Flashback Seek and Hide

[Sliver]

Seek and Hide 45th of Spring 507 A.V “What is she?” They were the first words that Vera recalled. Of course she didn’t know the exact words yet, the meaning that came from the sound as the man’s lips moved in a peculiar patten. Kelvic’s learn rapidly from birth, but perhaps not that quickly, not at just a few days old at least. Three faces looked down upon her in what she would come to know as her crib. Her stub of a tail wagged excitedly, beady dark eyes gazing up at these people who looked so eagerly back at her. The first face she noticed, and the one to which she knew she loved from the start was her mother’s. Kind warm eyes looked upon her with pride, square jaw lowered in a barking laughter as the young wolverine bounced around, then placed her paws on the edge of the container holding her, ready to be free. She had short dark hair, golden eyes and tanned skin. Sliver modeled beauty there after from her mother’s image, and the proud strength which she constantly exuded. The second face was that of the delicate pale skin that marked her father. Even now, barely having spent more than thirty seconds gazing at his daughter, he was already distracted by a stray sting attached to the edge of the crib, fingers grasping it, deep blue eyes drawn away from his child. Smiles came easy to the man, and though Sliver would never spend much time with her father, whenever she had nightmares or was sad he would always hold her in his lap and sing to her in a beautiful lilting voice before sliding her gently into bed and forgetting the event had happened in the first place. And lastly, their was Khilo. At first she saw him as father, but it was clear he was not that, he was not master either, but her parents did work for, guard, and entertain him. He was more of an overseer, or perhaps just the power that held the Kelvic together. Her mother may have had a beautiful strength about her, but Khilo was something radiant. Dark hair, and even darker eyes, smiles never came quickly to the paranoid mage, but when they did they were worth all of the work. She realized sometime when she was very young how a very different love than the one she felt for her mother beat somewhere in her chest for Khilo. When she was young he ignored her mostly, a young learning Kelvic just got in the way. When he began to pay attention to her…well perhaps that is a story for another time. To be sure the identity of the creature frolicking in her crib was a mystery. She looked somewhat like a bear, but the size and shape of the skull was all wrong, along with the coloring. Her mother wished her to be a type of dog, but to her credit, was not at all disappointed when this was found to be a falsehood. She was a strange rodent to be sure, but when they found out she was a large weasel, the family was content enough with this and eagerly awaited the day when they would learn what special skills this gave her. Of course a small Kelvic bounding around Sahova by herself was just not an option. Her mother’s days were spent being Khilo’s bodyguard, so that left the young wolverine in the care of her absent minded father: Meaning her days were mostly spent by herself. One of her first adventures was how she learned of and about the golems. Now try to imagine if you will that you are a young creature, only a few weeks old, and told that outside of the laboratory that is your home, there are wonders and horrors in equal measure, and that both could be potentially fatal to a trouble-maker of your standing, would you just sit inside and heed these warnings, or press onward and explore? If you chose the former your true Kelvic form must have been a sloth or owl, or something equally as complacent, for Vera would have none of this. After her father had sung to her, forgotten he had sung to her, and wandered off to weave strange things together, as he liked to do, the young Kelvic decided to make her escape. She packed a bag with supplies, namely bread and cheese, for no adventure could commence without supplies to keep one going, and she snuck out of the laboratory, thinking herself very sound of mind and patience to have resisted leaving until now. First were the other laboratories. Khilo had told her dead people worked in them, and this she most certainly needed to see. Most of them seemed to be empty at this point in the day, and the wolverine wondered if these dead people were working for their masters just as Khilo worked for his. Well there certainly couldn’t be any harm in looking at what they were doing while they were gone could there? To Vera’s distress many of the doors seemed to be locked, as if the dead people didn’t want people snooping. She huffed at this, there must be a lot of snoopers about to stop her, when all she wanted to do was take a look around. After the….a high number of doors being locked, Vera decided that there was only one option in order to see what lay within, and that was to break into the space and get a look for herself. Now to be sure she had no good idea of how one broke into doors, but they usually required keys, so perhaps if she took something like a key and fit it into the door, she could peer around. This required some investigating and searching, but spending enough time just looking at the ground gave her several long metal objects. When she returned to the door she had chosen she found many of them to be much too big to try to imitate a key, but a couple were long and thin and so she placed the into the key hole and shoved, twisted, rotated, finagled, and coaxed the lock into turning. The triumphant child dashed into the laboratory to be utterly disappointed. From the stories Khilo told she expected several dead people on the walls, strange creatures part man and part animal hanging in giant glass jars, all that was here were a bunch of stupid papers with writing and some vials of liquid. Despite the intense level of sorrow the Kelvic found at finding nothing, she figured that with all the effort she had taken to pry the door open she may as well take a more than cursory look. The papers bored her immediately, the symbols were headache inducing, and while a bit pretty to look at, made no sense to her. The vials of liquid, however, were much more fascinating. She lifted them up, smelled them, and took great care to put them back in the…general area she had found them, not spilling a drop. She sat on a chair and ate a hunk of cheese since she had clearly accomplished part of her grand adventure, then decided to head off, close the door politely behind her and explore this place further, there had to be more interesting things than just papers certainly. It was as she turned back toward the doorway that she noticed a figure blocking her path to exit. NPC spoiler : Name: Khilo Raith Age: 24 Race: Mixed Blood (Undeterminable) Appearance: Khilo has a habit of telling everyone a different story when it comes to his heritage. He has dark hair and even darker eyes that subtly change depending on his mood if one pays attention. Sometimes he claims he is Myrian, an Inartan bastard child, a forgotten Chaktawe or a Svefra child thrown to Laviku as an infant because of his eye color and saved by a passing fisherman. His skin is normally a deep tan, but it can vary depending on how long he spends in his laboratory on the island, and he has a wiry almost gangly frame resulting in a tall and lean individual with a long face and sharp features. Brief Overview of History: The only fact people can confirm about Khilo is the Mage grew up in Ravok as a child living in the gutters and filth, and refused to accept his lot. Using his charms and wiles he talked others into joining his own merry band of children thieves, discovering a gift for convincing people that was past natural guile. Many Nuit wonder how the pulser made his way to Sahova, and it is said that despite his rather anti-deity views, the Mage has an inherent fondness for Ovek, and that after a game of cards with the Gambling God, he was given a little luck to take him out of Ravok to the Magical island of study, where he sorely wished to learn more of magic and all that it entailed. Despite the daunting quality of the Island, and the fact that the Mage ranked in the minority as a living breathing entity, his two Kelvic bond mates who he had taken with him on his travels provided more warm bodies to rely upon, and Khilo became quite at home. Personality: Khilo is an individual who believes words can do what force cannot. He is a manipulator first and foremost, and enjoys learning about the minute details of something, sometimes getting lost in these instead of seeing the larger picture. Due to the fact that he was born in Ravok, Khilo learned from an early age to never trust anyone just their motives, so in that regard, transitioning to the Mage version of this on Sahova was not a difficult step for the young man to take. Regardless of his inherent mistrust of anyone’s intentions, and the high level of secrecy and paranoia he takes when approaching his personal projects, Khilo is a very polite and well-mannered individual. He is not prone to anger or tantrums, even in the most frustrating circumstances, believing no solution can be found by getting mad at it. With this kind of perspective it is very hard to draw an extreme emotional reaction out of the mage, no matter what it is, something he enjoys to display to the Nuit who have such obvious bias and stereo-types of Pulsers. Skills: Alchemy 10/100 Glyphing 40/100 Herbalism 20/100 Hypnotism 50/100 Magecraft 45/100 Mathematics 30/100 Observation 27/100 Philtering 20/100 Persuasion 30/100 Ahna Race: Kelvic Age: 6 Physical Description (human): Tall and leanly muscular, Ahna is the type of woman no one would willingly enter a fight of strength with. She stand at about 6’ 2” and provides an imposing figure, fitting her position as guard and protector well. Her dark hair is usually cropped short or kept in an orderly club at the back of her head, and dark nearly black eyes are constantly on the lookout for danger in the midst of her angular features. Physical Description (Animal): Ahna’s true form is that of an Imperial Watcher. A massive black canine in this form she often stays in it overnight and rarely ever sleeps in human form. Personality: Like any canine, Ahna is fiercely loyal to anyone who she cares to call friend or master. Khilo rescued her as a puppy being sold in a slave auction, and she immediately bonded to the mage. Their relationship has always remained of a protective sister over her brother, and Khilo will confess to Ahna many things to which he would otherwise tell no one. Skills: Club 30 Intimidation 20 Investigation 15 Unarmed Combat: 40 Running 20 Hiz Race: Kelvic Age: 6 Physical Description (human): A thin man, Hiz stands around 5’ 7”, and is constantly dwarfed by his ever vigilant companion Ahna. The Kelvic sports a mop of light and always ruffled blonde hair, and has bright golden eyes. Pale skin and soft features, it is clear that Hiz is not meant for manual labor or work that requires much strength, if that is needed there is always Ahana. Physical Description (animal): Hiz’s true form is that of a yellow canary. Small and agile Hiz greatly enjoys his more easily moveable bird form over the bulk of human form. Personality: Hiz is not very clever even when compared to other Kelvic. He is absent minded and has quite a serious short term memory problem. While he is kind he is also rather selfish and vain, and though he prefers his animal form he adores the sound of his own voice so much in human form that he deigns to keep it longer due to this fact. He came in a packaged deal with Ahna, who had always been protective of the bird brained Kelvic, and though the two have very different personalities there is a clear link between them. Skills: Cooking 10 Drawing 10 Harp 10 Singing 50 Weaving 10

[Sliver]

It was tall and gangly, constructed from metal and wood with two glowing red eyes that tilted to better observe the Kelvic youth. It’s head was vaguely human, and so was it’s torso, shaped from some grey substance that didn’t have the sheen of the metal that created made the joints for its legs and arms. The Kelvic was givent he distinct impression of looking at a wooden and metal spider missing a few limbs. She was completely dumbfounded as to what it was, but she noticed the pretty symbols on its body like the writing Khilo did and the ones in the lab she was attempting to leave. For a long period of time Golem stood staring at the pulser, Kelvic looking at the machine. The silence was ended by a very hollow and deadpan voice that echoed from the being. “The observer reported an anomaly in the North West quadrant. Anomaly located.” Vera was confused. “I am not an inumulie.” The Golem ignored her. “Report your status pulser.” This was all too much for the wolverine. This great hulking machine was telling her things she just simply did not understand: Her status? Was that like telling it her race? “I am a Kelvic.” The Golem absorbed this for a moment. “Number of Kelvic currently on Sahova: 13. Number of live subjects: 5. Largest testing facility in reference to study of Marcus Kelvic’s work located in laboratories D-30 through D-34. Come with me Kelvic.” The large automaton began walking and Vera weighed her options. Going with this thing could reveal more adventures, and help her learn about the island. On the other hand it was not taking her back to Khilo’s lab, which meant that bad things could happen if it gave her to the dead people her mother constantly warned her about. She had no concept for numbers so the Golem’s information was of little use to Vera, but she did know he used two different numbers to list Kelvic and living Kelvic, which probably meant they were studying dead Kelvic, a very worrisome thought to a young thing like her. In the end the natural flight response of any creature facing potential imminent danger kicked in and Sliver raced down the hallway in the opposite direction of the Golem. No way was she going to have dead people work on her, and she didn’t want to become a vial of liquid or a creature in a jar. She heard some kind of buzzing come from the Golem, probably when it discovered it wasn’t being followed. This begged the question that if it expected to be followed without question, and she wasn’t, was that a bad thing? This was quite far from Vera’s mind, however and she dashed down the halls, becoming thoroughly lost in a mere few chimes of sprinting. Eventually her legs ceased to function in a timely manner as she wished them too. She was still knew to this world after all, alarmingly new at that, and though Kelvic bodies grew quickly to maturity hers was still quite weak and frail. So Vera stopped and leaned against a wall. One good thing about whatever that thing had been was that it moved incredibly slowly, there was no way that it could know which way she had gone, right? That was when she saw something roll into the corner of her vision. It had eyes like the other creature: No that was wrong, not eyes…magnifying glasses or something, and it turned to face her, a slight whirring noise being produced by the adjustment of its lenses. It wasn’t big at all, but Vera became aware of a very uncomfortable sensation in her gut as if it wasn’t just this creature watching her, but other things behind it. She ran up and grabbed the thing, throwing it as far as she could down the hall then set off at a much slower pace. The one advantage to this maze of a city was there were plenty of places for one to hide, especially if you were the size of a young child, as she was. Slipping into an alcove, and checking to make sure no rolling binoculars were occupying it, Vera took a breather and decided to wait a while in her newly found hiding spot, perhaps that large and smart golem would forget it was chasing her, and it would be safe to try to find her way back home in a little while. She watched closely. Where ever she was wasn’t a bustling place, but people…or dead people, she couldn’t really be sure, passed by her location occasionally. Some carried books, others canisters and vials, and all of them seemed to walk with specific purpose. They all seemed to like wearing long flowing robes that covered most of their bodies. Vera agreed that it was chilly in the dank and cavernous tunnels and hallways of the city, but not cold enough. What skin did show was often varying shades of grey or sort of sickly looking tans and peaches. No matter who passed by none of them held the same light and sheen to their skin that Khilo and her parents did, and Sliver wondered exactly how many dead people were down here. The thought of being surrounded by all of this death was a very claustrophobic and terrifying thought for the young Kelvic, and one she tried pushing from her mind, trying to listen to any sort of metal sounding footsteps that might herald that large machine. She couldn’t be sure how long it had been, maybe only a few chimes, or perhaps several bells. Regardless of which, Vera was aware that it had been some time since anyone had passed by her little nook, and surely someone was missing her back in the laboratory by now. She exited extremely cautiously, eyes peeled for any sign of machine or dead thing. Seeing none as of yet the Kelvic was struck with the realization of being utterly lost. She knew which direction she had come from and there ended the knowledge of exactly how she had found herself in this part of the city. She had to think. She slowly walked back the way she had come, arriving at a split leading three ways. Her memory was vague at best when it came to trying to recall which way she had come, but perhaps there was something else to rely on here. She sniffed in a cursory manner. She knew the smell of the lab by heart, of mixed herbs which Khilo recited to her and she promptly forgot. One thing she remembered was the saffron, he had that not as much for his experiments but to create a pungent perfume that he used to block out the more unpleasant odors. She had become accustomed to this smell, for it was imbedded in Khilo’s clothing as well as the lab. Perhaps if she sought out this smell she could find her way back home. It may have been a rather futile idea, but for Vera, it seemed like a masterful plan, and she set off at once, picking the rightmost hallway and proceeding down it, her nose trained for any familiar scents.