The endless waste

[aestrix]

Once, this planet teemed with life. It doesn't do that, anymore. The ground is dry and cracked and occasionally broken up by charred remains of trees. There are no birds, no bugs, no living plants - nothing but an empty, endless waste.

With one exception.

But the world is so very big, and the exception so very small. If someone showed up away from it, they could be quite forgiven for thinking this world is completely dead.




with Sable (Kappa)

with Aisilian (Link)

with Grendyne (Rockeye)

with Temple (Curiousdiscoverer)

Comments

[greatestgift]

Well, that's blighted annoying, is what that is.

Sable decides to pick a direction, fly for an hour, and see if she spots anything alive with sight or groundsense. If not, well, she'll have to make do.

[aestrix]

Nothing, nothing, nothing -

Life life life life life life life.

Maybe that blatantly and aggressively living patch over there is a good place to go.

[greatestgift]

She's thinking that, yeah. Although this also feels like a good time to de-miniaturize her Celestial Wrath. Just in case something needs to be massively overkilled.

Sable approaches the living patch on her branch-and-cobweb wings, carrying her aggressively gaudy bow - sleek black with accents in glowing green, fiery orange, vivid purple, pale yellow, and sparkling blue.

[aestrix]

The living patch... is sort of insular, now that she can get a closer look at it. Large walls surround it, made of some type of wood that's, to stick to theme, aggressively alive. A building sits at the center. The tops of a few trees poke out from inside, and bits of the ground around the wall grow green grass, as if whatever's inside is spreading. There are a few plants, growing in the grass - all of the same type, and all glowing brightly.

There is also a person, inside that living patch.

[greatestgift]

In case the person inside the living patch is as justifiably paranoid as she is, Sable hovers above and outside the walls.

"Hello?" she calls down into the walled enclosure.

[light_another_life]

A person emerges from the building. She stares up at Sable in confusion and not a small amount of alarm.

She says something in another language, after a pause. It sounds like a question of some kind.

[greatestgift]

Great.

"Sorry, I don't speak your language!" says Sable.

[meletiti_entelecheiai]

When someone shows up, they have other things on their minds.

The thing falling from the sky can't really be said to be a "house." It has no roof or porch, and the asymmetry of the single rounded curve of one corner looks entirely out of place. The single door is the sort of flimsy wooden construction that might be used between rooms, and it has only one window, on the opposite side from the door. Rather than a "house," it's more like someone pulled a single room out of a mansion and dropped it out of the sky.

That "someone" stands on the wrong side of the ceiling, watching a metal tube in his hand with a critical eye. Within the tube, a block - a suspiciously familiar block with a rounded corner - falls even relative to the tube itself, pulled downwards by a magnet in the base.

He clicks his heel, and a strange blurred blade springs from his right toe, a stiletto shaped more like an awl, round except for one missing quadrant. Stabbing it forward, someh◕w the blade catches on thin air, as if anchored on something more fundamental than mere reality. Rather than being torn off his shoe, his entire body all stops at once, without even a trace of shock, pulling him far above the room as it falls ahead of him in the instant before the blade retr◔cts and he falls again as if he had never stopped.

An instant before the house strikes the ground, he clicks a switch on the translucent tube - and with the reversal of the current, the block within comes to a gentle, floating halt.

Below him, the house ceases falling, and then gently settles to the ground. Following after is a single bullet, a flash of light that resolves into a glowing circle that catches the man as he lands in a crouch.

Dusting himself up and getting up, he sighs. Entirely too close, that was.

[light_another_life]

A room falling from the sky is rather noticable. A woman looks up from where she is pouring potions into the ground. She stares. Then she finishes pouring out the potion she's on, puts the empty vial back in her pack, and checks the sun.

... Lower than she's like, but she doesn't think she can afford to not immediately go check that out. She brought her waystone and chalk, anyway, not to mention her bow. If she has to get home quickly, she can.

She packs up her potions, checks her protection charms, and sets out to go see... Whatever the hell that was.

[meletiti_entelecheiai]

The wind picks up as she gets closer.

Not just as a matter of proximity. Over the place where the room landed, spiralling clouds are beginning to form. A storm is brewing.

... But, it's strangely contained. Maybe it can be felt from a mile out, but then again it can only be felt from a mile out; considering the way that the clouds are visibly rotation, the speed at the eye wall is well out of proportion to its effect.

[light_another_life]

...

That's sort of concerning.

She retrieves a gem from her pack and her knife. She speeds up her walk, not actively willing to waste energy running just yet, and prods her thumb with the knife, dripping a bit of blood onto the gem. It glows in an ominous fashion.

Walk walk walk walk, is it going to get worse before she gets to the eye?

[meletiti_entelecheiai]

... Normally, no. The wind speeds are quite impenetrable at the eye, but drop off unnaturally fast; what would be a breezy three hundred kilometers per hour near the eyewall are a mere eighty barely a quarter of a mile away.

Unfortunately, the creator of this storm had not counted on the sand. Blown about by gale force winds, the wasteland dust has become a sandblaster, grinding away anything unfortunate enough to be caught in it with enough force to grind boulders to sand in minutes.

(In his defense, he did check for living beings within the range of his storm first. It's not his fault if people decide to walk into the hurricane.)

[light_another_life]

Well.

This is what protection charms are for. Protective charms, and transportation charms.

She aims the gem in her hand at the eye, and throws it. While it sails through the air with unnatural speed and purpose, she retrieves a handful more, and gets to bleeding on them. Sort of hard with all the sand, but she manages.

It lands on the ground, and breaks. Vworp. Throw. Vworp. Throw. Ow ow ow sand ow ow ow vworp -

She lands in the center of the eye this time, disheveled and slightly sandblasted and looking sort of annoyed.

[characterquarry]

...That wasn't supposed to happen.

That was supposed to be a fast-transport spell, to get the entire 42nd Witch Wing to the southern edge of Karlsland in one hell of a hurry.

She assumes she's in enemy territory, Neuroi-blasted land, and ascends as quickly as possible.

[aestrix]

Well, if she's in enemy territory, none of the enemies have noticed her yet.

That is a lot of flat, empty, lifeless waste down there. Also an ocean, to the west. But every bit of land looks like it has been dead for a while.

[characterquarry]

She keeps swiveling, scanning for potential threats. "Coastline, dead lands... Am I in Greece?"

She flies higher, hits her top comfortable altitude, and nervously flies in wide circles for a few minutes.

Some of the magic she copies, she manages to keep. She pours mana into her ears, listening for the least dead-sounding direction.

[aestrix]

There are little - somethings, down there, on the ground. It's hard to tell what they are or what they do, though.

But the least dead-sounding direction is most definitely north, following the coastline.

[characterquarry]

Well. She is less nervous and more confused, now, but at least she doesn't hear any Neuroi. They're very distinctive.

Northward it is. Since she's pacing herself for endurance, she's not much faster than a very determined bird.

[aestrix]

The sound of the somethings below change as she gets more northward. It's hard to pick out at first, but obvious once she's surrounded by them.

And there in the distance is - not an end to the wasteland. It's a relatively tiny patch of green, surrounded by large walls, filled with trees, and with a rather large building at the center of the living fortress.

[copycast]

Someone shows up and he is quite surprised with the desolation, because the magic was supposed to land him in better places.

More surprising is what he can sense through his Guardian Sight. He flies to the nearest weird phenomena.

[aestrix]

The nearest weird phenomenon is a - magic thing. It seems to be stealing something from everything around it in a desperate attempt to feed itself. This one looks sickly, weak, and starved, and is accidentally killing everything around it just by trying to survive.

[copycast]

Temple looks at thing like a child would look at a hurt puppy. Poor magic thing.

"Minor Light." He casts, directing the small globe of light at the starved thing.

[aestrix]

Nom.

The magic light appears to be delicious. The magic thing that ate it requires more magic to eat, and possibly shouldn't have the magic it needs all at once. It would be unhealthy for it.

[copycast]

Temple will be a responsible magic-thing-feeder and wait until later to feed it more delicious magic.

For now, Temple takes flight. Are there any notable landmarks? Or more magical things to feed?

[aestrix]

There are lots of magical things to feed!

... Also one magical thing that does not need to be fed, but eats and eats and eats anyway. It's huge and teeming with magic, but it greedily tugs at magic from nearby magical and nonmagical things to hoard, and consequently everything nearby is quite dead. It's even eaten at enough of the ground to create a large hole underneath it, though this is hardly its area of influence.

It doesn't look like it'll stop anytime soon. Or ever.