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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!
"Now I'm not sayin' you were wrong." Jack's voice echoes high off the vaulted ceiling, the sleek, glossy black swallowing all light and throwing the sound back at them. "Obsidian is a gemstone." It's just... not what he had in mind, or indeed what her thoughts would have led him to believe. There's a lot of said gemstone here - the entire cathedral seems to be made of it, in fact - but that does not a cathedral filled with gems make.
Regardless, the captain does sound amused at the very least, shrugging his bag back onto his shoulder as he raises his eyebrows back at Flora. Having been able to dress, more or less, after giving themselves time to dry off from their escapades in Frey's Breath, now their time in The Climb is apparently going to be spent hunting for crystals. Which, if you're only after this type, is very, very easy.
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
Wrinkling her nose in a silent admission, Flora had been waiting for the tunnel they'd come through to ripple with gemstones only to find it smoothing out until she had to take small careful steps so as not to slip on the obsidian. "Okay, well..." Frowning, she smoothes down the linen of her wrap-dress as she glances around.
Stepping on a small sharp of the black stone, Flora watched it shatter into razor-sharp pieces. Grinning as an idea struck her, she waved at Jack to come over, the idea already taking shape in her mind. "What if we could—" Rather than finishing the sentence, instead the queen imagined one of the caches in the Thieves Guild lined with thin slices of obsidian, so that if anyone tried to take what was inside without knowing how best to extract it, they'd find themselves covered in brittle shards of near-glass.
"Nothing more than a few scratches probably, but it's the sort of thing I imagine is pretty hard to get rid of." Not unlike being covered in glitter.
I don't like slow motion double vision in rose blush I don't like that falling feels like flying 'til the bone crush
The crunch of obsidian underfoot is enough to draw Jack's attention down, and he raises an eyebrow at the splinter of intrigue that accompanies it from Flora's mind. "Hm...?" Stepping over to stand with the Doubletake, he lets her idea bloom to life behind his eyes, and it's with a dark and crooked smile that he crouches down to examine the shards, some small and razor sharp, others almost like dust.
"A very clever idea," he agrees, picking up another long piece of obsidian to hold it up to her. "We could even line 'em with pieces like this, if there are any very valuable pieces worth keepin' safe." Not only would any of the finer gemstone dust make it clear that someone had been meddling, the larger shards of obsidian might slice a little deeper.
"Looks like we found what we were after even if we didn't know it," he remarks, straightening up and using his air magic to whisk around the flagstones, brushing out any free pieces of obsidian large enough to scoop up and into their packs.
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
Flora might not have telepathy, but she's been around Jack long enough to have picked up on a few things, such as he explains she's already envisioning the thoughts in his mind, imagining bits of dust and shards of obsidian left behind by thieves who'd thought they'd gotten away with something. "Could even line a few with poison, just for fun." She muses, shrugging her shoulders and grinning and imagining a would-be jewel-thief thinking they'd struck rich, only to prick their finger on some black shiny rock before realizing their big score was nothing but a rubber ducky only to wind up later in the infirmary.
"Funny how that works, huh?" Flora trills, bouncing her eyebrows at the captain before picking up a chunk of rock and moving to draw a trio of stars on one of the obsidian slabs. Would Safrin even know she'd done it? Maybe not, but on the off-chance she did, the Doubletake would happily take a few brownie points in return for the rough etchings.
"Okay, well, if the gems weren't down this tunnel, it's probably that other one." The one Flora had sniffed at before confidently declaring it was this way instead. "If you're still game?"
I don't like slow motion double vision in rose blush I don't like that falling feels like flying 'til the bone crush
Something glints in a forgotten alcove in the Obsidian Cathedral. Looks like a tangle of obsidian and silver wire, warped into an unrecognisable shape. What a mess.
"Just for fun," Jack echoes with a wry smile that belies the darkness in his eyes, because he's in absolute agreement with the Doubletake on her ideas. While Flora goes about her acts of vandalism - and he's not going to comment about the bowl of blood he can see up ahead at what looks like a shrine - the captain focuses on collecting up the chunks of obsidian into his bag so they can crush them down and use them later in their various caches around Torchline.
Rising to his feet once he's finished (and it seems that the Doubletake is done as well), Jack rolls his eyes - playfully, he might add - and gestures for her to lead the way down the other tunnel with a flourish. As he does, his eyes catch on something in the corner - some mess of wiring and more of the black gemstones - but he gives it little mind.
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
08-04-2024, 02:01 PM (This post was last modified: 08-04-2024, 02:01 PM by Flora.)
Flora
Careful Jack, you keep rolling your eyes playfully like that and they might just stay that way.
Absently wondering if it was worth telling all of her guild members about the little traps she and the captain had devised (perhaps some of their members had sticky fingers? It wouldn't surprise her, given their interest in her little organization), Flora finishes her stars with a musical hum of approval before glancing toward Jack and his bag of obsidian.
Flora, who only cared about the Ascended insofar as she'd once met a rather handsome one, just shrugged at the pile of wires and tangle of metal. It didn't look valuable nor did it seem like the sort of thing she was inclined back to Torchline, and so, leading the way if only so that she might give Jack the sort of view that would keep him from complaining, Flora navigated (with some help), back to where they'd originally turned from the path, before marching confidently (again) down another.
~FIN
I don't like slow motion double vision in rose blush I don't like that falling feels like flying 'til the bone crush
