09-03-2018, 04:58 PM
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Alegreya+SC' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'><style type="text/css">.carnage_container{position:relative;z-index:1;width:460px;font:12px 'Times New Roman', serif;background:#040308 url('http://web.qx.net/zamora/stars-notdistorted.png');border-radius:300px 300px 0 0;border:1px solid #000;box-shadow:0 0 10px #000;}.carnage_container p{margin:0;}.carnage_container img{margin-bottom:-200px;border-radius:300px 300px 0 0;}.carnage_gradient{position:absolute;z-index:10;top:500px;left:15px;width:430px;height:100px;background:-moz-linear-gradient(top, rgba(118,118,118,0) 0%, rgba(76,76,76,0.8) 100%);background:-webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%,rgba(118,118,118,0)), color-stop(100%,rgba(76,76,76,0.8)));background:-webkit-linear-gradient(top, rgba(118,118,118,0) 0%,rgba(76,76,76,0.8) 100%);background:-o-linear-gradient(top, rgba(118,118,118,0) 0%,rgba(76,76,76,0.8) 100%);background:-ms-linear-gradient(top, rgba(118,118,118,0) 0%,rgba(76,76,76,0.8) 100%);background:linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(118,118,118,0) 0%,rgba(76,76,76,0.8) 100%);filter:progid
XImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#00767676', endColorstr='#cc4c4c4c',GradientType=0 );}.carnage_message{position:relative;z-index:10;width:400px;background:rgba(76,76,76,0.8);text-align:justify;padding:15px;color:#CCDDE6;}.carnage_quote{position:relative;z-index:15;text-align:center;top:-20px;font:18px 'Alegreya SC', serif;color:#B34747;text-shadow:1px 1px 4px #441211;}.carnage_name{position:relative;z-index:15;padding-top:10px;text-align:center;font:28px 'Alegreya SC', serif;color:#B34747;text-shadow:1px 1px 4px #441211;}</style><center><div class="carnage_container"><img src="http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b278/ruinedecho/carnage_zpsf4jw8cbz.jpg"><div class="carnage_gradient"></div><div class="carnage_message"><p class="carnage_quote">and lord, I fashion dark gods too;</p>
<i>I will show you fear in a handful of dust</i>, the poem goes.
It’s not a handful of dust that he has, but it’s close. A mouthful of dirt, spat at his hooves by his own disgraceful son.
The <i>what</i> didn’t matter. The <i>where</i> did.
The dirt was from Pangea, his fallen kingdom, a place created from cancerous magic, a defiance to the mountain, to Beqanna herself. Vomited forth by the dark god, flaunted - only to crumble back to the sea when he turned his back, left the place for a day or a year or a decade.
He’d meant to raise it, when he returned, but when he touched it, sickness threatened. He had been ill, when Pangea was born - not stripped of his magic, as others had been, but sickened. Some of the sickness had remained, threaded like veins through the fallen kingdom.
He could have powered through it, swallowed the bile, raised it through the pain.
But why? He does not like the feeling, the clawing threat of weakness that touched when he tried to beckon forth his drowned land.
There’s no reason he needs to go it alone. None at all.
So he doesn’t. He sends his son first, to bring something small, a piece of Pangea’s earth. Too small to sicken him.
(Him being Carnage. He can’t speak for the effects it might have on his son. That’s not his problem.)
The dirt tethers him. A touchstone to his land. It’s a thin, precarious thread, but he doesn’t need much.
With his mind, he picks up the dirt, shapes it into a handful. It floats there, for a moment. It looks completely unremarkable, but their dark god can feel the way it thrums. An impossible, drowned kingdom. A sick kingdom.
His kingdom.
The handful of earth separated into pieces, flying off in a dozen different directions. Small and unremarkable.
They find marks. Horses, chosen at random. The dirt burrows into their skin, like a living thing, parasitic. Once inside, it blooms. Spreads.
Like a flower. Like a sickness.
It changes their lungs, makes the air hard to breathe. It pulls them to the water. To the shore where Pangea once lay. The motherland.
He is waiting, at the shore.
“You’ve all been chosen,” he says. He does not let them into the water, not yet. He lets them choke.
“My kingdom is there--” he looks out to the ocean, which has taken on a glassy calm, “and you are all to go to it. I have a job for you there.”
He closes his eyes. He can feel the pieces of Pangea - so small, so potent - thrumming inside them.
He beckons forth something else - earth from the top of the mountain. Gravel, really. Pieces from the top of the world. The pinnacle of Beqanna’s magic. He pierces their skin with these, too. Side by side. Touchstones.
Tethers between the worlds. He’ll need those, later.
“Go on, then. Find Pangea. I’ll send further instructions once you’re there.”
He steps aside. Lets them break for the water, where they’ll be able to breathe. For a while, at least.
NOTES;
• Describe your horse being pierced by the Pangea remnant, listening to Carnage (and being pierced by the mountain remnant), then going into the water to find Pangea. Feel free to encounter underwater obstacles. End the post with them finding Pangea.
• Your horse temporarily has the ability to breathe underwater and is resistant to pressure, alongside whatever traits they regularly have
• No limit on entries, but one entry per player
• This is a Carnage quest, so defects may very likely occur.
• Entries are due by 11:59 AM CST/noon Saturday, September 8th
<p class="carnage_name">c a r n a g e</p></div></div></center>
XImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#00767676', endColorstr='#cc4c4c4c',GradientType=0 );}.carnage_message{position:relative;z-index:10;width:400px;background:rgba(76,76,76,0.8);text-align:justify;padding:15px;color:#CCDDE6;}.carnage_quote{position:relative;z-index:15;text-align:center;top:-20px;font:18px 'Alegreya SC', serif;color:#B34747;text-shadow:1px 1px 4px #441211;}.carnage_name{position:relative;z-index:15;padding-top:10px;text-align:center;font:28px 'Alegreya SC', serif;color:#B34747;text-shadow:1px 1px 4px #441211;}</style><center><div class="carnage_container"><img src="http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b278/ruinedecho/carnage_zpsf4jw8cbz.jpg"><div class="carnage_gradient"></div><div class="carnage_message"><p class="carnage_quote">and lord, I fashion dark gods too;</p><i>I will show you fear in a handful of dust</i>, the poem goes.
It’s not a handful of dust that he has, but it’s close. A mouthful of dirt, spat at his hooves by his own disgraceful son.
The <i>what</i> didn’t matter. The <i>where</i> did.
The dirt was from Pangea, his fallen kingdom, a place created from cancerous magic, a defiance to the mountain, to Beqanna herself. Vomited forth by the dark god, flaunted - only to crumble back to the sea when he turned his back, left the place for a day or a year or a decade.
He’d meant to raise it, when he returned, but when he touched it, sickness threatened. He had been ill, when Pangea was born - not stripped of his magic, as others had been, but sickened. Some of the sickness had remained, threaded like veins through the fallen kingdom.
He could have powered through it, swallowed the bile, raised it through the pain.
But why? He does not like the feeling, the clawing threat of weakness that touched when he tried to beckon forth his drowned land.
There’s no reason he needs to go it alone. None at all.
So he doesn’t. He sends his son first, to bring something small, a piece of Pangea’s earth. Too small to sicken him.
(Him being Carnage. He can’t speak for the effects it might have on his son. That’s not his problem.)
The dirt tethers him. A touchstone to his land. It’s a thin, precarious thread, but he doesn’t need much.
With his mind, he picks up the dirt, shapes it into a handful. It floats there, for a moment. It looks completely unremarkable, but their dark god can feel the way it thrums. An impossible, drowned kingdom. A sick kingdom.
His kingdom.
The handful of earth separated into pieces, flying off in a dozen different directions. Small and unremarkable.
They find marks. Horses, chosen at random. The dirt burrows into their skin, like a living thing, parasitic. Once inside, it blooms. Spreads.
Like a flower. Like a sickness.
It changes their lungs, makes the air hard to breathe. It pulls them to the water. To the shore where Pangea once lay. The motherland.
He is waiting, at the shore.
“You’ve all been chosen,” he says. He does not let them into the water, not yet. He lets them choke.
“My kingdom is there--” he looks out to the ocean, which has taken on a glassy calm, “and you are all to go to it. I have a job for you there.”
He closes his eyes. He can feel the pieces of Pangea - so small, so potent - thrumming inside them.
He beckons forth something else - earth from the top of the mountain. Gravel, really. Pieces from the top of the world. The pinnacle of Beqanna’s magic. He pierces their skin with these, too. Side by side. Touchstones.
Tethers between the worlds. He’ll need those, later.
“Go on, then. Find Pangea. I’ll send further instructions once you’re there.”
He steps aside. Lets them break for the water, where they’ll be able to breathe. For a while, at least.
NOTES;
• Describe your horse being pierced by the Pangea remnant, listening to Carnage (and being pierced by the mountain remnant), then going into the water to find Pangea. Feel free to encounter underwater obstacles. End the post with them finding Pangea.
• Your horse temporarily has the ability to breathe underwater and is resistant to pressure, alongside whatever traits they regularly have
• No limit on entries, but one entry per player
• This is a Carnage quest, so defects may very likely occur.
• Entries are due by 11:59 AM CST/noon Saturday, September 8th
<p class="carnage_name">c a r n a g e</p></div></div></center>