King Cosmos

Arcane Dreams! (Now Open!)

Isabella Nunes

Isabella Nunes

Age: 21

Appearance: Isabella is a little above average height for a woman her age, at 5’ 8”, with a build that is noticeably muscular and athletic, particularly around the arms and shoulders. Her skin is a light brown, tanned, with reddish brown hair, not vibrant enough to be called auburn, and her eyes are a dark brown that is almost black. Calloused hands show the signs of her work ethic and she has a scar on the knuckles of her right hand from one of the times she pushed herself too hard.

She could be described as having harsh features, but a lot of that just comes from her expression; even so, she has an angular face, with a sharp pointed chin, cheekbones that are just about visible and a thin nose.

When it comes to clothing Isabella tends to keep things simple, while also prioritising clothing that is durable or multi-purpose; a leather jacket that looks well worn, with scratches around the elbows and the hem, a pair of jeans that are faded and torn, but weren’t when she bought them, various pieces of clothing that show signs of repair. She had never been in a position in her life where she could afford many luxuries, so any clothing she buys needs to have a reason to be in her wardrobe and tough enough that she doesn’t often need to worry about replacing things that break or get worn down.

In her sorcerer form, Isabella looks much the same. Her clothing changes to be heavier and darker, with a black leather jacket that has a collar made of coarse brown fur, black jeans made of thick and durable denim and a pair of heavy black boots; different from her normal clothing but not much different from what she would choose to wear herself. The biggest differences are in her eyes, now dark throughout with pitch black sclera, and her finger nails which are also completely black.

Pronouns: She/Her

Personality:
- Self-sufficient: Isabella has always had to take care of herself, as no one else was dependable enough to rely on. It has meant that she had to mature faster than those around her, leaving her out of sync with her peers. If something needs to be done, she will always try to do it herself first and asking for help is anathema to her.
- Hardworking: Growing up she developed the mentality that it she didn’t do things for herself then they wouldn’t get done. Isabella is someone who is always willing to put the effort in when it is needed; a job left unfinished or a job done poorly will just create problems further down the road.
- Driven: Isabella is not content with her current situation and is looking for a way out. There are better things ahead, but they will not come to her unless she puts in the effort to reach them. She will keep moving forward.
- Serious: She doesn’t have time for fun or relaxation when there are things to be done.
- Mistrustful; People have let her down in the past, people who should have been there for her. Isabella does not count on other people to help her, nor does she expect them to come through for her in her time of need. She is alone.

Aspirations, Goals, ideals, or Ambitions: Prior to becoming a sorcerer, Isabella’s ambition was just to… succeed. To finish college with a good degree, to get a job with decent pay, most likely as a physical trainer or maybe a physical therapist, to not have to constantly count pennies or worry about how to cover next month’s bills. To reach a place of stability, if had to sum it up.

Since she made the contract though, and found out about spirits and sorcerers and the veil and all of that stuff? Nothings really changed. Things have become more complicated, she had more responsibilities to think off, but she also has more opportunities at the same time. The world has gotten larger, scarier, but… nothings really changed.

A place of stability. That’s still the goal.

History:

A short novel

Isabella’s parents were young when her mother become pregnant; it had been unplanned and neither of them felt like they were ready for the responsibility at the time, her mother was nineteen and her father twenty, but they also didn’t see any alternative once they were in that situation. Both came from religious families, they were both raised with certain beliefs that made the idea of not having the baby unpalatable and they both feared how their families would react even if it was an option. As such, Isabella was born and Carlos and Maria Nunes became parents.

At the time Carlos had just started working at a mechanic’s shop owned by a friend of his father’s, while Maria had yet to find work after dropping out of high school in her last year, meaning that the couple did not have much of an income between them. Nonetheless, though they hadn’t been planning on it, the two of them moved in together following the birth of their daughter and moved in a small apartment that they could barely afford; this decision was also made partly due to the expectations of their families, even though such a living arrangement was difficult for them financially. Isabella’s mother began to look for work only a few months after she was born in order to bring more money into the household, leaving her in the care of either her parents while she did so.

Money was always a concern for their family. Both of Isabella’s parents were working long hours just to keep their heads above water in a situation that neither of them were prepared for. As such, her parents relied heavily on the support offered by Isabella’s grandparents; specifically those on her mother’s side, as Maria’s parents lived closer to them and both were retired, meaning they were more available than Carlos’s. As such, as a child Isabella was raised more by her maternal grandparents than she was her mother and father. This support, while at times necessary, was also something of a double-edged sword, as it provided the young and somewhat unwilling parents to avoid having to learn how to raise a child and push the responsibility onto others.

If they sometimes handed Isabella off to her grandparents for longer than was necessary, or when they could have taken care of their daughter themselves, it was intentional.

Her mother’s parents were strict people; hard people set in their ways and though they were happy to help the young couple at first, what was being asked of them now was beyond just helping. They were disappointed in their daughter for having a child so young and then being unable to care for her, they were also disappointed in her for dropping out of high school in the first place; while they were not so heartless as to completely neglect Isabella they did not do the things that they saw as a parents responsibility in the hopes that either of her parents would step up. As they did not, this meant that Isabella was slow to develop in certain areas, but not in others; for example she learned to walk and talk just fine, but struggled when it came to reading because her parents were never around to read to her and her grandparents wouldn’t do it in their stead.

This left Isabella at a disadvantage when it came to her education, not just because she was behind by the time she started school, but because there was nobody at home who could or would help her with homework or school projects. She underperformed compared to her peers in class and would often fail to hand in homework or hand in incomplete work, which led to her often getting in trouble. When she tried to explain to her teachers that she didn’t understand the homework, she was told to ask her parents, when she tried to ask her parents she was told to ask her grandparents and when she tried to ask her grandparents she was told to ask her teachers or her parents.

It wasn’t until two years into school that Isabella met a teacher who was willing to give her the extra attention and tutoring that she needed to catch-up with her peers, someone who was willing to ask why she was underperforming instead of just punishing her for it. They quickly found out about her home situation and the lack of support she was receiving; her parents were called into the school, only for them to send Isabella’s grandparents in their stead, who then proceeded to push the responsibility back onto the teachers in a circular conversation that led nowhere. It was not until the end of that school year that her teacher was finally able to get a hold of her parents and explain the situation to them that her parents finally stopped burying their head in the sand.

However, even now that they were the parents of a six year old child, Isabella’s parents were not much better prepared than they had been when she was born. They were present and they were trying, but they were still overworked and Isabella still found herself without the support she needed; it was just that now, instead of the indifference of her grandparents she was met with the unavailability and inability of her parents. She had expected them to help with her homework, or to read her stories, or to come to school events; sometimes they did, but more often than not they couldn’t. It came as a disappointment, even at that age she knew to be disappointed, but if there was any silver lining to her situation it was the fact that had taught her how to figure stuff out for herself. She now had a teacher who was understanding and willing to offer extra help and Isabella had learned when to ask and when to figure stuff out herself, rather than to wait for help that wasn’t coming.

A few years later, when Isabella was nine or ten, things changed again. The owner of the mechanic’s shop her father worked at had decided to retire and he was going to hand the business over to Carlos. It meant he was going to be even busier from then on, work even harder, but it also meant he would bring more money home with him; this in turn meant that Maria didn’t need to work as often and could afford to take fewer shifts, leaving her more time with Isabella. But while the presence and attention of a parental figure was appreciated, Isabella had by this point long figured out that it was often easier or just better to be self-sufficient in whatever areas she could manage; making herself breakfast or lunch, getting herself ready for school and dealing with school work were all things she could and would do herself. Even when her mother or father offered to help or tried to play a bigger role in her life, she would often reject them; not harshly, but just saying she had things handled.

In the years since, Isabella has only learned to become more and more independent; if she can do something herself, she will, and if she can’t she will figure out the best person to ask and then learn how to do it herself next time. Her teenaged years were defined by her attempts to be fiercely self-reliant, even when it wasn’t practical; studying by herself, learning how to do her own chores, even getting a part-time job as soon as she was able to so that she could begin saving up money just in case. A year after entering high-school she began taking lessons at a boxing gym, which she begrudgingly let her parents pay for after some arguing, so she could even defend herself if need be.

The result was that she developed into a very capable person at a young age; smart, hard-working, driven. However it also meant that she was harder, as a person, than someone as young as her should be. In some ways Isabella had made her life more difficult than it needed to be, by placing a lot of responsibility on her own shoulders and eschewing help were it was available; in doing so she also consciously created rift between herself and her parents, who found themselves at a loss of how to interact with their daughter who was actively trying to avoid needing them.

After graduating high school, Isabella moved out of her parent’s place as soon as she could; moved to a whole new city. Her hard work had earned her a scholarship; nowhere fancy, just some college in a place called Millburn City, but that was good enough. The money she had saved up over the last few years was spent setting herself up in a tiny apartment long enough for her to find more part time work, and the money she earned from that was enough to keep the roof over her head and food in the fridge while she attended lectures and worked towards a degree.

Living in a tiny apartment, earning a wage that barely covered the bills while she worked to keep her head above water long enough to maybe swim to shore one day? Young and out of her depth and less prepared for her situation than she thought she was? Isabella’s situation wasn’t too different from the one her parents had found themselves in.

And she would hate the comparison.

Contract(s): Standard

Contract Interaction:

Read the fine print

There was a weight pressing down on her. A crushing, smothering weight that kept her from sitting up and which made it hard to breathe. It was uncomfortable, but strangely enough it wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation; Isabella knew was it was like to feel under pressure, even if this was a little more literal.

Oh, but what if there was a way to free yourself of the burden?

There was. It was college; it was a degree and the job that would come with it. Money, stability, self-reliance.

But those things are sooooo far away. And there’s no guarantee you’ll ever achieve them.

She would. She was capable of it.

All by yourself?

She’d always been by herself. It had never stopped her before.

Just because you’re moving forward doesn’t mean you’re going anywhere, you know?

…

Power. That’s what you need. Those with power can get money. Power brings with it stability. Power gives you self-reliance. Do you want power?

Yeah, of course. Who doesn’t.

That’s all I needed to hear.

Level: 1

Key: A cross pendant necklace. Isabella isn’t religious, but it was a gift from her grandmother on her father’s side that she always wears.

Mana Colour: Purple.

Artifact points: 2

• Weapon (1 point) – A pair of brass knuckles.
• Talisman (1 point) – A little silver cube, attached to a charm bracelet. Notable only for the fact that it is the only charm Isabella has.

Artifacts: Isabella’s weapon looks relatively mundane; just a regular set of brass knuckles, albeit one made of dull black metal. They are imbued with a piece of a Nightmares power; the dread weight that sits atop your chest and makes it hard to move, that locks you in place and keeps you in a state of paralysis even after you wake.

Every time Isabella hits an opponent with the brass knuckles, they will feel a slight weight settle on their shoulders. Barely noticeable at first, but with each hit it will increase until every step feels heavy and plodding and their movements become sluggish. The feeling with fade after about a minute, but the timer will be reset whenever Isabella lands the next hit.

Her talisman is also fairly ordinary looking; a little silver cube with black lines drawn diagonally on each face, one running from the top-left corner to the bottom-right and two short lines on either side of it. It is attached to a charm bracelet she wears on her left wrist and is the only charm on said bracelet.

The talisman has the same power at her weapon, but much stronger and shorter lived. When activated it places a huge sense of weight atop the target; not enough to harm them, but usually enough to pin them in place or even drive them to the ground. The effect only lasts a few seconds at most before ending.

Familiar: Isabella’s familiar with a Nightmare. Not a creature responsible for bad dreams, as the name suggests, nor a manifestation of a bad dream; Nightmares are creatures that feed off of the dreams of humans, by sitting atop their chest as they sleep and draining them. Such creatures are responsible for the phenomena of sleep paralysis and though they usually cannot be seen their presence can be felt as a crushing, suffocating weight that holds you in place.

Nightmare’s vary in their appearance, but the one Isabella contracted with takes the form of a rat; a particularly ugly, mangy looking rat. Isabella tries to avoid dealing with it as much as possible.

RATTLECHOMP

Sasha Zaitseva

WHAT IS THE CHARACTER'S NAME?

Sasha Zaitseva

WHAT IS A STRANGER'S FIRST IMPRESSION UPON MEETING THEM?

Mousy, timid, afraid of her own shadow. Sasha is a small thing, petite and short, made even smaller by the way she curls in on herself and keeps her head down; her voice is quiet and she has trouble getting her words out, especially when people are looking at her. She is not good around people in general.

Nonetheless, there is a surety to the way she does things that is at odds with this. When carrying out a task she moves with purpose, not slowing, never wavering or pausing to think about the next step; something not exactly like confidence, but more a certainty of what she is doing. That is, until she notices someone watching her and then it all falls apart.

WHAT IS THEIR PROFESSION AND HOW DO THEY FEEL ABOUT IT?

She is a hunter. At least, in theory they are.

Her father was a hunter, someone who would venture out into the woods and the mountains in search of deer or rabbit to bring home; then her mother would dress it, prepare it for cooking and separate out the parts that needed to be discarded from the parts that could be sold. Fur, antlers; that kind of thing. Before he… disappeared, he taught Sasha everything he knew; how to track game, how to navigate, how to avoid making noise or being seen. How to shoot and lay traps.

But Sasha has never hunted anything. She cannot bring herself to kill. Instead she uses the skills she was taught to forage for berries and fruits and wild vegetables; avoiding the animals, both dangerous and peaceful along the way. Sometime she will lead other hunters through the woods, the ones who can’t track as well as she can, finding and following the tracks of animals and bringing them to the place where they may shoot deer or rabbit or whatever else. Then she helps them bring their kill back to town and her mother dresses them and the hunters will give them a portion of it.

HOW HAS BEING A HOWL AFFECTED THEIR LIFE?

It’s not so bad. Sometimes she will see things in the woods that no one else can; dangers far worse than the wolves and bears that other hunters are afraid of, but ones that she can thankfully avoid. Sasha is almost certain that it was the Rue that caused her father’s disappearance; she can think of no other reason why a man like him would walk into the woods one day and never return.

WHY ARE THEY IN OAKEN CITY?

She was born in the city, technically. Albeit on the outskirts, where the buildings start to give way to the wilderness and fewer people live.

DO THEY HAVE A HOWL ABILITY? WHAT IS IT?

Sasha can see the Rue; shadowy figures that she hasn’t told anyone that she can see except for her mother. They are dangerous things that cannot be frightened off by a gunshot like a wolf can; even when she points her hunting rifle, loaded but never fired, at them they don’t care at all, but for some reason her father’s old revolver seems to give them pause. She pulled the trigger once, while pointing it at one of the shadows and although it wasn’t loaded Sasha swore she could hear the gunshot regardless, feel the gun kick in her hands and saw the shadow flee as if burned.

That only seems to work against the Rue though. The old gun is just a useless memento any other time.

RATTLECHOMP

This is probably going to clash with the setting in some way, but here's what I got.

Sasha Zaitseva

WHAT IS THE CHARACTER'S NAME?

Sasha Zaitseva

WHAT IS A STRANGER'S FIRST IMPRESSION UPON MEETING THEM?

Mousy, timid, afraid of her own shadow. Sasha is a small thing, petite and short, made even smaller by the way she curls in on herself and keeps her head down; her voice is quiet and she has trouble getting her words out, especially when people are looking at her. She is not good around people in general.

Nonetheless, there is a surety to the way she does things that is at odds with this. When carrying out a task she moves with purpose, not slowing, never wavering or pausing to think about the next step; something not exactly like confidence, but more a certainty of what she is doing. That is, until she notices someone watching her and then it all falls apart.

WHAT IS THEIR PROFESSION AND HOW DO THEY FEEL ABOUT IT?

She is a hunter. At least, in theory they are.

Her father was a hunter, someone who would venture out into the woods and the mountains in search of deer or rabbit to bring home; then her mother would dress it, prepare it for cooking and separate out the parts that needed to be discarded from the parts that could be sold. Fur, antlers; that kind of thing. Before he… disappeared, he taught Sasha everything he knew; how to track game, how to navigate, how to avoid making noise or being seen. How to shoot and lay traps.

But Sasha has never hunted anything. She cannot bring herself to kill. Instead she uses the skills she was taught to forage for berries and fruits and wild vegetables; avoiding the animals, both dangerous and peaceful along the way. Sometime she will lead other hunters through the woods, the ones who can’t track as well as she can, finding and following the tracks of animals and bringing them to the place where they may shoot deer or rabbit or whatever else. Then she helps them bring their kill back to town and her mother dresses them and the hunters will give them a portion of it.

HOW HAS BEING A HOWL AFFECTED THEIR LIFE?

It’s not so bad. Sometimes she will see things in the woods that no one else can; dangers far worse than the wolves and bears that other hunters are afraid of, but ones that she can thankfully avoid. Sasha is almost certain that it was the Rue that caused her father’s disappearance; she can think of no other reason why a man like him would walk into the woods one day and never return.

WHY ARE THEY IN OAKEN CITY?

She was born in the city, technically. Albeit on the outskirts, where the buildings start to give way to the wilderness and fewer people live.

DO THEY HAVE A HOWL ABILITY? WHAT IS IT?

Sasha can see the Rue; shadowy figures that she hasn’t told anyone that she can see except for her mother. They are dangerous things that cannot be frightened off by a gunshot like a wolf can; even when she points her hunting rifle, loaded but never fired, at them they don’t care at all, but for some reason her father’s old revolver seems to give them pause. She pulled the trigger once, while pointing it at one of the shadows and although it wasn’t loaded Sasha swore she could hear the gunshot regardless, feel the gun kick in her hands and saw the shadow flee as if burned.

That only seems to work against the Rue though. The old gun is just a useless memento any other time.

Dreaming Together With You - A Fading Memory Experiment - On Hiatus

Sidney Malcolm

Sidney was subdued as she followed the others into the city. She didn’t speak or join in with the conversations with the others as they trailed Eckehart through the crowds that parted for them, nor did she engage with the strange and varied revellers that they passed along the way, sticking close to the centre of the group. Her head was still swimming with everything that was happening, the lake coming to life and snatching them up, waking up in this place with their bodies transformed and being pulled along by this Eckehart guy to… somewhere, to meet this ‘True Voice’ of his, before she had time to even come to terms with the fact that there was a dragon, a dragon right over there.

All the while the song continued in the back of her mind.

What Sidney did do as she walked was look. Her head swung from side to side constantly, trying to see anything and everything all at once, from the crowds of people swarming around them, no two of which seemed to look alike, with their feathered heads, scaled skin and gleaming eyes, to the clothes and jewellery they were wearing and items they were carryings, the stalls selling wares and the buildings they stood in front of or hung out of the windows to see their passage. Even the members of their own group, her friends and familiar figures from New Hope; majestic antlers and raven black feathers and skin like parchment. Everything she saw, no matter where she looked or how she turned her head, looked unreal and yet so vividly, perfectly real at the same time. Sidney had seen art before, she had sometimes spent hours of the day looking at hundreds of paintings and illustrations of worlds and people and things that didn’t exist; whole fantasy worlds brought to life by the imaginations of incredibly talented people she could only dream of one day being as good as. But nothing she had ever seen captured in inks or paints or digital could match the depth of what she was seeing now. The reality of it all.

And that was before she even looked up at the sky.

“I wish I had a camera.”

She spent almost as much time looking at herself as she did everything else; her eyes, drifting every which way, always came back to the every-shifting canvas of her own skin. Her sleeve was still rolled up, her left forearm exposed as she idly ran the fingers of her other hand over the little butterfly she had drawn there. It felt smooth. Smoother than skin with supposed to be; not bumpy with goose bumps from the chill that still clung to her from waking up in a pool of water, not coated in little hairs from follicles that now seemed to be absent. Smooth like a lizards scales, maybe. When she looked closer, she could see that the surface of her skin was broken up into little, tiny plates; kind of like the scales of a reptile, except unnaturally uniform in shape and size, or maybe, given her shifting pigmentation, maybe like pixels on a computer screen.

Though yellow had been the dominant colour of her palette before, as Sidney walked through the city, as she saw more sights and began to feel calmer, the colours changed; yellow gave way to pinks and oranges or various hues, darker and more vibrant in places, muted in others. Tracing the edge of a pattern with one finger, Sidney wondered what it was that caused the changes, what decided the colours, and watched as a lilac hue spread across her skin amidst the rest, followed soon after by more yellow and a splash of red as she pulled her hand away.

“Weird.”

Dropping her arms to her sides and allowing her sleeve to fall back into place, Sidney looked up in time to see their group about to cross over a huge bridge; as wide as a highway and ornate in its construction, covered with vines and flowers that looked hand-crafted in how perfectly placed they were. Then her eyes dropped to the reliefs beneath their feet, and Sidney couldn’t help but to finally stop and stare at what she saw.

Because of course, if everything here was beautiful, why wouldn’t the art be amazing as well? Why wouldn’t they use some of the most detailed carvings she had ever seen to pave their roads? Were they even allowed to walk on those? It felt like blasphemy.

“Who carved these?”

Eckehart had brought them to a stop at the end of this bridge, across which sat a giant palace, the place they were to meet a princess; was the princess also the Voice, was she the one singing the sound that still rang inside her head? She probably should have paid more attention to what everyone was saying. Freyja was ready to move forward, to jump straight into things, but Sidney very much felt unprepared at the moment.

“Wait! We’re meeting a princess right? Isn’t there any, like, etiquette we need to be aware of? What do we call her? Do we bow?”

RATTLECHOMP: ghost monsters and magic cave trains

*kicks the door down* Why hasn't no one showed up here yet? This sounds AWESOME!

@Dragonfly 9

Couldn't think of a good character concept to go with this; I think I have something now though. I'm interested.

Yu-Gi-Oh GX: Next Gen

Leo Wilde – Slifer Red

“You… wait, what?”

A condition? One that let Helena project cards physically and that was enough for her too… put someone in the hospital? And this had nothing to do with the duel spirits thing that Leo was already struggling to get his head around? Except, Helena could see spirits as well so maybe it was related to that. “Well, I guess this explains the whole ‘no duelling without supervision’ thing… wait, does that mean that other kid can hurt people too?”

It was strange, watching someone speak to thin air as if they were having a conversation with someone. Leo squinted at the air in front of Helena’s face as if trying to see whatever it was she could see, but there was nothing there no matter how hard he tried. Guess he just didn’t have whatever it was, gift or curse or something else, that he needed to be able to talk to his cards. “Great, so some people can talk to their cards and other people can kill you during a duel and my roommate got put in the hospital and people keep going missing and the Ra dorm burnt down. Man, this sucks; I just came here because I wanted to become a better duellist. Maybe I should have studied harder and gone to a real school.”

Well, he was here now, so if this was something he had to deal with Leo might as well learn as much as he could about it. Hopefully when he became a pro he wouldn’t have to worry about his opponent’s killing him. “You didn’t kill him, so don’t beat yourself up too hard. But, yeah, you should probably listen to the teachers not duel anyone else anytime soon. Although, why are you even duelling people in the first place if this is what happens? Why try to become a duellist?”

@Darkmoon Angel

Purgatorium [Cancelled]

Sure, I don't have enough on my plate. I'm interested.

Etude of the Heavens — Now Accepting!

First.

Katya Athelas - Swashbuckling Mage

Name: Katya Athelas

Race: Kinjo

Age: 35

Appearance: Standing at 5’ 5”, Katya is shorter than she would like to be and has a fairly lithe and petite frame that is typical of her race; thin arms with a slight hint of muscle, narrow shoulders and a thin waist. Her skin is tanned, a result of long days spent on the deck of a ship exposed to the sun and her hands are calloused from either pulling ropes, hauling cargo or wielding a sword.

Katya’s hair is a dark brown, as are her ears and her tail, although the latter is tipped with white fur as are the tufts on the insides of her ears. Her eyes are sharp and golden in colour. A dour expression sits on a face with a pointed chin, an angular jaw and a round, button nose; some would describe Katya as cute or pretty, and she would hold that against them.

Personality: A life mostly spent sailing or fighting has shaped Katya into the person she is today; a person who is loud, brusque and rough mannered. She is brash and headstrong, confident enough in her own strength and abilities to rush heedlessly into dangerous situations. She is a thrill-seeker, an adrenaline junkie who is drawn to danger like a moth to a flame.

There aren’t many things that can rouse her to anger and she is likely to brush off most insults or comments with a laugh, but she hates when people judge her by her appearance or by first impressions and especially hates being told that she is incapable of something; when something like that happens she is quick to anger and even quicker to fight.

History: Katya was born in Thryn, the daughter of two merchants, and her early life was safe, prosperous and… boring. It wasn’t that there was nothing to do, Thryn was a thriving city after all, inhabited by all kinds of people and with that came activity. It was just that… Katya like to read, her father ran a bookstore, among other ventures, so their house was always full of books and Katya would read them all; books about other places, books about history, books about important people doing important things. Books about adventures. She loved those stories the most, the stories where big things happens because people made them happen and it seemed to her, at a young age, that big things never happened in Thryn.

It was a city that never changed, where nothing new ever happened or, if it did, it happened slowly. A city that had closed itself off from the rest of the world and which ignored the things that went on beyond its borders. Even the books that Katya liked to read mostly came from within Thryn itself and it was rare that a new book written by someone that didn’t live inside the same city Katya lived in would pass through her father’s store. Things were different towards the outskirts, where people actually traded with and spoke to outsiders, but Katya didn’t live in the outskirts.

Whenever she would ask her parents about what was happening in the rest of the world, because her parents were smart and were supposed to know things she didn’t, they would give her vague and unsatisfying answered. Because they had never left Thryn, just like everyone else she knew; they didn’t even know anyone who had left Thryn, so any knowledge they did have came from far away.

She wasn’t sure when it was she decided she would leave the city. Katya just knew that at some point, she had resolved to leave, to go somewhere, anywhere else and see the things that she had read about in her books first hand. Maybe she would get to see one of those big events, or meet one of those important people. Maybe she would be one of those important people or live through one of those important events. All she knew at the time was that nothing would happen to her if she stayed in Thryn, so she left; Katya saved up her money, figured out people actually went about leaving and who she needed to talk to and a few months after her twentieth birthday, she left.

After a few months of hopping from town to town, city to city, she ended up in Agadia. The money she had saved up was almost gone, most of the things she’d brought from home had been sold or stolen and she wasn’t any closer to figuring out what she was actually going to do with the rest of her life but… she was in Agadia; a place famous (she’d recently learned) for being the home of monster slayers. Surely if Katya was going to find adventure anywhere, it would be there.

Once she managed to stop staring at the sea like an idiot she was ready to begin her new life and an adven… barmaid. She got a job as a barmaid.

Becoming an adventurer, it turned out, wasn’t something you could just decide to do. There were ships in the harbour sure, crews who hunted sea monsters for a living, and some of them were even hiring; but none of them were looking to take on some starry-eyed slip of a girl who couldn’t sail, couldn’t fight or couldn’t even swim. Before she could do anything exciting she needed to learn how, needed to train and that cost money. So, barmaid. Earning money so she could afford a place to sleep and food to eat, saving up so she could buy a sword, then money for someone to teach her how to use it, practising her meagre magical talents into something useful then spending more money on a tutor when she hit a wall.

It was difficult, arduous work with slow gains and the occasional setback. She was pretty sure none of the people she ever read about in books ever had to go through something like this; or maybe they did and the story didn’t start until after this boring part. Whatever the case, after a few years of serving drinks and mopping up spilt beer, or learning how to fight as much from the drunks in the tavern as from the sword tutor who over charged her, after arguing with her mage tutor to stop trying to teach her useless spells and focus on the stuff that set things on fire, she was finally able to convince a captain to hire her onto his crew.

So now Katya is someone who slay monsters for a living, someone who can fight with a sword, cast spells and do all kinds of things that she never would have learned had she stayed in Thryn. She also has a lot of scars and painful memories and a few near death experiences she never would have got in Thryn either. But somehow she still doesn’t feel like an adventurer. Katya still feels like she’s somehow in the boring parts that happen before the first page of the book, even though she’d never describe her current life as boring.

Abilities: Katya is a mage, a rather specialised one with little interest in deepening her magical prowess, but a mage nonetheless; her Kinjo heritage and greater capacity for magic helps, or else she likely never would have bothered to learn spells at all. Her natural affinity is for fire, or perhaps more specifically explosions; the little magic she had learned is almost entirely offensive in nature, allowing her to spread flames and destruction, at least on a small scale.

Skills: As a somewhat experienced sailor, adventurer and slayer of sea monsters, Katya skills are mostly based in that area. She is a skilled swordswoman, more from the need to deal with pirates and brigands than monsters, a competent sailor and an excellent swimmer, as anyone who spends time on a ship should be, and a decent climber due to the need to scale the riggings and masts.

Beyond that she is a luckless but determined gambler, can hold her drink exceptionally well for someone her size, is quite dangerous in a bareknuckle brawl and is rather skilled at evading the authorities, which is to say she can run quite fast.

Yu-Gi-Oh GX: Next Gen

Leo Wilde – Slifer Red

Okay, so he was right; Helena could see those duel spirit things. She admitted to it a lot more easily than that Ra girl had as well, which made things easy. Maybe this meant he was on the right track with what he was thinking.

But, things were awkward again. The girl clearly didn’t want to speak about this topic, either because of guilt or just because he was a stranger asking personal questions. Maybe someday he could have a conversation with a classmate that didn’t leave him either confused or uncomfortable, but it wasn’t going to be this conversation.

“Well, sorry, but I need to ask you. Because you had that duel with Donte and now he’s in the infirmary and they’re not telling us why.” He let out a sigh. “Look, I don’t know anything about spirits; I’m not sure I even really believe in them, but I gotta ask. Are they dangerous? Did your spirit… do something to Donte?”

@Darkmoon Angel

Dreaming Together With You - A Fading Memory Experiment - On Hiatus

Sidney Malcolm

They never did get to eat anything. Sidney was hungry, the grilled meat smelled good, and the fried dough was delicious if it was the same kind she had eaten last year; but she was also discerning and if she was treating Audrey too then she wanted to make sure she picked something good.

They walked around the festival grounds for a few minutes while she decided, but her indecision cost her as she was still looking when the gong rang and Audrey sped off by herself. Sidney hurried to follow her, almost losing her in the crowds before she found the other girl climbing on top of a trash can to get a better view of the lake. There wasn’t enough room up there for the both of them so she contented herself with just standing nearby, though she shuffled far away enough that she wasn’t standing right next to the trash. The rows of people in front of her meant that she couldn’t see the lake itself, nor the raft that carried Freyja across the water, but that was fine; she’d seen the dance before and the part she was interested in watching would take place above the lake anyway. She could see the sky just fine from here.

After a little while of staring at the back of people hears, Sidney heard Stoat Bilica shout out to begin the best part of the night and slam his cane against the ground. Soon after, hundreds of light lantern floated into the air above the water in a display that had always struck Sidney as being pure magic. The rest of the ceremony continued out of sight, the important people of the town performing the same routine they did every year, handing the old bell off to Freyja before she was pushed out into the lake to dance as the drums beat. Sidney couldn’t see any of that, but she knew it was happening; instead, she just watched the lanterns.

If she’d been thinking ahead, or if she arrived early enough to remember, she would have found a good spot to stand so she could record all this. Or at least take a few pictures. Something she could use later as a reference so she could draw something using the lanterns as inspiration; you’d think after so many years on seeing this she would have run out of ideas, but, nope. Every time she saw those lanterns rise into the sky and their mirrored reflection on the lake it still managed to spark a little bit of creativity in her. Maybe seeing it as a child was even the reason she became an artist in the first place? Who could say? It was so long ago.

Oh well, someone was bound to be recording this. She could just grab it off their socials later, then start drawing. Every year she drew something after the festival; it was like her own tradition.

When the final gong of the bell rippled out across the lake, it took Sidney a moment to realise things were off. She couldn’t see the lake from her position, nor the strangeness of a water’s surface that no longer reflected reality. The people around her had already been still and even the lanterns hanging frozen in the air didn’t strike her as odd immediately. It was only the scream, Freyja’s scream, which clued her in to something being wrong. Water surges upwards, high enough to be seen over people’s heads. Audrey rushes forward and it spurs Sidney to action as well, slowly, walking forward and pushing her way past an unnaturally still and silent crowd as she makes her way towards the water and begins to hear it.

The song.

Sidney slows as she hears the words, confused. She looks around, trying to find a source, but the music seems to be coming from everywhere, nowhere, as if whispered directly into her ears. At first the lyrics make no sense but then, they make all the sense in the world. The words lead her forward again, speeding up as she approaches the lake with less confusion than before. The water, rising up from the surface in unnatural ways, looks more beautiful than anything she had ever seen before. She bumps into someone, her shoulder jostling theirs but she pays it and them no mind.

“Can you hear that?”

Within the pillar lights shone in every colour and beyond those, something else. A city? Sidney can see what look like buildings, tall ones, with lit windows, but it’s hard to make anything out when the water is moving a splitting as it is. she reaches the edge of the water, her shoes and ankles and calves getting soaked immediately as she pays it no mind.

“Can you see that?”

A tendril reaches for her and she doesn’t retreat. It grabs her and she does not struggle. The water closes over her head and she closes her eyes.

----

Sidney opens her eyes and sucks in a breath of the freshest air she’s ever tasted.

She immediately starts to cough.

Sitting up so she can bend over double, she brings a hand to her mouth so she cough up nothing as she chokes on a sudden inhale of too much air. Her soaking wet hair hang lank on either side of her face, more so on the right than the left. Her clothing is wet too; the jacket she wore heavy across her shoulders with all the sodden weight it now held.

Colours swam in front of her eyes, like she’d been staring at a bright light for hours. She blinks to clear it away, but it goes nowhere until she moves the hand from in front of her face. As her hand splashes down into a pool of water, she realises she’s sitting waist deep in a pool and begins to stand. Or tries to, at least. As she places a hand on her knee to push herself up the colours start to swim in front of her eyes again, a dizzying array on them. Her hand is a swirling mass of colours, the skin shifting between greens and reds and yellows and blues as she looks; yellow becomes the dominant colour the longer she stares.

Sidney shoots to her feet, her other hand coming up to roll the sleeve up to her elbow. Her forearm is the same; the skin a bright, vibrant yellow with occasional patches of other colours that bubble to the surface before the yellow overtakes them again. The only spot that doesn’t shift being the butterfly that she had drawn on herself in washable marker the day before; that remains unchanged, though it looks a lot more permanent now than it did before.

A voice calls out nearby and she is shaken from her daze. She jumps and splashes the water around her ankles and sees Odaya standing nearby. A feathery Odaya. Past her she can see Freyja… with horns. There are others too, other voices calling out, other people or other things that used to be people; she’s not sure what to call them.

But she sees and hears none of this.

Sidney follows Odaya’s finger to where she’s pointing and she sees it.

“Oh. That’s a dragon.”