Skullfort Town

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Recaiden
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Re: Skullfort Town

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[Factory]

"Oh, not nearly one each day. For one thing, you can only get so many really good sunbeams, and if the weather is right for it, and nothing more important is going on at the time."
"For another, hardly anyone needs them. Mostly just guardian angels. So most of the good sunbeams go to other work."
There's maybe two militiamen with something like this.

"As for useful, I know you will. Don't you worry." Mist doesn't have to do something to prove himself, or any such. Look at how hard he's already worked for the centaurs.
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Re: Skullfort Town

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Factory

Mist smiles at Leah's reassurances. It does feel nice to be told that. It's just that he's been feeling like he hasn't really helped Leah as much over the years as he really could have.
"Oh, ok. What do you do with all the beams that you don't make weapons out of?" he asks her.
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Re: Skullfort Town

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[Factory]

Well, perhaps it is time to raise her expectations of Mist a bit. He's gone really far, really fast; wouldn't it be disappointing if nothing really changed?

"Oh, there are lots of parts for angels that benefit from sunlight. And we put some of them into telescopes, and long-term electronics...sunlight isn't as versatile as shadows, at least not to us, but there are still lots of little things it can do."

"Any other questions?"
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Re: Skullfort Town

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Factory

"Oh, well that's super neat too." Mist considers the question, thinking hard.
"I don't think so. I guess when my sword is done it'll need a scabbard and a belt of some kind. I guess most people wear them on their belt but I have a lot of real estate." Mist turns back to look at his lower half. Yes, a weapons belt for his sword and gun may be in order. He's already got his bag with his flute back there. He's not actually sure where the bag came from. He wasn't wearing one before.
"Is there anything else you think might be relevant to me?"
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Re: Skullfort Town

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[Factory]

"I think a belt is in order, yes." Leah agrees, running a hand along his flank.
"And you already have a nice bag."

She thinks for a moment, and just says "Be careful with your followers; they seem to be a serious influence on you. You know, just look at the legs. But I think you'll pick up everything else as we go." And the two of them are, as Mist pointed out earlier, very busy.
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Re: Skullfort Town

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Factory

"It is nice but it can't fit a whole sword. Not sure where I got it." Mist leans into the touch. He always did play up being picked up and cuddled as a fox. He's too big for that but he seems to have kept what he could of that habit.

"I expect I'll have to rein them in a little on some things. They've been through a lot and it's caused some ...eccentricities."
Of course it will be hard to tell in the coming weeks how much is coincidence and how much they're influencing him. They definitely seem to have affected his fashion sense, as he never wears anything below the belt aside from his bags and generally dresses light otherwise. He seems to not like going around alone like they do, but wasn't he kind of always like that? He seems to like their cooking but that could just be coincidence. But he doesn't run around deliberately naked and glaring at humans so clearly they can't just bend him into going along with them.
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Re: Skullfort Town

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High up and far away, Mei's ship passes into the skies of the Nexus, and sets a course for this town. Checking back it on Mist will be a nice little way to wrap up this whole mess, she thinks.
Keeping a polite distance, it lands a short way away from the Dancing Fox and lets out the weather goddess in her human guise. It's a lot less flashy than a giant dragon, even if it will have been just as obvious to anyone magically sensitive that she was here.
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Re: Skullfort Town

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The Dancing Fox looks a lot like it did when Mei last saw it, though it seems a good bit bigger than before. And in better repair. But that makes sense, right? Mist was using some of that grist to fix it up before Mei left.
There might be some other odd things though, like the plane that might still be sitting around nearby. Or the barely-dressed centaurs milling about. The strange wind blowing. Or the fact that Mist is currently clipping the plants outside, looking a lot more like one of the aforementioned centaurs than Mei remembers. Wasn't he foxy before? He's wearing a shirt at least which does make him stand out from the others. And the whole 'subtly radiating divine energy' thing.
"Oh, hello Mei. Did you get that energy problem sorted out? You look less stressed."
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Re: Skullfort Town

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The plane mainly stays burrowed into the ground, talking remotely, unless Mist needs help getting somewhere. That's just basic security!

Looks like Mist has put that spare energy he picked up to weird uses, judging by the centaurs. She never actually met any of the horse-men back on her homeworld, with them keeping to the woods and plains, not the rocky shores. And they aren't the most common in other worlds either. What do they tend to be like, again? But Mist is clearly fox colored, still. That's something.

Mei hops down from her ship and cartwheels over to the plants being gardened.
"Hah, yes. That was, most likely, the worst thing I've ever been involved in. So so so glad it's over."
"Looks like you went through the grist just fine, huh?"
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Re: Skullfort Town

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Mist smiles at Mei.
"Well, that's good. I'm glad you're not going to explode or whatever a grist overload looks like. Uh, yeah. Message helped me find a use for it. Decided to try to get the sort of fey immortality my wife has but Message also had a divine spark lying around and somehow I got both? So I've got that going now. I think you saw some of the Herd around." Mist doesn't refer to them as his herd but he doesn't think they'd be offended if he did.
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Re: Skullfort Town

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"Some would say that it makes exploding look good." Mei says with a wistful tone. No need to go into the details.

"I had noticed that; you turned all this energy into something permanent! And it hasn't been very long for you at all - that's impressive." she nods and takes another look at the folks around the inn.

"And given that you have, I've got to ask - do you want more of a physical domain than this? Maybe a nice moon, or a shared continent?"
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Re: Skullfort Town

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Mist blinks- he looks like his usual clueless self again when considering that question.
"What, are you offering? I don't even know what I'd do with a continent, let alone a moon. Besides, giving me my own domain would cause a severe theological conflict unless the Herd remains here and I just used the other place for...something else."
It would certainly be a lot of space to run, which is what he almost constantly wants to do ever since he merely laid eyes on that spark. Standing still and getting work done can be very difficult.
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Re: Skullfort Town

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"Well, I'm offering to sell you a celestial body - or part of one - that happens a lot."
"It would only be fitting to your new station."
Mei suggests.
"But what's this theological conflict that it would open up? You can't take your herd away from here?"
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Re: Skullfort Town

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Ah. That makes more sense.
”Oh, well I only run an inn. And a herd, nowadays. Kinda. I doubt I could afford anything like that.”
Properly speaking Leah would probably let him use some of her treasury if it was important but he’s never felt comfortable taking from that.
”Well, half of the Herd are the ones I found and prayed enough to make the divine seed sprout. But the other half were already here, following Message. Me being the Herd’s patron is ripping them away from her, so to solve that since we’re basically married anyways and I’m living on her land I’m a vassal god for all intents and purposes. So any domain of mine would have to be Message’s too or I’d be violating my oath.”
You don’t just swear fealty to a goddess and expect her not to notice you suddenly have a domain a million times bigger than hers.
And he thinks Message was building her own realm. She said she got some sort of tiny fox species from Inari.
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Re: Skullfort Town

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"Oh, you don't pay up-front." Mei says breezily.
You know, Mist, there's a whole world of divinely-inspired financial instruments out there!

"Ah. Meaning I need to sell her a moon, and she already has that other thing, yes, yes, I quite understand. Still, I can offer you guys a friends' discount if you end up wanting some celestial bodies in the next century - your time, that is."
Mei slides along and looks more closely at the plants Mist was working on.

"Domains aside, congratulations. It's kind of melancholy being around forever, but, it's also kind of beautiful, don't you agree?"
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Re: Skullfort Town

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"I'll let her know you offered." Mist says sincerely. The plants he's clipping are rather ordinary flowers to one side and a large set of herb planters on the other. Mist prefers to grow his own rosemary and such when he can.
"I can see that, yeah. It's nice not to have to worry about running out of time. And I have Leah with me and a purpose to keep." At least for as long as the herd wants him around.
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Re: Skullfort Town

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"Mhm. Thanks. And maybe you guys will want more space sooner than you think."
Hey, that's fine. Mei's world is entirely out of ordinary flowers, for example. Nice to see them flourishing in other places.
"Can't really relate to that." Company? Barely. Purpose? Not so much. And yet, Mei is still around after all this while.
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Re: Skullfort Town

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"What, purpose? Surely you have a purpose. You've been flying around making planets and stuff. You don't just do that for no reason, right?"
It sounds like a lot of work to do without a purpose in mind.
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Re: Skullfort Town

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"Lots of things don't have a purpose, Mist."
"Of course I like my work, and other people want ti done, but that's not really the same thing."

It kind of stands on its own.
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Re: Skullfort Town

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Mist shrugs.
"Well, liking what you do is purpose enough. As long as you're happy, you know?"

Mist glances at Mei. "So how'd you end up a goddess, if it's something you don't mind talking about?"
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Re: Skullfort Town

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"I am happy with the work." Mei agrees breezily.

"Well, the short story is that is I was given the position by my parent."
"They couldn't keep it due to a problem with their original avatar, here in the Nexus. It- oh, wait, I'm telling this all backwards."

"In my home realm, a god with no grist or no domain will perish from the world. The Mantle of being 'the god of <the thing they were the god of>' could then be claimed by someone else, or would eventually be reassigned. Hmm, actually backwards might be the best way to tell it."
"When we came back - after running away from the war, to the Nexus - almost all the gods were gone. Because almost all the people were dead, on account of the eternal winter. But we had the sun with us, because, well, that's a long story on its own. So we were able to wake up some old portfolios of the world, and then, eventually, here I am!"
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Re: Skullfort Town

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Mist followed that...a little.
"It sounds like a relatively complicated series of events. Did you get to pick your domain or was it assigned to you? It seems to suit you either way."

Mist maybe chose his domain. Or maybe it was a destiny thing. Hard to say.
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Re: Skullfort Town

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Or both, if he chose his destiny.

"Well, it just fell into my hands, kind of complicated and multifaceted. But later, when my business took off, I was able to pass on the parts that didn't suit me, and only keep the ones that did."

Wind dances around Mei suddenly.
"We kind of overlap now, right?"
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Re: Skullfort Town

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”That sounds familiar. My predecessor was patron of storms and beasts and hunting but I changed it a little. It’s hard to say how on purpose it was. It was in a dream, after all. It could have been the Herd’s unconscious decision in reality.” In theory Mist is still the god of the first two things. His take on them is just less aggressive than his unnamed predecessor.

Mist smiles at the breeze, which whips around him just as much.
”I suppose that we do. I hope that isn’t a problem?”
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Re: Skullfort Town

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"Oh, not at all. This is the Nexus, after all. Any number of gods of the same thing can get along."

"Care to elaborate on 'changed it a little'? You haven't had the portfolio for very long, have you?"
Mei smiles to feel the breeze reacting so to someone else. Mist gets it!
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Re: Skullfort Town

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Mist considers how to answer the question, one of his hooves scratching at the dirt.
"I think the herd consider me their god of wind and travel and animals, as opposed to storms and hunters and beasts. It's...very close to the same thing, just in practice there's less of a theme of me being likely to get someone killed. Does that make sense?" he asks.
"I think when I got the seed of divinity I was on a dream-quest, and I...made the change, somehow. But then all of my god-stuff was influenced by the Herd. So I don't know how that works at all."
That's the power of time shenanigans and a Cup.
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Re: Skullfort Town

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"And it just kept on going for you like that? Are you sure that doesn't make you the god of 'whatever the herd thinks you are'?" Mei shakes her.

"In short, no, that doesn't make sense. Where, or to when, did the theme of getting someone killed go? Some of that sounds similar to how portfolios got linked and divided in the old day, but...not really. Why would you have the potential to change it around in the first place?"
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Re: Skullfort Town

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Mist shakes his head.
"I know what I am. It's entirely possible that me and the previous god are really the same, portfolio-wise. The differences in us are really just looking at it from different angles. Who knew if I actually did anything? Maybe it only slightly pushed the results to be more...me. Who knows?"
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Re: Skullfort Town

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[On road to Skullfort]

"That seems like a good place to look."

It's late evening, the sun already starting to set. A lone horse with two riders is approaching town, with not much other traffic in sight. The speaker is the rider at the front, a disheveled man in a dirty grey overcoat and loose jeans, the coat's hood pulled over their head. He's pointing at the fort proper, its skull-like shape having come to clear view beyond the trees and the buildings surrounding it.

The rider behind him is a girl with a large mushroom cap for a head. The fort might remind her of the helmet the man used to wear, now discarded and left at Arkham Street. Maybe that's why they're here?

They have a long ride behind them. As they get closer to the buildings, the man dismounts. "Better continue on foot from here. Let's look for a tavern or inn. There's usually one along a road like this."
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Re: Skullfort Town

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On the road to Skullfort

The Dancing Fox Inn is almost impossible to miss, being strategically placed as the first building on the right as you enter the town from the main road.
It is an old-fashioned wood and brick building, though seemingly not actually that old. It is fairly large and seems to have electricity but isn't using it for anything particularly flashy.
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