||EVENT||

[rowan_narrators]

Midday on Sunday, the group reaches the Tombstones, long rows of naturally rounded rocks emerging from the desert sand. The shaman announces that they're clear of the siren's curse, and for the first time, the caravan forges on ahead, not bothering with the twists and turns of their prior route

Comments

Exploring; feel free to join.

[mutestronaut]

Guy can't rest.

He slips out of the fort -- no one stops him, not the human guards at rest in the barracks, not the sentries patrolling the top of the city wall outside. He pauses, in the middle of the empty street, in silence.

The city is silent like him. He likes that.

And he wanders away, down one of the narrow alleyways, keeping a ready eye out for possible building collapses, rock falls. He doesn't want to get trapped.

[itworks_bitches]

Hood isn't exactly tired; far more energized by the strangeness of this city and the questions it raises. It doesn't look like Jhelbor, but it doesn't seem Elvish. And lacking further context, he's left wondering the same things he thought about the first city: who built it, and more importantly, where did they go, and why did they leave?. Especially with so much agricultural development so near. A human city, perhaps? The elves don't farm, and he suspects the demons wouldn't have nearly enough patience or foresight. Of course, the fields could have come later

[mutestronaut]

Guy glances up, and if there was a total utter opposite of 'startled', that's him. If it's possible, he's even calmer than the usual. Just sort of quiet, abstract, drifting through the abandoned city.

He nods, once, eyes flicking away from Hood, down the alleyway, dimly lit by the sorcerer rock that Cho made for him, in the palm of his hand. It's towards the center of the city; he figures anything important would be there.

He tilts a head towards his destination, an invitation for Hood to join him.

[itworks_bitches]

And Hood is suddenly sharply reminded of his exploration with Bret. An adventure that, in a very real sense, started a lot of this mess. How might things have turned out if they hadn't discovered Devorah that day?

What might this exploration set in motion? Not as much, likely, dead city and all; but you never know.

"All right," he says, though he doesn't need to, and falls into step beside the man.

[cordy_estwynde]

Despite all the bad things that had happened in the desert, despite the scorching sun and freezing nights and the sand that just got everywhere, despite the sadness that churned in her stomach like a gurgling potion every single time she thought of Jake or Bret, and in despite of the guilt she felt whenever she looked at Cherry and noticed that, again, her eyes were pink and puffy--Cordelia was humming

[cherry_reyer]

Cherry walked along the path beside the fortress, her eyes lowered, her fedora drawn down tight over her face. For someone with such a big, occasionally magnetic, personality, she was getting pretty good at avoiding people. Ellen, one of her childhood friends, had always been exceptionally talented when it came to avoiding people. Aside from a weight problem far more severe than Cherry's, Ellen had difficulties connecting with Humans. She claimed to be too far removed from humanity to be among them. For a good year, Cherry had dedicated time to watching the way Ellen deftly avoiding outsides. Never in her wildest dreams did Cherry imagine she'd been employing the same devices now. How the semi-mighty had fallen

[cordy_estwynde]

Cordelia watched Cherry as she slumped by the building. There was no mistaking her. Unfortunately, Cordy was all too familiar with those hunched shoulders these days. Yet, Cherry didn't so much as look up at the sound of the humming.

Wake up, Cordy silently willed her friend. You're not the only one who's had everything go wrong lately. You're not the only miserable one..

Words that couldn't exactly be spoken out loud. Cherry seemed to take it personally whenever anyone else pointed out their problems. Which was unlike her. She used to be much more sympathetic.

Cordy chose not to call out. If Cherry knew she was there and was still hoping to ignore her, that was her prerogative. But just in case, Cordy began humming a bit louder. It was a song she knew Cherry would recognize, the theme from the ballet they had seen in North Castle last spring.

[cherry_reyer]

Cherry glanced over at the humming. Half of her delighted in the song (no amount of bullying or patronizing would ever take away her love for music) and the other half was upset to have an audience for her sulk. She really wanted to do that in private. At least she could take comfort in the fact that it was Cordelia. These days, Cordelia held very little back. She never stabbed in the back anymore. It was always the front. Which wasn't quite as bad as it sounded, when one was thinking about stabbing.

"North Castle," she murmured absently. "The soprano was terrible, but I could have listened to the alto sing all night."

She snuffled, dragging the back of her hand across her upper lip. Everyone used to tease her for being a total soprano snob. She never liked any of them. It was probably because none could measure up to the soprano who used to sing at the old opera house. Now that had been music.

[cassie_of_troy]

Cassandra walked quietly through the city, her dark eyes flitting from side to side, curiously taking in each and every sight. On the whole, she found much to like in this place. While it lacked the symmetry of Jhelbor (Trojans and Greeks alike had always adored symmetry), it had character, as if each rock and stone and plant had a story. That was a ridiculous cliche, one Cassandra had once scorned, but now, looking at Loiol, she understood it was true.

It was only a matter of time before she reached an abandoned building, one she immediately knew was a temple. There was no possible explanation for this instinct, but then, there had been little explanation for any of the other abilities and wisdoms Cassandra had attained. She simply knew. She knew. That had always been the most important word shared between Cassandra and Apollo. That had not gone away

[creaoi_ang_cor]

Cris had been perched up on one of the lower rooftops, having flown himself up there by use of his air magery, waiting to watch the sun set. The solitude wasn't ideal, but the beauty of this place, when compared to the harsh heat and emptiness of the desert, was undeniable.

He'd been lying back, looking up into the shifting purple of the sky directly overhead, when he'd heard the sound of footsteps padding by on the street below. He snuck to the edge of the roof and looked.

Cassandra. He watched her go by and then, with a mischievous grin, leaped off the side of the roof and landed, softly and silently, on the ground.

He followed her into the temple, and was preparing to sneak up behind her and tap her shoulder when she suddenly turned around, startled by something, which startled Cris in turn. He jumped, letting out a small noise- well, his cover was blown.

"Good evening to you, too, then," he said.

[cassie_of_troy]

Cassandra's head turned quickly in Cris' direction. Well, that was properly embarrassing. She lowered her hands, folding them behind her back. Best to dismiss that nonsense in the only way she knew how. Additionally nonsense.

"A little lamb's walked into the wolf's den," she whispered in a girlish, sing-songy voice. It was the one thing that had always managed to annoy Helen the most. Why she was doing something that was known to be annoying was just another mystery that she would have to break apart in time.

Dropping the pretense, she walked over to Cris. "What do you think of the temple here?" she asked in her own voice.

[creaoi_ang_cor]

His smile didn't change at her sing-song act. Cassandra's strange sense of humor was nothing new to him.

He glanced around the decaying temple, and shrugged. "Nice enough, I suppose. It's still so odd to me... the idea of gods being something so separate from people." Odd, of course, didn't mean bad... "I just hope the gods can actually hear people from places like this."

[calculusdragon]

Temeraire could not of course sleep in the fort, and was forced to alight in a clear spot of the empty marketplace, with his tail sticking out down the street. There was a pile of rubble in front of him and he picked up one of the rocks curiously and let it fall. Then he did it again. And again.

He frowned in annoyance, as much as a dragon could frown, for reasons entirely mysterious to any passers by.

[cedricinshadows]

Robbie was exploring. Which was probably a good thing. He'd been kept captive again, and Cedric was smart enough to realize that what he needed now was to wander without anyone hovering. He knew he'd hover. He was worried, and he had no one to protect here. No one but Robbie.

Of course, not hovering took actual effort, and his head was killing him, so the most logical solution was for him to do his own wandering. That his own wandering brought him to a dragon was perhaps a blessing in disguise. Nothing quite as distracting as a giant talking dragon. Who seemed to be having issues with a pile of rocks. Huh. Why not? He'd bite. "Problem?"

[calculusdragon]

"No." He glared at the pile of rocks, wondering if his frustration would make sense to anyone else. Maybe no one else cared. He was going to vent it anyway.

"It's the gravity. If what Maxwell the Guardsman said was true, than Rowan is a small flat world and not a sphere. So I do not think the normal physical laws can hold here, only everything still falls down. So it must be magic gravity." He said the world "magic" as if he personally resented it.

[cedricinshadows]

Cedric walked over to the pile of rocks and climbed it to be slightly closer to eye level. If this didn't distract him from the pounding in his head, nothing would. "It's a little more complex. The physical falls down." He held out his hand and a small rock on the ground flew into it. "The ordinary, the mundane, is pulled in the direction of the land of the gods." To illustrate this, he threw the rock up, and it sailed briefly before falling to the ground again and kicking up a small cloud of dust

[horrible_phd]

Billy couldn't figure out where Penny had gone, but eventually he poked his head into her room. A head which now had a band of silk tied around the top. he looked like she might already be asleep, and he wondered if he should go find another room, only he wanted to be with her and wasn't used to sleeping alone anymore.

"Penny?" he called out softly.

[horrible_phd]

"Oh." He took her hand. It was feeling more natural to do that.

"I'm okay, I guess. Apparently weird uncontrollable good and bad luck are normal for a wizard before they develop actual powers. But as long as I'm all Rambo-style with the silk, that won't happen. Supposedly."