Quests & Challenges

ykljrhlk yes

[b][i]Day One Hundred Sixty One:[/i][/b] [center][item=brown bat] Rolled Tremayne, Alkaios, and Blithe. Coli Loot: [item=radioactive slime] [item= brown river flight] [item=harvest hardshell] Kind of a weird coli session. Alkaios gave me several scares which ended up killing his Blooming Strangler, which was replaced by the River Flight which was also killed. So I gave him the Harvest Hardshell and Adrasteia got the Slime (I forgot she didn't have a familiar). [item=ambush] [b]Coin Flip: Tails(false)[/b] Rolled Meirwen, Sonance, and Ailana. Sonance's Phytocat dies, so... rip Cattail. [item=ambush] [b]Coin Flip: Tails (false)[/b] Rolled Einar, Tundra, and Adrasteia. Coli Loot: [item=dryad] Gave the Dryad to Sonance. I feel like I'm developing a small Beastclan tribe. I'm not opposed to this. Also Adrasteia is proving to be a boss in the Coli. [item=scholar] [b]Coin Flip: Tails (false)[/b] Rolled Hope, Adrasteia, and Vayne. Coli Loot: [item=Plantation Pincher] Don't have anyone to give the Pincher to, so I guess I'll keep it on standby. [item=berserker] [b]Coin Flip: Tails (false)[/b] Rolled Alkaios, Vayne, and Tundra. Very uneventful, which is how I like it. The easy levels are nice at this point. Hope is level 5 (current lowest level of the clan). Adrasteia is level 6. Ailana is level 7. Tundra is level 8. Einar and Vayne are level 9. Meirwen and Sonance are both level 10. Alkaios is level 11. Tremayne is level 12. Blithe is a whopping level 18 (holy snipes). And now that's all the battle/coli items out of the way up to this point. Phew @_@. That backlog's looking a lot better and giving me a lot less stress now, lol. ----- Backlog: [item=brilliant brass torc] [item=dire wooden toy] [item=andesine] [item=shalebuck horn] [item=wolpertinger hoodie] [item=shimmering cloth] [item=depin hide] ----- Inventory: Scatter Scroll x1, Breed Change x3

very lucky

@Rhombulus Very lucky indeed @_@.

[b][i]Day One Hundred Sixty Two:[/i][/b] [i]‘My Son I’m going back to look for your father and your unborn sibling. I and Bramble believe that they might still be alive; I have to believe they are. We didn’t see them, or Erebos, die for ourselves, after all. For all we know, they could still be down there in some dark, unknown cavern. Serhat says this land is littered with forgotten places. And if they didn’t make it, then… I must see it for myself. And if they are truly gone, then I cannot go on like this. Not anymore. I’m such a coward; I ran away from home for a similar reason. Because it got too hard for me to live there. I’m sorry that you had to have such a weak mother; I wanted something so much better for you than this. I love you, Alkaios. Adrasteia is lucky to have you. Your mother, Ehsan.’[/i] Alkaios stared down at the note in his claws, barely comprehending the words anymore. He had read them over a dozen times already, but they never changed. Whatever hope he wished to see in them simply wasn’t there. A droplet of water fell onto the parchment, blurring more of the smudged words. He quickly wiped the tears from his face with a frustrated gesture. [i]Why?[/i] he wondered. [i]Why did she have to leave?[/i] A puff of air collided with his shoulder; it wasn’t enough to stagger him, but it was enough to startle him out of his thoughts. He turned to see Adrasteia, giggling mischievously as she sent another small burst his way. In only a couple short days, she had already grasped the basic concepts of using magic, likely from watching the others practice. Alkaios wasn’t the only one who had been focusing on his combat training lately; all of the Shadowbound had begun a steady training regimen. They had lost too much by this point to neglect such skills any longer. Despite how much that knowledge weighed on him, he couldn’t help but smile at the little Pearlcatcher teasingly bouncing back and forth in front of him. As of yet, she was too young to understand all the things that had been happening around her. In a way, he almost envied her youthful innocence. A part of him would be happy to go back to such a state, when everything was simpler and the world was filled with wonder. He leaped forward in a false pounce, stopping very short of landing on her but she toppled over anyway. “Ah, I’ve got you now!” he said, reaching forward to tickle her. She squealed and laughed, throwing out small puffs of magic in an attempt to ward him off. One such attack hit him square in the face so he flopped over with all the drama he could muster, back of claw to forehead and everything as he wailed, “Oh! I am defeated! Clearly I am no match for such a mage as she!” Adrasteia squeaked in delight and jumped to sit on his chest, knocking the wind out of him. Was she really getting that big already? “Gotcha!” she declared, flaring her wings up proudly. He chuckled; if anything, he could at least keep the world wonderous for her, at least for a while longer. She let out another squawk, but this time with much more surprise as she slid off his chest. He got up immediately, having picked up on her anxiety. “Cattail! Where do you think you’re going?” Sonance spat from across camp, and sure enough the phytocat went racing by him. Glancing around, Alkaios noticed a lot of the other familiars were restless too; even Cinderhoof and Tigress, who were both usually unphased by any of the dangers they encountered. Then things started moving along the edge of camp; more beasts, all headed one direction in a panic. “We have to get moving,” Einar called over the noise. “What are they running from?” Blithe asked, twisting nearby the Gaoler’s head. “I don’t know, but I don’t think any of us want to find out,” he replied with a growl. “Now everyone pick up camp. Quickly!” They did so in what Alkaios thought was record time. They didn’t clean up as thoroughly as they usually did, perhaps, but it was a little difficult with some of the familiars beginning to run through their clearings. After picking up his tent, he immediately had Adrasteia secure herself onto his back. He was determined to keep her as close as possible, come what may. Before they could properly take off, however, Serhat called out to stop them. “Look!” he said, pointing. Through the trees emerged a dryad, panting heavily and limping slightly. Her mane was overgrown in front of her face and dragging along the ground. When he pushed the leaf-like strands aside and saw the dragons, he could see the fear leap into her eyes. She may have run, but she didn’t have the energy to; instead she fell to her knees and tried to crawl away. Heleen galloped over to her and picked her up, saying a few quick words to her in the Beastclans’ shared tongue. “Hurry!” Einar called over to them. There was an odd rumbling that had begun to fill the air. A shadow passed over them, making Alkaios’s heart jump, but it was only Vayne, mantling in anxiety. I was almost alarming to see a creature of her size showing such signs of fear. It didn’t take long for the centaur to convince the dryad to climb onto her back, and Heleen cantered back to them. “We go!” she called, nodding to Einar. He took up a stride with the Snappers, who though were the slowest of their number at least kept up a steady pace. They didn’t directly follow the path of the escaping animals, instead making for a slight angle more towards Shadow. The rumbling followed them for a time, but slowly faded away. Whatever it was hadn’t found them, or had simply moved on. Alkaios truly hoped it was the latter. They finally stopped toward evening, when even the nature around them had settled down and there were no longer animals rampaging about. Setting camp back up, however, proved to be more work than anticipated. As they opened their packs, they discovered several stowaways that had managed to slip in while they were hastily getting ready for travel; a fanrat was found by Hope in one of the food packs, a death’s head stag was following Tundra around, a young zeeba had raided one of their herb satchels and was now sleeping nearby, and the basket of fruit Alkaios was confused to see in his own pack turned out to be a harvest hardshell. Not to mention… “Adrasteia, what is that?” he asked incredulously, staring at the green goop that was covering the foreclaws and arms of his sister. “Friend!” she answered, holding it up for him to inspect. Sure enough, the thing had [i]eyes[/i]… and [i]teeth[/i]. “… Adra, I’m not sure… you should be… touching that,” he mumbled, watching as a green glop fell onto the ground and sizzled there. Sizzled. Ailana appeared with a large jar, staring at the slime with as much wariness as he felt. “Here, Adra, why don’t you put your, ah, friend in here?” the Nocturne asked, holding out the jar. Adrasteia blinked. “Why?” “Well, it can be its home. Like… like this cornucopia is this crab’s home,” Ailana said, picking up the crustacean that had been trying to attach itself to Alkaios’s tail in retaliation to his attempts to shoo it away. The crab flailed for a moment before it folded itself into its faux cornucopia indignantly. Thankfully, Adrasteia seemed pleased by this and held out the slime to be stuffed into the glass jar and lidded. “There!” Ailana said once it was done, handing the jar back to the Pearlcatcher. “Now you can enjoy your friend without the… mess.” “Yay! Thank you!” Adrasteia squealed, taking off with her newfound companion. Alkaios stared blankly after her, then looked at the hardshell the Nocturne was not holding out to him. “… I’m going to have to keep this now, aren’t I?” he mumbled, taking the creature from her. “Sorry,” the Nocturne muttered back. Before she left again, she paused, adding, “Do make sure your sister is careful with that… thing. It’s not super harmful to dragons, but it is… radioactive.” “It [i]what[/i]?” he squawked, but she was already zipping away back to Bladebeak. He let out a long sigh, pulling a claw over his face. So this was his life now. ----- [item=andesine] This is such a weird, clunky update, but I needed to get all these little things resolved. Like, I kind of feel bad that the familiars no longer play as big a part as they once did, but there are so many characters as is... oi. It's hard to keep track of. Slowly catching up, though. Slowly. Also, sorry about not keeping up with replies orz. I appreciate all of your guy's comments, I really do. I think I would've stopped this 'locke a few months ago if I didn't have you all cheering me on. <3 I will admit, though, that I think I'm getting to the point where I want to bring this story to a close. I want to do it well, though, so don't think I'm going to abandon it! There's still quite a bit of content to go~. ----- Backlog: [item=brilliant brass torc] [item=dire wooden toy] [item=shalebuck horn] [item=wolpertinger hoodie] [item=shimmering cloth] [item=depin hide] [item=berserker] ----- Inventory: Scatter Scroll x1, Breed Change x3 ----- @Weredogalism @Riff @Skulljester @AstralDragons @Petall @MisterMylez @BarbaraFett @PinkyDaPinkSlime @loser @OneRingOfPower @MagmaticMachine @Rosesinger @Eversnow @chewynoodles @FallenEclipse @Dachshund59 @Midwinter @RadioReprise @Yetti @Samiky @Snapshadow @Rhombulus @Kaivyrin

Dang, Blithe is really getting up in there in levels!

edit: forgot punctuation ;;

Aaand I come over here and two of my favorite friendos have died.

hnnng I just dropped in to read the last three days and good god Pink is not letting you catch a break.

Adrasteia and Alkaios are adorable! Alkaios is a great big brother! (Though my heart still breaks that he's the only remaining family for Adrasteia to have...) Also, that was such a creative way to bring in new familiars, I really liked that!!!

they refugees