Prophecy of Fractures IC

[AmberVael]

Flames erupt from the ground, following the hands of a man cast in shadow, dancing under his fingertips as he smiles an odd smile, watching his audience through the flickering orange tongues; with some trick, his hand is untouched as it reaches into the heart of the fire, swirling and shaping it. The strangeness of the flames bending beneath his touch is quite familiar to his audience, for Yusari will certainly recall the odd movements of the flame that took his human life.

"There is a destiny about you."
The man proclaims with certainty.
"But it is not the way of people to rely on a poor reader like myself for answers to such large questions. You aren't interested in my sight of that, are you? That's why you're traveling east, to the mountains."
He withdraws his hands from the flames.
"There are other questions you might have though, and perhaps I can answer them for you."

Yusari had not purposefully approached the man. Rather, the diviner had imposed on him, and his current display of talents had somehow resulted from his insistence. It might be a little rude to turn away now, but Yusari would likely be well within his rights to do so... not that he would have particularly far to go. The diviner's campfire was one of only a few campfires in the middle of the desert where the caravan had stopped for the night. At best, he could go to join others on the other side of the camp.

Of course, the size of the camp meant that he knew what else was going on in it. By now, he understands that he's not the only one unusual here- there were others traveling to the same place as he was, and they were quite unique people: A Sekhoten and the kalehk that had dealt with the troubles near the spirit boundary. Perhaps the diviner would know something of them... or Yusari could learn information more directly, and leave the diviner alone with his flashy tricks.

* * *

Kefa has been largely left alone during the first few days of their journey. Any conversation she attempts is returned politely, but it never seems to last long unless she forces it. As such, she currently finds herself listening to a talk that she is not a part of, the voices floating from a nearby tent- after all, walls of cloth do little in the way of sound.

The current speaker is feminine, and sounds angered.
"... was there. I've never heard of one of the necromancers doing that before, but this one did. They had to convince the necromancer that she was dead, but even then he wouldn't touch the body, let alone perform the rites. They had to do it themselves."

"It's not right. After dying like that, she deserved a proper ceremony."
Kefa can see the shadow of the man inside the tent shaking his head disapprovingly as the others murmur in agreement...


...inside the tent, the latest Sekhoten heir also finds himself listening to the conversation. The group had wanted to hear his opinion- he was a demon hunter, at least sort of, he had been among the domas amat, and this was a topic of concern. Apparently a short time ago, a woman they knew had been savagely murdered, though by who (or what) was unknown. Yet, spiritual involvement was suspected, as she had gone to make offerings at an old shrine- and the bizarre reaction of the domas amat to her death only seemed to point more towards something unusual about it.

"What do you think?"
A young man asks Sekhoten, his tone a little too interested and not quite somber enough for the topic at hand.
"Have the necromancers ever done something like that before?"

It was an incredibly easy question to answer. Sekhoten knew that it was not the way the domas amat operated. No matter how despised or wretched, the correct passage of the dead to the underworld was not something to be ignored. It wasn't exactly necessary for the domas amat to be involved, but if they were, they were supposed to do it right.

And this? This was not right at all.

Sekhoten hadn't heard the story before now, and if it had actually occurred, no one of the domas amat he knew had said anything about it. All in all, it seemed incredibly strange...


...those inside the tent won't see it, but Kefa does. In the distance, something silver flickers, just once, like sand cast up on the wind. But there was no wind, and the dunes were still.

[Toliudar]

It was hard to find a kinship with these people. No matter the topic of conversation, she always felt, at some point, that the listener was simply staring at her long snout. Her not-so-vestigial claws. The pebbly green skin. And the scars. All the scars.

Outside the tent, Kefa settled into a kind of meditative state, still and open to the great mother's teachings of wind and sand. She half-listened to the conversation. Kefa understood the Domas Amat well enough to know she didn't understand the Domas Amat. There were patterns forming in the sand, perhaps around this damanable prophesy, and she would have to school herself to remain open and not try to force an understanding of those patterns upon herself.

The flash of light from the dunes caused Kefa's head to swivel around quickly, tendons showing like tent cords in the kalehk's neck. Her voice rumbles, low and resonant as always, a reminder that the unlearned humans always mistook her for a male. Pitched loud enough to be heard over the conversation in the tent.

"There is something out there."

Rising to her full height, Kefa calls on the gifts of the Hieres, and magnificent wings appear on and stretch out from her shoulders. Next, she channels Ishaman's gifts to simply not be where people are looking. There is a swirl of hot, dry air as she takes flight.

Spoiler

Show

Activating Wings of Flying and Invisibility (through ring-effect). Energy immunity is current set to fire. Kefa will fly diagonally up to a height of about 100', then level off and head towards the flash. Taking ten for Spot 57, Listen (1d20+44)[51].

Usually active buffs & sensory stuff:

Defenses:
Immune to gases & vapours - Necklace of adaptation
Immune to negative energy & death magic - soulfire enhancement
Freedom of Movement effect - ring
Immune to crits - Gemstone of Fortification
Immune to Acid (DFA), Fire (Energy Immunity)
Warnings of impending danger/harm, never surprised or flatfooted - Foresight effect
+Cha to Fort Saves - Minor marshal aura
+1 to all phsical attacks - Major marshal aura

Buffs:
Endure elements effect
Humanoid shape - to lizardfolk
Draconic toughness effect - +24 temp HP

Sensory:
60' darkvision
See invisibility 60'
Enhanced low light vision
30' blindsight - Hearing the Air stance

Frequent skill bonuses with buffs:
Listen: +50
Spot: +48 & usually can take 10

[dyslexicfaser]

Yusari

Yusari stands before the diviner with an odd stillness. Part of this is the hard-won stillness of a man who is keeping himself from bolting in the face of that obviously magical fire by will alone; his body still remembers the oddly twisting flame that ended his life.

But the stillness is also due to what he is; though his ra still animates his body, he does not live as others do. The normal functions of a living body do not occur within him unless he wills them to do so, resulting in an oddly still, quiet form; unnaturally so, in fact.

Betraying the restlessness the large man does not show outwardly, his normally dark, ashen skin has darkened further, approaching the color of blackened bone.

"My destiny... this I know, magi." Yusari speaks simply, with a bedrock of surety backing his words. He qualifies, "At least in the large things. I hope that the Speaker for the Stars will be able to tell me more." He was the Chosen of the Prophecy, what else mattered? Hopefully all else would just... fall into place. Somehow.

He considers leaving it at that and abandoning the fellow's company, but he reminds himself that one does not shrink from that which he (fears) dislikes.

"Since you have offered, I would know: who else of note travels under the banner of this caravan? Who else seeks the Speaker?"

[Wing]

Sekhoten IX

He states, quite flatly, without doubt: "You're wrong." Those in the audience who have any knowledge of Sekhoten would understand there was no spite behind it, no anger, no disagreement - it was just fact given voice. Others, perhaps not as extensive in their knowledge, would probably know that Sekhoten are weird anyway. IX pauses, judges that he has been unclear (but not that he has been rude), and elaborates. "You're wrong, either about this having occurred at all, or about the circumstances surrounding that woman's death, or about the actions of the domas amat. What you have described is wrong. It simply cannot be, and is not. The domas amat-"

He stops, feeling a surge of memories. He'd been raised by domas amat; and where many found them inexplicable, he found them naturally legible. The domas amat are open books - about forty volumes of open books, and a few other scrolls, some of which requires training to read, but nonetheless written down, inked in black-and-white. Their duties are clear and established; and though as a boy he'd been frightened of their commitment, nowadays he found them a source of comfort.

"-see no corpse with disgust or fear. Everyday they treat, with reverence and respect, bodies brought to them who died strangled by their guts or their faces burned through or any number of visceral horrors. They are accustomed to every kind of death, and murder is - unfortunately - a very common one." He stands up, brushes himself off, and moves to leave the tent. He will not indulge this crowd with ghost stories and conspiracy. "Unless, of course, she found a new way to die. Now I may be wrong, but if so, that would only be because you are wrong, and the events as related to me are incomplete. I hope that revealed the futility of your question."

[AmberVael]

"A wise question, of course. Know your companions, lest they stab you in the back, hm?"
The man smiles, but though his expression is quite convincing, Yusari can tell that the flattery is not sincere.
With a flash, the fire grows brighter, crackling and stirring into the air as shapes writhe within it.
"A cracked crown and scepter, and the scythe. Sekhoten. Sons of a false king / Now it is the time / To be waking."
A pinch of salt flicks from his hand and into the flames, which roar to life again, the shapes changing as he stares into them.
"The broken wall, flame and life bound into one. Kefa. One as a sacrifice to the dead / One who is tortured with scars / One hope yet remains."

He makes to pass his hand over the flames a third time, but the fire before him erupts, exploding outwards before dwindling down to a cinder- yet despite this volatility, nothing seems to be harmed by it. Nonetheless, the diviner is obviously shaken; for the moment he says nothing, apparently trying to gather his wits.

At this point, Yusari hears Kefa's raised voice from across the campsite...


Sekhoten gets no response, though a few of the people in the tent look at each other uneasily. The woman who first spoke looks like she is about to make an angered retort, when Kefa speaks from outside, her voice easily carrying through the thin walls of the tent.
"There is something out there."

Two of those within the tent, both of whom are at least lightly armed (Sekhoten believes that they're supposed to be the caravan's' guards) step outside to see what she was referring to, but the kalehk has already gone. Uncertain as to what she saw (and indeed, if she had really seen anything), they merely keep positions outside the tent, and watch her progress from a distance.

The woman looks through the tent flap at the guards, worry in her voice as she addresses them. "What is it?" But the guard merely shakes his head, as they can't see anything yet.


Kefa, for her part, finds the sandy landscape to be lifeless and barren, showing no signs of anything unusual- yet what she saw was not from the corner of her eye, or a strange mirage, but definitely something real rather than a mere trick of the light.

[Toliudar]

The kahlek woman flares her wings and drops to the ground in the area where she had seen the flash. For a moment, she stood very still, simply staring back at the camp. If she started with the assumption that someone had been here, she might do well to figure out what they could see especially well from this vantage. She looked around at the individual tents, the guard positions, any outcroppings or unusual landscape.

This survey completed, she bent to smell the sand at her feet. Had there been others here recently? Were there auras that suggested that another gifted with Ishaman's blessing had been here? The sand held many secrets, but not always forever.

Spoiler

Show

Using scent and track: (1d20+26)[41] if possible. See the Unseen, Gem of Seeing activated for a short while. Searching the immediate vicinity: (1d20+25)[38]

[dyslexicfaser]

Yusari

"My thanks, magi," he says simply, feeling some small curiosity about the man's loss of composure and the control of his powers, or even why he had chosen to accompany Yusari - could he tell through his arts the general shape of Yusari's destiny? - but not enough to brave the flames or more of the man's company.

Sekhoten. Kefa. And perhaps a third, hidden from the man's magic. That was enough.

'Something out there' was vague - Yusari despaired for this generation sometimes - but his place was obvious, as a shield from the darkness.

He takes up a position not far from the central tents, where he can try to pierce the darkness Kefa scouts without leaving the caravan undefended.

Spoiler

Show

Spot: (1d20+32)[37]
Listen: (1d20+39)[58]

[Wing]

Sekhoten

IX touches the chains that hangs from his waist, for calm, for focus. Seeing the kalehk and the Willed turn their attentions into the vast dark sands, he follows suit, approaching the very edge of their little ring of light, his senses humming with tension. Unseen? He thinks, feeling the cold of the night, or hiding? "The sands always hold more life than they let on. What exactly did you see?"

Spoiler

Show

Spot: (1d20+37)[41]
Listen: (1d20+37)[56]

[AmberVael]

Whatever it was that Kefa saw, it has left no obvious sign of its passing. There is no disturbance in the wind swept patterns of the desert, no place to hide yet nothing besides sand to be seen. There is no strange sound to be heard, nor scent to be detected. It is as if there had never been anything there at all.

The only sounds recognizable are the quiet scrabblings of the diviner Yusari consulted as he puts out his flame and enters his tent, the movements of those Sekhoten was talking to earlier, and the soft crackling of the fires about the camp. There is not even wind, or desert creatures to be heard in the silence of this night.


Kefa

Spoiler

Show

Yet, there is more to reality than what meets the natural senses. Kefa's focused sight pierces into the spiritual realm of reality, and there she sees a different sight. In the middle of the lonely desert, where she had seen the first flickering of silver is a tattered, ghostly figure of what might have been a human woman, though their form is too mutilated to really be sure. Cruel lacerations and hideous punctures riddle the entity's ephemeral body, grossly detailed and so devastatingly thorough that any trace of their countenance has been destroyed.

Knowledge (Underworld), DC 15

Spoiler

Show

The entity appears to be a Lifeless, an undead created solely of Ra, yet still drifting aimlessly within Kalah's realm. Usually such beings are created when there is a driving goal or desire that fetters them to the living realm beyond their death- a single minded expression of ra keeps them alive until such a task is fulfilled.

Knowledge (Underworld), DC 20

Spoiler

Show

Lifeless, no matter their death, do not usually carry signs of wounds. If this entity continues to carry them, they must have some further kind of significance.

Knowledge (Nature), DC 30

Spoiler

Show

Though the signs are subtle, there is something spiritual about this entity. Gruesome as they are, the particular nature of the wounds are a representation of life which do not look wholly appropriate on a being now tied to death- the heart is exposed, but still intact, while immaterial blood flows from opened veins.

[Toliudar]

Kefa

Spoiler

Show

Knowledge Underworld (can't make the other check): (1d20+7)[27]

Initially, Kefa recoiled from the sight of the Lifeless. She wondered whether it could see her, and if it's intentions were peaceful. Perhaps Yusari would know more about such creatures, being related in some way himself.

The camp was far, and she didn't want to lose track of this...woman? Kefa threw back her head and sent a plume of bright orange flame fifty feet into the sky. There. If they couldn't find her after that, there would be little more that she could do. Immediately, Kefa lifted into the air and listed off to the left, just in case the creature took the blast as an attack of some kind.

Spoiler

Show

Kefa's intention is to raise a flare of sorts, then fly about 20' up and to the left, in case the creature proves hostile. It's not clear to me whether just the act of breathing flame is enough to break her invisibility, or whether that calls for an overt hostile act. Either way, her action remains the same, but if she turns visible, then she'll follow it up with a statement, as follows. Just let me know.

"Good evening. I am called Kefa. Can you speak?"

Off in the distance, a blast of flame shoots straight up into the air, briefly illuminating the rocks and sand of the desert. In a moment, it is gone.

[dyslexicfaser]

Yusari

"Nothing," Yusari says finally, his skin finally re-settling into its usual ashy pallor. "By sight or sound or sense, I can detect nothing."

Despite his even tone, there is a note of annoyance in it. He is taking it as a personal failure.

He notes the flare easily enough, and nods towards it. "Go. I shall guard the caravan; it would be a irresponsible to leave them entirely undefended."

[AmberVael]

Yusari and Sekhoten

One of the two guards who had exited the tent with Sekhoten gives a cough at Yusari's words, rather unsubtly giving him a reminder of their presence. The other, however, speaks up.

"Do you really think she's seen something? I mean, if there are four of us, and we can't see anything that might be amiss..." He doesn't finish, but his tone says the rest well enough.

Kefa

Kefa remains invisible, and nothing can currently be seen occurring in her location.

Spoiler

Show

Due to her invisibility, Kefa seems to go unnoticed by the lifeless, who barely even seems to recognize the gout of fire as it streaks into the sky. Instead, the undead entity sinks towards the ground, falling on broken knees as it clutches to its wounds, which seem to widen a little, though they only grow for a moment before stabilizing as they are.

[Toliudar]

Kefa

Spoiler

Show

It figured. If this creature were held here because of some long-past hurt, relived over and over, it might well slip into a reverie past all language.

Kefa glanced back towards the tents. No torches or movement yet. She was on her own. All right. She tried switching to the High Speech.

"Hello. May your days be many and...er. May you rest with the blessings of the Triad. I have some learning and simple gifts. If you can speak, I ask that you tell me of your troubles."

Kefa waited for a moment to see if this had any more impact than the previous sentences. Perhaps she could use the trick she had developed while speaking with a deaf woman one evening - a gift for picking up the simpler thoughts, and leaving her own, directly in the mind."

"Blessings on you, Sister. This is a lonely place, and the emptiness of the rocks call to me. I seek to fill the emptiness with your story. Can you help?"

Spoiler

Show

Diplomacy: (1d20+56)[57]. If the words don't register, she'll try to use the helm of telepathy effect (Will DC 14 negates) to initiate telepathic contact.

[Wing]

Sekhoten

"Fire is not a typical signal for nothing's wrong. I will join her. If we require help, I will tell her to release one burst of fire. If we want, instead, for the camp to run - two bursts." With that, IX ventures out into the dark sands, pulling his chain out from his waist. At what he judges to be the approximate origin of the flame, he suppresses a curse about the unseen seeking the unseen, and begins swinging his chain low, in a circle around him, sweeping it across the sand. She is remaining hidden, he notes, so she knows something is here, and it gives her reason to hide.

"Kalehk! What is it that you see?" He feels a little stupid, talking to the night sky.

Spoiler

Show

Going out to join Kefa. The chain has a Truedeath Crystal in it, which gives it Ghost Touch, so it should bump into incorporeal creatures if it touches them.

[Toliudar]

As Sekhoten moves out towards the flare, Kefa's voice comes from above and a little off to one side.

"Thank you for coming. About sixty feet in front of you and to your right, there is a woman. She is badly disfigured, uncommunicative, and present only on the spirit realm. I think she's one of the Lifeless, but I have little experience with such things. Do you? Or perhaps Yusari?"

[dyslexicfaser]

Yusari

Yusari inclines his head to the pair of caravan guards. "My apologies for dismissing you. It is a failing of the old." Yusari's pride was not so great that he could not admit to a minor failing. He was not their leader, merely one of those who had joined the caravan, and as such had no right to besmirch their duty or take command.

But at the same time he did not necessarily think he was wrong, merely rude; command belonged in the hands of the one most fit to wield it, after all.

"I do not know her trustworthiness yet, but one does not dismiss the findings of one's scouts without cause." was all he would say on the guard's statement. "If it is indeed nothing, then all the better. But... no, never mind. Merely superstition."

He did not wish to cause undue alarm - for fear was as deadly a foe as any - but things were not right in the world, many things going wrong in small ways that added up to a picture he was not sure of yet but did not like the look of, at all.

[Wing]

Sekhoten

He feels the shimmer of the air, her breath as she spoke, the brief disquiet of the wind. IX glances at the empty space where Kefa hovers over him. "A pool that will not join the river. I see. My duty is to return such things to Rahk; but first, will she resist? And second, the camp." IX relays the flare signals he'd given to Yusari and the guards. "Though perhaps Yusari may have more insight - the dead may like to speak with the dead. I have only my duty."

Spoiler

Show

Kefa's only invisible, right? So I should roughly know where she is from blindsight.

[Toliudar]

Spoiler

Show

Kefa has darkstalker, so blindsense doesn't actually help. However, she's not actively trying to hide, so now that he knows where to look, even a minimal spot check would give Sekhoten an approximate sense of where she is.

"Well, before we focus on your duty, it might suit us to learn something of what ties her to this world. If you can see her, I'll fly back to get Yusari. Otherwise, if you return for him, I'll keep an eye on the woman."

[AmberVael]

Campsite - Yusari

The guard frowns at Sekhoten's blunt dismissal, then crosses his arms as the demon hunter stalks off into the sands. It is quite clear that Sekhoten has garnered no favor with either of the guards despite his fame, and that in fact his behavior thus far does not seem to have impressed them at all.

"I might consider my own eyes and ears cause." He opines in a quiet, grumbling voice. "But I suppose I see your point."

The varying aspects of the situation seem to have made the two guards rather uncomfortable. As a military man himself, with a certain capability for perceiving the feelings and thought processes of others, Yusari easily can tell that they feel rather undermined and unsure of how to handle the situation- a bad position for two trained and armed warriors to be in.


Desert - Kefa, Sekhoten

Sekhoten's chain whips through the air and sand without incident, making contact with nothing, though given Kefa's words, this may not be unusual.

Sekhoten

Spoiler

Show

Make a spot check to see Kefa. You can always achieve the basic DC of 20, so you can make out her general location, but DC 40 (you have +37, right? Should be easy) will allow you to pinpoint her precise location.

Also, Sekhoten knows enough about the spiritual realm to realize that despite his capability to strike incorporeal creatures, he would be incapable of interacting with a fully spiritual creature.

Kefa

Spoiler

Show

The mutilated woman finally looks up as Kefa continues her efforts to address her, but she makes no direct reply to anything she has said. One broken hand reaches out to Kefa- and Kefa will feel her telepathic bond inundated with sensations and images. It is not coherent thought, but the rushing information is charged emotionally, and is imbued with such vivid sensations and images, all flashing by at such speed

Spoiler

Show

Make a Will save. Your result will determine how much of the information Kefa is able to parse- and if you roll too low, there may be some temporary negative results as her mind is overwhelmed.

[Toliudar]

Kefa

Spoiler

Show

...reels under the inundation of information. She loses altitude briefly, then rights herself.
Will: (1d20+38)[41]

[Wing]

Sekhoten

IX scowls at the prospect of anything coming before his duty; but perhaps more information would be useful in carrying it out. "Indeed, I cannot see this spirit. I told Yusari that one burst of flame signifies help, we can summon him that way-" He is interrupted by his noticing, through piercingly sharp senses, of Kefa's sudden dip. "What has happened? Has it moved?" And, after a brief pause, he also remembers: "Are you injured?"

Spoiler

Show

Whoops, mixed up incorporeal and ethereal...
Spot (Kefa): (1d20+37)[44]

[dyslexicfaser]

Yusari

Yusari studies the two guardsmen. "The cry has been raised already. Right now, all have heard that 'something' is out there, and stew in uneasiness and fear, knowing nothing but what their imagination conjures. You can either acknowledge the possibility and gather everyone together, or you can allay their fears and allow them to rest easy," he advises, trying to instill in them a sense of purpose.

"You are this caravan's shield. These people's well-being is yours to safeguard. Hesitation is as much the enemy as reckless action; whichever course you choose, make that choice swiftly."