Prologue: THE WOODS.
Arkalest
ELOP Stan In The Streets, Dromok Under The Sheets
[X] Go West, go train.
The memory of forests is bright, and right now you feel like a moth. So you edge towards the West, your inner compass guiding you true as you slink deeper into seemingly untouched territory. Soon, the Sun begins its downward trajectory, and you manifest a little globe of light to shine you the way. Turns out your optics aren't fitted for night-vision.
Really, this whole body is somewhat basic. It is malleable, but you feel like that is the bare minimum. Faint memories of long debates about flexibility and performance tug at the edge of your mind, the words themselves unimportant, forgotten in the face of the strength of the underlaying concepts. They mix in with far more physical scenes of scampering throughout metallic corridors in this body, surrounded and aided by a dozen others like it. Sparkless in themselves, but chained to your own intellect. With bodies like this you could man a whole workshop by yourself, and observe multiple phenomena from manifold angles, and harvest, process and meld on your own and...
And just how much did you lose, really? The concept weighs heavy on your mind as the forest turns dense. It's a perfect playground for your new form, the overlapping branch canopy a mirror of the roots below and the way they twist and turn into each other. Here and there echoes the noise made by woodpeckers and the occasional shriek of harriers, mingled with creaks and twists from the aging bark. It's...Peaceful. Very much so.
Soon, as light dims into evening hours, you begin to spot the first bushes of glowing berries. They're a ripe blue, sloshing with magenta fluid that envelopes delicate and pallid veins. Doesn't take precise equipment to realize that they contain high concentrations of chemical energy. Not enough to explode or melt or anything, but stuff like this ought be pretty unpalatable to most organics. This isn't the only oddity, though: Further inside the forest are bushels of thin, translucent crystals, of a similar hue to the berries. You take a handful, feeling the energy cursing through them. They're not usable as a battery yet, but... With time, and a proper workshop, you may turn them into some form of energy storage.
You decide that it's time to "stop" and make camp. Which is to say, you find a particularly robust-looking alder and perch yourself in the crook of its arms. You curl up, spending a few hours in sleep mode, and waking up to a bright moon shining its pale light through the fronds. No light pollution, then. Odd. Really odd.
Well, time to make some, then. You spend the following three or so hours summoning smaller and smaller light globes, stretching them, popping them, and in general trying to gauge how far you can meld your Spark. When dawn comes, it finds you more content if "tired", your energy reserves somewhat low. You spend a good half a day sitting still and recharging, before looking for another tall tree to skitter on top of.
There, you spy your surroundings. You can see that the forest continues for a while into what seems to be a small valley. Here and there, large mechanical remains dot the landscape, half-subsumed by tree roots. Not far away, to the North, there seems to be ruins: A large village, in the same style as the town up North "proper", but long overgrown. To the South, meanwhile, stands a large crystal, the size of a tall oak, rippling with energy. Berry fields extend further South, split in half by a warbling brook.
Actions: (3 Energy.)
[]Investigate the berry fields. [1 energy.] The first step towards chemistry is having enough stock to make mistakes.
[]Harvest the remains for scrap. [2 energy] It will take a while to find suitable scrap, as the remnants themselves look to be mostly bits of shell.
[] Investigate the abandoned village. [1 energy] Abandoned buildings mean detritus, means potentially new tools.
[] Harvest ironwood [2 energy] Some of these trees have been modified to have a harder bark, which you can use to upgrade your
[]Investigate the large crystal. [1 energy] You could drain some energy to power yourself up.
Research:
[] Uzniak.
[] Betrayal.
[] Current environment.
[] Spark.
[] Hardlight.
[] Foulness.
[]Technique: Bubble Spitter. By channeling the Spark fast and loose you can create a spray of bubbles. They might not damage anything when they pop, but the noise and light will scare off fauna, or dazzle them.
[]Technique: Staff. With eight arms it's only logical to learn how to use something like this.
(Voting ends in 48 hours.)
The memory of forests is bright, and right now you feel like a moth. So you edge towards the West, your inner compass guiding you true as you slink deeper into seemingly untouched territory. Soon, the Sun begins its downward trajectory, and you manifest a little globe of light to shine you the way. Turns out your optics aren't fitted for night-vision.
Really, this whole body is somewhat basic. It is malleable, but you feel like that is the bare minimum. Faint memories of long debates about flexibility and performance tug at the edge of your mind, the words themselves unimportant, forgotten in the face of the strength of the underlaying concepts. They mix in with far more physical scenes of scampering throughout metallic corridors in this body, surrounded and aided by a dozen others like it. Sparkless in themselves, but chained to your own intellect. With bodies like this you could man a whole workshop by yourself, and observe multiple phenomena from manifold angles, and harvest, process and meld on your own and...
And just how much did you lose, really? The concept weighs heavy on your mind as the forest turns dense. It's a perfect playground for your new form, the overlapping branch canopy a mirror of the roots below and the way they twist and turn into each other. Here and there echoes the noise made by woodpeckers and the occasional shriek of harriers, mingled with creaks and twists from the aging bark. It's...Peaceful. Very much so.
Soon, as light dims into evening hours, you begin to spot the first bushes of glowing berries. They're a ripe blue, sloshing with magenta fluid that envelopes delicate and pallid veins. Doesn't take precise equipment to realize that they contain high concentrations of chemical energy. Not enough to explode or melt or anything, but stuff like this ought be pretty unpalatable to most organics. This isn't the only oddity, though: Further inside the forest are bushels of thin, translucent crystals, of a similar hue to the berries. You take a handful, feeling the energy cursing through them. They're not usable as a battery yet, but... With time, and a proper workshop, you may turn them into some form of energy storage.
You decide that it's time to "stop" and make camp. Which is to say, you find a particularly robust-looking alder and perch yourself in the crook of its arms. You curl up, spending a few hours in sleep mode, and waking up to a bright moon shining its pale light through the fronds. No light pollution, then. Odd. Really odd.
Well, time to make some, then. You spend the following three or so hours summoning smaller and smaller light globes, stretching them, popping them, and in general trying to gauge how far you can meld your Spark. When dawn comes, it finds you more content if "tired", your energy reserves somewhat low. You spend a good half a day sitting still and recharging, before looking for another tall tree to skitter on top of.
There, you spy your surroundings. You can see that the forest continues for a while into what seems to be a small valley. Here and there, large mechanical remains dot the landscape, half-subsumed by tree roots. Not far away, to the North, there seems to be ruins: A large village, in the same style as the town up North "proper", but long overgrown. To the South, meanwhile, stands a large crystal, the size of a tall oak, rippling with energy. Berry fields extend further South, split in half by a warbling brook.
Actions: (3 Energy.)
[]Investigate the berry fields. [1 energy.] The first step towards chemistry is having enough stock to make mistakes.
[]Harvest the remains for scrap. [2 energy] It will take a while to find suitable scrap, as the remnants themselves look to be mostly bits of shell.
[] Investigate the abandoned village. [1 energy] Abandoned buildings mean detritus, means potentially new tools.
[] Harvest ironwood [2 energy] Some of these trees have been modified to have a harder bark, which you can use to upgrade your
[]Investigate the large crystal. [1 energy] You could drain some energy to power yourself up.
Research:
[] Uzniak.
[] Betrayal.
[] Current environment.
[] Spark.
[] Hardlight.
[] Foulness.
[]Technique: Bubble Spitter. By channeling the Spark fast and loose you can create a spray of bubbles. They might not damage anything when they pop, but the noise and light will scare off fauna, or dazzle them.
[]Technique: Staff. With eight arms it's only logical to learn how to use something like this.
(Voting ends in 48 hours.)
