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Rules:
The turns will be 2 days or when all are in. If you know you won’t be able to make the deadline (such as being on vacation), you can appoint a proxy to handle your moves.
This session will ONLY use rules from 2nd Edition sourcebooks, though I’m planning to use characters locations that have only been mentioned in 1st edition as of yet.
As you’ve got plenty of time to consider your moves, well-orchestrated stunts are very encouraged!
Approved Players
ArrMatey! - Zenith Caste
E-Sabbath - Night Caste
willthekittensurvive - Eclipse Caste
robertliguori - Dawn Caste
Imaginary Fiend - Twilight Caste
The city of Nexus is a distressingly honest place to live, but you knew that from the first. The Haves lived while the Have Nots, one way or another, died. If nothing else, the black, stinking fog that clung to the fetid streets of Nighthammer district would eventually fill your lungs solid with the byproducts of wealth: poison, ash and suffering. You were born seemingly destined to be a Have Not, with that knowledge impressed into the very core of your being. Every summer night would see another child wheezing to an early grave in your dank dormitory. Every day would see another babe brought in, unwanted or simply the last living person in their family. The harsh cycle continued day after day.
Yet you managed to find joy where you could: in friends, in cleverness, even in simple survival. Rather than grinding you down, the life of a beggar, a thief, a charlatan simply honed your edge. Sure there were some close calls… like when you and Jade tried to con a brass charm off on a drunken old man as a bona-fide orichalcum-set walkaway talisman. One never knows how much eyebrows mean until an enraged fire-aspect Dragon Blooded fires up his anima from three feet away. Overall, though, you pulled off more scams than went awry, driven by the desperate need to escape up that hill some day, to learn something or acquire some edge that could get you above the filthy haze that always seemed to herald your doom. Some way up to the light…
“Shh,” Jade whispers in your ear, “this only works if we keep our heads down and stay focused.” It’s dark in the Imperium section of the wharves, the gentle lapping of the Nexus Pool barely audible from here. Warehouses line the other end of the muddy street, sealed with the symbols of Great Houses and shipping firms from across the Blessed Isle. “If we do this right, we could grab enough jade to last us for months!” The plan as you understand it is distressingly simple: sneak past two guards, slip through a crack in the Cynis warehouse barely big enough for your twelve year old forms, grab as many packets of bright morning as possible, and get out. Somehow you get the feeling that somebody might object along the way, but the prospect of how much the apothecaries in Nighthammer would pay for even a handful of the addictive powder is just too tempting.
… your first memories were the smell of plowed earth and the confining scenes of valley life. In Hart’s Hunt, a small village in a small area of a very small piece of the Hundred Kingdoms, those were the two facts of life: you would die and be buried in the same soil you toiled on to live, never having even made it three valleys distance in any direction. Between the constant abuses of the tax collectors, the capriciousness of rain and soil, and the off-chance of barbarian raids, most serfs quickly resigned themselves to the passive acceptance of difficult Fate. This is not to say that there were no joys to be had in honest toil by reasonably honest people, or so your family seemed to believe. You, Dhorain, had rather a different view of life from the very beginning. The distant sun always seemed to pull your imagination far away from the hills you knew, away from the deep rut that tradition demanded you embrace.
Never a small child, your curiosity and constant claims that you would be better than the rest of the farm children quickly landed you in fights that you were happy to accept. In the open brawl of the young, you soon found talent with the fist and foot that you couldn’t be bothered to develop with a plow. Thus were the boundaries of your first decade and a half set: pressure from well-meaning parents to settle in and take over the farm, constant sparring with other children, and a waderlust that simply grew with your impressive frame. By the age of fifteen it seemed obvious what your one escape would be: the battlefield.
The sun dawned bright in a lapis and rose sky and all the clothes you own (one set) were on your back. Provisions bought with scrip hoarded over the past month were in a makeshift pack on your back. The one room hut was deserted, as your father and mother were in the fields and tending the pigs. The decision stood stark before you: join them and within a week become legally bound to the land as a serf, or set out to find the world beyond the fields you know…
Was it ever really a decision at all? With nary a backward glance, you set off to find your destiny.
FOUR MONTHS LATER – NECHARA CITY
The smell of piss and vomit assault your nose, which basically means it’s another evening at the Raging Stallion tavern. The name fit it well as it’s where bored soldiers wander in to get hammered, fight and pass out, only sometimes in that order. The tavern owner had taken one look at you and decided he’d found the perfect man to keep property damage at a minimum. Until tonight, that is…
A group of five Easterners, swarthy and tall, had been drinking the usual rotgut with unusual gusto and you had immediately picked them out as tonight’s source of trouble. They did not wait long to oblige, as a whipcord-framed woman jostles them trying to pass by. “’Ere, what’s this, then! That was my drink, whore!” the first bruiser bellows, looming over the thin stranger. “Well it’ll be your teeth next if you don’t shut that maggot-infested hole you fart words from, you gigantic advertisement for maiden’s tea!” the woman bellows back, enjoying the exchange far more than someone obviously physically outclassed has any right.
After a moment of obviously difficult deciphering, the man’s already-pink face turns scarlet with rage and he takes a wild swing directly for the smirking woman’s face…
Dhorain mutters a curse, snatches for the three-foot length of oak at his side, deftly steps between two patrons, and moves on the men.
Bringing a weapon to a fist-fight can get ugly very quickly, he knows. He hopes he won’t have to draw the dagger on his belt; leaving bodies doesn’t seem an auspicious way to keep his job as a bouncer. But there are five of them, and they swung first.
There is a chance that he could resolve this without a full-blown fight. A disorienting prod with the cudgel, a threat, a painful follow-up blow on whomever challenges him…there is a chance.
It’s not a chance he plans on taking. There are five of them, and one of them swung first, and not at one of the usual soldiers and brawlers who lurked here. A solid blow to the head of the hothead who’d swung at the woman, and a matching set for his companions, if they so chose.
The thought that it was not the greatest of plans to attack five men, all fired with liquor and ready for violence, single-handed and armed only with a stick and a knife, never occurred to him. It was his job to keep the peace in this tavern, and these men had broken it.
As the four other men rise from the table to join the main bruiser and Dhorain comes up behind them with his cudgel in full view, the woman whirls into action. Smoothly ducking his roundhouse, the woman rights herself and kicks at the man’s kneecap. The next moment seems a blur of motion as a loud snap is heard, the man falls sideways, and the figure that seemed so tiny one moment ago punches his mouth as it comes into view.
Dhorain skids to an unexpected stop. He catches the man with his cudgel, and gently (or not gently at all, if he starts resisting) guides the punched man to the ground, trying to steer him around furniture and tavern patrons.
Hellfire, thinks Dhorain, I hope I don’t end up having to save four men from one unarmed girl.
“Alright, that’s enough!” Dhorain bellows, bringing up his cudgel again. “He swung first, and she swung last. That’s the end of it. If any of you-” his gaze sweeps the four men and woman “-want to continue this, you do it outside! The next man or woman who raises their fist will answer to me! Am I understood?”
Dhorain locks gazes with the woman for a moment, and does his best to convey “Please don’t attack anyone. I really don’t want to have to hit you with my stick.” nonverbally.
Don’t let this turn into a three-way. Dhorain prays to any nearby gods who might be listening. I’d have to bring her down first, while she was distracted, then the men…then any nearby who got frisky and wanted in on the fun, and then-
Dhorain pushed the voice away, keeping his eye on the woman. This was a tavern, not a battlefield. He knew that if he let that part of himself run wild, he’d end up fired, outlawed, and dead. His job was to keep the peace. If that meant shouting, he’d shout. If that meant attacking five men, he’d attack. And if that meant facing a small-framed woman skilled in unarmed combat with his stick, then face her he would.
While the four remaining men turn their heads toward Dhorain’s looming form, the woman merely grabs the cheap bottle of moonshine and a glass full of it off the table, throws some in one set of eyes, then quite daintily for such an act, breaks the container on the side of another’s face. At first glance her face seems set in a rage, flushed except where scars stand out in contrast, but the eyes… their cool grey depths seem amused.
Tonight I earn my pay. thinks Dhorain. Let’s see how this woman fights with a fistful of glass shards. Dhorain pauses a moment, hoping one of the remaining toughs will engage with the hazardous woman and give him an opening, and then lashes out with his cudgel, aiming to shatter the woman’s broken bottle before she starts carving patrons up with it.
As the skilled stranger warily moves to clearer space in the middle of the tavern, Dhorain takes a swing at the shattered bottle in the woman’s hand. Whether from luck or fate, he manages to connect. However, she loosens her grip and the momentum of the blow causes the bottle to shatter harmlessly on the floor. Her laugh echoes in the rapidly emptying building and he gets a nod of acknowledgement. “I’ll be with you in a moment, brave boy.”
Obviously up til now the skilled fighter was just toying with prey, as she kicks one of the orbiting drunks in the middle of the chest. While clearly impossible, the victim is tossed off his feet and slams into the wall twelve feet away. If the tavern hadn’t been built out of sturdy wood, there’s little doubt he would have actually gone through. A strange ripple seems to surround her, as though she were standing in the middle of a street on a hot summer day.
The words of a famous philosopher from Great Forks, Julius Partes XI, run an endless circle through Miles’s nervous brain as he lights the matches. To the world beyond his forehead, he appears extraordinarily calm. If not fists, the great philosopher wrote, then fire. How fitting. Though completely taken out of context, the statement sums up exactly one half-portion of Miles’s plan.
The smell of salt, salt water, salty blood, and salt petre recite an olfactory declamtory to the philosopher’s lofty words. The tender flesh located on Miles’s right forearm still trickles crimson droplets as he binds it in preparation for their sprint. For the barest moment, as he sees Jade’s white teeth shining like ghost pearls in the darkness, he considers the suicidal danger of the plan they’ve hatched – And then, thinking no more about it, they make a mad dash at the warehouse, both toward a small crack in the wall they’d spotted earlier. They move in unison, running like the Legions of Malfeas were after them and ducking in time to scrabble through the aperture without appreciably slowing. They know they’re likely already being chased, but they ignore the fact. Behind them, tendrils of smoke climb like vines and blossom dangerous orange-red petals.
And hidden in plain view from the left face of the warehouse, the second part of the plan: A summoning circle made of blood. Such a sign, small enough to be missed by a mercenary or night guard (especially during the frenetic act of fire-fighting), would never be missed by the hungry dead that lurk the still, haunted quarters of the wharf. Soon, these guards are going to have more problems on their hands then they know what to do with…
The rippling air and far-flung drunk bring Dhorain up short, but only for a moment. Fragments of half-remembered tales of magic flit through his head. He ignores them; the woman looks human, and looks like she’ll respond to a length of oak applied to the head, and if she doesn’t or isn’t, then there’s nothing he can do about it.
He’s facing a superior foe. Most likely he will end this evening flat on his back, or worse. This bother him less then it probably should. All that matters now is getting the woman’s attention back onto him, and stopping her from assaulting any more of his patrons.
“This is my tavern!” he shouts. “I won’t allow you to hurt anyone else here!”
Moving recklessly forward, Dhorain brought his cudgel up in a tight arc, lifting a tankard from a table and splashing the contents towards the woman’s head, then rapidly reversing the blow and lashing out at the woman’s midsection, aiming to knock the wind out of her.
Dismiss me, will you? I’ll show you what it means to fight me! thinks Dhorain. He lets the voice inside him out, gives it free reign. The voice gives him an edge, and as the woman moves adroitly to meet his blows, Dhorain realizes he will need every edge he can get, and then some.
Leaping backwards, the woman takes the tankard’s content on the chest but the cudgel merely swishes through thin air. This close, the rippling waves become a baking heat like a desert day, dessicating Dhorain’s skin and robbing the mouth of moisture. The uncomfortable quickly becomes excruciating as the martial artist plucks the length of wood out of his hand and clubs him over the head with it.
Shouting begins almost immediately as guards and traders alike spill out into the warm night air. As of yet, it seems that the distraction is working. Both of the intruders spill into the darken cavern of the warehouse, stacked high with crates and packs that have yet to be sorted. Jade rushes ahead towards the area that probably has the bright morning boxes.
Dhorain staggers back, both from the blow and the sudden, unnatural heat. He stops himself at a table. One hand has found its way to the hilt of his dagger.
Again! the voice urges. Keep pressing her! Magic always has a cost in the stories, and when the cost is too much-
Dhorain coughs and stands upright. The more the woman was pressed, the hotter she got. Could he force her to catch fire? Would being set on fire stop her?
Stop her or not, it would likely destroy the tavern, and certainly endanger the patrons. And also probably kill him, Dhorain considers as an afterthought.
Dhorain’s eyes flick to the half-full cask of very cheap beer that is the tavern’s stock and trade. He can lift it, and carry it, but it would be useless as a weapon, even against a natural enemy, which the woman sure is not.
Dhorain’s death-grip on his dagger loosens into a more natural one. It’s nearly cleared its sheath before he realizes he’s drawing it.
I can do it. he realizes. I struck her once, and she is more sorely pressed now. If the gods favor me enough for one clean stroke…
With a groan of frustration, Dhorain stabs his dagger back into the sheath. He’s seen enough of the gods to know who they favor. Plus, knowing them, he’d be likely to strike true and simply make the woman explode.
He frantically scans the table, seeking a less-lethal weapon. Finding nothing appropriate, Dhorain seizes a stiff leather tankard. As weapons go, it’s slightly worse than a cobblestone in a fist, but Dhorain has no cobblestones. Besides, Dhorain considers darkly, the leather across his knuckles is likely to be just as effective against the woman as three and a half feet of mirror-bright steel.
He takes a deep breath. This is going to hurt. he thinks.
“Oy! Woman!” he bellows. When the martial artist’s deadly movements put her eyes in his direction, he raises the tankard in mock-salute, then quaffs deeply. On a moment’s inspiration, he up-ends the tankard with a flourish, dumping the rest of the beer onto his face. Thank you, tavernkeeper, for your weak and watery brew. he thinks, with the grim irony of the desperate. It wouldn’t last more than a moment against that deadly heat, but a moment’s protection might be all he needed.
“The only real fighter in this tavern is over here, ready for you!” he shouts. “But, by all means, if it so delights you to nobly vanquish those men, who can’t take even one of your blows, continue!” He hopes the taunt will have the intended effect; his hands have always been cleverer than his tongue.
Let her be a brawler, not a bully. he prays again, though Dhorain is rapidly losing faith that the gods favor him tonight. Let her have come here in search of adversaries, worthy opponents, and not merely victims. Of course, if she does just want victims, we’re doomed whether I challenge her not.
He could brace himself against the table, await her rush, meet her just an instant before she thought he would. He could abandon his defense, and perhaps even strike a blow. But every second the woman faced him was a second he was keeping the other patrons safe, and that meant he needed to keep the woman focused on beating him unconscious, and no one else.
Dhorain grins, and raises his mug into the closest he can get it to a defensive posture. This is really going to hurt. he thinks.
This is too easy… Should there be someone posted inside? Miles thinks as he fumbles around the tightly stacked boxes for the stash of Bright Morning. A sudden twinge of uncertain fear catches him, causing him to overreact to Jade’s hand on his shoulder. He jumps and slaps his hand to his mouth. His stifled scream emerges as a contralto squeak.
“Dammit, Jade,” he whispers hotly, “Keep an eye on the front door while you grab the stuff, will you? I’m going to search around for another exit. Just in case.” Jade gives him a reproachful glare as he turns down the aisle. For a moment he hesitates, feeling like an ass for treating his friend so badly, but he discards the urge to apologize. There’s simply no time.
The woman holds the stolen cudgel in front of her in mock salute, the chucks it to the side with blinding speed. “I’ll try not to break you too badly!” she chuckles in a rich, sultry tone. Around the pool of silence between Dhorain and her positions, the last few customers scuttle rapidly towards the door. Bending low with her right shoulder out, she bellows out “PUISSANT STREET SWEEPER” and charges towards her opponent. A stream of blood drips from her palms onto the dirt floor and her movements become a blur. In the blink of an eye, her shoulder connects with the center of his body mass and throws him backwards over a table and through an interior wall. A loud crunch is heard as a handful of ribs obviously break from the blow.
For the first instant, there was no pain, simply shock and disorientation. It was as though Dhorain had been knocked away faster than the pain could travel.
The pain caught up to him once he landed, though, with interest. Dhorain would have cried out, had the wind not been thoroughly knocked out of him. Sprawled in the next room, Dhorain feebly raised his head, managing a weak whimper as his chest screamed at him. Still, he kept his head elevated for a moment, watching as the last of the bar patrons (a rather elderly and very drunk regular) finally manage to stagger out.
The bar is empty. I’ve done my job. thinks Dhorain. He lets his head drop. What now? he thinks.
Slowly, gasping in pain, Dhorain gets to his feet. He doesn’t bother scrabbling for a better weapon; he could barely wield one in his current state.
I should surrender. Dhorain thinks. I can’t win. What can I accomplish?
With a groan that becomes a gasp as broken ribs grate together, Dhorain raises his fists again.
“A mighty blow.” he rasps. “But not quite mighty enough.”
Dhorain staggers towards the martial artist, one fist cocked back wildly. She stands ready for him. His gaze is drawn to her fists, from which blood still drips.
She bleeds. he thinks. Part of him is screaming to stop, to yield, to simply let gravity take its course and topple to the ground insensate. That part of him doesn’t matter now. There is nothing but him and his opponent. If I die tonight, I die knowing I have made her bleed. he thinks.
“My name is Dhorain!” he gasps. “Remember it when you are flat on your back!”
Dhorain puts on as much speed as he is able, putting all he has left into one last blow.
The vista closes in on a narrow alley of crates, with the marked boxes sitting at the end. The only sounds remain those of the screaming bucket brigade forming outside.
As Dhorain drives towards her, the woman yawns, effortlessly dodges and shoves him sprawling onto his back. A pair of hands begin clapping from the door, then a voice rumbles “That’s quite enough, Ilana. Seems we’ve got a real fighter here…”