Jaco
Wanderer
Posts: 7
Race: Alien
Status: Open Roleplays
Soul: Major Second
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Post by Jaco on Mar 16, 2022 0:24:39 GMT -5
There was once a beautiful blue star that fell to war, and crumbled to ruin. The more its inhabitants clung to hope, the more they fell to despair; until they hated not the villains, but their own fallen heroes. The people scorned their protectors for not being strong enough, the anger intensifying with every lost comrade. The very last of them wished those heroes had never been born at all.
Gohan shook the memory from his head. Craters and ruins covered the surface of Kelioux, so it was difficult for him to not think of home while visiting the planet. Based on his research, this planet's natives were a lost race of beings, long-extinct. The world was entirely inhospitable for centuries. But now, there was life. Greenery covered some craters like mold on bread, and nature had begun its reclamation of land.
"How did this happen?" Gohan asked himself. He rubbed gravel between his fingers, as if the secrets of life would reveal themselves to him, if only he looked hard enough. The world's population was dense around the city, but so far out here, people were rare. That's why Gohan let out a gasp when he sensed somebody near him.
WC: 201
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Post by Cauli on Mar 16, 2022 2:42:25 GMT -5
A trim figure cut a path through this, one of the rural areas upon the planet Kelioux. Around her, green-ringed craters heralded a violent history that she knew very little about. Cauli was a researcher at the academy here to be sure – she had even managed to achieve the rank of Seneschal in the organisation. The title meant that there was an unprecedented amount of administrative work in addition to the requirements of her research. It could be overwhelming at times, which was why she often took walks out here. As she followed her meandering, aimless path, Cauli became aware of another being in her vicinity. A Saiyan by the look of him.
She stopped walking now, watching the Saiyan appear to be deep in thought. Maybe he was a part Saiyan then, like Joseph. In her experience, members her kind from this universe were dumb. And usually sex offenders. The boy muttered a question that sounded more introspective than it was directed at anyone specific. When he let out a gasp, Cauli realised that he had snapped out of his reverie and noticed her presence.
“What brings a Saiyan to Kelioux?” she asked, genuinely curious.
If he troubled himself to examine her more closely, he would perhaps see his own race reflected in her features at a cursory glance. She had the unkempt, raven-black hair of the Saiyans tied back in a loose ponytail to keep it out of her face and her facial features certainly resembled the simian race. Looking closer; however, he would see a crimson tinge to her hair that belied her use of otherworldly energy. Visible below and at the edges of the plunging neckline on her uniform were numerous runic tattoos that had the hard edges of cuneiform script hybridized with softer scripts that one might encounter on Avalon or Namek. Then there was her energy – the core was there and it might even feel Saiyan to one who had grown up with them. But there was an unmistakably demonic taint to it that had been further corrupted by the presence of these tattoos. However Saiyan she may have started, it was very obvious beneath the surface that she was one no longer.
350 words.
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Jaco
Wanderer
Posts: 7
Race: Alien
Status: Open Roleplays
Soul: Major Second
|
Post by Jaco on Mar 17, 2022 2:26:43 GMT -5
"A Saiyan?" Gohan looked equal parts confused and surprised. He wasn't used to that part of his race being identified, much less so easily.
"I'm trying to learn more about what happened to this world," he offered as an explanation. There was no reason to hide his goals from the woman... but that didn't mean he wasn't suspicious.
"What about you?" he shot back. Gohan couldn't feel this stranger's Ki. Was she an android? She didn't look like an RBC Unit. She didn't look too much like anything, he thought to himself. She had black hair like a Saiyan's, but with a scarlet hue. Arcane runes covered her body. If they were tribal tattoos, then did that make her indigenous to this planet?
"Are you lost?"
That question held double meaning. Gohan didn't want to give away his hand just yet, and asking an obvious question would show how little he knew about this universe. He would need to be guarded with his words as well as his stance.
WC: 166 + 201 = 367
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Post by Cauli on Mar 17, 2022 18:30:50 GMT -5
Was he not a Saiyan? The man’s confused expression infected her own, making her doubt her snap assessment of him. No, he had to be. Then again, she hadn’t noticed a tail. Was he something else like her, or a hybrid like Joe?
“You’re never going to answer a question like that, especially when your research methodology seems to involve crushing dirt and talking to yourself. A lot of things have happened to this world.”
He asked her what she was doing here. This boy was not a researcher, not concerned with provable specifics. He was searching for something that perhaps he hadn’t identified yet. Or she was completely off the mark, as she had been when she called him a Saiyan. Despite her faux pas, he was showing interest. He examined her form, no doubt trying to classify it. He would struggle, especially since her categorisation of him as a Saiyan would not doubt prime him to do the same to her. Would he see the otherworldly ki highlighting her raven-black hair? Would he recognise the script? She doubted it – decoding these hybrid runes of demonic, Lost, and other scripts would present a challenge to a career professor in ancient writing and this boy definitely wasn’t that.
“Is that with a capital L?” she asked sardonically. She paused for a few moments for effect before answering his question, “no, I’m not. In either sense of the word.”
Removing her wrist wrapping on her right hand, she pulled the sleeve up to reveal yet another tattoo. It showed three overlapping triangles being pierced through the centre by a blade whose length was impossible to determine. As one looked at the blade, they would not be able to see the beginning or the end – just the middle where it pieced the overlapping triangles.
“This is though. With a capital L.”
309/659
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Jaco
Wanderer
Posts: 7
Race: Alien
Status: Open Roleplays
Soul: Major Second
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Post by Jaco on Mar 17, 2022 19:25:16 GMT -5
Mystery surrounded this woman like flies on a corpse. The only thing that Gohan could say with certainty about her was that she knew more about this planet than he did. It wasn't exactly an accomplishment, considering his knowledge amounted to nothing. She wasn't lost, but her tattoo was Lost. His eyes lit with excitement, and he jumped near this strange woman.
"What do you know about them?" he asked earnestly. The pretense was cast aside, partly because she saw through it anyway.
"I need to find information on the Lost," he blurted out. "I at least know that Kelioux was their home-world, and that they all disappeared. I know that they had amazing technology. There's so many ruins around, but nothing inside them!" It was infuriating. Anything of value was likely scrapped or researched by the nearby academy, but he didn't need value. He just needed something. Why was there nothing out here?
"I am a Saiyan, but I'm not trying to start trouble. You are too, right?"
WC: 169 + 367 = 536
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Post by Cauli on Mar 18, 2022 18:40:13 GMT -5
Cauli was taken aback by the sudden imposition of this boy into her personal space. She leaned backwards reflexively, her arms beginning to move when he started talking. The threat that she had anticipated melted away and left only his question.
“Not a great deal,” she said, “I study interdimensional phenomenon, so sometimes the paths intersect.”
Frustration was evident in what the boy said next. His search had been long and fruitless, it would seem. But then again, he was still asking the wrong questions so what would he possibly expect to be different?
“Was it?” she interjected when the boy stated that Kelioux was their homeworld, “the Keliouxians also worship them as gods. Why would Gods live in the mortal realm? To people whose evolution is at differing points along a spectrum, sufficiently advanced technology would seem divine. Interesting though that the previously nomadic Keliouxians didn’t go for the far more obvious answer – the Lost were also nomads. They were here, as the evidence suggests, and then they weren’t. Perhaps they left because the planet was about to be obliterated.”
The boy described his frustration at the ruins being empty.
“Well of course they’re empty. Treasure- and knowledge-seekers have had hundreds of years to pillage their contents. The only ruins that we are finding relatively intact are those with deadly traps within, or those deep beneath the ground. Or both, actually. The Library is the best place to find information on the Lost, but most of the interesting stuff is restricted. Mortals are so weird about secrets.”
Cauli couldn’t help but laugh when the boy said he was a Saiyan but wasn’t trying to start trouble. Her brethren from Sadala had a similar reputation – as did she before everything change.
“I was at one point, I suppose. Now I’m something different.”
302/961
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Jaco
Wanderer
Posts: 7
Race: Alien
Status: Open Roleplays
Soul: Major Second
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Post by Jaco on Mar 24, 2022 23:33:51 GMT -5
It seemed anything related to the Lost would have already been scavenged. This strange woman mentioned that ruins might've existed beneath the surface, buried and untouched. Gohan thought about blasting the ground until he found something, but anything worth the search would be destroyed. "Let's go to the Academy," he suggested.
He wasn't sure if this lady would follow him. But, she had a curiosity too. It was stained by apathy, as if she already knew all the secrets yet yearned for more. Secrets that didn't exist. Knowing too much was the goal, and the curse, of any scholar. The curiosity still remained; it was difficult to tell from whether habit or hope.
"I know you said it's restricted," he continued. "But if I can explain the situation, I might be able to persuade them." And if that failed... well, he let that thought linger in the air, unsaid. It was best to avoid giving form to certain thoughts.
WC: 160 + 536 = 196
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