"This is new, right?" [Reboot]

[Solsticegelan]

You're not quite sure where you are, who you are. Not even if you've been here before. There's nothing around you, a murky blackness overtaking your vision, as you stare back at the blackness. You're vaguely aware that it feels like your floating, drifting softly to and thro; as though the nothing you rest upon spread out upon was the surface of the ocean, yet one you had been submerged under.

You grin slightly, relaxed. The feeling of the murky blackness was actually quite comparable to the water; it was warm, permeating. You could get quite used to this; After all, you were fairly certain you didn't get to relax like this that much before.

"Before?" You realize, your voice distorted and unrecognizable. "Then this is an After."

That's all you say before relaxing again, not quite caring about the mystery of you or your location, simply enjoying it all in the limitlessness of an ironically limited space. Up above you, hovering in what you hope is the sky, lights flicker; Orbs, close enough that if you had the ability to reach out you felt you might reach them, but knew you could not. They glow with vibrant neon light, shifting and churning the darkness around them, leaving an afterglow of long lasting streaks. There was something it reminded you of, though you knew you had never seen it… The Aurora Borealis? Yes, you were confident that was what it reminded you of.

The lights are growing larger now; should you feel worried? They grow less and less distinct, and you can make out shapes dancing within. You squint, unsure of if it will even work, and to your surprise it does; you can more clearly make out the shapes within, each of them clearly animals of some type. There are 7 each, 7 different colors, and each is beautiful.

They begin to spread out now, six of them dancing and weaving around the light in the center; the arcs they traveled in growing larger and more distant from one another. Then, one by one, the lights began to flicker; fading until nothing remains; not even the dimmest flicker of their light in the darkness. First is the blue light, dark as the ocean and disturbing the air as it flew. Then went the gray light, its absence barely noticed. Then the Green and the Orange, tricky and clever though they might have been. Finally, only three lights remain. Two of them, dancing around each other rather than the center light; a yellow star, shining bright as it ascended rather than descended.

The two remaining lights dance, as they grow closer to you; making clear what is at their center. A Dove, innocent and carefree, dancing at the center of a white light. A Raven, bloodhungry but wise, carefully treading its ground. You want to reach up, to reach with all your strength to touch one of them... but they are too far. They last longer than the others, much longer; but eventually, they too fade and vanish into the dark. The yellow light, growing more distant, is all that remains; and then even that pops.

"No..." You frown. "Come back, please..."

Then, as suddenly as they vanished, one returns. It hovers just above you, urging you to muster all of your will to reach, stretching up to touch…

[] A Raven, glowing with a murderous red light.
[] A Cat, dying the blackness around it gray.
[] A Fox, stealing away the darkness with an orange glow.
[] A Falcon, its wings disturbing the air around it with a blue glow.
[] A Snake, tingeing the air a mottled green.
[] A Rabbit, meekly emboldening the air with a golden-yellow light.
[] A Dove, piercing the Darkness with a lovely white light.

-0-0-0-​

Standing upon a Cliffside, A woman looks down upon her child, the lights of a town glowing softly in the distance. The clouds cover the moon as the stars wink down upon her, and she sighs, the black cloth coating her body tightly from her feet to her neck, the material not wielding even the slightest hint of her body to the world both naturally and when exposed to the light.

A light breeze disturbs her black 'hair', artificial and braided into long, large segments; the moon peeks out from the clouds, only partly illuminating her face, which is covered by a bone white mask, slightly curved, covering all of her face, and bending around to cover even her ears, anything it missed obscured and hidden by the fake hair that was a part of it. The light shined brighter, revealing more of her body in the vague light, from the medallion emboldened by an odd symbol broadly displayed upon her chest and hung by her neck to the odd obsidian gloves she wore.

Yet it did not reveal even the slightest trace of her eyes, the darkness around the holes in the mask only as empty as the void.

"I am sorry, My Child." She softly whispers, the sound unobscured by the mask she wore as she turned, quietly fading away into the night. She knows she cannot face the cycle of what is to come yet again.

Well, what does one do when they have a hankering to write a quest and their current, rapid update quest hasn't had a vote in weeks? Reboot the quest that you were unhappy with before and stopped updating before! I'm still going to retain my previous idea, which was to run two threads simultaneously and watch what happens. It will be posted tomorrow on Spacebattles, and then be linked to. Now, there are some other things you need to vote on, similar to the last quest. For Starters;

Age
[] Young, Barely an Adult
[] A more aged individual, well past their Youthful Teenage years

Your Name.
[] (Name Here) (Reason Why.)

Which are going to be unchanged from the previous quest, so name away! Finally, due to changes to how things operate that I have made since I started the previous quest....

Gender
[] Male
[] Female

Yep, the Gender is completely and totally locked due to things that will be revealed later in the quest. As has most of the world you had set out before you. So then... Have fun! Voting ends Wednesday at 2PM Eastern Standard time.

Edit: As of 4/11/2017, the Spacebattles thread is up.

 

[Solsticegelan]

Character Sheet

• 
  Image Unavailable
  Name: Beatrice
  Gender: Female
  Age: 21
  Backstory: Unavailable.
  
  
  Stats Abilities Inventory ??? ???

  • 
    
    Health: 50/60
    Mana: ???
    Armor: 20
    
    Status: Enraged.
    
    Strength: 3
    Consitution: 3
    Agility: 5
    Intelligence: 4
    Wisdom: 6
    Luck: 2
    Control: 1
    
    Stat Changes
    
    • None Available
  • 
    Blue Flames: You vomited them once, and they can be summoned if you will it. That's about all you know.
    
    • Sub Ability; The Fire's Cost:You are capable of instinctively summoning the Blue Flames in the palm of your hand, warming your body and healing you over time. They may be used for a number of causes, but are hard to retain control over; when used, must pass a DC 70 Control Check or suffer the consequences. The more it is used and the faster it is used the more you will be healed.
      • Base Heal; 5 HP.
    Bloodstarved, Bloodlust: You possess the ability to smell and sense the dead within a wide area, and to sense and smell how much an individual has killed and how recently. You are capable of smelling how recent the death is, the deaths conditions, and the cause of death. With intense focus, you can determine how close to death a living thing is. Your ability to sense the dead manifests itself as a flare in your mind, telling you the general location of the dead body. The larger the flair, the more dead there will be close together. With time, experience, and memory, you can pick out the identity of what it is that died as well. Unfortunately smells quite delicious and inviting no matter what.
    
    • Doesn't appear to work on the Strange Fox.
  • ???
  • ???
  
  

 

[Solsticegelan]

Dice Rolls​

I use a system based off of hundred sided die, with rules that differ inside and outside of combat. It is fairly obvious how this will work - there will be a difficulty number that you must roll higher than, and this can be applied to a great many things. A number of rolls will be passive - checks to see if you realize something in battle, or notice some vital detail, or manage to retain or gain the upper hand in a conversation. Others will be made in response to your actions or the voter's suggestions, to hit an enemy or overcome some physical challenge. Rules for combat will be clarified once it comes to that.

There will be modifiers added to your rolls; the majority of them due to your stats. For every point in a stat, when attempting a roll which uses the appropriate stat, an additional six sided die will be rolled and added to the initial roll. In addition, gaining some sort of advantage or disadvantage will add additional modifiers to your rolls, if they do not outright reduce or increase the necessary check to succeed.

You will not be the only one required to roll; all NPC's, allies, and enemies will have to roll as well, and will have their own stats.

For this Quest, a roll of a natural one hundred will be considered a critical success and a natural one will be considered a critical failure.

What are the stats used for?​

Strength rolls are used when using melee weapons, attempting to lift or move something, or when undergoing some sort of difficult task that can be physically contested. It is a representation of your maximum capabilities rather than your endurance or how long you are able to keep going.

Constitution rolls are used to determine how long and how far you can keep moving; when running a mile, when struggling to overcomr a poison, or when shrugging away blows and hits.It is a representation of your endurance rather than your power, of how far you can go rather than your outright strength.

Agility is your speed, your reflexes, and your reaction speed all rolled into one. It is how fast you can move to dodge the dragons breath, how quickly you could draw your weapons, how destroys your fingers and body may be in moving out of something's way.

Intelligence is your minds edge, your wit and your knowledge. It is used to overcome great mental challenges, to gain the upper hand in a conversation or puzzle out someone's deeper meaning or intent. It is used for a wide variety of things, as it represents your ability to overcome anything your body cannot.

Wisdom is used for and employed in many of the same ways as your intelligence, but in a different form. It represents how wise you are or have become, to assume based on more than logic than fact; it is your willpower for overcoming great task or assaults.

Luck is the least tangible of all things. It is almost always passive, employed when discovering random encounters or for variables outside of your control - that which is probability based.

Control is different from your wisdom,or your intelligence. It is your strength of self, how close your are to your mind and your soul as you define yourself and as you truly are. It is used when struggling with your identity in some way, shape, or form. It represents you.​

 

[Solsticegelan]

You reach up, using all of your will to stretch your hand upwards, barely passing by the Raven's light. You hold your hand there for what seems to be an eternity, and as the raven descends upon it, its light enveloping you as your hand remains held high, the raven simply sits there, perched upon your tilted hand, and its sharp talons don't truly register to you, even as your hand begins to bleed. The light of the others grow fainter, you realize; they're leaving. Or perhaps it is the light from the raven, already enveloping your entire body, which is causing the others to fade?

The raven stares at you, with orange eyes bloodshot by green veins.

You stare back.
​

-0-0-0-
​

Slowly, you begin to wake up; the cold is unbearable, and you have no idea why. It's beginning to make you feel quite ill, honestly; your stomach churning and your head pulsing. You try to open your eyes and push your body upward from whatever soft surface your face had laid itself in; and the moment you do, you are tempted to close them. Snow is blown into your eyes and blurs your vision, and you are now aware of why you felt so cold; it is the wind, chilling you to your bone now that you've placed yourself into a sitting position.

"Where am I?" You ask aloud. You hope that someone can hear you, that you aren't just speaking to yourself.

There is no reply.

You'll have to get moving, then. Take note of the environment, find some kind of shelter. You're in a forest right now, sparsely packed, full of pine trees and the occasional leafless tree between them. Very close behind you rises the peak of a mountain, its silhouette disturbingly close. Close enough that you can't see its base. That implies that you're somewhere higher up the mountain itself, and you're drawing a blank on how you might have found yourself in this sort of situation. You're drawing a great many blanks right now, actually.

"Worry about that later, worry about my safety now," You mutter, shifting your legs a bit so that you're kneeling. "...and worry about me talking to myself later too." You add, wobbling a bit and lurching forward as you succeed at standing up.

You immeadiatly regret your decision, as your stomach decides now is a good time to empty itself. A vile taste fills your mouth as you stain the snow a yellow, its scent burning your nostrils. It just goes on, and on, until you finally stop and are left gasping for air; its puddle managing to even melt the snow a little in its vast quantities. Then, you feel more rise; and fall onto the ground in pain as you start to dry heave. It lasts at least as long as the actual vomiting had, before you feel something else rise; a liquid again. Now, you're hacking up something red, which joins the cooling puddle you had already made.

Your blood.

Finally, you stop; no more dry heaving, no more vomit, no more blood. You feel empty, totally and completely empty. Understandable, when you spent an indefinite amount of time removing what must have been every liquid you could from your body. You don't quite care, though; curling up a bit and closing your eyes to try to get the pain to stop. More time passes and you're sure you would be crying if you could. Eventually, the pain does stop. You dare to open your eyes again, and look at what you had just done. The puddle of vomit and your blood sits in the otherwise perfectly white snowy landscape, and scattered among it, you see the remains of dying blue flames.

That was not normal. What conclusion could you even try drawing from that? That was new, right? You're certain you would remember doing that before, even if you couldn't remember what you were doing here. It wasn't normal for you to wake up, miraculously not die from exposure, and be left drawing ragged breaths as you hugged your knees. You were certain of that, at least. You could remember that, and you could remember....

...Remember...

"Oh god." You whisper. It is as loud as you can speak for the moment. "Why can't I remember? What's... what's my name?" It is a sudden revelation. A bad one. You hadn't consciously thought of it yet, but you couldn't remember anything. Your family - if you even had one - , your childhood, not even what you had eaten yesterday. If you had eaten anything at all. You didn't like the odds of that, considering your current condition. But then again, you had just vomited something up earlier.

You needed something. Something to keep you going for the moment, that you could hold onto. You knew, here and now, that you would survive. You were determined to do that, to make yourself remember who you were. But you wanted a reason to do that. You needed... your name. You hadn't forgotten it, not yet. Not in its entirety.

"Beatrice." You say to yourself. It's so quiet that you almost can't hear it above the winds and your throbbing head. But it is enough. You don't need to shout out to the heavens to prove that you know who you are.

...Well, no, you don't know that actually. You can't recall your hobbies, your pastimes, your passions. But you know what you are called. And that is enough for now. Right here, right now, in this moment, it will have to be. You actually smile to yourself, knowing that you at least have that. But then that momentary happiness is gone as you remember where you are.

You will have to stand, eventually. Walk away to do what you intended to earlier, and discover exactly where you were. There were more reasons to do that now, though. To find shelter, perhaps; someplace to warm yourself before you actually did die from exposure. You could try finding something that could jog your memory, to see if you recalled anything about your location. Maybe you had a home nearby, and a nasty fall had made you forget? You could even go and try to simply find some form of civilization to begin with, to see if anyone recognizes you or if you recognize anyone there. That carried that added bonus of finding civilization, but the drawback of you having no idea where that might be.

Or, the gnawing in your stomach reminded you, you could go looking for something to eat. Fill yourself with something besides whatever the sludge that had once been inside you now had been.

There are many courses of action. Which will you take?
[] Try to find shelter, or someplace mildly safer than where you are now.
[] Get the lay of the land, and try to discover where you are.
[] Attempt to find something to jog your memory.
[] Go looking for civilization.
[] Write in.

Voting will end Friday at 6pm Eastern Standard time. Your character sheet has been updated to reflect what you currently know. If any parts of this look messy or seem a bit hard to understand (I.E needlessly vague), I'll be fixing them later to be more coherent.​

 

[Solsticegelan]

You could do none of what you planned without knowing where you were. To find a place to rest, you would need to know where you rested from. Scouting out the landscape and familiarizing yourself with where, exactly, you were would go a long way to help you. You struggle to stand, and begin to walk against the wind, towards the forest. You can feel the ground gradually begin to slope downwards,the slope gradually growing more noticeable the longer you walked.

It was hard to pick out noteworthy details in the snowy environment; your vision was limited by the numerous trees and thick snowfall, which carried the unfortunate effect of melting against your eyes, blurring your vision. What little you could see was all white, vaguely defined textures as the landscape changed, but otherwise couldn't be differentiated from anything else.

After minutes of walking and shivering, you are forced to stop. There is no longer any ground to walk on; the trees stopping and forming what might be a line as the land dropped away to form a cliff's edge.

"I had to be right?..." You ask yourself. You aren't willing to move closer to the edge and peer over the side of what was most certainly a mountain, especially when you couldn't accurately determine where exactly said edge was, but you were more than willing to bet you were a fair distance up the mountain. You begin to back away from the edge so that if the snow began to crumble and fall, you would not fall with it. You didn't know what, exactly, the odds of such a thing occurring were, but you were willing to bet against yourself surviving if you grew closer to the edge. Instead, you elected to start walking around the outskirts of the trees, trying to make sure you stayed a constant distance from the edge; moving clockwise from where you had initially stood. Eventually, you found you couldn't move any further, your path taking you to the base of the looming mountaintop you had seen earlier. The solid ground you stood upon dropped away, spiked ledges and sharp drops replacing the ground. There didn't seem to be any way for you to walk down from there, and you were starting to feel numb. You needed to find someplace safe, fast. You continued to move clockwise, alongside the rising mountains peak now, in the hope that you could find something helpful.


You didn't see many other options at your disposal.

Perhaps most helpfully, the trees were largest and densest this close to the rising mountain; they shielded you from most of the snow and wind, making your conditions more bearable. It allowed you to focus more on the environment than you otherwise could've, including the mountain peak now to your side. It, most certainly, looked scaleable. Trees even upon the mountain as it rose up, and if you tried to make it out, you could see small trails that you were certain animals like mountain goats would travel upon, though you most certainly would have a hard time climbing them if you wished. That wasn't important at the moment, though. Shelter was. Probably.

You needed a better plan.

You sped up, walking faster; and soon came to see a similar predicament to what you had seen before. This side of the mountain you were on was similar to what you had encountered on the other side; a steep drop and stop, jagged and rocky ground rising up and becoming more manageable as it rose. No luck there, either. You turn, and begin to walk into the woods. It is now apparent that however you got up here, there is now no way down unless you could fly, or at least none that you could see or manage in your current condition.

Now, you needed to figure out what this forest was like. So far, you had seen its outskirts; and to be frank, there wasn't much to see. Still, you might be able to find something.
Intelligence Roll: 17 + 15 (4d6); total 32. Failure.
Constitution Roll: 75 + 7 (3d6); total 82. Success.
Moving through the woods, you hope to move deeper into the Woods's with the hopes of discovering some natural landscape or formation that could shelter you; but by the time you've paced throughout the whole of the woods, you've found little of note. Several boulders and trees that have fallen over are all that stands out to you; now, you suppose you must move deeper into the woods once more. To try to find someplace warmer - because it is so, so very cold now. You've lost all sensation in your toes, and your clothes very clearly weren't made for this weather. You hadn't fully examined them yet, but you seemed to be wearing some sort of bright red dress, adorned with elaborate designs and folds. It reminded you of some sort of ballgown dress, albeit one you would gladly wear. That little detail paled in comparison to the fact you could no longer feel your toes. Or your fingers.

By the end your search, you had found nothing to provide you shelter. You felt as though you were on your last legs, though you kept on moving; to stop moving now and fall over would mean the end of you. If you couldn't find any shelter, you would have to make your own.
Wisdom Roll: 89 +18(6d6); total 107. Success.
After a moments thought, you get to work on a rudimentary shelter. You find a large pine tree that had fallen over, seemingly struck by lightning; it had fallen at a horizontal angle, which was what you wanted. Then, you gather branches from the oaks, as many as you can can; you don't hope to start a fire, not in a storm and with every flammable object you can find covered in snow. But you can bind them together to make sure that you sleep on something relatively solid. Then, you run out of things to do, save for sit down and do all you can to warm yourself as you try to wait out the storm.

There is, of course, also hoping that you do not die. A look at your hands tells you that they are frostbitten, and you still feel weak, having found nothing to eat or drink, though both were distant hopes even from the beginning. You makeshift shelter felt slightly warmer and shielded you from the snow, but it was at best just a buffer. You couldn't see the sun through the clouds, but it felt as though it had been several hours since you awoke. There had been no signs of change, nor any signs of you being able to do anything.... but wait.

Unless, of course, you had a better idea as to what to do.

[] Sleep away the storm.
[] Try to make yourself comfortable (and warm), before figuring out what you know about yourself.
[] Write in.

So, er, sorry for the delay in posting this. I got distracted while packing for vacation and forgot to finish the update, and still feel as though it needs a bit of work. I'll probably be constantly editing it until tomorrow. Anyway, your character sheet has been updated and voting will end at 6pm Eastern Standard time this Monday.

Updates should start getting longer as well, gradually but surely. It's hard to write character into an update when you're trying to focus on not dying in the cold and figuring out where you are.

 

[Solsticegelan]

Your makeshift shelter had so far served you well, successfully shielding you from the worst of the freezing winds and snow. You've had time to watch the clouds now, spread as far as you can see; they're dark and heavy, obscuring all signs of the sky around them. It showed absolutely no signs of relenting, nor of the sky that they hid. You could swear that in the distance, hidden by the wavering cold, there was the distant flash of lightning and thunder, though you had yet to hear anything.

Considering your height within the mountains, you considered this a good thing. You didn't need any avalanches happening any time soon.

Rather unfortunately, wherever there was good and bad news for you, there was worse news. You had no way of warming yourself up, nor of keeping yourself from getting colder - which might not sound bad, until you looked at your almost deathly pale hands, which you could barely move or feel. You're still not sure how you got up here, or who might be responsible for it; you most certainly aren't capable of climbing a mountain in the middle of a storm, and you struggle to think of people who might. Then again, you struggled to think about people in the first place. You couldn't remember.... anyone. Anyone at all. Though that might be a good thing, considering you were beginning to think you had been placed up here to die a slow, painful death. Though yet again, most frustratingly, you couldn't say why.

You needed to figure this out, and soon. Shifting yourself into an upright position, you do your best to make sure you are as warm as possible, folding your knees up and holding them close to your chest. Now you are able to watch the distant storm as you think.

If you were going to die here, you wanted to think about what you knew about yourself. Perhaps it was just poor luck that your had gotten some form of amnesia, or intentional, to make you suffer. The lack of your identity.... it was eating away at the back of your head. It bothered you so intensely that you were beginning to think that the amnesia had been intentional, done to make you worry about the lack of your history. You didn't know it, but you felt that was a core part of you; your sense of identity.

The contradictions made you want to rip your hair out.

Even worse, those feelings were all you had. If you wanted to think of people,of friends, or of family, you had only vaguely fond feelings. Thinking of home didn't give any concrete locations, or even scenery, just a wide array of emotions you weren't ready to get into at the moment because it would probably involve some type of mental breakdown. It was quite concerning. To try to think deeper on any particular subject, be it the string of something nostalgic or the idea of yesterday, began to hurt - and severely. There were vague impressions as well, of a darkness and of 7 lights... and then it was gone.

It was all so incredibly unsatisfying. You needed answers, and nothing you could think of would help. Perhaps.... something on your person might help? You had yet to check yourself over, after all. There might be a chance that you or someone else had placed something useful on your person - or perhaps just something to further jog your memories.

Finally taking a look at it, your dress was...interesting, to say the least. Formal and elaborate, it was made from some fabric you couldn't identify, alongside a great helping of black feathers. The entire dress seemed to be an entire entity, its top merging into both the dress segment - which strongly resembled a trench-coat - and the equally elaborate pants. The top segment was primarily red and appeared silken, with everything above your chest being made from some tightly woven mesh of black feathers. It managed to show off just enough that you felt it was tasteful but not indecent. Below that, the red silk-like material was interwoven with symmetrical swirls of orange, curving upwards and towards you. Your sleeves were long, coming up to your hands, and even then partly extending outward onto them, fitting tightly onto your hand and showing no signs of moving. The color transformed from red to black at your wrist. A quick check revealed no way of removing the dress, nor any pockets.

You could feel something around your neck; a choker of some sorts. You hadn't noticed it before, but now that you had, you found it uncomfortable and stiff. You rip it off and shove it to the side, barely noting its black color or the onyx stone at its center.

Below the belt, however, was a luckily different story. The Trenchcoat like dress folded itself around your legs, its edges outlined with a golden trim; it was uncomfortably tough, and felt like it was trying to straighten itself out under your feet. Finally, were you hoped to find some hint of evidence, your pants. Relatively simple, the black legs were tucked into your boots, and contained numerous openings when you neared your waist. There, a cloth was wrapped around you, and checking inside of the numerous folds revealed spacious folds intended for storage. In fact, they were entirely too spacious; you almost thought you couldn't feel the pockets edges.

But still, there was nothing.

All you could do now was sit - sit and wait out the storm. In the time you had taken to investigate yourself, the flashes in the distance had grown closer, distinguishing themselves as thunder. And, with no methods of producing even a bit of heat, you could do nothing but sit.

There is an alternative, the back of your mind whispers. It provides an almost seductive thought. You'd conjured flames, hadn't you? Flames that burned and provided heat, your mind tempted.

But you had vomited them, you supplied. Spat them all over the ground amidst a a pool of your own blood. The implications of that alone...
Control Roll: 44 + 4(1d6); total 48. Failure.
It doesn't matter, you argue with yourself. You have no other option but to try.

You have no retort.

And so, you do as it - you- want. You reach within yourself, instinctively and without thought, and in one smooth motion...
Control Roll: 84 + 5(1d6); total 89. Success!
... extend your hand as your entire body begins to heat up. Then, from the palm of your hand, you see a single drop of blood swell up; dark and murky, it sits there, a tiny jewel. Your entire body has begun to burn up, now, the sensation you had begun to lose returning to you. Then, without warning, the single drop of blood ignites into a small blue flame. You jolt in surprise, whatever it was that had overtaken you no longer in effect, allowing you to feel unnatural elation. You feel warmer simply watching the flame, its azure light dyeing the entirety of your shelter blue, flickering in the palm of your hand.

You knew that it would only remain for as long as you wanted it to. But sustaining it felt good - warming not just your body, but your mind. You no longer knew what to do. This flame... it offered up so much potential. You wanted to make it burn.

You have regained 5 HP, and are no longer cold or frostbitten. Your Character sheet has been updated.
You have unlocked an unique subskill of Blue Flames: The Fire's Cost.

[X] Continue to burn the flame to keep yourself warm until the blizzard passes.
[X] Light a fire with the flames and put out the blue flames in your hand.
[X] Write in plan.

Voting will end Wednesday at Midnight Eastern Standard time due to my delays in posting.

 

[Solsticegelan]

The flames in the palm of your hands were entrancing, a dancing flower of temptation. You could see the ways it was waiting to be twisted in your palm, an extension of your will. You could feel it. The fire didn't want to be snuffed out any more than you did. It warmed you, and it filled you in a way you didn't understand and couldn't describe. You hesitated to even consider not letting the flames die down, change the amazing rhythm they currently pulsed to even a little bit. On a more practical, more logical note, you understood that this was your only source of heat. That without it, you would be left to the tender mercy of the storm that this fire seemed to heat up around you.

Therein lied the problem.

If you wanted to keep it going, to make more burn, you're not sure you could stop yourself from doing so. But to try and stop would be to condemn yourself to a cold, slow death yet again.

You needed to light a fire, and to put out the blue flames in your hand.

You weren't sure you could.

You begin to take apart the rickety wooden board of sticks you made, first digging away as much snow as you could until you hit dirt and stone. You then begin constructing what might resemble a bonfire's base, careful to ensure that you don't dare to use your right hand. It is difficult to do, the structure falling apart numerous times, but not as difficult as it would be for you to try and put out the fire. To try to control it once it started up again. Now, you cautiously reach out, daring to hope that the flames will not reach up and spread to the shelter you have constructed, firmly lodged in the snowy base you've made for it.

The flames dance down your palms, spiraling around your fingers and down to their tips; there they wait for a moment, for you to tell them to set the world alight. You want to tell them to leap from your hands, and light the fire so that it will warm you and you don't have to try to keep the fires in the palms of your hands.
Control Roll: 24 + 4(1d6); total 28. Failure....
So why don't you do any of that? The same instincts overcome you, your mind feeling warmer as instead of doing what you know you should you allow the flames to burst outwards. They form a constant cone, sputtering wildly and fiercely, but oh so beautifully. It is a work of art, so strong that you can feel yourself and your hand moving off course. You have to hold it straight with your other hand to stop it from moving upward, burning your shelter and the forest away.

Moments pass, the fire flickering upward and away from the cone. Snow has begun melting around you, with the snow furthest away slushing and sliding as it becomes a mushy slurry. There isn't a trace of a forest within your sight that hasn't bathed in the glow of your fire; Not even the clouds up above can escape being tinged the darkest shades of blue imaginable in its afterglow. Not a single spark dares to touch you, to flicker away from its chosen path and harm you instead.

None of them dared to.
Control Roll: 69 +3(1d6); total 72. Success!
All of your aches, all of your pain, even all your woes seemed to fade away the longer you held you hand straight. You almost forget that you're an amnesiac high up in the freezing cold mountains in a blizzard. For a time, you forget why you wanted to stop something so wonderful. Your hand begins to waver, and so does the cones path; igniting a small, lone tree. It erupts into flames flickering the same deep comforting shades as the others, an uncontrolled blaze that begins to melt everything around it. The snow in its branches does nothing to quell the fire's thirst, evaporating into nothing before it can even hit the ground.

This is when you remember why, and with a jolt, do everything you can to shut off the flames. It is as simple as turning a mental nozzle, tightening it like one would a screw. With that done, the stream coming from your palm shrunk and shrunk away to just a trickle before it became a few simple sparks, leaping from the palm of you hand, where the drop of blood had emerged. Then they stop as well, their thin glow fading.

You just lay there, panting and sweating, your hands shoved into the snow and with a mouth full of the taste of ash. Even the tree that you had accidentally lit ablaze no longer burns, all that remains of it being a black puddle of ashes.

There's only a hole that the snow begins to fall into near your feet.

Closing your eyes, you think its safe to conclude that everything had just gone horribly wrong.

You feel your head fall against the still warm snow.

What do you dream of?
[] Of Flames that want to Burn.
[] Of a Raven that wants to Fly and Eat.
[] Of a Young Woman training in her home.
[] Of a scared Dove.

You have regained 10 HP

There will be no write ins this time. That... that went wrong. I sort of expected you to pass the control roll on that one. But hey, at least you didn't burn down the whole forest! That would've happened if you failed the second roll... Voting ends Monday at 6PM Eastern Standard time.

 

[Solsticegelan]

You are running, and running fast.

To be more accurate, however, it is probably safer to say that you are currently fleeing very hastily while walking at an extended pace. Your dress and your hair provide almost good enough camouflage in the heavy snow that you take the time to cover your tracks. You probably have the time to, the snow naturally covering your footprints and your own hands enough to cover any other signs of your passing. However it is that you're being followed, it isn't by mundane means, but it takes enough time that you can find some new hiding place even if you don't hurry. You've also found that covering your tracks never hurt, due to the accuracy of however it is they're finding you being.... spotty.

This isn't enough for you to let go of the elaborate spear you carry.

You shake your head, telling yourself not to get distracted. The two pursuing you are relentless, and may be playing with you. You remembered them well enough to know that they might already have found you, and are simply lying in wait. You have the horrible tendency to not notice important details, to be too trusting or too ignorant. So you were told, at least. You hadn't put much stock into the idea.

Maybe, you think to yourself, it's because of the type of person you are. The type of people person who loves interacting with others, but doesn't actually understand them that well.

Na.

You've already dismissed the thought by the time you've shifted forms, flying to the top of a tall pine tree. You can see the whole entire surrounding area from atop it, from the clouds that stretch on forever to the distant mountain range. The forest itself spreads just as far as the rest of the landscape, a mostly indistinct blur of green and white. Lightning strikes in the distance, and the clap of thunder is quite audible.

Also, you're pretty sure that the moment you tried to fly out of the tree you would be blown away, henceforth why you weren't gaining nearly as much ground as you would've liked. You would call the wind a spoilsport if you weren't vaguely certain it was actually sentient. You knew for sure that this storm wasn't natural, sweeping into the area within moments with no warning.

The same moment you escaped from them. The implications it carries are scary; the thought that they might even possess the strength to cause such a thing...

You begin to flutter from tree to tree, feathers ruffling a bit in fear at the thought. Idle thoughts become Active thoughts and Actions become idle actions as you fly and think. Less than two weeks, and you were being hunted by something like this? It was almost exciting, what that meant you would no doubt fight later. What you remembered about yourself told you that you could handle it, too. The thing that scared you, though, that had set you running like a scared animal.... which you did guess that you were right now, technically... what were you thinking about?

Lets see.. Impending doom, exciting fights, shonen-esque friends to probably be made.... ah right, your fear. It made you uneasy, why you feared your pursuers. You had so many reasons to run.

First, the two of them had not threatened to kill you. To hurt you, to torture you, to capture you - they had been quite open about that. Smiling the whole time, treating you like family. As though what they wanted to do, to "Watch you bleed from your eyes as those pretty blue flames consume you, trying to regrow the layers of skin and muscle correctly even as I carve them away...", was normal. They made it clear you could not stop them, because they would never stop. One of them was licking her lips, as though the thought of doing it was as delicious to her as a slice of cake would be to you.

Second, that they had threatened your new friends. The ones that had taken you in, and helped you start sorting through what you could do. Through the mess of headaches and pain that your memories were, they had helped you pulled so much. But they had proven that they would not be even remotely safe if they were near you, one of them immeadiatly taken hostage and used to demonstrate what your pursuers would do to you if you didn't come to them. You had barely managed to rescue your friend, and then manage to draw them away from the village before they burned it to the ground.

They made very clear that there would be burning. Especially the Snake.

Third, and finally.... you recognized them. Somewhere, somehow in the mess your mind still was, you remembered seeing them before. You were lucky enough you had remembered how to use your spear, to even find it in the first place, by the time they came along. Even then, that goddamned bitch seemed like she existed to counter your fighting style. Your spear was never safe, able to be torn away by her at any moment while she bound you up in the same second she disarmed you. Even the other one seemed to know how you fought, moving faster than you could keep up with. You had fought them three times, three achingly familiar times, and every time you still felt like they were toying with you. Like they could've killed you at any moment they wanted to, but just... didn't. You hadn't even managed to take them by surprise once, even when you freed your friend. They had just known exactly what you planned on doing, and why.

It was disturbing. You needed to find your way home. To your sisters. But how?

Five daggers come flying at you from the darkness ahead, startling you; they hit your outstretched wings first, pinning you to the tree as two others cut off your legs. The fifth lands in the trunk of the tree in such a way that it pins your neck down, leaving you unable to move. Your legs start to bleed blue as a grinning face emerges from the trees-

Not dying, for starters! You change forms, rolling off of the branch you were on and landing in the snow feet first. Your spear is already out, thrown in the direction the daggers that clunked into the tree originated from. There's a clunk as it connects with something, returning to your hands bloodless. They haven't yet shown themselves, and even the whirling of the daggers was hard to hear with the snow dampening the noise they made. You started to walk forward, adapting a defensive stance.

Chains flying at you from your left, a curved hook resembling a fang wrapping around your spear- Daggers flying towards you as you are pulled forward-

You flick your spear to the side, ensuring the chain missed it completely; instead, it wraps around your outstretched hand, immediately tightening its grip around your hands. It's curved, fang-like blade is cutting into your wrist, tearing through your clothes and forcing you to grit your teeth in pain. You weren't going to be taken out by the same strategy a second time. You feel the pull as the chain is about to be pulled back, towards the woman wielding it; and instead of allowing that, you flick your spear's edge across the chains and watch with a grim satisfaction as they are broken with a shower of sparks. You then jump backwards, away from the glinting daggers flying your way yet again.

Battle Precognition. Gotta love it.

"Not this time, you Snake! Come and get it!" You taunt.

"Sometimes, you really shouldnt ask for what you don't want." A calm voice states. Sultry and seductive, you barely whirl around before a rapid flurry of stabbing knives and orange clothing sets upon you, their lengths and shapes changing even between attacks.

The warning is enough, and you spin around to fight, going on the offensive rather than the defensive this time. You're a whirl of slashes and prods as the woman simply pouts. You wish they didn't wear masks. It made it so hard to tell what they were actually thinking.

"it's rude to interrupt me before I get the chance to speak, dear." The Fox remarks. Her mask, tailored like a Galla mask and shaped like her namesake, seems to be taunting you from this angle.

"I don't care!" You snarl. "Just leave me alone already!" You demand, actually managing to get close to hitting her this time.

"I could say we will, but we both know I'd be lying." The fox says. "That's more her forte than mine." She gestures behind you, somehow finding the time to shrug despite you not letting up your assault. Your breath is already ragged, the rapid flurry of action straining your body. You begin to receive the flashes of a warning when-

"Hello." Says the Snake herself, punching you in the face. You imeadiatly feel something break as you go flying over the ducking Fox, who makes sure to leave a few daggers in your back as you pass over her. You hit a tree, the impact shaking you to the bone as you stagger back to your feet, groaning the whole way.

A chain wraps around you before you can take as a single step, tightly binding you to the tree. You struggle to escape but your hands are bound and restrained, and your spear sitting in the hands of the Fox, who is idly swinging it to the side as she and the Snake slowly approach you, smiling.

"For what its worth, you put up an excellent chase." The fox says as she draws near. "Sadly, had you been given even a week more, you might have remembered enough that neither of us could face you alone and expect to win with our limitations."

"Now." The Snake says, licking her lips. "It's time for us to have some... fun."

And thus did you know true fear.

A blue light illuminates the clouds. All three of you look up, towards the mountains; where the glow seems to originate, illuminating the entire ridge. It keeps the Fox and the Snake's attention for several minutes before they return to you. You're too afraid to appreciate the looks of surprise gracing your enemy's faces for the first time.

A distraction. This time, you know what is coming. When they are distracted, you change into a dove; slipping out of the chains and flying into the trees.

You begin to fly, heedless of the danger of doing so.

You're too afraid to stop.

-0-0-0-
​

With a jolt, you awake in a way that you feel is entirely too familiar to you now; bolting upward and feeling panicked and fearful. You are hot, sweaty; the details of your dream quickly fading from your mind. You saw through the eyes of someone, a child, who was scared for their life and felt familiar. Startlingly so.

It's morning now; and that you can tell that is a surprise. A glance at the sky reveals wispy clouds and blue skies; the sun shining itself down upon you. It looks like after the... disaster... you experienced the prior night, you somehow fell asleep until the blizzard passed by. Or could you just call it a storm now? You were actually fairly murky on what qualified as a Blizzard.​

"Hm, which should amuse and startle me more?" You say aloud. "The fact I think I should know what exactly makes a blizzard a blizzard, or that I'm surprised that that knowledge is murky?"

Either way, things were looking up for you. Now you could probably seek out a path down from the mountaintop, thought it would still be best to exercise caution. Maybe your dream was symbolic of that? The woman in the dream had turned into a Dove several times. You think? Details were slipping from your head fast, though the people in it felt incredibly familiar.

What should you do? You had an entire day ahead of you, completely hazard free. It would be nice to establish some sort of plan...
[] Seek a way off the mountain.
[] Seek some way to satisfy your hunger
[] Write in

SE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE, NEVILLE. SEE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE! You've made me reveal, to a basic degree, how the original quest would've proceeded!

Fun facts; I wrote the Beatrice segment on Friday, and it was completely independent of whatever vote happened.

Voting ends Wednesday at 6pm Eastern Central time.

 

[Solsticegelan]

Above all, you knew this. No matter how supernatural the abilities you had displayed had been, you were still just human. This meant that even though you could spit flames from your hands that made you want to burn the world to the ground, you still had to worry about the 'little' things - such as food, water,, and death by exposure.

One of those problems was very well and easily taken care of. You still felt warm, you mind still ringing with the flames song. Your formerly frostbitten hands that you had worried you might loose the ability to use were perfectly fine and healthy, not a single sign of their damage remaining. You hadn't seemed to take any damage, in fact; though you still felt oddly weak if you ignored the buzz in your head, you didn't need to worry about sickness any time soon.

No, you needed to worry about something very different - your hunger and your thirst. Touching your lips made it clear exactly how parched you were, your throat almost screaming at you to demand that you drink something. You needed to find a source of water, and fast. One that wouldn't just end up making you thirstier - you were well aware of the dangers of attempting to survive off of snow. In the very least what you consciously knew about survival told you that.

Then came the much greater desire. It was a need, gnawing away at you - this time rather literally, because it was your stomach that you needed to fill. You had thought of it before, but you hadn't eaten anything since you had vomited everything you had in you and then some.

It was rather surprising it hadn't woken you up hours ago, in truth. This, in turn, put the weakness of your body into rather obvious hindsight.

You needed to hunt. You had found no signs of living creatures earlier, during the storm- unsurprising considering the fact that anything that called this place home undoubtedly also had a shelter. If it didn't, it was probably sitting frozen and shrunken beneath several layers of snow.

But now? The sun shone down into the forest freely. and you could move about without fear. It would be easy for you to go hunting, perhaps set traps to catch whatever you could not. There might be berries and other edible plants around as well, though you sincerely doubted they would be easy to find in any quantity, much less in any amount that might qualify as nourishing.

There was also the minor fact that you had the strongest craving for meat at the moment. You weren't about to let it overtake your reasoning, but it was there, and your mouth watered at the thought of it.

Or perhaps it was watering at something else. You could smell something, a smell pushed towards you by the wind; it was the smell of fresh death. It was not the scent of a rotting body, but the scent of something newly dead. The scent was tinged by the coppery fragrance of blood, newly spilt. Perhaps it was this smell, this promise of some unknown creature's death, that made you feel so hungry. Perhaps it was the lack of a hungry pair of jaws, the prey's scent overlapping no predator's scent, that made it more tempting. Within your head you could already feel where exactly the body died, located near the edge of the platform you resided on. Located so that the wind would blow its scent away from you rather than towards you.

That made no sense. You stand still, not realizing you had started to move towards the smell until you had stopped; and now you have to stop to think about the implications of all you thought. You were a notable distance away from your shelter, to such a degree that you couldn't see even the remains of the tree you had burnt the day before.

But yet that didn't matter to you at the moment. No, you knew you had impulse and control issues. Your rather unhealthy urge to burn the world down testified to that, and you moving without realizing it was simply another article to add to a growing list. The fact that you could apparently, however, smell the dead was new and concerning to you. Very much so because you almost immeadiatly identified the conditions of the death based off of smell alone. Was it normal for the stench of death to be accompanied by the smell of blood from so far away?

Common sense says no. Your jumbled mind, when pressed for some type of answer, gave only one response. The sense of normalcy. The idea that yes, this was indeed a common thing... for you.

You didn't know what you were expecting. For you to give yourself a straight answer?

For now, you'll add this information to your ever growing list of what little you know about yourself. Then, you'll add a dozen new questions to a separate mental list you've entitled "Who the fuck am I, what the fuck is this, and is this new?".

Business as usual.

You start to move again, towards the almost overpowering smell's source, towards the little mental blip in your head that tells you exactly where this body is. Where what might be your next meal is. You can already feel that it's near the edge, far away from the wall and your camp, but that is it. By the time you're nearing it, you don't think you could stop moving through the trees if you wanted to. Despite this, you're still able to take note of a pair of some animals tracks in the snow, leading in the same direction you were heading. They were... familiar, but not recognizable. You thought they resembled a Dog's paw-prints, but lighter and smaller.

Passing the frozen puddle of your own vomit, you took a moment to wonder what it might be that

You have your answer once you leave the treeline altogether, entering onto a snowy field. There, the tracks lead further towards the edge, to a rabbit whose neck looks as thought it has been snapped. There's a bitemark at its leg, from which blood was slowly leaking, dyeing the snow around it's head red, resembling some sort of pillow. There's something... odd, about the bite. It looks more like it was meant to draw blood than to eat, with only the teeth marks to show the damage at all.

The footprints keep moving past the Rabbit's body, to the very edge of the cliff face itself, where you hadn't dared to walk before out of fear of falling to your doom; Something that feels silly in retrospect, though you can't say why. And sitting there at the end of those tracks, just at the edge of the sun's glare, was a fox. It hadn't seemed to notice you yet.

It appeared your meal was claimed. You frown a bit, sniffing the air; you knew you had smelled no killer. Smelled no attacker. There was no scent of death wafting from the fox, none at all to signify that it had killed anything... ever. It hadn't even eaten the rabbit. The fox itself was physically odd as well; in the dead of winter, you would expect it to at least have some sort of winter coat, or camouflage. Instead, it was as bright an orange as you could imagine. It just didn't make sense!

The fox stands up, turning around to face you. It doesn't seem to react as it walks towards the rabbit, sitting down in front of it once again. It cocks its head at you, in question; and suddenly, you feel as though it is taunting you. Not exactly rudely, but in a more friendly manner.

You decide the fox is a She. Something about it seems... familiar.

Then, the fox places its head down, towards the rabbit; it makes no move to eat it, but instead seems to be gesturing towards it. Then, it shoves the rabbit forwards with it's head, towards you. You watch as it raises its head, standing up and taking several steps backwards.

What do you do?
[] Cautiously take the rabbit. It seems like the fox wants you to take it.
[] Trust the fox, and eat the rabbit.
[] Don't trust the fox.
[] Write in.

You've realized that you possess a skill entitled Bloodlust, Bloodstarved. It has been added to the Character sheet.

Also, erm, oops. I meant to finish this three days ago.

Then I didn't. Still not happy with the end result...

I'll be trying to put updates out more regularly next week. Voting ends Monday at 6 PM.

 

[Solsticegelan]

You've taken a few steps towards the Rabbit once more before you realize what you're doing. The fox still sits there, a few steps away from the prey that you can't stop hungering for or thinking about. You had been ready to trust this seemingly benign fox without second thought or consideration, not considering any of the consequences of doing so. Right now, upsetting the Fox seemed like a poor choice; as did turning downits offer... not that you would eat the rabbit without inspecting it.

The fox tilts its head, looking at you; and now you realize you've stood still for probably too long. Luckily, the Fox doesnt appear jaded, so much as confused.

It is both oddly human and adorable.

It's best to run damage control, you decide. Cracking a smile made honest only by the cute nature of the fox, you wave at it.

Now the fox only seems more deeply confused. In the very least it hasn't responded negatively, which you consider a good thing.

"Hey there, little fox." You murmur as you slowly walk forward. "You don't happen to be capable of actually talking to me, hm?"

"Yip!"

"Guess that's a no." You tell her. She still hasn't moved, and you're in front of the rabbit now; though after that yip, you obviously feel more secure in calling her a her. That was a feminine noise if ever you've heard one. Which, thinking about it, you don't think you can technically say you have; unless you count your grunts and the times you've talked to yourself.

At least now you technically have someone to talk to.

"Can't really be too sure these days." You tell the fox, kneeling down. You were almost eye level with it now. "It's not that safe to make any sort of assumption, whether it be that every single animal up here can talk and sing or if you're capable of speaking. This is definitely the most I've talked in recent memory. But I think I can safely assume that you're smart enough to understand what I'm saying. Right?"

The fox nods as though to say yes as you speak. It seemed fairly relaxed now, which in turn was barely enough to make you relax a bit; not enough to let your guard down, or for your attention to be stolen away from it by the rabbit. But just enough that you feel like you can relax the tiniest bit. Speaking to something else was.... oddly therapeutic, you suppose. Soothing things, simply guiding a conversation through word alone - something about it was familiar and pleasant.

"There's another assumption I could make, that I'm not quite sure I should make. It's about this rabbit." You say, pointing towards the rabbit. The fox follows your hand, then looks back at you, the confused expression back on its face. It really shouldn't be this adorable, nor easy to read. "You see, I'm not sure if you want me to have this or not. You're clearly smart enough that you could offer it to me. The problem is, I can't seem to think of why." You tell it.

"That's why I want to make sure." You say, slowly sliding your hands underneath the rabbit. It's blood starts to run between your fingers, making them slick and warm. It's scent is overwhelming, the blood's tang intoxicating. You don't lift it, and the fox doesn't move to stop you. "This is for me, right? Something you killed and you hunted, and put here... all because you knew I was hungry, and needed to eat. "

The fox slowly nods, her tail wagging as though pleased with herself.

"Thank you." You tell it. It helps that you mean it, your smile just a bit more genuine. You pick the rabbit up now, feeling its fur and its bone against your own. So vulnerable, so fleshy.... so delicious. There's no real way to ignore its smell now, and you would like nothing more than to just begin eating it, tearing into it like nothing else mattered. Not cooking it, not examining it to see if there was any other reason that the fox had chosen to give it to you.
Control Roll; 84 + 4(1d6) = 88. Result; Success!
Despite that urge, you do not give in to your desires. Instead, you slowly back away from the fox, until you are next to the tree's woodline. The fox appears vaguely baffled by your behavior, though you couldn't say why. Did she not expect you to act like this? Or was she just incapable of understanding why you acted like you did?

You sit down, cross legged, and place the rabbit in front of you. You take a single moment to look at your hands, dyed red by the still bleeding rabbit, before looking towards the rabbit itself. You had no understanding of the still unmoving but extraordinarily confused Fox's motives or reasoning for abandoning a perfectly viable meal to a human.

...Were you human? You decisively banish that thought from your mind.

Either way, before you ate, you wanted to examine the rabbit. There very easily might be some reason the fox had passed it on to you, and if there was, you wanted to know why.
Intelligence Roll; 37 + 13(4d6); total 50. Unknown results.
Your cursory investigation- which involved checking the eyes for disease, examining its blood colors for some sign of sickness, and every other physical trait your could think to check, revealed nothing. Eventually, you had to begin digging in, to examine the meat itself; and while it did absolutely nothing to help curb your desires, but showed no signs of illness or decay as well. By the end the rabbit was skinned and prepared, ready to be cooked or eaten. Your conclusion was that, ultimately, if anything was wrong with the rabbit you didn't know it.

Your eyes might be the best for finding such things, but you more than trusted your nose and your mind.

Gruesome examination complete, you begin yet another disgusting work; yet one that you are certain you will relish in.

Eating the rabbit itself. The question remained, however; did you eat the rabbit raw, or try to start a fire to cook it and ensure your safety? There were oh so many variables at play...

[] Eat it raw.
[] Try to cook it.
[] Write in

I'm quite happy with how this one turned out. How you guys respond to this stuff will soon enough start to change up how the rest of the quest proceeds from a narrative perspective.

Voting ends Wednesday at 12pm eastern central time.