Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » Bloodied Shards IC (CLOSED!)

Your character wakes up. Most likely in the morning, maybe at noon or later if they're like that, maybe in the evening if they work at night. Maybe even just randomly in the middle of the night to relieve themselves. Either way, when they do, they're greated with something very different than what they expected.

Near where they were sleeping stands a slightly translucent coppery-furred fox like creature wearing a long ornate robe. They aren't particularly tall, only around 165-170 cm, but their posture, robe, and seven majestic tails give them an aura of power and authority, even though it's readily apparent that they aren't actually there.

After a moment, they speak.

"Greetings, I am Magistrate Kylarion. I am not of your world, but send you a dire warning. Among your possessions, be they meager or vast, lies a clay shard edged in electrum. This shard is a piece of the Bloodied Vase, a somewhat obscure blood-magic artifact in your world's history and mythology. I warn you that someone is intending to assemble it."

"You may know some of the story, or have even learned that this otherwise inocuous piece of pottery reacts to blood to grant control over part of your world, the beasts, the winds, the earth, or some other aspect. When assembled, the Vase grants its user power greater than that of all of the shards combined, and the perception to use those abilities over the entirety of your world. Needless to say, you cannot allow this new enemy to assemble them all."

"She is a sorceress of great power, generally considered untenable to oppose. If I were to send my warriors to overcome her, she would simply slay them all with sadistic glee! This is why you and the task I am about to assign you are of capital importance. She is one of my kind, and we are, fundamentally, hunters. Some even call us cruel, taken to slowly tormenting our prey even if it poses a risk to us. This, among others, is an advantage you have over her."

"She has no knowledge of your world beyond your language, your currency, and some of your basic customs. We are taking action to ensure that she cannot use technological means to track you or learn the lay of the land. The shards, while not in use, are not easily locatable through magical means. She would require access to one of them to scry for the rest. She is alone, while you may have friends, family, colleagues, contacts, connections, masters, or servants. Most importantly, you have the other keepers of the shards. Lastly, you have the shards themselves, should you be willing to pay them the tax they demand for their power. I know that, even as she gathers them, she will not use them. I cannot tell you why this is true, but I know with great certainty that it is so."

"I can provide little other aid. I do, however, offer a reward should you hold the shards long enough to keep her from success: Some of our technology, which you will find not only indistinguishable from but superior to your world's magics, and 200kg of pure gold or equivalent in other goods. You will find a deposite of 5% of the gold, ten kilograms or approximately twenty-two pounds, in legal coinage, in the immediate area where you have been sleeping. I wish you luck. Do not let her take the shards."

And the magistrate's image winks out of existence, leaving only a strange, smooth disk on the ground where he stood.


Welcome to the game everyone! Your characters will pretty easilly figure out how to re-play the message, there's a button, so feel free to read that again as much as you need to.

Link to the OOC thread Here

A tall, graceful, white-furred vixen sat side-saddle on the parked hoverbike, alone on the hilltop. "I know, they brought ships into the system!" she exclaims into a small device, "Don't stay, you know they can't do much here, but they can mess up the 'Storm without trouble. .... Yeah, I'll be fine. You know I know what I'm doing, Ni, sshh. Okay, talk later."

Alone, huh? Well, that would be fun. She stretched, staring over the countryside, past the forest to the peak of a castle or citadel perched on the side of a mountain. There was a city or town extending below, too. First objective, get down there and find a map to buy. Possibly several. Oh! and hope someone tried to rob her so she could steal their money to afford it.

She swung her leg over the seat, and spun up her Shriker's engines, heading down the hill toward the forest below.

Some miles away from that township lies a small village. A short walk north of the village’s gates lies a lone cabin. It’s a comfortable, homey place complete with a vegetable garden and a one-beast stable. The mule normally housed there has gone on a long journey with its master, leaving Lisa and her cat completely alone to receive the news.

Lisa, a young lady with an imposing height but a fragile-looking frame, paces back and forth practically digging a trench in the cabin’s dirt floor with her bare feet. "No. No no no. This is not good. This is...this is-"

A dark ball of fluff sitting on Lisa’s cluttered desk flashes a smile. "Exciting?"

If looks could kill, Raven might have died right there on that desk. "Hell, no."

"I dunno; I’m pretty excited."

"A monster is coming to kill us over a piece of clay!” Lisa spins on her heels and looms over her familiar, nearly shouting as she slams her fists on the desk. Raven cringes, not because Lisa raised her voice or sent vials of potions rolling and crashing on the floor, but because the bright yellow color of Lisa’s irises is slowly fading into crimson.

“Uh, Liz? your eyes are going.”

Lisa takes a shuddery breath and squeezes her eyes shut, willing the color back into them. An honest-to-God Chimeran panic attack is not what they need. Once she thinks her instincts have passed, she slowly opens her eyes and mouths an apology.

Raven shrugs it off, returning to the problem at hand with a slightly less flippant attitude than earlier. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly simple solution. Let’s see...destroy it, bury it, throw it down a well…”

“Don’t you know anything about magical artifacts?”

“Wait a minute, maybe it’s not actually magical. Maybe...this is a prank.” Raven’s voice dips and she looks a little too crestfallen when she admits that this scenario might actually be staged.

Then she says, “Only one way to find out.”

With that, the cat starts reaching for the item she assumes Magistrate Kylarion meant when he described the broken Bloodied Vase, a chunk of clay that might have once formed the base of some ancient pottery. They’d found it together recently on a short foraging trip. Raven thought it looked cool and Lisa wanted to clean it put it up for decoration. Not once did it cross either of their minds that it might be a tool for blood-magic, let alone part of a mythical world-controlling artifact.

Lisa snatches it away before Raven can prick her paw on the shard's jagged edge. She slowly shakes her head. “I’ll do it.”

She sets it back down on the desk next to the projector disc and generous gold deposit that neither one of them yet care about, then fetches her belt (strapped to it is a sheathed knife) from the coat rack by the door. Raven crawls to the corner and pretends to sulk.

After Drake receives the message, he dresses, packs up his things including the disc and most of the gold (he leaves a tip to last night’s whore on the bed stand, who is very much awake and just as surprised as he is.) and slips out of the inn. He leaves a small heap of gold at the front desk. The innkeeper stares slack-jawed at the glittering pile of coins as the mysterious Chimeran darts out the door without a single word.

Drake skips town without any semblance of a direction or plan. Nevermind the job he was supposed to do there; he apparently has much more than an angry client to worry about.

He finds a clearing, sits cross-legged in the dewy grass. Here, with nothing but the rustling of leaves and the chirping of early birds, he can properly process the Magistrate’s warning.

Drake thinks he knows what possession of his the kitsune meant, although he’d not once suspected it might be a literal piece of ancient mythology. He absentmindedly strokes the ochre shard tied to a braided string around his neck. So...this thing is magic. It runs on blood. Someone else wants to have along with the rest of the pieces so they can reassemble what some long-dead civilization likely destroyed for a very good reason. Neat.

Although he’s tempted to see if the blood-magic actually works, Drake has a bad feeling that its power might draw whoever wants it to his location, and he isn’t ready to deal with that. He could use some time prepare. While he mulls over some plans, the song of some pretty finch has him smiling.

Then he hears a new song. Strange; snaps his head to the left, large ears pricked to listen. The noise starts quiet and rumbly, then grows into a shrill shriek as whatever it is draws closer. The Chimera leaps to his feet, drawing his broadsword from its sheath and clutching it in his right hand. He clenches a fist with his left, burying some instincts for the sake of keeping a surprise for the person or creature that approaches him. Staring into the thick timber, he curses under his breath, realizing he might not get that time to prepare.

Adriannu's projector flickers for a moment without turning off, and a second message plays.

"You are of particular note to us, have learned to use and prepare for the use of your shard long before we became aware of this. Because of your experience, we would like to ensure that your resourcefulness does not go to waste. What follows is information about the hostile individual seeking the shards...."

((This information is unknown to the other players at this time. Trust me, ignorance may be bliss. ))

Perfect!

Victi spots who she assumes to be a lone brigand or thief as she hurtles through the forest on her faithful high-tech mount. She veers toward him, rushing at Drake with the full intent of turning him to lootable splatter on the Shriker's forward shields if she can. She suspects whoever this is will move aside, but that's all part of her game. Sometimes you just have to open by terrifying the crap out of them.

The most alien vehicle Drake has ever seen hurtles into the clearing, its rider veering straight at him.

With a startled cry, he dives out of the way, hitting the ground with a painful thud.

With no time to think about how he nearly fell on his own sword, the chimera flips over and lurches to his feet. He response is almost automatic, blurted without any thought: "What the HELL is wrong with you?" He snarls, mentally daring his attacker to try that again.