Build An Adventure: Trial Run: Host Eclipse

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

The man stealthily glances around before continuing to whisper to the protagonist.

Meat Vendor Alphonse: "Name's Alphonse, run a butchery on one side of town. You see..... I ended up cutting up and preparing quite alot of meat expecting to sell more during the festival, but it was less crowded then it normally was. Some stupid goings on the next town over and half the people up and leave. I need to sell as much of this meat as I can before it goes bad and I end up down the gutter farther than I am now. So here is the deal. I will sell you any meat cut you see here at equal price and a discount at that! For an ounce of meat I will take 1 Lin. Green Lins are worth twice as much so I will give you two ounces of meat for a single green Lin instead of the one ounce for any other Lin. So, do I have you interested?"

Time to Decide...

[Daiwa Scarlet]

(The Sable bit was referring to the protagonist if you dont mind me setting a name and gender? I guess it'll just be another character if you prefer otherwise..~)

The protagonist spent a moment thinking whether to ask about the other town, as it could possibly give him/her a clue to his/her forgotten memories. Alphonse took that as hesitation and sliced a sliver from the venison, raven, and hydra. The woman wrapped the pieces and dropped them on their small grill. She sprinkled various seasons over the meats and skewered them. Alphonse handed the result to the protagonist. "Have a taste. I've yet to meet anyone who could resist buying a few ounces after a taste test." The smell drifted over to the protagonist and he/she wolfed down the samples. He/she sheepishly took out four green Lins and took an ounce of the other five meats that he/she hadn't tried along with another ounce of venison and two from the hydra. Before walking away, the protagonist asked Alphonse what he meant when he was talking about the other town.

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

(In general, I will be trying to keep my posts as the mindset of the protagonist in this section. If I take control of other characters I will try to be in their mindset. Setting the name and gender is acceptable and is part of what this whole build an adventure is about so go right ahead. Even if you establish characters who refer to the protagonist as Sable, I will continue to refer to the protagonist as "THE PROTAGONIST" until they themselves consider their name to be Sable. Once the protagonist takes the name Sable then I will start referring to them as such in my posts. Same with gender, I will be gender neutral until someone makes the protagonist realize they are a girl or boy. And Hydras exist in this world now, awesome.)

The protagonist finds they have a deep love of the taste of meat. Something about it is just pleasing to their tongue and invigorates them. Alphonse happily takes the Lins and proceeds to talk amicably with our protagonist.

Meat Vendor Alphonse: "Meh, it has to do with the Church of Ine-om. Usually the church is quiet and just handles basic affairs such as prayers and confessions and the like. The few exceptions to this are the Ine-Beloch and anything that the High Arahdin or the Arahsin decide to do. Ine-Beloch is just something we all deal with since its such a rare event and our current High one and the Arahsin have been very inactive. Strangely, they have declared some festival in the town over that none of us have heard before. Most people got curious and left town to go see what it was. I am skeptical about it though, if the High Arahdin or the Arahsin are behind it then there must be some ulterior motive. They have not performed any real actions since they were selected for those holy roles. Not that I have any idea what the highest ranking members in the church have planned. Nobody tells the meat vendor out in nowheresville."

After listening to Alphonse the protagonist notes down the terms that they heard in that speech as they might be important. Time to Decide...

Terms:
Ine-Beloch
High Arahdin
Arahsin

[Daiwa Scarlet]

(Okies~ Yeah sort of expected the protagonist to still be unnamed since amnesia)

The black owl gathers in front of the protagonist as she turns onto a side street. It clears its throat, "Ahem, a delivery for Miss Sable. The bozo wanted to see if this would be enough to trigger your sealed memories. Do be careful about the blade." The owl drops a pouch in front of it and some papers drift out.

"Sable?..." The protagonist takes a look within the pouch to find a black dagger with gold runes resembling those on the bell.

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

The protagonist takes ahold of the hilt of the strange black dagger and holds it a little closer to look at its design more in depth, however the moment the protagonist gets a firm grasp on the hilt they feel something like an electric shock and the pattern on the blade pulses once with a golden white light. The shock gives our protagonist a quick fright as they drop the dagger back into the pouch reflexively. After taking a moment to recover our protagonist starts to collect their thoughts, realizing that the strange pattern on the bell and the dagger stirred some kind of memory within them. It was still faint but they knew they had some connection to this pattern. It at once evoked a gentleness and a crippling fear inside them. The gentleness felt connected to the pattern, but the fear was of some strange connection that the pattern was related too in some way. But the fog was too great and our protagonist could not truly remember.

Sable, the owl shadow thing had definitely spoken to her when it dropped the pouch, there was no one else around. The word also evoked some kind of feeling inside the protagonist. It was a name, and the protagonist now felt a distinct lack of one after having spoke to Alphonse. It held some meaning, and even if she couldn't quite remember what it was, it would do for now. For now, she was Sable. Time to Decide...

(The protagonist has accepted the name Sable for now and will now refer to themselves as such. They have also unconsciously begun to refer to themselves in the feminine sense, their gender is determined to be female. These will not change unless the protagonist reaches some other reveal that would change these facts in their mind.)


...Elsewhere....


The man chewing on the wheat was walking through the woods. His heavy footfalls loud in the quiet forest as well as the sound of various birds and insects around him in the trees. He walked with steady purpose, as one who is confident of his destination but not rushed to arrive. That is, until he feels a strange pulse pass through him. As if a wave of air had blown by he had felt it, but it was not air that had caused it. Instantly he stopped and double and triple checked that feeling against his memories. Very slowly, as if he were made of stone he knelt and reached into the neck of his large cloak. Inside his hand found the item that hung around his neck at all times and pulled it out into the open air.

It was a pendant of some sort, the metal chain wrapping around his neck before connecting to an object that looked like a silver sphere with a number of very short metal projections piercing out from its core. Then on the very bottom of this sphere extending a cylindrical shape which ending in what looked like a lid, one that could be unscrewed and removed, as if the pendant was built to store something, but with the opening facing towards the ground instead of the sky like other containers. The pendant was intricate in its design, and the same golden star like pattern on the bell and Sable's dagger covered its outside.

The man grasped this pendant in one hand and held the other hand up so that his fingers, pointing skyward, covered his mouth. It was in this stance that he slowly moved his lips beneath his fingers in a silent prayer, but if one could see his lips or hear his voice it would sound almost like a song.

Oooh, Ine-ooom
Of the sky so strong
You shroud the world
Your body curled
To protect those
of this earth below

Your powers wane
In the rising dawn
Our souls of truth
Laid bare before you

Speak my name
To grant this one lame
His truest strength

So I may hunt
Those who shun
Thy Earthly Shade

I am __________
Of the Arahsin
Oooh, Ine-ooom
Of the sky so strong

He sung silently, his voice not reaching any farther then the tips of his fingers. Perhaps if one had heard it true, they would talk of its long drawn out notes and its haunting tune. But this mattered not to the man as golden light began to pour from the pendant, golden droplets  seeming to drip out of the cracks before gathering at the base of the pendant, the cylindrical cap, and being sucked into the the lidded section. There he knelt as the golden light faded and he did not move. An hour passed, then two, before the pendant again began to shine. But this time it was a light of silver that shone from the core of the pendant. The light moved down and at the base of the pendant a single droplet of purest silver formed, where the gold had vanished. It shone like the full moon and all the stars combined as it grew and then dropped from the pendant. But even now the man did not flinch, focused as he was. The droplet hit the ground and a sound that only he could hear reached him as the ripples faded into the darkness of the forest floor.

His shoulders shook and he slid the pendant back into his cloak and he starting going through the forest once more. His first step was a walk, his second a jog, the third a run, and the fourth a sprint. The fifth his free left hand connected with the ground and he ran on all fours traveling at twenty times his previous speed. His open eyes staring straight ahead as he unerringly weaved through the forest at extreme speed. He had felt the call and knew his duty.  One of those eyes, shone a deep, deep silver and looked almost as if it didn't even belong to him.

He was Index of the Arahsin, and it was his duty.... to point ahead and show the way.

[Daiwa Scarlet]

"Come now little Sable, must we go through this again? You cannot fear the dagger. I suppose it may be miffed that you dropped it during your last great escape though."

Sable stared at the dagger within the pouch, the runes flickering in a pattern it had done thousands of times before. "Kleara..." she mumbled absentmindedly. The flickering stopped all at once.

The owl watched the dagger as well. "Actually it is Kiera... but you always called it Kleara anyway. But you sort of remember its name. Good. Good. You also seem to have 'shocked' it into silence" The owl snickers and the blade's flickers reappear. "Kekeke. Scolding never got you anywhere with me has it?" The blade dims and one could almost feel the shunning silence exuding from it. The owl tries to hold in its laughter and puts a wing to its head in mock sadness. "Oh my. Im being ignored. Whatever can I do? Bwahahahaha." After it gets its laughter under control, the owl turns to Sable. "Now then, would you follow me? Mani promises to meet you in a humanoid form, lest you accidentally stab him again. Bwahahahahahaha."

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

Sable, the Owl, and the Dagger/Kiera....

It was quite alot to try and take in during the short time frame and now the owl was performing a comical attempt at walking away, obviously assuming that Sable would follow. Time to Decide....

[Daiwa Scarlet]

(/me does a slight change to the previous post to toss klea into the story ;p)

The owl hops up and twirls into the air. Having noticed Sable's indecision, he put a wing to his beak and whispers loudly "You do still want to recover your memories don't you? Come come~ You remember that the quickest way around this mess of a town is by rooftop right?~" The owl flaps its wings and darts toward the sky.

Sable watched for a moment longer before her curiosity got the better of her. It should be fine... right? She put a hand on the dagger through the pouch to gather her courage and leapt along the walls until she reached the roof. The owl calls out "Quickly now, we haven't much time to lose~ That idiot would probably go back to sleep if we take too long~" before turning and flying off toward the church. With how loud it was being, Sable was surprised that none of the pedestrians seem to have heard. She dashes along the rooftops after it.

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

Sable makes good time over the rooftops chasing after the owl's tail feathers. The trip is short and mostly uneventful except for when they pass by the edge of town she notices a few individuals cloaked in a deep green leaving town riding atop strange animal that runs very low to the ground. The animals appear to be reptilian and nature and have the color of the grass fields they are moving through, although Sable's perceptive eyes notice their color shifting slightly as they run in and out of shade. Sable arrives at the church shortly afterwards. Time to Decide...

(Think of the people' mounts as giant chameleons.)

[Daiwa Scarlet]

Sable and the owl arrive at the altar room from earlier in the day. The owl lands on the altar and the floor opens up nearby. "Now do you remember how to activate your cloak?... It really is quite odd to be asking whether you remember what you had learned again but a few years ago, or however long had it really been... Time seems to pass unnoticed when one is underground more often than not." The owl chuckles self deprecatingly. Sable shook her head slightly and the owl continued, "Then I guess we will deal with that later. Come on down. I will just have to carry you." The owl turned into the cloud of smoke as it talked and streamed into the hole. A distorted voice calls up "Jump on in, before anyone walks by. Illusions are quite bothersome to maintain you know."

Sable took a few steps toward the edge and then jumped with a deep breath. The floor tiles shifted and closed up the hole above her. The wind rushed up for a second and she grabbed onto her hood to keep it from blowing up, not that it really mattered in this darkness. What felt like a cloud enveloped her and slowed her fall. She slowly drifted down and her eyes adjusted for the dark setting. The floor was still quite a few meters away and a circular pool was at the bottom. Anyone who fell would probably still suffer major injuries from the impact, but it was better than death... perhaps... The liquid within the pool was slightly golden and the vibrations created a pattern of ripples across the surface. She had a feeling that it would not be safe to touch. The room curved away after the initial drop to create a dome. Shadowy figures danced across the room, with strokes painting scene after scene as the previous scatters away. The room seemed to have been carved out of sandstone, if carved was even the right word. Eight funneled passages created a star at the ground level, or perhaps a sun if the pool was taken into account. The smoke released her at the edge of the pool and the owl reappeared a moment later. The owl fans itself and catches its breath. It looks around and points down a tunnel. "This is the one... I hope... Help me a little would you guys?"

The shadows on the wall nearby shift and form a person. It waves and runs down a tunnel. The owl turns to Sable with a mischievous glint in its eye. "And now we chase. I hope you'll be able to keep up. Do ask if you need aid~" It takes to the air again and dives for the tunnel, almost as if its fatigue had been but an act. The tunnel seemed to contract as the shadow passed, so she forced away her doubts and gave chase.

(... think ill stop here before it gets too long xD)

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

Sable runs quickly and gives chase to the owl. The shadows continue to dance across the walls as she sprints through the halls. The path twists and winds in a labyrinthine pattern as they progress. This continues for some minutes, before Sable comes to a crossroads to the left and right, but missed which path the shadow and owl took. Time to Decide...

[Daiwa Scarlet]

The tunnel behind slowly disappears as the walls twist and seal it away. A few shadowy figures pop up to watch and whisper to each other. Sable glances down both tunnels before dashing to the left as the distorted wall drew closer. The shadows watch her run off and one of the shadows flip a coin to another. She continues running for what feels like hours, trying to escape the sealing passage. Eventually, she runs out of energy and the wall catches up while she trudges along in exhaustion. The passage engulfs her and she could feel it carrying her off. The occasional pocket of air allowed her to breathe, but there was little room to move otherwise. She fought down the overwhelming panic and forced herself to think. That peculiar owl had given her some instructions hadn't he?

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

The owl had indeed told Sable something, but what had it been....? Sable shook their head in hopes of stirring up the memory but the clogging darkness seemed to make even her thoughts heavy. Something about chasing? Needing help? But whom were they chasing and what was actually going on? And more than anything why were shadows tossing coins between one another? Lying their pondering she started to hear voices coming from all around... but from whom?

Time to Decide....

[Daiwa Scarlet]

The voices called to Sable, some mere whispers while others were as roaring beasts. It was a cacophonous assault that felt as if it originated within her mind.

"Two steps aw-"
"Another disappears."
"A wanderer once came through."
"Her fate rewritten."
"Prayers wont be heard here."
"As stubborn as before I see."
"An anomaly."
"Here."

A hand pulls her from the wall and she finds herself within a ring of candles. There was neither sign of the one who had freed her, nor path out of the chamber. The strangest part was that she recognized the last voice as her own... But how could that be possible? The shadowy figures dance in the candle light while she ponders her situation. The walls slowly shifted around the chamber, but kept their distance from the candles. A shadow parts the others crowding the wall and pushes out to create a gaseous form similar to the owl. It looked uncannily familiar with a cloak of pure black.

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

The form of darkness slowly floats forward, closer and closer to Sable. A true shadow turned physical as its arm reached forward to point at Sable's chest before speaking. Its voice was... strange. Like a mixture of voices that couldn't seem to decide what they wanted to sound like. At one moment, an elderly man, and the next, a young lady. Even, frighteningly enough, taking on Sable's own voice periodically.

? ? ?: "The dog has scented you once more and his master has given him the order. You are now hunted. The child of god demands your capture as they always do. Their hand reaches out to grab you and spirit you away."

The shadows along the walls seem to dance behind the flickering candlelight, before all coming together to create a combined shadow, almost like a child using their fingers to create shadow creatures. They form a massive beast charging all around the ring of the room, with an eye glowing eerily silver.

? ? ?: "His onslaught will be swift and there will not be time for regrets. Memory or not, it is time. Fight, Flight, and what is Right. Time to Decide."