@Dextkiller And hello! I'm sorry, I think I missed your posts! This OOC can move fast!
I'm really glad you read through everything and enjoyed it! We'd be glad to have you on board. Get your awesome character on our proverbial table and get in on this!
Just to let you all know, ravenDivinity has levelled up and had been given co-GM status. I'm going to discuss with them what exactly that will entail, but i'll confer all that information along to everybody else.
The decision was made on the basis that raven has had a character in this RP for longer than anybody else, and is the player with whom I have had the most collaboration, so I figured it would be fitting. More info will be coming on it soon.
Across the lake, below the beautiful canvas of shooting stars that seemed to fire forth from the Rings of the World, the small hamlet of Fafnis slept beneath the calm. The lamps had been snuffed hours before, and the fishing boats had been docked and harboured for the night. From their sleepy homes nestled into the lakeside, the bastion of the Knights could be seen twinkling brighter than any star, standing stark against the expanse that seemed to drift forever outwards beyond the lake. The hamlet itself was small -tiny, even- and homed only fifteen families who were all fishers by trade. They made their living providing food the bastion, and selling rare delicacy fish to the Heartlands throughout the breeding seasons for such rare species. Yet something was amiss amidst the quietness of Fafnis. The night was disturbed. Sickened.
"Amelia!" a man cried, forcing his way through the door in his home to his daughter's bedroom. "By the Gods! Amelia!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. The man's face was visibly red against the dull lamplight he had produced to investigate the unholy wailing he had heard only moments before coming from her room. He shined the light deep into the shadows that covered her bed, illuminating the child with the flat, orangey light of the oil flame. Her nightclothes were torn, and her face was scratched bloody by her own nails. The bedframe, too, was scratched violently, as if assaulted by some feral animal. The girl herself, no older than five or six, had curled herself into a ball with her arms around her knees, and was sobbing uncontrollably. "Amelia! What happened?" he asked, hurrying to her bedside in an attempt to comfort her. She continued to cry, but said no words that seemed in any way coherent to her father. He sighed, and let his head fall for a moment, before looking back up to her badly scratched face. He tried to put his arm upon her shoulder to make her feel safe, but he was shrugged away almost immediately with a fevered yelp from Amelia.
"Darius..." came a second, female voice. "Is she okay?" it asked.
Darius said nothing, he simply tried to make eye contact with his daughter. She was shaken worse this time than usual. Though his unresponsiveness was met with his wife poking her head around the corner to look into the darkened room. "Is she okay?" she asked again.
Darius looked back into the better lit hallway and softly shrugged to her. He did not know what to say. He turned back to his daughter, whose crying had somewhat alleviated since she was awoken. She struggled to form a few words as tears slipped down her cheeks in glistening streams of fear. "B-b-... H-h-he..." she forced out, before her crying began anew with as much intensity as had woken her parents from their sleep. "What did you see this time?" Darius began, attempting once more to stop her tears. "Amelia... Amelia! I need you to focus!" he said as he gently put his hand upon her shoulder, turning her tiny frame to face him.
The young girl could not speak. She blathered and blithered incoherent babbling despite her parents' encouragement. She was so shaken and frightened that she had almost forgotten how to speak entirely. Darius looked around for a moment, squinting his eyes to pierce through the darkness that was not washed away by the lamp that he had placed upon the floor. There was a dresser in the corner, complete with a few books stacked on top; there was a single window looking out upon the lake, and a small table opposite the bed. Darius stood for a moment, and strode over the the table. He snatched a sheet of parchment from the mess upon it and a small drawing stick that had fallen to the ground and brought them back to his daughter.
He knelt beside her, bringing his eyes to her level.
"Amelia. I need to know what you saw. Please... can you draw it for Daddy?"
The girl bit her lip, holding back more tears, and took the parchment and stick from her father's outstretched hands and began to scribble.
Drawing seemed to calm her. As she shaded and rubbed the stick against the parchment, and as her sketch began to take shape, her tears seemed to recede, and the fear seemed to free itself from her soul. It took her only a minute or two to finish her interpretation of her dream before she handed it back to her father.
His eyes grew wide as he looked upon the symbol that she had drawn. He looked back up at his daughter, his mouth hanging wide.
"Daddy... she choked out. "He told me th-that... that the world was... was going to die! Darius moved to hug her. She held him tight for a moment. Into his hear, she whispered "He told me that... that you were going to die tonight. He told me that- that... That we are all going to-to-t-to... To die!" she began once more, wailing anew.
Darius let his daughter back to her bed. He asked his wife to look out for her for the rest of the night. Despite Amelia's protests, he had quickly gathered his cloak to fend off the cold of the night, and mounted his horse. He set out only moments after, clutching the drawing that his daughter had given him, and mouthing the words that she had said.
He headed toward the bastion. The Knights needed to know.
Something was wrong. So very wrong.
Darius is heading to the Knight's bastion with grave news, indeed. You have full control of Darius when he arrives, and as he unloads the news upon your order. From there, it is entirely up to you how Clarent and his Knights proceed from there. Perhaps you want to question Amelia, or perhaps you wish to take pre-emptive measures against the threats warned of by a child? I'll be interested to see how you take it from here.
K i ' i r a
The forest was unforgiving. It yielded little any more. The fruits were rotten, and the trees were all but dead and void of their once colourful leaves. The sound of liveliness was replaced instead by the bitter tears and sour cries of Ki'ira, the chosen of Vinsha. “Come out! Coward! Didn’t you consider yourself equal to a god to take the image of one, why are you hiding!? Stand before me and answer for your crime!” she screamed into the hollow forest passages to no answer.
No wind. Nothing.
Just silence.
Vinsha did not reappear to her chosen. The silvery fox could have been an illusion, surely? A mirage created by a weary mind that had been shocked and concussed badly in the last few nights. It was the only explanation. Surely...
The forest yielded no answers.
Walking onwards, Ki'ira would have been greeted by the same, endless deathly silence. No matter how far she would walk, it was as though she were lost in the encroaching darkness. Like a maze, it seemed to enclose upon her; the world playing tricks upon the trickster. Wherever she turned, she seemed to end up in the same place as before, the same trees, the same rocks, the same beaten down path through the rotting vegetation underfoot. The same fog slowly creeping down through the leaved above. The same feeling of emptiness. Loneliness. Defeat.
The silence was broken once more. But not through any sounds piercing the obscurity. Silence still reigned, but as Ki'ira turned once more down the puzzled, arcane pathway, she would have been stopped in her tracks. Just in the distance, on the edge of the total umbra, stood a figure taller than any man she would have ever met. He was huge and powerful, and his mere presence could have felled even the stoutest of men. Impending dread, doom, and searing, terrible disgust seeped through Ki'ira's skin. She could make out no features upon his face, nor any upon his body. She could only see a crown of shadows sitting upon his head, standing like a throne of spikes atop the man.
Ki'ira could not move.
She wanted to, but she could not. She was frozen in place by a force unlike any the world had seen before. The man did not take a step towards her, rather standing in the misty, blurred darkness between the umbra and penumbra, making him hard to see. Hard to define. He seemed to have no eyes. No mouth. Nothing. Just a man in black, donning a crown that seemed as dark as his own soul.
He was only there for the briefest of moments. The absolute shortest possible second. It felt like hours; he stood there, staring right into Ki'ira's soul. But he was gone just as suddenly as he had appeared. He faded with the blink of an eye, receding back into the shadows as the hold upon Vinsha's chosen loosened.
The darkness relented just a little. It became just bright enough for Ki'ira to see the trunks of the trees spiralling up into the sky. She would likely have not bee prepared to see the same Silvery Grey fox from only hours before, dangling from a grotesque tree of flesh and bone, its neck snapped and its belly sliced. Ravens fed upon its innards, and the last isnects on the furst gnawed and burrowed their way into the mystical creatures fur.
This creature was no illusion. It was real. Ki'ira could see it. Smell it. Feel it. It was real. It was there.
What terrible force had overcome the world? What being could possibly take a god from its throne and string its body from a tree like a common animal?
Find people.
Oh god, find people.
V o l k i m i r
The undead creature, an animate bundle of flesh, bones and skin, nodded soullessly to its master. It lived to serve the new master who had injected life into it from the great beyond of death. He was a man in life, a father, a child. He had dreams, aspirations, and goals. Now he simply knew how to serve the dark force that had brought it to the world once more. the creature let out a troubled urghhh before reaching out to collect the strange metal weapons that Volkimir had handed to him.
With the weapons bundled in its arms like a mass of sticks and firewood, it made its way to the old forge that his former self had set up as a place of work. The fire had been blown out by the explosion of holy energy, but a blacksmith never forgot his craft. Not in life, nor in death. It was only several minutes before the creature had reignited the forge and laid out all of it tools in front of it upon the workbench. It was only several minutes after that that it began to work tirelessly. It melted down the weapons into a sticky, red-hot mass that began to flow like water. The material was strange, oddly malleable, yet incredibly strong. It emanated a foreboding feeling of dread upon its touch.
The blacksmith moulded the material into one of his many casts for various weapons, though a master blacksmith like he had been always had special moulds for creating particularly expensive works for the nobles and the royals. The creature had rustled through his belongings for several minutes before finding the perfect cast for such a rare material.
His hammering continued for hours. He folded the steel more times that would be possible with any mundane material. He worked with such precision and delicacy that it would have been hard to believe that this was an animated ghoul; a shade of a man passed. However, the creature took great pride in finally revealing his creation to his master, wishing only to make him proud. From the fires of the forge, the ghoul retrieved a masterfully crafted gauntlet, adorned with four exceedingly sharp slashing claws that protruded from the knuckles. The gauntlet itself was almost weightless, and could withstand strikes from even the heaviest of weapons, and the claws... sharp as anything. Steel folded thirty times. Unholy steel. The entire weapon was black as midnight, with the occasional stain of what seemed to be blood rippling across its jet surface.
The weapon cooled in seconds, much to the dismay of the Ghoul, who clearly assumed it would take much longer. He bowed to Volkimir as he presented the weapon.
Shiny! And fucking deadly.
You have yourself a new weapon, you lucky duck! But what does Volkimir do now? Well, you have many options:
The city is still rife with information, and you could easily find your way to the royal archives and find out what is up with that strange symbol upon the bodies of the cultists? Maybe you want to go after Ansur and cut his balls off? If you need any specific prompts, do message. But I feel like you will definitely be able to cause a stir in your current situation.
E r e b u s T h a n e
By morning light, Erebus had found that Ronan had done just as he had instructed. He had assembled all of the gifted kin from Thorn, all those capable of fighting, excepting the children and the elderly, upon the village limits. The suns burned bright so early, and with no clouds to trap the heat of the day before, the air was crisp and cold. No storms raged this morning, and the ills of the world from the night before seemed to be irrelevant. It was beautiful, a red dawn: plains glistening with dew, and the mountain in the distance stood tall and stark against the blazingly bright sky.
Some of the kin had asked about their presence that morning, but a stern Ronan had given them little information besides Erebus wishes it, so it will be so. For many, this was enough to satiate their curiosity. The more observant among them knew that they had assembled to stand up to Ophel, the dragon who had given them such trouble in past years. Some of the kin were there for loyalty. Some were there for glory. All of them were there to honour their uncrowned king.
The cool morning air was stirred shortly after. Not by a natural breeze, but by a gust. A gust that seemed to hit the kin with force that seemed unfitting against the gentle, calming breezes that the morning had thus shown. It sowed some confusion amongst the lesser informed kin, and instilled a slight fear in the informed. A second gust beat down upon them. And another. And another. It had become unrelenting in mere moments. After only minutes, the beats were punctuated with a terrible, distant cry, echoing through the plains and across the mountain: it was like the shriek of a thousand dying men all at once, all lamenting in their woes and fears.
And then, just as suddenly as the gusts had begun, a creature emerged over the crest of the mountain in the distance: a dragon. Larger than most, its scales were burned a sickly black, and its once majestic face was twisted and contorted like some unholy force had crushed it in its hand. A dark cloud followed its flight path, and the ground beneath it went dark as it blocked out the light of the suns. A dreadful whispering began amongst those assembled, yet none made a rush for their homes. They stood tall and fast as Ronan called to them that Ophel would learn his place this day, and that their Uncrowned King would show them why he was their Uncrowned King.
The dragon, noting the congregation, directed itself towards them. A meal, for sure. And an example, most definitely, would be made of them. For the Diamond Dragon feared none in this world, least of all a collection of men and women, united under what banner? If the dragon was capable of smiling, it would have grinned a grin of pure malice, as its poisoned mind saw fit to open its mouth and unleash its mighty breath upon the gathering of people upon the edge of Thorn: a wash of misty white came forth from its gaping maw, a gaseous spray of razor sharp particles that would rend the flesh of mere mortals upon its touch.
You have full NPC control of Ronan, the Kin, and Ophel. Teach this dragon a goddamn lesson in leaving your people alone. Extra points if you make it epic.
E l o w e n
Excuse my interruption, but I have but a simple inquiry - what happened to the battlefield? There used to be men.. laying in the grass.. but now your home is built upon it?
The farmer looked at Elowen for a moment, as though she were mad. He squinted at her, and then looked at the suns in the sky. He looked back down to his hoe, and then once more back to the Woman.
She was mad.
"Um," he said hesitantly. "Bodies? he asked blankly, not knowing how else to punctuate a response to such an unusual question. He frowned and continued to hoe the small field that he had irrigated upon his property. He did not seem like the talking type, until he began to ramble in frustration whilst he toiled the field.
"People nowadays. Young'un's, honestly!" he exclaimed to himself. "People think that just cos' i'm old they can make fun'a' me like that. Nitwits! Rapscallions!" he looked up from his work to see Elowen still stood there, staring at him. He shot his head back down and continued with his hoeing. "Hasn't been a battle here in twenny' thousand years'. I ain't twenny' thousand years old. Damn kids."
He continued in such a way for a few minutes, tolling his field for sowing whilst muttering to himself about the rudeness of the younger generation of Ansus. According to him, kids had a lot more respect in his day. He started to sow seeds in the lines he had raked through his semi-fertile soil. Every so often he shot another glance to Elowen who seemed to still be stood there, confused and frustrated. Almost as much so as the farmer.
The elderly man stopped and removed his hat. He walked closer to Elowen's side of the field. He grimmaced and squinted and contorted his face in all sorts of unusual ways, before coming to the conclusion that this girl was not being rude; she had clearly been knocked so hard that she did not remember where or when she was.
"Are you lost, kiddo?" he finally asked, placing his hoe down into the parched earth as he rubbed his hands together to wipe off any crusted mud. "No bodies 'ere for thousans' of years. Twenny' thousand I think. Maybe you 'ave the wrong place?"
He looked her in the eyes, and saw the real fear and confusion and disbelief in them. It suddenly dawned on the farmer that she was neither lost, nor stupid, nor making fun of him, but that something was genuinely amiss. His eyes softened, and his paternal instinct kicked in.
"Look..." he said hesitantly. "I don't know what is goin' on with you, but I ain't seen that look in many a year. Maybe you'd better go inside and talk to my wife. She's fixin' up a wonderful mutton pie. Maybe she can help you out, too," he said, nodding, a small, warm smile creeping across his face.
As I am sure you know, these situations are in your full control. In this situation, you have full control of both the farmer, his wife, and you are free to improv their house as you see fit. You can have the farmers wife tell you all about what is going on in the world, or you can have her not believe you at all! You can even improv a terrible event happening nearby if you wish, or set yourself up on a quest of some sort. I am here to respond to whatever you do, and create prompts to drive you forward. Go crazy, and I look forward to seeing how you handle it!
C i n n e a d
There was a resounding chorus of 'shit' and other colourful expletives upon their realisation. The Alan warriors had gotten it so, so very wrong. They mocked him, and they had considered executing him when they first found him, yet somehow, Cinnead stood before them. The Spear of the West in the flesh. Their patron warrior, the man they read about growing up, the one they sang songs about in the playground. It was him. His skills did not lie.
Many of their own lay dead before them, cut down by the unholy wraith that he appeared from nowhere. They would have all been dead had it not been for Cinnead. They still could not believe their eyes; they could not believe how fast he moved, how furious he was with the spear. They could not believe how he felled the beast in only moments where they would have all died had they been alone.
One of the surviving warriors fell to his knees, and whispered a prayer of forgiveness to whatever Gods may have still been alive, and others looked between each other in confusion. One of the men, who had yet until now to make himself known, stepped forward from the confused and frightened group.
"Lord Cinnead," he began. "We... uh- we know where your spear is. They keep it at a, uh, a small shrine just outside of Helford. it is a small village, uh, just a few miles east of the valley," he said, pointing toward the valley that had grown upon the horizon as they had approached the ruined camp. "We can take you there, uh, if you want. But we should find you some, uh, clothes. And we should salvage the camp. What was that thing anyway?"
The Alans agreed amongst themselves to salvage the camp, and scurried off into the remains of the place in search of supplies.
The camp was as ruined on closer inspection as it had seemed from afar. The bodies were grotesque, and two men could not hold their stomachs. Those who made it past the grisly wall of cadavers and past the totem pole of human heads found little in the way of usable supplies: a few packs of stale bread, a few pairs of cloth garments, and several rudimentary blades that were dulled and brittle. A bandit camp, for sure. Only bandits had so few usable supplies on hand at any time. They were also likely pilfered goods from passing caravans and adventurers.
One warrior had given Cinnead some of the garments to wear on the next leg of their journey, and the bread was broken between all surviving men. The walk was quiet at first, shock still permeating the group, and disbelief was all around. "How did you... how did you come back?" one man asked, as they quickly descended into the valley, where a village could be seen on the opposite end.
Nice job killing the crap out of that thing. It was an awesome scene. You shall be rewarded in due time.
From here, you are being led to the village where your spear is held in a shrine. You can choose to either cut right to the village and have somebody show you to the weapon, or you can set up another encounter inside the valley. I will adapt to whichever you decide to go with. PM me if you need any help working it out.
Z a h a r a
There were no words. Just gasping and silence. They knew she was a fearsome warrior, and they knew that she would defend her own kin to her last breath, but the ferocity with which she killed the sub-men was... frightening, to say the least. She was their saviour, they knew that much for sure, but the celebrations were replaced with dubious caution. Zahara was dangerous. More dangerous than they knew. Perhaps she was a little different to how the stories portrayed her. There was still cause for celebrations, however, as the plague of sub-men who had been demanding payments of food and water from them for years had finally been swatted like a fly against a wall.
The elder woman approached once more, rubbing the reddened bruise that had appeared upon her neck from the savage grabbing by the leader of the sub-men. "We are so glad you have returned, child. So glad." she held out her hand and stretched to touch Zahara's face. She just wanted to feel the real, living flesh of her saviour. Just once. She could not reach and lowered her hand, dejected. She was too old, too hunched, and far too stiff to reach so highly.
The last few sub-men who had not died during the fight gurgled as the last of their lives left their bodies in streams of red, feeding the sand much needed lifeblood. Not a single one escaped with their lives. Victory was sweet; it certainly seemed so. Yet it was also oddly pyrrhic. The elder began to cry very gently, her face crinkled up and several tears dropped from her wrinkled eyes and onto the sand, mixing with the blood seeping through.
"I always said... that... I would live to see the day you would return." she coughed, blood coming forth from her mouth. "It looks like I was right," she said quietly as she looked down at her belly. A deep patch of red was seeping through them through a hole in her gut created by the reckless slashing of one of the sub-men who had died so quickly against Zahara. "It seems I... I have been struck... Oh dear," she said, attempting to laugh and unject humour into such a situation.
The crowd was quiet. Men held their hands to their mouths in amazement, and women welled up in tears.
"I think I just need to sit down. I think I will be okay," she continued, straining to lower herself to the ground so she could lay down. Two men from the crowd rushed forward to help her down, laying her gently into the sand. The blood soaking through her tunic immediately began to seep into the sand.
"I... I'm so glad you are here. I am so glad that I get to look upon your face. So glad. You have to... lead them. Save them. You have to- to...".
Her eyes, in that moment, did not really change. They stopped moving, but there was something oddly profound about it. One moment, they harboured life, energy, wisdom, and love. And the next moment, they were the old, withered eyes of a woman who had just passed from one world to the next. From a life, to a body. After all, the balance on the world had to be maintained. The world could not gain one good soul without losing one.
The wind carried the sound of tears far and wide. Unusual glances were shot in Zahara's direction every once in a while by a crowd that had moved to claim the body of the woman. They carried her body to the temple in the town to be interred.
Not one soul approached Zahara. Not a single one.
Crapsack world, ENGAGE!
Seems like the populace here aren't quite as stoked as we thought they would be. Do you think you will stick around for the funeral (of which you have full control) or are you going to flee the town in search of answers? Improv time! I look forward to seeing how Zahara handles this.
As has been pointed out, I am extremely busy on weekends (Saturday especially) where I usually get anywhere between ten minutes to an hour of free time. I usually tend to spend it eating or sleeping, but it does mean my time online can be severely limited. I try to check on OOC where possible.
But yes, I am still here, very much alive, definitely active. No panics. Responses will be coming Monday and then most week days following that for the more active among you.
