[Catholic Creed]

BURN

“There was but…” Ax-Punk says.

He doesn’t finish.

Instead he sighs, wanders back inside the Ma’n’Pa store.

Hm. To spy or not to spy.

“Hey punks.” I said, politely. “We’re leaving Ax-Punk behind.”

There. Now I’m not spying. I’m waiting impatiently for him.

“Excuse me ma’am. Could you tell us where the port is?”

See, here’s the weird thing about me – I have GREAT hearing. I hear eVeRyThInG. All the time. So. So loud.

But don’t ask me where a noise is coming from.

And if too many noises or certain noises are clamoring for attention, I. will. be a horrible person to be around.

“Got to skip town huh.”

This place is as noisy as the Hives! But… But I have a nice little focus point…

“Unfortunately, I am not blessed with… the uhm most civil companions.”

Well, that’s just rude.

I mean, he’s not wrong. But still. Rude.

Oscar’d fuss at him. But, Oscar ain’t here, and he can’t give anyone the Glare of Disappointment™.

(I like Search and Grimme because that expression doesn’t work on them. To give you a proper frame of reference, dear listeners, it turns me into pliable mush. I’ll do whatever he wants so that he isn’t disappointed in me.)

(Well, for a few minutes anyway. And then he makes me mad or it’s suffocating and I do what I want and the cycle begins anew. Dads, amiright?)

“Well son, the closest port is Whitehall. But mind you with the jetstream about, no one is heading north.”

Jetstream…

“And what in this clearly gods-forsaken land is a jetstream?”

Search – who waits for me, like her nice punk self always does – slaps me over the back of my head. “Don’t blaspheme.”

“I wasn’t talking about your deity!” I protest. “I was talking about all deities!”

Search grinds her teeth. I can hear that very clearly. And I’m practically the only person that makes her do that. (The other two are Oscar and her mom.)

“Look, if they do me a fair turn, I might believe in them. But they haven’t yet.” I point to my non-eyes. “So why waste my extremely limited time?”

“Your time might be less ‘limited’ if you weren’t constantly putting yourself in danger.”

“You sound like Oscar.” I dismiss. Which is the perfect thing to fly from my lips because that will make her madder. Hm. How do I recover? “Hey, I like to feel alive! And you never feel more alive than when you’re almost dead!” Welp. I messed up again.

She slaps me on the back of the head again. “Done spying yet?”

Hm. Usually she’d be fussing at me a while over that. Guess this place has her unsettled too.

“Bold words coming from you!”

“Really? You notice you are the only one I use psychometry on regularly? Hm? Ever notice that?”

Here we go again.

“You use it on Grimme too.” I protest.

“Yes. Your mom.” She deadpans. “It’s almost like you picked up that despicable habit from her.”

Can I head off the lecture?

“Oh look! There’s Ax-Punk!” I say.

 

SEARCH

And then the idiot’s off.

Now, now. Be nice. He’s had a rough time of it…

I look up at the … what am I even seeing?

Okay. This is bad for my mental health …

Is … is that sky?

Dad has stories of sky. Legends passed down in the family for so long I never actually believed

No. that’s a lie. I do believe them. Or I want to.

I want to believe that ‘sky’ and ‘stars’ and ‘countries’ are real. But that means believing ‘war’ and ‘devastation’ are real.

I guess there is some truth to that one religion. “There can’t be light without shadow. If there was no good, there would be no evil.”

Stop daydreaming.

I grab Burn as he almost tumbles face-first. There is a strangely-strong wind here. It’s blowing away his smoke.

But if I take his arm and keep a good pace, he’ll be fine. We won’t have to worry.

Caleb stops at a signpost, hiding his face from the bar-windows.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

Burn, with a huff of frustration, starts openly manipulating the smoke. His fire-opal is in his hand, and he coils the smoke in threads around it, creating a geode-like shell over the stone.

Caleb is staring.

“Where are we going?” I reiterate. While Burn swears under his breathe at the why is the wind this strong?!

 

@ethan-leonard, @this-is-not-an-alien, @rusted-knight

When life knocks you down, wait 'til it passes over you and then attack it from behind.

[Rusted Knight]

“Where are we going?” asks Search.

“Whitehall. There we can sit out the jetstream and catch a ship north. From there I go back home. You guys can follow but that is up to you.”

“And what in this clearly gods-forsaken land is a jetstream?”

Caleb looked at Burn hard for two reasons. First, having lived all his life on the floating islands, he knew no better or worse life that he had. To call it forsaken was mildly insulting. Second, he had to think about how to answer the question. Burn clearly didn’t know anything about the islands or their nature and inversely, Caleb knew nothing about Burn’s home. Giving a good answer would be interesting.

“A jeststream is an air current. Because the winds are over 50 knots, they force ships to use more fuel. That and they bring storms with them so most captains will not sail far with one in the path.”

Caleb remembered a time his father and siblings had been grounded by such a storm for a week.

“With one currently offshore, we are not going north and through it. It would be best to find small jobs to get some money for tickets for when it does pass. Our best chance for that is in Whitehall. Especially since Nathair has wrecked a business thanks to his instigation.”

Caleb paused to let that sink in.

“I am going to Whitehall. If you want to come, feel free to join me.”

@ethan-leonard

@hannahrenner

@this-is-not-an-alien

The Devil saw me with my head down and got excited. Then I said Amen

[Cathy]

“Where are we going?” Search asked

“Whitehall.” Caleb said “There we can sit out the jetstream and catch the ship north. From there I go back home. You guys can follow but that is up to you.”

Very little of what he said made sense but hey sticking together sounded like a plan.

“And what in this clearly gods-forsaken land is a jetstream?” Burn interjected. Caleb seemed to take offense at that. Interesting.

“A jetstream is an air current. Because the winds are over 50 knots, they force ships to use more fuel.” So really fast air smashes your flying ships… “That and they bring storms with them so most captains will not sail far with one in the path.”

Noted.

“With one currently offshore, we are not going north and through it. It would be best to find small jobs to get some money for tickets for when it does pass.” Earning money with jobs, wasn’t scamming it quicker? “Our best chance for that is in Whitehall. Especially since Nathair has wrecked a business thanks to his instigation.”

“I have done nothing wrong, ever, in my entire life.” Nathair retorted innocently.

“I’m going to Whitehall. If you want to come, feel free to join me.”

“That would probably be for the best,” Nathair said, for now he was stuck with this group. “but tell me more about your world here. What kind of government does it have, what rules of physics and legal nonsense?”

@rusted-knight

@ethan-leonard

@hannahrenner

To be a light to the world you must shine in the darkness.

[Catholic Creed]

SEARCH

Pardon me for sounding like Burn here, but punk literally not a single word of that made sense!

Okay. Deep breaths Search. Piece together what you can.

Whitehall – a location.

Jetstream – um.

Ship – drawing a blank… oh, probably transportation? Put a pin in that.

Job and money – that can’t be too different?

Tickets – okay, for transportation. Is it going to be a train? No. he said ship. Is ship like a train?

“I have done nothing wrong, ever, in my entire life.”

Nathair is responsible for the problem. That has us running away, apparently. But not that big a problem or we would be literally running.

Ugh. He might be worse than Oscar.

Actually … until he frames someone for murder, he’s a step above. The bar is that low.

Okay. Jetstream.

“I am going to Whitehall. If you want to come, feel free to join me.”

“That would probably be for the best,” Nathair said. “but tell me more about your world here. What kind of government does it have, what rules of physics and legal nonsense?”

“Yeah. And after that, can you tell us what a ship is?” Burn cuts in. “Is it like a train?”

“I’m pretty sure making sure we don’t get in legal trouble is more important. You’re dad isn’t here to bail us out.”

I consider a moment.

“That being said, your mom isn’t here to get us in trouble, so I guess that does even this out.

 

BURN

Ugh. Ugh. There she goes again.

Look punk, just cause your Dad is perfect and your Mom … okay … okayish

Ugh.

“I don’t choose my parents!”

Yes Burn. Very mature.

“I am not blaming you for anything your parents do.” She says in her mom’s PatientTM voice.

(She doesn’t know she does that. That’s the worst thing about it.)

Her pack wriggles it’s moving why is it moving that is wrong wrong wrong 

Wait. Wait a second. Wait she did not…

“WHAT IS IN YOUR PACK?!”

“Um.”

She did.

I shove her as far away as I can. “I TOLD YOU NO LIZARDS! THAT’S THE ONLY LINE I’VE DRAWN HOW COULD YOU?!?!”

 

@ethan-leonard, @this-is-not-an-alien, @rusted-knight

When life knocks you down, wait 'til it passes over you and then attack it from behind.

[Ragnarok]

Arsene waited patiently, until the speech was over. He got all the information he needed on all these strange events. It was safe to assume Alessio was from another world. Now, time to gather more information.

“Lots of strange events these days, aren’t they, Alessio.”

Arsene thought about his next move. He didn’t have all the information he needed. Old snake. It was all coming back to him. Nathair. The information he got about Alessio. What was his side of the story?

“Lots of strange events indeed. So strange, I met an Old Snake named Nathair, who told me many strange stories,” Arsene was smiling briefly, until it suddenly dropped, “Who did this to you, Prince Alessio? Who is Nathair?”

You can only come to the morning through shadows: Tolkien

[Cathy]

“Lots of strange events these days, aren’t they, Alessio.” Arsene said, something about his voice sounding a little odd. Alessio glanced up quickly, regarding him a little warily. What was he probing for…?

Instinctively his mind started assessing every possible escape route in the room, but he bit back the urge. This was Arsene, he’d be fine.

“Lots of strange events indeed.” Something happened – what happened, Arsene must’ve found out something – “So strange, I met an Old Snake named Nathair, who told me many strange stories,”

The moment Arsene mentioned that name Alessio froze, panic in his eyes. How much did he know, if Nathair was bac- Alessio swallowed and stared down fixedly at the table. Just don’t overreact. He was trying to figure out how to respond when Arsene continued- uncharacteristically serious.

“Who did this to you, Prince Alessio? Who is Nathair?”

There were so many answers he could give, there was so so much and…No no, he needed to find out how much he already knew – Nobody ever believed his side of the story. A couple years ago he might’ve naively told Arsene everything, and would’ve sounded like a delusional, “problem child” who needed the support of the oh so much more stable adults he was running away from.

“What did he tell you?” Alessio asked tensely in barely a whisper, without looking up, trying to draw the least amount of attention from everyone else there. His hands were shaking.

Even if Arsene believed him, the robber would have the most chance of surviving if he remained in ignorance. No motive to get rid of him if he didn’t know anything. Maybe that would work except Alessio seriously doubted he’d let be – he’d get himself killed trying to get answers.

“Nath-“ He couldn’t even handle saying his name anymore. “He…was the king’s advisor…”

He stuck with the most neutral explanation he could possibly give because he had no idea what kind of prejudices or stories Arsene had been fed. He wasn’t going to be dumb and blurt out enough to sound like a fanatic to be dismissed.

Nathair was…well, he had been the closest thing to family at the time. Before, it happened.

 

@ragnarok @kimlikesart @ethan-leonard

To be a light to the world you must shine in the darkness.

[diving-into-the-future]

Hey, is the Castle open to some new visitors?

Could not one thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.
-C.S. Lewis

[Ragnarok]

@diving-into-the-future

Yes, it is. Make a character bio and a world bio.

You can only come to the morning through shadows: Tolkien

[diving-into-the-future]

Okay, thank you! I’ll hop to it!

Could not one thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.
-C.S. Lewis

[Cathy]

HII NEW HUMAN @diving-into-the-future!!!! Lemmie just catch up with everything!

 

So right now our characters’ve been separated into two groups:

Group 1: Burn and Search (@hannahrenner’s) Caleb (@rusted-knight’s) Miles (@ethan-leanard) Nathair (mine)

and

Group 2: Leana (@kimlikesart’s) Con (@ethan-leanard), Arsene, Sherlock, Hades and Crorie (@ragnarok, yes very ambitious number of characters to role play I agree) and Alessio (mine!)

 

So Group 1 my darling Nathair just swindled some people in a bar and started a barfight in the process inspiring the rest of the group to try and skip town and right now they’re at a port right before a bit of storm coming.

Basic rundown of the characters in Group 1 – Burn is a sassy blind dude who can “see” with smoke-abilities and Search is his best friend/adoptive sister who really loves lizards and can touch items to get their history, Miles is a king/knight, very idealistic, Nathair is a bit (a lot) of a conman who sasses everyone and causes disaster to spontaneously combust around him, and Caleb is the closest thing to the braincell of the group but not by too much.

Oh and they’ve all decided to go on a quest to get revenge against the – basically the Character Castle avatar Amnesia!

 

Group 2 – Leana is a spunky girl who ran away from home looking for her dad Nithel who was a character in this Caste and a Castle that died out a while back so my character Alessio and Kim’s character Nithel became really close over the course of the last character castle so but anyway I’m rambling and she’s here looking for her dad who Alessio knows and is looking for too. Arsene is a flamboyant gentleman thief, Sherlock is his twin brother and a detective and a class-A jerk-lord. They can both shift their skin into dragon scales and Arsene can use nether powers to erase things from existence while Sherlock can…well he’s never really used his powers yet but it involves creating stuff…Hades is a more or less honorable assassin/super solider and Crorie is a quiet, stern girl who fights with an umbrella and is a Phantom of the Opera/Christine motif. Alessio is a super traumatized fugitive prince who routinely grills people and also has fire powers that he can’t control (the two aren’t related XD)

So Alessio met Arsene robbing a bank and they got into a fight and landed on a boat and Hades was hired to kill Alessio and they fought and then Sherlock was trying to capture them and Crorie was trying to capture Arsene and then they all got teleported to a Trail of Fear thing and then Alessio got accidentally handcuffed to Hades and then there was a food fight and…actually, it’s probably easier if you just throw your character in.

 

Group 1 is going a little slower than Group 2 right now so it might be an easier place to drop your character but Group 2’s got a lot of interesting things going so either way your choice!

 

That…was a lot of infodumping, where do I need to slow down and explain a bit better…?

 

To be a light to the world you must shine in the darkness.

[diving-into-the-future]

@this-is-not-an-alien HIIIIIIII

Nah, don’t worry, it’s not as confusing as my brain. I’m working on choosing which character to throw in. It’s currently a tie between my highly trained, bad with emotions, water-controlling assassin princess, Adira “Bubbles” Achlys or the angry fire controlling princess Jaira “Sparky” Heba.

Could not one thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.
-C.S. Lewis

[Catholic Creed]

@driving-into-the-future

Why not throw both in?

I mean, @ragnarok has a disorienting number of characters and it hasn’t really bothered anyone. And you could put one in each group!

If you just don’t feel like doing two characters, I vote the water-princess because there are already a lot of pyromanic characters here. LOL.

On the other hand, if the fire-princess has more braincells, we should probably go with her.

*shrugs*

End of the day, do what you do! 😃

When life knocks you down, wait 'til it passes over you and then attack it from behind.

[Kimmi]

“Alright, we’ll need to come up with a plan.” Alessio spoke, “We don’t have a lot of options and we don’t know really what’s ahead of us so we should be prepared for the worst. Our best option would be to work together and manage our assets and liabilities accordingly.”

Leana’s eyes widened, as she still hunkered under the table. Is it too much to hope that- that I could be left behind? But I don’t want to lose, Alessio, if he knows about Father. Wait… Is Father in one of those mirrors? 

Leana jumped, bumping her head, when plates and silverware skidded onto the floor. Zounds. Her cheeks flamed in disgust, that she’d been startled.

“I recommend we compile whatever resources we could potentially need here and begin prioritizing what we can feasibly take with us and what would only slow us down.” Alessio’s voice sounded calm.

The chocolate fellow, perhaps, mentioned another fellow named Nahair, and tension mounted above the board. More words, softly spoken. Leana crawled to the end of the table, and climbed out from beneath the pale tablecloth. She rose to her feet, standing in front of the man who talked about the mirrors.

Leana breathed and pulled back her shoulders and looked at his face. “What are all the trials?

Is my father in one of them?

Do you know where he is? Or if I can find him?”

Do I have to go? If he’s there, I will. I want to. But if you don’t know where he is? *honestly wants to go home, to her mother and grandparents and sister and baby brother*

—————-

@this-is-not-an-alien @ragnarok @ethan-leonard

*waves at @diving-into-the-future * Allo!

Jominkreesa

'Forth now! And fear no darkness!'

[Cathy]

diving-into-the-future wrote:

HIIIIIIII Nah, don’t worry, it’s not as confusing as my brain. I’m working on choosing which character to throw in. It’s currently a tie between my highly trained, bad with emotions, water-controlling assassin princess, Adira “Bubbles” Achlys or the angry fire controlling princess Jaira “Sparky” Heba.

Lol that’s good!!! Well, not the confusing brain part lol XDD

Whichever one has more braincells this castle has a huge braincell deficiency. 😌✌️

 

Alessio nearly jumped when Leana crawled out from under the table – a safe distance away from them. Devisldevilsdevils was she listening in? That was stupid she would’ve hidden better if she intended to eavesdrop and – it was just stupid, he didn’t have any reason to suspect her anyway…

His mind was stuck on everything Arsene had mentioned. How much did he know, what was Alessio going to do about it, what was Arsene going to do – he’d do something crazy for sure?

“What are all the trials?” Leana asked steadily, staring him in the face. She was using this moment to take charge of the situation – that was brave. “Is my father in one of them?

Do you know where he is? Or if I can find him?”

It took Alessio a conscious effort not to feel a little paralyzed maintaining eye contact, he still wasn’t used to it. And he wasn’t paying enough attention to her questions, hearing Nathair mentioned had completely jarred everything, Just…focus.

Could Nithel be in one of the trials? That…almost gave Alessio hope but it was such a slim possibility.

Alessio bit his lip and thought over her questions.

“It’s possible if Nithel is still in this world…dimension…place…then he might be forced into the trials as well and there’s a chance of us finding him there.” He said, trying desperately to think of something encouraging to say, but he couldn’t think of anything. The only thing he could manage was to be as frank as he could with her.

“I don’t know.” I’m sorry…Taking a deep breath, he plotted forward “The last time I saw him…was right before a robber –“ Devils that was a comforting thing to say! “But he made it out safely, as far as I know, that’s when we got separated.”

Was it physically possible for him to anything marginally helpful…??

“The trials…” He frowned trying to concentrate on what he remembered of it and at the same time not break down. Images, sensations all came flooding in, he caught himself biting his knuckles again as if a bit of pain would ground him back in the present. “They um…”

He couldn’t focus enough to articulate anything. It was all starting to get numb again. By now he was staring off into space, losing a lot of his grip on the real world and he knew it. With an effort Alessio blinked back a bit of that deadening sensation and tried to plunge forward.

“I believe that whoever or whatever brought us here is using these trials to experiment with whatever responses it can elicit, but the trials show you things that have happened in general to force whoever’s a part of it to feel guilt.”

Alessio’s still not all there anymore but that’s ok he just couldn’t feel anything.

“Nithel doesn’t have anything to feel guilty for so he should be past the trials before any of us and, assumably, we all end up in the same place afterward.” He conveniently ignored the possibility Nithel wasn’t in the trials because in that case there was absolutely nothing he could do to find him again.

It was getting harder to function right now – Alessio took a deep breath and fidgeted with the table cloth to coax his senses to start working. He couldn’t not default to logic but Leana had lost her brother and her father and her home all in one day he needed to show some level of compassion and empathy, he just couldn’t…figure out how to express that.

“Um,” Alessio started softly, staring down at the table. What do normal people say to someone? “…He’ll…he’ll be ok, and…we’ll find him. Whatever dragged us here seems to derive more pleasure from keeping us alive so…in all likelihood he should be alive…”

Devils. That was the literal worst way to comfort someone.

 

@kimlikesart @ragnarok @ethan-leonard

To be a light to the world you must shine in the darkness.

[Kimmi]

Alessio seemed in a daze, and Leana resisted the urge to fidget.

Finally he looked at her, biting his lip, “It’s possible if Nithel is still in this world…dimension…place…then he might be forced into the trials as well and there’s a chance of us finding him there. I don’t know.” He sucked in a deep breath, and Leana’s brows furrowed. “The last time I saw him…was right before a robber–” He stumbled on his words, “But he made it out safely! As far as I know, that’s when we got separated.”

Leana somehow straightened more, and she forced herself to breathe slowly.

“The trials…” He frowned and lowered his eyes a moment. Shadows passed over his face, and he slowly brought his fist to his mouth, and started to gnaw.

“You’ve been there before?” Leana whispered, to where she almost didn’t hear it and she hesitantly moved closer to him, around the table. It hurt. The memories.

“They um…” The haze came back. He was far away.

She reached out to rub his arm, but he blinked several times, and she pulled back. The fog seemed to leave his eyes, though it reformed like a mask around them.

She gave him the curtesy of holding his eyes, and keeping a calm face, as he spoke. “I believe that whoever, or whatever, brought us here is using these trials to experiment with whatever responses it can elicit, but the trials show you things that have happened in general to force whoever’s a part of it to feel guilt.”

Wait… Experiments? Like… building a catapult and seeing how far you can fling rocks into the pond?

Making people feel guilt? 

“Nithel doesn’t have anything to feel guilty for, so he should be past the trials before any of us and, assumably, we all end up in the same place afterward.” Alessio took a deep breath, and fidgeted with the table cloth, the fog conquering again. “Um,” Alessio stared down at the table. “…He’ll…he’ll be ok, and…we’ll find him.”

Leana’s brows furrowed again. You don’t really know that. Don’t lie to me. Anger spiked. Don’t you dare, lie to me.

“Whatever dragged us here seems to derive more pleasure from keeping us alive so…in all likelihood, he should be alive…”

So… you do know. Her shoulders drooped and her eyes widened. My… father… could be tortured, right now? All alone, or with other maniacs, like this bunch? She breathed in slowly, then out slower. “Alright.” She reached out and rubbed his arm gently, like she had war-stunned soldiers. Leana attempted the smile, and it came out honest, sad… but grateful. She stepped into him and gave him a tight hug, trying not to cry. “I’m not sure what you’ve been through, but I’m sorry.”

She stood silent a moment, then whispered, “In the future? Don’t ever lie to me.”

—–

@this-is-not-an-alien @ragnarok @ethan-leonard

Jominkreesa

'Forth now! And fear no darkness!'

[Author]

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