Corners of the Earth III (Rhubarb, Strawberry Banana + Butterscotch)
‘Verse: Natural Forces
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Rhubarb #5 (that certainly is convenient), Strawberry Banana #4 (bad news) + Butterscotch
Rating: PG
Title: Corners of the Earth III
Summary: Monsters among us.
Notes: More on the monster outbreaks. Events referenced: True Story; In the Night.
The first reports of monsters came a year after the Awakening. The world was still recovering, still discovering how dangerous magic could be while a slew of accidents reduced mages from two-thirds to one-fourth of the population. Thus, the isolated murmurings of strange new creatures deep in the Amazon or in the whirling snow of the Arctic were largely brushed off as hysteria… or, as I hope this isn’t true, the world can’t take another blow. For those who even heard, of course. Communication lines were far from the first priority in this new world, and so the population centers still remaining heard little if anything from outside walking distance.
The monster reports petered out within the month. Time marched on. Gwen established herself as an authority on the arcane despite her youth, founded the first College of Magic (which subsequently blew up), founded the second, called simply the Academy, stayed out of its administration this time, and worked on her own, multi-focused research. It was during one project in 2064, while she was investigating the cause of the Awakening, that she heard, quite by accident, about the first true monster outbreak.
There were conflicting reports, of course, but whichever story was true, Beijing had been destroyed. Less than a generation after the Pacific Tsunami flattened the city, resettlers had just started building in earnest when devastation struck again. Truly, the area was cursed.
Gwen found her calling. She set out immediately to investigate the disaster and encountered her first monster a week later in the twice-ruined city: one smaller than those to come, but at the time it seemed huge to her. She would never know whether it was a straggler from the attack or a scavenger, but it had been feasting on a body when she came along, and she was just glad she had surprised it. Gwen didn’t have time to examine the beast; she saw the bright eyes gleaming at her as it turned its head, so she killed it with a burst of Curse magic: one of her favorite spells that built pressure within the monster’s body and made it explode in a shower of skin and guts and bone fragments.
The problem, of course, was that she never got to examine the remains to find out what the thing actually looked like. Her glimpse in the gloom was of a cat-sized beast with a long nose and jaws clamped around a strip of man-flesh.
She never saw that kind of monster again - only their bigger, badder cousins.
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Rhubarb #5 (that certainly is convenient), Strawberry Banana #4 (bad news) + Butterscotch
Rating: PG
Title: Corners of the Earth III
Summary: Monsters among us.
Notes: More on the monster outbreaks. Events referenced: True Story; In the Night.
The first reports of monsters came a year after the Awakening. The world was still recovering, still discovering how dangerous magic could be while a slew of accidents reduced mages from two-thirds to one-fourth of the population. Thus, the isolated murmurings of strange new creatures deep in the Amazon or in the whirling snow of the Arctic were largely brushed off as hysteria… or, as I hope this isn’t true, the world can’t take another blow. For those who even heard, of course. Communication lines were far from the first priority in this new world, and so the population centers still remaining heard little if anything from outside walking distance.
The monster reports petered out within the month. Time marched on. Gwen established herself as an authority on the arcane despite her youth, founded the first College of Magic (which subsequently blew up), founded the second, called simply the Academy, stayed out of its administration this time, and worked on her own, multi-focused research. It was during one project in 2064, while she was investigating the cause of the Awakening, that she heard, quite by accident, about the first true monster outbreak.
There were conflicting reports, of course, but whichever story was true, Beijing had been destroyed. Less than a generation after the Pacific Tsunami flattened the city, resettlers had just started building in earnest when devastation struck again. Truly, the area was cursed.
Gwen found her calling. She set out immediately to investigate the disaster and encountered her first monster a week later in the twice-ruined city: one smaller than those to come, but at the time it seemed huge to her. She would never know whether it was a straggler from the attack or a scavenger, but it had been feasting on a body when she came along, and she was just glad she had surprised it. Gwen didn’t have time to examine the beast; she saw the bright eyes gleaming at her as it turned its head, so she killed it with a burst of Curse magic: one of her favorite spells that built pressure within the monster’s body and made it explode in a shower of skin and guts and bone fragments.
The problem, of course, was that she never got to examine the remains to find out what the thing actually looked like. Her glimpse in the gloom was of a cat-sized beast with a long nose and jaws clamped around a strip of man-flesh.
She never saw that kind of monster again - only their bigger, badder cousins.