RP:Guidance

From HollowWiki

Part of the What You Leave Behind Arc


Summary: Several months have passed since a hooded man gave Chisel a powerful artifact during heated combat against Lionel. Now, the hooded man returns, offering the dryad the key to unlocking the item's true potential -- and lamenting her death should she choose to go on in ignorance without his tutelage.

Somewhere in Sage

Chisel | It happened again. Gasping for air as if she needs it. She awoken from her nightmare, Eyes strained as she adjust them, groaning as she stare at her work, sitting abandoned on her desk as she apparently fell asleep while sitting on her chair. A guardian that never sleeps, a dryad, the protector of the forest. Normal dryads consume energy from during the day and conserve what they haven’t used as soon as it sets. Sleeping, like most mortals.


A gift? A miracle? A curse? Whoever gave it, wherever it came from, Chisel accepted the lantern wholeheartedly. However, since she received the lantern months ago, she has fallen asleep a grand total of eight times and yet it was the same nightmare each time. The sun hasn’t risen yet, Lots of work to be done. Standing up only to look at a face only a mother could love. A doll. Was a doll. It is one of Chisel’s children, a nightmarish creation as a parasitic flora growing out of a torn up toy. Lost souls who have found new life within Chisel’s little puppets, “Shh… it’s okay, Mommy just having a dream.” Smiling as she reached for it, petting its hair.


She slides out from her seat and went outside. With a lantern at hand and a hand-ax on the other, she would now begin her rounds. Unlike mortals that require rest or food to continue, she’ll continue her course from sun rise to sun down. Bandits and Illegal wood fellers beware… The Murder Doll is out to play. Hopefully enough to keep her busy to forget about her dream.


Lionel | It was no dream.


The voice is like silk weaving through the dryad’s mind echoing from every corner of the forest. Her dolls will hear it, too. The leaves will sway with a sudden wind, a wind which fades when the words pass, but billows up again when a figure in a black robe, hooded to obscure its face, approaches from behind. In its wake, a sickly power emanates. It is something fierce, something feverish, something wrong. It is the taint of evil, and it is here in Chisel’s forest. And yet… it does not touch the ground on which the figure walks. It does not spread its taint to any blade of grass, or any leaf upon any tree. Jagged black streaks of steam encircle the figure, dark magics of some unknowable sort, but not even they befoul the forest. Everything vile here is dutifully, willfully self-contained. It would be fair to assume that this figure could let loose whatever darkness it exudes if it so chose, and then what would happen to this peaceful, pristine land Chisel so cherishes? Nothing good.


The figure will be as if out of Chisel’s dream, too. To a time, many months ago, in which she fought, and in fighting, a robed man gave her the means to fight back all the more fiercely. Indeed, the strong shoulders and proud stance of this interloper will prove him one and the same. Yet still his face remains shrouded. He takes gingerly steps toward Chisel -- just a few -- and then stops, still some distance from her. His pace suggests that there is nothing in this forest, not even she, that could possibly frighten him in the slightest capacity.


“I trust my gift has served you well.” The man’s speech is passive, calm, and the billowing wind dies down to a whimper.


Chisel | She can see him. She walked forward, clutching her hand ax and lantern as she kept facing forward, not reacting to his presence as if to give the enemy a sense of false security perhaps? She knew him.. but not know him. A weird sense of deja vu as she walked. The forest can see him but... there was something different as he can only be spotted from afar... The trees standing a dozen feet away from him could 'see' him, warn the dryad of his position. But the flora on his immediate vicinity was blind, not responding even. As if they have temporarily died. What is going on? Afraid? No, Chisel is entirely incapable of such emotion but clearly there was something behind her that is far beyond what she have met before. She continued to walk, watching the creature within her mind as the forest continue to update her with his position, gripping her ax tightly as she went further and further into the dark forest, the denser the better, The sun hasn't risen yet, she'll have to rely on the lantern for now, trying to get as much advantage as she can.


Soon the man spoke, the doll seems to lock in place, like frost seeping into her chassis making it difficult to move. It only lasted for a mere half second but it felt like an eternity. She turned to face the man, holding her ax. The forest began to move as well yet there is no wind. The moonlight daisies began to glow red instead of the typical dim blue. She had planted these plants all over the forest to light up her way but they do react on her mood. Her children soon began coming out of the forest as well, hanging on nearby trees while the earth rumbles as Flora Colossi approach from behind. She was about to open her mouth when she finally faced him. Suddenly, it was gone. The flowers suddenly shut off, the dolls lost life and most of them fell onto the forest floor. The lumbering colossi also groaned and slammed onto the earth while her lantern gave out, dimming till finally enveloping the area in complete darkness. Chisel's red eyes slowly turned into dull black and her whole body lost all life, stumbling forward before falling face first into the dirt.


The nightmare. She was sitting, dull looking aimlessly forward as she is pinned, trapped under the tree. It wasn't a dream.. it was a possibility. Few months back she lost an arm and vines began growing out of its socket, binding her against a tree and turning the dryad into a parasite. In her dream the entire forest is now under her control, the vine grew so much that it began infecting all the trees around it, absorbing them to the colony one after another. Leaving a dense leaf coverage about the dryad and placing her in constant darkess. No being could come in and out as they are consumed, slaughtered by the forest itself and yet there he is.. standing before her... a hooded man, carrying a lantern.


Lionel | The hooded man smiles coldly. The smile isn’t seen, but it is felt. Dead vegetation springs to life as he kneels and waves his hand. Splendid arrays of color splash in every direction as flowers blossom in his wake. Everything dead, alive again. “Fear is the mind-killer,” he says, rising to regard Chisel anew. His eyes do not glow in some negative shade, but they bear down upon her nevertheless, searching, probing. They’re the only aspect of his face she will see, and they’re glossy, with dull blue irises. They seem ancient, even scholarly. “Do not fear this. I gave you a power the depths of which you do not yet know.” A thin arm extends from the robe. Bony fingers point to Chisel accusingly, then drop down somewhat and point to her lantern instead. “You toy with tools beyond your awareness, but not beyond your ability to learn. You tap into only the surface of a boundless ocean of energy, and with only the surface you have already grown stronger. I come to you again, this time to teach you what can be done.” His smile returns. “It will save this forest. It will save every forest. It will break the cruel men who would do them harm. And it will save you, avash’kor, from yourself.”


Chisel looked up, covered in vines from head to toe that only her eyes could be seen as the nightmarish vines continues to go back and forth, sliding across the earth like snakes and the sickening sound of sap as they move about. The parasite has completely conquered this forest. It is just a dream, she knows but it is also a possibility. Her body was simply too pinned to speak so she have to rely on telepathy. She doesn't have that in the real world. But here in her mind, she can have anything. Her voice began booming inside the deathly forest, leaves move at each word as she speak out of thin air. "A parasite.. if I have not left that forest, I would've consumed the land one forest at a time... Seeds and spores would be caught by the wind, spreading the disease even further till I finally destroy the world... every flora would die if I have consumed everything." It was what she feared, though technically that would kill off every living being in the planet till only flora exist, the parasite would then have nothing to feed onto, it will corrupt the earth itself, consume every bit of nutrient out of it and the forests will fall one after another, ending all life. The lantern made the vines grow violently... when it was pressed against her person, the corruption within her did not want to share host so it began coating the lantern in flora and then leeched energy from it to make the vines grow. "Cursed. Yet I held onto it as I could finally taste what it is like to be alive." She turned back to the hooded man, "And in return?" She already know where this is going. This being simply have her by the throat, she have nothing to deal with.


Lionel | There is a haunting passivity in the way the hooded man watches the dryad’s nightmares unfold yet maintains his stoicism through it all. He has only just arrived, and yet there is an aura of such presence about him, such command, such control. His glossy eyes examine Chisel’s lantern and without warning the flame bursts like a nova, scorching the earth in totality. From blasted canyon to tropical rainforest, snow-capped glacier to sprawling city, the sun burns it all away. In another glance the fire is silenced, and Chisel’s forest is calm again, rife with overgrowth and teeming with insects. A fertile land. “I offer you salvation,” the hooded man rasps. “Protection from your own burgeoning craft. In return? You will nurture that craft, learn as I teach you, and use it to fell my foes and take your place upon the new order that I am creating.” There is reverence in his delivery, like a preacher in a crowded church.


Chisel | The powerful heatwave tore through her. She sat there, unmoving as the flames licked onto her, one by way her limbs tore away, her chassis simply giving up from the extreme heat and destroying everything around her. Mere second later, it was all whole again, "Your foes." she simply replied but continued to stare at the man. "My salvation has been long denied after I have died. This curse had consumed me that not even my powers could stop it. That lantern..." it is far too powerful for her as well. She doubts she'll be able to take it. "Four forests... that's the limitation of my power... Peace between the mortal territories and mine made it easier for me as it would be naturally impossible to take care of so much land. And now you are asking me to wage war with one." She stared at him. This is clearly not a great idea... should she fail, her forests would be destroyed, attacked from every direction and she won't have enough might to defend at every front but the lantern is the key. If this being actually teach her how to wield this artifact properly, unlock its potential, she would be able to resolve any of these problems. If she say no, the lantern would be taken away and the curse would consume her and the rest of the world. If she agree on the other hand, she'll keep the lantern, her sanity and her forests... at a cost of people dying. The offer is enticing, almost impossible to back out from yet the dryad simply looked onto him. Thinking.


Lionel | The hooded man briefly studies the dryad for some unknown purpose. His tone suggests he’s pleased with his findings. “War? Conflict between nations is never more than a means to an end. I have no interest in war.” His scholarly eyes seem to gleam with amusement. “I will finish what they started.” The trees become stones. The ground becomes ice. The cold snaps like frozen hell. In the distance, towering over frigid wasteland, are the collapsed ruins of some great city. At first the structures are an unidentifiable mass of sooty black tendrils and ash, but they soon take shape, revealing what had once been Cenril. The image is replaced with Chisel’s forest in the space of a heartbeat. “Four forests? Four hundred. You play, now, with cosmic might as if it were mere bauble. It will consume you, destroy you body and soul, unless you embrace my lessons well.” The man vanishes, leaving behind more of the black tendrils which fade like wisps. Instructions dance in Chisel’s mind. They aren’t words, per se, but they’re as clear as crystal. She must travel 16 leagues to Frostmaw’s north-by-northwest. There, she will find Frost Giants like none other. They will know what to do. If she does not do this thing, she will never learn what must be learned. And then she will surely die.


Chisel just sat there, watching as the world around her break apart and rebuild anew again and again as it seems this hooded man has complete control over her own dreams, earth crumbled around her, showing different sceneries one after another. But she remained untouched. The man did not demand her obedience or loyalty but deep in her mind she knew he could easily force her for it. A spirit of nature being toyed by a mortal... Or is he a mortal? She doesn't know but it is clear that is far too powerful for one. As he finally vanished and the instructions flooded her mind, the dream ended. The dolls are moving about again, same with the colossi. The flowers have turned off as it was already morning. The dryad sat up and did not move for hours, thinking... She have to make a choice now.