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!
Adam, as Coffee walked forward, was expecting to see something rather cute. The two dragons maybe making friends of sorts, sniffing and circling like animals did. He certainly didn't feel particularly worried, sure the only danger would be Coffee perhaps getting snapped at if he got a little cheeky.
Perhaps it was because of the huge distance between his expectations and what happened that he could barely comprehend it at first. As his eyes tried to take in what he saw he yelled "COFF!" - but it was too late. His little dragon, his friend throughout Caido, had fallen to one side, encased in ice. It was hard to see just what condition he was in, but the sudden and painful snapping of the bond in his chest told Adam what he needed to know.
If he were alone he would have fallen to his knees there, but he saw Pet knocked to the side (was he dead too? Would such a horrible thing really happen?) and knew he had to keep going, somehow. Tears clouding some of his view he ran to grab his boyfriend, arms under his armpits (where he could feel the faint rise and fall of breath, oh thank God) to drag him quickly to the entrance of the tunnel, where Ama was praying.
Adam, though...he wasn't going to pray.
Pulling his pistol from his left hip, he raised it without thought and aimed at the dragons open mouth, his own lips in a determined line. He very rarely shot to kill but now, all mercy seemingly gone, he fired the whole magazine, one loud bang after another, into the beast's throat.
---
Adam rushes to pull Pet to the tunnel entrance, then tries to fire 6 shots from his left pistol into the dragon's open mouth as it roars.
02-10-2020, 09:20 PM (This post was last modified: 02-10-2020, 09:58 PM by Deimos.)
Deimos
THE RESURRECTED SWORD
How did you survive? they ask
How long did you suffer?
how dark did they tint your dreams?
Over before it’d even begun – the feeling of ice blasting through the corridor, fury, wrath, and abhorrence for their disturbance. He could understand it, comprehend it, but it didn’t make it any easier.
It was Zuriel’s pain, combined with all the other vestiges of melancholy, despair, and disaster, stinging through his soul. Combined, together, in between bonds of man and beast, were those infernal connections he’d taken for granted. The haughty conjectures were gone, replaced by walls of torrential agony, and he could feel the nettles pulsing down his throat, the frigid air pummeling its way into his lungs, echoes and refrains, a silent, infernal scream rampaging through a unicorn’s chest and ending in his. Everything was cold, cold, cold, and damned, damned, damned.
Go was all he could muster for the moment towards his bonded, raising his head, trying to survey the rest of the scene. Zuriel’s movements were slow, labored, and he had every intention of dragging her back through the tunnel instantly, had everything else not gone to hell too. Amalia grabbed Jyoti. Adam had Coffee – except not, because the dragon was frozen (and such a vivid image sunk into his mind; vanquished), and then there was shooting (the gun?), and the confusion, the chaos, curled against him. This was how he survived, immersed in all of these war zone layers. Just a different time. Just a different place.
Within a breath he’d advanced from their edges, unfurling a net from his creation magic, weighted down by heavier material, attaching a lengthy rope to its hinges, and hoping as he threw it, it could hit upon the ice cube with Coffee contained. Would Sunjata be able to snag the rope and take it with him? Grab it was a singular command sent to the man. Uncertain where Peter’s companion had been dispersed to (ether? Vapor? Nothing?), he couldn't wait any longer. When Zuriel had ambled towards Amalia back through the tunnel, he ran and turned along the entryway, drawing up a shield of ice along the aperture – water honed and forged with some bestial shade of abhorrence and melancholy, intending to gain them all some time or hopefully block any more attacks from the vehement dragon.
--
Zuriel heads back towards the tunnel with Amalia and Jyoti. Deimos creates a weighted net with a long rope attached (for Sunjata to grab) intending to hurl it towards ice cube Coffee, heads towards the tunnel, and draws up an ice shield to hopefully buy time for Sunjata or block any further dragon attacks.
- until you had blood glistening on your teeth
- until your suffering paled in comparison to their own
- until you learned to enjoy the sounds of screams
Things happened far quicker than Peter really had time to process them. A blast of freezing cold, the sudden blankness of a spot in his mind only recently made bright, then nothing but a roiling darkness, his mind free of pain, of sensation.
He has no way to fight against any actions taken against him, no way to protest, to scream for bones made lifeless again, to roar in the face of death. It’s always been his passiveness that’s kept him safe anyway.
Pets unconscious!
please don’t believe in me
please disagree with me
His hello is a mistake, the waking of a sleeping dragon was a mistake. Everything about this was absolutely an even bigger mistake. And he can see that now, remaining near the entrance of the tunnel with Haai nearby. But this form is useless, the nonaggressive appearance utterly useless against the rage of the dragon.
And he watches as Coffee perishes, as Apricum is snuffed out too, Jyoti fallen but not quite dead yet. His heart thunders in his chest, he can feel the tightness of his throat as Adam goes for Peter and his guns, and he shifts into himself to try and push Adam and Peter and Amalia out and away. "Go." Deimos is busy creating a net to sling over the beast, and Sunjata reaches forward to try and latch onto the rope and pull to get them out.
Haai slinks back to try and guide them out with Zuriel, and Sunjata finds himself holding his breath to see if it works. They wouldn’t need to face the dragon again if they manage to get Coffee out. But gods how horrible of a thing to have happened, despite it not quite registering yet. The sooner they leave the tunnels the better.
Sunjata tries to grab the rope from Deimos’ weighted net, to pull it back toward the tunnel if they catch Coffee.
love will save you, but it won't save me
BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
02-11-2020, 02:00 AM (This post was last modified: 02-11-2020, 02:18 AM by Odd.)
RANDOM EVENT
Like a newborn fawn Amalia moves towards Jyoti. Predators are attracted to movement, I wonder what might have happened had you simply let her be for a time? But you don't. Starlight projects around the black-eyed woman as she kneels, awkwardly, to grab Jyoti. Intelligence sparks brightly in the dragon's gaze as if she understands what covers the woman, and no attack comes. Could the healing magic have better served Peter, unconscious and just a few feet away? We might never know...for now, it consumes Jyoti and the starwhale croons a note of pain into Amalia's mind, still encased in ice.
Adam is not encased in a protective barrier, running wildly back into the thick of it. The dragon's tail rises, sweeping an easy and swift arc towards the dark-haired man, sending him flying with Peter in his arms. What happens next? Well that's truly remarkable. Adam and Peter hit the side of the cavern with Adam entirely shielding the blow with his body. Ribs break, an arm too perhaps, but they are both alive. Somehow, they are both alive. But then there's the guns...the guns that should never have been in this world. As the gun's rapport rings out, blasting the dragon in the neck, sternum and in one eye, the dragoness is enraged. She pivots towards the pair, blasting them with a solid stream of pure ice. The pair are frozen instantly in a blast that immediately extinguishes their lives. Adam has gone the way of his dragon, his roguish grin forever cemented in an icy smirk. And Peter? The world will never know the quiet and immense power in his mind.
Zuriel limps away, the dragon distracted by Adam and Peter, but also content to let the thieves leave her den.
And then...well. And then it all really goes to hell. Deimos throws the rope, his hands skilled, his mind ever-ready to make the adjustments needed...but there is too much happening. The wind caused by the movement of the dragon, the distraction of seeing both Adam and Peter frozen solid...and the rope...the clever rope..it just misses by 5%.
Now there are the three of them and the surviving companions, at the mouth of the cave. The dragon stands up, rearing her head back, she blasts a stream of ice your way. Run..run, or do something very clever..
Peter: 0/112
Jyoti: 90 % health
Coffee: 0
Apricum: 0
Zuriel: 30% health
Adam: 0
Posting order is now Amalia, Deimos, Sunjata. Peter and Adam may post dramatic death posts anytime!
02-11-2020, 02:27 AM (This post was last modified: 02-11-2020, 02:32 AM by Amalia.)
Amalia
For my part, I know nothing with any certainty
She skids on the ice, her broken body giving way and sending her sprawling toward Sunjata and Deimos, the starwhale clasped in her arms. Quickly sprouting protective fur Amalia manages to avoid any scrapes and bruises; the tears of joy and relief that spring to her eyes freeze quickly on her lashes, forming a prism of crystals through which the girl inspects her companion, now safe and whole. Jyoti is safe, healed in her arms, and Adam-
-Adam-
She turns just in time to hear the burst of combustion, to see the flash of white, to witness the ice pouring out from the dragoness' throat in a feral, frightening rush. It reaches over the fallen pair, encompasses them in a pristine prison- love and laughter and the roguish face frozen in a permanent, final embrace.
And Amalia, without.
"A...Adam?"
She reaches for him, but the action is useless given her inability to actually move. Jyoti still clutched against her breast, the girl can only extend her arm uselessly, trying to claw at the last remnants of him, to catch her best friend's escaping ghost before it can disappear.
"Adam..." Her voice is a croak, a whisper, a low, moaned plea to the frozen air. "Adam, no. Adam. Come back. Please, I... I need you."
The tears that crystalize on her lashes now are salt and acid, loss and pain. A best friend, she had a best friend, and now...
Now that friend is dead, and there's nothing she can do.
Turning dark eyes to the dragon, Amalia blinks rapidly, her heartbeat slow. Still seated on the ground before the massive beast, the girl can do nothing but reach out, but pray, but beg for the mercy of the majestic creature they never should have bothered in the first place. Please... please given them back. Please. I'm... I'm so sorry. We'll go, we never meant to hurt you, I can heal you, but please... please let me take them with us. Let me have him back.
Amalia clings to Jyoti and covers herself with snow leopard fur. She is still shielded with her star charm. She begs the dragon to let them leave with Adam and Peter's bodies. She also offers to heal it with her shield, which also has Loren's mastered healing magic. She hasn't moved from her last location.
Type: Light
Star Charm | A silver charm in the shape of a star. When activated, it projects a 1ft barrier of starlight all the way across the user. (Made by Deimos)
Type: Dark
An ornate titanium shield covered in star sigils. When (abandoned) magic is cast at this device, it can store the power and reuse it as controlled by the wielder. (Made by Remi)
02-11-2020, 02:43 AM (This post was last modified: 02-11-2020, 02:45 AM by Deimos.)
Deimos
THE RESURRECTED SWORD
How did you survive? they ask
How long did you suffer?
how dark did they tint your dreams?
No.
No.
No.
Avid denial didn’t help, a stunned, silent requiem didn’t either. But his eyes widened in disbelief, for those infinite moments where maybe it would’ve worked – shots firing, ringing out over an echoing cavern, Peter protected in Adam’s arms.
Then it didn’t matter.
The frigid blast molded into them again, and this time there was no going back. Death knells torn into frozen instances, intervals, and seconds. Deimos hadn’t known them well at all. Peter had been something of a quiet enigma, and Adam had been managing to coil his way into a makeshift friendship with the Sword, and it was gone. All gone now. Dissipated, broken, ether and fragments, curls of nothingness. Like the way of so many of his other comrades and allies alike, there one day, and gone the next; only these graves were chiseled in ice and stone.
Then he missed.
How many times had he practiced throwing knives? Hurling them at targets? Marking his precision? And for what – for this one god damned moment to mean something, to get them out of there, to ensure they had what they needed and didn’t have to come back?
Death and failure. Failure and death.
But he wouldn’t hang his head. He wouldn’t bow, bend, or break – the sudden infernal sway of his rage coating the vestiges of his soul. Embittered and rancorous, determined and molten, he’d try again. There was no use in ceasing, in desisting, when they’d come this far, when Adam, Coffee, Peter, and his companion had all been sacrificed – when something had to hold meaning.
From their distance in the aperture, he reached into his magic. He embraced the chill when all he wanted was the fire – striving to coax another shield for their sanction, to block an incoming blast, to save them while Amalia prayed and pleaded. The Sword wasn’t going to let the rest of them die here.
Then there was Coffee, and Adam, and Peter, and everything in between. If the Shield could try to negotiate for them, he could still attempt for the little dragon again. He continued to hold up his palms, to will the ice around Coffee, melt it, create a stream to maneuver it and slide it towards them.
--
Using his Mastered Water magic, Deimos tries to make an ice shield in front of Amalia, himself, and Sunjata (and the rest of the companions). He also uses the Mastered Water magic again to try and will the ice to melt around Coffee, create a little stream, and slide the little dragon towards them.
Water manipulation: Can create and control water. Must be within a 30ft radius.
Type: Light | Rank: Mastered
- until you had blood glistening on your teeth
- until your suffering paled in comparison to their own
- until you learned to enjoy the sounds of screams
Somehow, Amalia makes it unscathed, and Sunjata pulls the rope back and there was nothing to latch onto. A hiss leaves him at this, gaze flitting toward the blast of ice, arm reaching up to cover part of his face before he watches both Adam and Peter become encased in ice – gone, gone, gone.
Peter, the one he’d likely been the closest to within his guild from the start. A past of sharing, of learning, of how similar the two of them were and yet here he was frozen and covered in ice – another reason to hate the cold. And Adam, the one that had been a brother of sorts as well, the one with the guns that Sunjata had been so jealous of, so reminiscent of.
Both gone too soon, both breaking a piece of his heart with it too. More lives lost to Halo that should have never been, never should have happened had he been smarter, had chosen a different route to go.
He clenches his jaw as Amalia’s words reach him and Deimos is working to try and pull Coffee toward them, and Sunjata aims to stand in front of Amalia, heart shattering as he looks to the dragon, skin shifting to the thick blubber against the cold blasts in case it might help – offering his own hoarse, voice up to the dragon as well. Please let us take them… A brief pause, trying so hard to keep some sort of composure. We won't do anything, we won't take anything else. We won't come back. And they wouldn’t need to, not if they got the companions and the frozen bodies back.
Sunjata partially shifts his skin to the insulating blubber of his orca form and stands somewhat in front of Amalia, pleading with the dragon as well.
love will save you, but it won't save me
BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
Her eyes fixed on Amalia who kneels, the dragoness doesn't seem to notice (or mind), the small stream that lets Coffee's body flow towards the Sword.
As for Amalia and Sunjata's pleas? Oh she is far, far from moved.
Coiling her head back, she lunges forward releasing a shocking breath of frost. Though the trio (and companions) are protected by Deimos' barrier, now it is her magic that covers it, and it radiates a blistering child into the air. Only Sunjata in his partial shift can stand more than a few moments in the presence of such horrific cold.
GET OUT She screams into your minds, her voice just as chilling as you imagine it would be. She takes a step forward, draconic lip curling upwards and talons sinking deep into the ice below her. Her lungs fill with air, sides inflating as white light pulses in her throat. It's almost as if that was your final warning Amalia.
Coffee has floated towards Deimos! Posting order is now Amalia, Deimos, Sunjata. Peter and Adam may post dramatic death posts anytime!
Peter had come into this world in fire, on the heels of death, and had believed, for a long time, that it was his afterlife. Was it normal for the afterlife to be better than the life?
Caido had brought him many things, had given him a taste of what he should have had all along. A family, friends, love in every form he could imagine. In Adam. Even now, deep in the blackness, the chill lifted a touch, arms around him, keeping him safe, protecting him. Was it enough?
The chill returned, deeper now, until it was all there was, until it was nothing but chill and blackness and a strange, terrible peace, wrapped in the arms of his lover forever.
Would what came next be better still? The jaws of death closed around him, finally, completely, and Peter left this world in ice.
please don’t believe in me
please disagree with me
His whole life, Adam had given himself one goal; hr had always wanted to be 'the hero'. The swashbuckling, roguish, handsome and dashing figure that would swoop into the climax of childhood stories ready to save the day and charm everyone while he did it. The songs of his youth, sung in seedy inns to gaggles of brothel children, had set the image strong in his mind.
It had decided all he had done. How he dressed, what skills he persued: he had certainly been the only 16 year old in his group of friends that could shoot, ride a horse and drink most grown men under the table. It had been a big part of the reason why Heidi had been so taken with him, the scruffy teen layabout contrast to her courtly upbringing.
It had been why he'd ended up with a ripped jaw and almost died, when he'd over estimated his ability, imagining too many stories in the place of cold reality.
Since coming to Caido, he'd let go of the ideal a bit, probably because life here was harder than he'd known and the stories were gone. Still, through his meeting Coffee, then Pet, becoming best friends with Amalia and Jigano...it had become a background hum, but he'd found his desire to save the day had remained.
So, enough backstory crap - there was a giant fuck off dragon and his boyfriend was knocked out and Amalia was yelling and it had all gone to shit. In Adam's cool hero story fantasy land, his plan would've gone off without a hitch; right now he'd be holding Pet close as dragon blood sprayed like a sprinkler before them.
That was not what happened.
He'd just gotten a hold on Pet when the worst cold he'd ever felt overcame him, all at once, so quickly it hardly felt real. Adam thankfully managed to fall as his knees gave out so he could drag Pet closer, pull him into one last embrace, lips on his forehead.
Not the hero he'd wanted to be, but he'd died trying to save his love, which had to rate pretty high as far as cool tragic endings went, he thought.
...
..
.
At least Mort's realm was way fucking comfier than the Hell he'd been promised back on his world. Coffee and Pet got to come right with him as well, which...was a bittersweet bonus, but one all the same.
Just one thing to do, before he could rest easy. "Hey, Pet."
02-11-2020, 06:04 PM (This post was last modified: 02-11-2020, 06:06 PM by Amalia.)
Amalia
For my part, I know nothing with any certainty
The wall holds, the dragon roars, and Adam doesn't move.
She cannot even reach for him now, Sunjata and the ice barrier in the way. Cannot try to go to him, to heal him, to drag him back from the realm of Mort no matter how damned the cost. All she can do is watch through that frozen haze as her truest friend is ripped away, the man he loves within his arms, his troubles over at last.
She wishes it could be her.
Despite the warning, despite the danger, Amalia does not move. She is stagnant, paralyzed figuratively and literally, shock and denial rife within her breast. She clings to Jyoti and stares at Adam, howling his name against the walls of his icy prison, a silent scream escaping her lungs in puffs of steam and smoke. Should the others try to move her she will not protest - she can't, after all, too weak to do anything, too slow, too useless, again. All she can do is shrink and shift, adopting her smallest possible form in reflection of how she feels.
Amalia sits uselessly shifts back to otter. If Sunjata or Deimos attempt to move her she will not fight. Her titanium shield is on the ground next to her.
Small measures amongst the circumstances, nothing he could count as a success: Coffee in his grasp, the barrier holding – everything else behind it, beyond it, incapable of grabbing onto. Had Amalia asked, the Sword surely would’ve tried to snag Peter and Adam in the same way, in rivulets and streams, against far, far better judgment. Perhaps it was just as well that she didn’t – the echoes and reverberations shattering through their skulls was enough of a warning that none of them would make it out alive if they didn’t heed its calls.
Then, there was only silence.
The finality, the weight, the tangible grips of it all pushed and pummeled into him, and the Sword remained numb in those scales and fortitudes, in age-old abilities to freeze his emotions, his feelings (and would’ve been better, to never have regained those capabilities at all?) when death stoked and surrounded. Later. They could fall apart later.
There was no time now.
Zuriel had tucked herself away, trying to heal her own wounded, battered frame, and his eyes passed from her to everything else. The weight of silence from Amalia told him all he needed to know for the moment – passing Coffee over to Sunjata without a word, portions of him shuddering and shivering from the icy denizens raging near them. But he raced, he and Zuriel ran just the same, snagging at the baker's otter form, holding her tightly in his arms, and advancing from where they’d once been. They needed to go. They needed to flee. Grab the shield he uttered to Sunjata through bonds, because his jaw was clenched too tight to form any words.
And it felt like they were leaving worlds and friends behind – vessels that once housed precious souls, the seething notion that he couldn’t grab them, couldn’t snag them, couldn’t bring them home gnarled and gnashed, bit and tore. Abandonment – curling and coiling upon him from the inside out.
--
Deimos hands Coffee over to Sunjata. Zuriel attempts to heal herself. Deimos grabs hold of Amalia in her otter form, and they collectively (Zuriel included) go down the corridor.
- until you had blood glistening on your teeth
- until your suffering paled in comparison to their own
- until you learned to enjoy the sounds of screams
They can’t get to them, the pleading goes nowhere. Friends gone, just like that, flames snuffed out. And there’s the shield that Deimos has crafted out of ice, his gaze slipping to Adam and Peter once more as the dragon blasts it’s icy rage once more —
And suddenly, Coffee is in his hands, cold and lifeless and limp. He shudders a moment, clutching the dragon tightly, reaching for the shield. He holds onto the shield and dragon tightly, moving back toward the entrance, Haai following Zuriel close at the unicorns heels. And Sunjata takes up after Deimos, one last look back at the two imprisoned in ice forever.
Sunjata takes hold of Coffee and grabs Amalia’s shield and him and Haai leave the dragon to follow the others down the corridor.
love will save you, but it won't save me
BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
