Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
- 6.2K All Categories
- 3.1K Everything Achaea
- 1.5K North of Thera
- 26 Archives of the Terraformer
- 257 The Matsuhama Arena
- 885 The Golden Dais of Creation
- 299 The Scarlattan Theatre
- 149 The Blank Canvas
- 2K Getting Help
- 412 General Questions
- 258 Quick Class Questions
- 1.3K Tech Support
- 313 Client Help
- 486 Curing Systems and Scripts
- 841 Off-Topic
- 255 The Wander Inn
- 586 The Universal Membrane
- 298 Class Discussions
- 298 Individual Class Sections
- 20 Alchemist
- 9 Apostate
- 30 Blademaster
- 9 Depthswalker
- 14 Druid
- 4 Infernal
- 20 Jester
- 19 Magi
- 34 Monk
- 11 Occultist
- 8 Paladin
- 7 Priest
- 29 Runewarden
- 18 Sentinel
- 26 Serpent
- 20 Shaman
- 9 Sylvan
Comments
Also in addition to the names mentioned above, @Crixos has been a huge help to me personally. Just throwing that out there!
ANYWAYS
Going to be pushing myself over the next day or two to hit level 80. After that I will be making it a point to spar at least twice every day. The consensus is "quit being a bitch and just start fighting." Only a bit nicer than that because you're all aces.
Rookie!
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Tecton-Today at 6:17 PM
When we went to raid Ashtan, Targossas and Cyrene we didn't get any combat, but I still got the enemy status. I swear guys I didn't do anything bad! The Mhaldorians made me smoke cigarettes, they are a bad influence! I did learn I need a cloak tattoo though...ouch.
But srsly, loved having you around, even odd little comments and stuff, gotta admit achaea on the whole is getting a lot of new blood coming through that has me pumped up big time!
GET IT WRONG AND YOU NEED TO BEAT RANGOR/GERAINT IN THE TWINS TOURNEY *AND* JAIZSUR IN THE TUMBLE RACE FOR ENOUGH POINTS TO WIN THE STAFF
8 SECONDS
GO
...How badly are geraint/rangor gonna whomp me?
100%. Definitely. Not.
Achaea friends are wonderful, be awesome to them.
25 on the iron elite and then 20 for two tokens. I got this cool siren's skirl that when used will make my mutual allies follow me, which is totes worth the token. Then with the second I got 29 credits which kind of feels like winning 9.95 on a 10 dollar scratch.
Thanks for humoring me in my self-indulgent thread.
45+190 brings me up to 235 total.
I submitted an entry to the bardics, but I'm a big stupid dumb dumb and forgot to take off smart quotes. The fucked up this is I cut & copied it into a journal and was like "Oh shit! I gotta turn off smart quotes!" Kind of a dick punch but I'm proud that I even wrote anything in the first place, never done anything like it! Next time I'll be certain to just write it in notepad. I'll post my entry after this, let me know what you think?
I'm pretty damned ecstatic that with this character I'm doing things I've never done before. It bodes well for getting dat staff in 850!
My tax return came today too! Booyah! I don't really want to talk about the cards I got (Catarin, you're a crusty whore.) I now have a shield of absorption and an Aldar Diadem (I'm a real magi now!) Still had enough left over to pay rent and buy pizza.
1000 credits 300 (Fuck you Catarin)
300 credits 105 (No really, fuck off and die again Catarin I don't need 7 of you)
may iron elite 25
previous balance 235
665 total spent.
When given the opportunity to be seated, to be still, I cannot help but think on the man I used to be. Graced with the benefit of hindsight I know now that I wouldn't have changed a single decision I've made along the way. There is to be another battle soon, there always is. It's in these times I find myself alone in my chambers unable to escape uncertainty. I can stand on the banks of this river of time cutting through my consciousnesses, but I cannot go back across, never back: always forward. All I can do from so many years removed is to look back and see the man I was then. That man had a literal river to contend with, though he didn't know it yet.
I can still taste the loam on my palate when I allow my mind to drift there. At least thirty Aeguaries have now come and gone. I'd like to think that there was something special about that morning in particular. Not just the heady scent of spring reclaiming the lands after winter. It was more than the way the most resilient of snow banks wafted coolness despite the warming sun.
Despite my efforts all these years later I still haven't been able to find another instrument to recreate the resounding din of the horns played in the Kings army. Either to low, or somehow hollow: much like the rest of this tale, I suppose that clarion call will never be relived. With the blowing of the horn came orders, and after so many mornings waking up to marching orders some reprieve was more than welcomed. The column stopped in its tracks, and the steady beat of thousands of feet moving in unison fell silent.
“Battle comes in three days time! We will reach a river in a few hours, and will set up encampment there! All monks are to report for guard duty!” I can even recall the gruff voice that issued the order that'd come to be such a fulcrum in my life, three days, guard duty...the river.
Sitting so many years removed from it I can still recall the way it felt when the thin strips of twine holding the eye sigils to my belt snapped. I can flick my wrist exactly the same way I did then,and in the eye of my mind still see the way the light spiraled out and pierced into the night. This had been my first time assigned to guard duty at night. I remember the way the camps had been set, even remember the path I took along the alleys of tents. There was only a sliver of moon left then, but then Skuld became Verthandi, turning to Urdu, circling back to Skuld.
I used to check mindnet with nearly every breath, a habit that took me many years to break myself of. That night all I saw over and over:
A Canvas tent:
Gallant magi
Valiant blademaster
Lionisedt alchemist
There would be occasions when I'd sense movement, head in that direction only to hear the relieved groan of an empty bladder. Now I digress, nobody wants to hear about long forgotten nameless soldiers pissing. They want to hear legends, to be told how it is I came to my vaulted position. They want to hear of Kings, and legends
That night He looked foreign upon first sight, as I had only seen the King from afar. When I saw him on my rounds I could have easily passed the King by, were it not for his golden crown stealing the light from what little moon it could. If you conjurer up a King in your mind’s eye now, I'd wager it be similar to the appearance of this noble monarch. His strong jaw, towering stature, and imposing aura compelled even the mightiest warrior to drop to one knee. His sudden presence along my path couldn't have been anything other than the work of fate. Had I turned left instead of right, if I had stopped to ponder how much Vellis would give me for that butterfly, I would more than likely not be recounting this tale now.
It's possible that the King had some understanding of the parts our Garden playwrights had inked down for us. Understanding or not, it was the King gave the cue to enter the stage.
“Legate. You may approach me.” The King beckoned to me, and I came.
I had sensed in him some unease that night, there was something just below his surface and it had given me pause then, but I was dutiful and did as I was told. Over the next two nights this same scene would repeat itself. I would come across the King, and together we would travel along the banks of the river. The King and I were two players, and the River was our stage.
I became a confidant of sorts for our King. The first night on the banks of river he explained to me how this was a homecoming for him. He had grown up on the banks of this river, in a village that now I am very certain no longer exists. His life had been easy, and the river provided without hesitation a life that was comfortable. The King explained how he was forbidden to cross the river we stood on now, the same river that we'd have to cross to move on to battle, to continue to grow a then meager Kingdom. Of course when you tell an adventurous youth that they can't do something it's nearly paramount to ordering them to do it, and the King had been no different in those regards. When he had arrived in his tale and was about to cross, the King stopped abruptly
“We must cross this river, Legate.” Even without my gift of hindsight I realized what an obvious statement the King had made. The pause then was so heavy, so great, that I can still feel its weight now.
“I've charged through cataclysm vibration, seen the totems of enemy runewardens smashed to splinters, and fought under skies dark with meteor arrows. Together we've conquered and left civilization in our wake. Then why is it that I cannot bring myself to cross this river?” I'll never forget the words he spoke. Only then I had no idea what crossing the river would mean for me.
The second night had no moon to walk under. I recognize now what the King had been doing, after all it's why I'm still awake writing this now. That night I found him lingering in the center of the camps, his glazed eyes lost in a campfire. Seeing me the King once again beckoned to me, and once more we found ourselves down by the banks of that river
It was around the age of twelve that the boundaries of his village had become unbearable. It was on a fresh Valnuary morning that a young boy went down to the river to make his fated choice, setting all schemes of empire into motion. He told me of the elation he felt taking the first wading steps into the rushing waters. Youth may be incorrigible, but it's no substitute for careful planning and knowledge. If the boy-king had knowledge he would have known that the river was far to rapid to cross safely, and if he had planed at all he would have chosen another location to attempt his first crossing. In his nativity he was swept, very literally, down the river. Had it not been for a large net and the quick thinking of one fisherman this tale would never have been told.
“Every foe I've vanquished, every challenge I've risen above. Yet here I am, bested by a river I cannot cross.” The look of despondency was only etched in flesh, but it might as well been etched in the timelessness of stone. The King and I spent much of the remaining moonless night by the river. While I cannot recount the conversation with any real accuracy, there was one theme that was repeated, the King had no choice but to best this river when the battle set to occur the next day arrived.
Eager as I was to see if my King would gather his courage the sleepless night before had taken a toll. The battle would wake me, but I had to lean on kola and kawhe to get me there. With the runes sketched, the harmonics played and crystals set to spinning the time for battle grew near. I wasn't very surprised when a rushed Mhun boy barged into my tent, breathless, then he relayed me the order that I was to join with the King's party.
If you've been involved in any sort of group combat, you'd recognize the battle that ensued. The river was enough to keep the two forces apart, and our forces were well equipped to engage a line of sight battle. We had been trading volleys of arrows when a restlessness swept over our forces. It was time to press the advantage, what was so clear to even the lowest soldier didn't seem to register to the King.
“My King, it's time. There is no other way, you must give the order.” The clarity I felt speaking those words is something I've sought ever since: I have never been so sure of a thing than I was in that moment. If the King did not rise then. It was a decision he was never allowed to make. A King-shattering arrow, a critical hit to change history. One moment the King was reaching hesitantly for the hilt of his sword to give the order to cross that river, and the next he barely managed to stay sitting on his warhorse. Gargling blood and air the former King fell into the mud and muck, the arrow that ended that all jutting with triumph from his neck.
In that moment one King passed on, and another was born. Among the silent and shocked soldiers I knew what had to be done. Taking the crown off his head I saw the last of his life fade from his eyes. I wish I could say I saw a calmness there, but only panic and despair.
The crown felt natural, like I was always meant to wear it. My first order, I will never forget:
“Gather on me men! Together we cross the river!”
The end of an era
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.