Raineh Daze

The Elder Scrolls IV: Cyrodiil

"Of course not," the woman sighs, looking like your answer actually pains her, "But even I know that the Imperial Cult still teaches enough history to know that the Amulet long predates the Septims. Before them, it was worn by the Reman emperors, and before that it was the regalia of the Empire of Cyrodiil. Ever since the death of—"

Realising the last name means nothing to you, the elf pauses in her lecture, stopping the pacing that she had stopped. "Paravant? Al-Esh? Ah… fine, to use the modern corruption of her titles, Alessia. The Amulet and the covenant it represents are a bond forged between Akatosh and Alessia, between the Dragon and Men. No single bloodline can lay claim to it; should a new line of the dragonborn be born, then the Amulet would be as much theirs.

"Of course, the Septims have had no interest in reminding the populace of the truth. Why would they? No ruler likes a usurper, especially not since the Simulacrum so recently… but now you know. Perhaps, to have arrived here at this time, you have been chosen," Another statement without an explanation. The stories about unhelpful mages are making more sense by the second, "Or perhaps you are indeed just a messenger. Although, if your hope is to convey something so valuable across the province or beyond…"

Once again she looks you up and down.

"Even if you stick to the highways for safety, you look as if you'd starve halfway to Bravil."

The Elder Scrolls IV: Cyrodiil

Once again, the elf wastes barely any time before concluding the truth of what happened down there. "The Chim-el Adibal? Or rather, the gem and its housing both; the Emperor entrusted you with bearing the Amulet of Kings."

Then she pauses, hand raised to her mouth in thought—but despite having identified your package and even your own wariness, she makes no move to attack or take it. "Strange, though, that the Emperor would entrust you with it. Tell me, have you tried wearing the amulet at all since you have received it?"

A curious question—Baurus' explanation after the Emperor's passing had been that supposedly only the Septims can wear the Amulet of Kings. But this strange mage seemed unaware of that, despite all else she had known, or perhaps she knew more of the matter than one of the Blades would to expect that you may have had more success after all.

Whatever your answer, it seems quite clear that the truth of your mission, to convey the amulet to the order's grandmaster and thus the hidden last Septim, is unlikely to remain secret for long.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

Miina's response was less reserved, staring slack jawed at Éliane's whole-hearted endorsement of more or less invading her home under the pretext of protecting it from invaders. Not that she had a massive attachment to the country as a whole, the place was obviously too weakly united for that… but she cared about the geography. The forests, and the freedom to move about as they would (although she preferred the warmer parts), and not needing to deal with huge built-up settlements like she'd seen in Osprey and everyone else had taken to so well that they could only be familiar with the whole concept. Far more than Miina herself was, at least.

Also, the older woman's attachment to big guns and things that made loud bangs did not speak well for how any hypothetical war would go for the forests as a whole, even if she was happy to write off the people or the lifestyle.

If she was indicative, at least.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Fiadh

(and Tyaethe)

"Oh, thank you!", the fairy said, taking the offered pastry and chewing away at it, thinking about Fionn's offered suggestion, "Oh, I could be a noble, but I'm not one, and if I was one then I would be a lot stronger. If I was stronger I could be a noble, but I don't know how you could do that for me, darling."

"I know a lot about how magic goes off when you disrupt it. Rogue summoners or mages aren't that rare," Tyaethe countered, raising an eyebrow. Well, if she didn't want the compliment…

"Maybe Fiadh could be a diplomat? It's her or the captain," she suggested. Best to put forward everyone else, she didn't enjoy the idea of having to directly represent the crown when there were better options. Somehow, she doubted a fairy queen would treat her with any more respect than Fiadh did… or Gertrude, come to think of it.

"Oooh, I can do that!"

"What's a diplomat?"

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Tyaethe Radistirin

"I don't think there's anything much we can do on that front, the usual procedure for when we negotiate with the fey is to enter into their realms…" Tyaethe mused, continuing to walk forwards, "It's too obviously manipulative if we want to pull a queen to somewhere safer. Oh, you might be able to find some other fey of considerable power, but you still have to negotiate with them. No, better to just send those with the authority to negotiate on the behalf of the church or the crown… give the fey some reason to meet with you."

With that, the vampire knelt down in front of the circle, looking blankly at the complexity for a second before just shrugging and running her hand right through the lines, a corona of crimson light around the appendage. "Fionn's right, why are you even keeping her in there? She's as much of an ally right now as a fairy can be… no offence meant."

"Darling!" Not that the fairy seemed to care, having attached herself already quite firmly to the knight in question, now that the circle was disrupted.

"Impressive circle, though," Tyaethe added after a moment, "Normally, that level of magic would fry the entire thing. This one grounded it and didn't fail catastrophically."

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

"Umm, h-he's right," Miina added, glad that someone else had gotten the body of the explanation over with before she'd found her voice to do it… after all, doing the entire explanation herself would have been annoying for anyone else to listen to, and she wasn't good at explaining anyway, she'd probably have wanted to go through all the context of how they knew this and that would mean explaining what they were doing in Osprey, and the middle of the desert at that, and then there was all the fighting and—this was why it was a good thing that Rudolf had taken over. It saved everyone a lot of time and distraction, really.

"We m-met a priest of the G-Goddess, and he explained… s-so we need to do the p-p-protecting! But, eh-heh, w-we'll need as much help as you c-c-can give," she continued nervously, realising that she was putting herself forward a bit much. But this was her home! Even if the important thing that made it such wasn't part of the land, "Although I know th-that it would be hard to g-get all the villages and such to w-work together…"

Or talk at all. Or find them. Hmm, it was odd that Valheimr had started with Osprey. Not that she was really complaining… or maybe they'd already taken root here and nobody noticed? It wouldn't even be that hard…

The Elder Scrolls IV: Cyrodiil

"Then the Emperor is dead, and the Dragonfires lie unlit for the first time since the Interregnum," the elf surmises, tearing her gaze from you and affixing her gaze to the tower rising over the city behind. As she thinks this news over, the weight of her attention being removed is a relief—before it flicks back, cold and heavy as ever. "Still, then, there is some time before the Daedra are free to interfere, even with the events of Red Mountain…"

Her proclamation is ominous, along with confusing. How could a far-off location and the Emperor's lack of an heir possibly tie back to the Daedra? But such is the nature of wizards, to know much and explain little, and she carries on without a break, her look decidedly more interrogative. "And what of you? You are manifestly not one of the Emperor's bodyguards, nor do you have the bearing of a spy, and a successful assassin would have left through the same means they arrived, not followed this route to its end."

Given that a cursory exploration would easily have showed that there was no way for the assassins to get in aside from this woman's assertion that nobody had entered in weeks—and the lack of evidence that they had been camping along the path, waiting for the Emperor's group to pass—it does seem likely that any successful assassin must have used some magical means to enter. And if they could get in that way, why not leave the same? It makes sense.

"So, one group or the other must have permitted your survival. But why?"

The Elder Scrolls IV: Cyrodiil

You finally emerge from the darkness of the storm drains into a sunny afternoon—the first real sunlight light after weeks in a cell whose bars were long obstructed by grime and debris. It's so bright to be blinding, forcing you to pause to adjust, and think about how different it was to be out now. Days spent fleeing through old passages and older caves, first trying to scramble by and avoid alerting every goblin in the area, and later with the Emperor and his dwindling cadre of bodyguards.

An Emperor that was no longer amongst the living, his final request a very physical weight against your body. A single, crystalline amulet, warm and humming even through the cloth Baurus had hastily wrapped it in, hiding it as best as possible before tasking you with conveying it to its rightful owner. This, perhaps, is the one guarantee that the dark, dank underground was real, out in the humid warmth of the Nibenay Basin.

As your eyes recover, you can make out a robed figure standing just ahead, the waves of Lake Rumare lapping against the hem. Was this it, then? Had the assassins found you already, beaten you through the winding paths out of the city? No: your eyes adjust more, and it's clear that this isn't the heavy, red robes the assassins had been wearing, rather the faded and travel-worn ensemble of a travelling hedge mage or simple conjurer, its original colours long faded to muted greys and browns.

This stranger was tall—obviously of high elf descent, her skin a burnished bronze far darker than the usual high elf. Perhaps part dark elf? The silver-white braid wasn't any better a clue. And as she steps closer, it's clear that even for such an elf she's abnormally tall and lean, almost impossibly tall for a man or mer. Yet more imposing than the height is her eyes, almost-glowing shards of blue glass that fix you in place.

"You aren't who I was expecting to meet here. The Emperor, perhaps… or failing that, one of his guards. None have entered in weeks, which means… tell me, what leads you to flee the city this way? Your attire seems… ragged." The stranger's voice is sharp, and even if she weren't armed—the sword belted at her hip is unmistakeable, and of finer make than anything you've seen the city watch carrying, and that's not counting the staff—you've met more than enough magical cultists and even goblin shamans over the past weeks for the robes to be a warning of their own.

@VitaVitaAR

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Fujiwara no Mokou

Mokou gave Suguru an odd look. To recognise the existence of Japanese nobility but not her family? Had they really fallen that far as to be forgotten…? Or was he just completely oblivious to history? Well, he was right: it wasn't really important, aside from maybe giving another reason to go fight those taoist immortals now and then if they wanted a reason more than "we're all immortal, why the hell not?"

"It's a medicine and only one person can make it. Trust me, you'd want rid of this eventually," she answered, shaking her head. Well, if he could find someone else, maybe it would be more bearable… but his very surprise at the concept made it seem doubtful. And there was no way she was letting slip the other method to obtaining the hourai elixir.

As they wandered into the mausoleum, she couldn't avoid noticing that it was very similar to the same one the immortals had built—ah, the jiang shi's owner was one of them, right? But, taoists, that explained a lot. "The taoists in Gensokyo have something like this. I don't know how fast they could get it up, but it's its own sealed world. She could hide it in a crack."

And she only knew that because there was no way anyone was hiding that entire temple they'd sprung up without it being visible. Confirming there was nobody home to fight had been way too slow.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

"A Queen without a realm wouldn't be much of a queen, now would she? And everyone knows you have to approach royalty properly, you can't just go up and be rude and violent." Fiadh asserted, pausing, "Well, unless you're also a Queen, then maybe you could have a competition over it. Or if you really wanted to be one and were desperate!