Re: The Wretched Rite - Round One - The Rose Ring
12-21-2011, 02:36 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Jacquerel.
Alluvion woke up slowly and felt more than a little disoriented. Fish sleep and some of them even dream, but Gods don't. What had even just been happening? He vaguely remembered something about wolves and attacking his new tree-friend, but surely that wasn't right?
What was more disorienting though was the fact that he didn't appear to be where he had been when he had last been concious in the real world (was this any more real than what he had just been seeing? He wasn't sure). In fact the scenery as he remembered it seemed to have gone entirely.
There were no stone hives, no hills, no distrant trees and no grass. Even the sky seemed to have shrunk to a tiny circle above his head that swayed back and forth to some other rhythm, the ground shaking as it changed direction. Everything else had been replaced by vast walls of wood.
It was also at about this point that the terrible crushing pressure he has been under for the past moments of sluggish comprehension suddenly became apparent.
The wooden bucket exploded as Alluvion rapidly expanded back to his full size, the fairly obvious consequence of trying to contain an essentially infinite puddle of water inside a container of less than infinite size. This was much to the consternation of the dog-headed man who had (up until it transformed itself into a collection of wooden shards and a man-sized sea serpent literally made out of the sea) been doing his best to carry it to the site of a nearby fire. Although it didn't worry him quite so much as the heavy wooden panther that slammed into him and sent him crashing to the ground seconds later, standing on his chest and crushing the breath from his body with its weight.
Alluvion shook himself vigorously, shaking droplets of water everywhere for pretty much no good reason at all other than that it was what he'd seen animals do after being surprised. It seemed to help a bit.
"River friend you are awake, we must return to the hill so we can continue our work."
M. relaxed his position slightly, allowing the dog-man to draw in a gasping and stuttered breath. He immediately started howling and calling for help (rather ungratefully, though M. wasn't really capable of processing much resentment), so the tree-panther placed one gnarled paw back on his captive's neck, wrapping tendrils tightly around his muzzle.
"You took a long time to wake up, this walker-thing gathered you into a cage so I followed him here.
It looks like a beast but thinks like a walker. What is this creature?"
Alluvion didn't have an answer, and in truth he was only half listening. There were other voices trying to catch his attention. Prayers.
"Put out this fire"
"Spare my house"
"Someone find my daughter"
The inhabitants of the small town were by and large not aquatic at all, but they were definitely wishing for water, and Alluvion could hear them. And also, something else...
M. was patient but it was also anxious to get back to what they had been doing before they had all fallen asleep. It was pragmatic and had already dismissed everything that had happened in that other forest as unimportant. Reclaiming this odd stone plain for nature was important, and Alluvion was a valuable asset, he wouldn't have bothered following him otherwise.
And now he was just sitting there staring into space.
"There is nothing to do here. Let us go. We must start work."
"The animals here are burning... I do not like fire."
Rivalry between water and fire is a pretty common recurring theme and there's a bit of truth in that, people tend to turn to water first for their extinguishing needs and in the same way that the dreams of hundreds of fish brought Alluvion to life in the first place, the beliefs of thousands of humans instilled him with the same deep-seated dislike of open flames.
Plus answering prayers was sort of his thing, even if it was usually for fish.
"The walkers put you in a box. Why would you help them? The forest is more important."
"They are calling to me I cannot ignore them."
M. bared its fangs from instinct, why was the river spirit being so obstructive?
Unfortunately the one part of the dream worth remembering told it that assaulting the Water Spirit in order to get its way wouldn't work either. He was made of water. The concept of being able to talk directly to anything else was as new to it as it was to Alluvion and it hadn't had any chance to develop any kind of effective persuasive technique.
"The trees call to you."
"Trees burn too. We should remove the fire first."
This logic didn't seem particularly sound to M. as the fire was currently nowhere near the greenery at all, mostly spreading through the non-stone parts of the town inhabitants' strange dwellings, but Alluvion was already starting off towards the interrupted bucket chain, ready to play the hero.
M. briefly considered just going back and starting work by himself, it seemed such a waste of time to fight fires when they were just going to be collapsing the buildings anyway, but reluctantly released the dog man (who just lay panting on the floor, having now worn himself out) and started off after him.
Maybe he was right about protecting the trees from fire, trees take time to grow and it was better to be safe than sorry.
"You should go to the library first," said the loudest voice. It had whispered at first, but now it seemed to be pushing all the other prayers to the side.
Alluvion couldn't help but feel that this had happened to him before but couldn't remember when, and besides answering prayers was what he was born to do.
"All those books going up in flames, can you imagine what would happen?"
Alluvion didn't even know what books were but it sounded convincing to him. He pointed himself towards the library with new purpose."
Alluvion woke up slowly and felt more than a little disoriented. Fish sleep and some of them even dream, but Gods don't. What had even just been happening? He vaguely remembered something about wolves and attacking his new tree-friend, but surely that wasn't right?
What was more disorienting though was the fact that he didn't appear to be where he had been when he had last been concious in the real world (was this any more real than what he had just been seeing? He wasn't sure). In fact the scenery as he remembered it seemed to have gone entirely.
There were no stone hives, no hills, no distrant trees and no grass. Even the sky seemed to have shrunk to a tiny circle above his head that swayed back and forth to some other rhythm, the ground shaking as it changed direction. Everything else had been replaced by vast walls of wood.
It was also at about this point that the terrible crushing pressure he has been under for the past moments of sluggish comprehension suddenly became apparent.
The wooden bucket exploded as Alluvion rapidly expanded back to his full size, the fairly obvious consequence of trying to contain an essentially infinite puddle of water inside a container of less than infinite size. This was much to the consternation of the dog-headed man who had (up until it transformed itself into a collection of wooden shards and a man-sized sea serpent literally made out of the sea) been doing his best to carry it to the site of a nearby fire. Although it didn't worry him quite so much as the heavy wooden panther that slammed into him and sent him crashing to the ground seconds later, standing on his chest and crushing the breath from his body with its weight.
Alluvion shook himself vigorously, shaking droplets of water everywhere for pretty much no good reason at all other than that it was what he'd seen animals do after being surprised. It seemed to help a bit.
"River friend you are awake, we must return to the hill so we can continue our work."
M. relaxed his position slightly, allowing the dog-man to draw in a gasping and stuttered breath. He immediately started howling and calling for help (rather ungratefully, though M. wasn't really capable of processing much resentment), so the tree-panther placed one gnarled paw back on his captive's neck, wrapping tendrils tightly around his muzzle.
"You took a long time to wake up, this walker-thing gathered you into a cage so I followed him here.
It looks like a beast but thinks like a walker. What is this creature?"
Alluvion didn't have an answer, and in truth he was only half listening. There were other voices trying to catch his attention. Prayers.
"Put out this fire"
"Spare my house"
"Someone find my daughter"
The inhabitants of the small town were by and large not aquatic at all, but they were definitely wishing for water, and Alluvion could hear them. And also, something else...
M. was patient but it was also anxious to get back to what they had been doing before they had all fallen asleep. It was pragmatic and had already dismissed everything that had happened in that other forest as unimportant. Reclaiming this odd stone plain for nature was important, and Alluvion was a valuable asset, he wouldn't have bothered following him otherwise.
And now he was just sitting there staring into space.
"There is nothing to do here. Let us go. We must start work."
"The animals here are burning... I do not like fire."
Rivalry between water and fire is a pretty common recurring theme and there's a bit of truth in that, people tend to turn to water first for their extinguishing needs and in the same way that the dreams of hundreds of fish brought Alluvion to life in the first place, the beliefs of thousands of humans instilled him with the same deep-seated dislike of open flames.
Plus answering prayers was sort of his thing, even if it was usually for fish.
"The walkers put you in a box. Why would you help them? The forest is more important."
"They are calling to me I cannot ignore them."
M. bared its fangs from instinct, why was the river spirit being so obstructive?
Unfortunately the one part of the dream worth remembering told it that assaulting the Water Spirit in order to get its way wouldn't work either. He was made of water. The concept of being able to talk directly to anything else was as new to it as it was to Alluvion and it hadn't had any chance to develop any kind of effective persuasive technique.
"The trees call to you."
"Trees burn too. We should remove the fire first."
This logic didn't seem particularly sound to M. as the fire was currently nowhere near the greenery at all, mostly spreading through the non-stone parts of the town inhabitants' strange dwellings, but Alluvion was already starting off towards the interrupted bucket chain, ready to play the hero.
M. briefly considered just going back and starting work by himself, it seemed such a waste of time to fight fires when they were just going to be collapsing the buildings anyway, but reluctantly released the dog man (who just lay panting on the floor, having now worn himself out) and started off after him.
Maybe he was right about protecting the trees from fire, trees take time to grow and it was better to be safe than sorry.
"You should go to the library first," said the loudest voice. It had whispered at first, but now it seemed to be pushing all the other prayers to the side.
Alluvion couldn't help but feel that this had happened to him before but couldn't remember when, and besides answering prayers was what he was born to do.
"All those books going up in flames, can you imagine what would happen?"
Alluvion didn't even know what books were but it sounded convincing to him. He pointed himself towards the library with new purpose."