The Great Beyond (Kavala)

Warning: Greatness of beyond subject to exaggeration.

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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]

The Great Beyond (Kavala)

Postby Ignotus Everto on July 13th, 2015, 10:27 am

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60th of Summer 515AV


"Do I... Set it on fire?" Ignotus thought to himself as he stared down his woody adversary. The Nuit stood facing the water on a narrow, briny pier, leaning forward on his cane whilst the wind tugged at his hair and clothes, and he struggled mentally with the great obstacle before him... A door. Admittedly, it was a door without any adjacent building completely blocking the path to Laviku's tower, but a door nonetheless.

While normally Ignotus would have made use of the fact that doors are made for walking through to continue on his way, the rumors he had heard circulating about disembodied doors appearing out of nowhere made him hesitant to mess with this one alone. If, as he heard, monsters came out of it, the lack of distance coupled with his awful reflexes would pose a very real risk to him. Even if they didn't kill him, an injury would leave him stuck in Riverfall for weeks while he found and adjusted to a new body.

Moving around it was also out of the question for him. Behind him was the cliffside, and before him the bay, and swimming was not among his talents. As a result, the Nuit was left frowning at a mysterious hunk of wood and deciding what to do with it.
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A thousand thanks to Phoenix for the gorgeous blue frame, and a thousand more to Edreina for her beautiful magic-themed one!

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Ignotus Everto
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The Great Beyond (Kavala)

Postby Kavala on August 16th, 2015, 7:45 am

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The weight of her heart was in direct contrast to the weight of her footsteps. Lightly she walked the cobbles that made up the winding streets of Riverfall, her heart heavy in her chest. Kavala felt alone at the best of times, isolated, and had wished in an instant she'd brought one of her great dogs with her or even the whole pack. They tended to do well in Riverfall despite the crowds. But it had been hot when she left home so she gave them all the option of a lazy day in the shade instead of a hard run at the heels of a horse into the city.

They'd wisely stayed home.

And she'd arrived alone save for her horse, which she promptly stabled, and set off through the city. There were errands to run, clients to see, and a couple of jars of honey to drop off to individual clients who hadn't yet made it out to The Sanctuary. She might very well decide to just simply open a retail space in town - perhaps at Alements - and see some extra produce, honey, and potions while she was at it. The Konti just hadn't found the time yet.

So, dressed in her leathers, fully armed for the trip, and carrying a small sack with carefully wrapped glass honeyjars in it, Kavala was looking for a small set of apartments near Laviku's tower to drop off her wares at. She didn't mind bringing them as long as she was in the area.

But before she could get where she was going, something strange pulled her up short. It was already being scrutinized by a stranger. The door blocked the path and the stranger blocked her access to the door. Kavala took a few minutes to study the stranger - what he was wearing, how he appeared - and then turned her attention to the door.

"Did you leave it there?" She asked curiously. Sure, she'd heard about the doors. But she had assumed - perhaps inaccurately - that they were just part of some elaborate prank. Whispered rumors had said they lead to far off places or released beasts or horrors into the world. Kavala doubted that as well.

The Akalaks were big on their stories. And quite a few of them were storytellers. Even now she glanced around to see if she could spot someone watching or looking on in amusement. There was no one.

She walked closer.

"I need to get by. Do you think we can just open it?" She asked, knowing the Konti would do just that if the man stepped back and gave her enough room to do so. She didn't introduce herself, naturally, because she thought they'd just be there a moment, open the door, and step through to be on their way.

A door wasn't weird. Not at all. Right?

Kavala's sense of unease grew as she waited for the man to respond.


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The Sanctuary The Sanctuary Forum Riverfall The Cytali
Reverie Isle Wolf Creek Training Course
Please Note:
  • This pc is maxed out in Animal Husbandry, Medicine, Observation, Rhetoric, and Socialization.
  • Kavala a Master Teacher. Students she is teaching in thread can earn more than the maxium 5 XP per thread.
  • This pc has a Konti Gift of Animal Empathy. She has a superpower from a Riverfall city event that allows animals of all sorts and Kelvics (in kelvic form) to speak clear understandable Common around her.
  • Kavala is a Konti but was raised in the Drykas culture so her accent is entirely Pavi though she can speak Common, Pavi, and Tukant well. She's only conversational in Kontinese.
User avatar
Kavala
I am more than the sum of my parts.
 
Posts: 3025
Words: 3295757
Joined roleplay: October 25th, 2009, 1:46 am
Location: Riverfall
Race: Konti
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Scrapbook
Plotnotes
Medals: 17
Featured Thread (1) Mizahar Grader (1)
Trailblazer (2) Overlored (1)
Master Merchant (1) Donor (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Riverfall Seasonal Challenge (2) 2014 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)

The Great Beyond (Kavala)

Postby Ignotus Everto on August 22nd, 2015, 3:27 am

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Despite the heat, the man was dressed to cover. His sapphire blue shirt went to his wrists, white gloves cloaked his hands, and he wore long black slacks. The Konti's highly perceptive eyes would easily notice that the lot of them were made of silk. When he twisted around to look at her, it would be equally easy to spot the glittering Zeltivan badge pinned to his chest. If she decided to investigate past his apparent wealth, the man's unnatural paleness may have stuck Kavala, or the fact that he blinked far too slowly.

On Ignotus' part, he was simply shocked that the world plopped exactly what he needed right into his lap and the mixture of satisfaction and incredulity shone clearly on his face. Upon seeing that she was armed, he even let out a silent chuckle. "I suspect it left itself." the Nuit replied wryly, his accent leaving little doubt as to where he was from. When she asked if she could open the door, Ignotus stepped aside and gestured to the wooden impediment as if he were a maître d'. "Be my guest."

If there was a monster, she would be a fine obstacle for him.
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A thousand thanks to Phoenix for the gorgeous blue frame, and a thousand more to Edreina for her beautiful magic-themed one!

Correspondence Thread
User avatar
Ignotus Everto
Only Mostly Mad
 
Posts: 601
Words: 292905
Joined roleplay: May 6th, 2012, 5:57 pm
Location: Zeltiva
Race: Nuit
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Medals: 2
Featured Character (1) Overlored (1)

The Great Beyond (Kavala)

Postby Kavala on September 10th, 2015, 3:50 am

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Kavala was used to leathers. Everyone in Riverfall wore them. The man, as pale as he was, was dressed somewhat differently. She didn't recognize the badge nor would she have understood it had she seen it as a sign of an office. Kavala wasn't used to officials that weren't dressed in leather and towering over her. The man before her seemed somewhat diminished in the light of their presence. He was smaller, fine of bone, and to her almost delicate. There was something about him too that made her uneasy, though she couldn't put her finger on it. Kavala was a stranger to Nuits, having never really encountered many at all.

In fact, she was a stranger to folks stepping aside and gesturing and so she took the move at face value and walked forward. Her riding boots rang on the cobbles as she came to the door and halted. She peered at its face, then the edges, and noted it seemed to be attached to nothing, freestanding in the middle of the path. Of course, its position left no room to bypass it. It only left the person wanting to pass with two choices.

Turn around and detour around or open the door. Curious, yet part of her warning herself it was likely a bad idea, the Konti reached out and touched the handle. She gave it a yank and the door clicked, pulling forward and opening towards them. The way it opened left the Konti particularly sheltered by the weight of the wood making up its face. It didn't matter though.

As soon as the door swung open, some force began its pull and Kavala and her unknown companion felt a dragging sensation and then they were through it. Standing alone yet together on the cliff where the Bluevein River poured out of the Sea of Grass and plunged over the edge.

Only Riverfall was gone. There was no city where the falls dropped off the tectonic plate of the continent. Instead they stood inside a skull.... an enormous skull half the size of the city. Where the city walls normally stood, ribs thrust into the sky - wind worn and weathered. The river bypassed a great corpse or at least the skeleton of one. It stretched almost a full tenth of a mile in both directions, smaller bones scattered off into the distance. A pelvis had tilted into the topsoil, perhaps sunken as the rains in the spring had pelted it and then softened the soil.

Kavala stepped forward confused. The door stood as it had in Riverfall, behind them now and open showing the narrow little side street they used to be standing on. But all around them was change.

The Konti's mouth dropped open she turned a full circle. Something crunched under her boots and she reached down and picked up a gemstone. There were hundreds upon thousands of them around. And she realized as she stared at the skeleton, her mind automatically trying to reflesh its bones, that the gems were from inside the bones. Curious, as only a healer and researcher could be, she moved closer, walking out of the skull through a huge foramen - most likely where a huge nerve had passed from the spine to the brain - and out onto the spine itself.

She knelt by the Atlas and ran her hand across the Axis vertebra... clawing at the worn bone to expose what would on a normal animal be marrow. Instead of being hollow and rotted out leaving only a webbing of bone inside, this skull had gemstone where bone marrow should have been.

Kavala turned, glanced at her companion, and raised an eyebrow. "What is this? I've never seen anything so large in my life. I've heard stories, of course.... the Drykas tell them... but I've never seen anything like this first hand." The Konti said, drawing a dagger and inverting it in her hand. She gave the 'marrow' a few hard knocks and broke off a piece of what looked almost like emerald.

Holding it up to the light, the Konti frowned, and studied the gemstone a moment. Then, she turned to study the stranger with equal scrutany and see what his thoughts were.




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The Sanctuary The Sanctuary Forum Riverfall The Cytali
Reverie Isle Wolf Creek Training Course
Please Note:
  • This pc is maxed out in Animal Husbandry, Medicine, Observation, Rhetoric, and Socialization.
  • Kavala a Master Teacher. Students she is teaching in thread can earn more than the maxium 5 XP per thread.
  • This pc has a Konti Gift of Animal Empathy. She has a superpower from a Riverfall city event that allows animals of all sorts and Kelvics (in kelvic form) to speak clear understandable Common around her.
  • Kavala is a Konti but was raised in the Drykas culture so her accent is entirely Pavi though she can speak Common, Pavi, and Tukant well. She's only conversational in Kontinese.
User avatar
Kavala
I am more than the sum of my parts.
 
Posts: 3025
Words: 3295757
Joined roleplay: October 25th, 2009, 1:46 am
Location: Riverfall
Race: Konti
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Scrapbook
Plotnotes
Medals: 17
Featured Thread (1) Mizahar Grader (1)
Trailblazer (2) Overlored (1)
Master Merchant (1) Donor (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Riverfall Seasonal Challenge (2) 2014 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)

The Great Beyond (Kavala)

Postby Ignotus Everto on September 18th, 2015, 4:00 am

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The relief that started to show on Ignotus' face quickly faded as he felt himself sucked through the doorway. His literally rotten Nuit reflexes meant he flinched and threw his hands up well after he was already on the other side. The wizard stood frozen in that pose for a few ticks as his eyes darted about suspiciously, hunting for threats in his new environment. Finding none, Ignotus let his arms relax and took a step forward, eyebrow twitching when he saw the gems that crunched beneath his foot.

Twisting around, the Nuit could see the doorway to Riverfall behind him, the sound of lapping waves curiously absent from the scene given their apparent proximity. This demanded inspection. While the Konti hopped up like a cat to get a better view, Ignotus stooped down to pick up a ruby the size of his eye and attached a glowing green Cordas string with a quick thought. Digging his foot into the ground slightly, the wizard then hurled the stone at the doorway. The gem seemed to turn to smoke and vanish as it passed the threshold, the Cordas string attached to it snapping in the process. "So this place is isolated. Odd..." Presumably objects from the outside could be taken in, as he and his traveling buddy weren't naked, but whatever was on this side had no permanence in the world they knew. Ignotus would have dove deeper into this quandary, but Kavala chose this moment to grab his attention with a question.

"It's either a corpse or a structure." said Ignotus distantly. "And it appears to cease existing if brought outside its 'world.' Judging by the contents of its bones.." said Ignotus as he walked to the foramen, "the latter is more likely." While it was easy for Kavala to climb up the colossus and flit through its many holes and nooks, the Nuit found the task of joining his companion a tricky one.

After frowning at the slope for half a tick, he tentatively stuck his foot in one of the smaller openings around his waist, then jabbed his cane into the skull like it was a climbing pick and hoisted himself upright. The undead stayed leaning on his cane for almost a quarter tick before scrabbling for the foramen Kavala used and catching hold with his fingers. He then threw his other hand through, his cane slapping on the outside of the skull. Unbeknownst to him, the crack his cane made in the skull had begun to snake outward like a break in a pane of glass.

It was at this point that Ignotus confirmed what he had always suspected: he could not do a pull-up. Unable to climb further but not wanting to retreat, the wizard pursed his lips and looked up at the Konti standing comfortably atop the skeleton. "I appear to be a tad stuck." he said with only a hint of a bruised ego. "I never was a fair hand at athletics."
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A thousand thanks to Phoenix for the gorgeous blue frame, and a thousand more to Edreina for her beautiful magic-themed one!

Correspondence Thread
User avatar
Ignotus Everto
Only Mostly Mad
 
Posts: 601
Words: 292905
Joined roleplay: May 6th, 2012, 5:57 pm
Location: Zeltiva
Race: Nuit
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Medals: 2
Featured Character (1) Overlored (1)

The Great Beyond (Kavala)

Postby Kavala on September 21st, 2015, 9:27 pm

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She half wished she was alone for if she was she'd be able to Dreamwalk safely and figure out what sort of skeleton she stood upon. But there was the man, the strange man indeed, that looked not quite healthy nor quite strong, which made Kavala all the more suspicious of him. From her perch inside the skull quite elevated, she wondered why he hadn't just walked up the spine and through the foraman as she had. It wasn't a difficult trek if one was accustomed to physical activity. His way looked easier, but the predicament he was in now was a testimony to easier not always being better. And there was indeed a fracture in the skull spidering outward and causing her a moment's worry.

Kavala continued her exploration as the stranger experimented on his own. The moment he had lashed out tossing the gemstone with his cordas he'd felt it. Power. Raw dripping power filled the air. It was a tangible ring, like a siren song, running through the cordas he created to fling the gemstone. It reached out for him, wanting a master, wanting a purpose, wild and untamed and untasked. Raw. Had he not been actively using divine djed, the other latent djed all around him may not have reacted. But as it was, it did, and it sang to him a seductive song, wanting him to purpose it, wanting him to touch it...

If Nuits could sweat like alcoholics on a third day without their bottled poison, he would have immediately broken out in a cold sweat.

Kavala, for the moment, was oblivious.

"We might as well make introductions." She said as she moved closer and held out her hand to catch his and possibly assist him to join her inside the row upon row of teeth buried in the massive skull. "I'm Kavala Denusk, of the Denusk Pavilion of the Sapphire Clan, lately of Riverfall and the Healing Facility known as The Sanctuary." She said, hoisting him up of he chose to take her hand.

"I don't rightly know what this is, but I imagine from the stories I've heard this is a Velspar Skeleton. I wish there was a way to know for sure. The gemstone marrow is curious. I wonder if it gives them some sort of power." Kavala said, walking around and noting that its teeth too were made of various gemstones... some more worn - like its molars - than others.

Then she peeled off one of her gloves, laid a Lykata bearing hand upon the skull, and let the gnosis mark flare to life. Her eyes glazed over and her head bent forward and she lost herself to the flood of information flowing through her. The mark answered her question and she cried out as her mind was momentarily overwhelmed with the richness of knowledge she should have no business tapping. The Konti staggered, broke contact, and turned to catch the stranger's eyes. Her own gaze looked haunted and she glanced around up at the sky as if in sheer terror.

There were clouds rolling in and the edge of night that was dropping over the scene was more ominous in her mind than it was before. She licked her lips and thats when she could taste it.. the wild djed scattered around them in pools. They practically swam in one now. And even the clouds about them were lit with it. Kavala began to tremble as only someone would who had almost not survived the last Djed Storm she'd been in when the season and year had both changed in one night three fateful years ago.

"It's not safe here. Can you not feel the djed?" The question was a stupid one. She didn't know if he was a mage or not or if he was even someone who had such things as djed manipulation as a hobby. She hadn't seen the 'string' he'd used to toss the gemstone and indeed had assumed he'd tossed it with his own hand because she'd seen the tossing motion but not the cordas behind it.
Image
The Sanctuary The Sanctuary Forum Riverfall The Cytali
Reverie Isle Wolf Creek Training Course
Please Note:
  • This pc is maxed out in Animal Husbandry, Medicine, Observation, Rhetoric, and Socialization.
  • Kavala a Master Teacher. Students she is teaching in thread can earn more than the maxium 5 XP per thread.
  • This pc has a Konti Gift of Animal Empathy. She has a superpower from a Riverfall city event that allows animals of all sorts and Kelvics (in kelvic form) to speak clear understandable Common around her.
  • Kavala is a Konti but was raised in the Drykas culture so her accent is entirely Pavi though she can speak Common, Pavi, and Tukant well. She's only conversational in Kontinese.
User avatar
Kavala
I am more than the sum of my parts.
 
Posts: 3025
Words: 3295757
Joined roleplay: October 25th, 2009, 1:46 am
Location: Riverfall
Race: Konti
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Scrapbook
Plotnotes
Medals: 17
Featured Thread (1) Mizahar Grader (1)
Trailblazer (2) Overlored (1)
Master Merchant (1) Donor (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Riverfall Seasonal Challenge (2) 2014 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)

The Great Beyond (Kavala)

Postby Ignotus Everto on October 5th, 2015, 1:57 am

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Ignotus lacked a strong grasp of Wild Djed, but he knew power when he saw it. The Nuit flinched almost a tick after the galvanized Djed resonated through him like a thunderbolt. It was more power than he'd ever seen before. It felt like brushing briefly against divinity. It felt uncannily like the early stages of overgiving. This alone was enough to cause Ignotus to shy away from attempting to energize the rampant Djed around him again. While there was potential for a great well of power to tap, there was equal potential for explosive consequences, and the wizard still had plans before he met Dira.

Kavala's introduction elicited an amiable chuckle from the Nuit as he took the Konti's hand and straightened his clothes. "Lord Ignotus Everto, ruler of Zeltiva and the Denval Nation at your service." the Hypnotist said with a light bow of his head. "I confess I did not expect to find someone with a longer title than mine." he said wryly. "I'm not sure how to feel about it yet." The Konti may have noticed the utter lack of warmth in his hand while helping him up.

Ignotus' eyebrow turned up in curiosity at the mention of this mysterious "Velspar", and his interest only grew at the sight of the gnosis mark on Kavala's hand. If the loss of focus was any indication, whatever it did consumed a great deal of her attention. The Nuit stood observing her like a scientist examining a crystal forming until she cried out and pulled away as if she had just touched burning iron. The hypnotist's brows knit together at the sight of Kavala's horror. While the mage (and surely she was a mage; common folk rarely even knew what Djed was) likely knew something that made such fear justified, she would only be a liability petrified. Thus, he needed to soothe her.

"Yes, I can feel it." said Ignotus, voice imbued with stabilizing calm. It wasn’t overwhelming, but unless fought or subsumed by a much more intense emotion, it would slowly seep into Kavala and hopefully help her get a hold of herself. The Nuit seemed to almost radiate a certain stolid authority, and in both speech and posture he appeared like a pillar. “While a danger, it is nothing that cannot be escaped with due caution and a focused mind. For instance, we can still just walk out the door.”

As the wizard floated this arguably practical course of action, the clouds decided they didn’t like this talk and growled menacingly. A tick later, a fork of lightning seared through the air and struck an outstretched arm of the skeleton, blotting the world out in a flash of white and deafening sound. When Ignotus’ vision returned, he saw crackling cyan threads stretching from the clouds to the joints in the skeleton’s arm. The wizard stood staring in shock until he felt the ground beneath him rumble. ”Oh. It can mirror what’s around it.” he thought as he bent his knees slightly in preparation for what might come next.
Image
A thousand thanks to Phoenix for the gorgeous blue frame, and a thousand more to Edreina for her beautiful magic-themed one!

Correspondence Thread
User avatar
Ignotus Everto
Only Mostly Mad
 
Posts: 601
Words: 292905
Joined roleplay: May 6th, 2012, 5:57 pm
Location: Zeltiva
Race: Nuit
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Medals: 2
Featured Character (1) Overlored (1)


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