The glass crunched under his shoes as he climbed through the window and placed a tarp on the ground. Naturally, I followed swiftly after, banging my miners lamp against the frame.
We settled on a dilapidated living room for the moment. It was hard to see at day but at night the mist made the world nearly inevitable. You'd think mist walkers would be more common the closer you got to the center and you'd be right, but they're also a far greater number of Awakened equipped to deal with them, so you get to pick your poison. Would you like the Raiders or the Demons?
Isiah ran his hand along some bullet holes in the wall.
"Reckon they're still about."
"How would I know."
"I thought you came from places like this?"
"Just because I lived half my life here doesn't mean I know how to determine the freshness of a hole in the wall. I'm fairly certain that's not even possible."
He leaned down and plucked an old bronze statue off the floor. Remnants of what was such as that were typically pretty rare. Even if an item had little realistic use people still took them as collectibles. There was nearly an entire economy based on items from before the descent. Most like that old dull statue were worth a pretty penny but if it was cleaned up all good it'd be worth a small fortune.
Useful, if Isiah didn't have a fortune. His hoarder instincts demanded he have it anyway.
Sleeping outside of an enclosed room was typically a pretty poor choice. While the preserving aspects of the mist had kept the overall structure nice the furniture didn't have the same luck. Probably because people didn't care about how they treated a dead man's couch. The constant exposure to moisture for the now unregulated home was also a probable cause.
Sleeping at night was typically your best bet since nearly everyone would do the same, but the few who ran at night were some of the most dangerous individuals around, or the least. They were either looking to kill people in their sleep and steal all their shit or avoid everyone and go about nearly entirely safe. Luckily I had exactly zero problems because I had friends who didn't require such petty mortal things like sleep.
We did a sweep of the old suburban home that revealed nothing of particular interest so we retrieved our things, and headed upstairs, and found an old withered bedroom. The frame was made of wood and was rotted all around, it looked like if you moved it so much as a single inch it would collapse. Naturally, Isiah opted for that rather than his bedroll which was fair.
After dragging the stained mattress off we broke down the frame and piled it in the corner. Whilst he did his thing I found a random chair that appeared to be of decent quality and sat outside.
I cast Ossuary and pulled out all my Skeletons. Once I dragged em all out I equipped them and watched with a mild horror as Bandit contorted and twisted his way down the stairs into the dark below.
Rather than head back inside and go to sleep I found a good resting spot for my lantern and pulled out the passages, I'd been focused on making progress I never got a chance to check it out.
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Notice: all forms mentioned below are their true forms but overall height, width, etc, are subject to how they desire to appear in the moment, but is typically how they choose to show themselves. It's also wor-
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The Cycle, The Eternal One, The Father Of Life, goes by many names and is the god of all things natural. The god himself has been rarely seen here in this realm of Alaria and is described as a tall blonde male around 25 years old. He's described as considerate and calculating.
Rather than having access to active skills, equipment that falls under his gaze possesses constant effects and is on average 20% higher quality than items under any other god. As such, his equipment tends to be the best for any melee-focused class. As a result, all items under his banner are dependable and make an easy choice for nearly every situation. Angels who serve him tend to appear as average people, blending in exceptionally well and never being stand out. He is easily the god with the most opportunities to anger.
While he'll leave mages and the like alone; if you tamper with the natural order of the world you'll swiftly find yourself cursed. It's worth noting he considers tampering with 'unintelligent beings' to be much less offensive.
The Cycle favors those who are realistic and intelligent, and neither cowardly nor heroic.
It's no secret that The Cycle's relations with The Weave are rather strained. They do come to agreements when needed however.
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The Weave, The Great Spider, The One From Beyond, is the god of magic, the mist, and the mother of the cosmos, The Weave takes the form of a massive spectral spider around 7 feet covered in rivers of mana that constantly shifts between the various elements. It's described as being patient and philosophical, with few who have had a direct interaction with this entity it's hard to truly tell.
Equipment that falls under her gaze can possess bound spells, skills, and effects. As a result, the power of items under her domain is largely determined by their bounds rather than the item itself. They have an incredibly wide range of power and items in her domain tend to be useless fairly often but when you do find a good one it'll be hard to find anything else that outclasses it. Angels serving her often take the form of elementals in the shape of various insect-like creatures or arachnids.
Finding ways to anger her has proven to only happen if someone who draws on her affinity angers another god. The Weave favors those who endlessly thirst for knowledge and place their safety above others.
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Her alliance with The Cycle is infamously rocky, mostly due to her creation of the system and granting it to humankind. Many creations such as Elves and Drauls were designed by them together and are innately magical and therefore require no system to learn or cast magic. His first race, the humans, wanted access to such gifts as well, and of course, like any god, she took the chance to expand her domain. And since then trust comes only in short moments.
The main reason they continue to work together (mostly) is due to The Ancient acting as a mediator.
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The Ancient, The Below, The Forbidden One, is the god of madness, pain, and Forbidden Magic. It can only be described as being oh so very vaguely humanoid as it takes the form of a skinless entity around 9 feet. Rather than comparing it to humans, we will fully describe this creature so you may better understand its form as a detailed analysis is required for this one
It's flesh, rather than ending in the normal feet it possesses talons, and as far as we can tell it does not possess a knee. Reaching up to the thighs you'll find nothing interesting here but where the crotch should be a gaping hole from which a tangle of barbed wire. Along with that what we believe to be the spine extends for another 15 feet from said hole, which ends in a blade approximately 1 1/2 feet long
Whilst it appears skinless as far as we are aware here at Alaria Academy Of Academic Studies it never possessed skin and therefore cannot technically be "Skinless" even though it is known that whatever on the outside is not skin it is not normal muscle nor flesh either. Its flesh has a deep dark red hue and is interlaced with barbed wire throughout its entire form that constantly leaks a deep red "blood."
Rather than its hands ending in fingers, they end in claws about 8 inches long.
Its torso is easily the most human part and the only inhuman thing are the 6 wings connected at the upper back. The smallest is the lowest one appearing just above the middle of the back reaching just above the shoulders and extending to the floor, this one is constructed entirely of bone. The next pair is just above that one made entirely of flesh with bony tips at the apex, the flesh here is extremely stringy and you may view the other side quite clearly through the various holes that dot this pair.
The final pair just above that is constructed of barbed wire and acts as the largest eclipsing its head and takes a much more circular shape encompassing the other 2 pairs and acts as the only wing visible from behind.
Lastly, its head is nearly all situated in front of it as it extends forward about a foot and as far as we know is a giant mouth, every end is rounded as such it's nearly ovular in shape. It doesn't possess lips and the teeth inside form a large smile of exposed white teeth covered in barbed wire. in the upper half of its head you'll find 3 "Eyes," or rather, 3 ovular sockets filled with tightly woven together barbed wire.
Finally, at the top of its head an eye placed upwards that's entirely white, and despite being a god it has been proven that this eye is truly blind.
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There was a slight problem though, there was no next page.
Either way, it was well worth taking, I'll keep it but I doubt I'll read it ever again, it's literally paper though so Im'a keep it anyway.
I slipped into the room and set up my bag before drifting away into the darkness of dreams.