Millimax (ᴀᴋᴀ “Kettle Hooves”) @millimax@high.cat

alright this gets meta but hear me out

[dc] means 'destiny crusade' because that's the title
[ooc] means 'out of character' because it's complicated

i'm still gonna be lovable old me but i'm getting the chance to show up in a game @orrery is running for my friends @mawr and @kelseyhusky and @IceWeasel and @kobunny

if you see [dc] but not [ooc] then it's my game-me's journal

if you don't see those it's just me being stoned

i feel i should explain the look of my legs in my user photo here because i'm not a "robot" pony or a "cyborg" or any sort of machine or portion of

i am a living sculpture and i will resculpt myself in copper and porcelain until i am whole even if i have to get there one piece at a time

the big difference here is that the first is a mind-meltingly complicated system of logic circuits and actuators and code

the second is just me haunting a pony-shaped teapot

i woke up!

that last bit might seem ominous but i believe it was meant to keep me focused and understanding of the fear and danger i have to work through

having been visited by two goddesses in one night i know deep in my heart that this isn't just a good sign but a genuine boon that i am thankful for

but okay yeah it still spooks the piss out of me

it's said that nyxta never sets a greater challenge than a pony can actually do but she'll push them to the very brink in the process

suddenly it all felt like slow motion when she leaned in and grinned and told me i'd better get a move on because time was short

i looked up the mountain and gathered my courage and said "forward it is" and started walking again

then my hoof hit the edge of the path and i started to slip but before i could catch myself

then i heard medya

her song was like bells and the crystals in her wings rattled softly

i couldn't see her but i knew she was there and complete and happy and i needed to be there with her no matter what

then i was rushing backwards to the bottom of the mountain and i saw how long and twisted the path really was

and then the night mare nyxta was there next to me

i don't know how it is for whoever's reading this but it's not uncommon in pony dreams that time and distance don't follow the usual rules and sometimes there's a sense of being outside one's own body

that's what happened and next thing i knew i was rushing up this near-impossible mountain climb with all sorts of narrows and pitfalls and pretty much every imaginable difficulty

but at the top there was another open field and it was snowing gently

then from behind i heard selene

it's not often that the goddess of the moon makes her presence known in a dream as she tends to keep a low profile but when she shows up it's best to listen carefully

she basically said that there was only one road to where i was going and it was a hard one

but i've got to get there anyhow so all i said was "forward it is"

last night i had one of those dreams so clear and strong that it didn't dissolve right after i woke up

i was in a total void which slowly became a meadow under a starry sky and a single straight road in front of me leading all the way up a mountain

when i looked down i saw my completed legs and i knew i'd finished the rest of me and it all felt very right so i said "forward it is" and started walking the path

it got steeper and curved around the mountain

the lightning rail is some variation on the good old railroad

eston is where the rail stops for now until a new outpost is set up

the mournland is where the forge – where the forged were awakened – was before it detonated and scarred the whole region

archaeology is where we dig in the ruins to find out anything we can about how to make a forge

and how not to, am i right

why aren't we laughing

i only just realized i was avoiding the subject of what that field research will involve

we're taking the "lightning rail" to a place called "eston" right on the edge of "the mournland" to engage in "archeology"

the university set me up with a temporary worker's badge but of course they didn't just write something on a card and throw a durability spell on it

it's a slab of tempered glass engraved with my name and other bits of info but it also has a little embedded picture of me that can be rotated like my head is on a potting wheel

it'll make a neat souvenir

but if all goes well it won't look anything like me by time i return home

not fishing for comments here but

okay now that i think about it i'm totally asking for comments

what i really mean is that if anyone reading has any questions about anything i say here then don't be afraid to throw them at me

or if i say something that doesn't make any sense

or if i say something that makes too much sense because let's be honest if it makes a lot of sense it's probably not actually what's going on in eberron

while i'm at it

leali is with the "department of secondary research" which is in this lonesome tower separated from the main campus by a skybridge

also it's in the basement

it's like they want to keep it some distance from everything else and i get the feeling that if i knew the reasons why i wouldn't want to go back there

i'll probably ask anyhow because i don't know any better because i guess i love being kept awake by this sort of thing

the information kiosk on campus has these maps that aren't satisfied to just be printed with useful stuff

they react when you poke at them

tap the location of a building and it changes to a summary of what's in that building then tap part of that summary to get a list of professors then tap that to get a list of classes then tap that to just end up confused about how to get back to having a normal map

is paper that expensive here or are they just that bored?

okay i'm good now where was i

we got those forms filled out as quickly as we could and then zer and spark and bell went to talk with lead design while medya and relic and i found a place to eat

not that relic ate much of course but we talked

after that we were pretty much exhausted and i wanted to get an early night anyhow because there's one big perk of being employed by the university

library access

i'm going to spend so much time there in the two days before we travel

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaa

what is wrong with me

why didn't i ask more questions

that's just more evidence that there's some other pony wandering around here and i was so focused on paperwork i didn't think to follow up

sorry but i only just occured to me what i missed there

but now i have a name to go on at least so there's that

aaaaaaaaaaa

she gave us the prospectus and some employment paperwork to fill out so we gathered in the central square of the campus to work through that

sure it'll take us into a cheerful-sounding place named "the mournland" but it gets my hoof in the door at the university so i'll take it

anyhow at some point a passing student mistook me for another pony named "hellebore" and

and

wait

wait aw crabapples i just realized

ploughshare suggested we look up "leali stormreach"

with the help of the campus map (oh, i have to tell you about that map later) we found her and i like her a lot already

for one thing she doesn't tower over me like every other biped on this side of the hedge

for another she's friendly and curious and a lot like the ponies i liked best in academy

and the best part is that she already wants us to join her for some field research

with that task checked off the list i took the opportunity to steer us toward morgrave university so i could at least get started on the one thing i left the everglow for

it wasn't hard to get group consensus so we went there next

and let me tell you

it's a gorgeous campus and it reminded me of my time in academy so i was instantly comfortable there which was a welcome change of pace

zer' created a little pocket dimension to stash all the chest's contents in

no i'm not telling where it is because it's hard for me to keep secrets so i'm practicing on this one

we turned over the "found empty" chest to krayg and there was a mutual agreement to not go looking to him for jobs for a while

fine with me i didn't want to waste my time and risk my hide for petty political junk to start with