[Immortals' Tongue]Ice, Wind and... Immortals?

Three trials of frozen prayers

From Tried's Mouth to the mysterious Tower, the waters around Scalvoris and the island itself hold a vast array of secrets, just ripe for discovery. Here are landmarks, jungles, mountains, forests and islands of note.

Moderators: Pegasus Pug!!!, Avalon

User avatar
Ronan
Approved Character
Posts: 66
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:17 pm
Race: Frog Person
Profession: Elements Troop/Gladiator
Renown: 22
Character Sheet
Wealth Tier: Tier 1

Milestones

Miscellaneous

[Immortals' Tongue]Ice, Wind and... Immortals?

68th of Zi'da, Arc 717
Immortal's Tongue
Late Morning


When one asked for a way to get closer to the immortals, Scalvoris seemed to have only a singular answer, ready on every local's lips. Immortals' Tongue was an island off the coast of Scalvoris, not too far by boat from the town of Scalvoris. Between the fishermen and the ferry boats, there were plenty of ways to get there. When asked what to expect of said island, the local Scalvorians also had a singular answer. Snow, frost and wind. Not a vacation spot anyone would choose for themselves. It was as if everyone in Scalvoris had agreed on the answer to the question Ronan had been asking. While there were people who did it in their own words, in the end the meaning always came down to the same things. So he had prepared, he had taken on the wisdom of the locals and prepared for the worst.

The boat slowly pulled up to the little dock at the southern end of the island. The captain, also the sole member of the crew, hooked them to the wooden pillars standing there and pulled them in to the docks. He held the boat in place while Ronan climbed onto the pier. Neither of them had spoken much on the trip, the captain too busy keeping them from running aground on the many icy spikes and Ronan not in the mood for talking. His wounds had fully healed and he'd finally managed to finish one of his trials to get into the Elements. Due to circumstances he'd taken much longer than anticipated to get through the Flame trial. But now he was healed fully, hungry to find answers on this immortal forsaken island.

Faith's words had raised a lot of questions for him, back when she'd saved his life. He still wasn't sure why they had gone their separate ways like they had but he understood. She owed him nothing. He owed her quite a bit. That was how things were for now. The dock was uneven and didn't seem too sturdy so Ronan moved up towards the solid ground of the island, making sure he didn't fall into the icy waves before even stepping foot on the island. "I'll come by in two trials, same time. I can take you back if you're here." The captain shouted over the wind. Ronan stopped and turned, raising his hand and nodding, not feeling like shouting over the wind. The captain raised his hand in return and pushed himself off of the pier, back towards the ocean.

The locals hadn't lied. Immortals' Tongue was indeed nothing more than snow, frost and wind. He was glad he had invested what little money he'd earned in the final trials of last season into a set of warm clothing, mostly cotton with some choice woolen items in the mix. The woolen cloak he pulled around him protected him from some of the elements bashing this island but the cold was everywhere, just cutting through everything. Ronan shook himself and straightened up, keeping his cloak closed in the front with one hand. His new backpack was filled with rations, enough to feed him for two trials. He had no idea how long he would need, no idea how long he would be searching for answers on this forsaken piece of ice. One of the locals had mentioned that there were caretakers here who could help him further, with more specific instructions, so he went in search of one of them.

Wind and snow constantly bashed into him, pushing him to the side if he didn't have a solid base. When he turned his head just right, the wind helped to keep the hood of his cloak up but otherwise it was constantly being sideways or off and more than once he had to reach out of the somewhat warm confines of his cloak to get his hood back up. It took much longer for him to find who he was looking for, to find anyone at all even. So far he'd only seen paths and snow, not a single shrine in sight yet. "Good morning to you." He shouted over the wind at a woman who just appeared around the bend. She didn't seem too bothered by the cold and the wind, walking down towards Ronan from one of the many intersecting paths that seemed to be all over this island. "And to you."

She didn't say anything else after that. There was a pause for a moment as Ronan waited for the woman to offer up anything else. Maybe welcome him to this slab of icy... ice or ask him how how he was doing. Nothing. "Do you work here?" He figured she did, she wasn't dressed like someone who had just arrived here to come pray. She did look like she was in charge, though, something that Ronan found weird to notice. "I do. Do you need help?" Now they were getting somewhere. "Yes. Which is your biggest shrine... or temple or whatever and how do I get there?" She looked him over for a moment and then turned to point back up the way she came. "Just follow this path, you can't miss it." Ronan nodded and pulled his hood forward once more before setting forth on the path she'd pointed him on. There was no response from the woman, who promptly got back to work, whatever that was.
► Show Spoiler
Last edited by Ronan on Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:17 am, edited 1 time in total. word count: 991
User avatar
Ronan
Approved Character
Posts: 66
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:17 pm
Race: Frog Person
Profession: Elements Troop/Gladiator
Renown: 22
Character Sheet
Wealth Tier: Tier 1

Milestones

Miscellaneous

[Immortals' Tongue]Ice, Wind and... Immortals?

The walk didn't take as long as Ronan had expected. He hadn't really seen anything that could be considered temples or shrines since his landing here but the path he followed was snaking along the island, following the natural flow more than any sort of plan that might indicate actual civilization. Immortal's Tongue wasn't a place people went to settle. It took perhaps half a break for Ronan to find any sort of sign in regards to a building of some description. It was true that he couldn't miss it, the building stood well above any of the surrounding nature.

When he entered it, he felt blessed right away. The building provided cover from the snow and wind. It was actually quiet inside. Ronan looked around, seeing only one other person inside. The shrine, or temple, wasn't much compared to some of the ones he'd seen on his travels but probably around a dozen people could sit inside without getting into each other's personal space. The other person in here seemed to be some sort of caretaker, dressed in what Ronan expected from religious people. They were just swiping the floor, seemingly unaware of Ronan's presence. He didn't want to go showing off his curse to every person he came across, especially not when they might be working for the very immortal he was looking for. So Ronan left the sweeper to do his job and just started looking around the place.

There was a Ronan sized statue of Treid at the other end of the building, furthest away from the door, with various other depictions of him and whatever icons people thought represented him. Ronan walked over to the right and inspected one of the murals there, trying to find anything he might recognize from his own body. There were some painted murals with text underneath them, telling some sort of story, while others had no information on them besides what was depicted. Ronan slowly walked along the walls, looking at everything he could see here. Nothing seemed to resemble the curse on his body. The text was written mostly in common but on the various depictions there were other symbols and languages but none of them matched anything Ronan read from his own body. Not that he expected the first temple he walked in on to be the one he needed. "Are you looking for something?"

The voice pulled Ronan from his thoughts and he turned to come face to face with the sweeper, an older man, nodding lightly at him. "Ah...no, thanks. Just looking." He nodded again and turned away, going back to his sweeping. This wasn't the temple he was looking for, nothing seemed familiar, not even the various depictions of Treid's face. If Faith was right and whichever immortal had cursed him would have done so in person, which Ronan figured to mean that they had met before and he was pretty good with faces. But nothing here seemed to do anything for him. Pulling the hood back over his head and the cloak tighter around him, Ronan stepped back out into the cold and wind of Immortal's Tongue. On to the next one then.
word count: 544
User avatar
Ronan
Approved Character
Posts: 66
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:17 pm
Race: Frog Person
Profession: Elements Troop/Gladiator
Renown: 22
Character Sheet
Wealth Tier: Tier 1

Milestones

Miscellaneous

[Immortals' Tongue]Ice, Wind and... Immortals?

The sun was setting. Or at least Ronan assumed it was. It had been a long trial and the light that had been coming from behind the snow clouds covering the island were slowly getting darker, to the point where he could barely see a few steps ahead of him. He'd been walking for who knew how long now. He'd eaten at one of the other shrines he had found today, enjoying a respite out of the cold, sharp winds of Immortals' Tongue. Besides Treid's place, none of the other shrines had been so large or well taken care off.

Without a map, Ronan had no idea where exactly he was on the island. He knew that the boat arrived somewhere at the end of the path behind him and that he was heading further away from it with each step. The snow had stopped falling sometime in the afternoon but had left a foot deep of snow covering most of the island. Ronan felt the effects of the constant trudging through the snow even with his physique. His breathing was heavy, labored, as he mindlessly lifted one foot up out of the snow and sunk it into the snow a step ahead, sinking a little deeper as he pulled his other foot out. One step at a time, again and again. Besides Treid's place and the shrine he'd eaten at, Ronan had only found small altars or statues that were used as temples for the other immortals.

He barely remembered who they were for but he clearly remembered that none of them looked like any immortal he'd ever seen and none of them had had any sort of imagery, words or symbols he recognized either. All useless pieces of stone where people came to talk to the snow and the wind around them. Apart from the woman at the pier and the care taker at Treid's place, Ronan had yet to meet another person on this immortal forsaken island. That didn't stop him from continuing on, however. As the light from the sun faded a little more, Ronan pulled his cloak around him a little tighter, trying to keep the cold at bay a little longer.

Annoyed by nature, tired and at the end of his stamina, Ronan stopped cold in his tracks. He took a deep breath and looked around. A few trees further along the path promised some shelter for the night. He trudged along, walking towards them. Everything felt cold, his nose and lips, from what he could see from them, seemed bluer than usual. As he got to the trees, Ronan found very little in the way of shelter. The trees were as dead as the rest of this island, nothing more than wood sticking out from the snow. Only a few roots were big and large enough to serve as a seat of some kind and Ronan sat himself down on one of them, dropping with a big sigh onto the wood. He put his pack next to him and rummaged through it, pulling some food out.

He chewed absentmindedly on the piece of bread. It took him quite a while before he realized that it wasn't as cold here as it was before. Looking up, Ronan found a large tree blocking most of the wind just to the side of him. Perhaps some sort of shelter might work after all. He looked over the tree while chewing on his food. Two of its roots were sticking out, much like the one he was sitting on right now, creating some sort of space in between them, a sort of space that Ronan might be able to hunker down in for the night. The only problem was that it was completely covered in snow, like everything else on this island.

The idea was simple, the very basic of survival, most likely. Once his food was done, Ronan set himself to work, using his large hands to shovel away as much of the snow as he could from in between the roots and stacking it up on each side against the tree, on the other side of the roots, creating a bit more of a wall around him. About half a break later, Ronan looked over his work and found it satisfying. Actual survivalists would look would disdain upon Ronan's "shelter" but it was enough for a city slicker like Ronan. Two snow walls, supported by a solid root each, stood about shoulder height when Ronan sat in between the roots, keeping some of the wind at bay.

Ronan knocked the snow from his hood and cloak, making sure they were as snow free as possible before sitting down between the roots and pulling the hood and cloak tightly around him. He sat his backpack in his lap and huddled down, pulling his arms close around him and trying to cover as much of his body with the cloak. His feet were fine with the socks and the boots but his lower legs were a bit of a problem. Ronan didn't worry too much about them for long as tiredness overtook him once he'd properly settled in. A fire would have been nice if there had been even a single piece of wood to use for it. Looking for it under the snow or lighting a fire with wet or snow covered wood weren't part of Ronan's skill set.

When he woke up the next morning, Ronan felt chilled to the core. While the snow wall he had combined with the tree to provide him some protection from the elements had done its work in keeping the wind from freezing him fully, the tree itself didn't provide any sort of warmth and during the night, the cold had seeped through his cloak and clothes. Once he had managed to get up from the roots, Ronan took some of his rations to eat while walking slowly around, just in circles, to warm himself up more. He still had a lot of ground to cover, a lot of shrines to find and investigate. He hoped that he wouldn't have to, that the next one would be the one, but he was realistic enough to know how this would go.

Having grown up in cold, damp places, little more than cells, Ronan was quite used to waking to the cold and having to warm himself up for the day. While that was from arcs ago, his current physique helped to withstand most of the elements simply through sheer mass. When the cold got into his skin, the layers of muscle underneath managed to diffuse most of the cold before it got to inner parts of him. Once he felt warmed up enough, Ronan got everything together and slowly started back up, trying to remember from where he'd come and where he was going the night before.
word count: 1164
User avatar
Muse
Prophet of Old
Posts: 323
Joined: Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:36 pm
Race: Naerikk
Renown: 0
Plot Notes
Templates
Wealth Tier: Tier 1

Contribution

[Immortals' Tongue]Ice, Wind and... Immortals?

Your review is ready!
Ah, the Immortal's Tongue. It's kind of a crazy place. Good job surviving. While the island isn't entirely made of ice and snow—in fact, the weather and the environment changes quite often—thank goodness you didn't get attacked by any crazy moss monsters! Next time, bring a friend!

Ronan

Points

XP:
10 | These points cannot be used for magic.

Fame:
N/A

Loot

Thanks for keeping your ledger.

Injuries + Overstepping

N/A

Knowledge

Skill Knowledge:
Endurance: Withstanding the cold
Endurance: Trekking through deep snow
Endurance: A full trial of hiking
Fieldcraft: Using snow and trees to block the wind
Fieldcraft: Strong roots to stay above the snow

Other Knowledge:
Location: Immortals' Tongue
Location: Immortals' Tongue: Shrine of Treid
Immortals' Tongue: made from Ice and snow
Immortals' Tongue: An island full of immortal shrines
Immortals' Tongue: Immortal forsaken island
Immortals' Tongue: Caretakers live here?
If you've got a question or concern or if I've missed anything, don't hesitate to PM me!

Now that your review is complete,
don’t forget go back to your review post here and drop this image in!

Image

Code: Select all

[center][img]/gallery/image.php?album_id=39&image_id=12206[/img][/center]
word count: 209
Post Reply Request an XP Review Claim Wealth Thread

Return to “Surrounding Waters & Landmarks”