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!
02-19-2019, 06:58 PM (This post was last modified: 02-19-2019, 08:16 PM by Honey.)
LUCI
{Cashing in 450MP for a God Quest for Lucas!}
The Temple was impossibly dark and quieter than the grave, and for once Lucas relished the silence. He had been around the Rathskeller, slinking and lurking and doing other Ascended-appropriate things (apparently that's what he was in this new world, go figure). But there was no point when the wine had no taste, and regardless of how pretty the women, his body refused to rise to the occasion.
So, tired of making his own fun - and besides, the group in the tavern were still a few days off becoming crazy and mutinous, in his seasoned opinion - he had taken himself up to the Temple. Green eyes cut easily through the darkness, and on silent footsteps the Ascended made his way through to the shrine. Last time he had been blessed with the insult of silence. But perhaps this time he would be more lucky.
Slumping to sit cross-legged before the shrine, he toyed with one of the offerings already left there. "Maybe that is where I am going wrong," he muttered. "Do I need to bring you trinkets? Is that it?"
Her laugh was pure in tone, as if generated rather than created by the warbling of vocal chords.
From the shrine, the youthful and slender avatar of the Voice emerged. Her eyes flashed electric blue with amusement as she looked at her mischievous creation cross legged before the shrine. "I do not require trinkets Lucas—" His name rang off her lips with an amusing pulse of implication. The implication that the name was only half right, in some sense or another.
"Like you, I am limited in this place as well. Soon that will no longer be the case."
With a twist of a smile, suddenly she just was closer, seated across from him. "How are you faring? On that side of things?"
Lucas bristled at the sound of the voice - so pure and yet so artificial, all at once - and his head snapped up in time to see the young girl (but not, so very not) emerge from somewhere within the shrine. Green eyes sharp and fists clenched, he didn't know what to make of the being before him. The being that knew his name, but similarly did not seem to believe it. Was this the god who had denied him in the Underground? Tch.
For all of his bluster, though, he still flinched back as the Voice was suddenly closer than she had been - right across from him, in fact. "Oh? What then, do you need, other than trinkets?" He liked trinkets. He missed his trinkets from the City very much, indeed. (Along with all of the power, and the fire, and the ability to fly, and to twist the thoughts of mortals and-- no, fuck thinking about that).
She asked how he was and he narrowed his eyes, long fingers drumming across his knee. "I'm surprised that you don't simply know," he muttered. "But if I must say it out loud, I am pissed off, not feeling like myself and wondering who brought me here and why."
02-19-2019, 07:41 PM (This post was last modified: 02-19-2019, 07:41 PM by the VOICE.)
"I require very little in terms of material offerings." She said simply, smiling into his challenge. "Words were always one of your greatest weapons, were they not?" Of course she could look into his mind. His thoughts were well within her jurisdiction, but cat and mouse had ever been his game.
Only now he no longer got to choose his role.
"No, you would not feel like yourself. You are limited here, as you will have noticed. This form is the closest to what you were." And then, as if it should have been obvious, the Voice blinked and titled her head. "We brought you here."
Lucas arched an eyebrow across at the deity before him (it was little surprise that he did not cower or genuflect, not with his track record), tilting his head as if wondering what her game was. They all had games, every single one of them, himself included. Still, he took the hint about his words, letting a charming smirk curl across his lips and inclining his head to her. Recognition of his prideful nature was guaranteed to please the peacock within him.
"Yes, I have noticed," he murmured, glancing down at hands that were capable of so little compared to what he was used to. But to hear that she had brought him here, she who was multiple - that piqued his interest. That she could tear the devil from his bearings and bring him to a new plane of existence was impressive to say the least.
"Then kudos to you, good lady." He shrugged his shoulders. "Then what would you have me do here? Am I permitted to go home again after?"
"The Spire I am sure that you have heard about by now ... It must be breached. But not just anyone can open it. Only those like you have what it will take. But..." Her lips curled into a smile, dainty, yet deadly. "Of course none of the others are like you, are they?"
As he asked about going home, the Voice tilted her head almost imperceptibly, the electroviolet flashes in her eyes pulsing. "Home." She repeated, testing the word as she scrutinized the man before her.
"Is it your home that you miss? Or your powers? In this world you might find that your influence far extends what you had before...Are you so sure you would wish to leave before seeing your full potential here?"
The Spire. Yes, he had seen the giant black dong thrusting up and trying to fuck the sky. You would have to be blind to miss it. But to breach it... Lucas's brow furrowed, the Ascended resting his hands upon his knees and leaning forward ever so slightly. The Voice had piqued his interest, and he'd had enough time in this place now to know he couldn't simply pick and choose what he wanted any more. The devil's balls had been cut off, and damn but didn't he know it.
"What can I say? I am one of a kind," he said smoothly, waiting expectantly to hear about when he could go back to laying waste and torturing souls. But then she continued in that... autonomous way of hers, and for all of her pretty words, Lucas understood. It was fancy way of saying no. Alright then.
Narrowing his eyes, he wished he was still capable of tasting a lie on the air, but alas... he suppose he would have to believe this goddess. "Let me guess - my full potential is very much embroiled in yours?" he guessed, smirking. "Breach the Spire, then. It's a big ask for a devil without teeth."
"Yes, and not just in the mundane statistical way." She agreed with a smile, moving to mirror his posture. They looked like they were about to perform a guided meditation, rather than talk about sin and the downfall of the bubble.
But both were well acquainted with how deceiving looks could be.
"You know that it is. I can't give you what I don't have access to. Yet." The glimmer of radiance in her electric blue gaze sparkled, and behind her the shrine seemed to crackle with life.
"Not up for the challenge? Now that isn't like you." She said, her smile wide.
Lucas smiled in return, deciding that regardless of whatever reason she had for ignoring him on his first attempt, he rather liked this goddess. Then again, with his wings clipped to mostly nothing, he had no choice but to roll with the punches. His ability to steer his own fate was pitifully limited at present. So he adapted. "Oh, yet, she says. Dangling temptation in front of someone like me? Naughty." He let out a dark chuckle.
Something unpleasant lit up in his green eyes at the very prospect that he was not up to a challenge, Lucas arching an eyebrow before offering a wide grin in return that bared his fangs. "You are right," he said, "it doesn't. I haven't felt like myself since I got here. Luckily, I think times might be changing."
"Oh?" The Voice mused, leaning forward curiously. "I agree. Our net was cast wide, but certainly those like you make it more than worthwhile. The tides are turning and many will find themselves on the wrong side, but it is no matter, as you well know. The Spire will be breached."
A quiet sort of smirk appeared on her lips as she narrowed her eyes. "Interesting the sorts of places you've been finding yourself lately. Those with...shall we say, rooms where you can really be yourself?"
"I know - a ridiculous notion, I agree," Lucas said, a hand fluttering to his heart as if to perish the thought that he, Lucas Copperhead, might succumb to temptation of all things. He listened, quietly and intently as the Voice revealed more about her situation and motivations (whether or not she realised she was doing so), and he tilted his head as he considered her words. "On that we agree. I breach this Spire, and together we take the rest of this place. At least, that is the impression I get."
Oh, but then she brought up the silly little church and its lovely little back room, and a very sly smile crawled across Lucas's face indeed. "I was dropped into a world that muted all earthly pleasures for me. You have made me incapable of fucking, or feeling heat or cold, of enjoying wine or good food. And then you ignored me when I approached your statue in the Underground." Lowering his voice a touch, he met her gaze evenly.
"You're damned fucking right I found somewhere to be myself."
"This place?" She corrected with a tiny, but confident laugh. "Oh no fallen one. You misunderstand. This is a place of death. A place we have been caged. This is a reminder of mistakes never to be made again." Her lips twisted as her eyes flashed for a moment, before rekindling into something more polished. "We will take the world."
The Voice shrugged, her hand raising and falling, accepting his criticisms but apparently paying them no mind. "Millennia you have had those things. And you can again, if you so choose. But there is so much more awaiting you now, though I do not begrudge you your time in that place."
Sitting up straighter, she smiled. "Far be it from me to send you on an errand, but there is something that I would quite like to have...something outside of my reach. Could you perhaps fetch it for me? I would be more than happy to repay you in kind, to give back something that you lost."
Fallen one? Oooh, but he could get to quite like that. For all of their... ahem, rocky beginnings (and given that he had been dragged from a very cushy, nigh omniscient existence to be some pawn in a game he didn't know if he wanted to play), he was starting to become endeared to this... this Voice. "The world, you say?" He all but purred to her through the darkness. "Now I think we are speaking the same language."
More, she said? There was more waiting for him than blood and sex and fire and great fucking wine? Well someone was raising the bar. As she straightened up he did so as well, green eyes narrowing playfully, fangs bared in a grin. She could rip him from his demesne but she couldn't fetch something herself? He kept from saying that out loud, luckily - not that he thought it made a difference. Still, he was happy to deliver.
"You flatter me, even though you don't have to. I appreciate it," he murmured, inclining his head to her. "Name it and it shall be yours, my lady."
"Few understand the costs of perfection." She said in a low voice, nearly an octave lower than her normally delightful laugh, but quickly what might have been a sinister smile disappeared, and she stared at him with a crackling blue gaze.
Her smile widened, joy in the sparks of her irises. "There is a mask...A mask given to one of the mortals by the God Ludo ... it lets him see outside the barrier. I want to know how it works. Bring it to me fallen one, and I will restore some of what you have lost."
