Return of the Emblem Chapter Eleven: Unleash

[-Cynthia-]

Campfire

"Well, Wrath obviously hasn't done his judgment yet or we would know about it. How much longer until this covenant thing is supposed to run out?" Veronika asked tentatively, figuring Hypnos or Thanatos would know the answer.

Tents

"Not that she shouldn't be takin' care of her own animals, but she goes seem pretty busy. I guess I'll get on that, would ask ya for help but ya ain't much of a horse guy if I recall," Nadya said teasingly to Reign.

[Mercakete]

This was very disturbing news. I almost wish I didn't know this was coming... "Is there ana way t' prepare fer this? 'R, better yet, t' stop it?" Gytha asked Hypnos, not making any attempt to hide her worry. Her initial response to her second question was "no" but she still had to ask.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey, it's not like Suzumay was a Wrathite or a member of this organization!" he quickly defended, "The people she was helping weren't either! They were after the ship we rode before, not us! There's a difference!"

That said, he crossed his arms and went on to her line of thought of if he hadn't talked to her about it. "Yeah, yeah, you beat me in a spar once. That doesn't mean you'd be able to do me serious harm if it came to it now. And just what am I supposed to be imagining?"

It was an acerbic, snappish retort, but not any more so than his usual. Though a stranger may wonder what his problem was, anyone who knew him at all could tell the difference between his usual manner of speaking and when he really was being abrasive or threatening towards someone. In short, it may not have sounded like it to the casual bystander, but he was being friendly and not really admitting to it.

[Ether]

"One to nothing still says I'll win." Faatina snapped back, though her tone was noticeably less harsh than Norbert's default, before softening.

"Nothing, nothing at all. I just thought it would be funny to see someone immediately admit to something in that sort of flippant way after being cleared, so I tried to act the part as a joke... guess it didn't click." She concluded.

[Script]

A Man Called Gar

"Eh, frankly I don't think any of the cultures around are worth saving in the least. I mean, I'm just saying that as a guy who's watched them feud for a thousands of years for the silliest of reasons," Gar commented as bored as he could muster. "But hey, someone probably wants them to survive for whatever reason." Gar shrugged. He did a bit of consideration before responding back to the not-head though. "Well, if they're so bound by these principals and pacts then you should turn those against them. Make it so they can't enact whatever plan they have without violating them."

[Mercakete]

"Maybe if you made it more obvious... But I guess it's a good thing I didn't get it. I probably wouldn't have taken it as a joke," Norbert replied with a shrug. "Anyway, I'm glad that mess was dealt with."

He frowned as he wracked his brain for another subject. He felt like he was just repeating himself a lot at this point. So, he jumped to a cue he'd found as an aside in their previous conversation. "Did you want to spar again? I'm not sure how much stronger I've gotten since last time, but it's good practice at least. Plus, who knows? I may just even out the score."

[Snowy_One]

"Interesting then. No formal training? Just personal lessons from your dad? Well, no worries! I'm not one of those snooty 'you need to study magic in a formal setting' mages. I found out I had magical skill on my own and my parents made me study under a private tutor. I guess that means I learned at home. So, if you're worried about that, don't be!" said Tia with a smile. "But, you seriously don't know much about what you're actually doing? Do you at least understand your element, or just point and blast?"

[Ether]

"I wouldn't be against it, let's go an-" Faatina began, before recalling an important detail.

"Except Colin has my lance right now..." The Rexian concluded, her shoulders slumping.

[Mercakete]

"That's fine," Norbert replied with a shrug, "I can fight hand-to-hand." Suddenly, he realized that may actually be an issue, though. "Oh wait -- can you fight without your lance, though? If not, maybe you can borrow one from someone... Or if it's too much of a hassle we could just not spar at all." A little disappointing, but it is what it is.

[Ether]

"I mean, it's not like I can't fight hand-to-hand, but I'm certainly not used to it... it might be better to just wait for Connor to finish tuning it up, we can give it a test run." Faatina replied, somewhat disappointed.

[Phoenix]

Campfire of Futility

"I'd like to believe that Wrath's utter destruction of foolhardy nations and violent ideologies is a progressive thing, but as it turns out, history tends to repeat itself this way and all he ultimately ends up doing is stopping society from advancing beyond a certain level. It's the best the current system can accomplish, I suppose. As for preventing it ... well, it wouldn't normally be possible, but I personally don't see the point. Stopping Wrath from gaining the whole emblem is a cause I can understand and even support, but anything beyond that is rebellion. Also, I'm not sure what either of you mean by covenants 'running out' or 'preparing' for what's coming." Hypnos ended with a pitying smile.

Tents of Charity

"Heh, I'll leave you to it then," Reign replied with an amused grin. It wasn't a whole lot of work they'd done, but it was more than enough to work up his appetite. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to investigate the campfire now or look into the food situation.

[Mercakete]

"Well, I fer one have family I'd rather not see d'stroyed," Gytha replied with a frown, "Since we know it's comin' I thought maybe there'd be some way t' save some things..." The whole "entire cultures being wiped out" bit was beyond her imagining -- she really couldn't picture what life would be like if they didn't even know the names of their deities -- so she didn't even attempt it. Would we have anathin' t' hold onta? Anathin' t' r'member? Who we were, who came b'fore us... Agh, by Leviathan, what about them? They're all gone... With things as they are, what's th' point? Who knows how many people have lived n' were just forgotten... It was remarkably depressing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Connor? I thought she just said she left it with Colin... Eh, maybe it was just a slip of the tongue. "Yeah, sure. I'm usually up for a spar." That did remind him of something, though. "Come to think of it, maybe I should ask Connor for some upgrades myself. Rizen actually did some fighting last time. She's gotten used to the extra weight, too, I think, so I can go ahead and ask Connor to upgrade her armor." It hadn't occurred to him to ask Connor to make his gear lighter seeing as he didn't think that was something the young alchemist could actually do, however.

[Script]

A Man Called Gar

"Rebellion? Ha, didn't you look up to the mastermind behind the Legendary Rebellion?" Gar said and smirked.

[Ether]

"It couldn't hurt... though he seemed kind of busy when I went there, rearranging the Dauntless." Faatina replied, glad that everything seemed to be dealt with for the time being.

***

OoC: Haha, I did say Colin didn't I? Derp

[-Cynthia-]

Connor

"I really hope she doesn't just start firing off earth magic everywhere. That could have disastrous consequences," Connor chimed into Tia and Mushirah's conversation, opening a book on transmutation.

Veronika

"How long do we have to scatter the emblem pieces?" Veronika asked rather snappily, growing a bit tired of how evasive Hypnos was being.

Nadya

"I could teach ya a thing or two 'bout horses if ya want. Could come in handy someday if ya plan on stayin' on land...can't see why anyone would ever go out to sea unless they had to," she said, shuddering a little.

[Phoenix]

Campfire of Bonds

"Of course I did," Hypnos said to Gar, adding, "If anyone was going to destroy the old government, I would have preferred it to be him, not mortals."

"Okay all this pro-Obelisk crap is really starting to get on my nerves," Shadrak interjected angrily. "You're starting to sound more and more like a die-hard fan of his and that means we really can't trust you."

Hypnos took a moment to address Veronika first since she'd spoken up shortly before Shadrak had even started on the Obelisk thing again. "I want to say ten months. It's likely far less than that, but ten months is all that remains of this year, so it's the most time you could possibly have remaining." Then glancing back at Shadrak, he said, "Are you going to make the same mistake you made with Lilith, basing your opinions on tales from over five thousand years ago? Are you really going to do that again? Because if so I might get a good laugh out of it, but I encourage you to judge history's heroes and villains with your own eyes. Some of them are still alive, so this is actually feasible for you, especially in your current company. That's all I have to say about that, anyway."

"Nice. Avoiding the issue like usual. Why should we be listening to you when you respect and seem to even admire freaking Obelisk? How can we trust you?"

"You know nothing of Obelisk or his motives that you didn't hear from someone else who also knows nothing, so listen or don't. As long as Discovery doesn't have an issue with my past ..." His seemingly blind gaze met hers and she felt a little awkward. "Obelisk helped raise me, and I spent my childhood on the battlefield. To this day good and evil don't concern me in the slightest. I only care about the bonds I forge with others, like you for example. Can you accept that?"

"I ... I think so. I'm not exactly in a position to be judging you or him. I don't know much about Obelisk and nothing beyond the legends. I mean, I'm pretty sure he's downright evil if he's willing to kill so many people, no matter his reasons, but that doesn't make you our enemy. You said he raised you, so no matter how bad he is, there's still probably ... one of those ... 'bonds' ... there. It's sort of like with my father right now. Mind control or no mind control, he's allied with Sardis now and I hate that, but I still love him and I always will. It's the same with Obelisk, right?"

"Now you understand," Hypnos concluded with a smile.

"Even though he killed you ..." Shadrak interjected.

"Come again ...?"

Tents of Equine Stuff

When Nadya provided him with a third option, he decided to go ahead and take it. "Alright, sure. Lead the way." Around the same time, Luca noticed that Nadya wasn't playing with sticks and fabrics anymore and so trotted on over to see if she would spend time with him now. "Well that's interesting timing," Reign noted, eyeing Luca suspiciously for a moment.

[Mercakete]

Gytha frowned as she listened to Raquel and Obelisk's exchange. She thought about her own father and her struggle to decide what she thought of him. He's not a bad person, but he does bad things... Things I kill people for. He's still me father, but can I realla be okay with 'im just based on that? No matter what it feels like I'm betrayin' someone...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I didn't mean right now," Norbert clarified, "I can just ask him whenever."

[Script]

A Man Called Gar

"And since then mighty Obelisk and his precious have been stymied by minor mortals for years and years and years. Good old Kigen," Gar faked wiping away a patriotic tear. He knew there'd just be some excuse of 'well he's just waiting for his evil plan he could totally wipe out you impudent mortals in seconds' but Gar was all ready to tune that out. "So Shade Drake, if being all cool with Obelisk is a problem does tat make me a problem? He totally sounds like a cool guy to hang around. I totally woulda have been on his side during the Rebellion." Gar laughed. "And hey, what's a little murder between friends."

[Snike]

"...Anyways, point is, we have ten months to scatter the emblem," Thanatos said, looking away. "Anything more involving the Emblem aside from staying alive, and I will have to stop supporting you folk."

[Ether]

"Ah, that makes sense." Faatina replied, with a grin.

[Mercakete]

After a moment, the awkward silence had grown a bit long for Norbert's liking. That...ended abruptly. Uh... "Have you taken care of Sherif yet?" She probably had. "I left the water barrel, bucket and little trough out in case any of the other riders wanted to use it."

[Snowy_One]

"I know this is going to sound weird, Connor, but I kind of hope she does. My tutor said that, for every giant step forwards in progress, there is an equally insane idea behind it. So if she starts casting spells at random, maybe she'll do something odd or unique that can then be explored. Not that I want bad things to happen of course. Take every precaution and don't do suicidal things after all. But, imagine how crazy it must have seemed to people long ago to even think of riding a horse, or using the great destroyer of fire to cook food, or eggs, wheat, and yeast mixed together to make cake!"

[Script]

A Man Called Gar

"Well your lose on that front then," Gar shrugged.

[ReformBlade]

Wandering seemed old hat to Aneda, but a very tempting prospect, something akin to an old habit that you just can't break. "Hmm. It has been weeks since I've just given in to whimsy like that... I'll definitely think about it, Miss." She said with a sweet smile, oozing with sincerity. "You're an oddball, and either extremely trusting... or much more devious than I could ever imagine, heh."

"I do not just point and blast. I may not have a full grasp on how my gift works, how anything works in this world." Mushirah started resolutely before toning it down to a mere serious tone, "But I know it's there, I know how to get it to do what I need it to do, I do know how to 'point and blast' but that's child's play compared to manipulating a physical object to move as I see fit, to shift and break as I mentally tear at it, to shake the very earth on which we stand." Nodding to herself for reassurance, "Think of it this way. Say I have a rifle." motioning like she had a rifle, looking down an invisible scope, "I know how to aim and shoot the thing, how to reload it on the fly maybe but I know nothing of the intricacies of what went into making it, how... well, anything makes it work. How the bullet flies out, why there's the standard bang noise, why there's a flash, I know none of those things in terms of magic. I'm sure Dad tried to explain it to me but I've since sort of... tuned it out, not having been constantly tested on it since I was a kid."

[-Cynthia-]

Connor

"There's a pretty big difference between careful experimentation and just randomly trying stuff," Connor pointed out. "By the time the cake was invented, people already knew that eggs were edible and that wheat and yeast made up bread. Combining the two is a fairly logical idea, not an insane one. A lot of scientific and magical progress has built off of previous research."

Veronika

"Well, now we know what to do and when we have to do it by. How in the world we obtain these pieces is another matter entirely," she said, mulling over the possibilities. Perhaps the Guardian Corps can help us...although if they can't even find Pavel they may be not be as effective as many believe.

Nadya

"Sorry Luca, I gotta untack Riley and then Reign's gonna untack Sandrock. If ya wait patiently I'll give ya a sugar cube when we're done," she said, patting him on the head and walking over to Riley, moving his reins up to his poll and holding them still. "Ya don't have to hold the reins here, but Riley tends to be kinda feisty so I do this to keep him still," she explained to Reign from over her shoulder.

[Snowy_One]

"Of course! Why do you think I spend so much time with my nose in a book instead of casting things randomly? Not only does it help to know a bit about what I'm doing, but if something does happen that could lead to a revolutionary idea, I'd need to be able to recognize it. But, with that said, I'd honestly like to have someone to work with to keep me firmly rooted. I mean, I'm not insane, just explorative." said Tia with a smile.

Then she turned to Mushira and gave her a nice hug. "As for you, don't worry, it's fine. I'm sure you're a very good mage regardless. If you want, I could find a book going into detail on the intricacies of earth magic and we could read it together! Would you want to do something like that?"

Edited June 13, 2013 by Snowy_One