The Tinkertons
IS OFFLINE
26/53
Renown
Dragon's Cradle
We're gonna get Zarius back.
1,878 POSTS & 0 LIKES
|
Post by Lady Astrid Stormstone on Dec 23, 2023 1:59:00 GMT -5
It’s been a while since Astrid’s gone adventuring in Moonglade. Being that it’s on the other side of the world, that posed a problem, at least until recently. With the Elsewhere Juice and her skills learned in the Consortium, Astrid can easily teleport herself and one other person pretty much anywhere in the world, which is perfect for when she wants to go adventuring. The amount of time she saves not having to travel across the continent means she’s gotten to spend more time in her workshop studying armorcraft and magicraft. It also means she gets to spend more time with her dad. After all, what good is having a home if you don’t actually stay there much? After the most recent adventuring outing with Cantio that left both of them slightly traumatized for different reasons, Astrid somehow managed to convince the minstrel to give it another go with her. That flesh golem stuff was a bit much, so how about a rousing hunt for monsters in the woods? (Specifically monsters that weren’t once people.) Of course, she worked with Cantio to tweak the adventuring boots she made for him so they’re slightly less clunky, and after making some major repairs and tweaks to her own armor, she managed to fashion Cantio his very own weightless cuirass that still holds up well to a beating. While Astrid is eager to try this out, she doesn’t want Cantio to get hurt unnecessarily. It’ll be fine, probably. So, the two of them trek into the Shadewood of Moonglade to look for oversized arachnids running amok, likely disturbed after the world-shaking appearance of Vulcadreaus. For some ungodly reason, the authority in Moonglade haven’t done much to break down the section of the forest that’s become a nesting place for giant spiders. It’s a great place to thin their numbers. “Da, are ya gonna try out yer bow this time?” Astrid asks, looking over her shoulder while she confidently strides through the darkness unimpeded. [1] She breaks through the webs blocking their path with her gauntlets alight with flame. [2] Small webs are annoying enough to be caught in but giant webs might stick to Cantio and prevent his movement altogether as lithe as he is.
1. Night Vision 2. Spitfire Gauntlets Quest info: Quest Name: Spiders, Again Participants: Two or more Location: Moonglade Post Requirements: 6 posts per person, 200 words per post Reward: +1 Renown, Choice of 2 Common crafting materials Description: Giant spiders have always been an issue in Moonglade, and are a constant threat for anyone brave enough to enter the Shadewood. However, the recent disturbance in Charon's primordial energy has affected most wildlife, causing them to behave unnaturally. Swarms of giant spiders have recently been seen roaming around outside the Shadewood, even crossing into villages and established homesteads. We need help in corralling these spiders back into the Shadewood, or flat out killing them, whatever helps keep the citizens of Moonglade safe.
|
|
Mage's Guild
IS OFFLINE
2
Renown
Male
Dragon's Cradle
♪ Hide your face so the world can never find you. ♪
418 POSTS & 0 LIKES
|
Post by Cantio von Lumen on Dec 23, 2023 11:28:00 GMT -5
Time and time again, Cantio cannot help but think that the adventuring life just isn’t for him. The gods know he tries, but having been divinely blessed with the build of a string bean and the break-or-flight instincts of a runaway wagon wheel, it’s honestly quite a difficult life path to traverse. Cantio had the ambitions to become an adventurer once— to tell his and his friends’ own stories instead of somebody else’s.
Now, it's different; he wants to bond with Astrid and Blue, who both have a love of adventuring; and most of all, he wants to be there for them when they need him, instead of... well, after they need him.
He wants to be better for them, but that means facing what he fears head-on, like today.
Cantio has been here before, actually: in the gloomy backwoods of the Moonglade where the questionable Moonglade authorities allow giant spiders to live, roam, and slowly pick off wayward merchant caravans; where Cantio once met the Unicorn of the Shadewood, and was promptly insulted by it because it turns out Unicorns are kind of jerks; and where he and his dear traveling companion who had first inspired him to an ambition for adventure, had nearly been eaten by a plethora of giant spiders. What great memories! Angry gnashing mandibles, hundreds of spindly legs, thousands of hungry void-like eyes, and Tatalia getting dragged into the underbrush… oh dear god Cantio feels sick just thinking about that trip again. Astrid likely feels a wave of anxiety push through their connected earrings from her father, because the idea of Astrid having to go through that is nauseating— even if she's been through worse. It doesn't stop him from fretting.
Still, avoiding something like that is why Cantio has determined to come with her on yet another adventure, despite the last mission… the flesh golems, and… that guy he may or may not have stabbed. Cantio still doesn’t know how to feel about that, so he mostly doesn’t think about it. Granted, in terms of trauma, the look of horror that flickered across his face at the realization that Astrid had made those boots he’d worn— the ones he very boldly referred to as, ’hippo-like’— after their mission was probably equal to or greater than the realization that he had stabbed that man. In hindsight, he really thinks he should have known she made them; Astrid spends most of her time in the forge unless Cantio drags her upstairs for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Why would she ever buy armour when she makes it? He still feels bad about it even if he was quick to apologize and explain that he’s not used to the feeling of wearing armour; which, Astrid proceeded to accommodate for in her next rendition of the boots. They’re easier for Cantio and his thin frame to trod about in now; and she even made a weightless cuirass for him, which he definitely cried about receiving. Possibly because he’d had a little too much wine while chatting with Melodia at the dinner table that night, but also because Astrid’s talent with the forge never ceases to amaze him. The fact that she would accommodate for him, being the flighty minstrel which he is, is touching; because unlike his fully armored daughter clunking about in front of him, Cantio has the upper body strength of a single stickbug. A full armour set like her own would turn him into a pile of unmoving metal on the forest flo— — and then, a shadow flickers at the corner of Cantio’s eyes; followed by a wobbling ‘TH-PING!’ from behind Astrid, no sooner had she spoken up. An arrow, suspiciously shaped like the bow of his violin, wobbles in the ancient bark of a fallen tree after being inexplicably shot from an eloquent-looking bow. (1.) Cantio resembles a deer caught in lantern-light when he catches Astrid’s eyes. “ … Sorry, I thought I saw something.” He admits after a moment of searching the white noise for an excuse and not finding any. “ I’ll, uh… probably… maybe on something that’s not a tree given the spiders we’re looking for…” He recovers his posture, quickly scrambling over to the log to recover his bow. “ Did, um… did I ever tell you I’ve been here before?” He wonders as he struggles to pluck the arrow out of the gnarled bark. “ With an old friend, a while ago—” God, this bow has a lot of hold; how deep did this arrow go? “ —we met a unicorn and everything, and… did I ever tell you that story? The Shadewood Unico— RN.” The arrow finally wiggles free mid-sentence, the momentum of its release shooting Cantio back a few wobbling steps before he recovers.
(1.) Violin Bow
|
|
CCS Courier
IS OFFLINE
9
Renown
Female
Marsh Flats
392 POSTS & 0 LIKES
|
Post by Tatalia on Dec 23, 2023 13:12:07 GMT -5
An arrow wobbled buzzingly just inches away from the hidden creature spying upon the adventurous pair. The gaze of eight yellow eyes was affixed to the quivering shaft before being flicked down toward the nervous tiefling and the walking armory that was a child down below. The spider's breath was quick but silent. Somehow, the creature kept still despite having nearly been pinned to the tree by an errant shot.
The werespider had been hunting in the forest for a long time. How long, exactly, it could not remember. Time had little meaning beneath the darkened boughs of the Spiders Canopy. Days, weeks, months; all the spider could remember was the thrill of the trap, the snare, and the hunt. It only knew the hunger. It only knew the feeding. Sometimes there were inklings of memories before, but they were distant, vague, and never fully brought to the fore.
But there was something strange about the tiefling that drew the monster's attention. The voice, the posture, the little lilting notes that rose out of him now and then; they all reminded the creature of... of odd feelings that she could not place. There was a sense of familiarity, like perhaps the creature had fed upon the man before; but that couldn't be right, for he would be dead, just like those deer and horses. He was prey. He even moved like prey, just like a doe stricken with fear. There was no way he'd have lasted ten seconds in her territory before.
The creature's feral mind turned the confounding thoughts about in its head over and over again. Half-remembered words trickled to the fore of her mind like grains of sand in an hourglass only to trickle back out as new thoughts surged to her mind. He was so infuriatingly familiar, yet she could not, could not quite grasp what that meant. No, she... She?
Just seeing and smelling the tiefling made her remember she was she. The significance of that realization was lost on her, a momentary curiosity that was quickly forgotten. She focused on her prey.
The two beings were very different. The small one, that one was more dangerous. They were young, but they had confidence and large, large implements with which to hit squishy things. The spider was one of those squishy things. She understood that all too well, having been smacked with hooves, sticks, and hammers in the past. No, that one, that one she had to avoid.
The tiefling, though... He was a perfect target! Well, no - he wasn't very fat. In fact, he hardly had any meat on him; he was barely worth eating at all. But he was so, so easy to snatch up, so, so ready to be hung from a tree and filled with the belly-melting venom that made twiggy things all soupy and slurpy in side. Mm! Just thinking about it made her stomach rumble, albeit quietly. He had to be captured! He was too interesting, too strange, too intriguing a target to leave untouched. The little one didn't need him, anyway. She was clearly the stronger of the two, so the spider would be doing the tiny person a favor by taking the weak member of the pack away for snacking.
With self-congratulatory thoughts about doing a good deed and getting a fine morsel while she was at it, the werespider happily crept back up the tree1,2 and vanished into the canopy, listening curiously to the sounds of the adventurers’ voices and wondering why she felt so eager for this particular hunt.
The spider waited in ambush about twenty minutes down the path, having chosen her point of attack quite carefully. The creature arrayed there in the darkest a complex trap, one that would certainly give her prey pause.
First, she'd found her little jar of squishy stuff3, the one she kept tucked away in a bag. She'd made sure to grab her tools and things as well, the little bottles and bits and bobs and sharp things she'd collected over the years. They were all going to be very important, yes, oh so very important.
The werespider began by going to the most narrow part of the path, the part where the tall demonling would have to stoop on down to pass through and where the two could only march through in single file. There, the clever little spider wove the mushy stuff from the jar in her hairy hands, pulling and twisting and thinking very hard. Slowly, it came to form a new shape: that of a large and mossy log... though a near weightless one because of its make. It would fool anyone's first glance at the very least, and that was enough for the trap.
The next step was to weave webbing in the gap where the log would be placed. That wouldn't have been helpful normally; the spider had seen the little one throw fire around that melted through webbing like it didn't exist. But then the tricky ambusher gathered some bits of thin cloth from its bag of things4, quietly applying it to the web here and there to hide it. The cloth was incredibly thin, but had a curious property of blending in with whatever was around it, making the web seem to disappear from view. A detailed inspection of the gap would probably reveal its presence, but given what she'd seen, the spiderling doubted there would be such an inspection.
Next, she applied powders to the web, powders that popped with blinding light and released smoke if jostled or burnt.4 The werespider knew that as soon as the log was smashed, moved, or set alight, the whole web would burst with light and smoke, giving her the distraction she needed to capture the thin man. And it would be him she captured; given what she'd seen, it was doubtless to be the dangerous tiny one that would set off the trap. Oh, yes; yes, it would. The conniving creature set her fake log against the gap with the hidden web, grinning hungrily all the while.
The trap was set. With more time, the spider could have made it even more complex, but she could hear footsteps coming from down the path. Her hearing was very keen5, and with a quick glance into the darkness6 she spotted the pair approaching her and the trap she'd laid. Quickly, she darted up the nearest tree and hid among the branches, watching quietly and waiting for the moment to strike.
1. Surface Scaling; 2. Silent Step; 3. Shaping Putty; 4. Creative Inventor; 5. Bestial Transformation + Tracker Extraordinaire 6. Dark Vision
|
|
The Tinkertons
IS OFFLINE
26/53
Renown
Dragon's Cradle
We're gonna get Zarius back.
1,878 POSTS & 0 LIKES
|
Post by Lady Astrid Stormstone on Dec 23, 2023 14:12:49 GMT -5
No sooner does Astrid ask about Cantio’s utilization of the bow than the fellblood actually use the thing. She immediately whips around ready for a fight, icy war hammer manifesting in her hand[1]. Her eyes, glistening golden in the darkness, dart around to look for danger in the forest. All she sees is the violin bow wobbling in its place stuck in a tree, which turns her attention to the frozen-in-place Cantio.
Astrid’s shoulders fall with a sigh of relief with her hammer's head swaying down to the ground where she lets the weapon sit heavy on the underbrush. “Sheesh, da,” she breathes. “Glad yer reaction time seems keen as ever at least.” With interested eyes, Astrid watches Cantio struggle to get the projectile free from the tree. At first, she steps forward to help him, but she’s quickly distracted by the question.
“Wha? No! Ya’ve had the whole walk ta tell me ya’ve been here before!” she says, exasperated. Granted the travel to the Shadewood from the nearest local village was the longest part of the journey given they skipped the cross-continental ship, wagon, or horse ride. “I didn’t know this is where ya met the unicorn, which… ya sorta told me about before? When I came home an’ ya had Arcus in the yard. That was a surprise fer sure.” The half-dwarf giggles at the thought, remembering Cantio fretting over the pegasus’ care.
Then her expression drops as she remembers a conversation with Javal recently, Astrid’s brow furrowing as heavy as any grizzled dwarf’s might. “Ta be honest, ya ain’t told me a lot about yer personal adventures. Or much about any friends. I forgot ta press ya about some adventure ya had with a fellblood fella named Javal. He said he knew ya an’ ya went on a grand adventure together!”
Astrid stomps over to Cantio, about to help him wrench the arrow free from the tree when he manages to get it. Delight overwrites her expression instantly. “Ay, ya got it yerself! Have ya been doin’ push-ups when I’m not home?” she teases, prodding his bicep (or lack thereof) with a finger, careful not to set him ablaze with the gauntlet’s magic. Honestly, Astrid doesn’t doubt for a minute that if she asked Cantio to start attempting to strengthen himself he would, but he doesn’t need to be physically strong to adventure. Though… having the strength to support your own weight or pull yourself up a cliff is not something to scoff at and certainly necessary if one is to go adventuring.
With Cantio’s defense free, Astrid continues along the path, burning through webs as she finishes her thought from before. “Anyway, did ya know Javal helped fight Vulcadreaus? I ended up meetin’ him proper in Frost Gale, an’ I’ve run into him a couple a’ times around Dragon’s Cradle. I’ll probably see him again soon with all the construction goin’ on, so it’d be nice ta tell him that aye, I finally got the story outta ya!” Admittedly… she forgot until just now. There are lots of things going on that are uh… Well, not more important, but certainly more distracting.
The path ahead starts to narrow, and while Astrid is short enough not to need to crouch, her much taller adopted father certainly does. A stray hand up here and there attempts to burn webbing to clear the path, but she can’t reach easily – at least not without the help of a little magic. Stepping on the very air itself, little platforms of swirling wind keep Astrid’s feet aloft as she raises herself to clear the higher webs for Cantio.[2] The memory of him getting cobwebs stuck in between his horns while cleaning the house and consequently panicking a bit thinking the spider might be in his hair brings an amused smile to her freckled face.
“Careful, da. The path gets narrower here, so yer gonna hafta walk behind me,” she says. “Which… I s’pose ya were already doin’ all thin’s considered.”
And so, with things cleared well enough, the walking armory marches ahead.
Eventually, she comes to a log that’s a bit too big to step over and is just in the way enough to be inconvenient. Without thinking much of it, Astrid lights her fist with the gauntlet and punches through it,[3] expecting to obliterate it in some capacity. Instead, it explodes in a puff of smoke and shower of sparks.
Logs are not supposed to do that!
1. War hammer - spellblade weapon (lightning), heavy, pale ice enchantments 2. Step of the Wind 3. Bull’s Strength/Baloth Muscle/Spitfire gauntlet
|
|