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!
03-06-2021, 12:00 AM (This post was last modified: 03-06-2021, 12:01 AM by Adam.)
ADAM
"How long have you been here?" Adam said with a laugh. It seemed Cameron wasn't brand new, which meant they had to have lived through Longnight, but he was gonna go ahead and assume they hadn't done it in the Grounds. "Just give it some time. You'll see. Monsters and Gods and magic and all kinds of shit just waiting to fuck you up." He'd thought he was above it all when he'd been dropped into the world, but here he was now, Ascended and having just spent a week fighting huge beasts that nearly killed him.
His own world had been at a slightly more advanced level technologically than Caido, so Adam nodded in agreement with Cameron, but he really had no idea what he was going along with. TVs, Cars...all of that kind of stuff was science fiction. "Uhhh. I lived in the mountains by a big city and I used to ride around the roads and rob people." There was no shame in his voice or face as he said this, in fact, Adam looked a little proud. "Lots of rich assholes going in and out there, so I'd just aim my gun at their carriages. Most of time didn't even hafta shoot."
While he was indeed not at all ashamed of his past work, Adam had left out a vital detail here in an attempt to seem cooler; he'd never killed anyone and struggled with even injuring the most assholish of rich assholes. Usually, if he had shot, it had been a warning bullet into the ground.
If you hear the call of arcane lore, Your world shall rest on Earth no more
03-06-2021, 02:24 AM (This post was last modified: 03-06-2021, 02:24 AM by Cameron.)
"A few weeks." Cam had arrived shortly before LongNight, and they'd heard the stories, of course -- people had been very clear that they should get out of town before the darkness drew in. "I mean, I know that stuff's rough, but I don't know -- there's got to be some good stuff that comes out of it too. It's definitely more interesting than my last job."
"Carriages" told Cam a little about what time period Adam's old world had been in, and they took a moment to reassess him in the light of his former occupation. Probably a potentially dangerous guy, but Cam had a feeling that looking intimidated would only encourage him to further intimidate them. So ... play it cool. (If they'd known about Adam's less-than-deadly habits, they would have been more at ease, but oh well.) "So you were a highwayman? I mean, that's what we called it in my world, but it hasn't really been a thing for, oh, a century and a half? Not in my part of the world, anyway."
Cam almost mentioned that they'd never even held a gun, then decided that maybe advertising their inability to defend themself wasn't a good idea, even if Adam seemed decent.
cameron ?
"Cameras" by Ennev is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
"A few weeks. Ha. Okay. Talk to me again when you've been here a year." Adam snorted. He knew he was being a cock, but with the shit he'd been dealing with lately, he couldn't have much patience for anyone pretending Caido was a good place to be. His old world hadn't exactly been great, but it had at least had consistent rules. Not all these weird Gods and magic things changing everything up every two seconds.
He was unfamiliar with the word highwayman, but nodded anyway. It sounded cool, and as long as they understood the general idea of 'stop people and get their shit', it didn't really matter. "...How come? Do people just not steal shit where you're from anymore?" That seemed improbable; no matter how great society got, he couldn't see a world with no crime at all. "Sounds kinda boring."
If you hear the call of arcane lore, Your world shall rest on Earth no more
"If I live that long," Cam replied, intending it as a joke -- mostly. But they'd always known that they weren't suited to actual life in the medieval worlds they liked to read and fantasize about, and they were already seeing signs of that in Caido. They thought about their dwindling stash of medication and then did their best to push the thought away before it could make them too worried.
'It's not that people don't steal things anymore," they answered. "But we have cars now instead of carriages, and it's a lot harder to get a car to stop. You'd have to shoot out the tires or something. And, well, we have a lot more cops and law enforcement now. In my part of the world, it'd be pretty hard to get away with something like that."
cameron ?
"Cameras" by Ennev is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
"If you live that long." Adam echoed with a nod; they probably didn't want him to agree, but it was unfortunately not unusual for people he met to not be around in a Season's time. Caido hit hard and fast and often without warning.
Hearing the word car sparked a vague memory, something Nate had once said to him. He struggle to remember exactly what it was, other than that it was fast and made of metal. That was all he really needed to know, though; basically a tough carriage. "Can't you just...get a car yourself and smash it into the other car? Get some spikes or something on it." His eyes glittered with an imaged metal carriage bearing a bed of spikes on the front.
As for cops, he snorted and kicked some sand, watching it fly into the air and drift into the sea. "I've been to jail hundreds of times. Never kept me for long. Guards are stupid, no matter where from."
If you hear the call of arcane lore, Your world shall rest on Earth no more
Yeah, Cam hadn't really expected Adam to agree with that, and it didn't feel great to know that someone more experienced with Caido also suspected that it would kill Cam quickly. But they weren't about to argue, were they? So they moved on to lighter topics:: namely, theft.
"That's ... I don't think that would work. It's pretty dangerous to run one car into another -- you'd probably get hurt in the crash, even if the other car was hurt worse. They go at like 70 miles per hour, on the highway. Crashes kill people all the time." Cam didn't want to totally shoot down Adam's idea, so they added, "There are demolition derbies, I think, or there used to be -- events where people crash cars into each other and try to be the last car still moving. But that's at lower speeds, and they're still dangerous. And it's, you know, a sport, not a way of stealing things."
They didn't mention that all they knew about those came from one old mystery novel they'd read as a kid, so they weren't exactly an authority on the subject.
"Prison breaks are really uncommon now, too," they said, trying not to look too impressed by Adam's hardened criminal past. "Because of all the security cameras, I guess."
cameron ?
"Cameras" by Ennev is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Cam provided a whole lot of reasons why Adam's old life wouldn't work in their world, a lot of which went over his head. He had no concept of how fast 70mph was, or what a camera was and why it would stop him from escaping a jail; all he heard was challenges to overcome, things he'd outsmart and get to brag about over a pint later. Not that he would ever get the chance, but he smirked to himself just imagining all the cool stuff he could get up to.
"I'd still wager my chances. I've come up against some wild shit before." Whatever a camera was, he doubted it was as tough as half the guards he'd fought in jails before.
Surprisingly, or maybe knowing Adam not that surprisingly, this conversation had actually worked to cheer him up. He was certainly no longer in a mood to smoke cigarettes; realising he was happier, he huffed out a laugh towards the ocean and stretched. "Well, I think I'll leave you here to get mugged by someone, if you're still gonna stay here on your own in the dark. I'll be heading back up home."
If you hear the call of arcane lore, Your world shall rest on Earth no more
"Sure," Cam said skeptically. They could see that Adam wasn't taking the dangers of such an attempt in the modern world seriously, but it didn't really matter, did it? It wasn't like he was going to have any opportunity to try putting spikes on a car and ramming it into another at 70 mph. And he did seem in a better mood now, so Cam smiled a little, glad they'd cheered him up -- somehow.
They grimaced at the mention of getting mugged, a reminder that they should probably get home too, even if they still didn't want to take Adam's offer to walk them home. Starting off in the other direction, towards the fires on the beach, they mock-grumbled, "Yeah, thanks for the encouragement. See you around."
All in all, not a bad guy, or a bad conversation, Cam decided. Now ... which way was home again?
- FIN
cameron ?
"Cameras" by Ennev is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
