DoubleChecker

[Wickerford - Ryke] An eye for an eye

Garreth didn’t let the knife-man recover. He drove in close, caught the man’s forearm with the flat of his blade to keep the weapon-hand off line, then turned the hilt and cracked the pommel across the side of the bandit’s head. The strike was short, ugly, and final; the man’s knees buckled and he went down into the moss with a wet exhale. Garreth immediately melted into the brush, dragging the bandit with him, disappearing the way professionals do—no dramatic flourish, just a shift of weight and a vanishing angle between trunks.

At the clearing’s edge, the runner strained against the vines and brush Fredrick had forced them into—tangled, off-balance, still armed and very much still fighting. The bandit thrashed and twisted, trying to free a knee, trying to find purchase for a boot, trying—most of all—to get enough breath to shout. Each attempt made the bind bite tighter and the struggle louder, and Fredrick’s presence in that same foliage turned “call for help” into a gamble the runner didn’t quite dare to take.

Then the forest signaled again. A clipped birdcall—wrong for any bird—answered from deeper east, followed by the faint rhythm of feet on packed ground. Not a stampede yet, but purposeful movement, closing. Whoever the runner had been trying to reach had heard enough to start reacting.

Jilly’s “Plan J” took her low and fast, limited to short bursts—ten feet up at most, skimming beneath branches rather than soaring over them.

From that height, the canopy still blocked the wider world, but it couldn’t hide everything: cart grooves that cut east, a strip of trampled fern where bodies had passed recently, and—through a thin slit in the trees—a darker pocket where smoke thickened and voices murmured around something larger than a lookout fire. A wagon silhouette, maybe. One or two shapes posted where the logging cut narrowed.

[Wickerford - Ryke] An eye for an eye

The knife lookout tried to capitalize on the chaos—one quick step, blade angled low, the sort of ugly, practical lunge meant for ribs.

Garreth didn’t meet it with force. He met it with precision.

Steel kissed steel with a short, biting ring, and the old captain slid inside the bandit’s reach as if he’d been born there. The sword’s edge snapped down in a flat, punishing cut across the man’s knife hand—not enough to sever, but enough to make fingers spasm open. The knife fell into the moss with a dull thunk. Before the bandit could recover, Garreth’s shoulder drove forward, compact and brutal, and the guard staggered back a step with a wet grunt, pain flashing across his face as red began to bead through his sleeve.

He was hurt. Disarmed. Still on his feet—still in the fight—but suddenly very aware he wasn’t bullying villagers anymore.

Near the firepit, the whistle lookout made the only sensible choice left to him: panic.

He tried to backpedal away from Jilly’s shifting, hungry-looking jelly form, heels skidding on the softened ground. His foot caught—half in the churned mud, half in the viscous drag she’d left beneath him—and he went down hard, arms flailing for balance that wasn’t there. The back of his head clipped something unkind—a rock or a root jutting up through moss—with a sharp crack that made the sound in the clearing go momentarily thin.

He slumped.

Not dead. Not neatly restrained. Just sprawled with his eyes rolling, breath coming in uneven pulls, jaw slack as if his body hadn’t yet decided whether to wake or drift deeper. If anyone wanted answers from him, they would have to force him awake quickly, and even then whatever came out could be muddled by pain and shock.

At the edge of the clearing, Fredrick’s pursuit paid off despite the runner’s nasty elbow. He surged after them, driving a fist into them, using the momentum as his weapon. Vines and low branches snapped tight around limbs as the runner hit the tree; roots and brambles caught boots. The runner twisted and snarled, fighting the bind, but the greenery held fast enough to steal their mobility and turn speed into struggle.

Tangled.

Still dangerous. Still breathing.

For one precious breath, it looked like the clearing might belong to the party.

Then the forest answered.

Somewhere deeper along the logging cut, a branch snapped with purpose—not like a startled deer, but like a man shifting position to run. Another sound followed: a faint, sharp birdcall that didn’t match any bird in the marsh. It came once… then again, answered from farther away.

Garreth’s head lifted instantly, eyes narrowing toward the direction the runner had tried to flee.

“Signals,” he said, voice low and urgent. “They’ve got ears out there.”

And as if to underline his point, the smoldering firepit’s lid rattled faintly—vibration carried through the ground—followed by a distant murmur of movement: boots on packed earth, not close yet, but closing. The kind of sound that meant the window for leisurely interrogation was already bleeding away.

[Wickerford - Ryke] An eye for an eye

The whistle lookout snapped the cord up and drew a sharp breath, lips already pursing around the metal as his eyes fixed on the absurd blue figure in front of him. For a split second it looked like the shrill note would cut through the trees and wake the whole cut of forest—

Jilly’s punch landed.

It didn’t hit like a fist so much as a springy, impossible force, and whatever magic clung to her jelly-limbs flooded into the contact. The lookout’s cheeks ballooned on instinct, not with air for a whistle, but with a thick, glossy bubblegum swell that pushed out past his lips in a wobbling pink dome. His eyes went comically wide as the bubble grew—bigger, and bigger, and bigger—until it obscured half his face.

He tried to gasp, tried to spit, tried to pull the whistle away and make it work anyway, but the bubble only trembled and then—

POP.

A wet snap of sugar-scented goo burst across his nose and chin. Strings of gum clung to his mouth and the whistle alike, sealing his lips in a humiliating mess. The lookout staggered back coughing, shoulders heaving as if he’d sprinted a mile, one hand pawing uselessly at his face while the other shook with sudden fatigue. The alarm, for now, died in his throat.

To the side, the second lookout—knife already out—moved to pounce on the distraction.

He never reached Jilly.

Steel whispered, clean and practiced. Garreth’s sword slid into the gap like it had been waiting there all along, intercepting the knife hand with a sharp clang that rang off the low trees. The old captain didn’t waste words; his blade pressed, angled, and turned the bandit’s momentum aside, forcing him back a step, then another. It was not flashy. It was efficient—wrist control, footwork, and the quiet message of a man who’d fought in places where mistakes were fatal.

Above and beyond them, at the clearing’s edge, the runner bolted—fast, light, desperate.

Fredrick dropped from the canopy with the kind of decisive weight that should have ended it in one clean motion, a falling strike aimed to hammer the fleeing figure into the ground and keep them there. For an instant it looked perfect: runner distracted, Fredrick descending like judgment.

At the last heartbeat, the runner turned.

Not a panicked flinch—an uncanny, trained pivot as if they’d heard the shift of air itself. An elbow drove hard into Fredrick’s stomach the moment he came into range, a compact blow that stole breath and forced his body to fold just enough to ruin the angle of the drop. Pain flared, sharp and intimate, and the runner used the contact like a lever—slipping under and past him, twisting away into the brush with a burst of speed, gaining ground instead of losing it. [Fredrick's actions reduced from 3 to 2 this round]

The clearing held its breath.

No whistle screamed. No horn answered. But the forest was no longer asleep: the runner’s retreating footfalls were already carrying the news deeper into the trees, and somewhere beyond sight a branch snapped—either a second set of feet moving, or someone changing position to watch.

In the firepit, the coals still smoldered under the hurriedly kicked lid. Smoke continued to seep, thin and accusing.

[The Grand Duchy - Aslan] The Ascendant Spoon

Aslan’s skyline rises like stacked miracles—needle-towers linked by glass bridges, terraces hanging over terraces, lanterns drifting in lazy orbits along invisible spell-lines. From the lakeward side, the air tastes clean and wet, and the distant roar of docks and sky-carriages is softened by a thousand little warded silence-charms.

The restaurant is built into a cantilevered balcony halfway up a vertical district-spire: The Ascendant Spoon, an upscale place that pretends it isn’t upscale by using words like “taste atelier” and “casual wizard fare.” A ribbon of illusion starlight drifts under the awning, rearranging itself into constellations that don’t exist anywhere in the real sky.

At the entrance, the city’s threshold-barrier makes itself known as a faint pressure on the skin—like a hand hovering near the collar, polite but ready. A pair of carved guardian statues flank the doorway: tall, leonine figures in ceremonial armor, eyes dim as banked coals.

Then the door swings open.

A greeter steps forward with immaculate posture, a crisp vest, and a smile that is technically welcoming.

The only problem is that the smile is too wide, the eyes are too delighted, and the tail—no, surely that’s a fashion accessory—flicks once behind the vest.

Greeter

“Good evening, valued patrons! Welcome to The Ascendant Spo—” The greeter clears their throat with grave dignity. “—Spoon. Your reservation is under…?”

They produce a ledger and ink-quill with the practiced flourish of someone who has done this a thousand times.

The quill squeaks.

The greeter stares at it, offended on principle, then tries again with even more flourish.

The quill squeaks louder.

From somewhere deeper inside, a muffled voice calls out, “Burenyuu—!” followed by the unmistakable sound of something being flambéed that was never meant to be flambéed.

One of the guardian statues’ eyes brightens by a hair’s breadth, then dims again—as if reconsidering the value of movement.

The greeter leans in conspiratorially, lowering their voice to what they clearly believe is a professional whisper.

“Please ignore the ambience. It is… curated.”

A beat.

“And if you see another member of staff who looks exactly like me, no you didn’t.”

They straighten instantly, all poise again, and gesture inward toward a dining room of floating table-lamps, slow-rotating illusion murals, and diners pretending they aren’t fascinated.

“Right this way!”

[Wickerford - Ryke] An eye for an eye

The canopy swallowed sound the moment Jilly dropped below the treeline. Up close, the “smoke” wasn’t a towering plume at all—just a thin, gray smear seeping from a shallow firepit dug into damp earth, coaxed to burn low with green wood and wet bark. It smelled of soot and resin and something greasy that didn’t belong in a forester’s cookfire.

Jilly’s arrival turned that quiet into chaos. Her shouted declaration and earnest attempt at a heroic landing sent ash puffing outward in a soft burst, scattering pale flecks across moss and bootprints. For a heartbeat the clearing froze—then two men in drab travel leathers snapped upright as if yanked by strings. One kicked a pot-lid over the coals too late to hide the heat, eyes wide and unfriendly; the other’s hand went straight to his belt, fingers curling around a whistle cord and then—after spotting the jelly figure—hesitating, unsure what exactly he was looking at.

Fredrick, moving above it all, reached a branch thick enough to hold him and went still. From there, the scene sharpened into details a ground-level glance might miss: the firepit was positioned where the logging cut could be watched through a slit in the trees; the men weren’t relaxed like hunters or workers, but keyed tight like lookouts. Near the edge of the clearing, a short length of rope lay half-buried under leaves—an improvised snare line, the kind meant to trip an ankle in the dark. And leading away from the fire, pressed into softer patches of mud, were tracks that didn’t belong to villagers: heavier boots, irregular spacing, and the faint double-groove of a small cart that had been dragged rather than rolled.

Behind the treeline, Garreth moved with a veteran’s economy—no wasted steps, no snapped twigs—keeping close enough to Fredrick’s line of travel that a quick glance upward could still catch the old man’s position. He didn’t climb as readily as the younger man, but he knew the ground routes beneath the canopy, weaving between trunks to stay parallel, one hand occasionally raised in a silent signal: slow, watch, don’t commit yet.

In the clearing, the lookout’s fingers tightened on the whistle cord the instant Jilly’s landing scattered ash. The sharp inhale that followed was the kind Garreth had heard a hundred times—an alarm about to be born—giving only a breath of warning before sound would carry far beyond the trees.

The man with the whistle recovered first. He raised it toward his mouth, breath already drawing in—either to warn someone deeper in the woods or to call for help that wasn’t far. The other slid a knife free, not yet lunging, but angling his body so the firepit and the thin path behind him were both covered. Neither spoke a name. Neither asked who Jilly was. Their eyes kept flicking, not just at her, but past her—measuring whether more were coming.

In the hush between breaths, a third presence made itself known: a soft shift in brush off to the side, the sound of someone who’d been crouched low and was now moving away fast, careful not to break branches. Whoever it was didn’t want a fight—they wanted distance, and then they wanted to be a problem later.

The clearing held several truths at once: this wasn’t the bandits’ “home,” but it looked very much like a forward tooth of it—a place to watch the road, rest briefly, keep a fire small, and vanish when needed. And right now, the difference between a quiet lead and a raised alarm was the space of a single breath through a whistle.

[The Beastkin Republic] Will They Know Respite?

Itsy

​
Titles:
Beastkin - Mundane, Small (4ft) - 6ecff6

Itsy could smell them, before he saw them. The sweet, yet disgusting scent of rot made his long nostril crunch sideways slightly. "T-that smell like... really, really bad..." He murmured just before he could see the shifting figures on the horizon. Without delay, he drew his rapier from its scabbard, metal rasped as the thin, metallic tip was freed from the sheath.

"T-the time is now..." Steeling his nerves, the small beastkin charged one of the five Zombies (Zombie5). Darting through the snow, quick on his feet, he charged with the tip of his rapier pointing forward, almost as if he were a knight performing a cavalry charge. And, when he got close enough to his target, he thrusted the sword against it, aiming right at the epicenter of their chest. [Action 1/2]

Afterward, he moved backwards, creating some distance from the zombie.

Actions
1/2 - The Shrew Charge! - Fast F + Fighting Style [Swords] F + Hot Shot F - Itsy covers up to 20ft in a lightning charge, attacking a target and trying to hit a vital part for critical damage - Grade F 0 Post Cooldown - STR E (2) + SWORD F (1) + ABL F (1) = 4 BE vs Zombie5
3 - Move backwards 10ft

E 1/1

[Wickerford - Ryke] An eye for an eye

Harrowfen Bridge held the group in its narrow calm while the marsh below whispered on, indifferent to urgency. Marra’s hands still shook against her apron, but the fact she hadn’t been dragged back to Wickerford yet was a kind of fragile victory—one she seemed afraid to acknowledge out loud.

Jilly’s impatience cut through that fear like a bell. Her answer to the whole tangled mess was immediate and simple—raid them; get in, save people, get out—delivered with the kind of certainty that only comes from not overthinking it.

Frederick’s enthusiasm sparked right along with it, then tempered into something sharper: if the bandits never stay in one place, the real problem isn’t courage—it’s finding them in time, or intercepting them on the move.

Garreth Trask Former Captain of Wickerford's Guard ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Garreth listened without interrupting, eyes narrowed toward the east as if he could will the answers out of the fog. When Jilly produced the baby-blue cape and lifted into the air on a puff of cloud—circling above them like an excited scout—his expression didn’t change much, but his approval was plain in the way he immediately switched into practical detail. “They won’t look like storybook brigands,” Garreth said, voice low. “Some will—patched cloaks, mismatched armor, too many knives. But the ones that matter dress like they’re trying not to be remembered. Dark wool, travel-stained leather, simple helms. They’ll use cords and little tells instead—green twine at the wrist, a snake knot on a belt, a mark inked behind the ear. If you see a wagon with two riders too far apart, that’s not a caravan. That’s teeth.”

Marra swallowed and forced herself to add what she could, as if afraid that speaking too long would summon the guards again. “They don’t take from everyone,” she said. “They take from the ones who can’t afford to resist. And… they came close this time. Too close.” Her voice caught on the last words, and she pressed her lips together hard, as if holding the rest inside would keep her standing.

It was Rat who finally put the missing piece on the bridge between fear and action. His voice came shaky at first, then steadier as he pushed through the nerves: guards talking about a captain, orders to keep clear past the old logging path, and the certainty that the bandits—if they were smart—would move east again, because they always did.

He added the other line too, the one that made Marra’s face go even paler: never thought they’d take a kid this close to the village.

Garreth Trask Former Captain of Wickerford's Guard ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Garreth went very still at that, then nodded once, as if something he’d suspected finally had a name. “The old logging path,” he murmured. “A scar through the reeds and birch—starts like a harmless trail and turns into a quick road if you know where the ground is firm. That’s how they ghost past patrols. And if they’re ‘too close’… then they’re either bold… or they’re staging—holding someone nearby until nightfall before they move.”

Above, Jilly’s flight widened into a true sweep. From that height the world simplified: dull greens, dark water, pale birch stands, and the thin geometry of human passage. East of Wickerford, the logging cut revealed itself as a faint but unmistakable line—ground packed harder than it should be, with breaks where carts had bitten into softer mud. Further along, half-hidden beneath the canopy, a smear of gray rose and vanished: smoke kept low, as if someone was trying not to advertise a fire.

Garreth Trask Former Captain of Wickerford's Guard ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Garreth’s fingers tightened on the bridge’s stone rail. “If you’re going to hit them,” he said, “you don’t hit the village. You don’t shout your plans. You pick the path that makes them predictable—where a cart must slow, where the trees narrow, where a lookout can’t see around the bend. Or you shadow them until you find where they stash what they take.”

The bridge didn’t offer comfort, but it offered clarity. With Rat’s warning and Jilly’s eyes in the sky, they finally had something Wickerford had refused to give them: a direction that meant more than hope.

Open next steps, depending on what the group chooses to do:

- Follow the logging path east and close the distance fast—treat it as an interception before dusk.
- Use aerial scouting to confirm whether that smoke is a camp, a rest stop, or a decoy—then move with better certainty.
- Set an ambush at a pinch point Garreth identifies along the cut, forcing the bandits to come through on ground that favors the party.

[The Duchy: Aslan] .·:★・¨༺ 𝔓𝔯𝔦𝔡𝔢 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔓𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔦𝔤𝔢 ༻¨・★:·.

Sir Edwin Stormcrest?

​
@Moonberry
@Tellussoil

Titles
[Human - Mundane], [Noble Ryke Baron] B, [Apprentice Lancer], [Power Potential], [Get Looped], [Dark Knight], [Knight in Black], [Dark Horseman] - #0E0101
Noteworthy Skills: [Resilient Surprised], Regeneration F
Asset Goal: ?

"Petulant fool." Edwin hissed, his three-pronged lance was raised, tip already aiming at Noelle back. What made him pause and not continue whatever he had planned was the small mana pup. As the creature dashed towards him and began pawing his armored greaves, his eyes narrowed. The insistence and sharp whine: something had to be wrong.

It enough to send the dark knight lunging forward. With each shrieked of plate on plate, a thundering footfall followed. Sabatons smashed against the polished marble, each strike heavy enough to leave cracks in his wake. He didn't slow down. He wouldn't slow down.

Edwin kept the maddening rush, ready to trample anyone who got in his way. The three-pronged spear pointed forward, shield held up right beside it. It was a charge without horse.

And, as one of the screens flickered to lane Seven, he slowed infinitesimally. Only enough for his azure eyes to catch on what was really happening on it. Speed increased once more. The scarred beast was seen, but she had little importance to the moment.

The dark horseman crashed through the barrier and into the lane, a bull-rush towards the one holding the masked one holding Aedrianna down. "I WILL STRANGLE YOU WITH YOUR OWN INTESTINES!" He bellowed, veins on his temples bulging, looking ready to burst; The cords on his neck stood out like steel cables; His nostrils flared in quick succession.

When close enough, he winded back his shield arm, bringing it forward with full force, ready to smash the golden masked cultist with it. [Action 3]

Actions:
1 - Movement 20ft
2 - Movement 20ft
3 - Shield Bash - Fighting Style [Lance] C + Generalist [Shield] F + Blight [Lightning] F + Continuing F + Deflect F + Superstrength E + Athletics F - Grade C 3 Post Cooldown - STR A (6) + Shield B (5) + Ability C (4) = 15 Base Effectiveness

[Shield of Brutality and Constancy] - B 2/4
Edwin - C 0/3

[The Beastkin Republic] Will They Know Respite?

Itsy

​
Titles:
Beastkin - Mundane, Small (4ft) - 6ecff6

Everyone once in a while, there was a subtle shiver from Itsy, the merciless cold making the very tip of his elongated snout almost numb. His tail had already curled itself around his leg and hidden into his boot. Meanwhile, those beady, black eyes darted around the snow, the changing of lifeless vegetation to one that seemed to resist even the harsh cold.

Eyebrows knead as life appeared to have been suddenly stopped. His gaze darted towards some of the houses, eyes narrowing. He didn't like it. He didn't like it one bit. "C-careful with the houses... they might be hiding something inside of them..." The small beast advised right after Yukan.

He would then begin straining his senses, eyes sharpening, nostril sniffing as he tried to detect if there was anything amiss. [Action 1]

Actions:
1 - A Shrewd Shrew - Enhanced Senses [Sight/Smell] E - Grade E 1 Post Cooldown

E 0/1

[Wickerford - Ryke] An eye for an eye

[If you are interested in joining a setting like this, check out: roleplayerguild.com/topics/196759-ise…]

@Mazn Zito - Asset Goal = ?
@VoLimiNaL - Asset Goal = ?
@MrJack - Asset Goal = ?
@Spoiled Bread - Asset Goal = ?
@Scarcerushdown - Asset Goal = ?

Harrowfen Bridge — Names, Truths, and Quiet Decisions

For a few moments after everyone gathers, only the marsh speaks.

Water slides sluggishly beneath the stone arch. Reeds whisper against one another. Somewhere far off, a bird calls once and then goes quiet again. The bridge holds them in a narrow pocket of stillness, suspended between village and road, consequence and choice.

Garreth Trask Former Captain of Wickerford's Guard ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Garreth watches the group settle, his gaze moving slowly from face to face, measuring posture and breath the way old soldiers do without thinking about it. Jilly’s question finally pulls him out of his silence. The old man exhales, one hand resting against the cold stone railing. “Garreth Trask,” he says. “Captain of Wickerford’s guard… once.” There is no pride in the title. Only history. “I trained half the men wearing those tabards back there,” he continues. “Taught them how to stand a line, how to spot ambushes, how to keep their mouths shut when it mattered. Eventually, they learned that last part better than the rest.” His eyes flick briefly toward the village. “They forced me out when I started asking the wrong questions. Early retirement, they called it. I call it surviving.”

Marra stands with her arms folded tightly around herself, shoulders hunched as if bracing against an invisible cold. When she speaks again, her voice trembles—but it doesn’t break. “They come through sometimes,” she says. “Not openly. Always at night. They don’t wear colors or banners. Just men with weapons who already know which doors won’t be opened for them.”

She swallows.

“They don’t take much. Food. Tools. Sometimes livestock. And sometimes…” Her jaw tightens. “Sometimes people.”

Garreth Trask Former Captain of Wickerford's Guard ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Garreth nods once. “Bandits,” he says flatly. “Organized. Mobile. Smart enough not to stay in one place too long. They use the marsh and the old logging paths to move unseen, and they’ve got friends inside the Baron’s territory who make sure patrols look the other way.” His gaze sharpens. “That’s why the guards told you to leave. Not because Marra’s mad. Because helping her means stepping into something that’s been normalized. Quietly. Carefully.”

Frederick’s question hangs in the air, finally answered.

Marra draws a shaky breath. “I tried to raise my voice,” she says. “I tried asking neighbors. I tried the guards. All I got back was silence and warnings. They told me I should be grateful it wasn’t worse.”

Her eyes lift to the group. “So I went to Greybank.”

The marsh sighs beneath them.

Garreth Trask Former Captain of Wickerford's Guard ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Garreth’s attention shifts, slow and deliberate, until it settles on Rat. Not accusing. Not demanding. Just observant. “You,” he says gently. The old captain crouches slightly, bringing himself closer to the boy’s height without invading his space. “You don’t stand like someone who’s empty-handed.” He studies Rat’s grip on the stick, the angle of his shoulders, the way his head tilts as if listening to more than wind and water. “I’ve seen that look before,” Garreth continues. “It’s the look of someone who heard something they haven’t decided what to do with yet.” He lets the silence stretch, giving room rather than pressure. Whether Rat speaks or not, Garreth straightens after a moment, accepting the outcome either way. “All right,” he says quietly. He looks back to the group as a whole. “Here’s what we know: they move often, avoid the marsh when they think eyes are on them, and favor the eastern paths when relocating. They don’t act alone, and they don’t operate without someone higher up making sure consequences never reach them.” His voice hardens, just a fraction. “And they don’t take children unless they’re sending a message—or unless someone let them.” He rests both hands on the bridge’s stone railing. “You’ve pulled Marra out from under their thumb. That means you’re already involved.” The old soldier looks at each of them in turn. “So now we decide what kind of involved.”

The bridge waits.

The village smolders quietly behind them.

And the road ahead remains open—ready for whatever choice they make next.