Click here for a list of weather descriptions, seasonal festivals, and a real time:site time conversion.
Character of the Season
Frail in body but dangerously quick of mind, Nikandr is the sort of character who proves that curiosity can be just as perilous as any weapon. A necromancer, inventor, and problem-solver with more ambition than self-preservation, Niki approaches the world like a puzzle box begging to be opened, even when what’s inside has teeth. Blunt, dry-witted, fiercely independent, and carrying a history best left partially buried, he has a knack for making even failure feel fascinating. Whether he’s raising the dead, moving across Caido to King's End, or experiencing a hangover for the first time, Nikandr brings a wonderfully strange spark to Caido, and we can’t wait to see what trouble his brilliant mind wanders into next.
Congratulations, Niki!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
OG Skinning provided by Kaons, with functionality and many custom plugins made by Neowulf!
06-19-2024, 09:46 AM (This post was last modified: 06-19-2024, 03:26 PM by Talyson.)
The woods were deadly, dark, and deep.
But at the moment Tal didn't have a better idea for where Sohalia might have been taken. Or, well, he did, but there was no way he was ready to take on Starfall on his own!
So instead he made forays into the void-infested Greatwood when he was traveling between Halo and the Hollowed Grounds. Several areas had been marked off on his map already, and he'd planned today's scouting for the Mathair, the long-suffering goddess at the Greatwood's heart.
"I wish more o' th'void shit would hibernate in Deepfrost," he grumbled as he and Maea padded around the edge of the clearing barely under the Mathair's vast branches. Purple vines pulsed and twisted sluggishly in dark curtains from most of the trees around them, and unsettling gurgling came from the corrupted waters farther away. His Goggles were firmly on Tal's eyes in spite of the wan light that filtered down through the bare, snowy boughs above, and his Dagger was in his hand, out and ready. "Lemme know if y'see any footprints or... I dunno. Fabric caught on bushes or something?"
A distracted hum was the only response he got. Maea was too preoccupied with the impossible task of moving through the vegetation without touching it to carry much of a conversation. Purple shadows skirted the edges of her perception from the times when she had failed, which made for an unsettling experience. For once, she really wasn't sure this was a good idea.
"Do you really expect to find anything?" she wondered eventually, repeating herself for the third or so time since Tal came with the suggestion. While she had been keen enough to take a fight to the Void-tainted Greatwood, the sheer scale of the problem was so appalling that even she was starting to have misgivings about making it out unscathed.
Tal's complaints came as naturally to him as breathing, so Maea's hum was plenty of conversational interaction for him to work with. He was doing pretty good with avoiding the vines and corrupted hanging snakes so far, but his armor was definitely helping with that. Anything that brushed his back or shoulders got a nasty shock, deterring it from further liberties with the courier.
It wasn't the first time he'd heard the question, and it wouldn't be the last. Zavien had been equally dubious but no less supportive, and Tal sighed as he knelt to examine some larger indents in the snow. "I mean... I won't give up hope 'til there's proof she's gone," he admitted quietly. "An' I don't wanna be the shitty kind of friend who just gives up on her an' waits for someone else t'do somethin'. An' Dahlia took over Stormbreak right about th'same time that th'Greatwood got corrupted so... it's th'best link I've got so far," he tried to explain, batting irritably at the ghost of something wriggling at the corner of his eye. "But if y'got any better ideas, I'm all ears."
"Alright," Maea conceded, "it's not completely wild of an assumption. And since you're sure she's still alive... but you know just as well as I that the likeliest place to keep someone would be that damned island." And she knew as well as he that attempting to search that was a good way to get themselves killed.
Brooding over the scheming conversation she'd had with Remi, she slashed at a dusky vine that tried to curl around her legs. Her fire-edged chakram cut easily through most things; with a sizzling rustle the vine recoiled back into the underbrush.
"So what else happened while you were in Torchline?" she asked after a while, hoping to steer the conversation away to something less likely to spark an argument. It had been a while since they talked, she realized; no doubt they both had plenty of tea to spill.
Wandering through the violet pathways of the Greatwood, you realize you've wandered into a patch of Echo Ferns. As you brush against them, they trigger a chorus of haunting whispers that echo through the trees. The whispers seem to lead deeper into the forest, promising secrets and danger to those who dare to follow. With each step, the whispers grow louder, their eerie tones filling the air with a sense of foreboding. Tread carefully, lest the whispers may lead you astray or into the waiting embrace of the void.
As the Greatwood has been taken over by the Family, remaining in this area will be dangerous as the flora/fauna will continue to grow increasingly hostile toward you.
You’ve encountered an Echo Fern. This counts as a common creature encounter for the purposes of levelling, but does not count as a Random Event for levelling or MP. There will be no further admin/re intervention. If you choose to follow this creature, you do so at your own risk, however, just having it in this thread is enough to satisfy your levelling requirements.
Echo Ferns (common): Originally vibrant and harmonious, the Echo Ferns now resonate with void energy. Their once-green fronds have withered into darkened silhouettes, and each rustle of their leaves emits an unsettling echo. Touching the Echo Ferns not only causes physical discomfort but also triggers haunting whispers that echo through the depths of the Greatwood.
"I asked Mort 'imself," Tal confirmed, a hint of pride warming the worry from his voice, if only for a moment. "She's definitely still alive! Or at least, she was a couple weeks ago. But yeah, if it's th'island..." He trailed off with a grimace. "I dunno who'd even come with me t'look there. I dunno if I'd go with me. If Remi an' Ronin had t'run away from it..." He shook his head fiercely to try and get rid of the shadows pressing down on his thoughts. The oppressive evil of the corrupted Greatwood didn't make it easy, however. "So...yeah. Gonna try th'places I can actually go, first."
Her question came as he was using his Dagger to slice away at some vines that were getting a little too curious for their own good. "Y'mean aside from meetin' Mort down at the sailors' shrine?" he asked her, pride puffing his chest up momentarily. "Uh, well... aside from that I kinda... made a big mess on the beach...?" His face screwed up in thought. There had been something else... "Oh! An' there was a demigod meetin' that someone accidentally invited me an' Sah to. That was pretty interest-- Ouch!"
Guess who brushed against an echo fern!
That's right, it was Tal. The courier cringed back as his armor sparked and the blackened frond he'd bumped withered and fell back, but it was too late. A rustling spread out around them like ripples from a stone dropped into a pond. The Mathair stood vast and silent to their left, but the woods to their right grew loud with whispers just a shade too muffled to make out, but which seemed to carry a sense of malice and dread. Tal shook his arm, wincing, but it was above Maea's head that a shadow briefly coiled and then struck down at the pale Ancient, fanged mouth agape.
Void Vipers (Common): Once inquisitive Hanging Snakes, touched by the void, transform into Void Vipers. Their slender bodies now bear patterns that seem to absorb light, making them almost imperceptible in the shadowy depths of the woods. Instead of curiously exploring, they now slither with a purpose, seeking to entwine themselves around unsuspecting wanderers and imbuing them with a void-touched presence.
Sighing, Maea wrestled with the problem and a rather natural sense of self-preservation. Yes, she really does have some. "Depends on why you were going there, but... I'd come. Not to fight, obviously, I'd only be a hindrance, but if it was scouting... and we could get out quickly – " Her words trailed off, leaving the offer up in the air. Because right now she had no means of concealing her presence, nor of disappearing whenever she wished to. Those were two conditions for being at all useful, the way she was now.
Perking up to ask more about the meeting, she froze mid-stride at Tal's curse and shuddered with dread as ghastly whispers spread out like oily ripples around them. Instinctively crouching down in a ready stance, it was this that spared her from the vipers fangs. A hollow thunk sounded as the serpent bounced off the moon-sickle curve of her horn and dropped to the ground by her foot. The force of the impact was enough to stagger her; acting on a barely finished thought Maea shifted into a crow and flapped hastily up into the air. Hurriedly putting distance between herself and the awful aura the snake emitted.
"Yeah, not t'fight," Tal confirmed, his voice unusually firm on that point. He could be brave if he didn't have time to think too hard about it, but the courier had never really outgrown the instinct to run away from danger. Growing up a scrawny brat who was an easy target for the bluff, hearty sons of hunters and guardsmen had ingrained some things too deeply in his psyche to let go of even now that he'd put on enough muscle to protect himself from most of Caido's common thugs.
"It's th'gettin' out quickly that I haven't figured out yet," he admitted reluctantly, no more eager than Maea to put himself in that much danger without a solid escape plan. "An' Remi mentioned dragons, so we can't even rely on th'Peregrine t'fly us t'safety..." He shook his head, glowering at the twitching vines and grasping roots that tried to wrap around them with life-sucking tendrils.
He might have said more, but the echo ferns took over the conversational heavy lifting and he was too busy swearing to continue. He didn't even see the snake until he heard the weird thunk from behind him and turned to see a squiggly shadow dropping down past Maea's body as the white crow headed up. Tal retreated back against the nearest tree with another curse and stabbed at the Viper from a safe distance. His long-distance Dagger struck true in spite of is camouflage, and he started to relax as it thrashed in its death throes.
But that was only because he didn't see the second snake above him, getting ready to drop down and wrap around his throat.
She did notice. On agile wings meant for navigating tight quarters and sheer cliffs, the crow swooped down again and swerved in among the branches of the tree with talons outstretched. Catching the serpent just as it struck, Maea sunk her razor sharp claws deep into the muscled body and shuddered internally as violent haze crowded the periphery of her vision.
Hastily she dropped the snake onto the ground and gained altitude once more. Coming back around, she dive-bombed the void viper over and over again, spitefully savaging it with talons and beak until all that remained was a black and violet pulp on the ground.
Only when nothing else seemed about to pounce them did she land again, shimmering back into her ancient form. Blood streaked through with purple stained her face and feet; a wave of nausea came over her and without saying a word she staggered aside and doubled over, retching violently into a shrub that thankfully seemed to have been spared the infection.
Tal yelped and ducked as a white gore crow came right for him. It saved him from getting a snake on his head, and a second thud accompanied the Void Viper's landing on the ground near his feet. He scrambled back, giving Maea room to work as she savaged the horrible void-serpent again and again until it wasn't just dead, but practically unrecognizable.
He might have helped with his Dagger, but he didn't dare risk hitting the bird as she swooped in and out of the field of fire. He shuddered, fingers of ice playing down the ivory keys of his vertebrae as he realized how close he'd come to wearing a Void Viper scarf for the season. "Y'got it, Maea! It's dead!" he called to his friend in what he hoped was a reassuring voice that only shook a little. Her transformation back was something of a relief, even if it kind of made the violet blood look worse.
He hurried over to guard her back - and reach over to grab a handful of long white hair to lift out of the way - as she was heartily sick, and he bit his lip almost hard enough to bleed. "Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. 'm sorry. Look, let's head back t'the boat. We can get up high enough t'be safe an' y'can get cleaned up. I c'n always come back later, after things have settled down again.," he suggested, looking around uneasily as the corrupted woods seemed to echo with the rustles and whispers of movement. Hostile movement. Movement that was slowly but steadily converging towards them now that the echo ferns were drawing a big fat target around their location.
Purple outlined the edge of her consciousness. It stained the air she breathed and the gloam of tainted vegetation, and turned the calloused hands that pushed her hair out of her face into questionable digits that may or may not be tolerable. Wiping tainted blood and sick from her mouth with a sleeve, her hands trembled as she dug for the water bottle in her pocket.
Rinsing her mouth made her feel better; over and over the gargled and spat, gargled and spat, until she could recall her own name and think about lilac and lavender without wanting to claw her eyes out.
"... yeah. Sorry, but I could use some - some time." Straightening slowly, the rustle and shudder of the echoing foliage drew a dark side-eyed glare from her. Summoning a wisp of fire into her palm, Maea flicked it at the Echo fern and let Talyson drag her off, back towards the skyboat.
Looking back over her shoulder, at least she had the satisfaction of seeing the flames take hold and rise towards the sky, while the fronds blackened and withered in the heat.
Tal wasn't really sure what to do for her, so he put his back to her and faced the forest with his Dagger in hand, grimly gritting his teeth as he stood guard over the Ancient. He heard the slosh of water over the malevolent whispers of the corrupted vegetation and could guess what she was up to. He didn't look away from the woods, however, his be-Goggled eyes roaming the branches above as well as the spiky winter-bare bushes below for signs of further vipers or will'o wisps or wicker ladies.
"Don't need t'apologize," he assured her gruffly when she regained her voice. He shot the Echo Fern she torched a look of petty satisfaction as the flames took hold. "Definitely not for savin' me from that stupid snake!" Or anything else, really. He tugged her arm gently to get her moving, but she seemed to have her feet back under her and was focusing again. He took particular pleasure in cutting down any Echo Ferns they passed on the way back to the Peregrine, but it was a relief to shimmy up the rope ladder and haul up the anchor.
Once she was safely sailing above the Mathair's broad, blessed branches he finally relaxed again with a deep sigh. "Fuck those ferns. Feels like th'Greatwood's gettin' worse every time I scout it," he grumbled from his post at the wheel.
Slumped on the deck with her back against the mast, Maea wasn't sure she shared the relief. While it was good to be above the corrupted landscape and out of reach of most Void critters, the movements of the ship did nothing to ease her nausea. She busied herself with cleaning up the tainted blood, careful to keep it from staining the deck; grimacing down at her clothes, she sighed and reached for her pack. Hopefully she'd thought ahead enough to pack some spares.
"It probably is," she muttered, butting into Tal's grumbling. "Not to mention it's spreading to other regions... Just waiting for it to skip over to the Grounds, honestly." Waiting and dreading, and wondering what they would do when it happened. Would they have to burn everything outside the Inner Quarter? The very thought left her shuddering.
"Tell me about that meeting you were invited to?" she asked, and hauled out a clean shirt. A screen of fire flared up to conceal her from view as she began to change; hopefully the conversation would distract her from the cold, too.
"Yeah, well... I wish y'were wrong about that," Tal granted reluctantly with a grimace. But the Void was spreading, there was no question about it. He saw a lot from the air as he traveled over the various regions on his delivery route. He didn't make stops in certain places anymore; the Feverlands were right out, and he only made the briefest of drops in the Sidhe Village. "Th'Grounds an' King's End, both." Both were far too close to this new nexus of infection for comfort.
He glanced at Maea curiously as she dug through her pack, but once he realized that she was changing clothes he cleared his throat and jerked his head back to the front of the boat and focused on steering. "Uh... meeting? Oh! Right! Th'meetin' in Torchline." He cleared his throat to buy himself a moment to refocus before explaining. "So, Safrin shared a bit o' Void-stuff with one o' her demigods, I guess? An' we tested a bunch o' magic an' weapons against it." His dark brows pulled together in fierce thought as he tried to remember everything they'd seen. "Most elements an' magic weapons an' stuff like that hurt it normally, 'cept it seemed t'be immune t'ice an' earth attacks. Weird, huh? But it really didn't like bein' hit with air an' gravity!"
