Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
[X] Yes
[X] Examine the drawing, you are curious
[X] Examine the drawing, you are curious
Martial Artist Quest: Chasing Giant Fire Birds [Ranma/Exalted]
- Thread starter Jemnite
- Start date
Hmm, I'm having trouble thinking up questions beyond the obvious where are we, who are you stuff...
Maybe something like:
[X] (Ask about Saffron): Have you seen an oversized fire chicken around here? Or possibly a child sized one?
Considering there was a mini-Saffron hanging out with Ranma's subconscious is it possible the two of them merged somehow?
BTW, are we Ranma or Ranko right now? Can anybody tell?
Maybe something like:
[X] (Ask about Saffron): Have you seen an oversized fire chicken around here? Or possibly a child sized one?
Considering there was a mini-Saffron hanging out with Ranma's subconscious is it possible the two of them merged somehow?
BTW, are we Ranma or Ranko right now? Can anybody tell?
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
[X] Yes
[X] Attempt to find out where you are. By charades(at least until you realize you can understand him)
[X] (Ask about Saffron): Have you seen an oversized fire chicken around here? Or possibly a child sized one?
[X] Ask for a map.
Actually, that reminds me, can Ranma get an Exaltation? Like, is his soul metaphysically capable of doing so?
[X] Attempt to find out where you are. By charades(at least until you realize you can understand him)
[X] (Ask about Saffron): Have you seen an oversized fire chicken around here? Or possibly a child sized one?
[X] Ask for a map.
Ooooh dear. Please tell me he doesn't have a Raksha slumming in his soul somehow.
Actually, that reminds me, can Ranma get an Exaltation? Like, is his soul metaphysically capable of doing so?
Tassadar
The Overlord of Cakes & Toucans!
Given it was possible in the old quest of this, we even got offered one... I can't see why it won't be now.
Vaalintine
Wild Wondorous Wolfalope
True, but the exaltation we were being offered in the previous quest was apparently a Fiend Caste, and we were in the midst on a mental adventure to boot the unwelcome intruder from our mind.
[X] Yes
[X] Attempt to find out where you are. By charades(at least until you realize you can understand him). Also ask about Saffron ("Have you seen an oversized fire chicken around here? Or possibly a child sized one?"), Akane ("Angry tomboy who isn't cute at all and who should not be allowed to cook ever"), Ryouga ("boy with a bandanna that gets lost easy"), Shampoo, and Mousse.
[X] Attempt to find out where you are. By charades(at least until you realize you can understand him). Also ask about Saffron ("Have you seen an oversized fire chicken around here? Or possibly a child sized one?"), Akane ("Angry tomboy who isn't cute at all and who should not be allowed to cook ever"), Ryouga ("boy with a bandanna that gets lost easy"), Shampoo, and Mousse.
Last edited:
- Location
- Austrlia
[X]Yes
"who are you," "where are we," "have you seen a giant firebird guy," "do you know a cure for brain damage," "is there something I can do to thank you," and "fucking magic, how does it work."
Thank's, @Winged One. (Please leave my brainmeats where they are.)
"who are you," "where are we," "have you seen a giant firebird guy," "do you know a cure for brain damage," "is there something I can do to thank you," and "fucking magic, how does it work."
Thank's, @Winged One. (Please leave my brainmeats where they are.)
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
No, we were punching our soul into the right shape to use terrestrial martial arts.
- Location
- Austrlia
The best way to do so.
Vaalintine
Wild Wondorous Wolfalope
I think you mean Celestial Martial Arts. We already had the ability to use the lotus root, or at least an equivalent.
Given it was Neomah doing the offering it would have been a Slayer (favoring Ebon Dragon)
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
Probably, I'm not great with exalted. Whatever level DB MA is.
Vaalintine
Wild Wondorous Wolfalope
Humans can use Terrestrial, DBs start off with the ability to use Terrestrial and have to unlock the ability to use Celestial, Lunars begin with the capability for both Terrestrial and Celestial, Alchemicals need to install a permenant charm to use Terrestrial & Celestial, Solaroids can only get Sidereal level MA by being taught by a Sid, and Sidereals can use all MA styles.
Reaching past the established MA limit kills the user, as thier soul collapses under the strain of the essence used.
Matsci
Grash itsh griah! Rwar arr rawrrawrarar!
Granded, that's for 2E. In 3e, all Exalted can use all martial arts, but some get a lesser effect, or greater effect, depending on what what type of Exalted you are.
For example, Ranma could learn the Crippling Presser Point Strike of Snake Style, but wouldn't be able to execute it with the ease and grace of a Celestial Exalted. While a celestial exalted could freely strike out at any time, Ranma would have to first wait for a foe to commit to a decisive attack, dodge it, then take advantage of the opening created to strike a vulnerable pressure point.
The Start of a Great Adventure
Jemnite
CVN-69 Fella
- Location
- 清源书院
Ranma, You're Not In Tokyo Anymore
A Rural Looking Clearing Outside a Village
A Rural Looking Small Village
Still no idea at all
I guess he seems alright. I nodded hesitantly to show my affirmation. Despite my wary attitude toward magic- which is totally justified I might note. Magic has literally done nothing good for me. At all. Ever.
Ever.
Anyway, he seemed to be relatively forth-right and trustworthy, considering that he had literally picked me up when I was beaten broken and bloody and taken me in for nothing in return.
I held my arm out, let him splash the azure ink on my skin. The first droplets burned red hot like acid and fire and I smelt the hot dry air and felt the burning sun beating down upon me. The sunbeaten wind whispered words of wisdom to me, and stole away with my breath, a promise of a favor.
Then I breathed out, and the heat and dry faded away back into the cool breeze of a summer day, and the heat on my skin faded away to only the midday beating of the sun, rather than the sorching dryness that stole away your breath of the desert. I bowed to the old man, and tried to pass on my appreciation I felt for the care he had given me.
He looked at me with a amused expression on his face for some reason.
"Can you not speak?" He asked me, pointing at his mouth.
I stared at him in shock. Japanese? Hadn't a second ago, he had been only speaking gibberish? Was a sorcerer? A wizard? I had met many supernatural beings over the years, so it wouldn't a surprise, but to all my senses he had been just another old man!
"How?" I asked as I recoiled, twisting backwards on one ankle and leaping away to land on a nearby tree stump. "You weren't speaking Japanese only a second ago!"
"Japanese?" The old man stroked his beard. It was silklike and very, very while. It hunge down from his chin like some sort of long stranded feather duster. "Is this the name of your language?"
"Your language?" I questioned him again. "What do you mean your language? You're speaking it too."
"Ah," His lightning blue eyes flickered some sort of mysterious merriment. He grinned. "But that is where you'd be wrong, child."
"You see, I am not speaking any of this 'Japanese' at all. Rather, you are speaking Rivertongue."
...what? Was this old fogey trying to mislead me by giving me nonsensical answers? Suddenly, it was all clear now! He wasn't some sort of old trustworthy man at all! Those probably don't exist at all! He was probably just like the Old Ghoul, or even Happosei! I should have never trusted him! I knew all old people were secretly evil!
"You old fool!" I cried. "You'll never catch me with your min-"
Oh. Suddenly I realized something about what I was saying.
It.... really wasn't Japanese at all.
Oh wow.
I guess he was right.
"My what now?" The old man, who was actually not probably a secret martial artist master who would seek to abuse and torment poor innocent high school aged martial artists with pigtails, who had done really nothing wrong at all, with their evil and geezer-like ways asked me. In fact, he was probably just a nice old man. A nice old man with magic powers. Who could probably use those magic powers on people like me, and in fact had just did.
...oh boy, this would require some quick thinking.
"Your.... magnificently hilarious jokes!" I hastily completed by erstwhile sentence. "Haha, they're so funny. I almost broke my gut again laughing at them."
I laughed, just sucking in the right amount of air to make it seem natural. As my eyes crinkled up, I carefully kept a eye on his expression to see if he had bought it. He didn't seem impressed, but he didn't seem very angry either. I prepared to execute the last resort and most secret weapon of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts just in case.
After a second of trying to decipher my face, the old man sighed. "Child, if you're done being an idiot, come back inside. We have things we should discuss now that you're awake."
He pushed himself off his heavy lean on his wooden cane, and turned to walk back down the hill and towards the village that I could see in the far background. The one that I had just run out of, earlier.
"Hey!" I protested. "I'm not an idiot!
Without missing a beat, his eyes snapped around and crackled at me menacingly with the hiss of burnt air, and the smell to go along with it. "Just come already," He snapped.
I shut my mouth and followed.
I wasn't an idiot. Magic was bad news. Like, if he had powers over ghosts, or maybe dragons or princes, or maybe even dragon princes, I wouldn't have cared in the slightest, but unlike all of those, I couldn't beat up magic and force it to go away.
Otherwise, one of my problems would have been solved a long time ago.
"Sit." The old man pointed his cane at a cushion by a seat, and I sat down, plopping my behind on the cushion and settling into into a crosslegged pose. Back when me and pops had spent that week in that Shaolin temple, they had forced me to sleep in this position, and since then it had always sort of stuck.
Well, of course, they called it meditating, but let's be honest, all those senior monks were sleeping. i could hear them snoring. Just couldn't point it out with them getting mad is all.
"Wait." The old man said again, and I waited. It wasn't like I had anything better really to do. I watched him move into another room, and looked up... and waited.
Man... now this was really like the Shaolin temple. Maybe this was in China? Well, no, if this was China, they should have spoken Mandarin there, and I'm pretty sure they didn't speak Mandarin.
...maybe I was in South China? Maybe. But they said that was rivertongue, and in the river basins of China, they spoke Mandarin. Or a dialect of Mandarin, anyways.
I was trying to remember where they spoke what sort of Chinese, when the old man came back into the room, supported by one of the women from earlier. She was carrying a plate of something for him. As she set it down on the low, small table, I saw that it was a platter with two clay cups full of tea, and a small pot-like tea kettle, with the round bottom, and the curved spout. She poured me a cup full of something fragrant smelling and hot, and stepped back to stand by the old man's side. The old man bent over to sit down at the low table, and his assistant once again helped him, supporting his weight as he slowly lowered his weight. He settled in a seiza pose on a blue cushion.
"Drink," He invited me, and I took a cup and sipped from it politely. Wouldn't do to bed rude, after all. "So, child, do you have any questions you want to ask? I'm sure you're very curious about how you came to wake up in my house."
"Yeah," I nodded. He was right, I was actually a little curious to be honest. "And maybe about where it is, exactly. too."
"Yes, that would be something you would be interested in." He nodded, and drank from his cup before setting it down and beginning to educate me on my questions.
"You are in Languo County, one of the small clan confederations of the Hundred Kingdom. It's a small place, with its main exports being idealistic young men who go to the cities to find work, and its highly touted blue apples- which don't actually taste any different than normal apples. It turns out once you peel the skin off, all apples are about the same."
"As to how you came to wake up in my house- you killed my koi fish."
Koi fish? An odd sense of deja-vu came over me; this seemed oddly familiar.
"I didn't happen to, say, fall in, did I?" I asked, still trying to shake off that odd feeling. A koi pond... I remembered the Tendos had one in their back yard. I used to get kicked in there all the time until I got better than pops.
"Yes." The old man answered. "You fell in, and proceeded to splash water about everywhere. Several of my koi died. However, they were fairly all young, because I moved to this house not long ago, and so I was not overly upset."
"I then proceeded to, with the help of Matoi," he gestured to the young lady, who bowed. "-fish you out of the pond, and resuscitate you. When we found you, you were very heavily injured, with several internal injuries and third degree burns at places, and so we set our hands to helping you recover for the next several months. You turned out to be a fairly quick healer, much faster than I expected. I honestly, didn't think you'd wake up this soon, otherwise I would have been there ready to give an explanation rather than letting you run off alone, barefoot and with only a robe."
"Ah. Yeah, that makes sense." I had just fought with Saffron after all. Though the part with the koi pond was weird- what was with me and koi ponds? The world seemed to have a weird predilection to having us meet in the most uncomfortable watery ways. Speaking of water, there was something else to deal with that heavily related to it.
"Then... if I fell into the koi pond..." I trailed off, trying to think of a way that delicately handled the topic without reveal too much about it. After wracking my brains over it for a few seconds, I settled for just gamely hinting at it. "Did anything strange happen?"
"About when you were in the koi pond?" The old man replied. "No, nothing strange happened then."
I started to breath a sigh of relief, before the old man finished his statement. "Though- something strange did happen a week or so after, when we gave you a warm bath in preparation to change your bandages and wipe off everything that had crust onto you while you were bleeding."
"Ah." I gulped. Then...
"I was indeed very surprised when the woman I had been taking care of turned into a man." The old man confirmed. "It was indeed very strange to me."
"I- uh," I awkwardly tried to explain it. How do you even talk about things like this anyway? "It's because of, uh, a curse in Chi-"
"Though it didn't really matter to me," The old man continued talking like I hadn't even started. "If it was a concern, I supposed the young woman-cum-man would explain it themselves, or at least tell me what gender to refer to them by. If it was a private topic, I would understand."
"Oh." I felt vaguely thankful. Not many people passed up the opportunity to pry into my curse. "Uh, guy, I'm a guy. Also thanks."
The old man smirked wryly. "An old one like me has seen his fair share of strange gender tricks. Usually by hedonistic dragonbloods for the sake of pleasure, but-"
"Look!" I protested immediately, leaping to my feet and trying to defend my reputation from this vile and base slander. I wasn't a pervert at all! "It's totally involuntary, I didn't have a choice at all! It was a curse! Curse!"
"If you say so," The old man leaned back with a smug half-smile. Ugh. Old people were literally the worst. I grumbled as I settled back down to a sitting position. "So, I took care of him for months, with no remuneration. Though... I was hoping that the young man could repay me with the story of how he came to kill my koi fish."
Makes sense stories are often a sort of repayment for travelers, particularly wanders and such. I suppose that he was-
Oh, wait, he was talking about me. In that case... how to explain this. "I was in a battle, and... I think I passed out towards the end."
"And so some young ruffian sent you flying hundred of feet into the air to land in someone koi pond?" The old man asked.
"...something like that," I said. I wasn't quite conscious when I had won- and I had won- the fight. "At least, I think so."
"Hm." The old man stroked his beard. "I see. In any case, there are some things I would like to discuss with you. Do you recall bringing anything with you when you landed?"
"Bringing anything?" I thought about it for a second. Besides my clothes... nothing really. I'd already thrown the staffs to Ryouga, and there had been nothing really on me that I hadn't already used in the fight. "No, I don't think I did."
The old man hmed and then slowly got up, pulling himself up with the aid of the young lady, Matoi. "Then... if you don't mind, I will bring something to you to see if you recognize it."
"Sure," I nodded. Why not? He didn't seem like he'd keep it from me.
It took him a few moments before he returned, and when he returned, he was carrying something large, solid, and heavy. A solid chunk or some sort of large pitted glimmering ore, shaped into a roughly egg-like shape. Maybe about the size of my arm in height, and my hand in diameter, it was pretty big. He passed it over to me with a bit of care, and I turned it around slowly, scanning its surface as I turned it over and over.
It... was clearly unnatural- couldn't be a regular forming thing. No ore naturally formed this round and smooth. An, even more telling, etched in the side were inscriptions. They revolved around the orb, scenes of an epic battle of man and god, of bird and warrior. I peered at the bird-man suspiciously, there was something definitely familiar about it. Yes, it was, without a doubt depictions of my battle with Saffron.
"Where did you get this?" I asked the old man immediately. "Did you see any of the people inscribed on it recently?"
"Only the man," He replied. "I haven't seen the fire god with the bird like wings or anything like him recently."
Then... if he hadn't come with me... Saffron might still be alive, and a threat. What did this egg have to do with it? They were almost definitely linked, it was just too much of a coincidence for them not to be.
"Do you mind if I take this egg?" I asked the old man.
"Take it," He said, waving his hand at it. "It's yours. I would not cheat a traveler out of their starmetal treasure, especially not one who I have treated in good faith."
"Thank you," I inclined my head in a symbol of my thanks, and held the egg tightly to my chest.Maybe Saffron was still out there. Maybe he wasn't. But either way, I needed to find out. And maybe stop him again, if he was still back to his old ways.
"I think," I said. "I think that this thing is related to the god who put me here in the first place, the one I had a battle with. I think I have to go after him, to finish my matter with him."
"You seek to pursue him and kill him?" The old man asked.
Uh, kill him? That was... maybe a bit going to far.
"It probably won't come to that," I hedged. "I didn't have to kill him last time, and I don't really want to go after someone with the intent of murdering them."
The old man looked at me in astonishment. "Do you mean to tell me that when you had fought this god before, as a mortal even, you had not sought to kill him? You went after him with nonlethal force?"
"Well..." I started. "Nonlethal is such a.. subjective term. I mean, what might kill one man, might only wound another. But yeah, I didn't have any intention of killing him."
"...you are either the bravest or most foolish warrior that I have ever met." He said after a short pause where his face flashed through enough moods for me to sense how ridiculous he thought my actions were. "But... if you deign to embark on this fool's endevour, I will assist you."
"Really?" I smiled wide. Some help! "Thank you so much. Is there anything I can do to repay you for all of this?! I mean, just like any of this- the saving my life thing, the keeping my stuff safe, and now the helping me track down a person thing?"
"Anything at all?"
"Just remember," He said. "That one day when I need a favor, remember what favor I did for you once."
As he spoke, the hot air crackled once again, and I felt the heat and warmth sizzling off him, but it faded away just as quickly.
"Sure," I replied, and that was that.
An hour later, me and the old man were peering over maps of the place that he called River Province, trying to considering what I should be going about next. "If you are chasing a man," he had said. "You go after his footprints. Read his footprints, predict his movements, and most importantly, you must follow the stories of his trail. A traveler leaves behind stories, even if they are the most cautious traveler who ever lived."
"Find the people who have met him. Find the people who have heard stories of him. Find people who have seen him. Find people in general."
He pointed out some major cities in the region where people might have seen Saffron. Nexus, Lookshy, Greyfalls, Great Forks. None of these names were familiar, but they all seemed fairly important. Greyfall and Great Forks were the closest, but the other ones were supposedly larger.
He also cautioned me to be careful, I had only just recovered after all. I was still weak, my muscles, impressive as they were, had atrophied a little during my lost recovery. He offered to let me rest with him for another week, although if Saffron was still out there, that would just him get further and further away from me.
I took a while to make my decision on what to do.
NOTE: Please do not attach the weight portion to my vote.
[ ] Rest and recover for a week or so. I'm not jumping straight into anything.
(Weight x0.25)
[ ] Time is of the essence. Saffron nearly killed me. I have to make sure he won't do it to my friends.
-[ ] To Lookshy, where military power rules. Definitely sounds like the sort of place Saffron would go.
(Weight x1.25)
-[ ] To Nexus, where the mass of humanity teems. A major city is most definitely the sort of place you would pick up information.
(Weight x1.0)
-[ ] Greyfalls. This apparently belongs to a major power called 'the realm'. Doesn't sound like the CCP, but who knows? Could find clues.
Weight x1.25)
-[ ] Great Forks. Apparently it's a sort of idyllic town with nothing of interest, but it's close by.
(Weight x.0.75)
[ ] Write in
Note: I may have changed some stuff about the scavenger lands.
A Rural Looking Clearing Outside a Village
A Rural Looking Small Village
Still no idea at all
I guess he seems alright. I nodded hesitantly to show my affirmation. Despite my wary attitude toward magic- which is totally justified I might note. Magic has literally done nothing good for me. At all. Ever.
Ever.
Anyway, he seemed to be relatively forth-right and trustworthy, considering that he had literally picked me up when I was beaten broken and bloody and taken me in for nothing in return.
I held my arm out, let him splash the azure ink on my skin. The first droplets burned red hot like acid and fire and I smelt the hot dry air and felt the burning sun beating down upon me. The sunbeaten wind whispered words of wisdom to me, and stole away with my breath, a promise of a favor.
Then I breathed out, and the heat and dry faded away back into the cool breeze of a summer day, and the heat on my skin faded away to only the midday beating of the sun, rather than the sorching dryness that stole away your breath of the desert. I bowed to the old man, and tried to pass on my appreciation I felt for the care he had given me.
He looked at me with a amused expression on his face for some reason.
"Can you not speak?" He asked me, pointing at his mouth.
I stared at him in shock. Japanese? Hadn't a second ago, he had been only speaking gibberish? Was a sorcerer? A wizard? I had met many supernatural beings over the years, so it wouldn't a surprise, but to all my senses he had been just another old man!
"How?" I asked as I recoiled, twisting backwards on one ankle and leaping away to land on a nearby tree stump. "You weren't speaking Japanese only a second ago!"
"Japanese?" The old man stroked his beard. It was silklike and very, very while. It hunge down from his chin like some sort of long stranded feather duster. "Is this the name of your language?"
"Your language?" I questioned him again. "What do you mean your language? You're speaking it too."
"Ah," His lightning blue eyes flickered some sort of mysterious merriment. He grinned. "But that is where you'd be wrong, child."
"You see, I am not speaking any of this 'Japanese' at all. Rather, you are speaking Rivertongue."
...what? Was this old fogey trying to mislead me by giving me nonsensical answers? Suddenly, it was all clear now! He wasn't some sort of old trustworthy man at all! Those probably don't exist at all! He was probably just like the Old Ghoul, or even Happosei! I should have never trusted him! I knew all old people were secretly evil!
"You old fool!" I cried. "You'll never catch me with your min-"
Oh. Suddenly I realized something about what I was saying.
It.... really wasn't Japanese at all.
Oh wow.
I guess he was right.
"My what now?" The old man, who was actually not probably a secret martial artist master who would seek to abuse and torment poor innocent high school aged martial artists with pigtails, who had done really nothing wrong at all, with their evil and geezer-like ways asked me. In fact, he was probably just a nice old man. A nice old man with magic powers. Who could probably use those magic powers on people like me, and in fact had just did.
...oh boy, this would require some quick thinking.
"Your.... magnificently hilarious jokes!" I hastily completed by erstwhile sentence. "Haha, they're so funny. I almost broke my gut again laughing at them."
I laughed, just sucking in the right amount of air to make it seem natural. As my eyes crinkled up, I carefully kept a eye on his expression to see if he had bought it. He didn't seem impressed, but he didn't seem very angry either. I prepared to execute the last resort and most secret weapon of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts just in case.
After a second of trying to decipher my face, the old man sighed. "Child, if you're done being an idiot, come back inside. We have things we should discuss now that you're awake."
He pushed himself off his heavy lean on his wooden cane, and turned to walk back down the hill and towards the village that I could see in the far background. The one that I had just run out of, earlier.
"Hey!" I protested. "I'm not an idiot!
Without missing a beat, his eyes snapped around and crackled at me menacingly with the hiss of burnt air, and the smell to go along with it. "Just come already," He snapped.
I shut my mouth and followed.
I wasn't an idiot. Magic was bad news. Like, if he had powers over ghosts, or maybe dragons or princes, or maybe even dragon princes, I wouldn't have cared in the slightest, but unlike all of those, I couldn't beat up magic and force it to go away.
Otherwise, one of my problems would have been solved a long time ago.
=][=
"Sit." The old man pointed his cane at a cushion by a seat, and I sat down, plopping my behind on the cushion and settling into into a crosslegged pose. Back when me and pops had spent that week in that Shaolin temple, they had forced me to sleep in this position, and since then it had always sort of stuck.
Well, of course, they called it meditating, but let's be honest, all those senior monks were sleeping. i could hear them snoring. Just couldn't point it out with them getting mad is all.
"Wait." The old man said again, and I waited. It wasn't like I had anything better really to do. I watched him move into another room, and looked up... and waited.
Man... now this was really like the Shaolin temple. Maybe this was in China? Well, no, if this was China, they should have spoken Mandarin there, and I'm pretty sure they didn't speak Mandarin.
...maybe I was in South China? Maybe. But they said that was rivertongue, and in the river basins of China, they spoke Mandarin. Or a dialect of Mandarin, anyways.
I was trying to remember where they spoke what sort of Chinese, when the old man came back into the room, supported by one of the women from earlier. She was carrying a plate of something for him. As she set it down on the low, small table, I saw that it was a platter with two clay cups full of tea, and a small pot-like tea kettle, with the round bottom, and the curved spout. She poured me a cup full of something fragrant smelling and hot, and stepped back to stand by the old man's side. The old man bent over to sit down at the low table, and his assistant once again helped him, supporting his weight as he slowly lowered his weight. He settled in a seiza pose on a blue cushion.
"Drink," He invited me, and I took a cup and sipped from it politely. Wouldn't do to bed rude, after all. "So, child, do you have any questions you want to ask? I'm sure you're very curious about how you came to wake up in my house."
"Yeah," I nodded. He was right, I was actually a little curious to be honest. "And maybe about where it is, exactly. too."
"Yes, that would be something you would be interested in." He nodded, and drank from his cup before setting it down and beginning to educate me on my questions.
"You are in Languo County, one of the small clan confederations of the Hundred Kingdom. It's a small place, with its main exports being idealistic young men who go to the cities to find work, and its highly touted blue apples- which don't actually taste any different than normal apples. It turns out once you peel the skin off, all apples are about the same."
"As to how you came to wake up in my house- you killed my koi fish."
Koi fish? An odd sense of deja-vu came over me; this seemed oddly familiar.
"I didn't happen to, say, fall in, did I?" I asked, still trying to shake off that odd feeling. A koi pond... I remembered the Tendos had one in their back yard. I used to get kicked in there all the time until I got better than pops.
"Yes." The old man answered. "You fell in, and proceeded to splash water about everywhere. Several of my koi died. However, they were fairly all young, because I moved to this house not long ago, and so I was not overly upset."
"I then proceeded to, with the help of Matoi," he gestured to the young lady, who bowed. "-fish you out of the pond, and resuscitate you. When we found you, you were very heavily injured, with several internal injuries and third degree burns at places, and so we set our hands to helping you recover for the next several months. You turned out to be a fairly quick healer, much faster than I expected. I honestly, didn't think you'd wake up this soon, otherwise I would have been there ready to give an explanation rather than letting you run off alone, barefoot and with only a robe."
"Ah. Yeah, that makes sense." I had just fought with Saffron after all. Though the part with the koi pond was weird- what was with me and koi ponds? The world seemed to have a weird predilection to having us meet in the most uncomfortable watery ways. Speaking of water, there was something else to deal with that heavily related to it.
"Then... if I fell into the koi pond..." I trailed off, trying to think of a way that delicately handled the topic without reveal too much about it. After wracking my brains over it for a few seconds, I settled for just gamely hinting at it. "Did anything strange happen?"
"About when you were in the koi pond?" The old man replied. "No, nothing strange happened then."
I started to breath a sigh of relief, before the old man finished his statement. "Though- something strange did happen a week or so after, when we gave you a warm bath in preparation to change your bandages and wipe off everything that had crust onto you while you were bleeding."
"Ah." I gulped. Then...
"I was indeed very surprised when the woman I had been taking care of turned into a man." The old man confirmed. "It was indeed very strange to me."
"I- uh," I awkwardly tried to explain it. How do you even talk about things like this anyway? "It's because of, uh, a curse in Chi-"
"Though it didn't really matter to me," The old man continued talking like I hadn't even started. "If it was a concern, I supposed the young woman-cum-man would explain it themselves, or at least tell me what gender to refer to them by. If it was a private topic, I would understand."
"Oh." I felt vaguely thankful. Not many people passed up the opportunity to pry into my curse. "Uh, guy, I'm a guy. Also thanks."
The old man smirked wryly. "An old one like me has seen his fair share of strange gender tricks. Usually by hedonistic dragonbloods for the sake of pleasure, but-"
"Look!" I protested immediately, leaping to my feet and trying to defend my reputation from this vile and base slander. I wasn't a pervert at all! "It's totally involuntary, I didn't have a choice at all! It was a curse! Curse!"
"If you say so," The old man leaned back with a smug half-smile. Ugh. Old people were literally the worst. I grumbled as I settled back down to a sitting position. "So, I took care of him for months, with no remuneration. Though... I was hoping that the young man could repay me with the story of how he came to kill my koi fish."
Makes sense stories are often a sort of repayment for travelers, particularly wanders and such. I suppose that he was-
Oh, wait, he was talking about me. In that case... how to explain this. "I was in a battle, and... I think I passed out towards the end."
"And so some young ruffian sent you flying hundred of feet into the air to land in someone koi pond?" The old man asked.
"...something like that," I said. I wasn't quite conscious when I had won- and I had won- the fight. "At least, I think so."
"Hm." The old man stroked his beard. "I see. In any case, there are some things I would like to discuss with you. Do you recall bringing anything with you when you landed?"
"Bringing anything?" I thought about it for a second. Besides my clothes... nothing really. I'd already thrown the staffs to Ryouga, and there had been nothing really on me that I hadn't already used in the fight. "No, I don't think I did."
The old man hmed and then slowly got up, pulling himself up with the aid of the young lady, Matoi. "Then... if you don't mind, I will bring something to you to see if you recognize it."
"Sure," I nodded. Why not? He didn't seem like he'd keep it from me.
It took him a few moments before he returned, and when he returned, he was carrying something large, solid, and heavy. A solid chunk or some sort of large pitted glimmering ore, shaped into a roughly egg-like shape. Maybe about the size of my arm in height, and my hand in diameter, it was pretty big. He passed it over to me with a bit of care, and I turned it around slowly, scanning its surface as I turned it over and over.
It... was clearly unnatural- couldn't be a regular forming thing. No ore naturally formed this round and smooth. An, even more telling, etched in the side were inscriptions. They revolved around the orb, scenes of an epic battle of man and god, of bird and warrior. I peered at the bird-man suspiciously, there was something definitely familiar about it. Yes, it was, without a doubt depictions of my battle with Saffron.
"Where did you get this?" I asked the old man immediately. "Did you see any of the people inscribed on it recently?"
"Only the man," He replied. "I haven't seen the fire god with the bird like wings or anything like him recently."
Then... if he hadn't come with me... Saffron might still be alive, and a threat. What did this egg have to do with it? They were almost definitely linked, it was just too much of a coincidence for them not to be.
"Do you mind if I take this egg?" I asked the old man.
"Take it," He said, waving his hand at it. "It's yours. I would not cheat a traveler out of their starmetal treasure, especially not one who I have treated in good faith."
"Thank you," I inclined my head in a symbol of my thanks, and held the egg tightly to my chest.Maybe Saffron was still out there. Maybe he wasn't. But either way, I needed to find out. And maybe stop him again, if he was still back to his old ways.
"I think," I said. "I think that this thing is related to the god who put me here in the first place, the one I had a battle with. I think I have to go after him, to finish my matter with him."
"You seek to pursue him and kill him?" The old man asked.
Uh, kill him? That was... maybe a bit going to far.
"It probably won't come to that," I hedged. "I didn't have to kill him last time, and I don't really want to go after someone with the intent of murdering them."
The old man looked at me in astonishment. "Do you mean to tell me that when you had fought this god before, as a mortal even, you had not sought to kill him? You went after him with nonlethal force?"
"Well..." I started. "Nonlethal is such a.. subjective term. I mean, what might kill one man, might only wound another. But yeah, I didn't have any intention of killing him."
"...you are either the bravest or most foolish warrior that I have ever met." He said after a short pause where his face flashed through enough moods for me to sense how ridiculous he thought my actions were. "But... if you deign to embark on this fool's endevour, I will assist you."
"Really?" I smiled wide. Some help! "Thank you so much. Is there anything I can do to repay you for all of this?! I mean, just like any of this- the saving my life thing, the keeping my stuff safe, and now the helping me track down a person thing?"
"Anything at all?"
"Just remember," He said. "That one day when I need a favor, remember what favor I did for you once."
As he spoke, the hot air crackled once again, and I felt the heat and warmth sizzling off him, but it faded away just as quickly.
"Sure," I replied, and that was that.
=][=
An hour later, me and the old man were peering over maps of the place that he called River Province, trying to considering what I should be going about next. "If you are chasing a man," he had said. "You go after his footprints. Read his footprints, predict his movements, and most importantly, you must follow the stories of his trail. A traveler leaves behind stories, even if they are the most cautious traveler who ever lived."
"Find the people who have met him. Find the people who have heard stories of him. Find people who have seen him. Find people in general."
He pointed out some major cities in the region where people might have seen Saffron. Nexus, Lookshy, Greyfalls, Great Forks. None of these names were familiar, but they all seemed fairly important. Greyfall and Great Forks were the closest, but the other ones were supposedly larger.
He also cautioned me to be careful, I had only just recovered after all. I was still weak, my muscles, impressive as they were, had atrophied a little during my lost recovery. He offered to let me rest with him for another week, although if Saffron was still out there, that would just him get further and further away from me.
I took a while to make my decision on what to do.
NOTE: Please do not attach the weight portion to my vote.
[ ] Rest and recover for a week or so. I'm not jumping straight into anything.
(Weight x0.25)
[ ] Time is of the essence. Saffron nearly killed me. I have to make sure he won't do it to my friends.
-[ ] To Lookshy, where military power rules. Definitely sounds like the sort of place Saffron would go.
(Weight x1.25)
-[ ] To Nexus, where the mass of humanity teems. A major city is most definitely the sort of place you would pick up information.
(Weight x1.0)
-[ ] Greyfalls. This apparently belongs to a major power called 'the realm'. Doesn't sound like the CCP, but who knows? Could find clues.
Weight x1.25)
-[ ] Great Forks. Apparently it's a sort of idyllic town with nothing of interest, but it's close by.
(Weight x.0.75)
[ ] Write in
Note: I may have changed some stuff about the scavenger lands.
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[X] Time is of the essence. Saffron nearly killed me. I have to make sure he won't do it to my friends.
-[X] To Lookshy, where military power rules. Definitely sounds like the sort of place Saffron would go.
A bunch of fighters in one place? Yeah that sounds up Ranma's alley
. If he's good at anything its making friends/enemies of other warriors.
-[X] To Lookshy, where military power rules. Definitely sounds like the sort of place Saffron would go.
A bunch of fighters in one place? Yeah that sounds up Ranma's alley
. If he's good at anything its making friends/enemies of other warriors.
- Location
- USA
done not dumb.
resuscitate
[X] Time is of the essence. Saffron nearly killed me. I have to make sure he won't do it to my friends.
-[X] To Lookshy, where military power rules. Definitely sounds like the sort of place Saffron would go.
sadly it won't be in character to ask him if he can break our curse since we distrust magic and mages.
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[X] Time is of the essence. Saffron nearly killed me. I have to make sure he won't do it to my friends.
-[X] To Lookshy, where military power rules. Definitely sounds like the sort of place Saffron would go.
-[X] To Lookshy, where military power rules. Definitely sounds like the sort of place Saffron would go.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Hm. Less flashy than an Eclipse oath, but there could be some lesser magic at work. Or maybe I'm just paranoid.
Also, typo.
- Location
- Tarn-Vedra
[X] Time is of the essence. Saffron nearly killed me. I have to make sure he won't do it to my friends.
-[X] To Lookshy, where military power rules. Definitely sounds like the sort of place Saffron would go.
-[X] To Lookshy, where military power rules. Definitely sounds like the sort of place Saffron would go.