Mcmolly

In Search of Gaea A Seafaring Fantasy Adventure (REBUILD)

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The Sharkfin | South Seas Ocean

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As the storm began to settle around them and the Sharkfin came to rest, Kaitha, like plenty of the other crew members, stared up at the patchy break in the clouds. Blessedly, the sun had not vanished from the sky to leave the world bleak and gray forever; the rays that touched the ship were warm and welcome. Tonight the moon would be beautiful—“dark days, bright nights,” as the saying went.

Something to look forward to, anyway.

Orders were given and Kaitha made her way giddily down belowdecks. The dark here was much starker than it had been outside, even in the guts of that awful storm, and unlike the sunlight that warmed her skin and sank down, this brought her a warmth that radiated from within. She smiled, bouncing in each step with all the grace of a feather on the wind until she found the storage. Others were here, a young man and woman. Crus and Tella, who, Kaitha believed, was imperial. She hadn’t been so vocal about it yet though, so for the time being she was given a pass.

“Pardon~” she hummed, slipping past them with water’s own fluidity to find her things. She doffed her habit’s cap and overcoat, but left the shawl and waist-coat on over the rest of the outfit. Choir habits were designed for diving, which made traveling much easier.

Well, mostly. She did have one bit of luggage that could be cumbersome now and again.

As she retrieved her Bo Saw, she couldn’t help but overhear Crus and be just a little intrigued. Seasickness? A diver? Hopefully not, what a dreadful affliction to have in a profession like this. Or any profession, really. Frankly it might as well have been called ‘worldsickness.’

“Think it might be more that the sea’s sick of us.” She flashed a grin, and tried to remember that showing too many teeth put people off. Quickly, she gave the blade a test-revving, happy to see that it hadn’t been damaged in all that rattling. “Luna’s luck we’ll be out of here before it finds a remedy.”

Where It Always Rains

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April 7th, moments before the assassination of 16th US President, Abraham Lincoln

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The bell rang, and Kanna knew that her first order of business should have been to grab something from the cart, and start making her rounds to the classrooms of the more adventurous students to drudge up any good stories. She did the first bit, claiming a small katsu sandwich before they were all gone, but as the other students exploded into the halls to siege the cart and find their friends, Kanna lingered. She already had a lead, all she had to do was follow it.

So she followed it.

Totsuka trudged out of class 2-C. The bright side of his frankly alarming stature, aside from him being hard to miss, was that Kanna didn’t need to stick particularly close to keep track of him. He made his way down to the first floor’s exit, at which point she split off. No good to just trail him one-for-one, too easy to notice. Picking up the pace, she skirted the halls to a side exit and slunk outside.

“Beautiful day.” she mumbled. She kept close to the wall, ducking windows and lunging foliage until she came to a corner. Stealth, she thought. I am stealth.

“Oi, give me one of those, would you? I haven't smoked in days.”

Kanna crouched low and peeked. Sure enough there he was, the Utsubyo Ogre himself, and—ah, was that Himawari Shiori? The smell of cigarette smoke assailed Kanna’s nose and her face twisted up. Yep, that was Shiori alright.

Holding the sandwich in her mouth, Kanna slipped a little notebook from her pocket, as well as a pen, and flipped to her list of ideas. She scratched out the ones that hadn’t been nixed yet, and started a new line.

big
smoker—dead at 40
knows shiori? ask shiori scary
ask shiori

This was good. A start. Maybe he was a delinquent, like Shiori, or maybe he was worse. That felt a bit harsh, but Kanna tried to press that down. Be objective, she thought. She didn’t hate Shiori—didn’t hate anyone, particularly—and it was entirely possible that Totsuka was just a normal-ass dude. But maybe he wasn’t.

Balancing her notebook and sandwich on her knees, Kanna continued to listen.

In Search of Gaea A Seafaring Fantasy Adventure (REBUILD)

Kaitha

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Kaitha Morro

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20

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Female

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The Sea of Stars

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Moon (Shadow)

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• Negative Space: Embracing her aether sign, Kaitha becomes a blot, enshrouded, coated as if by ink and shadow. Pitch drips from her form, liquid dark that slithers back to her as quickly as it hits the dirt. All that remains are two glinting white pits for eyes, which seem paradoxically bored into her, and also detached, moving about her head freely to grant her a wider degree of vision. In addition to making her an absolute nightmare to look at, this ability grants Kaitha a slight enhancement to her speed and strength.

• Flitter: Only usable while in Negative Space, Flitter allows Kaitha to make herself just that much harder to hit. Her umbral edges blur, her steps stutter and she moves like a smudge, or the shadow of a nightbird passing overhead.

• Moonlit Confessional: When she was young, Kaitha would sometimes hear whispers in the dark. It was only much, much later she discovered that, with focus, she could speak back to it. While the dark never answered, she did find some use in sending her shadowy messages to others, who would hear her distorted voice crawling from the dark.

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Spirited, thrill-seeking, and in desperate need of some good friends, Kaitha is a an outgoing and curious person by nature. However, growing up in such an isolated place with few people willing to associate with her means she’s still learning the ins and outs of proper socialization. Sometimes she speaks when she shouldn’t, others she’s silent when she ought to speak.

While not as deeply spiritual as some of the people from her home, she still shoulders a few quasi-religious eccentricities. As well, though she likes meeting new people, and isn’t normally one to judge, she isn’t shy about espousing her disdain for the empire.

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For centuries, the great beast called Aephel, and the shell-city atop it, drifted along the Sea of Stars’ border, patrolling the few and dangerous routes to its neighbor, the Lost Sea. Aephel’s people were as enigmatic as the fog they watched, remaining largely isolated from the rest of their own nation, as well as the nations beyond. Those few outsiders who anchored there, did so briefly and would describe the culture as insular and arcane. They were largely self-governing, but frequently ceded authority to an organization of warrior priests called “Aephel’s Choir,” or, more colloquially, just “The Choir.” While not outright hostile, Aephel’s cold and unwelcoming nature towards outsiders ensured that little else was learned of it.

Kaitha, however, learned plenty.

Although they did not worship it, Aephel’s people regarded the moon in a way many would comfortably describe as “religious.” They took guidance from the waxing and waning, from the tides, even from its reflections. Omens both good and bad were derived from every facet of its being, and among them, to be born under its aetheric sign was considered great.

Most often.

Born under the vermillion light of a harvest moon, Kaitha was not what many would consider a lucky child. In fact, the word used most frequently was “cursed.” It didn’t help that her mother, Petra, was head of the Choir, and would for the rest of her days fight tooth and nail against the notion that her position should be forfeited to someone with children who were less doomed.

Kaitha grew up under scrutiny from not only the Choir, but the people of Aephel in all. When misfortune befell them, without fail there would be whispers of fated calamity, and now and then there were more heated calls for Petra to resign—calls which were quickly and severely silenced. Rather than cave to the pressure and become a recluse like her late father, or a cold statue like her mother, Kaitha did what plenty of high-spirited youths would do in her shoes: rebel.

Aephel prized solitude, so Kaitha socialized—as best she could. Whenever the rare visitors would anchor, she would talk with them and hear their stories of excitement and adventure. She would join diving crews plundering areas nearby on Aephel’s ceaseless journey, and return each time to the same scornful glares and pointed whispers she would have gotten anyway. People said she was shirking her duty, besmirching the Morro name; they would use it to justify never letting her into the Choir, as if they were ever considering it. She trained anyway. Petra would never let her daughter go to waste no matter what the others thought. Kaitha might never wear the diving habits of the Choir, but she would protect Aephel and the Sea of Stars just the same.

Things changed when she was eighteen. An argument with her mother saw Kaitha once again abandoning her duties to go play at adventuring with passing divers who were predictably and thoroughly disturbed by her, but she didn’t care. She was gone for days, living a life she only dreamed could be real, and when the fun was over, and it was time to go, she was struck with the same sinking melancholy that always followed her home.

Only, there was no home.

Kaitha saw it on the horizon, how Aephel was tilted in a strange way, how the water was darker and the fog—gods, the fog. It rolled down from on high, and though she could not see it she felt in her the fear of something very small standing before something utterly titanic. The loudest sound Kaitha had ever heard exploded through the air, louder than any thunder crash or tidal wave, a sound she could never truly describe but which would remain with her in her mind forever.

When the fog cleared Aephel was gone. Her mother, her home, the Choir, all of it was just…gone. They found wreckage in the waters, little of it salvageable and none of it bearing any hint as to what exactly had happened. She found a diving habit, and a Choir weapon, but otherwise Kaitha left the remains of her home to sink.

Afterwards, Kaitha stayed with the divers until they reached the Sea of Ancients where, with nowhere else to go and no other prospects, she joined the Diver’s Guild.

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Kaitha’s habit isn’t just for pretending she’s part of a dead order that shunned her for her entire life—it also serves as a diving suit, and is perfectly functional in combat.

Her weapon, a saw-bladed staff, was designed mainly for use against the creatures of the Mother Ocean, but works just as well on anything else she can dig its teeth into. Durable and deceptively lightweight, it can even be used underwater.

the buzz

Where It Always Rains

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April 7th, 20XX
8:45am

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graffiti behind Mr. Pumpkin Pachinko
sakura flavors at Ariyoshi Café?—confirm/ask for samples
like twenty weasels behind Familymart
idk something shady going on at the hotel I bet
Nakanishi probably has something worth looking into don’t start year w/gossip

Kanna stared down at her notebook, tapping her pen against the cast on her forearm, trying to ignore the itch near her wrist, too far down to reach. She squinted at each tick on the list, trying to piece together how any of them could fit into the first issue of this year’s school newspaper, and at the same time, entirely giving up on all of them and trying to think of something new.

There was jack shit. Utsubyo could be like that, sometimes.

The bell rang. Ah, well. The deadline wasn’t today or anything, she still had time to find something worth the ink. Like the others, Kanna stood and sat again, and like the others, quietly paid attention as the new students introduced themselves. Shimizu was cheery, energetic, and, Kanna hoped, talkative. Newcomers always had good stories. Whoever this ‘Totsuka-San’ was probably—

Holy shit.

Totsuka made it to the front. Full-stop, he looked like an ogre, and seemed to have all of the same manners. Big, broad, with a giant ‘Keep-Out’ sign nailed to his forehead and an aura of insularity so pungent that Axe probably sold it as a spray. She physically recoiled at his introduction, and wouldn't have been surprised to look around and see rows of other guarded, surprised faces. The first word that came to Kanna’s mind when she saw him was ‘danger.’

But the next words were: ‘Front Page.’

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location:The City of Thorinn, Aetheria

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Seele waited as the group divided itself. There was an instinct to rush over to Kazuki when the ale finally did him in—which seemed to happen…fast—but Benkei got him back to his feet. The two of them, along with Rael and eventually Alja, departed. She heard the words Mystic Prophecy on their way out, and felt just a smidgen of anxiety bubble up for Kazuki. Part of her wanted to follow along, make sure that if they did go there, that he would be okay. But that would be irrational, overbearing, and maybe even a little bit rude; after all they’d talked about, and the progress he’d made, perhaps it was best to simply have faith in him and the people around him.

Besides, she couldn’t just abandon the investigation now. Remaining at the table was Graves, Alex, and the new girl, Artemis. That was more than enough. Half of them had been researching the disappearances already, and she had the utmost confidence in the other half. She listened intently while the waters of the issue were tested, and when questions were asked and there was silence, she spoke up.

“I agree with almost everything you all have said. Whatever’s doing this is doing it with intent, and I’d like to believe that at this point, wayfarers are beyond griefing one another like this.” She thumbed through the stack of missing wayfarers, to a divider she’d placed, and split it into two uneven piles. “The smaller one is the list of missing people who belonged—belong to guilds, the bigger one is solo players. That shouldn’t be too surprising, but that along with the fact that we know they’re mainly targeting spellcasters from Drox tells us that we’re dealing with something that has access to information. But, like Alex said, we really can’t know what’s behind this quite yet and, frankly, I’m not so sure it matters. What’s important is finding these people—we can deal with the why later. That said, actually, we do have a bit more than just papers.”

From her stash on the chair beside her, Seele produced a few rolls of trace-paper, so thin as to be nearly translucent, and cut to the exact size of the sprawled-out map. She unfurled one atop the map, pinned it down, and spent several moments aligning it. Scribbled on it were dozens of red and blue circles, spread out all across the city. Some were clustered together, others were spread way out. It looked as though she had dipped brushes in ink and flicked them at the page. However, inside each circle was a number, and each red circle had a corresponding number in a blue circle.

“These are the solo players. The red circles are wherever the reports listed as their places of residence—some are the fraternity house, some are inns, but plenty are actual houses and tenements. The blue circles are the listed last known locations. Some of those seemed a little redundant though, unless we’re looking at home invasions, and some just weren’t listed at all. So, I stuck my nose back into the files, found out what some of their professions are, and circled some of the most popular hubs for them, depending on what part of the city they live in.”

She unfurled another sheet and pinned it atop the first. Under both, the map was still perfectly legible. The circles on this one were green and purple, and were numbered the same way. Though fewer altogether, the green circles were much more clustered together.

“These are the players in guilds. As you can probably guess, the green circles are the residences, and almost all of them are, unsurprisingly, at registered guildhouses. Same deal with the purple circles as the blue: last known locations and, where I could find them, profession hubs.”

Next, she unfurled a third sheet and settled it on the other two. Even with three sheets pinned over it, the map was still clear, the titles and street names were still easy to make out. This one had no circles on it, only mass of black lines connecting each red circle to its corresponding blue circle, and each green to its purple.

“These are the most-trafficked routes in the city. Biggest roads, most people—safest. There isn’t much to glean from this, honestly, but it’s just for reference. Even at night there are people on these roads, as well as guard patrols. But if we assumed everyone always took the safest routes home, then I doubt we’d have very many missing people at all. If there are three things people like in games, it’s ‘fun,’ ‘winning,’ and ‘efficiency.’ So…”

She removed the third sheet and replaced it with a fourth. This one’s lines were a lighter gray, and like the previous one, connected the various circles together. However, this time there was…almost a pattern. It wasn’t perfect, in fact it was hardly less chaotic than the circles alone, but it was less.

“These,” Seele said. “Are the quickest routes. Smaller, narrower streets, cuts between alleys. If I was going from here to here, and I wanted to save time, this is how I’d do it. As you can see, locations and residencies in the same districts seem to overlap in only a handful of routes. These places are dark, largely unpatrolled, even abandoned in some places. Perish the thought, but, if I was going to…do something like this, take someone, these are the best stretches to do it.”

She stood back from the table, eyes scanning the circles and lines. She’d stared at the thing all night, scratched and scribbling and torn and read and scribbled again and again and again. But did it make sense?

“It’s incomplete, but there was much more here than the fraternity seemed to think. I believe if we turn our attentions towards finding out where these abductions are happening, we could find who’s doing it. More importantly, we could find where they’re taking these people and help them. Which brings me to the plan.”

“We do like Alex suggested: we approach some of the people related to our abductees, we get information on their habits, their work, whatever we can. We solidify this map, and these routes. With the basis we have, I don’t even think it would take us long, but we do need to act before this happens to anyone else. So we do what we can today, and then, tonight, we try to make a move. Or, rather, we provoke whoever or whatever is doing this into making a move…”
cold feet,
Seele looked pointedly to Graves. Bruiser, bounty hunter, bloodknight. Bloodhound. She reached into the manifold layers of her witchy robes, and set a small, glass vial of blood on the table before him.

cold hands.

“Then we follow them.”

Gamblers of Vox Fortuna

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Pilot's Quarters, Fortuna | In Transit
February 21st, 3061

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“Another beautiful morning!”

A projector flickered to life, and the far wall of Mox’s room was covered by a sheet of absolute blackness. It was connected to the Fortuna’s exterior surveillance feed; she was seeing space, as if through a window. Like plenty of things, it wasn’t nearly as glamorous up close.

“Well,” she said, searching in vain for even the dimmest twinkling of the smallest star. “S’beautiful somewhere. And morning. Prolly.”

Killing the screen, Mox set about her waking rituals. First things first: music. A small array of cheap, low-quality, but reliable speakers sputtered garbled noise as she cycled through her options, eventually settling on an album by a band she didn’t really know, in a genre she’d never heard of called “Ionic-Post-Post-Punk.” It was…interesting. She wouldn’t say she liked it, and it wasn’t something she’d search out on her own, but a bartender in the last place the Fortuna docked had gone on about it for hours and hours over the course of their stay. Changed his life, fixed his marriage, raised his kids. Good stuff, apparently. She figured it was worth a shot.

Hopefully her immediate neighbors were as open to it, because the quarter’s walls were certainly not thick enough to spare them. It blared through the speakers as she washed and dressed and tried to figure out how exactly someone was supposed to dance to music like this. When all was done, she disconnected her handheld and struck out into the halls.

Meal time.

On her way to the mess, she passed the a few early-bird crewmembers, and the good doctor herself, Andrea. She was a quick woman, and not often one for idle conversation, but Mox waved to her anyway.

“Shiny day, doc~!” she said, sing-song and warm as she could as she all but skipped past. She opted for the stairs this morning, letting Andrea have the lift in case she was heading elsewhere. The woman was a bit of a busy-body.

Mox had gotten pretty good at navigating the old bucket of a ship. It was labyrinthine in some places, cavernous in others, and comfortable pretty much nowhere. But, it didn’t have to be comfortable to be cozy, and despite the fact that the temperature regulation didn’t always do it’s job quite so perfect, Mox always felt a distinct warmth as she traversed its halls.

The mess was burgeoningly busy, it seemed. Crewmembers were trickling in, but Mox spotted a couple of her fellow pilots nearby and beamed. She hurried through the line, and quickly took a seat at a table between them. Thankfully they weren’t spread enough that she had to yell.

“Howdy boys. Grub looks good today, don’t it?” She tore a chunk off one of the gray globs and popped it into her mouth. It was…pretty much exactly what she expected. But she made a loud 'Mmh!' sound anyway. “Y’know, I reckon they’ve added a new flavor, don’t you? I’m gettin’ a bit of paprika in mine I think. Ain’t that somethin’?”

Where It Always Rains

Kanna

"Say Cheese!"

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ＮＡＭＥ
Nakano Kanna

ＡＧＥ
16 | December 7th

ＡＰＰＥＡＲＡＮＣＥ
158cm
45kg
Hair: Black
Eyes: Dark Blue

ＰＥＲＳＯＮＡＬＩＴＹ
Inquisitive
Cheerful
Persistent
Snarky
Observant
Like really persistent
Passionate
Reckless

ＬＩＫＥＳ

• Journalism

• Hiking

• Mysteries

• Photography

• Meeting people

ＤＩＳＬＩＫＥＳ

• Dishonesty

• Slackers

• The cold and deafening enmity of an empty room please do not leave me alone

• Nattō

• Wasting time

ＨＩＳＴＯＲＹ
Born in Sendai, Kanna’s life changed at the age of ten, when her father was arrested for fraud and their family’s reputation took a nosedive into pariah status. Partly to spare them the shame, and partly because her mother could not afford their house alone, they moved back to her hometown of Utsubyo, into much more modest living conditions.

Naturally outgoing and always interested in meeting new people, Kanna wasn’t bothered by the move. She spent her first months out exploring the locales that, even to a child, were somewhat scant and lacking in mystical allure; her mother, meanwhile, took up work as a maid for homeowners in the Sakuraba Community.

It took Kanna a few years to realize people here didn’t respond so well to the sort of energy she exuded. Friends were few, but there was no shortage of people who came to know her as “meddlesome” and “nosy.” Undeterred, she dug in her heels and embraced it; Utsubyo became like a puzzle, or an archeological dig site. The people kept their secrets close to their chests, their stories were jumbled and cryptic but they were there and Kanna had the wit and persistence to uncover them.

A tampered machine at Mr. Pumpkin Panchinko. Receipts for apple seeds from Aomori prefecture in the Pic-Land dumpsters. One of the employees at Kagoshima Karaoke smelled like skunks. A disgruntled employee at the train station would occasionally mistime arrivals, and then change them later. Mr. Tatsumoto in the Sakuraba Community was having an affair with his maid. The memorial park—

Oh.

Come high school, Kanna found herself naturally drawn to the school newspaper, thrilled that her investigative nature now had academic justification behind it—even if the stories she got to work on were usually really boring, and the ones she pitched were often rejected for being invasive or “insalubrious for the school’s image.” It wasn’t just something to do, it was something she liked doing. Something that felt important. Something that made the future not seem so close and so scary.

Steal Away The Light

Rain

_______________________________________________ // INFO P E R S O N A L D E T A I L S Full Name – Rain on My Skin, Ice in My Mouth Age – 18 Gender – Female Vocation – Warden Nationality – Scila // PERSONALITY P E R S O N A L I T Y Angry—Like, Really Angry Few are the people Rain doesn’t greet with a scowl, and it is only by the draconian training of her youth that she no longer compounds those scowls with threats and occasionally acts of physical violence. Usually. Anger was what the Locke Institution wanted, and it’s what they got. They coaxed it out of her, stoked it like a hearth until it grew into wildfire and set it loose. Sure, sometimes it’s more than they bargained for, but she’s been taught well enough to direct her anger at what matters A Sharp Claw, a Dull Tool Rain does one thing well, and a lot of other things very not well. Sic her on a voidbeast and all the stars, see, they just align. She can formulate plans on the fly and her reflexes could make a Ldrant warmaster blush; it’s when things deviate away from fury-murder that everything kinda blurs. Lacking pretty much any formal education, Rain is functionally illiterate and utterly oblivious to much of the world’s politics, aside from the fact that she was told often and loudly how cool and great Scila was. Doesn’t bother her, though. Let the nerds waste time scribbling stupid lines on maps and smooching with their precious equations. If it doesn’t bleed, scream, or threaten to engulf the world in cold oblivion, it can’t be that important. Ironic Autophobe You know what would be funny? What if you took this irate, unsociable, idiot child with exactly one purpose in her miserable little life, you teach her to conflate pain with affection, and you saddle her with this crippling fear of being alone and unloved. She won’t understand it, she won’t know how to deal with it, she won’t even know how to ask for help. She’ll just blindly seek companionship in people who are disgusted by her, or who can’t stand to be around her, and when they inevitably leave she’ll be stuck with this ruinous pit in her soul that just gets wider and wider and deeper and deeper until there’s nothing left but her and the empty loneliness she’s so afraid of. Oh my god. Holy shit. Hilarious. // GIFT G I F T Furnace It’s going to hurt—endure it. That’s love. As a young pyromancer, Rain’s abilities were fairly lackluster. As a hunter, however, things are a little different. See, turns out, fueling fire magic is easy is shit when you have an eternal engine pumping agony into your veins eight days a week. With her newfound resistances and her apparent inability to fucking die, Rain’s Gift sees her turning herself and the air around her into a whirlwind of searing hot misery. She’s made stone into puddles, swords into soup, and has on more than one occasion required excising from melted suits of armor, which was fun for literally no one. In addition, by building up and expelling heat, she can create bursts of flame to skirt around the battlefield, because what’s worse than a fiery, angry creature? A fiery, angry creature hurtling at you at speeds which are, frankly, concerning. There is one caveat. Being that she has to stoke her inner ember to fuel this Gift, usage enflames that natural, torturous burning all hunters abide with into a real whopper of pain. The longer she goes, the harder she pushes, the worse the pain gets. But that’s okay, she can take it. Pain means she cares. Like, if you aren’t a seared, shuddering wreck wailing in silent agony at the end of a fight, were you really even trying? // EQUIPMENT E Q U I P M E N T Hunter’s Claws Not exactly fancy, nor particularly expensive, but at least these babies can keep up with the heat. Utilizing a magically-receptive metal she can neither spell nor pronounce, and an enchantment for heat-resistance, Rain is able to channel her Gift into the clawed gauntlets to turn their razor-sharp edges white-hot; and, since she has to apply this enchantment herself, in theory it should be able to match her no matter how hot she goes.

Physical Description Rain is an even 5’0”, but has only ever had it described to her as “short,” and “no, you’re probably not getting any taller.” She possesses the build of someone who spent most of her childhood kicking other kids in the teeth for scraps of meat, and the complexion to suggest there wasn’t a lot of sun where she was doing it. Aside from being a pallid, wiry imp, her hair is about waist-length and settled about as neatly as an avalanche. Many of her teeth, filed before her procedure, are much sharper than they ought to be. But hey, at least she’s hygienic. Rain prefers comfortable clothes, but that’s not really her call. As a representative of Scila (pause for the sound of Scila collectively grinding its teeth,) she can’t just run around wearing her old pit-rags smudged with dirt and grime and the blood of little rats that were pretty quick yeah but not quick enough. What she wears now isn’t a uniform per se, she still has to fight in it, but it lends her an air of formal conventionality that on literally anyone else might look nice, but she somehow manages to ruin that too. Character Conceptualization Technically speaking, before she was “Rain” she was “L.I.-23, Group Four, Number 13,” or, sometimes, “The one that keeps making the other kids swallow her baby teeth after they fall out.” But, for clarity’s sake, Rain will do. Oh, Scila. Land of industry. Land of ingenuity. A land of people unbroken by slavery, and emboldened by their independence. Truly, if any nation could face the void and, in response, attempt to improve the production of hunters, it would be you. You bastard. The sorcerers had developed their procedure, yes, but it was inefficient. No helping that. But the shrewd minds at the Locke Institute had a supplementary solution. Locke himself was a pyromancer of substantial skill as well as a man of severe influence and, clearly, a bit of a narcissist. Hhared with his fellow countrymen the disdain for their former tyrants, but when it came to Ldrant, he also harbored a begrudging, inquisitive respect. They were hard, cruel, even. When the nations began creating hunters, Ldrant, in its typical way, obviously wanted to produce the best and strongest. He remembers hearing of a baron enacting an “ember-hunt,” in which children with an affinity for magic were gathered and trained, so that when they all eventually underwent the procedure, those that survived were versed not only as hunters of the void, but as strong pyromancers as well. “Well,” Locke thought. “Shit, why not?” But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Using his position as head of the Algaeon Hearthfire, Locke brought his personal project to life. The Locke Institution began with a mission to find out whether or not pyromancers were more likely to produce magically-fluent children than your average, unmagical shmuck. It was research that would take generations to conclude, and necessitated the creation of a small academy in order to ensure the pyromancers that did come out of it would be useful. Efficiency, after all, was as key as quality. Thereabouts two decades later, Rain was born at the Locke Institute’s appropriately named Ember Farm to exactly zero parents who would ever know her name or see her face, alongside a whole gaggle of similarly spawned lambs-to-the-inevitable-slaughter. Growing up, the rules were simple: kids who showed magical aptitude got to leave the “pit” and train to become super cool fire-throwing badasses. Kids that didn’t got to stay in the pit and hate each other. If you didn’t show up by the time you weren’t a kid anymore, you got the boot. Allegedly. By the time Rain’s match was struck, she was ten. She had to leave all her teeth-trophies and rat bones behind, but that was okay, because she also got to meet Papa Locke. When he brought her up out of the dark, and gave her the first hug she’d ever received—that wasn’t a precursor to being thrown onto the dirt—Rain knew instantly that she loved her papa with all of her heart, and would do anything for him. The next eight years she spent training under the institute’s best pyromancers and weaponsmasters. Some days she would make progress, and papa would tousle her hair and praise her and she would feel like a shooting star on a clear night. Then there were tough weeks, or months, where she struggled or plateaued and papa wouldn’t even look at her. It made her whole self shake, made her sick, made her never want to leave her cot. When she was eighteen, papa came to her after she’d failed another lesson. He wasn’t upset, but he didn’t tousle her hair and didn’t have anything particularly nice to tell her. All he had was a proposition. “Undergo this procedure,” he said, and she didn’t even hear the “or,” or even what it was. The moment he asked, she decided to do it, she didn’t need to know. They strapped her to a table and the next thing she did know was pain, pure and blinding and all-consuming. But in the back of her mind, she had her papa, and she knew that if she could just bear through it, he’d be so proud of her. He’d love her as much as she loved him—maybe even more. Everyone seemed surprised when it was done. Surprised, but not particularly happy. Rain wasn’t happy either. The pain hadn’t stopped with the procedure, it had stuck with her. It was stuck in her. Always. Day and night, burning, burning, burning it was like her blood was molten and even when it wasn’t awful it was still bad. Drinking water didn’t do much, chewing ice was a little better. Whenever it stormed, she would stand out in the rain and that took the edge off enough that she was almost comfortable. Almost. Papa hadn’t told her about this. About the pain. He hadn’t even come to see her when it was done. He just went back to the pit, and the other kids just striking their matches, and she was taken off the institute’s hands. They gave her to the other hunters, because that’s what she was now, apparently. They asked her name. She told them, and they said, “that’s not a name, that’s a bunch of letters and numbers,” which didn’t make much sense to her because that’s what all names were. They told her to pick, and she almost picked “Locke,” but then decided that, no, she didn’t like that name at all. In fact, she hated it. So they told her to pick something she did like. Other Information N/A

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Location:The City of Thorinn, Aetheria

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Seele couldn’t help but wince when Rael entered the conversation with, well, about as much tact as could be expected of her. Graves, to his credit, took it in stride. They seemed to be at least somewhat used to each other, bristles and all, so hey at least they had that going for them. Baby steps.

Still, even if things didn’t seem on the immediate cusp of violence like they had been the last time, she figured it was probably best to try focusing their efforts. She cleared her throat, which wasn’t particularly loud, so she stood up as well and held up her hand like she was answering a teacher’s question.

“Pardon, sorry. I just wanted to say, I think this is a very fruitful discussion and I’m really proud of the way you’re all handling it. I’d like to offer another couple cents, if that’s alright? It might be that there’s something we could do to satisfy all parties.”

As she moved around the table, Seele placed a mug of water down in front of Kazuki and patted his arm gently. “Here sweetie, some of this,” she said cheerily, and called out to the bar as well. “Alja~! Whenever you’re ready we’d love you to come back over!”

With a bit of effort and some rearranging, she gathered her armful of papers and set them down in her chair. Among them was a sizable stack of documents, a modestly-sized map of the city, and a few rolls of trace-paper each bearing scribbles in different colors. First, she unfurled the map across the table, using some of the empty mugs to pin down its corners. It was a loan from the fraternity, and so its detail was impeccable, even down to the smallest streets and alleys. Cumbersome to some, but for this, it was exactly what she’d needed.

“Some of you may know, some of you may not, but there’s been a string of disappearances lately. This—” she held up a thinner stack of papers. “Is the list of recently missing denizens. And this—” and she hefted a thicker stack, before setting it back down on the chair. “Is the list of wayfarers. Graves, you want to get people together? Many of these missing people are in guilds, who would likely be very pleased to have their friends back safe and sound. And if the disappearances of the denizens is related—which I believe it is—then getting to the bottom of this would certainly go a long way towards mending our relationship with them.”

“Now, Alex and I have worked quite hard on this. I believe there’s a real chance we can do something here—something good, for everyone. It might not be a dungeon, but it is work and it will help people. I even believe I have a plan. So, if you’re interested, I’ll just need a few more minutes of your time.”

In Search of Gaea A Seafaring Fantasy Adventure (REBUILD)

Kaitha

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Kaitha Morro

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20

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Female

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The Sea of Stars

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Sun (Wind)

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• Aerovectors: At first glance, one might see Mayfly use this ability and assume she has the power to move things with her mind—which is, arguably, at least a little bit true. In reality, it is the limbs conjured from the air that do the moving, she just tells them what to move. Thus far she can maintain one of these limbs without much concentration at all, but the more she adds, the harder they are to keep track of and they become much weaker.

• Squall: It’s not flying, it’s more like falling sideways. Primarily a tool used for mobility, Mayfly can generate violent bursts of wind with which to propel herself, or, in emergences, propel something else.

• Windward Confessional: When she was young, Kaitha would sometimes hear the wind whispering at her in unfamiliar voices. It was only much, much later she discovered that, with focus, she could speak back to it. While the wind never answered, she did find some use in sending her breezy messages to others, though with temperamental weather, her voice can easily get lost.

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Spirited, thrill-seeking, and in desperate need of some good friends, Kaitha is a an outgoing and curious person by nature. However, growing up in such an isolated place with few people willing to associate with her means she’s still learning the ins and outs of proper socialization. Sometimes she speaks when she shouldn’t, others she’s silent when she ought to speak.

While not as deeply spiritual as some of the people from her home, she still shoulders a few quasi-religious eccentricities. As well, though she likes meeting new people, and isn’t normally one to judge, she isn’t shy about espousing her disdain for the empire.

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For centuries, the great beast called Aephel, and the shell-city atop it, drifted along the Sea of Stars’ border, patrolling the few and dangerous routes to its neighbor, the Lost Sea. Aephel’s people were as enigmatic as the fog they watched, remaining largely isolated from the rest of their own nation, as well as the nations beyond. Those few outsiders who anchored there, did so briefly and would describe the culture as insular and arcane. They were largely self-governing, but frequently ceded authority to an organization of warrior priests called “Aephel’s Choir,” or, more colloquially, just “The Choir.” While not outright hostile, Aephel’s cold and unwelcoming nature towards outsiders ensured that little else was learned of it.

Kaitha, however, learned plenty. Although they did not worship it, Aephel’s people regarded the moon in a way many would comfortably describe as “religious.” The took guidance from the waxing and waning, from the tides, even from its reflections. To be born under the aetheric sign of the moon was seen as a good omen. Unfortunately, Kaitha was born under the sun.

Normally this would not have been terrible—people can’t help when they’re born, after all. She would have been accepted just as equally as anyone else. However, the fact that her mother was head of the Choir had many within the organization view her as something akin to a curse.

Kaitha grew up under scrutiny from not only the Choir, but the people of Aephel in all. When misfortune befell them, without fail there would be whispers of fated calamity, and once or twice there were calls for Petra to resign—calls which were quickly and severely silenced. Rather than cave to the pressure and become a recluse like her late father, or a cold statue like her mother, Kaitha did what plenty of high-spirited youths would do in her shoes: rebel.

Aephel prized solitude, so Kaitha socialized. Whenever the rare visitors would anchor, she would talk with them and hear their stories of excitement and adventure. She would join diving crews plundering areas nearby on Aephel’s ceaseless journey, and return each time to the same scornful glares and pointed whispers she would have gotten anyway. People said she was shirking her duty, besmirching the Morro name; they would use it to justify never letting her into the Choir, as if they were ever considering it. She trained anyway. Petra would never let her daughter go to waste no matter what the others though. Kaitha might never wear the diving habits of the Choir, but she would protect Aephel and the Sea of Stars just the same.

Things changed when she was eighteen. An argument with her mother saw Kaitha once again abandoning her duties to go play at adventuring with passing divers. She was gone for days, living a life she only dreamed could be real, and when the fun was over, and it was time to go, she was struck with the same sinking melancholy that always followed her home.

Only, there was no home.

Kaitha saw it on the horizon, how Aephel was tilted in a strange way, how the water was darker and the fog—gods, the fog. It rolled down from on high, and though she could not see it she felt in her the fear of something very small standing before something utterly titanic. The loudest sound Kaitha had ever heard exploded through the air, louder than any thunder crash or tidal wave, a sound she could never truly describe but which would remain with her in her mind forever.

When the fog cleared Aephel was gone. Her mother, her home, the Choir, all of it was just…gone. They found wreckage in the waters, little of it salvageable and none of it bearing any sort of hint as to what exactly had happened. She found a diving habit, and a Choir weapon, but otherwise Kaitha left the remains of her home to sink.

Afterwards, Kaitha stayed with the divers until they reached the Sea of Ancients where, with nowhere else to go and no other prospects, she joined the Diver’s Guild.

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Kaitha’s habit isn’t just for pretending she’s part of a dead order that shunned her for her entire life—it also serves as a diving suit, and is perfectly functional in combat.

Her weapon, a saw-bladed staff, was designed mainly for use against the creatures of the Mother Ocean, but works just as well on anything else she can dig its teeth into. Durable and deceptively lightweight, it can even be used underwater.

the buzz