was enough wood lying around to fill up a mid sized lumber yard in one of the Genesari megacities. Nur himself was sitting beneath the next tree he planned to cut down, dining on raw meat from an earlier kill when he heard something whistling through the air. Before he could react, a net propelled by several arrows ensnared him, arrow tips digging deep into the wood of the tree he had been leaning up against. With a roar, he pushed outward and felt his fingers slipping between the cross sections, which turned out to be made of sharp metal. The bite of the material against his skin wasn't much but it was enough to make him hesitate, consider the thought of trying something different but that was when a graceful woman enshrouded in a brown cloack descended to the ground before him by holding on to a thin branch. When her bare toes touched down, she let go, allowing it to swing back up to its original elevation before drawing another arrow from her quiver and pointing it at Nur's throat. "Shh shh shh," she urged, then stomped her foot on the floor in a display of authority.

When the sword came sailing through the air to sever the tendril that had taken a hold of his hand, Nur's eyes were cast to the ceiling, which he could see was clearly churning. What was it? Was it magic? The only thing that he could see so far was that the movement of the earthen ceiling was directly linked to the vines and how close they were to him. He guessed that whatever creature it was, it lingered beneath the soil. The moment the weight pulling on his arm went slack, he began moving forward to get away but as that vine, the one with a much angrier scarlet hue running its length, spewed a sticky clear substance into the surrounding area from being severed, all of the tendrils that had been assaulting them coiled towards the ceiling. Momentarily, they were like wound snakes preparing for the moment to lash out. As Nur turned and began running for the cart, however, it'd become clear that the vines behind him had no intention of pursuing further. If anything, they seemed to retreat into the darkness. Nur tumbled into the cart with the rest of them, landing on top of the some of the bodies as they began to roll away. It took a moment but he recognized that there didn't seem to be some kind of visible mechanism propelling them. Nobody outside pushing it forth or no lever being moved. Glancing in Cadmium's direction, then at his armor and then at the cart, he spoke, "Move all metal with magic? Good. Do good." At that point, his breath was beginning to pick up and his skin was reddening. The wound around his arm, the one inflicted on him by the vine, began to ooze white puss in copious amounts. Even though his breath had reached a point of hyperventilation, his eyes exhibited a sharp presence of mind, like he was still fully attentive. It wasn't immediately clear if he was going to resist the poison altogether or if he would collapse soon, but when they arrived somewhere safe, he hoisted himself out of the cart and tumbled out of it onto the floor, dropping the knives from his hands. "Must go back for other minahs. More inside. Never see plants kill human before." The fiasco back there, where various of the vines were severed, had exposed him to scents more commonly encountered when cutting apart plant life. That fluid that spewed out was not blood.

It was extraordinary where roaming mindlessly could take one. The first time Nur got on a boat, he ended up sailing to an island. The next time, to another continent entirely. The people in Genesaris spoke different languages but he was glad to find that the so called common tongue was still prevalent enough for him to get by. Now he was working on a way to return home and for that, he needed to work. Labor was the universal currency. He was surrounded by the sounds of a forest besieged by heavy rainfall. The sound of droplets pattering constantly on the leaves and streaming down to the lush greenery below reminded him of home. So did the scents that were evoked the moment moisture collided with the earthly minerals spread throughout the ground. It would have been a euphoric environment if it wasn't for the stench of death lingering everywhere he walked. As he swung his axe over and over, the blade biting deep unforgiving chasms into the trees he targeted, a pack of undead drones skittered about as they awaited the opportunity to haul off loads of wood back to the construction site. Being that their bodies had gone through some measure of decay before being presumably reawakened, there was very little strength remaining in their musculature. A beast of burden like Nur, who could bring these enormous trees down within seconds because of his strength, was a pretty good fit here, balancing out the disadantage to at least a small degree. The next time he swung his axe, the deep thwack was followed by shifting branches and splintering wood. In response, the drones in the area all began to shriek wildly, signaling to the rest of them that a giant tree was on its way down. Nur let the axe hang at his side before turning to watch as the tree angled away from him, then as the undead that infested the area like maggots in a corpse parted from its path. Looking at them closely, Nur could see that the water was washing away layers of flesh and rot. They were still alive because of magic. Death magic, it seemed, and the idea that the supernatural was the source of many of the world's most disgusting affronts to life was enforced just a little more. He began to walk away, approaching another tree in the area. For a few moments, the water descending on him from the sky pattered heavily against his gray greenish skin but when he reached the next tree and held up the axe to drive it deep into the wood, ten floating spheres of light angled around the base and fluttered in his direction like errant butterflies. Some of them were green, others red, others brown, purple, but as Nur lowered his axe and glanced from one to the other, the only one that radiated a hue not at all dissimilar to the sheen of a golden crown sat on his nose. Nur's eyes narrowed, tilting his nose up further to the sky, wondering if it could pass off as food. It didn't smell particularly nutrititious so after a quick huff, he shunted it away with a breath of air. The rest of the glowing creatures dispersed, retreating into the forest as Nur settled back into cutting trees again.

The first tendril that attacked him snapped back when the wooden shaft splintered but immediately rebounded like a rubber band. Nur saw no choice but to allow himself to drop to the floor since he was already stumbling from pulling on the pickaxe before it snapped. When his back hit the dirt with a thud, both pieces of the pickaxe allowed to fall from his grasp, his eyes flared and his sharp grisly teeth were bared. One of the appendages whipped downwards just as he rolled out of the way. Then when it swept across the floor in search of him, whipping debris about the room, his senses and reflexes were put on full display. Nur spun, anchoring the motion on his left hand before both of his feet sprung him over it. The next one made him duck finally, giving him the opportunity to snatch both of the knives into his hands. They felt strange as weapons, extremely lighter than what he was accustomed to, but they were made mostly out of metal. The way the vines shattered the pickaxe was somewhat surprising but he could tell the same was not going to happen with the knives. "Better kill first!" Not a moment later, one of the men who lay unconscious on the floor was entangled by one of the appendages and swept up towards the ceiling, further to the rear of the area. Cadmium was right, and the next tendril that snapped Nur's way caused him to lean forward into a swift roll, diving deeper into the nest as the appendages whipped around like severed lizard tails. The next one that whipped towards him met the cutting edges of Nur's newly acquired metal teeth, wielded in each of his powerful hands. While Cadmium got to work moving the remaining bodies, Nur looked like he was trekking through a dense jungle, hacking and slashing at the debris but instead of moving forward, the foliage seemed to be overwhelming him. He eventually had his back to a wall. Just when it seemed like maybe he had found a safe pocket from which to defend himself, where some of the appendages could no longer reach him but continued to lash at him, the ceiling began to shift. Rocks and mounds of dirt that decorated the roof over their heads shifted as if responding to pangs of earthbending willpower. The movement was smooth and silent, however, causing no pebbles to fall to the ground, and the movement enabled the tendrils that had once been out of range to come closer to the increasingly embattled hybrid. Finally, one of the tendrils broke past his defense but before it could lash around his throat, he put his arm in the way and felt the bite, hundreds of tiny pin pricks digging into his flesh.

I'll join up if there's still room and if the character fits. Seems like a fantastic opportunity to roleplay with a bunch of people I've never done so with before. The character is here.

The discovery of a new dish confers more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star. -Brillat Savarin Don't get me wrong, I believe that pursuing scientific discoveries of all kinds is important but I find this to be a quaint little quote.

Noticing that Cadmium reached into his pack immediately after the question was posed, Nur stopped so that he could focus on whatever the answer was going to be. He even leaned in, let his eyes hover above the golden coin and the lettering found on both sides. The first thought that crossed his mind was why? What possible reason could there be for someone to trade clothes, objects of greater material mass, for a tiny piece of yellow metal? As the frustration crept across his facial features, he glanced at the men and understood well, Cadmium's hard earned diplomatic skills beginning to show. Getting hurt might have sounded less egregious than "losing his strong feeling." Nevertheless, the irritation failed to subside. His first impulse was still to ask why but admittedly, it was getting tiresome to be constantly asking people for explanations. Even more so as Cadmium elaborated further. Why twenty five coins to get twenty? Why would he want to be able to get twenty clothes? Why? Why? Why? It culminated in a string of sharp words uttered through closed teeth, "Where even learn?" His shoulders raised and he held his left hand out, palm facing up, "Who teach?" It was unclear if whether it was a rhetorical question in the end because when he picked up a scent of note, he shifted his focus away from the matter of his payment and moved. Cadmium's questions received an answer swiftly, "Smell same-- the same. Sick. Not dead. Dirt, fired wood. Water." Truth be told, the water tones that drifted past his nostrils from somewhere deep in the cave were hypnotizing. It was like petrichor, the scent of rain, concentrated and delightful enough to make him look forward to a dip. Maybe even a deep, satisfying gulp. That said, he led them further in quietly. The flames on the torches, fortunately, weren't so wild that his hearing was bombarded with constant crackling noises. None of his senses were hindered in any way and the whole time that they walked, Nur seemed to do so with a clear degree of comfort, entirely unafraid of losing his path. As they arrived upon what he was certain should have been another group of unconscious men, his steps came to an abrupt halt when he realized that he wasn't entirely sure what he had led them to. Unlike the first room, this area seemed to have been the site of a prolonged struggle. There were drag marks on the ground and patches of moss. Most curiously, there were pink vines protruding right out of the earthen ceiling, swaying back and forth to such a minimal degree that it wasn't noticeable without close inspection. Nur took one step forward, then another, and another until he was within arm's reach of one of the appendages. Up close, it looked like his tongue, only longer, drier and speckled with thin white vellum hairs so light they did nothing to conceal the hues of the vine itself. In the blink of an eye, a savage tension gripped the vine's entire length and it lashed out, snapping forth but by the time it reached its target, Nur had lifted the pickaxe and put the wooden shaft in the way. The vine snapped around it like a whip and inflated, and Nur was able to see the moment those tiny thin white hairs hardened and punctured right into the wood. Between Nur's resistance and the pull of the vine, the pickaxe shattered in two, and the other tendrils hanging from the ceiling twitched.

That deep hmm that came out of Cad-mee-ooms throat left Nur staring quizzically. It was a gesture he hadn't come across quite yet, or maybe he had but it hadn't been of such probable consequence as this current moment in time. The way the metal man glanced in multiple directions shortly thereafter left some manner of context for him to try and decipher, a skill he had been forced to hone constantly since the second he made contact with sentient beings outside his tribe. It reminded him of his own olfactory process, how sometimes he took several small sniffs and somewhere in between, a deep longer one to help refine his understanding of what he was smelling. Was that it? He couldn't be certain and as he contemplated that fact, Cadmium's hand moved away from the hilt of his sword, a gesture that he understood with utmost clarity and required no long train of thought to understand. There was no resistance on Nur's part when the two following steps were taken. In fact, his right hand let go of the pickaxe, allowing it to hang off the grip of his left at his side, enough at ease to continue the interaction without resorting to aggression. Thereafter, something about the flow of Cadmium's words changed. It was clearer and easier for him to understand but a far cry from what a boy he went on an adventure with once had achieved. The little mage actually removed words Nur would have considered unnecessary from his sentences and it worked wonders. Maybe those diplomacy courses needed some fine tuning. It turned out that the definition of tend was agreeable in juxtaposition with his own purpose here. That was apparently good because his ears, once fixated on Cadmium's general direction, swiveled elsewhere. One to cover his rear left and the other the area directly to his right. It didn't mean that sounds from other directions were invisible to him, it just meant that's where his hearing was at its keenest. Watching idly, his lips curled down at the corners in response to Cadmium's observation and then answered, "Eaters kill for later sometimes. Like eight legs." What he didn't say was that he didn't smell anything that came close to being organic and alive in the area other than the miners, but he didn't consider that enough of a discrepancy to completely disprove his first hypothesis. The gloves landed near his feet and then he watched what Cadmium started doing, putting two and two together that the reason why he was wearing those things was to avoid direct contact with the welts. It was a good idea. He had suffered through ringworm a few times and even though he didn't fear any beast's venom, perhaps foolishly so, he didn't want to catch anything that would at least irritate him in the future. He slipped the gloves on and reached for a body, pausing momentarily to watch as the shield carried one of the men away on its own. Before continuing, he turned an almost accusatory glance at Cadmium and uttered, "Magic man," both eyes going sharp before he turned and began his work. Once they were done loading the men into the cart, Nur lowered and rubbed his leather gloves on the dirt, beginning a habit that he had picked up from present company. "What think I should get then, Cad-me-oom?" He straightened, picking up his weapon again and sniffing at the air, "Smell more-- I smell more men," he interrupted his own speech again apparently in attempt to correct his grammar. The practice wasn't as refined as would have been beneficial. It wasn't a well informed and sincere attempt at correcting his grammar, more a blind attempt to sound more like people who spoke the language fluently. "This way," he added, turning in the direction of another tunnel before he began walking, snatching one of the torches from the wall as he did.

Nur's attention eventually migrated from the victims in other directions once he had familiarized himself quite well with the stench. Still knelt, he placed one hand down on the floor and spun on it, using it as an anchor, to face in another direction as he hunkered forth, lowering his head close to the ground. Despite feeling quite assured of things, his red eyes like those of an albino rat searched for more details in hopes of painting a more comprehensive image of it all. The only thing of note that he found were the tracks made by the unconscious laborers on the ground, and he could tell they ran in here in a hurry. Nothing else. That in and of itself was information enough to lead to another hypothesis, and suddenly he stood straight, head tilting back to cast his gaze at the ceiling and then the walls around them, but before he could find anything there, he detected Cadmium's approach. By the time the Corporal entered the torched area, Nur was facing bodily in his direction, the pickaxe held like a feather in his right hand. With both ears swiveled the Corporal's way, Nur listened to what he had to say but his eyes were stolen away by the armor that he was wearing. This was the first time he had ever encountered such a man, and he wondered why it never occured to him to cover himself in stone while he was still living among his people. His nose scrunched when it dawned on him that it would be uncomfortable. The wind on his flesh had always been something he enjoyed. While that was simple enough for him to deduce, what he couldn't see was that for being so well protected, Cadium moved with a good degree of fluidity. "Nur here . . . I here . . . to take minahs home. Town say . . . said . . . would give clothes." It might have been a lowball offer considering how dangerous his work here might be but he didn't seem to care. Probably because he didn't know. Quite a number of people had made a quick buck out of him because he had no grasp of value but whatever he had received had apparently been enough to get him this far. The pickaxe was elevated finally and held with both hands now, eyes thinning, nose scrunching and lips flaring to bare his sharp teeth. "What tend mean?" If it meant kill, he was going to have to put the metal skin to the test.

From what I gather, we're supposed to come up with how our characters pitch in on the building process and write out the little piece. This isn't about participating in the quest and ending it with the kingdom fully built, but ending it in a way that makes it clear our characters had a hand in the building process. I've come up with an idea where big shipments of wood taken from the nearby forests that will be used to build the kingdom have apparently been delayed and individuals with a little more sapience than undead drones are required to investigate. I'll even write whatever the cause is myself, be kind of like a storyteller so that two others who have already signed up for this quest can join in on it with me. Are any you all interested? I'll go with the first two!

Sign me up! I'll be using Nur the feral. This seems like a quest that could be influential way in the future for him.

Biazo was by far the strangest location in Terrenus Nur had visited thus far. The people here seemed to speak a wildly warped dialect of the Terran language that made it even more difficult for him, already a newcomer to civilized speech, to understand. The boat captain who ferried him here had been just as bad, eventually relegated to hand gestures and other motions to get his orders across. That in itself wasn't everything. What really shunted this whole island into a full blown stage of peculiarity from his point of view were the scents. Despite the fact that the destructive necromantic influence that once gripped this place had been dealt with, his nose could still sniff out brief pangs of rot in the air, subdued as they might be. The waltz of life and death among the various organisms here seemed one sided, with life reigning prevalent. In the end, the imbalance between each of those powerful forces was unnerving. Right now, he disapproved of how nature seemed to coddle the living, something he viewed as a way of enabling fragility of the wild life but because he didn't step foot here during the necromantic blight, he was completely oblivious to the terror of when death reigns supreme. The cave was simpler. After helping a farmer write his land in preparation for seeding, a task that so far appeared to be universally shared throughout Terrenian territories and with which he was already very familiar, Nur was asked by one of the villagers in the town to investigate a mine. A group of "minahs" had stopped communicating and must be in danger. He was to find them and, if they were injured, bring as many of them back to their families as possible. When he entered the cave, both of his ears angled ahead to capture the rumblings of anything that he might be approaching. His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared, sniffing in quick repeated bursts as he turned his head in different directions in an attempt to paint a picture of his environment using his olfactory and hearing senses before having to use his eyes. Various different scents crossed his perception, the first notable of which being a large pick axe, its shaft protruding from a rail car. Taking it into his hands, he examined the axehead, pausing momentarily to stare at it before taking a few soft bites of its surface, teeth clinking in response. It was metal, much better than stone from what he had learned since leaving his tribe. More importantly, it was heavy, and therefore perfectly at home in his hands. The head wedge also seemed nice and sturdy as well. He finally encountered the scent of human flesh by following the smell of burning wood. There were torches lined up along some of the walls, still burning and casting the entire area in light, and that was where he found them. He approached a group of unconscious miners who lay unmoving on the floor and could smell the sickness in their skin before ever laying eyes on them. As he knelt over one of the bodies, leaning in closely to sniff the welts and the moss that was beginning to cover them, he sneered and exhaled out of his nose to expunge the stench while his ears constantly angled in different directions, monitoring the surrounding area very closely. Nur thought he had a pretty good idea of what was happening here but that was hardly any of his business. He was here to get these men out of here and back to safety, as deplorable as it was to deprive superior predators from their hard earned bounties.

LOL TEARDROP? WOW. I guess cause the aliens start shedding tears whenever he revives or heals injured allies.

That sounds exciting. What are the possible consequences of having a soldier taken in for interrogation? I don't remember that being a thing when I played. Also, I play on the Xbox so no mods for me, which sucks. I was a little disappointed with how limited the customizations were. Dump some pics of your modded soldiers if you can, wanna have a look.