usir | Event #7 Crowning the Cat & The Celebration of Spring

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🜙 Crowning the Cat: Deception of Aegas

	The Celebration of Spring is being held across Idan, and normally the City of the Free Peoples is at its heart. This year due to the fearful farmers suffering losses in their families and herds to werewolves and the broken city torn between its fears and loyalties, the first sprouts of crops planted during the thaw are significantly less impressive than past years and the hunters bring their hauls back to the cities find themselves facing even more dangerous odds in the wilderness, outwitted and outmatched more often than not. Feasting, dancing, music, staged entertainers of illusion and elemental magic, and heavy drinking still overtake the cities and small outlying villages, putting a temporary halt to any work or other priorities, but there is an air of uncertainty that can't fully be shaken, and an uneasy and unspoken fear of a famine year lies just beneath the lighter festivities. Among the celebrating, people go out of their way to honor the feline constellation deity called Aegas. The youngest of the Constellation Deities, he is known for many things. Aegas' stars are fainter in the skies than most, seen just off the left from the Great Golden Dragon Atromo. In April, Aegas is not honored so much as tributed to keep the fickle feline's wiles and tricks at bay. Children and younger citizens of the cities or those with playful or devious minds play tricks on one another, some harmless pranks and others far more dangerous or deceptive. Despite this uptick of shenanigans, however, for most Aegas' day is a day spent ensuring the secretive trickster cat deity that he has not been forgotten, as well as a celebration of Spring. Openly jealous of Atromo's status and reverence, and long overlooked in favor of the other star gods, the people of Idan learned to show their reverence for Aegas in a ritual known as the Crowning of Aegas. Cat sculptures, paintings, figurines, or idols can be found all across Idan for those who can't make it to one of Aegas' shrines, and offerings of fish, sheep or goat's milk, silver or gold bells, silk, or saucers of water are left out for the many wild, stray, or tame felines of Idan to take at their leisure. Known for being a deity over secrets, pleasure, trickery, and charm, Aegas is a favored god of rogues, assassins, bards, bandits, thieves, and charmers. An enchanted spring illness common in Idan has long been attributed to Aegas not feeling that his charms have earned him the favor of the people. The illness is known as The Aegas Affliction and is actually caused by the pollen of a flower that blooms in April after particularly harsh winters (the Golden Bellflower) Aegas' Affliction causes those who have caught the illness to be easily charmed. Their complexion is often flushed and they give in to their whims with very little self-restraint. The main symptoms are: Susceptibility to personal suggestion (Their own whims, thoughts, and desires), susceptibility to charm-based magic, a tendency to be secretive or deceptive, and a heightened sense of hunger. The illness usually goes away on its own within 1-3 days and has no known cure. It's possible to get infected by Golden Bellflower pollen from April 5th to April 30th anywhere in Idan. Only exposure to a nearby flower is necessary. During the Crowning of Aegas and for the rest of April flocks of lesser winged cats can be seen migrating from their winter homes in the Wavecrest Isles back to the unclaimed lands. Occasionally these flocks of small, canary to bobcat-sized winged cats are accompanied by fiercely protective and dangerous greater winged cat guardians while other flocks travel on their own. The playful smaller felines can be seen frolicking in fields and playing over the rooftops all across Idan while the greater winged cats stay far from the highly populated areas, hunting the wild forests, cliffs, and open lands to stock up food for them and their small flocks of fur and feathered friends.


🜙 The Bloom

	Among the celebrating the dangers of spring are temporarily forgotten. Not all threats come with fangs, talons, and claws. Creeping vines and sprouting plants lurk in the tall grasses of the plains and the dense forests. Some of the more dangerous varieties bloom and thrive in the earliest month of spring. Viperlily. A small free-roaming flowering vine with two thorns that protrude from the middle of its flower. The vine slithers along the ground in the grass toward sources of movement or sound and sinks its thorns into the feet or lower limbs of any living thing it encounters. The vine subsists on blood rather than water and uses the gathered blood to provide itself with the nutrients it needs to keep moving. It injects its victim with a venom that causes them to become weak, sluggish, and unable to use their magic so it can continue to drain blood. Most Viperlilys are too small to cause much permanent damage to their victim, but being left vulnerable in the wilderness does lead to many post-bite deaths, especially with the smell of blood in the air. Bloodthorn. A dying Viperlily that has gone dormant and taken root. Small Viperlily seeds grow all over its vines, each one prepared to drop off and grow into a new Viperlily. A thorn protrudes from the bloody sap-filled bulb of this vine. It points up toward the sun with a thorn as sharp and dangerous as a needle dagger. Those unfortunate enough to be stabbed by its thorn are injected with a modified Viperlily poison that causes victims to become feverish and reckless, encouraging them to remain nearby and engage anything near the Bloodthorn aggressively. The bloodshed caused by its victims or the Bloodthorn's own destruction causes the dozens of Viperlily seeds to sprout and take off to find their first meals. Creeping Dragontrap. A member of the carnivorous plant family, the Creeping Dragontrap is a fully mobile creeping vine with one to four heads that each have thorn-filled 'mouths' they snap down on the prey they find. The acidic toxins inside their mouths prevent their prey from being able to fight free on their own. An antitoxin is produced by the sap within their vines, but a victim captured by one of these plants will need help getting free and provided with the antitoxin before the vine escapes in a speedy retreat into the wilderness or ground. Rogue's Blush. The dense cover of this flowering ground vine is a network of sensitive thin vines can sense vibrations in the ground. The night-flowering vine is covered in dormant flowers that open in the darkness. They release pollen into the air when vibrations are sensed nearby. This pollen is collected and used in a common rogue tool: Flash Dust because eye contact with the pollen results in a blinding white flash that causes temporary blindness for 24 hours. Bramble Mimic can shape its vines into any form it has collected a template of. The thorny brambles rest in the form of a dense bush, usually settling itself partially into worn paths made by creatures or people. It uses the blood it collects from creatures or people that bump into it as a template to rearrange itself into their form, though its size is dependent on how large the original mimic has grown. It then uses its new form to hunt for food to sustain itself, holding a natural preference for predators, carnivores, and herbivores. The most common forms are those of predatory forest or swamp creatures such as jaguars, bears, wolves, and alligators.

🜙 A Mod Note

	A "Network log" will be going up the week of the 19th that will be paired with the next event log. The network log will contain courier messages from Queen Adira, King Ardis, King Sitka, Self-Crowned King Koroc, Resistance and Rebel Leader Lorna, Former Defenders Captain Lykos, and Former Defenders Lieutenant Alice. Player characters will be able to ask these leaders questions and attempt to communicate with them personally if they wish.

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"It is." As Strange sits back down, Alistair scrambles into his lap, clawing up Strange's trousers leg in order to actually get in the lap. He takes a sip of his glass of wine before going for one of the eggs. As he peels the shell off, he talks.

"It's smaller than I'm used to—only three bedrooms and none of the rooms are big." Once again, Strange shows off his horribly posh upbringing. "But one of the bedrooms has these amazing built in bookshelves. I plan to convert that one into a library. The second bedroom will be Alistair's when he gets big enough."

The dragon chirps slightly at hearing his name.

Shura has to take an extra long sip of wine to avoid making a face when Strange talks about how small the house is. She probably shouldn't mention that she's currently staying in what amounts to a shack in a a shitty part of town.

"It sounds like a pain to clean as is, I dunno if you'd want bigger. Not unless you're planning on Blue doin' all the cleanin' once he's big enough."

"Alistair Tourmaline will probably help with the cleaning. I want to teach him good habits, after all." The name 'Alistair Tourmaline' is said in a very pointed tone because that is his name, thank you very much, he is going to use the proper name for his dragon even if nobody else is.

"He just can't help until he gets bigger and learns to hold a broom."

Shura will continue to ignore Strange's insistence that the dragon should be called by his full name because that is a pompous name that no one should be saddled with.

"Just give him a rag to clean with~ He's small enough to get into the tight corners still."

"Personally, I can't wait until he can fly. He'll be able to get the ceilings at that point."

Alistair makes a happy chirping noise. People are talking about him! He likes that. Idly, Strange pets his head a little bit before breaking the now-peeled hard boiled egg in half. Half of it is held out for Alistair to nibble at while the other half is indelicately shoved into Strange's mouth.

It's probably a good thing Shura can't see the way Strange casually shoves the egg in his mouth. She's doing pretty well on eating very nicely for all that she can't see a damn thing. It could be lots of practice at being sexy, or probably just her being used to eating when she can't see. What surprises her though is that Aconite doesn't stir at Alistair's chirping. She's usually quite keen on the sound of other dragons.

"That'd be convenient ♥ No more climbing up on stools or havin' to get a long stick to stick the duster on~"

Thankfully, he knows how to not speak with his mouth full. There's a pause as Strange chews and swallows before he starts talking again.

"I tried to dust via magic one time," Strange explains. "The dust managed to come off of the ceilings but unfortunately got all over myself instead. I was sneezing for that entire day and the next day after."

Shura snickers. Yeah, she can see that happening to him.

"You tried, I guess." There is probably a secondary spell that should have come with the first dusting spell he cast, but she doesn't mention it. Honestly, she's always lived in tight spaces, so she's never bothered to learn any cleaning spells.

"I suppose that's what matters." Though really, what would be most ideal is getting the spell right in the first place!

Strange leans back in his seat slightly as one hand goes back to petting Alistair. The dragon makes another happy chirping noise before he goes back to eating his half of the egg. Alistair's got a tiny mouth, it might be a while before he finishes eating.

"I've got to be honest, though. I've never really thought about things like this before—living alone or living with a dragon."

Half an egg might be all he needs to eat. They're so convenient at this size!

"I don't think any of us ever thought about living with a dragon before," she replies dryly. "Especially since all the big ones ate any of the smaller ones that might have been near the cities, right?"

It makes Shura wonder just where some of these eggs came from.

"That's right," Strange says, with a nod. "In theory, these eggs could have been laid before the dragons died out. Dragon eggs can lie dormant for centuries, waiting until just the right magical circumstances are happening before they hatch. But in practice, I've no idea how someone could keep multiple dragon eggs hidden for that long."

Because there's...what, at least four dragons in existence now. He could see one egg being kept hidden for that long, but four? It's a little ridiculous.

"She wasn't even hidden. I found her in a patch of mushrooms on a path." Not that the egg couldn't have rolled out of someone's pouch, but that egg had been there for a minute. Shura couldn't have been the first person to pass by it.

On her shoulder, Aconite makes a little whining sound in her sleep. Shura turns to look at her. Shura shoves the last bite of bread in her mouth and hold her hand out in Strange's general direction. "Can you get me an egg?"

Her egg wasn't hidden? Strange can't help but look a little surprised at that before he reaches over to hand Shura one of the eggs.

"I found Alistair in a cave. I thought the rest of the eggs would be somewhere equally hidden. To find one out in the open like that..." Strange struggles with his words for a moment before simply settling on, "...that's odd."

“It may be that it was hidden in someone’s bag and was left behind on accident.” Shura sets aside her wine, focusing her attention on peeling the egg as she continues. “Mushrooms can spring up overnight, and that egg made plants grow better, so it may have just been good timing.”

Good, but very weird timing. Shura doesn’t know whether or not to feel suspicious about it. “It might be that whoever had it didn’t realize what it was. I didn’t really know myself, honestly.”

She tears off a piece of egg white and holds it to Aconite’s snout. It takes a moment, but the smell of food is enough to rouse the dragonet, and she promptly snatched it from Shura’s fingers, making a soft growling noise as she chews.

"That makes sense. I knew what mine was but, then again, I'm the exception." How many other people were obsessed with dragons to the point that they wrote books about them? Strange knew that he was the minority here.

Alistair finishes chowing down on his egg. But instead of going for more food, he makes a soft, inquisitive noise as he looks over at Aconite.

"She's not going to tackle you like Billie's ill-behaved dragon is," Strange gently chides Alistair. And then, back to full voice, he continues his conversation with Shura.

"I think if it was left behind on accident that raises more questions than answers. For instance, why would someone carry the egg with them in the first place?"

Like Billie's ill-behaved dragon? Just how badly had that meeting gone? Red hadn't struck Shura as rude, but then again, this was Strange. Aconite ignores Alistair, focusing on the bits of egg Shura hands her instead.

"If they just thought of it as some kind of magic item that would help grow somethin', why not carry it around? There wasn't much else growing, so they might have been using that to get something out of the ground." Shura shrugs. She has no idea either. "The mushrooms were good for healing salves, so I went ahead and picked them."

Edited 2019-04-23 11:45 (UTC)

"True," Strange admits. He looks over at Aconite and Shura, watching the little dragon as she continues to eat the egg.

"We're lucky you found her before someone else." He's smirking a little as he starts up some good-natured teasing. "Someone else might have turned poor Aconite into an omelette."

"They probably would have deserved whatever came to them if they cooked her up like that," Shura replies, briefly wondering about the effects of eating a dragon egg. "I've heard being exposed to dragon's blood has nasty effects. Can't imagine what swallowing one down would be like, even if it was somethin' as small as her."

It doesn't take long to get her fed, especially since Aconite has learned to chew her food before swallowing. With a bit of rest and lunch, she's feeling vaguely better, though the entire blind thing has her baffled and clingy. Shura leaves her be for the time being, setting the egg in her lap and going back to drinking her wine.

"Being exposed to a dragon's blood unwillingly has nasty effects. After all, it's the same process that's used to create dragonborn." Granted, some people would consider being a dragonborn itself a nasty effect. Obviously, Strange is not one of those people.

He takes a sip of his drink as he continues. "Of course, I doubt a fetus can consent to sharing it's blood willingly in the first point."

“I didn’t know there was a difference between willing and unwilling.” Shura hopes that no one gets the idea to become a dragonborn. Imagine the trouble that would cause! But she doesn’t doubt that becoming a dragonborn might be one of Strange’s dreams. But so long as the conversation stayed light and off the topic of them or anything along those lines, Shura can try to relax for a moment.

"There is. When someone willingly becomes a dragonborn by drinking the dragons blood, it ties them to the dragon. The parent dragon can communicate mentally with the dragonborn and the dragonborn cannot outlive the parent dragon. The madness that is common with half-dragons is something else entirely."

Strange's account is biased as hell. The more he talks about the dragonborn, the more Strange's voice takes an awestruck tone. He can't help it: he admires the idea of the dragonborn. It's a damn shame that they all died out but maybe, just maybe with these new dragons arriving, that can change.

Idly, he scratches Alistair behind his ears. The dragon makes a soft cooing noise as he gets himself even more comfy on Strange's lap.

Aconite lifts her head at the sound Alistair makes. She knows the smell of Alistair, and that sounds like him, but she isn't quite ready to move to find him yet.

"You'd do it in a heartbeat, wouldn't you?" Become a dragonborn. She can't think of anything that would excite a dracophile like him more than the chance to get that close to a dragon. It was probably a good thing Alistair was so small--Strange couldn't possibly think about making that kind of choice with just a kid.

"I would," Strange admits. "And before all this, I would have accepted an offer from any dragon. But now? I only want Alistair to perform the ritual. Of course," he quickly adds because he has a feeling he knows what the next question will be, "I'm not even going to broach the subject until he's fully grown and understands what we would be doing."

He's only been taking care of this little guy for a month or so and already Strange thinks the world of the dragon. Having never had children or pets before, this paternal instinct is something entirely new and entirely weird.

"Still, you must think I'm a fool," he says, with a small laugh. "Considering what happened back in our time, only madmen would want something like that."

On the one hand, he's being upfront and isn't planning on bringing it up with the drago in question. On the other hand, he's clearly thought about this. Shura takes a long drink from her glass, not quite finishing it. But besides that, she doesn't give much of a reaction.

"I knew you were one before, so this doesn't really change anything." Because, let's be real, Shura expects this kind of thing from Strange by now.

"As for bein' a dumb idea--well, yeah. But that was just one part of the problem, wasn't it? It'll be years before he's grown up, so who knows what will be happenin' by then." In their current state, they might not even be able to complete the ritual! Shura hadn't forgotten the sight of scales on her reflection. She pauses, about to say something else, but she finishes her wine instead.

"I don't mind waiting. I still don't know as much about the dragonborn ritual as I'd like. If it's not instinctual, then I'm going to be the one to teach Alistair what to do." And branching off from that, how to keep Strange from going crazy.

He's noticed that pause. And he's also noticed that Shura's wine is gone. As he talks, Strange reaches down to pick up the bottle of wine, assuming that she's going to want more (he definitely wants more).

"Were you going to say something?"

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