voidtreckermods: (train)
VoidTrecker Express Mods ([personal profile] voidtreckermods) wrote in [community profile] middleofsomewhere2020-09-21 05:44 am

Adventure On: Finale and Conclusion

Blue

The Mountain

Once they get close enough everything is storm, ice swirls around them, stabbing them like knives. Winds seem to be actively pushing them away, no matter what direction they approach from. Still the crystal wolves walk on, heads down, paws silent, climbing upwards.

The higher they climb the colder it becomes. So cold that ice forms on eyelashes, that air seems to freeze as it leaves their mouths. So cold their chests hurt. They would not be wrong to assume that the only reason they can withstand this at all is because of the SCA around their wrist.

Ice tumbles down around them often, shaking the ground. The crystal wolves know the way and they keep going, steady on the path. They have spaced themselves out, to be in sight of all those who follow.

The Summit

As they finally reach the top of the mountain they reach a calm space, outside of the swirling storm. Domed across the summit is a fire cage, larger by far than any they have seen before. In the middle of the giant fire cage sits a dragon. White and blue, scales that look as if they were made of ice themselves. Their head was bowed, eyes closed but they are breathing, breath escaping in clouds of freezing mist that evaporated in the heat of the cage.

Around the cage itself are ice elementals, outside the storm these can be seen by the snow they whirl around inside them, each is about three feet tall but fly in a whirlwind as they attack. Like those in the storm they try and push people around and attack with shards of ice. These corrupted spirits seem to have no reason to their attacks, they are just as likely to push a combatant closer to the cage then they are towards the raging storm.

They can be fought, fire works well against them just as ice and cold magic works well against the fire cage itself.

A Sovereign Freed

Eventually the cage stops fighting, fading away into the snow before them. The crystal wolves spring forth, nuzzling at the dragon until they raise their head. Piercing blue eyes look over the group and the dragon bows their head once. They take a deep breath and breathe out over those assembled, cold fire washes over them, healing any hurts that they have, easing their fatigue som

The crystal wolves bow their heads too, a thank you. Aerlie flaps their wings, rising high into the air. Another breath of cold fire flies out around the area, clashing with the storm for a moment before overtaking it. Around the mountain the storm calms, the ice elementals stop and seem to sink into the snow or fade into the air. The mountain descends into a calmness.

The crystal wolves will approach all those who helped free them, nuzzling into their hands, a personal thank you before a shimmering gate opens for the adventurers to step through.

Red

Final Siege

It’s been a tiring three days of protecting the crystals from the creatures that sought their power. But now, as their power is fully recharged it is time to return them to the border. That is going to be a tougher job than getting them to the volcano’s heart in the first place!

They thrum with power and that power is a siren call to the creatures of the area, fire dogs, lizards, fire sprites. Just as the mountain attacked inside the heart, here the spirtes join with the rivers of lava to flood pathways, block routes, making it harder to cross already treacherous territory, or even driving them into traps of waiting fire dogs.

The heat is oppressive, heat from around them, heat from the crystals seems to sap the energy from those carrying them and so the duty is best shared.

Eventually though they arrive at the border, a mess of melted ice and frozen lava. Each of the crystals need to be replaced.

Restoring the Border

Replacing the crystals is a little more complicated than taking them was. Each one needs to fuse with the holder it sits in. It doesn’t take any skill, just someone to hold it in place for a moment whilst the two fuse together and the magic is channelled into the ground.

Holding a crystal in place is a little more difficult when being attacked by the creatures. The fire creatures keep up the attack until all of the crystals have been replaced.

The Land Repaired

When the last crystal is in place there is a ripple across the land. An invisible line, an ancient magic, connects the crystals, seperating the two lands. Ice recedes from lava and the melted snow refreezes. The borderlands of slush undergo transformation as the two elements separate from each other once more. A land of fire and a land of ice, with a pulsing magic separating the two.

The firedogs and lizards retreat, fire elementals calm and join with the lava streams once more. A shimmering gate opens.

Orange

An Important Message

The Huma birds have been carrying crystals and helping the harvesters, protecting them from the blighted birds and encouraging them to work hard.

But those returning to the floating islands on the afternoon of the eleventh day of Horseshoe come bearing black cloth bags in their talons, each has a scroll attached. The Huma birds will make it very clear they are to read the scroll first.

DO NOT OPEN THE BAG UNTIL NIGHT FALLS

Inside this bag are rare crystals. When they are exposed to the light of the sun they will cause the islands to sink back to the ground. After the sun has set tonight please distribute these evenly around the islands and then depart back down to the land below before sunrise. The lands natural magic will do the rest but we do not recommend being on the islands when they fall.

Thank you for your hard work.

The Adventurers Guild


With a long night ahead they may wish to rest for the remainder of the day.

Distributing the Crystals

If they do as they are asked then it will be a long night, there are many chunks of islands and a lot of crystals to distribute. The darkness makes it harder and the blighted birds seem even grumpier in the cover of darkness.

The wind sprites also are not resting and indeed seem delighted that playtime has been extended into the hours of night. Placing crystals is difficult when the Voidtreckers find themselves swept up into the air to dance around the trees.

Getting down by sunrise may be a little trickier than placing the crystals, especially if they have used up their flight potions, but hopefully there are enough people to help everyone get to safety.

Islands Fall

The sun rises, as the first rays of light hit the island they begin to vibrate, shudder. Then one by one they begin to fall, rapidly and chaotically. It is perhaps wise to not be anywhere near the crater as they do so.

They land in a crash of dust, which obscures the area. When the dust clears however they will see a perfect undamaged land. The pieces have fit back together, exactly where they should be, despite the chaos. The land is repaired and whole once more. Huma birds call excitedly as they dart through the air, their land restored.

A gate opens, for them to step through if they wish.

Purple

A Cure

It is day ten of Horseshoe when the first Huma birds fly into the village, they carry crystals either in bags in their talons or in their beaks.

The villagers clearly know what is going on for they welcome the birds and take the crystals thankfully. Anyone not currently fighting or purifying crystals is brought in to help distribute cures.

Actually curing someone is easy, it just requires the crystal to be touch an affected person or creature. The crystals are only good for one cure so those curing the blighted will be required to carry a few and run them to the villages.

Others can take crystals out into the woodland, looking for blighted animals to help.

A Final Fight

All but one of the golems have been found, defeated and restored. The final one has been elusive, not approaching the village or even the nearby woodlands.

The restored golems are back to standing vigil in each village, ready to deal with any attack that may occur.

But when an attack comes, it is not on a village, but on the shrine in the centre. A golem, three trolls and a host of animals, some blighted, some just angry. They attack in the early morning, the villages awoken by shouts and sounds of battle.

Luckily the blighted creatures can be healed, angry animals can perhaps be soothed. The trolls cannot be soothed though and will indeed try to rile up the animals again, to cause as much chaos as they can.

Peace Once More

Once the final golem is taken down, the crystal restored and the trolls defeated there is a quiet comes across the villages. Those who were blighted are cured, the golems are back in their place as guardians of the village and thanks to the adventurers the villages have gotten through this time with minimal damage.

The villagers thank the adventurers, tell them to come and visit whenever they are in the area. A gate opens, for any voidtreckers who wish to return to Royal Lake Hill.

Royal Lake Hill: All Teams!

They return to the tavern, each to the inn that they set off from. The town is a little busier now, more areas have recovered from the blight and it has brought more trade into the town. Everyone is still relatively elderly or young, non fighters. But the market is bustling, there is even a puppet show going on in the square.

Around midday a beeping of their SCA will show a dot on their map where the Voidtrecker Express has landed, not far out of town, and a message. You may remain here until sunset.

It is up to them whether they wish to return to the train or spend the rest of the day in the town. For those staying in town they will find word of their deeds have preceded them and they will find no end of young, wide eyed, budding adventurers ready to buy them a drink or two in exchange for stories.
shutupnail: (side smirk.)

[personal profile] shutupnail 2020-09-23 04:59 am (UTC)(link)
It was a good spar. Piccolo hadn't had one quite like this in some time. It felt good for a warrior like him to go all-out against another opponent and not have to worry about it.

Of course, he still had some concern for the other Voidtreckers but they had gone out far enough, he thought, to prevent any permanent damage to their surroundings and he made sure to keep from heading back towards the towns and villages for that very concern. It was the only thing that held him back, just a little. The landscape he could put back together. People not so much.

By the end of it, Piccolo felt ecstatic. The sweat and bruises were welcome additions for the short time they would plague him. It only showed how good a fight it had been. He had a small smirk on his lips as they settled down at the end of the spar.

"I'm grateful for the work-out. It's only a pity the train won't linger much longer. Another bout would be welcome if we had the time."
comingorgoing: (So it's GOING then)

[personal profile] comingorgoing 2020-09-23 05:25 am (UTC)(link)
"There are few pleasures greater than a worthy opponent who is on good terms with you!" He agreed, heartily.

Vigilant Gaze wasn't really physically tired, because angels don't GET physically tired, but he felt mentally worn out from concentrating for that long. He did have a crack in one of his forearms that he was going to have to fix, but that was a matter of a few hours to fix, and was no great problem. There were very few beings in the Great Wheel who could match an angel in sheer martial skill, but Piccolo seems to have made it onto that list.
shutupnail: (Default)

[personal profile] shutupnail 2020-09-23 05:23 pm (UTC)(link)
"I concur," he said with that lingering smile on his lips. That had always been true for him, even before he'd realized that's all he ever really wanted.

Had Piccolo been aware of what the armor was, perhaps, he could have fixed it. He wasn't really certain if it was the entity or just worn armor like a normal person would wear. Or if it was something in between or else entirely. In the end, he decided not to ask. If it came up later (if he noticed it not fixed another day or two) then he could ask about it then.

His own clothes were mended and his bruises were already healing though due to the strength of their fight they were taking longer to heal than usual. He'd used up a lot of ki on fighting and had little left he felt like using on healing.
comingorgoing: (Thinking)

[personal profile] comingorgoing 2020-09-23 11:55 pm (UTC)(link)
"Where did you learn to fight like that?"

Piccolo's moves hadn't been anything particularly special, but they weren't any that Vigilant Gaze had seen before, and the speed and precision with which he executed them had been damn near flawless. He must have been through one HELL of a training regimen.
shutupnail: (arms crossed.)

[personal profile] shutupnail 2020-09-26 07:36 am (UTC)(link)
"Hmm," he hummed thoughtfully. How to explain it without having to give a full long explanation? The last time he'd slipped a bit of his backstory into a conversation it had ended up awkward and confusing on both ends. Easier to keep it simple.

"I was born with abilities innately, genetic memory I guess you might say." Thank you Gohan for a sense of science even if he barely understood half of it. "And growing up all I did was train. Most of the advanced moves I created over the years on my own. I suppose I've picked up a few tricks from friends, too, though."

All right, maybe not as simple as it could have been but it sounded better than 'I inherited my father's memories and abilities when he reincarnated himself through me, and then trained alone in the wilderness for three years to perfect what I knew to surpass my former self and then continued to do the same the rest of my life thereafter' and 'I never really had any formal training of my own but have been considered a good trainer by others for many a year at this point'. Yeah, much better than that.
comingorgoing: (Ho there!)

[personal profile] comingorgoing 2020-09-27 04:28 am (UTC)(link)
Ironically, Vigilant Gaze would have been delighted to find out he's not the only person on this train who has memories from his past incarnations. But that was not, alas, to be.

"I see. I have heard of species of servants that can do such things."

And then, after a moment, he remembered that he wasn't on the Great Wheel anymore, and couldn't assume certain terminologies were universal. "Not a servant as in a lesser but...The only race the gods made before Angels were called Servants. They had great variety in their forms, and many strange abilities. To be honest, I thought you to be one when I first saw you."

Because while Piccolo might not want to overexplain things, Vigilant Gaze was, by nature, a bit long winded.
shutupnail: (arms crossed.)

[personal profile] shutupnail 2020-09-29 01:20 am (UTC)(link)
Piccolo frowned slightly as he listened to Vigilant speak. As the other went on though his expression lightened a bit, nodding acknowledgement at the explanation. It helped a lot.

"Just a Namekian," he said. "Though I have been called a Demon and a God in the past."
comingorgoing: (Angels tend to lecture)

[personal profile] comingorgoing 2020-10-02 06:10 am (UTC)(link)
"A busy life, then. If you were a demon I hope you have since mended your ways?"
shutupnail: (talking.)

[personal profile] shutupnail 2020-10-02 06:15 am (UTC)(link)
"Let's just say I found something better than getting revenge and ruling the world. It managed to get me out of going to Hell when I die so... I guess it worked."
comingorgoing: (Awaken)

[personal profile] comingorgoing 2020-10-02 06:33 am (UTC)(link)
"It takes a strong conviction to turn aside from the path of conquest and dominion. You have my respect, Piccolo."
shutupnail: (dynamic stance.)

[personal profile] shutupnail 2020-10-02 07:02 am (UTC)(link)
He had never quite thought of it that way. Possibly because those goals had been his father's and as time progressed he'd become less like his former incarnation and more like himself. And then he had found friendship in the desperate attempt to save what was supposed to be his world, not another's, to conquer. And things changed even more after that.

Or maybe it'd just been a really long time since then and he just hadn't thought about it in nearly as long a time. The modern times were more familiar and seemed to stretch on much farther in his memory. Well. Either way.

"Thank you. I can't imagine returning to such a life at this point. Nor can I remember what brought it to me in the first place... It seems trite now." Especially since 'Piccolo' had remained the dominant personality in his reformation and Kami's title didn't hold any appeal to him anymore. But that was a story for another time, too.
comingorgoing: (Default)

[personal profile] comingorgoing 2020-10-03 01:32 am (UTC)(link)
Vigilant Gaze had personally seen mortal-kind's desire for domination tear the world asunder and bring about a new dark age. So he had opinions on the matter. He nodded with approval to what Piccolo said.

"Come, we should return to the train soon. It is getting late and I suspect it will not linger specifically for us."