Stormyx

Fallout: Rust and Steel

@Lo Pellegrino

As part of my character's history and equipment (I guess), she has an old doggo, this doggo is very important in her story - would this be okay or nah?

Fallout: Rust and Steel

Potentially working on a female, early/mid 40s surgeon.

edit; more background/brainstormy
- a very accomplished career surgeon;
- very depressed, introvert type - perpetually gloomy but still doing her best to help people.

The Elder Scrolls: Days of Night

with @Spoopy Scary

17th Suns Dawn,
Aboard the Kismet, Daggerfall

---

Dro’Sintaba had been enjoying the gentle swaying of the Kismet on the waves. A closed fist held his chin up, and his other hand held a distance away from his face a weathered looking book, not too big of a tome, perhaps a collection of poetry or short story. He was concentrating on the words from behind his bespoke spectacles. The spine was cracked, and he held it mid-way through the pages.

A long sigh left his nostrils, and his tail flicked at the sound of a distorted voice. It was not the time to be annoyed by it, he was sitting on a boat after all, in the open. He’d wanted a quiet moment but they couldn’t always be afforded in public places. His mouth quirked slightly at the gentleman’s words. “If I was on a honeymoon, do you think I would be out here with a book?”
The Cathay-raht asked with a careful measure of humour, bending the page back, and placing the book away into the folds of his jacket. Next off was the glasses, and he squinted his eyes before re-opening them, turning his head to the owner of the voice. A Dunmer. A rather modest looking fellow too, thin and covered in his threadbare clothing, the warm hues setting off the rich crimson of his eyes nicely. Modest, but clearly knows how to dress himself, and most likely more than that… Dro’Sintaba’s eyes narrowed with curiosity.

“Business trip. We’ll go with that,” the khajiit concluded, eyeing up the Dunmer still. “What about you then? A holiday away from the politics of Daggerfall is it?”

“Quite bold to pry into my affairs after hiding your own.” Garil chirped without much admonishment or subtlety, craning his neck forward and invading Dro’Sintaba’s personal space as he deliberately avoided the inquiry. The stranger was tight lipped, and yet was quick to question Garil’s own motives. It was like staring into silvered glass, so he couldn’t bear to criticize the khajiit’s conduct without criticizing his own, but he could safely call him out without repercussion -- after all, he had asked first. Fidgeting with the red shawl that was draped over his shoulders and shirtless body, shielding his pecs from the cool ocean breeze, he continued, “But let’s suppose you were on a business trip, I wonder still what you would be doing with a book. What awaits you in Cyrodiil, friend? A scandalous affair? Don’t you worry, us dunmer tend to be a promiscuous sort ourselves…”

“Can’t a man enjoy a hobby?” Dro’Sintaba retorted, closing his eyes and making a mental note to look around next time before sitting for a moment of quiet contemplation. “Nothing waits in Cyrodiil except the other half of a payment for a job.” He hoped that would satisfy the Dunmer’s curiosity enough - and he was certainly not about to entertain the idea of anything seedy, as he had tried to suggest. It seemed to satisfy the Dunmer enough as he nodded and withdrew his head.

“What are you planning in Cyrodiil then?” he asked after a pregnant pause, his tone flat as he cast a sidelong glance at the man. “Don’t tell me, you’re going to find yourself a harem perhaps?…”

“That’s one possibility.” Garil answered as he reached his hand into a pouch of nuts and seeds, acquiring a small handful before pouring them into his mouth. Then he proceeded without much consideration, “Mmf, Sheer-o-dill ish phull of wonderth, sho thereth pwenty to shee ofer d’ere, ah’m shure.”

A quick swallow of half the food in his mouth he added with barely any clarification, “Old Ayleid ruins, swaying grain of the Gold Coast, the White-Gold Tower-- they must be beautiful sights. What do you think of that?”

Dro’Sintaba openly curled a lip at the sound of the Dunmer’s chewing in his ear, and he rolled a shoulder in response. “I’ve seen them before. They do have a beauty about them if you like that. Maybe I’ll head to the Gold Coast,” he offered with a shrug. The truth of it was, he hadn’t paid much thought to further plans once he arrived there. Just his payment, really. High Rock had been interesting enough of course but he’d long grown impatient of it. “Perhaps I’ll cross over to Hammerfell, who knows, really…” Dro’Sintaba certainly didn’t.

“Been a while since I was in the company of a Dunmer,” he added with a sigh, it was an attempt at being friendly, even if the rumble of his words in his throat felt more accusatory when they left his mouth. “Do you have a name?”

“Garil,” the Dunmer answered with a dismissive wave of his hand, as if to downplay the significance of his answer, “but I’m not like a lot of Dunmer. I’m what you’d call a n’wah -- I don’t come from Morrowind, but by Oblivion, I can hardly say I come from anywhere. Truly, I suppose you could call me a child of the road and stars for they are what have guided me all this time. I’m a farmhand by trade, and you, sera? Your manner’s quite unlike your kin, so could it be you’re quite like me? Outrunning your ghosts, going where the wind takes you, and finding work along the way? To be so old for a cat and to wear so many stories on scar-sprinkled skin, surely, there’s one or two of them worth telling!”

Garil twisted his neck around, left and right, prompting a string of popping sounds to crack from his neck, before taking a long, deep breath. He swept a long glance across the sea before it landed on Dro’Sintaba and added, “I hope to hear a few of them before this voyage is over. I smell a storm coming. It’d be a shame to see you done in by a spattering of water, khajiit, there’d be something ironic about that.”

Dro’Sintaba didn’t appreciate the suggestion of drowning - or the level of humour in his voice as he spoke, he raised a brow in suspicion and in a way, disbelief. “You talk a lot, don’t you?” he asked with yet another sigh. “And you’re nosy.” He held a breath for a moment, meaning no offense - it was just a correct observation, and he was quite often just a man of few words. It seemed that Garil had more than enough to make up for it. He was slightly poetic in his speech too, and in a way Dro’Sintaba was envious of that quality.

“Indeed.” Garil replied with a toothy grin.

“My name is Dro’Sintaba,” he said, pre-empting the Dunmer’s next question or curiosity; “I'm a travelling mercenary. Have been for many years, trying to retire. Maybe this is my last job but I can’t seem to stop.” His tail flicked at his own admission, he tried to keep his cards close to his chest but at the same time, he was old enough to realise that the truest facts of a person were not always worth hiding, and that his life wasn’t that interesting. “If you like talking, you should meet my companion, she’ll have your ear off.”

“Is that so?” Garil chirped before unraveling his foot from the dockstay and stood atop the rail. He clutched one of the backstays for support and, smiling wryly, looked down at the khajiit. He would still probably stand only at an equal height if Dro’Sintaba decided to do so as well. “Well then, that makes me a lucky mer! My apologies, sera. I might be nosy, but I’m not daft. I’ll leave you to your peace. Hopefully soon you are willing to share your stories, and in turn, I, mine. Over supper, friend?”

As the ship swayed on the water, the dunmer swayed with it along the railing’s edge, kicking out a foot to balance himself while his back hovered over the water, and by pulling on the mainstay was he able to right himself before hopping off and landing on the main deck. His bare feet slapped against the woodwork, and he slipped them into a simple pair of sandals before walking backwards away from Dro’Sintaba.

“If you know anyone in need of a private room, send them to me! I find the still air stifling and the beds uncomfortable, but I’m sure there’s someone who enjoys that sort of thing.”

The khajiit sighed again, closing his eyes. He'd been a rude git, again, hadn't he? It felt too late to change the Dunmer's mind about their conversation, not that he really had much to talk about anyway. He felt an embarrassment sitting on his chest over the whole thing. Maybe later he'd approach the gentleman and try to make up for his social faux pas. But Dro'Sintaba knew already that he wouldn't. Supper would involve him sitting as far away from the din of idle small talk as he could.

This was going to be a long, long voyage. "Fucking hell," he growled under his breath, admonishing himself.

The Elder Scrolls: Vengeance of the Deep

Rorikstead I

18th Sun’s Height, Evening
On the road to Rorikstead…

---

Their days of the road had so far felt long. They only had each other for company, and there were stretches of absolute silence, and then hours of conversation. Sleeping was hard. They had agreed to take it in turns, but Fjolte let Raelynn sleep while he sat and kept vigil over her. She needed it more than he did, and so he found time to sleep on Lady’s back here and there while Raelynn walked her. It was exhausting, but they both knew that Rorikstead was close by. It was exhausting, but it was temporary exhaustion.

It was the crisp air of the province that kept them both refreshed too, that air that swept down over the peaks of the mountains, carrying with it serenity and the comfort of familiarity to those accustomed to Skyrim and its harshness. To Raelynn and Fjolte both, that wind was warmer than anything they could have found in the desert sands of the Alik’r.

This evening was not one of those instances where silence would be found. The closer they came to Rorikstead, the more Fjolte deigned it appropriate to be jovial -- in ignorance of Raelynn’s pain perhaps, or just in his own unbridled elation. Home was on the horizon.

“You’ll be our guest of honour you know,” he said, smiling at the side of his mouth - the other side filled with a large mouthful of a fresh apple, taken from a tree earlier that day. “Yeah! My good friend Raelynn, healer and hero!” he laughed, swallowing down the fruit, savouring the sweet taste.

“I’m no hero,” she said quietly. It was always the evening, just after sunset that it hit her hardest. Their hours were always the late ones. Midnight blue and hearthfires, dry red wine. Together, they were invincibly passionate by moonlight. Where had those flames gone?

Fjolte scoffed, damn near choking on another bite. “Don’ be foo’ish,” he spoke through his food. “You sewed Mazrah’s arm back together with magic, tore Finnen out of the arms of death himself. That’s the work of a hero if I’ve ever heard of it.” He then glanced up at her, and was relieved to see that it had brought a semblance of a smile to her face, but it hadn’t lit the fire in her eyes. He didn't succeeded there yet, but he’d keep going until he did. It would only take one spark…

Raelynn listened both to Fjolte’s voice and the breeze as it ran across the path, sprawling rugged mountains to the side of them, and forest to the other. Birds sat in their trees watching them move past. “If I’m a hero, so are you. I heard you punched an arm clean off one of those machines. That’s real hero behaviour, hmm?” the Breton mused, watching the last of the sun sink into the horizon.

That only made Fjolte laugh, it was true of course - he had helped to bring down the machines, in a theatrical way too - but he disagreed with his friend on that. “I don’t believe it, anyone with strength and muscle can fight a beast that fights them. Real heroics come from choices we make day by day, things we do for others, intent behind what we do.” He gave a relaxed shrug of his shoulders, moving ever forwards on the road - and those very words sat with Raelynn.

Everything that Raelynn had done had been for the good of the party -- requesting Gregor to kill Zaveed, their attempt to assassinate Razlinc Rourken. Even hiding his true nature, had been to protect them just as much as it had been to protect she and Gregor. The party had been left fractured since the revelation, and that was only because he’d ascended to his Undeath, the very thing she had begged him not to do. Every which way that she looked at it, from every angle she turned and probed at her choices - they were always with good intent. Behind her was a string of failures, one right after the other, that all led them to the circle and trial in the Alik’r.

If only she had done better. If only she hadn’t accompanied Fjolte in the prison, Gregor would have been under her control - he may never have revealed himself… ”I should have been at your side,” she told herself - or him. He couldn’t hear her thoughts, not from this distance. ”Or I should never have stolen you from your own path… I should never have stepped onto it. Where would I be, Gregor? Where would I be without you?”

Raelynn thought of the room that Zaveed had kept her in, that he had told her she’d bleed out and die there. Without Gregor, and without the confidence he gave her to stand up and deny Zaveed anything - would she have died there?

Then, where would Gregor be without her? Would he have collected the soul of N’Blec without her there to give him confidence? He would never have been attacked and left for dead… Without what they had, he would have no need to chase down a Khajiit to avenge the death of some woman in their party. Would any of them have avenged her? If she had not of died, would she have left Gilane with her father and returned to High Rock without… Without everything she’d gained from the ashes of loss?

Without Zaveed, would she feel so strongly for Finnen? He had become like a brother to her. She pictured him again, in all of his broken forms, every time he was broken she only saw his beauty, his eyes. Oh his eyes…. If eyes were the window to the soul, she knew from his he was a good and strong man.

Daro’Vasora. Her dear friend. Someone who saw the good in her just as Raelynn had seen it in Finnen. ”Daro’Vasora, I abandoned you. I left you when you needed me more than ever… You believed in me and I abandoned you…” She turned her eyes heavensward. Blinking back tears at the clouds above. Would her friend understand her choices?

“But yeah, that’s just what I believe, Blondie. Enough about that, and more about home. Tomorrow we’ll make the Dhjarikson hog roast!” Fjolte exclaimed, it was enough to pull Raelynn away from her thoughts.

She’d learned so much about her Nord companion in the two days. The most surprising of those things, was that he was something of a handy chef and forager. It made sense, Fjolte lived his life on the road for the most part - he was bound to have picked it up. The night before, he’d made a meal out of a wild hare that could have been served at a High Rock banquet. Raelynn did wonder if it was just the absolute hunger that made it taste that good, he clearly loved and respected food. He could teach Brynja a thing or two about providing meals on the road, that thought made her smirk. Raelynn decided that the two Nord’s would get on well with each other.

“I’ve heard a lot about this since you joined us Fjolte, I hope it lives up to my expectations…” she teased, her eyes remained on the road but that same smirk quirked at her lips.

“Oh aye it will,” he answered back, a hand steady on Lady’s shoulder as he walked the path. “I salt it, score it, season it…” his voice trailed off as he closed his eyes and kept on. All he could think about was walking through the threshold of his home, seeing his mother, sister, and nieces there. He hoped his arms were strong enough to hold a niece on each, he didn’t know how big they’d be by now. They were getting so close. “The best bit is the skin though, the way that it crisps up over the top, with the rendered fat underneath. Some of it gets charred but that’s even better… And the smell, oh the smell! You’ve never smelled anything til you’ve smelled my pig, kissed and caressed by fire!” he said, glancing at her again even if she wasn’t watching him. He found himself lifting his chin to take a deep sniff of the air around him, and since he’d conjured the image of it in his mind, it was as though he could smell it for real. “You’ll love it Raelynn, you really will…”

For a while, nothing else was said - it was just the quiet sounds of Lady’s hooves and Fjolte’s feet on dirt. The Nord could sense a change in the atmosphere soon, the telltale sign that rain was coming. Maybe thunder too, but they’d be home soon - possibly even in time to miss the storm completely. Even if his impatience grew, it probably wasn’t good form to have Lady speed up and jostle Raelynn along the rest of the way. Nor was his next bright idea…

“Do you miss him?” he asked rather frankly, tossing the finished apple away.

Raelynn’s eyebrows furrowed and she clenched her fists. It had been unspoken, but his shadow had nonetheless hovered over them anyway. “Yes.” Was all that she said in response, feeling the darkness of approaching evening creep in when he came to her mind again.

Fjolte felt awkward for it, but he knew she needed to address it sooner or later. It wasn’t healthy to bottle things like that, at least that’s what he believed. “You’re doing the right thing, he’ll understand that…” he sighed.

“I know…” She breathed, going to reach at her chest but finding nothing. She’d left him her flowers, but hadn’t taken anything of his as a keepsake of her own. Just memories, and even they were blurred. So much had happened to them both that she couldn’t even picture his face. Not as it really was, or used to be. Now she could only imagine the lights of his eyes behind the steel prison. “They’ll all understand one day, when this is all over.”

As they neared Rorikstead, the road became lined with scorch marks, and there was a light smell of burning in the air, being traced across the landscape in the wind. A fog had appeared, and the Breton knew it was too early in the year for snow or hail… But she was still taken aback to feel something touch her cheek. She brought her finger to touch it, rubbing at what she thought was a droplet of snow, or rain. As she observed her finger, she could see a smudge of grey...

She squinted ahead, the growing dark obscuring much of her view until she looked down at the ground.

A pair of shoes, child sized. Just a marker on the road now in a dry circle of blood, ground cracked beneath. Raelynn held tightly to Lady’s reins, stopping the loyal mare in her tracks. She couldn’t move her gaze from the shoes - and she instinctively placed a hand tenderly against her own stomach. Just a pair of empty shoes.

There was a bitter breeze dancing through the canopy of the trees that howled, as if in mourning down below at the Breton and Nord. Fjolte saw the shoes too, his reaction was not as silent as Raelynn’s; “fuck,” he said sharply as his heart began to race in his chest, his entire body froze and tensed like it had never before. Lady dragged a hoof across the dirt of the road, her tail swished from left to right. She was keen to move forward, but waited for one of them to tell her. “Fjolte…” Raelynn said, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

Rorikstead was in their vision.

What remained of Rorikstead was in their vision.

The rock formations that surrounded the town had not saved them from whatever had been through, barns and houses lay on the ground. Some wooden beams and foundations still standing, threatened by the wind to collapse and bring down what was left of the roofs. The walls had been taken by fire. The interiors had been engulfed by flame. And the people...

Fjolte couldn’t have moved fast enough, the lines of scenery around him became blurred and his breath failed him as he sprinted only to collapse in the centre of what was once Rorikstead. It was now just ash drifting through smoke. In his eyeline, a pile of corpses, blackened husks of people - identities long burnt down but there were plenty of them. Bodies torn at and shredded by animals that had passed through since.

Raelynn dared not move, Lady fidgeted and fussed beneath her for the first time. Fjolte’s distress had taken control of the mare too and she nickered and whinied. There was nothing the Breton could do as she watched Fjolte desperately work through the bodies. Prying them from each other, hot tears stinging his cheeks in between gasping screams.

The rain came soon after, heavy. Streaking lines of silver that distorted her vision and soaked her through within seconds. Thunder turned the sky over above them, tumbling across the landscape in a growl, the clouds thick and dense with rain. What remained of Rorikstead began to succumb to it, the dirt quickly becoming a pool of thick mud. On his knees, Fjolte sank into it. His own town consuming him into the dark.

Fjolte could not speak his words. His iron stomach betrayed him when he met the scent. The sound of a throat blocked by vomit, desperately trying to find the air to fuel cries of hoarse anguish and loud, choked sobs. It was the most disturbing sound that Raelynn had ever heard.

Hope was lost.

The Elder Scrolls: Vengeance of the Deep

You’re It

@Leidenschaft & @Stormflyx

---

The party had long died down - while their energy was abundant, even Nords had their limits it seemed. The fire, too, was dying down to its embers, and people had either taken themselves to quieter spots to stargaze and share conversation, or taken themselves to bed. The only music to be heard now was a chorus of cicadas and crickets chirping, and a light breeze that ran through the long grass on the outskirts of Falkreath. Somewhere, wolves also sang out to the moon that was watching down upon them all, like a giant pearl suspended in the sky on a string of stars.

Ivy, the acrobatic Dunmer, was once again weaving through the people as they meandered away to wherever they were going. Flat on one hand was a platter of food. In Falkreath, septims had little value to her than they would have if they were not in the middle of a war, so in place of coins, Ivy had grown used to receiving food as gifts for her trade. Tonight’s platter was rather special. Berries, bread, cakes, and a skewer of grilled chicken which she was very much looking forward to enjoying. She balanced the platter well, while her other hand was reached around to her back, tugging at a hanging piece of fabric, her bandeau was unravelling from underneath her leotard. She pinched at it, trying to wind it around her finger - all the while, balancing the tray and trying to avoid the stumbling drunks.

As she dotted through the square, she thought of Daro’Vasora and her party. The new arrivals had really seemed to have enjoyed themselves for the most part, but still the woman couldn’t help but feel that beneath the smiles they had managed to find, melancholy still sat below the surface. They were certainly a special bunch of adventurers, that was for sure. Maybe even the ones she had been waiting for, but she’d been waiting for such a long time now and while mostly endearing, there were some… issues within the group too.

Her mouth pulled to the side as she finally got a grip on the fabric, only to be nudged out of the way by an Imperial woman - and not by the woman herself, but by the round metal shield that was strapped to her back. It thunked into her tray and before she could tear her arm from her back, instinct had kicked in (literally), and she raised a leg swiftly to catch the lip of the plate on her toes, remaking perfectly balanced despite being in something of a knot. The woman, of course, just carried on her way. Ivy had not managed to save everything, despite her best efforts a sweetroll did in fact fall from the tray and started on its way rolling across the ground, the stickiness of it’s icing did nothing but pick up dirt as it went. She muttered something in her native tongue, watching the useless treat escape her…

The toe of a boot stopped its advance. Up and up her eyes went until they met Sevari’s own. He regarded the sweetroll by his foot before his eyes went to Ivy’s. He gave a small smirk, apologetic, “We’ll have to get you a new one.” He said, before he offered her one of the cups in his hand, “Until then, I hope this is worthy of you.”

"They're not my favourite anyway," she said with a sigh of resignation before a smile returned at the sight of the stranger she had made her way to more than once. "I thought you might have disappeared away to bed by now, you and your companions must be exhausted, no?" Ivy asked with a twinkle of mischief in her eye. She had a firm hold of the plate again, and so she let her leg fall back to where it was meant to be, and she released the troublesome fabric so that she could take the cup from him. "If it's liquid, I'll take - don't think I caught your name though…?" She added, turning the intonation into that of a curious question as opposed to a statement.

“Sevari.” He smiled, which for him was but a mischievous uptick of a lip’s corner, “Ivy, is it?”

"Sevari," Ivy repeated, rolling the r at the end. "And yes. Ivy." She would have offered a hand to shake, but they were both full and since Sevari was only part gentleman she supposed he wouldn't mind. The Dunmer took a step forward to carry on walking in the direction she had been headed. "Walk with me?"

“Of course.” Sevari smiled, tipping his head. As they walked, Sevari spoke, “I’ve been here once before. Would you believe me if I told you why?”

He had piqued her interest, and she narrowed her eyes in thought at his question, "I think I would, but you have to tell me first."

Sevari stopped in his tracks, holding her gaze. In the moonlight she had a beauty about her, and he caught himself staring before he remembered he had something to say. He felt young again, like the tempestuous flings of his past had revisited again. He leaned in close, beckoning for her ear to share in the conspiracy, “An urgent mission for the Empire. Hunt down the Dark Brotherhood.” He said, “It was the height of the war. I needed hide my identity everywhere I went, because my mission was so veiled in secrecy. Its importance perhaps more dire even than the Civil War.”

He held her gaze, leaning back and offering a small laugh, “I kid, I kid.” He said, “Me? An Agent of the Mede Empire?”

“You, though. You are such an impressive person to be in the presence of. There’s so much history in every bit of you and it coalesces into such a rich and storied woman.” He gave her a small smile as they walked, “Tell me one? A tale? Perhaps the one that brought you here.”

His staring did not go unnoticed by the Dunmer and she took a quick step to his side, tipping the brim of his hat again over his eyes before she continued forward. “Watch yourself there, Tiger. You’re going to lose your eyes again…” she cooed at him with a giggle. “You flatter me though, so why would I interrupt you letting me know how special I am to tell the tale of how I found myself here?” Ivy turned on her heel to face him again, tilting her head as she took in the sight of him. She enjoyed how different he was. He had the look of a man who had carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. She stole a glance at his smile and wondered how long it had been since he had really allowed himself to be carefree.

“But alright, I’ll indulge you…” she began with a twinkle in her eye. “Would you believe me if I told you I was sent a dream from something higher than us? A dream that was vivid enough that I followed the stars and wound up here?”

Sevari chuckled. He looked her over, his smirk still remaining even after the chuckle faded. The way she looked, the way she carried herself, spoke, moved, everything… “I could.” He nodded, “You have a look unlike anything I’ve seen. What was it? The vision? You give me more things to be curious about with you every time we speak.”

"Oh I can't tell an Agent of the Mede Empire that!" She chuckled, winking at him before she slowly lowered herself down onto her knees, not daring to break eye contact. The plate of food still resting on an open palm. Her bottom followed until it met the grass, and the plate found its way to the ground in front of her. She patted the place beside it expectantly, for him to follow. "And you can speak for yourself about my look," she purred quietly as she flagrantly eyed him up from toe to tip.

His grin widened a hair as he too sat, and his eyes held hers in turn. He placed a hand to his chest, “Would it loosen your tongue if I told you I was not here on business?” He said, before adding, “Just pleasure. A small vacation from the humdrum of protecting the Empire and all its citizens.”

He allowed himself a wry chuckle, “And now there is a real imbalance of what you know of me opposite what I known of you.” He held his hands up, “No spying. Just an observation of things.”

"Something tells me you're all business and have been for a while Sevari," she remarked, "just an observation…"

Ivy sighed and looked upwards to the canopy of stars and let herself lower further so that she was lying on her side, her head resting in her hand, propped up by her elbow. "But alright, I dreamed of green lights - and then more recently of a group of people who would make them go away. I've been waiting for those heroes here… have I satisfied you with that?" She asked in a coy tone, being playfully selective of her words.

“Did you get a feeling they might be here now? Because I’ve already died twice, I don’t know if I’ve got another in me.” Sevari smirked. He sighed, then, as if Ivy had seen through him to the man underneath. The one who made a life of killing and lying. “What do you know of my life then, Seer?”

“I think I do,” Ivy’s brow sloped down, as she was momentarily brought to the reality outside of the excitement. She pondered on it for a moment or two, before turning back to Sevari with another smile, her eyes fixed onto his as if she was looking deep into him. “I think you’re a man of depth. I think you put others before yourself. I think it’s been a long time since you just shed all of the weight and let go…”

“There’s a lot of weight,” Sevari gave a rueful grin and a chuckle, “Always thought it was meant to be there. Now that I’m talking to a Seer, I don’t know. I’m never as sure as someone as sure as a Seer.”

He glanced to the side, looking at Ivy after a spell, “I’m a man of depth? What do you see in them?” He asked, shifting where he sat and crossing his legs, clasping his hands at his bent knees, he asked more mischievously, “How will you make me let go?”

Ivy shifted too. Occasionally unsure of whether someone was mocking her, or believing her. She wasn’t without her own insecurities after all, even after all these years. She brought her hands together and her fingers interlaced as she thought on Sevari’s words. “It doesn’t matter what I see. It matters what you see in yourself, foremost and first.” The Dunmer sat quietly for a moment, a small smile playing on her lips. “Do you want to let go? I can’t make you do anything – I’m not that powerful…”

Sevari’s smirk grew a little wider, “What if I’m willing to let you be?”

In truth, he wasn’t keen on turning his eyes inward. It was never a place meant to be observed until he was forced to in dreams or quiet moments. And he avoided those as often as possible, lonely mountain passes in the misty crags of his mind he dared not go. “Teach me.”

Ivy let his words work through before so did anything else, truthfully she was thinking of ways to help him shed his weight – the layers. Then it hit her, it was obvious, wasn’t it? She thought of caterpillars that wrapped themselves up into shells – only to literally shed them and become something new. She smirked, taking a strawberry from the plate. She bit down into it halfway, letting the taste savour. “There is a game… Maybe you played it once,” she said quietly and playfully, stealing a glance at him from the corner of her eye. “A game of tag, only tonight I think I can make it more exciting…” Something devilish flickered over her orbs, and she finished the last of the strawberry – watching him closely as her lips touched the fruit.

“I propose a rule. If I catch you and tag you, you must remove something that you wear… If you catch me and tag me, I’ll do the same.” Ivy smirked again, running her hands over the shawl she was wearing that sat over her only other garment – the leotard. “The odds favour you in this game…”

His face changed to surprise, then curiosity, then a devilish thing. He chuckled, “I like this. I’ll warn you though, I’m quick.”

“And I’m hard to catch,” Ivy teased, getting herself to her feet. “But seeing as you’re soooooo fast…” that was the beginning of another idea. There was a dash of trouble in her husky voice, and her narrowed eyes meant that she was absolutely up to something. “I should have a head start… You stay put…” The Dunmer wagged a finger down at him as she rocked on her legs.

She didn’t run at her countdown; “ten…” She turned away from Sevari, and bent down to place her hands on the ground. “Nine…” Ivy leaned further forwards, completely aware of what she was doing. “Eight…” She stood back up, but not before taking a hold of her ankle. “Seven…” she sighed, raising her leg into the air in a stretch. “Just limbering up for a run… Six…” she giggled. She couldn’t see his face, but that was part of the fun, for her anyway. “Five…” She did the same with the opposite leg on four and three. “Two…”

Then she ran off--

Sevari was left sitting on his ass, memories of hers persisting even after it had gone. When he realized she was suddenly nowhere to be seen he shook himself from his boyish stupor and chided himself at his inability to keep his head level when it mattered. “Shit…” he grunted to his feet and looked around himself, finding only forest dark enough even to thwart his feline night vision after a few paces away. “Shit.”

He decided he’d walk, picking no particular direction and instead of focusing on finding her, would rely on his other senses. He closed his eyes, listening for footsteps or breathing. His own breaths came in through his nostrils and he sniffed at the air, searching for perfumes or any smell that seemed out of place in nature. “Wherever did you go…” he smirked, now amused by the stakes and the challenge. He’d let her come to him, at least then he’d know which direction to evade her, “I can smell you.” He lied, hoping to draw her out.

Sevari would have found himself under a tree, and in that tree was Ivy, just low enough to hang down and tap his shoulder with a light touch. "Boo…" She giggled and flipped out of his way. She would dance circles around him if she had to. "Off with something," she purred, taking slow steps away from him, his figure in the moonlight was hard to turn away from after all. "The hat doesn't count either…"

His fingers retreated from the brim as he swore under his breath. How could he not have seen her. Immediately, his eyes factored in the tree branches, every shape in them seemed to be her. He smirked, deciding on good humor instead of fretting about a loss. After all, what was there to really lose?

“Oh, I hope I don’t have to wander around naked.” He chuckled as he removed his coat and hung it from a branch, “However will I cope with baring my Gods given gift to the world, to the world.”
She giggled off into the night. Ivy had expected Sevari to enjoy himself, and to loosen up but she hadn't really been anticipating it to be something that she enjoyed in the same way. Of course, there was excitement… She hadn't really had opportunity for simple pleasures since she'd been in Falkreath. Her heart skipped a beat at the thought, just like the Ohmes-Raht, she wasn't immune to charm. "Oh Sevariiiiiiiiiii," she sang out - looking around for him again - ready to see him without an article of clothing. Ready to pounce yet again should he get to her first.
Aha! With a quick movement, she pushed herself over into a cartwheel and it was when her feet touched the ground and she came back up, that she this time slapped a hand against his buttocks. There was sadly no time to give it a squeeze. She was off again.

“Damn!” Sevari was already sans jacket and now he worked at the buttons of his shirt. As much fun as this was, he mentally chided himself. Had he grown this rusty? “I’m going to get you, you know that?”

In truth, he needed to hear it from himself to believe it. He stalked through the woods, again taking this seriously. If Bosmer rebels and even Kilvayne One-Eye couldn’t get him in their own damned jungles, this Dunmer wouldn’t be the first. He took a breath, steadying his senses. He crouched close to the deep roots of an old tree, closing his eyes and listening to everything around him.

It was when he heard a rustling that his ears perked. His eyes shot open and he snapped his head in the direction it came from like a hawk. A hint of movement between the trees. He listened further and when a hand came from around the trunk at the head of careful footfalls, he caught it by the wrist. He gently pulled her into view, leaning close to her surprised visage with a triumphant smirk of his own this time. “One to me.”
He let her go and bounded through the underbrush, making sure to keep quiet and make a hard turn from the trail he’d cut while running, slinking through the forest and again listening to his surroundings.

She threw the shawl off, slightly vexed at him for catching her. She’d have to be sneakier now - it was time to use her skills to her advantage. He was only one tag away from ending the game, not that Ivy would mind that, she was feeling especially frisky now… But this was also a lesson, it wasn’t just about a naughty game. It was time to squash her own desires for the time being. With a shake of her head she took off. Her footsteps were near silent until she reached another tree. To win this game, she’d have to go up. They didn’t call her Ivy the Spider for nothing…

It took some time, but Sevari eventually made his way back to her. She felt almost like a cheat, but then again - her only rule was that clothes had to come off… It was a sturdy enough branch to hold her weight, and so she got ready to drop. Sure, she’d done it before but this time she had an extra sprinkling of razzle dazzle to add to the mix… If she’d got him from behind the first time, then this would be from the front.

Ivy had to fight the urge to giggle again, but it was easy to find a centre of focus when he was below her. Once more she let herself drop down, her legs holding her weight. She was higher up this time and she brought herself level with his face, setting a hand against his cheek before he’d have time to register. “Hello sweetie,” she purred at him before swinging forward with the slightest momentum to briefly touch his lips with hers. She was almost tempted to let it linger… But while her lips worked their magic - so did her hands, and on her swing away from him there was a bold smirk lighting up her expression. She’d stolen his hat.

Finding solid ground again, the Dunmer moved a slight distance from him as she pushed his hat onto her head. “Ooooh, I like this,” Ivy remarked, “but not as much as I liked the taste of you Sevari…” Then she was off, again.

the only thing Sevari did when he saw her was give a startled huff from his nostrils and a slight flinch. He was definitely not expecting her lips on his, but just as he tried to reach for her and sink into it, she was off again.

And with his hat.

Instead of frustration, he gave her a sincere laugh and nodded as she posed with his hat, and were he younger, she would’ve left him red-faced with her last remark. He only smirked and bit his lip, “Only one more to me, Ivy, and we’ll have a winner.” Sevari said, scanning the trees and their branches, making abrupt turns and double-backs when he could, “Are you as excited as I am?”

Ivy had the upper hand. Ivy knew these woods, she knew Falkreath, she knew where she was - and where was going. She only had to lead him there now. She got her bearings back by holding a finger out and feeling the wind, and then a glance up to the sky. She ran straight forwards, not caring if he could see her. Truthfully, she was excited - but the woman was still competitive and not about to lose at the game she’d suggested.

After a few moments she found herself where she wanted to be. As close enough to her tent - her palace, as she needed to be. Then, something strange happened - she simply stopped running. She was allowing him to catch up, and so instead she began dancing around on the grass. Performing more cartwheels, flips, splits, and spins. Sure, Sevari could see her - and the thrill alone of him only having to lay one more touch on her was enough to rile him up. She didn’t need to run and hide to win this game. She was a master of unpredictable movement. What better way was there to win the game too? Everything up until now had been a warm up. Now she would really challenge him.

He caught on to what this had become. What he had let her lure him into. And he couldn’t contain the grin on himself. He began to limber up in his own way too, stretching his legs and swinging his arms to loosen up his muscles. “Any rules, dearest?”

“I trust you’re not going to cheat, Tiger,” she purred as she bent backwards into an arch, kicking her legs to flip herself over and away. “Come and get me if you think you can,” she smirked, and kept moving around. She wasn’t going to make it easy - but she also still wanted to get that man’s trousers off…

“Only evading, no blocking. A touch still means clothes off.” Sevari edged closer to her, not even assuming any stance, but readying his body to move like a coiled spring, “And I only need to touch you once.”

“I wonder what the winner gets.” Sevari chuckled.

“Oh everyone gets a prize,” she smirked, her feet carrying her across the grass - arms outstretched and her hair whipped around furiously as she began spinning. Ivy moved with the breeze that drawled in from the east, letting it carry her and her spins to Sevari’s side. She was not growing dizzy, but maybe if he watched her closely then he might. She was like a spinning top, the red paint on her skin becoming but a blur. Just like the breeze the caressed Sevari, she did too - just a slight touch of her hand, her fingertips but a tickle on the back of his neck.

Sevari let it happen. A tingle down below and a mischievous need that grew more and more as the night went on bade him do it. He calmly reached down and unbuckled his pants, a thought thrown to whether his gunbelt counted as a piece of clothing, but he slipped off his pants one leg at a time either way. He smirked, “Even now. One touch between the both of us.” His smirk grew into a cheeky grin, “Of course, we could just touch each other for the hell of it too.”

Ivy twirled all the way to the parted fabric door of her tent, stopping to take a look at Sevari in this form. For a moment her breath faltered, and her lip found its way under her front teeth. "Tell me how it feels to be a little more free…" were the words the Dunmer left him with before stepping over the threshold of her tent. She beckoned him to follow with a slow and seductive curling of her finger.

Sevari shook his head watching her, a slow turning from left to right as he bit his lip in turn, “Mm.” He chuckled to himself, wondering just what the hells he’d gotten himself into with this strange woman, and not disappointed in his choice to humor her as he followed her inside her tent, “Mm mm.”

The Elder Scrolls: Days of Night

The Box

---

Having left Aurora to her own devices, Dro’Sintaba made his way across the deck. She had left an impression on him that was just as troublesome as anything else on this journey was going to be. Namely, Ms Vasellius - a woman who had also been left to her own devices. He shook his head, an attempt to stop thinking about the blonde. It didn’t take much to do so, it took only a redhead struggling with cargo to erase Aurora from his immediate thoughts…

He watched her for a moment, she was strong looking. Must have been 6’3”. A nord too, most definitely. Thick auburn hair in a single braid over her shoulders. Her arms toned and freckled - kissed by the sun itself. He smiled, feeling that voice in the back of his head warn him about staying out of yet more trouble. Of course the khajiit ignored it as he approached the woman, removing his hands from his pockets to take up the other side of the barrel she was attempting to lift. It was indeed heavy, but between the two of them it’s weight was not an issue. “Let me help you,” he said, meeting her gaze.

“Oh thank t’Gods! I’m running behind schedule as it is, yer saving me hide.” She replied with a relieved sigh, “I need to get all this down t’below decks. Rex fuckin’ nipped off… Captain aint gonna want this on the deck when he sets sail,” the woman added with a shake of her head. “You’re a strong one like, I shouldn’t really let yer help me, but it needs doing… I’m Cerys by t’way.” If she’d had a free hand, and if his had been free too - she would have offered to shake it.

“Dro’Sintaba,” he replied in a low rumble. “Happy to help,” he smiled. He did wonder what Vas was getting herself into, but knowing that they were on quite a busy ship, he saw no reason to worry about her.

---

Meanwhile, Vas had set about for a look around the ship. She was a nosy woman, and unashamedly so - and perhaps if she’d stayed with Dro’Sintaba, or with Beren, one of them might have advised against her traipsing around and into the staff quarters. There was also the very real chance that she had no idea that was where she was walking, and the airy smile and happy eyes signalled to that. She quietly hummed and stepped across the timber and absent-mindedly wondered about what would be for dinner later. She was hoping there would be lots of sweets.

It occurred to Vas that she no longer had a curfew, and that each step that she took was of her own volition. Nobody to tell her what she must do, and more importantly what she mustn’t. She stopped for a moment, dead in her tracks - pressing the tips of her forefingers together. She bit down on her lip and stifled a laugh.

What was able to pull her from the whirlwind of her own thoughts were the faint sounds of conversation, and something important at that… “-At the feast, you’re to bring him to me, understood?” It was a distinctly masculine voice that she heard, from behind a door. Serious and somewhat nasal. Vas stopped in her tracks, her own quiet humming tapered off and she instinctively took her place against the wall. “By any means necessary…”

“Aye, if only weren’t for passengers we’d ‘av easier job o’it-“ was the sound of another voice, a boy, no - not a boy, and older man for his voice was cracked and hoarse. “But they’ll at least be a distraction…”

“We can’t waste more time, The Ritual is important… do you understand?” The nasal one asked, and Vas could sense the importance of those words on her own skin - it began to grow cold and the atmosphere was frail enough to collapse beneath her feet. ritual?? she mouthed until she found herself holding her breath, cupping a hand over her mouth. There was a choking sensation of something terribly wrong in the air - even she could tell. She wanted to find Dro’Sintaba and tell him, to tell anyone what she’d heard… It was too secretive and intense to be anything other than malicious.

“We’ve waited a long time for this Rex, everything is ready - he is ready… This is what I’ve been waiting for,” came a sadistic hiss.

Vas stepped to move away…

Creeeeeeeeeak

The loose board of timber bit back under even the soft weight of her foot. Groaning out a sigh of defiance against her feeble attempt at stealth. The Imperial took in a sharp breath and silence followed from behind the door. Silence, and then footsteps. It swung open a face leered around the frame. Wrinkled, with drooping jowls - the skin of his face like tanned leather. Just worn and worked by the sea. He appeared older than the strength that was in the hand that grabbed at her collar, pulling her inside.

Behind the door was a taller gentleman, who would have looked more refined if it wasn’t for the oily sheen in his hair. His eyes were piercing, small downturned grey beads in his gaunt face. Were it not for the colours of his clothes, he would have looked like a phantom.

“Well well well,” he spoke at last - head cocked to the side to eye up the woman like a hawk might clap eyes on his prey in long grass. Fingers twitched at either side of him. They were long and bony, like claws. “Who do we have here? A little rat perhaps?” He asked, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, a thin and harsh crack in his face.

“I’m…. I’m Saffine,” she answered, breath catching in her throat and her heart racing. “I got lost, that’s all.”

“Don’t lie. Did you hear something you shouldn’t have?” He said accusingly, taking a single step towards Vas. Had she not been in the clutches of the other man, she would have taken one back in turn. She nodded, swallowing back anything she might have wanted to say.

“Oh dear, oh dear, little rat” he replied - a bitter sugar stained his tongue with derision, but his eyes were alight behind his pupils. Two bright lights dancing and Vas couldn’t look away. “Are you scared?” He asked, lip curled in delight as his hand reached into the inside lining of his cloak. She had no answer to that question, and that was enough of an answer for him.

The grip around her collar tightened and she began to feel her pulse in her throat, a heat in her forehead. “Let her go, fool,” spat the greasy one - and Rex did as asked.

“B-b-but Bronn she’ll run off, she’ll say summink,” he stammered - seemingly also frightened of the other man. He however, simply sighed out a rasp of a laugh.

“No she won’t.” He smirked, removing his hand at last from his pocket - there in his palm was a small wooden box.

“But Bronn, we can’t — we’ll have to,” Rex began, his eyes widening at the sight.

“Hush, there’s time. Now wait outside,” Bronn snapped, the hypnotising lights behind his eyes flashed red and Rex slunk away like a tortoise recoiling back into its shell. He waited behind the closed door - standing watch in the hallway. Vas finally took her step back to move, but was met with the solid wall, blocking her from escape.

Bronnl held the box in front of him, and started to turn at a handle in the side and as soon as he did, a soft melody began to play. “What is that?” Vas asked, a bold inflection suddenly in her voice— resistance.

Bronn smiled, his smile like a crack through porcelain, “It’s going to help you relax.”

“I don’t want to relax,” she replied - that resistance forming a barrier from within that gave her the posture of a vanguard. Strong, and growing stronger. “If you knew who I was, you’d stop that at once,” her green eyes flashed and narrowed, but the melody was in between her ears now, like a quiet and enchanting purr from somewhere unknown. A beckoning jingle, pulling her to rest.

“And, just who, my dear, are you?” He asked with an amused look on his face.

Outside of the room, Rex clasped his hands over his ears and looked to the floor, counting backwards from ten, over and over.

“My name is Car… Car…” Vas spoke, the words slurring until she found them; “Carlotta Va—,” her eyes glazed over as Bronn drew nearer.

“Carlotta? But you told me you were Saffine…” he hissed, that mocking tone had returned and was sharp as a knife. “You don’t know who you are now, do you? Perhaps opportunity has knocked sending you my way. What are you running from?” he grinned, words laced with curiosity and mockery of the young woman in front of him. In the now dim gloom of the room his teeth looked sharp too - misshapen in his mouth. The melody was playing over and over in her head, in her heart, in her body, in the room - and in the lights dancing in his eyes. The lights that she followed with her own.

Vas moved, as if to grab for her rapier - but her fingers found only air.

Bronn closed the distance between them, and she was able to break from his eyes to look at the box - the lid was stained with an etching of a skull with smudges of something else in russet, and when she opened her mouth to scream the lid sprung open on the final melancholic note with an eerie pop. She felt a twist in her chest and from underneath the lid a smoke burst out. Bronn held the box right up to her face and Vas inhaled it all. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she dropped to the floor almost immediately.

After a long pause, and having heard the thud, Rex returned to the room. He pushed the creaky door ajar, moving Vas’s limp body in the process. The corner of the door caught her forehead and he winced at the sound of wood meeting bone. ‘B..Bronn?” He asked as he looked down at her, he wasn’t sure if she was…

“She’ll live.” Bronn answered in a cold fashion with a nonchalant wave of his hand, staring down his nose at her on the floor - giving her a gentle kick with his foot. “Take her. Quickly, back to her quarters,” he commanded, placing the music box back into his pocket.

“We keep an eye on this one. She could be another… She has potential...” he sneered, looking at the filthy, lying harlot with disdain.

“She’s going to tell the Captain what she heard…” Rex muttered, words that brought the red back to Bronn’s eyes.

“Saffine here is not going to remember a thing,” he tapped his chest - the box. As if it wasn’t the first time he had to remind Rex of his skills. Bronn’s eyebrow raised as a warning, and Rex shuffled awkwardly. “Take her back upstairs. It’s quiet still,” he hissed, moving to the furthest wall of his suite, placing his claw-like hands on the paneling which he pulled back to reveal a narrow gap. “You know the way Rex.”

“I’ll have to convince our Captain to close off our quarters to wandering strangers… We can’t risk more… rats infesting our living space. That would be bad for everyone involved...” Bronn continued, his lips pulling into a smirk again. He walked to his desk in the corner, opening a drawer to remove a vial. “Besides, it’s time for his tea…” He gave one last look in Rex’s direction and watched him struggle to load Vas over his shoulders. “This might all work in our favour… They’ll be pleased with us. Pleased with you.”

That was enough to bring confidence back to Rex, and he found an extra ounce of strength within himself to make the climb, reappearing in a corner away from the entrance to the space set aside for the passengers. Bronn was right, it had been quiet indeed, there was only a gentleman seemingly sleeping in his hammock, still, he stepped carefully toward an armchair and placed Vas into it. He felt the woman stirring back to consciousness - and took it as his time to leave.

There was one thing that Rex did know to be true. Cerys was going to be angry at him for leaving her with the cargo for so long…

R E D U X .// 2047 //.

Addison rose from sitting, her mouth agape with slight shock, the despair that had been eating at her seemed to have all but gone now. With everything that had happened, it had been a long week but the row of supers in front of her had now made it worthwhile, hell - she barely even felt that chill that had been gnawing her for the last six hours. All that was there now, was the hope she’d been reaching out for.

Ever the optimist, it didn’t occur to her that any of them might have had ulterior motives. They were here.

The brunette eyed each of them individually - the woman that she recognised as Stardust. Older now, obviously, but she still carried a powerful presence with her. Then a gentleman with facial tattoos, in a suit of some kind - Arbiter. He was only human, yes? She thought about it some - glancing down at her own armour, or lack thereof… They were not so different. The Tower was here too, a man that sounded so heavy and his name did speak volumes about him. He was frightening in his approach, but his words were mellow and calmed down her racing heartbeat. He spoke with doubt, or disbelief - but not with malice.

Did she know what she was doing? Perhaps not. In fact, the more she thought on his words, the more out of her depth she felt. She’d gathered these people here and they’d answered her call. But what now? What was next? The cold chill met her once more as she continued sizing them up. Avant Garde was here, she remembered him - she knew that he was wanted for, of all things, vandalism. She gave an out of character giggle at that, a mixture of nerves and incredulousness at the ridiculousness of it. She’d put out a call to supers, not knowing the history they might have with each other too - and she observed that some were already having reunions of their own.

Biomancer, Spellbound. The latter being more on the intimidating side than Addison would have liked from whomever joined her and answered her message. Where was Captain Rainbow? That said, the woman had answered. She was here, and she was going to help. Biomancer, on the other hand… If there were any in the group she wanted to keep an eye on more than others, it was him. She’d had access to Hex’s files… She knew what Hex thought of each of these people, and Biomancer and Spellbound were both featured in his logs quite heavily. As was The Tower, as were Avant Garde and Stardust. Arbiter? Not so much, but enough.

Finally, after they had all addressed each other, and their energies had wound down, Addison spoke. It had been hard to find words, but she did eventually - clearing her throat, the cough reverberating around the warehouse. “Thank you for coming.”

They were expecting her to be every bit the Special Agent she said she was, that she was, and it took several thoughts and internal affirmations before she stood up straight. They had powers and abilities that she did not, and admittedly it was difficult to stand and hold herself confidently amongst them.

“If you’re here, it’s because you got my message concerning Mr. Moore, about your colleague Hex,” Addison began, hands held in front of her. “He was found not long ago, in his apartment. My department wrote this off as being a suicide or accidental overdose - just a normal death… Just another fucking tragedy of Cedar Fort to be forgotten tomorrow” She sighed, bringing a hand to her face - her features sharp, bags under her eyes. “I know it wasn’t. This wasn’t an accident. I believe he was murdered by the being, or by an associate of the being he wrote about in his journals… Reality Bringer Hell, I even think he knew I was going to find him. There’s a lot that he knew.” She stepped back towards her chair, towards the box she’d brought in.

“I… I didn’t tell anyone about his identity. As far as the force in Cedar Fort are concerned - it was a damn overdose of a nobody. I’m under the radar right now myself,” she explained, taking the lid off the box. She’d expected more help, it occurred to her as she looked inside. “I… These are for you all, so we can stay in touch now.” Addison took out six small devices, no bigger than the palm of her hand. Ancient little remnants of technology for decades gone by. Pagers. She readied herself for the laughter, the disbelief. But these were, surprisingly, some of the safest technology now. Completely outdated and used by so few people, on a network that wasn’t looked at. It was like hiding in plain sight. “I know, it’s… old stuff - but hey, kind of vintage?” she shrugged, passing them around. As she handed each super the equipment she realised that this was really happening.

“I think that Hex was trying to stop the Reality Bringer, from his journals I learned that he was in New Mexico only five days before his death…” Her voice trailed off, and she scratched the back of her neck. “We need to go too, retrace his steps. Something happened there. You’re all here because Hex meant something to you at some point, and maybe you want to find out what happened to him -- maybe you’re just here to finish off his work. All I know is, Cedar Fort is about to be swallowed whole by something huge, and I’m the only one in the force who gives a shit now… I can’t do this alone.”

Her brown eyes scanned the small crowd of assembled heroes, and for the first time she smiled. “What do you guys say?”

The Elder Scrolls: Days of Night

I have never been so intimidated. Also, I have a lot to read.

@Inkarnate

No need to be intimidated!

But, the fate of the roleplay rests on your shoulders~~~~~~~~!!!!!

R E D U X .// 2047 //.

Name: Fred Enado
Alias: Electronica
Age: 45

POWERS

Powers: Electric Force Fields are the materialized weapon and defense signatures that Fred has. He experienced his ability to create force fields when he was a teenager. They are the direct result of the energy bleeding through him. The more he moves, the more power he generates. This makes his power substantial, and ever-increasing. The energy fields he uses serve in two parts: one, to defend, and then to attack. His sheild has shook off as much as 500 pounds, but in the same turn, Fred attached a considerable amount of energy into his fist and slammed it hard into a man's face. The man was killed. He was reprimanded, but placed on house arrest with supervision. He rested for a time. The science guys defined two co-existing applications Fred could control. One was Particle Acceleration, meaning he could form objects big enough to stun or knock out someone. The other is Super Speed, which allows any one with the power to move from place to place at unheard of extreme speeds.

WEAKNESSES

Weaknesses: Enemies come and go. Fred did a lot of public street work, but if someone with a similar power who was stronger got into a fight that could be one damn good scrap. And, trying to work out life as a superhero power would make him angry, weak, sad. Then, of course, there's gods and titans and all those people. Yay for Hex!

APPEARANCE

Appearance: Time was good to Fred. He did not have aged skin spots or wear prescription glasses. First, he deploys his hard knock attitude and ran through the forestry that surrounded his neighborhood. He started that at 10am and returned home twenty or thirty minutes after he come out from the woods.

He accomplishes five hundred push-ups and eight hundred sit ups three times a week. It puts him in complete control of his body. His reflexes, his strength, everything to do with the receptors in his managing how many muscles he moved at once, and the description of how fast and accurate his hand and eye coordinate.

His blue eyes looked sharp, but he receives growth hormone therapy at a hair stylist. It had been red, but now it looked brown. He combed it back every morning after his shower, and then he ate breakfast. You could guess that his breakfast is quite hefty considering his physical peak.

He likes to wear blue jeans and ball caps. His pant size is a measured 38, with a length of 30". Thanks to his bank account for being a superhero his jackets and ball caps are made out of leather or the best material you may find, and these objects of desire are available in individual selection.

His shoes are either Nike, and genuine leather products merchandised by Gucci or Prada. It's the comfort of his feet inside of the shoe. It isn't for profile points. Admittedly, teenagers and young adults have swore a compliment to him, but he tries to stay under the radar as much as he can.

EQUIPMENT

Equipment: Fred has a variety of suits that have all the same functions but are deployed differently. One suit was his first, the foundation that Hex designed for him, contains knee and elbow pads that net electricity and hold them for two or three minutes, then release and catch another wad of electricity.

Another suit employed thermal electric directing. The knee and elbow and neck core cache remained the same in all of his costumes. The suit in hand could warm up his body by him activating sensors in one of his gloves. He typed in what he needed to be heated up, and moved onward.

One suit, and the worst idea that he ever let an electrical engineer do for him, was that he was going to feel a double amount of energy inside of the suit. He could cut it on and off with a button on his shoulder. So, he pressed the button, felt like he was on drugs, electrocuted himself into convulsions, and got up and beat up the engineer.

Basically, all of his suits do the same thing: stabilize electricity so he can use it to manage his life.

ORIGIN

Origin: An argument with his parents is when Frederick demonstrated his power to create electric force fields.
They had found a pack of cigarettes that smelled like marijuana. There were a few cigarettes, but no physical evidence of an illegal drug. His mom was digging into his pockets to throw his clothes in the laundry when she found the suspicious box of smokes. He denied it like hell, but his dad was as irate as he was cornered. When his father followed him up the stairs, Fred fell down on top of the stairs. But when his dad was getting ready to sock him, a strange, solid electric square-shaped panel stopped his angry parent in his track.

His parents were recommended to let a licensed counselor talk with him after school, or during school using one of their social workers. The principal went on to say that an independent therapist would probably be best. Then, there was the concern that Fred would suffer some type of humiliation or some type of outcry could happen if he ever used his "force fields" in the high school institution. He never had. But, he had to lie and state that he could control it. And, the law stated that no one could be mistreated, hired, or pursue life and liberty due to ethnicity, creed, handicap, etc.

In high school there was very few incidents. In fact, Fred nailed a few dates with a cheerleader after he acted out in front of everybody and rotated two small energy fields he emplaced in his palms then moved from left to right to left. Little did he know, he was beginning to absorb energy externally. He started getting an odd feeling that made him feel "shocked." A therapist said from his description that he should exercise, draw or paint, or even play video games to keep himself from the awkward sensation.

Nevertheless, the awkward feelings he had recurred and become aggravating jolts of electricity that he did not know how to cure. As they got worse, his musculoskeletal system afflicted him to the point that he had convulsions. After several emergency department visits, doctors, and law enforcement intervention that left him confined to an institution dealing with people who had extraordinary traits.

Before he was being committed to the institution called Fort Pine, or "The Pines," he was promised that what was going to happen would be that biomedical engineers, physicists, and doctors would be there to help him control his electrical pulses. Once they finished, he would be released under certain conditions dictated by his team of helpers. And, while he was enrolled, there would be visits into the community where he could eat at a steak house, shop, see a movie, anything he wanted. All of it made him feel easy.

In the first two weeks, he was given tests of strength, balance, and exercise and strength. He did okay, as far as he knew. There was also medications like lithium and anticonvulsants. The medicines were given a week to enter his blood and be fed into his blood stream once a safe dependence was established. The next phase was electroconvulsive therapy. They wanted to see if he could absorb electricity on a maximum scale, so they administered drugs that would sedate him, but leave him conscious. And, he could.

The next month become exhausted. Medicine, trials, ECT. It was time to go. He started complaining about many things and throwing tantrums, so they issued a few restrictions that included medicine checks and disallowing outdoor privileges. His one week long restriction wasn't all that bad. He discovered that the best way would be the well planned and direct way. So, after he watched the same people come and go every single time, he moved and launched himself over the twelve foot steel fence and thieved a CNA's middle-aged car and slammed the pedal back into the real world. This was going to be tricky.

What he did resulted in a state wide emergency alert, but the cops had to be careful because they could get electrocuted and there could be civilians wound up in the fray. Specifically, a jail inmate escaped after killing one deputy and hijacking an old car. The inmate, whose name was fictitious, whose real name was Fred, was armed and dangerous and should not be approached. He heard this on the radio, and panicked and as much as he did not want to take it to that level, he thought he would encounter a situation that would endanger everybody's life. That's when he met Hex.

Hex wanted to meet Fred because the young man endured so much. Hex had visited the institution to see a friend, and noticed Fred and spoke. The two liked each other, and shook hands departing. While he was soaring down the road Fred swung into a high-cost gas station to steal some clothes and food. On his way out, he ran his automobile directly into Hex's. The two would laugh about it later.

On the road to a hideout, Hex explained the long term effects of becoming a super. Family loss, life threatening, running away, hunting, police, too much to handle. In the time and age, superheroes were not heard of. Fred was in quite a spot. He knew his parents would recommit him. The police wanted him imprisoned. Even people walking down the street wanted to turn him in for money. He did it with a tear in his eye, but he agreed.
They arrived after driving down four different dirt roads, all in loops, all surrounded by trees and bushes. Hex had shut off the car lights. It was a maze, so Fred wasn't going to be the one to give up the spot. Hex and him spoke deeply before they were home. Hex stayed orderly and strategic the whole time going there, promising him he would help him more than anyone else had, and that it would be permanently. It was knee and elbow pads. A helmet? Kind-of, sort of. Hex called it a head guard.

The first thing Hex did for Fred was give him a pill, which got him high. What the pill did was target certain passageways between the heart and the spine. This introduced the logic that the soon to be super's body was in shape, suffered some bone wounds, and had non-threatening irregular heartbeats, and was also underweight and had mutation in a little sum of muscle tissue in the heart. It was regular as regular could be.

After administering physiological tests, Hex didn't find any thing out of the ordinary. Fred did still have some depression in his heart, but it was improving and when the masked teacher looked over his notes, he considered things and determined they would go live. First, he wanted him to practice on their steel pole for an hour or two, and then Hex was going to open up the mission world to Fred.

First the young man who was on his way to becoming a superhero grabbed his elbow pads and placed one on each elbow. The pad was not big, you could say it shaped like six eggs with a yoke in the middle. This is where the majority of his used power incepted from. After he buckled the Velcro metal strap on his elbows, he did the same thing with his with knees. Then, he locked a ring around his neck. The ring was unstable, but it was good enough to be able to span an electric field down Fred's body that would defend against hits and simply jump on somebody and stomp them. This was Hex's gift to Fred. This was the "face guard."

They were driving into the city. Fred had to earn his bones. The mission was to find some gangsters and take them down. They're rolling through Next Pine St. when they saw a brawl that had spilled out of a bar. There was two guys putting one in the dirt, with a drunken crowd rallying them on. Hex stopped in the street. He told "Electronica" to remember his training, and then he leaped out of the car and went to town. Hex got out of the car, opened the trunk, and picked up a bag with a few things and tossed them towards where the fight was.
In a flash Electronica crashed into the back of one of the guys fighting and they toppled over the other guy, and then he weighted down his boot on top of the guy who fell down beside the one that got a foot in his ass. He spoke to every one, and one of the girls flashed him, and he nodded and turned around. There was an army bag on the side of the street and Hex was no where to be found. His smart phone was back at the spot, where he was told to leave it. But, he demanded someone allow him to use the phone and he called to receive an automated message stating that the number was disconnected. He tried an emergency communication, and it was the same.

And there he stood. On the side of street. He kicked the bag, cussed at civilians, and then toned it down. He couldn't believe what had happened then. Looking back, he understood Hex to be twisted, sane, and beautiful. The times they shared drunk, and training. The people he introduced him to. The shopping sprees at the home improvement stores. Now, this? It was insane.

The things the veteran superhero left him were things like communications stuff, non-lethal rifle bullets, money and travel vouchers, deeds and insurance policies, but best of all... he left him a new suit, something out of a dream. The safety pads that belonged to a hockey player were now microscopic. The yoke was a round, black circle that tipped at the top of the knee and linked to overlapping white lines . The rest of his gear was the same. It was premiere. The coolest thing was that when the suit was activated all of the basic electric cores glowed a silver light.

And that's how it began. That's how Fred Enado began. On the corner of the street with plane tickets, the keys to a utility van, and $100,000. His last mission was when he was 36. It was a bank robbery where he got shot. He didn't stop the bad guys, and he almost ruined his identity. That was ten years ago. Now, he was retired and lived in his hometown called Cedar Pines.

PERSONALITY

Personality: Fred has seen his share of ups and downs, backstabbing and indivisible alliances. A lot of times, he has been in the middle of a lot of drama that he wishes had never happened. People try to figure love, but hate and dishonor catch on fast. He was a published author on these things, with several ghost writers and a Ph.D. earned psychologist helping him.

He wrote: "I have lived an incredible life. You cannot second guess me, because I will not be underestimated. I am strong. I carry people on my back that one hundred percent of existence cannot. I defile false idols, spit at science fiction anarchists come to life, and kick your husband's ass if I catch him doing anything bad besides the bad he would do to you. That's personal."

Fred stays out of the way these days. He drinks some alcohol, but the electrons usually cure his alcoholism. He takes time to stay in shape. When he feels humble, he sits at the park and plays chess with the young and old people alike. No one knows who he is. He's a middle-aged guy who likes to stay in shape and goes through a six pack every day.

Basically, he's turned to the middle. He has his humble side, and the desire side. He desires women, and fighting, and jumping across buildings chasing villains. He keeps all of his unnecessary "cold pepperoni pizza" stuff out of his life. If you ask him, he's "OK."

Relationship with Hex: Hex was the guiding life of a scared, introverted young man with extreme killing power at the touch of his hand. Hex taught Electronica everything, and gave him everything. When Hex split like he did, the new superhero was outraged, and some where deep inside he felt an esteem that made him think Hex knew he would be great at what he did.

Addison's signal would communicate to a small communications link installed in the wall beside a picture of three dogs playing cards that hangs in his master bedroom, where he sleeps. It makes an operating sound, and then follows up with a series of old-timey beeps every three minutes.

Some facts
He prefers light beer
His Electro custom suit was his best
He invented Lit Up shoes
He doesn't skip exercise
He likes simple detective books

@role model

Alright,

I think we still need work on this one, it's a little scattered and not quite to the level of the other characters just yet. Coming face to face with someone stronger isn't a weakness unique to him, so I'd like you to really think about what his weaknesses are. Look at some of the other sheets for good examples. ET sheet has good ones.

There are parts in the CS that should be elsewhere, you have a short sentence about Fred killing someone and then he was reprimanded. That's only the power section, so keep it succinct to powers. Tell the death story in Origin. It just helps to keep the sheet coherent, so that later if I wanted to check what the powers were, I can pick it out - I don't want to dig through.

I know what he wears, but I don't know what he looks like - how he moves, what kind of expression he has... what's his posture etc. Little things that flesh out an appearance section beyond eye and hair colour are my crack.

I'm finding the sheet to be a little hard in places. I think strip Fred down to his very basics - he's an electric hero, lets build from that. I'm not sure who this character is, really. I need to be confident that you do too, so thay you'll enjoy playing him enough to go the distance of the rp.

If you can work on the appearance, weaknesses, powers, and personality section we can look at working him in.

Also, I'm not doing this to be discouraging of your efforts - what you have here is a cracking start and more than a lot of people can do! But I'd be doing you, the rp, and myself a disservice by accepting the sheet as it is now when I believe there's a lot of ways we can flesh this out and make Fred more well rounded and with more depth.

R E D U X .// 2047 //.

Draft 2:

We Are Entranced, Spellbound

"Cats. Cats are nice."

Name: Nina Nikolayevna Noskova. // Nina to her friends. // Ninenka to her intimate friends.
Alias: Spellbound
Age: Nina was in her mid-twenties at the time of her death some twenty years ago. If she were still alive she would be in the middle of her forties.

Powers: Undead Physiology, Regeneration, and Limited Resurrection

Neither alive nor truly dead, Nina is an undead creature trapped in an unwelcome cycle of reincarnation by Hex's powerful but ultimately flawed ritual magic. Gifted with an undead physiology, Nina has superhuman strength and stamina. Lacking the physiological needs of a living, breathing human being Nina is highly resistant to physical damage. She possesses a healing factor and has gained a measure of immortality thanks to the elemental energy that imbues her form with undead life. Wile Nina has been destroyed a number of times, she always returns to life after some time, reawakening restored in her crypt in Cormack Historical Cemetery. However, each time that she is resurrected Nina is touched by the magic woven through her soul and she is irrecoverably changed. With each new life, her powers, memories, and personality have been twisted, leaving Nina unsure if she's even the same person that she was before her death.

Weaknesses:

In her current incarnation, Nina lacks any ranged abilities. This presents some problems as throwing a car or concrete road barrier at a bad guy is all well and good, but it's not nearly as effective as shooting beams of lasers, covering your foes in molten plasma, or exploding your enemies into a million smaller pieces. The lack of variety in her repertoire of abilities means that Nina is an exceedingly predictable, if unnerving fighter. Following in the footsteps of legendary comic book superheroes like the Dr. Hulk, Nina's solution to most of her villainous problems is simply to punch very hard.

A lack of tactical flexibility is however a small problem in comparison to the state of the necromantic wizard's mind. Altered by the magic that keeps her among the living, Nina is slowly losing herself to the powers that Hex accidentally gave her with his flawed ritual. The magic surging through her have stripped her of not just her mortality but her very essence of being. Her memories have begun to change, fading into the darkness. Her personality and her form have been gnarled and reshaped into something that she can not recognize. Power, dark, unbidden power pools within her.

Cursed in more ways than one, Nina struggles to find peace even when she manages to avoid the company of prattling mortals. Standing between the living and the dead, she is almost continually troubled by the voices of the recently dead. Less often, she finds herself drawn to unwelcome communion with long dead spirits that still cling to the powers they commanded when they walked among the living. Having spent a good decade mastering the art of telling the dead to shut up, most of the time Nina can easily ignore the rasping requests for attention that assail her ears. However, when distracted or in the presence of places with long, intimate histories with death she finds herself struggling to contain the desperate demands of the literal underworld. Talking to beings most people can't see is not a great party trick and in her brief interactions with other superheroes Nina does her best to not make it obvious that she sees dead people.

Appearance:

A recovering devotee to the Goth aesthetic, Nina is exceedingly pale, less in an unhealthy manner, and more in a vaguely spectral sort of way. At a glance, Nina appears to be in her mid twenties, certainly no more than twenty eight. She has an elfin build unburdened by the weight of her true years and untouched by the passage of time. She has serious pale gray eyes, splashed with a hint of green that offers a promise of grim deeds to come. She keeps her hair cut just above her shoulders and it is painted a shade of brown that seems to shut out light, appearing far darker than it really is. Her lips move little and are often simply pursed in a gentle frown, as if existence is a burden she only barely chooses to suffer.

For all her polite mannerisms and soft visage is there is something unsettling about the young woman. She looks tired, exhausted even, like she hasn't slept for the better part of a century. And there is something forced about the way she smiles, the way she moves, and the way she breathes. It's like her movements are merely habits that she remembers and reluctantly performs for the benefit of those around her. When she does move with some expediency she practically floats above the ground, moving like some sort of specter.

Typical Clothing: Generally uninterested in clothing, Nina owns a modest collection of dark suits in varying degrees of disrepair that suggest a growing disinterest in her own appearance. Second hand acquisitions sourced from thrift shops and estate sales, the suits, though expertly tailored to her figure, reflect the weariness that she feels in her undead bones. Beneath her jacket, Nina favors monochromatic dress shirts and simple ties of a similar vintage as her suits. She is exceedingly fond of leather boots and rarely leaves her crypt without a pair adorning her feet. In short, she far from a dashing figure, she comes off as deeply tired and not at all that concerned about whatever it is that forced her to leave the comforts of her crypt.

Costumed Appearance: As Spellbound, Nina wraps herself in a coarse funeral shroud that she has fashioned into a hooded cloak and several layers of black clothing. Over her hands she wears gel-lined fingerless gloves that protect her hands and wrists from the immense forces she generates with each punch. In a professional capacity, she wears black leather boots. The most modern aspect of her costume is her helmet, a tasteful number in black with darkened glass that casts shadowy reflections of all that she sees.

Back in Black

Spooky Costume

Equipment:

Beyond her costume, Nina carries only a simple handgun. A venerable CZ-75, an all-steel nine millimeter Czech demigod dating back to the early months of 1975. Wildly out of date and considered something of a relic in the current year, Nina maintains that the pistol still does the job well enough. Reasonably sized, reliable, and heavy enough to be used as a hammer it gives Nina an additional bite. It would be a safe bet to assume that Nina does not have a gun license. When asked she maintains that being dead, she is well outside of the jurisdiction of traditional law enforcement.

Origin:

I:Into The Light

Into The Light

"Standing in the light
I never wanted to be right
Now I'm attracted by the light
And blinded my the sight"

Nina Nikolayevna Noskova was born to a family of unremarkable nobodies in Boston-Atlanta sometime in the early 2020s. Her parents were third generation Czech immigrants and strictly working class. An unremarkable child, Nina appeared to be destined for nothing more than a high school diploma and maybe cosmetology school if she played her cards right. The great cybernetic revolution came for the rich and the comfortably upper middle class, it certainly did not come for those at the bottom of society. By sixteen she wasn't pregnant, like many of her classmates, but she had managed to rack up a respectable criminal record largely due to minor drug related offenses.

She was a difficult teenager with a disdain for authority and an inability to keep her mouth shut. Her parents were frequently at their wits end and threatened to send her back to the Old Country or to a much hated uncle, Gabriel. In between screaming matches with her parents and running from the police, Nina managed to find some happiness in the Goth subculture and quickly made all the wrongs friends. Pictures from back then show that she wore a profusion of black velvet, lace, fishnets and leather tinged with purple, accessorized with tightly laced corsets, gloves, precarious stilettos and silver jewelry depicting religious or occult themes. The very same pictures also suggest that she used criminal amounts of eyeshadow and white powder.

Teenage rebellion eventually gave way to an early adulthood of slight responsibility and by the time she turned eighteen Nina had a job working in the kitchen of the local dive bar scrubbing dishes. She spent what little money she earned on cigarettes and booze, managing to move out of her parents apartment only after several months of half-hearted saving. Her average life of mundane debauchery was forever shattered when an encounter gone wrong with a former paramour led her to discover that she could cause frost to appear in the middle of July. What followed was a storied tale that saw Nina threatening to turn half a city block to ice, destroying one police cruiser, and leaving one Roger Thompson with frostbite over most of his body. The incident and Nina remain infamous within the 77th precinct of the Boston-Atlanta Police Department.

However, before things managed to spiral completely out of control and Nina was thrown in a jail cell or put down as a magical arbitration, a local, well-respected witch, the retired Superhero Zita the Wise, stepped in and offered to train the young, untamed magical prodigy. The wizened Slovak witch was her teacher for many years and taught Nina most what she knew and knows about magic. Nina was a contemporary of the superhero Hex, that is, until he killed her several years later.

But that comes later.

Where were we, again?

Ah yes!

Magic!

II:The Arcane

The Arcane

"Here in the garden of the arcane delights,
Dark shadows overwhelm us and we become blind.
Blind to the needs of those who would be free
From the grip of fear and the prisons of the mind."

Mastering magic at a marvelous rate, Nina quickly became a powerful practitioner of the magical arts. A rebel at heart, she nonetheless managed to maintain her own brand of modern magic. An idealist with a penchant for do-it-yourself magic, spray painted graffiti rituals, loud music, and magical orgies she was a disruptive force of mostly good in the Boston-Atlanta area. Zita the Wise guided her as best she could, always cautioning her to respect the great powers that she commanded and the spirits that she often meddled with. However, Nina was talented and young enough to happily ignore the hard-earned wisdom of many older magicians and she indulged in a number of vices that more conventional wizards would stay far away from. Designer drugs infused with magic were for many years a beloved interest of the young wizard.

Once she was certain that she had learned what she could from Zita the Wise and chafing just a bit under her increasingly serious tutelage Nina declared herself a full personified master wizard at the impressively young age, for a wizard, of twenty two. Confident, arrogant, and not a little full of herself Nina was convinced she was destined for greatness. A fact she felt was confirmed by the bitter jealously of the older wizards that surrounded her. Bored to tears with the idea of spending the next several decades in the academic pursuit of arcane knowledge, Nina decided soon after that she would become a hero, a superhero even. Looking to stretch her wings, she decided that she had to strike out on her own, she had to find a place that needed a real hero, and somewhere that was far enough away that Zita the Wise wouldn't come knocking if she made some noise.

Nina met Hex soon after she relocated to New York City and came out as a proper anonymous hero called Spellbound. In his youth, Hex was as good as he was in his old age. But he was more handsome then. He was a younger man, a more reckless warlock who had yet to be burdened by his own flaws and failures. He had not learned the price that had to be paid. The pair were brave, wonderful heroes. They were children playing at a game they did not fully understand. They could see other heroes, one after another fall in the fight for good, but they continued to play anyhow. They were convinced that they were better and that they were smarter. They knew that they would be different. And they believed that things would end differently for them. They would not lose and they would not lose their way.

For nearly a decade Hex and Spellbound protected New York City together as a team. They became household names, with action figures and a Netflix show. They fought demons, necromancers, and arcane antagonists that threatened not just the city, but the nation, and sometimes even the world. They grew together and they grew apart. A budding romance evolved into a respectful friendship with clear boundaries and an arcane golem or two to keep the peace. Hex grew a beard. Nina developed an interest in horticulture. She even made efforts to reconcile with Zita the Wise, now a retired old woman who spent her days beekeeping in upstate New York. She mostly forgave Nina for stealing the Eye of Odin when they had last met.

It all fell apart when the pair of magical superheros confronted a group of cultists attempting to open a portal to a dimensional of unspeakable evil. It wasn't the first time they had fought a group of cultists. Necromancers, blood mages, and cults trying to bring about the apocalypse were dime a dozen. They weren't anything special. At least, they weren't supposed to be anything special. That time things were different however. Nina had felt it as they climbed down into the basement the cultists had excavated to reach the catacombs that lead to the temple. The air was heavy with magic, dark, repulsive magic that reeked of death. Everything had started so well. After a short jaunt through a gloomy series of passageways, Hex and Nina had burst into the temple and sent the nearest cults crashing into the nearest wall. They had offered some witty comment in the direction of the abomination of flesh and viscera that appeared to be leading the gaggle of cultists. It had roared something about "interruptions" and "sacrifices" but Nina didn't pay much attention. She didn't put much stake in the rambling of mad monsters or their threats. She'd heard them all before, after all.

Everything was going well until Hex took a blow to the head. He was dazed and Nina could see the blood that began to pour down his face. His magic faded, it grew weak. The cultists rallied and the monster laughed or at least Nina thought it was laughing, it was hard to tell. The young wizard used all the magic trickery that she knew to keep them alive. She stalled for time and she fought the wave of nausea that told her she was reaching her limit. Hex recovered, but he recovered slowly. They were in over their depth. They were in trouble. When Hex finally stood again, tossing curses all around him, Nina already knew it was too late. They were surrounded by cultists and they were running low on magic. They were trapped and it was only a matter of time. It was hopeless, she knew. She was powerful, Hex was alright, but they were outnumbered and they were outgunned. They would be torn to pieces and that would be the end of the dynamic spell-casting duo.

Left with no other option, Nina did the one thing that she had known she was never, ever, allowed to do. She summoned her own horror, she summoned her own special brand of eldritch horror from some abyssal plane. Hex told her to stop. She didn't listen. He didn't understand. He never would. She had to save them. As the spell reached it's apex and the horror began to substantiate, Nina broke the final rule. She summoned another dimensional portal and smashed the two together using all the magic she could muster. For a brief moment, she brought the two impossible realities together over the cultists and the abomination that commanded them. She could feel as the doorways to the planes ceased to exist, each rejecting the reality of the other. She watch the master and its servants disintegrate in a shower of sparks as the arcane energies tore them into pieces. She heard them scream. She heard it scream. She heard it curse her very name.

Hex screamed and she screamed too as the arcane light danced in front of them. She was not ready for the the sudden force that cut through her. It sent her falling into a helpless heap on the now dusty floor. Hex screamed again. She found it very annoying. She shouted at him to shut up, but he pointed at her chest, and he looked afraid. She hadn't known that it was possible to be alive without her heart or rather with her heart replaced by some shadow of magic. It was in that terrible moment that she remembered why it was wizards did not make a habit out of smashing dimensional portals together. Creatures beyond the veil did not take kindly too being used as improvised explosives. They became very irritate at the very notion of a broken summoning contract and they demanded revenge. The connection was all that they needed to find her. It was all they needed to mark her and to doom her.

She could feel herself dying. Dying faster than a normal human being that is. She told Hex, but he already knew. She could see it. She could feel it. He'd had another one of his damn visions. He knew. He knew all along what would happen!

They stumbled out of the catacombs and were greeted by a crowd of New York City's finest boys in blue. An entire city block had been leveled. Several people besides the cultists were dead, dozens more were wounded. They were still heroes to the city, but Nina could see the fear in their eyes. They finally knew what she could do. They finally saw and they were afraid. She had sacrificed herself for them, for Hex, and they were afraid. They were afraid of her and she would die. She would die for nothing. In the span of a month, Nina went from powerful wizard moonlighting as a superhero to mostly dead girl slowly fading away. There was nothing she could do about it. She had tried. She'd poured over all the books she could find, she'd sought out all the experts, and she'd even talked to Zita the Wise. There were no good news. There was no easy answer. There weren't even any hard answers. There were just terrible answers, sad looks, and deep, heavy sighs of uncertainty.

When Hex finally visited her he came with a plan. He had found something he promised. A real chance, not a great chance, but a chance. A chance to fix her, a chance to bring her back, and a chance to make things right again. She didn't want to die. Not yet. Not for several decades. Not in some shitty hospital bed under an anonymous name. Forgotten. Feared. Hated. So she agreed. They'd try, they'd try it together. Hex had found a loophole. He'd reverse engineered a curse, a terrible curse, the worst sort of curse that was never to be spoken of. It had taken him weeks of painstaking work and it had almost cost him his mind. He'd had to deal and wheel with several demons, but he had prevailed, he'd found out what he needed, what she needed.

Hex would save her.

He promised.

III: Now I'm feeling zombiefied!

Now I'm feeling zombiefied!

"Some present you gave me, the bitterest pill
My eyes is all grey
And I haven't slept in days
Locked up in your dungeon
Running around in your maze
Now I'm feeling zombiefied"

The ritual worked.

It worked exactly like it was supposed to. There was only one small problem — the ritual didn't save Nina, it killed her. Hex had made a mistake. In his desperation to find an answer, he'd been sloppy. He had committed the gravest of sins for mathematicians and wizards alike; he had neglected to double check his math. He'd saved Nina from one curse with another refashioned by his own infernal magic. He had never considered that the two curses would interact. He spared her from death by separating her from life. Hex had trapped her between life and death. He had had changed her. She could feel it, she could feel the wrongness of her new existence, she could feel how it pushed back against the reality of the material plane, and how it crackled against the veil. Dead magic flowed through her. Energies that should not have been possible, energies that should never have been, and energies that kept her in a new state of unlife.

Hex was afraid of her, but worse, he was ashamed. He was repulsed by her, he recoiled from her touch, and he locked himself away in his study. He buried himself in his ancient tomes and his work. Nina knew that she had become a reminder of his greatest failure. She was a reminder that no matter how pure his intentions were, the consequences could be unbearable, and the results horrific. Months of arcane research and experiments proved futile. Nothing worked, nothing restored her, and nothing brought her back. She gave up long before Hex did, but eventually even the Warlock lost what little hope he had managed to save.

Hex never managed to forgive himself for what happened to her and neither could Nina. She blamed the Warlock more than he blamed himself. He had damned her and he had cursed her. He had failed her. Love tore them apart and sent them along different paths. Nina was merciless and Hex found his own voice. He would not suffer the hysterics of a scorned wizard for eternity. He had a duty, he had others to protect. She did too, he begged, but Nina ignored him. She had given enough she shouted. What more did he want her to give? What more could anyone ask of her? What more could be taken from her?

Hex didn't have any answers.

She called him a coward. She called him a fool. And then she left.

IV: Haunted

Haunted

"Of freshly dug grave and death and night
These things are her essence"

Cursing her own fate, Nina fled back to Boston-Atlanta. Hiding away in a forgotten cemetery, she settled in an abandoned mausoleum content to await eternity by herself. When the loneliness of her stone crypt finally drove her close to madness she began venture out into the city. For a time she became the mysterious protector of the Autumn Hills. She patrolled at night. She kept the streets safe. She fought off criminals and supernatural creatures. Underneath the neon lights of the city she found a new purpose. She found a calling. She claimed the neighborhood as her own. She enjoyed watching over the living. She felt pride. They feared her, but more importantly they respected her. They spoke fondly of the reverent that protected them. They believed in her.

Then the voices started. At first they were nothing more than whispers. She convinced herself she was simply imagining them. She could ignore them. She could silence them. They recoiled when she shouted at them. And then she saw them. She saw all of them. She saw the ghosts that surrounded her, that begged her for a voice, and demanded she act for them.

In her madness she found herself in conflict with the police and with other heroes. They began to question her. They doubted her. She felt hatred for the first time in years. She felt rage, so much rage. She fought them. She fought the criminals and she fought the cops. She fought everyone that stood in her way. And then she died again. Some hotshot hero had buried her in a tomb of lava. It was the first time she had burned. It was the first time she had melted. Yet there was no peace, there was no rest for the wicked. She awoke again some time later in her crypt. Restored, but still dead, and different. She realized with great alarm that she was different. She had changed. Her magic was gone. Her spells forgotten. The voices were louder, they were a torrent of pleading screams. She couldn't remember her parents. She couldn't remember her home. She remembered only darkness and her regrets.

New fears coursed through her as she learned more about her affliction. She would not risk herself again. She would not risk her memories, she would not risk herself, and she would not risk what little remained of her soul. The city was no longer her concern, the citizens could rot, and the government could crumble. She would remain. She would silence the voices. She would wait. She would rest.

With each passing year, a torpor has grown inside of the unliving wizard. The world seems less interesting. Matters no longer concern her. People are no longer important to her. She no longer understands them. They are violent, impatient creatures, full of emotion, and life. Sometimes she hates them. Sometimes she misses them. But most of all she feels tired, so very tired.

Nina isn't sure how the letter from Special Agent Reynolds reached her. She hadn't expected a crow to be able to find her. She had already known. She had felt it when Hex died, the magic of the ritual had still bound them together. It had hurt. For the first time in years she had felt something. But it did not make her happy. What use was weeping? What use was feeling sorrow and loss? She had to go. She owed him. She owed Hex. He had always been better than her. He had always known she realized. He had always known she wouldn't let him down in the end.

Personality: Bitter, jaded, and angry; Nina is all of these things in great abundance. The grand adventure of being a wizard and superhero has trapped her in what she perceives to be her own personal hell. She is slowly losing herself and her memories to the eldritch energies which swirl through her. Beneath the fearless confidence of the undying, Nina hides all that she has lost and all that she desires. Memories are twisted, memories fade, and with each passing moment Nina despairs that she is losing more of herself.

Nina can no longer deny what she has become. A monster, something less than human; a creature of the night. She can feel her emotions unraveling, becoming undone, and she no longer knows how to change or return to the woman she once was. She struggles to resist her darkening thoughts and can feel a gnawing hunger, inhuman desire, unhurriedly consume what little remains of her soul. She can sense the fractures that deepen within her, slowly tearing her apart. Weakness and fragility that can only be mended with further lose of her humanity. Another heavy price to pay.

As Spellbound, Nina has retreated from humanity and other superheroes. Long since divorced from her humanity she cares little for the laws of men or the lofty morals of other superheroes. Instead, she acts of her own violation, following what she can remember of her own conscience. Withering with the dying light of her own spirit, it is becoming increasingly hard for Nina to call upon this inner voice. In Boston-Atlanta, Spellbound has become a legend, a mysterious vengeful spirit that once kept a nightly vigil over the neighborhood known as Autumn Hills. Boston-Atlanta Police Department database files detail Spellbound's activities protecting the residents of Autumn Hills, but also note several encounters with the vigilante that devolved into violence when officers attempted to impede her efforts. While rarely violent, Nina's encounters with other heroes have been sparse, terse, and full of otherworldly tension. Those that have met her, remember only a faint whisper of a voice that offered nothing more than a few cryptic words in parting. In recent years, Nina has withdrawn even further, letting the city stand alone and largely fading into nothing more than an old story.

However, despite her reclusive nature, Nina sometimes seeks the assistance of mundane mortals, supernatural creatures, and superheros to fulfill her enigmatic goals. Further, having spent too long languishing in the crypt that she calls home, she has unintentionally adopted some of the mannerisms ascribed to ancient undead creatures and to those that provide her with a service of some kind she will return the favor by allowing them to call upon her in times of great need using grim magical charms carved out of bone.

Misc Facts: Following her death in 2027, Nina has acted as the protector of the Autumn Hills neighborhood in Boston-Atlanta. Private, bordering on isolationist, she has largely avoided interaction with all other heroes or vigilantes since the start of her unlife.

As an undead creature, Nina does not have any of the physiological needs of a base human being. She doesn't need to breath, eat, or sleep. She has no pulse and her skin is as cold as the grave to the touch.

Relationship with Hex: Hex had promised. He had promised to help her. He had promised that he would find a way to save her. He was wrong. He made a mistake. He didn't save her. He cursed her. He bound her. He trapped her between life and death. He failed her. When she learned the truth she ran away. She ran away from Hex. She hated him. He had damned her. For all his ideals and good intentions, he'd sealed her fate. He'd turned her into a monster. He'd made her into a creature of the night. Far from the neon lights of Fort Cedar she found a new place and a new purpose. The Autumn Hills belonged to the Spellbound. She kept them safe. She was a monster, but not a villain.

With the passage of time, her hatred for Hex tempered. It was so hard to remember what it was like to be alive, to be so full of feeling, and life. She didn't need to see the encrypted video message from Special Agent Reynolds to know that Hex was dead, she had felt it. She had to act. She owed Hex that much, for all that he had done for her and for all of his failures.

-

Autumn Hills

Settled in the early 1700s by Eastern European immigrants, Autumn Hills, is one many ethnic neighborhoods found in the urban sprawl that was once Boston. Tinged with a darker reputation it is rumored to be home to organized crime elements and occult spirits that tend to discourage outside visitors. Which is a shame, because Autumn Hills is heaven for any visitor who likes charming and/or cluttered curiosity shops, spicy pierogis, or fresh, flavorful pirozhki just out of the oven. Night falls early here though, and Autumn Hill's mystic and crime-ridden reputation keeps most non-residents away after dusk. Brave souls may venture out at night to try to catch a glimpse of Spellbound, the mysterious guardian of Autumn Hills that was once said to haunt the neighborhood.

Adjoining the neighborhood is the Cormack Historical Cemetery. Largely abandoned, the once sprawling cemetery has slowly turned into a dark, twisted forest as the landscape has been relinquished to nature. The grand mausoleums and elaborate tombstones of a bygone era remain standing, crumbling slowly as they lay hidden beneath years of foliage and dust.

@Moskau Spieluhr

Great changes to the sheet.

It's not cyberpunk in the slightest, but actually I really appreciate that point of difference. While everyone else is with their technology, Nina has all of this experience with otherworldly happenings. I'm wondering how it is that I can incorporate it all into my own storyline for the rp and it does worry me only about 2% because my plans are already pretty wild. So yeah, thank you for your patience too, I've been pretty slow in gettinf back to you and you've been very active and helpful in our discord!

Also, just wanted to take a moment to tell you how beautiful your writing is in the sheet, I think Nina will really add a nice layer to the game :) accepted!