ꙮ There are any number of places, in and around the Academy, that one could use, if one wished, to access the sea. There’s the crescent platform, where Caion and the Awoken were fishing together recently. There’s the Glass-Ship docks, constantly bustling. And there’s any number of bridges and balconies and platforms, close to the water’s edge, and between Naiads and Kushtaka and humans who grew up around the Sea it’s not altogether uncommon to find people taking a moment away from the River to immerse themself in the Sea.
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- The Dragon
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← Active ScenesThe Sea's Edge, I
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has left the Little Hunter curled up with some snacks and a pillow in their room. Now, at the water’s edge, they carefully take off their Research Assistant Cloak, and fold it. If they needed to breathe, they would take a deep breath here. Instead, they affix one end of a chain to the dive platform, and loop the other end around their waist, hooking it to itself. Carrying only the large, finally completed stone sword, they enter the sea, and swim around a bit, just to test the waters, so to speak.
ꙮ Great news! You can still swim. It definitely takes you a few moments to get the bubbling under control, before you even have your head below the water’s surface, but you get there.
Satisfied that they are able to maneuver with relative ease, especially when overheating and using their steam vents, they angle themselves and swim down and away from the Academy, trusting their tether to keep them anchored.
The sea is the infinite possibility of Samudra. A shared canvas of reality. But enchanting shouldn’t be terribly dangerous work. Even so, they feel comfortable putting a little bit of distance between them and the dive platform.
ꙮ Well, it’s not like depth or proximity to the surface for the purposes of breathing are an issue for you.
ꙮ Naiads, as it turns out, -can- bestow their ability to breathe underwater onto other people - going on a relatively deep dive to do gnosis-work isn’t even altogether unheard of, even for human Scholars.
Convenient, that. The light in their eyes leading them, they swim out and take a moment to figure out how much steam to vent to keep themself underwater, but not sinking. It wouldn’t do to have any sudden jolts on the chain mid gnosis work.
ꙮ You get the hang of it fairly quickly. Surprisingly feeling… in your element, given that you’re absolutely sure you’ve never been who knows how deep underwater before - able to control your position with the same surprising grace and precision that you can on land, and then some.
Once they’ve found some sort of equilibrium, Unua takes the blade in their hands, and begins to work. The stone is full of flourishing gnosis, but like all things, there’s space between the bits of it. They just need to coax some of the pellucid gnosis into the stone - and if they’re lucky, perhaps some of the native malleability of reality that is present on Samudra. A sword that can change mid battle could be quite the useful tool. Reaching out with their mind, they attempt to take some of the gnosis from the water and…mix it into the blade.
I assume this is a pellucid roll, yeah? Could be empty, perhaps.
ꙮ Liminal or Pellucid, DC 2 / 6.
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight invoked their 🌌liminal gnosis [d4] -> 1.
ꙮ You may take half.
Yeah, that's a take half from me
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight has gained 2 Arete, and now has 7.
ꙮ There is something about the woven work of the gnosis in the stone blade, and something about the way the waters rush in to fill their gaps. If you had more time, you might have caught it clearly, but it happens so quickly, at your invitation. There is a feeling of crystallization - of transformation. And the blade asks something, of you, it asks for a little of your fire. Just a little. A single cast-off spark.
takes the blade in their hands and remembers what fire truly feels like. The warming glow of camp, the scorching blaze of battle, and everything in between. All of that, in just one small flicker. They gently take it, and mix it into the blade as well. Not like when they sealed the wall, a torrent of burning light. Precise and careful, like when making food for humans.
ꙮ A single droplet of golden light, refracting colour through the waters of the sea, and then swallowed by the stone sword, which suddenly burns gold, itself, bright and shining - and then as quickly is quenched. Not drowned but quenched, a true-forged sword. In that brief moment, there is no boundary between you, and the sword, and the sea, and you feel something… ⁂
ꙮ …strange. 🙧
ꙮ The sword is crystalline, now, and glows with its own light. Its edge will never falter.
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight invoked their 🟢flourishing gnosis [d4] -> 4! It ✨explodes!
One with sword and sea, Unua reaches out with hand and heart. There is something burning, even here, under the weight of water. Something familiar in the midst of a strange new world.
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight invoked their 🟢flourishing gnosis [d4] -> 2.
ꙮ Patterns, in the sea. Patterns of microscopic life-forms, food for the noöplankton perhaps, and the fish that live here. Or possibly something else? Drifting through the water, disturbed by the Clockwork Knight’s turbulence, limned by the light pouring from them and the sword. One constellation, then another, then another, with no rhyme or reason to it - a pareidolia common to clouds, to curls of smoke, to pepper-grains on their random bumblement on the surface of a dish of water.
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight spent 2 Arete and now has 5 remaining.
ꙮ Ascension!
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight‘s 🟢flourishing gnosis has ascended unto the 6ᵗʰ rank.
ꙮ Roll again!
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight invoked their 🟢flourishing gnosis [d6] -> 5.
ꙮ The light builds.
ꙮ The Clockwork Knight as the root-knot, tendrils reaching out towards unknowable depths.
ꙮ The Sea is so wide, and so deep. The tendrils stretch so far, and it is a brief nothingness, compared to the breadth and depth of infinity.
Unua’s eyes are ever open, but they shine with a light, stranger and brighter than normal. Tinged with the peace they knew under the Centrelight, warm green beams of light shine out of their eyes and the ports on their armor, looking for those they would call friend, call brother.
ꙮ An instinct: What would you consume, to satisfy this desire?
The peace, but not the harmony. The calming of the Centrelight, leaving a memory of the acceptance they found, but never expected. Peace is a lovely thing to have, but not one Unua is destined to. There are worlds to be saved.
Sacrifice Flourishing D6 to D4
ꙮ You would give… this?
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight was made to sacrifice once (6) of their 🟢flourishing gnosis.
You too, should know peace. Whoever you are.
ꙮ The memory will always be with you. Your self is different, now.
ꙮ And then:
ꙮ There is a burst of something which is not any colour of gnosis, rippling from the Clockwork Knight. It does not move the waters, it is not even visible to the eye, but it is there - like a shout into a canyon, or a hand reached out into the unknown, and something answers. Something which has been present, this whole time- in the corner of your eye, lurking just out of sight, drifts into view. ⁂
ꙮ A congeries of knives, and claws, and nails, and sharp, unpleasant things, all pointed inward, caging, trapping, perhaps in the active process of destroying a soft, gentle bird caught in mid-flight; they’re bound in barbed wire and metal scrap and one-way mirrors through which you can see. You’ve seen this horrific internment hulk before, drifting through the depths.
flinches, for a moment, but the advice they’ve received from Archie and Caion holds steady and they know that this is not what is. “You…are not this. For surely birds of the air do not live under the sea. You are not violence. I am told you are fear. But this…I do not fear. It saddens me, and I will always fight against those who would strike down the defenseless. You…are something else.”
ꙮ It shifts, and turns towards you, and every time it moves the knives and sharp things impossibly cut through space at wretched angles, like you’re seeing a sliver at a time of what it is. The trapped bird looks at you, with Aidas’ eyes, and then the knives flick together, braid together, melt like wax until they form an iron circle ringed by twelve iron spheres, and hanging from the top of the circle by a wicked chain is a huge glass bottle, and She is trapped inside the glass bottle, curled in on Herself, Her hands pressed against the surface, Her eyes on you, Her mouth covered with thick white cloth wound round Her head over and over, and then thick iron chains over the thick white cloth. Inscribed on the iron circle, over and over again: πάντοτε γρηγοροῦσα, ἀπωλείας ἐπιθυμεῖ, πάντοτε γρηγοροῦσα, ἀπωλείας ἐπιθυμεῖ, πάντοτε γρηγοροῦσα, ἀπωλείας ἐπιθυμεῖ.
: “No. Nor are you her. You could not know of her. I have lived this once. The worst day of my life. But the worst does not scare me, strange one. It drives me to make the future better for those who will come after. You are not violence. You are not misery. Are you fear, or are you a warning, like me?”
ꙮ Radiant, please.
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight invoked their 🟡radiant gnosis [d8] -> 4.
ꙮ Roll again, you’re Starlit.
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight invoked their 🟡radiant gnosis [d8] -> 2.
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight spent 4 Arete and now has 5 remaining.
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight invoked their 🟡radiant gnosis [d8] -> 7.
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight spent 1 Arete and now has 4 remaining.
ꙮ Ascension!
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight invoked their 🟡radiant gnosis [d8] -> 2.
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight‘s 🟡radiant gnosis has ascended unto the 10ᵗʰ rank.
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight invoked their ⭐Starlit 🟡radiant gnosis [d10: (6, 10)] -> 10! It ✨explodes!
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight invoked their ⭐Starlit 🟡radiant gnosis [d10: (6, 1)] -> 6.
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight spent 4 Arete and now has 0 remaining.
ꙮ Ascension!!
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight‘s 🟡radiant gnosis has ascended unto the 12ᵗʰ rank.
ꙮ You are shining.
ꙮ Roll again!
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight invoked their 🟡radiant gnosis [d12] -> 12! It ✨explodes!
- Unua? The Clockwork Knight invoked their ⭐Starlit 🟡radiant gnosis [d12: (9, 1)] -> 9.
ꙮ [57]
ꙮ A star shines, briefly, beneath the waves.
ꙮ A pillar of light rises up, out of the water; a crystal forms at its apex, radiant and beautiful. Its story will come later, though. Right now, Unua sees something much different, in the fading radiance:
ꙮ Awe-inspiring. Hard to look at straight-on; shifting form as it did before, moving like a living thing but in dimensions you cannot perceive. There is a massive eye embedded in the core of it, and it curls around itself, with streamers like a betta fish or a gymnastic dancer, iridescent. Its true visage.
ꙮ It observes you, from a distance.
Reeling and Radiant, the First Endjinn hovers within the waters and knows. Just as the waves of the ocean swell and crash, so too do memories, locked away or hidden, and one hundred and twenty years of remembrance fills their mind. Waking, walking, warring, weeping, withdrawing, wandering, withstanding. Their name is not Unua, fitting as it might be.
Lukaso. Lukasoul. It was always a little too long. A little too formal. And so Aidas shortened it for you. Luĉja. The little light.
reaches out their hand, still glowing, “I too, am an omen. I see you plain, now. Fear is only what you wear. Why?”
ꙮ It carefully navigates a tendril, drifting this way and that, course-correcting, carefully, kinking and straightening, curling like smoke, with a mind of its own, until it touches Luĉja’s outstretched hand with impossible lightness. Like a butterfly’s wing. It does not speak. It does not appear to have any mechanism or means by which it could.
: “We are not so different, despite the look of it. They were afraid of me at first. Perhaps the people here, can be less afraid of you.”
: “What is so terrible, that you wear fear as your face?”
ꙮ Nineteen eyes blink randomly, distributed throughout its being, much smaller than the central one, which stays, fixed, on the Clockwork Knight.
Ever seeking to bridge the gaps between man and monster, Unua attempts to channel the light they felt earlier. The one that felt like home, somehow. They think of working alongside Aidas and their clan. Of joy. They think of standing in front of Archie, holding back Void-Whispers with their hands. Of friendship. They think of iron, moons, and glass bottles and instead of regret, think of determination. And try to share these things with the Visitor they share the sea with.
- Luĉja, The Clockwork Knight invoked their Alethic 🟢flourishing gnosis [d4: (3, 4)] -> 4! It ✨explodes!
- Luĉja, The Clockwork Knight invoked their Alethic 🟢flourishing gnosis [d4: (1, 4)] -> 4! It ✨explodes!
ꙮ Ascension!
- Luĉja, The Clockwork Knight‘s 🟢flourishing gnosis has ascended unto the 6ᵗʰ rank.
- Luĉja, The Clockwork Knight invoked their 🟢flourishing gnosis [d6] -> 6! It ✨explodes!
- Luĉja, The Clockwork Knight invoked their 🟢flourishing gnosis [d6] -> 6! It ✨explodes!
ꙮ Ascension!!
- Luĉja, The Clockwork Knight‘s 🟢flourishing gnosis has ascended unto the 8ᵗʰ rank.
- Luĉja, The Clockwork Knight invoked their 🟢flourishing gnosis [d8] -> 4.
ꙮ The entity blinks all of its eyes, in unison. Opens four of them, then two more, then two more, then opens all of them. For a brief moment, there is something- like a vine, or a root, or a rope you’d use, to lash yourself to something you valued, and from which you did not wish to be parted, between Luĉja and the entity (and, thus, through Luĉja, through the chain tethering them to the Academy, to the Academy itself.)
ꙮ You can see the reflection of a sprouting seed in its eye. Its story will come later, though.
: “I do not understand you, Visitor. But I hope that one day, you too, may cast off fear. For now, I must take my leave of you. My friends will be looking for me, and I have no doubt I owe a hefty explanation for the light earlier. Swim safely.” Unua drops their hand from the gossamer tendril, and gives it a thumbs up (After all, it seems to work for Aurelius) before burning their core enough to give them the force to swim back to the Academy, following the chain-tether.
ꙮ The entity… quirks the tip of its tendril up, in response? And it watches you leave.
ꙮ There are bubbles, in your wake, and they look like stars.