Re: Inching through Illsbruic - 119 4A

by **Kara Winters** Wed May 13, 2015 11:02 pm

As Miyuki's Pokemon gathered around her, she looked to Eron who seemed to be frowning.

He was a bit bothered by the earthquake, but not for the same reasons as most people would be. Earthquakes happened, and they weren't in a town or city, so it wasn't like it would hurt them. It bothered him because it distracted him, he wanted to find the source, and that wasn't what he was looking for at the moment.

Forcing himself to focus on his first question, he finally answered,

"There's a lot of foreign objects in the earth," he finally replied, "I think... we are in the town we're supposed to be in..."

by **Nara-pyon** Wed May 13, 2015 11:06 pm

Kyrie looked sharply at Eron, and then, ignoring the trembling earth, she took off into the trees at a full run.

"Hey, wait!" Kaito shouted after her, holding up one arm as if trying to grab her and drag her back.

"Stay there!" Kyrie ordered them over her shoulder as she kept running.

"Yeah, right," Kaito snorted. He spread his wings and took to the air to follow after her.

Barely a moment later, the trembling intensified.

by **Kara Winters** Wed May 13, 2015 11:11 pm

Now this was bothering him, it shouldn't be intensifying. Kneeling on the ground, Eron placed his hands on the ground. Any grade school student (who paid attention) would tell you earthquakes came in waves. Like a ripple in a pond, it shouldn't be intensifying like this.

Not unless there was a volcano... no... this wasn't giving him a headache like volcanoes tended to do. Though he couldn't help but note there was one, he just wasn't sure where it was.

"If someone else is making the earth tremble... could I make it stop?" Eron asked without looking up, but it was clear it was directed at the other magic users.

Miyuki looked to Lanceriael, earth magic wasn't quite her thing.

by **Nara-pyon** Wed May 13, 2015 11:18 pm

Lancaeriel looked at Cael worriedly. "I have no idea," she admitted.

Cael shook his head. "I don't know either," he murmured. "Honestly, the best thing we could do is find who it is who's causing it." He looked at Eron. "You think it's not a natural tremor, then?"

The round beneath them gave a sudden violent jolt, knocking half the group to their feet.

by **Kara Winters** Wed May 13, 2015 11:21 pm

Fortunately Eron was already kneeling when that happened, so he wasn't knocked to the ground. Unlike Miyuki who was dusting herself off.

"No," Eron frowned, that last one just confirmed it, "Earthquakes are shockwaves from a starting point, it shouldn't be getting more violent, certainly not this quickly. Even with a volcano, there is one... but it's..."

The daemon frowned more before pointing at the lake.

"Over there."

"If you're feeling the shockwave," Miyuki replied, "Can you tell where the starting point is?"

Eron blinked, he never thought about that, but not many people normally wanted to track down the source of a quake.

"I... probably could...?" he wasn't certain.

by **Nara-pyon** Wed May 13, 2015 11:27 pm

But before he had much of a chance, Kyrie was back, running towards the group and yelling, "Out of the trees! Out of the trees! Get out of here!"

Kaito dropped in from above, his forehead beaded with sweat. "Come on," he gasped breathlessly, "we've gotta get out in the open so Uruloki can get us out of here!"

Earendil was confused. "What-"

"Just go!" Kaito shouted. "Fast!"

Kyrie caught up with them just then and kept running past them, and Kaito took off immediately as well. The others picked up their things and started to run as well, though the shaking ground made it difficult.

by **Kara Winters** Wed May 13, 2015 11:33 pm

Miyuki wondered what had happened as they began to run towards the nearest clearing. Did it have to do with the shaking of the ground, but if so was someone behind it?

Eron said it wasn't natural...

She could see a break in the trees up ahead, and hoped they could make it. Whatever it is they were running from.

by **Nara-pyon** Wed May 13, 2015 11:36 pm

Even before they reached the open, Uruloki emerged from Kyrie's torso and flew ahead of them so that when they arrived, he was ready for them.

"Up, up, up," Kyrie urged them, ushering the others ahead of her while looking over her shoulder. There was a white cloud, similar to mist but far thicker, rolling in behind them, silent but fast.

by **Kara Winters** Wed May 13, 2015 11:39 pm

As Miyuki clambered up onto the dragon, she looked over her shoulder and blinked at the mist coming towards them. What was that? Was that unnatural too?

She re-called her Pokemon, not wanting them to fall or get caught up in that. Before look everyone was on, and once they were on, they could see what they were running from.

by **Nara-pyon** Wed May 13, 2015 11:47 pm

The moment everyone was on Uruloki's back - people and Pokemon alike - the dragon took to the air and flew over the treetops. The cloud was everywhere, rolling through the trees, through the remnants of old buildings, long ago abandoned ... and then the lake came into view, a large lake, its surface rippling and bubbling as white mist rose from its surface and flowed like a thick fog into the trees around it.

"What is it?" Earendil asked, his face pale.

"Carbon dioxide," Kaito replied, his eyes glued to the cloud below them. "You might as well be breathing in pure water for all the air there is in there."

"Look!" Wren exclaimed, pointing to a figure just above the trees on the slope of a mountain. "There's someone down there!"

Without needing to be told, Uruloki banked towards the figure, spreading his claws to pick the person up.

by **Kara Winters** Wed May 13, 2015 11:53 pm

Miyuki's heart clenched and she hoped Uruloki would get to the person in time. She didn't know what this carbon dioxide was, but Kaito said it meant they wouldn't be able to breath and she believed him.

Eron hoped that the person hadn't yet breath in any of that deadly gas.

by **Nara-pyon** Thu May 14, 2015 12:03 am

As they drew nearer, they could see that it was a woman: brown skin, black hair, and wearing clothes made of some kind of wildcat skin. They could also tell when she spotted them: she jumped to her feet and took off running, heading down the hillside towards the white clouds.

"Uruloki!" Kyrie shouted at him urgently.

Uruloki trimmed his wings and dove towards the woman. He moved so fast that Shiro and Kaito had to flatten their ears against their skulls so that the wind wouldn't damage their hearing.

Then, just as suddenly as the dive had begun, they were on their way back up again. From below, there were shrieks and shouts from the woman in Uruloki's claws.

by **Kara Winters** Thu May 14, 2015 12:05 am

"We better find a safe place to land, she's going to injure herself at this rate," Lin shouted over the wind.

Then again, considering how she ran towards the gas, Lin then added.

"Preferable far away, and making sure she doesn't run back."

by **Nara-pyon** Thu May 14, 2015 12:14 am

"Uruloki, top of the mountain," Kyrie ordered immediately, seeing the wisdom in Lin's suggestion.

At Uruloki's size, it wasn't long before they reached the mountaintop - especially considering it was a rather small mountain. The top was fairly flat, and Uruloki slowed and dropped the woman from a very low altitude before landing and letting the others down.

Right away, the woman ran a small distance away from them, then knelt down and picked something up from the ground - a sword, dull and rusted, but all the more dangerous because of it. Her dark eyes were wide, panicked, and she faced the group defensively.

"Get away!" she ordered them, though her voice was more panicky than commanding.

by **Kara Winters** Thu May 14, 2015 12:24 am

"We're not going to hurt you," Lin replied as she carefully slid off Uruloki.

She didn't make a move to get closer to the woman though. Lin wasn't sure about elves, but she and the other Gaians could get lockjaw or worse from a rusted blade like that.

"That white cloud would have killed you if you ran into it," Lin explained, "And it's right now dangerous down there."

Eron, keeping one eye on the woman, gazed down the mountain to where they once were. His mind now putting together what he knew. Morbidly, he thought, now he knew how the trees got so green.

by **Nara-pyon** Thu May 14, 2015 12:31 am

The woman blinked at Lin and lowered her blade ever so slightly. "The white cloud ... you know what it is, then?" she asked cautiously.

"Gas from what I presume is an underwater volcano," Shiro told her, opting to keep it simple, since it seemed that most of the others had no idea what carbon dioxide was. "There's no air in there - almost instant suffocation for anyone caught in it."

The woman lowered her blade further. "What?" She seemed not to believe him. "But that's ..."

by **Kara Winters** Thu May 14, 2015 9:41 pm

"True," Eron cut in, "I sensed a volcano in the lake earlier, and it would explain why the trees are so green. While the gas kills animals and people, trees and other plants actually thrive off of it."

Besides the village's dead, that probably also had something to do with it, but more of the gas that sometimes ripped through. He turned slightly to face the woman, and for the first time thought about the environment they were in.

by **Nara-pyon** Thu May 14, 2015 9:57 pm

The woman blinked again and lowered her blade completely so that her hand was dangling by her side.

"Then ... that's what ..."

The sword dropped to the ground, and she turned around to face the mist that was still swirling below. She fell silent and simply stared.

Kyrie watched the woman for a moment, then looked at the rest of the group questioningly.

by **Kara Winters** Thu May 14, 2015 10:12 pm

Eron looked thoughtful, and then realized...

"This happened before hasn't it?" he asked her.

It would explain how a complete village could disappear into ruin. They lived close to the lake, these things don't happen often from his understanding, it would take something like an earthquake to trigger one.

by **Nara-pyon** Thu May 14, 2015 10:21 pm

The woman turned to look at Eron, and there were tears on her cheeks.

"I have spent the last five centuries here, trying to discover what killed my family," she said softly, her voice husky. She reached up with one brown hand and wiped the tears from her cheeks. "I put my entire life on hold, swore that I would avenge their deaths ... but now ..."

She held her hands in front of her and looked at them as if they had betrayed her.

by **Kara Winters** Thu May 14, 2015 10:26 pm

"But now, you can tell people it's not safe to settle here," Eron told her, "While there is no need to avenge, there are lives that still need to be saved. We're lucky, because of the group of unique people here that we got out so fast," he motioned to everyone around him and especially to Uruloki.

He'd imagine that unless someone had a horse, they would have been caught up in that mist, and there was no predicting when something like that would happen again.

"This area is just not safe to settle and a gamble to travel through unless there's a way to make sure the currents in the lake are moving regularly," Eron continued.

by **Nara-pyon** Thu May 14, 2015 10:32 pm

"It's not about currents, it's about making sure the gas can escape regularly," Shiro pointed out.

"It shouldn't be a problem," the woman murmured, still sounding quite dazed. "No one has come here in over a century ... no one dares ..."

And yet, despite that being good news, since it means people were unlikely to be in danger, her eyes only filled with tears again, and her jaw began to quiver.

"Hey, whoa," Kaito said, alarmed. "What's going on? Isn't that a good thing?"

by **Kara Winters** Thu May 14, 2015 10:42 pm

Eron was about to point out to Shiro that it was the currents due to temperature change is what allows gas to escape the lake without killing people. Granted, man made Gaian structures did that in places where that wasn't possible, but he didn't think the technology here would allow for it.

His thought process was derailed by the sniffling though.

"What's wrong?" Miyuki asked, not sure why the woman was upset.

But Lin had a pretty good guess, if this woman had been here for five centuries to avenge her family, then this had consumed her for a long time.

"Come on," Lin motioned to the woman, "Let's get you a hot shower. Can we set up tent here for now?"

Some food, hot shower.... Lin eyed the clothes, and maybe some proper clothes, and some sleep....

by **Nara-pyon** Thu May 14, 2015 10:52 pm

The woman brushed her tears away again and looked around at all the people who were surrounding her. It seemed that at last, she realized that she was surrounded by strangers.

"Who are all of you?" she asked, her voice suspicious this time.

by **Kara Winters** Thu May 14, 2015 10:56 pm

Lin didn't seem to be at all bothered by this, but by now she was kind of use to the suspicion that people seemed to give to strangers and other races in general.

"Oh! We're travelers wanting to see the whole continent," Lin explained, "This is Kyrie, our guide, I'm Lin..."

With that Lin introduced everyone in the group, explaining how they were related to each other when needed.

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