Excelsior

90th of Vhalar 719

Outside the city there are many places of interest to be explored.
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Dula
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Excelsior

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90th Vhalar 719¤


It was dark. So dark. And cold. The air smelled musty, like sweat and dirt. Underfoot the ground was soggy, each step sank into the ground a little more than the last. She was running naked, sweat droplets cascading down her body shimmering like diamonds across her skin. Terror was the only thing her eyes read as she powered forward, not wanting to look back.

But she had to.

Her eyes locked with the form of a man, if he could even be called that. His face was wrinkled, leathery skin stretched across a skeleton, mouth turned up in perpetual laughter. That ugly sneer of a grin made her want to scream but she couldn’t find her voice, nothing came out. Dula ran faster, the man closing the gap between them.

In his hands he held a purple bag. The contents of it sounded like coins, she could tell because as he ran after her he shook the bag with fervor; taunting her with it. His shrill laughter mingled with the rattling bag was all she could hear as she tore through the jungle. In her desperation she ran headlong through the brush. All over her face and body was raw skin from the assault of branches whipping her, gashes to be seen covering her bare skin.

Dula was sobbing now. As a hand brushed against her shoulder she knew he was almost here. Changing directions she tore off to the left, trying to lose him. In one last ditch effort she leaped through the thick brambles and vines of the jungle trying to get away, blinded by fear and feeling the night closing in on her. This last ditch effort lead her only to fall into a pit of mire.

Coughing, crying, all snotty tears she tried her hardest to free herself from the mud. But it sucked her in, wet bubbling noises coming from the pit around her. The coin bag could still be heard but the laughter had stopped. He was here. Dula screamed but nothing came out.

Then, a voice.

The door beneath the mud.

It hit her like a tidal wave and with a deep breath she dove in deeper. A hand roughly grabbed her by the arm for a split second but she wrenched free, escaping his grasp with a fervent thrash before kicking her legs and going downwards. Reaching the bottom she found a door. Even though she tried her hardest to open the door, it was locked. Eventually her lungs gave out and she drowned in the mud of the bog….


The blonde woman sat straight up and screamed, waking herself in the process. It had been so long since she had that haunting dream. Shaking, she knew what she had to do. Putting on her warmest clothes she wasted no time and headed for the gwalos.


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As Above; So Below


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Dula
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Re: Excelsior

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It was frigid cold by the waters of the ocean as she idley tossed stones and pieces of driftwood into the sea. Head resting in her hand she looked bored, but that couldn’t be far from the truth. Thinking back to the season prior she realised at what a change her life had taken. Hygge was right.

Hygge.
She sneered to herself, still bitter about what happened earlier in the Cycle. That drug addicted wizard had his brain addled and she was just as much a fool to have followed him to her demise. Chucking another stone into the waters she hung her head and sighed.
He was right though. Something about that dream just seems prophetic. It’s never going to go away until I open that door. Fek. What am I going to do? I have no idea how to find him and will be damned to make my way back to his home in the Ruins. It’s just too dangerous. Not to mention, ever since I made my way through the mud to the door my life has taken this… Turn? I don’t know if it’s for the worse or better but I don’t exactly mind what’s going on either. As long as it doesn’t kill me. I could get used to a little bit of… danger.

Shaking her head she laid back in the sand. Her face was freezing cold but she didn’t mind, better freezing cold and awake than having her recurring nightmare. Though, what if her waking life did become a nightmare? With the recent events of the Cycle it would seem she may have gotten close to that a time or two. While a few times she had been terrified she was having fun on some level, but there was a fine line between beginner’s luck and Dula’s luck….

As she was mulling this over with some anxiety a dark form loomed over her. Squinting from the sun in her eyes she looked up to see Hygge standing over her. He helped her up and they regarded each other sheepishly for some moments before speaking.

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Dula
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Re: Excelsior

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Hygge looked sheepish, embarrassed, and weak. Was he really here to apologize? The old wizard rung his hands as she brushed off the sand from her backside and glared at the ground.
“Dula I--”
He started.
“Yeah, Hygge you don’t have to give me some crackpot excuse. Your riddles are too much for me and I got hurt because of them. What is there to say? And after all this time, now you want to reach out to me?”
She spat. He drew himself up as if to say something in indignation, then deflated.

“You’re right, man. After I took care of you that night I lost my nerve. It was too much, man. The caterwauls! I should have done something to help you afterwards, instead of just watching you leave like some weak weasel hidden in my hole-- not like there was much I could have done for your overstepping. No matter what I shouldn’t have been such a fucking coward after beating it into your head that there is no room in this reality for cowards. I am truly only human, man. I know you don’t want to hear it but without getting on my very knees, I’m here to beg for your forgiveness. I am sorry, it won’t happen again.”

Dula felt humbled by his words despite her anger earlier. She could tell he was being genuine by baring his soul to her, she knew now that on some level maybe he didn’t know what he was doing anymore than she did. Truly, who knew what they were doing in this life at all anyway? Simply nodding at first she sniffed back a few tears, he had no idea how isolated she felt during her overstepping or how scared she was to tell people what was happening. Even though she wanted to express this to him the words caught in her throat, a tear slid down her cheek.

He took her into an embrace and patted her on the head, she felt then that he was like a grandfather to her as much as a mentor as she sniffed into his chest.
“Why didn’t you tell me that could happen?”
He huffed and replied,
“I have never mentored before, it was my mistake not to impress upon you the dangers of attunement first before telling you to just dive right in like some dolphin on a holiday, man. It won’t happen again, Dula.”

She took him at his word and felt all of the anger and resentment she had felt for many tentrials prior melting away. While she felt like there was still a lot for him to prove, she was willing to give him a second chance. They left the embrace and Dula used her glove to wipe off the wetness on her cheeks.
“Pipe?”
He offered.

Per usual, she accepted, and together they smoked on the bank of the gwalos-- not unlike their fateful meeting so many trials ago.


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Dula
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Re: Excelsior

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Through the haze Dula’s mind relaxed and drifted in and out with the waves. She had relayed some of the events of the past Cycle’s trials and to say the least, the old wizard was impressed. After she was done telling her stories he merely raised his eyebrows and snorted, smoke pouring from his nose as he began coughing and patting his long beard.

“Well, that’s quite surprising. I’m glad you made it through all of your trials and tribulations man, ha! I have been on some sort of adventures of my own. I found a… door. In the Ruins. Using my attunement I decided to feel around, just got a bad vibe man. It reeked of magic, trickery, and death. Naturally, man, I went inside. I don’t know how I made it out alive. Ha! Immediately I was accosted by monsters and some of the most hairbrained, hen-pecked, half-assed corridors I have ever had the grace to walk through. When I finally freed myself from the confines of the dungeon I found that it had been two tentrials in Desnind. After doing some research I found a small anecdotal poem about something called ‘Maste’s Maze’. The poem made little sense, even I couldn’t figure out its riddle, but then again neither did the Maze itself when I was inside. No matter what man, I’m sure that’s what it was.”

Through red, blurry eyes Dula just stared at him, not sure what to say.
“Do you mean?”
He cut her off,
“Yes Dula, this is your door. I’m sure of it. Call it intuition man, my gut is telling me this is exactly where you need to go. I think after everything you’ve been through in these recent trials, you’re ready.”
He threw her a glance that betrayed any lingering embarrassment he was trying to hide,
“Of course, I truly mean that. The Dula I met in Ashan is no more. You’re more capable now than you’ve ever been, man.”
Dula tried to process what he was saying, a slight eerie feeling rising from the depths of her subconscious. Her nose filled with the smell of iron as her face flushed with fear at the thought of defeating that most elusive door. Hygge was watching her as the wheels of her mind turned. There was nothing else she could do, she would have to find the door. Even if it meant risking her life. There was no way she would be able to live with this nightmare, it seemed recently each time she had it, the dream got more tangible. Eventually it would surely drive her insane.

“It’s… now or never. I guess.”
She choked out, not wanting to say the words but feeling bound too. The jaws of fate snapped around her, locking her in their grasp a prison. She had made her decision, this was it.
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Dula
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They sat there for some time, cold and stoned, saying little. Just listening to the waves and thinking their own personal thoughts. It was after that long silence Dula realised.
“I’m going to need something stronger than just Mercury to fight these... whatever is in that Maze. Luckily, before you got here, I had in mind making some sparkle bombs. Someone I met many tentrials ago, named Tristan, spoke about it, he said [/i]he[/i] had used crystals in alchemy before. I think I will do just fine with what I have in mind. Definitely an odd one, that guy. But he won over my heart with sweets.”

Dula began emptying the contents of her bag. Out came her retort, alembic, oil heating base, a hammer, her vial of golden liquid, all of the clear quartz crystals, her flint and steel, and a couple other small items were either tied to the bag or found in its pockets. It was difficult getting her prized possessions here but she made sure she came carefully and had packed her bag with care. After gathering the necessary materials to light a fire, she got the fire started and warmed herself by it while thinking. This was going to be tricky, not to mention dangerous. She would need her attunement for this yet again and was amused with the thought of ‘well if I blow up the gwalos at least I’ll be dead, the Elders won’t have to go through the trouble of burning me alive’.

Finding a large, flat stone, she began crushing the crystals on to it with her hammer, making as small of pieces as she could. It would seem though it wasn’t going to be easy to get them fine, small chunks and some dust would have to suffice. Biting her lip, she hoped that wouldn’t affect the potion.

Moving on to the next aspect she collected some ocean water and put it into her retort and alembic contraption, getting the distilling process started so she could harvest some salt. By turning on the heating base she began getting the water to boil.

Thinking back to the ink she made for Eliza that glowed, she pulled out a piece of charcoal from the fire and let it cool, intending to mash it up with the hammer too. Once it was in a fine powder she collected the crystal power and charcoal pouring small amounts of them into the two glass jars she had. She made sure to use more crystals than charcoal.

After some time the salt was ready and she scraped out a small amount, then poured it into the jars as well. The last thing she did, to make it a potion, was take some seawater and add it to the jar. This was when she should attune to it, she decided, and took the three bits to take in the frequency of the mundane side of the potion, before its change.

Now she was breathing hard, nervous sweat forming around her brow as she added the tiniest couple of drops of the golden sap to the first potion. At first nothing in the potion happened but as she lightly swirled the liquid around she watched the water go from murky, to gold, to a sparkling silver with pieces that twinkled like stars. Was this enough for a bomb? Exploring her attunement she felt no “rising heat” note or anything even similar. If anything the attunement seemed cold.

Doing the unthinkable, she poured a little of it out onto a nearby rock. This was dangerous because she was working with a highly unstable reaction, if she had been successful in making the bomb. Where the rock was affected it shimmered and glittered with prisms like a diamond, but didn’t show any signs of wanting to explode.

“Fek.”
She said in common and Hygge shot her a disapproving look. This was no bomb, it was just some kind of sparkle potion.
"Bogs!"

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Dula
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During all of this time no one had tended the fire, Hygge had just sat there getting more stoned as she worked on her potions, and because of their negligence the fire had gone out. Thankfully, Hygge took it upon himself to gather some more wood and helped himself to her flint and steel, trying now to relight the fire.

How was she going to get this potion to explode? So. If Dula was going to use the potion she would chuck it at her opponent where it would blow up on them. So either through contact with air or by just friction of being tossed and broken… It seems without adding a wick there are two ways of making this explode…

She rubbed her temples angrily, Hygge was too stoned to light the fire. He was distracting her, why on Moseke’s right boob was he using her flint and steel when he could just use an ember and blow on the fire? And that’s when it all clicked. Flint! Exactly!
“Hygge, you’re being stupid. Give me that!”
Dula shouted in Xanthea as she tore the flint and steel from his hands just as he got a spark finally on his tinder.
“I’m going to attune to this flint and hope I can find some on the beach.”

And so she did. After adding the flint’s frequency to her active attunements she began walking down the sandy gwalos, looking for beds of stone. Using compass ever so lightly, still weary from the last time she used it, she sent out some feelers and found within her frequencies the flint that Hygge held, not far from her. But also some farther up the beach, about a half mile away.

Walking as quickly as she could she trudged up to a rock pile where her compass was telling her to go. It hummed here and she was dubious. While some of the stones were dark grey they were just regular stones, she could tell that plain as day with her eyes let alone her attunement. But it was still saying here. She frowned, getting frustrated.
“What the fek you stupid flint.”
Dula grumbled to herself.
There were a few different kinds of rocks here, she picked them up and inspected a few. None visually looked like flint. The one she currently held in her hand sung flint’s song but she thought it must have been wrong somehow. The rock she held was white and bulbous, it looked to be in the shape of a dung heap. Nothing about that screamed flint.

That was when it hit her, the flint must be inside! Throwing it against another stone once it broke what it revealed inside was a flint stone buried in the whitle, ugly rock. This would do. She took it back to the camp and began smashing it with her hammer, collecting the flint stones.

At long last she had small pieces of flint stone ready to add to her potion. In her excitement she went to add one to the sparkling potion just to see what would happen but Hygge stopped her.
“Wait! Just wait man. Adding that is like lighting your fuse. And I know the potion just doesn’t seem to be doing much man but keep that thing safe from getting jostled. It really could blow its friggen top. Take those home and put them on your shelf for now. Be careful!”

She made the second potion same as the first and was decidedly out of glass jars now. But instead of empty glass jars she had two sparkle potions. They collected her things, put out the fire, and went to Ivy Side Hideout. Hygge carried her potions home for her and personally set them on her shelf, then bade her farewell.

After all that had happened today it was now about early afternoon, she had the whole day ahead of her to scheme on Maste’s Maze. She set out her things and began to take a serious inventory of what she had and what she would bring with her to the Maze. This is how the rest of her afternoon went!

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Re: Excelsior




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Comments

There was so much happening here! But you broke up the scenes for everything nicely and that made it an easy and enjoyable read. Dula go some much needed resolution here with Hygge and though I don't know the backstory, it was still lovely to read. The emotions you wrote were very real. Good job, and hopefully Dula does well during her maze!

Points

10

Can be use for magic? Yes or No

Knowledge

Skill
Alchemy: Sparkle bomb
Alchemy: Using flint as “ignition”
Alchemy: Distilling salt from ocean water
Alchemy: Be careful with unstable reagents
Mining: Finding flint on a beach
Attunement: Frequency: Flint

Non
NA

Loot

A handful of flint shards
Two sparkle potions

Wealth

NA

Renown

NA

Injuries

NA
word count: 121
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