|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2005 5:04 pm
*miquelet steps into her room, letting the door swing slowly closed behind her... she walks over, and peeks at the potion, which is doing fine now that she adjusted the heat... it only had one more day to go, and then it would be ready... she sits down on her pallet, and closes her eyes... she was getting a little tense from working on it so much, so she was going to meditate for a while, to try to loosen up...*
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2005 1:43 pm
*miquelet opens her eyes, and slowly gets to her feet... she walks over to her desk, and pulls the glass off of the burner... it has finally finished concentrating enough, and now there is only a tiny bit left in the glass... she sets it on a small stone square to let it start to cool, and pulls out the rest of the ingredients... these are the juice from the other Noventari berries, now smelling extremely strongly of mint, and several other mysterious ingredients... she puts all of them into a second glass, and adds some water to dissolve everything together... the potion is still cooling off, so there is nothing left to do but wait... she sits back, and looks at the pair of glasses, and hopes that this works...*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:31 pm
*the potion has finally cooled down enough so she wouldn't burn her mouth on it, without it solidifying from the lack of heat... miquelet picks the glass up, and slowly pours it into the other, watching the white green liquid flow sluggishly into the other container... she sets the first glass down, and gives the new one a stir, making sure the solution is totally mixed... she then starts to clean up, setting the now-empty glass into the waste container, for the solvent within to scour it free of any chemical residue... she then tidies up her desk, and gets ready... her hand shakes slightly as she reaches for the glass, but she quashes her fear, and quickly swallows the potion... only to feel nothing happen... she wonders at this, but realizes it probably just takes some time... sure enough, several moments later, a blinding pain wells forth behind her eyes, filling her eyes with tears... she can feel her muscles convulsing, as her heart struggles to handle the strain of the potion... her vision starts going dark, and she can feel her body weaken dramatically... feebly, she makes her way over to her pallet, not wanting to fall out of the chair and injure herself, although in the long run, that probably wouldn't make any difference... once she lays down, she can feel her body start to shut down, starting with a dead sensation at her hands and feet, and slowly building until it reaches her head... at this point, she is unconscious, but the potion is not finished... it has done the first stage, and now the second starts... her mind shuts down quickly, almost instantly, as her soul becomes detached from her body... it took the weakening of her body to this much for the soul seperation part to work satisfactorily, without having a strong force plunge the soul back before everything is ready... miquelet's soul is in a state of shock right now, and as such, has no sense of existence, no sense of presence... for all intents and purposes, miquelet has perished... if her soul can wake up, then the potion has been a success, otherwise, it would be a grand failure...*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 3:01 pm
*miquelet slowly wakes up, and opens her eyes... she is fairly surprised to see that she is still alive, and wonders for a moment if she really is... after several moments, she realizes that she isn't in her room anymore, but some strange place she has never seen before... it is all a dusky grey, and it seems to be just a long corridor, leading somewhere off in the distance... she stands up, but feels somewhat off... it takes her a long moment to determine what the difference is... she has no weight, no sense of mass... she feels like a ghost or something, and then she rrealizes that she must just be her soul, so the potion must have worked... she starts walking, not sure of where she is goin, or where she is, but knowing nothing will change by waiting... she continues down the corridor for hours, at least that's how it feels to her... time doesn't seem to be making any impact on where she is now... she keeps walking, and finally arrives at an intersection... she looks down both of them, but they look like mirror images of each other... she thinks, and decides on one at random, and starts going down it... after a while, the path begins to turn, and finally makes a blurred corner... she goes around it, only to find a door... it is a regular wooden door, somewhat old-fashioned, but still in good condition... she grabs the knob and turns it, and it does so silently... she then pulls at the door, but it seems to be stuck... she pulls a bit harder, but it still won't move... puzzled, she checks the door again, and notices she can't see the hinges... feeling a little embarassed at not having tried it earlier, she pushes the door, and it slides smoothly inwards... she steps inside, and what she sees shocks and surprises her... it looks like a gigantic pane of glass, or perhaps a television screen... that wasn't the part that shocked her, though... it was what was on the glass... it was a grainy film, obviously worn by time, but what it showed was on no9 videotape that she knew of... it was a piece of her own memories... she stood there and watched, seeing herslef at the young age of ten, just starting to take her lessons under Eruderu-dono... the pictures continued for a long time, advancing until the picture-miquelet was abvout thirty... then it paused for a second, and started over... after watching it several times, miquelet walked around the edge, and proceeded deeper into the room... it continued into another corridor, which she walked down...*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 6:13 pm
*this continued for quite some time, each corridor eventually going to a door, which housed another memory of her life... after the first dozen or so, miquelet remembered hearing how your life went before your eyes just before you died...*
did I... die...? is it all over...?
*miquelet stands still for a moment, as the gravity of that bit of information sunk in... if it was true, and she was dead after all, then it would eventually be made a little more obvious than this... she would eventually run out of memories, and once that happened, she would hopefully know what to do... as for now, there was nothing to do but proceed, so she did... the next memory was a more recent one, it was when she first arrived at the Ramen school... she had stayed for several days before anyone seemed to notice her, and even after they had, it took quite some time before she felt that anyone knew her well enough to call 'friend'... even now, she felt there weren't that many people, so she knew that if she had died, then there wouldn't be too much sadness... she continued watching the memory play out, as it progressed to the point where she nearly fell off of the roof... even then, only a few weeks after she made it here, the darkness had called to her... running hadn't helped then, and it wouldn't help now... she had to try to stay alive, or all of these memories would be for nothing... she walked past that memory, and continued on... the next door was already open, as if someone else had already gone through, or perhaps she had, and had travelled in a circle... either way, she continued into the room... this was one of her oldest memories, back when she had first met samui-niisan... all she really remembered was a forest, and not too much else... then he appeared, and carried her out... she couldn't remember anything before that, but that was alright... the memories would come in time, and there was nothing she could do to hurry that... she continued on, out of this room, down the corridor...*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 7:58 pm
Samui walks down the hallway, trying to find the spot he saw on the ice-mirror. After a moderate amount of searching, he finds it. The door in front of him is closed, so he knocks once, to make sure nobody unexpected is inside. Upon hearing no response, he cracks the door open. Miquelet is within, still on the mattress on the floor. Samui looks down at her, and then he smells the mint scent from the Noventari berries. He remembers this potion from one of the lessons back at Intoku Village. It was a deadly poison, but it also had other uses. It was never supposed to be made, let alone used, without Eruderu's permission, but it appears Miquelet had done just that. Samui sat down on the floor by her, and watched, wondering how everything turned out.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 1:33 pm
*the next memory she found was a much more recent one... so recent, in fact, that it seemed to be occurring right now, or at least several hours ago... it showed her, lying on her mattress, and not much else... shadowy presences cam and went, and the light started to dim... eventually the vision grew black, and did not repeat again... miquelet stared at it for a while longer anyway, wondering how she could see what was happening outside while she was here... finally, she moved on, stepping into the next corridor... this one twisted and turned erratically, creating an almost labyrinthine set of walkways, even though it was just a single path... it continued on for what seemed like hours, and eventually came into another room... this one was different, though... the picture was shattered, and all of the pieces on the floor only showed fragments of memory, not enough to identify them...*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:55 pm
*miquelet bent down, and tried to pick up a fragment of memory, but her fingers passed through it like it was smoke... she stood back up, and went towards the next corridor... this one led to a more typical room, with a memory up for any to see... this was a memory from a good while ago, from when she first left Intoku village... it showed her make her way randomly away from the village she had known all of her life... from there, she stayed outside for quite a long time, since there was no other village anywhere nearby... finally, she came to another town, and managed to stay there for a short while... she couldn't point her finger on it, but it seemed like she wasn't welcome there... it was a general feeling from the town's people's demeanors... suffice to say, she did not stay there very long, and went on her way again after only three days... from there, she stuck to staying outside of the towns and well-travelled roads... she only entered a town when she needed to buy something that couldn't be found or made in the wilderness... after living like this for quite some time, she made her way to a large forest... this was near the edge of the Ramen school's property, but she obviously didn't know this at the time... after staying there for a while, she decided to try entering the school itself... when she first entered, it seemed that she was almost a shadow of some kind, so many people didn't seem to notice her... this was still an improvement than the last couple villages she had been at, so she decided to try staying... at this, the memory dimmed, and went dark... seeing this, miquelet stepped into the next corridor... she wondered how she could walk so much without feeling tired or thirsty, but assumed there was a good reason, so didn't worry about it too much...*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 6:07 pm
*as miquelet walked, she noticed that the corridor looked a little different now... before it was basically smooth, and it had looked like a typical grey stone, but without seams or cracks, as if it was one gigantic piece... now, it was striated with vivid splotches of black and white, creating a disturbing illusion of depth where none truly existed... with this, she found herself regularly trying to step into a corner later than where it was, thus hitting the wall... she continued walking, and eventually, her eyes grew used to the distortion... the corridor seemed to rise and fall erratically, like a road built on a series of foot hills, or a messy ramp placed over stairs... all in all, it was a disturbing sensation, simulating being inside of a living thing... this very well could be the case, as it seemed she was walking through her own mind, reviewing memories that had lain dormant for some time now... nonetheless, it was certainly not a pleasant feeling, so she hoped to find the end, whatever it may be... this wasn't to be anytime soon, though, as this corridor stretched out, and turned frequently, hiding all of itself except for a good twenty feet in front of her... suddenly, she felt a faint disturbance in the air... like someone opening a door to a stale apartment room, it seemed a faint wind blew down the corridor, even though there was no wind, or, apparantly air, either... it wasn't so much a wind, as it was, a feeling, more akin to the sensation you get when you know someone is sneaking up on you... it was basically a feeling of an invasion of your personal space, but there was clearly nothing anywhere near her... puzzled, she stood still for a while, but the feeling went away as suddenly as it came... waiting several moments, miquelet then resumed walking, but still, no more rooms appeared, and the faint idea that she was being followed began to tug at her, almost like how a person can still feel their arm after it has been amputated, a phantom feeling... she tried to ignore it, and continued onwards... the corridor stretched out, for all she knew it went on forever, like thinking in circles...*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 7:40 pm
Samui got up, and walked toward the door. He couldn't accomplish anything by just standing here, so he would just try to search out the ingredients of the antidote, and try to help if he could. He stepped outside, and closed the door silently behhind him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2005 3:45 pm
*miquelet had been walking for what felt like an eternity, but with no real sense of time, that was purely in her head... she had been in thi s same corridor, and it had never once branched off, or entered a room... she began to wonder that perhaps it was a never-ending corriodr... if that was the case, should she turn back...? or would it go forever in that direction as well...? either way, she kept moving, feeling a vague sense of urgency... she couldn't quite place it, but she knew that she had to hurry... nonetheless, the corriodr continued to move forward with it's simpleminded straightforwardness... the walls still gave off an optical illusion of depth that wasn't there, but her eyes had gotten used to it... the sense of not quite being there seemed to help... suddenly, she stopped dead in her tracks... just now she realized, she was alone... obviously, there was noone around her, but the spirits hadn't uttered so much as a peep since this started... in the original bewilderment, she hadn't noticed, and now that she did, she knew how quiet everything sounded... she knew this was a crazy thought, but for an instant, she actually missed the voices... starting moving again, she tried to keep her mind off the silence, but it was no use... she needed someone to talk to, something to hear... if this kept up for too long, she didn't know hoe she would handle it... in a deafening silence, she moved on...*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 2:12 pm
*miquelet calmed herself, and resumed her journey... it still seemed painfully lonely here, but there was nothing that could be done about it... she could remember another time she had been alone... she had been alright, so it should also be fine this time around... she arrived at another chamber, but this one was different... the pane was there, but there was a large crack in it, distorting the picture... a faint sound could be heard from the corricor leading in the other direction, as if there actually was someone else here... she looked at the memory pane, but the picture was too distorted to determine what it was... she looked a moment longer, and then approached the next corridor... a faint sense of foreboding filled her, as if she already knew what was there, and that it was bad... nonetheless, she continued, and walked with measured stead towards the noise...*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 11:14 am
*miquelet began walking down the corridor, and the sound grew ever louder... it sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite place where... it sounded somewhat like a thousand voices, whispering hurriedly, blending together in a cacophonous din... it grew ever louder, but no individual words could be picked out... finally, miquelet arrived at the next room, and was shocked to see it's occupants... the darkness and light spirits had somehow made their own way here, and were squared off in a great and terrible battle... they seemed to be almost evenly matched, although the darkness evidently held the upper hand... their fight was filling the entire room with energy and shards of this rooms memory pane could be seen on the ground... apparantly these two were the cause for the broken panes in the other rooms... miquelet stood still for a long moment, watching the battle, until finally the darkness seemed to strike a fateful blow... the light fell back, it's 'corporeal' form falling to the ground... it resembled a humanoid bird, with two legs, two long arms, and numerous gigantic wings sprouting from it's back almost haphazardly... the darkness loomed over it, still in it's form of a beast of chaos... it seemed to be made of pure thought, as it held no form for more than an instant, shifting as you looked at it, reminding you of the beast spoken of in tomes of old... (the H.P. Lovecraft ones, I think it's name was Nub-Shigguroth, but I can't remember right now...) it leaned closer, and seemed ready to strike a final blow...*
no... don't...
*miquelet knew that if she was going to act, now was the time... she couldn't feel her spirit's presence, so she knew she would have to take care of this herself... this was the true trial she had ran away from, all those years ago... she looked around, and was surprised to see her staff was in her hand... she stepped forward, readying herself for what was sure to be a horrible fight, where only one could win, and if she lost, she would lose everything...*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 7:24 pm
*miquelet stepped towards the beast slowly... it was partly due to the fear of all these years, building up to a crescendo of terror... it was also in part based on her own knowledge that there came a time when running was no longer an option... now was one of those times... she approached it, stepping between the darkness and the light... the darkness seemed to notice her immediately, and as fast as thought, whirled into motion... it lurched forward, loosing all cohesion, and crashing forward much like a tidal wave... miquelet did a quick jump to the side, narrowly avoiding it... as it hit the ground, it lashed out with countless tendrils, creating a virtual whirlwind of it's own substance... they lashed towards her, and miquelet tried to use the staff to parry as many as she could, but there was only so much that could be blocked by a single staff... the other tendrils lashed viciously at her, doing what should be serious damage... somehow, there was no pain... instead, a faint feeling of lethargy entered her, slowing her mind and body... she tried to shake it off, but it refused to stop... she dodged as best she could, but the tendrils were too numerous... they continued to whip at her, and eventually knocked the staff out of her hand, sending it to the opposite side of the room... by this point, the light spirit had recuperated enough to rejoin the fray, and pounced on the darkness, ripping and tearing savagely... nothing seemed to happen, however, as the pieces slowly reattached themselves to the main mass...*
*the light spirit reached down, and steadied miquelet's shoulder, rending tendrils of darkness as it did so... miquelet felt the cloud lift from her mind, and realized that was the darkness' true attack... since this was a realm of the mind, physical pain had no place here... instead, you would slowly lose touch with yourself until you were too weak to resist, then the spirit could take over or destroy you, if it so desired...*
thank you...
*miquelet and the light spirit got to their feet, ready to resume the battle... the darkness beat them to it, however, sending twin pillars rushing towards them, resembling huge battering rams... the light spirit focused, and created a sphere of scintillating light around both of them, which somehow managed to repel the attack... it flickered, showing it wasn't strong enough to handle too much more of that kind of abuse... miquelet ran forward, hoping that at least she could rgain her staff... she was fairly confident that hand-to-hand attacks would accomplish naught, so it was with the staff that she even stood a chance... she managed to dodge the pillar that swerved around to head at her, but only barely... she felt it brush past her, and she could feel the insistent pull of t\it's sinister effect... she ducked, and grabbed her staff... she then whirled around, and swung rapidly at the pillar, striking it right at the thickest part... it seemed to shiver, and fade slightly... miquel;et redoubled her attack, swinging wildly, trying to hit it as much as possible... finally, she came to a stop... she wasn't tired, at least not yet... the deed was done... the pillar had faded to the consistency of dust in a ray of sunlight... visible, but insubstantial... miquelet dashed back to join the light, but was bowled over by a huge wave of darkness from behind... it swamped her, engulfing her easily, like a piece of driftwood in a raging storm... she fought to free herself, but could do nothing... the light seemed to stare at her, knowing if it attacked, it would hit her as well... miquelet was plunged under the surface of the darkness, and her vision disappeared, like a dream upon awakening... she tried to struggle, but without being able to see, couldn't tell if it was working... she felt her own spirit weaken, and knew things were desperate indeed... panicked, she cried out in her mind...*
Sora... help me...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 6:17 am
Sora ported in, landing on his toes as he made a slow decent. Upon entering, he saw Miquelet, and rushed over to her side, petting her forehead.
"A-are you alright, my love...?" he said, stuttering.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
