Under a Blank White Sky

"I wish I could."

Red Arrow told Batman.

"Right now, we need to worry about the incoming bigger picture."

"Exit muna si Polgas. Ang kailangan dito ay si Dobermaxx!"

"How dangerous would you deem He who waits beneath to be?"

Marle looked suprised as the egg she was holding turned into a wooden darning egg*

, and pocketed the egg again.

"Er, sorry about that!" Marle blushed at the mistake she had made, though it did raise some questions... The Proteum was able to be molded before absorbing the essence of material. It also meant that those things could turn people into that stuff if the First's injury was any indication.

Marle then saw a tree with golden apples growing out of a brick wall... Obviously, it might be a Drainer, and First reacted as if it were. Marle followed him cautiously.

"What happened over there with the tree and the wall?!" Marle asked the First. "That can't be good for either the tree or the wall."

edited 15th May '12 12:54:44 PM by GameGuruGG

Wizard Needs Food Badly

Twilight stepped forward to look closely at the map and at the gold apple. "Are you sure that is safe to eat that? It might turn out to be a key in deciphering this map or at the destination of the map."

edited 15th May '12 3:39:25 PM by StephanReiken

"That looks impossible in more ways than one." Nana stated bluntly, also wary of the tree. Now that he knew exactly what was it the Drainers could do, a worm of doubt wriggled its way into his mind. It could be anything... I think I'm not going to like my stay here... Unlike the others though, he put himself somewhere a ways ahead of the group and closer to the tree as an advance guard.

Always be ready to do the unusual and unexpected.

"Wouldn't be the first time I've had to bash something's head in" Nakis explained with a slight hint of pride as he watched the smoke from the defeated drainer gave the tree it's life again, barring the small patch the woman had dug out. It was to his dread that it was doubtfully the last time he would have to do that either. But he was alive and they got to go back into town where it was presumably safer that it was out here and he gladly followed after the other three as he checked his axe for any blood or chips.

On the way back he noticed First's reluctance to go near a tree growing out of a wall with, of all things, apples made of gold. Nakis understood. Beside the natural scrutiny one would need when dealing with hiding monsters, uncharacteristically golden objects tended to be the possession of either supernaturally beings or deities, neither of which were happy with their shiny bobbles were touched. The dwarf to a wide birth of the tree and made a note to ask later what the significance was.

Sometimes I even amaze myself. Currently: Nice and sneaky like

Motioning to the map Sedd was holding, Oswald asked, "What other areas are circled on that map?"

The Demon Hunter shook her head. The destruction seemed... unnecessary. As did the squabbling. However, Mira wasn't exactly renown for her social skills. She was a Demon Hunter, not a negotiator. Her job was to make creatures of darkness die, often in flame. Conversation was something she was less acquainted with.

Still, there was work to be done. The demon hunter moved over to dig through the rubble, trying to find something to salvage.

"I'm sorry, but you guys are missing the bigger picture. Who is this "He Who Waits Beneath" guy? And why should we care about him?"

Reth looked down through the hatch and gave an appreciative whistle. "She really did a number on this place, didn't she." He then paused for a moment, squinted, and then said "Hey Bats, come over here for a second. Call me crazy, but do those guys down there look like assholes who belong in our merry band?"

After Toph spoke, Reth looked at her in amusement and said "I like how you only start asking that after breaking the clock trying to wake him up. Or did my question from before actually reach your royal ears?"

"Allow me to show you how a real whale does battle!"

After hanging around the temple for a little longer, Spongebob and Sandy made their way over to the clock tower.

"A ressurected corpse back at the temple told me that He Who Waits Beneath is what you humans call a god and that waking him would be very bad indeed."

edited 19th May '12 4:21:31 AM by tricksterson

Trump delenda est

Niccozmo was silent for a moment before answering Ignatius.

"When I died, I was on a journey by skyship to Anteros to see an eclipse I had predicted would take place there. If I was right, it would have vindicated years of research and measurements. On the way, though, He attacked, tearing chunks out of the ship in order to get to me. He eventually just dragged the entire Skylark down into the abyss. The man who was to be my guide when we reached Anteros - a very cheerful man, knew the country better than anyone - he leapt off the side of the ship rather than face his wrath directly."

A sigh and an upward glance in curiosity at the ones above, then he continued. "Once down there, I was chained between two enourmous gears such that I would be ground to a pulp with every full rotation. This went on, over and over again for what must have been decades before the Trickster broke me out. He Who Waits Beneath is incredibly cruel, unfathomably powerful, and very, very dangerous."

---

First spared a moment in his brisk walk to offer an explanation to those following him.

"Those shiny yellow apples are owned by the Trickster. Don't touch them, don't even look at them more than you have to."

It didn't occur to him to warn them not to eat them. That would fall under "touching." Besides, only a complete idiot would actually eat one.

---

Sedd rolled his eyes at Twilight.

"It's an apple, not a map key. It's for eating. You understand "eating" Tron-boy?"

To punctuate his statement, he took another mouthful of apple. And flipped the map over in curiosity.

"Hrm... paffenger regiffry," he said, the mouthful of apple making him hard to understand. "Muft be from when thif shipf could ftill..."

The end of that sentence was lost when, in his surprise, Sedd spat a stream of half-chewed apple at the unlucky person standing there. "I know some of these names! I wonder if - let's see, cabin thirteen..."

Sedd got to his feet and took off before anybody could ask what he was talking about, headed for the passenger cabins belowdecks.

Pretend there's something clever written here.

There's a lot of stuff in this post that could go different if something unexpected happens or I misunderstand something, so I shall edit it if anything does.

Ignatius had a small plan, and began to execute it. First, he returned all the way to the temple and into the room with the corpses. Here, he reanimated another, although this remainded a simple zombie.

With the new undead, he returned to the clock tower and accessed the hatch the astronomer had said to have emerged from. He then managed to mamipulate the empty undead to move into it and onto whatever was beyond. He could only sense whether it was still there or not but it seemed like a reasonable way to test how he who waits below was waiting.

"Well, lets see where this leads." This is starting to feel like a point and click adventure game. Twilight followed after Sedd through the ship trying to put together what he said before he ran off.

As it turned out, the chadoo was having a harder time staying aloft than Aldrea had predicted. It was more suited for a brachiating and gliding lifestyle, swinging through the once-verdant forests of the Hork-Bajir planet. In the... planet... that she was on now, she could only see one tree far away, nowhere near the height of even the smallest lewhak tree. The chadoo's patagium were not really suited to flapping hard in the air. There also wasn't a lot of wind to give her lift- fortunately for her, the enormous tower that the two humans were travelling towards was not far away, and even if she hit the ground before she arrived, the abundance of handholds would provide no problem for her to scramble up and perhaps get a better look at whatever the strange building was, and what purpose it had.

Why had she morphed? Was it really to provide an inconspicuous form of transportation? Or was it because shes still could not bring herself to trust these... these aliens to keep her and Dak safe in a bizarre world? Dak seemed to get along with the strangers easily enough, but then again, Dak seemed to get along with everyone, didn't he? Maybe it was just because he came from a simple and idealistic culture, but maybe there was something deeper. After all, Dak and Jagil showed no fear, no hesitation when she and her family had landed all those months ago. And now, with keen chadoo vision, she watched as Dak started towards the temple, but suddenly turned and loped after the yellow creature and the furry brown creature.

Like a leaf in the wind, Aldrea managed, although not as gracefully as she would have liked, to come to a stop on the wall of the clock tower. To the Andalite part of her mind, it was an enormous and imposing building, more like the old industrial revolution Andalite structures than anything else she had seen. But to the chadoo, it was simply a large, strange-looking tree. It was child's play to clamber up the structure, alternating between scampering and leaping straight upwards, until at last she reached the top of the tower. If any of the other humans- some of them looked familiar- noticed her, she hoped that they would simply write her off as some sample of this world's fauna. If they got suspicious... well, she just hoped that they wouldn't notice the diminutive animal.

At any rate, what intrigued her more than that was the pipe, which some of the other humans seemed to be interested in. They wouldn't be able to fit down the narrow crevice, but in her current form she could. She simply had to hope that there was enough room in there to navigate, and that it didn't go down too far and opened into a larger chamber- otherwise, she could be a chadoo forever.

Taking a deep breath with her little mouth, Aldrea clambered into the pipe.

As a hunter, Rayek was always instinctively alert for unexpected creatures and movement. When what looked like a technicolor flying squirrel crawled into the pipe he noticed. "Something just crawled in there," he mentioned.

Trump delenda est

"Thanks for the warning" Nakis said, making a few more steps away form the tree. So his assumption was right, those gold apples were the property of something else. That they were The Trickster's only gave the dwarf a better reason to stay clear of the mystical fruit. From what First at said (or rather spat) about the odd being then the less he had to deal with him the better. Smart advise when dealing with any kind of god, but even more valuable when it comes to the "funny" ones.

As the four walked back to find who was mucking around with the clock. Nakis decided that, if he was going to be staying here for a protracted amount of time, he would be better off knowing the people around him. "So what do you three call yourselves?" He asked, kind of wishing he had his pipe.

Sometimes I even amaze myself. Currently: Nice and sneaky like

"Now what?"

Red Arrow mused after getting the hatch open.

"Exit muna si Polgas. Ang kailangan dito ay si Dobermaxx!"

"I'm Marle," Marle introduced herself to the Dwarf as she followed the First. She didn't want to stay any longer near the apples.

Wizard Needs Food Badly

Oswald stood next to where Sedd had been standing, covered in apple and spit with an annoyed look on his face. Not only had Sedd ignored Oswald's question completely, but he also had the nerve to spit apple at him. That was just plain rude. "What is that guy's deal?" Oswald asked to no one in particular.

Wipping off the spit and apple, Oswald went inside, and noticing tje stone clock, went over to study it.

Oswald would find the clock almost impossible to read, as it had the same face as the clocktower: fourteen symbols, the top of which was the hand-with-eye symbol that covered the temple and the other thirteen looking like letters or numerals from an unknown alphabet. The three hands moved much more smoothly than their larger counterparts, though stilll counterclockwise and the mechanisms inside were still annoyingly loud.

The ship was in even worse shape belowdecks than it had looked outside. The wooden walls were littered with holes, and there were an unsettling number of what looked distinctly like claw marks. None of this bothered Sedd, though, as he made his way directly to passenger cabin 13 and pushed the door in, its rusted hinges squealing in protest. Once inside the dusty room, dimly lit through a cracked porthole, he reached under the matress of one of the two beds there and dug out an old, ratty looking notebook.

Aside from the faded initial N.S. on the cover, most of the writing inside was illegible, from a combination of faded ink and terrible handwriting. Sedd sat on the bed and flipped idly through it, stopping to examine a pair of carefully sketched diagrams. One of the moon revolving around the earth and the earth around the sun, and the other of the phases of the moon as it went around the planet. Sedd stared at them, deep in thought, the bright colors of his hawaiian shirt providing a marked contrast to his dingy, dusty surroundings.

---

Strainam watched with concern as some small creature climbed down the pipe to what was basically hell. Ignatius returning with another reanimated corpse did nothing to help either. He was about to ask what the plan was, when he was interrupted by the clocktower door being thrown open.

First had finally reached the clocktower, finding with horror that the newcomers seemed to have trashed the place. It was funny, in a way, how red his face got considering how pale he was by default. He moved quickly over to the hatch and shut it tightly before shouting to all present,

"WHAT IN A GOD'S NAME DO YOU IDIOTS THINK YOU'RE DOING!?"

---

The pipe which Aldrea had entered seemed to justkeep going straight down for ages. Curiously though, she could still faintly hear those above until First shut the hatch, unknowingly trapping the morphed Andalite deep underground with nowhere to go but further down.

The other end of the pipe, located who-knows-how-deep underground, took a ninety degree turn so be horizontal, then opened up into a grammaphone-like structure. She would find herself on a wooden surface of some sort, although the details were impossible to make out as the entire cavern - if that's even what it was - was pitch black aside from a small crack of dull white light coming from something to her right.

More concerning than the lack of sight was the sound. Specifically, the sound of slow, steady breaths coming from somewhere to her left. It sounded exactly like one would expect the snores of a massive sleeping being to sound like, because that's exactly what it was.

Aldrea had entered the sleeping chamber of He Who Waits Beneath.

edited 2nd Jun '12 12:01:22 PM by Sir_Screwloose

Pretend there's something clever written here.

If it wasn't for the fact that Aldrea was currently inhabiting the body of a chadoo- a creature who regularily nested in hollow trees and narrow canyon crags- she would have been screaming by now. Supressing the Andalite urge to kick herself free with her nonexistent hooves, Aldrea continued to squeeze her way down the pipe. Once or twice she had to twist and untangle herself from the increasingly tightening knot that her body was stuck in, but but she still had a good hour and a half left in this morph- she just hoped that there would be space enough for her to demorph eventually. The fact that the hatch had somehow closed above her was not comforting news at all. Nowhere to go, but downwards. If it wasn't for her innate timekeeping sense, Aldrea would feel even more afraid and confused than she already was.

And then, she felt the tight steel embrace of the steel pipe open. The chadoo couldn't see things in the dark very well, being primarily diurnal. But there was no mistaking the feeling of wood beneath her paws, and what looked like a thin sliver of sunlight far away. But that was not what set her little body to trembling with an instinctual fear reaction. That was the sound of... a distant series of earth tremors? No, that was deluding herself from the nightmare reality.

That was the sound of breathing.

She couldn't stay in this body any more, she realized, trying to cut through the screaming panic of any small animal that finds itself in a confined room with a very large organism. She needed a tail. Her tail. Not caring if the creature was alerted to her presence, not even caring about making sure that there was enough space, she began the demorph. Stalk eyes popped out of chadoo head, paws melted and lengthened into hooves, feathers deflated and sank down into smooth pink fur. Within a few minutes, an Andalite gingerly made her way down from the wooden surface. She felt less afraid, now that she was divorced from the chadoo's blind panic, but still wary. What made its home this deep underground- and what would it do to interlopers?

After hearing Firsts scream, Reth looked back down the hatch and saw that the group of weirdos below had been joined by more weirdos. He gave a small smile before yelling "Hello down there! How are you on this fine day? Enjoying yourselves on this worldly retreat?"

"Allow me to show you how a real whale does battle!"

Twilight looked over Sedd's shoulder and analyzed the item he'd found. "Interesting, there is a lot of effort going into this area. That book looks fully functional and doesn't just open up to one or two pages."