A Raven's Rouge
Welcome to the OOC thread!

I will be using this thread as channel in which I will communicate the ongoings of the event with you, be it to single the end of a round of posts or a question to help me decide on the direction of things. You are all free to use Discord to talk among yourself when it comes to strategizing, but I will warn you to be realistic when it comes to talking among yourself. For instance, in a highly tense situation your characters do not have the OOC knowledge you may have, nor do they technically have days or weeks to think up an option. They have seconds. Your characters will most likely think in the short term compared to how long you writers have time to come up with options. Plainly speaking, stick to your character and try not to muddle or abuse the external communication you have access to.

That said, I think we should touch on godmodding as well. It is safe to assume anything your character may throw at an NPC controlled by me will miss, and thusly it is safest to always attempt an action as opposed to acting as if the action will succeed. I will definitely act realistically when it comes to how the NPCs react to your characters’ actions, and I request the same of you. I will not godmod anything so long as you show me the same respect as a player and fellow writer who loves their characters.

Now that all the serious business is out of the way, I’d like you all to think about your characters and your reasoning for wanting them to be involved in this event. It’s likely this reason isn’t their knowledge, but solely yours as a writer. Over the next few days I will be writing the introductory post to this event, and to keep things moving quickly and seamlessly I expect a level of dedication from the three of you. As I said in the initial post, there will be limits on how long you can respond before I end the round and begin writing the next post. I will attempt to keep them realistic, but I do know life and other things get in the way of writing. So, if you feel that a limit is unfair, not long enough, or you think you will miss it, reach out to me and we can talk about options with either extending the limit or co-writing a post to keep you in the loop whilst you sort out anything keeping you from writing.

I do not expect you all to write 1000 word posts, because sometimes that is wholly unnecessary. In conversations, we don’t need your character going on a full 500 word introspective monologue about who knows what. A few stray thoughts here and there are totally fine, but what matters most is your characters’ action in the scene. That isn’t to say I’m not a fan of the 1000 word posts - because I am - but only in threads where it’s a one-on-one interaction or everyone is okay with it. Be considerate here. You have three other people waiting for you to post, and before they can post, they have to read yours.

To kick this OOC thread off, I’d like you all to write a little snippet about what your character is doing in Misthaven. What have they heard about the crimes happening? Perhaps they’ve known some victims personally, witnessed shadows lurking around the scenes? Give me to something to better visualize your character being involved in the event. There’s no word limit to this, as this is for my reading pleasure mainly. This is to be written like a normal RP post, not OOCly. The event start date is the 7th day of Fire.

Expect the introductory thread sometime early next week. When it goes up, a post will go here directing you to that thread. I look forward to writing with you all and creating something wholesome, engaging, and beautiful.

The seventh day in the season of Fire in the 617th year in the Era of Rivening
"O-oh by the gods, another one!" Shouts filled the streets, rising above the sounds of heavy boots and muffled conversations of both the general citizenry and the guards. Pox kept to the roofs, curiously peering down at the confusion, Túx clinging to his back and clacking right along with all the rest of the noise. A group of women almost directly below him paid him no mind, their voices a bit louder than conversational in the din of chaos and the attempted assertion of order around them.

"Do you think... Do think it's the children?"

"No, no, that-"

"I saw some of the... the pieces. They weren't-"

"Oh gods, don't call them that-"

"-the size of children. Or at least, I don't think but-"

"Is this really happening? I mean-"

"-it could have been. Oh gods. Senna-"

"I'm sure he's fine. There wasn't a feather-"

"-the Vepari don't know who it is and-"

Pox sat back on the roof, wings outstretched on either side of him and fluttering gently against the light breeze that passed over the city as he took a break from the panicked conversation. The atmosphere was toxic, he could feel acidic bite of panic on his tongue, the rotting stench of fear and uncertainty pressing against his own excitement and intrigue. It made him feel a bit ill, and leaning into the breeze helped him visualize the emotions passing over him - external forces acting upon him rather than from within him. He'd never really experienced so cohesive a collection of everyone's negative emotions - the positives were a bit more common like pleasure in taverns or pride during festivals and events. What he felt now, was nothing so easily enjoyed. He wanted to see the "pieces" the woman had spoken of, to know what the source of everyone's fear was, but he also understood he needed to do so with his own reasons in mind. The panic, especially, was infections and he didn't want to be pulled away from something due the most basic of blind reactions.

Hopping to his feet, Pox took to the air, drifting over the crowds and catching snippets of conversations. It seemed, from what he could tell, that the waterways held the most interesting things, so he headed that way, avoiding the Vepari when he saw them. It wasn't that he didn't like them, or trust them, but they often had strong feelings of anger or aggression, two things that Pox found exceedingly uncomfortable when they crawled up under his skin. After a short while, he came to one of the canals. His wings faltered and he quickly fell a couple feet before regaining his composure and settling to the ground with a little stumble, catching at the side of a building to steady himself as he stared into the peculiar sight before him.

The water was peppered with parts and pieces of a familiar, greater whole. Separated as they were, they seemed fake. Copper filled the air, mixed with the humid wet of the water that was dyed a darker, swirling shade. Approaching the edge of the canal, Pox knelt down, his eyes wide with wonder as he he examined a severed foot, the flesh bloated from the water, bits torn from the investigative nibbles of fish and birds. It was something he'd never seen before, and he could feel the heat of excitement rise up in his chest. The lack of detail was tantalizing - where the usually drew fascination from the face, the eyes, the bits of body floating in the bloody waters painted a wholly different picture. In fact, it was like comparing a sculpture to a painting, or a piece of jewelry to a song. They were different beasts entirely.

Leaning over the edge of the street, Pox kept his wings spread to balance himself as he reached down towards the water, dipping the tips of his fingers into the murk, gently chewing on his bottom lip in thought. The water was cold and thin; the blood that darkened it was more aesthetic than anything else, but it set a wonderful macabre scene. The body parts floated a bit too far out for him to reach from the shore, but he didn't want to disturb the sobriety of the scene. The quiet lapping of the waters was the like whispers of people the parts belonged to, faded but not quite gone - still lingering upon the edges of perception.

Túx chittered again, its little legs tapping against his back, and Pox patted its rocky back with his dry hand, wiping the bloodied water on his pants and leaving behind a muddy stain. His voice was quiet, reverent, as he stared at the water, a small smile on his lips as he drew a deep, filling breath before speaking. "And the light faded into the darkness, leaving the world swathed in starless night." The soft, flowing sound of his Oríyu matched the meter of the lapping splashes as he slowly walked along the water's edge, his leather sandals making no noise as his soft footfalls propelled him gently forward. The breeze had not followed him into the streets, and the subtle heat of the morning pressed pleasantly agains the bare skin of his chest. He tapped lightly on the side of a building as he passed, still watching the water with a growing sense of mystery and desire. "The sun and the moon had taken leave; the stars had all turned the back. And the people knew despair, fear, and uncertainty."

With a little scramble of crystalline legs, Túx scuttled onto Pox's shoulder. It's little rocky body pressed against his jaw, and Pox grinned, tapping it gently with an amicable pet. "But there was one who held no despair. No fear. No uncertainty. There was one who held the darkness. There was one who called the moon and the sun away. One who turned the stars." Túx let out a happy clack as Pox picked up the little rocky creature and settled it back into the wispy white hairs at the nape of his neck. Concluding the little fable, Pox grinned as a hand bobbed to the surface - its fingers splayed and blotchy, numbering only four in total. "That one was death; not a god nor self but Death. And Death smiled."

7th of Fire, 617 RE

'The caravans would cause a hiccough in your supply chain,' Daena had said, still in the habit of lecturing him though he was a man grown and managing not to steer his budding business into the Emerald Run to drown. 'But the bank... The Sunstone Quarter banks are the biggest, most prestigious. They are bigger than the smaller banks in the other quarters. These are where foreign investment seed the most into our economy!'

Rydaean Haxo sighed at the memory, recent and still intensely troubling. While he mulled things over at his desk, he began carefully drawing the magical geometry that might summon a thing had he the other requisite materials. This was an old exercise. His master had trained him toward this but he had chosen to remain with the more mundane elements of design, a choice made for a father he would then never meet in any case. Glancing at a star chart splayed open to one side and then a sidereal almanac, he made a series of mathematical calculations in his head and then worked that information into his cage.

Though he would deny he had an artistic bone in his body, eschewing creativity for mathematic and scientific principles, it was all in his mind. His master had told him he had the knack for these abstractions, the symbols and symmetry that would allow him to pull an orphaned soul from a far star to be his companion.

'That poor woman,' she had continued, working herself into a lather, 'mad. And those children... You're sleeping here tonight. A locksmith will be at your office in the morning, though. Changing your locks and adding more. You can stay here until the vepari clear this up, though, if you like.'

The sudden desperation in her voice had almost broken his heart. He was all she had left of her family and he was giving his all to his work so that she could relax into her retirement and enjoy the fruits of her life's labors. Instead, these strange raven feather crimes were driving her nearly as mad as that poor woman returned to her family a broken thing.

Haxo was happy or, at least, content. He had his work. He had a roof over his head and food and clothes. In general, his life was peaceful but now these crimes were shattering his peace. Realizing his privilege, he berated himself. There were people on the streets of Misthaven who suffered and hadn't the same benefits of a family's care to make something of themselves. The vepari kept the peace but there were still dangers on those streets. Now they were flying into the most secure banks, the richest homes. Even the privileged of Misthaven were in danger.

He blinked, realizing his mind had wandered while his hands kept at their work. And the work had changed from a bridge to Iluli to a dark space between the stars, the sort of places his master had in all seriousness warned him away from with here there by dragons levels of mystique. Abyssal summoning had caused chaos and death in history and even in lives that he knew, such as Aleric Dracqueaux. He dropped his pen into the inkwell and stood up and away from what he had wrought. It was nothing without sacrifice and energy but what troubled him was that whatever was going on out there, it was beginning to disturb the inner peace of his own mind.

Of course, he would destroy this, but he heard a jangling of metal from the foyer and so he went out to check on the locksmith.

"All done, Master Haxo," the iron-haired man said cheerfully in a soothing baritone. The man's dark-skinned face was bright with smiling, his wrinkles a testament to many smiles over his long life. "Let me just show you which key goes where and..."

The chatter continued as they stood outside his door. A little sunshine was nice and this friendly man with capable hands. Haxo felt safer already and hoped his grandmother would feel it too. The world didn't seem so threatening anymore until a scream cracked the day, accompanied soon by several more.

Haxo wouldn't call himself a brave person, per se, but he was not the sort of person who could hear a cry for help and not respond.

"Master Haxo, your keys!"

But he was running now, swift enough for not being unduly athletic. When more bodies began to crowd the street, he dodged them as a deer in the woods dodged trees. People were swarmed now and he wormed his way through them to the balustrade, at the last minute shoved so he very nearly fell over and into the river.

He gasped at the coppery tang rising from Emerald Run, now glittering crimson with blood.

"My Gods..."

(( I’m so sorry for the wait. For the record, I have no claim or attachment to any of the NPCs mentioned below. ))

Xhae had been closed in these days, kept at the bidding of a mounting hypochondria in a delirious old woman. She did not mind the woman herself; she always had interesting stories to tell and lurching, hysterical emotions to explore. She kept her in-house healer on her toes with every complaint and farfetched hypothesis, forcing Xhae to stretch her knowledge with novel accommodations. Not to mention the extensive library in the family home, which everyday grew with the anxiety of Lord Vessar’s ailing mother.

The problem was that it consumed them both. Xhae was all but forbidden to speak with anyone else, so plentiful were her assignments. She could not come to one conclusion before two more questions were made more urgent. Madam Vessar had even begun to use their research as an excuse to send other servants out to retrieve medicines and their ingredients--the last opportunity Xhae would have had to leave the mansion at all.

The finding of bodies in the street had been, more or less, Madam Vessar’s final straw.

“First we’ll lose our minds, then our bodies, then our legacies!” She would repeat, each time as if it were the first time she had thought of something so poetic. Madam had known the woman who had lost her memories, or rather she had met her on at least two occasions. But she mourned the poor stranger like they had been dearest friends, writing long letters to the family and lamenting her own failing mind. Meanwhile, Xhae consoled nightmares of missing limbs, investigated theories of ghosts and curses, treated panics and palpitations and prevarications. It was fascinating to see how the frail human creature undulated between ignorance and acuity, between certainty and suffering. At least this is what Xhae told herself, so that she would not lose her own mind.

The healer became desperate for contact. It was not that she resented Madam or the opportunities that she provided, but she was a social creature; she needed the company like she needed to eat, and in this she was starved. To fill her up, in more ways than one, came the tailor’s apprentice, Anton. His master’s appointment with Madam had briefly interrupted an unsavory tangent about necrotic preservations, a welcome distraction. Passing glances turned to clandestine notes, which inevitably led to opened windows and hot, fleeting midnight rendezvous.

More than he pleasured her, he satiated her. He brought her sweets from the bakery on fifty-first street and news of the marriage on third. He told her what the public thought of these awful circumstances and together they shared their own ideas. The gossip was like water. She had drunk her thirsty fill of it whenever she got the chance, stealing it from corners and keyholes and unwatched whispers. To hear was to be a part of something. To know was to remember what it was like outside these walls. And for the first time in a long time, she could know.

Of course Madam found out. She did not say so, but she could not hide the jealousy in her heart. Her pretty toy had found a new friend. It barely lasted a week before it was shut down.

The Vessars were a lesser noble house, beholden to Maz Urno and his jewels in subtler, less glamorous businesses. They owned property or something, land or buildings that they rented and traded and sold. They had the money, and therefore the right, to make Anton disappear from Xhae’s life. If it weren’t for the buzzing self-satisfaction, flitting like flies around the Ceaca’s famished senses from Madam’s acrid, selfish spite, Xhae might have thought he had ended up in the river.

She was angry. She resented her warm bed and her glittering uniform and the close, safe walls of her room. She could barely spread her wings in that place. She watched the window for a shadow, a hint that Anton didn’t give a shit about petty intimidations. But he did not come, and she could not scratch the itch that craved him. Feeling stifled, she opened the window. The brackish stench of the river washed over her, spraying her with the fears and desperations of distant passersby. She leaned heavily from the frame and into the purple alley it overlooked.

Then, with a sudden flush of secret embarrassment, she realized that a person could sneak both ways through an open window.

Thank you all for your participation once again. As of this post, the first round of posting can commence! The beginning thread for our quest can be found here. You all have until September 14th to post a reply, though I doubt you’ll take that long. Let’s get this show on the road! If there are any questions, post here and I'll answer them promptly as I can. I ask you to post here - not only because this is the OOC thread - because if you have a question, chances are the others may share your sentiment.

Hello everyone!

I've posted again to the main quest thread! Time to really get the party started now that we have introductions. Feel free to reply to this in whatever order you may please, that way those who are late to post have to react to everything and not just what was written! You all have until 9/30 to reply at the latest!

New post here: viewtopic.php?f=53&t=396&p=3388#p3388

Hello everyone!

I know it's been a crazy long time, and I'm sure we've all forgotten about this question, but I am wondering if any of you would be interested in resuming this quest despite the numerous season changes? From what I can ascertain, our quest won't be impacted by the what's going on in Misthaven at the moment - which doesn't look like too much. Reply here and let me know or tag me on Discord. My handle there is Mistral#8739, and you can find me in the Exire Discord Chat.

Thanks!