Fourstones RP Thread

I climb trees every day, dear Ebs. :ifyouknowplz:

Elden nodded, taking in this information but all the while staying uncertain that he would achieve this. Nevertheless, he'd look stupider with a wet butt than attempting to climb a tree.

He clasped the bark of a neighboring tree with both hands, staring it down for a second as if looking for it's weaknesses. Then, he put his foot up onto the rough bark, and tried to hurl himself up, all the while hugging the tree. It was the most awkward climb yet, but it was working, and he lifted his leg to sit on the branch. Sweet, sweet, embarrassing success. Elden blushed a little, but joke was on those wet people. Well, wetter people. The branch still was damp from the snow that had dripped on it. Luckily, though, it was covered by leaves and more branches, and didn't have any of the frozen stuff on it.
He lay back on it, smiling slyly as if he had accomplished something on his own. The little elf had helped him, however, and he didn't really do anything by himself.

Enro stared at the skeletons, awestruck at what he had done.
Hello? Can you hear me?
A squeaky voice protruded his conscious, and the skeleton of Krea tilted his head.
Yes, I can hear you.... Krea, is it?
Yep. And.. Krea paused, twitching his bony tail towards Jet.
This is Jet.[i]
[i]Pleased to know we can talk to you! an almost screechy, shrill voice called inside his head, and he decided it was Jet.
I'm pleased to meet you both. I must end this chat now. Sorry for the brief introductions. By the way, I know your names, but you don't know mine. Enro. he murmured with his conscious, then dropped the meager concentration on keeping the creatures animated. Slowly and neatly, they fell to the ground in the position they were before Enro brought them up. Slowly and carefully placing the fragile items in his bag, he left the book out and closed his bag. He returned to the camp and sat with his book, looking around.
"I guess I should introduce myself. I'm Enro, Tribal, 14 years old.. The youngest here." he stated, then pulled his clothing around him and opened his bag. He shifted a few items then slid his book in, and closed it again. Hey pulled his clothes around him as tight as he could, then lay on the cold ground, using his arm for a pillow.

OOC- Koa or someone nosy like that should look through his bag to see why it's so special and he protects it like a baby or sumfin.

Yvara did the opposite of what she should have done when Eira revealed her talent was as a healer. Of course. She was kind, pretty, and she had a fate that didn't involve summoning droths or performing rituals. She could help other people. Her face was contorted with emotion as she backed away from Enro, giving Eira room to do her magic. This wasn't fair. Maybe the gods were testing her, though? Maybe she had to use her willpower and show them that she wasn't a failure?

Gathering her bag, Yvara got up. "I'm going to see if I can find anything," she said, smiling at her groupmates. She approached the tree and collected a rather thick looking stick, and pushed it into the fire. She walked off into the woods, holding her bag closely. Her hand was shaking on her makeshift torch. Time to burn the book that was causing her so much anguish.

She stopped when she could just barely see the fire. Her path was leaden with tracks, but she didn't think any of them would come after her. She threw her bag on the ground, and it sunk a bit in the thick snow. Breathing softly, she opened it, and pulled out the book. She didn't notice this before; the symbol of an eye was engraved on the book's cover, and it seemed to stare at her expectantly.

Just burn it. Burn it and you'll be a healer like Eira, or a cook, or something.

Bending over, she held the flame to the book. To her surprise, the eye seemed to look astounded, even angry. Out of no where, it shut. The eye. On the book. Just shut. She dropped the torch in the snow as the book floated in midair, before crumpling to the ground next to her bag. Wind pricked her face, and she shielded it with her hands. When she opened them, a flying cat thing was in front of her.

"You can't burn the book," it said, exasperated. Its voice was evidently that of a young adult male, and the winged cat's expression made her want to punch it. If she could ever do such a thing.

She breathed, but didn't say anything. Her eyes were the size of saucers, and she was trembling all over.

"You inadvertently summoned me," It said, sighing. "If you would have actually read the thing before you tried to burn it, you would have known the emotions that fuel each magical school. Witches study those emotions. Sorcerers have the good emotion of courage, but also rage; Wizards by sheer intelligence, but also arrogance." He looked down at Yvara, who was having trouble processing this. "Yaddi yadda, witches are fueled by pride and desire. Two negative traits if you look at them that way, really. Actually, this is a philosophical debate on the nature of both 'pride' and 'desire' among the Cunning --"

Yvara said, "How?" Her voice was slow, strained, and falsely calm.

The cat gave another exasperated sigh. "You desired answers to your problems. Like the little witch you are, you summoned me -- a creature of the Shadowlands. I am Aku, the smartest of all the Cunning."

If Yvara had read up on her Shadowland mythology, she would know that the Cunning were the servants of the god of wisdom Dokoran. Their duty is to record the happenings of Fourstone from the other world, the Shadowlands, via a powerful well known as Dokoran's Eye. The Cunning weren't used by the Witch-Queen, though, and Aku found that very nice; the Shadowlands were being emptied by Voada's power, bringing the nasty things that preyed on poor little Cunnings like Droths and Harpies to the physical world. The Cunning were bookkeepers and librarians, loremasters of the Shadowlands. In life they were Wizards and Enchantresses that were dedicated to scholarly pursuits. Dokoran honored them by making them his personal slaves in the realm of monsters and demons. The gods are just. -wipes tear-

"I didn't summon you," Yvara said cautiously. She was impressed if she did summon him, though, and deep down . . she knew she did.

"Didn't you? Then another weak little dabbler must have. Where is she?" He looked around sarcastically, turning his gaze to Yvara again. "Look, kid, you did. Ugh. Why couldn't the power of Summoning have been given to the Wizards by Nerissa? I haven't had a good conversation with any of these uneducated novice witches that keep conjuring me up."

The story he was referring to was, according to legend, when there had only been Three instead of Four, Tristan and Dokoran enjoyed the majority over Alma. It reflected on Fourstone, and women were treated second-class. Alma knew she had to do something about it; women were no better than property to men, and had no chance in the world other than to bear children. She tricked Dokoran into impregnating her, and only a week later, she gave birth to a baby girl. The girl aged in seconds to become a beautiful goddess; Nerissa, the goddess of balance. She saw that the world was imbalanced, and created the moon; when the moon balanced out the sun's influence, day became night. The moon, however, was from the Shadowlands; it was their sun. She took it and to this day there is a dark hole where it should have been. To keep the bridge to the Shadowlands from unleashing chaos, she granted women the ability to harness Witchcraft, the final school of magic. They could manipulate the power of the moon and summon creatures from the Shadowlands. Gradually, as men saw women could do what they did just as well, women became everything from priestesses to witches to warriors. Just a myth, of course.

When he turned again to Yvara, she returned a glassy stare. She had no idea what he was talking about. "You don't read much, do you? Your friend, the Gray girl, received a Book of Lore in her bag. You might want to read it instead of summoning a Cunning every time your lost. Which, judging by the appearance of your group, will be often."

Yvara slowly felt herself weakening even more than she had been. The cat creature looked down on her. "Agh, finally. You're weakening. I can leave. Luckily, the same witch rarely summons me twice. Get some other poor Cunning next time." He disappeared in a flash of gray smoke, as quickly as he came.

She now knew three things:

The no-good Cunning just kept talking, and he didn't even answer the question she accidentally summoned him for.

She was now officially a novice witch. Her first spell had been cast without her knowledge. She glared at the book on the ground, gathering it in her bag.

And lastly; if she could choose, Aku would be the only Cunning she summoned.





(No. Food. >:I)

Serana was soon bored of sitting in the tree. She jumped out easily, without flexing a muscle.

She slung her bag over her shoulder as she was walking, and smelled smoke. She smelled a fire! It wasn't the one they had set up though. She didn't want to startle whoever it was, so she quickly climbed up the tree quickly like it was nothing. She climbed from tree to tree, until she was looking down on the fire. She saw a faint form, and a girl form. "Yvara? Is that you? Are you okay?" She asked, climbing down from the tree. She ran over to Yvara. "Common! Let's get back to the group!" She said. "They might worry where we went!"

(Hey, Kip, that's kind of godmoddy. Spying on her was okay, but catching the tree on fire? I wrote that it extinguished in the fire. :3 Sorry if you read it wrong, I'm not very good at . . . writing. xD Also: no more stealing things from the kitchen. They left with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the bags they got. And there is no river around here. There is further in the forest, but they won't come across it; it is near Silvershrine and is a bay to the ocean. )

OOC: Sorry! I'll change it!

(Okay. I should also add, we really should have this OOC discussions in the Discussion thread here. My fault that I didn't. x3)

As people began introducing themselves, Garai finally came out of his little phase and had joined back into the conversation. The fire was tolerable now, especially since it brought nice warmth in the freezing forest. As people continued speaking, he waited for them to get done before introducing himself, but he was stopped when Enro had stumbled into the little makeshift camp with a bloody head. Garai had slightly panicked at the sight, hoping that nothing was lurking in these trees trying to get to them, but when he heard the boy's story about tripping, the young Redlander was finally able to relax. With a heavy sigh, he began pondering at the thoughts of what the group was going to have to go through in the future, all while his stomach continued to complain and moan at him, wanting any kind of edible food. Even non-edible food seemed pretty great right now, no matter how much it might possibly kill him... yeah, never mind. He wanted good food. The food from the feast they were going to have at the ceremony. That was going to be a great meal.

Soon, the surprise and shock from the people surrounding him once again brought him out of his thoughts. The next thing he saw was Eira slumping from exhaustion as Enro had been healed of his wound. Garai quickly raised his eyebrows at the sight, wondering how the girl could have done that, but everyone else seemed to ask this question for him so he decided to stay silent once more. Maybe she would answer and cure all of their curiosity.

But it didn't seem like it was going to happen. After the group had gotten over the surprise of the magic that had just taken place, besides the automatic fire that had lit from Elden earlier, they began to climb into the trees to find a place to sleep since they had nothing better. It was definitely better than the ground, since that was one place that would never grow warm from body heat. The young man knew that from the desert. After a moment, he turned to see more people doing the same thing and finally he decided to follow suit. Slowly, he stood up and trudged to the nearest tree which was rather large and a little awkward to try to climb-- an ability he did not have. The flat sands were his home, so this tree was like a challenge which he definitely was going to accept.

Making sure he had a good grip on parts of the bark that seemed to stick out from the tree, he tried to find a good foothold so that he could push himself up to the closest branch. As his foot skidded across the trunk, it finally caught and he managed to pull himself up about a foot from the ground. But, as soon as he tried to find another foothold, the one his first foot was on suddenly gave way, being nothing but a piece of bark that stuck out of the side. Instantly, his body weight fell, putting too much pressure on his hands so he had to let go, falling back to the ground with a stumble. With an aggravated sigh, he brushed off his hands and tried again, finally managing to make it up so that he could grab the lowest branch that seemed to be strong enough to hold his weight. He awkwardly pulled himself up until he sat on it with relief.

"Well, after that little show," He muttered, though the longer he spoke, the clearer his voice got, even if it didn't get too loud. "I am Garai Mubarak of the Redlands, if it wasn't obvious already."

With a soft smile and her dark, green eyes shining with amusement, she watched as Elden struggled to pull himself up. Admittedly, with the bark soft and hard to grip, it probably had been difficult to do. She shrugged back on her cloak again and got comfortable against the trunk. "Good one." she praised quietly, a bit teasingly albiet, but true-worded.
The tree sheltered her pleanty from the wind and snow, but she still found herself harshly shivering. This was going to be a long night... She found herself a bit jealous of Elden, the snow elf couldn't be as uncomfortable as they rest if them were.

Silya held back a sigh and took out her bag, pulling out the arrow inside - just to look it over and admire it once more, her mind drifting curiously before carefully putting it back away. She didn't feel like dealing with those same thoughts at the moment. She laughed a little quietly as this Garai-person struggled to climb up into the trees as well. Silya leaned back and closed her eyes. Sleep, come to her now, please.

Enro opened an eye to watch Garai awkwardly climb the tree, then noticed that, despite Yvara and Serana, he was the only one lying on the ground. With a sigh, he stood and glanced around. He saw a tree, with a forked branch that looked like it could hold his weight. He grabbed his pack and slipped it on slowly, then placed his foot on a piece of bark protruding from the trunk, and put the ball of his foot there. He clawed at the tree, and managed to grab some bark. Half-hugging the tree, he managed to pull himself up the bark and to the forked branch. Taking his pack off, he lay where the split came together, laying his back and head against the tree. It felt safer than the ground, but at the same time felt like the most dangerous place in the world; despite Silvershrine. He shivered at the thought of his home burning, ruble and ashes now, Voada's army having conquered the city. Who was next? The young boy simply tensed and turned his back to the fire, trying to push the thoughts away.

Yvara, trembled, gathered the book from the snow. Wiping it off with her cloak hastily, she stuck it back in the bag. She got up and smoothed her skirt, and put her bag around her shoulder. Yvara nearly jumped out of her skin when Serana approached, seemingly from no where. This girl was seriously sneaky, even when she didn't appear to be trying to. Did she climb trees to get here? Yvara had to admit, that was impressive. She hadn't even seen the girl slinking around like a Tree Elf.

"Oh, right," Yvara said, her voice soft and melodic as ever. "I couldn't find anything to eat, sorry." She dusted herself off once more, still frightened from summoning Aku, and now Serana's stealthiness.

As she walked back to their barely-a-camp, she thought everyone had left her and Serana. She quickly realized, however, that they were all perched in trees around the clearing. Should she as well? No, she thought, [i]That is not happening. They were all obviously skilled, but Yvara was not built for climbing. Or all this walking. Without saying a word, she walked towards the fire, and set her bag down. She laid her head on her arms, and slowly drifted off to sleep.

Koa sighed as most of the orphans retreated into the trees. He looked up at the trunk that he was propped up on, considering joining them before sighing and looking down. There was no way he'd be able to sleep in those branches. What if he fell? What if he couldn't even get up the tree and made himself look silly? Koa looked around at the trees. Predators might be lurking. Elden's fire gave off a protective light that put his mind at ease, though. He pulled his arms and legs into his robes, trying to curl up into a ball and get as much warmth as possible. Hopefully the clothes would be dry by the time he woke up.

Hopefully.

The Wavefolk closed his eyes, trying to imagine himself at home. Croft Orphanage. I never thought I'd miss that place... Koa thought to himself, before drifting off to a much needed sleep.

The Redlander girl looked at her comrades in the trees around her. She gave a sigh as she looked at them all trying to sleep. She would love to join them but someone needed to keep watch. Akila sat up from her leaning platoon and grabbed the branch to the side of her. She twisted her body so that she faced the branch she grabbed. She gave a huff before slowly sliding down to a hnaging position before letting and landing on the ground with a soft thud. She looked around again before she pulled her dagger from its sheath at her side. She slowly exammined her blade before returning her eyes to the horizion to look out for anything coming. She slowly walked around the clearing, her dagger reflecting moonlight as she did.

Eira rubbed at her eyes, as if that could somehow stop her from being tired. At the Wavefolk's question she blinked, thinking of a good explanation. "I-I don't really know... There was instructions in my book- that's what I got in my bag." Her explanation was weak, an she blushed slightly from the extra attention she was receiving. Shoving the book back into her brown bag, she was relieved to have the attention draw away from her and into the trees as everyone got comfortable. Eira bit her lip, uncertain if she should follow suit or not. The girl was just as comfortable on the ground, and the cold snow didn't faze her. She figured her problems would be greater in the trees. How in the world was someone to sleep if they could easily fall off?

Making up her mind, Eira moved to a tree trunk covered only slightly by snow, as opposed to the powdery clearing. She laid down her cloak on the leaves and precipitation before sitting on it an wrapping the thick purple cloth around her. She looked up at the others, biting her lip. She noticed a very uncomfortable looking Yvara, also refusing to sleep in a place where one could easily get injured. "Um... Yvara? It's Yvara, right? Do you want my cloak? I don't need it, I doubt I'll be able to sleep, and it's comfy." She offered politely, already standing and grabbing her cloak. She didn't leave room for any refusal as she balled up the cloth and tossed it towards the young woman. Now without a cloak, Eira moved closer to the fire and laid down.

She looked around at the large group of teens and sighed. Unfortunate events had brought them together, but now their fates were linked. "Goodnight everyone." She called, closing her eyes and attempting to sleep.

Serana headed back from where she had found Yvara. What was she doing? Is she okay? She asked herself. Never mind that. I'll think more on it in the morning.

She climbed back up into her tree, and found a comfortable position. "Good night, everyone!" She said sleepily. "I will be much more help in the morning when I think clearly." She muttered. She pulled her cloak further onto her body, and whispered while holding her pendant, "Good night, mother. Continue watching over me."

She quickly grabbed her bag and examined her arrow once more, having a sudden thought of interest. I'll think more clearly in the morning, she reminded herself after forgetting what she was doing. "See you in the morning." She once again said to the group, and closed her eyes. "Today has been the longest day of my life." She muttered. Serana slipped off into a long, dark sleep.