The Wasteland [Darren]

[nascent]

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
Come in under the shadow of this red rock,
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you...

[/font]
~An excerpt from T.S. Elliot's The Waste Land~[/color][/center]



There's a rumor that's whispered among those few scattered villages which dwell at the wasteland's border. The wasteland... a place without name, without past, offering only the bleak horizon and endless miles of lifeless, dessicated soil as cracked and broken as shattered wood. Here, there is little life - even less that comes out during the day. The surface is too barren even for the rugged cactus and the defiant brittlebush to take root... yet, the whispers speak of something built out in the unforgiving wastes. Something hidden, secretive...

"If yours is the path of power," they say to those who ask. "Then venture out into the wasteland. Search for a place where the ground sparkles in the day and glows in the moonlight... though I warn you, very few ever find this place. Trust your instincts, and you may be fortunate. Those who find the hallowed ground will be offered a road to hidden strength."

Your journey begins in the wastelands. The sun is hot, the air dry, and the land unkind. Test your resolve... and you may just find the hallowed ground.





(OOC: This is a training thread for Darren, focused upon the advanced arts of RP and Sparring. Others may join as well, but please PM me first and formally request training.

Your first post will be your character searching the wastes and eventually, after several days, finding the so-called "hallowed ground" I described. This is to help me get a good idea of your descriptive writing skills. From there, one of my characters will appear and show your character the path into a hidden dojo, which is where most of your training will take place.

And with that taken care of... let the training COMMENCE!)

[Darren]

He sighed in discontent, placing his hands above his eyes to block out the intense glare of the sunlight beaming down from above. He looked from left to right, his eye scanning the barren land for anything out of interest, the only thing close to interesting was how the few cactus and other vegetation actually survived in this hell-hole.

Thinking back he remembered how his weeklong stay at one of the bordering villages went. It was typical of such a nomadic setting, the people rarely staying in one place for more than a couple of months before moving to another location, preferably one which is more suited. This way of life strongly vouched for the “Survival of the fittest” outlook on life, fed up of being discriminated for being an “outsider” he ventured out, thinking of the words the Village Elder spoke to him before Darren turned his back on them and ventured out into the wasteland.

"If yours is the path of power, then venture out into the wasteland. Search for a place where the ground sparkles in the day and glows in the moonlight... though I warn you, very few ever find this place. Trust your instincts, and you may be fortunate. Those who find the hallowed ground will be offered a road to hidden strength."

Back in the present, those words still in his head from first hearing them a couple of hours ago, he was determined to find this Sparkly by Day but Glowy at night place. He frowned crossing his arms. “Well... now what?” speaking out loud, Darren’s voice had clear signs of agitation and a little dash of impatience.

[nascent]

"That depends."

The voice came from somewhere off to Darren's left; there stood a strange red-furred humanoid creature dressed in rags, though he could've sworn that no one had been there a moment ago. The feline idly tossed a small rock up and down in one hand, watching it's rise and fall instead of looking at Darren.

"They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step... unless you don't know where you're going, in which case it begins with idling about and asking questions of the wind." The stone's rhythm of up-down up-down never paused or wavered even as the stranger spoke. "Then again, 'what now' isn't usually as hard of a question as most people make it out to be. You just need to figure out what you want... and go after it. Simple, right?"

He turned to look at Darren. "So why the long face? Figure it out, tough guy. If you don't know what you want... then you're really in trouble." The lynx gave the former SOLDIER a sly grin.

"Catch."

The red-furred creature tossed the rock to Darren, then turned away and looked out at the horizon. "I know these wastes pretty well. Not much to want here..." He looked at Darren over his shoulder. "... but if you can catch me, maybe I'll help you find what you're looking for!"

Without another word the lynx ran off, leaving Darren holding a rock.

A rock that glowed.

Chase Kassom into the Wasteland!

[Darren]

(OOC: Longest post ever...)

A couple of seconds had passed since he last spoke, jumping a little bit in surprise when he heard “That Depends” come from something just to his left. Turning his head to the left he saw what appeared to be a red furred humanoid dressed only in rags. The feline features reminded him somewhat of Felina, that neko girl he saved back in Midgar. He watched the feline as it tossed a rock into the air and watched its rise and fall.

He was about to ask the somewhat predictable question of “Who are you” when the humanoid took the chance to speak from him by speaking itself. He sighed in disappointment and listened to what the Stranger had to say.

"They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step... unless you don't know where you're going, in which case it begins with idling about and asking questions of the wind." The Stranger was still tossing that rock up in the air and catching it upon its descent, there was no change in the rhythm of the toss or the catch, the humanoids concentration was total.

Darren’s body was tense; could the rock be a diversion of some sort? A lure to keep Darren’s attention focused on it rather than the stranger? He turned such thoughts aside as the stranger continued to speak.

"Then again, 'what now' isn't usually as hard of a question as most people make it out to be. You just need to figure out what you want... and go after it. Simple, right?"

"So why the long face? Figure it out, tough guy. If you don't know what you want... then you're really in trouble." The stranger looked at Darren for the first time since this conversation had started, his attention was away from the rock and finally upon what he was actually talking too, Darren noticed however that the stranger was grinning slightly, and this brought a bit of suspicion upon Darren’s thoughts.

Darren was silent by this point, he didn’t understand what the Stranger was saying, and after about thirty seconds of thinking he managed to make some sense of what he was trying to tell him. “I want Stephanie... but I doubt she’ll be out here, in this wasteland...” He said quietly, he was unsure if the stranger could hear or not, but he didn’t care either way.

His brief session of talking was cut short when the stranger said something and threw the rock it’d been tossing around at him. At first he stumbled with the catch due to him being un-ready but it was soon firmly in his right hand, looking down upon it he noticed that the rock was glowing. He grinned, could this be a rock that came from the land the elder mentioned?

Looking back up at the stranger, he listened once again to its words.

"I know these wastes pretty well. Not much to want here..." He looked at Darren over his shoulder. "... but if you can catch me, maybe I'll help you find what you're looking for!"

‘...but if you can catch me, maybe I’ll help you find what you’re looking for!’ the strangers last handful of words, were like hooks jabbing into the SOLDIER’S curiosity, with a grin, he gave chase.

“You can bet I’ll catch you Stranger!” He shouted, with a grin on his face.

[nascent]

(OOC: Maybe your longest post ever. You should see how they RP on the AnimeLeague forums; the infamous 'Starfall' post clocks in at just over 8000 words. Those guys are nuts... and I used to be one of 'em!

And sorry about the delay; IRL has kept me rather busy the last week or so.)



And so the chase was on!

Kassom glanced over his shoulder, seeing the SOLDIER run after him. For a human this guy was decently swift, he had to give him that. Even so, this game of tag was off to a fairly mundane start... the feral rogue would have to spice it up a bit if he was going to test this man's capabilities. After all, only the determined and capable were allowed to find the hallowed ground.

"Think fast, tough guy!" With that brief warning Kassom threw himself into a forward cartwheel... and while his hands were touching the ground, a sliver of liquid metal dripped from his wrist and sank into the parched ground. Moments later, a stone spike three feet tall erupted from the ground a few feet in front of Darren -- nothing he couldn't simply run around, as the spike's proximity didn't even make it a threat. At worst, if he wasn't looking where he was going he might stub his toe on it. It was, however, a heads-up that the red-furred lynx was not going to make this an easy run.