From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
Not only does it get everywhere that it's not supposed to, it's also messy and stains clothes! Moving the wood and other junk seemed to be going great, but of course, the mud decided to give Oliver the massive middle finger and carry off every attempt he had made to try and clean up the stones. Letting out a loud groan, he moved to pick up a handful of the stones and made a dramatic effort to walk out of the building and set all of the stones down on the ground, forming a brand new pile outside the building. He'd then trudge right back inside and continue with gathering all of the stones.
If you were close to him, you'd probably hear him muttering things along the lines of. "Fucking mud...shoving a stick up my ass...fucking hate mud." And a lot of other jabs at the mud. Hopefully everyone else was having an easier time because the mud was certainly making his life a hell of a lot harder than it should be.
I JUST WANT MY EXISTENCE TO BE MORE THAN TREMBLING
At least her construction is going smoothly. Sliding the pins in to the hinges, Wessex tests the opening and closing of the door, noting that he’ll need some glass to put in the hole she’s cut (whether or not Loren wanted one, it’s there now!) in the wood.
There’s just the little problem of the larger wall of the office. With a frown, the Ascended takes a step back and eyes it, then looks down at the peace that didn’t quite fit. She grabs it and takes it back outside, looking for Loren. She’s unsure what magic he’s got beyond summoning and healing, but it’s worth a try. Instead, she finds him trying to do something with the wall outside. Dropping the piece of wood, she heads over to steady the stones so he can focus on the mortar, refraining from offering her opinion on the mortar unless asked. She’s sure that her dexterity and ability to hold a big ‘ol rock is probably better than the paws of a beast.
“The wood here isn’t big enough for the longer side of the wall. Could maybe fuse two pieces of wood together, but other than that, I’m not sure what to do about it.” Wessex can slice and dice things, but the forming of walls and shaving down of logs is outside her expertise.
The old shopkeeper’s nostrils flared. ”Listen, girlie, I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I’m not interested in it. Get away from me and my wares, and good luck finding what you need elsewhere.” Indeed, the others manning stalls and shops had noticed the strange demi-god, and the word was rapidly spreading in the marketplace that Delphia was bad news as evidenced by the suspicious looks she was receiving from passerby.
Maybe Oliver should’ve been nicer to the mud, or maybe it had just been emboldened by the success from earlier, or maybe they were ascribing way too much agency to this stuff, but anyway, now both piles, the wood and the stone, were misbehaving. The stones were coming back in immediately after Oliver dropped them off and the wood scattered to the four corners of the room. Loren watched with a bemused expression on his face, but unfortunately had to stick to his own task of filling the holes in the outer wall.
Then Wessex was there, and between the bear, the Ascended, and Loren’s patience (or magic, or whatever), they made short work of the outer wall. ”Thanks.” He nodded at her. At her words, though, he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. ”Okay. Do we have enough stone?” Absentmindedly, he dismissed the bar.
Unfortunately, a group of men walked by, gossiping about that ‘weird pale skinned lady who talks about dead people’ and the Launceleyn rolled his eyes. ”If there’s not enough stone, mind helping Oliver? I should probably go...figure out what Delphia is up to. Worst case, I can figure out the wall later.” Shooting Wessex a slightly embarrassed look, the summoner turned to walk to the marketplace.
It didn’t take long to catch up to the old woman and the daughter of Mort. Seeing the chairs, and knowing how overwhelming the demi-gods could be, the Launceleyn put two and two together. Giving his most charming smile, Loren walked up to the pair. ”I’m very sorry about all this! I’m the one who needs the furniture.”
Sniffing, the shopkeeper turned up her nose. ”As I told your friend, my supplies of paint and wood are running low.” Still, there was a gleam in the old woman’s eye.
The summoner’s smile turned into a grin. ”I can make you new paints. In exchange for the furniture, of course.” As he waited for his response, he glanced over at Delphia, wondering how the daughter of Mort would respond to all this.
Delphia’s head tilted in confusion at the woman’s ire. ”It isn’t a game, nor am I concerned about he wares. I’m trying to give you a message.” she said. But then it dawned on her that perhaps, like Wessex, the woman didn’t believe her. She ought to show her it was true. The daughter of Mort held out her hand, and slowly but surely a round, glowing orb appeared to hover just above it. Though it was far from a solid thing, shifting and moving about as if to maintain the shape. ”See? This is Geralt’s soul. Isn’t he handsome?” she said warmly.
Of course, that was when Loren arrived, and by then she was quite distracted from her original task. ”Look Loren, it is this woman’s husband’s soul. His name is Geralt. She did not believe I was who I said I was.” she said, clearly to absorbed in the world of the dead to fully why he had shown up.
Taking a look at the piles of stone Loren had been using to fix the outer walls, Wessex quickly ducks back inside to do a quick comparison. “I think so. Alternatively, I can go to the carpenter and put a custom order in. Might take a week or so.” She shrugs. They use special things, or magic (more likely), and it’s just something she can’t personally help with.
She does, however, chuckle to herself when the men come by talking about Delphia. She isn’t surprised, the girl is a touch detached from reality. Nodding before Loren departs, Wessex replies to her further instructions with “On it. Will figure out the wall when you come back.”
Heading back inside, she pauses behind Oliver and waits for an explanation regarding what he’s supposed to be doing and what seems to be the problem
The anger that Oliver felt towards mud was very clearly valid because apparently it really had it out for him. What did it even have against him? It wasn't like the mud could hear how much he disliked it. Just picture it, mud gossiping and saying who to fuck with. All Oliver wanted to do was clean the inside of the building. He had people he needed to impress, Loren was in charge and he needed to prove to him that he was loyal. That he was helpful and shouldn't be evicted.
But no.
The mud gave him one massive middle finger. At first it wasn't too bad, he could deal with the stone being moved slightly, but then he turned around to see the materials going right back inside! He tried to grab some pieces of wood that were being carried back inside, only to hear faintly his name. Or maybe it wasn't his name. Oliver had a nasty habit of eavesdropping so anytime he heard his name, his attention was grabbed.
And turns out, they probably were talking about him. Once he had picked up some wood, he straightened back up only to be looking at Wessex. "Oh uh...hello Wessex." There was a nervous fit of laughter and he had a very awkward smile on his face. "The uh...okay I'm not crazy and it's not my magic, but the mud keeps carrying the materials back inside. I keep trying to clean them up but the mud wont let me." His voice said that he was uncomfortable and his eyes screamed help me. He was a mess, both emotionally and physically as there was mud on his arms, hands, and legs now.
I JUST WANT MY EXISTENCE TO BE MORE THAN TREMBLING
It took all of Loren’s willpower to keep a straight face. It helped that he was equally torn between laughing at the absurdity of it all and burying his face in his hands. At the increasingly irate shopkeeper, however, he snapped into action.
Turning to Delphia, the Launceleyn smiled his best and most charming smile. ”That’s wonderful, Delphia. But I’m sure Geralt would like to go back to his afterlife now. And I’m sure this nice lady believes you.” He nodded at the old woman, who after a moment, nodded as well.
Still smiling, the summoner turned back to the demi-god. ”Why don’t you go back and help them finish cleaning up the inside. They had run into some trouble last I checked, and they might need your expertise with the mud.” Regardless of whether the daughter of Mort did or not, Loren turned back to the shopkeeper. ”New paints, and I’ll throw in the wood we’re clearing up as well.”
The old woman’s eyes narrowed. ”Deal. But you have to carry the furniture back yourself.”
Knowing he wasn’t going to get a better offer than this at this point, the Launceleyn nodded. Following the shopkeeper, he saw the cans of paint. Using his creation magic, he topped off the primary colors, as well, as the black and the white paint cans, then smiled a bit apologetically. The old woman’s eyes had narrowed suspiciously, and she shook her head at the spells, but a deal was a deal. ”That’s all I can do for now. I can come back to do more later.”
Pursing her lips, the old woman shook her head again. ”No. Just get out of my sight, get the furniture out of here, and bring me the wood you find.” She grumbled something about stupid Outlanders and Abandoned as she walked away. Still, even with that, he breathed a sigh of relief. Then he summoned two wolves. They took a chair each with their teeth, while he himself took a table, straining with the weight. And then he went back to the school, hoping it hadn’t dissolved into total chaos in his absence.
Delphia laughed, which while not out rightly scary, did sound a bit ghostly. ”He never was in the afterlife if he is here. I cannot pluck them from my father’s realm.” she said, as though that were obvious. But Loren apparently wanted to reassign her, and so slowly as it had formed, the soul dissipated and she dropped her hands. ”He will still be waiting for you so you can go to Mort together.” she said warmly to the woman before heading back to the soon to be school.
”Oliver? Loren said you needed help with the memory mud.” she said when she finally arrived, coming up behind the very blonde young man.
“The mud… won’t let you?” she says with a skeptical raise of her brow. She knows the mud is slightly sentient, but it’s clear that Oliver is letting the mud control him instead of being the boss. Her eyes flicker to the mud and she can see the objects moving in the opposite direction. She snorts. Stepping into the flow of mud, she interrupts the progress and pulls items out, flinging them out through the door. She can’t do that with everything of course, there seems to be too much, but an idea comes to her. “What magic do you have?” she asks the boy, wondering if the two of them together could be more effective.
Either that or he needs to grow that backbone Safrin was talking about and make the mud do what he wants it to do.
Wait. Was Wessex trying to imply that he was using his magic in order to make the materials move? Oliver was stable with his telekinesis. He knew that he was not mentally moving it. No way. It kind of made him frustrated that she'd possible even suggest such a thing. He was not that stupid or incapable of using his magic.
With a sigh, he looked over at the materials. "I have telekinesis and illusions, but I know for sure that it's not me who is moving them. Like, trust me. I have a good enough handle of my telekinesis to know that I'm not moving them." He was absolutely overreacting and was a bit overly offended. He had a lot of room to grow and would need to recognize this with time. Of course, this would all change once he did eventually meet with Safrin as this has not happened yet due to timelines.
Mud and Oliver had always had problems, so maybe the mud just really hates him. He also has terrible luck, so that's another big part of it. "Do you have any containers I can put it in? Maybe then we will be able to, you know, prevent the mud from carrying it away." As he spoke he picked up a stone and moved to place it at the doorway, hopeful that the mud would actually show Wessex that hew as not crazy and that the mud was fucking with him.
Oliver places a stone by the door in hopes to show Wessex that he is not crazy.
I JUST WANT MY EXISTENCE TO BE MORE THAN TREMBLING
12-17-2019, 07:48 PM (This post was last modified: 12-17-2019, 07:50 PM by Loren.)
LOREN
At least Delphia agreed to go easily enough, leaving Loren free to deal with the shopkeeper and the furniture. Loren sighed when he arrived back—having towed the table and chairs all the way over here with the assistance of his wolves—to discover that the three other people hadn’t managed to clean up the mess yet. A long suffering look crossed his features before he schooled them into a neutral mask, though his eyes flicked to Wessex and lingered there for a long moment, eyes sympathetic.
Setting the burdens down, he glanced around at the group, flanked by his wolves. Then he nodded firmly, a determined expression on his face. ”Oliver and Wessex, I’d appreciate it if you could go and retrieve the rest of the furniture from the shopkeeper. You can’t miss her, she’s the traumatized looking old woman. Tell her the man who refilled her paint sent you, and that I'll be along shortly with her wood.” He rattled off the short directions to the other two before turning to Delphia. ”You order the mud to stay out.”
With that, he raised both hands and blasted every piece of mud he could find, scouring the walls and the floors of the stuff with water. He kept going until every inch of the stuff was well and gone, flushed out the door. Hoping that the demi-god would do as he requested, he gathered up the wood he could find to bring it back to the shopkeeper.
The daughter of death blinked, watching as the young man Oliver spoke to Wessex…but seemed not to notice her or her query. Briefly she looked down at herself – had she stepped into the realm of the dead on accident? No…well…how odd. But it seemed Loren had been close at her heels, and made short work of sending orders about, include some for her as well.
Silently, she watched as the summoner used his magic to wash the mud out the back door, and she followed when the last bits of it had banished. Already, clumps of it were making and effort to scoot their way back inside, but she impeded it’s path. ”Now, now, you pesky little mudlings. It is time for you to go and have your fun elsewhere. Go on now, there are little patches of grass back there that would be much more entertaining for you.” she said lovingly to the memory mud, gently coaxing it to move away from the building, just as she had the first time she had met Loren. ”The building is not a place for mud any longer.”
With an equally frustrated sigh, Wessex responds to his misinterpretation of her question. “I wasn’t implying that you were, I know the mud is weird this year. I can use magic if you do it first. So I thought that together, if you had certain kinds of magic, we could do something strong enough together.” She looks to the mud as it continues to move things around and shakes her head, spreading her hands wide. “No containers on me, sorry, but -” luckily, she’s stopped by Loren and a new request.
There’s a brief shared sympathetic look between herself and Loren. It’s surprising, really, to find them connecting over the incompetence of the other members of the effort. But the truth is that it shouldn’t be a surprise, given what kind of people they both are.
“Sure. On it.”
Whether or not Oliver follows, Wessex heads to the market and finds the woman Loren is talking about. She delivers the message and a couple of chairs are promptly shoved in her direction. With a nod and murmured thanks, she takes half of the furniture and brings it back to the building.
This was getting nowhere. He had expected Wessex to somehow help him, but of course, instead she tried to suggest ways that they could use magic. He didn't know what kind of magic an ascended woman would even be able to do. Sadly, before he could so much as agree to her idea, Loren came on up and tasked them with a new job, one that he could hopefully do. That is, as long as there was no mud. "Can do....and Loren? I'm really sorry I haven't been able to help so far....trust me, I am trying," He said the last part as Wessex started to leave, clearly very embarrassed over the whole thing.
With that, he rushed on after her, moving to catch up and hopefully help out with carrying the furniture. Wessex was a bit more diplomatic so he'd allow her to do the talking while all he did was help to carry the crap. Some furniture is thrown their way and so he picks up the rest and follows after Wessex, deciding to not speak due to the energy coming off from Wessex.
I JUST WANT MY EXISTENCE TO BE MORE THAN TREMBLING
