usir | Event #6 Arkoda's Awakening & the Wyrm Moon

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Arkoda's Awakening & the Wyrm Moon

🜙 Arkoda's Awakening.

	With the emergence of hibernating creatures and the arrival of the thaw, Arkoda's awakening is being celebrated across Idan. In Krimnos, King Sitka, adorned with the white laurels of peace, announces the opening of the Krimnos Greenhouse to all of Idan, the many magical plants within it available to any in the general public who might have need of them. The Hymn of the Mountains tolls out gently from the crystal bells in Arkoda's temple, and the Krimnos knights hold a competition of skill in Hippogriff Flight Courses, Aerial Jousting, Archery, Armed Combat, and Unarmed Combat that is open to all. Participants have the chance to take on the mantle for themselves and join Krimnos' Knights, with the winners of each category potentially acquiring a rare Hippogriff from the Krimnos Aviary or a horse from the stables and a hefty sum of gold. In Didymos the celebration is split between the quarters. In the overlook quarter Queen Adira pardons a number of people from serving out time for their crimes with the option of joining the crew of any of the large fishing fleets or assisting the academies in keeping the buildings orderly, and a celebration of the Didymos justice system includes debates and elections for the Queen's staff of judges and advisors. In the ocean quarter, the fishermen are celebrated with sea shanties, shoreline bonfires, dancing, music, and a jubilee for the upcoming spring, all culminating in a grand feast where the main dishes feature fish, berries, boars, rabbits, fruits, nuts, and various honeyed sweets and drinks. No one talks about the shortage of fish in the bay, or the dragon that emerged from it last month. In the chaos surrounding the City of the Free Peoples, a group of rebel fighters in conflict with the city's current self-proclaimed leader are holding a celebration for anyone to attend at the Immortal Duke well into the night that focuses on bolstering spirits and joyfully, loudly, singing and dancing in spite of Captain Koroc's threats. Oddly, the Defenders seem unwilling to make a move on the heavily warded inn and everyone who joins in seems to lose their worries and cares the moment they step foot over the threshold. An elf with blond and brown streaked hair offers support and uplifting words and gives a speech at one point in the night that seems to really rally the crowded inn's crowd, promising that brighter days are soon to come and that before long the city will belong to the people once more, with no need to fear their true leader. There is even a mocking play that makes light of the former and current rulers. An armadillo beastfolk depicts Captain Lykos as timid and uncertain, waffling over decisions and eventually curling himself into an armored ball and rolling away off stage. An orc with horns on his head plays Koroc as a bullish brute that charges a mysterious masked and taunting character with a cape, careening right off the stage behind him and into a pile of prop boxes where he is 'slain' by his own stupidity.

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🜙 Arkoda's Awakening: Potion Seller

	The black markets of the three cities are constantly moving, never lingering in the same place for long. You may not have even known you were in it, were it not for the battle-scarred hyena and his human friend calling out to you with a gruff barked "Hey," followed by a smooth as silk sing-song "I know what you've been searching for." Against your better instincts, you find yourself compelled, stepping one foot after the next over to the harmless looking alchemy market stand. Nearly a hundred colorful bottles and vials of assorted shaped are stacked and stored around the lantern-lit stand. "You'll know which potion you need when you find it." The singsong voice of the woman washes against you like a reassuring touch, and she holds both hands out palms up, gesturing to her many wares. The leering hyena beastfolk beside her grins dangerously at you, winking. "If you think you can handle them." There's something unusual about them, they almost seem to shimmer in the light. As you pick up one of their offered vials you feel a dizzying sensation as if the earth has suddenly gone out from beneath your feet. You catch yourself on a tree and look up to find yourself standing in the middle of a mostly empty marsh somewhere between Didymos and the City of the Free Peoples. You're disoriented, confused, and your head is pounding. It feels as if you just went on an all-night drinking bender. The vial is gone, as is the market, but you aren't alone. Another individual is picking themselves up out of the marsh beside you, feeling the same effects of an unfortunate encounter with the tricksters or perhaps they were just out for a walk when you appeared out of nowhere and knocked into them.
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🜙 The Wyrm Moon: Wolves of Atrómitos

	King Ardis and his men have set up camp in an abandoned village near the outskirts of the City of the Free Peoples while the roguish leader of Didymos' ocean quarter attempts to get Captain Koroc to agree to assisted mediation from him and his men. So far his request has been repeatedly scoffed at by the towering red orc who views the man's attempts at diplomacy as a power grab. Dozens of rebels remain locked in custody of the Defenders and the knights of the City of the Free Peoples seem on edge, an air of anxious and paranoid tension rampant in the warcamp while a feeling of distrust and fear permeates the city itself. Prior to the Wyrm Moon, Captain Koroc declares that King Ardis' presence is an act of war and that the city is now under his rule. The City of the Free Peoples is still in a state of internal conflict. Their unofficial leader, Captain Lykos, has been missing since the end of December and in the wake of his disappearance, a red orc named Koroc has declared himself the new leader of the Defenders of the City. His greed for power has progressed over the months he has been in command of the army of Defenders, and he has now claimed himself King Koroc, rightful ruler of the city and its people, calling the city once more by the more familiar name of Atrómitos. His erratic, increasingly violent behavior and the fairly fresh scars covering one of his arms make him an even more fearsome sight than the already over-sized orc had previously been to behold. Even his most trusted fellow Defenders seem nervous in his presence. Dervish, the smaller orc that has been at his side since Captain Lykos' disappearance is quieter, remaining behind him rather than beside him. Dozens of citizens are locked up in cells in a makeshift Defender's warcamp prison and a struggle for power has risen to the surface. King Ardis is willing to help find a diplomatic solution by force if necessary, waiting outside the city with a small force of soldiers and putting out calls for information on the situation to help him help the people of the city. The newly recovered Captain Lykos is laying low, assessing the state of the city and searching the network for supporters to reach out to while he waits out the full moon. The rebels numbers are depleted but their current leader, an enterprising elf named Lorna with connections willing to fund her attempts to take back the city, is reorganizing her people and recruiting people to the cause of putting the city in saner, more capable hands. Koroc's new leadership seems to involve enforcing militaristic force and overbearing control over the city, but he is making broad claims of returning the city to its former glory, assuring his people that when he is in power, Didymos and Krimnos will give their city the respect they've been denied since the fall of Atrómitos Things have come to a violent final head, and the actions of everyone involved over the next few weeks could alter the City of the Free Peoples forever. As the full moon rises over the city's internal conflict, fearsome howls fill the brightly moonlit night and dozens of werewolves emerge from the shadows, attacking the newly re-named Atrómitos and the city's outskirts with a pack mentality rarely seen in the usually lone, cursed creatures. They hunt together, clawing their way from the wilderness toward the city, eyes blood red in the night, their black fur allowing them to melt into the shadows. The defenders can be seen all over the outskirts of the city, armed and ready, their response time impressive. Dervish leads them, and they beat back the werewolf attack. It's clear the werewolves are out for blood. Some of them make it through the Defenders' defensive lines, but many of the creatures retreat and turn their claws and teeth on the farmers and King Ardis' camp.

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🜙 The Wyrm Moon: Dawn of Dragons.

	Under the light of the larger than usual wyrm moon, the claimed dragon eggs scattered across Idan begin to hatch. The dragons that emerge from the eggs have no magical abilities, no flight, and no voice, but their personalities will grow and define rapidly. All but one of the hatching eggs found its way into the clutches of an awakened, for better or for worse. A lone egg, hidden away in a crate on Didymos' shore is found by the Didymos guards on patrol sometime after the waters have cleared. They take their discovery to Queen Adira, who is faced with a startling discovery. Another dragon outside Didymos. A proud denizen of truth and justice, she makes a courier post visible to all of Didymos, allowing them to see the hatchling for themselves, and explaining the circumstances of its discovery. She admits she is unaware of whether or not there may be more such creatures but assures her citizens that her scholars will be closely monitoring the hatchling. It is a frightening awakening for Didymos, but Queen Adira insists that until they know where it came from, if there are more of them, and if this creature is a threat, she and her advisors will be keeping it contained and monitored. Its kind may have destroyed the kingdoms of old, but she implores her people not to let that color their judgment. Frowning, she reluctantly admits that the actions of the people and creatures of the past must not be used to sentence people and creatures of the present and that if they travel down that road it would darken the clarity of justice they uphold in Didymos. Understandably, reactions throughout the city are wildly mixed.

🜙 Note.

	April's plot write-up will feature a follow up on both the Einjar Excursion and the Wyrm Moon events. Next month players will be helping to decide the future of the City of Free Peoples: Its name, its leader, and how it reforms following the conflict that has divided it and caused a rift of fear and confusion between its people.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He isn't immediately going for a kill. That fact won't make Billie relax at all but it does make her feel like it's more or less safe to turn and look back at him. There's a lot of rude ways she could answer that, seeing how she doesn't take orders from him anymore.

"But I didn't," is what she settles on, simply that.

"And now you have a dragon." If Daud seems to be continuing to state the obvious, well, it's because the amount of things he could be saying instead is starting to fill a mental novel.

"What's next, Billie? Planning to become a priestess? Start a cult of your own?"

Well, alright, if he's going to be that way.

"Funny words to hear coming from you, old man, or did you forget you think I should be doing something else with my second life? It's not like starting a cult is any different from what you did."

Billie Lurk is not, in fact, going to start a damn cult but if he's going to an ass — and he is, for all he never sounds like he ever leaves a single monotone emotion at any time — she'll fight fire with fire.

"I did," Daud acknowledges, something flickering and dying behind silver eyes that catch the moonlight that filters into the dark. Mercy shudders, neck arching like she's wracked with some terrible pain.

"And that's why I know nothing ever good comes of playing at being a god. It fools you," he rasps, voice slow and enunciated, tail curling in the air behind him. "You think you're the master of that power, but you're the one who's dancing to its tune."

His gaze swings over to the whimpering dragon. He hasn't reached for his blade, but the lines in his face seem starker, somehow, cast deeper in shadow. The weight of years Billie hasn't had to live through.

"There's always someone who pays for our choices," he murmurs, his gaze falling on the dragonet. "Who'll be paying for this this one?"

"I'm not playing at being a god, Daud," Billie can't help but roll her eyes, completely exasperated by the very thought. She turns back to look into the crate, the dragon still whining and trying to balance on its legs, only to have its wings get in the way. "This was going to hatch whether I left it where I found it or not."

If anything, she'd be playing god for choosing to smash it instead, but someone had already lost their life for it. Seemed a waste to even consider at that point.

"And after the pit, just stumbling across yet another egg seemed like too much of a coincidence to me. How many more eggs are out there? How many of them hatched tonight? Why now? First the scales, now this; real, living dragons. It's hard to imagine we aren't already being dragged along to someone else's tune, Daud, but this little wretch here isn't to blame. It can't even figure out how legs work yet."

Edited 2019-04-03 03:33 (UTC)

"What scales." It's not really a question, just a dull echoing of Billie's words. Mercy's head sinks, the animas curling in on herself.

Daud's just so damned tired. Einjar was enough of a trial -- now there's this to deal with, too.

"What do you think this is, Billie? Are you like Strange? Thinking we've been brought back because we're chosen? By dragons?"

"No, I still think that's random bullshit," Billie says. Random chance, though that the dragons weren't involved somehow— that's different. There's a connection, she just doesn't know how. Not a point to argue right now, though, as she turns to eye Daud again.

"The scales... From the courier?" There, at that point, her voice wavers uncertainly. She's made an assumption and it's turning out to be a wrong one. Her gaze flickers to Mercy, how the bird droops, and it's with that where she begins to see this conversation was doomed from the start.

That's not really a shocker. A dragon is involved, a living one. That's crossing a line for a lot of people, a hundred years in the future or not. Her brow furrows, lips pursed thin in an expression that can't quite decide if it should be worried or lost in thought, only it doesn't last terribly long.

"It doesn't matter." It does but Mercy's given away the game for him. Deirdre, for her part, makes an unhappy bird noise and looks at Billie, already anticipating what's to come. "We'll leave. I was planning on moving it, anyway."

Where to, she hasn't the foggiest, especially with all hells still breaking loose around the city, but she'll just have to get creative. She can do that.

There's absolutely no recognition in Daud's expression when Billie asks that, which is confirmation enough.

"For how long do you think that will last?" Daud asks, though it's largely a rhetorical question, staring at the dragonet stumbling over itself, soft and helpless.

It would be easy to kill it now. He's still fast enough he could do it before Billie or Deirdre could do a thing about it, and even if she killed him afterwards, well ... one less dragon in the world to deal with.

"How fast will it grow? Do you know what it eats?" Well, they know one thing dragons eat for sure, and it's other dragons, which is making that whole 'hey, there might be other dragons out there!' thing an even bigger problem to dread. Daud's voice is strained, even past its usual roughness. "You saw what that cult tried to do to that dragon, how many people they caught. How much easier is it going to be for them to break a dragon this young?"

He can feel his fingers curling into fists by his sides, and he forces them to relax, exhaling to steady his breath. Billie doesn't care what he thinks, he reminds himself. She's already said as much. But looking at the dragon, all he can think is that it would have been kinder to kill it before it ever broke out of its shell.

Edited 2019-04-03 06:04 (UTC)

But she does care what he thinks, more than he may ever know and more than Billie ever wants to admit. Daud's disagreement already has her second-guessing herself but is that really how this should be? She does something, he disagrees, she caves?

"Since when did you even care?"

Billie rounds on him with that rather than some childish declaration of how she'll just figure it out or how she'll be able to protect the dragon from those assholes. She doesn't know if she will, she doesn't know if she can, but she does know Daud and Daud hasn't been himself since they dragged themselves out of the damn marsh. Yet here he is, questioning all of her motives and never letting on to any of his own, all over again. It's one frustration too many.

"Why are you here, Daud? Why are you helping Lykos? Why do you care if a city burns or not? If dragons return or if they don't? You were happy enough to set the fires yourself as long as you were getting paid. Happy enough to take money from a dragon, too, to do their dirty work."

Moreso dragonborn but they may as well be the same thing after a point.

Edited 2019-04-03 14:22 (UTC)

"I was wrong."

It's an answer so simple it's inane, but that sums up the whole truth at the heart of it. Daud's expression is as grim and impenetrable as ever, but he bites out the words with a slow, heavy bitterness. It broke something inside him, then, and he feels the broken edges inside him still, jagged ends grinding together with every breath he takes. Why him? Why now? He doesn't know if he'll ever get an answer to that. Maybe it doesn't exist.

"I was wrong," he repeats, quieter. "And it seems the world isn't done with me yet." All those years building his own empire for naught. He couldn't even find his ship's wreck, or his men's graves, and he'd tried. It's either the cruel whim of the gods or the dark machinations of man that have dragged him out of his grave, but Daud doesn't like it either way.

"I'm not helping Lykos because I care about the city." Strictly speaking, that was even the truth. If it wasn't this one, it would be somewhere else. He'd simply had the bad luck to attach himself to this one first, mistaking a lack of kings and queens for a lack of complications. Well, now there are far too many.

"I don't even know if helping him is going to help the city." Could be that someone like Lorna is what it needs -- someone hungry, with ambition. Someone who isn't were-cursed. "But I made a choice. And I'll see it through."

It's an admission that cuts deep for Billie. For years, she's done everything she could to follow in Daud's footsteps. Taught to have no regrets, no remorse about their work, and it had always just seemed right to her. That was how her life was meant to be, that's how she wanted to live, to carry on after she took over from him—

He was wrong? Wrong? Then what does that make her or any of the other Wolves? Some gods-damned mistake? It's a struggle to concentrate on what he has to say after that, his words about not caring, not knowing all sounding like he's speaking to her from a distance.

She swears she sees red for a briefest of moments. It isn't that unusual, the curse in her blood not entirely unlike a werewolf's. Weaker, sure, but the temper is still there, lurking, waiting, always. For once it isn't some telltale shapeshifting she has to worry about, though. With her fingers curled into fists at her side, she can already make out the smell of burning leather, that flash of anger bringing a far more foreign power to the surface.

That won't do at all.

"You were wrong," she echoes, similarly quiet, though when she hangs her head it's less about avoiding his eyes and more about focusing on something else, tamping down on a completely different dragons' power that's surfacing. This isn't a good time to set fire to herself or anyone or anything else and reminding herself of that helps some. No, she can use this. Focus on that instead.

"If you were wrong about everything else, why can't you be wrong about this? You didn't kill that half-dragon in the mountains. You told me you would act if you needed to, only you never had to, did you?"

Personally, Daud doubts very much that they’ve seen the last of Monty and his clan. He just shakes his head, ever so slightly. In this, at least, he has a ready answer.

“Whatever his nature was, he didn’t know it or his family kept it from him. You can’t hide a dragon from itself. It’s not a pet. It’ll grow up to think and dream what you tell it to. And it’ll start asking qtuestions you’ll have to answer.”

In other words: welcome to being a mom, Billie. He gestures around them, at the derelict home.

“You were the best I ever trained.” Its damning praise, considering all he said before, but it’s also the unfiltered truth. It’s also why he knew he couldn’t expect a peaceful change of power. “Is that what you’ll teach it too?”

It is damning. Definitely praise she could do without all of the sudden, if he thinks everything in his past has been one gloriously long mistake.

"I'm not sure stabbing people in the back for a living is going to work for a dragon, Daud," Billie says after a short moment. This isn't a pleasant conversation but that thought is, on its own, kind of funny. She looks up again, back to watching him carefully, warily. So far he hasn't moved for the dragon. Or at all, really. She's not sure if that's reassuring or something to worry about.

"Kids think more for themselves than you're giving them credit for." She sure didn't heed a single thing her mother said but it's probably discard the thoughts of a violent drunk than it is someone you actually care about. "But I don't know. You think I have a plan for any of this? Because I don't. I figure I'll tell it the truth if it survives that long."

That’s what he’s afraid of. You can’t tell them the truth if you don’t know what it is, Billie.

“Maybe not,” he says, as unfun as ever. Billie may think it’s funny, but he’s thinking ahead into the future, when that mewling dragonet becomes something infinitely worse. “But dragons looked on the world and learned they had the right to shape how it works, if they used their power to grasp it. A dragon loyal to shadows in the night is a dragon who’ll have enemies.”

His gaze falls on Billie then, meeting her wary look with a cool and unflinching one of his own. “Why did you save it? You’ve never believed in signs before.”

Mewling that is, at long last, finally grating on Billie's last nerve. Now there's something she won't enjoy getting used to but she does finally grimace and turn back to the crate, where Deirdre has turned her attentions back to, shifting from foot to foot nervously on the crate's edge. Looks like her animas doesn't have much of an idea here, either, which leaves it to Billie.

"So maybe they can learn something else," she mutters, more to herself than anyone else. That won't change the enemies part but that's a given, she thinks. Anyway, after one or two false starts of trying to figure out how do you pick this thing up, she'll manage and end up with it immediately clambering to curl up in her arms, against her chest. That shuts it up, at least, as though being picked up was all it wants right now. How warm she is probably helps there...

"And I could keep on pretending not to believe in them but we've been resurrected a hundred years in the future and the weird shit hasn't stopped since."

Daud shakes his head, ever so slightly, though it’s hard to tell if it’s at her words or the situation in general. That he considers this foolish is abundantly clear, but he won’t say as much.

Instead, simply: “If ever judge that it’s a threat beyond your ability to control, I’m going to kill it.”

"If it comes to that, I'll do it myself," Billie replies. In that, she can at least sound resolute. He's right about this being her mess now but just how big a one it'll become is yet to be seen, so she's just going to worry about the here and now. Dragonet now curled up in her arms, she turns back towards Daud, just enough to keep him in her sight.

"Well? Are you kicking us out or not?"

Because she'll go without a fight. She had already offered to, before he kept trying to talk reason into her over this. She may as well confirm how this is going to end, if only so she can start figuring out where to go that'll be fairly werewolf-proof for the night.

Hope for the best, but be ready for it to end in blood. That’s been the credo Daud’s lived by all these years.

He could point out how she never asked him whether she could keep a dragon egg under his roof so it’s not going to be an eviction so much as a removal of trespassers, but in the end, he merely shakes his head.

“Keep it in the main room,” he says, evenly. There may be faint reproof there, if only implied: where it should have been in the first place. “Maybe it won’t grow to be a tyrant if you don’t leave it choking on dust.”

That’s about as much as he feels inclined to say right now though. Stepping back towards the window, he’s out of the building swiftly enough, making his way to the other part of the building. Mercy will stay a beat or two longer, lingering over looking at Billie and Deirdre, before she too takes wing.

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Event #6 Arkoda's Awakening & the Wyrm Moon

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