home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
Without wings, there is really only one way for the albino striped mare to travel and that is upon hardened, rounded, and sure footed hooves but this allows her the ability to really learn about the world around her and to truly see the details that the trees, grasses, waters, stones, and wildlife hold. Every time she sees a bird or a flying horse go by in the sky, they don’t seem to notice her and they usually move so fast. It must be such a wonderful feeling but the things closer to the dirt are where she finds her secret treasures. She does wonder if you can find prizes and trinkets in the clouds.
Her pink hooves are wandering once again as she has recovered from the immense amount of travels she had to do for the relic search. She never did from that artifact of the time god that she had been looking for. She certainly didn’t look over every inch of the land but she felt life she had tried and that is the best that can be expected of one so young and nu-knowledgeable of these lands. She is still a baby to this world, innocent and unmarked in every way, an infant learning to walk as she learned of the plants, herbs, legends, gods, and strangers.
Looking in the distance something seemed different as she looked towards Veneror Peak. She quickly picks her hind up under her and lopes over towards the snow covered peak in the distance, her sides quickly finding a breathing rhythm suited to the endurance of maintaining this speed until she reached the large hedges. Her eyes darted across the thick foliage with it large ominous thorns. The bushes are taller than she had ever seen and certainly not her when she was here before. She snorts as she walks closer to them and breathing in cautiously in case there might be a poisonous aroma in the air. She poked at a leak with her lip before stepping back again. What is this? Magic?
The day grew still around the maze, the wisps of fog within seeming to tighten and converge in a thick blanket upon a single point: the entrance. From far off you hear a hacking laugh, resembling more a cough than anything else as it rises unevenly in its pitch. It grows in volume, indicative of its owner drawing closer, until his outline begins to take shape between the two rows of hedges. As the mist begins to settle, you can see his lanky, angular frame more clearly, a dark and heavy pelt seeming to swallow him whole as it lays draped across his skinny shoulders. With a clearing of his throat he draws silent, facing you off in a silent showdown.
”Will you just stand there, Weir?” he asks, his voice youthful despite his aged appearance, carrying a lilt you cannot place into any of the Courts. You do not know how he knows your name, for he is a figure you have never seen before, and you can only wonder what more he knows about you. ”Or will you be brave and follow me to the relic of Tempus.” It is no longer a question, but a statement, as if he already knows what your choice will be. And with that, he turns and takes off further into the maze, ever leading you northwards. His speed belies his age, for he is constantly just ahead of you, sometimes disappearing into the dim but never venturing far. As he disappears around the next corner, you become aware of another creature lurking somewhere behind you, one of the many beasts to have make the maze its home.
@Weir you’ve found the Shaman! However he is not one to stay and chat, and has already taken off into the brambles. It is up to you to hunt him down or not, but be warned: the maze contains many hidden dangers and beasts lurking within it that you might just get caught up in!
Feel free to write in your own obstacles or beasts, or tag the Random Events account and specify if you would like one given to you! You have until Wednesday, July 19th to get your next reply in, at which point the Shaman will again respond.
Happy writing!
To tag this account: @*'Random Events' without the asterisk.
Please be advised, tagging the Random Event account does not guarantee a response!
home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
Her eyes cautiously looked as the smoke and fog crept through the leaves of the maze in front of her. The laughter in the distance creating a shiver down her spine and her legs creating the thin layer of white and colorless hair to rise from her skin. She begins to step back as the dark stranger appears in front of her but she tosses her horns forward as an instinctual maneuver to defend herself from this sorcerer. He doesn’t advance towards her so she retrains herself from moving towards him as she spaces her legs out and stands her ground. She snorts in retort to his statements as she tries to make herself look larger than she is but all this posturing changed as soon as he disappeared. Wait! I want that relic!
Without thinking about what she is about to do she charges into the maze and tries to chase where the voice is going. She watches the corners to try and not cut herself but when a grumble sounds from behind her, she turns and rubs both her right shoulder and her hindquarters against the thorns. Thin lines of capillary blood dripped down the stripes already plastered onto her body. She sees eyes floating behind her, yellow and snake like but she can’t see what the body looks like. The celestial black animal has no definite shape and seems to be made of smoke. It reeks as well, it smells of rotting flesh in a swamp on a warm day, so putrid and rank that weir can hardly control her revulsion but she cannot look away. It has 4 smoky legs but they are bent the wrong way and it has no tail, just long spindly ears. She looks for a moment longer as it stares at her before taking a step back. I hope it doesn’t have a taste for blood. She thinks as she charges at it and stops with a slide in the dirt but it holds it ground and screeches at her in the loudest high pitched scream she had ever heard. It was almost metallic and otherworldly.
Suddenly it jumps towards her, a clawed hand outstretched. She tucks her caribou horns and charges the spirit animal but she feels nothing as she passes through its smoky body except for the fresh cut that is slices into her side How did she not hit it but it can cut me? With this revelation she turns away from the creature that is already climbing the hedge to turn back towards her, releasing another ear splitting cry of terror. How can that thing climb the thorns and not be hurt? Weir turns and starts to run through the maze, taking turns in the maze at random until she started to hear the laughter of the sorcerer. She hoped she was getting closer so she would take turns towards the sound of the laughter, occasionally hitting dead ends. She turned thinking the beast was still following her but it wasn’t there thankfully. Where did it go? She turned away from the dead end and continued trying to follow the sounds of the sorcerer and hoping she would not see that beast again but something inside her tugged at her consciousness and said that this will not be the last beast that she sees the monsters of this maze.
For a while, the only sound echoing throughout the pathways are the sounds of your own hooves striking the semi-frozen ground, all traces of the shadow animal left behind you. It seems peaceful, almost; except for the occasional bursts of laughter.
Around one of the next bend awaits a pond, its waters clear but the soil at its bottom black. But sparkling at the bottom, a single diamond against the water’s inky blanket lays a shiny orb of some sort. And tethered to this orb by a short chain of the same material is a silver fish of some sorts, its scales glistening iridescently. As you draw near, a mental plead for help reaches you, and with a start you realize the creature is communicating with you telepathically.
’Please, free me. This pond is large but I have yet to see enough of it. Help me, and I’ll help you.’ But how may a fish help you?
@Weir
You now have until Wednesday, July 26th at 11:59pm PST to get one last reply in before the Shaman reappears, so please reply accordingly!
Happy writing!
To tag this account: @*'Random Events' without the asterisk.
Please be advised, tagging the Random Event account does not guarantee a response!
home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
Pale body seem to mix with the frost and the ice of the leaves of the vines and covering the ground. Some puddles on the ground are moist but others are solid and create a hollow and echoing click as her hooves gingerly walk over them. Her ears search frantically for direction as the anxiety that is rising from the very center of her soul to every nerve and fiber of her being. Her rose eyes flick back and forth, surveying the shadows for smoke, teeth, demons, monsters, and anything that might pose her any more harm than had already befallen her ivory skin. The cuts that her shoulder and hindquarters had sustained in now solidified onto her soft hair of her body. The lines of crimson that had fallen down the trails of muscles seamlessly stopped and hung like a print the monster has left behind.
Then the laughter started again, part of her mind demanded than she turn and find her way out but another synapse fires and warns her of the monster possibly waiting for her to come near enough to ambush her. She hesitates as she stares down a down foreboding corridor where the sound of laughter seemed to come from. She stands in an intersection of three directions. Weir dares not spend too much time in one spot and swallows her fears as she steps down the hardened path towards the laughter. Her steps clink uneasily and unevenly on the ground as she checks for surroundings in the quiet of the icy fog. She feels the veins may just snap out at her as if the magic of this place could control nature itself.
The path seemed to get much darker as the veins converged above her and blocked out whatever light from above that might penetrate this haunted place. Her heart quickened as she stepped in place for a moment. Thick braids swung uneasily against her nape as every muscle in her body constricted and released as she trotted around the corner and into a clearing. There is a pond as the light seems to return to the area except for the bottom of the water. She notices something immediately as she continues to trot around to the other side, away from the dark corridor she had just exited from. Her instincts telling her not to face her back towards a direction that she feels uncomfortable with. The water is clear those like that from a spring in the mountains of her birthplace. Mountain water is always cold, she remembers. The orb looks solid but about seems to glow light a star in the night sky but there is something else. Something that drops her guard. A fish.
Her ears stop their constant shifting and focus directly onto the fish that seems to be struggling. The caretaker and healer in her heart yearns to help immediately. She has always had this feeling in her soul to help others no matter the danger. She always felt the urge to jump into danger just to help someone in need. The fish before her jerks at the strings of her entire being. Then something began to speak in her mind. Her rose eyes opened wide as she listened to the plea of this strange shining, sparkling, struggling, and twinkling little creature. She could care less how the fish might help her, the overwhelming feeling is that she wants to simply help this fish. How terrible a life would be living on a chain, how hollow and alone that would be. She could relate. This just keeps getting stranger but how curious this is. She steps forward as the voice dissipates from her mind, a sharp but shallow call escapes her lips as she nears the edge of the water but she stops at the edge of the water. Think about this. What is the best way to help? I must help! But how?
She thinks first of her mild telekinesis and begins to focus on the fish. She strains as she tries to focus on how the fishes leash might be attached but it seems whole. There doesn’t seem to be any latches or buttons that might release the chain from the fish. There did seem to be a keyhole. She gives up this task before speaking in her mind towards the fish, hoping that the channel of communication goes both ways. I will find a way! Weir turns around and observes her surroundings. There are the walls of thorny vines, small rocks, the ice, and not much else. There is no metal and no keys that she can see. She looks to the thorns one more time. The fear of the pain they caused her rushed her body in a chill. How else to pick a lick but with something hard and sharp, why else the thorns than to use as a tool. Her drive to help the fish overrides her fear as she rushes towards the bushed, her soft and delicate mouth reaching out with teeth extended to grab the end of one of the vines and using her bite strength she bites down and tried to chew the vine end off. Spikes on the vine cut into her mouth and bloodied her teeth but eventually she could break the vine free. She tosses it to the ground and prayed to the dusk god that there is no poison in the spikes.
She stares down at the vine and then to the fish before stepping on one end and doing her best to remove most of the spikes but leaving one that would hopefully be large enough to pick the lock with. She reaches down with her telekinesis and lifts the vine as she trots back towards the water and enters it icy cold water. The shock of the ice water seems unreal that something could be so cold. Her muscles seem to freeze immediately as she pushes herself further into the water towards the diamond orb and the fish. She keeps stepping one frozen hoof at a time in what seemed like walking on the darkness of an overcloud night and used her telekinesis to plunge the vine down to the fish and focused as she attempted to pick the lock and hoped with all of her might that it would work. This has to work! The cold seems to seep down to her bones immediately and she hopes to make it out of her but first this lock needed to be picked and she continued to work on it as her body shivered in the dark waters where the only light was from the diamond orb.
@Random Events
Might have gone a little overboard but this is just so much fun to write to! Thank you admins for the extremely invigorating plot to write to. :)
A single click, and the entire chain shatters, releasing the fish back into the pond. Its silver scales shine brilliantly, illuminating the water in a flash of light that vanishes as quickly as it came. The fish rubs against your fetlocks, much like a kitten. ’I thank you. Now, as promised, what you seek is here.’ A cough sounds from behind you, followed by his voice as you turn to face the intruder.
“So, you’ve made it to the center of the maze,” the Shaman says in his lilting voice, pacing around the clearing. “You even seem to have made a friend of sorts. Now all you have left is to answer my riddle. Get it right, and what once was lost may again be found—get it wrong, and I will leave you here to face the Maze once again, without my guidance.
Answer me this:
“This thing repeats, no man ever yet did see,
it never was but is always to be.
From Orien’s first breath to Caligo’s great dark,
Birthed from nothing and returning thenceforth.
It leaves behind a single sign:
the passing of the sun across the sky.”
@Weir
You may write your character interacting with the Shaman, but please pm your response to the Random Events account! Title the pm as “RIDDLE—Character Name.” You have until Sunday, August 6th to get your answer pm sent! Your IC may be made during that time or after the winner is selected. If multiple correct answers are received, a dice roll may be used to decide who the winner is.
Happy writing!
To tag this account: @*'Random Events' without the asterisk.
Please be advised, tagging the Random Event account does not guarantee a response!
The Shaman's sneer deepens, a jagged line across his face as he arches his serpentine neck back to peer down at you. A long pause stretches between the two of you, your answer hanging heavy on the air.
"Wrong.”
With that the mist returns, crawling up his legs and over his spine, thickening until his entire body is obscured. When it again clears the Shaman is gone, in his wake a strange darkness falling across the maze.
Leaving you alone.
dice roll! Better luck next time!
It is now up to you whether you decide to roleplay your character finding their way out of the maze or not; you no longer need to tag the Random Events account in your reply unless you want to continue writing to the prompts. There is no longer a time limit on these threads!
Happy writing!
To tag this account: @*'Random Events' without the asterisk.
Please be advised, tagging the Random Event account does not guarantee a response!
08-16-2017, 12:09 AM - This post was last modified: 08-16-2017, 12:09 AM by Random Events
