ERode

Qualia: Mission Sub Rosa

_{@Psyker Landshark}
While the newspapers brought up some concerning local news, it was informative enough to release the dorms that Jeanne was staying in as well. After all, she was supposed to be functionally under house arrest, and considering the nature of how rooming worked in Bermuda, it was more or less a public service to alert other young, budding Polymaths of whether or not their apartment featured a psychotic arsonist who burned down libraries and didn't even care enough to pretend she was remorseful.

The Incan-style apartments then, was where Valeriya ended up.

By the time she arrived, most of the premises had been vacated, the residents having left during the early hours of the morning to either get things done or prepare for anti-fire measures. A few students lounged still by the beautifully clear pools, enjoying fruity drinks and the warmth of the sun, but beyond the smell of grilling meat, Valeriya could sense a more disturbed stench. Her training had exposed her to it, after all, as a simple matter of course when learning to fight with electrically-charged less-lethal weaponry. The smell of burned flesh. The drops of blood upon the stair steps, flaking and dried out, but still very clearly visible. If she had waited for noon, perhaps this would be gone, flakes brushed away and air purified by seaside breezes.

But for now? Something was certainly off here. She simply didn't know what.

Cacophony Concord

Klein kept his head down, and Leif kept his nose up, their two bodies pressed close as Arion fumed and flew over the plains. Every second or so, another blast of psychic energy cratered the ground, but at this distance at least, there was still enough of a delay between the flash atop the mountain and the actual impact for the Wolfpack Shaman to maneuver, dodging by the nick of his skin even as he continued to burn out his resources slowly. In combat, after all, one’s MP did not regenerate naturally, and Arion was chugging through his MP in order to make it out alive.

So, what did he do? Simply sacrifice others.

One second elapsed, and the shot did not come. It streaked elsewhere instead, accompanied by the faintly visible rising of threads in the distance. Another second elapsed, and the sniper shot dogged his heel once more, as if to remind him that he was not off the hook yet. And so it continued, Leif chased by a sniper whose bullets traced him so long as he did not point elsewhere. Perhaps it was cruel, unusual. Perhaps Klein simply continued to bitch about how OP ranged was. But Leif’s strange partnership appeared to be working out, at least. And as Arion’s tank ran empty, as his own MP reserves dropped and he could no longer sustain his activities…the expected shot did not arrive.

Instead, there was a ping in his mind.

Killer Gram has sent a friend request.

…

“600 rishi? Dang, sounds good.” As the axeman figured out payments and rooming arrangements with Britomart, the others settled down at another table, happy to just be able to chill. The metalband youth turned to face Magpie as she spoke up, nodding in appreciation of her aesthetic.

“Just travelling through ourselves. We're off to join the war effort, yeah? The actual jobs sounded sorta bullshit n all.” A couple of them nodded in agreement, as the cloaks were stowed away and the weapons that any half-noteworthy Immortal would have glimmered in the Sweet Maid’s lighting.

“Crazy place though,” commented the sage of the group, a wand hanging from his beaded sash. “Literal inn in the middle of nowhere. No roads or anything. How did y’all find this place?”

A more rogue-like figure with a demonic half-mask covering the lower half of their face flicked out a couple of coins and waved at Britomart. “Round o’ fruit juice, pretty miss~”

Symphony of Espers

Yeesh, I get it. Sam hates humans.

Anyhow, I personally think it's overtuned to cause physical damage twice (especially because it's essentially unavoidable after the fact), but the conditions are whacky enough that maybe it's ok. In the case of physical damage in particular, it's very much a sink or swim thing, considering how physical damage is the one that's least affected by ranks...which means that it's either useful (magi, esper) or useless (monsters).

That is to say that it's fine if Broken thinks it is.

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

It was a beautiful day in Grayle. The sun was shining and the sky was clear, with a cool breeze blowing a thin mist up from the resplendent aquamarine surface of the Viridian River, drawing rainbows of refracted light out into the spring air. Blessed by the grace of ancestors whose deeds became mythological, verdant beauty arose from every corner of the alabaster city. It was the season of beginnings, the season of one’s excitement, and the chicks had flown from their roost, familiar flocks guiding fledglings in the art of the flight. Upon King’s Bridge, a youth, cherubic in beauty, lingered upon the cobblestone, his eyes downcast.

A sparrow, a cheeky little thing, pranced upon the palm of his hand, beak darting down to snatch up a crumb or two. Every once in a while, the dapple-feathered chick would look back up at him, rotate its head, then go back to eating. He watched it enjoy itself and wondered of it. What would it be like, to be a bird? Flying freely, unfettered by all but the most base necessities. Castles and towers, the apex of human craft, boasted views that paled in comparison to what a common pest could experienced. What a charmed creature.

He closed his hand before it sensed his intent, fingers lacing over its wings and pinning them against the sparrow’s body. Warmth seeped into his hand, the warmth of a fuzzy little thing struggling to free itself from a heartless giant. Against his palm, he could feel the pinpricks of its talons vibrating with every steadily accelerating heartbeat. And then it was hot. The hot of a drop of blood.

Rossweine smiled, opened his hand, and watched the bird fly off. Shakily, sporadically at first, then with increasing speed and confidence. What remained then, in his hand? Nothing but a drop of blood, staining the crescent-shaped crease that mirrored his thumb. He turned towards the castle, the courtyard, the mass of hopefuls and hopeless that trampled upon it.

Nobles were relaxed. Swordsmen were confident. Commoners, anxious.

Royalty, ambivalent.

At this distance, it was easy enough to tell that the stage was yet empty. Manegold talked about tradition before, of how it was customary to let the children stew a bit. A power play, his older brother had said, back when they still had time to speak regularly. Rossweine didn’t get it then, and didn’t care for it now. Wasting away in the mire of humanity was meaningless, even if those crowds would part ways out of reverence regardless.

The Moonkissed Princeling let out a sigh, wiping the blood off on the marbled railings of the bridge, his steps taken to the tempo of an orchestration he fancied.

It was a beautiful day in Grayle. The sun was shining and the sky was clear. Too precious an experience to expend rushing to and fro. The wind brushed a kiss up to his cheeks from the depths of the waterfall, and a faint smile played upon his lips, his mind painting over the world that his eyes told him of.

He will take his time.

No one was waiting, after all.

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

Oh ye, is the Discord getting set up, or are we ultimately sticking with OOC?

Symphony of Espers

I’d say just equal it to Apollo’s. 10% mana refund for the melody.

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

I’m ok with the doggo, though his nose will suffer.

Want me to provide you with a mini CS for Manegold?

Epic of Beginnings - Dawns Cradle

Hammer met chisel. Over and over again, chipping at cold, round stone.

Atzi was functionally illiterate, but even she knew her letters. Knew them enough that she could copy them out from the scripts that Achel had written for her. Chains of letters to form names, names to remind one of those that had perished. Her shoulders heaved, tense, sweat beading upon her forehead even within the silent, damp catacombs. Hammer met chisel once more, and her fingers brushed the indentations in the stone, then reached to rub the corners of her eye.

A breath caught her throat and she swallowed hard. The physical labour was easy. The emotional toil was hard. But wasn’t it always?

Over four hundred dead, and a quarter of them didn’t even leave a trace behind, devoured by the Elder Beast’s kindred. Marked graves with nothing buried beneath. A lifetime of memories, reduced to the feces expelled by the sons and daughters of a natural disaster. The woman turned her face to the right, scarlet iris catching a glimpse of Achel. The Chiralta was knelt before yet another corpse that the village men have brought. Blackened flesh, hardened by hoarfrost, reduced a familiar face to a ghoulish mimicry, but Atzi recognized them too well. Dorovi, a young widow who had, just a couple months back, began looking as if she was moving on from the loss of her husband. Now, dead, and not even afforded the dignity to be buried at sea with him.

Tragedies continued, an avalanche that wiped away all thoughts of the future and suffocated one with the past. Achel had kept up her duties as Grave Keeper, had kept at the same pace as Atzi herself, even when she was so much weaker. The tears in her dress were evident, were ignored.

Above, the church’s bells rang and Atzi rose.

“The meeting,” she said, dumbly. “We should go.”

But Achel continued her work.

…

Enli’s speech was a speech. He spoke too much. It didn’t matter what he said. It didn’t matter who he blamed. The words continued on, echoing against the church’s walls. Maddening. Atzi sat on a pew at the back, eye burning a hole into the ground, hands clasped in a violent mockery of prayer. So many problems, so many concerns, so much scarcity. So much to do, that it was nothing more than a blessing that so many strangers arrived at Dawn. A blessing, but one that could only talk on and on and on and on.

Her body burned. Her memories replayed. Summer days, halcyon days. The dead still living, the village still intact. The sea filled with fish, the Kyrnith understanding. And then the scream of the storm, the blizzard battering homes and coating the world in deathly white, one that could not be removed no matter how industriously she wielded a shovel, then a plank of wood, then her bare hands.

She needed action. She needed to act. Move and go.

Partway through Gideon’s dissertation, Atzi stood up, abruptly. Her eye caught Akando’s, one bloodshot eye to match two measured ones. Her first words were a jumbled, incomprehensible mess. She swallowed hard, tried again. Knew what she was getting herself into, but knew that she’d have to do it anyways. Her voice thundered, strong even when hoarse from those nights where she could only scream in rage, wail in grief. There would be more to come.

Emotional labour.

“I’m looking for Maira. I know where she’d usually be.”

A pause. A nod, to herself more than anything else.

“And before that, I’m feeding Achel. Something hot.”

The Moon Goddess dozed in the corner of her eye upon a floating piece of translucent parchment. She ignored its scribbles, even as it expanded to greater and greater lengths. After all, Atzi could not read.

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

You're also in two RPs that I GM for, soooooo.

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

Zombehs (and Izu, but he's irrelevant) is the one person here who've I've RPed with too much. I'd personally prefer not being stuck with him here too.