Durandals

The Worn

Rahma Idrissi
Present Day

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Her head pounded, ears ached, needles lanced through her legs and arms excepting that empty space where she could still feel her missing fingers years later, stomach ch- Rahma cut off the escalating thoughts with a sharp smack to her forehead. The immediacy of that pain brought some reprieve to her thoughts. More importantly, it allowed her to refocus her attention on the drink sat on the table in front of her. Empty like the other two glasses beside it, water beading on the still-cold surface. She swiped some off and sucked the drops before fishing an ice cube out to do the same.

The club around her was teeming, bodies packed against each other. Drinks spilled, legs shuffled on the dance floor, and somewhere in the back there was surely a pair of people snorting a line of cocaine. Even the thought revived a hunger which she ruthlessly suppressed. Rahma could "see" the air moving with the sound of the music, although it was not her eyes. With some effort, she could trace each individual beat that reached her ears back through the throng to its originating speaker had she allowed the noise to come through. Instead, sound was deadened in her vicinity to give her relative peace. A murmur of conversation and distant music rather than the cacophony others experienced.

Flexing a finger, she made the ice in her cup crumble as she shaped sound waves to match the resonant frequency, amplifying the sound until the pieces could handle no more. Adjusting the waves even more could allow her to potentially flash boil the crumbled ice, though she had never tried. She would continue to abstain for the sake of the eardrums of everyone else in the building. Figuring out a new point of her ability often required her full attention.

Rahma flipped her phone over on the table and punched in her passcode. A few taps and swipes brought her to the photo album. Right, it was blank. Her real phone had been lost six months ago. Fool that she was, nothing was backed up. Not that she had much worth remembering. Not that she could remember much of the past few years that had been spent in a drugged stupor. She flipped the phone back over and looked up in time to see one of the others approaching her. No one could explain what made them special. Why they were chosen over millions of others more deserving preternatural abilities. It was beyond her scope to care at the moment, yet seeing someone who had lived through that day brought some stability. She waved a hand and pulled out a stool that she had jealously guarded. Seems it would come in handy.

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Six Months Prior

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Rahma shivered as she wiped sweat from her forehead. "The least they could do is keep the temperature consistent," she muttered. She rose from her knees and flushed the toilet to get rid of the lingering strings of bile. What she wouldn't give for a cigarette to take the edge off the other cravings wracking her body. At least there was no one to see her in this state, what little good it meant while sitting in a prison cell. The faucet only ran cold water which helped wake her up but hardly relax. She instinctively checked towards a mirror that would be hanging above the sink and was quickly disappointed to see blank concrete. The little luxuries you miss...

A guard walked by and swung a flashlight beam into her cell. Rahma recoiled at the sudden intrusion, letting out a small groan. "Get me a sleep mask, would you?" she asked. The guard chuckled, shook his head, and continued off on his rounds. She needed something, anything to get to sleep. If she slept long enough, maybe she would wake up free from confinement. Patting her pockets and legs revealed no surprise packets. Intake had been thorough in checking her but one could still hope.

A dull whoosh pulsed through hall, buffeting her into her cot and sending her sprawling onto the thin mattress. Klaxons began to blare moments later, drowning out the rising chatter from other inmates in the row. They could not cover the low thumps that reverberated through the building, through her feet and teeth. Explosions were unmistakable after hearing them countless thousands of times from the inside of a tank turret. Whatever fog was left crowding her brain rushed out as instincts kicked in. Lights flickered and some went dark as power surged in the wake of the blasts. Men began to scream, helpless insects trapped in steel webs. Surely angels wouldn't attack Seraph's End. Yet what other force would risk such an attack on this city?

"Heed my words, mortal. This is your crescendo. Hear the world anew."

Her world splintered. Time ceased to exist as she fell through her mind. Senses slowly returned, and Rahma saw that only a second had passed, maybe less. Something was different. Her vision was swimming but that wasn't quite right. She could feel the world move, a never-ending pulse of sound. The continued blasts were now distinct. She knew each and every feature of those explosions, the journeys they took through the concrete and steel of the building.

Something spurred her to place her hands on the cell door. She could feel the door and the forces moving through it. The latch was distinct in its gap, connected to the outside air. She focused her full attention on those small pieces of metal hidden within the door and...tapped. A noise like a tuning fork filled the air, followed instantly by the sound of metal shattering. Rahma stared at the door. Cracks spiderwebbed across the surface of the metal. She pushed and the door swung out on its hinges, the area around the keyhole falling to pieces. Screaming was now a regular part of the chorus of sound that suffused her body. Gunfire and the unmistakable sound of angels.

The hallways were littered with bodies that Rahma stepped around as she ran towards the origin of the majority of the sound. Whatever doors were not already opened she simply broke, locks falling apart under an ultrasonic assault. Her senses led her exactly where she needed to go and suddenly she was outside. Rahma quickly realized it was not the outside and instead just the result of a giant hole blasted into the roof of the building through which the host of heaven descended from the sky to lay waste. Her nerves screamed in remembrance of the agony she endured in Mecca. A stillness came over her, becoming part of the sound. It was life. And it was death. Rahma felt as three others humans entered the room, hearing their approach. There was naught but her assault on the angels, turning sound to weapon within their bodies.

The Worn

Same here. First half (present day) is written and I'll tackle the second half tomorrow. Can't wait to see more!

The Worn

Answered it perfectly. Thanks!

The Worn

I love the first post, especially the little sequence with him materializing the knife in the bar. I had a question with regards to the powers that I hadn't thought of until now. Six months later, are our characters still growing in strength after an initial burst of capability when the powers awakened? Or is the strength fully realized and it's a matter of learning what you can do with it?

Of Serenity & Dread (OPEN ADVANCED RENAISSANCE-ERA FANTASY NRP)

Sheet is still a work in progress.

Castarlono

House Castarlono da Montserri

Brief Description

An exiled house, with remembrance of prestige and property stolen.

Ambition

Conquer Montserri and restore Castarlono's primacy among their peers. Protect themselves from potential servitude to Rudel.

Government Type

Patriarchal noble house

Claim

In the Subalpine Desert where the borders of Rudel and Montserri meet.

History

House Castarlono was middling among the noble houses of Montserri with regards to prestige and external holdings. The 'Liberty Aquamarine' that the city-state practices meant that in the city all houses were equal, but that is never enough for any noble. They excelled in administering portions of the city's infrastructure and farmland for a time.

However, moods within the family turned adventurous and saw a significant amount of their resources flow out of the city: mercenaries, a new galleon fleet, traing investments, funding significant construction and settlement efforts in the Subalpine Desert. Returns on these investments were few.

At their lowest point, Istanio Castarlono became head of the house at a young age after the death of his father and other heirs in a plague. He refocused the house inwards, developing connections among commoners through charity program. This culminated in him declaring himself Tribune a dozen years ago to a wave of support from the peasantry. Istanio was executed, House Castarlono's properties forfeited, and the family exiled to Rudel. Now the prodigal family returns for blood.

Military

A - Ranged: Somarco University has a storied history of magical, technological, and artistic innovation. House Castarlono's control of this institution has allowed it to develop an expertise in many areas, including the practical applications of machinery, gunpowder, and magic. The House has cultivated an elite retinue of spellcasters and arquebusiers from among its ranks whose combined firepower can lay waste to most adversaries.

A - Cavalry: Despite their exile, they are still a child of Montserri. A substantial cavalry retinue is maintained that, although never the best of the city of Montserri, would still route most any opposition off the field in one glorious charge.

B - Infantry: House Castarlono was a beacon that rallied masses of peasants with the emancipations under Istanio in his brief stint as dictator. Meager post-exile holdings leave the House without access to these numbers, but they have retained two reliable mercenary companies that are slowly training a loyal, disciplined infantry force.

C - Artillery: Rudel has graciously loaned some of its cannons to House Castarlono during Lord Astore's negotiations to secure backing for the siege of Montserri. They are marvels of technology held back only by their small number which the Dread Prince was willing to let go.

C - Shock Troops: House Castarlono has begin using the beast trade in the Subalpine Desert to develop their own retinue of monstrous creatures, chief amongst them the Evorian Jewel-backed Scorpion. Efforts to develop these into a military force has only occurred since Castarlono's exile from Montserri. They have yet to learn how to leverage the natural capabilities of the scorpions.

F - Navy: No coastal holdings and no ships to speak of

Demographics

Most of the house is human, but they practice adoption which includes that of other races. The largest races outside of humans are hemicyons, lamias, and centaurs.

Agents

Dyanstic Agencts
Barone Astore Castarlono - Level 1 Statesman, Level 1 Polymath
Alain Perienne - Level 1 Archmage
Gonfalionere Sybil Castarlono - Level 1 General
Prestige: 1

Estates

Dynastic Estates
Entriena: Level 1 Villa
Town of Somarco: Level 1 Settlement
Somarco University: Level 1 Institution
Wealth: 0

Relations

Rudel: Sponsoring House Castarlono in their siege of Montserri.
Montserri At war.
TBD

The Worn

Name

Rahma Idrissi

Appearance

Age

43

Gender

Female

Nationality

Moroccan

Chaos Magic Ability

Harmonic Dominion - Rahma can near totally manipulate sound waves within a few hundred meters of herself, even without line of sight. This ability comes with an innate understanding of the acoustic properties of whatever object she attempts to manipulate more directly, such as the natural frequency and resistance to sound transmission, although this requires increasing focus as more materials are involved.

Direct manipulation involves changing the frequency, wavelength, velocity, and loudness of sounds. The more she changes one aspect, the less she is able to impact the others. Applications of this power are as varied as the sounds that exist. She might deafen all noise on a stealth mission such that any action she takes has no audible aspect. She might manipulate the sound to perform acoustic imaging from the scale of an ultrasound to ambient noise tomography (the use of ambient noise to detect mineral deposits and other geologic aspects). Or she might manipulate velocity and loudness to create a blast wave that destroys an opponent. Rahma's abilities only increase with every application of noise she encounters.

History

Rahma cannot remember the world before the demons and angels arrived. She was alive then, yes, but her memories have turned ash like so many cities in the intervening decades. Her first real memory is the first time a demon appeared in the streets of Tangier. Some might call the scene a nightmare; nightmares cannot drag you into the streets, grating off your skin against the baking asphalt while tendrils shoot out to spear any soul stupid enough to run. Pleasant memories compared to the devastation that came next.

Morocco fared well in those early years relative to many other countries as a result of their military modernization, although the word 'relative' carried most of the weight in strategic assessments. Her family remained in Morocco as members of the government attempting to stabilize the domestic situation. Tangiers benefited from the proximity to the Strait of Gibraltar as it received more direct military aid than the rest of the country as warships crossed from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.

When she turned 19, Rahma was drafted into the military; her family did not have the leverage to protect her from that fate. She was not sent to a frontline role, at least initially, instead supporting logistic efforts to maintain the overstretched supply lines. She diverted what she could to help her family from military supply depots, which amounted to very little in the face of global supply breakdown. The war eventually consumed Tangier, though, and she was pushed into the combat she had so longed to avoid.

Two decades of constant combat followed across North Africa and Europe. The Siege of Cairo and following relief operations to keep the Suez Canal open. Reconquering Malta which the demons used to choke travel in the Mediterranean. The annihilation of Mecca on the eve of victory as the angels turned their sights on what remained of humanity, turning a hundred thousand souls to cinders in the opening hour. Betrayal from on high hurt less than the nerve damage and shattered limbs she received on that day.

No one could be allowed to leave when they still had resources to offer, and thus Rahma was transferred to the strategic side of the war. Her experience in coordinating the international war efforts and her family's continued rise in importance sent her to the heart of Europe's resistance in Brussels. It was a short stint when she heard of Seraph's End, a new-age beacon to humanity's resilience; also a place where she could more easily look out for herself.

As a low-level liaison, she made the most use of special privileges in the new city. Chief among them was the supply of sedatives to ignore the world around her. The years in Seraph's End were a fog that only broke when Morocco was cleansed and the angels razed what remained of Marrakesh and Tangier. She leapt out of the fog and into a whirlpool of mistakes. Authorities could write off the drug-related charges and the declining performance. Attempting to break into a military armory and steal a tank they could not given the two dead soldiers after she collapsed the side of a building. And thus Rahma came to find herself in a prison cell in Seraph's End, expecting nothing but to be abandoned now that her usefulness had worn out.

Of Serenity & Dread (RENAISSANCE ERA FANTASY NRP)

The premise sounds intriguing. Plus I'm always a sucker for medieval/Renaissance settings. Consider me interested

The Worn

I also have a question around the magic. Is it meant to stay more elemental, manipulating basic forces of reality, or can it extend to encompass more esoteric aspects such as time, souls, concepts, etc?

The Worn

Throwing my interest in as well. The premise sounds very intriguing. I've been enjoying darker fiction as of late