Birth of a sky[Open RP]

[Krissanasli]

The elder spires of the portal fluttered on the ground, contracting and dissolving in a subtle, complex pattern. Beneath them, closer to the core, like blades of grass among tall trees, whirled brighter yet more fragile shapes. They spewed from the core every moment while their predecessors fell - it was a dance of magic, whose intricate purpose was unknown even to their creator. Every scrap of energy emerging from the core affected its neighbours somehow, and once the portal opened, its structure would become too complicated to predict. Thus, the elder spires danced to their own silent tune. Their shimmer, woven from such magics that no stone could ever bear, slipped beyond walls and into mirrors built within the chamber\'s rim. There, they collapsed against a plating of enchanted glass, carved into a robust shape that would nullify its powers and send back a softened version of itself. The softened magic would, in turn, weaken the portal\'s fresh energies, ensuring that it remained stable. Their bright green would returned a more pale nuance, drained of its lethal majesty. It was this thin glass plating that protected the room -and indeed, everything around it- from the full force of the portal, which, if allowed to grow unhindered, would devastate those nearby and widen to a catastrophic size. For now, it simply cast its brilliance and quarreled with the floor, a whirlpool of raw magic trapped without a sea.

From its depressed and whirling center, the spires furiously crawled outwards, like the desperate rays of a forgotten, dying sun. Shadows cut through their reflections on the ceiling and the walls whenever the portal sank, consuming what little space the light had yielded. Still, nothing came of these small victories, as the receded sunrays would immediately grow back, as if to taunt their treacherous oppressors. In a swift rhythm of retraction, pause and reemergence, they and the surrounding shadows endlessly played out their skirmish. It was a spectacle that kindled Solliba\'s bright, vivid eyes... Younger than most of his peers, the Earthspeaker still held a passion for the treasures of his World.

\"Is this artifice?\", he wondered aloud. \"Is this channel truly mine, like a child, or...?\" As if to reply, the oldest of the portal\'s rays reached out and whipped around his feet. A slight burst of reassurance flew up from Solliba\'s heart, eager to nourish the gleam of its eyes, yet over the course of its journey, it met only resistance. He scowled, shook his head and stepped back. After a moment, when the greenish shape fell back, he bitterly conlcuded: \"...Or maybe not.\" He resolved to lean back, stare into the portal\'s core and press his hands against his wings - a gesture of futility. For all his triumphs in the service of his World, he felt deprived of something.

\"It\'s the  that\'s missing - that\'s the problem. We learn how to prepare the temples, how to pray... Never how to make even the simplest miracle. That may be for the World only, but everything else is too little.\" The words fell harshly through his teeth, as though embedded into solid metal fragments. Each letter was the pommel jewel of a tiny sword, flung towards the portal\'s lifeless body with the hope of slaying it. \"The World does too much.\", he pondered. It was true in a way: unlike most other lands, where some God, Greater Soul or Pantheon held dominance, the World itself was master here - an outcast, long abandoned by the gods that had imbibed its shores with life. According to the legends, when they sought to take away part of its land, the World resisted, and in doing so exposed its latent powers. Since then, long after its original inhabitants had gone, it continually changed itself, existing in a state of eternal imbalance. It was, in a way, its own craftsman. Eventually, the World called in new dwellers to refine its craftsmanship, and they obliged, stepping in through simple portals that could only be crossed once. The World spoke to its first residents and taught them the ways of its magic, so that they would know how best to serve it. Since then, the knowledge of the World was passed on through writings and words... Nothing so grand as the voice of the World itself.

Yet the World showed itself through everything, for the priests swayed to its desires and built things of its hide; they seeded portals such as this one and rebuked them with a touch, aware that they possessed no magic of their own. It was the World that toiled and grew, regardless of his need to make something of his own. At once dismayed and proud of his colossal god, Solliba glared at the bright portal: a miracle that vaulted over his ambitions. His claws embraced his wings more tightly, until pain began to ooze behind his skin. His grip relaxed, and his eyes closed as if to mourn his stricken flesh. \"Where is that girl?...\", he ushered through his scowled lips before turning away, towards a door that flanked his supple form.

[Krissanasli]

A yawn of soft wood scratching stone engulfed his silence. From without, from a hall laced with globes of light and carefully-hewn walls, the body of another Klyros filled the pointed doorway. After a glance briefly scraped the room\'s far wall, she wandered in. Her shadow, slipping on Solliba\'s features past the curved edge of her wings, concealed the aspect of proud sadness that he\'d worn in solitude. Slowly, as darkness ventured deeper beyond the clear blue of his skin, it left a feeling of disgust across its path: here she was, a trespasser into his most sacred alcove, ignorant and heartless to the World\'s magnificence. He had instructed her to come, but now that she was there before him, it somehow felt inappropriate.

The new arrival painted glances on the portal\'s dull green thorns, briefly disturbed by their appearance. The structure wasn\'t new to her, but she had never seen it glow so vibrantly... The few times she had entered this place, it was no more than a small patch set in the floor.

A moment foretold the green spires\' downfall, another their emergence and another their stagnation, and from this simple throbbing motion, her eyes found themselves wrapped in reverie. Her gaze turned soft and servile, following the portal\'s waves, while her wings tightened and embraced her, narrowing the shadow that had marred Solliba\'s face. Bemused, she watched the spires curl and shivr until one of them, more daring than its peers, stretched through the floor and crawled on her bare feet. She followed it along the span of her slight, soft-boned shins, then up along her knees and thighs, until it finally came just below her waist. Then, as the spire twitched and faded, a new amazement seeped into her eyes: she found all her belongings changed somehow. Her clothes had grown dark, her bracers had hardened; the flask in her hand shimmered green, as though polluted by the portal\'s tender light. She wrapped her hands around it, hoping that this would provide at least some degree of protection, and carefully stepped back...

Her wings pressed quietly against Solliba\'s claws, barely aware that someone was behind them. Confused and worried, she looked back, hoping to spot the face of some unknown, unfriendly priest... When her eyes touched Solliba\'s, her hopes were lost amidst a  wave of joy.

\"Hello...\", she whispered on her shoulder, half-excited and half-lingering in fear. As her words grew, so did her courage, and she soon found herself speaking in a loud and gleeful tone. \"I\'ve got it for ten Oaths - young, filtered, World-commuted. Here,\" she exclaimed as her hand flew back from the flask, \"is the juice, with the two Oaths left over. Now, what just happened to me?\" Still imbibed with the excitement of fresh victory, the girl left a broad grin to tend her features. Opposite here, the priest\'s frown only flourished. His eyes shone green, sated with mana, and his dark gaze denounced her friendliness. Between them, her broad hands sought to reach his own, one holding the flask and the other bare of any promises.

\"I mean\", she cheerfully continued, oblivious to his disgust, \"Why is the juice shining like that? Why are mt bracelets so tight suddenly?\" The silence of his stoic figure easily repelled her words. A few flickers of the portal went by, slipping through her shadow, but no light could prevail against his bitterness. Strained by confusion, her clear voice cast three more words into the silence: \"Is something wrong?\"

The priest finally shook his head. \"I was willing to give you another task for me, but now, I\'m not sure.\" His left hand quickly gripped the flask, seizing her cold fingers beside it, while a pair of black beads fell into her open palm. She released two more from a pouch hanging below his neck, then muttered: \"Enjoy them. .\" Sensing concern in the girl\'s hand, he slipped his own away and brought the flask before him. Devoid of concern, he pressed a claw into the cork and tore it open. \"Let me see.\", he grumbled, and pried the cork from his finger. It fell into the girl\'s hand, who stared at it for moment. Solliba\'s anger was unusual - almost unheard-of, in fact - and to see him in such a state... The girl could only shake her head.
He brought the flask towards the ceiling, and the green shimmer reappeared: without his skin\'s protection, the light was free to ravage the thick liquid it contained. Glowing when the portal grew and fading when it faded, the flask\'s contents somehow resonated with the mana flowing through it.

Solliba smiled at this, bringing a fresh glimmer of joy upon his dark and weary lips. The white fangs embroiding his smile would have seemed gruesome to a man, but for the Klyros eyes that saw them, they were a testament of joy. \"Yes... That\'s good enough...\", Solliba hissed. \"A little unresponsive to the mana, but that\'s irrelevant. Thank you, Krissan.\" His eyes fell meekly on her own, and melted in the quiet of her stare. \"What\'s wrong?\", she whispered, hiding her concern among the sheets of her soft voice.

\"Many things, I suppose. Nothing to concern you...\" Saying this, he turned away and gestured idly with his hand, almost spilling a small droplet from the green flask it enveloped. As he stared into the portal\'s open, churning maw, his voice took on a slight insistence: \"Now, do you know why I asked for this?\"
The girl shrugged and leaned back, setting her palms against the blanket of her wings. \"Rituals?\"

He shook his thick head almost instantly, smashing the word before it reached his ears. \"If only you knew...\", he muttered, and went on towards the portal. Krissan chose to follow him. Already, his great shadow was emerging around hers, and when he reached the portal\'s edge, the two had become indistinguishable. His voice, formerly charred and grim, emerged in harmony with the bright, twirling lights around him. \"If only you knew! This portal can be changed in ways that... In the most astonishing ways! This,\"-he waved the flask about-\"This potion can change it, if I throw it in at the right time. The next tide... Minutes from now... That\'s when I\'ll need to pour it in. And the result?\" He smiled again, this time more easily, and turned back to the girl. Her body leaned forward instinctively, to sip the last and most excited of his words: \"It\'ll open to another land - far beyond ours.\"

\"And you?...\", she whispered through her teeth, unsure of the priest\'s purpose. The skin of her arms fluttered green, abandoned to the war between the portal and his shadow. Inside her small and lazy heart, a thunder was emerging.
\"No, my dear...\", he responded. \"You are.\"



Beyond the portal\'s maw, eternity could dance around a single moment. A wide sac, fashioned in a teardrop\'s shape, extended on the other side to guard its one inhabitant from time\'s capriciousness. Once full, the tear would break away and sail towards another world, one overtaken by the madness of a god. A moment was the toll to cross eternity; and in that moment, she could only think of her return.

The teardrop shattered almost instantly. Like the petals of a daisy, its bright folds peeled away and collapsed around the girl, forming a solar pattern on the ground. A shaft of light surrounded her, extending as the petals fell, and finally dispersed into a shapeless mass of brilliance. She looked up, beyond the cottages and towers carving at the sky, to hail the source of the blue light that welcomed her into this world. It seemed as though she had emerged in solitude, away from the excitment of the streets ahead. The alleyway was unfamiliar, bearing a dirt-caked, crumbling floor and buildings patched with wood. She tiptoed through the cobblestone for many moments, at once cautious and excited by the strangeness of the city, before finally arriving at the alley\'s edge. From there, a narrow stairway led up to the city streets. The morninglight emblazoned passers-by with a blue tinge, while the streets themselves, still sore from the past day\'s travellers, cried out whenever the sparse crowds would touch them.

Reaching the base of the stairs, Krissan felt the strangeness of this world sink into her. A barrier of thoughts and worries instantly rose from her feet, and even though the way was clear, she found that she could not step forward. Should I climb up? There\'s no other way out, and nothing to do in this cranny of the world... Won\'t anyone wonder how I came out of nowhere? I should\'ve asked him about that... Her eyes closed, her soft breath perished and her legs shivered with tension. Rather than wait in the alley until the streets cleared, she chose to step forward and reach the first person she\'d see. When she did cross into the torch-lit street ahead, her eyes flickered, unused to the strange lights and the stranger things they lit: creatures unlike those of her matron World,  devoid of wings and crowns. Dirt-colored grass grew from their heads, sometimes covering their backs, and rather than strip it away, they seemed to actually enjoy it. What would they do with all this?, the girl wondered,
unable to suppress her ever-growing awe. Is it for protection? Some sort of magic?... What?

Drowning in her contemplation, Krissan\'s eyes scoured through the hair of every traveller they met. Bright yellow, dark and vivid red, they seemed as different as the crests of her own people. Perhaps that\'s it..., she finally decided. They just grow weeds instead of crests. Her eyes continued their assement, although this time, they searched for a trustworthy face rather than a wonderous feature. They quickly landed on the nearest traveller, whom she determined worthy. Her hand reached forward, tugged the stranger\'s clothes and fell away, uncertain of its own gesture\'s effect. \"You...\", she addressed the strange creature, hiding her concern inside a swift and boisterous growl. \"You look like a seasoned fellow. How do I get to the nearest weed trader?\"

[OOC: apologies for the shoddy writing, half-assed plot and dumb way to join up with another player. Maybe something interesting will come out of this, though...]

[Cybio Kingfist]

[Maybe I could join? If not, ignore this post. It\'s late, though, so I don\'t expect it will be much.]

The man turned slowly from what he was doing, as if waking from  a trance. Previously he had been staring into a fountain, as if watching something. He was covered in short fur, tall for his kind with skin tight against his wired features. Rather than responding to her appearance, he reacts with greater confusion to the question. His prominent brow drops, head tipping and shoulders slacking, a foreiner might find he looked disgusted. \"Excuse me...A weed trader?\" he counters, answering question with quesion. He pulls himself up some, wondering if this was an inside joke or insult. \"Why might you be seeking a weed trader?\"

[I posted him being at the fountain because that is where we met IC, I thought it kinda fit.]

[Krissanasli]

OOC: Sorry this has taken so long. In the future, I\'ll try to respond as soon as you post. Also, I\'ve decided for this character to be *completely different* from the krissanasli you\'ve known in-game. I\'m going to play both in CB... Therefore, I think a new name is in order. Eskalsaneski (with the accent on the penultimate syllable) seems nice. Impossible to type, too.

IC: Amidst the calm footsteps of strangers and the hails of  anxious birds, a new dawn was emerging over this abandoned street. What few people still travelled it, apart from Eskal and the man, had mostly reached a building\'s corner and were prepared to passed on - either to more generous lanes or to a tower\'s the narrow courtyard. She glimpsed only a few of them on her way to the fountain, but it was obvious that no one was around her... No one, of course, beside the wonderous beast ahead. How could someone cover himself in white moss, and wear clothes on top of that - as if the moss was simply one more layer of skin - without having gathered it all from a weed trader? Perhaps Solliba was wrong..., she forged within her whirling mind. Confused as well, Eskal could barely clump whatever notions of this place she had been given, and strive to make an accurate perception out of them. Failure would wait, its claws extended, at the end of her attempt... She tried to smile, but nothing came of this, for her pale lips were fused together in the fire of distain. And he thinks I know everything about this world, even though I\'m obviously so unlike him? He doesn\'t even ask about me, how I look, why I came... Perhaps he\'s lived in this wasteland for longer than he ought to.

Undaunted by her inner questions, her lips produced their own, so quietly that she was only half-aware of it at first. \"So you just give your weeds away? I would\'ve thought this hollow world was more...\" Her eyes began slowly shifting to mirror her mind\'s own search. Gathered from her former statements, bitterness cluttered her mouth, and all was to be expelled in one word: \"Primitive.\" She spoke it casually, almost as if breathing poison. Once banished from the confines of her lips, it could no longer interfere with their more generous emotions, from which a tranquil smile took seed. She caught the man between her eyes and asked: \"Then, where can I find someone who gives... What do you call it?\" Her webbed hand sliced its way into a pocket of her belt - the only sheet of clothing she had worn in her own World - and fetched a little piece of hard wax smudged with glyphs. Fashioned as a polyhedron, it had to be turned whatever way the symbols pointed for a message to be wrought. After a few spins, she set it away and pronounced: \"Corpse vine and oblivion leaves?\" She briefly brought her wax-crystal back up and slowly read again. \"Yes, leaves, I think...\", she said upon the end, and left the polyhedron in her pocket, which she carelessly sealed with a nick of her small claws. Attached to a single button rather than the entire pair, the pocket\'s flap was more or less exposed to theft. \"Well, then? I\'d like to hurry this... I don\'t belong here, you see, and neither would I like to.\"

[Phinehas]

OOC: I\'m slightly confused, so if I make some mistakes, let me know, and I\'ll edit them.

IC: Phinehas walked busily through the streets on his way to yet another meeting with a confused new member of his guild who needed his help with some trivial matter or other. As he passed he saw a young Enkidukai male, obviously of one of the thieve\'s guilds, by the way his eyes shifted. He seemed to be following a couple of people. Phinehas immediately saw the practically open purse and decided to take a sec to help. He walked up behind the young Enkidukai, placed a hand on his shoulder, and, when the lad looked up, shook his head firmly. The youth understood the meaning, and knowing who he was, immediately dropped the chase. Phinehas, however, decided to go a step farther and warn the strange traveller. He walked up and tapped it on it\'s wing....

[Cybio Kingfist]

OOC: Ok, I don\'t know If I\'m the \'young\' enkidukai Phinehas is fondling, so I\'ll reply assuming I am.

Cybio held back a frown, ethereal self scowling at the shallow remark. He remembers abruptly that not all knew what he did, and decided to take this attitude as a misunderstanding. However prepared he was the next request caught him off guard. He was not certain such things even existed in this world. Perhaps he would ask Hraliss? Better yet, he thought, a Pharmasist.
\"I would suggest you see a medicine man for such things, if there are any around they can probably tell you the source.\"

Feeling flesh against his shoulder, he turns to find a native of the city shaking his head at him. He spans out the possibilities of it\'s meaning and concludes it as a warning. He reaches over slowly and brushes the hand away. \"Excuse me, sir! is there a problem?\" He asks, pretending not to know what the shake meant-as the man was inaccurate in his assumptions.

[Phinehas]

:OOC No, you weren\'t. It was just a random character I inserted allowing me to react to the almost totally open purse carried by our winged friend. But we can move on from here if you want. Oh, and I have a question. Since Eskal came from another world through a portal, is it supposed to be the first Klyros that anyone\'s seen?

[Cybio Kingfist]

OOC: I beleive that is what is happening.

[Phinehas]

OOC: Ok, got it. Btw, can you wrewrite your post or something? \'cause my character wouldn\'t make a mistake like that.

[Cybio Kingfist]

OOC: I\'m busy trying to fix up the guild site and stuff. Let\'s just say the second paragraph never happened?

[Krissanasli]

OOC: For the love of god, don\'t write purely OOC posts... If you really have to, use PMs. It just spoils the continuity and makes reading unpleasant. Also, my character isn\'t the first Klyros to show up... And she hasn\'t seen any other Klyros yet. Also, if my style is too weird, I can change it.

\"Medicine man...\" The growl, roasted in her throat for too long, flew out as a storm of ashes. Her low, distorted voice embodied hunger and delight, but whether these apparent feelings were the product of her spirit, none could say. As it fell shut, her mouth became a cage behind which countless thoughts were trapped, laying unspoken and unheard by the surrounding men. She hissed and slouched her beady eyes towards the white-haired enkidukai... All that she saw was a man hidden among weeds, whose own parasitic lives were somehow bound to his. Maybe they\'re medicine?..., she wondered, and visions sprung out of this thought - visions of hair falling off and brown skin lying underneath, riddled with small clumps of hives that bled a dark and sticky substance. She imagined that these men had all been struck by a contagion, and fear flowed between her thoughts. Why would they all wear these things on their heads? Are their heads sick? I couldn\'t trust them... But then, it seems everyone here has been infested. Perhaps this is a place where they send their sick to recover. Perhaps I stepped out into the wrong part of this temple...

Her surroundings told her nothing of where she could be: stone-brick walls collided with the smaller, polished backs of fences, and the long road gave in to streetways that were themselves bound by buildings. Over them all, the dark soil of Yliakum\'s ceiling lay in hiding, replaced for the time being by an even darker shroud. Morning was slow to come, it seemed. Even her body still wore tinges of deep blue and viscous green, while her own shadow was dissolved in the lane\'s darkened surface. She tried to look for some clue, something that would lead her to the herbs and spare her from any involvement with this wretched man, but no part of the street could help her. Everything was plain, unfurnished and devoid of writing, much like the corridors at home. She hissed again, as quietly as she could, before turning to the moss-covered creature: \"Well, then... Where can I find one? Forgive me, but I\'m only a visitor to this place.\" She was, in fact, planning to leave at the first opportunity.

A rather large gnat fell on her at the same time as she stopped speaking. She could only feel it through its skin, but it was nonetheless a powerful sensation; judging by its wide diameter, the creature might have even been carnivorous. With a stern flap -perhaps a shiver- of her wing, she tried to push away the meddlesome pest, but the sensation became only stronger. Finally, she swung her body and discovered that the insect was, in fact, another person, whose grass grew longer and whose finger was just then retreating from her skin. She growled a bare \"What do you want?\" and looked him in the eyes, unsure of why a stranger would address her.

If Solliba even mentioned this... But he didn\'t. And now that I\'m here, I can\'t turn back... No sense making a new portal now.

[Phinehas]

\"I\'m sorry if I was bothering you. I just wanted to point out that your purse is extremely vulnerable, and not everyone around here is as honest as me. I\'m sorry if I disturbed you.... You appear to be new here, is there anything I can help you with?\"