to raise an army

some ghosts keep you company

Not much had changed in the seasons that had passed while she slept, soul kept and cared for in the home of her father until her crisis had been resolved. Such was to be expected - she was after all a soul that had once died walking in Vi's realm. She did not belong. And like all such souls belonging to Mort, too much time amongst the living could cause undue stress and angst. Nothing her father's love and adoration could not fix thankfully.

But alas, she was once more faced with the realities of the living. War was on their doorstep, as unavoidable as death to all mortals. Remi had already begun preparations to ensure the precious forest remained safe...but more offensive alternatives needed to be taken. The Greatwood had no army, nor the population to man it. And with their proximity to the Hollowed Grounds...she could not help but worry the wood might be razed to ash. She could not allow it.

"Father...I have returned from your realm but I require your aid. I am not yet strong enough to protect this place and need your guidance." she called out to the god of death himself, lighting a few lanterns the breeze had blown out as she did so.

DELPHIA

until you can trust the living once more

Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd

what makes a desert beautiful...is that it hides a well, somewhere

Sunlight scatters through the trees and as it does so, the entirety of the Greatwood seems to sigh with all the luxuriant relaxation of one slipping into a hot bath after a long day. Youthful in appearance but with so old a soul, Mort's smile is as warm and charismatic as it is knowing. "Hello my dear one." Without hesitation the god reaches out that he might pull his daughter into a tight embrace full of joy and love. "I know we were just together, but already it feels so long since I have seen you." He murmurs, releasing her, and then taking her hand that they might stroll.

Despite the snow, the pair are able to walk unencumbered and without the bite of the cold lingering on their skin. "Tell me, what is it you need?"

some ghosts keep you company

Delphia hummed contentedly, happy to hug her divine father even though but a few short weeks had past since she had last seen him. "For you it likely has been ages." she remarked with a smile. Time passed differently in the realm of the divine. A single day in Vi's living realm could easily be months or years where the gods resided. Time was as wibbly-wobbly as the divide between the planes of existence at times.

She took his hand, equally content to stroll along at his side. For a moment she was silent at his question, brows furrowed. "I need an army." she said softly, voice melancholy. Pale eyes glanced up and over at Mort, decided in this course but equally pained by it. Ascended souls did not reach his embrace after all. "I've heard talk of the relics and the war to come. But here in the Greatwood there are simply not enough living hands to wield even simple weapons. And the bastion of the Voice is literally at our doorstep." Even with glowing trees or branches to hold Ascended indefinitely, the Greatwood was still just that - wood. One unnaturally made fire and the whole place could be as much a scar on the face of Caido as the Hollowed Ground.

"But just below the ground, there are centuries of the fallen. Legions of dead who lived in and loved these woods as much as you or I or Ludo. Those who would be willing to fall once more to defend it...and I would ask that you allow me to find a way to raise them to fight the Ascended."

DELPHIA

until you can trust the living once more

Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd

what makes a desert beautiful...is that it hides a well, somewhere

Mort's fingers are soft around hers, and despite the magnanimity of the thing Delphia had just said, the god hums softly and lets their hands swing back and forth. "Your path is to guide souls to slumber and sleep. To my realm where they might be at rest for all eternity." He says with a smile. "What you are asking is like changing the flow of a river, or altering a current in the ocean. It is not so easily done and the ramifications will be great."

Giving Delphia's fingers a gentle squeeze, Mort tugs her hand that she might fall still at his side. "Why this, daughter? Do you find the world so barren that you would call the dead to aid you in a battle that they have already left behind?"

some ghosts keep you company

Her gaze fell in deference to his wisdom and will. She was indeed a creation for a specific purpose, this was true. And she had not swayed in that purpose, even when Ludo - the godling she had been intended to substitute for - returned to the greater world. "Is that not what this war is, father? A great boulder fallen from on high to change the course of the river below? " she asked softly, gazing down at their swinging hands. As the barrier had crashed seasons ago, now its effects rippled out, forcing all to bend or break.

Delphia pulled to a stop, looking back up into the fsce of death once more. "It is the fear of a barren world that compels me. Sending souls who have not had the opportunity to enjoy life compels me. The Ascended follow the Voice unquestioningly, and would see all that Vi has created burned to ash if only she willed it, and there are precious few who can equal their might." Even she could not stand against an ascended. Tug at their souls though she might, she could not evade them forever, and her speed was no where close to theirs - and still she was more capable than the vast majority of Caido's populace. And if her conversation with Wessex, who refused to acknowledge any areas of compromise was a reflection of her kin...there seemed little other way.

"Perhaps there are avenues I cannot fathom, that only you can see and grasp, but I do not see another way I can help protect the world and people you love so much." she said softly. She did not make this request lightly. The dead had earned their rest...but did not the living deserve their life equally? "Am I missing something in all of this?"

DELPHIA

until you can trust the living once more

Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd

what makes a desert beautiful...is that it hides a well, somewhere

"Not at all my dear daughter. This war is a combined effort to remove a bramble that has ensnared part of the river. The water flows more or less as it should, but many are still caught up in the thorns and the unnatural barricade." Mort replies kindly, before falling silent that Delphia might speak.

"Sending those souls where?" Mort asks, his thick brows pressing together. "Sending them to me, where all their hopes and dreams might be fulfilled? Or sending them back into the world to experience pain and war? Why should we do that, simply because the thought of barrenness uneases you?" He wonders gently. "There was a time before you when there was nothing in these lands. There will be a time after you when there is nothing again. Life need not be continuous or abundant to be beautiful."

Reaching out, Mort places his strong fingers against his daughter's shoulders, giving her a reassuring squeeze. "Your heart is perhaps too real, too large for the spirit-form you inhabit." He concedes with a gentle sigh. "But your purpose has never been to provide protection to the living. Only to ensure that no souls find themselves trapped or tricked into being somewhere that they shouldn't."

some ghosts keep you company

"Your heart is perhaps too real, too large for the spirit-form you inhabit."

Eyes widened briefly before casting down to the small patch of ground between their feet. Her heart clenched tight, as if threatening to fail to beat yet blood pounded like drums in her ears. She had stepped out of bounds and lost sight of her purpose so greatly that she no longer belonged within her father's realm? The urge to retch nearly overwhelmed her - but puking on the feet of a high god didn't seem a good way to resolve her problems. "I'm so sorry father." she said quickly, voice tight and raspy as her airways constricted, only allowing just enough room to keep her from passing out - or so it felt.

A moment of silence passed, if only so she could reign in the anxious wave that threatened to send her careening beyond the reach of sanity. "Is there nothing else you would have me do then? Just stand on the sidelines while Remi and the others do their work?" she asked. "The souls of the Ascended still reside somewhere beyond my reach...and those in the Hollowed Grounds continue to terrorize people during LongNight." If her job was to collect souls and send them to Mort, then perhaps she had been on the right path initially with trying to find the lost souls of enemy.

DELPHIA

until you can trust the living once more

Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd

what makes a desert beautiful...is that it hides a well, somewhere

"There is no need. You are allowed to grow, and learn, and make mistakes just like every other living creature." Mort councils soothingly, allowing his daughter to feel the uncertainty and concern that rolls over her in waves if only because emotions will serve for her the strongest tether to the world of the living.

"They have been placed in a more aggressive role, that is true. You are still relatively green compared to the likes of them, though if fighting alongside them is what you wish certainly you could do so. Growing stronger as they have done, would be your first course of action." Mort says with a soft nod of his head.

"The Voice has...apparently rid the Grounds of the LongNight threats. Though whether that is true, is yet to be seen." He says of the trapped ascended souls.

some ghosts keep you company

Mort's assurances were a warm balm on her soul, soothing away her anxieties with ease. He was so good and kind, the depth of his empathy too precious for this realm in which they stood, her soul so undeserving. And yet he gave it to her willingly, and she clung to it with childish desperation.

Was fighting what she wished to do? It was a question she had not considered, and her gaze fell to the ground as she pondered it. Slowly her head began to shake. No. Fighting did not seem her course. Fighting was not what she had been made for. Protecting was he place. She protected souls who would otherwise fall to the likes of wild cat sith. She sought to protect the woods and her home. Did she have to fight to make that happen? Not necessarily. "I am a gatherer of souls, but a protector too. Perhaps, instead what I seek, is a way to protect those around me. Is there such a thing I can use or that can be made for this purpose? Even raising the cast away bodies of the dead to use as a shield or sending friends and foes briefly to your realm to keep them at bay?" she asked, looking back up at him They were two different ideas, but fell more in line with what felt right in her soul.

"But she has not returned the others to you still? The souls of the dead ascended?" she asked, tilting her head.

DELPHIA

until you can trust the living once more

Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd

what makes a desert beautiful...is that it hides a well, somewhere

Mort tilts his eyes upwards, a smile pulling heavily at his lips as if his joy was a weight far too heavy to bear. Laughing, he looks back at Delphia and nods his warm approval. "The remains of those left behind could certainly be animated for a time to assist you." Soulless, there was no conflict from Mort's point of view, and if in time the reanimated remains were used for purposes other than defence? Well. It wasn't as though they would feel the pain of it.

"Speak with someone who has suffered a loss and who still clings to the bodily remains of the departed as if they were more than just earth. Speak with them and understand what it is they feel." His daughter would need to understand the reaction that seeing the dead raised from the earth might cause. "Bring me also the remains of a human, and an animal."

As for the ascended? Mort frowns, and shakes his head. "She will keep them until she is forced to release them. And that, is a battle that will likely make this war seem like child's play." He replies gravely.

---

Delphia has been given a quest! Must be completed in at least 3 threads
1. Speak with someone who is clinging to the remains of the person they have lost
2. Bring the bones of a human
3. Bring the bones of an animal

some ghosts keep you company

Mort's joy is her own, a bright smile curving her lips and crinkling the skin at the corners of her eyes. It seemed she had touched on something he had wished her to find on her own, rather than guide her to it more directly. Souls were her area of expertise, so much so she had forgotten to think of the mortal coils they left behind. Every inch of Caido was more or less built upon the remains of human and animal, ready and waiting for a use beyond fertilizing Vi's realm and Rae's laboratory.

She listened closely to her father's instructions, brows furrowing at the first objective. The other two would be simple enough to make happen - not remotely considering the potential moral consequences of grave robbing - but the first was...twisty. She always struggled to understand fully why people clung to the dead as they did...but if it was required she would do her best and nodded her understanding.

Her brow furrowed fully hearing that the ascended souls remained yet away. "Then I've a great task ahead of me." she said with a sigh. But for Mort? Delphia would attempt to move mountains with her bare hands if need be.

DELPHIA

until you can trust the living once more

Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd