Folaigh has a minion!

Lapis the Lilis

You stumble over a protruding root of a peach tree in a forest of hemlocks. Your knee bleeds gently from a small scrape, but you pull yourself up, tugging on loose vines growing over a brick wall. As your fingertips gently graze the stone, a voice runs through your head, heavy and deep. You jerk your hand away as your eyes widen, but it is as if your bones have filled with metal, and the wall a lustful magnet. You pull the vines away from the bricks like a lover’s hair from their eyes and you uncover a sealed archway. Slowly, you reach your hand out; heat pulses throughout your body as the beating of your heart hangs heavy in the cradle of your clavicles. A voice begins to speak to you and to you directly. She is old - her voice like a summer thunderstorm, and leaves an after taste like coffee. As your mind narrows in upon her words, you notice her speech is full of small clicks and slight over-pronunciations. She sighs, as if waiting for you to catch up. In a racing thought:
“your blood - necessary to continue - dress the stone.”
Mindlessly, you squeeze the wound on your knee, drops of blood falling over your fingers. You place your hand on the bricks and allow the blood to soak in.
“You are of special blood, Unearther. The lore has found you.”
A face soon pairs itself with the voice in a flashing image against your eyes.


She is pale and wrinkled. Her hair is a soft, light grey. Your spine shivers; her left, blind eye becomes obvious while her right glows peach. She lowers her hood, then two pinched ponytails fall out and join her small antlers in exposure. Her image fades as she begins to speak to you again. You feel as if you are falling asleep, but your senses are heightened.
“Unearther,” her voice now seems classic and everlasting, like a deep scar,
“your soul is much older than your physical form. It tastes of dirt. This is why the lore has found you.”
You see a mouth moving. Wide lips flash over opal teeth.
“I am the gatekeeper. You are here for a reason, but you must succeed. Your kind has not been able to do so for over a millennia.” She scoffs, “I doubt you are different.”
“To attempt,” she says, “lay down upon the ground over which you stumbled. A wound must be present on each palm. You place the palms into the dirt. The eyes of you must meet the eyes of the sun until they are joined and you no longer see the earth around you. If you accept these terms, begin the process. I will speak to you once you have completed the first of the sequential steps.”
You question the purpose - the reward. “If you are of truth chosen, you will complete the process in its entirety. If you are not, then you will not. This is a test of my duty just as it is yours. Your kind so often fails to see the simplicity.”
The midday sun rises over you as you toy with the decision in the labyrinth of your mind. Instinctively, your fingers fumble over the ground around you, searching for a sharp object. It is as if one was provided for you, and your fingers find a sharp chunk of obsidian ever so quickly. You slice the heart lines of your palms with the rock’s edge, first on your left hand, then the right, slower and less accurately. You lie with the tree root against your spine, shifting your legs and attempting comfort; you place your palms into the earth. Then, squinting, you begin to stare into the face of the sun; the veins of your sclera tickle your vision. You feel the light consume you as hours pass, your vision becoming meaningless and your mind growing ever the louder. The Gatekeeper’s voice, like a heavy bass, shatters your thoughts.

Now you must solve:
Both dead and alive
Stalk the sky
Then to earth I cry
As I continue.

Answer: The heart of a hind inside the stomach of a cinereous vulture
Answer: Amanita Ocreata (Death Angel)
Answer: A burdened cumulonimbus cloud

"Perhaps you were found with reason. You have yet the crowning task, Unearther. Seven miles south-east you will find a small cave hidden behind a waterfall. There is room for your body and not much more. You will enter the cave. Here the earth will hold you. You must stay until your bloods have joined. I will reunite with you thereafter. Your needs will be accommodated."

Sweat drips into your mouth. Salt drenches your tongue, causing your feet to ache. Perhaps they ache by their own doing. The cave smells like piss and pond water. The waterfall sends her children to calm you. Mist droplets hit your face and parade in your hair like berries of dew. You close your eyes. Your eyelashes become the legs of spiders.

The sky is orange. Sunrise. Sunset? A dove flies into the cave. You stare at the bird. It picks at bugs in its feathers. It pulls out the feathers in large clumps at a time. As it is bald, it walks towards you. You can do nothing but stare. It sits at the edge of your feet. You think it has fallen asleep. Leaning forward, you attempt to nudge the naked bird. Fire springs from your fingertips. The bird becomes roasted instantaneously. You count the number of days you have gone without food. You cannot remember, but carefully pick up the bird. Your teeth tear into the burnt flesh. You have never tasted poultry of a more delicious flavor.

Red. Your eyes are closed, there is a sun inside them. Black. The sun is dead.

A fire burns in the cave, filling it with smoke and the smell of burning rosemary. With your eyes closed, your skin tightens with the feeling of others eyes upon you. Six beings sit, surrounding you. They are beautiful, but not human. Your gaze turns to a female, her robe of ivory silk and large monnions embroidered with flowers. A shining mauve head of hair falls from her scalp and rests on her folded knees. Your focus scatters across the six of them. They are all soft, well fed, smelling like nostalgia and peach blossoms. You are tripping over the root of a peach tree, again - again. A woman to the left reaches out and takes your hand. Without speaking, she tells you her name is Solange. They all look like siblings, but Solange has auburn hair, and rose covered antlers adorn her head. Her voice is cool like spring water and feels like deja vu. You ask who they are but feel confused when your mouth feels numb, paralyzed. Solange still holds your hand.

”Unearther, we are the sages of the six-legged stag; the sages of Sciath. You too will become a sage, if you so choose. We are the keepers of lore.”
“What are you? How are you here?”
“You can tell we are not human, this is why you ask something so obvious. We once were like you are now, but the blood of the earth has joined ours. That is how we are here. The same happens to you.”

She moved her hand from yours; she possessed the litheness of a lily, the agility of a tigress. Your skin felt hot as her hand became absent.

Your legs jump hard; your mind feels like it is falling and awakens you to catch it. The cave is dark, but a strange pink glow enters through the small opening. Dark green leaves tumble in, caught on a breeze you do not feel. One, as if guided, lands upon your thigh. You appreciate its company after being alone so long. So long? The time feels like water which, in the stream, your eyes can pick up small flecks of gold flowing coarsely through it, but when you cup it in your hands, it is only mud. Your mind weaves in and out, braiding together thoughts without making a single one comprehendible.
A familiar voice enters your mind with a "thud thud" sound.

"Unearther, it is time. The earth has accepted you as kin. The lore may now come to you."
You nod. Your eyes closed, you hear the gatekeeper take a deep breath before beginning.

Sciath by User not found: vegvisir

The land was dark and putrid
Filled with a vast stench
Of rotting flesh, of burning turmoil.
The being burned,
Folaigh burned.
Her lithe body painted in wounds her sinews
Could not extinguish.
The blood phase.
In a hollow, she lived
In a womb, she slept.
Around her unknowing being
Trees drenched the ground is poison-sap.
The thews of the earth crumbled as did
Her own.
The earth cracked as did the sky
With angry, dry electricity.
The dead, though no predators, no preys
Are present in this forsaken realm,
Scatter the ground -
Stumbling over skeletons,
Though none may walk here.
A fog of moss
Like the most giant of arachne homes
Covers your vision
And creeps into smell, taste.
Nose bleeding.
Tongue aching.
Sinews burning.
Wallowing in a gelatinous despair
And so for centuries,
Unearther.
Centuries of languor, of burning.
Yet into this, a force entered.
I felt him the first,
Yet still, I did not see.
Rain.
Rain washed away blood.
Wet-ravens brought the clouds
Clouds brought seed dropping talons
And song singing beaks
And stir-sifting limbs.
It had been for centuries,
And yet no more.
Rain, and still the being slept
But with fluttering eyes,
Until the flood fills her blood-nest
And it turns green with algae.
Her clapper claws scratch the leaking clay
As she rises.
Tusks spilling from her dry mouth,
The rain wheezes as it hits her flesh,
Turning to steam.
She feels him too. Yet does not see.
An egret
Lands on a tree limb, leaves caught in amber -
The transformation of red to green.
A hiss comes, but does not last.
The egret turns the head. It blinks.
A weed-dust floats in the air
Strange, confusing, cures the tusk.
Earth tongues kiss away the claws.
Do you see it yet?
No, no, but feels much greater,
Like strong arms, but bearley brushing.
A stream flows,
Pink, but not cynical.
Glowing pink.
It sounds fresh, blood pumping pure.
A carpet comes before him
Of blooms, weak but ready to become strong
In the union of forces.
A stag, of pure black but his heart -
Source of the amaranthine pink
And velvet still hung from vast antlers
He grew twice as tall as man.
And he entered. I did not stop -
Nor would I if I could, for he was pure.
Sciath.
Sciath heals the land
And the aches of her heart
Unearther, do you know pain?
Not as it existed here,
But does no longer.
The land blooms and drains her agony
From her wounds like puss.
Her body blooms.
Small sprouts jumping from her skin.
They meet.
A language created among them
Even I cannot interpret.
But a promise was made.
He keeps the land
And her
In bloom
She mends the injury
Present in the heart of the stag
And they live on,
To this day,
In the eternal land of Promise.

Your mind reverberates for what feels like hours, until finally, the gatekeeper speaks again.
"You now have a choice unearther. The earth has taken you, but do you take your duty as a sage to Folaigh?"

Accept
Decline

“Do not try too hard, Unearther.
It would be a pity for you too, to fail."
She laughs.

Try again.

For the first time, the physical being of the gatekeeper approaches you. You are in the forest of hemlocks again, but the ground is covered in red and peach blooms from a flower you have never seen before. The gatekeeper reaches out her hand to you, her long dark sleeves still dragging the ground. She swipes a substance with the consistency of blood across your forehead. It is deep red, but smells like lavender, not iron. You do not speak.
The gatekeeper hands to you a long umber colored robe, embroidered with the same blooms scattered thickly across the ground you stand upon. To your surprise, you feel no sense of embarrassment as you unclothe yourself from the dirty garments you’d been wearing for days, or months, you still were not sure, and redressed in the given vestment. The gatekeeper then walked with a skink like ease down towards the waterfall, and before you could become confused as to how you got there, takes your hand, and leads you into the water. Holding your nose, she dips you into the deep, cool stream, washing the dirt from your hair, and as you open your eyes in the clear water, your watch your hair grow, flowing like ribbons in the water, and take on a pink hue, turning your hair a strawberry blonde. You are now out of the water, your robes dry, and sitting in an entirely different forest, much more full of life. You are greeted by the beings. Sciath, leans down upon one leg and lowers his great head and large set of antlers, placing his black muzzle near you lap. You reach out a hand and touch him. He does not speak, but you understand his regards. Folaigh, peonies sprouting from behind her small antlers, twitches her hare like nose, stretching her neck out, meeting your hand as it falls upon her forehead. A sense of great energy flows through you as you become encompassed with the feeling that you are now home, forever.

The gate keeper puts a surprisingly gentle hand upon your shoulder,
"there will be a time when you have questions. When you desire to inquire more about the lore, seek out Laoise."

Return.

wonderful art by User not found: czar
icon on my user profile by Verceri
beautiful profile by pizza

You awaken from a deep sleep, startled.
Your palms ache, tingling with unconsciousness.
Your mouth is dry. You groan.

Return.