Accept our Terms of Service
Our Terms of Service have recently changed! Please read and agree to the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy
Avatar: The Last Airbender resistance fighters and a cleric
Permalink

They have a hidden campsite high in the mountains, well away from where the Fire Nation likes to patrol. They limit their use of campfires and have a special ventilation shaft to dissipate the smoke over a wide area.

It's galling to have to be so cautious, but the Earth Kingdom's finest soldiers tried a straight fight and lost hard. They don't want to give up, but a straight fight is suicide... So don't give them one. They take turns dressing up as ordinary peasants, who are still around in a lot of the so called Fire Colonies to do the unpleasant work the new 'residents' don't want to. Go into town, do chores, and talk to people, watch guards. Identify particularly important or deserving ones.

And occasionally, they'll go down and ambush and kill one. If nothing else, it keeps them from reinforcing the siege of Ba Sing Se...

And so here is a clearing in the hills, and a cave that has gradually been improved on the inside by Earthbenders but is pretty unimpressive from the outside, and a dozen half-starved, angry young men and women.

Total: 24
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

A young woman, maybe eighteen or nineteen years old, appears in the clearing. She's wearing armor, and a yellow cloak with some kind of embroidered geometric pattern, and a headband with a different pattern, and a circular pendant with three pointy bits sticking out, and some sort of bag with four more symbols hanging off of it (a rose, a butterfly, a sword with a wing, and a wasp). She was reaching for something, but a moment after she appears she looks around, blinks rapidly, and adjusts her stance.

She says something in a totally unfamiliar language.

Permalink

The place looks like a semi-permanent camp. There's a drying rack, improvised benches, a few bags and wooden or stone boxes lying around, and well-tracked ground. Two people are preparing food (forage and small game), and two more are sparring.

They all startle. The two sparrers drop their wooden weapons and draw steel. One of the two preparing food goes into a low martial arts stance with a stomp that sounds far too heavy. The other yells something into the cave, but then trails off in confusion. Everyone looks at each other and start arguing in tense voices.

...They don't look to be in great shape. Some evidence of lean months, some slightly ratty clothing.

Permalink

She's — not dead, which is weird, usually when you get eaten by a giant snake you die, or at the very least you end up inside a giant snake and not wherever this is — but she can still feel her magic and she's pretty sure you stop being a priest when you die. And everyone here looks human, which she's pretty sure they wouldn't be in Elysium or the Maelstrom.

She's not thrilled about the people pulling weapons on her but she did just Teleport out of nowhere, it makes sense they'd be scared. Probably if she draws her hidden dagger it make things worse. Her spear'd be better if she does have to fight them, but she didn't have it with her for the snake attack, and she didn't choose spells for a fight anyways.

And they look foreign, and she can't understand them — she does have a couple of Share Language, she'd been planning to sell them to someone who likes that she's got the Chelish dialect too, only there's no good way to get them to take it if they don't know what she's going to do—

Well, she can prove she's not Evil, at least. (If they're bandits that might not be helpful, but she's really not prepared to fight a whole pack of bandits.) She touches her holy symbol, looks around at the group, and tries to want everyone here to be okay.

Within thirty feet of her in every direction, cuts and scrapes and bruises patch themselves up. It didn't look to her like anyone was seriously injured, but if they were, it'll fix that too. Her channel won't do anything about hunger, but it can definitely help with injuries.

And then she holds out her left hand and looks around the group, trying to look friendly, and repeats what she just said, though presumably they won't understand it yet.

Permalink

They yelp! This is pretty shocking! And possibly Spirit business! She's wearing yellow- Can Air Nomads heal? Maybe?? But isn't that a waterbending thing???

Well, a Fire Nation princess or whatever wouldn't have tried to heal them. So. The tension can ratchet down to wary confusion. The two with swords sheathe them.

Permalink

Four people rush out of the cave!

Two of them seem to be the party leader(s), just going by reading everyone's immediate reactions and deference to them specifically. The guy is wearing something mostly resembling armor and has a mace. The woman is wearing a bundle of waterskins, two rings of unfamiliar design, and a belt with a wave symbol carved into it; She's the only one here who seems to have possibly-magic accessories.

Healing?? Eyebrow raise quite high up.

She uncaps one of the skins and draws out a measure of water in a practiced motion. Holding it between her hands and asking a question.

...No, no, they explain, she just did it. Instantly. Which... ???

Permalink

They've... figured out she's a cleric and want to know if she can make water?? That doesn't really feel right but it's not like she has a better idea, and theoretically it might help convince someone to take her hand?

(Is she doing sorcery with the water or is she just being really careful with it??)

Create Water. Only a little bit, she doesn't actually have anywhere to put it right now.

Permalink

She puts the water back into her waterskins.

...And then does the starting pose of a very basic partnered Bending exercise that everyone does? To see if the stranger reciprocates. No?

...Yeah this woman is not a waterbender, probably maybe, and she says as much.

Permalink

She wants to... dance???? Justice doesn't know any of their dances! Are dance-sorcerers a thing somewhere, is that some kind of extra-weird song-sorcerer?

...She tries offering the woman her hand again. Maybe this time it'll work.

Permalink

............You know what sure.

"Gan, I'm gonna take her hand. If she attacks, well... I guess I don't need to say what to do next."

The armored guy chuckles and nods.

Linlao takes the armored stranger's hand.

Permalink

Share Language.

There's a sensation of something slipping over Linlao's mind, and then she can understand the stranger's words.

"—Uh, where am I? I got eaten by a giant snake and somehow I wound up here."

Permalink

Oh, Sprits indeed.

"Okay, that's... Strange. We don't have a name for this place. It's our camp. Near Rojonu. If some spirit - ate you and sent you here - well, I'm glad it didn't just eat you. Are you an Air Nomad?"

Permalink

"I don't know what Air Nomads... are. I'm not any kind of nomad, I live in a flat in Augustana." Admittedly she spends lots of time away from it, but she's pretty sure that doesn't count as being a nomad.

Permalink

She converses with the rest of the camp for a bit.

 

"Okay, well. I only asked because you're wearing yellow. It was their color. And the Air Nomads are... Gone. The Fire Nation killed them all, except one, a hundred years ago. We have no idea what Augustana is, or what you are, really. The healing was strange."

Permalink

What the fuck!!!

"—I'm a priestess, back home most priests and priestesses can do healing channels like that — not all of them, some of them can do the opposite kind, but the Good gods only give out the healing kind and we've got more priests of Good gods than Neutral ones. Augustana's in Andoran, which is in Avistan — uh, I assume we're not in Rahadoum but if we are that'd be good to know. Uh, and I don't know what the Fire Nation is either, do they, uh, murder people a lot?"

Permalink

"Yeah. They kill people a lot. They're invading the Earth Kingdom, and they attack the Water Tribes too. They imprison or kill anyone who steps out of line in conquered regions, and treat Earth Kingdom villages as something to extract resources or amusement from. We- Are still resisting, but the war front has moved on. I don't recognize those places, maybe the spirits took you from... Beyond?

Permalink

That's so concerning, especially given that apparently they also murdered an entire... country? Religion, but not even the Evil kind? There's plenty of wars that'd be justified, back home, but that wouldn't make it okay to murder a bunch of innocent people.

"—My world's called Golarion in this language but I don't know what they call it in other places. I know there's other worlds with people but I've never heard of any of them having humans, unless you count the afterlives. Uh, are the Earth and Air and Water and Fire people connected somehow to the Plane of Earth and so on?"

Permalink

"...You mean the Spirit World? Earth, Fire, Air, Water. Only the Avatar can master all four elements."

Permalink

"Uh — we also call those the elements, but I don't think the planes for the elements have a lot of... souls without bodies? I guess they might, I've never been there, but I always sort of imagined everyone was... made of the same thing as the plane." Possibly that was a stupid thing to imagine. When she's seen elementals summoned they've always been made of the element, but maybe that doesn't apply to literally everyone on the plane. 

"Uh, and I've never heard of the Avatar." Lots of people can do magic connected to all four elements, she could if she had the right spells prepared, but she doesn't know what this woman means by 'master'.

Permalink

"No, something weirder is going on."

...She updates the onlookers briefly.

"The Spirit World is where spirits live? I don't really know much about it and I've never been and don't know anybody who has. Maybe the Avatar has. They reincarnate and are really strong."

Permalink

"What... kind of spirits?"

Permalink

"Like... Koh the face stealer. Who steals your face if you show emotion in front of him. Or Wan Shi Tong, who has a library in the desert and will kill you if you try to steal books. Or Jumon the great panda who punishes those who cut down bamboo forests..."

Permalink

"...I'm not sure, but those kind of sound like faeries? Faeries are from a different world — in this language we call it the First World — and I did hear once that they reincarnate, although I didn't, uh, think it was actually true. I've never heard of a giant snake faerie that teleports people by eating them but it wouldn't be the weirdest thing out there."

Permalink

"...Nnnnno, one or both of us are still confused. Um. I'm not going to ask you to help us fight the Fire Nation without, like, trying to actually prove to you that they are bad, and un-confusing you if we can-"

She pauses to argue with someone, still standing tensely around, for a moment. And then another few moments. She throws her hands up in a 'fine' gesture.

"Uhh. So. You popped right on top of us and that's scary, and you have the healing magic and you used it to help and that's reassuring, but if you decide to go tell the Fire Nation where we're living that would be... Bad..."

Permalink

"Oh, I mean, assuming what you've said about then is true, I definitely want to help fight them!! I just, uh, got distracted trying to figure out what was up with the snake thing, sorry. Uh, the spells I have today probably mostly won't be super helpful, but I can ask for different ones tomorrow — in the meantime, I've got two more of the Share Language like I used on you, and two Remove Disease if anyone's sick, and I can make more water, and I can list my other ones if you want. And I've got three more healing channels like I did earlier. Tomorrow I can ask for Create Food and Water." And Zone of Truth, but on the off-chance they haven't heard of it she's not going to mention that yet.

Total: 24
Posts Per Page: