One Year Ago: Charlie Base and What They Found There [Kenshiko]
[QUOTE=Cleric of Hell’s Brigade;4820029]Willa activates one of the computer terminals and a security feed opens up.
The video shows a series of mining platforms slowly excavating a large room. The lights attached to the platforms play over the remains of a large temple of sorts, or shrine.
One with ties to the Ten Schools if the markings are correct.
Another screen shows a drone floating through a room and archiving what’s inside. Gold, silver, and various jewels lay in piles. Another drone plays light over ancient weapon racks mostly rotted away, but for a doEn or so gleaming magical items it seems. Another drone yet shows a library being examined, light playing over ancient scrolls.
And the last camera show cases a massive earthen body, like Damask but more. It lays silent and unmoving, though there also appears to be two more massive bodies beside this one. One of ancient bronze like metal, the other of pure crystal.[/QUOTE]
Prying eyes. Even beneath a mountain at the end of the Earth, they were moving pieces on somebody else's track.
She followed the Colonel into yet another sequestered portion of the base. Another layer to Willa's operation, kept at a distant need-to-know basis.
[i]We have barely enough to power the barracks topside and you've been doing this,[/i]
Though Kenshiko did not so much as mutter, the thoughts were stark beneath the surface as her view moved from one drone feed to the next, poring over the buried archive.
[i]The entire time...[/i] Drowned history, forgotten. For a moment she peered behind her to Damask's towering frame, silhouetted against the light of the cavern at their back.
It was then she noticed that one of these dead and discarded things bore the same sigil that was etched into her back.
"You going to start explaining what this is, Colonel?"
Disciples of the Dragon VII: The Legacy of Zxu'ro [Zaofan]
[QUOTE=Cleric of Hell’s Brigade;4820068]Zxu’ro smiles slightly.
“I believe my credentials are verified then?”[/QUOTE]
"You've certainly proven you can defend yourself, at least"
Not for nothing, but Sasheem had thrown himself headfirst against Young 'Ro without a second thought.
Of course, Zaofan knew that in his heart of hearts, frankly he would not have fared much better, even if he could track the path and purpose of the movements. This left them rather at an impasse...but while it was clear that this young man wasn't their enemy, in spite of himself he couldn't help but remain quite skeptical about the whole thing.
[i]And there's something else in the very air of this place...I can't quite put my finger on it.[/i]
Where Ochazuke had gathered the spirit bomb, sourced directly from the grounds of each of the Ten Schools, when he placed his hand against the chamber wall it was as if the Earth itself had swallowed its own increase. And ever since they stepped into this place, it was like a faint ringing of a tone almost imperceptibly high. It filled his ki sense, as if everything here had been imbued with something.
[i]It's not exactly a Geofront, now is it? However...[/i]
"Um...so, to dial things back a bit, where exactly are we?"
One Year Ago: Charlie Base and What They Found There [Kenshiko]
[QUOTE=Cleric of Hell’s Brigade;4824508]“Yes.”
She points to the screens.
“Forgotten history. Weapons to bolster our forces. Scrolls of hidden techniques or styles. From what I understand, there was a single martial school that was called the Chimera. It splintered and became ten, then the five you are familiar with. This ruin was once a temple dedicated to it.”
“The riches found here will fund us for years. No more power outages. No more need to steal weapons or supplies. We can finally get better food.”
She sighs.
“I did not tell our forces because I was not sure what would be found here. I originally found Damask on the outskirts here, a ruined form. Only recently have I discovered there was more to him, and this place.”[/QUOTE]
Kenshiko's lips briefly parted, stilled but for the silent fog from the corners of her mouth. Where the wordless whisper escaped, she mouthed his name...
Every day in Solitary she'd stared at that facsimile, extracting everything she could from [post=3838046][B]Zxu'ro's Challenge[/B] and [B]First Forms of the Five[/B][/post], gazing back to find the way forward as she always had, because there was nothing ahead of their path but more battles.
[I]The Five from the Ten.[/I] The pieces were slowly starting to come together, but faint images and glimpses would not be enough to go on.
"Show me the way down there. I want to see it for myself."
Disciples of the Dragon VII: The Legacy of Zxu'ro [Zaofan]
[QUOTE=Cleric of Hell’s Brigade;4824514]“This is sort of a.....hmm, how do you say it? A temporal spiritual bubble? A small piece of the past combined with psychic energy, fed by the spirit of the Earth. A small pocket dimension is a close explanation as well.”[/QUOTE]
"I-"
Zaofan's eyes stilled, and stupefied in mid-blink, the silence that radiated from him seemed to join the uncanny still, air that reached from the hollow they came in from to the heights of this green mountaintop.
A butterfly nestled itself upon a wildflower, and they would sooner hear it take in its nectar.
[i]Time wrest away from time and wrought from memory.[/i] Not since little Morgan and what had befallen the last vestiges of Avalon in the North had he seen anything quite like this. Yet it was plain to see before him that this was no feat of magic.
The chef shuddered, for the memory was still quite near. Ever since that long stretch of endless night where the howling Void threatened to seize a fallen eon to eternity, he'd began to question everything he'd come to assume about humankind. It was his source of pride that food brought everyone together, and that many barriers between people could be dissolved with the promise of nourishment and hospitality.
Yet it had been undeniable that when pressed, beaten down, with nowhere else to go, that same common passion, it turned into a ravenous zeal to survive at all costs.
Cold. Cruel. Like beasts. There had to be a better way than this.
Still short of words, the martial chef cautiously raised a hand upward toward the bright, sunless sky.
Curiosity got the better of him, and using the [B]Genki technique imparted to him[/B], he slowly pulled at the makeup of the dimension into himself.
One Year Ago: Charlie Base and What They Found There [Kenshiko]
[QUOTE=Cleric of Hell’s Brigade;4825251]“It isn’t fully excavated yet. [B]It could be dangerous.[/B] Do you still wish to go?”[/QUOTE]
Over the entire planet they were outmatched. Anywhere the President fell his gaze, he soon clasped it in his hands or ground it to dust beneath his boot-heel.
But beneath the known world, all this was left to rot and forgotten forever. The pages of the Hidden Hand entrusted to her and the path of Zxu'ro there were things under the the surface waiting to be rebuilt.
If there was even the slightest chance that in these catacombs was something he could not yet reach, then perhaps this blind world could be awakened and turned against its tyrant.
To throw off the shackles of the WG, she would find it.
But suddenly, the Colonel was concerned with the risk. [I]As if we have anything else to lose.[/I] Kenshiko's glove crinkled, leather twist in her grip.
"Who do you think I am?"
Disciples of the Dragon VII: The Legacy of Zxu'ro [Zaofan]
[QUOTE=Cleric of Hell’s Brigade;4825254]The brilliant warmth of the Earth fills him, the calm of the Genki a soothing balm.
Zxu’ro smiles.
“The Earth itself maintains this place. As for myself....think of me as an...imprint. A memory. I’m technically not the real Zxu’ro, but the Earth’s memory of him brought here to further help his chosen disciples.”[/QUOTE]
[I]Oooo...[/I]
Unmistakably, he felt the effect before when he'd collected the little whispers of the world, charged with the memory of what had passed so long ago.
Strangely, the sensation was, in some manner, fleeting, almost as it seemed to stand entirely apart despite what all he saw and felt before him.
Despite all appearances, was Young 'Ro little more than an after-image, of sorts? Zaofan's heart sunk just a little as he slowly connected the dots.
"Well, uh...," he scratched his head, peering warily over to where Sasheem was squatting the grass, "Don't know about chosen, we've never really met."
[I][post=3954846]Not exactly, anyway*.[/post][/I]
"I guess I was hoping we'd find a little something..." [I]More?[/I] "...different, is all."
Whether a magical Familiar's will or some Avatar for a dread thing from a higher dimension, the way the last year went left Zaofan's head spinning fretfully, like dipping the tasting spoon into the same spice jars. Only this time, the echo of that distant past was equal parts familiar, and that was a small, humane comfort after seeing so much gone twisted and wrong.