Venturing into Nasiim's Tower - Ch. 1 (Quest)

[Talon]

T A L O N

Talon set down upon the wet sands. Before he could sink, he activated the secondary ability of his boots allowing him to enact Seeming upon the surface. Gently, he reached down and pulled the thin woman up so that she could stand upright without being thigh deep in wet sands. Just as he was turning his attention to their surroundings.

Then the rumbling started.

Talon turned his sight toward the massive tidal wave that was rolling across the open expanse. His eyes went wide as fear coiled itself into his stomach. He could only blink for a moment as he took it in. In a way it was awe inspiring to see a towering wave of destruction hurdling their way, knowing that there were few forces in the world that could contend with such a thing. He flicked his gaze to the harbor town and from what he could see, people were scrambling across the docks. They were running. They were likely fleeing for their lives out of fear or more likely, absolute terror. At the rate that the wave was rolling in their direction, they had little in the way of time. Certainly not enough time for him to fly high enough into the skies to dodge a tsunami that was hundreds of feet high. Something was off however, he could feel it in the air as his senses became accustomed to the flow of aether. He opened up his awareness, seeing the weave of the aether flux as it pulsed and snapped like a caged tiger before him.

Magic was pulsing from the tidal wave, drawing a frown from his face. He felt Rickter’s fear. He could also feel Rickter’s determination. Even before his beloved wolf said the words, Talon knew what the man was planning. Powerful magic was behind the wave that was barreling toward them. They were not without power of their own. It was as Talon had thought, there were few forces in the world that could contend with such a raw manifestation of nature. Together, Talon believed that they were among those forces, if they acted swiftly enough. He heard the thin woman’s voice, trembling with the whisper of a prayer. He did not know if whatever god she prayed to would hear her…but he did. Talon extended his senses into the sands immediately around them. He lifted all of them until he had created thin but solid platform upon which the four of them could stand.

“Florian,” He glanced at the Lysanrin. “If you have a gift, I suggest you use it.”

With that, Talon stepped forward. With each step he took, the violet-blue markings upon his body began to shift in hue. They grew brighter. They grew stronger. Talon let go of the veil of mortality that was kept in place, concealing the truth of his Divine nature. Around him, in a crown of silver-white light, the nimbus of his divinity came into being. He instilled within it the cool calm that he was willing himself to feel. Panic would do nothing. Fear would not help them except to propel them to act with determination. He remembered the bout he had endured as he had faced Raxen, the Orkhan Demigod who had pushed him to new heights. He remembered the ferocity of their battle and what he had been forced to do to step further away from the realm of mortals.

Talon did just that. He opened himself up to the Aetherium fully. His jaw flexed as he felt power far beyond that boundaries of a mortal flow into him. He felt a righteous anger flow into his veins. He felt the roaring fire of an unquenchable Light fill his body. Distantly, as though it were just barely out of his grasp, Talon felt the edges of a boundless Hope that he could not yet take hold of. He did not know if he should. Something told him that if he grasped that neverending wellspring of Hope, he would lose any trace of mortality that he had left and he would have crossed a bridge that he could never return from. It was there…but he did not take it.

Coming up to stand behind Rickter, Talon gently brought a hand up to rest upon the Rathari wolf’s hip. His other hand, he brought up until his palm was facing the tidal wave as well.

“I am with you, my wolf.” Talon opened up their Bond as fully as he could. Into it he poured his strength, his confidence, and his adoration of Rickter’s bravery, his selflessness and his power. He gave as much as Rickter needed to quickly put to task his work of manipulating the aether in the way that he could. Talon, meanwhile, did something else as well. He observed the flow of aether within the tidal wave. Stopping the wave with brute force was not an adequate solution. Rickter would be able to slow its advance but thousands upon thousands of pounds of force raging toward them would shatter his ice walls and the toll of blocking it with Negation would undoubtedly be steep. So Talon did not reach for the wave itself. He reached for the wave’s aether flow.

The flow of its aether was powerful. But so was he. He grabbed it and with a furrowing of his brow he punched holes in its flow, he changed its structure, enacting Sculpting to transmute the form of what was in front of him from that of a liquid, to a gas. If they could not stop a tidal wave, then Talon would change the tsunami into a mist.

[Florian]

Florian went down with Rickter and accepted help when he sunk into the sand. The half-foot of water that came first was enough in and of itself to make him worry — but the truly massive wave that threatened to crush them under magic and water was terrifying. He blinked, and with Aether Sight he could see the the aether flowing through the water and manipulated by Rickter and Talon. He had not seen such grand displays of magic before, and that it was being used to protect him and everyone else was some solace. It could just as easily be turned against him, and he would have no recourse to protect himself. It was important that did not happen.

"A gift?" He asked, but the question answered itself. But he couldn't siphon any of their magics, which left the charged water. It was deep enough to soak through his boots, and it was from there, where the water touched his legs, that he attempted to draw from. There was water everywhere, and so if he could, he would try to absorb as much aether as he had time for.

Whether that worked or not, he could still see the untasked ward that he had the anchor to as well, the gift from Rickter. He didn't know the intricacies of Negation, but he willed the ward to shield against Aether itself. He had never been in such a situation to realize that being around this much active aether use was akin to being spritzed in the face with perfume, but now it was overwhelming, a strange assault on his sense while he tried to focus on the impending wave.

"I don't know how to swim." Florian offered rather unhelpfully, but it was an important fact all the same. He couldn't even hazard a guess as to what they were doing. Wards and unrecognizeable flows of aether came from the Kalzasern duo, and he had to stop looking at the aether just so he could get a grip on what was actually going on. But he couldn't help, not in any real manner, and so he just had to stand and wait.

[Aegis]

The wave barreled toward the group that was growing deafening on its approach. Soon, a shadow overcame the group, allowing Talon's divine form to shine even more brightly. Rickter's magic went to work, and as it was boosted by the greater connection to the Aetherium via Talon. The wall he built grew taller, wider, and more dense. The barrier dome he built grew stronger as well, and all of it was becoming blinding. Talon's own magic attacked at the wave, looking to change its very essence. Florian's attempt to siphon the water failed to succeed, for Rickter had already seized control of the water around them and Florian simply wasn't strong enough. And the guitar was safely clutched in Euripedes' arms, and the being that she called out to would not hear her.

But it was a lot of water.

The base of the wave crashed into the icy wall with a deafening thud. This was followed by a loud crack that shot through the wall. But much of the water was deflected out and around the wall, which held. But the wave stood taller than the wall, and it was coming down to crash upon the dome over the group, aided by gravity and the sheer amount of water it carried.

And then Talon's magic set off a chain reaction, turning the entire tidal wave from liquid into a gas. Clouds of mist crashed down around the dome, and not one bit of water penetrated it, as the steam began to quickly spread about the bay. But with it came a side effect. For while the magical water was coaxed to take on a gaseous form, it did not stop the side effects for such an action. The water was turned to steam and as a result, the temperature of the area began to rise quickly and heavily.

Water and ice could not penetrate the barrier, but temperature did. Each second that ticked by, the temperature rose by a full degree of magnitude. It would've scorched them to the bone instantly had it not been for Florian tasking the shield to keep aether out. And as the temperature rose, breathing within the dome would become more difficult by the second. Talon and Rickter would feel a deep drain on their resources but they were not emptied. Rickter, though, would feel a lot more of the pained burden and effects for he had been the current for more of it and his body was simply that of a mortal.

[Talon]

T A L O N

For a moment, Talon beheld the tidal wave and he was enraptured by the raw majesty of the forces of nature. While he had never beheld Rickter embracing the full might of his elemental power, he had to wonder if the Rathari man would eventually be able to perform this manner of feat. Rare was the mage who was capable of harnessing the grandest powers of the elements but he believed wholly that one day, Rickter would be able to do it. As the shadow of the tidal wave bore down upon them, Talon stood firm. Together, they would be able to overcome even the greatest of obstacles. He was sure of it. He watched as the wave crashed into the wall of ice, hearing the thunderous crack as the wall was bombarded by the water. Through the Bond, he felt it the moment that the remaining wave crashed upon the barrier around them. It was such a terrible weight that for a moment, Talon thought he saw cracks form in the shield that Rickter was channeling.

Talon held on to Rickter more firmly as he felt the effects of such an incredible feat weight down upon his bondmate. And then Talon saw it, the thread of aether that was holding together the form of the wave. He reached through the flux and grasped a hold of that weave, ripping it apart with a clench of his fist. The wave disappeared and in its place was a heavy mist that made the air thick with heat and humidity. Before the powers of his Skyforge Raiment could be pushed into overdrive, he mentally commanded the vestments to only modulate his body temperature, working to keep himself cool. He would sweat and become damp but that he could deal with. After a moment, he let his shoulders slump slightly and let out a heavy breath. He kissed the top of Rickter’s head.

“Well done, Sorumeito.” Carefully, Talon winnowed down the flow of power between the both of them. He did not cut Rickter off completely, not wanting to send the wolf’s body and soul into a state of shock but he allowed it to die down slowly. He looked around them. Talon wiped a bit of perspiration from his brow. The world was a plane of foggy white, hot and humid. His chest was rising and falling a bit faster as his heart beat a staccato in his chest both from the exertion and from the rush of the danger. He looked around at those beside them.

“Catch your breath. Then we should get moving.” Reaching out, Talon sent a ripple of Vibration across the Aether Flux all around them in an attempt to break up the density of the fog and disperse it.

[Rickter]

As the waves of the tsunami crested overhead, the mountain of water shadowed their position in mere moments. Talon's divinity shone ever brightly around them in that instance, before the rest of the water came barreling down to crash onto them. Having felt the aether his Bondmate channeled through him, Rickter's muscles felt on fire as he poured every bit he had into the constructs he created. Was it enough? He did not know, he only knew that like the mountain, he had to refrain from bowing to anything that assailed it. The water surrounding the shield felt easy to coax with his aether when he generated the walls of ice, the layers that solidified thickening in a manner he never anticipated before.

The wolf was always poor with grasping his own limitations, ascertaining them based only what his actual knowledge of magic was. Yet, as the burning throughout his figure heightened, the air within his aura thickened into a chilled veil of white and snow... if only for a moment. The loud crunch of ice giving way to the overwhelming force of the water was almost sickening, the wolf's stomach nearly turned over completely as a result of anticipation for what came next; and sure enough, it came hard. The deafening sound of water roaring over them drowned how own voice immediately, nearly his thoughts too as he held onto the idea of preservation. The power of Negation was based on how reinforced the state of the barrier's interior could be, and there was a time or two where he'd managed to achieve that in just the nick of time.

Thus the water and steam that Talon created assailed his barrier, the aetherial fabric that weaved the dome over them budging but not yet buckling from the weight. Rickter, for what it was worth, kept pushing himself even after giving it all he had. He would not let his comrades suffer at the peril of something so great as a damn tidal wave, not when he himself had such strong elemental affinity for water. No. He wouldn't bow. Even as the shield around them sizzled and cracked throughout the weave, even as the very surface of his skin felt ignited from all the aether he channeled.

He felt Talon draw close and take ahold of him, before the rest of the waves crashing over them quickly turned into a misty vapor all around. Soon there wasn't water or ice to contend with, but a rising pressure akin to a heatwave that soon flooded through his initial shield. SHIT! He felt the aether from another one of his anchors respond then, Florian tasking it to block aether specifically in just the nick of time, as the ward banished the rising temperature that assailed them as soon as the mist came surging in. Feeling his Skyforge Raiment respond the same as Talon's was, the wolf focused on simple regulation of his own body temperature, to avoid letting his own enchantments into overdrive also.

Yet as the heat left the interior of his barrier as quickly as it came, the wolf still felt as though a different fire coursed through his body. Emanating from his skin were still the traces of aether he'd channeled, the aura surrounding him fainter in comparison to moments prior, where pure aether radiated from his figure in a vivid cerulean hue. Feeling the coat of sweat that covered his body, the wolf soon found that his footing was much more shakey than it had been before. With the tidal wave no longer a threat, the barrier left in it's wake began to diminish. The glowing cracks within the dome leaked the residual traces of aether left behind, some of it returning to the wolf while the rest just swirled like northern lights within the misty clouds.

At the commendation he received from his Bondmate, Rickter was the one who then came to buckle instead, his shields having served their purpose up until that final moment to say the least. Feeling severely strained he couldn't help but fall to his knees, with a few deep breaths taken to regulate the pace of air intake needed. He had felt many blows and even injuries in his time, but that had by far exercised the most strain on his magic, far more than anything else had in his time as a Negation mage. As the final traces of aether diminished and his shield faded out, the wolf nodded toward Talon's remark on catching his breath. It was well needed after the amount of effort he put into that, and even though he no longer channeled aether, the witchmarks on his skin had yet to fade away either.

Still, the wolf was ultimately relieved to have pulled through. Having no time to prepare for the change in the temperature, he was glad Florian had thought to use that spare anchor provided to him earlier. It allowed the backup anchor the wolf had made for this dome to remain, therefore, allow the wolf some small recuperation from the overstepping he likely did with that one act. He never anticipated such a strong impact either, his shields being severely tested by the weight of the water that came crashing down earlier. Now that Talon was able to part the mist though, they would hopefully be able to get a move on soon, and see what remained of the devastation left behind in the tsunami's wake.

Thus did the wolf wearily get back onto his feet, a few groans exerted as he still felt his legs wobble beneath him. "...Where do we go from here?..." He inquired still a little wearily, his eyes lifted from the sand around them to the clearing mist above.

"Common" "Synskrit"
"Rickter"

[Florian]

Like watching a train run off the rails, Florian couldn't look away from the massive wave. He didn't look away from it as it turned to mist and steam, and he didn't look away as the temperature rose even higher and the ward he had tasked from Rickter protected them from the heat.

Instead, he watched the magic as it happened, as the aether flowed and crashed and coursed between man and nature and whatever was going on with Talon. It was blindingly bright and akin to having stuck his nose in a bottle of perfume but worse, and the smell of seaweed mixed with flowers so strong he could not distinguish them between one another. He was disappointed that he absorbed no aether from the water, though, and he could tell from the look and strength of the ward that it was beyond his power to take, too. He would have to find something else to siphon.

Florian closed his eyes and kept them closed, waiting for them to return to normal like he had just stared at the sun. "Which way are we going? Towards the town?" He asked, as if they had seen anything else to wander towards. "Water's gotta go somewhere, and I don't want to be on the bottom of it if it comes back."

Everything was so odd, an admixture of uncomfortable and new experiences that he no longer tried to understand what was happening and just wanted to see it to the end. If they had entered the tower, perhaps they could leave it, too. If they were still in the tower and not just transported into some other end of the world, that is. But he still had things to do away from here. He peered at the town in the distance behind them.

[Euripides]

While the others were…of better health, the woman holding the broken guitar was not. Not sound of mind or body, really. Which meant that while the heat had gotten to them and they could handle it — mostly — her reaction to it was not the same. Too hot for too long, she collapsed. It had felt, for the most part, like the rest of her energy had been taken from her. What little had been left of it, of course. She was no more than a sweating, heaving mass. Braced weakly on her forearms as she fought to keep the nothingness in her stomach from coming up.

Suffocating — was also something she’d felt. Harder to breathe as it had gotten hotter. Of course, the prince would not have accounted for someone mundane. Why would he? A pompous prince, a “man of the people” solely focused on his lover. Which, she could understand to some degree. But it didn’t change that she had been affected by their choices. Maybe they should have just let her be crushed under the weight of the waves, or drown within them. It would have been better than what she was experiencing currently.

But, by all accounts, this was better than the Warrens, and thus her complaints would go unvoiced. Even if she could.

Lips pursed as she finally was able to breathe completely, to feel that her body could move some, she listened to them wonder on what to do next. “The town, the town. The people, the buildings. Refuge, rest.” Offered weakly, and perhaps more exhausted than it might have sounded if this had been some moments before they’d been accosted by a giant wave. She forced herself to stand, groaning with the effort it took to do so. Gods, where was Jieun? Why had she wandered all the way out here?

[Aegis]

The wave had broken and the heat had dissipated. And Florian was proven correct as the water of the bay did, in fact, have to go somewhere. But instead of flowing back into the bay violently, it was coming in slow, yet steadily. Similar to the tide at a beach. Still a cause for concern though if one were standing at a point that was typically dozens of feet underwater. From their distance, they could see that the panicked movements of the people had calmed, many moving to the edges of the docks now.

It seemed that the group had succeeded in this moment and that the immediate danger of any sort was gone.

There was a delightful pop noise in the air near them, and a small man with with a bit of a nasally, whiny voice appeared there, floating a few feet off the mud, staring at the ragtag group. "Well I never! This Lapse has been here for so long, I figured the Keepers had forgotten about it! And then they send in some first timers and they did what no other could!"

The man was of odd, small, and chubby proportions. For those that were familiar, he was a gnome. He wore a dark emerald, tailored suit, bore a bright red, braided beard and a matching mohawk. "It's a shame we can't use this variation of the Lapse."

Then he chuckled, "But let us play it out, see how it might've changed things."

A glowing bubble formed around each member of the group, and raised them all up to his level. Then he began to move them all toward the town. As he did, time seemed to fast forward in the world outside of the bubbles. The bay refilled with water, ships raced by, speeding lines, far faster than was possible by any known measure of physics. The sky overhead was flickering as the sun rose and set in an instant over and over as they neared.

Then it stopped, and the bobbles popped in a sort of glassy, tinkling sound, and the group was left at the end of one dock. The town looked different now. It had grown bigger. The docks were built of stone now, instead of wood. All of the buildings that had been at the water's edge had been torn down and now were built further inland. The docks were bustling with people, but they wore dirty and torn rags, tired looks upon their faces. The only exceptions to this were people that were in sharply dressed uniforms, carrying weapons on their hips, eyes flitting around suspiciously. A large building in the center of the moved town bore the words, 'Jacinco Trading Company.'

And in the middle of the docks, a statue had been erected. A stature of four figures, one man with mighty wings, another arm outstretched towards the ocean, a man with horns also in an exasperated pose of strain, and a woman playing her instrument serenely. At the base of the statue, a name plate. 'The Unknown Heroes of Jacinco. Gone but not forgotten.'

And with another plopping noise, the gnome man was gone.

[Talon]

T A L O N

Before he truly had time to process anything that had happened, the gnomish man appeared and they were all rushed into bubbles. Talon watched as time sped all around them. His eyes flew to his companions and most notably, to his lover. Rickter was unharmed but in that moment something asserted itself that had never been in his thoughts before. Time.

Talon had not considered it before but the difference in their lifespans was now even more evident to him than it ever had been. More than that, he realized…there would be only so much time he had with everyone he cared for. He was a demigod now. Demigods, all the ones he knew of, were immortal. They lived eternally unless they were among those who perished during the catastrophic events of the Sundering. It weighed on him and he felt a moment of melancholy pass over his thoughts before he shook them off.

“Wait! Who--” He sighed as the gnomish man disappeared almost as soon as he appeared. Talon reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. He rubbed along the line of his septum for a moment as he tried not to be annoyed. As the bubbles around them dissolved and he came face to face with the statue that had been erected, it was not lost on him that they had evidently somehow moved forward in time. He also did not miss the fact that this statue had been erected to honor their effort to prevent the tidal wave from destroying the town and drowning the people in it.

“Jacinco.” He searched his memories for any mention of the town or this Jacinco Trading Company. He felt as though it were familiar to him but when nothing was immediately forthcoming, he turned to assess the status of their group.

“Is everyone alright?” He adjusted his wings upon his back, shifting them and settling them more comfortably. “We should seek a tavern. Possibly one nearby. If there is information to be had concerning our current whereabouts…well…”

Talon shrugged his broad shoulders.

“Sailors like to talk.”

[Rickter]

The ragtag group that survived the waves had but a moment to observe their surroundings, Rickter himself tensing up when he heard a rather unexpected pop. Immediately he flinched to look at the source, Rickter's weariness edged by protective instinct when he lingered closer to Talon. A rather annoying-sounded small fry appeared, one tinier than the musician woman that had accompanied them here. A Gnome from the looks of it and yet, Rickter could not trace a single smell on the guy as well. "No scent?" The observation was uttered lowly, perhaps too low for Talon to even hear in proximity, but the confusion was plain and evident across their Bond together.

First-timers? What the fuck was a lapse? Rickter already had so many questions cropping in his mind, yet as he looked to Talon to see he too had a similar reaction, the immediate tension in the wolf's shoulders loosened before something else took place. They were encased on a bubble that much felt like Rickter's own shields, a barrier that magically lifted them as they were whisked toward town by the small plump man. What caught the wolf's eyes though was the sudden speed-up of the world around them, and how they were still slowly adrift in comparison to the world rushing ahead through time. Was that was this place was? Rickter gave some consideration to the name lapse earlier now. To feel adrift in a place where time beheld its own meaning, created a sense of uneasiness within the wolf as they floated on.

He felt Talon's melancholy a bit and looked to the Synnekar, with a deep curiosity in his eyes as the wolf comforted him with warm nuzzling thoughts. When they arrived and their transportation through time popped away, the wolf felt his feet hit solid ground alongside his other companions moments after. They had arrived within a port as far as Rickter could tell, the smell of salt and fish heavy within the air now that they walked into town. Talon thought to try and inquire of the Gnome, but the bastard up and popped out of the scene before any questions could be asked. "I don't like this place already..." The wolf sighed as the name of the town came to be uttered, the sight of the statues erected to honor their heroes not entirely lost on Rickter either.

It was clear who the four busts were a representation of, and though he might've felt humbled by the sight, the experience alone left Rickter on a greater level of edge than he ever felt. Something about this place felt wrong to him now. Perhaps because he no longer questioned where they had all wound up, but when exactly they had arrived and just how long they'd been lost in here. "I'm alright," Rickter quickly affirmed to his soulmate before peeking at the other two, "just a bit tuckered out still. You both alright?" He followed with the inquiry as the intent to look after them welled in his core, his thoughts no longer spent on protecting them now that they're out of immediate danger. Well... far as he could tell at least.

"Aye, honestly... could use a drink about now anyway." If anyone here knew the wolf best, then the need for a drink would've been rather obvious. Yet while Rickter would've loved the idea of possibly eating food soon, his gut felt too heavy from the ball of anxiety resting within it. Still he agreed to the idea of checking in the tavern, not because of the food obviously, but because there ought to be at least somebody worth talking to for information. From the way the locals were dressed it seemed that the port had two noticeable differences, the citizens who were run ragged by the officials in poshed-up uniforms and weapons.

He didn't vocalize it but it became clear within Rickter's thoughts that he did not feel comfortable here. At all.

"Common" "Synskrit"
"Rickter"