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Spring Ceramic DM™: WINNER POSTED!
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<blockquote data-quote="orchid blossom" data-source="post: 1475650" data-attributes="member: 12815"><p><strong>Round 1: Mythago vs. Orchid Blossom</strong> </p><p>______________________________________________</p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Disruption</span></p><p></p><p>By: Orchid Blossom aka Lori Ritter</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p> Her awakening was sudden, disjointed. Old eyes opened onto a darkness that could not match the one from which she'd come. Each part of her body felt separate from the others, stiff and still, as if they'd lain unused for years. Which, of course, they had. That was the way it should be.</p><p></p><p> This wakefulness was a thing that should not be. </p><p></p><p> In the early years of her death, she had wakened often. Enemies had raided the tombs of her people, dogging them in the afterlife as they had before. But they had died away, the world had grown quiet, and her people had known true rest. But the world is seldom satisfied with quiet for long. Other races grew upon it, and in the last century Devakiri had become familiar with the race of Humans.</p><p></p><p> There had been few races that passed upon the world whom she liked less. Most of them she'd not even noted. The dead have little care for the living unless the living disturb them. Humans had a talent for disruption; a curiosity that overrode any sense of respect they might have had for those who slept beneath the ground. </p><p></p><p> Devakiri moved one hand, then the other. Each awakening was just as disorienting, but she had become practiced at retraining her body to obey her commands. Palms flat against the ground, she pushed herself up. She took a bit of sand from the floor of the cave and blew it softly from her hand, each grain taking on a luminescence that allowed her sensitive eyes to examine her surroundings.</p><p></p><p> Thin ropes were stretched across the red sand floor of the cave to form squares. There were markers in a strange language, one for each square. Devakiri had learned about these people the last time she awakened. Archeologists, the humans called them. She called them grave robbers. This expedition seemed to be in the early stages with only one small area excavated. Still, they must have found bones. If they had not, Devakiri would still be sleeping.</p><p></p><p> She bent her stiff legs and stood blinking in the soft light. Her eyes scanned the walls, looking for the carving that would mark the grave of the guardian. "Brighter," she whispered to the sand at her feet as she laid her hand against the stone wall, her feet leaving shuffling tracks along the floor.</p><p></p><p> "Ahh." Her tapered fingers traced the lines of her own face carved in the rock, even as her eyes followed them. In life, her face had been soft but angular, ears ending in a delicate point, prominent cheekbones, pointed chin. (2) Yes, her own face carved next to a skull, placed there to guard her people’s sleep. It shimmered as her hand caressed it, became malleable, and Devakiri slid her hand through the skull to touch the totems behind. Twelve, one for each of her kin buried in this spot. By touch she found her own totem, noting it's bulging eyes and it's mandibles folded as if in prayer. She grasped the small stone statue and pulled it free, leaving the carving untouched. </p><p></p><p> "I have need of you again, friend," she murmured, followed by a serious of clicks of her tongue. The statuette shook; stone dust falling away as the mantis awoke. The archeologists had taken the spirit of her kinsman far from his people; without form or guide he could not return on his own. Devakiri would find his bones and those of the one who took him and return them to his resting place. Only then could she place his totem in his grave to guide him back home.</p><p></p><p> * * *</p><p></p><p> Professor Matthew Adkinson stared again the bones found at the site on the top of Mt. Keary. To any but the most practiced eye they seemed ordinary. Another set of human bones found in another grave. They were recognizable, fibula, tibia, clavicle, scapula, and others too numerous to count. But these were different. Their weight was wrong, for one thing. These were dense, heavy for their size. The color wasn't quite right. He regretted that he would not be the one to do the analysis, but the University was not large, and its facilities were not up to the task. Beside, to do the analysis he'd have to leave the field, and the finding was half the fun. Without people like him to excavate, the analysts would be out of a job.</p><p></p><p> The door to the storage area opened and one of the student workers stuck his head in. "Hey Professor, you finally get a day off and you're in here looking at those bones again? It's your party, come out and celebrate your find instead of just looking at it. Everyone's waiting for you."</p><p></p><p> Adkinson grinned at the student and ran his hand through is own gray hair. He hadn't yet grown too old to be daydreaming about his latest find. "I hardly think you students are dying for a polka out there." </p><p></p><p> "You underestimate the power of beer and bratwurst, Professor. Believe me, they're ready to roll out the barrel." The young man stepped inside and shut the door. "You really think there's something different about these?"</p><p></p><p> "Most certainly," Adkinson nodded enthusiastically. "The carvings on the walls were like nothing we've ever seen before. The craft work on the grave goods as well."</p><p></p><p> "But you think that whoever was buried there wasn't human?"</p><p></p><p> Matthew shrugged. "I don't know that I'd go that far. But I think they may indicate that early humans learned to use tools and formed a cohesive society far earlier than we believed. There's a lot of work to be done. I imagine today's party will be the last one for several months."</p><p></p><p> The student grinned. "We should get out there and enjoy it then, eh? Let's go grab your squeezebox and watch them try to polka.</p><p></p><p> "Sounds good to me," Adkinson agreed. He slid the drawer shut and checked all the locks one more time. Outside he snapped both padlocks on the door. "Let's go polka."</p><p></p><p> * * *</p><p></p><p> Devakiri watched as human after human wound their way up the side of the great hill that was her clan’s burial site. (3) It hadn't been so tall when they had first been laid to rest there. It cut red against the sky, seemingly out of place in the lush green of the valley below. The Earth herself had changed, pushing the peak up higher and higher into the sky. She would have thought that would keep the humans out, but apparently not. Nothing seemed to daunt them. Not a bad quality in general, but one that could lead to a great deal of trouble.</p><p></p><p> She lifted her guide up on her first finger and looked in her eyes. (4) "Is the one who took the bones among them?" The mantis stared back at her for a moment before shuffling her wings and returning her forearms to their customary praying position. "He is not, then. Where is he?" The mantis crept along her arm in the strange, slinking way they have, moving toward the west. Devakiri lifted her hand and looked. There was some kind of camp set up there. From what she could see it was mostly tents with only a few permanent buildings. "We go west then, following the human's road." </p><p></p><p> A disguise would be necessary. Devakiri had learned that humans were suspicious of anything out of the ordinary or different from themselves. She used the time during her walk to construct a simple glamour around herself. Her ears became rounded, her smooth scalp covered with dark hair, long tapering fingers shorter and more blunt. Clothing like that she had seen on the females climbing the hill covered her body, right down to the thick blue pants and heavy boots. By the time she reached the camp, she looked like nothing so much as a student worker at a dig site.</p><p></p><p> The camp was neatly set up with tents surrounding the few permanent buildings. It reminded her of the strings on the floor of the cave. It was neat, organized, and very square. The appearance was at great odds with the party that seemed to be going on in the large building at the center of the camp. There was shouting and singing, and a horrible kind of screeching sound she could only assume they considered music. The mantis again shuffled her wings and tilted her pointed head toward the building. "Inside then."</p><p></p><p> The smell of the place nearly knocked Devakiri over and she opened the door into the cool, dim room. There was meat of some kind, and some kind of fermented beverage. Her mouth began to water. The fact that she had no need of food didn't dampen her desire for it. The smells, the music, the chaos disoriented her for a moment. She moved away from the door and sat in a chair alongside the wall.</p><p></p><p> She watched the dancers hop about like grasshoppers having seizures, singing in their drunken voices something about there being no beer in heaven. Their mass inebriation made it difficult to sort one aura from the next, it took several minutes for Devakiri to find the lingering traces of her kinsman hanging around the one playing the screeching instrument. He sat near one of the only windows in full sunlight, a large grin on his face as someone took his picture. (1) She had expected a younger man for some reason, not this gray-haired elder with the sparkle of youth still on his face.</p><p></p><p> This place did not suit her purpose. Death seemed to upset Humans; they feared it. Perhaps that's why they paid so little attention to it, a great oversight on their part. "This place is too busy," Devakiri said as quietly as she could and still be heard by the guide. "We will seek out the bones. The old one will come to us there."</p><p></p><p> * * *</p><p></p><p> Adkinson stood in front of the door to the storage shed, accordion still over his shoulder. He'd left the party a bit early with the intention of getting a good nights sleep and avoiding a hangover. Instead he found the two padlocks that should be on the door were missing. He clearly remembered putting them on when he'd left. There was no sign of prying, and no piece of either lock remained, as if they had never been there at all. Slowly he pushed the door inward.</p><p></p><p> It was dark inside, but in the blue light from the window he could see the form of a woman. She turned to him just as he turned on the overhead light. "Hello, Professor," she said quietly.</p><p></p><p> Matthew looked again at the locks, and back to the woman. She looked much like any of the other student workers at the site, but he couldn't place her. "I'm sorry Miss.... I can't recall seeing you here before." He flicked a glance back toward the door. "You really shouldn't be in here. In fact," he added in the same tone he used for students in danger of failing, "I'd very much like to know how you got in here."</p><p></p><p> "It wasn't difficult," the woman answered, still in the same quiet voice, as if it came from a great distance. She turned and laid a finger against the lock on the drawer that held the most recent finds from the Keary site. Metallic dust fell away from the drawer and she slid it open easily. "These are not yours, Professor," she said as he heard the door click shut behind him.</p><p></p><p> "Now wait just a minute..."</p><p></p><p> "You people, you have no respect for the dead. No respect for their rest. You plunder their graves for your own gain." She lifted her hand and looked a mantis balanced there. "Yes, I know."</p><p></p><p> Adkinson took a step, his back pressing against the door. "There have been those who plundered graves for personal profit, grave robbers. But we seek only edification, we only wish to learn."</p><p></p><p> "What does it matter to the dead why you disturb them? They care only that they are disturbed." The woman stepped forward. "I am disturbed." Her features began to shift, clothing melting away as her skin turned a rich shade of red. The long, luxurious hair shortened and disappeared as her fingers elongated and her ears stretched to a point. He had seen this face before, on a carving on a cave wall. He slid his hand down to find the doorknob.</p><p></p><p> "You think everything belongs to you. Finders keepers. You raid tombs; leave them empty with never a thought of those resting in them. For all your protestations to treasure every life, you have no respect for death." The doorknob was stuck. The woman shook her head slightly. "You can't go yet, I thought you wanted to learn. Learn this. You have removed my kinsman’s spirit. I am Devakiri, guardian of the Tapti clan, and I have come to reclaim it." The doorknob fell to dust in his hand.</p><p></p><p> "Finders Keepers. I think I can play by those rules." She stepped back and smashed her hand through the drawer's glass top. "What's the rest of it?" she asked as she gathered up the bones. "Ah yes, Losers Weepers." Devakiri bent and opened the deep drawer that held the skull and smashed that glass as well. One hand scooped up the skull, the other came up with a long, dagger like shard of glass. She looked into the old man's wide eyes, curious. "Will you weep?"</p><p></p><p> * * *</p><p></p><p> Dawn was just coming up over the horizon as Devakiri returned to the cave; red clay soil caked on her feet. She wasn't certain whether the daily pilgrimage of humans up the hill would occur this morning. If they had found the headless corpse of the Professor, it likely would not. If she was lucky, the site would earn the reputation of being cursed. If they continued to excavate here, she would certainly be awakened again.</p><p></p><p> She stepped back to the carving in the wall that hid the totem guides. The mantis crawled down from her shoulder and back into her hand. "I thank you, dear friend. Return to your rest." Devakiri slid her hand through the carving and felt the mantis crawl off. She stroked the small stone statuette in farewell. Her hand moved along each totem until it found the dragonfly.</p><p></p><p> One after another the bones were returned to the empty grave, followed by the head of the old archeologist and the dragonfly totem. She watched as the totem shook and awoke. It hovered over the head for a moment, and then flew out of the cave to find the lost spirit of the Tapti clan. </p><p></p><p> Devakiri laid down where she had awakened and waited for the darkness.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="orchid blossom, post: 1475650, member: 12815"] [B]Round 1: Mythago vs. Orchid Blossom[/B] ______________________________________________ [SIZE=3]Disruption[/SIZE] By: Orchid Blossom aka Lori Ritter Her awakening was sudden, disjointed. Old eyes opened onto a darkness that could not match the one from which she'd come. Each part of her body felt separate from the others, stiff and still, as if they'd lain unused for years. Which, of course, they had. That was the way it should be. This wakefulness was a thing that should not be. In the early years of her death, she had wakened often. Enemies had raided the tombs of her people, dogging them in the afterlife as they had before. But they had died away, the world had grown quiet, and her people had known true rest. But the world is seldom satisfied with quiet for long. Other races grew upon it, and in the last century Devakiri had become familiar with the race of Humans. There had been few races that passed upon the world whom she liked less. Most of them she'd not even noted. The dead have little care for the living unless the living disturb them. Humans had a talent for disruption; a curiosity that overrode any sense of respect they might have had for those who slept beneath the ground. Devakiri moved one hand, then the other. Each awakening was just as disorienting, but she had become practiced at retraining her body to obey her commands. Palms flat against the ground, she pushed herself up. She took a bit of sand from the floor of the cave and blew it softly from her hand, each grain taking on a luminescence that allowed her sensitive eyes to examine her surroundings. Thin ropes were stretched across the red sand floor of the cave to form squares. There were markers in a strange language, one for each square. Devakiri had learned about these people the last time she awakened. Archeologists, the humans called them. She called them grave robbers. This expedition seemed to be in the early stages with only one small area excavated. Still, they must have found bones. If they had not, Devakiri would still be sleeping. She bent her stiff legs and stood blinking in the soft light. Her eyes scanned the walls, looking for the carving that would mark the grave of the guardian. "Brighter," she whispered to the sand at her feet as she laid her hand against the stone wall, her feet leaving shuffling tracks along the floor. "Ahh." Her tapered fingers traced the lines of her own face carved in the rock, even as her eyes followed them. In life, her face had been soft but angular, ears ending in a delicate point, prominent cheekbones, pointed chin. (2) Yes, her own face carved next to a skull, placed there to guard her people’s sleep. It shimmered as her hand caressed it, became malleable, and Devakiri slid her hand through the skull to touch the totems behind. Twelve, one for each of her kin buried in this spot. By touch she found her own totem, noting it's bulging eyes and it's mandibles folded as if in prayer. She grasped the small stone statue and pulled it free, leaving the carving untouched. "I have need of you again, friend," she murmured, followed by a serious of clicks of her tongue. The statuette shook; stone dust falling away as the mantis awoke. The archeologists had taken the spirit of her kinsman far from his people; without form or guide he could not return on his own. Devakiri would find his bones and those of the one who took him and return them to his resting place. Only then could she place his totem in his grave to guide him back home. * * * Professor Matthew Adkinson stared again the bones found at the site on the top of Mt. Keary. To any but the most practiced eye they seemed ordinary. Another set of human bones found in another grave. They were recognizable, fibula, tibia, clavicle, scapula, and others too numerous to count. But these were different. Their weight was wrong, for one thing. These were dense, heavy for their size. The color wasn't quite right. He regretted that he would not be the one to do the analysis, but the University was not large, and its facilities were not up to the task. Beside, to do the analysis he'd have to leave the field, and the finding was half the fun. Without people like him to excavate, the analysts would be out of a job. The door to the storage area opened and one of the student workers stuck his head in. "Hey Professor, you finally get a day off and you're in here looking at those bones again? It's your party, come out and celebrate your find instead of just looking at it. Everyone's waiting for you." Adkinson grinned at the student and ran his hand through is own gray hair. He hadn't yet grown too old to be daydreaming about his latest find. "I hardly think you students are dying for a polka out there." "You underestimate the power of beer and bratwurst, Professor. Believe me, they're ready to roll out the barrel." The young man stepped inside and shut the door. "You really think there's something different about these?" "Most certainly," Adkinson nodded enthusiastically. "The carvings on the walls were like nothing we've ever seen before. The craft work on the grave goods as well." "But you think that whoever was buried there wasn't human?" Matthew shrugged. "I don't know that I'd go that far. But I think they may indicate that early humans learned to use tools and formed a cohesive society far earlier than we believed. There's a lot of work to be done. I imagine today's party will be the last one for several months." The student grinned. "We should get out there and enjoy it then, eh? Let's go grab your squeezebox and watch them try to polka. "Sounds good to me," Adkinson agreed. He slid the drawer shut and checked all the locks one more time. Outside he snapped both padlocks on the door. "Let's go polka." * * * Devakiri watched as human after human wound their way up the side of the great hill that was her clan’s burial site. (3) It hadn't been so tall when they had first been laid to rest there. It cut red against the sky, seemingly out of place in the lush green of the valley below. The Earth herself had changed, pushing the peak up higher and higher into the sky. She would have thought that would keep the humans out, but apparently not. Nothing seemed to daunt them. Not a bad quality in general, but one that could lead to a great deal of trouble. She lifted her guide up on her first finger and looked in her eyes. (4) "Is the one who took the bones among them?" The mantis stared back at her for a moment before shuffling her wings and returning her forearms to their customary praying position. "He is not, then. Where is he?" The mantis crept along her arm in the strange, slinking way they have, moving toward the west. Devakiri lifted her hand and looked. There was some kind of camp set up there. From what she could see it was mostly tents with only a few permanent buildings. "We go west then, following the human's road." A disguise would be necessary. Devakiri had learned that humans were suspicious of anything out of the ordinary or different from themselves. She used the time during her walk to construct a simple glamour around herself. Her ears became rounded, her smooth scalp covered with dark hair, long tapering fingers shorter and more blunt. Clothing like that she had seen on the females climbing the hill covered her body, right down to the thick blue pants and heavy boots. By the time she reached the camp, she looked like nothing so much as a student worker at a dig site. The camp was neatly set up with tents surrounding the few permanent buildings. It reminded her of the strings on the floor of the cave. It was neat, organized, and very square. The appearance was at great odds with the party that seemed to be going on in the large building at the center of the camp. There was shouting and singing, and a horrible kind of screeching sound she could only assume they considered music. The mantis again shuffled her wings and tilted her pointed head toward the building. "Inside then." The smell of the place nearly knocked Devakiri over and she opened the door into the cool, dim room. There was meat of some kind, and some kind of fermented beverage. Her mouth began to water. The fact that she had no need of food didn't dampen her desire for it. The smells, the music, the chaos disoriented her for a moment. She moved away from the door and sat in a chair alongside the wall. She watched the dancers hop about like grasshoppers having seizures, singing in their drunken voices something about there being no beer in heaven. Their mass inebriation made it difficult to sort one aura from the next, it took several minutes for Devakiri to find the lingering traces of her kinsman hanging around the one playing the screeching instrument. He sat near one of the only windows in full sunlight, a large grin on his face as someone took his picture. (1) She had expected a younger man for some reason, not this gray-haired elder with the sparkle of youth still on his face. This place did not suit her purpose. Death seemed to upset Humans; they feared it. Perhaps that's why they paid so little attention to it, a great oversight on their part. "This place is too busy," Devakiri said as quietly as she could and still be heard by the guide. "We will seek out the bones. The old one will come to us there." * * * Adkinson stood in front of the door to the storage shed, accordion still over his shoulder. He'd left the party a bit early with the intention of getting a good nights sleep and avoiding a hangover. Instead he found the two padlocks that should be on the door were missing. He clearly remembered putting them on when he'd left. There was no sign of prying, and no piece of either lock remained, as if they had never been there at all. Slowly he pushed the door inward. It was dark inside, but in the blue light from the window he could see the form of a woman. She turned to him just as he turned on the overhead light. "Hello, Professor," she said quietly. Matthew looked again at the locks, and back to the woman. She looked much like any of the other student workers at the site, but he couldn't place her. "I'm sorry Miss.... I can't recall seeing you here before." He flicked a glance back toward the door. "You really shouldn't be in here. In fact," he added in the same tone he used for students in danger of failing, "I'd very much like to know how you got in here." "It wasn't difficult," the woman answered, still in the same quiet voice, as if it came from a great distance. She turned and laid a finger against the lock on the drawer that held the most recent finds from the Keary site. Metallic dust fell away from the drawer and she slid it open easily. "These are not yours, Professor," she said as he heard the door click shut behind him. "Now wait just a minute..." "You people, you have no respect for the dead. No respect for their rest. You plunder their graves for your own gain." She lifted her hand and looked a mantis balanced there. "Yes, I know." Adkinson took a step, his back pressing against the door. "There have been those who plundered graves for personal profit, grave robbers. But we seek only edification, we only wish to learn." "What does it matter to the dead why you disturb them? They care only that they are disturbed." The woman stepped forward. "I am disturbed." Her features began to shift, clothing melting away as her skin turned a rich shade of red. The long, luxurious hair shortened and disappeared as her fingers elongated and her ears stretched to a point. He had seen this face before, on a carving on a cave wall. He slid his hand down to find the doorknob. "You think everything belongs to you. Finders keepers. You raid tombs; leave them empty with never a thought of those resting in them. For all your protestations to treasure every life, you have no respect for death." The doorknob was stuck. The woman shook her head slightly. "You can't go yet, I thought you wanted to learn. Learn this. You have removed my kinsman’s spirit. I am Devakiri, guardian of the Tapti clan, and I have come to reclaim it." The doorknob fell to dust in his hand. "Finders Keepers. I think I can play by those rules." She stepped back and smashed her hand through the drawer's glass top. "What's the rest of it?" she asked as she gathered up the bones. "Ah yes, Losers Weepers." Devakiri bent and opened the deep drawer that held the skull and smashed that glass as well. One hand scooped up the skull, the other came up with a long, dagger like shard of glass. She looked into the old man's wide eyes, curious. "Will you weep?" * * * Dawn was just coming up over the horizon as Devakiri returned to the cave; red clay soil caked on her feet. She wasn't certain whether the daily pilgrimage of humans up the hill would occur this morning. If they had found the headless corpse of the Professor, it likely would not. If she was lucky, the site would earn the reputation of being cursed. If they continued to excavate here, she would certainly be awakened again. She stepped back to the carving in the wall that hid the totem guides. The mantis crawled down from her shoulder and back into her hand. "I thank you, dear friend. Return to your rest." Devakiri slid her hand through the carving and felt the mantis crawl off. She stroked the small stone statuette in farewell. Her hand moved along each totem until it found the dragonfly. One after another the bones were returned to the empty grave, followed by the head of the old archeologist and the dragonfly totem. She watched as the totem shook and awoke. It hovered over the head for a moment, and then flew out of the cave to find the lost spirit of the Tapti clan. Devakiri laid down where she had awakened and waited for the darkness. [/QUOTE]
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