Delta Declaration

Delta was the spirit of mountains. Of earthen stability. In that way it only felt right to take to the highest mountain in Sarea. To the eastern peaks, far east of Providence as Alexander directed her, and up into the still-barely-snowy summit. Perhaps the ash clouds hadn't yet come to muddle the snows in these great heights.

It was not a prayer as such. Or at least Simone would never feign to call it that. A 'prayer' implied too much supplication, which as a general rule she was not terribly comfortable with offering to any one force or thing. But after her encounter with the Mother Bear she was not above giving respect where it was do. Nor was she above giving offerings and voicing requests. A subtle, but as she would no doubt argue, very important distinction.

She begins to clear a patch in the snow and uses nothing but her gauntlet-clad hands to dig into the soil beneath her. No tools. Only brute force, as has ever been her way. A shallow trench is made in the ground where she crouches.

The hem of her cloak acts as a trophy case. From it hangs shards of her conquests; shards of crawlers, mundane and corrupted by the void; pieces of animals that had proven themselves worthy adversaries in her wanderings abroad; even a shell fragment from the corrupted spirit of the Caldera she'd assisted in subduing. Each one represented a victory and spoke of her physical trials.

Spirits might not need to be spoken to. Nonetheless, she speaks slowly, gruffly, and aloud. There are none to hear her anyway, that she's aware of, save for the ice and stones.

"I met your champion. He gave me good advice. I asked him how he got big. He told me to fight bigger and bigger things. To wrestle monsters in the sea. And to eat a lot of meat."

"I was going to fight him. To draw him out, and prove myself worth a gift."

Like soldiers lain to rest, she removes the trophy pieces and lays them equally spaced in the trench. Each is covered in a mound of dirt and thereafter marked with a shard of rock like a headstone. In that way it was very much like a funeral as the fragments of foes gone by are interred into tombs.

"He died before I could. They said it was a good death."

The last of them is marked- the divot containing the Caldera spirit's fractured egg shell, and she rests her hands on her knees. It's a tidy row of conquests.

Yet there is room for more. Always room for more.

"The Convergence is coming. The things in the wild are mutating. They are becoming...things they shouldn't. They are dangerous and wrong.

I will hunt them down and crush them. I cannot beat your champion now that he's dead. But I will surpass him.

If you give me a boon, it will be easier. If not? The challenge will be sweet."

It was as close to a prayer as she might ever get. The winds howl, indifferent. Perhaps something beyond might be carried her words. And if not? Her mission remains the same.
(Simone)
EXP Gain: [1000*100%=1000]