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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"You know what else is bad? Shoving a dragon's magic into someone without asking first," Billie keeps on disagreeing, her thus far unimpressed look she's giving the mage already on its way to becoming an equally unimpressed glower.

"I've already burned through two pairs of gloves. I'm just counting down the days before I accidentally set a house on fire at this point."

Billie has magic that she doesn't know how to use. Unsurprisingly, Strange's response to that isn't 'be sympathetic and offer condolences' but 'try to help Billie find a way to turn that magic for the better. He pauses for a moment, frowning as he thinks.

"Someone who's opinion I trust offered the suggestion of focusing and trying to direct the magic once it's started. That's stopped me from accidentally shocking people. Perhaps it can help you as well?"

Edited 2019-05-07 01:56 (UTC)

Probably for the best. Billie's the sort who would tell Strange to take his sympathy and stick it somewhere rude.

"Yeah, sure, let me just direct the amazing power of magma somewhere useful," she grouses before catching herself getting way, way off-topic. They're here so Strange can throw knives, not for them to discuss magic. "But you know what? How about you don't give me advice until you can hit that target three times in a row?"

She's irritated now, which means unless she stops talking for a while, she's going to be out three pairs of gloves.

"Until then, keep your mouth shut."

Strange is about to espouse all the useful ways that she can use magma, but Billie quickly shuts down that line of conversation. Alright. Three times in a row? That should be easy enough. And then he can help Billie figure out her problem.

So, he takes the knife, throws it, and promptly misses. Strange works in relative silence for the next ten minutes, irritation and annoyance fueling his throws. He's definitely getting better, but every time he misses a shot after he hits the target, he can feel his annoyance growing and the air around him crackle slightly with electricity. It's an awkward series of Strange getting annoyed, trying to calm himself down, then getting annoyed again, all of which spills over Strange completely misses a shot after hitting the target two times in a row.

"Godsdamnit!" he swears in irritation. This is somehow Billie's fault. If she just let him offer that advice in the first place then he wouldn't be as tense! The static around him crackles as he turns to look at Billie and decides fuck it! They're going to talk about magic now! This has been weighing on his mind for the past ten minutes, might as well get it out.

"Locks," he says, completely out of context. "Or iron bars, or shackles. Or hell, we're at a blacksmith's! Use the magma to keep a forge going!"

All in all, it's fairly entertaining to watch Strange struggle not to summon a super-localized lightning storm around himself while trying to keep his cool. That he manages to get the target twice in a row is almost encouraging, right up until— ah, there they go. A miss, and yet here he is, abandoning target practice to babble suggestions at her.

Billie raises her eyebrows at that, just watching him whirl around and go off like that. Locks, iron bars, shackles? Without context, she can figure he means melting through metal, but rather than address that...

"So much for being the focused one here," she can easily slide out of brooding over her own problem now that Strange is having his own. "You really can't go longer than that without needing to solve my problems?"

Edited 2019-05-07 04:20 (UTC)

"Your problems are something I can solve," Strange sighs. He's still a little tense and still crackling with lightning, but actually talking to Billie about her problems is calming him down somewhat. "This magic, what we were given, is based on emotion. You just need to take a hold of that emotion and focus it into something tangible."

Says the person who's still having trouble focusing his. Strange is at least aware of the hypocrisy. Maybe if he tries to just send out his lightning instead of trying to push it down, that'll help show her what he's talking about? Even if it doesn't, getting that lightning away from Strange and out of his system is definitely a good idea.

"Stay where you are, please. I'm going to show you how it's done."

Billie shouldn't be struggling with this many emotions to begin with but whether that problem stems from the magic itself or just herself, that's a different problem and not one she's bringing up to Strange. Or anyone, really.

"I can already—" Nope, apparently he's just going to go ahead and show her what he can do. She'll stop there and stay put, since she already wasn't too inclined to get up. She can tell Strange about super-heated weaponry later. "Fine. Let's see."

Letting Billie talk? Nope, why would he do that, he's just gonna keep steamrollering through this conversation.

Strange turns around and looks at the target. Taking a deep breath, he thrusts his hand out at the knife target. A bolt of lightning arcs from his hand to the target, putting a big ol'black char mark smack dab in the middle of the target.

"There. Gather the magic and then draw it out from your hands. Once you've gathered it, releasing it should be easy."

There's got to be some relief in knowing Strange can at least target well with lightning. Less so when Billie can also tell he didn't take into account that lightning tends to set wood on fire, so, now the target is burning. That seems like the right metaphor for this entire conversation, to be honest.

"I sure hope you find making a new target as easy," she mentions in reply, watching the target currently on the tree smolder and crackle. That said, she waves towards where he's left the other throwing knives. "Toss me one of those. Like I tried to tell you, I can already do something like that, just not... like that. I don't actually throw magma around or whatever Epithymetikon's deal was. Just heat, and a whole lot of it."

Making a new target? Why does she—oh shit the target's on fire. Strange flushes a little bit before stammering, "I can just coax the tree to grow us something."

He hopes. But Billie said she wanted one of the knives, Strange will give her one of the knives. Picking it up, he gently tosses it towards Billie. While he's certain she can catch it, this is still an actual knife, so he's underhanding the toss and deliberately not using much force behind it.

"Yeah? Then put it out before the tree goes up, too," Billie tells him right after catches the knife he tosses over. She does it with ease, infinitely less worried about it than Strange is. Anyway, while he's (hopefully) putting the burning target out, she stabs the knife into the wooden step next to her for a second — just long enough to peel her gloves off — and then takes it back up.

Imbuing a weapon with magic just isn't a skill that's ever come naturally to Billie. She's never done it before the scale, she's no enchanter or alchemist, so it does take a moment of focusing on the knife before she can get it to kick in. It slowly begins to light up, hot red lines growing and cracking over the surface of dark metal. While the blade itself isn't actually breaking apart or really turning into magma, it does inevitably look molten in its own right.

Edited 2019-05-08 14:11 (UTC)

Strange sighs in a slightly dramatic fashion as Billie tells him to put the fire out. Still, he does so. With a wave of his hand, the fire essentially peels itself off of the tree before folding in on itself and fading out of existence. Thank you, wild magic.

He's more focused on Billie's magic. Strange is downright staring as he watches her heat up the metal. He raises an eyebrow as he spots the molten knife and the lines growing down it.

"Interesting." He is legitimately interested and based off of the tone of his voice, is going to ask Billie a billion nerdy questions. "Does that affect the integrity of the knife in any way?"

Seriously, someone is going to burn the smithy down at this rate but it doesn't have to be on her watch.

"Not that I've seen," Billie answers that one easily enough. She leans forward and stabs the knife in the dirt before the steps, then leaves it there. The imbuement remains, blade still molten and now smoldering in the ground. Dirt blackens around it, grass smolders and curls away.

"I did it to my sword back when the werewolves first attacked the city. It held up to that just fine."

That is super cool. His expression shines with excitement as he watches the blade smolder and the dirt blacken. And, in true Strange fashion, he's already thinking about ten billion different ways that branch of magic could be executed.

"How strong is the enchantment? Could someone hypothetically put the knife out? Or could someone remove the magma from the knife with their magic? Is this limited by proximity to you? For instance, if you made an arrowhead molten, would it still be molten if you shot it off at someone else?"

Just stop him now, this will go on forever.

Wow, Strange is sure going to be disappointed as none of those questions get a real answer. Billie blinks at him, trying to get a grasp on every quickly asked question before realizing, with nearly all of them—

"No idea." She just doesn't know. She hasn't experimented much with it. "Although I think an arrowhead with it would stay molten until it hit something and set it on fire."

Strange is intensely disappointed and isn't even bothering to hide it on his face. What do you mean other people don't examine all the nitty gritty details of a spell the moment they learn it? Is he the only one who thinks about things like this?

"Well, we should work together to find out what those answers are, shouldn't we."

"We're already working together to find different answers for something else entirely," Billie feels the need to remind him. She has other things to do than spend time with him and fiddle with magical nonsense, you know!

In any case, she's picking the knife back up and ending the enchantment or whatever it's actually meant to be. She can remove it, sure, but if other people can? Still no idea. Then, with the now very un-magma-like knife, she points at the tree.

"And you're here to practice aiming shit. Make the target smaller when you magic up a new one, alright?"

"You can be working on multiple things at the same time," Strange points out, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "I'm often working on two or three projects at once."

Granted, that's mostly because Strange has no attention span. Still, it's possibly helping his cause, Strange is going to use it!

He will start crafting a new target, though. As he talks, Strange walks over to the tree and puts his hand on the bark. A pause and then a few murmured words later and the bark ripples forward and pushes itself out. It looks less like a target and more like a giant tumor-like knot, but it's good enough for Strange.

"Uh huh, and how far are you with any of those?"

And Billie pretty much regrets asking that as soon as the question is out. He has no attention span and he loves talking about himself. Useful flaw at times, just maybe not right now. Not that she gets a chance to dwell on that very long, attention shifting over to the tree as it grows a massive knot.

Well. That was gross.

Strange doesn't really notice how gross the poor tree looks. Instead, he's frowning at it, mulling something else entirely over as he continues talking.

"I'm quite far along with my metal manipulation magic. Though I'll admit, that got in a lot of practice with the werewolf nonsense. Do you think I should make the target softer? I think that piece of wood might be softer than tree bark."

Great job changing the topic in the middle of talking, dingus.

"Tree target is the choice you made, you'll just have to live with it," Billie says to that. Tough luck, Strange, because she's pretty sure it is harder. "Okay, so you have the metal thing, the dragon scale thing. Anything else?"

Strange makes a little noise of annoyance. He continues talking as he positions himself, tip of the knife pointing at the tree.

"Our project," Strange answers, with a wry little smile. "The more I learn about empathic magic, the easier it will be for me to eventually cast it. And aside from that, I'm taking as many notes as possible about the hatched dragons—and also learning how to throw. Knife practice will probably be slotted in there somewhere."

And suddenly, Strange's pale, way too skinny, perpetually messy-haired self makes sense. Ah, this man never eats or sleeps. He tosses the knife at the tree but frowns as it straight up bounces off of the trunk.

"And eventually teach it," Billie reminds him, but the rest of that, she can't help but shake her head and lounge back against the stairs again. Strange has proven by now that he isn't going to accidentally fling the knife back her way, so watching it is.

"What? Is that all? You're not juggling five more other projects on top of that?"

It's also not her place to mother him. If he wants to work himself to exhaustion, he will, short of her putting him down herself and that sounds like a lot of work with very little reward to her. Not that she likes to hear it, but suggesting anything else would make her seem like an actual friend.

Which would be terrible.

What she can do is make fun of him for it, though.

"Do you want me to juggle five more projects?" he teases in return, as he calls the knife back to him. Catching it, Strange starts adjusting his position again. "I'll always take suggestions."

Partly because he's curious about what Billie might suggest, partly because he's always up for putting another suggestion on the to-research list.

"Learning to stay out of trouble might be a good one for you," Billie can't help but joke back. She already knows he won't take that seriously so she won't even try to sound it. "But for now? I think I'll settle for closing out who sent the scales for sure."

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kingsroads - 2019-05-19 02:43 (UTC) - Expand

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