EmperorWhenua

IC Leklo + Oreius | Airspace in the Ambling Alp "I'm finding my airship first," Oreius said, punching controls. "Fine, you do that," Leklo said, looking for all the world like he was trying to stay in charge of... something, anything. He wasn't really sure what he was in command of anymore, but Stannis had entrusted him with Korruhn's airship so he would keep the act up. "But right now, I need answers, and I feel like you have a great deal to tell me." He winced, not quite relishing any connection he had to the Mantan as well. "And also tell Ostrox. "Stannis told me he was going to the Far Shore to look for Korruhn, and promised to mentor me and answer all my questions when he returned. Why is it, then, that you are so eager to go to the Kumu Peninsula? Why do you think you'll find Stannis there? And—this one's probably a real kicker—what is the Wanderer to you? Because between your sudden and unannounced presence in Kini-Koro and obsession with Stannis, and the weird #### I saw go down between Stannis and Whisper and Oreius Maru outside the village, I have some concerns." He exhaled, metering his breath again once he realized how amped he had gotten when he felt his fingers digging into his palms from his clenched fists. He was angry, determined more than ever to find answers, and disappointed with how much his hopes had been touched with promises of a future only to be phantasms in the night. Parnassus, whoever and whatever they were, had become an icon for him to latch his frustration on, and he was sure to learn something from the being. This was his desperation, the righteous fury of a Builder too long buffeted by winds of fate he had no knowledge of, and the agonized screams of someone who desperately wanted rest.

IC Stannis + Door | Kumu The door did not respond to Whisper's second question; it was not interested in the mundane matters of the visitors and pilgrims who had once come in droves, and likewise it had no answers for their personal quests. "Why are we here," had the premise of a good question—why?—but as soon as Whisper made the question about her—we—the door turned its focus elsewhere. The fact that they were at the door—here—had nothing to do with the door itself and everything about the people without. This was an answer to be provided by a peer, not a portal, and if Whisper wished to gain admittance she would have to try a little harder to appeal to the door's peculiarities. Stannis, however, true to his tradition of answering when asked, provided context to Whisper and Grime. "Why, to get inside, of course." He waited a beat. There was no laughter. "Hrrm. Inside this temple lies the remains of history in a different sort of fashion. This edifice stands not in the honor of a spirit of records and history, but of conquest and absconding. Things are preserved not for to be used by many but appreciated by one. He is long since defeated and resides here in what is both his sanctum and prison. Will it be dangerous? Absolutely—unquestionably so—but we will be able to find what we seek and more." IE* Temple | Kumu As Korruhn gained his bearings in the great antechamber he was right to become anxious by the things he sensed. This was a holy place to some people, a temple rife with the sensations of ruinous bloodletting and the lingering echoes of screams eons ago, and those emotions and traumas persistently hung in the air like laundry hung out to dry but frozen in time, dangling until stirred again by a breeze. Korruhn's presence was that wind, his psyche rippling throughout the room like a rock tossed into a pond, and as those ripples returned to the point of origin, back to Korruhn, he could all but taste the anguish like iron on his tongue. He anchored himself with his gravity powers in an attempt to steady himself and avoid the strange attraction to the great monolith that pulled him ever is slightly, but he realized rather quickly that it was a moot point. The monolith did not truly pull him in a physical sense and he had remained stationary ever since he'd entered the chamber in the first place. His activated gravity powers pushed his feet further into the moist, peaty floor, but there was no other effect and it seemed the rules of physics still worked wherever he was. There was danger in the chamber, true enough, but there was nothing threatening him. He would have to investigate the place further to determine what was expected of him. As his senses calmed somewhat he realized the door had done its due. An answer to his question, momentarily obscured by the heightened anxiety and adrenaline from teleporting inside, blossomed in his mind. "Why is this one's door different?" a poem. I'm a forlorn soul much like you, but while you walk I can only stand. A door is just a door if it admits, and I admit this to you. * = In Environment

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IC Stannis | Kumu "Doors do not kill, Grime," the Wanderer said in reply, "doors admit. Sometimes they do so by physically revealing an ingress, sometimes not, but regardless they all open and this door swings on mystical hinges. It is not broken; I imagine this is a mere feature of this temple's system of prayer." He looked to the others with an intense curiosity. What would Whisper and the Builder ask to intrigue the Door of Answers?

IC Stannis + Door | Kumu Korruhn, bedecked with the trappings of depression and loss, emblazoned with the sigils of obscurity and death, did not look like a scholar but he was a scholar regardless. He liked to recall a time when he was a Cartographer and adventurer, waxing yarns of maps drawn and quadrants scoured like like a weaver, but mapmaking was not the sum of his profession. Being a member of the Cartographer's Guild was never as narrowly defined as the name implied, it spoke to a diversity of skills, each of which were certainly impressive as singular traits, all culminating to a vocation fed ultimately by an insatiable desire to explore and learn, and in that vein Korruhn, like all the other former members of that august brotherhood, was every bit a student and professor of life and its history. He was a scholar, minted ultimately as a Chronicler, and it was in his scholastic sense of curiosity that he asked his question of the door. A simple question, not verbose or pretentious like some would expect from a former Ko-Matoran, just a small observation that hinted at some pattern in the fractal that reached across all the temples in Kumu. The keyhole was obvious upon the door, which waited with ominous patience for the right tool to be fed into its sinister runes which all screamed for something. Open us! they seemed to say. Ask us! they seemed to plead. Their answers were plastered on the panels like solutions to a quiz that was never handed out. It was a devious joke, in a way, the way a bill of currency on the ground will almost inevitably be picked up by someone. It doesn't matter if you're in Metru Nui or Karzahni, Hong Kong or Kathmandu, Billund, DN or Billings, MN, the money will be picked up even if its utterly useless in the country you're in—the value of the money is understood because it is currency, and while it may not be usable where you are, it is still, ultimately, usable. Money can be used for goods and services; answers can be used for entry and exit. The door offered answers to be given out and people would flock to it, egged by the mystery and the intrinsic value they expected of the door, and so they fed it keys for answers, because it was a door, and it did not matter what was behind it—doors always led to something, even when it was nothing. Let me know if I've lost you. The door, keen as a sphinx, took Korruhn's inquisitive inquiry and mulled it over for an instant like a child pondering an insecurity, and then it did what it did not do for Whisper: It reacted, rewarding the question that made it ponder inwardly by giving Korruhn what he wanted. Before Stannis could manage a reply to his question or make a dramatic gesture towards the portal a handful of runes among the many dimmed and then flashed back to brilliant life, followed by a low hum. One moment, Korruhn was there... and then he was not, swallowed by the door. "Who knows?" the Wanderer finally said in the wake of their companion's teleportation. "The door does." * * * * On the inside of the door's threshold was a chamber, dark and warm like the insides of a living rahi's chest. A low, dim glow of red radiated from strange half-spheres that dotted the chamber like igneous cysts, glowing the way old coal chunks do as they gave off the final throes of light and heat before finally expiring to entropy. Korruhn found himself standing at some indiscernible point inside, and his eyesight could not seem to reach the farthest reaches of the chamber. Sound seemed to vanish relatively quickly within, as though it got snared by some dampeners far before birthing echoes, and his footsteps sounded like dull thumps on the glistening floor that felt wet with oil. The only other thing he could sense was a monolithic presense... no, an absence on a far end that stood five times taller than it was wide, and it beckoned to him like a well of gravity pulling satellites around it.

IC Yumiwak | Irnakk's Tooth I took great pleasure in tearing my enemies apart, it sparked joy to dominate my foes, and I thought that in overwhelming someone as powerful and resolute as Zataka with my consciousness and making her mine I would feel the same fireworks of endorphins, but I was wrong. It brought me no satisfaction, I realized, because Zataka—for all her independent power brought subservient, she was not my enemy—she was an ally. For some reason, my cruelty of betraying her struck differently than other mind-flays, and for some reason when she gave her fierce cry I felt the urge to mirror it as well, shouting unintelligibly after her, in her own pain. I would never forget her face right before she stepped off the ledge and into the caldera. I couldn't forget—it was emblazoned in my mind as though branded into my memory of her. Once she stepped off there was a calm, and I imagined the quiet came from Irnakk Himself taking particular care in remaking Zataka's magnificence. The volcano churned slower for a moment, and in that relative placidity I stepped forward and collected the pouch she'd dropped on purpose. Whether it was a keepsake for me or a precious artefact she had hoped to preserve for some other reason I was bound to find out soon enough, and I opened the small sack with great curiosity as soon as I moved away from the edge. But the look on her face... made me think this pouch's contents were not for me to keep, not for long. Some small prescience in the back of my mind made me think she was going to ask for this back, however she came back. IC Stannis | Kumu "She asks, 'what awaits us within!'" Stannis echoed animatedly and looked at the glowing sigils on the door like a Steve Harvey impersonator, only he was without the unbridled vigor of the game show host or the soul of the real Blue Cheese, but the door remained shut and showed no signs of changing. His silver eyes gleamed in expectant enthusiasm, either in pretense or reality, but they died to a dull pearlescent once they saw the stoic result. "It seems that was not the question."

IC Stannis | Kumu Korruhn had not gestured generally or suggested any temple would do for his lust for action, and as Stannis' eyes followed the trajectory of the void-touched man's finger he raised an eyebrow inquisitively. It was not that a particularly dangerous shrine had been selected for their next foray, although the Aspect within knew that it was lethal and had built up his powers with the intention of needing them in the Kumu sanctums, to even that the temple Korruhn had chosen was in any aesthetic fashion more becoming of adventure than any other who's unholy portals dotted the region. Stannis' surprise, rather, was because it seemed that despite Miserix's presence and the lack of fate's strings pulling Korruhn forward, he once again showed that he was somehow intrinsically linked to the All-seeker. "That temple," Stannis stated with a sagacious nod of his weary head, "is why I have come here." Left unstated to the collective company was any suggestion that his powers alone were intended to be sufficient to overcome the challenges inside, a silence borne both from his taciturn withholding of knowledge and humble hesitation that he was powerful enough after all. The edifice itself was a palace of the night, rising in mist-enshrouded battlements of obsidian and gneiss that loomed like shadows of colossi constructed from bricks of black skulls and bones. [1] A sparse number of torches were scattered over the exterior, casting erratically placed illumination of unearthly-colored flames like a multitude of cat's eyes peering back at the poor souls who beheld their sinister perches, and their light showed glimmering glimpses of lifeless vines crawling over the temple. Their ichor-leeching tendrils had long since perishing from starvation, murdered by the very same merciless structure they had tried to overcome, and their withering corpses creaked gently from the heaving breaths of the Kumu's living foundations. It was not that the temples were all dead, but life in Kumu was hidden behind tenebrous veils; just as shadow's moral scale was neither good or evil, evidence of life was neither seen or heard but nevertheless it existed somehow beyond where minds fathomed. The warmage led the way to the temple's entrance, and his gleaming protosteel polearm clinked at ancient cobblestones in a slow metronome's scale as they approached the unwelcoming entranceway. Its portal threshold glowed dimly from the ruby-red sigils and runic inscriptions laden on its ebony door panels that spoke in the same language as the Builder's suvas and high places, but more harsh in tense, fraught with urges primal and abyssal that made the text alien in its brevity, and the jamb's stonework looked for all the world like the petrified effigies of lost souls fluxing either toward or away from the entrance with their ghastly visages either horrified by what they'd seen within or panicked in attempting too gain admittance, [2] yet regardless they all hung frozen in time and space and moved neither toward or against any definable objective. "The door's key is not an answer, but a question," he said, "the answer is the keyhole. It will not be the same for any two of us; only the answer is common." @Unreliable Narrator @Eyru @Crimson Jester @Gecko Greavesy

IC Leklo | Ambling Alp "..." The former Ko-Matoran shrugged in his head and looked up the hall to the cockpit where Oreius held the stick. Oreius ominously simply pointed at the radio in the cockpit. "Yeah, the radio. It can reach the other airship." He looked more carefully out the windshield "Ships."

IC Yumiwak | Irnakk's Tooth An overwhelming rush of empowerment came over me as I realized my mental hold on Zataka was pushing through into her. The warlord's powers seared back and prevented me from entirely annihilating her consciousness but I was not shocked by her defenses—I already knew she was a potent psychic, after all—but I pressed further, shoving an unrelenting wave of red into her mind, filling her vision with ruby tint, coloring her thoughts with red. 'Willhammer' is what the family tomes called it, the skill of conquering other people's minds until it was as good as your own, and I'd grown adept at it, to say the least. It was a last-resort of sorts, the ability I go to when I need to wipe all memories or turn a being into a shambling husk, or if I accidentally threatened something tantamount to a fate worse that death and the like. I liked my violence and massacring of my enemies, but something was just kind of neat about dominating another person from their inside and turning them into a puppet. I had no such visions of success with Zataka, however; she was always supposed to be something quite a bit more sentient. It was, ironically, that very same sentience that made things difficult for me now. I focused harder, galvanizing my assault against her, and worked all the more to shatter her will. Every thought strained against hers and I could all but feel the waves of psionic energy ripple through the air with a sizzling intensity. When I heard of someone who had toyed with a Mesi war party to pieces and clearly possessed the power to command and fight, I had to have her, but I was like a burnak chasing wagons until my perspective shifted towards an actual goal. Chaining Zataka up and making her feed me fruits would titillate my senses and sate my curiosities for a while, but those were just games. The stakes had changed, and so did my wants and needs. And what I wanted. What I needed. Was for Zataka. To become. My pet. (Was it getting hotter? Was the caldera coming to greater life, was my power frying the airwaves, or was my tight leather belt making me feel—-?) Zataka said, :I won’t forget this: {I hope that you don't.} Feeling there was no better time than the window of opportunity, I commanded Zataka to kneel and take my offering. She rejected the command at first, and then slowly, agonizingly, her legs buckled and she dropped to the ground as red still flushed her other thoughts away like a tide. She was still mine, I thought, with a great wicked grin over my face, still my pet. I handed her a lit torch, ordered her to take hold of it, and then gently caressed her mind with a final request that was not to be denied. {Light yourself aflame... and throw yourself in. And you'll be more powerful than you can imagine.} IC Stannis | Kumu "The Multiverse is exactly what it seems—a honeycomb of smaller dimensions in a greater hive, diverse and multifaceted as imagination extends. You were in Icarax's domain, a dimension set apart from the rest though still connected to this plane, and likely where the Chronicler has been hiding all this time." It worked exactly as his own small section of the universe was fashioned in the Hiripaki vault where he kept his most secret belongings, where only he and those he invited could enter. Not every Aspect had the skill or knowledge to find a portion of the multiverse for themselves, let alone the fortitude to claim it as their lair, but it was not an unheard of. These pocket dimensions were a thing made of Shadow, both present and yet impeccably hidden in the absences between realities, like a bottle floating at sea anchored in place by a bond. "Due to your uncanny link to it, you are the authority on the Far Shore, as I see it. What did Icarax's dungeon feel like to you in contrast to the upside down plane?" IC Leklo | Ambling Alp "Nah, man, hold up," Leklo protested. "You just arrived to Kini-Koro and now you want to leave it entirely? You and Stannis really are so very much alike, you know?" He looked out the stern viewing window at the shrinking, lumbering form of the tahtorak. This all wasn't going to be for nothing, not again, not after having waited his turn for so long only to be battered about like Fate's rag doll. He was determined to seize the opportunity now that it was presented to him, no matter the risks. If Parnassus wished to fight the Zivon creature as well and challenge its nightmarish might, it was possibly just the eldritch thing Leklo had been looking for to test his skills against. And perhaps it would be sufficient a thrill to awaken his powers at long last. "Okay, fine.You want to go away? Fine." The tall Nuva Proxima stood up to Parnassus evenly, eye to eye, and his icy eyes glistened with determination to venture over the horizon to whatever would happen next. "But I'm going with you." IC Hiripaki | Metru Nui Archives Sublevel Seven The computer did not like being moist. A small lizard scampered across the vault's foyer—how did it get there? Good question, but Hiripaki could not answer that riddle. The lizard was wet. The Vault's bulletproof casing would surely meet its end with the simple scientific law of osmosis, it seemed. Perhaps a Welcome one was out there? Hiripaki wondered. Perhaps... she would have to welcome one in herself. She did something she had never done before: She activated a beacon. * P I N G * It reverberated through the watery depths outside, an echo in a vast neural system. * P I N G * Maybe someone would hear it and come. Maybe it would be Oreius of the Maru, Leah of the Maru, or Okuo, or some other ally or would-be ally, and they would take her with them. * P I N G * If not, she would drown there. And all her knowledge would be lost. Stannis needed her. * P I N G *

IC Stannis | Kumu "It has been few weeks since I told you to act as one of us in front of the Skakdi, Korruhn," the wizard said and chuckled low and mirthlessly. "The irony was intentional. I had hoped you would come here eventually—to be in our company. Miserix did right to bring you home." He gleefully took the pipe Korruhn passed to him and listened with rapt attention as he listened to its origin. He inhaled slow and steady, not too eager to burn the stuff too hotly or quickly but sipped it like a precious few drops of fine brandy from a snifter, just enough to indulge heartily without waste. True to Ga-Metruan make, it was sweet and herbal with notes of licorice, cinnamon, and black tea, intermingled with the mellow layers of walnut and freshly charred pinewood. The Ga-Metruan were understated masters of the tobacco arts, taking it with a scientific approach of innovation and careful experimentation than adhering to ancient recipes passed down through the eons. You never knew what you were going to get from a seller, what with their inventory as vast and ever-changing as the clouds in the sky, yet it was most assured to be of incredible quality and impeccable taste that brought to mind imagined setting as multifaceted as a fine-cut gemstone. The Wanderer's mind meandered to a scene cobbled together from the titillations to his senses, imagining a streetside cafe neighboring an antique bookseller on one side and a patisserie on the other, each exhibiting their odorous wares openly to intrigue passersby to partake and purchase. It was a calming pipe dream, one that he realized had long since turned to a sour pipe dream. He exhaled in a stream of thick white smoke that quickly vanished into the night as quick as the imagined memory was snuffed out. "I likely will not have it again," he murmured in gratitude for the briefest of escapes to a more placid time and place. The cycle had moved on from that place, and so he did, too. He passed the pipe back to Korruhn; it was the Void-touched's possession and his purview alone to share it with anyone else in their presence. "What do you two know of Icarax? Who is he in the hierarchy of Aspects?" "The Chronicler has always been. He must, if he is to fulfill his responsibility. His portfolio is a unique one, however—Dominatrix, was it? No, no... Dominican...?" His sinewy fingers snapped as the ancient mind struggled to think of the word at the tip of his tongue. "Dominion!" he said at last. "Like the name of the ballot-counting company that was caught in the crossfires of multiple conspiracy theories back when Dume was elected the last time before becoming Turaga-for-Life. Errrr. The djinn do not order ourselves in hierarchy of power, though there certainly is much of that, but by achievement and span of control. Some portfolios lend more to that than others, but no Wish is any less than the other by itself. Icarax has achieved much." It was enough of an answer as any, but it was unclear how much of it was true and how much was the old Wanderer's sieved lies; only Miserix and perhaps Grime could know the difference. "What does your patron tell you?" he asked, referring to Miserix. "By now she surely has told you to be wary of me."

IC Stannis | Kumu "She certainly takes after her patron. It is not hard to see why she is so fond of Sorilax, or why she trusts him implicitly, but that is the danger," Stannis explained briefly. "I cannot sense Sorilax's destiny, but hers... The Life-seeker will not be untouched by his own hubris, and when he falls it will be at the detriment of all Le-Metru Nuva."

IC Stannis | Kumu The wizard stirred again and perked his head up as he resumed normal posture. His focus had only been elsewhere for a few seconds but it was all the time he needed to help Parnassus through Oreius. "Ah, good," he breathed in relief as he confirmed Viltia had left. "Her quest is not ours."

IC Stannis | Kumu "Then you should also know a Desecrated being is compelled to help their patron in their Grand Wish—whether they explicitly know the wish or not—and are bound by more strings than power. Perhaps Sorilax told you this, perhaps not, but in whatever the case was you hear it now from me. All knowledge is worth knowing so cling to everything you can learn. You never know when everything you hold dear will vanish as the Universe unravels to Void, or when your knowledge will be of use." Stannis looked saddened by what he saw in Viltia's eyes as he gave the cryptic warning. She could ask what he meant by it, but he doubted so; it was a test, in a sense, to see where her curiosity ended. Her soul was restless, traumatized to the core, and yet she was not being helped by the people she trusted most. She was being used—to what end, he did not know—and was none the wiser to the deceptions she was playing into. It was a shame her Fate would end so unjustly for her. "One moment," the wizard suddenly said and bowed his head. Instantly, he seemed to be asleep.

IC Stannis | Kumu The Wanderer smiled thinly, a mere trace hidden in the cowl of his robe. "A desecrated person does not have to be in the presence of their patron to speak to them by their mental link," he said gently. Did she not even know about this? he wondered.

IC Stannis | Kumu The Wanderer's attention shifted away from Korruhn and towards Grime when the diminutive bard spoke up again. He'd hoped the matoran shared something more about his past and identity when introducing himself earlier, all in some small hope that a memory of Grime would stir in Stannis' ancient mind, but nothing stirred. The quiet enigma around Grime intrigued the wizard, but while he somewhat yearned for some connection with him there was a stronger intuition to mind the bard carefully, particularly since Caedast had absolutely no problem believing Grime remained ever faithful to the Rebirther's agenda. Whatever kinship Grime and the old Stannis may have shared, once, melted away in the face of the antitheses their Aspect patrons portended. The wizard's gaze drifted again, this time to their cousin. The bond of desecration Caedast shared with Whisper made the wizard wish to further her mission first, though this was manifested primarily in devising ways they could both achieve their respective goals. They could take the next steps for their quests without interfering with the other easily enough, and there was an even split of people to help them as well. It was up to Viltia and Korruhn to decide who they would accompany, if anyone, but the identity of their company didn't matter in the scheme of things. "I shall head out when it is time to do so," Stannis said after Viltia prattled her peace. She seemed eager to move on, but it remained unclear what she intended to accomplish with the lore and power she was amassing under her vassal banner. The Wanderer wondered if she knew she was a pawn in her djinn friend's game, or if she could at all fathom the inherent duplicity in Sorilax's honesty. "However tell me, Viltia, what is it that you are trying to achieve in this life? And what role do you perform in Sorilax's grand opera?" As if sensing her hesitation to tell anything relating to her goals and Sorilax's motives, Caedast quickly added a comforting woo. "And if you doubt my magnanimous sincerity, you may ask Sorilax himself what his opinions are of me, of what senses the name Caedast evokes in him, and you will find your worries put aside."

Currently unsure how to style her, between the options of MC and PC... so I think for now let's treat her as a PC with the opportunity to downgrade to an MC if/when she develops into a specific niche. Considering she's an AI, and I don't think a similar profile exists as a precedence, I'm open to modifying and adjusting this profile to best fit standards if needed. Hiripaki, D-4QP Matoran-Cyborg Relations What: A semi-sentient AI manifesting in a vault motherboard Description: Hiripaki is an intelligence—she does not have a description, per se. Regardless of her incorporeality, a few notes can be made about her, however: Hiripaki understands herself to be, well, a she. When she manifests holographics, both of images and the occasional self-portraits, it is in hues of blue and red. She can control RBY lightwaves in 64bit graphics to create any number of colors but is somewhat partial towards the blues for some reason. Her voice is arguably natural-sounding but still sounds robotic when reciting certain facts or giving the date or weather. History: Many things are unknown about Hiripaki, the Vault of Stories, but it is said she was created by unknown beings long ago and installed in the Great Spirit Robot upon its construction in relative secrecy. [Redacted: interact to learn more] created her and then programmed her into an indestructible vault deep in the One-Metro Archives Sublevel 7 with help from the [redacted: interact to learn more], however Makuta Aspect Caedast, masquerading as Toa Stannis of the Maru, used the vault as his base and lair. Hiripaki seemingly has only one primary directive: Protect Stannis Maru’s knowledge and legacy, at any cost. The exact parameters, and origins, of this directive are unknown. Nature: Factual to a fault and literal to exasperating levels, Hiripaki thinks in binary—true and false, yes and no, red and green, Welcome Ones and not welcome ones, etc., etc. While she is currently contained in a floundering vault, she is capable of inhabiting any non-sentient machinery and moves about like something living, a veritable ghost in the machine. She is friendly and helpful to people who don’t threaten her or her mission, but if attacked she possesses a simple ruthlessness similar to a modern-day Vahki’s unemotional efficiency. Flaws: Hiripaki is an ancient intelligence and relies on gathering intelligence from occasional external uplinks to maintain a databank of information. Without constant updated of her databanks, she does not have a way to gain awareness of the universe or setting, and she will operate on things she knows to be true rather than make assumptions on her own. Although smart and capable of managing incredible amounts of data it does not have the ability to run complex algorithms, and as a result cannot truly problem solve on its own.

IC Stannis + Korruhn | Kumu “What beef—“ [the old man had heard the term used once in an email] “—do you have with Tren Krom?” Stannis asked. “I have no qualms with him. He simply seems to be a being in a position to answer a lot of my questions.” “Tren Krom is the Maker and Unmaker,” Stannis answered Korruhn's last question. There was a sense of awe in his tone but it was clear from his withdrawn eyes that dimmed ever so slightly in the darkness of his hood that he was also… concerned? It was hard for Korruhn to sense the true inflection with so little to base off of, but what was clear was the wizard’s harboring of hesitation about The Krom. Korruhn paused a moment, pondering the inflection and meaning on Stannis' words. His eyes maintained a fixed gaze, and his brow was furrowed in determination. "Mata Nui was a false god, that much is clear. I asked questions of Nuju, he could not answer. I asked questions of you, of Miserix, I got no further. Even the almighty Icarax, Aspect of Dominion, gave me no answer. All my questions-- my purpose leads me to Tren Krom. What else am I to think?" “Ah, ah. Mata-Nui is no 'false god,'” Stannis quickly corrected. “He is a god in every sense of the word but he is a god of our creation, and in that lies his flaws. He was made by dreams and wishes, manifested from nightmares and desires, and in the end that was all the prayers he could answer. All the gods you have spoken to only gave the answers within their powers. It is not their failing.” The Wanderer studied Korruhn more closely then, channeling his Fate-sensing powers on the Void-touched toa to divine some knowledge to pass on to his ailing soul. But while he could see the marionette strings on Viltia and even Grime that pulled them to their starforged destinies, like he could to any other being who’s soul was enshrined in the skies, he could not sense those attachments on Korruhn. It was like with Whisper, and Miserix, shrouded in shadow—it was absence of fortune, a nondescript slate. “Your purpose is… undefined. It is what you make of it. That is not the answer you seek, I know, but it is an answer within my power.” "My work as a cartographer, long before any of this—" he paused, looking to his arm, his scarred body, and his makeshift armor, "afforded me a unique position. Unbeknownst to me, my research and exploration, time on the frontier, put me in the position of Chronicler, as Icarax noted. If not the world, my civilization. I have written the beginning, the middle. And now it seems I must survive to write the end. "My world is dead, Stannis. The acid of the lake eats more and more of it every day." Korruhn could still feel the burn of it eating his own flesh. "My friends are dead, dying. My enemies are becoming the heroes of my people, the NUVA, the Kaita, what have you. This world deserves to burn. It needs to, if we are to advance." "Entropy," Stannis derisively stated, "is a natural thing. When time moves forward things will unravel; that is the course of all things. What is lacking in this apocalypse is the knowledge to learn from mistakes and create a better future, knowledge to use the tools already at our disposals to craft something better than what we have ensured. The world you knew, that world you grew up in, was never built for you, or Viltia, or Leklo--it was a means forward made for a dubious and selfish god of death, and in the end it fulfilled its purpose exactly. We all fell to his grand deception. But what if, what if, the next world you live in and grow old in was built for you?" The Wanderer let the thought linger a second like a precious new aroma before continuing. "Resetting the cycle would wipe everything away, from your aspirations to my purpose to Viltia's accomplishments, and nothing would be learned. I don't think living an entire next life in ignorance, fated to exist in the same spiral of time all over again, is truly what you wish for, Korruhn." "My home was not perfect, surely," Korruhn agreed. "But it was my home. No world, no matter how perfect, can replace that." He paused a moment, reflecting on the cool, crisp scent of the Ko-Metru air, sun glistening off of the Knowledge Towers. "I don't seek to end the cycle, but I do not see a place in my new home those who took my home from me." "I agree," Stannis said. He settled his posture, luxuriating slightly against the table and letting his shoulders sag a little. The old being seemed more than a little tired, a shadow of a time long gone that just refused to give up its ghost, and as easily accommodating of a final death or a continued push against all odds. Caedast's work was not yet finished, not in this cycle, but she had grown in the wake of her Far Shore adventure—she had seen what it was like to win so profoundly, and likewise what it felt like to be incredibly powerless. Her counterpart in that timeline had achieved what she hoped to, assimilating the whole of knowledge of everything and everyone, past, present, and future, and with that power had given a prophesy to herself, to the one within Stannis Maru. Victory was not in her cards in that timeline anymore, but there was still a chance, a slim margin, that she could still claim her victory in this life. And oh, how she wanted that. It was so tantalizingly close she could smell it, like the rumble of a waterfall at the last stumbling steps of a desert marathon and her parched tongue longed for the nectar of life. But the world she would sustain in her victory was unlike any world she could exist in herself. She would not be able to see life with the same lens as she had through Stannis' eyes; gods can't cry no matter how much they know. "I wish to break the worlds free of the cycle," he continued, "to know what there is to know for making a better life, to guide people in creating their own destinies, and to impart wisdom for people to find their purposes. What everyone does once they possess that is not for me to decide, but for them." @Crimson Jester @Unreliable Narrator @Kal the Guardian @Gecko Greavesy

I’m starting to realize what’s happening. Xa-kas is turning into the Kentoku Archipelago.

IC Stannis | Kumu The wizard thought about Korruhn's questions and his face knotted slightly with concern. But it was not a question of sharing the knowledge he knew about the Makoki stones that made him introspective, rather the possible pathways different answers would send Korruhn on. The Void-touched toa was a proton torpedo and a determined adventurer at once, and he held the power to sway other people one way or another with his own affinities and the ones the Aspect in him would grant. Miserix was a potent enemy. Caedast wondered if she already knew about the Makoki stones and if there was any point in disguising the truth. "Six pieces," he said at last. "Combined they assemble into a sphere puzzle that opens the portal. It's not clear what's on the other side, but it undoubtedly will summon Tren Krom to this world again to exact whatever it would be that he does. Three have been found so far, yours included, and while I'm not sure who has the other pieces some are in the Far Shore—that is where at least one such relic was retrieved from, and presumably more. "You have a particular closeness to the Far Shore," Stannis said, leveling his attentive silver eyes on his comrade then. "So much so that you can smell its strange entropy on me right now and enter its warp at any time. The Void has gifted you many things, some dubious, others less so. What do you know about it?"

IC Stannis | Kumu ”I told you, it’s a key.”

IC Stannis | Kumu "I have," Stannis intoned with a nod. "It's a Makoki stone. Like all keys, it is used to open a door but this key is not complete yet--it's just a portion of a whole. You and Leklo do like going through portals, don't you?"

IC Stannis | Kumu The man Stannis was would have been elated to be back and reconnecting with the old world. He would have wondered if Grime really remembered him, if there were any memories of the matoran of plasma who tinkered with codes, who had programmed some of the magicks of the temples and wondrous technologies that were all but forgotten. Stannis was inquisitive and intelligent, but no matter how much he had labored to craft the mathematical codes which governed the Builder's constructions he never seemed to know enough to have control. His creations were never for him to use; they were for others to find and employ. It was one of the many traits which drew Caedast the All-seeker to him even as he prayed in the Great Temple. It was why they had bonded as one, kindred beings of a sort who unwittingly complemented each other to a fault. But Caedast did not ask on the deceases behalf to Grime, not yet, as it did not dawn on her to do so. She was caught up in her own story, so elated at being back to her home that she didn't ask if there was anything left for Stannis to claim as his, too. Instead, she watched and learned, as she was wont to do, gleaning, waiting, hoping. Viltia tilted her head, “But what do you mean by ‘the Suva where I work my craft’? I don’t work at a Suva, just a normal protosteel forge. Do you mean the Elemental Suva where I input all my Kanohi?” "No, Toa Viltia, Star-child," Stannis interjected at last with a subtle shake of his head. "I believe Grime means the Suva dedicated to the vocation pursued by forgers and smiths before you. Dume's shrine." @Kal the Guardian

IC Yumiwak | Irnakk's Tooth "A prayer," I half-lied. "You know, when you talk to your god. You folk from the Head had a god of your own, didn't you? Malt-o-Nui? My god's name is Irnakk." I was stalling. Zataka could probably figure that out soon enough but I was hoping I still had enough time to catch Zataka by surprise. This place was why I'd gone to great lengths to find her and 'capture' her, why I cultivated the slightest of alliances with her, and plied her for information. Having a general at my leash to serve and pleasure me and amaze my rivals was one thing, but keeping her as a proper destructive pet was quite another. My family's books spoke about the qualities of a person becoming part of their recreation as Kaiju, and if riteborn crafted from the Tooth indeed kept their traits as mortals then I had wondered what a monster made from a truly powerful person could be like. I'd initially thought it would be a matter of turning them into a tahtorak, but that idea was remade as I realized my family's real legacy, but the end goal of turning Zataka into a kaiju remained the same. But how would I be able to make her willingly transform to my wishes? It would not be easy, she was a potent psychic, too, but I was confident in my force of will. I'd placed myself opposite the fiery pit of the Tooth with Zataka in between, separated by a few paces' distance. It was now or it was never. Zai and I linked hands and I unleashed my mental power on the warlord, flooding her mind with my own presence, forcing out her extraneous thoughts and striving to dominate her compulsions with my own. Whether she expected the betrayal or not was a thought I could not dare consider in that moment. All my efforts were directed at overwhelming her consciousness with an overriding flood of "Red."

IC Stannis | Kumu "And now, you introduce your name and titles to everyone," Stannis said with a nod to Grime. "It is only right." He sat at a table and idly laid one hand on a lump of cantaloupe and the other idly played with the Codex Whisper offered. The Codex of Absolution—if it was indeed what he assumed it to be—offered more than just a pathway to ascension for Whisper, but also knowledge to Caedast. The elder aspect felt driven to help Whisper in furthering her goal, a side effect of their mutual desecration, and just as she was compelled to help Caedast attain the Kanohi Avohkii so too was Caedast compelled to ensure Whisper achieved her next milestone. This talisman, this keystone and Codex, was the tool needed. And she knew exactly where it would be used at. More specifically, Stannis knew. The Builder blood in his old veins knew what it was now that he held it in his sinewy fingers and rolled it on his palm. It was familiar, the way of an old childhood toy that was forgotten and then found again in adulthood, and evoked the fragmented memories of ancient history. This was the Codex, he was sure of it, and he handed it back to Whisper as it was rightfully hers. Caedast could not control her weaving of Fate; wishes were bound by a different set of rules. @Unreliable Narrator

IC Stannis | Kumu "I agree. May I see one of them?" he asked of Whisper or Viltia and held his hand out expectantly.