That was beautiful.
I know I don't vote much but this is so far one of the most enjoyable quest I've read for a while.
Thank you Ralson. Looking forward to see more.
really hope that second to last picture of that update with all the fireballs weren't all dragons who can teleported to who knows where. Not really sure our dragon boy is up for a rescue mission once his drugs finally were off.
If many people are lost it also increases the chance that people needed for rescue missions aren't available (if such a thing is possible in reasonable time i'd assume the people with the magic skills needed would work in the institute and thus have high chance of being teleported). And if rescue missions aren't quick more people means that probably there will be more people to save before him.
Hey I suggest a group hug between all three dragons so they'd get teleported together but everyone wanted to go for the kiss instead. Oh well for all we know if they did go for the group hug they might have fused together and become a three headed dragon and look like some kind of mini Tiamat light.
Dunno if it would have worked to keep them together, might have still been pulled into different direction.
On the three headed dragon: The Cerbe-rawr!
Welp, let's see where we end up. This is going to be interesting. They included dozens of languages, which means that it wasn't one tear. It was dozens at the least. And we could have ended up in any of them, or somewhere else entirely.
That assumes that they send the languages because they know that they will be needed, and not just a hail-mary "we may be teleportet to only-Tiamat-knows-where, lets send out all the language packs we have, maybe one of it will be useful"
Also any bets if everyone will be send to the same place (presumably where that monster-thing wanted to teleport to) or if the magic only took us out of our own place and where we are send to is random?
It hopefully won't be many more days, but I'm not committing to an ETA.
FWIW, I'm intermittently posting doodles and concept art in my art thread. Feel free to ask OOC questions and stuff there, though I won't spoil anything.
edit: At the site where I previously ran quests, years ago, they'd make separate OOC discussion threads, so I'm not sure the best way to handle that.
It hopefully won't be many more days, but I'm not committing to an ETA.
FWIW, I'm intermittently posting doodles and concept art in my art thread. Feel free to ask OOC questions and stuff there, though I won't spoil anything.
edit: At the site where I previously ran quests, years ago, they'd make separate OOC discussion threads, so I'm not sure the best way to handle that.
No damn way! @Ralson Tozol Quest is one of my favorites quests... ever. I haven't read it in, well, nine years apparently, but I'll always remember it as the absolute best art-quest I ever read by a country mile. (At least, back when I used to go through lots of art-quests.) It was, well, here's what I said back then:
Derpmind 2013 said:
Kinetic. Lots of smells, pain, noise... but the kinetic feeling, from a technical perspective if nothing else, is the most impressive. I'm just gonna say that word again because if feels good. Kinetic. Kinetic. Kinetic.
Yeah, that. Kinetic. Anyways, I'm super glad to find out you're still doing art, and I just wanted to thank you again for Tozol Quest. It was a super fun and tense explosion-y, emotional, kinetic read. And to everyone else, I can definitely recommend Tozol Quest. Or at least, me from nine years ago can. No dragons tho, IIRC.
Tozol quest was one of the first quests I ever read and a major reason why I still read them now. Thank you for that, and I can't wait to see how this quest goes!
A timeless discontinuity passes. Desolate tranquility.
Within a river made of lightning, there is something like peace.
Without warning, there's a moment of violence. A discharge like a thunderbolt.
Zalan arrives in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by metal and stone.
The green light finally fades. It's like coming out of a trance.
Consciousness flickers. He wakes up slowly, but gasping and confused. Panic rises.
A pair of smallfolk stare silently at him, but he has more immediate problems. They feel silent and far away.
A terrible sensation of wrongness settles over him. Things aren't working the way they should. His body feels numb. He struggles just to move. His mana channels and his five chakratic nodes are spooling up from what he can only describe as a cold start. Those always stay active even while he sleeps. His body shut down, in a way he's never experienced before.
He struggles to think. He imagines his thoughts like a sputtering flame. He wills them to burn bright and clean. His Crown node comes alive.
He focuses on his heartbeat, then on the connection between his spirit and his body: his Core node begins cycling.
He inhales carefully, lets it out: his Breath.
There's already a problem. His Core tap, the connection between himself and power distribution, is dead. He's left with his natural mana reserves, which he's never really worked to strengthen. It's like a long, slow, and distant suffocation.
Every dragon, even one like him, knows how to respire mana with their Breath node, but there's something about the room that's making it harder.
Don't panic. Don't panic.Your reserves should last all day. Unless they're already drained...
It should be obvious, but he's so disoriented. His head is throbbing, and not just from magic. The black elixir's finally gone from his system, leaving a trail of wreckage in its wake.
Presently, he has more pressing concerns.
...It is difficult not to panic. The lethargy might be the only thing keeping the panic down.
Just make your body work.
His robes are gone. Not only that, but he can't access his voidspace inventory. It seems like it's just... gone.
Other modules he can feel, but he's struggling to activate. His body's having enough trouble just functioning.
Mana, circulating through his channels, begins to suffuse his physical body: His Sacral node slowly activates, like blood flowing back to a limb that's gone tingly.
...and finally, his Wing node. It's central to his nature as a dragon, but he doesn't feel like much of a dragon right now.
If his inventory's really gone, his physical wings could be in another dimension. Another plane, or just stuck between planes, never to be seen again. He laments that he didn't attach those when he had the chance, although they might've still simply vanished if he had, just like his clothes and his inventory module.
oh fuck what if it ripped Seyr's healing patch right off...
That makes Zalan's thoughts stop cold. He... can't help Seyr right now, but he can take stock of himself.
A full description would take a team of medical professionals. This doesn't even include the massive hangover from the black elixir.
In the meantime, he eyes the smallfolk with total bewilderment. Some kind of fox-folk? Zalan probably looks terrified, but he doesn't have any spare energy to hide his thoughts.
One of them's armed. They start yelling at the one that isn't armed and gesturing at Zalan.
That sword makes him nervous, but at least they're waving at him with the stubby end.
Zalan can't understand a thing they're saying. He relies on his Personal Attendant module to translate, and that's still shut down cold.
The smaller of the two stammers something. Or maybe the words just sound like a stammer. But it's obvious something went wrong here. They couldn't have been expecting this. Dragon summoning hasn't worked in centuries.
Consider losing your composure for a little while. Seems an opportune time for it and maybe looking pitiful will make them view you as less of a threat.
Well, they seem as confused as we are, so...maybe start with a polite greeting and try (and probably fail?) to look like we're not just coming down off a stimulant bender? Or do salt crown's option.
The next 5 minutes are going to suck, because I'm fairly sure the assistant part of that diagram is where those new language files are.
Hopefully some of the difficulty with respiration and the loss of inventory is due to some property of this cage, but that cannot be counted on.
The locals don't seem to have expected this outcome, so if Zalan can make it long enough to possibly understand them the situation might get easier to handle.
Someone really did not expect their demon summoning to suddenly bring in a dragon...
And ooh, character sheet unlocked! That missing inventory is... not good. Probably like losing a hand. Oooor like kissing wings that are also missing. But uh, maybe it's something about the cage that blocks it, rather than it just being gone after the- oh dear, teleportation shouldn't stop your body, right?
[X] Bite the cage bars and chew your way out of it. Dragons can eat metals right? ...Or at least check, with tail or something, that it won't cause all this floof to stand up from a sudden electric shock? And maybe stick snout out to breathe in some proper magic air. Iiiiif it's not the entire plane that is low on magic in which case uh, whoops.
[x] We should: inspect the cage, then the magic circle under us, and use the time to gather composure (and maybe translator awakening) before trying to communicate. Also try not to have a breakdown, yet.
[x] We should: inspect the cage, then the magic circle under us, and use the time to gather composure (and maybe translator awakening) before trying to communicate. Also try not to have a breakdown, yet.
Anyways, I'm super glad to find out you're still doing art, and I just wanted to thank you again for Tozol Quest. It was a super fun and tense explosion-y, emotional, kinetic read. And to everyone else, I can definitely recommend Tozol Quest. Or at least, me from nine years ago can. No dragons tho, IIRC.
