Creative Corner

@SashaFiredrake Thank you, she's added! :>

[size=1]@3idolon @TheCell @kmrikkari @Horseleech @SashaFiredrake @Mnkn10 @EssayOfThoughts @Bara2684 @reotheleo @WolfandCrow @StDuke @Pebz @Shadowfire1223 @ToxicSugar @vengeful @WolfTrickster @Scorpiontail @Meilkor @Turboblaze @Blightwyrm @Yuubi[/size] [center][size=7][color=DarkRed][font=Bradley Hand ITC][b]SPOTLIGHT[/b][/font][/color][/size][/center] [center][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=lair&tab=userpage&id=27733][size=6][color=maroon]Yuubi's[/url][size=6][color=maroon] Vecna[/color][/size][/center] [center][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=43383600] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/433837/43383600_350.png[/img] [/url][/center] [color=maroon]"You can’t heal him?!" roars the upset Ridgeback when Starnight, one of the two healers of the Cult, shook his head. "I am deeply sorry, whatever your hatchling has is no sickness, I have to get another healer to help me out here." The small hatchling on the bed was staring at the wall next to it with empty blank eyes, drooling from his mouth and was not responding to anything. One could think the small dragon was blessed with greyish stained scales, but a second look showed that he had truly lost color. "Then use your feathers and do it!" Stepping out of the room and closing the wooden door, the white Coatl sighed heavily. It was the fifth patient within a week that showed strange symptoms that did not fit with any common sickness known to the Ice Flight. Waddling through the corridors with his rather small legs, he made halt at a door that smelled... strange. There was no word for him to describe it, but he knocked anyway. "Vecna? Starnight here, I require your assistance." A few moments of rumbling, clicking of claws on stone later, the door opened and the mirror peeked his head through the door. "How can I help? I am copying some book to restore so make it quick," answered the dragon with an unamused and stressed tone. "I have a patient with symptoms unrelated to any sickness I know, could you take a look?" The mirror looked back into his room, then stepped out, closing the door and followed the Coatl. It’s been two months since he was here, but since Starnight and his mate could take care of the few patients that made their way up here, he could focus on studies and scribe duties until the road to the local villager was made easier to travel. Going into the room with the huffing and buffing Ridgeback mother, Vecna made a beeline towards the hatchling, ignoring her angered gestures as she saw his red, plague tainted eyes. Starting with a general checkup, he noticed more unusual signs, as well as seeing the unusual low temperature, which was actually concerning since even Ice Dragons can maintain their body temperature pretty easy in this climate. "What did he eat before becoming sick?" "What did he eat? Well, we hunted some turkeys for our stockpile, bought some fruit and fish from the market to try something new. Nothing unusual...." the mother stopped, tilting her head before shaking it. "Well, after having eaten some of the yellow, citrus tasting fish, me and my mate had some stomach problems, but nothing major, it was gone within a few hours." The mirror looked at the hatchling confused, he did not taste many foreign fish species yet, he was fine eating what he knew – it was an important rule within The Scarred Wasteland and without doubt it made things easier. He laid his hand on the hatchling’s forehead and let his magic flow through its system until he withdrew it with any potential poison it hold. And yes, he seemed to had gotten something as Vecna felt how the poison got transferred to his own system to be neutralized. A moment, two, three, and the Necromancer took his claw back to the ground, steading himself and coming back to his senses. "Done. Two weeks of rest and only simple meals would get him going, no exotic fish until adulthood," he ordered before turning tail and leaving the room, straight up returning to his room again to study the strange book he found in the archives about a Ghoul that actually documented what its life had been. The following hours were hard to handle, he kept losing focus easily and needed to make himself some tea and tackle the subject again. A sour taste refused to leave his mouth. by Yuubi ___ Also appearing in this story: [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=43838758]Starnight[/url] Unnamed Ridgeback Mom & Son[/color]

[size=1]@3idolon @TheCell @kmrikkari @Horseleech @SashaFiredrake @Mnkn10 @EssayOfThoughts @Bara2684 @reotheleo @WolfandCrow @StDuke @Pebz @Shadowfire1223 @ToxicSugar @vengeful @WolfTrickster @Scorpiontail @Meilkor @Turboblaze @Blightwyrm @Yuubi @foxghosts[/size] [center][size=7][color=DarkRed][font=Bradley Hand ITC][b]SPOTLIGHT[/b][/font][/color][/size][/center] [center][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=lair&tab=userpage&id=43610][size=6][color=maroon]foxghosts'[/url][size=6][color=maroon] Absinthe[/color][/size][/center] [center][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=42367949] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/423680/42367949_350.png[/img] [/url][/center] [color=maroon]Cast out of her home as a young hatchling, Absinthe has always done what is necessary to survive. She'd drifted from clan to clan over the years, and though she is still considerably young, her experiences have rewarded her with excellent knowledge of survival and self-preservation. She is hardy, tough, stubborn, and determined to get her way. For a brief while she managed to find a small clan in the Windswept Plateau, though she never felt quite as though she fit in. A friend she'd made there, Cyrus, suggested they leave together to find somewhere they both felt at home, and so they trekked back to the Wasteland where they stumbled across Verivala. At first, she felt at home amongst the other various drifters and wanderers that Azazel attracted, but soon came to understand that Azazel did not shy away from killing, removing, or exiling those who he didn't deem worthy of being in the clan. It was Absinthe's idea at first; to travel to the Wyrmwound and undergo the Necromantic Trials. At first, it was mostly a suggestion to keep Azazel off Cyrus' back for being Windborn, and to prove that she was better than the average drifter from the Wasteland. Soon, however, it became an obsession, and she was determined to be accepted by the Plaguebringer as one of Her servants. After short preparation, the pair embarked on their journey. [b]— THE TRIALS[/b] "It didn't work," Absinthe hissed. Her voice was raspy from days of underuse and acrid Wasteland air, and she cast her eyes down to where her claws dug in to the limp body of the infected rodent she'd snagged from the Wyrmwound. It writhed in her claws, tail twitching as it violently twisted and arched its spine. It was succumbing to the Plague that Absinthe had given it moments ago, and now she couldn't take it away. "That is...unfortunate," Cyrus said softly from beside her, plucking the rodent from her hands. He cupped it gently and closed his eyes for a moment. He repressed a shudder that ran through his body and when he opened his hands, the rodent looked up with clear, healthy eyes. Absinthe seethed beside the spiral, snarling. "We were supposed to do it together." The spiral looked up at her, letting the rodent run across his arms. "I'm sorry, I don't...I don't know what to say. I know you're disappointed," he murmured, watching the small creature weave through his fingers. "A Necroservus is not a bad thing to be. You're still powerful." "It's not about the power," Absinthe responded, eyes flashing angrily. "I can't go home like this. A failure. Do you think Azazel will accept someone that the Plaguebringer Herself couldn't?" With a frustrated huff, Cyrus let the rodent scurry off into a nearby thicket of membrane and turned to face his companion. "I don't see him coming out here to do what we've done. He's afraid of the Plaguebringer. You're not," he offered, looking up at his friend. With a sigh, Absinthe cast her gaze down to the dry, reddened ground. "I suppose I should be grateful that She didn't kill me instead," she murmured to nobody in particular. She flexed her hand, extending her claws to their full length and hummed softly. It wasn't what she wanted, but being able to spread an infection was still respectable enough. Azazel was a cruel and harsh leader, but if he didn't accept her, then at least she knew that most other clans in the Wasteland would welcome her with open arms. With a final, longing glance back to the Wyrmwound, she gathered her items from base of the crater where she and Cyrus had been camping. "Come on," she murmured, gesturing toward the Boneyard. "Let's go home." by foxghosts[/color]

@3idolon I'm happy to do it :> The changes look great! I think it's clear and I can't think of any better option.

Please let me know if there are any updates and if you have any suggestions regarding this thread :>

[size=1]@3idolon @thecell @kmrikkari @horseleech @sashafiredrake @mnkn10 @essayofthoughts @bara2684 @reotheleo @wolfandcrow @stduke @pebz @shadowfire1223 @toxicsugar @vengeful @wolftrickster @scorpiontail @meilkor @turboblaze @blightwyrm @yuubi @shadowpiper @solvei @spiderfrog15[/size] [center][size=7][color=DarkRed][font=Bradley Hand ITC][b]SPOTLIGHT[/b][/font][/color][/size][/center] [center][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=lair&tab=userpage&id=389462][size=6][color=maroon]AstralDragons'[/url][size=6][color=maroon] Lucio[/color][/size][/center] [center][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=42445308] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/424454/42445308_350.png[/img] [/url][/center] [color=maroon]From a very early age, it was made clear that Lucio was a survivor. He outlived his mother, who had passed after having given birth to a nest of four. He outlived his three sisters-- the first, an unnamed stillborn in an unmarked grave beside the Wyrmwound. Develish and Serket, who succumbed to the unmerciful cold on their first winter. He outlived his father, who was slaughtered by a pack of Infestation Hounds. Alone, afraid, and badly wounded from the attack of the Infestation Hounds, a young Lucio dragged himself off into the cold, uncaring wilderness. For the first several months, every day was a struggle to survive. Infection came and it ravaged his body, tainting his flesh with the sickly-sweet odor of death. Oftentimes he would go weeks without a proper meal, forcing himself to eat the bugs and small animals that were drawn close by his scent-- a dying dragon was a scavenger’s delight, after all, out in the barren wastelands. Lucio was lucky enough to find shelter near a pond-- the water’s taste left something to be desired, but he hadn’t been raised to be a picky dragon. Days turned to weeks, and weeks to months… and, slowly but steadily, the infection began to seep out of Lucio’s body, his grievous wounds turning into scars. Ugly things they were, but he was finally beginning to heal to wake up from the never-ending nightmare. After nine months, Lucio fully recovered and grew stronger than he had ever been-- he matured into a tough, lanky, adolescent dragon, and over the next few years he had quickly become infamous with the local Beastclans as a fearsome shadow of the night, a raging beast with an appetite to rival a Hydra. Eventually, Lucio succumbed to the sense of dissatisfaction with his surroundings, an itch to explore the land, that befalls many a young dragon. He began to roam, cautiously at first, but with an increasing boldness. His explorations covered miles and miles of the wasteland that was his home, marveling at the scarce, new flora and fauna he encountered. And then he met another dragon. A Mirror, much like himself, but she was most certainly different-- she was an elder dragon, a rarity out in the savage wilderness. She drove him away, for the law of the land was often that of ‘kill or be killed’-- and Lucio stayed away from her territory, for a time being. But his curiosity brought him back, and he soon began to watch her from the distance. He was watching her hunt, and from her, he learned how to hunt game even larger than himself. How to engage other dragons in combat. How to avoid the naturally-occurring deathtraps of the wastelands. How to survive. Months passed, but inevitably, the elder female slipped up. Lucio kept his distance on that night, when she returned from an unsuccessful hunt, but he knew that stench anywhere: the reek of tainted blood, the odor of death. Her scent markings were becoming fainter with every passing day, and, emboldened by the elder’s apparent state of weakness and an entirely new sensation altogether-- pity? Sympathy, perhaps?-- Lucio began to leave offerings of carcasses and herbs nearby her nest-- herbs that he had seen her gather and apply to wounds in the past. The elder was suspicious at first-- she even managed to get a nasty bite in on Lucio’s left rear leg one day, when he wasn’t as cautious as usual-- but in a matter of weeks, she had grown used to his presence in her territory. In a matter of months, she begrudgingly took him under her wing, so to speak. She taught him the ways of their patron, the Plaguebringer, and instructed him on how to leave proper offerings for and pay obeisance to the savage goddess. For the first time in his life, over the next decade, Lucio had something of a mother figure. She was rough around the edges and stern, and not much of a conversationalist besides, but she undoubtedly loved Lucio in a way she didn’t think her rough, withered heart was capable of. But, as with all things in life, their time of relative peace had to end. The Wildclaw came in the midst of the day, when Lucio and the elder were resting after a successful hunt. The beast had been drawn by the scent of fresh kill and completely ignored the two Mirrors’ territorial markings-- she was ravenous and reckless with hunger. Lucio was woken up to the scent first-- the stench he had become so intimately familiar with, the reek of Death’s shadow, but this… this was different. Something about the odor gave him chills down to his very core-- it was stronger, more noxious than anything he had taken a whiff of before-- it was unnatural. Unholy. Before she even made it halfway through the Mirrors’ territory, they struck. Their claws and honed teamwork made quick work of the Wildclaw’s dark-red, rotting flesh, the meat practically eager to rip free of the miserable creature’s bones. Though opportunistic, Lucio and the elder dragged the Wildclaw’s corpse to the edge of their territory, and even then some. The other dragon, although deceased, still brought great unease to the pair. It didn’t take long. Within mere hours, Lucio and the elder began to show signs of illness. A deep, dull ache in their bones, an unnatural fever, nausea. In a few days, the scent of infection, of rot… it came back once more to torment them both. For only the second time in his life, Lucio became unable to hunt, but this time, no creatures aside from the dullest of insects would come near the two. Anything else was driven away by the red, the seething red, the horrifying rot overtaking the two Mirrors. Time blurred. It lost all meaning. Words were exchanged between the two of them, but to this day, Lucio still cannot recall much of what was said, and the line between reality and fever dreams he had during that time was paper-thin. They prayed to their goddess, the Plaguebringer. They begged for a cure, for food, and even for death at times, but they were met with no response each time. After a long while, the elder went silent and still. The reek still accompanied her body, but her soul most certainly had passed on, leaving an empty husk behind. Lucio had no capability of mourning at the time, his mind stripped of all coherent thought besides the most base instinct-- the instinct to survive. The instinct to feed. He feasted until he fell into a deep slumber. He was eating and eating and eating as the days were going by, his hunger knew no bounds or barriers. His teeth sliced through flesh and crunched bone alike, his mental state an utter nightmare. With his jaws full of bloody meat, he would shriek and wail to the heavens, vague utterances of the Plaguebringer and the elder’s name at his tongue. And one day, she came. Her body was so riddled with scars that he could hardly discern her true skin tone. Sickly-green pustules flourished upon her flesh, her wings so horribly torn and dissolved that he doubted she could have flown to him. She was massive and fierce and everything the elder had told him-- everything he expected and more. A wildness blazed in her eyes as she towered over his frail form and the remnants of shattered bones strewn about, but something about her expression changed as she gazed down upon him. “You’ve faced nigh insurmountable odds,” the Plaguebringer spoke, her voice like the clattering of bones, the hiss of death on her tongue. “You adapted and overcame all throughout the years of your meager lifespan-- and now, I gift you with the ability to surmount your greatest challenge yet. What you do with this gift is up to you… but do not disappoint me, child.” And with that, tendrils of her searing power flowed into his veins, magic spreading where it had never done so before. Half-disintegrated muscle tissue began to reconstruct, bloodied flesh mending ever so slowly. Strength reentered his wearied limbs, allowing him the energy to stand for the first time in many days. Before he could respond, the Plaguebringer had gone-- vanished just as swiftly as she had come. With this newfound power and the renewed strength in his limbs, Lucio was able to hunt once more-- although the Rot still writhed in his body, the magical regeneration of flesh, bone, and blood alike kept the ailment at bay. When he finally regained some semblance of sanity… that is when he began to mourn. He was alone once more in the uncaring wilderness of the Scarred Wasteland-- and for the first time in his life, he cried. The tears burned against his tainted flesh, but he cared not; he cried until he could cry no longer. The elder had been a friend, a source of companionship-- a reason to keep on living. Lucio roamed for months, unwilling to go anywhere near their old territory ever again. He reached the edge of the wastelands, spying tufts of grass, and he kept going. He traversed daunting plateaus, often catching sight of Skydancers and Spirals twirling through the sky… but they always kept their distance from his ghastly figure. He continued on, awed by the clean breezes and new sights, such as the bordering sea and-- Plaguebringer forbid-- abundant flora and fauna. He wound through the Ashfall Wastes-- far more similar to the wastelands he had grown up in than the plateaus were, but if the wastelands were warm, this place was almost unbearably hot. The dragons here were also far more aggressive than the ones of the plateaus, driving him away with searing bursts of flame and sharp, metallic claws. He hurried on through this scorched place, unwilling to stay a moment longer than necessary. After what felt like ages, the air of his surroundings began to cool as he gained distance from the rumbling volcanoes, but clouds cloaked the sky, strung together with vibrant threads of lightning. These canyons and valleys and savannahs he explored with great interest-- this place was a wasteland, much like his first home, but wildlife was almost as abundant here as upon the plateaus. And then he met… her. A tiny little thing, not much older than himself-- but she radiated confidence like the sun’s rays. When the Skydancer first approached, he hissed and puffed up his frills to scare her away. It even worked, for a while, but the little feathered dragon kept coming back. She prattled on about trivial things like the weather, what colors she liked, favorite scents… anything she could think of. She even began to bring Lucio gifts of fresh meat and fish-- and after weeks of her pestering, he finally relented. He told her his name, and she did the same in return-- “Chromata,” she said, her feathery frills puffed up with a tinge of pride. Baffled by her stubbornness and her apparent lack of fear towards his appearance, he allowed her to guide him to her clan. Dragons of all shapes and sizes greeted him-- he was soon overwhelmed by the sheer number of other dragons, and by their strangely chipper attitude towards him. To this very day, he still lives on the outskirts of Chromata’s clan, alone, but his presence is welcomed by many dragons. He’s still adjusting to the oddities of having an abundance of food and a comfortable living space—many more friends and, dare he say it, family. Lucio still lives with chronic pain brought about by the Rot, but the healers of the clan are determined to do their best to ease his suffering every day. by AstralDragons[/color]