[PT-SP-01] Something from Nothing <<EAL: Forager>>

[Enigmata 0]

The old woman muttered to herself as she sifted quietly through the thinning underbrush of the upper foothills nearest the Monument of Grath.  One of the pesky plague of Spectral Knights had spawned near here, players and mobs alike trampling her untended crops with brazen disregard during her forced absence.  The gleaming glass monstrosities had vanished as suddenly as they'd appeared, trounced back into oblivion by raucous mobs of angry players.  Digital figments fought each other once against 'til broken fragments filled the sky with shimmering clouds of lost dreams.  When the last of the mirror titans spawned, tearing between floors with blatant disregard for Cardinal's many rules, something else came through.  Drawn to the distant portal by blind instincts, the Knight ambled off to get itself slaughtered with the rest of its kin.  The formless blob of shadow in its wake went a different way.

Giovanna turned, her weathered features confused and surprised by the sound of snapping leaves.  Maybe some wayward boar had wandered off its beaten trail?  The bloody things were everywhere on this floor.  

"Eh?  Nothing there.  Hrmph.  Too much wax in me ears."  

Turning to resume her floral search, she found a branch inconveniently placed where it hadn't been moments before.

"Careful there."

A disembodied voice calling out a quiet warning with deliberate delay, the old woman stumbling and sprawling out in flailed failure to catch herself.

***

Objective complete: Talking to Giovanna.

Enigmata | HP: 20/20 | EN: 20/20 | DMG: 1 | LD 20 | CD: 5

Spoiler

Name: Enigmata, Fates' Elegy
True Tier: 1
Level: 1
Paragon Level: 0
HP: 20/20
EN: 20/20

Stats:
Damage: 1
LD: 20
CD: 5

Equipped Gear:
  - None

Skills:
  - Keen Sight x10 (Specialty, 50 SP)
  - Discern x5 (Specialty, 50 SP)

Battle Ready Inventory:

Starter Healing Potion x3

 

Edited 8 hours ago by Enigmata

[Enigmata 0]

By the time Giovanna crawled back up onto her knees, muddied and bruised, she cursed at seeing the contents of her gathering apron strewn all over the hillside slope.  Head bumped, a future goose-egg laid upon her brow by illness of fortune and the spawn of casual misadventure.

"Where did that...?"  Expecting to find a gnarled tree root or subtly hidden stump, her wrinkled face could only scrunch inward as she glanced upon a heft broken branch perfectly placed to precipitate her fall.  Recovering her daily catch, cursing unbefitting a woman of her advanced age caused the foliage to recoil in a rippling absence of gusts.  Beneath them, their shadows tilted, pulled by something and tugging along their casters for the ride.

Slender darkness, coalescing from whatever thing had followed the Knight to this place into a form with slim, spider-like fingers, reached down to find the old woman's surreptitiously lost bauble.  The barest hint of its first leering smile forming upon freshly forged crimson lips.

***

Objective complete: Receiving Giovanna's <<Cursed Compass>>

Edited 8 hours ago by Enigmata

[Enigmata 0]

Moving with twilight's grace towards higher ground, its form filled in further.  Tenebrous wisps wrought themselves into long, sinuous limbs sustaining its gliding gait as it gained momentum with every step.  Gravity's pull still little hold on its lacking proto-essence, firming into something still trying to define itself.  Silkily sliding up the monumental face of a god long dead, one might have mistaken its fluid movement for a tear unshed, left clinging to its left eye's edge, propped like a gummy arachnid between the statue's weathered features.

Flipping open the base of the compass, away from its deceptive facade, it held it high, aligned to catch the last of a dying day's rays and honing the beam with specificity.  Dead in the eye.  Victory.  A first and welcome feeling, craving born with motivation and desires in the span of night's dawning.  Laughter followed, its first prize so easily obtained, the first stage of plans within plans already achieved.  Raising its hands as if to grasp the horizon the twist the skeins of fate to bind its bidding, the fleeting form paused long enough to see it cast no shadow of itself.

One step at a time...

***

Post Action: Foraging | ID: 248188 | LD 5+20=25, CD 7+5=12 | Demonic Shard found!

Objective complete: Using the compass to locate and acquire a Demonic Shard.

Edited 8 hours ago by Enigmata

[Enigmata 0]

Forced to find the last of her spilled goods by lantern light, the weary elder forager wiped the sweat from her overworn brow, wondering how long everything would hurt.  She also still had to get home.  Ambling quietly through the gathering darkness as the forest's evening noises came to life, she knew the way well enough by now to travel it with her eyes closed.  Still slightly dazed from her earlier fall, the woman paused and leaned against a friendly boulder, the first full hints of yellow-purple bruising finding their place on her forehead.  Vision blurring, she knew it best and wisest to get back to the village as soon as possible. Though far from the worst Aincrad had to offer, even these backyard woods were no place to be alone beyond dusk.

Something tapped her on the shoulder, nearly scaring her out of her skirt and compelling her to jump faster and higher than any woman her age every should.

"What the...?  Whoozere?!  Oww!"  Her head throbbed, aching pain pulling her attention away from 

In her basket, a slowly spiraling compass needle returned.  It had lost whatever purchase it once held, stolen, drained by a thing gathering both purpose and direction unto itself.

***

Objective complete: Bringing it back to Giovanna, and return the compass

***

Thread Closing:

Enigmata receives:

459 EXP (Word Count [797/5*1] + Quest [300])
Forager Profession
1 Demonic Shard
1 Mon
 

Edited 8 hours ago by Enigmata