Home to a variety of cultural backgrounds, Lamenolai is a citadel city with stone walls that encompass the whole city and stone 'guardians.' It is also home to the Headquarters of the Purines, an opposing organization to the Imperialists of Lambastia. (+2 Defense, +2 Fame)

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Beneath the Spin Light [P]

Postby crow » 10/15/2017 7:03 AM

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Looking at the tiny box sitting in his lap, Noah felt numb.

It shouldn't have happened. That was what everyone kept saying. They said it at the hospital, they said it at the funeral, and they said it at the school assembly where the principal droned on for an hour and a half about how young he was, how he'd been taken from them in his prime.

Noah had cried in the hospital and at the funeral. By the time the assembly came around, he didn't have any tears left. He just felt hollowed out, everything around him fading into indistinct white noise.

Grayson was gone.

It didn't seem real. It hadn't seemed real even as he wept, like a child, loud and inconsolable at the funeral home. He knew on some level that this was just grief, and sooner or later he'd feel different, but it just felt like Grayson would come around any minute now, smiling and asking Noah what he was doing out in the rain by himself. It felt like that. Maybe if he prayed hard enough...

No. He wasn't coming back. Noah had been there when he'd flat-lined, and his mother had picked up the cremation costs out of pity, though she'd muttered about the trouble when she thought Noah wasn't listening. He'd watched Grayson's father pick up the urn.

Grayson was gone.

Everything Noah had left of him was in this box. A lock of hair from the last time he'd dyed it; his favorite guitar pick; the stupid friendship bracelet Noah had made him when they were twelve. Eight years of company.

It felt so light in his hands, but they trembled as they lifted it anyway. He set it down in the hole that he'd dug with his fingers. He'd forgotten to bring a shovel, the way he'd forgotten a lot of things lately. The ground was hard with cold, full of pebbles, and he was bleeding under his nails, but it didn't really matter. He didn't feel it.

In all honesty, this was probably a waste of time. It was just an old superstition, one that Noah had never believed in anyway. If there were gods, they weren't listening. There was no way they would have let someone like Grayson die the way he did. But Noah could remember him talking about how his idols would pray to some occult pagan figure to bless the soul of their music, how the gods of old could be summoned if you buried a lock of hair at a crossroads. His eyes had been bright with enthusiasm then. Noah remembered thinking he could have watched Grayson like that forever.

The ritual was Grayson's. He'd meant to do it before his next gig at some seedy bar downtown. Said this was it, this was going to be the one.

Slowly, Noah scooped the dirt back over the box until it was covered, and stared at it dumbly. It was a dirt mound, buried beneath the sign at an intersection between an old railroad and a tiny backroad that had fallen into disrepair. The gods loved old places, Grayson had said. It reminded them of the golden days.

He stared at it, and tried to feel something--- that he was moving on, maybe, or that he had done the right thing. But no matter how he looked at it, it was just a box of scraps, buried in the dirt. Just like how Grayson was just dust in an urn now, sitting on the mantle of his dad's run-down apartment.

He curled up, hugging his knees to his chest, mindless of the way the rain soaked into his clothes.

Grayson was gone.
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Re: Beneath the Spin Light [P]

Postby Night » 10/15/2017 8:36 AM

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There was little indication that Noah's offering had been heard.The night remained as still as ever, interrupted only by the sound of rain beginning to culminate in the ditch near the side of the road. No flash of lightning or grand display accompanied his arrival. One moment Noah was alone, and the next he simply wasn't.

The man that appeared was quite unlike the imagined image of a god. He was short for one, his so-called impressive height scraping somewhere on the border of five foot five and five foot six depending on what convenience store he'd been seen walking out of. A worn leather jacket shielded his equally faded t-shirt from the weather. His hightop sneakers made a wet noise against the pavement as he steadied himself, lazy blue eyes scanning over the area with not a small amount of confusion gracing their depths. The man looked to be pushing his early twenties. A bottle of vodka in one hand and a red plastic cup in the other, the rain poured down around around him and yet seemed to magically stray away from messing up his dark hair. A poor indicator of a mystical presence, but one none the less.

Coming to his bearings, Amp poured himself a drink and took a shot straight from the bottle before bothering to make himself known to the melancholic figure that had summoned him. While it was of some interest that the guy seemed to be making friends with the gravel, it was hardly his business. He'd been summoned for one purpose and he'd like to get it over with. No one liked to be called from a party to go to work.

"Well, here I am kid." He said, announcing himself if he had yet to be noticed. The hand with the liquor in it flung out, alcohol spilling out and sloshing into the weeds as he did some sort of gesture to indicate his entire body. "Satan, God, Allah, your great Aunt Muriel, whoever the fuck you were trying to get ahold of." He'd been through this song and dance before. It was far easier to just take whatever title they wanted to bestow on him that to say that all of their new-age religions were wrong. Explaining to modern mortals that they were still being ultimately directed by the greek pantheon was a pain in his fucking ass and he no longer wasted his breath.

Amp downed the entirety of whatever mixture he'd made in the cup and it flashed out of existence. The bottle remained clutched tightly in his hand as he bent down to inspect the ground. He wobbled a bit going down, and only now was it evident that he was obviously intoxicated. It didn't seem to impede his senses any - he'd been the god of wine for far longer than he'd taken on the moniker of the god of rock. He frowned at the freshly turned dirt, then turned his gaze on Noah.

"This isn't your offering." He said finally. "What are you trying to do here, kid? I don't make bargains with borrowed souls." If this was just another call by some kid wanting to sell their high school bully's soul for concert tickets again, he was going to be pissed. He took another shot and straightened.

He was wearing skinny jeans and Converse. A god indeed.
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Re: Beneath the Spin Light [P]

Postby crow » 10/17/2017 6:17 PM

Noah startled despite himself at the sudden voice, for a moment becoming animated again as he looked wide-eyed over his shoulder at the man who had addressed him. As soon as he saw who it was, however, the energy dissipated. His shoulders slumped back down, and he turned away with disinterest. Just a drunk, he thought. It was his own fault for choosing such a remote location. He just... hadn't wanted anyone else there, that was all. He'd wanted the moment to himself. It seemed like he wouldn't be able to have even that.

Noah was starting to tune out the drunk when he said something that caught Noah's attention. He turned again, more slowly this time, his expression caught between suspicion and hope, and something else--- disbelief, perhaps.

He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. The words wouldn't come. At last, almost feebly, he said, "Did you... Did you know him? Grayson."

It wasn't impossible. Unlike Noah, who had always been quiet and gloomy-looking, Grayson had plenty of friends. Some of those he'd met outside of school, playing his dives. Noah had seen Grayson with them, the few times he'd worked up the nerve to brave the seedy parts of downtown to find some hole in the wall bar where the air was choked with cigarette smoke. He didn't make the trip often, though now he wished he had. For all the good that wishing would do him now.

He hadn't seen this man at the funeral, but he hadn't been paying attention.

"Did he tell you anything?" said Noah, struggling to his feet. His legs had fallen asleep in the horrible cramped position he'd been sitting in, and he wobbled as he stood, staying upright mostly through sheer force of will. He staggered toward the stranger. One step. Two. "Did--- Did he say anything?" said Noah. He knew he didn't make any sense. Grayson's death had been an accident, in every sense of the word. There was no way he could have known. But still... "Why are you here?"
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Re: Beneath the Spin Light [P]

Postby Night » 10/21/2017 9:44 PM

Even in his inebriated state - which, who was he kidding? This was generally his only state anymore - he could tell when someone neglected to be appropriately impressed with his appearance. He scowled, taking a step closer so that he could get a better look at the person who had summoned him.

Grayson? Must be the kid who's offering the guy was making. It didn't sound particularly familiar, but it wasn't as though he made a point of keeping track of everyone. What a boring job that would be. Perhaps that was why Casus, Vicis, and Faeta were so annoying to speak with. Cataloging every living being on the planet seemed quite tedious.

"Doesn't sound familiar." Amp peered down into his half-empty bottle. "I don't have time to keep track of every person out there, dude. I just come when I'm called." Really the guy ought to know this. Wasn't he the one that had buried the offering? There wasn't anyone else around that could have done it, and Amp knew he wasn't that late. It couldn't have been more than a few minutes between when he got the notification that someone was calling to him and when he had managed to wrestle himself away from the party.

When he was asked why he was here, Amp had no better reaction than to roll his eyes. "Like I said, I'm here because you called me." He shoved his shoe against the newly turned earth at the center of the intersection. That did give him pause. "You telling me you're just out here burying people's hair and personal belongings for the hell of it? In the rain? 'Cause no offense, but that's pretty fucking weird." He didn't get paid enough for this. He didn't actually get "paid" at all. At least not in the traditional sense. Though he supposed playing a part in keeping the mortals from completely destroying everything including the gods was its own reward.

Not much of one though.

Amp was starting to get a little impatient. "Look, it works like this. You make the offering," he pointed again to the dirt. "I show up. You tell me what you want, I take your soul and I go on my merry way. You get your fame or fortune or killer guitar skills, whatever it is you're out here looking for, and everybody's happy." It wasn't that difficult of a concept to grasp, and he was much more willing to believe the guy was pulling his leg than to believe he was just out here being a creep in the middle of a thunderstorm.
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Re: Beneath the Spin Light [P]

Postby crow » 11/24/2017 3:37 AM

Doesn't sound familiar. Noah's face fell at those words. Whatever had been holding him up for that brief moment now deserted him, and his legs buckled again beneath the weight. He didn't even bother to lessen the impact, hitting the ground with an audible wet thump.

Just a stranger, then. Just a... a drunk.

But then the man kept talking, and his words were just strange enough to draw Noah out of the daze that was threatening to overtake him again. Noah blinked at him from behind the round lenses of his glasses, his vision blurred by the rain. "How..." he said. How had this man known?

He could have been watching, this whole time, but... Now that Noah was thinking about it, the man's clothes weren't wet. And they didn't seem to be getting any wetter either, despite the downpour, which was very real as far as Noah was aware. Noah was certainly soaked through.

It was this incongruous little detail that made everything else snap into focus. Noah inhaled sharply, his pulse speeding up. "You," he said, but it seemed as though articulation still eluded him. He couldn't form the words. "You grant wishes? For... souls?"

It was a feeble question, but his thoughts wouldn't still long enough to focus on any one thing. Part of him was still not entirely convinced any of this was happening. But if this man really wasn't just some passer-by playing a joke, then...
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Re: Beneath the Spin Light [P]

Postby Night » 11/26/2017 5:45 AM

Amp exhaled sharply through his nose, hauling the liquor bottle up to peer down into its depths and gauge if it would be enough to get him through this conversation. It was become ever more evident that the kid had no clue what was going on, which only left the idea that Noah sincerely was just a creeper out in a rainstorm burying various stolen items. The god sloshed down another mouthful of liquid luck before replying.

"Yep, that's me. I'm a fucking genie here to grant you your every desire." The situation appeared to be wearing on him. "As long as your desire is to be a famous musician. Anything else and your shit out of luck." He wasn't about to go running around on errands for other gods, and honestly he was regretting running on this errand for himself.

"But this." Amp used his free hand to gesture towards the freshly turned earth at his feet, graciously ignoring that Noah had thrown himself in the mud nearby. "That's not gonna work. I don't make deals with borrowed souls, kid." The deity finished what was left of the bottle and it too flashed out of existence, replaced with another.

His patience grew ever thinner the longer he stood out in the rain. A small and somewhat sober part of him thought he should pity Noah, soaking and obviously miserable with his knees pressed hard against the gravel. The more substantial thought, however, was that he could have been getting laid.

"Look, are you going to make a deal or not? I've got better shit to do." He punctuated the sentiment by loudly popping the cork from his newly summoned spirits. "
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Re: Beneath the Spin Light [P]

Postby crow » 01/22/2018 6:51 AM

Noah felt his heart leap for one sick, giddying moment, despite himself, and despite the derisive tone of the stranger's voice. He still hadn't really processed it, but this was magic, and that meant anything was possible. His every desire--- that meant---

But then the stranger went on, and all of Noah's hopes came crashing abruptly to earth.

Right. This was Grayson's ritual. He'd said it was to bless his music. Of course the thing it summoned wouldn't be able to bring anyone back to life.

He knew that... He hadn't even expected anything, really. But that didn't stop the sting of fresh tears from building behind his eyes, all the same. His throat closed up, and he had to dig his fingernails into the skin of his palms just to breathe. His hands already had little red scabs, still recovering from when he had done the same at the funeral.

It took him a moment to find his voice. "Forget it," he said. "You're too late." Grayson was dead, and Noah was just a talentless loser with no dreams and no direction in life beyond going to a nice college and getting a desk job somewhere, because that was what his parents wanted. He was cold and wet and miserable, and nothing was ever going to make him happy again anyway. And suddenly, the last thing he wanted was to be here, taunted by the promise of what Grayson could have had, if only he hadn't...

Noah turned and walked away, slowly at first, then faster and faster, until he was running, down the road and away from the old railroad crossing. This had been a bad idea. He'd just go home, and... go home. He couldn't think of anything past that.
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Re: Beneath the Spin Light [P]

Postby Night » 10/20/2018 6:14 AM

Amp liked to think himself a patient... not man, precisely, but deity. Perhaps he had been allowing himself a little too much credit; he certainly didn't feel patient now, with the barest edge of chill tugging against his collar from the rain. The entire situation was ridiculous.

"You're really going to go through all this trouble for nothing kid? I'm already here, you may as well strike up a deal." He didn't want to implicitly state that this had been a waste of his time, but frankly there were few things he wouldn't rather be doing. Few people, in any case.

And now it seemed that the kid was going to cry. Amp hardly restrained himself from rolling his eyes. Mortals were so fragile, always on the edge of a breakdown. He brushed some nonexistent  fuzz from the shoulder of his jacket, very intently not looking up to meet Noah's gaze.

"If your sure. But if you change your mind, by all means call me here again to have some idle conversation. I couldn't possibly have anything better to do, right?" He took a shot straight from the bottle, his features pulling into a grimace at the taste. Not precisely what he'd been expecting but it would do.

"Just make sure to bury your own offering next time!" Amp called out towards Noah's retreating back. "Where did you even get this shit, anyway?" He directed the second comment towards the ground, the toe of his shoe scraping over the freshly turned earth. He shook his head, and then with little fanfare seemed to evaporate into the night.
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