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Solivar
Guardian - Lore Master

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re: [RP Response] The World Between/Lost In the Shadows

Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It:

Write a short piece on your thoughts/feelings/actions after experiencing the vision/visit to the Crossroads and last night's events. Please post responses here.

In the interest of not spamming the website's front page, I will be posting individualized RP seeds in this thread as well. Check back throughout the day!


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Jadedinsc
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re: [RP Response] The World Between/Lost In the Shadows

The walls came alive with shadows that stretched toward the ceiling and danced in time to the flickering flame from a single white candle set in the center of a small table in the cramped quarters of the inn room. It had been a long time since Folami needed a focal point for her meditation, but tonight was an exception. If she was to have any hope of gleaning the mirror’s secrets she had to clear her mind of all distracting thoughts, which also meant separating herself from her emotions. Especially fear.

You cannot even save yourself…

Folami shuddered at the memory of the vision she’d shared with the others. The sight of the death knight’s torture upon that profaned altar was enough to make anyone afraid, but it was the voice which chilled her very soul. Though she’d never heard it before, she knew that voice, knew its power. For her, it was a whisper at the fringes of her mind, something barely discerned amidst the day-to-day events of her life. But when fear was near, in the moments when her flesh and spirit were weak, she could feel its seductive pull.

You’ll become as her, the sins of the mother stain the daughter. The shadows will swallow you bit by bit, piece by piece until all that remains is a hunger that can never be sated.

It would be so easy to listen to it, to believe its half-truths. So easy to surrender, to fall into oblivion and put an end to a lifetime of fighting.

“No.” Folami let her eyes focus on the tiny flame in front of her and exhaled slowly. She forced herself to remember her conversations with Twinyarrow and what he said of their magic. Her life was lived in shadows and she danced in the darkness, and though it was part of her very being, it did not control her, not yet.

Not ever.

She could try to empathize with Solivar – a foolish endeavor in itself – and to pity him, or she could help him and the others touched by these mirrors. There would be time to remember the vision later, time to let those nightmarish images disturb her sleep, but not now. Now was the time to detach herself from the world around her and erase any chink in her armor the mirror might try to exploit. She only had one chance to get it right.

Her very life might depend on it. Solivar’s life and the lives of the others tainted did depend on it. She would not fail them or herself.
Solivar
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re: Seedling: Jarrand Windspeaker

* Jarrand finds that Skyspear has done a more than passable job at preparing the corpses for burial, laying them out with care in the garden, covering them with lengths of cloth to discourage airborne scavengers, and generally cleaning up the scene itself. He finds the spirits of the place still unsettled but far more biddable now that much of the magic previously at work has been either halted or contained.

* At midnight, he briefly senses a Presence -- one that fades rapidly and which does not attempt to speak to him. If Jarrand is still at the house at dawn, he senses that same silent presence again.

* If Jarrand goes into the house, particularly if he goes into the study, he will find a number of items useful in rituals of the spirit squirreled away there: incense resins and aromatic woods, many of pigments used to paint entreaties to the spirits. Trays of freshly planted and recently tended seedling plants line the windows and if he investigates the garden at all, he will find that someone spent some time cleaning away the dead undergrowth to allow new plants to grow and then went about preparing the ground to receive them.


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Solivar
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re: Seedling: Augar

* Keldris volunteers for first watch, claiming himself entirely too wired to do anything resembling sleep. Together you get Deselynia settled in the bed furthest from the mirror -- her condition is stable, though she is still deeply asleep -- and Keldris makes a point of turning the mirror face-down and putting a pile of spare blankets on top of it. And his hammer, as well.

* Augar's dreams, when he finally gets comfortable enough to sleep on that ridiculous elf bed, are intensely vivid -- vivid enough that, after he wakes, for long moments he retains the sense-memory of a presence warm and bright like sunlight falling through a window on a cold winter's day laying against his fur and a low, dark voice in his ears, though he cannot recall the words he hears. He wakes oddly refreshed and even more oddly soothed after the disturbing vision earlier.


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Solivar
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re: Seedling: Skyspear

* Siouxsie, in her accustomed position as Acherus' greeting committee, receives Skyspear and, with a brief, curt gesture for silence bids him to follow her further into Acherus. Very deliberately, she guides you into one of the alcoves overlooking the outer tier of the Ebon Hold, where Highlord Mograine and commanders Thalanor, Thorval, Alistra, Amal'thazad, and Silver are having a quiet, rather fierce argument RE the events outlined in a report recently submitted by a certain intelligence-gathering field operative. Opinions are, naturally, quite divided about possible courses of action.


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Darren Tereos
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re: [RP Response] The World Between/Lost In the Shadows

Silvermoon City was blanketed in fog, so deep that the tops of the spires were entirely obscured by the gray murk, with the tall buildings seeming to fade into nothing, if one were to look up. Looking up however, was probably the last thing on the Sin'dorei inhabitants' minds. Instead, keeping their eyes, and in some cases hands, in front of them to navigate without bumping into walls, neighbors, large pack animals, and the like was considered the far better use of sense and appendage.

Curious enough was how this fog moved in from what was the dawn of a clear and relatively still day. The fog had coiled around the city, bringing most outdoors business to a halt as the residents shuttered their windows and lit aromatic candles against the foul air. A few, remembering of other assaults upon their city, listened carefully, peering out windows for any sign of trouble.

So, no one noticed the laden cart, pulled by a stout talbuk, nor the orc that walked slowly beside it. A number of large bundles, wrapped tightly in cloth and stacked carefully, seemed as reassuring as the sudden fog. In other times, this would have seemed to be a load of casualties of war. But of course, even with the Twilight's Hammer operating openly, this was no wartime and those bundles could not have been anything so sinister.


Hours earlier, the setting sun from the previous day freshly below the horizon, Jarrand Windspeaker, far-seer of Steadfast, had arrived at what, for being an abandoned estate, had seen more than its share of occupancy as of late. His large frame seemed out of place in the elfin villa, it's design and decoration delicately ornate. The contrast with it's deceased owner was not lost on Jarrand and he chuckled softly thinking of the death knight making this his home. At least the spartan furniture fit with Meton's character.

While Jarrand had volunteered the task of seeing the sacrificed trolls found in their fallen comrade's home, it was not work he relished. But his comfort with the spirits of dead was something he could rely on to carry him through the grisly task. Whoever the trolls were, they were deserving of ceremony to guide them to the Wilds, where they might join their ancestors and whatever spirits they might have held sacred.

A wave of relief washed over him as he saw the bodies ordered neatly and covered with cloth in the garden, well away from the abattoir in which they were discovered. Clearly, the other death knight had done his work well in preparing the corpses. As was often the case, respect displayed for the dead could calm all but the most troubled spirits. What would have previously been a hurricane roar of ghosts was but muttering and whispering. This would make the work easier. Hearing the spirits could be a blessing, but a burden when their tongues drowned the world outside in their chaos. And there had been much of that as of late. So, Jarrand walked amongst the corpses, hearing the whispered voices and feeling a current pass through him, as if a river's current pulled him about his duties.

It had been easy to find coin to purchase the cart. The blood elves seemed to value the material world far more than the orcs of Orgimmar, who had become accustomed to hardship in their city built upon the harsh land, named for the father of their Warchief, Durotan. So, gold coin flashed brightly in their eyes and stilled questioning tongues.

Jarrand hefted each body carefully, tucking the cloth underneath to hide any exposed flesh that might give away the contents of the cart. Trolls were large, but they were lighter of frame than the broad orc. The business of moving bodies from the garden to cart took time though. Jarrand made certain that he spoke words of apology and reverence for each troll, as even with unseeing eyes and deaf ears, their spirits still hovered, as if waiting to see their fate beyond just their death. So Jarrand spoke, his deep voice adding reassurance and guidance to the spirits above and to reassure him in his own steps. As the night passed further into darkness and the town's bells chimed the twelfth hour, Jarrand stopped, holding still for a moment.

The voices had stopped. The sounds of the night crickets and songbirds stilled. Even the hum of magic omnipresent in Silvermoon city faded to silence. The breath catching in his lungs, Jarrand looked about, uncertain as to the shift, but aware that it was likely no sign to the betterment of the brotherhood of Steadfast's predicament. His eyes were drawn to the home, yards away from him. Just beyond his senses, somehow not quite touching the world of the living or that of the spirits, something moved. Jarrand stared, pushing the depths of his vision, willing himself to see what could not be seen. But nothing materialized, even as his eyes flickered across his field of vision, seeing both the plants and stones, but also the spirits of earth and air, waiting still, as if waiting for some message not yet delivered.

And then it was gone; like water filling a dried river bed, the rush of noise and movement was like a klaxon bell as compared to the stillness that had momentarily halted him. Jarrand shook his head, clearing his vision to the present. Whatever it was had gone. Whether it had been satisfied, had fled the scene, or had made itself invisible even to the shaman was uncertain. But, sweat cooling rapidly on the nape of his neck, Jarrand returned to his work, his eyes glancing toward the home occasionally in hope of catching whatever had found itself there at the midnight hour. The bodies were soon loaded on to the cart, and Jarrand went about tethering his talbuk steed to the harness. However, carrying a cartload of corpses was not likely to go unnoticed and Jarrand found himself in need of cover beyond the simple darkness of night.

Coaxing the spirits to any sort of action outside the most dire of emergency was no longer the simple task it once was. The spirits of the elements had become capricious, maddened, since the shattering. So, Jarrand set out totems, material representations imbued with the powers of the spirits. Carefully adjusting the needed totems, Jarrand set about calling to the spirits of the water and air. Beyond the difficulty of calling just one element, getting two to work in unison was likely to take an exponential amount of work. The Windspeaker found himself glad that he had no need to request the aid of diametrically opposed elements, such as fire and water. However, the concentration and honoring, one part respect, two parts flattery, would take Jarrand hours until the air filled with moisture and the city covered in fog.

From there, it was a simple task to guide his burden out of the city. Even the Arcane Guardians who patrolled the city passed him by, the fog at its thickest around the Shaman, it's densest parts like a thick cloak trailing behind him. And so he found himself, the sun rising on Eversong Woods, within eyesight of a particularly old tree that marked the passing of one of his fallen friends. Whether it was coincidence or the spirits guiding him was uncertain. But, coincidence or guidance, the fact was there and not lost upon Jarrand.

More hours had passed, in the gathering of wood and careful piling of bodies upon makeshift funeral pyres. While the dampness still clung to the Windspeaker's clothes, it was as if the fog had recoiled from the defiled corpses, leaving them dry and lighting easily at the touch of Jarrand's torch. Soon, the pyres alight, the bodies began to burn. Jarrand watched the caress of the flames upon the trolls. As the flames reached high into the sky, Jarrand's vision reached out beyond his senses, and his eyes went wide as he saw into the spirit world before him...


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Skyspear
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re: [RP Response] The World Between/Lost In the Shadows

The back door of the inn fell shut, cutting off light and warmth and voices all at once, and had Skyspear still been in the habit of breathing he would have sighed in relief. As it was, he stood still for a few moments, head down; slowly a film of frost crept out from his boots, turning dirty gutter-water to grey ice, making the drunk in the next doorway over whimper and huddle in his sleep.

You will be chosen. A voice he'd heard not an hour ago, in a vision, though it had whispered such different things then. More threats than offerings. Scowling, he shook himself out of his trance, heading up along Murder Row, toward open spaces.

You will have power over life and death, and all the lesser creatures of this world. The drunk whimpered again as he passed, and Skyspear stopped in his tracks, studying the hapless elf for a moment. His right hand lifted, and then with great deliberation, pressed flat against the saronite plating on his thigh, the edge of it grating audibly against his gauntlet as he hurried on.

You will never be helpless again. Even with the power he'd discharged earlier, summoning Death's Gate was a matter of moments; the ring of his boots on the metal floors of Acherus was soothing, drowning out the voice the way the music and talk in the inn had not. The tension was still there, resonating, but no longer overpowering reason, or fact, or duty.

"Report for the Highlord," he told the Banshee flatly, following at her gesture deep into the hallways of his home.
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