"Hmm… Sure? Sounds fun-ish. Just so long as none of my paper catches fire. Paper is quite flammable." With that, he pushes his paper and notebook to the bottom of his bag, and stands up, his melancholy expression replaced with that cheerful adventurous grin. Though this time it seemed a bit forced, trying to ignore the saddening sight of the long dead giant.
flash_on
Rayla slugs Arthur playfully.
"Cheer up. I know where the corpse is of the bastard that did this to him. We'll go visit it later and hurl insults at it." she grins, pulling him down a hidden path down the side of the mountain.
Arthur chuckles and follows. A moment later, he processes her comment. "Wait, wasn't he killed by an Old God? SO there's just a gods corpse lying around somewhere?"
flash_on
Rayla shrugs. "I helped put the corpse where it is, so yeah. As for the bit about random Old God corpses. . . there's a few."
"Cooool!" Arthur's face is back in full child-like curiosity. "So are they just rotting sacks of God flesh, or something else? I've read a few legends about how dead gods would become stars, or form the mountains of worlds." He is now folding a piece of paper into a few different shapes as he talks, making a variety of different forms as he does. "Apparently some die in battles between planes, and just drift in the space between worlds, serving as a sort of islands for those that live in that in-between."
flash_on
"Some of them are preserved. Some of then are merely bones by now. Sometimes the only signs of them are swords impaled in the ground." Rayla chuckles. "In our world, they become landmarks."
"Cool! So is there one near those dormant volcanoes, or was the one you mentioned just in a completely different place?"
flash_on
"The one I mentioned is up in the far North. However there might be one near the volcanoes, though I can't remember." Rayla chuckles.
Arthur laughs. "Are there so many dead god bods that you forget where they are?"
flash_on
Rayla takes a moment to consider this and then chuckles.
"You know, I'm not sure. I've been alive long enough that most things I've seen at least once, and then they fade from my memory."
Arthur muses, "Hm. Guess you just are really old. I have learned a lot of things, and I can remember most of them. Of course, I write most things down, and I have never really been anywhere, so it's all theoretical knowledge or stories from books. Never had the chance to remember the geography of a world really."
flash_on
Rayla snorts.
"There you go again - calling a beautiful lady 'old.'" she teases.
"Well then! I'll show you the world in it's entirety." she smiles.
Arthur chuckles. "I think when you've been alive for that long, I'm allowed to call you old. Besides, I'm a few centuries old too, so I'm in the same range of sorts." He puts away his folding paper, and says in response to that promise, "Looking forward to it!"
flash_on
"Only a few centuries." Rayla snickers.
She grins. "Good."
She starts to lead him down the path once more.
Arthur follows along, and asks "So we're heading towards some inactive volcanoes next, right?"
flash_on
Rayla nods. "Yep. Why? Got a fear of reactivating one, or accidentally angering Hûlphr?"
"Was just trying to figure out our next destination. There were a lot of places and things mentioned so I think I forgot where we were going next. I was not aware reactivating volcanos was an option. is Hulphr a volcano god of some sort?"
flash_on
Rayla laughs. "Reactivating volcanos is always an option. As for Hûlphr, he's. . . well, you'll probably meet him, along with the rest of the New Lights, later."
Upon hearing that tidbit, Arthur quickly searched his bag for his bright red fireproof cloak and slipped it on over the rest of his gear. "Okay, now I'm ready for spontaneous volcano eruptions. Lets go!"
flash_on
Rayla giggles. "I won't activate a volcano. Probably."
She starts doing carwheels down the narrow cliffside path, humming a jaunty tune.
"Hm. I feel very assured." Arthur rolls his eyes and follows at a steady pace, with fewer acrobatic displays than Rayla, of course.
flash_on
Rayla snickers. "You should!"
They reach the halfway point of the path and Rayla stops. "We go to the side from here."
"Alright. Lead the way!" Arthur follows Rayla through the specified side pathway, humming to himself as he walks.
flash_on
Rayla shakes her head and smiles. Poor Arthur, he has no clue. . .
Rayla leaps off the edge and disappears from view.
(no not suicide lol)
Arthur blinks a few times in confusion. He yells down the edge, "You alive?"
flash_on
A few seconds later, a huge purple dragon comes gliding back up, belly paralell to the cliffside. The dragon takes ahold of Arthur as it goes by, using its front "hands" to do so.
Arthur nonchalantly remarks, "Hey Rayla! So we're just flying straight there then?" He tightens his bag around him, making sure it doesn't fall off during the flight.
flash_on
Rayla gives off a rumbling growl that one could assume was a laugh and bobs her head.
"Alright then." Arthur feels the turbulent wind on him, and his bag is blown backwards, the strap still fastened around his shoulder. He pulls it back to him, and wraps his arms around it to protect it. "Hopefully this doesn't take long too long, or else I'm definitely going to drop my bag somewhere." He mutters.
flash_on
Rayla chuckles, a staccato purr.
"Don't worry. This is just for scenery." she replies.
The ground far below was blanketed in a huge sheet of fog, and for a moment, it cleared, revealing a massive crumbling keep, nearly as big as the dead giant. (This: https://s3.amazonaws.com/notebook-content-uploads/content/uploads/original/bb45efe5-709a-4a79-a526-705cb361d734.jpeg?1680545726)
