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CAVE STATUS
QUESTS/EVENTS
Autumn arrives, subdued by the caves' depths. Skittering leaves, thick fog or drifting mist, and cooler temperatures provide a crisp fall atmosphere. The spectres of Andromeda drift in and out of visibility, and pumpkins begin to spread beneath foliage shifting into hues of amber and flame. Strange whispering can be heard at the edges of empty tunnels, and the Carnival seems more boisterous than usual...
Oct 18 2020, 01:14 AM (This post was last modified: Oct 26 2020, 12:37 AM by Adina.)
MAGICKA LEVEL 86% RESTORED TO 100%
It was a hot day. It was always a hot day, but today was a hot day.
And where one might think that no life could be found in a place like this, there would always be another to argue devil's advocate.
This argument took the rather ungraceful form of a crack. And then a crumble. And the sound of vultures quietly circling the source.
The source? A spectacled bear. With an appetite for greens. In the middle of the desert. What she didn't know just yet was that, in this desert, she would be the oasis.
She looked with her eyes, for the first time, to see the vultures flying. Their wings were spread wide and colored dark. The little bear wondered if the heat had done that. She looked around her feet and saw happy orange gems scattered about her. And then she looked closer.
She saw, in the ground, what looked like cracks. They were so faint and far away. And they seemed weak. Delicate, even. She saw how they spelled out her name:
"A-D-I-N-A"
Adina sat there, looking at her little green tracings. She had no thought or care for what was around her.
ROLL 14
Adina attempts to Cast Spell — Green Sense( Look Closer )
She wanders through the sun-baked rocks with little care for how the heat feels on her talons; her claws click against the stone in a steady, clack-clack rhythm, and her eyes stay glued to the ground—focused, searching for movement, little bugs or larvae to peck up and crunch between her beak.
But she's not oblivious. Occasionally, her eyes flick up to the sky, watching the way the vultures circle overhead, gauging if they'll come closer. Her (metaphorical) ears are pricked; with every little drip of water against rock, or shifting of stone, she tenses and bristles and her down puffs up against her skin.
Even at this young age, she's learned to be wary—every little sound could be the difference between seeing a monster coming and not knowing until it's too late.
It's this awareness, then, that makes her flinch when she hears a crack! ring through the canyon, echoing against its sheer stone walls.
That sound is familiar, to her. Awfully so.
Nerium curls in on herself, wings ruffling against her side as she remembers all too well what had happened with the last intelligent creature she met. Who stepped in with scales and claws to save her—who she turned away from, terrified.
She recognizes that cracking, that shattering of stone. And she doesn't like it.
Fear and shame pulls her to run, to get away; to leave this one alone, too.
Remorse pulls her to go closer—to help.
Her steps are slow, dragging—but, she turns, and starts walking towards the sound.
"Hello?" she whisper-shouts, waiting with tension in her chest for a response.
Oct 18 2020, 02:38 AM (This post was last modified: Oct 18 2020, 02:40 AM by Game Master Dark.)
MAGICKA LEVEL 100% RESTORED TO 100%
Whether through the sweltering heat of the day or simply by luck, the children would be left undisturbed. The wind whistling through the canyons seemed almost gentle, today, this ravine peacefully empty.
Unless the pair take particularly foolish actions, they are safe for one day or the end of this thread--whichever comes first.
In her gazing at the ground, Adina faintly heard the harpy's call. It took her a while to register it, but eventually she realized that she wasn't alone.
She got up on all fours and stepped out of her crystal circle. She tried to find this new sound. She wondered where it could have come from.
"Hi!" She didn't know what else to say, really. She tottered along, taking quick steps to save her paws from burning.
She tried again, "Hiii!" Continuing her prance through the canyon. Maybe she hadn't heard anything at all. Adina decided that she wouldn't know for sure unless she continued to look.
Clearly, the newborn heard her. Nerium doesn't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing—the sound of her paws tottering against the stone and her voice calling out in response certainly makes her wince.
She's so loud! What if something hears them? Nothing has come to attack them yet, but who knows what creature could crawl out of a crevice or descend from the sky if she keeps calling out like that!
"Ssh!" she calls back, concerned enough for both their safeties to come closer. "You gotta be quiet!" she warns, heart fluttering in her chest.
A part of her remembers how she had tried to warn away the pangolin from his own doom, from the shining fangs of a spider, but she squishes down the emotion as best she can. She didn't try hard enough. She left him.
She left him...
...she won't leave this one, even if a monster does descend on them. She promises herself that. "Don't be too loud, okay? There are monsters around here."
Oct 25 2020, 07:06 PM (This post was last modified: Oct 26 2020, 05:30 PM by Adina.)
MAGICKA LEVEL 100% RESTORED TO 100%
Adina had no concept of the monsters that Nerium had encountered before. She also had little understanding of loud verses quiet. Although, she could tell that the voice was a little hard to hear, as if that was intentional.
Nevertheless, she kept following the sound. Twisting around rocks with a little pep in each footprint.
At last, they found the origin of the voice. Or, an origin of some sort. Adina didn't quite know what creature she was looking at, but she saw the color and the shiny beak and soft feathers and immediately knew how she felt.
"Pretty!" she declared, as she galumphed towards the little harpy. The two were dramatically different in hight, and Adina could definitely tackle Nerium. Even so, Adina stopped just short of that possibility to get a closer look at the pretty creature. To her, Nerium looked like royalty. Even though she didn't actually know what royalty was.
"Who are you? Are you special? I really like your pink things!" Now that Adina was closer, she didn't need to shout. She wasn't exactly quiet, though.
"I—um..." The little harpy begins a sentence, but quickly trails off, head craning to look up at the bear before her.
For a moment, all her thoughts of monsters fade in favor of a kind of blind shock. She's... pretty?
She's never been called pretty before. Or even thought of the concept of being 'pretty'—vanity is foreign to the little bird, too caught up in just surviving. Too caught up in carrying the weight of survivor's guilt on her wings.
But as she looks into the bear's eyes and sees excitement shining in them, hears her exclamations, she feels something she's never felt before.
Pride.
I am pretty, she thinks to herself, fluffing her feathers in an unexpected surge of confidence.
She raises her head to look the bear in the eyes. "Me? I am special!" she says, a concept putting itself together in her head.
"I'm—" she begins, and for a moment, she falters, grasping for a word to describe it.
"...a... p-princess! Yeah!"
She's important and pretty and the thought makes her forget about things like monsters and leaving behind someone who was just trying to save her, for a little bit.
...the word 'princess' is a bit of an unfamiliar title to her, considering she just came up with it on the spot, so after a moment's thought she decides to give the bear a much more familiar name. "You can call me Nerium, though," she says. "...and you? Who are you?"
Nov 05 2020, 10:44 PM (This post was last modified: Nov 06 2020, 12:43 AM by Adina.)
MAGICKA LEVEL 100% RESTORED TO 100%
A princess! A real princess! Adina's face lit up with excitement.
"Princess Nerium." She turned the words over her tongue to find the right sound to say them with.
"Pur-inn-se- OH! I'm Adina!" She didn't know what else to say. She didn't seem to have a title like Princess Nerium. She looked down at herself. Then she looked the Princess in the eyes again.
"I'm a fuzzy!" That was something at least! Princess Nerium and Fuzzy Adina. Adina seemed to smile wider and wider, not knowing what to say but being happy to be with the little harpy princess.
The sound of her own title, repeated back at her, admiring and delighted—it makes her feel like she could take on the world. Powerful and respected; it makes her think of a version of her who's brave and strong and can do anything she wants, no matter who wanted to stop her. It makes her think of a version of her who could scare off the monsters in the sunlight; a bird who didn't run from spiders that danced and shimmered.
"Adina?" she repeats, testing the name on her beak. Adina. It's a pretty name, she has to admit; it sounds friendly and… nice. "I like that name."
She doesn't think she's ever held a conversation with someone before, let alone someone as nice-sounding as her before.
And she is very fuzzy, covered in soft brown fur that looks nothing like anything she's seen before, but… hm. She doesn't want to talk bad about her chosen title, especially since she likes it, but… "Fuzzy Adina" doesn't sound very… majestic.
"Do you want another title?" Nerium asks, stirring from her spot in the canyon to begin to walk around the bear, trying to figure out something that describes her just as well as 'fuzzy'. "How 'bout…"
She trails off, thinking it over. The first thing that comes to mind about her (besides all the fur, of course) is how big she is compared to her. She knows she's small compared to everything around her, the rock walls of the canyon that seem to stretch upwards forever and the big light at the ceiling that hurts to look at, but it's only up close with Adina that she really feels it.
What's a good title for something big like her? "...um… how about a knight?" she tells her. "Yeah! You can be a knight!"
Adina knew of no knights. However, she did have instinctual knowledge of The Night.
Knowing that her fur was dark like said night, it seemed to be a reasonable connection.
But I am not as big as The Night. I am like a little Night. A baby night even.
"Yes! I am Fuzzy Night Adina!" Of course, Adina took the suggestion of knighthood to be an addition to her previously established title. She was unintentionally stubborn that way. But she like this newer new title. It suited her! She somehow found a way to smile even wider.
Princess Nerium and Fuzzy (K)night Adina! Together for the first time!
