Drache

[Ebonfort] The Edge of the Map

Saffra Quest 301DM

Azure Strand. The poorest of Ebonfort's cities, it has been remarked by many that only the calm, deep waters of the port give the fishermen of Azure Strand anything to offer the rest of the region. The only crafts practiced in abundance here, other than crime and fishing of course, are sailing and shipbuilding.

Near the beginning of Jedayen, an aging local merchant by the name of Bertram Pegas Cavendish III commissioned a trading vessel to be built in the city's name. With the intention of sending her southward to the Auric Desert and the marvelous city of Krerik on her maiden voyage, he dubbed her the Azure Rising. The square-rigged ship's hold would be filled with goods to trade with the mysterious desert people. In exchange for hand-crafted wooden goods out of Green Falls, grains and potatoes from Ruby Banks, and iron bars from Stone Crest, half of the cities in Ebonfort have contributed directly to this mission. As the date of her departure approached, nearly everyone in the region had either heard of the ship or seen the notices tacked up on tavern walls urging merchants, guards, and sailors to join the expedition. Since the Death of Magic and the disappearance of mages, braving the storms and the monsters of the deep had become less and less favourable.

Tempted by the promise of silks and spices, perfumes and amber jewelry, desert delicacies and date wine, more than one merchant has sent a representative to either help fund or participate in the journey.

In spite of the unrest plaguing Azure Strand, the building of the Azure Rising proved to be a bright spot on the horizon. As more merchants added their names to the charter the support provided work for the people, and the gorgeous vessel, when it was finished, was something the people of Azure Strand could speak about with pride. An accomplishment that none of the other cities could say they'd done better. Given that the mission was not funded or policed by the Ebon Knights, those with a history of either skirting or breaking the law could potentially find a place on the crew.

The wooden skeleton of the ship grew into a fine rich galleon and was rolled from the dry docks into the harbour where she was dressed in fresh rigging and blue sails, the long black Ebonfort pennant fluttering at the top of her mizzenmast. Her figurehead, the front half of a pegasus with wings lifted in flight, made her look ready to brave the dangers of the sea. By Saffra 15th she was ready to set sail, for better or worse.

OOC Info

This is a Quest that will likely span several months IRL and IC. Characters involved will be considered time-locked, which means they can not participate in any new events until the quest is finished. The only other way to RP them during this time is to play events that happened before the start of the quest, or side-RPs directly related to the quest itself (which is encouraged!)

Quests are a great way for your characters to enjoy big adventure and even bigger rewards, usually far more than what they can earn in non-quest RPs. There are also risks, up to and including the possible death of your character (though this is rare).

Please note that replies for quests are required no more than 7 days after the last GM post. There is no posting order and you can post as many times as you wish before the next GM post. I encourage you to take advantage of the time to let your character use their skills. The sooner all participants have posted, the sooner I will move forward.

If you want to bring your character along but feel that they may need a tailored introduction to this quest, please contact me privately so we can work something out. As it stands, you can assume that your character has heard about the building of the ship somehow and that it is setting sail for distant lands.

[Ebonfort] Blighted

"I seek nothing...Everything I cared for is gone..."

The man started to speak, but was suddenly interrupted by the swift shape of Castiel the owl. The brown and white bird of prey struck silently at the man's face, though he managed to through up his arm just in time to save himself from the wicked talons. The owl screeched, flapping wildly as the man tried to shake him off. His expression was one of mild annoyance, and he seemed to be muttering something under his breath.

"...all that is living shall meet with death. Everything I loved was torn from me. You too shall feel that agony...Druid"

Heedless of the barn owl's wicked beak, the man snatched at him, his bloodied fingers clutching clumps of feathers out of the bird's skin. His intent was calmly murderous, as though the Familiar was nothing more than chicken who needed to be wrung out by the neck.

Castiel was saved by Crann's other Familiar as Bryan came shuffling forward. The man clutched Castiel by the wing and ripped him from his arm, flinging the bird hard against a tree-trunk. There was a harsh "Hoo-!" and a loud snap, and Castiel dropped to the ground and did not move.

Crann would be able to feel that Castiel was grievously injured and no longer conscious, but not quite dead.

Turning to face the tendrils of the plant-creature, the man shoved his sleeves back to bare the skin of his forearms. "Even the mightiest oak will one day crumble into dust."

The first tendril whipped close to the man's face. He reached for it and missed, but managed to catch the second as it struck low to ensnare his torso. A high-pitched shriek erupted from Bryan's mouth as a gruesome pain burned along the flexible branch. Loyal to Crann, he didn't stop his attack, but every tendril that struck the man seemed to immediately wither and begin to decay. Some crumbled dryly, some seemed to soften and bloat, becoming limp and useless.

"How does it feel to watch them die?" The man's composure was slipping. His thin-lipped sneer had become a fierce grimace, his eyes almost manic with a sort of terrible anger or grief. What had happened to make him this way?

Jimmory did his best. He managed to fire only one arrow before his almond eyes caught sight of Castiel's feathery shape. The presence of the sleek raptor spoiled his shot until the man threw the Familiar aside. The faun gasped in despair, sure that the owl was dead. It was so sudden! So cruel!

Spurred on by the injustice, Jimmory slid down to the ground, firing arrow after arrow at the plague-man. Many of them went wide, thudding harmlessly into the dirt, but one, two, then three managed to find their mark. One in the bicep and two in the thigh. Other than a grunt, he didn't seem to notice, too busy trying to poison Bryan with his touch before the shambling vine-beast could get him in a good grip.

Ebonfort

Well done! I will review it tomorrow after work unless one of the gentlemen gets to it first. @Yennefer

[Ebonfort] Blighted

A testament to the puma's madness, it didn't even seem to register the plant-creature until Bryan's flailing tendrils struck hard against its desiccated form. Turning to this new target, the mountain lion shrieked and lashed its curving talons against the tree-Familiar. The sharp claws didn't do much damage by themselves, but the force behind the blows crushed or severed many of Bryan's writhing branches. The huge teeth sank into Bryan's woody trunk, leaving deep holes.

But even a mighty carnivore was not designed to take on a tree.

Eventually Bryan would grab hold and manage to maintain his grip, lassoing the puma, who jerked back against the restraint with ear-splitting yowls. Bark flew and heavy paws drummed concussively against the Familiar, knocking him around but unable to break his hold. More and more, one limb after another, Bryan gained the upper tentacle, and his grip began to do more than grip.

Snap! Pop-pop-pop! The tightening vice of viney tendrils began to crush, snapping bones and forcing air out of the puma's mouth. It was not slow, and it was not pretty. Black blood oozed out of its mouth and then out of its remaining eye as it struggled noisily, twisting in unnatural positions and gurgling obscenely until Bryan had literally wrung the life out of it. As it died, Crann would know instinctively that this creature was Bonded to another, just as Bryan was Bonded to her.

If there was any true life there in the first place.

Jimmory vomited casually in the background, bracing himself against the tree.

And then a dry, raspy voice full of callous cruelty wondered aloud. "I felt his loss, to be sure. It wasn't as painful as I had imagined. Though, he wasn't long for the world anyways, as I'm sure you noticed, little shrub."

A human man in a tattered brown duster has emerged from the trees. He wasn't overly tall, and his skin was rather ashen and drawn, pocked and craggy like one suffering from disease. The effect wasn't improved by bruiselike shadows moving across his skin. They were similar to the Marks of any druid, but something was...wrong with them. His eyes were dark and cloudy, though he did not seem to have any trouble seeing Crann. A stink of death wafted from him, not the sharp odour of a rotting corpse, but something far more deliberate and insidious. Something that seemed to emanate. Even while he stood, a hand resting easily on the trunk of a tree next to him, the grass at his feet was beginning to wilt, the bark of the tree blackening and spreading.

"I have many more friends like Mogar there. It will be quite satisfying to see the despair on your face when my good work reaches your precious tree."

He spoke fey well. Almost too well, like someone who had once lingered appreciatively among her kind.

Behind him, the forest was dying.

[Ebonfort] Blighted

The deathly cougar snarled and snapped, its voice rattley and foul as fangs the length of Crann's palm darted for her face again and again. Its mouth was slimy, its breath rotten. It was only the angle of her staff across her chest that spoiled the puma's aim and its decaying mouth came away only with clumps of viney growth torn roughly from her head.

It didn't seem to notice that there was something growing out of Crann's back, insubstantial at first but resolving into something solid and threatening. It also didn't notice when the first turquoise-fletched arrow zipped through the air with a faint 'thwp!' and buried deep into its flank.

The undead mountain lion did notice when a second arrow struck it in the side of the head, and black blood began to ooze slowly from the wound. It jumped off of Crann to reposition itself, snarling and yowling.

Face to face with the monster and busy summoning her own, Crann would not notice the growing feeling of loathsomeness approaching from the same direction that the cougar had, but Jimmory, thinking he was safe up in the crotch of a tree and taking pot shots at the big cat, trembled as dread slid like icy fingers down his spine.

"Come on Bryan, throttle that thing!" He cheered the plant-beast on, his voice high and squeaky.

(Ebonfort) Strangers in a Strange Land

"The best of both deserts," Drache repeated. "I have heard similar sayings. It would be nice to think they made it easier." She smiled back, showing her white teeth, but her flashy exuberance seemed to have dropped to a simmer.

When the man spoke in his own tongue, Drache searched his face intently, as if there was some clue about what he was saying. The language was pleasing to her ear-frills and her eyelids drooped until her gaze was a mere sliver of orange-red. He would learn eventually that this expression meant she was pleased, the throaty rumble making it more obvious.

"I have no idea what you said, but I'll let myself think it was flattering." She chuckled throatily and gave his knee a squeeze. "I like the way my name sounds on your lips, Raffey."

Sparring seductively with him all night would have been fun, but she could tell that there was much on his mind, and in spite of her eagerness she didn't want anything more if he wasn't all in. The food had been eaten, the fire was burning low, and the night was creeping on. The dragoness sighed smokily and rose sinuously to her feet, yawning.

"Everyone else is asleep except the sentry. We would be wise to follow suit, yes? Come share my tent and rest." It was possible he would decline, given her earlier flirting and his apparent reluctance, but as she held her hand out there was something genuine in her face at her offer to just sleep out of the wind next to someone warm.

They Have Returned (Ebonfort)

Aside from the infrequent soft grumbles, Drache and Raffey were both quiet as the crimson dragonkin tapped and poked the stones with the javelin, her claws pricking against the wooden length. Her ear-frill gave a flick at Raffey's voice speaking in his own language. She couldn't understand it of course, and glanced his way as she lifted up the javelin out of his way.

She never saw the trick step. Following silently behind the shorter not-human, it was only by sheer luck that she was close enough to be grabbed and hauled bodily down to the ground. Her wings unfurled automatically, flying up behind her like a pair of collapsed parasols as she went tumbling down with a hissing, spitting snarl and a final "Oof!"

Drache's breath was hot on Raffey's face, the hybrid stunned for a moment, glancing back over her shoulder as she pushed herself up. "Why the fu-....oh, xsio!" Upon noticing the lethal spears that had nearly impaled them both, Drache turned back to Raffey with a note of appreciation on her scaly visage. He'd saved her life. Huh. Luckily she wasn't one of those idiots who believed in life debts or any such nonsense. As she scrambled to her feet, twisting like a cat, Drache was amazed that she had gotten away unscathed, being closer to the spines than Raffey.

Or, nearly unscathed. There was a hole in her wing membranes; harmless, but annoying. Hearing Raffey's grunt she looked down. "That looks bad." Her face scrunched worriedly but she didn't try to help, knowing that when it came to healing things she was likely to just make things worse. The scent of blood filled her nostrils. "Can you walk?" At first it seemed a stupid thing to ask, but then, the bleeding was already slowing. Either Raffey or his people must have been made out of sterner stuff.

While the air was filled with the sound of tearing fabric and a man hastily bandaging his injured leg, Drache kept watch on the portal, but only after tearing her eyes away from the spear trap. She wondered what it would feel like to be the one person left alive after unwittingly slaughtering those behind you. And she wondered at the reason for the trap. Unless it was meant to stop something going the other way...

She shook her horns. Not knowing what was behind the portal made it hard to guess anything else about this place. "Yes. I'm fine, nothing serious." She waggled her wings as if to prove it and then stood awkwardly by as he helped himself up. "You know if you wanted me on top all you had to do was ask..."

The firebreather was unable to help the joke, but it sounded strained and she was still looking around, her attention snapping back as the monster-hunter told her to leave him behind. "Rhyvobit!" She snapped, the draconic word for bullshit, offended, looking him dead in the eyes. "I believe that about as much as you'd believe me if I said I was going for help."

She moved close, slipping her arm around Raffey's back so that he could lean on her, which would work well given that she was a bit taller. Her wing swept protectively around him too as she helped him away from the spines and towards the edge of the arena.

Ebonfort

Welcome everyone. If you need to reach me on Skype I'm drache04.

They Have Returned (Ebonfort)

The hybrid continued to grumble and mutter under her breath, tail twitching back and forth as she tilted her head first one way and then the other. Her constant rumble of cursing switched to draconic at some point, and while it was a harsher language it seemed to suit her voice a bit better than Common.

Tilting her head first one way and then the other, Drache eventually began to prod the stones that were raised up, hoping that they were just loose. She was no expert on traps, as evidenced by a few scars on her body. Her approach was basically "spring it before it springs me" if she could find something.

Drache didn't have the same sense of impending doom that Raffey did, but she was watching him, firstly out of simple attraction but now more because he had turned out to be trustworthy and capable so far. "Your blood is up. What do you smell?" She wasn't asking literally. She followed his eyes to the portal and the floating orb shapes.

They Have Returned (Ebonfort)

With her hands tracing the raised edges of carvings along the walls, or sketching the unfamiliar designs down in one of her logbooks with details on where to find this place again, Drachiathoryx glanced out of the corner of her eye and noticed Raffey staring at her. Upon noting this, the red dragonkin paused and then gave a subtle shake of her hips and a wink. There was no protest when he joined her, though the half-dragon grumble a little at being disagreed with, continuing to stare up at the drawing with her horns cocked a little to the side. Her tongue gave a thoughtful flick out of her mouth.

"You see this much differently than I do. But fine, we'll have it your way." As she fell in step behind him, she muttered, "Don't get used to it."

If it was possible for a half fire dragon to cry, Drache's ember eyes would have been watering from the foulness of the fetid stink. But instead, she bore a foul grimace that twisted her face into something fierce. At any moment she expected to find a pile of rotting corpses or worse.

The tomb raider tried to keep track of the carvings on the walls, scribbling the most interesting ones, but found it difficult to concentrate. Yet when the came across the carving of the circle with different landscapes on either side, her ear-frills flattened worriedly. "That...looks like a portal." If the vague references to such things she had come across in her reading had taught her anything, it was that portals were Dangerous.

She couldn't wait to find out!

Drache's eyebrow lifted when Raffey started to tear at his shirt, and the dragoness stopped, watching eagerly, only to seem a little disappointed when all she got out of it was a scrap of cloth. She was capable of clamping her nostrils shut (though it meant tasting the stench instead), so she settled for draping the rag across her snout and sniffing the smell of Raffey.

The she-drake had a way of walking when suspicious of danger, the confident swagger becoming more of a slow prowl as her tail and wings lifted up instinctively in readiness. Together they peered into the room, and Drache gave a clack of her teeth.

"Someone's stolen all the shinies, I see." She wasn't so much angry at the theft as she was that she hadn't gotten there first! She started to move into the room, but the tiered benches gave her pause. Her tail gave a thoughtful twitch. "Only one way out, if you don't count that," she gestured to the portal, trying to fight the nearly overwhelming urge to step through it. It was almost like a sort of vertigo. The glowing doorway seemed to grow larger in her mind even though the distance to it seemed to grow. She shook her head to banish the weirdness.

"Don't look at me like that, I've never come across an intact portal before. Who knows what's on the other side! I'm surprised it's unguarded. And where the fuck is that stink coming from? Your natural musk only kept it at bay for so long, my dear."

She pulled the scrap of cloth away from her snout and scratched her claws uncertainly against the doorframe, inspecting it to see if it looked like it might be trapped. So many ruins were at least partly unstable, if not booby-trapped. It was a sure sign you were close to something good.

"Wait, Raffey. Don't move."

Eyeing the stones just inside the doorway, wishing angrily that she had a way of sensing if things were amiss, Drache held her hand out. "Let me borrow that stick. I need to poke something."