[hr][hr][h1][b][i][color=indigo][center]𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖎𝖊𝖉 𝕳𝖚𝖓𝖙[/center][/color][/i][/b][/h1]
[center][img]https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/intermediary/f/40df7ab4-558e-4d2c-91ad-65761757ca62/d6492p7-fbc6dc70-0631-47ec-92c1-b9f0ee99df7b.jpg/v1/fill/w_1333,h_599,q_70,strp/haunted_forest_by_reneaigner_d6492p7-pre.jpg[/img][/center]
[center][hider=][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W33kv-ZAxzE[/youtube][/hider][/center]

[i][b][quote][color=0072bc]“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”[/color]  --Friedrich Nietzsche[/quote][/b][/i]

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You’d been walking for what felt like days. You were not alone in the wood. The [color=7bcdc8][b]mists[/b][/color] that wrapped around aching knees seemed present, aware, of the interloper trespassing on her hallowed grounds. The sounds of your party’s feet accompanied the wails of the [color=630460][b]cankerous black tumors[/b][/color] infesting the forest’s trees. The putrefied oak writhed and sung with sounds akin to raw meat dancing in the palm of your hands. 

You and your party had been assigned to capture hollow men from within the forest for the purposes of research. [color=olive][b]Elias[/b][/color] had taken the creatures down with little trouble. [i]'It was always important to keep them from surrounding you' [/i]he warned. Despite the completion of your quest it was far too dark to travel back to Fort Stag now. You continued to follow Elias through the murk. 

[hider=Heinrich]
You felt a stirring beneath the soils. The ground hummed with each step you took as if in synergy with some ethereal force within you. You felt a power here. Though, these days, it was often that you felt a trace of...something….unexplainable..nipping at a piece of you. It sought whatever foothold it could manage. 

Your story had begun not in the cushy luxury of Redcliffe, but in a dank cave surrounded by death and magic. The tome at your side gave you something, but it took something too. Perhaps the biggest mystery was discovering what that meant. Certainly the answers laid not in your estate. 

Lion Wolfram, your superior more than your father, was bred to protect the legacy he inherited. Disgraced, not by your new power, but by your insolence he cast you out. You had little choice but to flee Redcliffe, flee Astoria. From the stables you found yourself a horse. No one protested. Perhaps it was your father’s one act of kindness. Likely not. 

Luckily, on your travels you’d seen men from the Order who waxed poetics about their noble conquests, and their nuanced understandings of the arcane and cryptic. You found little use in returning to a place that wasn’t home. Not without Lucilia. If the men of vigilance spoke true, then you were prepared to travel to Fort Stag for the answers to a question you knew not.

You pressed on, a family of strangers, in your quest to fulfill your first blood hunt. 
[/hider]

[hider=Roselyn]
Your red handkerchief- the only weapon you could wield against the suffocating fog thick with muck and decay. [i]Something[/i] crunched under the weight of your boot with every other step. Though the fog obscured them slightly you found the sight of your new companions an enticing focal point. You’d heard their names, in preparation for the ‘blood hunt’, but beyond that they were unknown to you. Elias Black, the Warden assigned to your party, seemed alarmingly present. For every crack, cry, or crank all of his senses sharpened and his blade hand tightened. His cautious pace was enough to give most of the group pause. 

You’d been offered freedom, but upon arrival at the docks there was a tension looming in the air. This wasn’t the freedom you’d envisioned. 

Your story began in a haze of blackpowder and retribution. You were a phantom, another lost to the ebbing rose petal waters of Caracas. But, the dead don’t collect their due. Men of stature and means have always taken in Caracas. Your father, your home, your life. They’d taken everything from you. In doing so,  however, they erred. You paid them back in blood. Four degenerates for the life of one innocent. Alas, the magistrate hadn’t seen it that way. 

Caged for the crime of grief you waited to rot away, but another opportunity presented itself. A warden from a Vicellan Order offered you the the chance to, instead, rot away as a freed woman. 

You pressed on, a family of strangers, in your quest to fulfill your first blood hunt. 

[/hider]

[hider=Hadar]
There was a haunting familiarity about these woods. Your eye, obscured behind cloth, burned with maddening fury. The festering black plague that dotted the forest smelled of disease and decay. The feeling of dread reminded you of the crimson sands of your home. Vicelles was wildly different, but even still you felt His influence here. The fog whispered to you just as sands you fled from once did. 


Your story began much earlier than the others. A child groomed to be a puppet. At their command you’d kill and sit upon an empty throne. But, you were different from the others. Still an urchin, still a slave, but contemptuous and ever-questioning. They thought they’d ripped that flame from within you. As did the noble boy. Except every scar put upon your flesh became another reason to flee. You bore that pain until you could no longer. The stinging of hot desert at your bare feet as you fled seemed almost comforting in comparison to the pain of your yesterdays. 

 The sands whispered to you then, and despite what you tell yourself, they still do. 

There was little else to do now, but press on with this family of strangers in your quest to fulfill your first blood hunt.
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[hider=Anwyn]
Despite the protestation of your elders you found satisfaction in the vast world outside of your bog. They never meant for this place, Vicelles, to be a home. Their nest, like the other nests, were born of refugees fleeing the destruction of the only home they’d ever known. They warned you of the danger in befriending men of land. To them you were an exotic commodity. You knew better. 

Your story began with a song. A tale woven with apparitions by a most handsome spinster. Enraptured by his magic, and emboldened by his words you left all you knew behind. You’d come to meet the stranger who upended your life once again near Astoria. He taught you to craft enchanted epics that would bewitch and twist the world to your whims. There was a price, however. For as soon as your master had entered your life, he vanished. He left behind only a weapon, and the passion needed to hoist it at the world. Now that vigor has brought you here; in the company of mystic protectors. Is this the life he’d have you live?

Shaking the thoughts from your head you press on in your quest to fulfill your first blood hunt.

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[hider=Ralorin]
The Wood Elves, Keepers of the Heartland, a proud and cautious people. You were an elf of the forests. You listened gleefully to the stories of the elders at every Gathering Feast. They told you and your peers of the marvels, and the beauty of Ithea. From your forests, to the valleys, the mountains, and the dregs you'd known its glory all your life. But, there was an even greater treasure beyond the lush greens of the Dales. Impressed upon by ages of tradition you set out on a quest to discover a wisdom obtained only through experience. 

Your story began with a knapsack and an ideal. Your curiosity and sense of duty knew no limits. No ocean or country border, not the brutality of the Penaultish Wilds, nor the blistering heat of the High Mist desert. Nothing, it seemed, could tame your thirst for knowledge.

 Did it ever occur to you that some things should remain unseen? That there are horrors and realities far beyond what you could understand? The dead can't tell their stories at the Gathering Feasts. Perhaps you've come too far.

Shaking the though from your head you press on in your quest to understand the Order's Blood Hunt. 

[/hider]


“[color=olive]Keep moving,[/color]” was the only reprieve from the musings of the fog around you. Ward Elias Black moved cautiously ahead of you. “There is a manor not far from here; we’ll make camp there for the night. Keep your heads.” He was a lanky man, and quite honestly, far from imposing. One of his eyes was badly scarred. Even in the night you could see the glow of an eye rendered defunct. He wielded a long-sword and short-sword with fists balled so tightly around them that he threatened to crush the metal sword grips. This was despite the frail husks that laid, dead, one on each shoulder. 

 He motioned you and the others through the wood, and into a clearing. From your vantage point you could see the ruins of a small village destitute of life. The air was thick, and you could hear the whimpers and groans of something stirring from within the dilapidated homes. Elias’s step never slowed, however. He looked back solemnly if only to confirm the fate of those within. Most of the cottages were collapsed in, and what was once stone road had been crushed and consumed by Ithea. Small particles fluttered through the air like [color=black][b]black snowfall.[/b] [/color]

The aforementioned manor loomed in the distance. It sat high upon a hill imposing its mass on the cottages below. Even from your position you could see that in comparison to the small host of homes before it, the estate was in pristine order. 

"[color=olive]It's just there, beyond the cottages.[/color]" Elias' stride quickened as he motioned for you and the others to follow behind him.