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!
As soon as Loren appeared in the fog of the portals, he made his way immediately towards the signpost for Halo. Nodding at the guards stationed in the cave, he practically ran past them. Although he didn't know exactly where the shrine was, he turned to head deeper into the mountains. Even though he was barely dressed the cold did nothing to hamper his movements.
Compelling what wildlife he could to come help him, they eventually led him to a cave. He stumbled inside it, blinking at the darker interior. There were words and artwork on the walls, but he ignored them all.
Instead, he just walked right up to the shrine itself. Taking the chunk of metal out of his pocket, he tossed it without ceremony or preamble on the stone with gold running through it. "This is for the Voice. I brought the metal you wanted." Anger roiled in his veins, but he forced the partial shifting under control, taking a deep breath.
"You have brought me that which I can use to cure everyone of this dreadful disease." Electric light flares within the shrine, haloing the Voice who sits like a queen atop a marble pillar. Her dark eyes are sharp and crackle with blue light, and though her expression is cold and distant, there is a smile upon her lips. "I would have thought you would be a bit more pleased about it."
Taking no chances, a snarl of electricity snakes out to grab at the metal, drawing it close. What the Voice sees in it, what it might be used for, she gives absolutely no indication of. Turning her eyes upward toward the Launceleyn, shifting and unhappy as he seems to be, she cocks her head slightly to the side.
As the Voice appeared, Loren narrowed his eyes at her. However, his jaw dropped at her words. "Wait...everyone?" He blinked, surprise writ large on his features, though it quickly shifted to relief, followed by suspicion that it could be that easy.
"I thought it was just the Ascended." Frowning, he watched as the electricity arced forward to claim the metal. He just stood there, making no move to stop or react to it, though he doubted there was anything he could do.
Running a hand through his hair, he grimaced. "I am glad that we'll all be cured, if that's true. But I cannot pretend to be happy about how this came about." He took a deep breath and let it out as a snarl. "I don't like being fucking coerced," he growled, rubbing his jaw which hurt from how hard he'd been clenching it.
10-13-2020, 10:03 PM (This post was last modified: 10-13-2020, 10:03 PM by the VOICE.)
the stories i could tell
The Voice continues to smile, seemingly quite pleased at his surprise. "But of course. I needed the metal to cure my children, that nasty water of Frey's obviously won't do for them, but I'll make something for the rest of the world as well. Why wouldn't I?" She asks sweetly. "Like you perhaps, I am not the monster I am often made out to be."
His anger only makes her shrug softly. "That's nothing to do with me. I told the ascended to find the metal and bring it to me. How they went about that is entirely in their control. Free will, you understand." Unlike the old gods, The Voice was always quite clear about which strings she was pulling, even if she couldn't always say why.
'Why do you endure them, then Firebrand? When your efforts are always so looked over? Your good deeds always judged as sins and errors?"
As the Voice explained, Loren found his brow furrowing. Before too long, though, a wicked grin spread across his lips. "Good. And thank you." He found himself laughing, though there was still that slightly hysterical edge to it. "I suppose you're right about that." Relaxing slightly, his hands uncurled from the fists he'd subconsciously formed.
Snorting, he shook his head. "I wasn't talking about the Ascended." His mind flashed back to the scene only moments before: Ronin, Remi, Morgan, and Amalia all arrayed against him. "But I appreciate your commitment to free will." It was yet another thing they had in common, apparently.
Shrugging, he scowled. "I wouldn't exactly say I endured them back there. But fuck if I know at this point." He spread his hands. "Maybe because good deeds don't stop being good just because people don't like me. Maybe because I stopped caring about their opinion of me a while ago." He snorted, knowing that last statement was a lie he told himself, though he was creeping ever closer to that point. "Or maybe it's because they are more powerful than me, and there are a lot more of them."
10-14-2020, 02:22 PM (This post was last modified: 10-14-2020, 02:23 PM by the VOICE.)
the stories i could tell
The Voice, nods her chin elevated slightly as a knowing smile spreads across her lips. "I think you'll find I'm right about many things." She says leadingly, though offers no further context.
Softly shrugging—his problems with his own kind not being a concern for her—she nods. "A world without it...or worse still, a world where you're held accountable for choices you had no way of knowing the outcome of?" She tuts and shakes her head. "Unlike your gods, I am as open and available to my children as I possibly can be. Vanity and trickery are such tedious games to play."
Raising a brow at Loren, the Voice leans forward. "And yet for someone who doesn't care, it seems to weigh on you terribly." The half-crescents in his palms from where he'd balled his hands into fists spoke to that, as did the animalistic features he'd displayed when he first came.
"Ah well, if power is all it is..." Sitting up, the Voice eyes the Launceleyn before her, considering. "You know...for as powerful as your attuned shifts are...there is nothing about them you couldn't get from me. Why bother with being a lion with impenetrable skin, when you can't talk? When you have no thumbs? When you can't use your other abilities at the same time? It's so limiting. I could simply give you impenetrable skin." This is all said so incredibly casually, it's laughable. "There's very little you have the power to do that I could not replicate, you know. And you'd be stronger for it, of course. Faster and more clear-sighted too." Pausing to smile, the Voice lets her gaze linger upon him for a moment. "And a family who will never abandon you? A god who genuinely cares?" Her shoulders shrug again. "Your brother has taken to it quite well, if you ask me."
Humming in response to the Voice's cryptic comment, Loren narrowed his eyes when she spoke further about her views on free will. He couldn't help but agree with her on them. "Most would say I was a fool for expecting a world where people were truly free and informed." Scowling, he shook his head. "What about those who are not your children?"
Turning his palms up, he stared at the marks they did indeed bear. "Yeah, well, I'm only human." Sighing, he shrugged, letting his hands fall back to his sides as he did.
Lips twitching with amusement, he raised his eyebrows. "I'm not sure he'd necessarily agree with you." Taking a deep breath, he stood up straighter. "I am sure you could give me all that, and more. But at what cost?" He stared at her steadily, meeting her gaze up above where she sat on her pillar.
'Well...it's as you say. They are not my children. Once I devoted my time and efforts to trying to make this world better, and I was cast out and shamed for it. So now I've redirected my efforts toward making things better for my kind."
Smiling slightly at that particular choice of words, the Voice nods as if to say that needn't always be the case.
"Oh no? I wonder who knows him better now? I will say that for as much as Neron liked pain, he is glad not to be shackled by it anymore. It has freed him in ways you might not yet be able to imagine." But you could. "I ask for very little. I do not issue marching orders for the ascended that I expect to be obeyed without question. Our family discusses things and makes decisions together. You would be part of that family, a family that unlike the one from which you came, will never be broken." Pausing, she sits straighter upon the marble. "The old gods are fickle and selfish. Most of them, anyway. Have you ever wondered why it is that Rae has never interfered? Only Vi, Mort, and their heralds? It is because only Rae knows that the ascended are simply a natural progression. I have taken humanity and elevated it. That Mort and Vi are controlling over their creations is all the mort reason to escape them."
Raising a brow and letting her gaze linger on Loren, she offers him a sweet smile. "What have the gods ever done for you, Loren? Besides tell you to only approach them when what you have to say or ask is of interest to them? Gods who demand offerings. Who belittle you? Who help you but only with cryptic wording and vaguery?" She holds up the metal he has brought. "Have they ever thanked you? Did any of them offer to take this metal and cure everyone?"
Loren saw the Voice's nod, intuited its meaning. Running a hand through his hair, he grimaced. "No matter the cost to others?" He bit his lip, not sure if he was willing to swallow that philosophy.
She was probably right about Neron, so the healer just shrugged. It's not like he could claim that he and his twin were close. As she spoke further, about Rae and their indifference (which Loren had seen for himself) and the selfishness of the other old gods the Firebrand smiled grimly. "No they don't thank me, and no they didn't offer a cure. And you're right about my other experiences with the gods. Probably right about everything else too."
He cleared his throat. "But you didn't answer my question." Tilting his head to one side, he regarded her. "What, if anything, would I be giving up?" He took a deep breath, shoulders tensing as he did.
"Not in so many words, no. It's all a great deal more fine-grained than that. But at the end of the day, my priority will always be to my family. It has never been us who have struck first. In every confrontation with your gods, it has always been they who light the first match." Ruthless though the Voice might be, it is never her first option. "Though I don't shy away from a fight." She adds with a curved smile.
The Voice nods, splaying her fingers slightly. She had said that she was right about most things, after all. "I'm sure if you asked them they would tell you that you were selfish for wanting praise as if respect is something petty."
Placing the metal back into her lap and folding her hands upon it, the Voice leans forward. "All the things you already know of. Your ability to feel pain, the loss of certain sensory functions so that you might gain more. Most of this I believe you're already familiar with, from your time spent around my family. You would retain your right to chose your way forward in this world of course, though by no means would that make you free of the consequences of your actions." She shrugs at this, for such is the price of free will. "I can tell just how tainted you have been by the old gods and their ways that you keep looking for the rug to be pulled out from under your feet." The Voice says with an almost sad smile. "I would offer you this because I think you would be a welcome addition to our family. You would make us stronger. There is much value in you. The old gods are oblivious not to see it, but I do."
Ah, but he had asked a very specific question that needed to be answered. "Your magic and attuned abilities would be gone. Geese and lions are...nice, but why not simply the ability to fly? Why the need to be a badger when you could simply have your own claws in the body you're in now?" Lightning sparks between her fingertips momentarily. "If you would join our family, if you would help us to carve out our place in this world, then there is no catch, Loren. Not if we want the same things."
The cost to change races would be 1500MP (150x level 10), though this is a special circumstance obviously. Loren would become fully an ascended, instead of some weird tri-hybrid.
Loren would lose all of his abandoned magic and attuned abilities/shifts.
You'd work out with Odd/Honey the transfer of abilities to ascended upgrades (flight, claws, impenetrable skin as attuned replacements, ascended healing, regeneration, lightning/metal control, etc)
"Neither do I." Laughing, Loren shook his head at the potentially inadvertent echo of when he'd Attuned, when Frey had told him to fight and to keep fighting. Biting his lip, he nodded when the Voice brought up the point about respect, or rather the lack thereof.
Then she laid out the choice before him clearly: Ascension, true Ascension, with all that it entailed. He swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. Looking away from her, he felt his fingers drumming a beat against his thigh and his foot tapping, nervous habits he'd picked up through a lifetime of pain that she was offering to free him from.
He didn't respond, not right away, not for a while. When he finally did, he sighed. "Could I...could I have some time to think it over? If I promise to support you and the Ascended in the meantime?" He ran both hands through his hair, still staring at a point on the floor.
Because he wasn't sure they wanted the same things.
"You needn't promise me anything, Loren." The Voice softly said. "I'm not here to bribe or barter with you. Only to tell you what I can offer. It's up to you to make your own choices. But I'll never lie to you. Won't ever belittle you or abandon you." The promises so easy for her to make, could not be said the same by the gods Loren currently worshipped.
"I shall get to work on this cure. Perhaps we will speak again after it is finished?" Electricity flickers around her as her form begins to waver. "Thank you for bringing this to me. You could have kept it and used it against us. Instead, it will be used for the betterment of everyone."
As the Voice spoke, Loren felt the tension he'd been carrying with him drain out. Looking tired as the exhaustion caught up with him as his adrenalin faded, he nodded. "Thank you. I appreciate your candor and your offer. I will definitely think about it."
Nodding at her words, he rubbed his forehead. "Thank you for the cure as well. I guess I'm glad I made the right choice in the end." He released a shuddering breath, knowing how close it had been.
Hesitating, he finally looked up at her, meeting her gaze. "Perhaps we'll speak again. But...I know, it's not my place, but I was wondering...is there anything you would consider doing to help the Ascended when they battle the monsters this LongNight? To keep my brother, Sam, and Nate, and the others safe?" The words felt out of him in a rush, tumbling over one another.
"Why of course. You think I would send them into such a foray without help?" Softly the goddess smiles, head tilting sadly as she gives it a shake. "I know it must seem strange to you, with the sort of divine intervention you've experienced, but I would never send my family into a situation they could not handle. That there might be injuries or worse, is something they are all aware of. It's why I have given them the choice. Why they made the decision together."
When was the last time Loren could say he'd seen the same respect offered?
