Closed Those Strange, Far Places

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A city floating in the center of a lake, Ravok is a place of dark beauty, romance and culture. Behind it all though is the presence of Rhysol, God of Evil and Betrayal. The city is controlled by The Black Sun, a religious organization devoted to Rhysol. [Lore]

Those Strange, Far Places

Postby Evarista on July 20th, 2017, 10:59 pm

9th of Summer, 517 A.V.

Something was strange tonight.

Evarista was overlooking the docks, her feet dangling off the ledge of a roof over a nondescript building. All the buildings here looked nondescript to her, with only the local denizens knowing exactly where to find what. The pleasant buzz of alcohol was still fresh in her brain, making the lights below blur together slightly. Although she usually enjoyed just watching the night city from above, tonight she found herself distracted by unfamiliar thoughts - as if looking was not enough any more. This was the first time anything like this entered her head.

Casting her eyes into the gaping darkness of the alleyway below, the girl idly wondered how often people passed there. She hadn't even made up her mind to do anything, but her face was already shifting without any conscious input. Pulling out a string of silk from her mouth, she let the moist ending drift with the wind towards the other side of the alley. She couldn't see the thin string with her eyes, and she didn't really rely on her eyes to navigate the rooftops, since it was pitch-black up here. The faint glow of the string's aura was enough to tell her that her string got stuck to the roof across, forming a bridge across the alley.

She paused for just a moment to evaluate what she was about to do. The "homemade" glue was supposed to stick like cement; she found that out the hard way. The silk was also tough enough to suspend fifty of her; she had found that out the hard way as well. It should be safe, then. Severing the string and gluing the other end to the ledge next to her, she repeated the process, sending another, longer string flying in the same direction. The direction of the breeze had changed slightly, so the second fiber stuck to the roof a fair distance away from the first. Irritating, but redoing it until it was perfect would be too bothersome. So, meh. Should still work.

Securing a pair of hook-like claws around the longer string, she swung down from the roof and slid down along with gravity until she was dangling in the middle of the alley. Wise enough not to look down, she used a pair of mandibles on her face to pull out a third string, and glued it to what she presumed was the middle of the second. Clamping her claws around the string to prevent her entire body weight from resting on her neck, she lowered herself down in small jerks, spinning this third thread on on the way, until her feet touched the ground. Since the buildings on either side of the alley were only three stories tall, it didn't take long. Gluing the end of the string to the walkway below her feet, she paused to figure out what to do next, conjuring up the images in her head half from memory and half from instinct.

It didn't take long to see that the next move would be to directly connect the anchor points on the roofs to the anchor point on the ground. This meant she had to climb back up. Twice.

Feeling the irritation rise again, Evarista suppressed it with the thought that there was a shortcut, and one she had some practice with. Trying to climb the wall itself like a human normally would, extra appendages notwithstanding, was a stupid and narrow-minded way to do things. All she had to do was to extend some really long legs all the way up to the roof ledge, hook onto it, and then pull herself up by absorbing the legs again. The best part was that it didn't require a lot of muscle work, only a good grip.

Thought and done. Two more threads to glue to the ground, with each of the other ends going on either rooftop. After hiking up her blouse, she let a set of chitinous legs sprout from her back and reach upwards, gradually extending along the wall and probing it to check for the ledge. Once again, relying on sight would do her no good, so she didn't even bother to raise her head to check what was going on up there. Luckily, it turned out that this wall had no windows, so when she finally grabbed something that felt like a ledge, she was fairly certain she'd end up on the roof and not in some angry fisherman's bedroom. Now she only had to hoist herself up by retracting the extra limbs. With no real muscle strain involved, the journey turned out to be almost effortless, save for having to keep a distance from the dirty wall to avoid scraping off her face on it.

When she felt that she was almost at the top, she finally
reached up with her human hands and groped around until she found a corner to grab onto. Of course, her lanky arms weren't enough to pull her up, so mechanical assistance from yet additional limbs was necessary to flop her grunting and huffing form over the ledge and onto the roof.

Dusting off her skirt and rubbing a fresh bruise, Evarista chewed on her lip thoughtfully. This whole idea would probably not work. She was about a thousand times too heavy to do it the way it was intended to be done, which assumed you were able to walk vertically on your own thread without issue. These "workarounds" were less than practical. Turning herself small enough to make gravity a non-issue was not something she was confident she could do.
Last edited by Evarista on October 3rd, 2017, 6:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Evarista
Whose eyes are those eyes?
 
Posts: 262
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Joined roleplay: August 1st, 2016, 11:28 am
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Those Strange, Far Places

Postby Evarista on July 20th, 2017, 11:01 pm

None the less, Evarista was already so absorbed in her undertaking that quitting now would be too big of a letdown. Sticking one of the thread ends she carried to the rooftop, she grew several pairs of legs again, stretching them towards the roof on the other side of the alley. This was how she usually travelled at night; Ravokian alleys, and especially here at the docks, were narrow enough to simply step over, provided you had access to the right sort of legs. Just get a steady footing on both ledges and swing yourself over. Having done that, the girl victoriously planted the end of her last thread and overlooked the total results, following the thin auras of the threads with her eyes. It wasn't symmetrical, but it was definitely an upside-down triangle with an Y-shape in it, just as she wanted.

This... was just the beginning. Looking at her crude construction with some disappointment, Evarista gave a heavy sigh, trying to swallow the pressing impatience that steadily rose in her gut. She had the anchor threads in place, but there were many more steps left before this could be called a web. Completing this feat of engineering would take much more time than she currently had. It would also take a sober condition. Still, maybe there was a simpler way to do things. As usual, the mantra was: think simple, think abstract.

Using claw hooks to suspend herself on the threads again, she slid down along the Y-shape until she was dangling in the middle again. There was one easy way to fill the frame without having to build a proper orb web, and once again, having extensible limbs was the key. Slipping several lanky legs from underneath her blouse, Evarista tipped them with tiny pincers and pulled a string of silk out of the spinnerets in her mouth, one by one. Moving blindly meant moving slowly, in fear of tangling up in her own threads or accidentally poking her eyes out. Once a string was properly pinched, the leg moved outwards, spinning it longer until it could reach one of the anchor threads, and finally glued it there. It was much like arranging small objects on a table with your eyes bound; while you could get a good idea of what you were doing by touch, you couldn't necessarily vouch for the finished pattern to look the way you wanted to.

Eventually all the strings were out, secured somewhere around the anchors. Evarista paused, chewing on some unspun silk dope thoughtfully. For this, she'd been using a slightly different kind of silk than for the anchor threads; this type was more soft and stretchy, but it was still non-sticky. It was meant to be used as reference, and to have something for herself to grab onto when moving around. This next round of thread would take the properties a step further: maximum toughness, maximum extensibility, and coating of glue. She has used all of these various types of silk before, but never thought of how they were supposed to work together until now. With slow and careful movements, her pincer-tipped legs ferried the sticky string from her mouth and out to the anchor beams, careful not to get anything stuck on her body or in her hair.

There. Finally done. Now that the web had more strings to grab on to, she could climb the web like an awkwardly diagonal ladder, discerning the non-sticky threads from the sticky ones by the fairly clear differences in their auras. Not without much help from extra chitinous appendages, she soon found herself on the same roof she started from.

Evarista was eager to see what her construction looked like from up here, and surveyed the fairly shimmering aural trails in the dark. Well... it wasn't and orb web, it was last-minute made-up nonsense, and it sure looked the part - sort of like a triangular cart wheel made by a junkie carpenter whose hands were shaking from seizure. But it was enough. Someone who unwittingly walked into this thing would not be making it out without extensive third-party assistance.

Provided someone actually came by tonight. There certainly was no heavy traffic in this alley. In fact, no one had come by at all during all the time she's been here. The inhabitants of the district were either asleep, or contemplating their dingy peasant lives over a mug of ale in some tavern. That was a good thing while she was working, but she hoped that at least one of those mug swingers decided to take this route home.

After all, it would be a shame to have her wondrous creation go to waste.
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Evarista
Whose eyes are those eyes?
 
Posts: 262
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Joined roleplay: August 1st, 2016, 11:28 am
Location: Ravok
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Those Strange, Far Places

Postby Alija on February 14th, 2018, 9:19 pm

Image

ENJOY YOUR GRADES



Skill XP
Acrobatics 1XP
Logic 1XP
Climbing 1XP
Morphing 1XP
Construction 1XP


  • Using silk strings to lower oneself from buildings
  • Climbing: Using Morphing
  • Construction: Building a web
  • Making sticky, tough and stretchy silk

Reading about Evarista is... weird, really weird. All this morphing is confusing and she's so strange in her ways... not that it's a bad thing! Shame no one got caught in that web, though. I gave you morphing for how much she was doing but some more detail would be nice for how experienced she is. No auristics as you only briefly mentioned looking at the auras though.

Feel free to PM me if you have questions or problems with the grades, and don't forget to mark this thread as graded in the request thread!

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Alija
Blacksmith and Aurist
 
Posts: 507
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Joined roleplay: November 11th, 2014, 6:35 pm
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