Patches (Open RP)

(( I was waiting for the zombie. ))

(( * removes brain and looks it over then reinstalls it.* Got a bit of writers block but I post something.))

The tree ships moved like the Mutated one flying out in all directions planting the seeds. Where ever the scanners detected what was needed to grow.

In the case of the mutated Tree ship the Water supply would be very deep the remains of the lake that used to be there before the Desert appeared to cover it.

For the defenses of the Ships themselves physically the defenses weren't strong perhaps harder then a Hardwood tree. The Protective forcefield generated by the magic aura however was enough to protect the ships from the harshness of space.
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At the gate the fairy would be warmly welcomed just like Trysis the Flying fey came out first buzzing and greeting.

(Fey Speak) "how you get here?! Who are you? How you survive out side of forest magic!"

Then the voice of the wolf stronger but at the same time softer "Let her in she's here for a good reason my friendly fey."
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Rotten looked at Cerelassion and Paxtera then turned to Elizabeth. "Alright I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not. Your more of an expert in that area however if you need it draw on the dark magic within me."

He shrugged "Don't worry about drawing it all out of such it always recovers. Just make sure someone has some meat for me if I collapse. If that happens I won't have control of my body till I feed."

Cerelassion brought out his magnifying glass. "Hmm lets see..." He fiddling with some knobs on the device. "If I can find... ah there it is her faint Magical tint. Now I can see those buggers no matter how hidd... OW" He lifted his head and rubbed the bump having just banged into a branch.

"Oh that reminds me! Those pesky Marbles didn't they say they could find her Trinket for her?"

Friendly! That was a relief. In fact the welcoming committee was so jubilant that the little pixy spontaneously gave her over to the wild side, her purpose as cleanly forgotten as the morning dew evaporating in the sunlight. She converted in intricate dance with them, laughing as carefree as the wind. She freely answered their questions, lavishing in the attention. Not sure how I got here, yet. I am fey, like you. Thank you for letting me come! Such a nasty desert out there. Almost got caught by the edge of a sand storm. Uck! I survive by carrying my forest magic with me, of course. Don't you?

Her merriment was fractured by the voice. With a high-pitched "Eep!" she tried to hide behind her new friends and spot the one who had spoken. She knew instinctively that is was of a wolf, and an important wolf at that, even if its body was not corporeal. Such sharp teeth were not healthy for one like her!

"Ah. Yes. Reason for being here. I'll get right on that, sir." Edging carefully along the darted into the forest as if expecting a nip, serious or teasing it still involved all those teeth, at her heels.

The Heart Tree. That's where she needed to go first. If the forest had such powerful guardians as a wolf, or spare the thought an entire pack!, then paying due respect was definitely the first order of business to ensure she stayed on their good side.

((Going to pause there for a moment as I'm unclear if the group is still at the Heart Tree or if they have moved off elsewhere.))

((Guys, please don't start this. I've already said that stuff doesn't grow in the Desert, so I'd prefer it if yalls didn't just ignore that because it doesn't suit you. I don't really care whether or not it grows in Paragon, but I put a lot of thought into the Desert plot and would appreciate if you didn't try to passively countermand what I've set up. Thank you.))

(( couldn't you send some Machine to terminate the Organic contamination? Explain why life can't survive. Besides if your Reavers can cheat why can't the MAGICAL life of a Heart tree cheat as well? Being Magical in nature it be more resistant to hostile environments I already established the Heart tree can adapt seeds and even seeds of the other trees in the Aura. Besides story wise the Seeds even altered by the mutation wouldn't sprout and grow for months and would take years to be strong enough to resist outside threats. So they will die anyway. Also Natural Seeds can go dorment for a long time till conditions are right to grow so even planted the seeds might not sprout anyway. Also logically it could be said once the nursery case is empty the seedling would die. Besides Deserts aren't lifeless hence I been calling it the Waste. For Paradigm_Shift the Seeds would still spread the contamination to what ever life it contacts in Paragon. ))

(( I might point out that saying things don't grow there doesn't mean we can't plant stuff there and be hopeful. Just means we'll end up disappointed. ))

((What Rebel and Rotton said. This is a process that will take YEARS before it produces measurable results. ANYTHING could happen to prevent the seed from growing. Reavers, Harvesters, a wasteland scavenger could dig it up and eat it...

And hey. Plants can grow damn near anywhere that has an atmosphere. But it's YOUR wasteland. Just say the machines sprayed it with organic pesticide.

This was FILLER - I never intended for the seed in the desert to go anywhere or to be meaningful plotwise.))

((Alright then...let's see where we can go with this.))

Jade looked to Cerelassion and then back to the acorn still in his hand. Trinket. No, that was dead too. He didn't realize the elven man meant a different one. All he knew right now was that Bisys was dead and he couldn't do anything to change that. Worse, though all this talk was going on, no one seemed to actually be doing anything.

He wanted to shout, to scream, to attack someone...but what would that've helped? No, that wasn't the answer. Tafari was gone too, meaning he couldn't even vent his pain in that direction. He wanted to be angry at someone, but he just couldn't seem to muster up the steam. For the first time in a long time, the Dragon's heart was calm.

What had she said? Live your life. Be happy. Admittedly, he liked the sound of that. But no, not yet. He had work to do.

"You said you'd learned some things about the machines, right?" he asked of the elf as he rose, his tone laced with cold determination, "Can you show me...?"

((I have RETURNED! My apologies for such an extended absence, but RL matters came first. I'm just NOW getting back to internet access.))

At
Negative Rise nodded to Vetdjat as the Khelari responded, seemingly astonished as to how other civilizations were capable of advancing without such a lengthy social process.

Ag'xis
The chronomage Archness Jerzal was the last to step through the portal. None of the Ascended Generals would notice one another, however they would notice each one's arrival at the battlesite in the Tevron Reaches, a mountainous range spanning several leagues on the planet of Ag'xis. As Jerzal stepped out of the simple gating portal, he noticed the horrified, seemingly dead expressions on the faces of each Ascended General.

He immediately casted the quickest chronospell he knew ...

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Back on Patches, in some mountain range (near the Desert...)

Graxitica stepped out of his teleportation portal, appearing directly above his now broken, former prison that took the shape of a pebble on Kalderi. His newly acquired foot crushed the pebble under its weight, but he was still able to spot the mystically-charged dust the pebble had become.

He scooped the dust up in his hand, quickly before any wind would scatter it across this patchwork world. ((Graxitica still has no clue of the nature of this planet...))

He then lifted the beastly hand that held the dust into the air while chanting a long-forgotten, dark spell from Kalderi. He then balled that hand into a fist, leaving a opening between his fingers and palms, as if he was about to use his hand as a telescope. Instead, he uttered the final word of his spell as he breathed through the opening of his hand.

The dust was jettisoned into the atmosphere of Patches...

The small light, still looking like a blue firefly in its near-constant motion, had made it to the Heart Tree yet not her destination. You see, when the Heart Tree had come into view its awesome size had only been surpassed by its giant spiritual presence.

With croons of awe and delight the little fey flirted from one leaf to another, praising each vein as it contributed small tokens of energy to help this wonder of greenery flourish. She had not even gotten to the bough of one branch before having exhausted herself so utterly that space-time tear disgorging Ildela into the group far below was mistaken as a dizzy spell. The petite pixy curled up to rest, tucking a leaf around herself like a blanket.

At

"But let's have other places be other places." the elder Khelari did away with the rather cumbersome topic of social orders (and disorders) across the cosmos, "I'd much rather hear of yours. Is it like here? Or very different? One of those arctic places...?"
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Elven Forest

"Yes, I would like her to!" Jade couldn't help but burst out with a shout, looking to Bathory, then back to Rotten, "Do I really have to say that out loud?! If someone can help her, do something alrea-!"

Then space-time tore open, and the Dragon's words fell into silence. He only stared blankly as the phenomenon ran its course, ending with Ildela's appearance.

"Oh no..." he said tonelessly upon recognizing the gash, hurrying over to the woman, "How bad is it? Can you hear me...?"

Cerelassion nodded "Lazardarus is the best one we have however... I have no clue where he is right now. My guess is the front gate."

"Perhaps I can be of aid" came the voice of that mystical wolf but this time the wolf appeared as an elf with silver blond hair and those crystal blue eyes. He came forward thought if anyone payed attention not a single grass blade was disturbed. Reaching down his hand glowed a faint green white as he focused on healing. "Interesting your body harder to heal then what I'm used to. Then again your not native to the same realm as I am so no surprise there." He looked to the others "She will need rest after this. It is already close to midnight you all seem a tad tired."

Jade didn't say anything to that, though his thoughts were very much concerned with it. Too bad Ildela had passed out. He'd had quite a few questions for her, foremost of all what this city was that she had...found for him? He didn't remember asking anyone to find a city, but then there were a lot of things he no longer remembered. Either way, it loooked like it would have to wait until morning.

"Okay." he finally nodded with a sigh as he stood again, turning to look toward Cerelassion, "I'd just like to take a look at those notes of yours first, though. Would you show me...?"

((Okay then, anyone still got something they need to post before people go to sleep? If not, feel free to scootch time to morning. ))

The darkness of night ends eventually, no matter how much it may try to delay the inevitable.

False dawn began to lighten the sky. In its first blush the tiny fey fluttered around the slumbering Jade. Her prying hands and at-first-glance appearance that of a tickling butterfly.

Steel Canyon, Paragon City...

The early-morning sunrise was accompanied by a monstrous blaring noise akin to a foghorn. Sailing right over the War Wall separating Baumtown from Steel Canyon was the giant mutated tree ship, heading directly for Perez Park. After all, that was where it had awoken, where it had slept, where it had planted the seeds of it's future glory.

Back in the Corrupted Haven, the pool of Tar seemed to squirm in a contented fashion. It felt good when everything went according to plan. It was nice to know it had a lifeline. If Patches did not work out, there was always Paragon City...But returning to Patches itself, everything was in motion. The mutation was spreading. In the aeons to come, twisted Heart Trees would grow on every patch of land the mutated Tree Ship had reached. For the moment, all that was needed was to finish consuming the forest.

Consume the forest. And make it Home.

Elven Forest

Jade mumbled something unintelligible at the touch of the tiny fey, shifting his body around and a little ways up the thick tree branch he'd chosen as his bed, trying to turn away from whatever was tickling his face, making his lips twitch.

He wasn't nearly in a sleep as deep as had overcome him after his return to the flesh, but this being the first night he'd slept in about 400 years, he still wasn't ready to give it up quite this easily...
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Patches
High Orbit

The debris field that encircled patches at great altitude had seen quite much. From the first efforts of the Builders to the rise and fall of the civilizations that came after. Today, however, came something new. Today, a bright-white detonation vaporized one of its fragments.

Today, it was under attack.

VFSSR 3rd Fleet
Uncharted Star System

The KAGO and the other ships that comprised the fleet wasted no time blasting a path into the fragment cocoon about the patchwork planet, unseen beams of terrible force cutting through the vacuum of space and into their targets at the speed of light, tearing them apart in complete and utter silence.

At the same time, several flashes of light pulsed from the ventral hull of the KAGO, and a number of small, sleek, green-gray objects torpedoed their way through the orbital barrier, covered by the fire of the backing vessels. Penetrating the resultingly weakened field easily, they barreled toward the surface.

Toward At.

Where shooting stars greeted the dim, black-cloud-shrouded twilight of the 'morning sun'...

She didn't have enough information to do it on her own. After a few more minutes of futile poking about, the palm-sized fairy settled on the solidly slumbering snout. A minute of experimenting resulted with her draped over the perch on her stomach while her pale-pink-outlined-in-dark-green wings lightly fluttered so she wouldn't be dislodged by Jade's breathing. There. Now she would be hard to miss when he awoke.

It was almost frustration, knowing she was so close to her destination. Still, it wasn't every day she could have such warm bed. Of a dragon no less. What delightful irony! Yes, the delay was more than acceptable under the circumstances.

The Mountain Range
The dust of the 'pebble prison' Graxitica spewed into the air above the mountain range he landed in had dispersed into that portion of the atmosphere ...

Night had fallen over those mountains, and when daylight broke for the rest of Patches, this section remained clouded in a perpetual night...

At

Not one to be needing any sleep and with Vetdjat's curiousity still peaked, Negative Rise described his world of Ag'xis to the Khelari.

"It is truly magnifecent," he began his knowledge of the planet, which was actually quite extensive for the non-native inhabitant of the body that originated there. "My homeland, for starters, is a massive series of mountain ranges...extending far beyond most known magical means of enhanced sight. Right now, it would be summer there, but the peaks of the mountains would still be snow-capped. Avalanches occur far more often now than any other time of the year," he trailed off. "Yet where we have built our strongholds, we have taken those occurances into consideration to maximize our protection from such events."

He continued dispensing his description of the planet Ag'xis well into the early morning hours.

"Well, Vetdjat, that about covers what I know of my home...from the places I've travelled there to what I've read in our records."

Just about the same time his recital finished, was when the green-gray objects began their descent into the atmosphere of the planet...

Back at the Mountains...

Graxitica felt the disturbance that rippled through his night sky. Something was approaching, and the incarnate being of darkness would venture out to discover what was causing that disturbance...

Ag'xis

Jerval had ensorcelled himself into a time-loop. Of course, once the spell activated, he wouldn't know it was a time-loop. His morning would play out the same way...right down to the very way he woke up and crawled out of his bed that morning. The scene of the murdered Ascended Generals would play out numerous times as well...

After countless repititions of these events, Jerval would finally realize he had caught himself in a time-loop, that he had been living these same moments for who-knew how long. Once the realization came to him, however, he would know A) who had murdered the Generals B) how they were able to mask themselves from Jerval's numerous protective spells that were simul-cast with his gate spell, as well as the Generals' own protections and C) that he would have to correct his temporal meddling on a grand scale.

He would need to stop time throughout the entire cosmos.

Elven Forest

Jade snorted and snurfled multiple times before the nerves of his nose finally managed to poke his brain into a sufficiently awakened state for his eyelids to twitch. Slowly, heavily, inexorably they rose, opening horizontal slits just barely wide enough to let in the morning light.

The next moment, they shot wide open. Then they blinked. The rest of the Dragon's body remained perfectly still, only his pupils fidgeting about, looking up, down, and all around the little thing draped around the horn on his snout like that. Was this real? Was it a dream? Was he still asleep and only thought he was awake?

Only one way to find out.

"Um..." he eventually spoke, "Hi...?"
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At

"A most intriguing world." Vetdjat smiled in response, looking very satisfied upon the crystal 'branch' he'd chosen as his listening post. He'd laid there for the past several hours, turning periodically, and was currently on his stomach, jaw resting on his forearms, "Still sounds very cold, however. I've seen it time and again now, but I nevertheless always have trouble believing life evolves in such frozen wastes...from my point of view."

"Oh, look." the Khelari's smile directed itself upwards, "We have meteorites this morning."

Looking back to Negative Rise, he inquired, "Tell me, do your people believe that a wish made in the presence of a meteorite will come true?"

His attention thus redirected, the black elder never even noticed that these 'meteorites' didn't burn up as they went overhead. Instead, they went on their trajectories and right onto the other side of the caldera wall somewhere behind Vetdjat - and while the Khelari city experienced not a single perturbation, the earth at the impact site rocked and rolled, scattered in massive plumes of ejecta. Smoke and fire billowed right along, jagged cracks in the thin slate that was the supposedly solid ground disgorging volatile gases that found just enough oxygen to combust, producing the thick and biting clouds as a result of the incomplete process.

Humans would've chosen to describe it as hell. But then, these invaders were not human, and as the flames died down, they emerged from their capsules, armed and ready, the thick soles of their combat armor crushing the soft ash beneath their feet against the rough, jagged rock below...