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Post by Bannanachair on Feb 22, 2019 0:07:09 GMT -4
"It's a cloud. Surely you had them when you were around before this." Why is she keeping me alive? If I can figure that out, maybe I can find a way to escape.
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Post by Tikobe on Feb 26, 2019 22:57:05 GMT -4
She gave you a look of disbelief.
"Clouds are white and fluffy, that is neither white nor fluffy."
There was something weird with what was supposedly a god-like being saying fluffy, but so far Gen Saeyi has proven herself to be an eccentric.
"Well, anyways, I can't keep this thing in the air. Something like that is quite a large issue," she mutters as she holds her arm out to the Guimar Garnier Origin, as all of a sudden a massive tree grows in the middle of the city. The tree grows right into the Origin, leaving the crew on board screaming as branches puncture the hull and the tree starts to absorb your precious airship into it. You see crew members jumping off the ship and falling to their deaths.
"H- Hey! You're killing people!" Captain Bayod shouts.
"Huh?"
"Don't you see them in the distance!? Those people on the ship are dying!"
"There were people in that?" Gen Saeyi looks aghast.
"And what about the people who were standing where that tree was? What if someone was caught and crushed in the growth!?"
Gen Saeyi looks wide eyed at the tree she grew, before taking a gulp and regaining her composure somewhat.
"Well, it can't be helped. What's gotta be done has to be done. It's not like I wanted to. You know, when I tear down the buildings here I'll turn this place into a meadow to remember the ones who died."
"What? You think that's gonna make up for killing civilians!?" Bayod growls.
"It's not like I have an alternative, right?" She says, trying to hide a somewhat depressed expression with a smile aimed at you two.
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Post by Bannanachair on Feb 27, 2019 12:37:30 GMT -4
"What the hell did you mean you didn't have an alternative!" I shouted. "You could have just not killed them, you psychopathic bitch! Those were my men on board that ship! I swear, once I get free, I will kill you!"
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Post by Tikobe on Feb 27, 2019 21:55:59 GMT -4
"Now, now," she awkwardly says, as if she wasn't expecting you to get so angry. "There's no need to get so riled up about this. It's a complicated story but I can assure it really was something unavoidable..."
"As if that was true! If you really wanted to avoid killing them you could've just not have done that!" Bayod roars.
"Err... Uhm," Gen Saeyi shrinks back a little like a child being scolded by her parents. "Ok, ok, I think we've gone off and went a little crazy. That's fine, that's absolutely fine, I understand I'm in the wrong here. But for now, let's have you sleep off the frustration a little bit."
"What?" Bayod questions, his glare getting ever intenser as all of a sudden a delicate looking white flower appears next to Gen Saeyi.
"This, you see, is a precious little flower I made to protect some of the villages from some of the nearby beasts and monsters. It releases a pollen, you see, that's just a tad bit toxic, not enough to kill, but enough to induce a state of sleep or at least scare away the scary beasts. So, for now, I'll just sprinkle you guys with a little bit of pollen and have you take a rest."
"Are you crazy!?" Bayod growls. "That's just running awa- What is that!?"
Above the heads of you, Bayod, and ever one else tangled in the vines a certain flower blooms, but it's not the white flower. This one is a much more ominous looking purple one, which proceeds to sprinkle a lot of pollen above you guys. Gen Saeyi looks up and gasps.
"Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no."
"Huh?"
"Err, my apologies. I was thinking of protective flowers with toxic pollen and well, you know I kinda made a switcheroo. Uh, you see, the white flowers aren't toxic enough to have an effect on some of the larger monsters like dragons and so I made a drastically more toxic variant just in case something like that popped up. Well, heheh."
Bayod stares at her wide-eyed as he mutters, "You didn't."
Gen Saeyi gives an awkward, empty smile as she replies, "Sorry, I think I may have killed you all."
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Post by Bannanachair on Feb 27, 2019 22:02:00 GMT -4
"If I survive this, let me assure you of something, Gen Saeyi. You will not be locked up in a shrine again. I will find a way to kill you, and I will kill you," I say in the kind of calm-angry tone that you hear among people refraining from doing something violent with every ounce of their willpower.
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Post by Tikobe on Feb 27, 2019 22:47:34 GMT -4
Gen Saeyi looks a little sad, but returns to her same old smile.
"That's fine, human. You can hate me all you want. May your soul rest in peace."
Your sight begins to drown out thanks to the injury of your head and the toxins from the venom. Your final glimpses of her were her walking off as she evokes vines that tear down buildings and grass the grows over and destroy the roads.
She didn't look back at you once.
---
You float around in the cold darkness of near death. You weren't sure just how much time passed, after all it felt like nothing more than a few seconds but it could have been hours. All of a sudden, a soothing sensation takes over your body, and afterwards another one that takes with it the pain of your head injury. The otherworldly feeling in your body forces you to wake up out of curiosity, where you see a single woman. Her brown hair falls down to her waist, her blue eyes scan the number of men who, like yourself, were tangled up in the vines.
"Mmm, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead," she mutters as she observes the state of each of the men who were tangled up and had their lives claimed to Gen Saeyi's poisoned flower. She eventually lays her eyes on you.
"Emperor save me, I saved the scum playbo- I mean, glad to see you're alive, admiral sir!" she says, saluting you with a bitter smile. It was at this point that you notice that she was wearing the uniform of a naval engineer, with the symbol of the Guimer Garnier fleet embroidered onto it and the words "Origin" right under it.
She was one of your engineers, although for as familiar as she looked you couldn't recall many details about her. What little you could was as nothing more than a figure in the background.
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Post by Bannanachair on Feb 27, 2019 22:54:10 GMT -4
"Is the ship functional?" I ask. "Were there any other survivors? Where did Gen Saeyi go?"
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Post by Tikobe on Feb 27, 2019 23:20:49 GMT -4
"Emperor!" she growls. "Seriously, a woman saves you and the first thing you do is tear into her with questions. Damn it all, fine! I'll just be blunt. You wanna see the ship, look there."
Your gaze goes to the direction she points. You see the night sky brightened up by a full moon whose light shines down on Saffur. Or at least, what was Saffur. The houses and shops and taverns and all the like are gone. What remains are things that look vaguely like them, but covered in flowers and greenery. It looked as if it was nothing more than a serious of plants imitating a town.
And in the center of it all was a massive tree, with bits and pieces of what was the Origin sticking out. To say that your precious ship was beyond hope would be far too kind of a statement.
"If there's any survivors from the fleet, they sure won't on the ship. I mean, sure, I was but I only survived because I heard that we might have fought a Wyldun and decided to sneak away and hide in a secret spot I found in the ship. Pure metal and stuff all around, it could survive five cannon blasts head on. Anyways, everyone else either fell off the ship and died or were crushed and in some cases even mutilated by the tree. I remember walking around and seeing the pieces of the head of engineering. Poor fool was torn to bits by branches. Anyways, was that Gen Saeyi? I guess that's where the tree came from. Point and case, I didn't see her at all, so I wouldn't know. I was too busy walking around what was left of the Origin and then climbing down a massive fucking tree to notice anything. Anyways, if she's here, she's sure silent. No more plant shenanigans have been going on for a good while at least."
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Post by Bannanachair on Feb 27, 2019 23:24:48 GMT -4
"How long ago did the tree appear?" I ask, before catching myself. "Sorry for being so abrupt, I've not had the best of days today. But she needs to be stopped."
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Post by Tikobe on Feb 27, 2019 23:40:56 GMT -4
"How long ago? Err... Let's see. I think it took me, considering that there wasn't much in the way of footholds and I had to improvise the climbing gear, roughly three hours or so to climb down the tree, and then the roads were gone and there were so many obstacles so it was about an hour and half to find it and that's not even mentioning that after the tree hit I spent another hour still hiding to make sure everything was safe and sound so I'm gonna say it's been a little under a quarter of a day since the tree rose up?" the engineer ponders as she tries to arrive at her estimate. "Well, at the least, I don't think we can go chasing after her anyways. Not now at least. Look."
She points out to the forests that surrounded Saffur. It looked normal, and then you notice a light moving around in the trees.
No, it was not just one. There were many lights. It didn't take long for you to figure out what they were.
"The wisps, creations of Gen Saeyi. They must have been drawn to her awakening and are likely now trying to prey on any survivors who attempt to wander out into the woods. Taking them on in a fight wouldn't be a challenge, but wisps are known to be tricksters rather than warriors. We try to brave it, we'll likely fall into a trap and get ourselves killed. Actually, it also creates an ultimatum, cause if we stay put they'll tighten the noose and we'll be killed anyways."
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Post by Bannanachair on Feb 27, 2019 23:44:07 GMT -4
"I don't need to leave just now. There's something that was on the Origin that I need. Was there a girl, a messenger, who arrived on board an hour or so before the tree did? Her name was Listene?"
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Post by Tikobe on Feb 28, 2019 1:13:31 GMT -4
(Sorry, got busy. But now I'm off work so I devote more attention to this)
"Listene? Ah, that girl. Just one moment," the woman says as she pulls out a red journal. "Some of my friends from the other ships in the fleet and I like to keep ourselves informed, but I was kinda lazy today when filling out today's events. I mean, after all, this time the scum, I mean, admiral was actually being a respectable person for once so I didn't have to add onto the list of one night stands. Just consider yourself lucky that I knew you had given her the seal and had some, err, 'hired friends' of mine watch her."
She clearly meant to call you scum on purpose. And 'hired friends?' Did she literally pay people to stalk Listene and report to her? However, before you can speak she goes "Ah!"
"Here we go! Listene left the northern gate right after she sent the messenger bird to Chasre. According to this, you yourself ordered her to send a message to some of the other ships in the fleet, of course since we can't really train a bird to give a message to an airship unless they're within eye sight she had to leave on horseback to deliver the message herself. However, after she wrote the letter she was quickly ambushed by some of the Crestrisen sleeper agents in town. She came out unscathed but some of the escorting guards that Captain Bayod sent with her decided to chase her out of town. They said, quote, that she was 'carrying an important letter and that the life or death of the Empire might rest on the shoulders of her and the message she needed to deliver.' When she argued that she needed to return the seal they offered to return it to you for her but she refused to give it to individuals she wasn't sure she could trust. As such, they settled her down by saying that if you came out of this alive then you could just search for her yourself and collect it then, since you did know her destination, after all. Turned out to be a smart move, since afterwards those guards were ambushed and killed, and if they had the seal or if Listene was still following them we could have lost the damn thing forever," she explains as she closes her journal and clears her throat before throwing out the following summary. "To shorten all of that, Listene and your seal were able to safely escape the town before Gen Saeyi woke up. Or at least, safely if we assume that she met with no trouble."
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Post by Bannanachair on Feb 28, 2019 11:01:26 GMT -4
"Do you really gossip that much about my women? It's not like I gossip about your men..." I consider saying but refrain myself from doing so. Instead, I say something much more practical. "I ordered her to send the message and then wait on the Origin for my return. Truthfully, I now have no idea where she might have gone... Except in the direction of Chasre! Thank you. Despite your repeated insubordination, you were actually very useful."
I don't bother listening for her response. Instead, I begin searching the area myself, looking for anyone else who might be alive.
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Post by Tikobe on Feb 28, 2019 15:32:06 GMT -4
(This happened all on page 2. I've been scrambling around since yesterday to find all posts related to Listene)
"Well, I suppose you can thank my repeated insubordination for this: You didn't order her to go to Chasre, you ordered her to Backwater to send a message to the 1, warning them about what what happened here. Well, considering that you have a head injury like something out of a nightmare just a few minutes ago I suppose it could be easy to be confused. Now, regardless of what we're gonna do here I don't wanna stay in this place any longer. Let get you out of there."
The woman takes out a sew and begins to cut your vines.
"Can you get mine, too?
"Sure," she replies, before stopping and looking behind her.
"Failed to notice me?" Captain Bayod lightly chuckles. "Dear Emperor, just what's been happening to my town? How am I even alive?"
"Err... Big man, hairy, reminds you of a bear. Am I correct in assuming that he's Captain Bayod Eses?"
"You're right on that, but who are you?" Bayod asks, slightly wary.
"Oh, look here mister Admiral, a guy who's polite enough to ask for a woman's name," she chastises as she continues saw off your restraints.
"That's a daring attitude to take with your superior."
"It's an acknowledgement of the fact that I don't view him as that at all. To begin with, I've been serving on the Origin for well over five years longer than he has so I'm his better in terms of seniority."
"Okay, and that's no excuse."
"And my name is Enoise Vorlault, and yes I am related to Marquis Vorlault of New Everwrath; To be specific, I'm his second daughter, and the eldest surviving child among his direct descendants. I'm not the kind of girl who screams 'Daddy! Daddy!' but if I choose to I could take control of the fleet at any moment, I just like working as a grunt engineer. Shows you things you can't see otherwise. Also because you can get away with being lazy as a grunt but not as a commanding officer."
"Huh? Take control?" Bayod looks confused.
"Why are you baffled by that? I'd understand if it was the Admiral Scum, but you of all people should understand better than anyone else: In a military controlled by the Emperor himself, politics plays into everything. And even if you're skilled, you won't go far if you don't have some powerful backing, and conversely if you're not skilled at all, then as long you're in league with some big shots you'll go farther than a lot of people. I've seen men who are less than the Admiral in just about every trait but perversion take the position of Major Admiral in a few months because they were kissing up to my father," Enoise explains as she finally cut your arms and upper torso free. "Well, regardless of whatever's going on, Admiral, you're in a position to take care of the rest of these vines. I'll start cutting off the ones on the bear."
Bayod looks wide eyed at her and then at you as she give you the saw and then takes off a knife to cut Bayod out with.
"Just how did you not notice her on your crew?"
"Easy, because I always hid when he called for us and then I had the records... Well, I can't say tempered since the information's all true, but the formatting was altered to make it difficult to notice my last name. Well, I was able to convince father to not forcibly promote me by setting things up so that I was a form of trump card against the fleet if Father ever needed to use it. After all, being ambushed by having a marquis's daughter as part of the crew is the worst form of gut punch, right Admiral?"
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Post by Bannanachair on Feb 28, 2019 15:41:26 GMT -4
(I bet you thought I had completely forgotten about her.)
"Captain Eses, I'm glad that you're alive. The rich girl is the least of our problems right now, and the last thing we ought to be thinking about," I say as I begin cutting him out of the vines. "Gen Saeyi destroyed your town, took down my ship and then set up a deadly forest trap, so I've been told. Do you have any idea how the hell we can kill her?"
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Post by Tikobe on Feb 28, 2019 15:51:00 GMT -4
(No. I did it because I forgot about her)
"Uh... Stab her?"
"Captain Bayod Elses, we're talking about a being who, according to legend, could fight an entire army by her lonesome. Even if that is most definitely an exaggerated detail, the Wylduns would not be as infamous as they are if they were problems that could just simply be solved by stabbing them."
"Hey! I'm trying my best. I didn't even know that was Gen Saeyi staying here."
Enoise sighs before turning to you.
"For your information, Admiral, no one would know. There's rumors, but honestly my father had them investigated and they're all just superstition. Fact of the matter is is that no one has ever killed a Wyldun in history. There just isn't a precedent for it."
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Post by Bannanachair on Feb 28, 2019 15:56:44 GMT -4
"Besides, I already tried stabbing her," I say. "It, uh, it didn't exactly work that well. My sword barely scratched her, and it was a direct hit. It was like stabbing a tree."
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Post by Tikobe on Feb 28, 2019 16:18:18 GMT -4
(I'm leaving for the college. I'll be silent for a while. Later)
"So, she's wooden? You think we can burn her?"
"Captain Bayod! As I've said before if things were that simple than the Wylduns would've already been killed in the first place, not sealed away."
"No but, think about it, what if they were that simple but no one could do anything because there were five working together. Now there's just one, right?"
Enoise sighs.
"Fine, I'll let you fools continue your rambling."
With your help she cuts the final vine.
"And I'm free," Bayod says, looking at his hand. "I feel absolutely fine, like I wasn't poisoned in the first place."
"There's two reasons for that," Enoise explains. "Firstly, because I had to pull out some of my rare spells and used a general detoxification spell and healing spell on the area when I found your group. It was a risk, but even though I know of a few ways to escape from here none of them are things I can do by myself. In the end, I was desperate to find some fellow survivors. But that being said, those spells were valuable, you hear me? Va. Lu. A. Ble. They're not common spells, they're uncommon spells and all I got out of it was a scum admiral and a bear. And they're spells, so I can't even get them replaced!"
"I'd like to know how you got them at all," Bayod points out with an unamused expression.
"Ahh... Oh well, even then you two were poisoned by what we call the Protector flower. You both should've died after an hour of that experience."
"Protector flower?"
"It's a creepy little purple thing," Enoise explains as she described the second flower which Gen Saeyi used on you by accident. "It's a sister to the Guardian flower, a white one. They're rare, they only grow around the ruins of sites destroyed by the Wylduns centuries ago. You're fine if you're poisoned with the Guardian flower, you just pass out when exposed to that. However, the Protector will kill you. There's only ever been a few rare cases of people who've survived that. Honestly, there's only one explanation as to why you two were lucky."
Enoise points upwards. You see the vines where the Protector flower bloomed, but now they were crushed by the vines and nearby a beautiful greenish-whitish flower grew.
"That flower is something I've never seen nor heard of. It releases pollen as much as the Protector and the Guardian flowers do, but considering how I'm fine even when I've come into contact with it myself I can say that it's not poisonous, at least. My theory is that this flower is like a third sister to the two others, but this one uses it's pollen to neutralize the poison of the other two. Well, then again, considering how it seems everyone else with you two died to the poison of the Protector, I guess it can only go so far as to extend the time till death, giving a chance to fight back and nothing more. However, I just want to know where it came from."
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Post by Bannanachair on Feb 28, 2019 16:27:33 GMT -4
"Gen Saeyi made the purple flowers, though she said she wanted to make the white ones. Are we the only three in all of Saffur still alive?"
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Post by Tikobe on Feb 28, 2019 21:51:56 GMT -4
Enoise faces you and shrugs a little.
"I've been adventuring around what's left of this place and I haven't seen anyone else. Honestly, it would be impossible for there to not be any other survivors but knowing people like I do they've either ventured into the forests and met with the wisps or they've gone into hiding and won't come out until the Emperor himself ventures up here and tells them it's okay. Either way, there isn't really the time to play saint and find everyone and I'm not gonna pretend there is. Maybe some others among this batch survived?"
"Nah, I've been looking around at them all. They've all definitely passed on. I think the admiral and I survived because we were on the outskirts of the group, away from the greatest concentration of pollen, but that's it."
"Very well, then I guess that settles that. We've got a group of people together, I've got an escape route planned, I motion we leave as soon as possible," Enoise announces.
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Post by Bannanachair on Feb 28, 2019 21:54:59 GMT -4
"We are not a democracy, we are a military with a rigid chain of command. Though, that said, escaping now sounds like a good idea. What's your escape route?"
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Post by Tikobe on Feb 28, 2019 22:27:00 GMT -4
"Not a thought about the people, huh?" Bayod gives a flat stare, although it's quite clear on his face that he doesn't dissent to your decision either.
"Present the scum an equally scum-worthy option and the scum will hop on board."
"Doesn't that make you scum for suggesting it?"
"I hail from a marquisate family. I'm already scum by default," Enoise smiles threateningly. "Anyways, we've a few routes of escape, but I think the most reliable one, if we can pull it off, is by escaping with an airship."
"Airship?" Bayod questions as he looks to the airship port, which was completely destroyed. "Yep, that's not happening."
"Indeed, we can't use one of the airships here in Saffur. But I never said we were going to use one of those," she smiles. "A short distance from here is the slave plantation of some noble. Of course, this noble decided he wanted to avoid paying the produce taxes so he built an airship port in secret inside of the plantation so he set a system where half of his produce is transported legally through taxed airships and the other half illegally. He maintains it and a sister port with two ships; One which is at his estate in Sunreach and one here at the plantation."
"Wait, what?" Bayod gasps. "Just how did we miss that!?"
"Well, most of your guards are people like you, ones who failed to realize the political games being played in the military only to be screwed over by it later on. They don't really give a damn sometimes, and are quite easily paid off. Honestly, you're exceptionally unique in how much you care to do your job, but once more you're not good at playing games. I mean, it wasn't even a challenge to find that one out myself. Just gotta have the right acquaintances," Enoise shrugs. "Anyways, I haven't checked to see if they made a shipment lately so I don't know if it's there, and that's not to mention whether or not someone already took off with it while we've been standing here or the possibility that Gen Saeyi noticed the hidden airport and destroyed it, but with that being said, it's not really such a distance that we should encounter issues with the wisps and if we pull it off we can bypass most of the problems we're facing altogether. Granted, it's not really a large airship nor a combat ready one, but that's actually good. It means that we should be able to operate with just the three of us with the expertise of the admiral and I and the strength of the bear."
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Post by Bannanachair on Feb 28, 2019 22:37:40 GMT -4
"I'll be honest, I can't think of anything else. I would appreciate it, though, if you kept in mind that I am your superior officer and stopped calling me scum."
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Post by Tikobe on Feb 28, 2019 22:59:43 GMT -4
"And I would appreciate it, as a woman, if you'd stop acting like scum. However, very well, I'll let that be the last time, until you start acting like that again."
"Shouldn't it be 'unless?'" Bayod ponders.
"I have absolutely no faith whatsoever in the Admiral. I mean, you don't even want to know about a week ago; Not only did he get his hands on another one of his subordinates, but we're still trying to find the second woman he spent the night with," Enoise retorts. "Anyways, now that we have things sorted out over here let's not wait another minute. Follow me."
Enoise begins to head out, not noticing the shocked expression Bayod made towards you.
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Post by Bannanachair on Feb 28, 2019 23:10:59 GMT -4
"It was entirely consensual," I said as we began walking. "If you know about my reputation, then likely so did they, and they still chose to spend the night with me... You know what, I don't need to justify how I spend my free hours to either of you."
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