GLoG 91

[Morty]

[Main Cabin - Kitchen]

Sophie considers it for a moment.

"No need to worry, I think. They made themselves know in the Nexus once, but that was a while ago. Besides, they only pick people who'd be considered normal humans on my homeworld. You wouldn't meet their standards."

[EXERCISES!]

Iknika's eyes go wide. She claps her hands and bounces excitedly. She resembles her younger, more exuberant cousin for a few moments there. Even if their excitement is brought about by different things.

"That was amazing! You just took a swing, and bam!"

[Murkus]

[EXERCISES!]

Eschelle laughs uproariously. "So much energy, still! I've never seen someone so enthused with destruction." She likely has, but under far worse circumstances. She walks over and, if permitted, ruffles Iknika's hair with her cool gauntlet. "Do you like breaking things, Iknika?"

[Morty]

[EXERCISES!]

"Well, not breaking things, maybe. Not just that," Iknika says. She steps back from the hair-ruffle, though. She's rather proud of her hair. "But there was so much power in what you did. It was intense."

[Zefir]

[Main Cabin - Kitchen]

Sophie considers it for a moment.

"No need to worry, I think. They made themselves know in the Nexus once, but that was a while ago. Besides, they only pick people who'd be considered normal humans on my homeworld. You wouldn't meet their standards."

[EXERCISES!]

Iknika's eyes go wide. She claps her hands and bounces excitedly. She resembles her younger, more exuberant cousin for a few moments there. Even if their excitement is brought about by different things.

"That was amazing! You just took a swing, and bam!"

[Main Cabin - Kitchen]

The nameless man is a bit disapointed. For him he is totally normal. Damn different world issue.

"Well then." he says. "So what's next?"

[Murkus]

[EXERCISES!]

"Well, not breaking things, maybe. Not just that," Iknika says. She steps back from the hair-ruffle, though. She's rather proud of her hair. "But there was so much power in what you did. It was intense."

[EXERCISES!]

"Yes! Wasn't it? Exercising power is an exhilarating feat. Exercising restraint is where our tasks can become most challenging," Eschelle explains. "You must come to welcome challenge. Overcome and devour it, in pursuit of the next. Without a challenge, we can have no discipline, and a lack of discipline foregoes control." She wags a finger. "Knights who lack control are not knights for long. They're only animals shod in steel."

"Now, come. I think that's enough for today. You must be sore and tired."

[Morty]

[EXERCISES!]

Iknika slumps a little.

"Yes, I am," she admits. "I guess I was trying not to show it."

[Main Cabin - Kitchen]

((I'll wait for Artemis here, though the scene may be over.))

[Murkus]

[EXERCISES!]

"You don't have to hide your exhaustion from me, girl. Or your frustration, should it come to that. And it will," Eschelle gently puts a hand on Iknika's back and walks with her back toward camp. Likely after gathering up that block of wood as well. She smiles pleasantly. "Remember: I've been through everything that you will. And I'm always happy to listen."

[Morty]

[EXERCISES!]

"Did you also have a master?" Iknika asks as she walks beside Eschelle.

[Artemis97]

[Main Cabin - Kitchen]

"I'm not sure." Balthier shrugs. "I was thinking of settling into a place, if you'll have me, of course."

[Morty]

[Main Cabin - Kitchen]

"Of course," Sophie says. "We've got plenty of space, and plenty you can do to help. We never turn anyone away... that's our rule."

[Murkus]

[EXERCISES!]

"Did you also have a master?" Iknika asks as she walks beside Eschelle.

[EXERCISES!]

"Ah... yes," Eschelle admits. She had not been expecting that question so soon. "His name was Kuumta."

[Zefir]

[Main Cabin - Kitchen]

"Then I should go back to do..." the nameless man starts. "Do nothing, because thats what I did before."

[Morty]

[EXERCISES!]

"What was he like?" Unfortunately, Iknika shares some of her cousin's insatiable curiosity.

[Murkus]

[EXERCISES!]

Eschelle thinks. "He was an Unsworn. As I am. He preferred the spear." The great tall knight continues to ponder, eyes remote. What of Kuumta could he tell to a child? Or... a young goblin girl. Yes, no child was she. Perhaps she might find this interesting. "He was violent. Habitually drunk. A keen-eyed reaver and a knight of startling, inexplicable skill. If there was any one thing he knew how to do... it was to survive. And to make coin. I needed these things, when first we met."

"He had... scars. Like mine, but so numerous. The man seemed more scars than skin," Eschelle touches her own throat, and swallows, remembering. Suddenly, she laughs. "His face was like the sole of an old boot. Gods, I haven't thought of him in..." How long has it been? Her voice trails away.

[Morty]

[EXERCISES!]

Iknika tilts her head.

"Violent and drunk. I think my parents are worried I'll become like that too. But even if he was, there was much more to him, right? Otherwise you wouldn't speak about him this way."

[Murkus]

[EXERCISES!]

"Why ever would your parents worry about that?" Eschelle asks, incredulous. And then she begins to laugh, neglecting to say more on Kuumta for the instant. "Why ever would they worry about either of those things?"

[Morty]

[EXERCISES!]

Iknika's long ears twitch.

"They don't like the idea of being a knight. They think it's just like being a soldier, and that soldiers are drunken, brutish louts. And a girl has no business being one."

[Zefir]

[Main Cabin - Kitchen] -> [Somewhere Outside]

"Well then I go make myself a sandwitch and take a walk around." The nameless man says. "I won't leave the ground so, if there is anything you want to ask me after you have talked to the catgirl, I'm sure you find me."

And so he goes making himself a sandwitch. A very simple one with just butter and salami. He heads outside with no real goal. He could meet up with anyone anywhere.

[Murkus]

[EXERCISES!]

Iknika's long ears twitch.

"They don't like the idea of being a knight. They think it's just like being a soldier, and that soldiers are drunken, brutish louts. And a girl has no business being one."

[EXERCISES!]

Eschelle knew there were surely some, but all soldiers? That was a mighty display of baseless bigotry. Though by far the most troubling, and the thing Eschelle speaks on... "Comparing a knight to a common soldier." Eschelle shakes her head. "That's a deplorable thing, Iknika. Knights as we must consider such a great insult. That a girl shouldn't be one, I'm afraid I must take more personally."

[Morty]

[EXERCISES!]

Iknika's ears twitch. She sounds concerned when she speaks.

"How personal are we talking about here?"

[HaltTheSlayer]

[Near the entrance]

A male half orc by known as Halt is standing outside the entrance to the camp with his best friend, Dawn, a female Warg.
"You sure about this Halt? I thought we agreed we didn't need help from nobody?"Dawn asks him.
Halt sighs. "Our situation right now isn't great and as much as i hate asking for charity...we don't have much choice."

Halt and Dawn go through the entrance and from there they look for someone who they can talk to.

[Morty]

[Near the entrance]

The half-orc and the warg will likely spot a middle-aged goblin woman come towards them, having been somehow alerted to their presence.

Spoiler

Show

[HaltTheSlayer]

Dawn starts to growl but Halt stops her.
"Sorry about that she's used to meeting goblins...under different circumstances." Dawn just snorts at the comment and Halt glares at her.

[Ashen Lilies]

Spoiler: self rp stuff

Show

[Woods near GLoG]

A slight breeze rustled through the clearing, stirring up the dry fragments of leaves that sat at the base of Geneviève’s tree stump. She looked up to see the distinctive shimmer of a portal fading from existence, and a tall, robed figure standing in the center of the clearing. The air was cold, and wet, and carried a smell of city fumes, and human, and the river. Few people thought to be mindful of their surroundings when opening portals - an incautious wizard could easily give away unneeded information through a persistent scent or distinctive piece of debris. Incautious wizards could be easily tracked down and destroyed. Geneviève foresaw no pressing need to act on this information, however. After all, the other sorceress was now on her own turf.

“Is this GLoG?”

“It’s a peaceful enough environment. Do you have what I asked for?”

Grace pulled a sheaf of papers from a satchel hanging from her shoulder and walked the few short steps towards Geneviève, handing the elf the stack of notes, which she flipped through with interest.

“What interesting notation. I should be so interested in finding what books you’ve learned this from.” Said Geneviève, scanning through the notes a little while longer before, apparently satisfied, she waved a hand over the papers, creating a shimmering weave of light that enveloped the papers before disappearing, taking the notes with it. “You brought your source, too?”

Grace reached into her satchel again, pulling out a large glass orb that had already once seen use in the particular campground, stealing the essence of a certain cat’s humanoid form - a humanoid form granted by the same being that had once granted Grace one too, so long ago. A shared heritage of power that Grace had hoped to draw on, though without complete success. Geneviève took the orb, too, holding it in her hands and staring deeply into it, the pinkish light reflecting off her silvery eyes.

“Yes… interesting. Quite familiar in some ways, and very powerful. But chaotic, raw. An energy more suited to destruction, not creation. I think it can be tempered successfully, however.”

Geneviève stood, handing the orb back to Grace, who placed it carefully back into her satchel. Grace eyed Geneviève warily, mistrustful of her seeming earnestness.

“Seems I’ve just handed you a lot of knowledge.”

“And you will receive quite a lot in return. Come, I have already begun to prepare the spell.”

[Geneviève's Cabin]

Grace followed Geneviève in through the cabin entrance, casting her gaze around as she did so. The area in front of the hearth had been cleared away, replaced with a long stone altar laid atop with a white cloth. Sitting at the head of the altar was a skull, which Grace pushed away some discomfort at noticing. The homunculus had been a flawed vessel, incapable of holding Grace’s whole essence without significant degradation, but it had still been her, at least for a little while. Under the skull were the rest of the bones, carefully cleaned but laid out without any particular attention to their arrangement or order. An entirely new attempt at creating a new vessel was not necessary - Geneviève had intimated that they would only need to build on Grace’s original work, with some refinement. Having such a viscerally physical remnant of Grace’s original attempt struck her as morbidly excessive, however.

“Ready?” Geneviève asked, though she hardly waited before holding her hand over a small vessel and slashing it with a knife. Gleaming silver blood fell from the wound, filling the vessel to just under the brim before Geneviève closed her hand and pulled it away, wrapping the cut in a clean bandage that she had set aside. Grace examined the blood-filled vessel.

“Mine… won’t look like that, will it?”

“So attached to mortality? I can tell as much that your spirit is not truly human, though you may have once have adopted a human shell. You may yet be able to hold similar divinity to that my kind is graced with. Such things are taken, however, not given.”

Grace didn’t comment further on the answer, instead allowing herself to focus on the other sorceress’ spellcraft. Geneviève was not, as Grace suspected, significantly more powerful than Grace herself. With a little more practice Grace thought that she, too, could wield mana in quantities matching that of the elf - even such impressive creations such as the Spooktacular castle that had originally drawn Grace’s attention spoke less of raw power and more of a clever exercise in artifice and legerdemain, including just enough detail to impress and befuddle, a spectacular facade over a construction held together by the sorcerous equivalent of spitballs and string. The true separation was the elven sorceress’ focus and skill - Grace found herself losing track again and again of the threads of mana the sorceress wove between the blood-filled vessel and the pile of bones upon the altar, even with the sorceress’ orderly, mathematical approach. Grace pulled the orb from her satchel and began to cast her own half of the spell, adding her threads of mana to the growing spell-lattice as carefully as she could. It was almost pure sorcery, an arduous, painstaking and impossibly complex process that sapped at Grace’s concentration and willpower as she drew on larger and larger reserves of mana. Once or twice, she saw Geneviève give a slight nod, as if in mild approval as the spell began to take shape. And then all at once it was finished, and the finished spell snapped into place, radiant threads of mana tightening into formation around Grace and the altar. And then a whole lot of pain.

“You awake?”

The dark-haired woman groaned, raising an arm to shield her grey eyes from the light of the lamps overhead which, even dimmed, were proving to be far too overwhelming in her current fuzzy state of mind. Not helpful was the surface she was laying on - flat, cold, and of unforgiving hardness, even with the separating layers of red cloth and the clothes that the dark-haired woman found herself wearing. Definitely wasn’t expecting to have clothes. Geneviève must have made them during the spell. Or after. A question was asked, though, and the dark-haired woman managed to find it in herself to answer.

“Uh… yes?”

“Great. You didn’t explode, and your insides didn’t turn into soup. Let’s go.”

“Uhm...?”

“On a walk. You can walk. The faster you start the less painful it’ll be. Plus, I want a second opinion on the soupy insides thing. Perhaps someone in the infirmary can check.”

[Near the Entrance]

The two newcomers on the approach (and Reelshka) might notice two women crossing in the vicinity making their way from the edge of the camp towards one of the buildings in the center. The first is tall and stately in figure, with alabaster pale skin and haughty features. Her platinum hair is tied up in a tight bun, revealing elongated ears that come up to sharp points, and she’s wearing a velvet dress of green so dark it appears almost black, cut to emphasize the more appealing portions of her physique and open in a diamond at the back. The second woman is slightly shorter and slimmer, and though similarly pale and sharing roughly similar features to the first, stands also in stark contrast with her shoulder-length black hair and more belligerent demeanor. Upon close inspection, her ears would also seem to be slightly pointed, though short enough to be concealed under her hair, and she’s wearing a short blue jacket with a high neck and trousers and boots, and the entire outfit is similarly flattering - considerably more so than the one wearing them would have liked, though that's probably not a detail any normal observer would be privy to.

"Hello, Reelshka." Says the light-haired elf.

[HaltTheSlayer]

Halt was familiar with elves or fey like creature, he had nothing against them though as he once traveled with an elven priest and mage who saved his butt more then once.
"Hello friend to you too. This is kind of awkward for me but...me and my wolf don't have any place to stay. We heard GLoG helps with that kind of stuff."

[Morty]

[Near the Entrance]

The goblin's ears perk up in bemusement.

"Different circumstances? I'm not sure if I want to know. Welcome to the Good Leage of Good... oh, hello, Geneviève. Who's that with you?"

She then looks back to the half-orc and his wolf.

"You've heard right. We provide shelter for those who don't have anywhere else to go. I'm Reelshka Trollfinger, one of the caretakers here."

[Ashen Lilies]

[Near the Entrance]

"This would be one of the people looking for shelter." Says Geneviève. The other woman looks surprised, and seems to be about to object, though Geneviève talks over her. "Temporarily, anyway. Until I can be sure she won't spontaneously combust or melt into a puddle." She smiles genially. "Magic, you know."

[HaltTheSlayer]

Halt chuckles. "I know a bit about magic, can't actually use the stuff." Dawn gives him a smirk. "Remember when that wizard tried to cure you of your "lycanthrope"?" Halt glares at her.
"Get bit by a werewolf three times and suddenly everyone thinks I'm infected." He muttered then looks up.
"Don't worry I don't change in the moonlight, but anyway I appreciate the help. I also have a request." He pulls out his greatsword which comes out with only half the blade.
"Can anyone here fix a magic greatsword, I have the rest of the blade in the hilt."

[Morty]

[Near the Entrance]

Reelshka tilts her head.

"Explode or melt into a puddle? We'll appreciate a warning, should that happen. What's your name, young lady?"

She then looks back to Halt.

"I'm afraid we don't have anyone skilled at magic smithing here. Unless Geneviève's expertise covers that. May I ask for your name too? And your wolf friend's."

[Ashen Lilies]

[Near the Entrance]

"If I feel my abrupt violent demise suddenly oncoming, I'll make sure to shout." Says the woman. "My name is... Cassandra." She says plainly.

Geneviève smiles slightly, then listens to the half-orc's request. "I may be able to provide some fundamental assistance, though fiddling with swords was never an occasion I found myself in." She says thoughtfully. ...Cassandra, perhaps you might have some input?"

'Cassandra' considers for a moment, then shrugs and nods. "If I'm staying here, I suppose I can help."