usir | Event #3 A Tale of Three Cities

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🜙 Mini-Event #2: The North Winds, January 11th

	The Long Night has ended and the sun once more rises and sets with the short winter cycle. Although the cold remains, it has lessened considerably following the harsh freeze of the darkness. Krimnos, no longer having to put all their resources into defending the city from the terrors to come, has been able to clear the heavy snowpack on the cliffs above the city enough to safely begin running two of their three remaining airships. The Skywhale has been making its regular routes since its repairs the previous month, but the two airships from Krimnos to Didymos and the City of the Free Peoples have been grounded in the cliff city for safety since the start of winter. Now two of Krimnos' airships join their sister ship in the skies over Idan. The following routes are traveled once a day by each airship: The *Skywhale* travels from the City of the Free Peoples to Didymos and then back once a day, docking nightly in the City of the Free Peoples. The *Horizon* travels from Didymos to Krimnos and then back once a day, docking nightly in Didymos. The *Valiant* travels from Krimnos to the City of the Free Peoples and then back once a day, docking nightly in Krimnos. The *Zenith* normally travels from Krimnos to the mountain outpost of Preciposte and then on to Einjar. Unfortunately, it is still grounded due to inclement weather and winter threats in the northern mountains beyond Krimnos. The Zenith will not be able to travel until the thaw has begun. A one-way trip takes 4-6 hours depending on weather and wind to go from/to Didymos to either city and 6-9 hours to travel between Krimnos and the City of the Free Peoples. Anyone can take a trip on an airship for a purse of silver coins, or try their luck and stow away. Mounts can get a lift as well, but they require an additional fare. Not bad for a chance to see Idan from a bird's eye view for the first time for most people.
🜙 Thlipa's Tribute, January 11th

	As January progresses, pods of fin whales spend their nights in the safety of Fisher's Bay during their migration. At this time Thlipa is believed to be watching over Idan and many of Idan's people show their respect for the deity. Unlike the Day of Lefkokó, Thlipa's Tribute is a far more somber affair. Though she is the goddess of the seas, storms, and power, she is also the goddess of mourning and it is this realm she is believed to preside over most during the cold winter months. People from all across Idan who are able to travel will make a journey to Didymos to be closer to the ocean, while others observe the fin whale goddess' day in their own homes and cities. Ancestors, lost relatives, and friends are remembered with offerings of handmade gifts and small collections of nuts and sweet-dried fish. Small, enchanted candles are set out on boats down the river and shore to be carried out to the ocean. It is believed by some of the more power-hungry supporters of Thlipa that by calling on and revering the spirits of the departed Thlipa might gift her followers with the magic of the fallen. Gatherings of Thlipa's most devout followers can be seen on the shores or on small skimmer boats in the bay, and vandalism of fishing boats and nets that might endanger the fin whales runs rampant during this time.

🜙 A Tale of Three Cities - Krimnos: An Army Adrift, January 12-20th

	It appears that a large company of former Atrómitos knights has awoken in an isolated and forgotten battlefield below Krimnos' twin mountains. The army has journeyed together through the blinding blizzard to complete their original objective: a full-scale attack on Krimnos. There's something off about the tattered army decked in the green and gold of Atrómitos that shows up at Krimnos' gates. They don't seem to feel the cold, and their eyes, if anyone is unfortunate enough to get that close, are a colorless and glossy grey. They continue fighting through weather and injury, undeterred as they focus their attacks on Krimnos' main gate, setting magical fire to the gate, the wall, and their perceived enemies. The army can be seen using weapons, battering rams, and elemental magic to attack the city's gates. Though their eyes are a blank and glossy grey and they do not seem to be speaking or reacting with pain to counter-attack elements, it is clear there is a hierarchy and the commanding officers seem to still be silently directing their forces. They do not speak, and if captured it quickly becomes clear why. Though they appear whole externally, the soldiers of this army lack functional internal organs. No blood runs through their frozen veins and no oxygen is being pulled into their lungs. There also appear to be no thoughts in their minds, only the howling sound of the wind through the mountains around Krimnos. At this time of year, Krimnos can not afford to loose their main line of defense, nor can they risk the very real dangers of battle sounds and blood drawing out the hungry mountain hunters or causing an avalanche that could bury the city in snow. No one knows why this army is here, but with the familiar colors adorning the fighters, there are whispers in the air of an attempt to start a war. Already tense relations between Krimnos and the City of the Free Peoples could stand to suffer from this and the citizens of Krimnos seem horrified by the prospect. King Sitka's first concern is the safety of his people, and as such he is driving his army hard into the attacking forces and even beyond its gates if necessary, anything to push the battle farther from his people and the dangerous cliffs stacked with snow that tower over Krimnos.

🜙 A Tale of Three Cities - City of the Free Peoples: The Disappearance of Captain Lykos, January 14-22nd

	No one has seen Captain Lykos since the Long Night but rumors and knowledge of his disappearance have been kept quiet by the city's Defenders, fearful the city would spiral into a panic at the loss of its de facto leader. As word comes from traveling Krimnos merchants that the city is under siege from an army dressed in green and gold, the city turns to its Defenders for answers and finds more than they bargained for. The Defenders attempt to calm the rising panic in the city by deflecting, stating that the Captain is out on a peace mission on his way to Krimnos but this backfires as the city erupts into conspiracy theories that he is actually leading the attack and trying to start a war, with reasons such as anger over a lack of support from Krimnos during the city's time of need being used to feed the growing fear. As outrage and panic spread across the city, the Defenders declare martial law and put the city back on lockdown until answers can be found. The stability of the city quickly begins to fray. Chaos, disorder, and dissent spread and talk of overthrowing the Defenders and putting someone else in charge begins to spread. The city needs answers for themselves and for Krimnos and the Defenders begin an even more desperate search for their missing leader. Meanwhile, the citizens of the city begin preparing for a revolt, with whispers of an organized attack on the warcamp of the Defenders quickly gaining traction. The more time passes the less reasonably either side appears to be thinking, and the longer anyone lingers in the city the more infectious this frantic and paranoid energy becomes. Amidst it all, a Siamese with a familiar glowing adornment can be seen surveying the chaos from the safety of rooftops or tree branches, its eyes occasionally glowing blue while its tail flicks in what seems to be either irritation or frustration.

🜙 A Tale of Three Cities - Didymos: Tidal Troubles, January 14-25th

	Starting the morning of the 14th, trouble comes to Didymos on the tides or the lack thereof. The tide goes out during the night and, to the dismay and concern of Didymos' citizens, it never comes back. In fact, it seems as if the ocean waters are only continuing to recede, leaving Didymos' fleet and her fishing ships awash in the shallows or fully grounded. Each day the waters recede further, leaving sealife beached or trapped in tide pools and larger dips in the seafloor. A pod of fin whales finds themselves stranded in the deepest section of the bay just within the Sunset Gate. As the waters continue to recede, shipwrecks, sunken cargo, and unusual skeletons dot the rock and shell covered shores, turning the edges of the bay into an unending expanse of tide pools and dotting the horizon with pieces of warped and barnacle-covered ships usually only visible beneath the clear waters. Within days it's possible for a fully grown human to wade out to the Sunset Gate without ever getting their neck wet. The confusion and complications caused by this unexplainable dearth of water starts a panic in Didymos that the dual rulers have to fight to control. The widespread fear is joined by whispers of a war brought along from people traveling to Didymos from the other cities, and Didymos finds itself caught in a tense place with the prospect of having to outline allegiances if war breaks out. Everyone knows Queen Adira would put her forces behind Krimnos in an instant, but King Ardis seems reluctant, questioning the legitimacy of Krimnos' claims to a possible war and seeking information.

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Shura recognizes him in that vague way she’s learned to remember the faces of men she’s met while intoxicated on some substance or other. It’s a matter of survival, both as a former spy and as a woman who avoided fooling around with the same man more than once. But had she gotten his name back then? ... No, she doesn’t recall.

“I had hoped for somethin’ a little more refreshing.” Or just something that wasn’t involved in some kind of mysterious trouble. “Thought it might be nice if I went somewhere that didn’t have some undead army trying to break in.”

While Shura complains, Shishi notices something fascinating—a hermit crab, scuttling its way to a dead fish. The sand is boring, better to investigate the little bug that’s moving.

Daud shrugs. "At least the stench won't kill you. That's something."

The movement makes his attention turn to the lion. Hm, she hadn't had that before -- or if she had, he hadn't noticed it. Odd. He inclines his head at it, while the hermit crab remains oblivious, its swiveling eyestalks focused on the prize.

"He yours?"

Shishi's shoulders drop as he takes to a crouch, slowly stalking the hermit crab. He knows to give it a couple moments, let his prey get a bite of food before he pounces. This is a game that's going to end up with his nose getting pinched, Shura knows this. But if he's stupid enough to go after the crab, then he probably deserves to get pinched. He seems to be having fun, and that keeps her hands free while she looks around.

"Mine? Yeah, something like it." Daud may not have seen the lion before, but he might have nudged an ugly dog under a table that night. Of course, said ugly dog would have been a bit smaller back then... "He ain't bothered by the smell, but he stinks himself, so I guess he wouldn't be."

Something this big would certainly have been hard to miss. Daud looks over Shishi again, silently assessing him even as the hermit crab tears into the dead fish enthusiastically, the sun-swelled flesh easy to rip apart even for something small. Well, it's not his problem if the beast gets swatted, so he'll leave it be. If the smell bothers him, the tiefling doesn't show it.

"It's lower than it was yesterday," is what he chooses to volunteer instead, as information. "Or the day before. Or so the locals claim. If it keeps going, you'll be able to walk out to Sunset Gate."

He glances up, then, as an osprey swoops down from the sky and begins a lazy circle overhead, calling. With a sigh, he turns and begins to walk to where she's trying to direct his attention.

"That far, huh?" Shura casts her gaze to the water, lifting her hand up to block the light reflecting from the water. She only knows a little about harbors and oceans, but nothing good could come out of the terrain shifting so much.

"No sign of it stopping, I guess." But hey, what's with that bird? Shura watches as he turns, glancing between the tiefling and the bird overheard. Must be his. For all that it could be a local bird, it seemed a little too purposeful for it just to be a scavenger. To the other side, she can hear the soft thumps of Shishi pouncing on the crab, catching it unaware between his paws before batting it to the side. The crab retreats into its shell, hoping that the predator will decide it isn't worth crunching its hard shell. Let him play with it, Shura decides. An since she isn't being told not to follow, she'll trail after Daud.

Daud seems disinclined to tell her off, in any case -- that, or he doesn't care what Shura chooses to do. His hooves splash quietly through small puddles of saltwater, while the osprey leads them over to ... well, it looks mostly like a whole bunch of junk, for the most part. Smashed crates of whale bone, barrels filled with spoiling fish. For a moment, Daud wonders if the osprey's only led him here because she expects him to dig her up a meal.

The bird alights on the pile, though, and pecks at something half-buried under a net of thick rope, her feathers ruffling as she nags at Daud, evidently pleased with herself. Freeing the knife from his belt, Daud begins to cut at the ropes to get at what's underneath.

Definitely his bird. Why else would he be investigating that pile of trash? A bird that size could probably hunt for itself, but maybe it just wanted to get an easy lunch from her master. He seems willing to indulge her whims, if nothing else.

"She find her rotted fish or somethin'?" It could be, of course, something more. But if this bird was anything like her lion, there was probably something that smelled tasty to her.

"A strange sort of fish if she has," Daud returns, unruffled. It takes a little bit of work, but he finishes cutting through. Underneath is ... a crate. It's an odd one, not made of wood or rotted through, and his fingers run over it curiously. From the state of things, it's been on this ocean floor for a long time.

A hundred years long, or shorter? It seems the cities are filled with a surfeit of buried things coming to light, of late. The osprey keeps watching, eyes bright, and Daud nods, rising to his feet.

"Stay back," he warns. That's as much warning as Shura will get before he draws a hoof back and shatters the clay box with a swift, decisive kick, cracking it open and releasing the contents.

Shura doesn't have to be told twice. It's an odd little crate, she can tell that even from her distance. It doesn't match up with the other items in the mass of rotten, sun-baked cargo. It could be a trap, breaking it open by force could trigger any number of curses, so Shura takes a step back on instinct when she hears the sharp crack of the clay.

But nothing happens, and the broken pieces crumble unceremoniously to the sand. Shura hums, leaning in around him to get a better look. There's something glinting in the light.

"A bottle? " She says, canting her head. "Odd place for just pretty trinket."

"Not as odd as a tide that won't come in," Daud responds, calmly. For a moment, he stills; if Shura's got any talent for magic she might catch the edge of a spell as Daud stares at the bottle, but the way his silver eyes seem to dull and go opaque for a moment is probably the bigger giveaway. Then he blinks, and he's back to normal.

"It's magical, in any case." Carefully, he stows it into his pack, presumably to examine later. "There may be more of the same out there, if you care to dig through every pile."

"You're right~" Of course the tide not coming in was super weird! Anyone who thought that this was just a strange meteorological phenomenon was lying to themselves to sleep better at night.

"But you're bein' generous, aren't you, offering that sort of advice." Was it going to be worth digging through every pile? Shura had plenty of her own tools. Of course, there was the options of selling whatever she found.

But before she can really decide whether or not it'll be worth the trouble, Shishi lets out a loud, wild roar. The little hermit crab has thoroughly bested the lion, having grown tired of being batted around and coming out of his shell to pinch the lion with his claw. Shishi flails, the crab tightly gripping the lion's grip and refusing to release him. Shura's hand flies to her own mouth, hovering over the same spot.

"Idiot lion!" Screw treasure, she was going to have to come up with a lie if the tiefling noticed her reaction. Best to just pretend it didn't happen at all and hurry to the lion and try to extract him from his trouble.

"It's not like it cost me anything to give," Daud shrugs, and waves out at the expanse. "And I doubt the idea of staying out here much longer is appealing."

She was, after all, pretty vocal about disliking the smell. The lion's roar draws his attention and startles the osprey, who takes off from the pile in a flutter of wings before dropping down again, ruffled.

Unfortunately for Shura, Daud definitely noticed. He looks her over, expression unreadable for a moment, then back at Shishi.

"Though you seem to have other problems."

Shura glares at Daud for a moment, her petty rage all over the place. But snapping at him wasn't going to fix Shishi's problem, and so she'll leave Daud with a snarl, clicking her tongue as she pivots on her heel to tend to her problem.

When Shishi notices Shura approaching, he goes to her with a whine. There's no blood, Shura checks for that as she takes the dangling crab in her hand. She grumbles at Shishi under her breath, another few insults about his intelligence, waiting a moment to see if the crab will release the lion. It does, and the moment Shishi is free, Shura toss the crab off to the side. It had a hard shell, it could handle landing on the sand.

"You," she tell him, taking his furry face in her hands and squishing his face," are causin' me problems." She glances to the side, to see if Daud followed her. He noticed, there wasn't any other way to explain that look. But did he suspect her, or was it just him being an ass?

For a moment, Daud considers whether he should say anything or not. It would certainly be easier, wouldn't it? But seeing as being revived from the dead is a bit more of a common condition than he realized, and he's no closer to an idea of its cause as when he first woke up in the mud of the battlefield, perhaps he'll have to take the chance.

He has indeed followed her, though he keeps his distance, hands open and relaxed at his sides.

"Mind your animas," he tells her, calmly. "Someone else might recognize it for what it is."

Shit.

"An animas? Nyaha, I'm not that talented!" Her jaw clenches, because something has to and gripping Shishi's face as hard as she wants would end up with him in a bad mood. She replays the details in her mind; even someone sharp couldn't have come up with that conclusion after just seeing something that could be easily explained away. And then she remembers the hawk.

So then he might be like her. But after seeing the vials on the Atrómitos knights, she isn't about to flash hers. She releases Shishi's face and moves to stand, brushing sand off of herself.

“As it turns out, it’s easier to get one than the stories say,” Daud says, in the same dry is-he-joking-or-not tone that makes his mood so hard to place. “You just need to wake up in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Speaking of that bird? The osprey’s going to flutter off that hunk of junk and skim over the sand, landing solidly on Shishi’s back. She’s light, despite her size, and she settles on him with only the slightest pinch of claws.

And if he doesn’t shake her off immediately, she’ll lean over and give him a solid tap with her beak, right between the shoulders.

Edited 2019-01-31 02:51 (UTC)

Shishi doesn't try to shake the bird off, turning his head to look at her with a cool sort of regard, the same look that Shura is giving Daud as she considers her reply. Another awakened to add to the pile. At some point, they should figure out just how many of them there were. Shiftlings had their underground meetings, so why shouldn't they?

"Well, it isn't like that's the first time I've woken up in a strange place." She doesn't think her confession will shock Daud, considering he saw her acting wild during Lefkokó's festivities. "But that time probably takes the cake as far as that goes."

And Shishi lets the bird stay on his back, though he growls in warning when she poke him. He's not fighting a bird if he's not being forced to do so, he's learned his lesson on that.

Daud and his animas regard Shura and Shishi with the same considering assessment. He'd already known not to judge on appearances, but it's good to be able to confirm it anyway, that there' a bit more to her than a flighty troublemaker out to have a good time. Mercy shifts on Shishi's back, but she'll leave off the poking, apparently satisfied at the admission.

"I could say the same," Daud acknowledges, then glances out at the retreating ocean again. "... so far. I believe we might be in for stranger times yet."

"We'll be lucky if that's all it's going to be." It was one thing to see a few weird events, but when those weird things were just the start of some terrible things...

Well, someone should have asked her if she wanted to fight in another war before dragging her from the dead to take care of someone else's business. That would have been only just a little courteous. Her hand lifts to her hip, and she sighs.

"It's an odd way of going about things, getting people like us involved but not tellin' us a thing about why or what we're supposed to do."

"Perhaps that's the point of it. To see what we might do. I've considered the possibility that the vials and the courier allow us to be monitored by those that created them." Now that the matter of what they are is out in the open, it's oddly a bit of a relief to speak so plainly about it, and Daud does so with little sentiment. Out here, for better or worse, no one else can here.

"All we have are mysterious messages that could have come from anyone who might be playing games with us."

"May be easier to keep an eye on us with that than to keep us on a tight leash." Just who in their right mind would bring back a group of dead people from the last war just to see what they might do? Just for fun? That was a level of twisted Shura hadn't encountered before.

"But it wouldn't surprise me if they could track us with these, or anyone who has one of these things. It ain't like any of us really know how they work."

Trinkets that fell from the skies, messages from long dead dragons... Any and all of it could be possible at this point. Shishi moves to Shura, headbutting her hand and trying to ignore his passenger.

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Event #3 A Tale of Three Cities

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