gold
familiar Familiar
played by OOC Name
creative monkey
|
Post by cila on Apr 23, 2023 8:48:22 GMT -7
[nospaces] [attr="class","staffcont"] [attr="class","staffheader"]
TABLES TURN
[attr="class","staffbody"] [attr="class","staffheadimg"]  NPC THREADS[attr="class","staffpara"]
This is an NPC thread. Player characters are not allowed to post. The purpose of NPC threads is to further flesh out the world and characters of Salem, introduce new concepts, or further the site plot. Interacting with NPCs, completing missions, clearing quests, and participating in site-wide events may change the actions and reactions of various NPCs.
[break][break]
This NPC thread will be updated slowly throughout the week. When it's over, staff will give a brief tl;dr.
|
|
gold
familiar Familiar
played by OOC Name
creative monkey
|
Post by cila on Apr 23, 2023 9:08:52 GMT -7
[nospaces] [attr="class","staffcont"] [attr="class","staffheader"]
TABLES TURN
[attr="class","staffbody"] [attr="class","staffheadimg"]  EMMA[attr="class","staffpara"]
Emma was dumbstruck when she heard it. Growing up in Tartarus, how did she never know? That that abandoned church where the children used to play, was actually the abode of the Kingmaker herself.
[break][break]
(Then again, if Emma had been the kind of child that was allowed to play, she would not be here in the first place.)
[break][break]
She clutches Seraphine's Wand close to her chest as she steps inside.
[break][break]
The ruin is in ruins. She does not know how else to put it—clearly, there was a home here. There was a bathtub...fixture, now broken. A chandelier has dropped to the ground. There was seating, now torn up. None of the individual pieces ever worked together, clearly. But now, it looks as though even the nodes are broken. Down to the cells.
[break][break]
"Hello?" Emma calls. "I tried to visit you in your office, but they say you haven't been, recently..."
[break][break]
The wand tells her why.
|
|
gold
familiar Familiar
played by OOC Name
creative monkey
|
Post by cila on Apr 23, 2023 9:09:28 GMT -7
[nospaces] [attr="class","staffcont"] [attr="class","staffheader"]
TABLES TURN
[attr="class","staffbody"] [attr="class","staffheadimg"]  EIRIN LEYFSON[attr="class","staffpara"]
There's a false equivalence, of science and certainty. Eirin Leyfson would know. The magic is no longer there—scientifically. She cannot make the potions sing, though she understands them. She can feel what she knows slipping, in the waking hours, as though what was there was merely a dream.
[break][break]
But there's no certainty. Jeze's body, that would be certainty. She could move on, then, she's sure of it.
[break][break]
If she had proof, there would be no reason to—
[break][break]
Something creaks, and an instinctive hand flings a knife at the intruder. Her hand. The golems are sleeping.
[break][break]
Eirin stares from the bannister, at the tiny girl that had, only four months ago, come to ask her of the world.
[break][break]
"Leave," she demands. Who told you where to find me? she wonders. I'll kill them, too.
|
|
Administrator
HIGH PRIESTESS
gold
familiar Familiar
played by OOC Namestaff
aww i guess you're my little pogchamp aww i guess you're my little pogchamp aww i guess you're my l
MONKEY KING
|
Post by Admin on May 10, 2023 21:33:07 GMT -7
[nospaces] [attr="class","staffcont"] [attr="class","staffheader"]
TABLES TURN
[attr="class","staffbody"] [attr="class","staffheadimg"] EMMA[attr="class","staffpara"]
The knife surprises her, but Emma doesn't move. It goes long, anyway. She couldn't expect the lost to guide something like a blade, could she?
[break][break]
"I would...really love to talk to you, Master Leyfson. I think we had a misunderstanding, our last meeting...I wanted to apologize."
[break][break]
You ridiculed my beliefs in front of your friends. I swore I'd make you bite your tongue, and you should know. Seraphine always answers my prayers.
[break][break]
Eirin asks: "Who told you I would be here?"
[break][break]
Emma presses her lips together, and answers reluctantly
[break][break]
"A friend of ours."
[break][break]
Dmitri, of course.
[newclass="nullelem"]} .mini-profile.user-1 .mini-prof { background-image: url(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/971663585103192095/1106074639823798322/image.png)!important; [/newclass] |
|
Administrator
high priestess
999
gold
familiar Familiariorek byrnison
played by OOC Namepandora
content monkey
|
Post by pandora on May 10, 2023 21:38:17 GMT -7
[nospaces] [attr="class","staffcont"] [attr="class","staffheader"]
TABLES TURN
[attr="class","staffbody"] [attr="class","staffheadimg"] EIRIN LEYFSON[attr="class","staffpara"]
Ah, Dmitri. Fucking rat. She should have gotten rid of him when she had had the chance, when Darius had come to her, years ago, just after the Winter Requiem, and asked: Did we make a mistake?[break][break]
Or after that (or was it just before?)—when the devil arrived with a corpse and bargain and question and deal.
[break][break]
And both times, she had said no.[break][break]
She stalks down the staircase, eyes on Emma. A violent anger within them, contained only by a glassy, reddish exterior. Strange how the mind turns into a knife, when you hold onto it so tightly.
[break][break]
She is thinking of a week ago, a few days after November 19th. She is thinking of when Dmitri Wisbane defied the curfew on the streets and walked into the Kingmaker's lair, wearing an angry smile.
[attr="class","staffheadimg"]  FLASHBACK TRIGGERED — NOV 22ND[attr="class","staffpara"]
"Darling," he had said. "Surely a city-wide lockdown isn't harming your supply of ingredients. Do you need me to get something for you? Old times?"
[break][break]
Maggie had been hopping along the floor, saying nothing. Twice as bad of a sign, compared to circling the air above.
[break][break]
Eirin had said something. Noncomittal, uninterested, distant. The strange emptiness had settled over her, and the question of Jeze's death made everything—even a High Priest's anger—look inconsequential.
[break][break]
Dmitri had been a little too quick, to rid her of the delusion.
[break][break]
He had nearly crushed her wrist, from the force of it. There was only relenting at the ease with which she gave way, and even then only enough to unconstrict her neck, so she could answer the bewildered, suspicious question that came next:
[break][break]
"What is this?"[break][break]
By this, he meant...
EIRIN LEYFSON[attr="class","staffpara"]
...Eirin grabs a wine glass from a display cubby in the wall, smashing it, her fingers trembling from this—weakness. Powerlessness. Or worse. Fear.
[break][break]
A long gown is trailing behind her, and she walks without thinking of the glass pieces she has just strewn. The staircase seems to stretch on forever. Each step is a dozen little shards cutting into her feet.
[break][break]
"I told him the truth....for what....to be mocked, like this?"
[newclass="nullelem"]} .mini-profile.user-2 .mini-prof { background-image: url(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1012238256278077440/1046639911547191296/Screen_Shot_2022-11-27_at_10.13.16_PM.png)!important; [/newclass] |
|
Administrator
HIGH PRIESTESS
gold
familiar Familiar
played by OOC Namestaff
aww i guess you're my little pogchamp aww i guess you're my little pogchamp aww i guess you're my l
MONKEY KING
|
Post by Admin on May 12, 2023 19:40:55 GMT -7
[nospaces] [attr="class","staffcont"] [attr="class","staffheader"]
TABLES TURN
[attr="class","staffbody"] [attr="class","staffheadimg"] EMMA[attr="class","staffpara"]
Emma doesn't even have to avoid the careless, stabbing arm, the sluggish motion of the glass. But she does, and she watches Eirin, wide-eyed. Fascinated.
[break][break]
So this is what loss looks like, on the unenlightened.
[break][break]
She's never seen it so up-close.
[break][break]
She goes closer. Another step. Ah, shit. The woman seemed to have been moving slow on purpose—the next strike is lightning fast, and cuts gashes into Emma's face. She hisses, doubling back. A vial of something hits the floor, and suddenly Emma is coughing. [break][break]Eirin doesn't hesitate.
[break][break]
She cannot hesitate, either. She cannot—[break][break]
[break][break]
Summoned creatures come to her aid, without her thinking. Two dog-like creatures, hounds that lunge forth. [break][break]
From somewhere, Eirin Leyfson has manifested a staff.[break][break]
With a quivering heart, Emma runs forward, into the fray. She must. The staff stabs one wolf through its back, and Eirin releases the weapon. Emma is in the air, rushing at her—but the movement is sluggish, slowed by the haze and the coughing, and suddenly, there is an arm gripping her throat.
[break][break]
Through the smoke-poison-mist, Eirin says:[break][break]
"I will kill you."[break][break]
But Seraphine would not allow it.
[break][break]
Emma brandishes Her wand, and places it to the Kingmaker's forehead.
[break][break]
Like a church bell, it resounds.
[newclass="nullelem"]} .mini-profile.user-1 .mini-prof { background-image: url(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/971663585103192095/1106074639823798322/image.png)!important; [/newclass] |
|
Administrator
high priestess
999
gold
familiar Familiariorek byrnison
played by OOC Namepandora
content monkey
|
Post by pandora on May 12, 2023 19:43:15 GMT -7
[nospaces] [attr="class","staffcont"] [attr="class","staffheader"]
TABLES TURN
[attr="class","staffbody"] [attr="class","staffheadimg"] EIRIN LEYFSON[attr="class","staffpara"]
In the physical strata, all things are temporary. [break][break]
Morgan Oswald.[break][break]
Eirin read the book when she was a child. The Metaphysics of Mana. She doesn't remember it much, that time—strange home she has since forgotten, stranger still the faces around her. [break][break]
But she does remember the book. [break][break]
Being, as Oswald describes it, is a state of transcendence—revelatory, or related to existence, to agency. A rejection of the other principle—cogito ergo sum. One cannot exist without being revealed, mere potentiality is non-being. [break][break]
Jezebelle is dead.[break][break]
Granted, the bat can neither think nor be, but. That is what strikes her, for the first time, when the wand touches her skin. Jezebelle is dead.
[break][break]
Hmmmm. I didn't think we'd be reunited like this again, Eirin.[break][break]
The voice is soft and warm. Muscial, as if playing on a distant flute. Eirin wants to turn around and see.
[break][break]
What are you doing? You don't have to look. [break][break]
Right. That's right. [break][break]
To be is to—[break][break]
hooked wings tear from her back, dwarfing the the staircase, dwarfing her frame itself. Eirin's legs have turned into hindfeet, her face itself is distorted. The transfiguration does not hold back—it bears no sympathy, for its human origins.[break][break]
She attacks.
[newclass="nullelem"]} .mini-profile.user-2 .mini-prof { background-image: url(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1012238256278077440/1046639911547191296/Screen_Shot_2022-11-27_at_10.13.16_PM.png)!important; [/newclass] |
|
Administrator
HIGH PRIESTESS
gold
familiar Familiar
played by OOC Namestaff
aww i guess you're my little pogchamp aww i guess you're my little pogchamp aww i guess you're my l
MONKEY KING
|
Post by Admin on May 21, 2023 18:28:46 GMT -7
[nospaces] [attr="class","staffcont"] [attr="class","staffheader"]
TABLES TURN
[attr="class","staffbody"] [attr="class","staffheadimg"] EMMA[attr="class","staffpara"]
The script flies out of her hand—she still has much to learn, from the Goddess that mastered life and death, the one who knows how each form begins and ends. Even something as simple as someone's reaction to the Truth, see, is still so far out of Emma's comprehension.
[break][break]
Eirin's nails pierce her shoulder blade, and her hand cuts through her body like it is made from paper.
[break][break]
Emma screams.
[break][break]
Lightning strikes down from seemingly nowhere, and Eirin jumps off her just before she can be burned by its fury. There is a gaping hole in her shoulder, and the white cloth around her is running red, red, red.
[break][break]
The pain makes her feel faint.
[break][break]
"Wait, please," she says. "I don't understand. You've seen the light. The truth beyond death! We're on the same side now!"
[break][break]
[newclass="nullelem"]} .mini-profile.user-1 .mini-prof { background-image: url(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/971663585103192095/1106074639823798322/image.png)!important; [/newclass] |
|
Administrator
high priestess
999
gold
familiar Familiariorek byrnison
played by OOC Namepandora
content monkey
|
Post by pandora on May 21, 2023 18:31:09 GMT -7
[nospaces] [attr="class","staffcont"] [attr="class","staffheader"]
TABLES TURN
[attr="class","staffbody"] [attr="class","staffheadimg"] EIRIN LEYFSON[attr="class","staffpara"] When Eirin Leyfson first manifested her familiar—Bat, then, she had called it, unsure of how to name a living thing—it had come into this world like fur across her body, ears that made her head ache, the bones in her arms shrinking and twisting in pain. She shouted, but it did not sound human, then.[break][break] Then—[break][break] — Relax, came that musical voice. We'll wear ourselves out.[break][break] Relax was not something she had ever really done, no—but it seemed like it was the only way to soothe the magic, to keep it calm. To control was to let go of control.[break][break] Age 14. Eirin Leyfson's first enouncter with paradox. And now... [break][break] Relax.[break][break] Age 53. Eirin Leyfson's nth encounter with ? ? ? [break][break] "Wait, please,"
[break][break]
"..the truth beyond death—"
[break][break]
"the same side now!" [break][break] She is adjusting her hearing. Fur that had blossomed on her body recedes into skin, in patches, then not quite so. She keeps the wings. And then turns her neck, owl-like, side to side, not yet understanding.[break][break] "Where..?" she asks.[break][break] Where is the voice? Where is Jeze?[break][break] A MANA TREE blossoms from where that girl, Emma, is standing. She is drawing ragged breaths, but she has lost Eirin's interest. [break][break] You can feel me, can't you? [break][break] Undeniably, or the girl would be dead.[break][break] It's like you've gone back in time.[break][break] I haven't kept track of time in so long.[break][break] You'll wear us out.[break][break] Are "we" here? [break][break] It's not up to us.[break][break] The wand, then. The bat wings curl behind her, and Eirin dives low, toward the girl. [newclass="nullelem"]} .mini-profile.user-2 .mini-prof { background-image: url(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1012238256278077440/1046639911547191296/Screen_Shot_2022-11-27_at_10.13.16_PM.png)!important; [/newclass] |
|
Administrator
HIGH PRIESTESS
gold
familiar Familiar
played by OOC Namestaff
aww i guess you're my little pogchamp aww i guess you're my little pogchamp aww i guess you're my l
MONKEY KING
|
Post by Admin on May 21, 2023 18:33:24 GMT -7
[nospaces] [attr="class","staffcont"] [attr="class","staffheader"]
TABLES TURN
[attr="class","staffbody"] [attr="class","staffheadimg"] EMMA[attr="class","staffpara"]
Emma doesn't move.[break][break]
She is still realing from the pain, for one, and thanking Seraphine for the blessing of her touch—the magic, that is Hers, spreading into these wonderful healing blossoms. Emma has never seen them before. She has never needed them, until now.
[break][break]
When Eirin dives for the wand, it rolls easily from Emma's grasp and she lets it. Like a dog with a bone, the beast follows what it chases. Blind. Unseeing. Emma closes her eyes.[break][break]
"You cannot. You are not one of Seraphine's Children. Do you...do you see now?" [break][break]
She bites back the words. She does not like to speak like this, but this is the only language a savage like Eirin Leyfson will listen to.
[break][break]
"You cannot kill me. You need me. I am the one who will bring Seraphine into this world—and if I were lying, I would have been killed for my heresy a long time ago."[break][break]
It burns on her tongue. The language of so called "reason"—in other words, transactional despondency masquerading as wisdom.
[newclass="nullelem"]} .mini-profile.user-1 .mini-prof { background-image: url(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/971663585103192095/1106074639823798322/image.png)!important; [/newclass] |
|
Administrator
high priestess
999
gold
familiar Familiariorek byrnison
played by OOC Namepandora
content monkey
|
Post by pandora on Jun 15, 2023 12:34:41 GMT -7
[nospaces] [attr="class","staffcont"] [attr="class","staffheader"]
TABLES TURN
[attr="class","staffheadimg"] FLASHBACK TRIGGERED — NOV 22ND[attr="class","staffpara"]
Weeks ago, Dmitri had asked:[break][break]
"What is this?"[break][break]
He had looked at her with eyes she will never be able to forgive him for. Uncertainty. Hostility, yes, the only language the man knows. But also, hidden within, she could see it. Pity.[break][break]
(She is imagining things again. There is no pity to be had, from Dmitri Wisbane.)[break][break]
She had said—Jezebelle is gone.
[break][break]
Not dead, really, just gone from her. Dmitri had understood, perhaps more than her, his receeding grip on her wrists. She had slunk to the floor.
[break][break]
He had thought, for a while. Longer than she had known what to do with. Finally, he had said: "Then what? You're useless to me."
[break][break]
He looked upset.
[break][break]
"Goodluck," she had drawled, unphased. (Angry. Deeply, vividly angry.) "You have a month or so. Any alchemist can help you. Too bad you'd need to trust them first."
[attr="class","staffbody"] [attr="class","staffheadimg"] EIRIN LEYFSON[attr="class","staffpara"]
Today, the wand tilts beautifully in her hand. It's made of resplendent gems. Where had it been, all her life?[break][break]
She looks at Emma, distraught, emotional thing. Eirin is no such creature. Her back wings relax and stretch, the trasnfiguration has settled well into her bones, making her feel...reborn. Makes her feel real, again. [break][break]
She is flying without thinking of it, the leathery wings beating lazily, lifting her from the ground, the wind knocking down vials and small scattered tools.
[break][break]
She glances down at the girl.
[break][break]
"No? Was Seraphine not an alchemist?"
[break][break]
All idiots hate to have their Gods explained to them.
[break][break]
"Are we not all, children of Serephine?"
[break][break]
A pause, thoughtful.
[break][break]
"You are a witch. A summoner."
[break][break]
Evident, from the MUN'S TREE that blooms on the cathedral floor.
[break][break]
"But this wand responds only to you. I wonder why. A death-inheritence principle*? Blood magic?"
[break][break]
Regarldess of Emma's answer, Eirin goes on and on, lost in her own explanations:
[break][break]
"So, Dmitri sent you to me. To give me Jeze, to make me feel what? Grateful? So that I would keep churning bigrandaise** in a cauldron for him?"
[break][break]
Here, the light from the outside is warped by mosaic color—in vivid hues to contrast the darkness of the hall, a picture of a long-forgotten god rendered in abstract blocks behind her.
[break][break]
"And you. A God's power, and yet you play a losing game. How is it, that wolves can make a toy of you, when you claim to serve a master that almost brough them and their city to heel? Pathetic."
[break][break]
Clawed wings. Horns that sprout from her head. Her feet dance in fur and end in hooves.
[break][break]
Make no mistake—this is Devil's silhouette.
[break][break]
"You say I need you," says Eirin Leyfson. "Have you recognized, yet, how desperately the both of you need me?"
[break][break]
[break][break]* death-inheritance principles are common, allowing a certain enchantment to only be used by others when its current owner has died.[break][break]
** birgandaise is a rare ingredient used for many advanced potions, or in smaller quantities for simpler potions. found in goodnight gummies and mana's kiss, for example.
[newclass="nullelem"]} .mini-profile.user-2 .mini-prof { background-image: url(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1012238256278077440/1046639911547191296/Screen_Shot_2022-11-27_at_10.13.16_PM.png)!important; [/newclass] |
|
Administrator
HIGH PRIESTESS
gold
familiar Familiar
played by OOC Namestaff
aww i guess you're my little pogchamp aww i guess you're my little pogchamp aww i guess you're my l
MONKEY KING
|
Post by Admin on Jun 26, 2023 9:50:15 GMT -7
[nospaces] [attr="class","staffcont"] [attr="class","staffheader"]
TABLES TURN
[attr="class","staffbody"] [attr="class","staffheadimg"] EMMA[attr="class","staffpara"]
"I am not a witch," Emma insists, staggering up to stand, about to say more, the anger burning on her tongue. [break][break]
She is blessed. Her power does not come from the selfish vanity of searching power, it comes merely when Seraphine wills it, and goes when there is no use of it. [break][break]
"I—" [break][break]
Emma, says the voice of those old men, almagamated into one, those worshippers who had achieved nothing, who relied on her to make all this progress. You cannot be so emotional. Think of what is best for us. [break][break]
Why! She had come this far, on faith alone. Would Seraphine forgive her? For reaching a hand out to evil? [break][break]
A voice from within her says: [break][break]
Even the devil can be saved, when the new dawn arrives. [break][break]
So be it.
[newclass="nullelem"]} .mini-profile.user-1 .mini-prof { background-image: url(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/971663585103192095/1106074639823798322/image.png)!important; [/newclass] |
|
Administrator
HIGH PRIESTESS
gold
familiar Familiar
played by OOC Namestaff
aww i guess you're my little pogchamp aww i guess you're my little pogchamp aww i guess you're my l
MONKEY KING
|
Post by Admin on Jun 26, 2023 10:11:50 GMT -7
[nospaces] [attr="class","staffcont"] [attr="class","staffheader"]
TABLES TURN
[attr="class","staffbody"] [attr="class","staffheadimg"] EPILOGUE[attr="class","staffpara"]
In the days that follow, Master Eirin Leyfson makes a generous donation to Daylight, a new charity aimed at helping those who have lost their familiars. The organization seeks to change familiar loss from a taboo subject and begin reframing it as a question of accessibility and mental health. An ambitious project, given the current state of seclusion faced by those witches, but one that overnight seems to get legitimacy, with Eirin's name supporting it. [break][break]
The New Dawn, meanwhile, has mostly disappeared from Delphi City, thanks to the purging by Cerberus's Lancelot, Eliza Delacroix. The wolves are nothing if not efficient, or so it seems, and besides, the number of cases of "unstable pseudo-wtiches" has dropped easily to zero. [break][break]
(Outside the walls, there is a different story. It survives in nearby villages, it manages to ally itself with humans looking for power in a world where they have relied on the mercies of others.)[break][break]
When Dmitri comes back, nearing the end of a month, he and Eirin are amicable again. She asks: Did you really have no contingencies? [break][break]
He did, of course. But he likes to humor her, and so he says: [break][break]
Not at all. I stand by my bets. [break][break]
And what bets are these? [break][break]
A cheerful smile, as he pops the lid from a vial, tilting it into Maggie's mouth. [break][break]
That you'll outlive me, of course.
[break][break]
|
|
