It had just dawned on Gladius that heading in a specific direction with no indication where the capital was from where they are was going to get them nowhere. But he didn’t dare let those following him know that.
Spying something in the brush, Gladius stopped with some difficulty and pulled up a broken Skull Spider leg. He glanced back at the group.
The Lord of the Skies broke through the line of trees as gracefully as he could not far behind Athena. This much quieter entrance only managed to traumatize the people directly nearby him, some fleeing in panic.
The Lord of the Skies looked about him with bitter disappointment, as any Okotans who were not frozen in place were scrambling away from him at high speeds. His saddened gaze fell upon Athena, and her obviously different colours set her apart, along with her negative expression.
“Are all you people this skittish?” He grumbled. “Or just the green ones?”
Suddenly, Malekai burst awake. He grabbed onto the citizen’s arms, wide-eyed, before saying “You’ll never get them!” And lapsing back into unconsciousness.
Gladius frowned. He didn’t like the thought of that. yet the city was filled to the brim with Okotans… Or at least it was.
“Our unconventional path means I don’t know the precise path to the city from here.” He glanced around. “But Ekimu’s order was a recommendation to begin there first.”
Keya looked up. “If it was, we might be able to follow its path.” She said, searching the ground again. “If it lost a leg, likely it left…” She removed some foliage to reveal a dark spot on the jungle floor. “A blood trail. At least until it passed out from blood loss. Then, we just keep in that direction, and-“
“And we’ll hit the city.” Hitora finishes. “That makes sense to me.”
The two might find Lync in the center of town. She’s sitting crosslegged in front of the town’s small pool of water, watching the ripple of droplets falling from above.
Jaspar pushes the book he had been reading in her direction, tapping a particular line.
“Hey, uh, you wouldn’t happen to be able to read this, would you? I’m not recognizing the runes here.” The line in question is a set of angular runes from the Ice Region that she may or may not have come across.
At first the sound of his quarry is thick in the air, the rustling of underbrush providing a clear trail to follow. However, the rustling quickly fades into the distance, and the jungle becomes silent once more.
Even after all this time, few dared to venture close to the Dark Crater. There were no villages on the final approach; most of the Region’s population stayed to the south.
The friendly villager freezes in horror at Malekai’s sudden outburst. They do their best to support the unconscious Okotan as he falls, and drag him off to a hospital for treatment.
Kryuna walked around for a few minutes before spotting Lync. She walked over to her, and sat down next to her. “The name’s Kryuna by the way, I think I forgot to introduce myself back in the desert.” She spoke while also staring into the pool, twirling the end of her scarf around her finger.
OOC At this point Lync would probably be able to figure out who she is.
Jevis cursed under his breath as he trudged his way through the jungle.
The Lord of the Skies smiled, clearly amused by Athena’s stubbornness. “Don’t strain your genius, now.” He chuckled. “Ekimu only knows your struggle, after all.”
“And while you’re doing that, these people need to learn to respect their elders.” He said, straightening his hunched position. “I’ll give them something a little more familiar.”
His face suddenly buckled, and split open with an ear-splitting snap as the large plate of wood cracked nearly in half. The rest of his body began shifting too, giving his body almost the appearance of an elegant dress despite remaining clearly masculine. Out from the gap in his face a new face emerged, a leafy, mossy one, but aside from the material of its composition it looked shockingly like an Okotan’s mask.
One of the Okotans nearby, a hardy farmer, had gotten over the state of shock, and was now bearing down with his gruff voice on the Lord of the Skies. “And who in Okoto do you think you are?”
“I,” The Skies said, his voice suddenly far more tolerable and almost elegant, flowing sweetly through the air. “Am the Lord of the Skies, dear friend. And I have come home.”
Halmos was starting to get a little tired, and the sun was directly in his eyes as he flew along. We’re above the region of water now. Where are they going?
Gladius mused for a split second. There was no direct conclusion that they would actually hit the city from this trail, but a trail somewhere was better than an aimless path nowhere.
“Your eyes are sharper than mine.” Gladius said to Keya. He gestured with a slight bow and a sweep of his arm. “After you.”
When he wasn’t busied with a specific task, he could hear a faint, droning noise, which sounded like the inside of a drum being beaten very fast.
It was the Lord of the Undying Storm snoring like a metallic waste bin.
OOC: I wouldn’t call it stuborness tho.
IC: Athena’s reaction to the shifting of the Lord’s appearance was… Mixed. At first it was desgust. Then it was confusion, maybe with a little bit of amazement. Then it was pure fatigue. “Very nice. Not only he is an arrogant three, he is also cocky.”
“OK, welcome home I guess, Mister Male-Tree-with-Dress.”
OOC: Lync never really had direct experience with her, though. Lync was off in the mountains when Kryuna showed up, was off arguing with Pheore when Skyll showed up, and was more focused on Makuta than anything during the final battle. It’s a matter of whether she recognizes the name.
IC: Lync nods. “Well, we were a bit preoccupied back in the desert.” Her brow furrows, and she stares intensely ahead. “We haven’t met before, have we? Your name sounds familiar…” She pauses for a second, thinking. Realization dawns in her eyes, and she shakes her head. “No, it was someone else. He just had a similar name. Crazy when that happens, isn’t it?”
Jaspar watches intently for a moment, then tries to look busy doing something else. The runes seem to be a sort of epitaph, honoring the life of one ‘Ciril the Wise’. It commends his leadership through hard times and mourns his untimely death.
Recently disturbed underbrush provides a clear trail for him to follow, though the sound of his quarry is long gone. The occasional stone totem looms out of the jungle, their vine-shrouded surfaces cast in ominous shadow by the faint gloom of dusk.
Ekimu pauses in his work, taking a moment to consider the sleeping giant in his cellar. The Lord had shown zero care for the people of Okoto, or really anything outside his own ego. A few weeks in a dungeon was by far the least of what he had earned. Even so, the Mask Maker couldn’t shake Gladius’s suggestion from yesterday. The Storm would make a powerful ally… if he could be persuaded to become an ally, that was. Ekimu puts the idea aside for the moment; he couldn’t imagine the Lord being very receptive upon being suddenly awakened from his slumber.