Author Topic: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Thirty-Two (8/25/15)  (Read 42191 times)

Offline Lisa46

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Re: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Twenty-Five - Moon Dial
« Reply #120 on: September 25, 2014, 08:15:43 PM »
I love cats, but don't let that stop your great plot points! This is such a great story.

Offline intl_incident

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Re: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Twenty-Six - Open
« Reply #121 on: September 29, 2014, 12:46:50 AM »
Next chapter follows, and it's relatively short on text, but action-packed! ;) 

Before I post it, though, I just want to note that I am very aware of and supportive of the Forum's rules against violence in stories.  I checked with Pam about this next development way back when I first started the story, and I got the OK for it.  Nevertheless I want to be very clear that anything that may happen to any of the characters in this chapter is a side effect of what is going on.  No Sim is being attacked, and the only violence is against the Gate.  I took Ajiana out of the room specifically to make it extra clear that there was no violence against her, because she is a child.

That said, if any of this isn't clear from the actual story, please let me know and I'll redraft some of it to make it more obvious, so everyone can be comfortable that this fits the rules. 

(Now that that's out of the way, read on!)


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Jaffaran ran through the small courtyard, heading for the Scholars' Stairs, and the deep hallways to which they led below the palace.  Wind was tearing across the compound with the force of a gale, hurling hail through the delicate wooden windows of our home, which were built for sunny island breezes, and not the tempest that was overtaking us. 



He flew down the stairs at full speed, and sprinted through the tunnels, frantically calling out his daughter's name. He didn't know yet that it was the cat who had been the "little one" we were warned about.  And so he was desperate to find Ajiana, in case she had been the one corrupted.



A woman’s scream echoed down the corridor as Jaffaran made the last turn toward the Gate.  Even here, down in the deepest bowels of the castle, where no windows looked out at the sea, a cold wind was whipping at his clothes. The torches were all out, and yet the room ahead was lit with a strange, acidic green glow, and an unearthly shriek was making it impossible to think.  “Savna!” he shouted into the roar of the gale. “Ajiana!”
 
“DADDY!”  A shrill voice answered, and his daughter tumbled out of the archway at the end of the hall, hurtling toward him as fast as her feet could carry her.


 
That's when the world turned sideways.

The air rushed out of the hall, then rushed back in, the vacuum sending Jaffaran and Ajiana tumbling toward the floor. Lightning flared after it, with a bright flash of powerful magic.  Dark smoke curled along the floor, spilling out of the arch from which Ajiana had just come running.  The shrieking grew louder as Jaffaran tried to pull himself back to his feet, but it was as though he were trying to climb his way out of a pit full of sand.



My Uncle Aiden was struggling to regain his feet as well, crawling toward the moon dial to try to stop what was happening.  But he was too late.  The ghostly figure manipulating the locks grew brighter and brighter as he gathered strength, and the lightning crackling around the dial finally gave way to a bolt of of pure energy, aimed straight for the ancient lock on the Gate.



The ornate metal sun that had held evil at bay for so long cracked, and then split in two.  The glass globe of the moon dial shattered, putting out the silvery light that had lit the room for centuries, and leaving only the strange green fire to illuminate what was left of the ancient edifice our ancestors had built.  As the metal grates creaked open in the sudden silence, the ghostly figure grew solid.  Two others stepped from the nothingness beyond the open doorway, one sniffing suspiciously at the brighter outside world, and the other sneering at it.



They barely paused to nod a greeting to the one who had freed them, then they simply joined hands, closed their eyes, and disappeared -- teleporting away from our palace to some other, safer place.



Jaffaran dragged himself up to his knees, checking on his daughter.  She stirred beneath the veil of smoke, disoriented by the concentrated magic, but otherwise unharmed.  He left her, lurching toward the archway to get a view of the Gate, just in time to see the last glow of the teleportation magic fade away. 



Crawling forward through the vapor that was still pouring into our world, he clutched at the remnants of the moon dial, trying to wrench what remained back into place through physical strength alone.  But the mystical seal was unalterable except through powerful magic.  And just as Ajiana was, he was weakened and disoriented by the concentration of evil that was swirling all around him.  He fell once more to his knees, turning to find Savna in the mist.  His hand reached out for hers and, with a soft cry of despair, he fell toward her, disappearing beneath the roiling smoke.




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Offline intl_incident

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Re: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Twenty-Five - Moon Dial
« Reply #122 on: September 29, 2014, 12:53:25 AM »
(Well this rolled over to a new page, so let me just note for anyone who got here clicking 'New Post' that there is a brand new chapter right before this comment!  Posted it moments ago! Don't miss it! :D)

I'm a dog person anyway, so I'll agree to that!  ;D

Ha ha, me too.  I love dogs. I always end up with a dog when I play a normal Sims game, even though they can be kind of a pain, and even when it makes no sense for my character to have one.  It's probably because I wish I could have one in real life, but I move too much for work, and I'm always in rentals that won't allow pets.  :-\

Oh well.  I think I'm getting one for my dad for his birthday next month, so I'll live vicariously through him.

I love cats, but don't let that stop your great plot points! This is such a great story.

Aww, I may be allergic to cats and I may think they are kind of creepy and weird, but I still like 'em too.  And it's not Farli's fault!  If those evil dudes can control a whole family, one more cat's not much of a challenge. ;)    Anyway, glad you are enjoying it!  I'm having fun writing it, for sure.

Offline Rhoxi

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Re: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Twenty-Six - Open
« Reply #123 on: September 29, 2014, 01:46:18 PM »

I hope Savna's alright.  :( Excellent chapter, as always. Now that the big bad is free, who knows what they'll do next!

Offline intl_incident

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Re: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Twenty-Seven - Sadness
« Reply #124 on: October 18, 2014, 12:38:16 AM »
Sorry this one took so long to get posted. Things have been crazy at work.  But things are worse on Ajri...

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As Jaffaran had bolted down to the tunnels the night before, my mother had marshaled the strongest of our family -- those of us with some inherited protection against the powerful magic that was at play -- and we had run down the stairs to find the gate unlocked and standing open in the mist.



I don't know what magic my mother conjured, nor even how I helped with it. I merely did what she bid, as she bid it, without question.  Eventually, the mist began rolling back into the Gate rather than out.  The green lights flickered into darkness, and two stone guardians materialized before us.  My uncles were able to force the bent metal bars of the Gate back into place, and my cousins pushed the warded stone guardians against it to try to hold them closed. 

It was a temporary fix at best, and it was closing the barn door after the horse had escaped, but it was the best we could do for now.



My brother and uncle recovered eventually from the effects of that terrible day, but Savna never did. Jaffaran and Uncle Aiden were protected by their den'Rhelys heritage, but Savna had been completely vulnerable.  And so, unprotected from the evil that had spilled from the Gate and washed over her, beautiful, kind Savna Pembina had died in the mist beneath the palace. We laid her to rest in the garden where she had married my brother on a day that was so much brighter, and so much happier, than the grey and solemn occasion we gathered for this time. 

No birds were singing, there was no sunny breeze to rustle the blooms or palms, and the sky dropped a continuous shower of cold, grey rain. I knew it was just the start of what was to come now that the Gate had been opened.  But as we stood shivering beside the flowered monument for Savna, I couldn't help but think that the very island was sharing in our grief. 



Jaffaran was devastated.  He wouldn't meet anyone's eyes in the garden, and shrugged away from my mother's hands when she tried to comfort him.  Turning away without a word, he walked alone through the rain back toward the house.  Nella reached out to try to stop him, but my father shook his head. "Let him go," he said quietly. "Now is not the time."

"Now is exactly the time," Nella protested. "You do realize he thinks he caused all of this?"  She waved up at the grey storm clouds had covered our usually blue sky, her expansive gesture taking in the entirety of the sad scene. "We need to remind him this wasn't his fault.  None of this happened just because he broke some ancient rule about whom he could marry.  No one blames him for any of this."



"Don't they?" My father's voice was tinged with skepticism as he regarded a pair of old uncles muttering to each other as Jaffaran passed.  They saw my father's stern gaze looking their way, and they quickly turned to leave.

"Well they're idiots," Nella retorted, loudly and sharply enough that she clearly intended our uncles to hear her.

"We need to get back to work," my mother calmly interjected.  "Your brother has lost his wife, and he worries about his daughter. There is nothing you can say that will ease that pain.  Only time, and Ajiana's recovery."



It was true that Ajiana hadn't yet woken up.  She too had been downstairs when the Gate opened, and we had found her too, huddled in a corner and hidden in the mist.  Half den'Rhelys, and not as close to the Gate, she had barely survived what her mother could not.  But still she slept, her tiny hands laying limply on the blankets in my brother's bed, where he kept watch over her, day and night.



My mother of course was right that he needed time to come to terms with what had happened. He must have known, on an intellectual level, that he wasn't to blame -- that Savna would have been no safer if he had left her in her father's house, and that the powers behind the Gate would have found some other way to open it, if Savna's poor cat hadn't given them the means.  We knew now that we were facing not just one of the powers, but a trio, working together to deceive and trick us, to spread disease and suffering, and to eventually try to overthrow our very civilization.  It was a crisis we hadn't faced since the most ancient times that were recorded in our libraries.

As a den'Rhelys heir, perhaps Jaffaran's place was with Nella and I as we worked with the scholars of medicine to craft potions and cures against the plague that was already spreading across Ajri. 



Stellan and Lady Mara were ill with it, as were several of the students that had come to us from other families.  Dark, spidery welts were raised on their faces, and they were wracked with fever and chills.  We had heard within days from the Nelayan and jah'Itan, asking for medicines, and it was likely only a matter of time before even the Pembina came to us seeking aid.  The best of our healers were researching cures, but so far nothing we had found could do more than slow the progression of the disease.



Perhaps his place was with my father, directing the staff and family to set up bunks and beds in the largest of our libraries, turning it into a hospital ward.  Or counting the stores of food and fresh water in the cellars, to make sure we had enough supplies laid by -- stories from the past told of blights on the land as well as the population, and we needed to be prepared.



Or perhaps his place was with the scholars of magic, as they and my mother scoured the oldest books and scrolls in our library, trying to decipher the ancient texts that described how the Gate had originally been shut.



Instead, he stayed with his daughter, and my mother never questioned him.  In hindsight, I suspect it was because she knew what her studies would reveal, and what she would eventually have to ask him to do.  And I suspect she wanted to give him what time she could with his daughter.  She knew where to look to find her answers, and it took no more than a few days working late into the night to gather the instructions for the powerful charm that would be required.

As he read her conclusions by candlelight in the library, the wisest of her advisors looked up from the draft with a resigned shake of his head.  "Then there is no hope," he said softly. "There is no time to do this. No way to do this."

"There is always hope," my mother replied.  "And there is a way."  She handed him a smaller scroll, this one fastened with a dusty wax emblem. 



His eyes grew wide as he recognized the seal.  "Are you sure?" he gasped. "You can do this?"

"Gather what I need," she bid him as she stood up from the table. "I'll go and find my son."

Offline Gwendy

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Re: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Twenty-Seven - Sadness
« Reply #125 on: October 18, 2014, 05:45:59 AM »
Savna, noooooo!  :'( I . . . I'm seriously gonna cry. Poor Jaffaran!
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Offline Brooke.

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Re: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Twenty-Seven - Sadness
« Reply #126 on: October 19, 2014, 03:43:35 PM »
Hello!

I've been following this for a while now but have only now managed to get up to date. I admire your creativity - the perfect use of poses, the buildings sets and a well written story. I'd love to continue reading in the future  ;D
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Offline intl_incident

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Re: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Twenty-Seven - Sadness
« Reply #127 on: October 20, 2014, 04:46:04 PM »
Savna, noooooo!  :'( I . . . I'm seriously gonna cry. Poor Jaffaran!

Gwendy! Glad to see you are still reading, and sorry about the carnage. :( I felt terrible setting all of my readers up with all of the romance and the rescue and the wedding... knowing all along that this was going to happen!  Oh, cruel fictional world, where good people die, and evil triumphs, and magic can't save true love.

(Or can it?)

Probably not.

(But maybe?)

Hello!

I've been following this for a while now but have only now managed to get up to date. I admire your creativity - the perfect use of poses, the buildings sets and a well written story. I'd love to continue reading in the future  ;D

Hi there!  Happy to see another reader.  Thanks for the comment.  It's always nice to hear that people are enjoying it (especially when I just spent all day Sunday fussing over tiny little details of some screenshots for the next chapter.) I think I picked up the perfectionist trait somewhere along the line. What is it they say in the description? "Takes a lot longer to complete anything"...  ::)

Offline Gwendy

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Re: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Twenty-Seven - Sadness
« Reply #128 on: October 20, 2014, 05:41:29 PM »
Gwendy! Glad to see you are still reading, and sorry about the carnage. :( I felt terrible setting all of my readers up with all of the romance and the rescue and the wedding... knowing all along that this was going to happen!  Oh, cruel fictional world, where good people die, and evil triumphs, and magic can't save true love.

(Or can it?)

Probably not.

(But maybe?)
Yeah, I'm still reading. I'm just awful at leaving comments after the fact.  :P
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Offline Rhoxi

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Re: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Twenty-Seven - Sadness
« Reply #129 on: October 20, 2014, 07:16:28 PM »

"Instead, he stayed with his daughter, and my mother never questioned him.  In hindsight, I suspect it was because she knew what her studies would reveal, and what she would eventually have to ask him to do.  And I suspect she wanted to give him what time she could with his daughter.  She knew where to look to find her answers, and it took no more than a few days working late into the night to gather the instructions for the powerful charm that would be required."

Oh no, not Ajiana too! Ugh, how sad and ominous. The carnage is indeed piling up, but a good story isn't necessarily a happy one. The screenshots on this update were particularly lovely. It gave Savna the beautiful send off she deserved.

Offline intl_incident

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Re: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Twenty-Eight - Gone
« Reply #130 on: October 20, 2014, 08:56:04 PM »
The first knock at my brother's door went unanswered.  The second prompted a simple "Come."

My mother stepped quietly into the room, interrupting my brother's vigil by Ajiana's bedside.  She took a seat on the bed, and laid a hand on her granddaughter's forehead. "She seems the same."

A small nod of acknowledgement was all Jaffaran could manage in reply, and my mother's heart must have ached to see his forlorn expression. "That's a good thing," she tried to encourage him. "You know what's been happening.  Others have been getting sick, all over Ajri. The fact that she's still the same..."

"I know," Jaffaran cut her off without looking up.

"She may yet recover."

"I know."



"All right," she said kindly, taking hold of one of Ajiana's hands and gathering her courage for the next step.  "I need your help."

Jaffaran put his head in his hands, his shoulders slumping into a weary slouch. "You need me to stay away," he countered quietly. "Everything I've done has just caused more harm.  You trusted me to help the Peninsula, and it's lost.  I tried to help Savna, and she's gone." His voice broke on the last word, and he drew a shuddering breath. "Our family protected the Gate for thousands upon thousands of years, and it took me the blink of an eye to destroy it, and to put an end to everything."



My mother's brows knit together in concern, her lips tight together as she studied my brother, looking him up and down as if to memorize his appearance and the sound of his voice.  "You must have hope," she finally implored him.

Jaffaran shifted uncomfortably in his seat, misinterpreting my mother's silence and her unwavering regard.  "I know I should be helping," he eventually said, his cheeks flushing pink as he spoke.   Wallowing in unproductive grief was out of character, no matter what tragedy might have prompted it.  And he knew that his duty as a den'Rhelys heir precluded any further self-indulgence.  "I know I should.  But I don't know what. I don't know how."

My mother smiled sadly at the helplessness in his voice, letting go of Ajiana's fingers and standing from the bed.  "I do know how," she said gently. "We've found a way to re-seal the Gate."

Jaffaran looked up immediately, turning in his chair with a disbelieving frown. "But it can't be re-sealed," he said. "All the writings – all the scrolls – they all say it can't be done."



"Not all," my mother replied. She paced back and forth in front of the archways to my brother's study, anxious and preoccupied.   "The very oldest scrolls record the charm that was used to seal it the first time.  What it requires is still possible, but… difficult.  And it can't be done here. "

"Then where?" My brother stood up, as if to gather his boots and jacket.  In an instant, his despair had turned to action. "I'll go. Wherever you need me to go, I'll go."

His words jarred my mother from her pacing, and looked up to face him with an expression mixing pride and distress.  Her hand went to her heart as she blinked back unbidden tears. "I knew you would," she whispered. "That's what I was afraid of."



The oldest scrolls in our libraries contained the most powerful magic known to our family.  They were written in the language of the first settlers of Ajri – legendary ancestors who had taken on mythic roles as the founders of our very civilization.  My siblings and I had never seen the records. Only a few people even knew about them.  There was too much power in their words for them to be widely studied.  And they came from a very different time, before Ajri was settled the way it is now – before the houses were established, and the laws were written. 



The charm to seal the Gate had come from that era, and it was a relic of those legendary days.  Though the magic itself was in some ways simple, its requirements were not.  To succeed, the charm had to be performed by nine generations of den'Rhelys.  Each generation had to come from the same ancestor, but each generation had to combine those genetics with a different family.  It was impossible in the Ajri of today. Even if we could have waited for nine generations, there were only four remaining genetic pools: the den'Rhelys, Pembina, jah'Itan and Nelayan.  So the writings my brother knew were correct in that context.  Re-sealing the Gate really was impossible.

But the oldest scrolls also spoke of different worlds, with different languages, and people, and climates. Where time ran at different speeds, and magic was either weak or nonexistent.   And the oldest scrolls contained charms to travel between these worlds.  It was there that my brother would need to go, and there that he would need to establish a new family.  Nella had tried to volunteer when she heard what was needed, but my brother had already proved able to have children, and we didn't know what sort of magic there might be in the other worlds to help her if she could not.

So Nella and I promised to watch over Ajiana, and Jaffaran agreed to meet my mother that night in one of the towers at the corner of our grounds.  She found him watching the stars on the balcony, wistful and forlorn. 

"Are you ready?" she asked quietly.



He tried to hide his expression as he turned back to her and stepped inside the tower, but she reached out to touch his face and to brush away the tears she found glistening in the candlelight.  "What is it? Tell me."

He shook his head, reaching up to move her hand away, and giving her a shadow of his lopsided smile.  "Another time," he replied. "When I get back."



"You don't need to be so brave, Jaffaran.  This is a dangerous thing you're doing. It's all right to be frightened. No one has done this in generations. Anything could go wrong. You'll be alone wherever I send you. We won't be able to contact you.  You could be hurt, or need help, and we won't know."

Her voice crept up in pitch and her words crowded one after the other, her own worries getting the better of her under the pretense of calming my brother's nerves.  She needn't have been concerned.  "This isn't much of a pep talk," he drawled.

She shook her head, her voice shaking.  "You don't understand. You could be lost – I could send you into nothing if I make a mistake."

He took hold of her arms, catching her darting eyes with his own steady gaze. "Do we have a choice?" he asked.  When she shook her head, resigned to the task, he offered her that same lopsided smile. "Then don't make a mistake."

She stared at him incredulously for a moment, and then gathered him up into a hug, holding him as tightly as she could for as long as she could. "You are precious to me," she whispered. "You may be a den'Rhelys heir, and you may be Ajri's salvation, but you are my son, and you must always remember how precious you are to me." 



With that, she let him go, and turned to the notes she had written the book she'd brought with her.   My brother set up the candles and platform that would be required, and then took his place at the center.  Sparks of magic were already gathering around him as my mother finished her recitation of the ancient words of our ancestors.



Those sparks swirled and jumped as she pulled out her wand, streaking toward her with a chaotic shriek of raw power before bursting outward in a plume of light, striking my brother where he stood on the platform.



The magic curled him into a ball held high above the platform as a shower of colored light exploded around him. The lights whirled around and around, gaining speed as they flew.  The windows rattled and the candles blew out.  From our windows in the main house, we could see lightning in blues and pinks and greens arcing out of the tower.



The lightning gathered into a sphere of cracking energy. The platform dissolved into a ring of light, surrounding my brother as he arched his back, every muscle held stiff by the magical field.  The light shot upward like golden flames, and all the air in the room rushed toward it like water pulled into a drain.  There was a glimpse, just for a moment, of a strange mountainous landscape reflected in the glow.



My mother raised her hand in farewell, hoping that my brother would see that last gesture as the sphere began to close in on itself, sealing off the other world, and taking him with it. 

The wind continued to rush in as the sphere contracted into a ball, then a bubble, then a single point of light.  The noise stopped.  The light blinked once, then winked out of existence with a soft ping.  And in that instant, the room fell dark and Jaffaran was gone.



Offline intl_incident

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Re: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Twenty-Eight - Gone
« Reply #131 on: October 20, 2014, 08:57:47 PM »
And so Jaffaran is off to start an Immortal Dynasty Challenge! The Ajri side of the story will continue, but at a much slower pace.  Time moves more quickly in the Immortal Dynsaty world, so a whole generation might go by there before anything important happens on Ajri.  I will be sure to cross-reference both stories, so you can keep track of what's happening in each setting.  The first Immortal Dynsaty post is up, and you can find it here: http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,22081.0.html

Offline intl_incident

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Re: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Twenty-Seven - Sadness
« Reply #132 on: October 20, 2014, 08:58:59 PM »
Oh no, not Ajiana too! Ugh, how sad and ominous. The carnage is indeed piling up, but a good story isn't necessarily a happy one. The screenshots on this update were particularly lovely. It gave Savna the beautiful send off she deserved.

No, no -- Ajiana is fine for now.  It's Jaffaran who's got to go.  So long to sunny (well, not sunny anymore) Ajri!  You're off to Aurora Skies!

Offline Brooke.

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Re: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Twenty-Eight - Gone
« Reply #133 on: October 21, 2014, 04:14:36 AM »
Love how you are tying the immortal dynasty challenge to this, going off to read it now  ;)
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Offline Rhoxi

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Re: Ajri's Ivory Shores: Chapter Twenty-Eight - Gone
« Reply #134 on: October 21, 2014, 04:52:33 PM »

I love it!! What more can I say? Bravo for a completely unexpected and awesome turn of events!  ;D