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Reclamation

Discussion in 'Freeform Roleplays' started by ShadoeMayari, Nov 19, 2014.

  1. Claire awoke with a start. That voice! . . . a quick survey of the room yielded nothing. No one was in her room. "The hell?" she muttered somewhat groggily, rubbing her eyes with both hands. Wait. She peeled her hand away from her eyes, blinking several times as the blurriness danced about before focusing on what should have been her gimped hand. "The fuck?!" Claire cursed, fully awake now. Her eyes darted around the room. How had her hand been healed? And... the mirror! Her eyes instantly locked on the perfectly in-tact mirror. "How in the world did– Know what? No. Don't worry about it." She closed her eyes once more and pinched the bridge of her nose. She let go a minute later when it failed to have any sort of effect on her. The irritable teen groaned and shifted out of bed.

    Her feet hit the floor and she sluggishly went about getting dressed again. Boots once again laced up, knife safely strapped to her ankle, and coat donned once more, she retreated from her domicile. Claire forced herself to put on a smile as she entered the training room. Riley and Roxanne were currently in the middle of sparring with some of the dummys. As much as she wished to ignore them, her little facade wouldn't hold up very well if she chose to do so. "Hi Riley! Roxanne," Lara chirped, waving to them as she went before she grabbed a bow and quiver with little thought to the mater. She joined them. "Are you guys alright?" she asked, a slight frown forming on her face. "That challenge scared me––I thought for sure we'd drown if he didn't hold our breath!" The over dramatization of her earlier fear made her want to gag, but it fit perfectly for innocent little Lara.
     
  2. Roxanne pulled out a sword and watched Riley spar with a dummy for a second. She was mildly impressed by the move that she was doing, and nodded at her explanation. "You must have had a weird childhood," she remarked when Lara approached them.

    "I'm fine," she said, stiffening a little. "It was a bit freaky. The water was uncomfortable to breath in, but once I figured it out it was okay. I didn't do so well with this challenge. I hope the next one is better," she said with a sigh as she looked down at her bracelet to check her point total. No update since the last challenge, but one perfect 10 can only take her but so far. She was probably hurting for points after this one. 5? 4? 6? With a sigh, she closed out of the app and decided to worry about it later. She went to a dummy right next to Riley's dummy and started practicing her punches and kicks on it.
     
  3. "Uh-" She looked at Roxanne from the corner of her eye, confused by her lack of reaction. She remained silent for a moment, windmilling the target in silence. As she changed from attacking- instead twirling the sword around the target, trying to see how long she could go without cutting it- she decided to speak.
    "Yeah no- That's my name. Like the secret one. The no-one-knows one?"
    She stayed for a moment before she messed up and hit the target- her time was pretty good though. She sheathed the falcata and cleared her throat before turning around and heading towards the door. She'd enough training- probably- maybe she'd sleep or something? What the hell was she even supposed to do in this place?
     
  4. And then it hit Roxanne that she messed up. She ran after Riley- Sevlin. "OH! I thought... I thought you were talking about your moves... I'm sorry. And then I said that because I thought your parents were making moves up and training and... yeah. I'm sorry. I messed up." Good job, Roxanne. No moves for you. "I think it's actually a really cool name. Definitely creative, but funky. I like it." She looked at the other girl and smiled a little. "Thank you for telling me. Now, which would you prefer me calling you: Riley? Or Sevlin?" she asked. Recovery? Maybe. She hoped so. Shoot for understanding!
     
  5. Riley ruffled Roxanne's hair, not really fully paying attention "Whatever you wanna' call me is fine."
    She walked out of the training room and then out of the tower, removing her armor and sheath. She set them down on the grass before sitting beside them, staring into the water of the moat. Everyone here had something- some flow that was just for them. Except her. She examined her own hands, as if there would be an answer- but all she saw were scars and bruises. Maybe she was an anomaly- she fell onto her back, watching the sky- maybe she never would have a power.
     
  6. TIME UNKNOWN

    ...

    ...

    "...Hey, are you awake?"

    ...

    "...Hm, doesn't seem like it."

    "Well, I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday, that's all."

    "I even got a gift for you! But you'll definitely see it later."

    "Your Flow is such a bother, y'know? Just giving you my normal present wouldn't be that much of a present for your case."

    "Well, I'll let you bypass that little obstacle. But it'll be just for today, 'kay? Enjoy it while it lasts. Goodbye!"


    ...

    ...

    9:30͔̯͓͔̟
    Wedǹè͔̠̳̘sday, December 2, 2̹̘1҉̺̳̰͓̭̠̬2҉̞͈̥̝̠͍2
    -̺͟3̛̙̲͎̹ͅº̜̗̖͉̕C̗̣͝,̱̝̤̕ ̡̩̞̲̞C̪̳̦̯̭̠̺͢ļ̥̩̥̠e͚̜̰̭a̫̳̱̩̦̲͍r̸͚͕̜̮̝
    ̢b͏͖̜̝̳E҉̥̞w͢a̡R͚͇̤͔̰̟ͅĘ͙͍ ̼̱͚̹ó͍͉͖̲̰̻F͠ ̜̘̫̯̟̰͢s͙͚̜̞̼T̞̠O̧r̥͚̮̹̠m̵̘͖̥̗̟ ̷zt̲̭͇͇̺͙̗
    w̗̩̗͘ḀX͇̩̹i̤͎ͅn͓̱̟͚͓͚G҉͇ ͖̟̱͕̞̼̖͢C̲̞̹͕̤̟͉r͝E̝̼͟S̵̠̩̜̻̰̣̬c̮̮̤̰͔̳e̻̝̭n͖̜̘̯̻̺͉T


    Some of the contestants woke up much earlier than they intended to. As soon as midnight passed, the bracelet on their arm began to make static noises. The display began to glitch out, revealing several error messages. Some began to fear that the bracelet was going to blow them up or shock them to death, but their fears turned out to be baseless. But that didn't help cure some of their new-found insomnia, so they just waited for the sun to rise and for the doors to unlock to leave their room.

    Except, the sun never rose?

    Well, it did, but it was like its light never reached the earth. You could see he tiny little sun as a normal but rather bright star hanging in the sky instead. But...why was the moon still up? The crescent of the moon replaced the light of the sun, bathing the earth in a dull, pale light.

    ...What was going on?

    With no sense of time due to this odd occurrence, the contestants simply waited in their rooms until they heard the doors unlock on their own. Going down to the main hall would reveal a puzzled-looking Anya. "Ah, right. Everyone, listen up! Because of this odd 'weather', today's challenge will be postponed to 10:30. You're all free to do whatever in the meantime, but the training room is off-limits due to our preparations for the challenge."
     
  7. Roxanne heard the static and opened her eyes. "Noooo.... What's happening...?" she said groggily. She realized it was coming from the bracelet. Electronics and static were never good. She reached for the bracelet and tried ripping the thing off, yanking and pulling at it to keep the damn thing from electrocuting her. It didn't work, and the thing didn't send her convulsing with electric shocks. Maybe it would be okay.

    The excitement kept her awake, and she tried to open the door to get something to drink to help get her back to sleep. But the locks still worked, and she couldn't leave. Damn. So she laid down. And stared at the ceiling. Doing nothing. For hours. She wanted the sun to rise, but it never did, so she got dressed The doors unlocked, and she went outside and downstairs to see what the heck was happening. The challenge for the day was postponed, so she went to the hall to get coffee. And food. Something to keep her awake. She barely acknowledged her friends for the moment, because she was too tired to even talk right now. Coffee. CAFFEINE.

    Roxanne poured herself a massive cup of coffee, a sugar plantation, and an entire cow's worth of cream before greedily chugging it down as she sat down. "Much better."
     
  8. Riley awoke to the sound of static- She sat up in her bed, panicked. "It's not electricity, there's no broken wires or anything, he's not here..." She sighed, quickly going to wash her face and get ready "What time is it even?"
    The doors were still locked so she crossed her legs on the bed, closing her eyes. She didn't know how long she was there but she heard the doors click and made her way down to the main hall. The challenge was postponed for... She checked the bracelet- the only readable thing being the time. OK so they had an hour to kill, and they couldn't train. She sighed, slowly making her way to Roxanne's table. She sat beside the girl, not actually realizing it, and ate a bit of salad absentmindedly.
    ---
    Sydney fell out of her bed- that's how she woke up. In fact, she didn't really even register the static until after she had gotten off the floor. She hoped she hadn't broken it. Sydney prepped herself for the morning before realizing the door was locked. She spent some time trying to sleep- and failing- before she heard the door click. When she got down she heard about the postponing and sighed, plopping down across Roxanne and trying to fall back asleep.
     
  9. Zein only groaned as the static roused her from sleep. She cracked an eye open and looked around the room, confused. "I swear I heard something else," she grumbled to herself. She checked her watch, which was the source of the buzzing noise. The display was on the fritz so she let out a very irritated sigh and slumped face-first into her pillow, hoping to block out the noise. After a while she got used to it and spent the rest of the night in various stages of consciousness. She got up to go to the bathroom, and on her way out she heard her door unlock. That meant it was morning, right? The sun should at least be starting to rise.

    She crossed to her window, peaking out at the moonlight landscape. She grinned. "Oh today's challenge will be so much fun," she said to herself, a large grin plastered across her face. She dressed quickly and left her room, heading down to the main floor to try and get a light breakfast in. She checked her watch again as she was walking down the stairs trying to decipher the mess of code and error messages spazzing across the screen. She at least managed to see the date...December 2nd. "Oh. I'm sixteen today," she muttered to herself, looking up at Anya as she entered the main room. No indoor training. Oh well, at least she'd be able to go outside. One more glance at her watch revealed that it was 9:30. "Wait...why did the doors unlock so late?" she grumbled, sitting next to Roxanne. She didn't say anything else, but helped herself to a large mug of coffee as well. She didn't add anything, unlike Roxanne who added enough sugar and cream for half a dozen cups of coffee. She briefly considered a smartass remark but let it pass.

    A sigh left her lips as she glanced about the room, waiting on Malik. Lately he'd  been late to almost everything and she hadn't seen him much over the past couple days. She was missing her mute asshole of a friend. She'd make sure to give him a few savage smacks when she bumped into him next. She glanced at each of the girls around her, tired of the silence. "Sooooooo..." she began, clearing her throat awkwardly and taking a sip of caffeinated goodness before continuing, "whacha think the challenge is going to be?"
     
  10. Malik had left his note in the Armory with his room number and name for Vanthus to find him later. He wasn't a fan of the arrows he had been given; he considered his own arrows to be better. After leaving the armory, Malik spent the rest of his day training and doing whatever he could to break the arrows he had been given. The threat against his life caused him to want to find a way to break the arrows, but to no success. His frustration made him sleep uneasily that night.

    The static from the bracelet caused a startled Malik to attempt to claw it off in a panic, but it only left his skin torn and bleeding. Yay. After bandaging his wrist, the boy got dressed and made for the door to go eat. The weather and the announcement unsettled him, so he ate lighter than he usually did before a challenge. All he had was a bowl of oatmeal in his hand as he made his way towards Zein. It had been a while since they had talked, and today would be a good day for them to work together. As he made his towards his friend, he saw the girl that had winked at yesterday and passed her a note with his name, room number, and a brief message about his mute condition before grabbing a seat opposite of Zein. He gave her a quick wave before eating the oatmeal.
     
  11. "Maybe it's... a scavenger hunt? Try to find X in the dark?" Riley spun her fork in her hands as she rummaged through her bag.
    "Or like... Kill each other in the dark." Sydney scoffed "You never know with weird tower adults."
    Riley found a pair of headphones and a CD player, she looked some more and found some batteries- How old was this stuff? She tried popping the batteries in and somehow the player turned on. She shrugged, no point in questioning it, and popped in the first (and only) CD she saw. It had a drawing of a star on it, and she knew it was one she had done herself with an old computer she had found in the orphanage before the storm. Sydney saw and gave her a thumbs up- she knew how much Riley enjoyed her music.
    Riley sighed and let the sound of some old song fill her ears, she glanced at everyone at the table before deciding against whatever she was obviously about to ask.
     
  12. If it weren't for the static, Marcus would've probably overslept that morning. But he was up in the early hours, blankly staring out the open window. The wind had died down since yesterday, but there still enough force for him to manipulate. He sat there by the window, tiredly waiting for the sun to come up, but the color of the sky didn't really change from its dark blue hue. Huh, that was strange. The click of the doors unlocking ushered him outside and to the main hall, where he was informed that the challenge was going to be postponed. Sleeping in sounded like a really good idea then. He sat down by the others, mixing himself a cup of coffee as well. "Doubt it's gotta do with what'ver the fuck's goin' on out there. 'f they expected somethin' like this to happen, they wouldn't 've postponed the challenge." He yawned, looking around the main hall. That shadow kid looked like he was talking to Anya about something? It was probably about the challenge or something. And that little girl was nowhere to be seen... He wasn't sure why he noticed that. Maybe he was just so used to seeing her around doing miscellaneous tasks.
     
  13. Roxanne noticed the shadow boy too. What could he be talking about? She stood up and carried her mug of coffee over to where they were. "Hey, Anya, when you get a chance, can I talk to you about something?" she asked, taking a sip of her coffee. She hated to cut either of them off, but her approach had to look honest and innocent. And maybe she would have caught something interesting.
     
  14. Riley was watching Shadow Boy from the corner of her eye when the CD player shut off "Unreliable old batteries..." She muttered to herself as she stuffed the headphones back into the bag with the rest of her things.
    "Eyo' Marcus." She patted his head before standing up quickly and calmly walking past the duo and Roxanne, deciding to take a seat at a random table nearby "Hi, Riley Arc-" she pulled out the falcata "-Don't fucking bother me if you value your life." She sheathed the blade and did her best to try and listen in on the trio's conversation.
    Sydney watched Riley leave and then turned back to the table "Hey Marcus- If I don't make it back, tell everyone I hate them all. Ciao~" She rushed to stand up and then took a deep breath before glancing around- she didn't spot anyone watching. She calmly and quietly made her way out of the tower and towards the cabin. She reached towards it, if there was some stupid force-field she'd just have to force her hand past it! How? She didn't really know.
     
  15. When Roxanne approached the two, Anya immediately stepped in between Roxanne and the shadow kid. She appeared to hesitate for a moment, before crossing her arms and nodding. "What is it?" The shadow kid stood behind her silently, his face out of Roxanne's view. Was he doing that on purpose...? His face, and Anya's face... It was hard to tell from far away, but since they were so close to each other like that, then maybe--

    "H-hey, don't do anythin' stupid--!" Marcus hopped out of his chair, but Sydney was already gone.

    There didn't appear to be any force field around the cabin? But if Sydney was to go as far as to touch the cabin, she would've felt a strange change in the air just inches away from the wood. While the surrounding air was cold with a slight breeze, the air around the cabin was neither hot nor cold, just flat-out neutral. It felt like there was no wind going into it, either.
     
  16. She noticed the quick movement of Anya but noticed something odd when looking at the two. Wait.... Surely not... That wasn't what she thought it was, was it? The thought process had Roxanne hesitating while she came up with a reason for her presence. "I, uh... Zein mentioned it's her birthday. Is there a way we could do something for her for it?" she asked. Zein wouldn't like it but she's explain later. She should have thought this through better. Whoops. Sorry.
     
  17. Upon hearing what Roxanne had to say, a look of sudden realization and understanding formed on her face, as if she was given the last piece to a puzzle. "...Do what you like. If you want to throw a party, then you can just look for stuff in the storage room. The rest of the adults probably don't want anything to do with it, so we can't help you with it, but feel free to do whatever."

    Just a bit after Anya finished talking, the training room door swung open. "Looks like they're finished preparing. Alright, go on, go on."

    Entering the door opened into a large open area surrounded by mountains. The contestants all stood in a field illuminated by the moonlight and...what appeared to be lanterns floating in the sky? Upon closer inspection, the lanterns were carried by black birds with no eyes and some sort of protrusion moving in their stomach? How odd. In the middle of the field was a little pond and scattered about were several rocks reaching varying heights. The adults were nowhere to be seen, but one could hear Thadius' voice somehow.

    "The short version of this is that you need to capture one of those birds and bring them back down to the ground safely. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Go do it already, you bastards."
     
  18. Sydney placed her hand against the door, the wind seemed to be gone in this area and the temperature was an odd middle-ground between warm and cold.
    "The fuck is in here...?"
    She felt the wood with her hands and to her it seemed like plain old wood. She thought for a moment- There wasn't much out here to live for. Well- maybe Riley. But if she knew Riley, the girl would move on easily. She seemed unfazed by any deaths the pair had seen.
    So Sydney tossed caution to the wind and knocked.
    ---
    So it was Zein's birthday...? Other than that, Riley was unable to gleam any important information from that short conversation. As the doors swung open, Riley followed the others inside. "Jump on pond-rocks, climb up high, bring down bastards from the sky~" Riley snickered and made her way to the pond- if there was one thing she knew she could do, it was climbing "Bring it on eye-less cuties!" She quickly climbed atop a small rock, still far from the birds but at least not on the ground.

    She seemed awfully giddy about jumping from rock to rock and then somehow pulling down a bird.
     
  19. Zein shrugged at  the suggestion. "Finding stuff in the dark seems a little below us," she idly remarked, chugging half her mug of coffee. She sighed and slowly slid so that she was halfway sprawled across the table. Her eyes were narrowed and overall she looked somewhat irritated. Or rather, more irritated than usual. She perked up slightly when Malik took  a seat, her lips breaking into a slight grin. She slapped her pal heartily on the back. "Welcome back, asshat," she said with a smile.

    She scooped eggs onto a piece of toast, then quickly inhaled it and washed it down with her coffee. She poured another mug and that, too, quickly disappeared down her gullet. She closed her eyes and leaned back, letting herself relax for a little bit while she waited for the caffeine to course through her  veins and wake her up for the challenge. Roxanne got up and was talking to Anya, but Zein really didn't care at this point. She mainly wanted the challenge to start already so she could go back to sleep. Birthday or not, she just wanted to get some more sleep after the previous night's static-fueled journey through insomnia.

    Soon enough the training room door opened and Zein shuffled through, somewhat surprised to see an outdoor arena bathed in moonlight. A smile spread across her features as she took in all the details; she could easily get to the highest rock and snatch one of the lantern-carrying birds out of the air. If that failed she'd use the dagger that she'd been so fond of for the past couple of days and attempt to kill one, then retrieve the lantern from wherever the bird landed. She took a deep breath and let the moonlight course over her, turning the small amount of energy gained from her caffeine consumption into a flood of lunar energy that made her feel ready to take on the world. A pale light coalesced over her body, her eyes turning into a pair of bright white orbs that could be seen from anywhere in the arena.

    Zein sprinted towards the edge of the water, faster than what she normally would have been able to sprint at. Her hair trailed behind her majestically, and just as she was about to step into the pond, she leaped into the air and landed gracefully on top  of a rock. Several more bounds and hops  later, she was standing on top of one of the taller rocks. The girl didn't care that she'd now suddenly turned into a literal glowing sign that she was using her flow, nor did she care that she attracted several of her competition's stares with her unnatural agility just now. A chuckle escaped her lips.

    All that was left was to retrieve a lantern. Several plans floated in and out of Zein's mind as she calmly observed her surroundings once more. If a bird was close enough she'd easily be able to jump and catch it, though she might land on a rock or in the water. She wasn't sure what was in the water, and while she figured she'd be able to shake off landing on a rock if she miscalculated her jump, she decided to wait until a bird got close enough for her to grab and make a quit exit. She was a hunter; she could wait patiently for her target--and still come out in first place.
     
  20. No answer for Sydney--except for the sound of rattling chains just beyond the door.

    Riley would've found herself hanging onto the bird's lantern. The protrusion in the bird's stomach--actually, upon closer inspection, it appeared to be an eye--stared right at Riley. The bird began to violently flap its wings and the fire from the lantern flared out, trying to force the girl to let go.

    The birds appeared to glide closer and closer to Zein. Were they attracted to her light, perhaps? Yeah, it seems as if the birds were attracted to light, because the shadow kid was across the arena with a flashlight, waiting for the birds to approach him. Was he aware of this beforehand? He was unusually prepared.
     

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