festivals and mur--ahem, investigations 🎊🔍

[beleos]

COMMUNION WITH YIMA

After given some time for recovery and for Yima to hear reports of what transpired at the Tree of Life last month, a Communion message gently flows through the minds of each Shard-Bearer. They will have to choose to accept this message, and once they do, they will be greeted by Yima’s voice resonating pleasantly in their heads. She first apologizes for their harrowing experience with the Dryad, and that she hadn’t anticipated such a violent reaction from the Tree; she believes that their experiences point to an imbalance within the Tree itself, most likely brought about by the soon-to-come arrival of the Oracles.

She has spoken with Cyrus, and they have jointly decided that an investigation into the matter - and potentially the destruction of the Dryad - may be required to purge its influence from the Tree. Yima requests that any who would willingly seek out the Dryad volunteer to do so and will be outfitted with a ward against any tampering to prevent them from falling into the creature’s clutches a second time. It will take her a bit to fashion enough of these wards - but she anticipates being ready toward the end of the month.

She concludes her message with another heartfelt apology for your suffering, that she would not have sent any into such a situation she believed were truly dangerous. That being said, she takes responsibility for your ordeal and asks that if there is anything she can do in recompense, you have but to ask.

Yima will be available for Communion chatter here!

FESTIVAL OF REMEMBRANCE - HIGHSTORM

Takiltu is a month cycle the natives of Kenos regard with some amount of reverence and a hearty helping of excitement: the first part of the month (November) is spent reflecting on and celebrating the differing cultures and worlds each Kenosian represents. The second part of the month (December) is spent celebrating unity and togetherness, to come together with friends and family, to be kind to others and share in one’s wealth - whether that comes in the form of knowledge, monetary gains, or the exchange of gifts and one’s time.

Each city celebrates differently, the flavor of their festivals a reflection of their people.

In Highstorm, the first thirty days of Takiltu are spent in Remembrance. The city is decorated with string lights, paper lanterns, candles, and torches to illuminate the streets in beautiful colors and shimmering magical illusory shapes. The focal point of the festival takes place in The Court, where the reflecting pool has been especially decorated with arrangements of flowers and lights. Festival stands erected around the Courtyard peddle paper lanterns as well as refreshments, fanciful decorative items, and enchanted jewelry that is said to make one’s recollections of the past temporarily clearer.

The pool itself is the main attraction, here; citizens who approach its waters and gaze into its depths will find its normal abilities to reflect memories enhanced. The images are surreal for their clarity, vivid - and normally, one is requested to look into the eyes of those most precious to them whose souls remain lost, to pay homage to their memory and sacrifices, and to wish them rebirth in the new world to come. A purchased lantern is then lit and sent skyward where it floats into the moonlight, joining the others hovering above.

But this year, there is an addition to the usual fanfare. Emet-Selch has been asked to assist with the festival; as long as he is given permission, he can recreate the memory displayed in the reflecting pool. Yima has granted him a temporary blessing which enhances his natural creation abilities - a gift for their people she is grateful for. Your character can choose what it is they see in the water - whether it’s a place, a person, or the feelings of a certain point and time, he will temporarily recreate it around you. Everyone will be able to see this conjuring and interact with it while it is functional. It will last between 15 to 30 minutes before dissolving into beads of light that slowly trickle skyward before disappearing. You’ll be told to light a lantern, send it adrift, and that this will give peace to the part of you and your Shard that surely aches. But does it…?

Elsewhere in Highstorm, the High Theater has been painstakingly decorated and aglow with magical floating motes of light; the interior has been transformed into something of an Art Gallery. The pieces within are dedications to parts of worlds long gone, as well as the people in them; some are beautifully painted landscapes of exquisite, far-away places beyond the imagination. Some are more mundane and familiar snapshots of life in a home world not too different from your own. There are portraits of families, loved ones, and those the Zenites long for most. This is their time to mourn, to grieve, and to appreciate their pasts - the pasts that will lead them to a brighter future, one day. They must move on into the future, but treasuring that which came before is equally important to them.

Should you touch any of the motes of light that are around the art pieces decorating the Gallery, you will find yourself able to feel, hear, see, and taste a piece of the world the piece represents. Some of these are warm gatherings over a dinner table with family; others are heart-wrenching expressions of loss and bitterness and pain. Be cautious which you choose. Oh, and do be careful not to stand too closely with someone else when you touch one, or one accidentally touches you - the experience is absolutely contagious through Communion.

CELEBRATION OF CHERISHMENT - SPRINGSTAR

While Highstorm’s Festival of Remembrance is a more demure and reflective time, Springstar takes a much different approach to the season. In true Meri nature, the Celebration of Cherishment encapsulates celebrating life in all forms - and that means parties! The Psychagogía is the main hub of excitement considering, but festivities can be found in almost every single district of Springstar. Wherever you go, something is happening and someone is trying to rope you into having a good time.

The city has been decorated with bright and colorful multi-purpose magical ivy-like vines that sprouts buds that bloom over the course of the month into gorgeous flowers. These flowers are considered sacred, and their blooming is a momentous time of joy and good fortune. Each flower is left intact; disturbing one is tantamount to a war crime by the natives, so don’t get observed if you try to pluck one!

The Psychagogía is incredibly lively, teeming with people and events; almost every venue is peddling some kind of ‘Cherishment’ celebratory sale or discount. The first portion of the month includes what the locals call “the meri-ment” (and seem quite chuffed about that pun), in which Kenosians are encouraged to go bar hopping and taste the wide variety of specialty ales and liquor unkegged only around this time of year. Participants are highly encouraged to share stories of their worlds and cultures, to tell those they mingle with tales of the worlds they will one day return to and why they’re special, unique - to celebrate their one-day return.

Alongside this comes a great deal of outdoor grilling, fresh meats and vegetables sending tantalizing scents everywhere you go once the evening hours arrive. Some of these food and drinks can cause… interesting… effects if you consume them in excess, especially at the Emotional Damage - so try to show restraint. It would be a bit embarrassing to find yourself strangely infatuated with the first person you lay eyes on after your fifth night out on the town, or feeling compelled to express warm feelings aloud you wouldn’t normally commit to another. Luckily, it only lasts a short period of time - but beware the wicked hangover afterward. Strangely enough, if you’re suffering, you feel oddly compelled to seek out a little TLC from someone else - someone with whom you might have some unresolved feelings toward, positive or negative. Is it longing? Anger? Jealousy? Unspoken affections? Love? Whatever it is, you're more likely to seek them out for some care.

At the Coliseum, nightly brawls between Meris take place and the usual assortment of monsters are temporarily taken out of offer. This part of the festivities is one where each Kenosian is encouraged to settle any differences or misgivings with others and to get it out of their system, cleansing them of bad mojo - “leave it in the ring,” as it were. Despite beating each other bloody at times, most combatants willingly stop before it gets too serious and fighting to the death is not permitted. You must embrace your adversary before you leave, and your ‘bad blood’ will be considered purged and settled so you can start anew.

The Empório district is celebrating consumerism, because of course it is! All the usual goods are on a considerable discount, and for a brief time, gardening tools and supplies are free! The reason for this is that Springstar’s citizens are encouraged to plant one seedling in the gardens in Katoikitikós once the flowers lining the city have gone into full bloom. It is said this honors gods across cultures and time as well as invites good fortune. You are encouraged to plant a seedling in a group or pairing, as space is limited - and there are superstitions regarding this togetherness resulting in more favorable results. Should you plant a seedling with someone else, you might indeed find that something is beginning to blossom between you… Based on your Aspects, you might find yourselves feeling closer and more connected - or repulsed depending on your compatibility. This effect will last through the month after planting. Should you check on the seedling later, its health will be reflected in the state of your relationship. Friends will find the little plant thriving; enemies will find it is sickly and dying.

For those Shard-Bearers who have already harmonized with the Meridian or who have quarters in Heliopolis, you will find the communal meals much more lavish and indulgent than usual. There may even be a taste of home waiting for you among the spreads on offer, or some comfort food you haven’t had in a while. It is encouraged to share anything to your taste - or even to share why it is meaningful to you via Communion. Or you can just eat. You do you, man.

Once the flowers have bloomed and the festivities reach their peak, one might find the city loud and boisterous and sleep a little more difficult to come by. Springstar is absolutely thriving and alive - and you, too, feel more invigorated and energetic despite any lack of zzz’s. Should you leave the city, however, this effect will vanish and you might find yourself unnaturally fatigued and in need of more rest than is customary. Returning to Springstar will slowly build up your stamina again. This effect lasts until the end of the month.

THE MYSTERY OF ALENROUX

Once celebrations are in full-swing in the cities, some characters (i.e., any characters that choose to participate in this prompt) will be contacted by Cyrus or Yima, depending on their faction or whichever they feel a stronger inclination towards if they are currently Unharmonized. Both will explain that there’s something that they’d like you to investigate, but also to prepare and be careful, since this request doesn’t come without danger… A Shard has been lost in Alenroux, and they both hope you’ll be able to retrieve it.

MERIDIAN

“I’ve gotten word that a Zenith Shard-Bearer was sent to Alenroux a little bit before you arrived, and they haven’t come back yet. Normally, none of our business, but based on what some of the farmers have been saying, I think they’ve gotten hit by Discord. If it gets high enough, well… You don’t really have your mind anymore. We can help them through Purification. Even if it’s just for long enough to calm them down, it’s better than them being trapped in madness. It might be easier to dissipate them first, though, then Purify their Shard. They were last seen heading to the Northern forests. Let me know what I can give you to help, and make sure to help each other. Good luck.”

ZENITH

"Please heed my request, though I do not ask this of you lightly... One of the Zenith's children has been lost among the fields of Alenroux come nightfall and I fear the worst has befallen them. There are dangerous elements attracted to the presence of a soul, and the likelihood our brethren has been lost... it is great. Seek out the Shard - and if you are able to retrieve it, please do so. If it has suffered corruption too great to be saved or would place you in too great a danger to take back, then... I trust you to make the merciful choice. I place this in your hands and will give you whatever you require to see it through. Look out for your fellow Zenith and work together, as I do not want to lose more of you. Be well."

Both factions will offer their recruits access to standard weaponry and armor/protective clothing. If a character asks for more, they’ll be given a weapon or a piece of armor with minor magical properties which would normally cost 1 AC token to purchase. Magical weapons are on loan however. If your character takes these and/or chooses to keep it, please note this in your Committed Actions! If they choose to keep standard weaponry, Cyrus/Yima will just be disappointed in your dishonesty. :(

When you arrive during the day cycle, you’ll also find horses and magic hoverboards to use (they go the same speed tbh), because heading North to the forests is a bit of a trek, and you might not make it there in time on foot! As the sun starts to set, you’ll see the people in Alenroux start to leave, going clearly your opposite direction. Once night falls (Nov. 9th OOC), it doesn’t take long for things to change.

There’s just a sliver of a crescent moon in the sky, which makes the rolling hills and forests much more ominous than they were during the day. And as the stories say, it only takes an hour or two before you start to run into strange creatures. Closer to the Cornerstone, there are indeed strange creatures, and while they may not all look scary, they might present different kinds of dangers such as…

• A light in the dark looks like a fairy, but stare at it too long and you’ll find yourself hypnotized by a ghastly fish will lead you to a body of water to drown you.
• An innocuous puddle may form up into a mass of corrosive goo, complete with the bones and items of the last person it came across. When you slice it, it simply creates a copy of itself, so hopefully you realize this before you’re surrounded.
• A strange straw poppet (sans pins, of course) that possesses you once you touch it and will use your body to try and fight anyone else while your consciousness is trapped inside the doll. To be freed, you only have to destroy the doll, but you’ll feel the pain of how its destroyed even if you don’t bear any injuries from it.

However, as you get closer to the Northern forests, they become significantly more fearsome…

• With a roar, a massive, multiheaded beast descends, and each of its mouths is perfectly capable of taking a bite out of you. Watch out for the snake’s head in particular, since its venom will cause you to hallucinate your worst fears.
• As you come face to face with an odd creature, bioluminescence lights up on its skin, and the spins on its back quiver with a sound like a rattlesnake’s. As the spines quiver, you find it exceptionally difficult to take your eyes off them and move as it stalks closer slowly. You can fight blind, right?
• Diving in and out of larger shadows like its water is a slimy beast that’s incredibly fast. Its teeth may be small, but its tail is a razor-sharp whip that could remove a limb if you’re not careful.

These are just examples, however. There are many creatures lurking the wilds of Alenroux, so feel free to create your own monsters with unique effects.

It's a difficult trek North, and you may be tired from hours of running, fighting, or both… But eventually, a few people do find what they were looking for. They might have even missed it, if not for how their Shards suddenly felt like they were burning. From the shadows, a twisted creature of roots and lights which what looks like many crystals in a glowing mass appears and one of its eyes locks on you. It looks like now is your chance.

NOTES

Weather summary for the first 30 days of Takiltu (NOV & DEC):

Highstorm is in late fall, early winter season. Some flurries may occasionally fall and it is getting considerably cold out there! Bundle up!

Springstar is in the throes of early summer; the weather is climate and pleasantly warm for outdoor celebrations (but not sweltering). There are occasional afternoon showers, but they don’t last very long.

Notable city changes:

If you wander the Markets in Highstorm, you might notice some of the peddlers seem a bit wary of you. Hm, guess something happened around here! Probably totally unrelated, but Silco and Vander (or anyone with them) will be treated with nervous suspicion.

Similarly, if you're traveling with Set (or you're Set) in Springstar, you might occasionally find yourself getting strange looks. Ask Set why.

Faction updates:

There are no explicit changes in faction behavior at this time. This will be a staple in all future event write-ups to catalogue the fluidity of the conflict as it progresses, though, so we're including it here for posterity!

Event Notes:

The Reflecting Pool in the Courts of Highstorm can be observed normally with no addtional effects or can bring your memory to vivid life thanks to the help of Emet-Selch (and Yima). If you grant him permission (which can be handwaved), he will breathe life into whichever memory you have chosen to view! If this includes any NPC’s or interactive elements, you will be responsible for playing them out in any tags until they disappear. Please see Emet’s toplevel for any interactions you’d like to thread out with him as a part of this.

For the Gallery in Highstorm, the art depicted in and scenes experienced through the pieces are up to you to create! Feel free to go wild with any associated NPC's in the scene and worldbuild as you see fit. Highstorm holds a variety of citizens from across the multiverse, so you could feasibly go fantastical places, or experience something distinctly profound and beyond your imagination...

The drinks and refreshments in Springstar can be enchanted in just about any way you’d like, including bringing upon minor physical changes of the cute, fun, and flirty variety! Feel free to get creative (as long as you get permission from your thread partner), the Meris would also merrily insist growing extra fluffy, scaly, etc bits during the celebration will only help you party harder! 🥳

As reminders for Alenroux, once night falls, a character is not able to leave until sunrise, which is 24 hours later. If your character is dissipated, you can have a PC retrieve their Shard or the respective Faction they're allied with will send out a search party to find it. Remember to report character deaths!

CODING

Comments

HAYAME & LIEM

[kenosnpcs]

[warmare]

[Liem had claimed to have experience fighting against monsters unnatural in origin, and Hayame herself had confidence in her strength, even with her depth perception compromised... But as night fell in Alenroux, it became more than obvious why so many of the natives swore it was accursed, fleeing the island before sunset. Though they had made their way through the southern woods without much injury, eliminating some beasts along the way... Things began to go wrong once they reached the northern part of the island.

Something... Hayame still isn't sure, something had led them astray from each other, glowing in the dark, threatening to ruin their night vision, and though they'd found each other once again, they meet bloodier and more exhausted than they had been. Her quiver is almost half empty. So is his. But she will not voice the thoughts that run through her head in that moment, the idea of retreat or going into hiding. She had not come to this place on behalf of the woman called Yima or the man who had introduced himself as Cyrus. She had not come for either Springstar or Highstorm, for Meridian or Zenith. She had simply taken advantage of everyone else's presence to attempt the overnight journey, wishing that she could find a place in Alenroux to make into a home if she was forced to live in this place for longer.

But there is no turning craven now, even now that she knows... Living in this place is impossible, no matter how strong she'd thought herself. They press forward, wary and on guard, watching each others' backs, leaving a smear of blood along a leaf here, a splatter of crimson on the ground there...

Until Hayame stops dead in her tracks, cracked hooves digging in to earth and root. There is something... something foul in the air, though it is faint even in her heightened senses, advanced though they were by further losses. One hand tightens on her bow and the arrow ready between her knuckles, while the other reaches out to snag her companion by the cloak, quick and urgent.]

Liem, stop.

[Something in front of them... She can't make out anything in the darkness she should be able to make sense of, false shadows dancing between the branches and undergrowth, but every instinct in her equine hindbrain is screaming danger... Just before her shard, which has been icy since her dream of the dryad... begins to burn.]

[sterngaze]

[A full month after his arrival to Kenos, Liem has regained the strength of his limbs but not his capacity for magic. Unlike his first days in Horos, which had involved a swift descent into the Kenoma's arms thanks to the nature of his welcome, his time here has been filled with nothing but his own indecision. This time he has the luxury of choosing which cause to follow, and he's been keeping it jealously close while he learns more about the world, its people, the other shard-bearers. He won't make his choice on a whim or a promise this time.

But that means that, when Yima reaches out to ask for volunteers to seek a vanished shard in Alenroux, his hands and his eyes are the only things he can offer toward the search. Nonetheless, he wouldn't mind having her owe him a favour, so he goes, clad in borrowed armour and wielding an unfamiliar longbow. The long knife at his side is mostly just a last resort.

His work back home took him all over the country and led him to fight all kinds of opponents, but the number and variety of dangerous monsters in this forest daunts even him. There seems to be a limitless number of malevolent creatures in the wood, and all of them seem to be converging on the shard-bearers attempting to pierce its lightless depths. The forest only becomes more dangerous after he becomes separated from his companion, and is forced to navigate part of the way alone.

Eventually he finds her, or she finds him; the night sky here is unfamiliar, and Liem can't say exactly how long they've been on the island, or how much longer the night will last. All he knows is that they have no hope of escape until morning, and so the only choice left to them is to continue their hunt, deeper in the woods. He pads softly over fallen leaves and dry needles, gloved fingers tight on the curved staff of his bow, eyes glinting red in the scant light filtering between the branches as they search for whatever danger might finally have done that missing person in.

He's stopping even before Hayame grabs his cloak, his booted feet planting suddenly in the ground as something hulks between the gnarled trees ahead of them. To him the forest is a tapestry of long grey lines, crystal clear without the confusion of light and shadow that his normal vision relies on—but the clarity of his darkvision extends barely a score of metres ahead before fading back into that soft muddle of dappled light and heavy shadow. At the edge of that boundary, where crystal-edged silver is draped with folds of darkness, something twisted and inhuman moves, half-hidden by the intervening trees.

As Liem's shard begins to burn in his chest, he fits an arrow to the string of his bow.]

[kenosnpcs]

[ As their Shards burn, so too does the creature. It’s a sensation they both know, because it’s Communion, but it’s twisted somehow. It’s trying to reach out to them, pushing past the usual barriers that stop someone from entering your mind without permission, but it’s still a tenuous connection that crackles like a poor radio signal. Only a few words get through, but they’re all in different voices, sometimes even mixing and overlapping as multiple voices say the same word together, moaning out like they’re in pain. ]

Help. Hurts. Dying. Die. Don’t.

[ They might also recognize some of the voices mixed in as belonging to Vander, Barnaby, or Rosaria.

The roots creak as it moves closer, the sound of wood cracking against wood as all the roots move and undulate to propel it forward. It’s slow and almost lumbering, but as it comes closer to them, the light in its “head” gets brighter. It’s enough to see a single humanoid skull in the mass surrounded by crystals of various shapes and colors.

Underneath them, the ground starts to shift. ]

[warmare]

[In the wilds of the mountain frontier on which her stable master had founded his trade, Hayame had gone up against the most formidable beasts known to man. She has cowed men, hunted jinba, exterminated boars, and even taken down a hole-less bear, but that... that had not compared to the creatures that existed in Horos.

And those creatures could not be compared to the thing that shuffles out of the darkness towards them. Her remaining eye darts about wildly, at first unable to identify the thing's head as the glowing pulse blurs in her vision, but as she quickly adjusts to the sudden light, as the voices (voices she's heard before, even if not so many times as to pick them out by precise name) pry open her skull and invade her mind...

It's a skull, suspended in a messy clump of crystal. Just a skull, no flesh, no other bones, just root and creaking wood and... the very earth beneath their feet shifting under her hooves.

The roots.]

Liem, get on my back-

[Hayame had born a rider just once in her entire life. When the armed jinba of her master's stable reached their physical maturity, they were saddled and bridled as if they were Armless, they were ridden by the grooms that had raised them to think they were special, better than the made-more-bestial members of their own kind... and they were reminded that they would always be a single failure away from the flensing post and the potential life of sale as a mount. She had hated the feeling of weight on her back, the dig of ankles into her flank, the pull of reins and the pinch of metal at the corners of her mouth that made her eyes burn with unshed tears of humiliation, and she'd sworn that would never happen to her again, but-]

Now- !

[The earth is moving. They had passed through a relatively large, treeless clearing not minutes past, so if they could just get back there, somewhere with less roots in the soil and more room for both of them to wield their bows... She extends her arm in an urgent thrust towards him, her hand open in offer for his to assist in pulling him up and over her withers.

He has seconds to make his choice before she's off at a dead gallop.]

[sterngaze]

[Although Liem has seen his fair share of horrors in his life, he has never encountered a creature like the lumbering construct of root and rock and bone before them. Its multitude of voices batter at his mind, pushing at defences erected by physiology and years of studied practice, and he shudders as a hint of familiarity brushes his awareness along with the mind-bruising despair of souls held in torment. Without any doubt, he knows they must have found the resting place of the shard Yima asked him here for.

The creature hasn’t yet attacked them, but he doesn’t want to find out what might happen if they let it get any closer. As earth and root begins to heave under their feet, Liem tenses to move, cursing the barrier of the intervening trees screening the monster from a clear shot. When Hayame thrusts her hand toward him, he doesn’t stop to think about her pride or the slavery she was born into, the reluctance that had made her hesitate to allow even a hunted mother and child on her back. He takes one more look at the horror shambling closer and he clenches his arrow between his knuckles, reaching out with his freed hand to grip hers and leap up to her back. (He has a balanced but nervous seat; he grips with his knees like he’s expecting to be thrown off.)

But when Hayame wheels and surges away through the trees, he can’t help but look back.]

[kenosnpcs]

[ The creature reaches out to a tree, and the tiny roots dig in and run along the bark like veins until it simply starts to step inside the tree. The ground underneath Hayame’s feet rumbles until thick tree roots start to pop out at irregular points. It’ll trip her if she’s not extremely deft with her running, since it’s almost like the trees themselves are about to uproot themselves and pursue. Yet the howling echo persists in their minds: ]

Help. Hurts. Dying.

[ The creature seems to have disappeared, but on the path ahead, there’s a light that starts to emerge from a tree, and the claw-like hand digs into the bark as it almost pulls itself out with a howl like a dying animal’s that’s heard this time.

But as it starts to step out of the tree, a hand extends towards them both. Rapidly, the roots converge on the hand until it’s a sharpened point, and it shoots out towards Liem, even with ten feet of distance between them. The roots extend with it to keep the spear attached to the body, but they’re thinner along the lengthened limb. ]

[warmare]

[She runs.

What is there that can be done when even the ground itself beneath your feet, solid and dependable, begins to betray you? Before she can even begin to wonder how it was that such a creature existed, what it meant for the shard those followers of Zenith and Meridian had been looking for, or even how to defeat such a thing… Hayame dashes for earth that might stay steady under her hooves. The roots burst and bubble from the ground as if it were boiling, the weight of a man on her back burns with shame and ingrained fears nearly as hot as the invasion into her own shard and her own head, but she dodges one, leaps over another, Liem calls out that the thing has vanished into the trees-

And she trips on a root that wasn’t there a second earlier. It clips her hoof, she stumbles… but she is not a horse. If she were, she would plow into the dirt head first, but she is a jinba, with human-shaped hands that can arrest her fall. Clumsily, she barely does it as heavy as she is, a pain flares up in one of her wrists, but she catches herself on a tree trunk and throws herself back into the gallop, racing away—

Racing towards the twisted apparition as it emerges from a tree in front of them.]

Shit-

[She can barely hear herself under the wailing scream of voices and dying beasts, barely concentrate-

But she throws herself to the side as something (a weapon? no, roots again-) shoots towards them, higher than her upper spine has dipped. Her eyes catch the way the limb thins, the roots extended, but in that moment-

Hayame can only try to dodge with her rider, cursing as she changes course to try and cut around the thing towards open sky.]

[sterngaze]

[As Liem twists around on his perch, one hand gripping the girth fastened around Hayame’s ribs, he sees the creature dig its limb into the trunk of one nearby tree—and then disappear inside, as if stepping through a door. He feels his skin go cold beneath the padded leather of his armour as he whirls around to bark:]

It’s gone inside the trees—

[And he lurches forward, bowing over her back like a windblown reed as she stumbles hard against a tree trunk. The forest has come alive around them, and it seems hell-bent on hunting them both down. Liem levers himself upright again until he can see over her ducked shoulders, eyes darting about in search of the source of that howling, that dreadful, unremitting howling—

He finds it when the monster begins to haul itself out of a tree directly ahead, one clawed limb still gripping the bark as it reaches the other toward them both. Liem doesn’t curse; he just throws himself flat against Hayame’s spine, hissing as the roots glance hard off his shoulder and rip the cloak from his back. It hurts like a bastard even through the armour, but adrenaline absorbs the shock of the impact and he forces himself up again as they flash past, pulling the arrow from his bow hand to draw it back and send it racing at the creature’s skull.]

[kenosnpcs]

[ It’s the third pair the creature has encountered, and even though it’s hard to tell that it’s damaged because of the shifting, twisted nature of it, it is hurt. It’s enough that whatever force propels it isn’t quite so strong. The roots slough off where it’s thinnest from being extended, and the moment they fall away, they rot into thin strings of plant matter. There’s some portion of it that likely falls on Liem and Hayame as they race past, but it’s at least no more than that.

Simultaneously, the arrow finds its mark, or certainly close enough. The arrow tears through part of the bone of the cape of its skull, and with a howl—

A memory.

You can feel Discord pulling at your bones. It’s changing you into something else, something that makes you able to see what you couldn’t see before. The light from their faces is blinding, and you can’t stand the sun anymore. You have to run away, run away before you kill someone (again), and only Alenroux is safe. Maybe here a monster will kill you first.

You shudder as the sun sets. You hope it's quick, but you’re still afraid to die, so you reach out to the trees. Zenith flows into your fingers as you channel its magic to stride through the forest as easily as if you were going through a door. You've done it hundreds of times before. To get to that one pond that you liked to fish at. Just get close enough to the North.

"Ah, just as promised," a man’s voice says, and then there is…

Reality snaps back to Liem and Hayame as the scream catches up with them, but the roots at Hayame’s feet stop bubbling, and the light in the cavity flickers. But the arm that had simply fallen off starts to grow again, clawed and vicious, and this time?

It’s fast when it charges after them. ]

[warmare]

[To have a steed that could be guided without the jerk of reins or the press of knees, one that could be instructed with words, that could adjust its gait and actually watch for and prevent a rider’s fall… There was a reason that obedient jinba mounts were priceless, armless or not.

But Hayame was never broken fully to the saddle. She would be a different, far less fiery woman if she had been. She can only use instinct, not training, to try and account for a rider, only use the weight of Liem’s body on her back to remind her that she has to account for his height, his balance-

She tries. It’s a good thing he has a decent seat himself. Something falls on her (them), stringy and sloughed from the beast, Liem fires off an arrow, and-

No matter how hard she resists the foreign, clawing presence in her mind, she isn’t Hayame anymore. She is a man desperate, changing, blinded, afraid, reaching for a power and the trees and being snapped up- and then she is Hayame again so suddenly that her legs falter again, she almost crumbles, the scream echoing half muted as her right ear’s hearing suddenly vanishes as it had been on and off since her dream of dryads, the smell of blood is in her nostrils and she doesn’t realize yet it’s because she’s bleeding, but-

There’s no time to examine what it means, not yet. The roots settle, she can risk taking her eye off the ground, Liem’s arrow had wounded it… and her bow was six feet tall, her arrows thicker, longer, the make of others who looked like her who knew what a jinba needed out of a weapon.]

Liem, down- !

[She barks out order for him to stay momentarily where he was, waiting for a moment of clear earth and clear gaps through the trees to twist suddenly from the waist enough that she can bring her bow to bear behind her as she gallops forward, hooves pounding the earth one more beat, two, three, as she sights along the arrow, the beast lunges after them, faster-

She may not be as accurate any longer… but the howling abomination is large. She may not be able to punch through a body made of crystal and root like a human’s, like flesh or thin armor her powerful arrows could stab straight through like paper, but… If she aims lower than usual to account for its speed, more to the left than usual to account for her altered depth perception…

Hayame looses the arrow aimed once more at the skull illuminated by unholy glow, then has to twist back around to watch her hooves as she throws more of herself into the gallop, racing it towards the clearing in a final burst.]

[sterngaze]

[The woody body of the creature isn't likely to suffer from Liem's arrow strikes; his shots won't pierce through wood the way they would through flesh, and if there are no vitals to hit, there's no point in trying to aim for its central mass. So he shoots for the skull, difficult though the shot is from the back of a running, dodging centaur, and he's rewarded with a howl as the arrow gouges bone—

And a vision; a memory. Desperation; *wrongness* warping his senses, threatening to unmake him and make him into something else; a flight in search of solitude, safety, some last vestige of comfort—

He is himself again, lurching to compensate for Hayame's stumble beneath him, groping hastily after his balance as the echoes of the monster's scream chase them through the trees. Something thin and stringy has found its way down his collar, which he notes with a shudder, before hunkering down over Hayame's spine as though flattened by the abrupt force of her words. He sees her twist around mid-stride, hears the whisper of an arrow leaping from the bow—and he sees, up ahead, the faint brightening of a break in the trees.]

[kenosnpcs]

[ The creature charges forward without fear and seemingly without intelligence, because there’s not even much of an attempt to dodge Hayame’s strong arrow. It bears forward and accepts the arrow, and half the skull shatters with the force, and it fully reveals what’s inside. There’s a cluster of crystals, and the arrow breaks into them and shatters one.

Immediately, a sense of dread will push through them, and their Shards react to it almost physically. Even in the split-second of a moment that would be too fast to truly perceive, their Shards simply know that what shattered was another Shard. A soul, not dead, but destroyed.

It screams.

It’s like the creature explodes. The glowing mass remains, and it leaps, if it could be called that. It’s more that the roots that make it up grow and push, launching itself forward and directly into Hayame and Liem just as they breach the forest and into the clearing. It lands heavily on them both, and the roots feel alive, twisting like frenzied, rough-skinned eels as it seems to be having trouble keeping itself whole.

The roots constrict and stab out in equal measure desperately, but it’s not able to keep its grip and rolls off Hayame’s back (and just off poor Liem in general) to hit the grass hard. It rolls, reaching out hand like limbs as it claws at the grass, but roots don’t appear here, it seems. So instead, more of those limbs start to twist and harden into insect-like limbs as it adjusts. On its new back is where the pit containing the skull lays, still glowing like fire, but dimmer now. In the cluster, there’s one Shard that stands out as larger than the rest.

And faintly, almost so soft that it could be missed in the chaos of the moment, that same accented voice speaks calmly in their mind. ]

Still too fragile.

[warmare]

[The feeling of victory, the rushing sense of accomplishment as her arrow found its mark… How long has it been since she’s felt that? In Horos, and now this world… all she feels when she curls her fingers around the curve of her bow is dread. What unfathomable beast will she encounter today? What strange man who looks little contest but actually possesses god-like powers will she face?

Half deaf, she does not even register the skull shatter in the path of her powerful arrow. She does not know to turn to see a second of glory, the cluster of exposed crystal and shards. But she does hear the scream, more in her head than without, threatening to split her own skull open with the force of a soul’s destruction. There is no time for anything like a wash of doubt, to wonder if that shard was an enemy or an innocent, if it were the man she had been moments before or another-

She runs. Her four great lungs suck in air, her two powerful hearts pound, sweat lathers on her flanks, her mane and tail whip out behind her, needless of branches ripping, reaching, until they’re so close to the clearing she can see it right there-

But the thing is on her (them) in a howling burst of light. The sudden and unwelcome weight makes her buck out instinctively to try and throw it off of her, back legs kicking as she whirls and curses wordlessly, grappling with a root seizing her “waist” to try and grip. Without the creature’s efforts to stay atop them both Liem would have been throw bodily from her in seconds. Sharp roots puncture skin, claw flesh, and she cries out in pain as one manages to get deep beneath skin and muscle in her flank, as another finds purchase in a lower shoulder, but-

Hayame doesn’t know if she throws it off or it abandons them. They crash into the clearing, she clatters through a pool of congealing blood, her hoof lands on something metal. Something that rolls out beneath her footing.

The shout of warning is lost when Hayame’s jaw clamps shut at the sudden drop. Her sharp canines punch holes in her tongue, the taste of iron bursts in her mouth… and a half ton of centaur plows into the earth in a tangle of limbs, human-like arms desperately shielding bow and head.

Both fragile. Too fragile.]

[sterngaze]

[Liem doesn't have to look behind them to know whether Hayame's arrow found its mark, because almost in the same moment that she looses it, an icy surge of dread grips him as he hears, feels a shard within the creature shatter. The force of it rips through him like a shock-wave, and before he has time to even take a breath, the creature howls again and explodes after them with a force that slams the air from his body.

It's a great irony, considering his lineage, that Liem has always been near-useless in a grapple. He can't do more than struggle to maintain his seat as roots pummel and grab him, very nearly dragging him bodily from Hayame's back as her bucking throws both Liem's and the creature's weight to and fro. Wooden tendrils tangle his limbs, wrenching them near to breaking, and he grunts as some of them jab into unarmoured flesh, piercing all the way through one thigh, gashing from one shoulder and along the muscle of his back.

He heaves at it with his other arm, only just managing not to be dragged along with it when it flails down to the ground, but he might not have bothered; a moment later he's flung to the ground in a tangle when Hayame's fall finally hurls him from her back. Liem rolls with the momentum but his bow is knocked clean from his grasp, and he gains his knees with black blood trickling from his nose and soaking the fabric around his stab wounds. Getting all the way up is an ordeal that makes his face go even paler than usual, though he at least seems to retain the mobility in his injured leg despite the hot flares of pain that using it causes.

He spots his bow lying on the ground maybe four metres distant, and makes a break for it.]

[kenosnpcs]

[ The creature trembles as if unsteady on its new, insectile legs, and it takes a few steps too and fro as it too seems to be regaining some sense of balance. Its claws dig into the grass and dirt as if trying to root itself, but it’s not having success. It takes a step back as if it’s going to flee, but then Liem moves.

Roots scrape at the ground furiously as the creature pursues Liem, digging gouges into the ground as it continues to try and pull at more roots to make up its mass that don’t come. He’ll make it to his bow first, but he’ll have little time to draw it before the creature catches up. ]

[warmare]

[Hayame finally comes to rest in a tangle of limbs, horseflesh, and woman, but though she gasps for air she cannot breathe. The wind has momentarily been knocked from both sets of her lungs, and as they struggle to expand, as she desperately tries to get up, her mind attempts to take stock of her fall.

Everything is broken.

Nothing is broken.

Something is broken.

Her bow, at least, is intact, though her arrows have spilled from her quiver. One lies near the metal something that had spilled her to the ground, and her one eye picks out… it’s a spear. The haft of a spear she recognized, bloodied. So this thing, and that woman, too… ?

She manages to get her upper body off the ground, hissing as it aggravates scrapes and cuts from the fall along her side and face, she angrily brushes her hair aside, looking for the creature…]

Liem-

[What she intends to be, what? A warning? A call to defense? barely croaks out of her empty lungs and so she must throw herself back to her feet as the thing moves in that eerie, weird way towards him-

But she doesn’t make it. One of her fetlocks bursts into a ball of pain when she tries to put her weight down… and Hayame flounders instead, barely catching herself on her hands and crying out in pain despite her fierce bite into her lip to muffle the sound.

A jinba who couldn’t run was useless. It was the flensing post for her, or the dogs-

No. That was then. Now, it was stand or die here in a forgotten corner of the woods in the dark like a weakling, so she at least gropes for an arrow, for the shaft of that abandoned spear.

Get up. Get up. Get up—-]

[sterngaze]

[Among humans back home, Liem was considered unusually quick. He's well used to getting from place to place on his own legs, and he can be pretty agile in a sprint—but not compared to the jinba whose back he just tumbled off of, and not when he's still disoriented from being bumped and rolled along the ground at high speeds. He scrambles for his bow, but there's still a hint of unsteadiness to his gait, and as he makes for it, the scrabbling, scuttling sounds of the creature pursuing him get closer.

He can only spare the barest glance for Hayame as he dashes across the clearing; she's still on the ground, but is she badly hurt? He can't tell in the hurried look he flashes her way. The creature is still coming.

When he reaches the bow, he dips low to snatch it up without coming to a stop, but he still has to slow somewhat. He grabs the longbow off the grass, swivels to catch sight of the beast—

It's right behind him.

And then it's on him.

He meets its claw-footed charge with a hasty shuffle as he steadies his own footing, and with his uninjured arm he draws a long knife. It's all he has to guard himself at close range, but even if it's not his preference to be caught in melee like this, he's well practised with a dagger. He doesn't intend to go down easy.]

[kenosnpcs]

[ It at least will be easy to meet the creature head on, because if there was any intelligence its tactics before, it seems to be gone now. It doesn’t so much as sway from its charge, and it crashes into Liem with force, almost like it was tackling him. It’s at least smaller now, so it isn’t so grievous a blow, but it still might knock the wind out of him from its sheer strength.

But beyond its force, the roots immediately reach out to grapple. Like many tiny hands, roots reach out when they crash into Liem. Like when it was on Hayame’s back, they hold and stab in equal, frenzied measure, but the general trend is like it’s trying to drag Liem inside the mass of roots. But from here, he can see the Shard in the shattered skull well. It’s gleaming brightly compared to everything else, and indeed seems to be the source of most of the light that brightens the cavity.

It's out of his arm’s reach as is… But it might not be if he’s pulled closer. ]

[sterngaze]

[Liem has only a split second to move before the beast crashes into him, and he chooses to use it bracing to keep his feet rather than pivoting to avoid the worst of the impact. His breath wheezes out of him as the mass of root hurls itself into his body, he brings his arms up to block the brunt of the force, and although he staggers back with their momentum, he doesn't fall.

This is a good thing, he realizes, because it's all he can do to resist the pull of its grappling limbs even with his boots firmly on the ground. The bow he'd made such a dash for ends up in the dirt as he uses his injured arm to attempt to hold it off, slashing at tendrils with his blade as grasping roots claw at him. He doesn't know what might happen if it succeeds in pulling him to its centre, but he's confident it won't be something good.

And yet, even as he slices at it, severing some of the thinner roots extending from its limbs, he feels the stab and tug of things working their way beneath armour and into flesh, feels sticky warmth soaking more of the clothing covering his chest, his arms, his flanks, his legs—

He shifts the grip on his knife, holding it at the ready so he can smash the pommel into the creature—to break stone instead of slicing wood and vine. He gives up on trying to break free, lunges into the force of its pull.

And he lets it drag him closer.]

[warmare]

[Hayame gets up.

The pain is excruciating. Her fetlock barely takes her, her back leg keeps trying to spasm upward, and she can’t tell if it’s because of the bone or a muscle severed in her flank from the stab of roots. Despite all the power in her form and the strength she is capable of, she is too heavy a creature to thrive with injured legs, and every instinct in her body screams that any break, sprain, or crack would be the end of her. And if this was the end…

She wouldn’t meet it injured on her belly or turning tail to stumble into the only pathetic sort of run she was now capable of. Rage, impotent and volatile, burns bright enough to push past the pain. Her fingers find the broken spear haft on the ground and seize it, flipping it in her grip pointed blade out.

It’s not supposed to end like this. She’s supposed to return to her world, sacrifice her life in the arms of the man who could have been her lover if she wasn’t such a coward. She’s supposed to cleanse her dishonor, save the lives of those orphans in that village in a fiery explosion. Instead, she has a dark forest, a foul creature, and one priest who she loses sight of in the pull and pierce of violent, writhing wood.

The air is full with the smell of blood.

And despite the fact that it brings her into range of the thrashing beast, that she has no defense of armor to protect her body, a cry of pain ripped from her throat and her fangs bared in naked anger… as Liem smashes the hilt of his dagger towards the glowing core from within, Hayame rears up to gather the force of her weight and stabs down viciously at the skull from without.]

[kenosnpcs]

[ The roots cut away easier now as Liem slashes at them, feeling much softer against his blade than they do against his body. Whatever keeps those roots hardened is struggling now clearly, but that revelation might not matter much. What does snake against him hurts as they constrict and stab in equal measure, and roots pry at the joints of the armor as it pulls him deeper. Roots snake up to his neck like he’s sinking into the moving mass of wood, but the glowing mass is within his reach as Hayame quickly closes the distance herself.

The pommel of his blade smashes into the skull and gives way. The thin bone crumbles like it’s old and brittle. The pommel knocks against the mass of Shards with a crack that hurts in the visceral way their own Shards react to, and the roots react in a frenzy as Liem is pulled under and out of sight.

But it’s so focused on Liem that it has no way to defend against Hayame. There’s a moment of strange resistance as the spear’s blade bears down into the core of Shards, but it’s only a moment. It’s a final defense weakly offered, and the spear pushes through.

There’s a flash of memory again, but this one is different. The moment of that crack, it’s like someone desperately grabbing, carrying with it the emotion of hurried importance. It’s a single, sane presence compared to the screams of before, and it only carries a few words: ”I ran to Meridian”. And an image that comes with pain and fear: a person with a strange arm and a strange mask.

The larger, glowing Shard cracks and slips to fly off into the grass where it tumbles to a stop.

Roots shake and writhe up to Hayame to grapple her as well, but the pressure is only momentary. The roots rapidly go soft, no longer able to apply any pressure that hurts, and they go black as they rot rapidly into a thin, black muck. The body of the creature does the same as it wobbles uncertainly for a moment, but melts away.

All that remains of the creature are shards of bone and crystal, and of course, Liem, deposited on the ground with them. ]

cw: flesh-burrowing creatures, vomiting

[sterngaze]

[Liem knows even before he's pulled close enough to strike at the creature's glowing heart that it will be the death of him. He's reminded viscerally of the abandoned slaughterhouse in Yanmass, the swarm of rot-fed worms that had spilled out of one of the rooms within to wash in a writhing tide against everyone in its path. The sensation of being surrounded and invaded is similar enough to make his gorge rise with a lurch as vines slither over skin and burrow in squirming, white-hot flashes of pain into the flesh beneath.

Only his determination to take the creature with him lets him choke back the bitter taste at the back of his throat, lets him make that last wild strike at the beast as roots swallow him whole. He feels bone crunch against his pommel, tastes his own blood as the shock of impact jars his shard in his chest. Then the roots pull him under and with a cry his world becomes a sea of twisting, stabbing tendrils.

Briefly, blackness overtakes him. He comes to in a bed of soft, slithery rot, and this time he's unable to stop the surge of nausea as he struggles onto all fours and feels stringy remains tug and slip from the wounds in his punctured flesh. He heaves weakly into the mess, gasping as his limbs tremble beneath him, and manages to crawl halfway out of the muck before dizziness claims him again and he collapses onto the stained grass.

There is no sign of the creature anymore, but neither can he see its fallen shard from where he lies. Something films his vision, dripping down his face black and stinging of salt, and his body feels cold and leaden. He can barely muster the fortitude to turn his head in order to seek out the woman who came here with him.]

Hhhh, [he mutters through numbed lips.] H'me.

[Did they do it? Does the stillness and the dark mean the creature is dead—or did it flee back into the woods, taking the lost shard with it? Even wondering hurts, somehow. He wishes he could at least see.]

H'yame…?

[warmare]

[There is a moment when Hayame thinks that they will fail. That she will fail, like she has so many gods damned times. The tip of the spear she has commandeered as a better stabbing implement than her own weapons... It makes contact, even with half her head bandaged she can see that, but there is a moment when something stops it, when she has to grit her teeth with an enraged, desperate snarl and thrust-

And then it's suddenly through, a shard cracks that isn't hers, she runs to Meridian (no, he ran to Meridian), and the roots reach for her in a last burst of energy. When they lash out explosively her arms take most of the damage... but not enough of it. As roots scrabble and pull and stab into flesh, the pain makes her try to rear back away now that she's landed her blow, yet she isn't fast enough. Something makes it past her defenses into her shoulder, something flies at her face-

But then they rot as fast as the last assault began, softening away to nothing but black mush as she hits the ground with a heavy thud and awkward kicks of limbs that don't want to bear her weight. She thinks she hears Liem released, too, but she can't see it and she doesn't know why... until she realizes that she's writhing on the stained grass, clutching her face with blood oozing from between her fingers and the low keen of pain muffled by the dryad's curse as half her hearing once again just vanishes.

Her eye. Her only remaining eye.

Somehow... Somehow she forces herself to get back up, at least halfway, a bloodied hand still pressed hard to her right eye as if begging what was in there to stay as she...

What was she supposed to do? What could she do?]

Liem-

[The croak of a name is loud, but she can barely hear herself. She hadn't... she couldn't have fallen far from the beast's corpse, and her companion should be close. Her other hand reaches out, trembling, beginning to grope about around her.]

Liem, where are you, I can't-

[Maybe this really was the end. This unglorious, pathetic, dishonorable end-]

I can't see...

[sterngaze]

[Liem doesn't spot her until she pushes herself half upright, her silhouette rising more obviously against the faint outlines of the surrounding trees. The world around him is a watercolour painting of blacks and dark greys, spied blearily through heavy lids as blood continues to weep down his face, and he can't manage so much as a twitch closer to bring it into focus. All he can see is the vaguely moving shape of his companion, and all he can smell is the overpowering tang of blood—but at least the grass beneath his cheek is rough and clean.]

Ha… yame…

[His lungs barely want to move—drawing in even a small breath is an exhausting effort—but he tries this time to make his lips form all the syllables of her name. It comes out as a slow, painstaking murmur.]

Hhh…

[Did they kill it after all, then? Does she know? He can't find the breath to ask, can't even find the breath to warm his lungs as cold seeps up from the ground to grip him tight. He can't tell how badly hurt she is from here, but they're deep in the woods now, and if she can't see, he wonders how long it will be before some creature comes to claim them both. Maybe not very long at all.

The dull, throbbing waves of ache riddling his body ice over gradually, going still and heavy. He tries to speak again, to call Hayame closer before consciousness deserts him a second time, but even that is now beyond him. He should comfort her, at least. Tell her where he is. What if she thinks she's alone? He should tell her…

But the fog closes in. The slight, slow rise and fall of his chest falters to a stop. The seep of blood from his punctured body drips gradually into stillness. And, first slowly, and then almost all at once, the pale and motionless figure collapsed on the ground melts away, leaving behind only a cool, eight-pointed stone.]