ROM 4: New Horizons

Post by **Simeon** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 8:35 pm

(*BUMP!*)

"SIMEON!"

The lion-man was snapped out of his reverie when his name was shouted, and he turned to face Josiah, Virgo, and Jeff as they walked out of the Sladestown Inn. Apparently, Josiah was a little peeved.

Simeon could sense why.

"I assume you figured out that Shauni-san is not among us, Master Josiah?" the winged lion-morph spoke calmly, causing Josiah to stop in his tracks.

There was a tense pause before Josiah spoke again, looking Simeon in the eye. "You knew?!"

Simeon nodded, slightly ashamed. "Mahri and I both sensed that Mirage was pretending to be her master, sir. Lady Shauni seemed to have some buisness she needed to handle on her own... so I let her go."

"Great..." Josiah sighed. "She knows full well that this can't be done without her... and she leaves to deal with own vendettas anyway."

"I should have tracked her down, young master..."

"No... we'll find her." Josiah held up a hand to stop Simeon from going off on his own, too. "You know where Silver and Opal went?"

Simeon shook his head and offered to go look for them. 

The last thing the gamers needed were more missing people...

Post by **Josiah** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 12:59 am

((Silver, Opal, Neo, feel free to post at any time...))

*Just then David walked in.* "Hey guys, is something wrong?"

*Josiah quickly filled him in.* "We need to find Silver, Opal, and Neo. Let's all split up and search the town, this place isn't that big so they shouldn't be too hard to find. I'll check to the north, Simeon can go west and Virgo east. We'll meet back here in fifteen minutes. David, stay here and is anyone returns before we do make sure they don't leave again."

"And what do you plan to do after we've found them? Will we go after Lady Shauni?"

"That's what we need to figure out." *Josiah sighed, realizing that, just like on their last adventure together, things had grown far more complicated than he liked.* "I'm worried about Shauni, and I'm worried about what might happen if she goes out of control again. But there are other matters at stake here. I don't know if we can really put our entire quest on hold just because she decided to do something stupid. I want to see what the others think. Well, enough talking. Let's go find them."

Post by **Simeon** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:29 am

"I'm afraid it might be too late for that..." Simeon whispered as he took Mahri by the hand.

Jeff grimaced as he overheard Simeon's last statement before volunteering to search the south side of town. He didn't bother saying anything about Simeon's comment. Jeff couldn't help but think that old lionman was right...

-------

~South Sladestown~

Only five minutes passed and it felt like an hour... Normally, Jeff wouldn't be so antsy so soon, but he couldn't shake the notion that he was being followed...

Post by **Neo Zanther** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 10:42 am

Neo walked down the stairs in the Inn. "What's all the comotion about?" he said sleeply.

Neo was filled in about the current events. "Well, I'm not sure. Lets wait til everyone is back. Meanwhile I'll wake up Tsuekasa and Metalmorph."

Post by **shauni** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 4:13 am

Mirage awoke from her slumber and then scratched her head
"man...I needed that sleep"
She looked around and noticed the room was empty. She walked outside and looked into the sky, forgetting herself, she sat down to enjoy the warm sun.
She eventually lay back and sighed.
"I wonder were the master is"
She then jerked up when she realised her mental connection with Shauni had disappeared
"Oh no!"
She stood up and ran towards the others
"Master's friends! Master's friends! I need to tell you something!"

*****

In Shauni's neck of the woods.

The Harpy sat in the highest branches of a tree she had finally chosen to rest on. Her dark feathers glistened a ghostly blue-black in the morning sun. Her face was very human like, and her expression held a look of exhaustion.
The creature breath in and out slowly, as if each breath was laboured.
She looked at her hands, or rather claws. A small sigh escaped her and she held herself, rapping her wings around her body.
A soft crying could be heard within the mass of feathers.
"I'm a monster" it spoke...its voice that of one Shauni.
Shauni's mind had lost allot of what it was in the internal struggle. It had been sealed by the duel daggers and the sin within her in a betrayal, but she had fought back to regain her body and had won...but the mental battle had left her with many insures. Her mind had returned to control, but her body remained in a wrong form...and now the minds of the ones she had just destroyed where gone forever...and so was her means of transforming back. Shauni wept...she was a monster....but worst of all, she could not remember why. her mind was scared and had lost her memories. All she recalled was she was fighting someone...and she had won...but at a price. Only one voice now spoke in her head
"Who am I....?"

Post by **Josiah** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 11:43 am

*Before long Josiah, Virgo, Jeff, and Simeon returned, along with the oddly silent Silver and Opal, to find David, Neo, and Tsukasa trying to console a frantic Mirage.* ((Heck of a lot of names to work into one sentence.))

"What's going on?" *Josiah quickly took in the scene.* "Is she upset because we found out who she really is?"

"Unfortunately, no." *David was looking grim.* "You'd better listen to what she has to say."

Post by **Celebifly** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 2:39 pm

(Sorry for this being late. Work + no internet = late replies)

10 minutes ago

"Silver..." The purple haired girl poked at Silver's face. "We're gonna be late1 Everyone's leaving!"[/pink]

*Snore* 

 "Silver...." 

*snore*

 "Silver..." 

*SNORE*

"SILVER!" She shouted, pushing him off of the bed. 

*thud*

"Hay!" Silver complained. "I was having a dream about a hotdog man and a poodle...."

"There's no time for that. We have to go!" She was dragging him out of the room by his shirt collar. 

"Gah!" he yelped, as Opal pulkled the poor boy away to the group.

*******

Present Time

"Sorry we're late." Opal apologised as Silver yawned.

Post by **shauni** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:57 am

Mirage suddenly lunged at Josiah and latched onto his arms and began talking frantically

"Its terrible! Master asked me to pose as her like she's done before cos she didn't want you to worry about her, but I normally have a mental connection to master, but when I woke up it was cut! Master had gone to see someone called Sins House and she was going to stop them or something because she didn't want you to get hurt and she knew there was something inside her that the sins had put there when we came here last year, but she was afraid you'd hate her if you found out Envy was inside her and envy kept making her jealous, and then the daggers did something and she was going crazy and didn't want you to hate her so she ran away as well, she she needs you help but she is so frightened of asking for it in case you say no. Her heart is cold because its hurt, and then the lion mad said things that made her realise she needed to leave and-"

Josiah was clearly overwhelmed by the sudden influx of information
"wait....what?"

Mirage sighed
"Sorry..."

She composed herself "Shauni has the deadly sin of envy inside her, its been making her jealous of you. The leader of the house of sin wanted to use her to destroy you. That's why she let the daggers take over her, so there would be more conflicting power inside her...it worked for a while, Envy was sealed, but the daggers began to feel envy's influence as well...that's why she went mad that time. I was mentally connected to her until an hour ago. She left to go and fight the Sins House on her own before she went mad and hurt you...I'm afraid the cut in mental connection means she's lost her mind or she's dead...."

Post by **Simeon** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 4:09 am

Simeon and Jeff stood wide eyed at this revelation, then Simeon grimaced.

"Mirage. I sensed this, too." the lion-man confessed. "... but I have no idea what we are to do now aside from dropping everything and search for your master."

((I originally had something else here. Unless you want to go and look for Shauni outright, I'd like us to go on a side-mission that might help Shauni later on... a little.))

Post by **shauni** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 4:21 am

Mirage shuck her head frantically "NO! She left so you wouldn't get hurt! Besides, its a 4 days flight from here...she left days ago...you'll never find her"
Mirage scratched her head "I...I think...if she isn't dead...she'll find us anyway..."
Mirage went pail
"I just needed to tell someone...I shouldn't have...Shauni didn't want you knowing...but I just panicked"

Post by **Josiah** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:12 pm

*Josiah spent a minute going over the information.* "Shauni is a part of hellfire..." *He said slowly.* "As long as hellfire still has power in this world I can't see her dieing. Although she might be hurt, or insane..."

"So what are we going to do?"

"That's what we need to decide. We could drop everything and look for Shauni but with Mirage's connection shattered, we have no way of knowing where she is. Even if we can find this Sins House, there's no guarentee she'll be there. Or we can continue our quest and hope that we find Shauni, or she finds us, later. What do you guys think?"

"What do you think?" *David turned the question back on him.*

*Josiah sighed.* "I don't want to abandon Shauni but it doesn't feel right to put our quest on hold either. I was thinking that Virgo could take Mirage and search for Shauni while the rest of us continue on. I have a mental connection with Virgo, like I do with all my monsters, we can comunicate no matter how far apart we are. Plus we have our pendants, so if something goes wrong she can teleport to us or we can teleport to her. That's my idea anyway. Anyone else have an idea?"

Post by **Neo Zanther** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:56 pm

"Well doens't shound too bad and I can always send Metalmorph with Virgo to help more."

"Hey, don't I get a say in this?"

"Other than that we could go with what you are saying."

Post by **Josiah** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 1:37 am

"I suppose sending another monster wouldn't hurt." *Josiah looked around at the rest of the group, noticing how unusually silent Silver and Opal were.* "Any other comments or should we get started?"

Post by **Simeon** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 1:41 am

Simeon was about to reply when Mahri perked her ears. "Guardian Father... I hear something..."

"Where, dear one?"

Mahri pointed to the mountains. "There. I hear crying."

((Oei... I'll expand on this in a bit... Just need to look up my notes...))

Post by **Josiah** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 12:35 pm

"Well, looks like that might be all the time we have for discussion." *Josiah rose upon hearing Mahri's words.*

"Don't worry." *Virgo sensed the worry in his voice.* "I'll find her."

"I know you will." *he gave her a quick kiss.* "Here, take these, you might need them." *he handed her Midnight Wing, Yiggdrissil, and Aquaticia's cards.* "Be careful."

"You too." *she walked to the door and waited for Metalmorph.*