Early consensus seems to be for more forum activity so, on that note, I'm going to ask people to please get their posts from this most recent cycle up on the forum before I post the next update. I'll be looking to restore a proper forum back-and-forth.
Force and Fury Member
Actually kind of mellow
STATUS: Shilling a good medieval fantasy: roleplayerguild.com/topics/… 4 yrs ago
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4 yrs ago
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Shilling a good medieval fantasy: roleplayerguild.com/topics/…
4 yrs ago
Don't mind me. Just shilling a thread: roleplayerguild.com/topics/…
4 yrs ago
So worried right now. My brother just got admitted to the hospital after swallowing six toy horses. Doctors say he's in stable condtion.
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4 yrs ago
Nice to meet you, Bored. I'm interested!
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4 yrs ago
Ugh. Someone literally stole the wheels off of my car. Gonna have to work tirelessly for justice.
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Bio
Oh gee! An age and a gender and interests and things. Yeah, I have those. Ain't no way I'm about to trigger an existential crisis by typing them all out, though. You can find out what a nerd I am on discord, okay?
Stay awesome, people.
Stay awesome, people.
Most Recent Posts
So, I'm noticing that we've been doing a lot on discord lately and not too much on the forum aside from updates. I'd like to know how people feel about this: should we keep going this route in the future mostly with GM and Co-GM posts, or try to move more things back to the forum?
@PirouettePending a quick fix of the few small typo quibbles that I mentioned on discord, Pan is approved!
E N E M Y A T T H E G A T E S || ♫
Present: Ayla Arslan @Ti, Evander Fino Synesti @RezonanceV, Tku Pictor @dragonpiece, Fiske Flachstrauch @jasbraq, and Zarina Al-Nader @YummyYummy, Desmond Catulus @Th3King0fChaos
It was cooler in the wake of the sandstorm but, as morning had swelled to midday, midday was now fading towards evening. Tku was out in the wastes, tending to the folded-up dewsails with Zox. For the most part, all that was needed was ample cleaning and some careful resetting of a few of the spouts on the cacti. A handful of snapped spars were easily dealt with, and repairs to the sails themselves minimal. “Thank you for the assistance,” the big construct rumbled. “It’s usually Samaxi who does the elevated things, being so small and light…” He trailed off. “But town’s taking longer than usual, I guess.” His rocky shoulders shrugged.
In the distance lurked the kite tusker that Tku had encountered earlier, not attempting much in the way of flight anymore as thermals fell in the late afternoon. It had been sneaking about the fringes of the sweetwater farm the entire day and been shooed off of a sail once earlier. “Away!” shouted Zox now, rising to his full height and squaring up towards it. “INTRUDER! INTRUDER!” His entire demeanour seemed to change and he charged towards the alarmed creature.
For a moment, the clearing before the wall went utterly still. Distant sounds could be heard. The slow and muddy river still flowed. Insects hummed in the air and a second hum - that of magic - was in evidence as well. Eyes turned to the king. Some foreign guest who would not acknowledge his rule: this was something spicy, for the cazenax were not stupid. They knew a challenge when they saw one, no matter the pretty words it was wrapped in. This… human was publicly demanding that Stazen justify his rule before he would bow, not that these people viewed the act of doing so in the same light.
The pause stretched like lengthening shadows in the afternoon heat. Eyes flicked about to accompany it and hands to swat at the ever-present flies. Sneakily, the boy known as Potés-Palix squeezed through a sea of legs and waists until he was near the very front, a mere handful of feet from the king. Then… “Hah!” The silence broke. “Aha! Haha!” It was Stazen himself laughing. He released Fiske’s hand and bowed his head and shoulders quickly in the direction of Desmond and Marceline, arms flourishing out to his sides. “And you believe the job of educating you, making up for your self-professed ignorance is one fit for a king?” He arched a brow as he straightened and seemed to be holding back some further degree of mirth. “Especially at this moment? Do you not see that I am currently in the midst of reassuring my beloved people following the calamity of a sandstorm?” He turned on the spot, gesturing to take them in, and Potés-Palix gazed up at him with reverence in his eyes. “Your party is now both late and rude.” He tilted his head and grinned almost… wickedly, eyes flicking over to Cazelui, who had still not budged from her spot atop the trapdoor. “I shall forgive one.”
Old man Jascuan leaned back, seeming to consider Ayla’s and Zarina’s words. He took a sip of his drink, hand trembling slightly as he did so, and let out a low, rueful chuckle. “Oh, there is a cost, alright.” He set it back on the end table. “But it is a very human thing, I think, to assume that one must exchange a concrete thing for another.” He shook his head. “The cost of the Vozas is unpredictability.” At quizzical looks from Classa and his guests, he continued, though he had - of course - not seen them in the literal sense.
“The Vozas manifests that which you desire, bringing it forth from the darkness beyond reality and into the light. It is free, it asks nothing, and it is bountiful, but it is not… easy.” He shook his head. “One must control his mind with absolute purpose and precision. One mistake, and what is produced is often useless.” He pursed his lips and then licked them briefly. “Our people abhor waste or, at least, we used to.” He shook his head again, and Naxos hopped nervously from one foot to the other. Classa sat on the ground and hugged herself, large brown eyes searching the faces of the others present. “But the waste is something that we can live with, and we often find uses for the seemingly useless. No, lapses can be more than inconveniences. Sometimes, one who allows his heart to be coloured by dark feelings can bring forth the physical manifestations of these from the Vozas. It does not judge. It only produces.” He tilted his wizened head to the side and knit his fingers. “Even beings that may seem useful or ones not meant to be alive that know life nonetheless may become dangerous. They may turn on you.” He gestured towards Naxos, as the imp translated. “This one, for example, derives pleasure from the work that I give him and feels only loyalty and regard for me so long as I am not cruel.”
The eyes of both young women flicked over to Naxos, then, studying his face carefully, and he seemed… pensive for a moment. “But had there been a flaw in his creation, he might’ve known suffering and dissatisfaction with his existence. It would not have been good for him or I. He’d have fled or turned on me at some juncture.” Jascuan reached out blindly to rest a fond hand on his… slave’s shoulder. “Some demons try to run, Classa added solemnly. “Others even try to hurt their masters,” She shook her head. “They’re bad demons.”
The old man pursed his lips and nodded slowly. “There are bad masters too, though.”
“But not you!” Classa insisted, scrambling to her feet, “And I’d never run away!
“Come here, little one.” He waved her over and she settled onto the couch beside him. He reached out blindly with one arm and hugged the child.She leaned into him and returned the embrace. “Make no mistake. There are vile things that come from the Vozas, just as there are wondrous ones, but they are so often the product of vile people, or at least careless ones who have no business calling upon such powers.”
“There’s a whole big system of traps!” Classa cut in. “And a maze that every cazenax learns when they’re small.” She regarded Jascuan hopefully, then, for just a moment, before sliding off the couch and clattering across the floor with excess noise and restless energy, or perhaps it was something more. She shot a concerned look back his way, and Naxos followed suit.
The old man sighed, heaving himself from the sofa. “But sometimes, there are accidents.” His face closed up and he grabbed his cane and began shuffling away. “I think our dessert should be very near finished. I shall go check on it, and Maxi should be home soon anyhow.”
Classa and Naxos glanced at each other, but the girl excused herself outside awkwardly, galloping away with the sort of energy one would only expect from a child of her age. It was the imp who spoke up, once both she and Jascuan were gone. “He used to have another son: Zanomo-Cazan, Maxi’s twin, but…” He grimaced. “They were playing a stupid game and a demon went rogue and they tried losing it in the traps and…” He trailed off for a moment. “I wasn’t there, and neither was Zox. Maxi tried to save him, but she, um…” He hung his head. “Good, stupid, brave girl.”
The imp looked up, opening his mouth to continue, but then a ringing interrupted him: a loud, persistent ringing. His eyes widened almost comically. “They’re coming!” he shouted, dashing for the kitchen. “That’s the perimeter alarm!” They were bells on little strings and it was unclear as to exactly how they functioned. “Master Jascuan! Are you alright!? We need to lock down!”
The old man shouted back in his native tongue and neither Zarina or Ayla could understand him, but there was one word that they recognized: “Classa!” The girl was still outside, along with Zox and Tku.
Zox was on the warpath, barreling towards the Kite Tusker, brimming with energy and fury, and the animal scrambled to make its escape. It seemed to Tku a fool’s errand to try talking such a mighty creation down from what appeared to be the singular purpose of its existence, much as he did not want to see the adorable little pest come to any harm. That, however, was when he noticed a small dust trail coming from the direction of the ranch house and, straining his eyes, he deduced that it was none other than Classa, excitedly making her way over. Her tiny voice began to echo faintly as she closed in on his sensing range. “Zox!” she shouted. “Zox, you big dummy! Stop! It’s cute!”
To both the centaur’s and Tku’s surprise, he did stop, grinding to a very sudden halt, his crudely-featured ‘face’ pointed in a very specific direction. When Tku inquired as to what he was so focused on, and Classa echoed his questions, drawing nearer, the huge construct held up a hand for silence. In the distance, on the horizon, there was a glimmer. Then, there were a few. “Zox, what is it?” the child inquired with soft wonder, as dust trails began to form. The rapidly cooling air was whipping up winds, once again, and the Kite Tusker had taken off and begun to drift away. Square and triangular shapes began cutting holes out of the sky on the horizon, and they were quickly growing larger.
“Raiders!” Zox roared, drawing copious amounts of energy from his surroundings - enough to start inducing a queasiness in the stomachs of the other two. He grew not only in energy, but in size as well, as stones hidden beneath the sands shot up towards him and became part of his increasingly massive body. For all of his unassuming nature, Zox was built for war and appeared able to call upon titanic strength. “RUN!!!”
It was at that very moment, as this situation was just about ready to devolve into a disaster, that Fiske noticed it: Cazelui and the boy with no legs made eye contact. It was for the briefest moment but it was a meaningful one. The sirrahi seemed to nod with her eyes and the boy was bumped from behind. He sprawled out loudly and dramatically at the king’s feet, impossible to ignore. “Owww!” he yelped, casting about suspiciously. “Who kicked me!? Someone…” He trailed off as he noticed just how close he was to Stazen, swallowing and shuffling back on his hands. “Y-your majesty…” He bowed deeply, and the king bowed in return, though less deeply. The boy swallowed. He reached into his satchel and three plain-clothed guards started forward, revealing themselves. “Please, take some sweetwater, compliments of the Shimmering Sails Sweetwater Stead, or 4S.” Thrusting it out before him with both hands, he kept his head bowed and expression even, as the guards relaxed and faded back into the crowd. He could all but physically feel the king’s eyes boring into him.
Stazen snorted. “Well then, it seems today is to be a day full of surprises.” Accepting the offering, he was about to hand it to one of his guards to test, now that they’d been outed anyhow. Instead, his eyes found Cazelui once again. “You, stuzé, forgive me, for I do not know your name.” The young woman visibly paled. “Uh, umm.. Cazelui, your majesty.” She bowed deeply again as he held the bottle out in her direction. “You honour this humble servant.” The people in the crowd seemed riveted, and murmurs rose excitedly. “Here, Cazelui. It looks like you’ve been working long and hard. Have this drink and do tell me how it tastes.”
His smiling eyes flicked back to Potés-Palix for a split second and the sirrahi was frozen on the spot. To move would be to betray the location of the trap door, which was normally covered in sand and only attended to by the stuzéts anyhow. She was not one of the rebels, in truth. She was a loyal subject who believed in the king’s vision. She was also a stuzé-upé, and it was no simple thing to turn upon her people, even the misguided ones. She had also willingly placed herself on the door and was well aware of how it would look should she move and reveal it. Hence, Cazelui could not budge. A stillness built. A silence built. The eyes of a finely-attired older woman who stood beside the king narrowed and he tilted his head inquisitively. “Is something wrong, Cazelui?” asked the woman. Her gaze settled upon the four humans as well. Quietly, below everyone’s eye level, Potés-Palix shuffled back into the crowd.
Just a note on this RPG. It ended up moving to discord and has since run its course there. I may write up an afterword for it here in the near future.
Present: Yalen Castel @pantothenic, Valerian Remi Leclere @yoshua171, Maura Mercador @Ti, Trypano Somia @A Lowly Wretch, Ingrid Penderson @dragonpiece, Niallus Saberhagen @McKennaJ71, and Abdel Varga @YummyYummy
Bailong Shan had become a can of worms for those who had braved it and, as afternoon took hold, the four biros found themselves in difficult or intriguing situations of varying composition. While Ingrid was faced with an immediate and sticky conundrum, Rikard was set upon by a colossal and aggressive mana slime, hard-pressed to hold it off. While Vel and Niallus rushed towards each other and a trio of guards locked in a feud with a mysterious giant, it was perhaps Ingrid whose exploration held the most potential promise and danger as she approached the much-adorned entrance to a sacred cave
Whatever curiosity the bloodchild had felt about the floating stone with the blue aura, she had placed it aside in favour of the shrine in the cavern and the colossal energy beyond. It seemed… diffused over the entire mountain, as if the ground itself was living, though that could not necessarily be so… or could it? Perhaps, inside, lay the answers to some of her deeper questions.
Sweeping carefully for energies, she struggled to pick them out with her preferred precision, such was the overwhelming nature of the energy of this place. It was thermal, potential, chemical, magnetic, and even subtly kinetic. Yet, with a redoubled application of focus, she could pick out the burning of the torches on the wall and the incense on sticks. There was… a human shape inside and she entered, full of drawn energy and ready to retreat should it prove warranted.
Words wrote themselves into her mind from without. “You are here to solve a mystery, are you not?” The chamber that she entered was not a natural cave, even if it had perhaps been so once upon a time, and it was vast, the ceiling disappearing into dusky murk, supported with towering pillars of crystalline rock. “The mana jellies used to kill those men were gathered upon this mountain. I assisted in that measure so that a misguided friend might remove himself from a contest he has no business being in. Soon, I believe, my efforts shall remove a second as well. Magic flows through nearly all things in Retan and animates them in ways that these people do not understand - in ways that the current regime does not understand. The twins and their bloodsucking ilk stifle the people’s birthright to be connected to this great web of magic, to use it, to experiment, be curious, and grow.”
She could sense an enormous serpentine form in the depths and, given the name of this place, what the three boys who’d gone on an adventure last night had related to her in the morning, and occam’s razor, it was not a stretch for Trypano to posit that it was the Great White Dragon of Bailong Shan speaking with her. Only… that would support the existence of sentient dragons. “Crows circle their imperium. Oh, they have various names: the Traveler, the emperor of Nikan, Hui, but all have a common goal of toppling the regime and establishing their own new order, but I say now that there is an ancient order to this place, and it should be restored.”
There was a sudden flash of energy and the human shape she had detected earlier stepped from the shadows and resolved itself into that of Wu Long. “And come now: you know me.”
If, indeed, Trypano did, then there were two members of the group who definitively did not know that they were getting into. These were Niallus and the newly and secretly arrived Valerian, who were hard pressed just to recognize each other. Both sped towards the small but ferocious conflagration between three humans in the livery of patrolmen and… some sort of giant. The former were quite noisy, shouting in coordination and alarm alike as they tried to surround the latter, who was eerily silent, but for the sounds of heavy breathing and exertion.
It was the speed, though, in particular, that was impressive. The giant both reacted and moved with startling grace, repeatedly dodging, cutting off, and countering repeated attacks that held clear deadly intent. Niallus closed in, hoping to learn more before engaging. Vel raced forward, already preparing his solution. The giant and the humans noticed them at around the same time, each radiating fear, but the humans clearly panicked to an alarming degree. Then, something strange happened: Images. Images and… scenes played themselves rapidly through the minds of both young men, imposed from without.
They were somewhere far up north, on the open tundra. There was a large tent of skin and bone, a woman of the giant’s species, and three children as well. There was a meeting at a large stone temple, hidden in a great valley by the sea. Dozens of giants - Ogauraq - were there. The air filled with pictures and images above them: the twin emperors, great cities, a sanguinaire from the east, a traveling man, armies coming and butchering their people, and finally, a great dragon, calling them. There were more of these thought-pictures: tallies of food and resources, quick, scratchy writing in an unknown language, families. Finally, dozens of thought-images floated in the air that matched the giant that stood before Niallus and Vel, fighting for his life.
Then, the scene ended. A montage of travels took over the boys’ minds: oddly-designed campfires by night, hunting and foraging, climbing mountains and crossing plains, wary encounters with humans and avoidance of roads, fish stolen from a boat hauled ashore and a gift of mammoth ivory as recompense. A view of the great road leading to Wanggang from somewhere elevated and distant, a sighting of Bailong Shan, and the scene of the soaring dragon from the night before.
It concluded with the giant standing before the dragon in the same cave shrine where Vel had stood a couple of hours earlier, and they knew his name as ‘Blue Warmth’. The patrolmen were in a panic, though. “你们这些外国人，帮帮我们吧!” (You, foreigners, help us!) one shouted desperately. “它会吃掉我们!” (It’s going to eat us!) added another.
Whatever might’ve happened next, however, was interrupted by what did happen. From far away, sounded a gigantic crackling BOOM and streaks of lightning split open the sky somewhere on the far side. Guards and Ogauraq alike turned, momentarily distracted, to witness the event, and all four were left wide open.
Ingrid, too, had been left wide open, in a sense. Rocks had fallen and people had not died. Normally, this would be cause for celebration, but it was Yin who had stopped the calamity and not Captain Zhu, who was clutching a bluish crystal and glancing warily at his surroundings and, in particular, the two women who had accompanied him.
The innkeeper’s redirection of the boulder had been clumsy, narrowly avoiding another group who’d dove for the ground and nearly been hit. A dozen eyes were on her now and, by extension, on Captain Zhu. Then, came the shouts:
“她有权使用魔法吗?” (Is she authorized to use magic?)
“你在那里看到我们了吗!?” (Did you even see us there!?)
“你差点杀了我们!” (You almost killed us!)
“她不是监护人!” (She isn’t a Guardian!)
For the first time that Ingrid had ever seen, the normally-decisive Zhu Kai seemed frozen. He opened his mouth to speak, but then there came another, more vicious shout. “巫婆！巫婆！她使用魔法!” (Witch! Witch! She uses magic!)
“做点什么，船长!” (Do something, captain!)
“或者你，外国人!” (Or you, foreigner!)
Yin stumbled a step back, stammering for an answer. “我 - 我这么做是为了救她。对不起!” (I - I did it to save her. I’m sorry!)
OOC Note: From this point onwards, dialogue will be auto-translated.
Captain Zhu turned towards Yin, face full of regret. “You should not have used it, Yin. I could’ve handled things.”
Yin shook her head regretfully. “You were distracted. You could not have.”
Then there was a wail: “She admits it! Do your job and arrest her, Captain!” A middle-aged woman pointed an accusatory finger at Yin. “My husband was killed by someone like her: someone who didn’t obey the rules! Who thought she could use magic! They are a menace to everyone." She seemed genuinely shaken and scared. There were tears at the corner of her eyes.
“But she has harmed nobody,” protested a man in the crowd.
“She saved the foreign girl! added another.
“Oh, today she gets to play hero, but how about next time when she goes messing with magic again and it doesn’t go so well? If that rock had landed two feet to the side, at least two of us would be dead.”
“She won’t be punished,” said the angry woman bitterly. “Look at those bright eyes and full lips. She is a favourite of the Captain. Those people never have to follow the rules and the rest of us suffer for it.”
“Those rules exist for a reason,” added another in agreement.
The blue crystalline ‘slime’ in Zhu Kai’s hands began to crackle and he took a few deep breaths. He looked to Ingrid and settled his face, turning to address the small mob. He seemed to have decided what to say.
It was at that moment that the heavens tore themselves open and the mountain fell.
Rikard’s search went well, at first. He picked up a couple of the strange mana slimes, eager to figure out what made them tick when he had a moment later, or maybe he could just sell them. Money regularly seemed to be in short supply. Employing a simple arcane spell, he warmed himself as he walked. The sun shone down, sparkling off of the snow and a gentle breeze carried the sounds of distant excavation and conversation his way. Still, he continued higher, here at the roof of the world and felt on top of it, in a sense. Perhaps he would get lucky. Perhaps he would see the dragon up close. It was said that the great arrows of Retan and Nikan were among the most intelligent of all creatures, and the boy’s constant curiosity drove his desire to find out for himself.
It was around an hour into his search of the seam where part of the glacier had broken loose that he noticed the large crevasse and the substantial reddish glow pouring forth from it. He could not help himself. He slinked up and peered inside and an enormous… slime-beast, the size of a small elephant, hurled itself at him.
It was all that Rikard could do to avoid the attack. He pulled from its momentum and pushed himself free, rising into the air, but it lashed at him with shapeless tendrils and he felt himself being reeled in towards it. He beheld its horror maw. The massive jelly was filled with bones and weapons and scraps in various states of decay, but what stood out most was the crown at its heart: pristine, as if it somehow… understood the power that it had as a symbol. A Slime King, he wondered, but then he needed to avoid death. He surrounded himself with an inferno and it flinched and withered.
Then, there were explosions as it hurled bits of itself and he was hard-pressed to deflect them all. A tendril smacked him from the air and pounded him into the mountainside and the boy could feel two of his ribs snap. He bit back a scream as the monstrosity advanced. He hit it with a thunderbolt, and again, but it seemed to just absorb the attacks with little pause. Panic began to set in. He was going to die here! At a mad scramble, he took off from the mountainside in full flight, drawing and expelling energy with everything that the Gods had given him.
A gargantuan undulating wail escaped the Slime King and he clutched at his head, temples pounding and vision swimming. Finding the wherewithal to remember his sonic magic lessons, he twisted the sonic waves to be anything but what they were and, in a stroke of sudden inspiration, turned them on the slime.
Nothing happened. Eshiran help me! A tentacle reached up and grabbed him and Rikard was a doll being tossed about and drawn into its vast yawning maw. His parents, his friends, his family, the sight of the dragon from last night. They all appeared in his mind’s eye. No! Not yet! Not like this! Fuck you, you terrifying piece of shit. If I go down, you’re going with me. Waves of fear so intense that they physically hurt coursed through him, but there was a sort of wicked resigned calm there as well. Only once or twice before in his short life had Rikard experienced something similar, as if it were not his hands on the wheel of his being. He drew as if in a fugue state and the mountaintop crackled with thunder. The sky turned black and he ripped himself free, feeling the power of both lightning and… something else coursing through him. He was easily twice as strong as he should’ve been.
Rikard landed on the glacier, eyes wild and incandescent as his senses returned. He laughed desperately, maniacally, eagerly. “One of us dies!” he hollered, “Maybe both, but what a show! What a display!” Enormous bluish-white arms of lightning leapt and spidered across the mountainside, pulsing and cracking, surrounding the great mana slime. Rikard fairly glowed with energy, levitating in the air. A huge, wicked grin spread across the boy's face and he made a little pistol with his fingers. "Boom," he whispered and, all at once, the charge he’d drawn switched. A hundred towering thunderbolts erupted from the blackened sky and converged upon the hulking slime, obliterating any trace of it in a blinding flash and a crackling boom that echoed across the surrounding highlands to be heard as far away as the great city of Wanggang.
He had ignited the King of the Red Killers, however: one of the most volatile and explosive living things in existence, and that action did not go without consequence. It was two seconds before the shockwave reached him. It had already reached the glacier and an entire side of the mountain was falling.
Action Opportunities
Present: Yalen Castel @pantothenic, Valerian Remi Leclere @yoshua171, Maura Mercador @Ti, Trypano Somia @A Lowly Wretch, Ingrid Penderson @dragonpiece, Niallus Saberhagen @McKennaJ71, and Abdel Varga @YummyYummy
Kaureerah had not walked close to the skuggvar. Every instinct that she had screamed at her to run from it. She’d seen those things eat people with her own eyes before, and every moment within its senses sent burning anxiety and instinctual dread coursing through her body. Yet, the others had been so eager to go on their own investigations and she’d been so damned agreeable that she had been placed with one of the animals and an old man who… could sort of handle it?
She’d been trying to get lost - ‘accidentally’ separated - and then, after hiding in some safe place for a little while, she could just call the entire thing off and apologize and be done with it. Maura or Abdel or Yalen would find something and her failure would be quickly forgotten. It was better to be forgotten sometimes. You could disappear and reappear somewhere else and the danger would be gone. Guilt clenched at Kaureerah’s stomach, for she knew that she was no hero. She was a musician, an entertainer, and a whore and she did not belong among these people. The coast was within sight and she spared a quick glance at the waves before returning her senses to the big threat: that beast. It plodded along, sniffing and snorting, its great toothy head swaying back and forth, and that was how they moved: on one of those swings it would lunge and Xiang would be unable to control it and it would try to rip her limb from limb. In the water, the eeaiko might outpace it. She used kinetic and chemical magics to force her heartbeat to slow, to stop the juices of her mind that screamed fear into her veins.
She and Xiang had not exchanged more than a handful of words the entire time and it was awkward, because he seemed to want to talk. He even seemed friendly. “Eye weell goo scaut een te wauter,” she offered, forcing a rather pathetic smile. Then, the animal raised its head and looked at her and she jumped back. “Okay, girl. Okay. You no be scare. No scare. She nice. No hurt you.” One of those ‘nice’ things had eaten her sister. Its tail swayed from side to side and its tongue shot out to lick its lips and Kaureerah just… couldn’t. “E-eye weell goo,” She squeaked, as the old Retanese man grimaced and shook his head. “Eye weell jaust bee een te wauter.” She peeled out of the bulkier of her human-style garments and managed not to outright run for the shore.
Seven people reconvened at the guardian station after a day’s worth of investigation, knowing more and sure of less. Xiulan was among them, bitterly quiet, her professional veneer threatening to crumble once more following the unrecoverable loss of her life’s ambition. “It is because I am a Jiang,” she had cryptically told Yalen during the return walk, hiding her words as much as possible from Zihan, who walked uncomfortably and pensively behind, catching the Somnian’s eyes when he glanced back at her. “No Jiang ever passes the test.”
Abdel returned with his own story to tell, and Ming in tow. How much he said, however, and how much evidence he presented, was entirely up to him. Certainly, Maura, his rather significant other, returned on something of a high, Yawen in tow, with much to report should she see fit to. Indeed, the biggest question at first seemed to be what they would share or whether they would share at all...
…But then Kaureerah didn’t show up. She had been dispatched to the coast, to a fishing village, tracking both Mr. Bao’s and the black cloaked woman’s scents, and she had gone with Mr. Xiang’s and Dayanara’s help. Abdel searched in that direction for the distinctive energy signature of his skuggvar, hoping that they had merely taken a wrong turn or been held up by something perfectly innocent, and both Yalen and Yawen joined him. They located the animal still in the village, or just north of it. And, as afternoon began its march toward evening, Abdel and Yawen were insistent. “Something is badly wrong,” the latter warned. “We need to gather our forces and go there now.”
The water was cold, as all ocean water was but, once she had spent a minute or so beneath its surface, Kaureerah’s body made the adjustment and magic helped with the rest. Her eyes adjusted to the light and her ears to the different way in which sound traveled. At last, she took a cautious breath, mouth and throat warming as her manas set about breaking the water down and extracting from it the air that she needed to breathe. The rest, she snorted out through her nose.
So, the eeaiko just… swam, as she had not for some time. It wasn’t exercise. It wasn’t just to be wet. It was to go somewhere and do something and it felt nice to swim with purpose. She soon - and maybe purposely - forgot all about her unwanted escort. She was in her element, quite literally, and had no wish to return to the land.
The coast of Retan outside of the capital was deep greenish-blue place where algae grew on every surface. Crustaceans picked their way through the jumbled rocks and slow, wide-mouthed bottom-dwelling fish burrowed in the thick mud. Fishing nets, caught or abandoned, hung everywhere in the water in various states of decomposition. Some still had active floats and she was forced to swim around them. All manner of detritus and garbage and a great multitude of planks were strewn about, small fish darting among or sheltering under them. She passed a couple of sunken boats as she carried on.
Then, some ways away, she could hear and feel movement in the water that was not that of an animal. It had the imperious feel of a human ship that rode above the waves, pushing them away from itself and the fragile sapients within. Reaching out with her magic senses, she found it out of her range, along with Mr. Xiang and the skuggvar, who she tried to tell herself she was chagrined for having forgotten.
Five minutes later, Kaureerah was in range, but if she could detect others, then they could detect her. A shark. I am a shark. Picturing the illusion in her mind’s eye - its shape to the naked eye and its energy to one’s manas - she crafted a shark around herself. She did not waste energy or effort on its scent or sounds. Humans neglected those senses, particularly the former. So it was that a shark’s dorsal fin - or perhaps a girl’s head - broke the surface of the water right outside of the village, where people rushed back and forth unloading a black ship. Nikanese, Kaureerah recognized. Human cultures had once seemed an incomprehensible mishmash to her, all too similar to each other to be truly distinguishable. Now, however, she was quite certain. It looked Retanese, but a few of the details were different: the shape of the bow, the rigging of the sails and, most of all, the languages being spoken that she could just make out if she used some sonic enhancement.
But that involved using magic. Sharks did not use magic in that way and the enemy was not stupid. Someone was shouting in Nikanese - pointing at her - and Kaureerah dived desperately beneath the surface, for she was no fighter. Arrows and harpoons plunged in after her and one grazed the girl and drew blood. She should not have separated herself from Mr. Xiang and… just thinking of the beast proved a distraction, and enough of one that Kaureerah lost her focus. Something incorporeal grabbed her with irresistible force, and she felt herself lifted clear of the water. When she looked for the source, fighting with all of her magic to break free, she found it: a man in a hooded black robe.
The efficiency with which the Guardians worked when there was the prospect of a genuine threat was breathtaking. It was naught but fifteen minutes later when Whispering Dragon Squad of the Bái Qíshì set out in force, accompanied by the four students. The mighty Captain Zhao rode at its head in full regalia, with lieutenants Ming and Zihan marshalling twin columns of Guards old and new. Yawen and the second Watchful Eye, Meng, occupied the middle, along with two Red Menders. The first was a graceful older woman named Ai-Xue, with brilliant white hair well past her waist. The second, Nuan, was young and plump-faced, with a sparkle in her eye. The Speaker, Shuyuan, rode immediately behind her Captain, ever attentive to his needs and orders.
It was none of these who gained the group’s attention most, however, for there were two new members they had not seen before. At the very rear came an enormous hairy man of few words riding a small mammoth. Across his back waited two swords in ancient and ornate sheaths, their design marking them as distinct from Retanese tradition and promising violence. Upon Abdel’s questioning, Shuyuan referred to him only as ‘Yěmán’, or ‘Savage’.
Gallivanting about on a quick and ugly horse and making the poor Speaker’s life difficult with his constant needling of the others, however, was the final member of the group: Tai-Heng. A small man, balding, with long oily hair and a bristly, unkempt mustache, he carried an assortment of oddly-shaped knives and a bandoleer packed with pistols and ammunition. By their body language and tone, it was clear both that he was very powerful and that the others looked upon him with contempt.
Turning off the main trunk road, Whispering Dragon Squad and its foreign escorts found themselves in the open countryside of Retan during golden hour, where farmers worked for as long as daylight would allow to bring in their rezain harvest. Most all of them paused and looked up, some bowing respectfully, others waving, and a handful seeming to shrink away. The small road that they occupied became too narrow as it passed through some hilly country, a lone village perched on a nearby hill glowing with the orange sun.
Finally, they reached a fork in the road, with an old wooden signpost. One direction pointed towards a place simply called ‘Shan’ or ‘Mountain’ and the other towards ‘Chuánwèi’. “Hah!” barked Captain Zhao. “They’ve reversed the signs!” He reached out with his magic and set them right again. “We are entering the domain of the enemy,” he warned, and Xiulan translated for the students. “Stay alert. Cover each other.” Then, he spurred his horse forward into the setting sun.
The sun had set and the village of ‘Chuánwèi’ was startlingly empty when they reached it. A handful of people retreated inside hastily as Whispering Dragon Squad approached, and Zihan and her captain exchanged a wary look. Perhaps it was merely that its many fishermen were already asleep, for they would have to wake up well before dawn to sail out to the best fishing waters. However, the concentration of human-shaped energies that Yawen and Meng picked up to the immediate north, behind a forested ridge, hinted that there was more at play. Abdel and Yalen confirmed as much for those who were further from the pair of Watchful Eyes. The energies of a sleeping skuggvar were very much present as well, but there was more: something else, skulking about unseen.
The Captain raised a fist and those behind him came to a halt, save for Tai-Heng, who scampered on his mangy mount into the middle of the village, cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, “骑兵来了!” (the cavalry is here!) He grinned wickedly. “出来，出来，无论你在哪里!” (come out, come out, wherever you aaaarrrre!)
Horses snorted and stamped. The wind whispered and distant waves crashed. A sign on a post creaked and eyes darted about. Then, from around a rocky headland, appeared a black ship. Its gun ports opened and thirty cannon pointed at the group and the village. It opened fire.
Action Opportunities
Tyrel could recall, as if she were still there, the satisfying creak of the floorboards underfoot: so well-worn by the thousands of feet that must’ve come and gone over the years. The scent of pine needles in the burgeoning stresia remained as vivid as if she were nine years old again, pacing about, talking anxiously and excitedly with the other girls, swinging her lone foot back and forth when she’d forced herself to sit. She could picture it perfectly: the smoothed and ancient nail that she’d rested the toe of her boot against. It had stuck up just enough to act as focus for her racing mind. The warm sun and the faint songs of dowsingjays had visited her from the large, curved windows, and dust motes had swirled and sparkled in the golden air, ethereal.
There had been five of them, at first, remembered as colours, sounds, and feelings: Ailette, mousy brown, spectacles, and a rigorous, factual energy that flirted with the edge of aloofness; Ynorii, black-haired, Nikanese, foreign and shy but, when she opened up, warm, goofy, and… perhaps more mature than the others; Pluurii, white hair, pale, cynical, and awkward, fingers contorting themselves, foot tapping incessantly, glances stolen at a limb too recently lost; Thantra, red-orange, laughter, a best friend for a day, bright and energetic, hands held, games played, and circles upon circles danced. They were supposed to have kept in touch.
Five girls, they had been, all of an age, all with a burgeoning gift for magic, and made one-legged through birth, calamity, or illness. Then, there had arrived the woman with the bird-eyes. Tyrel did not remember her name, but she remembered her bearing. It was that of a bird, and not the friendly dowsingjays that her people so often kept as companions. She had walked like a gastornis: tall among the children and seated parents, with measured steps and eyes that flicked about, seeking either predators or prey. She had smiled like the other adults and spoken similar kinds of words in her lilting Constantian accent, but Tyrel had not liked her. Some animal part of the girl's mind had instinctively avoided the woman, but she had not been able to avoid the little shadow that pooled behind her legs, dark and clumsy and desperately wishing not to be noticed: Juulette.
There had been something in Tyrel that day, and she had shared it with Thantra. She had wanted to kick Juulette. The tiny girl had looked at them with these huge, dark, fearful eyes, flinching when they’d taken so much as a step toward her. She’d thumped and clunked about awkwardly on her crutches, bumping into the bird-woman more than once and recoiling in apologetic horror, but never too far away. Instead, she’d just lurked, leg drawn up, gripping her elbows with her hands, eyes burning into their backs as they’d played but then fleeing whenever Tyrel or Thantra had returned their gaze. Were the bird-woman not there, they might’ve talked to her, maybe in the cruel fashion of children or maybe out of sympathy. She was like a wounded rabbit in rezain: either something to be nursed back to health or put out of its misery.
When the priestesses had asked their questions, she had mumbled and stuttered and lisped and Tyrel had flushed with both revulsion and shame for looking down on someone so clearly less fortunate. It was hard to recall, now, a time when she had not been the Avatar of Vyshta, but a fear had nestled inside of her, just as she assumed it had in all six of the girls present, that she would not be the one. She would just be an unremarkable girl with a missing leg. Only, she had passed the church’s battery of tests. She had been chosen and consigned the others to that fate. Only Pluurii had seemed unbothered. Tyrel remembered the sight of small girls burrowing their faces into the folds of their mothers’ clothing. She remembered Juulette silently running away and she had followed her.
“It isn’t me. It isn’t me,” the tiny girl had repeated with rhythmic obsession, sitting on a tree branch, hugging her knee to her chest and crying. Tyrel was unsure, to this day, whether those had been tears of failure or tears of joy. Juulette had shaken, but her back had been turned and the sight of her had been unnerving. Whether it was anxiety, relief, or madness' silent laughter, one could not say. A nine-year-old Tyrel had stood there, in the shadows where the floor above loomed over the balcony, for a good long time, her stomach squeezing itself weak and hazy. She hadn’t known what to say. She’d only known that she needed to say something. Then, a door had opened, the bird-woman had arrived, and the Avatar of Vyshta had fled like a small animal.
It was but a speedbump. An entire two years early, she'd been granted the honour of a cognomen. Some had pushed for her to take ‘Vyshta’, as was her right, and she might’ve been Tyrel’vyshta’dichora, but her family had already been calling her Tyrel’yrash for years, to differentiate her from her mother, so she’d kept the humbler name and was glad of it. Damy would not like arrogance. Every night, she knelt by her bedside and prayed to him that she and he might be reconciled when she ascended. Fate and Fortune did not need to be enemies, so she would tell anyone in her official role as a living goddess. Yet, if she was lauded and beloved, heralded as a prodigy, a centre of attention, so had been a hundred other Avatars before her. They had all died by their twenty-fifth year and, every so often, when she did not have Chad for sex or Miret for comfort, when she was alone, Tyrel wished some other girl had been chosen. Let it have been Juulette, or… It felt wrong to place the burden on anyone else.
Of the other five, she’d seen only Ailette, in passing, as she was some sort of chemist at the academy now, speaking in incomprehensible mathematics, using instruments of science to create and destroy and eschewing magic as an end unto itself. They had never had much in common. The Avatar shifted in bed, the space too big for her. Miret was out late… being what she was. Chad was absent. There had been too many whispers that he was more than a luush’elar - that they were exclusively wedded in the fashion of humans and other lesser peoples - and so he attended to others, as one of his status was expected to. Sweet Chad and the genuine person behind his put-on arrogance and winking jokes. He consumed her. Tyrel lay there and stared at the swirling patterns of the ceiling, where branches had been woven together to form it. Virtuous. The Avatar of Vyshta must be virtuous and seen as such, or she would not live. A tear weighed on the lashes at the corner of her eye and she let it slide away into her pillow.
Present: Esmii @BlackRoseSiren, Oksana @Ti, Yuliya [@Arte], Marz @Th3King0fChaos, Yvain @jasbraq, Roslyn @Fallenreaper, and Khaliun @YummyYummy
Desperate Camaraderie
Night came upon Kirimansk, and it was a cold, silent thing. The streets were somber and largely empty, save for the occasional howl of a dog or clatter of loose rubble skittering down a ravine that had once been scenic but now seemed threatening. The lone exception to this was in the immediate vicinity of the гостиница золотая река - the Golden River Inn - where light spilled out in warped yellow triangles from a handful of windows and the sounds of drinking, laughter, and revelry reached into the darkness.
Many of these were locals. Six were students of Ersand’Enise and their semi-local guide. Strictly speaking, all might’ve been better served by serious discussion on what had happened so far and what was to come. However, what had happened before and what was to come were subjects of overwhelming stress, and so they were here drinking, instead. When they drank, things happened…
A small, scraggly Vossoriyan man was swinging at Sven. Penny blinked and sat stalk-straight as she witnessed the giant Eskandr block it with ease. The attacker was shouting angrily in his native tongue and Sven was responding in a confused and jarringly non-lisping tone. Her alcohol-addled mind told her to jump in and try to defuse matters, but within less than thirty seconds, Marz and three more locals had joined in and she was seated astride one of them, pounding the woman to a pulp.
Then, Yvain was there, along with a giant of a woman, and it was an out and out brawl. For the next five minutes, they pounded each other, taking out all of the frustrations they must’ve felt at the recent calamities they had faced. In the end, Penny sat on the ground, chest heaving and someone else’s blood spattering her pretty dress. She brushed a few strands of sweaty, disheveled hair from her face and pawed gingerly at a nose that felt… Is it broken!?
Then the boys were flexing and complimenting each other and - to be fair - her as well. It was a desperate sort of laughter and camaraderie that followed: something they were in sore need of following the disaster that had been Tagayungri. Yvain paid for any damage to the tavern and they filled the next half-hour with armwrestling. Of course, Penny didn’t legitimately beat any of the men and, once the adrenaline started to wear off, she quickly realized just how many injuries she had picked up: a broken nose and pinkie finger, three split knuckles, a tender rib, and a badly bruised stump.
The little group of four brawlers plus Esmii ended the night staggering outside through the empty streets, their breath coming out in crystalline puffs and lingering in the cold Stresian air. When they reached the cutoff point where magic started to return, they wasted little time in healing their wounds and trudging back towards the Golden River, the spirit that had animated them through the raucous night having faded somewhere in the intervening time. All of the others were abed by that unholy hour, and they were not long in following.
Yet, for one more member of their group, the night was not something to be slept through. Having been sent along late after her peers, Roslyn Wicke, a brewer’s daughter and unlikely heiress to a rather humble fief in southwest Hendland, had spent the past night and day on a rickety river barge that rocked and groaned with the current. Four cages full of chickens clucked softly under the light of two full moons, old man Boris snored like one of the foghorns out by Morcester on the coast, and Andrei and Natasha were thumping, sighing, and giggling as they did… The motion of the ship had churned her stomach, stirring Roslyn awake and out onto the deck. Her chattering teeth spilled warm breath into the frosty air. She raised a palm, pressing it into the dark rings around her eyes. Feeling the grit dug away, she rested against the chilly rail to gaze at the stars. Gradually her gaze drifted down to observe the looming cliffside. Shortly, the Belykuska entered a gorge. Recalling her knowledge, this marked the final approach to Kirimansk.
They were awoken by the ringing of church bells. It was Victendes and the Veterite Church was not so very different from the mainline Avincian Quentic one in that regard. They rose from various beds in various states of wretchedness, yawning, stretching, and blinking. A couple buried their heads under pillows. One or two were somehow bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Nazih looked particularly rough, however: lethargic, cold, and repeatedly rolling his neck as he tried to work a kink out of it.
They gathered in the downstairs tavern where they had caused such a ruckus the day before, braving a handful of sour looks and narrowed eyes. Breakfast was nearly over and many others, for all that they might’ve seemed a rough-hewn people, were attending mass at St. Artyom’s Cathedral or one of the two smaller outlying churches. It was in one of these - Ahn-Dami the Shrewd - that the larger group had planned to meet up with Yuliya and Khaliun.
First, however, they had to make their way through the town, and this was chaos, what with the ongoing rescue and reconstruction efforts - sans magic - the normal Victendes traffic, and their unfamiliarity with Kirimansk, save Oksana, who was only passingly familiar. It was during this winding journey, complete with at least two wrong turns, that Esmii shared the harrowing story of her journey into a sealed-off cave the evening before and what she had learned. Gravity itself seemed to be askew, and it did not take long before people were already proposing this as a cause of the quake that had so devastated the town recently.
They did not have long to speak, however.
Wandering about the port, a flutter of butterflies raced within Roslyn's midriff. She had stepped off the boat onto the sparsely crowded dock. Her hand clutched her bag close, comforting and anchoring in her in the moment. She frowned as frustration and worry built in her chest.
Her head turned from one direction to another, seeking any sign of other students here. Roslyn worried she had gotten lost upon arrival. She paused as she debated on her next actions and a small sigh escaped from her lips. The young woman had started back to retrace her steps when a voice called her name: “Roslyn!? Roslyn Wicke?” It was Penny’s voice, but she was addressing a confused-looking woman who was wandering about near the docks, in distinctly foreign dress. “I know her from conversion class with Jocasta!” she assured the rest of her party.
Rolsyn turned about to face the source. A familiar face brought her anxiety down as she recognized her classmate. With a quick step, she made short work of the distance between her and the group. "I thought I had gotten lost for a moment there."
Thus, the party’s final member joined them, resulting in a delay of a further twenty minutes while she rushed over to the Golden River to deposit her belongings, and then back, where she was filled in on their earlier discussions.
By the time that the group of now eight arrived at the doors of Dami the Shrewd, the church was busy disgorging its worshippers back onto the muddy streets. Presently, a decade of monks in dark robes shuffled past in the direction of the near-distant cliffside monastery they had seen on their way in. Eight wore blue kamilavkas and the remaining two, red. For half of the students, this was the first tingle of magic they had felt since arriving, though it was fuzzy and hard to grasp, as if their manas remained agitated. They found Yuliya and Khaliun soon after, seated in the rearmost pews, engaged in idle - and mostly one-sided - conversation. After slightly confused introductions were made, for nobody had expected Roslyn, it was quickly down to business. Sven, surprisingly, took the lead and laid out their objectives as succinctly as one could with their limited information:
One: find the crate that they had been sent to retrieve.
Two: discern the extent of the anti-magic field and try to use this to find its origin.
Three: learn more about the recent quake and see if it might be connected to the other two.
Four: investigate the strange phenomena in the caverns.
Two: discern the extent of the anti-magic field and try to use this to find its origin.
Three: learn more about the recent quake and see if it might be connected to the other two.
Four: investigate the strange phenomena in the caverns.
To this end, their local guides offered the following:
One: the monks were members of the Druzdyan Order of St. Artyom, dedicated to the care of the sacred springs that existed in the caves and caverns that peppered the cliffs beneath the town.
Two: The caves had once been a minor holy site and subject to some pilgrimage, but were now sealed off to visitors and had been for some years.
Three: Kirimansk was one of the last places conquered by the invading Vossoriyans and many of the residents were of mixed blood or even descended from its original inhabitants. Khaliun, though not from the city itself, was one of these people.
Four: A good deal of trade from Hoch Dorumvir and even Hagh Ramorghand passed through the town, and hegelans were not a rare sight, though they had become so lately.
Two: The caves had once been a minor holy site and subject to some pilgrimage, but were now sealed off to visitors and had been for some years.
Three: Kirimansk was one of the last places conquered by the invading Vossoriyans and many of the residents were of mixed blood or even descended from its original inhabitants. Khaliun, though not from the city itself, was one of these people.
Four: A good deal of trade from Hoch Dorumvir and even Hagh Ramorghand passed through the town, and hegelans were not a rare sight, though they had become so lately.
With these ideas squarely in mind, it was decided that the group would split into pairs and work to cover as much ground as they could, with Nazih eagerly volunteering to investigate the caverns and the strange phenomena there. It was up to the others to decide who they would pair with and where they would go.
Action Opportunities
CS Review
Hi @Fallenreaper! I've read your CS and, below, you'll find my feedback and some recommendations. Thanks for getting this finished and have a good move!
Observations:
1) Your background research on brewing really shone through. I liked the section on her use of The Gift.
2) I appreciate that you're willing to have her be a bit biddable and gullible without it being a meme. Nuance is good.
3) The cherune bit was interesting and could feed into something in the future.
4) I liked the section on her motivation. It's succinct, impactful, and establishes strong stakes for the character.
5) Inventory is really good as well. The items, as chosen, are both evocative and practical.
6) I like the dancing bit. Just a small detail that helps paint a picture.
7) Overall, in the interest of some constructive criticism, the fit and finish could be a bit better, but there are no glaring issues and she meshes well with the feel of the world and the RPG. Address the typos listed below when you can. Roslyn is accepted!
2) I appreciate that you're willing to have her be a bit biddable and gullible without it being a meme. Nuance is good.
3) The cherune bit was interesting and could feed into something in the future.
4) I liked the section on her motivation. It's succinct, impactful, and establishes strong stakes for the character.
5) Inventory is really good as well. The items, as chosen, are both evocative and practical.
6) I like the dancing bit. Just a small detail that helps paint a picture.
7) Overall, in the interest of some constructive criticism, the fit and finish could be a bit better, but there are no glaring issues and she meshes well with the feel of the world and the RPG. Address the typos listed below when you can. Roslyn is accepted!
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