Fading Memory

The Wild Beyond Witchlight

Fair warning, she already was a huge sappy nerd and this is just +1 to her already existent sappy nerd status. She basically robbed Charm if you think about it. Really, in the grand scheme of things, she's a thief and a curmudgeon. Practically two steps from being Brutrumukk herself. How does it feel to look into the mirror, eh Brutus?

Planescape: Search for Tir na Og

Zaraknvyr let the words weigh on him. The pit of dread in his gut solidified. His pale eyes fell to the cat as Tabiah murmured her spell. As the vestiges of Detect Magic washed over him, he lifted a hand and curled it behind his own neck to scratch the irritation from his flesh. He meowed;

"Fellow hunter, in order to benefit of your talents I must safeguard your master. So be it."

Candles sparked to life. Zaraknvyr grunted, pulling his hand away from the mass of scar tissue at the base of his neck. His nails came away lightly blooded and he took care in licking them clean. The vestiges of his own spell faded shortly after his words, his comprehension of Abasi's mewing going with it. Such was the nature of magic and its fleeting boons. Such was why Zaraknvyr mastered his flesh first and the powers second. Paranoia licked at the back of his mind even now. His own searching would be a waste of time. Tabiah would inevitably find their goal without his aid. At their back, however, was potential danger. Bleakers. A fight he, frankly, was not certain he could win without cleverness and ambush. A fight that, truthfully, never needed to happen but he fantasized about nonetheless.

Fyodor's hand reaching for the hammer. Zaraknvyr's hands trembled in anticipation. He steadied them by pretending to go through the motions of searching; in truth he was moving to be away from the stair entrance, and at the edge of the light. Naturally seeking to cling to shadow and darkness as he lurked in quiet awareness of his party's rear and his own insane perception of potential hostiles. He moved a barrel here. A box there. Knocked upon a lid once or twice to create a positional noise, only to silently step away and do so again elsewhere. If he found their path it would truly be the fates guiding his hands, because his intentions were to delegate this task and prepare to hide should danger appear.

The Wild Beyond Witchlight

I am unreasonably excited about receiving a specifically dry bundle of wood.

The Wild Beyond Witchlight

"Oh. Is that all?" She laughed heartily, shifting her hips and placing her left hand on her waist as the right hand lifted and twirled blatantly in a loose tuft of her wavy hair. "Well, a girl can hardly refuse that kind of offer, hm? Rory's got a good point though, I'd love to have a few more variables to this mystery myself. Especially about 'Tara. Since we seem to be getting off on such a good foot, it'd be absolutely brill if you could clear a few things up for us."

AZUL Islands - Drama, Romance, Mystery, Slice of Life

@QueenBea@Pilatus

Her hands lifted away from the controls swiftly as Chris took control back. A slow breath eased out of her lips, only lightly registering through the headset. She waved her hands lightly before her, the phantom vibrations of the engine still tingling in her grasp. With the slow exhalation completed, she sniffed once to regain her breath and relaxed back against her seat with a groan. She rotated her neck from side to side, seeming to have developed some crick from her unintentional movements while focusing.

"Not a thing to run into, nothin' but empty air, and I lean into it like it's a bike. What the hell is my problem?" She laughed and shifted, now focusing on looking out over the scenery. Her forehead rested against the window. She lifted her right hand and brushed over her bare left shoulder, almost hugging herself as a giddiness manifested-- but it did not survive the sight of the winery passing below. She sighed again, mood not entirely soured but certainly brought back into a moderation.

"Hey, take as many circuits as you need; papa's footing the gas bill right?" She snorts, her nose wriggling. Her comment did not intend for him to alter his flight path whatsoever, but even she seemed to grow tired of her self pity after it left her lips. She adjusted her posture again, eyes leaving one particularly irate woman to her fury below. As the Cessna lilted and slowed, Iris looked upwards rather than down. Wild hair splayed around the headset, brushing over her eyes and away from her shoulders and neck as she looked upwards at the sky. Then, as her eyes swiveled and looked at Chris instead she smiled. The casual concentration and talent he wielded was an infectious comfort.

"Well, if it's any consolation, there's a young lady in your passenger seat..." The plane levelled out, her bangs shifted loose of the headset to fall back over her eyes, and she licked her lips. "...who has a certain adoration for this thing. Noise be damned."

The finer points and elegance of their landing were lost on Iris, who only experienced Chris' mastery through the ignorant satisfaction of a smooth landing. The aircraft glided along and met the dock seamlessly. Iris did not move until Chris killed the engine. Slowly she pulled the headset off and chewed on her lip, gazing at it between her two hands. She bounced it lightly in her palms then paused, and plucked a stray hair of hers out of a seam in the plastic.

"Almost left you a souvenir." She chuckled and let the hair slip between her fingers into the breeze as she opened the Cessna door. The sunlight hit her dark complexion as she leapt out onto the dock and stretched in the familiar warmth and smells of...home. She turned and looked out over the waters, so lost in her sudden dive back into real life that Jewel's arms wrapping around her came as surprise.

"Oh, shit, it's you." The words fell from Iris' lips with the full force of her years spent in Miami; crude, affectionate, and with strong affectation. A level of adoration rose in the words and she shifted to hug Jewel back with a full bodied squeeze. Iris pulled back, gazing at Jewel even as Jewel's eyes found Chris. When she spoke next, it was as if Jewel's presence had revived Iris' natural accent in full force. Rather than the Americanized tones she had acclimated to, the Azulean dialect arose;

"It's good to see you." The words fell with sincerity, though Iris stepped back a few paces as Miguel approached as well and nodded deferentially to the patriarch. Her presence seemed to diminish for a moment, discussion taking place around and over her rather than at or with. She swept a hand through her hair, basking in the familiarity of it all even as the embers of something fierce stoked within her. There was a natural groove set before her, an easy mental path, to fall back into the shadows she had hid in before her exodus. Gravity pulled her towards those dreary mental pathways with an allure of inevitability. Her reverie placed her a pace behind Jewel and Chris as they made their way towards the invitation. Jewel's words floated to her ears, and Iris raised an eyebrow at the subtle contact her cousin had initiated.

"That's an understatement." She laughed loudly, striding forth to match pace with the two and hijacking the conversational direction in one fell swoop. She took up position on Jewel's opposite side from Chris, stretching her arms above her head with a deeply satisfied groan. "We've got a lot of catching up to do, and I need to get out of these pants as fast as humanly possible."

She chose to fight the looming inevitability in her mind for now; things would be better this time.

Household Adventures, a Two Little Mice game

I'm having a good time with this, thank you folks for trying this out with me :)

The Wild Beyond Witchlight

same

The Things We Fight For

The dim glow of a viewscreen reflected in his eyes. The nearly intangible thrum of a capital ship's engines emanated through the walls. The artificial gravity tugged at him in a way that was entirely too gentle. The blade, sheathed and shrouded, stand upright against the wall before him. Weariness gripped him. He blinked away the days of wakefulness. He blinked away the years of memories.

The last time he'd been aboard the Dream of Dawn, Thrax was shattering apart below him. He blinked through the fog of time and stared into the viewscreen anew. He'd reread this page thrice already. Alora approached. He began to read it the fourth time. The words were as new to his eyes as they were the first.

Abberant Integration System, Subject One...

Schematics. Blueprints. Anatomical drawings. Most of the information was redacted, but enough was there to have pulled Joab out of retirement. Enough was there for the brass to have gone to Maui Covenant and put a sword hilt in his hand. Enough was there for Lictor to be here now. His eyes watered. Through the reaches of memory, long bladed forelimbs rose from the viewscreen towards him. His hand tightened. The screen cracked. He blinked, and thumbed to the next dossier. As the now flickering holo-display shifted he wiped at his eyes.

A battle scarred Grizzly. Its paint job and loadout immediately drawing forth the smells of the jungle. Weight crept into his shoulders. He leaned heavier into the chair. His boot thumped heavily on the ground. He sniffed, and smelled the searing ozone of the tesla-trees. The still image of the Grizzly loomed in his vision. The Prometheus cannon spun as a phantom in his eyes. The roar filled his ears. Aberrant ichor and gunsmoke filled his nose. He could feel the earth tremble beneath the mech's titanic steps.

M.C.P.O. Howser, Teddy Bear, New Halcyon...

He licked his lips, and thumbed the cracked screen again. Carnifex loomed beyond the holo-display, the blackened scabbard piercing through a display of the Grizzly's tower shield and the phantom images of long-dead Bishops and Rooks. He blinked. The weight lifted from his shoulders. His eyes fell to the blade as the screen loaded the next dossier. A smiling face shattered his reverie.

Eight-Ball - Last minute addition, routing for accompaniment

That face. Those eyes. A familiarity loomed there. A familiarity that brought him far and away from Thrax. He leaned forward and looked down, away from Carnifex, and into the flickering screen. There was no mistaking it, that boy was a Valenti. He dug through memory. A battle, long ago now, where a man stood with blade outstretched. The phantom of a voice rose from his lips;

"I see the path." He murmured, gruff voice scarcely reaching his own ears. Word had reached Maui Covenant of Ricardo's historic rise in political sway. Word had reached him of a warrior who had taken up the pen. His free hand reached into his vest and retrieved a cigar. As he lit it, the ghost of the Ricardo he knew interposed over the face of the Alto he was soon to meet. He breathed deep. He blinked. He thumbed the screen.

Zejiang Erica Teteh...

He groaned through grit teeth, biting down on the cigar, and swiftly scrolled past the name to the end. Mortuuus-Orbitae LXXXV. He lifted the cigar from his lips and held it aside as he studied the academy reports of the girl's successes and failures. The thick cigar taste mingled with a bile born of quiet fury- but also a quiet pride. He had not kept up with the girl after he put his name on her sponsorship; seeing her career in writing before him was evidence that he had done the right thing. As he read, the cigar burned down until it burned the tips of his fingers. With one hand he crushed the display screen.

With the other, he put the cigar-stub out against Carnifex's scabbard.

---

Lictor was wearing a form-fitting tactical ensemble. Black nylon stretched skin-tight and silent from neck to wrist and waist in the form of a military bodysuit, atop which he wore an armored tactical vest complete with spare magazines, first aid supplies, short range radio equipment, and surplus ration storage which was partially being used to hold a cigar box. A heavy semiautomatic handgun was holstered at his hip, and at-rest in his lap was an infantryman's rifle. Carnifex, as tall as he was when seated, leaned against his shoulder with its rounded point resting between his feet. A radio headset connected to the equipment at his waists, and a tactical visor displayed data-feeds to his eyes.

Eyes which were closed. He leaned here, restfully, seemingly comfortable and at-ease in the thrum of the dropship and with the smells and thick scent of a soldier platoon around him. It wasn't until introductions were asked for that Lictor finally spoke;

"His nose wouldn't be so brown if your breath didn't smell like shit, Eorman. Keep that glove full-a Vaseline?"

It was ribbing, cold and direct, but it bore an unmistakable lack of vitriol or malice. Rather, it was the salted words of the grizzled soldier, an admonishment rather than a challenge. His posture shifted, but still he did not look directly at his companions. Carnifex tilted forward until it stood perfectly straight, his forearm resting on the crossguard as he thumbed the stock of his rifle and gazed into the thirteenth AB sword's black scabbard. His lips twitched upwards as Aissi's whispered echo of Teddy's humor reached his ears.

"I am the Lictor. This is Carnifex. White Dwarf, Main Class." He made a short gesture with two fingers towards Maximus, flicking his index and middle fingers to draw the man's eyes to Lictor's instead of gawking at Aissi. "You're gonna rile up the boys if you keep watching your ass like that. Focus up. I've got the pup."

Alto

Lictor's mind was a calm sea, minor ripples across a smooth surface, few disturbances on a reflective sheen. His harsher tongue and crude words were not of anger or disappointment, but of habit and familiarity. He was at peace, and a certain level of comfort emanated off of him. Like this was, in some way, a return to home for him. He carried an amusement that did not dare outwardly express itself at Theodore, but was unmistakably present.

The Things We Fight For

Lictor

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx B A S I C I N F O [Name] Joab of Thrax [Callsign] Lictor [Gender] Male [Age] 64 [Rank and Designation] White Dwarf - Main Class [Place of Birth]The rubble field formerly known as Thrax [Official Statement] ”Can you look someone weaker— someone more vulnerable— than you in the eye and tell them to go get hurt because you don’t want to fight?” Mood Playlist C O M B A T A B I L I T Y [Anti-Barrier Sword] XIII - Carnifex [Anti-Barrier Quotient] 30% [Physical Description] Depleted Uranium alloyed with AB materials, rendering the blade pyrophoric and flexible despite its immense density and weight. Provided a blow lands with sufficient force, the blade burns along its edge and maintains sharpness through prolonged confrontations. Stylized as an archaic Germanic executioner's blade, when paired with its lead-lined shroud and sheathe the full package of this ill-fated sword exceeds fifty pounds. It is worn over the shoulder on a sling, meant to be shrugged free before clearing the sheathe. In a world of high technology and incredible genetic capability, this is a weapon of deliberation and unmitigated devastation. [Attributes] Carnifex's capabilities are well regarded as accursed among the known AB weaponry. 'Unlucky Thirteen' has been its unofficial title for as long as the weapon has been in operation, for all who have wielded the weapon save for Lictor himself have died from the sword's unnatural radioactive emanations. It produces a latent level of radiation that is lethal within minutes for those who wield the blade. Thankfully, Lictor can handle this and the weapon only serves to enhance his natural capabilities immensely; his inherent resistance to Radiation can be channeled by the blade into his own retaliatory beams and waves of lethal energy. In other words, while in the hands of Lictor, Carnifex is capable of absorbing and deflecting laser weaponry as well as producing its own long ranged counterstrikes. In nearly anyone else's hands, it is merely an obscenely heavy blade for the short breadth of time it permits them to live. [Anomaly] Thraxian Grit [Origin] Line of Eorman - Splinter bloodline [Phenomena] Lictor's Anomaly has manifested in a duality of traits. The first is an uncanny and impressive inherent resistance to radiation, which went unnoticed the entirety of his young life until his enrollment as a Constellation. The second is an immense physical strength and prowess, which was believed to simply be uncanny genetic good fortune and favorable results from physical training... Until it exceeded human expectation. He is quite capable of dealing with lower caste Aberrants in hand-to-hand combat without the aid of Carnifex, and his immense strength makes wielding the obscenely heavy blade seem effortless in the moments where the blade must be drawn. [Limitation] Lictor's body burns an excessive quantity of energy. His metabolism is off the charts, his dietary requirements are staggering, and when pushed to the limits his recovery times can become prolonged. He is a candle that blazes like a forge, but should one withstand the inferno of his wrath then he is ultimately doomed to concede any prolonged, attrition based, campaigns if unaided. He eats a lot, he sleeps a lot, and while he may be a juggernaut in a fight he must pace himself.

Profile [Surface-level Impression] Lictor is a tool, a vessel for a blade, the only means of transportation for the sole item that has defined his existence for two thirds of his life. A grim man, dutiful and critical in equal parts. A man who has witnessed too much death. A man inured to horror and blood. A man who struggles to exist on his own two feet, so entwined is his identity with that of a blade. A man to whom retirement could not stop the nightmares. A man who is not whole without a sword in his hand. A man whose emotions run deep, but dare not to reach the surface. [Personal History] Thrax was a harsh, cruel, uncaring mother world. And yet, the peoples from there were strong. The higher gravity ensured of that, but so too did an environment that would have made old Darwin dizzy with theory after theory on specialized evolutionary traits. Humanity came to Thrax chasing metals; humanity had to bend to Thrax's primal energy to reach them. The violent, tribal, peoples of Thrax became as feral and wild as the world itself. Joab was born amongst these savage and proud people. Joab was born the son of a miner and a hunter. Joab learned to shoot before he learned to read. Joab learned to split the earth before he learned algebra. Joab learned to kill a man before his fifteenth standard year of age. By the age of eighteen, he had conquered six of his planet's eight rites of passage. He had swum to the bottom of the great lake basin; he had wrestled with the humongous spider-like predators of the southern jungle; he had been stung by the man-sized scorpions of the northern deserts; he had drunk of the nectar of the hypnotic honey-flower and seen visions beyond report; he had scaled the dizzying heights of the thick Tesla-Trees, who stormed with lightning eight months out of the year, to claim the egg of the razorbeak birds. The only two rites left to him were the easiest and the hardest of them all. Most by his age had already killed a man, but leaving Thrax on a vessel was almost impossible for most of the denizens of Thrax. Joab was a man, respected, with influence and power among the tribes of Thrax. Joab, three named, strong and proud. Joab wanted more. The military had often come to Thrax to take conscription, to run blood tests, to harvest the youth of Thrax before the planet could break them. Joab had watched his entire life as ship after ship came down to the great space ports, protected fiercely by rival tribes, as his people were forced to eke out a meagre existence trading their resources to those who had the right and capability to ship product offworld. Joab wanted more. His clan went to war. The battles were bloody, but over swiftly and decisively. By the time his clan's colors rose over the spaceport of Thrax's Throat, high on a mountain overlooking the equatorial jungle, Joab was only of two names. When the next military cruiser came through seeking conscripts, Joab was twenty. When he filled out the recruitment forms, it was to the applause of his people that he signed himself to the Constellation program as merely 'Joab of Thrax'. He excelled in the initial training, surpassing other candidates by sheer physical prowess and capability. Later tests cemented his enrollment and bestowal of an Anti Barrier weapon; a mutation in his bloodline marked Joab as the first to express an inherent resistance to harmful radiation. He spent days in sealed rooms experiencing blasts of unseen radiation, exposure to Aberrant cores, proximity to laser blasts, and the ultimate test of being tasked to draw Unlucky Thirteen from its lead shroud. Ten minutes later he was officially a Constellation, at the age of twenty two. The horrendous history of the blade was impressed upon him, as was the astronomically unlikely existence of his unique anomaly. The blade was renamed, but its form left unchanged. Thus was Lictor, the bearer of Carnifex, given his sacrosanct task to execute the enemy's command structure. Two terms. Lictor served for two full terms. His career was thirty years of trawling the void from operation to operation, heralding Carnifex to his sanctioned targets, bringing low the Aberrant foe, and surviving to get to the next battlefield. As colorful and decorated as his career may be, all acts of service or war are shadowed by the Siege of Thrax. Aberrant invasions are either repelled, or the world dies. Thrax lasted longer than most. For four months the planet itself, as it always had in its history, resisted the devouring hunger of its invasive predators. For four months Lictor commanded warriors from jungle trees, river banks, mud huts, desert dunes, and ocean vessels in a ceaseless resistance to the planet's destruction. Every day the jungles he had called home withered more. Every day the roots of the mountains cracked. For every Aberrant he slew, two more high caste entities were revealed. The planet was too rich in biomass, raw resources, and water for the Aberrants to be worn down. They could not find the Princess, and that meant that each day Thrax weakened and the Aberrants grew stronger. The natural might of the planet slowly turned against Lictor with each passing day. Eventually he was on the back foot, racing from defensive effort to defensive effort trying to hold the line. Inevitability struck like a guillotine. The Siege of Thrax was dubbed 'The Massacre of Thrax'. Lictor's name and career were bloodied with the failure to hold the resource rich planet as well as the blame for the loss of several billion lives. The survivors of Thrax know him as a hero; the rest of humanity knows him only as a red handed butcher who failed to secure the only kill that mattered. Lictor did not sign for a third term. His fifty third birthday was spent on transit to a mobile Anti-Barrier armory, where he relinquished Carnifex into its leaden vault. He was discharged with honor, but little fanfare. His fifty fourth birthday found him on a boat, under the sun, on the paradise planet of Maui Covenant. For ten years the ageless warrior fished, swam, avoided official news of the war effort, doted upon his god-children, and sought answers to all his unanswered emotions at the bottom of a liquor bottle or in the blackened vestiges of a pipe. When men in unmarked suits, walking in unmistakable military spook goose-step, approached him one year ago it was to find him filleting a massive fish. They spoke as he descaled the catch. He silently listened as he worked with knife and hand to remove gamey flesh from white bone. A long silence reigned as he cleaned his tools and packed the harvest away. When the spooks turned away from him, he finally spoke. "I'll carry the sword again. You said it yourselves, I'm the only one that can." Thrax The World Rent Asunder Thrax was once a lush planet dominated by a Pangaea continent, with incomprehensibly dense and tall rainforest jungles crossing the entirety of the equatorial latitude. The far southern pole of the continent was a permanent tundra, but the northern hemisphere was temperate by comparison with the ice pole distant from land. It was a dense planet that was larger than Earth, bestowing it a slightly higher gravitational quotient than humanity-standard. Higher levels of oxygen on the planet meant that plantlife grew rampant, grew large, and grew strong. Thrax's native wildlife consisted of insectoid creatures of immense size, as well as vicious predators that turned the primary jungle biome that spanned most of the continental mass into a blender of life and death. And yet deep within the planetary surface, rich ores hid. Humanity came, and where the iron boot of conquest and terraforming failed- adaptation succeeded. For much of Thrax's history, it was ruled by a confederation of intermingling tribal societies that fought one another for control of principle spaceports to amass wealth and import rights over their competitors. When the Aberrants came, the war for Thrax was brutal and long for invasion standards. Now all that remains of Thrax is the fragments of a planet that collapsed upon itself and shattered apart. A ruin left adrift in the void. Deathworld Tribalism Thrax was a brutal planet, ill-suited to human habitation. Hostile fauna, deadly plant-life, but ludicrously rich in raw metals and ores needed in nearby systems. The fierce world bred fierce settlers. The nature was so hostile that the only way to survive was to adapt rather than conquer. The peoples of Thrax were almost tribal in their organization, and superstitious as well, crafting myths about their world to rationalize the horrors of their existence. Most of these myths revolved around a prolonged coming of age ritual practiced on the planet, involving eight great trials of planetary feats of bravery and strength. The people of Thrax are given nine names at birth, and for each trial overcome they lose a name. Most adults of Thrax achieve satisfaction and respect with three or four names remaining. To achieve the full rite and be rendered singly-named is to become legend to Thraxians. The Line of Joab Of the known bloodline of Joab, following his enlistment as a Constellation, he is the first to express the key radiation resistance that defines his Anomaly. Notable Contacts [Name] Kyra Newman [Relation to Subject] Kyra Newman is the fresh recruit that the top brass have hoodwinked into being Lictor's battlefield chauffeur (Read: Pilot); she's allegedly an ace at maneuvering a battlefield in simulations, but she's green. Very, very, green. She has yet to see her first true combat scenario... The brass promised she'd hold up under pressure. [Analysis] Prodigy of a military recruitment drive emphasizing virtual and augmented reality 'gaming' rigs; champion of multiple tournaments throughout her teenaged years, the military compensation package that came to her and her family's mailbox one day was almost impossible to say no to. Her training continued in physical spectrums from the age of eighteen to twenty, and she has just been assigned to the newly un-retired Lictor as personal pilot. [Name] Jocasta Dorcas Mary Lilith [Relation to Subject] A fellow survivor of Thrax, one of humanity's best reconnaissance and scouting squadron leaders. Has refused promotion countless times, wishing to remain on the direct field of conflict with the Aberrant foe. Her recklessness and wrath are second only to her knack for surviving to paint a target on a critical Constellation target another day. Often outlives her squads. Her target acquisition capabilities often directed Lictor into key Aberrant kills. [Analysis] Jocasta D.M.L. and Joab shared a physically intimate relationship that was born with the siege of Thrax and died with the planet's destruction. They found each other in an opportune time, but their personalities could not truly mesh beyond physical attraction. Instead of a romance, they found a profound friendship that was forged into something indestructible as they watched Thrax break apart in their retreat. Lictor pursued retirement, Jocasta pursued revenge. [Name] Beornwulf Kantor [Relation to Subject] Beornwulf helms the mighty vessel known as 'The Dream of Dawn'; prior to Lictor's retirement, he and Beornwulf shared a grim comradery. The Dream of Dawn served as Lictor's primary transport and support ship during his official career as a Constellation. [Analysis] Kantor is the only person from his career that Joab kept in contact with during his retirement. Their regular communiques kept Joab apprised of the frontline developments, and in return Joab would pay regular visits to the captain's family; Joab's retirement was on the same paradise world that Kantor's family lived on, after all. According to official record, Joab is the registered god parent to the three youngest grandchildren of the Kantor clan, who all see him as brother to Beornwulf.

Relationship Map

Critical PC connection - Aissi

Planescape: Search for Tir na Og

Tell that to all the other alternate timeline Zaraknvyrs who exploded without even knowing why.