Location [Alvadas Location] The Gaping Maw

[Maiken Talwoad]

The wooden wheels of the beaten, torn, and patched covered wagon whined and complained with every rotation as its relatively small black ox pulled the rotted wood along the cobblestone. The man sitting atop lazily grasped the chain reigns with one hand, his other wiping streams of sweat that descend down his thick hair. Winter clothes sit uselessly behind him in the wagon, forgone in favor of using leather straps tied about his barrel chest, and around his undershorts. A tattered map sits on top of his clothes. The axes on his waist knock the front of the wagon as it makes its way, creating a sort of beat.

That sound annoyed Maiken, so he lifted the axes off of his makeshift belt to put them away.

A great roar rose from the belly of the ox as it lifted onto its hind legs, stopping the moving cart abruptly with a massive bovine wall. All of this to the surprise of Maiken, who was facing behind him at the time.

He was thrown out of his seat, striking the bull's wide back with considerable force. His eyes popped open in surprise and winced upon impact.

"Oof!" the sound softly escaped his lips before slamming onto the cobblestone next to a tired, huffing ox, both sprawled out on the road. He sighed, looking into the flickering eyes of his beast of burden. "And why'd ya do that you big stupid son ova braised oxen stew?" he said lovingly while rubbing the animal behind it's ears. He took a moment before the cold, sudden realization to come. I didn't hear them land...

"Da's axes!" he shouted, putting a sweaty hand on the ox's back as leverage to get up. He rushed ahead a few feet before trying to backtrack, coming to another realization. "Oh shite, Obuu!" He called to his beast, slipping on the worn stone tiles just in time for his ox to do the same, it having forgotten about the heavy chain fetters. The sudden movement was unwieldy, leading the cart's wheels into a small crack in the road.

The wheel split open in an instant, issuing an immediate reaction from Maiken before the wagon even fell. His fingers creased the bridge of his nose as the entire wagon rolled onto its side, splitting the rough canvas open exactly where it was patched over from the last time it had fallen onto its side.

"Oh thank each and every one of the gods. Thank you all personally. This is just great- the best!" He cursed his luck as his face sunk and he descended to his knees. He hid his eyes beneath his hands for a moment, before opening the fingers to look at his ox, tongue out, snorting somewhat contently. The chains pulled taut to his body, but he didn't seem to mind.

Maiken walked over to his ox standing in front of his ruined wagon, and began to unhook his chains. As soon as they fell to the road with a clank, the ox waddled over towards a tree to lay under. It walked around in a circle twice before dropping its hind legs to sit. It stared back at Maiken expectantly.

"Lazy bovine brat. Sun keeps having its way with us, and you'll be crispy enough to finally be uh some use to me eh?" he pointed at the ox, who replied by striking a fly with its tail. Maiken shrugged and sighed. He turned around to finally go search for the axes when something fluttered past his peripherals.

"The damn map!" he shouted, his eyes taken by desperation. He tried to chase after it, but it left the road up over a small cliff. Is this a joke? He thought. THERE ISN'T EVEN ANY WIND!

He doubled back onto the road to try and find where he had left his ox and wagon, but the trees and road started to blend. After a few minutes of simply walking back the way he came, he'd found himself completely lost, and second guessing which way he was going. He sat down on a rock and wiped the sweat that was soaking his face. What is going on?!

He hadn't seen his axes either, which struck him as he'd doubled back for the third time in an attempt to find something familiar. A clank in the distance. That sorta sounds like... He broke the silence "MY AXE!"

He began sprinting, hopping over small ditches and large rocks on the side of the road, and soon he'd thought he had made a mistake. Looking through the trees, nothing was familiar, but he was sure he had heard something on the other side of the tree line.

He cleared it, coming face to face with a cliff, looming over the clearing as though it were guarding it. Maiken's eyes fixated on a small, bone axe with a claw carved into the hilt. "ah yeah!" he praised himself, rushing towards his missing weapon.

He ran towards the cliff, keeping his eyes on the axe. At the moment of grasping, Maiken flung his axe into the air again as a voice boomed from above.

“You have come-"

"GAAAA-AAAAH!" Maiken howled, catching his axe before it landed and sprinting past the clearing. He turned around and found a tree, his face was bent into a pout, eyes crossed as he tried spying on the cliff from behind some branches. For the first time, he saw a face in the stone. What in absolute bloody oblivion... he cursed again.

His eyes narrowed to slits as he inspected the face cautiously. It seemed to be staring back at him.

"I don't like this..." he told himself. "I don't like this one bit" again as he shyly exited the tree line and walked back up the road to the face. He stood afront with his jaw fixed, unflinching to the face in the mountain.

“You have come in search of the City of Illusion. Tell me, stranger, why are you here?” the voice was smooth and silky to Maiken. He perhaps liked it.

"Does it matter what I say? Is there, say, a wrong answer?" Maiken smirked. The mountain stared back at him until his smirk was replaced with a frown.

"I don't like you or your dumb voice." he spit like poison. The mountain said nothing. This silence gave Maiken time to reflect as he gazed back, now unable to leave this staring contest. He thought of his ox, that possibly needed water Maiken didn't have. He thought of his father's wagon, in desperate need of repair. He thought of the map he didn't have, and the axe he had lost. He sighed deeply.

"I need help" his voice broke as he said this, as though confessing something embarrassing to a loved one. His eyes cast downward, cheeks beginning to tremble. The gaping maw of the mountain slowly began to open.

No dust? Maiken inspected the entrance as the stone itself moved. He sniffed and wiped his eyes before returning his axe to his belt.

"Here's to better times, rock head!" he held his hand up in salute as he walked into the cooler cavern within.

[Asterope]

42nd/Summer/517

Asterope shifted the weight of her backpack as she trod along the stone road, rolling her shoulders in a stretch as she approached Alvadas. The giant stone face guarding the city was hard to miss, and she had been eyeing it with a healthy mix of curiosity and apprehension since she spotted it. Navi padded along beside her silently, though the large dog's ears were angled slightly back, which didn't encourage Aster any. Seeing no point in trying to delay the inevitable, Aster squared her shoulders and braced herself as she closed the last of the distance to the face.

There was silence for a long moment. Asterope moved from one foot to another uncertainly; was there some sort of mechanism she was supposed to activate? Was someone supposed to see her? Maybe she should call out-

“You have come in search of the City of Illusion. Tell me, stranger, why are you here?”

Asterope stared in shock for a moment; the voice was toneless, with little inflection, and had a vague grating quality to it. Aster knew it belonged to the stone face before her, despite the fact that it hadn't moved or given any indication that it had spoken. Beside her, Navi growled quietly.

"Hello,"Aster said, somewhat awkwardly, over her initial shock. She was met with only silence, the unnervingly lifelike stone eyes of the face continuing to watch her. Upon receiving no response, she plowed ahead, answering the question she had been asked."I'm here to...well, I suppose take a break in travelling. For quite awhile probably. I have a destination, but to say it's far is perhaps an understatement. So until then, I'll be staying here."Asterope paused, eyeing the stone. "If...that's okay?"

There was another long stretch of silence. Aster's stomach dropped as a sense of dread began to creep up on her. What if she'd given the wrong answer? Where would she go? Just as she was about to start genuinely worrying, the grating of stone filled the air as the maw of the face in front of her slowly began to crack open. Relief washed over her.

"Thank you!"She called to the stone face, too relieved to put too much thought into hesitation as she bounded ahead through the now open maw, Navi following closely with her tail low.

With a few more steps, Asterope found herself in the City of Illusions; she had finally reached Alvadas.


"Common" | "Nari" | "Pavi" | Thoughts
"Other People's Speech"

[Morst]

Tears of the wind (continued in the actual post)
1 fall 517AV

…And his wings descended, like mirages in the eye of a storm. For he was running from time itself, with the upheaval of many gods denouncing his existence. He was the epiphany of darkness in the land from which he dwelled, but even then Lhex’s cruelty choked his wings of flight. A jest in the wake of mortality, for folklore and prophesies held no boundaries to his life. Yet still, he was compelled, and found himself at ‘The Gaping Maw.’

He began his journey with his eyes closed. With no control over his destination, what more a fitting place to be bound than Alvadas.

So it passed that he was running from his own storm. A deep darkness and sadness emanating from his ethereal black wings. The sky opened to the sea from his faulty and haphazard descent to the world. He thought he could fly, run, away eternally. Yet, Iono, of all the gods opened maws to devour the discarded abomination – to which he simply answered in belated breath before crashing to the sea “To run from time.”

[Roland Eir]

4th of Fall 517 The wall rolled on almost to the horizon on either side. Roland released the air he had built up in his cheeks with a whoosh, still trying to build up the courage to approach. Gods, it is as impressive as they said! The massive stone face above the only entrance gazed out on the road impassively. It towered above, so lifelike Roland could swear it was looking right at him. And if what he'd heard was true, it was. "Hello!" he called out. No response. "Hello? I hear I'm supposed to talk with you... giant, stone, face." Still nothing. The Sunberth side of him was laughing at his foolishness. After all, it was just a big carving. Yet since leaving home he'd seen--and felt--stranger things than this. That trader in Syliras said talk to the stone face, so that's what he'd do! Roland craned his neck to see if there was a response from the wall. None. Maybe he'd have better luck if he got closer. Closing the 100 yards Roland had put between himself and the magic wall, (a distance he thought was perfectly normal, considering) the man squared his shoulders and fought off the feeling he was walking into a trap. He was beginning to feel that the trader had been tricking him when the lips of the face twitched. “You have come in search of the City of Illusion. Tell me, stranger, why are you here?” Frozen in place, eyes wide, Roland struggled to find his tongue. "I am... oh gods, you're incredible. I'm here to..." Well, that was the question, wasn't it? "I guess I'm here to find out." A moment that felt like an age passed. Maybe the face was thinking, if magical animated walls could think. Roland didn't know. When the stone moved once more, it nearly sent Roland running. But it simply opened its mouth, wider and wider still, until its gaping maw formed a tunnel. I'm to enter its mouth then. That's just fantastic. Bowing his thanks, Roland scrambled forward, eager to get this over with. If discovering the City of Illusions meant being swallowed whole so be it. "Bottoms up," he muttered as his feet carried him over a row of stone teeth.

[Vick]

1st of Winter 517

How long had Vick been walking? Where was he going he thought as his small child like body kept moving on it's own. Why was he not back on the isle working in his lab? Such a easy simple life back then he thought as he found himself standing in front of a large stone figure.

Yet the undead child did not blink at the question once it spoke on what Vick wanted. Magic ran in his viens and he spent his life around magic. This was nothing new to him but he had to wonder what the trigger was.

"I am here to find a place to work on my craft."

It was not a lie but even he was not sure why he was here but for once he just let his feet move forward.

Who knew, maybe this would be a place for him to find peace for awhile he thought as he went forward inside the city.

*Credit goes to Tanith Sitai

[Alvaros]

Alvaros kept his gaze forward, steady, his head bobbing gently with the movements of the horse that he was perched upon. He was humming softly to himself, some Isurian folk song, though his mind was wandering. His hazel eyes flickered to the sky; it was nearing evening time. He couldn't help but wonder what Esmel was doing. What she always did, he supposed; tidy up, pray, eat, resent her younger brother for leaving, sleep, and so on and so forth. A shadow fell over his face, and his gentle song turned to muttering, voice slick with sarcasm. "Oh, sure, I'm the one betraying my homeland, yet she-"

Fiellos gave a high-pitched whinny, turning abruptly to the left and nearly throwing her rider. Luckily for Alvaros, he managed to keep a tight grip on the reigns and scramble back to an upright position before he ended up in the dust. Mounting a regular-sized horse like Fiellos was often a hassle for him, largely due to his height. "Fi, what'd you do that- for..." The Isur's voice trailed off, for he found himself engulfed in the shadow of a gargantuan stone face.

Fiellos shifted from foot to foot, giving the occasional snort; her nervousness was clear to Alvaros. She didn't seem to like the face - or the wall that it was embedded in, for that matter. And Alvaros didn't blame her. Then, the face spoke.

"You have come in search of the City of Illusion. Tell me, stranger, why are you here?"

The booming voice that seemed to reverberate through his bones was nearly enough to knock him from Fiellos's back once more. He blinked, taken aback. "City of... er... oh! Alvadas, is it?" He knew of no other city that might fit that description, and though he hadn't been travelling with a specific destination in mind, to stumble across Alvadas was no disappointment. He cleared his throat. "Is this a riddle, or...?"

No answer. Alv wasn't sure if he'd expected one.

He sighed. "I'm just here to experience, then. Is that a valid answer to your question, wall?" He was met only by the sounds of the whipping winds in response. The bottom jaw of the rock face detached and lowered far enough for someone much larger than Alvaros to be able to pass through. He bit at his bottom lip. "I suppose that's the entrance, then. Let's go, Fiellos." He flicked the reins, passing into the open maw of the city.