Kyngdom Survival Guide
*A Travel Guide
Chatterbox: KYNGDOM™ Power of Hoof
*A Travel Guide
*A Travel Guide to Northwest Kyngdom That is Totally Not Top Secret and Has Nothing to Do with Anything Important
So you want to take a trip to Northwest Kyngdom? Wonderful! Pack your bags, grow an extra layer of fur, and hop onto the Badger Express, the high-speed badger-drawn train that will carry you northward.
Travel tip: The Badger Express has a wonderful dining car that serves a creamy, piping-hot soup called Pinesüppe: root vegetables simmered for hours with pine needles and topped off with a rich drizzle of sap.
Once you disembark, take a moment to notice how your breath turns into an intricately-patterned fog in the air. There is a magic to northwest Kyngdom that no one can explain--almost everything here, no matter how dangerous, is aesthetically pleasing. Gaze at the fields of soft, untouched snow, the evergreens glimmering with icicles so elaborate that you would have sworn they were carved by artists, and the aurora borealis that dance through the sky like omens of a better life. This is the home of Regina, the Silver Reindeer, who is…just your average reindeer!
Travel tip: Pack light but warm! Bring lots of high-protein snacks--we recommend grubs! Regina is the guardian of Hoof!
Though Regina looks so noble so as to be unapproachable, she is actually very friendly, and loves showing newcomers around her land. She lives in a mansion (nobody said reindeer weren’t materialistic!) that she named Jökull, the Old Norse word for ice. It is a place of good cheer, where the super-sweet juice of the local Winter Black Cherry flows year-round (delicious over ice or warmed up!). Zephyra loves to spend her holidays here.
Travel tip: Examine Regina closely when she walks. Three of her feet are shod in beautiful mother-of-pearl horseshoes that glimmer when she walks, but the fourth bears only a rusty horseshoe. Look closely at that horseshoe. I think you know what it is. Don’t you?
Regina will warn you about the forest of blue juniper trees that look so appealing and smell like Christmas on a platter. This is the Decoy Forest, and its pull is strong. When you walk through it--which you should never do--you will see what you want to see. Lost loves will cry out to you from the trees. Your mother, as a teenager, may appear, begging you to be her friend. Ignore them all. Have another mug of Winter Black Cherry cider. Enjoy your stay.
Travel tip: The pull of the Decoy Forest? B.I.G. feels it, too. When Cornelia Hornshaw stares into the Forest, she sees an image of the Fourth Power. But she still doesn’t know where it’s located. She’s heading there now, though. Will anybody stop her?
submitted by FAFA Intelligence, Bog & Burrow Inn
(January 4, 2017 - 12:58 pm)
(January 4, 2017 - 12:58 pm)
Moon swooped low over the treetops, following the direction of the train. Icy was in there, and Shadow. They needed to get here SAFE-meaning she was going to at least help.
She saw a figure in the Decoy forest and banked to the left to get a closer view. Moon had no idea who she was, but her natural insticnt told her to help. She flapped twice and crashed onto the ground, scattering snow around her.
Huh, Moon thought. The leg looks like it's broken which means a splint is needed to make sure it doesnt get injured.
She began to snap some braches off the juniper trees to stabilize the wound just as the girl woke up.
(Icy, IM HERE TO HELP YOU!)
(January 8, 2017 - 7:09 pm)
I wake up and i'm staring into a unformilor face I hope she is here to help me (you are a girl right) there is asplint on my leg she must have made it I decide to trust her. Who are you I ask, I sit my self up useing the tree behind me to leen agenst.
(January 10, 2017 - 11:11 am)
Just before I go, I grab Lia, and take her a little farther back on the tracks.
"I have to go." I say. "Meet me in the Resistance base."
(January 8, 2017 - 7:13 pm)
Bandits are everywhere, trying to steal anything they can get their grubby paws on. A high-society pigeon is pecking a bandit's hand, and the train is stopped.
Until it begins to roll backwards down the hill uncontrollably.
I instantly run through the train coach, thinking over and over again, Where's the emergency brake?
There isn't one, I realize. Then the train crashes.
The coaches' windows shatter, metal cracks and bends, the smash of dishes in the dining coach is deafening.
Then we all begin to fall down a large ravine with the rest of the avalanche. I jump out, hit my head on something hard, and instantly black out.
When I wake up, I am in the Decoy Forest. Or at least I think I am.
I look around the snowy forest, trying to find someone to tell me the way back to Icy and Shadow and Anwen. Or at least the way to Resistance HQ.
Then, there is someone. A little boy drags his longsword through the snow. He couldn't be more than 6 years old. He looks like me a bit, with my long hair. No glasses, though.
I decide that a six-year-old couldn't possibly lead me into Catastrophe, so I follow him into the forest.
(January 9, 2017 - 1:15 pm)
(January 10, 2017 - 9:28 pm)
"No, this is exactly what the forest wants!" I yell.
I look over at Shadow, Anwen, and Icy. Anwen doesn't look too affected, but Shadow and Icy absentmindedly move their heads around with a glazed look in their eyes. I can't yell loud enough for them to pay attention, and I've already fired a few shots in the air. Wherever Ronan is, he might have been able to hear the shots. That is, if he's not too affected also. What brings people out of this...? Pain.
I silently say sorry to Shadow before I jerk her wings back. Instantly she snaps out of it.
"What in the name of Claaws...Mina, what was that?! You suppose I would go yanking around at your tail like that?" Shadow exclaims.
I shrug and laugh to myself. "It was the only way to make you stop walking around like a zombie."
She narrows her eyes at me. "Not funny."
We look towards Icy and she's sitting on a rock next to a piece of the train.
Anwen looks at us and smirks. "I got this."
Then Anwen walks up to Icy and pinches her ear so hard that Icy snaps back up and shouts.
"Are you kidding me right now?"
I nod. "Later. We need to get out of here and meet up with everyone else."
(January 9, 2017 - 6:29 pm)
I hear the most awful sound ever. Screeching of metal, shattering glass, then it all climaxing in a cacophony so loud my ears ring.
I run towards the noise, breathing hard. It had sounded like a train, but I just hoped that it wasn't.
Then I slip, sliding down an icy patch in as hill. I see a huge crevasse in front of me. I scream as I slide towards the edge. I grab at anything I can, trying to stop. My feet shoot over the edge as I grab a dead tree. Hanging over a ravine edge, I look down and see the remains of the train. Small fires had started, lighting up the night with their glow.
Pulling myself up, I scramble to the top of the cliff. Looking down, I tried to decipher movement in the wreckage. It was to far for me to see, so I start to look for a way down the cliff.
It was sheer rock, punctuated by ledges and clinging brush. It seemed like the only way down was to climb, and I shivered at the prospect. Climbing was no my best skill. Still, I had to reach the train to see if anyone was alive.
Wishing for what I knew was not going to be the first time for an automaton, I switched to suction and began to scale the cliff.
I was half way down when it happened. I saw my parents in the air above me, laughing and gesturing for me to join them. I saw my automatons running around me, jumping through space. They whirred at me to join them, and I felt my muscles start to loosen. A bronze eagle flew under me, opening its wings for me to jump on. My brain wasn't working, and before I knew what was happening I had jumped, preparing to land on the eagle.
Then it all vanished, and I found myself falling through thin air.
(January 9, 2017 - 6:40 pm)
I am back. Sadly, Brynn decided to run off. I know she will come back at some point, and I will send an agent when she does.
(January 9, 2017 - 9:03 pm)
Where are they all, exactly? The others?
(January 10, 2017 - 3:37 pm)
I do know I'm with Brynn.
unless she made a post about runnig off after I found her
(January 13, 2017 - 7:32 am)
I follow the little boy through the Forest, not paying much attention to anything else. The little boy is muttering under his breath, and making a track through the snow with his longsword.
Suddenly he stops and sits under a tree before noticing me. "Will-will you hurt me?"
"No. What's the matter?"
"I ran away from Father. I'm scared he'll hurt me. It's what he does to his men, when they are bad."
I stand for a moment, puzzled. "Well, then, I won't tell him where you are. Who are you?"
"Nobody." The boy runs away. I try to keep up, but he ducks behind a tree. I peek round it-
-and it's the same boy, about nine now. "Halt!"
I stop dead.
"Are you friend or are you from my father?"
"Your father? Of course not!" I don't know who that father is.
"Alright. I ran from him again. Name's Ronan, by the way."
"My name's Ronan, too..."
"Hah, coincidence!"
And before my eyes, the boy grows a foot. He's now my height, with my gray eyes and long hair.
He sounds like me, too. "I had better get back. Father will make my punishment worse the longer I stay away."
"E-Excuse me!"
"What?" My clone looks puzzled.
"Sorry, what's your name? Your full one."
"Ronan Septimus Damocles. Ronan, for warrior. Septimus, after my father." He scowls. "And Damocles. It's a family name. Hate it with all my heart. Stupid father wants me to be king next. I want none of it."
He dissappears, and I look down. A small painting is on the ground. In the photo is me---
---and Catastrophe. I have a grimace on my face.
I begin to run. I don't care where I'm going anymore.
I could run forever, and I wouldn't care.
(January 10, 2017 - 5:37 pm)
We've lost Ronan again, so now it's just me, Icy, Mina and Anwen. We start to treck though the wilderness, hoping to reach Catastrophe's encampment before nightfall, or at least run into some of the others.I start to hum, and then humming turns into singing. The melody and verse of Follow the Crow are pretty basic, and soon the rest of the group is singing cheerily along, too. When we finish, Mina looks at me.
"What does it mean?"
"What?"
"What does it mean? I doubt you would just hum a children's song for fun; you aren't exactly that kind of person."
"Well, I originally just thought it was a children's song. My father used to sing it to me when he put me to bed at night. Then, after I ran away from home, I sang the song as I traveled, and the animals from the forests and fields recognized it. I learned from them that it's actually a clue to the location of the Power of Wing, referring to Zephyra as the Crow from the song."
(January 10, 2017 - 7:01 pm)
I hit the ground. Hard. My bones crack around my ankles, and I scream. Crumpling, I hit my head hard on a rock, making my vision blur.
Pain like none other racked my body. My head felt warm, and when I put my hand there to check I felt liquid. My fingers were stainded with blood when I drew them back to look at them.
It felt like my left ankle was shattered and that my right shin was cracked. My spine was jarred and my neck hurt bad. Needless to say, I wasn't going anywhere.
I sit up with a groan, tears streaming down my face. I had landed next to the train ruins, and I couldn't see any movement within. A couple of human tracks led past me into the forest, and in the distance I thought I heard singing.
"ANYONE THERE???!!!!!" I scream, my voice cracking. I had to find the people who were singing. Otherwise I would stay here all night, which would probably result in freezing to death or over-bleeding.
My vision started to blur, and I layed my head down on the snow, wincing as pain shot through my brain. Cursing myself for leaving the Resistance, I slipped intp unconciousness.
(January 10, 2017 - 8:24 pm)
I walk along the snow, looking for my human contacts, when I hear a scream. I automatically shift to a human and fight the blazing snow, soon discovering a younger, teeage girl passed out on the biting ice in the agressive wind. Her blood soaks the white, but when I feel her pulse, I can tell she isn't dead. Should I risk helping her and giving away my identity? What would the others say? No matter, this is a life, and I may be the only one that can save it.
Turning back into a wolf, I carry her on my back and give her Warmth as I trot briskly to my shelter. Although it is a small hut, with a few fire crystals I had a beautiful fire in a fireplace.
I quickly lay her down on the carpet, and changing back into a human, get to work, disinfecting her injuries, setting her bones back together, and patching up all of her flesh wounds until she doesn't look half as bad as earlier. I lay a patched blanket (Zjier would say he could have done better) on top of her, and give her Warmth one more time before she drifts off into a sleep that doesn't show up as a nightmare on her face. I then turn back into a wolf.
When she begins to stir, I will make the hut and myself disappear so she won't know it was me.
It'll be for the best. And I'll make sure she finds her way to her friends too.
(January 10, 2017 - 9:05 pm)
I soar high above the Decoy Forest, scanning for the resistance members. Flicking through the settings on my old monocle I see sprocket unconscious next to the wreck of a train. Swooping down I grab her by the hand and soar off to my temporary camp a small distance off. Setting her down on the bedroll I hold my hand over her. The gauntlets start glowing and blue power covers her, seeping into her skin and mending bones and muscles. Sigh, this seems awfully familiar. It seems like so long ago that we were on SailHaven after finding the Blood Relic. Everything was so much simpler. We were good guys, Octavia was a bad guy. Now it was all mixed up with Catastrophe and the resistance.
(January 10, 2017 - 10:05 pm)