Mokley

Mirror, Fox, Key

Those are some damn good ramblings!

I'm onboard with ditching the city in favor of some good ol' exploration and character development. The major reason Cogswall exists was to pick up new characters -- and hey look we got wats-his-face! (no but really, what the hell are we going to do with Ronken once his withdrawal sets in?) ;)

I guess we're ditching the Lily's-sister subplot, too. That's what was on the letter that Ronken is desperately trying to give to Meryn (I'd already PMed c3 about that) -- but it'll have to be something better now.

Emma's past has a lot to do with everything, don't you worry!

Edit: I really have a habit of the annoying-kid-guide NPC. Well shit. xD

Mirror, Fox, Key

The most important thing: how do you want your character to develop? What sort of crazy powers would be super cool to have? What sort of allies/enemies would be awesome? :3

The plot is secondary to these things!

Mirror, Fox, Key

I think it's about time to ask you guys where you wanna go from here -- because I've been thinking about the possible ways the plot could lead, and none of them are very exciting, haha. This RP in particular feels creatively stunted for me.

Gimme your ideas, I'm wide open. Make 'em crazy.

Moonfiend

A rumble, a rattle and a scrabble resounded down the stairs within the wall. The lights flickered and went dark on the stairwell; they flashed and shattered in the armory. Everything went dark save the light of the open door. Growls, snarls, chitters and yips closed in on the darkness in the hall. Their eyes gleamed.

The robot sharpshooter blasted his way through the wall of fur and scales, and its lightbulb eyes glared at Liam and Vincent. "Go! I'll shut it behind you."

It was time to make their escape.

^{art by Vadim Shchepilov}

To step through the liquid silver portal was like passing through a beaded doorway -- and on the other side, their feet met etched stone and sand. They stood in a vast cavern, sharp with stalagmites and stalactites, weedy vines and hooded mushrooms, illuminated by glowing crystals embedded in the rock and hovering, magnetized, between the sharp points.

Behind them was only more sand and rock, and under their feet was a flat stone that had been etched long ago with a receiving sigil; the portal, it seemed, only worked one way.

The hiss and clank of machinery resounded behind them, around the bend of solid rock. After a few moments, a young woman sprinted out from behind the rock and rushed toward them; she was dressed all in pale violet, her crown shimmered in the light of the stones, and her gray hair was spun delicately just as it had been that morning. Behind the queen, two enchanted robots followed her quick pace, their gun-arms held at ready, as if they expected the grit might have discovered the portal.

With wet eyes, the queen rushed directly at Moth and Kat, flung her arms about their necks and pulled them into an awkward embrace. She was smaller than she appeared on the screen over the city; her head barely reached Moth's shoulders.

"You have no idea how happy I am to see living faces," she said quickly, stepping back and grasping Kat's hand.

Then Vincent seemed to step out of thin air onto the engraved sigil, and the queen very nearly attacked him from behind for the sake of a hug, as if to reassure herself that he was flesh and blood.

Liam stepped onto the sigil, and the queen stopped short before touching him. "Oh, gods. You need medical attention." She looked up to her robot escorts and motioned in the air; a tall, red-plated robot jogged forward. The queen smiled warmly and touched Liam's face. "You'll be all right. We're safe here."

She stepped back to allow the robot to assess Liam's injuries for immediate treatment, and she looked up to the others gathered there. "We're underneath the palace spire. We should be safe, at least for awhile."

Lantern

Peck stared at her while she spoke -- nothing she said made sense according to the lessons he'd been taught since he was a child . . . the knowledge that had been passed down through the generations of pirates. Suddenly there was this weathered and traveled girl from another world -- with strange powers and stranger knowledge -- who said she knew the truth. He didn't know what to believe, but he believed that if anyone could bring the sun back, it was Anise.

He stepped forward, and he held the Lantern out to her. "I hope you know what you're doing," he told her warily, and he looked up through the trees toward the deep expanse of stars above.

"We tell time by the moonrise," he said after awhile; he'd been thinking about the world Anise must have come from. "The month by the phase of the moon, the year by the moving constellations. Nothing else really changes. The shadows get darker. The Lord of the Shadow is getting stronger, the more people die."

He stared up for awhile, then took a breath. "I know how to summon each of the Lords and Ladies, if you want to talk to them. It's usually forbidden, because making one of them mad could be disaster -- but." He shook his head and ruffled his own hair; he couldn't believe he was doing this. "We've already broken most of the rules already. I was going to take you back to the Roost, but if you're going to be summoning the spirits I'd do it far away from there. Finding the Kith is something else, though. There are several tribes, and they don't necessarily like each other."

A thought occurred to him, and he touched one of the trees. "There's a tribe not far from here, it's on the way to the Roost. They're the tree-jumpers, though -- they kill pirates for sport." He gave Anise a look that questioned whether she really wanted to do what she'd set out to do, when every course of action could end in them both being slaughtered or worse.

---

Oseely and Reckley exchanged a skeptical look while Artemis struggled with the gryphon.

"Two Lanterns ain't anything to be concerned about, right?"

"There are two more at the Rook."

"I can feel the red Lantern --"

"I know, I can feel the white one and it's being abused."

Oseely shot him a glare. "Red's at the Witch's house. The trees are all dead, then. How long 'til they're back at full power?"

"Not long enough."

The Lord of the Breeze folded his arms with a solemn frown, and the Lord of the Flame sucked his teeth with the pensive thought of a slacker slowly realizing he might have to do something productive soon. Oseely huffed a sigh and shook his head, laughing, much to Reckley's displeasure. "Doesn't matter. Shadow'll take care of it. For once let's not get in his way."

Reckley shuddered slightly, but he relinquished a sigh and looked down to Artemis with a twitch of a smile. The sight of the bond between rider and gryphon was heartening, at least.

"You'd be better equipped to survive if you don't try to do it alone."

"Aw, stick with me and you'll do just fine!" Oseely gave her a wink and a grin.

Reckley sighed. "You don't sleep and you don't eat. How're you going to help?"

"I eat!"

"You chew bark." Reckley appraised Artemis, his arms still folded. "The Kith or the Pirates would probably take you in. You're in the rare situation of being unaffiliated."

"You don't want to do that. Just steal their stuff and camp in the open fields. There are sigils you can use to ward off critters that'd chew on you in your sleep."

"That's the most idiotic idea I've ever heard," Reckley hissed with distaste.

Oseely grinned. "I thought of it myself!"

Moonfiend

@Arty Fox Hey cool! You've done research too, I see! She's marvelous. Approved! :)

Are you familiar with what's happened so far? Essentially there was a lightning storm, everyone around her was turned to stone, and the sky split in two -- half is night, half is day.

The easiest and most logical way to introduce her would be to have her activate an emergency teleportation sigil, either one that's already in place somewhere around the city or one that was just drawn for her by a passing enchanted robot. All the other characters have just stepped through a portal of their own, so you all could meet up at the other end very easily. :)

So, then, it's up to you whether you'd like to post now about what she's been up to during the chaos, or whether you'd rather drop in after the next mod post and skip to her arrival.

Mirror, Fox, Key

I'd just assume that each city uses currency that has an inherent value, such as gold and silver and copper. A piece of gold is worth something no matter where you are or whose face is stamped on it. :D

Unquiet

"My name is Grace. What are the two of you called?"

But the only reply given in return was a stiff shake of the child’s head.

Rain started covering herself in mud and then she started crawling away from the dumb giant. She headed towards the front of the stone towards the drawbridge.

"Xaphan da mihi spiritus autem ignis."

The ogre tugged on Rose's arm, nearly -- though unintentionally -- dislocating her shoulder with the force of it. The beast squinted at her and sniffed her, confused by the blabber of words that poured out of her mouth.

BOOM

A sharp, deep, bloody pain slammed into Rose's chest; a flash of brilliant white fire exploded in the ogre's face; the ogre let go, roaring and stumbling back in frightened pain, waving its meaty hands in front of the bubbling red of its swelling eyes and mouth; something neon blue and brilliant orange swung through the air like a serpent through water, and it curled up in the dead branches of a half-uprooted tree.

The ogre, in his unbalanced confusion, tripped backward on a gnarled bush, bashed his head on a boulder with a sickening squelch, and disappeared over the edge of the cliff.

Inside the Stone, the girl-in-the-pipes gasped in horror, her eyes wide and shimmering with tears.

"GOOK!" her desperate voice echoed -- and desperately, she waited for a response. She breathed faster, scanned the room, listened for the booming thump of Gook's footsteps, but she was greeted with only silence -- and the presence of a new power that frightened her far more than Rshalogg. She struggled furiously, nearly crazed, yanked out one arm and then another, and screamed as she pushed against the tangle of metal that had grown around her.

She wheezed, stared pleadingly at Amuné, then to Grace, her heart beating like a rabbit's, struggling against the hunter's trap.

"∞ⱷↄℓ₹ ᾣᵷᵠ." < Help me. >

Outside the front door, Rain -- coated in mud and bits of weeds -- crawled her way toward the ruins of the bridge, away from the blast of fire, away from the screams, away from Rose and the blood on the rock.

"What in the bloody hell do ya think yer doin'?" Rigby asked through a mouthful of fruit, sitting cross-legged on a crumbled post by the bridge, watching her with confused amusement. He'd got the fruit from a tree a few feet behind him; it was heavy with round purple plums. "Zat some kinda spell? Whatever it is, it didn't work. Yer still a fugly human-witch."

Rose was now faced with the thing whose power she had used to inadvertently destroy the ogre: the thing that now stared at her from the boughs of a decaying tree. It was wrapped among the branches like an enormous, translucent, electric-blue snake with glowing yellow eyes -- horned, bearded, and striped in neon violet. It ticked its claws against the dead wood, but it did not make a sound.

Rose's chest was bleeding. A symbol had been carved deep into her flesh and bone -- a symbol universally used by witches to call thunderstorms. The god that had answered her call was Lha-tak, god of natural disaster -- and it was staring into her soul.

^{art by Hannah Christenson}

Moonfiend

please tell me this thing is still going/open because it looks really cool! :)

@Arty Fox

Hey there! We're totally still going and open, if you wanna drop in a character. :) At this point in the story we'd have to work together to figure out where your character is and how you'll meet up with everyone, but it should be pretty simple.

But yeah, exam season. x.x I expect we'll speed up again soon!

Mirror, Fox, Key

@Diggerton Hm, I'd say we can probably assume that Lily agrees with Emma, and go from there. Or say that her reply was interrupted by the most recent mod post. :)