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May Event Log #2
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| 🜙 Seyra's Serenade | ||
| Across most of Idan spring is in full bloom. With spring has come a swathe of new growth overtaking the land and painting it a rainbow of colors. The farmlands are alive with life and the wild and open lands are full of young baby creatures frolicking in and out of bushes, tall grasslands, and trees. Centaurs have come out from their hidden villages to watch over the open lands and the young folk of the various races are celebrating their vacation from academies or apprenticeships by holding sporting competitions, races through the city streets, or sneaking into taverns and other areas of the cities or off into the wildlands and generally getting up to mischief. During the peak blooming season of spring comes Seyra's Serenade, a day used by the people of Idan to celebrate the speckled doe goddess. As the goddess of growth and healing, she is seen across Idan as one of the benevolent deities and affectionately referred to as the mother of the stars. During Seyra's Serenade the three cities and the lands between them are surrounded and filled with floral growth that is used in the Festival of Flowers. Largely seen as a children's festival, the young ones gather the flowers and decorated their homes and the city streets, rivers, bay, and ledges with flower chains, floral graffiti, and petals. Hunting is severely limited for the month in honor of Seyra and to respect the growth of all young creatures just entering the world. Diets are adjusted to a focus of fruits, vegetables, and grains, and the taverns help the older population celebrate 'healing' by offering floral wines, vodkas, and gins, as well as amaretto-based drinks. Powerful wild guardian creatures wake from their winter slumber and can be glimpsed moving slowly through the forests or out in the plains. Most of them look like creatures found in their respective homes, but much larger and with elements of the wild land about them. They are slow and docile but very powerful. They can be killed and their pelts or bones sell for very high value in the black market, but they are protected creatures and killing them will have consequences. Hunting during the month of May is not explicitly forbidden but is strongly discouraged by the three cities. Injuring young creatures or killing the parents of young creatures is a sure way to draw Seyra's ire during May and find oneself cursed by the Mother of Stars. Those who hunt creatures under Seyra's protection are afflicted by a curse known as Hunter's Remorse, a curse that usually only affects those who kill unicorns and is designed to cripple poachers, hunters, and predators. The curse forces the afflicted to feel a crippling and powerful empathy, especially towards the suffering of the world and the animals living in it. Hunter's Remorse is not widely believed to be a real affliction and most of Idan's population write it off as a cautionary tale and a fictional curse. | ||
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| 🜙 The Huntress | ||
| A new creature has been sighted in the swamps, patrolling the paths and stealing hunters' injured prey from them. It's said to be fast and silent, able to blend into the swamp despite its unusual coloration. A group of hunters from Didymos have put a hefty bounty on the creature.
They say it is large and covered in a mix of scales and fur. It is quick, moves soundlessly through the swamp and by their description looks like a lion, a zebra, and a monitor lizard all rolled into one. They never see it coming but its hide is too thick for arrows to penetrate and they haven't been able to get close enough to hit it with other weapons. If you bring back its hide they'll pay in gold, but you'll have to find it for yourself. That means risking the other dangers of the swamp: sinking pits, venomous snakes, carnivorous plants, predators of the land and water, and ornery elementals. They think its nest is somewhere in the Swamp of Lost Souls. Attempting to track down the creature can either lead to the creature itself, or its nest. Astute trackers will find there are more than one of these strange-looking creatures in the swamp, but only one of them matches the full description given by the hunters and she is much larger and leaner than the smaller members of her pack. The hunters will likely be unable to tell the difference. They appear to be amphibious and capable of camouflage. They are quick and silent in both the water and on land. Their furry manes are actually whiskers that help them sense vibrations and shifts in water or air currents. The creatures are not aggressive toward people unless cornered or attacked but they are territorial of the shoreline and the larger one will grab any wounded animals attacked in the swamplands and disappear with them. Their hides are dense and thick, reflecting or shielding them from most attacks other than those that would pierce metal armor and they do seem to possess earth magic focused around the mud that is prevalent throughout the swamp. They will cause the ground to constrict and pull down around the feet of any threats and coat weaponry in mud that quickly hardens to dull weapons and increase their weight. | ||
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| 🜙 Friend or Foe | ||
| Along the shore and out further into the bay the spectators that were formerly just observing the city and its people have had a shift of demeanor. Now every boat that tries to leave the docks and every person who approaches the docks or the shore with a boat is met with a very different interaction. From the 14th to the 17th the merfolk observers suddenly grow aggressive, sinking ships that attempt to exit the gate, harassing city citizens at the dock, and using wind or water magic to force vessels back to the docks. Their sudden turn from largely harmless observers to an attacking force demands action from Queen Adira and she prepares her knights for the prospect of a battle on waters where they will not have the upper hand. Retaliation from the Didymos knights trying to protect the ships and the docks from the merfolk causes a matched rise in aggression from the sea dwellers. The knights work to load their ships with weapons and the mages enchant the vessels to protect them, fighting back the merfolk attackers to prepare two of the armed fleet ships for battle. During the preparation on the 17th, the merfolk suddenly and unexpectedly retreat from the bay and the waters go still. Determined to get to the bottom of the strange attacks, Queen Adira puts out a call for those who have been in contact with the merfolk or anyone who might better be able to try and understand the confusing actions of the sea people. She makes plans to send a small fleet through the guarded Sunset Gate to investigate where the rest of the merfolk went and why they launched such a sudden and brief attack on the bay. On the 18th fish briefly begin schooling up on the shorelines and small, aquatic animals begin beaching themselves or becoming trapped upstream in the estuaries and rivers. The actions of the sea-life in the bay becomes erratic, aggressive, and frenzied as diluted red water begins draining into the estuaries and the bay before dissipating, the ocean water diluting and eventually eradicating any sign of the polluted fresh water. The bay calms down once more and the naval vessel Perspective begins its voyage out the sunset gate. Armed with a collection of Didymos knights, a group of scholars and mages, and a small group of volunteers, the vessel travels out to Logistykon's reef, heading for the shelf that drops off into the deeper, dark waters of the Glass Sea. Once they pass the gate they are followed by a blue-skinned, spiny merwoman with a spotted porpoise-like tail. She circles the vessel a few times, passing closer and closer near the hull and pushing back on the sails with wind magic before they finally anchor just past Logistykon's reef, only a nautical mile from the shelf. Several other merfolk can be glimpsed watching from just below or with their heads just above the water's surface, surrounding the vessel at a distance that keeps them out of range from most weapons. The blue merwoman approaches the ship, keeping a shorter distance between herself and the vessel, and seems to wait for them to come to her aboard one of the ship's smaller lifeboats. From where they are anchored, one of the scholars idly comments that the reef looks different and anyone who has observed the reef before will see the skeleton has suffered heavy damage. Cracks now cover the surface of the bones and Logistykon's skull has split down the center. | ||
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"What, are you stupid?" Billie is aware that isn't the best way to open this conversation but she really does not like that water. When she gets down to where Sento is, she does stop a few paces away, unwilling to get much closer to the water just yet.
"That stuff nearly got the City wiped off the map. You don't even have to touch it to start going mad."
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Admittedly, it isn't doing that right here and now, though Billie isn't sure what's changed. Could whatever was in the red water be diluted by the higher salt content here? Would that even cancel an effect like that? She imagines someone with a lab might be able to figure it out, only he doesn't have an idea about it in the first place!
She looks him over a bit more closely this time. Not up on current events may not be entirely impossible, with it having been off in another city entirely, but—
"You must have been really buried not to hear about it."
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That gets a snort out of him. "Yes, buried." It's too spot-on, really, and he sort of coughs and clears his throat. "In...lab work." Not that he's quite sure where the lab is anymore. It too likely got buried; he could only imagine things got worse after he died. Probably for the best.
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"It was kind of like a hum, coming from the entire river. You could hear it everywhere." Though just recalling it has her frowning. All recent memories she'd rather forget. "I'm not sure why it isn't doing the same this far down."
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It's about that time that a tern — a black and white feathered seabird, not quite a gull but not quite the same — alights on a nearby outcrop. A seabird isn't really out of place here. The chiding little bird noise it makes at all of them isn't too out of place, either, only it's not like any of them have food the damn thing might want to steal.
Billie peels her attention away from Cannon to give the bird an unimpressed look, then looks back to Sento.
"But I'm guessing you plan on keeping that sample no matter what I say, huh?"
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The bird gets his attention, though he soon returns it to Billie. "That's the plan, I must admit. Just a small sample to analyze, nothing worth getting worked up over." Even if he's going to put it in a bottle and try it out in his transformation belt at some point. It's probably the epitome of risk, though he doesn't need to get into that with a stranger. "I'm a genius--and I've got everything with the research under control."
Even if his rabbit doesn't seem to want to approach the bottle.
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"I'm sure none of them are geniuses, though." Yes, there is sarcasm involved in saying that. "So what would they know?"
Meanwhile, the tern doesn't bother much with paying attention to the humans. She's hopping down the outcrop, slowly sidling towards Cannon in that shady way seabirds tend to do with food. Luckily for the rabbit, Deirdre isn't doing so because she thinks she can eat a rabbit. She's really just up to being a pest.
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Cannon sits up on his haunches and sort of glares at the bird. He's not a bunny prone to running, thanks, and his person's now armed with death water, apparently, so he's a little done with everything right now.
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Which is about the end of Billie's piece. She's said it, it's done. Deirdre freezes when the rabbit glares at her, the tern paused mid-step, considering. Quickly enough, she decides a rabbit can't do anything to her anyway, so she finishes striding over to prod at him with her beak.
That draws Billie's attention back towards those two, though, and she frowns at the bird's antics.
"That isn't Strange's rabbit," she scolds, sighing. Well, that one is a hare, technically, but whatever. "Come on, get away from it."
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The rabbit continues looking irritated, turns his back to the bird, and attempts a two-pawed bunny back feet kick to get it to back off. His person is stressing him out enough right now, he doesn't need to be poked at, thanks.
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"I said come on," she tells the tern, aiming a kick of her own at her animas. It's nothing forceful, just enough to nudge the bird and force her into taking off, startled and scolding Billie from the air the entire way. "Not much else left here to do if he's taking off with that no matter what."
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The rabbit just looks perturbed at everything--the bird, the kicking at the bird, the sample. He's got no faith in this not to go hideously wrong, thanks.