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Character of the Season
Frail in body but dangerously quick of mind, Nikandr is the sort of character who proves that curiosity can be just as perilous as any weapon. A necromancer, inventor, and problem-solver with more ambition than self-preservation, Niki approaches the world like a puzzle box begging to be opened, even when what’s inside has teeth. Blunt, dry-witted, fiercely independent, and carrying a history best left partially buried, he has a knack for making even failure feel fascinating. Whether he’s raising the dead, moving across Caido to King's End, or experiencing a hangover for the first time, Nikandr brings a wonderfully strange spark to Caido, and we can’t wait to see what trouble his brilliant mind wanders into next.
Congratulations, Niki!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
OG Skinning provided by Kaons, with functionality and many custom plugins made by Neowulf!
It was the last place in the Greatwood that he hadn't looked, and in truth Tal didn't have much hope for it. There was a reason he'd left it until the end, racing one last trip to search for Soh before LongNight made flying too dangerous for anything short of direst emergency. He hadn't expected Soleil, of all people, to hop aboard as he was leaving port in Halo, but he wasn't about to turn down help. Especially not since Soh was guildmate to both of them!
"If anything tries t'latch on t'the hull, I'm liftin' 'er up again," he called to Soleil in warning as he eased the Peregrine down over a broad section of the Symphony where the tree branches didn't reach. A large area of deep, still water was below them, featureless and iced over and ever-so-faintly violet beneath the light dusting of snow on top of it. Where the Deepfrost wind had blown the snow aside, however, the tinted ice was clear as glass, offering a window into the watery gardens below.
They might once have been beautiful, but now the kelp was veined in purple and shadows writhed beneath the gently waving fronds. Tal grimaced as he secured the tiller and gently lowered the ground anchor, half-expecting it to break through the ice and start sinking into the water, but surprisingly enough the ice held the weight of the heavy iron with barely a creak of protest.
So apparently they could walk on it... if they dared.
Sohalia may not be a friend of Soleil's by virtue of Noe's grudge against the young woman, but Soleil doesn't wish her any ill either so helping search for her is no burden. She hasn't explored the Greatwood yet either - though she doubts she ever will now given the way the infections have consumed it almost entirely - so it had taken all of two seconds of thought before she'd hopped onto the Peregrine at the last moment.
While the courier steers Soleil takes point at the bow with spear in hand and one hand firmly on the railing as she peers over into the forest below to scan for any threats. "Aye captain!" She calls back jovially despite the warning in Tal's tone, always pleased to tease and compliment at any chance she can.
The ice is beautiful with its soft lilac hues, but the unease in her stomach prevents full appreciation of the phenomena. As the boat settles with no concerning noises the adventurer frowns and motions for Diana to stay on the boat. Her bonded's disapproval and concern is loud in her head, but Soleil only trusts her knowledge of Halovian ice on a normal day. Ice covering up infected flora and fauna? Certainly not.
It doesn't stop her from climbing out though, taking point courageously and shimmying her way down of her own accord. Her boots hit the ice with a solid thunk. Nothing abnormal just yet. Walking forward a few paces, Soleil uses the bottom of her spear like a walking stick to gently tap at each new section of ice, gauging the sound and inferring thickness and safety through it. "How do you want to do this part?" It feels wrong to lift her voice too loud as she's standing on the ice, like everything is listening to her, so she looks over her shoulder to find Tal's eyes. She is admittedly not hopeful they'll find Sohalia here of all places, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't try.
Tal couldn't seem to decide if he was pleased or weirded out by Soleil calling him captain, so he settled for a wordless grumble even as his shoulders straightened up and his chest puffed out a little in pride. Uncertainty with his guildmate's teasing aside, he moved confidently around the deck as he lashed the tiller and furled the sails, dropping the anchor and lowering the rope ladder for Sol to slide down while he finished securing the trim little skyboat.
Boreal circled down from her post high above, landing heavily on the deck to join Diana - and to keep an eye on the pup, as she had helped Lily with Pad and Alys with Sasha - and rumble her assurance to the young wolf. Their human companions weren't always the brightest, but they could take care of themselves, never fear!
The courier, meanwhile, hadn't realized that Sol had already the ice until she called up to him from below and then he stifled a yelp and scrambled over to the side to see her standing cool as the proverbial cucumber on the ice. Since she was perfectly unharmed - for the moment - he breathed a sigh of relief and grabbed a broom to toss down to her before claiming one for himself and then shimmying down the ladder to join her.
"Figured we could walk along on th'ice an' sweep th'snow away t'see underneath it," he suggested, scowling at how stupid it sounded out loud. It had seemed way more plausible in his head a couple days ago... "This is kinda near... well. Where Soh taught me how t'swim," he admitted, swallowing hard against the lump of fear in his throat for his missing friend. "There's these algae bubble... things... y'can stick your head in t'breathe underwater. If someone didn't want her t'be found, hidin' her beneath the ice seems like a pretty good way t'do it."
He hesitated a moment, then hung his head and began to brush snow away around their feet. "I know it's a long shot," he mumbled. "An' we prob'ly won't find her. But if we can find... somethin'. A scrap o' cloth or a piece o' jewelry caught on some kelp, well... at least it'd narrow things down."
Which were brave words, considering that even beneath the snow of Deepfrost the shore on both sides of the river was beginning to shift and writhe with roots and vines of a sickly purple hue, waking at the presence of intruders and beginning to shift subtly towards the two humans standing in the middle of the frozen river.
Diana - proud and independent - looks mildly uncomfortable at Boreal's comfort (or as uncomfortable as a canine can appear) and simply maneuvers to one of the gaps in the railing to lay down and stick her snout through to watch her bonded as long as she can while still remaining safe on the Peregrine.
On the ice, Soleil waves a mitten-covered hand at her companion with a frown that doesn't fit well on her normally smiling face. Tal joining her pulls her attention back and she picks up the broom he'd thrown down to hold in her free hand. It feels like she's holding two staves now which is undeniably cool, but Tal's mumbled speech takes that blip of humor and dashes it - though not unkindly - in order to remind her of their purpose here today.
"It's still a box to check off," she agrees, trying to comfort him with what is probably misplaced optimism as she smiles thinly. It will soon be a cruel irony when Sohalia returns and they discover she'd been in the Greatwood the whole time, but for now the slow creep of sentient void plants is more pressing an issue. "We should try to keep a good pace, the plants can move but not fast enough to catch us if we don't pause much." It will hinder their ability to search on a more detailed level, but Soleil isn't keen on having those things wrap around her ankles either. Brandishing her broom, Soleil leads the march forward, brushing snow and ice-coated pebbles aside to scan past the top layer of mildly-opaque ice to the waters below.
Used to Pad's standoffishness, Boreal just chortled to herself and put her talons up on the rail to lean over and watch the humans from her own vantage, just in case they did something interesting. Tal slipping and falling on his ass wasn't entirely unlikely, after all, though if he went through the ice her amusement wouldn't last long.
The look Tal gave Soleil for her support and optimism was almost pathetically grateful, and some of the embarrassed hunch left the courier's shoulders. He nodded in agreement at her suggestion and moved a little ways off to the side from her so they could work a parallel path down the river's broad back. "Yeah, I'm not lookin' t'become an evil salad's lunch," he agreed fervently. "So, uh, what d'you think about Edmund steppin' down? Have y'met Maea before?" As he talked he kept pace with his guildmate, his Goggle-clad eyes peering down through the ice to the underwater gardens beneath their feet.
The Void-touched winter foliage on the river banks shifted irritably but in the cold Deepfrost snows couldn't muster the energy to reach them. The looming purpleness of the trees and bushes on either side of the river carried its own pressing weight upon the pair, however, and the shadows were thicker than they had any right to be in the middle of the day.
Soleil reinforces her smile with greater warmth upon witnessing Tal's shoulders straightening. It may be a fruitless mission, but that doesn't mean it isn't worthy of doing anyway, and Soleil can cement herself to that if nothing else. She's quite good at picking a hill and planting deep roots even if she isn't fully willing to die on it.
"I've met Maea once, she seemed nice," Soleil declares easily, as if she's ever encountered someone sour enough to become unworthy of the appraisal. "I'm a little bummed about Edmund, but honestly I joined the Guild to find other people who liked adventuring or needed a partner on a trip or two." Sol grins and gestures with her broom at their general situation - case in point. "I don't really care who leads it, or its purpose. Maybe that makes me a bad guild member, but I don't want the thing I love doing to become too much of a job, y'know?" He may very well not, but Soleil isn't sure if Tal loves delivering packages so she can't really discredit it.
Eyeing the growing shadows, Soleil's smile wobbles at the corners but holds stubbornly fast. Continuing her inspection of the river below the ice, she tries to keep her attention split in perfect thirds between what she reveals with her broom, Talyson's eyes, and the growing purple terror.
"Yeah, gonna be weird not havin' him in charge," the courier agreed, but he looked up in time to catch her grin and almost against his will his lips twitched up, too. Soleil just had a way about her that invited warmth from even the grumpiest Halovian ex-pats and Tal huffed an involuntary laugh. "But yeah, I know what y'mean. About th'guild, at least," he semi-corrected himself, finding her comment about jobs and passions to be a little more complicated, at least for himself. "An' I guess I just never got t'know Edmund like I do Maea." Edmund was alright and they'd had a couple good spars but it wasn't like they were friends.
He pushed more snow away, sneaking suspicious glances at the foliage on the edges of the stream. He could swear that it was trying to cross the ice to get at them, but it was sluggish in the cold and they could easily keep ahead of it. Or at least, he hoped they could.
"Let's go another ten minutes upstream," he suggested, uneasy and seeing the wobble in Soleil's smile that mirrored the one in his throat. "An' then turn back. Can go a bit in th'other direction, too, but..." He scowled, glaring at a particularly enterprising bare branch that had a purplish undertone to its bark. It was definitely trying to lower towards them, albeit slowly. "This shit's gettin' a little too ambitious t'stick around long. Won't do Soh any good if we get stuck here, too." Though it did give him even more encouragement to duck his head down and peer into the ice with desperate concentration to see what lay beneath.
“‘In charge’ is an awfully strong choice of words for someone so chill and sweet,” she quips with a grin, and it’s a shame she has no tail - of either Ancient or Attuned variety - because it would surely be curling with mischievous satisfaction behind her right now. Edmund has his shit together, absolutely, but he’d always struck her as more constant and reliable than in charge. Maybe Maea will be different, maybe not. Soleil loves the guild, but at the end of the day she doesn’t need it to fulfill her goals and desires.
Tal’s wariness is well-matched, but Soleil doesn’t let it show. What if the void can smell fear? Hopefully the courier isn’t truly afraid, or his fear-stink might rub off on her too. It’s a ridiculous intrusive thought that forces her to bite her tongue so she doesn’t laugh at the worst possible time of him mentioning dying and Sohalia in the same breath. “Sounds good! Why don’t you tell me about Maea while we go, since you know her better?” The two continue their way down the river, retreating with enough time to make it back to the Peregrine before the void-plants can do more than swipe at their bootprints.
