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2 yrs ago
Current Auld Lang Syne, everybody. roleplayerguild.com/topics/…
3 yrs ago
Vote in my new quest, Mirage, a RP quest set in the far, far future roleplayerguild.com/topics/…
3 yrs ago
Kink-Shaming. Kink-Shaming Never Changes.
3 likes
4 yrs ago
roleplayerguild.com/posts/5… Vote for Dead in Depression. The mechanics of the quest have now been posted!
4 yrs ago
Voting is open until the end of the week! Please come and vote! - roleplayerguild.com/topics/…
1 like

Bio





ROLEPLAY BUCKET LIST
- Walmart Apocalypse Roleplay
- Nightmare Gas Station
- Underrail/Fallout/Post Apocalyptic Roleplay. Codename: Clausterclysm
- Anthromorphic Grimdark Animal Fantasy Roleplay. Codename: Fallowbrook.
- Eldritch Abomination Garfield Roleplay. Codename: Lasagna.
- Infinite IKEA Roleplay. Codename: God Morgon
- Roleplayerguild High School RP. Codename: Highschool Roleplay
- Cyberpunk South East Asia RP. Codename: Straits of Malacca. [CURRENTLY HAPPENING]


CURRENT PROJECTS

- FRAYED TAPESTRY - AN EPIC FANTASY RP (WIP)
- THE LAST DEPRESSION - A RED MARKETS QUEST/PLAY BY POST RP (UNDECIDED)

Most Recent Posts






(Obviously, the RP is not the same tone as what the video shows)

Yeeeaaaaahhhhhhh, it's urban fantasy time!
Remember that if you have any questions or want to vote in the quest, please post it in the OOC, not the IC!
RED MARKETS
DEAD IN DEPRESSION







DEBT RISING//CASUALTIES MOUNTING//PROFITS SINKING//MARKETS CRASHING


Depression

1 : an act of depressing or a state of being depressed: such as
a)(i) : a state of feeling sad :
DEJECTION
anger, anxiety, and depression
a)(ii) : a mood disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration , a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness , and sometimes suicidal tendencies
bouts of depression
suffering from clinical depression

2: a lowering of physical or mental vitality or of functional activity

3: a long and severe recession in a economy or market





Civilisation may have fallen but the American Dream lives on.

Think about it. The Great Depression didn’t wake us up. Black Monday didn’t wake us up. The 2008 housing crisis sure as hell didn’t. The Education Default didn’t, either. Did people really think that the Crash would end the markets?

The biggest trick the governments of the Recession ever pulled on the world was that the Blight led to the Crash.

We all know the Blight wasn’t the cause. It was the death knell, the straw that broke the camel’s back. Overpopulation, poverty, climate change, wars and an economic down-spiral of debts and power hungry corporate oligarchs fostered a Petri dish of instability, ripe enough for the Blight to proliferate.

We’re arriving at the sixth anniversary of the Crash and it’s a marvel at how many more euphemisms they can chalk up to cover their own sins. The mountain of bodies in the Mississippi? Human error. The nuking of our northern neighbours? Preemptive action. The harvesting and experimentation of individuals from the Loss? Scientific endeavours. Some survivors in the Loss I know act shocked but this is just the same crap they’ve been pulling on us. Only difference is that the scapegoat is the undead rather than poor people or some foreign country west of the Atlantic.

Ain’t that a fucking joke.

pg 42 of False Quarantine: A Taker’s Perspective On How Truth Became the New Disease




Dead in Depression is a forum quest that is set in the world of Red Markets and is run using Caleb Stokes proprietary Profit system.

The setting takes place in the aftermath of the Crash - a cataclysmic series of socio-economic and environmental crises bolstered by the arrival of a novel plague: The Blight.This caused the world to be divided up into quarantine zones known informally as the Recession and abandoned exclusion zones known as the Loss. The last remnants of old world governments maintain an iron-grip rule over the Recession to prevent outbreaks and protect their uninfected populace from the ravages of the Loss. On the other side of the wall lies isolated pockets of survivors - enclaves - who trade and squabble with one another over resources to survive and keep out those infected by the Blight. The new fuel of the post-Crash economy is Bounty: a form of capital that consists of identification documents from the previous citizens of America who now shamble around aimlessly in abandoned metropolises. Debit cards, doctor’s licenses, passports, job badges - if you have it, the governments of the Recession will pay you with ration cards. Thus began the creation of a new undead.

You are a Taker: a catch-all term for mercenaries and contractors in the Loss who take on contracts in exchange for payment in Bounty. Accumulate enough bounty and you can give yourself and your loved ones an all-expense guaranteed safe ride to the bowels of the Recession and life comfortably, albeit under the watch of the DHQS. It’s a risky gamble but the reward is enough to make most Takers risk it all. You’ve managed to travel all the way down towards the Crest - a community of coastal enclaves on the California coast in the hopes of securing enough Bounty to place yourself in a nice cushy position in the post-apocalypse.

Will you manage to successfully retire or take a permanent retirement in the ground? The choice is yours.

The quest is run using a version of Red Market’s propietary Profit System which will be explained piecemeal throughout the quest as we go along.









1.1 - Valley Of The Shadow of Death


“ This is the Morgue Daily, live from the Lifelines. On today’s podcast, we’ll be featuring a very special Taker today on our podcast. It’s the one that all you Lost have been chomping at the teeth for. Gnat, the esteemed leader of the Moths herself! And as we always say here on the Morgue, remember, the Loss is your gaiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnzzzztttttttttt”

Your eyes flutter open at the tail-end of the broadcast. The radio begins to warble like an off-tune opera singer and then descends into a beehive of static. A flabby fist pounds it to no avail as the driver begins conjuring up a storm of swearing.

“ Stupid friggin’ wireless.” The driver grumbles, a hint of a fiery East coast accent that threatens to slip out from the veneer of civility he puts up. “ I swear this damn storm messin the signals up there. Cali’s getting wetter and wetter by the months”

Ah, that jolts your memory. You’d spent a sizeable portion of your Bounty hitchhiking yourself and your close ones from the North. Trying for the Mid-West was damn near imposssible thanks to the Rockies. The only choice was to head for the Golden State and hire a trafficker to bring them to the Crest. Travelling alone wasn’t a risk you were willing to take, even with your experience.

Luckily, it seemed like you picked the right smuggler. There was a sense of personality in the humid interior of the bus as it trucked alongside the pot-holed asphalt of California 1. Little scratches or grooves made with nails or spare pennies into the metal to spell out crude jokes or names. Damp paper adverts stuck to the floor of the bus. Duct tape and super glue had been used to patch up decaying bus seats and some of the cracked windows were plated with thick floorboards ripped straight out of a house.There was a sense of security to be had in its seeming insecurity. The tour bus had been repurposed into an armoured truck, welded parts of other vehicles and corrugated steel bolted onto the sides.

Shifting your head, you take a peek through one of the slits in the boarded up window. You can barely make it out but the blue is unmistakable. That roar of the waves crashing and gulls squawking combined with the sea salt permeating the air reminds you of the times when you stared eagerly in front of your Grandma’s oven. It suddenly occurs to your window that you’ve never seen the ocean before. In person. You’ve had a taste of it in public swimming pools and suspicious water parks but there’s a border to them. A limit that returns you to the hard Crash of modern life where you surrender for lesser. Out there, past what remains of Monterey Bay’s sunny beaches is a veritable expanse of blue that peaks past the horizon, sunlight pooling into little divots where the waves roll and crash into the beach, dissipating their energy into white froth. It’s hard to imagine that before the Crash, these beaches used to be filled with people who would laze on there just to get a tan. Now, such behaviour is bound to either get you labelled as Bait or a privileged member of the Loss.

“ Alright, we’re ‘ere.”The driver shifts stick and the bus slows to a lurching crawl. “E’rybody come up and fess up the fee. Otherwise, you’re welcome to disagree with Buckshot with that’s what you want.”

A man near the bus door - Buckshot, presumably - stands up straight from where’s he’s leaning. He’s cut like a football linebacker and wears a baggy poncho that hangs on his frame like a window curtain. Dark gimlets of green peek out above a sleek NBC filtration mask that covers up his entire mouth. He pumps his shotgun (Ithaca 37, your memory helpfully provides) in a show of intimidation and waves the barrel as if asking everyone to get a move on.

By the time you make it to the front and pass up the Bounty, the driver seeks to make conversation with you.

“ Hold up……” His features scrunch up in concentration, yellowed nicotine-stained teeth grinding together. You can almost hear the rusted gears in his brain turning. “ Haven’t I seen you around somewhere? You’re that Taker….ehhhh……Capuchin? Brero? Jarhead? Weren’t you with me on the Travajo Job?”

[] - Choose a reply.

[X] - “ Come on, bud. Don’t you remember reading one of my op editorials on the Lifelines about the Mid-West StopLoss sites last March? It was a hit all over UbiqNet!”

Begin as Beatnik, the Gonzo Taker Journalist

[X] - “ Nah, nah. You must be confusing me for some other thief - I mean, teeth! Tooth fairy! Yeah, that’s my name. Tooth Fairy. I...sell teeth for a living! ”

Begin as Mousetrap, Scavenger Extraordinaire

[X] - “ I paid your price already. I didn’t recall personal questions as part of our arrangement.”

Begin as EpiPen, The Immune Lone Wolf


“ Hey, relajante. I was only pryin’. You know how it goes ‘round these parts.” He cocks his head in curiosity, looking at your equipment with a hint of jealousy.

[] - What piece of item on you did he comment about?

[X] - “Dios mios, what I would do to finish the last season of Indomitable if I had those glasses of yours. ”

(Start with Ubiq AR Specs.)

[X] - “ Gosh, an actual Gerberman! You a mechanic of some kind çause I’m kind of looking for a guy to repair my toaster….”

(Start with Multitool)

[X] - “ Did you come here to bird watch? If so, you should have gone to Parajo Plains to see the blue jays instead of here.”

(Start with Binoculars)





Start by choosing an action for each prompt and post them in the OOC. For example, if I provided the following prompts:

[] - Choose an action

[X] - Kick

[X] - Punch

[] - Choose something to say

[X] - "Holy shit"

[X] - "Holy fuck"

You would post in the OOC.....

[X] - Kick
[X] - "Holy fuck"

Whichever action gets the most votes by players automatically wins. Tiebreakers are determined by the QM (me) with a roll of the die.
RED MARKETS
DEAD IN DEPRESSION







DEBT RISING//CASUALTIES MOUNTING//PROFITS SINKING//MARKETS CRASHING


Depression

1 : an act of depressing or a state of being depressed: such as
a)(i) : a state of feeling sad :
DEJECTION
anger, anxiety, and depression
a)(ii) : a mood disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration , a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness , and sometimes suicidal tendencies
bouts of depression
suffering from clinical depression

2: a lowering of physical or mental vitality or of functional activity

3: a long and severe recession in a economy or market





Civilisation may have fallen but the American Dream lives on.

Think about it. The Great Depression didn’t wake us up. Black Monday didn’t wake us up. The 2008 housing crisis sure as hell didn’t. The Education Default didn’t, either. Did people really think that the Crash would end the markets?

The biggest trick the governments of the Recession ever pulled on the world was that the Blight led to the Crash.

We all know the Blight wasn’t the cause. It was the death knell, the straw that broke the camel’s back. Overpopulation, poverty, climate change, wars and an economic down-spiral of debts and power hungry corporate oligarchs fostered a Petri dish of instability, ripe enough for the Blight to proliferate.

We’re arriving at the sixth anniversary of the Crash and it’s a marvel at how many more euphemisms they can chalk up to cover their own sins. The mountain of bodies in the Mississippi? Human error. The nuking of our northern neighbours? Preemptive action. The harvesting and experimentation of individuals from the Loss? Scientific endeavours. Some survivors in the Loss I know act shocked but this is just the same crap they’ve been pulling on us. Only difference is that the scapegoat is the undead rather than poor people or some foreign country west of the Atlantic.

Ain’t that a fucking joke.

pg 42 of False Quarantine: A Taker’s Perspective On How Truth Became the New Disease




Dead in Depression is a forum quest that is set in the world of Red Markets and is run using Caleb Stokes proprietary Profit system.

The setting takes place in the aftermath of the Crash - a cataclysmic series of socio-economic and environmental crises bolstered by the arrival of a novel plague: The Blight.This caused the world to be divided up into quarantine zones known informally as the Recession and abandoned exclusion zones known as the Loss. The last remnants of old world governments maintain an iron-grip rule over the Recession to prevent outbreaks and protect their uninfected populace from the ravages of the Loss. On the other side of the wall lies isolated pockets of survivors - enclaves - who trade and squabble with one another over resources to survive and keep out those infected by the Blight. The new fuel of the post-Crash economy is Bounty: a form of capital that consists of identification documents from the previous citizens of America who now shamble around aimlessly in abandoned metropolises. Debit cards, doctor’s licenses, passports, job badges - if you have it, the governments of the Recession will pay you with ration cards. Thus began the creation of a new undead.

You are a Taker: a catch-all term for mercenaries and contractors in the Loss who take on contracts in exchange for payment in Bounty. Accumulate enough bounty and you can give yourself and your loved ones an all-expense guaranteed safe ride to the bowels of the Recession and life comfortably, albeit under the watch of the DHQS. It’s a risky gamble but the reward is enough to make most Takers risk it all. You’ve managed to travel all the way down towards the Crest - a community of coastal enclaves on the California coast in the hopes of securing enough Bounty to place yourself in a nice cushy position in the post-apocalypse.

Will you manage to successfully retire or take a permanent retirement in the ground? The choice is yours.

The quest is run using a version of Red Market’s propietary Profit System which will be explained piecemeal throughout the quest as we go along.












It's time.
>Outcast














It is lost to us.

The Durandal.

How could it be? That one of the Great Blades vanishes into the aether?

We must trace our steps back to the Old Aeon. A place where the Gargantuans wandered the unending expanse of salt and glass aimlessly under a sun that never set. Under the command of the Malakim, the Gargantuans weaved the earth with their fingers, knotted the sky with their breaths and sewn the stars in with their wills. However, ennui grew into curiosity and soon, desire. Thus, the Gargantuans began to grow, threatening to unturn the Loom. Thus, it was that the servant turned on the master.

The battle shook the heavens and for every a hundred giant, a angel fell to the earth. Throughout this conflict, six Great Blades were forged from the primordial pandemonium. The land as we know it was shapen from their corpses and new life emerged from the corpses of the Gargantuans. It was then that the Great Blades found themselves new wielders.

Kamocek, the Miracle Sword, plucked from the stars.

Nandoka, the Joyous Kris, smithed from the enlightenment of free thought.

Shamshir, the Gibbous Scimitar, discovered by serendipity in the Burning Sea.

Calesvol, the Sovereign Spear, pulled from stone by Men and stolen by the Fin.

Skofnung, the Cerine Cleaver, quenched in blood by the Lutin Lords of the Fell-Lands.

And lastly, Durandal, the Enduring Scythe, wrought from the will and courage of the Gargantuan.

Together, the Great Blades seeded the foundations of the Occitente, used to commit great and terrible works. The New Aeon was born and the First Kingdoms, named after the Great Blades, were established.

When the blade is lost, the scabbard withers. Once tale spread of the blade being lost, the Roi attempted to forge a new blade to fill the scabbard, resulting in the Sundering. War soon spread, flooding the rivers with blood, and the kingdom of the Enduring Scythe, once mighty, became burdened with sorrow and strife. Beasts of all manner and make wreak havoc on peasant tithes. Armies of bandit kings roam the roads. Lawlessness had taken root in place of lords that fled their duties.

Who will be the one to save our kingdoms?





Frayed Tapestry is an epic medieval play by post RP of swords, sorcery and cannons that draws inspiration from the Soulsborne Franchise, Berserk and the Black Company.

Set in the far away lands of the Occitente, we set our eyes on Durandelle, one of the Blade Kingdoms that safeguards the Great Blade that earnt its namesake - Durandal, the Enduring Scythe. For generations, Roi Perriere Olander and his dynasty have been the sole wielders of Durandal, using its powers to bring an age of prosperity and peace.

Well, until it disappeared. Then, a kingdom suddenly became kingless and an empty throne attracts pretenders by the dozens.

For two centuries, the Curators of the Blade have been searching for the sword. Each year since its disappearance marks the descent of Durandelle and its territories further into chaos. Warlords, nobles, conniving Fin and Lutin lords, cults and many more factions have dueled over its principalities, splitting the land into multiple territories with uncontested blighted lands in between, ravaged by the taint of enochian magicks and rotting corpses. Bands of sellswords and mercenaries have gradually replaced armies of knights and squires as codes of chivalries have been replaced in favor of contracts of coin. Furthermore, the loss of a Great Blade has bred paranoia into the hearts of the Kingdoms of the Occitente as they seclude themselves further from one another.

As more searchers die, go mad or suffer ignoble fates in their quest to find the sword, the Curators have been forced to recruit from less worthier stock to supplant their dwindling armies of knights and royals , all of whom have decried the quest for Durandal to be a foolish one. This includes prisoners, brigands, thieves, cultists and all manner of men and women who would have been sent to the gallows without their intervention.

They are known as False Searchers.

You are one of them.

Whether you were innocent or guilty of your acts, the Blade Searchers have decreed that you be a part of their quest.

TL;DR: You're a medieval suicide squad that has been hired to get an item that is responsible for the political stability of a continent.

I am looking for a total of 4-7 players at the moment. I am also willing to have 1 or 2 more co-GMs depending on the number of players that sign up.




RULES

Everyone within this RP is expected to obey the clauses outlined in RPG’s official rules, along with the following to ensure that no problems arise.

1) Put On Your Grasses

- Be respectful to other players in this RP and avoid uncivil behaviour in the OOC that may cause others to be uncomfortable. Harassment and flaming will not be tolerated.
- Don’t be a dick. Leave whatever baggage you may have at the door. If you continue being a dick, I’ll boot your dick and your ass from this RP.
- The word of the GM is final. If you try and refute any of the GM’s decisions, you better have a good reason for doing so.
- Please treat and discuss sensitive, controversial and or mature topics in a respectful and nuanced manner. In regards to portrayal of sexual themes in IC, all interactions that involve extreme explicit sexual imagery of any sort shall be conducted within PMs until the day that the Guild permits to allow showing of explicit NSFW content on its public site.

2) Jolly Cooperation

-Collaborations are heavily encouraged between two or more players, independent of GM mandated collaborations, in order to break up the monotony in waiting for someone to post.

-Discussion of the narrative, independent worldbuilding or providing narrative suggestions to the GM is also encouraged. I want criticism, dammit, so you better give me some if you think I’m messing up.

3) The Arbitrary Quality Formerly Known As Good Writing

- The general rule for writing is that quality matters over quantity, although having both of them in equal amounts is better.

- A minimum of two paragraphs is expected within your writing.

4) Rain Check

- There is no strict posting schedule which you must adhere to.
- However, please do message me whenever you may have an IRL event that you are preoccupied with or whether you are disinterested in continuing.
- If you are inactive for a period of 3 weeks or so in both the OOC and the IC, I will take it as a sign that you are no longer able to participate and you will be booted from the RP.

5) Have Fun
- Make Fun.
- Be the Fun.
- Screw the No-Fun Constables.
- Scream Fun
- Worship Fun




LORE

Settlements of Durendelle

Races













Esoterica

Sanctioned









Unsanctioned









The Greater Occitente













Factions of Durendelle




















A Runcible Spoon

A collaboration with @Rapid Reader

Ctephesius prowled along the forest floor under the shadows of the smelly and stinky humans that had drunk the grape poison.

He was currently lost.

He was relaxing on his companion human’s shoulder but the other stupid humans began talking and ruined his nice nap. He ran off to find a better spot in a oak tree that he liked to sleep in. It was nice, high and the talking voices of the rest of the stupid humans in the companion human’s pride were barely heard. Now, he regretted his mistake and tried to find his companion human. Unfortunately, the mixture of smells were confusing him. His companion human was a snow human and finding him in this mixture of humans was like finding mice in a hay bale. Ctephesius softly meowed to get a human’s attention, to bring him to his companion human, but all they did was put their filthy hands on his head or stare at him creepily.

“ Ctephesius? Ctephesius?! Gosh darn it, where’s that damnable feline….”

His master’s voice! Ctephesius began to bound towards where he heard it but was blocked by a troupe of stupid, dancing radish-smelling humans. They seemed to be marking their territory by the way they were randomly stepping about. He pawed and meowed at them with all the ferocity he could muster. They only closed their eyes and giggled in response, waving their strange clear tubes at him. The voice of his companion kept growing softer and softer the more he allowed these humans to continue intimidating him. He crouched and then, seeing an opening, darted through the legs of these idiot humans. A swell of victory burst within Ctephesius’s heart. Finally, he could make it back to his companion human and receive his snacks -

Amidst his distraction, he failed to notice a leg which he collided with painfully. Ctephesius rolled off his back and shook his head to get rid of the dizziness. He would punish whatever human did this to -

Oh no, it was that icky human with the books.

Ctephesius stepped back, the hairs on his back raised and his ears furled back as his single moon-lit eye, wide like a dinner plate, stared up at Elara with apprehension.

“That’s not very nice,” the Breton mage said as she shifted to the ground, her right hand extending slowly in the direction of the cat. “I thought we were becoming fast friends, Ctephesius.”

Ctephesius narrowed his eyes and leaned his head back as though her hand was repelling him like a lodestone. His paw lifted out to meekly swat at the icky human’s hand. His eye flitted back between her open hand and her icky human face which smelt of ink and dried wood. He let out a loud warning growl. This icky human would pay if she dared touch him.
He then heard his companion human’s voice again in the background.

“ Ctephesius? You seen a one-eyed cat around here? Yes, a one-eyed cat. No, I’m not a necromancer…..”

His voice was becoming louder and louder.If he was to find his companion successfully, then, he had to stay put. Running away from the icky human would only get him lost.

That didn’t mean he would trust this icky human with the books, though.

Reaching into her satchel, Elara pulled out a small piece of preserved meat, “Hissing is quite rude, Ctephesius. I only want to pet you. Look here’s some food, we will strike a bargain. You let me pet you and I will let you have this tasty treat!”

Treats. Ctephesius’s pupils widened as his nose twitched with a little sniffle. It smelled good. But not as good as what his companion human could make. His head neared it but he retreated backwards, hissing. He then decided to grumpily tuck his paws and tail underneath his body, sitting down and sitting his head down onto the forest floor.

“ Mreow,” he replied back with almost a note of petulance in it.

Elara frowned, carefully placing the meat in between herself and the one eyed cat. “I have all the patience in the world, Ctephesius. Do you really think that you can defeat me in a contest of wills? I have brought Daedra onto this plane and bound them to my will. Besides, I mean you no harm. I simply wish to pet you. You let Reyna pet you. So why not me?”

Ctephesius replied by merely reluctantly dragging the meat over towards him. He then took a lick of it, recoiled and with what seemed like a smirk on its face, grabbed the meat with his jaw and threw it back to Elara, splattering a greasy smear on her shirt.

“ Mrroewwww!,” he loudly exhorted in disgust.

“ Ctephesius! There you are!” Quintus came out of the dark, a look of genuine relief and a grin on his face as he scooped Ctephesius up by his bum and belly with two hands. The cat continued to look disgruntled, giving the stink eye towards Elara whilst Quintus rubbed his back.

“ Oh, you wee lil’ bugger. I’ve been looking all oér for you!” He then looked at Elara. “ Thanks for keeping an eye on him fer me. He’s an innocent little thing. I can’t imagine what would happen if I lost him forever.”

“Yes...about that...Quintus, I think your cat is broken. He refuses to let me pet him.”

Quintus chuckled. “ S’rry ‘bout that, ‘Lara. He’s a little skittish around you Bretons. I chalked it up to that clever craft you all seem to practice a few years ago but he gets along fine with that bark-eating Rimmenese.”

Ctephesius purred as Quintus continued to scratch his back, cuddling into Quintus’s chest. Quintus eventually sat down besides Elara, continuing to muse himself by playing with Ctephesius before coughing to break the tension.

“ Need anything to eat? Pot of stew’s still boiling oér there. I can get you a bowl if you like but all the rest of the men have taken the good parts. There’s still a chunk of venison in ére if I remember correctly….”

“A most generous offer, friend,” Elara began, smiling as if in thought. “Oh! I recall a recipe! The cooks at the Arcane University used to make the most delightful saffron peafowl soup. Do we have any saffron? And peafowl? It would be a welcome dish in these eager hours before we face the tyrant.”

“ Saffron? Peafowl? What’s next? Truffle? A suckling pig? Ye want me to serve you whale caviar or aged giant marrow?”

Quintus narrowed his eyes, setting Ctephesius down.

“ We’re a rebellion, not the Imperial gourmand’s kitchen, clever crafter. You’re getting stew I made, the bread our bakers made from the wild grain out here and the meat our hunters caught. I’m sure the nobles of Skingrad ‘ill be happy to fulfill your request once we break down their ‘oors tomorrow.”

The crease of a frown danced across mage’s face and she sighed. “It was merely a question, Quintus.”

Picking up a stick from the ground, Elara drew long, graceful letters in the dirt. Her expression had turned sullen and there was a look of irritation in her eyes. “I worry sometimes about your lack of vision, friend. Surely, you cannot be happy eating rabbit stew for the rest of your life? You must look beyond your farm.”

“ Where you see a farm, I see honest work and a life worth living.” Quintus threw a stick into the campfire, jostling the branches to stoke the dying flames. He was looking away from Elara, a scowl marking his normally jovial features. “ Ya think ye can lecture me from your high horse like I’m some ignorant seed-sower who doesn’t know who’s good fer him? I was satisfied and content with my life before my farm was burnt down by the Imperials. Can you say the same about your life?”

“I was content, happy even, before all...all of this ugliness,” Elara began, flinching as if she had been struck. Dark clouds soon seemed to swirl above her and her voice took on a bitter, angry timber with each word that she uttered. “I wrote books. I published papers. I gave talks. I had grant funding. I was so CLOSE to finding out the truth. I was so close to discovering something truly novel about Oblivion.”

“But I was betrayed. Like you, like everyone else,” Elara said, erasing the Daedric words she had traced into the soil with an angry wave of the stick she still held in her hand. “Abandoned by the ignorant. Hated by the fearful. Cast out by a council of petty fools content to die without presenting any answers.”

“ Don’t ya dare think we’re the same. You were born into luxury and royalty! I was a nobody who was born in a pig stye in the middle of Whiterun. I spent my life on the harvest whilst you spent your life flipping through scrolls and for what? You chose your fate. I didn’t - “ Quintus balled his fists together, stopping himself mid-sentence as he remembered the bodies strewn across Anvil on that day because of his decision. The extinction of the Farmer’s Guild on his foolish hands. He closed his eyes, tense with grief, before a sombre look came over him. He turned his back fully to Elara.

“ It always comes down to ambition, ain’t it? That’s the thing that brings us up and puts us back down. Ambition.”

“We all choose our own fate, friend,” Elara said, the smallest hint of apology lacing her soft words. “We have only attempted to achieve our deserved ambitions.”

“ Heh.” Quintus muttered, scratching the back of his head awkwardly as he looked back at Elara. “ You know, I wonder what my 2 brothers are doing right now. Verren’s probably somewhere in the Abecean right now. Gerold….” His voice trailed off, remembering the promises that he and his eldest brother made to each other in the wilds of Whiterun, carving their names on the pines and promising to venture out into the mountains, through ancient crypts in search of adventure.

Now, look at how it had all turned out. Ctephesius meowed out loud impatiently, crouching in front of Quintus and jumping in front of Elara to vye for his attention. With a chuckle, his fingers began scratching his head much to the cat’s pleasure as it crooned gently.

“ I’m….” Quintus struggled to get the words out as if the act of apologising was almost agonising for him. “ ….sorry for what I said just now. If you’ll take me up on my original offer of stew, I’ll be glad to oblige. Otherwise, I understand if ya ain’t in the mood right now.”

Jumping to her feet, Elara offered the large man her hand with a grin, “I, Elara Metrick, royal consort that I am, magnanimously forgive your slight against my person. Let us share food and talk of great things, such as how we can bring further liberty to the oppressed and saffron buns for all.”

“ Well, can ya settle for rosemary instead?” Quintus asked with a half-smile, accepting the academic’s hand with his grimy, dirt-coated ones. They stood there for a while before he looked over towards the communal cauldron where some peasants were still scooping pottage with a ladle. “ I should probably get over there before - “

Then, at that moment, Ctephesius chose to hack an hairball onto Elara’s shoe.

“ CTEPHESIUS!”
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