action | open, choose your own adventure

[multiclasser]

a. the garden

Tamhas hates this place, if he's honest. He tries not to - making the best of bad situations and all that - but it feels wrong. The Dark Tower is so like Yggdrasil that sometimes, in the corner of his eye - because the Tower is always in the corner of your eye, he's found - he forgets it isn't the tree, thinks for a heartbeat that maybe he can find a way back. Not quite home, but the closest he has. But then he looks and it's a damn Tower, dark where the tree was all radiant, glorious light. And the fractured plate above is stifling. The sun, Tamhas' guiding beacon, feels so very far away even on bright days. A little like Svartalfheimr, but he supposes there is something to appreciate about this place in that.

It could be worse. It could be Svartalfheimr.

And it's not all bad, he supposes. The garden is nice, even if near all the plants are strange. He's always liked work like this, anyway. Steady, menial. It's comforting, soothing, quelling the itch in his hands. Sian would be delighted at all the strange new growing things to look at, even if there's wrongness here she'd hate, a thought which always makes him miss his sister keenly - Tamhas doesn't know a lot about all the various types there are here, and he's a farmer, not a herbalist, but it's enough. He tries to make it enough, anyway.

So, when he's not fighting monsters somewhere, he frequently comes here. Waters, plants, prunes, harvests - anything that's needing done, anything folk might need a hand with. And he takes solace in it, finds some measure of peace here, which is why he looks fleeting surprised when he almost walks into someone. He's usually more alert than that.

"Ah, sorry -" a fleeting smile, turning slightly wry as he inclines his head in greeting. "- you'd think a man would have learned to pay better attention by now, wouldn't you?" There's a cluster of blue banora white apples in his arms; after a moment, eyebrows raising, he holds one out in offering.

b. a street

A lot is strange and different and weird here, but some things are just as Tamhas remembers. Fighting is one of them. Most things here take to his sword as well as most things did back there, which Tamhas is remarkably grateful for. It's always good to do something. So, when he tumbles down from the plate to a street and finds he has company, he's not terribly perturbed.

He doesn't know what he's fighting. They're like the skeletal, feathered kin of Valravn, but different - of course they bloody are - but they come at him shrieking with claws like sickles and Tamhas responds in kind, falling easily into a dance he knows well. It's strange, fighting alone, not feeling the strength of his friends round about him, not having to dodge the spells Morven slings or consider tossing opponents back for Kenna or making openings for Halldis - but then Tamhas realises he's not fighting alone.

Friend or foe? He can't spare the time to figure that out, fending off blows and delivering his own as furiously as he is, but he resolves to hope for the former and deal with the latter after if necessary. He can't even tell if it's someone in the fight, or someone trying to escape it. Either way, he moves solidly between this new party and the creatures, light flashing along the length of his blade as he brings it down, cutting down one and scattering the rest, just for long enough that he can swiftly glance over at the new arrival. In battle, his face is stern, lips curled in a snarl, though that fades in a moment of genuine concern as speaks.

"You alright?"

And then he's turning back to face the next line of attacks, sweeping out in an arc with his sword to meet them.

c. the forest

Sometimes, it's easier to be a bear than a man. That's proven generally true in the woods around World's End. His senses are better for it, for a start, and the prevailing cold doesn't touch him, and there are things that would attack a man on sight that don't so much as look up at a passing bear.

(Sometimes, Tamhas attacks instead. Not today.)

And he's better at hunting as a bear than he is as a man, which he might consider a point of embarrassment, but he reasons that there are things he can do better than a bear. Hopefully. At the moment, he's up to the forelegs in river water, catching fish. But watchful eyes may notice that this bear, huge and golden furred, is perusing his catch with great, and perhaps unusual, scrutiny. Just as Tamhas is not a botanist, he's not a fishmonger, either, and the fish are as weird here as the plants, so every time he catches one it takes careful deliberation to decide if it's worth eating - or taking to someone who better enjoys and knows cooking - or if it might even be dangerous. So many things are dangerous, here.

The range he's caught today are definitely fish. He can tell that much, though there's one that's borderline, as far as he's concerned. Dubiously, he noses them further along the bank, and turns back to the water.

Comments

b - street

[holyspam]

Soft had been out gathering herbs. Though she had spotted some she recognized from home, it was something from out of her world she had spied. One of the few good things about visiting the First had been seeing otherworldly plantlife. Though she and Dornni had hit the road as an adventuring duo, scouring intel for the Scions and her guiding star, she had been able to collect samples there. It had been pleasant - almost like a memory of her time before she had heard Hydaelyn's call.

There had been fighting, too, of course - sometimes, there had been fighting as they crossed the lands. In that way, this was much the same: one moment she was walking with her basket of whispering herbs, and the next she was beset by skeletal, betaloned birds of monstrous size. She had dropped her basket and whisked Blade's Mercy from its sling. The crystalline butterflies had flitted about the equally glimmering petals, suffused with the Light Aether than the First had filled her with.

Soft raised a hand and cast dia on the first one she saw. The threads of light aether wound around it to hurt it over and over. Not a moment after she lowered her hand, she had spun around, floating slightly from the ground, and began to channel Holy.

It was then that she saw she wasn't the only fighter. In the heat of the attack, she had missed the large man with his golden pelt. He swung a weapon near as big as one of Dornni's axes, and he commanded the field in a way that was instantly recognizable to her, even if his form was different.

Soft let the spell complete. The large orb of Light aether rose into the air. As it did so, she extended her hand again, wrapping the newcomer in threads of aether as well - though this time, it was to heal over time, rather than to hurt.

"Managing!" she called in response. Holy detonated, and the birds around them were stunned in the after effects of the spell. She nodded to him. "Keep fighting! I'll patch your wounds."