usir | Event #1: The Big One

Entry tags:

The Awakening

🜙 Awakening the Heart Warnings: Injury, Blood, Death

	You are awakened from death by a cloaked figure. The sky is thickly choked by dark storm clouds, but it's growing darker. Sunset is approaching and you know you are far from any of the kingdom cities. It is only once you find your feet that you notice your new tunic adorned with the colors of one of the three kingdoms. It might not be something you remember wearing, but you're about to be thankful for the extra fabric as the first drops of rain begin to fall, hitting you hard and heavy. You won't survive a night out on the marsh flats during a storm. The weather out here is violently unpredictable and it's freezing cold to boot. Your breath escapes in a cloud in front of your face and a shiver runs through you as your feet sink further in the muck of the marsh. You need to find somewhere to go while you sort out what has happened to you. Atrómitos is the closest city to where you are now. You know these marshlands are part of their kingdom. Whatever side you might have been on for the war a simple analysis of the circumstances and surroundings you find yourself in make one thing clear. If you want to survive the night, Atrómitos is your only hope. The chill in the air makes it very clear this is winter and the other kingdoms are much too far to make in so little time. You will have to sludge your way across the muddy, icy marshlands and avoid getting trapped in the thick, deadly mud pits to get there but survival instincts instill a sense of urgency in your movements. You can pillage rusty weapons from the partly to mostly mud-buried skeletons of fallen soldiers on your way, but you had better keep a brisk pace if you want to survive the night. Take care not to grab a living body if you are grave-robbing.
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🜙 X Marks the Spot

	Night falls as you approach the outskirts of what used to be Atrómitos. In the poor light of dusk you can make out just enough to know that something is off about the silhouette of the great city, but you shrug it off to the exhaustion crashing down on you. Your limbs are heavy, your clothing drenched and thick with mud that is hardening in the biting cold. You are finding it hard to keep your eyes open and your limbs moving. Just across a bridge over the river is a large inn. The building is enticing, alive with the sounds of music and life. Light is twinkling from lanterns and candles in its windows, reminding you of warmth. You give the vanishing city silhouette in the distance one more look before it fades from view, swallowed by the approaching darkness. You will never make it to the city before the heavy black of a densely-clouded night cloaks your vision and strands you to stumble blindly across the uneven land and broken paths. It's too risky. You turn for the inn, knowing you have no coin to pay your way, and enter. The portly halfling woman at the bar catches sight of your muddy tunic and drenched form and heaves a heavy sigh, setting aside the flagons she had been cleaning to cross the inn and meet you at the door. "Another one, eh? I don't suppose you have even a handful of silver either?" She clucks disapprovingly, but there is warmth in her expression as she reaches a hand up, offering you a clean, dry towel. It is small, barely enough to dry your face, but it is a gesture of kindness. "Strange times, this. The lot of you are going to run us dry at this rate. Go on then, get yourself over to the fire. Alphie will bring you a flagon of mead and a bite to eat." She points a finger accusingly, stopping any efforts to speak. "And don't you be causing any trouble now. We have rooms enough to spare but you'll be sharing. Beggars can't be choosers. I don't want to hear a word of complaint or excuses. Shoo. Off with you." She doesn't wait for a reply, gesturing toward the large fireplace where a few strangers in similar dress and state to your own are talking over large flagons and bowls of something warm and savory-scented. A teen halfling brings you a bowl and flagon of your own once you find a seat, the smell of a hot and hearty mushroom stew greeting your senses. He also hands you a key fished from his pockets once you've taken your food and drink. "Mum says she expects you to help with chores in the mornin'. Don't be fightin' or she'll sick Boris on you." With that he leaves, heading back toward a massive beast of a saint bernard that sits by the bar. It maintains eye contact for a period before snorting and walking off after the boy. The heavy brass key in your hand goes to a room on the upper floors of the inn, a tag with the room number attached to the ring of it. Chances are you won't be alone when you turn in for the night, but there will be clean linens, a towel, and a fresh tunic and pair of pants in something near your size atop them. It isn't perfect, but it's something. The skies are clear in the morning and the ground is covered in a thin layer of fresh snow. True to the boy's word, Gilly, the woman from the night before, gives you a task in the morning. There are a number of chores, from tending to the sheep or pigs, shifting hay in the barn, cooking breakfast, dishes, doing laundry, or cleaning up the inn. Whatever the task, when you finish it she gives you a bowl of something warm to eat and she thanks you for your help around the inn. You are given the offer to stay so long as you keep doing chores to pay your way.
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🜙 Awakening the Soul

	You leave the inn, but before you can make much progress toward the city a strange sensation overtakes you. It feels like the pull of a magical compass, persistent and steady. The vial you picked up from the battlefield grows cold. It feels like ice against your skin. As the warmth fades from it, it also fades from you. Nothing warms you, not fire, furs, or even the false warmth of alcohol. With the cold comes pain as old injuries begin to appear on your skin, slowly growing worse over time. Succumbing to the pull you stumble back to the battlefield you came from, back across the frozen marshlands. The spot you rose from is untouched by the ice of frozen rain, the grass there still a vibrant green. Something strange is happening. With your animas now close to you and a device in your hand or pocket, you realize the sky has turned menacing once more. The dark clouds of the previous day have choked out the blue skies again and thunder rumbles, approaching at a fast pace. The storm crashes above you. Lightning cracks across the sky and thunder follows it. The weather has warmed enough that rain is falling once more and the hair on the back of your arm stands on end from the electricity in the air. You should get going.
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🜙 A City Under Siege. Warnings: Warfare, Death

	As you return to the city that used to be Atrómitos you quickly realize something has changed. Fires burn around the outskirts of the city. A skirmish has broken out and bulky knights in golden tunics are clashing with a band of fur and leather-clad red orcs, their faces painted with black and white colors of war. The sound of battle is familiar, and the orcs are pushing the city's defense back. There are a number of options before you. You could take advantage of the chaos and join the attack or loot the market. You could assist the defenders in fighting off the orc pillagers. You could slip by into the city and help the people trying to get away from or stop the fires. Or you could just find a local tavern, get a drink, and wait out the battle while you try to make sense of the city's vastly different appearance. Eventually, the defenders manage to beat back the attack and the fires are all extinguished. A crew of volunteers helps to move the bodies out of the city to waiting pyres. Anyone who manages to insert themselves into the crew could easily pilfer some weapons, items, or coin from the bodies. Post-attack the city returns to normal surprisingly quick, these attacks are common for the wall-less city. As night approaches, fires are lit on the outskirts and the city defenders start their nightly patrol. The temperature drops and the rain and thunder turns to snow. Winter is finally here.
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🜙 Divided We Fall.

	In the aftermath of the orc attack the smoke clears and rumors spread faster than fire through the city's streets and taverns. The general consensus is the orcs were after something or someone, but what? That depends on the rumors you hear, and which ones you choose to believe. The city is alive with whispers and theories while attempts to strengthen defenses and repair the damages are underway. Several things become clear in the aftermath: The Skywhale, the airship meant to travel between the City of the Free Peoples and Didymos has been badly damaged, sabotaged and grounded in the orc attack. People in the know about these sorts of things are saying it looks like it will take at least a week or two to be repaired. Winter's first harsh breath has stopped Krimnos' airships as well. The sudden and severe temperature drop in the mountains and the high risk of avalanches has grounded their ships temporarily. As a result, the City of the Free Peoples has effectively been cut off from the other cities. No one seems certain for how long, only that assistance will not be coming soon. And perhaps of more concern than any of this: the orcs are still out there, not far from the city, and they seem to be preparing for a second assault.
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🜙 A Mysterious Message.

	Some time during the chaos a message arrived to your courier. After finding someone who knows what the device is or some tinkering and exploration of your own you discover how to view the thought message it holds and what you find only adds to your confusion. Your message differs depending on your allegiance: Yearning: Do not forget why you are here. It is within your grasp now. You need only to claim what is yours. Hold strong and show no fear. -Epithymetikon Devotion: Burn bright in the dawn where your suns set. Your sacrifices will not be forgotten. Your efforts will not be in vain. Your soul will follow where your heart leads it. -Thymoeides Reason: There is an answer for every question. The truth will not find you. You must seek it for yourself. Do not lose sight of what you seek. -Logistykon
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🜙 It bites, it burns, it yearns and yearns. Warnings: Warfare, Death, Suicidal Orcs

	Snow continues to fall thick and heavy, coating the land in layer after layer of dense, wet, white until a foot of snow coats the plains and lowlands. It seems winter has arrived eagerly on time this year. Small raiding parties of orcs continue attacking the city periodically from different directions. The raiding parties never contain more than a dozen orcs and the attacks rarely last more than an hour. Fires are set, lives are lost, and the orcs vanish once more, their tactics and chosen locations unpredictable. A bounty is issued against the orc tribe, city-wide and open to all. Gold and silver are offered for any information gathered on the orcs and a much larger purse for any who bring back one of the orcs responsible, alive. No simple task as these orcs would sooner die by their own blades than be taken captive. The city is on lockdown, the airships are not coming or going, and city defenses are on high alert. The city's guards are recruiting anyone who is willing and able to help put out fires, fight the orcs, repair damage, offer their weaponry, their magical aid, or their healing talents to the effort. It is made known across the city that all who can help will be compensated in coin, and possibly other rewards, by Captain Lykos himself.

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⤛ Sources: 1 2 3 4 & 5 6 7

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Now, now, theoretically his advice could have kept her preserved this long with a dhampir's natural lifespan -- but the utter lack of aging belied that wistful supposition.

She glanced at him over the collar of her coat, expression mostly hidden by it and her hat. Not that she had much of an expression to begin with; she was fairly good at hiding surprise as need be, and truth be told, after waking from the dead her threshold of belief was particularly low.

How many other people from her past were walking around here? Others she knew? Friends? Or family? Or enemies from the other cities, who may or may not be enemies no more? But seeing a familiar friendly face -- even one with ideas she considered radical -- was welcome.

"I've spent most of my life doing them," she said conversationally over the sound of scraping bristles, as if nothing about this situation were odd. "I don't believe I could forget them no matter how I tried. And as it's proved helpful, I don't believe I shall try."

[The wolf below perks up a little as she hears the cat rumbling about. There's a tail suddenly perked up and poking over the edge of the table, and Alucard's pretty sure that this wolf is about to keep to her own new tradition of being kind of a jerk.

Why couldn't he just have gotten a noble wolf instead of...of this?]

It isn't as if I specialized in this sort of thing. [Alucard is careful to use the past tense, because it feels more correct somehow. All of them were. What they are remains to be seen.]

But there's a number of people involved, which at least suggests that there's a lot of magical energy involved. To be capable of that is concerning, from where I sit.

The orc vanished almost before she could react, and its comrade let out a grunt of surprise and lowered his guard swiftly enough for her to capitalize. With her sword out of position, she hammered her fist forward instead with the hilt adding weight, punching it right where the neck met the shoulder. Its blade fell to the ground as it stumbled backwards, a broken collarbone taking it out of the fight.

"My thanks!" she called over the roar of her own flames, inwardly almost stung by the assumption that she needed help. But the effort was well made and this was no time for pride, not when the safety of others was on the line. Speaking of, was that --

An arboreon? Damn, and here she was -- Mòrag snapped her left hand shut, choking off the blue-hot flames as quickly as she could. All the more thanks owed, when her new comrade had risked the fire to aid her.

Mòrag swallowed her pride -- it served her not at all, no matter how much she instinctively prickled at the implication she needed help. "I thank you," she said instead, dropping her free hand away and offering out the arm. The bandage was a field wrap in every sense, cloth torn from wherever she could find it and wound around the wound simply to stop it from bleeding. Not terribly clean, but effective enough for the moment so long as someone tightened it with her movements constantly at odds with it.

So, hovering.

[Alucard's not impressed by the attempt to cover the matter up, but there's an indication from the way this man carries himself that he takes the matter with the same level of seriousness that Alucard does. To know if that's a truth is valuable in and of itself. He is not about to declare that he trusts no man, but Alucard learned to be cautious as a dhampir. It is not wrong to continue that approach in being resurrected.]

It's scraps of things, half-remembered. Where I grew up had a library that covered some parts of forbidden magics, but I rarely touched the things save for ensuring that we had an inventory of all books.

"It's certainly helpful now, though I don't think either of us expected to use it to earn our keep."

Maybe a long time ago - when he'd first left the temple, he had been desperate enough. He could imagine scrubbing tables back then, pretending to be an ordinary foundling in need of a roof and a hot meal. He could have never kept up the lie for long, of course, but for a short while? Perhaps he would have been content with such a life.

He could not be content with it now.

"Do you wish to continue pretending this is a completely ordinary occurrence?" he asked, setting the brush down. "Or would your rather discuss exactly how we ended up doing menial labor at an admittedly decent inn?"

[It's late, far too late, when he finally limps through the doorway to Room 12.

He'd lost a golem - an early casualty, though he hadn't abandoned it until the pieces were too small to even consider scraps. One of his legs was locked at an odd angle and possible broken - it had been damaged when he was too slow to dodge and not for the first time he was glad to have wood and metal instead of flesh and bone. He was bleeding from somewhere, he could smell it and feel the damp seeping into his now tattered coat.

So much to repair and replace and he had no idea if he would get any sleep tonight.

And yet, it had been a productive night! Several orcs dead, though none captured, and the city believed itself a little safer. He'd built a bit of goodwill with the city guard, earned a little coin. More importantly, he had new improvements in mind for his remaining golems after seeing how they fared in actual battle.

He finds a spot on the bed that isn't covered in tools and sits gently down. The prosthetic will have to be first, he can't do much else with it in this condition, but it seems impossible to do quietly. Rolling up the pant leg was simple enough, but the buckles jingle cheerfully while he fumbles with the straps.

He can't help it - he laughs at the absurdity of it all, hoping the poor girl sharing the room is a deep sleeper.]

Perhaps this is a sign that it can wait until morning.

Edited 2018-12-04 01:56 (UTC)

The moment Teddy had realized he was exposed he had found cover and shifted back into his canine form. He wasn't to be seen in his human form and even with the memory of his clan abandoning him to torture and death he couldn't bring himself to disobey his leader's orders.

Back in the skin he felt most at home in Teddy had emerged from the brush, a larger than normal canine, too dark and short-furred to be a wolf but large enough to be mistaken for one from time to time.

He was cautious in plodding his way through the muddy marshlands and he stills when his paw hovers over a form of solid vines stretched across a section of the marsh that resembles the greenery of his own awakening in the battlefield. His nose twitches and his ears tilt back with cautious uncertainty.

After a moment's pause he slowly sets a heavy paw down onto the form, testing for stability or something else.

[Teddy had never liked other animals much. A hunter by nature and nurture alike, if it could be called nurture. His distrust of regular animals had come from all too often being set upon or set on by them. A sheep, however, is a harmless creature as animals go. They posed little threat to a canine of his size and had never been the subject of his hunts for resources. There would be nothing to gain in angering local farmers and setting them on the hunt for a predator after their flock, or a thief.

Teddy had been given a key in his human form, but he had tolled the innkeeper of his 'dog companion' so that no one would think twice of the shepherd wandering the inn or its grounds. Now, keeping low to the ground, he fulfills the duty of his second form's namesake. A shepherd is only as good as his ability to manage the flock.

Teddy barks once, sharp and commanding, and cuts the sheep off from its path, placing himself between the rest of the flock and the hay stores. Without his leader he is lost in this unfamiliar world, far larger than he is accustomed to. For the moment he can only attempt to gain knowledge of the situation and keep himself sheltered and fed.

With the sheep spooked enough to move back on toward the snowy outer enclosure, Teddy looks back toward the woman managing the hay, his head cocked to one side, before turning and sitting, his golden-brown eyes seeming to be quietly assessing everything he sees.]

X marks the Spot

[ Strays are rarely allowed into Inn doors, especially ones not within bustling cities where people frequently come and go. Some distance from the inn, Teddy stands in the rain and the dark for a long time, suffering from a conflict of instincts and an internal debate over his next course of action.

He was never to be seen in his human form beyond the secrecy of the clan's camp, but the camp was long gone. He had caught no scent trails, no sound cues, there were no signs of his former pack in this change world.

He was a survivor who had been raised to adapt and prepare for the unexpected but a life after death had never been a part of those preparations. After half an hour of conflict in canine form Teddy shifted back to his human form, just as drenched and still clothed in the muddy green and gold tunic over his simple beige shirt and dark brown pants. He was unarmed and disheveled, covered in mud, drenched through, and with hair mussed in every direction.

He didn't look like someone who would normally be allowed into establishments like this so when he begrudgingly plodded on two feet through the door the kindness of the innkeeper caught him off guard.

He found a seat by the fire, a shiver racking through him from his toes up to his head that caused him to shake, as if trying to dislodge the water as he would in his other form. It did not have the desired effect and instead he merely wrapped both hands around the offered bowl of soup and hunched around it, drawing warmth from it and the steam rising from it.

He sits there until the soup had gone cold, still staring almost entranced into the reflection of the fire on the liquids service, the alcohol beside him untouched. Inner turmoil over the potential of poison in his food keeps him from digging in until his body wins out over his mind. His stomach growls and he lifts the bowl to his mouth, downing it in one go with the deep and desperate swallows of a starving man. ]

A City Under Seige A: Human Form
[ This city is unfamiliar to him now but in the years before his death its streets had been his home and its people the only brief glimmers of kindness that had been shown to him, even if they had only occurred because its people had believed him to be a stray. He had protected and played with children in this city's streets. He had eaten from meager but heartfelt offerings given to him by kind strangers. He had memorized and learned so many scents and faces.

Now the city is flickering with fire and suffocating under the heavy, acrid smell of smoke and burning and it sparks something in the shiftlings core that sets off his most basic and ingrained instincts. Defend.

Teddy grabs the first sword he finds from the ground and hurls himself like an animal into the fray. He slams bodily into orcs larger and stronger than him, fighting with fury and no finesse. The sword is used as much like a club as a stabbing implement, Teddy slamming its hilt into skulls, shoving the blade up against throats and using it more as a battering ram before his forceful body slams than a weapon he has much familiarity with. He has trained with swords, but his mind is far from his humanity in this moment.

He is likely to hurt himself fighting like this but Teddy places himself between evacuating citizens and the orcs, eyes wild and teeth bared. ]

A City Under Seige B: Canine Form
[ At some point in the fighting Teddy does get himself injured, a spear to the shoulder, an ax slice to the torso. Various small blade and arrow wounds on his human form that drive him to shifting. He can still feel the aches but in his canine form the bleeding is no longer there until new injuries are added.

He is just as fiercely defensive in this form, tackling orcs, lunging for throats with his powerful jaws. A trail of bodies are left in the massive canine's wake until he can fight no longer, and it is then the bloodied and weary shiftling collapses in the chaos of the assault, dragging himself toward an overturned cart before lying down to lick his wounds. Through it all, the minuscule animas somehow evades death or harm, buried in his fur or hidden in his hair. The pygmy marmoset is virtually invisible there.]

A Mysterious Message.
[ Back at the inn, Teddy's human fingers trace over Epithymetikon's courier message. There's a gash over one eye poorly covered with a bandage and his shirt is torn at the front and shoulder, sporting some unpleasant wounds and bloodstains all of which have been amateurishly patched with bits of torn linen.

He can't make sense of what he is seeing. How could he hope to remember something he has never known? How could he claim what was his when he had never owned anything in his life but a few bare minimum articles of clothing? A marmoset is sleeping on his courier, barely the length of his finger and Teddy watches it sleep, his eyes glossy and unfocused. His voice is a hoarse whisper when he speaks to the creature.]

I don't know what I'm meant to do, Mouse.

Strange is sensible enough to realize the intent of the the fuck did you just say fury in Alucard's eyes and realize that the other man has a very different opinion of necromancy than he does. Unfortunately, he's too stubborn and arrogant to really care about Alucard's opinion.

"Bringing someone back can mean more than the good of an individual," said in a 'duh, moron' sort of tone. Strange keeps his voice low, to prevent others from overhearing. "Obviously the dragons had something to do with this. If they were the ones who brought us back, then surely it was for the good of the nations, not for themselves."

It's speculation. But man is this speculation that Strange desperately hopes to be true.

Strange gives Billie a look like she's the one who's terribly inconveniencing him by not giving him her magical talky device and instead doing something silly like 'figuring it out on her own.' Just give him the damn thing!

Still, he sighs a very dramatic sigh before explaining. "Take one of the triangles and lay it flat on a table. That's how my message was displayed, I suspect it's the same for you."

The hare continues to look up at the tern, as if she's studying or examining the bird.

Strange honestly has no idea how other people touching the animas would work. She seems solid enough and doesn't mind when he touches her. But there's always the possibility that the magic works in a different way...though, considering that Bell seems to hop closer to Christine, Strange has a feeling that the hare won't mind.

"Be my guest," he says, as he gestures towards the animal. "Her name is Bell. That was my wife's nickname, when she was alive."

There's a little hitch in his voice as he mentions his wife. She had died before he did and there was a period of mourning...but he still deeply misses her. Honestly, he thinks he always will.

[ The earthen hand snuffs out the fire on the roof, right as James smushes the orc's skull. Strange spins around, ready to extinguish more fires, but none of the roofs in the immediate vicinity are ablaze. Considering he can smell the smoke and hear the crackle of fire from afar, he knows that's not the case for everything. He needs to keep working. He needs to help protect these people.

So he turns to look at James, eyes briefly darting to the supremely dead orc, before he gives James a nod. ]

Perfectly fine! [ Strange responds, giving James a wild grin. ] Is that a focus for your magic? When we get a moment to breathe, I've got plenty of questions about how that works.

[ The incantations make sense: after all, he does something close to the same. But a focus like that? That's something Strange hasn't ever thought of trying and would love to pick James's brain about the specifics of use. ]

Mind helping me out until then?

That fury doesn't fade, not in full. The nerve has been struck and struck well, and after this is said and done, someone is going to take a very, very long walk.

"Because that ended in such a good place for the world a century before," he intones, dripping with sarcasm and disapproval. This man, he's shortsighted and self-centered. That much is clear.

"The world has moved on and grown used to it's new order. It's cruel to the living to suddenly force all the old ways. Dragons and all."

With that, Alucard rises to his feet. He did not asked to be sat next to, and he knows that there is at least one fool in this group of the reliving dead that has precious few qualms with necromancy.

"If the forbidden things is where your interest lies, I advise you tread very carefully. Necromancy can lead to other things like magic of the blood, and if you became a vampir, you'd doubtlessly invite attacks."

And now he's just being a dick.

Awakening
[ The moment Poe realizes he isn't the only one struggling up out of the mud he starts actively looking for others who are also slowly rising or stirring, offering a hand to help them to their feet. The purpose of this war had left a sour taste in his mouth and he doesn't care what colors the others are dressed in, his own red and black tunic shoved through the belt holding up his still slightly flame-charred pants.

His armor and weapons are gone but by the looks of things Poe didn't need either. He starts coughing at some point, the chill and damp soaking into his lungs, but as long as people are still getting up out of what looks like a forgotten graveyard crafted by the war he remains, helping those who will accept it.

Despite his exhaustion and the mud and water weighing down his clothing, his smile is warm when he offers out a hand. ]

Let me help you. [His words are a request, offered loud enough to be heard over the rain.]

X Marks the Spot: Night
[At night, Poe's spirits are warm and so is his smile. He jokes and laughs with anyone who will speak to him and offers his help or his ear where he can. He lets the state of others and the distraction of tasks keep his mind off the war not waging in the background and the lack of the innkeeper's attention to the world beyond her inn. There is no great roar of dragons or distant rumble of war. There are no towers of smoke rising into the sky. This isn't the world he remembers before the cold, wet awakening in the marsh. Drastic changes have occurred somewhere between the world going hot and dark in that burning village and waking to the cold bite of winter rain.

Eventually he takes a seat near another muddy stranger and offers them a tall mug of hot water he had fetched from the inn's well. Alcohol was good for the soul right now, but the body, or at least his body, needed hydration. ]

Drink up. You look parched.

X Marks the Spot: Chores
[ In the morning Poe takes to the chore assigned to him without protest. It almost reminds him of home before the loss of his mother, the simplicity of this day. Wake up, work, eat. It's a pattern with just enough command to it to keep his mind off the previous day until he is seated at breakfast, his fingers holding loose to his utensils and his eyes slightly distant. To no one in particular, he speaks. ]

Do you smell smoke? [ The problem for Poe is not that he does. It is that he doesn't smell smoke. ]

A Mysterious Message
Your soul will follow where your heart leads? [Poe repeats the last line back at the inn, Bey asleep at his feet. He glances down toward the beagle thoughtfully before shaking his head. It couldn't be referring to the creature, could it? And how could Thymoeides be speaking to them? Someone in the city had looked at him like he was insane when he asked about the dragons and had told him they were dead. Had been for a century at least. Which meant so had he. ]

What do you think, Bey, should we try to find old fancy scales' grave for ourselves? [ He wouldn't believe they were really dead until he could see the skeletons for himself. He unrolls the map he had traded his tunic for onto the table, checking the mark the merchant had made for him of where each dragon was meant to be. ]

Yearns and yearns
[ Poe isn't proud of acquiring his bow and quiver from a dead guard but the city is under attack and even if this isn't Krimnos, Poe is not one to stand by while innocent people are slaughtered by Orcs. He notches another arrow into the bow, trailing the shot after a charging orc and letting it loose. Arrows don't seem to be enough to stop them with one hit but it is enough to draw focus away from unarmed civilians.

The longer the attacks progress the more Poe realizes they need to act rather than react. He isn't sure how or why the Couriers were given to them, but after a brief lesson on their use from a citizen of the city, he is confident in his ability to use them. He sends an audio message to anyone listening. ]

Anyone out there want to find out where these bastards are coming from?

[ He could trail them aerially but orcs were skilled hunters and beast tamers. Poe didn't feel like getting shot out of the sky on an errand that might change nothing if he went alone and died. Better to track them the old fashioned way, but they couldn't do that if they kept killing all the orcs who ran into the city. They needed to wound one so they would, hopefully, head back to their camp. ]

"Yeah, I did." Poe's response is immediate and honest, his bartered map still flattened out on the table. He looks down at the beagle whose head is resting on his foot for a moment before his focus moves back to Christine.

"We were actually planning to go and see if we can find the supposed sender for ourselves." He wants to be sure the dragons are dead. Even though he had wished for their end as the war grew more and more pointlessly destructive and murderous, the fact that Thymoeides, who his mother had always adored and who had strove so hard to protect the city before that awful war, was now nothing more than a skeleton was a hard truth to swallow and accept. There was something very bitter in the triumph of knowing that war was over. He had never known the cities without dragons and imagining it now is not easy.

"I don't know what kind of message you received, but the signature on mine is impossible if you believe what the people in the city are saying."

— feel free to pm this journal or contact via

resurrectionist/resurrectionist#2222 (discord) if you want to plot or ask a question!
— here is kylo's info page if you'd like to take a peek.
— starters will be added below.

[ He shrugs, unbothered by the reproach, and brushes it off in favor of the conversation he's more interested in pursuing. ]

Why did you have...?

[ James starts to ask the question about the books before he thinks much of it. He trails off only when he remembers the corner in his own library, back when he'd still been in school: dark, sectioned off and watched for rule-breaking students, full of the most grotesque spells and illustrations he can remember. Better to know the enemy, he reminds himself.

(There's a cold feeling on the back of his neck, the ghost of pain across his skin, a flash of green light and a horrible rushing sound that's the last thing he can remember.) ]

Compulsion. [ James pushes the thought away and tilts his head to look at the words again, upside-down from his angle. ] You don't think someone dragged so many people out of their graves in a fit of boredom.

[ That's not a question. At least, not really the one that James is asking. ]

AWAKENING THE HEART

[ Rain drenches her blue tunic, soaking straight through to the bone. Rey has never been good with cold. She was made for the mountains, not frozen marshes. It's not possible. It shouldn't be possible that she is here after she had died on a battlefield just like this one. She can remember the arrows in her back. It was the only way anyone could have taken her. A cowardly way. Undignified, for her part. But it had happened.

A. And now it is undone. She slips and stumbles her way across the field, gasping and shivering, and does what she does best: picking the bodies of the fallen for what she needs. It's possible in the course of her effort that one of the bodies she picks is yours — and that you're not as dead as you look.

B. Eventually through her grave robbing efforts, she gets her hands on a rusty knife about the length of her forearm. It's not much, but it'll do in a pinch. A different sort of pinch than the one she finds herself in. She gets the knife tucked into her belt, but in short order, she has slipped into one of the mud pits, gasping and trying to keep her head above the surface before it drags her down. She could use a hand. ]

KNIGHT OF THE CITY OF THE FREE PEOPLES

[ After a nasty run-in with an orc during the first raid, it has occurred to Rey that a pitchfork wasn't the way to go. Instead, she goes for a short sword from the city defense, slipping out with it. Really it's mostly to protect herself. Rey knows the value of survival, and she's not lost on how to best acquire it.

The sword is old. Dull and too heavy for her, badly balanced, but it's what she's got. She's made do with worse.

But despite her own self interest, she is quick to jump into it when it appears the orcs have returned. When two of them get a pair of orphan children cornered in an alley she's been frequenting — to keep an eye on them, as it happens — Rey appears at the end of it and hurls a rock at one of the orcs. ]

Hey. [ Another rock. They're not substantial stones, but that's what the shout is for. ] Mind someone your own size.

GIFT OF GRATITUDE

[ The Skywhale was a beautiful ship. Sizable and respectable and essential, so when Rey walked past and heard fussing over its damage, she went closer to see for herself. There's not a lot she knows about this world and its needs, but she does know her way around tools.

So she offers a hand, and at first they only let her run about the site to get supplies. She's young. It makes sense. But as soon as she corrects one of the workers on how she needs to address the issue she's facing in her repairs, Rey is instead given a spot in helping to work at the ship.

After that, she can be found at it more consistently, clanging around to help put it back together. ]

TSEKOUR'S SIGHT

Where did you say they are?

[ Rey's in a tavern when the bounty comes, announced by one of the Defenders to the lot. She gets to her feet, nose scrunching slightly, eyeing them. Some of the patrons laugh at her for bothering to ask — 'What are you going to do?' One asks. 'Feed them?'

She shoves her way out from behind that particular burly man who's too deep in his cups and stands up in front of the Defenders. ]

'Epithymetikon's Fall'? Which way?

[Jamie isn't handling being alive again as well as he wants to. His eyes are bloodshot red and wet and he hasn't touched the food in front of him despite his hunger. Nights are long and nightmare-filled followed by sluggish and miserable mornings. A conversation Jaime had had with a bookkeeper in the city had told him enough for Jaime to piece together that even if his family had survived the war they wouldn't still be alive.

He is alone, and that is a difficult fact for him to accept. Instead he has been trying to distract himself with trying to puzzle over everything that doesn't make sense.

He looks over toward the other man at the table with him, sliding his food toward the long lizard sprawled on the table beside his arm, an open book of recent history on the table in front of him.]

Is that a thing deer usually do?

[His own message from Logistykon is hastily scrawled in the margins of the open book with multiple question marks around it, loose triangles of his courier scattered across the table and the book.]

Christine's gaze flickers back up to Strange at the mention of his wife, and she can't help but feel pity stir her at the thought of losing a loved one. Her parents had both died before she even joined the war and there had been no one special in her heart. She'd had friends, of course, but so often buried herself in her work that making time to see them was always a challenge.

Bending down onto her haunches so Azoth can remain perched on her shoulder, Christine offers her fingers for a sniff before petting the top of Bell's head.

"We have lost much," she states quietly. "I hadn't really been thinking about it with everything else I had to come to terms with but—" She stops herself and sighs, taking a moment to focus on petting. "There must be some purpose to all this."

The wood under the dog's paw creaks but, otherwise, does little of note. A moment or two passes and there is a deep groan from within the core of the fallen vines. It isn't a vocal sound but rather more akin to the sound of the hull of a ship straining against water. Another moment passes and, all at once, the tree sits up.

It is caked in several inches of mud and marsh and grass and it leaves a deep hole of sucking mud and water behind it. It sits upright, tied to the ground only by long vine-like roots, and makes another, more humanoid groan.

A section of it snaps and breaks away from the whole, twisting and forming into a gangly approximation of an arm. The hand at the end is almost the right shape but it has far too many fingers. It curls all of them and claws at the mud caked to the front of it until it has freed part of a face...or at least a knot-hole that appears to have an eye in it.

[ He can't help himself: James grins back. Questions about his own magic make up for James' not-quite-envy over the earthen hand, and the manic energy emanating from the other man is almost infectious. In response, he twirls his wand between his fingers, and with one more murmured spell conjures a fountain of water from the tip, a stream that circles and fans around the source before it splashes back to the still-hot ground. ]

Think I'll have a few answers. [ He puts out the stream with another flick of his wrist and turns back in the direction of the nearest smoke plume still rising dark and thick above the rooftops. ] What have you got in the meantime? I think the orcs are dwindling in number, I see fewer with each corner I turn, but the fires are still spreading. They'll be waiting for anyone who comes running.

[ He brushes an arm across his face and leaves a streak of soot on his cheek. James' elfin features are stark and pale beneath the remains of battle. ]

If you're planning on going for the fires, think that hand could give us a ride?

Jaime was trying to help get people out of the part of the city he had been searching for answers in when the attacks started again. He doesn't want to fight but if it means other people don't get hurt he will and does. He directs a family with young kids toward a safe route out of the city, Khaji Da's claws digging into his shoulder as the lizard expresses the same nervous tension he feels in his gut.

He freezes when he catches sight of the monstrous golem fighting the orcs and his stomach twists uncomfortably at seeing the thing in action. In theory he had always found them fascinating and unusual, a miracle feat of magic bordering almost uncomfortably on the edge of forbidden magic, but amazing in either respect. Seeing them in person and in action is something entirely different. It throws itself with something he can only describe as glee at the attacking orcs and the violence it is capable of is not something Jaime's education prepared him for.

He almost intervenes but he is distracted when one of the structurally unsound buildings starts to collapse and he has to dive for the kid from before, just as distracted as he was by the golem. He tucks and rolls taking the boy with him and hands him off to his parents, yelling for them to go as his eyes scan for the controller he knows must be somewhere nearby.

What he doesn't expect is that it will be a face he recognizes.

"Professor?"

On the ground Khaji Da makes a sound between a hiss and a growl over being dislodged from his perch, scaling Jaime's leg and back to get back to his shoulder.

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Page 3 of 39

Event #1: The Big One

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Divided - Wildcard!

Awakening

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Teddy | OC

six seconds, we did it y'all

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handhakes round of champange for everyone excellent work

Poe Dameron | Star Wars

A mysterious message.

kylo ren • star wars

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rey / ota

Messages

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It Bites, It Burns, It Yearns and Yearns