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The Tale of Tankot (later known as Desertborn)
Topic Started: Dec 7 2016, 07:13 PM (645 Views)
Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Thanks, sis! It was long enough - so it seemed logical to "go there"....
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Eleven - Acquisition:

Tan took the last leap, holding onto faith in his own abilities. He landed but teetered for a few moments, held his breath, and calmed his mind so he could maintain balance. It was a good thing too - because there was a cat pacing past the opening between the pillars. He let out the breath quietly, then tilted his head down so he could see into the open area within the curvature of the stone.

There was a metal box, which he hoped would not be locked. Bending himself over the back of the curved stone, he reached down toward the box. It was, thankfully, unlocked, so as the cats began to snarl from all sides, he opened the box. Unfortunately, he wasn’t fast enough: one cat leaped at him from behind, raking him down one leg with a claw. He gasped in pain, tears started from his eyes, and he scrabbled hurriedly for the amulet.

Ah. Finally. Holding it tightly - it certainly would not do to drop it! - he put it quickly over his head, before another claw could get him. The cats immediately settled. Tan hauled himself painfully over the altar and collapsed to the tiled floor, trying to wrap enough of his clothes around the wounds to stop the bleeding. After a minute he fished through his pouches - there had been a healing potion.... There. He drank it down, and began to feel a bit better.

Now that the cats were no longer out for his life, Tan thought he might just stay in this canyon for the rest of this day, and overnight - that would give the potion time to work and perhaps tomorrow he would be in better shape to go on. So he found a spot where the shade was deep as it was now very hot in the canyon, and stretched out. He fell asleep, and slept so long the moons were up when he woke. His leg felt much better - and the cats had left him alone, which was definitely helpful, for he knew had the amulet not worked, he’d never have wakened!

Though the thought shook him, he knew that he’d taken Lady Syloria’s belief to heart - at least about the amulet. Time would tell about anything further. He stirred around a bit, ate the last of his food, wondered briefly where to get more, and then fell asleep again as the moons rose to the full above the canyon.
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Andra Hawksdaughter
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Jarl
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Owww! Had that Amulet not worked, I think he'd have been dead from the cat that clawed his leg, nevermind that he might not wake up! Good that he's taking his time. Wonderful read Sere!
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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I need to enter the caveat here - anyone who's going to play the mod, PLEASE don't "follow Tan's steps".... because I've gone all "artistic license" here....
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Twelve - Redirection:

Morning brought waking, with Tan feeling his leg to make sure he could walk on it, which it seemed he’d be able to. He looked with distaste at the blood on his trous, but there wasn’t much he could do about it without water. Worse though was hunger. He was truly going to have to do something serious about food....

And with that thought, he realized one of the cheetahs was moving towards him, dragging something under its belly, holding part of it in its mouth. It moved to within a few feet of him, and dropped what it had drug to him - a pack of some sort! Tan walked to it, limping only a bit now, and set it upright - it was a fairly solid knapsack, so he unfastened its buckles and opened the flap.

There was a book and some paper rolls, an inkwell with ink still liquid, a couple of quills. The book was a journal, My Travels in the Desert by Narik Eshophar. It had only a few paragraphs, and the handwriting was so cramped and blotted that Tan couldn’t read them.

Putting that all aside, he looked deeper - and found several apples, some dried meat, and a bota full of water! He looked at the cat, which had settled and was now washing its face - as if it was only an overlarge house cat.... So. He hoped the cat hadn’t killed the man.... Well, he could go on for a bit now with this food.

He ate an apple, then emptied the knapsack and placed the journal and writing materials in the bottom, then added the food, and put the bota on top. Closing it tightly, Tan shouldered the knapsack, and started out of the canyon. The cats paced with him, but did not follow into the desert.

The first thing he saw was a body. Sighing, he went to it and looked the man over carefully. There were no cat claw marks, for which he was very thankful. In fact, he couldn’t see any marks on the body at all. Nor did it seem as if the man had been dead long. How strange. The body hadn’t been there when Tan went into the canyon.... He shrugged. Well, he’d probably never know, but he thanked the man (the probable author of the journal from the knapsack) for helping him with the food, and promised to try to find who was now the real owner of the journal, a family member or friend....

Looking around, Tan thought he could make a shallow grave near a dead tree, and put rocks over to keep the wolves away from the body. He couldn’t just leave the man there. So he spent a good part of the morning doing his best to bury the man so he wouldn’t wind up food for wolves or Dunerippers. He thought it was a good enough job about mid-morning, and turned away to head northeast along the rock escarpment. Then he bethought himself of something, and backtracked to the tree where he’d made the grave.

Climbing into the branches of the dead tree as high as he could go, he looked north and east, and then swiveled to keep the huge blue building (the temple of Al-Shedim) in view as he looked for the shortest route to it. Well, he was right to head along the wall. There was a loop of the wall outward into the desert, and that was about the closest he could get to the back end of the temple. So he scrambled down the tree and set back out in that direction.

It wasn’t a long hike, perhaps another hour. And then he stopped in the shade for water, and to consider what to do next. Ideally, he could approach the temple from the back, since he knew there were Dunerippers around the front. But would there be any way to get inside it from the back? He didn’t of course have any idea - until he got there.

Tan scaled the rocks to a tall ridge. He looked carefully for a good route to the temple. He couldn’t see anything moving near the back wall. Returning to the desert floor, he set out carefully, quietly, and with as much stealth as possible, to make his way to the east - or back - wall of the edifice.
Edited by Serethil, Dec 28 2016, 08:51 PM.
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Andra Hawksdaughter
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Jarl
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Poor man, but lucky for Tan! I can't wait to get more Sere!! :clap:
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Yup, otherwise he'd have had to head back to Ben Erai. Thanks sis!
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Areial
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Et'Ada
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Very nice updates!! Tan really lucked out... the other man, not so much.
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Rick
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Just caught up with the last three entries....wow! I love the detail of the visualisation....the cliff climbing, the fear of the cats, the feelings he has for the desert, and the way he handles his tests. Loving it Sere (colon end bracket).
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Thanks sis and Kind Sir Rick! I'm actually "rearranging" stuff so as not to do spoilers.... and adding things that he has to work our. Really, it would be awful to write it out exactly as it goes - either no one would want to read it because of spoilers, or they'd read it and then be sad when they got to the mod!
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Thirteen - Determination:

It took him about an hour - because he was moving slowly, doing his best to not expose himself to denizens such as the Dunerippers. If he had to kill them, he didn’t quite know how he would do it.... As Tan reached the east wall of the temple, he realized the edifice was much larger than he’d thought - and there was likely no way to scale the back wall. There was an area where some of the wall had sloughed away - but it wasn’t accessible, he wasn’t tall enough to reach it and jumping was of no avail either. So he set out again, to check the side walls.

He headed toward the north side first. Tan wasn’t sure why, but he thought the ground might have been rougher in that direction - at least looking from the ridge as he had. If that turned out to be true, he’d have better protection from being sighted - he hoped. And it was very rough - with many rock heights and dry washes, as well as some fairly large old trees, nearly dead though they were. No surprise there - this was a land of little water, and according to the various folk he’d spoken to before fronting the desert here, the few oases were the haunt of the wolves - and perhaps other things. So water would be where he managed to find it - away from the oases.... He blessed again the poor man who had died just outside the canyon of the cats.

As Tan crept toward the front of the temple, he began to hear scrabblings and scritchings ahead and to his right. Now here though - there were apertures in the walls like lancet windows in a castle tower. Hmmm. He looked further down the walls - ah! Maybe 20 feet down the wall, near a window was a rock tumbled close to the wall - a sizable rock.

He forcibly kept himself to his stealthy quiet sneak pace. It would not do to expose himself to Dunerippers or wolves simply because he was excited. So he took his time, and when he finally reached the rock, it was to realize it was even larger than he’d thought and had a second rock up against it on the other side - rather like a step.... He tried to calm himself down. The windows were very narrow....

Climbing the rocks was simplicity itself. Clinging to the tiny ledge that ran below the windows was not simple, nor comfortable. He managed it, barely, for long enough to slither his body sideways into the small window embrasure. Once safe from falling, he swiveled his head to look inside the temple.

Hmm. Well, first, there were desert wolves - at least three.... That wasn’t good, but perhaps he could pick them off from here? Then, there seemed to be a huge open area with many plants and - was that water? If so.... that would be luck of a most unexpected but very appreciated kind!

Tan settled himself firmly into the window. He took out his bow, nocked an arrow, and sighted on a wolf which seemed to be sleeping. Letting out his breath, he pulled to the furthest he could manage in the narrow opening, and loosed. The wolf died where it slept. The other two seemed to notice nothing. That was good. One of them was closer than the other to his perch; he sighted on that one and released. Unfortunately, while he didn’t miss, it wasn’t a solid hit, and now both of the wolves were aware that someone was invading with intent to kill. They began to howl....

And the dissonance of the howls caused Tan to shudder. He wanted to send arrow after arrow at them, just to shut them up. But that was what the howls meant to produce - panicked reaction. He cautioned himself to calm. ‘Wait. See what they do. Don’t do anything stupid. Just stay calm, don’t move. Wait.’

Easier said than done. So he thought about something else - Siara and Andur. And how glad they would be for a desert home....
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neildarkstar
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Good job! I'm really wondering what's in this temple now.... besides wolves, that is... :)
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Thank you! Well, you'll get an idea - but I won't go into deep detail (for the afore-mentioned "I don't want to spoil this for people who might play it" reason).

Seriously, this mod and Clockwork are worth playing on any game. Absorbing, fun, interesting - and these two modders are absolutely BETTER than beth's devs. Well, to be fair - perhaps not for producing an entire game - but for DLC sized mods.... yeah....

[Oh, and I need to point out again - you can't actually play this mod in stealth mode. I'm doing it this way because - first, Tan is young; second, I don't want to write the whole thing into the RP because that's just spoilers galore; and third - RP is more important to me than detailing the mod....]
Edited by Serethil, Dec 29 2016, 10:53 PM.
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Andra Hawksdaughter
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Geez Sere, keep me on the edge why dontcha?! LOL
This is nerve wracking...but that's a good thing. :D
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Areial
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Et'Ada
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:clap: awesome read!! Loving the not spoiler version....
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Thank you ladies! I'm going to need a little time to run him through the temple and figure out how to get him the key in some way other than detailing all the spoiler-bits....
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Rick
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Jarl
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S'easy Sere

"Tankot battled and snuck his way bravely through the temple, obtaining the key"

There ya go! :lmao:

Soz..couldn't resist that....
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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*snerk* Yep, that would work. But my inner author would be appalled to go that route!
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Rick
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I know what you mean hon, I do. Adella's biography writing sets its own level of detail...which is always high...therefore too damn lengthy. I have to forcibly miss out much minor stuff like wolf kills etc to control chapter length.

I don't know if you realised it...but in Adella's main saga...where each chapter is in a spoiler box....and two spoiler boxes are in each post. Well, the total words allowable in each post is about 8500.

So if chapter "A" is 5000 words and sits with chapter "B" in the same post...chapter B has to be under 3500 words. You can have multiple spoiler boxes with a chapter in each...but the total words in the containing post cant go over 8500.

So I do a lot of "management" to keep chapters within word count limits whilst still fully covering 'set pieces'....once in a while I am foced to do an unfortunate split where the chapter is far from done..but I have no word capacity left.....oh the trials of a writer!
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Nope, I didn't know that about it. Interesting. I never get that lengthy - I'd rather just write enough that I can be as detailed in description as I want to be (which is generally more than people want to read I bet!) and make more chapters....
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