>>6368309
[Hello again, /qst/! This is an original one-shot meant to help warm up for another ongoing quest of mine. I don't intend on running this for more than one thread.

Updates will hopefully be daily, or every other day at worst. I want to be consistent with this, but I can't guarantee a super rigid schedule due to life being a bitch. If something goes wrong, I will give both a heads-up and an ETA for return in this thread. If you don't see anything here, check the latest /qtg/.

With that out of the way: I hope you enjoy this short quest!]

>>6368309
>Acceptance
No telling if Here is better than There when we don't know where There was... or even what we are.

>>6368309
>Acceptance. Despite a lingering sense of loss, the anomaly saw no use in dwelling on it. Whatever came its way, it would greet with open arms.
I hug the world with both arms

>>6368309
>Opportunity. It found itself in awe of its surroundings, ready and eager to build itself a new future.

>>6368309
>Opportunity. It found itself in awe of its surroundings, ready and eager to build itself a new future.

>>6368309
>Opportunity. It found itself in awe of its surroundings, ready and eager to build itself a new future.

>>6368309
>Opportunity. It found itself in awe of its surroundings, ready and eager to build itself a new future.
In awe of the power...

Opportunity wins out, 2:1! I'll start writing now...

Opportunity. Opportunity! The amount of possibilities at hand--

The anomaly surged with a newfound curiosity and zest for life. A rush of thought overwhelmed any remaining cliffs, cresting over the conquered terrain, elating the strange spheroid--

--before crashing down, becoming overwhelmed with a wave of weakness that snuffed out the enthusiasm it had been powered by before. Every inch of the anomaly's being was overcome with weakness. The consequences of its arrival seemed to finally be taking their toll.

As the anomaly slipped into unconsciousness, it felt the light around it begin to dim. How it felt such a thing, not even it knew...

<><><><><>

"...here! Over here, Yavenn! I heard--"

A great noise awoke you. Where it came from-- that was to be determined. Not important. Not interesting.

"Alright, alright. Slow down, won't you? I can hardly keep up..."

You blinked-- and found yourself surprised. Blinked! You had eyes? Wait-- of course you did! What a silly question.

"This way, right there. In the pit..."

...you sat upright and took a look at yourself. Two hands, two arms. Both seemed almost luminescent when you looked at them, but quickly faded to a very pale skin tone. This tone was shared across your entire body-- across your legs, your torso, your nails...

"You there, sir! Are you well?"

A voice called out from above. You weren't sure where. It took some looking around to notice-- someone leaning over the edge of this very deep crater you'd found yourself in.

"Yeah! I'm fine, mister!" You called back, surprised by your own voice. It was quite a loud thing-- enough to make the stranger recoil and prompt you to modulate. One two three, one two three, you tried to tone it down...

"He's got quite the set of pipes, hasn't he?" A second figure peered over the side of the pit. This one was distinctly different-- you could tell it was taller, less decorated. "If I could sing like that, everyone back home would wish me theirs!"

"Yes, yes, I'm sure they would," the first figure dismissed the second, then returned its attention to you. "Brace yourself, I will be with you in a moment..."

The second figure protested. Something about the first being too frail, about leaving the second behind. Whatever it said was drowned out by the brief shock that took hold of you upon the first figure's descent.

"I suppose you may have heard, already, but I must be polite... my name is Yavenn. I am pleased to meet you." The figure offered one of his six hands. It looked just like yours, only... darker. Marginally so. His hand was peachier in tone, though no less pale. It was bonier, too-- perhaps those two aspects were related, somehow. When you returned your own, the man's eyebrows seemed to raise.

"My, my...!" The man tapped his walking stick to the ground and raised another free hand to his chin. "No tail? No crown? And your ears..."

You began to wonder how he was discerning all of these things with closed eyes. It unnerved you somewhat-- both the implication that you were abnormal, and the implication that this man could see without sight. Eager to establish yourself, you tried to keep your tone confident. "I'm glad t' have them, that's for sure. Haven't you got a pair?"

The older man laughed, a glint of hoary hair becoming apparent underneath his brown hood as he did so. "I do indeed! I have ears as surely as I have eyes," he smiled, "although I won't pretend I'm not lacking elsewhere."

Your conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the second figure, seemingly fed up with its companion's running off. She looked like nothing you'd ever seen-- though, come to think of it, neither did anything else you'd laid eyes upon today. "Grandpa, please..."

The stranger's voice was far less grating than her grandad's, more akin to a singing bird or a set of windchimes. She seemed a perfect demonstration of the aspects her grandfather had made reference to-- she boasted two thin tails, a set of symmetrical bumps across the top of her head, and open eyes... but only two arms, and two legs. Like you! "Hey--"

She interrupted, still focused on her relative. "I need you to stay by me. We can't afford to get lost here. And you're already so slow..."

You found her interruption both rude and unimportant. She wasn't even talking to you! Why did she feel the need to butt in? You moved to interrupt her back, but found yourself stopped by a brief wave of tremors. You thought, at first, that they may have been the fault of the world-- uneasy terrain, some sort of rumbling underground. But both Yavenn and his granddaughter seemed unaffected...

"Zalaena, please. Can't you withhold yourself for one moment? This young man is clearly uneasy," Yavenn murmured. He moved to help you up, taking five of his six hands off of his walking stick to get you off the ground you'd just found yourself upon. As he helped raise you, the starry night sky caught your eye...

"We'll have to get him to the village the old-fashioned way," the older man chuckled. He let go of you and stepped back, only to be stopped by his granddaughter.

"No, I-- please don't exert yourself. I can..." Zalaena trailed off as she laid eyes upon you. You appreciated her flabbergasted expression... yet couldn't place the reasoning for it.

Thankfully, Zalaena made such reasoning very loudly obvious. "Whoa! I-- okay, hold on a moment..."

To your great dismay, the first thing she'd done was procure an oversized bandana from a pouch she'd carried on her. After wrapping it around your waist and adjusting it to cover between your legs, the woman stepped back and examined her work.

"Where... where did you come from?" Her eyes darted between the new covering and your confused face. "Most people don't come to the Chordless Forest without good reason."

Funny, then, that you couldn't recall one of your own. Odd, too. Come to think of it-- you couldn't recall much of anything at all. No names, no faces, nothing... save for this language, some vague sense of what was normal, and everything you had just seen. That wasn't supposed to happen, was it?

>Be honest: tell her you can't remember anything, and that you woke up here just a few minutes ago.

>Ask where she came from instead. You want to know! It's very important information. Zalaena said so herself.

>Make up something cool.

>>6369002
>Write-in
>"Wait, what's the Chordless Forest? Are forests supposed to be Chord...ed? I think something happened, and I don't quite know where I am..."

>>6369002
>Be honest: tell her you can't remember anything, and that you woke up here just a few minutes ago.

>>6369010
+1

For this vote, the write-in wins. I'd like to stress for the future, though, that I'm going to try and avoid write-ins for this quest unless they're explicitly solicited.

Writing...

"The Chordless Forest?" You echoed Zalaena's statement, unsure of what she was referring to. If you looked up a little, past the edge of the pit, you could see some silver branch-looking things... but nothing like a whole forest.

"Yes, the..." Zalaena trailed off, realizing why you'd repeated yourself as she spoke. "You don't know, do you?"

Her face soon contorted into one of... sympathy? Sorrow? Some sort of unhappy expression. One that rubbed off on you, and made you feel like someone was plucking at your chest. A very uncomfortable feeling, that was.

"I haven't a clue, lady." You ran your hand through a thick head of hair that you found yourself surprised to have. "Something happened t' me, I think, and now I'm here. I don't know where I came from, or where I'm going. If forests are supposed to be corded, I haven't got the memo."

As you went on, Zalaena's palms found themselves covering her mouth. When combined with her long hair and hairy wrists, it almost made her look maned. You chuckled at the thought-- she almost looked manlier while scared than she might have while angry-- but found yourself dismayed again once she began mewling apologies.

"No wonder you can't answer! I'm so sorry. I have a bad habit of assuming the worst of people around here..."

"A very reasonable habit!" Yavenn interrupted, surprisingly inflamed by the topic. "Nobody good comes here anymore. This is a cursed land. You did well to assume poorly of him," the old man assured his granddaughter, "this is simply an exception to the rule. Under normal circumstances, any creature larger than the trunkenmice seen here would be worth suspicion."

The old man approached you once more, prying your hand from your hair (reminding you where you'd left it in the process) and taking it into his own. "I trust that you have no such ill intentions. I can sense as much. And if, in my old age, my senses have begun to fail me, and you truly do have some malintent about you... well, I would be very surprised if you managed to act upon it."

"Don't scare him," Zalaena huffed. "He's just a newborn babe. He needs shelter and comfort, not fancy handwork and a beatdown."

The two-tailed woman promptly marched herself over to your side and offered you her shoulder. "Now, I don't know how well you can climb, so let me show you how we can get out of here..."

<><><><><>

After a prolonged and embarrassing hike out of your pit, the three of you found yourselves in the forest proper.

Beneath the midnight sky, it would normally have been impossible to make out much at all. However, your skin seemed to glow-- faintly, but surely-- enough to highlight whatever you found yourself nearby. Through some stumbling around and a lot of grasping into darkness, you made out a sort of dead thicket littered with silver "trees;" misshapen things, smoother than you figured natural, with nonsensical curves to their growth and hardly any substantial growths beyond their initial trunks. Most of them were barren of any leaves-- those that might have had foliage instead bore transparent vines of some sort, made of fibers you couldn't identify, that brushed up against you harmlessly and tangled upon the splintered branches common to these strange plants. Any other plantlife was so insubstantial as to be invisible to you, and the earth itself almost seemed to begrudge you walking upon it.

"You know," Yavenn commented, "this forest used to sing as sweetly as my late wife once did. With every step a nell took, he would be met with a delightful melody..."

"Or so he says," Zalaena mumbled. She seemed red in the face-- you wanted to ask why, but she didn't give you room to interject. "Grampa's a bit loopy. He goes on tangents like these a lot. I don't know how much of what he's saying is true, and... well, this place has been a dump for as long as I've known it."

Yavenn continued on, undeterred. "Then, of course, us nellefim saw fit to abuse its goodwill for party tricks and power..."

"Nellefim? What're those?" You asked, wondering why the term was unfamiliar to you. Wouldn't you know what you are?

"We're nellefim, silly!" Zalaena smiled, though she quickly realized you were being serious. "Well-- I don't know about you. Your ears are round, you haven't got any tails, your wrists and ankles are barren..."

"By that criteria, I am hardly nellefim myself!" Yavenn turned around to chuckle at the two of you. "Don't you worry about specifics, young one. Once we get back to safety, all will be explained..."

As if on cue, you heard a rustling behind you. Some kind of shifting-- then, a crack.

"...ah, I see we have some company." The six-armed man tried to remain jolly, but you could hear some strain enter his voice. "Stay beside me, children."

Zalaena did what he said without question, and made sure you did too. Her grip was strong-- strong enough to yank you along with her.

And it was a good thing she did so, too, as the three of you were soon confronted by a small group of bandits.
All four bandits looked markedly different. One was nearly six feet tall, with two dull lumps mimicking horns atop his forehead. He had an enormous tail, not unlike a third arm, that was covered in spiked bands and visibly scarred. Another was hardly more than five-foot-five, covered in thorny armor, with a veritable explosion of bumps across his entire cranium and a far slimmer tail. The other two seemed more similar-- about the same height, with similar protrusions across their head, and sporting club-like attachments to the tips of their own tails.
You figured such disfigurements must be common for nellefim, if that's what they truly were... and began to wonder why you didn't have any yourself.

"Easy pickin's, eh?" The scrawny one bragged. "Jes an old man an' his senpai'ly, no way've defendin' 'imself."

"Easy enough," the juggernaut agreed. His voice was deeper than the hole you'd just climbed out of, and his looks could probably kill any small mammal in an instant. "Hand over yer cash an' we'll let you run free."

"Wait, wait!" One of the twins interrupted. "That man..." He pointed directly to you. "Er, I fink he's a man. He'll fetch a pretty penny, won't he? Looks about workin' age, ratha healthy..."

"An' who here has the guts t' try an' wrangle themselves a captive? Anyone?" The juggernaut boomed, seemingly irritated by the suggestion.

While the bandits argued amongst themselves, you took the opportunity to...

>Strike first! They're clearly here to do something bad to you. May as well get the advantage while you still can.

>Puff up your chest and try to scare them off. Not literally, of course, but with big words. You can back them up, probably.

>Keep silent and hope they'll decide against capturing you. You don't know what you can do, or what they can do, and you'd really rather not find out...

>>6369494
>Strike first! They're clearly here to do something bad to you. May as well get the advantage while you still can.
Initiative!

>>6369494
>Strike first! They're clearly here to do something bad to you. May as well get the advantage while you still can.
SUCKER PUNCH

>>6369494
>Keep silent and hope they'll decide against capturing you. You don't know what you can do, or what they can do, and you'd really rather not find out...

>>6369494
>>Strike first! They're clearly here to do something bad to you. May as well get the advantage while you still can.
What's their problem?

Alright, we'll be attacking the bandits! Please roll 1d100.

Rolled 55 (1d100)

Have at thee!!!!

Rolled 14 (1d100)

>>6369816
POW, gangsta shit.

File: me2.jpg (21 KB, 400x401)

21 KB JPG

Note to future self: clarify more than this next time I ask for dice rolls.

Writing!

...strike first, of course!

Without hesitation, you lunged towards the smallest bandit. He'd been too busy contemplating the juggernaut's challenge to notice, so you pinned him against a nearby "tree" without a problem.

Unfortunately, his teammates quickly took notice.

"Oh-hoh, look a' that! He's jus' throwin' himself at us!" The lazier of the twins remarked, taking it upon himself to gloat and grin while his sibling did the dirty work of smashing his tail-club into your lower back.

The shout that elicited from you was loud enough to deafen the bandits for a full minute. You were pretty sure the other two Nellefim, the friendly ones, said something, too... but whatever it was, you couldn't hear it. Nor did you need to! You had enough anger to go around; their cries of worry were unneeded.

"Alright, losers-- I'll show you who'll be making slaves of whom!" Did that make sense? It didn't need to. You spun around and grabbed the fighting twin's tail with both hands, gripping it as tightly as you could, and tried your best to thrust the hopeful spine-smasher aside.

You didn't do half-bad a job-- at the very least, you threw off the twin's balance and familiarized his face with the forest soil. But that wasn't enough to keep him down, and the twin's strongest ally soon took it upon himself to enter the ring.

"What a convenient distraction. Zalaena?" Yavenn remarked. The old man had hidden most of his arms; the only two that remained were used either to keep his walking stick upright or to stroke his unreasonably long beard.

"Grampa! Don't even joke about that!" The girl almost looked like she was an inch away from slapping her grandfather, but withheld her fury... to redirect it into manipulation. "Hey, boys! Lookie over here!"

As the Nellefim girl began prancing around the forest like a pixie, you found yourself narrowly avoiding a spiked fist to the face. "Hey! What use would I be to you wannabe slave drivers without teeth? You wanted t' keep me healthy, remember?"

"We wanted yer money, you blitherin' idiot!" The scrawny bandit, whom you had recently been shoved into, cried. "Now, shove off!"

As the diminutive ne'er-do-well said that, he pushed you straight into the waiting chest of the juggernaut. With your spine already plentifully perforated thanks to the tiny one's thorny armor, you braced yourself-- and found yourself squeezed so tightly that you couldn't breathe.

It took that experience for you to realize you'd been breathing entirely out of habit, not necessity, and for you to wriggle your way free through generous contortion of your ribcage.

Such an escape method still came at a cost. Despite your lungs seemingly being for decoration only, your bones most certainly were not. Your entire body screamed for a new skeleton, yet you found yourself unable to provide one. The loud cracks that followed visibly sickened almost everyone in the forest.

"Tha's not natural, man," the fighting twin murmured. "He's no' supposed t' still be walkin' after tha'."

Zalaena slowed her frenetic dancing to a crawl. Within moments, she was upon you-- covering your lacerated back with her own body, switching between yelling profanities at the bandits and praising you for your work.

"Look-- the tiny one's completely out! And the big guy's got some dents in his armor... have you got any training in this?" The awe with which she spoke was laced with worry. Zalaena seemed genuine in her praise, however, as her smiling face almost seemed a little reddened while she spoke. She wasted no time in slipping her arm underneath yours and helping you towards Yavenn.

"None that I can remember, ma'am," you joked. Your face was remarkably untouched-- it was just the rest of you that looked like an utter disaster. Not unlike the tiny bandit's visible body parts, come to think of it. "Just gut feelings 'n a pair of fists."

"Hey-- hey!! We're not done with you yet!" The lazier twin shouted, offended. He seemed just about ready to storm over and beat you up himself, but decided to delegate the task to a better fit for the job. "Nevell, go get 'em!"

The juggernaut responded promptly, lumbering over to the pair of you and lowering his head. Upon his two great bumps sat a pair of steel spikes, curved in such a way that made them function identically to the horns his protrusions typically mimicked. By the time Zalaena had turned you around to see what was happening, his head had already been tucked in against his shoulders.

All Zalaena could muster was a brief cry--

--before the juggernaut went flying into the lazy twin. A loud THUD made certain that the projectile had hit his unintended target, and you were left utterly baffled at what had caused such an occurrence... until you heard a familiar voice from behind you.

"I would like to disagree," Yavenn said calmly. The old man sat atop his walking stick, all six arms arranged in a radial position around his body, smiling. His balance seemed absolutely perfect. For a moment, too, you could've sworn his fingertips had been glowing.

"Grampa!" Zalaena stumbled forward, absolutely beaming. You were totally lost-- why was she so happy all of a sudden? What had just happened? Did this mean you could go back and give the bandits some more pummelings?

"Zalaena!" Yavenn responded, mimicking his granddaughter's eagerness. "Come here, quickly. I feel it might be in our best interests not to stay here any longer."

You glanced back at the bandits. They were absolutely mortified-- what two were left, anyways. In fact, their skin had somehow managed to out-pale yours! Neither of them had gotten the hang of glowing, though. They'd need to try a little harder.
Neither of them spoke a word. They just watched the two of you stumble over to Yavenn and his stick completely placid-like. Their eyes almost looked blank, vacant-- not their own.

"Aw, wait-- can't I give them another punch or two before we go? I really want them t' learn their lessons," you begged. Even as your back writhed in agony and your ribs cried out for comfort, you tried to forgo any kind of pain in favor of simply doing what you wanted.

"You are in no state to do such a thing, young gentleman," Yavenn scolded... before easing up and smirking. "But I can do it for you. Watch."

The old man's voice took on a much deeper affectation-- it almost seemed to echo around the forest as he spoke. The words that followed rang through your head almost as certainly as they had your ears:

By the sacred stars above and below, let this bolt smite my foe!

One of Yavenn's arms thrust forward so quickly that it made a snapping noise--

KK-KRRABOOM

--within seconds, the same arm brought forth a zig-zagged bolt of pure white energy! It flew, straight and true, towards the juggernaut's horns. It flew right between them, in fact, splitting the big brute's shaggy hairline in two and carving a hole in the tree behind him.

"Hah! He'll remember that one for a long while. Thanks," you rejoiced. Whatever the hell that was, you figured it more than made up for your lack of punching.

"As will I," Yavenn concurred. "Now, children, gather 'round..."

He continued to chant, now speaking in words you could not understand. You assumed they had to be words-- after all, they seemed to mean something-- but, really, you weren't sure. They could have been vocal tics for all you knew.

As Yavenn spoke, however, the grass beneath you began to glow a pale yellow light. That light began rushing upwards, clinging to all three of you, and intensifying-- going from pale yellow to dandelion yellow to golden-- until you felt yourself being whisked away, and found yourself...

<><><><><>

...someplace entirely different.

All three of you now found yourselves atop a vibrant blue rug. Upon it were stitched a series of symbols you could hardly understand-- symbols that seemed to fade with the light you'd been engulfed in.

"Grampa, you really didn't need to..." Zalaena trailed off, embarrassed by her own objection to what had occurred. "...w-well, thank you. Even if you shouldn't have--"

"Oh, hush," Yavenn replied. The old man descended from his stick and returned his arms to its sides, seemingly more dependent on it than ever. He almost sounded weary in a way that his attitude made seem impossible. "The crownless boy seems fatigued and untrained, and you yourself were outnumbered. Better I overexert myself for an evening than lose my only grandchild."

Zalaena had no counter to that, and simply watched her grandfather go. Yavenn left the room without another word, slipping through an aging wooden door to your right into a room unknown.

You and Yavenn's granddaughter remained, alone, in the spacious lobby the rug resided within. A half-counter kitchen could be seen a few feet to your left, while a steep staircase with ornate railing was found to your right (above the door Yavenn had gone through). Straight ahead lay a dark corridor, and behind you could be seen... well, nothing. Another dark corridor, this one seemingly shorter than the last.
The entire room was painted to faintly resemble a sunset: the ten-foot ceiling bordered salmon-pink, while the very same pink walls turned bright orange by the time they the floor.

The consequences of your fight were beginning to catch up with you, and you felt it might be a good time to try and rest. On the other hand, Zalaena seemed... dismayed. And you still had no idea what had happened back there...

>Stay in the lobby and try to talk with Zalaena. Ask her about what happened, why she's upset, all that. If you need to rest, you can just do it on the staircase steps.

>Bid farewell to Zalaena and try to find someplace to rest. You'd love to learn what just happened, and maybe some more about Zalaena, but you're in a lot of pain and don't want to make it worse.

>>6369913
>Bid farewell to Zalaena and try to find someplace to rest. You'd love to learn what just happened, and maybe some more about Zalaena, but you're in a lot of pain and don't want to make it worse.

>>6369913
>Stay in the lobby and try to talk with Zalaena. Ask her about what happened, why she's upset, all that. If you need to rest, you can just do it on the staircase steps.
Shut up, body, we do what we want!

>>6369913
>Stay in the lobby and try to talk with Zalaena. Ask her about what happened, why she's upset, all that. If you need to rest, you can just do it on the staircase steps.

Yay, a tiebreaker! Thank you anon! We'll be staying in the lobby and talking with Zalaena.

Writing!

...but you wanted to find out. So badly, in fact, that you decided your body's much-needed rest could wait. You were its master, after all-- if you wanted to stay and talk, that's what it would have to do!

"Zalaena?" You began, trying to find a comfortable place for your eyes to rest upon her distant head. The nell girl's face was round, sharp-- shaped somewhat like a reptile's scale. It was framed by fiery red hair, kept mostly in curls near her cheeks or a ponytail that reached past her ribs, and dotted with freckles that seemed to fade quicker with each passing moment. Her purple eyes were fixated on Yavenn's door, and it took you repeating your question for her to come to your attention.

"Why are you so upset? Yavenn 'n I just help save you from a bunch'a bandits." Besides, how could someone be upset after seeing whatever the hell that was?

Zalaena held her frown for a moment longer, then shook herself free of it and responded with a much less dismal tone. "Oh-- nothing. Grampa's just getting old, is all. I don't think he should be fooling around with magic like that."

Magic! Why were you surprised by that? Of course what you saw was magic! But-- well, you'd never seen magic before... "...does he do that all the time? Is he not supposed to? And-- what is magic, anyways? Was that the bolts? Or us disappearing?"

The barrage of questions left your friend briefly stunned-- then, snorting and laughing like a creature you couldn't place the name of. "Oh, wow, you weren't kidding! I mean-- of course you weren't! It's just-- it's so hard to really grasp what you mean when you say you've lost all your memory..."

The nell girl scanned the room for a moment, then motioned towards the stairs. "Come on, let's sit down. I'll explain everything to you over there..."

You did as you were told, too tired and curious to protest, and soon found yourself seated atop the lowest step. Zalaena cozied up next to you, despite there barely being enough space to fit the two of you on the same step, and wasted no time thereafter.

"Magic is-- well, I guess the easiest way to explain is it is as a sort of universal force. We don't really know what it is for sure-- nobody does. But there are a group of really dedicated wizards and witches who know how to manipulate it. Grampa is one of them-- he's the best wizard in Beccani," which you figured was the name of... wherever you were, "and what you saw back in the Chordless Forest was some of the more basic stuff-- anchor teleportation and a weak magical bolt. Got that so far?"

You were surprised Zalaena had even stopped to make sure you were listening. She seemed thoroughly uninterested, yet able to explain all of this like the back of her hand. The ever-present frown remained.
"Uh-- yeah, I've got it. But I don't know what any of that means-- Beccani, anchor teleports, anything," you admitted.

"Oh-- Beccani is here. My home village. It's the only settlement for... I don't even know. Ages. I'll show you around tomorrow-- don't worry about it for now.
Anchor teleportation is a type of teleportation-- all you need to know is that it goes from anywhere in the world to one fixed point.
Anyways-- grampa says it comes from belief in and devotion to the gods, who grant magicians small portions of their power in exchange for worship. But, since that power was made for gods, not nellefim, it tends to mark us physically. That's why my eyes are purple, for instance, and not blue." Zalaena continued.

"So all I have to do to get eyes as pretty as yours is... practice magic?" You asked, hoping it might cheer her up a little. Just to be sure, you tried to grin while you did it.

Much to your delight, your mission succeeded-- Zalaena snickered, though seemed embarrassed by the very notion. Her eyes darted back and forth, as if checking to see if someone materialized in this room while you'd spoken, only returning to yours after several rounds of scanning. "Well-- no. I think, anyways. My eyes only turned purple because of the color they were before-- at least, according to grampa..."

The two of you went back and forth, asking and receiving, snorting and explaining, for what felt like an eternity. You learned more from Zalaena than you'd ever dreamed of-- why she had two arms if Yavenn had six, exactly when her birthday was, if the sky was always so dark, why she ever left her house if everywhere else was so dangerous (and her house was so nice)... you'd wanted to know why her ankles and wrists had hair, or where her tails came from, but even she couldn't answer that. She just figured it was "really important way back when," whatever that meant.

By the time the two of you were yawning too frequently to hold a conversation, you couldn't help but feel proud. Zalaena was smiling, after all! And she kept making jokes-- pinching your ears, asking where your 'crown' was supposed to be, wondering--

"How on earth are you going to get any sleep with glowing skin?" Zalaena yawned, already well on her way to slumberland. "Like a permanent night-light... gotta be tough..."

You mimicked Zalaena's own yawn, partly to be polite, and puffed out your chest. "Well, I think I should go find out. Maybe, if I just believe hard enough, I can turn it off..."

"snrk I'd like t' see you try, smartie. You're no... magician..."

The girl began nodding off right as she spoke. She only woke when she felt her head touching your shoulder.

"Aah! I-- I really should get to sleep. And, uh, you too." The nell looked you up and down. "If you can even sleep like that. Thank you for the conversation. It... really helped."

You wasted no time in thanking her, and the pair of you exchanged waves. With that, Zalaena rose to her feet. She took a moment to stretch, arching her back and stiffening her tails while her arms shook themselves out, and began climbing the stairs immediately after. She even glanced back at you, smiling, before she remembered... "...oh. Uh... where are you going to sleep? We haven't got any bedrolls..."

"I'll find someplace cozy!" You declared, confident in that statement's plausibility. "Just go to bed-- I'll see you tomorrow!"

And so Zalaena did...

<><><><><>

...much to her morning self's dismay.

Zalaena, in her infinite wisdom, had not anticipated that you would simply sleep upon the stairs.

Nor had you, really. You were thinking of where you could sleep. Pondering it, even. But you were tired, and already hadn't moved from this place in hours. So, as you were thinking of where to go, you'd just... nodded off.

"Hey-- get up," the nell asked of you. It seemed that she could not descend the staircase without you moving. You felt this contradicted her previous statements of understanding how to teleport... but were too tired to question it, and got up.

"As you ask've me, m'lady," you joked. Once Zalaena had reached the ground floor, you pretended to bow. "What else have I got to do for you?"

Your late-night chatting partner snickered. "Not that. Just stay there..."

knock knock knock

"Grampa? Grampa, are you awake?"

Within moments, the door to Yavenn's room flung open. The man himself stood in the doorway, battered and in sleeping robes, with a smile on his face. "Ah, it depends on your interpretation."

His eyes were... still closed. Did he even need to sleep? Zalaena certainly seemed to think so. "I'm going out to get you food, okay? Please get some rest. You know how teleportation wears on you."

"Yes, yes..." Yavenn stroked his beard, then absentmindedly turned to you. "A rather demanding young lady, isn't she? And yet, I still find myself loving her like I would any other grandchild. The nellefim mind is a very intriguing thing indeed..."

With that, the wizard disappeared into his room. The door shut behind him-- whether it was Yavenn's doing or simply some force of nature, you didn't understand-- and Zalaena soon asked you where you'd like to go first...

>The bakery next door. Apparently, it was very important for you to meet the neighbors.

>The town square. The farmer's market was supposed to be there.

>The butcher. Not the prettiest of places... but, apparently, nellefim tended to thrive on meat.

>>6370228
>The town square. The farmer's market was supposed to be there.

>>6370228
>The town square. The farmer's market was supposed to be there.
Let's learn more about this world, firsthand!

>>6370228
>The town square. The farmer's market was supposed to be there.

>>6370325
+1
Best way is to start by food and drink

Alright, it's unanimous! We're going to the town square!

Writing...

“Alright, the town square’s sensible… start with the food, save everything else for later,” Zalaena mumbled to herself. She was going back and forth across the lobby, gathering things she figured you two might need, only glancing at you occasionally. “Are you sure you want to go out with just that loincloth I gave you?”

You didn’t realize you’d really needed more. And all of the clothes she’d offered you were either way too feminine or stank of old man. Neither fit you particularly well, either. “Better that than nothin’, right?” Or a skirt. “Besides, how’m I supposed t’ feel things if all my skin’s covered up?”

Zalaena just shook her head and handed you a large bag. What it was made from, you had no clue. It was beige, stretchy, and very smooth to the touch. You swore it almost felt a little slimy at times. And the entire thing was sealed with what looked like a row of dead fangs. The bag’s material seemed irrelevant, however, once you peeked inside of it and saw just how much space the bag had.

“You’ll be carrying the food,” Zalaena explained, “so you get the bigger one. I’ll carry… everything else. Which shouldn’t be much, if we just stick to…”

As your companion continued rambling on about unimportant things, you found yourself trying the bag’s “mouth.” It didn’t react the first three times you poked it, nor the fourth, so you figured it was safe… until you stuck your hand deep inside and felt the row of fangs biting down on your wrist.

Your trip was delayed a good half-hour by the bandaging that followed.

<><><><><>

“How do you still have that hand?” Zalaena asked, for the third time on your walk. “How is your back already healing?”

“Listen, lady— if I could tell you, I would. Really, though, I don’t know. And I’m too busy being happy ‘bout all this to find out.”

Who wouldn’t be? The suns were shining today. All three of them, hanging above you like a sparse bunch of grapes, illuminating the dusty orange sky with their wonderful light. Beccani, too, looked beautiful; surrounded by a vast expanse of crystalline soil, littered with strange flora encroaching upon quiet houses, sparsely cobbled and hardly paved. Most streets were designated with rows of unlit torches— elaborate things, often depicting some kind of creature or grasping flame, spewing forth something you were yet to see, made of some metal you couldn’t really pinpoint. Something bluish-silver and shiny, you concluded.

“What rotten luck for an optimist like you to wind up here,” Zalaena snorted. “So far away from Babbelum, with nothing but weirdos and danger between you and it.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing! Frankly, I think dangerous weirdos are more my style than… whatever else is out there,” you decided. “You can punch danger to make it go away, and weirdos are… well, I haven’t met any yet, but I’m sure they’re just as easy to take care of.”

“Watch your step,” Zalaena interrupted. You wondered why she’d said that—

—until you did as she asked, and realized you were approaching a staircase. One step of three, to be precise, leading up to an elevated circle made out of stone bricks. As you climbed it, you caught wind of a litany of voices: some high, some low, most distant and rather loud. There was some kind of commotion up ahead… the square must have been close.

As you approached the upcoming ruckus, you found your eyes drifting to the cold stones beneath you. They seemed to have some sort of faded color to them— stripes leading straight ahead, curving in on each other and forming a kind of chain. One stripe seemed blue, another yellow, another silver… none were very bright at all. They must have been rather old.

You followed the lines blindly, ignoring whatever else you heard. Eventually, they split ways— the blue stripe strafed left, the yellow strafed right, and the silver one continued straight ahead. You continued after the silver one, completely unaware of your surroundings—

”Oof!”

—until you bumped into someone even taller than you. And you were almost six foot two, so that was no easy feat!

The colossus before you was… grotesque. The man had gigantic canines protruding from his lower jaw, growing to nearly the bottom of his nose, pointed upwards like some kind of boar’s tusks. The face surrounding them wasn’t any prettier— an aquiline nose, a low brow, and truly enormous lumps atop his head made for an ugly picture. His torso was no better— uncovered, scarred, and bearing six worn pecs (with only one pair of arms to accompany them).

He wasted no time from separating your body from his with his tail. “Hey! Watch where you’re goin’, dumbass!”

You stumbled backwards, but kept your balance. For all his bravado, this guy couldn’t push very hard. “Maybe you should consider gettin’ out of my way first!”

Zalaena soon rushed over, putting herself between you and the strong guy. “Hey! Nrvllon! He didn’t mean it, alright?”

“Sure he didn’t! That’s why he ran right into me, crown-first, in front’ve all the sweet ladies.”

It was only then that you became aware of the posse of girls hanging off the man’s comically huge arms. Not young girls, mind you— women of age, with no doubts about their intentions. They seemed too enamored with Nrvllon to notice his quarrel with you.

“Jealous?” The man sneered, making no attempt to hide his distaste for you.

“Not a chance,” you lied. “Just preoccupied. Buzz off, will ya?” You had groceries to buy.

In reality, you would have liked to be swooned over by so many people. Not specifically girls, if necessary. But… the idea of so much undivided attention and idolization was oddly appealing to a soul as independent as yourself.

Such thoughts were never vocalized, of course. Not while Zalaena was dragging you around to buy food for her ailing grandfather, certainly. The selection of groceries on display here were… paltry. Most stalls only had three to four baskets of any given thing, and rarely were the baskets ever full. Zalaena insisted that there were usually more things on offer— you’d just come at a bad time, right after a bad drought. Nevertheless, you had to choose your meals carefully.

Much of the wildlife you had seen in the Chordless Forest could be purchased in corpse form at a rather bloody shop to your left. The mice with many trunks, the fowl with gigantic fins for wings, the miniature ponies… of those that were recognizable, you opted to stick to the ponies. Zalaena chose the mice, citing “the chewiness of the ponies” as being too much for Yavenn to take. The butcher staffing the stall seemed exhausted by the small crowd migrating around the town square, only lighting up when Zalaena greeted him and explained where you’d come from.

“The Chordless Forest! You don’t say? Are ya sure he’s not goin’ to end up here someday? He’s got a lot of meat on his bones, after all!” The butcher laughed. “I’m jokin’, I’m jokin’— so long’s you don’t turn out like my son, I see no reason ta be serious ‘bout threats like that.”

The vegetarian stall was not nearly as unnerving. It was run by a younger man, very slim, with a nervous disposition and a string bean physique. When the two of you approached, however, the man’s jaw dropped.

“Whoa! What— who’re you? I’ve… never seen anyone like you before.” He gaped. “I-I mean— I’ve seen you before, Zalaena, but the guy…”

While Zalaena talked with the stall worker, you found your eyes drawn instead to another person here to purchase some edible plants…

“Oh, um— sorry, am I in your way?” Her voice was like some kind of birdsong. None you’d ever heard, yet still distinctly melodic. Her face, too, was beautifully unique— framed by a cascade of golden blonde hair, dotted with small features. Her nose was button-like, her eyes a deep verdant green. The girl’s head was adorned with a tiara of lumps, culminating in a singular large “horn” far above her nose ridge…

Wait, she’d asked you something. “Wh— nah! Not in my way at all. I was just… looking for these fruits,” you improvised. You grabbed a dark blue one out from underneath the girl, rotating the scaly thing in your hands and inspecting it. The bottom of the fruit contained some kind of hole that you now knew better than to stick your finger into.

“That’ll be fifteen tektites,” the stall-worker croaked, “if you want it.”

Zalaena gasped— fifteen seemed like a lot of… whatever it was you needed for the fruit. But you didn’t mind. You weren’t actually thinking of buying the fruit, after all.

“What’s your name?” You glanced back at the girl, who seemed to be fixating on your forehead. It took her a moment to notice you’d said something.

“…Milanie. It’s nice to meet you,” she offered a hand. You shook it promptly. “What’s your name?”

You opened your mouth to answer, but ended up just drawling on one syllable.

“Arr… what?”

>Arr…winn. It describes what you want to do most.

>Arr…minn. It sounds kind of like armor.

>Arr…linn. It just sounds right.

>>6370601
>Arr…winn. It describes what you want to do most.

>>6370601
>Arr…winn. It describes what you want to do most.

>>6370601
>Arr…winn. It describes what you want to do most.

File: charlie-sheen-winning-res(...).png (99 KB, 315x360)

99 KB PNG

>>6370601
>Arr…winn. It describes what you want to do most.

Arwinn it is! I'm a little surprised nobody went for Arminn, I figured that had potential to split the vote.

Ah well, writing! I'm glad his name has some more significance than vaguely sounding like certain things. :)

That'd do you no good-- it was time to improvise again!

"Arr...winn! Arwinn. Like "win," not "wyn."" You grinned, proud to show off your pearly whites. There was no way she'd realize you were lying this way.

"...I didn't know there was a difference," the girl commented. She gave Zalaena a wayward glance-- one that lingered on for longer than you'd expected-- and then returned to buying an alarming amount of the scaly fruit you'd just inspected.

"Why d' you need so many of those?" You had to do something while Zalaena was bargaining with the shop owner. "Are these fruits especially tasty?"

Milanie shook her head. She opened her mouth, but grew embarrassed halfway through and only spoke in a whisper. "...n-no. Need these for magi-- personal things. There's nothing in them..."

The shopkeeper interrupted your conversation with a smile on his excessively-freckled face. The kid's excess canines shone like the suns. "Mil! Ah didn' find any full ones this time 'round, only the shells. Is that still good fer you?"

Surprised by the interruption, the girl beside you flushed red. She glanced at you, then at the shopkeeper, then back at you, then at Zalaena-- "...y-yeah, perfect! I-- t-thank you, these're..."

Whatever the girl was going to say got lost in her frantic theft of the remaining berries. Moments after her fleeing the scene, she ran back to deposit an absurd amount of tektites into the now-empty blue-fruit basket. However many she'd dropped in almost made the basket look full again.

"Who was that?" You wasted no time in asking, expecting Zalaena to know.

"Well... you got her name, right? Milanie. She's one of the neighbors I wanted you to meet. Shy, sweet... used to be grampa's apprentice, way back when." Zalaena spoke of the girl with a hint of pity in her voice. "She couldn't really cut it, and... I don't want to gossip, really, but I think she took it personally.

The fruits she just bought aren't edible. They're called Chorus Fruits, and their shells act more like containers for a really common magical 'juice.'" You could see Zalaena struggling to decide between explaining more and just moving on... "The shells themselves are really good for resisting magic. They have to be-- otherwise, they can't carry that juice. What Milanie wants to do with them... I don't think I want to know."

But you did! You wanted to know, rather badly! And yet, Milanie was already far out of sight...

"C'mon, Arwinn. If that's really your real name," Zalaena teased. "I'm almost done here. I have everything grampa needs. I just want to get him something special, as thanks for the forest. You don't need to tag along if I'm boring you, so long as you stay within Beccani's limits..."

You were considering... many things. A quick glance around the rest of the market revealed plenty of shops for special things: a blacksmith's lonely stand, a pop-up alcoholic bar, a confectionary...
It also gave you an opportunity to ask around for Milanie's whereabouts, assuming the citizens of this fine town cooperated.

>Stay with Zalaena and find a gift for Yavenn. [Write-in which shop the pair of you should visit first.]

>Ask around for Milanie's whereabouts. [Write-in where you should ask first. Note that there are also police at the northmost point of the square, and they are a valid option.]

>Run off to find Milanie yourself, without any leads. Trust in your instincts to guide you towards her.

>Write-in.

>>6370919
>Stay with Zalaena and find a gift for Yavenn. [Confectionery]

>>6370919
>Run off to find Milanie yourself, without any leads. Trust in your instincts to guide you towards her.

>>6370919
>Stay with Zalaena and find a gift for Yavenn. [Confectionery]

Hello, hello! It is very late but I have remembered to write before bed.

We'll be staying with Zalaena. Writing!

Shit, nevermind, something came up. I've gotten most of the post done, but I won't be able to finish tonight. I'll see what I can do tomorrow morning; if not then, I'll post in the evening. Sorry!

>>6371433
Alright, waiting warmly!

The suggestion was preposterous. Zalaena, boring you? Never! "Ah, there's nothing borin' about spending time with you! And havin' a look 'round all these shops is helpin' me get acquainted with this place. I'm not used t' all these people."

Zalaena seemed surprised by that. "'All these people'?" She swept her arm across thin air, seemingly attempting to point at everyone simultaneously. "Arwinn, there're hardly forty in this whole town. I'm pretty sure about half've them are here today. This is nothing compared to Babbelum..." ...she trailed off, then corrected herself. "I guess you haven't been there, though. Or, if you have, you don't remember it."

As the girl's expression dampened, you felt it a good time to interject with your idea. "Hey, what's that matter? I've got a good idea of what to get your grandad. Come on-- I'll show you!"

Without another second of waiting, you grabbed Zalaena's arm and ran to the confectionery. She protested all the way, but quieted down as you approached the pink-and-white awning that signified the sweet shop. The little old lady running it was quite the sight-- like you, she had no bumps atop her head. Unlike you, she had several craters atop her cranium that indicated she might not have been born that way. Her curly grey hair covered the ones nearest to her eyebrows up, but left the rest unflinchingly exposed.

"Hello, dearies," she croaked. "Are you in need of anything today?"

Zalaena swiftly got to greeting the lady and expalaining your situation, and in no time at all the two of you were left browsing the lady's meager offerings for a sweet Yavenn would like. Each type of sweet lay in a thatched green basket, wrapped in some kind of transparent fiber and tied shut with a little ribbon. The variety of the woman's offerings made up for the lack of stock: each sweet was clearly crafted with utmost care. Gelatin lollipops, bugs in molasses, caramelized lavapus tentacles, confectionatomy (hollowed bones, claws, teeth, and other discarded bits... filled with sweet liquids, apparently prepared in various different ways)-- there was plenty here to eat, plenty of which you supposed might be good. None of which you were especially interested in trying.

"Grampa's a fan of the slow and sticky stuff. Molasses, caramel, syrups. Most of these should be up his alley, but I know he doesn't like bugs..." Zalaena thought aloud. You wondered what she would like most, and started rummaging around in your bag for something you'd picked up at the farmer's stall.

"You look rather fresh for such a wounded man," the shopkeeper mumbled. She was examining you like an especially large piece of merchandise. "No tail, no crown, yet you seem more chipper than half the men in this town... I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that such a sight would make young Milanie flee for the hills."

You ignored the woman, fixating instead upon a gelatin lollipop that you'd noticed Zalaena glancing at from time to time. That meant she probably wanted it, right? It was no problem, then, to take it... and replace the bought good with the tektites you knew should've been put there in place of it.

"...Arwinn, where did you get those?" Zalaena gave you a strange look. One eyebrow raised, another... angry?

"Back at the farmer's stall. Isn't this what you're s'pposed to do?" It was what she'd done back there, after all. And everyone else seemed to be taking things and replacing them with tektites.

The nell woman blanked for just a moment, then realized what you meant. "Oh!" Her face ran as red as her hair, and the tektites you'd left in the basket soon found themselves in Zalaena's palms. "I'm so sorry Mrs. Krolla-- Arwinn's... new, and I--"
She cut herself off, cursed under her breath, and ran back to the farmer's stall with such haste that one of her tails almost slapped you on her way out.

"Sheesh. Sorry about her," you jabbed a finger in the direction Zalaena had run off. "I thought I was helpin' out. If I have to do something else for this lollipop, I'm willing to do whatever you ask've me."

The shopkeeper was just left baffled by the entire series of events. It took her a full minute-- mouth agape, sharp teeth on display-- to even realize you'd said something. And it took her even longer to respond.

"Oh ho ho! Don't worry about that, young man! Free entertainment is more than enough!" The lady gaggled through tears. "Nobody is buying gelatin lollipops, nowadays. They're hardly hip enough for the youngsters. Too 'light' by their standards... Zalaena just has a tolerance from her wonderful grandfather, I'm sure."

Before you could question what that meant, Zalaena returned with empty palms. "I'm sorry about that, Mrs. Krolla... how much did you say you wanted for the lavapus tentacle?"

"Oh, only a couple tektites..."

<><><><><>

"I can't believe I forgot you might not know what currency is..." Zalaena sighed, her tails wrapping around her legs in shame. "I guess I figured that if you knew what towns were, and what groceries were, it was reasonable to assume..."

You raised a faintly-glowing brow. "I know what currency is. Just... never seen it done like that before. Nothing physical. Physical is... I think that was for more..." ...what were you saying? Why did you feel like you knew if you couldn't recall where any of it was coming from?

Zalaena just blinked back. "That's... interesting. How do you keep track of it all, then? Do you just remember every transaction you've ever made? Are there huge transaction-centers writing all this stuff down?"

You shook your head, irritated. It wasn't anything like that, but you didn't know what it was like... so you just shut your mouth and deflected. "Well... I can't tell ya. And it doesn't matter, because that shop-lady still let me get this!"

A brief dig into your deceased mouth-bag produced the gelatin lollipop and a toothy grin from yours truly. You sped up a little and stopped right in front of Zalaena, lollipop held up like a royal sceptre, and gave her a dramatic bow. "For you, your highness."

The nell girl, once more painted red, looked away and laughed. "You're a bold one, mister Winn. Few thieves have the nerve to gift a girl their ill-gotten bounties."
Despite her teasing words, Zalaena wasted no time in plucking the lollipop from your fingertips and unwrapping it.

"And fewer still have gotten those bounties from makin' an old lady laugh!" You proclaimed, very proud of your achivement. "Besides, you clearly haven't got any qualms about eatin' that trophy of evil. That makes you just as law-breaking as I..."

"Oh, stop!" The nell snorted and punched you in the shoulder. "You're sounding like grampa now, it's uncool!"

"And what's wrong with that?" You rebuked. "Give me a few more days an' I bet you I'll learn t' teleport just like he did. If I can only remember the words..."

You won't have to, young Arwinn!

You froze in place. Passerby stopped to look-- you weren't sure if it was due to your odd appearance or what you shouted next. "Zalaena! Did you hear that??"

"Hear what?" The girl answered between sucks. "Oh, wait-- ugh, we've probably been gone too long. I think grampa might be digging into your head. Come on, let's get back home."

What the hell did she mean by that?

Don't fret, you'll find out in due time. Simply turn left in a hundred steps...

<><><><><>

"The two of you have taken far too long," Yavenn scolded. He was clearly being half-serious, but his wiry stature made you worried he might've actually ended up starving. "But... I shouldn't be mad at you two. After all, in the time you took bringing me a simple amount of groceries, I have concluded various important things."

That was good, you figured, paying little attention to the old man as you unloaded the morning's bounty atop the stony kitchen counters. He continued on, citing the names of books you had no ideas about and no real care for, describing the details of their contents in a distant willowy tone.

You interrupted, briefly, to ask the man about what had happened a half-hour ago. "Yavenn... was that you in my head, way back on the road?"

The old man nodded, his neck faintly cracking as he did so, and grinned. "Yes, yes. I was testing a communication spell. I use it to pester Zalaena when she feels her time is better spent gallivanting around with the neighbors than listening to what I have to say."

The thought of him invading your mind wasn't a pleasant one. Even less pleasant was the idea that he might know as much. "Communication... so you can't read my mind?"

Yavenn shook his wispy head. "Not a chance. I fear even one glimpse might drive me mad."

Whether he was joking was lost on you, as Zalaena interrupted to present the six-armed sorcerer with the caramelized lavapus tentacle she had bought for him. "Oh, thank you! This looks delicious. I shall have it in due time."

While Zalaena thanked Yavenn and unloaded the last of the groceries, you started scanning the room for some seating... before finding your arm gripped by one of Yavenn's, and the old man's face looking up at yours with an indiscernible expression. "I do hope you were paying attention before we were interrupted. The details of my readings will be important for your first lesson."

>First lesson of... magic? No-- Yavenn can't just do that, right? You don't want to be his apprentice. You won't let him!

>First lesson of magic! You're going to be his apprentice! Whether that's what he meant or not, you'll make sure of it! How could you pass an opportunity like this up?

>First lesson of... what? You genuinely don't know. You want to ask for more details before you commit to anything.

>>6371995
>First lesson of... what? You genuinely don't know. You want to ask for more details before you commit to anything

Taking today off to get some good sleep, I stayed up way too late last night writing the last entry. It has not done me well.

The vote's extended until tomorrow!

>>6371995

>First lesson of magic! You're going to be his apprentice! Whether that's what he meant or not, you'll make sure of it! How could you pass an opportunity like this up?
Opportunity awaits! Huzzah!

>>6371995
>First lesson of... what? You genuinely don't know. You want to ask for more details before you commit to anything.

>>6371995
>First lesson of magic! You're going to be his apprentice! Whether that's what he meant or not, you'll make sure of it! How could you pass an opportunity like this up?
I'M A WIZARD

>>6372627
AIGHT TO AVOID A TIE, SLOT ME IN AS SUPPORTING 'FIRST LESSON OF WHAT' INSTEAD
AIE AIE

>>6372628
If so, then we have a winner! We'll be asking for more details!

Writing...

"First lesson in what?" You asked, sincerely. You had an inkling, of course-- you just wanted to confirm...

"Tormenting Zalaena," the old man whispered back to you. His look was dead serious... as dead serious as a man like him could get, anyways. "Come tomorrow morning, I will show you exactly how to get away with hiding spiders in her hair."

Ohhh-- he was joking! Of course he was. Who would do that to their own granddaughter? Not a man like Yavenn, for sure! You decided to play along, hoping it would earn you some points later on.

"Ahhh, I get it! I've been paying attention, yup. Come t'morrow morning, I'll be your best student," you winked.

Yavenn nodded twice, once fiercely and again more gently. "Good, good. Come morn, you shall be visited by my voice as you were upon the street. If I find you snoring loud enough to overtake me, I shall simply make myself known by other means."

With that, Yavenn left the kitchen... seemingly having forgotten why he was even there in the first place. Zalaena had remembered for him, however, and could soon be seen chasing after him and clutching a hastily-improvised sandwich between her hands.

<><><><><>

The rest of the day was spent on necessary mundanity. Zalaena had insisted on a house tour, and any attempts to walk out of it were met with resistance from the most curious parts of you. It was something of a relief, then, when the entire tour ended up taking... hardly ten minutes.

Aside from the spacious lobby and a certain old man's locked room, Yavenn and Zalaena's house was rather small. There was no real dining room, and the living room lay at the end of the dark corridor you had first seen opposite the front door. It was almost half the size of the lobby, with the ceiling hardly reaching a foot above your head, and the carpeted floor was awash with pillows and stools in place of real chairs. The centerpiece was a round wooden table, seemingly made of the silver wood you'd seen all around the Chordless Forest, atop which sat a great variety of unimportant things. The entire room seemed perpetually warm, both due to the orange walls and due to actual concentration of heat.

The corridor extended a small ways past the living room, but only into a door to the outside. There was a small fenced-in area in the back, large enough to hold almost five pigs, that seemed... thoroughly unimportant, overall. It was mostly covered in plush green grass and the occasional bush or weed.

From the lobby, you could climb the only staircase to reach both Zalaena's bedroom (which she insisted was off-limits) and the room Zalaena was now insisting you stay in: a blank, vacant box of a thing with no personality save for an empty desk and silver-wood chair. There was a porthole-looking window directly across from the entrance, but it was rather high up. "We can get you a bedroll and a pillow," she insisted, "and it'll be just like home. I don't know if you'll get another, since we haven't had an inn for a few years now, and I just want to make sure you have someplace to stay..."

You weren't opposed to the idea, just dismayed by the circumstances. A bedroll almost seemed like a downgrade compared to sleeping outside. Sleeping alone, too... it was doable, but you'd have preferred a partner past your first night. Nonetheless, you knew that was hardly viable in your situation. So, you only asked one real question: "can you make the bedroll high enough to see out the window?"

The odd request perplexed Zalaena for a moment. Her thoughts drifted one place, but you saw her mouth say something else. "I think we'd need to stack a table or two to make that happen... but I'll see if I can find something that lets you see out of there, if it's what you want."

From there, the two of you spent hours rearranging old furniture and unpacking various new bits and bobs to try and accommodate for more than two people. Such a task bordered on Herculean past the lobby-- you almost had to give up in the kitchen, as a third chair by the half-counter only intruded upon regular foot traffic. Were it to remain permanently, none of you would be able to get from the living room to the front door without risking slamming into the thing.

By the time the suns had set, you were both feeling exhausted. Yavenn, on the other hand, had slept through the entire thing... and emerged from his slumber only to down what few scraps Zalaena could scramble together for dinner. That left the nell girl so irritated that she stormed out of the house, and you felt the need to follow her into the backyard.

"What's wrong?" You asked, laying a hand on her shoulder. That hand was quickly swatted away by one of Zalaena's tails, and the girl herself turned around to face you soon after.

"Sorry-- about your hand. You've got nothing to do with this. I'm just... worrying, again, without good reason," the girl mumbled. She avoided eye contact with you, preferring instead to look at the house or the grass.

Worrying? If that was how Zalaena worried, you shuddered to think of what her anger looked like.

She continued: "Grampa holes himself up 'n there like the world's about to end and he's takin' shelter. He won't let me in, either, unless I've got food... like I'm some kind of servant, instead of his only family. He was doing this before you came along, but now that you're here..."

Zalaena crossed her arms and slumped into the grass, her tails twitching like loose whips as she kept on speaking. "How many times have you seen him today? Yesterday? Once, twice? He can't even be bothered to greet you, or show you around his room. At least when I don't show you around my room, it's because you're a guy-stranger I've just met. Grampa hasn't got any unmentionables lyin' around, he's at no risk to himself..."

You cut her off there. "What's that matter? Your granddad's got a bedroom. I don't need t' see it. I don't need him to treat me like a house guest, neither. Both of you have already done me a world of good by letting me sleep over at your place. If you ran around treatin' me like royalty, I'd be flattered... but it's not necessary!" You were pretty sure you already fit the bill, given your ravishingly good looks!

"What's it matter if it's necessary or not? It's polite! I know that's not really en vogue these days, but..." Zalaena's voice diminished. "...well, if you've really forgotten everything like you say, I want the rest of your new life to be as good as it can be."

You found such an idea... admirable. There was no more selfless a pursuit than to brighten someone's day, after all, even if it just so happened to be yours from time to time. The idea that you were worthy of such attention, too, tickled your fancy. You swore you could feel the very notion in your bones... assuming you had any.

"You've been staring a bit," Zalaena tilted her head slightly. "Have I got something in my hair?"

"No, no, you're fine," you insisted. This was in spite of the fact that the tip of her giant ponytail was covered in grass and dirt now, of course, but Zalaena didn't need to know about that. "I was just thinkin'."

"What about?" She dug further, her eyes following yours as you joined her in the grass.

"Helpin' people," you decided, "like you're tryin' to do. I think, if I can... I want t' do that. In any way I can."

A veil of silence descended upon both of you. Zalaena seemed lost for words; you felt you were thinking of too many. In the end, the pair of you mutually drifted towards the heavens in an attempt to change the subject...

...the heavens, which took the shape of an inky blue sky smattered in white sprinkles, silver cracks, purple streaks, and a pair of moons-- one golden, circular, bright. Another silver, slightly oblong, somewhat dimmer-- like a stone sat next to a flame.

"...the sky's beautiful tonight," Zalaena commented. Her head slowly descended into the grass, taking her upper torso with it, while her hands found themselves behind her head...

"Isn't it always?" You agreed. A wave of humility washed over you, comforting you like a warm blanket. The various grooves and black spaces between all the stars etched themselves into your mind, soon joining the moons and stars themselves, reminding you of just how small the pair of you were. You found yourself drawn to various places in the sky-- those that seemed to create crude images of sorts, those with particularly bright spots... and, at least on one occasion, a nondescript patch of blackness. You hung on that one for a while, caught up in a sense of dread that briefly overtook what had otherwise become a cocktail of humble wonder.

It took Zalaena getting to her feet and mentioning that she was going to bed to snap you out of your aimless wandering. She seemed reluctant to leave-- even as she was heading inside, you saw her swiping glances at the sky. You were similarly unwilling to go, but... you knew how late it was, and you had a new bedroll to try out. The stars would have to wait for some other time.

<><><><><>

Arwinn, Yavenn's voice bothered you. Rise and shine. It is time for your first lesson in tormenting.

He wasn't joking, was he?

Bleary-eyed, you rose from your bedroll to find yourself with a back that ached worse than it had with hundreds of little holes in it. Sleeping on the floor, it turned out, was even less comfortable than the stairs... with or without a bedroll. You'd have to find a proper bed sooner rather than later.

After a moment's preparation and giving Yavenn some morning greetings, the pair of you found yourselves outside the door to Zalaena's room.

"Zalaena sleeps long into the morning on weekends," Yavenn explained, "so she should not hear us enter." Especially, as you learned, if Yavenn opened the door without turning the knob...

Once the two of you had entered the modest abode, you forced yourself to focus on the old man or the figure of the sleeping girl. Whatever else was strewn about her bedroom was of no interest to you, and the more you looked the less you'd wanted to. "Now, do you remember what I was telling you yesterday morning...?"

"Of course I do," you lied. "But I think you should repeat it, just to make sure."

"I won't be doing that," Yavenn turned away. His face remained stone-like, unflinching. Eventually, you picked up on a quiet echo surrounding the room, followed closely by even quieter chanting...

In the name of Aentarr, a proposal minor-- bade this girl's hair...

He wasn't joking. He wasn't joking! You panicked, not wanting Zalaena's hair to actually become full of spiders-- before you knew what you were doing, you put a hand over Yavenn's mouth. That just prompted him to use his arms, instead, so you blurted something out in an attempt to negotiate.

"Hold on! What has Zalaena done to deserve spiders in her hair? I thought you were jokin', yesterday morning-- don't tell me you really mean t' do it!" You tried to sound tough despite your underlying suspicions...

...only to be met with laughter. Laughter hearty enough to almost bite down on your hand, and loud enough to make Zalaena turn over in her sleep. "Of course I didn't mean to, young man! Why would I torment my granddaughter so? No, you simply gave me the opportunity for a test of character... and I took it with great gusto!" The old man was beaming, clearly very proud of himself. You were sure you almost saw some of his teeth underneath his neverending beard.

A test of character...? "But what would I need that for?" You were pretty sure you didn't need one of those...

"Why, to see if you'd make a good magical apprentice, of course!"

>Whether you'd make a good one or not, it didn't matter. You didn't want to be Yavenn's apprentice; especially not after a stunt like this.

>Why didn't he just say so in the first place?! Accept the apprenticeship with open arms, and ask about when you'll begin.

>Write-in.

>>6372892
>Why didn't he just say so in the first place?! Accept the apprenticeship with open arms, and ask about when you'll begin.

>>6372892
Hmm... What ARE we? The slivers of nascent personality and expectation that slip out have me thinking we were a human (or angel, even?) of some importance once...

>>6372892
>Why didn't he just say so in the first place?! Accept the apprenticeship with open arms, and ask about when you'll begin.
>...But why not Zalaeena?

Unanimous once again— we’ll be accepting! Writing.

>>6373174
>What ARE we?
You’ve got the whole quest to find that out!

And… all this was necessary for that? Bothering Zalaena, pretending to be doing something much crueler? You weren’t sure whether to laugh, grumble, or simply accept what was being implied. Frustrated with all three options, you took instead to interrogation.

“Why not just tell me right away? You could’a hurt Zalaena if I’d failed,” you mused.

“What a silly question. Such a mundane prank would have done little more than scare her. Besides, I already explained my reasoning: how else was I to determine you were as benevolent as I suspected?” Yavenn mumbled, rounding the bed as he spoke. While Zalaena slept, he carefully pulled up her blanket to cover her bare shoulders.

“You could’ve just asked,” you shrugged. “What’re words for, if not communicatin’?”

The question got a snicker out of the old man, now motioning to you to follow him out of the room. “You’ll learn soon enough! Now, the knob is right there, let’s give her some privacy…”

As you shut the door behind you and Yavenn, a final question floated to mind. While the two of you descended the steps, you let it slip in quieter tones. “…why would I make a better apprentice than Zalaena? She knows lots about this—“

“You conflate knowledge with interest,” Yavenn interrupted, loudly. “She has no use for such outdated traditions. She is a girl of the modern day, after all, and finds herself more preoccupied with worldly matters. Smithing, training, shopping… perhaps affairs less typical of the modern nell, yes, but no less distant from my own pursuits…”

A hint of sadness could be heard lacing the man’s every word. His trailing off was less to do with the fact that you’d arrived in front of his room, more to do with the fact that he was clearly asking himself the same question. It took Yavenn a moment to even realize you were waiting for him to open the door to his room. “Ah. Just a moment…”

With a harsh click, the aging door to Yavenn’s hideout opened.

Immediately afterwards, you found yourself drowning in an unknown sea of abstracts. You simultaneously felt dim-witted, intelligent; tougher than a mountain, weaker than a pebble; absolutely sick to your stomach and overwhelmed with awe.

The room itself was larger than the house would have feasibly allowed. It didn’t seem to have many walls— just floors, some of which bent 90 degrees to make partial walls. Walls of every color and none at all; walls covered in nothing and everything; walls painted with symbols you both distinctly recognized and couldn’t recall at all. What empty space existed between the floors and their fake-wall counterparts seemed near infinite, yet simultaneously finite…

A pair of hands found themselves upon your right shoulder, accompanied shortly after by a laugh. “Quaint, isn’t it? I fear Zalaena might have me drawn and quartered if she ever finds out what I’ve done with the place. Just a pair of pillows, a desk, and a few piles of books… completely off-limits.”

You were somehow more confused by the old man’s ramblings than what you were seeing. The infinite space seemed to twist and turn, folding in on itself, dimming and glowing, settling down into some vague semblance of stability as time went on… “…I think the shock’ve your proposal’s gettin’ to me. Would you mind, uh… guidin’ me to the pillows?”

Yavenn stopped for a moment, his mouth half-open. He was about to say something, but discarded it with a shake of his head. “Yes, yes. Right here…”

Taken by a weak grip, you were led by the hand to….a pair of pillows. You hadn’t noticed them— they were so far down you’d have to tuck in your chin to see them. But, true to Yavenn’s word, they sat directly in front of you, up against a half-floor-wall-thing. The stacks of books he’d mentioned piled up near the doorway, all hardcover. What those hardcovers were made of varied— some sort of fleshy-looking thing, plain leather, a kind of thatch you couldn’t parse, chorus fruit shellings…

“You look even paler than usual,” Yavenn joked. “I won’t be anccepting any second thoughts, should you have any.”

“No, no,” you stammered. “I’m not havin’ any. I’m just… ‘n awe, is all. I didn’t really think this was… I mean, I knew, but… you…?”
You spoke honestly, with a hint of reverence. The old man had been impressive before, sure, but the thieves in the woods almost seemed like nothing compared to this. You hardly knew whether it was Yavenn’s doing— you didn’t particularly care. If Yavenn could teach you how to find places like these, or even make them yourself…

The old man seemed… puzzled. “Ah, I forget. You are newborn, not familiar with…” …he trailed off again, seemingly realizing something… “…sorry, what is it that is astounding you so? I’ve hardly begun explaining your foundations.”

Despite the inquiring tone, you could see a mix of disbelief and fierce intrigue upon the man’s wrinkled face. It almost reminded you of someone— who, you had no clue— but that distraction didn’t last long, as your reply was enough to make that familiarity fade away. “Your room, mister! All’ve it! I don’t even know where this is— how it’s possible! You can teach me this— right? How you did this? How you found it?”

If Yavenn’s eyes were the kind to open, you were sure you’d have seen his wide awake there and then. The old man was overjoyed. “Incredible! Not since— or, ever—?”

The man dashed around in a mad circle, maybe two— you saw him walking towards one of the floor-walls, expecting him to bash into a wall, and almost cried out… before watching Yavenn simply continue walking, as if the floor hadn’t just rotated ninety degrees.

“Arwinn, I should explain—“ —the man teleported to your side, briefly spooking you— “—only one other nell has been able to see this construct of mine: the Grand Wizard himself. It requires such a fine attunement to the forces that make up this universe, such experience with magic… I have yet to meet many nell who have ever made it so far. And yet…”

Yavenn began pacing again. Both of you now shared a mutual frenzy— the two of you began talking over yourselves, asking and answering with such rapid speed that your discussion quickly devolved into nonsense. Eventually, Yavenn put an end to it all with a loud shout. “Hold!”

“Allow me to simply demonstrate what I am referring to.” The man straightened out all six of his arms, his stick somehow maintaining balance on its own…

Under oath to Pyktur, in illusion’s name, let what once was— be again!

The infinite space began to recede— the floor became regular, cobbled— the walls that once were nothing returned to view…

As you were slowly enclosed within a rather ordinary room, you found Yavenn’s earlier description of the room perfectly accurate. Mostly cluttered with stacks of books, containing only a few pillows, with a single desk in the back that faced a wall. The roof was sloped, at its highest near the door— the walls were a sort of sky blue. Or indigo. Cerulean? The color never seemed to stay the same…

“This is all any ordinary nell would see. A refashioned closet, used not for storing clothes… but for books, and the occasional works of a sorcerer past his prime. It was what I expected you to see, since you seem to share stature and sentience with us nellefim… yet, such glamours have no effect on you!” Yavenn shuffled over to a specific book and picked it up, seemingly forgetting about his stick while he did so. “Such a finding is a breakthrough— I only hope I have a page or two free to write it down. Arwinn— touch one of the walls, if you please.”

You did as the man asked, and soon found yourself holding an orange pencil. Where had it come from? You wanted to know! “How—“

“Think not of it. Regardless of your senses, I highly doubt you could understand the inner workings for now…” Yavenn stumbled over the books and reached out a hand, plucking the pencil from yours with little more than a quiet ‘thank you’ before madly scribbling into one of his book’s pages. “Yes, well— I had thought to start you off as a normal student, but your potential astounds me! It would be foolish of me to begin with attunement when you have already gone further than most experienced mages… so, come tomorrow, we shall simply practice what I demonstrated in the Chordless Forest. It is a basic spell— one of the most basic that any witch or wizard can learn. I suppose it will take you a week or two to master it… from there, we can begin experimenting.”

“So we’re starting now?” You were thrilled— not even a day’s wait! Part of you wanted to grab a book and start reading right away, so you lunged for one of the more normal-looking volumes— only to be caught by one of Yavenn’s lower arms and given a gentle glare.

“Now, yes, as soon as possible… but you must not touch these volumes until you understand their every purpose. Without such knowledge, they may seek to punish you.” The ominous statement was spoken with only mild scorn, as if such a thing was rather typical of Yavenn’s studies. The mere thought of such danger being ordinary thrilled you beyond words.

“I shall be with you in another moment— past that, we will begin by the pillows…”

<><><><><>

The day was an exhausting affair. Despite Yavenn’s initial impression, you struggled to truly submerge yourself in the mind of a sorcerer. Constant distraction found itself enough of a nuisance to make it near-impossible— every little thing would be questioned, analyzed, explained, refuted. Both you and Yavenn grew weary of such technicalities only after hours of debate, and by the time the pair of you had gone to bed your throats were as hoarse as your hands were tired.

Day after day, the process repeated. Wake up, go to Yavenn, study his singular magical bolts, go to bed. The routine left you exhausted— you’d hardly had time to talk with Zalaena outside of meals, and found yourself suddenly sympathizing with Yavenn’s own absence. Sympathizing, yes, and begrudging him— just slightly— for leaving you so constantly tired.

So tired, in fact, that the day after you’d mastered a simple magical bolt… you slept in for nearly 14 hours. Zalaena had to wake you with pots and pans, and even those hardly did the job. Once you awoke, too, you found yourself… shockingly dim.

“Zalaena…?” You muttered, bleary-eyed and weak-limbed. “Why’d you wake me…?”

“Grampa… wants you downstairs,” she huffed. Her arms were crossed, her expression… distant. “Says you’ve got to wear more than a loincloth this time.”

Already, Zalaena was turning to leave. “If I were you, I’d go find a curtain or two to make into a scarf. Paying Milanie a visit could work, too, but you haven’t got any money…”

You were somewhat aware of why she might be upset, but not certain. It was still early morn, after all, and… “…hurry up. It’s almost noon.”

Any further queries were put on hold.

——————

By the time you made it downstairs, wrapped in a towel you’d stolen off the stairs’ railing, Yavenn and Zalaena were already discussing something over lunch.

“…and he’ll have to prepare, quickly, because the Grand Wizard expects us there by…”

“Oh, Arwinn!” Zalaena noticed you and interrupted, waving you over to the half-counter stools. “Sorry— I don’t know where the third chair went. I saved some lunch for you, though…”

On the countertop was… some kind of sandwich. You weren’t sure what it was made of— only that “what” was some kind of meat, and that the bread enclosing it had some kind of shaving sprinkled on top. Not in the mood to question your appetite, you quickly began chowing down…

“Arwinn, you have six hours to prepare yourself.” Yavenn shot straight to the point. “This evening, we will be meeting someone of great importance. You must dress yourself properly, abide by everything I say, and use what I have taught you to as great an effect as you can…”

“We’re going to Babbelum,” Zalaena clarified, a hint of excitement entering her voice. “I was going to take you later on, but grampa says this can’t wait. So… I guess I’ll have to do the little tour I’d planned for you tonight, if I can.”

As the pair of nellefim continued explaining things you only barely grasped, you felt your head begin to hurt. Terms and phrases you hardly recognized, references to obvious things you couldn’t recall. Once the two finally quieted down, you interjected…

“I think, before all’ve this happens, I’d like to…”

[Choose TWO options!]

>Visit Milanie. If a loincloth was inappropriate, you might need some new clothing…

>Spend some time with Zalaena at home. You’d heard she had an interest in smithing, and wanted to know what exactly that was…

>Get to know Beccani a little better. [Write-in whether you want to walk through the village alone or with another person.]

>Rest even more. Despite all your sleep, you’re still very tired. If you’re going someplace new, you can’t afford to be off your game…

>>6373342
>Visit Milanie. If a loincloth was inappropriate, you might need some new clothing…
>Spend some time with Zalaena at home. You’d heard she had an interest in smithing, and wanted to know what exactly that was…

Vote postponed another day to gather more answers and tend to personal matters, will write tomorrow

>>6373342
>Visit Milanie. If a loincloth was inappropriate, you might need some new clothing…
>Spend some time with Zalaena at home. You’d heard she had an interest in smithing, and wanted to know what exactly that was…
We need formalwear, and don't even know what it should look like. Zalaeena can come with us so we don't make any major faux pas, and she she feels less neglected. I don't think she has anyone else but us and her grandpa, and now we're both busy all day.

In advance of Wayward Cosmos' tenth post, I'd like to ask for some feedback. I'm open to any, but I'd especially like someone to take a look at the quest's pacing. It's a one-shot, which I have never done before, so I would appreciate some thoughts on whether things are too slow/too fast/etc. Any concerns about plot direction will be put to rest soon, so I feel this might be a good point at which to gather consensus.

I also hope you're enjoying things so far, but that's a given :)

I'll still be posting today; just wanted to solicit some opinions before I did so. Thank you, in advance, to anyone who answers.

>>6374121
I am enjoying this! However, I will say that for a one shot, I think you've got a LOT going on.

>unique setting with varied and complex race, distinct magic system and ecology
>main character is an amnesiac of another species with a mysterious past
>we have multiple relationships and skill trees to advance
>we have no immediately-defined goal

A lot of this can lead to situations like "Digimon Quest - The Tower" which is very good, but also has been running for... Like, half a year, despite being pitched as a one-shot. If you really want to wrap this up, more tightly corralling us and speeding up the pacing may be necessary.

That said, it's a cool setting. Pokepocalypse is rad, but if this speaks to you or you wish to alternate, that's cool, too! I just don't see this current set-up and pacing leading to a true one-and-done.

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151 KB PNG

>I'm still going to write today guys don't worry
>fall asleep less than halfway through
Sorry about that. I'm still writing, don't worry. This is turning out to be a very long post, anyways. Hope it's worth the extended wait.

>>6374139
I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it! And I'm flattered that my main problem is "you have too much to do for one thread" lol. But I will be trying to keep this at one thread-- at absolute worst, two tops. Tight corralling and speeding up the pace are on the agenda, though if I do decide to make this a two-shot instead of a one-shot I might tone that down a little. (Whether I make another thread will mostly depend on whether I run into too many delays to consistently do daily updates... which I unfortunately do seem to be nearing).
Definitely won't alternate between this and Pokepocalypse; more likely will finish this and then return to Pokepocalypse full time.
Thank you for replying!

Okay, so, it turns out that this entry is legitimately too big for me to finish in one day. Arguably two, but I didn't have much written to begin with before.

Hopefully it will be done tomorrow. Sorry for the prolonged wait!

>>6374121
I like your writing and characterizations, and I think you are doing good with consistency. I think my only 'complaint' would be that I feel our character is being blown around a bit by the narrative instead of directing it - which to be fair, he has amnesia and that's generally how things go with a character like that early in the story, and as said this is only ten posts in. So, I am hanging tight, but with that in mind maybe be thinking more about at which point he will get both hands on the wheel and working towards a goal with weight, and how.

>>6374585
No worries, QM. See you soon!

Zalaena scratched her chin, already sorting out a sequence of events. "Well, given how long you took, we'll have to wait a little bit on the clothing... Milanie tends to take breaks around noontime to refresh her stock and get out a little. In the meantime... you said you wanted to hang out?"

The nell's smile stretched from ear to ear, only restrained by her easygoing eyes. Her appreciation of your simple offer spoke louder than her words-- even shaking your head to nod slightly was enough to dust her cheeks with blush. "Boy, have I got something to show you. Grampa--?"

Yavenn remained where he was, observing from behind his granddaughter, a similarly lax smile emerging upon his own face. "I won't be stopping you two today. So long as you refrain from setting yourselves alight or becoming covered in soot, I have no qualms with your forge-going."

An excited shriek escaped Zalaena's lips. "Oh, thank you! Okay, Arwinn-- I'm going to make you regret spending the last week in that refurbished closet. Come, come-- I can't wait!"

The nell hopped off her stool so quickly that she'd forgotten to bring you along-- just before she was out of range, you saw one of her tails grab your wrist, and--

<><><><><>

--you found yourself being dragged across the (thankfully soft) backyard, further and further away from the house, nearer and nearer to a peculiar-looking mountain...

...stopping only an acre or two away from the towering thing, in front of a comparatively small rocky outcrop. This outcrop was very strange-looking; aside from the stalactites irregularly lining its tips, it was also hollow, much more akin to a cave than a true outcropping. The outcrop stood nearly 15 feet tall, almost rivaling the height of Zalaena's house, and seemed to culminate in a sort of dull point aimed towards the sky. Even from a few feet away, the heat emanating from inside of it was palpable, washing over you like a wave swallowing a ship. When you got to your feet and turned to look at Zalaena again, you could see her forehead already beading up with sweat.

"This's the forge," the nell confirmed. "It's just this big cave I found sorta close to home. I do all of my smithing here; it helps keep the house clean and grampa happy with the temperature."

"What smithing?" You reiterated, still unfamiliar with the concept. As the two of you entered the sweltering hideaway, you found yourself both uncomfortable and relieved. Your own palms weren't sweating, your skin was clear... but you could still feel the intense temperatures here, and-- despite an underlying comfort with their extremities-- you hardly appreciated the drastic shift from temperate coolness to the insides of a furnace.

"Weaponsmithing, mostly." Zalaena grinned, making her way over to a very smooth slab of stone. Atop it lay various tools and instruments you couldn't recognize-- a hammer was maybe the only thing you could recall, while the intertwined metal poles and strange-looking gloves puzzled you more than anything. The girl seemed to be looking for something in particular. "It's no good as a job here, what with all the hemming and hawing about basic prosthetics, but it makes bank over in Babbelum. Besides, it's fun!"

"But you've got a weapon right there," you motioned towards the hammer. "D' you need weapons to make other weapons, too? Or are hammers not... weapons, here?"

"I'm more surprised you recognized it as one!" Zalaena said, wide-eyed. "No-- I actually don't use this to fight. Most people don't, really. It's... outdated. Like swords or maces are. Top-heavy stuff is more common nowadays. Metal horns, spiked helmets, the like. Though-- maybe not the helmets. I've heard they're considered dirty nowadays..."

The nell girl continued, slipping on the strange pair of gloves you'd seen earlier and plucking a thick piece of metal from a thatched basket you'd only just realized was there. She motioned for you to follow her as she went a little deeper into the cave, down a rudimentary staircase made of metal... into a pit of lava with a small section of untouched rock near its center. The burning heat that this room enveloped you in seemed to pass a certain threshold-- beyond that of uncomfortable drowning sensations, into comforting blankets of familiarity. Zalaena must have felt the same way, you reasoned, if she was so comfortable here.

"You'll see what I use the hammer for right after this," she went on. Zalaena slipped the piece of metal into one of her tails, then allowed it to start snaking closer to the bubbling lava. Once it'd reached the shores of the molten pool, the steel began turning red-hot, almost melting... before Zalaena withdrew the searing-hot steel, carefully, and motioned for you to follow her back up the stairs. You did as she asked, making sure to avoid the hot portion of the steel hanging out of one of her tails.

"I've never seen a place this hot! How'd you find it?" You commented, wondering if you could find someplace like it yourself. The lava room almost seemed more comfortable than the room you'd spent the last week sleeping in.

The question caused Zalaena to slow down a little, though you were unsure whether that had to do with your return to the stone slab or what you'd actually asked. Nevertheless, Zalaena answered. "I was playing around when I was little, away from home, and it started raining really hard. I'd have just run home, but the fog the rain had brought was so thick that I couldn't see anything. I just kept running and running, looking for someplace to go... and, eventually, I found this." She motioned with her hands towards the roof. "I've been hiding out here way longer than I've been smithing."

You hung around near the entrance to the stairway, trying to remain as close to that burning heat as possible, but soon found yourself called over to the stone slab.
"Give me your hands," the nell girl mumbled. "I've got to measure them for something."

You did as she asked, then returned fire with a question of your own. "If you've been here for longer than you've been smithing... how long have you been smithing for?"

Zalaena didn't answer.

You thought she hadn't heard you, so you repeated the question-- only to get a response before you could finish speaking. "Oh, um, about ten years. Give or take maybe a year or two. I-- don't know. I'm trying not to keep track..." Zalaena chuckled. "Okay, please take your hands off of the slab. I don't want to hurt you."

"Hurt me? With wh--"

CLANG CLANG

As your ears and body alike recoiled, you finally figured out what that hammer was for. As metal hit metal, Zalaena raised her voice to elaborate. "I've been doing this most of my life," she said, "arguably all of it. That's all I really care about-- not any specifics like dates or causes."

CLANG, CLANG, CLANG...

"Hey... do you want to try this out?" Zalaena asked, already drenched. She seemed... out of practice, for how much she was raving about this. "I think it might help you get an income. You sure as heck won't be getting one from whatever grampa's teaching you, after all..."

"Boy, would I!" A convenient excuse for using the lava pool and a hammer? You'd take it! Before Zalaena could approve, you were already moving to supplant her at the stone slab. You glanced around, briefly, to see if you were missing any essential tools-- instead, you found the various framed weapons and pieces of armor lining the cave's walls catching your attention...

"Great! Okay, so, let's not start with what I was doing," Zalaena moved her folded metal off of the slab and into a bucket, "let's go from the beginning. I'll guide you through it. Like grampa, only better.

First, you'll want to grab any of the scrap I've got over there in the basket. Pick any kind; it won't matter which shape it is for long..."

<><><><><>

After nearly two whole hours in the forge, the two of you were exhausted. Despite the ease with which you'd shaped your new rudimentary dagger, you couldn't deny how worn out you felt. Zalaena, too-- she may have been better off than you, but her hunched posture and lagging tails made her level of energy obvious.

"Milanie's is over that way," the tired girl said, motioning straight ahead. You'd left your house just five minutes ago, yet were already losing your sense of direction. The stares and whispers of passerby seemed to catch your attention more-- maybe because, after so much time banging metal to metal, their incessant gossip wore on your ears all the more.

"I really wish your village friends would stop staring so much," you grumbled. Was it the loincloth? You were on your way to fix that right now. Couldn't the townsfolk have some patience?

"They can't help it," Zalaena snorted. "It's in their nature to start speculating the moment someone other than Nrvllon gets herself a guy, friend or not."

"You wish you were that lucky," A particularly haughty girl interrupted, trailing the pair of you and audibly grinning from ear to ear. "I wouldn't be surprised if you picked up this glowie boy from Babbelum just to show off."

You turned your head, curious as to who would be brave enough to insult you like that. Your eyes then came face to face with the most exaggerated sneer you'd ever seen. It lay upon the face of a girl with heavy dark eyeliner, a tiny pointed nose, and straight black hair that reached to her silver-ringed tails. The few lumps she did have almost seemed to augment her pointed ears, protruding from behind them in a manner that almost reminded you of piercings. "What's wrong with him, anyways? No tail, no crown-- what, did he get beaten up so badly that he lost all his weapons?"

"Buzz off," Zalaena growled. "He's perfectly normal. Especially compared to you."

You reached for your aforementioned dagger, but were met only with laughter. "Ahahaha! Is THAT the best you've got now?? Oh, man, I'm going to have a fit! I bet that thing's as big as your pecker! No wonder Nrvllon thought you were jealous!"

That was enough for you to swipe. "Shut your mouth, lady! You've got nothing on me!" You were wholly willing to prove it, too-- but the lady dodged your first strike, and landed far-away enough for a second strike to require more effort.

"Oh, he's feisty, too! Bet he's super insecure. Just your type," the girl's smile grew wider. Her gleaming canines were almost golden-yellow, highlighting her black eyes as much as they were threatening retaliation. She leaned over to Zalaena briefly, then leaned in further and stuck a finger on your chest. "I'd love to prove you wrong, silly boy, but I've got better things to do. I wouldn't want to keep you from your exhibitionism, anyways, even with that pathetic chest of yours."

The girl once more dodged another swipe you'd taken at her, laughing all the while. As she melted into the background of the village, she called out to Zalaena. "Don't forget, honey-- take him to wed, you'll find yourself dead!"

"Urgh..." Zalaena groaned, red in the face and tapping her feet. "Just... ignore that girl. She's no good. Not for Nrvllon, not for... anyone."

As the pair of you resumed your route to Milanie's, you found yourself similarly irritated. Your mouth made sure Zalaena knew. "No good-- no great, no nothin'! She's a piece of junk! In front've everyone, too... what's her problem?"

"I don't know," Zalaena sighed. "No family, I guess. She just sort of slipped into Nrvllon's orbit, and now all she does is hang around him and make the rest of the village miserable."

"Or spout nonsense," you agreed. "I don't even know what wedding is, but she's crazy to think doing anything with me'll kill you. I'll make sure it won't," you proudly proclaimed.

That got Zalaena laughing a little, which cheered her up... but just left you confused. When you asked what was so funny about a declaration of protection, the nell girl didn't hesitate to clarify. "She's just teasing me with an old rhyme about hitching up with crazy strangers. I think it's from some folk tale people've long forgotten. Let me remember: I think it was... A stranger once walked the earth, his skin brighter than the sky he walked beneath. He met a young woman, whom the very elements bowed before, took her to wed, and found himself dead. Something like that.

It's pretty anti-magic, too. I mean, 'the elements bowing before her' is pretty blatant, isn't it? Novices never get far enough to learn stuff like that. It's all advanced..." Zalaena went on and on, not stopping her talk until your house was almost entirely out of sight. She seemed oddly passionate about this old tale... enough that you began wondering how she'd heard it enough times to start speculating on its true meanings.

Eventually, though, she stopped herself. "Oh, look! Milanie's is right here! I'm so sorry-- I must have been talking the entire way..."

<><><><><>

Milanie's house was almost as big as yours. It had a thatched roof that sat atop a beige-colored stucco exterior and found itself surrounded by various strange plants. Some of them climbed atop its windowsills, some spread to the nearby torches, one even dared to tread upon the cobbled path that lead directly to the house's entrance...

You wasted no time in knocking on the door, only to be met with an unlocked handle to turn. Upon entering the abode and hearing a little bell ring behind you... you began wondering where all the clothes could be seen. All you were greeted with was a rather normal living room, carpeted, with an aging loveseat to your right and an extinguished fireplace to your left.

"HEY, ANYBODY HOME?" You yelled, making an effort to keep your voice just below ear-splitting levels. You had to remind yourself of how loud you sounded to everyone else-- Zalaena even winced when you called out, despite seeming fine afterwards...

...

...no response. "Are you sure she's here?" You asked Zalaena, arms already crossed.

"Confident," she replied. "She's just shy. Most of her customers are for the bakery, not her clothing, so she's not really used to these sorts of house calls..."

Just as Zalaena spoke of the devil, she descended from a faraway pair of steps. You could see the girl's golden curls and baggy pants even from the doorway-- you also saw her running back upstairs, like a coward, and decided to give chase. "Hey-- I'm down here! Where are you going? I've got to tell you something!"

A slammed door told you all you needed to know, and you couldn't help but frown. Were you freaking her out somehow? As you stood in front of the only room on this level of the house, lingering on the amateur engravings of flowers and cupcakes grafted upon the door's facade, you tried to think of things to say that might make her talk to you. "I didn't mean t' scare you-- I just need some clothin', and Zalaena said I could get that here..."

You heard some kind of shuffling from behind the door, then... nothing..

By the time you'd descended the steps and given Zalaena the bad news, you were pretty sure you'd have to be visiting Babbelum with a bare chest. Not long after, though, Milanie descended the stairs once again to prove you wrong.

She was dressed differently-- wearing a flowery blouse and a long skirt, yellow and pink respectively, with an oversized ruler in one hand and some paper in another. A pencil could be spotted in one of her tails-- a sewing needle without any string in the other. Lace was so pervasive throughout her outfit that you were beginning to second-guess whether you wouldn't be getting the same treatment.

"S-sorry for the wait," she called after you. "I, uh, didn't realize you were here for clothin'. I just... I thought you were here for sweets, an'd taken the wrong entrance..."

Zalaena put a hand on your shoulder and whispered into your ear. "I'll meet you outside, alright? Milanie doesn't like unnecessary guests for this type of thing."

You gave the girl a nod and watched her go, but soon found your full attention on a very bashful Milanie. "I can make you somethin' in a week or two, i-if you just let me..." ...she waggled her ruler, like that was supposed to mean something. You had to ask-- apparently, she needed to measure you to make sure things fit properly. That made sense.

"I've got no problems with that," you nodded, "but I need somethin' now if you can make it. I'm goin' to Babbelum in a few hours, and this's all I've got to wear..."

The girl opposite you became completely flustered, almost dropping her sewing needle as you spoke. "A few hours! You should'a come to me when we first met back at the square!"

"I would've if I knew I was goin', and that you made clothes!" You shot back, sharing her surprise. Milanie seemed unamused-- she was scrambling from place to place, table to table, trying to find... something.

"Oh-- hold on..." The girl hung her shoulders, remembering something, and trundled back to you. "I-I'll just take your measurements, then I can go find something for you upstairs. I-I can't really offer much else..."

"That's fine by me," you agreed. What exactly taking your measurements meant was a mystery to you... until you found a ruler being shoved onto your chest and heard Milanie beginning to mumble numbers. The ruler soon moved to your arms, which she had to push into being straight with her sewing-needle tail. The girl seemed so narrowly focused on her work that nothing you said roused her-- the only exception was when she accidentally jabbed your foot while measuring your leg and you ended up yelping. She apologized, profusely... and then got right back to work, with the only sign that that'd ever happened being her excessive caution when doing the rest of your parts.

Eventually, Milanie mumbled something about accuracy and ran upstairs again. You wanted to say something after her, but got no response. Some moments later, just as you'd taken to sitting upon the loveseat, Milanie rushed down with three different pieces of clothing hanging off of one of her arms.

"T-this is everything I have that might fit you," she explained. Each piece was then shown off individually, held high by her arms and explained in detail by their evidently passionate maker. Once each set of formalwear had been thoroughly elaborated upon, Milanie asked the most important question.

"S-so... which one do you want to buy?"

>The black and white three-piece suit. It's classy, straightforward, and probably "in style." You've been told it's a bit business-like, though, and that some people find it boring...

>The crimson buttoned jacket and accompanying white cravat. Definitely more of a flashy look, and not the most typical. You personally like it quite a lot, but if you want to avoid being stared at... it might not be the best choice.

>The blue-and-gold wizard robes. They were tied together with a yellow sash made of some material that felt heavenly to touch. These were technically formal, in that they were only ever seen within formal settings, but they were so heavily associated with wizardry that you were unlikely to blend into any crowds.

>>6374986
>The crimson buttoned jacket and accompanying white cravat. Definitely more of a flashy look, and not the most typical. You personally like it quite a lot, but if you want to avoid being stared at... it might not be the best choice.
We don't seem shy about standing out or attracting attention.

>The blue-and-gold wizard robes. They were tied together with a yellow sash made of some material that felt heavenly to touch. These were technically formal, in that they were only ever seen within formal settings, but they were so heavily associated with wizardry that you were unlikely to blend into any crowds.

>>6374986
>>The crimson buttoned jacket and accompanying white cravat. Definitely more of a flashy look, and not the most typical. You personally like it quite a lot, but if you want to avoid being stared at... it might not be the best choice.

2-1, we're going with the cravat!

I'm actually going to delay this update again, unfortunately, just because it's another pretty big one and I'd have to split my attention between it and a new nuisance that cropped up an hour ago if I wanted to write today. (Midterms are starting early, it seems.)

I can't risk waking up at 11am again, so I'll start writing today and post the finished product tomorrow. See you then!

>>6375549
See you then, QM. Good luck on your tests!

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Without doubt, you wanted the jacket and cravat. You made your thoughts clear, then began donning the jacket without hesitation. While Milanie flustered about, running upstairs to put the rest of the clothes back and returning bright red, you went about fully clothing yourself. The jacket was accompanied by a brown pair of pants, unassuming but very comfortable, which Milanie had claimed was to "emphasize the contrast" of the entire outfit. You had no clue what that meant-- you just appreciated that the pants weren't going to be overshadowing the awesome jacket. The shoes she offered you were similarly dull-- pure black Oxford shoes, accompanied by a white pair of socks, made out of what you assumed to be regular leather.

"I-I'm real glad you picked that," Milanie admitted while stumbling down the stairs, "I've been tryin' t' get it offa the shelves for weeks now. Nobody's really... wanted it..."

Such a notion was absolutely preposterous to you. As if to emphasize as much, you got up-- in full regalia-- and struck a confident pose. "Nobody's missing out! This is great! How do I thank ya, Milanie? What can I do for you?"

Milanie whispered something under her breath, looked away for a moment, and then... reminded you of why Zalaena had come with you. "...I-I'd appreciate some payment..."

After some hassling and explaining of what exactly you did with tektites, as well as further clarification that they were not solely used for groceries, Zalaena left a few in Milanie's ever-trembling hands and ushered you out of the blonde girl's arched door. The walk home was uneventful, thankfully... save for the usual chatter between you and your first friend.

<><><><><>

"...so tail sizin' comes after tryin'? But... where d' you put those things without a hole?"

"That's what the latches in the back are for, silly. I can't show you here, but..." Zalaena shut the door behind her with a quiet slam. You saw her open her mouth to say more, but nothing ever came out of it...

"You two are almost late," Yavenn grumbled. He stood atop the same blue rug that had become so familiar to you in the past week and a half. The top of it was glazed with golden light, highly concentrated around... those symbols, from before! "I was going to leave without you, had you taken any longer."

Unwilling to let Yavenn change his mind, you quickly ran over to the rug he was standing on. Zalaena followed, if sluggishly, without a word. The entire house seemed to get darker and darker...

"Good thing you hadn't! It would've been a tragedy if Babbelum never got to see this," you boasted. The ruffles around your wrists helped boost your confidence more than you'd expected-- they almost seemed to imitate the hairy wrists all the more typical nellefim had, while looking significantly cooler. Kind of like yourself: nellefim, but cooler.

"More of a relief," Yavenn mumbled back. "I would rather my new apprentice meet his ultimate teacher wearing something perhaps more... humble."

The disappointment barely stung. Yavenn just didn't know what your other options were. You were certain he'd have found the robes or suit even worse. You remained confident that you'd made the right choice...

"Well, I think he looks great."

Especially with Zalaena's reassurance.

Not another word was spoken after-- how could it have been? By the time Yavenn could respond, the three of you had already vanished from your humble homestead...

<><><><><>

...and reappeared atop an elevated plaza, specifically within the bounds of an aging circular ornamentation.

Every sense of yours was quickly assaulted. From the setting suns, to the throngs of people, to the enormous scale of the mere plaza you stood within, from the horrible smells to the booming music to the distant chatter to the towering sights...

You felt dizzy for a moment-- unsure of whether anchor teleportation had side effects that Yavenn had neglected to mention-- before shaking it off, focusing on the semi-constant source of water above you. You were expecting some kind of waterfall or shower when you looked up-- but, instead, found nothing... save for clouds.

"Arwinn?" Yavenn called, but you didn't answer.

Puzzled by the clouds, you found yourself even more baffled by the sights your eyes found beneath them. Immediately in front of you was a gigantic staircase-- at least as tall as Zalaena's house, if not taller-- upon which innumerable amounts of nellefim sat. From wild-haired men with wimpy tails to side-shaved women with entire helmets worth of lumps, no one nell seemed to look alike. Many covered themselves in artificial colors-- bright blues, reds, greens, oranges. Your own jacket was the same shade of red as at least three different women's nails. Many seemed accompanied by one person or another-- sometimes multiple-- often of the opposite sex. Rarely did anyone seem Yavenn's age, and even more rarely was anyone younger than you or Zalaena.

Beyond the staircase littered with nellefim, you were greeted with an enormous road almost twice as wide as the ones you'd walked upon back in Beccani. Atop them were various "pods:" metallic chassis covered in various different ornamentations, floating above the roads and littering light behind them as they went. You could see nellefim inside of some more transparent ones; whether the opaque models had any drivers inside, you weren't sure. Many of them played music wholly unfamiliar to you, while others still contained nellefim that spoke loudly enough to drown out whatever they had playing in the background.

"Arwinn..." Yavenn poked you with his stick. You hardly noticed.

To your left, you saw the lower end of a building so huge that its roof was completely indiscernible. To the right-- another, of a similarly grey and blocky build. Immediately behind you stood a park, partially overgrown... but still attended by some people, if few. Beyond the park, you could see... the same mountain you'd seen in Beccani! It was much smaller, to the point where you had to squint to notice it, but it was definitely there. So... you were still on the same planet! Good to know.

"Arwinn!" Yavenn poked you with the stick harder-- hard enough to finally get your attention and snap you out of your sightseeing. "We are expected at the Observatory in half an hour. There is no time to stand here and gape at trivialities."

"Yes, sir," you grumbled. This place was loud, different-- almost invigorating in a way that you couldn't really describe. All the talking, the buzzing, the noise...

"Hey! What the--?" You stopped yourself from stepping on the tail of a middle-aged man. He almost seemed surprised to see you-- but why would he? Yavenn had told you these sorts of transportation hubs were public. The man seemed to pause for a moment-- just looking at you caused him to blink repeatedly. Eventually, he mustered up the effort to... scoot to the side a little bit and let you through without another word.

You wanted to tell him off for getting in your way, but figured it was probably a better idea to just keep on descending the stairs. It wasn't the final time such an incident occurred, either-- at least thrice more, you'd nearly stepped on someone while trying to go down the stairs. Each and every time, you'd been met with various different forms of bewilderment. Shock, confusion, laughter. Eventually, by the time the three of you had reached the sidewalk, you felt the need to question the reactions.

"Oh, hardly anyone uses the plazas anymore," Yavenn explained. "I clarified anchor teleportation to you, yes? To get from one place to another, it takes quite a lot of work. So, we create anchors. Repositories of magic that help cut the work of teleportation in half. The plazas, as you know, are anchors... anchors great enough to transport multiple people at a time, even in dire circumstances. And yet, even the most learned nellefim of today seems blind to such information."

"That's not right," you interrupted. "How else would they get here? Surely they don't just walk..."

Yavenn chortled. It was a quiet kind of chortle-- restrained, mildly bitter. "Few people leave Babbelum in the first place, young man. You are quite exceptional in that regard. I have yet to meet a child in the past fifteen years who was not born here."

As the two of you turned right and left the plaza behind you, you couldn't help but give the place one last look. All those people certainly looked different to the ones you'd seen in Beccani. Brighter, louder, younger... was that what you came off as? One of them?

"The Observatory should be just a few more turns thataways," Yavenn pointed ahead with his stick, "left before right and after left again. It would be hard to miss in any other part of Babbelum, but I chose someplace especially close for the occasion."

As the three of you trekked through the city, slowly becoming drenched in the continuous water, you couldn't help but notice the sheer amount of attention-grabbing pictures in your line of sight. Pictures pasted on buildings, on large boards, on lampposts, on the sides of waste disposal bins. Faces of people you didn't know, excited demonstrations of the "best [x] ever" (seen on at least four different images), colorful fliers for various events and services...

The longer you walked through the city, the more questions you had. Once you started deferring to Zalaena for answers, you were gifted with many: explanations of rain, advertisements, apartments... and, eventually, electric lighting.

"It's very expensive," Zalaena explained, "but, since this is a nicer part of Babbelum... it's completely lined with it. You'll see it when all the suns set-- it'll be super dark, then... WHAM, everything will be brighter than you could ever imagine!" She paused for a moment, arms and tails outstretched, then chuckled. "Uh, brighter than you. Even brighter than your skin. You'll see!"

You didn't believe her, and were about to proclaim as much, but were soon cut off by Yavenn himself.

"We're here."

Another grand staircase awaited you, this one only half as tall as the last. Scarce few nellefim sat upon it-- even fewer could be seen in its immediate vicinity. At its top stood an extremely grand entrance: two large doors made of silver wood, lined with gold, kept beneath an elaborate carving of various constellations. On both immediate sides of the doors were a series of ornate arcades, rising and descending with the position of the stars, seemingly going on forever and ever, disappearing behind the facades of several different nearby buildings. Before you could be sure you were at the right building, the magnificent doors swung open and beckoned you towards a rapidly-unfurling red carpet.

YAVENN. YOU HAVE BEEN EXPECTED.

A strange voice boomed in your head, clearly echoing in your companions' as well. You stepped upon the red carpet, leading the way, and were soon followed by Yavenn... only Yavenn.

"Zalaena? Why aren't you coming?" You asked, coming to a halt just before the grand hall.

"I'm not needed," she answered. Both her hands were on her arms and shoulders, rubbing fiercely. She seemed cold, and yet... "I wouldn't be able to come in if I wanted to."

"But-- why not? There's nothing stopping you," you insisted. And, indeed, there was not-- the doors remained wide open as you stood there, waiting for Zalaena to join you...

"You'll see. Just go with Yavenn. I'll find something else to do-- don't worry about me."

>Worry about her anyways. Insist that Zalaena join you, and delay your entrance to try and include her.

>Do as Zalaena says and leave her alone. Follow Yavenn into the building and trust that she'll be alright.

>>6376024
>Worry about her anyways. Insist that Zalaena join you, and delay your entrance to try and include her.
She doesn't like when we leave her behind for magic stuff, and she seems distressed.

>>6376024
>Worry about her anyways. Insist that Zalaena join you, and delay your entrance to try and include her.
GUESS AGAIN, NERD

>Worry about her anyways. Insist that Zalaena join you, and delay your entrance to try and include her.

>>6376024
>>Worry about her anyways. Insist that Zalaena join you, and delay your entrance to try and include her.
Bro Code

Have to leave the vote open another day, I'm vomiting and can't focus enough to write

Hopefully will be able to write tomorrow. Sorry

>>6376438
Oof, feel better soon QM.

What was Zalaena going to do out here-- sit in the rain and wait for you to be done? That wouldn't do. You decided it'd be best to take her along, whether she felt it 'needed' or not.

"Come with me," you insisted. "You're the one who taught me rain could make you sick. I don't wantcha to become a living example!"

"You do make a fair point," Zalaena chuckled, "but I really don't--"

"Don't nothing," You insisted, ignoring Yavenn's confused insistence that you follow him that moment. "Just come along-- I'll entertain you, and your gramps can explain what's going on."

Zalaena opened her mouth to protest, but eventually just shut it and stepped onto the red carpet herself. She gave the streets of Babbelum one last look--

FWUMPH

--before the three of you were swept up by the carpet itself, having scooped the three of you into the hall and sending you into... who knew where.

All you knew was that you were falling, fast, and this carpet was the only thing keeping you alive. Wind flew by you faster than light, forcing your luminous skin to liquify in a manner that almost exposed reflective bones, drying your eyes and testing your patience as you heard nothing but the sound of air pass you by. You slid through endless spiral hallways, alien mosaics and stained-glass pieces of art, aging maps larger than your entire room! Not a single other nellefim could be found among the building's scenery-- not even by your side on the carpet.

"Zalaena? Yavenn?" You called out, but received no answer. Any further contact was stifled by a steep drop-- one that corrected itself at the very last minute, warping instead into a twirling spiral slide that seemed to lead down, but felt like it was taking you someplace upwards...

Arwinn! Remain alert! Yavenn's voice echoed through your head. He seemed far too used to this-- there wasn't a hint of confusion in his voice. You'll be landing very soon!

Landing? What on earth did he--

"Oof!" You couldn't help but exclaim. You'd been dropped into some kind of elaborate... waiting room. A spherical chamber, clearly a part of some grand mechanism, decorated with golden ornaments and scenes of worship. Nellefim bowing at an altar, posturing towards the sky, dueling each other with magic...

Your ears twitched. You could hear something! Something other than wind, anyways...

"...assure you, he is fit for..."

"...making me wait..."

"...coming..?"

GRRR-KKLKLK-KK-WHRR...

Ancient gears began to turn, shaking your chamber and bringing you... upwards. That was quick-- was there something in here that you'd needed to see?

"...needed only for..."

"...pomp and circumstance..."

As the sphere continued to rise, the top of it began to open. The first thing you saw was an enormous golden seal on the ceiling-- a ceiling that seemed to be made entirely of glass, held together only by some sort of golden webbing. Beyond the glass was space indeterminate-- parts of the ceiling showed the world outside, as one would expect, while others seemed to show portions of space or views of the ground floor you had just come from.

"...you will see, circumstances... that this..."

KK-KK-KLLK--KRR...

Yavenn's aging voice became more clear, even through the pained churning of the slowly-opening sphere. You wondered who he was talking to-- who would need such an elaborate place to stay. As the sphere folded into itself, you saw more and more of the room around you. Below the ornate golden seal and the webbing derived from it, a sort of upper circle became clear. Portions of the room, high up, were reserved for glass chambers sandwiched between thick golden spirals. There wasn't any balcony connecting them-- just disparate tiny rooms, almost the size of a washcloset, with little more than one seat and a bulbous electric light within.

Almost all of these chambers were completely empty... save for one, wherein you could find Zalaena. She'd already spotted you-- and seemed nervous, discontent. That didn't stop her from giving you a small wave, but she never returned your own and looked away quickly after spotting it.

KK-KK-KLLK--KRR...

The source of Zalaena's discontent remained a mystery. The further the sphere opened, the more you noticed about the room. It seemed to have three levels of elevation-- it was most vertical at its edges, where various statues of nellefim could be seen, and seemed to descend further and further the closer to the center you got. You were only able to notice this by virtue of being nearly dead in the center of the entire room...

THHHH-D

...and, now, free to exit the sphere.

"Grand Wizard Krruvoth, I present to you... my newest apprentice!" Yavenn outstretched his arms, taking a knee and almost seeming to prostrate before... nothing.

You opened your mouth to ask-- only to have it shut by an unseen force. You swiveled around to determine the culprit--

--and found yourself staring up at a man with skin nearly as pale as yours.

The man, nearly seven feet tall, glared daggers into you. His eyes were a bright white, missing their scleras entirely... for only a few moments, before reverting to a more typical pair of pupiled eyes. The rest of his face almost seemed hewn from rock-- jagged, aquiline, chiseled at every edge. Even the man's ears were sharp as daggers, poking through his snow-white hair and accentuating the slicked-back point it culminated in. He was further dressed in a deep black tunic, dotted with indiscernible patches of dark color and restrained around the waist with a golden sash, fitted to the man's four arms and left slightly loose at the sides.

"Well? Go on, Arwinn-- introduce yourself," Yavenn prompted. He poked you gently with his stick, hobbling over to your side, placing an arm on your shoulder and smiling. "It would be indecent of myself to do the honors for you."

If looks could kill, you would have died right then and there. The Grand Wizard looked you up and down, awaiting your response...

>Be bold! Introduce yourself with full confidence, in as flashy a manner as you can. What better way to make sure he knows you can do magic than by showing off your recently-learned skills, anywho?

>Show respect. Defer to the Grand Wizard like Yavenn is doing, and introduce yourself with composure and proper manners.

>Write-in.

No matter which choice you make, please roll 1d100!

Rolled 62 (1d100)

>>6376838
>Be bold! Introduce yourself with full confidence, in as flashy a manner as you can. What better way to make sure he knows you can do magic than by showing off your recently-learned skills, anywho?
>And this is Zalaena!

Rolled 8 (1d100)

>>6376838
>>Be bold! Introduce yourself with full confidence, in as flashy a manner as you can. What better way to make sure he knows you can do magic than by showing off your recently-learned skills, anywho?
Sup idiot

Rolled 55 (1d100)

>>6376838
>Show respect. Defer to the Grand Wizard like Yavenn is doing, and introduce yourself with composure and proper manners.

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I'm sorry for not updating yet again. I've been hit with a substantial group project that I have less than a week to complete. I now have to work on that project, alongside existing midterm assignments, while likely complaining to my retarded college about how it's ridiculous to make half a collaborative assignment's working time exclusive to the fucking weekends right before midterms. I've already spent most of this evening doing some of that, and it seems I'll be doing the same song and dance tomorrow.

I will try to update as often as I can in the next week, but please do not expect daily updates until at least the 10th because I highly doubt I'll be able to make them at this point.

Will try to get something out tomorrow, at least, but no promises. Sorry about all this.

>>6377187
No worries, QM. Just keep at it. We'll be here.

>>6377187
Don't die QM we'll be here

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So, unfortunately, I'm going to have to do a little restructuring:

I do not think I will feasibly be able to write this week. There is just too much shit going on at once, half of which I was unaware of the week beforehand thanks to outdated syllabi and very little communication from my teachers, and I have already failed something very important partly as a result of it. I need to spend tomorrow figuring out what went wrong and trying to fix it before it snowballs into something worse. I also need to spend tomorrow writing a thousand different emails, and something tells me I won't be very fond of my keyboard once those are finally over with.

As a result, I'm going to re-gear this quest into a two-shot to stay consistent with what I had in mind while allowing myself time to work. This will be thread 1 of 2, and updates to this thread will likely not be daily for a short while when I return.
I really did not want to do this, I was adamant about keeping this as a one-shot, but the thread is already on page 3 and I doubt I'll be able to return before page 4. I don't have a choice. Something's got to give to maintain my work.

Expect the next update on either March 9th or 10th. I doubt I will be able to get anything out sooner. If the stars align and fate decides otherwise, I might be able to do something on the 6th or 7th instead, but I find that HIGHLY unlikely. Please don't count on it.

Sorry for my absence, again. I suppose I should have known better than to start running a one-shot so close to midterms, lol. But it is what it is. I'll see you all next week. Apologies.