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!
You'll be faced with problems of all shapes and sizes You're going to have to make a few compromises
The Artisan's Guild had fallen into disrepair and the Artist's Sanctuary had disbanded during Amun's absence. So he'd put out a call to the makers and professionals of the Hollowed Ground to come and join him in fixing that problem. He'd gathered raw materials (wood, iron, and cloth, mostly), tools, paints, and everything they needed for their work.
After sorting the various items into piles, he'd surveyed the building itself. The outside was peeling, inside was dusty, with many of the workbenches and stations damaged, and that wasn't even getting into the fact that they'd need a suitable space for the more artistically inclined. Despite all that, he grinned.
As his helpers arrived, he'd nod at them. Once they'd gathered, he'd address the small group. "Welcome, all. As I mentioned, I'm hoping to reopen and combine the Artisan's Guild and the Artist's Sanctuary as the new and improved Art-isan's Guild." He winked as he made the admittedly terrible pun.
Gesturing behind him, he indicated their materials and the job at hand. "Let me know what you'd like to tackle. I'll fill in wherever is needed."
This is a PQ to reopen, repair, and combine the Artisan's Guild and the Artist's Sanctuary into the Art-isan's Guild. There are three spots:
The outside of the building needs to be repaired and painted, the inside needs to be cleaned and the working areas need repair, and a section needs to be suitably converted into a space for artistic pursuits. Please post which task your character will handle and how they start in your first post.
For now we're happy if not overjoyed And we'll accept the things we cannot avoid
And no one in his right mind would make my home his home
It was nice to be valued for one's talents. Sam had not expect the Artisan's guild to return, had thought the Ground's time of being productive and working together for anything except war effort over, but it seemed it was wrong. Watching Amun speak he gave a laugh at the pun, though whether it was because of pity or actual amusement was unclear.
As for the work, he took to the cleaning. There was something quite therapeutic in returning the building to it's former glory, dusting off surfaces and clearing clutter until it began to look like somewhere they could work again. "It looks like a hurricane came through here. Did the Longnight monsters get in..?" Sam asked idly as he straightened out a shelf, not really expecting an answer.
Starting the repairs, a little harder than the cleaning but still (hopefully) within his abilities, Sam pulled and pushed things back into place, got rid of pieces that were entirely broken, made a list of parts they needed to buy.
--
Sam cleans and repairs!
When I try to open up to you I get completely lost
Houses swallowed by the earth, windows thick with frost
While Bastien didn't really like to think of his Sanctuary as disbanded or gone, more...morphed into it's next form, he had to admit it was no longer a guild. The studio remained open for any who wished to use it, the spirit still there, but there simply weren't enough people coming through the Grounds nowadays for it to stay the way it had once been. When he'd heard Amun's offer, he had begrudgingly agreed to make a joint effort of sorts.
Of course, he wouldn't be relinquishing his own studio Sanctuary, but Bastien liked to think this space might be a second area for them to create in.
A little surprised to see Samuel (he'd imagined the little man had been hiding in shadows for the last months, didn't think he had a creative bone in his body), he listened to Amun introduce the space and nodded. "I will paint the outside. By the time I am done, you won't recognise it!" As he was, famously, an artiste, Bastien intended to do a little more than just plain white over the stones outside.
First though, he had to sort the already-there peeling paint. With a scraper and a can-do attitude, he began to scratch away the disrepair.
--
Bastien repairs the outside!
Still my heart is heavy With the hate of some other man's beliefs
Cam showed up a little late; they had gotten distracted investigating a spot in the Ruins where they'd thought they might want to set up a home for themself, losing track of time. Now they scrambled down the road with a self-deprecating smile. "Sorry I'm late!"
They chuckled at Amun's pun, bad as it was, and nodded to Sam and Bastien. As they listened to the others pick their areas, they began to frown; if Sam was working on the inside and Bastien was doing the outside, that left the art studio to them, but they weren't sure how to set one up. Well, they could start by clearing out the room, right?
"Does this work for the art studio?" Cam asked, picking a large-ish room whose large windows gave it a lot of natural light. They started moving things that didn't seem to belong in an art studio out of the room.
You'll be faced with problems of all shapes and sizes You're going to have to make a few compromises
Smiling at Sam as he arrived, Amun opened his mouth. Before he could speak, though, Bastien showed up. The potter nodded at the artist, then grinned as the last member of their group arrived. "You're not late at all. Cameron, right? I don't think we've officially met, I'm Amun."
As everyone scattered off to do their tasks, Amun did a quick round to see if they needed anything. "I have no doubt," he called up to Bastien as the potter entered the building proper. When Cameron asked about the room, Amun poked his head in. "Perfect. Give me a shout if you need anything." Waving to the youngest Ascended, the potter ended in the main room with Sam.
Walking up, the potter gave the redhead a quick kiss on the cheek. "Hi you. Thanks for coming. And I honestly have no idea what is just neglect and what is damage." Reaching forward, Amun plucked the list of items that needed repair that the bookmaker had started. "I'll take that if you don't mind." With that, the potter started on the list.
First up, for him at least, was the anvils. Something had warped the formidable metal. Frowning, Amun laid his hand on the first one. The anvil rippled and flowed as he activated his upgrade, and the anvil returned to its proper glory. He went on, making sure they were each in the right shape and strong enough to withstand the hammer blows.
Elsewhere, though, the rest of the Ascended were not having much luck. Bastien would find that the peeling paint stubbornly refusing to part from the stones outside. For Sam, it would seem as if the dust was deliberately fleeing from his efforts, getting chased away from the broom and cloths he was using rather than being swept into a tidy pile. Finally, when Cameron went to move a particularly large desk, it would refuse to budge. The last, at least, might have a solution: inside was a variety of heavy objects they could clear, or they could just try to move it again.
Amun succeeded at repairing the anvils! Sam failed at cleaning and would be unable to sweep up most of the dust. Bastien failed and had trouble removing the peeling paint. Cameron failed and had trouble moving one of the heaviest pieces of furniture.
No post order!
For now we're happy if not overjoyed And we'll accept the things we cannot avoid
And no one in his right mind would make my home his home
The surprise kiss on his cheek, which drew Sam out of intense focus on some particularly stubborn dust, would have made him flush if he had the blood for his cheeks to go red. "Hi. I wouldn't have missed it." With a little laugh that said to anyone in the vicinity I have a crush and I'm kind of embarrassed about it, he reinstated his laser-precise concentration on the dust, using a finger and a rag to get right into every nook and cranny of the shelves he was cleaning.
Unfortunately, it was stubborn. It seemed the more he cleaned, the more it moved away and to another surface. Standing back with his hand on his hips Sam huffed and stared at the surface for a moment, trying to think of a more effective way to deal with the problem.
He could, at the very least, try to get another tool into the mix. Using both hands to scrub at the dust, he used the telekinesis in his glove to hold a cloth up besides himself, to catch any stray particles. Hopefully, it'd be enough to let him collect and dump the filth.
--
Sam uses his telekinesis for an extra hand in cleaning the dust off.
When I try to open up to you I get completely lost
Houses swallowed by the earth, windows thick with frost
"Nice to meet you; I'm Cameron," Cam replied to Amun's introduction. Then they got to work and ... didn't make as much progress as they would have liked. Frowning at the recalcitrant desk, they pulled open the drawers and started removing the objects within, carrying them away. Their Ascended lack of pain receptors made this a lot easier than it would once have been. "Do we have, like, a trash pile?"
Without really waiting for an answer, they started one just outside the entrance to the building. They figured that was better than putting the junk somewhere else in the building and then having to move it again to get rid of it.
Cam starts emptying the desk so it will be lighter when they try to move it again.
This wasn't his first paint-peeling rodeo, yet Bastien found that the stubborn pigment clinging to the bricks refused to budge. He grit his teeth and scraped away, his precisely toned arms straining to make marks. "Good Lord, the paint here was put on with magic!" He groaned as he stepped back, shaking his head at the pitifully small amount of progress he'd made.
Well, the only thing to do was to persist, this time with passion. Holding the scraper as one might a lance about to be used in a deadly duel against a dragon, Bastien attacked the wall for a second time , trying to dive into cracks and peel off paint with all the fervour of Caido's finest warriors.
-
Bastien tries again but with some gusto this time
Still my heart is heavy With the hate of some other man's beliefs
my whole life is mine, but whoever says so will deprive me,
for it is infinite.
Whether it was the addition of the cloth or the dust just changed its mind about tormenting Sam, the redhead would find it easy to herd the dust bunnies into neat piles and clean them up. Removing the items from the desk proved to be the solution: Cameron would easily transport it to their newly created trash pile. Amun, having moved on to repairing the clamps, pipes, and other metal odds and ends at the workbenches with his upgrade (and succeeding at that task), opened his mouth to respond to the youngest Ascended.
However, by that point the waste pile had already been designated. Laughing, the potter nodded at Cameron. "That works." Amun took a moment to check on Bastien's progress. The gusto the artist had applied to the paint had worked and he'd removed it from the bricks. Now he had a blank canvas to work on.
Everyone succeeded at their tasks. The outside is bare of paint, the inside is free of dust and many parts have been repaired (though still more need work), and the artistic area is free of heavy objects, but might still need work to become a suitable space. No post order!
And no one in his right mind would make my home his home
Sam was happy to see the dust clear off now, collecting as much of it as he could into a tub to toss outside - it was amazing just how much running a cloth over could transform an object from an old, grey thing to something new and ready to be used. Already, he could see where he might put his inkwells or paper sheets, where would be good for bending the leather...not that he would presume to be able to claim a desk already, of course.
(Secretly, he did wonder if Amun might let him make a corner of his own. After all, they were almost-dating).
So, repair work. Not exactly his forte, but he'd have a go. Picking things up and setting them down straight, bending crooked legs or wires back into position, putting things that were too complex for him to solve in a pile. Pretty soon, the space was starting to look less like a dump and more like a studio.
---
Sam tootles around repairing stuff.
When I try to open up to you I get completely lost
Houses swallowed by the earth, windows thick with frost
It seemed Bastien's new determination paid off, for shortly the wall was stripped back to bare stone and cement, no longer coated by the offending paint. Stepping back to observe the canvas he now had, Bastien nodded and gathered together the paints of his own that he had brought for the job; it would be exhausting to list them all, but there had been a cart involved in getting them over, so many colours to bring he hadn't been able to use his hands.
Inspired in part by his recent conversation with Darkeye, Bastien began from the door and spiralled outwards, painting a design of swirls and circles that burst out from the entrance in a magnificent array of pigments. He left space for the name of the guild to be painted, but otherwise covered as much of the outside as he could - the building would certainly make a statement.
---
Bastien paints pretty swirly colours all over the outside of the building.
Still my heart is heavy With the hate of some other man's beliefs
Freeing the artists' room of heavy objects left some tables and chairs that looked decent, still usable. Cam picked up a cloth and started dusting those off, making sure they were clean enough that no dust would come off on a canvas -- or on someone's clothes. Then they moved the furniture into what struck them as a more useful pattern. Looking around, they considered what else an artists' studio needed. Easels, paints, tools, actual canvases ... But Cam didn't have any of that stuff to pull out of their pockets. Instead they decided to start cleaning the windows to make sure that the room was well-lit and pleasant to work in.
Cam cleans up the artists' space by dusting and rearranging the furniture and cleaning the windows.
my whole life is mine, but whoever says so will deprive me,
for it is infinite.
Sam would tootle quite efficiently: the wires and various other pieces of equipment he set his mind to would get fixed without much issue. However, when he went to try and set the complex objects into a pile, they would slide off the top and clatter off under various workstations.
Amun, done with his own repairs, would move on to fixing the hinges and locks. Unfortunately, as he went to apply his upgrade to them, he'd discover that they were too rusted to be fixed, and would simply crumble as he tried to manipulate them. It was so bad that some of the doors would actually fall down. He was forced to scamper out of the way, wincing after the first one fell.
At least Cameron would succeed without any issues among the inside crew. Their efforts to rearrange furniture, dust, and cleaning the windows went off without a hitch. Perhaps they could join Amun and Sam in finishing up the work inside or even head outside to assist Basiten, who'd encountered some difficulties.
On that note, the artist was lost in the throes of artistic passion. Probably too lost, because while he'd tried to paint pretty swirly colors everywhere, if he stepped back to look, he'd discovered he'd accidentally left gaps in the artwork. Even worse, the paints were bleeding, leaving streaks everywhere.
Sam mostly succeeded in his efforts; however, his pile of complex objects collapsed and scattered across the floor. Cameron finished transforming the artist's area, and is free to help either Sam/Amun or Bastien. Amun tried to repair the hinges and failed, leaving them more broken and some doors on the ground. Bastien failed at painting the outside.
Feeling satisfied with their work indoors, Cam went to check on the others, frowning to see that Sam and Amun weren't as successful. Sticking their head out the door, they said, "Hey, Bastien, are you -- oh. Um ... "
They weren't sure if they should ask whether Bastien had meant for it to look that way, or if that would be insulting. After a moment's dithering, they decided to just pick up a paintbrush and help. "I'm just going to fill in a few places, OK?" they said, looking to Bastien to make sure he was all right with them altering his creation.
