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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Comments

[kingsroads]

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.

[redwhaling]

"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."

[kingsroads]

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.

[redwhaling]

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."

[kingsroads]

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.

[redwhaling]

"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."

[kingsroads]

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."

[redwhaling]

And infinitely less interesting. Besides, crime can be very lucrative.

That isn't the way the conversation is going, however, so they skip over that entire argument. Instead, Billie's left shrugging, not having any real good answers beyond, "Still seems pretty random to me. Apart from the 'died in the war' requirement, anyway. Kind of creepy, if you think about it. The first round that we know of..."

Which is to say them. Alice and Lorna are definitely from a different batch.

"We all had to have died in the same area. Maybe at different times, but we all still ended up by the Free City."

[kingsroads]

"And it wasn't even 'died in the war.' I wasn't fighting in the war when I died, I was just killed by soldiers on a battlefield."

This is apparently a very important nitpicky thing for Strange to point out. He sighs a little, frowning still.

"Truth be told, barely any of our number look like soldiers."

[redwhaling]

"The war killed you, that's 'died in the war'," Billie points out in return. Useless to nitpick over something like that, as far as she's concerned. There was a war. Everyone died during it. "I wasn't even killed by soldiers. It just happened to be on the edge of where the fighting was..."

But she won't expand upon that, moving on to the other little fact he brought up.

"And no, you're right. They don't look like soldiers. I bet you every last one of them still got killed in the middle of the fighting, though."

[kingsroads]

Strange is ready and willing to continue being pedantic but the conversation shifts, so he shifts with it.

"So what? Is the qualification for our resurrection simply 'people who died in fighting but who aren't soldiers'? Because there's got to be a more defined reason than that."

He trusts Logistykon to have a defined reason for bringing him back. There's got to be one. The dragon wouldn't do something like that just for funsies.

[redwhaling]

"There could still be soldiers," she points out, "We just haven't met them yet, but yeah, I am saying that might be the qualification. Died in the war, right place, right time, something about that makes whatever spell was used workable. What, I sure don't know. You're the fancy magical scholar here, not me."

Which might mean she shouldn't disagree with him but her gut feeling on this is still pointing adamantly at 'they aren't as special as Strange wants them to be'.

[kingsroads]

Strange can't help it: his expression shifts to a small smirk as he goes right back to some gentle teasing.

"Considering that you're learning magic from me, doesn't that make you a fancy magical scholar as well?" He says, knowing full well that out of the words fancy, magical, and scholar, Billie would only use one of them to describe herself (and even then, he's not sure if she'd cop to 'magical' the way that he or some other mages would.)