Brithwyr

Ascension 3: A return to Chaos

Bonstance

Name: Bonnie of Gaia

Age: 19

Bloodline: Oro

Appearance Bonnie is short, barely hitting five foot, with mid-length white hair and big, red eyes. His body is slim a dexterous, like that of a gymnast, hiding his true strength. He has a noticeable set of horns jutting out of his forehead, a pair of powerful scaly wings and a long, thick tail. All three are bright blue normally, but that can change.

Group: None.

Physique: Small and slim, looks quite soft and squishy.

Abilities: Bonnie's trademark ability is his insane durability. He is deceptively tough, well trained in defensive fighting and has several shielding spells to boot. Bonnie can take the attacks of his enemies and transform them into his own strength, gradually growing in power until it overtakes him. At this point, Bonnie's durability and resistance is replaced by an insane speed and savage offence, going from a mighty glacier to a fast-paced bruiser with. This is foretold by the colour of his horns and tail - when defensive, they are a dim green. As he absorbs power, they gradually turn yellow, then a bright red. After this burst of energy, they will go green again. His horns and tail are blue if he does not feel threatened.

Spells:

Ward - Bonnie extends his hand out in front of him, creating a near invisible barrier right in front of him. This last until it is either broken or until he lowers his hand.

Mage Armour - Bonnie creates a personal shield that protects his body from all attacks, physical and magical, for a duration. Particularly powerful attacks may break through, and the strength of the armour deteriorates the longer the spell goes without being re-cast.

Barrier - Bonnie places a hand on the ground, generating a sphere of protective magic around him. Whilst he can control how far this sphere extends, it will always be perfectly spherical and cannot discern between friends and foes. Anyone inside the barrier can still attack and interact with anyone else inside the barrier, including Bonnie.

Pet: None

Experience: He's no bandit, but he has had a few altercations with the law in the past, mostly due to his attempts at liberating what he sees as innocent people. He's also lived on the streets most of his life and as anyone who's done that before can tell you, it's not easy. Combat experience is mostly scraps and riots, and the occasional raid on a slaver camp.
He learned his magic from a bum he used to fight with, in exchange for certain favours. The man was a drunken sot and spent half his time in a drunken daze, and the other half sleeping off a hangover. Despite early training going well, Bonnie wasnt able to learn much more than a few defensive spells before the old man drank himself to death, leaving Bonnie tutorless.

Motivation: Liberty - Bonnie refuses to be pinned down in one place too long, nor submit to any authority, and wishes to spread his radical ideas of justice, freedom and liberty to all to as many people as he can

Birthplace: A gutter child from the streets of Gaia, hence the surname

Extra Info: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ascension 3: A return to Chaos

A challenger enters the fray

Bonstance

Name: Bonnie of Gaia

Age: 19

Bloodline: Oro

Appearance Bonnie is short, barely hitting five foot, with mid-length white hair and big, red eyes. His body is slim a dexterous, like that of a gymnast, hiding his true strength. He has a noticeable set of horns jutting out of his forehead, a pair of powerful scaly wings and a long, thick tail. All three are bright blue normally, but that can change.

Group: None.

Physique: Small and slim, looks quite soft and squishy.

Abilities: Bonnie's trademark ability is his insane durability. He is deceptively tough, well trained in defensive fighting and has several shielding spells to boot. Bonnie can take the attacks of his enemies and transform them into his own strength, gradually growing in power until it overtakes him. At this point, Bonnie's durability and resistance is replaced by an insane speed and savage offence, going from a mighty glacier to a fast-paced bruiser with. This is foretold by the colour of his horns and tail - when defensive, they are a dim green. As he absorbs power, they gradually turn yellow, then a bright red. After this burst of energy, they will go green again. His horns and tail are blue if he does not feel threatened.

Spells:

Ward - Bonnie extends his hand out in front of him, creating a near invisible barrier right in front of him. This last until it is either broken or until he lowers his hand.

Mage Armour - Bonnie creates a personal shield that protects his body from all attacks, physical and magical, for a duration. Particularly powerful attacks may break through, and the strength of the armour deteriorates the longer the spell goes without being re-cast.

Barrier - Bonnie places a hand on the ground, generating a sphere of protective magic around him. Whilst he can control how far this sphere extends, it will always be perfectly spherical and cannot discern between friends and foes. Anyone inside the barrier can still attack and interact with anyone else inside the barrier, including Bonnie.

Pet: None

Experience: He's no bandit, but he has had a few altercations with the law in the past, mostly due to his attempts at liberating what he sees as innocent people. He's also lived on the streets most of his life and as anyone who's done that before can tell you, it's not easy. Combat experience is mostly scraps and riots, and the occasional raid on a slaver camp.
He learned his magic from a bum he used to fight with, in exchange for certain favours. The man was a drunken sot and spent half his time in a drunken daze, and the other half sleeping off a hangover. Despite early training going well, Bonnie wasnt able to learn much more than a few defensive spells before the old man drank himself to death, leaving Bonnie tutorless.

Motivation: Liberty - Bonnie refuses to be pinned down in one place too long, nor submit to any authority, and wishes to spread his radical ideas of justice, freedom and liberty to all to as many people as he can

Birthplace: A gutter child from the streets of Gaia, hence the surname

Extra Info: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ascension 3: A return to Chaos

Shit, the knights were here! No time to fuck around, Siiga had to protect this old lady before they did her any harm! Pulling the mask up around her face to protect her from the gas, Siiga drew her sword, a cruel and wicked looking blade, and held it defensively

"If you made it here, that means Stretch and his boys are either dead or ran away," she sighed. "I always gotta do everything myself, don't I?"

RIP in pepperoni, you magnificent bastards. A waste of skin and bone, the lot of you, but good friends and good people. They wouldn't be missed by the world in general, but they would be by Siiga. Her smile was twinged with sadness. No more jokes. No more drinking games. No more robbing rich bastards who pissed themselves when their guards were subdued. It was like an era of her life had passed by without her realising it. She never even said goodbye.

"But we're not dead, not all of us. I'm still here! So have you got the guts to finish the job, or am I gonna have to clean your blood out my coat tonight!?"

The older boy wanted to engage her, but Siiga wouldn't give him the privilege. From what she'd just witnessed, those scraps of paper had some kind of spell on them. Siiga didn't know what those spells were, but they couldn't be good for her and hers. They needed to go. Then, they had to die.

"Not a cat person, huh? Maybe you prefer dogs?" As she spoke, Siiga waved her free hand roughly in his direction. Maybe he would flinch, maybe he wouldn't. But surely everyone would give pause at the sound of a low growl reverberating around the chamber. Behind Dremmick, two snarling wolves stepped into the light, drooling lava as the assessed their target. Siiga didn't even need to tell them what they had to do, but she said it anyway. "KILL!"

The wolves would prove more of a challenge than the lion. For one, there was two of them, and they knew pack tactics. If Dremmick focused on attacking one, the other would surely savage him. Hopefully it would get the younger lad's attention and he would come to help. Siiga sheathed her sword for now. Her only immediate threat was...

In a single bound, Constance would find her path suddenly blocked by the bandit. She grinned behind her mask and reached out, grabbing the poor girl and drawing her in close to her chest. "May I have this dance?" she taunted, one hand wrapping around Connie's waist and the other grabbing her hand, stopping her from using the paper. With a reckless swing and a trained grace, she took the girl through an impromptu waltz. Somehow avoiding stepping on her toes with those heavy boots of hers, Siiga swayed her back and forth like they were the only two in the world.

Eventually, she took the poor girl for a dip. Green eyes met red, and at some point of the dance, Siiga's mask had slipped down, revealing her face. There was a quiet, tense couple of seconds, letting Constance drink in her captor's face.

"You're lips look lonely" came a breathy, husky whisper. "Maybe they'd like to meet mine"

And like that, Siiga went in for the kill. She pressed her lips against Connie's and kissed her with all the passion of a young lover. At the same time, she snaked her hand into hers, trying to wrestle the paper from her.

Ascension 3: A return to Chaos

Caught between the old lady and the newcomer, Siiga's eyes narrowed. In truth, she didn't know what she was after. The orb? The old woman? Something else entirely? She didn't like that there was someone else here, and she especially didn't like the old woman's ghostly hands.

"Look, if you want to fight, that can be arranged. But I'd rather not." Siiga's tone hardened. "There are knights coming. I don't know how many, and I don't know in how many waves. But they WILL be coming here, looking for that artifact. And although I'm happy to put some of the king's chambermaids to the sword, I don't want them hurting a distinguished lady like you."

"So if I were you, lady, I'd hide. Hide that artifact, then hide yourself, before they get here."

Ascension 3: A return to Chaos

We return now to Those Wacky Bandits, starring Siiga.

Rather than wait for her clueless gadabouts to catch up, Siiga ploughed on. No point on lagging behind waiting for a load of drunk chumps to catch up. Besides, the sooner she got there, the sooner the Artifact was hers.

She moved surprisingly fast considering she had no mount. Maybe now that she had cast off her drunken companions, she didn't have to stop and start every thirty steps. The terrain was familiar to her as a bandit, forest making way for rocky outcrop. She marched on and on, ears sensitive for the sounds of horse hoofs while her eyes scanned for this cave.

She found it on the northeast side. It looked pretty unassuming, but experience told Siiga that didn't mean anything in the long run. Entire treasure troves were buried in the back of seemingly unassuming caves, so it paid to check out each and every dusty hole with a fine brush just it make sure it wasn't hiding the Holy Grail. And although this wasn't hiding any grails, it was hiding something equally as impressive.

A long rocky bridge stretched out before her, leading to a castle like structure at the end. Siiga knew better than to question the logic of the storage areas for magical artifacts and didn't bother asking questions as she toddled gormlessly along the bridge. Her hand was on the hilt of her blade the whole while, expecting some hidden guardian to rise from the floor and pound her into luncheon meat. No such fortune, and instead she wound up in a room with a spiral staircase. Boy, whoever designed this place was really overthinking it. What happened to the old "hidden nature sanctuary" method of hiding mystical bullshit artifacts? Some trees, a river, maybe a waterfall or some crystals... why a massive castle inside a cave? It was like someone had an image that they really wanted to use and just built the place to specification without rhyme or reason as to what would be logical.

But whatever, if it had the artifact and those knights werent here, then she was quids in, right? That's what she thought as she went up the stairs.
But this place was cliche central. Some old biddie in a hood sat over an orb and whisper into it like a gypsy. She couldn't help but roll her eyes.

"So what brings you here?" Asked the Gypsy. Siiga shrugged, her hands still firmly on the hilt of that sword.

"Looking for a magic artifact. Was told it would be here" she said candidly.

The Dark Ages...but in Space! (Space NRP, name pending)

A space-age NRP?

The Political Thread

The problem with guns isnt a lack of legislation against them. The problem is that people think legislating against them is enough.

It seems to me that neither Democrat or Republican in the US and neither Labour or Conservative in the UK are tackling the causes or crime, only the after effects. When someone's already involved in organised crime, its too late.

Take, for instance, the town of Addiewell in the UK. Disasterous amounts of child abuse, neglect, drug and alcohol abuse, assault... All kinds of horrible things. But the town also has an 80% unemployment rate. There are no jobs available, and no business seems to want to touch the place. Then the parents inflict that on their kids and the cycle begins anew when the kids have kids.

I honestly believe if we're going to tackle gun violence and organised crime, we need to tackle poverty at the same time

Ascension 3: A return to Chaos

The bandit gang was fighting their stomachs as the followed their glorious leader's instructions. They, ahem, borrowed a few horses from the stables, and Siiga, being Siiga, conjured herself a massive flaming lion to mount up and ride. It was quite a sight, seeing this young lady leading a gang of rough and scarred thugs away on a glorious burning beast. Anyone watching it would be telling stories to their neighbours, I'll tell you that much right now.

They rode as hard as they could, discounting the occasional stop to empty their stomachs and/or bladders of their contents, and they thought they were making good pace towards the mountains. They were lighter than those they were outrunning, but they didnt have the benefits of the fancy armours and horses that had been gifted to their rivals. This was going to be close, even if Siiga didnt realise it yet.

The land here was scarred and battered. Ruined by generations of kings squabbling over petty territory disputes no doubt. In her mind, the injuries of the land just compounded why she couldnt let the king get this artifact. What would he use it for other than conquest and expanding his dominion? At least she was honest about her goals. She wanted money. She was going to get money. And fuck anyone who was going to take that money from her.

They came to a forest when the bandits finally decided to stop. The horses were getting tired, they said. Liars. They were too blasted to even know how tired the horses were.

"Boss, maybe some of us should stay behind." One of the more sober thugs offered.

Siiga turned, her face lit from the blazing corona that made up the lion's mane. "And why, pray tell, should we do that?"

Stretch, for once in his fucking life, actually had a good idea. "Those knights will be following us, right? We should stay back and ambush em! Then no one will be chasin' us and we can go a little slower"

Siiga could see through their petty excuses. They wanted to stop and wait for the buzz to pass. Still, an ambush did sound appealing. It would get rid of those fucking knights, thats for sure, and they might have some good loot they could use or sell.

"Alright, alright, fine. Who wants to stay behind for the ambush?" Everyones hand went up. Of course they did. "Fine. How about you set up by that stream and I'll carry on..."

"Boss, we could really use some help, y'know?"

Ugh. Fine! If these shitheads needed to be fucking babied all the way there, then fuck it! "Alright, alright! Stretch, you're in charge! Have your boys set up some caltrops in the stream! When the horses hit them, stick em with arrows from a range. And keep out of sight, y'hear?"

She dismounted from her lion and starting walking, turning her back on the gang of ruffians. "If shit goes down, set the big guy on em. Ride up to me as soon as they're gone. As soon as, got it? You'll have no trouble catching up if you keep your horses out of sight."

Leaving Stretch and his men behind to prepare the ambush by the stream, Siiga herself starting hoofing it. Trust those bandits to take the lazy way out

Ascension 3: A return to Chaos

Oh for fuck's... Couldn't a girl go out and have a nice time without some slack-jawed knight in shining armour coming over and demanding to get involved? Just when the punch-up was about to start, too. Yaaaawn.

Course, before she could make her dissatisfaction known and kindly request that the knight select the window through which he would make his departure, another bampot decided he would get involved too. Some glowy fucker, I dunno. Didn't recognise the face. Regardless, Siiga's hand slipped to her hip and settled on the knife hilt there. If things got ugly, she wanted to land the first hit.

"This doesn't concern you, old man. Piss off" Siiga snarled.

He talked so fancy, it was sickening. You could tell a lot about a person by the way they talked. For example, from the way Sir Glows-a-lot was talking, Siiga could tell he was a pure bellend, and probably a kiddie fiddler. All "youthful folk" this and "young one" that. And yet everyone seemed so enraptured by him, like they were looking at the Gods themselves. That just seemed like a good way to inflate his ego, she thought, still not letting go of her dagger.

He cast some glowy spells - because of course he did - and insisted that she go and grab some ancient mystical artifact for him. Oh, and he was a king, apparently. Siiga reacted to that the same way one would react to being told the weather. A king, sending other people to do his dirty work? Whomever would have thunk it?

"Cut the "young one" crap, old man. You're giving me the creeps." was Siiga's initial response, before her features softened. "Yo,if you're that dead set on getting it, why dontcha get it yourself? Either way, I'm sure it can wait til after the festival" when the booze has run dry, she added under her breath.

She sat down, ready to go back to her drinks. A night of strong beer and easy women lay before her. But no sooner than had she taken the first sip did she hear...

"...I need someone from the Aion to get this relic..."

Siiga slammed her mug down. "Come on, lads. Get up. We're moving"

The general reaction was a confused "huh?"

"If we dont get a move on, those fancy-ass knight motherfuckers are gonna get it first. Like fuck am I letting that happen. Come on, lets go!"

Still very drunk, the motley band of crooks gathered their things and staggered out the door. They were gonna find this artifact, and damn the knights and their Day-Glo king

Ascension 3: A return to Chaos

Friends, Enemies and the line between them

With the ongoing festival, it was a lot easier for a few misfits to squeeze through the cracks. The guards were overworked trying to keep track of all the visitors. Of course all the big names were kept on lists, but the average schmuck got barely more than a cursory check before being waved through. No guard wanted to be that guy, you know the one. The one that keeps everyone back because they think that guy in the crowd sort of looks like that petty thief from three nights ago. No, the guards were there to do their job. Big important guests got ticked off the list, everyone else just had to present a badge.

And you know, those badges weren't exactly hard to come across. Sometimes in the excitement, people would drop theirs. Particularly skilled craftsmen could make near perfect replicas. Maybe you'd find one on, say, the battered and broken corpse of a greedy, exploitative merchant and his bodyguards on the road to the city. Lots of places to pick one up.

So was it really a surprise that Siiga Kalayo, notorious outlaw and defiler of heirs, had managed to give the guards the slip? I don't imagine so. And was it really surprising that her and her closest companions had managed to sniff out a bar and were currently in the process of getting, and I believe this is the medical term, drunk as a fiddler's bitch? Of course, they weren't all three sheets to the wind. While her companions were busy making their livers cry, Siiga herself was taking a more moderate approach. After all, what was the point of having a fun night if you couldn't remember it the next morning?

Of course they got some funny looks. It didn't help that, being strapped to the teeth, girded in light armour and with bandannas hanging from their necks, ready to be pulled over their faces at a moment's notice, they couldn't more obviously be bandits if someone had pinned their wanted posters to the back of their necks. But the thing is, they hadn't actually done anything yet. Sloshed though they may be, they hadn't been belligerent or particularly loud, nor where they driving the clientele away. They'd paid for all their drinks, though it probably wasn't a good idea to think too hard about where the money came from, and even their passes at the serving girls had been tamer than what they were used to. Except for Stretch. But Stretch was a fucking idiot. No one listened to Stretch.

Now, they were all set up for having a jolly old time of drinking, maybe a bit of dancing later and probably having a massive feast with all the money that someone else worked so hard to earn. But Siiga's relative sobriety meant she was acutely aware of what everyone around her was saying. Most ignored them. The few that made comments said stuff like "they're having fun" or "Looks like they're having a good time". Harmless stuff. Except for those three. Stuffed shirt types in heavy armour, they were, and coincidentally, a trio of colossal dicks. Every time one of the gang made a joke, they'd sneer and turn their noses up at them. If they ordered another round of beers, they would request some fancy-ass wine with a name that sounded exactly like the noise your dog makes when he's somehow swallowed a plastic bag. It was starting to get on Siiga's nerves.

But the last straw came when they finally made a comment about them out loud. Stretch thought he was a lady's man. Because of course it was Stretch. When is it ever not Stretch? No, seriously, pause for a second and think of a time when a night out was fucked up by anyone except Stretch. Can't do it, can you? Fuck's sake, Stretch. Anyway, he had been hitting on this waitress all night, who had been taking it pretty well, when he pulled the cheesiest line out of his ass.

"Hey, babe, I wish I could rearrange the alphabet, so I could put U and I together"

The waitresses didn't even blink "We don't need to rearrange the alphabet. N and O are already next to each other"

That's what you get, Stretch. Next time don't be such a goddamn moron. After that verbal spanking, Stretch was noticeably quite embarrassed and the others were teasing him for it when one of the armoured types said:
"Of course she said no. The ladies here actually have some class." And then, looking dead at Siiga, he added, "Most of them, anyway"

That was the tipping point. Siiga wasn't going to take an insult like that to her face without saying something. She'd had just enough of these stuffy asswipes.
"What was that? You said something."

To their credit, two of them at least had the decency to look embarrassed. The one who actually made the comment, he did not.
"I said, most of the ladies here have class. Is that a word your familiar with, you drunken whore?"

Siiga didn't back down. Oh, no, not one bit. She stood up, cracked her knuckles, and responded "And I thought today was gonna be boring! Come on, tough guy, come here and say that to my face!"

The stuffy type didnt rise to her challenge sadly
"Oh, and she's violent, too! I'd love to fight, but I'm afraid I'd catch some kind of disease from your blood"

"Ooh, good one. I'll need to remember that next time I'm rolling off of your mum." Childish, maybe, but it was all a set-up for "How is your sister these days? Daddy still treating her well?"

That one struck a nerve. "Is that supposed to be funny?"

"Jeez, lighten up, big guy. Where's your sense of humour?" The bandit went on. "I think Daddy's been leaving someone out of family fun time again~"

The armoured guy's eyes narrowed and his voice was a hoarse whisper. "Say that again. I dare you."

"Oh, you mean, the thing I just said, right now? Certainly. Ahem. I - that's me - think - thats a mental process, you might not be familiar with it - Daddy - that is, your father - has been leaving someone - thats you - out of family fun time -I, heh, really don't think we need to go into that - again - that's implying that this has happened before"

The atmosphere in the bar was noticeably tenser than it was ten minutes ago. You could almost hear the silent willing of the onlookers chanting "fight, fight, fight" as the two squared off. Actually, that might just be me, I forgot to take my Seroquel this morning.