Never Full: A Tale of Adventure, Curiosity and Hunger Without Ending [Original Quest]

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Wicked Sanguine said:
Steele's still backing you, for some reason, and you need to keep her happy, for reasons that both your old instincts and your new, concerning, weak-feeling thoughts can agree on. And she seems far too classy for sewers. Those wings would make the little grates hard to work, too. So you regretfully pass up the sewers.

You barely understand what a university is, but it sounds fancy. It sounds important. It sounds city. And Steele is definitely all of those things. Keeping Unchosen safe from stuff they're too weak to fight themselves is half of what you expected to do when you came to the mercenary capital of the world, and it's work that your new partner might not turn her nose up at.
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Wicked Sanguine said:
You dive, hair blowing back from the acceleration, and, in an attempt to be cool, jump off the bat, hoping to land on your feet. You hit your ankle wrong and topple over, but successfully turn it into a tuck and roll before springing back up onto your feet, hoping like fuck that that looked at all intentional.
"Hey, Grail," your partner smiles. "That was fast. Got something for us?" Her smile is so pretty. You want to see it every day.
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[Hands over my mouth like a megaphone] Gaaaaayyyyyy!

They're adorable.

[x] Go shopping in preparation for the contract so you can show up prepared.
-[x] Somewhere Steele recommends
 
You Are Never Going Home 5
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Go pray for success and luck.
    -[X] Build your own shrine. Maybe Steele will even help?
    Hello, one million apologies. I have a job and am going out of town (unrelated) but as long as I live, so will lucky Grail and her story! But while you wait for more of this, go check out Espernyan's works in the setting. I hear women kiss in them!
    Stay hungry, nerds.

    "So," you begin, "this is probably normal to you, this kind of work. But... to get here, I had to make a decision. A big one, the kind I've never made before. So, it's important to me that I pray, but, well. I'm not sure I'd be welcome at the temple in Little Vespergren, and since you're working with me, we could both use the good luck. So, will you, well. That is to say..."
    The expression on Steele's face is so patient, a kind half-smile you have no idea how to deal with.
    "Will you build a shrine with me?" you blurt out all of a sudden.

    A little bubble of surprise wafts out of her, tart and bright, only shown on her face by a tiny widening of her eyes. Then, her smile widens.
    "I can't say I know everything there is to know about your faith, Grail... nor can I say I agree with all of it. But I know how big a deal it is for you to ask me that, so... yes, I'd be honored to at least help. What do you need to build it?"

    You honestly weren't expecting her to say yes, and you gape at her a second, before straightening up.
    "Ah! Well, we're going to need a safe place to put it, and some stones, and some dye, and maybe a-- you know what, I'm gonna write it down."
    The two of you squat on the roof, and you use a piece of newspaper from what feels like several lifetimes ago to make a shopping list. Steele examines it, and nods.
    "I think we can make a little field trip to get all of this, and then find the perfect place in the Tangle. Shouldn't take more than a couple hours, little more if we resupply on the way, and then we can check in at the Excavation. Sound like a plan?"
    You beam and nod. "Sounds like a plan to me!"

    First things first, you head down to the beach for stones. Black, white, and brown, suitable for stacking. The earnestness with which Steele presents stones to you for approval is very charming. The stones are the easiest part, but you grew up doing this, and Steele's not a bad hunter for an Unchosen, so the rest of the list falls into place.

    Bones, long-since picked over--you both think they're probably dog, but there's a longbone which surely belonged to something that once walked upright. The coyote that guarded them fled after you presented the willingness to fight, which you feel oddly relieved by. It wasn't doing any harm.

    Bloodstained timbers extracted from an alley behind the worst bar you could find. The drunk who accosted you hadn't even a chance to draw a blade before Steele's snapped-out wing slammed them into a wall and unconsciousness. Someone else definitely died here, and not easily or well.

    Steele helps you find a buried trap on the outskirts of town, metal jaws designed to snap shut on a limb and hold it in place. You set it off with a thrown rock, dig it up, and take it apart for its components--rusted metal, forged to ambush and buried to kill or maim. Perfect.

    While Steele buys rope and bullets at a small, cluttered shop run by an Oriza who consists mostly of scar and grin, you secure the offerings. Dried meat, better than the kind you'd normally eat (plus some of the kind you do eat), a dented, near-useless pocketwatch (to be anointed with your blood later), the worst wine you can find. Some sweet talking from Steele gets you change in silver, gold, and iron. Some cloth in the right colors and three cheap ceramic bowls and you're set.

    A cupola dangling in the Tangle is the perfect place to set up. Steele shoves the ruined fountain in the center into the sea below, and you both take immense satisfaction from the distant splash. The shattered tower, open to the ceiling and the sea breeze, feels right--abandoned, alone, vertiginous, perilous. The danger and safety of anonymity. The fountain is replaced by three cairns, waist height on you, arranged equidistant in a triangle with the white one aligned to the North, the brown to its left and the black to its right. The white cloth on the white one, the black to the black, the red on the brown, a bowl atop each. The timbers placed around the red altar. The trap parts arranged around the black. The white surrounded with bones.

    At your direction, Steele splashes oil in each bowl, and you set it alight with a whisper to your Devil-Lighter. The meat gets dropped in all three altars, followed by a glug of the wine. The pocketwatch is adorned with your own blood and dropped into the black altar's flame, while the red one gets a handful of bullets, and the white one, you tell a secret.

    "Rhakui of White, Mad-Eyed, Bearer of the Wound," you whisper, first in Ashvakrev of your home, then in Continental. "Accept a truth I have found. Keep Your curse from my belly, Your hunters from my heels, and Your wind at my back. When I am lost, it is to You I turn."
    The white altar's flame turns cold and white.

    "Damalu of Black, Grasping, Behind-The-Door." Steele looks a little uncomfortable but a lot fascinated as she watches. "Accept a piece of artifice, stained with the life all such things must take. Keep Your hands from my pockets, Your eyes from my secrets, and Your wealth in my grasp. When I am alone, it is to You I turn."
    The black altar's flame turns dark, a cut-out in the air.

    "Xhaal of Red, Bloody-Handed, Ever-Singing." Steele finds herself humming to the singsong rhythm you've established. "Accept the methods by which we kill most easily, the harbingers of threat. Keep Your teeth from my belly, Your curse from my muscles, and my song on Your voice. When I am surrounded, it is to You I turn."
    The red altar's flame turns a bloody, brilliant red.

    In this moment, your partner at your side and your gods watching, what do you pray for?

    [ ] Let me understand what I feel and who I am.

    [ ] Let me take what I want and get away with it.

    [ ] Let me find something that will make me a real player.

    [ ] Let me find favor among my peers and respect among my enemies.

    [ ] Let me understand something I already have.

    [ ] Let me uncover something someone would rather I didn't know.

    Vote for however many you want.

    When the prayer is over, there is a great whispering noise, and the flames all suddenly go out. Nothing you left in each bowl remains, not even soot or grease.
    "...Thank you for letting me see that, Grail." Archas sounds sincere, and she smiles at you.
    "Ready to go see the Excavation now?"
    [ ] Yes.
    [ ] Can we talk first?
    -[ ] About the job
    -[ ] About the prayer

    You have established a Shrine of Tribulation. This place will remain safe unless discovered by a stronger member of an enemy faith, but it is rarely wise to sleep here, and your gods will expect tribute regularly.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Let me uncover something someone would rather I didn't know.
    [X] Let me understand what I feel and who I am.
    [X] Let me take what I want and get away with it.
    [X] Can we talk first?
    -[X] About the prayer

    Rule of three. A prayer for each God.
     
    [X] Let me understand what I feel and who I am.
    [X] Let me understand something I already have.
    oh mood

    [X] Yes.
     
    [X] Let me uncover something someone would rather I didn't know.
    [X] Let me understand what I feel and who I am.
    [X] Let me understand something I already have.

    [X] Can we talk first?
    -[X] About the prayer
     
    [X] Let me uncover something someone would rather I didn't know.
    [X] Let me understand what I feel and who I am.
    [X] Let me understand something I already have.

    [X] Can we talk first?
    -[X] About the prayer
     
    [X] Let me uncover something someone would rather I didn't know.
    [X] Let me understand what I feel and who I am.
    [X] Let me understand something I already have.

    [X] Can we talk first?
    -[X] About the prayer
     
    Big Apology
  • Informational
    • Hi, everyone, it's going very bad. I was fired for very suspicious reasons, switched meds and am in the process of undoing an attempt at identity theft. Not great! Never Full will return, and soon, but it's been a bad last month or so. I am striving to fix things, but until then, I hate to keep begging but the tip jar is open and, lord, I may need it. New update before September. Stay hungry, everyone.
     
  • Informational
    • You Are Never Going Home 6
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Let me understand what I feel and who I am.

    [X] Let me understand something I already have.

    [X] Let me uncover something someone would rather I didn't know.

    [X] Yes.

    Discord hasn't returned my account yet and several other insane things have happened to or about me, but I aten't dead. Stay tuned for more--you ain't rid of me yet, folks.

    You have no idea how to really explain what that meant to you, which Steele seems to understand, as she's content to leave you alone on the flight. As many revelations and choices as you've experienced in the last few days, you are still Chosen, still a child of Vespergren, and you still both fear and look up to the Tribulations. You yet pray that you will not feel their curse or claws... and that you could enjoy the success they have, someday. Whatever's in the future to come, right now, in your immediate future, you are earning your keep the way your people always have--taking Unchosen money to fight their battles. That feels right. That's what you're supposed to do. And you are ready.

    You and Steele wheel high into the sky, enjoying the simple pleasures of flight, finally making your way west, to the island of Not Much Sink.
    Every island in Iash Qoma has had its own unique character and style so far, and Not Much Sink is no exception. Roughly squarish, bulging out at the sides, the hard ring of rock that forms the outline is studded with dockside facilities and walled compounds Steele tells you are "university campuses."

    "What's a university, exactly? I've heard the word but I don't know what it means."

    "Well, it's a place where people go to buy knowledge, essentially. In exchange for favors, money or both, they get to live at the university, where people will teach them things and they can use the university's research and resources. This expedition itself is financed by Neverway University, and the people we're helping are going to be explorers and scholars and students that work for them or are studying there."

    "And a student is... a knowledge customer. Okay, that makes sense."

    "Universities also tend to compete--all the ones working Not Much Sink try not to be too overt, but part of why we're here is going to be as a preemptive measure against meddling from rivals."

    "Makes a lot of sense. And there's probably... dangers?"

    "Sure are. But I bet we can get a better explanation out of our boss once we get down there."

    The hard ring of campuses and structures surrounds a central landmass which is, to your rapidly-learning eye, an utter mess. Unlike the other islands of Qoma, there's no central mass of strong rock--instead, a riot of buildings jams up against each other like teeth in a crooked jaw, many of them listing, tilting or straight-up collapsing, marked out into different segments and tiers of differing heights and sizes by a mixture of fencing and various lights. You circle lower and lower, keeping an eye on your fellow fliers--not only winged people and animals, here, but also a few gas balloons and floating platforms tethered to structures below. Steele points out a particular subsection, and you both dive.

    A simple structure of whitewashed wood bearing a complicated painted logo and a stenciled JAGGERY EXPEDITION serves as the stables, holding an assortment of mostly bats, along with a gorgeous long-necked, long-beaked red-feathered bird, something angular and sulfur-stinking under a sheet, a folded balloon and an owl that radiates utter hostility and contempt. You lead your bat to a stall, and, while Steele explains to the stable guy that you work here, you look around for the boss.

    While you search, what do you see that you plan to investigate later, as soon as you have a spare moment?
    [ ] That sulfuric-smelling thing under the sheet isn't the only cursorily-hidden thing that stinks like that in the camp. And the last time you smelled something like that, sulfur and oiled metal and a hint of blood... was at that Dissian camp in the woods.
    [ ] There's a trace of furtiveness and guilt in the air, rising above the blend of tiredness, caution and curiosity that characterizes the camp's resonant smell, many trails all leading to one place that reeks of secrecy and greed, a small, battered shack on the edge of camp near the midden.
    [ ] A very regular-looking person in a very normal outfit walks by. They smell like nothing, and look completely unremarkable... and everyone else who notices them briefly but notably stinks of fear before a pall of forgetfulness returns. You can only even really notice them by the brief flashes of unease that spark around them.

    The boss is heralded, as such people are, by a cloud of people trying to get something from them. The Fog here is strong, rising up to answer your call thanks to this being a ruin in the middle of a city, and you use it to slip between the masses of scholars and contractors trying to get their piece of an audience from the leader of the whole operation.
    Short and heavyset, she has no legs, instead sitting in a chair lashed to the back of a fairly sizable crab, which puts her at eye level with most of the crew. Clad in serious wool and leather, with a bright orange headscarf and half-moon glasses, she looks like she has her shit together, which is something that can't be said for some of the hand-wringing, clean-shoed ninnies hovering around her.
    She makes eye contact with you through the crowd, then throws up her hands.
    "Alright, you hyenas! I'll put a new post on the board soon with everything you need. Otherwise, go do your bedamned jobs! We've got a schedule to keep and I know for a fact that the skeletons are perfectly operational. Get to it! I've an interview to conduct."

    Waving them away, she makes a crabline right for you.
    "Sorry if this is profiling or something, but you're the mercenary I hired, right?"
    "I've recently learned that not all my people are raiders or mercenaries! However, I happen to be at least one of those, and specifically the one you hired. And also Steele is here."
    You wave to your side, where Steele has manifested--your sin-scent helped you track her, and helps you register the slight disappointment that she wasn't able to sneak up on you.
    "Two of you, right. Excellent. I'm Almah Jaggery, Jaggery Sisters, etc, and we are excavating and exploring Site NU-JSE-11, which we've been calling the Green Pit. You two are going with the forward team because we've narrowed this down to one of three cultures, all of which loved interior decorating with horrible traps and hazardous materials, and I'd really rather someone who can take a bullet and knows which end of a gun kills people take point."

    [ ] Press Almah for details about said cultures and what they were like.

    [ ] Press Almah for details about your role and what you can be expected to face.

    [ ] Get the minimum out of this busy woman and bug someone else for details.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Get the minimum out of this busy woman and bug someone else for details.
    THeres probably a better person to quiz about the capital S Stuff-

    [X] A very regular-looking person in a very normal outfit walks by. They smell like nothing, and look completely unremarkable... and everyone else who notices them briefly but notably stinks of fear before a pall of forgetfulness returns. You can only even really notice them by the brief flashes of unease that spark around them.

    -like, for example, this spook. they probably know at least somethin, and a;so its healthy to know what spooks are up to and after.
     
    [X] Press Almah for details about said cultures and what they were like.

    [X] A very regular-looking person in a very normal outfit walks by. They smell like nothing, and look completely unremarkable... and everyone else who notices them briefly but notably stinks of fear before a pall of forgetfulness returns. You can only even really notice them by the brief flashes of unease that spark around them.
     
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    [X] There's a trace of furtiveness and guilt in the air, rising above the blend of tiredness, caution and curiosity that characterizes the camp's resonant smell, many trails all leading to one place that reeks of secrecy and greed, a small, battered shack on the edge of camp near the midden.
    [X] Press Almah for details about said cultures and what they were like.
     
    Really happy to see the update.

    [X] Get the minimum out of this busy woman and bug someone else for details.

    [X] A very regular-looking person in a very normal outfit walks by. They smell like nothing, and look completely unremarkable... and everyone else who notices them briefly but notably stinks of fear before a pall of forgetfulness returns. You can only even really notice them by the brief flashes of unease that spark around them.
     
    [X] There's a trace of furtiveness and guilt in the air, rising above the blend of tiredness, caution and curiosity that characterizes the camp's resonant smell, many trails all leading to one place that reeks of secrecy and greed, a small, battered shack on the edge of camp near the midden.
    [X] Press Almah for details about said cultures and what they were like.
     
    [X] Press Almah for details about said cultures and what they were like.

    Know thy enemy. (And yes, I very much imagine Grail thinking about it in those terms, since it's amusing.)

    As for the other...

    [X] That sulfuric-smelling thing under the sheet isn't the only cursorily-hidden thing that stinks like that in the camp. And the last time you smelled something like that, sulfur and oiled metal and a hint of blood... was at that Dissian camp in the woods.
     
    Last edited:
    [X] A very regular-looking person in a very normal outfit walks by. They smell like nothing, and look completely unremarkable... and everyone else who notices them briefly but notably stinks of fear before a pall of forgetfulness returns. You can only even really notice them by the brief flashes of unease that spark around them.
    [X] Press Almah for details about your role and what you can be expected to face.
     
    [X] A very regular-looking person in a very normal outfit walks by. They smell like nothing, and look completely unremarkable... and everyone else who notices them briefly but notably stinks of fear before a pall of forgetfulness returns. You can only even really notice them by the brief flashes of unease that spark around them.
    [X] Press Almah for details about your role and what you can be expected to face.
     
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