The Forge of Creation

Finding a crow didn't take you too long, but it did take up most of your afternoon and push the actual ritual late into the night.

A ritual on this scale was not a simple thing to carry out, even if you were using the life of the crow to imbue the ward with enough capability to act beyond what the bare functions implied. Intelligent direction could be used to leverage meagre tools quite well after all.

But you weren't entirely alone. While Beth wasn't the most physical of people she wasn't against rolling up her sleeves and helping you set up the campfires and mixing up the potions to be offered to them. Sure, you had to be the one to prepare and grind up the charcoal, but she could be trusted to help lay them out into the complex patters that helped you channel the spiritual energy and dig channels into the earth.

At the end of the day, however, you were the one that needed to carry out the ritual in the end. So, once the clouds parted enough for you to see the sky, you got to work.

The flickering embers of the fires encircling the clearing roared to live as small parcels of herbs, spices and crushed mother-of-pearl were offered up. The new seemed to trigger a lambent glow throughout the clearing, a sort of glowing mist that seemed to pour from the stars overhead and pool in glimmering colours that could only be described as fear, rage and joy.

Streams of power flowed toward the altar at the center of the clearing, where you carefully pinned down the crow, strange noises forced from your merely human body.

The spiritual energy bubbled up, bathing the creature in glowing light. The dark colours of the bird seemed to wash away, leaving a transparent disturbance in the air as more and more energy was filtered into the creature, expanding it's soul beyond that of a simple creature.

As the thrashing begins to still you focus your mind and once again turn yourself inside out.

The sensation is, as ever utterly alien, but you have been preparing for this for two days now, and you are well prepared to start instructing the growing guardian spirit as you begin to weave magic into place.

Part of the preparations for this ritual pushed magic through you, allowing you to pull it into the spiritual and begin to construct the delicate tracery of stories as you begin to tell the tale of survival. Of fear. Of protection.

You lead into the story with Bridgitte's chance rescue from the Hunt by a pack of wolves. You go on to describe the Carian Sea, and how those waters have hidden families for generations. And you call upon the spirits of this world to return this place to the original intent carried forth by this enormously powerful construct. A place of safety and one of connection.

And so you bring forth your protector one to enforce that original intent, a spectre of death to rebuke hostile invasions.

And the last thing you see before you collapse to the ground is an ominous spectral skeleton screeching out into the night before taking to the skies, dissapearing from sight.

You wake up a few hours later, by which point Anna has moved you safely under the tank where you spend your second night.

Most of the next day is spent cleaning up the remains of the ritual and making your way to town.

[][PLAN] Anna thinks she can take care of introducing yourself after you get her past the guards. She suggests that you finish up remaking the comissions
[][PLAN] Spend some time introducing Anna to everyone, it's best if you're there to smooth things over
[][PLAN] Before you do anything else, tell Ainsley about the ritual, you're probably going to have to explain the Stargate too.
[][PLAN] Write-in

But as you wake up you do once again get to experience the unreality of the Forge and see two glowing stars in the void.

points: 725

Years of Study - Aerospace Engineering (250)
It has always been a human dream to fly, to breach the bonds of gravity. But few know that feeling of weightlessness as intimately as you. Because you not only know how to fly, but make things fly, and even breach the skies themselves and throw themselves into the night sky.

Your mind, no your very self has been whisked away for seemingly no time at all, but you know different because you have spent a lifetime honing your craft. Under the best teachers you can imagine, you have spent a lifetime honing your skills in this field, to the point that you are beyond the state of the art, in fact, your skill in this area is downright supernatural, not just in terms of knowledge, but in terms of that learned intuition on where to go next.


Resources at Hand (400)
When you repair things, you just so happen to always have the necessary resources at hand.

[][PERK] Years of Study - Aerospace Engineering
[][PERK] Resources at Hand
[][PERK] Both
[][PERK] None

A/N:
I was quite tempted to reference the Rainbow Crow of Lenape legend here, but I wasn't sure if that would be considered appropriative and insensitive - I've decided not to include it in this but it has brought to mind that I may want to look into aquiring sensitivity readers for future ritual work, even if what I'm writing is - as far as I can tell mostly original since I'm doing my best to avoid specific legends or anything of the like and keeping to more general principles shared across different cultures.

Also work has been busy, so updates will be later in the day and might be spaced out a bit.

You remember seeing humanity break the bonds of the earth for the first time. You remember exulting along with your family as you stared at a television screen broadcasting the first ever sight of earth from space.

That joy lives within you even as you one day walk through the doors of IASIC, the first truly international venture to reach for the stars. Not only have you hones your skills for years, but your drive and talent see you at the table with people dozens of years your senior, none of whom begrudge your age.

That doesn't mean that you don't try and prove yourself. You throw yourself into your work, excited to work on any part of the project. At first your works are closer to home, pesudosatellites and hypersonic aircraft to revolutionise travel, stretching your understanding of aerodynamics to the cutting edge. But it in time you have the opportunity to go even further beyond.

The day you see your baby make history as the first reusable SSTO ever produced you wonder if you would ever top this achievement. You were wrong, of course. There were always new heights to aspire to, even as you worked on interplanetary explorers and asteroid miners to bring humanity into a true space age.

You end up making a new mace and sword as you contemplate these new memories, not knowing exactly what to think. But by the time you stumble into the refectory for dinner, you see that Anna has already gotten into a deep conversation with some of the farmers and some of the hunters, apparently looking into cultivating a few of the wild crops in the forest nearby to expand offerings in the spring. Apparently she spotter several plants beginning to sprout on the way back from the Gate and thinks that they might do well through the winter - and would sell well in the early spring.

It might be a little risky - the fields are traditionally left fallow over the winter to help replenish some of the nutrients, but the plants she describes - some sort of bean might actually help in that restoration, though in truth you aren't all to familiar with crop rotation so you can't comment one way or the other.

As you look around the room, you spot Ainsley catch your eyes.

[] You should probably let him know about the ritual
[] Distract him from your dissapearance by asking how Anna has been fitting in
[] Let him know that you have two extra weapons and you want to give them to the village
[] Write-in

A/N:

The comment on plants has made me realise that a Years of Study - Ecology would be an interesting perk.

To that extent, I'm placing a bounty for the perk, a standard 600 point perk that deals with complex inter-organism networks that enable environmental engineering in addition to closed environments like arcologies or O'Neil cylinders.

You won't need to worry about the standard blurb (Your mind, no your very self has been whisked away for seemingly no time at all, but you know different because you have spent a lifetime honing your craft. Under the best teachers you can imagine, you have spent a lifetime honing your skills in this field, to the point that you are beyond the state of the art, in fact, your skill in this area is downright supernatural, not just in terms of knowledge, but in terms of that learned intuition on where to go next.) so you can just focus on the first paragraph, examples below.

Years of Study - FTL (600)
It has always been the dream of mankind to leave our celestial cradle. But often the process is beyond us, simply taking too long for us to be able to survive. But you have seen beyond it. You have been waist-deep in the guts of the prize jewel of human engineering - An FTL Drive. And not just once. You have worked on everything, from Alcubierre drives to wormhole drives, and you have designed all of them from the ground up.



Years of Study - Mechs (250)
There's an impossible beauty around Mechs. By all common wisdom, all the technology that would make a mech possible would only set it at a disadvantage to tanks and other systems using that technology more efficiently. But you know how to apply them in ways that seem to make the impossible possible. Control interfaces, linear actuators, weapons technologies and power systems that all seem to fit the humanoid form better than standard vehicles.

Your mind, no your very self has been whisked away for seemingly no time at all, but you know different because you have spent a lifetime honing your craft. Under the best teachers you can imagine, you have spent a lifetime honing your skills in this field, to the point that you are beyond the state of the art, in fact, your skill in this area is downright supernatural, not just in terms of knowledge, but in terms of that learned intuition on where to go next.

Years of Study - Military Technology (300)
It takes more than the biggest gun to end a war. You would know. You have spent a lifetime hopping from conflict to conflict, and your work has won the day more often than not. Not only can you build the biggest gun, but you can also build an arsenal for an army, and you know how to build what they need. Your skills reach far beyond mere weapons design. You know enough strategy, tactics and even espionage to create unstoppable armies.

Your mind, no your very self has been whisked away for seemingly no time at all, but you know different because you have spent a lifetime honing your craft. Under the best teachers you can imagine, you have spent a lifetime honing your skills in this field, to the point that you are beyond the state of the art, in fact, your skill in this area is downright supernatural, not just in terms of knowledge, but in terms of that learned intuition on where to go next.