Thayr

Avatar: The White Jade Gambit

How long has it been since the removal of King Xiong?
Kicking about the idea of a former Dai Li agent, but I need to fit together the timeline.

Revue of Annihilation

⛼ O7 - Public Square ⛼

It slowly became apparent to the small group that the city, however it may be, had a dearth of graveyards. The sheer mass of humanity was impressive enough, taking Lethe aback a good deal, and doubtless however the dead were sorted through would likewise take him aback. A sinking feeling came to the gravekeep’s heart, though, at the prospect that how the dead were dealt with - and how their stories were kept or lost - would be a desecration of the dead, of the duties entrusted, and that he may be starting from scratch and alone in the city.

As they moved through the streets, it also became known that the streets were not entirely welcoming to those it didn’t know. The gravekeep could see the hungry eyes here and there, men and women who had a certain method about them and knew how to shake loose coin from another, though they seemed to yet have eyes. He was almost glad they had, though the emptiness there wasn’t such a great comfort. They needed somewhere to work and, hopefully, that same place could be somewhere to sleep. It would make things easier, Lethe supposed. The others weren’t so calm. They looked with wary, concerned eyes at the men who watched. There was something to be said of robbery when a person is poor, new, fresh, that it had a new sense of danger compared to when a person knows the normal and when things are not in line to it.

He eyed movement in the square, though, a heavy wagon with two men and a cargo of the dead. They stopped to pick up a limp man on the street, who had laid resting against a wall, and a thought sprang to Lethe’s mind. One of his had also seen, spoke in a quiet, sharp voice from behind the gravekeep.

“What d’you suppose they do with them?”

“City doesn’t seem to be free with space. Perhaps a mass grave, perhaps over into the center. Best way to know, though…”

The man didn’t tarry on the latter option, nor for that matter for former. Both potentials was a desecration, a removal of the knowledge and a passing that had been left unnoted, unknown, unmourned by any and all. It was simple silence, one that was even worse by the latter option. While a grave lent the dead their brothers, a dump into the hole there at the center of the city was a removal from all, a hatred, a waste. Those who did it could have their reasons, from space to the hunt to…distraction, but it yet paled in comparison to the damage such would cause to the dead souls themselves, to the people yet left who would never know the name or life of their dead brother. Lethe shook himself free from all of it. Contemplations would lead him nowhere.

He approached the slow wagon with some care, careful to not be seen as a potential robber, careful to not be seen as a potential cargo. It was a fairly vague goal was the brief reflection as he cleared his throat, spoke up to the man in the wagon. “Scuse me. Where do you take them?”

Pokemon: Dream

Isla Gill

---

Location: Pines End
Mentions: @Pyromania99

Isla listened to Yasu and Hatty, smiling just a bit under the final realization that the Pokémon just wanted to see them there safe and sound. It was altogether funny, considering his constant shifting behind one person or another’s legs, but generally…pretty heartwarming of a gesture. She stared a second more at the revelation that Yasu would be leading them there, too.

Questions came as quick as a dash. Well, why'd Yasu give directions, then? Why'd she make it sound like there was something or another that Isla and Camila would be going to on their own? Surely it was more something having to so with the talk between the two. There was something else going on, Isla was pretty well sure. She was also pretty well sure that whatever it was, even if the girl asked Yasu wouldn't likely answer. Curious little issues, that's what it was. Dancing shifted on her shoulder, nuzzling just a fraction further in. What was it?

“Well…alright then. I'm ready to go.”

---

Pokémon | Inventory

Pokémon:

• Dancing | Eevee | Level 5 | Anticipation | Pokéball
  Tackle, Tail Whip, Covet, Growl, Helping Hand, Sand Attack, Wish
• Swiper | Nickit | Level 7 | Runaway | Pokéball
  Quick Attack, Tail Whip, Beat Up

Inventory: 4000p

4 x Pokéball
3 x Potion

Pokemon: Dream

Isla Gill

---

Location: Pines End
Mentions: @Pyromania99

“Mhm, Travel back towards Byerlfal on Route 1. About a third of the way there, you’ll see a tree with some talismans hung on it. Go south from that tree and you should soon find a small, overgrown path. That should take you to it. Wild pokemon are a bit more prevalent in that area though, so be careful if you do go.”

Back towards Byerlfal…third of the way…tree with talismans, turn south…small, overgrown path…Isla tried to mentally imagine the route, especially when it was one she had taken up to Pines End. She couldn’t recall any such tree with talismans when she’d gone one way…maybe they were hung a certain way or Isla had just not noticed the tree as she’d walked along. Of course, as she was busy with contemplating the route, taking out her Pokédex with one hand to draw out a little map with a general approximation of a third back, the priestess and her Pokémon had been busy talking. The young girl caught only portions of it and the end.

“Hatty wants us to go with you if you go to the shrine.”

Isla blinked, almost owl-like in the proposition. She wasn’t completely against it, though…last she could recall, that type was especially sensitive to emotions. It might make things somewhat more uncomfortable for the little guy, considering what Yasu had said about wild Pokémon being more prevalent. She couldn’t say for certain, but imagined that they might become a bit more aggressive as one ventured further into the forest, into what was their domain.

“Um…why?”

---

Pokémon | Inventory

Pokémon:

• Dancing | Eevee | Level 5 | Anticipation | Pokéball
  Tackle, Tail Whip, Covet, Growl, Helping Hand, Sand Attack, Wish
• Swiper | Nickit | Level 7 | Runaway | Pokéball
  Quick Attack, Tail Whip, Beat Up

Inventory: 4000p

4 x Pokéball
3 x Potion

Revue of Annihilation

//O7 - Lethe

The garb of a gravekeep was not so different from the garb of any other peasant of the soil, he supposed. A too big rat-quilt tunic, patched over and over again in colors faded from age and darkened from road-dirt, trousers of the same sort of wear, shoes worn-down from the hard road, and a rope belt whose loose strands had become a halo of wispy barbs about his middle, that was all the man wore and all he had kept in his walk. The cloak he had taken from an abandoned cart had fallen apart on the walk, the straw hat he had found off a scarecrow in a black-soiled field had likewise been stolen as a halfway joke. Better it than the boots. The five who trailed behind in a loose gaggle were no worse clothed than he, better in fact as some had spent less time on the road. A dust cloud rose in the distance, riders from the city.

What could but give him away as an oddity to the vast world was a shovel, for any self-respecting farmer would carry a hoe if not have any cart for his work, a tome wrapped in thick clothes from the rain at his waist, for few peasants would deign themselves to lose precious time in the effort of learning to read nor have the coin to procure such a service for leisure, and that he was walking the opposite way any farmer might walk, save to sell their crops in the markets. He had gained a few odd looks here and there whenever the topic had arisen on the walk. They hadn’t believed him for some, others thought he was mad, others still had gotten curious. The gravekeeper supposed he knew exactly who those last few were, for they still trode behind him in the morning sun, the stink of sweat drowned by the dust in the air.

The ground wasn't ground up ahead, turning from smooth fields into the jagged landscape of a shantytown. The city at the end of the world, the center of the world, was no new city to be sure. He had never been there before. Clouds of brown obscured those groups of travelers ahead, as well as the parts of the sprawl itself, though he could hear one of those behind him mutter a thankful prayer through cracked lips. The pilgrimage is over, the man said, with work to be done at last. He snorted at the exultation, though he heard more from travelers further ahead. There was work yet to be done. Hands gripped the shovel and fingers brushed the ledger. Yes, there was work indeed.

They neared it, dust-stained details coming into clarity with each handful of steps. Shacks, cluttered streets, the stink of humanity imbued into the very essence of the air, and a chaos to which the gravekeeper had never exactly been subjected to, that was all there was and more. Dirt kicked into the air until it was all you needed, a hustle from one place to another, and so many souls that he couldn’t tell precisely who was close to their end and who was not. Of course, it was quite likely that far too many nearby would be dead by the day’s end, cut far short from their usual destination.

He stepped off to one side of the road, the others close behind in a cluster as they too were wary of the whole issue. The gravekeeper took a deep breath, steeling himself among all the noise and chaos. They’d need some things to make themselves at home in the new city, things that would be best found further on to the center…the places closest to the Abyss, where the dead were likely more wanting of his services. One of them spoke up, a younger voice ran raw by the road-dirt.

“What now, Lethe?”

“Lodging. Lodging and a yard to work. Come, now.”

Revue of Annihilation

Lethe

Lethe

Human | 32 | Male | 6’1” | 140 lbs
0th Circle | Death

Born to a small family in a small village, poor as the lords demanded them to be for their taxes, Lethe would go out into the world before he ever plied the family trade. A hunter, a forager, and sometimes even a shepherd when the wolves grew hungry, it was a miracle the boy was not so shunned at such a young age, one born from hardship and a lack of hands. In time, though, Lethe would take up that family trade in that family place, helping his father dig graves for those who had passed on. It was by no means a good life, for the others soon looked sour whenever their gaze fell on the young man, nor was it particularly happy, but it was by all means an honest living.

In time, Lethe found bits and pieces to be lost, forgotten. Men couldn't remember when the old man on the hill had lost his remaining family member, or his name, and families seldom remembered the names of the stillborn after the wife, and gravestones weathered away into plain monoliths for none to mourn. Young as he was, Lethe took on the task with fortitude, working first alongside a priest of a church not far from the village before eventually marking down the names himself. It was hard work, but Lethe's ledger grew with every funeral, a task mandated by none yet quietly appreciated by all. In time, he would mark down his father's name too, before some days later his mother also passed. The newfound gravekeeper took the loss by not taking it at all, setting down to his work.

Then the ebbs and flows of monsters, a fact of the shattered world since the death of the Thousand-Faced God, would come for them. The village, small as it was, soon fled to a walled city for fear of being overrun and Lethe, though he abandoned his graveyard, took with him that ledger and so all those names. The fleeing soon became a motif as they began the inevitable trek to another city. The world was still yet mad with divine fools and Lethe, placid as he could try to be, dug graves wherever there was a yard, noted names whenever they were to be had. It was sparse as information went yet, even so, eventually grew to be a comfort to those other suffering souls. Eventually, at a graveyard long since abandoned, in a crypt opened and forgotten by the horrors of monsters slain elsewhere, Lethe found a coal-black tome of the journey of the dead, of the realms long thereafter. The tome crumbled to dust with a touch as that Spark lept from it to him, and in that moment the gravekeeper became Ichor-Blessed.

Lethe was, for a time, lost with this newfound power. He hemmed and hawed, took his time about the whole of the issue, before eventually finding what path would be best to take as the compulsion grasped against him. Lethe set off for the city at the Abyss, to the center of the issues and the great hundreds of yearning dead who needed his aid. As he traveled, Lethe has convinced a handful of pious souls to lend themselves to his cause, to dig graves, to learn their letters, to remember.

---

Path to Ascension

0th Circle Ichor-Blessed

Ichor: 0
Wealth: 0
Followers: 5
Resources: None.
Artifacts: None
Property: None.

Divine Protection of Death

Domain of the Last Sleep - Followers of the Scribe better sense when another is drawing near to the end of their natural, mortal coil and are gently motivated to record the mortal life of that person, whether it be by their own hand, the hand of a learned priest, or by oral stories.

Starting Benefit

Band of Brothers - 5 Followers. Those you met on the way were moved or manipulated by you to joining your cause.

Revue of Annihilation

Well, application has been duly edited.

Revue of Annihilation

@Thayr
This is an anime RP, so I'm expecting an anime-style character image.

For reference, the Thousand-Faced God was struck down some two hundred years ago. You'll likely have to revamp the backstory a bunch to account for that. Feels like there's a big amount of overlap between the Domain of Death and the Domain of Preservation, but eh, we'll see where that goes.

@ERode

Ahhhhhh I uhhhhh dunno how I missed that portion. I will work on fixing that bit.
Is the need for an anime style image a hard requirement? I notice some don't.
As for Death vs Preservation, it seemed like the latter was concerned with physically keeping the body whereas the former is the "The memory keeps the spirit alive" deal.

Revue of Annihilation

Lethe

Lethe

Human | 32 | Male | 6’1” | 140 lbs
0th Circle | Death

Born to a small family in a small village, poor as the lords demanded them to be for their taxes, Lethe would go out into the world before he ever plied the family trade. A hunter, a forager, and sometimes even a shepherd when the wolves grew hungry, it was a miracle the boy was not so shunned at such a young age, one born from hardship and a lack of hands. In time, though, Lethe would take up that family trade in that family place, helping his father dig graves for those who had passed on. It was by no means a good life, for the others soon looked sour whenever their gaze fell on the young man, nor was it particularly happy, but it was by all means an honest living.

In time, Lethe found bits and pieces to be lost, forgotten. Men couldn't remember when the old man on the hill had lost his remaining family member, or his name, and families seldom remembered the names of the stillborn after the wife, and gravestones weathered away into plain monoliths for none to mourn. Young as he was, Lethe took on the task with fortitude, working first alongside a priest of a church not far from the village before eventually marking down the names himself. It was hard work, but Lethe's ledger grew with every funeral, a task mandated by none yet quietly appreciated by all. In time, he would mark down his father's name too, before some days later his mother also passed. The newfound gravekeeper took the loss by not taking it at all, setting down to his work.

Then the ebbs and flows of monsters, a fact of the shattered world since the death of the Thousand-Faced God, would come for them. The village, small as it was, soon fled to a walled city for fear of being overrun and Lethe, though he abandoned his graveyard, took with him that ledger and so all those names. The fleeing soon became a motif as they began the inevitable trek to another city. The world was still yet mad with divine fools and Lethe, placid as he could try to be, dug graves wherever there was a yard, noted names whenever they were to be had. It was sparse as information went yet, even so, eventually grew to be a comfort to those other suffering souls. Eventually, at a graveyard long since abandoned, in a crypt opened and forgotten by the horrors of monsters slain elsewhere, Lethe found a coal-black tome of the journey of the dead, of the realms long thereafter. The tome crumbled to dust with a touch as that Spark lept from it to him, and in that moment the gravekeeper became Ichor-Blessed.

Lethe was, for a time, lost with this newfound power. He hemmed and hawed, took his time about the whole of the issue, before eventually finding what path would be best to take as the compulsion grasped against him. Lethe set off for the city at the Abyss, to the center of the issues and the great hundreds of yearning dead who needed his aid. As he traveled, Lethe has convinced a handful of pious souls to lend themselves to his cause, to dig graves, to learn their letters, to remember.

---

Path to Ascension

0th Circle Ichor-Blessed

Ichor: 0
Wealth: 0
Followers: 5
Resources: None.
Artifacts: None
Property: None.

Divine Protection of Death

Domain of the Last Sleep - Followers of the Scribe better sense when another is drawing near to the end of their natural, mortal coil and are gently motivated to record the mortal life of that person, whether it be by their own hand, the hand of a learned priest, or by oral stories.

Starting Benefit

Band of Brothers - 5 Followers. Those you met on the way were moved or manipulated by you to joining your cause.

Pokemon: Dream

Isla Gill

---

Location: Pines End
Mentions: @Pyromania99

“I am well aware of what Celebi is and what Celebi does. And what, you want to damage the forest or cause something to happen? Did I hear you right? Yeah, no thanks, I’m not looking for extreme options.”

Isla's heart dropped just a ways at hearing how the priestess took what she said and twisted it about into something clearly a bit more severe than what she had intended. Clearly Yasu was the sort of half-glass-empty lady as she took the question to mean Isla wanted to cause damage or an issue in the forest. She hadn't meant that at all; Celebi, the forest protector, protected forests. The Pokémon might be busy elsewhere, or hurt because the forest was hurt, or was say…resting and cocooned in the deepest part of the forest after performing such an action. Despite that, though, the young girl took a deep breath. Clearly Yasu wanted to say more than just that.

“The only thing I can possibly say is aside from the shrine here…There is another shrine deeper in the forest. It's not hard to get to, but it's off any known trails.”

“Could start there if you wanted to, I guess. Might be some books or other material here too…there's a room over there that has some records, I think. Otherwise, leave. Hatty and I don't really care much for guests.”

Clearly she really wasn't the happiest sort of person. Isla shivered a tiny bit at the internal question of whether or not priestesses were all like her or if some were a bit more normal. Surely there wasn't just a priestess factory that turned people into just bitterness. Surely. She scratched Swiper just along the scruff of the neck in an almost absentminded way, a calming way.

“The shrine. That sounds like the best bet. Where exactly is it?”

---

Pokémon | Inventory

Pokémon:

• Dancing | Eevee | Level 5 | Anticipation | Pokéball
  Tackle, Tail Whip, Covet, Growl, Helping Hand, Sand Attack, Wish
• Swiper | Nickit | Level 7 | Runaway | Pokéball
  Quick Attack, Tail Whip, Beat Up

Inventory: 4000p

4 x Pokéball
3 x Potion