Solo [Coalinga Mines] The Dark Paths, So Feared To Tread.

Quzon works in the mines.

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Built into the cliffs overlooking the Suvan Sea, Riverfall resides on the edge of grasslands of Cyphrus where the Bluevein River plunges off the plain and cascades down to the inland sea below. Home of the Akalak, Riverfall is a self-supporting city populated by devoted warriors. [Riverfall Codex]

[Coalinga Mines] The Dark Paths, So Feared To Tread.

Postby Quzon on December 22nd, 2017, 4:58 pm

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Sixth Day of Winter, 517 A.V.
6th Bell

It had been five days since Quzon began working in the mines. The half isur had taken on the initial strife that came along with preforming hard labor with hardly any complaint. In fact, Quzon found mining to be a good way of supplementing his own bodybuilding at times. He had even gone so far as to buy himself a small miners pick to aid in rooting out gems when deposits were found.

Today his work day started early, but the time of day became a moot topic of conversation when underground. At the moment, Quzon stood on the elevator platform as it was lowered down into the deep mine. He wore only what was necessary by sporting only his backpack, a loincloth, and boots as his full attire. He clutched the end of an unlit touch in hand as he stood towards the back of the lift.

It was the first time the half Isur had truly been that deep underground since his days living in Sultros with his father. In front of Quzon on the platform stood the various members of the small team he would be working with for the day. His emerald green eyes ran over each of the men, most of whom were made up of the tattooed Akalak who were collectively referred to as Cerulean.

Five of them made up the front line of the small labor force doing the main digging today. Behind them on the lift stood two Akalak who were said to be scholars of Semele’s precious gems and stone. And behind them, standing next to Quzon, was the only human in the group. He was a dark skinned human male dressed in leather armor who was also there to aid the group with the use of Geomancy.

As the lift stopped, Quzon listened to the Akalak geologist speak. He was glad that they were doing so in common, and not their native language. But it was still hard to keep up with their conversation given his lack of vocabulary.

"The fifth shaft stops about a mile in. The feldspar showed signs of discoloration, which means something might be deeper into the wall." Quzon's eyes shifted from the shoulder of one, to the other as the other man started to speak. " The coarseness of grain remained consistent for three miles down shaft four. With no change, the discoloration you found is the best sign we've had in days of old gasses; or a rare one off clustered mixture of minerals, that might have seeped into the stone, or if two minerals were forced together to form any type of gem. We'll focus on that shaft for now."

When the lift suddenly stopped with a jolt, everyone turned to look at each other as if they were sharing the moment before they would do battle together. There was a palpable sense of tension as everyone looked out into dark mine.

"Light your torches, Quzon. Everyone else, uncover the hoods from your lanterns, and keep each other safe." One of the Akalak geologist spoke to anyone who did not already hold a source of light. "What, you. Element." Quzon spoke as he reached back to ruffle through his pack to find his flint and steel. He held the end of the torch between his thighs, then struck the flint steel over the end of it to rain the fiery embers down onto the touch head. It took two tries, but it quickly caught flame. The human smirked after speaking with some amount of pride themself, "Earth and air."

Quzon was hardly impressed, but acknowledged the mans skill with a nod. That was when they all exited from the lift to walk deeper into the mines with the Geolgists at the head of the pack leading them to where they would work.

The level they were on was not at the deepest, but the hallways were hardly as big as those near the top. As Quzon glanced from wall to walls within the mine, then glanced to each of the Akalak. Quzon guessed that five or six fully grown Akalak could walk shoulder to shoulder down the mine shafts at maximum.

Quzon kept the flint and steel in one hand as he held the torch in the other. Out of all of the members in the group, Quzon's backpack looked like he was some odd type of archer with a 'quiver' of torches from the way his four other touches protruded from it. And even still, Quzon wasn't sure if it was too much or two little given yesterdays events.

Quzon had been working in the middle areas,shifting through deposits to get used to the practice since he was new to how the mines worked. However, he was assigned to the deep mines due to his ability to use fire Reimancy after the goddess Akajia made her shocking announcement about The Tainted Shadows yesterday. No one knew if fire magic would help, but Typhus Chivan commanded a fire user be with every deep level group if possible. Quzon believed the man's paraphrased words to everyone before mining for the day started were, 'Be safe, don't be dumbasses.'

It took the group a few chimes, but the all eventually came face to face with a wall that turned a run off mine shaft into a dead end. "Alright everyone, you know what to do." The Cerulean each moved over to the wall to begin swinging full sized pickaxes down into the stone to continue the excavation process.

As they did that, Quzon turned towards geologist as they ran their hands along the walls. He found the passion in which they spoke about rock to be just as great as his love of bodybuilding. And when people showed passion, it was always a curious thing. He walked over to them to listen to what they had to say, standing to their side as he hovered his torch along the wall to cast light over the stone.

"What do eyes, you see?" He asked, not sure if that was the correct phrase to use in common. That alone was enough for them to understand that he was not a fluent speaker of common, but were courteous enough to slow down their conversation to being him into it.


NPC text colors BF4000 & darkred
ledge deductions5x, Torch. 15 cm
Miner's pick 3 gm

Job word count:1053/2500
Last edited by Quzon on December 25th, 2017, 2:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Quzon
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[Coalinga Mines] The Dark Paths, So Feared To Tread.

Postby Quzon on December 23rd, 2017, 2:57 pm

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"Do you see this.", the senior of the two geologist spoke while tracing an index finger along the wall. "Yeah." Quzon spoke with a curt tone, nodding his head to try focus intently on what was about to be explained. He was an isur, his family surname was Gemshock, meaning he did have a lingering interest in geology from a young age. "Do you see this dark grey rock," he spoke before pausing to motion his finger to wards the left. "Now do you see that white rock right there."

Quzon nodded his head again, moving the torch light over to reveal the obviously white stone face. "What, it mean?" His tone was curious as he turned his attention back towards the geologist. "The darkened rock and the white rock may seem different, but they are both the mineral feldspar. The white rock stands out because long ago, the feldspar interacted with sodium some time in the past; sodium being a mineral in salt. And when stone is altered, gems are formed." The two geologist held up mining pickaxes of their own, then started to softly tap at the walls.

"You look Myrian, yes? Your tattoos give that away." The man spoke, but the intonation in his voice was slightly off. It was altered in some imperceptible way that Quzon could not figure out. He'd yet to fully grasp that the much taller purple men of Riverfall had twin souls even after having been in the city previously. "Yes, my bloods is of Taloba. And of Sultros." The Geologist turned his head slightly to look at the Myrian.

"Then understand this. Mining for gemstones are like hunting for animal in the jungle, they leave tracks. If you know where it gets its water, its food, where it sleeps. The you can target that area to find them."

Quzon slid his backpack off to set it aside, storing his flint and steel away to retrieve his own small mining pick. "So. It mean, gem in wall? Right here?" He asked curiously. "Most likely. That is why we need to expand this shaft there may be countless more deposits. I'd like to dig into this wall right here about three feet to see what we find. Could you start that for us?" The other man spoke up after halting their mining."Yes, that would help save us much time."

Quzon took a step back to eye the wall. "Here to here," He pointed out with the torch to trace the flame along the wall, "And here to here." He asked for clarification, simply mapping out in his head the size of one foot by one foot cube. "Three paces deep." Each of his questions were met with soft nods.

"Before start. What this?" There was a small cluster of shiny sparks along the wall the shined whenever his torched passed over them.
"That's mineral mica, its a mineral that holds some amount of transparency. It growing on the area of the white is also a good sign."

Quzon ran his hand along the white feldspar, taking in its texture. Taking in the feel of it to try to form the earth with his magic in the future. He then leaned into sniff at the stone. The smell it was hardly there, but it smelt slightly acidic like a bland lemon. He remembered that the Geologist told him minerals changed the stone long ago, so whatever changed it seemed to linger with the smell. The Mysurian now had some general idea of what to look for when he wanted to properly tracking down gems.

He motioned his torch over to the only human in the group to call the man over. As he watched the Dark skinned human approach, Quzon reached down to remove another torch from his bag. He ended up using the first one to light the second, then handed one of them to the human.

Quzon then proceeded to light the other three torches he had, then left each of them burning on the ground in key areas in the shaft around them. Setting one down, walking to the edge of the light where it waned, then setting another down. All of his torches combined with the illumination of the hooded lanterns that every person had started to litght their surroundings in a brilliant orange campfire glow.

Afterwards, he returned to stand one foot from the wall where they wanted him to dig. Even though it might seem odd, the fact that he now knew about the stone made him feel better about using his magic to move it.

Quzon did not uses gestures to help him focus. He was someone who needed to speak his mind to focus his djed. "Unmoving is the mountain. Patient is the stone." The incantation spoken in his native Myrian language after shutting his eyes. With his eyes closed he was able to focus his attention on the natural rhythm of each of his breaths, focus on how they flowed through his body.

That was when he felt the well of his djed ripple like a stone cast into a pond. He willed that primal energy along his spine, up towards his mouth, and towards his lips. The breath he made was not air but rather a translucent, ethereal-looking, red gaseous cloud of his res that flowed forth past his lips. The red mist of res appeared to be the same size as a normal human head.

Quzon gauged that it was more than enough to move stone with slow focused progress. He knew he was not at a level of power with his favorite element to do such a feet, but since he had no intention of transmuting the res into an element, his focus was now set on res control.

Quzon made sure to stand to the side of where he kept his res floating in the air, mainly because he did not want to stand behind it as he pulled rocks to it; less he literally throw a rock at himself as if it were a sling. But he made sure to satay very close to keep the maximum amount of control over it. He closed his eyes again for a moment to visualize a singular picture in his mind. It was the picture of a rock slowly falling down a bottomless pit. It was a image that helped him trigger his res into becoming an attractive force.

After opening his eyes, he narrowed them in concentration to guide the gas towards the wall to waft delicately against its surface. He made sure to press the gas into the area with the largest cracks. The magnetic force of his res quickly started to pull the feldspar and mica against it to form a cluttered layer of rocks around the gas as if his res were a ramshackle rocky egg.

Quzon closed his eyes to focus the sensations of his breaths, the flow of his blood, the rise and fall of his abdomen. Despite what many might believe, he was a scholar when it came to his arcane craft. He respected the might and feared over giving enough to constantly take inventory of his body. He wasn't shaking nor did he feel tired, so those were good signs.

Once he was sure he was alright, he cast a mere suggestion of his personal will to make his res move away from the wall. It floated about two meters away, then he simply stopped the magnetic attraction of his res by no longer focusing on it. It caused all the rough lump of dirt, pebbles, and stone to fall from around the gas to pile up on the ground.

He then guided the red res back to the wall to try it again, only this time he put the gas ball of res into the small head sized hole he had just made.

The two Geologists stood there watching as the Dark Skinned human walked over to start aiding Quzon in digging. The human used the same process as the Myrian, but rather than gas, the man seeped liquid res into the stone, attracting it, then pulling them from the wall. It was obvious that the human was either far more skilled than he, or wasn't worried about managing res production. Quzon used activated the attraction of his res once more after the human removed their res.

In total, Quzon dug two feet into the wall as the human dug one. The hole they made was as deep as the Geologists wanted. "You going to put that away?" The human asked as Quzon moved the ball of gas to float around his head. "No. Res decay. Manageable. Still use, dig. Not waste. Or, toss way."

Job Word count: 2516/2500
Last edited by Quzon on December 23rd, 2017, 3:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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[Coalinga Mines] The Dark Paths, So Feared To Tread.

Postby Quzon on December 23rd, 2017, 3:15 pm

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He stood back to let the Geologists study the hole. It didn't take them long to both start happily hitting the sides of the hole with their picks before pulling out what looked to be clusters of gemstone. "All that hard work paid off. Looks like we found a good bit of Black Tourmaline." As they started to shift through the hole, Quzon turned his attention to the small pile of dirt he and the human made. He crouched down next to it to dig through it with a finger to see if any of the rocks had gems stuck in them when he moved them.

He was about to get up when he spotted the faint glint of something sticking out of a thumb sized rock. Quzon picked it up, then held it up towards the gas of res. He took a deep breath as he stuck it into the cloud, causing his res to rip the dirt from around the item from its attraction. All that was left was a pink stone in the center of his palm. Quzon wanted something to keep as a memento to keep him motivated towards finding more gems, so kept the piece of pink tourmaline too himself while the Human and Geologists were all focused on the gems in the hole, and the Cerulean were busy digging.

But Quzon did not have time to enjoy his find.

After he stood up to look back towards the group, he found something floating between him and them. It looked like a floating ebony specter that held the visage of a man but made of shadow. It simply floated there watching him like a ghost.

"A Tainted Shadow."

He did not yell it, he simply stated the situation loud enough that everyone in the mine turned to look at it. Quzon was a man who did not easily give himself over the the cowards side of fear. He was simply nervous, but ready to fight as a warrior should be when face with an unknown threat. "Quzon, no! Back away from it." Everyone started to grab their own light sources the keep any shadows at bay. The human summoned their own res, then readied what looked to be some type of earth spear.

Quzon made the ball of res gas floating around his head move further up towards the ciling as he took a step closer to the shadow. He lingered into its personal space to look it right in the eye, or rather where eyes would have been if not for its blank shadowy face. The Mixed blood did the same thing he did when styding the stone. Letting his eyes take in its details, even trying to sniff it like a dog to see what a living shadow even smelt like. "I, Quzon. Have no war with shadows. If here to make demand, make known." It was the best he could ever have hoped to manage with how quickly he needed to form his broken common into a coherent thought. "So what you want?"

Just to show it that he meant it no harm, he walked to his nearest torch to put out the flame allowing darkness to grow near it. He then walked back over to it to stare it down, he wanted to keep its face staring right at him as he moved the gas along the ceiling to linger over the shadow. "Petch, its too much res to transmute in one go. The risk is worth it....

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Quzon
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[Coalinga Mines] The Dark Paths, So Feared To Tread.

Postby Quzon on December 23rd, 2017, 5:17 pm

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"What are you doing? Move away from it!"

Quzon had no clue what he was doing. But unless he tried, he'd not know how his enemy thought. The situation was dire no matter what. They were all stuck in the deep mines where countless pockets of darkness lingered. And so for better or worse, the Myri marked warrior stood his ground. The Tainted Shadow had nothing to say, nor did it remotely act like being with sentient thought. It acted on instinct. It brought both of its shadowy arms up to swing them at Quzon's head as fast as it could. The Shadow's midnight colored hands seemingly both slapped him across the face, moving to rake slowly across his eyes. His vision went instantly dark, flashing as if he'd been hit in the face by a fist, but it did not feel that way.

There was no more reason to be diplomatic. He was marked by the goddess of war, so would give the shadows one. It was a blind fire, but all he needed to do was bring his res straight down. And so he did. Quzon reached into his very core for the red mist to stretch downward, the gas stretching until it was like a comet with a tail of whisp behind it, and in the process transmuted the entire thing into a sharp earthen half-spear. The process of transformation so rapidly causing his left hand to tumble; caution was out the window, he couldn't worry about 'the shakes' now.

The magical earth spike slammed itself through the head of the shadow, passing right through it like things did to normal shadows, and imbibed itself into the ground beneath it. As Quzon quickly stepped back to move himself away from the shadow, his vision was cloudy but slowly started to return. "Good, I'm not blind." he mused to himself in panicked thought.

However, he did find it odd that the mine shaft started to fill with a dazzling white radiance. He could no longer see the warming colors of torch fires anywhere. He could only see white and blacks. The contrasts of life, and not their substance. His own pale right hand seemed to be white, lacking the slight blue offered to him by his Isurian blood. And above all, that was the thing that enraged him.

The shadow had taken his visions of color. Then as if to throw salt on his wound, he watched as the brilliantly ebon shadow passed through the earth spear as if it was nothing. His arm shaking with the slightest of overgiving for nothing.


"I will kill you!" His words reverted back to Myrian out of pure instant. If it passed through solid objects, then he knew his arm could pass through it. He ran right up to the Tainted Shadow, then forced his hand into its body with his palms facing downward. The man needed no incantation to summon his focus, his rage was enough. He willed his djed to a force a gaseous fist sized ball of res to seep out from his palm. "Ignite and die in the light." He spoke in Myrian again, his breath taking in a deep puff of air as he then yell right at its face. In that moment, he called forth his res to transmute into blazing magical flame ball that existed within the shadows chest, and quickly pulled his hand back.

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Quzon
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[Coalinga Mines] The Dark Paths, So Feared To Tread.

Postby Quzon on December 24th, 2017, 6:56 pm

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It was fairly obvious to see that the Mixed Blood reimancer was becoming somewhat unhinged by the event. However, all of his faculties came crashing back once a horrific reality suddenly became known... The Tainted Shadow was still there. The magical flames that Quzon had summoned did nothing to the specter of shadow. The shadow, without missing a beat, lifted up one of its arms in attempt to reach out and grab the angered Myrian by the throat.

Quzon pulled his hand from the shadows chest as fast as he could, then turned to run towards the closest torch on the ground; which happened to be the one he’d put out. “Reimancy doesn’t work?” He mused in flustered thought to himself as he quickly picked up the empty backpack; dropping in the pink stone as he picked it up, then wore the pack on his back. “Everyone, run! I keep it, busy.” He shouted while running to the nearest lit torch to use it to light the other one he held.

He started to use both of them in some vain attempt to brighten the area. All of his ideas to fight back had failed, which meant the only option was a tactical retreat.

Quzon began to wave the torches at the shadow while the others all ran to the lift. Quzon was the last to turn on his boot heels and sprint for the lift, keeping an eye cast over his shoulder to watch as it chased after him. His eyes went wide as a second shadow entered into the main tunnel from one of the other shafts.

His sides were burning as he forced himself to not stop. Quzon did not know it, but his emerald eyes were turning bloodshot from his body casting out too much of itself. However, it wasn’t unexpected given that his hands still shook. A shaking that was delt with by grasping tight onto the torch. He could hear the group shouting up ahead followed by the sounds of chains grinding.

He stopped only for a moment to turn and face the shadows again. Quzon needed to by the group time as they waited for the lift. He did so by waving the fires at the shadow. He treated it just like a normal fight, getting close but staying just out of range of their reaches. Whenever they moved closer, he took two steps back then stopped.The stop-and-stop action lasted for several chimes.

Way longer than Quzon liked as the shadows adapted to his actions. They separated, one trying to circle around him forcing him to run towards the right wall to keep from being pinned by them. The sounds of the platform finally reaching the level was a god-send and also the sound he used as a sign to run to it. His right shoulder grazed along the wall for a bit as he needed to push off of it to move around a shadow.

The lift started to raise a foot off the level. Quzon had to drop his torches just to free himself of the burden as he pressed his heels off the ground when he was a foot away from it, jumping up onto the lift as one of the Geologists grabbed him by the shoulder to help pull him onto it.

And as the Geologists nodded at him, he looked the man back in the eyes, reminded that he was now still colorblind.

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Quzon
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[Coalinga Mines] The Dark Paths, So Feared To Tread.

Postby Madeira Dusk on April 5th, 2018, 10:56 pm

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Grades Awarded!

Don't forget to edit/delete your grade request!


Quzon

Skills
  • Observation: 4xp
  • Socialization: 2xp
  • Geology: 2xp
  • Planning: 2xp
  • Tactics: 3xp
  • Meditation: 1xp
  • Reimancy: 2xp
  • Endurance: 1xp
  • Stealth: 1xp
  • Leadership: 2xp
  • Intimidation: 1xp

Lores
  • Geology: discoloration can mean old gasses or mineral deposits
  • Geology: chemically altered minerals form gems
  • Geology: how to find a mineral deposit
  • Geology: mineral mica
  • Lore of meditation mantra
  • Gemstone: Black Tourmaline
  • Tainted Shadows: unaffected by reimancy

Awards & Retribution
+5 Torches: -15cm
+Pickaxe: -3gm
+thumb sized piece of pink tourmaline
-Colourblindness

Notes
Wow, that was action packed! This is definitely how you should do a job thread, well done. I even learned a thing or two, and will flaunt this new geology knowledge at parties.

If you have any questions or concerns about your grade please PM me. :)
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