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

Entry tags:


🜙 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.

🜙 Top

⤛ Navigation

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Strange sets his glass to the side as he stands up. Alistair makes a little interested chirp as Strange stands up: he shushes the little dragon before walking over to Shura.

"I'm in front of you," he explains, as he walks in front of her. "Hand me the dragons and I'll set them down on the floor."

And eventually take Shura's hand in a method that's probably simultaneously gentlemanlike and totally embarrassing.

Shura does as told. Aconite clings to her hand, and then to Strange's, but grudgingly accepts that she's now going to have to be on the floor. An unfamiliar floor, how rude! But she can smell Alistair and Shura, so she'll just follow after them.

With the dragons off of her lap, Shura can get to her feet without much of a fuss, only a little wobbly from the wine. However, she finds soon enough that she has an entirely different problem as Strange takes her hand. It is terribly gentlemanly and horrifically embarrassing, and Shrua doesn't know what to do.

"What are you doing?" She immediately regrets saying that. He was going to come up with some smartass reply.

When Aconite gets set down on the floor, Alistair bounds over to the other dragon. He makes a few chirping noises as his attention is drawn between Aconite and Strange himself. As for the wizard, he's amused at Shura's confusion.

"Taking your hand?" Strange answers, as if it's the most obvious question. Seriously Shura, this is fairly obvious. "You can't see. It's either this or I lead you around by the shoulders and frankly, this is more dignified."

Plus, he gets to hold Shura's hand. It's ulterior motives and being nice!

She can hear him! If she focuses and listens, Aconite can hear Alistair's claws clicking on the floor, and then by smelling him, she can figure out where he is So maybe this isn't the end of the world after all.

But for Shura, this is just getting worse, and she scowls at him. "That ain't what I meant, you windbag!"

So fine, she had gone arm and arm with him earlier, but that was because it was going to be a walk on possibly uneven ground. This was a house! He could put his hand on her shoulder and guide her like that. Perfectly sensible and much less embarrassing!!

Strange is feeding off of Shura's annoyance in that shithead younger sibling sort of way. He's just smiiiiling as she scowls. In a deceptively innocent tone, Strange continues talking.

"I thought taking your hand would be the simplest way to do this. Do you want me to push you instead?"

Alistair continues to hang out near Aconite. She's a friend, he likes his friend, he wants to be by her! He also totally hasn't figured out that she can't see at the moment, as he scoots a little closer to lightly butt his head against Aconite's. Is this wrestling? He thinks this might be wrestling.

She doesn't have to see his face to know that he's got a stupid grin on. She hates this and hates him so much right now.

"You're doing this to annoy me!" And she'll jerk her free hand up to point at him. She could always point with the hand he's holding, but nah, this is fine.

Aconite hesitates. Was this affection or was this play? The last dragonet she played with was Red, so it was an actual challenge to keep up with him. But Alistair wasn't nearly at hard to wrestle with, so she'll reach out to bat at his head. This was going to be hard, but she just had to figure out how to deal with it.

"I am not!" Strange blatantly lies. His stupid grin is still on his face as he gently tugs on Shura's hand, lightly pulling her in the direction he wants her to go. "I'm doing this because it's the easiest way to get you to your room. The fact that you're so bashful about this is just an unintentional side-effect."

Wrestling with Alistair is not a challenge at all. As Aconite bats at his head, Alistair just kind of awkwardly takes it. That's what they're doing? Okay, he can work with this. And he reaches out to bat at Aconite's head in return.

Yes, this is definitely easier than playing with Red. Even with her temporary blindness, Aconite feels fairly confident that she can win. Batting turns to gentle pushing and shoving, trying to see if she can gain any ground with him.

Meanwhile, Shura feels much less confident with Strange. It's mostly just annoyance and anger right now, and he just keeps saying crap and being a horrible windbag. She supposes she should be glad he isn't making innuendo with this.

"Bashful? You gotta be drunk if you're spoutin' that kind of crap off!" But she'll let herself be led. He better have an actual spare bed. She'd kill him if he let her sleep in his bed again.

He does not have a spare bed. But that's a problem Strange can deal with in the morning! Right now, he's taking Shura to his bed and he'll just fall asleep on a chair or something.

"Step down," Strange briefly instructs Shura, as there's a small step going from the main room to the hallway. But back to making fun of her. "And yes, you're acting bashful. It's a loud, shouty sort of bashful, but bashful nonetheless."

As for the dragons, Aconite does get ground. Alistair's method of wrestling seems to be mimicing her movements until he finds something that works best. The gentle pushing and shoving continues.

Shura is not meek or obedient, but she does have enough sense to listen when Strange mentions a step. But his helpful guidance does not to calm her temper.

"You're full of crap! No one would say a shouty sort of bashful, you windbag!" Because bashful had the complete opposite implications?? What sort of a bashful person was shouty? Shura hates him so much right now.

Aconite is faring much better than Shura. She isn't smart enough to realize that Alistair is imitating her, but she'll keep pressing on until she can try to pin him.

Strange is just loving this. He's taking so much pleasure in making Shura uncomfortable, mostly because he knows that sooner or later, she'll do the same to him. Besides, she's cute when she yells.

"And yet I said that! So obviously it must be a thing." He pauses for a moment to open the door to his room before nudging Shura slightly to follow him inside. Thankfully, the room is clean, though it's less because of Strange's cleaning habits and more of the fact that he just hasn't had time or money to buy a bunch of stuff yet.

As the dragons keep wrestling, Aconite is obviously the better wrestler. Eventually, she pins Alistair, who lets out a little surprised chirp and starts trying to wriggle out from under her.

Aconite is very pleased to have pinned Alistair down, and she’ll let out a long trill, a baby’s war cry. But she’ll come off of him, skittering off to the side so Alistair will chase her. In her excitement, she runs right into the wall.

At least the room doesn’t smell. Shura’s paying attention for all that she’s hollering, if only because it’s an instinct to know where all of the exits and entrances were. There’s a distant thump in the background as Aconite runs into the wall, but since sad little dragonet crying doesn’t follow, she doesn’t worry.

“Are you a kid? Just because you say somethin’ stupid doesn’t make it real!” If Shura knew how cute Strange found this, she’d kill him dead.

Alistair runs after Aconite but skids to a stop as the other dragon smacks into the wall. She's not crying, but she did run into the wall. Alistair is a big enough weenie that he cries when he runs into things, so he lightly nudges Aconite with his snout.

Strange gingerly leads Shura forward. Eventually, she'll lightly bump up against the bed. And to everyone's surprise, it's actually made! He hasn't fallen all the way into bachelor hell just yet.

"You say it's stupid, I say it's a particularly valid representation of how you're acting."

Strange is a dead mean. Shura will throttle him before the hour is up.

"You say a lot of crap, windbag!" And for all that she's scowling, when she bumps into the bed, she'll obediently sit, if only for a reason to pull her hand from Strange's.

While Aconite doesn't cry, she is a little shocked! That was rude of the wall, being right where she was running! She reaches out to touch the wall, confirming that yes, this is a wall and she probably shouldn't run too hard in this direction. Her head hurts, but not so much that she's going to stop playing. Since Shura's never encouraged her to fuss much over getting hurt, she just interprets his nudging as general affection, and she'll cheerfully return it with a happy trill.

"And yet you still willingly choose to hang out with me," Strange points out, with a wry grin. Yes, he does say a lot of crap. But guess what Shura, you're stuck with him. As she sits on the bed, he takes a few steps away from her, just to give her a little space. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

Hearing that happy trill makes Alistair give Aconite a happy trill in return. He gives her a couple of nudges before backing up, waiting for her to start wrestling again.

Little dragonets being dumb, cute, and cuddly would probably make for a fun message in another life. But as it is, no one get to witness their happy romping around. Or what was romping around. Alistair pulls away, and Aconite looks towards him, but she doesn't know what he's doing, and so she just waits and listens.

As for the grownup idiots in the other room, Shura is decidedly being less cute. At least she is in her opinion. There's absolutely nothing cute about the way she's pointing her finger at him and continuing to fuss at him.

"You can quit being obnoxious!" So what she asked him to drink with her?? That wasn't an invitation to attach himself to her! Really, she needed something to sleep in, but she's too annoyed to deal with the idea of sleeping in one of Strange's shirts.

Alistair does not know that Aconite cannot see. So there's a small pause before the tiny dragon realizes oh wait, he should probably start this, and leaps towards Aconite with a small chirp.

As for the grownups, Shura is being totally cute. Strange is just grinning like a madman as she pouts and fusses and how is this not utterly adorable? This is so precious in a completely unexpected way!

"I'm afraid that's part of my personality!" Strange cheerfully responds. "You're stuck with that."

You're stuck with that, who the hell says she's stuck with this? Something is very wrong with this statement, and Shura wonders just how how strongly Strange believes that she'll eventually give in to him.

"You're some kind of sadist, aren't you?" She says with the tone of someone who's about to give up on life.

Aconite takes the tackle very gracefully. She might have dodged it if she could see, but Alistair gets to unintentionally take advantage of Aconite's weakness. She won't struggle or fight too much, if only because she's a sweet dragonet and doesn't feel the need to win every fight.

"Most people went for madman over sadist," said in a matter of fact tone. Strange backs up a little, giving Shura a once-over as his manic smile fades to something more gentle. "I'll check on Aconite and see...whatever she's doing. Is there anything else you need?"

What Aconite is doing is wrestling. Alistair is trilling happily as he attempts to pin Aconite in the lightest manner possible. Obviously, Alistair needs to learn a lot more about wrestling before he can actually win any fights.

"You're not denying it!" So he was a horrible, obnoxious, sadistic pill of an elf. This isn't exaclty news to Shura, but it does make her question why she's willing to drink with him as often as she had. "I don't need anything from a windbag sadist!"

Look, it's a new nickname!

Alistair is trying so very hard! Aconite doesn't see any reason to try and throw him off, It's a learning experience in a way for herself--how can she move with a bigger, lightly chonky dragon kinda-sorta pinning her down? She'll half-wrestle with him, at least until she hears footsteps, when she'll still, raising her head to try and figure out who and what was coming closer.

That nickname isn't cute either!

Strange just laughs, walking over to the dragons as he looks down at the two of them wrestling. Alistair stills as well, but when he looks over and sees it's Strange, he hops off of Aconite with a happy trill.

"Aconite," Strange gently asks, "do you want to go take a nap with your mom?"

Hopefully Shura can't hear this. If she does, surprise! You're mom!

Mom, who’s that? Mommy, mother, any variation of the word mater is unfamiliar to Aconite, who’s the kind of kid that also wouldn’t really know that Shura has a name. It’s not something she’s ever really considered! Nap is also not really a word she knows, for all that she’s napped plenty with Shura. She follows behind Alistair, canting her head at Strange as she tries to decide how to react.

As soon as Strange leaves the room, Shura just flops back on the bed, feeling entirely exhausted on multiple levels. Why was he like this? What had she done to deserve this??? The only thing she can do is just massage her temples and hope he was feeling less provocative when he came back.

Yoooo, dad's here! When he spots Strange, Alistair lets out a string of happy noises as he runs over towards the man. Strange bends down, putting his hand on the ground. Alistair happily scurries up his arm to hang out on Strange's shoulders.

He's still keeping his hand on the ground, though. Strange continues to talk to Aconite as he keeps an eye on the other dragon, starting up a conversation like Aconite is capable of answering him.

"Shura's in the other room. If you'd like, I can take you to her."

She can hear Alistair climbing up Strange's arm, and so Aconite follows after him. She's taking her time scaling his arm, clinging tightly to his shirt, and she doesn't seem to understand or care about anything Strange says. He's not Shura, but she trusts him in Shura's absence. Besides, she'd rather not be left alone.

However long it takes, Shura will still be laying back on the bed, looking tired and done with everything.

Strange patiently waits as Aconite climbs up him. Eventually, two dragons in hand, he makes his way back to Shura.

"Knock knock," he audibly says, mostly to warn her that hey, he's coming in. Carefully, Strange walks over to the bed, sits down on it, and places his hand in a way where Aconite could easily climb down it if she wants.

"They were wrestling. I didn't see who was winning but I suspect that even blinded, Aconite might have the advantage."

Alistair is kind of chonky and terrible at wrestling and Strange knows this.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject