Dramatis Personae

For character backgrounds and journals.
Artifice
Posts: 62
Joined: Sun May 22, 2016 12:52 pm

Dramatis Personae

Postby Artifice » Sun Nov 20, 2016 1:46 pm

The pale light of an Uktar morning sun crept over the Earthfast foothills. The air was filled with the bass roar of coarse rapids, cutting their way through a gorge hewn over centuries by water and ice, and the whorling snowfall that seemed ceaseless of late. Ancient trees of great size looked down over the scattering of peaceful forest creatures and the flight of birds between them.

"No, no, no, no!"

And Sarushan.

Big black boots stomped as she ran. She pulled apart the front of her robes and skirts just to move a little quicker, the scarf around her shoulders and head flapping in protest. Her heart raced as panic set in. Throwing herself down the boulders that banked the river, Sarushan scuffed her heels on grit as she lost her balance. The troll smashed its way out from between the treeline.

"Graaaaugh!"
"Aaaah!"

One hand on the pebbly shore, the dale-woman kicked herself back up. Her knees gave way to a sharp pain when she leapt onto a fallen tree that conveniently bridged the river. Waving her arms out for balance, she couldn't help but whimper, crossing the slippery, rotten trunk. Half way across, Sarushan dared to glance back. She saw the giant-kin testing the make-shift bridge with its hairy palm.

"Go away," she yelped! The stinking troll grunted its refusal.

Trying desperately to get the last few metres behind her, Sarushan felt the trunk beneath her feet rock and slip. Jerked forward, it was only by sheer luck her footing remained fast. Head down, she saw the thickly knotted vines that ate away at the fallen tree sway heavily, the violent white rapids below spitting and churning. Only then did the traveler dare to look back and see the giant-kin that followed her across the river.

"No!"
"Waaaugh!"
"What?"

Sarushan had turned, arms still waving feebly by her side. Face to face with the crooked monster, her eyes met his. It looked hungry, covered in warts, salivating a frothy, bubbling ooze.

"DO. YOU. SPEAK. COMMON?"

Without a hint of understanding behind its savage expression, the great beast took another heavy step forward. Its thick, flat toes curled around the tree, gripping for balance.

"LOG. WILL. FALL. LOG-WILL-FALL!" She screamed.

Again the entire thing shifted beneath their feet. Sarushan, squealing, fell to her hands and knees, knuckles white as she tried her best to grip its damp, spongy surface. The insidious heat of the creature hung over the back of her head for but an instant, before the traveler gasped and threw herself away from its stinking, outstretched hand.

"Om nom nom!"
"Oh, you know that word!" She shouted, before quietly chastising herself. "That's not even a word."

Sarushan's green eyes snapped back, then around, as she managed to support herself on two feet and a knee. She took the edge of her scarf in hand and lashed it out. Catching the monster's attention, the traveler flailed around the embroidered cloth like a weapon. Understandably, it looked confused.

"Veritas, Credo, Oculos!" With a sudden motion, Sarushan cast forward the scarf. It soared ahead, billowing in the wind of its own accord, undulating, spinning, cast deep against the snowfall, defying gravity. The troll looked on, wide eyed, for the briefest of moments stunned and wondering what foul evocation was about to befall it. Then nothing happened. The scarf was taken by the wind, and swept away.

Sarushan gasped for air, caught in the chaotic tumult of the cold river. She managed to look behind her, up at the troll so confused by her prestidigitation. The powerful hand of the currents pulled her under.
Spoiler:
"I should have stayed in the office," she thought.
Minutes later, half a mile downstream, Sarushan dragged herself from the river. Face down in pebbles and mud, she mumbled her hatred for the multiverse and everything in it. Hefting herself to her knees, then feet, the traveler trembled from cold. Awkward steps were made as Sarushan reached a boulder to sit against. She outstretched both hands, curled fingers in a shaking, stiff somatic gesture. With an utterance of magic, she was dried.

"Om nom nom," she repeated to herself with a tut, patting down her robes. "Where do these trolls go to school. Really." After finding all her things in order, though lacking her scarf, the dale-woman took a moment to fix her hair.

"Well then. Which way is it to Sarshel," she asked herself, looking around the nondescript wilderness, the running river, all other landmarks concealed by the tall woods. "Gosh. This might be a problem."

It was going to be a long walk home.
Sarushan Folhana - Bard
Louhi Laakkonen - Priest

Artifice
Posts: 62
Joined: Sun May 22, 2016 12:52 pm

Re: Dramatis Personae

Postby Artifice » Wed Nov 30, 2016 10:49 am

The crash of waves was an ever present companion to the snow in the harbor of Sarshel. Swelling waters, thrashed up by winds sent from a dark sky, tousled the boats in dock and sprayed those who worked the dirty quarter, even by night. On a quay stood an assembly of warriors - large men, armed with swords, each swaddled in plated armour and helmets that concealed their faces. Lamplight glinted off of their carefully polished steel wear.

They surrounded a single woman, dressed in a refined imperial coat and a brigandine. Her helmet was removed. She scowled out to sea, misted breath escaping her mouth and nose even as the gales assailed her carefully styled blonde hair.

As guards, they knew better than to interrupt her meditations. Around them, on wharf and dockside alike, the hard working men and women of the winter trade moved to and from the ships that made port. It was the life giving breath of a city, made all the more ragged for the rumours of sabotage and starvation that had gripped the region in recent weeks. When the priest turned and strode away from the water's edge, after having tasted or heard or seen something invisible to the common man, it was with a burning conviction. Those that followed did so with a mix of discipline, poise and cautious hesitation.

Any old city takes upon the properties of a maze - inevitably amassing follies and nooks, short cuts expanding into streets and passages, buildings put up and pulled down a hundred years beyond the design originally envisioned for the area. This group, these guards, had been here long enough to know how to navigate the sprawl of Sarshel. Yet they hadn't been long enough to read the streets at night. They were tense with their weaponry, knowing as they did the growing propensity for violence, and the increasing worship of the Furies within Impiltur.

She still moved with purpose. It wasn't until she reached the warmth of her residence, ascended the stairways to her rented accommodation, that she decreed that all but one of her warriors may have the night to their own affairs.

She commanded Eycon to wait inside the room, just there. Just by the door. He had to watch.

First the priest took the time to put away her helmet. When she returned from her sleeping quarters, dressed only in an informal trousers and a jacket, Louhi did not even spare her subordinate a glance. Taking her seat at a cramped desk, by the window overlooking a befouled yard, she struck a lamp to light, creating a waxy glow.

Revealed then were hundreds of letters, hundreds of scripts and notes, stacks of journals and books. Becoming ordained was always a scholarly pursuit. Yet Louhi, even as she prepared her inkwell and pen, scowled to herself. One piece of parchment was unfolded, checked over, and scratched with a sign. The next was checked, slashed at, corrected. She threw it aside, to a pile that needed to be returned to her legal aid.

The process went on for an hour. As it did so, Louhi's patience wore thin. Perhaps surprisingly, she was not used to spending so much of her time organising papers and planning for things to come. There were so many to reach out to by correspondence. For the briefest of moments, Louhi appeared as some vagabond who had cheated their way into the clothes of the elite, scratching their way into holy scripture. For that second, her carefully styled hair and precisely applied make up was just a disguise for Louhi. Perhaps it was only her self doubt.

All the while, she forced Eycon to remain there, standing at attention, behind her unarmoured back. It was a statement. He had seen her admit a weakness she was not supposed to reveal, a desire that went against the very vows he had been witness to. If he was smart, she knew he would one day use that against her. She knew he was smart.

Distracting herself, Louhi stopped signing drafts. She took a package from the far side of the desk and, using a knife at hand to pry it open, she revealed a letter and a book.

"Esteemed Lady Archon," she muttered, turning the paper in hand to check the back, before returning to reading it. "Close enough, I suppose."

Her pale blue eyes scanned down the sheet. Her brows furrowed more and more with each line that she read, concentration building in her features. Involuntarily, her lips and tongue twitched and mirrored the words on the page.

"Hardly a donation if it requires service," the priest mumbled. Then she suddenly turned in her chair, pale blue eyes finding her guard. "Fetch for me Goodman and the Onryo at once!"
Sarushan Folhana - Bard
Louhi Laakkonen - Priest

Artifice
Posts: 62
Joined: Sun May 22, 2016 12:52 pm

Re: Dramatis Personae

Postby Artifice » Fri Dec 02, 2016 1:56 pm

Breaking out of the forests of the Earthfast stood beautiful Filur. Below the foothills of the southern mountain slopes, basking the gentle glow of a winter sun, stood a half collapsed bridge. Sarushan struggled to climb up the stony incline, getting out of the steep embankment. Her gasps disrupted birdsong, boots kicking back loose masonry with a clatter clank, splashing the slow moving waters below.

Victorious she stood, rubbing the small of her back with both hands, trying to find some relief after a long days hike. Her tired, green eyes scanned the unkempt roads to find a distant farmhouse. Onward she shuffled.

"Hello?"

There were no sounds from within the gutted building. Sarushan leaned in, one hand on the chipped doorframe, to find a home stained with rainwater and stripped of belongings.

"I rather suppose there's no-one in," she said to herself, leaning this way and that to spot fractured floorboards and a fallen ceiling.

Out back, the traveler stomped through what might have once been a cabbage patch, trying to get back to the road.

A shuffling.

She swung around, eyes skirting the fallen walls and the hollow building for the source of the sound. There was nothing.

A shuffle-shuff.

"Is anyone there?"

Only the soft caress of a calm wind and twinkling of birdsong replied to the dale-woman. Her attention lingered on the distance, letting herself calm down. The encounter from earlier on her journey stormed through her mind. When no threat revealed itself, Sarushan exhaled a quiet breath of relief. She turned to resume her trek.

There it was.

A giant rabbit.

She jumped out of her skin, as the fluffy mammal stood on its hind legs to snuffle-snuffle the air with a whiskered, twitching nose. Though it was only as tall as her waist, it was enough to make her venture back a step.

"Oh. Oh, look at you. Aren't you big. Gosh."

Its dark, soulless eyes looked upon Sarushan, devoid of mercy, filled with contempt. Maybe the beast hungered.

"No need to panic, little bunny. I was just on my way."

With one bounce, then another, the rabbit was at Sarushan's feet again. Her nervous retreat was cut short by a foe from which she could not outrun. Again, the bunny reached up, nose sniffling at her tired form.

"There... There?" She clasped her hands together, holding them up before her neck, fingers out of reach of its teeth.

Then the bunny opened its mouth, and spoke the words that shifted the world.

Sarushan was only a fledgeling in the art. The majority of her study was on the mundane, the history of the spellcasters across the realms, the aesthetic principles and precise practices of their work. She never wanted to be a wizard. She wanted to study wizards. It was perhaps not a surprise then, that a spell cast by the crafty coney was one that she could not identify.

The world span. The traveler shielded her eyes and cowered. Then, as quickly as it all happened, it was over. She watched the buck dart over a nearby shrub and vanish into the brush at the edge of the old farmstead.

Sarushan needed a moment to get her breath back. The encounter electrified her. She was perhaps understandably shocked and confused and disorientated by the whole thing. After realising she was still alive, the dale-woman patted down her body, making sure that she was still in one piece.

"Gosh."

When her shaking died down, she dare move on. Glancing around the run down farm, she let out a final, deep breath and set back on her journey.

There was a bounce to her step.
Sarushan Folhana - Bard
Louhi Laakkonen - Priest


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 15 guests