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Post by Delaela Fenastra-Asiliari on Feb 7, 2023 16:15:18 GMT -5
Del follows Gerhart's eye to the tower, squinting to see the little stained glass crow in the window. She smiles, "Good eye! That might well be it." She starts to walk closer to it, looking up at the sky from under the shelter of her palm. "No clouds... shouldn't be too long. By the time it passes overhead, the light should be blocked by that portion of the tower," She indicates a broken piece of spire with a gesture.
As they start towards the tower itself, the woods on this island grow thick and dense. It was clear no one had been here in some time. Even looking at the ground, Del doesn't see much by way of tracks, even the animal sort. The tree trunks are large and thick, and covered in vines that try to strangle the old forest, reaching up for the sky. The canopy of leaves basks them in a low, emerald light, the leaves on the lower foliage almost black. She carefully picks her way through the trees and underbrush. It was quiet. There was an occasional chirp in the wood from some unseen bird, but otherwise the forest seemed to be listening.
"Our scholarly contact didn't mention to you, either, what he was hoping to gain from us going out here?" She huffed, clearing a large root and waiting at the base for Gerhart to follow. They should be closer to the tower now, and there looked to be a small clearing ahead so they coud get a better visual.
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Post by Ser Gerhart Stanislav on Feb 7, 2023 17:37:41 GMT -5
"I assume he just wants to know what's down here....if it's safe for them to explore and study. The usual stuff." He shrugs, not really sure himself.
Gerhart walked with his hands behind his head, whistling a bit. The woods were awfully quiet, almost as if this place was supposed to be holy ground. His hands slowly drop, maybe he should be a bit more respectful. He headed into the clearing giving a quick glance at the surroundings. It really had been centuries since anything touched this.
The grass came well up their calves and bunches of wildflowers sprouted everywhere. The ivy on the spire looked like the tendrils of earth slowly starting to reclaim the stones. It was impossible to ignore just how ancient this place was now.
"So...should we just topple the spire? Or...do yo think we might just be able to climb to the top and sorta see what we're supposed to?"
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Post by Delaela Fenastra-Asiliari on Feb 8, 2023 20:42:24 GMT -5
Del reaches down to lightly brush her fingers over the wildflowers, smiling a little to herself, before looking up at the tower itself. Hmm. Either could work... she shakes her head, though, eventually. "We should climb it. I think knocking it down would probably undo everything the researcher was hoping we could find here. Plus, it would probably disturb a lot of the forest life that's made a home here, as well as... well, it's old." She stands fluidly from her crouch, and nods to the tower. "The less we disturb it, the better. Old things often have a way of reacting when you mess with them."
Starting across the clearing, Del carefully picks her way through the flowers, trying not to crush any underfoot, but also trying to make sure she didn't accidentally come upon any traps, loose stone, or unexpected animals hiding in the underbrush. Reaching the tower itself, Del holds out a hand to it, feeling the cold stone beneath the sun-basking vines. She gives it a light push, trying to see if it was safe-- so far it held.
"I think we can climb it without worrying it'll collapse on us," Del says, looking back to Gerhart. "It seems to be stable, and there appears to be some stone stairs within that will scale to the top." She looks at the entrance, noticing a long weather-faded border along the threshold stones. "It looks like something was carved here, once."
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Post by Ser Gerhart Stanislav on Feb 8, 2023 20:53:32 GMT -5
"But it looks cool." He fake grumbles and pouts before giving a small laugh. The ranger notes just how carefully Del walks and the reverence she seems to give everything....Perhaps he should take this a bit more seriously. There was a time for being fun and loose, and there was a time to shape things up. This was the latter.
It is impossible for him to be as careful as she is, but his steps are a bit more careful now as he climbs his way up. In contrast to any other knights she may have met, Gerhart is a lot more fluid in his movements having grown used to moving so quickly in armor.
He eventually makes his way up top and dusts himself off with a little huff. Gerhart looks over everything as well, focusing in on the carving and brushing away a bit of the dust. He squints trying to narrow in on what it says.
"I don't know this....some sort of runes? I only really ever learned the...whatever everyone else speaks." He puts his hands on his hips and thinks hard as if his brain will magically produce a solution.
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Post by Delaela Fenastra-Asiliari on Feb 10, 2023 17:42:54 GMT -5
Del can't stop herself from quietly chuckling at Gerhart's faux pout. "It would look cool, I will grant you that." She continues looking at the entrance for a moment, eyes fixed on the runes she can't quite decipher-- they're quite faded-- before she starts ascending.
It's a quick trip for her, but Del doesn't wear armor. There are more carvings on the top floor that Gerhart notices, Del approaching to take a look.
"Well, this is more clear. Let me see..." She takes out her book and charcoal to take a quick relief of a good portion of the etching, and then turns the page side to side. "...I can't decipher the sentence, but this rune is familiar? It means 'heart' but in the sense of the soul, not the organ." She looks at Gerhart and then at the stained glass relief of the bird above them. The sun seemed to have shifted towards the tower a little, and a shadow was starting to move across the window ledge. "Looks like we'll have an idea of what we need to do in a moment here."
Along the rune lines in the room, something faintly starts to glow. It could be a mere trick of the light, shining off of quartz fragments in the stone, of course. In either case, as light begins to fill the room, there's a different sort of swell in the room, one of power.
Del tenses, and looks at Gerhart. "Do you feel that?"
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Post by Ser Gerhart Stanislav on Feb 10, 2023 22:52:41 GMT -5
He can't help but feel like he really should take the time to study more if he was going to be traveling like this. Gerhart barely had a handle on reading and writing as it is, so looking at things in different languages was going to be next to impossible. Just another thing to add to the list of things to learn he supposed.
Gerhart rubs at the back of his head as he looks at the runes. Heart, huh? Somewhat ironic he would find himself here he thought for a moment.
"If only there was magic to make the sun move faster, my patience is terrible." He gives a little laugh as he looks around the room. When Del raises the question, he looks a bit confused for a moment.
"Feel what?"
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Post by Delaela Fenastra-Asiliari on Feb 11, 2023 17:37:42 GMT -5
"I'm sure there is, but I don't know it." Del comments idly in response to Gerhart's little joke, but her attention is on the room, and the slowly increasing sensation of energy within the room that made her skin tingle and the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. "It's... I don't know how to describe it. It's like a charge, the feeling you get when you're too close to a big storm, or a lightning bolt." She looks up and at the window, the sun's movement slowly beginning to cast the shadow.
The runes continued to glow, this time winking off and on in different places in a more obvious manner. Del's attention moves there, brow furrowed. The runes are a little easier to read, though she's not reading them. She puts charcoal to paper to try and sketch quickly what they look like. This place felt very unsafe, suddenly, mostly because Del did not know what was going on. "We should think about an exit strategy; I don't know what's happening here, but we don't know how what's happening will--"
There's a sound of static in the air, suddenly, as the pressure increases. The glow from the runes begins to illuminate around Del and Gerhartm creating a thin, shimmering coating over them. She pulls her hand away from sketching the runes to look, the soft teal energy seeming to move over her skin. Frozen, she can feel her heart hammering inside her chest. What was this?
Then the shadow finally moves into place. The light suddenly swells, illuminating with little motes of pale blue-green energy, toward the window, and Gerhart and Del see a patch of that same light illuminated within the forest itself. Some structure, a cave maybe, or some other small area they could clearly see from the window.
It remains for a few seconds, Del watching in awe, before the shadow moves. The lights vanish, the energy fades, and all is peaceful again at the top of the tower. She's silent for a few moments before slowly exhaling a soft "Whoa."
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Post by Ser Gerhart Stanislav on Feb 11, 2023 21:26:51 GMT -5
"Magic can do a lot..." He quietly muses as they look around. Slowly he can feel the hairs picking up on the back of his neck, but he can't sense any danger. There's nothing coming.....no sounds or smells that would tip off any danger.
He's about to turn to say something before the glowing takes over the room. Partially from confusion and partiallly from the music he freezes, looking around the room much more slowly around the room. It didn't take much to recognize that something was happening now.
A heavy sigh leaves his chest when he sees their path illuminated. He was real worried this was going to be some sort of teleportation magic or they triggered a trap. This is much better.
"Phew....that's a lot better than I thought." A nervous laugh helps to dissipate some of the tension he was holding in his shoulders. "There's a deep cave, I can remember where that is. Books and runes aren't my thing, but need something tracked through the woods, I got you."
He grinned, leading the way back down the tower side and down into the grass again. He waited for Del to join him before leading the way. The woods remained quiet, but murmurs of the music of nature returned the further they got from the clearing with the tower. Trees and vegetation grows thicker as the canopy starts to choke out the sunlight overhead. It's not completely dark, but they've clearly entered something different.
Gerhart leads them along until they reach a cave.....something felt strange about it. Just from looking at the stones this place was ancient...it had seen centuries pass, but it somehow didn't seem natural. It almost had the same feeling of the Sultan's Tomb, that same sort of gentle foreboding.
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Post by Delaela Fenastra-Asiliari on Feb 13, 2023 2:24:10 GMT -5
Del emits a quiet, nervous laugh, nodding with Gerhart. She wasn't sure what that was all about, but, similar to Gerhart, she was also worried it would have been some sort of transportation magic, or a spell that would have caused them damage, but this did not seem to be the case. Brows furrowing in puzzlement, Del wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. It meant they didn't know what it had just done.
As Gerhart volunteers to get them to the cave with his tracking skills, Del gratefully nods. "By all means; feel free to take point. It's one thing to move about woods you are familiar in, its another entirely to be skilled at moving through ones you don't know as well." She admired that skill, especially in someone as relatively young as Gerhart.
She follows his lead down the stone steps of the tower, casting one last look at the threshold where the faded runes had been before refocusing on the task at hand, and entering the forest just behind Gerhart. The woods were darker here again, but at least the noise of the insects and distant birds had returned, if somewhat distantly. Staying close, Del does her best to get her bearings of where they were, but despite being a wood elf, she cannot reason much of her direction with the canopy so closed above them. Or, perhaps that was due to something else.
The cave itself rises out of a hill, covered in thick roots from the trees that rest on the hill itself, moss, and a number of mushrooms. Del's gaze remains fixed for a long while, studying it. She takes a few steps closer to get a better look, and runes alight beneath the overgrown roots and vines, reacting to the glow that was now present around Del once again.
She remained stalk still for a few good seconds, waiting for a bolt of lightning, pain, magic, anything, but nothing happened. Eventually, Del looked back at Gerhart, beckoning him forward with wide eyes. "It doesn't hurt. I think it's just reacting to... whatever the tower did." She looks back at the cave. There's a pull, almost a song, beckoning them. "...I think we're supposed to go inside."
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Post by Ser Gerhart Stanislav on Feb 13, 2023 11:07:10 GMT -5
"Yeah sure....walk through the big lightning field, seems normal." He mutters to himself as he slowly follows. It's strange, the magic feels somewhat similar to what he's learned, but still older and ancient. For what little magic he knows, he can feel the difference.
He nods as Del mentions needing to head in, feeling that same pull. Gerhart is now cautious with every step as every stone here could potentially be some sort of trap. It was impossible to know what they were getting into from this point forward.
The pair walk through the cavernous system for an hour before something seems off. Gerhart pauses as they come to an intersection to look around when he notices they are back at the beginning. The opening back out to the field and the sun spilling through the entrance stares them in the face as Gerhart tries to figure out where they went wrong.
"TrUsT yOuR hEaRt" The voice seems to drift past both of them as they think there way through this.
Gerhart looks to Del as if to confirm if she heard it too......Trust your heart huh? He paused and took a deep breath before walking again. Gerhart stopped looking for tracks or signs of anything, focusing on the beating of his heart and what might pull it rather than trying to outthink the cave.
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Post by Delaela Fenastra-Asiliari on Feb 13, 2023 19:00:02 GMT -5
Del waits for Gerhart to join her before proceeding closer. Steeling herself, she advances slowly, ready to pul Gerhart back and out of harm's reach at a moments notice if it's necessary. The cave is dark, deep, and though her eyes adjust.. surprisingly quickly, she noticed, it remains deep and impenatrable along the edges. The shadow is a familiar comfort for her, a salve in the middle of this uncertain time for that hour of silent walking.
And then, they're back where they started. Del blinks, surprised. "What in--"
The voice washing over her stops Del in her tracks, and she drops a few inches into a crouch, hands coming up. Waiting for a few tense seconds for anything further, slowly, she moves to stand fully again, lowering her hands. Her body felt wired very tightly right now. The voice was meant to be comforting, but Del could feel an uncomfortable flicker of fear in her gut licking at her insides.
Looking at Gerhart, who had started walking again, Del grimaces and follows after, away from the cave.
As soon as they cross the trees to the sun dappled forest, There's a flash before both of their eyes; a large wolf, staring down at them, eyes leaking a faint, glowing mist. It's only there for a second before it vanishes.
A deep rumble abruptly resonates through the area-- at least, it sounds like one. The forest starts to cleave together, as if the ground itself is riding up and folding together. Gerhart and Del can feel it moving under their feet, roiling. Del scrambles quickly up a tree, hanging tight as a large crack starts to split between where she and Gerhart were as the ground itself moves, the tree she has claimed cracking under the strain of the movement-- as if the earth is falling down into this pit, like a waterfall. It's black as pitch, and whatever falls in falls in devastating silence.
Del curses under her breath, looking for Gerhart, her tree being slowly pulled toward the pit. On his side of the crevice, Gerhart has more time, but not much more than Del herself. "Get out of here!" She yells, waving an arm at him furiously as she looks for an escape. Though, Gerhart can see there is none. "Go! I'll be fine!"
The eyes of the forest upon him, Gerhart does not have long to make a choice.
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Post by Ser Gerhart Stanislav on Feb 13, 2023 19:11:18 GMT -5
Ancient magics indeed, the forest they step into seems familiar, but the trees are shorter, the grass thinner, no ruins or anything to speak of. Almost as if they were back in time. Gerhart looks behind him to see the cave gone before turning back to see a wolf. His hands immediately go to his swords, but it's gone before he can even grip them.
He looks around as the rumble shakes the tree, Del suddenly taking off up a tree. Before he can think much, the ground splits open and a great yawning maw begins to unhinge its jaws and seek to swallow them. Great, another mess of traps and nonsense. He doesn't have enough time for Halcyon...if the bird could even hear him. There was no time to test that with.
He turns to start running towards Del, body acting on instinct almost as he surges forward.[1] Gerhart clears a falling tree, starting to run up another one[2] angling to launch himself off. He springboards off the trunk, reaching out for Del. He wasn't about to abandon a friend out here in the forest at the first moment. If she moved with him and matched his momentum they could carry themselves to safety. He just had to reach.
1. Rushing Charge 2. Wall Dash
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Post by Delaela Fenastra-Asiliari on Feb 14, 2023 13:44:01 GMT -5
Despite her pleas for Gerhart to stay back, giving him a chance to run, he charges forward. There are no words that she can formulate in that moment, just a deep horror that she might have just gotten this young man killed. Del holds onto the tree, looking for a way off, a way away from the pit, but everything around her seems to be moving fast toward that central point in the crevasse.
Del is shocked by how easily Gerhart moves, running hard along the falling tree trunks to get to her. She can scarcely believe how swift he was, bounding toward her. Catching what he is doing, she reaches back out, clasping his forearm as she leaps backwards off her tree, adding her momentum to Gerhart's and pulling him back. She rotates mid air, twisting, to land on her feet, away from the filling chasm they had just escaped from.[1] She's ready to run again but...
It's gone.
Just as they land away from the cataclysm of earth they had faced, the world seems to return to normal. Or at least as normal as it when they stepped into this new forest within the cave. Shaking, Del takes a knee, leaving one hand on Gerhart's forearm as she takes a few deep breaths. "That... I should chide you, that was exceptionally dangerous," She lifts her eyes to Gerhart, an uncertain, but grateful press to her brow. "Thank you."
[1]Surface Scaling
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Post by Ser Gerhart Stanislav on Feb 14, 2023 17:02:26 GMT -5
"Join the long list of people who scold me for doing dumb and dangerous things." He laughs softly, giving a quick look over to make sure Del was alright before turning back to see the ground back to normal.
Some how the ground being normal was the least normal thing about any of this. Gerhart picks up a small rock and tosses it out, hitting the ground with a dull thump. It was real....so was the chasm an illusion or was it all real? Where have they wandered into?
"I....I don't think this is where we started....we're somewhere else. The scent here is different.....the sounds...are kind of muted?" If they took a second to listen in, the forest did sound alive like a real forest, but every sound was muffled. It was almost as if they had something blocking their ears.
"Trust your heart......Did you hear something say those words before we came out here?"
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Post by Delaela Fenastra-Asiliari on Feb 15, 2023 16:53:22 GMT -5
She shakes her head as she stands, "You could have been killed, but you still ran towards instead of away. Foolish, perhaps, but I can't deny that... it was brave. And that I am grateful you did so." Del replies, more sincerely, giving him an assuring nod when he double checks that she is alright.
Also casting her eyes around the forest, Del exhales a quiet sigh. Gerhart was likely right. This was not the forest they had entered, but she did not know where they were. "If I didn't know better, I would say it was some sort of illusion... but I've never experienced one this big, or this, well, real." Still looking around them thoughtfully, she furrows her brow. "I am not a practitioner of magic by any means, but I do think there is something innately magical going on. But the age of the place we were looking at... it might just be part of the earth itself."
Finally, Del looks back to Gerhart, and slowly nods. "I did, yes. Which is an odd thing to hear, but I admit, I was very quickly distracted by the earth falling out from under us--" Her brows suddenly knit together, as she starts to understand what it is the young man is getting at. "Do you think this is some sort of... trial?"
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