Closed Moving On

[Luke]

Winter 85, 125

Well, it was finally happening. Kage was moving out of the basin and to the great redwood forest in the east. He'd put it off for so long, but he desired a change of pace. It looked as though he would be primarily stationed in-country unless he ever gave interest in spending a hundred years abroad again, which definitely wasn't something that interested him at the moment.

He had most of his important belongings and furniture loaded up onto one of his larger treants, one that was usually off working in the mines but he'd brought it over to help move his things. It was going to be a very long trip and there was no way he was going to move all this stuff by himself.

Why was he moving? Officially, he wanted to be closer to military operations. His new home would be much closer, not that distance was ever really a factor when he could use means to move from one place to another very quickly. Unofficially? He had gotten quickly bored of how his life was faring in his old home. It was getting cramped with all the people he'd taken in, it didn't have enough room to facilitate his work, and above all he felt like he was getting old.

Some of his neighbors understood, others thought he was being too hasty. Others thought he'd be back in a week. Kage didn't even know if he was going to be able to commit. Alas, he had to try. There was the matter of what to do with his faithful servants. Abraia and Fluffy were some of the closest ones he'd come to know.

Part of him told him to pass them on to another aelf, but Fluffy knew far too much about his personal life to be allowed to live. If he didn't keep her, then nobody would have her. Abraia, well she officially belonged to Engill, but Abraia had served her purpose. She had helped catapult Engill's popularity and allowed her to show off her craftsmanship to eyes that would have likely never seen it. Now? Abraia was just a novelty plaything to be discarded. It wasn't as if she even made anything that he could make use of.

"Okay you two," he said, walking up to them. He'd told them to meet him in front of the house.

395

 

[Raya]

So long house. She had lived here for not very long and it wasn't the best house she had been in. She preferred the spacious accommodations in the fire lands. It was still better than her own house that had been sold a long time ago.

Abraia stood lazily in front of the house. She had loaded her few belongings so she was ready to go. She had never been to the red forest before. She was excited to go to a new place with new faces. She was only half awake. The drugs in her body kept her in a submissive and barely functional state. Better that way than to realize what she had become.

"Is it time to go?" She asked with a big yawn that almost made her fall over. She couldn't wait to get a move on. She also wanted to go to sleep because it was late.

 

[Luke]

"Yes, we will be leaving soon. I don't need the two of you causing any trouble for me, so I will put both of you two sleep for a while. When you wake up, you'll be in your new home. First, Fluffy, I'll have you transfigure your tiger into a rabbit. That'll make him easier to transport."

Fluffy nodded and beckoned the tiger who gingerly walked over. She focused for a minute and then it shifted into a bunny.

"And you may revert me back to my original form."

Fluffy nodded, and slowly undid her transfiguration on him.

Kage smiled when the process was done and then held out a hand and started to wrap them with branches. Abraia was free to resist, if she wanted to. Fluffy didn't. It wasn't the first time that she'd had her energy drained away. Acting as a battery was originally one of her primary jobs in Kage's employ.

If Abraia did resist, Kage would not force the issue and would let Abraia be unharmed for now. If Abraia didn't resist, she would probably pass out fairly quickly compared to Fluffy. When the both of them were knocked out from being so drained, Kage would open up a portal with the phrase "trjálundur" and push their bodies through it.

Now that that was out of the way, he let the portal close and turned away. It was never easy losing pets… but he still had a few left. Droplet and White were chained and already sitting on the treant. And he already had plans to acquire some more after his move.



Math:

I don't really know the math on syphoning via druidism but I'm guessing it's about a net gain/loss of zero since he's just replenishing his reserves with their saol.

 

[Velho]

༺༉❁ Winter 85, 125 of the third age ❁༉༻

Previous submissions by Kage had largely been mangled bodies of unremarkable Fælnir, some few Vokhai and a couple foreign humans identified to have been Jianese. Previously, they'd all been injured in some way. This time, two female figures– appearing unharmed– fell through the portal onto the soft moss below. It would be a few hours (maybe a day, maybe more?) before Velho emerged from the forest's shadows to check them, and by that time, both of them would have enough Saol back to be vaguely conscious. Unfortunately, they would still be far too exhausted to move, minds wracked with the symptoms of low Saol; they'd be effectively prisoners in their own bodies.

To his surprise, the ferrier actually recognized one of them– in the recent past, he'd met with the modified Inari's master, Kage. She was only memorable for that reason; he thought Kage's choice of pet was bizarre. The Faelnir girl he ought've recognized, but by this point, all humans had begun to blend together. Velho didn't bother trying to remember Faelnir faces, but given the Inari's presence, he had to wonder if they were both pets of Kage.

But why was he surprised? It wasn't uncommon for his people to tire of their pets even for the most abstract reasons. And with the season change looming, perhaps this was an early form of spring cleaning. Exhaling Ash alongside a soft chuckle, he figured this was an easier disposal method than normal– drain their Saol and throw them through a portal. Simple, clean, efficient; no bodies, no fuss.

As Velho knelt down beside the nearby rune, he'd notice that they were awake but too exhausted to act. "May the Nightfather treat you well," he'd say to them, voice like velvet yet laced with subtle mockery.

The next word to leave his lips was 'trjálundur', the same keyphrase given to Kage, which would open another portal below them.

•════════════════════• Caligony ❀ ​

Over the proceeding moments, Fluffy and Abraia would fall through this prismatic doorway into a sprawling, dark cathedral. The walls and overall shape of the room would resemble a black ballroom, though by this point it had been nigh entirely subsumed by Father Malachai's writhing malignancy. Were their eyes open, their fall would be just long enough to see the creature's gaping maw before they fell into the roiling dark. The end of their feeble lives would be a mess of gnashing teeth and sharp claws– bones would break, skin would tear, and then…the end.

 

[Vicissitude]

Outside of Time​

…rather, the end for Fluffy. The poor Inari, loyal up until her final moments, would be entirely consumed, body and soul, to fuel the Null's voracious Ascension. However, after the agony of her death, Abraia's soul would once again find consciousness in a vast span of nothingness. She would see nothing, hear nothing, smell nothing, feel nothing, her only company being her own thoughts. How long she'd float like this would be unknown, but to her, it'd feel like ages– years, even– her sanity slowly decaying due to a complete lack of stimulus.

Then, out of nowhere, she'd hear the whispers: "...stubborn soul– a light in the dark– a flame that won't die. Useful? Maybe. "

Had she imagined that? The words came to her in a series of voices; each pause was followed by the sound of a new voice, yet the cadence indicated the speaker was the same. A low, bassy man's, a soft, lilting woman's, a tenor whose gender would be impossible to place, and then the pitchy, shrill voice of a child.

Before she'd be able to formulate a response, Abraia's consciousness would find the 'world' around her warping. Overwhelmingly and all at once, the vast span of nothingness she'd grown used to would shift to a gray desert of silken Ashes, her only company being decaying buildings that might remind her of a place she once called home. In her peripheral vision, she might see flickers of other souls, but she would be unable to tell if they were truly there or merely her imagination.

For a time, she would exist here in Avernus as a new body would slowly form from the swirling Ashes until she no longer resembled her old self at all. No longer mortal, the newly born Onyro would be able to forge a new identity for herself, her old memories largely locked away. And though now native to the plane of the dead, she would have little time to explore it before flicking out of existence and re-emerging back on Antarok, her dark rebirth complete.

reborn anew Abraia is now an Onyro. You are free to choose an entirely new name and appearance for her if you so wish, along with a hard or soft reset of her skills.

Furthermore, she has been tainted forevermore by Nihilos. Though she lacks a Blight, she is now Known by Alithea and a member of their ranks will seek her out in the coming season. Her sanity has been tested, but that is not the only gift she's been left with: she may cast the spell 'Mark of Entropy', as detailed below.

Mark of Entropy

1 Free cast per week​

She may hex any target with a touch. Over the next 12 hours, the target will rapidly age and die even if immortal, leaving behind a desiccated husk.

꧁══════════• ༺༉ ❁ ❀ ❁ ༉༻•══════════꧂​

 

[Raya]

Abraia was awake enough to realize that something incredibly bad had happened, and she attributed it all towards Kage. She could barely move as she lay there on top of Fluffy. Crest. It was her saving grace. Already her Aeris was working to free her. It pulled her along the ground towards freedom.

Then Velho arrived. That was someone who had helped her before. She begged for him to help her again but her lips could only tremble. Godheads were not going to save her today.

Blackness, pain, fear. She felt it all as she was torn apart. She was nothing and then she was something. A pile of ash that came into being. Her memories faded but not enough to keep her from wanting to go back to Aelheim to take care of unfinished business.

There was a new power in her unlike the one she used to have. In life she had happy powers of freedom and creativity. Now she had the power to consume and to kill. She would no longer be an innocent doe. This time around, she was going to be a winner.

 

[Luke]

Kage was none the wiser as to what was going on. Over the months of gathering bodies for this cause, he'd never seen them again. He assumed the bodies were used for testing or some kind of slave labor. In either case, he figured he would never see Fluffy or Abraia again. He quickly pushed them to the back of his mind where he intended to think back fondly on them. They had been good pets. Not the best he'd ever had, but entertaining and useful nonetheless.

If only Kage had listened to the treant in Fluffy's ear, he might have gotten a whiff of what was really going on. But the thought hadn't even crossed his mind and he would stay in the dark. He wouldn't even notice the tether get cut.

"Let's get going," he told his treant that creaked under its own weight. They were to meet up with an exodii soon to get them to where they needed to go.

 

[Luke]

Thread Title: Moving On

Thread Summary: Kage sacrifices Fluffy and Abraia. Abraia is reborn as an Oryo

Expected Rewards:
Kage: 8 XP

Raya: 3 XP
Mark of Entropy, 1 Free cast per week, She may hex any target with a touch. Over the next 12 hours, the target will rapidly age and die even if immortal, leaving behind a desiccated husk.

Velho / Vicissitude: 9 XP

Thread Link: https://antarok.net/threads/moving-pt-1.505/#post-2677
​

 

[Vicissitude]

꧁══════════•༺༉ { Canonized } ༉༻•══════════꧂​

❀ Rewards ❀

All requested rewards granted!

❀ Comments ❀

What a fun way to breathe new life into who is to become Raya (I kind of love that Malachai is being used as a garbage disposal stuff y'all don't want anymore; RIP Fluffy)!

Due to this thread being near the end of the season, I'm pushing the Alithea content to Spring so that you can use the last few days of Winter to acclimate Raya to her new existence before being swept into my happy little cult.

꧁══════════•༺༉ ❁ ❀ ❁ ༉༻•══════════꧂​