The Beauty of the Garden

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The Beauty of the Garden

Postby Diamond Master » Sat Oct 20, 2012 12:40 am

  1. This is a thread in which deities can explore the wilderness of the Gardens.
  2. Yerkan of Elish explores a region which seems to be infested with bionic life.
  3. Great Thrash finds a shrine to the Steep Norns, filled with a fractal crystal tree that makes beautiful arcs of light when struck. The Norns grant him one answer to a question of his choice as the discoverer of this shrine.
  4. Durin discovers a village of mute storm giants. Thrash and Yerkan create an impenetrable library fortress for them, as books are their favorite gift.
  5. Thrash and Yerkan find a [ural=http://forum.diamondpantheon.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=44&start=20#p296]customizable fortress[/url] controlled by the location of islands in a bay. The Council's troops, provided by Mad Arcane Zeus, are stationed within.
  6. Volatilus and Yerkan encounter the Tawny Trickster. They surround him after much effort, whereupon he demonstrates that he is much mightier than they. He is not captured until later.
  7. The gods of the Gardens begin preparing for the apocalyptic arrival of Ravana.
  8. The tiny shadow is glimpsed here, and they seek to catch it.
  9. The shadow proves to be a curious, intelligent, and nimble creature that consumes the essence of light. It grows when it does so. Direct hits of energy can wound the shadow.
  10. The Tawny Trickster attempts to break into the library fortress of the mute giants.



As sunlight dawns on the Garden again and again, its wonders come to further solidification and illumination. The miscellaneous deities (and various deific servants, thralls, and beasts) have been active.

Fat 10 pound chickens wander in peaceful droves down the slope of a tall misty hill near the center of the Arboretum every morning, pecking at the multi-specie golden grain fields of the foothills. Dark clouds ramble about the sky above the hills. A rooster crows too early, and the superstitious quake.

Small racing blurs zoom across the terrain of the Frozen Ocean nearer the Lava Molt, where warmed waters are slowly returning to stasis. Islands rise and fall in the ocean over the course of several days, changing position. As the time lapse goes on, a massive, complex, floating castle appears to be undergoing construction. Boulders and islands hover around it like Ioun stones.

Where the Lava Molt’s fiery fingers reach the Frozen Ocean, a huge cloud of dense boiling adamas-infused steam rises majestically above the glittering waves and bubbling magma. It reflects a red hue above and below, refracting all around the Ocean and spilling out over the entire Gardens, a sunrise which eclipses all others. Sight is obscured, and the bridges have been built around the steam cloud with large force shields to counter the heat. These bridges circumnavigate the cloud, providing easy access to the more scenic walkways of the Molt. Occasionally, Metacetaceans breach the lava’s surface and spout.

That same ruddy firelight silhouettes the ship-sized flying lizards who glide down from the adamas mountain’s shattered peaks. Their horrid claws and prehensile jaws are clearly evident even in outline. Some find these beasts majestic and others find them repulsive. They land in the black mother-of-pearl spires at the scorched border of the Arboretum, where shamed Garden staff are forced to keep tedious firewatch. Further intrusion of these blasted lands into the herbarium and statuary portion of the Garden would result in severe punishment. Burn-tolerant crops are bred in this area, with twisted forms and gasping, cluttered rows. Occasionally the stems move as something vile passes beneath them.

Somewhere, things have been undergoing strange conversions. The neutral sunlight shines on them too. It does not judge. It provides a fabric for perception, and that is enough for most who behold the Garden. The sun shines on pouchlike fungi, as tall as a man, with sparking wires growing from leaf to blossom, data cables running down to the dirt. This region on the borders of the Arboretum is disturbing the gardeners, as they find odd lenses growing over the eyes of the muscular beasts of burden they use there, and burn marks so clean they could only have been made by ultra-focused light. There are reports of steel feathers falling from the cosmos as dewdropped meteors. Even these modified elements are beautiful in their own way – they speak of an efficient, elegant frame-of-mind from the handouts of nature in a high-octane setting where gods may roam.
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Re: The Beauty of the Garden

Postby the Steep Norns » Sat Oct 20, 2012 1:13 am

The sun rises, the sun falls. The gods have other ways to measure time. The sun rises, the sun falls, and the honored deities of the Diamond Pantheon know that it will not be long, as they measure these things, before nothing will be the same again, and their wonderful Garden will meet its Ragnarok.
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Re: The Beauty of the Garden

Postby Yerkan of Elish » Sat Oct 20, 2012 2:33 am

I have been naïve again; this world will die too. This immortality is far from perfect. This Facet is far from enlightenment. Hah. Well, there is no more grin upon my face.

I will do what I can to postpone this Facet's death, that those who care for it might enjoy its beauty a while longer.

If all else fails, we need not die. Surely, there will be some place for us, beyond this Facet... Deeper within the diamond... Just so long as we need not give up everything of ourselves and the knowledge surrounding our every universe.

I refuse to die at the behest of some steep dragon.

I spend a day among the gardeners, studying the strange changes among the flora and fauna. These things, these feathers and metal imitations of life do not seem to be of this Facet?
enuma eliš la nabuú šámamu
šapliš ammatum šuma la zakrat
gipara la kiissuru susaa la she'uú
enuma dingir dingir la šupuu manama
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Re: The Beauty of the Garden

Postby Diamond Master » Sat Oct 20, 2012 5:54 am

They could easily be from this universe, as it is very integrated, but the gardeners did not plan them and have not seen their like before.
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Re: The Beauty of the Garden

Postby Great Thrash » Sat Oct 20, 2012 10:39 pm

I will explore the castle. If it's vacant, I'll transport some of the Council's new army there.

If it is occupied, I don't really have a plan.
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Re: The Beauty of the Garden

Postby Steepest Durin » Sat Oct 20, 2012 10:46 pm

Should we split up an' pick different parts ta explore?

Or travel as a party? We can all explore everythin' at once, really, nothin' stoppin' us.
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Re: The Beauty of the Garden

Postby Yerkan of Elish » Sun Oct 21, 2012 4:48 pm

Let us simply spread ourselves out, exploring whatever each of us notices. If we encounter resistance, we can quite easily rise to one another's aide.

I will see if I can follow the data cables from one or more of these fungi; do they lead anywhere in particular once they enter the dirt?
enuma eliš la nabuú šámamu
šapliš ammatum šuma la zakrat
gipara la kiissuru susaa la she'uú
enuma dingir dingir la šupuu manama
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Motto: Always one more world

Re: The Beauty of the Garden

Postby Great Thrash » Sun Oct 21, 2012 6:23 pm

Sounds like a plan.
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Re: The Beauty of the Garden

Postby Diamond Master » Sun Oct 21, 2012 7:11 pm

Great Thrash, you find the castle vacant, though livingspace rooms often have material comforts in them. As you watch, some of them vanish. In fact, the entire castle's layout seems rather variable. No one seems to know what happens to someone who is in a room that vanishes, but when the room eventually comes back the soldier is always unharmed, though with no memory of the time in between. You stations some demidead guards in the castle with instructions to stay spread out.

Yerkan follows the data cable down to the roots of the fungus. The roots have a transmitter antenna - and almost every fungus of the same apparent species has a similar transmitter. You reason that they are all broadcasting to each other in a network that transcends underground root systems.
One of the fungi bends its hollow tubular neck downward, lunges forward, and engulfs you. The opening seals with a cloud of spores, and it won't let you out. The inside lights up with crystal diodes of various colors, and acid begins to leach into the spore-lined chamber.
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Re: The Beauty of the Garden

Postby Great Thrash » Sun Oct 21, 2012 7:22 pm

I arrive in giant form, with a skein of wet earth over my mouth and nose as filter, and rip the fungus open.

"No, fungus, that's bad," I say into the transmitter. "If any intelligence is listening, we would be pleased to make your acquaintance, but please stop eating my friends."

We gods spend a lot of time talking to things that may or may not be capable of understanding us...
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