#ancient alter

[the-masquerade-council]

Age slider alter, ancient alter, and ageless alter flags, to go along with my other alter age flags

[farsidejr]

this WAS a project for school but HAPPY THIRD ANNIVERSARY GASA4 !!! big lore piece for Realloced AU :}

ink and watercolour on white stonehenge paper, here's some close-ups !

[3447]

thinking some thoughts about the parasitic nature of the shadows, literally and metaphorically. or, what exactly lies behind the ancient gateway OR beneath the constant.

how I see it is that the world is based on 3 important layers. the first and lowest is where shadows reign: which I'd imagine would look like earth's core. second layer, the constant (it's surface and caves, just its "earth" as a whole) being a shell around that said core. the 3rd layer being the moon/alter.

the moon worked as an empty shell around alter: whether the moon was solely made to protect it's identity or hide it I cannot say. & the constant is the shell around the no-name shadow eye thing.

a horribly done sketch to visualize what I'm trying to spew here

point one : looking at nightmare fissures, they always have a faint (or bright, it depends.) red light coming out of it: it matches with the eye's color scheme.

point two : when the ancients tried to make a connection, their entire civilization was destroyed. turned to nothing but dust. which I reckon was caused by an earthquake. bringing everything down with itself(similar to activating the ancient gateway, causing the whole plane to shake): something along the lines of actual earthquakes caused by inner movements of earth itself.

point two and a half : whatever the gateway may be for, i think its awakening the inner beast within the constant rather than connecting dimensions. or at the very least, using it causes that. it may be a literal portal to otherworldly dimensions, but also an alarm clock for the shadow eldritch being.

point three: a bit of a nonsense, notice how the ancients had to move to the underground/caves to connect better with them. moving away from the surface also comes with moving away from the moon which lessened/weakened their connection to lunar stuff and strengthened their connection to the shadows and the rest of their discoveries of dark arts and magic.

point three and a half: if we take the old map as a reference, the ruins were even further away from the surface as you had to take another sinkhole to venture deeper into the depths. or if we take adventure mode as a reference, the Throne Room could be one of if not THE lowest layer of the constant, which explains why the Nightmare Throne as a whole beckons so much power or possesses such.

about the parasitic nature of the shadows:

we have literal parasites. what else you want me to add. its righ th

Parasitic Shadeling also known as Shadow Leech also known as Fused Shadeling & Dread Mites are creatures found in the caves, 2 of which only spawn after opening the rifts. the other is seen leeching off the Nightmare Werepig before his bossfight. Leeches and Mites are two of the most well known parasites. and its interesting how these two come with open rifts.

looking at the ancient murals and their history, its shown that they had to leave their old bodies behind/shed their skins. BUT its also possible that the images are of the parasites entering their bodies/peeking around maybe. though if we take that as a matter of fact, the shadow parasites seen there have a longer body whereas the shadelings are an not.

the image always reminded me of parasitic worms. something worth mentioning is that parasites often target insects and or are found present in their bodies/guts.

the ancients or so how they were depicted are eerily insect/bug looking. even IF they were another type of creature, it would not change the statement. but the insect and parasite parallels is the simplified form of storytelling.

now, i'm not a parasite expert and i'm not trying to be one here. but from what i know or have seen plus my knowledge of other medias: parasites often or always search for a host as they are in need of one to exist and grow.

again, not an expert, but i also like to imagine in this case they work alike illithid tadpoles (? Neothelids). connected to a hivemind/elder brain, changing the form of whoever they take full control of to an entirely different being and killing what was once a living soul. the memories of the host is ever present even if their bodies has changed.

but the mind/soul is not there. a soulless husk taken ower by an otherworldly creature. the illithid can even use the voice/memories of their host as a manipulative tactic which is an unapologetic ruthless act.

funny how we know nothing of the nightmare or shadow creatures. not knowing their names and disrespecting their entire being by referring to them as mere creatures. and its almost impossible to get any of that back, the history is long gone and forgotten.

on the illithid tadpole rant, to me thats the case for Charlie and Metheus. and part of unexplained "manipulative tactic" is presented in ENCORE animated short: Charlie constantly chastising Maxwell but also taunting him by just mimicking Charlie and promising a false sensation of hope or a deal. if it was any other person, i am 58% sure Maxwell would not have accepted the Encore. but by taking advantage of his guilt/feeling he was easily lured into a trap of who knows what.

Nonsensical rant:

point one: another note about Metheus, i like to think they were terrified of the idea of being erased off of history or living and dying without a host thats why they chose a body/charlie.

point one a half: if Metethus wrote the codex and it 'somehow' got to another world, i would like to imagine it's a situation of writing down your life/history/knowledge so it doesn't completely erase who you were or something like that. so you are not forgotten. so others can read and remember you by it. and dropping it off to another world to lure people to the constant is a act of desperation.

point two : the part with "being creased off of history" is a hint towards the William Carter puzzles: in some pictures the name and face of William is destroyed/scratched over.

point two first quarter : to me that's the parasite or parasites trying to destroy William. and in that case, its a lot easier to target someone who was most certainly dealing with identity/personality crisis. as that person would be more accepting and comfortable with the idea of change and what not

point two second quarter : "Maxwell" is the result of the parasitism. took over someone's body, mind, heart and even memories. they may recall things of the past. entirely possible that Maxwell is post product of this issue rather than the parasite feeding off William's memories, but i like to believe both.

point two third quarter : anatomical changes of the body is seen in present day Maxwell, whether its Throne's fault or the inner parasite taking over as time goes by. as if the parasite is not trying to adapt to human nature but to change it and make it fit its true nature.

point two fourth quarter: Maxwell's voice in "Monster" form becomes rather unhinged for sure, but its inhumane too. and it almost sounds like many things trying to make one speak. for whatever reasons, the parasites or parasite is failing to mimic a human and its turning into something else. maybe the parasitic being itself

maybe, maybe the shadow eldritch being is not hidden beneath all the layers of constant. maybe its trying to be summoned and fit there. maybe it's an egg and eggshell situation. and as the time comes they'd eat the constant. leech on it. empty it and wear it's flesh .just like a par

ok im shutting up

ETA: some other points I forgot to bring up / minor edits.

[artofrolsch]

She's fine, she's just fine, you're fine, we're ALL FINE

Kind of a redraw of this frame from the book! Just wanted to play with some glitch effects yk

[slugcatmusings]

What is the Rot? Why is the Rot?

Spoiler Warning and Holy Wall of Text Batman Warning. I got WAY too into questioning the turbo-cancer here, hopefully my rambling makes sense.

So, the Rot is… weird, from a biological standpoint. Really weird, if you stop to think about it. It’s most frequently described as some variation of cancer, and it certainly fits the criteria for it. Caused by damage to DNA? Check. Multiplies uncontrollably? Check. Comes in both benign and malignant forms, one stationary and the other mobile? Big fat check. Heck, even the Rot cysts eating other creatures kind of fits, according to some research I’ve done – there are apparently cancer cells that will eat other cells, which makes sense in hindsight since cancer cells are cells that have lost important genetic restrictions, which may include whatever lets cells identify other cells as “do not eat.”

(I ain’t a biology whiz and I’m doing research on the fly while getting my thoughts out here, so take whatever I say about biology with a grain of salt)

So, Rot is clearly cancer of some kind, right? Case closed. Except when me and a friend of mine were talking Rain World theories on Discord, she brought up some interesting points that got me thinking.

First point: Rot cells obviously mutate in a way that affects FAR more than just cell replication and termination. Some of the cysts can HEAR. As far as I know, cells in the body do not hear sounds. They communicate via chemical signals and maybe, MAYBE react to temperature. Hearing involves complicated, specialized sensory apparatus to pick up on vibrations in the air. Even if you simplify it and say that it’s only vibrations, that’s STILL a multicellular thing, not a single-cell thing. It’s something that took millions of years to evolve on Earth, if not billions.

And while Rain World’s timeline goes on for long enough that it those kinds of mutations might happen eventually, Rot cysts have the ability to hear pretty much right from the start – because even the Proto-Long-Legs react to your presence like the Daddy Long Legs do, and the Rot in Spearmaster’s campaign, where Pebbles has recently contracted it, reacts the same way as it does in later campaigns. It’s already able to hear.

As far as I know, cancer just means the same cell duplicating over and over again. Are more mutations possible with each division, as errors are made in the DNA during splitting? Probably. But not to THAT extent. There’s no way a lump of cancer somehow mutated the exact complicated genetic blueprint needed to grow organs, at least not without outside interference.

Second point: Cases of Rot are way too consistent across the board. Now, we don’t have a huge sample size to work from, but from what we see from both Pebbles’ Rot, and Hunter Long Legs, they’re… pretty similar. Hunter Long Legs is basically a mobile Rot cyst. They move the same way, seem to grow the same way (starts as a growth inside/on the body before eventually freeing itself from whatever wall/flesh it grew from in some capacity and moving elsewhere), they have the same senses, and they even eat the same way, via something like phagocytosis (how white blood cells “eat” invading organisms via engulfing them and breaking them down in a sac in their main “body.”)

Now, this doesn’t tell us much, because cancer, when it does emerge, is pretty consistent in symptoms/what the mutated cells do once they start replicating. It’s pretty much the same regardless of whatever organism the cancer is happening in. But what ISN’T consistent is what causes the DNA error in the cancer cell in the first place. IRL, cancer can be caused by all kinds of things – smoking, radiation poisoning, being out in the sun too long, drinking deadly chemicals and whatnot, anything that damages DNA. But in RW, the only time we ever hear Rot talked about, or see it present, is in the context of an iterator having f*cked up while mucking around with DNA. Pebbles was trying to create an organism that could change his own genome, and No Significant Harassment created Hunter as a messenger and probably mucked something up in the process in his haste to get them to Moon.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t other causes of it, of course, we’re working with a sample size of two in an apocalyptic world with who knows how much potentially DNA-damaging stuff around, but… that’s still awfully consistent.

So, combining these points and everything we know to be canon, Rot is:

an organism that lives inside another organism

Until a certain condition is met, it cannot harm said host organism.

Once said condition is met, it goes out of control, wreaking havoc on the organism’s systems and mutating, giving it sensory capabilities and an appetite

Said condition is apparently someone messing up when re-arranging genomes, in yourself or others

It is widespread across multiple different species, at least iterators and slugcats but potentially other species as well.

Once you have a bad case of it, it is apparently NOT CURABLE. Pebbles tried everything he could think of but apparently exhausted all of his options by the time of the Survivor/Monk campaigns.

So, with all the context FINALLY laid out, here’s my wild theory: Rot isn’t a cancer. It’s a symbiote turned parasite. Specifically, I believe it’s a symbiotic microbe that lives inside the cells that make up every other creature in Rain World, and is held in check by a specific gene that all species share, and altering or getting rid of that gene causes it to go berserk, taking over and eventually mutating the host cells.

Yeah, I did watch Parasite Eve let’s plays as a kid, why do you ask? Anyway, hear me out here.

There is precedence for single-celled organisms living inside of other single-celled organisms. They’re referred to as intracellular endosymbiots (hopefully I got the spelling right there), and the most well-known one is probably the mitochondria. The powerhouse of the cell is thought to be descended from some bacteria way, WAY back that was engulfed by a larger cell and not only survived it, but BENEFITED from it. Since then those ancient proto-mitochondria and eukaryotic cells have mutually evolved to be dependent on each other. So it’s entirely possible for something similar to have happened in Rain World.

However, I don’t think it happened NATURALLY, here. Because something that’s able to take over a cell entirely and begin wildly mutating it is NOT something your average cell wants inside of it. There’s a VERY high chance of extinction if you do that. Which means that of course those funky bio-tech loving Ancients either took a look at a wildly dangerous cellular parasite and went “hmmm we can use this” or made one themselves.

Why did they do this? Who knows! Currently, I’m tied between “they needed a better powerhouse for the cell to power the various weird adaptations they’re building into various creatures,” “there was some sort of disease that this parasite gave immunity against and they wanted to make use of it,” and “it gave their creations massively powerful regeneration factors that made them much easier to maintain.” Possibly it was all three. Whatever the reason, the Ancients either found or created this parasite, and put it into their creations’ cells, hoping to reap the benefits.

Well, they got the benefits, but they also got a microbe that hijacked the cells and harnessed their pre-existing DNA blueprints to build organisms disguised as great big blobs of cancer. Which is not exactly ideal, but hey, they just had to figure out a way of keeping the cell hijacking from happening! And the way they ended up going about it was to alter the thing so that so long as there was a specific DNA sequence in the cell, it laid mostly dormant. All the benefits, none of the risks – so long as that specific string of genes remained intact.

And then BECAUSE it was so beneficial, they spread their artificial symbiote and it’s genetic reins throughout ALL of their creations, from the smallest pipe-cleaning slugs to the iterators. Which meant that as their purposed organisms replaced most of the original ecosystem, they spread the symbiote as well. Thus making it possible for pretty much ANY creature on the planet to come down with a bad case of the Rot. And with the iterators, I wouldn’t be surprised if this symbiote is tied to their self-destruction taboos. Try to cross yourself out? Well, it’s gonna maybe happen now, but it’ll be a slow painful death as you’re eaten alive from the inside and all your own parts turn against you, so was it really worth it?

And they never told their creations this perhaps even actively hid it, because why tell them the cause of the main deterrent to them mucking with their taboos? They might find a way around it. The iterators were left ignorant of how Rot works, and because of this they never figured out that Rot HAD a cure after all: rebuilding that genome that reins in the symbiote. Because why in the name of the Void would they repeat the same mistakes that gave them Rot in the first place, and potentially make it worse?

[anonymous-ace72]

Reading a little bit about the actual Colossus of Nero that stood in Rome for awhile. It stood long enough to have its face altered and changed a few times, and one of those alterations was to replace the head with the head of Commodus.

I’m just- I can’t really be sure within the ToA universe if Nero knew what happened with his statue after he died, as well as its ultimate fate in the end (likely melted down and reused for something else. Which is why we have so few bronze statues from ancient Rome) but I find the idea of him learning that Commodus defaced his colossal statue and replaced it with his own likeness hilarious.

[icewindandboringhorror]

thinking about orange juice

[urbigfatdog]

The alter is in its final form (for now) ☀️🏹

I got white and yellow candles so he isn’t mad at me lmao

[nitroish]

ive resorted to taking photos of my screen so i can share stuff. anyway, this is my legend of zelda heart's hypothetical creation because the rp mentioned wings and ooc also was talking about wings but prosthetics... and loz heart could hypothetically Make wings himself, so. now im attached to the idea.

[sandsunandseajourney]

Dua Sekhmet

Eye of Ra, keeper of Ma'at.

The One who destroys, who brings plagues and fire.

Who drinks the blood of Ra's enemy's.

Patroness of the healers, the physicians.

Who heals the sick, tends to the wounded.

Lady of pain and strength and determination.

The One who holds your righteous anger, who kisses away your tears of pain.

Dua Sekhmet

[blueiscoool]

2,000-Year-Old Greek Alter Discovered in Sicily

Buried under a mere few inches of dirt and shrubbery on an island in Italy, a sacred family treasure went unnoticed for centuries — until some workers came along.

The workers were clearing bushes in a little-explored section of the Segesta Archaeological Park in Sicily, the Sicily Regional Government said in a June 30 news release. Pulling up the plants, the workers stumbled on two ancient artifacts.

The pair of intricately carved stone sculptures were identified as a family altar used for worship during the Hellenistic period, officials said.

The Hellenistic period was an era when ancient Greek culture spread across the Mediterranean, according to Britannica. The era lasted from 323 B.C. to about 30 B.C. when the ancient Roman empire began to grow.

The altar was likely used “at the height of Sicily’s Hellenic period,” officials said.

One of the artifacts is taller, skinnier and carved with a detailed design. At the top, it has a bordered design that almost appears to mimic the pillars of a temple. A line of overflowing cornucopias and elaborate wreaths runs across the center, photos show.

The other sculpture is shorter and looks more like a block. It has a textured pattern across its front and sides, photos show. A medallion-like piece seems to be broken off the top.

This smaller artifact was probably used as a support for the more detailed main altarpiece. Officials said the artifacts were “perfectly preserved,” the outlet reported.

Archaeologists will continue studying the sculptures, the release said.

The Segesta Archaeological Park is on the northwestern edge of Sicily, an island off the southern tip of mainland Italy, and about 390 miles south of Rome.

[oh-no-its-bird]

I have an idea for a sort of silly light novel writing project I'll probably never actually write but is fun to just think about

But like. Cultivator set up, wuxia world w a slight blending of different cultivation genres, a guy wakes up in a forest with amnesia. (Wow classic I know)

So the first few chapters he's hearing about all these big famous people who have gone missing over the years, right? And he (along with probably the reader) is like, "Heh. That could be me,,," (smugly)

But the names keep piling on, and he comes to a realization: important and unimportant cultivators alike go missing and lose their memories or whatever else at an alarming rate. He is not special. (Coughs up blood)

He probably runs into other amnesiacs more than once, and I'd have a running theme of like, he keeps bumping into main character coded characters just left and right. There's so much happening in this world, so many stories being told, he's really not special. But also he is bc hes our main character

But just like silly mostly self contained stories told from this guy just wandering around this absoloute cluster fuck of a world, often running head first into really interesting stories that are clearly like in the middle of a 5 arc novel their own

It'd probably gain a real central narrative along the way like all things inevitably do (the mystery of how he lost his memories and the fall out of what happens when he learns the truth) but for now I have fun just thinking ab his dumb adventures

As for the character himself, hes is like, obnoxiously laid back. SUPER chill, takes everything with a sigh and a smile, very lazy, takes a lot of shortcuts and goes "Ah but that's fine, right?" As everything explodes around him. If he's alive, then all is well in the world 👍

He'd cause so many problems just because and also probably have absolutely shit luck that gets him into even more problems (my favorite genre of character)

I also have like. A slowly but surley growing list of characters he'd run into like uhh [checks notes] evil lesbian mirror demon and the very angry woman she trapped in a mirror and stole the face and life of (the demon hate sex goes crazy).

And also ofc, "person trapped in a cycle of reincarnation with a curse that no matter how hard they try to be good, they will inevitably cause some great destruction or evil or plague of some kind." And just them very very desperately trying to be good even though they know it's futile

Yay!! Fun stuff

[farsidejr]

some recent doodles i've done :} left is my sweetheart's Cashier AU teehee, right is my Roblox NPC OC, Punk, all grown up. atm Punk is 16, but this was kinda a peek at what he'd look like in his 20's

[nineeyedartist]

Eagle of the Sea Mountain, digital study, 2022, Vincent Frano

A portrait study for one of the large banners from SPIRITS WE ARE. Eagle of the Sea Mountain represents one of the spirits/persons in our system. Each of these portraits was created to invoke a mythic feeling. We represent ourselves by referencing realistic and symbolic imagery which relates to our true selves in seen and unseen ways.

The majority of our artwork holds several layers of symbolism in the colors, glyphs, and imagery. In this way we are able to tell a highly detailed story using simple forms and flat colors. Below is a photo of the painted banners hanging at Anchor House of Artists in Northampton, MA. These banners are on view thru the end of Sept 2023.

[ehlnofay]

It’s not until she hears Sissel’s knees hit the floor that Efri is jolted back into her body.

She blinks, whipping her head around. Sissel is kneeling, bracing a palm on the ancient stone pavement, at the barrier – no, the barrier’s gone, it’s just Sissel on the floor. She lifts her head and meets Efri’s eyes; her hair is wispy and wild, the little plaits meant to keep it neat come loose and tumbling, her eyes wide. The barrier's gone, but still, her pale face is lit up blue.

“Are you okay?” she asks. She doesn’t speak loudly, but it echoes in the great stone chamber.

Nine, Efri doesn’t know.

She blinks again, looks down at her hands, clinging to the metal stick so fiercely that her joints ache. (Her own stick, her nice wooden one, is still on the floor somewhere, where it slipped out of her grasp when she hit the wall.) The lumpy heavy end of it, the clobbering end, is still resting on –

Not on. It’s in the thing’s head, fitted neatly in the opening of its dented helmet, the horns spiralling over the floor. There’s a tooth, perfectly preserved, by Efri’s foot.

One by one, she unwraps her gloved fingers from the handle of the metal stick, letting it drop to the floor with a clang so loud it makes her wince. Kazari is nosing at her side. (When did they let go of it? When did they get so close? She must have missed that. She feels out of the loop. Her heart is juddering like fish on a line, battering like some frightened trapped thing at her ribcage, and her breath is coming fast and heavy.) Absentmindedly bringing up a hand to press over her sore shoulder, she says, “’M fine. Not too – barely touched me.”

Kazari turns and spits on the floor. Efri blinks. She does it again, tongue lolling out of her mouth, face very disgruntled – and oh, Efri gets it. She does not glance down at the thing at her feet; she doesn’t need to, she knows what its arm looks like, chewed almost to pieces even through its banded armour. (If she hadn’t been so busy being scared of it, that sight might have made her a bit scared of Kazari. But not now, when they’re trying to hack and spit the taste of dead man arm out of their mouth.)

Efri unclips her canteen from her belt and holds it out. “Here,” she says. Her voice is rough. Her heart is racing too much to let constructing sentences be easy. “Not much, but –”

Kazari stands still while Efri tips half of the remaining water onto her tongue, and then Efri watches her swilling it around in her mouth, trying to bathe all of her teeth in it, before she spits it again on the floor at the dead thing’s feet.

The water is still clear. That’s something, at least; the dead man was too old to still have blood in him. Or maybe he was embalmed, drained of it hundreds of years ago, thousands.

“Are you okay?” Efri asks Kazari when they’re done, because they were the one doing most of the fighting, who was closest. They tip their head, shift their weight – wince when they put weight on one foot. Their lips peel back from their teeth. Their clothes on that side are singed.

Efri points it out. “Your robe,” she says, which makes it sound much fancier than it is. She’s too tired to think of a better word. She rubs a hand over her face, pushing the hair back over her forehead, says, “I’ll reinforce it for you when we get out.”

Kazari noses at Efri’s shoulder – the shredded fabric of her dress, the fraying edges stained with blood. Efri says, “I know. I’ll have to sew that up too.” Over her shoulder, she calls, “Kazari’s leg’s hurt, I think.”

“There’s blood on you,” Sissel replies. She peels her hand off the floor and leans back on her heels.

Efri touches her shoulder again. “’S fine,” she says. “Just a scrape. The blood’s drying already.”

It’s really sore, actually – the flesh abraded and tender, an ache sinking deep into the muscle – but it’s normal sore, the kind of sore you really should be after being thrown into a wall. It doesn’t feel sprained or dislocated or anything like that.  Just like it will be bruised a whole rainbow of colours come tomorrow.

Kazari noses at it again. She leans too far forward and falters on her maybe-hurt leg – rights herself, wincing, and rolls her shoulder. It gleams, just for a moment, and she nearly stumbles again. Efri puts out a hand to steady her. (It doesn’t really accomplish anything – Efri’s strong, but she’s not that strong – but it’s the principle of it.) “What was that spell?”

“Pain relief,” Sissel says from behind her. “I think. Doesn’t actually fix anything, but.”

“You’ll be okay ‘til we find someone?” Efri asks, and Kazari nods. She presses a hand against their shoulder and nods back.

They both turn to look at Sissel, then, who’s just kneeling on the floor, sitting on her heels.

“You all right?” Efri asks her.

“All right,” Sissel confirms. She doesn’t look at them. “Didn’t even come near me.”

She’s staring.

Efri crosses the floor to stand with her. (She needs to lean on Kazari – her legs are too wobbly, and she doesn’t want to touch the dead thing’s stick, doesn’t want to look for her own. Kazari limps a little on their sore front leg.) There’s a moment of total, humming silence – all of them still and staring, necks craned back, looking up at the thing.

Whatever it is.

It’s a ball. Big and blue and shimmering, it floats above a wide crystalline dish set into the floor, spinning on an axis. Just spinning and spinning and spinning, endless motion. Its smooth surface is cut through with dark wavering lines, etched with lettering, and it doesn’t quite glow but it doesn’t not glow, either, the light moving across it silkily, like clouds in a blue sky. It looks like something that should be humming – a low pitch in their ears, an eerie shiver dancing over their skin – but it’s silent. Inert, maybe, but for the spinning.

“What is it?” Efri asks. Her voice cracks as she speaks. She looks down at Sissel’s face, staring as though mesmerised, illuminated by the room’s dim lighting – the fires that should not still be burning down here, the luminous not-glow of the ball.

Sissel says, “I don’t know. Something important.”

Hovering above the dish, it spins, and spins, and spins.

“Is it what the ghost was talking about?” Efri asks. She tilts her head and squints at it. It doesn’t – well, it looks strange and unearthly and powerful, but it isn’t doing anything. And it hadn’t been clear what the ghost was talking about, exactly, according to Sissel, just that it was something important – but what else could it be?

Sissel, still watching it, shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “I think so.”

Efri watches it with her, brushing a bit more hair out of her face. It’s sticking to her sweaty forehead. She feels a drip of not-dry blood running down her arm under her sleeve.

Kazari is staring at it too – just as confounded as the rest of them. Efri sees the light in their irises shifting as the ball spins.

They’re not learning anything from staring, the ball staying strange and mysterious as ever, so Efri raps her knuckles against her sternum to steady her breathing (it’s slowed a bit – not normal, but closer to it) and climbs up onto the stone rimming of the dish. Kazari, behind her, lows in consternation; Sissel catches her breath, a noise like a creaking door. “Careful,” she says.

“Promise,” Efri replies, and places her feet very, very carefully on the glassy blue flooring. Nothing happens. She doesn’t step on the dark curved lines as she treads toward the ball in the centre, slow and wary as if she were approaching a skittish animal. Nothing happens.

She reaches out, and, with just the tips of her fingers, she grazes the ball’s surface.

Nothing happens.

It’s cool to the touch, and smooth, like polished metal or not-frozen ice or delicate glasswork. It continues to spin gently under her fingers, warming her glove with friction, no smudges left on its clouded face.

 It really feels like there should at least be a tingle running up her arm, a strange and unfamiliar current, a spark. But it’s just Efri, standing with an arm outstretched, pressing her hand to a ball.

“It’s not doing anything,” she reports, and Sissel clambers up onto the dish with her, fitting her palm to its gently hovering underside. Kazari balks, begins pacing agitatedly. Efri frowns. “Why isn’t it doing anything? Shouldn’t it be doing something?”

“It’s important,” Sissel says definitively. There’s ancient dust on her fingers, but none of it seems to transfer. “It’s something really special, I think.”

Efri shifts restlessly. She shifts her grip and tries to grab onto the dark ridged curves ringing its surface, but they slip easily away from her grasp as though her touch was no barrier at all. “But what does it do?”

Sissel shrugs.

Behind them, Kazari lows.

Efri drops her hand and grabs Sissel’s wrist. “C’mon,” she says, and when Sissel frowns at her, “We’re not going to learn anything about it this way. We have to look for clues!”

Kazari makes a more impatient noise. (Efri thinks she found a clue.)

Sissel gives the ball one last searching look and lets Efri tug her away, off the weird blue dish and down to where Kazari stands on the stone floor, at the head of the table where the dead man sat. Efri sniffs loudly and tries not to think about it too much. The table is smooth polished stone, worn a little away with time; Efri trails a gloved finger over the edge and directs her attention to where Kazari points with their chin.

There’s something carved into the surface, the edges blunted and shapes softened by however many years it must have been since it was put there. Efri squints, trying to make it out. She has to stand right up on her tiptoes to get the right angle to see much of it in full.

“That’s not letters,” she says eventually, frowning. She’s pretty sure she knows her alphabet well enough by now to know that. “Is it magic?”

Sissel shakes her head. “I don’t know what it is. It’s not like magical writing I’ve ever seen.”

Efri looks at Kazari, who also shakes her head. “Maybe it’s a different sort of lettering,” she theorises. It must have been written a long time ago, if it’s from back when the city had people. Onmund’s been reading all about it for ages, and he’s told her a bit – Saarthal was the city of Atmorans, populated by proto-Nordic people. All complicated history stuff. But they weren’t quite the same as Nords today, he said, so it stands to reason they had different writing, too. They’re supposed to be uncovering and cataloguing artifacts (at the thought, Efri glances back at the hovering ball and swallows an inane bubble of laughter) so she suggests, “Maybe you can copy it and we can show it to someone. I’m sure there’ll be someone at the College what knows what it is.”

Sissel, also standing on her toes, nods dutifully. “What will you do?”

The chamber they’re in is cavernous, and about empty but for the ball in the dish, the altar and chair, the body on the ground. “I’ll check him,” she says, and points. “See if he has anything on him that’s special.”

Sissel follows her finger and grimaces.

She digs out her note-paper and her stick of char, and Efri assumes it’s clues time, but when she turns she feels a hand grip her elbow. She looks back over her tattered shoulder at Sissel’s face, her furrowed brow.

“Promise you’re really okay?” she says, voice anxious and solemn.

“Promise,” Efri says, twisting her arm to touch her friend’s hand. Sissel presses her lips together and lets go of her arm.

Kazari trails after Efri to look at the dead man.

First thing is the metal stick. It’s magic someway, Efri knows – he waved it and threw her into a wall, flung spells with it – but she’s not sure how. Doesn’t know enough about enchantments. Didn’t need to, to use it; when Kazari clamped down on his arm she just ripped it from his grasp and –

She doesn’t quite exactly remember, actually, except for the bitter tang of adrenaline in her mouth and nose, the horrible grunting and scuffling sounds, the heft of the stick in her hands. Impact, over and over and over, against something that had a little more give each time.

Efri scrubs a hand over her mouth and grips the handle of the stick. It takes effort to wrest it out of the thing’s face, caught as it is by the edges of the helmet, and when it’s finally yanked free it’s – actually not as bad as she might have expected. There’s no blood, and the corpse was so desiccated it already didn’t even really look like a person anymore, so it registers less as someone with horrible violence done to it and more as a really gross art piece. It’s not nice. She doesn’t like the twisted, gaping mouth, teeth embedded wrong-ways in its tissue and scattered like coins over the floor. And one of the eyes, which had glowed unearthly blue, is now a dull, rotten black, squished like a plum in its socket.

It's worse the more she looks. She sniffs and turns away.

“This is magic, right?” she asks Kazari, testing the weight of it in her hands, the cool surface of the metal, and they nod. “A good artifact?” she adds, and they nod again, emphatically. Efri sets the stick aside and kneels.

It wasn’t wearing any clothes, really – or if it was, they rotted away. She touches the rusted armour gingerly, tries to avoid brushing her gloves against the shrivelled skin at all. Whoever it was had expensive taste, it seems – there’s jewellery in a shockingly well-preserved beard, pendants around the neck, armbands. Efri asks Kazari if each thing is enchanted. No to the armbands, no to the beard-ring, and then, pressed against the wizened chest where the flesh contours to the ribs, she finds some kind of necklace, sharp-edged and thrumming. Kazari nods to that, and, face scrunched up like an old fruit, Efri reaches around the ancient neck to slip it off.

She tucks it into a belt pocket with the tripwire necklace they found at the weird wall.

“Done,” Sissel says. She folds her paper and slips it into her own pouch. Her footfalls on the echo-y stone floor as she approaches the body for the first time are almost silent. “Did you find anything?”

“Necklace,” Efri replies, watching Sissel’s face pinch at the sight of him. “And – stick.” She scoops up the metal stick and holds it out. “He did spells with it.”

Sissel looks at it warily. “Is he a draugr?” she asks, glancing back down at his mashed-up face.

“I mean,” Efri says, “he’s got to be, right?” She’s certainly never seen a draugr before, but what else could it be?

(Calling it a draugr makes her shiver, the set of her shoulders quaking. She’ll stick to dead man.)

Sissel shudders. She reaches out to grip the handle of the stick, and Efri’s not sure if she’s taking it or just trying to keep herself upright. “I can’t believe that happened,” she says. Her voice sounds, suddenly, fragile. “I can’t believe we’re alive.”

“Me neither,” Efri says. She presses the tip of the stick into the ground so Sissel can lean on it, stands a little unsteadily.

Kazari, with a hushed murmur, telegraphs something. Efri recognises the head incline of understanding – she’s familiar with that word, that idea – and, after a moment, the flickering ear of doubt.

“They’ll have to believe us,” she says with conviction, because she means it. “We’ll show them. They’ll see for themselves.”

Kazari presses their nose to her head.

Efri clasps her hands together. “We’ll go tell someone now,” she declares – though it’s easier said than done; they were lost in the ruins ages before they even found the crumbling wall, the halls, this horrible wonderful chamber. But they’ll get un-lost eventually. They’ll get out eventually. Surely. They have practice enough with walking. “But first – help me find my stick.”

[aaronofithaca05]

If you see changes in the blog composition or colour, don´t worry!

i´m making sure everything stays cohesive >:D

This is the colour pallette I´m aiming for:

As for anyone that has talked with me I love the sea to an obsessive level and I want this blog to reflect that so I´m going with my altered nautical theme, where I´m from the nautical palette is: black, white, blue and red, but as I want a more playful one i choose a blue closer to the blue of the Mediterranean and the red I changed towards orange and the intermediary cream (as yellow is to strong).

Though green in one of my favourites colours is way to difficult to pair with this palette.

In 10 min all send a screenshot of the blog!

the blog in green (where the archive is) will still be the same as I adore that image. (or maybe I´ll tweak the colours, who knows?)