Gravedigger Quest

(this is unbeta'd since I'll be away soon, maybe I'll edit it later)
[X] You definitely don't want to talk about it
[X] It'll be harder now, but maybe try to get to the bodies from the test

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Lirra turned to Tanwen, a haggard look still on her face. She gulped audibly before shaking her head, banishing the last slivers of the nightmare from her mind.

"I'll be fine," she finally answered. "I don't want to talk about it."

Tanwen shrugged, then turned and sat back on her bed.

"I can understand that," she said, carefully lowering her head on her feathery pillow so that her horns wouldn't pierce it. "We all came here for a reason after all, am I right?"

Lirra nodded pensively, her ashen locks covering her eyes for an instant before she organised them so that they'd stay under her hood. She grabbed her cloak from the wooden chair somewhat clumsily, making it clatter on the ground until it stabilised, and put the patchy cape over her shoulders, before finally covering her head. She covered her trembling hand with the other as she fastened it. The dream had affected more than she wanted to admit. It had been quite some time since the last time she saw it in as much clarity, and it hadn't been missed. Finally, she grabbed her shovel she had placed next to her bed.

"You going out?" came Tanwen's voice from the bed. "There should still be plenty of time before we actually have to get up."

Lirra was already halfway through the door, and she put a hand on the heavy oak as she lowered her head.

"I… have something I must take care of," she finally said.

She didn't turn to see Tanwen lazily waving her hand, and closed the door behind her. Unlike the day before, the hallways were deserted, which was to be expected given the early hour. No doubt that it would change in a few hours, when breakfast would be available, but Lirra wouldn't be there at that moment.

Silently, she made her way to the yard, then walked to the edge of the forest, where the tents had been standing a few days ago. Some were still standing on the grassy ground just inside the first walls, but most had been deconstructed. Lirra peaked inside the ones still standing, but they were empty, save for a few bed supports. In one corner of the tent, a pile of dirty sheets were laying, blood still clearly visible on quite a few. There was no trace of the bodies, however, and so Lirra got back out.

She had gone out hoping that doing her duty would take her mind off the past, but what was she supposed to do now that the corpses were gone? She hoped that at least they didn't leave on their own. The saturation of Dark energy during the test would certainly have made that possible, but the wards probably had been reactivated since - the air didn't taste as foul as it had in the forest - so that made it unlikely.

Dejected, Lirra kicked a tuft of grass, head down, when her eyes widened. Visible in the dirt were a serie of tracks, probably from a cart's wheels or something like that. It made sense; there were quite a lot of bodies from what she had sensed - and the simple calculus of how many people were at the gates against how many arrived at the academy - and one couldn't be expected to carry them all by hand. At least not if there was a better method available.

The only thing left to do now was finding where they had been taken to, and so Lirra followed the tracks on the dewy grass, until she got to a gravel road. It would have been more difficult to follow tracks there, but thankfully it wasn't really necessary anymore. The road took a roundabout path between the first and second walls, and continued like this for quite a distance until it arrived to highly decorated heavy metal gates and a high fence.

Through it, Lirra saw a large hill, upon which were an astounding number of graves. In the distance she could see a multitude of different types of tombstones that she somehow identified as denoting worshippers of different gods thanks to her mentor's old lessons. The closer it got to the gate, however, the more uniform it got. It was only an educated guess, but it probably marked the moment when the faith of mankind and its allies wavered after the reveal of the influence of the gods in the Ebb and Flow, showing that their protection wasn't as great as it was once thought. Some tombstones showing the deceased's devotion were still visible here and there, but much rarer.

Hesitantly, she raised her hand to the gate and pushed lightly. It wasn't locked and opened with a long grating noise. Despite the lack of resistance, Lirra hissed and creadled her burnt palm, tears welling in her eyes. Awed as she had been by the massive cemetery, she had stupidly forgotten that the heavy iron gate was, in fact, made of iron.

She stayed there, before the entrance, for a while until the pain subsided, then she lightly stepped in, making sure not to touch the iron again. Once inside, she slowly made her way up, examining the graves she walked by. Some had names, and a few of the lower ones even had offerings of flowers and other such things near them, but there repeatedly were huge swathes of blank tombstones. As she looked at the recently turned earth and the massive number of newly raised headstones, it suddenly made sense: these were the last residence of those who failed the test. Not a mass grave, but close enough. Yet, despite the massive quantity of death around her - as her blazing hair was reminding her - Lirra didn't feel any Dark taint.

She had heard of such cemeteries before. Wards had been developed that made it so the dead could have their sleep undisturbed as long as they weren't broken, and now only the poor who couldn't afford to get any of the limited space in these hallowed grounds or corpses in the wild got back up. It probably was a good thing, but Lirra couldn't help but feel bitter at her obsolescence. This wasn't a perfect solution, as it was impossible to store an infinite amount of bodies, though. As she thought about that, Lirra turned to face the gate again, and saw the yet untouched grass of the hills that descended until the fence. How long would this ground stay untouched?

She could only hope that she'd be enough to avoid her hypothetical future friends ending up in this place.

And with that last thought, Lirra pulled up her sleeves, grabbed her shovel and got to work. The earth had been dug recently, and so it was easy to reach the bodies. Her hood flew back at the first Pyre she performed, and she didn't bother to put it back, as it wouldn't be the last by far. It would be the first time she performed it so many times in a row. The echoes she received from the dead were somehow more muted than the other times. Then again, these had been more… personal.

Still, she felt a massive wave of regrets, of ambition unfulfilled. The broken dreams of aspiring heroes who died before they could do anything. Some had been trained, laid done by misfortune or circumstances, while other had been like her, dreamers who had hoped to become more and wanted to take their first steps in this legendary place. They hadn't been as lucky as she had been, and now they were but dust in the wind.

Still, Lirra thought, maybe they would have been happy to know that their dreams would be carried on, as their echoes filled her with a trickle of power that added as more and more bodies burnt in her Pyre.

A few hours later, Lirra was panting, her hands calloused from so much digging, but of the many graves that had been the resting place of this year's aspirants had been emptied, then covered again. Maybe, with this many echoes inside her, Lirra would stop feeling the last moments of Ilinca in her nightmares. And even if it didn't help on that front, the added power she got from these echoes would help her prevent such a thing from happening again.

She left the graveyard with the grim satisfaction of her duty fulfilled. While it may not be necessary given the safety measures in place, there were still a lot of bodies for Lirra to take care of, should she feel it necessary to secure their rest in a more definitive way, or - more selfishly - if she needed more power. She took a deep breath as she put her hood back on her head. If she was thinking something like that, maybe taking care of so many people in a row was a bit dangerous. After all, such a thought would be natural coming from someone who died before they could achieve their dreams because they were too weak or unlucky. She did well in leaving when she had, otherwise who knew what she'd done if she continued to Pyre bodies before the previous ones were "digested", if she could use such a crass imagery.

She got back to her room as people started to crowd the hallways. Head low, she ran through the crowd until the door was safely closed behind her. She'd have to get accustomed to being amidst so many people, but she'd do it in small steps. Her return - or rather her unsubtle handling of the door - roused Tanwen, who sat up on her bed, rubbing an eye with her hand as he pillow slowly slid down one of her horn, leaving a sad trail of feathers to slowly float down in its wake. Apparently, she had gone back to sleep after Lirra left.

"Uh... Lirra?" she mumbled in a confused voice before she grew more awake. "Ah, you're back. Wow, you're covered in dirt, you look like you..." She paused, before snapping her fingers. "Aaaaah, so that's what you were doing so early."

With that she slid out of her bed, and grabbed some pants on the table, putting them on.

"Ah, someone passed by earlier, left those," she said pointing at two piles of clothes on the table. "Uniforms or something like that. We're only obligated to wear these things," she added while throwing a small piece of cloth decorated with a stylised sword that looked like it would fall over her heart once properly fastened. "But, hey, free stuff. Also, it looks pretty well made."

Lirra looked at the emblem in her hands, then walked quickly to the table to see the rest of the uniform. It was a simple set of tunic and pants, with parts reinforced with leather. More importantly, it looked brand new, with no patched holes or frayed edges. Actual clothes, made for her.

"Lirra, you're drooling," came a distant voice to her right.

She unfastened her cloak and let it fall down at her feet, before she started attacking the string holding her shirt closed. Then, she suddenly stopped. As Tanwen had remarked, she was covered in dirt. While she didn't care if her old clothes were covered in it - after all, it's not like they didn't came out of a grave already - wouldn't it be nice to wear clean and comfy clothes for once? But then again, breakfast would come soon followed shortly by training, and going to her first lessons on an empty stomach might be a bad idea…

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[] Go get food, it's more important. You'll just wear the emblem over your old clothes.
[] Clean yourself up so you can fully enjoy your actually-not-taken-on-a-corpse clothes!
[] You can totally do both if you hurry a bit.
[] Write-in

Obtained:
5 Violent Echoes
7 Wistful Echoes
9 Lost Echoes
10 Obsessed Echoes
50 Faded Echoes

Which means you've unlocked the shop! Yay! Buying power from the death of the innocents! Yay!
(The shop will be added to the character sheet, along your current Echo Count, but here it is for now)

So, what does it mean/how does it work?

Well, you can buy these skills with matching echoes. Violent Echoes are pretty much the Sword (fighty) echoes (and the dice didn't want you to have them, so... yeah) Wistful is Staff (support), Lost is Cloak (sneaky/social) and Obsessed is Star (knowledge/magic), if you want to put it by vocation/gate. Faded are the neutral skills. You got a lot of them this time because the dices were nice for once. Probably because you aren't Chloe. They really hate Chloe.

Skills can unlock other skills (which are hidden for now), as well as higher tiers. To avoid minmaxing, I haven't shown the higher ranks yet. Maybe I'll do in the future depending on how it works.

If there's something you want to know/a skill you want to have that isn't on the list, ask and I'll tell you if it's locked or if I just didn't think about it.


Note that this shop covers only what you can get through your Pyre, and not what you learn naturally. Natural skills will be earned through the story and in a less gamey way.

If you want to buy skills, do so in the following format. It's always an option given Lirra is supposed to have these as soon as she noms some dead bodies.
[][shop] Plan something
-[] thing
-[] thing
-[] thing

And I think that's it. Remember about the discord if you want to ask something quickly (not that I don't roam this thread all the time, but it'd be easier for a conversation depending on what you ask).