ERode

Children of the Otherworld - An Isekai Story

It was a skiff without a motor. In waters this deep, it was just a well-shaped raft.

And the storm that struck was terrible indeed, waves rising like walls. His hands gripped the sides of his vessel just to stick to it as it tumbled over mountains and into valleys, a gut-wrenching ride caught by intermittent flashes of lightning.

But the struggle was what he needed, wasn’t it? Fire lanced up his limbs, a muscle torn, a tendon ruptured. The pain kept him aware, aware of the warmth of his blood against the chill of the ocean’s spray. And awareness brought joy all on its own, a rush of pleasure that persisted only through a complete and utter commitment to surviving the next minute, the next second, the next moment. He opened his mouth and enjoyed torrential rain; he scrubbed his eyes, tears forming from the salt in the spindrift.

And then, he found the world flipped on its head, a haunting cry the last thing he heard before he struck the waters.

Instinct drove him to kick upwards as the bubbles burst out from his nose. His hands pulled for the skiff he had never let go of, but only fragments remained in his grasp. He swivelled around, but the undertow, the churning of currents, continued to pull. Fire entered his lungs now, and adrenaline gave him another shot of alacrity, the exhilaration now of simply fighting for another few seconds of existence, for without a boat, there was no surviving the ocean depths. A futile struggle.

Always, a struggle.

And within the gloomy dark, lit up by shafts of light cast from the crackling of lightning thousands of meters up in the sky, Belo laid his eyes upon a whale for the first time of his life.

The world was wide.

If only he had seen more of it.

…

A thought bubbled up alongside his last breath.

Was that all?

Children of the Otherworld - An Isekai Story

I dunno, I think the Time-Space Administrative Bureau looks like a pretty good organization to get detained by.



Good deal better looking than a truck, don'tcha think?

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

_{@Psyker Landshark}

She had allowed herself the privilege of a late morning that day. Not because the encounter with the Golden Boars had exhausted her, but simply because she had been riding for so long beforehand. No, it would be best to keep the Golden Boars out of her mind. They and theirs had been a disappointment, too similar to the bandits of that uncrowned ‘king’, ultimately unable to force any real challenge unto anyone.

She remained in a liminal, transitional space, unable to see where she stood. Unable to have something that caused the blood to properly boil, unable to find ferocity reciprocated in equal measure. It was strange, how her desires had become so malformed once she had joined the Order, once she surrounded herself with allies who were only her equals or were legends far out of reach.

Stranger still, that her enemies became ones who were either not worth the blood they spilt upon her steel, or whom her steel had no hopes of leaving a mark upon. Perhaps she should’ve hunted for a worthy head. Perhaps she should’ve left others to handle themselves in those battlefields. Perhaps…

Serenity withheld a sigh within the shade and heat of Candaeln’s forge. She inspected the buckler once more, checking for any dents or nicks, any flaws to fix up, but there weren’t any. Her sword had already been cared for, sharpened and oiled, while her armour only required some surface cleaning to remove the viscera. It was busywork, really. Even as someone who was proud of keeping her equipment in pristine condition after every fight, she understood that this was all just busywork. Something to take her mind off the strange sense of futility that had slipped into her mind over the past few weeks.

What are you trying to be?

A knight.

UN/Alive-Real (18+) (Temporarily Closed)

Mm, leaning towards the Dream Demon setup here. Could do a whole lotta reality dissociation n all.

Iris Ascendis

And thar. Into the GM's court.

Also, to state it OOCly, it's Otis's intent to announce those accepted and release the chairs when time is pretty close to running out. I'll leave it up to you, Nanaya, to decide on when that time is.

Iris Ascendis

_{@Nanaya@Estylwen@AThousandCurses@Sifr@Psyker Landshark}

Well, better law to be restored amongst the students by an exemplar rather than with gunfire. Otis met the red-haired youth’s stare, his own expression a practiced calm that was broken only by that flicker of inquisition that he could never truly get rid of. The Leuvalt name carried a gravitas to it, at least more so than Arillo, and the Strigidae himself had no particular qualms about allowing Valen to enjoy his pride. Heroes had their arrogance; it was a necessary quality for one whom accomplished deeds of martial excellence.

Gulliver too had been powerful, powerful enough to take on a team of exemplary prospectives at once, powerful enough that Otis would not have fought him head-on if he were alone. By that quality alone, he had allowed the noble puppeteer a seat, a share of the glory. He would be inconsistent and foolish, to bend his criteria simply because of a child’s pretentiousness.

So all Otis spared to Valen was a nod, before students less capable began to crowd the front, their cries falling upon ears that were all-too willing to accept them, to parse them, to categorize them. He shared the paladin’s words on the matter, thought Ciara’s own criteria as something too heavily laced in ulterior motives. He had expected much more out of those who would even get a chance of attending Wingram Academy. He had expected them to possess pride in their capabilities and, if not pride, then the poise to face their own shortcomings head-on. If they were heroes, they had to have a strong will. If they were to change the world, then they had to have knowledge and ingenuity. If they had neither, and pleaded rather than promoted?

…that had no particular effect on Otis’s criteria either. It only affected his opinions, which mattered so much less than their Ethos, their individual peculiarities that he could make something out of.

Time continued to pass.

He continued to index those with potential.

He had glanced over the boy that the bespectacled one had pointed out, but while charity and loyalty to one’s friend was admirable, there was no point in giving a chair to someone who didn’t desire one to begin with.

“He will receive it if he comes. It won’t be fair otherwise.”

And indeed, as time continued to tick away, Otis remained still, giving every student time to say their piece. He did not bring forth a single seat, did not even demonstrate the method in which he would perform such a feat. Instead, he simply waited, burning away the time.

Preparing, perhaps, for those last five minutes, in which everything depended on his ability to instill elation and despair in equal measure, enough so to quell any desire for violence.

It didn’t hurt though, to give another some perspective.

“Davil. Take a breath. They will not be banned from Wingram Academy for this one failure. They can return next year, better prepared for what lies ahead. And when they do, you will be able to guide them as their upperclassman.”

A void of thought.

“For some, it’s better not to leap before they’ve the wings to fly.”

Iris Ascendis

Will either post tonight or after Sifr does, depending on what happens first.

Iris Ascendis

>Let go of my pet.
>pet

Damn, Davil’s gonna get pegged on his first date, eh?

Iris Ascendis

Rekordian nobility...

The Revolution shall not spare him and his ilk.

Iris Ascendis

Gonna post relatively later in the round this time. Otis will finally establish a mental group chat with the others (minus Gulliver) and basically say something like "Yah, there's literally not enough seats for all of the beggars; tell me if there's any one of them that you're interesting."

And Nanaya, Otis is literally only interested in them if they have an interesting Ethos, a set of generally interesting specialties, or are already in the process of doing research. Otherwise, he thinks very little of a group of heroes that can't even make a goddamn stool to squat upon.