Dawnfall: First week

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The liquid tingle of sunlight tickles you delicately.

Slowly you awaken to a bright new day, sunlight streaming over your delicate form as you spread your petals against the new dawn. The second day of your existence begins without remark as slowly you unfold and soak up the heated brilliance of the sweet sunlight, contemplating now upon your new existence and the fulfillment of your most basic drives.

Food and comfort.

The fear of yesterday still lingered strongly within, the black touches of your personal lingering dark wake you to the fact that you are not safe, never safe. The feeling of sunlight against your skin is a delight which must be earned with every new dawn. You needed to prepare, and your mind cast upon the question of just how you’d do so.

Your stubby claws scrabbled against the rough bark, the rubbing sensation of its roughness and encouragement for you to cling close.

The trees were... safe. Or so you couldn’t help but feeling, a feeling you weren’t completely sure of but at least up here you were among those things which you could control, which you could command. You remembered yesterday, the moment of your desperation giving way to your scrabbling use of your power, raising claw-hold after claw-hold to simply climb faster. You stopped for a moment, shifting your gaze away from the sunlight and down towards the jungle below, crawling and peering down below the canopy.

The area below you a primal expanse of trees, each set a layer of green upon layer upon layer.

Branches extended and intertwined creating a vast elaborate network of which matted together in layers. You’d climbed high, high as you could go without completely exposing yourself to the treetops, something which another vague feeling told you would be just as bad, and possibly even more exposing than to have nested on the ground in the dark. No you’d simply found yourself a good spot where the light at least shone down part of the time on you.

Along the ground you saw the trees extend downward massively, life bustling though out as within moments you caught glimpses of creatures running through the forest, hiding, and ducking about.

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Rolly poly armored beasts, roamed the ground slowly, their massive presence undisturbed as they meandered about the roiling carpet of verdant green, the sun peeking out only slightly from between the various places in the canopy.

You withdrew.

You’d need to be careful, too many different beings were out and about, you needed to make yourself safe, you needed a place to shelter away from their gazes and to hide yourself when they came looking, hungry. Or so the shadow within you soothed and caressed.

And thus you set yourself out, making use of the skill which had been so helpful to you on the day before, and began to slowly coax the branches of the tree in which you’d nested, into interlocking shapes. You’d keep at it for hours at a time, concentrating hard upon the result, without much in the way of rhyme or reason as to what you wanted or how you wanted to make it happen.

By the end of this first day, you’d made your first interweaving of the branches stay together.

Unfortunately this didn’t last too long.

Slow and steady work, would see you back up to what you’d managed the next day, but the entire things while it would hold minor weight, simply seemed to slip out and fall apart whenever you actually tried to stand on it yourself. Again and again you’d try, only to fail at weaving the complex clearing which you’d wanted to achieve, rain coming down at one point and pounding your attempted make shift shelter apart.

It was turning out to be quite the long week for you.

But no matter.

As much as you’d failed you’d also learned things in that failure. For while the interlacing of your makeshift shelter had been a miserable failure, the techniques you’d learned in forming the local plant life into shapes and interlacing patterns, had given you ideas for how to actually go about capturing prey.

You found quickly that some of the materials which you were working with were well able to carry your weight as you watched hawkishly for creatures passing you by, sticking almost purely to the trees except where ever you needed to go down and find a good place to drink or soak up some flavor from the rich black soil.

The nights still kept you out of the forest floor, your mind racked with fear every time you tried to survey the lightless night. Instead you were patient. You waited and you watched, and you listened.

You’d even seen a few stronger creatures passing by, catching strains of their conversation.

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“Come on Rix, we’ll never find something good if you keep being lazy about it. I can smell a real feast that way!” You listened as the lizard spoke resting upon the back of its slightly larger winged companion’s back.

“If you say so Kanak ...” The frankly terrifying duo’s bottom partner replied. “The last time you took us to a spot that was at least three days old and there wasn’t even any bones left back.”

“That was just an unfortunate consequence of your lateness you know. If we’d gotten going like you should have we would have had a feast I tell you!” The lizard thing laying low against the winged one’s back spoke with a convincing assuredness.

“…right… sometimes I just gotta wonder Kanak… you get all the benefits in this relationship… what do I get but your heavy ass resting on mine?” The winged one asked, with the tired tones of someone who’d asked the same question a million times over. “And don’t you even dare say ‘benefits’!”

“Aww Rixy… you know we’re the best together! I can smell em out and you can beat em up, I’ll cookem up and you’ll chop em up… We’re the perfect pair! Sides… you’ve got the bigger stronger muscles.”

“Sweet talk won’t save you from getting tossed if you don’t pull your weight.” The winged one complained.

“But you know the Evo I’m angling for has some pretty strict prereqs. Sides… you know you like me riding you.”

“Yeah, but not all day long you lazy lizard.” Their conversation drifted off into the trees.

Well… that was interesting. Confusing and strange, and you really didn’t ‘get’ their conversation... but interesting none the less.

Either way you found yourself hanging around, suspending yourself from manipulated branches so that you could reach areas near enough to the ground where ever you could, letting them dangle near the ground, then let your roots snake out and do the same, hiding yourself as just another large exotic blossom on the trees.

It only took a day or two of doing this before something rooting though the underbrush passed far too close. It looked like a smaller version of the armoured creatures which passed by frequently, but just small enough that you could actively handle it without having to worry about a horrible fuss about getting it up into the trees with you.

You struck all at once.

The little armour thing never saw your strike coming. With a savage flash of motion you bent the tree to your will dipping and swinging your branch down towards your prey in a striking motion which you just came to you in the act, as you wrapped your claws swiftly about the beast then let your roots burrow in.

There was a brief scuffle and the sound and fury of the dying filled the air until your never before used mouth opened up and was brought to bare, roots within it wriggling and sharp as they rent their way through the struggling creature’s spine, leaving you to pull back in to the trees roots briefly glistening red before the precious, smooth, warm liquid soaked in and you continued on until you’d drained away every tiny red drop.

It was a beauty, and ecstasy which made you shiver with glee as you snuggled close to your desiccated prey, and continued to ascend back up the tree just in time to keep out of the all-pervading dark.

Sleepily you snuggled close to your meal even as you snuck a bite as you went, and drifted off into the grip of the moonlit night.

You slept soundly.



[][][][][][]


Current Status: Still alone, but less afraid.




Gains
Growth: +1 Dexterity
Botanical Assertion: +7







What will you do?
[] Wander the forest
[] Seek shelter
[] Hunt for food
[] Sample local flora
[] Pick a direction and keep going
[]Write in?


What skill will you practice?
[] ???