2019.11.07 Summoning Helios
| Summoning Helios | |
|---|---|
| Royan seeks Iris help to learn a new Gift. | |
| IC Date | 7th November, 2019 |
| IC Time | - |
| Players | Iris (also as ST), Royan |
| Location | Desert outside of Prospect, CA |
| Prp/Tp | Gift Learning |
| Spheres | Garou, Gaian |
| Theme Song | Here Comes The Sun - The Beatles |
Colour Coordination:
- Dark Pink for Iris, the Keeper of String (theory)
- Deeeeeep blue black for the raven with the nicest feathers
- Sunrise Yellow for the One. The Only. The Main Guy in the Sky! HELIOS!
Royan's need has been expressed off camera! So a time and a place was set up for them to meet and DO THE DEW! It's out in the desert, far away from prying eyes, random wanderers, or things that ignite easily. With all the wild fires going on just to the north, dun no one need a careless Theurge.
The ritual space has been set up: a very large circle made of basins of flamable offerings under contraptions holding magnifying glasses meant to light them with the sun's passing, sparkling sun stones (those pretty little lemon yellow rocks), white feathers and other such correspondence pieces. Iris is dressed in yellow with some shiny gold accents. You gotta do this shit right when you're talking about 'oh hey let's ask a god for a favor', right?
Just as Royan is probably arriving, Iris is plugging her way through her summoning ritual, sweaty and tired, she's clearly been at this for several hours now under the sun. As the sun makes its slow arc over head, the light beaming through the last of the magnifying glasses intensifies, focuses, and sets the last basin aflame just as the last hour of the ritual ticks over. Has Royan been helping? Sure, if he wants to be! Those fires need feeding, oils need splashing, sure this is a very Greek flavored ritual, but if you know what the sun likes then you know what the sun likes.
Royan, though, has been inconveniently keeping himself to his Corvid form. There is something about this Corax, in the way he seems to disdain wearing his none breed form. He's almost made it to a thing where he just seems to ignore that he even HAS that form. So the large black raven keeps himself in his raven form and, in that, he tries his best to help. Now, granted, the bloody thing is huge. And for a raven, strong. He can move things, just not fly them around.
<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======--->
Iris rolls Gnosis vs 4 for 3 successes.
1 1 3 3 3 +4 +5 +6 6 8
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<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======--->
Iris rolls Gnosis vs 3 for 8 successes.
1 +3 +4 +5 +5 +5 +8 +8 +8 10
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Iris's voice cracks during her endless chanting and praying as she moves to and fro, hither and yon. She treats this like a feast for a loved one that hasn't arrived yet, making sure everything is perfect with Royan's help, attending to every single little thing like a freaking-out-girlfriend-on-the-holidays.
After that last brazier is lit though, that's when shit starts to get very interesting. The fires in their shallow bowls flare, their flames beginning to whip and snap, growing uncomfortably large and filling the sandy patch of desert with even more heat, making it a veritable oven. Iris is immediately soaked with sweat, and that sucks. She dosn't complain about it, but an overly sweaty crack is basically the worst thing ever.
Licks of flame begin to jump from the fires, throwing themselves towards the center of the circle to rapidly form a flaming, smouldering figure. A body built of red coals, an aura of burning fire, what forms is a tall man, ideal and yet still somehow entirely non-descript. Probably due to being made of burning crap, it's hard to get racial features when you're just on-fire-wood and stuff. This isn't THE Celestine, merely an avatar of Helios projected aaaaaaaall the way over here. That's as good as it gets, otherwise the planet melts, probably.
Once the god materializes, the sweat soaked Iris drops down to one knee and bow's her head.
"Why it's you again. I didn't expect to hear you calling again. Most don't, once they follow through with my demands." The spirit says, smiling and showing an odd fondness for Iris and her sun-marked forehead.
"Fair and just Apollo, I've missed hearing your furnace voice! My raven brother - a dedicated worshiper of your light - wishes to pay his respects and make his pleas. Would you hear him?" She doesn't introduce the bird, and leaves aaaaaall that stuff up to him, gesturing to the large raven and shifting Helio's attention that way.
"Certainly." the god answers, and waits rather more patiently than one might expect from a guy who's busy heating an entire universe.
The anticipation is there. It is evident. One can almost TASTE it from the large black raven. He is ANTICIPATING! After all, he is about to meet Helios! His God Father. His Adopted Parent! His .. Step Father! Sort of. But truly, to a Corax, this is The Real Deal. The Garou might find Helios a really flaming fellow, but to the Corax he's a .. well, a Really Fucking Swell Dude! The bird is on the ground for once, his feathers all fluffed up and his wings flexing a bit.
And he shows patience by shutting up for once! Not saying anything undue or untoward. When the Celestines avatar manifests out here in the desert, the large bird spreads both of his wings out and then sinks his body down towards the ground. Hi head lowers too! "Great Helios! Magnificent Star!" he calls out, "I am Swift Wing upon the Hight Wind, Neocornix of the Corax and Great Eye in the Sky! I am your most humble whisperer of secrets, and I have come to seek from you a Great Boon!"
The God steps towards the Corax, the sand burning, melting, and solidifying into glass with each step as he goes to Royan. Iris, for her part, stays out of things and just watches, smiling and joyous. Yeah, he's not quite of a Dad relation to her, more just a god from legend, but he's a super likeable god to this Greek wolf. All them old Greek gods were weirdos, sometimes assholes, but Apollo, he's a steady and good guy.
Kneeling down, Helios taps the ground with a burning finger, radiating waves of scorching heat. A moment later ants, pulled by his call, begin popping up out of small holes in the ground to lightly swarm the bird and crawl up in his feathers. Helios likes his birds and treats Royan to a little Anting, getting all those hard to reach places itched and preened for him. "I've heard your calls and your cries, you've been careful and loyal. What is it you seek, my eager young wanderer?"
The Corax have such a complicated relationship with Helios, though. It is quite curious. Some of them see it as a Fun Thing(tm) while some revere the old bastard greatly. As it would appear, Royan is one of those that revere the guy. The bird lowers his head a bit more, although it is HARD to be reverent to the Gods presence when he sends ants to try to relax him with a good preening, "There is a Gift, from your Realm, that speaks to my soul. It calls to me, by name and by use. The Flame of the Wind Rider is spoken among the Corax with some reverence. I would seek it."
Knelt in a crouch with his wrists resting on his knee, the burning man considers the request for a long moment - perhaps just giving Royan a minute to enjoy his ants - before speaking again. His breath is waves of heat scented with burnt herbs. "A sun cannot be lost to the darkness, and it cannot give in to death. It is light, and it is life. To turn your back on the Sun is to never be a sun again yourself." Essentially, 'don't ever fuck off or I'll take my gifts back'. Lifting a finger, he points to the blue sky and says to the raven, "Come and let me see you shine as a tiny sun. If I can see your radiance, then I will bless you." With an enigmatic and smoldering smile, Helios stands, steps back, and then collapses into a pile of embers that are left dying without his spirit engulfing them.
Iris, who'd been being quiet thus far, stands up and squees like a little girl, clapping her hands excitedly! "You've got a hot date!" she jokes.
When we last left our heroes, Helios had given the Thunder Chicken something of a riddle, about going and being a tiny sun, and if Helios could see the bird's radiance, then he'd grant him the gift. And also there was a small warning about staying forever loyal to Helios and not losing the sun, of course. And so here we are! Iris is all excited, and asking the bird "What's your plan?" as she moves around to extinguish the contained fires around them.
Two things that no Corax could ever promise and hold without fail. So many Corax, after all, Lose the Sun and go into the Umbra. And then there are those few who fall from Helios Grace, who have Raven remove his wings of protection from them. Despicable creatures, really!
The bird is still a few moments, eyes turning to look at Iris, "I have a plan. A most clever plan. Will you wait for me here?" he wonders, his large wings spreading, "I have .. things to gather. It might take a bit of time!"
"Sure, I'll wait." Iris says with a smile, "It'll take me a while to clean up here anyways, don't wanna go leaving a bunch of ritual mess laying around. He's a nice guy, isn't he? I mean I've never met Apollo on a *bad* day, but I've got to say, every time I've spoken with his avatar he's been *really* nice! The first time, I ended up speaking with one of his incarna first. ALSO really nice. So nice it kissed me on my cheek." she says, and points to a nasty burn on her cheek that probably went down to the bone when it happened. "Go get your stuff, I'll be here."
And to this, the raven .. takes off. But he is not gone long. He comes back after a bit, with .. twigs? Then he flies off! And as he returns, he has more twigs! Dried, dead twigs. Back and forth he goes, in all directions, always returning with more and more twigs. And a longer branch. And .. matches? Where the hell did he find matches out here?! And even a roll of toilet paper! It takes quite some time to assemble it all. Once it is all there, though, he finally lands after which he starts with the arduous task of assembling whatever monstrosity it is he is building. And what is it? Well, as he starts building it, at first, it might look like it will become a nest. But as he starts it turns out that he is building a sphere! He is interlocking the twigs and bending them, using his claws and his beak and his wings. As the thing becomes a bowl, he starts filling the middle with the toilet paper. Then he starts to build the top. Working without break, over and over interlacing the twigs and such until finally it is ready. It is a sphere. About the size of his body. Stuffed with paper. And with a larger branch sticking out from the top, "A sun!" he declares.
Each time Royan returns, there's slightly less crap lying around. Embers get buried bit by bit, braziers are stacked, herbs, magnifying glasses and other accessories packed up into their bags and what not until eventually it's just Iris and couple bags of stuff hanging out in the hotass frickin desert. She guards those sticks though! Once the bird's back and doing construction, she sits crosslegged right near by, offering a hand here or there for keeping the twigs in place while the bird works. "Hey, well done!" she says with a grin when he finishes making his sun torch of toiletpapery filled doom! "You want me to go up with you, or I can wait here while you handle this on your own."
Being born raven, though, the bird seems to be very good at using his body almost like a human would. He may lack opposable thumbs, but he has everything else! Wings, beak and claws! The bird finishes with the large bowl. He then looks up to the woman, "I thank you, but this .. is my time to shine. I will burn the sky for Mighty Helios. I will shine darkness away for Him." he moves down towards the matchsticks, poking a bit at it before he gets a match out. He is a very nimble bird and if you have never seen a raven light up a match before, this is the time to record! He puts his one claw on the box of sticks, to then poke the match at the side until he strikes it up, "I have FIRE!" he announces, to then shove the burning stick into the paper.
Iris grins and doesn't seem to find anything wrong with this assertion of self sufficiency, and bows her head without argument. "Okay! In that case, I'm gonna wait right here for you, so you make sure and come tell me you're still alive afterwards. If after like... three or four hours I don't hear anything from you, I'm gonna come lookin just in case something went terribly wrong. Be safe, be strong, and have fun with it!" And she is visually quite impressed with the bird's homemade sun!
The 'sun' goes up in a WOOF! as the paper starts to burn. As it does, the bird spreads his wings and takes flight. He grabs on to the 'handle' that is the branch sticking out the top to then just fly straight up, "I'm a SUUUUN!" he calls out, his beak poking in under his wing for half a second of not flying. Seems he was going for something, and that something being his Sliver of Helios. The fetish that emits .. sunlight. A sun in more ways than one! Burning like a sun and now giving sunlight like one! Higher up he goes, up and up into the sky, trailing flames after him as the sun burns!
"Don't forget to cross the gauntlet before you run out of air!" Iris calls after the bird, hands cupped around her mouth so the sound will carry better. For her part, she makes herself comfortable, erecting an umbrella she can shelter under a bit while she waits, probably working on her orrery design or something.
Now for Royan, up and up he goes, the air growing colder and thinner as he heads towards the clouds. At least until he side steps mid-flight. The blue of the sky thins out and fades, becoming black speckled with stars, thousands of suns across the galaxy. A few spirits at the Aetherial boarders attempt to get a hold of that burning ball of twigs, it's awfully pretty and interesting!
And, yes. It is quite possible... very possible in fact.. that the Corax enacted a Rite of Talisman Dedication on the large ball of twigs and paper once he was building it. Dedicating it to himself temporarily so that he can bring it with him into the Spirit World. So up and up he goes until he is at that point where the Gauntlet gets thinner along with the air. He peers into his shiny tag around his leg and .. like that, he is gone from view. He still burns, though. Or his sun does. And he? He still shines from the power of the Sliver of Helios. Shining so very brightly!
He totally did the rite, I saw it and everything! Cloud Land stretches out across the upper reaches of the atmosphere as Royan shoots through it, mountains and valleys of cloud populated by elementals and birds of all sorts. Royan gains a few avian followers who are curious about what he's doing, but they shed off and head back to the clouds as Royan starts getting a bit too far away from their home for their comfort.
What he's really after is not hard to get to, the blackness of space and in the distance, the gleaming orb of the sun, burning in the umbral blackness as the sun god watches all things. It's beautiful! Of course, there's one problem. Space is black, and dark, and sure there's the sun, but there's so many things that cause the deepest of shadows, and Royan is disturbing that darkness by waving that damned tiny sun around. There's probably some moment where he's about to do some triumphant showing of his sun to THE Sun, but right before he can, Helios vanishes. Son of a bitch! Actually, the sun didn't go anywhere at all, it's just a large sheet of pure blackness. Think of it like an annoyed toddler with a big blanket trying to block the TV because you wont hand over all the cookies, so that show you were wanting to see can just go fuck itself.
What? What foolery is this?! This was not supposed to happen! He was supposed to fly like a sun and show Helios he could! And now, someone has blocked out the view and, really, the poor bird has no idea what the hell to do! So, in pure desperation he calls out, "Oh, Great and Magnificent Helios! I have built a sphere and I burn across the heavens for you! I hold a piece of you in my beak! I shine for you!"
The spirit reaches and stretches, and tries very hard to block Royan's and Helios's view of each other, but it's clear the spirit is NOT a big fan of the light of the spheres either in front of or behind it. It hisses in spirit tongue, bare whispers of sound really, cringing back away from Royan but still trying *very* hard to stop all this damned LIGHT from spewing everywhere!
You lose one Rage You lose one Willpower
<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======--->
Common Raven rolls Manipulation(1) + Intimidation(2) (3 dice) vs 7 for 0 successes.
2 3 4
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This can not be. This will not stand! This was to be his grand moment, and now some bloody spirit is blocking the way! The bird lets out an angry kraaa! before he calls out, "You! You whom dare to block the sunlight of Mighty Helios! I am his most trusted ally! I am Swift Wing upon the High Winds and I have many allies in this realm! FEEL THEM LOOK AT YOU! FEEL THE STARE AT YOU! Feel them peering at you from every corner of the skies and if you do not leave here, they will descend upon you and feast upon all that you are!"
....Oh shit. They're not *really* all looking at it, are they?? It's hard to tell with a sheet of darkness when you cant be sure where exactly its face is, or if it *has* a face for that matter, but the subtle shifts in the darkness have that 'person looking around with paranoia' sort of feel to them. The spirit hisses quietly at the bird and the blackness srinks, starks peeking out as the sheet of blackness receeds a good bit. This is one of those 'hey man, I don't want any trouble' sort of moments for the spirit as the blackness seems to slink backwards and away a bit. It just wanted to stop all that damned shinyness, but if you're gonna go calling in all your bros to come run it out of town, then... then fuck this, it's got better places to be! In a flash the blacknes folds in on its self and zips away, difficult to see in space save for the trail where stars wink out and then reappear again. Having successfully scared the spirit away, there he is, shining in the distance again! This is gonna take a minute, but while Royan is shining like an itty bitty sun, a wave of soft orange-red is rushing through space, a light solar flare from Helios rocketing through the void at a bazillion miles an hour. Will Royan be brave and hold his ground against the oncoming wave of solar fire, or will be fly away like a chicken?
Its worse than that. It is not that the Corax is prone to losing the sun. But this is .. a place that he one day will most likely explore more extensively. And Helios? Swift Wing upon the High Wind has a rather complicated relationship with his Lord Helios. He loves the guy. He absolutely.. worships him.. in a way many Corax do not. At least, they do, but with some reservations. So when the sunlight comes rushing towards him, the bird just loses it! He lets out a very happy KRAAA! and steers himself in the direction of it. He starts to fly harder, wanting to meet this shiny, bright thing! Overconfident. Show-Off. But most of all? A complete dork!
This is a gentle, loving, tiny little caress from the sun god. That is to say, it's a searing wave of cosmic heat that that sparkles like lava launched into the sky and could probably ignite a planet's atmosphere if it hit it hard enough. It singes, stings, burns, but not so bad as to bake our poor hero chicken alive. Some feathers are going to get singed though, for sure. This must be how those first white ravens felt the first time Helios hugged them close and proclaimed them "MINE!"
As the wave passes, dissipating into space behind the raven, the bird discovers that he's ON FUCKING FIRE! None of his feathers are being eaten by the low, ghostly blue and orange flames though, he burns but is not consumed as his mind is filled with the knowledge of how to summon a scant trace of the Sun's flame from within himself.
He releases his make-shift sun to this. He releases it and lets it drift off to burn up on its own. He lets the Fetish he holds return to its place within his Spirit. The sunlight hits him and he goes, "YAAAAA....OOOOOOWE!" as it bloody hurt. Somewhere in his tiny brain, he knew it would hurt. But his feeling of elation at this overshadowed his feeling of 'brace yourself'. So it hurts! But only for a bit, because then he's a flying flame! Burning bright and blue across the sky. He lets out another loud call, singing out Helios praise as he makes a series of complicated manoeuvres in the sky for Helios viewing pleasure!
In the vast distance, waves of burning spirit fire bursts from the sun, a pleased and congradulatory nimbus of light for Royan's bravery and success. After a moment the waves settle and it's just the distant sun again, hanging in the umbra while the celestines dance slowly around him, singing their enigmatic songs of life. Well done, bird! Don't forget to tell Iris you're still alive before she goes and organizes a rescue party!
Iris who? Earth? What? The Realm? But, what is that compared to soaring through the Umbral skies as a burning flame?! NOTHING! Well, almost nothing. There is that whisper in his head. The whisper of a tiny, happy voice that between words hums out and sings. The words of a fun loving little spider that wants his Royan to come back home.
It is enough to break the bird out of his reverie and to this, he suddenly folds his wings up and then just drops. Like a burning missile, he falls! FAAAAALLS! Reaching a certain point, he does a little move in mid air, his eyes glaring into the shiny surface around his leg as he pops back into the Real World. He is still burning. He is still falling, like a blue flaming meteor!
Iris is waiting where she said she would, at their original summoning site. She's not panicking yet, and WAS working on her designs, but she ended up a bit side tracked. You would too if you were watching a scorpion vs a scorpion made entirely out of colorful string do vicious battle with each other. Trying to do battle, any how. The scorpion cant really sting a wad of wiggly string, and the string doesn't have a real stinger, so mostly they're just tapping furiously at each other. And then hey! A meteor! COOL! Oh wait, burning bird! Even cooler! Iris squints at the incoming speck of fire in the sky when she spots it, trying to determine 'okay is the bird on fire in a *bad* way, or is that a successful gift learn?' It's really hard to tell. What helps, though, is the lack of bird shrieks for 'oh god I'm gonna die' or something.
The bird IS falling at a rather high speed, though. Straight down. Trailing blue flame. Falling, falling.. closer. CLOSER! Then WHOOOOF! Both of his wings spread out and he suddenly levels out in the most death defying act ever. EVER! It was no real danger, though. He knew what he was doing. And he has a lot of speed as he zooms across the sky, turning a quick 180 to bleed off more speed before he slowly begins to sink down to then finally land upon the ground where the ritual took place. Still burning up to that point before his flames go out.
Iris stands up after crawling out from under her umbrella, watching still with that tingle of 'yeah but he is JUST on fire?? Should I catch him???' at first. She errs on the side of believing that Royan is not plummeting to his death though and doesn't interfere. And thank goodness she was right, because she'd feel SO fucking bad if he'd just sputched into the ground right now! "YOU DID IT!!" she says, looking and sounding completely thrilled with the bird's success, "You're an amazing Thunder Chicken! I'm so happy for you!! I take it Apollo liked your show? What was it like?"
"It would appear that Mighty Helios accepted my attempt at cleverness." The bird says to this, "Once he could view my sun creation, he awarded me the knowledge." he lets out a light kraa, "I am in your Debt, oh Mighty Black Fury." he lowers his head down, wings spreading a bit, "For assisting me in this task in acquiring Helios Own flames."
"No, no not at all." Iris says, waving a hand Jedi style while shaking her head, "You're a friend, we've bonded by adventure, and if you need something to better help you fight for Gaia, then I'm not gonna take any payment for it. Next time I need some help though, maybe you'll be free and want to join in though! If not, it's okay, as long as we're here for each other when we need to be, right?"
"My skills are at your disposal, Honored Garou." The bird replies to this, "I am a Child of Raven. It is my duty to fly, my duty to watch and when I see something? It is my duty to speak it. As such, my eyes sees more than most and they are far more inconspicuous then most. Just ask, and I shall come."
"Actually, if you could keep an eye out for any sign of the earthly realms coming by and let me know, I'd really appriciate it." Iris says, "I need to get to every realm so that I can get a piece of it for the orrery. A lot of the ones off the planet are easy to find and get to, I think, but the ones ON earth, I don't have nearly as much luck finding them. You'd think an enormous wandering fissure in the ground like the Abyss would be easy to spot..."
The bird gives a loud kraa to this, "I will look for it, Honored Garou." the bird replies, "I will listen to those of my kind speaking, and I if I hear anything then I will let you know where and when."
"Aw please, call me Pancake." says the not at all prideful Elder. "Speaking of which, you wanna come have some pancakes? It's about time to go get a meal for Pink and I got this cool little skillet that makes pancakes in the shape of an elephant."
Birds really should not eat pancakes. Ravens really should not eat pancakes! But this particular Corax? He really likes people food. A lot. He pulls his body up more straight, to then let out a, "Oh, yes. I would not turn down pancakes. I would love some of those." he lets his large wings spread a bit.
