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the ruchbah forge

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the docks blacksmith forge hydra-friendly[break][break]

a nondescript forge situated by the docks in delphi, with a small courtyard for sparring at the front. it bears no name on its sign, save for a small wooden plaque with opening hours. if you know its owners, then you're in for a killer deal. if not, it's a coin's toss on whether you get studiously ignored by the smith or sold a shoddy piece of work — unless, of course, you find a way to pique their interest.[break][break]

discerning customers will know to look for aeris ruchbah — former mafia boss, 'retired' hydra witch, collector of underworld gossip. in his absence, you could try your luck asking for his son, but the boy's a restless, fickle sort. he's not quite as experienced a smith as his father, but useful if you should need anything else done: what, you think the axe by the counter is just for show?[break][break]

the door at the back of the forge leads into a residential area, and is often guarded by a familiar or two — either the harpy eagle who perches by the window, or the white alligator lounging by the welcome mat. to fellow covenmates or the handful of trusted friends, the door is almost always open: please knock before entering and leave your shoes by the door.[break][break]

[ click for floorplan ]

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deidre ruchbah

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the red hand assassin spy[break][break]

a no-name assassin who rose to infamy, then disappeared without a trace. the type of ghost story with teeth and a hunger that persists.[break][break]

she's always just been deidre. broken-hearted. she says it with a laugh as sharp as a knife, says it like a promise, because she will — she carves her old boss' heart from their ribs and presents it to aeris like a gift, demands her place and power and settles into it like an empress born. the romance comes after, an electric whirlwind of one that settles because they have come to an agreement to be dangerous to everyone but family. she only takes his last name for the fun of it; she just likes how it sounds.[break][break]

friendly, in a bold, brash kind of way. she doesn't mince words, doesn't pretend to know what she doesn't. she knows what she's getting into. she takes aeris' tendency to adopt strays with a fond sort of exasperation, but has somewhat of a soft spot for watching the chaos unfold. maybe that's why she takes the cerberus job in the end — it's almost a death wish, and no one else wanted to do it. but she's always been good with those jobs.[break][break]

i'll break your heart. she was right, in the end.[break][break]

[attr="class","sleft"]forty-eight [attr="class","sleft"]aer [attr="class","sleft"]spider familiar [attr="class","sleft"]hydra[break][break]

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lyra

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familiar harpy eagle makaria[break][break]

makaria. also known as 'lyra'.[break][break]

lyra is a large harpy eagle that stands a little over a metre tall and bears a wingspan well over twice of that. she is sharp angles and vicious lines, with dark grey eyes not unlike her witch's. to maddox, she is vocal in her displeasure about most things, but otherwise taciturn to most others. to gain her respect is a bargain paid in blood; to gain her affection is something nearly impossible.



the first time lyra speaks to him, she tells him, jump. he does. he breaks his wrist and two ribs and lyra laughs at him even though she feels the same, mirrored wound. then she says, see? you cannot fly without me. [break][break]

the next time, he does it as soon as he feels her eyes swivel towards him. he's climbing up a tree, hungry for the eagle's attention, and he falls half-way through. she catches him in talons that lock over his arm like the teeth of a great beast, and leaves gouges that make his father worry that he's been attacked by a daemon. [break][break]

the pain is temporary, she says. try again. [break][break]

it's the closest she will ever get to comforting him.



she guides his hand in his first kill. the witch corners maddox on the periphery of a larger battle, and she sees the gleam of triumph in their eyes, a cat spotting a mouse. lyra does not like to be seen as prey.[break][break]

in an instant, she is upon their familiar — a fox, she still remembers — and in another breath, she has their blood upon her feathers, their heart in her mouth. kill them.[break][break]

later, maddox will say that it had been merciful. he wouldn't have wanted to condemn the witch to living without their familiar. lyra turns her talons against him then, and scores a reminder against the column of his neck. her voice simmers with a rage barely leashed, even as her witch chokes. mercy never saved your ancestors. kill, or be killed — do you understand?



the origin of her name: 'lyra' — from lyrae, the constellation of the lyre. [break][break]

we are instruments of war, little ruchbah. we cannot help what we are.

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acolyte quest: venia.

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"well?"[break][break]

after farah leaves, aeris looks at his son curiously. he hasn't seen a venia token in an age — not since deidre dropped one on his front doorstep and asked for blood.[break][break]

maddox looks uncertain. he's been wearing that expression more often as of late. even now, his gaze is something flickering and inconstant as he spins the token in his hand. "do we know them?"[break][break]

"i know of them," aeris says, amused. he remembers his own assignment with a morbid sort of affection. "you're going to go meet them."



a month after queenie says he might be a traitor, a week after he learns how funerals can happen for houses that carry histories beyond their bones, maddox receives an assignment. [break][break]

it's simple: a blood token from an unfinished war, and an address he burns into his mind. go there. see what they want. do it.[break][break]

so he does.[break][break]

in the early hours of the morning, a dense fog blankets the town. the border between sky and earth is scrubbed out. maddox navigates with memory alone — a hazy sort of childhood memory that blears like wax. he takes a familiar trail by the river. he enters through the green doors and shadows of the woods, a not-quite visitor returning to a not-quite home. he wades through the long grass of an abandoned field, and remembers how the family who used own the land kept a small herd of horses here. [break][break]

the field is empty, of course, but there are divots still dug up by restless hooves, patches of mud and dirt where grass no longer grows back properly. in the white fog, he can almost see them still — strange, mist-formed apparitions between one world and the next, charging up the hill like a rolling thunder, eager to greet visitors. but this fog swallows all noise, blurs every direction. he thinks he might get lost; he moves forward silently.[break][break]

when maddox reaches the front door and raises his hand to knock on it, the truth of the matter is that he is hoping that they will let him do what he does best. maddox ruchbah is a simple creature, and has been made to be one: say hunt, and he will bring back a hare; say kill, and he will search for the wolves. [break][break]

but ellis gian opens the door before he does anything and says, "hey, can you hold this a sec?"[break][break]

then there's a box with a 'CAUTION: FRAGILE' sticker atop it in his arms before he has a chance to say anything else. he blinks, and she's disappeared into a shed he hadn't quite noticed when he got here.



"so, you're…" a vague wave of the hand. she doesn't need to say it.[break][break]

"maddox." they're inside the house now, and he's wandering around a kitchen packed up into overflowing cardboard boxes, wondering what's the best way to move all of it.[break][break]

"what, no last name?" [break][break]

he looks up. "ruchbah."[break][break]

"aha! i thought you looked familiar." a glimmer of recognition. there's something wistful in her gaze. "you're the kid who used to live on the other side of the field, right?"







maddox laughs and says, "yeah, that was me. i'm sorry— i don't think we've actually properly met before?"[break][break]

ellis is laughing as well. "no, we haven't," she says, and she's picking up a row of small potted plants from off the kitchen windowsill and lowering them gently into another box. "we didn't need to, you know?"[break][break]

she means: the history suffices. the moon as our witness, my family helped yours, and now you will help mine.[break][break]

she means: no one is just one person. i am both ellis and gian, both innocent and abettor, and you are both maddox and ruchbah, both yourself and the bleeding souls who turned up on my grandmother's doorstep and changed all our lives forever.



over the course of his assignment, he learns more about ellis gian. [break][break]

firstly: ellis gian is a geologist first and gaia witch second, and one of the boxes she hands him is so surprisingly heavy that he nearly drops it and catches himself just in time. then she laughs and shows him that when sunlight catches the angles of the crystals just right, it shines a kaleidoscope of colours across the walls, so much that he almost doesn't notice the way in which they are all completely bare.[break][break]

bare, not in terms of empty and untouched, but bare in terms of stripped. the wallpaper yellows in afterimages of picture frames removed, and he knows the look of it well enough to tell that these had been taken down long before ellis started packing up, but not long enough that she's dared to cover up the scars.[break][break]

secondly: ellis gian keeps her skeletons in the attic. picture frames and paintings of a delphi he can't quite recognise, like a trailing echo of the safehouse in the myca, so far away. [break][break]

"my grandmother's," she explains, "she took these with her when she moved away from delphi. you know, back when…"[break][break]

she trails off. [break][break]

"do you want me to bring them down as well?"[break][break]

"...yeah. i think she'd like to see them again."[break][break]

thirdly: ellis gian is a dutiful daughter. she packs up her life by the side of the stix in order to move closer to her ailing grandmother. she explains more as they work: her grandmother had never quite recovered from an injury during the war, and it has only been growing steadily worse over time. [break][break]

"you know, she wasn't even a soldier or anything," ellis says, as they pile the boxes up onto the wagon. "just wrong place, wrong time. don't think they ever apologised about it, too."



they fall into a comfortable rhythm as they travel. they talk, trading family stories, intertwined histories from across the cities. she asks him about delphi; he asks her about eclipse.[break][break]





he meets ellis' grandmother briefly, when he's helping her unload her belongings much later. amanda gian mistakes him for a witch whose name he does not recognise, but a look from ellis asks him to play along, so he does. until she lets him go, he crafts her a story of the people she's once helped. see? we're still here.



"will you be back?" ellis doesn't mean him. she motions to the glint of the silver ring on his thumb; she means hydra. she means: will this all repeat? will we start from the beginning once more — will your people bleed, will mine open our doors?[break][break]

"i don't think that's up to me."[break][break]

she laughs. "i didn't think so. feels funny, though. like it's not over yet, you know?"[break][break]

something reckless seizes him. "i can write you, if you'd like."[break][break]

"yeah?"[break][break]

"yeah. you said she likes stories, right?"[break][break]

"but you can't tell me everything, can you?"[break][break]

"no. not everything." the setting sun paints the ring in scarlet stars. he doesn't look apologetic, and he knows that she'll understand. "i'll give you the happy stories if i can, though."[break][break]

ellis smiles. "i think she'd like that."[break][break]

when he finally turns to leave, she doesn't say, goodbye. she says: "stay safe, okay?"[break][break]

she paints delphi as the battleground — an unspeakable truth of the city, illuminated by myths and dead things. maddox hopes that her home here sits beyond the vanishing point of the war; he knows it does not.[break][break]

maddox watches the sunlight slither through his fingers as he raises his hand in a wave. he smiles, and does not offer a promise he cannot keep.

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the chimaera syndicate

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mafia unaffiliated delphi & surrounds[break][break]

a loosely defined organisation that has fluctuated over the years, the chimaera syndicate only became a name to be reckoned with in the aftermath of the great war, supposedly repurposing the weapons of the fallen. they are best known for its hand in a lucrative smuggling business, focusing on weapons and magical artifacts. they aren't just in it for the money, though: the name of the game is secrets, and they play it well. [break][break]

in truth, it has been somewhat of a pet project for the ruchbah family, who often use the syndicate to assist in operations to rebuild hydra or shelter its members after the war.[break][break]

that being said, most of the organisation is kept at arms length and unaware of the family's history with hydra, as well as their place in the greater scheme of things. sure, some may suspect, and some may question, but only a select few are privy to the truth. despite the syndicate's reputation for in-fighting and unpredictable behaviour, the heads of the chimaera run a tight ship, fueled by a vicious appetite for traitorous tongues.[break][break]

( do as you will, muses a lionness, when news of her subordinates quarrelling reaches her. just remember you won't survive if you turn your teeth against me. )



somewhere between 1991 and 1995, for a brief period of time after the death of rosanna and areli ruchbah, leadership of the syndicate passed out of ruchbah hands. it was quickly absorbed by a larger mafia.[break][break]

unfortunately for them, aeris ruchbah has a habit of defying death. despite having comparatively little experience in the mafia as compared to his late siblings, he returned and quickly overthrew the then-leader with the help of a mysterious assassin known as deidre, and left with all that were wise enough to follow him.[break][break]

these days, the syndicate is a name whispered in the shadows. or rather, its leader's name is: the lyremaker weaves an intricate spider's web of silver wire, quietly carving out a portion of delphi's underbelly for himself. the weapons it smuggles now are intricate enough to be works of art, and the secrets it trades seem to be strange, nonsensical things that talk of ancient monsters and dark waters. [break][break]

the best kept secret, it seems, is its leader's identity. the lyremaker is a dead man walking, and the dead have no need for names.[break][break]

if you do know it, then either you're family, or he's decided that you already have one foot in the grave and doesn't mind helping you along if he has to.



the syndicate is selective of the work it undertakes. a mafia with morals is something too much of a fairytale, but they do abide by their own code. only those who need to be hurt are hurt; only those who need to bleed will bleed; only those who need to be found, will be found. try not to run, it'll only make it hurt all the more.[break][break]

with the lyremaker recently claiming to be retired, leadership of the syndicate has passed on to one oscar martelli, an ambitious informant with a knack for cards. martelli is a simpler man than the syndicate's former leader, but far from incompetent.[break][break]

if you are thinking, there is no way aeris would hand over the syndicate just like that, then you would be right. in truth, he simply wanted more free time to pursue some other projects of his own. retirement is a veil for a puppetmaster's scheme — even now, the lyremaker makes the syndicate dance to a tune it seems that only he can hear.[break][break]

oscar rather dreads when aeris pays him a visit. it always means that some insane job or other is about to be asked of him, and few people say no to aeris ruchbah.[break][break]

[attr="class","sleft"]information [attr="class","sleft"]weapons smuggling [attr="class","sleft"]secretive[break][break]

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