Genkaku the Gei'ei

[Shaon]

((This is a continuation of a side story from The Expedition Gone Weird.))

~You know, the times have changed. Conflicts among the other gods.~

She didn't bother to open an eyelid, knowing that Genkaku was underneath her.

~Time is no longer a friend. He has stolen something very near and dear to me... my memories.

I know nothing of you, or any of my tribes. I did not know that they still existed, until you came. If, and when, you return to your village, they will consider you a hero.~

[3kul]

((That's 'Expedition gone Wrong', Shaon ))

Genkaku wasn't really sure what to say. To hear that the one he and his kind had spent their lives worshipping had just forgotten all about them was quite a mental blow to take. Still, even the best of us forget some things, for a God, perhaps forgetting those who'd devoted their lives to you was kinda like forgetting your keys. Genkaku really wished he knew where his keys were.

Millions of billions of miles away, a disgruntled parking officer stuck yet another ticket to the abandoned vehicle, though one couldn't really tell that there was a car under that pile of paper anymore.

He tuned back in just as Paranesia was finishing up, and stifled a laugh at what she last said. "Forgive me for my rudeness in saying so, your infinite almighty-ness, but worshipping you amongst my people has long been considered the folly of crackpots and nutjobs. I'm not exactly sure when it started to happen, but not too long after you disappeared, many people began to lose faith. Some sought out other Gods and Spirits, others simply gave up hope altogether."

A long arm extended out from his helix shell and removed his hat so that he could scratch his head with another hand. He felt that he might've come across a bit too harshly, which wasn't what he'd wanted as it hardly was good impression material, though he'd had a lot of hardship to deal with over these past few decades. "I guess the main point I'm trying to get at here is that after all these years, very few of us actually stuck with you."

[Shaon]

The vixen nodded.

~I can see why. They have favored power in the short term.

And, as I have forgotten, so have my tribes. I saw your spell there-- Riddle of the Doves, I believe you called it. Memory has taken its toll. Without me to freshen it, you have weakened.

That has why I have brought you here, Genkaku. To retrain both you and I. To truly call you my Gei'ei.~

[SesshoX8]

Forte looks at either one beings in his kitsune form, surely no one knows who he is unless he speaks to them...

[Paranesia...what a nice surprise...] Forte thought, and he disappears before either one of them can see him clearly...

[3kul]

"Ahhehehe..." Genkaku laughed in an embarassed way. He knew that he wasn't quite that scatterbrained - he hadn't forgotten how to perform the Riddle of the Doves, but he had no idea why it hadn't worked. However, training one-on-one with the almighty Paranesia? Now that would be awesome. Genkaku didn't really care how weak the Goddess had thought he was, this was too good an opportunity to pass up on.

"Riddle of the Doves is one of the trickier spells I can use, I probably should've gone with something easier... Ah, no matter, what's done is done. How do you suggest we train, supreme one?"

[Shaon]

She stood up, jumping onto the ground and turning to face Genkaku.

~Simply. You teach me your ways, I teach you how to properly control illusions.~

[3kul]

Genkaku was a little annoyed and embarassed by the way Paranesia had emphasized on the word 'properly'. He did know how to control a few illusions, it's just that some worked a little better than others. He readied himself to display a few more illusions when much to his horror Genkaku realized that he was improperly dressed for such a thing. He'd forgetten all about it, having been distracted by reminiscing of keys and things like that, but he currently looked more like a homeless bum than a disciple of the great Paranesia.

His third arm extended over the rest of his body, the tips of his fingers scraping the ground. It seemed to be quite a bit longer than his body, though exactly how much so was a bit difficult to tell, as his third arm appeared to have no visable joints. It swept across to his right before waving all around his body, his clothing changing as the arm moved over it. These clothes appeared to be a bit more formal than his last ones - white robes that were quite tight around the upper half of the body, though very loose around the lower half and the sleeves. Along the left hand side ran a long vertical pale grey stripe, and across that ran a second diagonal stripe that ran over his left shoulder and underneath his right arm. Where the two lines crossed over each other was a reasonably large silver badge in the shape of a fox's head. Above all though, unlike his previous clothes, these ones seemed incredibly clean, the kind of cleanliness that makes many people ask him what kind of whitening he uses.

"You probably don't remember this since you said that you don't remember much of anything, but this is the traditional attire worn by attendants at your temple, great one. It's no high priest get-up, but I still think it's pretty cool." He wondered where to start, having no previous experience with deities suffering from amnesia. "Well, I guess I might as well explain how we used illusions, since I might not get them all right." His helix shell shook as his third arm reeled back in, and continued to shake afterwards, as though it were looking for something. "It's kinda funny for a bunch of people who can't actually clench their fists, but most of my kind are pretty warlike in nature. A lot of our usage of illusions was for combat purposes, so it was kind of different from the stuff you usually showed us."

A strange looking handgun suddenly popped out of his shell, and Genkaku quickly snatched it before it hit the ground. Although it was quite odd in shape, it was pretty obvious what it was. "Other than the clothes changing thing, this is the illusion that I know best." He stuck a large pellet of some kind into the gun, then pointed it directly upwards. "It has a different name, though I like to call it 'Russian Roulette' because that sounds cooler." The gun glowed a little, and he fired it six times in slightly different directions...

Or so it would have appeared. Six shots were heard, and if you could see it quick enough, six pellets whizzed through the air towards the ceiling. The moment they hit though, five disappeared and one burst, spraying confetti and such. Genkaku was pretty proud of this illusion, as he'd been one of the best with it in the temple he'd served at. Most of the other disciples there were pretty impressed by it, but he wondered what the Illusion Goddess would think of it. "So... What do you think? Is it any good?"

[Shaon]

Shaon sat. She watched his spell, with a look of dissatisfaction on her face as he finished his spell.

"My deciples. All they know are... mere magic tricks? How... dissapointing.

"That is not real illusion. This is."

A faint smell of burning flesh started wafting, getting stronger as the ground started to rumble. Quite suddenly, there was a muted, lengthened out roar, as something began to batter against one of the walls. Within a few hits, the wall gave in, as Eddie ran into the chamber, his roar coming out in full strength.

Apparently, something was giving chase, as the new hole suddenly became a geyser of fire, as the reptile staggered over to the opposite wall, smashing through it.

Just as everything grew silent, everything put itself back together, until it looked like nothing had ever happened.

As nothing ever did.

"This... this is no magic trick. This is true illusion."

[3kul]

Genkaku's jaw almost hit the floor. That 'magic trick' had taken him the better part of five years to perfect. The timing of the sound and imagery had been exceedingly difficult for him to master, and to have it gain literally no interest whatsoever from the mighty Paranesia was a real kick in the groin for his ego.

He watched intently as the Goddess then displayed but a tiny portion of her own power, and felt even more dwarfed by her. There was no way he could ever manage something that big, he just couldn't ever see it happening. Though he dared not think down this path, it was actually quite similar to his own trick, relying on sight, smell and sound, only on a much larger scale. Immediately feeling the need to try and reassert himself as a decent disciple in Paranesia's eyes, Genkaku decided to go with a trickier spell. "T-that's not the only thing that I can do, supreme Paranesia! It's the simplest one, that's why I know it best. This one will be different, please watch your faithful disciple just once more."

'This one' required a hell of a lot of concentration, but with an item to focus on instead of focusing on himself, it made things a lot easier. He reached for his right shoulder and grabbed... Thin air. "Oh crap, I forgot all about Entrails!" He frantically began to look everywhere for the dead vulpine before realizing that they'd never brought it with him. "Erm, if I could ask a favour of you, mighty Paranesia, would it be too much trouble to obtain something that I think I left behind in the Unexplored region you found me in? I kind of need Entrails for this next spell."

Realizing that what he'd just said probably sounded really weird, he added. "Entrails is my fox, you see."

[Shaon]

A quick mental search of the unexplored regions revealed nothing, no beings of the name Entrails.

"Your fox isn't there."

[3kul]

Genkaku was now trapped in a conundrum of his own devising. He knew for a fact that Entrails was definately in that part of the wilderness, but the almighty Goddess Paranesia had said that she wasn't. Out of principle, he couldn't bring himself to directly disagree with the Goddess, but if he didn't, he'd be stuck trying to do this trick without Entrails, which was something he wasn't sure that he could pull off. What seemed like a few seconds of deliberation to him was actually several minutes of him standing there with a stupid expression on his face.

"Um... A-are you positive that she's not there? I'm quite sure that we got seperated there, and she wouldn't have gone very far." He paused to think of something else that might help the Goddess find his fox. "Oh, did I mention that she was dead?"

[Shaon]

"Dead?"

The vixen sighed, shaking her head.

"That changes everything."

She was faced with a delimma of her own. She decided to make up her answer.

"I, uh, we gods, we are nothing like mortals. We don't even see like you mortals. We see your minds, your souls, your spirit, you see? You loose those when you die, and we can't see corpses, or mindless zombies.

"If your Entrails is, in fact, dead, then I am just as blind as you are."

[Netdroid9]

((This plot looks interesting. Any ideas on if you'll be using the Gei'ei concept in any other RPs?))

[3kul]

"Whaaa?" Genkaku was quite surprised by this - none of the priests had ever mentioned Gods and Goddesses not being able to see the dead before, he'd always just assumed that they could see everything. But if they can't see dead things, or things without spirits, how do they see rocks or oncoming traffic or their own abilities. It all made his head spin a little, and though he wanted to know what the deal was, he had a feeling that Paranesia was trying to save him the long version of the explaination.

"Well, this illusion is very hard to perform without her, since she's the one I spent much of my life developing it with. If you could let me find her, I'm sure you'd find this trick a bit more interesting. Or at the very least, I might, because I'm not sure if you'll be able to see it or not." This was true enough, though he was also quite attached to Entrails, despite the fact that she had been dead for many years now. She'd been one of the last temple foxes left after everyone gave up on the Goddess who forgot them, and they'd shared a lot of great memories. His shoulder felt cold and bare without her... although oddly enough his other shoulder never felt any difference in the temperature. 'What's the deal with that?' he thought, allowing his train of thought to run off the rails.

[Shaon]

~Fine, fine. Not quite exactly sure where you were before, but I'll take you in the general direction.~

Signalling for him to follow her, she stood up and walked into the temple, and directly through the other side, into the Welcome Desk. Behind her, where she had gone through, was an illusionary bookcase.

Leaving the cave, she took a sudden right, towards the Southern Deserts. She stopped walking through the charred, dead forest only when she reached the very outskirts of it, where the black dirt became a much brighter sand.

"I believe this is the region that your group is currently in. There's the only known river to the east of us. I doubt you can see it from here, however, but it flows from Psychotopia, and from your... chocolate-y state, I would assume your group had stopped to rest there."