usir | May Event Log #2

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May Event Log #2

🜙 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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"That's what's odd about all this," Strange chimes in, expression fading to a small smile. "I never touched the water. I was in Einjar, I knew how dangerous that stuff was. But obviously I was changed. There must have been something else the water brought that made me act that way."

What it is, he's not sure. Understandably, his memories of that time are a bit of a haze thanks to the unrelenting paranoia, the bloodlust, and the outright murder. Or at least, Strange would like to think they're a bit of a haze as he honestly doesn't want to think too hard about the fact that he and someone else essentially mutually killed each other.

"It was the sound," Billie says, pointing to an ear as she does. "It's what got most people in the end. Most people aren't going to go near blood red water, right? But the city still nearly burned itself to the ground. That ringing... It gets under your skin, you know? You had to have felt it."

Billie did, though she didn't realize it until it was too late. Daud had warned her and she'd still been foolish. It isn't something she wants to dwell on for too long, either, some parts too indistinct to recall, others clear to her now that she's had time to think about it. Overall, nothing pleasant.

Oh. That makes sense. An expression of understanding spreads across Strange's face before he nods, thinking back to the event and to all the chaos of that day.

"I did. Hearing that made me feel like the entire world was against me." There's a moment's pause before Strange tries to brush past that. He laughs a little, trying to hide just how much the experience rattled him. "Honestly, I haven't felt that unlike myself since...since before my resurrection, I'd think. The first one, waking up on the battlefield. Damn, we really need to come up with a name for that."

"Waking up seems fine to me," Billie says, clearly of no particular opinion. Honestly, she could be funny about it and call it 'being raised', crack a joke about the undead, but she's just not in the mood. Looking down at the shirt again, she can't quite shake that same feeling and Strange's little laugh is one she knows too well.

"I felt something like that during the war," she says after a moment of consideration. She doesn't really like revealing facts about herself but the only other person to talk to about it is Daud and he shut that conversation down pretty fast after she came back to life. "And now it's gotten me killed all over again. It's bullshit."

She did? Oh. That's unexpected. Strange perks up a little, obviously interested in what Billie's saying. He pauses for a moment before admitting this as well.

"Mine happened a little before the war, though I suspect the war made it worse." It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Strange's fragile mental state after his wife died plus a wave of dragon madness sweeping through the land ended up as a terrible combination.

"I'm sorry it happened to you." And he honestly is! Billie may be a shady strange ratlady who doesn't know how to use a door, but he likes her company. She's a shady strange ratlady who he's grown to appreciate and definitely wouldn't want anything bad happening to.

"Don't be," is Billie's kneejerk reaction to pretty much anyone feeling sorry for her, sorry. "I screwed up, so it's my own fault."

Like that somehow means she deserves it. A lesson hard learned and one that, in any other life, she wouldn't have come back from at all. Maybe she should be a little more grateful for this entire 'coming back to life' thing at this point, huh? Well, whatever. She gives her head a shake and leans back in her chair, arms idly folding across her chest.

"Makes me wonder if it's related." And she'll eye Alistair as she says as much. "If everything is about dragons or some lack thereof."

Alistair happily chirps. Hey, they're talking about him! Billie said dragons, that's him!

Strange gives the little dragon a gentle scratch on the head before focusing back on their conversation. "It wouldn't surprise me. Almost everything that's happened to us has had something to do with the dragons or our status as awakened. And considering who we're raising, I suspect more things are to come."

He's illegally raising a dangerous creature that a lot of people loathe, Strange knows that he's going to have dragon problems at some point.

"And they won't be things we can predict, either," Billie grumbles. What if Daud was right... but she can't really imagine putting Red down now. It's too little, too late for that. "Sooner or later, we're all going to have to get out of the cities. These things are going to keep getting bigger."

Uh yeah, about that. Strange frowns a little at Billie's statement. There's a pause before he cautiously admits.

"Or we go public with regards to our dragons. Didymos is a relatively dragon friendly city. And if I continue to work with Ardis and Adira, perhaps I can use that to better the position of dragons."

Because Billie's right: these things can only grow bigger.

That's... definitely one idea, only that's a bit of a problem for Billie.

"I don't do public-facing," Billie says after a second or two of just looking at him like he's nuts. She's used to life in the shadows. Out of that entire mess in the Free City, only a handful of people would even be able to point her out as being involved somehow and the rest were only ever presented with a someone in a mask.

"Which means Red doesn't do public-facing. I'll figure something else out."

He can't help but give Billie a little bit of an aggravated frown. 'Don't do public facing,' practically all of the awakened have interacted with kings and queens! They do public facing by default! Strange obviously doesn't believe the not doing public facing bit, but continues talking anyway.

"You'll have to," Strange continues. "Because I do public facing. And that strategy's hopefully going to be the thing that keeps Alistair alive. I can try to find a way to help you and Red out but depending on how things turn out, I can't make any promises."

"Don't worry about me. I'll get an airship, fly away," Billie says, only partly in jest. That's a real goal, getting her own ship, packing Red and Daud onto it and going wherever she wants. "I'm already a pirate, right? Set up a hideout in the mountains and start robbing people from the sky. Red could get in on it eventually. He's got wings."

Edited 2019-06-14 04:01 (UTC)

"Of course I'm going to worry about you," Strange almost instantly responds. "We're friends, that's what friends do."

But an airship? That's certainly a plan. Granted, it's a plan that Strange would never think of for himself, but he can picture Billie being a sky pirate. In fact, he can picture it almost too easily.

"Once Red gets big enough, you won't need an airship. You can just ride him over before doing your highwayman routine." Airwayman? Strange doesn't know what you'd call a sky pirate, so he just brushes it off.

"Ride him?" Sorry, Billie's offended at the notion on Red's behalf, giving the magician a skeptical look. "He's a person, Strange, not a horse."

Or, at least, she wants Red to consider himself that way. Putting dragons up on a pedestal got them in that mess a hundred years ago, she isn't looking forward to that starting all over again. Whether everyone else who ended up with a dragonet agrees or not, well...

They'll just have to wait and see.

That friend bit, too, is a little difficult to take seriously, for all she knows that he is. Some idiots are just too honest sometimes and it leads to her rolling her eyes as she turns back to the shirt. That, she plucks back up off the table and moves to toss it back to Strange.

"And worrying about me is just going to end up with you being pissy all the time. Why else do you think the old man's always so cranky, huh?"

"Truth be told, I had no idea why he was cranky," Strange admits, as he catches the shirt she throws at him. "I barely know anything about the man except he seems to permanently exist with a stick up his ass. And you're saying it's from worrying about you?"

Strange makes a mental note to bother Daud about this. Granted, he doesn't expect to get any answers from bothering Daud, but that's not going to stop him from doing so.

See, that's why Strange is going to keep finding himself out of the loop. Can't even keep a joke between them without bugging someone else.

"Well, it's not like I'm the only cause," Billie says, mood at lest taking a mild upturn from the morbidity of pondering the why and what of their actual deaths or current state of undeath and all that's in between. "He has a lot of reasons to keep that stick up there."

"You can't say something like that without giving me more details," Strange responds, wide grin on his face. Because come on, Billie. Be a good friend and cough up the details.

Sorry, Strange. Billie Lurk is a terrible friend.

"Oh, I definitely can," she disagrees, though not without some amusement on her own part. Everyone has questions about Daud. She still isn't inclined to answer most of them. "He likes his privacy, Strange, and I still respect him enough to give him that most of the time."

Strange makes a noise of aggravation. It seems to him that Billie doesn't understand the fundamental point of gossipping: giving him information about somebody else!

"At least tell me how you met him," Strange sighs. "Not because I wish to give him hell about it or anything, only because I don't know how open I should be about your delinquent past I should be should we inevitably talk about you."

He says, knowing full well that the likelihood of him and Daud having anything close to a fun conversation is next to nothing.

"My deliquient past?" Billie is just nice enough right now not to outright laugh at him. "I think he knows."

But how much to even tell? Strange has already decided they are, of all things, pirates. It's not as if mentioning killing people is going to bring about any other new kind of revelations, but still... She pauses to consider, leaning back in the chair and letting her attention wander around the room for the moment.

"Let's see." She does eventually look back his way. "I was just some angry kid who managed to piss off the wrong people. It left me with nowhere in Thalassa left to hide, so I took a chance, found the scariest captain I could, and tailed him back to his ship, demanded to join his crew. For some crazy reason, it worked. That's pretty much it."

Thalassa? Strange can't help but look a little interested when she mentions that. Because hey, he grew up near Thalassa! Of course, comparing his childhood to hers, there's absolutely no way the two would have known each other, but it's a fun little what-if.

"You could have joined the Academy," he points out. And before Billie can give him the obvious rebuttals, Strange continues talking. "I know that academia isn't really your thing. But you can do magic and you're a good student. They would have seen your potential."

Says the optimist.

If he thinks disagreeing with any of that was going to be the basis of her disagreement there, well...

"Strange, the people I pissed off included the Thalassan city guard," is what Strange gets instead of any of those arguments. "Even assuming I could just waltz on into the Academy and join it, they were just as like to turn me in as any street gang."

Edited (nah, giving away too much info) 2019-06-25 14:04 (UTC)

Ah. That's a problem. Strange visibly winces as Billie mentions pissing off the city guard.

"Good gods, you really were a delinquent." There's no judgement in that statement, it's just Strange pointing out what he thinks is the obvious. Though really, that explains a lot. Delinquent child Billie, falling in with a bad gang, becoming a pirate. Pity about all that, but it's not like he can do anything to change her situation.

"Wouldn't have it any other way," she adds, as if being a criminal that young is something to be proud of. "It turned out to be exactly what I was looking for in the end, so it's not like I regret where I ended up."

It's obvious that Strange has mixed feelings about the fact that Billie seems to like being a criminal. Have you tried getting a real job, steady employment is awesome. He pauses for a moment before continuing.

"Of course, I doubt any of us could have guessed that we'd end up here," said with a vague gesture to his surroundings. "That we'd end up revived and all that. I still wonder why they chose us specifically."

May Event Log #2

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