Obscene Symphony

Of Blood and Magic

A lot changed in very little time, sending Aaron reeling. Light engulfed the clearing, and then it was gone—the area was still illuminated, but it was as if everything but himself, Varis and the doorway had been totally erased. He whirled around, looking for anything that may have remained, but it was no use; they were standing in a blank abyss, occupied only by them and a number of dark tiles shifting around on the ground.

Coming back to his senses, Aaron noticed that the pain in his arm was gone.

“What in the Queen’s name is going on here?”

Aaron took a breath to answer, but his words were halted by a strangled cry of terror as he watched one of Varis’ arms swipe directly through his chest. “Ah!”

He scrambled away on reflex, backpedaling into the door—or rather, through it, stopping just inside the tree. Aaron froze, staring wide-eyed down at himself and patting his chest and legs. Perfectly solid, as they should be, but then what the hell was that? Staring incredulously at the door, he reached for it, but his hand went right through as if there were nothing before him but air. A few more tries yielded the same result, with his hands, arms, and even his head passing through the door with no issue.

As he forced himself to calm down and think, Varis’ trembling voice brought him back to the main issue at hand. “Master! I’m here!” He called, rushing back to the Count. He was still searching the space around him with his arms, and Aaron tried his best to stand in front of him while avoiding his lashing hands.

“I’m still here, it’s not a trick,” he explained more calmly. “I’m right in front of you, but—I don’t know, it’s as if I’m a ghost. Your arms passed right through me, I walked through the door…” Aaron knew magic could do unimaginable things, but this was really messing with his head. “When I turned the key, I went cold, and now… I feel solid to me, but my hands go right through you and everything else I try to touch. This must be what the riddle meant...”

Looking around again, Aaron thought it would be apt to fill Varis in on the rest of the details. “When the key turned, light poured out of the door, and now it’s as if the clearing’s been erased. You and I are standing in a white expanse with only the doorway and…” he examined the tiles moving across the ground for a moment, deciding how he should describe them. “It looks like the mounds from before have turned into dark tiles of some sort. They’re shuffling around on the ground, and one stops in front of us every few seconds before moving again. One of them is lighter than the others—I think that’s the one I dug up.”

He took a few steps away from Varis to peer inside the doorway, more carefully this time, and noticed the shovel. He tried to grab it, but sure enough, his hand just passed through. “There’s a shovel inside the hollow of the tree, but I can’t pick it up either. Above it is a message: Find your spoils in the shifting soils but be wary of their moves. They resent your claim to victory and will kick and buck and bruise. Heed close the voice that watches in time with shifting spoils to keep two feet upon the land or find your game is forfeit.”

Curiously, Aaron approached the tiles. That warning was foreboding to say the least, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to get too close to them. Pulling his gloves out of his pocket, he tossed one cautiously at the tile stopped in front of Varis; it landed softly, with no reaction at all from the tile. When it was time for them to shuffle again, the tile moved out from under the glove, and the next one slid in beneath it, not disturbing it at all.

“Hmm…” A little more confident, Aaron stepped a little closer, coming up next to Varis and picking up his glove. When the next tile settled before them, he gingerly touched it with his foot, then put his weight on it completely when it didn’t react. As before, the tile didn’t seem concerned with him, carrying on with shuffling without so much as nudging his shoe.

“The tiles have no reaction to me, Master,” he explained finally, though he was a little sheepish to say his next piece as the gravity of it dawned on him. “I… I can lead you, but it seems like you might have to be the one to do the digging.”

_@Achronum

Of Blood and Magic

Aaron did his best not to roll his eyes again, though while he couldn’t guarantee success, Varis would never know the difference. He had to wonder, as he folded his gloves into his pocket and rolled up his sleeves, what Varis’ contention with his suggestion was; was he really just that averse to the idea of his mage getting a little dirty? Aaron was a tidy man, but he wasn’t the type to shy away from a little dust and blood when the situation called for it—it wasn’t news that Varis wasn’t the same, but one would think he’d put his reservations aside a moment for necessity. And surely Varis couldn’t have entirely discounted the possibility of using those mounds, either. They were dug very deliberately, and Aaron found it hard to believe they would have been included if they weren’t relevant to the riddle. Or, that was what he hoped, anyway. He didn’t really have any other ideas.

The Count’s grip on him was still painful and kneeling to dig was awkward, as Varis seemed unwilling to move unless absolutely necessary, but Aaron managed. The first mound (and the rest, it seemed) was about a foot and a half by a foot wide, and the dirt inside was loose, coming up up in handfuls easily; it was hardly a minute before he’d dug as deep as he could reach, though he found nothing but soil for his efforts.

“Nothing in this one Master, though it seems as if the hole goes deeper than I can reach,” he reported, standing and brushing himself off. Weird, he was among the tallest people in the Academy (short a few veritable giants, that is), so he doubted there were many students who could reach farther down than he could had they been the ones to stumble upon this puzzle. So why were they so deep? And for that matter, could anyone else have come across this puzzle? Were their origin points in the forest random, or had each puzzle been designed for the pair they were intended for? That seemed like a lot of different puzzles to design, but he wouldn’t put it past this Academy to undertake.

As he carefully manoeuvred Varis around the newly-dug hole, a faint, distant scream stopped Aaron in his tracks. Without a second one, he couldn’t pinpoint a direction, but it definitely sounded like a woman crying out in fear. His heart sped up a bit and his hand instinctively reached for his sword (only to come up empty, to his considerable chagrin), but he was quick to stop any burgeoning panic in its tracks. As displeased as he was to be thrust into the forest unarmed, there was no way Princess Ryner would allow any of her students to come to harm here, so there was no reason to fear. Whoever that was probably just got startled by something, that’s all. Still, that scream made him antsy, and Aaron suddenly found himself eager to move on.

“On second thought, Master, maybe it would be apt to try the key first,” he suggested warily.

Varis’ nearly endless grumbling ceased immediately as he whipped his head around at the sound of the scream. His grip tightened for a moment and relaxed as he remembered, once again, he couldn’t see anything. “I believe you are…” Varis turned his attention back to the boy, catching the words on the tip of his tongue. “Then, hurry up and be about it. The sooner we open the door and move on, the better. Fumbling around in the dirt while people are being murdered, unbelievable.”

The ominous grumbling was the least of Aaron’s worries; he was too busy holding back the smirk that struck him when Varis was almost forced to admit that he, the bumbling Starag oaf, was correct. He moved quickly, though, tucking his small victory away to be savoured later and somehow getting Varis over the terrain to the left door before producing the key.

“Alright, here it goes.” He hesitated only a moment, the door looking a fair sight more daunting up close, before inserting the key and turning it.

The instant he did, Aaron felt as if he’d fallen through ice in the dead of winter, a cold he could only relate to that instant of teleportation penetrating into his core. He couldn’t react—he couldn't breathe—but the instant the key completed its full turn, the cold was gone.

“What the—?”

_@Achronum

Obscene's Scratchpad

Faces of Morioh - sheet skeletons

「... 『...』...」

User Sheet

「NAME」

「NAME」

「STAND NAME」

「AGE」

「GENDER」 Your birth sex. Anything more complicated than that can go in the Other section.

「OCCUPATION」Student/cashier/businessman/traveling fiddler/I really don't care, just try not to be an assassin or something, this is supposed to be lighthearted

「PLACE OF RESIDENCE」 (if Morioh Suites, list floor number; if not, a general description is fine, ex. "a duplex 2 blocks from Morioh Suites", "his mother's basement", "the space under the subway platform" etc.)

「APPEARANCE」

List anything here you can't tell from your image

「PERSONALITY」

You know the drill; no need to get crazy detailed though, stick with the highlights and let the rest speak for itself IC

「HISTORY」

Be as short or as detailed as you want, though please tell us about the discovery of your stand. As well, if you weren't born in Morioh, do tell us how you got here.

「LIKES/DISLIKES/QUIRKS」

These are purely optional but considering it's a JoJo rp I imagine y'all are gonna have some quirks, so go nuts, tho keep in mind this is supposed to be lighthearted so try not to make a habit out of cutting your own fingers off or anything

「OTHER」

Anything else you want to add before we get to your stand

Stand Sheet

「STAND NAME」

「STAND NAME」Go nuts; recall that names sometimes have a lot to do with the stand's abilities, and sometimes there's not much relation at all. They also tend to be named after songs/bands, but again not always. I don't care either way, so be creative.

「STAND MASTER」

「STAND APPEARANCE」

A brief description including anything that differs from the photo used above. You can use as many additional pictures as you like, just put them in hiders please. If your stand has multiple forms (such as Koichi's Reverb) please describe all of them.

「STAND DESCRIPTION」

Describe generally what your stand does, minus the specifics of special active abilities (ex. Hierophant Green could be described as "a mid-range stand with limited power but numerous long feelers which can be extended and used to detect movement or objects, interact with the environment or even control a creature from inside their body")

「STAND STATS」

Stat Chart

image of your chart goes here

_{Power: X Speed: X Range: X Durability: X Precision: X Potential: X}

Dear frickity dick these things don't make a lot of sense, you can try to decipher them with this and generate your own graph with this (note that "potential" is the "learning" thing in the article) if you want to. Your stats don't have to be balanced, just try not to make yourself too OP (not that it'll really help you all that much in a slice-of-life RP). Keep in mind your character's... uh... 'character' and how long they've had their stand, as these factors influence how powerful it will be. Your stand is a manifestation of your soul, after all. Rather than making a list, please use this tool to make your stand a stat chart (don't bother savinc the image from the site; just take a screenshot and upload it to your guild host). Feel free to elaborate on the reasons for your choices, though that is optional.

「STAND ABILITIES」

This is where you get specific about your abilities, ex. "Emerald Splash - shoots a large number of crystalline projectiles at a target at high speed, can be aimed either as a wide spray or concentrated shot". Try to keep your explanations simple. Your abilities don't have to have names (I know many characters in the show don't name their abilities) but they can if you want, and it could be fun to name them even if you don't intend to use those names in the IC. I recommend using a bullet list here.

「STAND BEHAVIOUR」

Here you can describe how your stand acts when it is manifested - basically its level of sentience. It could be a pure extension of your soul, acting like an extension or copy of you rather than an independent being (think Star Platinum, Crazy Diamond or The Fool), or it could be semi- or fully-sentient, acting and speaking independent of you (think Reverb, Surface, Sex Pistols, etc.). Or is your stand an inanimate object, like Hermit Purple, Super Fly, or Bast? Is it an independently programmed stand like Highway Star? There's lots of possibilities here, so be creative; if you're not sure how to classify yours, feel free to drop a line and we can figure it out.

「OTHER」

As before, anything else you want to add goes here.

Glitter and Gold chart example:


★

spooky-ghostwriter.tumblr.com/jojo/st…



Stand user support group meets in the back room of Hinata's - general camaraderie, advice, education, friendly competitions (if you want to spar, please keep it in the fields outside of town; we don't want to alarm people, and we're sure the man in the transmission tower would love to watch!)

Morioh suites is owned by a stand user, popular living place for stand users as they don't need to cover up their powers if all their neighbours are also stand users (requires signing an agreement not to disturb other tenants with your stand)

Hinata's - cafe/tea room run by a cheerful middle-aged woman named Hinata, stand name Yes Ma'am - special ability allows Yes Ma'am to know what a person desires (very popular with indecisive customers, but can also be used for other desires). As such, cafe is notable in that it does not have menus. Cafe has a comfy back room which can be rented out for meetings and other events; stand user support group has an open reservation for sunday nights. Emiha also has an open reservation of a 2-person window table (one of those cafes where they can remove the window when it's warm)

Support group poster, made by some anonymous member whose power involves making signs I guess: "Do you have powers or abilities you can't explain? Can you see things others don't seem able to? Are you confused, or scared?
You are not alone.
Meet people who understand. Back room of Hinata's, Sundays @ 7p.m."

User Sheet Skeleton Code

Replace "00000" in colour codes with hex code of your character's dialogue colour (must not be shared with another character).

Add/remove bullet points as necessary.

Please do not add/remove sections; anything you want to list that doesn't have its own section should go in the "Other" section (though you may remove the likes/dislikes/quirk sections if you wish, as they are optional).
[center][img]CHARACTER IMAGE HERE[/img]
[color=00000][h3]「CHARACTER NAME HERE」[/h3][/color][/center]
[color=00000][b]「NAME」[/b][/color]Name here [sub](Japanese name here - optional)[/sub]

[color=00000][b]「STAND NAME」[/b][/color]Stand name here (hook brackets optional)

[color=00000][b]「AGE」[/b][/color]Age here

[color=00000][b]「GENDER」[/b][/color]Gender here

[color=00000][b]「OCCUPATION」[/b][/color]Occupation here

[color=00000][b]「PLACE OF RESIDENCE」[/b][/color]Place of residence here

[color=00000][b]「APPEARANCE」[/b][/color]
[indent]Appearance info here[/indent]
[color=00000][b]「PERSONALITY」[/b][/color]
[indent]Personality description here[/indent]
[color=00000][b]「HISTORY」[/b][/color]
[indent]History here[/indent]
[color=00000][b]「LIKES」[/b][/color]
[list][*]Like
[*]Like
[*]Like[/list]
[color=00000][b]「DISLIKES」[/b][/color]
[list][*]Dislike
[*]Dislike
[*]Dislike[/list]
[color=00000][b]「QUIRKS」[/b][/color]
[list][*]Quirk
[*]Quirk
[*]Quirk[/list]
[color=00000][b]「OTHER」[/b][/color]
[list][*]Fact
[*]Fact
[*]Fact[/list]

Stand Sheet Skeleton Code

Replace the "00000" in the colour coding with the hex code for your stand; this is optional, but it's useful to give your stand a dialogue colour if it's ever going to speak.

Replace the X's in the stat section with your stand's letter grade for each stat.

Add/remove bullet points as needed; feel free to link references for ability names if you want.
[center][img]STAND IMAGE URL HERE[/img]
[url=link to referenced song here (optional)][h3]「STAND NAME」[/h3][/url][/center]

[color=00000][b]「STAND NAME」[/b][/color]Stand name here

[color=00000][b]「STAND MASTER」[/b][/color]Master name here

[color=00000][b]「STAND APPEARANCE」[/b][/color]
[indent]Appearance description here[/indent]
[color=00000][b]「STAND DESCRIPTION」[/b][/color]
[indent]Stand escription here[/indent]
[color=00000][b]「STAND STATS」[/b][/color]
[indent][hider=Stat Chart]image of your chart goes here[/hider][sub][i]Power: [color=00000]X[/color] Speed: [color=00000]X[/color] Range: [color=00000]X[/color] Durability: [color=00000]X[/color] Precision: [color=00000]X[/color] Potential: [color=00000]X[/color][/i][/sub]

Ability description (optional)[/indent]
[color=00000][b]「STAND ABILITIES」[/b][/color]
[list][*][color=00000][i]Ability name[/i][/color] - Ability description
[*][color=00000][i]Ability name[/i][/color] - Ability description
[*][color=00000][i]Ability name[/i][/color] - Ability description[/list]
[color=00000][b]「STAND BEHAVIOUR」[/b][/color]
[indent]Insert behaviour description here[/indent]
[color=00000][b]「OTHER」[/b][/color]
[list][*]Fact
[*]Fact
[*]Fact[/list]

Of Blood and Magic

Taking advantage of a rare opportunity, Aaron rolled his eyes at Varis’ digging as the Count climbed off his back, though his expression twisted into a pained one when Varis dug his fingers into his bicep with a force comparable to before. While it felt more than enough like a punishment for his percieved impudence, Aaron knew that wasn’t the case; even if Varis wouldn’t admit it (probably not even to himself), his blindness clearly had him terrified.

Turning his mind back to the riddle, Aaron listened to Varis’ reasoning as he himself tried to get a closer look at the piles surrounding them. They were uniformly sized but seemingly randomly placed, with the exception that they weren’t crowded too close together—by the looks of it, none of them were closer than two feet apart, maybe more. They didn’t form any pattern that he could see, but he was sure they played into the puzzle somehow.

“The left door, yes,” Aaron murmured his agreement absently. Truth be told, he couldn’t quite follow Varis’ roundabout way of speaking; he’d never voice as much, but it sounded like the Count was over-complicating the clue. Aaron had simply read the phrase like a math equation, working it out in order. Left is correct, correct is incorrect, therefore right is correct and left is left. Then take the opposite for the blue key. Simple, straightforward, and it spat out the right answer, just like it should. Or, what he assumed to be the right answer anyway, since Varis came to the same conclusion.

It took a second for him to survey the area at Varis’ request. “I think so, Master. From here it looks like the handles on the doors don’t move,” he replied, glancing around at the piles. “As for the dirt, I think it has something to do with the “spoils” the riddle mentions. I’d be willing to bet something is buried under one of them that we’ll need in order to claim whatever’s behind that door. I’m not sure who the “victor” would be, though. Maybe whoever finds it, or maybe it’s just a turn of phrase.”

He read over the clue once more. “We could try the key in the door first and see what it does, though that warning is foreboding. It sounds like there could be a consequence if we use the key without these “spoils”.” He shifted uncomfortably in Varis’ grip, feeling his fingertips start to tingle once more. “I can search the piles if you'd like, Master, but to do so I’d need you either to walk with me or let me go.”

_@Achronum

Post a random fact about yourself.

I keep noticing little character design details in JJBA Stardust Crusaders and it makes me so happy I could cry

Of Blood and Magic

The night grew colder as Aaron followed the next path, wind sneaking into his collar and clouds overtaking the moon. Though the thickening darkness wouldn’t have been an obstacle to him normally, he was glad he had the foresight to keep up his spell; as he’d predicted, the instructions along this path were not nearly as obvious as the ones before, and he would have missed the inscriptions hiding in the wilderness had he relied on his regular sight alone. Varis stayed quiet the whole way, apparently having lost the energy to complain, and soon enough the two arrived at a dead end in their roundabout path without incident.

Two massive trees blocked their way, each with a metal door melted into them, as if they had grown up around them for centuries. Aaron nearly sighed, exasperated; plant magic, Salem would probably get a kick out of that. The doors were identical, bearing an unmarked keyhole and handle each, and a sign stood between them.

“We’ve come to a dead end, Master,” Aaron informed Varis. “Before us are two unusually large trees with metal doors set into them, each with a keyhole and handle. A sign between them reads: Now it comes time to choose which lock responds to that you picked. If red is your belief, valiant but weak, Left is right, right is wrong, right is right, and left is left. If blue is your morale, slow but steady true, choose opposite above and make your final do. But warning if you chose the opposite of true then suffer with the consequences so be wary what you will. But a final word of warning: That which turns cannot too touch til victor claims the spoils.”

Aaron read the sign slowly, reading it over a few more times silently when he was done. As he moved to get a better look at the doors, his foot met something on the ground; it was a little mound of dirt, freshly disturbed and sharply contrasting the otherwise abundant undergrowth. He looked at it curiously for a moment before noticing another, and several others after that.

“There are also several spots of ground nearby that look freshly dug up,” he added dutifully, eyeing the nearest one. Varis would feel his body move as he brushed one of the mounds aside with his foot. The dirt moved easily, but revealed nothing; sure enough, it wasn’t just a pile of dirt, but a filled-in hole. Given the sign’s final clue, he assumed something was buried in one of them, but he’d have to use his hands to find out.

“Master, may I please put you down for a moment?” he asked, anxious to investigate. “The ground here is a little grown-in, but level, save for these mounds of dirt. There shouldn’t be much risk of you tripping.”

_@Achronum

Of Blood and Magic

Aaron read each line dutifully, listening thoughtfully as Varis mulled over each one. He thought he’d made it obvious that Varis was the one who needed to decide this riddle—he wasn’t quite so thick as to need that spelled out for him—but that wasn’t important. Aaron had passed over the representation of the keys as passion and intellect as too obvious, too, but it seemed he must have been over-thinking again. A trap he fell into a lot, apparently. He was a little surprised that Varis bothered to lay out his reasoning, although he was grateful for it. Maybe he was just thinking out loud; Aaron certainly wouldn’t complain.

He took the blue key from its compartment as instructed, tucking it into his pocket for safekeeping and regaining his bearings before setting off East. To his surprise, Aaron found himself agreeing with Varis for the second time in one night; this was going to be a very long night if Princess Ryner decided to use the exam as some kind of tool to force personal reflection. It was bad enough he’d have to commit to ‘emotional honesty’ for his upcoming arcane major, and even if he wasn’t already uncomfortable with digging any deeper than he needed to pull out a court smile, that awful experience after Revel certainly cemented his distaste. A disgusted shiver ran up his spine at the mere memory, kneeling there all docile under thrall and laying bare to Varis things he was reluctant to admit even to himself. He’d agree with Varis that it was a pathetic display, and he had no interest in doing anything similar tonight or ever again.

“I imagine it's meant to play into this trust exercise, Master. I find it wholly excessive,” he concurred, a bit of distaste colouring his words. “Hopefully this is the end of that nonsense.”

_@Achronum

Of Blood and Magic

The urge to roll his eyes at Varis’ taunting was strong, but Aaron had developed enough of a stomach for it over the past few months that he brushed it off with a decidedly neutral “Yes, Master” and set off North. He placed his steps carefully (the absolute last thing he needed was to trip over a root or something and faceplant with Varis on his back) but still maintained a decent pace, almost grateful he didn’t need to worry about guiding a second set of feet. A few signs here and there kept him on the right path until the forest opened into a small clearing.

In the centre of the clearing stood a stone pillar, rising just above Aaron’s head. Into it were carved two shelves, and in each one was a key, slowly twirling mid-air as if suspended on an invisible string. The first key was red, and the second blue. Above them, at the top of the pillar, a riddle was inscribed:

The world around no longer a concern, turn sightless eyes inward.
So often is the truth eagerly hidden and buried
But now it’s time to choose which key is its unlocking:
Blood quick moving or gears slow turning
Soon still in the East.

Aaron came to a halt, silently reading the riddle over a few times, and examined the keys for a moment before cluing Varis in. “We’ve come to a clearing, Master. There’s a stone pillar in the middle, a little taller than me, holding two keys; one red, one blue. On top there’s a riddle written.”

He read the riddle aloud for Varis, pausing another moment to phrase his next words carefully. “It seems I’ll be needing your wisdom for this one, Master,” he ventured, informed both by the ‘sightless eyes’ clue and the fact that he had no sweet clue where he could even begin. He thought that maybe the ‘blood quick moving or gears slow turning’ line could have been a comparison between mages and vampires, but he wasn’t sure if that made any sense. “Does anything I described mean anything to you?”

_@Achronum

ＦＩＮＡＬ ＦＡＮＴＡＳＹ Ｘ｜Ｖ： Ｔｈｅ Ｂｌｅｓｓｅｄ Ｔｗｅｌｖｅ

---

J’torha spent the carriage ride back to the Goblet humming to himself as far in the back as he could manage, hoping to savour yet another trip he didn’t have to make on foot without having to be too aware of the smelly cloudkin that made it possible. He didn’t know the science behind what made a carriage ride so much more odorous than a ride on a chocobo porter - maybe it had to do with being situated behind the birds rather than atop them, who knew - but he wouldn’t let pestering wonderings like that distract him from the sights and sounds of one of the most opulent parts of Ul’Dah. A secret pride welled up within him as they passed through its gates; multiple times he’d tried to gain access to the district to perform, and every time he’d been denied, the guards citing ordinances or by-laws or for-laws or whatever they were against noise, soliciting, blocking shared areas, whatever they came up with on the day. As such, he couldn’t help but feel the least bit smug when they were admitted unmolested, and he even shot one of the familiar guards a wink.

A sly optimism suddenly struck him, one he was surprised didn’t occur to him before. If this free company held a property here (assuming they could reclaim it with those documents; he wasn’t altogether clear on how that worked) then maybe if he joined them, he could leverage his position as a tenant to go about his business in relative peace. J’torha wasn’t too comfortable with the idea of settling in any one place, but that made tying himself to a free company much more attractive. He probably wouldn’t even necessarily need to live there; he could probably come and go as he pleased so long as his name was on the right lists, or however they ran things here. Certainly something to think about; this many rich people in one place was a gold mine in his industry.

The Gil were shaken out of his eyes, however, when Lyveva spoke up, looking after a small Xaela child whom J’torha just barely caught a glimpse of as he took off. A fond little twinge of nostalgia struck him at the sight of those black scales, but it was eclipsed by concern; sure, the Goblet wasn’t the Sunway or anything, and there probably weren’t any piestes wandering around waiting to petrify anyone, but his time watching over the children of his tribe as a teenager had made him more than a little wary when he saw kits running around by themselves.

J’torha stared after the spot where he’d watched the boy disappear, but as a few of the others volunteered to go after him, he refrained from adding his own voice to the din. “We’ll stay with the carriage,” he half-offered, half-decided, “no need for all of us to run off like a pack of mongrels and frighten the kid.”

He threw L’vivia a coy grin, then looked to X’gihl. “What’s say we go make sure all this work hasn’t been for naught, eh? There’s little use for a deed to a house that’s already been gutted.” Probably. He was pretty sure that was how that worked.

---

J’torha and @EvictedElement are going on a journey to restore @Hero’s property… probably

Of Blood and Magic

Aaron stood once Varis was in place, adjusting his weight as sublty as he could manage until he was something resembling comfortable. Luckily for him, Varis was surprisingly light; he probably wouldn’t feel so light two or four or six hours from now, and his fingertips still dug into Aaron’s shoulders like little tent spikes, but at least for the moment, carrying him was easy.

“In front of us, Master, set into a tree,” he replied, closing his eyes for a moment. He refrained from his usual deep breath—Varis was fond of telling him he did an awful lot of breathing and he didn’t need another sharp comment right now—and took just a second or two to centre himself, banish his lingering frustration and focus. “Tiltoure.”

Though the rest of their surroundings remained unchanged, the writing on the sign showed itself, glowing blue just as it had in their practice classes. He briefly wondered if he could conserve energy by de-activating his spell and re-activating it anytime he came across something that looked like it didn’t belong, but quickly brushed the idea aside. For all he knew, instructions might be written on trees or rocks or something now and then, and he didn’t want to risk missing them for the sake of a shortcut.

“The sign reads: Dancing lights in the sky illuminate the way. Follow them closely and you'll find your way. There’s also a drawing above it indicating the cardinal directions,” Aaron reported thoughtfully, reading the sign over a few times. Riddles? Already? He’d never been a great fan of riddles, but now apparently they insisted on appearing everywhere; his dreams were riddles, Varis’ little tests were riddles, half of what the Princess told him were riddles—why this, too? He thought it was the extra credit instructions that were meant to be puzzles, not the directions themselves. What would happen to a student who was proficient in Dark Eyes but hopeless with riddles?

He suppressed a sigh. They were only a few minutes into this—once more Aaron cursed the absence of his watch—and he shouldn’t get himself worked up so soon. Even if he did find himself siding just a little more with Varis’ criticisms of this exercise.

“Dancing lights…” He looked around the area curiously just in case there was some glaringly obvious indicator of his direction, but of course, none appeared. Dancing lights… the only light aside from the glowing sign were the thin shafts of moonlight filtering down through the trees, but they couldn’t be his guide; they were everywhere. Part of him thought it might be a nod to the bright lights at the staging area, but they must have been too far away, because there was no sign of those, either. Not that they needed to be miles away to be hidden, with how thick the surrounding forest was.

Aaron rolled his eyes. He was overthinking this, surely. That certainly would be fitting for him. Either that, or the proctor severely overestimated his riddle-solving skills, which he supposed couldn’t be ruled out either. Dancing lights in the sky… the stars? No, that wouldn’t be fair; the stars were obscured by the canopy, and he doubted their instructions would be that demanding. The moon, then? He wouldn’t exactly call that a ‘light’, and it was just as obscured as the stars were. Obviously it wouldn’t be the sun, but what else was there?

“Oh,” his eyebrows shot up when it came to him, and he had to inwardly tease himself a bit for struggling. “I think it’s referring to the Northern Lights, Master,” he updated. Surely that had to be it. At certain times of year, if you were lucky, they could be seen from Noila Castle, and it was the only heavenly body Aaron could think of that could be described as ‘dancing’, let alone associated with a cardinal direction. Plus, there was no way they’d provide a compass if it wasn’t meant to be used to solve their riddle.

“North it is, then,” he concluded, smart enough not to phrase it as a question but also smart enough not to set off until he got the OK from Varis.

_@Achronum