DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
Roleplaying is Magic
HTML https://rpismagic.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Canterlot
*****************************************************
#Post#: 208--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nobles and their Gemstones
DIR By: Lapis Lazuli
Date: December 25, 2013, 9:21 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
".. Alright, then let's start with something amazing, and work
our way up from there." Lapis replied, smirking, as she withdrew
a beautiful red gemstone from its display, and brought it over,
carefully placing it before the white stallion.
It sat in a ray of direct sunlight, and gleamed with
breathtaking colour and intensity, not a single scratch or
imperfection marred its surface. It was a ruby of some sort,
flawlessly cut into the shape of a small ball of flickering
crimson flame, yet even then it was probably larger than any
ruby of its type he had seen before.
"Fire Ruby, mined from the great volcanoes to the far north of
Canterlot." Lapis explained, gesturing towards the
near-priceless gemstone with an ultramarine hoof. "Took me a
week of mining to find it, and I nearly burned up in the
process. It's one of the rarest types of gemstone in existence,
and only develops far underground, near sources of geothermal
activity, such as, say, volcanoes."
#Post#: 213--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nobles and their Gemstones
DIR By: Sero
Date: December 25, 2013, 11:11 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
"Why start at the bottom when you can begin at the top and reach
for the stars, right?" Sero agreed with where she wanted to
begin, him just keeping a small smile ever present as he sat and
watched her bring over a magnificent gem shining brilliantly in
the light of the sun and almost making him raise a hoof to
shield his eyes at first. Holding such an urge back, he listened
to the mare go on to describe where shed found the perfect gem.
"... Fire ruby..." He eventually muttered under his breath, face
losing its smile a bit as he stared, "... Fire ruby... Hmm...
Certainly a good start," he went on, taking up his smile once
again and turning his head a bit as though to see the ruby from
another slightly different angle, "are there any special
properties to such a difficult to obtain gem?"
#Post#: 214--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nobles and their Gemstones
DIR By: Lapis Lazuli
Date: December 25, 2013, 11:16 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
"Flawlessly beautiful, impervious to any kind of heat related
damage, really easy to chip or damage otherwise, and, according
to Dragons, rather tasty. With the right spell, it can become
the focus for exceedingly powerful fire-magic, but by itself,
it's only one of the rarest and most expensive types of gemstone
in existence." Lapis replied, just as bluntly as before,
smirking a little at the stallion's impressed reaction, and in
pride of her own skills.
#Post#: 215--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nobles and their Gemstones
DIR By: Sero
Date: December 26, 2013, 12:41 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Sero nodded and "uh-huh"d through out the explanation, him
showing a full interest in everything the crystal pony was
telling him about the ruby, but never losing his smile as he had
before. Lapis certainly did seem to know her stuff, the white
unicorn just about ready to give a light and polite round of
applause when a.. small.. minor.. question came to mind. "How
difficult would it be for you to make it a lot smaller overall?"
#Post#: 216--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nobles and their Gemstones
DIR By: Lapis Lazuli
Date: December 26, 2013, 7:38 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Lapis paused at the white stallion's question, an eyebrow raised
in mild curiosity.
"Smaller? Well, it wouldn't be too difficult for me to cut the
same gem down to a smaller size and same or different shape, but
it would take a long time, and end up with a lot of gemstone
wasted; which means it'd be rather costly." The crystal mare
replied, gruffly, her dull golden eyes with polygonal irises,
sizing the stallion up as if making sure he would actually have
the bits to pay for something like this.
#Post#: 217--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nobles and their Gemstones
DIR By: Sero
Date: December 26, 2013, 10:41 am
---------------------------------------------------------
"... It's a Fire ruby..." The unicorn again mostly whispered,
smile now stretching further and showing some teeth. A few more
seconds and the stallion was standing up, nodding his head as he
stepped a little closer to the mare. "Well, Miss Lazuli, I do
believe that you have indeed made my day just as I first
assumed. I applaud you," a short bout of clapping using his
hooves proved what he said was true, "you have won my game. You
really are an expert on gems, and this particular ruby is
probably something thieves and collectors both dream of nightly.
"So, that means that now I need to try and impress you back..."
the stallion sat back down, this time closer to Lapis, him
leaning in as a hoof explored the insides of his saddle bag as
if he was about to share a special secret with her. "This may
not wow you at first glance," he said, pulling free his choice
of amazing item, "but after a few minutes, I think you'll come
around..."
It was a crystal, six inches in length and four in diameter at
its centre, smooth and cylindrical in shape but shrinking in
size as it reached its sharp pointy ends. In the light of the
windows the dull looking yellow crystal was uninteresting,
having it catch little and appear mostly boring, especially in
comparison to the brilliance of the Fire ruby that continued to
shine. It looked scuffed and dirty, as if it had been buried
underneath a pile of rubble for centuries, its only real notable
detail being the odd almost porcelain looking ring tightly
hugging its middle with symbols and small different shaped
indentations decorating its surface.
"Could you draw the shades over the windows, please?" Sero asked
as he looked to be examining the crystal himself for anything
new, "We'll need it to be darker in here for what I'm going to
show you. Think of it as... 'setting the mood'."
#Post#: 228--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nobles and their Gemstones
DIR By: Lapis Lazuli
Date: December 27, 2013, 7:50 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Lapis smirked at Sero's applause, clearly rather proud of her
work, and not at all surprised it had impressed the pale
stallion, although his word about Thieves caused her to frown
seriously, her paranoia about Thieves returning to her.
Her paranoia only increased at his closer proximity, and his
request to darken the room for a while. Still, she was curious
to see what the otherwise unimpressive yellow crystal actually
Did, and so she complied, moving to close the curtains, before
returning to where she had been standing before.
In the process, though, she grabbed her trusty pickaxe,
Splitter, from her counter, wanting to have it ready in case her
rather interesting and slightly suspicious customer, tried
anything.
#Post#: 229--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nobles and their Gemstones
DIR By: Sero
Date: December 27, 2013, 10:32 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Finding nothing had changed with the crystal since its last
inspection, the unicorn let out a small sigh of disappointment
before then turning back to face the returning mare to begin his
own presentation. "I have, my dear Lazuli, spent the last few
months in the Crystal Empire following up on something I have
been doing research on off and on ever since I was able to visit
the returned libraries. You see, there was this particular old
story I found that greatly interested me, even though it seemed
to be only a fairy tale by the time I discovered it. It dealt in
what was called the "Heart of the World", a gem or crystal of
some kind that was, according to the story, huge, ancient, and,
while now its most likely a bit exaggerated, having a very
important role in the creation of the planet itself. Delving
deeper, I found that there was at one point an old religion up
in the Empire that died out long before it was lost for those
thousand years, but I was able to dig up information regarding
bits and pieces of what they used to teach, most of it revolving
a special gem that took centre stage in their worship.
"Fast forward some time after my research, and you'd find me in
my recent travels, underground in a mostly collapsed expanse of
tunnels and caverns beneath the great stretch of the Empire's
countryside. It was there that I found this," he held his
crystal up for the mare to see, it still looking mostly
uninteresting. "This is called the 'Durilli of Trasa'. It's a
crystal that was meant to be able to guide the chosen of that
old religion I mentioned in spiritual quests to find the Heart
of the World. I found it in those caverns in a ruined temple
dedicated to the Heart, most of its other items, including any
depictions of the Heart, having been long since destroyed for
some reason or another. I was surprised to even find that this
thing had survived, but they did seem to design it to be tough.
"Now, you're probably wondering why I had you darken the room.
That was to make it easier to see this..." Reaching back into
his pack for a moment, a small container was removed, Sero then
opening it and taking out a small cloudy white gem cut to look
like an oval with the design of three wavy lines on its surface.
"Are you familiar with this kind of gem? It's most common name
is a 'wind walkers token', mined out of the windy valleys
between some of Equestrias mountains. Rather rare by itself. Had
this one for years after I took its uncut form as a small
souvenir during a different trip of mine. I would like to now
direct your attention to the indentations along the crystals
ring here. See this one here?" A small design of the same wavy
lines was carved just above an oval hole set into the ring, it
looking the same as the token Sero held. "When I found this
crystal I first thought it was broken, had lost its power, or
was simply more symbolic in its old purpose, but after I spent
some time experimenting and working on it before coming home to
Canterlot, I found that its focus is mostly on the primal
elements of the planet, fitting given what it was supposed to
lead to, and that when it was brough tinto contact with
something that represents one of those elements it... Well...
Just watch."
He smiled, using his hoof to take his wind walker token and set
it into its place along the ring. It slid in easily, the crystal
then seeming to do nothing in response before a low hum started
to emenate from it. The hum remained weak however, even as the
core of the crystal began to give off a glow, Sero letting go of
the crystal as it took it upon itself to hover in the air by its
own volition, the ring around it being.the next thing to change
as the section that had been gifted with the gem detached from
the rest, leaving the ring broken but still secure in the same
way a puzzle would look should a piece be removed. Floatjng
beside the crystal, the token bearing piece of the ring seemed
to be attempting to orbit the crystal, it however bouncing
gently off of some kind of invisible barrier when it reached the
parts of the crystal still wearing the rest of the unbroken
sections. The glow from the crystal seemed to be acting like a
projector as strange and vague symbols slowly danced around on
the ceiling above the two ponies, the weakness of the light
preventing any of them from being blurry and difficult to see.
Sero then stopped to see if the mare was as interested in all of
this as his grin made he himself out to be.
#Post#: 231--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nobles and their Gemstones
DIR By: Lapis Lazuli
Date: December 27, 2013, 12:47 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Lapis simply sat back and watched, listening intently. Her
expression was sceptical at first, and remained largely the same
even as the ring and crystal performed their strange hovering
lightshow, although inwardly she was a little impressed, only
shown externally by a slightly raised eyebrow.
After a few moments of silence, she spoke up, voice curious.
"So, that's why you were interested in the Fire Ruby, huh? To
fill another hole in the ring around that thing? I think I might
be able to help you out with finding the other pieces of the
Durilli, or whatever it's called. I've just got a few questions
for ya first." The ultramarine mare questioned, as she stood and
moved closer, easily carrying Splitter in her tail, despite its
rather immense size and clear weight.
"Okay, few things: One, how large and valuable is this Heart
supposed to be? Two, since I assume you're looking for other
gems with which to complete the Durilli in order to find the
Heart, what do you plan to do when you've actually found it, if
it even exists? The third question.. depends on your answer to
the second." Lapis spoke up once more, moving to stand facing
the pale stallion, leaning against the pickaxe that now rested
in front of her.
#Post#: 232--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nobles and their Gemstones
DIR By: Sero
Date: December 27, 2013, 2:05 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
"Yes, the fire ruby fits with I would think would be appropriate
for the Durlli. It's rarity and the fact that it needed to be
mined out of a volcano makes it sound like obtaining it would
fit with the challenges presented to the chosen." The simple
raised brow at his crystal only downgraded Sero's grin to a full
smile, her questions about the crystal and Heart showing a clear
interest at least.
"How large the Heart is, or what it even looks like, I can't
know for sure. The most reliable source for formulating an
accurate idea would have been that temple I found but, as I
mentioned, any depictions of the gem were defaced or destroyed
at some point, so I'm being forced to go off of mentions and
vague pieces of scripture. However, considering how important
its supposed to be, I'd wager that its value would most likely
be rather high to put things simply. I'd even be willing to say
that its probably priceless.
"What will I do if I find it?" Sero repeated her second
question, him then looking thoughtful as he tapped his chin,
"I'll admit I'm not entirely decided yet. Simply finding such a
thing and confirming that it both exists and might be as
important as its supposed to be would probably be plenty for me
on its own. I mean think of all the history that could be
discovered during an adventure like this! The religion around
this thing and all the details and information revolving around
it is lost to ghosts in the past. To find it would be reopening
an eye that has long since been shut, allowing us to see and
remember something amazing about our world!
"And then of course there's the high possibility of finding
other less important items along the way which could then be
traded to interested collectors for monetary gain. I can't pay
for food with an interesting story about lost cultures and such
after all. Well... not usually at least."
*****************************************************
Page 2 of 3
DIR Previous Page
DIR Next Page