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Post by belmoon on Sept 22, 2007 4:35:07 GMT -5
The trees and forests died out, and the view gave way to wasteland. The Sabotenda desert had introduced itself to the guild, and it shone bright and empty. Sand, cacti, and skeletons.
With time, an impassable cliff came into sight. So high, it was, that nothing could hope to climb it. So long, it was, that one might wonder if it separated Genoa from the desert. But that was not the case, as much desert existed before it. The train passed through a tunnel that provided the only visible way across the wall.
The Gregale finally slowed and rested at the stop. It was a miracle that something that began its movement so haphazardly ended said movement with ease. The train could not return the same path it came, but it followed many tracks, so it had multiple ways to ride.
~~~
The colony of Desola. A people who descended from travelers who braved the desert. The story goes that that group of nomads wandered the Sabotenda desert in search of safe haven, and found the staircase-like cliff of the soon-to-be Desola. On one side, rock formations tiered from the ground to the sky (or at least several, several hundred feet), and on the other, an unclimbable wall, barring all monsters from the rock. The people, only aware at the time of a large barricade, worked for days on end, digging a tunnel through the rock until they made it through. Discovering the stairway to heaven, they then proceeded to build their colony. Nowadays, it is seen as an accomplishment against the harshness of the world by some, and as an act of cowardice by others.
The Desolites are rather peaceful (at least a good majority of them), their philosophies inspired by the Desolatortoise, a creature so pacifist in its life that it becomes a symbol of peace anywhere it roams. Signs are erected around the rock saying, "Do not go out when it rains!" Being in a desert, rain rarely hits Desola (they resort to retrieving water from a nearby river). Though, when it does, the area becomes slick, and if one were to fall, they risk the chance of falling down the entirety of it.
~~~
Sodom stepped off of the train, still clad only in the knee-length shorts Taylor had given him, along with the others. He carried Aiden, who had fallen asleep near the end of the ride, on his back. He prayed that she not suddenly burst into flames while he had her. Looking to the pale girl, he asked, "So Leader, where to? I kinda want some new clothes, but I don't know how much I can stretch a ladee. The prices here may be different and all."
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Post by Aiden Chepi on Sept 22, 2007 14:26:42 GMT -5
Aiden mumbled something that sounded like "mmmit's 'he saoome asth Menoa..." She lifted her hand heavily and pointed to a realitively large building painted a light tanish color. "mmerf..." she mumbled again, and dropped her hand back down, her head was burried into his shoulder with her eyes tightly shut.. Mimzy barked at her last mumble and ran towards the building, revealing it's self to be a type of thrift store...
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Post by Aaron Williams on Sept 23, 2007 23:09:22 GMT -5
Taylor had been right in shortening her wardrobe. The desert heat did little to the scantily clad girl and her outfit blended surprisingly well with the locals. The pale girl watched as the thrift store was revealed, before answering Sodom's question. "Well we do have money for supplies, so why don't we split up and gather what we need, then meet back at the local inn to discuss our plans". Some relaxation sounded nice to Taylor, but the mission came first. Five minutes later she began to wander the streets of Desola, bent on finding as much information as she could.
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Post by priestwarrior on Sept 28, 2007 16:48:38 GMT -5
"Hm," said Cristofori as he looked down at the money in his hands. "Well, until we figure out what we're doing, some downtime would be nice." He tossed the coin up and down reflectively, then started walking in what he judged was the most likely direction of food.
The market was busy, and Cristofori wandered from stall to stall, looking askance at the strings of locusts, stacks of cactus lobes, and piles of unidentifiable meatstuffs. "Excuse me," he addressed one of the vendors, "could you tell me where I could find some strawberries?" "Ah, sien, mushasha," replied the thickset mustached locustseller. "The straw-berry, she is a lalado dete lo tendrida of Fernandezte." He pointed. "Right, um, thanks," said Cristofori, and followed the direction indicated by the vendor's finger.
He walked past Fernandezte's three times before seeing the name on the front of the stall. Then he walked past it twice more before gathering enough courage to actually address the large-eyed girl behind the counter. "Um, excuse me, miss," he began timidly, acutely conscious of the incongruity of his costume, "um, I'm looking for strawberries, and I was told you have some here." "Quire?" she asked, bringing her dark eyebrows together, "The what, again?" "Um, I'm looking for strawberries, if it's not too much trouble." "The what?" "I. want. strawberries. Do. you. have. strawberries?" "I don't endentiristu. Quire?" "STRAWBERRIES!" "Ah, the straw-berry! Sien, I have her." Cristofori exhaled. "Well, good! I want some." He showed her the coin. She took it without comment, then rummaged below the counter, finally pulling up a string of withered red conical objects. They weren't strawberries, but Cristofori had no idea what to call them. "Akire, mushasha," she said, handing him the string. She smiled sweetly at his confused expression. "You must be musso brave, perdite." "Um," said Cristofori. "Yes. Thanks. Well."
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Post by belmoon on Oct 4, 2007 19:41:27 GMT -5
On the opposite side of town, a certain salt of the earth sat in front of a sheriff's office. He had headed that way in search of information, but was inevitably distracted by the overgrown reptile dazing by the front door. He had somehow managed a staring contest with it, and it was not letting up. Sodom stared hard with concentration. He may not be the strongest or the bravest, but he would at least succeed over a mere animal.
"Hah! Silly turtle, I'm a champ at thi--"
"Actually, it's asleep," said a rugged voice.
Sodom blinked. "What--Dangit!! I was doing so well... Wait, what?"
"It sleeps with its eyes open. It's not a fighter, so it does it as a means of protection. Don't you know that?"
"N-no... What is it?"
The rugged voice grabbed Sodom by the back of his collar and hoisted him up to his feet. It belonged to a man in a torn poncho featuring patterns of birds in dark colors. He wore glasses without lenses, a cowboy hat, and looked as though his shaving razor had gone missing recently. "It's a Desolatortoise. Symbol of peace in Desola. M'name's Barel Duffy, 'n I'm the sheriff. You not from here?"
Sodom was now embarrassed for many reasons. He had been caught by a local doing something stupid, he had engaged in a staring contest with a sleeping something, and there was also the fact that he was still only wearing half of a special girl's pajama pants. "No--No, Mr. Duffy--"
"That's BAREL! No need to be formal with me, visitor!" he yelled, punching Sodom in the shoulder in what was possibly sport. "Where y' from?"
"Genoa Kingdom, sir--Duffy--BAREL!!"
"How'd you get here?"
"We took the train here..." Sodom immediately clasped his hands over his mouth. That may have been classified.
"Hahah! Don't worry, nobody here cares if you got off the cargo train; Hell, we'd likely praise your bravado, son. Now what do you mean, we?"
And so, Sodom proceeded to tell Barel of the guildies' journey from Genoa.
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Post by belmoon on Oct 17, 2007 0:54:28 GMT -5
"Well," said Barel, having heard the story from beginning to end, from train outset to stop, "that's quite the journey so far... You really threw her clothes out of the window?"
"Heh, yeah, that was my ba--wha--HEY! They just slipped out of my hands!" Sodom stammered, wondering why he felt the need to recite that particular part of the train ride.
Barel rolled his eyes, shrugging off the question altogether. "Say, why did you guys take the Gregale, anyway?"
"Eh? Well it's not like we coul--"
"The passenger train, Borneo 92, should set for here in just two days. No danger involved."
The salty youth froze, mouth agape.
Awkward silence now set in, Barel cleared his throat and changed the subject, "so, what do you need to know, kid? I can tell ya whatever ya need to know."
---
Ten minutes later, Barel and Sodom were down near the train station. Closer to the sand, Sodom noticed how the climate was considerably easier to bear the higher up in the colony he was. Past the train station, the desert stretched for miles, no landmarks in sight. The man in the poncho pointed out into the wasteland, straight ahead of the train. "Out there, somewhere. I once tried to reach the ruins, but I ended up giving up and settlin' here."
"You tried to go!?"
"Yeah, was a treasure hunter back then. Now I'm jus' the sheriff here. Been here a good five years. They took m' gun, and now I just got a slingshot. That was a shame. No gun, an' I gotta put up with those... those Gobies."
"Gobies?"
Barel looked the boy in the eyes. "But I learned what it is to protect what's important to ya. Like these Desolites. They can't protect themselves, but I sure will." He pulled a cigarette from his pocket, put the wrong end in his mouth, and quickly removed it, holding it away from himself. Sodom was taken aback when the wet side burst into flames. "Before these poor children of Desola even see the danger coming, I'll have chased it away!"
A young man, probably in his early twenties, in a poncho of a similar color to the cliff itself ran to the station, yelling, "Mr. Duffy! Sheriff Duffy! There's a breach! A breach!"
The sheriff waved to the frantic man, and turned back to Sodom. "Sorta like this..."
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Post by belmoon on Oct 18, 2007 18:02:44 GMT -5
Dry wind blew through the silent tunnel connecting Desola to it's other side. All had been quiet that day, save for when the Gregale made its stop. But Barel and Sodom had been alerted to an issue concerning it. Still perched upon the stairwell of the colony, Barel kept a keen eye on the tunnel, and Sodom watched him at work. "Wh... So what's going on?" the pale boy asked.
"Apparently we've got an intruding beast. The Sabotenda Desert is known for its terrible monsters, and it's my job to scare 'em off," Barel replied, taking a drag of his cigarette. He grabbed his slingshot from his back pocket.
"You're not going to kill it?"
The protector of Desola let the wind steal with smoke from his breath as he spoke, "Nope. Pacifist colony. Can't hurt it unless it's a full-blown emergency." As he finished his sentence, sand began to spit out of the ground from the tunnel; a scarred dorsal fin trailing along the train tracks.
For a second, Sodom's hair stood on end. It was an eerie sight to behold, the creature. "What is that!?" he yelled, unable to hide the fear and surprise in his voice. "That's a landshark. It musta felt the vibrations from the Gregale and thought it was prey. Happens ev'ry time a train comes through," the rugged man explained, looking back at Sodom. "By the way, you got anything hard to eat on you?"
"I--What!?"
"C'mon, I don't got all day. Candy, anything."
Sodom reached into his pajama shorts' pockets, "Y-yeah, there's some candy I still have from the food on the trai--earlier, why?" He handed a tomato drop to Barel.
"That'll do," the man said, popping it into his mouth and spitting it back into his hand the next second. He placed it in his slingshot, pulled it back, and shot it at the landshark. A mild explosion sent the sand--and the landshark-- flying fairly high into the air. For a second, one could see the beast thrashing around, flailing its clawed arms and tail, before crashing back into the sand. It burrowed back into the earth with lightning speed, escaping back through the tunnel.
"Holy shi--what!? What'd you just do!? What happened to the candy!? I nearly ate that!?" Sodom continued to spout the same questions until he calmed down, Barel cracking up the entire time. "I love gettin' that response outta people," he said, wiping his eyes. He grabbed Sodom's hand and shook it, introducing himself once again. "I'm Barel Duffy, sheriff n' protector of the colony of Desola. With my power--the power to turn anythin' into a bomb with my spit--no man or monster can harm these people."
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Post by Aaron Williams on Oct 22, 2007 14:16:58 GMT -5
"...And that's all I know about the Franks' dessert of week-old prunes." Taylor took this opportunity to intervene, "THAT'S VERY INTERESTING, MA'AM, BUT I'M LOOKING FOR DESERT RUINS--OLD RUINS...IN THE DESERT". "Oh gracious me. I'm so glad someone is interested in the stories of this old windbag. It's been so long since Fredee was around to listen to my daily report. He was a nice child, Franky. He had this odd problem with his skin though; it was all scaly-like, and often the strange boy would sleep with his eyes open". The old woman chuckled to herself, rocking back in her chair. "That reminds me of the time Deborah Franks accidentaly made a dessert pudding out of week-old prunes! You see, she was quite desperate for a party that week..."
Two hours later Taylor sat in the pub, thankful that the woman finally talked herself to sleep. This was going to be harder than she thought...
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Post by priestwarrior on Nov 22, 2007 21:38:14 GMT -5
Cristofori walked in, slightly dazed, with a string of wrinkled fruit-ish things held awkwardly between his hands. He stumbled over to Taylor, sat down across from her, laid the string on the table, and frowned thoughtfully. "Hi," he said after some time. "How's it going?" Then he collapsed.
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Post by belmoon on Dec 21, 2007 1:01:39 GMT -5
Some short time later, Sodom also entered the tavern. He no longer was clad only in half of Taylor's pajamas--something he and all others could appreciate--now sporting a poncho identical to Duffy's. The sheriff had loaned him a spare, along with a pair of leather boots with socks for his bare feet, and it was much appreciated. It had a smell and look to it that gave the boy a slight confidence, as though he was comparable to the man. He also happened to be piggy-backing an unconscious Aiden, once again.
Spotting Taylor and seating himself and the unconscious redhead at the table, he pulled a rolled up paper from his back pocket. "Taylor, I got us a map! Now we can..." His vision oscillated around the table; Cristofori was just as incapacitated as Aiden, and even Taylor was drifting off into the land of nod. "T-Taylor, are you awake? The sheriff..." The sluggish batting of her eyelashes, barely visible through her bangs as her head slowly met the table were sufficient distraction to prevent him from finishing his sentences. Seeing her this close for the first time, he realized how pretty the girl was. He wasn't used to seeing women this...clean. The only other females he had to compare her to were Aiden--who Sodom had only recently discovered was female after some observations mid-piggy-back ride--and his own sickly mother.
A rather fitting moment, Sodom's lack of rest had come back, full force. He passed out, joining the shorter members of The Rat's Nest. The parchment escaped from his clutches, rolling off onto the table.
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Post by belmoon on Jan 6, 2008 15:08:24 GMT -5
The pacifism of the town apparently carried over into its hospitality, as the slumber of the four was not interrupted.
---
Exiting the marketplace, Sodom looked in his new backpack over his inventory. "I've got a first-aid kit, a box of emergency rations, and a knife... That knife took up the rest of my money, but I don't want to just rely on Vladimir and Taylor to protect me from now on..." Quickly forcing a determined look on his face, he marched himself down to the train station.
---
Mimzy paced circles around a preoccupied Aiden. She had bought a small toy turtle from a peddler. "Mimzy, look. This isn't steam driven, like all that new stuff they've been making in Genoa." She turned a key-shaped knob on the toy's back, and after being placed on the ground, it began to trot around. "Isn't that crazy!?" exclaimed a bewildered Aiden, "the peddler said it ran with 'geers,' or something. What do you think those are?" Turning the toy over, she noticed a sharp inscription:
LOKI
Mimzy then attempted to eat the toy.
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Post by Aaron Williams on Jan 7, 2008 14:23:15 GMT -5
Taylor arrived in short order, toting a twenty foot long weave of rope over her shoulder. The tube top miniskirt combo did little to protect the young girl from the blistering midday sun, but the air upon Desola Plateau was cool and crisp. Unlike most journeys, this one was to begin as soon as the sun set. Sodom arrived to the lounging Taylor sprawled over her length of rope. Evidently she had been nicking patches of clothing from the citizens of Desloa to make an umbrella. Taylor did not look up, but spoke to Sodom as if he was in her mind, "So big shot, what's the plan?"
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Post by belmoon on Jan 10, 2008 0:55:01 GMT -5
The boy started on about a plan for crossing the desert, but trailed off somewhere between Taylor's shoulders and legs. The sudden impact of Mimzy's mad dash into him brought him back to earth. Aiden soon followed the canine.
"Egh... I've never done this sort of thing before, but I've got a couple ideas," said Sodom, lifting himself back up. "From what I've noticed, you seem to have a good grasp of your power, Taylor. We'll leave the job of blankets and things like that to you. Aiden will...um, she can... Well, I guess she could..."
He directed his attention back to the lounging girl, "so, uh, where does the rope and tube--umbrella come in?"
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Post by priestwarrior on Jan 11, 2008 16:16:07 GMT -5
Cristofori stumbled blearily into the station and over to the others. "Hey," he said. "What's for breakfast?" he asked, rubbing his eyes, the string of peppers still draped untidily around his shoulders.
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Post by Aaron Williams on Jan 14, 2008 10:31:00 GMT -5
Taylor eyed Sodom with a sneaking suspicion. "Almost any situation can be solved with a good rope, everyone knows that".
Once everyone had gathered Taylor stood and stretched, before addressing them all. "Now then. After taking a look at the map Sodom so wisely left as a tip", there was a brief pause for a glare, "I believe we have two options as to transportation. We could either rent a few of the locals pack creatures for transportation, or we could stow away on the night train and jump off before we reach the curve to Genoa. We'd still have to walk almost half of the way though". Lost in her thought process, Christoferi's question only now registered with Taylor, "I have supplies here, but you look like you have lunch on your shoulder there".
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