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1 yr ago
I crave death
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2 yrs ago
Everything I learnt about NFTs have been non-consensual
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4 yrs ago
while(inDream=true) {otaku.salary()+=}
4 yrs ago
I don't know who this Boltzmann fella is but he owes me a physics test and a whole lotta trouble
4 yrs ago
Can someone please explain why my discords are on fire about this forum right now? I just woke up and I don't have enough coffee to read a bazillion status updates
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Bio



Most Recent Posts

Hello! Thanks for all the fun times but I'd like to move on.
Can you please delete this account, and if possible all posts associated with this account?
Thank you in advance
Lein



Location: Garden Shrine
Interactions:



The shrine amongst the garden did not wear grandiosity in its sleeve. Two rows of large stained glass panels oversaw a pool of water and a flame, enchanted to burn with eternal endurance atop a carefully raked pile of charcoal. Cultivated along the steps toward the shrine's center were rows of roses and lilies and beyond those, a small area for seating. Among a tucked seat in the corner sat a cross-legged Hundi, head resting on the wall, ears pressed down in waned attention.

He had woken up in his dormitory, the haphazard chaos of the room reigned in somewhat by a tentative hand. Lein had apparently slept through the whole return journey, falling behind the slew of preparations Lein had cultivated in a single stroke of drowsiness. It should have been a cause for panic. But instead, Lein found himself simply falling back into simple routine. With a fumble to find his control over his legs again, the Hundi pushed through the throngs of off-duty knights and toward the sloping roofs of the garden shrine.

He was there to loiter, as usual. The plucky presence of the Hundi had occasioned the shrine many a time before, well past the sun's reign and sometimes holding a pack of cards and gaze combing the attendees for the eagerest accessory to his irreverence. At times the gardeners would confiscate the cards and chase the Hundi out of the garden and hand his scruff back to whatever duty he escaped from. Others, they would entertain the Hundi for a while, nursing their own boredom and curiosity with Lein's insouciant tales of his own tedium. Whatever attitude they held the rogue element, Lein would usually show up in a couple days in the exact same fashion, waving a different set of cards to whoever would partake in the entertainment.

This time, though, both the Hundi's hands were empty. They held instead an anxious void, the digits pressing into each other and marking a crescent redness where flesh yet permitted. The sounds of the Knights outside leaked in dribbles, but the quiet crackling of the eternal flame yet prevailed. Someone had cracked open one of the smaller windows, allowing a small patch of roses to enjoy the sunlight directly, uncolored by the decor of the stained glass murals. It swayed ever so slightly in the timid gusts of breeze, and a little more vigorously as a knight wandered in to offer his prayers. And Lein, for once, wouldn't be the one to disturb the quiet. His two green eyes just idly followed the knight through his movements.

Strange, how thin the difference between boredom and solace was. Lein had too much struggle telling apart one from the other, like a drunkard whose fondness for ale had slaughtered his sense of taste in anything that wouldn't knock his senses stone dead. So Lein would usually excise the whole lot and aimed for a day full of every event he could dip his tail into, burgeoning with the beck and call of a hundred different faces. This time, though, it would only be his own blank face, staring back at him from the undisturbed surface of the pool.
Lein



Location: Cae Mayl
Interactions: @Conscripts @Psyker Landshark



Safe. Maybe. If this melting pile of bones ever did so much as to shiver, Lein would burn this entire hill and forest to ash. Lein stepped on a trickle of tar that was escaping from the disintegrating corpse and kicked up a small mound of dirt to contain whatever malignant essence these things carried with them. Perhaps it would do nothing, but for now Lein couldn't summon the effort to put the care in. The battle was over, and these Boars had lost not just their leader and a slew of troops, but their reputation and dignity as well. Weren't much of a sporting threat after all, when they had to stare down something as big as them. Feckless upstarts, never did test their mettle till their arrogance broke them.

"I'm fairing splendidly horridly. I just set up the perfect finish and these blasted things just had to ruin the coup de grace. Can't even take a trophy from this muck. Let me use your back." Without a further word, Lein climbed onto Steffen's back and rested his head on the Ingvarr's shoulder. As the rush of the battle left him, Lein was left with a listless ennui that had taken residence in his mind for the better part of the last couple days. Boredom was a part of it, but some unwanted tendril of fatigue had clung to him, far past the period on top of that castle wall. "One of these days, we're gonna go somewhere nice for once. Good clean air, green grass, a nice view of the beach cliffs with a nice cloudy sky. And not a damned necromancer in sight."

"We'll drain the castle's stock of mead and hunt the local boar packs to extinction, and light up the sky with the biggest bonfire known by the goddesses." Then, with a teasing smirk toward Renar, "And we'll invite all the ROses too. But only the nice and pretty ones." Though Lein wasn't sure if such a frantic celebration would even be in Renar's favor. He had seen that man rest, for sure - but relaxing was a different story. Drink was one way for many men to take the edge off, but perhaps for the vengeful Brias violence was its own kind of reward?

"I'm happy to meet half-way and settle for Aimlenn right now." Lein said as he flicked off a slick of tar from Steffen's armor. "Let's get this over with and get some answers out of the darling Cazt heir."
Lein



Location: Cae Mayl
Interactions:



Lein's body reacted before he could discern why Steffen, normally so deliberate in his movement, had cried out so suddenly. An instinct of attentiveness finely sharped against the whetstone of the expansive peregrination, Lein launched himself behind Steffen's charge, pivoting with the landing foot and leveling his bow at the death-throes of the monster. It only took the silver glint of a polearm launched in alarm for his comprehension to catch up with his movement.

Had it been a living, fervent opponent, he would have rather congratulated his restless opponent. A warm laughter and a clap of the shoulder as he pulled his would-be killer by the scruff and perhaps drove him to a toast to the sheer tenacity. Maybe an invitation to work together next time, should circumstance permit, as any who would be stupid enough to keep conspiring to drive a stake through the Hundi's heart from beyond the point of apparent defeat would be just as stupid enough to drive a stake at the Hundi's foes.

But instead, Lein felt a cold, malingering exasperation. There was no consciousness that tethered this slick mass of dying to the world, nor a warmth to be extended from or to anyone. Only an tattered instinct that ravenously defiled all life placed before it, an rancid intrusion of violence that no longer belonged.

Efficiency be damned. He did not care whether this thing was merely mimicking another bout of strength. The blasphemy had been fighting on stolen time for far too long. Lein's arrows would point at any joint that dared to expose itself to Lein's sights, pummeling it with contemptuous regard.
Lein



Location: Cae Mayl
Interactions: @Conscripts



The arrows snapped against the dead mass of the behemoth as it charged against the archer on the stone pillar, thick oozing pus spewing out of its ripped orifices. The few that were too slow and too unfortunate to be in the abomination's path gave a startled bleat cut short by the trampling of their lungs. These things barely reacted to being pelted by arrows - but with the experiences of facing off a muscular tendril monster and an undead champion in the last couple days, the development hardly phased him. If he could not yield a weapon strong enough to knock his prey down, he'll just use something that could; with massive frame swallowing up the distance between them, Lein jumped down in front of the pillar he was standing on. A simple tactic - Lein was officiating an impromptu marriage of a skull and a wall.

Lein could almost smell the bitter curse-rot that threatened to plaster him against the white pillar. He bounded away from the pillar at the last possible moment, letting nary a split second flicker by before he swiveled around and measured up another arrow against its forehead. Could never tell with these necromancers' pets if any kind of damage was enough. Impact with the pillar or no, he'll ensure his mark was slain with an arrow through its head.

As for the rest of the battlefield, the Knights either had their opponents tied up or beat. A couple stray hounds snapped at the periphery, before meeting their own swift ends from Lein's lingering vengeance. So much for the Boars. His initial measure of these mercenaries had more weight now that their forces were being thoroughly ripped apart. All the reputation and debauchery could not buy them an army worth more than a couple kicks. Turns out being evil rarely ever qualified as being competent. Or even creative for that matter - why was it that these assholes so insisted on necromancy? Least the ball assassins had courtesy enough to go to a crypt for that.

Still! Lein had vented enough of his frustration to crack a smile and a wave as a familiar pair of horns waded their way towards him. "Lovely guests we have, no? They even brought me a present!" Lein held up a ragged portion of his gloves, still wet from blood and pock-marked with teeth. Bitter about being left out cold he was not. The experience of pummeling curse-hounds was rather cathartic in hindsight.
Lein



Location: Cae Mayl
Interactions:



"One stone wall to another, eh? Quite the tour today." Lein wove that irritation into a thinly pressed smile and scarpered up into a more secure position from the little height Serenity managed to toss him. A bunch of ringed stones that was a couple meters off the ground, a ring recessed back toward the one landmark of Cae Mayl, and a couple more scattered outward in a sporadic smattering, just close enough for a daring jump between them. A playground of sorts, for someone who could appreciate an easy vantage point and be thrown up the rocks with alarming ease.

Sure, Lein could lean back, take it easy and spend yet another idle day. Or he could risk having his head split open hopping from stone to stone and watch the rest of the regiment from above like a disinterested crow. It wasn't a choice, really. His conscious was already frayed by the harrowing experience of boredom. Lein chose to hop across the standing stones and take up one particularly forward position, in a tauntingly distant strait that would certainly arrest the notice of an advancing troop.

His arrogance did not last first contact; Lein hailed arrows down at the hounds with the confidence that they, with their pithy conjured claws could surely not climb the vertical sheer rock face of the standing stone. Yet those demon hounds were more than capable of climbing up his perch, and more than willing to scarper up its entire height with disjointed viscosity quicker than the suddenly isolated archer. The first to reach the top had its jaw shot into the column itself before Lein stamped its neck. The second landed on top of the first, bleeding from its shoulders and still snapping at the arrows that pierced its mouth. Lein swung around to leap back through the standing stones and toward the defensive line that was meeting the horde; but another particularly eager hound however, found the archer's leg as its savage writhing tore Lein's balance and sent him crashing into the dirt.

Neither side took any time to recover; the curse hound snarling and lunging at it prey, and Lein snapping out a short blade from his belt and meeting the creatures with equal viciousness. This was not the first time he had been caught off-side, but the Hundi found these conjurations especially deplorable to have pointedly marked his error. These accursed hounds, barely sentient things that would be little more than a flick of a finger for anyone amongst the Knights and yet the pack of them made a fool of Lein's over-eagerness for action. For that offense, he didn't rush back into the frontline established by the rest of the Knights, and instead sunk deep into the oncoming rush.

He didn't bother firing a quip when the brief lull came; instead he cursed and swore his way back up the standing stone, even the minor inconvenience of the climbing grating on the injury to his pride. He took one disdainful look at the fleshy behemoths that shuddered and cracked their way toward the frontlines, barely taking the time to level his aim before launching a slew of arrows towards the ugliest one of the lot. That his compatriot Fionn was trampling his way toward them was a secondary concern; violence and competence would be Lein's choice of venting his compounded frustration, and right now, the Knights needed someone who would rid those things with as many arrows as it would take to tear them to the ground.
Lein



Location: Get Me Out Of Here
Interactions:



Lein yawned, idly staring at the battlements as wind blew sour from within the fort.

Join the Knights, she said. Do something meaningful for once, she said.

His eyes watered from scouring the surrounding landscape, picking off the last remaining bits of originality he could scavenge. 567 bricks along this particular section of the wall. 45 of them cracked. And then there was this one that was cracked pretty neatly in half, with jagged edges that looked kinda like Chauntressy -

Hell. It had barely taken a candle's worth of 'lookout duty' to make the Hundi start losing his marbles.

Lein sat backwards on the wall and glanced enviously back at the fort. Others were hunting down this rogue blasphemy from an ancient hellscape that the Church butter-fingered into the lap of a lunatic mercenary group. And here was Lein, worldly traveler, elite knight of whatever-rose, and champion of counting bricks. Gouging his eyes out with boredom.

I hate this job.
Lein



Location: Abandoned Fort
Interactions: @VitaVitaAR @The Otter @HereComesTheSnow



Unusual aggression. If they weren't standing in the middle of a corpse pile now, that would be a little easier to tell. Most of his compatriots seemed to be burying their reaction to the grisly scene well (or entirely uncaring of it, for some). It wasn't too uncommon for someone who looked all clammed up on the outside one moment to snap the next moment and try to bite out someone's eye. That was before the possibility of an actual malevolent mental manipulator here. "...Right. I'll let you know if I start hearin' voices outside the usual ones."

Lein kept a cautious but neutral stance as more mercenaries tumbled out into view. Colorful bunch. Some of the names and their associated reputation he recognized, but none of their apparent dis-affectation was surprising. All sorts of bloodthirsty madmen tumbled into the sell-sword business, and these parasol twirling lunatics were dime a dozen. But as much as these dolts loved to grandstand about their strength and asking price, blood for hire was nothing that a rogue noble or two with enough money and resentment sloshing around couldn't afford.

"I see one." Lein interjected quietly, careful to not let any of his advice leak. "If they were here to just retrieve something they wouldn't have brought their whole bloody contingent armed here. Whatever they were 'retrieving', they were taking it with or without permission. They just got beaten to the punch."

A dozen or so plus a couple more better armored lieutenant types. Outnumbered but not necessarily outmatched, and if it came down to it the Knights would have the right to attack. But shedding more blood into the sluice was hardly advantageous, especially if there was indeed a third party watching. "We've all rights to kick them out and deny them a closer look to this place, or pin this mess on their hands. They obviously know more than we do, and I don't fancy playing catch up on info if we can help it."

Lein as mostly an unknown quantity won't hold much water if he was the one to press for more information. The former mercenaries of Fionn and Gerard, however, probably could eek something out. That is, if Fanilly didn't decide to concede easily. "But hey, you two seem to know that toothy bundle of sunshine, you think she's not gonna filch from us the moment they find what they want?"
Lein



Location: Abandoned Fort
Interactions: @VitaVitaAR @Conscripts @Krayzikk



No one up here. The guard posts were clean as ever, with no tracks or disturbances. It did clarify some things. No tracks nor signs of intrusions either meaning that it couldn't have been some exceedingly well-coordinated attack. Most importantly however, there weren't any bodies of guards either. Normally forts like these would have at least a couple lookouts permanently stationed at all times. Even if there was an intrusion from the inside, that wouldn't completely rule out why the walls were completely deserted like this, or why there was only one crazed survivor from whatever went down here.

He jumped down three stairs at a time as he met back up with Steffen and Renar. "A nice view, a check-off list, someone's secret snuff box. No guards though, so either they were recalled for something or got lured into the keep proper. Which means," Lein pulled out a dashed list of guards and ran his finger down the list. It terminated prematurely into a blank list.

"Here. Two days ago. Just about sunset or after; this fellow checked out but there's no one who tapped in for him. 'Less they decided to kick it for the night, whatever happened to the keep must've happened then. But there's fresh blood - either it means there's survivors, or whatever's caused this thing is still in there." Whatever speculation Lein could draw from the fringes, they'd only know for sure if they went in. "I'll dip in and see how's the rest of our folks fare." Lein said, heading toward the strengthening stench of fresh blood.

...

So they go.

The three word salute Lein had practiced, honed, swollen in bitter bouts. It was the cultivated carriage of his conscience that had serviced him throughout his travels, a mantra to silence all doubt. Drowned bloated things that sloughed humanity from its bones, desiccated lips that grinned at him in a mockery of the smile just days prior, eyes of glass staring blankly toward the sky. Toes, still twitching as it spun slowly in the air, stained lightly with blood that dripped from bloodied, bruised fingers.

The very first lesson the Hundi ever learned was that the first thing he needed to do before a body was not bury it, but to bury the memory of it. It was never meant to make it easier to stomach what he was seeing. Just made it easier to do what he needed to do. None of what he did allowed him any sympathy for the shapes that were before him, and neither did it allow any of his comrades the same empathy either. Commiseration held no place before praxis.

Lein knelt down and examined the entwined carcasses as he rejoined the main party with Steffen, gingerly pulling apart their swollen wounds with his prosthetic fingers. Sunk their blades into each other in a frenzy even as they had already suffered mortal injuries. Black veins finally started to crawl up through their paling flesh, the desecration of time catching up to the shock that had descended upon this accursed place. These ones were older; the fighting might have started in a single onset, but the end of it lingered for a while yet.

"Killed each other." Lein announced the obvious, though it was harder to get out than he expected. Had they died fighting with their own minds, this would have been far easier. "Doesn't look organized either; one of these guys tried to use a poker." Lein glanced to the woman standing before them. Too clean and too calm. She was likely neither the culprit nor the victim. That didn't mean friend, either, but Fionn seemed like he had that particular aspect...handled.

The real danger was clear. If the knights didn't have any capability to defend against even a rogue witch bewitching them into a nightmare, they didn't have anything against this kind of spell either. "Nico - don't have anything for mental attacks, do you? Any way to scout for magic? And Amy..." Lein clicked his tongue. Ah. So that's why Serenity dragged Amy outside. Probably not out of compassion that the Lioness so scarcely dispensed, but to ascertain the cleric's abilities.
Lein



Location: Abandoned Fort
Interactions: @VitaVitaAR @Psyker Landshark @Conscripts



There was much to be anxious about with the Fort. The first was the newest member of their party, Amy. Held command over emotions, from what he had heard from the vague descriptions from the Church sisters, but he wasn't concerned about the unusual origins nor her esoteric powers of psychic interfluence. He was more concerned about what she was saying - "death hath come to dwell on earth." If only he could dismiss her as one of many crank doomsayers he met in the outlying whistle-stops, he could dismiss her words as just that: doomsaying. But if the many offers of assistance to her was anything to go by, most of the sortie seemed to trust the half-demon's words.

The chronology of events bode worse. The Fort was a day's ride away, and given their immediate sortie and credence to the messenger's promptness, that put them about two and a half days away from the messenger's first departure. The early autumn weather would make the bodies bloat fairly quickly too. If the vampire's uncanny senses were to be trusted, fresh blood remained somewhere inside the fort. That meant either there was some strange shenanigans going on with the bodies, or the bloodletting was still going on.

So why the silence? No signs of struggle, no large tracks from the outside that would suggest an aerial entrance. Barring arcane methods, that could mean the massacre was from the inside. Or voluntary. 'Bad juju' indeed. If only the messenger had yielded more information, or survived his delirium, they could know if it was a sudden onset of mass delusion similar to the ones that gripped the Candaeln knights a week prior, or that bastard Cazt vampire.

"Looks like whatever got the folk here they weren't expecting it. If the incursion started from the outskirts, they must've been very good at moving discrete." Lein replied to Renar, jabbing at the top of the battlements. "I'll take a gander up high, see if I can spot any of the buildings looking funny from up there."

"And don't start having fun without me, y'hear?" Lein said to the Ingvarr, before beginning up the stairs.
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