<span class="mu-i">Amidst the constants of creation, rarely do they surpass warfare; rarely are they such as warfare, rarely do they betide such as warfare. It is a disaster born not of the tides nor of the sun, but of the nature of men and beast, of crown and country, of the realities of the world as it was made. It is a sordid affair, all too rife with the death and destruction of good men, of the loss of what is built, of what has been developed; yet nonetheless, it cannot be stopped, for much as forests must burn to be reborn anew, so must men fight to retain their honor.</span>
<span class="mu-i">Not the honor of kings, of nobles and knights, whose valorous flights of combat do see them rise to the heights of their station, or sink into the depths of destruction, but the honor of civilization, of one's tribe and country, of one's hometown; for how may they survive, if those guards which keep them safe lay in waste? As the wicked fight their wars of tyranny, of barbarism and plundering, what can just men do but take the sword as their response, and vanquish them on the field?</span>
<span class="mu-i">But not all conflicts end in the field, though it is most favorable when they do so. If a king will not lead his men into the fight, if a nation will not come to terms of defeat after having seen their marching men cut down, then the fight must be taken to the home of men, to their villages and their towns, to their cities and their castles. And what pain does not arise from the fighting of such battles? As men raise walls to defend their homes, men make engines to tear them down; as the walls grow in their complexity, so do the engines, ever veering towards longer conflicts, bloodier and more brutal - years, decades may be wasted in the taking of a single city.</span>
<span class="mu-i">It is the year <span class="mu-s">1524</span> in the Age of Our Splendour, the 1,524th Year since the races of men were graced with the knowledge of our most good maker, since the wisest of prophets and holiest of men, graced with blessings from on high, founded the church upon with the Faith has been built. With the arrival of the age of gunpowder, the walls of men have risen higher than they ever have before, and sieges have grown to scales which had never before been seen. And soon, you shall be partaking in one of them.</span>
What have we done to deserve heaven? If it is our place, why are we here? We are unjust and terrible creatures, and our hell is to ever look at heaven and demand that we be allowed entry. Utopia is heaven- Socialism is heaven’s gates, yet Heaven is no place for humans, is it? We are allowed our glimpse of paradise, yes, but we shall never claim our dreams. We would suffocate as a fish does out of the cold seas. <span class="mu-i">-Charlot Doumer, “We Are of the Night”</span>
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It was afternoon on Monte Nocca- a lovely place for most who came here in the beginning of summer, but the one held in highest regard upon it was thinking of being elsewhere.
Vittoria Bonaventura had returned to the mountain once again- that lonely clutch where one half of her bloodline hailed from- and if mother and grandfather were to be believed, they had been there since before even memory of mankind, but to her that was just the Vitelian disease and Mosshead arrogance intermingling, in a way she refused to let fester in her head. The Judge had been merciful in making it blonde like father’s. Yet that did not deter grandfather from calling Vittoria by her new alias, and more comfortably than he spoke her name. Remiel. The same name was what she was summoned by now, further up the stony trail.
“Don’t drag your feet, Remiel,” her tutor in mystic lore and art said from ahead, his voice seeming more like the wind that blew over the mountain trees than particularly human, through that mask of his. He loomed as high as a peak too, in a way. “If this is to be your last lesson for a while, then you should pay close attention. Get a good score, heh heh. Prepare you for where you’re headed.”
“Whatever you’re having me do,” Vittoria said, “I don’t think any of it’ll have anything to do with the Azure Halls. The Dawn and the coming days in its light.”
“If that’s so,” Zeitgeist said as he walked slowly, his steps cloistered by his coat as though a curtain rose and fell on each foot forward. “You’re off, soon, to have your head filled with the dreams of others. To, heh heh, be <span class="mu-i">told</span> how to be wise, Remiel.”
“As though you’re against the concept of education,” Vittoria grumbled back, amusing herself with her teacher’s pace by weaving back and forth amongst the stones on each side of the mountain trail, “Utopia is the future, the inevitability. I might as well be an expert in it, especially if I want to help father. I can’t be of any use if I don’t know all there is to know. You said yourself that this tradition and mysticism is trapped in the past.”
The stars align themselves under the heavens once more, tonight is the birth of a new chosen God. A special event that only incurs on set increments, unless tampered by the gods themselves.
The hospital lights are dizzying bright, the white walls and sterile materials only serving to further make her head feel worse. Your mother is pushing relentlessly through her labor, following the breathing instructions from the nurses and gripping onto the bed. The many hours which have passed are showing their toll on the poor woman, the Labor and Delivery team all share worried looks with each other, that's until finally you begin to crown and show your head.
"Keep pushing, you're so close!" The nurses encourage, your mom struggles with her breathing technique the more you start coming out.
She screams in pain, the sound vibrating and nearly in sync with your own high pitched wailing when you come out. You are gently picked up by one of the women in the room as she quickly tends to you and looks over your body. Before she can realize what's going on she announces that you're a..
Individuals worldwide began manifesting the qualities of various figures- gods, spirits, heroes, beasts, and monsters- from Greek mythos. The system that caused and continues to facilitate this phenomenon is shrouded in mystery, both in how it functions and why it began its activities when it did.
The protagonist of this tale is the incarnation of Atë, a minor goddess in the grand scheme of Greek mythology, who causes and presides over folly and ruin. She, formerly a miserable but ultimately normal office worker, has since accepted her role as the embodiment of her . She, along with her partner in crime, the incarnation of Pheme, titan of rumors and gossip, have been working to expand their influence and stack the deck in their favor against not only mortals, but also rival incarnations. In her own eyes, she is no longer human. Her ultimate goal– the elimination of all rival incarnations and, eventually, ascension to true godhood.
After learning that the final conflict against the outerversal entity known to the world as the Uncrowned King, Atë has been of two minds, both scrambling to prepare for armageddon in their own ways. While one part of her soul revels in her cunning and guile after fooling and consuming the greatest weapon known to man, the other is stricken with an uncharacteristic sentimentality. Regardless of whether or not she's ready, what might be the end of everything inexorably approaches.
You are L2S Trollslayer Fiona Jarnafeldt, and you have so many better things to do with your time. At least, such you thought as you rode down the elevator to the most secretive corner of the Helsinki Stormwatch, a deep underground coven of researchers and inventors known as the Undercroft.
You have so many better things you could be spending your time with right now. For example, you were injured in a fight earlier today against a <span class="mu-i">giant living breathing tree</span> that was a rogue member of a seclusive cabal of researchers and exmilitary brandishing a shotgun with an axe bit strapped to it, and you still powered through and chopped its head off. Your mother has just returned from a wild and outrageous journey around the north pole for the last twenty years, and has finally returned. Tomorrow you'll have a mission to rescue some people from cannibals in the stormdrains under Helsinki and you need some sleep. There's a great number of reasons you should be in bed.
But now, that very same day as all of these things occurred, Katriina Jousten, the Stormwatch Director and woman who was shot and savagely mauled by the tree from earlier, has decided it was time to orchestrate some bullshit tests based on whatever tech she has cooked up.
And you can't even complain about it, because with you is your fellow Stormwatch agent L2 Manhunter Saemus Fahy. an Irish guy who has zero concept that you, Katriina, and several others were fighting a rogue government agent that's coincidentally a fucking tree. You can't spill the beans, and neither can she. Talking around the cause of both of your injuries is going to be annoying.
But Katriina should be resting too. She was injured, <span class="mu-i">grievously</span> injured, and she has decided to run some tests late into the evening? What's gotten into her?
You are a LALAFELL. A mere eight years old at that. You were sold into slavery in the gladiatorial arena of Ul'dah--a city state which has grown only more cruel and corrupt since Sultan Ravenous Boar came into power. A madman, he elected to make both poverty and starvation illegal in the state which disproportionately affected the primarily Lalafell miners.
Your father sold you off as the youngest of your siblings to save costs and have less mouths to feed. Cutting off the pinky to save the hand, as it were. The Roegadyn ruling class do love to see frail little Lalafell risk their lives fighting for their lives, so they paid a decent penny for you, if that's any consolation.
But that was then, this is now. You are a shivering little man in a cell with nothing but a white tunic and worn down pants who will be sent to die in obscurity for the entertainment of the masses. Yet, still, you deserve a name. What will it be? >Mushir Toshir >Tilbicho Mobicho >Mindafu Cidafu >other (must follow Plainsfolk naming convention)
(Author's Note: An AU FFXIV RP I wanted to write, blending elements from Kenshi into my interpretation. No stat system or dice rolls. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.))
It is beautiful. You never had a thing for gems, but this one you cannot look away from. In part because you see it whether your eyes are closed or open, true, but also from how eye-grabbing it is. It was so small, if not for the way it shone, you would have never picked it out before it flew at you. It looks like a ruby, if a ruby had an inner glow to it, and looked as if it couldn't decide how it wanted to be cut from one second to the next.
This strangeness is amost enough to distract you from what has happened. They'd started it. It wasn't your fault. But now they are dead, and next thing you know that stone flew at you, straight through you actually. Your clothes are intact, you felt nothing but a splash of heat on your chest, but when you turned around it wasn't there, and now here it sits in your vision, like the sun's afterimage. And you suddenly know more than you did a scant few minutes ago.
This. Is a bloodstone. It forms inside a person when they kill another. When killed in turn, they...turn on? Activate? Awaken? Come alive? It's hard to say, you're parsing thoughts that don't feel like your own. Point is, something very rare has happened to you, perhaps the only good thing about this mess you find yourself in.
More informations spontaneously flows into your mind, as if your brain had known all along and was helpfully volunteering a memory. But you know that to be false. You skip most of it as one part jumps out at you, barely needing translation. Power. Strength, health, all that you desire. This stone can give it, but it can do better. Let you home in on others. Inside other people. You could take them. They are murderers. But so are you. You could ignore it. Even as you think that the vision of the stone fades, but the thoughts linger. You could be more. This...this is what you wanted, isn't it? This is destiny. You can reach for it, or let fate consume you.
An icy wind blows through the small, barred window of the interrogation room threatening to put out the only torch illuminating the small cramped space. The sound of dripping water patters to the ground in uneven drops as the icicle that had formed under the torch's sconce hours ago melted from the heat of the flame. It was an almost defiant sound as the water refused to return to it's icy prison. It was this battle of the elements that seemed to add to the tension of the small room. Across the table from you were a pair of guards clad in plate and chain mail. One of the two bore a full helm that he never removed. Part of you wondered why. With the temperatures so cold, it must have been incredibly uncomfortable to wear ice cold metal over their head. Or perhaps the helmet was slightly stuffy as most of the man's breath would be contained within the helmet thus keeping it warm.
The sound of something slamming into the table pulls you away from your thoughts. "I'm telling you. We know as much as you do!" Irene shouts as she glares daggers at the two men in front of you. The two of you had been in detainment for about an hour or so after the fight. The guard directly in front of you, a rather serious man who was clearly at the end of his patience speaks up once more.
"And we're telling you that it makes no sense that two foreigners, who just recently arrived, immediately find signs of heresy in our city. So we can only assume that you might have had something to do with this." He says, his arms crossed and hands tugging irritably at one of his sleeves. Irene throws her hands up in the air.
"What more do you want us to say? That we're here to kill the High Priest? Maybe burn the whole city of Valford and it's surrounding towns to the ground?!" Irene shouts back. "We've told you already! We're just travelers!"
"You'd do well to keep your servant in check, sir. Her outbursts look poorly on your house." The guard grunts out through gritted teeth.
"I'm not his servant! I'm his teammate! He's not even a noble!" Irene continues to shout. The two of them had been arguing in circles for quite some time and it seemed that the only thing you and the other guard had in common was that neither of you seemed to have the opening to speak up. Part of you found it very amusing and another part of you found it rather fascinating. Irene was never like this outside of the game. She was always far more calm and collected. As a matter of fact, you don't think you'd ever seen her angry at work.
