Fantasy The Trek for Eternity [Closed]

[Life.]

Legend has it that on a planet full of riches lies the most powerful relic of all, The Phoenix Feather. Any being that can find and obtain the relic will be granted with eternal life. But many have ventured out to claim the treasure to only return with empty hands. They say that only the fearless, cleverest, and most determined crew can find the Phoenix Feather. This myth has existed for centuries. It was only recently that the Enigma crew of the S.S. Helios announced that they were going to find the Phoenix Feather and finally live the tale. But will they find it?

S.S. Helios​

 

[Life.]

Lilith Ryder
"And I thank all of you for your donations," a woman dressed in black cooed as she scooped the prize money from the table into her sack. All the men that were seated around the wooden table granted her glares and angry expressions. They were not pleased at all that they had just lost most of their money to a newcomer, and that the newcomer was a woman. A silence hung around the table as they watched the woman quickly tucked away her winnings and stand up. As she stood up someone else did as well and pointed a finger at her direction, "I think ya was cheating." Murmurs of agreement were sounding from the victims.

"Now, now it's not very noble and honorable of men to try and raise up an excuse to their loss. If any of you had any dignity for yourself then you'd kindly accept your defeat with your head held high," she lifted the edge of her hat to return the glares of the men with one of her own. Although that may have been a mistake for as soon as she lifted her hat to reveal her face the men instantly recognized her, "It's the Livid Rider!" Immediately everyone's hands reached down to their weapons at their waist. "It was nice playing with you boys!" the cheeky woman called out as she too pulled out her own weapon to quickly shoot down the lights in the room. Afterwards chaos was ensued as everyone scrambled for their weapons to hunt down the Livid Rider. But with only darkness in the room it caused collisions, fists being thrown in the air, and simply a large bar brawl. The craziness allowed for the infamous woman to sneak away from the building and out into the open.

Once outside of the space bar, she once again tipped her hat back down to cover her face and made her way over to the edge of the space station she was currently on.


Regius
"Alright now make sure that all our supplies are stocked before Captain Rider returns...that is if she returns," an exasperated sigh escaped the fangs of the pilot Draconian as he stood in the amidships of S.S. Helios. His reptilian eyes looked over to the ramp that served as the entrance for their ship, awaiting for the arrival of only one crew member, their captain. "I swear this woman will be the end of me," Regius slid a hand down his snout as he made his way over to the edge of the ramp, "I'm going to go out and search for-"

"Wait Regius I'm here!"

The Draconian pilot turned his head over towards the port and spotted the mad woman running towards the ship. And not too far behind her was a small group of men with guns in their hand. "Lilith! What did you do this time?!" Regius screeched as he aimed his robotic arm towards the group and fired a shot that hopefully stunned the men for a moment. Even though she was being chased Regius could hear the woman laughing with joy as she bolted up the ramp and swiftly pulled up the plank of wood. "You know sometimes I even wonder if you are completely human," this wasn't the first time he had witnessed the captain pull off a feat.

"No time for stalling. I received information on where the map for the Phoenix Feather may be located. Find Theo and send him to my quarters, and let's get this ship on the road!" she was quick to give her orders. Regius looked around and spotted one of the lowly skeleton crew members on board, "Go and find Theo. Tell him he is needed at the captain's quarters." With a single nod the skeleton turned around and trudged away. The reptilian pilot felt his lips curl up a bit in disgust as he watched the slow figure walked away, even though he had been a part of the Enigma crew from the beginning, Regius was still not used to the skeleton men. Why the captain found them cute? Regius would never know.

Aside from his thoughts the pilot made his way over to his station to start up the ship. His actions were quickened when he heard of the whistle of bullets fly past the edge of the ship. "Damn you Rider," he cursed as he quickly started up the ship and hastily made it move away from the intergalactic space station it was previously docked on.

Lumina

 

[Lumina]

Theo Romlin

It had been a little while since the S.S. Helios had docked in the space station. It was a chance for the crew to unwind a bit, to spend some time relaxing while the ship refueled and other such fixes it may have needed. The ship's cartographer and self-proclaimed researcher Theo Romlin immediately took this as a chance to scope out some of the shops for any equipment he could purchase. He had never been to this station before, so he knew there was going to be stuff that he had never seen before. His hunch was right as he made his way through the shops, and soon he was carrying bags of stuff back to his room on the ship. His room was already a mess, filled mostly with books, journals, and both paper and digital mapmaking supplies including paper, pens, ink, rulers, and other random contraptions that would take way too long for him to explain. He threw the bags on his bed before digging out the different purchases he had made and placing them wherever they would fit -- a new type of battery for his spectral map generator hopefully this one would last a bit longer than the others, it had a newly-created power cell organization that was supposed to both add extended life and give a power boost for whatever machine it was being used for; backup pens since he always seemed to think he was going to run out (spoiler: he never was); and approximately 7 books that weren't in his collection already, so that obviously meant they were an essential purchase.

He pulled out his journal and studied the notes he had written from their last few days before docking at the station. There was something about his notes that looked familiar, in the way that he remembered having written down notes similar in content to it before. Digging around in his piles of books for a moment, he pulled out a brown, leather-covered journal stamped with a year on the top corner. He flipped through before he found what he was looking for, only for him to scrunch up his face in though. Now he only had more questions about what it was that he was trying to find out, and all it did was prompt him to go digging in his many stacks of books and journals, multiple times over. It was a bad habit he had, obsessing over something until he understood it. Many hours were lost just to searching through his pool of resources, and it was easy for him to lose track of days if he wasn't careful.

After an exhaustive search for a specific book, Theo's head popped up and he held a journal in front of his face, smiling at it almost as if it were food. "I knew you were in here somewhere!" he cheered, smiling like an idiot at the book in his hands. It was always so satisfying to find a book after a long search, though it was always a stark reminder that he really needed to organize his stuff so that everything would be easier to find. It was as he was staring at this book when he felt the ship begin to move, which meant that they were leaving. It came as a bit of surprise, he thought they would have spent at least another day or two before heading off somewhere else. Ah, but if they were leaving now, then it had to be for a reason, and Theo wasn't one to question the authority of his superiors. It didn't really get in the way of his job, so it didn't really matter all that much. He shrugged, about to go back to the journal in hand when there was a knock on his door. "Coming!" he called, nearly tripping over the books he had pulled out to get to the journal as he made his way to the door and opened it. Standing there was one of the captain's skeleton men, who seemed to have a message for him. "I'm needed in the captain's quarters? Alright.." He nodded, fixing his shirt a bit before exiting his room and closing the door behind him. With his duty completed, the skeleton trudged away in the opposite direction that Theo now headed. It wasn't often that the captain wanted to talk to Theo directly, but he didn't mind too much. The two seemed to have a friendly enough relationship, so he wasn't all that worried. He had probably forgotten to finish a map for her or something. Soon he reached the door to her cabin, the doors ornate decorations giving it away. She did like fancy things after all. With a bit of pressure he pushed the doors open, quickly stepping inside before the doors closed behind him. "You wanted to see me, Captain?" He asked, his anxiety growing a little bit now that he was actually here in front of her.​

 

[Life.]

LilithStepping into the captain's quarters, one who is familiar with the woman would say that the messiness of the room perfectly reflected her mindset. Papers were strewn everywhere, maps from the cartographer pinned at various angles on the walls, books with creases on their spine stacked up on a chair, and then a single feline-like creature resting comfortably on the top of her bookshelf. There was no clear order but everything was in its proper place. At the current moment the captain was leaned over her large desk reading over a small square of a paper with words written in her penmanship.

Then her current trance was broken when she heard the sound of her door clicking open. Following right after was the sound of Theo's voice. "Theo! I'm glad that you are here! Now while we were at the space station I entered this interesting looking bar. Since we were at a station pretty far from our home region it appeared as though not many people recognized my figure. So this allowed me to stroll up to the counter and talk to a particular person that caught my attention. And you wouldn't believe my luck! He actually knew the location of where to find the map that can lead us to the Phoenix Feather. Well...I mean he said he knew...and it took a lot of persuasion from me to confirm if he was being honest, but in the end I got some information out of him. Oh and I even managed to win off some money from his buddies. See look, look," the rather enthusiastic woman pulled out her stuffed sack of coins before returning back to the note in her hand. "The man said that the map can be found at Sejun. And now I get to my reason why I called you here...do you know where Sejun is? And I do hope it's a real place. He seemed pretty convincing from the way he was sweating with my gun to his crotch..." Lilith placed a hand on her chin as she began contemplating the man's words.

But suddenly she felt herself stumbling forward as she ship was hastily turned. Lilith couldn't stop her momentum of moving forward so she felt herself colliding into Theo. She wrapped her arms around him to regain her balance and her composure. "Goodness what is Regius doing?" the captain reached down and pulled out a device that functioned as a walky-talky, "What's happening Regius?"


RegiusAs the captain was speaking to Theo, Regius was busy maneuvering the ship to escape some smaller vessels that contained the pursuers from earlier. "Damn that woman," Regius hissed as he suddenly gave the wheel a slight jerk to dodge the surrounding vessels. As soon as he had steadied the ship back he could hear the cursed woman's voice coming from his communicator device. The Draconian pilot swiftly pulled the device to his mouth, "Well if a certain someone had not upset these fellows then I wouldn't have needed to be moving the ship so roughly. I am simply cleaning up someone's mess." He didn't wish to speak any further with the woman and clicked his device off.

 

[Lumina]

Theo Romlin

It wasn't often that Theo ever found himself in the captain's quarters, but every time he did, he noticed how similar their rooms were. Both filled to the brim with things, a complete mess that somehow was both organized and disorganized at the same time. He recognized some of his own maps pinned to the wall, with various notes scribbled on them based on their travels. He was glad that the captain seemed to appreciate his skills, because he was damn good at what he did and was proud of his work. His eyes fell on the feline creature on the top of the bookshelf as he looked around the room. Theo swore that the thing just showed up one day and never left, though there was no real way to prove that. But the creature wasn't why he was here. He was here for his captain Lilith, for a reason he wasn't entirely sure of. Not yet at least.

Most of the crew knew of Hadley's ability to talk up a storm. It seemed like this meeting was no exception to this. She enthusiastically began talking about what she had been up to while they were back on the station, and it was almost a bit hard to keep up with if he was being honest. Though amidst her words, she finally got to the point and mentioned how she found someone who knew where the map they were searching for was. “Really??” he excitedly blurted out as Lilith continued on with explaining that he had said it was somewhere called Sejun. “Sejun...” he repeated to himself, bringing a hand to his chin in thought, thinking if he knew the place or not. After deliberating for a moment, it came back to him. “Oh yeah, Sejun! I know where that is! I can send Regius th—“

His words were cut off as the ship quickly turned. Theo managed to quickly brace himself (he kind of prized himself on his quick reflexes) before he felt the captain suddenly collide with him. He took a moment to recover from the collision before it set in that the Captain was squished right up next to him. His face exploded in red as she wrapped her arms around him to steady herself and stand back up, completely not even thinking about what might have caused it. Just that it happened. With a furious blush, Theo had a bit of a hard time looking at the captain as he resumed the sentence that had been cut off. “I-I’ll, uh, send the coordinates t-to Regius as soon as I can..” he stammered out, completely nervous now that he had been way more up close and personal with the captain than he ever thought he would be.​

 

[Life.]

LilithLilith's eyes looked down closer to her chest area, not realizing the proximity of her body to Theo's (which was none). She took a step back to relieve the young man from her crushing body on his. The accident didn't bother but she saw it left Theo flustered. A small smirk appeared on her face as she observed him becoming a nervous mess. "Hmm seemed we had a small bonding moment there, don't you think? I did not mind being so close to my cartographer. After all you're the leading man when it comes to navigating. Ah going back to navigating. Before we had our little intimate moment there, you said you knew of the location for Sejun?
Yes you can notify him of the coordinates. But before you do go off and leave me all alone here I wanted to know if you had any knowledge on the planet. Are there any precautionary measures we will need to take in order to get there safely?" despite the captain teasing Theo towards the beginning, she always managed to find her way back to her responsibilities. It was one of the weird qualities of Lilith that aided her in becoming the person she was today, a captain.

She walked over to her desk once more and retrieved an open book. "I did manage to find an image of the planet, but this book did not contain any information on it. I'm wondering if that is because I am looking at a very old encyclopedia or that there really is not any information available out there yet of this place," Lilith flipped the surrounding pages to see if she had missed anything but returning back to the original page, she resigned in finding nothing. The woman then turned the novel to face Theo, "This is Sejun correct? Since it is in this book it must be real. But to not have any information worries me. The last thing I would want is to risk my men to follow me a dark path to never come back alive."

Lilith wanted to believe that she was one of the caring captains considering she would always throw herself into a situation first before she let anyone step foot. She wasn't this bold at the beginning. In fact when she had first began her pirating adventure she started as a hostage at first. Supposedly she was the lost princess of a small planet that contained many riches. What they didn't know was that she was an exiled princess, so once their demands were never fulfilled they decided to either make her a part of their crew or to kill her. She chose the former and from there she began learning the characteristics of becoming a captain.

 

[Lumina]

Theo Romlin

It took a bit for the cartographer to recover from his captains embrace, never having been so up close and personal with her, much less any other girl. The blush had spread fiercely across his face, even going so far as to tint his ears a light pink. To his relief the captain soon stepped back and he could take a moment to breathe, but the moment soon passed as he found himself being teased about it. He stared in embarrassment as he poked fun about their moment and not minding being so close to him, though he wished that any closeness they might have between them wouldn’t come from such an intimate situation. He looked at her as she continued to speak, moving on from her teasing to the actually important matter at hand. Theo knew that he had read about a place called Sejun in a book that was in one of the many piles of his room, or at least he though he had. As Lilith pointed the book in his direction, he leaned forward to stare at it to see if it was like he remembered.

“Hmm..” he pondered, taking the book out of her hands and walking around the cabin with it. Aside from the messiness of his room, another of Theo’s habits was that he was able to get completely lost in thought about something far quicker than most other people. So the moment he took the book and began trying to remember what he had read about Sejun, the world around him melted away, and all there was was Theo, the book and his thoughts. And with this behavior came the habit of thinking aloud and rambling. “This does look like what I had found in that other book, but there’s no information here otherwise... it’s really fishy that some place that’s supposedly so established would have no information on it... unless I’m missing something..?... I remember there being something else about this place that was really important, what was it...?...” It went on like this for a bit before Theo’s head snapped up and he looked over at the Captain.

“Thank you!” he exclaimed, pushing the book back into her hands. “I was totally about to give Regius the wrong coordinates, oh man that would have been bad!” An excited smile grew on his face as he continued on. “That’s not actually Sejun. For hundreds of years, people had been mistaking the planet in that encyplodia for Sejun. There was always such a limited amount of information on the planet that stories of people who thought they had found the planet began to circulate and become established fact about the planet.” He pointed at a somewhat blurry picture in the book that showed a temple tower. “Part of what drove people to want to find Sejun was that supposedly there was a map to a fantastical treasure, specifically the Phoenix Feather. Rumors had spread that the map could be found in a temple on the planet, so when people found this planet and found the temple there, they thought they had the right place. But the temple was empty, there was nothing there. That’s because—“ he moved his finger on the picture to a specific spot on the temple tower “— it was the wrong place. The symbol on the temple wasn’t the right one. Of course nobody was going to find anything there! But by this time people were convinced that the planet with this temple that had been so hard to find was Sejun that there hadn’t been much debate over if it actually was Sejun or not.” He took a breath before continuing. “Back when we were on that planet with the giant library, I had taken some time to look at some reeeeeeally old scrolls and texts, because those things are so cool! Anyways, I kept coming across a symbol in a lot of them, that looked like this.” Theo pulled out the journal in his satchel and opened it, flipping through the pages for a moment. Once he reached the page he needed, he pointed at a symbol sketched onto it. In a generalized way, it almost looked like a birds feather. “I’m sure that this is the symbol of the temple where we’ll find the map to the Phoenix Feather, which is also known as the Solaria Map. So, based on things the scrolls had mentioned as well as other sources citing information about this same symbol, the real planet we need to go to is located...” his voice trailed off as he flipped through his journal to piece together everything that he had written, before sketching down a series of numbers, “...here.” Theo looked up at Lilith, laughing as he put down his pen. “I’m glad that you made me wait to give Regius the coordinates. I had forgotten that the Sejun listed in the public domain maps isn’t actually the real thing.” He looked back at his journal, making a point not to say that if he had led them to what people thought was Sejun, they probably wouldn’t actually leave alive. Because people are still so convinced that the map is there, it had become a dangerous place where people would kill over trying to search for a map that wasn’t even there. Thankfully the planet they were actually going to was in the opposite direction. “Should I go give this to Regius, Captain?”​

 

[Life.]

LilithIt was noticeable the change in comfort Theo was experiencing once Lilith had changed subjects to more important matters. Then cogs were turning in the cartographer's mind once his eyes studied the book in front of him. Lilith loosened her grip as she felt the book leave her hands and rest onto Theo's. A small smile returned back onto Lilith's face as she recognized his pacing. She made sure to stay out of his way though as he continued thinking and muttering out loud.

It was then his eyes shot back up to meet hers. She unconsciously straightened her posture, startled by his exclamation. Lilith needed to react quickly when the book was thrust back into her hands. But her mind needed to turn faster as Theo began his explanation. As soon as his explanation was finished she gave a single nod to indicate she heard everything. Although it took a few extra moments before it all registered. By the time she was finished comprehending though he was already making his way out asking for her final permission to send out coordinates.

"Ah yes you may go forward and pass him the coordinates. Thank you once again Theo for your cooperation," she flashed him one more smile before he walked out. It always amazed her at how much Theo remembered things. "It's a shame he's younger than me," Lilith laughed to herself. She loved Theo but never in a romantic manner. But that did not stop her from teasing him like she did.

Now that they had a hint to the map and coordinates Lilith needed to start formulating a plan. "Ugh now for the boring part," she placed her elbows onto her desk and rested her head onto her hands, clearly dreading strategizing.

 

[Lumina]

Theo Romlin

A part of Theo always got embarrassed at how easily he could just launch into an informational tirade. Once his mind was set on something, it was like a one-way track that usually ended up with him rambling on for an extended time. It had actually gotten him into trouble a few times, but no matter how hard he tried to stop himself, he just couldn't do it. Thankfully the captain never seemed to mind, and thankfully it seemed to come in handy every so often. This just so happened to be one of those times it seemed. Once he got the okay from the captain to give the real coordinates to Regius, Theo took a moment to calm down and address her. "Right away, captain." he spoke much more calmly, before turning over his shoulder and leaving the captain's quarters. After closing the door behind him, he stood in the hallway for a moment, the air feeling a few degrees cooler out here. He wiped his brow, knowing that he had worked himself into a bit of a sweat back in his captain's room. "I should really learn to control myself, it'll get me killed one day." he mumbled to himself before making his way toward the cockpit.

Regius wasn't always the biggest fan of people barging into his cockpit, especially not while he was piloting the ship. Those little skeletons of Lilith's always seemed to just come and go when and wherever, popping up when you least expect it. It was enough to put anyone, especially someone trying to keep people flying in the air, on edge. With this, Theo always made sure to knock the same way every time he was coming into the cockpit so that Regius would know it was him. Three raps - a single one, a short pause, and two in quick succession. If you knew anything about music or dancing like Theo did, it was in the timing of a triple step. Theo gave his knock before entering the cockpit, his eyes searching to find Regius in his seat. The multitude of instruments in the space always astounded Theo. He was smart and bookish, but there were still things that he didn't understand, cockpit instruments being one of them. "Hey there, I've got some coordinates for you," he announced, holding forward the piece of paper with the hastily sketched numbers.​

 

[Life.]

RegiusEven though there were a number of smaller vessels in pursuit of S.S. Helios, it was an easy task for Regius to out-maneuver them. Despite the size of the ship he was able to lose them amidst a close asteroid belt. The bipedeal reptilian was not the pilot for no reason. He may not brag about it, but others speak highly of his piloting skills. It was one of the reasons why Lilith wanted Regius to join her crew. At first she was simply another one of the many captains that wanted Regius to join their crew. But Lilith proved to him that she was worth following for. And she did it by crashing her ship into his.

While Regius was infuriated with what had happened at first, he was actually amazed at how reckless the woman was. Not only did she dare to confront Regius, but she did so in a manner that would certainly attract his attention. Also from the damages the reptile could tell she certainly needed some help. There was no person who saw Regius as someone equal to them. Many revered him and saw him as something greater than them. At some point this may have gotten into his head, but Lilith managed to smack him back into reality. Soon after he decided to take her offer and become her pilot on the promise that they try and find themselves a newer and better ship, one that he gets to choose.

And now the two now ride on the S.S. Helios with their crew-mates. Just as Regius was thinking about his crew-mates he heard the sound of a knock. He looked over to see the cartographer Theo approaching him, stretching out a scrap piece of paper. The pilot grabbed it and read the coordinates on the paper. "Hm these are coordinates you don't see everyday. Is there anything special there? I have not heard of anything existing around this area of coordinates."