Author: Grakana, Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 12:26 AM, Post Subject: A Distant Echo [O]

"PUBLIC SPACE?! What PUBLIC is there aside from Tin-Tin and Lady? Besides, what makes you think Grakana even HAS so much diskies?! Grakana probably only has –" He was swiftly interrupted by the golem's axe falling swiftly downwards upon the goblin, missing him just barely: More than likely a final warning warning to compromise over. However, what it probably didn't anticipate would have been some sudden extra weight on the axe as it was picked back up, where the goblin was clinging to the side of the metal.

"WHAT IS THIS!" Grakana suddenly shouted. "Oh, you poor thing. Why must you be so dull-dull? Your luster is all but lost… BUT DO NOT FEAR FOR GRAKANA IS HERE TO HELP!" Pulling out his beak-forged mallet, he quickly pointed it at the golem before spouting, "You should take better care of your chop-chops! A dull chop-chop does not chop as well as a sharp chop-chop! However, Grakana is willing to help!" Despite the fact that the golem tried to murder him.

Releasing the hammer, Grakana fell down to the dusty floor, though looking like said landing made him lose most of his body, as now it was merely a helmet and feet? Before much could be done,  though, spikes came out from the helmet, impaling into the earth, anchoring down the helmeted goblin before the whetstone wheel began to whirl into action, spinning quickly with Grakana shouting, "BE SURE TO KEEP GOOD GRIP!"

Author: coloneldegrant, Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2019 9:13 PM, Post Subject: A Distant Echo [O]

The Golem looked upon Shiroh untill she gave it an satisfactionary answer which she did with rather terse

"No, I do not require assistance"

And while it was an satisfactionary answer, the tone of made one of it's enchantements to activate which made him try to instruct her with what tone one should reffer to an Enforcer of the Law but before it could do that something came up. Said something was small, so small in fact that the construct barely registered that it was there at first but that was instantly changed with simple fact that it decided to be very, very loud. Which made it all the easier for Golem to hear that it…….that it was threatening the Citizen with violence.

Citizen tried to deflect the threat with assurence that she wasn't responsible for "Effects' that supposedly permeated the area they were currently in. If this was true or not wasn't an concern for the Golem, as it was something to be discovered through a proper investigations. What was it's concern was the threat of violence to which it must respond appropriately, according it it's programing.

So it took one heavy step so it would find itself in front of the Citizen and faced the creature
- Statement/Order, STOP CREATURE! You have just threatend an Citizen with violence and accused her spread of an dangerous phenomena, thusly defaming her within a public space. Pay up a fine of 2000 Silver Coins, 1000 of which will go the the Citizen as compensation, or face imminent detention and ot possible eradication if resisted. - Golem stated coldly and became silent for a short momment before following up, upon it's sentence - Question, will you comply with those demands creature or will you face the the forceful detainment.

Author: Shiloh Kyrie, Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2019 8:42 PM, Post Subject: A Distant Echo [O]

The 'peace and quiet' was broken at last by the sound of an inorganic voice, making her flinch visibly. She stared back at a towering pile of metal, which glowered over her with red lights for its eyes and heavily armored. Her first instinct was to bolt and put as much space between her and this thing as possible, but she noticed this moving machine didn't match the style of the ruins. It was much more utilitarian, almost crudely so–like whoever made it wanted to cram as many implements of murder as functionally possible into a single package. Why and how something like this would end up here was beyond her, but she wasn't planning on making any sudden movements. The programming of the metal golem was as standard as they got, so unless she provided a satisfactory response it wasn't going to go away. 

"…No, I do not require assistance." Shiloh tersely replied. She maintained eye contact while mentally preparing to teleport to a point safely out of the golem's immediate reach if things went south. That unspoken tension was blown away by a new voice loudly challenging something or someone to a fight. The new addition to the group was small in statue but clearly ready to duke it out with the invisible forces of the ruins. When it came within her line of sight she got a better look at its head—which was both ludicrous and somewhat painful to see. It was a bloody whetstone on a helmet for heavens' sake! And then it pointed to call her out, demanding that Shiloh explain if she was the cause of the abnormal phenomena that affected outsiders within Kanuri's boundaries. 

She took offense to that remark, but frankly didn't want to raise her voice out of fear she would trigger the metal golem into using violence. If she had to choose between the two, she'd take her chances with the whetstone-helmet on legs than the towering murder-machine. "No, absolutely not." The deity said keeping her tone of voice and facial expression as neutral as possible. "I felt the exact same effects after an hour in the ruins, it's impossible that I'd be the one causing it." Come to think of it, if this place was haunted how temperamental would these spirits be? They didn't hesitate to prevent a person from delving deeper until she verbally announced she had no malicious intent. If these were the poltergeist variety, then unnatural paralysis and migraines were the least of her problems. There was plenty of loose rubble that could become deadly weapons in the hands of the ethereal. Ironically she was in more danger now than when she was by herself.

Author: Grakana, Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2019 2:24 PM, Post Subject: A Distant Echo [O]

"HEEEEEY!" was hollered out from such a tiny body out of the blue, "IF YA WANNA FIGHT GRAKANA, THEN FACE GRAKANA! STOP WITH THE SLUGGY-SLUG AND COME OUT ALREADY!" The masked shaman was out and about again, this time a new mask in tow. For the most part, it certainly looked like an iron helmet, but a closer look showed that it had a whetstone wheel BUILT INTO IT and SLOWLY SPINNING as the goblin moved. "IF YOU WISH TO TASTE TRUE STEEL, THEN COME ON OUT AND FACE GRAKANA!!!'

As the goblin wandered, it ran into two figures standing in the middle of the strange, empty city and immediately gave charge. "YOU!" he called out before giving a pause. This woman… was she familiar? Way she stood, held herself… felt very same-same as time in water pocket! MAY IT IS… No, wait.. she not wear mask. After all, one of the largest taboos with the Way of the Mask was that one would never show their face so easily as it would mean they were not channeling anyone from said mask.

"YES YOU! Are you one causing Sluggy-slug? If so then be ready to MEET THE TRUE STEEL OF GRAKANA!!!"

Author: coloneldegrant, Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 4:26 PM, Post Subject: A Distant Echo [O]

As Shiloh was dealing with the problems relating to the appearent haunted nature of the ruins of this once magnificent civilization, an another traveler was dealing with slightly more mundane problems.

Said traveler was an 3 meter tall Golem in an shape of a great suit of armor, armed with numerous weapons for offence and one gigantic (To a normal person not to the automaton) Tower Shield wrought entirely from metal. An walking Arsenal made for war…….an walking Arsenal that was having terrible difficulties traversing this place. Resons for that were quite numerous: many of the structures were too structurally unsound to support his weight so it needed to find some workarounds, he was also quite unfamilair with an layout of the place compunded by an strange inability of it's memory enchantments to properly recall the locations where the unit was in and how said locations looked like, the other problem was an strange reading The Unit was detecting. The Ambient Magic in the are was quite powerful, overwhelming and……..completely alien to the Golem….and lastly was…….the Automaton's had no idea how it got here. It's memory enchantments seemed have a huge gap in between it's last deactivation and it activating here……in completely different place. And it was realy different, the architecture, the layout the magic….everything was utterly foreign to the Golem with nothing within it's memory enchantments being anything close to  corresponding to this place's appearance.

The Automaton wandered the empty and decrepit streets for hours without end, it's crystaline mind seemingly in a loop. That was untill it spotted a person, namely Shiloh although the Golem didn't know that. Instead it's response programming had kicked in and it broke out of it's strange stupor and went to check up on a stranger with an single minded determination only possible for a being like itself. It's steps were heavy but steady and in no time at all the small mountain of steel and weapons found itself standing above Shiloh.

Then it spoke
- Question - it begun in an deep, loud metalic sounding voice devoid of all emotion - Citizen, do you require assistance to be provided by this Unit.

Author: Shiloh Kyrie, Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2019 11:06 PM, Post Subject: A Distant Echo [O]

It was a desolate place. The only living things here were the trees. There were no insects, no birds, no animals. Maybe it was because of the altitude, out of many possible reasons for the deafening quiet in these ruins. She had come here on her sweep of the continent in an attempt to map out the entirety of Onnen. It was an ambitious goal, but if completed it would be an invaluable navigational aid for airships. Shiloh still had to work out how to display depth perception in three dimensions, but regardless she had to have the raw scans of the areas first. She had come up on the Clepsydra and told her crew members she would be staying up here for a few days to draw out Kanuri's layout. That was a few hours ago when the sun was just rising. Initially when she started walking she felt fine. The silence was unnerving at first, but she got used to it. Shiloh quickly learned that the ground wasn't as solid in some places and took the paths that less likely to fall apart under her feet. It was a miracle they were still floating after all these centuries. The flow of the water was clearly engineered as it was channeled through working fountains and aqueducts built into the masonry. Seeing water fall down with its source nowhere in sight was just another of this forgotten city's unusual phenomena. 

But as she went on, it became harder and harder to breathe. The atmosphere grew heavier and intense headaches had her in constant pain. This place still reeked of magic, even if it had partially degraded over the ages. The ancient magical energy was unbearably thick to where every few steps she wanted to vomit. She had to stop and rest after a few paces, and the number of structurally sound patches of footing was decreasing. The deeper she ventured the worse her symptoms progressed until she felt unseen presences bore their gazes into the back of her head and the prickling sensation of pins and needles break out all over her skin. The absence of living sound became so suffocating that it was slowly crushing her from the inside out. She was so exhausted. 

You mustn't sleep. You mustn't close your eyes. The whispering shadows within reminded her through the pulsing pain. There was a feeling that if she gave in, something terrible would happen and that she should heed the warning at all costs. Forcing herself to get up the rogue pushed on, dragging her body to the next safe point. The more she walked the more it felt like her legs were treading through mud as each step faced a tangible resistance. Her legs were unable to move forward, and she had no other choice but to stop or turn back. Lowering into a crouch she tried to stabilize her breathing. Even the slowest, deepest breaths felt shallow and the feeling of eyes watching everywhere had intensified. "I'm not here to take anything." Shiloh said to no one in particular. Suddenly the oppressive air lifted and something retreated. The silence was bearable and her headache improved, the feeling of pins and needles all over faded away. Her eyelids were no longer ready to close and the heaviness in her arms and legs disappeared. So it wasn't just her imagination after all… Kanuri really was haunted, even in the daylight hours.