Submission (#1856) Approved

Quest: Resonance - Act 1
Act Type: Exploration
Adult Elnin Present: N/A
Writing Word Count: 1064
Regional Affinity: Kyendi
Claiming Regional Affinity for: ELN984

Adventurer Rank Unlock Requirement: Act of Exploration

There’s something abjectly creepy about Kyendi forests at night. Guided only by the small, meager light of his lantern, Prescott delves deeper into the mountainside. What once was beautiful and mesmerizing during the day, now becomes an up and down pattern that makes him feel dizzy. Small sounds become loud and unapproachable; the crack of a twig, a slight scrape against a rock, the trickle of a water spout. The moon is high in the sky and mesmerizing; a flashing scar against the crowded, starry sky, far away from the nearest city and blinking in and out as he scurries beneath the trees.

There’s a flash, every now and then. The shimmering sunset crystals of the Sunshard Isles wink at Prescott in the twilight. It catches the moon’s glow and reflects it back at him in an uneven tempo that makes him uneasy. It’s almost as if he’s a sailor lost at sea, with only a distant, hazy lighthouse just barely piercing the heavy fog of tree branches. 

For Misha, Prescott reminds himself, startling at another break of a branch off to his right. He picks up speed, galloping like a startled rabbit as he stutters further into the woods. 

He’s here to find something for the other ‘nin’s birthday. The date is coming up, and all he had known was that Misha had a certain dilute, underlying fascination for the unknown. And, well, since they’re in Kyendi, what better to do than to pick up something interesting from the oddly creepy ruins just laying around? 

By the time Prescott’s ventured deep enough to see the beginning of winding cobblestone pathways and long desecrated, marble columns, he’s long past the point of fear. He’s running on pure adrenaline by now, wanting to get in, find something interesting for Misha’s vague tastes, and never come back again. Especially at night. 

Prescott slows to a brisk walk. He passes overgrown rocks, large things once carved into more ornate shapes but slowly weathered by time. A few pillars left from what might have been a cluster of buildings stand erect. Their figures pose nothing more than impressions of beasts in his mind; whenever Prescott catches one out of the corner of his eye, looming and completely blacked out by the force of the moon behind it, he flinches. He’s only been in the ruins for a couple minutes, but already he’s tired of it.

Heading deeper into the ruins, Prescott begins combing over the bits and pieces scattered over the ground with a bit finer of an eye. There isn’t anything that pops out at him at first. Or, well, every piece of rock seems to look the same when there’s barely any light and it’s all the same variation of slate gray. 

Prescott curses under his breath. He’ll have to use up a glow stick. Sitting down and stuffing a paw into his pack, Prescott digs around until he catches a claw on a cylinder. It spits a small crackle of sound when he cracks it, bubbles dancing inside the tube. A single sliver of light in a dark, decaying night. 

“He better appreciate whatever I find,” Prescott mutters hotly. Although he’s fairly certain that no matter what, a gift from Prescott is something Misha would treasure dearly. Embarrassing. 

Casting another look around now that the place is lit up by the small, green light, he starts rifling through stuff again. There’s decayed stone, a couple of rocks, and, oh, more fucking cobblestone. Sure, they all have odd ruins and symbols carved into them, but that’s not enough to pique the older ‘nin’s interest. And against his own wishes, Prescott wants to impress Misha. 

He’s just about to take a break when something reflects the glowstick's light back at him. Nothing here has been especially shiny, so the reflection interests him. After locating it hidden in a small gap between two stone tablets with illegible writing, Prescott sticks his hand in. 

There's the vague sense of an oddly shaped, smooth object, then something crystalline. It's cold to the touch, and dense. The object snags on the tablets when he tries to pull it out, though. 

Huffing, Prescott tries again. No dice. 

"You stupid piece of–" he starts, grunting with frustration. Pulling at the tablets does little good, and he resigns to having to push them with his full weight. "Fuck." 

Prescott steadies himself. Bracing against the tablets, he shoves his shoulder against the side of one and digs his heels in. There's little give to the stone, and it feels like he's trying to open the jaws of a predator. 

But fighting for his life and sourcing a gift for Misha are two very different things, so Prescott ever so slowly manages to pry the two stones apart. He's out of breath and has to sit down for a second to catch it, huffing and puffing. 

Prescott goes back up on unsteady paws, and finally reaches in to grab the item. When he pulls it out, though, he stills. 

Prescott brings the item closer to the glowstick. It's a serpent of some sort, intricately and beautifully crafted to show each individual scale. It has two sets of legs, and the crystal provides an iridescent shimmer to the belly and eyes. 

It's white marble, with rainbow crystals. The serpent is curved into a circle, the hands holding onto each other and the tail stuffed inside of the thing's mouth. Some sort of ouroboros-esque circlet. Maybe jewelry? It's too big of a circle to be used around the arm, though, so it must be a necklace or mantle piece.

It isn't any sort of recognizable creature Prescott knows, though, which adds a layer of intrigue that he thinks Misha will appreciate.

Blinking, Prescott holds the circlet in front of him. He imagines hiding it in his pack, keeping it safe until it's Misha's actual birthday. He thinks that the older 'nin will enjoy the present not just for its principle interest, but also because it was Prescott who gave it to him.

And, well, that's– a lot. For him to process.

"Ugh." 

Shaking his head, Prescott stuffs the unnamed circlet present into his side pack, and gathers his wits. The walk back to their camp will probably be just as eerie and creepy as the journey here, so with much haste, Prescott digs his heel in and runs.