Completed Researching The Legendary Monsters of Mizahar IV

Tazrae borrows a book from Reclaimed Knowledge and does a little research in her free time.

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Syka is a new settlement of primarily humans on the east coast of Falyndar opposite of Riverfall on The Suvan Sea. [Syka Codex]

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Researching The Legendary Monsters of Mizahar IV

Postby Tazrae on May 17th, 2022, 1:20 am

Timestamp: 37th of Spring, 522 A.V.

Continued From: Researching The Legendary Monsters of Mizahar III


After a while, the bird voices all distinctly chattering to one another soothed her in a way that the ocean breeze and firelight could not. It was full dark now and Taz was somewhat happy she’d covered the Undead while the sun had been painting the sky brilliant colors. If she stayed out here all night, and skipped sleep, she could read the rest of the book, do the breakfast and lunch chores, then be back at the library by the evening to return the book. That way, she would stay on Talia’s good side and not have it too long. Plus… she had so many questions… and she was hoping the librarian could help her with them.

Walking back to her seat, she paused before sitting down. The chill was getting to the extreme tonight, mostly due to the wind and to the rain that would surly come. Taz tried to appreciate nights like this because it was these sorts of scenarios she longed for in the blaze of the summer heat. At least then, she had to the jungle to retreat into. The humidity would always haunt them, but nights like this kept things cooled down.

So she walked into the Inn, stopped by the little cupboard she kept by the door, and pulled out a spare pair of socks. She slipped them on her feet and brought down a blanket she had tucked in a chest off to one side in the main room. She padded back to the deck, wrapped the blanket around her, and opened both her notes and the text back to the section she was currently at.

She redipped her quill and then in careful neat handwriting wrote out the word: Fragments.

Taz studied the word a moment, then went on to read the section. Gods could die in Mizahar. What? She reread the phrase carefully. While this was very infrequent it had happened. Sometimes they didn’t wholly die either. Sagallius, as a mortal, stole Aquiras’ heart and in essence killed the God of Travel and Doors. Sagallius then rose to become the god of Manipulation and Puppetry. The text noted that the seasonal God and Goddess’ had been replaced a few times too.

The old ones died, disappeared, or somehow were overwhelmed and new powers rose. The text was too old to mention the Valterrian and Sylir being slain, but Taz knew that had happened. And it was somewhat common knowledge in Riverfall that a fragment of Sylir was still existing in Syliras in the form of a tree called the Wind Oak. She’d heard the story from a traveler and his Konti lady.

The book also mentioned that Myri killed Ruros and thus ascended to the rank of Goddess of War. She, supposably, was only chieftain’s daughter then chieftain herself.


Myri rose to power in Falyndar and when Ruros came to confront her about being called Queen of the Jungle, she slew him with The Battle Glaive of the Dead, a weapon called ‘The Ash’dene’. It was one of the first Voril Weapons, as it absorbed some of Ruros’ power when Myri slew him with it. And thus it was why every person with at least a bit of Ruros’ blood in them could practice Vorilescence and handle Voril Weapons. The weapons themselves were fragment monsters, passed down and awakened by people of the blood.
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"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."


Garden Beach Syka The Protea Inn

"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
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Tazrae
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Researching The Legendary Monsters of Mizahar IV

Postby Tazrae on May 17th, 2022, 1:25 am

Taz took careful note of this, then moved on to the more elaborate description of Fragments. Dead gods equaled fragmentation, and with the fragmenting of that individual deity djed, the massive slivers of power could scatter all over the world and affect all kinds of things. The fragments were often sentient and would retain some aspect of a god or goddess’ power or sphere of influence. Fragments never had the true power of a deity, but they did often have magic, know-how, and capacity to learn, grow, change, and develop.

They were not easy to slay and were often considered ‘unstable’ because of being echoes and fragments of something that used to be whole. Mortal mages of enormous power, such as the Seven Robes, could also create Fragments upon their unexpected and violent deaths. Most Fragments, in fact, were remnants of long-forgotten sources of power – mostly gods – that were killed in the early days of Humans coming to Mizahar.

Taz finished copying that down, writing in her own thoughts she added speculation about how many gods were there and how many have existed to rise and fall in the world? Didn’t that take something away from their divinity? If they were as fallible as mortal men and as vulnerable to slaying as this text seemed to make it out to be… then that made them not exactly immortal, just perhaps something different than a human. Taz still believed and noted this in the blank book that was quickly filling up… that the divine were just people that happened to run on the energy of prayer and devotion. Instead of eating for regeneration, Taz suspected they absorbed the power of prayer and worship from their followers.

She reined in her thinking. This was not about who the Gods were nor what exactly the Gods were. This was about pieces of divinity that once existed and did not anymore being trapped between the living and dying. Fragments must exist in an in-between place where they had to start over and build their own lives from the ashes of whatever spawned them. It was beautiful and terrible at the same time, Tazrae wrote, adding that death begets life and vice versa. Her view on this was backed up by the text as she read on, noting in her own journal that Fragments often created their own society, making their own servants, and played decidedly by their own rules.

Taz took a breath. That wasn’t nearly as scary as she’d thought. She looked past the lit torches and out onto the beach. The Ixam were wrestling something back down to the beach from the flotsam line, working as a team to do so. At first, she thought it was a body, stiffened from age. But the more she looked the more she realized it was only a huge chunk of driftwood. Still… cooperative hunting and now play? She was impressed by it and proud of the Ixams getting smarter.

Taz muttered at the flickering flame of her candle and cupped her palm to call djed and transition it into res. She set the ball of res hovering over her reading material but out of the way of blocking her sight, and lit it up with a gentle but glowing fire. The result was a fine illumination of her writing and reading, which caused her to sag back, take a moment to stretch her arms up, and go back to her readings.
Last edited by Tazrae on May 17th, 2022, 1:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Image
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."


Garden Beach Syka The Protea Inn

"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
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Tazrae
Be savage, not average.
 
Posts: 1335
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Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
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Researching The Legendary Monsters of Mizahar IV

Postby Tazrae on May 17th, 2022, 1:27 am

Insids. That was the next word she wrote. It didn’t seem so bad, until she leaned closer with her newly illuminated writing surface, and began reading. Insids were just a shortened term for creatures that dwell in the Insidious Realm. They visit the mortal realm and divine realms occasionally… when they can escape their prison. As she continued to read, Taz’s stomach got more and more rock hard with a knot at its center. She pulled aside her sheet of paper and noted down to ask Talia and Mathias both what the various realms where and what they were like.

According to the text, the Insids came in every shape, size, and color, and spoke an almost universal language among themselves and common among folks from the mortal realm. Some of them were tiny little nuisances that no one paid attention to. While others were incredibly powerful and threatening. It seemed an Insid that was in the mortal realm could find a host and burrow in, possessing them as a ghost could, and utilizing their host's gifts as their own.

They often burned through hosts, causing them to waste away physically and emotionally, driving them insane by whispering in their minds or making them do things that were counter to the host’s original nature. The text claimed, as well, that hosts that died by Insid Possession, would drop out of the reincarnation cycle - there was that word again – and be banished to the Insidious Realm themselves.

And in that realm, anything sent there including ghosts dusted by spiritists, would have to fight for their survival, often torturing or being tortured until the strongest won out. The author of the text equated them to the hosts of insect parasites that didn’t die during the infection process but rather suffered silently, trapped within their own minds, unable to control their actions if the Insid they hosted was stronger than they were.


Taz looked for more on the realm itself, curious if that was one of the places the World Gate could take a person to. But she didn’t believe so. For some reason, the World Gate resources seemed to be entirely different worlds where realms seemed to be …. Maybe layers in this world? Taz wasn’t sure… it was a question for Mathias.

It reminded her too. She wanted to ask him if he knew if the World Gate was dangerous… if things could still come through it? Was that another thing they should be guarding? Taz inverted her left wrist and rubbed at the mark on it. Syka Guardian. She’d been so honored to accept the position, but now…. now that she knew more about Syka and the threats out in the world, she wasn’t sure she was cut out for it. It was a lot of responsibility… far more than she’d bargained for. And in that, she didn’t envy the Founders.
Last edited by Tazrae on May 17th, 2022, 1:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Image
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."


Garden Beach Syka The Protea Inn

"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
User avatar
Tazrae
Be savage, not average.
 
Posts: 1335
Words: 1916653
Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
Location: Syka
Race: Human
Character sheet
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Medals: 5
Mizahar Grader (1) Overlored (1)
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Researching The Legendary Monsters of Mizahar IV

Postby Tazrae on May 17th, 2022, 1:29 am

She went back to reading about Insids… and their forays into Mizahar’s Mortal Realm. It seemed sometimes Summoners could have accidents and summon an Insid. This mostly happened with mages trying to summon things that were not at the same power level or knowledge they were at. And ghosts… if ghosts got back after being dusted having been on the Insidious Realm, they never return as the same ghost they left as. They are darker, more powerful, and full of negative energy and emotions. They have drives they never had before.

The text claimed, as Tazrae copied copious notes, that most ghosts didn’t survive. They were instead consumed by Insids once in their realm. And those that did return, survived torture, and then they themselves had to turn to cannibalization and the eating of other ghosts and Insids to survive. So in that manner, it made ghosts a form of monsters too.. because the sound of how changed the returned creature meant that they’d been through a lot and might never recover. A man, to a ghost, to a monster. Taz wondered if she’d ever encountered an Insid?

So once they were here, how do you kill something that wasn’t dead? She wrote the question out and as she did so, she realized that it wasn’t a matter of killing them. It was simply a matter of sending them home. So how was that done? Magical items could help banish Insids to their home realm.

Holy Symbols and deep faith can add power to one’s attempt to send a straggler not belonging to this realm home. Faith was also a protection against insid infestation and possession. And sadly, the text was clear that there was currently no known divine or world magic that deals with Insids. If there had been one, the knowledge was well hidden, coveted, and would most likely be lost.

Reading further, Taz discovered there were situations where Insids slipped in. Highly emotional events, wars, wild djed, mass tragedy, and a whole host of other happenings could throw around enough power to pull Insids from the Insidious Realm. The creepy thing about it was that they didn’t have to fully manifest in the mortal realm to influence it.

They just needed access to the realm itself. That fact put a whole new meaning on the word ‘put a toe in the water’ or ‘get your feet wet. The text never said how they manifested or what they looked like, but Tazrae got a clear enough picture from what she was reading that they were violent, dark, and entirely counter to their hosts, usually.
Image
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."


Garden Beach Syka The Protea Inn

"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
User avatar
Tazrae
Be savage, not average.
 
Posts: 1335
Words: 1916653
Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
Location: Syka
Race: Human
Character sheet
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Journal
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Medals: 5
Mizahar Grader (1) Overlored (1)
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Syka Seasonal Challenge (1)

Researching The Legendary Monsters of Mizahar IV

Postby Tazrae on May 17th, 2022, 1:31 am

Rereading the text again, she finally found something of interest. Insids could not live long on the mortal realm without a host. Destroying the host and preventing an Insid from re-infesting someone else would often lead to its demise. Most hosts, it seemed, didn’t even know they were being ridden by something so horrible. They simply started having dark thoughts, displayed erratic behavior, and often became overly emotional or challenging to societal rules. A formerly nice person could wake one morning and find themselves behaving erratically, violently, and even harming other people and themselves.

Fortunately, Insids escaping the Insidious Realm was a rare thing. But hosts were easy to find. They were almost always people who were wanting more out of life than their current station. They were greedy, power-hungry, people who often felt emotionally weak or lonely, hungry for attention or people who were already emotionally damaged by abuse or a history of childhood neglect. Insids could not just crawl into anyone’s body and let them become their host. They had to seduce their way into someone’s body and be willingly invited. That was the primary situation. However, there was a secondary more rare occurrence of an Insid not wanting a willing host.

These darker nastier creatures tended to make it a sporting event or long-term sick game to take over a host’s body physically and torture them from within. Since they seemed to have the ability to control the host after they’d inhabited the body for a while, this made it doubly pleasurable for them if the host wasn’t willing.

Talk about darkness. Taz could only shake her head. Dismissing the ball of burning res she’d kept above her little makeshift writing desk, Taz gathered up her supplies, the borrowed book, and took everything inside. It was dark, but it wasn’t that late. She set the borrowed book in a safe place and decided she was going to head over to Mathias’ place and see if she could question him further. She had some burning questions for both him and the librarian Talia, and she hoped they’d be willing to answer them. Taz wasn’t going to return the book until in the morning, so it made more sense for her to ask Mathias her questions first.

She reviewed the page.

Questions for Mathias/Any Priest?

  • What sort of Monsters did the Valterrian spawn?
  • What is Reincarnation?
  • What the various realms where and what are they like?


Then she checked on her questions for Talia.
Questions for Talia

  • Where did humans come from if they didn’t originate in Mizahar?
  • Ask for a Book on Fairytales for Further Monster Research.
  • What is a Controlled Laboratory Environment?
  • Ask about Chavena and Ukalas… various realms including Mortal Realm?
  • What is genetics?
  • What does the word Shoyden mean as a world and what is an astral coordinate, specifically 0012926672185630?
  • What is Reincarnation?
  • What the various realms where and what are they like?


With her two lists in hand, Taz set off to have a quick chat with Mathias.

Words: 2564
Image
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."


Garden Beach Syka The Protea Inn

"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
User avatar
Tazrae
Be savage, not average.
 
Posts: 1335
Words: 1916653
Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
Location: Syka
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Journal
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Medals: 5
Mizahar Grader (1) Overlored (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Syka Seasonal Challenge (1)

Researching The Legendary Monsters of Mizahar IV

Postby Tazrae on March 13th, 2023, 3:56 pm

Grading!


Tazrae-


History +5, Religion + 1, Vorilescence +1, Investigation +5, Reimancy +1, Logic +1, Research +5, Writing +5, Anthropology +5

Fragment Monsters: Appearance & Mannerisms, Religion: God Could Die, Religion: Sagallius Stole Aquarias’ Heart, Religion: Sag Rose To Become God Of Manipulation And Puppetry, Religion: Seasonal Goddesses & Gods Replaced Periodically, Religion: Myri Killed Ruros, Ash’dene: Battle Glaive Of The Dead, Ruros: Those With His Blood Can Use Vorilescence & Handle Voril Weapons, Voril Weapons: Fragment Monsters, Voril Weapons: Can Be Awakened By Normal People With Ruros’ Blood, Fragments: Commonly Created By Death Of Gods & Goddesses, Fragments: Often Sentient, Fragments: Often Contained An Essence Of Their Fragmented Deities Power, Fragments: Unstable, Fragments: Hard to Kill/Unpredictable, Insids: Appearance & Mannerisms, Insids: From The Insidious Realm, Insids: Spoke A Universal Language Among Themselves, Insids: Parasitic Creatures That Burned Through Hosts, World Gate: Different Worlds, Not Linked To Different Realms, Ghosts: When Dusted Went To Insidious Realm – Often Didn’t Return, Insids: The Situations They Tended To Involved Themselves In, Insids: Didn’t Find Easy Access To Mortal Realms – But When Did Flooded It, Insids: Cant Survive The Mortal Realm Without A Host, Insids: Destroying Host Destroys Insid
Image
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."


Garden Beach Syka The Protea Inn

"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
User avatar
Tazrae
Be savage, not average.
 
Posts: 1335
Words: 1916653
Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
Location: Syka
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Journal
Plotnotes
Medals: 5
Mizahar Grader (1) Overlored (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Syka Seasonal Challenge (1)


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