Dragoknighte

The Wolves of Red Lake (Completed)

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Harry Kingsfield

Location: Abandoned House

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Feeling the rain fall on him even inside the house brought one thing to mind immediately: regret. He knew he should have taken an umbrella. However, he was already inside the house. It was too late to just go back and return. It wasn't actually, but he didn't feel like going there and back, despite it only being maybe 100 feet away at most. For the time being, he'd do his best to avoid the spots that were most prone to rainfall or looked too rotten.

That was actually a more difficult task than it would seem, given how bad a state the house seemed to be in. There were either pieces of roof scattered about, or the floorboards looked rather compromised in terms of structural strength. He didn't want to see if this house had a basement because he stepped on the wrong place. But despite the setbacks facing him, Harry still managed to make his way across the room to the front of the foyer, where he had spotted some of the few remaining pieces of furniture.

The PI had a long, hard look at the photo. It was an odd feeling. Just seeing the man's face again, even in the form of a painting was enough for his spine to grind together. But on the other hand, whatever that thing was now carried with it some context. This was a lead that he could pursue. It had a name, and that made it a real thing he could deal with. Or at least attempt to. This was a good decision, coming here.

Harry set the image down and pulled out his notebook to jot down some ideas. Namely, setting aside a page or two of blank space for him to deduce what exactly that man in a suit was. Given this new piece of evidence on the first line under the header he simply jotted down "Ghost?"

Given that he'd likely be talking to others about this, he'd need some sort of reference other than just a name, item and location, so he pulled out his insanely durable but underutilized phone. With a bit of fiddling, he was able to snap a few pictures of the portrait, only one or two of which came out looking good. Marveling at the convenience of modern technology, Kingsfield moved on from the foyer to investigate deeper into the abandoned house.

🦄 Duplicity - D&D Style Fantasy Rp Adventure (Completed)

Cyne

Location: Tower 3F
Interacting with:Keystone, HF and CLB

There was only so much new stimulus that Cyne was able to process at one time, especially when wildshaped in the middle of battle. She was focused on who her next target should be so that the rest of the group would be able to quickly finish up the rest of the enemies and apprehend the hooded man who had done nothing but create havoc for the past who knows how long now. Then suddenly Keystone ran up to her (she didn't react much due to his "ally" status) and grabbed her foreleg rather roughly. Before the more perverted section of her brain could even quip to itself about how he could at least take her out to dinner first, there was a sudden shift in how her weight was distributed.

The next thing that occurred was a sensation she was familiar with, but didn't make sense at all given the facts of the situation. She was hurtling through the air. She'd spent enough time as various birds that the lack of any solid support didn't set off any psychological or biological panic buttons, but she wasn't a bird. She was a big ol' bear who had dwarfed or at least been comparable in size to just about everything they'd faced so far. How was enough force even generated to put her in such a situation?

She didn't even have the time to think of that question, let alone answer it, as the weightless sensation only lasted for a few moments before it was rudely interrupted by another familiar situation. Pain. Or Falling. She wasn't entirely sure what it was, but there were a few hard thuds and her flight motion took a turn for the rotary. If she had any idea what was happening in relation to her position in time and space before, it was certainly gone now. A few more thuds and the flying became a roll that became a flop, leaving the bear lying on its stomach.

The bear slowly melted away back into the half-orc druid, who remained face down on the floor for a few moments before she pushed herself up to see what the hell just happened. She was achey, a bit cut up and bruised, but more or less okay. She looked down and saw she was absolutely plastered head to toe in all sorts of biological matter, so all that accomplished was give her stomach a turn as it sunk in how disgusting she was right then. She was now on the opposite side of the room from where she was. Cyne looked over to where she was, and in a line where the Centipede and Hooded Figure were there was... bits and pieces of flesh scattered this way and that. She looked over and found most of the necromancer's upper body laying motionless, eyes wide open. Other than the zombie and snake, all the enemies on the floor had been taken care of.

Whatever just happened seemed to work out for the best after all.

🦄 The Paradoxical Emendation - Merged With T.S.

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Giosue Zino

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Location: Dining Room
Skills: N/A

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Well, nobody was coming with of their own accord, which didn't really surprise him. Everyone in this batch seemed to gravitate towards Nancy and Evelina save for one. However, Eve did see it fit to appoint him with a follower in the form of the young man known as Bartholomew. He hadn't met him earlier outside the house, but they were in proximity for the funeral and dinner, needless to say. However, this was technically speaking, their first meeting proper. Gio took a moment to study him more thoroughly. He seemed rather worn and downtrodden, perhaps a bit overly self-critical, but there was definitely potential. Sharp on the uptake, not in the habit of back talking any given instruction. Something deeper in his eyes. The kid was not his first choice for taking on an expedition (a statement that applied equally to all new Paradoxes, really), but at the same time, there shouldn't be much of an issue given the task.

"Well met, you may call me Giosue, Gio, Father Time, The Watch, Joshua or Joe. Any of those will do just fine. Names you may not use are 'Baldy,' 'Old Dude,' or any variation of 'Jean-Luc Picard.'" With that brief introduction out of the way, Gio motioned for Bart to follow him, before turning around and heading to his room. As he walked, he spoke over his shoulder to his assigned companion.

"Unlike everyone else here, you and I shall be taking a trip away from the Camp. Hopefully it'll just be an in-and-out type situation, but knowing how hard headed Alicia can be, it might be awhile. However, there shouldn't be any major troubles that would place you in danger. Don't take that as an excuse to not keep your wits about you. Never can be sure what you might run into out there. But think of this night as getting a head start on your fellow Paradoxes as far as travel and missions go."

"All that said, is there anything you'd like to do before heading out? Now would be the best time to use the bathroom, grab any last minute items you think you might need, or get a drink of water. That last one might do you well, even on an October night, Egypt's air can really wring out all the moisture from your throat, especially coming from a climate like this one."

🦄 Darker Than Black - Merged With T.S.

Mali Anson

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Location: Queensguard - Stairwell
Skills:N/A

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Mali looked at the knife, then at Zoie, then back to the knife. Was she planning on just shanking anybody she happened to find up there? She could understand wanting to prepare for a potential fight, but this was going overboard. There was no situation in her mind where that knife coming into play would positively influence their overall situation. Even if she did need to utilize it for self defense and it ended up saving her life, there was a very real chance that she could end up killing her attacker, at the very least there would be blood on her hands at a crime scene.

Still, Mali could tell there'd be no stopping her. She seemed pretty deadset on going up there herself, and there was no way Mali was going to try tagging along after her. She was never the most dexterous of individuals, and even in her old trouble-making days, she'd break and enter into mostly abandoned locations or businesses that were closed at the time. Trying to tip toe through a populated facility was an entirely different set of skills than she possessed. Not to mention she had at least 50lbs on either of her companions. Her trying to follow would certainly get them caught if it was ever a question before. Which left her alone with Relic.

"Hera, huh? Sounds like the exact same shit really. Although if they wanted to be historically accurate, they should've died off as an organization a hundred years ago so Juno would have a blueprint to rip off," she replied to Relic. She was rather nervous, but also bored and impatient. Waiting for Hell to break loose was an awful feeling, but she didn't have much better to do. "If you want to be really technical though, the City States of Greece didn't really try to take over the world. Well, if they had the chance I'm sure any of them would have taken it, but so would any country, especially back then. Only one who really made any headway in 'taking over the world' was Alexander the Great, and he was Macedonian."

"Hey, think that some of the people going after you for that necklace could have been from Hera if they're really a thing? It was found at an archaeological dig in like Southern Greece, right? If it's really the case that this is another group out there with similar motives, a Greek artifact like that would certainly be in their interests, wouldn't it?" In the back of her head, Mali wondered if Hannah had managed to actually get any headway with what she'd given her. Could this have caught up with her as well? She sure hoped not.

Darke Magyk - Concluded

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Atkin Bowman

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Location: Palace - Long Walk->Throne Room

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There was something about walking through a hall of his country's most beautiful treasures and artwork that was extremely... underwhelming. He wasn't sure why he didn't feel nearly as affected going through the long walk as he felt he should be. Perhaps he had gotten a bit desensitized to awe and wonder after going through so many radical changes and being exposed to so many new things recently. Or he couldn't really take things in due to how many different stresses were wearing down on his mind at that moment. Or perhaps there were so many wondrous things that they diminished their own individual impact, by proximity. Like trying to look at an entire Abstract Expressionist painting at once. There was too much going on at once, so the impact wouldn't be immediate.

So he stopped trying to take it all in. Instead, he'd just see what his eyes would fall upon. Perhaps that would get his curiosity piqued. There was an ebony flute. It looked nice, but he felt like he'd be able to learn a lot more if he could get his hands on it and study it. Was it here simply because it was pretty? Was it owned by someone famous? Perhaps it was Magykal? Then there was a necklace covering in a variety of sparkling gemstones, as if the creator had reached up into the sky and turned a rainbow into a fashion statement. It was very pretty, but again, he couldn't really inspect it past the superficial.

Towards the end of the hall, to the right there was another case. This one contained a great gauntlet, a massive thing of gold. The enclosed fist was easily the size of his head. The thing must have been made for some kind of giant, the size of it. Assuming it was even intended to be worn in the first place. Curiously there were several indentations for some apparently missing component in the artifact. One slot for each knuckle, including the thumb and a much larger one in the center of the back of the hand. What a curious thing, must weigh a ton. If only he could actually get his hands on it and try it on himself. He was starting to notice a bit of a trend here.

Fed up with not being able to touch any of the toys on display, Atkin walked into the Throne Room proper to find quite the scene. Princess Snaera lying on the floor, apparently dead from how off she looked and the blood that was splattered across the floor. Not to mention a bunch of nobles, the Grand Magician Peter Wylie, a gaggle of witches along with their Mother Jadis and to top it all off, the leader of the Young Army himself, Puck. What a lovely scene to walk in on.

Perhaps on another day he would have been more shocked or sympathetic, but today, seeing yet another horrible catastrophe again before the Coronation could even begin only pissed him off even more. It took most of his self control to not just begin shouting at everyone for things they may or may not even have done. He was going to end up yelling his head off at someone or punching them some time today. He could feel it. But that would hopefully be much later.

Biting his tongue, the ExtraOrdinary Apprentice marched on over to the one person he was certain was at the center of this: Princess Valda. She appeared quite busy at the moment, but why not give her one more thing to do? Having to multitask was certainly a skill that any Queen would need to learn. At worst, this would just be some training-on-the-job.

"Valda, what the bloody hell is going on here?" The others in the room might think him as breaching courtesy or whatever, but he didn't give a damn. Besides, they should all be able to put two and two together and figure out who he was. If they couldn't, fuck em. There were also about 10 other ways he could have described the current situation (one that springs to mind is "A Carnival Freak Show of the Castle's Least Liked Individuals), but he wasn't letting his tongue fly completely free. He could show at least that much restraint whilst he knew nothing of the situation beyond the immediately obvious.

The Wolves of Red Lake (Completed)

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Harry Kingsfield

Location: Abandoned House

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Ah yes, he had heard that there had been another murder, with the body being disposed of at this location - ominous. It had just never really sunk in that that had happened until he saw the police tape. After all, his reasons for investigating this location had absolutely nothing to do with recent events. More that he was hoping that one of these locations would contain clues about whatever that... thing in the forest was, or even better what could be done about it. If he incidentally happened to find something related to the current crime committed there that the local force missed out on, well he'd be happy to help them out with that.

Harry looked up out of his car at the rain. It was getting a bit better, yes, but should he pull out his umbrella or not? He'd hate to catch something, but it didn't seem that bad. Eventually figuring that he'd be spending most of his time inside, getting a bit wet on the way there and back wouldn't really affect too much. Umbrella-less he'd go. And that would leave both hands free as well.

Stepping out of his vehicle, the private investigator made his way over to the interior of the house proper. The fact that the door was wide open didn't fill him with optimism. This house may have been abandoned and a crime scene, but that didn't change the fact that people generally shut the front door when entering and leaving. Either an officer or intern had been especially careless when cleaning up, or somebody else was here. Someone who wasn't supposed to be here.

Furthermore, the back of his head was doing a fantastic job of conjuring up all sorts of fantastical monsters that could be lurking inside, but he didn't let that deter him as he continued onward, ducking underneath the police tape. He knew that in all likelihood it would just be him alone inside of a creepy house, but the fact that there was nobody else around was far more of an issue now than it had been when he was driving here five minutes prior. Harry stopped for a moment and took a deep breath before striding into the abandoned house. Let's see what was kept inside.

🦄 The Paradoxical Emendation - Merged With T.S.

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Giosue Zino

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Location: Dining Room
Skills: The Watch

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Whereas Evelina thought of Paradox abilities as being some sort of gift from the Cosmos themselves, Giosue took a far more mechanical approach on interpreting the cause of the strange powers. They were something he'd thought over a lot since learning about them in the first place. As far as he could tell, the most accurate description for what the Emendators were was that they appeared to be human concepts given flesh, therefore human in appearance, yet not bound to the limitations of man for the most part. Of course they could actually be the last members of some hyper-advanced, ancient alien race or something, but that wasn't as poetic. The truth of the matter that none of them were likely to truly ever know, because truly studying the physiology of one of them to figure out what made them tick almost certainly required horribly invasive surgery followed by methodical dissection. There simply wasn't the willingness or numbers to make such studies feasible.

However, Paradoxes as far as he could tell did not receive their powers for the same reasons Emendators did. The best explanation he could come up with so far was that when Eve brought them back it wasn't as a human. Well they were human, but they didn't actually exist, but they did. The fact that they were walking around now "after" they'd died was a glitch in reality's code so to speak. And their powers were their unique glitches showing their effects, with training allowing them to reproduce it at will. At least, that was the best explanation he could think of so far.

It was at this point, Gio realized he had spaced out thinking about the nature of Paradoxes for the 500^th time and had missed out on whole segments of the conversation. Apparently the new arrivals were choosing a dodgeball team captain Emendator to hang around, and everyone so far seemed to be gravitating towards Nancy and Eve. Also somebody mentioned Alicia. Probably. The name was stuck in his head for some reason. And then it flashed in the back of his head. Of course that's why her name was stuck in his subconscious. Why else would he be thinking about that?

"It appears that I must go fetch our greeter," Gio spoke up as he rose from his chair and wiped himself of any stray crumbs. "She appears to have excused herself. Would anyone wish to accompany me?" He doubted most of the Paradoxes would catch onto what he truly meant, and Eve probably had something in mind for the rest of them, so he was about half-certain that he'd have to go alone, which was fine by him. But company would be nice as well. Either way worked for him.

🦄 Duplicity - D&D Style Fantasy Rp Adventure (Completed)

Nor

Location: Tower 3F
Interacting with:Grievous Gibbon

Well things were starting to get way too cramped for Nor, which was really saying something given how little space he took up. In front he had to deal with this damn ape, behind there was that big zombie and to his side there were like three more things there, one of which he was pretty sure was the boy.There was basically no room for him to maneuver, which might have actually been a blessing in disguise. Because by that same note, neither did the ape. There were so many things nearby that it wasn't able to effectively strike at him without creating some space.

So that it tried to do, taking a couple steps backwards so its long limbs would be better able to wallop the dwarf. Problem is, the ape's body wasn't exactly built for moving directly backward, and even with his short legs, Nor was able to advance more quickly than it was about to retreat. In an instant, he was directly on top of the summoned beast, dagger mid-way through its swing. His first attack was a stab to the exposed upper abdomen followed up by a second aimed far lower.

While the blade was still embedded in its flesh, Nor gave a great heave and yanked the blade upwards, opening up the ape's stomach. The fiend gurgled and gnashed its teeth in rage, saliva falling from its mouth like the contents of a tipped over chamberpot onto an unsuspecting gnome a floor below. For a moment it looked like it was nearly about to grab the Dwarf and strangle him regardless of any injuries it might have suffered, but then the light passed from its eyes and it fell over with a wet thud.

One more down. Hopefully there wouldn't be even more surprises in store.

🦄 Darker Than Black - Merged With T.S.

Mali Anson

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Location: Queensguard
Skills:Perception

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"Are you sure that's such a good idea? After all, you don't really know what exactly you're dealing with, do you Z-" Mali began to reply, but then shut up mid sentence. She couldn't be entirely sure, but she swore she heard some movement on the stairs. She motioned for Zoie and Relic to remain silent as she strained her ears to make sure she really wasn't hearing things. It would be really dumb to move to a secluded area, but still get caught in a compromising conversation simply due to the bad luck of the wrong people passing by at the wrong time. And even if that was happening, she would try to mitigate any damage by avoiding saying potentially damning if she could.

Given a few seconds she was pretty sure she was hearing footsteps moving up the staircase, but couldn't be 100% certain. Regardless, she wasn't going to take the chance, and relocating again probably wouldn't help. From what she'd seen, this stairwell was probably about as good as they were going to get for privacy. Mali motioned that there were people above before she leaned forward and lowered her speaking volume to a bare whisper.

"Taking out Juno could be a great thing, but if you're just replacing one Illuminati with another one, have you really accomplished anything? Especially if the competition was stopping each other from accomplishing their goals. If there's someone out there who can actually take out Juno and leave it out there, great. I just want to avoid a situation where the situation is made inadvertently worse because you didn't think things through. Who or what are you banking on for this? If the only way to feel comfortable communicating this is by mouthing the name, fine."

Relic and Zoie were still talking around the issue, and she wasn't going to have it. Perhaps now was a bad time to demand to demand transparency, but at this point she was doubting if there ever would be a good time. Well, there would, but those other times tended to get consumed by other topics, but this was an important thing to her and she didn't want to sideline the desire to have some idea what the hell she was actually doing any longer.

Darke Magyk - Concluded

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Atkin Bowman

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Location: Palace

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Take Atkin's stance for example. He was visibly irritated. Although in an ostensibly neutral expression, there was a tenseness in his jaw, like he was clenching his teeth and all the muscles in the upper half of his face seemed to be ever so slightly scrunched up, about 20% of the way to a furrowed brow. He had his arms crossed firmly in front of his chest, effectively blocking himself off from any errant small talk. And although his feet were wide apart, indicating confidence or stubbornness, they rarely stayed in place.

He didn't like this situation. Not one bit. Getting ditched and left alone with this... guy. Cuyler if he heard correctly. Atkin looked over the guy, sizing him up. He was tall, dwarfing the apprentice by a good 7 inches, and definitely built as far as his upper body went. Maybe he was some kind of dock worker? No, the guys that worked there had legs like logs, what with all the heavy shit they had to carry around onto and off of boats of all shapes and sizes. But assuming he was any good with his fists, Atkin guessed the guy would clobber him in a fair fight. The more surprising thing to him was how young his fellow dumpee was. By his guess, Bryon was probably a few years older. And he didn't have Magykal eyes either, so how he knew Arya was beyond him.

When asked if he was always sidelined, Atkin merely looked at him, but didn't answer. Yeah, he wasn't just going to hang around here with this guy for the next hour. It was bad enough when he expected to be hanging around Arya and Rowland the whole time, but getting babysat by this schlub who seemed content to just sit like some dog at the palace's doorstep? Nah.

Without warning, the ExtraOrdinary Apprentice turned away from Cuyler and headed inside the Palace proper. He had no idea what he was going to do here or where exactly he'd be going, but anywhere would be better than sitting tight outside. As long as he remained cognizant of the time, and the activity of those walking the halls, he was confident he'd be able to make it to an appropriate place before the Coronation actually began. Not like it'd be a big mystery on where it'd actually take place. Perhaps he'd run into some foreign diplomats. They'd be interesting to talk to, and in his dress robes they may even give him the time of day.