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Post by Kiryu on Aug 13, 2020 23:13:45 GMT -8
Kai's Aegis. A prison for fallen gods and demonic warlords and worse besides. A bulwark of reality. A bastion of hope, perhaps, when all was said and done.
For Kiryu Miyazawa, this was the place he was calling home.
There was a presence, here. One barely awake. The one that had called out to him, had summoned Kiryu and his allies over vast distances to lend her aid against some lesser demons who, through trickery, had spent years untold feeding off of her energy. Kiryu hadn't been able to defeat them with his own strength; when he had tried, it had been like standing in front of a tidal wave with an umbrella. The channel that the demons had been using to feed, however, was still open, and with his friends Cade and Zaru buying him time, Kiryu had been able to reverse the flow of that energy, empowering the spirit of the island that had brought them here in the first place.
The fight that followed had still not been easy; Kiryu and his allies had been weary, but the demons had been weakened enough that they had managed to send them back to... wherever they had been spawned to begin with.
The presence had retreated a bit, then, free of pain and violation for the first time in what had to be, at least, centuries. Kiryu could still feel her in the back of his mind, her Name a knot in the back of his head. He dared not speak it for fear of summoning the spirit before she was ready; Kiryu was not afraid for himself, he merely wished to give her time to heal and become whole once more. So for now he kept even her Name out of his active thoughts and devoted his time to learning more of this place and it's history.
What better place than the library?
For an ancient library in a forgotten ruin, it was actually pretty neat. Some force had sealed the doors, though they opened for Kiryu, and the inside of the library was remarkably intact and in good condition. Sturdy wooden shelves contained rows and rows of tomes and books. Combing through all of the information there would take ages, but Kiryu knew there was no other way to do it than to... well, just do it. He grabbed a handful of leather bound books and made a start.
Kiryu was swiftly able to discern that the library did, in fact, have a sort of organization system. In one section, there were histories; some of these dated back to times so long ago he could not begin to place them. Some of them were written in a scrip that he had never seen before and could not begin to comprehend. Some were more mundane, like modern day history texts. There were several other sections that followed similar patterns; one was a section devoted to books and information on the entities that were imprisoned on the island, and another seemed to be accounts from various people who had, at one point or another throughout the ages, been to Kai's Aegis.
It was that last area where Kiryu followed. He though it would behoove him to learn of the people that had been here before him; to know what they had done here, and why, and see if they had any pearls of wisdom. Kiryu concentrated for a moment, trying to feel, and trust his instincts. After a few minutes of searching, Kiryu came across what appeared to be a medium book bound in a reddish brown leather. The book was far heavier than it appeared, and Kiryu took it to a nearby table and sat down, opening to the first page.
The name I have gone by in this age of the world is Asher. That is not the name I was born with. I was born Eitan ben Yusef, heir to the line of Suleiman the Magnificent. In the long days of my life I have been archmage, sorcerer supreme, protector of this world against forces most will never know exist. My life is mine to extend as I wish, and yet I find myself growing weary of this plane, and those I love that have departed it. Despite my great powers, it is not given me to pass through the veil of life at will, and sooner, now, rather than later, I will leave my mortality behind to begin the next phase of my existence and be reunited with those I hold most dear.
I do not know who will read this. Denied to me is the knowledge of in what strange aeon this tome will be found, and indeed, who will be doing the finding. But you are here, at the Aegis, and that is proof that you have the ability to be what I was. To master the magics of the world and better serve it. But I am the last guardian. I will not call another, for this life is one that grinds most to dust. I am the nine hundred and ninety ninth Archon of Kai's Aegis. There will be another, but not before it is time. Not before the Aegis itself calls a new guardian, and you will need knowledge, or you will be in grave danger.
It is, I suppose, best to begin at the beginning.
I do not know who built the Aegis. But I do know why, and through hearing my tale, perhaps you will come to know your own purpose.
I began life as Eitan ben Yusef. My story was a rather simple, and at first, rather common. You see, I loved a girl... and she died.
I had known Nuada ever since we were children. My words can not do her beauty justice... at least, they can not do justice to her beauty in my eyes. She had a laugh that would set my head to spinning and light fire in my veins. We would laugh and talk and count the stars and sing together and talk about the future.
Then, she became ill.
PART 1 [WC=1,018]
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Post by Kiryu on Aug 14, 2020 12:13:44 GMT -8
Kiryu turned the pages of what seemed to be a memoir of the self proclaimed Archon, Asher... or whatever exactly his real name was. Something about it was engrossing to Kiryu; he absentmindedly exerted his magical energy to summon some precious items from the extradimensional space that he created to store them. A cask of whiskey, Yagavluin, to be exact, appeared in front of Kiryu, along with a curved, glencairn glass. Yagavulin was one of Kiryu's favorite brands; apparently founded by a Hall of Fame baseball player hundreds of years ago, the distillery had produced various blends of surpassing quality for generations. It wasn't for everyone; the smoke and peat were quite present, but to Kiryu, they were well blended for a smoky but smooth mouthful that filled him with warmth.
Kiryu's chosen blend was one of their more accessible, providing an excellent balance between cost and quality, and he poured the whiskey from the cask into the glass. Kiryu then called upon his magic to chill the glass (not the liquid itself; he didn't want a temperature change to mess with the whiskey's chemistry), then took a sip. Smiling, satisfied, Kiryu returned to the tome.
This was no natural sickness. Even at that age, my talent with magic was obvious. I could heal wounds, treat ailments, command the elements. But no matter the power I used, no matter the arts at my command, nothing I could do was able to cure Nuada's sickness. I slowed it, a bit... and that was almost worse, for it gave us hope, and prolonged her suffering.
We had snuck off, since we were children, to a meadow in the forest. It was idyllic, with fallen trees overgrown with moss, wildlife abounding, and a pond cool enough to take the edge off of the summer days.
When it was her time, Nuada bid me bear her hence, to our spot. It was the first place that we had kissed. It was the first place that we had made love, when we were mature enough to decide to do so. It was where we retreated to be healed of our worries and hurts and find solace with one another against the sorrows of the world.
On this day, I carried her there. I laid her in a bed of flowers. We sang together, our voices twining, perfect in their harmony, her voice strong and clear and beautiful despite her illness. My voice was my pride; my songs had wrought tears from men who were as stone and set joy in the hearts of those in the throes of despair.
As our song ended, so did her life, and in all of the passing centuries, I have never found it within myself to sing again.
The next five years are a blur. I became a drunken wastrel; I sought the solace of the bottle, of the smoking herbs, of the pleasures of the flesh. Men, women, it did not matter; I followed any avenue that offered the slightest chance of forgetting myself, forgetting my pain. I squandered my gifts, ignored my potential, and was on a path of self destruction.
Little did I know that this was all according to the designs of the enemy.
One night, returning home, a figure awaited me. It was shaped like a man, but it was not one. It was formed of rock and earth and stone, and on it's forehead was the sigil of 'Life' in the ancient tongue. It bore a book... the very one you read now. And as I goggled at this strange construct, it spoke to me, with a voice like a mountain falling. I will not transcribe our conversation, for that is immaterial, but what I learned is this;
My line stretched back to the early days of this world. My ancestor was Suleiman; magician, archmage, binder, Archon. Through arcane means he had extended his life for centuries... millenia, even. He had stood for ages, protecting our realms from forces beyond, ensuring they did not leave their home dimensions to invade ours. He did so using this book; the Chronicle of the Ten Spheres. It is... everything. All the knowledge that exists, contained herein. Every world, every secret is yours... should you wish to risk it. For using this tome is to pit your mind against it, and the tome is possessed of it's own animus, it's own power, an ocean against which even staying afloat is a titanic struggle. In my long life I have used it thrice; each time, I kept my sanity by a thread, wrenching the knowledge I sought from the tome as a thief in the night.
Suleiman had mastery over the tome, and, in ancient times, had bound himself to it and to Kai's Aegis. He channeled their power and defended our realm against the fist Conjunction, the time when the other Spheres came close enough to ours to cross over, leaving us vulnerable to dark forces. During the Second Conjunction, a great battle in which many heroes of the Ancient World fought, Suleiman realized that he had bound himself too closely to the Chronicle, to the Aegis, and to the Conjunction itself. The way to end it, to sever these deeper ties to our dimension, was to give up his life. And so it was that Suleiman, greatest of Wizards, ended the spells that sustained his life beyond a mortal span, and passed into the beyond.
At his passing, his golem, created for just such a purpose, took the Chronicle and delivered it to Suleiman's nearest living descendant, the scion of his bloodline that could command the self same power, could, for a time, master death itself and defend our realm against all that would threaten it.
Me.
I was nowhere near ready for the responsibility. I tried to burn the book. I tried to send it beneath the waves. To bury it in the earth. No matter what I did to the tome, the next day, it would appear next to me, whole and pristine.
I was nowhere near strong enough to face this, not as I was. And sooner than I could imagine, denizens of the darkness began to hunt for me.
I would need to become someone else.
[WC=1045] [TWC=2,063]
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Post by Vidar (PROJECT: RAGNAROK) on Aug 17, 2020 16:06:23 GMT -8
It had been some time since the blonde cyborg had been called by someone; in fact, the last person to have actually called him was Riku - unless one counts the mass text message that was sent out by Cayle as a call and then it was Cayle, the owner of the Taco King ...floating restaurant? Was it just a boat? He never really had the chance to ask him about that. He just knew that he ran a boat restaurant and it had a bit of a pirate problem; or at least it had one the last time that he had been on it. Still, that was beside the point.
Vidar was still lacking an arm. The empty shoulder socket was rather jarring for anyone to look at; or at least that was the impression that he got from the various gasps and stares he got from anyone that saw him, his old arm kept in a sling and draped over his shoulder in barely taped together pieces. Even Tiger Lilly had given him somewhat of a look and had even offered to get a relative of hers to try and fix his arm, some kind of doctor. But, would they be able to repair his cybernetics? Were they a scientist? Well, he didn't recall. They had been interrupted by strange cultists in rabbit bandanas and UFO t-shirts before he could ask the young woman anything about it.
That had been quite the adventure; then again, every few moments since Vidar left the secret underground lab of Doctor Kringle in the Southern Islands had been some kind of strange adventure; meeting up with a strange snake woman - he wondered how she was doing - as well as meeting Riku, the cyborg samurai, while helping the Southern Island fishing Association with their fishing dilemma only to end up dealing with anomalous fish creatures on an island that doesn't exist on any map fighting off sub-sea monsters that bled acid. They also smelled terrible. He couldn't help but remember the lung choking stench which radiated from those slimy fish folk; their eyes pearly white like those of dead fish...
And then there was the temple in Pilafland... Every few moments, some strange building with non-Euclidean geometries appeared before him and it really hurt his head.
He had been spending some time in the Southern Islands, visiting the various islands there - dealing with weirdos on sharks and the usual - when he received the call. The name Kiryu had appeared flashing across his HUD.
It took him a few seconds to recall the name and quickly answered the call. He didn't need to touch anything, he wasn't holding a phone in his hand. The call was routed directly into his HUD automatically and thus he would hear the call inside his own head; which made it handy for communicating with people and he didn't want their half of the conversation overheard by any nosy individuals nearby.
His HUD picked up the call.
"Ok. Let's try ONE MORE TIME," the person on the other line had a familiar voice, albeit this time it was not beaming with excitement and joy for living. They sounded downright frustrated, "Is this... what was his name again - eh, Robot guy, Riku, no that's the other robot guy, uh he lost an arm, oh, I remember now. Vidar, is this Vidar?"
The reason the voice sounded familiar was because it belonged to Kiryu. Vidar recognized it rather easily having had the man's voice recorded from when he met him during the Inheritor's Tournament - which Kiryu ran in order to find a protegee, or a student. Unfortunately, Vidar was not chosen. He was rather soundly beaten - and lost his arm in the process of it.
"Yes, this is Vidar," The blonde replied.
"Oh, thank you," Kiryu could be heard breathing a sigh of relief from the other side of the phone call, "I've tried at least four other different numbers. One of them just kept ringing, one of them got answered by a little girl, one of them was, apparently, to some kind of consolate, and the last one was a seafood restaurant..."
"...." He did not really know how to respond to that.
"So, ok, uh, the reason I'm calling, I was wondering if you were still down an arm? I recall the last time I saw you, I think it was on the Taco King? Or was it that weird...pirate ship?" He was thinking it over then he went back to the topic, "Anyway, if you're still missing an arm, are you?"
"Yes, I am still missing one of my arms; well, technically it is not missing, it is just broken. I have the parts right here. However, I have not found a scientist capable of repairing it for me."
"Well, then it's a good thing that I managed to remember your contact information," There was a bit of a laugh on the other side of the line - there was the familiar warmth that Vidar had noticed from the man, "So, I'm going to send you some coordinates, I want you to meet up with me in this location. I have a feeling I may be able to help you with your predicament. If I'm right, I will be able to replace your missing arm with something far better than anything you'll find in Pilafland."
And that was how Vidar was invited by Kiryu to come along on...an adventure? Maybe, possibly, it was a high probability. Once he was given the coordinates, Vidar headed off to meet up with the man.
The trip took some time and by the time he arrived, it had been at least a day or so? He hadn't been paying much attention to the time. His mind was focused on the task at hand; find Kiryu and get a brand new arm. Apparently, one that may be better than the one he had before; good, he was due for an upgrade anyway.
The location that he had been told to visit was...not what he had expected. It was some kind of library and as he walked inside, he was amazed by the sheer amount of information that was stuffed into the shelves around him.
He liked it there.
WC: 1,045 Starting PL: 21,239
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Post by Kiryu on Aug 17, 2020 22:40:41 GMT -8
Kiryu stood outside the building that was the top level of the prison fortress that was Kai's Aegis. It was a somewhat ancient appearing stone exterior with a large reinforced gate that looked strong enough to keep out an army. It sat on an island within an island; Kai's Aegis was removed from civilization, but the true bastion of it was at the center of a jungle and surrounded by deep, mysterious waters. Kiryu had initially not been able to fly there; he, Zaru and Cade had had to take a boat. Since overcoming the trials and becoming, apparently, the new Archon, Kiryu had some power over the island, and he relaxed it's defenses with an effort of will, allowing Vidar to hone in on his considerable energy signature. Kiryu took in the sight of the android as Vidar approached, noting his still damaged arm. It had received that damage in an impromptu tournament Kiryu had held to find some disciples, and though Vidar had fallen short in the contest, his clash with Riku had been superb, with both fighters displaying the sort of valor as well as restraint that let Kiryu know they were people he would be happy to stand with.
As Vidar landed, Kiryu waved, then beckoned Vidar to follow. With another effort of will, one that was becoming second nature to Kiryu as he became more used to the island and his mystical links to it, Kiryu commanded the entrance to open, and open it did. Kiryu led Vidar to the library that he had just been spending some time in, talking as he walked.
"Thanks for coming! I'm hoping you found the place okay; I'm still sort of new to letting people past the wards. Nothing bad would have happened, don't worry, you just wouldn't have been able to find the place properly... uh, I guess that might take a bit of explaining. This place is, like, super magical, though, and I'm thinking we can be of help to each other."
Kiryu walked over to one of the tables he had been using for research, where scrolls and books completely covered the wood underneath. He picked up one of the scrolls; it was a map of the complex of Kai's Aegis, created by Archon Asher, the man who's journal (which apparently was also an artifact called the Chronicle of the Ten Spheres?) he had been studying.
"All right... so. Yeah. I guess this is the part where we get to know each other a little bit. I've got more than my share of magical talent, and I was called here. I believe I was called here for a very important reason; this island has a personification, one that was being fed on. I freed her when I got here, so that's taken care of... but this island also has a purpose. I don't fully know what that is, yet, but I do know that there are some incredibly powerful and dangerous entities incarcerated here. I know this might seem like I'm rambling on, and I'm sorry about that, but... uh, yeah, new territory for me here. This place was created by... I don't know who. It's been around for thousands of years and has levels I haven't accessed yet. In looking at this map, I found mention of a vault, and I also found a record of what was in that vault. The language is hard to make out; I don't speak it but I was able to cross reference it in one of those other books here. It looks like one of the former denizens of this place once lost an arm in battle, and created a prosthetic that was a fusion of magic and technology. It surely wouldn't be as advanced technologically as what you can find these days... but the magical properties could more than make up for it. Even if it needs some tinkering, I'm willing to bet we can get this to interface with your circuitry!
Besides that..."
Kiryu's grin turned a bit sheepish.
"Well, this place is huge... and kind of lonely. I could do with a friendly face, and you really impressed me with the way you fought. I thought, I don't know, maybe we'd get along."
Kiryu actually flushed a bit, and rubbed the back of his head, chuckling awkwardly.
"Sorry. Not a ton of social skills... growing up in isolation will do that to you! Anyway, worst case scenario, you get a neat new magic arm. While we're at it, you can tell me about yourself. Everything goes right, heck, there's plenty of space here. Stay a bit, train, hang out. See which one of us gets drunk first... if you can get drunk. I'm not actually super familiar with how that... all works. At all."
[WC=801] [TWC=2,864]
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Post by Vidar (PROJECT: RAGNAROK) on Aug 18, 2020 16:57:34 GMT -8
There he was. The man who had called him. Kiryu. He looked exactly as he remembered him; well, it hadn't been that long. Also, during the little trip to find the place, he did take a few ganders at the images that he had taken of Kiryu during the tournament. He made sure to memorize the man's appearance, as well as listened to his voice, which he also had recorded in his memory. It had sounded different over the phone but that was the same with everyone; everyone sounded different when speaking on the phone as opposed to in person... Though technically, Vidar wasn't using a phone...Well, no matter. Still, the man's face was a warm welcome. He was brawny, just as Vidar remembered him, and he welcomed him to....whatever this place was, rather warmly.
As he approached the man, he allowed his eyes to wander, his scanners sweeping over everything that they could land on, photos taken, audio and video recording, so much new material for his memory banks...though, even as he recorded and saw and looked everywhere, he couldn't help but feel something was amiss about the place. There was a certain strange energy to it, different than any other place he'd been before. Even that strange island in the Southern Seas, that did not belong on any map, did not feel like this. That island had felt wrong, it had felt out of place. This place... it felt different but it didn't feel like an aberration, a mistake upon the beauty of Mother Nature.
He was waved over by Kiryu and as he began to walk over to him, he was led inside the structure. Even looking at it, he couldn't help but feel a sense of awe; not just at its size but its age. It just felt old. It felt ancient. It felt as if it was just a part of the Earth itself, molded and shaped and given purpose. The energies were radiating from this place too, this large library, and so as not to get lost, Vidar stuck close to Kiryu and listened to him as he spoke to him.
"It took some time but as you can see, I was able to find it. You were very detailed in your directions on how to get here; although, I assume the wards are what made the place somewhat more difficult to find. I have never dealt with 'magic' before, or at least I do not believe I have. But, this place feels... alive, somehow. There is an energy here that I have never felt before, not before or after I was released from Doctor Kringle's lab. It's something...different, strange, but not in a negative way. I do not feel...uneasy, as I did on that strange island..." He tapped his chin, attempting to find a better way to describe what he was feeling. But, describing what he was feeling was something that Vidar was just not very good at.
And that's why Kiryu had called him to that place; he had found something interesting while he was digging through all of the tomes and scrolls that filled every single nook and cranny and shelf of the library, or so Vidar assumed. The man did sound excited about his find, and it was... well considerate of him to think of Vidar when he found that information; after all, he must have remembered that Vidar lost an arm during the tournament that he had hosted.
"Magic is something I have almost no data on in any of my data banks. I do not believe Doctor Kringle nor the Red Ribbon Army believed much in magic; aside from some strange... objects that the scientists commented on from time to time, but I was never able to learn the name of them. Something balls, I'm not entirely sure what they were, balls of some kind, magical balls? I wish that I could find the other hidden labs; perhaps they would hold more information on those objects. Still, you are talented; I could tell that when you held the tournament. But, if this arm is still here somewhere, do you think it would be possible to make it sync up with my own cybernetics?" He peered over at the empty socket where his shoulder used to connect to his arm before it was removed.
Kiryu did explain this place was old, so at least Vidar's suspicions were well founded. He also commented on a language that he could not speak but managed to barely decipher by cross-referencing various texts with what he had found and essentially working out the gist of what it was saying, "That is quite impressive. I would not mind learning more about this place; absorbing as much knowledge as possible, especially if that artificial limb which you speak of is magic powered or magic based, would help the process of syncing up the prosthetic to my cybernetics that much easier."
Kiryu commented there was a second reason for having called Vidar there. This place, this strange location in which the great library sat in the middle of, on an island within a larger island, it was immense - which Vidar did get the feeling it was much larger than he had originally given it credit for - and somewhat lonely. He had noticed that there were no other living beings around, anywhere, in fact.
"I fought to the best of my ability. Unfortunately, my best was not good enough. However, there is no such thing as failure. There is but another chance to learn from one's mistakes and then grow from them. Doctor Kringle said this often."
The man behaved....somewhat like Vidar.
"I spent most of my life in an underground laboratory, surrounded by scientists who were not much for small-talk. They did not view me as a person, save for Doctor Kringle, they saw me as a tool. I was a weapon, nothing more. Social skills are not my forte. But, I am willing to try; I would be happy to stay here with you."
And then... Alcohol was mentioned.
He recalled that he tried alcohol for the first time not long after he lost his match. He believed it was a pina colada? Either way, his alcohol tolerance was nonexistent. It had hit him quite hard back then. But would he be able to handle another drink now? It was possible.
"It is possible for me to become inebriated."
WC: 1,080 | 2,125
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Post by Kiryu on Aug 19, 2020 22:46:51 GMT -8
When he heard Vidar say the magic words- that it was possible for him to become inebriated- Kiryu grinned and could not quite hold back a small fist pump of victory. He listened to the rest of what the android said as well, nodding along. It seemed that, though it was certainly for different purposes, and Kiryu's upbringing was a product of love and duty and honor rather than scientific inquiry and the creation of war machine, the realities of their past and how it shaped them might hold more similarities than either would have initially been able to guess.
"This Doctor Kringle sounds like an interesting man," Kiryu said. "It sounds like you had a rough go of it in the past, but it's good you had someone that was looking out for you. I don't know where I would have ended up if I didn't have my parent's guidance to fall back on. This is going to shock you, I'm sure, but there's not actually a ton out there on the internet for teenage wizards learning that everything they think they know about how they fight and who they are isn't right. A lot of great cat pictures, though... so, you know, thanks for that internet."
When Vidar mentioned coming up short at the tournament, Kiryu shrugged. "Honestly? Who won and lost was almost entirely superfluous. Contests like that can be won and lost in a hundred different ways. If we held the same tournament with the same participants the very next day, the outcome may have been very different. Fighting is like that. It was more about using that competition to learn who you are. Do you crack under pressure? Do you inflict more injury than you have to when your strength and skill is clearly superior? Do you adapt your tactics to a shifting battlefield and utilize the best strategy you can?
Funnily enough I just had a sparring match with one of the other participants, the Saiyan, Celerai. Decent enough guy, and he's got some power for sure... but he's one dimensional. Kind of just a charging head on over and over until he punches you apart kind of fighter. And that's fine, there are plenty of people that works for. For me, though... I can spar and offer pointers but I'm never going to be the person best suited to really be the master of someone like that, you know?"
As they continued to speak, Kiryu got up and began walking, motioning for Vidar to follow. The fortress that was Kai's Aegis was massive, bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside, and labyrinthine. Kiryu, due to his connection to the island, seemed to always know where he was and where he was going. It would probably take someone else a much longer time to become used to the maze of tunnels that seemingly shifted from time to time. After a minute, Kiryu led Vidar to a stairwell, and went down a level.
"Make sure you keep an eye out," Kiryu continued, his tone bouyant. "We should be fine, but there... might be an escaped nasty or two I didn't catch on my initial sweep of the place. Anything that's loose shouldn't be anything too powerful for us to handle... but if it's something here, it absolutely will not be a pushover either. Just wanted to give you a heads up!"
The stonework did not change, and all of the levels under the earth had walls lined with torches blazing with everflame. It was a simple, fairly common magical spell, creating a mystical conflagration that gave off light similar to a lit torch, but provided no actual heat. Taking a right turn, Kiryu stopped in front of a stone door. Engraved on the stone was a geometrically perfect five pointed star ringed in two circles, with arcane runes etched at various points along the stone. There was no latch or handle or lock to be seen; one of the many features of the island was that it seemed only to function for those it wished to function for. Or those it's Archon had given access to. Kiryu placed his hand on the door, concentrated for a moment, and it slid upward, disappearing into the ceiling.
Stepping through the door, Kiryu looked around the vault. There were several such repositories of relics littered about the structure; it was going to take time for Kiryu to catalog them all. Not all were as well sealed as this one; several had, apparently, been plundered over the centuries, and it gave Kiryu chills to think of what some of the nastier eldritch entities he had learned of could do with items of power stolen from a stronghold such as this. Still, that was a problem for another day. He was still learning, had barely even started to figure out what he was doing here. It was going to be a while before he was ready to hunt down any errant artifacts or check the lower levels, where Kiryu could sense some of the more powerful denizens, out of their cells but unable to break through the wards on their levels.
Inside this particular vault, however, the relics had been undisturbed by the passing of years. There were several items that thrummed with magical energy; a simple looking oak club. A maul that looked like it's handle had been cut short. A spear etched with ravens in a language Kiryu had never seen. A cloak of dark feathers that made him uneasy when he looked at it. A cauldron inlaid with gold. They were powerful, yes... but Kiryu knew quite well they were not for him. As surely as he knew right from wrong, he knew that these items time had come and gone, and any attempt to use them again would only lead to disaster.
There were items of less obvious power as well, and it was one such that Kiryu sought. After a few moments of searching, Kiryu found it; a metal arm, looking like something out of a high budget steampunk cosplay.
"That's the thing I was talking about. I'm thinking we see if we can fit it to our arm and if it doesn't work right off, I can try some magic mojo and maybe jump start the thing. What do you think?"
[WC=1,060] [TWC=3,942]
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Post by Vidar (PROJECT: RAGNAROK) on Aug 20, 2020 16:09:14 GMT -8
"Doctor Kringle was...an interesting person." The blonde cyborg thought back on the man. He was strict, firm, but never heavy handed nor was he cruel. He was demanding but understood that he could not expect perfection. He never looked down on the other scientists, and especially on Vidar.
There was an air around the man, an aura, that exuded confidence, intelligence, but also warmth.
"I do not recall my life before the lab," He had racked his mind many times, attempted to think to a time before the lab, before the fluorescent lights, the recycled sterile air, the lab coat clad scientists, and the countless computers. He tried, many times in the past, to think of a time before the experiments, before the cybernetic augmentations, back when he was just a man, and he could not find a single memory. In fact, he could not even remember his own name. Vidar was not his name. That was something that one of the scientists let slip once; they thought that Vidar was asleep, or in stasis, and they were having a conversation near the pod.
How had the conversation gone? It had been a pair of male scientists, he recognized their voices, Irons and Steele that had been their names.
'Why are we here? Why did we abandon the Red Ribbon Army? They had a much larger lab, and this one's huge but theirs is bigger. They had more people.' One of them was complaining, he recalled hearing the annoyance in their tone. 'That damned old man, dragging us out here, and for what? For his tinker toy pet project?'
Steele, that was the man that was being complained to. Until that moment, he had remained silent; happily allowing Irons to rave away without a care in the world.
'Because, the Red Ribbon Army is bound to collapse, and when it does, I don't want to be there. You want to go back to that old bastard, Gero? You go ahead, no one will stop you if you decide to leave. I'm staying here.'
'What the hell do you have here? What? Look at this thing, this little toy soldier that old quack is putting together. Be happy this isn't you. I heard a rumor. This thing, this Project Ragnarok, Vidar, whatever the hell the old fool wants to call it, used to be some schmuck. Some random guy he had snatched off the street.'
'You believe the rumors? I thought you were smarter than that, Irons.' Steele sounded annoyed.
'Then who is he then? How come Doctor Kringle keeps his files locked up, confidential, need to know, even from us? How come we don't even know the poor bastard's name or where the doc even got him? We know nothing about this guy, yet we're carving him up like a Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing him with cybernetic upgrades.'
'What matters to you, or what should matter to you, is getting the job done. That is all. Yes, I'm a little curious, I know Vidar isn't his name. It's his designation, Doctor Kringle assigned it to him. Project Ragnarok. Sounded a bit melodramatic for me but hey, its kind of growing on me.'
'Like a rash,' Irons muttered, annoyed still, 'So the rumors aren't true then? Then where dd this guy even come from then?'
'Look, I got a glimpse of the report, small one, not a good one.' Steele groaned, even in his stasis pod back then, Vidar could almost imagine the eye roll that had crossed the man's face, 'it mentioned something about an accident, some John Doe that nobody claimed. I think that may be him, happy? Now can we get back to work? We're running behind.'
That had been the only clue he had ever gotten. The only slip of the tongue from a careless scientist. That Vidar was not his name. That they did not know where he had come from. But one of them had read a report he was not supposed to read - sneaked a peek at it possibly - and read about a John Doe that had been in some kind of accident. That scientist, Steele, then theorized that Vidar was, in fact, that John Doe. But, that wasn't his name either. John Doe was just a name used by police, for example, or even hospitals, when dealing with an individual whose identity is unknown, at least at the time. So even that little clue had not given him much information, at least on the surface.
He had ruminated that conversation as he walked along behind Kiryu, being led deeper into the ancient structure, along stone floors and down stone steps. The walls were of stone, all of the walls were of the same material, and it did not look as if this place had seen much activity in centuries. But, even then, the torches that lined the walls burned bright, yet did not give off any heat.
When Kiryu commented about the internet, and how it was not overly abundant in information that would aid him in his predicament, or well his situation, as a wizard, Vidar took a half second to think it over. He couldn't really comment on the amount of knowledge about wizardry, mostly because until that very moment, he had not really ever considered wizards as real. They were fictional creations, fabrications, within the imaginations of creative and great writers, but real wizards? He didn't have any information in his database that would help the young man in any way.
"I was under the impression that magic and wizards only existed in motion pictures," Vidar commented, being honest.
The Inheritors Tournament was something that Vidar thought about a lot. In fact, he replayed the video footage that he was able to capture through his built-in sensors, audio and video footage, in order to study it. After all, if he wanted to improve himself, he had to study his past battles, study where he excelled, where he failed, and pinpoint his strengths and weaknesses. He had to figure out where he had to put more effort into improving. Plus, it had also been some time since he had seen or heard from Riku and he somewhat missed the cyborg samurai's face and voice; he was the second person whom Vidar befriended not long after he had been awoken and left the hidden underground lab.
"Yes, fighting is a game of chance; no matter how much one calculates, strategizes, or attempts to create a perfect plan of attack, nothing goes 100% to plan. Losing an arm was not exactly part of the equation when I entered the ring. But, it happened nonetheless. In the end, fate had chosen Riku as the winner of the match," Or at least that is how he was explaining it. Internally, however, he knew that there were other factors, including but not limited to an outdated guidance system, and various other odds and ends that he had since then upgraded.
Something was loose in the tunnels? In the dark shadowy corners of this immense place? Well, it made sense that Vidar would be called to a strange place such as this one, a place warded with and overflowing with strange energies and magics, and there were supernatural beings on the loose somewhere in the bowels of the place. It was really to be expected now. Every time he left his comfort zone, he wound up stumbling into the Twilight Zone, a strange place where anything was possible, and the imaginary became real; where had he gotten that from? Possibly from an old television show advertisement that played in the background as he was experimented on in the lab. He couldn't quite remember the name of the show, however, the strange zone? The Odd Place? He didn't know. It didn't matter.
"I am sure we can handle whatever we come across," Vidar spoke up, he had utmost confidence in his own ability but also in Kiryu's. He had not seen him in actual combat yet, but from what he was feeling from him, and how he carried himself, he was sure that Kiryu was a talented fighter and, apparently, a wizard.
Still, the idea of strange creatures being loose in the shadows would have unnerved some. But, not Vidar. Not after all he has seen and been a part of lately.
"I recently ran into strange fish creatures," Vidar commented, "Out on an island in the South Seas down here. I do not believe the island existed on any map," he thought back to the event and he gave Kiryu the short and sweet version of it, "I had gone to help the Fishing Association, went out to sea on a fishing trolley to try and catch as many fish as possible lest the town's economy go under, as they are heavily reliant on the fishermen. While we were out, we were hit by a storm that just appeared out of nowhere. The fishing trolley was lost, capsized and sank. It was during this little adventure that I met Riku, before he took my arm in the tournament, and we both wound up on the island. I pulled him out of the ocean, saved him from drowning and dragged him to shore onto an island that... felt strange from the moment we arrived. I recall attempting to calculate where we were, but even going by geographic information of the area, the island we were on shouldn't have existed. And that's when we ran into the creatures," He thought back and recalled what they looked like, strange.
"They were humanoid, bipedal, but fish-like. Their skin was covered in scales, their eyes were white, pale, like those of a dead fish. Even from a distance, the thing smelled," he could still remember the stench of rotting dead fish.
"We followed the creatures, one of them had found a member of the crew washed up on the beach, knocked the man out and dragged him to a village deeper into the island... At the center of it all, there was a temple. Thinking back on it, attempting to visualize the architecture, causes my head to feel strange, even my cybernetic augmentations could not handle perceiving the details of the structure. It caused strange glitches in my visual sensors, too." He followed Kiryu down the steps, his eyes roaming up and down, all over the place, as he wondered if one of those strange creatures would really appear. He doubted it. At least, maybe not at this particular level. The place felt as if it was powerfully warded. Perhaps down on the lower levels, deeper in the darker depths of the place, in the bowels of this ancient structure, maybe.
Once they reached where Kiryu wanted to go, or at least where he wanted to take Vidar, the two of them walked into a room filled with many oddities; or at least what anyone with eyes could call oddities. They just appeared to be a strange menagerie, an odd collection of trinkets, items that did not appear to really fit with one another. There did not appear to be any coherent pattern to the items, just very old and untouched.
But none of these items of ancient power were what Kiryu wanted. He didn't appear to even pay them any mind. He walked past them with the same indifference as one would expect from a child forced to go to a museum by his parents.
Once he arrived at what he had wanted to show Vidar, then he brightened up. He plucked up the item and turned to show it to the blonde cyborg. It was an arm. A prosthetic arm. The way it looked gave off the feel of age; in fact, it resembled something he would see in a steampunk fantasy movie. Yet, at the same time, it did not feel old; the metallic sheen of the prosthetic limb, the design screamed both old but also new. It was strange. He also felt something about it. Just by looking at it, he knew this was no mere prosthetic.
"I've never seen anything like it," he looked it over, his bright yellow irises scanning over the prosthetic limb, analyzing it closely, "I think we should give it a try."
WC: 2,050 | 4,175
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